1) San Francisco Voters Say:
"Bring Our Troops Home Now!"
63% to 37%
November 9, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: 415/861-0318
http://www.yesonn.net
From: "Howard Wallace"
2) The Horrible Truth in Pictures: Falluja
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/
3) U.S. Troops Move to Drive Out
Rebels in North of Iraq
INSURGENCY
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
November 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/international/middleeast/17iraq.html?hp&ex
=1100754000&en=766b3b2f2b60eff6&ei=5094&partner=homepage
4) U.S. Pounds Falluja Diehards, Violence in North
By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Wed Nov 17, 2004 08:48 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6840990&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
5) Former G.I.'s, Ordered to War, Fight Not to Go
By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times
Article published Nov 16, 2004
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041116/ZNYT02/4111
60663
6) Come together for Palestine!
West Coast Regional Right to Return Conference
Empowering the Palestine Right to Return Movement on
the West Coast of North America
Saturday November 20, 2004
7) Attica to Abu Ghraib: Human Rights, Torture,
and Resistance" Conference
Convenors: International Human Rights Initiative (IHRI)
Friday, February 25th - Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Oakland, CA - Laney Community College
8) New Bill in Congress
Targets Teachers
Who Dare To Question US Support For Israel
By Michael Collins Piper
American Free Press
11-15-4
http://rense.com/general59/NEWBILL.HTM
9) Judge Questions Long Sentence in Drug Case
(55 years for selling sack of weed to a police informant)
By NICK MADIGAN
SALT LAKE CITY
November 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/national/17sentencing.html
10) Fallujah: Blood Does Not Drown PeopleÂ’s Resistance,
But Nurtures It!
11) Consumer Prices See Biggest Gain Since May
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP)
November 17, 2004
Filed at 11:54 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Economy.html?oref=login
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
1) San Francisco Voters Say:
"Bring Our Troops Home Now!"
63% to 37%
November 9, 2004
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: 415/861-0318
http://www.yesonn.net
From: "Howard Wallace"
By a hefty 26 percent margin, San Francisco voters have called upon
the federal government to "take immediate steps to end the U.S.
occupation of Iraq and bring our troops safely home now." The
ballot measure, Proposition N, gained the support of more than
50 community organizations, including senior groups, high school
students, environmentalists, the entire labor movement and scores
of neighborhood groups. Two African-American weekly newspapers
and two lesbian and gay weeklies endorse Prop N.
The only significant organized opposition came from the San
Francisco Chronicle , the San Francisco Republican Party and the
San Francisco Examiner . The latest vote tally (with all but provisional
votes counted) is 187,105 yes against 109,391 no.
"This was far ahead of a similar local measure which won by a slim
margin well into the latter stages of the Viet Nam war," said Howard
Wallace, who coordinated both campaigns. "It is a dramatic statement
from one of the world's most popular cities," he added.
City Supervisor Chris Daly, one of four colleagues who placed N on
the ballot, predicted that other cities in the U.S. will follow suit with
anti-war measures of their own. "A majority of Americans still believe
this illegal war is not worth the continued tragic loss of Iraqi or American
lives. In the wake of the sleazy propaganda barrage of this national
election, there should be a great urge of voters in other cities to speak
their minds," he said.
Prop N organizers vowed to aid that process and cited their web site:
http://www.yesonn.net, which includes suggestions to other cities
on how to go about organizing such a campaign.
# # #
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
2) The Horrible Truth in Pictures: Falluja
http://fallujapictures.blogspot.com/
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
3) U.S. Troops Move to Drive Out
Rebels in North of Iraq
INSURGENCY
By EDWARD WONG
BAGHDAD, Iraq
November 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/international/middleeast/17iraq.html?hp&ex
=1100754000&en=766b3b2f2b60eff6&ei=5094&partner=homepage
BAGHDAD, Iraq, Nov. 16 - The American military raced Tuesday to
contain a spreading insurgency, sending hundreds of soldiers and
armored vehicles into the streets of Mosul to root out bands of rebels
who commandeered parts of the city last week as the Americans were
battling their way through Falluja.
The struggle to retake Mosul came as the family of a kidnapped
British-Iraqi aid worker, Margaret Hassan, said they believed that she
was the woman shown being executed in a videotape released by
insurgents. Ms. Hassan was abducted in Baghdad last month as she
drove to work. She would be the first foreign female hostage in Iraq
to be executed.
In a televised interview shown on the BBC, her husband, an Iraqi,
pleaded with her captors to confirm her fate, saying, "I beg those
people who have kidnapped Margaret to tell me what they have done
with her."
The American military on Tuesday was investigating the videotaped
fatal shooting of an apparently wounded and unresisting Iraqi prisoner
by a marine in a Falluja mosque. After the videotape was broadcast
Monday evening by NBC News, commanders removed the marine from
the battlefield, and American officials braced for a wave of outrage
in the Middle East as news of the videotape spread around the world.
Though a weeklong American offensive smashed the insurgents'
haven of Falluja, snipers continued Tuesday to shoot at American
troops roaming the debris-covered streets. Residents began to
warily step out of their homes, emerging into a wasteland devastated
by American bombs and bullets.
The American action in Mosul, 225 miles north of Baghdad and Iraq's
third largest city, answers a burst of violence that erupted there during
the offensive in Falluja.
American and Iraqi troops sealed off the five bridges spanning the
Tigris River and began blocking off western neighborhoods largely
inhabited by Sunni Arabs, who ruled the country in the era of Saddam
Hussein. The provincial government imposed a curfew, and the main
avenues appeared deserted for much of the day, witnesses said. The
loudest noises came from mortar shells exploding near the American
forces and helicopters buzzing above rooftops and rows of palm trees.
"It's ongoing offensive operations to eliminate all the pockets of
resistance that are out there," said Lt. Col. Paul Hastings, a spokesman
for Task Force Olympia, the American units charged with controlling
northern Iraq. "Now we're trying to catch a wider swath of targeted areas."
The colonel said that American forces had met little resistance and
that groups of insurgents appeared to melt away at the approach of
the light-armored vehicles of the Stryker Brigade. But they continued
carrying out attacks throughout the city, firing at Iraqi police stations,
lobbing mortars at American bases and aiming suicide car bombs
at American troops.
Thousands of Kurdish militiamen have entered Mosul at the request
of the provincial governor, a move that could increase ethnic tensions
in the diverse city, which has large numbers of Kurds, Christians and
Sunni Arabs. The governor has also called in Iraqi soldiers to help
establish order where the police have failed.
