Air Italy pulls out of deportation contract after pressure from campaigners

From: Corporate Watch

Air Italy, the airline that carried some 40 Iraqi refugees to Baghdad two weeks ago in the first mass deportation to southern Iraq from the UK since the US-UK invasion in 2003, has said it will not undertake any more deportation flights in the future. An email by Cesari Francesco, the company's ground operation manager, sent to the National Coalition of Anti-Deportation Campaigns, said: "I inform you that, in the future, we will refuse to operate air transport with asylum seekers or refugees."

According to the Independent (24 October 2009), Air Italy's decision to end its contract with the Home Office was taken at a board meeting immediately after the return of the Iraqis, claiming it was "a matter of conscience." A statement by the company said, "The business sometimes must communicate with the consciousness, and this was the reason, conscience."

Anti-deportation campaigners had circulated the company's contact details and scores of protest letters were emailed and faxed. Italian activists had also vowed to target the company for deporting people to their possible death.

The Air Italy deportation flight to Baghdad had lead to a public outcry and caused the UK government a lot of embarrassment as 34 of the 44 deportees were not admitted by the Iraqi authorities at Baghdad airport and had to be flown back to the UK. A number of them have since gone on hunger strike demanding their immediate release. A Home Office statement at the time said they will "iron out" the difficulties they faced and "expect to carry out another flight."

The 15th October flight is said to have cost some £250,000 and carried up to 100 immigration officers and private security guards on board. Other private companies involved with the deportation included G4S, the UK Border Agency's main contractor for detainee escort services, and it subcontractor WH Tours, the Crawley-based coach company that transports deportees from detention to the airport.

In protest, the International Federation of Iraqi Refugees and the Stop Deportation Network organised two public demonstrations in Parliament Square and outside the Home Office on 17th and 26th October respectively. A public forum against mass deportation flights has also been organised for 7th November. For more details, see http://stopdeportation.net.

Forgotten Australians apology doesn't quell compensation demands

MARK COLVIN: The Prime Minister has delivered an emotional apology to the half a million Australians who suffered abuse at the hands of their carers in institutions, orphanages and foster care.

The formal apology recognises the deprivation, pain and exploitation experienced by half a million Australians sent into state care and thousands of child migrants from Britain and Malta.

Kevin Rudd read the apology to hundreds of survivors who had gathered in the Great Hall at Parliament House. Then it was formally moved in the Federal Parliament.

The Opposition leader Malcolm Turnbull supported the motion, weeping as he described the appalling treatment suffered by many children.

From Canberra, Alexandra Kirk reports.

ALEXANDRA KIRK: Even before they heard the word they've waited so long for, the tears started flowing. They came from all over the country, the pain etched on many of their faces.

KEVIN RUDD: We come together today to deal with an ugly chapter in our nation's history. And we come together today to offer our nation's apology; to say to you, the 'forgotten Australians', and those who were sent to our shores as children without their consent, that we are sorry.

Sorry that as children you were taken from your families and placed in institutions where so often you were abused. Sorry for the physical suffering, the emotional starvation and the cold absence of love, of tenderness, of care.

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From: Tears flow as nation hears apology

Many tears were shed today as Prime Minister Kevin Rudd delivered the historic apology to the hundreds of thousands of Forgotten Australians.

Almost 1,000 men and women travelled from around Australia to hear Mr Rudd and Opposition Leader Malcolm Turnbull apologise for the abuse, neglect and suffering they endured in foster care and orphanages between the 1920s and 1970s.

Mr Rudd also extended the nation's remorse to the 7,000 child migrants, most of whom travelled to Australia from the UK under the mistaken belief that their parents had died.

Addressing the crowd who gathered in Parliament House's Great Hall, he says the apology should mark a turning point in the nation's history to ensure it is never repeated.

Mr Rudd says it is important to acknowledge "great evil has been done".

Mary Smith says she is glad she made the effort to come from Western Australia to hear the apology.

"It made me cry. I said it wasn't going to make me cry but it did," she said.

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Tension builds as Greece enters protest season

From: Tension on labour and prison fronts in Greece

Tension is building up on both labour and prison front in Greece, with 3000 prisoners refusing food across the country, and workers from different sectors staging marches and occupations

A week before the official start of the “unrest season”, the 30 days between the anniversary of the 1973 Polytechnic Uprising (November 17), the anniversary of the assassination of Alexandros Grigoropoulos and the start of the 2008 December Uprising (December 6) and the trial of Girgoropoulos murderers (December 15), things are looking tense in Greece.

