Open Your Eyes News » Democracy & International Relations

Can you help us launch our newest website?

The Historian — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 06:55:58 +0000

With work well under way building the new web design for Open Your Eyes News, we are now looking to start developing our next website, Open Your Eyes Films, which will be a repository of documentaries and video clips designed, like this site, to give viewers the big picture on the world that we live in, and a step forward from our current archive.

However we need your help – If you have any web designing skills and would like to help us build this new site please e-mail us at thehistorian@openyoureyesnews.com

Bohemian Grove: Redwoods Hideaway for the Elite Goes On, but Protest Days Fade

The Historian — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 03:59:13 +0000

New York Times – A Lexus-Mercedes caravan of privilege disturbs the sylvan stillness along a Northern California back road, motoring under an honor guard of redwoods that have no choice in the matter. In defiance of nature’s odds, every driver is a man. This can only mean that it is time again for the annual Bohemian Grove encampment, where, for more than a century, thousands of men have shed wives and cares to hike, listen to lectures, drink, discuss current events, celebrate the arts, drink, share frat-boy traditions, enjoy boon companionship no woman could understand, and drink. Read Article

Editorial Comment - One would imagine that an annual gathering of the most powerful people on the planet would be newsworthy. After-all it has been well documented that previous attendees have included Reagan, Nixon, Bush Snr & Jnr, Clinton, Blair, Rockerfeller, Kissinger, Murdoch and even Schwarzenegger. For some strange reason the only mainstream news outlet to even mention it this year is the New York Times with this whitewashing piece. Curious. Why do you think that would be?

GE pays $23m after Iraq probe

The Historian — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 06:20:42 +0000

Financial Times – General Electric has agreed to pay $23.5m to settle allegations from US regulators that its subsidiaries bribed Iraqi officials to win contracts under the United Nations Oil for Food Programme between 2000 and 2003. The settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission is the second in as many years for GE. Last year, the company agreed to pay $50m to resolve charges of accounting fraud relating to hedging activities in 2002 and 2003 Read Article

Big war boost – $33bn – clears Congress, despite Afghan leak

The Historian — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 03:17:03 +0000

AP – The House on Tuesday sent President Barack Obama a major war-funding increase of $33 billion to pay for his troop surge in Afghanistan, unmoved by the leaking of classified documents that portray a military effort struggling between 2004 and 2009 against a strengthening insurgency. The House voted, 308-114, to approve the spending boost for the additional 30,000 U.S. troops in Afghanistan. Other non-war provisions brought the total bill to nearly $59 billion. Read Article

U.S. can’t account for $8.7 billion of Iraq’s money: audit

The Historian — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:16:50 +0000

Reuters – The U.S. Department of Defense was unable to account properly for $8.7 billion of Iraqi oil and gas money meant for humanitarian needs and reconstruction after the 2003 invasion, according to an audit released on Tuesday. The figure is nearly 96 percent of the $9.1 billion funneled to the Pentagon from the Development Fund for Iraq (DFI), said the audit report from the U.S. Special Inspector General for Iraq Reconstruction (SIGIR) Read Article

Iraq crisis deepens as parliament session scrapped

The Historian — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 10:32:48 +0000

AFP — Iraq’s parliament on Tuesday postponed indefinitely what would have been only its second session since a March election, extending a political deadlock that has plagued the country. Read Article

Wikileaks’ 10 greatest scoops

The Historian — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 07:14:30 +0000

Daily Telegraph – Wikileaks, the whistleblowing website, has released 90,000 documents about American and British actions in Afghanistan since the start of the war. Here are its 10 greatest previous scoops. Read Article

Cancer rate in Fallujah worse than Hiroshima

biochemist — Tue, 27 Jul 2010 01:00:59 +0000

Tehran Times – The Iraqi city of Fallujah continues to suffer the ghastly consequences of a U.S. military onslaught in late 2004. According to the authors of a new study, “Cancer, Infant Mortality and Birth Sex-Ratio in Fallujah, Iraq 2005–2009,” the people of Fallujah are experiencing higher rates of cancer, leukemia, infant mortality, and sexual mutations than those recorded among survivors in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the years after those Japanese cities were incinerated by U.S. atomic bomb strikes in 1945. The assault on Fallujah, a city located 43 miles west of Baghdad, was one of the most horrific war crimes of our time. Read article

