Sex Trafficking: A Form of Modern-Day Slavery

March 3rd, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

All forms of modern-day slavery affect an estimated 40 million or more people worldwide – mostly women and young girls, ongoing in scores of countries, including America and other Western nations.

Human trafficking and forced labor in the US exists mainly in the following forms: prostitution, pornography, and related sex services, domestic indentured servitude, agricultural slavery, industrial sweatshops, exploited restaurant and hotel workers, entertainment exploitation, and involuntary mail-order brides.

The above practices persist for lack of enforcement of laws and regulations, poor or no work conditions monitoring, and a strong demand for cheap labor, enabling unscrupulous employers and criminal networks to exploit powerless workers for profit.

The International Labor Organization (ILO) defines forced labor as “work or service…exacted from any person under the menace of any penalty and for which said person has not offered himself or herself voluntarily.”

Forced child labor is:

“(a) all forms of slavery or practices similar to slavery, such as the sale and trafficking of children, debt bondage and serfdom and forced or compulsory labor, including forced or compulsory recruitment of children for use in armed conflict;”

“(b) the use, procuring or offering of a child for prostitution, for the production of pornography or for pornographic performances;”

“(c) the use, procuring or offering of a child for illicit activities, in particular for the production and trafficking of drugs as defined in the relevant international treaties;” and

“(d) work which, by its nature or the circumstances in which it is carried out, is likely to harm the health, safety or morals of children.”

US laws against sex and other forms of human trafficking include:

The 1910 Mann Act prohibits trafficking individuals across state lines to engage in prostitution or related offenses.

The 1930 Tariff Act includes provisions, prohibiting imports of goods made from forced labor. The 2009 Customs and Facilitations and Trade Enforcement Reauthorization Act has similar provisions.

The 2000 Victims of Trafficking and Violence Protection Act  combats trafficking in persons, especially for sex, slavery, and involuntary servitude.

The 2003 PROTECT Act protects children from human trafficking and sexual exploitation.

Section 7202 of the 2004 Intelligence Reform and Terrorism Prevention Act established the Human Smuggling and Trafficking Center to combat the practice.

US Code, Title 22, Chapter 78 – Trafficking Victims Protection (2012) combats it in all forms, calling it “a contemporary manifestation of slavery whose victims are predominantly women and children…”

The problem with these laws is lax enforcement. America’s most vulnerable are poorly protected – all too often not at all.

Sex slavery in America is the nation’s most common form of involuntary servitude. Tied to organized crime, countless numbers of young women and girls are affected. Estimates range from 100,000 – 300,000.

According to a Justice Department assessment, pimps control at least 75% of exploited minors, intimidating them psychologically, threatening them with violence for noncompliance.

The Internet is a common recruiting tool, among other methods – targeting hundreds of thousands of runaway street girls and youths, luring them into prostitution, pornography, and related sex activities with false promises, holding them in bondage once involved.

Sex trafficking and other forms of involuntary servitude amount to a multi-billion dollar business. In 2014, the ILO estimated human trafficking earns around $150 billion annually worldwide – mostly from sex trafficking and exploitation.

It occurs in a variety of venues, including brothels, truck stops, at hotels and motels, residential apartments, as well as massage parlors fronting for prohibited prostitution and related sexual activities.

The issue made headlines when New England Patriots billionaire owner Robert Kraft was charged days earlier with two misdemeanor counts of paying for sex at an illicit massage parlor in Jupiter, Florida.

According to local police, body cam video evidence identified him during two visits to the so-called Orchids of Asia Day Spa. Around two dozens others will be charged separately – following a Palm Beach, Florida sex trafficking probe.

On the one hand, adult married men engaging in consensual sex with women above the legal age of consent in their state is no one’s business but their wives – provided women involved aren’t being exploited.

If sex with girls below the age of consent occurs, varying in the US by state, often below age-16 or 18, it’s a criminal offense even if voluntary, usually referred to as statutory rape or child molestation.

Soliciting sex at a massage parlor or other fronts for prostitution lets the practice connected to organized crime flourish – at the expense of exploited women and girls.

That’s why Kraft’s indulgence was abhorrent and a misdemeanor offense, likely resulting in a fine and perhaps mandated hours of community service.

Through a spokesman, he denied charges against him, a statement saying “(w)e categorically deny that Mr. Kraft engaged in any illegal activity. Because it is a judicial matter, we will not be commenting further.”

The massage parlor he visited faces more serious charges, the penalty to its managers likely to be much harsher, depending on specific violations committed, including likely human trafficking for sex.

Palm Beach County police said many women at the massage parlor Kraft visited were Chinese nationals – living at the establishment and not allowed to leave.

Ten similar county “spas” were investigated, around 300 arrest warrants issued, all establishments probed shuttered.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

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We’re Killing Off Our Vital Insects Too

By F. William Engdahl, March 03, 2019

Recent independent scientific studies indicate that we are threatening our vital global insect population, including of bees, with widespread extinction through massive deployment of agriculture pesticides.

The Coup Against President Aristide 15 Years Later: The Clintons, the Canadians, and Western NGOs all Complicit in a Never-Ending Tragedy

By Michael Welch, Yves Engler, and Jean Saint-Vil, March 02, 2019

On February 29th 2004, fifteen years ago this week, following an insurgency by a rebel paramilitary army, U.S. Canadian, and French troops executed a coup d’etat against the democratically elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

The Pentagon’s “Ides of March”: Best Month to Go to War

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, March 02, 2019

There are ongoing military threats against Venezuela. Is a US sponsored war contemplated for March 2019?

Various scenarios are envisaged by Washington. Sofar there is no firm evidence regarding the nature or timeline of a US sponsored military operation directed against Venezuela.

Video: US Forces Steal Tons of Gold Captured by ISIS in Syria, Iraq

By South Front, March 02, 2019

According to Kurdish Bas News Agency, the US transferred about 50 tons of gold from areas seized from ISIS in Deir Ezzor province. The report says that the gold was withdrawn from Syria through the US military base in Ayn al-Arab. A part of it was allegedly shared with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are the core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

From Late Victorian Holocausts to 21st Century Imperialism: “Crocodile Tears” for Venezuela

By Colin Todhunter, March 01, 2019

On 26 February, Stephen Hickey, UK political coordinator at the United Nations, delivered a statement at the Security Council briefing on Venezuela that put the blame for the situation in that country on its government. He said that years of misrule and corruption have wrecked the Venezuelan economy and that the actions of the “Maduro regime” have led to economic collapse.

Returning Syrian Refugees Were Fleeing US Proxy War, Not “Assad”

By Tony Cartalucci, March 01, 2019

Huge numbers of Syrians have already returned to Syria – specifically to areas government forces have cleared of Western-armed and backed terrorists. This includes Aleppo, Homs, and Daraa.

The flood of returning refugees to government-held areas indicates Syrians were fleeing the US-backed proxy war against the Syrian government – not the Syrian government itself.

Cohen Knows What Trump Is Capable of. His Testimony Should Terrify Us.

By Prof. Marjorie Cohn, March 01, 2019

On February 27, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee for six hours. In two months, Cohen will begin serving a three-year prison sentence.

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While Americans have rightly groaned and rebelled against President Trump’s declaration of a national emergency over his precious wall, which would rob Congress of its constitutional authority over spending, he has also used another false declaration of national emergency―most recently last week―that has been mostly unnoticed.

Every executive order that Trump has issued imposing economic sanctions on Venezuela includes a sentence declaring that the country is causing a “national emergency” for America and poses “an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security” of the United States.

The fact that these absurd claims have gone unnoticed in the major media shows how weak the rule of law is in the United States in the arena of foreign policy―as legal scholars have noted. This is especially true for aggressive actions by our government that kill people in other countries.

And make no mistake about it: US sanctions on Venezuela are killing people, and have been killing people for some time, as opposition economist Francisco Rodríguez, the leading expert on the Venezuelan economy, has pointed out.

There are no estimates of the death toll from the sanctions, but given the experience of countries in similar situations, it is likely in the thousands or tens of thousands so far. And it will get rapidly worse if the most recent sanctions continue.

How do economic sanctions kill people? In general, they do so by damaging the economy. This includes loss of employment and income for people living on the margin, and, most importantly, reduced access to life-saving necessities such as medicines, medical supplies, and health care.

In Iraq in the 1990s, for example, the number of children who died from the sanctions was in the hundreds of thousands.

But the Venezuelan people have been even more vulnerable to US economic sanctions than Iraqis were. Venezuela is dependent on oil exports for almost all of the dollars the economy needs to import necessities such as medicine and food. This means that anything that reduces oil production is primarily hitting the general population by cutting off the dollars that both the private sector and government use to import goods for people’s basic needs, as well as for transport, spare parts, and most goods that the economy needs in order to function.

The Trump sanctions of August 2017 imposed a financial embargo that cut Venezuela off from most borrowing. This had an enormous impact on oil production, which had already been declining. The rate of decline accelerated rapidly; during the year following the sanctions, it would fall by 700,000 barrels a day, about three times as fast as it had fallen over the previous 20 months. This post-sanction acceleration in the loss of oil production amounts to the loss of more than $6 billion. For comparison, Venezuela, when the economy was growing, spent about $2 billion per year on medicines. Total goods imports for 2018 are estimated at $11.7 billion.

At the time of these sanctions, Venezuela was already suffering from a deep recession and balance-of-payments problems that necessitated a debt restructuring. To restructure the debt, the government has to be able to issue new bonds, but the US sanctions made this impossible.

The Trump sanctions—both the August 2017 sanctions and now the new oil embargo—also make it pretty near impossible for the government to take measures that would end the hyperinflation, currently estimated at 1.6 million percent annually. To stabilize hyperinflation, you have to restore faith in the domestic currency. This would very likely be done through creating a new exchange-rate system and other measures that would require access to the dollar-based international financial system—but the sanctions preclude that.

The sanctions imposed by the Obama administration in March 2015 (which also declared a “national emergency”) also had a very serious impact. This is well-known in financial institutions, but generally not reported in the major media, which treat these sanctions as they are advertised by the US government, as “sanctions against individuals.” But when the individuals are high-level government officials, for example the finance minister, the sanctions cause enormous problems, as these officials are cut off from necessary transactions in most of the world financial system.

Financial institutions increasingly turned away from Venezuela after March 2015, as they saw the risks of lending to a government that the United States was increasingly determined to topple―and, as the economy worsened, looked more likely to succeed in doing so. The Venezuelan private sector was cut off from vital access to credit, which contributed to the unprecedented, indeed almost unbelievable, 80 percent drop in imports over the past six years, which has devastated this import-dependent economy.

On January 23, the Trump administration announced that it was recognizing Juan Guaidó, currently head of the Venezuelan National Assembly, as “interim president” of the country. By doing so (together with politically allied countries), Washington basically imposed a trade embargo against Venezuela. This is because any revenue from oil sales to about three-quarters of Venezuela’s export markets―the United States and its allies―would no longer go to the government but to the “interim president.” Some temporary exceptions were carved out for US oil companies, but this embargo is still sweeping enough to rapidly multiply the economic damage, suffering, and death that the prior sanctions have caused.

statement on the latest sanctions from the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner of Human Rights noted, “Precipitating an economic and humanitarian crisis in Venezuela is not a foundation for the peaceful settlement of disputes.”

It is clear from their statements and actions that the Trump team―including National Security Adviser John Bolton, Senator Marco Rubio, and 1980s warcriminal and now special envoy to Venezuela Elliott Abrams―is not interested in a peaceful resolution of Venezuela’s crisis. They are not the type who worry about how many people will die along their road to regime change.

The real question is why prominent liberals, such as Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, support this illegal and barbaric operation. Is it possible they don’t know what Trump and his sanctions are doing?

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Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC, and president of Just Foreign Policy. His latest book is Failed: What the “Experts” Got Wrong About the Global Economy (2015, Oxford University Press).

In a win for free speech, a federal court in North Dakota recently dismissed a baseless $900 million lawsuit brought by the Dakota Access Pipeline company against Greenpeace and a number of individual protesters. The company should have learned its lesson. Instead, it refiled the case in state court.

These meritless cases are textbook examples of “Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation,” or SLAPPs. This tactic is increasingly used by corporations to silence critics with expensive legal actions.

The pipeline company, Energy Transfer LP, filed the lawsuit in 2017 against Greenpeace organizations and others, including individual Standing Rock protesters. It relied on defamation law and the Racketeering Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act, a federal statute designed to prosecute mob activity.

The company alleged that Greenpeace and the other defendants, in criticizing the pipeline’s potential environmental and cultural damage to the nearby Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, engaged in a criminal network of fraud and misinformation. The 231-page complaint described the defendants as a “network of not-for-profits and rogue eco-terrorist groups.”

The lawsuit rested on two theories, neither of which passed muster in federal court. First, the complaint argued that Greenpeace and the other defendants were engaged in a conspiracy to defraud the public and defame the company. Second, it claimed that the defendants were engaged in an “illegal Enterprise” targeting the company and should therefore be held liable for any illegal actions committed by those who simply shared a common opposition to the pipeline.

These accusations, wild as they seem, would set a dangerous precedent if accepted: Not only might a different decision bankrupt defendants like Greenpeace  — due to both litigation expenses and damages — and destroy the lives of the Standing Rock activists, but it could also erode the right of nonprofit organizations to speak out against corporate actions. Further, acceptance of the company’s legal arguments would make any advocacy group potentially liable for the conduct of its supporters and fellow travelers, even without any evidence of direct coordination.

The ACLU, along with a coalition of public interest groups, filed a friend-of-the-court brief in support of Greenpeace and its partners and the individual Standing Rock protesters. We argued that Energy Transfer’s claims violate the First Amendment, which prohibits companies from suing critics out of existence just because their message is anathema to the corporate interests of the plaintiff. We also told the court that the RICO Act can’t be manipulated and exploited to suppress constitutionally protected speech.

The judge agreed and dismissed the case. His order concluded that

“Donating to people whose cause you support does not create a RICO enterprise,” and that “Posting articles written by people with similar beliefs does not create a RICO enterprise.”

The opinion chided the company for its hyperbolic complaint and vindicated the activists and organizations that sought to speak out on matters of serious public concern.

Last week, in a pigheaded display of its commitment to dragging Greenpeace, its partners, and the Standing Rock protesters through an expensive and unjustified lawsuit for as long as possible, the company refiled the case in state court. This new lawsuit rehashes the same, tired arguments that it presented in federal court, but relies exclusively on state laws.

While the federal court ruled in favor of free speech and common sense, and while the re-filed version of the lawsuit is unlikely to succeed, these cases represent an alarming trend in the suppression of public activism. That’s why the ACLU joined a number of other public interest groups in founding the Protect the Protest Task Force, a coalition dedicated to fighting SLAPP cases.

These unfounded lawsuits attempt to abuse the judicial system in order to suppress constitutionally protected expression by intimidating activists and advocates. The Protect the Protest Task Force provides support for organizations and individuals targeted as a result of their public interest advocacy.

Protesters and advocacy groups have the right to freely and vigorously criticize their opponents, even when their speech threatens to subvert corporate interests. These cases offer a grim reminder of our responsibility to hold companies accountable when they abuse the judicial system with stunt litigation transparently designed to intimidate and bankrupt their critics.

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Nicola Morrow is Paralegal, ACLU Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.

Featured image is from ACLU

Glyphosate Found in 19 of 20 Beers and Wines Tested

March 3rd, 2019 by Olivia Rosane

Glyphosate—the active ingredient in Monsanto‘s Roundup weedkiller that some studies have linked to cancer—is also a secret ingredient in nearly 20 popular beers and wines.

That’s the finding of a new study from the education group U.S. PIRG, which found glyphosate in 19 of 20 wine and beer brands tested, including organic labels and brews.

The release of the study coincides with the beginning of the first federal trial against Monsanto and its new parent company Bayer over whether Roundup use caused a plaintiff’s cancer, USA Today reported Monday.

“With a federal court looking at the connection between Roundup and cancer today, we believe this is the perfect time to shine a spotlight on glyphosate,” study author and U.S. PIRG Toxic’s Director Kara Cook-Schultz told USA Today. “This chemical could prove a true risk to so many Americans’ health, and they should know that it is everywhere – including in many of their favorite drinks.”

The drink with the highest glyphosate concentration was Sutter Home Merlot, at 51.4 parts per billion (ppb). Popular beer brands like Coors Light, Miller Lite and Budweiser all had concentrations above 25 ppb. The full results of the study, from highest to lowest glyphosate concentration in ppb, are listed below.

Wines

  1. Sutter Home Merlot: 51.4 ppb
  2. Beringer Founders Estates Moscato: 42.6 ppb
  3. Barefoot Cabernet Sauvignon: 36.3 ppb
  4. Inkarri Malbec, Certified Organic: 5.3 ppb
  5. Frey Organic Natural White: 4.8 ppb

Beers

  1. Tsingtao Beer: 49.7 ppb
  2. Coors Light: 31.1 ppb
  3. Miller Lite: 29.8 ppb
  4. Budweiser: 27.0 ppb
  5. Corona Extra: 25.1 ppb
  6. Heineken: 20.9 ppb
  7. Guinness Draught: 20.3 ppb
  8. Stella Artois: 18.7 ppb
  9. Ace Perry Hard Cider: 14.5 ppb
  10. Sierra Nevada Pale Ale: 11.8 ppb
  11. New Belgium Fat Tire Amber Ale: 11.2 ppb
  12. Sam Adams New England IPA: 11.0 ppb
  13. Stella Artois Cidre: 9.1 ppb
  14. Samuel Smith’s Organic Lager: 5.7 ppb

The only beverage tested that contained no glyphosate was Peak Beer Organic IPA.

The amounts found were far below the safety limits for glyphosate set by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as Bayer toxicologist William Reeves told CBS News via a spokesperson.

“The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency sets daily exposure limits at least 100 times below levels shown to have no negative effect in safety studies,” Reeves said. “Assuming the greatest value reported, 51.4 ppb, is correct, a 125-pound adult would have to consume 308 gallons of wine per day, every day for life to reach the US Environmental Protection Agency’s glyphosate exposure limit for humans. To put 308 gallons into context, that would be more than a bottle of wine every minute, for life, without sleeping.”

However, the study noted that chemicals aren’t necessarily safe just because regulatory bodies say they are.

“While these levels of glyphosate are below EPA risk tolerances for beverages, it is possible that even low levels of glyphosate can be problematic. For example, in one study, scientists found that 1 part per trillion of glyphosate has the potential to stimulate the growth of breast cancer cells and disrupt the endocrine system,” the study said.

The EPA has found that glyphosate is not carcinogenic to humans, but the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer ruled it was a probable human carcinogen in 2015. More recently, a study released February found that those exposed to glyphosate were 41 percent more likely to develop non-Hodgkin lymphoma.

In the first case to go to trial against Monsanto over Roundup last year, a jury ruled that exposure to glyphosate had caused the non-Hodgkin lymphoma of California groundskeeper Dewayne Johnson. Plaintiff Edwin Hardeman is making a similar claim in the first federal glyphosate trial that started Monday.

“Due to glyphosate’s many health risks and its ubiquitous nature in our food, water and alcohol, the use of glyphosate in the U.S. should be banned unless and until it can be proven safe,” the U.S. PIRG study advised.

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We’re Killing Off Our Vital Insects Too

March 3rd, 2019 by F. William Engdahl

Recent independent scientific studies indicate that we are threatening our vital global insect population, including of bees, with widespread extinction through massive deployment of agriculture pesticides. For most of us, insects such as flies or mosquitoes or wasps are nuisances to be avoided. Yet if the latest studies are any indication, we may be in danger of massive elimination of vital insects that maintain nature’s balance. The consequences to life on this planet are only now beginning to be seriously considered.

The first-ever worldwide study of declines of insect species and numbers has just been published by the journal, Biological Conservation. The conclusions are more than alarming. Among other conclusions the study found that over 40% of insect species are threatened with extinction.

The study found that habitat loss by the conversion to intensive agriculture is the main driver of the declines, as well as agrochemical pollutants such as glyphosate, neonicotinoids and other pesticides. The authors explain,

“Here, we present a comprehensive review of 73 historical reports of insect declines from across the globe, and systematically assess the underlying drivers. Our work reveals dramatic rates of decline that may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world’s insect species over the next few decades.”

The study notes recent analyses that indicate that extensive usage of pesticides is the primary factor responsible for the decline of birds in grasslands and aquatic organisms such as fish or frogs in streams.

Among other things the study cites results of a 27-year study of insect populations in select German protected nature preserves that found a “shocking 76% decline in flying insect biomass at several of Germany’s protected areas…an average 2.8% loss in insect biomass per year in habitats subject to rather low levels of human disturbance. Worryingly, the study shows a steady declining trend over nearly three decades. A study in rain-forests of Puerto Rico has reported biomass losses between 98% and 78% for ground-foraging and canopy-dwelling arthropods over a 36-year period and parallel declines in birds, frogs and lizards at the same areas…”

Especially alarming were the declines in bee populations, especially bumblebees. Since 1980 they found that wild bee species in Britain declined by 52% and 67% in the Netherlands. In the United States, the country which pioneered intensive agribusiness and wide use of chemicals after World War II, they found that wild bees were declining in 23% of the country between 2008 and 2013, mainly in the Midwest, Great Plains and the Mississippi valley. These were the areas where grain production, particularly GMO corn for biofuel production using glyphosate and other chemicals was prevalent. Overall the USA went from a peak in 1947 of six million honey bee colonies, down to less than half or some 2.5 million colonies today. The decline began immediately as widespread agriculture use of the organochloride insecticide DDT was employed. Decline has continued unabated even after DDT was banned in 1972 in the United States as DDT was replaced by glyphosate-based alternatives and other chemical pesticides.

Irreversible decline?

What is poorly understood by the larger public is the essential role that insects play to the entire order of nature and species preservation. As the report notes, “shrews, moles, hedgehogs, anteaters, lizards, amphibians, most bats, many birds and fish feed on insects or depend on them for rearing their offspring. Even if some declining insects might be replaced with others, it is difficult to envision how a net drop in overall insect biomass could be countered.” The study concludes among other sobering points that “the application of herbicides to cropland has had more negative impacts on both terrestrial and aquatic plants and insect biodiversity than any other agronomic practice.” The far most widely used herbicide in the world today is glyphosate and Monsanto Roundup based on glyphosate.

Another recent study by the California Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation reported that California’s monarch butterfly population is at an all-time low. From the 1980s when monitoring began to 2017, some 97% of monarch butterflies had disappeared. Then from 2017 to today another 85% decline was registered. The scientists claim the intensive agriculture use of pesticides, herbicides is the main cause.

Scientists at the University of Texas have identified in experiments that glyphosate, the controversial herbicide in Monsanto Roundup, harms the microbiota needed by honeybees for growing and resisting pathogens. This, combined with earlier studies linking the group of neonicotinoid pesticides to bee deaths, suggest we need an urgent review of the toxins being widely applied to our agriculture cropsNotably, the world’s largest purveyor of both neonicotinoids and of glyphosate-based Roundup today is the merged giant Monsanto/Bayer.

These studies all are putting the focus on an aspect of agrochemical damage that until now has been largely ignored. But insects make up the structural and functional base of many of the world’s ecosystems. A world without birds and bees would be one of catastrophic damage to all life on our planet. Without insects, entire ecosystems collapse. Rather than solving world hunger as the agribusiness industry likes to claim, their promotion of select pesticides such as glyphosate threaten to destroy the food system. Nobody in their right mind would want to do that, would they?

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F. William Engdahl is strategic risk consultant and lecturer, he holds a degree in politics from Princeton University and is a best-selling author on oil and geopolitics, exclusively for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research. 

Featured image is from NEO


seeds_2.jpg

Seeds of Destruction: Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation

Author Name: F. William Engdahl
ISBN Number: 978-0-937147-2-2
Year: 2007
Pages: 341 pages with complete index

List Price: $25.95

Special Price: $18.00

 

This skilfully researched book focuses on how a small socio-political American elite seeks to establish control over the very basis of human survival: the provision of our daily bread. “Control the food and you control the people.”

This is no ordinary book about the perils of GMO. Engdahl takes the reader inside the corridors of power, into the backrooms of the science labs, behind closed doors in the corporate boardrooms.

The author cogently reveals a diabolical world of profit-driven political intrigue, government corruption and coercion, where genetic manipulation and the patenting of life forms are used to gain worldwide control over food production. If the book often reads as a crime story, that should come as no surprise. For that is what it is.

It’s almost as though the greater the devastation caused by neoliberalism, the greater the outbreak of NGOs.

Nothing illustrates this more poignantly than the phenomenon of the US preparing to invade a country and simultaneously readying NGOs to go in and clean up the devastation.”

– Arundhati Roy (August 16, 2004) [1]

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On February 29th 2004, fifteen years ago this week, following an insurgency by a rebel paramilitary army, U.S. Canadian, and French troops executed a coup d’etat against the democratically elected Haitian leader Jean-Bertrand Aristide.

This incident was notable in a long history of imperialist interests determined to thwart any semblance of emancipation from foreign control.

From the arrival of Christopher Columbus through the slave trade, military interventions, occupation and U.S. backed tyrannies, far away powers have profited from the sweat and blood of the people of this island community. [2]

Yet, the spirit of resistance has flourished! Following the world’s first and only successful slave revolt, Haiti had established its independence in 1804. A popular uprising in the 1980s would lead to the collapse of the brutal U.S. backed Duvalier regime. And in spite of U.S. and CIA backed actions to sabotage Haitian democracy, an array of grassroots organizations prevailed in their efforts to elevate Aristide, an advocate for the poor, to the presidency in December 1990. [3]

Aristide’s advocacy for the Haitian people and refusal to implement policies favourable to offshore financial interests coming at the expense of his fellow Haitians led to his 1991 ouster by a CIA-backed coup. U.S. President Bill Clinton would return Aristide to Haiti on the condition he would grant amnesty to the brutal Haitian military and implement structural adjustment programs and other reforms demanded by the World Bank and the other instruments of the so-called ‘Washington Consensus.’ [4]

It was defiance of these conditions by Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas Party that led to the 2004 coup. [5]

In the 15 years since, a colonial occupation has asserted itself on the island nation in the name of ‘peace-keeping’ and ‘humanitarian relief.’ A closer inspection however, reveals that what may be portrayed as philanthropic benevolence is in fact a disguise for the continued oppression of a people daring to defy white supremacist exploitation.

In recent weeks, Haitians are once again rising in opposition to a U.S. puppet government which ironically better fits the criticisms of corrupt and anti-democratic behaviour than does the Maduro government being condemned by the U.S. and Canada. [6]

This week’s Global Research News Hour radio program marks the 15 year anniversary of the 2004 coup and the consequent undermining of Haitian sovereignty with two interviews.

In the first half hour, Jean Saint-Vil elaborates on the historical and geopolitical context of the coup and the ongoing occupation, notes the ignoble efforts in the country by the U.N. and the Clintons among others, and speaks to both the morality and the wisdom of Western powers changing their relationship with Haitians and respecting their sovereignty.

We next speak with Yves Engler specifically about Canada’s role in the coup and the interests it is pursuing in the country. He speaks about how and why even progressive Canadian organizations are echoing the propaganda and talking points enabling the occupation. He discusses the presence of Canadian Special Forces on the ground in Haiti in the midst of recent popular upheaval there. He also brings up the Quebec engineering firm SNC Lavelin, currently making headlines in Ottawa, and takes note of that company’s involvement within Haiti along with its under-reported role within the architecture of Canadian foreign policy decision-making generally.

Jean Saint-Vil is a Haitian-Canadian writer and activist. He co-founder the Canada -Haiti Action Network and has visited Haiti several times before and since the 2004 coup.

Yves Engler is one of Canada’s foremost Canadian foreign policy critics and dissidents. He is the author of nine books on Canadian foreign policy including Canada in Haiti: Waging War on the Poor Majority (2005), which he co-authored with Anthony Fenton, The Black Book of Canadian Foreign Policy (2009), and his most recent, Left, Right: Marching to the Beat of Imperial Canada.

(Global Research News Hour Episode 250)

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Notes: 

  1. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17888.htm
  2. Press for Conversion! (Issue #60), March 2007, pg 3-6; https://www.globalresearch.ca/us-sponsored-coup-detat-the-destabilization-of-haiti/5323726
  3. ibid
  4. ibid
  5. idib
  6. https://www.globalresearch.ca/canadian-policy-on-venezuela-haiti-reveals-hypocrisy-that-media-ignores/5669171

Abe Government’s Reluctant Admission 

After a long silence, the Abe government has finally admitted that the construction of a U.S. military base at Henoko-Oura Bay in Okinawa requires significant changes to the original land reclamation plan (see Asahi Shimbun). Parts of the seafloor of the construction site have proven to be extremely fragile, having the consistency of mayonnaise. To solidify the seafloor sufficiently to support a functional airport, a “sand compaction pile method” needs to be carried out (see this video for sand compaction pile method). Casing piles will be driven into the seafloor as deep as 60 meters (or 90 meters below the water surface), and the piles, which are hollow, will be filled from the top with sand and other compacting materials. Then the piles are raised or removed slowly leaving the compacting materials in the form of a pillar, thus solidifying the seafloor. This procedure is to be repeated 76,000 times, implanting 76,000 compacting pillars in the seafloor (see Ryukyu Shimpo). 

Source: Asahi Shimbun

Reclamation experts have said that while the sand compaction pile method has been successfully carried out in other regions within Japan, it has never been done to a depth of 90 meters, and there are no pile drivers in Japan capable of reaching to that depth. On this problem the government has so far offered no comment.

Sand Compacting Pile Method © FUDO TETRA. Original source

The government’s admission has critical implications not only for the Japanese government but also for the U.S. and international institutions.

The Japanese Government’s Pretense: No Adverse Impact on the Environment 

The Abe government’s admission has placed the government in a difficult situation.

Oura Bay and Base Construction (Feb. 3, 2019) © H. Yoshikawa

First, implanting 76,000 piles into the seafloor is certain to have a tremendous impact on, and cause irreversible changes to, the environment of Henoko-Oura Bay, one of the most biodiversity-rich marine environments in the world (see Okinawa Prefectural Government). This poses a significant challenge to the Japanese government’s pretense that the construction and operation of the base will not create adverse effects on the environment (hence base construction is legal).

The pretense was made possible by the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) (2012), which has been vehemently criticized for numerous flaws by experts and environmental NGOs. The government’s admission is the latest blow to the tainted EIA and to the government’s environmental claims concerning the viability of the Henoko-Oura Bay project. The EIA made no mention of the mayonnaise-like condition of the seafloor.

Ryukyu Shimpo Extra Edition. Okinawa Prefectural Government’s Revocation of Land Reclamation Permit

Second, the proposed changes (or any change of this magnitude) to the original construction plan require a new environmental impact study and approval from local governments. Given that Okinawa Governor Denny Tamaki was elected in a special gubernatorial election in September 2018 on his pledge to fight the base construction, he is expected to deny any proposal for changes (see Ryukyu Shimpo). His refusal to permit construction will drag the entire base construction plan down, causing a halt or a long delay.

Japanese Government Resorts to its Usual Tactics

At this juncture, the Abe administration is downplaying the magnitude of its admission, insisting that construction work will continue. In fact, the Okinawa Defense Bureau is starting to build a new seawall in the area near the fragile seafloor (see The Japan Times). Many see this as the government’s attempt to create a fait accompli by giving the impression that construction work has passed the point of no return.

In short, the Japanese government is resorting to its usual tactics. Throughout its reckless pushing of the construction plan, every time environmental issues came to light, the Japanese government has attempted to sweep them under its administrative rug. It has repeatedly prevented examination of the issues and continued to insist that the “no environmental impact” study was sufficient, thus enabling construction to move forward despite engineering evidence of the dangers.

Most recently, in August 2018, when the Okinawan prefectural government revoked the land reclamation permit for base construction on the grounds of serious environmental and civil engineering problems (see the Okinawa Prefectural Government’s Revocation Documents in English), Ishii Keiichi, the Minister of Land, Infrastructure, Technology, and Tourism, came to the rescue, and denied the revocation. The Minister claimed that revocation of the permit would negatively impact the U.S.-Japan alliance and make it difficult to eliminate the dangers posed by the Futenma base at its current location (see The Japan Times). The suspension allowed construction work to resume while stifling the environmental and technical issues raised in the revocation documents.

Despite the Japanese government’s tactics, however, environmental issues persist. New problems are emerging and old problems are coming back to haunt the Japanese government.

U.S. Department of Defense and the U.S. Judicial System 

The Japanese government’s admission of the fragile seafloor and the need to implant 76,000 piles to solidify it has far-reaching implications beyond Henoko-Oura Bay, Okinawa, and Japan.

First of all, it challenges the claims made by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) in the U.S. court and could test the integrity of the U.S. judicial system.

In August 2018, the U.S. Federal District Court of Northern California ruled in favor of the DoD (the defendant) (see the Court Ruling), and against the coalition of civil society members from Okinawa, Japan and the U.S. (the plaintiffs), in a case fought under the jurisdiction of the U.S. National Historic Preservation Act of 1966. The Court accepted the DoD’s claims that prior to the start of base construction work, it had conducted a proper study regarding possible impact of the construction and operation of the base on the dugong, a manatee-like marine mammal, which is an internationally endangered species, Japan’s natural monument, and Okinawa’s cultural icon. The court accepted the DoD’s 2014 conclusion that the base would have no adverse impact on the dugong. It was this conclusion that finally allowed base construction work to start in July 2014.

Okinawa Dugongs. The Japanese Ministry of the Environment

Now the Japanese government’s admission calls into question the validity of DoD claims since the DoD heavily relied upon the Okinawa Defense Bureau’s EIA in conducting its study and reaching the no adverse impact conclusion. As mentioned above, the EIA did not mention the fragile seafloor or the need to drive 76,000 piles in the Dugong habitat.

More importantly, the fact that the DoD did not have this information puts the US court system in a complicated situation, as the case is now being reviewed in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit. (see the Plaintiffs-Appellants’ Opening Brief).

In an appeals court, documents and evidence to be reviewed are usually limited to those that had previously been examined in the district court. In the dugong case, most of the documents and evidence examined in the district court came from the period before the DoD completed its environmental study and reached the 2014 no adverse impact conclusion. The current critical status of the dugong – no dugong has been observed in Henoko-Oura Bay since construction started and Dugong C has been entirely missing from the waters of Okinawa since 2015 – was not taken into consideration by the district court (see then Governor Onaga Takeshi’s letter to the DoD describing the current status of the dugong).

It is not known whether the appeals court will take the Japanese government’s admission into consideration. Nonetheless, the situation presents a critical test of the very objectives and mechanism of the National Historical Preservation Act (NHPA) and the integrity of the entire U.S. judicial system.

International Union for Conservation of Nature and UNESCO World Natural Heritage Nomination

The Abe government’s admission also presents a difficult test to the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) because, as an advisory body to the UNESCO World Heritage programme, IUCN is involved in the nomination process of the “Northern part of Okinawa Island” for UNESCO World Natural Heritage status.

World Natural Heritage Nomination Document (Feb. 2019). The Japanese Ministry of the Environment

On February 1, the Japanese Ministry of the Environment submitted to IUCN its nomination of Amami-Oshima Island, Tokunoshima Island, the Northern Part of Okinawa Island, and Iriomote Island for World Natural Heritage status (see the Nomination document). This nomination is the Japanese government’s second attempt in the last two years and could be the last. In May 2018, the IUCN recommended that the nomination be “deferred,” (see the IUCN Evaluation 2018) and the Japanese government withdrew it. Among other things, the presence of the U.S. military’s Northern Training Area (NTA) located right next to the nominated area of the Northern Part of Okinawa Island made it difficult for the IUCN to approve the nomination.

Henoko-Oura Bay is not included in the nominated area of the “Northern Part of Okinawa Island.” However, Henoko-Oura Bay is just 10 miles away from the nominated area, and is an integral part of the ecosystem of northern Okinawa. It is inconceivable that the World Heritage nomination process (which will include IUCN experts’ field trip to the nominated area of the Northern Part of Okinawa Island) and the drilling of 76,000 piles into the seafloor in Henoko-Oura Bay can take place simultaneously without each affecting the other.

The Japanese government’s admission of the fragility of the seafloor and its relentless push for base construction in Henoko-Oura Bay is a stark reminder that when U.S. military base issues are at stake, Japanese environmental protection measures including EIA cease to function properly, and the Ministry of the Environment no longer behaves as a good steward of the environment. (For the honor of the Ministry, it should be emphasized that it did a fine job of preparing the environmental case for the other four areas inscribed as World Natural Heritage sites and is well-maintaining them).

The situation tests the integrity of IUCN as the world’s trusted institution for the conservation of nature.

U.S. and International Institutions Need to Call on the Japanese Government to Abandon its Destructive Plan

For more than twenty years, the people of Okinawa and members of international civil society have been urging the Japanese and U.S. Governments to abandon the base construction plan.

Save the Dugong Rally in San Francisco (June 2018) © Center for Biological Diversity

Okinawa already has too many U.S. military bases on its soil. The environment of Henoko-Oura Bay, with some 5,300 marines species including 262 endangered species and peaceful communities with rich cultural traditions, is by no means an ideal site for an environmentally intrusive military base and training area. It should be a place for international collaboration for environmental protection and conservation. It is time for the U.S. Government (the executive, legislative, and judicial branches) and IUCN to tell the Japanese Government to abandon this costly and destructive plan.

