The Editor,                                                                 
The Australian.                                                                    March 4, 2006. 

Please let’s have an end to the misleading
puffery from Alexander Downer (‘Rift with Bush on selling uranium’, Australian,
March 4). 

Our superficial foreign minister talks-up
the US-India nuclear agreement by claiming: “It is a good agreement because it
draws India into the mainstream of the international community (by) opening up
its civil nuclear program to UN inspections. I think that is a very important
step forward."  

Putting aside India’s refusal to
sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, the fact that the new agreement will
allow India to keep eight of its 22 reactors under wraps as secret military
sites & retain the right to classify any of its new weapons-friendly,
"fast-breeder" reactors as secret military installations, also exempt
from inspection, doesn’t even rate a mention. 

What’s the message to Iran? 

John Richardson.

‘There are dire consequences to
the current direction of the U.S. foreign policy, said Noam
Chomsky in a speech Saturday at Binghamton University.
Among those consequences, he said, is a nuclear Armageddon. 

"Under the current U.S.
policies, a nuclear exchange is inevitable," the 77-year-old MIT professor
said in his presentation, "Imminent Crises: Paths Toward Solutions."
He spoke to an over-capacity crowd in BU's Osterhout Concert Theater. 

Chomsky cited nuclear
proliferation and environmental collapse as the two greatest crises that
"literally threaten survival."’ 

World In
Peril, Chomsky Tells Overflow Crowd

‘A proposed nuclear deal with India that the White House
considers one of the most important pillars of President Bush's foreign policy
legacy is in jeopardy because of growing objections in Congress and abroad. 

Administration officials say
quick congressional action is needed for survival of the complicated deal,
which would permit civilian nuclear cooperation as a way to forge a historic
alliance between the United States and a rising power in Asia. But lawmakers
fear the accord would unravel international agreements designed to halt the
spread of nuclear weapons, and encourage the nuclear ambitions of countries
such as Iran. 

Despite pressure from senior
administration officials and personal lobbying by Bush, key Republicans remain
on the fence. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist of Tennessee has been largely
silent on the proposed legislation, and Rep. Henry J. Hyde of Illinois,
chairman of the House International Relations Committee, is uncommitted. 

The White House faces months of
delay, if not outright defeat.’ 

Bush's
India Plans At Risk

From the BBC

Chavez bid to counter Hollywood

Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has opened a film studio in the country aimed at curbing the cultural influence of the US in Latin America.
"It's a Hollywood dictatorship. They inoculate us with messages that don't belong to our traditions," he said.

The government is giving $11m (£5.8m) to the project which will fund local and South American films.
Mr Chavez has been a staunch critic of President George W Bush and often attacks free-market policies.

The president toured film sets, costume rooms and sat in the director's chair on his visit to the Film Villa Foundation on the outskirts of the Venezuelan capital, Caracas.

One of the first projects is a series about Francisco de Miranda, who fought for Venezuela's independence from Spain in the 19th Century and one of Mr Chavez's heroes.

He has also accused Hollywood of portraying Latin Americans as violent criminals and drug traffickers, and urged children to turn away from superheroes such as Superman.

read more at the BBC

I may be wrong here, but I have long thought that the incredibly strong hatred of Communism by the US has actually spearheaded the rise of fundamentalism...

In the poorest countries of Africa for example, "communism" could be the natural progression for the political system to move away from "feudal" system in some cases, by starting from a broader sharing base using tribal values, go through the motion of raising every one through a milder socialism and eventually introduce itself to a more individualistic form of aspiration once respect for others has overridden most destructive selfishness... and the desire for corruption and unruly despotism.

The happenings in Somalia are a point in case where the feudal warlords supported by the US obviously did not cater for the needs of the people.

Trying to implement "capitalistic competition" from the top, at the onset can only leave the poor on the dirt floor and enrich a few psychopathic characters... leading to resentment, fights, hard-edged corruption and fundamentalism rising...

Looking at many countries, one can see that the proof is in the numbers of poor left behind.... The richer the country, the less poor there are — but poor there are — and the less we care, politically speaking, because they are no "threat" to our construct. They become the football for charitable enterprises...

When everyone is poor (equal in earning and sharing of basic needs), it does not mean they are unhappy... it does not mean that they are unhealthy or uneducated. In many ways it means they do not not have the buying power to cocoon themselves as we often do in selfish me-only syndrome.

In Cuba, the US "bete noire", the majority of people are happy, educated and inventive... The massive buckets of rubbish including trade bans poured by the US on it has prevented Cuba to move to the next corrupted step but then it may have its own, as it is its own master... The US is impatiently waiting for Castro to die or vanish in order to stir the many factions and recapture the "market"...

When looking at Yemen, for example, the CIA Fact Book states:

""""Yemen, one of the poorest countries in the Arab world, has reported meager growth since 2000. Its economic fortunes depend mostly on oil. Oil revenues increased in 2005 due to higher prices. Yemen was on an IMF-supported structural adjustment program designed to modernize and streamline the economy, which led to substantial foreign debt relief and restructuring. However, government dedication to the program waned in 2001 for political reasons. Yemen is struggling to control excessive spending and rampant corruption. The people have grown increasingly upset over the economic situation. In July 2005, a reduction in fuel subsidies sparked riots; over 20 Yemenis were killed and hundreds were injured....""""

I think the Yemenis are more lucky than the Iraqis... The US is not trying to interfere too much with it... and its government saw through the complexities of borrowing from the IMF... As the wolf says to the dog: "I rather be free and hungry than be a fat slobbering dog attached to a kennel by a chain..."

From the New York Times

Justices to Rule on Race and Education

By DAVID STOUT
Published: June 5, 2006
WASHINGTON, June 5 — The Supreme Court agreed today to consider an issue of enormous importance to parents and educators across the country: the extent to which public school administrators can use racial factors in assigning children to schools.

The court accepted cases from Seattle and Louisville, Ky., for its next term. The school districts in both cities defeated challenges to their assignment procedures in the lower courts.

"Looming in the background of this is the constitutionality of affirmative action," Davison Douglas, a law professor at William and Mary, said in an interview with The Associated Press. "This is huge."

The enormous interest in the issues raised by the cases accepted by the court has already been reflected in California, where parents of students in the Capistrano Unified School District sued the district last month, contending that in using race to determine school-attendance boundaries the school administrators are violating the state Constitution.

read more at the new york Times...

From the ABC

African Union seeks US help in Somalia
African Union chief and Congo Republic President Denis Sassou Nguesso has asked the United States to find ways to end the crisis in Somalia but said Washington must not provide aid to warlords.

Mr Sassou, who heads the 53-nation African Union, said after meeting President George W Bush they discussed Somalia and how the United States and other countries could do more to help end the ongoing violence in the failed Horn of Africa country.

There has been no functioning government in Somalia since 1991.

Islamic militia appeared to have taken control of the capital after battling a coalition of self-styled anti-terrorism warlords, widely suspected of getting backing from Washington.

Warlords were getting cash payments of more than $US100,000 a month from the Central Intelligence Agency, according to Somalia expert John Prendergast of the think-tank International Crisis Group. He said he learned about the support during meetings with members of the warlords' alliance.

Read more at the ABC