EXCLUSIVE: JESSE JACKSON INVITED TO PAKISTAN
GOLDMANSACHS WARNS OF “SEVERE RECESSION” AS XMAS SEASON BEGINS
UNIONS WORLDWIDE IN SOLIDARITY WITH STRIKING AMERICAN WRITERS

I was talking on the phone yesterday with Jesse Jackson who is touring in India. He told me that he has spoken with Benazir Bhutto in neighboring Pakistan who invited him to visit and also talk with President Musharraf.

“I will go,” he said, “if Musharraf lets me in.” He says he wants to help with the release of prisoners. Jackson has played that role in the past in Iraq, Lebanon, and I think, Libya.

This is a local press statement:

Islamabad November 17, 2007: Reverend Jessie Jackson today telephoned Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto and conveyed his support for the efforts aimed at restoration of democracy in Pakistan and to her struggle for the holding of free and fair elections in the country.

Reverend Jessie Jackson a distinguished leader of the Democratic Party known for his outstanding humanitarian efforts in Syria Cuba Yugoslavia and Liberia.

He is known the world over for supporting democracy movement in South Africa when Mr Nelson Mandela was fighting apartheid.

The former Prime Minister appreciated his services for the cause of democracy and human rights throughout the world and thanked him for his support to the struggle for democracy in Pakistan.

JESSE IN THE LEAD ON FORECLOSURE FIGHTBACK

I was on The Reverend’s national radio show again on Sunday to update the debt crisis that I have been following in detail. (I also talked about my new book, now on line. It is called SQUEEZED published by Coldtype.Net Write to me for a copy. I am using it to try to raise some money for the Global Center’s not for profit financial awareness education project. The Global Center is at 575 8th Avenue #2200, New York, New York)

The US spook/official/operative John Negroponte was in Pakistan hammering Musharaff to end emergency rule and get back “on track” (to use a Bushism.). So far, he has said he will take off his pretty uniform and hold elections in January but has been pretty vague about detail. Benazir Bhutto has continued to slam him. Meanwhile the NY Times reports that the Washington has quietly insured that no one can get access to the country’s nuclear weapons, probably as a result of some secret understanding/covert operation.

If General Mush bends over to the US too much, he will incite the very opposition he wants to control. On the other hand, you have Bush who has befriened the Strongman General being criticized for being “soft on Pakistan” so they want to bring him in line. (This assumes Washington was not behind the state of emergency in the first place which of course is possible.)

The Dawn newspaper reports that so far the Pakistani President appearing not to buckle.

Dawn: Emergency to stay, US told

ISLAMABAD, Nov 17: President Gen Pervez Musharraf told US Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte on Saturday that emergency rule was needed for a peaceful conduct of elections, refusing to set a date for lifting it….Perhaps as payback: The United States does not seem to be willing to sign a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Pakistan and has set harsh conditions to conclude the much-awaited Bilateral Investment Treaty (BIT), said a senior government official….

AP: Ignores the economic angle which could have pissed off the Pakistanis and quotes one official there this way”

“This is nothing new,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq told The Associated Press. “The U.S. has been saying this for many days. He (Negroponte) has said that same thing. He has reiterated it.”

Meanwhile, DAWN also reports the Pak army is planning what is likely to be a new bloody offensive against so called “militants.” You notice how they are not being called terrorists-just “militants,” whatever that means.

SPEAKING OF DAWN, REMEMBER THIS SCARY REPORT

From the Dawn reporter who did the first Post 9/11 interview with Osama bin Laden back on November l0 2001:

KABUL, Nov 9: Osama bin Laden has said that “we have chemical and nuclear weapons as a deterrent and if America used them against us we reserve the right to use them”.

He said this in a special interview with Hamid Mir, the editor of Ausaf, for Dawn and Ausaf, at an undisclosed location near Kabul.

This was the first interview given by Osama to any journalist after the September 11 attacks in New York and Washington. The correspondent was taken blindfolded in a jeep from Kabul on the night of Nov 7 to a place where it was extremely cold and one could hear the sound of anti-aircraft guns firing away. After a wait of some time , Osama arrived with about a dozen bodyguards and Dr Ayman Al-Zuwahiri and answered questions.

Here’s part of that memorable interview:

HM: Some Western media claim that you are trying to acquire chemical and nuclear weapons. How much truth is there in such reports?

OSB: I heard the speech of American President Bush yesterday (Oct 7). He was scaring the European countries that Osama wanted to attack with weapons of mass destruction. I wish to declare that if America used chemical or nuclear weapons against us, then we may retort with chemical and nuclear weapons. We have the weapons as deterrent.

HM: Where did you get these weapons from ?

OSB: Go to the next question.

SHOOT TO KILL

Gunfire hit most of Afghan bomb victims

Up to two-thirds of the 77 people killed and 100 wounded in a suicide bombing last week were hit by bullets from visiting lawmakers’ panicked bodyguards, who fired on a crowd of mostly schoolchildren for up to five minutes…

ALSO IN SOUTH ASIA:

The death toll from Bangladesh’s most devastating storm in a decade climbed to at least 2,300 on Sunday and relief officials warned the figure could jump sharply as rescuers reach more isolated area.

PENTAGON SCRAMBLING TO PAY FOR IRAQ WAR

MOSAIC: WATCH–REACTIONS TO ANAPOLIS MEETING ON MIDDLE EAST

WATCH THE REAL NEWS: THE DEBATE OVER THE IRANIAN “NUKES”

CHINA LOBBIES AGAINST WAR ON IRAN

ACTIVISTS CHALLENGE BUSH ADMIN CONGRESSIONAL TESTIMONY ON MEXICO AID PROGRAM

At the November 14th U.S. Congressional hearing on Plan Mexico, Friends of Brad Will (Will was a video journalist killed in Mexico) shifted the talk from a 1.4 billion dollar package to bolster Mexico’s security against narco-trafficing to a discussion on Mexican government impunity to commit human rights abuses against pro-democracy dissidents, labor activists, an journalists.

At five different times during the hearing, Friends of Brad Will “corrected” Thomas Shannon, Assistant Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs for Western Hemisphere Affairs, and David Johnson, from the Bureau of Narcotics and Law Enforcement Affairs. Friends of Brad Will argued that giving a military aid package to the Mexican government would lead to more human rights abuses like ones that have occurred along the U.S./Mexican border, Atenco, Chiapas, and Oaxaca, where Brad Will died covering the people’s movement against Governor Ruiz.

Mr. Shannon began his speech by saying, “He (President Calderon) is reorganizing the federal police, putting new and additional resources in the hands of his security services, deploying military units to support police operations, rooting ou corrupt officials, attacking –.” Friends of Brad Will interjected, “Civilians in Oaxaca!” Some members of the crowd laughed, including high school students on a field trip, before Chairman Lantos called for order. After a warning and another intervention where a member of FoBW told the story of journalist Brad Will’s murder in Oaxaca, that member of our network was removed by a police officer and released outside of the hearing. Other Congressman in the room began to join in with the criticism as well….

Michael T. Klare: Preparing For Life After Oil

This past May, in an unheralded and almost unnoticed move, the Energy Department signaled a fundamental, near epochal shift in US and indeed world history: we are nearing the end of the Petroleum Age and have entered the Age of Insufficiency.

Miss Landmine Angola –Beauty Contest in Africa

OBAMA V HILLARY–THE LATEST FLAP