Conservative cardinal covered up clerical child abuse

This video from New York City in the USA says about itself:

NYC’s gay population protests the Roman Catholic Church’s dealings with their child molestation scandal in front of St. Patrick’s Cathedral on Easter Sunday 2010.

By Valerie Tarico, Truthout in the USA:

Head of Catholic Bishops Paid Pedophiles to Disappear

Thursday, 31 May 2012 12:42

Timothy Dolan, cardinal of New York and head of the Catholic Conference of Bishops, had his prime-time career launched by the pedophile priest scandal. Now, despite efforts to distance himself, his role in pedophile protection may come back to bite him. Wednesday, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee admitted that, during Dolan’s tenure, pedophiles were paid to simply disappear.

In June of 2002, Dolan was appointed archbishop of Milwaukee after his predecessor, Rembert G. Weakland, admitted a confidential settlement of $450,000 to a man who accused Weakland of sexually assaulting him in 1979. In contrast to Weakland, Dolan was a known theological conservative with the trust of the Vatican and, despite questionable management of sexual abuse scandals in his previous position in Saint Louis, he was tasked with cleaning up the mess.

From the start, Dolan positioned himself as a victim’s advocate: “… [i]t is impossible to exaggerate the gravity of the situation, and the suffering that victims feel, because I’ve spent the last four months being with them, crying with them, having them express their anger to me.” His response to those tears and anger, however, foreshadowed events of this winter, when Dolan had consistently argued that the church is above the law.

In the case of the pedophile priests, Dolan almost immediately set about exploring financial incentives that would encourage them to step down and fade away into the community. He emphatically denied in 2006 that this was the case. But during subsequent bankruptcy proceedings for the Milwaukee archdiocese, public documents showed that Dolan had discussed payout options with his finance committee as early as 2003. Now email from Julie Wolf, communications director for the archdiocese, confirms that pedophiles were paid up to $20,000 apiece in exchange for quietly relinquishing their positions in the church.

Peter Isely is Midwest director of SNAP, the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, and a resident of Milwaukee. Isely expressed outrage at the newly confirmed payoffs, which his organization has long alleged despite Dolan’s denial. “This is as ludicrous as a school board, instead of firing a teacher for criminal acts against children, calling the police and revoking his license to teach, instead saying that they had to pay the child molester tens of thousands of dollars to hand over their license to the board.”

In 2006, serial molester Father Franklyn Becker admitted that he had been paid $10,000 for signing “laicization papers” renouncing priesthood. At the time, Dolan insisted that the payment was to cover health care expenses. “For anyone to assert that this money was a ‘payoff’ or occurred in exchange for Becker agreeing to leave the priesthood is completely false, preposterous and unjust.” Minutes from the 2003 Finance Committee meeting suggest otherwise. Payouts to pedophiles like Becker were to be on top of pension, salary and health care benefits, and had no strings attached.

Since moving to New York and taking over leadership of the Catholic Council of Bishops, Dolan has leveraged his position to advance a set of priorities based on conservative theology, anti-reproductive rights and anti-gay rights in particular. He has been a vocal and visible opponent of comprehensive health care access and marriage equality, arguing, essentially, that religious freedom operates at the level of institutions and trumps civil rights law. His position as cardinal gains him not only the ear of the Catholic laity, but of the White House. Last November, for example, a meeting between Dolan and Obama was described as “one among many meetings with officials from the Catholic Church and the administration.”

Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! in the USA: “Three years ago today, abortion provider Dr. George Tiller was shot dead while attending church in Wichita, Kansas. Reproductive healthcare providers remain the target of violence amid a wave of new legislation curtailing access to safe abortions. Last week, two clinics in Georgia and a women’s organization in New Orleans were set ablaze. Today, the House of Representatives votes on the Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act to ban abortions based on the sex of a fetus”: here.

Historian says Catholic church is heading for a schism: here.

Surge in African-American Support for Same-Sex Marriage Ignites Conservatives: here.

Equal rights campaigners slammed Britain’s bishops today for “scaremongering” about gay marriage: here.

Church of England warnings about the dire consequences of legalising same-sex marriage tread an uneasy path between the silly and the sinister: here.

Al-Qaeda bomb plot, CIA plot?

This video from the USA says about itself:

3 May 2012

On Tuesday, the FBI thwarted a plan of five self-described anarchists who were planning to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, Ohio. It turns out the FBI played an instrumental role in helping the Cleveland Five plan the alleged scheme. Stephen Webster, senior editor of Raw Story, joins us with more.

