my very own muckraker.

Wednesday, December 30, 2009

how to hope











An NYT interactive timeline of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's upbringing, education and movements before his Christmas Day festival of terror.
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Mexican police have arrested four members of the ruthless "Zetas" drug cartel in connection to the retaliatory killing of a Marine's family last week. The KIA Marine's mother and three family members were executed in the middle of the night following an operation that killed "the boss of all bosses" Arturo Beltran Leyva.
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The AP has released a two page summary of an intelligence report which outlines an Iranian attempt to secretly import 1,350 tons of purified uranium ore, or "yellowcake" from Kazakhstan. Al-Jazeera reported that state employees may have interacted with Iran on their own accord without the approval of the central Kazakh government.

The Kazakhstan Ministry of Foreign Affairs released a statement that it "categorically repudiates certain news media reports alleging Kazakhstan's connection to a possible deal to supply uranium to the Islamic Republic of Iran, and considers them groundless insinuations damaging the reputation of our country.

"All the operations with nuclear materials in Kazakhstan, including our cooperation regarding the peaceful use of atomic energy with foreign countries, are subject to [International Atomic Energy Agency] comprehensive safeguards."

Today, Kazakhstan announced that it has surpassed Canada and Australia to become the world's largest producer of uranium in the world.
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State Department spokesman, Ian Kelly has confirmed that 8 Americans were killed by a suicide bomber in a "US military base in the Regional Command East" in the Southeast Afghan Khost province. The New York Times has reported that "at least six Americans, some of whom may have been C.I.A. operatives" were killed.
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US-China trade tensions have increase once again as the Obama administration has applied $2.8 billion in import tariffs on Chinese steel pipes used in oil wells.

Annual two-way trade between the countries is approximately $409 billion.

The Commerce Department will decide if Chinese companies are "dumping" products into the US market while China announced on November 6 an anti-dumping probe into American cars in China.
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Please, please, please check this incredible photojournalist website. cheers. www.petervanagtmael.com








2 comments:

  1. It's time for Iran's Gandhi to make himself known.

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  2. "You may well ask: "Why direct action? Why sit-ins, marches and so forth? Isn't negotiation a better path?" You are quite right in calling, for negotiation. Indeed, this is the very purpose of direct action. Nonviolent direct action seeks to create such a crisis and foster such a tension that a community which has constantly refused to negotiate is forced to confront the issue. It seeks to so dramatize the issue that it can no longer be ignored. My citing the creation of tension as part of the work of the nonviolent-resister may sound rather shocking. But I must confess that I am not afraid of the word "tension." I have earnestly opposed violent tension, but there is a type of constructive, nonviolent tension which is necessary for growth. Just as Socrates felt that it was necessary to create a tension in the mind so that individuals could rise from the bondage of myths and half-truths to the unfettered realm of creative analysis and objective appraisal, we must we see the need for nonviolent gadflies to create the kind of tension in society that will help men rise from the dark depths of prejudice and racism to the majestic heights of understanding and brotherhood."

    Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.
    LETTER FROM BIRMINGHAM JAIL
    April 16, 1963

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