http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/10/22/united-states-ranked-36th_n_136788.html
World For Press Freedom
Danny Shea
October 22, 2008
The United States is ranked 36th in the world in terms of press freedom, up from 48th last year, according to a report released Wednesday by Reporters Sans Frontieres.
The US is tied with Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cape Verde, South Africa, Spain, and Taiwan in the 36th spot. Iceland, Luxembourg, and Norway are tied for first. Iran, China, Vietnam, Cuba, and North Korea are all featured among the ten lowest-ranked countries.
According to the survey, the index "measures the state of press freedom in the world. It reflects the degree of freedom that journalists and news organisations enjoy in each country, and the efforts made by the authorities to respect and ensure respect for this freedom."
The ranking examines "every kind of violation directly affecting journalists (such as murders, imprisonment, physical attacks and threats) and news media (censorship, confiscation of newspaper issues, searches and harassment). And it includes the degree of impunity enjoyed by those responsible for these press freedom violations."
Self-censorship, financial pressure, the legal framework of the media, and the level of independence of the public media are also taken into account.
The report explains the United States' rise from 48th to 36th:
The release of Al-Jazeera cameraman Sami Al-Haj after six years in the Guantanamo Bay military base contributed to this improvement. Although the absence of a federal "shield law" means the confidentiality of sources is still threatened by federal courts, the number of journalists being subpoenaed or forced to reveal their sources has declined in recent months and none has been sent to prison. But the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey in Oakland, California, is still unpunished a year later. The way the investigation into his murder has become enmeshed in local conflicts of interest and the lack of federal judicial intervention also help to explain why the United States did not get a higher ranking. Account was also taken of the many arrests of journalists during the Democratic and Republican conventions.
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Taiwan. Show all posts
Tuesday, October 28, 2008
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Confirmed - Obama Is Zbigniew Brzezinski Puppet
http://www.rense.com/general81/abig.htm
Confirmed - Obama Is Zbigniew Brzezinski Puppet
Commentary By Webster Tarpley
3-21-8
Any lingering doubts about Obama's status as an abject puppet of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission ended this morning when the withered mummy of imperialism himself appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe* to campaign for Obama, urged on by his own moronic daughter, Mika Brzezinski, an Obama groupie and sycophant.
Zbigniew, a low-level Polish aristocrat whose life has been devoted to hatred for Russia, lauded Obama for his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq war, saying that he himself was the source of Obama's arguments back then - thus confirming Obama's long-term status as his puppet, which probably began in 1981-1983, when Obama was a student at Columbia University, and Zbig was directing the anti-Russian institute.
The aging revanchist showed all the misogynism of his szachta origins with a scurrilous attack on Sen. Clinton as a mere housewife, a Mamie Eisenhower running against charismatic a JFK played by Zbig's own Manchurian candidate, and as a woman whose foreign policy experience was worth as much as that of Zbig's own travel agent.
Zbig, who was kept in the closet for many months during the Carter administration because of his hideous Dr. Strangelove persona, portrayed Obama as a peace candidate who wanted to end the Iraq war and usher in peace in the Middle East. Zbig is an infamous Cold War hawk who has managed to re-invent himself in the eyes of some dupes by opposing the Iraq adventure, mainly because it is bad for imperialism.
Zbig did not mention that the reason he wants to downplay certain aspects of US aggression in the Middle East is to free up resources for use in the much bigger and more dangerous adventures which the Trilateral Commission is now directing.
Zbig is the mastermind of the Kosovo secession under KLA terrorist auspices, a gambit against Serbia and Russia to prepare a coming Operation Barbarossa II against Moscow. With the help of his son Mark Brzezinski, another top foreign policy controller of Obama, Zbig is also behind the new Euromissiles crisis involving US ABM installations in Poland. Zbig is the enforcer for the new CIA policy of killing Pakistanis (as "terrorists") without consulting the government of that country, a nuclear power twice as big as Iran.
