AzerNews Weekly, Azerbaijan
March 3 2005

Iranian parliament may discuss Khojaly massacre

The Iranian parliament may discuss the Khojaly massacre of
Azerbaijanis perpetrated by Armenians in 1992, the Iranian Ambassador
to Azerbaijan Afshar Suleymani told journalists on Monday.

Suleymani said that he had presented documents on the Khojaly tragedy
to the Iranian Foreign Ministry,

expressing confidence that the Ministry would express its position on
the issue shortly.
“Iran supports the territorial integrity and the position of
Azerbaijan within international organizations,” said Suleymani,
noting that no foreign forces can affect the relations between the
two countries.

Turkish Daily News
March 3 2005

Gündüz Aktan: The second biggest obstacle
Thursday, March 3, 2005

I have written on various occasions that I considered the liberal
intellectuals to be the biggest obstacle blocking our country’s path
to European Union membership. Their attitude is paradoxical. In the
past these intellectuals had a leftist vocation. Yet now they
advocate Turkish membership in the EU more vigorously than any other
group of people in the country. They are supported by big capital and
media. Like everybody else who wants EU membership, they too aim to
ensure the development of Turkey, a country with chronic problems,
via EU membership. However, their basic aim is to `tame’ the state
that had made them suffer in the past — by means of the radical
democracy to be built with the EU’s help.

This existentialist aspiration is very strong. In fact, it seems
there is no price these liberals would not be willing to pay in order
to ensure that we become an EU member. In Cyprus they supported the
Annan plan, including its initial version. And now they have a warm
reaction to Papadopoulos’ demand for recognition. Tomorrow they may
welcome the potential caprices of Greece, who is no longer willing to
take the Aegean conflicts to the International Court of Justice in
The Hague. They believe the demands the EU is making in the name of
minorities should be met in full. They have already started
indirectly accepting the Armenian genocide claims.

It is in the nature of foreign policy that such conflicts are in
the eye of great struggles and form the subject matter of tough
negotiations. If, in such cases, the views of the other side were
accepted with the `EU membership at any cost’ kind of mentality, the
other side would inevitably toughen their stance. The attitude of the
liberals, for whom no price is too high for EU membership, is the
most serious obstacle on the path to EU membership because that
stance is causing the other side to demand that Turkey pay the kind
of price that simply cannot be paid.

Let us assume that, miraculously, we have managed to overcome the
Cyprus and Aegean issues, the Armenian problem and the minorities
issue and that the technical talks with the EU have begun. This time
we will encounter an equally important obstacle, one we have not
thought about: the state of our bureaucracy.

Most of the work that must be done for EU membership falls on the
shoulders of the bureaucrats. They would be implementing the measures
called EU standards, measures that would extend into all segments of
our socioeconomic structure. And the judiciary would be resolving the
conflicts involving these standards. From this angle, selecting the
chief negotiator and conducting negotiations with the EU in the best
manner, seem lesser problems.

These standards evolved in countries over the centuries in
countries that are much more advanced than we are. It took centuries
of accumulated information and struggle to formulate these standards.
These standards would enable society to step into a new age, but how
would our bureaucracy and our judiciary manage to implement and check
these standards, which entail an extraordinary amount of cost for an
economy that is not yet fully developed? In the context of
criticizing the `state’ the liberals ignore this problem altogether.

It is true that in the course of the membership process that began
with the 1999 Helsinki summit we have received very little EU aid in
the form of grants. However, it is also true that we have not made
full use of EU facilities. This is because our bureaucracy does not
have the ability to prepare projects. That was a problem when we
entered into the customs union. Adequate capability has yet to be
created.

The prime minister often complains about the `bureaucratic
oligarchy.’ His complaints primarily involve the privatization
process. The main problem is that since we embraced the democratic
system, the bureaucratic positions have been filled and used in a
partisan manner. The current government has made mistakes of its own
in this regard. We have seen what the bureaucrats appointed have done
in such fields as rapid trains and energy. You can imagine the things
we haven’t seen.

