Saturday, September 16, 2006

Some News is not "Newsworthy"...

When "news" becomes a "story" - as it has increasingly become these days - then has to follow a predictable course.

A good story has a story-line, and its unfolding must fit into the "plot". If some facts, do not support the story-line, then they need to be ignored or underplayed.

And therefore, some news does not remain "newsworthy".

Here are some examples:

IAEA Protests "Erroneous" U.S. Report on Iran
VIENNA (Reuters) Thu Sep 14, 5:51 AM ET:
U.N. inspectors have protested to the U.S. government and a Congressional committee about a report on Iran's nuclear work, calling parts of it "outrageous and dishonest," according to a letter obtained by Reuters... The letter recalled clashes between the IAEA and the Bush administration before the 2003 Iraq war over findings cited by Washington about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction that proved false, and underlined continued tensions over Iran's dossier.


US Paid Anti-Cuba Journalists
BBC, Friday, 8 September 2006:
At least 10 Florida-based journalists were paid by the US government to contribute to anti-Cuba propaganda broadcasts, the Miami Herald says... Three writers have been sacked by the Miami Herald newspaper group for an alleged conflict of interest...
...Mr Cao has now admitted being paid by the US government, the Herald reports... "There is nothing suspect in this," he said. "I would do it for free. But the regulations don't allow it. I charge symbolically, below market prices."


US Moves to Scuttle Arab Plan for International Peace Conference
Sep. 14, 2006 21:55:
The US is trying to block attempts by Arab countries to turn the UN Security Council into a key player in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict during the upcoming General Assembly opening next week.

In discussions among Israeli and US officials over the past few days, it was agreed that the US will use its diplomatic power to sideline the Arab League initiative, which intends to use the Security Council as the main vehicle for convening an international peace conference to deal with the conflict.


When Rockets and Phosphorous Cluster
Haaretz: Fri., September 15, 2006 Elul 22, 5766
"In Lebanon, we covered entire villages with cluster bombs, what we did there was crazy and monstrous," testifies a commander in the Israel Defense Forces' MLRS (Multiple Launch Rocket System) unit. Quoting his battalion commander, he said the IDF fired some 1,800 cluster rockets on Lebanon during the war and they contained over 1.2 million cluster bombs. The IDF also used cluster shells fired by 155 mm artillery cannons, so the number of cluster bombs fired on Lebanon is even higher. At the same time, soldiers in the artillery corps testified that the IDF used phosphorous shells, which many experts say is prohibited by international law.... The commander asserted that there was massive use of MLRS rockets despite the fact that they are known to be very inaccurate - the rockets' deviation from the target reaches to around 1,200 meters - and that a substantial percentage do not explode and become mines... The percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the U.S. army in Iraq reached 30 percent and the United Nations' land mine removal team in Lebanon claims that the percentage of duds among the rockets fired by the IDF reaches some 40 percent.... According to the commander, in order to compensate for the rockets' imprecision, the order was to "flood" the area with them....


Former Soviet Republics Give Up Nukes; US Objects
September 14, 2006
The Bush administration is objecting to a groundbreaking treaty that set up a nuclear weapon-free zone in Central Asia.

Under the treaty signed Friday, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan committed themselves not to produce, buy, or allow the deployment of nuclear weapons on their soil.

But the United States, along with Britain and France, refused to attend the signing ceremony in the Kazakh capital... "The reason that many of us suspect the U.S. is opposed to this is more fundamental," the independent Arms Control Association's Daryl G. Kimball told OneWorld. "This is a very strategic region. The U.S. is reticent to give up the option of deploying nuclear weapons in this region in the future."

2 comments:

gaddeswarup said...

Pl. see also Pankaj Mishra's article:
http://books.guardian.co.uk/departments/politicsphilosophyandsociety/story/0,,1874132,00.html

gaddeswarup said...

I have not gone through this yet; but this seems to be a record of some of the lies:
http://www.motherjones.com/bush_war_timeline/