white british terrorists – media blackout so, anyone who reads the news will have seen headlines about a school teacher who wants to wear a veil, losing her job
bad muslim :groucho:
but check this out... white, right wingers have been getting ready for a massive terrorist attack here in britain, and the papers / media totally ignored it
Quote:
We’re only interested in the sort of terrorism that suits our paranoia, says matthew carr
last week when two men appeared separately in Burnley Magistrates' Court, charged under the 1883 Explosive Substances Act with possession of an explosive substance for an illegal purpose.
One of the accused was a BNP council candidate in last May's local elections in Colne, named Robert Cottage. In a raid on his house, police found what they called "the largest amount of chemical explosives of this type ever found in this country".
The other was a retired dentist named David Jackson, who was allegedly found in possession of a rocket launcher and a nuclear biological protection suit.
Both men were accused by the prosecution of common involvement in "some kind of masterplan". What this masterplan consisted of is not yet known. Nor has the identity of the 22 chemical compounds found by police been revealed.
But what is striking about their court appearance (they were remanded until October 23) is the failure of any mainstream newspaper or media outlet to report it at all.
It is not difficult to imagine what the response might have been had two Muslims been involved. There would have been banner headlines, police statements celebrating the prevention of another apocalyptic plot, suggestions of a wider conspiracy with nebulous 'linkages' to al-Qaeda. There would have been a collective shudder at another averted outrage, experts holding forth on the dangers of dirty bombs and homemade WMD. There would have been warnings of the ongoing threat to our 'values'. Above all, there would have been fear, all of it magnified by a credulous media, fed by inside information from nameless intelligence sources.
Instead there was total silence. In a week dominated by Muslim 'stories' in which veiled women and an unpleasant taxi driver constituted evidence of the alien, dangerous subculture in our midst, two white men accused of having explosives, a nuclear protection suit and a 'masterplan' fell outside the frame of the 'war on terror' and therefore did not get mentioned beyond local papers."
full story here: http://www.thefirstpost.co.uk/index.php?menuID=1&subID=815&p=2
David Cameron [yt]V6DQkYNzvF4[/yt]
David Cameron, the leader of the Conservative opposition in the UK introduces his new site
Did he do the washing up? Does he do the washing up?
If he's listening we'll get the next video online showing us the answer - that'd be amusing, but why has he turned that into the key question of the day?
Does he think his online audience aren't interested in what policies are emerging from his leadership? I'd have thought he'd get a pretty positive reception if he focused on his policies (Or as they're currently called: "Beliefs"):
Protecting our liberties, opposing ID cards, removing wasteful tiers of regional government, there's a little policy coming out there - why doesn't he have the guts to vlog about that - to inject some revolutionary spirit and to get some support for making taking this country out of the overtaxed big brother state its become in recent years.
From: http://www.webcameron.org.uk/ reposted here to see what people make of it!
rumsfeld sold nuclear technology to N Korea it's can hardly be a surprise to USA, UN etc that N Korea has nuclear capability...
Don Rumsfeld Bats Both Ways
By Chris Floyd
10/10/06 "ICH Information Clearing House " -- --
In February 2003, I wrote a column for the Moscow Times detailing Don Rumsfeld's personal – and profitable – connection with North Korea's nuclear program. Today Greg Saunders at This Modern World notes (from a Guardian story from May 2003), that the Bush Administration continued to shove money toward Rumsfeld's corporate cronies, allowing them to help accelerated North Korea's nuke push – even as the Dear Leader (theirs, not ours) was kicking out weapons inspectors and withdrawing from the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
What I wrote more than three years ago unfortunately still holds true today. The nuclear blast test that North Korea conducted this week is not only the result of the Bush Administration's incompetent and sinister diplomatic philosophy – which seems to consist solely of provoking unfriendly regimes into countermeasures which can then be used as excuses for war-profiteering "regime change" assaults – but also stems from the overwhelming lust for loot that lies behind the noble rhetoric of the third-rate goons of the Bush Gang.
Swing Blades
(Originally published in the Feb. 28, 2003 edition of The Moscow Times; the version here excerpted from the book, Empire Burlesque.)
It's a well-known fact – oft detailed in these pages – that the boys in the Bush Regime swing both ways. We speak, of course, of their proclivity – their apparently uncontrollable craving – for stuffing their trousers with loot from both sides of whatever war or military crisis is going at the moment.