Those suggesting bureaucratic reforms seem to be missing the basic
problem. No reform can be a substitute for improvement of the quality
of civil servants. The Japanese, who launched their modernization
drive in 1868, in the 1890s passed two laws that have basically
remained the same until now. One of the two laws in question bans
recruiting civil servants without an examination, and the other bans
politicians’ attempts to influence the bureaucracy. It is thanks to
these bureaucrats who are barely short of genius that the Japanese
economy has developed. The Japanese political class accepted as a
basic rule that politicians should not influence the work of these
bureaucrats. Over there, no abstract debates on the `state’ and the
`bureaucratic oligarchy’ have taken place.

Unless we, too, make a similar bureaucratic reform, albeit with a
two-century delay, we will not be able to enter the EU.

So, there is no reason for Sarkozy and Merkel to be worried.

ArmenPress
March 3 2005

VENICE COMMISSION AND OSCE/ODIHR VISIT ARMENIA TO DISCUSS PROGRESS OF
ELECTORAL LEGISLATION REFORM

YEREVAN, MARCH 3, ARMENPRESS: Representatives of the Council of
Europe’s Venice Commission and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human
Rights have arrived today in Yerevan for a two-day visit in order to
discuss progress in the revision of Armenia’s electoral legislation,
based on the Joint Recommendations issued by the two organizations in
relation to the ongoing electoral reform in Armenia.
The visit is part of the co-operation program between the Council
of Europe and the Armenian authorities, in the framework of Armenia’s
monitoring procedure by the Committee of Ministers established after
its accession to the Council of Europe, and the follow-up of the
OSCE-ODIHR recommendations following the 2003 elections in Armenia.
The aim of the visit is to raise with the Armenian authorities and
experts on electoral matters the main points on which Armenia’s
electoral legislation and practice have yet to meet Council of Europe
standards and OSCE Commitments on democratic elections.

Opposition leader urges Armenia not to take US envoy’s remark at face value

Arminfo
2 Mar 05

YEREVAN

The statement by the US ambassador to Armenia, John Evans, that
Nagornyy Karabakh cannot be given back to Azerbaijan and that the
massacre of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey in the early 20th century can
be classified as genocide could have been made intentionally in order
to please the 1m-strong Armenian community of the USA and perhaps even
Armenia itself, the leader of the Democratic Party of Armenia, Aram
Sarkisyan, told Arminfo today.

He said the 1m-strong Armenian community of the USA is actively
involved in the country’s public and political life and of course it
is in the interests of the US administration to have its support. He
added that it would be wrong to take the ambassador’s statements at
face value or hope that the US policy to Armenia has changed.

Aram Sarkisyan said the ambassador’s statement only reflected his own
opinion, while Washington’s opinion has repeatedly been voiced by the
US State Department which recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial
integrity and refuses to see the developments of the early last
century in Ottoman Turkey as genocide.

“It is wrong to think on the basis of the ambassador’s statement that
the US position towards its strategic partner, Turkey, has changed,”
the DPA leader said.

EU seeks neighborhood deals with Egypt, Lebanon, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia

AP Worldstream
Mar 02, 2005

The European Union head office on Wednesday proposed strengthening
economic, trade and security ties with Egypt, Lebanon, Armenia,
Azerbaijan and Georgia.

The European Commission outlined the agreements it wants to see
negotiated with those five countries as part of a “European
Neighborhood Policy” that aims to draw countries closer _ even without
the prospect of EU membership.

Launched last fall, the “ring of friends” policy offers extensive
cooperation in political, security and economic matters.

The EU already has negotiated neighborhood deals with Israel, Jordan,
Moldova, Morocco, the Palestinian Authority, Tunisia and Ukraine.

“The challenge … will be to turn the commitments and aspirations
contained in such plans into reality, through measurable reforms
bringing concrete benefits for our neighboring countries and their
citizens,” said EU External Relations Commissioner Benita
Ferrero-Waldner in recommending negotiations with the five.

