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What Medvedev never said: Reuters misquotes Russian PM on 'new world war'
RT | February 12, 2016
Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev © Ekaterina Shtukina/
A Reuters article quoted Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev as "raising the specter of a world war" in an interview to a German newspaper. The problem is – he didn't say any such words.
The leading world news agency reported on an interview that Medvedev gave Germany's Handelsblatt newspaper on the eve of talks on Syria in Munich.
"All sides must be compelled to sit at the negotiating table, instead of unleashing a new world war," the agency quoted the head of the Russian government as saying.
The report referred to a German translation of his words, which is incorrect and implies that Russia is warning that a full-scale war between leading world powers may be ignited from the Syrian conflict.
The quote comes from the portion of the interview in which Medvedev argued against starting a foreign ground intervention against Syria, saying it would only prolong the armed conflict for years or decades to come.
Medvedev's actual words, according to the Russian transcript on PM's website were:
"What is necessary is to use strong measures, including those taken by Russia, by the Americans and even under certain provisions those that the Turks are trying to take, to sit at the negotiating table, instead of unleashing yet another war on Earth. We know all too well the scenarios leading to that."
The misquotation incident is the second in February involving a senior world official and the Syrian conflict. Earlier, The Financial Times claimed that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blamed Russia for the collapse of the Syrian peace talks.
In a letter to the FT viewed by RT, Ban's office said that the quotes of the secretary general used in the article were "technically correct" but taken out of context and "framed in a way that attributes to him direct language that is incorrect." In particular, author Sam Jones made it appear that Ban Ki-moon had singled out Russia and the Syrian government in describing the difficulties that the peace process is facing, which he didn't do.
The office requested that a correction be published to accurately reflect what the Secretary-General actually said.
Good News, World! You Can Stop Worrying About the South China Sea!
By Peter Lee | China Matters | January 23, 2016
There has been a concerted campaign to depict the South China Sea as an indispensable artery for commercial shipping and, therefore, a justifiable object of US attention and meddling.
This flagship of this effort is invoking the "$5 trillion dollars" worth of goods that pass through the SCS each year. Reuters, in particular, is addicted to this formula.
Here's seven Reuters news stories within the last month containing the $5 trillion figure:
China Says South China Seas militarization depends on threat
China seeks investment for disputed islands, to launch flights
China defends South China Sea reef landings after Vietnam complaint
Philippines files protest against Chin's test flights in disputed sea
China again lands planes on disputed island in South China Sea: Xinhua
Filipino protestors land on disputed islands in South China Sea
South China Sea tensions surge as China lands plane on artificial island
What interests me is that these seven articles reflect the work of six reporters and seven editors (seven to six! Glad to see Reuters has a handle on the key ratios!) in five bureaus and they all include the same stock phrase. How's that work? Does headquarters issue a ukaz that all articles about the South China Sea must include the magic $5 trillion phrase? Does the copyediting program flag every reference to the South China Sea omitting the figure? Or did the reportorial hive mind linking Beijing, Manila, Hanoi, Hong Kong, and Sydney spontaneously and unanimously decided that "$5 trillion" is an indispensable accessory for South China Sea reporting?
I guess it's understandable. A more accurate characterization of the South China Sea as "a useful but not indispensable waterway for world shipping whose commercial importance, when properly exaggerated, provides a pretext for the United States to meddle in Southeast Asian affairs at the PRC's expense" is excessively verbose and fails to convey a sense of urgency.
The kicker, of course, is that the lion's share of the $5 trillion is China trade, and most of the balance passes through the South China Sea by choice and not by necessity. … Full article
Last chance! [And this time they really, really, mean it]
ClimateChangePredictions | October 30, 2015
The United Nations Climate Change Conference is having its 21st meeting in Paris towards the end of 2015. (Hence COP21 or conference of parties)
We've been told this is the 'last effective opportunity' to keep global warming to 'a limit safe for humanity.'
However we are reassured by the fact there have been previous last chances, and this website predicts that COP21 will not be the last 'last chance.'
Previous 'Last Chance' UN climate summit deadlines:
Last chance! – Bonn, 2001 – A Global Warming Treaty's Last Chance. That teetering edifice that is the Kyoto Protocol gets some emergency repair work this week as delegates from 180 countries gather in Bonn to work out problems that threaten to scuttle the deal altogether. – Time Magazine, 16 Jul 2001
Last chance! – Montreal, 2005 – In an open letter to delegates at the Montreal environmental summit, beginning today, campaigner Mark Lynas explains why action on climate change can no longer be stalled. "I'm scared. For 15 years I've watched international progress on climate change get slower and slower, even while the pace of global warming seems to get ever more rapid. With time running out for the global climate, your meeting in Montreal represents a last chance for action." – The Independent, 28 Nov 2005
Last chance! – Bali, 2007 – World leaders will converge on Bali today for the start of negotiations which experts say could be the last chance to save the Earth from catastrophic climate change. Bali could be the last chance to avoid the worst effect of global warming, said Tony Juniper, executive director of Friends of the Earth. – The New Zealand Herald, 3 Dec 2007
2007: Philip Clapp, head of the Washington-based National Environment Trust, says: "Fifteen years of international negotiations have not yet produced a comprehensive agreement that will get developed countries to begin serious reductions."He adds: "The framework for such an agreement must come out of the Bali meeting. The scientists are telling us that this is the world's last shot at avoiding the worst consequences of global warming." – The Independent, 2 Dec 2007
Last chance! – Poznan, Poland, 2008 – The world will "suicide" if it cannot strike a strong climate pact soon, Australian environmental scientist Tim Flannery has warned. Professor Flannery, who is attending a UN climate summit in Poland, expressed dismay at the slow progress. "Resistance is a suicidal tactic," the former Australian of the year, scientist and author told reporters in Poland. "This round of negotiations is likely to be our last chance as a species to deal with the problem." The Age, 9 Dec 2008
2008: Humanity is approaching the last chance to prevent catastrophic climate change, according to WWF's analysis of the latest climate science.The warning comes during UN climate talks in Poznan, Poland."Governments in Poznan must agree to peak and decline global emissions well before 2020 to give people reasonable hope that global warming can still be kept within limits that prevent the worst," said Kim Carstensen, leader of WWF's global climate initiative. – WWF, "Poznan provides last chance to curb climate change" 5 Dec 2008
Last chance! – Copenhagen, 2009 – The world faces a final opportunity to agree an adequate global response to climate change at a U.N.-led meeting in Copenhagen in December, the European Union's environment chief said on Friday. It is now 12 years since Kyoto was created. This makes Copenhagen the world's last chance to stop climate change before it passes the point of no return, European Union Environment Commissioner Stavros Dimas told a climate conference in Budapest on Friday. – Reuters, Feb 27 2009
2009: Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations Secretary-General, has warned of "catastrophic consequences" unless a new international agreement on greenhouse gas emissions is reached.Climate change is "simply the greatest collective challenge we face as a human family", Mr Ban said in a speech on Monday in Seoul. He urged international leaders to reach a deal to limit their countries' carbon emissions at the UN climate conference in Copenhagen in December. – The Telegraph, 10 Aug 2009
2009: "No one said the road to Copenhagen would be easy. But the agreement we all hope to reach in Copenhagen next year represents the last chance to bring climate change under control before it is too late. There is progress, but we need to step up the pace. With resolve, cooperation and imagination, we can conclude an agreement at the end of next year, delivering the ambitious global action that is needed."