That's why it came as no surprise to read last week that just before he joined the Regime's crusade against evildoers everywhere (especially rogue states that pursue the development of terrorist-ready weapons of mass destruction), Pentagon warlord Donald Rumsfeld was trousering the proceeds from a $200 million deal to send the latest nuclear technology – including plenty of terrorist-ready "dirty bomb" material – to the rogue state of North Korea, the Swiss paper Neue Zurcher Zeitung reports.
In 1998, Rumsfeld was citizen chairman of the Congressional Ballistic Missile Threat Commission, charged with reducing nuclear proliferation. Rumsfeld and the Republican-heavy commission came down hard on the deal Bill Clinton had brokered with North Korea to avert a war in 1994: Pyongyang would give up its nuclear weapons program in exchange for normalized relations with the United States, plus the construction of two non-weaponized nuclear plants to generate electricity. The plants were to be built by an international consortium of government-backed business interests called KEDO.
Rum deal, said Rummy: those nasty Northies would surely turn the peaceful nukes to nefarious ends. What's more, even the most innocuous nuclear plant generates mounds of radioactive waste that could be made into "dirty bombs" – hand-carried weapons capable of killing thousands of people. The agreement was big bad juju that threatened the whole world, Rumsfeld declared.
Of course, that didn't prevent him from trying to profit from it. Even while he was chairing commission meetings on the "dire threat" posed by the Korean program, Rumsfeld was junketing to Zurich for board meetings of the Swiss-based energy technology giant, ABB, where he was a top director. And what was ABB doing at the time? Why, negotiating that $200 million deal with North Korea to provide equipment and services for the KEDO nuclear reactors, of course!
Yes, nuclear proliferation is ugly stuff – but you might as well squeeze a few dollars from it, right? A smart guy always plays the angles – and, as the hero-worshiping American media never stop telling us, Rumsfeld is one smart guy.
In fact, he's so smart that he's now playing dumb. A Pentagon spokesman says Rumsfeld "can't recall" discussing the Korean deal at ABB board meetings. And his erstwhile ABB corporate colleagues say that it's possible the subject never came up. Of course it didn't; going into the nuclear business with a Communist tyranny that very nearly launched a nuclear war against the West just four years before, in a deal that involved high-level negotiations with the governments of the United States, South Korea, Japan and the European Union – that's certainly the kind of thing that would be handled by a couple of junior executives in a branch office somewhere. Nothing for the bigwigs – especially hard-wired government players like Rumsfeld – to trouble their pretty heads about. A perfectly reasonable explanation.
And so Rumsfeld joins the roster of Bush Regime boardroom honchos who once trumpeted their "business savvy" as selling points for their aspirations to national leadership but now claim to have been "hands-off" figureheads who had no idea what their companies were up to. Bush, in his sinkhole of insider trading and stockholder scamming at Harken; Cheney, making fat deals with Saddam Hussein (yes, after the Gulf War) and muddying up the corporate books at Halliburton; Army Secretary Thomas White, gaming the power grid and stealing millions for Enron in the manufactured California "energy crisis" – all of them went from mighty moguls to mere "front men" the instant their corruption was brought to light. None of it was their fault; nothing ever is.
Whatever happened to Bush's much-trumpeted "era of responsibility?" These guys are not only chiselers, hustlers, hypocrites and war profiteers – they're a bunch of gutless wonders as well. So you'll pardon us if we are just the tiniest bit cynical about the "moral arguments for war" and other such buckets of warm spit this gang is now forcing down the world's throat.
Postscript
And what became of that 1994 pact with North Korea? UN inspectors entered the country to make sure the weapons program was put on ice. Pyongyang signed a number of lucrative deals with various politically-connected Western firms, like ABB, to build the promised energy plants, while waiting for the normalization of relations with the United States to begin – a move which many thought would set North Korea on a course toward China-style "moderation" of its monolithic regime.
But normalization never came. Clinton, pressured by rightwing forces (such as Rumsfeld's commission) who opposed any truck whatsoever with godless commies, did his usual folding number, with much windy suspiration of forced breath – and no action. The KEDO companies pocketed Pyongyang's cash but dithered about the actual construction. Pyongyang – while not exactly a font of smiling cooperation itself – concluded that the pact was being deep-sixed. This suspicion was confirmed when Bush took office, calling Korean leader Kim Jong Il a "pygmy" and declaring the county part of the "Axis of Evil."
