Posted by
Curt Day on Friday, May 09, 2008 9:25:27 PM
The Best News
Most of the candidates for the best news for this week deal with holding others accountable. These stories range from the demand from lawmakers to investigate the Pentagon's propaganda program of "embedding" retired military officers as expert analysts in American news broadcasts, to criticism of a NYT's story that reported that Hezbollah is training Iraqi insurgents in Iran because the story was based solely on "unnamed sources", to a San Diego probe of a Blackwater Permit for a training facility in that area. But the best news of the week is something that lies outside of the norm. A bipartisan measure has been passed by the House that would help people suffering from the current home mortgage crisis to obtain "government-backed mortgages". At last there is a government attempt to help people rather than corporations.
Now if we were reporting the best news of the week for last week, that best news was the courageous one day strike conducted by the ILWU that closed over 20 ports on the West Coast in a one day protest against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. They conducted their strike despite the advice of their union leaders and the finding of an arbitrator.
The Worst News
The two leading candidates for the worst news of this week was Israel's closing off the Gaza Strip to all UN aid by cutting fuel supplies for the trucks. There are over 1,000,000 people living in the Gaza Strip who are now living without medical and food supplies. Israel's cutting off of the Gaza Strip is a response to Palestinian rocket attacks that have killed some Israelis with the number killed ranging between the teens to the twenties. What is not mentioned is the hundreds of Palestinians who are killed by Israeli armed forces. The Israeli action, besides breaking international law, threatens to kill a horrific number of Palestinians. But so far, the full potential of Israel's action has yet to be realized. Certainly both sides are at fault here but disproportionate responses can only maintain the cycle of violence and suffering.
The worst news comes from Burma where the death toll from the cyclone could realistically reach 100,000 people. And if that is not bad enough, the Burmese government is playing games with those who strongly desire to help the victims.
Most of the information reported here comes from http://www.democracynow.org/