An appellate court in Chicago has ruled that Rahm Emanuel cannot run for mayor of Chicago, because he worked for two years as White House chief of staff. The ruling relies on the notion that Emanuel forfeited his Chicago residency by taking a job with the federal government in Washington, DC, but federal law specifies that in such situations residency remains intact.

Emanuel owns a home in the same Chicago Congressional district he represented for years, until he took the White House job. The former Congressman and White House chief of staff still pays property taxes on that home and still votes there. He is officially a resident of that district, according to state and federal law.

Today, the state board of elections has halted the printing of ballots that did not include his name and have begun printing ballots that do, as the Illinois Supreme Court has agreed to examine the lower court ruling that found Emanuel could not run. One of the members of the state supreme court is married to a Chicago alderman who supports one of Emanuel’s rivals, raising questions about how that relationship might influence the verdict on Emanuel’s candidacy.

The fact is: Rahm Emanuel is a legal resident of the city of Chicago, and there are no legal grounds for denying his candidacy. The appellate court that ruled he should be barred from appearing on the ballot appears to have ignored the prevailing law relevant to the question, and their ruling should be, as a matter of law, reversed.

There is a very good chance at present that if the appellate court ruling is not reversed, there will be serious, direct, material harm to Mr. Emanuel, to his campaign, to his professional chances and to the people of the city of Chicago, who should have the opportunity to make a free and fair choice regarding whom they want to serve as mayor.

Early voting begins next week, so the Illinois Supreme Court is expected to rule soon, in the interests of expediency and fairness in the electoral process.

MSNBC anchor and news analyst Keith Olbermann will be back on the air on Tuesday evening, after being indefinitely suspended, and thus missing his Friday and Monday programming. MSNBC president Phil Griffin had suspended Olbermann, alleging that three campaign donations violated the ethics rules for journalists employed by NBC News. The suspension had appeared to many to be politically motivated, given Comcast’s plans to take over the network, and the likely incoming president’s staunchly pro-Bush views and past fundraising activity.

The suspension of Olbermann —in a media climate where MSNBC rival FOX News has literally and very explicitly set itself up as an arm of the Republican electoral campaign, inviting candidates to come on air to fundraise and actively promoting those candidates it interviews, while news anchors attend fundraisers to draw donors and actively donate themselves, and where MSNBC has permitted various Republican commentators to be both employed by the network and actively involved in GOP politics and fundraising— raised the suspicion and the ire of progressives across the country.

A nationwide grassroots campaign to demand Olbermann’s reinstatement began almost immediately, and as of this morning, the news had broken that Olbermann would be back on the air by Tuesday evening. It is clear the outpouring of criticism and the intensifying accusations of political motivations put pressure on MSNBC to end the suspension. Almost overnight, the network lost its credibility as an open and critical political voice where progressives could be heard to one where this seemed to be some kind of fluke whose days were doomed as a corporate takeover approached.

The damage may be done, considering how difficult it has been for progressive press and civil rights groups to get clear information from NBC/Universal about the nature of the decision to suspend Olbermann. There have been sporadic calls for investigations into the motivations of the executives involved in the decision to suspend the journalist, even as the network alleges there were clear violations of the company’s journalistic ethics rules.

There has been a clamoring from the right and from corporate front groups that lobby to oppose pro-consumer and public-health reforms to steer the mainstream media toward a kind of corporate-right doctrine, where markets are sacrosanct and criticism of corporate institutions is considered counterproductive and un-American. FOX News has modeled itself after this doctrine, and has actively sought ad dollars (donations?) from the very entities that push this doctrine of media bias.

In the wake of the Republican victory in the midterm elections, conservative politicians have been crying foul that there remain any dissent or any opposition to their views, in politics, in the mainstream media, or across the nation. There is mounting controversy over the leadership push by right-wing Congresswoman Michele Bachmann, who once promised she would use a leadership role in the House of Representatives to investigate members of Congress for holding “un-American” views, essentially a bludgeon designed to stamp out dissent and persecute anyone who opposes the Republican agenda.

The media are struggling to understand the meaning of a “wave” election that comes just two years after the historic landslide victory and Pres. Obama’s record vote numbers (Obama won fully 60% more votes in 2008 than Ronald Reagan in 1980). In fact, the story is very simple: in 2008, Pres. Obama won nearly 70 million votes, more than 26 million more than Ronald Reagain in 1980, and by far the most ever received by any candidate for president. In 2010, most of the presidential electorate of 2008 did not participate, making the electorate demographically more conservative and more Republican.

The majority of Democratic candidates who lost were “conservative Democrats” or DINOs (Democrats In Name Only) who actively opposed Pres. Obama and helped the Republicans spread unsubstantiated smears of the president’s major reform agenda. They did not, however, lose because they were conservative or because they criticized the president; they lost because they had put the political maneuvering for their own re-election above the truth and above the interests of the people: neither Democrats nor Republicans have any reason to support such people, and of course, the devil who betrays you is worse than the devil who hasn’t yet turned on his or her principles for cheap political advantage.

Will the Olbermann suspension be the first in a wave of corporate attempts to manipulate the media, dampen criticism of Congressional Republicans or undermine the free press in the United States? First things first: it is not the first case. The real question is: can the media, made up of actual people, whose profession is journalism, do the research and privilege the facts, and be relentlessly critical of those who seek to mislead, so that the press remains a powerful defender of American freedoms and political and corporate interests cannot take over?

Olbermann will likely be emboldened by this attack on his character and on his freedom to make decisions of conscience in how he carries out his duties as a journalist and as a citizen. He will likely have tough words for anyone in politics or in the media who opposes the free press, and he should, we can expect, continue to push the idea that ending net neutrality is a threat to our democracy and a violation of the First Amendment (he reported on this the very week he was suspended, by the way). Maybe the suspension will raise the profile of the issue of press freedom, and cause more citizens to stand up and be counted as favoring the First Amendment over the corporate echo-chamber.

Andrew Breitbart —a fake journalist whose overt political bias is not only self-declared, but is seething with bile and contempt— is defending his use of rigged reporting and character assassination in a deliberate attempt to distort the truth and sow racist hate. Breitbart posted a clip of a video on his blog, in which USDA official Shirley Sherrod, explained how she came to see beyond race and transcend the temptation to judge people’s character or motives based on the color of their skin.

Breitbart claimed very explicitly that Sherrod is a racist actively involved in using her federal position to discriminate against white people: an outright falsehood. He refused to allow the message of her speech —that all people can and should transcend racial discrimination, no matter what they have suffered— to come through his reporting.

Sherrod was speaking about a single case over 24 years ago, when she worked for a charitable organization, and a case in which despite her personal doubts, she actually helped the individual in question. Breitbart continues, unbelievably, to defend his claims and to literally pretend the speech was somehow entirely different in content and meaning than what anyone can see when watching the full video.

His absurd defense of indefensible and divisive lies goes as far as to falsely assert that members of the audience were applauding racist behavior, which they absolutely were not. In fact, when Sherrod mentioned the temptation to limit her assistance to someone in that isolated incident more than two decades ago, doing so clearly in the context of a speech about transcending racism, the room was silent. This, despite an atmosphere in which those present did second and amen and applaud the nobler elements of the speech: the subject clearly made everyone there uncomfortable.

Breitbart, however, either cannot see this, due to his own flagrant bias, or will not, because he refuses to take responsibility for an ongoing campaign of lies and smears to which he has committed himself wholesale. The scandal involving the community aid group ACORN was the result of a smear campaign, orchestrated by Mr. Breitbart in league with a self-appointed conservative “activist” videographer. Breitbart and his associate falsely alleged that an ACORN employee had given “advice” on how to run a child brothel, when in fact the activist was taking information to report the supposed crime ring to police.

Multiple federal investigations found there was no wrongdoing by anyone at any level in the ACORN organization, and the New York Times was forced to apologize for reporting false information as if it had been verified. There was literally zero substance to the false reporting against ACORN, orchestrated and disseminated by Breitbart, but FOX News continues to routinely push the notion of a sinister criminal enterprise of some kind run through the nation’s leading community aid charity.

Instead of taking responsibility for his actions, Breitbart has declared himself an “enemy” of “the Democratic party, the progressive movement and the Obama administration”. Clearly, this is the stance of a propagandist who is sworn to carry out a political campaign of lies and smears, not the stance of a journalist interested in reporting facts.

But what is still more astonishing is Breitbart’s explanation for why he deliberately took this clip, posted it with no reference to the actual meaning of the speech or this section of it, then overtly lied about what Sherrod was saying and how the audience reacted. Breitbart explained his feelings as follows:

I believe that I’m held to a higher standard. If this video showed a picture of a Caucasian talking in the exact same way but talking about a black person with an audience affirming and clapping that behavior, the reporter would be getting a Pulitzer Prize right now.

First: the audience was not “clapping that behavior”, that behavior being the extolling of racist behavior. And Sherrod was not extolling racist behavior. Breitbart not only lied, spun and distorted the entire atmosphere of the event, due to an apparent disdain for the NAACP, he is now fashioning even more elaborate lies in order to defend his having lied in the first place.

But second, and more importantly, his complaint is worthy of genuine moral outrage from anyone paying even the slightest attention. Andrew Breitbart is complaining that his freedom to be racist is being abridged. He complains very explicitly that if he were to laud or revel in racist behavior —which, again, Sherrod did not—, it would be reported as a bad thing, a sign of injustice and moral bankruptcy and anyone reporting on it “would be getting a Pulitzer Prize”.

The clear meaning is that Mr. Breitbart would like the freedom to be openly racist and he feels constrained by the now near universal consensus in American society, legislation and jurisprudence, which holds that racism is wrong. This is Breitbart’s complaint, which is made more severe and desperate by his need to defend the indefensible action of deliberately lying about Sherrod, her speech, the NAACP and —apparently— anyone else he determines to be his “enemy”.

Adding to his complaint the observation that those who are disgusted by his behavior “smell blood in the water”, Breitbart has promptly left for a vacation, just when, according to himself, the “successes [his] journalism has had” are mounting. He appears to be in a now aggressively defensive posture, as would someone who knows there is in fact no defense for his actions, his mission, his prejudice.

There is no clearer way to say it than that virtually no one in South Carolina Democratic party politics had ever heard of Alvin Greene until his name showed up on the primary ballot as a candidate for the United States Senate. So how did someone with no party ties, no political background, no money, no campaign operation and with there being virtually no evidence of any campaign effort whatsoever, win the Democratic party nomination to challenge Republican incumbent Jim DeMint?

