Global Peace And Justice Auckland Newsletter #166, January 11, 2007
#166: January 11, 2007

Website http://www.gpja.org.nz/ Contact details: Forums – John Minto, (09) 846 3173, jbminto@xtra.co.nz; Newsletter Editor – Mike Treen 027 525 4744 / 09 845 4027 mike@unite.org.nz; Web page - media@nduunion.org.nz . Donations can be sent to GPJA, 6a Western Springs Rd, Morningside, Auckland. To subscribe or unsubscribe to this newsletter visit http://www.gpja.org/.

QUOTE OF THE WEEK
"To love. To be loved. To never forget your own insignificance. To never get used to the unspeakable violence and the vulgar disparity of life around you. To seek joy in the saddest places. To pursue beauty to its lair. To never simplify what is complicated or complicate what is simple. To respect strength, never power. Above all, to watch. To try and understand. To never look away. And never, never, to forget. " - Arundhati Roy

ECHOES FROM HISTORY

"Peoples of Egypt, you will be told that I have come to destroy your religion. Do not believe it! Reply that I have come to restore your rights!" (Napoleon Bonaparte, 1798)

"Our armies do not come into your cities and lands as conquerors or enemies, but as liberators. Your wealth has been stripped of you by unjust men... The people of Baghdad shall flourish under institutions which are in consonance with their sacred laws." (General F.S. Maude, commander of British forces in Iraq, 1917)

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Get Your Nominations In For The 2003 Roger Award CAFCANominations close at the end of October for the annual Roger Award for the Worst Transnational Corporation Operating in Aotearoa/New Zealand.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0309/S00012.htm

BEST ON THE WEB

NEW ZEALAND
Government Fudges On Climate Change - Greenpeace New ZealandAuckland 30 April 2002: Greenpeace New Zealand today urged the Government to stop listening to polluters and their scare-mongering and adopt immediate domestic policy responses to global climate change.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/PO0204/S00216.htm
Media: Should Editors Use Spin Doctors As Independent Columnists? - Author Nicky Hager argues that news organisations have a duty to their readers to stop using former or current spin doctors as allegedly independent columnists. "Richard Long's recent columns about 'stolen emails' and allegations of shadowy Labour Party involvement in my book The Hollow Men are classic pieces of political spin doctoring. Richard Long was once head of media management for Don Brash, planning the daily 'lines' used to evade issues and spin the news."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00011.htm
Who Owns New Zealand? Key Facts - CAFCAForeign direct investment (ownership of companies) in New Zealand increased from $9.7 billion in 1989 to $82.7 billion at September 2006 - over 700% more.
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/BU0701/S00042.htm

VENEZUELA
Chavez bid for more state control - President Hugo Chavez has pledged to nationalise key Venezuelan companies, as part of plans to transform the country into a full socialist state
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6243299.stm
Chavez accelerates Venezuela's socialist revolution
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/070109/world/international_chavez_pow... Chavez Announces Nationalizations, Constitutional Reform for Socialism in Venezuela
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2187
Chavez Swears-In New Cabinet for “Venezuelan Path to Socialism”
http://venezuelanalysis.com/news.php?newsno=2186

LATIN AMERICA
NOAM CHOMSKY: South America: Toward an alternative future - The subcontinent, from Venezuela to Argentina, may yet present an example to the world on how to create an alternative future from a legacy of empire and terror.
http://tinyurl.com/y5zolf
The Disinherited Left: From Dogmatic Orthodoxy to Romantic Anti-capitalism http://redpepper.blogs.com/venezuela/2006/10/the_disinherite.html#more

CUBA
One Hundred Hours with Fidel by Ignacio Ramonet - There could be more than one revolution in Latin America
http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2007/enero07/mar9/52fidel.html

BOLIVIA
Bolivia plans to raise the taxes paid by mining companies by almost 600%
http://www.mining-journal.com/Breaking_News.aspx?breaking_news_article_i...

ISRAEL/PALESTINE
They said they wanted to teach her to be a "good Jew" as she sat with her arms handcuffed to the legs of her chair for 16 hours a day
http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,,1983378,00.html
Indeed there is Apartheid in Israel By Shulamit Aloni - The US Jewish Establishment’s onslaught on former President Jimmy Carter is based on him daring to tell the truth which is known to all: through its army, the government of Israel practises a brutal form of Apartheid in the territory it occupies. Its army has turned every Palestinian village and town into a fenced-in, or blocked-in, detention camp.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16075.htm

UK
Standard's fabrications over Cuba
http://www.london.gov.uk/view_press_release.jsp?releaseid=10289

USA
Bush's Rush to Armageddon By Robert Parry - George W. Bush has purged senior military and intelligence officials who were obstacles to a wider war in the Middle East, broadening his options for both escalating the conflict inside Iraq and expanding the fighting to Iran and Syria with Israel’s help.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16114.htm
Video - Orwell Rolls in His Grave - "Could a media system, controlled by a few global corporations with the ability to overwhelm all competing voices, be able to turn lies into truth?..." This chilling documentary film examines the relationship between the media, corporate America, and government. In a country where the "top 1% control 90% of the wealth", the film argues that the media system is nothing but a "subsidiary of corporate America.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13062.htm
Many more sons will die while the Democrats do nothing to stop the war By Gary Younge - They have failed to take on the principal reason they were elected and, tragically, the US public is unlikely to force them to.
http://tinyurl.com/yydw5x

GLOBALISATION
Globalisation in Retreat By Walden Bello
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IA05Dj01.html

HEALTH
Criminal Prosecution Of Lilly Sought Over Zyprexa By Evelyn Pringle
http://www.countercurrents.org/pringle070107.htm

ENVIRONMENT
Nuclear Power Not Clean, Green or Safe
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00038.htm

SOMALIA
America's new puppet - By its ill-judged invasion of Somalia, Ethiopia has become an accomplice in Bush's war on terror
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,1983296,00.html
Salim Lone: Destabilizing The Horn: Clan warlords, who terrorized Somalia until they were driven out by the Islamists, and who were put back in power by the U.S.-backed and -trained Ethiopian army, have begun carving up the country once again.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article16109.htm

VIETNAM
Vietnam: The Changing Faces of Reform
http://www.fpif.org/fpiftxt/3830

IRAQ
Future of Iraq: The spoils of war - How the West will make a killing on Iraqi oil riches
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132569.ece
Blood and oil: How the West will profit from Iraq's most precious commodity
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/article2132574.ece

MEXICO
Best And Worst Of Day One At The Zapatista Intergalactico
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/HL0701/S00032.htm

SRI LANKA
United Nations concerned by civilian deaths in Sri Lanka
http://www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2007/iha1248.doc.htm

ENDS

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