Most dangerous of all, Zbig is the obvious mastermind of the massive destabilization of China now ongoing, starting with the CIA/MI-6 Tibet insurrection, which has placed the US on a collision course with China, a superpower with 1.4 billion people and thermonuclear weapons which can strike US cities, a far cry from the helpless and defenseless targets preferred by the neocons. It is an open secret that Zbig intends to attempt a color revolution or CIA people power coup in China under the cover of the Beijing Olympics later this year. He may also make the Taiwan crisis explode. The dangers of these lunatic policies are infinitely worse than anything that could ever come out of the Middle East.
Senator Jay Rockefeller and Trilateral/BIlderberger boss Joseph Nye are also actively campaigning for Obama. Nye is the theoretician of "soft power," a new form of imperialist aggression based on economic warfare, subversion, deception, and people power coups. They want Obama to mobilize soft power to give a face lift to US imnperialism.
Brzezinski's goal is confrontation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main world center for resistance to US-UK global domination.
Anti-war activists are still fixated on Iran, but Brzezinski is not - his target is China, TWENTY times bigger than Iran, with ICBMs ready to launch, followed by Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power. Such confused activists need to focus on stopping the next war - the final global showdown with Pakistan, China, and Russia. That means rejecting Brzezinski's puppet candidate Obama.
Confirmed - Obama Is Zbigniew Brzezinski Puppet
Commentary By Webster Tarpley
3-21-8
Any lingering doubts about Obama's status as an abject puppet of Zbigniew Brzezinski and the Rockefeller Trilateral Commission ended this morning when the withered mummy of imperialism himself appeared on MSNBC's Morning Joe* to campaign for Obama, urged on by his own moronic daughter, Mika Brzezinski, an Obama groupie and sycophant.
Zbigniew, a low-level Polish aristocrat whose life has been devoted to hatred for Russia, lauded Obama for his 2002 speech opposing the Iraq war, saying that he himself was the source of Obama's arguments back then - thus confirming Obama's long-term status as his puppet, which probably began in 1981-1983, when Obama was a student at Columbia University, and Zbig was directing the anti-Russian institute.
The aging revanchist showed all the misogynism of his szachta origins with a scurrilous attack on Sen. Clinton as a mere housewife, a Mamie Eisenhower running against charismatic a JFK played by Zbig's own Manchurian candidate, and as a woman whose foreign policy experience was worth as much as that of Zbig's own travel agent.
Zbig, who was kept in the closet for many months during the Carter administration because of his hideous Dr. Strangelove persona, portrayed Obama as a peace candidate who wanted to end the Iraq war and usher in peace in the Middle East. Zbig is an infamous Cold War hawk who has managed to re-invent himself in the eyes of some dupes by opposing the Iraq adventure, mainly because it is bad for imperialism.
Zbig did not mention that the reason he wants to downplay certain aspects of US aggression in the Middle East is to free up resources for use in the much bigger and more dangerous adventures which the Trilateral Commission is now directing.
Zbig is the mastermind of the Kosovo secession under KLA terrorist auspices, a gambit against Serbia and Russia to prepare a coming Operation Barbarossa II against Moscow. With the help of his son Mark Brzezinski, another top foreign policy controller of Obama, Zbig is also behind the new Euromissiles crisis involving US ABM installations in Poland. Zbig is the enforcer for the new CIA policy of killing Pakistanis (as "terrorists") without consulting the government of that country, a nuclear power twice as big as Iran.
Most dangerous of all, Zbig is the obvious mastermind of the massive destabilization of China now ongoing, starting with the CIA/MI-6 Tibet insurrection, which has placed the US on a collision course with China, a superpower with 1.4 billion people and thermonuclear weapons which can strike US cities, a far cry from the helpless and defenseless targets preferred by the neocons. It is an open secret that Zbig intends to attempt a color revolution or CIA people power coup in China under the cover of the Beijing Olympics later this year. He may also make the Taiwan crisis explode. The dangers of these lunatic policies are infinitely worse than anything that could ever come out of the Middle East.
