"Aren't the Israelis and the Palestinians both terrorising each other?" says Turner, who is vice-chairman of AOL Time Warner, which owns CNN, in an exclusive interview with the Guardian.

"The Palestinians are fighting with human suicide bombers, that's all they have. The Israelis ... they've got one of the most powerful military machines in the world. The Palestinians have nothing. So who are the terrorists? I would make a case that both sides are involved in terrorism."

His remarks were last night condemned by Ariel Sharon's government, which called them "stupid". Andrea Levin, director of the American pro-Israeli media watchdog Camera, said the comments were a "reprehensible" attempt to "blur the line between perpetrator and victim".

In his first British interview since the September 11 attacks, Mr Turner - who broke philanthropic records in 1997 when he donated $1bn to the UN - argues that poverty and desperation are the root cause of Palestinian suicide bombings.

But Daniel Seaman, a spokesman for the Israeli government, said: "My only advice to Ted Turner is if people assume you are stupid, it is just best to keep your mouth shut rather than open your mouth and confirm everyone in that view."

Mr Turner also admits that he was wrong to call the September 11 hijackers "brave" in a speech in Rhode Island that sparked outrage. "I made an unfortunate choice of words," he says, adding that his ownership of the Atlanta Braves baseball team meant the word was never far from his mind. "Look, I'm a very good thinker, but I sometimes grab the wrong word ... I mean, I don't type my speeches, then sit up there and read them off the teleprompter, you know. I wing it."

Mr Turner is moved to tears at one point in the interview by the "depressing" combination of conflicts like that in the Middle East and the state of the environment, which he says demands massive global attention - "or, you know ... it's goodbye".

A senior minister in Yasser Arafat's cabinet told the Guardian he welcomed Mr Turner's comments. Many Palestinians complain just as bitterly of a pro-Israeli bias in CNN's coverage - mocking it as the "Zionist News Network" - as Israel complains of a pro-Palestinian one.

"I feel it reflects a more consistent approach," said Ghassan Khatib, Mr Arafat's newly appointed labour minister and until recently director of the Jerusalem Media and Communications Centre, a Palestinian media monitoring unit.

"One of the problems in trying to reduce the violence has been the focus of so much international attention on Israeli rather than Palestinian civilian deaths, although four times as many Palestinians have been killed."

Are americans really that brainwashed? Christ.

'Mr Arafat slammed down the phone after accusing her of anti-Palestinian bias. "You are covering with these questions the terrorist activities of the Israeli occupation and the Israeli crimes," he said. "Be quiet. Be fair. Thank you, bye-bye."'

I saw that live. Was funny. He was in a cellar with Israeli tanks firing at him and troops storming the building and she said something like "what are you doing to reign in the violence?" It wasnt suprising that he slammed it down.

The Israelis occuption is illegal and immoral. FREE PALESTINE.

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The Israelis occuption is illegal and immoral. FREE PALESTINE.

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Originally posted by Europia:
Fox is awful. Every time I switch on its 'AMERICA AT WAR' or 'HOMELAND DEFENSE' or some other such dumb slogan.

Are americans really that brainwashed? Christ.

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Did the pilots get confused by the red cross on top of the buildings?

You are ready to condemn Israel but when it comes to the US you totally change your beliefs.

And did the Taliban attack you? Did Afghanistan attack you? Of course not. We are told (without the proof) that a man who MIGHT be in Afghanistan did it.

Oil and imperialism are the key words here pd.

Since the Cuban revolution they've carried out many attacks aided by the United States government, eg the bay of pigs. Indeed there have even been allegations that the CIA used biological weapons against Cuba which aren't too far fetched.

A 'cuban democratic government' in exile? Oh yeah. Supported by the US right? Great. Bet the Cuban people can't wait to have that imposed on them.

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Originally posted by Europia:
There is a large terrorist community which has operated out of Miami for many years. The US government says they are opressed and are dissidents when in fact they are opponents of freedom. Probably one of the worst examples was when they blew up a plane mid-air killing 73 civilians on board.

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Brothers to the Rescue was founded by Jose Basulto, a man whom the CIA had trained for the Bay of Pigs Invasion. In August 1962, a year and a half after that fiasco, Basulto went on a CIA-authorized raid into Cuba during which he shot at a hotel, fired into a theater, and blasted a Havana residential section. Twenty people died.
More than 30 years later, in June 199S, Basulto filed a false flight plan, claiming a mission to the Bahamas, and instead flew his plane from Florida to Cuba, dropping anti-Castro leaflets over Cuban territory. On July 13, he returned to drop religious medals, dipping his small plane over the rooftops of populated areas.
These flights coincided with a terrorist campaign by other militant anti-Castro exiles to cripple Cuba's tourist economy. Luis Posada Carriles, an exile linked to dozens of bombings and assassination attempts in the past 40 years, told a New York Times reporter that the prestigious Cuban American National Foundation financed a scheme to bomb tourist sites in Havana. Posada Carriles' agents planted more than a dozen bombs, killing one Italian tourist, wounding several people and doing extensive property damage.
However, the FBI showed little enthusiasm in responding to Cuba's request to investigate the Florida-based exiles' role in the tourist bombings. In January 1996, one National Security Council official even wrote a letter on White House stationary to the FAA, requesting that the Brothers' pilots licenses be suspended for having filed false flight plans. But the FAA, like the FBI, did nothing.
After getting little satisfaction from its formal demands that the State Department stop the flights, Cuba covertly sent spies to Florida. Posing as Castro-haters, the spies penetrated some of the violent anti-Castro groups. Cuba's intelligence chiefs directed some of the spies who were pilots to infiltrate Brothers to the Rescue.
On February 24, 1996, after receiving warnings from the U.S. government not to fly over Cuba, and direct orders from Cuban air traffic control not to enter its territory, a trio of aircraft with Basulto flying in the lead entered Cuban airspace. Cuban MlGs shot down two of the three encroaching planes; only Basulto's escaped the missiles. (A debate continues as to whether the actual shootdowns occurred over Cuban or international airspace.)
The FBI had discovered the spy network in 1996 and monitored their communications until arresting them in 1999. At their trial, U.S. prosecutors charged the spies with complicity in murder of the pilots, downplaying the fact that a U.S. official had indirectly informed the Cuban government of the Brothers' flight plan. And Basulto testified that he had changed the violent approach of his youth to that of Ghandi and Martin Luther King, except in the case of Cuba where, he maintained, violence was still necessary. A federal judge then handed down sentences ranging from life imprisonment to 15 years.

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That reference is to the Miami 5 who are held in the US for fighting terrorism and defending their homeland.

There are also countless individuals and other groups.

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Miami has been the home and support point for Orlando Bosch, who served 10 years in a Venezuelan prison on charges of heading and masterminding the sabotage of a Cubana passenger plane in 1976, which cost the lives of the 73 people on board. He was freed, says the journalist — who would appear to be unaware that he escaped from the Caracas prison — in 1988 without having been sentenced, and Bosch, now aged 74, lives in Miami.

She refers to evidence in the trial of our five Cuban patriots, where Bosch’s terrorist record once again came to light, when he sent explosives to Cuba, destined for the terrorist attacks on eight hotels in Havana between 1997 and 1998.

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Published Saturday, January 18, 1997, in the Miami Herald
Basulto: U.S. conspired with Cuba
Tacit accord allowed MiGs to shoot Brothers planes, he says
By MABELL DIEPPA
Herald Staff Writer

The president of Brothers to the Rescue, Jose Basulto, has accused the U.S. government of reaching an understanding with President Fidel Castro of Cuba that enabled Cuban warplanes to shoot down two of the group's spotter planes over the Straits of Florida.

The assertion was made Friday, after Basulto met in Arlington, Va., with three officials of the Inspector General's Office of the Defense Department. They are investigating the alleged incursion of
Cuban MiG fighters into U.S. airspace Feb. 24.

Basulto's charge represents an escalation of his allegations that the U.S. government was aware of a possible Cuban attack on Brothers planes but did not warn the group's pilots. Until Friday, Basulto had not accused Washington of conspiring with Havana.

Four members of the Miami-based volunteer group died in the shoot-down. Basulto, who was piloting a third aircraft, managed to escape unhurt.

