By Scotty B posted 25 November 05
The United Kingdom has used the Official Secrets Act to prevent UK newspaper the Daily Mirror from continuing to publish information regarding an alleged transcript of a conversation between Tony Blair and George W. Bush in which the President is said to have discussed taking military action against Arab television broadcaster Al-Jazeera.
Since the gag order was issued, no new information has been released regarding the transcript, as the British government has threatened all media organizations they would be breaking the law if details about the memo are released.
According to the Daily Mirror, during the course of the transcripted conversation, Prime Minister Blair talked Bush out of launching an military strike on Al-Jazeera's news offices in Qatar. The talked are alleged to have taken place on the 16th of April, 2004.
____________________________________________
Just in UK Newswire
Democracy Now censored by being faded down for approx four minutes.
Today at 16:39 GMT Democracy Now was faded down for approximately four minutes while the programme was discussing a leaked memo in which President Bush allegedly discusses bombing the Arabic satellite network Al Jazeera at this stage I don't know if its because of the UK Official Secrets Act.
The United States has not officially denied the existence of the memo. Also, two people have been charged in Britain under the Official Secrets Act for 'damaging disclosure of a document relating to international relations'. One of those people is Lee O'Connor, a former employee of former MP (member of parliament) Tony Clarke, whose office the memo allegedly ended up in. Another is civil servant David Keogh.
It worth noting that the United States has attacked Al-Jazeera twice in the past - once in the 2001 bombing of its Kabul office in Afghanistan, and again in the 2003 bombing of it's Baghdad office, in which an Al-Jazeera journalist was killed. The United States has since refused to allow Al-Jazeera to operate from within Iraq - the newschannel has essentially been banned from the country.
Related:
By Reposted by Takver posted 25 November 05
Al Jazeera London Bureau Chief Responds to Report of British Memo Alleging Bush Wanted to Bomb Network HQ in Doha Wednesday, November 23rd, 2005 Visit Democracy Now! site for streaming audio versions
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/152224
-------------------------------------------
AMY GOODMAN: We're joined on the telephone right now by the head of Al Jazeera's London bureau, Yousri Fouda, senior investigative reporter at Al Jazeera and the host of Top Secret, one of the network's most popular shows. Welcome to Democracy Now!
YOUSRI FOUDA: Thank you very much.
AMY GOODMAN: What is your response to this report of the Downing - another Downing Street memo?
YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, obviously, we haven't seen the documents yet. There's still a case pending, and you have just mentioned the latest episode of events, which media have been just gagged from reporting any further on this story. I'm still hoping, to tell you the truth - we've been, what now, nearly 48 hours since this revelation, and we haven't yet seen anybody hit the roof in the White House or Downing Street, stepping out and saying, no, it's not true, or if it's true, that the President actually did not mean it. I'm still hoping at the bottom of my heart that this will happen.
AMY GOODMAN: You have been commenting for your network, Al Jazeera, on various talk shows since this was revealed yesterday. One of the people you were up against was arguing that it was right to attack Al Jazeera, saying it's state media.
YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, it's his opinion, and I wouldn't actually generalize that every American would like to murder journalists for reporting whatever they are reporting. Even if I begin to agree or accept any allegation against Al Jazeera, which I totally refute, I certainly -- no decent human being on earth would even begin to justify murdering journalists. And in the name of what? In the name of spreading freedom in our part of the world? I mean, you just can't argue that you are trying to defend everything that Western civilization stands for, that you are trying to spread freedom and democracy in the Middle East, but in the process, you are actually doing exactly the opposite. You cannot argue for both things at the same time.
AMY GOODMAN: We're also joined on the telephone by British journalist and filmmaker, John Pilger, writes a column now for the New Statesman, used to be with the Daily Mirror. His latest film is called Stealing a Nation. Welcome to Democracy Now! again.
JOHN PILGER: Good morning.
AMY GOODMAN: It's good to have you with us. Your response to this Downing Street memo, and the latest news. Washington Post: "A senior diplomat said the Bush remark as recounted in the newspaper sounds like one of the President's one-liners that's meant as a joke, but the diplomat said it was foolish for someone to write it down, and now it will be a story for days." Two British civil servants now being indicted.
JOHN PILGER: Yeah, well, I don't think it's a one-liner. I just think they're minimizing, and I'm not at all surprised. I'm sure no one is surprised. I'm sure Al Jazeera isn't surprised. After all, as you pointed out earlier on, the Americans clearly targeted Al Jazeera in Kabul and in Baghdad, killing one Al Jazeera journalist. They had been threatening Al Jazeera. It's part of U.S. policy to target the media. They - during the attack on Serbia in 1999, they targeted the headquarters of Yugoslav Broadcasting. The numbers of journalists who have been killed by American troops is higher than any time in the modern period. The media is terribly important to this whole disaster, and getting Al Jazeera, which has done an extraordinary job of bringing to millions of people, who otherwise would not have been informed about their own part of the world, bringing to them facts and information is very threatening to the United States and to Bush.
