Contributing Editor Catherine Austin Fitts, who was a Managing Director at Dillon Read before becoming Assistant Secretary of Housing under George Bush and who holds an MBA from Wharton makes things very simple. She points out that the four largest states for the importation of drugs are New York, Florida, Texas and California. She then points out that the top four money laundering states in the U.S. (good for between 100 and 260 billion per year) are New York, Florida, Texas and California. No surprise there. Then she rips the breath from your lungs by pointing out that 80 per cent of all Presidential campaign funds come from - New York, Florida, Texas and California.

The first cases of cholera have been reported in Burma: witnesses in the Irrawady Delta, the south-eastern part which has been reduced to an enormous swamp following the passage of Cyclone Nargis, have reported the first victims in the divisions of Bogalay and Laputta, two of the worst-affected areas. "The feared cholera epidemic has started", said a local doctor. Days without drinking water, the survivors of the passing of the cyclone are drinking water from the rivers and lagoons, in which the bodies and dead animals are floating, regardless of the risks of disease. And while international aid still arrives in the dribs and drabs allowed by the obstacles imposed by the military authorities, survivors have no access to medicine to tackle epidemics of cholera, of dengue fever, of chronic diarhorrea and malaria. Disease, thirst and hunger are now the menaces facing the one and a half million homeless (UN figures) left behind by the passing of Cyclone Nargis. The Guardian: Time is running out in Burma. Times Colonist: Toll from cyclone could pass 100,000. IHT: Constitutional referendum still the priority for Myanmar leaders.

"We're outraged by the slowness of the response of the government of Burma (Myanmar) to welcome and accept assistance," U.S. Ambassador to the U.N., Zalmay Khalilzad, told reporters. "It's clear that the government's ability to deal with the situation, which is catastrophic, is limited." In Myanmar, desperate survivors cried out for aid nearly a week after 100,000 people were feared killed by Cyclone Nargis. The United States is awaiting approval to start military aid flights. The U.N. food agency and Red Cross/Red Crescent said they had finally started flying in emergency relief supplies after foot-dragging by the military junta. Boing-Boing: Katrina: Authorities bar Red Cross from NOLA; Blackwater gets carte blanche.

As the evil state of Israel is celebrating sixty years of ethnic cleansing and atrocities against the native Palestinians, many people around the world, especially young generations, will not be fully aware of the manner in which Israel came into existence. Similarly, the younger Zionist generations who don’t stop calling their Palestinian victims “terrorists” should have a clearer idea about Israel’s manifestly criminal past which Zionist school textbooks shamelessly glamorize and glorify. Desert Peace: ISRAEL CELEBRATING EVIL.

Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a "rotten and stinking corpse"... How expressive and accurate of him. How could he have read my thoughts... and I am sure that I'm not alone!! lol... I wonder why Israeli media is omitting the use of the word "rotten" although Ahmadinejad clearly used it :-) I also really wonder if Israel is getting any "congratulations" from any Arab leaders... Nothing would astonish me today. After all, they did offer whatever Palestinian territory the Israelis helped themselves to those passed few years, on a golden plate! They did zilch to stop the Israelis using all their convenient classical excuses..

Gunmen from the Shia militant group Hezbollah have seized most of western Beirut, driving out supporters of the Western-backed government. The gunmen, who also back Hezbollah's Shia opposition allies, have forced the closure of pro-government media. The fighting was sparked by a government move on Monday to shut down Hezbollah's telecoms network. At least 11 people, mainly civilians, have been killed and dozens injured in the city in three days of clashes. The UN Security Council has urged the rival parties to stop fighting amid fears of civil war breaking out. WSWS: Lebanon on brink of civil war.

Israel's recent release of the preliminary findings of the Winograd Commission, an independent government-appointed initiative led by former judge Eliyahu Winograd that was convened to investigate Israel's failures in its summer 2006 war against Hezbollah in Lebanon, may spell the political demise of Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert (Haaretz, May 1). In contrast, Hezbollah was quick to use the findings of the report to bolster its claims of victory over the vastly superior Israeli military and to criticize the Lebanese government's handling of the conflict. Hezbollah also harnessed the opportunity to enhance its Lebanese and Arab nationalist credentials and claims to represent a force for legitimate resistance in the face of growing pressure from Israel and Sunni-led regimes closely aligned with the United States. Egypt, Jordan and Saudi Arabia, among others, label the group as a destabilizing force and an instrument of Iranian Shiite militancy.

