Media images appear to be prime motivation this week in a collective, mobilized response underscored by Western guilt. Bombarded with dust-covered corpses, blood and broken bones, and bodies rotting in the hot sun, millions around the world have donated their money to various relief organizations in support of Haiti. The United States has even organized a text message campaign which allows cell phone users to donate as little as ten dollars by texting the word "Haiti" to a central national phone line.

Palestinian resistance to the theft of their country reached a critical moment in 2001 when Israel was identified as an apartheid state at a United Nations conference on racism in Durban, South Africa. To Nelson Mandela, justice for the Palestinians is "the greatest moral issue of our time."

Over the course of his first year in office, Barack Obama has shown himself to be a skillful and savvy politician, saying the things Americans want to hear while stealthily and inexorably moving forward the government's agenda of centralized power. For example, in one breath, Obama pays lip service to the need for greater transparency in government, while in another, he issues an executive order that will result in even more government secrecy.

from Crikey .....

ASIO, not the government, calling the shots on refugees .....

Jeff Sparrow writes:

So ASIO says that five of the unfortunates from the Oceanic Viking constitute a threat to national security.

Well here's a first - Alastair Campbell quoting the Bible. The moment occurs in an extraordinary blog he's posted today following his one-man show at the Chilcot Inquiry yesterday where he stood by "every single word" in the not-at-all-dodgy dossier and praised his old boss Tony Blair for "his deep conviction and integrity" as he made the difficult decision to follow George Bush to war.

A source close to Mr Blair has confirmed that he in the final stages of negotiating a deal with Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessy, which he is expected to begin working for later this year.

"There is an agreement in principle but nothing has been signed yet," said the source.

"Mr Blair won't be joining the board but he will be acting in an advisory role, working very closely with Mr Arnault.

"In particular, his job is likely to involve attracting new clients."

Forget about oil, occupation, terrorism or even Al Qaeda. The real hazard for Iraqis these days is cancer.

Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment.

Thank God for Helen Thomas, the only person to show any courage at the White House press briefing after President Barack Obama gave a flaccid account of the intelligence screw-up that almost downed an airliner on Christmas Day.

After Obama briefly addressed L'Affaire Abdulmutallab and wrote "must do better" on the report cards of the national security schoolboys responsible for the near catastrophe, the President turned the stage over to counter-terrorism guru John Brennan and Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Driving parallel to the borderline between Egypt and Gaza, one can spot the machinery behind the conspicuous wall construction project meant to stop ongoing smuggling through underground tunnels.

Why, really, are Muslims everywhere being radicalized?

The best short answer to the question of why British Muslims were being radicalized was set down in a letter written (and subsequently leaked) in May 2004 by the British Foreign Office's most senior official, Permanent Secretary Sir Michael Jay. His letter, a warning to Prime Minister Blair and his ministers, was addressed to the Cabinet Secretary, Sir Andrew Turnbull.

After the Christmas Day botched bombing the former Vice President describes the deadly next generation of terrorists in this exclusive interview with political satirist Irving Wesley Hall.

What tactics will the terrorists use next and how can we stop them?

Those questions should be driving media coverage and government deliberation. Instead Democratic and Republican politicians are childishly trying to score points against each other. Government bureaucrats are busily pointing fingers as doomsday speeds down the tarmac.

Syed Fahad Hashmi can tell you about the dark heart of America. He knows that our First Amendment rights have become a joke, that habeas corpus no longer exists and that we torture, not only in black sites such as those at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan or at Guantánamo Bay, but also at the federal Metropolitan Correctional Center (MCC) in Lower Manhattan.

According to today's New York Times, the "majority of hamburger" in burgers sold by McDonald's, Burger King, other fast food outlets, as well as conventional ground meat sold through grocery chains & provided in kid's school lunches in the US, now contains fatty slaughterhouse trimmings, once relegated to pet food & cooking oil, "typically including most of the material from the outer surfaces of the carcass" that contains "larger microbiological populations."

The NSW Ombudsman is appointed without the process of public selection. And the current Ombudsman did not have to undergo a competitive process for reappointment. Under the Ombudsman Act 1974, the Ombudsman has significant powers, including a wide jurisdiction over public sector agencies and many private agencies that provide services for them.

There is no "war" against terrorism. What George W. Bush launched and Barack Obama insists on perpetuating does not qualify. Not if by war one means doing the obvious and checking a highly suspicious air traveller's underwear to see if explosives have been sewn in.

If Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab had put the stuff in his shoes we would have had him because that was tried before, but our government was too preoccupied with fighting unnecessary conventional wars and developing anti-missile defense systems to anticipate such a primitive delivery system.