Pyongyang then accelerated its weapons program, kicked out the UN inspectors, and is now threatening to unleash a nuclear war if Bush, a la Iraq, makes a "pre-emptive strike."
A dicey situation, sure – but at least Don Rumsfeld made some money out of it.
Stop the War Coalition! STOP THE WAR COALITION
NEWSLETTER No. 2006/40
17 October 2006
Email office@stopwar.org.uk
Telephone 020 7278 6694
Web: www.stopwar.org.uk
N THIS NEWSLETTER:
1) DEMONISING MUSLIMS: AN OPEN LETTER
2) ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
3) WHERE HAVE ALL THE DOCTORS GONE?
THE COLLAPSE OF IRAQ'S HEALTH SERVICES
4) DID THE GENERAL SPEAK FOR US ALL?
5) STAYING UNTIL "THE JOB IS DONE"
6) A POSTER COMMEMORATING A REMARKABLE DAY
7) CRUCIAL VOTE ON UK-US EXTRADITION TREATY
8) JOIN THE FASLANE BLOCKADE
9) BRIZE NORTON DEMONSTRATION
****************************************
1) DEMONISING MUSLIMS: AN OPEN LETTER
There is an attempt to plunge this country into a racist hysteria of a kind we have not seen for a generation or more -- directed against Muslims.
Recent weeks have seen a series of speeches by leading politicians designed to isolate and demonise British Muslims. These have been reflected in spurious news stories and, still more seriously, violence directed against Muslim people and places of worship.
In particular, we deplore the recent remarks by Jack Straw concerning the veil worn in public by some Muslim women. His intervention undoubtedly created the climate in which the racist attack on a Muslim woman in Liverpool took place. Likewise, the bullying attacks of John Reid have served only to spread fear amongst Muslims.
We further condemn the attempted fire-bombing of a mosque in Windsor -- the latest in a number of such episodes nationwide -- and note the failure of many commentators and politicians to condemn this outrage.
We express our solidarity with all British people of the Muslim faith and affirm their right to worship and dress as they please and to live their lives in peace and security.
The current wave of Muslim-baiting is rooted above all in the disastrous 'war on terror', of which this government has been such a prominent supporter. This war has made Britain more vulnerable, not less, to terrorist attack -- an uncomfortable fact from which ministers try to distract by attacks on the Muslim community.
If the government is concerned about improving the cohesion of our communities, let it first of all abandon its support for the foreign policy of the US administration, including the occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan.
We call on all people of good-will to reject the anti-Muslim hatred being whipped up and to support the values of tolerance now under attack.
THIS OPEN LETTER CAN BE DOWNLOADED FOR PRINTING HERE: http://tinyurl.com/y2ctso
Collect signatures, including from local political, community, religious, trade union leaders etc. and return the letter to Stop the War Coalition.
****************************************
2) ISLAMOPHOBIA AND THE 'WAR ON TERROR'
Stop the War Coalition has called a People's Assembly in London on Saturday 18 November to discuss Islamophobia and the 'War on Terror'. The assembly will be open to all and will aim to bring together the broadest possible representation from all sections of society. We will discuss how the attacks on Muslims are intrinsically linked to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and how the anti-war movement can counter those attacks in its continuing campaign to end those wars.
PEOPLE'S ASSEMBLY
TOPIC: Islamophobia and the 'War on Terror'
DATE: Saturday 18 November
TIME: 10am - 5.30pm
VENUE: Camden Centre, Judd Street, London WC1H 9JE
Full details of the People's Assembly will be available soon on the Stop the War Coalition website: http://www.stopwar.org.uk. For a leaflet or more information, contact 020 7278 6694; email office@stopwar.org.uk
****************************************
3) WHERE HAVE ALL THE DOCTORS GONE?
THE COLLAPSE OF IRAQ'S HEALTH SERVICES
"An end to occupation is vital for the life-chances and health of the Iraqi people. Until this takes place, Iraq will remain a country of the dead, the dying and the despairing."
This is the conclusion of a report written by David Wilson for Stop the War Coalition, which shows how Iraq's health services, once by far the most advanced in the Middle East, have effectively collapsed under the US/British occupation. It is packed with essential information for everyone actively involved in the anti-war movement and for anyone who wants to understand the scale of death and destruction which the war crimes of George Bush and Tony Blair have inflicted on Iraq.