High on the EU agenda, she said, were far-reaching economic and
political reform, good governance and respect for human rights. They
must commit to economic reforms, a healthy business and investment
climate as well as trade, market and regulatory reforms, she said.

The reward will be unfettered access to the EU’s vast internal market
of more than 450 million consumers.

The neighborhood accords also provide for cooperation in justice,
liberty and security issues which require legal reforms, upgrading
energy, transport and telecommunications networks and cooperation in
environmental issues.

STS: Approach to medical errors just doesn’t fly, says
astronaut-physician Dr. Jim Bagian

THORACIC SURGERY UPDATE

Thoracic surgery is a specialty on the edge. Though physicians gathered
in Tampa for the 41st annual meeting of the Society of Thoracic Surgeons
(STS)
to discuss scientific breakthroughs in their rapidly changing field,
many who attended couldn’t help but focus on issues outside of the
operating room.
Skyrocketing malpractice settlements and dwindling reimbursements have
taken a chunk out of the bottom line for many, while new technology means
surgeons are increasingly being elbowed out of the domain they once
ruled. Staff writer Heather Ennis was there and files the reports here.

The Medical Post
March 01, 2005
Volume 41, Issue 09

By Heather Ennis

TAMPA, FLA. – To make improvements in patient safety, health-care
organizations should strive to operate like a finely tuned . . . airplane?

That was the message Dr. Jim Bagian, an astronaut and physician, brought
to the Society of Thoracic Surgeons meeting here.

Fifty years ago, pilots had just about the most dangerous job you could
find, he said. They were paid well, but they frequently died. Though
there were 55 crashes for every 100,000 hours of flying time, it wasn’t
the loss of life that prompted the industry to move toward better safety
practices, said Dr. Bagian. It was money.

“They said, ‘We can’t afford to keep building that many aircraft.’ ”

Similarly, financial pressures are finding their way into health care’s
safety debate through huge malpractice settlements and government
funding programs that rise or fall based on hospital performance.

In aviation today, there are 1.97 mishaps per 100,000 flight hours, a
considerable improvement since the 1950s .

Despite significant public and government pressure, health care has not
seen similarly dramatic improvements in patient safety, said Dr. Bagian.

“We’re talking about whole-number percentage loss rates, and they’re
talking about one in a million. We don’t have nearly the fervour or
dedication to address these issues.”

The key to air travel safety is redundancy, said Dr. Bagian. When proper
procedures are followed, catastrophic events have a tough time getting
around the system.

“Even though aircraft engines are extremely reliable, they have this
redundancy so the system can fail and you still get to where you’re
going,” he said. “In medicine, we don’t have that redundancy.”

A single mistake in medicine is often followed through to its most
unfortunate conclusion, despite the fact there are usually warning signs
along the way, said Dr. Bagian. The problem is, the culture of health
care is not friendly to those who speak up about safety issues.

“People keep their mouths shut if they see something going on until
they’re absolutely sure they’re right,” he said. “We don’t respond in a
positive way. It’s intimidating.”

The culture of silence is the first thing that needs to change, said Dr.
Bagian, and it has to happen from the ground up. There should be no
limitations on who can report possible safety issues.

It’s wrong to think things only need to be reported once they have
already happened, added Dr. Bagian. The most important incidents are the
close calls, which can fuel change without people getting hurt.

“Close calls happen all the time; they change your behaviour,” he said.
“We already have plenty of accountability systems – we need learning.”

Organizations also need to set aside the antiquated notion that the
human element is what facilitates errors.

“People don’t come to work to hurt someone or make a mistake. They don’t
say, ‘How do I screw up today in a new and creative way?’ ”

To get safer, systems need to evolve in ways that make it harder for
mistakes to happen, he said. Responding to errors by paying lip service
to safety and writing new rules that are ignored isn’t good enough.