*

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Yoshikawa Hideki is Nago-resident anthropologist teaching at Meio University and the University of the Ryukyus, International director of the Save the Dugong Campaign Center and Director of the Okinawa Environmental Justice Project. Author of several major articles on this site.

Washington’s anti-China strategy includes targeting its dominant companies, ones able to match or outdo America’s best for preeminence in key fields, notably high-tech ones.

It’s why Sabrina Meng Wanzhou was targeted, chief financial officer of Chinese tech giant Huawei Technologies, world leader in the race to roll out cellular mobile communications 5G technology, trillions of dollars of economic value at stake – $12.3 trillion by 2035, according to one estimate.

The stakes are huge. Chinese tech giants Huawei and ZTE are major players. Trump regime hardliners fear they’ll win the 5G race over US companies.

The technology is touted as able to support the next generation of Internet-connected devices infrastructure to smart cities and driverless cars.

America’s trade deficit with China is a minor issue by comparison, distracting from the major one, China heading toward being the world’s largest economy, along with becoming an industrial and technological powerhouse, what Washington aims to prevent.

Doing Washington’s dirty work, Canada unjustifiably arrested and detained Meng without just cause – phony accusations substituting for legitimate ones, improper claims about Huawei conspiring to violate (illegal) US sanctions on Iran, ones no nations should observe.

A US Justice Department 13-count indictment also charged Huawei with wire fraud, money laundering, intellectual property theft, and obstruction of justice.

The politicized indictment alleges Huawei and an affiliate company violated the 1977 US International Emergency Economic Powers Act (IEEPA).

It permits regulation of commerce after declaring a national emergency in response to an alleged threat to America by a foreign state – despite none existing since WW II ended, notably none posed by Russia, China, Iran, and other nations targeted by the US for regime change.

Meng is charged with bank fraud, wire fraud, and conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. The Trump regime formally requested Canada to extradite her to the US. Currently she’s illegally held under house arrest in Vancouver.

A second 10-count US indictment charges Huawei and its US affiliate with theft of trade secrets from T-Mobile USA, wire fraud, and obstruction of justice – also alleging Huawei “offer(ed) bonuses to employees who succeeded in stealing confidential information from other companies.”

China and Huawei deny US charges. Beijing’s Foreign Ministry accused Washington of using state power to subvert the operations of Chinese companies, notably high-tech ones like Huawei and ZTE – vowing to protect their legitimate rights.

Currently under house arrest in Vancouver, Canadian authorities approved Meng’s extradition to the US, acting on Trump regime orders.

Her attorney David Martin said what she’s charged with is not illegal in Canada. Extraditing her would violate Ottawa’s extradition agreement with the US, adding:

“Our client maintains that she is innocent of any wrongdoing and that the US prosecution and extradition constitutes an abuse of the processes of law.”

A lengthy legal battle is likely, China and Huawei surely to go all out for the interests of the nation, the company and Meng. Her next court appearance is scheduled for March 6.

On Friday, China’s Foreign Ministry spokesperson slammed Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, saying his credibility is at stake over this issue, demanding his government drop charges against Meng and release her from house arrest.

On March 2, China’s Global Times demanded Canada “stop meddling in the case of Meng Wanzhou due to its political nature.”

Spokesperson for Beijing’s embassy in Ottawa was quoted, saying

“(t)his is not merely a judicial case, but political persecution of a Chinese high-tech enterprise. The subsequent developments have proved this.”

Beijing believes what’s going on will ultimately be dealt with through Sino/US negotiations, not settled judicially. Attorney Long Liu called Meng’s targeting “a misstep by Canadian authorities.”

On Saturday, Beijing again called for Meng’s immediate release, its Foreign Ministry spokesperson saying

“(t)his is a serious political event. We once again urge the US to immediately withdraw the arrest warrant and extradition request for Meng Wanzhou.”

Academic Li Haidong called her arrest, detention, and ordered extradition to the US by Canada “an unfortunate decision…damag(ing) relations with China,” along with its “international image as a sovereign country with judicial independence,” adding:

Based on alleged US evidence released so far, extraditing Meng to America would be a “twisted (politically motivated) decision” – harmful to Canada’s interests, a “political scandal” if PM Trudeau bends to US interests on this issue.

According to political analyst Mei Xinyu,

“(t)he impact (of this case) is far-reaching. Canada’s move has set a very bad precedent for the international order of business and trade.”

If things aren’t equitably resolved, China’s relations with the US and Canada will be more negatively impacted than already.

*

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from The Straits Times

First published by GR on March 13, 2018.  February 28- March 1st marks the 15th anniversary of the illegal US-France-Canada coup d’Etat against the duly elected government of president Bertrand Aristide.

***

The notorious drug lord, Pablo Escobar, was elected in 1982 “as an alternate member of Colombia’s Congress”. In 1984, he was forced to resign after two years because of his direct involvement in drug production and smuggling to the United States. The Ronald Reagan administration pressured the Colombian president, Luis Carlos Garlan, to prevent Escobar from sitting in the parliament.

In 1989, the US Marine invaded Panama to capture Manuel Antonio Noriega, the former Panamanian strongman, and flew him to Miami based on a 1988 indictment for drug smuggling and money laundering. He spent 17 years in prison in the United States. Later, he was jailed in France in 2010 before being extradited to his own country Panama. He died there of cancer on May 29, 2017.

In 2004, another coup d’état took place in Haiti, which toppled the duly elected President Jean Bertrand Aristide from power. The United States, via the DEA, imprisoned many disgraced Haitian officials in Miami. Among them were a Haitian police’s general director, a senator, and former president Aristide’s chief bodyguard.

All of them were convicted of drug trafficking.

In 2011, Hillary and Bill Clinton, without regard for the law or decency, installed Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly to power as president of Haiti. The latter is a well-known drug dealer and consumer. He shared more than the name “Sweet Mickey” with the late army lieutenant colonel, police chief, and Fort Bragg graduate, Joseph Michel “Sweet Mickey” Francois, a subsequently indicted drug smuggler and one of the main authors of the bloody first U.S-backed regime change (Sept. 30, 1991) that overthrew President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. In an interview with the New York Times, Martelly admitted being a cocaine user, and elsewhere he spoke about being a thief and crackhead. It is also noteworthy to highlight that he continues to be the spiritual leader of the PHTK ruling party, also known as “bandit légal” (legal bandit). Since 2011, the Haitian national palace has become a paradise for drug dealers, arms traffickers, and other human right violators.

In that same vein, Jacques Bedouin Kétant was arrested in Haiti in 2003. He was rapidly transferred to the United States to face drug accusations. A judge found him guilty of sending more than 30 kilos of cocaine to the states and sentenced him to 27 years in prison. On August 18, 2015, the US judicial system decided to deport Jacques Kétant back to Haiti after serving half of his previously scheduled prison term because the court found him to be very cooperative. Upon his return to Haiti, Mr. Kétant was picked up at the capital airport by two important individuals: Roro Nelson and Gracia Delva. Mr. Nelson is former president Michel Martelly’s closest and longtime friend; some people believed that he was there to welcome Mr. Kétant as per Mr. Martelly’s order. Similarly, Mr. Gracia Delva,  a seating senator, a deportee from the United States was also present at the airport to greet the convicted drug kingpin. Delva went as far to admit that his friend Jacques Kétant had given him a very expensive car. Here is a partial list of ex-president Martelly’s and current president Moise’s closest allies who are notorious for their criminal activities:

  • Guy Philippe, elected senator (or selected as senator for others) but couldn’t take the oath because he was arrested by Haitian police and DEA agents. He was quickly transferred to the United States and soon pronounced guilty of money laundering drug monies. He is now serving a 9-year jail sentence in the U.S. Mr. Philippe and president Jovenel Moise waged their political campaign together.
  • Hervé Fourcand: actual Haitian senator; he is implicated in many drug and arms trafficking in Haiti. For instance, when the so-called Leonard Désir was arrested in possession of 20 kilos of cocaine, he testified that the drug belonged to the senator who owns a private jet believed to be used for drug smuggling all over the country.
  • Youri Latortue, also a senator, has been involved in drug activities, according to Wikileaks’ documents.
  • Joseph Lambert, the current president of the Haiti Senate and actual president of the Haiti National Assembly is also the incriminated President Jovenel Moise’s close ally and one of former president Michel Martelly’s advisers. He has similarly been accused of having high-level connections with drug dealers and has been involved in other criminal activities;
  • Senator Willot Joseph has been implicated in drug trafficking.

The Haitian Senate is a sanctuary for drug dealers and criminals. This article is presenting a small tip of the iceberg in terms of drug trafficking activities condoned by the actual Haitian government and its acolytes. The most troubling element of the puzzle is that the United States is aware of all those wrongdoings but has decided to turn a blind eye on everything.

President Jovenel Moïse was put in power last year (2017) by ex-president Michel Martelly via a fraudulent election, endorsed by the US/UN/NGO occupational forces. He had run a 2 year campaign that cost millions of dollars. Many suspected that drug money was involved in the process. Mr. Moïse had been indicted for money laundering just days before he took the oath as president. The justice department stopped the process because the constitution of the land doesn’t permit to prosecute a president in office; he is enjoying the sacred immunity for 5 years.

In 2010, it was well-documented, by many national electoral council members, that the Clintons (Bill and Hillary), under the Obama administration, outmaneuvered Ms. Myrlande Manigat to impose Michel “Sweet Mickey” Martelly as president of Haiti. The former individual is a university professor in Haiti and abroad. She completed her studies at the Sorbonne, the oldest and most prestigious university in France. Why did the Clintons inflict such a horrific pain on a country they have pretended to love so much?  Putting such a despised being as Martelly in power was the last blow to Haiti’s prestige.

Nowadays, the country is totally at the mercy of drug dealers, arms traffickers and corrupt leaders [aka “Legal Bandits) who have stolen and diverted an estimated $4 billion in US dollars. Impunity reigns supreme in this land directly occupied by US-led United Nations forces since 2004. With such high-level back-up, no one is talking; fear rules in Haiti. Haitian institutions are permeated in a terrible and repressive silence; freedom of speech replaced by the mafia code of silence – the cosa nostra’s Omerta Law.  Poverty and organized crime have struck out a big number of honest citizens who are forced to seek refuge and survival from the reigning repression and totalitarianism in other countries, such as Chile, Brazil, Mexico. Haiti is in total despair. No light can be seen at the end of the tunnel.

I have talked to some prominent Haitians in the diaspora and in Haiti who have thusly summarized and point to US responsibility in Haiti’s quagmire: “they broke it, they own it”. They believe that Washington has created the situation. Therefore, it has the moral responsibility to support the people’s efforts to regain their sovereignty in the interest of the rule of law and peaceful co-existence.

In Haiti, it has been rumored that the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) is on the ground. Former president Joseph Martelly and his son, Olivier Martelly, would be among the targets. Nobody has either confirmed or denied these allegations. Tension runs high and the panic is palpable among the lawmakers and oligarchs engaged in corruption who may already be the subjects of sealed DEA indictments just as Guy Philippe was since 2005 but not arrested in Haiti by the DEA until 2017. The country is waiting!

The presidency is influenced directly by well-connected drug dealers. The Parliament is heavily ruled by active gun and drug traffickers. The legal system is the hands of gangsters and the wealthy but repugnant billionaires of the Caribbean.

What Pablo Escobar failed to achieve in Colombia for more than thirty years, a mercenary clan operating in Haiti has achieved. Haiti is arguably the only narco-state in the world run directly by a US-led United Nations humanitarian front.

*

Sources

Cocaine kingpin Jacques Ketant back in Haiti, Miami Herald, August 18, 2015-Jacqueline Thomas and Jay Weaver.

Killing Pablo, Mark Bowder (author).

Operation of Just Cause: The Invasion of Panama, by Thomas Donnelly, Caleb Baker, Margareth Roth.

Former Haiti Chief Police Arrested, CNN-May 17, 2004, by Suzan Candotti.

Hillary Clinton needs to answer for her actions in Honduras and Haiti, Washington Post, by Karen Attiah.

Clinton Emails Point to US Intervention in 2010 Haiti Election-Center for Economic and Policy Research, September 7th, by Jake Johnston.

Wikileaks cables, published in 2008, US listed Joseph Lambert for drug trafficking.

Haiti-liberte: US Embassy Cables Portray Senator Youri Latortue, by Kim Yves, in January 21st 2015.

RNDDH-Reseau National de Defense des Droits humains: “Rapport du RNDDH sur les Electiomns Partielles”, June 2009.

 
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North Korea as a Small Great Power

March 2nd, 2019 by Prof. Pekka Korhonen

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on North Korea as a Small Great Power

Canadian diplomats abroad seek to shape coverage of their work. And the more nefarious their actions the harder they toil to “spin” what they’re doing as something positive.

During a recent interview Real News Network founder Paul Jay described how Canadian officials in Caracas attempted to shape his views of the country’s politics. Jay noted:

My first trip to Venezuela in 2004, I was producing the big debate show on Canadian TV called Counterspin on CBC Newsworld. … I was a known quantity in Canada. And so when I was in Venezuela, I said I’ll go say hello to the Canadian embassy. I was trying to figure out what was going on in Venezuela. I figured some Counselor would pat me on the head and say welcome to Venezuela.

“No, I got the number two chargé d’affaires that greeted me and brings me into a meeting room with seven members of the opposition who then for two hours beat me over the head with how corrupt the regime was, how awful it was, and so on…

“What business does a Canadian embassy have with bringing a Canadian journalist into a room with opposition people, essentially trying to involve me in a conspiracy against the Venezuelan government. Canadian government role in Venezuela was promote and nurture the opposition.”

Around the same time Canadian officials sought to convince Jay that Hugo Chavez’s government was corrupt, former Montréal Gazette reporter Sue Montgomery had a similar experience in Port-au-Prince. In Parachute Journalism in Haiti: Media Sourcing in the 2003-2004 Political Crisis”, Isabel Macdonald writes:

“Montgomery recalled being given anti-[President Jean-Bertrand] Aristide disinformation when she called the Canadian embassy immediately after she had been held up by armed men while driving through Port-au-Prince days before the [US/France/Canada] coup. Canada’s ambassador to Haiti, Kenneth Cook, told her, ‘We’ve got word that Aristide has given the order to the chimeres [purported pro- Aristide thugs] to do this kind of thing to international journalists because he’s not getting any support.’ According to Montgomery, Cook had urged her to tell the other international journalists who were staying at the same hotel: ‘I think you should let all your colleagues at the Montana know that it’s not safe for them.’”

Given only two days to prepare for her assignment, Montgomery was ripe for official manipulation. Though she later realized the ambassador’s claim was ridiculous, Montgomery told other journalists at Hotel Montana (where most international journalists stay in Port-au-Prince) that Aristide’s supporters were targeting them.

The Canadian embassy in Port-au-Prince succeeded in influencing Canadian reporters’ coverage of the country. In her MA thesis titled “Covering the coup: Canadian news reporting, journalists, and sources in the 2004 Haiti crisis,” Isabel Macdonald concludes that the reporters dispatched to Port-au-Prince largely took their cues from official Canada.

“My interviews revealed that journalists’ contacts with people working in the Canadian foreign policy establishment appear to have played a particularly important role in helping journalists to identify appropriate ‘legitimate’ sources.”

CBC reporter Neil Macdonald told Isabel Macdonald his most trusted sources for background information in Haiti came from Canadian diplomatic circles, notably the Canadian International Development Agency where his cousins worked. Macdonald also said he consulted the Canadian Ambassador in Port-au-Prince to determine the most credible human rights advocate in Haiti. Ambassador Cook directed him to Pierre Espérance, a coup backer who fabricated a “massacre” used to justify imprisoning the constitutional prime minister and interior minister. (When pressed for physical evidence Espérance actually said the 50 bodies “might have been eaten by wild dogs.”)

Almost all Canadian correspondents develop ties to diplomats in the field. Long-time Globe and Mail development reporter John Stackhouse acknowledges “Canadian political officers” in Indonesia for their “valuable insights” into the country during General Suharto’s rule. In Out of Poverty, Stackhouse also thanks “the Canadian diplomatic missions in Accra, Abidjan and Bamako [for their] … invaluable service in arranging interviews and field trips.” During a period in the mid-2000s when she wrote for the Globe and Mail and CBC, Madeleine Drohan conducted media workshops in Zambia, Tanzania, Kenya and elsewhere sponsored by the Canadian embassy, High Commission and Foreign Affairs (she taught journalist ethics!).

One of the best Canadian foreign correspondents of the 1970s,” Jack Cahill discusses some ways diplomats relate to reporters in If You Don’t Like the War, Switch the Damn Thing Off!: The Adventures of a Foreign Correspondent. “The Canadian government”, the former Toronto Star reporter notes, “can be good to foreign correspondents if it thinks they are reliable and I had two passports, one for general purposes and one for difficult countries.”

In what may reflect his nationalism, Cahill dubs Canadian diplomats “more reliable” than their southern counterparts. Disparaging his US colleagues, he writes:

“There is little doubt, however, that some US foreign correspondents depend almost entirely on their embassies, and thus indirectly the CIA, for their information. It is, after all, the natural thing to be attracted to the truth as propounded by one’s own countrymen in the Embassy offices, at the official briefings, and on the cocktail circuit. It’s this information, with its American slant on world affairs, that eventually fills much of Canada’s and the Western world’s news space.”

Jay described his experience at the Embassy in Caracas mostly to highlight Canada’s long-standing hostility to the Hugo Chavez/Nicolas Maduro governments. But, his story also helps make sense of the dominant media’s alignment with Ottawa’s push for regime change in Venezuela today.

Globe and Mail Latin America correspondent Stephanie Nolen, for instance, promotes Canada’s last ambassador to Venezuela. Describing Ben Rowswell as “widely respected by Venezuelans while he was there”, Nolen recently retweeted Rowswell claiming:

“the coup happened in July 2017 when Maduro suspended the constitution. The question now is how to fill the void – by backing the president who uses force to remain in power after his term expires, or the leader of Venezuela’s last remaining democratically elected body?”

Rowswell has been quoted in at least a half dozen Globe and Mail articles about Venezuela in recent weeks.

Diplomats’ influence over international correspondents is one way the foreign policy establishment shapes discussion of Canadian foreign policy.

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British Aid to Venezuela: A Soft Power Tool Kit

March 2nd, 2019 by Nina Cross

With Jeremy Hunt and Alan Duncan keenly poised to overthrow the democratically elected leader of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, in order to install a compliant neoliberal one, now is a good time to look at the aid which the Foreign Office has been sending to organisations under the nose of the Venezuelan government.   

Ideally, the public would expect that any aid resources are distributed on a nonpartisan and neutral basis. However, through exposures of US, UK and EU government support for the ‘opposition’ in Syria, we learned just how determined western governments were to back what were essentially NGO front organisations serving the needs extremist actors, and even terrorists, whose goals were perfectly dovetailed with the sponsors in the pursuit of regime change.

With that in mind, it should of considerable concern that a great deal of the UK foreign assistance funds are going to anti-Chavista organisations while the UK government is simultaneously supporting an attempted coup against the Maduro government. This concurrence of events is not merely coincidental – it is standard practice. UK governments have been doing this for years, and often in concert with the US and EU.  In certain cases, the ‘Aid’ has been gone to the materially more affluent neoliberal class to enable the spread of their influence and ideas.

The following list of organisations has been provided by the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office and is part of what is hoped will be a broader look at all recent foreign aid from the UK to Venezuela. The total budget for this group of programs roughly totals £560,000 spanning over approximately 18-24 months. Although sums might appear to be modest, it’s worth noting that the UK channels its funding through open societies for which there is very little, if any transparency for the public. While amounts may seem small when given to subsidiary groups, they are normally much larger when going to the main body. The UK contribution should also be seen as just rubric in a larger structure of Western funds. Wherever the UK sends money, there is a large amount of EU and US money also, with funds funneled into the same Venezuelan groups in order to ‘influence,’ but also to divide Venezuelan society along various social and political lines.

1) Westminster Foundation for Democracy

The Westminster Foundation for Democracy has already been identified as an organisation involved in activity within the Venezuelan parliament.  Embedding its purpose in democracy and human rights rhetoric, and claiming to work ‘across the political divide,’ it has in fact worked entirely with the opposition Democratic Unity Roundtable (MUD) which consists mainly of right-wing parties including Popular Will whose leader Juan Guaido has proclaimed himself Interim President of Venezuela.  Despite the UK Foreign Office imposing sanctions against Venezuelan leaders  and accusing them of repressive and illegal behaviour, the Westminster Foundation for Democracy would have us believe it has been given the privileged job of instructing the political divide,  the socialist government included, on how to legislate.   What is more likely is that it has collaborated with the right-wing opposition of the National Assembly to undermine the government.  Given that legislation is one of its stated objectives in working with the National Assembly, it is quite possible that the Westminster Foundation for Democracy has helped to construct some of the vehemently anti-government documentation produced by the National Assembly over the last couple of years.

But the Westminster Foundation for Democracy is not the only UK ‘Aid’ going to Venezuela  to push Foreign Office agenda. Transparencia Venezuela is a branch of Transparency International, an NGO dedicated to ‘uncovering corruption everywhere,’ and who receives its financial backing from numerous government, NGO, IO and billionaire philanthropic sources including George Soros’s umbrella Open Society Foundations and Pierre Omidyar’s Omidyar Network. The organisation’s literature states:

“We work together with governments, businesses and citizens to stop the abuse of power, bribery and secret deals.  As a global movement with one vision, we want a world free of corruption.”

This is a very well funded NGO, that has received large sums from the Department of International Development over the years.  Almost all of its funds come from the EU and US. It is of interest because, like other tools of Western governments such as Freedom House, that has a freedom index referred to frequently by Foreign Secretary Jeremy Hunt,  it provides  constructed data Western governments can use to justify their actions.  While Transparency International has an index for country corruption, there is no Western-funded liberal index for governments that arm jihadists,  or carry out regime change or interfere in the domestic affairs of other nations or openly lobby for Gulf State dictatorships committing genocide  in the hope of increasing arms sales.  Transparency International can be used to provide ammunition for Western governments, however.  It promotes the use of  Magnitsky Sanctions, created by the US but soon to be available to both the EU and the UK,  most likely to be used against mutual targets.  As part of its anti-corruption role, Transparency Venezuela’s work is designed to discredit the Supreme Court of Justice, which they call ‘Supreme Injustice’, as well as the elections and the government:

The judgments of the supreme court, dominated by the interests of the ruling party, have beaten venezuela’s democracy, undermine the rights of all citizens. For this reason, a group of civil associations decided to launch this digital project called “Supreme Injustice”, with the purpose of visualising the deviations of the Judiciary and to promote a debate that will contribute to improving justice in Venezuela.

Meanwhile, it may be amongst their reports, but there is no noticeable reference to the Bank of England‘s piracy of Venezuelan gold, possibly due to the fact Transparencia Venezuela receives UK funding. The fact this group has accepted UK funds during the build-up to the UK’s interventionist stance towards the Venezuelan government raises concerns, not just about the ethical behaviour of civil societies funded by Western governments but by the exploitative behaviour of the British Foreign Office.  Transparencia Venezuela has received funds from a government hostile to its own and has provided narratives of corruption and repression now useful to its funders  for regime change purposes.

2) National Council for Investment Promotion

One of the members of Transparencia Venezuela is Roberto Vollmer, millionaire owner of Ron Santa Teresa, a rum distiller in Venezuela that has managed to ‘flourish’ despite the economic crisis. He is a member of The Interamerican Dialogue, an organisation once rated as one of the top think tanks in the US. It is made up of US neocons and liberal interventionists such as Richard Haass, head of the Council on Foreign Relations and advisor to both Bush Presidents during the Iraq wars.  Last year Haass expressed his views on Venezuela:

“Latin America has largely avoided the geopolitics and wars that have plagued other parts of the world. But this holiday from history has ended.”

Another member is former Venezuelan politician Moises Naim, industry and commerce minister in 1989.  He introduced the IMF economic reform package which led to the “Caracazo” protests against free-market policies.  During the protests it is believed that up to 3,000 people were killed under the right-wing government. In one of its recent publications the Interamerican Dialogue makes it very clear its fully behind the removal of Maduro:

Mediation has been used repeatedly in recent years by the Maduro regime, when facing a serious challenge, to buy time, divide the opposition and disperse protesters. The constitutionally legitimate Guaidó government has shown it will not entertain such tactics this time

Vollmer is also head of the Venezuelan Council for Investment Promotion (CONAPRI) a recipient of UK ‘aid’ over recent years. Funded by the Foreign Office to build economic opportunity in Venezuela, its membership consists of multi-nationals, such as Shell, Nestle and IBM. The food and drinks conglomerate Empresas Polar, a subsidiary of PepsiCo, is also a member.  It is the largest private company in Venezuela, and has been described as having a hegemony’ over corn-flour production. It is owned by billionaire Lorenzo Mendoza and has been implicated for years in hoarding products and selling them through the black market, a scam called bachaqueoThe system has led to widespread shortages and a crisis for the poor while the corrupt wholesalers have made huge profits.  But it is not just hoarding that Mendoza is implicated in: in 2015 he was heard in a leaked audio of a conversation with former politician, Ricardo Hausman, discussing possible intervention in Venezuela’s economy by the IMF.  The IMF was rejected by Venezuela in 2007.  Mendoza also considered standing against Maduro as an outsider in the elections last year.

The members of CONAPRI, beneficiary of UK aid, form a group that would greatly benefit from the removal of the Maduro government.   CONAPRI is a reality check for those buying into the Western propaganda that Venezuela is collapsing through the failure of socialism.  It shows that the economy of Venezuela is basically a capitalist one that is tied to and influenced by global corporations and markets, despite its socialist programme. This is a problem for the Bolivarian revolution and an incentive for Western governments to drive their resource-hungry neoliberal agenda in Venezuela, an agenda that is now flagrantly interventionist.

Another firm favourite of the Foreign Office in Venezuela is the anti-government media.  Of those many anti-government press outlets in Venezuela, the Foreign Office has given funds to three, all of whom are promoting narratives supporting US pretexts for  intervention and regime change.

3) Efecto Cocuyo

This is a media set up by journalist Luz Mely Reyes who won the 2018 International Press Freedom Award. During her acceptance speech she spoke of the fear she felt in 1992 when there was an attempted coup against the government of the day. This coup attempt was led by Hugo Chavez.  Her position is openly partisan by virtue of the fact that he did not mention feeling any of the same fear during the massacring of Venezuelans shot dead under the right-wing government in 1998.  It should surprise no one then that a journalist from a ‘civil society’ at least partly funded by Western governments, should win an award while claiming Maduro is a dictator, given the award is celebrated by the same Western governments who are actively trying to topple that government.

Efecto Cocuyo’s pro-Guaido stance is evident, and resembles similar ‘opposition media’ efforts mounted by western powers in war zones like Aleppo Media Center in Syria, backed by French Foreign Ministry. These seemingly ‘independent’ outlets will act as the main image and propaganda source for western mainstream media outlets, the  It circulated claims of brutality and repression by government authorities during the violence erupting at the Colombian/Veneuelan border when Guaido and his supporters aimed to transport what was supposed to be humanitarian aid into Venezuela on 23rd February. Efecto Cocuyo reported:

“.. armed forces loyal to Maduro attacked and wounded unarmed demonstrators who demanded the entry of medical and food supplies into the country on the borders with Brazil and Colombia.”

But evidence soon came to light showing that supporters of Juan Guaido attempted to force lorries  across the border into Venezuela, and that right-wing activists initiated acts of violence involving Molotov cocktails.

4) Sindicato Nacional de Trabajadores de la Prensa (SNTP) (National Union of Press Workers)

Without providing any evidence, SNTP shares a message that implicates the Venezuelan government in the serious crime of kidnapping the journalist Daniel Garrido.  Serious accusations of State-funded violence are being made by anti-government outlets, with reference also to paramilitaries.  It is important to point out that there are many Colombian paramilitary groups in Venezuela and there is a history of right-wing opposition using paramilitaries for their political ends.

“Noticias Telemundo condemns the kidnapping and robbery carried out against Daniel Garrido on 26th Feb

We demand that Nicholas Maduro respects journalists operating in Venezuela and assert that the political regime wants to silence reporters”

The SNTP’s support of Guaido is quite clear in this post where it asks people to watch British billionaire Richard Branson’s Venezuela Live Aid concert, and defeat the censuring of the press by Maduro’s “dictatorship.” Watch:

5) Instituto Radiofonico Fe y Alegria

The Instituto Radiofonico Fe y Alegria is an education network which runs radio and media courses, and also has an online media. This mirrors similar ‘opposition media’ operations launched by the US, France and UK against Syria, including BBC Media Action in Syria. On 23rd February it posted a string of tweets following the events that took place and the eruption of violence around the lorries.  The tweets suggested government forces were carrying out needless attacks on people waiting for humanitarian aid.   They did not mention violent groups that attempted to cross from the Colombian side, or the hail of rocks and Molotov cocktails launched at the Venezuelan national guard protecting the border.  In addition, an article by Alegria y Fe about events on the 23rd February  suggests that violent attacks and killings carried out in Ureña and Santa Elena de Uairen  were by hooded thugs who follow Maduro. It ends with the notion that Maduro danced in the pool of blood. This is only one of many examples.

“Violence on the border was ‘fundamentally’ the responsibility of the State, according to the Venezuelan Observatory of Violence”

Thus far, it seems that UK aid to Venezuela is designed to protect corporate interest, targeted at neoliberal organisations.  It is also aimed at individuals and groups from the liberal establishment which are ideologically opposed to the Bolivarian revolution and to Chavism, enabling the UK to establish networks inside Venezuela to serve the interests of British corporations.

UK aid to Venezuela has all the characteristics of a soft power tool kit, designed to expedite what is now a naked imperialist agenda. A simple look at UK aid going to Venezuela exposes the double standards of the UK government. Should we ever imagine that Russia might set-up shop half way across the world, or even inside UK Parliament under the pretext of ‘helping the Labour Party’ with legislation, or that Iran might fund the Morning Star which then supported China’s attempt to overthrow May’s government and install an unknown and unelected political actor to become PM – there would be deemed an international crisis.  Yet, the British Foreign Office is doing exactly that; meddling with impunity in Venezuela, proving once more their ‘international rules-based system’ is a relative concept, or worse – a fiction and a fantasy that only exists for a tiny privileged group in positions of power, and simply a euphemism for supremacy.

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On 49th  Friday of Great March of Return and Breaking Siege, Israeli Forces Wound 83 Civilians, including 23 Children, Woman, 3 Paramedics, and Journalist. Report By The Palestinian Center For Human Right (PCHR).

On Friday evening, 01 March 2019, in excessive use of force against peaceful protesters on the 49th Friday of the March of Return and Breaking the Siege, Israeli forces wounded 83 civilians, including 23 children, a woman, three paramedics, and a journalist, in eastern Gaza Strip. The injury of three of the wounded civilians was reported serious.

According to observations by PCHR’s fieldworkers, the Israeli forces who stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the demonstrators by opening fire and firing tear gas canisters at them.

As a result, dozens of the demonstrators were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.

These new violations come one day after The United Nations Independent Commission of Inquiry to investigate the violations committed in the oPt, published their findings and results during the period from 30 March to 31 December 2018.

These incidents confirm that Israel continues to violate the rules of international humanitarian law and international human rights law.

It should be noted that The UN Commission found that there were reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli soldiers violated the international humanitarian law and international human rights law during the demonstrations of the Great March of Return.

Moreover, these violations may amount to war crimes or crimes against humanity, and Israel should investigate them immediately.

On Friday, 01 March 2019, the incidents were as follows:

At approximately 15:00, thousands of civilians, including women, children and entire families, started swarming to the five encampments established by the Supreme National Authority of Great March of Return and Breaking the Siege adjacent to the border fence with Israel in eastern Gaza Strip cities.

Hundreds, including children and women, approached the border fence with Israel in front of each encampment and gathered tens of meters away from the main border fence, attempting to throw stones at the Israeli forces and firing incendiary balloons along the border fence.

Demonstrators chanted slogans, raised flags and, attempted to approach the border fence, set fire to tires and tried to throw stones at the Israeli forces.

Although the demonstrators gathered in areas open to the Israeli snipers stationed on the top of the sand berms and military watchtowers and inside and behind the military jeeps, the Israeli forces fired live and rubber bullets in addition to a barrage of tear gas canisters.

The Israeli shooting, which continued at around 17:30, resulted in the injury of 83 Palestinian civilians, including a child, a woman, a journalist, and  three paramedics.

Two of the wounded paramedics work at the Palestinian Civil Defense and the third one is a volunteer at PRCS, east of Rafah. The injury of 3 of the wounded civilians was reported serious.

In addition, dozens of demonstrators, paramedics and journalists suffered tear gas inhalation and seizures due to tear gas canisters that were fired by the Israeli forces from the military jeeps and riffles in the eastern Gaza Strip. Moreover, a PRCS ambulance was directly hit with a tear gas canister, east of Rafah.

The following table shows the number of civilian victims due to the Israeli forces’ suppression of the Great March of Return since its beginning on 30 March:

Among those wounded, 529 are in serious condition and 101 had their lower or upper limbs amputated; 89 lower-limb amputations, 2 upper-limb amputations, 10 finger amputations and 17 children had their limbs amputated according to the Ministry of Health.  The number of those wounded only include those wounded with live bullets and directly hit with tear gas canisters, as there have been thousand others who suffered tear gas inhalation and sustained bruises.

PCHR emphasizes that continuously targeting civilians, who exercise their right to peaceful assembly or while carrying out their humanitarian duty, is a serious violation of the rules of international law, international humanitarian law, the ICC Rome Statute and Fourth Geneva Convention. Thus, PCHR calls upon the ICC Prosecutor to open an official investigation in these crimes and to prosecute and hold accountable all those applying or involved in issuing orders within the Israeli Forces at the security and political echelons.

PCHR hereby condemns the excessive use of force and commission of crimes by the Israeli forces despite the prevailed calmness, believing it is as a result of Israel’s enjoying impunity thanks to the U.S. and so encouraging the Israeli forces to commit further crimes upon an official decision by the highest military and political echelons.

PCHR welcomes again the results of the international investigation into the Great March of Return; and:

1- Calls upon the UN Human Rights Council to adopt and ratify the report when it is discussed on 18 March at the 40th session of the Council.

2- Calls upon the Member States of the Human Rights Council to adopt a decision to renew the mandate of the Commission of Inquiry, in the light of the continuation of Return March and the ongoing violations of human rights and international humanitarian law by the Israeli forces during the period following the Committee’s work period.

3- Calls upon the High Commissioner for Human Rights to submit the report to the International Criminal Court.

4- Reiterates its call for the Prosecutor of the ICC to open an official investigation to these crimes, and to pursue and hold accountable those involved in the issuance of decisions in the Israeli army at the political and security level and who carried out these decisions.

PCHR also reiterates its call upon the High Contracting Parties to the 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention to fulfill their obligations under Article 1; i.e., to respect and ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances and their obligations under Article 146 to prosecute persons alleged to commit grave breaches of the Fourth Geneva Convention.

PCHR calls upon Switzerland, in its capacity as the Depository State for the Convention, to demand the High Contracting Parties to convene a meeting and ensure Israel’s respect for this Convention, noting that these grave breaches constitute war crimes under Article 147 of the same Convention and Protocol (I) Additional to the Geneva Conventions regarding the guarantee of Palestinian civilians’ right to protection in the occupied territories.

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UK Government Collusion with Israel

March 2nd, 2019 by Hans Stehling

According to a 2009 Channel 4 Dispatches documentary, 50% of the then Conservative shadow cabinet were members of the CFI Friends of Israel lobby – (but now, that figure has risen to an estimated 80%).  The film also claimed that the pro-Israel lobby group were bankrolling the Tory party.  That was nearly ten years ago.  In the interim period the lobby has massively increased its influence within a Conservative party that has been in government during that period and the knowledge of that unsavoury relationship is a key driver of animosity against those in government and those in the general population who support this dangerous infiltration of foreign agents into both Houses of Parliament. (See this)

Today, bilateral trade with the Israeli state has mushroomed with the UK buying millions of pounds worth of Israeli-made generic drugs for the NHS together with valuable contracts for military drones and other defence and security systems and equipment notwithstanding that Israel is a non-NATO Member and the only undeclared nuclear-weapons state in the world. This bilateral trade is today worth US$3billion, with over 300 known Israeli companies currently operating in Britain.

Crucially, however, the Israeli government under Binyamin Netanyahu is still in gross violation of UN Security Council Resolution 2334 that requires a withdrawal of all (600,000) Israelis from the Occupied Territories including East Jerusalem. That clear contempt of the Netanyahu government for the will of the United Nations is a key driver of current antisemitism throughout the United Kingdom and beyond. (See this)

This frightening increase in antisemitic rhetoric across the political spectrum is today reminiscent of the Weimar Republic in the pre-war Germany of 1932 that led to the election of the Nazi party and eventually the horrors of the Holocaust.

A moratorium is now urgently required on all British government contracts with the Netanyahu regime until Israel fully implements the requirements of UN Security Council Resolution 2334.  Furthermore, legislation should be enacted to make it illegal for a sitting Member of Parliament to join any lobby acting for a foreign state.

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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Is Neoliberalism Killing Russia?

March 2nd, 2019 by Dr. Paul Craig Roberts

Putin’s approval rating is high, but it has declined over the past year. The decline is mainly related to domestic policy.  Apparently, the public perceives recent Kremlin economic policy as a continuation of the disastrous policies that Washington imposed on Russia in the 1990s when Russia was loaded up with foreign debt while state assets were privatized and plundered by oligarchs sponsored by the West who “cashed out” by selling the assets to foreigners. 

The approval rating of Putin and the government dropped  in response to the recent increases in the retirement age and value added tax. The former raised concerns about pension security and reminded Russians of the collapse of Soviet pensions.  The latter reduced consumer disposable income and lowered consumer demand and the economic growth rate.  These policies represent austerity imposed on the domestic population instead of on foreign creditors and reflect the neoliberal view that austerity leads to prosperity.

Russia is experiencing capital outflows due to the Russian private sector’s repayment of loans to Western creditors. Russia has experienced over $25 billion a year of capital outflows since the early 1990s, accumulating to over a trillion dollars. This money could have been invested in Russia itself to raise the productivity and living standards of its citizens. The outflow puts the ruble under pressure, and the interest payments draw money out of the country away from Russian uses.  If it were not for these outflows, the value of the ruble and Russian wages would be higher.

The US sanctions give Russians every reason not to repay their foreign loans; yet Russians continue to enable their own exploitation by foreigners, as neoliberal economists have told them that there is no alternative.

Russia’s economic problems are due to the looting of the country during the Yeltsin years, to the imposition of neoliberal economics by the Americans, and to financialization as a result of the privatizations.

Russia’s stock market became the darling of the West in the mid-1990s as underpriced mining, oil and infrastructure were sold for a fraction of their value to foreigners, thus transferring Russian income streams abroad instead of leaving the income to be invested in Russia. In effect, Russians were told that the way for their country to get rich was to let kleptocrats, oligarchs, and their U.S. and British stock brokers make hundreds of billions of dollars by privatizing Russia’s public domain.

Washington took advantage of the gullible and trusting Yeltsin government to do as much political and economic damage as possible to Russia. The country was torn apart.  Historic parts of Russia such as Ukraine were split off into separate countries.  Washington even insisted that Crimera, long a part of Russia and the country’s warm water port, was retained by Ukraine when the Soviet Union was dismembered.

People’s savings (called the “overhang”) were wiped out with hyperinflation. Privatization was not accompanied by new investment. The economy was not industrialized, but financialized. The proceeds from privatization were deposited by the Russian government in private banks where the money was used to privatize more Russian assets. The banking system thus served to finance the transfer of ownership, not to fund new investment, and the proceeds were transferred abroad. Russia was turned into a financial colony in which proconsuls created wealth at the top.

Today privatization continues in the de facto privatization of public assets, such as charging fees for use of federal highways.  As the Russian economic profession has been brainwashed by the Americans, the country is devoid of economic leadership.

We have pointed out on more than one occasion that it is nonsensical for Russia to indebt itself by borrowing abroad in order to finance investments. The Russians were sold a bill of goods that the central bank cannot issue rubles unless the rubles are backed by dollars.  This advice served to prevent Russia from using its own central bank to fund public infrastructure and private investment projects by issuing rubles.  In other words, Russia might as well not have a central bank.

Apparently, Russian economists do not understand that Russia does not spend borrowed foreign currencies inside Russia.  If Russia takes a foreign loan, the borrowed money goes into central bank reserves. The central bank then issues the ruble equivalent to be spent on the project, and the cost of the project goes up by the pointless interest paid to the foreign lender.

As far as we can tell, the Institute of Economics of the Russian Academy of Sciences is so brainwashed by neoliberal economics that their minds are closed to correct policies.  The failure of Russian economic leadership imposes far more costs on the Russian economy than do Washington’s sanctions.

Intellectual leadership is weak with many in the intellectual class favoring integration with the West rather than with the East. To be part of the West has been an important goal since Peter the First and Catherine the Great, and the Russian Atlanticist Integrationists cannot let go of the ancient goal.  This goal no longer makes sense. Not only does it imply Russian vassalage, but also Europe is no longer the center of power.  The East is rising, and China is the center and will be until the Chinese destroy themselves by copying the Western neoliberal policy of financializing the economy.

  Although Putin is a leader and has a sense of Russian purpose, many officials use their office not in service to Russia but in service to their own wealth, much of which is held abroad.  Corruption and embezzlement seem to be the purpose of many office holders.  Scandals abound among members of government and reflect badly on Putin and Medvedev.

The Russian government’s popularity was at a peak when the government showed it had the intelligence and will to reincorporate Crimea into Russia.  However, the Russian government, hoping to reassure Washington and Europe, refused the requests of the Luhansk and Donetsk republics to be reincorporated into Russia.  Russian nationalists, the majority of the population, saw this as kowtowing to the West.  Moreover, the Russian government’s decision  has resulted in Ukraine’s ongoing military assault on the breakaway republics and to the arming of Ukraine by the West.  Instead of acting decisively, the Russian government enabled the continuation of conflict that can be exploited by Washington.  The Russian people understand this even if the government does not.

By failing to show firmness, the Russian government encourages the crony system of oligarchs who want a government that they can use for their narrow interests. Their interests include participating in the system of Western plunder known as “globalism.” These client elites of the West oppose a powerful Russian state that could assert itself on the world stage and offer an alternative policy to the West’s policy of plunder.  The influence of this narrow interest group on government policy indicates that the Russian government is compromised.

Putin is trying to break free of the West’s grip by directing Russia’s economic orientation to the East.  His effort is helped by the American sanctions.  But Russia remains sufficiently mired in the Western system to be vulnerable to sanctions and is only slowly extracting itself.

Various aspects of Russia’s difficulties and transformation into a power with a foot in both West and East are discussed by commentators.  What goes unacknowledged is that Russian economic policy is constrained—indeed, crippled—by the neoliberal brainwashing given to Russian economists by the Americans in the 1990s.  Consequently, Russia is enfeebled by an economic policy that encourages privatization and foreign ownership, and by financialization of economic rents, that is, of income streams that do not result from productive investment but from such factors as location and rise in value due to public infrastructure development, such as a road built across a property. In a financialized economy credit is used to transfer property ownership instead of to finance new plant and equipment and construction of infrastructure.

The Russian government and central bank have been blinded to the fact that Russian infrastructure projects and private investment are not dependent on borrowing dollars abroad or by acquiring dollars by selling Russian assets to foreigners. Such projects can be financed by ruble creation by the Russian central bank.  Money that flows into productive projects that raise output is not inflationary.  Generally speaking, such projects lower costs.

For Russia to succeed, Russia needs an economic re-education and a government that finds its footing in Russian nationalism and discourages Western provocations with firmer responses.

It is our view that the Western world, indeed all of life, has an interest in a Russia too strong to be attacked or provoked as a strong Russia is the only way to curtail the Western aggression that is leading to nuclear war.

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This article was originally published on the website of the Paul Craig Roberts Institute for Political Economy.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts and Prof. Michael Hudson are frequent contributors to Global Research.

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American Exceptionalism: The Naked Truth

March 2nd, 2019 by William Blum

Article by the late William Blum. His important legacy

We can all agree I think that US foreign policy must be changed and that to achieve that the mind – not to mention the heart and soul – of the American public must be changed. But what do you think is the main barrier to achieving such a change in the American mind?

Each of you I’m sure has met many people who support American foreign policy, with whom you’ve argued and argued. You point out one horror after another, from Vietnam to Iraq to Libya; from bombings and invasions to torture. And nothing helps. Nothing moves these people.

Now why is that? Do these people have no social conscience? Are they just stupid? I think a better answer is that they have certain preconceptions. Consciously or unconsciously, they have certain basic beliefs about the United States and its foreign policy, and if you don’t deal with these basic beliefs you may as well be talking to a stone wall.

The most basic of these basic beliefs, I think, is a deeply-held conviction that no matter what the US does abroad, no matter how bad it may look, no matter what horror may result, the government of the United States means well. American leaders may make mistakes, they may blunder, they may lie, they may even on many occasions cause more harm than good, but they do mean well. Their intentions are always honorable, even noble. Of that the great majority of Americans are certain.

Frances Fitzgerald, in her famous study of American school textbooks, summarized the message of these books:

“The United States has been a kind of Salvation Army to the rest of the world: throughout history it had done little but dispense benefits to poor, ignorant, and diseased countries. The U.S. always acted in a disinterested fashion, always from the highest of motives; it gave, never took.”

And Americans genuinely wonder why the rest of the world can’t see how benevolent and self-sacrificing America has been. Even many people who take part in the anti-war movement have a hard time shaking off some of this mindset; they march to spur America — the America they love and worship and trust — they march to spur this noble America back onto its path of goodness.

Many of the citizens fall for US government propaganda justifying its military actions as often and as naively as Charlie Brown falling for Lucy’s football.  The American people are very much like the children of a Mafia boss who do not know what their father does for a living, and don’t want to know, but then they wonder why someone just threw a firebomb through the living room window.

This basic belief in America’s good intentions is often linked to “American exceptionalism”. Let’s look at just how exceptional America has been. Since the end of World War 2, the United States has:

  • Attempted to overthrow more than 50 foreign governments, most of which were democratically-elected.
  • Dropped bombs on the people of more than 30 countries.
  • Attempted to assassinate more than 50 foreign leaders.
  • Attempted to suppress a populist or nationalist movement in 20 countries.
  • Grossly interfered in democratic elections in at least 30 countries.
  • Led the world in torture; not only the torture performed directly by Americans upon foreigners, but providing torture equipment, torture manuals, lists of people to be tortured, and in-person guidance by American teachers, especially in Latin America.

This is indeed exceptional. No other country in all of history comes anywhere close to such a record. But it certainly makes it very difficult to believe that America means well.

So the next time you’re up against a stone wall … ask the person what the United States would have to do in its foreign policy to lose his or her support. What for this person would finally be TOO MUCH. Chances are the US has already done it. Keep in mind that our precious homeland, above all, seeks to dominate the world. For economic reasons, nationalistic reasons, ideological, Christian, and for other reasons, world hegemony has long been America’s bottom line. And let’s not forget the powerful Executive Branch officials whose salaries, promotions, agency budgets and future well-paying private sector jobs depend upon perpetual war. These leaders are not especially concerned about the consequences for the world of their wars. They’re not necessarily bad people; but they’re amoral, like a sociopath is.

Take the Middle East and South Asia. The people in those areas have suffered horribly because of Islamic fundamentalism. What they desperately need are secular governments, which have respect for different religions. And such governments were actually instituted in the recent past. But what has been the fate of those governments?

Well, in the late 1970s through much of the 1980s, Afghanistan had a secular government that was relatively progressive, with full rights for women, which is hard to believe, isn’t it? But even a Pentagon report of the time testified to the actuality of women’s rights in Afghanistan. And what happened to that government? The United States overthrew it, allowing the Taliban to come to power. So keep that in mind the next time you hear an American official say that we have to remain in Afghanistan for the sake of the women.

After Afghanistan came Iraq, another secular society, under Saddam Hussein. And the United States overthrew that government as well, and now the country has its share of crazed and bloody jihadists and fundamentalists; and women who are not covered up properly are sometimes running a serious risk.

Next came Libya; again, a secular country, under Moammar Gaddafi, who, like Saddam Hussein, had a tyrant side to him but could in important ways be benevolent and do some marvelous things. Gaddafi, for example, founded the African Union and gave the Libyan people the highest standard of living in Africa. So, of course, the United States overthrew that government as well. In 2011, with the help of NATO we bombed the people of Libya almost every day for more than six months.

Image result for william blum

Can anyone say that in all these interventions, or in any of them, the United States of America meant well?

When we attack Iran, will we mean well? Will we have the welfare of the Iranian people at heart? I suggest you keep such thoughts in mind the next time you’re having a discussion or argument with a flag-waving American.

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William Blum is the author of Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War IIRogue State: a guide to the World’s Only Super Power . His latest book is: America’s Deadliest Export: Democracy. He can be reached at: [email protected]

Sources

For documentation on government overthrows, bombs dropped, attempts to assassinate foreign leaders, movement suppression — see Killing Hope: U.S. Military and CIA Interventions Since World War II.

For documentation on covert interference in democratic elections — see chapter 18 of William Blum, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”

For documentation on torture – see chapter 5 of William Blum, “Rogue State: A Guide to the World’s Only Superpower”

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New plans to ramp up the largest wave of forced displacement in Palestine since 1967 are currently underway.

In response to pressure from far-right Nahala groups, a number of Israeli senior lawmakers agreed to the terms of an early February petition pushed forth by groups rallying in support of settling two million settlers in the West Bank, or ‘Judea and Samaria.’ 

The Nahala Movement, campaigning on an end to the two-state solution through a rapid settlement of all West Bank territory, joined the rightist factions in modeling a settlement vision pushed by former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir, also an early member of the Lehi paramilitary organization.

Their statement read:

“I hereby commit to be loyal to the land of Israel, not to cede one inch of our inheritance from our forefathers. I hereby commit to act to realize the settlement plan for the settlement of 2 million Jews in Judea and Samaria in accordance with Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir’s plan, as well as to encourage and lead the redemption of all the lands throughout Judea and Samaria. I commit to act to cancel the declaration of two states for two peoples and replace it with the stately declaration: The land of Israel: One country for one people.”

The plan, upheld by New Right and Likud members, seeks to annex 61 percent of West Bank territory, threatening 297,000 Palestinians by the settlements.

In comparison, the 1967 mass exodus saw the displacement of between 280,000 and 325,000 Palestinians from their homes and lands.

The main proponents of the plan include former Jewish Home and now New Right members Naftali Bennett, the current Education Minister of the Zionist entity who recently accused Donald Trump of planning a “Palestinian state over our heads,” and Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked.

While mobilization of the most recent settlement project went into full force this week, it followed a trajectory that took root far before early February.

This plan falls under the framework of last summer’s Jewish nation-state law, the Section 7 of Israel’s Nation-State Law, which where “developing Jewish communities” was legitimized as a “national value” and that the Zionist entity would “act to encourage, promote, and establish them.”

Last October, Shaked said that she was for the total annexation of Area C, additionally recommending that ‘Israel’ nationalize the Palestinians living there as Israeli citizens in the process.

The right-wing faction estimated that “only 80,000” Palestinians living there would need citizenship.

In a January 2018 Knesset debate, Shaked vowed that Israel would remain in the occupied West Bank “for 5,000 years” in support of annexing the West Bank.

In January, Bennett and Shaked also supported the opening of a new ‘apartheid road’ connecting Jerusalem with the northern settlements was met with relative silence

Area C, under complete IOF control,  faces tight restrictions on issuing Israeli approved building permits.

As a result, Palestinian homes and buildings face routine demolitions and Palestinians systematically suffer from forced evictions and homelessness.

According to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the West Bank, 73 Palestinian structures have been demolished and 119 Palestinians have been displaced in just the first two months of 2019 alone.

In the last two weeks of February, Israel demolished 26 of the total 73 Palestinian-owned structures, including seven structures, in occupied East Jerusalem.

Around 45 people were displaced by the mid-to-late February wave of demolitions.

According to Palestinian sources, Israel also destroyed parts of three donor supplied water connections, jeopardizing drinking water source of of 18,000 Palestinians in Area C.

The rapid demolitions are part of a renewed effort to spur a new wave of forced displacement of Palestinians.

According to Hadash MK and Professor Yousef Jabareen, the settlement plan would be followed by the construction of a new Arab ghetto in Galilee.

Disclosing the plans to Arabic-language radio station “Al-Shams,” or the Sun, Jabareen said that the ghetto will be built on an area of ​​3 thousand acres, constructing about 15,500 housing units for about 72 thousand people, displaced from places in northern ‘Israel’ and possibly from the West Bank.

“The plan did not take into account the situation of the Arab population and their needs, and there is a period of 60 days to appeal the plan,”  Professor Jabareen told Al-Shams.

The documents Jabareen referenced also plan for the occupation of over 260,000 acres of land in the Al-Naqab region and displacement of at least 26,000 Palestinians from towns and villages in area as well.

With less than six weeks left to the next Knesset elections, the new right-wing coalitions are attempting to consolidate their decision-making powers and expound upon illegal settlement expansions.

The recent indictments of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for bribery and fraud have posed a challenge to the current right wing administration and allied factions in forming a coalition.

recent poll published on Israeli media showed a first-time reversal for the right block, with 59 seats as opposed to the center-left’s 61.

Fast tracking aggressive settlement expansion comes at the presence of the instability of the current administration.

In hopes of appealing the US and fearing resistance, Netanyahu had previously blocked the advancement of a number of bills aimed at annexing Ma’aleh Adumim and other  Jerusalem-area settlements in January 2018, which would bring them under jurisdiction of the Zionist-held city.

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US forces are reportedly transferring tons of gold from ISIS-held areas in Syria to the US.

According to Kurdish Bas News Agency, the US transferred about 50 tons of gold from areas seized from ISIS in Deir Ezzor province. The report says that the gold was withdrawn from Syria through the US military base in Ayn al-Arab. A part of it was allegedly shared with the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which are the core of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Separately, the Syrian state-run SANA news agency claimed that US forces relocated large boxes containing ISIS gold treasure from al-Dashisheh region in southern Hasakah.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR) claimed that ISIS members in the Euphrates poses about 40 tons of gold, which is being used to buy a safe passage from the area besieged by US-backed forces. The SOHR claimed that the SDF and the US-led coalition “deliberately” do not attack the ISIS-held area in order to force ISIS to surrender its treasure.

On February 28, the SDF acknowledged that ISIS had released 24 SDF members, whom were captured by the terrorist group in the previous battles. The US-backed force also confirmed that it had paused its anti-ISIS operation claiming that this is done in order to avoid civilian casualties.

At the same time, according to reports, over 350 ISIS members surrendered to the SDF during the last few days.

Russia and Israel are considering to set up a working group with several other countries to address the issue of removing all foreign forces from Syria. First reports in this issue appeared on February 26, following a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Moscow.

Netanyahu said that the meeting with Putin was “good and productive” and revealed that he had shared intelligence information on Iranian deployment in Syria with him. The Israeli PM went on to say that Russia is also interested in removing all foreign powers from the war-torn country.

On February 28, Putin confirmed that the sides had discussed such an idea, which should allow to withdraw foreign forces and to normalize life in the war-torn country. However, so far, no details have been provided, which would allow suggesting how this kind of group could work. While Moscow and Tel Aviv have some level of understanding regarding the situation in Syria, there are little doubts that they may have a different understanding of the “foreign forces withdrawal” concept.

Meanwhile, the situation in the Idlib de-escalation zone is not improving. Reports about ceasefire violations appear in northern Lattakia, northern Hama and western Aleppo almost on a daily basis. This comes amid resumption of Syrian and reportedly Russian airstrikes on terrorist targets in some parts of the zone. According to local sources, just recently, Syrian and Russian warplanes hit several positions of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in southern Idlib.

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The INF Affair and Nuclear Arms Control Prospects

March 2nd, 2019 by Peter Jenkins

My most natural starting point may be an account of what the secretary general of Pugwash, a German colleague, and I learned in Moscow on January 28 in meetings with Russia’s foreign minister and the appropriate deputy minister. Discussion at both meetings focused largely on U.S.-Russian nuclear arms control. Our hosts’ objective, not surprisingly, was to convince us that Russia had not breached the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty and that, if the treaty collapsed as they expected, the fault would lie at the door of the United States.

The essence of their case was that the cruise missile which the United States believes to have been tested at ranges in excess of 2,000 kilometers has a maximum range of 480 kilometers, just below the INF threshold of 500 kilometers. This missile, known in Russia as the 9M729, is a variant, they said, of the 9M728, also known as the Iskander-M, which has a maximum range of 490 kilometers. The 729 is heavier than the 728, because of an improved on-board guidance system. But the fuel capacity is the same, so the maximum range is slightly shorter.

They were equally intent on spelling out the reasons they have for believing that the United States is in breach of the INF. They cited the Aegis Ashore launchers in Romania and, in the near future, Poland, which are capable of launching both ballistic interceptors and Tomahawk cruise missiles, heavy drones, and certain ballistic interceptors that have been in use in missile defense system tests.

They regretted that the United States had rejected a Russian proposal for reciprocal steps to resolve compliance concerns, for example reciprocal inspections of the 729 variant of the Iskander-M and of the Aegis Ashore launchers in Romania and Poland. Instead the United States was insisting that Russia destroy all 729s under U.S. supervision in addition to quarterly U.S. inspection visits to the 729 production plant.

U.S. rejection of the Russian reciprocal inspection proposal had not come as a surprise, they said, since during a visit to Moscow in October the National Security Advisor John Bolton had spoken of the INF’s demise as inevitable. Bolton had stressed that the U.S. government had decided to do away with the treaty and that he had come to inform, not to bargain or negotiate. It was not concern about Russian actions that had brought about the U.S. decision to kill off the treaty, he had said, but a desire to have a free hand to react to Chinese, North Korean, and Iranian missile threats in whatever way the United States judged best.

John Bolton meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow

John Bolton meeting Vladimir Putin in Moscow (Source: LobeLog)

Lastly, before turning to the strategic dimension, the Russian officials underlined that, if the INF collapses, Russia would not be the first to deploy to the European theater (or in any other theater) any missiles banned by that treaty.

They then urged us to be in no doubt as to Russia’s wish to preserve New START, to extend it beyond February 2021, and to build on it through further reductions in strategic nuclear weapon systems and deployed warheads after 2026. This is official policy, they said. Past Russian voices to the contrary should be ignored. All Russian systems could be on the table.

At the same time, they wanted us to be aware of a Russian compliance concern. New START binds both parties to “irreversible convertibility” of weapon systems withdrawn from service to bring the number of systems remaining in service below agreed numerical ceilings. The Russian concern relates to 56 submarine ballistic missile tubes and 41 B52 bombers. In their view these systems have not been subjected to irreversible modifications and could quickly be brought back into service, making possible the delivery of an additional 1280 warheads.

They emphasized that they are anxious for a healthy strategic dialogue with U.S. counterparts but suspected that this wish wasn’t reciprocated. At U.S. request, they had made proposals for specific agenda items for a strategic dialogue meeting; these had been unanswered. Also without a response was a Russian proposal to repeat a past joint statement about the inadmissibility of nuclear war.

They feared that the demise of the INF would cast a long shadow over the 2020 Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) Review Conference. Continuing U.S. objections to progress on the 1995 Middle East WMD-free-zone proposal and continuing U.S. non-ratification of the 1996 nuclear test ban treaty would be aggravating factors.

This account, of course, may not correspond to objective reality in all respects. For instance, the Americans believe that the 729 is a variant of the 2000-plus km Kalibr sea-launched cruise missile, not of the short-range 9M728 Iskander-M. But now I’d like to offer a personal assessment of the outlook for nuclear arms control and non-proliferation.

Looking Ahead

If John Bolton says that the demise of the INF is inevitable—and that part of what we heard on January 28 seems entirely credible—then it probably is inevitable, because he is well-placed to deliver on his prediction. But last week a retired U.S. ambassador to Moscow urged me not to abandon hope. He saw promise in the Russian proposal for reciprocal inspections of the 729 missile and Aegis Ashore launchers, and he urged that Europe press Washington—presumably both the administration and Congress, especially the Democrat majority in the House—to agree to reciprocal inspections.

The following day I read that NATO’s secretary general had told NBC News that, although NATO is planning for a world without the INF and a Europe with more Russian missiles, its first priority is to save the treaty.

If, nonetheless, the 2 August deadline passes with the treaty unsaved, what then?

I do not share the NATO secretary general’s apparent certainty (if this is what he had in mind) that Russia will start deploying ground-launched intermediate range missiles on its European flank. On the contrary, I am inclined to take at face value the assurance we received on January 28—which has been repeated publicly, for instance by President Vladimir Putin on February 20—that Russia will not be the first to deploy to the European theater missiles banned by the INF.

This suggests to me that Europe should make clear to Washington that it does not want the United States to be the first to deploy INF-banned missiles in Europe and wants the United States to consider the option of a NATO-Russian joint declaration on non-first deployment, as a confidence-building measure.

Also to build confidence NATO and Russia could exchange information about existing ground-launched non-strategic missile deployments in Europe, and individual missile capabilities, directly or via an impartial non-governmental institution.

In other words, Europe should strive to avert the destabilizing effect of reciprocal intermediate-range ground-launched deployments, the risk being great that such deployments would create temporary imbalances and might lead to circumstances in which Russian decision-makers, believing essential Russian command-and-control centers and/or strategic nuclear assets to be at risk from an intermediate-range NATO first strike, opted for a Russian intermediate or strategic first strike.

Of course, a pressing problem is that the 729 missile has been deployed west of the Urals, and NATO is sure that it is an intermediate-range missile. This can create pressure for a countervailing NATO intermediate deployment. But there is an obvious alternative: for the United States to render its European Aegis Ashore launchers irreversibly incapable of launching Tomahawks in return for permanent Russian withdrawal of all 729s from the European theater. Perhaps this trade-off has been the Russian goal all along.

The deployment of INF-banned systems would be all the more destabilizing if one or more of those systems were hypersonic. The U.S. Advanced Hypersonic Weapon (AHW), for instance, the U.S. hypersonic system most likely to become deployable in the next few years, is thought to have a maximum range of 6000 kilometers and to be capable of a speed in excess of Mach 8. This means that an AHW launched from East Anglia could reach Moscow 14-15 minutes later. Its deployment would probably prompt Russia to deploy the 1,000 kilometer Mach 9 hypersonic missile of which President Putin spoke on February 20. This is not the stuff that stable European security is made of!

Incidentally, I believe that Russian arms control experts look back on the deployment of intermediate nuclear-armed SS20 ballistic missiles to the European theater at the end of the 1970s as a mistake. That deployment led to U.S. counter-deployments of nuclear-armed ballistic and cruise missiles, and to a crisis in the autumn of 1983 when Moscow feared a NATO intermediate first strike to be imminent and came close to resolving to strike first.

At the Strategic Level

Those familiar with U.S. debates say that any hope of extending New START in early 2021 will evaporate if the INF is killed off. I don’t understand why that need be so. I prefer to focus on the assurances we received on January 28 that Russia sees an extension as desirable and in Russia’s interest. An extension would keep out of service those 56 submarine ballistic missile tubes and 41 B52s that Moscow believes could quickly be brought back into service if New START were to expire. And a strategic arms race would be very expensive. Moscow knows that from bitter experience.

In any case, Europe should do all it can to ensure that New START is extended, irrespective of whether the INF can be saved.

The implications of all this for the 2020 NPT Review Conference are not good. A large majority of NPT parties will see the demise of the INF as further evidence of Nuclear Weapon State (NWS) back-sliding in relation to what they view as a firm NWS commitment, via Article VI of the NPT, to do away with nuclear weapons. They are utterly fed up with the United States and its European allies trying to strengthen the non-proliferation provisions of the NPT while signalling through their decisions and actions that nuclear weapons are an essential source of U.S. and European security. It’s bad enough, in the eyes of most NPT parties, that all five NWS have embarked on the modernization of their nuclear forces and manifest no interest whatsoever in moving towards Global Zero. In addition, four of them have taken to attacking the 2018 Nuclear Ban Treaty, and two of them have yet to ratify the 1996 CTBT.

In a potential silver lining to all of this prospective frustration and anger, Europe has an additional argument against the deployment of missiles banned by the INF and in favor of extending New START. Whether such an argument will cut any ice in Washington under the present administration is moot, of course. U.S. officials can fairly argue that NPT non-nuclear weapon state parties have come to understand that it is in their interest to preserve the NPT, whether or not the NWS honor their part of the 1968 NPT bargain. Nonetheless, I hope Europe will exploit the approach of the 2020 Review Conference when making the case for New START extension, no INF-range ground-launched deployments in Europe, and a NATO-Russian no-first deployment declaration.

This article is based on a talk in London on February 23.

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Peter Jenkins was a British career diplomat for 33 years, following studies at the Universities of Cambridge and Harvard. He served in Vienna (twice), Washington, Paris, Brasilia and Geneva. He specialized in global economic and security issues.


Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” 

by Michel Chossudovsky

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Michel Chossudovsky is Professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa and Director of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG), which hosts the critically acclaimed website www.globalresearch.ca . He is a contributor to the Encyclopedia Britannica. His writings have been translated into more than 20 languages.

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Russia’s 21st-century grand strategy of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia is one major step closer to fruition after Foreign Minister Lavrov offered to host peace talks between India and Pakistan, proving that Russia’s refusal to take sides between its decades-long and newfound partners is part and parcel of President Putin’s pragmatic approach to regional affairs.

Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov sent shockwaves through South Asia on Thursday by announcing his country’s intent to host peace talks between India and Pakistan if they wish for it to do so, thereby heralding Russia’s return to the region and putting it one major step closer towards fulfilling its 21st-century grand strategy of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia. This brief article will mostly serve as a collection of the author’s relevant pieces about the larger concepts that will be concisely touched upon on a point-by-point basis and should therefore be seen as a resource to rely on for better understanding Russia’s envisaged role in the Eastern Hemisphere.

All told, it’s nothing short of a game-changing geopolitical development that Russia would offer to host peace talks between India and Pakistan because it proves just how wildly successful President Putin’s “balancing” strategy has been thus far, considering how confident Moscow is that it can constructively apply this model to the two nuclear-armed Great Powers in South Asia. Russia has truly returned to the region and is poised to play an even larger role in it over the coming years, which will enable Moscow to more assertively counter the US’ plans to destabilize South Asia and therefore ensure the success of the emerging Multipolar World Order.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Accountability for his highest of high crimes of war, against humanity, including genocide are omitted from coming charges against him, a reported 55-page indictment explaining criminal charges against him in detail. 

Israeli attorney general Avichai Mandelblit equivocated endlessly over whether to act against Netanyahu – despite damning evidence against him obtained by police.

On February 28, Israeli media reported that he’ll be indicted on one count of bribery, two counts of fraud and breach of trust, citing the state’s justice ministry.

The die is cast. Netanyahu’s indictment on multiple counts could come once a required hearing is held – possibly not until after April 9 elections – called by Netanyahu, believing he’d be reelected, hoping a mandate would save him.

His lawyers pressed Mandelblit to delay any action until after the upcoming elections. The ploy failed, a letter by the AG to Netanyahu’s legal team saying the following:

“Suspending the regular work process, determined in advance, concerning the investigations…until after the date of the election would be a violation of the principle of equality before the law.”

“Waiting to release the decision is not in keeping with the public’s right to know,” adding prosecutors have been examining evidence for many months.

According to rules and standards regarding criminal investigations of politicians in the run-up to elections, there’s no justifiable reason to delay indictments until after they’re held.

A spokesman for Netanyahu’s office said

“(i)t seems the attorney general has given in to pressure from the left and the media (sic) to file an indictment against Prime Minister Netanyahu at any price – and before the election,” adding:

“The prime minister’s lawyers placed a request before the attorney general to carry out supplementary questioning of more than 60 important witnesses who haven’t been questioned in any of the cases.”

“The ink wasn’t yet dry, and they rushed to leak from the prosecutor’s office that there was no intention to check these essential witnesses.”

Last December, the State Prosecutor’s Office recommended indicting Netanyahu on two counts of bribery in so-called Cases 2000 and 4000.

The former involves Netanyahu getting caught red-handed on tape, negotiating a quid pro quo with Yedioth Ahronoth publisher Arnon Mozes for more favorable broadsheet coverage in return for legislation prohibiting distribution of the free daily Israel Hayom, YA’s main competitor, owned by Netanyahu supporter Sheldon Adelson.

The latter case alleges police suspect Walla news owner/controlling shareholder of Bezeq telecommunications company Shaul Elovitch ordered favorable coverage of Netanyahu on his news site in return for benefits arranged for Bezeq.

A third so-called case 1000 involves lavish gifts Netanyahu received from Israeli billionaire Arnon Milchan in return for political favors.

He can stay in office and run for reelection while proceedings against him continue – despite a serious conflict of interest with him in charge of Israel’s justice ministry.

As for his status as prime minister, Israeli voters can settle the matter by defeating the ruling Fatah-led coalition on April 9.

Whether a public or private figure, he’s vulnerable to conviction and sentencing if damning evidence proves him guilty of charges.

Things dragged on endlessly for many months. It’ll likely be months longer before resolution of charges against him.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Israel, in fact, is unlike any European state. It does not have a democratic government that ratifies and/or abides by international and United Nations resolutions, agreements and conventions on human and civil rights, nuclear/chemical/biological weapons of mass destruction, or conforms to international law and the provisions of the Geneva Conventions.

Israel is an undeclared nuclear weapons state that is also a major arms exporter to regimes and governments around the world – its largest weapons market currently being India’s politically dangerous anti-Islamist coalition – the nationalist Modi government whose air-force reportedly used Israeli-supplied, Spice-2000 bombs in its strike, this week, against activists inside Pakistan, making the potential for war between these two nuclear powers now a frightening possibility.

It is a timely warning both for Britain and Europe to review their national security systems and to carefully examine both their reliance on Israeli-supplied security systems/ military equipment and the extent of any sharing of military intelligence.

Far from being a peace-loving, typical democracy that is a party to international and United Nations Security Council resolutions, agreements and conventions on human and civil rights and nuclear and chemical weapons of mass destruction, the Israeli state is probably the third most powerfully weaponised state in the world with the potential to destroy an entire continent and is answerable to no one – least of all the UN Security Council.

The Israeli government is armed and funded by a US Congress that is heavily dependent if not controlled by the votes of more than 50 million Christian Zionist evangelicals who also determine the policy of AIPAC and, in turn, US foreign policy.   It is certainly not democratic government by any stretch of the imagination, and political corruption would appear to be endemic.

Numbers (in round figures)

There are 326 million Americans of whom approximately 55 million (17%) are evangelical Christian Zionists and just 6 million (2%) are self-identified as Jewish.

AIPAC – the Israel lobby – has a claimed membership of only 100,000 mainly Jewish Zionists but is nevertheless active in determining the composition of the US Congress which overwhelmingly supports the AIPAC agenda that, inter alia, supplies and arms Israel with billions of dollars of American tax-payers’ money, every twelve months.

There are approximately 8 million Israelis in former Palestine of whom 20% are Arab – now with reduced civil rights under an Israeli law recently enacted by the Netanyahu administration.

The international community is not dealing here with a state that adheres to any recognised rule of international law – it being a law unto itself. And that is a very serious problem indeed for global peace and international security.

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Hans Stehling (pen name) is an analyst based in the UK. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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This week, the Indian-Pakistani conflict over the disputed region of Jammu and Kashmir erupted with a bang when the Pakistani military declared on February 27 that it had shot down 2 Indian aircraft inside Pakistani airspace.

A spokesperson for the military Major General Asif Ghafoor said that one of the jets fell inside the Pakistani-controlled part of Azad Jammu and Kashmir, while the other fell inside the Indian-controlled part of the region. He said that “one Indian pilot was arrested by troops on the ground while two were in the area.” Later the captured pilot was identified as Wing Commander Abhi Nandan.

In turn, India’s External Affairs Ministry spokesperson, Raveesh Kumar, said that only one aircraft, a MiG-21 fighter, was shot down with the pilot missing in action. He said one Pakistani aircraft was shot down, something Pakistan denied.

Kumar claimed that the Pakistani military used its jets to “target military installations on the Indian side” but due to India’s “high state of readiness and alertness Pakistan’s attempts were foiled successfully.”

Meanwhile, an Indian military Mi-17 helicopter also crashed in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir. Most likely, the helicopter was downed as a part of the ongoing escalation.

A new round of tensions between the sides has been growing since February 14 when radical armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad carried out a suicide bombing in Indian-administered Kashmir killing at least 42 Indian paramilitary soldiers. According to existing data, the suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden car into a bus carrying paramilitary troopers in Lethpora village, on the road which connects Srinagar with the region’s southern parts. The attacked bus was part of a convoy consisting of 78 vehicles with over 2,500 personnel. The February 14 attack became the deadliest in two decades of the Kashmir conflict.

Following the incident, the Indian government in fact blamed Pakistan for it and demanded the neighbor nation stop “supporting terrorists and terror groups operating from their [its] territory.” It also appealed to the “international community to support the proposal to list terrorists, including Jaish-e-Mohammed Chief Masood Azhar, as designated terrorists under the 1267 Sanctions Committee of the UN Security Council.”

On February 26, Indian warplanes targeted an alleged camp of radical armed group Jaish-e-Muhammad in Pakistan’s Balakot area. The Indian side claimed that the strike was a “non-military pre-emptive action” and killed over 350 group members, including trainers and senior commanders. The Indian Foreign Ministry claimed that the airstrike was carried out as result of Pakistan’s inability to take measures to destroy the terrorist infrastructure themselves.

However, the Pakistani side commented on the attack by saying that the Indian strike did not result in any notable damage or casualties among alleged terrorists. Furthermore, Islamabad publicly rejects all accusations that it in any way assists insurgent group operating on the contact line between the two countries.

It should be noted that governments and media outlets of the both sides have a very specific manner of covering the conflict. They exaggerate casualties and guilt in escalation of their opponents and underestimate casualties and responsibility of themselves.

On February 28, the situation on the Pakistani-Indian contact line continued to escalate with both sides reinforcing their military positions, deploying additional troops and equipment and putting their nuclear forces on alert. According to some media outlets, there was even an exchange of artillery strikes.

Evaluating the recent public rhetoric of both sides it appears that while New Delhi and Islamabad are set to blame each other for the escalation, they are not interested in starting a hot regional conflict. Additionally, no global power appears to be interested in the development of this scenario.

On the other hand, this situation will lead to a further deterioration of the security situation in the region and contribute to the growth of Pakistani and Indian clandestine activities against each other. One of the key threats is that the ongoing proxy-style conflict is setting conditions for the development and expansion of radical ideologies prevalent in the insurgent groups operating in the region.

The events of February 26-27 once again show how the wretched policy of ignoring state sovereignty in the framework of military actions described as anti-terror efforts has once again led to negative consequences for regional security. While this does not justify the actions of the sides instigating the insurgency of groups with radical ideology and using radical methods, the implementation of this approach itself is often one of the reasons for repeated escalations.

A similar situation can be observed in Syria and Lebanon, where the Israeli military carries out illegal aerial operations and then appears to be wondering why this does not lead to the de-escalation of the regional conflicts.

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While social-democratic parties all over Europe have been losing power and popularity, the centre-left Portuguese government is being lauded even by the mainstream media for defying the European Union (EU) with its anti-austerity policy and thereby sparking an economic recovery in the country.

The minority government led by the social-democratic Socialist Party (PS) has been in power since 2015 thanks to parliamentary support from the Communist Party (allied with the Green Party) and the euroskeptic radical Left Bloc. These two parties, which are to the left of the PS, do not have any cabinet posts in the government, so the arrangement is not a coalition.

Hit hard by the 2008-09 economic crisis, Portugal got a 78 billion euro bailout in 2011 (about $107 billion at the time) from the European Commission, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the European Central Bank (ECB). In exchange for the loan, the troika, as the trio of European institutions are called, imposed drastic spending cuts on the country that increased unemployment to 17.5% and company bankruptcies to 41% in 2013.

Close to half a million Portuguese (out of a population of 10 million) left the country between 2011 and 2014, the highest number in five decades. The centre-right government of the day, led by the misnamed Social Democratic Party (PSD), slashed public salaries, pensions and health spending, and instituted the highest tax increase ever of 35%. Education spending was cut by 23%.

The unpopularity of these stringent austerity measures saw the PSD lose power to the left in the 2015 elections. The PS reversed some of the salary and pension cuts and tax increases, raised the minimum wage and improved social security for poor families, and gave businesses subsidies.

As the British political commentator Owen Jones noted in the Guardian (U.K.) in late 2017, by 2016 corporate investment in Portugal had jumped by 13%, and by 2017 the budget deficit had been halved to 2.1%, the lowest figure in 40 years and in line with the EU’s requirements.

In 2017, Portugal’s GDP grew by 2.7%, according to the country’s official statistics agency, the fastest rate in 17 years (compared to 1.5% in 2016), and the country has seen an investment, tourism and export boom in 2018 that has lowered unemployment to 8.5%.

“What happened in Portugal shows that too much austerity deepens a recession and creates a vicious circle,” claimed Prime Minister António Costa in a New York Times interview last spring. “We devised an alternative to austerity, focusing on higher growth, and more and better jobs.”

Some are not convinced by this argument. Catarina Principe, an organizer with the Left Bloc, called the government’s economic program “austerity lite” in an article she wrote for Jacobin magazine last summer. She does not think that the PS is serious about ending austerity, only about countering “mass impoverishment.”

Principe points out that the govern- ment’s stimulus measures have been made possible by a severe reduction in public investment and deep cuts in the health care and education sectors which “are on the verge of collapse.”

The PS reduced public investment by 16.5% in 2016 to only 1.8% of GDP, the lowest amount since 1960. AECOPS, the main construction industry association, cautioned against “the danger of false savings,” stating:

“Through drastic cuts in public investment to reduce the deficit, the government has contributed decisively to the degradation of construction activity and prevented the recovery of the sector.”

Then there is “the central question,” as Principe put it, of Portugal’s massive debt, which the PS is committed to repaying. This issue has “disappeared from public debate,” she wrote in her article. Portugal’s debt is 130% of its GDP, the third largest in Europe after Greece and Italy.

According to Principe, the current economic boom is the result of factors unrelated to the government’s stimulus, such as the reduction in European tourism to the Middle East due to political instability there. This has resulted in more tourists visiting Portugal, where tourism is the country’s biggest employer. Secondly, low oil prices have helped the Portuguese economy bounce back.

Principe does not believe official unemployment figures and thinks that the true number is 17.5% (not 8.5%), which she attributes to a study by the Observatório das Desigualdades. She maintains that most of the new jobs created are precarious and that “collective bargaining has almost vanished” since the troika-imposed labour laws were retained by the PS.

Furthermore, Principe warns, the Portuguese banking system “is a ticking time bomb, with more banks bailed out with public money but not under public control, leaving it more vulnerable to shifts at the European center than in 2008.”

Conn Hallinan, an analyst with Foreign Policy in Focus, says Principe and others who see only “austerity lite” in Portugal’s recovery are overstating their case.

“Portugal is a lamb midst a pride of lions, and it has to tread carefully lest, like Greece, it gets devoured,” he tells me. “The steps that have been taken to cut taxes on working people, fund pensions, increase job growth through economic stimulation are clearly the best way out of the crisis. That approach has a long record of success dating back to the Great Depression following the 1929 crash.”

Still, Hallinan is not enamoured of the PS, which, he points out, “has a track record of caving in when caught between the demands of capital and the demands of the people.”

Hallinan agrees with Principe that repayment of Portugal’s debt is the central question and that it cannot be repaid. The Communist Party and the Left Bloc are correct, he says, to demand that the debt be reduced or dumped.

“If the PS insists on repaying it they will eventually break up the alliance, and Portugal’s mean-spirited right will lift a page from the fascist League party in Italy and attack the EU and austerity. That will leave the PS as defenders of capital, and they will go down to defeat, just like the Democratic Party did in Italy.”

Hallinan explains that Portugal’s debt is not a result of irresponsible spending. Portugal had a budget surplus when the 2008 financial crisis hit, causing interest rates to soar so that Portugal could not afford to borrow money.

“That is what killed the country,” says Hallinan. “The crisis was caused by bank speculation in the U.S. and Europe and enormous real estate bubbles pumped up by speculators. When the bubble popped, governments committed themselves to bailing the banks out at taxpayers’ expense. That is what tanked budgets in Portugal. Spain, Ireland and Cyprus.”

For Hallinan, the solution is a London debt conference, such as the one in 1952 that reduced the German debt by 50%, lowered interest rates and gave more time for repayments.

This “ignited the great German industrial explosion and countries like Portugal, Spain and Greece can never catch up unless those debts — debts they were not responsible for — are cut,” he says.

Francisco Louçã, one of the founders of the Left Bloc and an economics professor at Lisbon’s Instituto Superior de Economica e Gestão, told me a renegotiation of the external public debt is necessary “in order to obtain further means for investment and creation of jobs.” For Louçã, the solution to Portugal’s economic problems and the best strategy to deal with them are investment and full employment.

So do Portugal and the PS alliance offer a model for other European social-democratic, socialist or leftist parties to follow? Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the British Labour Party, thinks so. He has proposed the creation of an “anti-austerity coalition” in Europe with help from the PS. For Louçã, on the other hand, “social democracy is dead,” killed off from within by neoliberals such as Tony Blair in the U.K. and Francois Hollande in France. Social-democracy “plays no role in the reconstruction of sensitive economic and welfare politics,” he tells me.

Indeed, the PS has already started moving to the political centre. Reuters reported last April that the PS and the centre-right PSD agreed “to co-operate on some reforms and funding plans, in a deal that may reduce the government’s dependence on its hard-left allies.”

On the other hand, they may not need to co-operate with opinion polls showing the PS at 42% public support. If sustained until the May 2019 elections, that would deliver a majority to the party, making an alliance with other parties unnecessary. The PSD lags far behind at 27%.

“Being part of the EU has trapped Portugal in a situation where we can economically recover only to a small extent and it can only be a short recovery,” said Principe in an interview for the Politics Theory Other podcast. “In order for us to really overcome austerity, we have to get back the instruments of sovereignty and democracy that have been taken away from us by membership in the EU.

“These instruments are democratic control of the means of production, state control of the strategic sectors of the economy, the banking sector serving the public interest and national control over how to respond to economic crises,” she adds.

But is this so different from what Corbyn is proposing for the U.K.? Whether or not we call these policies social-democratic, the Portugal experience suggests there are popular and practical alternatives to neoliberal austerity.

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This article was originally published on the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (page 52).

Asad Ismi is an award-winning writer and radio documentary-maker. He covers international politics for the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives Monitor (CCPA Monitor), Canada’s biggest leftist magazine (by circulation) where this article was originally published. Asad has written on the politics of 64 countries and is a regular contributer to Global Research. For his publications visit www.asadismi.info.

Featured image: Photo of Cobryn by Hamish Gill, Flickr CC, photo of Antonio Costa by European Union/Fred Guerdin

After suffering a humiliating military defeat on the morning of 27 February when Pakistan shot down two of its MiGs that violated the country’s airspace and even captured one of its pilots, India went wild trying to distract its population by switching the subject of discussion to allegations that Islamabad violated the Geneva Convention of 1949 by airing footage of the captured pilot, but in reality Pakistan actually confirmed its adherence to this cornerstone of international law and simultaneously contributed to de-escalating the worst military crisis with its nuclear-armed neighbor since their 1971 war almost half a century ago.

A Desperate Distraction To Cover Up A Military Defeat

Pakistan Turned The Latest Bollywood ‘Surgical Strike’ Flick Into Reality” on the morning of 27 February after it upheld the rules-based international order centered on the UN Charter’s principles about territorial integrity, sovereignty, and the right to defend oneself against aggression when it shot down two Indian MiGs that violated its airspace and even captured one of the pilots. This came as a total shock for the Mainstream Media-indoctrinated Indian masses who had mostly been convinced up until that point that Prime Minister Modi had “succeeded” in “putting Pakistan in its place” after “surgically striking” it on the unsubstantiated pretext that Islamabad was involved in the Pulwama attack. As the clichéd saying goes, “the truth hurts”, and the proverbial “bloody nose” that Pakistan gave India risked exposing the latter’s government-driven narrative as nothing more than pre-election propaganda for the incumbent BJP, which is why the state swiftly moved to distract the population as soon as possible.

Instead of taking responsibility for bringing the two nuclear-armed neighbors closer to all-out hostilities since any time after their 1971 war almost half a century ago and accepting the peacemaking overtures that Pakistani Prime Minister Khan maturely extended to his counterpart from a position of strength, Indian media obsessed over spinning video footage of their captured pilot as an alleged violation of the Geneva Convention of 1949. According to their weaponized narrative, Pakistan broke its commitment to this international pact by releasing footage of the captive, which Indian commentators claim was in contravention to Article 13’s clause specifically mandating that “prisoners of war must at all times be protected, particularly against acts of violence or intimidation and against insults and public curiosity.” While it’s debatable whether the pilot is actually a true “prisoner of war” or not, the Director General of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Public Relations confirmed that he’ll be “treated as per norms of military ethics”.

See It With Your Own Eyes

The problem, Indian pundits say, is that the footage of the captured pilot being saved from a local mob by the military, shown safely in custody, and then happily drinking tea supposedly made him a so-called “public curiosity” and is “proof” that Pakistan violated the Geneva Convention. Nothing could be further from the truth, however, since those three videos actually showed that the captured pilot is being treated in full accordance with the Geneva Convention and therefore contributed to de-escalating tensions with India. The Pakistani Armed Forces literally saved his life by rescuing him from a local mob, showing the world their principled commitment to international law that they were willing to also risk their own lives and potentially – if the situation came to do – also use non-lethal force or worse against their own enraged countrymen to ensure the safety of the Indian pilot. That says a lot about Pakistan’s military professionalism and was a proud moment for the country.

The second video showing the captured pilot standing while in custody was evidently meant to reassure the world that the prisoner was successfully brought to a safe space where he was no longer at risk of harm. This was important to signal because Pakistan preemptively thwarted a dangerous infowar escalation from the Indian side by doing this and confirming that the pilot was not only still alive, but in good enough of a condition to stand and say a few words. It’s very likely that had that video not come out as soon as it did, India – which “has more fake news than anywhere else in the world”, as confirmed by a recently released independent report by Microsoft – might have started disseminating fake news and possibly even edited video clips claiming to “prove” that he was “killed” and his body “mutilated” in order to “justify” forthcoming military moves that would have unquestionably escalated the situation.

It’s possibly because of how well he knows his countrymen’s mindset that the Indian pilot voluntarily chose to go on video and send an important peacemaking message to them and the rest of the world, all while calmly sipping tea that his Pakistani captors generously gave him. He said that “I would like to put this on record, and I will not change my statement if I go back to my country also. The officers of the Pakistani Army have looked after me very well. They are thorough gentlemen, starting from the captain who rescued me from the mob, and from the soldiers, and thereafter the officers of the unit which I was taken. This is what I would expect my army to behave as, and I’m very impressed by the Pakistani Army.” Had one expected this footage to be aired far and wide by Indian media, they’d be mistaken, since it’s actually being censored by the state.

State Censorship In The Self-Professed “World’s Largest Democracy”

“The Economic Times” reported that Indian security officials “said on Wednesday that the videos of the captured Indian Air Force pilot were being released on the internet as part of a psychological operation against India and netizens should desist from sharing them on social media”, adding that “It is aimed to demoralise the forces and people.” Because of this, media outlets have refused to share those three videos with their audiences, intending instead to continue fanning the flames of war as part of Modi’s re-election campaign by alleging that the captured pilot is being “mistreated” and that the Indian Armed Forces must promptly take revenge. As most state-driven policies of censorship have a tendency for doing, however, this is backfiring on India because all international media outlets of prominence have reported on that footage and it’s since gone viral on social media, so regular Indians can see that their government’s narrative about Pakistan’s ”mistreatment” of their pilot is false.

It’s precisely because the pilot praised the Pakistani Army and proved that his captors even risked their lives in order to save his own that India imposed a strict policy of censorship in a frantic bid to prevent its warmongering rhetoric from falling apart at the seams, hence the latest fake news narrative that Pakistan supposedly violated the Geneva Convention by releasing footage of the prisoner. New Delhi suffered such a humiliating military defeat on 27 February that it will do anything to distract its people from what happened and desperately try to gin up international support against Pakistan on the alleged basis that Islamabad brazenly violated international law despite the Pakistani state actually upholding the UN Charter by protecting its sovereign airspace from aggressive foreign intrusion. As for the weaponized infowar narrative that Pakistan “paraded” him around as a “public curiosity”, the videos actually prove that the country wanted to pre-emptively counter India’s expected fake news campaign about the pilot’s treatment and fate.

Concluding Thoughts

Yet another Indian infowar narrative is falling apart after the facts once again reveal that the country is pumping out fake news in order to discredit Pakistan and “justify” military aggression against it in support of Modi’s re-election campaign. Not only has no single shred of evidence been publicly presented proving that the Pakistani state was involved in the Pulwama attack nor has anything emerged to confirm India’s incredulous claims that its “surgical strike” killed 200-300 Jaish-e-Mohammed fighters, but the facts actually confirm the opposite, namely that Pakistan had nothing to do with Pulwama and that India’s highly publicized “strike” wasn’t even what it was portrayed as being and certainly didn’t kill a single soul. Likewise, India’s assertion that Pakistan violated the Geneva Convention is also disproven by the video evidence that its neighbor presented but which has been censored from Indian media on “national security” grounds, all in order to keep a “politically convenient” fake news narrative alive ahead of the country’s heated elections.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NDTV.com

On 26 February, Stephen Hickey, UK political coordinator at the United Nations, delivered a statement at the Security Council briefing on Venezuela that put the blame for the situation in that country on its government. He said that years of misrule and corruption have wrecked the Venezuelan economy and that the actions of the “Maduro regime” have led to economic collapse.

He continued by talking about the recent attempts to bring ‘aid’ into the country:

“… use of deadly violence against his (Maduro) own people and other concerning acts of aggression to block the supply of desperately needed humanitarian aid are simply repugnant… the Maduro regime’s oppressive policies affect… innocent civilians, including women and children, who lack access to essential medical and other basic supplies… ”

He then went on to talk about journalist Jorge Ramos being reportedly detained, later to be released and deported:

“As with the lack of freedom given to journalists, other essential freedoms – such as democratic ones – are simply not present in Venezuela… We stand with… Juan Guaidó in pursuit of our shared goal to bring peace and stability to Venezuela.”

We can but wonder what Hickey thinks about the illegal and arbitrary detention and needless suffering of Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for the best part of a decade courtesy of his own government.

Hickey argued that the only way to achieve peace and stability is by democratic transition through free and fair presidential elections, as demanded by ‘interim President Guaidó’ and the National Assembly, in line with the Venezuelan Constitution.

He stated:

“Until this is achieved, the current humanitarian crisis caused by the Maduro regime’s corrupt policies will continue… nothing short of free and fair presidential elections will do.”

In the meantime, Hickey called for additional sanctions against individual members of the Venezuelan government who he said had benefited from corrupt policies.

He concluded that:

“The Venezuelan people deserve a better future. They have suffered enough at the hands of the Maduro regime.”

Something for Hickey to consider

Here are a few facts for Stephen Hickey. In 2018, Maduro was re-elected president. A section of the opposition boycotted the election but the boycott failed: 9,389,056 people voted; 16 parties participated and six candidates stood for the presidency. Maduro won 6,248,864 votes, or 68 per cent. Renowned journalist John Pilger says that on election day he spoke to one of the 150 foreign election observers who told him the process had been entirely fair. There was no fraud and none of the lurid media claims stood up.

So what of the unelected Juan Guaidó whom Hickey calls the “interim president”?

Pilger notes that the Trump administration has presented Guaidó, a pop-up creation of the CIA-front National Endowment for Democracy, as the legitimate President of Venezuela. Guaidó was previously unheard of by 81 percent of the Venezuelan people and has been elected by no one.

And what of the people who are behind him (not ordinary Venezuelan people, but his backers in Washington)? Pilger says:

“As his “special envoy to Venezuela” (coup master), Trump has appointed a convicted felon, Elliot Abrams, whose intrigues in the service of Presidents Reagan and George W. Bush helped produce the Iran-Contra scandal in the 1980s and plunge central America into years of blood-soaked misery.”

Talking about the Western media biased reporting on Venezuela, Pilger adds that the country’s democratic record, human rights legislation, food programmes, healthcare initiatives and poverty reduction did not happen:

“The greatest literacy program in human history did not happen, just as the millions who march in support of Maduro and in memory of Chavez, do not exist.”

None of this happened in the warped world of Stephen Hickey either. He paints a wholly distorted picture of the situation in Venezuela, one which lays the blame for economic woes and their consequences at the door of Maduro and his ‘corrupt regime’. But this is a tried and tested strategy: bring a country to its knees and apportion blame on the political leaders of that country.

Countries like Venezuela have to a large extent been trapped by their colonial legacy and have very often become single commodity producers – in this case oil – and find it difficult to expand other sectors. In effect, they have found themselves extremely vulnerable. The US can squeeze the price of the commodity upon which such countries rely, while applying sanctions and cutting off financial lifelines. It then becomes that much easier to lay the blame for the consequences on a ‘corrupt regime’.

Prof Michael Hudson has outlined how debt and the US-controlled international monetary system has backed Maduro into a corner. He argues that Venezuela has become an oil monoculture, with revenue having been spent largely on importing food and other necessities, which it could have produced itself. In the case of food at least, many countries in the Global South have been adversely affected by the ‘globalisation of agriculture’ and have had their indigenous sectors undermined as a result of WTO policies and directives, debt and US-supported geopolitical lending strategies.

However, this is all an inconvenient truth for the likes of Hickey and the Western media. Talking about the BBC, John Pilger notes that it is “too difficult” for that media outlet to include any of this in its reporting:

“It is too difficult to report the collapse of oil prices since 2014 as largely the result of criminal machinations by Wall Street. It is too difficult to report the blocking of Venezuela’s access to the US-dominated international financial system as sabotage. It is too difficult to report Washington’s “sanctions” against Venezuela, which have caused the loss of at least $6 billion in Venezuela’s revenue since 2017, including $2 billion worth of imported medicines, as illegal, or the Bank of England’s refusal to return Venezuela’s gold reserves as an act of piracy.”

None of this is up for debate by the BBC or Hickey. He sits in the UN talking about, freedom, democracy and the rights and suffering of ordinary people, while failing to acknowledge the US or the UK’s own role in the denial of freedom and the perpetuation of suffering across the world.

From Syria to Iraq, the ‘squeezing out of life’

According to former French foreign minister Roland Dumas, Britain had planned covert action in Syria as early as 2009. And writing in The Guardian in 2013, Nafeez Ahmed discussed leaked emails from the private intelligence firm Stratfor, including notes from a meeting with Pentagon officials, that confirmed US-UK training of Syrian opposition forces since 2011 aimed at eliciting the “collapse” of Assad’s regime “from within.”

But this is where Britain and the West’s concerns really lie: facilitating the geopolitical machinations of financial institutions, oil companies, arms manufacturers and profiteers. And it is no different this time around with Venezuela. Ordinary people are mere ‘collateral damage’ left dying in or fleeing war zones that the West and its allies created. The West’s brutal oil and gas wars are twisted as ‘humanitarian’ interventions for public consumption.

In 2014, former British Ambassador to Uzbekistan Craig Murray told a meeting at St Andrews University in Scotland that Libya is now a disaster and 15,000 people were killed when NATO (British and French jets) bombed Sirte. The made-for-public narrative about that ‘intervention’ began with some tale about Gadhafi killing his own people, which turned out to be false. Now we are hearing similar about Maduro.

As far as Iraq is concerned, Murray said that he knew for certain that key British officials were fully aware that there weren’t any weapons of mass destruction. He said that invading Iraq wasn’t a mistake, it was a lie.

Over a million people have been killed via the US-led or US-backed attacks on Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. But this is the plan: to turn countries into vassal states of the US, or for those that resist to reconstruct (destroy) them into fractured territories.

Any eulogies to morality and humanitarianism must be seen for what they are: part of the ongoing psychological operations being waged on the public to encourage people to regard what is happening in the world as a disconnected array of events in need of Western intervention. These events are not for one minute to be regarded by the public as the planned brutality of empire and militarism.

Tim Anderson (author of ‘The Dirty War on Syria’) argues that where Syria was concerned Western culture in general favoured its worst traditions:

“the ‘imperial prerogative’ for intervention… reinforced by a ferocious campaign of war propaganda.”

We are now seeing it again, this time with Venezuela.

We might well ask who is Donald Trump, John Bolton or for that matter Stephen Hickey to dictate and engineer what the future of Venezuela should be? But this is what the US with the UK in support has been doing across the globe for decades. Control of oil is key to current events in Venezuela. But there is also the subtext of destroying any tendencies towards socialism across Latin America (and elsewhere) as well as the need of Western capital to expand into or create new markets: Washington’s hand-picked puppet Juan Guaido will facilitate the process and usher in a programme of ‘mass privatisation’ and ‘hyper-capitalism’.

In many respects, the US has learned its imperialist playbook from its former colonial master, the UK. In the book ‘Late Victorian Holocausts’, the author Mike Davis writes that millions in India were dying of starvation when Lord Lytton (head of the British government in India) said, “There is to be no interference of any kind on the part of government with the object of reducing the price of food”. He dismissed any idea of feeding the starving as “humanitarian hysterics”. There was plenty of food, but it was held back to preserve prices and serve the market.

Indian writer and politician Shashi Tharoornotes a speech to the British House of Commons in 1935 by Winston Churchill who said that the slightest fall from the present standard of life in India means slow starvation and the actual squeezing out of life, not only of millions but of scores of millions of people. And that after almost 200 years of British rule. According to Tharoor, this “squeezing out of life” was realized at the hands of Churchill in the six to seven million Indian deaths in the WW2 Bengali Holocaust.

Despite Hickey’s crocodile tears, hundreds of thousands in various countries are still dying today due to the same imperialist mindset. Humanitarian hysterics are for public consumption as the “squeezing out of life” continues regardless.

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Colin Todhunter is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research.

Note: Following is the text of an address delivered by the author on Thursday February 28, 2019 at Henry Ford College in Dearborn, Michigan, a suburb of Detroit. The event was held in honor of African American History Month. Azikiwe was invited to give this lecture by the African American Association.

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This year’s African American History Month takes on an added significance due to the fact that it represents the 400th anniversary of the beginning of slavery in the British colony of Virginia, in an area now known as the United States.

In acknowledgement of this anniversary, the West African government of Ghana has made an offer within the framework of the “Year of Return” for Black people in the Western Hemisphere that they are welcome to visit their ancestral homeland and to resettle if so desired. This declaration represents a continuation of the centuries-long efforts to reconnect Africans to the land from which they were torn asunder during the 15th to the 19th centuries.

During August 1619 a British ship under a Dutch flag transported stolen human cargo to the Jamestown Settlement. This colony would serve as a major entry point for Africans for more than another 200 years.

The Africans were kidnapped from the area which is known as Angola today in the Southwest region of the continent. This geographical region has a history of resistance to imperialism from the 17th century to the present.

Queen Nzinga of the Mbundu people defied Portuguese efforts to colonize Luanda and consolidate their grip on the slave trade in the region. Her rule in the area was marked by a capacity to engage in military attacks as well as diplomatic engagements with both Portugal and The Netherlands.

An account of her contributions reveals:

“In 1626 Nzinga became Queen of the Mbundu when her brother committed suicide in the face of rising Portuguese demands for slave trade concessions.  Nzinga, however, refused to allow them to control her nation. In 1627, after forming alliances with former rival states, she led her army against the Portuguese, initiating a thirty-year war against them.  She exploited European rivalry by forging an alliance with the Dutch who had conquered Luanda in 1641. With their help, Nzinga defeated a Portuguese army in 1647. When the Dutch were in turn defeated by the Portuguese the following year and withdrew from Central Africa, Nzinga continued her struggle against the Portuguese. Now in her 60s she still personally led troops in battle.   She also orchestrated guerilla attacks on the Portuguese which would continue long after her death and inspire the ultimately successful 20th Century armed resistance against the Portuguese that resulted in independent Angola in 1975. Despite repeated attempts by the Portuguese and their allies to capture or kill Queen Nzinga, she died peacefully in her eighties on December 17, 1663.” (See this)

This historical episode is a reflection of the early forms of obstruction by African people against slavery and colonialism. The phenomenon of organized and spontaneous opposition to European domination would continue as more Africans were taken and enslaved in the Western Hemispheric outposts within North America, Central America, the Caribbean and South America.

The origins of British occupation of Virginia are to be found in the establishment of the London Company, sometimes referred to as the Virginia Company of London.  The business was a British joint-stock company founded in 1606 by a royal charter under the control of King James. Its purpose was to secure a British presence as colonizers along the east coast of North America.

This land turned over to the London Company encompassed the eastern coast of what became known as the United States beginning in the 34th parallel (Cape Fear) extending north to the 41st parallel (in Long Island Sound). Included in the Virginia Company and Colony, the London Company laid arbitrary claims to an enormous section of Atlantic and Inland Canada. The company then mandated the building of a 100-square-mile (260 km2) settlement. The expropriated land north of the 38th parallel was then divided up with the Plymouth Company, under an agreement that this company would not establish a colony within 100 miles (161 km) of the other settlement.

Therefore it is clear that the main purpose for the disempowerment of the Indigenous people and the enslavement of African people was the acquisition of land and the exploitation of labor for profit. From an historical perspective it was solely the European Americans who benefitted from the economic system of slavery.

Slave advertisement for the acquisition of Africans

The 20 or more Africans who were transported from Angola in August 1619 were sold off to land owners in the region. Between the years of 1619 to 1660, it is said that Africans brought to Virginia were indentured servants, similar to European people who were transported over to North America to work. Some Africans did win their freedom as early as the middle decades of the 17th century. Nonetheless, these questions become secondary when viewing how the law was modified to justify the permanent enslavement of African people by the conclusion of the 17th century.

Even the Encyclopedia of Virginia says of this period that:

“During most of the 1600s, Virginia’s labor force consisted primarily of white indentured servants and a handful of convict laborers, who in many cases were treated no better than slaves. Some Virginia Indians also worked as servants or, more often, were enslaved. In the 1670s, the ratio of white servants to enslaved Africans was four to one. But that changed dramatically during the next twenty years, so that by the early 1690s the ratio had reversed: there were now four times as many enslaved Africans as white servants in Virginia. By 1705, with the General Assembly’s passage of ‘An act concerning Servants and Slaves’ (also known as the Slave Code of 1705), slavery had become ensconced at all levels of Virginia society. Some historians explain this change by pointing to social shifts following Bacon’s Rebellion (1676–1677) that increased white Virginians’ hostility toward non-whites. This early form of racism led white Englishmen to think of dark-skinned peoples as inferior. Other historians point out that the move to slavery only occurred when the flow of servants from England fell off dramatically around 1680. Still others suggest that only at this time did the English, having established the Royal African Company in 1660, become more involved in the Atlantic slave trade. As a result, enslaved Africans became less expensive. To wealthy planters and small farmers a like, slaves made better long-term economic sense than indentured servants.” (See this)

All during the course of the 18th century the number of enslaved Africans grew exponentially amid the thriving of the Atlantic Slave Trade. The 13 colonies and their leaders yearned for a separation from Britain when it appeared as if the institution of slavery would be formally prohibited.

Yearning for independence from Britain accelerated after several legal and legislative decisions portending the eventual dissolution of African chattel enslavement. After the Declaration of Independence and the defeat of London by 1783, the actual U.S. Constitutional apportionment of the House of Representatives was based upon the economic interests of the slaveholding class in the South.

The so-called three-fifths clause of the Constitution gave unwarranted political advantage to the slave states in order to maintain national unity. The unity was actually based on the overall national oppression of African people which would burst asunder after the elections of 1860 and the commencement of the Civil War the following year. The Civil War resulted in the military defeat of the Confederate states.

Africans were not deployed on the Union side of the War until after the defeats by the North during 1862. Plans were made by the Lincoln administration and the Union army for the possible evacuation of Washington, D.C. Nonetheless, a series of developments would reverse the course of the War.

These developments included the increasing flight and rebellion by enslaved Africans from the plantation system. There was also the decision made by Lincoln at the aegis of abolitionist leaders such as Frederick Douglass to arm the displaced African population which had been categorized as “contraband” during 1861-62. At least 186,000 Africans were enlisted in the Union army and by all accounts fought gallantly for the defeat of the slaveholding rebel states.

However, the question would not be resolved as to what the status of the Africans would be after the conclusion of the War. Although the 13th Amendment had been vociferously debated in Congress as early as January 1865, there was no agreement in regard to the legal abolition of slavery in the U.S.

With the surrender of the Confederate Generals in April 1865, the passage of the 13th Amendment was not solidified until the conclusion of that year. Moreover, the Emancipation Proclamation of 1862-1863 did not provide citizenship rights or self-determination to Africans living in the Confederate states. It would take the 14th Amendment to the Constitution passed in 1868 which provided equal protection and due process to African people. Despite the passage of these two Constitutional Amendments the economic basis for the rise of the Confederacy was not completely destroyed.

The Economic Basis of the Politics of Enslavement

As we mentioned earlier, the business of trafficking and exploiting African labor was quite profitable to the extent that it was a prerequisite to industrial capitalism in Western Europe and North America. The internationalization of the capitalist mode of production and social relations transitioned the exploitative system from mercantilism to capitalism and modern-day imperialism.

V.I. Lenin argued in his book entitled “Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism,” published in 1916 during the height of World War I, that the banks were the principal controllers of the global system which is effectively at the source of the contradictions between the workers, farmers on one side and the ruling class on the other. The growth of banking in earlier centuries is directly connected to the Atlantic Slave Trade. The capital accrued in the triangular methods of commerce was utilized to fuel the engines of industry.

Mass production of commodities became the mechanism for generating even greater profitability creating the extra capital to invest in the expansion of operations. Enslaved African labor produced the cotton, tobacco and sugar which were the main commodities marketed in both the colonies and the metropoles. The burgeoning mechanization of production was reliant heavily on raw agricultural products such as cotton.

Data related to the cultivation and export of cotton in the Southern U.S. indicate that the expansion westward and south was clearly related to the demand for cotton in the textile factories of the northern urban areas and Britain. Even after the beginning of the Civil War during 1861-1865, British industry continued their imports of cotton. It would take an international campaign targeting this link in order to build British support for the ending of African enslavement in the U.S.

After the ostensible ban on the international African slave trade the breeding and trafficking in human cargo escalated domestically. This process required even more draconian laws to socially contain the African population. Rebellions and flight from bondage were the underlying source of the paranoia of the slave masters facing financial ruin due to the unrest on the plantations and the declining rate of profit from the peculiar institution.

Banking then became closely linked with the insurance industry. The insuring of the life of enslaved Africans where the benefits claimed by the slave traders and masters further reinforced the commodification of human beings.

A study in the dialectical relationship between the British economy and African labor exploitation was conducted by Dr. Eric Williams of Trinidad. The 1944 book entitled “Capitalism and Slavery,” served as an indictment of the Triangular Trade.

Williams said of the banking industry in Britain:

“Many of the eighteenth century banks established in Liverpool and Manchester, the slaving metropolis and the cotton capital respectively, were directly associated with the triangular trade. Here large sums were needed for the cotton factories and for the canals which improved the means of communication between the two towns.  Typical of the eighteenth century banker is the transition from tradesman to merchant and then the further progression from merchant to banker. The term ‘merchant,’ in the eighteenth century context, not infrequently involved the gradations of slaver captain, privateer captain, privateer owner, before settling down on shore to the respectable business of commerce. The varied activities of a Liverpool businessman include: brewer, liquor merchant, grocer, spirit dealer, bill-broker, banker, etc.”

The banks supplied the loans for the expansion of the production of commodities. English labor was exploited as well. However, the rate of return on the exploitation of African labor far exceeded that of what became known as “free labor.” Many within Britain came to see the moral injustices of African enslavement anchored on religious grounds and stemming from the ideas of equality surfacing in the period of Enlightenment.

Nevertheless, the profits from this trade were quite lucrative surpassing anything witnessed in recorded history. Consequently, slavery continued as an economic system well into the latter decades of the 19th century in Cuba and Brazil. A Civil War fought in the U.S. may have legally ended involuntary servitude there was still a protracted struggle to be waged to win any recognition of the human value of the African person.

This requires an examination of what was actually at stake in the U.S. Today and in the past it was frequently asserted that the maintenance of African enslavement was a question of state’s rights and sovereignty. In other cases the inhuman economic system was romanticized and linked with a mythical white southern gentlemanly culture with the grace of interpersonal interactions and benevolent treatment of the African people.

Yet the practice of beating, torture, rape, the disruption of families, lynching, etc., cannot be idealized by anyone other a racist. African people did not ask to be enslaved and they sought various means to liberate themselves from this horrendous experience.

Even those who were able to flee to areas where they would purportedly be safe from enslavement, there was always the slave catchers and others hell bent on sending people back into bondage. The concept of buying one’s own freedom seems counterintuitive, since people are theoretically born emancipated from ownership by others.

The debate over the character of the slave economy is an ongoing even within the 21st century. Various views on the enslavement of Africans determine political positions on how best to make amends for the centuries-long injustice. If the nature of the system can be framed as being relatively benign it would obviously mean that there is no need to change the order of the current imperialist system. If the reverse is true, suggesting the overthrow of imperialism is the only adequate correction possible to democratize the world system as it stands in the contemporary era.

Du Bois in “Black Reconstruction in America” notes in the chapter entitled “The Planter” emphasizes:

“The ability of the slaveholder and landlord to sequester a large share of the profits of slave labor depended upon his exploitation of that labor, rather than upon high prices for his product in the market. In the world market, the merchants and manufacturers had all the advantage of unity, knowledge and purpose, and could hammer down the price of raw material. The slaveholder, therefore, saw Northern merchants and manufacturers enrich themselves from the results of Southern agriculture. He was angry and used all of his great political power to circumvent it. His only effective economic movement, however, could take place against the slave. He was forced, unless willing to take lower profits, continually to beat down the cost of his slave labor.”

This no doubt enhanced the brutal and repressive mechanism of containment. The drive for profits coupled with the competition for political control with the burgeoning industrialists of the North, heightened the social contradictions forcing an inevitable eruption of struggle leading to total warfare to determine the uncontestable dominance over the direction of the economic system.

In this same above-mentioned chapter, Du Bois says:

“But there was another motive which more and more strongly as time went on compelled the planter to cling to slavery. His political power was based on slavery. With four million slaves he could balance the votes of 2,400,000 Northern voters, while in the inconceivable event of their becoming free their votes would outnumber those of his Northern opponents, which was precisely what happened in 1868.”

Referring to the passage of the 14th Amendment which granted “citizenship rights” to the formerly enslaved Africans, it invariably turned out that yet another amendment, the 15th, would be needed to guarantee the franchise in 1870. With all three of these measures spanning the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments to the Constitution, notwithstanding the various Civil Rights Acts of 1866, 1870 and 1875, this level of due process, access to the ballot and the holding of public office would only be supported by the Federal Reconstruction government influenced by the Radical Republicans until the compromise surrounding the contested 1876 presidential elections.

