WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans demonstrated their loyalty to Majority Leader Tom DeLay on Wednesday, changing a party rule that would have cost him his leadership post if he were indicted by a Texas grand jury that has charged three of his associates.

DeLay watched from the back of the room but did not speak as GOP lawmakers struggled in closed session before ending a requirement that leaders indicted on felony charges relinquish their positions. Republicans will now decide a House leader’s fate in a case-by-case review.

The change received overwhelming but not unanimous approval in a voice vote that showed Republicans’ eagerness to protect the leader who raised countless campaign dollars for them. He also engineered a redistricting plan in Texas that caused five Democratic losses through retirement or election defeats.
Full Article:guardian.co.uk

MOSCOW (AP) – Russia is developing a new nuclear missile system unlike any weapon held by other countries, President Vladimir Putin said Wednesday, a move that could serve as a signal to the United States as Washington pushes forward with a missile defense system.

Putin gave no details about the system or why Russia was pursuing it, and it was unclear whether the Kremlin’s cash-strapped armed forces could even afford an expensive new weapon.

But in remarks that could also be aimed at a domestic audience, he told a meeting of the top leadership of the armed forces that the system could be deployed soon, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported.

“We are not only conducting research and successful tests on state-of-the-art nuclear missile systems, but I am convinced that these systems will appear in the near future,” Putin said. “Moreover, they will be systems, weapons that not a single other nuclear power has, or will have, in the near future.”

ITAR-Tass indicated the new system could be a mobile version of the Topol-M ballistic missile, which have been deployed in silos since 1998. But Alexander Pikayev, a senior military analyst with Moscow’s Institute for Global Economy and International Relations, said Putin seemed to be referring to the Bulava intercontinental ballistic missile, a solid fuel missile that had its first test in September.
Full Article:apnews.myway.com

by Paul Craig Roberts
China’s currency peg to the US dollar prevents correction of the US trade imbalace and imperils the US dollar’s role as reserve currency.

In the post World War II period, the dollar took over the reserve currency role from the British pound, because the supremacy of US manufacturing guaranteed US trade surpluses. The British pound lost its role due to debts of two world wars, loss of empire, a run down industrial base, and socialist attack on UK business.

The reserve currency conveys unique advantages on the favored country. As the reserve currency, the US dollar is guaranteed a high level of demand. Foreign central banks hold their reserves in dollars, and countries are billed in dollars for their oil imports, which requires other countries to buy dollars with their currencies.

As a reserve currency fulfills world needs in addition to the functions of a domestic currency, the favored country can hemorrhage debt for a protracted period on a scale that would promptly wreck any other country’s currency.

This advantage is a two-edged sword, because it permits the reserve country to behave irresponsibly by running large trade and budget deficits. When the tide turns against the reserve currency, its exchange value collapses.

The reason for the collapse is the huge stock of reserve currency held by foreigners. When other countries conclude that their hoards of dollars represent claims that the US cannot meet, dollar dumping begins. Financing for US debt dries up; interest rates rise; imported goods become unaffordable and living standards fall.

Flight from the dollar is already underway. During the past two years, the US dollar has declined 52% against the new European currency, the Euro. This decline is striking in view of the sluggish European economy and the fact that many analysts regard the Euro as merely a political currency.

Indeed, the dollar is declining against all currencies that have any international standing: the British pound, the Canadian dollar, the Australian dollar, and even against the Japanese yen despite Tokyo’s intervention to support the dollar.

Overcome by hubris and superpower delusion, US policymakers are unaware of America’s peril. Economists and pundits are equally in the dark.

Economists believe that decline in the dollar’s exchange value will correct the US trade deficit by reducing imports and increasing exports. Once upon a time a case could be argued for this logic. But that was a time before US corporations took to outsourcing jobs and locating production for US markets offshore.

US imports of goods and services rise each time a US factory moves offshore or a US job is outsourced. Goods and services produced offshore by US corporations for US customers count as imports and worsen the trade deficit. The US cannot reduce its trade deficit by increasing sales to China of goods made by US firms in China. As Charles McMillion, president of MBG Information Services, concisely summarizes: “Outsourcing is export substitution.”

It is amazing that US policymakers and economists do not understand that dollar devaluation is meaningless as long as China keeps its currency pegged to the dollar.