“Very often, those superficial solutions are what people try to
implement,” said Dr. Bagian. “Trying harder doesn’t get it done. You’re
talking about a cultural change.”

OIL-FOR-FOOD FIGURE SEEKS EXTENSION

World Briefings

The New York Times
February 25, 2005

By Warren Hoge

The former head of the oil-for-food program, Benon V. Sevan, has
asked the United Nations for more time to respond to charges filed
against him two weeks ago, and the request is being considered, said
Fred Eckhard, the spokesman for Secretary General Kofi Annan. A second
official, Joseph J. Stephanides, has filed his response, which “will
now be reviewed according to normal procedures before any action is
taken,” Mr. Eckhard said. The charges arise out of the preliminary
report of the commission headed by Paul A. Volcker, which said that
Mr. Sevan had tried to help a friend’s company obtain contracts under
the program and that Mr. Stephanides had favored some companies by
improperly furnishing them with bidding information.

The Media

Conversation with David Barsamian

ElectronicIraq.net
24 February 2005

Interviewed by Omar Khan, Electronic Iraq

Journalist, author, and lecturer, David Barsamian is perhaps best
known as the founder and director of Alternative Radio, a weekly
one-hour public affairs program that began in 1986 and today reaches
millions of listeners from on top of an alleyway garage in Boulder,
Colorado. Like Dahr’s Dispatches, Alternative Radio is a news medium
sustained solely by the support of individuals.

Omar Khan: You’ve said of the media that “most of the censorship
occurs by omission, not commission.” Can you illustrate this in the
case of US news coverage of Iraq?

David Barsamian: There is a structural relationship between media and
state power. They are closely linked. Who are the media? Not just in
the United States, but around the world, they’re a handful of
corporations that dominate what people see, hear, and read. They have
been able to manufacture consent, particularly in the United States,
for imperialist wars of aggression. That’s exactly what I call Iraq –
an illegal, immoral war. I’ll just give you one example: the New York
Times, this great liberal newspaper, had 70 editorials between
September 11, 2001 and the attack on Iraq, March 20, 2003. In not one
of those editorials was the UN Charter, the Nuremberg Tribunal, or any
aspect of international law ever mentioned. Now, those guys know that
these things exist, and that’s a perfect example of censorship by
omission. And so if you were reading the New York Times over that
period, during the buildup to the war, you would not have had the
sense that the United States was planning on doing something that was
a gross violation of international law, and national law for that
matter.

The reporting on Iraq has been so atrocious: people talk about how the
bar has been lowered in journalism. I don’t think it’s been
lowered. I think it’s disappeared. It’s not visible anymore. The
servility and sycophancy of journalism has reached appalling levels,
and the catastrophe that’s unfolding in Iraq is a direct result of
this. There are huge consequences for not reporting accurately. And,
sadly, it’s the Iraqi people that are paying in huge numbers, and
Americans to a lesser extent.

OK: You’ve called the media “a conveyer belt.” This departs from a
view of such omissions to be the result of delinquency on the part of
media professionals. Your metaphor instead seems to suggest a mode of
production, rather than any kind of conspiracy.

DB: To describe objective reality is not to conjure a conspiracy
theory. “Conspiracy theory” has become a term of derision that is used
against people that engage in analysis of the official story. One way
to dismiss anyone who challenges the official interpretation of events
is to say that you’re a conspiracy theorist. In other words, you’re a
jerk, you’re a moron, you believe in UFOs, aliens, flying saucers. Of
course there are clearly sectors of the military-industrial complex
that benefit from war. This is not a conspiracy theory. This is a
fact. We know who they are: Honeywell, General Dynamics, General
Electric, Northrop Grumman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon. These
are the major military contractors that have raked in hundreds of
millions of dollars in contracts for weapons. They are major weapons
traffickers. They don’t meet on a rollercoaster, on a ferris wheel, or
on a carousel. They meet in offices. They sit down at tables. They
drink coffee, they eat donuts. It’s clear, it’s out in the open.