A huge and ravenous sinkhole that threatened to swallow this little East Texas oil town gobbled more crumbling earth Thursday but spared, at least for now, homes, the high school and the main road, Farm to Market 770. The little East Texas oil town of Daisetta was threatened. “It’s unreal — the earth just wallered up,” said Lynn Wells, the mayor and fire chief, who monitored emergency efforts, speeding back and forth on his red Harley-Davidson. Since the rim of an underground salt dome collapsed and the ground cracked and gave way abruptly Wednesday morning, the hole — already one of the largest on record, geologists here said — has grown to about 600 feet by 525 feet and 150 feet deep, said Cpl. Hugh Bishop of the Liberty County Sheriff’s Office. Two trucks have already tumbled into the saltwater muck, along with two grain tanks, utility poles and pine trees. A work shed of the DeLoach Oil and Gas Well Vacuum Service adjacent to the pit hung precariously over the rim, likely to topple in next. Seattle PI: Huge Texas sinkhole's appetite decreasing, officials say.

Ehud Olmert's political opponents demanded his resignation Friday, saying new allegations that the Israeli prime minister illegally accepted hundreds of thousands of dollars from a U.S. citizen render him unfit for the country's top job. Olmert said in a nationally television speech Thursday that he never took illegal campaign contributions but if indicted, he would resign.

The House Veterans Committee on Tuesday revisited the issue of military suicides in light of a pending lawsuit against the Department of Veterans Affairs by veterans’ rights groups. Following the court-ordered release of internal emails regarding staggering veteran suicide rates, Department of Veterans Affairs officials were accused of “criminal negligence.”

Key war on terror architect Douglas Feith has now confirmed Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and Wesley Clark in admitting that the so-called War on Terror is a hoax. In fact, starting right after 9/11 -- at the latest -- the goal has always been to create "regime change" and instability in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Libya, Sudan, Somalia and Lebanon so as to protect Israel. And the goal was never really to destroy Al Qaeda.

Ron Paul is asked about the 10th Amendment, DEA raids on medical marijuana clinics, Alcohol Prohibition and how it compares to the "War on Drugs," and whether the "Just Say No" program is a good idea.

One of the mightiest ‘tools’ of the anti-war movement and pro-Palestinian movements has been under attack recently by Google who removed them from their News Links. Their troubles did not end with that…. I was just notified by their Administrator that their servers have been hacked today. This HAS NOT STOPPED THEM from continuing with their important task. They are still on-line. They will continue, but your support is needed…. you can start by reading the following and sending a letter to Google via the link provided: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=-6&l=e. Don’t let the zionists win…. they are desperate because they know they are wrong. PLEASE POST THIS APPEAL ON YOUR WEBSITES OR BLOGS. Action Alert! Uruknet cut off from Google News again! On April 24, 2008, Google has stopped indexing Uruknet.info as a news source. (The latest Uruknet article included in the Google News index is THE US POWER STRUCTURE Who Really Runs the World (April 24, 2008) We wrote to Google News but we didn't get any reply. We therefore kindly request our readers to write to Google asking Uruknet.info to be reinstated as a news source. Please, send your complaints to google.news! Click HERE to fill a speedy form. This is the fourth time that Google discontinues indexing Uruknet, only to reinstate it following many complaints sent in by our readers. Axis of Logic: Uruknet and Axis of Logic Cut Off From Google News Again. Desert Peace: OPEN LETTER TO THE EDITORS AND WRITERS OF THE ALTERNATIVE MEDIA. Arab Woman Blues: Blogger.com and Google. As far as we know, these are the bloggere that are affected by this internet CENSORSHIP by Blogger.com & Google: Vincenzo Viscuso - URUKNET Les Blough - Axis of Logic Axis of Logic Michael Rivero – What Really Happened Steve Amsel- DesertPeace Mary Rizzo - PeacePalestine Laila El-Haddad- A Mother From Gaza Marc Parent - CRIMES AND CORRUPTIONS OF THE NEW WORLD ORDER NEWS Layla Anwar - An Arab Woman Blues ■ Wake-up From Your Slumber ■ DictatorshipWatch.com

A James Pence Video. What I would do if I was a terrorist.