By Bill Van Auken in the USA:

The political uses of the latest “terror plot”

10 May 2012

One day after publicly announcing that the CIA had foiled an Al Qaeda plot to bomb a commercial airliner, US officials revealed Tuesday that the would-be bomber was in fact an informant working for the CIA and Saudi intelligence.

This turn of events is in line with so many domestic terror plots “disrupted” by federal authorities, which—in the overwhelming majority of cases—have featured confidential informants acting as agent provocateurs, instigating stage-managed plots and providing targeted patsies with money, dummy bombs and fake weapons before they are rounded up.

The account given for this latest operation is decidedly murky. Officials have claimed that the plot originated with the infiltration of a group affiliated to the Yemen-based Al Qaeda of the Arabian Peninsula by the CIA-Saudi double agent. Why the US government would choose to expose such a seemingly valuable mole by making the supposed plot public is unclear to say the least.

It is impossible to sort fact from fiction in the versions being reported by the media. A highly skeptical attitude toward the most basic claims about this episode is more than warranted. However, the saturation news coverage is itself an unmistakable indication that, with less than six months to go before the US presidential election, elements within the Obama administration and the state apparatus want to move the “war on terror” to the front burner of American politics.

A key motivation for this was made clear Wednesday by the Washington Post, which published an editorial entitled “The US is right to strike hard at terrorists in Yemen.”

Underwear bomb seizure being ‘exploited’ by FBI: here.

U.S. Treasury Claim of Iran-Al-Qaeda “Secret Deal” Is Discredited: here.

Dutch free marketeers want nationalisation

This Dutch video is called 21 april 2012 / Train crash in Amsterdam.

The VVD is the most pro-capitalist political party in the Netherlands.

For years, they claimed that all problems in the Netherlands could supposedly be solved by applying the economic quack recipes of Margaret Thatcher, Milton Friedman and his ‘Chicago boys’, etc.

So, privatize public transport, privatize this, privatize that, etc. And cut, cut, and cut again in public services (but … errr… not in “defence”, as the VVD wanted more money for war in Iraq, for war in Afghanistan, for expensive Joint Strike Fighter new warplanes, etc.).

So, together with other parties, the VVD privatised the Dutch railways in the 1990s. This meant that the railways themselves became one private corporation. And that railroad maintenance, which had been part of the government railways, became a separate private corporation, called ProRail.

Like the privatisation of railways in Argentina led to railway disasters, like the privatisation of railways in Britain led to railway disasters, the privatisation of railways in The Netherlands proved to be disastrous in various ways.

While rail transport and rail maintenance used to be in the same hand, now the railway corporation and ProRail started to work separately from, often against, each other.

A fire near Utrecht station wreaked havoc with rail transport all over the country.

In fall, trains could not ride any more. ProRail and the NS railway corporation said that was because of autumn leaves on the tracks. In winter, trains could not ride any more. ProRail and the NS railway corporation said that was because of frost on the tracks.

Recently, the ProRail bosses awarded themselves a 16% rise in income (while most people who are not as rich as ProRail bosses are unable to keep up with rising prices; and the VVD party, represented by Eric van der Burg, wants to cut the salaries of public sector workers, never mind keeping up with inflation.)

Last month, there was a horrible rail disaster near Amsterdam. Two trains collided. One woman died. Over 100 people got terrible injuries.

This morning, Dutch daily NRC Handelsblad reports that VVD member of parliament Aptroot wants to nationalize ProRail. He wants to make it part of the government Department of Transport and Water.

Mr Aptroot, how about the Thatcherite dogmas of your party (and some other parties) which caused these railway problems in the first place. The Dutch Socialist Party and others had proposed to re-nationalize the railways before; the VVD, now Johnny-come-latelies after the Amsterdam disaster and before the September parliamentary elections, opposed that then.

Exxon Valdez banned from India

This video from Alaska is called Black Wave -The Legacy of the Exxon Valdez (Exxon has Stalled Paying Damages for 19 Years).

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Exxon Valdez banned from entering India

Wednesday 09 May 2012

India’s Supreme Court banned the oil tanker Exxon Valdez from entering the country for dismantling today until it has been decontaminated.

The ship, which was involved in one of the worst US oil spills and is now known as the Oriental Nicety, entered Indian waters last week and was headed for Gujarat, when the Supreme Court gave its order.

It was bought recently by an Indian shipbreaking firm and was being taken to the coastal town of Alang, the hub of the country’s shipbreaking industry, for dismantling.

After the court’s orders, Gujarat maritime authorities and the state’s pollution control authorities withdrew the permission they had granted to the company to anchor the ship.