Speech by Stavros Dimas, European Commissioner responsible for environment at a Climate Change Conference, 31 October 2008, Prague
2009: The Copenhagen summit is the world's last chance to save the planet from "catastrophic" global warming, according to a major study led by Lord Stern of Brentford, the country's leading authority on climate change.Without an international agreement to limit global warming, temperatures are likely to rise by 9F (5C) by the end of the century – triggering mass migration, warfare and world hunger, according to the report. – The Telegraph, 2 Dec 2009
Last chance! – Cancun, 2010 – A sense of foreboding is one of the few points of general agreement among the 15,000 participants congregating for the next two weeks on this long thin strip of land, marooned between a wide lagoon and the Caribbean Sea. Jairem Ramesh, the Indian environment minister, sees it as the "last chance" for climate change talks to succeed; Connie Hedegaard, the EU's climate chief, believes a disappointing outcome would "put the whole process in danger". – The Telegraph (UK), 29 Nov 2010
Last chance! – Durban, 2011 – Rev. Dr. Olav Fyske Tveit, who leads the World Council of Churches, says the upcoming climate conference in South Africa is mankind's 'last opportunity' to address climate change. This week the World Council of Churches general secretary, Reverend Dr Olav Fykse Tveit, called the United Nations UNFCCC COP 17 meeting a "last opportunity for the international community to be responsible in addressing climate change", and called on the meeting to "act now for climate justice." – Spero News, 27 Nov 2011
2011: Durban climate change meeting is "the last chance". Attended by over 200 countries, this week's major UN conference has been described by many experts as humanity's last chance to avert the disastrous effects of climate change.Together with around 20 000 delegates from nearly 200 countries, Ferrial Adam, the climate change and energy campaigner for Greenpeace Africa, will be attending the 17th Conference of the Parties (COP17) to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which gets under way in Durban in the next two weeks, towards negotiating a new climate regime. – UCANews, 28 Nov 2011
Last chance! – Doha, 2012 – Tomorrow: the earth's last chance with climate change? Tomorrow, the whole world talks about irreversible global warming as this year's international climate change summit begins. Participating are 195 countries (almost all of the United Nations). There are two concurrent meetings: the 8th Conference of the Parties to the Kyoto Protocol; and the 18th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. They will take place from Monday, November 26, 2012 to Friday, December 7, 2012 at the Qatar National Convention Centre in Doha, Qatar. – The Examiner, 25 Nov 2012
Last chance! – Warsaw, 2013 – Is the Warsaw Climate Change Conference a last-chance summit? The Warsaw Climate Change Conference opened on Monday 11th November. After the 2012 failure of Doha, this summit could represent a turning point in the fight against global warming. "Global greenhouse gas emissions need to peak this decade, and get to zero net emissions by the second half of this century," announced Christiana Figueres, Executive Secretary of the UNFCCC in a press release dated 8th November. "We have the money and technology, the knowledge and the new economic models to get the job done in time," she confirmed before describing the next two years as "a critical period to act faster on climate." – Sustainable Mobility, 14 Nov 2013
Last chance! – Lima, 2014 – Last chance: Change needed for climate negotiations in Lima 2014. WWF issued the following statement today from Samantha Smith, Leader of WWF's Global Climate and Energy Initiative, as the UN climate talks drew to a conclusion: "A repeat performance next year would be disastrous, not just for the progress of these negotiations, but more importantly for vulnerable communities everywhere and the natural world on which we all depend…By the time we get to next year's meeting in Lima, we urgently need to have political will, real commitments, and a clear path to a comprehensive and fair agreement in Paris 2015, where a new global agreement on climate change has to be signed." – WWF Global, 23 Nov 2013
Last chance! – Paris, 2015: Scientists are calling on world leaders to sign up to an eight-point plan of action at landmark talks in Paris. The key element is the goal to limit global warming to below 2C by moving to zero carbon emissions by 2050. The UN meeting in December is "the last chance" to avert dangerous climate change, according to the Earth League. – BBC News 22 Apr 2015
Yemeni Genocide Proceeds Apace, Enjoying World's Silence
US and ISIS join efforts to kill Yemenis
By William Boardman | Reader Supported News | July 10, 2015
Turns out the United States and the Islamic State, ISIS, are de facto allies of Saudi Arabia and its alliance of dictator states, all bent on exterminating Yemeni Houthis and pretty much any other Yemeni in the neighborhood. This Yemenicide started in earnest in March 2015. After years of US drone strikes proved too slow and ineffective at wiping out people in the poorest country in the Arab world, it was time to expand the arsenal of war crimes. Rarely, in discussions of Yemen, does one hear much about the violations of international law that have reduced the country to its present war-torn and devastated condition.
Failing to acknowledge a foreign policy disaster in Yemen, the Obama administration has chosen instead to trash international law by supporting the criminal, aggressive war that Saudi Arabia's coalition of police states launched on Yemen on March 26. Now, despite more than three months of Saudi-American terror bombing, the Houthis remain in control of northwest Yemen, their tribal homeland, as well as much of the southeast of Yemen, having overthrown the internationally-installed puppet government, later "elected" without any opponents, of President Abd Rhabbuh Mansur Hadi.
President Obama praised Hadi as his "successful" partner in attacking terrorists, by which Obama meant he was grateful to Hadi for not objecting to the US drone attacks against his own people. Hadi's legitimacy always depended on foreign puppeteers, and it still does. Having resigned as president, fled the capital, and rescinded his resignation, Hadi fled again, to Saudi Arabia the day before the Saudi blitz began. The official story is that Hadi requested the undeclared Saudi attack on his own country. Hadi remains in the Saudi capital of Riyadh, free to go nowhere while he pretends to head a government-in-exile that is the presently desired fiction of his captor-protectors.
On July 8, from Riyadh, Hadi reportedly proposed a ceasefire in Yemen to start before the month of Ramadan ends July 17. On July 1, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon had called for a "humanitarian halt" in combat "until the end of the holy month of Ramadan." So far, Hadi's Saudi controllers have used the muslim holy month to rain increased terror on populated areas of Yemen, killing hundreds of civilians and Houthi fighters, with no accurate count available. July 7 saw the highest death toll in Yemen since the Saudi bombing campaign began. This bland-seeming coverage of the carnage by Reuters is riddled by propaganda deceits:
The United Nations has been pushing for a halt to air raids and intensified fighting that began on March 26. More than 3,000 people have been killed since then as the Arab coalition tries stop the Houthis spreading across the country from the north.
The Iran-allied Shi'ite Houthis say they are rebelling against a corrupt government, while local fighters say they are defending their homes from Houthi incursions. Sunni Saudi Arabia says it is bombing the Houthis to protect the Yemeni state.
The Reuters perspective represents the mainstream consensus, which also typically includes some of the same threads of deceit as these:
- "The UN has been pushing …" No, it hasn't. The UN as a body has done little to protect the Yemenis, but the Security Council has done less for a country in which civil war has spanned generations. Security Council resolutions are determinedly "evenhanded" in their equal treatment of aggressors and victims. In June 2015, after two months of Saudi bombing, the Security Council expressed its "full support" for an impossibility: "a peaceful, inclusive, orderly and Yemeni-led political transition process that meets the legitimate demands and aspirations of the Yemeni people."
- "pushing for a halt to air raids …" No, it hasn't. The air raids are being carried out by the nine UN member states in the Saudi Coalition, including Security Council member Jordan. The US, a permanent Security Council member, has supported the aerial war crime campaign with logistics, in-flight refueling of bombers, intelligence, air-sea rescue, and naval support for the blockade (which is also an act of war).
- "intensified fighting that began on March 26 …" Intensified fighting began long before March 26. Yemen's civil war has waxed and waned over several decades. What began March 26 was the war crime nexus of bombing civilian targets by the nine-member Saudi Coalition that includes Egypt, Morocco, Jordan, Sudan, UAE, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Qatar. The Houthi rebellion is more than a decade old and gained intensity in the fall of 2014. The Houthis drove out the Yemeni government and now control the western half of the country, where most of the population lived and most of the bombing takes place.
- "the Arab coalition tries to stop the Houthis spreading across the country from the north …" Reuters is just wrong on this. The Houthi spread was a fact, and the "Arab coalition" failed in an ill-conceived campaign. Faced with an army advancing on the ground, the "Arab coalition" has not deployed ground troops. Without serious objection from the international community, the "Arab coalition" attacks military forces in another country with which they are not at war, as well as terror-bombing that country's civilians with US-made cluster bombs.
- As for spreading "from the north," that is at best wrong, if not duplicitous. Saudi Arabia has declared the northernmost province of Yemen, Saada, a military zone in which every civilian is a presumed combatant. This is the same bloodthirsty policy that leads the US to count every drone victim as a combatant until proven otherwise. This is the same moral numbness that led the US to establish free fire zones in Viet-Nam, where every living thing was deemed an enemy. This is total war as waged by the powerful, at a distance, against the weak and almost defenseless. This is as bad as any Nazi onslaught of World War II.
- The absurdity of the Reuters characterization is illustrated by another UN Security Council position in support of a "political solution to Yemen's crisis in accordance with the Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative." The Gulf Cooperation Council is an oxymoron, in that it includes six of the seven Arab states (not Iraq) on the Persian Gulf who allied determinedly NOT to cooperate with the other Persian Gulf state, Iran. Further, the Security Council absurdly supports the "Gulf Cooperation Council Initiative" when five of the six Gulf Council members (not Oman) are busily bombing Yemen in violation of international law.
- "The Iran-allied Shi'ite Houthis …" There is no evidence of an alliance between Iran and the Houthis, certainly not in any sense equivalent to the overt alliances waging undeclared war on Yemen. The Houthis are Shi'ite muslims, and Iran has almost surely supported them to some extent, but most claims of Iranian involvement in the current fighting are patently over-stated and lack supporting evidence. Reuters here is parroting Arab, American, and Israeli propaganda about the "threat" from Iran.
- "say they are rebelling against a corrupt government …" Who says? Reuters doesn't say. This is specious journalism. Yemen has a long history of corrupt government, but perhaps the Hadi government allowing US troops to wage war on Yemeni territory, killing Yemenis at will, raised the corruption bar to a new level.
- "local fighters say they are defending their homes …" is worse than specious journalism, it's pretty much a lie since the main opposition to the Houthis comprises forces loyal to Hadi, as well as cohorts of both Al Qaeda and ISIS.
- "Sunni Saudi Arabia says it is bombing the Houthis to protect the Yemeni state" would be a laugh line were it not such a dark lie. Saudi bombing is destroying the Yemeni state in order to "save" it. The Saudis may be "protecting" the Hadi government, but only in the sense that the Mafia provides protection in a protection racket. The Saudis have longstanding territorial conflicts with the Houthis along the northwest Saudi-Yemeni border. And the Saudis are acting as if they believe their own demonizing propaganda about Iran. Saudi Arabia is more likely bombing the Houthis because they are defenseless and Saudi Arabia doesn't dare bomb Iran.