The United States makes 50% of all the weapons that are being exported
around the world. The US spends more money on the military than the 15
largest countries combined. And that spending is increasing
exponentially. The military budget is approaching half a trillion
dollars. So there’re clearly winners and losers. And if you have
stocks in those corporations I just mentioned, you’re raking it in,
man. It’s a picnic for you.

OK: How has the increase in media concentration affected this?

DB: In Ben Bagdikian’s “Media Monopoly” in 1983, he said there were 50
corporations that control most of the media. Then it became 28, then
23, then 14. Then 10. Then, in his latest book, it’s down to 5. 5
corporations control the media. And by the media, I don’t just mean
TV. I mean Hollywood movies, radio, DVDs, magazines, newspapers,
books, books on tapes, CDs. 5 corporations.

>From 1983 to today, 2005, increase in concentration in the media has
paralleled that of state and corporate power, and also of the
increasing tendency of the United States to become even more
aggressive and militaristic: witness the invasion of Grenada, the
invasion of Panama, the first Gulf War, the bombing of Yugoslavia, the
invasion and ongoing occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq.

And I am convinced that if Iraq had gone the way the neo-cons
predicted – that they would be greeted with sweets and flowers, and
that the war would be a cakewalk, as they said – they would have
turned their gun sights on Syria and Iran. But right now, because of
the level of resistance in Iraq – and don’t forget about Afghanistan,
as well – they’ve had to slow down.

OK: So what fundamentally distinguishes commercial news from
advertising?

DB: The distinction has become increasingly blurred. There are
instances we know of where the Pentagon generated video news reports
and then gave them to various TV stations. This is spoon-fed
propaganda coming straight from the Pentagon and being broadcast as
news. Yes, there’s supposed to be a difference, but that difference is
increasingly blurred. There’s a dependency relationship between
corporate media journalists and state power. They depend on government
for news, for information, for favors, for all kinds of perks. Thomas
Friedman boasted that he used to play golf with the Secretary of State
James Baker. Brit Hume said he played tennis with Colin Powell. If, on
the other hand, you’re a working journalist, and let’s say, you’re
assigned to the White House – and you ask challenging
questions. Pretty soon, you’re not going to get called on at these
press conferences. Pretty soon when you request a meeting with the
Deputy Secretary of State for Middle East Affairs, your phone calls
aren’t returned. In other words, you’re being blacklisted. Your editor
is flummoxed because he needs stories from people in power – they
depend on people in power for information. That’s the kind of
incestuous relationship, that the dynamic that’s going on there. You
risk your career when you go up against power. I remember Erwin Knoll
used to be the editor of the Progressive Magazine. He died a few years
ago. He told me once that, when he was a reporter in Washington – he
asked Lyndon Johnson a very challenging question. Johnson kind of
brushed him off, and after that, Knoll got the cold shoulder from the
White House.

OK: I hate that.

DB: After that, he was transferred. That’s the way they can control
the game. It’s not a conspiracy theory, it’s the way power
works. Look, if you’re a powerful person and I’m a journalist,
wouldn’t you want me to write flattering things about you –

OK: Definitely

DB: –to praise your accomplishments to a wider, national audience? Of
course you would. But there’s also a structural relationship. The
electronic media is actually licensed by the federal government, by
the Federal Communications Commission. So here’s another area where
there’s this relationship. The airwaves belong to the people of the
United States; they constitute – probably, it’s hard to measure – the
most valuable physical resource in the United States.

You can’t grab the airwaves. You can’t put up your finger right now
and touch them. But the airways are part of the patrimony of the
people of the United States. And what has the FCC done over many
years? It has given away this valuable resource, and we don’t even get
anything for it. They don’t even pay for the right to propagandize-we
pay for the right to receive propaganda. All this despite that the
Federal Communications Commission enabling legislation specifically
says that the airways belong to the people.

OK: What about telecommunications reform in 96-97?

