FOREIGN WORKERS COMING TO A CRUISE SHIP NEAR YOU?

NewsMax.com Wires, Friday, April 29, 2005
Is this 'a taste of things to come' for workers in the western world? Is this one of the ways the multinationals will force them to accept 'third world' wages? "Outsourcing" - which has become synonymous with sending American jobs to India or China - could soon mean foreign workers sleeping in ships just a few miles off America's coasts.

In an outrageous affront to U.S. labor laws, a California company plans to anchor a 600-cabin cruise ship just beyond the three-mile limit off the coast of El Segundo, near Los Angeles, and stock it with foreign software programmers. The company, SeaCode, will seek to classify the workers as "seamen," avoiding U.S. payroll taxes and the need for immigration visas. Programmers from places like India and Russia would work 8-hour or 10-hour shifts, either day or night. Take-home pay: About $21,500 a year.
Compare that to the salary of an American programmer - median salary for programmers is around $60,000, and those with extensive experience can make $125,000 or more - and U.S. companies like SeaCode could reap a windfall.

SeaCode says it will charge clients the same rate as firms in developing countries. The company says the significant benefit of having the low-cost programmers near the U.S. is that clients will be spared from long flights to India and other far-off destinations to check on projects.
By using foreigners working on boats, SeaCode also believes projects will get done more quickly as their programmers toil both day and night. "Try to get American software engineers to work at night," SeaCode co-founder David Cook told Forbes magazine, explaining his delight in the outsourcing scheme.

But Jack Martin, special projects director for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, complained: "All it would do is be a further contribution to eroding the job opportunities for skilled American workers."

SeaCode is close to making an offer for the "Carousel", a ship now sailing around the Canary Islands. The vessel would dock in Long Beach once a month to take on supplies and dispose of waste - isn't that nice? But legally speaking, the SeaCode scheme could face stormy seas. "It's not my prerogative to tell them to take a hike," said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell. "I'll leave that to the Coast Guard."

THIS IS BRITAIN'S GUERNICA

Written by Jonathan Steele and Dahr Jamail for The Guardian, U.K.
Ruined, cordoned Falluja is emerging as the decade's monument to brutality: www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1471169,00.html

"Robert Zoellick is the archetypal US government insider, a man with a brilliant technical mind but zero experience of any coalface or war front. Sliding effortlessly between ivy league academia, the US treasury and corporate boardrooms (including an advisory post with the scandalous Enron), his latest position is the number-two slot at the state department. Yet this ultimate "man of the suites" did something earlier this month that put the prime minister and the foreign secretary to shame. On their numerous visits to Iraq, neither has ever dared to go outside the heavily fortified green zones of Baghdad and Basra to see life as Iraqis have to live it. They come home after photo opportunities, briefings and pep talks with British troops and claim to know what is going on in the country they invaded, when in fact they have seen almost nothing.

Zoellick, by contrast, on his first trip to Iraq, asked to see Falluja. Remember Falluja? A city of some 300,000, which was alleged to be the stronghold of armed resistance to the occupation. Two US attempts were made to destroy this symbol of defiance last year. The first, in April, fizzled out after Iraqi politicians, including many who supported the invasion of their country, condemned the use of air strikes to terrorise an entire city. The Americans called off the attack, but not before hundreds of families had fled and more than 600 people had been killed.

Six months later the Americans tried again. This time Washington's allies had been talked to in advance. Consistent US propaganda about the presence in Falluja of a top al-Qaida figure, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, was used to create a climate of acquiescence in the US-appointed Iraqi government. Shia leaders were told that bringing Falluja under control was the only way to prevent a Sunni-inspired civil war. Blair was invited to share responsibility by sending British troops to block escape routes from Falluja and prevent supplies entering once the siege began.

Warnings of the onslaught prompted the vast majority of Falluja's 300,000 people to flee. The city was then declared a free-fire zone on the grounds that the only people left behind must be "terrorists".

Details remain obscure
Three weeks after the attack was launched last November, the Americans claimed victory. They say they killed about 1,300 people; one week into the siege, a BBC reporter put the unofficial death toll at 2,000. But details of what happened and who the dead were remain obscure. Were many unarmed civilians, as Baghdad-based human rights groups report? Even if they were trying to defend their homes by fighting the Americans, does that make them "terrorists"?

Journalists "embedded" with US forces filmed atrocities, including the killing of a wounded prisoner, but no reporter could get anything like a full picture. Since the siege ended, tight US restrictions - as well as the danger of hostage-taking that prevents reporters from travelling in most parts of Iraq - have put the devastated city virtually off limits.

In this context, Zoellick's trip, which was covered by a small group of US journalists, was illuminating. The deputy secretary of state had to travel to this "liberated" city in a Black Hawk helicopter flying low over palm trees to avoid being shot down. He wore a flak jacket under his suit even though Falluja's streets were largely deserted. His convoy of eight armoured vehicles went "so quickly past an open-air bakery reopened with a US-provided micro-loan that workers tossing dough could be glanced only in the blink of an eye," as the Washington Post reported. "Blasted husks of buildings still line block after block," the journalist added.

Meeting hand-picked Iraqis in a US base, Zoellick was bombarded with complaints about the pace of US reconstruction aid and frequent intimidation of citizens by American soldiers. Although a state department fact-sheet claimed 95% of residents had water in their homes, Falluja's mayor said it was contaminated by sewage and unsafe.

Wanton destruction - thousands 'on the streets'
Other glimpses of life in Falluja come from Dr Hafid al-Dulaimi, head of the city's compensation commission, who reports that 36,000 homes were destroyed in the US onslaught, along with 8,400 shops. Sixty nurseries and schools were ruined, along with 65 mosques and religious sanctuaries.
Daud Salman, an Iraqi journalist with the Institute for War and Peace Reporting, on a visit to Falluja two weeks ago, found that only a quarter of the city's residents had gone back. Thousands remain in tents on the outskirts. The Iraqi Red Crescent finds it hard to go in to help the sick because of the US cordon around the city.

Burhan Fasa'a, a cameraman for the Lebanese Broadcasting Company, reported during the siege that dead family members were buried in their gardens because people could not leave their homes. Refugees told one of us that civilians carrying white flags were gunned down by American soldiers. Corpses were tied to US tanks and paraded around like trophies.

Justin Alexander, a volunteer for Christian Peacemaker Teams, recently found hundreds living in tents in the grounds of their homes, or in a single patched-up room. A strict system of identity cards blocks access to anyone whose papers give a birthplace outside Falluja, so long-term residents born elsewhere cannot go home. "Fallujans feel the remnants of their city have been turned into a giant prison," he reports.

Many complain that soldiers of the Iraqi national guard, the fledgling new army, loot shops during the night-time curfew and detain people in order to take a bribe for their release. They are suspected of being members of the Badr Brigade, a Shia militia that wants revenge against Sunnis. One thing is certain: the attack on Falluja has done nothing to still the insurgency against the US-British occupation nor produced the death of al-Zarqawi - any more than the invasion of Afghanistan achieved the capture or death of Osama bin Laden. Thousands of bereaved and homeless Falluja families have a new reason to hate the US and its allies.

Zoellick views the 'scene' but gives no hint of his impression
At least Zoellick went to see. He gave no hint of the impression that the trip left him with, but is too smart not to have understood something of the reality. The lesson ought not to be lost on Blair and Straw. Every time the prime minister claims it is time to "move on" from the issue of the war's legality and rejoice at Iraq's transformation since Saddam Hussein was toppled, the answer must be: "Remember Falluja". When the foreign secretary next visits Iraq, he should put on a flak jacket and tour the city that Britain had a share in destroying…"

**In the 1930s the Spanish city of Guernica became a symbol of wanton murder and destruction. In the 1990s Grozny was cruelly flattened by the Russians; it still lies in ruins. This decade's unforgettable monument to brutality and overkill is Falluja, a text-book case of how not to handle an insurgency, and a reminder that unpopular occupations will always degenerate into desperation and atrocity.
Jonathan Steele is the Guardian's senior foreign correspondent; Dahr Jamail is a freelance American journalist.

MEDIA BLACKOUT ON TRILATERALS' RECENT MEETING

Secretive Commission Meets to Talk War, Trade by James P. Tucker Jr. https://www.americanfreepress.net/rss/afp.xml American Free Press.

"Both Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld reassured members of the Trilateral Commission, meeting in Washington April 15-18, that they anticipated no invasion of Iran. Rumsfeld further assured Trilateralists that Iraq "will not be another Vietnam" with "combat troops on patrol 10 years from now," Trilateral sources said. However, they stressed the qualification "combat patrol," indicating that troops may remain for logistical duties.

Logistical duties can turn into combat with a single shot. Both Cheney and Rumsfeld are old-timers with international power groups. As secretary of defense under President Bush the Elder, Cheney participated in the annual closed meetings of the Trilaterals. Rumsfeld has participated with the Trilaterals and its brother group, Bilderberg, as a White House aide under President Ronald Reagan and as defense secretary under the current President Bush.

Bilderberg and the Trilateral Commission (TC) have interlocking leadership and a common agenda. David Rockefeller and Henry Kissinger are leaders of both groups. The Trilaterals' European chairman, Peter Sutherland, head of Goldman-Sachs International, is also a Bilderberg leader. Former House Speaker Tom Foley is the TC's North American chairman.

Appearances by Cheney, Rumsfeld and other administration officials were viewed as top secret.
The appearances were not listed on their public schedules, not even as involving a "private group." There were no transcripts available, which is routine in normal functions.

The U.S. invasion of Iraq created the first serious dissent among participants from the United States and Europe in both the Trilateral Commission and Bilderberg. On all other major issues, including empowering the United Nations to directly tax the citizens of the world as a crucial enhancement of its evolving as a world government, both groups are united and collaborating. Cheney spoke on "policy directions for the U.S. administration" on April 16. Rumsfeld addressed the 300 Trilaterals shortly before they headed for the airports Monday afternoon.

Paul Wolfowitz, deputy secretary of defense and president-elect of the World Bank, addressed the TC's dinner meeting April 17. Wolfowitz assured everyone that the United States would be a "willing partner" in helping "developing nations" enhance their economies, meaning more American tax dollars would be shipped to poor countries.

Following Cheney's speech on opening day, David Gergen provided an "analysis of the American electorate." He warned that "nationalism" remains a strong force in America and selling the idea of surrendering sovereignty to the UN will be difficult. In TC and Bilderberg dictionaries,"nationalism" is an obscenity. Gergen is professor of public service at the John Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. He is of no fixed ideology. Gergen voted for Hubert Humphrey in 1968 but worked for President Richard Nixon and later for President Bill Clinton.

"The rise of China and its impact on global governance" was the subject of a panel led by Yotaro Kobayashi, TC's Pacific Asian chairman.
Other panelists were Ren Xaio, director of the Department of Asian-Pacific Studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies, and Yuan Ming, director of the Institute for International Relations at Peking University. They discussed a prospective "Asian-Pacific Union" similar to the European Union and the evolving "American Union" as NAFTA expands throughout the Western Hemisphere. The dollar is to be the common currency of the "American Union."
It has long been the Bilderberg-TC goal to divide the world into three great regions for the administrative convenience of the world government**…."

(**The most comprehensive work on the "New World Order" is Jeremy Lee's "What Will We Tell Our Children" available from all League book services.)

Kissinger participated in a panel on "searching for a new Trilateral partnership." Bill Emmott, editor of The Economist of London, joined a discussion on "community building in East Asia, holding his vows of secrecy loftier than his duty as a journalist. Thomas Pickering of the Boeing Co. participated in a panel on "understanding the Muslim world." Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan addressed the Trilaterals on the subject "resolving global currency and trade conflicts." Greenspan suggested that it would be difficult to increase the U.S. income tax in the "current political atmosphere in Washington." He said interest rates would gradually rise.

The only other coverage of the meeting appeared in The Washington Times. Reporter Joseph Curl overheard Francois Sauzey of Paris, a member of the TC staff, complain that "Everyone's beating up on France because of the coming referendum." Sauzey was referring to several polls in France that indicate voters will reject the proposed European Union constitution, a reversal of public sentiment. If just one nation rejects it, the constitution dies. An internal TC document obtained by AFP said "Europeans must be more explicit, privately if not publicly, in committing themselves to sanctions if Iran resumes its uranium enrichment program. For its part, the U.S. needs to engage the Iranians not just on the economic front but also on questions of regional security."