Nobody seems to care about Yemen, not even The New Yorker
The widespread, bland disinterest in the unending victimization of Yemenis facing unrelenting, daily crimes against humanity is hardly unique to obtuse observers like Reuters. The New Yorker, which eventually distinguished itself in opposition to the horrors of Vietnam, last published a piece on Yemen on May 1 (according to a site search). That piece conveys the American denial of its own terrorism with a tone of mild distaste suitable to Eustace Tilley, whose monocled default opinion is to blame the victim, as Robin Wright wrote little more than a month after the Saudi-American bombardment began:
The current Houthi rebellion – the seventh – is only the latest. The Houthi clan are Zaydi Muslims, who make up about a third of Yemen's twenty-six million people. A once powerful people from the rugged northern highlands, they ruled an imamate for a millennium and deeply resented their reduced influence under [former President] Saleh [now a Houthi ally]. Between 2004 and 2010, they fought six other wars against his government….
The quarter-century experiment in uniting Yemen has definitively failed. There is no military solution, and there are unlikely to be any winners out of such a multilayered conflict, whatever the territorial gains….
Last week, the United States dispatched the aircraft carrier U.S.S. Teddy Roosevelt to supplement seven American warships off the Yemen coast. Washington strongly supports a political solution to the conflict in Yemen, but without interested players the risks of unintended consequences increase.
Rhetorically the US may support a "political solution" (to its own liking) and gullible reporters may accept that as some sort of reality. The reality on the ground (and on the water) is that the US supports and participates in endless terror bombing and a naval blockade. That is to say, the US supports and participates in the war crimes that are leading toward mass starvation and human devastation, what the discreet Ban Ki-moon refers to as a "humanitarian crisis" or a "catastrophe," as if there were no agency causing it.
An editorial July 7 in The New York Times takes the same concerned-but-oblivious-to-the-genocidal-actors tone that reinforces the general pretense that no one is responsible:
Yemen has now been added to the United Nations' list of most severe humanitarian emergencies, along with South Sudan, Syria and Iraq. It is a tragic distinction, highlighting the peril to 80 percent of the country's 25 million citizens. The international community, including the United States, is not doing enough to push for an immediate cease-fire in the war that is ravaging the country to make it possible to deliver aid.
Yemen, a poor country, was deeply unstable even before a coalition, led by Saudi Arabia and backed by the United States, started bombing the Houthi rebel movement in late March. Last week, Ban Ki-moon, the United Nations secretary general, declared the situation a "catastrophe."
Is it possible to commit a long string of war crimes in self-defense?
Having tiptoed up to the edge of US war crimes, the Times retreated. The rest of the editorial comprises little more than helpless hand-wringing, without even hinting at the most effective way to save Yemeni lives: stop the bombing. That means you, "Saudi Arabia … backed by the United States." Like most of the rest of the world, the Times settled for asking for a reasonable-sounding impossibility, which it then undercut with another wisp of Saudi reality:
What is needed is a permanent political solution that will ensure the Houthis, who have some legitimate grievances and are unlikely to give up, get a significant role in any new government. Negotiations should be started without preconditions. But Saudi Arabia and its allies have appeared intent on forcing the Houthis to surrender, no matter what the cost to civilians and Yemen's cities and villages.
Well, "Saudi Arabia and its allies" includes the US and others. The Times needs to look in the mirror without flinching. Saudi Arabia and its allies need to stop their bombing.
Ironically, they are not bombing Al Qaeda or ISIS forces in Yemen with anything like the same intensity they're bombing Yemenis. In fact, Al Qaeda and ISIS are supplementing Saudi-American bombing with their own terror-bombing of Yemenis. For whatever reason, if there is one, the Saudi-American aerial genocide against Yeminis is making most of Yemen a much safer haven for terrorists. Yet this lunatic policy continues without serious opposition apparent anywhere. Who decided that Yemen should be treated as if it were the Haiti of the Arab world?
If any of the umpteen candidates for president of the United States has said anything humane, useful, or even dimly relevant about Yemen, it is hard to find (and I have found nothing). And nowhere have I found any call to establish the appropriate International War Crimes Tribunal to judge the illegality of the multiple, heinous predations of the United States, Saudi Arabia, and their sundry allies, all members in good standing of the world peacekeeping authority.
Top 10 Bogus ISIS Stories
By Adam Johnson | FAIR | February 20, 2015
… as America debates the possibility of a full-scale ground invasion of ISIS-controlled territory, it's important to note that much of the ISIS threat — namely that which targets the West — has been habitually overstated by an uncritical media.
In no particular order, here are the ten most bogus ISIS scare stories over the past year:
1. Female genital mutilation edict – July 2014
Who it fooled: Most major media outlets from Time to Reuters to The Atlantic to the BBC (whose story has since been scrubbed online). Above all, the UN itself.
Why it's bogus: Actual residents of Mosul and regional experts quickly knew it reeked. The story was subsequently discredited by experts and jouranalists and called a hoax soon after.
2. Church-burning in Mosul – July 2014
Who it fooled: Human Rights Watch, The Atlantic, The Independent, The Times of India
Why it's bogus: An intrepid archaeologist, Sam Hardy, called BS and thanks to the magic of reverse image Google search and some prodding by yours truly, it was eventually retracted by several outlets and never mentioned again.
3. ISIS in Mexico – October 2014
Who it fooled: Fox News, Judicial Watch, The Inquisitr.
Why it's bogus: Absurd on its face, the story was quickly and roundly debunked.
4. ISIS recruiting emo British teen – December 2014
Who it fooled: Metro, The Daily Mail, The Telegraph
Why it's bogus: The person who uploaded the picture admitted on Twitter it was a fake. The media subsequently deemed it a "hoax".
5. ISIS Caliphate map – July 2014
Who it fooled: ABC News, International Business Times, Breitbart
Why it's bogus: The original story from ABC News cited a map that had been floating around the Internet for months. To this day, its one and only source is a tweet from a noted white supremacist website Third Position.
io9.com and others eventually deemed it a hoax.
6. ISIS beheads Christian children – Aug 2014
Who it fooled: Originally asserted on CNN by self-proclaimed Iraqi-Christian activist Mark Arabo–a grocery story industry lobbyist whose previous media appearance was on a local San Diego news channel to oppose an increase in minimum wage–this story spread among right-wing and Christian media.
Why it's bogus: After a fairly thorough inquiry, snopes eventually determined the claim was "inconclusive," having found no independent evidence it occurred.
7. $425m bank robbery – June 2014
Who it fooled: The Washington Post, International Business Times, Fox News, Mic, Vocativ
Why it's bogus: The story was based solely on accounts from the former mayor of Mosul and was later found to be uncredible by The Financial Times and, ultimately, US officials themselves.
8. 'Over 100 Americans have joined ISIS' – October 2014
Who it fooled: NBC News, Washington Post, Al Jazeera
Why it's bogus: After the FBI admitted there were only "about a dozen" Americans fighting alongside jihadists in Syria in September 2014, several media outlets continued to report "over 100," despite the government correcting the record several weeks prior.
9. #AllEyesOnISIS "Twitter storm" – June 2014
Who it fooled: The Daily Mail, McClatchy
Why it's bogus: Yours truly showed that the "Twitter storm" was simply a reposting of weeks- or months-old tweets by an overzealous ISIS fanboi.
10. ISIS's ebola terror plot – December 2014
Who it fooled: The Daily Mail, Fox News, Mashable, random right-wing media
Why it's bogus: "Iraqi media" was the only source for the story, and the Iraqi minister of Health quickly debunked it.
The Consistency of Official Iranian Commentary, Part III: On Khamenei's Referendum Rhetoric, Reuters is Wrong
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | July 27, 2014
Last week, Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei addressed a meeting of Iranian university students and, in his first public comments on the ongoing assault on Gaza, spoke of his belief in the necessity of continued Palestinian resistance to Israel aggression, oppression, and occupation.
"Don't the Palestinians have the right to defend their lives and security?" he asked rhetorically, and condemned Western nations like the United States and Great Britain for openly supporting Israel's assault and justifying "crimes that no ordinary person would."
In the right-wing Daily Caller, notorious neocon darling Reza Kahlili noted that Khamenei reiterated the call by his predecessor, Ayatollah Rouhollah Khomeini, that "Israel must be destroyed," adding that "until that time with the help of God for this cruel and murderous regime to be destroyed, strong confrontation with steadfast armed resistance is the only solution against this destructive regime."
Yet the Caller omitted a crucial aspect of Khamenei's speech – deliberately replaced by an ellipsis linking the the paraphrased Khomeini quote with Khamenei's endorsement of Palestinian armed struggle – in which the Iranian leader stated that the ideal solution to the current impasse was a democratic vote.
The missing piece, however, was reported by other outlets. "There are logical and practical means to this end, which is for people who live and belong there to pick the government of their choice through a referendum. That would be the end of a usurping fake regime," Khamenei said, according to a translation by Reuters. Until that time, he continued, "while waiting for an end to this cold-blooded murderous regime, mighty armed resistance is the only way to deal with it."
Only through a vote by the indigenous population, Khamenei said, will "the usurper and forged regime" of Israel "be practically annihilated."
