29 May 02007 International Herald Tribune

Boeing unit to face suit in CIA seizures
By Claudio Gatti

NEW YORK

The American Civil Liberties Union plans to file a lawsuit Wednesday alleging that a subsidiary of Boeing aided the Central Intelligence Agency in the forced transportation of three plaintiffs who say they were captured and flown to overseas prisons and in some cases tortured.

The civil suit is to be filed in San Jose, California, under the Alien Tort Claims Act of 1789. This law specifies that U.S. government agencies and U.S. corporations can be held responsible for human rights abuses against foreigners resulting from activities in a foreign country.

The legal action against Jeppesen, a flight-support services unit of Boeing based in San Jose, will represent a fresh attempt to shed light on a practice known as extraordinary rendition, under which the CIA arrested, transported and interrogated terrorist suspects after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

“Evidence points to Jeppesen as a major player in the extraordinary rendition program,” said Steven Watt, staff lawyer for the ACLU.

“European flight logs identifying Jeppesen reveal that over a four-year period, the company was actively involved in the provision of flight and logistical support services to at least 15 aircraft which, European investigations confirm, were used by the CIA in its program of extraordinary rendition.”

Watt added, “The evidence here also points to Jeppesen contracting to profit from torture.”

Jeppesen referred any request for comments to Boeing. Tim Neale, director of communications at Boeing, declined to respond “because to do so would mean commenting on the work Jeppesen does for clients under contracts that call for confidentiality.”

“It seems to me you are asking a question about an issue that involves the U.S. government,” Neale said. “Jeppesen, as with the rest of the Boeing company, operates in accordance with the laws.”

Asked about Jeppesen’s role in the rendition program, Mark Mansfield, CIA director of communications, said, “We don’t comment on such matters.”

Companies like Jeppesen typically provide flight-support services like weather forecasts, flight plans, landing permits, overflight exemptions, refueling, ground handling of the aircraft, catering arrangements, hotel accommodations and payment of airport fees.

An investigation conducted by an Italian business daily, Il Sole 24 Ore, also independently found evidence that two of the three plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit and another individual who was also a victim of an extraordinary rendition were transported aboard a Gulfstream V and a Boeing 737 with the logistical support from Jeppesen.

The four men were Kassim Britel, a Moroccan-born Italian citizen; Khaled el-Masri, a German citizen of Lebanese origin who was mistaken for a terrorist and abducted from Macedonia; an Egyptian who had asked for asylum in Sweden; and an Ethiopian citizen with resident status in Britain.

“Without Jeppesen’s services, the planes would never have been able to make those flights,” said Francesca Longhi, the Italian lawyer for Britel, one of the plaintiffs in the ACLU lawsuit. “If Jeppesen hadn’t serviced the CIA’s Gulfstream V, my client would never have been illegally deported to Morocco, where he has endured months of torture and years of illegal detention that is still going on.”

Longhi said Jeppesen was involved in what many legal experts, the British Foreign Office and a special European Parliament commission consider an illegal act under international law.

Britel was arrested in 2002 in Pakistan, where the authorities claimed that he was traveling on a false Italian passport, according to Longhi. Britel was handed over to about six men, Americans he presumes were CIA operatives, who forced him onto of a Gulfstream V jet, Longhi said.

During the nine-hour flight to Morocco, Longhi said, Britel was kept hooded, with his hands and feet bound. After landing in Rabat, he was taken to a special jail run by local intelligence. Eighteen months later, he was tried and convicted on charges of being a member of a local terrorist cell and for “participating in unauthorized meetings” – although he had not been in Morocco for five years.

Britel, 39, is in Aïn Borja prison, in Casablanca, serving a nine-year sentence. Longhi said his conviction was based on a confession that followed weeks of torture.

Neither the Moroccan Ministry of Justice nor the Ministry of Communications, contacted by Il Sole 24 Ore, answered a request for comment.

In Italy, Britel fell under suspicion in 2001 when a booklet containing a transcript of an Osama Bin Laden’s interview on Al Jazeera television and an electronic file with a statement of support for the Taliban’s destruction of the Bamiyan Buddhas were found in his home near Milan. But last September, the Italian authorities cleared him of any terrorism charges.

“The fact is that Britel never committed any crime,” Longhi said. “Not in Morocco, not in Italy, not anywhere.”

Before the CIA began extraordinary renditions, companies like Jeppesen were in the business of enabling wealthy people to fly smoothly around the globe.

After Sept. 11, 2001, according to human rights organizations and European investigating commissions, new customers appeared – charter companies operating planes on behalf of the CIA.

The first documentary evidence bearing Jeppesen’s name was retrieved in June 2005 by the Spanish Guardia Civil, when it investigated reports in a newspaper, Diario de Mallorca, of CIA planes flying into local airports. The Spanish authorities found that four planes – two Boeings and two Gulfstreams – had repeatedly landed and refueled in Mallorca and that they were serviced by two local companies on behalf of Jeppesen and Air Routing International.