By the conclusion of the 1880s, and certainly at the dawn of the 20th century, a re-enslavement in practice bolstered by state laws popularly referred to as Jim Crow, became paramount in the South as well as other regions of the U.S. Extra-judicial murder utilizing conspiratorial arrangements involving landowners, businesspeople, law-enforcement, the courts, and penal institutions, rendered African people to social status reminiscent of the years leading up to the Civil War.

The significance of the work of African American historian and social scientist Du Bois is highlighted in the following passages which further expose the slaveocracy: “As the economic power of the planter waned, his political power became more and more indispensable to the maintenance of his income and profits. Holding his industrial system secure by this political domination, the planter turned to the more systematic exploitation of his black labor. One method called for more land and the other for more slaves. Both meant not only increased crops but increased political power. It was a temptation that swept greed, religion, military pride and dreams of empire to its defense. There were two possibilities. He might follow the old method of the early West Indian sugar plantations: work his slaves without regard to their physical condition, until they died of over-work or exposure, and then buy new ones. The difficulty of this, however, was that the price of slaves, since the attempt to abolish the slave trade, was gradually rising. This in the deep South led to a strong and gradually increasing demand for the reopening of the African slave trade, just as modern industry demands cheaper and cheaper coolie labor in Asia and half-slave labor in African mines.”

Such a system of engrained exploitation and national oppression rationalized through institutional racism could only be disposed of through a revolutionary upheaval uprooting its economic base. This occurred partly during the Civil War and the following decades. At the same time the existence of racist labor market could still be utilized in the rural South and the industrialized North to weaken the struggle against the national oppressed and the working class in general.

African migration northward and westward accelerating on the eve of World War I was incentivized by higher wages and the imperative of restraining free white American and European immigrant labor seeking to organize against the horrible conditions prevailing in mines, plants, mills and foundries of the era. Racial segregation attempted to win over the European American worker to a false notion of superiority while in the same instance intensifying their exploitation as well.

As the urban areas expanded and agricultural production became more mechanized, there was the dislocation of millions from the white and African populations. In the cities, slums and unsanitary conditions were the norm. Yet the European could ostensibly take comfort in the fact that their social conditions were not as bad as the African Americans. This mentality prevails well into the 21st century. It is responsible for the fragmentation of the working class and the renewed attempts aimed at the marginalization of the Black people.

Combined, the false sense of contentment among the Europeans and the continuing neo-colonial status of Africans in the U.S., serves as the illusory façade of social equilibrium amid expanding inequality and instability. These factors constitute the enormous challenges for those pressing for a thorough transformation of the status quo.

The Lingering Impact of the Atlantic Slave Trade in the 21st Century

Often enough it is said by Conservatives that the historical existence of African enslavement should not have even the slightest residual effect on the political and social construct of U.S. society in the present period. Some five decades since the Civil Rights era of the post-World War II years provided the legal apparatus which could ensure the existence of equal opportunity for African Americans, so the axioms are articulated.

The statistical disparities between African Americans and Europeans have far less to do in the 21st century with the legacy of institutional racism, national oppression and enslavement than the failure of the formerly enslaved to take advantage of the opportunities which are available to them. In other words, any degree of inequality and discrimination are secondary to the capacity of African Americans to gain their rightful place within U.S. society.

These same platitudes are extended to the conditions existing among African people on the continent and other parts of the world. Africa with all of its resources and human capital continues to suffer from poverty due to corruption and lack of moral fortitude among the people who seems to be governing these emerging nation-states.

Such a set of assumptions are inherently racist and ignore the realities of the present international system of economic exchange and authority. Until there is a complete break with the character of imperialism there cannot be total freedom for the oppressed.

How development is defined is a key component in grasping the exigencies of the African condition. African Guyanese historian Dr. Walter Rodney in his book “How Europe Underdeveloped Africa’ published in Tanzania in 1972 and circulated internationally draws upon the inherently dialectical character of underdevelopment and development.

Applying the principles of Marxist analysis known as historical materialism, Rodney stresses:

“A second and even more indispensable component of modern underdevelopment is that it expresses a particular relationship of exploitation: namely, the exploitation of one country by another. All of the countries named as ‘underdeveloped’ in the world are exploited by others; and the underdevelopment with which the world is now preoccupied is a product of capitalist, imperialist and colonialist exploitation. African and Asian societies were developing independently until they were taken over directly or indirectly by the capitalist powers. When that happened, exploitation increased and the export of surplus ensued, depriving the societies of the benefit of their natural resources and labor. That is an integral part of underdevelopment in the contemporary sense.”

This type of analysis is sometimes characterized as rigid or structuralist. Apologists for the current world order of inequality and subjugation of certain regions by the ruling class within others advances the notions of a gradual lifting of the masses from impoverishment. The instability of this development model, where limited quantitative growth ebbs and flows, is frequently explained in a similar fashion as the boom to bust cycle of the metropolitan capitalist system.

The underlying reasons behind this pendulum swing are the policy initiatives of politicians and parties, of which in essence are capitalist in their orientation. In the contemporary framework, the current President Donald Trump makes statements saying the U.S. economy is doing better than any other time in history. That the African American jobless rate is lower than it has ever been since data has been collected by the federal government.

These obviously false and preposterous claims are political in character. It is to say as was done during slavery that the African people are better off under the exploitative system. According to the racists there is no alternative to the domination of Europeans over Africans and other peoples of color in the world.

The truth of the matter is the problems of poverty and underdevelopment are systematic requiring the reconstruction of the economic system based upon the interests of the majority members of the exploited social class within society. Rodney addresses this necessity by point out:

“In some quarters, it has often been thought wise to substitute the term ‘developing’ for ‘underdeveloped’. One of the reasons for so doing is to avoid any unpleasantness which may be attached to the second term, which might be interpreted as meaning underdeveloped mentally, physically, morally or in any other respect. Actually, if ‘underdevelopment’ were related to anything other than comparing economies, then the most underdeveloped country in the world would be the U.S.A, which practices external oppression on a massive scale, while internally there is a blend of exploitation, brutality, and psychiatric disorder. However, on the economic level, it is best to remain with the word ‘underdeveloped’ rather than ‘developing’, because the latter creates the impression that all the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America are escaping from a state of economic backwardness relative to the industrial nations of the world, and that they are emancipating themselves from the relationship of exploitation. That is certainly not true, and many underdeveloped countries in Africa and elsewhere are becoming more underdeveloped in comparison with the world’s great powers, because their exploitation by the metropoles is being intensified in new ways.”

These words are even more poignant in the second decade of the 21st century when the gap separating the wealthy and impoverished is rising to unprecedented levels. We live in an epoch where the thirst for unlimited profits is threatening the existence of the planet through the manufacture of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. The potential imperilment of humanity is also driven by the failure to recognize the damage being done to the environment by the use of hazardous materials in the production and disposal process.

Shortages generated by the unequal distribution of fuel, food and energy resources can only exacerbate social tensions. These factors are by nature destabilizing. In order to maintain the existing order, the Pentagon and NATO have opened military bases around the globe spreading their influence while inequality persists.

Today the level of dislocation is greater than any time since the conclusion of World War II. United Nations agencies tasked to respond to humanitarian crises have documented that 75 million people are living as refugees or internally displaced persons. This situation is the result of imperialism which has waged war in Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Libya, Somalia, Yemen and other geo-political regions. Migrants are seeking admission into the western industrialized states whose military forces and exploitative economic institutions have repressed and exploited their counties of origin.

Rather than address these failed foreign policies, the leaders of the West are reverting back to the mythology of past centuries. They dream of building fortress states aimed at keeping out the poor and dispossessed. The contradiction in such thinking is made futile by the rapidly worsening conditions of the working class and poor within the metropoles themselves.

In this “Year of Return” there is much to contemplate in regard to the domestic and world situations. The current generations must organize to change the system fundamentally since the future of the planet depends upon what we do today. This is our mission extending beyond 2019 to ensure the future of humanity and the realization of social equality, prosperity and genuine development for all.

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Abayomi Azikiwe is the editor of Pan-African News Wire. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

All images in this article are from the author

A recent BBC segment titled, “The Syrians returning home after years of fleeing war,” contradicted 8 years of the British state media’s narratives regarding the war in Syria.

A synopsis of the short BBC video segment would read:

After years of people fleeing Syria and its civil war, there are now long queues to enter the country each day. Jordan opened its Jaber border crossing last October after Syrian government troops defeated rebels who had controlled the other side. 

Now several thousand people pass through each day. They include small-scale merchants reviving cross-border trade and returning Syrian refugees who hope to rebuild their lives.

Huge numbers of Syrians have already returned to Syria – specifically to areas government forces have cleared of Western-armed and backed terrorists. This includes Aleppo, Homs, and Daraa.

The flood of returning refugees to government-held areas indicates Syrians were fleeing the US-backed proxy war against the Syrian government – not the Syrian government itself.

What the BBC Has Previously Claimed  

Viewers and readers who invested trust in the BBC’s narratives over the past 8 years will be shocked to hear thousands of Syrians crowding the Jordanian-Syrian border daily to return to the war-ravaged nation.

The BBC has insisted for 8 years, millions of refugees had fled Syria to escape the nation’s “brutal dictator” Syrian President Bashar Al Assad – accused of “gassing his own people,” raining down “barrel bombs” that were both crude and “indiscriminate” but also paradoxically capable of pinpointing elementary schools and children’s hospitals, and whose “Shabiha” death squads lurked around every corner.

In 2016, a BBC article titled, “Syria conflict: Aleppo bombing shuts largest hospital,” uncritically repeated claims made by US-funded fronts operating in Aleppo during security operations to clear it of terrorists.

The BBC would eagerly report:

Russian and Syrian air raids on the rebel-held eastern half of the city of Aleppo have forced the closure of the largest hospital in the area and killed two people, a medical charity says. 

The Syrian American Medical Society, which supports the hospital, said it had been struck by barrel bombs.

The BBC – along with the rest of the Western media – have depicted bombs used by the Syrian military as “barrel bombs,” claiming that because of their crude construction, they could not be aimed and therefore were “indiscriminate” in nature.

A 2013 BBC article titled, “Syria conflict: Barrel bombs show brutality of war,” would claim:

…barrel bombs reportedly used again in Aleppo by Syrian government forces during recent days – are home-made, relatively crude and totally indiscriminate in their impact.

The barrel bomb is essentially a large, home-made incendiary device. An oil barrel or similar cylindrical container filled with petrol, nails or other crude shrapnel, along with explosives. With an appropriate fuse, they are simply rolled out of a helicopter.

The article would also claim such “barrel bombs” were, “in no sense accurate,” except of course – when they needed to be accurate for the sake of war propaganda – such as allegedly pinpointing US-funded “hospitals” in terrorist-held Aleppo.   

A 2017 BBC article titled, “Syria chemical ‘attack’: What we know,” would claim:

More than 80 people were killed in a suspected chemical attack on the rebel-held town of Khan Sheikhoun in north-western Syria on 4 April. 

Hundreds suffered symptoms consistent with reaction to a nerve agent after what the opposition and Western powers said was a Syrian government air strike on the area.

The report – of course – was based entirely on “witness” accounts, with OPCW inspectors unable to investigate the site due to the fact Khan Sheikhoun was – and still is – under Al Qaeda occupation. The BBC article intentionally omits that “samples” the OPCW examined lacked any verifiable chain of custody. In other words – the samples could have come from anywhere, including labs where they were likely fabricated.

The BBC has faithfully repeated every claim made by militants regarding chemical weapons throughout the war. The BBC has gone as far as claiming “Assad’s” repeated use of chemical weapons was a key factor in his victory – though failed categorically to explain how.

Why would people – enjoying refugee status in neighboring countries and even in Europe, risk returning to Syria where “brutal dictator” Bashar Al Assad not only still remains in power – but has decisively defeated his opponents through the use of “barrel bombs,” “chemical weapons,” and other forms of indescribable brutality?

The answer is simple – refugees were fleeing the US-backed war and the terrorists it had armed to divide and destroy the country – not the Syrian government. The vast majority of Syria’s displaced remained inside Syria – and simply moved into areas under government protection. Now with many other areas of the country having security restored by government forces with Russian and Iranian backing – hundreds of thousands more are returning from abroad, including from Europe – according to the BBC itself.

Great effort had been put into misrepresenting the refugee crisis the Syrian conflict triggered – specifically because the specifics of the crisis clearly revealed who Syrians were really fleeing and why. Analysis of Syria’s internally displaced refugees was intentionally and systematically omitted by the BBC and other Western media organizations in their reports over the years to obfuscate the fact refugees were fleeing militants, and voluntarily returning once militants were pushed out of various regions across Syria.

Explaining The BBC’s Reversal 

London-based security expert Charles Shoebridge in a short but insightful social media post would note:

When the preferred narrative becomes unsustainable, media manage this by switching to reporting as if for years they hadn’t suggested opposite. Also, UK govt (and BBC) know that UK will again have relations with Assad, which continuing to demonise him may make difficult to sell.

And of course – the BBC knows that any viewer or reader still investing trust in its daily and extensive propaganda efforts – will unlikely notice the sudden, dramatic shift in narrative regarding Syria.

BBC correspondents will claim that their past articles intentionally framing Syrian President Assad as a “madman” “gassing his own people” and raining “barrel bombs” on their heads were “balanced” because in the last paragraph, brief and marginalized statements from the Syrian or Russian governments refuting such accusations were also included.

A similar defense has been mounted since the 2003 US invasion of Iraq failed to turn up weapons of mass destruction after media organizations like the BBC assured the public of the necessity of that war.

The BBC has all but admitted to its 8 years of war propaganda aimed at the destruction of Syria. The very refugees it now reports are returning to Syria suffered the fate they have specifically because of the inability of media organizations like the BBC to honestly inform the public. The cost of the Syrian war helps remind the public why during the Nuremberg trials following World War 2, war propagandists were sent to the gallows alongside the trigger-pullers their lies helped enable.

While the BBC still enjoys vast amounts of impunity with no likelihood in the foreseeable future of ever being held accountable for its actions – it should be remembered at all times that the BBC is in the business of propaganda – and especially war propaganda – not “news.” This fact should be kept in mind whether its correspondents are covering the Middle East, South America, or Southeast Asia.

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Tony Cartalucci is Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook” where this article was originally published. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from NEO

The failure of the Hanoi summit, from Beijing’s point of view, could yet turn out to be a success.

North Korea’s most important relationship is with China. The most important relationship for China is with the United States. In January a train carrying North Korea’s leader Kim Jong-un stopped in Beijing on a chilly morning. China’s president Xi Jinping held talks with Kim to prep him for the Trump summit.

The exact details of the talks are of course shrouded in secrecy but it is not hard to imagine their general thrust. Xi probably instructed Kim to play hardball. Great, if you get what you want, fine, but in all probability even Trump, the dealmaker-in-chief, will not grant you the complete lifting of sanctions, would be a fair summing up of Xi’s argument. Trump retreating from Hanoi with empty pockets will make him even more prone to striking a trade deal with China, Beijing believes, to show the art of the deal is still alive. In the meantime China and Russia will invest in North Korea and the US will still be engaged. Not a bad outcome.

The Hanoi talks were meant to trade some form of sanctions relief by the US for a freeze or dismantling of nuclear facilities in North Korea. This is broadly what China and Russia want and is the foundation stone of any potential deal. Perhaps there was a deal in the offing and either Trump or Kim pushed for more. Perhaps the two sides had misread what the other was willing to do. Certainly the setting of the talks were seen through a different perspective in Asia than in the West.

In his State of the Union address last month Trump took credit for saving millions of lives by averting a “major war” on the Korean peninsula.

Holding talks with a country that until recently you seemed to be close to war with, in a country where you suffered your greatest military defeat seemed perplexing to many in Asia and hardly a good omen.

The Hanoi talks were not a complete failure. An agreement was struck to continue lower-level discussions to build on the momentum since the Singapore summit in June. China, and Russia too, will see this as an opening for further trade.

Trump’s short-term approach, his gushing praise of strongmen, the strident criticism of Europe, the undermining of NATO and his obsession with image at the expense of substance is being used against him in the international arena.

This month sees the start of China’s two sessions, the meetings of the parliament and advisory body. There will be little public debate and the applause and clapping will be more choreographed than spontaneous. But behind the scenes will be fierce discussions concerning all aspects of Chinese life.

But what matters to Beijing most is a trade deal with the US that it can sell as a success to the Chinese people.

Events in Hanoi have probably enhanced the possibility of this happening. Just two weeks ago, anyone suggesting that would have been considered naïve. The US needs China to help with North Korea and import more made-in-America products. China needs the US to buy more of its goods. Events in Hanoi, from Beijing’s perspective, ensure that this dynamic remains relevant and will provide the basis of a new trade deal. The Hanoi summit a failure? Not from Beijing’s point of view.

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Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist based in China.

Featured image: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead

Updated on March 1, 2019

In a herculean effort to prevent war, and protect the integrity of his country, Venezuelan Foreign Minister Jorge Arreaza held a breathtaking schedule of events at the United Nations, including a meeting with the Secretary-General, consultations with the envoys of 60 member states supporting Venezuela’s sovereignty,  a press conference the evening of February 22, speaking at a Security Council meeting February 26,  and presenting an address at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva on February 27.

Arreaza’s encyclopedic knowledge of history is one of his powerful assets,  as he patiently clarified to reporters, at last Friday’s press conference, the reality of US instigated economic warfare underlying Venezuela’s current crisis.  At one bizarre moment, a European reporter, asked, Mussolini-style, about a report that Venezuelan armed forces shot an unarmed indigenous person, and compared the incident to “what happened in China.”  Arreaza asked whether the reporter had seen the incident, and, evading Arreaza’s question the reporter continued:  “Is your government giving specific orders to shoot unarmed people, and what will happen to those who refuse to comply with these orders?”  The stupefying question, less a query, and more unsubstantiated innuendo, was asked with such arrogance and grandiosity that Arriaza, fully aware of the insinuation intended, replied: 

“Your question is full of venom and very poisonous.  The army of Bolivar has never had orders to fire on the civilian population, and you should be the first to assess the reliability of false ‘reports,’ and false flag operations. It is your responsibility as a reporter to be smart, astute, and delve into the truth, and recognize propaganda.”

What was unmistakable, throughout last week, and again at Tuesday’s Security Council meeting, is Arreaza’s passionate effort to prevent the bloodbath of military confrontation,  reiterating the historic context of the Venezuelan crisis to reporters and diplomats who may have a stunted recognition of  the barbarous – but often ingenious – methods used by Washington to impose domination and de facto slavery on nations in Latin America.  Theirs is virtually a scientific formula – economic destabilization, a relentless media disinformation campaign, and if the current target – in this case Venezuela – does not submit to domination, ultimately military force will be decisive in inflicting regime change, installing a docile, subservient puppet.  The horrific example of the overthrow of Allende in Chile is merely one example.

In view of the usual perception of indigenous people as vulnerable and marginalized, it was therefore extremely interesting to see a New York Times report, February 23, confirming that “Indigenous leaders seized General Jose Miguel Montoya Ramirez, the head of Bolivar state’s National Guard force, and some of his subordinates, two opposition lawmakers from the area said in interviews….the lawmakers said it was unclear how long the indigenous leaders intended to hold the captives.”  It is obvious that it would not be possible for “vulnerable” people to seize a Venezuelan General and the head of Bolivar state’s National Guard unless the “vulnerable” people were powerfully armed.  And where the indigenous people got the arms from is an even more interesting question.  It is not a minor accomplishment to kidnap the General of a National Guard force. 

The Wall Street Journal on February 25, 2019 headlined:  “Maduro’s Opposition Urges Military Force in Venezuela,” making inescapable that the Venezuelan opposition is either lobotomized, or heedless of the bloodbath military action will culminate in.  The New York Times on February 25, page 4, has a large photograph of “innocent, unarmed” protesters preparing Molotov cocktails on Sunday along the Venezuela-Colombia border.

The Security Council meeting Tuesday, February 26, was preceded by an asinine lineup of eight members of the European Union, demanding that Venezuela immediately call elections.  Evidently ignorant of the fact that former U.S. President Jimmy Carter characterized the Venezuelan electoral process as “one of the best in the world,” and the US electoral process as “one of the worst,”  these European proxies were better suited to comic parody in a Mozart opera than to intervention in matters of war and peace.  And, of course, who is to determine that, even if new elections are called, they will be either free or fair.  Obviously, the result will be as Washington directs its European colonies to approve.

It would not be possible to avoid reference to U.S. Senator Marco Rubio’s gruesome tweet, threatening Maduro, and not incidentally Kim Jong Un, with hideous death by torture, including sodomization with bayonets before his murder.  These horrific actions were committed by those “vulnerable, peaceful Libyans” for whom the UN Security Council, enacting Resolution 1973 and “Responsibity to Protect,” in the unforgettable words of Indian Ambassador Puri, were authorized to “bomb the hell out of Libya.”  It is very likely that the Venezuelan opposition, especially those thugs,  photographed by The New York Times on February 23 preparing Molotov cocktails, are the same breed as those Libyan monsters who, among other tortures, sodomized President Khadaffi with a bayonet before murdering him.  No doubt Kim Jong Un will duly note this threat, and perhaps Maduro will ponder Khadaffi’s mistake in surrendering his nuclear program.

Today’s Security Council meeting, with the failure of both the US and Russian drafts, included Elliott Abrams regurgitating the same dangerous and deadly platitudes as always.  The double veto of the US draft, by both China and Russia, saved the Security Council from endorsing another catastrophic military intervention. 

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Carla Stea is Global Research’s correspondent at United Nations Headquarters, New York, N.Y.

On February 27, Michael Cohen, Donald Trump’s former lawyer and fixer, testified before the House Oversight and Reform Committee for six hours. In two months, Cohen will begin serving a three-year prison sentence. He pleaded guilty to campaign finance violations involving illegal hush money and falsely testifying to Congress that Trump Tower Moscow negotiations had ended before the campaign.

“The last time I appeared before Congress, I came to protect Mr. Trump. Today, I’m here to tell the truth about Mr. Trump,” Cohen testified. “I am not protecting Mr. Trump anymore.”

Cohen called Trump “a racist,” “a conman” and “a cheat,” who enlisted others to do his dirty work.

“Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates.” He “would look me in the eye and tell me there’s no business in Russia and then go out and lie to the American people.”

“In his way, he was telling me to lie,” Cohen testified. He added that Trump would say, “Michael, it never happened” or “It’s a lie.” Moreover, he said,

“Lying for Mr. Trump was normalized and no one around him questioned it. In fairness, no one questions it now.”

Trump “knew of and directed the Trump Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it,” according to Cohen. “And so, I lied about it, too — because Mr. Trump had made clear to me … that he wanted me to lie.”

Cohen said Trump knew ahead of time that the hacked Democratic National Committee emails would be released. When Cohen was in Trump’s office, Roger Stone called. Trump put him on speakerphone. Stone said Julian Assange had told him that within a couple of days there would be a massive email dump that would hurt Hillary Clinton’s campaign.

“Trump is a cheat,” Cohen testified.

He described Trump inflating and deflating his assets as it suited his financial interests. Trump would direct Cohen to call small business owners to whom Trump owed money and tell them they would receive no payment or a reduced payment.

Cohen painted a picture of Trump strong-arming people like a mob boss. Trump didn’t directly threaten those he sought to intimidate, Cohen testified.

“He would use others.”

Cohen worked for Trump for 10 years. “Quite a few times,” on some 500 occasions, Trump ordered Cohen to threaten people. That’s mobster-like behavior.

Cohen Provided Evidence That Trump Was a Co-Conspirator

“Mr. Trump is a conman,” Cohen said. “He asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair, and to lie to his wife about it, which I did.”

Trump told Cohen to say that Trump “was not knowledgeable of these reimbursements and he wasn’t knowledgeable of” what Cohen was doing.

Cohen displayed a copy of a $35,000 check written to him on Trump’s account, signed by Trump and dated August 1, 2017, while Trump was president. Cohen said the check was “pursuant to the cover-up, which was the basis of my guilty plea.” It was one of 11 payments Trump made to reimburse Cohen for the hush money he paid to porn star Stormy Daniels. This constituted obstruction of justice.

“The President of the United States thus wrote a check for the payment of hush money as part of a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws,” Cohen testified.

He told Rep. Ro Khanna (D-California) that Trump “directed transactions in conspiracy” with Trump, Don Jr. and Allen Weisselberg “as part of a criminal conspiracy of financial fraud.” Weisselberg is the CFO of The Trump Organization.

Cohen also characterized Trump as a co-conspirator to violate federal election law. According to Cohen, Trump had advance knowledge of the June 9, 2016, Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, Jared Kushner and a Russian lawyer with ties to the Kremlin. Don Jr. arranged the meeting with the expectation of receiving dirt the Russian government had about Hillary Clinton. Cohen said he was in the room when Don Jr. whispered to his father, “The meeting is all set.” Trump said, “OK good … let me know.”

All co-conspirators are legally responsible for the acts of the other co-conspirators, even if they didn’t directly participate in those acts or are unaware of the details of the conspiracy. Trump need not have attended the June 9 meeting to be liable as a co-conspirator.

“Mr. Trump is a racist,” Cohen stated.

While Barack Obama was still president, Trump asked Cohen if he could name a country run by a Black person that wasn’t a “shithole,” a term Trump has used in the past. Once, when they drove through a “struggling neighborhood in Chicago,” Trump told Cohen only Black people could live that way. “And,” Cohen testified,

“he told me that Black people would never vote for him because they were too stupid.”

Republicans Upset That Cohen Stopped Lying to Congress for Trump

The Republicans on the committee mounted no objections to the substance of Cohen’s testimony. They attacked his credibility, noting that he’s going to prison for charges that include lying to Congress. Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) called Cohen a “fraudster, cheat, convicted felon and, in two months, a federal inmate.”

But Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Maryland) charged that GOP committee members were angry because Cohen “stopped lying to Congress for the president.” Cohen told the committee,

“I did the same thing that you’re doing now, for 10 years. I protected Mr. Trump for 10 years.”

Trump “directed me to commit multiple felonies,” Cohen said. “I covered it up and protected his brand and him as well.”

Cohen explained why he agreed to testify even though he has nothing to gain and much to lose:

“I fear that if [Trump] loses the election in 2020, there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

That is the most disturbing thing Cohen said. He knows better than anyone what Trump is capable of.

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Copyright Truthout. Reprinted with permission.

Marjorie Cohn is professor emerita at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, former president of the National Lawyers Guild, deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers and a member of the advisory board of Veterans for Peace. Her most recent book is Drones and Targeted Killing: Legal, Moral, and Geopolitical Issues. She is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

Featured image is from France 24

Ten weeks into the administration of progressive president Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO), the Mexican right has made it clear how it plans to oppose him: not as an adversary to be defeated, but as an enemy to be destroyed. And in a war of this kind, as the Spanish saying goes, Todo vale. Anything goes.

The first of the false furors flared up even before AMLO took office, when former presidents Vicente Fox and Felipe Calderón – both from the conservative National Action Party (PAN) – criticized his decision to invite Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro to his inauguration, setting off a tempest-in-a-teapot firestorm within the nation’s corporate media. Inviting foreign heads of state to an inauguration, of course, is part and parcel of diplomatic protocol, something both Fox and Calderón had adhered to when inviting then-president Hugo Chávez to their respective ceremonies.

But hypocrisy was no object when it came to the PAN’s attempts to tie AMLO to the Bolivarian Revolution, an obsession that dated to the party’s shadowy attack ads in the 2006 election and repeated faithfully through last year’s campaign. When, during his inaugural speech in Congress, AMLO read out Maduro’s name among a list of the foreign leaders in attendance, deputies from the PAN leapt up on cue and, with cries of “Dictator!,” ran to the front of the chamber to unfurl a banner condemning the Venezuelan head of state (a stunt strangely not repeated for the president of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel).

First Steps

AMLO’s first major initiative as president was to reduce the bloated salaries of the top federal bureaucracy, fulfilling a key campaign pledge; the Maximum Salaries Law, in fact, was the first to be passed by the MORENA Congressional majority when it took office in September of 2018. But opposition parties quickly challenged the law’s constitutionality, arguing that it violated the separation of powers.

Source: The Bullet

It was a strange argument to make, especially in light of the fact that Article 127 of the Mexican Constitution expressly stipulates that no public servant can earn more than the president; the law, in fact, was designed to enshrine the constitutional provision in secondary legislation. No matter. The leader of the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI) in the Senate, Osorio Chong, fustigated against “a climate of lynching” against the judicial branch “propitiated by the government and its party,” going so far as to claim that the measure would encourage not only the removal of judges and magistrates but aggression against them.

The judges themselves then got into the swing of things, beating their breasts in a public display of inconformity that led some observers to wonder why they hadn’t bothered to protest in the same way the abuses of power, disappearances, and violence that led to some 267,000 homicides over the last two administrations.

The attempt to portray the judiciary as the victims was audacious, to say the least. Federal judges are among the highest paid members of the federal bureaucracy, with the eleven members of the Supreme Court – which proceeded to place a temporary stay on the Maximum Salaries Law – earning upwards of 600,000 pesos ($31,470 US) per month, including benefits, several times more than the president and more than the average Mexican makes in eight years (the justices have since agreed to reduce their base salary by 25 per cent for 2019).

But such was the fever to portray AMLO as an authoritarian dictator-in-waiting – and such was the president’s political acumen in choosing an initial battle that commanded near-unanimous popular support, forcing his knee-jerk opposition into a neat trap – that it was willing to defend the indefensible when the wisest course, seemingly, would have been to pick a smarter battle. But in a war of attrition, losing battles is part of the strategy. The key is to attack, always attack.

#AMLOAsesino

The day before Christmas, three weeks into the president’s term, a tragic accident gave the Mexican right another chance to strike. Ten minutes after taking off, the helicopter carrying the governor of the State of Puebla, Martha Erika Alonso, and her husband, former governor Rafael Moreno Valle, both from the PAN, crashed into a cornfield in the town of Santa María de Coronango, killing everyone on board.

The accident occurred just ten days after Alonso had belatedly taken the oath of office after defeating the MORENA candidate, Miguel Barbosa, in a judicially contested July election which, according to a study by the Iberoamerican University, contained “multiple and grave inconsistencies” that called into question the results.

Within hours, the hashtag #AMLOAsesino (AMLO Assassin) had become a national trending topic, which it was to remain for several hours. Closer investigation, however, revealed that, far from being a spontaneous outpouring of citizen internauts blaming AMLO for the accident, a deliberate campaign of defamation was at work.

According to an analysis performed by the news site Sinembargo.mx, the trend benefited from “artificial and coordinated support” by a series of anti-AMLO bots.

“The way in which the clusters gathered around the #AMLOAsesino trend showed that they did not arise from an organic dialogue in which users with distinct profiles converge and contribute different points of view,” stated author Ivonne Ojeda de la Torre.

She continued:

“The farm of recently created accounts that participated in the trend from the first moments after its appearance contributed to positioning [it] through simultaneous retweets and spam, distinguishing it from the organic dialogue that resulted from the tragedy … The tweets were published constantly, but without generating discussion, behavior that is characteristic of artificially amplified trends.”

The following day, De la Torre published a second analysis showing how, since 2011, the PRI has generated an army of bot accounts to create and promote trends, spread fake news, attack opponents, and buy votes, using money of doubtful origin that, unlike traditional campaign spending, is much harder to trace. In the days following the accident, moreover, residents of Puebla began receiving robocalls with a supposed survey asking whether the cause of the crash was “mechanical error” or a planned “attack.” The goal, clearly, in the absence of any evidence whatsoever, was to sow doubts through innuendo and insinuation.

In a very overt accompaniment to this covert activity, former presidents Fox and Calderón again leapt into the fray to fan the flames in the most irresponsible of possible ways.

“We demand an explanation!” Fox wailed in a tweet. “It is hard to accept this coincidence after such a stiff democratic battle for Puebla.”

Calderón was only slightly more discreet, calling for “an impartial investigation into the causes of the accident.”

So feverish did the cyber-conspiracy theorizing become that AMLO, at his morning press conference on December 26, used unusually strong language to shut down the speculation.

“There’s been an environment created by the same conservatives as always,” he stated in response to a question about the accusations. “Not all, but a mean-spirited minority … These are neo-fascist groups that are very upset by the triumph of our movement and are trying to affect us, to stain us. They won’t succeed.”

Turning the Screws

On the foreign-relations front, there are also signs that the United States is beginning to turn its screws on AMLO. Although the Trump administration has systematically vilified Mexicans for years, his language regarding its new government has been surprisingly measured. Venezuela may have changed that.

On January 4, Mexico refused to sign the “Lima Accord” calling on Nicolás Maduro to stand down from his second presidential term, slated to begin on January 9. The accord was a product of the Lima Group, comprised of Canada and a dozen right-wing Latin American governments, whose purpose has been to provide soft cover for the United States by pushing for regime change in Venezuela. Even though Mexico is a part of the group, thanks to the previous Peña Nieto government, Deputy Foreign Minister Maximiliano Reyes declared in a statement:

“We call for reflection in the Lima Group about the consequences for Venezuelans of measures that seek to interfere in internal affairs.”

When, on January 23, the head of the Venezuelan National Assembly Juan Guaidó declared himself “interim president,” Mexico reiterated its position, citing Article 89 of the Mexican Constitution which mandates non-interference in the internal affairs of other countries.

“It’s not that we’re in favor or against. We’re following through with our institutional principles,” AMLO said in his daily news conference on January 24th.

In doing so, he was effectively resurrecting the Estrada Doctrine, which formed the basis of the nation’s independent foreign policy in the mid-twentieth century, even during the height of the Cold War. Named after Foreign Secretary Genaro Estrada (1930-32), the doctrine calls on Mexico to back the peaceful settlement of conflicts and neither support nor reject foreign governments or governments-in-transition, since to do so would be to violate state sovereignty. On January 25, Mexico offered to mediate a peaceful resolution to the conflict, in conjunction with Uruguay. Two weeks later, at the meeting of the International Contact Group in Montevideo, Mexico, Bolivia, and the Caribbean Community (Caricom) bucked the majority of attendees by refusing to sign the call for new elections in Venezuela.

The Mexican right, of course, fell over itself to attack the government’s position. On the same day as Guaidó’s self-proclamation, the PAN debuted a similarly self-proclaimed foreign policy by rushing to recognize him. Columnist Leo Zuckermann at the newspaper Excelsior declared AMLO to be “on the wrong side of history.” With slightly more nuance, analyst Carlos Bravo Regidor tweeted:

“The terms ‘non-intervention’ and ‘neutrality’ do not serve to explain the position of the Mexican foreign ministry regarding the Venezuelan crisis. To prefer mediation is to seek to intervene to defuse the situation; to promote negotiation in search of a political settlement is not to remain neutral.”

On January 29, American secretary of state Mike Pompeo cancelled a planned trip to Mexico to discuss the issue of Central American migrants traveling through the country to the US border. Although no explicit reason was offered for the cancellation, it came amid mounting controversy over Mexico’s position on Venezuela.

On the same day, the Wall Street rating agency Fitch downgraded the credit rating of the state oil company Petroleros Mexicanos (PEMEX) an entire point from BBB+ to BBB-, citing “unfunded pension requirements, negative equity and exposure to political interference risk.” The downgrade, which places PEMEX’s bonds just above junk status, will make it much more expensive for the company to borrow funds to upgrade its operations, neatly cancelling out the cost-cutting savings AMLO has sought to carry out. As PEMEX continues to contribute nearly a fifth of government revenues, even after being bled by a major privatization effort by former president Peña Nieto, this may also wind up squeezing the government’s ability to deliver on its social-spending promises.

At his daily press conference the next day, AMLO ridiculed both the decision and its timing:

“What these organizations do is very hypocritical … They allowed the looting [of Pemex], they endorsed the so-called energy reform, they knew that foreign investment didn’t arrive, investment in PEMEX didn’t increase and that was what caused the decline in petroleum production. And they never said anything.” He added, “They maintained a complicit silence and now that we’re rescuing PEMEX, they come out with their recommendations and … ratings.”

As if anticipating this changing mood, Time Magazine – ever a faithful mouthpiece of empire – plopped Mexico into its top-ten list of “biggest geopolitical risks of 2019.” In the words of editor-at-large Ian Bremmer, AMLO’s “bid to roll back the opening of Mexico’s economy, orthodox macroeconomic policies, privatizations, and deregulation threaten a return to the 1960s. In 2019, he’ll spend money Mexico doesn’t have on problems like poverty and security that resist straightforward solutions. And as he centralizes power, policymaking will become more erratic.”

The choice of decade is curious, as Mexican growth rates in the 1960s averaged some 6.5 per cent per year, three times higher than the neoliberal era inaugurated in 1982. Curious, as well, that his concerns do not extend to the case of Latin America’s other newly inaugurated president, Jair Bolsonaro. As Bremmer breezily concludes,

“the public, the media, and Brazil’s political institutions won’t allow space for any dangerous centralization of power.”

