"Masked 'Police' Arrest Journalists
Investigating
Arbitrary Arrests and Killings in Haiti"

Marguerite Laurent, Haitian Lawyers Leadership Network

[Journalists Kevin Pina and Jean Ristil have just been arrested in Haiti while investigating crimes against Father Jean Juste's church. All details follow. I'm urging everyone to send a letter as requested below as soon as possible. I make a special appeal to friends from Venezuela and Brazil to forward on this message, and make as many voices from Latin America heard as possible. I know Kevin Pina quite well, have interviewed him often and met him personally. He is an extremely courageous and professional journalist committed to democracy and the Haitian people's just struggle for self-determination. His outstanding new film on Haiti is just being released, and no doubt this further attack on him in Haiti is an effort to end his witness to events in this long-suffering but heroic nation. Please do what you can as soon as you can. — Charles Boylan, Coop Radio, Vancouver]

Around 5:15 Friday afternoon the Haitian Lawyers Leadership received a call from Haiti telling us that Haitian police, from the Delma police station, in a car marked with licensed plate # 0879, had entered Father Jean Juste's presbytery, and was searching it, "destroying the place and generally creating trauma" to the people who were at the church at the time of the police invasion. Apparently, the men had black masks on and were accompanied by an investigative judge to give the exercise a semblance of legality.

Wyette Hertz and Easy Biscuits writes:

We, faraway friends of New Orleans, passed the summer with Okra P. Dingle on a farm in upstate New York. He left his books and circus gear with us and we were to deliver them to New Orleans, late October before going on tour. We are still planning on going to the Southwest and doing circus/cheap art projects with and for Katrina survivors and displacees. We are currently seeking musicians, clowns, stuntspeople, cheap artistes, revelers, mad scientists, cooks, activist librarians, street performers, marching bands and all good time folks who might want to spend the fall/winter travelling through the areas where people have been relocated and spread joy to those who have survived. We will be travelling in a 16 foot box truck, powered by recycled vegetable oil. This is a serious call out to anyone interested. Please e-mail us at whalesbellywondercarnival@yahoo.com

Thanks and Abundant Love,


Wyette Hertz and Easy Biscuits, carnival extrodinaires

"The Man Who Betrayed the Poor"

George Monbiot

Two months have not elapsed since the G8 summit, and already almost everything
has turned to ashes. Even the crustiest sceptics have been shocked by the speed
with which its promises have been broken.

It is true that they didn't amount to much. The World Development Movement
described the agreement as "a disaster for the world's poor". {1} ActionAid
complained that "the G8 have completely failed to deliver trade justice". {2}
Christian Aid called July 8th as "a sad day for poor people in Africa and all
over the world". {3} Oxfam lamented that "neither the necessary sense of urgency
nor the historic potential of Gleneagles was grasped by the G8". {4} But one man
had a different view. Bob Geldof, who organised the Live8 events, announced that
"a great justice has been done ... on aid, ten out of ten; on debt, eight out of
ten ... Mission accomplished frankly". {5}

"The Good, the Bad and the Ugly"

Mike Alewitz

Our fabulous New Orleans, one of the world's great cultural treasures, lies in
ruins. The destruction of this city's artistic life, just as with the loss of life and
property, is a tragedy of immense proportions.

New Orleans was a product of many influences – but it's character was
indelibly stamped by slaves and their descendants. Slavery was a holocaust
of such magnitude that it resulted in the deaths of millions of Africans and
enormous human suffering. It was a holocaust, as we see today, that never
really ended.

African-Americans responded to their cruel treatment by creating art and
music that ultimately became Americas great gift to the world. While the
former slave masters built a powerful empire based on military conquest and
exploitation, the former slaves fostered a unique culture based on their
African roots. New Orleans was a magical world where music was vibrant,
Tabasco flowed freely and human sexuality was celebrated in fantastic
spectacles.

Okra P. Dingle, Missing In Action:

Autonomadic Bookmobile, Drowning on Desire?

Okra P. Dingle — with Dr. Henceforth Flummox a purveyor of the Autonomadic Bookmobile and Medicine Show — is among the missing in the recent New Orleans disaster, and we are extremely anxious to hear from him or from anyone who may know of his wheareabouts.