Similar documents were uncovered in Portugal by a newspaper, Diario de Noticias, which found the name of Jeppesen in communications related to rendition planes that used the airports in Porto and Santa Maria de Azores.

Jeppesen UK was also named in British newspapers as the company that arranged for ground support services to a rendition plane that landed at Glasgow Prestwick Airport in June 2004.

Specific mention of the Gulfstream V jet that European investigators and Longhi say was used to transport Britel to Morocco first surfaced in October 2001. On Oct. 23 that year, at the airport in Karachi, Pakistan, masked men handed an individual to a group of Americans who had just landed on a Gulfstream V executive jet.

Claudio Gatti is an investigative reporter for Il Sole

link courtesy Dave Reeves!

Architects Berger Devine Yaeger:
Following successful completion of the preliminary concept plans and the full embassy master plan, Berger was commissioned to prepare the design-build “bridging documents” (based on 35% design) for construction of the self-contained embassy compound. Berger Devine Yaeger, Inc. (BDY) was the architect for this work. The construction (currently underway) is being executed in four concurrent packages. This self-contained compound will include the embassy itself, residences for the ambassador and staff, PX, commissary, cinema, retail and shopping, restaurants, schools, fire station and supporting facilities such as power generation, water purification system, telecommunications, and waste water treatment facilities. In total, the 104 acre compound will include over twenty buildings including one classified secure structure and housing for over 380 families.

Washington Post
Thursday, May 24, 2007

Over the years the area was renamed — it’s now officially known as the “International Zone” — the fortifications were expanded and U.S. tanks were parked at the gates. As the security situation in Baghdad worsened, others with the right connections or titles moved in. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s government lives and works in the zone, which also houses the Iraqi parliament. Thousands of foreign contractors live there. U.S. civilian officials live there along with their military and contractor protectors. Meanwhile, a massive U.S. Embassy compound — 24 buildings on 104 acres inside the zone, the biggest and most expensive embassy in the world — is under construction and due for completion in August.

Although the State Department has not budged from an original embassy price tag of $592 million, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.) complained two weeks ago to Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice of a “growing size in costs” and a staffing increase of more than 30 percent since Congress approved the State Department’s plans two years ago. Leahy chairs the appropriations subcommittee in charge of the foreign operations budget.

“We have 1,000 Americans at the embassy in Baghdad,” Leahy told Rice at a hearing. “You add the contractors and the local staff, it comes to 4,000 . . . a deviation from the plan that we’d agreed to.” According to Senate staffers, operating costs now total $1.2 billon a year.

More…

A soldier in Iraq asks in despair: Why are we here?

COMMENTARY | May 28, 2007

After watching his roommate fatally wounded in a roadside bombing, an Army private wonders why the lives of good men are being lost when the Iraqis pose no threat to us and don’t want us there.

By Donald Hudson Jr.
donaldchudsonjr@yahoo.com

BAGHDAD, May 12 — My name is Donald Hudson Jr. I have been serving our country’s military actively for the last three years. I am currently deployed to Baghdad on Forward Operating Base Loyalty, where I have been for the last four and a half months.

I came here as part of the first wave of this so called “troop surge”, but so far it has effectively done nothing to quell insurgent violence. I have seen the rise in violence between the Sunni and Shiite. This country is in the middle of a civil war that has been on going since the seventh century.

Why are we here when this country still to date does not want us here? Why does our president’s personal agenda consume him so much, that he can not pay attention to what is really going on here?

Let me tell you a story. On May 10, I was out on a convoy mission to move barriers from a market to a joint security station. It was no different from any other night, except the improvised explosive device that hit our convoy this time, actually pierced through the armor of one of our trucks. The truck was immediately engulfed in flames, the driver lost control and wrecked the truck into one of the buildings lining the street. I was the driver of the lead truck in our convoy; the fifth out of six was the one that got hit. All I could hear over the radio was a friend from the sixth truck screaming that the fifth truck was burning up real bad, and that they needed fire extinguishers real bad. So I turned my truck around and drove through concrete barriers to get to the burning truck as quickly as I could. I stopped 30 meters short of the burning truck, got out and ripped my fire extinguisher out of its holder, and ran to the truck. I ran past another friend of mine on the way to the burning truck, he was screaming something but I could not make it out. I opened the driver’s door to the truck and was immediately overcome by the flames. I sprayed the extinguisher into the door, and then I saw my roommate’s leg. He was the gunner of that truck. His leg was across the driver’s seat that was on fire and the rest of his body was further in the truck. My fire extinguisher died and I climbed into the truck to attempt to save him. I got to where his head was, in the back passenger-side seat. I grabbed his shoulders and attempted to pull him from the truck out the driver’s door. I finally got him out of the truck head first. His face had been badly burned. His leg was horribly wounded. We placed him on a spine board and did our best to attempt “Buddy Aid”. We heard him trying to gasp for air. He had a pulse and was breathing, but was not responsive. He was placed into a truck and rushed to the “Green Zone”, where he died within the hour. His name was Michael K. Frank. He was 36 years old. He was a great friend of mine and a mentor to most of us younger soldiers here.