As the American offensive got under way in Mosul, the rebels continued
their wave of assaults, with ambushes on American troops across the
Sunni Triangle in Baquba and Ramadi and bombings of oil pipelines
near Kirkuk.
An American soldier was killed and another wounded by a roadside
bomb north of the capital, the American military said.
Iraqi officials claimed success in flushing out some insurgent leaders,
saying they had captured several leaders of the Army of Muhammad,
believed to be responsible for several beheadings of Iraqis and
foreigners.
Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite news channel, reported Tuesday evening
that it had received a videotape showing a gunman shooting to death
a woman who was likely to be Ms. Hassan, the aid worker. It did not
televise the videotape.
Ms. Hassan's family and British officials said they had seen a video
that led them to believe she was dead.
"Our hearts are broken," Ms. Hassan's four brothers and sisters said
in a statement released by the British Foreign Office. "We have kept
hoping for as long as we could, but we now have to accept that
Margaret Hassan has probably gone and at last her suffering has
ended."
Ms. Hassan was the director of Iraq operations for the aid group
CARE International and had lived in this country for more than
30 years. She was born in Dublin and received citizenship here after
marrying an Iraqi man, Tahseen Ali Hassan.
A group of armed men snatched her last month as she was driving
to work. She was held by an unknown group that released four videos
of her. The last one, released Nov. 2, showed Ms. Hassan fainting and
a gunman threatening to turn her over to the Jordanian militant
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi if Britain did not withdraw its forces within
48 hours.
"She dedicated her whole life to working for the poor and vulnerable,
helping those who had no one else," her family said. "Those who are
guilty of this atrocious act, and those who support them, have no
excuses."
Ms. Hassan's kidnapping and that of a British engineer, Kenneth
Bigley, who was beheaded by Mr. Zarqawi's group in early October,
have increased the political pressure on the British prime minister,
Tony Blair. The war has been hugely unpopular in Britain, and the
two kidnappings have led to widespread condemnation of British
participation.
With Iraq's first democratic elections scheduled to take place in
January, the American military is under enormous pressure to pacify
Sunni-dominated parts of Iraq, where the guerrilla uprising has grown
stronger and more lethal.
Last Thursday in Mosul, up to 500 insurgents working in large groups
overran a half-dozen police stations and sent hundreds of policemen
fleeing. The Iraqi government is now struggling to rebuild the devastated
police force.
In Baquba, 35 miles northeast of Baghdad, insurgents kept up attacks
on American and Iraqi forces on Tuesday, a day after laying siege to
police stations. The guerrillas fired rockets, mortar rounds and bullets
at a center used by Iraqi security forces and American troops, wounding
at least four Iraqi national guardsmen, said Capt. Bill Coppernoll,
a spokesman for the First Infantry Division, charged with controlling
the area. In the southern suburb of Buhritz, an insurgent stronghold,
fighters ambushed an American patrol and wounded two soldiers.
Guerrillas in Ramadi, 30 miles west of Falluja, attacked American
troops with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades. The fighters
later tried a suicide car bomb assault but failed. American commanders
said troops killed an enemy sniper there.
Insurgents also continued attacking the country's oil infrastructure,
bombing a section of the northern export pipeline carrying crude oil
from the Kirkuk fields to the Turkish port in Ceyhan. Fires raged at the
site of the sabotage, west of Kirkuk. The pipeline has been under
constant attack since Mr. Hussein was ousted.
The sabotage of the pipeline came a day after guerrillas set fire to four
oil wells near Kirkuk and attacked an oil storage tank by the section
of the pipeline near Mosul. In an audio recording posted on the Internet
on Monday, Mr. Zarqawi urged fighters to keep up attacks on the
pipelines and remain steadfast in the broader war against the Americans.
The Iraqi interior minister, Falah al-Naqib, said Tuesday at a news
conference in Baghdad that Moayed Ahmed Yassin, the leader of the
Army of Muhammad, and five aides were arrested recently in the capital.
Mr. Yassin was a member of Mr. Hussein's Republican Guard,
Mr. Naqib said.
American and Iraqi officials have said the group was formed by
Mr. Hussein in the final days of his rule to fight for the return of
the Baath Party. Since the start of the insurgency, Mr. Yassin has
traveled to Syria to meet with close associates of Mr. Hussein,
Mr. Naqib said.
In Baghdad, Nasir Ayaef, a member of the interim National Assembly
and an official in the influential Iraqi Islamic Party, was arrested, said
Ayad al-Samarrai, a senior party official. Mr. Samarrai said on Al Jazeera
that Mr. Ayaef had not been engaged in any criminal activity and that
he had been detained because of the party's stand against American
policies. Last week, the Sunni-dominated party said it was withdrawing
from the interim Iraqi government to protest the invasion of Falluja.
If the party decides not to take part in the January elections, it would
come as a big blow to the Americans, who are hoping for strong
Sunni participation to ensure the legitimacy of the outcome.
In Mosul on Tuesday, American and Iraqi troops hoped to clamp
down on the Sunni-led insurgency with their sweep of the city's
troubled western half. A suicide car bomb exploded near a patrol,
wounding one American soldier, said Colonel Hastings, the Army
spokesman. Insurgents also lobbed mortar rounds at an American
base near the airfield and at the headquarters of Task Force Olympia.
Mr. Zarqawi, the most wanted man in Iraq, may have moved his
base from Falluja to Mosul, according to a new military intelligence
report. Some evidence of that appeared in his latest audio recording.
He praised most of the insurgents across the Sunni Triangle by calling
them "lion cubs." But the fighters of Mosul, he said, were "lions."
Reporting for this article was contributed by an Iraqi employee of
The New York Times from Mosul, Robert F. Worth from Falluja,
Richard Oppel Jr. from Habbaniya and Sarah Lyall from London.
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
4) U.S. Pounds Falluja Diehards, Violence in North
By Michael Georgy and Fadel al-Badrani
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters)
Wed Nov 17, 2004 08:48 AM ET
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=6840990&src=eD
ialog/GetContent§ion=news
FALLUJA, Iraq (Reuters) - American mortars pummelled parts
of Falluja on Wednesday as troops hunted for guerrillas still
fighting in the Iraqi city after nine days of bombardment.
U.S. officers said Marines were "cleaning up" fragments of
an insurgent force of Iraqi and foreign Islamists and Saddam
Hussein loyalists that Iraq's interim government says has left
some 1,600 rebels dead in the rubble of the urban battlefield.
But elsewhere in the northern heartlands of the formerly
dominant Sunni Muslim minority, trouble flared again as it has
done repeatedly since U.S. and Iraqi troops launched a major
offensive more than a week ago in Falluja, west of Baghdad.