``We believe that there was an implicit agreement -- at what level, we don't know -- between the two governments, which placed the Straits of Florida at Fidel Castro's disposal so he could kill four members of Brothers to the Rescue,'' Basulto told The Herald. ``This is something the U.S. government needs to clarify.''

The inquiry was ordered in September by the House Subcommittee on Western Hemisphere Affairs. The panel focused the investigation on the possible incursion of two Cuban MiGs into a region about 45 miles from Key West, a breach of security that elicited no reaction from the U.S. Air Force.

According to Basulto, the MiGs chased his Cessna as far north as 32 miles from Key West. He says U.S. authorities have ample proof of that.

Last year, the authorities were forced to give Basulto the transcripts of recordings made by U.S. listening posts, describing the conversation between a Cuban air controller and the pilots of the two MiGs.

One of the pilots described his quarry to the controller: a Cessna 337 like the one Basulto flew. After a chase lasting several minutes, the controller ordered the pilots back to base because they had strayed too far from Cuba.

Despite this recording, the officials from the Inspector General's Office insisted Friday that the MiG incursions never took place.

As evidence, attorney Kay Cannon and investigators William Cogley and Miles Kara gave Basulto and his attorney, Sofia Powell-Cossio, copies of the radar tracings made Feb. 24 by U.S. tracking stations.

According to the officials, the MiGs did not cross the 24th parallel, which separates the skies controlled by the United States and Cuba. That, they said, explains why the U.S. Air Force did not scramble any interceptor planes.

``In that case, [the Defense Department] must account for the plane the MiG pilot describes in the transcript,'' Basulto said. ``As long as that fundamental question is not answered, our position will remain the same.''

Copyright © 1997 The Miami Herald

So from that the Brother hood guy thinks the US and Cuba conspired to shoot them down. This guy is about as wishy washy as the come.

Jose Basulto has spent his life attacking Cuba, what do you expect him to say? The men who were 'spying' to prevent terrorism against Cuban citizens are now in US jails. The US government is hardly likely to be conspiring with Cuba.

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The Miami Herald has always published anti castro prpoganda. Just take a look at the headlines of their stories concerning Cuba.[/QB]

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Originally posted by Europia:
[QB]I cant remember my original sources but there are plenty around. Here's one for you to read
http://www.rprogreso.com/RPWeekly010302/USdoublestandardslandau010302.htm
QB]

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This was taken from your post :

So, covertly, Cuba infiltrated [5] spies into south Florida. Posing as Castro-haters, the spies penetrated some of the violent anti-Castro groups for the purpose of thwarting their terrorist activities.

"How were they going to thwart these groups exactly ? With the deaths of these group members and leader or with kind works and a nice back rub. Cuba is no diffrent in there own tactics than the anti-Castro groups."

Countries that are or were officially communist:

1. Afghanistan

2. Albania

3. Angola

4. Armenia

5. Azerbaijan

6. Bangladesh

7. Belarus

8. Bosnia

9. Bulgaria

10. Burma

11. Cambodia

12. Comoros

13. Congo

14. Croatia

15. Cuba

16. Czechoslovakia

17. East Germany

18. Estonia

19. Ethiopia

20. Georgia

21. Ghana

22. Guinea

23. Hungary

24. Iran

25. Kazahstan

26. Kyrgyzstan

27. Laos

28. Latvia

29. Libya

30. Lithuania

31. Macedonia

32. Madagascar

33. Mauritania

34. Moldova

35. Mongolia

36. Mozambique

37. North Korea

38. P.R.O.C.

39. Philippines

40. Poland

41. Romania

42. Russia

43. Sao Tome and Principe

44. Slovakia

45. Slovenia

46. Somalia

47. Sri Lanka

48. Sudan

49. Tajikistan

50. Tanzania

51. Turkmenistan

52. Ukraine

53. Uzbekistan

54. Vietnam

55. Yemen

56. Yugoslavia

57. Zambia

58. Zimbabwe

from http://www.geocities.com/nybmt/nations.html

Total Countries = 249 http://www.zamang.co.uk/specs/iso3166.txt

"North Korea"

Most of it is stalinism which is something I disagree with. Most of those places are just regimes no different from any other totalitarian ones in history. And just because a country does something doesnt mean the people do. The world is made up of people not just regimes.

How would you describe North Korea then if not a communist dictatorship ?