Saturday, October 01, 2005

Italy: New arrest warrants for 22 CIA terrorists

Italy Seeks Former US Diplomat in Kidnapping
    
By Tracy Wilkinson - The Los Angeles Times*

The warrant links an imam's abduction to the Rome embassy. A total of 22 people are sought.

    Rome - Friday 30 September 2005 - Italian authorities have ordered the arrests of a former US Embassy official here and two other people in connection with a "rendition" case in which CIA operatives allegedly kidnapped a radical Muslim cleric from Milan and flew him to Egypt, where, he has said, he was tortured.

    The new arrest warrants bring to 22 the number of people sought on suspicion of planning and executing the plot and apparently are the first direct connection to the US Embassy in Rome. US intelligence officials in Washington, though refusing to acknowledge the operation publicly, have sought to portray it as conducted by the spy-world equivalent of contractors.

    The warrants were signed by a judge this week in response to a petition from prosecutors Armando Spataro and Ferdinando Pomarici, an Italian judicial official said Thursday. Details are contained in court documents reviewed by the Los Angeles Times.

    As with earlier orders in the same case, the named Americans are believed to have long since departed Italy, and no arrests appeared imminent.

    An imam known as Abu Omar was seized in February 2003 in a so-called extraordinary rendition, a controversial practice in which the US snatches suspected terrorists and transports them to other countries without judicial permission.

    Italy, however, stunned Washington during the summer by attempting to prosecute 19 people, including a man identified in arrest warrants as the former CIA station chief in Milan, who are alleged to have taken part in the abduction. It is believed to be the first time that an ally has attempted to bring US operatives to justice in such a case.

    Italian investigators said their review of telephone traffic among those who abducted the imam in Milan 2 1/2 years ago led them to the former US Embassy employee. She is believed to have made or received a number of calls aimed at coordinating and organizing the abduction and to have participated directly in the operation, according to papers filed in court by prosecutors.

    Investigators found evidence that she checked into a Milan hotel 24 days before the kidnapping and traveled with the other suspects to the US-run Aviano Air Base in northern Italy, where Abu Omar was bundled onto a private jet bound for Egypt via the US military's Ramstein Air Base in Germany, Italian prosecutors said.

    The prosecutors maintain that the participation of the woman is especially egregious given the diplomatic position she held at the embassy. According to public records, she served in the US Embassy in Rome until this year, when she was transferred to Latin America.

    The Italian court file does not identify her as a CIA officer, though previous Italian court documents have said the team of agents worked under the former CIA station chief in Milan.

    The Times is not naming the former Rome embassy official. The paper generally avoids naming undercover intelligence operatives unless their names are put into public record.

    CIA officers often work overseas as US Embassy officials with the status of diplomats, even though they do not work for the State Department.

    Asked whether the former embassy employee was a CIA officer, agency spokeswoman Jennifer Millerwise said: "We are not going to comment on this story."

    Efforts to speak to the former Rome embassy worker at her posting in Latin America were not successful. In a brief conversation, a person answering the phone initially identified herself as the woman; when told she was speaking to a reporter, however, she immediately said she had no idea who the woman was and refused to respond further.

    At the request of the prosecutors, Italian police asked the domestic secret service to detain her in March, but the agency reported that it could not find her, the court documents state.

    In Rome, the US Embassy said it had no comment on the matter, the position it has taken since the scandal erupted early this year.

    Two men are also named in the new warrants, but those names appear to be aliases.

    The imam's suspected captors appear to have been sloppy, leaving behind copies of their passports and credit card numbers and speaking openly on cell-phones that can be easily tracked by law enforcement officers, which is how Italian authorities identified their suspects and built their case.

    The names of the former embassy official and the former Milan station chief thus far are the only apparently authentic names to have emerged in the investigation.

    The former station chief named was Robert Seldon Lady, who has since retired. Lady, a 51-year-old American born in Honduras, served in the Milan consulate and, by Italian accounts, directed Abu Omar's abduction and transfer to Egypt. His name has been widely reported in connection with this case.

    When he vanished, the Egyptian-born Abu Omar, whose real name is Hassan Osama Nasr and who had been granted political asylum by Italy, was being investigated by Italian police, who suspected him of organizing a network of Islamic fighters being dispatched to Iraq. Italian authorities were furious at the Americans for allegedly snatching him under their nose, contending that it hurt their broader efforts to prosecute terrorism cases.