As the New York Times reported it:

[E]veryone wants to know how Mr. Greene, an unemployed Army veteran who had been completely unknown until Tuesday, inexplicably defeated a heavily favored former legislator and judge to become the state’s Democratic nominee for the Senate — and the state’s latest political circus act.

There are numerous theories, the most widely reported being Rep. James Clyburn’s assertion that Greene appears to be a “Republican plant”, the latest in a relentless string of political dirty tricks that have made the state’s reputation for vicious below-the-belt campaigning and political scandal. There are calls for an investigation into the allegation and whether or not Republican backers may have helped manipulate Mr. Greene, who is reportedly facing felony charges, into becoming a candidate.

In fact, Clyburn now alleges that at least 3 candidates in the Democratic primaries were Republican plants, including the man who challenged him for his seat. It turns out his opponent had actually paid a Republican party consultant to assist in staging his campaign, and there may be evidence that money backing one or more candidates was not properly acquired or accounted for and may be linked to Republican party fundraisers or backers.

At least two African American rising stars of South Carolina Democratic politics told MSNBC today that they spoke with Mr. Greene yesterday and that it seemed clear to them that his mental faculties “might not be all there”. Just two months ago, Mr. Greene told a court he was indigent, which suggests he would not be capable —having done zero fundraising of any kind— of paying for the filing fee.

Vic Rawl, a former legislator and judge, known in South Carolina politics, was reported to have a 43% support in recent polling against the incumbent Sen. Jim DeMint, who was polling at just 50%. There are suggestions from prominent political observers in South Carolina, including former Democratic state party leader Dick Harpootlian, that Republicans feared DeMint’s seat was not, in fact, secure and a progressive insurgency could put Rawl ahead of him in November.

But examination of the voting patterns now suggests there were serious, and egregious, manipulations of the electronic voting systems used in polling stations across the state. In a shocking number of precincts, it now appears Mr. Greene received more votes than there were registered voters eligible to vote. Mr. Rawl has also asked for an examination of the statistical disparity between the absentee ballots and the electronic voting tally, which suggest Rawl won more than 80% of votes among absentee ballots in some precincts, while Greene won the electronic tally comfortably in those same precincts.

Greene’s shocking win mirrored those skewed results from the unverifiable electronic balloting (South Carolina is not using the paper trail verification process recommended for any situation in which electronic voting machines make it impossible to assess the “true intent of the voter” in retrospect when a review is called for). Experts are now closely examining the results to find anomalies and possibly develop evidence of who, if anyone, was involved in manipulating the primary vote.

According to Politico:

According to [Rawl campaign manager Walter] Ludwig, of the state’s 46 counties, half have a disparity of greater than 10 percentage points between the absentee and election day ballots.

“The election day ballots all favor Mr. Greene. We don’t know what it means,” Ludwig said in an interview. “We did significantly better on absentees than Election Day, which is according to the mathematicians, quite significant. The other reason is, it didn’t happen in any other races on the ballot.”

In Lancaster County, Rawl won absentee ballots over Greene by a staggering 84 percent to 16 percent margin; but Greene easily led among Election Day voters by 17 percentage points.

In Spartanburg County, Ludwig said there are 25 precincts in which Greene received more votes than were actually cast and 50 other precincts where votes appeared to be missing from the final count.

“In only two of 88 precincts, do the number of votes Greene got plus the number we got equal the total cast,” Ludwig said.

The Brad Blog, perhaps the most diligent credible website on verifiable voting and the problems inherent in paperless e-voting systems, is reporting:

Given the well-documented history of malfunction by ES&S iVotronics and their central tabulating system, along with similarly well-documented scientific reports of how easily those specifics systems can be manipulated, most easily by election insiders, it’s sounding more and more like there is a serious problem — of some type — in South Carolina’s electronic voting system.

For the record, this is not the only questionable race in South Carolina’s Democratic primary. We may have more soon on a different race with very odd results. And there are also strange numbers emerging in South Carolina’s Republican primary as well, where Schaller’s piece quotes a study finding “three counties with more votes cast in [the] Republican governor’s race than reported turnout in the Republican primary,” resulting in the nearly impossible case of zero overvotes or undervotes in that race, across all three counties.

There may be evidence that deliberate human intervention caused the apparent statewide “malfunction” of the e-voting system, skewing votes toward Greene. If that’s the case, a federal criminal investigation could be opened that might lead back to political insiders on the Republican side. The news that irregularities are now emerging in DeMint’s primary as well suggest there may have been a blanket effort to manipulate the count.

Glen Beck is a menace to the integrity of the American media. His fabrications and falsehoods are a deliberate and immoral attempt to distort the American political mind, to create visceral divisions and to force hostility to undermine productive progressive action to make the country more just and more egalitarian. His lies are shameless and his relentless attempts at character assassination of anyone not in agreement with his fringe politics are an insult to all people everywhere.

But his obsession with the president’s 11-year-old daughter is perverse and dangerous in a unique way that should once and for all discredit him with even his most ardent ultra-conservative ideological supporters. Beck’s relentless mocking of the young girl is not only a violation of the traditional media promise not to attack the children of public officials, but it suggests a perverse obsession and a fundamentally inhuman disregard for the emotional wellbeing and personal dignity of an innocent child.

If Mr. Beck’s disdain for common human decency is so extreme as to not only allow him to mount an always-on campaign of lies and distortions, designed to undermine our Constitutional system, but also to attack with extreme hostility an innocent 11-year-old girl, then he is the kind of broken and dangerous person who should not be leading the opinions of anyone.

His work in our media culture is not one of “a competing voice” or “a voice of reason”, but rather as saboteur to all that is good and worthy in the American media. This perverse mockery —which if you’ve heard it, leaves Beck sounding legitimately like a deranged clown of whom any parent, or any child for that matter, should be genuinely afraid— makes the choice clear: either you recognize Beck as a man of little intellectual integrity and grave anti-social tendencies, or you accept his perverse behavior as somehow part of your worldview and do not voice any complaints.

His viewership, and his listening public, should plummet due to this sick behavior, and whether or not it does will be an important measure of where we stand as a media culture. Do we care about things like decency, integrity, truth-telling and honor in reporting? Or are we more interested in the pornographic shock-value of lunatics and crazy-makers? Would we rather know about the world others live in, and what we can do to be of help, or simply watch the tragic flame-out of a circus performer?

I believe the American people care about truth-telling and human dignity, and I believe Mr. Beck’s star is falling fast, even though his corporate backers claim he is a ratings machine and good for business. It seems this latest stunt is yet another opportunity for us to ask: are people like Beck supported by big money because they are good for ratings, or because they are good for distracting the public from issues of real public import and the fate of the nation?

Glen Beck has apologized for mocking the president’s daughter, but he has not taken responsibility for the perversity of his behavior, the lascivious, nasty way in which he actually performed the mockery. That perversity is intimately intertwined with all that he does as a media figure and helps to drive his campaign of lies and innuendo on a daily basis. There should be a blanket corporate and public boycott of any program or network involving Glen Beck. Unless, of course, he relents and agrees to practice something resembling responsible journalism.

The media are exploding with reports that explicitly declare that “the public opposes the current healthcare reform bills” passed by both houses of Congress. In fact, this is patently false, and any of the major polls on the subject bear this out, if one devotes the time necessary to understand the numbers. It is inaccurate to say “the public opposes”, because there is not one uniform majority of Americans opposing a specific set of initiatives in the pending reforms.

Lazy polling is a dangerous standard that sees pollsters simply ask direct questions that might work for an individual respondent, but cannot produce an accurate or useful number across an entire population. Instead of finding out why individual respondents oppose a proposed reform; pollsters simply ask: support or oppose? Maybe they add indifferent to the list of options, or go with a 5-point scale of strongly support, support, indifferent, oppose, strongly oppose.

The result is an infantile analysis of public opinion. When 60% of respondents choose oppose or strongly oppose, pollsters say “We have proof that a majority oppose ‘the president’s plan’”; they simply ignore the problem that of those 60, 15 may oppose the very idea of reform, 15 may oppose the president personally, 15 may be opposed to Democratic concessions to Republicans who nevertheless refused to support the legislation, and another 15 may be opposed because they want single-payer.

The flaws inherent in “approve/disapprove” polling are legion, and any intelligent discussion of the 2010 political landscape must take these inaccuracies into account. For instance, CNN reported on Sunday that only 34% of Americans say “most members of Congress deserve to be re-elected”, but 51% say their own member of Congress “deserves to be re-elected”. The fairest analysis of this poll is that the first number is totally meaningless, except in evaluating how deeply flawed-in-detail political reporting has come to be.

There can be no real meaning to a poll-question about an issue of great nuance, which by its nature implies an extreme diversity of viewpoints on a broad range of variables, if there is no nuance whatsoever in the question itself. If the poll on Congressional approval is so easily shown to be off by up to 17% —the poll provides no way of knowing whether any of the respondents are acquainted with “most members of Congress” or their actions, views, performance or integrity—, a poll on public opinion of the healthcare bill gives us no information about how that legislation might be improved.

For instance, when the specifics of Republican and Democratic proposals are polled, there is significant skepticism, even among Republicans unaware of the source of the proposal, of the potential for Republican proposals to have a significant impact on the uninsurance, denial-of-treatment and pricing crises. On the other hand, the specifics of the Democratic reform proposals in the House and Senate are, in fact, very popular.

In fact, until the Democrats in the Senate finance committee held up the legislation during the summer, then adopted major concessions to the insurance industry, the reform process enjoyed overwhelming majority support, and the anti-tax “tea party” movement was the main source of opposition. That convergence of facts needs to be considered in any reporting on public dissatisfaction with the reform process, which must also be distinguished from the specifics of the reforms as such. Dissatisfaction with the process and dissatisfaction with the underlying principles of reform are not coextensive and must be treated as separate political trends.

During the Blair House health summit, Pres. Obama mentioned, without being overly detailed about the point he was making, that for the majority to scrap its proposals entirely in favor of a new policy based entirely on the principles of the Republican minority, which is nowhere near a majority in either house of Congress, would simply make no logical sense as a way of building consensus. Whether Republicans like it or not, whether the press is willing to explore the complexities or not, the vast majority of Americans opposed the Republican platform and voted for the Democratic agenda in 2008, and this reform was central to Pres. Obama’s campaign.

