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There was movement at the station, the monopoly had got away!
by finch Tuesday, Apr 14 2009, 12:32am international /
mass media /
commentary
The Mass Media has no credibility whatsoever!
Is your favourite media outlet relentlessly pursuing KNOWN, SELF-CONFESSED, and other (proven) WAR CRIMINALS? NO! Then it’s not acting in the PUBLIC INTEREST! REAL journalism acts as society’s CONSCIENCE; it does not compromise in its pursuit of KNOWN war criminals until justice is served – has JUSTICE been served yet?
International nuclear waste dump
Reporters and journalists of the recent past maintained their professional integrity and served the public interest but look at the state of mainstream journalism today! All we hear and see is radio bla, bla, video la, la and TV ga, ga! Little wonder the thinking public is disillusioned and seeks out the fearless INDEPENDENTS for informative news and cutting commentary. Murdoch and his ilk can’t sack us; in fact, we inform him almost daily – with intelligent renditions of events and news -- to blow his failing empire out his lying, manipulative, dishonest, moronic, arse! Give my regards to the boys, Rupert, it’s time for you to go!
Here’s a take on the blatant and constant propaganda relating to Somali pirates. But first let’s do a little journalistic research and offer a thinking person’s story to the public – that eliminates 95% of Americans for starters! Are we still in denial over Bush’s appropriation of (in his own words) “Iraq’s treasure” and the COST of filling your tanks in INNOCENT HUMAN BLOOD? Yes, doodles! BUT the rest of the WORLD is NOT IN DENIAL and soon Spanish and other INTERNATIONAL ADVOCATES will triumph, which may result in war crimes trials or at the very least, the complete disappearance of the last VESTIGES of American ‘morality.’ Sewer slime cannot survive in the bright sun of TRUTH!
You would have earned your reward and become the ‘lepers’ of the world. What then, PARIAH? ALONE AND DETESTED YOU WILL BE RAZED, be assured – everyone knows it except you, denial tends to obstruct clear perception! And you would have done it all to yourselves!
Now for some historical perspective on Somalia and the so-called ‘pirate’ problem:
From reports written in 2001-5:
Poor Countries - the North's Radioactive Dump
by Jorge Piña
May 8, 2001
ROME - The developing South has become the dump for hundreds of thousands of tonnes of radioactive waste from the world's rich countries, a colossal business which is linked to money laundering and gunrunning, say lawmakers and activists in Italy.
''The trafficking of radioactive waste, a large part of which goes to countries of the South, constitutes a business of gigantic proportions, amounting to more than seven billion dollars a year in Italy alone,'' Massimo Scalia, the chairman of an investigative commission set up by the Italian parliament, told IPS.
Scalia said that every shipload of nuclear waste represents around five million dollars in profits.
The Italian justice system is investigating the trafficking of radioactive waste to the developing South, particularly African countries like Somalia, Sudan, Eritrea, Algeria and Mozambique.
The information gathered in the two main legal probes, carried out in the northern Italian cities of Milan and Asti, and the data compiled by the parliamentary commission demonstrate that two of the methods for getting rid of such waste are dumping it into the sea in special metal containers designed to sink to the bottom, or purposely sinking the ship carrying the waste, and reporting it as an accident.
Some of the shipwrecks are being investigated by Lloyd's, the British insurance company.
Maurizio Dematteis with the Italian environmental umbrella Ligambiente 2001 said there were already more than 600,000 tonnes of radioactive waste on the floor of the Atlantic ocean along the coast of the western Sahara.
He also said there were three enormous illegal dumps - among the largest in the world - in Somalia, where workers handle the radioactive waste without any kind of safeguard or protective gear - not even gloves.
The workers do not know what they are handling, and if one of them dies, the family is persuaded to keep quiet with a small bit of cash, the activist added.
Dematteis believes the murder of Ilaria Alpi, a young journalist with Italy's state TV station RAI, was linked to the trafficking of guns and radioactive waste.
Alpi was killed in Somalia on Mar 20, 1994, apparently after she discovered too much about those illegal activities.
Meanwhile, Italy's Chamber of Deputies has not yet passed a bill that has already made it through the Senate. Once it is passed, the new law will make ''the illegal trafficking of waste'' a specific offence in the criminal code. Today, that activity is only subject to administrative sanctions.
Italy's legislature is in recess prior to the May 13 parliamentary elections.
The current legislation does not allow the justice system to effectively clamp down on the trafficking of radioactive waste, because the violations expire three or four and a half years after they are reported.
Prosecutor Giovanni Tarditi explained that those found guilty of engaging in such activity are generally fined. Moreover, the fines are not high, he said, especially when compared to the huge profits involved in trafficking nuclear waste.
