ANOTHER EARHQUAKE TERRIFIES ASIA
ALL THE SCHIAVO ALL THE TIME
SUPREMES HEAR INTERNET CASE TODAY

(Partially posted last night)

Oh no, not again.

Just as the UN announced that it was pulling out of Aceh, just as it was announced that at least four BILLION dollars in aid money pledged by governments for tsunami victims has not been received, there was a shock wave of fear throughout Southwest Asia as another quake struck, this time on island of Nias off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia.

It didn’t take long for people throughout the region to assume the worse and race for cover as fears of a new tsunami spread, prematurely it appears, but we don’t know about the aftershocks. There were three hundred dead last night when I began writing. That death toll remained this morning as the BBC provided the best TV coverage with pictures fron Nias and commentary from UN officials in Indonesia who brough viewers up to date on the relief effort. CNN had an update from a journalist based in India, quite a distance away. Fox meanwhile was bashing Michael Schiavo before it moved on to Michael Jackson. So much for the world.

Having been to Indonesia, I thought immediately of people I met and the relief workers of the United In Diversity organization of Indonesia that I knew were in the area. I didn’t know how close. My friend Cherie Nursalim writes:

“The earthquake hit primarily the Nias Island where we have our DCAB team working on a major reconstruction effort of an entire village. Some of the team’s families who are Nias natives are still uncontactable….There’s feedback of major destruction including onhigher grounds and the collapse of the main church.We pray for the strength and safety of our brave team and families and all especially on Nias island.

I hope we all join that prayer. Sometime it is the accounts of the people there, the citizen journalists, who move us most. The BBC reached out for comments.

BBC reported “Thousands of people in Malaysia, Thailand, India and Sri Lanka fled to higher ground, but were later told that it was safe to return home.”

THE REGION RESPONDS

BBC asked its viewers and listeners: “Have you been affected by the latest quake? Send us your comments and a contact number if available.

Here are some of the comments:

“Last night’s quake was less powerful than the one in December. Nevertheless, we run out of our building, that is located by the beach (since the area was affected by the December tsunami). We slept at friends house far away from the costal area.
–Enrico Magosso (Italian expat), Penang -Malaysia

“We felt the tremor here in Singapore. At 12:15am just as we were getting ready to go to bed, the room (we are on the 14th floor) started to sway. The curtains were moving from side to side - a sure sign of a tremor. It lasted for about 2 mins with a strong tremor, a few minor tremors, another strong tremor and finally some smaller tremors. It was worrying, but not frightening.
–John, Singapore

“I was chatting online when my chair shook. I just stared at my chair for 2 seconds, and looked back at the computer screen. I thought i was having some dizzy spells. But no, the chair shook again. For a moment, i thought there were ghosts! That was the first time I experienced tremors. I called out to my housemate to ask if she felt the same thing too and she said she did. A quick check around with my friends who were online at the time confirmed that tremors weref elt throughout the western coast of the country.
–Minnie, PJ, Malaysia

“I was kissing my little daughter goodnight when I felt the bed moving. Thinking intially it was my own movements causing the bed to shake, I brushed it off as nothing. I began to panic soon after when the bed started swaying as if it were a boat lost at sea. My husband came in and asked if I felt the house moving. I turned to him in horror because I could already see the scenes of Dec 26 disaster in my head flashing like crazy. I grabbed my baby and ran downstairs while my husband hailed for his parents to open the bedroom door. The ceiling fan, the wind chimes, the door grills were swaying and rattling as if in chorus. As we stood in the lawn I whispered prayers into my baby’s ears. Please God, spare us a disaster… my princess has a whole life ahead of her. Learning that the tremors finally calmed down, my thoughts are with those nearer to the epicenter - let this not be another Dec 26 for them.
–Shazlin Amir Hamzah, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia

The population living on the coast has started moving inland. Some are sleeping in their cars, others are going to sleep at friends’ or relatives’ inland. Hotels are considering evacuating.
–S Goburdhun, Mauritius

Much the same as before - total chaos, people fleeing the bars as it was 1 am when we first heard, confusion to what it was about, some thought bomb scare, but soon realized tsunami, many fled to the hill tops, but some stayed put, five bars open in Banglar Road, everybody else closed, business owners are already saying the damage has already been done, even without the tsunami.
–J Vivash, Patong Beach, Thailand (UK expat)

This proves that the first one wasn’t an isolated incident and the region is prone to tectonic shifts. Governments concerned need to step up their measures for early warnings systems throughout the region.
–Mahen, UK

BUSH CLIQUE SCHEMES ON IRAQ PULLOUT

Robert Novak, one of the White House’s favorite leakees writes in the Chicago Sun Times:

“Determination high in the Bush administration to begin irreversible withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq this year is reinforced by the presence at the State Department of the most dominant secretary since Henry Kissinger three decades ago. Condoleezza Rice is expected to support administration officials who want to leave even if what is left behind does not constitute perfection.

“Amid the presidential campaign’s furious debate over Iraq, I reported last Sept. 20 (”Quick exit from Iraq is likely”) about strong feeling in the policymaking apparatus to get out of Iraq in 2005 even if democracy and peace had not been achieved there. My column evoked widespread expressions of disbelief, but changes over the last six months have only strengthened the view of my Bush administration sources that the escape from Iraq should begin once a permanent government is in place in Baghdad.