    Abu Omar eventually was able to make contact with his wife in Milan, whom he telephoned during a brief period out of prison. He told her he had been tortured and beaten. Italian authorities believe that Lady was present in Egypt at the time and may have known what was happening.

    At last report, Abu Omar remained jailed in Egypt without charge. He has told associates that Egyptian authorities tried to persuade him to spy on Islamic radicals for them, but he refused.

    Since retiring, Lady has bought a home near the northern Italian city of Turin. Italian police raided the home in June after the first warrants were executed.

    New details emerged in court papers this week about what the inspectors found in the raid. In addition to a surveillance photo of Abu Omar taken a month before his disappearance, police found on Lady's computer hard disk information indicating he traveled to Cairo four days after the abduction last year. He left Cairo on March 7. Investigators also discovered research for determining the best way to travel from Milan to the Aviano base.

    The decision of the Italian judiciary to attempt to prosecute alleged CIA operatives was previously unheard of in the world of renditions, a tactic in which the US government sends suspected terrorists to nations that use coercive interrogation methods that would not be available otherwise. The practice, which has grown in use since the Sept. 11 attacks in the US, has been denounced as illegal by human rights groups.

    Italy's judiciary is highly independent of the central government of conservative Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, a staunch ally of the Bush administration. He has denied advance knowledge of the Abu Omar capture. But many Italians presume that the government secretly approved the operation, and former agents in the US have also said it could not have been conducted without official Italian permission. Thinking they had Italian government approval may also explain the evidently reckless nature of the actions by the purported CIA operatives.

[enditem] - Url.: http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/093005L.shtml

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Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
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* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

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* The World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime. Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

*Help the troops come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries, to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

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Nobel Peace Prize 2005: Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez makes the final list

VHeadline commentarist Carlos Herrera writes: The Nobel Commission for the Peace Prize has received 199 nominations including Colin Powell, the U2 singer Bono and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez.

In the final highly-secret list, there are 163 individuals and 36 organizations, which is an all time record according to the commission secretary Geir Lundestad.

"The increase in nominations proves that the prize continues to create great interest," Lundstad said.

An article published in VHeadline.com on November 26 last year, headlined „Venezuela's President Hugo Chavez Frias proposed for the 2005 Nobel Peace Prize: aroused great interest ... some of it very negative. The author received a myriad of insults and threats to his physical well-being from the „peace loving opposition democrats'' opposed to Chavez and the Bolivarian Revolution.

Since that piece was published, Chavez has continued his humanitarian projects, the most recent of which are extending Mission Miracle in alliance with Cuba to correct blindness and sight disorders to the whole of the American continent, including the US and the Caribbean. He has also offered crude oil, gasoline and heating oil at preferential, financed rates to smaller Caribbean countries, as well as Uruguay and Paraguay which are struggling with the sky high price of energy.

The improvement in cash flow of these countries generated by the financing aspect at 1% per year, allows their governments to use this surplus to invest in social programs.

DONATIONS OF HEATING OIL

This initiative has also taken into account poor communities, schools, hospitals, old peoples homes facing a predicted brutally cold winter in the United States ... part of this program includes donations of heating oil as well as financing part of the deliveries from CITGO, a 100%-owned US-based Venezuelan company based in Houston with 8 refineries delivering to over 14,000 gasoline stations. Pilot projects will be underway in Chicago and Boston as of October 14.

As per the Nobel Peace Prize website the 2004 winner was Wangari Maathai of Kenya "for her contribution to sustainable development, democracy and peace."

If these three qualities are key to winning the Nobel Peace Prize then Chavez has all these in abundance ... and more. He must be the world's leading democrat having been to the polls 9 times since 1998. He promotes peace by asking for troops out of Afghanistan and Iraq, so that these sovereign nations can exercise self-determination and define their own path in the future.

Sustainable and endogenous development is one of the corner stones of the Bolivarian revolution ... thus alleviating poverty medium to long term.