Kahlili's report predictably expunged all mention of a referendum, focusing instead on Iranian military capabilities and nuclear negotiations. More troubling, perhaps, is that "The Young Turks," a liberal (some might even say, progressive) news and commentary outlet led by host Cenk Uygur, promoted the Daily Caller line in their own round table discussion of the matter. After hearing a portion of the Kahlili article read aloud verbatim, co-host Ana Kasparian described Khamenei's comments as "extremely violent" and "crazy," while John Iadarola called such statements "depressing."
Reuters also quoted Khamenei as saying, "Israel's annihilation is the only real cure, but that doesn't mean destroying Jews in this region," a statement also ignored by the Daily Caller. With this comment, Reuters editorialized, "Khamenei made clear for the first time that he was talking about the dismantling of the state of Israel, not the death of Jews."
While such clarification is important, the characterization of that distinction as being a new addition to Khamenei's rhetoric is curious. In fact, this is a distinction made often by Iranian officials when discussing this very topic – and Iran's official position toward Israel/Palestine. Cursory research into past statements quickly reveals the consistency of such statements and proves the Reuters claim to be, not only sloppy, but ludicrous.
A similar presumption was made last year in the wake of then-newly-inaugurated Iranian President Hassan Rouhani's insistence that, "when it comes to the settlement and resolution of regional issues," including the colonization and occupation of Palestine, "we believe that the only path is through the ballot box, through democracy." International news media declared this to be a breakthrough moment, despite the clear fact that Rouhani's immediate predecessor, the much-maligned Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, had made identical statements throughout his eight-year tenure as president.
"We are opposed to the idea that the people who live there should be thrown into the sea or be burnt," Ahmadinejad said in comments reported by the New York Times in September 2008. "We believe that all the people who live there, the Jews, Muslims and Christians, should take part in a free referendum and choose their government."
More to the point, however, Khamenei himself has remained remarkably consistent on this issue, and Iran's official prescription, for over two decades. In an extensive analysis of Khamenei's speeches since 1990, published in the Boston Review in November 2013, well-known Iranian dissident Akbar Ganji – no fan of the Iran's theocratic leadership – revealed the truth: Khamenei has long called for a new, inclusive Palestinian government to supersede the current Zionist one, thereby dismantling what is currently known as "Israel" politically, not violently.
For instance, Ganji notes, on April 17, 1991, Khamenei discussed "his solution for the Palestinian problem and said, 'The Islamic Republic's solution is to disband the usurping Zionist regime, forming a government of the Palestinians, and [guaranteeing] peaceful co-existence of Jews, Christians, and Muslims in all of Palestine.'" Four months later, on August 19, 1991, Ganji adds, Khamenei stated, "Solving the Palestinian problem entails destroying and eliminating the illegitimate government there, so that the true owners [of the land] can form a new government; Muslims, Christians, and Jews can live side by side… Our view regarding the Palestine issue is clear. We believe the solution is destroying the Israeli regime."
Nearly a decade later, Khamenei's position had not shifted. In a speech to the Basij militia on October 21, 2000, Ganji tells us that Khamenei again laid out his vision for the indigenous people of Palestine to choose their own political path forward. "The solution is for the millions of the Palestinians to return to Palestine, the several millions that live away from home to return to Palestine. The indigenous people of Palestine—Jews, Christians, and Muslims—should hold a referendum to decide what kind of a regime they want. The vast majority are Muslims. There are also Jews and Christians that belong there, as their parents also lived there. They can decide the political system that they favor," he opined.
In March 2002, Khamenei again stated, "Holding a referendum in Palestine among the Palestinians, and all those that became refugees—if, of course, they want to return to Palestine—is a rational solution." In June 2002, he repeated, "The only solution for the Palestine problem is that the true Palestinians, not the usurping and occupying immigrants, those who live in Palestine and those who became refugees, decide the type of government that they want. If asking for the vote of the people of a nation is a solution for those who claim to be democracy advocates, [then] Palestine is also a nation and must decide [its fate]."
The Palestinian problem has only one solution, and that is what we proposed several years ago. Hold a referendum among the indigenous Palestinians, those who live there, or are in refugee camps, or live elsewhere, regardless of whether they are Muslim, Christian, or Jew, and ask them to decide the government that they want. Regardless of whether that government is run by the Muslims, Jews, or Christians, as long as it is the result of people's direct votes, is acceptable, and will solve the problem. Without it [the referendum] the problem will never be solved.
That Reuters would now claim Khamenei's recent comments about Gaza mark a stark break from the past is absurd. In his Friday prayer sermon on June 20, 2008, Khamenei declared, "No, we have no problems with Jews. We have no problems with Christians, and with adherents of other religions in the world. The usurper is just the Zionist regime. This is the position of our state, and that of our revolution and our people."
Similarly, on September 30, 2011, Khamenei spoke at a conference in support of the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice, and self-determination, and said, "We neither advocate a classic war between Israel and the Islamic countries, nor throwing the Jewish people into the sea, and neither do we accept mediation by the United Nations or any other international organization. We propose a referendum among the Palestinian people. Similar to any other nation, the Palestinians also have the right to decide their fate and pick the type of government they want."
Addressing the opening assembly of the Non-Aligned Movement on August 30, 2012 in Tehran, Khamenei once again reiterated Iran's "just and entirely democratic solution" to the conflict:
All the Palestinians – both the current citizens of Palestine and those who have been forced to immigrate to other countries but have preserved their Palestinian identity, including Muslims, Christians and Jews – should take part in a carefully supervised and confidence-building referendum and chose the political system of their country, and all the Palestinians who have suffered from years of exile should return to their country and take part in this referendum and then help draft a Constitution and hold elections. Peace will then be established.
Regardless of whether Khamenei's proposals are realistic, idealistic, inevitable or impossible, is irrelevant. That he has consistently called for a referendum to alter the exclusivist and discriminatory political system that controls Palestinian lives and has routinely made distinctions between the Zionist government in Israel specifically and Jewish people in general, is indisputable.
Reuters should get their facts straight.
New Federal Indictment Over Iran Sanctions Breach Demonstrates Reach of Nuclear Disinformation
United States Attorney for the District of Massachusetts Carmen Oritz
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | April 6, 2014
A brief news story posted by Reuters at 3pm on Friday afternoon reported that Sihai Cheng, a Chinese national is facing criminal charges brought by the U.S. government for allegedly having conspired to export "pressure transducers," sensors that translate the application of pressure into electrical signals, to Iran in violation with sanctions that restrict trade of scientific equipment and technology to that country.
Cheng was arrested at Heathrow airport two months ago and the indictment was brought by Boston field offices of the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, Department of Commerce, and the Department of Justice's Massachusetts District Attorney.
Following the publication of the Reuters report, the news traveled fast with outlets like Bloomberg News, AFP, Telegraph, and BBC all picking it up, and inevitably tying the news to the ongoing international nuclear negotiations taking place between six world powers and Iran.
Pressure transducers have myriad industrial and scientific uses; their use in the translating pressurized gas in centrifuges to an analog electrical signal is but one of these applications. A statement released by the U.S. Attorney's office declares, "Pressure transducers can be used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium and produce weapons-grade uranium."
Unmentioned is the fact that, not only can transducers be used for thousands of other reasons, but also that Iran's enrichment of uranium is legal, Iran's enrichment facilities are under strict IAEA monitoring and inspection, and Iran has never even been accused of enriching uranium to weapons-grade levels. It's like arresting someone over trading light bulbs, which can be used in automobiles, which can be used to run people over.
The prosecution of people accused of breaching the aggressive U.S.-led sanctions regime is nothing new; just last month, Mohammad Reza Nazemzadeh, a prolific and respected medical research scientist in Michigan was inexplicably indicted for trying to send a refurbished coil for an MRI machine to a hospital in Iran. However, certain language used in press reports to describe the indictment of Cheng – in bold below – is curious.
Reuters reported that Cheng had "supplied thousands of parts that have nuclear applications to Eyvaz, a company involved in Iran's nuclear weapons program, in violation of U.S. sanctions on Iran, federal prosecutors said."
Bloomberg News used the same formulation:
From November 2005 to 2012, Cheng allegedly supplied thousands of parts that have nuclear applications to Eyvaz, an Iranian company involved in the development and procurement of parts for Iran's nuclear weapons program.
"Iran's nuclear weapons program." Read that again. "Iran's nuclear weapons program." The ubiquity of this phrase in the press and political speechifying belies the fact that Iran does not actually have a nuclear weapons program and is thus, not only deliberately deceiving, but patently false.
It should now go without saying that, for years now, the United States intelligence community and its allies have long assessed that Iran is not and never has been in possession of nuclear weapons, is not building nuclear weapons, and its leadership has not made any decision to build nuclear weapons. Iran's uranium enrichment program is fully safeguarded by the IAEA and no nuclear material has ever been diverted to a military program. Iranian officials have consistently maintained they will never pursue such weapons on religious, strategic, political, moral and legal grounds.
This assessment has been reaffirmed year after year by the U.S. Director of Intelligence James Clapper, most recently in mid-February before the Senate Armed Services Committee. The intelligence has maintained for nearly seven years a high level of confidence that Iran has no nuclear weapons program.
Nevertheless, this phraseology goes frequently unchallenged in the mainstream media – despite repeated appeals by ombudsmen and public editors for more careful and measured writing by their reporters.