DB: The Clinton Telecommunications Reform of 1996 unleashed a tsunami
of mergers and takeovers. It has produced the greatest concentration
of media in the history of the world. That’s when clear channel went
from a few dozen stations, out of its base in San Antonio, to today
where it’s over 1200 radio stations. It’s become /the/ dominant radio
monopoly. And that was under the liberal Clinton, Gore – and I
remember very specifically, the liberal New York Times editorialized
at the time, when the legislation was enacted, that this legislation
would produce a bonanza for the American public. They’ll get more
variety, they’ll get more diversity. They’re the real winners.

Bruce Springsteen had that song about ten or fifteen years ago, “57
Channels and Nothing on.” And now, if he were rerecording that, he’d
have to put a zero at the end. Now there are 570 channels and nothing
on. There is so little information of value that is available to
American consumers of commercial TV.

OK: Thank God for PBS and NPR.

DB: They were created to be genuine alternatives to commercial
media. But they themselves have become largely commercialized. They
have what is now called “enhanced underwriting.” What does that mean?
That means commercials. They have moved way to the right, in terms of
their programming. PBS, for instance, which I call the Petroleum
Broadcasting Service. So much of its revenue comes Exxon Mobil, and
Chevron-Texaco. NPR has become a mere shadow of its former self. I
mean – and I don’t want to overstate it, since it was never
spectacular – in its early days, it still had some cojones, it still
had some sense of rebelliousness. It’s been largely tamed now. You
hear the commentaries, the discussions on Iraq…it’s not that
different from commercial media. It’s different in a key area of
sophistication and civility. They’re very sophisticated. They’re very
polite. People speak in complete sentences. You’re not interrupted. No
one’s yelling at you. (These are the characteristics of “Hardball,”
and the shout shows of commercial TV.) And so it’s seductive in that
way, particularly to the kind of ruling class. They like that. People
who’ve gone to Ivy League colleges, you know, they like to have to
have their news, sip a glass of port, and listen to some “reasonable
discourse.” I listen, particularly to National Public Radio; their
range of opinion – maybe it’s A to D. Whereas the commercial media,
maybe it’s A to B. That’s not a big difference. They both pick from
the same golden rolodex of pundits and experts from the Washington and
New York think tanks: the American Enterprise Institute, the Cato
Institute, the Heritage Foundation, the Georgetown Center for
Strategic Studies, the Council on Foreign Relations in New York.

There’s one woman in particular that I listen to, on NPR. She hosts
“Sunday Edition” in the morning, her name is Lianne Hanson. She
constantly has people like Walter Russell Meade, from the Council on
Foreign Relations, or Kenneth Pollack from the Brookings Institution
in D.C. These guests come on, and they make the most outrageous
comments. Those comments simply go unchallenged. And they come back
time and time again. They’re part of the golden rolodex, this list of
these names that circulates. And people like Michael Parenti, Noam
Chomsky, Howard Zinn, and many others who are critical – they don’t
get airtime. But they’re saying the wrong things. They’re not saying
the things that are acceptable; they’re saying things that are outside
the spectrum of legitimate opinion.

Any kid with a basic education can figure this out. If you watch the
programs, or listen to the programs, or you read Newsweek, Time, the
New York Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the Washington Post, and
the other newspapers and magazines, and whose name appears? How often
does it appear? How are the pundits that are on talk shows on Sunday
morning? Who gets on “Meet the Press”? “Face the Nation”? It’s not
complicated.

OK: All of this talk of expertise sort of reminds me of a reason given
for all sorts of problems that the US military encounters abroad: “bad
intelligence.” This reason is cited across party lines by folks who
know full well the repressive role the CIA and FBI have played
throughout the last century.

DB: And keep in the mind the utter condescension for international law
that this implies. If we have a smarter CIA, we can fight aggressive,
illegal wars more effectively.

OK: Contrast this voice in both commercial and public media with the
one that you’ve been putting on radio stations every week for almost
20 years.