On March 24 1989, millions of gallons of crude oil spewed into Alaska’s ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound when the Exxon Valdez dashed against rocks.

The tanker has had five name changes since the spill, with ownership changing repeatedly, apparently to keep the ship in use while distancing it from the disaster.

The Indian court cited a UN convention that calls for decontamination in a ship’s country of export.

India has one of the world’s largest ship-breaking industries and workers are expected to process the ship to salvage metal parts.

But environment activists said that shipbreaking companies do not follow any precautions while breaking and handling end-of-life ships, exposing workers and the environment to toxic materials.

See also here.

Oil Billionaires Plot Secret Campaigns against Renewable Energy (duh): The intrepid Suzanne Goldenberg: here.

Iraqi refugees fight deportation to death

This is a video about the Iraqi refugees‘ protest camp in Ter Apel, the Netherlands

From Radio Netherlands Worldwide:

Iraqis set up camp in Ter Apel

Published on 9 May 2012 – 3:16pm

A group of about 50 failed asylum seekers

These Iraqi refugees have not “failed”. The Dutch Rightist government, guilty in the bloody Iraq war as allies of George W Bush; egged on by the xenophobes of Geert Wilders’ PVV, has failed; in human rights.

have set up camp outside the Ter Apel asylum seekers’ registration centre to protest against their planned deportation.

A spokesperson for the group says that central Iraq, where most of the failed asylum seekers are from, is not safe.

The Iraqis want the Dutch immigration and naturalisation service to reconsider their asylum requests and to provide them with adequate shelter.

“The Netherlands offers us a choice between returning to Iraq and living on the streets. We don’t want to go back. Death awaits us there.”

The group has announced it will stay in the tent camp until its demands are met.

See also here.And here. And here.

A leading Roma activist based in Britain is facing extradition to Bulgaria—where his life will be in danger from racists: here.

USA: In his new book, former Secretary of State Colin Powell provides what may be the most authoritative confirmation yet that there was never a considered debate in the George W. Bush White House about whether going to war in Iraq was really a good idea: here.

US veterans protest Chicago NATO summit

This video from the USA is called Veterans for Peace White House Civil Disobedience to End War.

From NBC Chicago in the USA:

Chicago: Iraq, Afghanistan War Veterans To Protest NATO

May 8, 2012

Veterans say the intend to return their medals in protest of U.S. and NATO military policy

By Phil Rogers

Among the thousands of protesters who will march and rally in Chicago later this month during the NATO Summit will be dozens of Afghanistan and Iraq war veterans who say the multi-national organization’s military policies are a failure.

So much so that they said they intend to return their medals in protest when their Sunday march reaches McCormick Place.

“We see that the global war on terrorism is a failed policy and we don’t want to be part of that mistake anymore,” said Aaron Hughes, who was part of the original Iraqi invasion in 2003.

Alejandro Villatoro, who served in both Iraq and Afghanistan, felt especially compassionate about the people of Afghanistan. He said NATO’s actions have resulted in a loss of trust.

“You don’t win the hearts and minds by doing night raids. It’s an insult to their culture,” said Villatoro.

Both said they’re proud of the men and women with whom they served, but not of missions they were asked to perform.

Hughes said he especially wants to call attention to the medical needs of American servicemen and women who are suffering from Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder or are the victims of sexual assault. He said that too many are not having their needs addressed and instead are often being returned to combat.

“That’s because of the generals and their failed policies, and not because of the service members. That’s why we’re going to march on NATO, and that’s what this is really about. It’s about them acknowledging that they made a mistake,” he said.

NATO Secretary General Anders Rasmussen travels to the United States on Wednesday for talks with President Obama.

See also here.

Chicago Police Prepare For NATO Summit With Riot Gear, Sound Cannon: here.

US people say Get out of Afghanistan

This video is called Rethink Afghanistan War (Part 4): Civilian Casualties.

From Associated Press:

May 9, 2:25 AM EDT

AP-GfK Poll: Support for Afghan war at new low

ANNE GEARAN
AP National Security Writer

WASHINGTON — Support for the war in Afghanistan has reached a new low, with only 27 percent of Americans saying they back the effort and about half of those who oppose the war saying the continued presence of American troops in Afghanistan is doing more harm than good, according to an AP-GfK poll.

In results released Wednesday, 66 percent opposed the war, with 40 percent saying they were “strongly” opposed. A year ago, 37 percent favored the war, and in the spring of 2010, support was at 46 percent. Eight percent strongly supported the war in the new poll. …

Chris Solomon, an independent from Fuquay-Varina, N.C., is among the respondents who strongly oppose the war. He said the military mission has reached the limits of its ability to help Afghans or make Americans any safer, and he would close down the war immediately if he could. While the rationale for the war is to fight al-Qaida, most of the day-to-day combat is against an entrenched Taliban insurgency that will outlast the foreign fighters, he said.