TO READ THE REPORT, NOW PUBLISHED BY COUNTERPUNCH, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/y7e4t9
****************************************
4) DID THE GENERAL SPEAK FOR US ALL?
Last week, in an unprecedented statement, General Sir Richard Dannatt, the head of the British armed forces seemed to speak for us all, when he said of the Iraq war: "We should get ourselves out sometime soon because our presence exacerbates the security problems. We are in a Muslim country and Muslims' views of foreigners in their country are quite clear. As a foreigner, you can be welcomed by being invited in a country, but we weren't invited certainly by those in Iraq at the time. The military campaign we fought in 2003 effectively kicked the door in."
Tony Blair claimed he agreed with every word of this, confirming his status as a serial liar, able to state the opposite of the truth without a hint of a blush.
But while the anti-war movement welcomes Dannatt's admission that the presence of foreign troops is the problem rather than the solution and that the British army should get out soon, his main purpose is to transfer the troops now in Iraq to Afghanistan, to fight another unwinnable war.
And Dannatt, a Christian fundamentalist, also holds hardline views on the "war on terror" views, as seen in his statement, "We can't wish the Islamist challenge to our society away and I believe that the Army, both in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably wherever we go next, is fighting the foreign dimension of the challenge to our accepted way of life." The hint of an attack on Iran being next on the agenda won't go unnoticed by the anti-war movement.
FOR MORE OF THE GENERAL'S COMMENTS, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/ss4r9
****************************************
5) STAYING UNTIL "THE JOB IS DONE"
When General Dannatt's said, "We should get ourselves out sometime soon", Tony Blair's response was all too predictable: "We will not walk away until the job is done."
A report published by The Lancet last week showed what "the job" has "done" so far. It estimated that 655,000 Iraqis have died as a result of the Iraq war and occupation, over one third of them killed by the bombs and bullets of the invading armies.
It's also worth noting how the Iraqi people experience "the job" today:
* The United Nations says that every day over 1000 Iraqis flee their homes and another 100 die a violent death;
* Eight million Iraqis live on less than one dollar per day, and 96 per cent of Iraq's 28 million people receive monthly basic food rations of rice, flour and cooking oil.
* More than 500,000 residents of Baghdad can only get water for a few hours a day;
* Iraq's power generation and supply grid is in a state of collapse, with households in Baghdad receiving on average only two to six hours of electricity per day;
* Law and order does not exist and Iraqis live in fear of death squads and kidnappers, which many suspect are the work of the police and government militias.
FOR THE FULL REPORT ON 655,000 DEATHS CAUSED BY WAR AND OCCUPATION, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/ueev7
FOR THE WASHINGTON POST SUMMARY OF THE REPORT, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/lu4jl
FOR LANCET EDITOR ROBERT HORTON'S COMMENTS, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/y6to22
****************************************
6) A POSTER COMMEMORATING A REMARKABLE DAY
If you were there, you'll know that it was a remarkable day which brought protestors from every corner of Britain to Manchester on the eve of the Labour Party conference. If you weren't there you can catch the flavour of the day from the reports, pictures and videos available on the Stop the War website: http://tinyurl.com/ycmcop.
A poster commemorating the demonstration has now been produced in a limited edition, using a picture taken by photographer Ray Smith, which makes a mockery of the initial police figure of 10,000 for the attendance. (They updated their estimate later in the day to 30,000.)
TO SEE THE PHOTO, GO TO: http://tinyurl.com/y4vyk7.
THE POSTER IS AVAILABLE PRICED £2 FROM THE STOP THE WAR OFFICE (020 7278 6694) OR ONLINE FROM GREATER MANCHESTER STOP THE WAR COALITION (http://tinyurl.com/y4k3hj).
****************************************
7) CRUCIAL VOTE ON UK-US EXTRADITION TREATY
As reported in our last newsletter, Babar Ahmad is a victim of Tony Blair's slavish support for George Bush's "war on terror". He faces extradition to the US on trumped up terrorism charges under New Labour's disgraceful treaty with the United States, which allows British citizens to be extradited to the US without the right to challenge the evidence against them in court.
The House of Commons will be voting on crucial amendments to the UK-US Extradition Treaty 2003 on Tuesday 24 October 2006. If the vote is won, this will directly affect cases of several British Citizens facing extradition to the United States, including that of Babar Ahmad.