The people want most of the specifics of this reform, and in fact, when the mechanics of specific policies are explained, the overwhelming majority also favor even the public option. It needs to be considered that if Democrats do not defend and re-adopt some of the aspects of reform that have been watered down or replaced, they will continue to struggle to win public approval. The media environment has imposed a false parallel between “bipartisan” cooperation with Republicans and “building consensus” with among the public at large.

Andal Apatuan, Jr., the heir to a powerful political dynasty on the southern Philippine Island of Mindanao, and a candidate for governor in 2010, has been taken into custody after a raid by military and police forces. Ampatuan is running to replace his father as governor of Maguindanao province, his father being forced to step down after three consecutive terms due to term limits.

The elder Ampatuan had run unopposed in the last two elections, and there are rumors emerging from the region that the family was enraged at the prospect of the younger Ampatuan facing an electoral challenge. Though some members of the Ampatuan clan had been considered political allies of Pres. Gloria Arroyo, they have been expelled from her party since the massacre.

Ismael Mangudadatu, the politician who was traveling to register for the 2010 polls, along with his family and a press pool, said the gunmen were militia forces loyal to the Ampatuan clan. At least 57 people are now confirmed killed in the massacre, and news reports say anywhere from 13 to 20 were journalists. That figure makes this the worst single attack on journalists anywhere in the world for decades.

The region is now essentially under military rule, as the Philippines’ central government works to uncover the truth behind the killings, arrest those responsible and bring them to justice. There is also an urgent need to act to ensure peace and avoid a broader armed conflict emerging from the killings. Some observers fear the rise of anti-Ampatuan militia, which could make the crisis still more bloody.

The BBC is reporting:

Officials named militiamen under the control of Mr Ampatuan Jr – the mayor of a town in Maguindanao – as suspects.

All police officers from one town are under investigation for the killing, AFP news agency reported, citing government officials.

The massacre must be prosecuted aggressively, if the Manila government hopes to counter this type of violent corruption and protect the Philippine constitution. Attacks on journalists are a tool of choice of local mafia-like clans in the Philippines and elsewhere, who seek to use intimidation to cling to power.

But the Maguindanao massacre killed anywhere from one to two dozen members of the press, so the press at large cannot be expected to look in any way favorably on the alleged political backers of the killings. The central government is in a war posture against the regional leadership, and police and public officials are considered complicit and are facing investigation.

Such an extreme act of unrepentant violence is a mystery if for no other reason due to its scale. The younger Ampatuan’s rival Mr. Mangudadatu lost his wife, two sisters and a large number of key supporters. The attack appears to have been an effort to wipe out anyone involved intimately with the rival candidate, either in his personal or professional sphere.

A lawsuit by a former Washington editor for the New York Post has revealed that the paper’s Washington bureau chief told her the newspaper’s official aim was to “destroy Barack Obama”. The revelation comes amid a spreading controversy over accusations the media properties owned by conservative media tycoon Rupert Murdoch have been used to fabricate news, organize phony Republican rallies, orchestrate sham grassroots groups —called ‘astroturf’ organizations—, systematically misrepresent the facts and personally attack political opponents of Murdoch’s preferred party and candidates.

Sandra Guzman, a former executive editor who was dismissed after she objected to the paper running a cartoon portraying Barack Obama as an escaped chimpanzee shot dead by police. She alleges that the in-house culture of the New York Post is loaded with racist and sexist abuse. She also said the paper knew the cartoon was seriously offensive but brushed off the idea there could be any serious objection because Post directors believed only “minorities” would be offended and in one editor’s words “most of them are uneducated”.

Ms. Guzman’s revelations could bring a flurry of lawsuits against the Post and other Murdoch media properties, if there is evidence that facts were deliberately distorted in order to cause material harm to individuals. That is the textbook definition of libel, and the New York Post’s Washington bureau chief having declared the paper’s mission to be to “destroy Obama” suggests not only that libel was a possible outcome, but that there was a deliberate and coordinated effort to ensure that the paper was engaging in libel.

Some critics have been slow to see the gravity of the revelations, in part because the Post already has a reputation for playing fast and loose with facts, having an aggressive political bias and following the mold of a typical sensationalist tabloid. If we recall the film Bright Lights, Big City, based on Jay McInerney’s novel, the main character says reading the New York Post is one of his most shameful “vices”, despite the more immediate physical danger of his cocaine habit: so ingrained in the New York psyche is the paper’s ill repute.

Others argue the New York Post, like any tabloid, is really more an advertising vehicle than a news source, so somehow fact-checking cannot be expected. But Guzman’s allegations are of grave concern for a number of reasons:

1) ad-rag or not, a widely circulated newspaper may have been used as a political weapon to manipulate the media environment and undermine the American electoral process;

2) it is no minor detail that a candidate of vast popularity, whose politics won a landslide victory, with no scandal or radical ideas whatsoever was the target of a deliberate campaign of character assassination, openly admitted to by the paper’s editors;

3) Guzman’s revelations also appear to confirm that Post editors were willing to knowingly thrust into the nation’s political discourse cartoons (and by extension ideas) they knew to be nakedly racist and condoning of race-based killing.

The level of professional irresponsibility alone is shocking, but that this reckless amorality may have been part of a planned, concerted campaign, backed by a major media firm that owns nit only one of the three major cable news channels but also the Wall Street Journal, means we have to ask ourselves how many inflammatory, dangerous lies, toxic to the democratic process and designed to brainwash American media consumers, were part of this propaganda effort. Does this mean the privately-owned “free press” is extinguished, replaced by a command-and-control libel mill, bent on using the First Amendment to undermine other Constitutional liberties?

Guzmán’s lawsuit specifically and explicitly alleges that the work environment at the New York Post is “permeated with racist and sexist conduct and comments toward employees of color and women”, adding that “the Post has also repeatedly targeted people of color and women outside of the Company with its racism and sexism through racially and sexually offensive news headlines, news stories and humiliating, insulting and degrading cartoons.”

The clear suggestionis that neither her own experience of harassment and mistreatment nor the cartoon attacking Obama as a chimpanzee shot by police were isolated incidents, but that they were part of a pattern of consistent abuse and intimidation, both inside and outside the editorial offices of the paper. The complaint also alleges “unlawful retaliation” against anyone who dares to complain of the abuse and harassment, up to and including deliberate efforts to undermine individuals’ career prospects.

Specifically, Guzman’s suit alleges:

… when employees complain about the discrimination in the workplace, they are often subjected to unlawful retaliation by the White management and editors at the Company, who, among other things, unlawfully retaliate against them by unfairly criticizing their work performance, overly scrutinizing their work, giving them unjust performance evaluations, denying them assignments and/or terminating their employment.

Guzman’s complaints about the racist cartoon depicting the assassination of an ape meant to represent the president, is alleged, in the suit, to have led directly to her being fired, without cause, as an illegal act of personal retaliation for raising objections to an atmosphere of aggression, bigotry and intimidation. The chimp cartoon was such an offensive and obvious racist attack, with real potential for incitement to physical violence, that Post owner Rupert Murdoch actually was driven to issue an apology, almost unheard of despite the intense controversy and allegations of systematic distortion consistently leveled at his media company.

The allegations are gravely serious; they go to the heart of what journalism is and why the press has such a privileged place in the rights enshrined in the US Constitution. The press is thought to be a check on the arbitrary and corrupt use of power, a way for the citizenry to protect against abuses by the powerful. But the allegation that the New York Post had a stated internal mission to “destroy Obama”, coupled with the alleged climate of hostility and persecution within the Post organization itself, suggests a deliberate betrayal of everything the free press is supposed to be.

It suggests a concerted effort to manipulate the truth, destroy an individual’s character and career, possibly based on a routine system of doing exactly that within the organization itself, and a campaign of fear-mongering, distortion and intimidation either explicitly or implicitly condoned by the tabloid’s owner.

While it is fundamentally problematic for the government to launch investigations of media outlets for behavior that might be intended to destroy politicians’ careers or manipulate voters’ behavior, even in cases of systematic libel, civil courts could provide a means for further investigation into the allegations against the paper, and other media outlets are virtually guaranteed to probe as deeply as possible the critical and outrageous substance of the allegations, putting the post in a far deeper hole than where it already finds itself.

One day after the world was shocked by the surprise award of the Nobel Peace Prize to the United States’ young first-term president, Barack Obama, statements of dismay and/or congratulation have given way to more cogent analysis of the important new direction Obama has brought to international relations of all kinds.

NATO’s secretary general says the Nobel award is “well deserved” by Pres. Obama, for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples”. EarthTimes reports:

Brussels – US President Barack Obama deserves the Nobel Peace Prize for his “extraordinary efforts to strengthen international diplomacy and cooperation between peoples,” NATO chief Anders Fogh Rasmussen said Friday. “(Obama) has also demonstrated his strong commitment to help build peace and defend fundamental human rights, including through the Atlantic Alliance. This honour is well deserved,” NATO’s secretary general said in a statement.

NATO is actively engaged in stopping nuclear proliferation, one of Obama’s priorities, while the US president’s fresh approach to Russia has helped defrost relations between Moscow and the transatlantic alliance.

Echoing some of the spirit of NATO chief’s praise for Obama, the Kansas City Star editorial board published the following:

Barack Obama has inspired. He has elevated. He has brought hope to people around the world. He has reinvigorated dialogues that seemed long dead, or hidden on back burners.

For that, on Friday, he was awarded the 2009 Nobel Peace Prize.

The Star editorial board notes how “frighteningly exclusive” is the list of Nobel Peace laureates, noting not even Mahatma Gandhi was so honored. But they went on to explain that while Obama seems to be just starting on his work to foster better relations in the global community, his work to date has had a profound moral and political effect in many nations, stating that:

Obama does share something with many who have accepted this award before him including Nelson Mandela, Elie Wiesel, Desmond Tutu, Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King Jr. and Lech Walesa: The ability to lift eyes upward, to prompt dreams of a better future.

The prize is only sometimes given out for accomplishments. As commonly, it is awarded to give strength to a position, to provide gravitas for a noble individual struggling for peace against a corrupt system.

Professor M. Zahidul Haque, chairman of the Department of Agricultural Extension & Information Systems at Dhaka’s Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, wrote the following in Bangladesh’s The New Nation:

Barack Obama has so far achieved remarkable progress towards establishing peace through his bold initiatives to get the earth free of nuclear threat and religion-based hostility. I strongly feel that the winning of the Nobel Peace Prize 2009 by US President Obama is a triumph of peace over war, hatred, and conflicts.