DB: I started Alternative Radio very much with the mission of public
broadcasting in mind – to provide a voice for groups that may
otherwise be unheard. I took on this mission because public
broadcasting had abandoned it. We don’t chase money from corporations
and foundations, so actually have the means to pursue it. We need to
build coalitions with marginalized groups here and in the Third
World. Today, on the radio and in my other projects, I’m trying to
bring more voices from the Third World. Two of the books I’m working
on right now, for example, are with Arundhati Roy and Tariq Ali. I
think it’s important to reach out to other groups who are also
struggling for justice.

OK: On behalf of Dahr Jamail, Abu Talat, and Webmaster Jeff Pflueger,
thank you for your time.

Omar Khan is a writer and editor in Oakland. He is writing regular
analysis, ‘Covering Iraq’, for Dahr Jamail’s website. ‘Covering Iraq’
provides analysis and discussion of US mainstream news in light of
Dahr Jamail’s reports and photographs from Occupied Iraq. Its intent
is to identify unreported news from Iraq and to make a broader
audience aware of events there. ‘Covering Iraq’ encourages your
comments, reactions, and participation.

Rape allegations renew call to evict U.N.

American activist group wants world body ‘out of the
U.S.’

NEW WORLD DISORDER

WorldNetDaily.com
Thursday, February 24, 2005

Responding to new allegations of rape by United Nations peacekeepers,
an activist group renewed its call to evict the world body from the
U.S.

Move America Forward, co-chaired by California campaigner Howard
Kaloogian, has collected nearly 100,000 signatures on its petition to
“Get the U.N. Out of the U.S.” and stop American funding of the
organization.

“It has become an almost daily occurrence to read about allegations of
rape and molestation by U.N. officials,” said Kaloogian. “The
reputation of the U.N. is so badly tarnished that it cannot be trusted
to investigate itself.”

The U.N. acknowledges it is probing allegations that three
peacekeepers were involved in the rape of a Haitian woman.

The U.N. workers, policemen from Pakistan, contend they were engaged
in consensual sex with a prostitute, but the 23-year old woman told
Haitian radio stations the men “grabbed and pulled my pants, had me
lie on the ground and then raped me.”

The investigation comes after the U.N. reported 50 U.N. peacekeepers
and civilian officers in Congo have been accused of rape and
molestation of Congolese girls, and a U.N. senior official from France
has been charged with running an Internet pedophile ring.

According to an ABC News report, the U.N. personnel have fathered
hundreds of babies born to Congolese women.

Human-rights groups charge U.N. officials have tolerated the abuse for
many years.

Sex crimes by U.N. peacekeepers also have been reported in Kosovo,
East Timor and Cambodia.

This week, U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees, Ruud Lubbers, resigned
following allegations of sexual harassment.

Kaloogian asked, “How can we in good conscience continue to serve as
host and largest financial backer of an organization that is clearly
overrun with corruption and wrongdoing at every level from the
peacekeeper to quite possibly the Secretariat’s office?”

Move America Forward said it will present its petitions later this
year to congressional leaders, the Bush administration and
U.N. leadership.

“We’ve been overwhelmed with requests for ‘Get the U.N. Out of the
U.S.’ petitions from Americans who are growing disgusted by the UN’s
conduct,” said Siobhan Guiney, Move America Forward’s executive
director.

Guiney criticized U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Anna for an opinion
piece published this week claimed the problems facing the U.N. were
limited to “ethical lapses and lax management.”

Said Guiney: “Tell that to the women and children who are being
sexually abused by U.N. officials around the globe.”

From: Baghdasarian

Breakfast of Champions

A snort with your coffee, Scotch for lunch, and other
Bogosian obsessions at the Sol Theatre

Miami New Times
February 24, 2005

BY RONALD MANGRAVITE ([email protected])

To many, modern art is all about provocation. That was the case with
gonzo journalist and novelist Hunter S. Thompson, whose booze- and
drug-fueled rants were the stuff of popular legend for decades before
he committed suicide last week. Trailing along in Thompson’s wake is
Eric Bogosian, a theatrical provocateur who, for more than twenty
years, has been writing and performing such solo shows as Talk Radio,
Sex, Drugs, Rock & Roll, and the recent Wake Up and Smell the Coffee.