The Free Barbar Ahmad Campaign is asking all its supporters to contact their MP by 4pm on Friday 20 October 2006 to make sure they clear their diaries to attend the vote. MPs from all parties need to be contacted, especially Labour MPs. For directions on how best to contact your MP by email and phone call, send an email to: freebabarahmad@yahoo.co.uk
FOR MORE INFORMATION SEE:
http://www.freebabarahmad.com
http://www.notoextradition.co.uk
****************************************
8) JOIN THE FASLANE BLOCKADE
Stop the War supporters around the country are planning to join our blockade of the Faslane nuclear base on 6-7 November. Our mobilisation is part of the Faslane 365 campaign, which aims to blockade the base for a whole year. If you would like to be part of the Stop the War protest in Faslane on those days, email office@stopwar.org.uk with your contact details or contact Daniela on 020 7278 6694 for further information.
****************************************
9) BRIZE NORTON DEMONSTRATION
A new leaflet is available giving full details of the national demonstration on 2 December at Brize Norton, Britain's biggest military base,which is the main transport base for sending troops and supplies in and out of Iraq and Afghanistan. In August this year it was used by US planes taking munitions to the Israeli Defense Force to bomb Lebanon.
TO DOWNLOAD THE LEAFLET, GO HERE: http://tinyurl.com/kp2u2
The demonstration is called by Bristol Stop the War Coalition; Oxford Stop the War Coalition; Oxford CND, Swindon Stop the War Coalition and CND; and Faringdon Peace Group. It is supported by the national Stop the War Coalition, CND and the Green Party.
Top judge slams "social dustbin" jails LONDON (Reuters) - Britain's prisons are often used as "social dustbins" for drug addicts and the mentally ill and are too crowded to give proper rehabilitation, the most senior judge in England and Wales said on Sunday.
"It is no answer to put more and more people in prison," the Lord Chief Justice, Lord Phillips, told the Observer.
Prison chiefs face an overcrowding crisis after the jail population reached nearly 80,000 this week, with only a few hundred spaces left for new inmates.
Longer sentences, high reconviction levels and more short jail terms have pushed the numbers to record highs.
More offenders should be given community-based punishments rather than jail terms, Lord Phillips said.
"It is madness to spend 37,000 pounds jailing someone when, by spending much less on services in the community, you can do as good a job," he said.
The Attorney General, Lord Goldsmith, said there was only a "very small number" of vulnerable people who end up in prison because there is no other suitable place for them.
"Prison needs to be there to protect the public against the most serious ... offenders," he told BBC News 24.
Lord Phillips donned jeans and a fluorescent jacket to work with offenders clearing rubbish and weeds from an underpass on a rundown housing estate near Milton Keynes to learn about community sentences.
His experience, which included "pretty foul work", highlighted how non-custodial punishments can benefit the community and offenders, he said.
"I like to think that I am a liberal, but that is not the same as being soft on crime. The idea that (using) alternatives to custody is being soft is wrong," he said.
His comments come after both main political parties used their annual conferences to stress their tough stance on crime.
Shadow Home Secretary David Davis attacked "soft sentencing" and said the Conservatives would jail violent offenders rather than give them a "slap on the wrist".
Home Secretary John Reid accused the Tories of "talking tough, voting soft" on crime and said the public welcomed Labour's tougher sentences for murder, violent offences and dangerous driving".
However, packing more people into prison can lead to disorder and makes it hard to rehabilitate offenders, Lord Phillips said.
"Emergency measures of keeping prisoners in police cells are highly undesirable," he added.
Another option for freeing up space would be to transfer foreign inmates to their home country to serve their sentence.
A disused army barracks near Dover in Kent is due to be reopened as an open prison to help ease overcrowding.
Reid has accepted that moving inmates to open jails could lead to more criminals, according to a confidential note from a prison governor published in the Sunday Times.
The Prison Reform Trust charity this week urged the government to "stop using prisons as asylums" and said drug addicts should be treated in the community.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=domesticNews&storyID=2006-10-08T105804Z_01_L0889933_RTRUKOC_0_UK-BRITAIN-PRISONS.xml&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1
UK : Truth about horse racing.. Ever wondered what happens to all the nags at Newmarket after they have got too old?
Shocking stuff really, I am so glad I don't bet...