Prof. Haque’s editorial is important for a number of reasons. As a prominent scholar working on key issues of economics in a Muslim country of 159 million people, his assessment of Obama’s achievements to date suggests significant substantive gains have been made in fostering better relations with the Muslim world, and specifically in terms of showing leadership on issues like global climate destabilization and water scarcity, which are so critical to a predominantly poor, low-lying coastal-farming nation like Bangladesh.

In one of the most probing, thoughtful and historically aware, responses to the Nobel award, Greg Beals explained the following, in the Root:

When Alfred Nobel, a Swedish arms manufacturer and inventor of dynamite, bequeathed his considerable estate to establish, among other things, the Nobel Peace Prize in 1895, it was established for “the person who shall have done the most or the best work for fraternity between nations, for the abolition or reduction of standing armies and for the holding and promotion of peace congresses.” According to the rules, the prize is awarded, not for lifelong achievement, but to the one who has done the most to create an atmosphere of peace and reconciliation over the past year.

Like Martin Luther King Jr., you don’t have to wait a lifetime to win. King was the youngest person ever to win the prize in 1964, the year after his “I Have a Dream,” speech. At that time, the peace associated with the civil rights movement was far from being achieved. The committee could have easily argued that King needed more experience. If they had done so, he would likely have won the award posthumously.

It’s important to remember that the Nobel Peace Prize is not awarded solely for ending conflicts or for “achievement” at all, but rather for consistently championing the interests of humanity and democracy, for inspiring human beings to be more thoughtful about the civic ethics of their choices and their allegiances.

Were Obama to have been awarded the prize solely for his meteoric rise through the American political system, on a vibrant message of hope, principle and a return to core values of fairness, the rule of law, human rights and international peace and cooperation, the achievement would be big enough. But the meaning of the award has much more to do with his very real and very significant re-opening of America’s commitment to the international system that favors peace and cooperation, not just in principle but in practice.

Beals continues as follows:

So what hope did the committee glean from Obama over the past year? They rightly saw more movement on the Iran nuclear issue through dialogue than there has been achieved over the past eight years of the Bush administration. They saw U.S.-led efforts to strengthen the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty—something that Nobel Prize winner Mohamed El Baradei noted when he said that Obama “has done in nine months what many people would take a generation to do.”

They listened to an administration that has pledged to close down Guantanamo and leave Iraq. They noticed that for the first time since Jimmy Carter, American political discourse has focused on accountability of governments and human rights—Hillary Clinton’s recent condemnation of the murder and rape of opposition demonstrators in Guinea being but an example. For the first time in more than eight years, we have an administration that is willing to listen to the Middle East and willing to tackle the challenges associated with that elusive peace process.

Not one of these points is a minor achievement: it takes great moral courage and coherence of conscience to make complex arguments that favor peace and cooperation, when simplistic distortions and the vocabulary of cynicism and violence cover so much ground, politically. It takes the kind of commitment to peace and justice the Nobel Peace Prize was designed to reward and promote.

Yesterday, this publication’s founder and editorial director, J.E. Robertson, reported:

His work on nuclear disarmament is “important” not because it’s about non-proliferation, but because it’s about disarmament. Total, 100%, global nuclear disarmament. And he now has the unanimous support of the world’s major nuclear powers, the 5 permanent members of the Security Council, to move toward that goal.

UN SC Res. 1887 is one of the most important documents ever produced by the UN system, in that it lays the groundwork for a world free of nuclear weapons, however long it may take to achieve that goal. In the entire history of the nuclear arms race, no one has achieved that level of consensus on disarmament. This was done by aggressive, forthright and successful diplomacy, in the span of just 8 months’ worth of work. That is a major accomplishment.

Robertson went on to note that:

What Pres. Obama has done in terms of fostering international cooperation and peace, in just 8 months, far outweighs anything that was done in the last 8 years —when radical rhetoric, threats and intransigence, were hallmarks of national foreign policy—, and we all know that. The award is intended to acknowledge outstanding efforts to spur fraternity among nations, reduce or eliminate standing armies and achieve peace through open talks.

It’s time to take a cue from the Nobel committee and give credit where credit is due. We need more of this persistent, aggressive, collaborative diplomacy, aimed at restoring dignity to those mired in the world’s forgotten crises and promoting democracy and cooperation in concrete ways. The security of the United States depends on it, the stability of nations requires it, and any consideration for the wellbeing of future generations demands it.

Can we fault Pres. Barack Obama for the fact that the world’s many desperate crises remain unresolved? I think that would be a mistake. It’s not any one individual’s responsibility to resolve all the struggles happening everywhere in the world, nor should it be, if we are to be a sane, democratic global civilization. But we can demand the highest standards of moral character and humanitarian principle, and we can reward those who give signs of commitment to them.

The Mercedes B-class F-cell will be out in 2010 in the US and Europe, with an initial limited production fleet of 200 vehicles. The vehicles will be lease-only, as Mercedes works to perfect the technologies and market strategies it needs to bring the car to mass market.

The zero-emission hydrogen fuel-cell drive-train will perform better than most petrol-based combustible fuel vehicles, in terms of mileage. The car can also start up at extremely cold temperatures, as low as -25ºC. Andrew Williams, at the MatterNetwork, writes:

The German outfit boasts that its hydrogen-electric hybrid powertrain can achieve performance comparable to a 2.0-litre petrol car, at the equivalent of an astonishing 86.6mpg on the combined cycle. It takes an impressive three minutes to refuel the car with hydrogen, enabling a range of around 250 miles.

Under the bonnet, the integrated electric motor achieves 134bhp and 214lb ft of torque, easily better than the company’s 1.8-litre petrol B-class (B180 BlueEfficiency SE guise), which only offers 114bhp and 114lb ft of torque.

For Mercedes, blazing a trail into mass-market fuel-cell vehicles is an important technical and scientific achievement, but advanced battery technologies and new EV standards, being set by Tesla Motors, in California, mean the all-electric vehicle may be the more viable mass-market automotive vehicle of the future.

• Join or view this discussion on the Hot Spring Network

Natalya Estemirova was a seasoned journalist and well-known human rights activist and researcher. She was one of the leading sources of information about human rights abuses and major atrocities committed in Chechnya, and was considered a leading voice against authoritarian leader Ramzan Kadyrov.

Kadyrov denies involvement in her killing, though rights groups and independent observers consider it likely there is some connection between the killing and groups allied with Pres. Kadyrov. The question remains: who killed Natalya Estemirova? We may never have an official conviction that determines culpability, because those responsible for other high profile killings of journalists and activists who reported on atrocities committed against the Chechen people have never been brought to justice.

Stanislav Markelov, a top human rights investigator, was murdered in cold blood earlier this year; his killers remain at large. Anna Politkovskaya, a friend and colleague of Estemirova’s, was murdered in 2006, in her apartment building, the crime still unsolved.

As we reported on 15 July:

Kidnapped while leaving her home in Grozny, Chechnya, in the morning, her body was found at 17:20 local time (13:20 GMT) in the neighboring republic of Ingushetia, near the city of Nazran, according to Russia’s ITAR-TASS news agency. Madina Khadziyeva, a spokeswoman for the regional interior ministry told the press the victim had two wounds to the head and that “it was clear she had been murdered in the morning”.

Natalya Estemirova, a close friend and investigative colleague of Anna Politkovskaya, was one of the most prominent human rights campaigners still active in Chechnya. Politkovskaya was murdered on then President Vladimir Putin’s birthday, leading to widespread speculation it was meant to send a sign of allegiance to Putin, who backs Kadyrov’s hardline regime in Chechnya and had been openly critical of reporting by the crusading journalist.

Russia is listed as one of the most dangerous places for journalists. At least 20 journalists and human rights workers have been assassinated since Vladimir Putin took power in 2000, and many believe there are links between elements of his power base and the killings. Chechnya, in particular, is a republic beleaguered by years of war and brutality. Indeed, the violent death of Natalya Estemirova is evidence of how dominant the logic of cruelty has become in the power structure of the Chechen state, backed by Moscow.

Ramzan Kadyrov is widely viewed as ruling more through the brutal expression of raw power than by any legitimate electoral process, though he and his allies dispute his involvement in political killings. Kadyrov has been accused of direct involvement in atrocities by Politkovskaya, Markelov and Estemirova, as by many others. That common thread has led increasing numbers of human rights and press rights groups to call openly for his prosecution, though the Chechen and Russian governments say there is no evidence against him.

Pres. Medvedev has said Estemirova’s killing is an outrage, but coordination of the investigation is seen by many as slow-moving and partial. Ramzan Kadyrov has, amazingly, announced he personally will head a Chechen government investigation of the murder. Supporters of Ms. Estimirova and her accusations against Kadyrov say such an investigation could never be legitimate or transparent.

In fact, for many in Chechnya, it is as if the war has never ended. The first war flared up into a much more brutal and sustained 2nd Chechen war, and now, in the aftermath, the hardline regime of former rebel Ramzan Kadyrov, which is said to be closely backed by Moscow, stands accused of ongoing atrocities against dissidents and reporters investigating warm crimes and systematic corruption.

The war blisters on in the terror experienced by those who know of or have experienced first-hand the atrocities of the regime. Some still speak of “genocide”, a word that for Chechens harkens back to the Stalinist era, when the entire Chechen population was unilaterally expelled and relocated, their language and culture brutally suppressed. That legacy of marginalization and brutality led to the popular Chechen resistance, when Moscow invaded militarily in 1994.

And the deep divisions have persisted, as the factions broke apart, old rebels (like Kadyrov) aligned themselves with Moscow, and others were targeted for elimination by any means, by a new hardline security establishment. In essence, Natalya Estemirova is the latest victim of the Chechen war, which lives on in the damaged and degraded society in which ordinary Chechens still struggle to defend their liberties and achieve enough dignity to be free of persecution.

Pres. Obama remembers TV news “icon” Walter Cronkite

Café Sentido’s own editor and director, J.E. Robertson, wrote today:

American journalism has lost one of its elder statesmen. Walter Cronkite was one of the founders of broadcast journalism, pioneering a warm, conversational style for delivering facts with detachment and gravitas. The old-style newsman delivered news to the American viewing public about John F. Kennedy’s assassination, the civil rights movement, the Vietnam war, the protests of the 1960s, the Moon landing (40 years ago Monday), Watergate and other major moments of crisis and achievement.