Senator Jay Rockefeller and Trilateral/BIlderberger boss Joseph Nye are also actively campaigning for Obama. Nye is the theoretician of "soft power," a new form of imperialist aggression based on economic warfare, subversion, deception, and people power coups. They want Obama to mobilize soft power to give a face lift to US imnperialism.
Brzezinski's goal is confrontation with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the main world center for resistance to US-UK global domination.
Anti-war activists are still fixated on Iran, but Brzezinski is not - his target is China, TWENTY times bigger than Iran, with ICBMs ready to launch, followed by Russia, the world's biggest nuclear power. Such confused activists need to focus on stopping the next war - the final global showdown with Pakistan, China, and Russia. That means rejecting Brzezinski's puppet candidate Obama.
Sunday, February 24, 2008
The New Space Race: China vs. US
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1712812,00.html
Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008
The New Space Race: China vs. US
By Peter Ritter
Both the U.S. and China have announced intentions of returning humans to the moon by 2020 at the earliest. And the two countries are already in the early stages of a new space race that appears to have some of the heat and skullduggery of the one between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War, when space was a proxy battleground for geopolitical dominance.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of a former Boeing engineer for passing sensitive information about the U.S. space program to the Chinese government. According to the indictment, Dongfan Chung, a 72-year-old California man who worked for Boeing until September 2006, gave China documents relating to military aircraft and rocket technology, as well as technical information about the U.S. Space Shuttle.
U.S. officials say the Chung case is part of a pattern of escalating espionage by China. "We're seeing this on all fronts," says Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department's National Security Division. Since October 2006, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than a dozen high-profile cases involving China, including industrial espionage and the illegal export of military technology. In an unrelated case also announced Monday, a Defense Department employee was arrested in Virginia for passing classified information about the sale of U.S. military technology to Taiwan to alleged Chinese agents.
The scale of Chung's alleged espionage is startling. According to the Justice Department, Chung may have been providing trade secrets to Chinese aerospace companies and government agents since 1979, when he was an engineer at Rockwell International, a company acquired by Boeing in 1996. He worked for Boeing until his retirement in March 2003, and continued to work as a contractor for the company until September 2006. The indictment alleges that Chung gave China documents relating to the B-1 bomber and the Delta IV rocket, which is used to lift heavy payloads into space, as well as information on an advanced antenna array intended for the Space Shuttle.
According to the indictment, Chinese officials gave Chung a shopping list of information to acquire for them. In one instance, Chung said that he would send documents through an official in China's San Francisco consulate. In another, a Chinese contact suggested he route information through a man named Chi Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen who also worked as an engineer in California and who was convicted last year of attempting to provide China with information on an advanced naval propulsion system.
The indictment charges that Chung was a willing participant. "Having been a Chinese compatriot for over 30 years and being proud of the achievements by the people's efforts for the motherland, I am regretful for not contributing anything," Chung allegedly wrote in an undated letter to one of his mainland contacts. (Chung's lawyer has maintained his client's innocence.)
China's manned space program, codenamed Project 921, is indeed a matter of considerable national pride for a country that sees space exploration as confirmation of superpower status. China is pouring substantial resources into space research, according to Dean Cheng, an Asian affairs specialist at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analysis. With a budget estimated at up to $2 billion a year, China's space program is roughly comparable to Japan's. Later this year, China plans to launch its third manned space mission — a prelude to a possible lunar foray by 2024. With President George W. Bush vowing to return American astronauts to the moon by 2020, some competition is perhaps inevitable.
China's space program lags far behind that of the U.S., of course. "They're basically recreating the Apollo missions 50 years on," says Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the National Security Studies Department at the U.S. Naval War College and an expert on China's space development. "It's a tortoise-and-hare race. They're happy plodding along slowly and creating this perception of a space race."