Other accomplishments, which have been pushed by Chavez‚ personal leadership in Venezuela are the Social Missions, all grouped under the humanitarian banner of Mision Cristo (Christ's Mission). The most important of these, Mision Robinson has taught 1.4 million Venezuelans to read and write; Mision Barrio Adentro (Neighborhood Within) offers free primary healthcare in the poor areas and is now reaching 14 million Venezuelans out of a population of approximately 25 million; Mision Mercal sells cheap staple foods and has impacted more than half the population at the time of writing.

STIFF COMPETITION

Chavez, however, is up against some very stiff competition including Colin Powell (for his efforts to end the 21-year civil war in Sudan); the ex-governor of Illinois, George Ryan (for his campaign to abolish the death sentence in the US); Israeli Mordechai Vanunu (for denouncing the existence of nuclear weapons in his country); the Japanese Hidankyo group (survivors of the US' atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

The Norwegian press has also reported that late Pope John Paul II is also on the secret list as well as the Salvation Army, the ex-President of the Czech Republic Vaclav Havel and the Indian sitar player Ravi Shankar.

The award ceremony is scheduled to take place in Oslo on December 10 -- the anniversary of the death of Alfred Nobel who instituted the Nobel Prizes. The Nobel Peace Prize includes a cash element equivalent to around US$1.6 million .

Whether or not the Bolivarians will have cause to celebrate on October 7 does not really matter. The fact that President Chavez‚ nomination has got this far is a victory in itself and a vindication of the humanist projects he has put in place to benefit the historically-excluded and dispossessed -- not only in Venezuela but now throughout the American continent and the Caribbean.

AND THIS IS JUST THE BEGINNING...

Carlos Herrera
Carlos.Herrera@VHeadline.com

Fwd. by:

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
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*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

* Brainwashed? Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave or not - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* The World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime. Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

*Help the troops come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries, to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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Bush & Bandits - The Sopranos 'optima forma' in the US!

FPF-fwd.: Top reporter Daniel Hopsicker!

The two-year long investigation into Mohamed Atta & his contacts and associates in Florida.
 
September 30, 2005-Venice, FL.  - by Daniel Hopsicker
 
The investigation into the 4-year old murder of Sun Cruz Casino boat founder Konstantinos ‘Gus’ Boulis in Fort Lauderdale has begun to reveal hidden connections between Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s gargantuan fund-raising machine, essential to victory in the past two Presidential elections, and a cast of underworld characters not previously thought of as exemplifying what have come to be known as “Republican family values.”

The indictment of three men Tuesday in the Boulis "hit" exposes an unholy alliance in Florida between the national Republican party and the Mob, details of which were first reported in the MadCowMorningNews three months ago (“The Secret World of Jack Abramoff: Terrorists, Torpedoes and Republican ‘Muscle’”).

More indictments are expected soon.

The trail of suspicion leads directly to Abramoff’s doorstep: the three names already released clearly implicate Adam Kidan, the Casino line’s erstwhile President, in the crime, who wrote checks—duh-uh!—for over $250,000 to one of the indicted men, Gambino goombah Anthony “Big Tony”' Moscatiello, 67, of Howard Beach, N.Y, for no easily discernible reason.

Bush's Biggest Backer: Chief "Stands with Pair"

Although lawyers for Abramoff and Kidan, who face trial Jan. 9 on fraud charges, have repeatedly said neither man knows anything about Boulis' murder, since Kidan was hand-picked by Abramoff to run the unregulated collection of a dozen ships operating off the coast of Florida, Abramoff may even now be wondering who it might be safe to “roll on” if and when he’s indicted for murder.

Abramoff, of course, is best known as the target of a federal investigation in Washington into the tens of millions in fees he collected from casino-owning Indian tribes. But the wreckage from his brief and tumultuous time as owner of the gambling fleet threatens to overtake his Washington legal troubles.

The breathtaking scope of “Cruisegate” could make it the biggest American political scandal since Iran Contra. Should its tawdry details fully come to light, it might eclipse even the Watergate Scandal.

Already, the dramatis personae includes a familiar name from previous scandals: Barry Seal, called “the ghost haunting the Whitewater investigation” by the Wall Street Journal, who was himself murdered on orders, according to his own lawyer's testimony, of then-Vice President George Bush.

GOP, Osama agree: Heroin is King

20 years ago Seal helped set in motion, as we’ll see shortly, the chain of events leading inexorably towards today's scandal, which we're dubbing "Cruisegate," illustrating the ongoing and even generational nature of what sociologists call “state-sponsored crime.”