Robertson finished his obituary with the no word-mincing line: “He will be missed, but his example stands implacable.” We stand behind Walter Cronkite’s principled, ethical pursuit of hard facts and truth-telling reportage. We stand behind his willingness to go beyond the story to get to the underlying truth that power-brokers might consider convenient to keep hidden.

Reporter and historian David Halberstam wrote for The Atlantic, today:

He knew by instinct the balance between journalism and show biz; he knew you needed to be good at the latter, but that you must never take it too far. He was enough of an old wire-service man to be uneasy with his new success and fame. He was just sophisticated enough never to show his sophistication.

In addition, he had physical strength and durability. Iron pants, as they say in the trade. He could sit there all night under great stress and constant pressure and never wear down, never blow it. And he never seemed bored by it all, even when it got boring. When Blair Clark and Sig Mickelson recommended him for the anchorman job, that durability, what they called the farm boy in him, was a key factor. He was the workhorse.

Pres. Barack Obama lauded Cronkite’s “integrity” in a video statement released to the press (embedded above), saying:

He was someone we could trust to guide us through the most important issues of the day, a voice of certainty in an uncertain world. He was family. In moments of tragedy, Walter looked us in the eye and shared our pain … and he brought us all those stories large and small which would come to define the 20th century.

That’s why we loved Walter, because in an era before blogs and email, cell-phones and cable, he was the news. Walter invited us to believe in him, and he never let us down.

Frazier Moore, writing for the Associated Press, says of Cronkite that he spoke nightly to a “nationwide community gathered to watch [him]“, and that he:

… clearly embraced the possibilities of new media. He had plied his trade in newspapers, radio and at a wire service when, in the early 1950s, he answered the call of a cutting-edge but primitive emerging media platform called television.

Even for Americans who remember Cronkite declaring “and that’s the way it is” every evening in his heyday, it’s hard to fully recall the heights to which he took TV news. And vice versa. Simply put, at CBS News, he invented the role of anchorman and prevailed in that role until his retirement …

Walter Cronkite had openly lamented the direction of television and print news and the corrosive effects of the “24-hour news cycle”, which he felt drained the news business of thought and deliberation, creating a landscape of snap reporting with less and less depth and little to no background to give perspective.

But many in the news business have touted Cronkite’s passionate interest in new technologies and his willingness to take the work of the field reporter to the cutting edge of radio and television media, despite his early start in the business of ink and newsprint. More than oppose emerging media which had shifted the news culture away from his principles, he urged fellow reporters to be rigorous, thoughtful and given to probing investigation, so that the service they provided would be worthy of the expectations the public invests in the free press.

Ted Anthony, also writing for the AP, observes:

Barely a generation has passed since Walter Cronkite disappeared from our evenings. But the notion of one man — a single, authoritative, empathetic man, morally reassuring and mild of temper — wrapping up the world after dinner for America seems incalculably quaint in the technological coliseum that is 21st-century communications.

Many of the network farewells to the CBS anchorman, who died Friday at 92, seemed built around the notion of the father figure. Anchors and reporters who are part of another age — a still-unfolding era of community feedback, viewer outreach and social-media interaction — struggled to summon the idea of anchor as monolith.

NPR’s Scott Simon called Cronkite “a trusted voice of reason”:

Cronkite was a great broadcaster. He spoke to masses, not niches. He grasped that when the news was urgent, people would turn to the broadcaster not only for information, but for sincerity and calm.

Millions of people felt better to hear from this man who seemed experienced, but not jaded. He had a visible sense of grief in tragedies, and a little boy’s delight in the glory of space shots. He had gray hair and hound-dog bags under his eyes, but ageless sincerity.

Al Jazeera said the legendary anchor’s death is “the end of an era”, noting how “his legendary voice became associate with key events” during his long years at CBS. The video tribute notes the rare courage of a mainstream news anchor telling it like it is, giving in one of his most influential broadcasts his assessment as an independent observer of the ill-fated war-effort in Vietnam, in which he said:

… it is increasingly clear to this reporter that the only rational way out, then, will be to negotiate, not as victors, but as an honorable people, who lived up to their pledge to defend to democracy, and did the best they could.

Praised by news organizations around the world for his simple and straightforward way of delivering the facts of the day, the Al Jazeera montage gives Cronkite the last word, signing off in his signature style with the phrase “And that’s the way it is”. The online video does not note this, but the message is implicit that 24-hour TV news organizations like Al Jazeera, or CNN or France 24, owe their existence in part to this incomparable pioneer of the medium.

Howard Kurtz observes, in his piece for the Washington Post, that:

It is hard to remember, in this age of niche cable channels feeding every obsession, how dominant CBS and NBC (and, much later, ABC) were in their heydays. Every senior member of Cronkite’s news team — including, at various times, Dan Rather, Bob Schieffer, Roger Mudd, Marvin Kalb, Bernard Kalb, Fred Graham, Daniel Schorr — was a recognizable celebrity in his own right. (They were almost all men.) You got your morning paper, and then you watched Cronkite or Huntley and Brinkley at night, perhaps while eating a TV dinner.

Kurtz delves into the reverence so many in the news business had for Walter Cronkite, for his legendary status, but also for his humanity, his principles, his professionalism, the equanimity with which he approached the work of trying to find out what was true:

[Tom] Brokaw has called Cronkite the “gold standard,” and at a time when journalism commanded a whole lot more respect than it does today, he was its undeniable symbol. Perhaps it was his wire-service training, at a time when print experience was still considered valuable for broadcast journalists. Perhaps it was his calm demeanor, his mastery of understatement, his disdain for on-air showmanship.

Another write-up in the Washington Post credits Cronkite for having “shaped the medium and the nation”. Xinhua editor Wang Guanqun praised Cronkite’s “professional experience and kindly demeanor”, and quoted several American comments on his death. In the short Xinhua newsclip, Wang also wrote: “Cronkite pioneered and then mastered the role of television news anchorman with such plain-spoken grace that he was regarded as the ‘voice of TV news’ by New York Times.”

In this moving CBS video, Walter Cronkite gives an account of his long evolution as a journalist, in his own words: “I think I was a workaholic from the very beginning… it was the newspaper work for me; I just fell in love with the darn business”. He laments dropping out of college and says he always regretted it, but goes on to explain how he met his wife and achieved so much as a journalist.

Cronkite talks of how Edward R. Murrow called him and asked him to come to work at CBS, the beginning of the most significant and lasting part of his legacy. He says Murrow’s famed “Good night, and good luck” was in part the inspiration for his adopting the catch-phrase “And that’s the way it is”. He also notes that it was on one of his evening news broadcasts that the Beatles first appeared on American television. In the end, he says he’s lucky to have spent his whole life in journalism, adding “I think it all worked out pretty well”.

Dr. Regina Benjamin, a winner of the MacArthur Foundation “Genius grant”, and a committed rural doctor who has served the poor in Bayou La Batre, Alabama, spending her own money to provide care for those who could not afford it, has been named by Pres. Obama to serve as surgeon general of the United States. Her nomination was announced in a live event at the White House, with Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius in attendance.

Dr. Benjamin has had to rebuild her rural healthcare clinic three times, including after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. She was the youngest doctor and first African American woman to head the Medical Association of the State of Alabama, and a winner of the Nelson Mandela Prize for Health and Human Rights. Pres. Obama focused heavily on the work of achieving comprehensive healthcare reform that will allow all Americans to afford and obtain quality healthcare, an issue he said Dr. Benjamin was eminently qualified to address.

CBS, reporting on her MacArthur grant award, noted her work to rebuild the Bayou La Batre clinic:

Dr. Regina Benjamin said the money will help rebuild her rural health clinic in Bayou La Batre, Ala., which serves 4,400 patients. It was rebuilt by volunteers after being destroyed by Katrina, only to burn down months later.

“The patients came by and they were crying,” said Benjamin, 51, remembering one woman who handed her an envelope with a $7 donation to rebuild. The new clinic is about half-built, she said.

Pres. Obama said she mortgaged her home and “maxed out her credit cards” to find funding to rebuild the clinic, and even went as far as to pay herself for the treatment her poor patients needed, when they couldn’t pay themselves. Obama reiterated again today his pledge that comprehensive healthcare reform and cost-reduction would not add to the federal budget deficit over the next ten years. He urged Congress to act to pass legislation by the end of this year.

The Washington Post highlighted Dr. Benjamin’s achievements and the president’s desire that she help the administration achieve legislation to reform the nation’s healthcare system and reduce costs:

Benjamin has also served as the first black woman to head the State of Alabama Medical Association and was associate dean for rural health at the University of South Alabama’s College of Medicine.

Obama announced her his intent to nominate her at a Rose Garden event this morning in which he also spoke of the challenges and need for health care reform. “I understand people are a little nervous and a little scared about making change. You know, the muscles in this town to bring about big changes are a little atrophied, but we’re whipping folks back into shape. We are going to get this done,” the president said.

Obama’s own high-profile use of media to explain and press his agenda for reform suggests he will favor giving the surgeon general a “bully pulpit” like that effected by C. Everett Koop, perhaps the best known surgeon general, who led the nation’s public policy push in the 1980s to prevent Americans from starting or continuing a smoking habit.

The White House’s own release notes that “Dr. Benjamin was previously named by Time Magazine as one of the ‘Nation’s 50 Future Leaders Age 40 and Under.’” Dr. Benjamin expressed her belief that major healthcare reform and work to curb the impact of preventable diseases could not wait. She said the nomination was “a doctor’s dream” and gave an emotional account of her personal knowledge of the system’s deepest flaws.

Citing his goal to undermine foreign “propaganda”, Iran’s president Mahmoud Ahmedinejad has formally requested in a letter to Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, head of Iran’s judiciary, that an investigation be launched into the circumstances surrounding the shooting death of Neda Agha Soltan. Soltan was shot in the chest and died within minutes, while protesting election results that show Ahmedinejad won re-election.

According to the OpenSalon bloggers’ network:

Ahmadinejad’s letter to the head of the judiciary, Ayatollah Mahmoud Hashemi-Shahroudi, describes Neda’s untimely death as ‘heartbreaking.’ “Considering the extensive machination over the heartbreaking incident and the massive propaganda by the foreign media,” he states in the letter, “. . .the involvement of the Iranian nation’s opponents and enemies seems certain in order to politically misuse it and mar the pure image of Islamic republic.”