Okra is on the left in the lower image, here.

Any word about the fate of the Bookmobile itself would also be appreciated. It was last known to be parked on Desire Street near the 3300 block of St. Claude, New Orleans, Louisiana.

Chavez Warns of Global Energy Disaster if US Invades
Venezuela

Xinhuanet View

Venezuelan
President Hugo Chavez on Thursday warned of a global
energy disaster if the United States invaded his
country to seize its oil reserves. During an interview broadcast by the state-run VTV
television, Chavez said the US Defense Department is
interested in Venezuela'sOrinoco region, which has a
crude reserve of 300 billion barrels. He said the Venezuelan intelligence services have
learned of a US plan to invade his country and capture
the oil fields.

Under the US plan, code-named Balboa, a number of
ships, men and bombs will be used for invasion of the
major cities of Caracas, Maracay and Valencia,
according to the president. Chavez vowed that the US soldiers "will bite the
dust" if they invade Venezuela.

Relations between Venezuela and the United States
have been deteriorating over recent years, and Caracas
accused Washington ofsupporting an abortive coup to
overthrow Chavez in April 2002.

Chavez also accused Washington of planning to
assassinate him, which the US government has denied.

Venezuela, with a daily 2.8-million-barrel output,
is the second most important producer of crude oil in
Latin America, nextonly to Mexico. It is the region's
main exporter with 1.5 million barrels of oil being
shipped out every day.

Autonomous Zapatista Warehouse Opens August 30, 2005

Mary Ann Tenuto

At the time the Zapatistas rose up in arms against the “bad government,” coyotes (traveling salespeople) roamed the Ocosingo Canyons price-gouging the campesinos. As the civilian Zapatista movement organized itself into autonomous counties, one of its economic priorities was to eliminate the coyotes . Collectively operated grocery stores were constructed in most communities.

What the autonomous communities soon learned is that the community stores did not have the space, funds, or ability to purchase in large quantities at reduced prices and were thus at the mercy of a different middleman, the small retailer. This understanding led to a proposal for 10 regional grocery warehouses throughout Zapatista territory.

OlekNetzer writes:

"Real Causes of War Discovered"

Olek Netzer

In July 1970, on the Syrian front, the army ambulance I navigated to a UN outpost was hit and all my companions were torn to pieces. Traumatized, I could not erase the sensory experience of those moments from my inner vision, as if it were happening in the present and projected on my mind's screen again and again. I wanted to get over it, but I became convinced — perhaps obsessed — by the thought that I would not be able to go on living without coming to understand, but really understand, why it had happened.

"Doomsday Approaches:

The End of the Housing Bubble"

Mike Whitney, Counterpunch

I sold my home three weeks ago anticipating what I believe will be "Economic Armageddon" in the United States. It wasn't an easy thing to do. My wife and I have lived in the same home for 25 years, raised both of our children there, and owned the property outright without any loans or mortgage. The house was paid for in "sweat-equity", that is, by wielding a shovel day-in and day-out in my one-man landscape business. I don't say that for sympathy, but to illustrate that we played by the rules, worked hard, paid our taxes, and took advantage of the American dream of home-ownership.

All that has changed.

"Bards of the Powerful"

George Monbiot, London Guardian

Far from challenging the G8's role in Africa's poverty,
Geldof and Bono are legitimising its power.

"Hackers bombard financial networks", the Financial Times reported on Thursday. Government departments and businesses "have been bombarded with a sophisticated electronic attack for several months". It is being organised by an Asian criminal network, and is "aimed at stealing commercially and economically sensitive information". By Thursday afternoon, the story had mutated. "G8 hackers target banks and ministries", said the headline in the Evening Standard. Their purpose was "to cripple the systems as a protest before the G8 summit". The Standard advanced no evidence to justify this metamorphosis.

This is just one instance of the reams of twaddle about the dark designs of the G8 protesters codded up by the corporate press. That the same stories have been told about almost every impending public protest planned in the past thirty years and that they have invariably fallen apart under examination appears to present no impediment to their repetition. The real danger at the G8 summit is not that the protests will turn violent — the appetite for that pretty well disappeared in September 2001 — but that they will be far too polite.

Let me be more precise. The danger is that we will follow the agenda set by Bono and Bob Geldof.