But there may be more at stake than national honor. Some analysts say that China's attempts to access American space technology are less about boosting its space program than upgrading its military. China is already focusing on space as a potential battlefield. A recent Pentagon estimate of China's military capabilities said that China is investing heavily in anti-satellite weaponry. In January 2007, China demonstrated that it was able to destroy orbiting satellites when it brought down one of its own weather satellites with a missile.
China clearly recognizes the significance of this capability. In 2005, a Chinese military officer wrote in the book Joint Space War Campaigns, put out by the National Defense University, that a "shock and awe strike" on satellites "will shake the structure of the opponent's operations system of organization and will create huge psychological impact on the opponent's policymakers." Such a strike could hypothetically allow China to counterbalance technologically superior U.S. forces, which rely heavily on satellites for battlefield data. China is still decades away from challenging the U.S. in space. But U.S. officials worry espionage may be bringing China a little closer to doing so here on Earth.
Wednesday, Feb. 13, 2008
The New Space Race: China vs. US
By Peter Ritter
Both the U.S. and China have announced intentions of returning humans to the moon by 2020 at the earliest. And the two countries are already in the early stages of a new space race that appears to have some of the heat and skullduggery of the one between Washington and Moscow during the Cold War, when space was a proxy battleground for geopolitical dominance.
On Monday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced the indictment of a former Boeing engineer for passing sensitive information about the U.S. space program to the Chinese government. According to the indictment, Dongfan Chung, a 72-year-old California man who worked for Boeing until September 2006, gave China documents relating to military aircraft and rocket technology, as well as technical information about the U.S. Space Shuttle.
U.S. officials say the Chung case is part of a pattern of escalating espionage by China. "We're seeing this on all fronts," says Dean Boyd, a spokesman for the Justice Department's National Security Division. Since October 2006, the Justice Department has prosecuted more than a dozen high-profile cases involving China, including industrial espionage and the illegal export of military technology. In an unrelated case also announced Monday, a Defense Department employee was arrested in Virginia for passing classified information about the sale of U.S. military technology to Taiwan to alleged Chinese agents.
The scale of Chung's alleged espionage is startling. According to the Justice Department, Chung may have been providing trade secrets to Chinese aerospace companies and government agents since 1979, when he was an engineer at Rockwell International, a company acquired by Boeing in 1996. He worked for Boeing until his retirement in March 2003, and continued to work as a contractor for the company until September 2006. The indictment alleges that Chung gave China documents relating to the B-1 bomber and the Delta IV rocket, which is used to lift heavy payloads into space, as well as information on an advanced antenna array intended for the Space Shuttle.
According to the indictment, Chinese officials gave Chung a shopping list of information to acquire for them. In one instance, Chung said that he would send documents through an official in China's San Francisco consulate. In another, a Chinese contact suggested he route information through a man named Chi Mak, a naturalized U.S. citizen who also worked as an engineer in California and who was convicted last year of attempting to provide China with information on an advanced naval propulsion system.
The indictment charges that Chung was a willing participant. "Having been a Chinese compatriot for over 30 years and being proud of the achievements by the people's efforts for the motherland, I am regretful for not contributing anything," Chung allegedly wrote in an undated letter to one of his mainland contacts. (Chung's lawyer has maintained his client's innocence.)
China's manned space program, codenamed Project 921, is indeed a matter of considerable national pride for a country that sees space exploration as confirmation of superpower status. China is pouring substantial resources into space research, according to Dean Cheng, an Asian affairs specialist at the U.S.-based Center for Naval Analysis. With a budget estimated at up to $2 billion a year, China's space program is roughly comparable to Japan's. Later this year, China plans to launch its third manned space mission — a prelude to a possible lunar foray by 2024. With President George W. Bush vowing to return American astronauts to the moon by 2020, some competition is perhaps inevitable.
China's space program lags far behind that of the U.S., of course. "They're basically recreating the Apollo missions 50 years on," says Joan Johnson-Freese, chair of the National Security Studies Department at the U.S. Naval War College and an expert on China's space development. "It's a tortoise-and-hare race. They're happy plodding along slowly and creating this perception of a space race."