Five Iraqis were killed when a car bomb went off close to a
U.S. patrol in the northern oil refining town of Baiji. But
Mosul, Iraq's third biggest city, was relatively quiet after a
week of clashes between guerrillas and U.S. and Iraqi allies.
Two Turkish truck drivers were killed and their vehicles
destroyed in a rocket attack on a civilian convoy near Samarra.
Washington, fighting to crush insurgents before Iraq tries
to hold an election in late January, has acknowledged senior
militants, including Jordanian al Qaeda ally Abu Musab
al-Zarqawi, probably escaped before the attack on Falluja.
It is not clear how widely coordinated insurgent activity
is, however, and so hard to assess whether violence in other
Sunni towns has been led by figures formerly based in Falluja
or simply a reaction to events there by sympathizers.
More widely, the bloodshed in Falluja, including the
alleged shooting dead of an unarmed and wounded guerrilla in a
mosque by a U.S. Marine has provoked dismay among many in Iraq
and the Arab world, where President Bush has hoped the
overthrow of Saddam Hussein would foster stability.
One of the most prominent critics of last year's U.S.-led
invasion returned to the verbal offensive on Wednesday:
"I'm not at all sure that one can say the world is safer,"
said French President Jacques Chirac on the eve of a visit to
Bush's closest ally, British Prime Minister Tony Blair.
"There is no doubt there has been an increase in terrorism
... To a certain extent Saddam Hussein's departure was a
positive thing but it also provoked reaction such as the
mobilization in a number of countries of men and women of Islam
which has made the world more dangerous."
BODY SOUGHT
The family of a kidnapped British aid worker, who said on
Tuesday she was probably dead, were still seeking the return of
her body after a video, apparently made some days ago, seemed
to show her being shot in the head by a hooded gunman.
It has never been clear who seized Margaret Hassan in
Baghdad a month ago nor where she was being held. The timing of
the video, ruled "probably genuine" by the British government,
suggested she may have been killed last week.
"I want to know where she is so I can bury her in peace,"
her Iraqi husband, Tahsin Hassan, told Reuters on Tuesday,
urging his wife's killers to get in touch to clarify her fate.
Dublin-born Hassan, the Iraq country director for the
charity Care International, had lived in Baghdad for more than
30 years, earning acclaim for her work with the poor and sick.
In Falluja, Marines began firing mortars overnight and
intensified the attacks to ease what they called "clean-up
operations" to clear the city of weapons and insurgents.
U.S. officials say more than 1,000 insurgents have been
killed and at least 1,000 suspected fighters have been
detained.
The United States and Iraqi interim government have been at
pains to try to ensure the assault on Falluja does not inspire
a backlash among Sunni Arabs, who have long controlled Iraq,
including under Saddam. Many Sunnis fear majority Shi'ite
domination after January's election.
The government has denied aid agency reports of widespread
civilian suffering in Falluja, much of whose 300,000 residents
have fled the city before the U.S. offensive.
However, U.S. television images of a U.S. Marine shooting
dead a wounded and unarmed man in a mosque have provoked anger
across the Arab world. The Marine has been taken out of combat
and the incident is being investigated.
"I am not a jihadist, I am just a normal Muslim but such
scenes are pushing me to Jihad," said one engineer in the
tranquil Gulf emirate of Dubai, who gave his name as Abdallah.
"We don't expect this from the representative of democracy
in the world."
Anger at America might, however, was tempered with fury
that the guerrillas were using mosques to wage war.
(Additional reporting by Lin Noueihed in Baghdad and Sabah
al-Bazee in Baiji)
(c) Copyright Reuters 2004.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
5) Former G.I.'s, Ordered to War, Fight Not to Go
By MONICA DAVEY
New York Times
Article published Nov 16, 2004
http://www.heraldtribune.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20041116/ZNYT02/4111
60663
The Army has encountered resistance from more than 2,000 former
soldiers it has ordered back to military work, complicating its efforts
to fill gaps in the regular troops.
Many of these former soldiers - some of whom say they have not
trained, held a gun, worn a uniform or even gone for a jog in years
- object to being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan now, after they
thought they were through with life on active duty.
They are seeking exemptions, filing court cases or simply failing
to report for duty, moves that will be watched closely by
approximately 110,000 other members of the Individual Ready
Reserve, a corps of soldiers who are no longer on active duty
but still are eligible for call-up.
In the last few months, the Army has sent notices to more than
4,000 former soldiers informing them that they must return to
active duty, but more than 1,800 of them have already requested
exemptions or delays, many of which are still being considered.
And, of about 2,500 who were due to arrive on military bases
for refresher training by Nov. 7, 733 had not shown up.
Army officials say the call-up is proceeding at rates they
anticipated, and they are trying to fill needed jobs with former
soldiers as they did in the Persian Gulf war of 1991.
Still, the resistance puts further strain on a military that has
summoned reserve troops in numbers not seen since World
War II and forced thousands of soldiers in Iraq to postpone
their departures when their enlistment obligations ended.
Tensions are flaring between the Army and some of its veterans,
who say they are surprised and confused about their obligations
and unsure where to turn.
"I consider myself a civilian," said Rick Howell, a major from
Tuscaloosa, Ala., who said he thought he had left the Army
behind in 1997 after more than a decade flying helicopters.
"I've done my time. I've got a brand new baby and a wife, and
I haven't touched the controls of an aircraft in seven years. I'm
47 years old. How could they be calling me? How could they
even want me?"
Some former soldiers acknowledge that the Army has every
right to call them back, but argue that their personal circumstances
- illness, single parenthood, financial woes - make going overseas
impossible now.
Others say they do not believe they are eligible to be returned
to active duty because, they contend, they already finished the
obligations they signed up for when they joined the military.
A handful of such former soldiers, scattered across the country,
have filed lawsuits making that claim in federal courts.
These former soldiers are not among the part-time soldiers
- reservists and National Guard members - who receive paychecks
and train on weekends, and who have been called up in large
numbers over the last three years.
Instead, these are members of the Individual Ready Reserve, a pool
of former soldiers seldom ordered back to work. Ordinarily, these
former soldiers do not get military pay, nor do they train. They
receive points toward a military retirement and an address form
to update once a year.
When soldiers enlist, they typically agree to an eight-year commitment
to the Army but often are allowed to end active duty sooner. Some
of them join the Reserves or National Guard to complete their
commitment; others finish their time in the Individual Ready Reserve.
For officers, the commitment does not expire unless they formally
resign their commissions in writing, a detail some insist they did
not know and were not told when they signed their contracts,
although Army officials strongly dispute that.
