Senegal: The French Drop Wade

Were the Wades ready to call in European troops to back their bid for a new ‘monoarchy’? According to influential French lawyer and longtime Wade family confident Robert Bourgi, the president’s son asked him, on June 27, to get the French Army to intervene in the country.

France: Jewish Lobbies attack Free Speech

A trial held in Paris Friday could make it illegal in France to criticize Israel.

Libya/Ivory Coast: Narrow Framing and Poor Journalism

It is amazing to see how those in the mainstream press simply ignore anybody who leaves the ‘official frame’ set by the ‘respected authorities’. The limits of debate are narrow and ‘official speak’ is full of new euphemisms and phraseology with meaningless content destined to join ‘collateral damage’ in the dustbin of used spin. Let us look at some examples.

Ivory Coast: French colonialism and UN lies

The first lie is “pro-Ouatara forces captured Gbagbo”. Lets look at the events. On Saturday night and all day Sunday, French attack helicopters fired rockets at the Presidential compound in direct violation of UN Security Council Resolution 1975 which gave a mandate for protecting civilians and not taking sides. Then on Monday morning, as reported by al Jazzeera, a column of thirty French armored vehicles and French special forces moved in on the residence. Fighting lasted the whole day. Now they tell us the Ivorians took Gbagbo.

To further underscore the lie, the video of Gbagbo’s arrest was released by the French! Maybe once the French took the compound they let Ouattara’s thugs in for the camera. Lets not forget that up until Saturday, Ouattara’s troops were being pushed back all over the city. A clear sign of the support Gbagbo has.

Ivory Coast: France Squirms, the Press fails, Gbagbo resists

Today the head of UN troops in the Ivory Coast, Alain Le Roy, accused loyalist forces of « trickery » because they used a ceasefire “to consolidate their positions” the lapdog press reports.  What the press failed to tell us was that when President Laurent Gbagbo offered a ceasefire on Tuesday, rebels and the French army attacked his residence and that they never accepted the ceasefire in the first place.

 And, HELLO, when you are at war, you consolidate your positions!

Cote d’Ivoire / Ivory Coast – Lessons in Imperialist hypocracy

“Laurent Gbagbo must understand violence will get him nowhere,” said French Defense Minister Gerard Longuet while French attack helicopters and troops attacked Abidjan.

There is a new Euphemism: “protecting civilians”. This is the catch word used to provide air to ground support to rebels in the Libyan desert and it now used to justify France’s destruction of the Ivorian Army while pro-Ouattara rebels conduct the ground offensive.

Stop the bombing!

First I want to make it clear: Qaddafi does not like me and I don’t like him. He refused me a visa to report there more than once.

But I have to voice my opinion against this war on Libya because it is wrong and risks creating a disaster and turmoil which will last for years.

Speech not so Free in France

French courts on Friday, February 18, struck another serious blow at Freedom of Speech in the country when they found conservative reporter and pundit, Eric Zemmour, guilty of “inciting racial hatred”.

The privileged 1

Paris, France — Many workers in the French public sector went on strike today to protect what President Sarkozy calls their “special regime”.  Sarkozy has managed to convince a majority of the French public that these workers are privileged.

Paris 14, Aug. 15, 8:52 a.m.

Poles in the street / 15 August 2007 

The three Poles sat on their make-shift furniture, old cushions and mattresses, the drizzle wetting everything.  The closer I got, the greasier they looked; the wet adding to their stickiness. Their dreams of making money evaporated long ago with the alcohol that oozes out of their skin in smelly sweat.