North America

As the ten year anniversary of 9/11 approaches, an intense media blitz is in motion. To be honest, I find most of the coverage offensive in that it imposes and manipulates assumed feelings about the event without the least reflection on the
real meaning and consequences of that day. I get the feeling that a particular response
is expected. But my response is different.

The body bag marked “Victim 0001” on Sept. 11, 2001, contained the corpse of Father Mychal Judge, a Catholic chaplain with the Fire Department of New York. When he heard about the disaster at the World Trade Center, he donned his Catholic collar and firefighter garb and raced downtown. He saw people jump to their deaths to avoid the inferno more than 1,000 feet above.

“As Bev and I sat down on the precipice in solemn meditation, I prayed that God would come into our hearts. I prayed for understanding and love. I prayed for Alicia’s soul and the souls of the others who had died with her earlier in the day. I prayed for our world.” These are words of John Titus, father and author of “Losing Alicia”, whose daughter was flight attendant on 9/11.

In 1981, the United Nations General Assembly created an annual International Day of Peace to take place on the opening day of the regular sessions of the General Assembly. The purpose of the day is for “commemorating and strengthening the ideals of peace both within and among all nations and peoples.”

Reporters Without Borders is shocked by the murders of reporter Ana María Yarce Viveros, the founder of the weekly magazine Contralínea, and Rocio González Trápaga, a freelance journalist who used to work for Televisa. The bodies of two women were found in a Mexico City park yesterday.

“Why are Ethiopians starving again? What should the world do and not do?” These are the two enduring questions Time Magazine asked in December 21, 1987. The reply in short was couched as a question: “Is the latest famine wholly the result of cruel nature, or are other, man-made forces at work that worsen the catastrophe?” Something that should strike as déjà vu 24 years later.

Ralph Nader, former US Presidential candidate for the Green Party and the guy blamed by the loosing side for the failure of the Democrat, Al Gore, to win the White House reflects on President Obama’s energy policy in a week when a thousand people are expected to be arrested while demonstrating against a new pipeline transporting low quality oil from Canada to the US Gulf Coast.

A court in Oakland, California, has sentenced two men to life imprisonment without parole for the August 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey but it took much too long to render justice in this case.

By Thomas H. Naylor*/Counterpunch

Could it be that when Nobel Peace Laureate Barack Obama leaves office that the defining image of his presidency will have been his use of unmanned drone aircraft and military death squads to achieve the will of the Empire?

Reporters Without Borders firmly condemns the murder of Humberto Millán Salazar, a journalist based in Culiacán, in the northwestern state of Sinaloa, who edited the online newspaper A-Discussion (http://www.a-discusion.com) and presented a programme on Radio Formula. His body was found yesterday, a day after his abduction in Culiacán. He had been shot in the head.