America’s greatest trade imbalance is with China. In 2000 the US merchandise trade deficit with China became larger than the chronic US trade deficit with Japan. By 2003 the US trade deficit with China was almost twice as large as the US deficit with Japan: $124 billion versus $66 billion. This year the US trade deficit with China is expected to be $160, a 29% increase from last year.

This imbalance cannot be corrected as long as China maintains the peg. As the dollar falls against the Euro and other currencies, the Chinese currency falls with it, thus maintaining China’s advantage over US goods in world markets.

Both the Clinton and Bush administrations are guilty of permitting China to maintain a grossly undervalued currency that sucks productive capacity out of the US. The combination of cheap Chinese labor and an undervalued currency are destroying US middle class living standards.

As America’s industrial base erodes, so does its competitiveness and ability to close its trade deficit through exports.

Currency markets cannot correct the undervalued Chinese currency, because China does not permit its currency to be traded and there are insufficient stocks of Chinese currency in foreign hands with which to form a currency market.

Sooner or later the peg will come to an end–perhaps when China fulfills its WTO obligation to let its currency float. When the peg ends, it will deliver a severe shock to US living standards. Suddenly, Chinese manufactured goods–including advanced technology products–on which the US is now dependent will cost much more. Overnight, shopping at Wal-Mart will be like shopping in high-end department stores.

China accounts for a quarter of the US trade deficit and for one-third of the US deficit in manufactured goods, is the second largest source of US imports after Canada, and is America’s third largest trading partner as conventionally measured. Despite these facts, the US government does not publish full current account data for China, instead lumping China in with “Other Countries in Asia and Africa.” This keeps the magnitude of the problem out of sight.

Canada and Mexico rank as the US’s two largest “trading partners” because of double counting in the measure of imports and exports. For example, the full value of auto bodies shipped across the borders to Canada and Mexico for assembly operations are counted as “exports” when they leave the US and as “imports” when they return.

In contrast US “trade” with China involves almost no double counting of component parts.

Recently, Goodyear Tire and Rubber Company declared its intention to close all US plants and to manufacture offshore for US markets. Each time the US loses an industry, America’s export potential declines and America’s imports rise. This scenario guarantees a rising trade deficit and the end of the dollar’s reserve currency role.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy during 1981-82.

counterpunch.org

…Large areas of Falluja lie in ruins, devastated by the ferocity of the US onslaught. The attacks were designed to clear insurgents out of what had been their biggest stronghold ahead of January’s elections. An embedded BBC reporter said the fighting had become more frantic as the insurgents made a last stand.

A Reuters correspondent saw bloated and decomposing bodies in the streets, smashed homes, ruined mosques and power and telephone lines hanging uselessly.

Overnight, US warplanes made 20-30 bombing sorties over the city and surrounding areas, where there has been an upsurge in violence since the Falluja offensive started last Monday.

At least nine people died today in fierce battles in Baquba, 35 miles north-east of Baghdad. There was also fighting today in Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. There has been violence for five days in Mosul, with insurgents storming two police stations in the northern city yesterday and killing at least six Iraqi troops.

And tonight there were reports of two heavy explosions from the heavily fortified green zone compound in Baghdad where the Iraqi and coalition headquarters are. There was no immediate explanation for the blasts.

Amnesty International said it was “deeply concerned” that rules of war protecting civilians and combatants had been violated by the US forces and the insurgents in Falluja.

Amnesty cited an incident shown on Channel Four news last week when a marine fired at an apparently wounded insurgent who was off screen then said “he’s gone”. Amnesty said: “Under international humanitarian law the US forces have an obligation to protect fighters hors de combat [disabled fighters].”
Full Article: guardian.co.uk

On ABC News this evening was footage of Marines going into a Mosque and shooting to death a wounded Iraqi lying there, a wounded Iraqi LEFT lying there by Marines a few days before. That is what the US makes of ‘international humanitarian law’ and protecting fighters ‘hors de combat.’

The French president, Jacques Chirac, vowed yesterday to keep his troops in Ivory Coast to prevent the former colony from sliding into anarchy or fascism, and condemned the “questionable regime” of the country’s president.

His pledge came shortly before African leaders attending a summit on the crisis in the Nigerian capital, Abuja, last night agreed to back a draft UN security council resolution calling for an arms embargo, a travel ban and asset freezes against anyone blocking peace in Ivory Coast.

…Mr Chirac told a student forum in Marseille: “We do not want to let a system develop that could lead to anarchy or a regime of a fascist nature,” according to Associated Press.