The reports of the Cheng case, however, are a bit more revealing. The specific claim referencing an Iranian "nuclear weapons program" did not originate with the Reuters wire service or Bloomberg's own cribbed report. In fact, the phrase in its entirety came from the U.S. Attorney's own press release about the indictment, which was posted Friday by the "Boston Press Release Service," and has still (as of this writing) not appeared on the website for the U.S. Attorney for the District of Massachusetts.
That the offending phrase – "Iran's nuclear weapons program" – was literally copied-and-pasted directly from a government statement by professional reporters for major news outlets, without a shred of skepticism, scrutiny or fact-checking, is sadly par for the course in a media landscape wherein the press simply parrot the government line as a matter of policy.
"The indictment alleges that between in or about November 2005 and 2012, Cheng supplied thousands of parts that have nuclear applications, including U.S. origin goods, to Eyvaz, an Iranian company involved in the development and procurement of parts for Iran's nuclear weapons program," the release reads.
The government prosecutor responsible for the indictment is Massachusetts' U.S. Attorney Carmen Ortiz, who herself has a sordid history of overly-aggressive prosecution, in one case leading to the suicide of computer programmer and online activist Aaron Swartz in January 2013.
In this indictment, Ortiz has thus made an assumption about Iranian actions and intentions that directly contradicts the consensus of 16 American intelligence agencies. Furthermore, the prosecution itself is part of the Obama administration's own economic war on Iran.
Just two weeks after Iran and the P5+1 signed their Joint Plan of Action in late November 2013, the U.S. State and Treasury Departments specifically named Eyvaz Technic Manufacturing Company among companies targeted "for evading international sanctions against Iran and for providing support for Iran's nuclear program."
The recent indictment and accompanying press release present a clear indication that the decades-long disinformation campaign about Iran's nuclear program is far more powerful and sustaining than facts and evidence. And that's bad news when the propaganda comes straight from the Department of Justice.
Terrorism with a "Human Face": Syria Al Qaeda "Freedom Fighters" are "Not Killing Civilians"
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky | Global Research | February 10, 2014
The attacks by opposition forces largely integrated by Al Qaeda terrorists can no longer be denied.
What is now occurring is a re-branding of the various terrorist formations covertly support by Western intelligence.
The latest slur of media disinformation consists in providing a "human face" to Al Qaeda.
While the media acknowledges that the Al Nusrah front is integrated by Al Qaeda affiliated rebels, the Islamist rebels affiliated with the New Islamic Front –which has received Washington's ascent– are now portrayed as "freedom fighters" involved strictly in para-military operations.
Media Fabrications
According to the media reports:
1. The opposition rebels are predominantly Syrian nationals.
2. They are not targeting innocent civilians.
3. They are acting in a responsible fashion. They are no longer involved in terrorist acts. They are targeting government forces and the pro-government National Defense Force militia, set up in towns and villages across Syria.
The attack on an Alawite village in the province of Hama
A Reuters report pertaining to a recent rebel attack on an Alawite village in the province of Hama suggests that civilians deaths are few in number, largely the result of "collateral damage", attributable to "neglect" pertaining to the government evacuation programs from the areas of combat.
Read carefully (emphasis added). The Reuters report casually denies the atrocities committed by US-NATO-Saudi sponsored terrorists:
Islamist fighters battling Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's forces seized control of an Alawite village in the central province of Hama on Sunday, part of an offensive to try to cut off supply routes from Damascus to the north of the country.
The report denies, despite ample evidence, that the "freedom fighters" killed civilians. Detailed government data on civilian casualties are dismissed;
But the government said the dead were mainly women and children and accused the fighters of committing a massacre on the eve of the resumption of peace talks in Geneva."
Reuters prefers to quote the "evidence" provided by the fake UK based Syrian Observatory. Those killed were part of the government's militia forces:
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitoring group said the Islamists killed 25 people in the village of Maan, mainly from a pro-Assad National Defence Force militia.
Residents of Maan, around 5 miles east of Syria's main north-south highway, are from the same Alawite minority as the Assad family which has ruled Syria for the last four decades.
The Observatory said most women and children had been evacuated from the village before it was taken over.
(Reuters report Chicago Tribune, February 9, 2014
The "freedom fighters" are "overwhelmingly" Syrian national
The Reuters report fails to acknowledge something which is amply documented by media reports and official data: most of the rebels are mercenaries recruited in Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia, not to mention several European countries including Britain and France.
The "freedom fighters" are "overwhelmingly" Syrian nationals according to Reuters:
Rebels fighting to overthrow Assad are overwhelmingly from the country's Sunni Muslim majority, backed by Islamist and jihadi fighters from across the Islamic world.
"Video footage released on Sunday showed a rebel fighter performing Muslim prayers on top of a municipal building after the seizure of Maan, one of several sites in Hama targeted by the rebels in recent days. Another video showed the dead body of a pro-Assad fighter.
The Observatory said most women and children had been evacuated from the village before it was taken over.
(Reuters report Chicago Tribune, February 9, 2014
Yarmouk: The Palestinian Urban Suburb
A BBC report pertaining to the Palestinian Yarmouk, urban suburb of Damascus, sustains the legend of opposition "activists" and "freedom fighters" coming to the rescue of Palestinians:
The situation has grown desperate since last summer when the Syrian army blocked regular supplies to the camp in an attempt to force out rebels [Al Qaeda terrorists supported by US-NATO] holed up inside.
Activists' videos and photographs have shown little children crying in hunger and with visible signs of malnutrition. Residents told the BBC that recently there have been about 100 deaths from starvation.
The strategy of the Al Qaeda rebels advised by Western and Israeli Special Forces has been to block the supply routes of food and essential commodities. And then the media comes in and blames the government:
"Babies also died because there was no milk. Their mothers couldn't breastfeed them because they were sick and undernourished."
Palestinians in Yarmouk say they have resorted to eating boiled herbs and plants found growing near their homes.
The insinuation is that government forces –which have acted in support of the Palestinians– are responsible for the humanitarian crisis in Yarmouk.
At the same time, the BBC refutes its own lies. It acknowledges that the Syrian authorities supported the Palestinians from the very outset:
The unofficial camp was set up as a home for refugees who left or were forced from their original homes because of the 1948 war that led to the creation of Israel.
Although the Syrian authorities did not give citizenship to refugees, they had full access to employment and social services. Many say they had relatively good lives compared to their counterparts in other Arab countries.
Yet the BBC in its coverage of Yarmouk, insinuates that the terrorists integrated by Western advisers had the support of the Palestinians against the Syrian government and that ultimately the "freedom fighters" allowed the supply routes to be opened to the United Nations relief programs led by the UNRWA:
Armed rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad moved into the camp and found support among some Palestinian groups.
After months of negotiations, a deal was struck at the end of last year between the Syrian authorities and Palestinian representatives to allow food to be delivered to the camp. BBC, February 10, 2014.
Reuters deplores Israeli mistreatment of journalists
Press TV – December 14, 2012
Israeli forces have assaulted two cameramen working for Reuters news agency in the occupied West bank, forcing them to strip on the street.
Yousri Al Jamal and Ma'amoun Wazwaz said on Thursday that an Israeli military patrol stopped them as they were on their way to a checkpoint in the West Bank city of al-Khalil, where a Palestinian youth had been earlier killed by Israeli forces.
The cameramen added that the Israeli troops punched and hit them with the butts of their guns after they made the cameramen get off their vehicle, which was marked as belonging to "TV."
The two were also wearing blue flak jackets with the word "Press" printed on them.
The soldiers who attacked the Reuters employees accused them of working for B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization which documents human rights violations in the occupied West Bank.
However, the cameramen said the forces did not give them the chance to show their identification cards and made them strip and kneel down on the road.
Wazwaz was overcome by the fumes and taken to a hospital after the Israeli forces dropped a tear gas canister and ran away from the scene.
According to the cameramen, two other Palestinian journalists working for local news agencies were also arrested by Israeli soldiers at the same location.
Stephen J. Adler, chief editor of Reuters News said, "We deplore the mistreatment of our journalists and have registered our extreme dismay with the Israeli military authorities."
The Israeli military has offered no explanation for the attack on the journalists and says it will investigate the issue.
On Thursday, Israeli troops shot dead a Palestinian teenager on his birthday after he allegedly threatened them with a toy gun in the occupied West Bank.
Reuters Fails the "Find-Replace" Game for Recycling Iraq Propaganda about Iran
By Nima Shirazi | Wide Asleep in America | October 1, 2012
When recycling decade-old allegations, lies, and threats that preceded invasion and occupation, sometimes sloppy mistakes happen.
In a short report posted this afternoon, Reuters quotes U.S. State department spokesperson Victoria Nuland praising the detrimental and destructive effects of its sanctions regime against Iran and claiming once again that Iran is building nuclear weapons, despite her own government's assessments that this is not the case.
Nuland is thrilled that "the Iranian currency has dropped to a historic low today against the dollar," as she believes "this speaks to the unrelenting and increasingly successful international pressure that we are all bringing to bear on the Iranian economy" which she adds is "under incredible strain."