Lt. Col. Pamela Hart, a spokeswoman for the Army, said people
in the service are well aware of the provision. "We all know about
it," Colonel Hart said.
She said problems with the call-ups of former soldiers have involved
a relatively small number of people, are being worked out, and are
hardly unique to this conflict. In the first gulf war, she said, more than
20,000 former soldiers were called up. With medical problems and
no-shows, only about 14,400 were actually deployed, she said.
Most of the deployments in the first gulf war lasted 120 days, the
Army said. The current call-ups are more likely to last a year.
Of those seeking exemptions now, the Army is studying each
person's case individually, Colonel Hart said, and has no set rule
on what allows a person to avoid deployment. Army officials are still
weighing more than half of the requests. So far, only 3 percent of
requests for exemptions have been turned down, while 45 percent
have been approved.
As for the former soldiers who failed to appear at bases by their
assigned dates, the Army is trying to reach them, one by one, to
discuss their circumstances, Colonel Hart said. In late September,
some Army officials suggested that they would pursue harsher
punishments - declaring people AWOL and possibly pursuing military
charges - but the Army has since taken a quieter, more conciliatory
approach.
"These are challenging times in their lives," Colonel Hart said, adding
that some former soldiers who failed to report might have moved and
not received the Army's notice. "We're contacting them as best as possible."
For the rest, though, some questions linger over who really qualifies
for the callback.
Colette Parrish said she burst into tears the evening that her husband,
Todd, walked into their house in Cary, N.C., with a letter from the
Army calling him back to service. "We had no idea this could happen,"
she said. "We hadn't been preparing for any of it because we thought
it wasn't possible."
At first, Mr. Parrish, 31, said he was convinced that the letter was
just an administrative error because he believed that his time in the
Individual Ready Reserve had ended.
He had gone to college on an R.O.T.C. scholarship, then served four
years as a field artillery officer. He said he resigned his commission
after that, became an engineer, and still owed the Army four years
in the Individual Ready Reserve to complete his total obligation.
To Mr. Parrish, who has filed a lawsuit against the Army in federal
court in North Carolina, that obligation ended on Dec. 19, 2003.
But the Army apparently does not agree, and says that it never
accepted Mr. Parrish's resignation as an officer.
As the court fight has continued, Mr. Parrish's date to report to Fort
Sill, Okla., has been pushed back, again and again, one month at
a time. Instead of thinking about long-term plans, for his wife and
their future family, he is living in 30-day increments.
He said he always looked back on his service years fondly, and with
a deep sense of patriotism.
"I guess I feel disillusioned now," he said. "This isn't about being
for or against the war. It's not about Democrats or Republicans. It's
just a contract, and I don't think this is right. If they need more
people, shouldn't they get them the right way? How many more like
me are there?"
Mark Waple, Mr. Parrish's lawyer, said he had received calls from
30 other former soldiers in recent months, all of whom had heard
of Mr. Parrish's case and had similar stories.
At least two other former soldiers have filed suit over the question.
In Hawaii, David Miyasato, a former enlisted soldier who served in the
first gulf war, said he would never go AWOL; he would have gone to
Iraq, he said, if need be.
But Mr. Miyasato also said that his eight-year commitment ended
nearly a decade ago. After he received his letter calling him back
to service, he said, he called the Army repeatedly to argue that he
was not eligible. Finally, he said, with his date to report to a base
in South Carolina just days away, he contacted a lawyer and filed
suit on Nov. 5.
"This was actually my last resort," said Mr. Miyasato, a former truck
driver and fuel hauler who said that, at 34, he led an entirely different
life, with an 8-month-old daughter and a window-tinting company to
run. "I had been calling around everywhere for help."
On Nov. 10, Mr. Miyasato said, he learned that the Army had rescinded
his orders.
In New York, Jay Ferriola, a former captain in the Army, filed a suit
saying he had resigned his officer's commission in June and no longer
qualified for call-up in the Individual Ready Reserve. On Nov. 5, the
Army rescinded his orders and honorably discharged him.
"This shows that the system works," Colonel Hart said. "If the soldiers
bring their situations to our attention, we're going to do what's right."
Barry Slotnick, Mr. Ferriola's lawyer, said he wondered how many other
soldiers might be in similar positions, but without the money, the
contacts or the certainty to sue. Mr. Slotnick said he had received
numerous calls from others since he filed Mr. Ferriola's case in late
October.
"We might as well add another phone bank," Mr. Slotnick said. "What
I can see is that there are many, many cases of people being called up
that shouldn't have been. This is a backdoor draft. I also have to wonder
how many are already in Iraq who shouldn't be there, who just didn't
think to question it."
The Army's current plan is to fill 4,400 jobs through March from among
5,600 former soldiers ordered to duty. But an Army official said last
month that more former soldiers, perhaps in similar numbers, might
be called on later next year, as well.
For now, those being sent to Iraq and Afghanistan are being asked to
handle a variety of support positions, including truck drivers and fuel
and food suppliers.
Months ago, the Army said some of the former soldiers would be needed
to play the French horn, the clarinet, the euphonium, the saxophone
and the electric bass as part of the military's bands, but the notion
drew criticism from members of Congress who questioned the need
to order people to give up their civilian lives to play instruments.
Colonel Hart said the Army has since filled the musician jobs with
volunteers.
Before going to Iraq, former soldiers are receiving as many days of
training as they need, an Army spokesman said. Some of the soldiers
said they were worried, though, about the prospect and safety of trying
to get up to speed in a few months.
"These guys like me are basically untrained civilians now," said Mr.
Howell, the former helicopter test pilot. Mr. Howell said he left the
Army years ago with an injured back, knee and elbow, leaving him
wondering about his own physical condition.
"I don't even have a uniform anymore," he said. "But they don't have
any more reserves left, so we're it. All they want is some bodies to
go to Iraq, just someone to be there, to sit on the ground."
When he left the military in 1997 as part of a reduction in forces,
Mr. Howell said, he saw a note in the "little print" in his annuity
agreement about a future commitment. But he said he was told that
his obligation to the Individual Ready Reserve would be brief and
meant little anyway. "They said it was just a way of having me on
the books," he said.
After that, Mr. Howell said, he jumped into the civilian world. He
got married. He and his new wife began building a house. They
struggled to have children.
In September, his first child, Clayton, was born. Just before that,
his orders arrived.
"It does rip my heart out that these young men and women are
over there, and there is part of me that wants to be with them,"
he said recently. "But I have responsibilities here now."