But there may be more at stake than national honor. Some analysts say that China's attempts to access American space technology are less about boosting its space program than upgrading its military. China is already focusing on space as a potential battlefield. A recent Pentagon estimate of China's military capabilities said that China is investing heavily in anti-satellite weaponry. In January 2007, China demonstrated that it was able to destroy orbiting satellites when it brought down one of its own weather satellites with a missile.
China clearly recognizes the significance of this capability. In 2005, a Chinese military officer wrote in the book Joint Space War Campaigns, put out by the National Defense University, that a "shock and awe strike" on satellites "will shake the structure of the opponent's operations system of organization and will create huge psychological impact on the opponent's policymakers." Such a strike could hypothetically allow China to counterbalance technologically superior U.S. forces, which rely heavily on satellites for battlefield data. China is still decades away from challenging the U.S. in space. But U.S. officials worry espionage may be bringing China a little closer to doing so here on Earth.
Sunday, July 8, 2007
Ozzy Osbourne to help Taiwan in U.N.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070704/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_taiwan_ozzy
Ozzy Osbourne to help Taiwan in U.N. membership quest
Wed Jul 4, 2007
Reuters
After 14 failed attempts at joining the United Nations using media campaigns and presidential appeals, Taiwan is turning to a local goth-style rock band backed by Ozzy Osbourne in its quest for membership to the world body.
The band, named ChthoniC, will travel to at least 80 cities in four countries by the end of the year, supported in part by the Taiwan government, which is providing pro-U.N. literature and a slogan-painted truck.
The band will visit Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States.
ChthoniC has also recorded a song urging the United Nations to let Taiwan join, even though its bid for membership keeps getting knocked down because of objections from Beijing.
"I'm not for any political party, but I'm for my poor country's joining the United Nations," band lyricist Freddy Lim told reporters on Wednesday at the tour's launch.
Ozzy Osbourne, a satanic-theme rocker known for biting heads off bats on stage, is helping set up 20 of the U.S. gigs, paying some transport costs and letting the Taiwan band promote U.N. membership as it wishes, Lim said. He said the band hooked up with Osbourne through personal connections.
Taiwan's leadership came up with the idea as it prepares to reapply for U.N. membership later this year, the cabinet's news office said on Tuesday.
China blocks self-ruled Taiwan's applications every year because it sees the island as part of its territory and not a separate country. The two sides split after civil war in 1949, and Taiwan left the United Nations in 1971 under Chinese pressure.
Ozzy Osbourne to help Taiwan in U.N. membership quest
Wed Jul 4, 2007
Reuters
After 14 failed attempts at joining the United Nations using media campaigns and presidential appeals, Taiwan is turning to a local goth-style rock band backed by Ozzy Osbourne in its quest for membership to the world body.
The band, named ChthoniC, will travel to at least 80 cities in four countries by the end of the year, supported in part by the Taiwan government, which is providing pro-U.N. literature and a slogan-painted truck.
The band will visit Canada, Germany, Britain and the United States.
ChthoniC has also recorded a song urging the United Nations to let Taiwan join, even though its bid for membership keeps getting knocked down because of objections from Beijing.
"I'm not for any political party, but I'm for my poor country's joining the United Nations," band lyricist Freddy Lim told reporters on Wednesday at the tour's launch.
Ozzy Osbourne, a satanic-theme rocker known for biting heads off bats on stage, is helping set up 20 of the U.S. gigs, paying some transport costs and letting the Taiwan band promote U.N. membership as it wishes, Lim said. He said the band hooked up with Osbourne through personal connections.
Taiwan's leadership came up with the idea as it prepares to reapply for U.N. membership later this year, the cabinet's news office said on Tuesday.
China blocks self-ruled Taiwan's applications every year because it sees the island as part of its territory and not a separate country. The two sides split after civil war in 1949, and Taiwan left the United Nations in 1971 under Chinese pressure.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
