Read All About It in the Sunday Papers-May 10th

LEAD ARTICLE: Washington Post- Smithfield vs. Mexico…The Dark Side of Agribusiness

Come to think of it, is there a bright side to agribusiness? While there may not be a proven link between Smithfield and the swine flu outbreak, Steve Fanairu paints an excellent portrait of how Smithfield runs roughshod over scores of people and endangers their health in the very area the swine flu originated:

LA GLORIA, Mexico — For years, farmers in the communities that dot this arid valley complained about the effects of the industrial pig farms that had multiplied near their fields.

The overpowering stench gave them headaches and drove them from their homes. Packs of wild dogs feasted on discarded pig carcasses and occasionally turned on their children and pets. There were fears that vast lagoons of excrement from more than 1 million hogs might seep into their groundwater.

La Gloria, in the southeastern state of Veracruz, has been at the center of the flu crisis since late March, when a mysterious respiratory illness infected 616 residents, or more than 28 percent of the population. Among them was a 5-year-old boy identified as one of the first confirmed cases of the new virus. The remainder of the cases now appear to have been seasonal flu, according to state health officials.

With the crisis playing out, local residents and officials appear to be increasingly focused on the area’s relationship with Smithfield, which operates in Mexico under its subsidiary, Granjas Carroll de Mexico. The conglomerate, which had $11.4 billion in sales last year, has made the Perote Valley a cog in its global expansion, an aggressive strategy that has frequently put the company at odds with the local population.

In 2007, hundreds of protesters blocked a federal highway in an effort to halt construction of a pig farm near La Gloria. Mexican officials say the company responded by pressing criminal charges against five residents who were perceived as leading the demonstration, including a 66-year-old farmer who was forced to sell his corn crop to defend himself. Smithfield has denied any involvement. The case is still pending.

Bertha Crisostomo, an elected La Gloria official who was also charged — Perote’s mayor posted her bail — said she believes that Smithfield has targeted residents who object to the company’s expansion because of health and environmental concerns. Crisostomo said she supports local investment, but added: “Our health is not up for negotiation.”

“The only good thing Granjas Carroll has going right now is really good lawyers — legal representatives who can tie up the people,” said Fidel Herrera Beltrán, the Veracruz governor, during an interview in Jalapa, the state capital. 

‘Bulo could quote the whole damn thing. Read about the inhumane slaughtering techniques that Smithfield uses (vertical integration) and how the waste is ‘disposed of’ and you will be rethinking what you serve your guests for Christmas and Easter. Which is precisely why you should read it.

NYTimes: Drafted at 19, Opposing H. S. Military Recruitment at 61

Tamar Lewin creates an inspirational and moving profile of Vietnam Veteran Miles Woolley, a high school drafting teacher in Miami, who leads the opposition to on-campus military recruiting and Junior ROTC at his school. 

El Somnambulo cannot even begin to express how much respect and admiration he has for Woolley. He is not even going to bother to excerpt because Woolley and so many others like him deserve to be heard in their entirety. All ‘bulo asks is that you please read this.

The (UK) Independent: Pentagon Covering Up Bombing Deaths in Afghanistan?

Patrick Cockburn provides first-hand, (i. e.) real,  reporting from perhaps the most dangerous trouble spot on earth. It’s both an alarming and well-balanced story on the delicate and treacherous situation going on there. And it also lays pretty effective waste to Pentagon denials that U. S. bombing runs did not kill civilians there:

I was sympathetic to Mr Sidiqi’s difficulties in moving around the country except by plane, because I faced the same problem. I had gone to Herat because last Monday US aircraft had attacked several villages in the Bala Baluk district of Farah province, which is immediately to the south of Herat. The local governor and surviving villagers said that more than 120 civilians had been killed. The US military denied that anything like that number had died and, if they had, it was the Taliban who had done it by hurling grenades into houses.

I did not meet survivors but I did talk to a reliable witness, a radio reporter called Farooq Faizy, who had gone to Bala Baluk soon after the attack happened. He said that police and soldiers nearby were frightened of the Taliban and told him it was too dangerous to go on, but he spoke to some village elders, telling them: “Talk to us and we will tell the world.” He says he was none too sure who was in control of the three villages – Gerani, Gangabad and Khoujaha – that had been hit and he was careful about what he said. But he did take some 70 or 80 photographs and they bore out the villagers’ story: there were craters everywhere; the villages had been plastered with bombs; bodies had been torn to shreds by the blasts; there were mass graves; there were no signs of damage from bullets, rockets or grenades.

I suspected that the US military’s claim that the Taliban had run through the village hurling grenades, supposedly because they had not been paid their cut of profits from the opium poppy crop, was just a delaying tactic. Usually the US military delays admission of guilt until a story has gone cold and the media is no longer interested. “First say ‘no story’,” runs an old PR adage, “and then say ‘old story’.” By the end of the week the US was admitting that the grenade-throwing Taliban story was “thinly sourced”.

This is reporting that matters. The Beast Who Slumbers suspects that, had reporters not largely devolved into press release stenographers, newspapers would not be on the critical list.

The (UK) Guardian: British Parliament-Even More Corrupt than Congress?

8-Ball sez, “Signs Point to Yes”. Especially because the money they are channelling for (a) their own use and (b)to avoid capital payments taxes through byzantine skulduggery, are public funds. This article makes the case that Parliament, as currently constituted, is hopelessly corrupt.

It’s as if every British MP was Vince Fumo. Crikey.

Asia Times: What’s REALLY Going on in Pakistan, and Why It’s REALLY Important that You Know

This kind of analysis, which impacts each and every one of us, is simply not being provided by the American press. Pepe Escobar reports on the coming battleground in South Asia, and why American forces will almost inevitably be front and center. And it’s scary:

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon’s. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan’s area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan’s natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan’s 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has not been able to locate Quetta resident “The Shadow”, historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself. 

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz. 

Gwadar – a port built by China – is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the “peace pipeline”, which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan – an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar. 

Washington’s dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai – while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land. 

LA Times: Big Oil Sops Up Hundreds of Millions from California Fund Meant for ‘Mom and Pop’ Service Stations

No use even asking the question. Yes, they have no shame. Corporate lobbying by Exxon Mobil and the other fat cats has turned a California program designed to help mom and pop service stations clean up leaking storage tanks into yet another windfall for these pigs.

Knowing the players in Delaware, DNREC would do well to make sure that nothing like this has been going on here since Delaware has a pretty effective Leaking Underground Storage Tank (LUST) program. Not that it would shock anyone anymore.

Finally, people have asked El Somnambulo, why so many stories from the foreign press. ‘Bulo tries to bring top-caliber journalism and stories DL readers would actually want to read to this weekly project.  Infamous bank robber Willie Sutton was once asked why he robbed banks. “Because that’s where the money is.”

Same goes for ‘bulo though, sadly, without the dinero.