He said he would not consider a pullout of French troops “when we have an international mandate supported by all Africans”.
Full Article:guardian.co.uk

“We do not want to let…” That says it all.

Same old story, same old song and dance

by Rootsie

100 years ago, Britain and France were the great imperialist powers on the globe. They controlled most of Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia, in addition to the Caribbean and South Pacific.

Even though it granted independence to Cote D’Ivoire in 1960, and to its other colonies around the same time, so-called ‘Francophone’ countries in Africa remained tied to France economically and politically, which is a nice way of saying that France in effect has the last word in those places, realizes enormous profit from their resources, and intervenes whenever it feels like it ‘to protect French interests.’ (Imperialist France Destroys an African Air Force)

This week shows once again that France has always been a unilateral imperialist. Did it check with the UN before invading Cote D’Ivoire?

Did France not actually obstruct UN forces trying to intervene in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, carried out by the Hutu government it had installed? Did it not carry on atmospheric nuclear testing in French Polynesia, ignoring the fact that the people there were having fallout rained on them, blowing up the Greenpeace Rainbow Warrior when it went to investigate? Did it not collaborate with the US to destabilize the Aristide government in Haiti and forcefully remove Aristide from the country?

The laughable idea that France was nobly opposed to the US invasion of Iraq only has play with people who are woefully naïve and ignorant of history: the US peace movement for example. France is always watching out for its own interests, and the prospect of “full spectrum dominance” by the US could not go unopposed, not as long as France couldn’t get a piece of the action. As Haiti and the Balkans demonstrate, France has no problem working side-by-side with the United States for motives far from moral. France has been a rogue state for 200 years now.

And now we hear from Jack Straw that Britain knew of the coup plot in Equatorial Guinea weeks before the attempt was carried out. (guardian.co.uk) Poor EG finds itself with the third largest oil reserve in Africa, and can look forward to years of instability. Of course Britain’s knowledge of the plan, orchestrated in part by Sir Mark Thatcher, raises the question as to its involvement. Spain made a stab at a coup there a few months ago too. Imperialist is as imperialist does. Whether a European government is liberal, conservative, or leftist, all factions are united in what they see as the defense of Western Civilization, which translates on the ground to illegal invasions and interventions wherever they perceive economic and political interest, which is practically everywhere dark-skinned people live. Noblesse oblige, you know.

The EU announced that it is seeking normalized relations with Cuba. (nytimes.com) I wonder if this is a symbolic gesture of its intentions to throw monkey-wrenches into US machinations wherever it can. No doubt the old-world imperialists’ sense of decorum is insulted by the United States’ savage displays of brawn in Iraq. But really, it’s a question of style over substance. In the end, the effects of either US or European imperialism will be the same for the victims.

Americans, in order not to feel bad about certain things, make a deal with themselves not to feel too good about anything. And they call this emotional mediocrity ‘the good life.’

By Rev. Bob Jones, III
Ed. Note: Rev. Jones sent this greeting to Bush on November 3. It is now posted on his website.

Dear Mr. President:
The media tells us that you have received the largest number of popular votes of any president in America’s history. Congratulations!

In your re-election, God has graciously granted America-though she doesn’t deserve it-a reprieve from the agenda of paganism. You have been given a mandate. We the people expect your voice to be like the clear and certain sound of a trumpet. Because you seek the Lord daily, we who know the Lord will follow that kind of voice eagerly.

Don’t equivocate. Put your agenda on the front burner and let it boil. You owe the liberals nothing. They despise you because they despise your Christ. Honor the Lord, and He will honor you.

Had your opponent won, I would have still given thanks, because the Bible says I must (I Thessalonians 5:18). It would have been hard, but because the Lord lifts up whom He will and pulls down whom He will, I would have done it. It is easy to rejoice today, because Christ has allowed you to be His servant in this nation for another presidential term. Undoubtedly, you will have opportunity to appoint many conservative judges and exercise forceful leadership with the Congress in passing legislation that is defined by biblical norm regarding the family, sexuality, sanctity of life, religious freedom, freedom of speech, and limited government. You have four years-a brief time only-to leave an imprint for righteousness upon this nation that brings with it the blessings of Almighty God.

Christ said, “If any man serve me, let him follow me; and where I am, there shall also my servant be: if any man serve me, him will my father honour” (John 12:26).