Newsday reported on July 15, 2001, over four years ago: “As the Florida detectives follow path after path, the investigation seems always to lead back to three men: a former Long Island bagel store owner whose mother was killed by gangsters but who strongly denies any involvement, a Howard Beach caterer reputed to have organized crime ties and a New Jersey guy who likes to brag he's mob boss John Gotti's nephew.”

So one big question is: why didn't the indictments come down sooner?

In any event two of the three men referenced have now been indicted, leaving only bagel boy Adam Kidan remaining so far uncharged in the crime. Here's a little back-story on the case...

Jack Abramoff led a group of three men who formed an ownership group that apparently made Boulis the proverbial offer he couldn’t refuse.

They bought Sun Cruz from him, even though it wasn't for sale.

One time-honored way to get rich is to marry money. Another is to kill someone that has it. In this case it appears that Gus Boulis, owner of the lion’s share of the casino boats in Florida, had to die first.

The professional ‘hit’ on Boulis figured prominently in lobbyist Jack Abramoff’s rise to power to become the GOP’s chief money man.

Adding insult to injury, after wresting control, SunCruz's new owners refused to pay Boulis.

Then, adding injury to insult, several months after being unceremoniously muscled out, Boulis, a 51-year-old Greek immigrant who had founded both Sun Cruz and the popular Miami Subs chain, was shot to death at the wheel of his BMW sedan on Feb. 6, 2001, after leaving his office.

"Everyone needs a few unregulated sources of income."

Boulis was driving his BMW down a quiet side street after an evening meeting at his Fort Lauderdale office when a car slowed to a stop in front of him. A second car boxed the BMW in from behind. Then a dark Mustang appeared from the opposite direction, and as the Mustang pulled alongside its driver pumped three hollow-point bullets into Boulis’ chest.

Florida casino gambling insider Robb Tiller, one of the fathers of the Indian gambling industry (today another pillar of Abramoff’s empire) pointedly referred us to the manner of the Boulis hit, stating, “Boulis was murdered in the exact same way as Don Aronow, Bush’s other partner.”

Bush’s other partner? We didn't even have to ask it. The question hung in the air.

“Something is really going down bad here,” Tiller continued. “Don Aronow. Gus. Jim Shore… All tied in to Bush.”

(Jim Shore was a top executive of the Seminole Tribe of Florida, the state’s preeminent casino operators.)

In our earlier story we asserted the belief that as the scandal embroiling House Major Domo Tom Delay and Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff grows hotter, it will yield new revelations about the 9.11 attack.

What does a scandal involving Indian casinos, gambling boat “cruises to nowhere” in Florida & pay-for-play government officials have to do with the story of 19 hijackers planning a mass murder in supposed isolation?

Hint: Atta wasn't playing blackjack.

One clue: Ringleader Mohamed Atta made a still-unexplained visit onboard one of Abramoff’s casino boats less than a week before the attack.

A bigger clue: the man who owned the flight school favored by Atta and so many other terrorists had his Lear jet surrounded by DEA agents brandishing submachine guns on the runway of Orlando Executive Airport in July of 2000, the same month Atta began "training" at his flight school. They found 43 pounds of heroin onboard. For flight school owner Wally Hilliard, it was a 'blemish,' though not as yet one for which he has been asked to go to prison.

Several of the principals in the Boulis hit also have heroin trafficking backgrounds. What a surprise. Most of the world's heroin comes from Afghanistan, which used to known as OsamaLand.

So we believe our Abramoff/9.11 prediction will prove accurate. We suspect this may be one reason we don't get asked to appear on Hardball (or almost anywhere else.) We groused once about this "invisible" status once to a lifetime member of our nation's clandestine forces.

"Look at it this way," he responded with equanimity. "At least they let you live."

Its a better deal than poor Gus Boulis got.

"Look at it this way..."

We learned of Barry Seal’s peripheral involvement in the story while perusing the records of the three men indicted so far. Amazingly, Seal, a long-time CIA pilot who government prosecutors said was at one time the biggest drug smuggler in American history, was indirectly responsible for the 1983 federal prosecution for heroin smuggling of "Big Tony," one of the three men so far indicted in Boulis’ death.