I bet you don’t that there is a Communist Party in Iraq that says it ismaking acome back . When the US and its allies first put Saddam Hussein in power, he massacred the Communist first. Egypt’s Al Haram interviewded Hamid Majid Moussa, leader of the Iraqi Communist Party

Q: The Iraqi Communist Party (ICP), also known as the People’s Union, won two seats in the interim National Assembly. Do you see a future for the ICP in Iraq?

Of course the ICP has a future. No party would keep going on if it doesn’t believe it has a future. Whatcollapsed was not communism, but regimes that had distorted communism by deviating from the basic principles of communist thinking: chiefly, humanism, democracy and social justice. Those regimes turned socialism into bureaucratic and authoritative practice. They acted as if they were superior to the people, refused to listen to the people, concentrated power in the hands of one or a few individuals, and disregarded intellectual creativity and collective opinion, thereby providing the reasons for their own demise.

“In Iraq, I believe that our party has a very wide base. This is why the ICP has been able to endure all the blows of repressive apparatuses and all the crime committed against it during the 71 years of the party’s past. At certain periods, when the political climate was right, the ICP was the largest political force in the country. When it was subject to genocide, through the execution and murder of its leaders and members, and when its members were exiled or forced to flee the country, the party was weakened. Some traces of weakness are still with us. But at the moment we are rebuilding the ICP, with the benefit of our own experience and of international experiences.”

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/734/re8.htm

US FUNDED TV STATION IN IRAQ ENCOURAGES TERROR

Doug Ireland Reports in his Direland blog:

Tonight’s evening vignews broadcast on French public television carried an account of “Terror in the Hands of Justice,” a series that is running twice a day on Al Iraqiya, the state-controlled television financed by the U.S., and operated under a contract to a major Republican party contributor. This is one of the most appalling TV shows one could possibly imagine, for it blatantly encourages lynch-mob justice and individual acts of revenge against alleged “terrorists” — who are presented as such without benefit of any trial or judicial proceeding. The alleged “terrorists” are shown on this Iraqi TV show in videotapes mouthing “confessions”– but the provenance of those tapes is never specified. One does not know whether torture has been used to extract the “confessions” or not — certainly some of those making the alleged admissions bore clearly visible traces of physical violence on their faces in the extracts broadcast by France2.

“One of the most hate-inducing aspects of this TV series: the confrontations between alleged victims of the “terrorists” or their families, and those who are supposed to have committed the crimes against them. The alleged victims cry for vengeance– “Do with him what you will, kill him, crush him,” cries one hysterical woman into the camera. This highly manipulative (and manipulated)TV series is intended to whip up a lynch-mob mentality among viewers–and it does so to great effect.

http://direland.typepad.com/direland/2005/03/lynchmob_justic.html

US JOURNALISTS ARE GOING, GOING…..

There are fewer journalists now in Iraq than at any point since the invasion. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post recently spoke with ex-CBS correspondent Tom Fenton author of “Bad News,” a blast at TV news:

KURTZ: Now, turning to your book, there is almost daily coverage right now, or nightly coverage of what’s going on in Iraq. Doesn’t that undercut somewhat your message that the networks are drastically cutting back on their coverage of the rest of the world?

“FENTON: Good lord, no. I mean, first of all, the Iraq story you could say is a domestic story, it’s hardly even a foreign story. Secondly, it is so thin, so one-sided. There are four, five, six, or seven sides to the story in Iraq. Do we know what’s going on up in the Kurdish north, for example? There are really important things happening that may affect the stability of Iraq in the future. There are all kinds of things happening. We see one small part of one small part of the story. And on most nights on the television networks — the book is about the media in general, but with a focus on the networks — in most cases, you just get one story a night, you’re not hearing about all the rest.

Another news insider is speaking out on Buzzflash,,com. Bonnie M. Anderson won 7 Emmy Awards and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize during her career as a print and broadcast journalist. Now the author of Newsflash: Journalism, Infotainment, and the Bottom-Line Business of Broadcast News shares an insider’s view of decision-making inside America’s network news divisions. She laments sloppy journalism and the networks’ regrettable decision to showcase high-cost celebrity news readers and “infotainment” stories instead of hard news.

CORRUPTION IN IRAQ

Canada’s National Post reports: “Iraq’s emerging independent media is increasingly being undermined and corrupted by the country’s political and religious partisans, warns the head of a Canadian training mission for Iraqi journalists.”

MSNBC reports: “Watchdogs are warning that corruption in Iraq is out of control. But will the United States join efforts to clamp down on it?”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7306162/site/newsweek&&CM=EmailThis&CE=1

It’s the oil, stupid.

“Washington doesn’t yet get it, but in the Gulf region the view is crystal-clear, finds Paul Rogers: the geopolitics of oil is driving United States military strategy in Iraq.”

http://opendemocracy.net/themes/article-2-2393.jsp

WHY DEMOCRATS ARE SILENT

Matt Taibbi of New York Press writes “With the majority of the public against the war, Democrats have the perfect opportunity to differentiate themselves so why are they embracing Reaganomics and pre-emptive war?”

http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/21608/