“What are we really doing there? Who are we helping?” he said in an interview. …

But in a trend that complicates discussion of the war in this year’s presidential campaign, support for the war is plummeting even among Republicans. People who identified themselves as Republicans backed the war at 37 percent, down from 58 percent a year ago.

Among Democrats, support dropped from 30 percent last year to 19 percent now. About a quarter, 27 percent, of independents favor the effort, similar to the level last year.

Bipartisan Majority Of Americans Agree With French President On Afghanistan: here.

Against War and Austerity, Hollande Is Right and Obama Should Agree. Robert Naiman, Truthout: “Newly elected French President François Hollande is coming to the White House next week to meet with President Obama … Press reports suggest that Obama’s agenda for the meeting will include trying to induce Hollande to renege on his pledge to withdraw French troops from Afghanistan. That would be a terrible mistake, a terrible waste of a unique opportunity for Obama to agree with Hollande on a common position for speeding up the withdrawal of all foreign forces that they can announce at the NATO summit in Chicago”: here.

Afghan tension: ‘US military, CIA out of control’: here.

US military officers have been taught that their enemy is Islam and that they might ultimately have to obliterate Mecca and Medina without regard for civilian deaths: here.

US attack kills five Afghan kids: here.

At a Military Hospital, Warriors Are Not the Only Wounded. Michael Winship, Moyers & Co.: “The weather’s getting warmer in Afghanistan and the war there is heating up again. That means – as it has meant every year for more than a decade – that the pace will quicken at the Landstuhl Regional Medical Center in Germany. More casualties will be brought to this largest American military hospital outside the United States. After all the years of fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan, many of the doctors, nurses, and other staff at Landstuhl are exhausted or worse”: here.

Stop the War campaigners said today that the coalition was to blame for the deaths of two British servicemen in Afghanistan: here.

Keep London Women’s Library open

This video from Britain is called Sylvia Pankhurst Trailer.

From weekly Socialist Worker in Britain:

Tuesday 8 May 2012

Unique women’s library is facing closure from cuts

Librarians tell Judith Orr about a vital collection of women’s history that university bosses want to shut down—for the sake of just £1 million

The unique Women’s Library in east London could be shut by the end of the year if bosses at London Metropolitan University get their way.

There is no other collection like this in the world. You can find records of women war workers alongside original feminist magazines and political leaflets from the 1970s.

There are papers and archives from Mary Wollstonecraft, Sylvia Pankhurst and Sheila Rowbotham.

And 90 percent of the collection has been donated by supporters in the movement.

The joy of the library is that so much of the collection is on open shelves. But like the TUC library—with which it organises joint exhibitions—the Women’s Library is part of London Metropolitan University, where vice chancellor Malcolm Gillies is making wholesale cuts.

The library’s staff are very proud that it is open to everyone, but this obviously rankles with Gillies. He has said the university can no longer fund a service that is used by so many from outside the institution.

If funding is not found by December the library may close or be limited to opening only one day a week.

Staff are fighting to keep the archive together and the library open. “We don’t want some Russell Group university to cherry-pick this collection,” one librarian told Socialist Worker. “It would end up scattered in libraries where only academics may have access.”

The library has always had a close association with campaigning, noted collections manager Teresa Doherty. “It was founded in 1926 from what had been the Fawcett Society. The records of the suffrage movement from a large part of our archive. But really it’s all about the fight for equality.”

There are copies of Shafts, one of the earliest magazines for working class women. Where original sources have become too fragile to handle, they have been painstaking photographed and bound.

Alongside the books, pamphlets, and original documents the library also houses an audio collection.

“We have the biggest collection of women’s biographies—but oral history is also really important,” said Theresa Doherty.

These archives are full of gems that shed light on centuries of struggle by women and the working class.

There is still much to research among all the donated materials. As one librarian there put it, “This library has a lot of hidden history that is yet to be discovered”.

This makes it all the more important that it should be kept open as a resource for the people whose lives and struggle it celebrates.
From miners to matchgirls

All Work and No Pay is a joint exhibition by the Women’s Library and the TUC library archives—both of which are under threat.

It includes a carefully handwritten register of the names and ages of all those who took part in the 1888 Bryant & May matchgirls’ strike.

There are records and images of the Grunwick dispute and women who fought in the Miners’ Strike in 1984-85.