World leaders, rights activists and opposition supporters have been pressing for an investigation into Soltan’s death. But some fear an investigation requested by Mahmoud Ahmedinejad, against whom Soltan was demonstrating and whose militia forces are alleged to have shot her, may not be anything more than a flagrant attempt to whitewash the incident and the details surrounding how it unfolded.

Opponents of Ahmedinejad have suggested an array of independent investigations may be needed in order to work out the current political crisis. Panels could be formed that would include respected figures from the government and from the opposition parties, as well as an ideologically diverse array of clerics and jurists, to examine the shooting of unarmed demonstrators like Neda Soltan, the mass detentions of political activists, reported militia break-ins at private homes and university dormitories, and the allegations surrounding possible wrondoing in the overseeing of the election of 12 June.

Pressure from pro-democracy demonstrators and from the international community appears to have succeeded in leading the Guardian Council to offer a recount of 10% of all the ballots cast. Mr. Ahmedinejad called for an official review of the sentence of Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi earlier this year, which was reduced, leading to her release.

The Guardian Council’s initial examination of ballots found apparent widespread fraud in 50 districts, where the votes counted outnumbered voters. But the leadership council said it believed the results did not show fraud on a scale wide enough to call into question Ahmedinejad’s victory. Opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi maintains the election was stolen and the official count must be thrown out.

To date, evidence suggests a probe initiated by the conservatives aligned with Pres. Ahmedinejad, or by request of Mr. Ahmedinejad himself, will not be broad enough or open enough to include the possibility that government agents were involved, either in the election fraud or the shooting of unarmed demonstrators.

Onlookers say the shooter was wrestled down from a motorcycle by the surrounding crowd and that he shouted he had not intended to kill her. The doctor attending to Soltan on the site of her shooting, himself a random bystander, told the BBC members of the public had taken the alleged shooter’s wallet and that his ID card identified him as a member of the Basij militia. He was apparently let go, due to people’s fear of the militia and military police in the area.

UPDATE, 23:15 GMT: The Guardian Council has found that the official results of the 12 June election are “valid” and will stand. The Huffington Post is reporting:

Iran’s election oversight body on Monday declared the hotly disputed presidential vote to be valid after a partial recount, rejecting opposition allegations of fraud and further silencing calls for a new vote.

State television reported that the Guardian Council presented the conclusion in a letter to the Interior Minister following a recount of a what was described as a randomly selected 10 percent of the almost 40 million ballots cast June 12.

The “meticulous and comprehensive examination” revealed only “slight irregularities that are common to any election and needless of attention,” Guardian Council head Ahmed Jannati said in a letter, according to the state TV channel IRIB.

Observers, including US Sec. of State Hillary Clinton, have questioned the efficacy of the Guardian Council’s partial recount. The supreme leader and the Guardian Council had both previously announced their initial and renewed support for the official count and for the victory of Pres. Mahmoud Ahmedinejad. With British embassy employees still in detention and hundreds of opposition supporters detained and/or unaccounted for, efforts to prevent the opposition from having a voice are clear and persistent.

More reporting on Iran’s election crisis, from Café Sentido:

• Mir Hossein Mousavi’s official message to Iranians abroad (transcript)
• Kalemeh, Mousavi’s Web Site, Shut Down by Iranian Authorities
• Iran Arrests 8 Employees of UK Embassy, Alleging Subversion
• Detained Reformists Reportedly Tortured to Induce Testimony About ‘Foreign Plot’
• Doctor Who Tended to Neda Soltan Tells BBC What He Observed
• Language of Resistance Intensifies Amid New Reports of Demonstrators Attacked
• Full Obama Press Conference on Iran, Economic Recovery, Healthcare (video + transcript)
• What Happened at Baharestan Square?
• Iran Protesters Reportedly Attacked ‘Like Animals’ by Security Forces
• Pres. Obama’s Remarks on Iran (video + transcript, English + Farsi)
• Guardian Council Opposed to Throwing Out Election Results
• Iran Using Western Technology to Spy on its Citizens, Suppress Dissent
• Iran’s Guardian Council Finds Ballots Cast Exceeded Number of Voters in 50 Cities
• Pres. Obama’s Statement on Iran (transcript)
• Larijani Says Majority Suspect Election Fraud; Rafsanjani Relative Detained
• Iran Says ‘Terrorists’ Caused Saturday Clashes; New Evidence of State Violence (UPDATED)
• Update on State Violence Against Demonstrators in Iran (video)
• Reports of Shots Fired at Iranian Demonstrators (video, links & updates)
• Khamene’i Demands End to Protests, Says Disputed Results Will Stand
• Open Letter from Iranian Academics to UN Sec. Gen. Ban Ki-moon
• UN Rights Chief Warns Iran not to Use Violence
• Iranian Dissident Leader Detained in Hospital ICU, Jailed without Charge
• Massive Opposition Rally in Tehran Mourns Slain Demonstrators (video)
• Iran Government Targets Press as More Demonstrations Planned (video)
• Rafsanjani Calls for Emergency Meeting of Assembly of Experts
• Pro-Mousavi Demonstrations & Iranians’ Constitutional Rights (video)
• Iran Opposition Movement Forces Khamenei to Investigate
• Iran Crackdown: Is it Tacit Admission Vote was Rigged?
• Iran Declares Ahmedinejad Winner, Results Widely Questioned as Fraudulent
• Rivals Ahmedinejad & Mousavi Both Declare Victory in Iran Election
• Iranian Polls Kept Open Several Hours Longer than Planned
• Iran Votes, with Popular Reformist Challenging Hardline Ahmedinejad

The French parliament has formed an investigative panel to explore banning the wearing of a full-body veil, or burqa, in France. The move comes after Pres. Nicolas Sarkozy announced in a state of the nation address at the Palace of Versailles that “The burka is not a sign of religion, it is a sign of subservience“, adding that “It will not be welcome on the territory of the French republic”.

Sarkozy was said to be responding to pressure from members of the Assemblée who were demanding a commission to explore possible legislative means of prohibiting the use of the full-body veil. The new panel, made up of 32 members of the Assemblée, will look into both the burqa (which has a mesh mask over the eyes) and the niqab (which has only a narrow slit to see through).

Sarkozy has said the practice of bull-body covering is nothing less than the vilification of women and the removal of their right to have any part of the public sphere. For Sarkozy and other members of the French political system, this runs contrary to the values of a secular republic, such as France. It is estimated that 5 million or more muslims live in France, and constraints on their right to practice their religion through such outward displays have been issues of public controversy for years.

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Part of Sarkozy’s objection is that the burqa robs women of their individuality, their right to have a public identity, a face known by and which gives them a place in the world. This, he says, is a clear attempt to make them subservient to the men in their families. This view is widely held in wealthy democratic societies, where one’s role in the public sphere is almost sacred, a basis for the legitimacy of political processes and a demonstration of the equality of all people before the law.

But not everyone agrees. Heather Michon, writing for Open Salon, has observed that while such extreme covering “is a sign of their status as secondary to men”, it is also the case that for many:

Religious dress is a sign of fidelity. The observant Jew, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist or Christian would say they wear certain clothing or wearing their hair in a certain way is a sign not of their subservience to man, but to their God. In most religions, orthodox women are required to dress with extreme modesty.

So how much skin does a religious woman need to show to satisfy secular governments? And if you force people to give up a visible symbols of their faith, are you still supporting freedom of religion? Would it not be a better policy to provide legal protections for those women who are being forced into burqas against their will, but allow those who adopt it as a matter of religious choice to wear it freely?

Michon’s suggestion makes a lot of sense: that a truly free and democratic society would be better served by offering legal protections to women who are forced into religiously motivated subservience or obscurity against their will, while also protecting the freedom of individual women to choose to dress as they see fit. This is the major obstacle to any free society placing a ban on methods of dress or behavior: doing so will limit the freedom of at least some individuals, and indirectly of all citizens (by way of precedent), thus undermining the same democratic principles that banning an oppressive style of dress are intended to defend.

This is also, clearly, why the Assemblée has only formed what amounts to an exploratory committee to hold hearings and discuss the issue. There are too many constitutional hurdles in any system that separates church from state in legislating religious behavior. But Sarkozy’s language is unwavering: “In our country,” he said, “we cannot accept that women be prisoners behind a screen, cut off from all social life, deprived of all identity”.

There are concerns that putting such a controversial and divisive issue in such a prominent place in public policy debate could sow division and fear among the entire French population. There have been complaints that most of France’s muslims are moderates and are constantly working to balance their ethnicity and religious practice with the wider French culture of which they are also a part, and this issue, which targets a very small minority, could create hostility toward all muslims.

Roxana Saberi, a freelance journalist who has reported for the BBC and NPR, has returned home to the United States after spending 4 months in prison in Tehran. She had been convicted of spying for the US on evidence that has never been made public. Rights activists, the US government, her family, her lawyers and some pro-reform Iranians had said the charges were based solely on her reporting without official credentials.

Prosecutors said she had acquired sensitive documents related to Iranian national security and had passed them to American officials, but the White House has repeatedly said the charges were “baseless”, and Pres. Obama had demanded her unconditional release. Saberi was released last week after an appeals court reduced her 8-year sentence to 2 years, suspended for 5 years, and granted her permission to leave Iran.

Saberi’s case was a source of international tension, with European ambassadors, specifically the Swiss diplomatic corps, which officially represents the US in Tehran, visiting with Iranian officials to press for her release. Pressure was intense enough that Pres. Ahmedinejad, a vehement critic of the US and security hardliner, running for re-election, publicly urged the judiciary to reconsider her conviction and give her the opportunity to prevent a full defense.

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Her release has been viewed as a point in favor of Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Clinton’s announced plans for a 3-dimensional “smart-power” diplomacy, focusing on dialogue, development and defense as three parallel courses of action to achieve positive results internationally. More cynical observers have expressed the view that Saberi’s detention and release were part of a campaign designed to distract from and buy time for Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.

Ms. Saberi expressed her gratitude for all the people around the world who supported her and pressed for her release. She said knowledge of their support helped her during her time in captivity, and specifically thanked Pres. Obama and Sec. of State Clinton for their interest in her case. She was passionate about the commitment of the US system to press freedom and about the need to defend that freedom around the world.

Sri Lanka’s government has expelled three reporters for the UK-based Channel 4 News. Nick Paton Walsh, producer Bessie Du and cameraman Matt Jasper, were detained by police in the town of Trincomalee, in eastern Sri Lanka, after reports highlighting the conditions facing refugees who fled the fighting between government and rebel forces.

