Wired on Journalism

Wired Magazine had an interesting quote this month:
"Lazy journalism fails to distinguish between objective sources and interested parties - and this issue has interested parties aplenty, from industry-funded think tanks to hired PR firms, feeding the press the disinformation it needs to make the story sound balanced. This is the media's own inconvenient truth - that the institution charged with reporting the facts is so easily manipulated by those whose "salary depends upon [our] not understanding" the facts..."

Interview with Moise Jean Charles

Here is the short version of my inteview with Moise Jean Charles, published in Left Turn
magazine, scanned up.

This article appeared in the July/August #21 Issue of Left Turn Magazine. You can order it from clamor (click the image).

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Also within Issue #21 is an excellent piece on the recent Haitian elections by Photo-Journalist

Andrew Stern. An alternative version of this interview (with some different q&a's) will be up on the Left Turn Website sometime in the near future. You'll have to read both the online and hardcopy editions to see the interview in its entirety. Also check out WBAI's 7/1/06 show Haiti: The Struggle Continues for a new interview.

Mexico: Trashed Ballots and Strange Election Results

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Mexican Police have cordoned off the Nezahuacoyotl garbage dump where ballots and ballot-boxes from three precincts won by Lopez Obrador were discovered on Tuesday (July 4, 2006). Meanwhile the Mexican electoral authority (IFE) is obfuscating what Obrado's party is claiming to be the proper recount which needs to take place. NED/USAID grantee organizations and the obvious Washington insiders have organized heavily against Lopez Obrador's leftist candidacy in Mexico. BBC Reporter Greg Palast has a fascinating video titled "Florida Con Salsa: Investigative Reporter Greg Palast Reports on Voter Fraud in Mexico's Presidential Election" up on Democracy Now!

Also read a full update on the recent electoral manipulation in Mexico by Narco News Founder Al Giordano (click on the photo above). As the results came in from the Mexican election night I also posted a piece up on NarcoNews.

An Orphan of Gran Ravine: Widmise Jocelyn

Today HURAH (Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti) received this picture of Widmise Jocelyn, a girl of 8 who lost her mother, father, sister and godmother in the recent massacre in Gran Ravin. She is now in the care of the Gran Ravin Community Human Rights Council (GR-CHRC) established by AUMOHD. She is in severe shock. Read more below.

Donations to support the work of AUMOHD in this baffling and shocking disaster can be sent to:

Tom Luce. Hurah, Inc. - Human Rights Accompaniment In Haiti
In Partnership with AUMOHD, a Haitian Human Rights Advocacy Group.
900 US Advocates
1515 Fairview St. Apt. 3

IRI, World Bank, Emmanuel Constant...

The IRI just announced Shawn Sullivan as the new Regional Director for it's Latin American and Caribbean Programs. Most recently, Sullivan served as Special Assistant in the Office of Legislative Affairs at U.S. Department of Defense. Earlier, Sullivan served as the Senior Field Representative for the Bush/Cheney 2004 presidential campaign in New Mexico. In other IRI news it will soon be shown how the famed Reporters Without Borders has been secretly financed by the IRI.

History should also note that the Bolous-family-funded Haiti Democracy Project (HDP) recently had John Merrill, Chief of Western Hemisphere programs for the Department of Defense, as an "election observer" on its team. In an article for USA Today Danna Harman(2/8/06) failed to mention he was working for the Defense Department.

See
http://www.iri.org/05-23-06-IRIAnnouncesStaff.asp

In other news...

Just posted up on AP: "Death Squad Leader Emmanuel Constant Arrested in New York, July 5, 2006"

This undated photo of Emmanuel Constant was released by the Suffolk County Police Department in Riverhead, NY, Thursday, July 6, 2006. Constant, 48, a former strongman from Haiti and former employee of the CIA, accused in a federal lawsuit of sanctioning systematic rape to silence dissent, was arrested, Wednesday, July 5, in a mortgage fraud scheme on Long Island.

Here is an interesting bit about the World Bank
I am reading Susan George's "Faith and Credit" right now. Here is how she ends the book:

"The Church's traditional imagery of heaven and of hell is graphic and explicit. Although it cannot prove that anyone has ever gone there, it still issues the visas to the promised land. The [World] Bank paints no pictures with saints, angels and demons but it does put up signposts pointing towards paradise, exhorting the faithful to imitate the blessed - the now-developed rich market-economy countries or at least those who are well on their way, like the Asian tigers.

The very vagueness of the concept of development and the great number of candidates who hope to attain it legitimize the Bank's functions, justify its existence and explain its power. As long as the fragile planet's heavenward journey lasts, as long as the poor are with us, as long as salvation is sought where it cannot be found, the World Bank will find for itself a role and a mission." - Susan George and Fabrizio Sabelli, "Faith and Credit: The World Bank's Secular Empire" (1994)