While much can (and should) be discussed regarding the continued collective punishment of Iranians over its wholly legal, safeguarded and monitored nuclear program, the real gem of the Reuters piece comes in the last paragraph. Reporter Arshad Mohammed, whose article was edited by both Doina Chiacu and Cynthia Osterman, shorthands Nuland's own imperious demands to the Iranian government:
Catch that? The "international community" is trying to "intensify pressure on Baghdad" so that Iran won't choose to acquire a nuclear weapon.
Apparently, either these fine Reuters staffers are unaware that Tehran is the capital of Iran, or – perhaps more plausibly – they merely forgot to replace the Iraqi capital with the Iranian one when reusing these old propaganda talking points about a Middle Eastern country supposedly building weapons of mass destruction.
With so much recycled material from 2002 flooding the mainstream, how can we expect poor Reuters to keep track of which country we're supposed to be lying about and threatening now?
Related articles
- Tehran court finds Reuters guilty over defamation of character (alethonews.wordpress.com)
Tehran court finds Reuters guilty over defamation of character
Press TV – September 30, 2012
A court in Tehran finds London-based Reuters news agency guilty over a report describing a group of female Iranian martial artists as "assassins," Press TV reports.
A jury member at a Tehran penal court told Press TV on Sunday that the news agency was found guilty of propagating against the Islamic Republic and disseminating false information to disturb public opinion.
The court is supposed to issue its ruling in October. Reuters can appeal the verdict.
Reuters appeared in a court hearing in Tehran on Sunday after young Iranian girls training in Ninjutsu filed defamation charges against Reuters in February for describing them as killers-for-hire.
Reuters showed a number of Iranian girls training in martial arts in a city near Tehran, claiming Iran was training more than 3,000 female ninjas to kill any possible foreign invaders. The distorted Reuters report was picked up by other British media outlets.
The news agency also accused the Iranian government of training assassins.
The martial artists filed a lawsuit against Reuters shortly after the report became viral on the Internet.
The Iranian girls, accused by Reuters of being assassins, say the damage has already been done and they are now taking legal action against the agency for defamation of character.
Following the strong reaction of Iranian media to the report, Reuters made changes to parts of the report after a long delay. It refused to apologize for slander.
Our Man in Caracas: The U.S. Media and Henrique Capriles
By Keane Bhatt | NACLA | June 19th 2012
The presidential candidate of Venezuela's coalition of opposition parties, Henrique Capriles, hosted a rally on June 10 to formally initiate his campaign against President Hugo Chávez. "Hundreds of thousands" of Venezuelans—according to Reuters, the Associated Press, and The Miami Herald—flooded the streets of downtown Caracas to support his candidacy.
The "good looks of the bachelor candidate" helped attract a huge crowd to the event in which Capriles walked or jogged six miles to register with electoral authorities, "burnishing his image of physical fitness," per Reuters's account. He "exuded youthful energy," said the AP, and had won praise for being an "energetic and dedicated leader" as the governor of Miranda State, according to The Miami Herald.
All three news outlets contrasted Capriles's vigor with Chávez's frailty (he is recovering from an undisclosed form of cancer), while conveying Venezuelans' disgruntlement. Even some Chávez supporters "have grown tired of a murder rate that rivals some war zones, sputtering public services such as electricity and periodic shortages of staple goods," asserted Reuters. It was only natural, then, that a marcher was quoted stressing, "It's time for a change."
The AP, for its part, quoted a housewife who would vote for Capriles "because of his reputation as an efficient administrator and out of fear that Chávez will ruin the economy and drive millions of Venezuelans to emigrate if he is re-elected." The AP used the housewife's ominous prediction as the final sentence for its report: "If Chávez emerges as the winner in October, he's going to destroy this country."
Censure for Chávez has so thoroughly permeated Venezuela's body politic, apparently, that even communists oppose him: "Chávez was the great hope for our cause, but we've given up on him because he has turned his back on the people even as he claims to be the voice of the people," The Miami Herald quoted the secretary general of the Bandera Roja (Red Flag) Party as saying.
So it came as no surprise that just one day later, the U.S. press reported that Chávez's own rally to officially inaugurate his presidential campaign attracted a crowd an entire order of magnitude smaller than that of Capriles. The AP's headline, "Chavez rallies thousands launching re-election bid"—a figure also used by NPR and the Los Angeles Times—implied that the number of pro-Chávez participants could have been anywhere between 20 to 500 times smaller than the number present at the previous day's pro-Capriles rally. The AP's Fabiola Sanchez cited a higher estimate of "tens of thousands" in the body of her piece, but even this number (also used by The Miami Herald) amounts to just a fraction of Capriles's "hundreds of thousands" of supporters.
Reuters went further in minimizing Chávez's support. Correspondent Brian Ellsworth provided a sinister explanation for a 66-year-old pro-Chávez retiree's observations, as she danced in the city square during the rally. "Look at this sea of people; look at the happiness," she urged. "For every person that came out yesterday, we've brought out 10, 20, 30 more. And that's going to be reflected in the election." But Ellsworth countered this with circumstantial evidence that the event was little more than a Potemkin spectacle:
Hundreds of buses that ferried his followers to Caracas stood parked in side streets. . . . Critics accuse Chavez allies of using state resources to swell demonstrations and forcing government employees to attend. Opposition leader Leopoldo Lopez said the ruling Socialist Party had ordered ministries to help bring 120,000 people to the march, citing what he called an internal party document.
Reuters provided no follow-up on the veracity of the unnamed critics' accusations, nor did it verify the existence of the internal party document that Leopoldo López cited. This lapse in journalistic ethics is even more remarkable considering that in relying upon López's hearsay for the final word on Chávez's mobilization, Reuters displayed exactly the same flaw as Fox News' coverage of Venezuela in 2005. (López, as I will mention in further detail below, is a long-time collaborator of Capriles, and played a crucial role in the short-lived coup government that overthrew Chávez in 2002.)
Ellsworth's article also failed to include any estimate of the number of participants at Chávez's rally, despite a widely–distributed Spanish-language dispatch by Reuters itself, which stated in its first paragraph that Chávez was "accompanied by hundreds of thousands of sympathizers." Although the Spanish news website Público.es and Britain's The Guardian corroborated this estimate, no major U.S.-based news source used it to describe the number of participants in Chávez's rally.
Far more troubling than partial reporting on the popularity of the two candidates is the U.S. media's superficial portrayalof Capriles as simply a "a polite, non-confrontational politician," above the fray of Chávez's insults and negativity. "I want to be everybody's president, not the president of a single group," the AP quoted Capriles as saying. "I am not anybody's enemy," he continued. "I'm the enemy of problems."
At times, Capriles deviates from this persona, as when he referred to poll numbers—many of which consistently show Chávez leading by double-digit margins—as the work of "immoral mafiosos," according to Reuters. More importantly, his political record betrays far-right tendencies that contradict his inclusive, conciliatory image. As the BBC notes, Capriles "was involved with a group of other young politicians in setting up in 2000 a new opposition party Primero Justicia." In the lead-up to the 2002 coup d'etat against Chávez, which killed dozens, Primero Justicia indirectly received hundreds of thousands of dollars and training from a foreign government—in this case, the United States, through the National Endowment for Democracy, an agency largely financed by Congress. Leopoldo López and Leopoldo Martinez, two of Primero Justicia's other top leaders, went on to play key roles in the 2002 coup government of Venezuelan business magnate Pedro Carmona. López—who Reuters deemed fit to comment on the supposedly authoritarian nature of last week's pro-Chávez rally—himself signed on to Carmona's 2002 decree to abolish the General Assembly, the Supreme Court, and the Constitution.
During this U.S.-backed two-day coup, hundreds of anti-Chávez demonstrators destroyed cars outside the Cuban embassy in the Caracas municipality of Baruta. They also cut off water and electricity to the building. Capriles, then the mayor of Baruta, was filmed approaching the Cuban ambassador and reportedly asking for proof that there were no Chávez administration officials who had sought refuge inside the embassy. The Cuban embassy later released a statement condemning Capriles's behavior: "The immediate responsibility of Mr. Capriles Radonsky and other Venezuelan state authorities was demonstrated when they failed to act diligently in order to prevent an increase in the aggression to which our embassy was subjected, causing serious damage and endangering the lives of officials and their families in clear violation of national and international law."
It is in this light that Chávez's public broadsides against Capriles become more understandable. The Miami Herald quoted Chávez at his June 11 rally as saying, "We have made the vital strategic decision that every time there's aggression from the imperialists and the bourgeoisie . . . we will respond by deepening the socialist revolution." But the Herald leaves out any background information about the 2002 coup d'etat, in which the military reportedly threatened to bomb the presidential palace. Only within this context does the Herald's quotation of Chávez make sense: "'Their plan is the imperialist project from Washington,' he said. 'They are the puppets of imperialism…and now they hope to trick the people to take back the Miraflores [presidential palace]. But they'll never get it back.'"
The truly remarkable aspect about Capriles's candidacy is that more than a decade of aggressive poverty reduction and social spending has created a political climate that has forced an otherwise reactionary opposition to fully endorse Chávez's social programs in order to be viable with the Venezuelan public. Ten years after the Cuban embassy fiasco, Capriles says he would be "mad" to end Chávez's Barrio Adentro program, which dispatches Cuban doctors to poor neighborhoods in Venezuela to provide residents with free healthcare. Capriles reassured Venezuelans by saying "the missions belong to the people," and on a separate occasion announced, "I want to expand them." In a fairly stunning transformation, the opposition—rather than plotting coups and carrying out debilitating oil strikes—has rallied around Capriles, who has publicly modeled his platform after that of former Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, who the AP said "financ[ed] expansive social programs . . . that made him popular among the poor."
