Check out the Audioblog for Danny Schechter’s latest rant: “Making Media Matter”

RELIEF FOR QUAKE VICTIMS UNDERWAY
CHOMSKY ON IRAQ ELECTIONS
FREELANCERS WIN LEGAL VERDICT

The presence of so many aid workers in the region means that Indonesia’s urgent post-quake needs can be addressed far more quickly this time around. Yesterday morning, the death toll was at 300. Last night, it was said to be 1,000. BBC was reporting: “Indonesia aid effort gathers pace.” (BBC World led with the story this morning again, while CNN was back one more time, like dog with bone, on the Schiavo story, featuring a new legal appeal in Atlanta, which happens to be CNN’s home base.)

Here’s BBC:

“A major aid effort is gathering pace in Indonesia after an earthquake that is estimated to have killed at least 1,000 people on an island off Sumatra.

“UN assessment teams have arrived on the island of Nias, finding large numbers of dead and injured in the main town. Bodies are still being pulled from the rubble, roads and electricity supplies are badly affected, and many people are without clean drinking water.

“The UN disaster people say: ‘Fortunately, the tsunami did not occur although warnings were disseminated both through formal and informal channels and most coastal zones effectively evacuated.’ Continues Salvano Briceño, Director of the secretariat for the International Strategy for Disaster Reduction, ‘This highlights again that high levels of awareness and well prepared communities are crucial for an effective response when natural hazards occur.’”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/4392441.stm

Last night, PBS carried a NOVA report on the December tsunami, showing how unprepared the region was and how inadequate the warnings were. It was informative but it did not go far enough in assessing who knew what and when, and why recommendations were never put in place for a warning system in the Indian Ocean like the one in Hawaii.

SEETHING QUESTIONS

There is a debate going on about all this that has yet to reach the mainstream media. Example: a website called ViewsUnplugged.com carries articles suggesting there was a cover-up: “As it stands, the most sophisticated monitoring equipment is the Pacific warning system and only that equipment could really have estimated the size and direction of the waves. So it makes sense to ask why this sophisticated network simply didn’t prevent the biggest natural disaster of the century.”

Lila Rajiva writes on ViewsUnplugged:

“Questions are still seething about the Sumatra earthquake and tsunami. I’ll avoid the ones about what set off the quake, although speculation is rife about nuclear, and more controversially, electromagnetic technology, some of it referencing a remark by then-defense Secretary William Cohen that admits to ongoing research in environmental weaponry (DOD briefing, Monday, April 28, 1997 at the University of Georgia).

“I’ll skip the other set of questions too about why the aid effort seems to be highly politicized and militarized or what long-term strategy may be served by the penetration of South Asia by spy satellites and soldiers when some of the countries there are battling insurgencies and others are making economic changes crucial to the world financial markets. The truth is, under Secretary Rumsfeld’s watch, civilian and military functions have become so melded together that it’s likely military involvement is unavoidable in the humanitarian efforts.

“As for what the governments in the Asian countries did wrong, so far it’s not clear what kind of warnings they received and when, what types of seismic detectors they had, and whether those were sufficient to predict tsunamis…”

“I’ll start with the troubling inconsistencies in the statements that have come out of the scientists and bureaucrats involved. Most important of these is NOAA. That’s the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, headquartered in Silver Spring, Maryland, under the U.S. Dept of Commerce… The International Center was established by UNESCO and according to its website, ‘it maintains and develops relationships with scientific research and academic organizations, civil defense agencies, and the general public in order to carry out its mission to mitigate the hazards associated with tsunamis by improving tsunami preparedness for all Pacific Ocean nations.’ To repeat - their mandate is to extend warnings to ALL Pacific Ocean countries. Their 26 member countries include Indonesia and Thailand, as well as China, the Russian Federation, United States of America, Australia and others, but not India and Sri Lanka…”

IRAQ: JOURNALISTS ORDERED OUT OF PARLIAMENT

Information Clearing House carried these two items:

Prime Minister Iyad Allawi walked out of a meeting of Iraq’s parliament on Tuesday after angry scenes erupted, with assembly members berating Shiite and Kurdish leaders for failing to agree on a government. The speaker of parliament ordered journalists to leave and declared the meeting would be held in secret.

US admits killing Arab journalists in Iraq:

The US military has acknowledged it was responsible for killing two journalists working for Dubai-based satellite channel al-Arabiya who were shot close to a checkpoint in the Iraqi capital earlier this month.

For pictures of wounded US soldiers:
http://www.truthout.org/imgs.art_01/injuredgallery/032805injured.htm

CHOMSKY AND BUSH AGREE: IRAQ ELECTIONS SUCCESSFUL

BUT:
Noam Chomsky on ZNET:

“Actually, I agree that the elections were a success … of opposition to the United States. What is being suppressed - except for Middle East specialists, who know about it perfectly well and are writing about it,or people who in fact have read the newspapers in the last couple of years - what’s being suppressed is the fact that the United States had to be brought kicking and screaming into accepting elections.

“The U.S.was strongly opposed to them. I wrote about the early stages of this in a book that came out a year ago, which only discussed the early stages of U.S. opposition. But it increased. The U.S. wanted to write a constitution, it wanted to impose some kind of caucus system that the U.S. could control, and it tried to impose extremely harsh neo-liberal rules, like you mentioned, which even Iraqi businessmen were strongly opposed to.

“But there has been a very powerful nonviolent resistance in Iraq - far more significant than suicide bombers and so on. And it simply compelled the United States step by step to back down. That’s the popular movement of nonviolent resistance that was symbolized by Ayatollah Sistani, but it’s far broader than that. The population simply would not accept the rules that the occupation authorities were imposing, and finally Washington was compelled, very reluctantly, to accept elections.”

http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=11&ItemID=7548

US ROLE IN GOVERNMENT OVERTHROW

Today’s NY Times reports:

“BISHKEK, Kyrgyzstan - Shortly before Kyrgyzstan’s recent parliamentary elections, an opposition newspaper ran photographs of a palatial home under construction for the country’s deeply unpopular president, Askar Akayev, helping set off widespread outrage and a popular revolt in this poor Central Asian country.

“The newspaper was the recipient of United States government grants and was printed on an American government-financed printing press operated by Freedom House, an American organization that describes itself as ‘a clear voice for democracy and freedom around the world…’”

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/30/international/asia/30kyrgyzstan.html