The student body, faculty, and staff at Bob Jones University commit ourselves to pray for you-that you would do right and honor the Savior. Pull out all the stops and make a difference. If you have weaklings around you who do not share your biblical values, shed yourself of them. Conservative Americans would love to see one president who doesn’t care whether he is liked, but cares infinitely that he does right.

Best wishes.
Sincerely your friend,
Bob Jones III
President
Bob Jones University

PS: A few moments ago I read this letter to the students in Chapel. They applauded loudly their approval.

When I told them that Tom Daschle was no longer the minority leader of the Senate, they cheered again.

On occasion, Christians have not agreed with things you said during your first term. Nonetheless, we could not be more thankful that God has given you four more years to serve Him in the White House, never taking off your Christian faith and laying it aside as a man takes off a jacket, but living, speaking, and making decisions as one who knows the Bible to be eternally true.
counterpunch.org

By Father Gerard Jean-Juste
Greetings and Gratitude! Courage and Persistence!

I can’t stop thinking of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., as I am sending you this short letter. Quoting by heart and in substance Dr. King, allow me to remind you of this:

“It is not, if I help my brothers and sisters, what’s going to happen to me? Rather, if I don’t help them, what’s gong to happen to them?”

Hooded men, intimidation, masked gunmen, massacre, masked men attacking the churches, forced entries in our rectories, arbitrary arrests, defamation, character assasination, prison, threats of death – SHOULD NOT STOP ANY HUMAN RIGHTS ACTIVIST OR INSTITUTIONS advocating for the enjoyment of basic human needs for all, especially the poor ones.

I think of all of you who advocate for my release, all who demand the release of all political prisoners, under the “de facto”, illegal, unconstitutional Latortue-Alexandre government imposed facistically by the administration of Presidents G.W. Bush, Jacques Chirac, and Prime Minister Paul Martin.

Freedom and democracy shall prevail in Haiti.

Visiting Haiti in 1983, Pope John Paul II called for real change: “Things must change.” LET IT BE!

The represssion on all levels is so heavy. I call for: an immediate return to constitutional order; the release of all political prisoners; the respect of the vote and the will of the people; the rejection of kidnappings, coup d’etats from whoever the authors.

Let the word of God win our souls! Let love of God and humanity prevail! Let us start our heaven on earth as God wants it!

Gratitude, Peace, and Love to you all!

Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste (Nsera Njeri Jan-Jis) 509-405-3244

[This letter was sent out of the Omega-Carrefour Jail by Fr. Gerard Jean-Juste via Bill Quigley, Loyola University School of Law New Orleans, one of Fr. Jean-Juste’s lawyers. Fr. Jean-Juste is represented by Mario Joseph and others with the Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti. Fr. Jean-Juste is scheduled to appear before a Haitian judge for a preliminary hearing on Wednesday November 10, 2004.
counterpunch.org

by Mike Whitney
The Gonzales memos claimed that Bush had “the right to wave anti-torture law and international treaties providing protections to prisoners of war.”
Associated Press

Bush intends to put an advocate of torture at the head the Justice Dept. Is this how he rewards the “moral values” crowd who shoehorned him into the Oval Office?

Alberto Gonzales, name never should have been submitted as a candidate for Attorney General. His involvement in the Abu Ghraib scandal is widely known and should have immediately disqualified him from consideration. The memos he produced that dismissed the Geneva Conventions as “obsolete” were critical in developing the rationale for using abusive techniques to extract information from prisoners. Once his role in facilitating the torture was exposed, he should have been swiftly disbarred and unceremoniously deposited in the White House dumpster.

That,s not how it works in the Bush Administration though, where the incidents of crime serve as Brownie-points for promotion. Instead, Gonzales will be trotted up to Capital Hill and get the requisite “nod” from the rubber stamp Congress so he can move into his new digs at the DOJ. Only the signage on the door of the Attorney General will change to accommodate the transition: “Alberto Torquemada; America,s Grand Inquisitor”.

There,s no doubt about Gonzales complicity in the torture at Abu Ghraib. His controversial memos show that he was establishing the pretext for discarding Geneva as a “quaint” institution that obstructed the supreme powers of the presidency. His efforts were designed to deny prisoners of even the “minimal standards” of humane treatment and to legitimize the (well documented) brutality that followed. He is every bit as guilty of the unlawful abuse as if he had affixed the wires to the genitalia of detainees himself.
Full Article:counterpunch.org