According to the Guardian newspaper:

Lakshman Hulugalle, the head of the government security information centre, said the journalists admitted they had “done something wrong” and would not be allowed to come back to Sri Lanka.

Walsh says he never gave any statement admitting wrongdoing, that police had attempted to extract such a statement, which he refused, and that he was later interviewed by a plain clothes agent who said he would use their exchange “for his later reference”. It is not clear what that exchange involved, but the journalists’ detention was apparently part of a planned effort to counter reporting that showed mass suffering among ethnic Tamil refugees.

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The government of Sri Lanka has been heavily criticized for military actions that observers say indiscriminately targeted civilian areas, including locations that had been set aside as “safe zones” for refugees. At least one hospital was destroyed in such operations, and tent clinics were reportedly later shelled, though they may not have been deliberately targeted.

A prominent newspaper editor, Lasantha Wickramatunge, was assaulted and shot to death in his car in apparent retribution for reporting that was critical of government actions against the population of the northern predominately ethnic Tamil region. No one has been prosecuted for the killing, and other assaults have led to journalists fleeing, going into hiding, or having to stop publication.

According to ITN News, which produces Channel 4 News, a report broadcast on 5 May 2009 showed the first video filmed independent of government control inside a displacement camp. The report found that dead bodies were strewn where they fell, there was lack of sanitation, along with food and water shortages and cases of sexual assault, apparently with impunity.

Other groups have reported alleged child abductions committed by members of the Sri Lankan military. The UN has called recent bombing of civilian areas a “bloodbath”, and there are calls for a UN Security Council resolution to force the government to cease such military actions. There appears to be a concerted effort to stamp out all reporting that might show the government to be involved in such atrocities, as it seeks to end a long war against the LTTE militia, itself accused of violating the laws of war and targeting civilians.

Over 120,000 civilians have fled the fighting, and the government’s displacement camps are saturated. They lack adequate supplies, and the logistical operation has been a strain. The government denies the charges made in the Channel 4 report, but other news reports have found the government shelling civilian areas. A BBC radio report clearly relayed the sound of heavy artillery shells falling within earshot, within the purported safe zone.

According to Amnesty International:

The horrific condition facing civilians in north eastern Sri Lanka has been described as a “bloodbath” by the United Nations. Amnesty International has said that it demands immediate action by the United Nations Security Council.

In the last few days, more than 400 people – including more than 100 children – are reported to have been killed in a two-day bombardment of the 2 square kilometre area designated as a “Safe Zone” by the Sri Lankan army. This brings the total estimated casualty figure to more than 7,000 killed and 13,000 injured since January. There are an estimated 50,000 civilians still trapped in the area.

The human rights organization also reports that “At least 16 media workers have been unlawfully killed in Sri Lanka since the beginning of 2006. Others have been arbitrarily detained, tortured and allegedly disappeared while in the custody of security forces.” The government is accused of attacking reporters who enter the conflict zone and intimidating those who attempt to report on the emerging humanitarian disaster.

Elindulnék :: If I am moved to give my mind and my energies to revealing the hidden details behind a story about a storyteller, beset by the political winds and deprived of her basic human intimacies, a reporter, a poet, a seer of deep patterns, it must be because we all have a fundamental human dignity that we wish would reach across the void to others, and if we are honest, we see when it is threatened.

I want to know what the shape and texture of the human voice, as a whole, really is, to know where beauties have been silenced, where serious thought is being diverted into pools of circular self-proclamation made by dictators and miscreants. I want to know how limited is my humanity by the limiting of someone else’s.

Can this be called literature? It is the tracing of the borders where literature tries to be and ceases to be and is struggling to be born, even where it is nothing but information seeping out into language by the brave work of a single determined observer. A witness. Literature, I think, is witness, and when we understand what pushes impassioned reporters into the darkness of prohibition, we understand a little about what else we might not know.

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It is any reporter’s job to match to our perceptions and our consciousness the information we ourselves had not yet come across. Sometimes, this entails political realities, and sometimes interpretation. The criminalization of the press, of reporting of fact and of the analysis and critique of ideas, is spreading to places that had enjoyed at least relative press liberty.

Where they are censored, jailed, silenced or disappeared, or even outright murdered, the literature of the entire human experienced is impoverished. That basic service of acting as witness, as a voice for the unvoiced, a medium, is part of the human fabric, and we are, as a species, less whole and less organically sovereign and independent, when those voices are diminished or erased.

Lin Zhao was a Chinese poet who hoped that the end of feudal imperialism in 20th century China would lead to real democratic rights for its people. She was executed in 1968 as the regime of Mao Zedong sought to crush all dissent and sweep away potential cultural and conceptual rivals to its rule.

On the international day of media freedoms, we find ourselves just one month away from the 20th anniversary of the terrible massacres that ended the Tiananmen Square pro-democracy protests in Beijing, in 1989, and figures like Lin Zhao are being recalled as hints of that ‘other China’ that does not see Communism as exclusive of democratic processes or rights.

The Christian Science Monitor explains as follows:

Lin’s main insight was that Mao, to put it mildly, was not serving the people. Her prison writings during the Cultural Revolution may constitute the most incisive critique of “Red China” extant; they remain forbidden, kept under lock and key at a Beijing archive.

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“She was rehabilitated in the late 1970s, during a thaw, but I don’t think [today] she would be,” the intellectual Li Datong told me. “In her day, Lin alone marked Mao as a big rotten egg, so she was way ahead of her time. Hers was the deepest accusation of the Communist Party written in the 60 years of its history. So this government will make sure we never hear from her fully.”

The tragic history of Lin Zhao is again relevant, precisely because the regime in Beijing would still seek to erase her critique from Chinese history. Journalists, cyber-cafés, dissent-bloggers and religious and ethnic groups are all undergoing a renewed crackdown, as Beijing uses the supposed threat of terrorism to secure its single-message media environment against unwanted intrusion and critique.

As the 20th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacres approaches, the event itself remains taboo in China, forbidden from discussion on state-run television and even banned from results pages on search engines like Google, Yahoo and MSN, operating inside China.The search giants have been called before the US Congress and threatened with investigation for conspiring to curb Chinese citizens’ democratic rights, but have defended their role as providers of a new broader world of information to the largely closed media environment.

While some relaxing of strict controls on the flow of information has come as a result of widespread criticism of the government’s barring of vital potentially life-saving or pandemic-preventing information related to the SARS scare of 2003, President Hu Jintao’s “smokeless war” on press freedom essentially continues unabated.

Dokru Tsuilrim, a Tibetan editor detained by Chinese police, may at present be undergoing torture, along with other Tibetans detained in a crackdown on dissent, according to the press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders (RSF):

“We are very worried by the reports of Chinese police torturing detained Tibetans, including a lama defended by lawyer Li Fangping,” Reporters Without Borders said. “They increase our concern that the six journalists detained in Tibet are being mistreated. All those held because of the views they expressed must be released without delay.”

There is a growing effort to recall and to celebrate Lin Zhao, her work and her political dissent, though due to the ongoing regime of censorship, it is unlikely such recognition will come to Lin or her work without major democratic political reforms across China. There is some hope that a spreading movement in support of the ‘Charter ’08′ document, a petition calling for widespread democratic reforms, meant to capitalize on the world’s attention during the Beijing Olympic Games, may achieve some improvements at the margins.

The document has been called “quixotic” by some who believe Beijing will never allow comprehensive democratization of the Chinese system, which is fully and solely controlled by the Chinese Communist party (CCP), but there are some who believe the CCP may in fact have more leaders now than ever willing to see its own internal processes democratized. Lin Zhao is just one of many figures whose memory poses both a problem and an opportunity for the authorities in Beijing, as the June anniversary nears.

As Robert Marquand notes in the Christian Science Monitor, Philip Pan devotes two chapters to Lin’s story in his recent book, Out of Mao’s Shadow: The Struggle for the Soul of a New China. After being sentenced to death, Lin predicted history would judge those who silenced her and “Justice will prevail!”

Now there is speculation about whether China will follow an undercurrent of gradualism in liberalizing its political system, once economic reforms are deeply rooted enough, or whether circumstance may force reform, as workers demand more of China’s boom. In April, Xinhua, the state-run news agency, reported that Yu Keping, deputy chief of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau and a senior CCP official, called for “incremental democracy characterized by some sort of radical reform”.

In March, Xinhua reported “Yu Keping, deputy chief of the Central Compilation and Translation Bureau, praised democracy as “the least defective” among all political institutions created and adopted by human beings.” Li Zhaoxing, speaking for the National People’s Congress, told the press political reforms would be “a kind of self-improvement and self-development of socialism with Chinese characteristics”.

Given the reluctance of the CCP to loosen its grip on power and the ongoing policy of limiting press freedom and discussion of past crimes, Yu has told western audiences the timing and degree of reform matter will be key to viability: “It requires wisdom of both politicians and common people to gain the biggest benefit from democracy at the lowest political and social costs”. Recognizing the injustice suffered by Lin Zhao and others may yet be a necessary step.

• Some reporting contributed by J.E. Robertson
  

Nobel-prize-winning Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi has joined the defense team representing Iranian-American journalist Roxana Saberi. She says Saberi was convicted in a trial that took place in violation of Iran’s own laws governing due process. She urged Saberi should have access to her lawyers and that evidence should be reviewed in open hearings.

According to Democracy Now, “Iran’s attorney general suggested Wednesday the jailed Iranian American reporter Roxana Saberi should directly appeal to the Supreme Leader, Khamenei, for amnesty.”

Ebadi told Democracy Now’s Amy Goodman:

After Roxana Saberi was arrested and convicted in an unfair trial that sentenced her to eight years in prison, her father came to me and asked me to represent her. So I, myself, along with two other colleagues, Mr. Soltani and Ms. Parakand, have taken up her case. Mr. Soltani went six times to try to meet with her, but he was denied a meeting with her. We’ve also been denied a chance to look at the trial case and the files that are involved, because we are independent lawyers, and they will not allow us to access the information we want.

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Roxana Saberi, jailed for 8 years by Iran for alleged “espionage” (read: reporting without a censor’s license), is now in her 5th day of a hunger strike. She says she will continue her hunger strike until she is freed. Her father, Reza Saberi, says he has spoken to her, she is determined to refuse food until released, and that she “seems weak”. Foreign governments, the US, as well as individuals and rights groups, are calling for her immediate, unconditional release. 