A Bogosian show usually presents a rogue’s gallery of marginal
characters in a string of raucous monologues that critique American
society. One of Bogosian’s early pieces, Drinking in America, is now
in revival at the Sol Theatre Project in Fort Lauderdale. This rant
and rave from the Eighties, which focuses on the addictions and
obsessions of Americans across many social strata, is still funny and
acerbic, but its social observations have lost much of their sting
over the years. As a result, Drinking is now more an exercise in sound
and fury than substance.

Some of the text seems more than a little trite. In one skit, a wired
movie producer in Hollywood keeps putting a caller on hold while he
snorts lines of cocaine for breakfast. In another, a hopped-up
panhandler uses praise and flattery to cajole an audience member to
cough up some money. In still another, a smug, scotch-drinking
professional ticks off the little successes in his life with a
disquieting urgency that suggests all is not well beneath. The
underlying idea, that Americans of all walks of life medicate their
underlying dis-ease, implies an overarching social critique. But
instead of offering some connective argument, Bogosian falls back on
vague references to capitalism and spiritual poverty. The idea,
apparently, is that the audience must connect these scattered dots of
message into some cohesive pattern; despite Bogosian’s gifts with
language and characterization, though, the basis of the idea is
muddled and ill-considered.

If Drinking is more a talent showcase than substantive theater, at
least the talent is engaging. The Sol production takes this solo show
and divides it between two actors, a decision that helps add some
welcome variety. Jim Gibbons and Jim Sweet, who made a fine pair of
tramps in the Sol’s solid production of Waiting for Godot last season,
again bring their gonzo goofball sensibilities to this tag-team
event. Gibbons has a sly, world-weary style and serves a string of
nicely etched cameos. He starts off smartly as a street drunk who
conjures a detailed reverie of luxury, limos, and lovely ladies. He’s
also terrific as a lonely traveling salesman chatting with a hooker in
a hotel room, and a persuasive preacher whose critique of societal
collapse turns into an exhortation to righteous violence. He’s
balanced by the harder-edged, tightly wound Sweet, who’s hilarious in
a wild tale of a New Yorker’s booze- and Quaalude-fueled road trip
that ends in disaster. He also scores as an immigrant restaurateur
who’s obsessed with work. But Sweet, who co-directed the production
with Robert Hooker, often comes across as more calculated than
Gibbons, who provides more character details. All three are credited
with the ominous, bleak set design, a looming, gray stone wall that
suggests both an urban street and a subterranean cavern.

While this production has merit, it’s not nearly as satisfying as many
past Sol projects, and the question arises as to why Hooker and
company opted for this particular script. In a season in which several
theaters seem to be serving decidedly so-so material, it’s fair to ask
what is in store for the Sol troupe and, by extension, South Florida
theaters in general. Over the past several years, a number of new
companies, the Sol included, have moved from mere survival to a
measure of stability. But many of these companies are focused on the
same type of theater, so-called “edgy, contemporary plays,” the
availability of which is in increasingly short supply. At some point
the Sol and other local companies may be forced to expand the scope of
their dramatic sources beyond recent New York hits, making room for
commissioned scripts on specific topics, reinvented classic texts, or
translations of contemporary plays from other countries. This
evolution may well be painful, but is most likely necessary, as the
crowded South Florida theater scene keeps maturing.

**********************
“Drinking in America”

Written by Eric Bogosian.
Directed by Jim Sweet and Robert Hooker.
With Jim Gibbons and Jim Sweet.

Presented through March 13, 2005.
954-525-6555, or

Where: Sol Theatre Project
1140 NE Flagler Dr., Fort Lauderdale.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress