News from Holland (in English) about Iran, Electronic Voting Machines >>>

[helderheid]

http://deepjournal.com/

This is a great resource. Holland's news is rated #3 in the world for fair reporting.

[helderheid]

1. Lou Dobbs (CNN): Voting machines put U.S. democracy at risk

Lou Dobbs (CNN): Voting machines put U.S. democracy at risk
Electronic voting in USA and Netherlands this November

Commentary by DeepJournal
DeepJournal has been writing about this issue for years. Electronic voting without a paper trail is a danger to our democracies. Read this overview article by DeepJournal (still maily in Dutch, translation is underway).
Attention in Holland for this important subject is growing. See also this recent television item by Tros Radar.

http://deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/124.html

[helderheid]

2. The coming war against Iran - Part 12

The coming war against Iran part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12

The previous coverage in this series on the preparations being made for war by American, Israeli and Kurdish troops on Iranian territory is now being followed by new information indicating that various units of the Navy must achieve a state of readiness by October 1st, and that the planning as it relates to Iran has been forwarded from the Pentagon to the White House. Sam Gardiner: 'I think the plan's been picked: bomb the nuclear sites in Iran'.

The Dutch in the original article has been translated into English by Ben Kearney
Several Navy units have been ordered to be ready for departure in the direction of Iran: 'The Nation has learned that the Bush Administration and the Pentagon have moved up the deployment of a major "strike group" of ships, including the nuclear aircraft carrier Eisenhower as well as a cruiser, destroyer, frigate, submarine escort and supply ship, to head for the Persian Gulf, just off Iran's western coast.' Time Magazine reports: '<...> a submarine, an Aegis-class cruiser, two minesweepers and two mine hunters <...> said to be ready to move by Oct. 1. <...> Coupled with the CNO's request for a blockade review , a deployment o fminesweepers to the west coast of Iran would seem to suggest that amuch discussed--but until now largely theoretical--prospect has become real: that the U.S. may be preparing for war with Iran.'

More >>
http://deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/115.html

[helderheid]

3. Voting results possibly manipulated - Scientific analysis of the elections

Voting results possibly manipulated
Scientific analysis of the elections in the U.S.A.

This article has been translated from Dutch by Tim Pastoor.

Scientific analysis shows a statistically unexplainable large gap between the results of the American presidential elections and the exit polls. 'Scientific Analysis Suggests Presidential Vote Counts May Have Been Altered', concludes US Counts Votes in reference to the report (PDF) 'Analysis of the 2004 Presidential Election Poll Discrepancies'. The report was written by the National Election Data Archive Project, consisting of a large number of competent professors.

Exit polls are usually known for their accuracy and are therefore also used to indicate the value of the results. Exit polls have been used to verify the integrity of elections in the Ukraine, in Latin America, in Germany and elsewhere. Yet in November 2004, the U.S. exit poll discrepancy was much more than normal exit poll error (and similar to that of the invalid election). In the U.S. the difference amounted to between 5.5% and 6.5%. 'Either something was wrong with the exit polling, or something was wrong with the vote count'. Conducting exit polls is a near-science, but voting is definitely not: there were more than 28,000 problems that were made note of in the last American elections. Besides that there were another 400,000 reports made on a phone line.

Impossible voting discrepancies always end up good for Bush
In February magazine Vanity Fair talked to an anonymous insider from a voting machine manufacturer: 'I asked her, finally, what would be the logical grounds for deducing that any tampering had in fact occurred.' Well, I understand from what I have read," she said, 'that the early exit polls on the day were believed by both parties.' That, I was able to tell her from direct experience, was indeed true. But it wasn't quite enough, either. So I asked, "What if all the anomalies and malfunctions, to give them a neutral name, were distributed along one axis of consistency: in other words, that they kept on disadvantaging only one candidate?" My question was hypothetical, as she had made no particular study of Ohio, but she replied at once: "Then that would be quite serious."'

More >>

http://deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/65.html

[rman]

4. Interesting; bi-lingual 'alternative' international news

Here's hoping it will become multi-lingual.

[helderheid]

5. I followed his first online journal for years but it was Dutch only

I am so glad they are translating into English now since so much of the information pertains to us and isn't being shown in our media. I invite all DUers to write Daan and thank him at [e-mail]

[helderheid]

6. U.S. torture practices on the increase - U.S. alienates itself more and mo

U.S. torture practices on the increase
U.S. alienates itself more and more from the rest of the world

The CIA is now also using Schiphol Airport (Amsterdam, The Netherlands) as a transit point to or from the 'black sites', situated in countries such as Egypt, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Pakistan and Syria, but possibly countries in Europe as well. Following the lead of human rights organizations, veterans of the CIA are speaking out against torture, the American Senate is preparing legislation against torture (which the White House is opposing), and European Commissioner Frattini is threatening EU member states that have offered clandestine cover for CIA prisons with the temporary loss of their voting rights in the European Union. Europe has put up with a lot from the United States, but is now outraged. Just exactly what is going on, and how has it managed to get this far?

It was only a question of time; an airplane under contract to the CIA, ferrying people to countries where they will face torture, has landed in The Netherlands. A CIA torture plane was discovered on Thursday of last week at Schiphol. DeepJournal reported previously on Sweden, where Muhammed Al-Zery was kidnapped by masked CIA agents with the help of the Swedish special police and then taken away by private jet, eventually ending up in Egypt where he was tortured through electrocution. The CIA has kidnapped people from other Western countries as well. Besides The Netherlands and Sweden, around 300 torture flights have been revealed in for instance Iceland, Spain and Germany. These countries are now taking action against these flights. It has even gotten to the point that the BushBlairBalkenende administration has become internally divided: Jack Straw, England's Foreign Secretary, has written Washington requesting an explanation, and The Netherlands, via Foreign Affairs Minister Bot, is threatening that it can have 'consequences' for the extension of Dutch participation in missions in Afghanistan.

Torture practices find their roots in the White House
American torture flights have attracted interest of late because of rumors that the U.S. is maintaining a network of secret torture prisons scattered throughout Europe, a network that was created in response to September 11th. As of yet the U.S. has made no comment on what The New Statesman is calling 'America's gulag', but has now promised to respond. The Council of Europe is going to investigate the information behind the rumors, which started at the beginning of last month after an article appeared in the Washington Post on these 'black sites' and after a statement was issued by Human Rights Watch. 'The secret detention system was conceived in the chaotic and anxious first months after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, when the working assumption was that a second strike was imminent', reported the Washington Post. The news in that article preceded the news that U.S. Vice-President Dick Cheney now wants an exception made for the CIA within the proposed legislation against terrorism, already supported by ninety members of the Senate (nine were against). Colin Powell's former chief of staff said that Cheney 'provided the "philosophical guidance" and "flexibility" that led to the torture of detainees in U.S. facilities'. Former CIA director Stansfield Turner called Cheney the 'Vice President for Torture'.

Much more here
http://deepjournal.com/p/7/a/en/18.html