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<H1>COLDTYPE.NET / March 16<BR>
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<FONT SIZE="5">Check out the latest from our Columnists:<BR>
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</FONT><H2>1. GEORGE MONBIOT<BR>
The fruits of poverty<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="5">Every year the list is the same, but every year it still comes as a shock. Of the 10 richest people on Earth, five of them have the same surname. Itıs not Gates, or Murdoch, or Rockefeller, but Walton. They are the heirs and trustees of the supermarket chain Wal-Mart. And between them they are worth $100bn. Considering how the media fawns on the ultra rich, we hear remarkably little about them. Perhaps this is because their position is rather embarrassing. The company that enriches them trades on the idea that it is the friend of the common man and woman, distributing rather than concentrating wealth<B>.<BR>
</B><FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net/columns.04.html<BR>
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Starved of the truth<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="5">The question is as simple as this: do you want a few corporations to monopolise the global food supply? If the answer is yes, you should welcome the announcement that the government is expected to make today that the commercial planting of a genetically modified (GM) crop in Britain can go ahead. If the answer is no, you should regret it. The principal promotional effort of the genetic engineering industry is to distract us from this question. GM technology permits companies to ensure that everything we eat is owned by them. They can patent the seeds and the processes that give rise to them. They can make sure that crops canıt be grown without their patented chemicals. They can prevent seeds from reproducing themselves. By buying up competing seed companies and closing them down, they can capture the food market, the biggest and most diverse market of all.<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net/columns.04.html<BR>
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2. MICHAEL I. NIMAN<BR>
Standing up for Martha<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="5">Fasten your seatbelts. This cynical anti-consumerist columnist is about to defend the queen of K-Mart, that prissy woman-turned-brand, Martha Stewart. But bear with me. This isnıt an errant detour into an abyss of triviality. And no, Iım not going to follow this up with a piece on Janet Jacksonıs breast or Britney Spearsı short-lived marriage. The crucifixion of Western New Yorkıs least favorite daughter embodies whatıs wrong with American politics.<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net/columns.04.html<BR>
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Bush strikes out in Haiti<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="5">The Boston Globe article begins like this: ³Thousands of Demonstrators chanting anti-American slogans encircled the US Marine-occupied National Palace here yesterday.² Reuters news service cites protestors exclaiming, ³Weıre going to burn down the palace with the Americans inside. We have weapons and we are ready to fight.² Knight Ridder news service reports that 5,000 protestors marched on the national palace ³shouting anti-Bush slogans² and protesting the US occupation of their country. Does this sound like just another day in Iraq? Or maybe perhaps itıs Afghanistan, except for the fact that they really donıt have anything that can realistically pass for a national palace. If you guessed either Iraq or Afghanistan, youıre wrong.<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net/columns.04.html<BR>
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3. NORMAN SOLOMON<BR>
They shoot journalists, donıt they?<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="5">To encourage restraint in war coverage, governments donıt need to shoot journalists though sometimes thatıs helpful. Thirteen journalists were killed while covering the war and occupation in Iraq last year, says a new report by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The deaths were a subset of 36 on-the-job fatalities related to journalistic work across the globe in 2003. CPJıs annual worldwide survey ³Attacks on the Press,² released on March 11, indicates that some of those deaths in Iraq were not just random events in a hazardous war zone. Journalists who were ³embedded² with the American military tended to be safer.<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net/columns.04.html<BR>
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<H2>And don't miss this month's cover story<BR>
</H2><FONT SIZE="6">BRINGING <FONT COLOR="#FF0000">HELL</FONT> TO HAITI<BR>
</FONT><FONT SIZE="5"><I>A 20-page essay by David Edwards, of Britain's Medialens puts the events into perspective<BR>
</I>Have you noticed how stupid you feel when you watch the news? Hands up anybody who understands whatıs going on in Haiti? The media is good at repeatedly broadcasting footage of armed gangs roaming in trucks, and at quoting senior officials. But the absence of meaningful context and informed analysis and above all the unwillingness to question the official version of events means that it is often literally impossible for viewers to make sense of what is happening. For all their satellite communications and computer-generated studios, the news media often do not give us news at all they give us noise.<BR>
<FONT COLOR="#0000FF">http://www.coldtype.net<BR>
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