Now I am still here in this country wondering why, and having to pick up the pieces of what is left of my friend in our room. I would just like to know what is the true reason we are here? This country poses no threat to our own. So why must we waste the lives of good men on a country that does not give a damn about itself? Most of my friends here share my views, but do not have the courage to say anything.

• Donald C. Hudson Jr. is a private assigned to the 1st Brigade Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 82nd Airborne Division.

“Earthship n. 1. passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials 2. thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization. 3. renewable energy & integrated water systems make the Earthship an off-grid home with little to no utility bills.
Biotecture n. 1. the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their sustainability. 2. A combination of biology and architecture.”

Los Angeles Times — May 27, 2007

Now showing very near you …

Everywhere consumers go, there’s a TV screen playing commercials. In a fast-forward era, ad firms seek new outlets.

By Alana Semuels, Times Staff Writer

The ad industry is redefining “public” television.

With people fast-forwarding faster than ever through TV commercials at home, advertising companies have taken their campaigns out into the open.

Perhaps you’ve noticed: Flat-panel screens filled with spots plugging cars, orthodontists and face-lifts are everywhere these days. They greet you at the grocery store, the coffeehouse, the bank and the service station.

Most recently they’ve popped up in restrooms, mounted on hand dryers.

And no, you can’t change the channel.

“Consumers want control,” said Eli Portnoy, founder of the Portnoy Group, a brand strategy consultancy. So naturally, “marketers are trying to wrestle control away.”

It’s another round in the cat-and-mouse game between Americans with disposable income and the advertisers more desperate than ever to reach them, now that the digital video recorder has become so popular. Estimates are that about 20% of U.S. households have DVRs, which allow program-watching at the expense of ads, because ads can be zipped through with the simple pressure of a finger on a button.

“Everybody’s flipping the channel,” said Kristine Hernandez, a director of ImpressionAire Media, which made the hand dryers with built-in digital screens that were installed in Huntington Beach and Newport Beach restaurants, where they promote rental cars and drink specials. “You have to capture their attention.”

In this new world, the risk is that TV screens in public places will fade into the background if they show nothing but boring ads. So in many cases, promotions are rotated with local news, weather and entertainment.

That way, advertisers can say they’re providing a service.

“For better or worse, we live in a time-crunched society,” said Mike DiFranza, chairman of the Out-of-Home Video Advertising Bureau. “If you’re waiting in line, it’s a waste of time. But if you can look up information about what’s going on in the world, you’re kept informed.”

Interestingly, some people are buying it.

“It’s nice to have something to look at,” said Amanda Bender, a 50-year-old social services worker, about the screen mounted on the wall of the Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf she frequents in Los Angeles’ mid-Wilshire district.

On the other hand, ad omnipresence is pushing some over the edge.

“I’m just so overwhelmed by it,” said Kendra Miller, a 26-year-old business manager who felt assaulted by a flat-panel TV staring down at her from the wall of Albertson’s in Culver City as she was getting ready to check out.

Miller is a person the industry wants to reach. She has stopped going to movie theaters because she can’t stand the ads they run before the film starts. Pop-up Web ads pester her at work — and now, annoyingly, she’s got TV commercials in her supermarket.

“They put them in places you can’t escape,” she complained.

No kidding. The amount spent on the “alternative out-of-home media” advertising category, which includes digital screens in stores, movie theaters and elevators (but not roadside billboards), grew 27% in 2006 to $1.69 billion, according to PQ Media Research.

“Everyone is saying this is the next frontier,” said George Wishart, global managing director of Nielsen In-Store, which began measuring the audience for these sorts of ads earlier this month.

The boom has been fueled in part by technology. The price of flat-panel digital screens has fallen more than a third in the last two years, according to iSuppli Corp., an El Segundo-based consulting firm.

And the software used to create on-screen ads has become more reliable. Advertisers can remotely change the messages displayed depending on the weather, special promotions or the popularity of certain items.

At Best Buy, Costco and other major retailers, most of the ads on the “in-store screens,” as they’re called, are for items that can be bought right then and there. The spots are produced by Premier Retail Networks Corp., a San Francisco company that has installed 200,000 screens in 6,500 stores around the country.

An ad on a PRN screen might go like this: “Wondering what to make for dinner tonight? Think about lemon pepper halibut….” Then the recipe and ingredients will be listed, and the viewer, hopefully, will buy those ingredients.