Another display case shows hammers used by the women chainmakers of Cradley Heath.

They waged a ten-week battle in 1910 winning the right to minimum wages across the industry.

Women’s Freedom League notebooks

The archive includes the original handwritten minutes of the political committee of the Women’s Freedom League.

The League was a group of socialist women who broke from the mainstream suffragettes to concentrate on organising among working class women.

Emily’s unused return ticket

“The smallest item actually carries the most weight for me,” said collections manager Teresa Doherty. “It is the little purse that belonged to Emily Davison, the suffragette who died in 1913 when she threw herself in front of the king’s horse to demand the right to vote for women. Inside the purse is the return half of her ticket.”

Sign and share the petition to keep the library open: here.

CIA torture flights and British investors

This video is called Libyan seeks US, UK apology for rendition.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Reprieve demands rendition answers

Tuesday 08 May 2012

by Paddy McGuffin, Home Affairs Reporter

Legal action charity Reprieve challenged British investors on Tuesday over their involvement in a firm implicated in the CIA‘s illegal rendition and torture programme.

Investors in IT and security giant Computer Sciences Corporation (CSC), which include the state-funded Lloyds Banking Group, HSBC, Barclays and UK Financial Investments – which manages the government’s investment in Lloyds – are being called on to confirm whether investing in the firm is in line with their codes of ethics.

The challenge follows revelations that CSC played a central role in rendering detainees between a number of secret prisons and torture sites.

Court documents which came to light last year showed that CSC organised rendition flights on behalf of the CIA to carry prisoners between a number of locations, including Guantanamo Bay and notorious “black sites” in North Africa, South East Asia and Eastern Europe.

Reprieve said it wrote to CSC over a month ago, asking that it “pledge never to be involved in torture in the future,” but the firm refused to make any such promise.

Reprieve’s legal director Cori Crider said: “The question for these companies is whether investing in a firm which assisted in kidnap and state-sponsored torture can be considered ethical. All we have asked of CSC is a pledge never to be involved in such serious abuses again. It has failed to engage with our request, but we now hope that its investors will prove more responsive.”

When contacted by the Star, UK Financial Initiatives said: “We expect our investee companies to act ethically and sensibly on sustainability issues.

“We expect each investee company to set out clearly which of the ethical and environmental standards set by governmental, advisory and regulatory bodies it has committed to adhere to and report against and to explain why it has chosen these principles.

“We will meet with each investee company to discuss sustainability issues at least annually. Where they are not in line with this policy we will take this up with them.”

U.S. Extraordinary Rendition Suit Reaches Human Rights Court: here.

The CIA and the Case of Mistaken Rendition: here.

Legal action charity Reprieve has joined forces with leading British academics to launch a new project compiling data on extraordinary rendition: here.

There’s a new project under way to investigate Britain’s complicity in extraordinary rendition: here.

BP oil disaster photos published at last

From the Huffington Post in the USA:

BP Oil Spill Photos Posted By Greenpeace Following Freedom Of Information Request

Posted: 05/07/2012 1:31 pm Updated: 05/08/2012 12:00 am

Over two years after the disastrous BP oil spill wreaked havoc on the Gulf, Greenpeace has received photos of the destruction inflicted on marine life in the area.

According to a Greenpeace press release, the environmental group filed a Freedom of Information request in 2010 for the photos — their request was one of over 50 FOIA requests submitted by Greenpeace to various agencies regarding the oil spill.

The spill occurred after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig killed 11 workers on April 20, 2010. Far surpassing BP‘s initial estimates, about 50,000 barrels per day flowed from the well over the course of three months, according to a government-organized scientific team.

The Greenpeace press release states that the photos, many focused on oil-covered sea turtles, “appear to be part of the effort to collect evidence for the prosecution of BP and others.”

The trial to assign damages for the oil spill has been delayed until January 2013. Last month, former BP engineer Kurt Mix became the first to face criminal charges from the disaster. HuffPost’s John Rudolf reported that more arrests related to spill estimates are likely, according to legal experts.

The Deepwater Horizon Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) Trustee Council recently announced that they were kicking off a $60 million series of early restoration projects along the Gulf Coast.

Of the five turtle species in the Gulf of Mexico, four are endangered and the fifth species is threatened.

Greenpeace’s John Hocevar stated in the organization’s press release, “While the White House was trying to keep the emphasis on rosy stories of rescued animals being released back into the wild, they were sitting on these images of garbage bags full of Kemp’s Ridley sea turtles.”

View the photos below by NOAA, courtesy of Greenpeace: here.

See also here.