Today, Israel marks the 60th anniversary, according to the Hebrew calendar, of its founding. World leaders will endorse the event with a major international conference in Jerusalem on May 14-16, the actual date of its founding. It will be attended by United States President George W. Bush, former president of the Soviet Union Mikhail Gorbachev, Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger, 12 heads of state, media and business tycoon Rupert Murdoch and Google’s co-founder Sergey Brin. blog: Palestine Think Tank: THE SHRINKING MAP OF PALESTINE.

9 Palestinians, including a woman, were killed by IOF in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. 3 of the victims were extra-judicially executed by IOF. 35 Palestinians, including 6 children and a woman, were injured by IOF. IOF conducted 43 incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank, and five into the Gaza Strip. IOF used dozens of Palestinian civilians, including children and women, as human shields during military operations in ‘Abassan village in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF razed 484 donums[1] of agricultural land and destroyed 5 greenhouses, 9 bird farms and 23 houses in the southern Gaza Strip. IOF arrested 100 Palestinian civilians, including 15 children, in the West Bank, and arrested fifty people in the Gaza Strip, as well as holding another 52 people for questioning. IOF confiscated the contents of a sewing workshop of the Islamic Charity in Hebron and ordered its closure for 3 years. IOF have continued to impose a total siege on the OPT. The fuel crisis in the Gaza Strip has escalated. 2 Palestinian civilian were arrested by IOF at military checkpoints in the West Bank. IOF have continued to construct the Annexation Wall in the West Bank. IOF issued notices to six Palestinian civilians in Beit ‘Awa village, south of Hebron, that their houses will be demolished. IOF have continued settlement activities in the West Bank and Israeli settlers have continued to attacks Palestinian civilians and property. IOF plan to expand “Har Brakha” settlement near Nablus on a 229-donum area of Palestinian land. Three Palestinian civilians and 2 international human rights defenders were injured by Israeli settlers.

Haunted survivors emerging from the devastation of Burma's ravaged southwest say entire families were wiped out when Cyclone Nargis cut its deadly path through the region. Huddled in the township of Labutta they told tales of survival against the odds even as children, mothers and fathers were swept away by the floodwaters that submerged huge swathes of the Irrawaddy delta. A Burma military official today said an estimated 80,000 people had died in the remote Labutta district, with dozens of the 63 villages surrounding Labutta township wiped out. WSWS: Death toll in Burma rises, as major powers press to intervene. + Bush administration moves to exploit Burma cyclone disaster. Winter Patriot: Not Funny: First Lady Calls Burmese Kettle Black. Rock-The-Truth: Bush's Bad on Burma.

Sahar Yasiri says “Iraq is the number one country having the largest number of prisons in the world where there are more than 400 thousand Iraqi detainees including 6500 children and 10 thousand women.” This is the first part of long interview translated by AMSI English Web Team.

The shocking abuse of "downer" cows occurs not just at slaughter plants but may be an everyday happening at livestock auctions and stockyards around the country—the midpoints between farm and slaughter—as shown in an expanding undercover investigation by The Humane Society of the United States. "Downer" cows are those too frail to stand on their own—dragged and prodded with inhumane handling methods, and increasing the threat of carrying and passing disease.

Hillary Clinton gave no sign of abandoning her do-or-die campaign for the Democratic Party's nomination in the US presidential race yesterday. She made a pump-up-the-troops appearance in West Virginia, which holds its primary vote next week, even as aides admitted she had been forced to loan herself yet more campaign money in recent weeks. The Guardian: "It is time to unite around Obama", party elder tells Clinton as she vows to fight on. Raw Story: Hillary Clinton says she will remain in the presidential race 'until there's a nominee'.

More than 43,000 U.S. troops listed as medically unfit for combat in the weeks before their scheduled deployment to Iraq or Afghanistan since 2003 were sent anyway, Pentagon records show. This reliance on troops found medically "non-deployable" is another sign of stress placed on a military that has sent 1.6 million servicemembers to the war zones, soldier advocacy groups say. "It is a consequence of the consistent churning of our troops," said Bobby Muller, president of Veterans For America. "They are repeatedly exposed to high-intensity combat with insufficient time at home to rest and heal before redeploying."