While the details are admittedly tangential to the Boulis assassination, they are useful in illustrating the “secret history” of the rise to power of “connected” individuals friendly to the current Bush Administration.

"Meat-based life forms dominate the planet."

Anthony “Big Tony” Moscatiello was one of eight Gambino associates, including Gene Gotti, brother of John Gotti, then head of the Gambino family, who federal prosecutors charged with operating “a massive narcotics importation and distribution ring” that brought heroin from Southeast Asia to Florida and New York.

At his trial the major witness against him was Alfred Dellentash Jr., a pilot who flew marijuana from 1980 to 1981 for Gambino captain Salvatore Ruggiero. Salvatore died young, in a suspicious Lear jet 'accident' off the coast of Savannah, GA. in 1982 which the NTSB found puzzlingly inexplicable.

Upon his demise, his brother, Angelo Ruggiero, a close associate of John Gotti, took over the operation. His sponsor dead, according to court documents Dellentash then agreed to cooperate with authorities... but only  after he himself had been arrested on drug trafficking charges.

He'd gone to Barry Seal's hometown of Baton Rouge, La early in 1983 to purchase 55 kilograms of cocaine, not knowing that Seal himself at that time was "rolling" on various and sundry individuals to wriggle out of the major drug bust in Miami he'd been caught in. 

Both Seal and Dellentash were engaged in what is known in law enforcement circles as “working off a beef,” which is like a game of musical chairs where the man left standing when the music stops (in this case "Big Tony") does some hard time.

"A dunsky, sure... but not no ...ing dunsky."

Working off a beef would have been right up the busy Dellentash's alley: When not flying narcotics, he was managing Meat Loaf's show business career. In fact, after a falling out, as happens in show biz,  he ended up owning Meat's-- Mr. Loaf's--Connecticut mansion, Meatloaf Manor.

(Its' all true, except for the "MeatLoaf Manor" part. We don't know what he called it, but "home" seems a little plain for an $8.1 million spread.)

The men ''reported directly to a man by name of John Gotti, who was a lieutenant or a capo in this family,” said the prosecutor, Robert P. LaRusso.

While the drug operation was being conducted, the Gambino family was headed by Paul Castellano, who was opposed to drug dealings. ‘This family had a prohibition,'' LaRusso told the court. “'The ultimate sanction of death would be upon their members' heads if they dealt in drugs.”

Like the “problem” of Gus Boulis, this was a problem easily remedied, and Castellano was shortly thereafter “sleeping with the fishes.”

Interestingly, also arrested in the heroin trafficking case was a man named Oscar Ansourian, who was also charged with hiding a cache of weapons in the basement at his Howard Beach home which included U.S. Army-issued rockets and launchers.
 
“General, meet Guido. Guido, meet Osama.”

“Big Tony” Moscatiello has one other colorful distinction worth mentioning...

In taped conversations introduced at John Gotti’s various trials which revealed Gotti's ruthless control over his crew, Gotti was memorably heard screaming death threats at an underling for insubordination.

“Big Tony” was that unfortunate underling.

Gotti: ''Listen, I called your (expletive deleted) house five times yesterday; now if your wife thinks you are a (expletive deleted) dunsky or if she's a (expletive deleted) dunsky and you're gonna disregard my (expletive deleted) phone calls, I'll blow you and that (expletive deleted) house up.''

Gotti: ''And you get your (expletive deleted) ass down here and see me tomorrow.''

Moscatiello: ''I'm gonna be there all day tomorrow.''

"The Juice Is Loose... and he's got experience, too."

Clearly, being called a “f-cking dunsky” had had a salubrious effect on Moscatiello, who appears to have vowed to “straighten up and fly right.”

“Big Tony,” is not to be confused with another of the men arrested on murder solicitation and conspiracy charges in the case, Anthony “Little Tony” Ferrari, 48, of Miami Beach.

While there has as yet been no word on whether the third man indicted, 28-year-old James “Pudgy” Fiorillo, is “Big Pudgy” or “Little Pudgy,” we feel confident Court TV will have the answer when the case comes to trial.

As if the case were not already redolent with unsavory associations, there is a fourth man referenced in the indictment named Dwayne Nicholson. Nicholson is a bouncer at The Living Room, a Miami Beach night club, which just happens to be a favorite haunt of the world's most famous double murderer: Miami resident O. J. Simpson.