As all of the press coverage duly notes, Capriles has an uphill battle, and the poll numbers are not in his favor. It's hard not to see why. As journalist Stephanie Kennedy notes in the Huffington Post, Venezuela was ranked the "happiest" country in South America by Columbia University, which she attributes, in large part, to serious improvements in Venezuelans' material conditions under the Chávez administration:
The country currently boasts the highest minimum wage in Latin America and its latest bill for workers rights hails in a new era of legal protection and social security to a large part of the population who had up until recently been labouring within informal and vulnerable frameworks. Domestic workers, voluntary full time carers of family relatives and housekeepers now too have rights and a state pension, whilst peasants, fisherman and others practicing the more traditional trades, who have always been omitted from formal registers, will now enjoy the same rights as their urban peers. There are local clinics where people had never seen a doctor before, new brick-layered houses for people who had been living in cardboard slums, and subsidized food products and medicines.
A leader seeking reelection with a track record of spearheading the policies listed above can surely afford some bravado on the campaign trail.
Related articles
- Henrique Capriles, Chavez Challenger, Leads Massive March In Venezuela (huffingtonpost.com)
- With song and dance, Venezuela's Chávez launches reelection bid (miamiherald.com)


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- Report: #398610
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Complaint Review: Maria V. Marcotte Maria V. Afonina AIG Problems
Maria V. Marcotte Maria V. Afonina AIG Problemsaig.com Internet U.S.A.
Maria V. Marcotte Maria V. Afonina AIG Problems With Claims Claims department did not do their job, terrible customer service NYC Internet
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AIG was very difficult to deal with. I had gone to several doctors and I needed to stay in the hospital in a foreign country where AIG waited copies of fax, phone numbers, receipts, emails where I had no transportation or car or even money but was in a hospital bed.
I sat in a hospital for a month and staying there for 2 months almost, with no money or insurance to rely on. It was aweful after I paid AIG money for insurance needs, they didn't make it easy for me at all.
After 6 months, I finally got my money back but the process to go through AIG claims was not worth it at all. Please don't think about AIG insurance, it was not easy to work with them, especially when you have no computer, phone, fax, email access, they treat you like you have to have all them to communicate with them. There are many companies out there that are much better than AIG, so shop and research these insurance companies when you need health insurance.
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|Small pumpkins
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text:
How long have you been playing roller derby?
I have been playing roller derby on and off since 2011.
What is your favorite thing about roller derby?
I love the fact that I get so focused on the game, I forget I'm actually getting a workout.
What position do you primarily play? Tell us about your blocking style. Do you have any particular strategies?
I play whatever positions the team needs me to play; I jam and block and play pivot. I got my first derby name (Spider Monkey) based on my skating style, I look like a spider monkey when I skate. I bounce around and move a lot.
What other sports have you played and how have they helped you with roller derby?
Roller derby was my first team sport. I currently do a little bit of Bujinkan (martial arts) along with derby.
How did you get into Derby?
I was running the track really late at night, and met a derby player (Flash). We asked each other why we were running, and she said she wanted to get more endurance for roller derby. I asked her about derby, since I was thinking about playing ice hockey and had never heard of derby. I came out to a practice and the rest is history.
What is your favorite thing to practice? What is your least favorite thing to practice?
My favorite thing to practice is scrimmaging! I don't really have a least favorite, but my toes do not enjoy excessive toe stop drills.
Who is your biggest hero on the track? Who is your biggest hero off the track?
My roller derby hero is Kyle Stark (St. Louis Gatekeepers), he was a great coach and helped me a lot when I started derby. His strategy and resourcefulness make him dangerous on the track.
My non derby hero is Linus Torvalds, after I compiled my first kernel I gained a new found respect for anyone who can do that and release it for free.
How do you stay motivated?
I binge watch seasons of Dragonball and Dragonball Z.
What is one thing that you wish you knew when you were just starting out in derby?
I wish I would have known more about strength training and nutrition. When I was first starting out protein and recovery shakes would have been great to have.


text:
In order to operate machines in Burton, Cassat, Evans, Goodhue, James, Musser, Myers, Nourse, Parish, Severance, and Watson halls you need a OneCard funded with Schillers.
Wash price: $1.25 per load
Dryer price: $1.00 for 45 minutes
If you experience failure of laundry equipment, please submit a Laundry Repair & Refund Form. For prompt service, please include the machine number and nature of the problem.
Tips for Using Washers and Dryers
- Don't overload the machines: leave 5 inches between the top of your clothes and the top of the basket.
- Pile clothes loosely and make sure nothing is caught in the door when it closes.
- Use only detergent labeled "hE" (liquid is preferred) and use no more than 2 tablespoons. Too much detergent will produce soapy residue on clothes at the end of the wash cycle. It will also adversely affect the next wash cycle on that machine. hE pods are a convenient way to dispense detergent, as 1 pod = 1 load. Please do not use powdered detergents!
- Clean the dryer lint filter before and after each load.
LAUNDRY FAQs
Why do my clothes still have soap on them after the wash cycle has completed?
- You most likely used too much detergent. You only need 2 tablespoons of liquid "hE" detergent (check the label).
Why should I use pods to dispense detergent in the washers?
- Pods are pre-measured for hE washers, so there is no chance of oversudsing. When using pods, do not put them in the soap dispenser drawer. Instead, toss one pod per load inside the tub with your dirty clothes.
When the washer display says "E=do" or "E=dL" what does that mean?
- E=do means the machine door isn't closed; E=dL indicates a problem with the door lock.
What do I do if the card reader is unresponsive or the machine doesn't start?
- Report the machine location and number using the laundry form (below).
Problem with Laundry Equipment?
- Please complete this form if you have lost money due to the equipment failure of a washer or dryer. Refunds will be credited to your OneCard on the next business day.
Take a selfie and (maybe) win $500!
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Graphic Art
posted at 07:40 pm
on Wednesday, October 06th, 2010
Graphic Art
posted at 07:40 pm
on Wednesday, October 06th, 2010
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It's a warm day in august on the Montreal set of X-Men: Days of Future Past, but Hugh Jackman and Michael Fassbender are having a chilly moment. Wolverine (Jackman) has traveled from the near future — where he hates Magneto — back to 1973, where, it turns out, he also hates him. At the moment, the mutants are talking smack aboard a private plane bound for Paris. "So you were always an a–hole," says Jackman. To which Fassbender as the younger Magneto responds, "I take it we're not friends in the future?"
The collision of two eras is at the heart of the latest X-Men installment, due in theaters May 23, 2014. Days of Future Past was inspired by the 1981 Chris Claremont — John Byrne comic-book story line of the same name. It's an ambitious, $200 million-plus saga that combines the cast of the original X-Men trilogy (Jackman, Patrick Stewart, Ian McKellen, Halle Berry, Anna Paquin) with that of 2011's hit prequel First Class (Fassbender, James McAvoy, Jennifer Lawrence, Nicholas Hoult). It also returns Bryan Singer to the director's chair after launching the series with 2000's X-Men and 2003's X2. "I love the franchise," says Singer. "I have very strong feelings about ways to explore it. So a chance to work with the new cast as a director and then to reunite with old friends like Hugh, Patrick, and Ian was a thrill for me."
And why exactly are the decades colliding? It seems that the near-future Professor X (Stewart) and Magneto (McKellen) must send Wolverine back to the 1970s to alter a course of events involving Mystique (Lawrence) and mutant-hunting robots called Sentinels, created by industrialist Bolivar Trask (Game of Thrones star Peter Dinklage).
While First Class focused more on Magneto's origins, Days of Future Past turns the spotlight on McAvoy's troubled telepath, Charles Xavier. "Wolverine basically plays the Charles Xavier role in this movie and I kind of play the Wolverine role," says McAvoy. "I'm really f—ing grumpy and I'm also struggling to figure out who I am." And the character's evolution will have more than its share of tragedy before the final credits. Says Singer: "It's a darker movie. It's a story of enormous loss and a sense of hopelessness and a desire to change events, change the future. And things go wrong."
Mutant Men
Adding to a stressful mission, Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) must reunite an estranged Erik Lehnsherr (Michael Fassbender) and Charles Xavier (James McAvoy). "He's on a ticking clock," says Jackman. "He is the last person on the planet who should be sent. Patience is not his strongest suit."
Beastly Attack
Hank McCoy, a.k.a. Beast (Nicholas Hoult), tackles Erik (Fassbender) in an outdoor fountain out of loyalty to Erik's rival Charles. "There's bad blood because of everything Erik's done to Charles," explains Hoult. "Obviously Hank is on Charles' side completely."
X's Hover Chair
The original Magneto (Ian McKellen) and Professor X (Patrick Stewart) descend from the X-Jet during a sequence set in the near future. "Xavier's chair is a hover chair," says director Bryan Singer. "That's something I wanted to do from the comic that I hadn't seen yet."