Mr. Howell said he had applied to the Army for an exemption but
was recently turned down. If he loses his appeal, he will be given
a new reporting date. His best hope, he said, is that his appeal is
buried somewhere at the very bottom of a big stack of them.
---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*---------*
6) Come together for Palestine!
West Coast Regional Right to Return Conference
Empowering the Palestine Right to Return Movement on
the West Coast of North America
Saturday November 20, 2004
*panel discussions
*informative presentations
*cultural performance
*informal social dinner
Al-Awda San Diego in conjunction with Students for Justice at The
University
of California at San Diego will be hosting an important and timely one-day
West Coast regional conference for the Right to Return Movement for
Palestinian refugees. The conference will take place on 20 November 2004 at
The University of California San Diego, La Jolla. Now more than ever we
must
come together to defend the rights of Palestinian refugees.
Confirmed speakers include Dr. Jess Ghannam (Al-Awda SF), Richard Becker
(ANSWER Coalition), Alison Weir (founder, If Americans Knew), John Parker
(IAC West Coast Coordinator), Musa Al-Hindi (Al-Awda Exec. Committee),
Lamis
Deek (Al-Awda NY), Ban Al-Wardi (ADC-LA/OC), Muna Coobtee (Free Palestine
Alliance), Samera Sood (Palestinian American Women's Association), Mark
Gonzales (Hip Hop artist), student activists from a number of California
campuses, and many more!
Join us for this important event. For more information on the West
Coast regional conference, visit the following pages:
Purpose: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/back.html
Program: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/prog.html
Speakers: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/speakers.html
Registration: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/register.html
Dinner: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/dinner.html
Accommodation: http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/hotel.html
Directions & Transportation:
http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/maps.html
Organizations wishing to table, contact us at: info@al-awdacal.org
You can register online at:
http://al-awdacal.org/west_conf/register.html
Registration also available at the door. All are welcome.
Al-Awda California
The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
PO Box 131352
Carlsbad, CA 92013, USA
E-mail: info@al-awdacal.org
WWW: http://al-awdacal.org
Fax: 1-360-933-3568
Los Angeles Website: http://www.Al-AwdaLA.org/
California Website- http://www.al-awdacal.org/
Al-Awda National Website: http://www.al-awda.org/
Unless indicated otherwise, all statements posted represent the views of
their authors and not necessarily those of Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to
Return Coalition.
http://al-awda.org
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7) Attica to Abu Ghraib: Human Rights, Torture,
and Resistance" Conference
Convenors: International Human Rights Initiative (IHRI)
Friday, February 25th - Saturday, February 26th, 2005
Oakland, CA - Laney Community College
Contact Info:
Lead Organizer:
Email: info@attica2abughraibKali Akuno Website:
www.attica2abughraib.com (under construction) (510)
593-3956 Phone Number: (510) 433-0115
kaliaw@sbcglobal.net Conference Brief
Torture, illegal detention and other human rights abuses have always been
weapons used by the US government to crush resistance. Today we see a
terrifying escalation in that repression, whether against Iraqis and
Afghans half a world away-or immigrants, prisoners and political
activists here at home. Our strength lies in building on the experiences
of those who resist-here in the US, in Latin America, Palestine, the
Philippines, the Caribbean, and in countless communities throughout the
world.
Faced with the globalization of repression, how can we globalize our
resistance? Help plan a conference to:
· Declare an International Day of Solidarity to draw attention to,
support, protect and demand freedom for all Political Prisoners; ·
Urge, propose and support litigation and/or other forms of redress in
domestic and international forum against the U.S. government and its
agents for committing systematic violations of human rights, domestic
law and international law;
· Develop and implement coordinated access
to and use of institutions of civil society, i.e. schools, media,
grassroot organizations, to condemn violations of human rights and
international law by the U.S. government and its agents. We want to
involve as many organizations and voices as possible in the planning
process.
For more information, contact us at www.attica2abughraib.com or
info@attica2abughraib.com.
Goals and Objectives
The overall aim of the Attica to Abu Ghraib International Conference is
to develop strategies for and coordinate resistance to U.S. government
policies that violate human rights and international law. A structure
will be established to create a network to coordinate solidarity work
among domestic and international groups to achieve the following
objectives:
· Initiate an international campaign to stop the systematic use of
torture, illegal detentions, grand jury abuses, secret probes,
immigration raids, registrations and other violations of domestic and
international by the U.S. or its agents;
· Increase domestic and international support for Political Detainees,
Political Prisoners and Prisoners of War who were detained before and after
9/11 within and out side the U.S. borders;
· Pursue litigation and redress in domestic
and international forums against the U.S. government and its agents for
systematic human rights abuses and violations of domestic and
international law. Practically support this undertaking by compiling
relevant evidentiary documentation of these violations and abuses.
General Strategy Points
1. We see the conference organizing process as a vehicle for
building an international campaign to challenge the human rights
record of the United States, and to ignite an international campaign
to challenge these ongoing abuses. 2. We are eliciting
international support and presence at the conference to build the
international campaign. We are aiming specifically for
representation from South Africa, Cuba, and Venezuela. Our aim is to
have one or more of these nations represent our case to the UN and
various international legislative and/or judicial bodies (like the
International Court of Justice/ICJ). We are also aiming for
representation from various international bodies of the UN, like the
International Labor Organization (ILO), and from various
international NGO's that focus on defending human rights.
Focus Areas
To meet the goals of the campaign we have divided the conference program
into three broad areas of focus and analysis. Each area is a key
component of the workings of U.S. empire domestically and
internationally, and provides a focus for linking movements within and
outside the U.S. to more effectively resist imperial strategies of
repression, criminalization, and assaults on the sovereignty of the
worlds peoples and nations. Our aim is to formulate strategies and
concrete plans from the analysis of these focus areas to unite domestic
and international organizations in the pursuit of successful
anti-imperialist campaigns.
1. Methods of Repression:
1. The systematic use of racial profiling, mass incarceration,
domestic militarization, torture and sensory deprivation to
criminalize oppressed peoples and peoples' struggles, and as
instruments of repression. 2. The training and promotion of
torture and terrorism, including the production of instructional
courses and manuals in how to use torture as part of
counterinsurgency operations, provided by the US to its allies and
proxies (such as the Taliban in Afghanistan and the Salvadorean
Army). 3. The systematic use of grand juries, secret detentions,
secret evidence and deportations to repress dissent and to avoid
civil and international law. 4. The international promotion of
legislation and policies modeled on COINTELPRO and the Patriot Act.
