Government of Sudan Bombards North Darfur; Africa Action Urges U.S. Action at the UN Security Council to Deploy UN Peacekeepers

Thursday, May 10, 2007 (Washington, DC) – In the wake of renewed government aerial bombardments in North Darfur, reported yesterday by United Nations (UN) Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Africa Action today stressed that civilians in Darfur remain acutely vulnerable to violent attacks in this ongoing genocide. The organization further emphasized that the U.S. mission at the UN, during its current presidency of the Security Council, must act to ensure the deployment of a peacekeeping force to Darfur to protect non-combatants from such attacks.

Nii Akuetteh, Executive Director of Africa Action, said today, “The international community, with the U.S. as a key member, keeps saying it will act to end the violence in Darfur. Recent attacks by the Sudanese government clearly illustrate that international action thus far has been insufficient. The U.S. must work now to advance Darfur on the UN Security Council agenda for this month and use this crucial opportunity to make the deployment of peacekeepers a reality.”

If you knew Syria like Dubya knew Syria, oh, oh, oh what a gal!

            It is a commonly held secret that Syria is President Bush's dirty little mistress in the global war on terror. Like most mistresses, Syria is not acknowledged publicly for its aid and comfort to our self-proclaimed "war president." Remember when he used to be Mr. Compassionate Conservative?

            In fact, Bush openly shuns Syria -- something that also happens to dirty mistresses. They get used, but they get no respect.

            Bush II berates Syria in public as a wellspring for terrorism. He could talk what we in Missouri call ad nauseum about Syria as a benefactor for Hamas and that crowd.

            Such criticism is deserved. So why has the Bushvolk used Syria as an outpost for outsourcing torture? Talk about strange bedfellows!

            Under the questionable practice known as extraordinary rendition, the Bush administration has allowed people to be arrested, kidnapped and held incommunicado in such non-democratic states as Syria.

From Ohio and California to Scotland and France, the disputes surrounding electronic voting machines have gone truly global.

E-voting machines have already been extensively studied and condemned by a wide range of expert committees, commissions and colleges, including the General Accountability Office, the Carter-Baker Commission, Johns Hopkins University, Princeton University, Stanford University and others. Rigging of a recount in Cleveland has resulted in two felony convictions. The failures of e-voting machines have been the subject of numerous documentary films, including the aptly titled HBO special "Hacking Democracy."

Now the secretaries of state in Ohio and California are subjecting e-voting to still more official review. Ohio's Jennifer Brunner has announced she'll seek bids to conduct independent studies of both touch-screen machines, which record votes electronically, and optical scanners, which tabulate paper ballots electronically.

George Bush is trying to save Paul Wolfowitz' job as President of the World Bank even after the vulpine neo-con was caught slipping a load of World Bank loot to his love interest, Shaha Ali Riza.

Big deal. Yes, Wolfowitz shouldn't have been greasing his cookie sheet with government funds, but there are bigger reasons to toss The Wolf out the door.

Like, say, perjury and homicide? I haven't forgotten, Mr. Wolfowitz, that on March 27, 2003 you testified before the US Congress that the occupation of Iraq wouldn't cost the American taxpayer a penny.

You said, "There's a lot of money to pay for this that doesn't have to be U.S. taxpayer money." Oh, really?

When Wolfowitz laid down that line of jive, he and the Bushes knew that Americans just can't pass up a bargain, and here The Wolf was offering the sale of the century, a "free Iraq." Not "free" as in "self-governing" but "free" as in, we'll get their oil and their allegiance for nothing!

We can bomb Iraq and the Iraqis will pay for the bombs!

CORNUCOPIA, WI: Consumer fraud investigators in the state of Wisconsin released their findings this week after a three-month long investigation into allegations that Wal-Mart stores throughout the state of Wisconsin had misled consumers by misidentifying conventional food items as organic.

In a letter to Wal-Mart Stores, Inc., based in Bentonville, Arkansas, the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection stated they'd found numerous instances of conventional food products improperly labeled as organic by the retail chain. Specifically, Wisconsin authorities told Wal-Mart’s legal counsel that “use of the term ‘Wal- Mart Organics’ in combination with reference to a specific non-organic product may be considered to be a misrepresentation and therefore a violation” of Wisconsin state statutes.

The Cornucopia Institute, a governmental and corporate organic industry watchdog, had filed complaints with Wisconsin regulators and the USDA after finding numerous incidents of fraudulent organic labeling in Wal-Mart stores in five states from Texas to Minnesota.