New Mutant Foe
Peter Dinklage's Bolivar Trask, on a visit to the Oval Office, isn't your typical mutant-hating villain. "He's actually kind of a peace lover," says Singer. "He sees the advent of mutants as a way to unite people. There's this moment where he basically explains when modern men came along, it meant extinction for the Neanderthal; now humans are the Neanderthal, so this fight is for our survival as a species."
Feeling Blue
Jennifer Lawrence's shape-shifter Mystique is more grown-up (and badass) in Days of Future Past. "It's 10 years after X-Men: First Class," Singer explains. "She's moving closer and closer to becoming the Mystique we know from X-Men and X2."
Magnetic Charge
Freed by Wolverine and Charles after being imprisoned, Fassbender's Erik reclaims his familiar Magneto helmet. "In First Class, we learn how [Erik and Charles] became frenemies," explains Singer. "In this, we learn how they became Magneto and Professor X."


text:
Definition of cote-hardie in English:
noun (plural cote-hardies)historical
A medieval close-fitting tunic with sleeves, worn by both sexes.
Example sentences
- It is a band sewn around the elbow of the cote-hardie sleeve with the end hanging as a streamer.
- These men are most likely wearing chemises as the first layer between the cote or cote-hardie and the skin.
- There are many more terms, but usually they relate to eras pre 1750 and include medieval terms for coats such as cote-hardie or ancient terms such as chlamys.
Middle English: from Old French, from cote 'coat' + hardie (feminine) 'bold'.
For editors and proofreaders
Line breaks: cote-hardie
Definition of cote-hardie in:
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Chainsaws, six-pronged spears and a whole lot of patience at -14C: How daredevil fishermen risk their lives catching prized 100lb sturgeon under frozen Wisconsin lake
Daring fishermen risked their lives driving over a frozen lake in a bid to catch these prized sturgeon that weigh up to 100lbs.
The brave anglers are currently creeping over Lake Winnebago, in Wisconsin, United States, during the 16-day spearing season.
They use a chainsaw to skillfully cut through the 18-inch thick ice, in such a way the sunlight illuminates the water below the hole.
Scroll down for video
Gotcha! These brave fishermen risk life and limb driving over a frozen lake in a bid to catch prized sturgeon that can weigh up to 100lbs
Whopper: Each fish can weigh up to 100lbs and be more than 40 years old. Fisherman may only catch specimens measuring more than 3ft long
It then takes the strength of three men to push the cut-out chunk of ice under the surface and out of the way, in temperatures as low as -14C.
The heavily regulated sport - which often proves fatal - sees just a limited number of licences issued each year.
There is then a rush from the second weekend in February to catch the sturgeon before the pre-determined quota or 16 days are up.
Each fish can weigh up to 100lbs, and be more than 40 years old. Fisherman may only catch fish measuring more than 3ft long.
Photographer Ivo Berg, 24, travelled to the lake, near Appleton, Wisconsin, to document the hunting, with a group he met once he arrived.
Hole lot of trouble: The fishermen use a special chainsaw to skillfully cut through the 18-inch thick ice
Laborious: After the hole is cut, it takes the strength of three men to push the chunk of ice under the surface and out of the way
He said: 'Sturgeon spearing is a unique sport that is only allowed on very few lakes in Wisconsin and Michigan.
'If you have a licence, you can put your hole wherever you want. Some spots might be better than others, but its a matter of belief and taste.
'The guys I was with simply chose a spot close to the harbour, so they did not have to drive too far out onto the lake.
'Driving on the ice can be a dangerous game, and every year people will break into it and die.'
The team mark and cut out a hole to strict regulation size, and then cover it with a shack to alert others to the hazard and improve visibility in the water.
Setting up camp: A shack is pushed over the hole that has been cut into the ice to give the fishermen a base to work from
Ready and waiting: The shack contains a decoy to attract the fish, spears, a heater, stools, beer, and, once people are inside, patience
The shack contains a decoy, spears, a heater, stools, beer, and - once people are inside - 'patience'.
Each spear is a long, wooden pole, with a detachable head that comes off when a sturgeon is hit.
Line attached to the head is then used to play and catch the fish.
Ivo, from Berlin, Germany, added: 'The decoy is put into the water in order to attract sturgeons and help guage the size of the fish.
'You then have to wait, and finally decide about the size of the sturgeon before spearing.
'Only a decoy is allowed for attracting the fish - no bait, light, or other attractors can be used.
'Sturgeons often pass very low, on the bottom of the lake.
'As the water is very cloudy this year, we could only see something in about 6ft or 7ft depth, while the lake was about 12ft deep at our position.'
Deadly: Each spear is a long pole, with a detachable six-pronged head that comes off when a sturgeon is hit. The line is then used to play and catch the fish
Bait: The decoy used to entice the fish into the area where the fishermen have cut the hole
The season always starts on the second weekend of February and lasts up to 16 days. It can end earlier, if a quota limited is hit.
If 90 per cent of the quota are hit, the next day will be the last day of the season.
Every registered spearer is only allowed to take one sturgeon, and can be fined if it measures less than 36 inches.
Every fish caught must be registered at a fish registration office, including the one Ivo photographed, which weighed 62lbs.
Ivo, who was on his fishing trip, said: 'When the spear hits the fish, the top part of the spear comes off and you can pull the fish up by pulling the line.
'As soon as it is up high enough, you use a huge hook to grab him and drag him out of the water. Usually people will take the fish home and eat it.'
VIDEO The annual sturgeon spearing is part of the cultural calendar
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- Report: #815569
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Complaint Review: Diamonds International
Diamonds InternationalInternet United States of America
Diamonds International Fake Apprasal. Bought a piece of jewlery which they said wwas worth 860. It is only worth a few hundred! New York City, Internet
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This report was posted on Ripoff Report on 12/29/2011 05:38 PM and is a permanent record located here: http://www.ripoffreport.com/r/Diamonds-International/internet/Diamonds-International-Fake-Apprasal-Bought-a-piece-of-jewlery-which-they-said-wwas-wor-815569. The posting time indicated is Arizona local time. Arizona does not observe daylight savings so the post time may be Mountain or Pacific depending on the time of year.
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News Article
SJU Confers Honorary Degree on World Interfaith Leader
His Eminence Walter Cardinal Kasper, president emeritus of the Pontifical Commission for Religious Relations with the Jews, received the degree of Honorary Doctor of Sacred Theology (honoris causa) from Saint Joseph's University, in the Vatican, on Jan. 11, 2011.
SJU, Bureau of Labor Statistics Launch Pilot Partnership
A thriving internship program offered through the University's economics department has led to a pilot program with the United States Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). SJU sends two students per year for internships at the BLS, and beginning this semester, SJU will expand that partnership to host a series of meet and greets and lectures aimed at bringing students and economists together.
Sacred Sounds: World Premiere of Parciak's "Mass in F Minor"
May 5, 2014, was a red-letter day in the life of music major Keara Parciak '14. That evening, she had the unique opportunity to attend the world premiere performance of her "Mass in F Minor" in the Chapel of St. Joseph – Michael J. Smith, S.J., Memorial, in three different capacities: as the composer; as a featured vocal soloist; and for one movement, as the conductor.
Chinese High School Students Experience University Life
On Monday, July 14, a group of Chinese high school students and their teachers arrived on the Saint Joseph's University campus for an immersion into life in Philadelphia. The Summer Academy, a week-long camp and pilot program, was designed by Juan Julie Yu, Ph.D., director of Chinese programs, with the help of Cary Anderson, Ed.D., vice president for student life and associate provost, and David Carpenter, Ph.D., director of the Asian Studies Program.
Philosopher T. Michael McNulty, S.J., Named MacLean Chair for 2014-15
The College of Arts and Sciences has invited T. Michael McNulty, S.J., to serve as the Donald I. MacLean, S.J., Chair for the 2014-15 academic year in the Department of Philosophy. An associate professor emeritus of philosophy at Marquette University in Milwaukee, Wis., Fr.
University Adds New Academic Programs
Saint Joseph's University has added nine new majors and minors. The College of Arts and Sciences will now offer major programs in biology and secondary education (double major), information technology, linguistics, and secondary education, as well as minors in creative writing, educational studies, and justice and ethics in the law. The Haub School of Business has added a major in entertainment marketing and a minor in pharmaceutical and healthcare marketing (for non-business students).
Morris Grants Support Faculty Research
Ten faculty members will advance their research and scholarly endeavors this academic year courtesy of the Michael J. Morris '56 Grants for Scholarly Research. Disciplines represented include the sciences, business and the humanities.
First-Year Students Experience Service and the City with PSIP
SJU's Philadelphia Service Immersion Program brought 132 first-year students to campus four days earlier than their classmates for a service immersion and introduction to Philadelphia.
'Science on the Hill' Encourages Neighborhood Conversations on Topical Science
PHILADELPHIA (August 16, 2014) — Science cafés bring scientific knowledge out of research labs and lecture halls and into neighborhood venues. The American Society for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology (ASBMB) recently awarded a three-year, $6,000 grant to fund "Science on the Hill," Saint Joseph's version of the brainy but breezy community gathering.
Philadelphia Welcomes Cameroon Delegation for SJU Study Tour
A delegation from Cameroon will arrive in Philadelphia Sunday, July 13. They will come from halfway around the world to participate in an executive education study tour sponsored by Saint Joseph's University.