I've got nothing whatsoever against normal equestrianism (other than it being a hard word to spell) but horse-racing seems like exploitation at every corner; living creatures being ragged into horsemeat to make fat rich people fatter and richer; whilst idealistic youths are also exploited and paid a pittance to look after the horses or ride them (I did wonder once about becoming a jockey when I was younger - I'm the right height for it (i.e short...) )
The slaughtered horses that shame our racing
An undercover Observer investigation has revealed the shocking fate of thousands of British racehorses. Now campaigners want new laws to govern the sport
Antony Barnett
Sunday October 1, 2006
The Observer
It is known as 'the sport of kings', full of glamour, effort and thrilling competition. But few of the thoroughbred racehorses that gallop their elegant way around the racecourses of Britain every week are left to see out their days grazing in golden pastures.
For thousands of British thoroughbreds that are too old, too slow or not good enough jumpers, the end is brutal: a bullet through the temple or a metal bolt into the side of the brain. Then their carcasses are loaded on to freezer lorries and driven to France, where their flesh is sold as gourmet meat.
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,,1884945,00.html
Dispatches: The Killing Zone [Palestine] [yt]8DTBVNTt3Ic[/yt]
British report on Israeli violence in Gaza against not only Palestinian civilians, but international aid volunteers and foreign reporters as well...
Gadget makers fear new copyright levies hurt sales By Lucas van Grinsven, European Technology Correspondent
AMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Electronics manufacturers railed against a European tax on recordable discs and music players like iPods on Friday, even as a Dutch industry group was getting ready to impose new local levies on recordable media.
Top executives of Nokia (NOK1V.HE: ) and Philips Electronics (PHG.AS: ) in an open letter published on Friday said that the tax on blank media, designed to compensate artists for private copying, was out of date and that many consumers were already paying twice as they purchase digital content legally on the Internet and subsequently store it on a recordable compact disc.
Nokia Multimedia chief Anssi Vanjoki, Philips Consumer Electronics head Rudy Provoost and others urged the European Commission to reform the "antiquated system of rough justice" as the law comes up for evaluation this year.
Also on Friday, electronics producers in the Netherlands said they were at stalemate in talks with the entertainment industry and that the chairman of their joint industry group SONT is ready to set levies for new devices in the country.
These would mean an mp3 player like an Apple (AAPL.O: ) iPod would cost 25 euros ($32) more and a hard disk TV recorder 80 euros, the electronics industry's lawyer, Dirk Visser, said.
"This will lead to double or triple taxation. Soon, a consumer will pay rights to the artists when he buys on iTunes, then again when he buys a blank disc and undoubtedly it will be extended to mobile phones which can also store music," he said.
SONT Chairman Henk Vonhoff was not immediately available to comment, but a representative for the Dutch entertainment industry said that no decision had yet been taken to implement new levies for new devices such as iPods.
"The chairman has to execute the law (which says that blank media need to be taxed), but whether the levy will be one or 100 euros still needs to be discussed," said Paul Solleveld of Dutch entertainment industry organization NVPI.
The 1.2 billion euros charged in EU-directed copyright levies on digital media and equipment in 2005 actually cost the community an extra 2.1 billion euros in missed sales, according to a study from the Copyright Levies Reform Alliance (CLRA).
EU states where it is imposed -- some countries such as Britain have no levy on blank discs -- are expected to collect 1.57 billion euros this year and 2.12 billion in 2009.
If disputed, additional local levies in the Netherlands, Austria, Germany and Spain were introduced, the amount collected would rise to 4.67 billion euros in 2009, according to the CLRA.
Meanwhile, distribution of the money in the Netherlands among artists has led to huge delays and complaints, and an investigation ordered by the Justice Ministry was full of criticism of the system in its report in December 2005.
The levy itself dates back to the 1960s, when it was introduced on blank tapes to compensate performers for private copying of copyrighted music.
The European Commission will publish its views by the year end, but could meet resistance to change from individual states as a third of the money raised goes to government coffers to promote cultural activities.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=technologyNews&storyID=2006-10-06T160618Z_01_L0687467_RTRIDST_0_TECH-COPYRIGHT-TAX-DC.XML&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1
USA, guns and school 4 school kids, 1 teacher and 2 gun wielding maniacs shot dead in 3 schools in the USA in the last week
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/5400570.stm
what is going on?
any US members fill us in?