1. Criminalization and Detention:
1. The privatization of war and security operations,
specifically the increasing use of "contractors" to conduct wars and
run prisons. 2. The systematic refusal by the US government to
apply the Geneva Conventions to domestic and international political
prisoners and prisoners of war. 3. The policy of criminalizing
and/or falsely labeling resisters as "terrorists" and the equation
of all forms of resistance with criminal activity or acts of
terrorism.
1. Assaults on Sovereignty
a. The support and defense of dictatorial regimes (e.g. Israel,
Chile, Argentina, the Philippines, Zaire) that have systematically
violated the human rights of people within their borders and/or occupied
territories. b. Undermining the sovereignty and self-determination
ofnations, including the illegal overthrow of legitimate governments
through coups and invasions (e.g. Chile, Afghanistan, Nicaragua, Haiti)
as well as the ongoing subjugation of oppressed people inside US
borders.c. Providing sanctuary convicted war criminals, human rights
abusers, and terrorists, including exiled Cuban-American mercenaries and
death squad
leaders from Guatemala, El Salvador, Mozambique, Nicaragua, Chile,
Angola, the Philippines and Haiti.
Partial List of Sponsors and Endorsers
€ Al-Awda, The Palestine Right to Return Coalition
€ American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)
€ American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) Africa Initiative -
SF € Amnesty International - Western Region € Arabs
Building Community € Black Radical Congress (BRC) - SF Bay Area
€ California Prison Focus
€ Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR)
€ Center for Justice and Accountability (CJA)
€ Challenging White Supremacy Workshops
€ Critical Resistance (CR)
€ Ella Baker Center for Human Rights (EBC)
€ GABRIELA Network
€ Global Exchange
€ Haiti Action Committee
€ Jericho Movement
€ Justice in Palestine Coalition
€ LAGAI - Queer Insurrection
€ Legal Services for Prisoners with Children (LSPC)
€ Malcolm X Grassroots Movement (MXGM)
€ National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
€ National Lawyers Guild (NLG) - San Francisco
€ Out of Control
€ Prison Activist Resource Center (PARC)
€ Queers Undermining Israeli Terrorism (QUIT!)
€ San Francisco Women in Black
€ School of the Americas Watch (SOA Watch)
€ SUSTAIN-Bay Area Chapter -Stop U.S. Tax Aid to Israel Now €
Trans Africa Forum
Since 1923 the War Resisters League has affirmed that war is a crime
against humanity. We therefore are determined not to support any kind
of war, international or civil, and to strive nonviolently for the
removal of all the causes of war.
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8) New Bill in Congress
Targets Teachers
Who Dare To Question US Support For Israel
By Michael Collins Piper
American Free Press
11-15-4
http://rense.com/general59/NEWBILL.HTM
The Israeli lobby has launched an all-out drive to ensure
congressional passage of a bill, approved by the House and now before a
Senate committee that would set up a federal tribunal to investigate and
monitor criticism of Israel on American college campuses.
Ten months ago the New York-based Jewish Week newspaper
claimed that the report by American Free Press that Republican members
of the Senate were planning to crack down on college and university
professors who were critical of Israel was "a dangerous urban legend at
best,
deliberate disinformation at worst." They were claiming that AFP lied.
However, on Sept. 17, 2003, the House Subcommittee on
Select Education unanimously approved H.R. 3077, the International Studies
in Higher Education Act, which was then passed by the full House on Oct.
21. The chief sponsor of the legislation was Rep. Peter Hoekstra, a
conservative Republican from Michigan.
DANGEROUS LEGISLATION
DANGEROUS LEGISLATION
Critics charge that the bill is dangerous-a direct affront
to the First Amendment and the product of intrigue by a small clique of
individuals and organizations which combines the forces of the powerful
Israeli lobby in official Washington.
Leading the push for Senate approval of the bill are
the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, run by Abe Foxman, the
American Jewish Congress and the American Jewish Committee.
Also lending its support is Empower America, the neo-conservative
front group established by William Kristol, editor and publisher of
billionaire Rupert Murdoch's Weekly Standard, which is said to be the
"intellectual"
journal that governs the train of foreign policy thinking in the Bush
administration.
One other group has lent its support: the U.S. India
Political Action Committee, an Indian-American group that has been working
closely with the Israeli lobby now that Israel and India are geopolitically
allied.
H.R. 3077 is bureaucratic in its tone, decipherable only
to those with the capacity to wade through legislative linguistics. It
would set up a seven-member advisory board that would have the power to
recommend cutting federal funding for colleges and universities that are
viewed as harboring academic critics of Israel.
Two members of the board would be appointed by the Senate,
two by the House, and three by the secretary of education, two of whom
are required to be from U.S. federal security agencies. The various
appointees would be selected from what The Christian Science Monitor
described on
March 11 as "politicians, representatives of cultural and educational
organizations, and private citizens."
FEARS ECHOED
Gilbert Merk, vice provost for international affairs
and development and director of the Center for International Studies at
Duke University, has echoed the fears of many when he charged that this
advisory board "could easily be hijacked by those who have a political
axe to grind and become a vehicle for an inquisition."
The primary individuals promoting this effort to control
intellectual debate on the college campuses are prominent and outspoken
supporters of Israel and harsh critics of the Arab and Muslim worlds. They
are:
* Martin Kramer, a professor of Arab studies at the Moshe
Dayan Center at Tel Aviv University in Israel;
* Stanley Kurtz, a contributor of ex-CIA man William
F. Buckley Jr.'s bitterly anti-Arab National Review Online and a research
fellow at the staunchly pro-Israel Hoover Institution; and
* Daniel Pipes, founder of the pro-Israel Middle East
Forum and its affiliate, Campus Watch, an ADL-style organization that keeps
tabs on college professors and students who are-or are suspected of
being-critics of Israel.
These three, along with the Israeli lobby, are claiming
that they are fighting "anti-Americanism" as it is being taught
on the college campuses.
Republicans in Congress have joined this chorus, preferring
to allow their constituents to think that this is an "America First"
measure.
Juan Cole of the History News Network responds to this
extraordinary twist on reality saying that the claim of "anti-Americanism"
is intellectually dishonest.
"What they mean . . . if you pin them down is ambivalence
about the Iraq war, or dislike of Israeli colonization of the West Bank,
or recognition that the U.S. government has sometimes in the past been
in bed with present enemies like al Qaeda or Saddam. None of these positions
is 'anti-American,' and any attempt by a congressionally appointed body
to tell university professors they cannot say these things-or that if they
say them they must hire someone else who will say the opposite-is
a contravention of the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution."
