The Onion
Issue 41-48
November 30, 2005
LANGLEY, VA
You are currently browsing the monthly archive for November 2005.
The single biggest impediment to getting people mobilized around war and occupation issues is the widespread perception that Canada
Urgent action is needed to tackle domestic violence against women, which is widespread, deep-rooted and largely hidden in a wide range of societies, a study by the UN health agency said.
The study conducted by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in 10 countries found that between 15 percent (Japan) and 71 percent (Ethiopia) of the women interviewed had been subjected to physical or sexual violence by an intimate male partner during their lifetime.
by Heather Mallick
Rabble.ca
November 26, 2005
Here it is, Boycott 6 (hurricanes don’t even go that high). I wrote in my How to Boycott column last week that I dreaded this one out of journalistic faith. Oh ye of vanished belief.
I read the centre-left British newspaper the Guardian online and pay $620 a year to get its Saturday paper airmailed. I’ve been reading it for 40 years. No, I am not 102. I am 46 but we got the Guardian Weekly when I was a kid. I think it’s the best newspaper in the world; many Canadians read it.
Every publication has a gormless reporter, often several. This person is stupid, but handy. The great advantage is that there’s a certain kind of story even he can’t screw up. If it’s an interview with a model
by John Pilger
New Statesman
November 25, 2005
The Indian writer Vandana Shiva has called for an “insurrection of subjugated knowledge”. The insurrection is well under way. In trying to make sense of a dangerous world, millions of people are turning away from the traditional sources of news and information and to the world wide web, convinced that mainstream journalism is the voice of rampant power. The great scandal of Iraq has accelerated this. In the United States, several senior broadcasters have confessed that had they challenged and exposed the lies told about Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, instead of amplifying and justifying them, the invasion might not have happened.
Mark Weisbrot
The Nation
12 December 2005
“Will the world accept this farce of an election? The Bush Administration and its allies seem to be hoping that Haiti is just too poor and too black for anyone to care about whether democratic, constitutional or even human rights are respected there.”
History is repeating itself in Haiti, as democracy is being destroyed for the second time in the past fifteen years. Amazingly, the main difference seems to be that this time it is being done openly and in broad daylight, with the support of the “international community” and the United Nations. The first coup against Haiti’s democratically elected government, in September 1991, was condemned even by the George H.W. Bush Administration. This although the CIA had funded the leaders of the coup and–according to a founder of the death squads that murdered thousands of people during the 1991-94 military dictatorship–also sponsored the repression. All this was covert, and the official position of the United States and most other countries was that the dictatorship was not legitimate.
But when in February 2004 Haiti’s democratically elected president, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was overthrown for the second time by remnants of that prior dictatorship–including convicted mass murderers and former death squad leaders–this was considered a legitimate “regime change.” The Caricom countries, showing great courage, objected strenuously, as did some members of the US Congress. But these voices were not powerful enough to influence the course of events.
Thanks to Dan Parrott for this heads-up.
There is a full page ad in today’s Globe & Mail run by the Campaign to Control Cancer.
Their ad states that in 2005 there will have been 149,000 cancer cases diagnosed in Canada, and of those 70,000 people will die. This appears to dwarf other health threats, like say, West Nile Fever. This group suggests that the existing cancer rates constitute a national health emergency.
Unlike many cancer campaings, they appear to be urging prevention, and especially the reduction of environmental pollutants and pesticides.
Did Bush Really Want to Bomb Al Jazeera?
Jeremy Scahill
The Nation
[posted online on November 23, 2005]
On November 22, Britain’s Daily Mirror published a startling allegation: In an April 2004 White House meeting with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, President Bush proposed bombing the Arab TV network Al Jazeera’s international headquarters in Qatar. The report was based on a memo stamped “Top Secret” that had been leaked by a Cabinet official in Blair’s government.
by Jeff Halper
November 23, 2005
“The up-coming election in late March is presented as a three way one pitting the left (Peretz) against the center (Sharon) and the right (Netanyahu). But it is actually a two-way race. Peretz, who can truly be called a candidate of the left in both his progressive social views and his commitment to a just peace with Palestinians, is pitted unevenly against an array of three right-wing forces: Netanyahu’s Likud which rejects any Palestinian state whatsoever; Sharon’s new “center” party which appears to favor a two-state solution but which in fact is heading for unilateral apartheid; and a Labour Party more or less in step with Sharon.”
It was bound to happen eventually — and it happened today in New Zealand. Low-paid Starbucks workers walked off the job and formed a picket line. They were joined by workers from other low paid, fast-food restaurants such as KFC and Pizza Hut.
Starbucks, which tries to project an image as a caring, progressive, company, has some 80,000 employees worldwide. It pays those workers minimum wage or only slightly above, and generally does not welcome unions.
LabourStart is covering the New Zealand Starbucks strike, and we’re also showing a video of the picket line on LabourStart.tv as well.
If you’ve never seen a picket line at a Starbucks (and chances are, you haven’t), have a look!
For more information about union efforts to organize Starbucks worldwide, check out
http://www.supersizemypay.com/
and
http://www.starbucksunion.org/