Avoiding Erosion

For now, AMLO’s position appears stable: latest polls give him a staggering 86 per cent approval rating, economic indicators are solid, and the machinations of the Mexican right – especially in light of the abject failures of recent conservative administrations – appear both overwrought and sophomoric. But as the screws continue to tighten, a number of options could be mobilized down the road, such as a combined media, diplomatic, and economic campaign to weaken, discredit, and isolate AMLO, one that brings together the domestic and international actors analyzed here.

Delegitimation, after all, is a gradual process of erosion, and when it comes to progressive governments, with their reduced margin for error, missteps that in themselves seem minor can prove fatal. It is imperative, then, that the radicalized political base that elected AMLO does not allow itself to become lulled into complacency by the false belief that winning office is the same as conquering power.

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Kurt Hackbarth is a writer, playwright, freelance journalist, and the co-founder of the independent media project MexElects. He is currently co-authoring a book on the 2018 Mexican election.

Colin Mooers is a professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at Ryerson University, and the co-founder of the independent media project MexElects.

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This was originally written by Helen McKenna and published on 13 December 2017. It was updated by Beccy Baird on 22 February 2019.  

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Brexit has major implications for health and social care in England. Here we look at some of the latest developments that could impact the health and care system in England.

The deadline of 29 March 2019, set when Article 50 was triggered, is rapidly approaching but many important issues are still to be resolved. Brexit has already had an impact, especially on the recruitment and retention of EU nationals in some parts of the workforce which is contributing to shortages of key staff. In addition, the ongoing debate in parliament and uncertainty about whether a deal can be agreed mean considerable work has gone into preparations for a no-deal Brexit. The Department of Health and Social Care has published guidance for organisations to prepare contingency plans and has established a national operational response centre to lead on responding to any disruption to the delivery of health and care services.

Staffing

Across NHS trusts there is currently a shortage of more than 100,000 staff (representing 1 in 11 posts), severely affecting some key groups of essential staff, including nurses, many types of doctors, allied health professionals, and care staff. Vacancies in adult social care are rising, currently totally 110,000, with around 1 in 10 social worker and 1 in 11 care worker roles unfilled. International recruitment is a key factor in addressing these vacancies. Brexit and immigration policy will have an impact on the ability of the NHS to successfully fill these vacancies.

Brexit - staffing image

The policy of freedom of movement and mutual recognition of professional qualifications within the EU means that many health and social care professionals currently working in the UK have come from other EU countries. This includes nearly 62,000 (5.2 per cent)1 of the English NHS’s 1.2 million workforce and an estimated 104,000 (around 8 per cent)2 of the 1.3 million workers in England’s adult social care sector (NHS Digital 2018; Skills for Care 2018). The proportion of EU workers in both the NHS and the social care sector has grown over time, suggesting that both sectors have become increasingly reliant on EU migrants.

The UK has a greater proportion of doctors who qualified abroad working than in any other European country, except Ireland and Norway. Latest General Medical Council (GMC) data shows that the number of doctors from the European Economic Area (EEA) joining the medical register is holding steady (but still down 40 per cent on 2014 after new language requirements were introduced). A combination of relaxed visa restrictions and active recruitment by trusts means that the number of non-EEA doctors joining the register doubled between 2014 and 2017 (GMC 2018). However, some specialties not currently on the Home Office’s shortage occupation list are still facing difficulties, for example child and adolescent psychiatry.

Similarly the number of nurses and midwives from Europe leaving the Nursing and Midwifery Council’s register has doubled from 1,981 in 2015/16 to 3,692 in 2017/18, while the number joining fell by 91 per cent (Nursing and Midwifery Council 2018). This fall has been somewhat mitigated by more non-EEA nurses joining the register (Nursing and Midwifery Council 2018). However, even with both EEA and non-EEA registrants taken into account, these figures are considerably below the peak of around 16,000 international registrations in 2001/02. Although there are other contributing factors, including the introduction of new English language requirements in 2016, Brexit has had a significant impact (Murray 2017).

One of the main priorities in the first phase of the UK’s negotiations with the EU was clarifying the status of EU citizens currently living in the UK and of UK citizens living in other EU countries. Any EU Citizen currently living in the UK, including the 165,000 EEA staff already working in health and social care are able to apply for the EU Settlement Scheme. They will need to apply by June 2021 (December 2020 in in the event of no deal) in order to be able to stay in the UK.

The government published an immigration White Paper in December 2018 for a new skills-based immigration system to begin in 2021, treating EEA migrants in the same way as non-EEA migrants. It removes the limit on numbers of skilled workers but proposes an earnings threshold which is likely to impact the ability to attract certain health professionals to the NHS. The threshold has generated fierce debate, and the government is expected to consult for another year on where to set the salary threshold for skilled immigrants.

The white paper acknowledges England’s reliance on migrants in the social care workforce. However, it proposes that for a transitional period such workers would only be allowed to come for a limited time, with no entitlement to bring dependants. Again, this is likely to impact the ability of the social care system to attract sufficient workers. In the event of a no-deal Brexit, for an interim period EU citizens would be able to enter the UK as they do now but if they wish to stay longer than three months they would have to apply for permission under a new European Temporary Leave to Remain scheme. People who obtain this status would be entitled to live, work and study in the country for a further three years. Other workforce issues that will need to be addressed include:

  • mutual recognition of qualifications: the current EU withdrawal bill suggests that there will be appropriate arrangements in the future relationship for reciprocal professional qualifications. Future arrangements about the process for health and care professionals (including UK citizens) who have an EU/EEA or Swiss qualification and who have not applied to have their qualification recognised by 29 March 2019 are currently before parliament.
  • the additional cost implications for the NHS of needing to sponsor visas.
  • the need to update employment law: protections for health and care staff regarding employment rights and health and safety at work currently covered by EU legislation. This would include the working time directive, although the current government has committed to preserving this after the UK leaves the EU. These are still under discussion.

Our position

The health and social care sectors have long relied on EU and other foreign nationals in all parts of the workforce and will continue to need them in future.

In the short term, we hope the recent announcement about the EU settlement scheme concerning the status of EU citizens currently living in the UK will provide them with reassurance and persuade as many as possible to stay and continue to make a valuable contribution to the health and social care workforce.

In the longer term, while we welcome efforts to increase the domestic NHS workforce, it will take time for many of these policies to result in extra staff on the front line. Providers of NHS and social care services need the ability to recruit staff from the EU and other countries when there are not enough resident workers to fill vacancies. We recommend a broadening of the shortage occupation lists to include a wider range of medical specialties, allied health professionals and social care managers.

We welcome discussions to lower the earnings cap for skilled workers but remain concerned that the current proposals will impact the ability of both the NHS and social care to recruit lower-skilled workers from the EU and elsewhere.

Finally, it is important to recognise that, while Brexit has the potential to compound workforce pressures, the recruitment and retention problems being experienced in health and social care predate the UK’s decision to leave the EU. International recruitment has been very effective in the past and we strongly recommend the government should create a robust and ethical infrastructure for recruiting internationally. Coming to work in the NHS is still not as easy as it should be, and for EEA migrants it is about to get more difficult.

Accessing treatment here and abroad

Currently, EU rules govern UK citizens’ access to health and care in the EU, and EU citizens’ access to UK services.

Brexit - accessing treatment

EU citizens are entitled to a European Health Insurance Card (EHIC) which gives access to medically necessary, state-provided health care during a temporary stay in another EEA country.3 The cost of treatment under these schemes can be subsequently reclaimed from the visitor’s country of residence via reciprocal health care agreements. Around 27 million people currently hold European Health Insurance Cards issued by the UK (Fahy et al 2017).

In addition, under EU rules, people who come from elsewhere in the EU to live in the UK, or who leave the UK to live in another EU country, have access to health care on the same basis as nationals of that country.

Both sides in the Brexit negotiations have agreed in principle to preserve reciprocal health care rights until the end of the transition period, at least for those citizens already residing in another EU country. However, until the final outcome of the talks is known, uncertainty remains about the future. Estimates of the number of people this involves differ among the available sources. However, it has been suggested that there are around 1 million British migrants living in other EU countries, compared with around 3 million EU migrants living in the UK (Department for Exiting the European Union 2017c). UK citizens living abroad tend to be older, and therefore more likely to use health and care services, than EU citizens living in the UK. Were significant numbers of UK citizens to return to the UK this would have implications for health and care services.

In a no-deal scenario, the government will seek to protect current reciprocal healthcare rights through transitional bilateral agreements with other member states, which would include whether or how residents who are citizens of other states would be charged for services. However, there is no certainty on this so the current position is that the EHIC will no longer be valid so British citizens travelling to the EU would need to take out private travel insurance.

“McCarthyism” is a word thrown around a lot nowadays, and in the process its true meaning – and horror – has been increasingly obscured.

McCarthyism is not just the hounding of someone because their views are unpopular. It is the creation by the powerful of a perfect, self-rationalising system of incrimination – denying the victim a voice, even in their own defence. It presents the accused as an enemy so dangerous, their ideas so corrupting, that they must be silenced from the outset. Their only chance of rehabilitation is prostration before their accusers and utter repentance.

McCarthyism, in other words, is the modern political parallel of the witch hunt.

In an earlier era, the guilt of women accused of witchcraft was tested through the ducking stool. If a woman drowned, she was innocent; if she survived, she was guilty and burnt at the stake. A foolproof system that created an endless supply of the wicked, justifying the status and salaries of the men charged with hunting down ever more of these diabolical women.

And that is the Medieval equivalent of where the British Labour party has arrived, with the suspension of MP Chris Williamson for anti-semitism.

Revenge of the Blairites

Williamson, it should be noted, is widely seen as a key ally of Jeremy Corbyn, a democratic socialist who was propelled unexpectedly into the Labour leadership nearly four years ago by its members. His elevation infuriated most of the party’s MPs, who hanker for the return of the New Labour era under Tony Blair, when the party firmly occupied the political centre.

Corbyn’s success has also outraged vocal supporters of Israel both in the Labour party – some 80 MPs are stalwart members of Labour Friends of Israel – and in the UK media. Corbyn is the first British party leader in sight of power to prefer the Palestinians’ right to justice over Israel’s continuing oppression of the Palestinians.

For these reasons, the Blairite MPs have been trying to oust Corbyn any way they can. First through a failed re-run of the leadership contest and then by assisting the corporate media – which is equally opposed to Corbyn – in smearing him variously as a shambles, a misogynist, a sympathiser with terrorists, a Russian asset, and finally as an “enabler” of anti-semitism.

This last accusation has proved the most fruitful after the Israel lobby began to expand the definition of anti-semitism to include not just hatred of Jews but also criticism of Israel. Labour was eventually forced to accept a redefinition, formulated by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance, that conflates anti-Zionism – opposition to Israel’s violent creation on the Palestinians’ homeland – with anti-semitism.

Guilt by association

Once the mud stuck through repetition, a vocal group of Labour MPs began denouncing the party for being “institutionally anti-semitic”, “endemically anti-semitic” and a “cesspit of anti-semitism”. The slurs continued relentlessly, even as statistics proved the accusation to be groundless. The figures show that anti-semitism exists only in the margins of the party, as racism does in all walks of life.

Meanwhile, the smears overshadowed the very provable fact that anti-semitism and other forms of racism are rearing their head dangerously on the political right.

But the witchfinders were never interested in the political reality. They wanted a never-ending war – a policy of “zero tolerance” – to root out an evil in their midst, a supposed “hard left” given succour by Corbyn and his acolytes.

This is the context for understanding Williamson’s “crime”.

Despite the best efforts of our modern witchfinder generals to prove otherwise, Williamson has not been shown to have expressed hatred towards Jews, or even to have made a comment that could be interpreted as anti-semitic.

One of the most experienced of the witchfinders, Guardian columnist Jonathan Freedland, indulged familiar McCarthyite tactics this week in trying to prove Williamson’s anti-semitism by association. The MP was what Freedland termed a “Jew baiter” because he has associated with people whom the witchfinders decree to be anti-semites.

‘Too apologetic’

Shortly before he found himself formally shunned by media commentators and his own parliamentary party, Williamson twice confirmed his guilt to the inquisitors.

First, he dared to challenge the authority of the witchfinders. He suggested that some of those being hounded out of Labour may not in fact be witches. Or more specifically, in the context of constant claims of a Labour “anti-semitism crisis”, he argued that the party had been “too apologetic” in dealing with the bad-faith efforts of those seeking to damage a Corbyn-led party.

In other words, Williamson suggested that Labour ought to be more proactively promoting the abundant evidence that it was indeed dealing with what he called the “scourge of anti-semitism”, and thereby demonstrate to the British public that Labour wasn’t “institutionally anti-semitic”. Labour members, he was pointing out, ought not to have to keep quiet as they were being endlessly slandered as anti-semites.

As Jewish Voice for Labour, a Jewish group supportive of Corbyn, noted:

The flood of exaggerated claims of antisemitism make it harder to deal with any real instances of antisemitism. The credibility of well-founded allegations is undermined by the less credible ones and real perpetrators are more likely not to be held to account. Crying wolf is dangerous when there are real wolves around the corner. This was the reality that Chris Williamson was drawing attention to.

Screenshot from Jewish Voice for Labour

As with all inquisitions, however, the witchfinders were not interested in what Williamson actually said, but in the threat he posed to the narrative they have created to destroy their enemy, Corbynism, and reassert their own power.

So his words were ripped from their context and presented as proof that he did indeed support witches.

He was denounced for saying what he had not: that Labour should not apologise for its anti-semitism. In this dishonest reformulation of Williamson’s statement, the witchfinders claimed to show that he had supported anti-semitism, that he consorted with witches.

No screening for documentary

Second, Williamson compounded his crime by publicly helping just such a readymade witch: a black Jewish woman named Jackie Walker.

He had booked a room in the British parliament building – the seat of our supposed democracy – so that audiences could see a new documentary on an earlier Labour witch hunt. More than two years ago the party suspended Walker over anti-semitism claims.

The screening was to inform Labour party members of the facts of her case in the run-up to a hearing in which, given the current atmosphere, it is likely she will be expelled. The screening was sponsored by Jewish Voice for Labour, which has also warned repeatedly that anti-semitism is being used malevolently to silence criticism of Israel and weaken Corbyn.

Walker was seen as a pivotal figure by those opposed to Corbyn. She was a co-founder of Momentum, the grassroots organisation established to support Corbyn after his election to the leadership and deal with the inevitable fallout from the Blairite wing of MPs.

Momentum expected a rough ride from this dominant faction, and they were not disappointed. The Blairites still held on to the party machinery and they had an ally in Tom Watson, who became Corbyn’s deputy.

Walker was one of the early victims of the confected claims of an Labour “anti-semitism crisis”. But she was not ready to roll over and accept her status as witch. She fought back.

From lynching to witch hunt

First, she produced a one-woman show about her treatment at the hands of the Labour party bureaucracy – framed in the context of decades of racist treatment of black people in the west – called The Lynching.

And then her story was turned into a documentary film, fittingly called Witch Hunt. It sets out very clearly the machinations of the Blairite wing of MPs, and Labour’s closely allied Israel lobby, in defaming Walker as part of their efforts to regain power over the party.

For people so ostensibly concerned about racism towards Jews, these witchfinders show little self-awareness about how obvious their own racism is in relation to some of the “witches” they have hunted down.

But that racism can only be understood if people have the chance to hear from Walker and other victims of the anti-semitism smears. Which is precisely why Williamson, who was trying to organise the screening of Witch Hunt, had to be dealt with too.

Party in disrepute

Walker is not the only prominent black anti-racism activist targeted. Marc Wadsworth, another longtime ally of Corbyn’s, and founder of the Anti-Racist Alliance, was “outed” last year in another confected anti-semitism scandal. The allegations of anti-semitism were impossible to stand up publicly, so finally he was booted out on a catch-all claim that he had brought the party “into disrepute”.

Jews who criticise Israel and support Corbyn’s solidarity with Palestinians have been picked off by the witchfinders too, cheered on by media commentators who claim this is being done in the service of a “zero tolerance” policy towards racism. As well as Walker, the targets have included Tony Greenstein, Moshe Machover, Martin Odoni, Glyn Secker and Cyril Chilson.

But as the battle in Labour has intensified to redefine anti-Zionism as anti-semitism, the deeper issues at stake have come to the fore. Jon Lansman, another founder of Momentum, recently stated:

“I don’t want any Jewish member in the party to be leaving. We are absolutely committed to making Labour a safe space.”

But there are a set of very obvious problems with that position, and they have gone entirely unexamined by those promoting the “institutional anti-semitism” and “zero tolerance” narratives.

Lobby’s covert actions exposed

First, it is impossible to be a home to all Jews in Labour, when the party’s Jewish members are themselves deeply split over key issues like whether Corbyn is a force for good and whether meaningful criticism of Israel should be allowed.

A fanatically pro-Israel organisation like the Jewish Labour Movement will never tolerate a Corbyn-led Labour party reaching power and supporting the Palestinian cause. To pretend otherwise is simple naivety or deception.

That fact was demonstrably proven two years ago in the Al Jazeera undercover documentary The Lobby into covert efforts by Israel and its UK lobbyists to undermine Corbyn from within his own party through groups like the JLM and MPs in Labour Friends of Israel. It was telling that the party machine, along with the corporate media, did its best to keep the documentary out of public view.

The MPs loudest about “institutional anti-semitism” in Labour were among those abandoning the party to join the Independent Group this month, preferring to ally with renegade Conservative MPs in an apparent attempt to frustrate a Corbyn-led party winning power.

Institutional racism on Palestinians

Further, if a proportion of Jewish Labour party members have such a heavy personal investment in Israel that they refuse to countenance any meaningful curbs on Israel’s abuses of Palestinians – and that has been underscored repeatedly by public comments from the JLM and Labour Friends of Israel – then keeping them inside the party will require cracking down on all but the flimsiest criticism of Israel. It will tie the party’s hands on supporting Palestinian rights.

In the name of protecting the “Israel right or wrong” crowd from what they consider to be anti-semitic abuse, Labour will have to provide institutional support for Israel’s racism towards Palestinians.

In doing so, it will in fact simply be returning to the status quo in the party before Corbyn, when Labour turned a blind eye over many decades to the Palestinians’ dispossession by European Zionists who created an ugly anachronistic state where rights accrue based on one’s ethnicity and religion rather than citizenship.

Those in Labour who reject Britain’s continuing complicity in such crimes – ones the UK set in motion with the Balfour Declaration – will find, as a result, that it is they who have no home in Labour. That includes significant numbers of anti-Zionist Jews, Palestinians, Muslims and Palestinian solidarity activists.

Safe space for whom?

If the creation of a “safe space” for Jews in the Labour party is code, as it appears to be, for a safe space for hardline Zionist Jews, it will inevitably require that the party become a hostile environment for those engaged in other anti-racism battles.

Stripped bare, what Lansman and the witchfinders are saying is that Zionist Jewish sensitivities in the party are the only ones that count, that anything and everything must be done to indulge them, even if it means abusing non-Zionist Jewish members, black members, Palestinian and Muslim members, and those expressing solidarity with Palestinians.

This is precisely the political black hole into which simplistic, kneejerk identity politics inevitably gets sucked.

Image result for Seumas Milne

Right now, the establishment – represented by Richard Dearlove, a former head of the MI6 – is maliciously trying to frame Corbyn’s main adviser, Seumas Milne (image on the right with Jeremy Corbyn), as a Kremlin asset.

While the witchfinders claim to have unearthed a “pattern of behaviour” in Williamson’s efforts to expose their smears, in fact the real pattern of behaviour is there for all to see: a concerted McCarthyite campaign to destroy Corbyn before he can reach No 10.

Corbyn’s allies are being picked off one by one, from grassroots activists like Walker and Wadsworth to higher-placed supporters like Williamson and Milne. Soon Corbyn will stand alone, exposed before the inquisition that has been prepared for him.

Then Labour can be restored to the Blairites, the members silenced until they leave and any hope of offering a political alternative to the establishment safely shelved. Ordinary people will again be made passive spectators as the rich carry on playing with their lives and their futures as though Britain was simply a rigged game of Monopoly.

If parliamentary politics returns to business as usual for the wealthy, taking to the streets looks increasingly like the only option. Maybe it’s time to dust off a Yellow Vest.

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Jonathan Cook won the Martha Gellhorn Special Prize for Journalism. His books include “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jonathan-cook.net. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

UN Report Accuses Israel of High Crimes in Gaza

March 1st, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

There’s no ambiguity about longstanding Israeli high crimes of war, against humanity, and slow-motion genocide in Gaza – similar crimes committed throughout the Territories for over half a century, accountability never forthcoming.

An entire Palestinian population is held hostage to Israeli apartheid.

On February 28, the UN Independent Commission of Inquiry (COI) report into (peaceful) Palestinian protests in Gaza weekly since last March 30 presented its damning findings – saying the following:

“No justification (has existed during the past 11 months) for Israel to shoot (Palestinians threatening no one) with live fire.”

According to COI chair Santiago Canton,

“(t)he Commission has reasonable grounds to believe that during the Great March of Return, Israeli soldiers committed violations of international human rights and humanitarian law. Some of those violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity, and must be immediately investigated by Israel.”

In May 2018, weeks after Great March of Return protests began, the COI was formed “to investigate all alleged violations and abuses of international humanitarian law and international human rights law in” Gaza.

The COI report way understated the casualty count by live fire, rubber-coated steel bullets, toxic tear gas, and other forms of Israeli violence against peacefully demonstrating Gazans threatening no one.

Around 250 Gazans were killed, over 25,000 others injured, many seriously, including women, children, and clearly identified paramedics and journalists.

The COI report claimed

“(m)ore than 6,000 unarmed demonstrators were shot by (unthreatened IDF) snipers, another 3,098 injured by “bullet fragmentation, rubber-coated metal bullets or by hits from tear gas canisters.”

No Israeli soldiers were killed or injured by Palestinians during demonstrations. The COI cited four IDF soldiers wounded (perhaps by friendly fire), another killed “outside the protest sites.”

Palestinian protests were peaceful, ineffective stone-throwing and incendiary balloons alone used, harming no one.

In flagrant violation of international law, Israeli soldiers use live fire against nonviolent Palestinians when demonstrations are held.

On last Friday’s 48th Great March of Return protest, the Gaza-based Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), based on field worker evidence, said the following:

“…Israeli forces…stationed in prone positions and in military jeeps along the fence with Israel continued to use excessive force against the demonstrators by opening fire and firing teargas canisters at them.”

“As a result, dozens of the demonstrators were hit with bullets and teargas canisters without posing any imminent threat or danger to the life of soldiers.”

Similar remarks followed each of the previous 47 Great March of Return protests. Israeli soldiers used live fire and other brute force against peacefully demonstrating Palestinians – accountability not forthcoming.

Its actions flagrantly violated international humanitarian law, including Fourth Geneva and Rome Statute to the International Criminal Court.

Israeli impunity encourages continued use of excessive force against defenseless Palestinians, including the highest of high crimes against peace. COI member Sara Hossain said the following:

“There can be no justification for killing and injuring journalists, medics, and persons who pose no imminent threat of death or serious injury to those around them.”

“Particularly alarming is the targeting of children and persons with disabilities. Many young persons’ lives have been altered forever” by loss of limbs and other disabling injuries – including from illegal use of exploding dum dum bullets.

The COI report said evidence showed

“Israeli snipers shot at journalists, health workers, children and persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognizable as such.”

“Unless undertaken lawfully in self-defense, intentionally shooting a civilian not directly participating in hostilities is a war crime.”

“The Commission found reasonable grounds to believe that individual members of the Israeli Security Forces, in the course of their response to the demonstrations, killed and injured civilians who were neither directly participating in hostilities, nor posing an imminent threat. These serious human rights and humanitarian law violations may constitute war crimes or crimes against humanity.”

There’s no maybe about it. IDF soldiers were given unlawful orders to use live fire at peacefully demonstrating Gazans.

The PCHR earlier said Israeli forces acted on orders from the “highest military and political echelons (to use) excessive force against the peaceful demonstrators who posed no threat to the life (or security) of Israeli soldiers.”

The COI was mandated by the UN Human Rights Council to determine accountability for deaths and injuries during Great March of Return protests.

Its report will be presented to the UN High Commissioner of Human Rights, perhaps to the International Criminal Court as well.

Demanding Israel investigate its own high crimes of war and against humanity assures whitewash if anything is undertaken.

An independent tribunal with teeth is essential to hold Israeli military and civilian authorities accountable for longstanding  high crimes too egregious to ignore any longer.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: Palestinian take cover as Israeli forces fire at protesters at the Gaza border on 14 December 2018 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

According to the Kremlin’s official website, President Putin never said anything about “Russia’s steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”, but that didn’t stop Prime Minister Modi’s office from misleadingly implying that he did as India continues doing whatever it can to save face after Pakistan gave it a “bloody nose” earlier this week and its decades-long partner in Moscow pragmatically signaled that it regards Islamabad and New Delhi as international equals by offering to host peace talks between them.

President Putin called Prime Minister Modi on Thursday in a conversation that covered Russia’s repeated condolences for the Pulwama attack, anti-terrorism, and the Eastern Economic Forum (EEF) that will take place later this year in Vladivostok. Putin’s call came just hours after Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov said that his country would host peace talks between India and Pakistan if they asked it to do so, meaning that the Russian leader’s outreach to his Indian counterpart should be seen as Moscow’s first move in that direction.

This explains why Putin’s pretext for calling Modi was to reiterate Russia’s condolences for the Pulwama attack, as it in turn allowed him to broach the topic of whether or not his counterpart was interested in Moscow hosting peace talks between his country and Pakistan. At no time during the conversation, however, is there any plausible indication that Putin walked back Russia’s neutral “balancing” position towards this conflict by taking India’s side, whether directly or through a euphemism. In fact, here’s what the Kremlin’s official website had to say about the call:

“In addition to the message sent earlier, Vladimir Putin once again conveyed his condolences to the people of India in connection with the killing of Indian security force personnel in a terrorist attack on February 14.

In this context, the two leaders condemned international terrorism and any methods used to support it stressing, the need to step up the uncompromising fight against the terrorist threat.

While discussing the crisis in relations between India and Pakistan, Vladimir Putin expressed hope for a prompt settlement.

Topical issues on the bilateral agenda were also touched upon. The Russian President emphasised that Russian-Indian cooperation was developing quite successfully as a privileged strategic partnership. The two sides expressed interest in further promoting interaction in all areas, including military-technical ties.

Vladimir Putin invited Narendra Modi to take part in the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok in September 2019 as the main guest. The two leaders agreed to continue personal contact.

Nevertheless, that didn’t stop the Indian Prime Minister’s office from misportraying their conversation (bolded emphasis is the author’s own):

“The President of the Russian Federation H.E. Mr. Vladimir V. Putin called Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi on phone today.

President Putin expressed his deep condolences on the Pulwama terrorist attack. He also conveyed solidarity of the people of the Russian Federation with the people of India in the fight against terrorism.

The Prime Minister thanked President Putin for Russia’s steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks, and renewed India’s commitment to strengthening bilateral cooperation in countering terrorism as a pillar of privileged and special strategic partnership. Both leaders agreed that the concerned should stop all support to terrorism.

Both the leaders also agreed that the growing cooperation between the two countries will take their Special and Privileged Strategic Partnership from strength to strength.

President Putin reiterated the invitation to the Prime Minister to attend the Eastern Economic Forum in Vladivostok later this year. The Prime Minister welcomed the invitation and underscored the significance of growing economic cooperation, including in the Russian Far East, between the two countries.”

It’s categorically false that Russia ever expressed any “steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”, which is a euphemism for supporting India’s fake “surgical strike” against Pakistan, but New Delhi felt compelled to pretend that this was the case in order to save face after Islamabad gave it a “bloody nose” earlier this week. Furthermore, this false portrayal of reality might have also been another Indian infowar attack against Russia, albeit this time intended to as a last-ditch effort to provoke Pakistan into rejecting Moscow’s mediation offer.

Indian media, which is heavily influenced by the state (especially since the BJP returned to power in 2014), has been pushing the narrative that Russia’s relations with Pakistan are insincere and that Moscow would never regard Islamabad as being equal to New Delhi. This inaccurate notion was based on the arrogant belief that billions of dollars’ worth of business deals with Russia would somehow “buy off” the Kremlin and preempt its rapprochement with Pakistan, which was a failed policy if there ever was one because the two are now enjoying the fruits of a strategic partnership.

Russia’s 21st-century grand strategy of becoming the supreme “balancing” force in Afro-Eurasia precludes the taking of partisan sides in any conflict, let alone one as high-stakes as between India and Pakistan (and especially in light of Moscow’s diplomatic gains with the Taliban being the result of close coordination with Islamabad). That’s why objective observers should have known from the get-go that Modi’s office was misportraying his conversation with Putin after it misleadingly made it seem like Russia said something in connection with its supposedly “steadfast support for India’s efforts to protect its interests against cross-border terror attacks”.

India’s permanent military, intelligence, and diplomatic bureaucracies (“deep state”) dangerously seem to believe the Bollywood narratives that they propagate among the masses, which has contributed to them having an over-inflated sense of their country’s importance in International Relations and especially with Russia. Few Indians, let alone those in a policymaking capacity, could have imagined that Russia would regard India and Pakistan as being equals, as this contradicts decades of indoctrination but nevertheless proves just how much International Relations is changing at the dawn of the emerging Multipolar World Order.

Unable to accept this, yet also unable to decline Russia’s mediation offer lest it be regarded as an irredeemable American proxy (which Moscow already suspects that it might be on the way to becoming after Lavrov hinted as much earlier this week), India felt that it’s only recourse was to misportray Modi’s conversation with Putin in the naïve hopes that Pakistan would take its words at face value and overreact in such a way that it would refuse to let Russia host peace talks between it and India. Unsurprisingly, this infowar attack also failed.

Sputnik reported the following about Pakistani Foreign Minister Qureshi’s recent interview with CNN:

“Commenting on Russia’s willingness to mediate between India and Pakistan to try to ease bilateral tensions, Qureshi said that Islamabad is ready to accept such an offer.

“[Russian Foreign Minister Sergei] Lavrov has offered to mediate. I do not know about India but I want to say this to Russia, that Pakistan is ready to come to the table and de-escalate tensions,” Qureshi underlined.”

Unlike India, Pakistan has no problem with Russia returning to South Asia and expanding its “balancing” strategy to such a point that it can mediate between the region’s two nuclear-armed powers. India, however, feels as though Russia inflicted a mortal wound to its international prestige by regarding Pakistan as being equal to it, which it legally is in terms of international law but which New Delhi has refused to recognize due to its Bollywood belief in being an “exceptional superpower”. Going forward, this latest infowar trick might further erode Russia’s trust in India while simultaneously increasing its trust in Pakistan.

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This article was originally published on Eurasia Future.

Andrew Korybko is an American Moscow-based political analyst specializing in the relationship between the US strategy in Afro-Eurasia, China’s One Belt One Road global vision of New Silk Road connectivity, and Hybrid Warfare. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research.

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The Foreign Secretary, Jeremy Hunt, is touring the Middle East over the next few days, with visits to Saudi Arabia, Oman and United Arab Emirates. It is likely that the war in Yemen will be at the top of the agenda. The ongoing bombardment has created the worst humanitarian crisis in the world.

Since the bombing of Yemen began in March 2015, the UK has licensed £4.7 billion worth of arms to the Saudi regime, including:

  • £2.7 billion worth of ML10 licenses (Aircraft, helicopters, drones)
  • £1.9 billion worth of ML4 licenses (Grenades, bombs, missiles, countermeasures)

In reality the figures could be a great deal higher, with most bombs and missiles being licensed via the opaque and secretive Open Licence system.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:

“The humanitarian crisis in Yemen is the worst in the world. UK-made fighter jets and bombs have played a central role in creating it. Thousands of people have been killed by the bombs, and many more in the catastrophe they have caused.

Jeremy Hunt talks a lot about the need for peace, but his words are hollow. The biggest change that he and his colleagues could make, and the one that would have the greatest impact on the ground, would be to finally stop arming and supporting the Saudi-led coalition.”

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“The finance aristocracy, in its mode of acquisition as well as in its pleasures, is nothing but the rebirth of the lumpenproletariat on the heights of bourgeois society.”—Karl Marx, The Class Struggles in France

What Marx described, in his analysis of the corruption of the bourgeoisie in France leading up to the 1848 revolution, applies with even greater force to the United States of 2019, where the bourgeoisie faces its own rendezvous with social upheaval and explosive class battles.

That is how a Marxist understands the spectacle of Wednesday’s hearing before the House Oversight Committee, in which Michael Cohen, the former attorney and “fixer” for Donald Trump for more than a decade, testified for six hours about how he and his boss worked to defraud business partners and tax collectors, intimidate critics and suppress opposition to Trump’s acitvities in real estate, casino gambling, reality television and, eventually, electoral politics.

What Cohen described was a seedier version of an operation that most Americans would recognize from viewing films like The Godfather: Trump as the capo di tutti capi, the unquestioned authority who must be consulted on every decision; the children, Donald Jr., Ivanka and Eric, each now playing significant roles in the ongoing family criminal enterprise; Allen Weisselberg, CFO of the Trump Organization, the consigliere in charge of finance, mentioned by Cohen more than 20 times in the course of six hours of testimony, as the man who facilitated Trump’s schemes to evade taxes, deceive banks or stiff business partners.

Cohen himself was an enforcer: by his own account, he threatened people on Trump’s behalf at least 500 times in a ten-year period, including business associates, politicians, journalists, and anyone seeking to file complaints or gain reimbursement after they were defrauded by one or another Trump venture. The now-disbarred lawyer admitted to tape-recording clients—including Trump but many others—more than 100 times during this period.

The incidents recounted by Cohen range from the farcical (Trump browbeating colleges and even his military prep school not to release his grades or test scores), to the shabby (Trump having his own “charitable” foundation buy a portrait of himself for $60,000), to the brazenly criminal (deliberately inflating the value of properties when applying for bank loans, while deflating the value of the same properties as much as twenty-fold in order to evade taxation).

One of the most remarkable revelations was Cohen’s flat assertion that Trump himself did not enter the presidential race with the expectation that he could win either the Republican nomination or the presidency. Instead, the billionaire reality television “star” regularly told his closest aides, the campaign would be the “greatest infomercial in political history,” good for promoting his brand, opening up business opportunities in previously closed markets.

These unflattering details filled the pages of the daily newspapers Thursday and occupied many hours on the cable television news. But in all that vast volume of reporting and commentary one would look in vain for any serious assessment of what it means, in terms of the historical development and the future trajectory of American society, that a family like the Trumps now occupies the highest rung in the US political system.

The World Socialist Web Site rejects efforts by the Democrats and the corporate media to dismiss Trump as an aberration, an accidental figure whose unexpected elevation to the presidency in 2016 will be “corrected” through impeachment, forced resignation, or electoral defeat in 2020. We insist that the Trump administration is a manifestation of a protracted crisis and breakdown of American democracy, whose course can be traced back at least two decades, to the failed impeachment of Bill Clinton in 1998-99, followed by the stolen presidential election of 2000.

The US political system, always dominated by the interests of the capitalist ruling class that controls both of the major parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, is breaking down under the burden of mounting social tensions, driven above all by skyrocketing economic inequality. It is impossible to sustain the pretense that elections at two-year and four-year intervals provide genuine popular influence over the functioning of a government so completely subordinated to the financial aristocracy.

The figures are familiar but require restating: over the past three decades, virtually all the increase in wealth in American society has gone to a tiny layer at the top. Three mega-billionaires—Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett and Bill Gates—now control more wealth than half the American population. This process of social polarization is global: according to the most recent Oxfam report, 26 billionaires control more wealth than the poorer half of the human race.

These billionaires did not accumulate their riches by devising new technologies or making new scientific discoveries that increased the wealth and happiness of humanity as a whole. On the contrary, their enrichment has come at the expense of society. Bezos has become the world’s richest man through the emergence of Amazon as the greatest sweatshop enterprise in history, where every possible second of labor power is extracted from a brutally exploited workforce.

The class of billionaires as a whole, having precipitated the global financial collapse of 2008 through reckless speculation and swindling in the sale of derivatives and other obscure financial “products,” was bailed out, first by the Republican Bush, then by the Democrat Obama, to the tune of trillions of dollars. Meanwhile, the jobs, living standards and social conditions for the great mass of working people sharply declined.

As for Donald Trump, the real estate swindler, casino con man and reality television mogul is a living demonstration of the truth of Balzac’s aphorism: “Behind every great fortune is a great crime.”

Trump toyed with running for president on the ultra-right Reform Party ticket in 2000, after a long stint as a registered Democrat and donor to both capitalist parties. When he decided to run for president as a Republican in 2016, however, he had shifted drastically to the right. His candidacy marked the emergence of a distinctly fascistic movement, as he spewed anti-immigrant prejudice and racism more generally, while making a right-wing populist appeal to working people, particularly in de-industrialized areas in the Midwest and Appalachia, on the basis of economic nationalism.

As World Socialist Web Site editorial chairman David North explained even before the 2016 elections:

The Republican nominee for the presidency of the United States did not emerge from an American version of a Munich beer hall. Donald Trump is a billionaire, who made his money in Manhattan real estate swindles, the semi-criminal operations of casino gambling, and the bizarre world of “reality television,” which entertains and stupefies its audience by manufacturing absurd, disgusting and essentially fictional “real life” situations. The candidacy of Donald Trump could be described as the transfer of the techniques of reality television to politics.