Conservatives vote Jamie Oliver a hero BOURNEMOUTH (Reuters) - Conservative Party delegates on Wednesday overwhelmingly backed a motion calling Jamie Oliver a national hero as gaffe-prone politician Boris Johnson fumbled his way out of a spat with the celebrity chef.
The light-hearted debate came a day after flamboyant Tory MP Johnson suggested the chef had overstepped the mark in his campaign for healthy school dinners and backed parents who were "pushing pies through railings".
A characteristically exuberant Johnson, expressing bemusement at the media storm caused by his earlier comments, called Oliver a "messiah".
[URL="javascript:commonPopup('/news/newsPhotoPresentation.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&imageID=2006-10-04T141519Z_01_NOOTR_RTRIDSP_0_OUKOE-UK-BRITAIN-CONSERVATIVES-OLIVER.XML', 560, 535, 1)"]
[/URL]
"I salute him," he told delegates on the last day of the annual Tory conference in Bournemouth.
Trying to clarify his remarks, the Conservative higher education spokesman added: "I may have made some references to the importance of eating pies."
Johnson is no stranger to rows over his politically incorrect comments. Oliver is only the latest in a string of individuals, cities, nationalities and nations to be insulted by Johnson in one of his frequent off-the-cuff remarks.
He was forced to apologise personally to the people of Liverpool after accusing them of wallowing in grief and he once suggested cannibalism was rife in Papua New Guinea.
Johnson, brushing his messy blonde hair from his eyes, tried on Wednesday to clear up any misunderstanding about Oliver.
Seventy-seven percent of delegates supported elevating Oliver to hero status after a debate that ranged from serious warnings on eating disorders to jokes about Johnson's weight.
Johnson called himself "fat" before again walking the fine line of political correctness by saying: "You get into terrible trouble if you say fatso."
One day earlier, Johnson was mobbed by scores of journalists and camera crews, hungry for headlines on a quiet news day.
Johnson, dubbed eccentric by some of his Tory colleagues, reportedly told a fringe meeting on Tuesday he would get rid of Oliver and allow children to eat what they like, while banning sweets in schools.
He backed parents in Yorkshire who pushed pies through school fences to pupils in protest at low-fat, healthy meals.
http://today.reuters.co.uk/news/articlenews.aspx?type=oddlyEnoughNews&storyID=2006-10-04T134510Z_01_L04556304_RTRIDST_0_OUKOE-UK-BRITAIN-CONSERVATIVES-OLIVER.XML&pageNumber=1&imageid=&cap=&sz=13&WTModLoc=NewsArt-C1-ArticlePage1
Flags of fathers http://www.ifilm.com/ifilmdetail/2775054
February 1945. Even as victory in Europe was finally within reach, the war in the Pacific raged on. One of the most crucial and bloodiest battles of the war was the struggle for the island of Iwo Jima, which culminated with what would become one of the most iconic images in history: five Marines and a Navy corpsman raising the American flag on Mount Suribachi.
Noam Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine" Noam Chomsky: U.S.-Backed Israeli Policies Pursuing "End of Palestine"; Hezbollah Capture of Israeli Soldiers "Very Irresponsible Act" That Could Lead To "Extreme Disaster"
Watch: http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/july/video/dnB20060714a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=12:45
Israel has intensified its attacks on Lebanon as warplanes launched fresh strikes on Beirut airport, communication networks, Lebanese roads and a power plant. Meanwhile, the US has vetoed a UN Security Council Resolution condemning Israel's attack on the Gaza Strip. MIT professor Noam Chomsky says the US and Israel are punishing Palestinians for electing Hamas, and says Hezbollah's capture of Israeli soldiers subjects Lebanese "to terror and possible extreme disaster" from Israeli strikes. We also get comments from Middle East analyst Mouin Rabbani in Jerusalem.
http://www.democracynow.org
Robert Fisk Reports on the Israeli Bombing of Qana Robert Fisk Reports From Lebanon on the Israeli Bombing of Qana That Killed 57, Including 37 Children
Watch: http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/2006/july/video/dnB20060731a.rm&proto=rtsp&start=
Lebanon is marking a national day of mourning, a day after Israeli warplanes bombed the village of Qana killing 57. Israel has announced it will halt air strikes for 48 hours in Southern Lebanon, but its ground troops continue to fight. Robert Fisk was in the nearby city of Tyre, where many of the victims were taken following the attack. He joins us from his home in Beirut.
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