PRN claims success, saying research shows that 42% of shoppers can recall a brand they’ve seen on in-store screens — about double the rate that studies have found for TV commercials. And, the company says, the cost of reaching 1,000 customers through in-store screens is about $12 — roughly the same as it would be to advertise on premium cable.

In any event, “in-home isn’t effective anymore” for advertisers, said Mike Quinn, senior vice president of marketing, research and new product development at PRN. “They want to advertise where their products are sold.”

As for the flat-panels in places like Jack in the Box and Jiffy Lube — which are installed by Ripple Networks Inc., an El Segundo-based provider of digital entertainment and news — they target people waiting in line, not shopping. So on these screens, ads for local real estate agents, the Hollywood Bowl and even national companies like Orbitz are inserted between clips of celebrity news from E!, horoscopes, snowboarding videos and sports highlights. Ripple charges $100 per screen for a month’s worth of ads. In these cases, part of that revenue usually goes to the retailer.

Last year, Dean Dunlap, now the associate media director for DGWB, bought time on screens in several Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf stores for Southern California Land Rover dealers through Ripple.

“We felt that it was another way to get people to think about Land Rover as they start their day,” he said.

Younger Americans are quicker to embrace ad-filled digital screens in public places, said Stuart Fischoff, professor emeritus of media psychology at Cal State L.A. They’re accustomed to having digital music players, PDAs and cellphones at their fingertips, and they “don’t want to be alone with their thoughts.”

Well, other people do. Troy Davenbaugh, 42, of West Los Angeles is one of the elusive consumers trying to hide from advertisers. He doesn’t own a TV. When he does watch a show on his roommate’s set, he can skip through ads with TiVo.

The digital screens that popped up in his local Albertson’s ticked him off.

“They’re more annoying than anything,” he said. “When I come here, I come here to shop. I’m turned off by anything being constantly blasted at me — it just becomes too much.”

For some, it’s less than that.

As Jeffrey Weiner browsed through Albertson’s, he was asked what he thought about the food ads blinking on the screen suspended above the produce section.

His response: “What screen?”

alana.semuels@latimes.com

From Kati London’s blog…

“Here I am invoking political scientist Michelle Micheletti’s quote: ‘We Must Shop to Survive,’ in the video of my thesis presentation of The In(ter)ventions Festival. A festival designed to provoke critical inquiry on the part of consumers about the impact of their behavior. It’s about connecting mundane tasks to their impact on the greater systems that we facilitate, enable and support. I’m still working on this project which will hopefully take place in the Fall of 2007 in New York City…”

KINDERTOTENLIEDER
Created by Gisèle Vienne
Texts and dramaturgy by Dennis Cooper
Music by Stephen O’Malley and Peter Rehberg
Lights by Patrick Riou
Make up by Rebecca Flores

In your dreams… Via Boingboing.

METAGEUM ’07: EXPLORING THE MEGALITHIC MIND

Inter-disciplinary international conference
on approaches to understanding the origins of our megalithic legacy

The Caraffa Stores, Birgu, Island of Malta
3rd – 11th November 2007

“Metageum ’07: Conference This event is an international, inter-disciplinary conference on different ways of approaching the thinking and imagination of the Neolithic people who built the megalithic temples in Malta and elsewhere in the world. Speakers range from archaeologists (both academic and independent), through psychologists and artists, to researchers in esoteric subjects.

“This conference is intended to encourage debate and discussion and does not hold any particular position on the interpretation of the temples. It is accompanied by an art exhibition, experiential workshops, and musical performances, all themed in significant ways on the megalithic temples. There will also be daily guided tours to the megalithic temples of Malta.

“So, after the morning plenary sessions, attendees can choose to stay for more presentations at the conference venue, or go on field trips to the temples, or go for one or other of the workshops. …

“Malta is a small island in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, with an unusually rich heritage of megalithic structures, generally designated as ‘temples’. It has the oldest free-standing megalithic structures in the world, dating back to 6000 years ago — a thousand years before the Egyptian pyramids were built, and five hundred years before Stonehenge.

“For some background on the themes of the conference, please see the article written by Peter B. Lloyd in the Malta Independent on 18th March: Metageum ’07: Exploring the megalithic mind.

“Although several of the presentations will be specifically on the Maltese temples, the conference encompasses megalithic temples and ritual structures from around the world. England and Europe are richly endowed with a range of types of megalithic structure. Each country and culture has its own heritage, and the Maltese megalithic tradition was specific to the island.

“Although now ruined, the above-ground megalithic temples in Malta were originally huge, closed-in, multi-chambered buildings, with a single entrance. Malta also possess the uniquely Maltese underground temples or hypogea…”

link courtesy Erik Davis!