AMY GOODMAN: This latest news, also in the Washington Post piece, and I wanted to get both of your reactions to this, the idea that the U.S. government was so threatened by what Al Jazeera was doing, wanting to put in plants of the C.I.A. at Al Jazeera. Yousri Fouda, your response.
YOUSRI FOUDA: I'm sorry. It's a very bad line.
JOHN PILGER: I have to tell you, there is a -- one of your colleagues is speaking over us there. I can't hear very well. There's a double line here.
AMY GOODMAN: I'm sorry. I was just asking -- let me put this question to Yousri Fouda first, a senior investigative reporter at Al Jazeera. The latest news in the Washington Post of - saying that a former U.S. intelligence official saying that it was clear the White House saw Al Jazeera as a problem, that although the C.I.A.'s clandestine service came up with plans to counteract it, such as planting people on its staff, it never received permission to proceed. Your response to that, Yousri?
YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, I mean, any news organization is open to anybody to be planted into it. We - I mean, our address is actually meant to be - every news organization's address and every news organization's process is just out there. So, I would wouldn't be surprised that indeed that there are some people who might be working, whether paid or not paid, for this intelligence agency or the other. We are very transparent, and everybody knows this. I can hardly think of anyone who introduced themselves as a journalist or a researcher or somebody who is associated with a think tank requesting a visit to our headquarters in Doha and we turned them down. We are open. People come and go, and how would you know that somebody is not actually working for the C.I.A. or any other intelligence agency in the world? I don't think that this is the issue.
The issue is the way some people -- and I would this -- that some people within the U.S. administration view the world, that kind of arrogant attitude towards the world that we don't even need to even begin to explain ourselves is just outrageous. You know, when you take people for granted, when you think that, well, taking an easy target like journalists, unarmed human beings, just for, you know, for doing their job, just because they wanted to stay in the middle and not be with any side, like the President of the most powerful nation on earth said at one point, "You are either with us or against us." Hello. I'm a journalist. My job is all about being in the middle.
So, it's -- from that point of view, I just wonder, in light of what happened recently, I mean, this revelation about this document, how many people would have been recruited into the mindset of al-Qaeda because of something like this? I'm talking about mainstream Arabs and Muslims, and even decent human beings, wherever they come from, when they hear about something like this. So we have been hearing a lot about people in our part of the world, 'They hate America and Americans.' Well, they might do this, but they used to hate Americans for what they do, not for what they are. Now, with something like this, I wouldn't be surprised that Americans will be hated for what they are.
AMY GOODMAN: Yousri Fouda, what would you say to those people now, who have been charged, two British civil servants, for leaking this memo? And also what would you say to the British government, which has threatened the use of the Official Secrets Act to sue newspapers that publish the contents of this leaked memo, apparently now the Daily Mirror complying. Do you think that a news organization, perhaps even your own, Al Jazeera, should defy this? And then I'll put the question to John Pilger.
YOUSRI FOUDA: Well, the signs are not very encouraging. You know, again gagging - I understand from a legal point of view that there's a case going on, and we usually try and be a little bit more sensitive when there's a legal case taking place. So, I would refrain from commenting on the civil servants, because I might prejudice their case. But on the other hand, when you gag somebody, the story becomes sexier, and everybody develops even more interest into it. I have a personal experience with this myself, having interviewed a former MI5 officer who ran away and started talking about things, and British media were gagged. What happened? Because legally he could speak to non-British media, and then British media would take the story on. So, you go around things again. It's a very hypocritical approach. And that's what happened. I interviewed the guy, and every single media outlet in this country quoted my interview with him. So I don't think that it's really the best policy, but at the same time, I have a little bit of understanding because of the legal case. The ball is in the White House court, the bottom line of the issue is in the White House. I urge the White House to come out and say this did not happen, and if it did happen, the President was rather joking about it.
AMY GOODMAN: John Pilger, your final response?
JOHN PILGER: Well, it's just part of a pattern, isn't it? It's part of a pattern of the unfolding disaster that is the United States domination and imposition of its policies on the world. I don't - none of these are isolated incidents. Targeting journalists makes all sorts of sense, because it's journalists - that is, honest journalists and especially the journalists like those on Al Jazeera, who might be saying the sort of things the administration doesn't want to hear - these are a threat, and it's something that all honest people throughout the world and especially in the United States have to face, and the United States -
AMY GOODMAN: John, a quick question. Do you think that a newspaper should reveal this memo? Now, the British government has threatened any British newspaper for revealing it. There's also, of course, U.S. papers.
JOHN PILGER: Yes. Yes, I do. It's too dangerous now. This dangerous farce called the "war on terror" has got to such an extreme now that the freedom of speech that we do have left, the freedom of expression that we hang onto, we have to use.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, I thank you both for being with us, John Pilger, British journalist and filmmaker and Yousri Fouda, senior investigative reporter at Al Jazeera. He hosts Top Secret, the network's London Bureau Chief, co-author of Masterminds of Terror: The Truth Behind the Most Devastating Attack the World Has Ever Seen. And I encourage to you go to our website at DemocracyNow for full hours with both Yousri Fouda, when he was in Washington, when we had him in the Washington studio, and with John Pilger, the interview we did with him in person. We thank you both for being with us.
