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Anonymous Comrade writes:

Venezuelans Rally Today for Posada Carriles´ Extradition

Caracas, (Prensa Latina) — Thousands of Venezuelans are taking part Wednesday in a rally in front of the National Assembly to extradite Cuban-born terrorist Luis Posada Carriles to this Latin American nation.

Posada Carriles, fugitive from Venezuelan justice since 1985, is the mastermind behind the bombing of a Cuban jetliner in October 1976 that killed 73 people, as well as other murders, tortures and disappearances when he headed the Venezuela´s Political Police Unit of Special Operations.

The National Assembly approved on Tuesday a petition, which was proposed by "Podemos" party members Flores and Ismael Garcia.

On May 13, the Venezuelan government handed over Posada Carriles´ extradition request to the Legal and Extradition Office at the US Department of State, and so far, it has only confirmed receipt of the document.

The US immigration court in El Paso, Texas, will hold a hearing on June 13, to analyze charges of illegal entry to United States, without alluding the criminal´s terrorist actions.

Posada Carriles´ lawyer Eduardo Soto and other rightwingers in South Florida are pressing to have him release on bail and bring the legal proceedings to a Miami court.

Watergate Scandal's "Deep Throat" Reortedly Comes Clean


A former
FBI official claims he was "Deep Throat," the long-anonymous source who leaked secrets about President Nixon's Watergate coverup to The Washington Post, Vanity Fair reported Tuesday.


W. Mark Felt, 91, who was second-in-command at the FBI in the early 1970s, kept the secret even from his family until 2002, when he confided to a friend that he had been Post reporter Bob Woodward's source, the magazine said.


"I'm the guy they used to call Deep Throat," he told lawyer John D. O'Connor, the author of the Vanity Fair article, the magazine said in a news release.

"Fallujah: An Unnatural Disaster"

Joe Carr

Today, I did what few internationals have dared to do, I went to
Fallujah.


Fallujah is completely surrounded by US Forces, the only way in or out is
through one of four very restrictive checkpoints. People normally have to
wait hours, but since we had our magic US passports, we made it through
in
about 45 minutes. We did not observe them searching any cars, soldiers
just held-up traffic and slowly checked IDs. Like Palestine, these
checkpoints seem to have little to do with security and more to do with
harassment and intimidation.


Fallujah is devastating to drive through. There is more destruction and
rubble than I've ever seen in my life; even more than in Rafah, Gaza. The
US has leveled entire neighborhoods, and about every third building is
destroyed or damaged from US artillery. Rubble and bullet holes are
everywhere, the city is indescribably ravaged. It looks like it's been
hit
by a series of tornados; it's hard to believe that humans could actually
do this. I have a new understanding of the destructive potential of
modern
warfare.

"The Real Problems With $50 Oil"

Henry C K Liu, Asian Times

After oil prices peaked above US$58 a barrel in early April, and stayed around
their current $50 range, the White House announced that it wanted oil to go
back down to $25 a barrel.


There is a common misconception in life that if
only things could go back to the ways they were in the good old days, life
would be good again like in the good old days. Unfortunately, good old days
never return as good old days because what makes the old days good is often
just bad memory.


The problem with market capitalism is that while markets can
go up and markets can go down, they never end up in the same spot. The term
"business cycle" is a misnomer because the end of the cycle is a very
different place from the beginning of a cycle. A more accurate term would be
"business spiral", either up or down or simply sideways.

Oil is a good example whereby this market truism can be observed. When oil
rises above $50 a barrel and stays there for an extended period, the resultant
changes in the economy become normalized facts. These changes go way beyond
fluctuations in the price of oil to produce a very different economy. Below
are 10 new economic facts created by $50 oil.

Anonymous Comrade writes:
"La Paz, May 24 (Prensa Latina) The leader of Bolivia´s Movement toward Socialism (MAS), Evo Morales, has issued a call for unity to defend national sovereignty in the face of threats of US intervention in this country.

Bolivian Government Denounces Destabilization Attempts

In a mass meeting held Monday to demand a constituent assembly to unite and transform Bolivia, Morales condemned continous threats and accusations by George W. Bush administration officials against the popular movement in this nation.

Anonymous Comrade writes:

Support Anarchist Anthropologist David Graeber

After a decision at a meeting convened by tenured faculty at the department of anthropology, Yale University, David Graeber’s [author of 2004 Fragments of an Anarchist Anthropology] contract was not renewed.

This is not a situation of David being denied tenure, but rather that the extension of his contract has been denied, and this is an extremely rare situation. In light of his exemplary scholarship and mentoring, many of David’s students and colleagues strongly support his continuing at Yale.

To this end we have created an open petition. As the review process of the decision is going to take place very soon, we request you to support this endeavor by signing this petition as soon as possible. We would also appreciate any other support that you are able to provide. The link of the petition is below. Please feel free to forward this petition to any interested persons or listserves.

http://www.petitiononline.com/dgraeber/petition.ht ml

Thanks,
Durba Chattaraj,
department of anthropology, Yale University;
Devika Bordia,
department of anthropology, Yale University

Stockholm Hosts 800 New Media Pirates

The Pirate Agency

More than 800 pirates and filesharers demonstrated in Stockholm on Sunday
May 1st. Among the speakers were broadband industry figure Jonas
Birgersson and representatives from the free art/culture scene and The
Pirate Agency. It was perhaps one of the largest gatherings ever of
Internet pirates, copyright-critics and other believers in free culture.

Andre Gunder Frank, 1929-2005

Pat Manning, World History Network


Andre Gunder Frank died peacefully at 8:30 a.m. on April 23, 2005 in Luxembourg, in the presence of his loved ones, after a long and brave struggle against cancer and its complications. He was a brilliant and highly productive analyst of political economy and related social sciences who produced fundamental insights on global social interactions, from the 1950s until his death, and whose analysis was always connected to campaigns for social justice. He was a founding figure in the current expansion of studies in world history, and his 1998 book, ReOrient, won the World History Association's book prize.

Jelloul writes:

"Ali Versus Chomsky"

Jelloul

The debate, between supporters of conflicting (either-or) perspectives on Iraq; Sunni Arab versus Shi'i sympathizers, is being increasingly brought into the open — needless to say that our protagonists cannot conceive of any consociational-patriotic alternative.

For example, in a Stockholm conference yesterday evening (April 4, 2005), New Left Review’s Tariq Ali expressed views about the Iraqi Shi’a and the Iranians as "US collaborators;" in particular, he didn’t enjoy the idea of al-Sistani being a Nobel Prize nominee.

Tariq Ali didn’t exactly name Chomsky, whose posture is the opposite in those matters, but the latter’s idea of betting on a Shi’a Crescent-like geopolitical alternative to US domination in the region has been questioned, if only indirectly.

More here.

Secret U.S. Plans For Iraq's Oil

Greg Palast, BBC

MACON,GA.—The Bush administration made plans for war and for Iraq's oil before the 9/11 attacks sparking a policy battle between neo-cons and Big Oil, BBC's Newsnight has revealed.


Two years ago today — when President George Bush announced US, British and Allied forces would begin to bomb Baghdad — protestors claimed the US had a secret plan for Iraq's oil once Saddam had been conquered.


In fact there were two conflicting plans, setting off a hidden policy war between neo-conservatives at the Pentagon, on one side, versus a combination of "Big Oil" executives and US State Department "pragmatists."


"Big Oil" appears to have won. The latest plan, obtained by Newsnight from the US State Department was, we learned, drafted with the help of American oil industry consultants.

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