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From: Rehearsal of repression in Athens

The Socialist government has launched a rehearsal of repression in preparation for the anniversary of the November 17 1973 and the December 2008 Uprising. In the last few days two people have been arrested and most central Universities in Athens have been sealed.

The rehearsal of repression in scope of the next thirty days including the anniversary of the 1973 and 2008 uprisings as well as the trial of Alexandros Grigoropoulos' assassins came when on the 11th of November many students found their universities sealed on the pretext of the swine flu outbreak. The biopolitical farce was soon exposed by officials announcing that "the is measure expected to last until the 17 of November". The rectorial authorities have admitted to have held council with the Minister of Public Order, but insisted the deal was that there would be reduced police forces in the city of Athens during the anniversary's typically tense protest march.

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From: A spectre is haunting the city: December!

Tomorrow, November 17th, marks the 36th anniversary of the anti-dictatorial student uprising of November 1973. Adding to what would already be an explosive situation, the anniversary is only days away from December 6th, marking a year from the assassination of Alexis, and less than a month from December 15th, when his killer cops Korkoneas and Saraliotis, are to stand trial.

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Smoke and Mirrors

American Blackout

The man who "recently brought the mighty CIA to its knees"

From: CIA's "Great Pretense" Exposed in State-Secrets Fraud Case by Bill Conroy

Judge Can Make History Right by Keeping Pleadings in Ex-DEA agent Richard Horn's Lawsuit on the Books

Former DEA agent Richard Horn, with the help of his attorney, former federal prosecutor Brian Leighton, recently brought the mighty CIA to its knees.

For some 15 years, Horn waged a legal battle in federal court against a former CIA official whom Horn alleged had illegally eavesdropped on him as part of a CIA- and State Department-backed effort to thwart DEA's anti-narcotics mission in Burma in the early 1990s.

The CIA's efforts to undermine Horn's work in Burma in getting that nation's government to stem the flow of heroin to the United States should come as no surprise to those who are familiar with the “Agency's” history. It seems the CIA, over the decades, has often found itself in the corner of narco-traffickers and thugs who support the Agency's covert objectives in areas deemed critical to U.S. special interests – whether that be in Southeast Asia, Central Asia or Latin America.

That's the big pretense of the drug war practiced as dark art by the CIA.

However, earlier this month, government attorneys representing the interests of the CIA agreed to cut a deal with Horn — which calls for the government to shell out some $3 million to Horn to cement a settlement. In exchange, the CIA hopes to put pressure on the judge in the case to erase from the court record several opinions he rendered that accuse CIA officials of committing a fraud on his court and which also opened the door for sanctions to be sought against the culpable current and former CIA employees.

So, it seems that the CIA has made a calculation in the Horn case that its big pretense cannot long endure if the big truth is allowed to remain in the court record — which is the basis of the rule of law the CIA too often seeks to skirt.

For proof of that statement, we need only look at the CIA-pedigreed officials who are in the scope of the federal judge's opinions in the Horn case. Among them are former CIA Director George Tenet and recently retired Acting CIA General Counsel John Rizzo.

Both Tenet and Rizzo played key roles as part of the Bush Administration in attempting (with the help of Justice Department attorneys like John Yoo, Jay Bybee and Steven Bradbury) to set up a legal framework, marked by deceptive legal reasoning, to justify the CIA's use of torture (i.e., waterboarding). Both also were part of the Agency's leadership during the era of “intelligence lapses” that helped pave the way for 9/11 and the ill-fated Iraq War.

And now, as part of the Horn case filed in a Washington D.C. federal court, we find a U.S. District judge, former FISA court member Royce Lamberth, opening the door for sanctions to be brought (as a result of the fraud, or lie, perpetrated on the court) against Tenet and Rizzo — as well as several other current and former CIA officials, among whom is Robert Eatinger, the current Acting Deputy General Counsel for Operations in the CIA's Office of General Counsel (OGC).

If Lamberth's judicial opinions in the Horn case are allowed to remain in the court record — to be recalled and cited going forward by other lawyers, judges and academics — then untold damage could be done to the reputation of the CIA and its leadership. Those judicial opinions memorializing the CIA's fraud on the court also would serve as a permanent reminder of the occasionally dubious credibility of the Agency's pronouncements invoking national security and the state-secrets privilege.

Judge Lamberth has yet to rule on the proposed Horn settlement, and independently on whether he will vacate his prior opinions in the case — and thereby erase from the court record any hint of the CIA's alleged duplicity.

So, in order to preserve for the public memory, in the event the court record is subtracted from this nation's legal memory, Narco News now offers you a glimpse behind the curtain of the big pretense as reflected in the pleadings of a cast of CIA players in the Horn case.

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