Category: Archive

US bulldozes poor homes in New Orleans

admin /18 June, 2006

http://www.commondreams.org/views06/0617-20.htm
by Bill Quigley
 
The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development has announced they plan to demolish over five thousand public housing apartments in New Orleans. In August 2005, HUD reported they had 7,381 public apartments in New Orleans. Now HUD says they now have 1000 apartments open and promise to repair and open another 1000 in a couple of months. After months of rumors, HUD confirmed their intention to demolish all the remaining apartments.

 HUD’s demolition plans leave thousands of families with no hope of returning to New Orleans where rental housing is scarce and costly. In New Orleans, public housing was occupied by women, mostly working, their children as well as the elderly and disabled.

To these mothers and children, HUD Secretary Alphonso Jackson said: "Any New Orleans voucher recipient or public housing resident will be welcomed home."

Exactly how people will be welcomed home, HUD did not say.

How can thousands of low-income working families come home if HUD has fenced off their apartments, put metal shutters over their windows and doors and are now plans to demolish their homes?

US plans nuclear dump here

admin /18 June, 2006

George Bush has proposed that Australia, USA and Canada enrich uranium, `rent’ nuclear fuel rods out to user countries and take back the waste. The waste would be dumped at Maralinga. Full article

US sacrifices its poor

admin /18 June, 2006

 

In early May, the federal threat level was "elevated" (the color is yellow). According to the Department of Homeland Security this means, "All Americans, including those traveling in the transportation systems, should continue to be vigilant, take notice of their surroundings, and report suspicious items or activities to local authorities immediately." In other words, all Americans should be suspicious of strangers and abjure anything unusual."

 

Next stop Africa for US

admin /18 June, 2006

By John Bellamy Foster

Imperialism is constant for capitalism. But it passes through various phases as the system evolves. At present the world is experiencing a new age of imperialism marked by a U.S. grand strategy of global domination. One indication of how things have changed is that the U.S. military is now truly global in its operations with permanent bases on every continent, including Africa, where a new scramble for control is taking place focused on oil.

Original article on Global Research

The Evil of Banality

admin /18 June, 2006

By ANTHONY ALESSANDRINI

T here are moments that require us to stop everything and take stock of the time in which we are living. This is one such moment. Listen:

"They are smart, they are creative, they are committed," Admiral Harris said. "They have no regard for life, neither ours nor their own. I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of asymmetrical warfare waged against us."

This is Rear Admiral Harry B. Harris, commander of the Guantanamo Bay prison. His words appeared, without comment, in the first news reports about three men, detained indefinitely and subjected to systematic torture at the prison, who committed suicide on Saturday by hanging themselves in their cells.

Take a moment to dwell on the admiral’s words. Look especially at the first sentence, at the adjectives used to describe the dead men: "smart, creative, committed." There is a perverse compliment being paid by the torturer to the tortured.

This attitude is also implicit in the follow-up article printed by the New York Times the next day, with the headline: "Prisoners’ Ruse Is Suspected at Guantanamo." This, we learn from the article, should be the focus of inquiry: not the circumstances that drove three men to their deaths, but the question of how, given the fact that one of the elements of their confinement was constant monitoring by their captors, these men could have managed their "ruse."

Rare turtles threaten WA $50 billion gas project

admin /14 June, 2006

A RARE carnivorous turtle has put up to $50 billion worth of gas projects in Western Australia under threat. The state’s Environmental Protection Agency has blocked Chevron’s $11 billion Gorgon development in the state’s northwest to preserve the rare flatback turtle native to Barrow Island at the centre of the project, reported The Courier Mail (7/6/2006, p. 45).

Field’s 40t cu ft makes 25pc Aust gas reserves: The field holds 25 per cent of Australia’s gas reserves – 40 trillion cubic feet, enough to power a city the size of Brisbane for more than 400 years.

6000 jobs, $2b into GDP: The project is expected to create 6000 jobs and add an extra $2 billion to the national gross domestic product.

State may overrule EPA, as in 2003: The industry will now be watching if the State Government will again overturn the EPA decision as it did in 2003 after it raised similar concerns.

Chevron, Exxon, Shell operating: Project operator Chevron’s joint-venture partners are ExxonMobil and Shell.

2 nesting beaches near proposed site: EPA chairman Wally Cox said there were two important nesting beaches adjacent to the proposed processing plant site and the materials off-loading facility. Gorgon is one of seven big gas projects worth an estimated $50 billion under development in Western Australia.

Decision by end of year: The Government has until the end of the year to make a decision and the joint-venture partners will make the final investment decision at the end of the year or early next year.

The Courier Mail, 7/6/2006, p. 45

Source: Erisk Net