Our federal government may still preside over the world’s only remaining superpower, but the tide of public opinion here and abroad is rapidly turning against them...Regardless of what happens, the millions of Americans seeking sanity, justice and peace need to disregard surrender as an option. We owe our unwavering perseverance to future generations, the rest of the world, and to ourselves.

On October 12, 2005, the New York Times ran an article on page A18 with this headline: Air Force Withdrew Rule That Permitted Some Evangelizing. On October 13, 2005, the Ashland, Wisconsin Daily Press ran an article that describes the evangelical credentials of the latest George w. Bush nomination for the U.S. Supreme Court, Harriet Miers.

With more than three million people left homeless by the deadly quake that ripped through northern Pakistan on 8 October, there are simply not enough tents to meet the demand...According to preliminary estimates by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), 250,000 to 450,000 winterised tents were needed.

The Pentagon has been collecting private information on young people and storing it in a database called Joint Advertising Market Research and Studies (JAMRS) since 2002. Only made public this past May, this operation which is meant to target young people for potential recruitment has raised the ire of civil libertarians, youth organizations and antiwar activists.

Young Americans sign on to go into harm’s way to defend their country if necessary, but instead they are being turned into harm’s ministers in a war that has claimed more then 100,000 Iraqi lives and nearly 2,000 Americans.

Why has the world failed to realize the goals set forth by the founders of the UN? We have not been able to do away with war, genocide, oppression or poverty because the forces of nationalism, imperialism, capitalism, and statism have repeatedly sabotaged any move made towards libertarianism, egalitarianism, and internationalism.

With little fanfare, and even less media coverage, last week the Senate Intelligence Committee took the first step in granting the Defense Intelligence Agency increased domestic spying authority, as well as decreased public accountability. With its new powers, the DIA could do something it has longed to do for years: spy on the American public.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is trying to determine whether Vice President Dick Cheney had a role in the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame-Wilson, individuals close to Fitzgerald say. Plame's husband was a vocal critic of prewar intelligence used by President George W. Bush to build support for the Iraq war.

The Commission met with over 50 witnesses who told it of massacres, summary executions, torture, arbitrary arrests and many other human rights abuses being carried out by Haitian police and foreign occupation troops...Those convicted will be sent to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, for international criminal prosecution.

Whatever might have happened if George Bush, and Dick Cheney and finally Colin Powell hadn’t said that Aristide has to go, we will never know. But what did happen because President Bush decided that Aristide has to go, we know very well: systematic violence against the people of Haiti that is clearly overwhelmingly politically motivated.

International Human Rights Day commemorates the anniversary of the ratification of the U.N.’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights in 1948, which established the right of people in every nation to come together into unions and bargain contracts.

Special communiqué on the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade imposed on Cuba by the government of the United States of America, including the application of the so-called Helms-Burton Act

Here is another of our occasional book round ups consisting of short notices of recent. These are essentially meta-reviews (reviews of reviews). If any of our readers are inspired to read one of these books and wishes to write a full review, please contact pabooks@politicalaffairs.net.

Prior to the announcement of the results of the nationwide referendum on a new Iraqi Constitution, at least three US air strikes killed 70 people in the town of Ramadi. The air strikes began when an F-15 fighter-bomber attacked a gathering of civilians.

Venezuela’s National Institute of Statistics (INE) says that poverty will drop by 8% points by the end of 2005, relative to the previous year.INE director Elias Eljuri made the announcement yesterday, saying that Venezuela’s poverty rate is expected to drop to 35% by the end of the year, down from 47% for 2004.

Concerts, audiovisual screenings and photo exhibitions are some of the activities which commemorated in Nicaragua the 38th death anniversary of the legendary Argentinean-Cuban guerilla fighter Ernesto Che Guevara... The Cuban embassy in Managua also honoured the Heroic Guerilla Fighter last Saturday 8th, in the 38th anniversary of his murder in Bolivia by the Central Agency of Intelligence of United States (CIA)

Two percent. That's the percentage of U.S. blacks who approve of President Bush's job performance, a new NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found...No amount of Rove's strategic and tactical skill can counter the televised imagery of modern-day savagery after Katrina. He and the neo-cons can only hope for a miracle to counter what the world has seen in the hurricane region.

Fed up by a Capitalist constant and inhumane message which says that all can be offered and bought as a merchandise, I was touched by president Fidel’s words when he organized the “The International Contingent of Doctors Specialized in Disasters and Serious Epidemics.”

The decision by the UN to evacuate all non-essential humanitarian personnel from West Darfur should not be surprising, even as hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians are affected by this move.

A HIGH-LEVEL US delegation led by Lt Gen Jeffrey Kohler, head of the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency responsible for inter-governmental arms deals, visited New Delhi last week and made a top-security presentation to Indian defence ministry and military officials on three major weapons systems: F-16 fighters, F/A-18 Hornet attack aircraft and the PAC (Patriot Advanced Capability)-3 anti-missile systems.