Khmer Rouge torturer jailed for 30 years

sonyamac — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 14:01:09 +0000

ABC – Cambodia’s United Nations-backed war crimes tribunal has sentenced the first Khmer Rouge official to be tried for crimes against humanity to 35 years imprisonment. Kaing Guek Eav, better known as Comrade Duch, admitted overseeing the deaths of up to 15,000 people who entered Tuol Sleng, the prison where enemies of the regime were sent. He is also guilty of rape and torture. Read Article

Where’s the money for Haiti gone?

biochemist — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 13:00:02 +0000

Daily Mirror – When the heartbreaking images of the devastation caused by the massive earthquake in Haiti appeared on TV screens across the globe, the world pledged £3.41billion in aid. But six months on from the January 12 quake a Sunday Mirror investigation can reveal how the victims are being forgotten…because just TWO per cent of the money has arrived. Read article

Senate rejects $3 billion Indian trust settlement

biochemist — Mon, 26 Jul 2010 01:00:21 +0000

AP — The U.S. Senate has rejected a $3.4 billion government settlement with American Indians that had been added to a much larger war-funding bill. The Senate passed the almost $60 billion bill funding President Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan late Wednesday – but not before stripping out the settlement and $20 billion in other domestic spending approved by the House. The Senate’s approval would have given the Obama administration the authority to settle a class-action lawsuit filed in 1996 by Elouise Cobell of Browning, Mont. Between 300,000 and 500,000 Native Americans claim the Interior Department mismanaged billions of dollars held in trust by the government. Read article

US: JD Hayworth’s Republican challenge to John McCain grows as anti-immigrant anger spills onto Arizona’s streets

biochemist — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 16:47:10 +0000

The Guardian – State’s tough new rules capture mood of growing fury – and are starting to set a national trend. JD Hayworth, a barnstorming Arizona Republican who is campaigning for the Senate, has strong opinions about his state’s new law on illegal immigration. The law, known as SB1070 and due to come into effect this week, requires police to arrest suspected illegal immigrants and makes it a crime not to have valid immigration papers on your person. It has prompted Hispanics to fear racial profiling, immigrants to flee the state in droves, activists to organise consumer boycotts and the Obama administration to sue in federal court. Read article

Oil, blood money, and Blair’s last scandal

The Historian — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 13:05:31 +0000

The Independent – There is no question there was a plot. The question is whether the plot worked,or whether it got what it wanted by a remarkable coincidence. Is your life worth more to your government than a few pence added to BP’s share price? At first, this will sound like a strange question. But sometimes there is a news story that lays out the priorities that drive our governments once the doors are closed and the cameras are switched off. The story of the attempt to trade the Lockerbie bomber for oil is one of those moments. Read Article

Chilcot inquiry: Iraq expert Carne Ross claims civil servants are withholding vital documents

The Historian — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 11:56:29 +0000

The Guardian – Britain’s ‘deep state’ of secretive bureaucrats is denying witnesses to the Chilcot inquiry crucial files. I testified last week to the Chilcot inquiry. My experience demonstrates an emerging and dangerous problem with the process. This is not so much a problem with Sir John Chilcot and his panel, but rather with the government bureaucracy – Britain’s own “deep state” – that is covering up its mistakes and denying access to critical documents. There is only one solution to this problem, and it requires decisive action. Read Article

V.A. Easing Rules for Users of Medical Marijuana

biochemist — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 07:00:52 +0000

NY Times — The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years. A department directive, expected to take effect next week, resolves the conflict in veterans facilities between federal law, which outlaws marijuana, and the 14 states that allow medicinal use of the drug, effectively deferring to the states. Read article

Quotation Of The Week

The Historian — Sun, 25 Jul 2010 04:00:45 +0000

“Our scientific powers have outrun our spiritual powers; we have guided missiles and mis-guided men.”
- Martin Luther King Jnr

As voted for by OYEN readers on our Facebook page this week, selected from the daily Thoughts of The Day. Did you have your say?

