News bytes

– Riverbend explains the brain-drain in Iraq, due to assassinations, random violence and kidnappings:

“Whoever is behind the assassinations, Iraq is quickly losing its educated people. More and more doctors and professors are moving to leave the country.

“The problem with this situation is not just major brain drain – it’s the fact that this diminishing educated class is also Iraq’s secular class.”

– Forbes magazine features yet more disturbing allegations about US activities in Europe:

“The US military ran a Guantanamo Bay-type detention centre in Kosovo, a top Council of Europe official said.

“The Council of Europe’s Human rights commissioner Alvaro Gil-Robles said he had been ‘shocked’ by conditions at the barbed wire-rimmed centre inside a US military base, which he witnessed in 2002.”

– John Pilger explains how the mainstream media has become little more than a mouthpiece for the corporate agenda.

– Palestinian public opinion is shifting and years of occupation are causing unsurprising results. Israel and her allies should be concerned.

– Labor leader Kim Beazley thinks that personal abuse maketh a leader.

– Afghanistan is a supposed success in the “war on terror.” Mainstream media propaganda pushes this misconception. So what of this news, published in Asia Times Online?

“Reports emerged in the Pakistani media at the weekend that the US had contacted the Taliban leadership with the aim of establishing a truce in Afghanistan.”

– How does a Chinese blogger answer questions from a Western journalist about issues of censorship?

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