Israel is pressing the United States to attack Iran, which has missiles that can strike Israel.
The document was produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington. It was authored by Giuliano Amato, former prime minister of Italy; Harold Brown, secretary of defense under President Jimmy Carter; Carla Hills, U.S. trade representative under President George H. W. Bush; and George Robertson, former secretary-general of NATO and long-time Bilderberg luminary.

"When both the U.S. and Europe face profound economic challenges from China, India and other rising economies, a high-level political commitment at the U.S.-EU summit in June to reduce regulatory and other non-tariff barriers to transatlantic trade and investment could bring long-term improvements to the competitiveness and growth of the U.S. and European economies," the document said.

"Summit" was probably a reference to the Group of Eight meeting of heads of state from the industrialized nations, scheduled July 6-7 (not June) at the Gleneagles resort in Scotland. Another internal document, obtained by the Times, was entitled "Trilateral Memorandum No. 8" and dealt with the continuing skirmish between Japan and China. It was issued by Akira Kojima, a TC member and chairman of the Japan Center for Economic Research in Tokyo. Relations soured because of revisionist Japanese textbooks that China claims fails to address atrocities committed in World War II. Kojima appears to share China's views.

He wrote: "Japan still has a history of [government] textbook approval, and this misguided system is at the root of these unnecessary misunderstandings and must be abolished." The memo called Japan's prime minister, Junichiro Koizumi, "a peculiar character in that he is basically stubborn. If he is criticized for one thing, he intentionally sticks to it and repeats it."

This year, the Trilaterals returned to their earlier policy of trying to keep their gathering secret. Its Washington office angrily refused to say when and where they would meet. The huge staff refused to provide papers and the only working journalist on the scene was under constant surveillance.
"The Trilateral Commission's meetings have inspired conspiracy theories of powerful puppeteers who secretly pull the strings of world power as they seek to establish a new world order," the Times story said. "The theories are based partly on fact."

'KNOTTY' BUT NICE: SPECTACULAR ANTI-CANCER AGENTS IN TREE KNOTS

Prof. Joe Cummins reports on further anti-cancer chemicals that are found in common plant sources: "Two years ago I wrote on how organic agriculture has the potential to combat cancer. Plant chemicals called phenolics or flavonoids, effective in preventing cancer, have been found elevated in organic foods. Another family of plant chemicals related to flavonoids, called lignans, recently yielded spectacular results in preventing and treating human cancers.

Lignans contain two benzene rings to which are attached particular three carbon arms. Lignans are not to be confused with lignin, the polymer that binds cellulose fibres together to make cell walls. Lignin is synthesized from monomer units similar to lignans, but lignin is not associated with the beneficial properties of lignans.

A recent review suggested that an anti-cancer diet would decrease breast, colorectal and prostate cancer by 60 to 70 percent and lung cancer by 40 to 50 percent. Taking flaxseed, especially its lignan fraction, lowers cancer risk. Flaxseed lignan has been found effective not only in treating cancer but also in reducing the risk of heart disease and to have beneficial effects in lupus and polycystic kidney disease. Flaxseed meal ameliorated kidney damage in type-two diabetes.

The anticancer effect of a plant lignan was demonstrated using human prostate cancer cells transplants in nude (immune deficient) mice. Rat mammary tumors were reduced after treatment with a plant lignan isolated from the knots of spruce trees. Along with flaxseed extracts the knots of trees are proving to be a rich source of anti-cancer lignans. The knots of spruce and fir trees are believed to be the richest source of lignans. Up to 24 percent of the dry weight of the knot may be lignans, while much lower levels are found in the stem wood. Extracting lignans from the knots was not difficult.

Knot-wood extracts proved to be effective in controlling paper-mill bacteria that undermine paper quality; and lignans were a deterrent to feeding insects. These anti-microbial and insecticidal properties will no doubt be further developed.

Not surprisingly, there has been a spate of patenting to exploit the therapeutic potential of lignans. Of the many relevant patents, US Patent 6451849 deals with the use of a lignan for cancer prevention, and for treating non-cancer hormone-dependent disease and cardiovascular disease. The patent describes an active lignan and its preparation. US patent 67675654 describes a method for preparing plant lignan for use in treating cancer, diabetes, lupus, hypertension and high blood pressure.