North Korea is proceeding with a trial against two Korean-American journalists from California, despite witnesses claiming they were detained when North Korean border guards entered Chinese territory to seize them while their cameras were rolling. The trial will be held behind closed doors, and foreign governments have expressed concern the process will not allow the journalists a fair hearing or even a defense. 

Ling and Lee were reportedly interviewing women who lived in the border area about their treatment under the Communist regime. At least one witness has said they were filming from Chinese territory when one or more North Korean border guards crossed into Chinese territory and seized them and their equipment at gunpoint. 

The two American journalists have reportedly been allowed consular access, in accord with international law, and a Swedish delegation has visited with them to check on their condition and their needs. The American government is saying their detention is unfounded and requests have been made for China to intervene, on grounds its sovereign territory was violated by the border guards. 

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The two reporters were putting together a segment for Current TV, the cable news network co-founded by Al Gore. The language used by the North Korean government is ominous, calling the reporters’ activities “hostile acts”, suggesting they may apply national security grounds to their prosecution of the two journalists.

The case is seen by some to mirror that of Roxana Saberi, an American journalist jailed in Iran on dubious allegations of ‘espionage’ —a term applied largely because the Iranian system considers unlicensed reporters to be illegally providing information to foreign governments—, because like Iran, North Korea is locked in a diplomatic struggle over its pursuit of nuclear technology. 

Some observers suspect that both are cases of US nationals being used as potential bargaining chips, or as obstacles to talks that might produce a halt in nuclear research. The Obama administration has pushed for expanded talks and direct contacts in both cases, largely for the benefit that may come from applying direct pressure or incentivizing a halt to nuclear production. 

Both Iran and North Korea would like to buy time before such negotiations go forward, and the reaction of hardliners in the US, who may pressure Obama to “punish” the two states by refusing talks and incentives, could help provide that cover. If US conservatives do successfully pressure the president to withdraw from talks or postpone them, they will likely afford Iran and/or North Korea time to further their nuclear research. 

North Korea has provided no public information about what the two American journalists did wrong, other than reporting without a license. In the US, certain members of the Bush administration have broken the rule of deference in transition by accusing Obama of weakness on the international stage; some have alleged this strategy invites aggressive or hostile acts, even though the charge of weakness may be false. 

The case of Ling and Lee may yet turn into a major diplomatic incident, and could have political ramifications at home, but for now, pressure is being applied through diplomatic channels to release the journalists. Pyongyang, for its part, is maintaining its right to go forward with trial, an attitude likely intended as a warning to other journalists.

Pres. Barack Obama today signed an executive order creating a special White House Council on Women and Girls, saying the cause of gender equality dates back to the founding of the United States, the promise that natural and democratic rights would be acknowledged for all citizens.

The president noted that women make up 49% of the American workforce but hold only 3% of our Fortune 500 CEO positions, that half the US population are women, but only 17% of the elected representatives in Congress are women. He also cited the disparity in pay between men and women, doing the same work.

He also sought to tie other social services and political issues to the treatment of women by society, generally. “When there’s no affordable childcare, that hurts children who end up in second-rate care”, Obama said, noting that substantial family leave provisions that allow parents to care for children or sick relatives are necessary for keeping families together and giving kids the best chance at a bright future. He also suggested that high childcare and healthcare costs can limit women’s freedom to pursue education or careers appropriate to their talents.

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Obama noted the trailblazing performance of women in science, the military and athletics and praised the enforcement of Title 9, which ensures women receive as much funding priority at universities as men do. The reference to Title 9 suggests the president is convinced that policies that ignore an imbalance between the treatment of men and women are inherently unfair and violate the spirit of the nation’s founding documents.

He appointed Valerie Jarrett, one of his top advisers, to lead the Council, in order to ensure that the Council on Women and Girls be closely linked to the White House and “be directly accountable to [the president]“. The Council will include every Cabinet secretary, as well as the heads of every cabinet-level agency, with regular meetings to address the role of government in living up to “the responsibility for the advancement of women”.

The unique forum of the Council on Women and Girls will allow for the examination of national policy through the poweful lens of a regular conference of Cabinet agencies.

The United States and the Russian Federation are reportedly planning lengthy and in-depth discussions in Geneva, starting Friday, to improve relations and strengthen bilateral efforts in a number of areas. Security in Europe, the Middle East and the far East will all be on the agenda, as will nuclear non-proliferation and negotiation with Iran to halt its nuclear program.

According to Geneva Lunch:

The Friday 6 March meeting in Geneva between US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov could well enter the records as a key encounter, if US hopes for the meeting are realized. The United States and Russia have a long history of meeting on neutral territory in Geneva to discuss the state of the world and their own complex relationship.

Gordon Duguid, a spokesman for the US Dept. of State, told the press at a White House briefing on 26 February: “There have been letters between the leaders, between the foreign ministers, outlining a way forward and a positive agenda,” adding that “it is on that that we want to build, but with our eyes open about some of the differences we have”.

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The exact areas to be discussed by Clinton and Lavrov are not clear, but based on Obama administration priorities and recent political history, it is likely the two will discuss efforts at building an effective global non-proliferation regime, matters relating to European energy supplies, conflicting military priorities and issues relating to allies of each country which the other sees less favorably.

It is also likely that Secretary Clinton will raise in diplomatic terms the issue of democratic freedoms in Russia, which many critics say have been dramatically eroded in recent years, under Pres. Medvedev’s predecessor, the now-prime-minister, and former spy chief, Vladimir Putin.

The two sides may also discuss key security concerns like the Israel/Palestine conflict, Iran and North Korea. Lavrov has reportedly told the ITAR-Tass news agency that he would like the US to engage more directly with Iran and to not just support the sextet negotiations with Iran, but to participate openly in the talks and negotiate with the Iranian leadership.

Another key security concern is the long-planned US installation of a missile-based missile-defense shield in central and eastern Europe, which Russia fears is intended to place US missiles within distance of Moscow or to reduce Moscow’s sphere of influence more broadly. But the two sides are eager to make gains on reducing the threat from Cold-War-era weapons and attitudes.

Global Security Newswire reports:

U.S. President Barack Obama has indicated he favors steep reductions in the nuclear arsenals of Russia and the United States, along with nonproliferation initiatives such as ratification of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and establishment of a replacement for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty.

Pres. Medvedev is quoted by AFP saying “I am counting on the new U.S. administration behaving on this question in a more creative and friendly way,” adding that he has “already received positive signals from our American colleagues. I am expecting that these signals will turn into concrete proposals”. This meeting will be the opportunity for those proposals to materialize.

If successful, the Geneva talks could be the beginning of a new, more hopeful period in US-Russian relations. Lavrov and Clinton will also both attend a regional meeting today for security, humanitarian aid and rebuilding for the Gaza Strip, where the humanitarian situation is said to be increasingly dire. Lavrov is expected to propose “additional measures on donor aid” at the meeting.

As the world’s focus begins to shift, with the priorities of the American administration, to the conflict zone in Afghanistan, which may or may not include the tribal areas along the border, inside Pakistan, we must ask: will the administration of Barack Obama pressure officials in either country to end the brutal violence suffered by women?

Prominent women in Afghan society have been repeatedly targeted over recent years, either by the Taliban, by Taliban sympathizers and copycats, angered by their speaking up for women’s rights, or by warlords, angered by protests over their brutalization of the civilian population, including women and children.

In September 2006, the Taliban murdered Safia Ama Jan, head of the provincial women’s affairs department for Kandahar province. She was gunned down in cold blood, targeted because she was working to make it possible for women to be participants in a more democratic Afghan society.

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RAWA (the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan) reports that 25% of women in Afghanistan are victims of sexual violence. Earlier this year, authorities detained several men for murdering female family members, in separate incidents. In one case, it appeared male relatives of the husband accused of murdering his wife assisted him in what was a severe escalation of domestic violence.

Also according to RAWA, at least 30.7% of Afghan women are victims of physical assaults, while an additional 30% suffer routine psychological abuse. Mohammad Zahir Zafari, an Afghan human rights official, is reportedly “worried over the growing rate of violence against women”. Zafari has also said there are increasing numbers of reports about serious violence against women, including child rape and murder.

One such case is the killing of a girl of 8, named Fatima, from Takhar. She may have been traveling to fields where she would have worked, when assaulted by a 21-year-old, who then raped and murdered her. The perpetrator was reportedly caught and sentenced to death. But RAWA reports that cases of violent assault against women are increasing steadily, year after year.

In June 2007, Zakia Zaki, a 35-year-old reporter, teacher and owner of a local radio-station, was shot 7 times in what was described by authorities as an “act of terror” against women. Head of the US-funded service Radio Peace, Zaki was killed just days after another female reporter was murdered in mysterious circumstances authorities linked to a “family” dispute.

Attacks on women and journalists have been extraodinarily high in Afghanistan, since before the Taliban were ousted by the 2001 US invasion. Women who seek to work in the public sphere face serious threat of violence, especially as the Taliban have graduated to promoting and/or sponsoring attacks on young schoolgirls, using acid or other deadly substances, solely to prevent women from becoming educated.

In July 2008, reports of a Taliban murder of two women in public, with journalists present and local civilians calmly watching, sparked outrage. An AP photographer was assailed, perhaps unfairly, for filming a “snuff video”, which the Taliban clearly hoped would serve as propaganda, but which journalists and human rights activists hope will provoke widespread anger and rebellion against the fundamentalist militia.

The Taliban have consistently explained their extreme level of violence against women and dissenters as punishment for moral corruption. The two women they killed were accused of prostitution, then summarily executed. Afghan authorities were not present, nor —according to reports— was an effort made to stop the killing. Clearly, the failure of the Afghan government to create the conditions for civil society or to maintain order has allowed the Taliban to terrorize and take over much of the remote countryside.

The new American campaign in Afghanistan will focus on “disrupting” Al Qaeda-linked activities and undermining the Taliban insurgency. A major component of the strategy will be to keep both groups from operating inside Pakistan. But we must ask: what can Pres. Barack Obama, Sec. Hillary Clinton and Gen. David Petraeus do to move the Afghan government closer to eliminating this constant threat to women in Afghanistan?

It might be that the right development strategy, backed by targeted military activity aimed at undermining not only the Taliban and Al Qaeda, but corrupt warlords and the bloody tribalist grudges that are destroying the fabric of Afgahn society, could help women and also establish some of the conditions necessary for a more modern, more moderate Afghan civil society to emerge.