United Nations Secretary General, Ban Ki-Moon, said yesterday that it is unacceptable that the problem of Palestinian refugees remain unsolved. During an inauguration ceremony of photo exhibition, marking the 60th anniversary of the Palestinian people's catastrophe (NAKBA) at the United Nations headquarters in New York, Ki-Moon added that he was impressed deeply of the situation of Palestinian refugees, especially children, when he visited the occupied Palestinian territories last year.

Judging by the Pentagon's own accounting, the army, navy, air force and marines have been very hungry -- and they've been chowing down.

Gunbattles erupted on the streets of Beirut yesterday as a general strike turned into a violent confrontation between the Government and the opposition, led by the militant Shia group Hezbollah. The rattle of automatic weapons and the crump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades echoed around the streets of the Lebanese capital as thick plumes of smoke rose from barricades of burning tyres. In scenes grimly redolent of the 1975-1990 civil war, gunmen were seen inching down empty streets and firing rifles at windows to a backdrop of burning cars. The Independent: Lebanon descends into chaos as rival leaders order general strike. YaLibnan: Tension escalates as Hezbollah besieges Lebanon airport.

Omar Khadr, a Canadian who was shot and detained by US Special Forces troops in Afghanistan in July 2002 when he was 15 years old, goes before a drumhead military tribunal at the US detention camp in Guantánamo, Cuba today. Arrested as a child, he is now charged as a war criminal and faces a possible sentence of life in prison if convicted by the US military officers who are to decide his fate.

As photo ops go, the visibility certainly could have been better. As the members of a Chinese team bearing the Olympic flame approached the highest point on the earth on Thursday in their thick red jackets, they had to trudge through strong winds and thick fog. There were no sweeping IMAX views in the footage released by Chinese national television. The only bright spot was the light emanating from Olympic flame they had lugged successfully to the top of Mount Everest. In a torch relay that has rarely gone smoothly, this was one instance where the Chinese government had no quarrel with the going getting rough. Climbing Everest, or Mount Qomolangma as it is known in China, is all about triumphing over extreme adversity, and on that count, the Chinese proved their point. They have the moxie and technology to keep the flame from dying despite low oxygen at the summit and days of weather-related delays at Everest base camp. But the rest of the message was definitely more muddled.

Berkeley High senior Chase Stern said he was taking an Advanced Placement test May 6, when he noticed that his classmates were fidgeting in their seats and seemed distracted. He soon found out that the Latino students were receiving text messages and phone calls from family members, warning them that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers were nearby, and that they should be cautious and find their way home because family members could not pick them up.

Days after he was feted in Miami as a freedom fighter for his anti-Castro activities, Cuban exile Luis Posada Carriles was scorned on Wednesday in Havana as a "terrorist" given haven by the Bush administration. The two events showed that, nearly 50 years after their bitter parting, the gulf between the Cuban government and the Cuban American exile community remains as wide as the Florida Straits that separate them. Posada Carriles, 80, is accused of masterminding the 1976 explosion of a Cubana Airlines jet in which 73 people died and 1990s hotel bombings in Havana that killed an Italian tourist. LA Times: Luis Posada Carriles, a terror suspect abroad, enjoys a 'coming-out' in Miami. But Mr. Bush, why are you protecting Mr. Posada Carriles? Isn't this man a terrorist? -He's OUR terrist, goddammit!

Post-Soviet Russia entered uncharted territory yesterday, as Dmitry Medvedev became President in an opulent ceremony in the Kremlin. He promised to focus on civil rights and the rule of law, using rhetoric markedly different to that of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin. "My most important aims will be to protect civil and economic freedoms," said Mr Medvedev. "We must fight for a true respect of the law and overcome legal nihilism, which seriously hampers modern development." The ceremony, which was broadcast live on national television, was attended by 2,400 VIPs including politicians, religious leaders and diplomats. Foreign media were not invited. Mr Medvedev walked along the red carpet to the impressive Andreyevsky Hall as the Kremlin clocks struck midday.

To win the energy war, we have to conserve the most important energy -- our own.