Judicial police inspector Gianni De Podestá, who is waging a determined struggle against the ''eco-mafia'', said ''we are often forced to resort to charges of tax evasion to arrest the traffickers.
''The evidence accumulated throughout months of investigations is frequently not enough. But that will change once trafficking is made a crime,'' he added.
Mozambique is the final destination for many of the new routes for trafficking toxic waste from industrialised countries, according to the Scalia commission, which takes its name from its chairman.
Experts say another area that will increasingly accept such waste in the future is eastern Europe, where nuclear waste has already been found at the bottom of the Black Sea, off the Rumanian coast.
A report by Ligambiente 2001 indicates that Italy is a source and transit country for radioactive waste that is shipped to Somalia, Malawi, Zaire, Sudan, Eritrea, Algeria, and Mozambique.
The trafficking of radioactive and other waste is merely a corollary to other illegal activities like money laundering and the trafficking of arms and drugs, warns Ligambiente.
Poor countries are victims of that illegal trade, which constitutes a threat to their biodiversity and culture, and hurts their chances for development, said Dematteis.
The trafficking of nuclear waste once again reveals the capacity of criminal organisations to continually develop new activities which the international community is not prepared to combat, he added.
Secret dumps of toxic waste washed ashore in Somalia
Jonathan Clayton
March 4, 2005
THE huge waves which battered northern Somalia after the tsunami in December are believed to have stirred up tonnes of nuclear and toxic waste illegally dumped in the war-racked country during the early 1990s.
Apart from killing about 300 people and destroying thousands of homes, the waves broke up rusting barrels and other containers and hazardous waste dumped along the long, remote shoreline, a spokesman for the United Nations Environment Programme (Unep) said.
“Initial reports indicate that the tsunami waves broke open containers full of toxic waste and scattered the contents. We are talking about everything from medical waste to chemical waste products,” Nick Nuttal, the Unep spokesman, told The Times.
“We know this material is on the land and is now being blown around and possibly carried to villages. What we do not know is the full extent of the problem.”
Mr Nuttall said that a UN assessment mission that recently returned from the lawless African country, which has had no government since 1991, reported that several Somalis in the northern areas were ill with diseases consistent with radiation sickness. “We need more information. We need to find out what has been going on there, but there is real cause for concern,” he added. “We now need to urgently send in a multi-agency expert mission, led by Unep, for a full investigation.”
An initial UN report says that many people in the areas around the northeastern towns of Hobbio and Benadir, on the Indian Ocean coast, are suffering from far higher than normal cases of respiratory infections, mouth ulcers and bleeding, abdominal haemorrhages and unusual skin infections.
“The current situation along the Somali coastline poses a very serious environmental hazard not only in Somalia but also in the eastern Africa sub-region,” the report says. Toxic waste was first dumped in Somalia in the late 1980s, but accelerated sharply during the civil war which followed the 1991 overthrow of the late dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
Local warlords, many of them former ministers in Siad Barre’s last government, received large payments from Swiss and Italian firms for access to their respective fiefdoms.
Most of the waste was simply dumped on remote beaches in containers and leaking disposable barrels.
Somali sources close to the trade say that the dumped materials included radioactive uranium, lead, cadmium, mercury and industrial, hospital, chemical and various other toxic wastes. In 1992, Unep said that European firms were involved in the trade, but because of the high level of insecurity in the country there were never any accurate assessments of the extent of the problem.
In 1997 and 1998, the Italian newspaper Famiglia Cristiana, which jointly investigated the allegations with the Italian branch of Greenpeace, published a series of articles detailing the extent of illegal dumping by a Swiss firm, Achair Partners, and an Italian waste broker, Progresso.
The European Green Party followed up the revelations by presenting to the press and the European Parliament in Strasbourg copies of contracts signed by the two companies and representatives of the then “President” — Ali Mahdi Mohamed — to accept 10 million tonnes of toxic waste in exchange for $80 million (then about £60 million).
Abdullahi Elmi Mohamed, a Somali academic studying in Sweden, told The Times that this worked out at “approximately $8 per tonne, while in Europe the cost for disposal and treatment of toxic waste material could go up to $1,000 per tonne”.
Mr Ali Mahdi, who then controlled north Mogadishu and who worked closely with the UN during its disastrous 1992-95 humanitarian mission to the country, has always refused to discuss the issue even though an Italian parliamentary report subsequently confirmed many of the allegations.
How many times have you witnessed the mainstream media put the Somali tragedy in its proper context?
Never forget the stories you are fed are the stories that serve the same interests as those poisoning not only innocent Somalis, but the ENTIRE PLANET! Who does your media serve, themselves or the broader public interest?
ARREST KNOWN WAR CRIMINALS AND THOSE WHO PROTECT THEM, NOW! Everything else will ‘come out in the corrupt and poisonous wash!’
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