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/11/23/152224
Related:
By Erwin James posted 24 November 05
As the season of goodwill approaches I'm reminded of how at this time of year one of the main things on the minds of people in prison is food.
Already prisoners all over the country will be stocking up on biscuits and other goodies saved for from prison wages and purchased from the prison "canteen".
From the daily provisions allowance, prison cooks will be skimming a little here and there so that they can put a little extra on the cons' plates over the forthcoming holiday in order to make Yuletide inside a little more palatable.
Yet it won't be long before popular newspapers are carrying mock-ups of prison Christmas menus, designed to outrage the man in the street and infuriate pensioners.
But regardless of their circumstances, prisoners are still people and in spite of their incarceration most will experience festive treats in one form or another. As my second Christmas in the world of the free beckons I recall a couple of my favourite repasts behind bars.
The first was the oddest meal I'd ever had. Queuing up at the hotplate on Christmas eve lunchtime in my first high security prison I was suddenly distracted from my conversation with the man in front of me by the sight of a tray of unfamiliar animal organs.
The curious items were brown and pear shaped and had what looked like bits of rubbery tubes attached. Of all the sights I'd been greeted with at mealtimes since my sentence had begun, this creepy-looking pile was the most intriguing.
"Sheep hearts," said the prisoner in the grey, originally white, serving jacket standing behind the serving counter when I asked him what they were. "A Christmas present from a local farmer," he added.
"Christ," I whispered. They looked like they had just been torn from the animals' chests by a gnarled, warty hand.
Many were coated with layers of yellow fat. The rubbery bits, I realised, were the remnants of major arteries, some of which had what appeared to be snippets of lung still attached. I noticed nobody appeared to be taking their portion.
"Yes please," I said, to the obvious surprise of Greyjacket. He uttered a wide-eyed snigger as he untangled a heart with his aluminium tongs and placed it gingerly on my stainless steel meal tray.
Then I had an idea. "Is there any spare?" I asked, prompting a look of disbelief. Before he could say anything a voice from behind me chirped up, "You can have mine," followed by another, and then another and another. By the time I got back to my cell my tray was laden with more than a dozen of the little delicacies.
I'd never cooked a meal in prison before but I knew that people did. On the ground floor of the wing a cell had been converted to provide "cooking facilities" (a Baby Belling cooker had been installed alongside a table and a metal bench.)
Every night a tense queue of hungry cons formed, pans and little bags of ingredients that had been filched or bought illicitly from the prison kitchen, in hand. Some saved their hotplate food and enriched it with spices and food bought from the prison shop (tinned fish or baked beans.)
I was amazed that nobody had seen the potential in the sheep hearts, especially that day of all days.
After quickly trimming the fat and other debris from the hearts with my plastic knife I sawed them into bite-sized pieces. In the afternoon I managed to borrow a pan and trade a quarter of an ounce of tobacco for a couple of onions, some potatoes and carrots and an oxo cube from a kitchen worker.
As soon as the doors were opened at 6pm for "association" I rushed down to the makeshift kitchen and then queued for an hour before getting my pan on one of the little cooker's big rings.
The hour left before bang up was just enough to boil and simmer my stew to perfection before it was time to scuttle back to my cell, where behind a locked door I stared through the bars of the window at the starry sky and enjoyed my, er, hearty feast, alone. This first experience of cooking for myself eventually added a whole new dimension to my prison time. I became a regular in the queue for the Baby Belling, where, despite the disagreements, arguments, and fights, I managed to pick up a variety of recipes and tips which at least once week helped me to create a meal that was tasty, filling, and nutritious.
And then I met Mr Patel. Mr Patel was a man with few associates, as far as I was aware. Whenever I saw him he always seemed to be carrying a small pan around. It was under his chair in the television room, or on his bench in the fabrication workshop where we worked.
He even took it out on the exercise yard. He couldn't have stood more than five feet high, yet unusually for such a small and obviously defenceless man nobody ever bothered him.
That was until the night he was shoved out of the Baby Belling queue. Without thinking I stepped in and stuck up for him. To my relief Mr Patel's challenger backed down and let him back in. Later Mr Patel and I became acquainted and as a reward for my earlier modest assistance he shared with me the secrets of his pan.
"Pilchard curry," he said, as I tasted a spoonful, which left my taste buds singing with joy. "I teach you how to make."
It was one of the most wonderful tasting meals imaginable and in time became my very own signature dish.
Every year I produced a special Christmas panful for my neighbours, yet despite my seasonal largesse, following Mr Patel's untimely passing I always resisted attempts by fellow cons to get me to share what I had idiosyncratically come to think of as my own "secret recipe."
Now I feel the time has come. In my next column I will reveal all.
Related:
