NEWS AND VIEWS

Archive 24 October 2003 - 23 February 2004

Items I find interesting or important - not directly connected with my business. Recent items are on the main NEWS AND VIEWS page, other older items are listed at the FULL NEWS ARCHIVE INDEX. Index shows date of posting on this website.

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INDEX -  OTHER NEWS WEBSITES - ZNN ALTERNATIVE NEWS

INDEX 2004

ADULT EDUCATION COURSES Talking Politics  September 29, 2011, 10 a.m. - 12 noon for 10 weeks, St. Matthew's Rooms, Carver St. S1 4FT. Ongoing discussion-based group open to newcomers.

23 February CORRUPTION IN THE "FREE MARKET"

22 February MAKING SENSE OF THE KOREAN CRISIS

19 February 2004 US DOUBLE GAME IN HAITI

11 February GREEN MEPs PROTEST COLOMBIAN LEADER'S EU VISIT

21 January SOYA: IS IT HEALTHY OR HARMFUL?

16 January AMERICA'S WAR FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION

11 January WHY BRITAIN IS GOING TO WAR

OTHER NEWS WEBSITES; Common Dreams "News and views for the progressive community" - US based. Complementary Healthcare Information Service (CHIS-UK) Friends Of The Earth UK (Press releases) From The Wilderness Mike Ruppert's excellent site. What's wrong with official story on Sept. 11 2001, US plans for war in Colombia, CIA, USA politicians and the drugs trade, peak oil....No longer updates, but archives are still online. Mirror site was at http://www.copvcia.com Globalinfo.org "Daily news service of the developing world" - news on site, also offers free news feed to your website. Indymedia UK  "network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues". Some good impartial comment, and some total pillocks. ZNet "A community for people committed to social change". Includes articles by Noam Chomsky, John Pilger, Robert Fisk and many more.

INDEX 2003

30 November FRAGMENTS OF THE FUTURE: THE FTAA (FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS) IN MIAMI

30 November DEATH BY MEDICINE

22 November THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION: WHY AMERICANS WILL BELIEVE ALMOST ANYTHING

22 November CHINA'S RISING GRAIN PRICES COULD SIGNAL GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

21 November TUNISIAN CYBER-DISSIDENT ZOUHAIR YAHYAOUI FREED AFTER 18 MONTHS IN JAIL

21 November ON THE DRAFT GENEVA ACCORD

18 November  EURO-MP CALLS FOR REGIONAL BAN ON TETRA MASTS

14 November THE DIGITAL IMPRIMATUR - HOW BIG BROTHER AND BIG MEDIA CAN PUT THE INTERNET GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE.

6 November WHISTLEBLOWER KICKED OFF COUNCIL

31 October MEP URGES BENN TO ADOPT 'ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY'

24 October THE U.S. TOP 25 CENSORED MEDIA STORIES OF 2002-2003 

24 October EURO-MP JOINS PROTEST OVER IRAQ 'CARVE-UP'

 

23 February CORRUPTION IN THE "FREE MARKET"

"Newsweek recently ran an article on money laundering in Latin America. It identified Nicaragua's ex-President Arnoldo Aleman as one of a super-corrupt elite along with Mexico's Carlos Salinas and Guatemala's Alfonso Portillo. Portillo recently high-tailed it to Mexico. Aleman is in gaol. But, these individuals barely reach the ankles of their United States and European counterparts. Corruption has a history, context and consequences the self-censoring corporate media seldom connect".

Business and political corruption in the USA, Europe and elsewhere, the destruction of Nicaragua's education system in the name of "economic reforms" imposed by the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, George Bush, etc.

Full article by Toni Solo entitled "Poor People Can't Be Engineers" at ZNet.

22 February MAKING SENSE OF THE KOREAN CRISIS

An Interview with Gavan McCormack. Long, sober analysis. Full article at ZNet.

"No other country faces such a raft of unresolved problems from history. North Korea is a fossilized encapsulation of the 20th century: the legacies of colonialism, imperialist interventions, externally imposed division of the country, and incorporation in the Cold War, all remain unresolved. Economic failures, especially the inability of the regime to feed the people, have gradually sapped the regime's credibility. A steady flow of refugees crosses the river frontier into China, and even some key figures close to the leadership have fled. Nothing so serves to justify and sustain the continued harsh regimen of dictatorship as the confrontation with huge, hostile, external adversaries."

"While in Washington the North Korean "nuclear threat" has been an issue for the past decade, Pyongyang has faced the US nuclear threat for the past half century. North Korea has lived under it for longer than any other nation. During the Korean War it escaped nuclear annihilation by the barest of margins. General MacArthur, his successor as Commander-in-Chief, General Ridgway, presidents Truman and Eisenhower, and the Joint Chiefs, all at one or other stage favored or recommended using nuclear weapons against North Korea. Britain and other allies opposed its use, but in the end it was only fear of Soviet retaliation, and following the death of Stalin the rapid progress in negotiations, that prevented it. Then, just four years after the Armistice and in obvious breach of it, the US introduced nuclear artillery shells, mines, and missiles into Korea, keeping them there, adjacent to the Demilitarized Zone, designed to intimidate the non-nuclear North, for 35 years till they were finally withdrawn at the insistence of the South Korean government. Even withdrawal did little to diminish the threat as perceived by Pyongyang since the rehearsals for a long-range nuclear strike on North Korea continued. Under the "Agreed Framework," however, Clinton finally lifted the threat, pledging no first-use of nuclear weapons against a non-nuclear state. That reprieve was in turn revoked under Bush and North Korea was specifically included on the "Nuclear Target List."

19 February 2004 US DOUBLE GAME IN HAITI

Long article by Tom Reeves at ZNet. "Even as Colin Powell insists the U.S. does NOT seek "regime change," the attempt to oust the legitimate elected government of Jean Bertrand Aristide grows more violent by the day. During the past week, at least 50 people have been slaughtered, and probably far more, in Gonaives, Haiti's fourth-largest city - most by those whom Powell and pro-U.S. media call "rebels." The dead include three patients waiting for treatment in a hospital. Many of the 14 police killed had their bodies dragged naked through the street, ears cut off and other body parts mutilated. Gonaives and several small towns remain in the hands of a brutal gang of thugs, with direct ties to the U.S.-recognized and Republican-financed "opposition" - the Convergence and the Group of 184, whose spokesmen are sweat shop owners and former military officers. This "opposition" seeks to distance itself from the violence, yet continue to insist that the "uprising" is justified". Familiar story from elsewhere..

11 February 2004  GREEN MEPs PROTEST COLOMBIAN LEADER'S EU VISIT

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe received a rough ride during a visit to Strasbourg this week when Green Party Euro-MPs Caroline Lucas and Jean Lambert led a protest in the parliament chamber, denouncing the visit as 'insensitive and inappropriate'. Dr Lucas and Mrs Lambert led fellow Green MEPs in donning scarves calling for 'peace and justice' for Colombia, in protest at the Latin American nation's repressive response to ongoing insurgency.

President Uribe has been singled out by human rights organisations as leading one of the world's most repressive regimes. His visit comes on the second anniversary of the kidnapping of Colombian Green presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt.

Dr Lucas said: "The Parliament's invitation to the Colombian President at this time is insensitive and inappropriate - there are too many questions about human rights violations in Colombia and Uribe's response to the ongoing conflict there." Mrs Lambert added: "Year after year, the UN High Commission on Human Rights has described human rights violations in frightening detail and Colombia's present policies are moving the country in the wrong direction."

21 January SOYA: IS IT HEALTHY OR HARMFUL?

Article by Dr. Joseph Mercola with Rachael Droege. Full article at Mercola.com

"In recent years soy has emerged as a ‘near perfect’ food, with supporters claiming it can provide an ideal source of protein, lower cholesterol, protect against cancer and heart disease, reduce menopause symptoms, and prevent osteoporosis, among other things. But how did such a ‘perfect’ food emerge from a product that in 1913 was listed in the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) handbook not as a food but as an industrial product? 

According to lipid specialist and nutritionist Mary Enig, PhD, “The reason there’s so much soy in America is because they ... started to plant soy to extract the oil from it and soy oil became a very large industry......they had a lot of soy protein residue left over, and since they can’t feed it to animals, except in small amounts, they had to find another market.”

And another market was what they found. To put it simply, after multi-million dollar figures spent on advertising and intense lobbying to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), about 74 percent of U.S. consumers now believe soy products are healthy......

.....Perhaps the most disturbing of soy’s ill effects on health has to do with its phytoestrogens that can mimic the effects of the female hormone estrogen. These phytoestrogens have been found to have adverse effects on various human tissues, and drinking even two glasses of soy milk daily for one month has enough of the chemical to alter a woman’s menstrual cycle. The FDA regulates estrogen-containing products, however no warnings exist on soy.

There are some redeeming qualities to soy, however these are found primarily in fermented soy products like tempeh, miso and natto and soybean sprouts. If you want to get some health benefits from soy, stick to these four forms and pass up the processed soy milks, soy ‘burgers’, soy ‘ice cream’, soy ‘cheese’, and the myriad of other soy junk foods that are so readily disguised as health foods."

16 January AMERICA'S WAR FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION

Michel Chossudovsky's public lecture at the Society for the Defense of Civil Rights and Human Dignity (GBM), Berlin, 10-11 December, 2003 and Humboldt University, Berlin, 12 December 2003. 

"The wars on Afghanistan and Iraq are part of a broader military agenda, which was launched at the end of the Cold War. The ongoing war agenda is a continuation of the 1991 Gulf War and the NATO led wars on Yugoslavia (1991-2001).

The post Cold War period has also been marked by numerous US covert intelligence operations within the former Soviet Union, which were instrumental in triggering civil wars in several of the former republics including Chechnya (within the Russian Federation), Georgia and Azerbaijan. In the latter, these covert operations were launched with a view to securing strategic control over oil and gas pipeline corridors.

US military and intelligence operations in the post Cold War era were led in close coordination with the "free market reforms" imposed under IMF guidance in Eastern Europe, the former Soviet Union and the Balkans, which resulted in the destabilization of national economies and the impoverishment of millions of people.

The World Bank sponsored privatization programmes in these countries enabled Western capital to acquire ownership and gain control of a large share of the economy of the former Eastern block countries. This process is also at the basis of the strategic mergers and/or takeovers of the former Soviet oil and gas industry by powerful Western conglomerates, through financial manipulation and corrupt political practices.

In other words, what is at stake in the US led war is the recolonization of a vast region extending from the Balkans into Central Asia."

Full article at Centre for Research on Globalisation.

11 January 2004 WHY BRITAIN IS GOING TO WAR

Well-researched article by John Smith (on separate page on this site) written in March 2003 but still highly relevant, and essential reading for background - UK involvement in Iraq since the 1920's including bombing Kurdish villages, CIA involvement in the coup which overthrew Kassem in the 1960's, how Saddam worked with the CIA at that time, the economic interests involved, the forging of the "special relationship" between the USA and the UK, its support for Iraq after the Iranian revolution of 1979.....Disclaimer; I do not share John's Marxist perspective on some matters of interpretation, but highly recommend this article to anyone who wants to understand the wider process which underlies our government's policy.

You can also download the article in pdf format (opens in Adobe Acrobat).

30 November 2003 FRAGMENTS OF THE FUTURE: THE FTAA (FREE TRADE AREA OF THE AMERICAS) IN MIAMI

"Thursday, November 20, was like a day out of the science fiction movies I grew up on.....Central Miami had been totally shut down. Stores and offices were closed, nothing was being bought or sold, no one was driving, the Metromover elevated rail system was locked up.... The FTAA negotiators from the 34 nations of the western hemisphere were sequestered in the tower of the Intercontinental Hotel, and occasionally I'd see some of the hotel people, tiny on the roof of that skyscraper, watching the turbulence below... Helicopters droned overhead, reportedly using high-tech surveillance equipment to pinpoint activists for arrest or assault by ground forces."

"Later that night people would be pulled out of their cars at gunpoint or stopped on the street for no particular reason -- not just the young but ministers, middle-aged NGO workers, anyone and everyone. And the next day, more than fifty more activists were arrested in a peaceful vigil outside the jail, where many of the previously arrested languished. "They were surrounded by riot police and ordered to disperse," reported organizers. "As they did, police opened fire and blocked the streets preventing many from leaving. We are now receiving reports from people being released or calling from jail that there is excessive brutality, sexual assault and torture going on inside. People of color, queer and transgender prisoners are particularly being targeted." Sunday many of those arrested were released."

More detail plus analysis of the talks and the progress of globalisation and free trade agreements in full article by Rebecca Solnit at TomDispatch.

30 November DEATH BY MEDICINE

A definitive review and close reading of medical peer-review journals, and government health statistics, shows that American medicine frequently causes more harm than good. The number of people having in-hospital, adverse drug reactions (ADR) to prescribed medicine is 2.2 million. Dr. Richard Besser, of the CDC, in 1995, said the number of unnecessary antibiotics prescribed annually for viral infections was 20 million. Dr. Besser, in 2003, now refers to tens of millions of unnecessary antibiotics. The number of unnecessary medical and surgical procedures performed annually is 7.5 million. The number of people exposed to unnecessary hospitalization annually is 8.9 million. The total number of iatrogenic deaths  is 783,936. It is evident that the American medical system is the leading cause of death and injury in the United States. The 2001 heart disease annual death rate is 699,697; the annual cancer death rate, 553,251.5.

Full article at Mercola.com

22 November THE DOORS OF PERCEPTION: WHY AMERICANS WILL BELIEVE ALMOST ANYTHING

Article by Dr. Tim O'Shea at Mercola.com on PR (Public Relations), spin, propaganda - its history in the 20th Century and how corporations have used it to manipulate public opinion, distort science in the name of profit, shape what is printe in the "free press", etc. Although it deals with the US, of course the same happens elsewhere.

22 November CHINA'S RISING GRAIN PRICES COULD SIGNAL GLOBAL FOOD CRISIS

US environmentalist Lester Brown warned that sudden food price hikes in China could be the sign of a coming world food crisis brought on by global warming and increasingly scarce water supplies among major grain producers.

In the past few months, wheat prices in northeast China have shot up 32 percent, maize prices have doubled and rice prices are up by as much as 13 percent. China faces a 40 million ton grain shortfall this year, following five years of smaller harvests. Brown said that the world will be facing a 96 million ton shortfall in grain this year following poor harvests in the United States and India in 2002, and a poor harvest in Europe due to scorching temperatures this year. Shortfalls worldwide have been made up through dwindling grain reserves.

"When China turns to the world market for grain, it will need 30, 40, 50 million tons, more than anyone else in the world imports," Brown said. "They will first come to US markets, which is going to make a fascinating geo-political situation."

With a 100 billion dollar trade surplus with the United States in 2002,China has "enormous purchasing power" to buy US grain, which "could drive up prices by two times." Already an increase in Chinese demand for American soybeans, plus last year's bad soybean harvest, have seen prices jump from five dollars a bushel to eight dollars a bushel.

Full story at From The Wilderness

21 November TUNISIAN CYBER-DISSIDENT ZOUHAIR YAHYAOUI FREED AFTER 18 MONTHS IN JAIL

Tunisian cyber-dissident Zouhair Yahyaoui, founder and editor of the news website TUNeZINE, was conditionally released today after more than 18 months in prison. He had criticised the regime of President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on the Internet. He was jailed on 4 June 2002 and sentenced on 10 July to two years in prison for supposedly spreading false news.

Yahyaoui founded TUNeZINE in July 2001 to disseminate news about pro-democracy activities in Tunisia. He posted on the site articles and cartoons mocking President Ben Ali, along opposition statements. He was the first to publish a letter to the president denouncing the country's court system from Judge Mokhtar Yahyaoui, his uncle. In June 2003, he was the first winner of the new Reporters Without Borders - Globenet Cyber-Freedom Prize.

More at Reporters Without Borders

21 November ON THE DRAFT GENEVA ACCORD

Tim Bray writes; This past week, a copy of this recently-drafted document has been mailed to every Israeli home, and tens of thousands of copies are being distributed by major Palestinian newspapers. It has to me the smell of hope, and so I’ve taken the liberty of doing some code cleanup and publishing it at ongoing....There could be peace in the Middle East; if the leaders there had the moral strength, a deal along these lines could be nailed down and sold to a substantial majority on both sides.

18 November EURO-MP CALLS FOR REGIONAL BAN ON TETRA MASTS

SOUTH-East England's Green Euro-MP Caroline Lucas has called for a region-wide moratorium on building a network of 'TETRA' phone masts until questions over the safety of their radiation emissions have been answered. She has today called on local authorities across the South East to follow the lead of Arun District Council in West Sussex, which has halted the installation of TETRA masts pending further investigation into the health risks.

"Many people are deeply concerned about the health effects of the radiation emitted by TETRA masts," said Dr Lucas. "These fears have been heightened by the fact that users of TETRA handsets have reported suffering migraine, burning sensations, sleeplessness, and a lack of concentration. People's real concerns about the masts supplying these handsets must be allayed before further masts are built, not after another public health scare erupts."

The TETRA (Terrestrial Trunked Radio) system is being rolled out nationwide by O2 to provide a new national police radio network. Trials of the system in North Yorkshire and Lancashire have seen officers reporting a wide range of serious medical side effects after using the handsets, which pulse at a frequency that a 2002 independent investigation into mobile phones and health (The Stewart Inquiry) said should be avoided.

The Home Office has claimed the Stewart report's findings do not apply to TETRA, citing further research by the Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), which linked Stewart's concerns with the movement of calcium between cells in the heart and brain.

Based on DSTL's findings, the Home Office says TETRA has no effect on such calcium movements, but the DSTL research has been widely criticised. Low-level radiation expert Chris Busby believes that the research is flawed. Dr Busby said that the study failed to control variables such as temperature and natural background static fields that could affect the results.

Dr Gerard Hyland, a Warwick university physicist, has pointed out that only the heating effect of radiation from TETRA has been investigated. He has proposed that this radiation pulses at frequencies that may affect the operation of the human body and should be taken into account.

Dr Lucas said: "The trials and the scientists' warnings have concentrated on the handsets rather than the TETRA masts, but they raise serious questions over the safety of the system as a whole.

"Clearly far more investigation is needed before we commit ourselves, and our children, to exposure from these masts by allowing them to be built across the region, especially in residential areas and near schools, hospitals and offices. The precautionary principle places the onus on TETRA's advocates to demonstrate the radiation emitted from the masts is safe before they are built, not after the ill-effects are being felt."

14 November  THE DIGITAL IMPRIMATUR - HOW BIG BROTHER AND BIG MEDIA CAN PUT THE INTERNET GENIE BACK IN THE BOTTLE.

Long article by John Walker about the threats to an open web posed by new technologies, including the "Trusted Computing" model which Microsoft is beginning to implement.

6 November WHISTLEBLOWER KICKED OFF COUNCIL

Suspended for revealing UNLAWFUL state aid decision - and YOUR local councillor could be next

In a ruling that could affect councillors throughout the country, the Standards Board for England has suspended the Green Party councillor who last year revealed Lancaster city council's unlawful state aid to struggling nuclear power company British Energy. Gina Dowding, a cabinet member on Lancaster city council - which is home to Britain's biggest local authority Green Party group - was "shocked" by the severity of the penalty.

The 41-year-old mother-of-two, who gave up a well-paid health service job when she was appointed to her council's cabinet, will now lose all her councillor allowances - an irony in view of the fact that it was her revelation that forced British Energy to reimburse Lancaster city council to the tune of £27,000.

Ms Dowding, the Deputy Leader of North West Green Party who was re-elected as a councillor this year with a massive 60% of the vote after her public-spirited action came to light, commented after her case: "I find it outrageous that the electorate in my ward have effectively been disenfranchised for three months. They've been punished because I revealed the cabinet had made an unlawful decision. This cannot be right."

Gina Dowding was represented at the tribunal today by London barrister Hugo Charlton, chair of the Green Party of England & Wales. Mr Charlton commented this evening: "Gina's case was, ethically, cut and dried. She had revealed an unlawful decision which had been deliberately kept out of public scrutiny."

He pointed out that the 994 Nolan Committee said that "Holders of public office should take decisions solely in terms of the public interest"; "but now," he concluded, "councillors throughout the country will have to think twice before they uphold the public interest by revealing even an illegal decision. This is absurd."

31 October MEP URGES BENN TO ADOPT 'ETHICAL DEVELOPMENT POLICY'

LONDON Euro-MP Jean Lambert has called on new international development secretary Hilary Benn to try to block European and World Bank loans for an oil pipeline that would connect Azerbaijan with the Mediterranean.