The main development in the two years since Trump entered the White House is the emergence of the American working class into major struggles, beginning with the wave of teachers’ strikes in 2018, initiated by the rank and file in defiance of the bureaucratic unions. The reaction in the American ruling elite is a panic-stricken turn to authoritarian methods of rule.

The billionaire in the White House is now engaged in a systematic assault on the foundations of American democracy. He has declared a national emergency in order to bypass Congress, which holds the constitutional “power of the purse,” and divert funds from the military and other federal departments to build a wall along the US-Mexico border.

Whether or not he is immediately successful in this effort, it is clear that Trump is moving towards the establishment of an authoritarian regime, with or without the sanction of the ballot box. As Cohen observed in his closing statement—in remarks generally downplayed by the media and ignored by the Democrats—he was worried that if Trump loses the 2020 election, “there will never be a peaceful transition of power.”

Trump’s “opposition” in the Democratic Party is no less hostile to democratic rights. They have focused their anti-Trump campaign on bogus allegations that he is a Russian agent, while portraying the emergence of social divisions within the United States as the consequence of Russian “meddling,” not the crisis of capitalism, and pushing for across-the-board internet censorship.

The defense of democratic rights and genuine resistance to Trump’s drive toward authoritarian rule must come through the development of an independent political movement of the working class, directed against both big-business parties, the Democrats as much as the Republicans, and against the profit system which they both defend.

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Featured image is from State of Globe

Walkout in Hanoi: The Second Trump-Kim Summit

March 1st, 2019 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

“Sometimes you have to walk and this was one of those times.”  That was US President Donald Trump’s remark about something he has been doing a lot of lately: walking away from agreements or understandings in the hope of reaching the ultimate deal.  North Korea’s Kim Jong-un had been pressing his advantage in Hanoi with an attempt to convince Trump that sanctions needed to be eased. He ended up seeing the back of Trump after the appropriate handshakes.

The loose drama at such events is often hard to detach from the firmly rooted substance.  Trump’s relationship with the accurate is tenuous and free flowing, so we have little to go on.  Ahead of the meeting, the White House was busy sending various signals designed to baffle and confuse friend and foe alike.  The president was keen to praise the “special relationship” with Kim, the sort of term reserved for gatherings such as those between the UK and US.    

At the end of January, Stephen Biegun, designated special representative for North Korea in the US State Department, suggested that Pyongyang had made a commitment in pre-summit talks to eliminate uranium and plutonium enrichment facilities for a price.  His mood seemed to jar with the more bellicose stance taken by national security adviser and pro-bombing enthusiast John R. Bolton and fellow belligerent companion and US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo. 

In carefully chosen words, the representative noted how,

“Chairman Kim qualified next steps on North Korea’s plutonium and uranium enrichment facilities upon the United States taking corresponding measures.” 

Biegun was optimistic at the time, drawing upon themes of flexibility and novelty.

“Neither leader is constrained by traditional expectations that might doom their teams to try the exact same approach as in the past, with no expectation of anything but the same failed outcome.” 

The president’s preliminary chats over dinner with Kim prior to the formal summit did not give much away. 

“Great meetings and dinner tonight in Vietnam with Kim Jong Un of North Korea,” he tweeted.  “Very good dialogue. Resuming tomorrow!” 

Those aching for detail were left disappointed.  By breakfast the next day, things had cooled.  Cancellations of a working lunch followed.

The smoke has yet to clear, and may be hovering for some time yet.  But Trump was impressed by Kim’s offer to dismantle the enrichment facility at Yongbyon in its entirety (though it is clear that the totality of the DPRK’s capacity goes beyond it).  The discussion and proposed transaction list seemed somewhat threadbare; a total lift of sanctions for Yongbyon’s dismantling?  According to Trump,

“Basically they wanted the sanctions lifted in their entirety, but we couldn’t do that.”  

The response was not long in coming.  Ri Yong-ho, North Korea’s foreign minister, suggested another version, somewhat more nuanced, less absolute: that only some sanctions be lifted in exchange for the permanent and complete dismantling of the main facility, verified by US experts.

“Given the current level of trust between North Korea and the United States, this was the maximum step for denuclearization we could offer.”  

Prior to the summit, there was a transfixed terror that Trump was going to give all earthly concessions, and a good number of goods on gold platter, to the North Korean leader.  A bemused Trump simply deemed it “false reporting” on his “intentions with respect to North Korea.”  Both parties would “try very hard to work something out on Denuclearization & then making North Korea an Economic Powerhouse.”   

This was far from the case.  As Joel S. Wit and Jenny Town note with some accuracy, 

“It’s ironic that while most pundits and the media kept up a steady drumbeat that he was going to give away the store, he did just the opposite, holding out for a better deal.” 

The issues at stake here on the Korean Peninsula seem monumental, but when seen together, constitute the pieces of a jigsaw.  Any comprehensive talks will have to address these, and this summit was evidently not going to do that.  To only see one or two pieces in isolation (abductees, for instance, or the issue of exclusive, verifiable and irreversible denuclearisation) is to ignore the numbers of steps in the entire affair. 

Trust needs to be restored, a peace treaty neutering the war status of the Peninsula signed, undertakings against the use of force and hostile intent made with heft, and ultimately, an understanding that the parties at the negotiating table aren’t going to bump you off.  Pyongyang is being asked to relinquish its highest grade insurance in the face of a superpower which has shown more than an unhealthy tendency to inflict regime changes with catastrophic consequences.  Brinkmanship and theories of managed lunacy in the diplomatic realm will only get you to a point. 

With Trump being advised by the likes of the gun slinging Bolton (known in North Korean circles as the paternal inspiration for Pyongyang’s nuclear program) and Kim ever mindful about the vulnerabilities of his regime, more walkouts are bound to happen.  As Jeffrey Lewis rightly noted, the old guard (Bolton and company) represent “the cold wind” and “pretty much the rest of the government bureaucracy.”  The warmth of reform in securing peace on the Korean Peninsula, spurred on by the fanning of South Korea’s Moon Jae-in and the likes of Biegun, act as counters.  This walkout, at least, means that each can live to talk another day, though it will keep their respective public relations teams busy. 

As matters stand, there will be no resumption of North Korean ballistic and nuclear testing, and a promise for more negotiations.  The chatter will continue, and channels will remain open.  As for Trump itself,

“This wasn’t a walkaway like you get up and walk out.  No, this was very friendly. We shook hands.”   

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

Featured image: President Donald J. Trump and Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea meet for a social dinner Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2019, at the Sofitel Legend Metropole hotel in Hanoi, for their second summit meeting. (Official White House Photo by Joyce N. Boghosian)

Polite diplomacy over the dinner table. Smiles on both sides. A nice private dinner. “Everybody is having a good time. Hope so”, says Trump.

Trump and Kim met before the formal dinner party for about half an hour. Kim smiled and said:

“We have exchanged in a very interesting dialogue with each other for about 30 minutes”.

Trump responds with a smile “yes it was good”.

“So we’re going to have a very busy day tomorrow, says Trump.

“And a lot of things are going to be solved. I hope. and I Think it will lead to a really wonderful situation long term… And our relationship is a very special relationship”.

Ultimately, however, there was no official statement or joint communique. What happened. What went wrong?

.

Prior to the Hanoi encounter, Trump intimated that if a moratorium on nuclear missile testing by the DPRK was reached, he would be satisfied.  And that this commitment would then lead to subsequent negotiations.

But this stance was not shared by his top advisers:

“Senior Trump aides have privately expressed skepticism … Some fear that Trump could feel pressure to make a major concession to Kim during face-to-face talks, including a one-on-one session, in hopes of securing a reciprocal commitment he can herald as a political victory. (WPo, February 24, 2018, emphasis added)

Who are these “Senior Trump aides”? The WPo fails to mention the central role of Secretary of State Mike Pompeo who was put in charge of the negotiations from the very outset in 2017 when he was head of the CIA.

While we are not privy to what was discussed behind closed doors (with the two leaders and their senior advisors), or what was discussed by Pompeo and Kim Yong-chol in meetings prior to the Hanoi venue, there is evidence that Pompeo was instrumental in the sabotage of peace negotiations both in Singapore and Hanoi.

Back in October 2017, a few months following the beginning of negotations with the DPRK, Pompeo while he was head of the CIA, had hinted in a public statement that Kim Jong-un was on the CIA assassination list:

“If Kim Jong-un suddenly dies, don’t ask me about it”, says CIA chief

“With respect, if Kim Jong-un should vanish, given the history of the CIA, I’m just not going to talk about it,”

“We are going to become a much more vicious agency …

… “The president’s made it very clear. He’s prepared to ensure that Kim Jong-un doesn’t have the capacity to hold America at risk. By military force if necessary.”

SCMP October 2017

SCMP, July 20, 2018

This was a deliberate act of provocation,

“Killer Diplomacy”

From the outset the DPRK does not trust Washington’s Peace Negotiator.

Pompeo should be removed from the peace negotiation process which eventually requires the repeal of the 1953 armistice agreement and the signing of a peace agreement with the DPRK and China.

In a bitter irony, the same Mike Pompeo who casually refers to the “CIA history” of political assassinations, had come to play a central role in “peace” negotiations together with his North Korea envoy, Stephen Biegun.

Pyongyang was fully aware of the assassination list. But Pompeo deliberately chose to make it public prior to the conduct of negotiations with a political leader who is on the CIA hit list. This is tantamount to saying to Kim: “Lets negotiate but I want to kill you”. 

Not surprisingly, in the followup US-DPRK negotiations with Pompeo held in Pyongyang in the wake of the Singapore Summit (June 12-14, 2018), the DPRK accused the Trump administration of pushing a “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization.”  The statement was directed against Pompeo who was in charge of the negotiations on behalf of president Trump.

“We still cherish our good faith in President Trump … But, the U.S. side [Pompeo] came up only with its unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization… The U.S. side [Pompeo] never mentioned the issue of establishing a peace regime on the Korean peninsula which is essential for defusing tension and preventing a war.” (DPRK Statement, July 8, 2018, emphasis added)

Second Day of the Hanoi Summit

Flash Forward to Hanoi, February 27, 2019: Both leaders expressed their optimism “for continuing the great dialogue”.

“I am in no rush,” Trump said alongside Kim. “What is important is that we do the right deal.”

Acknowledged by Trump, the DPRK has not fired a single nuclear ballistic test missile since late 2017.

“To me, I very much appreciate no testing of nuclear rockets and missiles,” Trump added.

Both leaders were committed to achieving a positive outcome:

The decision to “permanently shut down” Yongbyon nuclear complex, one of the DPRK’s main nuclear research centers located in the west of the country, and Tongchang-ri missile engine test site, was made last September. Pyongyang also stated that the DPRK is willing to invite international experts to watch the dismantling or even take additional denuclearization steps if there are corresponding actions from the U.S. (CGTN, February 27, 2019)

Prior to the final wrap-up session, the two leaders had a fruitful “one-on-one meeting” of about 45 minutes. (“Senior political aides” feared the one-on-one session which provided leverage to Trump to strike a deal with Kim, as reported by the WaPo, see above).

About-Turn

And then there was an about-turn at the final session attended by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and DPRK’ vice chairman of the Workers Party of Korea (WPK) Central Committee Kim Yong-chol.  

On the US side, this outcome had been planned well ahead of the Hanoi venue in Washington in consultations with the CIA, State Department and Pentagon including National Security Advisor John Bolton.

Screenshot, scroll down for video

Nothing concrete emerged. Why did things go wrong?  The meeting behind closed doors with senior advisors (and translators) led to an impasse.

The US failed to provide anything in exchange for the DPRK’s commitment to denuclearization. Did Pompeo play a central role in deliberately sabotaging the peace process at the wrap up session behind closed doors?

No final communique. The US refused to lift the sanctions regime.

See Video below

Final wrap-up meeting at 1’38”

See press conference statement by Trump at 2′.15″

“Basically they wanted the sanctions removed in their entirety and we could not do that. They are willing to denuke a large part of the areas we wanted. But we could not give up all of the sanctions”, said Trump.

 “Sometimes you have to walk, and this was just one of those times.”

Trump’s statement regarding the removal of the sanctions is a lie.

The DPRK had requested the partial removal of sanctions and that request was turned down. See Foreign Minister’s statement below at DPRK press conference.

2’50” DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yon-ho

“If the US removes the sanctions that hamper the civilian economy and the livelihood of our people in particular, we will permanently and completely dismantle the nuclear production facilities in the Yogbyon area, including plutonium and uranium in the presence of US experts by the joint force of technicians in bothe countries.”

….

“What we have asked for was partial lifting of sanctions, not entirely.

In detail, we asked to lift five sanctions that were imposed within 2016 and 2017, out of a total of 11 sanctions, which would affect ordinary people’s economy and life,”( Statement of the DPRK Foreign Minister Ri Yon-ho).

 

Final Press Conference and Statements (WaPo video)

 

https://news.cgtn.com/news/3d3d774d3263544f32457a6333566d54/index.html

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Financial Imperialism – The Case of Venezuela

By Dr. Jack Rasmus, February 28, 2019

Invasion of Venezuela by US and its proxies is just around the corner! This past week vice-president Pence flew to Colombia once again—for the fifth time in recent weeks—to provide final instructions to US local forces and proxy allies there for the next step in the US regime change plan.

15 Years Ago: US Sponsored Coup d’Etat. The Destabilization of Haiti

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, February 28, 2019

The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Aristide on February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation, involving the US, France and Canada.

And today, a US Coup is on the drawing board of the White House. Canada as well as France are once again complicit in supporting the over-through of the duly elected president of Venezuela.

Economic Sabotage and Crimes against Humanity: Venezuela Must Sue the US at the International Court

By Jay Janson, February 28, 2019

The Venezuelan government must sue the US government in the International Court of Justice for triggering economic instability and poverty by sanctioning all its oil sales, seizing its assets and bank deposits.

Russia, Japan and the USA: The Unfinished Business of War

By Christopher Black, February 28, 2019

As the USA and North Korea meet in Vietnam to discuss the possibility of a peace treaty between the two after decades of hostility against North Korea from the USA, the governments of Russia and Japan are engaged in talks about concluding a peace treaty to formally end the war between them that began during the Second World War.

Glyphosate

Poisoning the Public: Toxic Agrochemicals and Regulators’ Collusion with Industry

By Colin Todhunter, February 28, 2019

In January 2019, campaigner Dr Rosemary Mason lodged a complaint with the European Ombudsman accusing European regulatory agencies of collusion with the agrochemicals industry. This was in the wake of an important paper by Charles Benbrook on the genotoxicity of glyphosate-based herbicides that appeared in the journal ‘Environmental Sciences Europe’.

Assad

Who are the “Brutal Dictators”?

By Mark Taliano, February 28, 2019

We are the ones imposing economic warfare, and regime change wars on non-belligerent countries.  We are the ones supporting terrorists who impose the death penalty on hundreds of thousands with our weapons, our command and control, our mercenaries, our air support and our terror bombings.

Video: Michael Cohen Testimony on Hush Money, Fraud and Trump’s Skyscraper Project in Moscow

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, Mike Harris, and Press TV, February 28, 2019

Michael Cohen offered explanations mainly regarding three cases, the WikiLeaks-hacked Democratic emails, hush money paid to an adult film star and a Russia skyscraper project. He then called president Trump a conman, racist and cheat offering evidence to prove his claims while feeling embarrassed for having done lots of wrong things for him and concealing his illicit acts.

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Kim Meets Trump in Hanoi. Failure of Second US-DPRK Summit

February 28th, 2019 by Stephen Lendman

Two days of talks were cut short on Thursday with no resolution of major differences, no final statement as was issued after last June’s summit – the customary format whenever formal meetings between leaders are held.

Negotiations broke down because of unacceptable Trump regime demands in return for hollow promises alone, no show of good faith against the backdrop of DLT’s pullout from the JCPOA nuclear deal with Iran and 1987 INF Treaty with Russia – based on Big Lies when announced

Throughout North Korea’s post-WW II history, US hostility toward its sovereign independence has been unrelenting – despite occasional public posturing otherwise.

A state of undeclared US war on the DPRK has existed since adoption of the uneasy 1953 armistice – after raping and destroying the country, Harry Truman’s aggression, falsely blamed on Pyongyang.

What’s going on post-mid-June 2018 Kim Jong-Un/Trump summit talks is reminiscent of how US/DPRK relations unravelled earlier.

Promises by Washington were breached. Pyongyang sought and continues to seek normalized relations with the US, West and other countries, respect for its sovereign independence, a formal peace treaty ending the 1950s war, lifting of unacceptable sanctions, and security guarantees in return for denuclearization – its self-defense deterrent against feared US aggression.

What’s clear from both summits and longstanding US history is that its ruling authorities can never be trusted. Rare exceptions prove the rule.

Trump regime hardliners seek a denuclearized North Korean vassal state bordering China, an unattainable objective from Kim/Trump summit talks, the DPRK not about to alter its longstanding relationship with Beijing, its most reliable ally.

One-sided Trump regime aims are firm, including complete DPRK denuclearization, transforming North Korea into a US vassal state, and the illusion of durable peace on the peninsula between Pyongyang and the US – a nation permanently at war on humanity, wanting control over all other nations.

Ahead of Trump’s press conference on Thursday from Hanoi, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said “(n)o agreement was reached at this time, but their respective teams look forward to meeting in the future.”

No agreement nor a formal statement showed summit talks ended in failure. No brave face put on discussions can alter reality.

According to the White House-published schedule, Kim and Trump were to meet for a working lunch following talks – both leaders to take part in a joint signing ceremony, followed by a DLT news conference.

Without explanation, scheduled events at the conclusion of talks were cancelled. No concluding statement showed major differences remain unresolved.

The Trump regime’s unwillingness even to sign a peace declaration, formally and symbolically ending the 1950s war as a show of good faith, was telling.

Trump told reporters he’s in “no rush” to formally agree on a DPRK denuclearization deal, saying “we’ll ultimately have” one, adding “(a)ll sanctions will remain.”

Summits are rarely held without issues agreed on in advance, leaders meeting to formalize things – not this time indicating failure in Hanoi.

Asked by reporters if they’ll be a third summit, Trump said:

“No. Let’s see what will happen. I did not give commitments.”

Over eight months after last June’s Singapore summit, no meaningful progress was made to end over 70 years of US hostility toward Pyongyang.

Calling talks “productive” is code language for failure to agree on major issues. On Thursday, Kim and Trump were seen leaving the summit venue separately – two hours before they were expected to hold a signing ceremony.

“At this time, we decided not to do any of the options and we’ll see where that goes,” Trump told reporters, adding talks were “very interesting and productive (sic), (but) sometimes you have to walk.”

Looking ahead, prospects for durable peace and stability on the Korean peninsula, along with normalization of US/DPRK relations, lifting of unacceptable sanctions, and agreement on other major issues, are virtually nil – because Pyongyang won’t agree to subordinate its sovereignty to US interests.

That’s the bottom line reality of dismal bilateral relations. Instead of stepping back from the brink for peace on the peninsula, the risk of possible conflict between both nations remains an ominous possibility if Trump regime hardliners fail to subordinate North Korean interests to their own.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image: President Donald J. Trump is greeted by Kim Jong Un, Chairman of the State Affairs Commission of the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, for their second summit meeting | February 27, 2019 (Source: Official White House Photo by Shealah Craighead)

Twenty years Ago: NATO Aggression Against Serbia

February 28th, 2019 by Dr. Rudolf Hänsel

An international conference on “GLOBAL PEACE AND DEVELOPMENT VS. WARS AND DOMINATION” will take place in the Serbian capital Belgrade from 22 to 24 March 2019. It is a commemoration “against forgetting the NATO aggression 1999”.

Organizers are the “Belgrade Forum for a World of Equals”, the “Serbian Club of Generals and Admirals” and the “Serbian Guest Society” in cooperation with the “World Peace Council” (WPC). Two years after the war of aggression of the US-led NATO countries – including Germany – which was contrary to international law, I got to know the freedom-loving, courageous and cheerful Serbs with their touching folk songs and their beautiful country – and soon took them to my heart. Although German military attacked the Serbian people three times in the last century – in 1999 they tried to bomb Serbia back to the Middle Ages! – Germans are welcomed in Serbia like friends. The congress will therefore send out a message of peace that will unite peoples.

A war that will not end

The 1999 bombing of Serbia lasted 78 days. 1,031 soldiers were killed, 5,173 soldiers and policemen wounded, 2,500 civilians killed – including 78 children – and over 6,000 civilians wounded. The use of highly poisonous and radioactive uranium projectiles from US-led NATO (10 to 15 tons) proved to be particularly devastating for humans, animals and the environment (1). For the independent American analyst on radiation and public health, Leuren Moret, this war of aggression under the cynical code name “Merciful Angel” was the blueprint for the subsequent wars of aggression in the 1990s. As per Moret, Germany as NATO partner was one of the greatest beneficiaries of the smashing of Yugoslavia and the colonization of the Balkans. The German population let itself be deceived at that time by the bold lies of its own red-green government and its media, and the majority agreed to this war. (2)

In a professional article “Uranium Ammunition: Trojans of the Nuclear War” Moret writes about disturbingly similar parallels between the wars in Iraq, Yugoslavia and Afghanistan: 

“The television and radio stations as well as the training facilities were bombed in all cities. (…) Cultural antiquities and historical treasures were recorded and destroyed as goals in all three countries, a kind of cultural and historical purification, a collective and national psychological trauma. The permanent radioactive contamination and environmental devastation of all three countries has never been seen before and unprecedented, followed by a high increase in cancer and birth defects on these attacks. These will increase overtime with unknown effects due to chronic exposure and increasing internal radiation exposure to uranium dust. The genetic effects will be transferred to future generations. Clearly, that was a plan for the extermination of the people, for genocide.”(3)

In Serbia, multiple cancers have now reached epidemic proportions. According to the Serbian Ministry of Health, about 33.000 people are affected annually. The entire country is contaminated. The damage to the genetic material (DNA) will cause malformed children to be born generation after generation. There is no family without malignant diseases.

According to latest statistics, the number of children falling ill in Serbia is about twice as high as in the rest of Europe, i.e. 355 infants per million inhabitants, while in the rest of Europe there are 165 per million inhabitants. Before 1999 there were 160 children. Leukaemia in particular is on the rise among children between the ages of five and nine. According to the oncologist Professor Slobodan Cikaric, the proportion of leukaemia patients is 110 percent higher than before the bombing. (4)

The serious radioactive contamination of humans and other living beings as well as the contamination of the environment are irreversible. But there is an urgent need to apologise to the people of Serbia for the crimes that have been committed and to make reparations, both material and immaterial, for the crimes that have been committed: these include the disclosure of the places of use and the composition of the weapons used, the cleaning of the soil and waters, financial compensation for all the victims and medical care for the families. Additional specialist doctors, nursing staff, medical equipment and medicines must be made available to Serbian hospitals. Destroyed infrastructure and industrial jobs must be restored.

But all NATO countries involved in the war crimes and genocide generally refuse to make reparations – there is much more speculation that the guilt will become statute-barred. On 18th October 2018, NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg publicly told students at Belgrade University that the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia in 1999 was “to protect the population and prevent further actions by the Milosevic regime”. The Serbian people are also abused by a leading NATO representative and the victims are insulted (5). There are no signs of solidarity from the international community in sight.

A whole generation leaves the Balkans for the West

Another serious consequence of the NATO war in 1999 was the emigration of the younger generation to the West because they could not find work in their homeland. “Brain drain” is the name given to this migration of scientists and highly qualified skilled workers abroad that has been going on for decades. As a rule, doctors and nursing staff leave their home countries only after completing their extremely expensive training, which was financed by the taxpayers. Since the rich target countries do not pay any compensation for this, the home countries are left with billions in training costs. In Germany, taxpayers have to pay around 200.000 euros for the studies of a licensed doctor. If the research costs closely associated with teaching are added to the medical studies, the training costs almost double. According to calculations by the Munich-based Ifo Institute, if a 30-year-old female doctor goes abroad, it costs the taxpayer more than one million euros. (6)

The economy and the people of Serbia are suffering badly. For years there has been a shortage of skilled labour, health systems have collapsed, mortality is on the rise, birth rates are falling, wages remain low, unemployment remains high and there is no end in sight to emigration. Rich EU states such as Germany have been massively influencing this exodus in their favour for years without compensating the country of origin. This increases the country’s need and its dependency. The country is being exploited – and that is pure neo-colonialism. The daily newspaper “Welt” headlined on 5th February 2019 “Serbia is bleeding out – and Germany is profiting”. (7)

Night thoughts and view

Heinrich Heine wrote already in 1844 in his poem “Nachtgedanken” the famous entrance verse:

„Denk ich an Deutschland in der Nacht,
Dann bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht,
Ich kann nicht mehr die Augen schließen,
Und meine heißen Tränen fließen.“(8)

“If I think of Germany in the night,
Then I’m deprived of sleep,
I can’t close my eyes anymore,
And my hot tears flow.”

In Belgrade the last verse of the Heine poem will then be (slightly modified) for me:

„Gottlob! Durch meine Fenster bricht
Serbisch heitres Tageslicht;
Es kommt mein Weib, schön wie der Morgen,
Und lächelt fort die deutschen Sorgen.“  

“Thank God! Through my windows breaks
Serbian bright daylight;
It comes my wife, beautiful as the morning,
And smiles away the German worries.”

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This article was originally published on the “Neue Rheinische Zeitung NRhZ” Nr. 694, 27.02.2019. Translation by Ullrich Mies

Dr. Rudolf Hänsel is an educationalist and psychologist.

Notes

(1) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 613 vom 4.10.2017

(2) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 633 vom 18.10.2017

(3) A.a.O.

(4) Siehe Interview des Autors in serbischer Tageszeitung „Novosti“ vom 24.02.2019 (5) Siehe NRhZ Nr. 677 vom 10.10.2018

(6) siehe NRhZ Nr. 625 vom 23.08.2017

(7) https://www.welt.de/politik/ausland/plus188067287/Abwanderung-Serbien-blutet-aus-und-Deutschland-profitiert.html

(8) https://www.deutschelyrik.de/index.php/nachtgedanken.411.html

 

Financial Imperialism – The Case of Venezuela

February 28th, 2019 by Dr. Jack Rasmus

Invasion of Venezuela by US and its proxies is just around the corner! This past week vice-president Pence flew to Colombia once again—for the fifth time in recent weeks—to provide final instructions to US local forces and proxy allies there for the next step in the US regime change plan.

Evidence that the ‘green light’ for regime change and invasion is now flashing are supportive public statement by former president, Barack Obama, and several high level US Democratic party politicians and candidates, directly attacking the Maduro regime. They are signaling Democrat Party support for invasion and regime change. Events will now accelerate—just in time perhaps to coincide with the release of Mueller Report on Trump.

Behind the scenes it is clear, as it has been for months, that US Neocons are once again back in charge of US foreign policy, driving the US toward yet another war and attempt at regime change of a foreign government.

US Strategy in Brief

The US Neocon-led strategy is increasingly clear: establish a ‘beach-head’ on the Colombian-Venezuelan (and Venezuelan-Brazilian) border under the guise of providing humanitarian aid. Use the aid to get Venezuelans on the border to welcome the US proxy forces to cross over. Set up political and military structures thereafter just inside the Venezuelan borders with Colombia and Brazil, from which to launch further similar efforts deeper into Venezuela. Repeat this province by province, step by step, penetrating Venezuela space until enough local units of the Venezuelan military change sides and convince one or more of the Venezuelan military hierarchy to join them. Establish a dual state and government within and along the border of the Venezuelan state this way. A breakaway State and dual power within the country. Make it appear, by manipulating the media, that the Venezuelan people are rising up against the Maduro government, when in fact it is US proxy forces invading and using opportunist local politicians, military, and others in the ‘conquered’ zones, as the media covers for their invasion.

The main ideological justification being used for the invasion and regime change is that the Maduro government has grossly mismanaged the Venezuelan economy and driven its people into poverty. With Democrats now joining Trump and Republicans in support of invasion, the liberal mainstream US media, as well as the rightwing alternative media, are both pushing the same line, to blunt US opposition to invasion and yet another war before the final military assault is launched. Somehow the democratic elections less than a year ago, which returned the Maduro government to power, did not represent the ‘will of the people’. Explanations how they did not are thin and unconvincing, moreover. Nor is any explanation given how US policies and actions have played the central role in destroying Venezuela’s currency and economy. And the financial measures used to destabilize the economy are especially opaque.

Financial Imperialism: The Case of Venezuela

Venezuela today is a classic case how US imperialism in the 21st century employs financial measures to crush a state and country that dares to break away from the US global economic empire and pursue an independent course outside the US empire’s web of entangling economic and financial relations.

Here’s how US ‘financial imperialism’ has worked, and continues to work, with the intent of assisting regime change in the case of Venezuela.

In a world where US Capitalism is the dominant hegemon the US currency—the dollar—is the centerpiece of the US global economic empire. The dollar serves as the global trading currency as well as the global banking reserves currency. More than 85% of all global trade (export and import) is done in dollars. Certain commodities, like global oil and oil futures contracts, are traded virtually only in dollars. Recently more countries have begun to peg their own currency to the dollar, allowing it to move in tandem with the dollar. Some have even eliminated their currency altogether and now use only the US dollar as their domestic currency. Increasingly as well, more countries are issuing their domestic bonds in dollars (i.e. dollar denominated bonds). And their central banks follow the US central bank, the Federal Reserve’s, policy as it raises or lowers US interest rates that in turn cause the US dollar to rise and fall. They do so even if rising US interest rates mean rising rates in their own economies that precipitate recessions and mass unemployment. These are all examples of the growing financial integration with the US Imperial State and economy.

But even those economies that maintain their own currency are at the mercy of the US dollar. Since the dollar is the global trading and reserves currency, whenever the dollar rises in value due to US monetary policy changes, or US inflationary pressures, or just changes in supply or demand for the dollar, the currencies of other countries fall in value. As the dollar rises in value, other currencies fall. That’s how global exchange rates work in the 21st century global US empire where the dollar is the trading-reserves currency. Other currencies—the British pound, Euro, and even less so the Japanese Yen or China Yuan—are still largely insignificant as reserves or trading currencies. And it appears very unlikely they will soon replace the dollar—one of the key pillars of the US empire.

The US has the power to engineer a collapse in a country’s currency. A collapse in its currency means the price of imported goods rises rapidly, especially those goods it can only be obtained by imports—i.e. medicines, critical food commodities, intermediate business goods necessary for domestic manufacturing, etc. Accelerating import inflation in turn leads to domestic businesses cutting back production due to lack of affordable resources, commodities, or parts. Mass layoffs follow production cutbacks. Rising inflation brought on by currency collapse is thus accompanied by rising unemployment. Wage income and consumption in turn collapse and thereafter the economy in general.

Widespread shortages of key imports, inflation, and domestic production decline and unemployment brought on by the shortages and inflation simultaneously lead to social discontent and loss of support for the government. Opposition groups and parties proclaim these problems are due to the mismanagement of the economy by the government, or corruption by its leaders, or just socialist policies in general. But in fact the economic crisis—i.e. shortages, inflation, production, unemployment—is traceable directly to the root cause of the collapse of the currency engineered by US imperialist policies intent on crashing the economy as a prelude to regime change and economic reintegration to the US global economic empire.

There are many ways the US can, and does, cause a collapse of a country’s currency. One set of measures are designed to cause a severe shortage of dollars in the target country’s economy.

A shortage of dollars drives up the value of the US dollar in the target economy which, in turn, drives down the value of the country’s own currency. The US has been engineering a collapse of Venezuela’s currency, the Bolivar, now for years—first by causing dollars in Venezuela to flow out of the country and, secondly, by measures preventing Venezuela from obtaining dollars from abroad.

US policy over the last several years at least has been to force US companies doing business in Venezuela to repatriate their dollars back to the US or else divert them elsewhere globally among subsidiaries. Or just to leave Venezuela and take their dollars with them. US policy has also been to publicize and promote wealthier Venezuelans with dollars to take them out of the country and invest them in Colombia, where the US has arranged an online investment firm with the assistance of its Colombian government ally. Rich Venezuelans have been encouraged as well to send their money to Miami banks. And to move there in large numbers, which they have, taking their dollars with them or dumping their Bolivars in exchange for dollars. The outflow of dollars from Venezuela has raised the value of dollars that remain in Venezuela on the black market there, thereby helping to depress the value of the Bolivar in Venezuela even further.

These measures pale, however, to US imperial efforts to prevent Venezuela from obtaining dollars in global markets in an effort to try to offset the outflow of dollars from the economy.

For example, the US has taken action to prevent US and global banks from lending dollars to Venezuela, or from participating in underwriting and insuring Venezuelan bond issues which would also raise dollars for Venezuela if allowed. Bank loans and bond funding thus dry up, depriving the government of alternative sources of dollars. More dollar shortage; more Bolivar domestic currency collapse—i.e. more expensive imports, more inflation, more shortages, declining production, rising unemployment….more discontent.

The main effort by which the US is attempting to deprive Venezuela of dollars is to impose sanctions on other countries that try to buy Venezuelan oil. Oil sales are the number one source of the country’s dollar acquisitions, since all oil trade is done in dollars and Venezuela depends on 95% of all its government revenues from selling its oil. The US imposes sanctions on would be buyers and thus cuts off access to dollars, as it simultaneously through other policies works to encourage dollar flight out of Venezuela and cut off bank loans and bond issuance by the country. And if the prior bonds and loans were ‘dollar denominated’, then the lack of dollars to pay the interest and principal coming due leads directly to defaults and in turn to business collapse and even more unemployment.

Venezuela has turned to selling its oil to China and Russia and a few other countries. It has been forced to resort to paying its interest and principal on past loans from these governments with shipments of oil instead of payments in dollars. As the US turns to sanctions as an economic ‘weapon’ to enforce its will on other countries, which it has been doing in recent years, more countries are become aware of the tactic and are taking countermeasures. They are dumping dollars (or reducing their purchases of dollars in world markets) and buying gold. China and Russia are leading this way, while experimenting with non-currency dependent trade.

Another recent move by the US to deny Venezuela dollars and collapse its currency has been to seize the Venezuelan oil distribution company, CITGO in the US. Its remittances back to Venezuela have been in dollars. By seizing CITGO, the US deprives the country of yet another source of dollars, with which Venezuela might otherwise have been able to purchase imports of food, medicines, and other economically critical goods. So Venezuelans in this case are clearly forced to forego these critical imports due to US policy—not due to economic mismanagement by its government. Moreover, adding insult to injury, the dollar funds from CITGO seized by the US are being delivered to the Venezuelan government’s opponents and its hand-picked ally of the US, Guido. The opposition now gets to finance its counter-revolution with the money formerly remitted to Venezuela. The counter-revolution is financed at the expense of critical goods and services that otherwise might have been made available to the Venezuelan people.

Seizure of the CITGO asset is not the only such example of dollar deprivation. Other assets in the form of inventories, investments, cash in US banks, etc. are also being impounded. And not just from the Venezuelan government. Individual Venezuelan companies and individual citizens have been having their assets in the US impounded as well. And the US is increasing its pressure on foreign governments to impound and seize assets as well—of the government, businesses, and citizens.

The impoundment and seizure has recently been extended as well to Venezuelan gold stocks held offshore in other countries, in direct violation of international law. Recently the US company and mega bank, Citigroup, has been forced to withhold Venezuelan gold in violation of its contracts with the country. The Bank of England has also been asked, and is complying, with the US demand to freeze Venezuelan gold deposited in the UK. And countries like Abu Dhabi, where gold is traded globally, have been asked to stop trading in Venezuelan gold. Gold is a substitute money for the US dollar. So preventing gold access to Venezuela is like preventing dollar access as well. With its gold, Venezuela could more easily buy dollars, or trade for goods directly, than with using Bolivars that are falling in value and sellers are less likely to take as payment.

Countries with economies whose currency is seriously declining in value are able to get a loan to stabilize its currency from the International Monetary Fund, the IMF. Recent examples are Argentina, Turkey, South Africa, and even Pakistan. But the IMF is an institution set up by the US in 1944. The US maintains with its close European allies a majority vote on IMF decisions. The IMF does nothing the US does not approve. Its mission is to lend to countries in need of stabilizing their currencies. The IMF, however, as an appendage of the US global empire, has refused to lend Venezuela anything to help stabilize its currency.

This is in contrast, for example, to the record loan of more than $50 billion recently provided to Argentina once that country put in its current business and US-friendly Macri government. (The record IMF loan, by the way, was so that Argentina could pay off debts owed to US and other speculators in the early 2000s. So Argentina saw little of that $50b. What the payoff did enable, however, was for Macri and other Argentinian bankers to go to New York to get new loans from US banks once it repaid the speculators, from which Macri and friends no doubt personally benefitted immensely).

As the Venezuelan currency collapses due to US arranged dollar shortages, Venezuela must print even more Bolivars to enable it to purchase what goods from abroad it might still be able to buy. A collapsed currency means the price of imported goods rises proportionately. So more Bolivars are needed to buy the goods that are continually rising in price. Printing more Bolivars adds to the supply of Bolivars in the economy which raises domestic price inflation even further. But the excess printing is in response to the currency collapse which is engineered by the dollar shortage and the falling exchange rate in the first place. The over supply of Bolivars is not due to mismanagement; it is due to the shortage of dollars and the desperate effort by the Venezuelan government to somehow pay for inflating import goods.