The Apiary Inspectors of America says the United States has seen a dramatic decline in the number of managed honey bee colonies since 1980. Dennis van Engelsdorp of Pennsylvania State University, president of the AIA, said nationwide colony numbers have dropped from 4.5 million managed colonies in 1980 to 2.4 million in 2005. To quantify the degree and extent of losses in U.S. beekeeping operations between September 2006 and March 2007, the AIA surveyed beekeeping hobbyists, sideliners and commercial operations. Of 384 beekeeping operations surveyed, total loss and average loss of bees in all operations was 31.8 percent and 37.6 percent, in that order, with 51.9 percent reporting abnormally heavy losses.

The Bush administration has not found disaster recovery files for White House e-mails from a three-month time period in 2003, according to court documents filed this week, raising the possibility that messages sent before and after the invasion of Iraq may never be recovered.

The United States has always shaped its criminal justice practices to suit and satisfy the imperative to smash African American resistance. When no organized resistance can be found, the system invents it. The Bush administration has outdone the post-Civil War Black Codes, which treated all gatherings of three or more African Americans as potential "conspiracies."

The House of Representatives will vote as soon as tomorrow - Thursday, May 8 - on an additional $178 Billion for the war and occupation in Iraq! Amazingly, the bill includes $70 Billion for fiscal year 2009. This means the funds for the occupation will keep flowing well into the next administration, allowing the new president a free hand to continue the war and occupation with little or no accountability to Congress until next spring. This is an appalling abdication of responsibility. These people answer to the Military-Industrial-Complex (MIC), not to the people of America. They have not abdicated anything. They are doing what they are supposed to be doing. They never were elected by We the People. We just thought they were. They were selected by the MIC -and the Zionists, who have infiltrated the Government. Deal with it!

Five Palestinians including three fighters affiliated with the Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of Hamas, were injured Wednesday during Israel aerial and artillery attacks in the Abasan village, southern Gaza Strip. Palestinian local sources told the PIC reporter that a large number of IOF troops reinforced by tanks and air cover invaded the village amid intensive gunfire and bombardment and was met with fierce resistance by the Palestinian fighters spearheaded by the Qassam Brigades. Security sources reported that an Israeli drone fired an air-to-surface missile at a group of the Qassam fighters during their confrontations with the IOF troops who invaded Abasan at dawn which resulted in serious-to-moderate injury to three of them.

The Chaitén volcano in southern Chile blasted ash and what appeared to be lava a dozen miles into the air on Tuesday, leading the government to order the immediate and complete evacuation of everyone living within a 30-mile radius of it. ABC News: Visa delays stall Burma relief efforts. Yahoo: UN officials call Myanmar a 'major disaster' after cyclone. WSWS: Bush administration moves to exploit Burma cyclone disaster.

On the rebound, Barack Obama left Hillary Rodham Clinton with fast-dwindling chances to deny him the Democratic presidential nomination after beating her in North Carolina and falling just short in an Indiana cliffhanger. Obama was on track to climb within 200 delegates of attaining the prize, his campaign finally steadying after missteps fiercely exploited by the never-say-die Clinton. AP: Clinton loses N.C., best chance to upset Obama. + Obama takes early lead in race for delegates. HuffPo: Wesley Clark Privately Urging Clinton To Quit Race.

Rarely seen archival photographs alongside Palestinian survivors remembering the 1948 ' Nakbe ' (Catastrophe), describing the expulsion from their land on which the suburbs of Tel Aviv have since been built and their subsequent struggles as refugees. Memories include the terror immediately prior to fleeing, the slow realisation that they would not be returning home soon, the struggle to rebuild their lives in cramped refugee camps, and the increased resistance that grew once the Israeli military pursued them to the refugee camps. The People's Voice: Sixty Years of Palestinian Displacement, Occupation and Suffering. Electronic Intifada: Sixty years ago in Battir (Part 2). Scribd: 60 Years of Catastrophe, 90 years of Betrayal.

The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air, or land. An entire population is being brutally punished. This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.

A Professor at University College London, Philippe Sands, has revealed that top echelons in the Bush administration put pressure on officials at Guantánamo Bay detention camp to devise new torture techniques. These actions flouted the Geneva conventions protecting prisoners’ human rights. This information is revealed in a new book 'Torture Team’ published by Allen Lane.