Happy News Year from Mediachannel.org

NEW YEAR/OLD NEWS
WAR ON IRAN?
HOLLYWOOD ON THE BRINK

On the first day of the new year, all the news was old again. I am trying hard to relax but the news gnaws at me. As one hears on the Sopranos, “just when you are out, they keep pulling you back in.”

Or something like that:

Here’s President Bush also unable to sit still on his vacation, driven to put his puss back on the tube, visiting wounded soldiers, pumping the war and defending his right to spy on whoever he wants.

(AP)President Bush strongly defended his domestic spying program on Sunday, calling it legal as well as vital to thwarting terrorist attacks, and contended the leak making it public had caused “great harm to the nation.” “This is a limited program designed to prevent attacks on the United States of America and, I repeat, limited,” Bush told reporters after visiting wounded troops at Brooke Army Medical Center. “I think most Americans understand the need to find out what the enemy’s thinking.”

Is that why a gay group at NYU came under surveillance? Never mind. For an analysis of the Bush Family role in all this, see James Ridegway’s most recent piece in the Village Voice:

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/123105A.shtml

OPEN LETTER TO BUSH FROM IRAQI

Indy journalist Dahr Jamail publishes an open letter from an Iraqi he knows to the President.

”I want to ask Mr. Bush…do you think that Iran is a democratic country? With freedom and liberty? Do you?

‘If your answer is yes, then we can understand what is going in our country.

‘But if your answer is no, then let me ask you again…are you insane? (pardon me)

‘Because now you have let those people and their followers have the power and drag us 100’s of years backwards.

‘Do you know, Mr. Bush, that Shia students in Iraqi Universities are
making these mass self-punishments: weeping and crying marches on the university campus instead of doing useful research? Are you happy with this Mr. Bush? Well, we are not.

‘I am not against the Shia, as they are my friends and my neighbors. But am against this retarded ideology brought to this 21st century fromages back and supported by the head fundamental Islamists who want people to continue following them for good.

‘The very same who want to cut the body of Iraq into pieces so that they can rule their way, or should I say the Iranian way? It’s the same.”

US AIRSTRIKES ESCALATE IN IRAQ

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/printFriendly/0,,1-524-1965182-524,00.html_

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT

The Washington Post reports today: “U.S. Has End in Sight on Iraq Rebuilding”

BAGHDAD — “The Bush administration does not intend to seek any new funds for Iraq reconstruction in the budget request going before Congress in February, officials say. The decision signals the winding down of an $18.4 billion U.S. rebuilding effort in which roughly half of the money was eaten away…”

WAR ON IRAN?

That was discussed on CNN Sunday morning as former Defense Secretary William Cohen more or less justified President Bush’s “all options are on the table” posture vis-a-vis Iran. That includes violence although the Clinton era Pentagon chief says he prefers diplomacy.

…In Israel, members of the right wing Likud party are calling for a pre-emptive bombing strike against Iran’s nuclear facilities “before it is too late.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3193102,00.html

Counterpunch.org takes this threat seriously with a piece, “Let’s Stop a US/Israeli War on Iran.” It is written by two former CIA analysts:

Excerpt:

“Nothing else more dangerous to the world, to the Middle East, to the oppressed Palestinians, or to the true interests of the United States is happening today – anywhere .Americans who do not want an eruption of a new world war, started by our own government, ought to be strongly lobbying the Bush administration and all members of Congress against supporting any military action by the U.S. and Israel against Iran. Globally, people who oppose such a war should be lobbying their own governments in similar fashion.”

http://www.counterpunch.org/christison12292005.html

Mike Whitney argues a war, if it occurs, is being motivated by a conflict over currencies:

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m19060&1=i&size=1&hd=0

BLOGOSTAN

And speaking of Iran, the country is not just mullahs and mad men. Did you know that Bloggers there call their country “blogostan” because of their popularlity and proliferation.

Ben McIntyre writes in the Times of London:

” In 1999, there were some 50 bloggers on the web; in January there were about 5.4 million; today, according to the blog search engine Technorati, there are more than 23 million.

“There are reasons why Iran should be especially fertile ground for blogging. More than 90 per cent of the country is literate, and 70 per cent of the country’s citizens are under 30. Computer ownership is relatively high and internet cafs abound. The first Iranian blog was born in November 2001, when Hossein Derakhshan, an Iranian journalist, posted instructions on how to build a simple weblog in under ten minutes. As Nasrin Alavi (a pseudonym) demonstrates in her new book, We Are Iran: the Persian Blogs, these diary sites cover the gamut: angry, sad, humorous and brave. Like all blogs they can also be self-indulgent, inaccurate, inarticulate and boring. Internet usage is growing faster in Iran than anywhere in the Muslim Middle East, and there are now more blogs in Farsi than in German, Italian, Spanish, Russian or Chinese…”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,1068-1957461,00.html

ITALIAN HOSTAGES FREED/HAITI NEW HOSTAGE CAPITOL

In Italy, BBC tell us Italians were rejoicing:

”Italians rejoiced Sunday with the news that kidnappers released three Italian women in Yemen and an Italian man was freed in Gaza after Palestinian security forces stormed the building where he was being held.

While most of the world expects kidnappings in place like Iraq and Palestine to challenge westerners, an epidemic of hijackings have erupted closer to home in Haiti where elections have once again been postponed and gangs use kidnappings to raise revenues. Here’s a disturbing story about what’s happening in post Aristide Haiti:

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/nyh-day1,0,5800716.story?coll=ny-homepage-bigpix2005

THE LATEST ON VOTING IRREGULARITIES IN OHIO

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=364&topic_id=1297&mesg_id=1297

NEWSPAPER STRIKE IN CHINA—A FIRST

The Media Guardian reports:

”Staff at one of China’s most outspoken newspapers have gone on strikefollowing the removal of their authority-baiting editor-in-chief Yang Bin. The protest at the Beijing News, a tabloid known for its forthrightcoverage of official corruption, is the first time in recent years thatmedia workers have reacted so strongly to the political sacking of a senior editor….

The newspaper is officially denying that any protests are taking place.”

http://media.guardian.co.uk/site/story/0,14173,1675845,00.html - Media Guardian