The promoters are also suggesting that this legislation
would, according to the American Jewish Committee, "enhance intellectual
freedom on campus by enabling diverse viewpoints to be heard." Of
course, the legislation would do precisely the opposite, say critics.
Lisa Anderson of the Columbia University School of International
and Public Affairs said in response that "this plan . . . is not about
diversity, or even about the truth."
Ms. Anderson does not cite the role of the Israeli lobby,
but instead targets conservative Republicans who are acting as the Israeli
lobby's surrogates and says that this plan is "about the conviction
of conservative political activists that the American university community
is insufficiently patriotic, or perhaps simply insufficiently conservative."
What she should be saying is that these Republicans who
are carrying water for Israel are concerned that universities are
"insufficiently pro-Israel."
The Republican House members who originally joined Hoekstra
in co-sponsoring this legislation should be named for the record. They
are: John A. Boehner (Ohio), John R. Carter (Texas), Tom Cole (Oklahoma),
James Greenwood (Penn.), Howard (Buck) McKeon (Calif.), Patrick J. Tiberi
(Ohio) and Joe Wilson (South Carolina).
Americans will not be able to find out how their representatives
voted on the bill. Hoekstra asked for a suspension of the House rules,
which was approved, making it possible for the controversial measure to
be passed with an unrecorded "voice vote." There is no record
of how individual House members voted or if they even voted at all.
FIRST MEASURE
The measure passed by the House is the same type of proposed
"ideological diversity" legislation that AFP detailed in its
Oct. 20, 2003, issue. At the time, the measure was being kicked around
for possible introduction in the Senate by two prominent Republicans, Rick
Santorum (Penn.) and Sam Brownback (Kan.).
AFP's initial report on the legislation garnered so much
attention from American college and university professors and on the
Internet, even so far as the Arab world, that the resulting negative
publicity forced
Santorum and Brownback to back off.
Many major American education organizations, including
the teacher's union, the National Education Association, have raised their
concerns about this campaign to muzzle the free speech of teachers,
professors and instructors. The American Civil Liberties Union has also
protested
this measure.
Critics say this is a new form of what has been known
in the past as "McCarthyism," and no matter what you may think
about the late Sen. Joseph McCarthy, whose name, rightly or wrongly,
inspired
that terminology, the truth is that this legislation is "McCarthyism"
by virtue of the popular definition.
The only chance to destroy this legislation and stop
it dead in its tracks is for enough grassroots citizens to rise up and
demand that H.R. 3077 be put to rest.
And believe it or not, the one senator who may be able
to stop it is Edward M. (Ted) Kennedy of Massachusetts.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/03_19_04/New_Bill_/new_bill_.html
MainPage
http://www.rense.com
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9) Judge Questions Long Sentence in Drug Case
(55 years for selling a sack of weed to a police informant)
By NICK MADIGAN
SALT LAKE CITY
November 17, 2004
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/17/national/17sentencing.html
SALT LAKE CITY, Nov. 16 - In a case that has spurred intense soul-searching
in legal circles, a 25-year-old convicted drug dealer, who was arrested two
years ago for selling small bags of marijuana to a police informant, was
sentenced on Tuesday to 55 years in prison.
The judge who sentenced him, Paul G. Cassell of the United States District
Court here, said that he pronounced the sentence "reluctantly" but that his
hands were tied by a mandatory-minimum law that required the
imposition of 55 years on Weldon H. Angelos because he had a gun
during at least two of the drug transactions.
"I have no choice," Judge Cassell said to Mr. Angelos, who seemed
frozen in place as the extent of the sentence became apparent.
The judge then urged Mr. Angelos's lawyer, Jerome H. Mooney, not only
to appeal his decision but to ask President Bush for clemency once all
appeals were exhausted. He also urged Congress to set aside the law
that made the sentence mandatory.
Judge Cassell said that sentencing Mr. Angelos to prison until he is
70 years old was "unjust, cruel and even irrational," but that the law
that forced him to do so had not proved to be unconstitutional and thus
had to stand. The sentence was all the more ironic, he said, because only
two hours earlier he had been legally able to impose a sentence of
22 years on a man convicted of aggravated second-degree murder for
beating an elderly woman to death with a log. That crime, he argued,
was far more serious.
Mr. Angelos's wife, Zandrah, who sat in court with the couple's two boys,
aged 5 and 7, began crying. "He might as well have killed someone,"
she said bitterly, wiping her eyes, referring to her husband. "He should
have done worse than he did if he was going to get 55 years."
The question of Mr. Angelos's sentence was at the center of a debate
as to whether it was fair to send a minor drug dealer to prison for
55 years when a murderer, rapist or terrorist, according to the same
sentencing directives, would ordinarily receive no more than about
25 years.
During a court hearing in September, Judge Cassell posed a question
to the opposing legal teams in the case: "Is there a rational basis," he
asked, "for giving Mr. Angelos more time than the hijacker, the
murderer, the rapist?"
The sentence against Mr. Angelos, the founder of the rap music label
Extravagant Records, stemmed from his conviction on three counts
of possession of a firearm while engaged in drug trafficking. The
first count carried a mandatory five-year sentence, with each
subsequent count calling for 25 years.
According to trial testimony, Mr. Angelos was carrying a pistol in
an ankle holster while selling marijuana. He was not accused of
brandishing the weapon or threatening anyone with it.
But in court on Tuesday, Robert Lund, an assistant United States
attorney who prosecuted the case, called Mr. Angelos a "purveyor
of poison," and said he had been dealing drugs for more than four
years before his arrest. Carrying a gun in the commission of such
crimes, he said, meant that Mr. Angelos was prepared "to kill other
human beings."
Copyright 2004 The New York Times
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10) Fallujah: Blood Does Not Drown PeopleÂ’s Resistance,
But Nurtures It!
One of the most savage assaults on the Iraqi people since the
US-UK imperialists invaded their country began on Fallujah on
8 November. The Butchers of Fallujah, Bush and Blair, are ruthlessly
pursuing the US war program particularly the war on the people,
which is in reality an ongoing and unlimited war for greater US
empire that has absolutely nothing to do with liberating anyone.
Now the people of Fallujah are experiencing the horrors of the US
program.
Before the Nazi style full-scale attack on Fallujah 200,000 people
due to aerial and artillery bombardments were forced to leave the city.
But 100,000 remained including many families huddling in their homes
banding together for survival. Then US troops who had already sealed
off roads, cut off water, electricity, food and medical supplies, occupied
the only hospital and started killing people everywhere mainly through
systematic destruction of whole neighbourhoods with tanks and
artillery firing indiscriminately and the warplanes dropping 500,
1000, 2000 pound bombs. This is nothing less than a massive new
war crime, which could lead to the deaths of thousands of Iraqis and
destruction of much of the city. Now, who are the real terrorists,
US-UK imperialists or resistance fighters who have had the support
of the most of the cityÂ’s people, many millions across Iraq and tens
of millions around the world?