The first patent applications for genetically modified crops with increased lignan content have begun to appear. US patent application 20020174452 is for genetic modification of monocots such as rice with genes that increase lignan level in grain using tissue specific promoters.
It is not surprising that biotechnology has taken lignan to heart, and that industry has a large and shameless public relations machinery which will likely try to make it look as if biotechnology, and not nature, has invented lignans.

Like numerous other health-promoting natural chemicals, lignans are common in plant species that are still widely available, although they are increasingly threatened by industrial farming and especially GM crops, which have now proved to be even more destructive of natural biodiversity than conventional industrial farming ("GM crop fails final test", ISIS report). This is another reason for a comprehensive shift to sustainable farming systems that preserve and enhance natural biodiversity." Source: https://www.i- sis.org.uk

LETTERS - GOVERNMENT URGED TO TACKLE RETAIL DUOPOLY

To - Senator-elect Barnaby Joyce
C/o National Party HQ., Brisbane Qld 4000
Dear Sir,
I am really impressed by a report in today's Ballarat Courier of your remarks on ABC recently concerning the virtual duopoly of the retail grocery business by Coles and Woolworths. These two leviathans are screwing both the producers and consumers. The aggregation of businesses through merger and acquisition arises through the adoption by the business fraternity of the disastrous advice to farmers of "get big or get out". I am one farmer who did both.

Under this regime farm numbers in Australia have halved in forty years. Will they stabilise at this level or will the attrition rate continue into the wide blue yonder? Economic problems such as these arise through the outdated economic rules that served well when horsepower came exclusively on four legs but are totally inadequate in the jet age.

Before any satisfactory solution to these problems can be implemented a thorough objective examination of the reasons why there is inflation ("debauchery of the currency" Karl Marx called it) as just one of the many fundamental problems being battled by individuals and businesses in the western economy. There have been numerous enquiries into banking over the years that it seems futile to go down that track. The solution has been known for eighty years but has been downplayed by governments because the banking system has the power of veto over all activity because of its control over the creation and circulation of the nation's credit.
Yours truly, Ron Fischer, Sebastopol, Vic.

To the editor of On Target:
"I met a bloke the other day (I hadn't known him before) who was aware of my many letters. He asked what I had been writing about and I told him of some of my topics. After a significant pause he said, 'I used to be an economist. Now I laugh at them.'
Gee, did I do that to the poor fellow? Maybe persistence is paying off.
Best regards, R.F."

A TRULY GREAT 'SPECIAL' ON SOLZHENITSYN'S BOOK & SPEECHES

CD-ROM "LIONS FOR FREEDOM"

A groundbreaking first for the League! The launch was a great success. Two years in the making. The CD-ROM covers over forty years of On Target plus a bonus - a selection of essays by Clifford Hugh Douglas and Eric Dudley Butler.
SEND FOR YOUR CD-Rom COPY NOW! The League Book Shops and Veritas Publishing are handling it. What an excellent research tool for you - and what a wonderful gift for your children and grandchildren. Forty Years of Australian political history and commentary at their finger tips. Download on to your computer one of the free search engines now so resadily available. You will have your own 'research assistant' at your fingertips as you 'crawl' all over the "Lions for Freedom" CD-Rom! Easy instructions for doing so are on the CD-Rom.

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Offer lasts till 30th June 2005.
On Target subscribers who send in their journal's envelope-wrapping with their Mail Order can purchase one "Lions for Freedom" CD-Rom for $22.00 posted! That is a $10 discount!
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Mail orders without the journal's envelope -wrapping is $32.00 including postage and over the counter sales without journal's envelope -wrapping is $30.00 each.

VIDEO

Geoff McDonald's exposure of the Communists' plans for Australia is recorded on the video "Red Over Black", plus further revealing information - see the Aboriginal painting featuring the Barunga Statement hanging in Parliament House, Canberra.
Price: $20 posted from Heritage Books, P.O. Box 27, Happy Valley 5159.

** A must read book: "How to Kill a Country", by Linda Weiss, Elizabeth Thurbon & John Mathews. $29.95 posted.
** Just a few left - Graham Strachan's "22 Steps to Globalisation". $13.00 posted.