The big question here is: What are Christian politicians doing with people who think changing a company's management is a matter of--not putting up a new slate of directors--but calling in "Big Tony?"

Answer: They're flying around on the company's Lear jet (if its not engaged in more 'important' pursuits) to the Super Bowl and the U.S. Open in Pebble Beach.

The Lord, it seems, helps those who help themselves.

Story Url.: http://www.madcowprod.com/09302005.html 

"Threats of law suits against journalists have become the hallmark of the Bush administration in their not-too-clever tactic to silence the independent media in the United States." --Wayne Madsen

Censorship by lawsuit happens if we can't stay current with our ever-growing legal bills. And probably we will always be being sued...at least if we're doing it right. Please help us continue by making a donation directly into our defense fund.

Fwd. by: FPF/HR
 

Media: US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief

FPF-fwd. + Earlier article by the FPF: "PENTAGON THREATENED EARLIER TO KILL REPORTERS IN IRAQ"

Url.: http://beirut.indymedia.org/ar/2005/02/2193.shtml

****************************************************************************

US forces 'out of control', says Reuters chief

Posted by peter fainton on September 30, 2005, September 28, 2005.

Reuters has told the US government that American forces' conduct towards journalists in Iraq is "spiralling out of control" and preventing full coverage of the war reaching the public.

The detention and accidental shootings of journalists is limiting how journalists can operate, wrote David Schlesinger, the Reuters global managing editor, in a letter to Senator John Warner, head of the armed services committee.

The Reuters news service chief referred to "a long parade of disturbing incidents whereby professional journalists have been killed, wrongfully detained, and/or illegally abused by US forces in Iraq".

Mr Schlesinger urged the senator to raise the concerns with Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who is due to testify to the committee this Thursday.

He asked Mr Warner to demand that Mr Rumsfeld resolve these issues "in a way that best balances the legitimate security interests of the US forces in Iraq and the equally legitimate rights of journalists in conflict zones under international law".

AT LEAST 66 JOURNALISTS AND MEDIA WORKERS, MOST OF THEM IRAQIS, HAVE BEEN KILLED IN THE COUNTRY SINCE MARCH 2003.

US forces admitted killing three Reuters journalists, most recently soundman Waleed Khaled, who was shot by American soldiers on August 28 while on assignment in Baghdad. But the military said the soldiers were justified in opening fire. Reuters believes a fourth journalist working for the agency, who died in Ramadi last year, was killed by a US sniper.

'A SERIOUS CHILLING EFFECT ON THE MEDIA'

"The worsening situation for professional journalists in Iraq directly limits journalists' abilities to do their jobs and, more importantly, creates a serious chilling effect on the media overall," Mr Schlesinger wrote.

"By limiting the ability of the media to fully and independently cover the events in Iraq, the US forces are unduly preventing US citizens from receiving information ... and undermining the very freedoms the US says it is seeking to foster every day that it commits US lives and US dollars."

Mr Schlesinger said the US military had refused to conduct independent and transparent investigations into the deaths of the Reuters journalists, relying instead on inquiries by officers from the units responsible, who had exonerated their soldiers.

He noted that the US military had failed to implement recommendations by its own inquiry into the death of award-winning Palestinian cameraman Mazen Dana, who was shot dead while filming outside Abu Ghraib prison in August 2003.

INCREASING NUMBER OF JOURNALISTS DETAINED BY US FORCES

He said that Reuters and other reputable international news organisations were concerned by the "sizeable and rapidly increasing number of journalists detained by US forces".

He said detentions were prompted by legitimate journalistic activity such as possessing photographs and video of insurgents, which US soldiers assumed showed sympathy with the insurgency.

Earlier this week Reuters demanded the release of a freelance Iraqi cameraman after a secret tribunal ordered that he be detained indefinitely.

Samir Mohammed Noor, a freelance cameraman working for Reuters, was arrested by Iraqi troops at his home in the northern town of Tal Afar four months ago.

SECRET HEARING (FPF: THIS IS AMERICAN 'DEMOCRACY'!)

A US military spokesman has told the agency that a secret hearing held last week had found him to be "an imperative threat to the coalition forces and the security of Iraq".

The news agency has demanded that he be released or given a chance to defend himself in open court.