"The Baku-Ceyhan pipeline project gives Hilary Benn his first opportunity since taking office to show whether he will serve the interests of big business or adopt an 'ethical development policy'," said Mrs Lambert, Green MEP and Human Rights campaigner.

Mrs Lambert's challenge to Mr Benn was issued as the World Bank delayed its decision on whether to finance the project with #250m of public money following months of pressure from environmental and human rights groups in more than 14 countries. A decision, due on Thursday (October 30th), is now expected some time next week.

The Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline, proposed by a consortium of oil companies led by BP, would enable oil and gas to be exported from Azerbaijan and the central Asian republics overland through Turkey, by-passing the increasingly volatile Middle East region entirely. The consortium hopes to borrow 70 per cent of the pipeline's estimated $3.7 billion cost and has approached the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development as well as the World Bank.

The Turkish Government has already agreed to provide security for the 1,000-mile plus pipeline, despite fears for the safety of Kurdish communities living along the proposed route, who have suffered human rights abuses at the hands of the Turkish military throughout an ongoing struggle for autonomy from Ankara.

"This proposed pipeline will serve to appropriate oil wealth from the people of Azerbaijan for redistribution amongst Western companies and bring little benefit to local people, who will pay a terrible price for the development," said Mrs Lambert. "If the proposals go ahead, thousands living along the pipeline's proposed route can expect continued political repression, environmental destruction and little reward in the way of economic development." 

24 October THE U.S. TOP 25 CENSORED MEDIA STORIES OF 2002-2003

Details at Project Censored 

1: The Neoconservative Plan for Global Dominance
2: Homeland Security Threatens Civil Liberty
3: US Illegally Removes Pages from Iraq U.N. Report
4: Rumsfeld's Plan to Provoke Terrorists
5: The Effort to Make Unions Disappear
6: Closing Access to Information Technology
7: Treaty Busting by the United States
8: US/British Forces Continue Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons Despite Massive Evidence of Negative Health Effects
9: In Afghanistan: Poverty, Women's Rights, and Civil Disruption Worse than Ever
10: Africa Faces Threat of New Colonialism
11: U.S. Implicated in Taliban Massacre
12: Bush Administration Behind Failed Military Coup in Venezuela
13: Corporate Personhood Challenged
14: Unwanted Refugees a Global Problem
15: U.S. Military's War on the Earth
16: Plan Puebla-Panama and the FTAA
17: Clear Channel Monopoly Draws Criticism
18: Charter Forest Proposal Threatens Access to Public Lands
19: U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq
20: Pentagon Increases Private Military Contracts
21: Third World Austerity Policies: Coming Soon to a City Near You
22: Welfare Reform Up For Reauthorization, but Still No Safety Net
23: Argentina Crisis Sparks Cooperative Growth
24: Aid to Israel Fuels Repressive Occupation in Palestine
25: Convicted Corporations Receive Perks Instead of Punishment 

24 October EURO-MP JOINS PROTEST OVER IRAQ 'CARVE-UP'

Event: London MEP joins protest against 'corporate carve-up' of Iraq
Place: 1 Whitehall Place, London
Date/Time: Monday, October 27th, 9.30am

LONDON Green MEP Jean Lambert will be joining protestors outside a government sponsored conference to promote the corporate 'carve-up' of Iraq on Monday. At the 'Rebuilding Iraq' conference, delegates from UK businesses will receive advice from civil-servants on how to overcome obstacles to trading in Iraq, remove currency from the country and 'claim ownership of Iraqi oil'.

"When we hear so much about democracy and corporate social responsibility it is absolutely shocking to see a Government-sponsored event encouraging corporate social irresponsibility in such an undemocratic way. The people of Iraq must have the right to decide for themselves how their shattered country will be 'rebuilt' - and any international business deals must, at the very least, have the sanction of a democratic Iraqi government.

"This conference is about promoting the interests of UK business in the absence of any democratic Iraqi mandate, as evidenced by the staggering fact that delegates will be paying more than £1,000 each just to walk through the conference doors."

The protests will include street theatre, a mock auction of contracts with Iraq, and delegates being offering slices from a giant Iraq-shaped cake.

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