Victory for Venezuela’s Socialists in Crucial Elections
James Petras
The pro-Chavez United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) won 72% of the governorships in the November 23, 2008 elections and 58% of the popular vote, dumbfounding the predictions of most of the pro-capitalist pollsters and the vast majority of the mass media who favored the opposition.
PSUV candidates defeated incumbent opposition governors in three states (Guaro, Sucre, Aragua) and lost two states (Miranda and Tachira). The opposition retained the governorship in a tourist center (Nueva Esparta) and won in Tachira, a state bordering Colombia, Carabobo and the oil state of Zulia, as well as scoring an upset victory in the populous state of Miranda and taking the mayoralty district of the capital, Caracas. The socialist victory was especially significant because the voter turnout of 65% exceeded all previous non-presidential elections. The prediction by the propaganda pollsters that a high turnout would favor the opposition also reflected wishful thinking.
PermalinkIsraeli army storm Hebron college and arrests eight students
Addameer
On 30 October 2008, at 10:15am, the Israeli army stormed the faculty of the Palestine Technical College in Arroub refugee camp, Hebron and arrested students from some of the classrooms. The students were blindfolded, shackled, and then repeatedly beaten, slapped, and punched all over the body. They were then taken to Gush Etzion military detention center. At 9:00pm two of the boys were released, however, eight of them are still in detention in Ofer Prison. None of the boys are older than 16.
Hatem is a teacher at the Palestine Technical College. He was the only teacher present in the playground area at that time. One of the soldiers shouted at him, "Where are the boys that threw stones?" This was in response to an allegation that stones had been thrown at an Israeli civilian car by a person who came from the refugee camp and who had been wearing a black jacket.
Vanished - How the BBC disappears the news
by William Bowles
This from GazaFriends on the kidnapping of 15 Palestinian fishermen and 3 foreign nationals in international waters by the Israeli navy:
20 November, 2008 — "Darlene Wallach is in a new prison in Ramle, a men's prison, but she's in a section reserved for illegal immigrants.
"She wanted to pass on this information, "We were fishing about 7 miles off the shores of Gaza. The Israeli soldiers came on board the three boats via four Zodiacs. The frogmen came up and over each boat. They used a taser on Vik while he was still on the boat, then tried to push him backwards onto a sharp piece of wood. He jumped into the sea to avoid being hurt more than he already was and was in the water for quite a while.
Strangling the King's opponents: Swaziland's 'war on terrorism'
Dr. Jabulane Matsebula
When King Mswati III addressed the 63rd Session of the United Nations General Assembly in 2008, the emphasis of his speech was on the threat of terrorism. His speech was a carbon copy of what is now an outdated political discourse that dominated global politics in the turn of the 21st century. Out of touch with the shift in global politics, he sounded hollow when he called upon the world to unite and fight terrorism. World unity was achieved in 2001 but discourses about the threat of terrorism have receded from the centre stage of global politics. The recent 63rd Session of the UN General Assembly and the presidential election in the United States of America are examples of this shift in global politics. Whilst world leaders focused their attention on the global financial crisis and climate change, King Mswati III looked like a yesterday man. Nobody paid attention to him and he returned home a disillusioned, embarrassed and a frustrated man.
Obama preserves our way of life
Mickey Z.
Awakened by the muffled, distant howls of slaughtered Indians, Uncle Sam rises from his bed and hits the light switch…blissfully, purposefully unaware of how valley fills enable him to gain access to that electricity day after day.
***
Here’s how The Sierra Club begins its discussion of mountaintop removal mining: “In places like Appalachia, mining companies blow the tops off mountains to reach a thin seam of coal and then, to minimize waste disposal costs, dump millions of tons of waste rock into the valleys below, causing permanent damage to the ecosystem and landscape.” That is a valley fill.
Lurching Toward Gomorrah: More Signs of An Unstoppable Economic Meltdown
by Stephen Lendman
Crisis denialists are still around but are slowly and grudgingly giving way to the reality that global capitalism is in serious crisis as recession lurches toward depression in a continuing downward spiral.
Nearly every new data release confirm it. On November 19, housing starts and permits hit record lows, according to the Commerce Department. At an annual 791,000 rate last month, they were the lowest they've been since number tracking began in 1959 and are down 4.5% from a revised 828,000 September reading.
XML Feeds