The US network CBS has raised concerns over the arrest of its cameraman, Abdul Amir Younes, who was arrested in hospital in April after he was shot by US troops.

CBS said it is concerned that he had no legal representation at the hearing and has had no chance to see the evidence against him.

To contact the MediaGuardian newsdesk email editor@mediaguardian.co.uk or phone 020 7239 9857

If you are writing a comment for publication, please mark clearly "for publication".

Story Url.: http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1580244,00.html

TinyUrl.: http://tinyurl.com/avnkq

Fwd. by: Rory + FPF

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
Editor : Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/66dmo
The Netherlands
FPF@Chello.nl

* *The Dutch author this far has worked abroad 4 decades for international media as a fully independent foreign correspondent, of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the Arab World and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism: you harvest what you sow! - At present - like other honest journalists - 'Persona non Grata' in his native - but now neocon - country :-) - The managers of the Netherlands operate a US 'neocolony' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/a44ek

* 'The war in Iraq is illegal' - BBC video & text - interview United Nation's Secretary General Kofi Annan - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/5pl2v

* Never trust them, the neocon's BBC - (Broadcasting Blair's Crap) - and their warmongering - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/6td3d

*Corporate News Media: Incompetent, Criminally Negligent or Complicit? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cqpfe

*Colin Powell: 'It is not anti-Semitic to criticize the policies of the state of Israel' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/22p6c Who creates our money? - And what is 'Press Freedom' about? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/atxyk - 'American' neocons - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b5vsb

* Brainwashed? Take the free 'Gullibility Factor' test to find out if you're really a mind slave or not:
Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cbgnc

* The World Can't Wait! Drive out the Bush Regime. Mobilize for November 2, 2005! - Url.: http://www.worldcantwait.org/

*Former PM Wim Kok, and other Dutch Govt's War criminals in Court - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/662pp

*Help the troops come back from abroad! We need them badly at home in many countries, to fight our so called 'governments' - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

FPF-COPYRIGHT NOTICE - In accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. Section 107 - any copyrighted work in this message is distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

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To bad to be true? US politics and the Mafia

FPF-fwd.: Franklin’s Focus - US politics and the Mafia

Ties Delay Case to the Mafia: Hopsicker's Rollicking Take on the Delay Indictment

The links between the Bush family and the Mafia are many. The savings and loan scandal, for example, was one of Bush's ideas. Bush, the Mafia, and the CIA all worked together on that one to rob the American people of billions. One of the more informative books along this line is: 'The Mafia, CIA, and George Bush' by Pete Brewton, one of the very best of this country's muckrakers.

For some reason, nobody has written an account of the Clintons' ties to both the Gambino and Marcello crime families. Clinton undoubtedly has been the most mobbed up leader of any country in the history of the world. It has been calculated that at least 109 hits were made on people who in one way or another threatened Governor Clinton's criminal empire in Arkansas.

IT WAS A BLOOD BATH.

Just as one example, eight grand jury witnesses died violent deaths just before they were going to testify before a grand jury. Their testimonies would have revealed facets of the Mena drug smuggling industry run by Clinton, Bush, the Mafia, the CIA, et al. Never in history has so many witnesses been murdered. Bubba surely is the king of mob-connected pols. The fact he is still revered by Democratic figures such as Molly Ivins and Bill Maher goes to show you just how ignorant some of the scribes and talking heads of the Democrat wing of The Party can be.

Today's Hopsicker article will have numerous references you will not be familiar with unless you regularly read Hopsicker's stream of muckraking articles. I'm forwarding today's item because it bears directly on the indictment of Delay. As you will see, that prosecution is redolent with complicated nuances and angles, many of which have to do with the Mafia.

Hopsicker probably is hoping some of the juicier angles of the GOP money machine will come out during Delay's trial. That assumes there will be a trial. Texas is so corrupt, I'm assuming the charges against Delay will be thrown out. I hope I'm wrong, and there is a long trial, and it's broadcast on Court TV. What an absolute gas that would be.

READ AND ENJOY. THIS PIECE JUST MIGHT MAKE YOUR DAY.

Warmest regards,

Richard

FPF: Mad Cow Morning News has this very informative story at:

Url.: http://www.madcowprod.com/

IT'S - FOR THOSE NOT IN THE LOOP - AN ABSOLUTE 'MUST READ'!

Fwd. by:

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