Lobbyists push use of deadly asbestos in developing nations

biochemist — Sat, 24 Jul 2010 02:55:05 +0000

Mcclatchy — A global network of lobby groups has spent nearly $100 million since the mid-1980s to preserve the international market for asbestos, a known carcinogen that’s taken millions of lives and is banned or restricted in 52 countries, the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists has found in a nine-month investigation. Backed by public and private money and aided by scientists and friendly governments, the groups helped facilitate the sale of 2.2 million tons of asbestos last year, mostly in developing nations. Read article

British Deputy Prime Minister blasts ‘illegal’ Iraq war

The Historian — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 11:04:48 +0000

The Australian – BRITAIN’S Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg has caused a stir by saying Britain’s decision to send troops to invade Iraq was illegal. Mr Clegg, standing in for Prime Minister David Cameron during question time while Mr Cameron is in the US, made the remark during heated exchanges with former foreign secretary Jack Straw. Clashing with Mr Straw on a separate issue, Mr Clegg said: “Perhaps one day he will account for his role in the most disastrous decision of all: the illegal invasion of Iraq.” His remark threatened to cause a rift with Mr Cameron and his Conservative partners — who supported the invasion in 2003 — and pre-empts the Chilcot inquiry into the war. It also raised questions over the position of British troops in Iraq and whether opponents of the war would use the comments as the basis for a legal challenge of the invasion. Read Article

Censorship: Labor’s hidden policy in Australia

sonyamac — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 05:00:25 +0000

ABC – Labor’s internet filtering policy isn’t being discussed in the run-up to the election but its impact on Australia is significant. Championed by Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy, Senator Stephen Conroy, the $30million+ filter is being sold by Labor as an internet block for child pornography, bestiality and extreme pornography with ‘wide ranging support from the Australian public’ and ‘only minimal opposition against’. Read Article

Bailiff and parliament protester filmed ‘kicking’

sonyamac — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 14:02:20 +0000

BBC – A bailiff has been filmed apparently kicking a demonstrator while evicting him from a peace camp outside the Houses of Parliament. Bailiff firm Shergroup evicted protesters from Parliament Square on Tuesday, after Boris Johnson obtained a High Court order for their removal. The footage shows a protester kicking out and being dragged by bailiffs, one of whom then appears to stamp on him. Shergroup said it would review the video and investigate the incident. Read Article

Get Ready For A World Currency – The Economist Magazine, 9th June 1988

The Historian — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 12:46:21 +0000

Wanted by the CIA: Wikileaks founder Julian Assange

PolemiCol — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 06:25:42 +0000

Belfast Telegraph – There are not many journalists who, when you ask them if they are being followed by the CIA, say “We have surveillance events from time to time.” Actually it’s not a question I’ve ever asked before, and Julian Assange does not call himself a journalist. But the answer is typical of this 41-year-old former computer-hacker: cryptic, dispassionate, and faintly self-important. Read article

Blair faces inquiry into £6 million a year security bill

PolemiCol — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 03:21:17 +0000

Express – TONY BLAIR faces a Parliamentary inquiry into the spiralling cost of his security after six police officers were photographed guarding the rear of his home. Local residents say the presence of such large numbers of armed officers is making them nervous and affecting the once calm atmosphere of the upmarket neighbourhood. Tory MP Mark Field will this week table a Commons question about the costs of protecting Mr Blair, estimated at £6million a year and rising. Read article

Australia: Sex Party calls for church abuse inquiry

biochemist — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:30:34 +0000

ABC – A Senate candidate for the Australian Sex Party is calling for the Federal Government to hold an immediate royal commission into child sex abuse in religious institutions. The party launched its federal campaign in Melbourne this afternoon. Party president and Victorian senate candidate Fiona Patten admits some of the party’s policies are controversial but says there is a progressive policy vacuum in Australian politics. Read article

North Korea executes official in charge of Seoul diplomacy

PolemiCol — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 00:19:20 +0000

Guardian – North Korea executed a former cabinet official who was in charge of talks with South Korea, a news report said today. It is the latest reported death sentence for a North Korean official over policy failures. Kwon Ho Ung – Pyongyang’s chief delegate from 2004 to 2007 for ministerial talks with Seoul’s then liberal government – was executed by firing squad, Seoul’s mass-circulation Dong-a Ilbo newspaper said, citing an unidentified source in Beijing. Read article