In Iraq there has been mass outrage, distrust and a growing armed
opposition to the US-UK invaders. And Fallujah has been one stronghold
of a growing Iraqi peopleÂ’s resistance to the occupation. This resistance
has created enormous problems for the US and UK imperialists not only
in Iraq but across the Middle East and globally. It has thrown a very big
spanner into their plans of making Iraqi people to submit and turn Iraq
to a platform for strengthening the US grip on the entire region. Iraqi
peopleÂ’s resistance threatens to disrupt the US war on the world which
is aimed at restructuring global political, economic and military
relations to expand the US Empire.
We should value and support the Iraqi peopleÂ’s resistance against
imperialism and help to strengthen it. If the US succeeds in Iraq, under
the pretext of “war on terrorism” it will be free to attack elsewhere
across the globe. If US tanks have not been rolling across other borders;
if US Cruise missiles, warplanes, helicopters and artillery have not been
blowing up neighborhoods and homes; and if US ground forces have
not been murdering, torturing and humiliating people in other countries,
one major factor holding them back so far is that they ran into a lot more
resistance in Iraq than they expected.
Fallujah has become a symbol of resistance in Iraq and across the
Middle East, a symbol of the Iraqi peopleÂ’s refusal to bow down to
imperialism. Today the anti-occupation insurgency has spread across
Iraq and has gain momentum and the Iraqi resistance fighters are in the
front lines of resistance to US imperialism in the world. All this
underlines the importance of how the resistance in Iraq is fought
and how we can support and strengthen it. For the Iraqi people and
the people of the world it will make a big difference.
World People's Resistance Movement website- www.wprm.org********
For further information please E-mail us:
wprm_britain@yahoo.co.uk or please write to:-
BM Box 7970, London WC1N 3XX
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11) Consumer Prices See Biggest Gain Since May
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
WASHINGTON (AP)
November 17, 2004
Filed at 11:54 a.m. ET
http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/business/AP-Economy.html?oref=login
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Consumer prices -- stoked by more expensive
gasoline as well as pricier fruits and vegetables -- heated up in October,
rising by 0.6 percent, the biggest gain in five months.
The newest snapshot of the inflation climate, released by the Labor
Department Wednesday, bolstered the chances that the Federal
Reserve would push up interest rates for a fifth time this year on
Dec. 14.
The sizable increase in the Consumer Price Index, the government's
most closely watched inflation barometer, came after prices rose by
0.2 percent in September.
Sharp increases in energy and food prices were the main culprits
behind the acceleration in consumer prices for October.
Excluding energy and food prices, which can swing widely from
month to month, ``core'' prices increased by a more modest 0.2
percent in October, following a 0.3 percent rise the previous month.
The pricing picture in October showed bigger increases than
economists were forecasting. Some were expecting a 0.4 percent
advance in overall consumer prices and a 0.1 percent rise in the
core figure.
In a bid to prevent inflation from becoming a threat to the economy,
Fed Chairman Alan Greenspan and his colleagues embarked in June
on a campaign to raise short-term interest rates. Economists said it
is crucial for the Fed to move rates back to more normal levels after
they were kept extraordinarily low to rescue the economy from the
jolts of the 2001 recession and terrorist attacks.
Thus far, the Fed has ordered four quarter-point rate increases. The
most recent one, last week, left the federal funds rate -- the Fed's
main tool for influencing economic activity -- at 2 percent.
``The chances have clearly risen this month that the Fed will not
take a holiday in December but rather continue on its program of
quarter-point increases,'' said Carl Tannenbaum, chief economist
at LaSalle Bank.
Other economic news also added to the case for another rate increase:
-- Industrial production shot up by 0.7 percent in October, up from
a 0.1 percent increase in September. The Federal Reserve report
suggested the industrial sector is gaining momentum.
-- Housing construction jumped by 6.4 percent in October to a
seasonally adjusted annual rate of 2.03 million, the Commerce
Department said.
From an economic point of view, inflation -- while certainly a concern
-- isn't currently a major danger to the economy's expansion, analysts
said.
Fed policy-makers, in a statement released after their meeting last
week, said ``inflation and longer-term inflation expectations remain
well contained.'' They also said the economy appears to be growing
``at a moderate pace despite the rise in energy prices.''
The consumer price report comes one day after the government
released data showing the wholesale costs soared in October by
1.7 percent, the biggest increase in more than 14 years.
The economy's soft patch in the spring and early summer had
helped to keep prices relatively subdued, economists said. Now
that the economy is picking up, inflation probably will be on the
rise as well. A weaker U.S. dollar also is putting pressure on prices
of imported goods, which gives U.S. producers more room to raise
their prices.
Still, Tannenbaum and other economists said that they expect both
wholesale and consumer prices for November to look a lot better,
citing a moderation in crude oil costs and a settling down of some
food costs that were pushed up as hurricanes hurt supplies.
In the CPI report, energy prices jumped by 4.2 percent in October,
compared with a 0.4 percent drop in September. Gasoline prices
last month surged by 8.6 percent and fuel oil costs went up by 9.4
percent. Both increases were the largest since February 2003.
Natural gas prices went up 0.6 percent.
Oil prices, which hit a record high of just over $55 a barrel late
last month, have moderated recently. Oil prices closed on Tuesday
at more than $46 a barrel.
Food prices climbed by 0.6 percent in October, after being flat in
September. Last month's increase reflected a 6.3 percent rise in the
prices of fresh fruits, the largest since June 1984, and a 8.8 percent
jump in vegetable prices, the biggest since February 1997. Supply
disruptions related to hurricanes that tore through the Southeast were
blamed for those big advances. Prices for beef and veal, pork, poultry
and dairy products all dropped.
Elsewhere in the report: clothing prices rose 0.2 percent in October
as more expensive fall and winter wear hit the racks. Airline fares
went up by 1.4 percent, as fuel costs become more expensive. Medical
care costs increased 0.4 percent.
In the first 10 months of 2004, consumer prices rose at an annual
rate of 3.9 percent, compared with a 1.9 percent increase for all of
2003. That pickup has been led by soaring energy costs. Excluding
energy and food costs, ``core'' inflation increased at an annual rate
of 2.4 percent. That's also faster than the 1.1 percent increase
registered for 2003.
Copyright 2004 The Associated Press
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