The falling price of crude oil in 2017-18 added further pressure on the Bolivar. The collapse of oil prices globally appears unrelated to US policy. But it wasn’t. The oil Venezuela has been able to continue to sell, mostly to China or Russia, declined by 40% in price in 2018. The global oil deflation of 2018 thus generated less oil revenue for the country and thus fewer dollars.

But that too was due indirectly to US policy and economic conditions. The collapsing price of oil in 2018 is directly attributed to US shale oil producers raising their output by more than a million barrels a day, which increased the world oil supply and depressed world oil prices. The US then attempted to manipulate world oil output with Saudi Arabia but that exacerbated the over-production and deflation problem still further. Here’s how: The US attempted to impose sanctions on Iranian oil in 2018. Saudi Arabia believed it would capture the customers that Iran would lose, and therefore it, Saudi Arabia, also raised its output of crude as US shale producers raised theirs. But Iran was able to continue to sell its oil, as US sanctions broke down. The result of the US shale overproduction plus Saudi overproduction was a 40% collapse in world oil prices in 2018 that further deprived Venezuela of much needed government revenue—apart from US sanctions on Venezuela oil sales.

US monetary policy in 2018 further exacerbated the currency crisis in Venezuela—as it did elsewhere in Latin America and emerging markets in general. In 2017-18 the US central bank launched a policy of raising interest rates. Since other world central banks respond to the US central bank, world rates began to rise as well. Rising US interest rates caused a rise in the US dollar, and as the dollar rose in 2017-18 emerging market currencies fell. They fell for Venezuela in part due to this effect, as well as due to other causes mentioned.

Falling currencies precipitate what is called ‘capital flight’ out of the country. Less money capital means less available for investment and thus lower production output and more unemployment. So currency collapse precipitates not only inflation but recession as well. To prevent the capital fight, emerging market economies raise their own domestic interest rates. This led to recession, for example, throughout Latin America in 2017-18. Capital flight out of Venezuela has been significant since 2016, as wealthy Venezuelans sent more of their dollars out of the country to Miami, thus exacerbating dollar shortages in Venezuela and further driving down the value of the Bolivar left behind.

US sanctions on other countries, banks, and companies offshore are designed not only to prevent Venezuela access to dollars and money capital offshore. Sanctions also target real goods trade, like oil and other key commodities. But there’s another means by which the US shuts down the flow of real goods into and from a country, causing shortages of critical goods. It’s the US controlled international payments exchange system, called SWIFT. This is where US banks arrange the exchange and transfer of payments for goods and services by converting from one currency to the other and transferring the funds from one bank to another across countries. The US has been preventing Venezuela from normally using the SWIFT system. So even if another country is willing to buy Venezuela goods, including oil, and exchange Bolivars for its own currency, it is prevented from doing so by the US bank-controlled SWIFT system.

Summing Up

Financial imperialism has been waged against Venezuela for decades, but the attack on Venezuela employing financial measures has recently intensified as the US neocons and imperialists have accelerated their plans to launch a more direct attack by political means, including military, to force regime change in Venezuela. At the center of the on-going, and now intensifying, financial warfare against the country by the US are measures designed to destroy Venezuela’s currency.

Imperialism is often thought of as military conquest and colonialism. That’s 19th century British and European imperialism. But the American Empire in the 21st century does not need colonialism. It has a more efficient system for forcing the integration of other economies and for extracting value and wealth from the rest of the world. The US empire is increasingly knitted together in the 21st century by a deep web of financial relationships that afford it multiple levers of economic power it can pull if and when it desires. And when those economic and financial levers prove insufficient to overthrow domestic forces and governments that remain intent on pursuing a more independent path outside the Empire’s economic and political relations, then the breakaway State is attacked more directly once the economy is sufficiently wrecked. Such is the case of Venezuela today. Financial imperialism has paved the way for more direct political and military action.

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Dr. Rasmus is author of the recently published book, ‘Central Bankers at the End of Their Ropes: Monetary Policy and the Coming Depression’, Clarity Press, August 2017, and the forthcoming ‘The Scourge of Neoliberalism: US Policy from Reagan to Trump’, Clarity Press, 2019. He hosts the weekly radio show, Alternative Visions, on the Progressive Radio Network in New York, blogs at jackrasmus.com, and tweets at @drjackrasmus. His website is http://www.kyklosproductions.com.

15 Years Ago: US Sponsored Coup d’Etat. The Destabilization of Haiti

February 28th, 2019 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

Author’s Note

This article was written 15 years ago, in the last days of February 2004 in response to the barrage of disinformation in the mainstream media. It was completed on February 29th, the day of President Jean Bertrand Aristide’s kidnapping and deportation by US Forces.

The armed insurrection which contributed to unseating President Aristide on February 29th 2004 was the result of a carefully staged military-intelligence operation, involving the US, France and Canada.

The 2004 coup had set the stage for the installation of a US puppet government in Port au Prince, which takes orders directly from Washington.

And today, a US Coup is on the drawing board of the White House. Canada as well as France are once again complicit in supporting the over-through of the duly elected president of Venezuela.  

It’s all for a good cause: install “American Democracy”, “Alleviate poverty”. An the self-proclaimed “international community” applauds.

Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, February 28, 2019

The below article was subsequently published as a Chapter in Michel Chossudovsky’s book entitled The Globalization of War


(Minor editorial corrections were made to the original draft since its publication on February 29th 2004, the title of the article predates the actual Coup D’Etat which was in the making at the time of writing).

original article published at http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO402D.html

US Sponsored Coup d’Etat:  The Destabilization of Haiti

by Michel Chossudovsky

The Rebel paramilitary army crossed the border from the Dominican Republic in early February. It constitutes a well armed, trained and equipped paramilitary unit integrated by former members of Le Front pour l’avancement et le progrès d’Haiti (FRAPH), the  “plain clothes” death squadrons, involved in mass killings of civilians and political assassinations during the CIA sponsored 1991 military coup, which led to the overthrow of the democratically elected government of President Jean Bertrand Aristide

The self-proclaimed Front pour la Libération et la reconstruction nationale (FLRN) (National Liberation and Reconstruction Front) is led by Guy Philippe, a former member of the Haitian Armed Forces and Police Chief. Philippe had been trained during the 1991 coup years by US Special Forces in Ecuador, together with a dozen other Haitian Army officers. (See Juan Gonzalez, New York Daily News, 24 February 2004).

The two other rebel commanders and associates of Guy Philippe, who led the attacks on Gonaives and Cap Haitien are Emmanuel Constant, nicknamed “Toto” and Jodel Chamblain, both of whom are former Tonton Macoute and leaders of FRAPH.

In 1994, Emmanuel Constant led the FRAPH assassination squadron into the village of Raboteau, in what was later identified as “The Raboteau massacre”:

“One of the last of the infamous massacres happened in April 1994 in Raboteau, a seaside slum about 100 miles north of the capital. Raboteau has about 6,000 residents, most fishermen and salt rakers, but it has a reputation as an opposition stronghold where political dissidents often went to hide… On April 18 [1994], 100 soldiers and about 30 paramilitaries arrived in Raboteau for what investigators would later call a “dress rehearsal.” They rousted people from their homes, demanding to know where Amiot “Cubain” Metayer, a well-known Aristide supporter, was hiding. They beat people, inducing a pregnant woman to miscarry, and forced others to drink from open sewers. Soldiers tortured a 65-year-old blind man until he vomited blood. He died the next day.

The soldiers returned before dawn on April 22. They ransacked homes and shot people in the streets, and when the residents fled for the water, other soldiers fired at them from boats they had commandeered. Bodies washed ashore for days; some were never found. The number of victims ranges from two dozen to 30. Hundreds more fled the town, fearing further reprisals.” (St Petersburg Times, Florida, 1 September 2002)

During the military government (1991-1994), FRAPH was (unofficially) under the jurisdiction of the Armed Forces, taking orders from Commander in Chief General Raoul Cedras. According to a 1996 UN Human Rights Commission report, FRAPH had been supported by the CIA.

Under the military dictatorship, the narcotics trade, was protected by the military Junta, which in turn was supported by the CIA. The 1991 coup leaders including the FRAPH paramilitary commanders were on the CIA payroll.

(See Paul DeRienzo,   http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html , See also see Jim Lobe, IPS, 11 Oct 1996). Emmanuel Constant alias “Toto” confirmed, in this regard, in a CBS “60 Minutes” in 1995, that the CIA paid him about $700 a month and that he created FRAPH, while on the CIA payroll. (See Miami Herald, 1 August 2001). According to Constant, the FRAPH had been formed “with encouragement and financial backing from the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency and the CIA.” (Miami New Times, 26 February 2004)

The Civilian “Opposition” 

The so-called “Democratic Convergence” (DC) is a group of some 200 political organizations, led by former Port-au-Prince mayor Evans Paul.  The “Democratic Convergence” (DC) together with “The Group of 184 Civil Society Organizations” (G-184) has formed a so-called “Democratic Platform of Civil Society Organizations and Opposition Political Parties”.

The Group of 184 (G-184), is headed by Andre (Andy) Apaid, a US citizen of Haitian parents, born in the US. (Haiti Progres, http://www.haiti-progres.com/eng11-12.html ) Andy Apaid owns Alpha Industries, one of Haiti’s largest cheap labor export assembly lines established during the Duvalier era. His sweatshop factories produce textile products and assemble electronic products for a number of US firms including Sperry/Unisys, IBM, Remington and Honeywell. Apaid is the largest industrial employer in Haiti with a workforce of some 4000 workers. Wages paid in Andy Apaid’s factories are as low as 68 cents a day. (Miami Times, 26 Feb 2004). The current minimum wage is of the order of $1.50 a day:

“The U.S.-based National Labor Committee, which first revealed the Kathie Lee Gifford sweat shop scandal, reported several years ago that Apaid’s factories in Haiti’s free trade zone often pay below the minimum wage and that his employees are forced to work 78-hour weeks.” (Daily News, New York, 24 Feb 2004)

Apaid was a firm supporter of the 1991 military coup. Both the Convergence démocratique and the G-184 have links to the FLRN (former  FRAPH death squadrons) headed by Guy Philippe. The FLRN is also known to receive funding from the Haitian business community.

In other words, there is no watertight division between the civilian opposition, which claims to be non-violent and the FLRN paramilitary. The FLRN is collaborating with the so-called “Democratic Platform.”

The Role of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

In Haiti, this “civil society opposition” is bankrolled by the National Endowment for Democracy which works hand in glove with the CIA. The Democratic Platform is supported by the International Republican Institute (IRI) , which is an arm of the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). Senator John McCain is Chairman of IRI’s Board of Directors.

(See Laura Flynn, Pierre Labossière and Robert Roth, Hidden from the Headlines: The U.S. War Against Haiti, California-based Haiti Action Committee (HAC), http://www.haitiprogres.com/eng11-12.html ).

G-184 leader Andy Apaid was in liaison with Secretary of State Colin Powell in the days prior to the kidnapping and deportation of President Aristide by US forces on February 29. His umbrella organization of elite business organizations and religious NGOs, which is also supported by the International Republican Institute (IRI), receives sizeable amounts of money from the European Union.(http://haitisupport.gn.apc.org/184%20EC.htm ).

It is worth recalling that the NED, (which overseas the IRI) although not formally part of the CIA, performs an important intelligence function within the arena of civilian political parties and NGOs. It was created in 1983, when the CIA was being accused of covertly bribing politicians and setting up phony civil society front organizations. According to Allen Weinstein, who was responsible for setting up the NED during the Reagan Administration: “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.” (‘Washington Post’, Sept. 21, 1991). 

The NED channels congressional funds to the four institutes: The International Republican Institute (IRI), the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs (NDI), the Center for International Private Enterprise (CIPE), and the American Center for International Labor Solidarity (ACILS). These organizations are said to be “uniquely qualified to provide technical assistance to aspiring democrats worldwide.” See IRI, http://www.iri.org/history.asp )

In other words, there is a division of tasks between the CIA and the NED. While the CIA provides covert support to armed paramilitary rebel groups and death squadrons, the NED and its four constituent organizations finance “civilian”  political parties and non governmental organizations with a view to instating American “democracy” around the World.

The NED constitutes, so to speak, the CIA’s “civilian arm”. CIA-NED interventions in different part of the World are characterized by a consistent pattern, which is applied in numerous countries.

The NED provided funds to  the “civil society” organizations in Venezuela, which initiated an attempted coup against President Hugo Chavez. In Venezuela it was the “Democratic Coordination”, which was the recipient of NED support; in Haiti it is the “Democratic Convergence” and G-184.

Similarly, in former Yugoslavia, the CIA channeled support to the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) (since 1995), a paramilitary group involved in terrorist attacks on the Yugoslav police and military. Meanwhile, the NED through the  “Center for International Private Enterprise” (CIPE) was backing the DOS opposition coalition in Serbia and Montenegro. More specifically, NED was financing the G-17, an opposition group of  economists responsible for formulating (in liaison with the IMF) the DOS coalition’s  “free market” reform platform in the 2000 presidential election, which led to the downfall of Slobodan Milosevic.  

The IMF’s Bitter “Economic Medicine”

The IMF and the World Bank are key players in the process of economic and political destabilization. While carried out under the auspices of an intergovernmental body, the IMF reforms tend to support US strategic and foreign policy objectives.

Based on the so-called “Washington consensus”, IMF austerity and restructuring measures through their devastating impacts, often contribute to triggering social and ethnic strife. IMF reforms have often precipitated the downfall of elected governments. In extreme cases of economic and social dislocation, the IMF’s bitter economic medicine has contributed to the destabilization of entire countries, as occurred in Somalia, Rwanda and Yugoslavia. 

(See Michel Chossudovsky, The Globalization of Poverty and the New World Order, Second Edition, 2003, http://globalresearch.ca/globaloutlook/GofP.html )

The IMF program is a consistent instrument of economic dislocation. The IMF’s reforms contribute to reshaping and downsizing State institutions through drastic austerity measures. The latter are implemented alongside other forms of intervention and political interference, including CIA covert activities in support of rebel paramilitary groups and opposition political parties.

Moreover, so-called “Emergency Recovery” and “Post-conflict” reforms are often introduced under IMF guidance, in the wake of a civil war, a regime change or “a national emergency”.

In Haiti, the IMF sponsored  “free market” reforms have been carried out consistently since the Duvalier era. They have been applied in several stages since the first election of president Aristide in 1990. 

The 1991 military coup, which took place 8 months following Jean Bertrand Aristide’s accession to the presidency, was in part intended to reverse the Aristide government’s progressive reforms and reinstate the neoliberal policy agenda of the Duvalier era.

A former World Bank official Mr. Marc Bazin was appointed Prime minister by the Military Junta in June 1992. In fact, it was the US State Department which sought his appointment.

Bazin had a track record of working for the “Washington consensus.”  In 1983, he had been appointed Finance Minister under the Duvalier regime, In fact he had been recommended to the Finance portfolio by the IMF: “President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier had agreed to the appointment of an IMF nominee, former World Bank official Marc Bazin, as Minister of Finance”. (Mining Annual Review, June, 1983). Bazin, who was considered Washington’s “favorite”, later ran against Aristide in the 1990 presidential elections.

Bazin, was called in by the Military Junta in 1992 to form a so-called  “consensus government”. It is worth noting that it was precisely during Bazin’s term in office as Prime Minister that the political massacres and extra judicial killings by the CIA supported FRAPH death squadrons were unleashed, leading to the killing of more than 4000 civilians. Some 300,000 people became internal refugees,  “thousands more fled across the border to the Dominican Republic, and more than 60,000 took to the high seas” (Statement of Dina Paul Parks, Executive Director, National Coalition for Haitian Rights, Committee on Senate Judiciary, US Senate, Washington DC, 1 October 2002). Meanwhile, the CIA had launched a smear campaign representing Aristide as “mentally unstable” (Boston Globe, 21 Sept 1994).

The 1994 US Military Intervention

Following three years of military rule, the US intervened in 1994, sending in 20,000 occupation troops and “peace-keepers” to Haiti. The US military intervention was not intended to restore democracy. Quite the contrary: it was carried out to prevent a popular insurrection against the military Junta and its neoliberal cohorts.

In other words, the US military occupation was implemented to ensure political continuity.

While the members of the military Junta were sent into exile, the return to constitutional government required compliance to IMF diktats, thereby foreclosing the possibility of a progressive “alternative” to the neoliberal agenda. Moreover, US troops remained in the country until 1999. The Haitian armed forces were disbanded and the US State Department hired a mercenary company DynCorp to provide “technical advice” in restructuring the Haitian National Police (HNP).

“DynCorp has always functioned as a cut-out for Pentagon and CIA covert operations.”

(See Jeffrey St. Clair and Alexander Cockburn,  Counterpunch, February 27, 2002, http://www.corpwatch.org/issues/PID.jsp?articleid=1988 )

Under DynCorp advice in Haiti, former Tonton Macoute and Haitian military officers involved in the 1991 Coup d’Etat were brought into the HNP.

(See Ken Silverstein, Privatizing War, The Nation, July 28, 1997, http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/silver.htm )

In October 1994, Aristide returned from exile and reintegrated the presidency until the end of his mandate in 1996. “Free market” reformers  were brought into his Cabinet. A new wave of deadly macro-economic policies was adopted under a so-called Emergency Economic Recovery Plan (EERP) “that sought to achieve rapid macroeconomic stabilization, restore public administration, and attend to the most pressing needs.”

(See IMF Approves Three-Year ESAF Loan for Haiti, Washington, 1996, http://www.imf.org/external/np/sec/pr/1996/pr9653.htm ).

The restoration of Constitutional government had been negotiated behind closed doors with Haiti’s external creditors. Prior to Aristide’s reinstatement as the country’s president, the new government was obliged to clear the country’s debt arrears with its external creditors. In fact the new loans provided by the  World Bank, the  Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and the IMF were used to meet Haiti’s obligations with international creditors. Fresh money was used to pay back old debt leading to a spiraling external debt.

Broadly coinciding with the military government, Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by 30 percent (1992-1994). With a per capita income of $250 per annum, Haiti is the poorest country in the Western hemisphere and among the poorest in the world.

(see World Bank, Haiti: The Challenges of Poverty Reduction, Washington, August 1998, http://lnweb18.worldbank.org/External/lac/lac.nsf/0/8479e9126e3537f0852567ea000fa239/$FILE/Haiti1.doc ).

The World Bank estimates unemployment to be of the order of 60 percent. (A 2000 US Congressional Report estimates it to be as high as 80 percent. See US House of Representatives, Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee, FDHC Transcripts, 12 April 2000).

In the wake of three years of military rule and economic decline, there was no “Economic Emergency Recovery” as envisaged under the IMF loan agreement. In fact quite the opposite: The IMF imposed  “stabilization” under the “Recovery” program required further budget cuts in  almost non-existent social sector programs.  A civil service reform program was launched, which consisted in reducing the size of the civil service and the firing of “surplus” State employees. The IMF-World Bank package was in part instrumental in the paralysis of public services, leading to the eventual demise of the entire State system. In a country where health and educational services were virtually nonexistent, the IMF had demanded the lay off of “surplus” teachers and health workers with a view to meeting its target for the budget deficit.   

Washington’s foreign policy initiatives were coordinated with the application of the IMF’s deadly economic medicine. The country had been literally pushed to the brink of economic and social disaster.

The Fate of Haitian Agriculture

More than 75 percent of the Haitian population is engaged in agriculture, producing both food crops for the domestic market as well a number of cash crops for export. Already during the Duvalier era, the peasant economy had been undermined. With the adoption of the IMF-World Bank sponsored trade reforms, the agricultural system, which previously produced food for the local market, had been destabilized. With the lifting of trade barriers, the local market was opened up to the dumping of US agricultural surpluses including rice, sugar and corn, leading to the destruction of the entire peasant economy. Gonaives, which used to be Haiti’s rice basket region, with extensive paddy fields had been precipitated into bankruptcy:

. “By the end of the 1990s Haiti’s local rice production had been reduced by half and rice imports from the US accounted for over half of local rice sales. The local farming population was devastated, and the price of rice rose drastically “ ( See Rob Lyon, Haiti-There is no solution under Capitalism! Socialist Appeal, 24 Feb. 2004,

http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2004/02/9095.php ).

In matter of a few years, Haiti, a small impoverished country in the Caribbean, had become the World’s fourth largest importer of American rice after Japan, Mexico and Canada.

The Second Wave of IMF Reforms

The presidential elections were scheduled for November 23, 2000. The Clinton Administration had put an embargo on development aid to Haiti in 2000. Barely two weeks prior to the elections, the outgoing administration signed a Letter of Intent with the IMF. Perfect timing: the agreement with the IMF virtually foreclosed from the outset any departure from the neoliberal agenda.

The Minister of Finance had sent the amended budget to the Parliament on December 14th. Donor support was conditional upon its rubber stamp approval by the Legislature. While Aristide had promised to increase the minimum wage, embark on school construction and  literacy programs, the hands of the new government were tied. All major decisions regarding the State budget, the management of the public sector, public investment, privatization, trade and monetary policy had already been taken. They were part of the agreement reached with the IMF on November 6, 2000.

In 2003, the IMF imposed the application of a so-called “flexible price system in fuel”, which immediately triggered an inflationary spiral. The currency was devalued. Petroleum prices increased by about 130 percent in January-February 2003, which served to increase popular resentment against the Aristide government, which had supported the implementation of the IMF economic reforms.

The hike in fuel prices contributed to a 40 percent increase in consumer prices (CPI) in 2002-2003

(See Haiti—Letter of Intent, Memorandum of Economic and Financial Policies, and Technical Memorandum of Understanding, Port-au-Prince, Haiti June 10, 2003, http://www.imf.org/external/np/loi/2003/hti/01/index.htm ).

In turn, the IMF had demanded, despite the dramatic increase in the cost of living, a freeze on wages as a means to “controlling inflationary pressures.” The IMF had in fact pressured the government to lower public sector salaries (including those paid to teachers and health workers).  The IMF had also demanded the phasing out of the statutory minimum wage of approximately 25 cents an hour. “Labour market flexibility”, meaning wages paid below the statutory minimum wage would, according to the IMF, contribute to attracting foreign investors. The daily minimum wage was $3.00 in 1994, declining to about $1.50- 1.75 (depending on the gourde-dollar exchange rate) in 2004. 

In an utterly twisted logic, Haiti’s abysmally low wages, which have been part of the IMF-World Bank “cheap labor” policy framework since the 1980s, are viewed as a means to improving the standard of living. In other words, sweatshop conditions in the assembly industries (in a totally unregulated labor market) and forced labor conditions in Haiti’s agricultural plantations are considered by the IMF as a key to achieving economic prosperity, because they “attract foreign investment.” 

The country was in the straightjacket of a spiraling external debt. In a bitter irony, the IMF-World Bank sponsored austerity measures in the social sectors were imposed in a country which has 1,2 medical doctors for 10,000 inhabitants and where the large majority of the population is illiterate. State social services, which were virtually nonexistent during the Duvalier period, have collapsed.

The result of IMF ministrations was a further collapse in purchasing power, which had also affected middle income groups. Meanwhile, interest rates had skyrocketed. In the Northern and Eastern parts of the country, the hikes in fuel prices had led to a virtual paralysis of transportation and public services including water and electricity.

While a humanitarian catastrophe is looming, the collapse of the economy spearheaded by the IMF, had served to boost the popularity of the Democratic Platform, which had accused  Aristide of “economic mismanagement.” Needless to say, the leaders of the Democratic Platform including Andy Apaid –who actually owns the sweatshops– are the main protagonists of the low wage economy.

Applying the Kosovo Model

In February 2003, Washington announced the appointment of James Foley as Ambassador to Haiti . Foley had been a State Department spokesman under the Clinton administration during the war on Kosovo. He previously held a position at NATO headquarters in Brussels. Foley had been sent to Port au Prince in advance of the CIA sponsored operation. He was transferred to Port au Prince in September 2003, from a prestige diplomatic position in Geneva, where he was Deputy Head of Mission to the UN European office.

It is worth recalling Ambassador Foley’s involvement in support of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in 1999.

Amply documented, the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was financed by drug money and supported by the CIA.

( See Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo Freedom Fighters Financed by Organized Crime, Covert Action Quarterly, 1999, http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html )  

The KLA had been involved in similar targeted political assassinations and killings of civilians, in the months leading up to the 1999 NATO invasion as well as in its aftermath.  Following the NATO led invasion and occupation of Kosovo, the KLA was transformed into the Kosovo Protection Force (KPF) under UN auspices. Rather than being disarmed to prevent the massacres of civilians, a terrorist organization with links to organized crime and the Balkans drug trade, was granted a legitimate political status.

At the time of the Kosovo war, the current ambassador to Haiti James Foley was in charge of State Department briefings, working closely with his NATO counterpart in Brussels, Jamie Shea. Barely two months before the onslaught of the NATO led war on 24 March 1999, James Foley had called for the “transformation” of the KLA into a respectable political organization:

We want to develop a good relationship with them [the KLA] as they transform themselves into a politically-oriented organization,’ ..`[W]e believe that we have a lot of advice and a lot of help that we can provide to them if they become precisely the kind of political actor we would like to see them become… “If we can help them and they want us to help them in that effort of transformation, I think it’s nothing that anybody can argue with..’ (quoted in the New York Times, 2 February 1999)

In the wake of the invasion “a self-proclaimed Kosovar administration was set up composed of the KLA and the Democratic Union Movement (LBD), a coalition of five opposition parties opposed to Rugova’s Democratic League (LDK). In addition to the position of prime minister, the KLA controlled the ministries of finance, public order and defense.”

(Michel Chossudovsky, NATO’s War of Aggression against Yugoslavia, 1999, http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO309C.html )

The US State Department’s position as conveyed in Foley’s statement was that the KLA would “not be allowed to continue as a military force but would have the chance to move forward in their quest for self government under a ‘different context'” meaning the inauguration of a de facto “narco-democracy” under NATO protection. (Ibid).

With regard to the drug trade, Kosovo and Albania occupy a similar position to that of Haiti: they constitute “a hub” in the transit (transshipment) of narcotics from the Golden Crescent, through Iran and Turkey into Western Europe. While supported by the CIA, Germany’s Bundes Nachrichten Dienst (BND) and NATO, the KLA has links to the Albanian Mafia and criminal syndicates involved in the narcotics trade.

( See Michel Chossudovsky, Kosovo Freedom Fighters Financed by Organized Crime, Covert Action Quarterly, 1999, http://www.heise.de/tp/english/inhalt/co/2743/1.html )  

Is this the model for Haiti, as formulated in 1999 by the current US Ambassador to Haiti James Foley?

For the CIA and the State Department the FLRN and Guy Philippe are to Haiti what the KLA and Hashim Thaci are to Kosovo.

In other words, Washington’s design is “regime change”: topple the Lavalas administration and install a compliant US puppet regime, integrated by the Democratic Platform and the self-proclaimed Front pour la libération et la reconstruction nationale (FLRN), whose leaders are former FRAPH and Tonton Macoute terrorists. The latter are slated to integrate a “national unity government” alongside the leaders of the Democratic Convergence and The Group of 184 Civil Society Organizations led by Andy Apaid. More specifically, the FLRN led by Guy Philippe is slated to rebuild the Haitian Armed forces, which were disbanded in 1995.

What is at stake is an eventual power sharing arrangement between the various Opposition groups and the CIA supported Rebels, which have links to the cocaine transit trade from Colombia via Haiti to Florida. The protection of this trade has a bearing on the formation of a new “narco-government”, which will serve US interests.

A bogus (symbolic) disarmament of the Rebels may be contemplated under international supervision, as occurred with the KLA in Kosovo in 2000. The “former terrorists” could then be integrated into the civilian police as well as into the task of “rebuilding” the Haitian Armed forces under US supervision.

What this scenario suggests, is that the Duvalier-era terrorist structures have been restored. A program of civilian killings and political assassinations directed against Lavalas supporter is in fact already underway.

In other words, if Washington were really motivated by humanitarian considerations, why then is it supporting and financing the FRAPH death squadrons? Its objective is not to prevent the massacre of civilians. Modeled on previous CIA led operations (e.g. Guatemala, Indonesia, El Salvador), the FLRN death squadrons have been set loose and are involved in targeted political assassinations of Aristide supporters.

The Narcotics Transshipment Trade

While the real economy had been driven into bankruptcy under the brunt of the IMF reforms, the narcotics transshipment trade continues to flourish.  According to the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), Haiti remains “the major drug trans-shipment country for the entire Caribbean region, funneling huge shipments of cocaine from Colombia to the United States.” (See US House of Representatives, Criminal Justice, Drug Policy and Human Resources Subcommittee, FDHC Transcripts, 12 April 2000). 

It is estimated that  Haiti is now responsible for 14 percent of all the cocaine entering the United States, representing billions of dollars of revenue for organized crime and US financial institutions, which launder vast amounts of dirty money. The global trade in narcotics is estimated to be of the order of 500 billion dollars.

Much of this transshipment trade goes directly to Miami, which also constitutes a haven for the recycling of dirty money into bona fide investments, e.g. in real estate and other related activities.

The evidence confirms that the CIA was protecting this trade during the Duvalier era as well as during the military dictatorship (1991-1994). In 1987, Senator John Kerry as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Narcotics, Terrorism and International Operations of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee was entrusted with a major investigation, which  focused  on the links between the CIA and the drug trade, including the laundering of drug money to finance armed insurgencies. “The  Kerry Report” published in 1989, while centering its attention on the financing of the Nicaraguan Contra, also included a section on Haiti: 

“Kerry had developed detailed information on drug trafficking by Haiti’s military rulers that led to the indictment in Miami in 1988, of Lt. Col. Jean Paul. The indictment was a major embarrassment to the Haitian military, especially since Paul defiantly refused to surrender to U.S. authorities.. In November 1989, Col. Paul was found dead after he consumed a traditional Haitian good will gift—a bowel of pumpkin soup…

The U.S. senate also heard testimony in 1988 that then interior minister, Gen. Williams Regala, and his DEA liaison officer, protected and supervised cocaine shipments. The testimony also charged the then Haitian military commander Gen. Henry Namphy with accepting bribes from Colombian traffickers in return for landing rights in the mid 1980’s.

It was in 1989 that yet another military coup brought Lt. Gen. Prosper Avril to power… According to a witness before Senator John Kerry’s subcommittee, Avril is in fact a major player in Haiti’s role as a transit point in the cocaine trade.”

( Paul DeRienzo, Haiti’s Nightmare: The Cocaine Coup & The CIA Connection, Spring 1994, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/RIE402A.html )

Jack Blum, who was Kerry’s Special Counsel, points to the complicity of US officials in a 1996 statement to the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on Drug Trafficking and the Contra War:

“...In Haiti …  intelligence “sources” of ours in the Haitian military had turned their facilities over to the drug cartels. Instead of putting pressure on the rotten leadership of the military, we defended them. We held our noses and looked the other way as they and their criminal friends in the United States distributed cocaine in Miami, Philadelphia and New, York.

(http://www.totse.com/en/politics/central_intelligence_agency/ciacont2.html )

Haiti not only remains at the hub of the transshipment cocaine trade, the latter has grown markedly since the 1980s. The current crisis bears a relationship to Haiti’s role in the drug trade. Washington wants a compliant Haitian government which will protect the drug transshipment routes, out of Colombia through Haiti and into Florida.

The inflow of narco-dollars –which remains the major source of the country’s foreign exchange earnings– are used to service Haiti’s spiraling external debt, thereby also serving the interests of the external creditors.

In this regard, the liberalization of the foreign-exchange market imposed by the IMF has provided (despite the authorities pro forma commitment to combating the drug trade) a convenient avenue for the laundering of narco-dollars in the domestic banking system. The inflow of narco-dollars alongside bona fide “remittances” from Haitians living abroad, are deposited in the commercial banking system and exchanged into local currency. The foreign exchange proceeds of these inflows can then be recycled towards the Treasury where they are used to meet debt servicing obligations.

Haiti, however, reaps a very small percentage of the total foreign exchange proceeds of this lucrative contraband. Most of the revenue resulting from the cocaine transshipment trade accrues to criminal intermediaries in the wholesale and retail narcotics trade, to the intelligence agencies which protect the drug trade as well as to the financial and banking institutions where the proceeds of this criminal activity are laundered. 

The narco-dollars are also channeled into “private banking” accounts in numerous offshore banking havens. (These havens are controlled by the large Western banks and financial institutions). Drug money is also invested in a number of financial instruments including hedge funds and stock market transactions. The major Wall Street and European banks and stock brokerage firms launder billions of dollars resulting from the trade in narcotics.

Moreover, the expansion of the dollar denominated money supply by the Federal Reserve System , including the printing of billions of dollars of US dollar notes for the purposes of narco-transactions constitutes profit for the Federal Reserve and its constituent private banking institutions of which the most important is the New York Federal Reserve Bank.

See (Jeffrey Steinberg, Dope, Inc. Is $600 Billion and Growing, Executive Intelligence Review, 14 Dec 2001, http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2001/2848dope_money.html

In other words, the Wall Street financial establishment, which plays a behind the scenes role in the formulation of US foreign policy, has a vested interest in retaining the Haiti transshipment trade, while installing a reliable “narco-democracy” in Port-au-Prince, which will effectively protect the transshipment routes.

It should be noted that since the advent of the Euro as a global currency, a significant share of the narcotics trade is now conducted in Euro rather than US dollars. In other words, the Euro and the dollar are competing narco-currencies.

The Latin American cocaine trade –including the transshipment trade through Haiti– is largely conducted in US dollars.  This shift out of dollar denominated narco-transactions, which undermines the hegemony of the US dollar as a global currency, largely pertains to the Middle East, Central Asian and the Southern European drug routes.

Media Manipulation

In the weeks leading up to the Coup d’Etat, the media has largely focused its attention on the pro-Aristide “armed gangs” and “thugs”,  without providing an understanding of the role of the FLRN Rebels.

Deafening silence: not a word was mentioned in official statements and UN resolutions regarding the nature of the FLRN.  This should come as no surprise: the US Ambassador to the UN  (the man who sits on the UN Security Council) John Negroponte.  played a key role in the CIA supported Honduran death squadrons in the 1980s when he was US ambassador to Honduras. (See San Francisco Examiner, 20 Oct 2001  http://www.flora.org/mai/forum/31397 )

The FLRN rebels are extremely well equipped and trained forces. The Haitian people know who they are. They are Tonton Macoute of the Duvalier era and former FRAPH assassins.

The Western media is mute on the issue, blaming the violence on President Aristide. When it acknowledges that the Liberation Army is composed of death squadrons, it fails to examine the broader implications of its statements and that these death squadrons are a creation of the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency.

The New York Times has acknowledged that the “non violent” civil society opposition is in fact collaborating with the death squadrons, “accused of killing thousands”, but all this is described as “accidental”. No historical understanding is provided. Who are these death squadron leaders?  All we are told is that they have established an “alliance” with the “non-violent” good guys who belong to the “political opposition”. And it is all for a good and worthy cause, which is to remove the elected president and “restore democracy”: 

“As Haiti’s crisis lurches toward civil war, a tangled web of alliances, some of them accidental, has emerged. It has linked the interests of a political opposition movement that has embraced nonviolence to a group of insurgents that includes a former leader of death squads accused of killing thousands, a former police chief accused of plotting a coup and a ruthless gang once aligned with Mr. Aristide that has now turned against him. Given their varied origins, those arrayed against Mr. Aristide are hardly unified, though they all share an ardent wish to see him removed from power.” (New York Times,  26 Feb 2004)

There is nothing spontaneous or “accidental” in the rebel attacks or in the “alliance” between the leader of the death squadrons Guy Philippe and Andy Apaid, owner of the largest industrial sweatshop in Haiti and leader of the G-184. 

The armed rebellion was part of a carefully planned military-intelligence operation. The Armed Forces of the Dominican Republic had detected guerilla training camps inside the Dominican Republic on the Northeast Haitian-Dominican border. ( El ejército dominicano informó a Aristide sobre los entrenamientos rebeldes en la frontera, El Caribe, 27 Feb. 2004,

http://www.elcaribe.com.do/articulo_multimedios.aspx?id=2645&guid=AB38144D39B24C6FBA4213AC40DD3A01&Seccion=64 )

Both the armed rebels and their civilian “non-violent” counterparts were involved in the plot to unseat the president. G-184 leader Andre Apaid was in touch with Colin Powell in the weeks leading up to the overthrow of Aristide;  Guy Philippe and “Toto” Emmanuel Constant have links to the CIA; there are indications that Rebel Commander Guy Philippe and the political leader of the Revolutionary Artibonite Resistance Front Winter Etienne were in liaison with US officials.

(See BBC, 27 Feb 2004, http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3496690.stm ).

While the US had repeatedly stated that it will uphold Constitutional government, the replacement of Aristide by a more compliant individual had always been part of the Bush Administration’s agenda.

On Feb 20, US Ambassador James Foley called in a team of four military experts from the U.S. Southern Command, based in Miami. Officially their mandate was “to assess threats to the embassy and its personnel.” (Seattle Times, 20 Feb 2004). US Special Forces are already in the country. Washington had announced that three US naval vessels “have been put on standby to go to Haiti as a precautionary measure”. The Saipan is equipped with Vertical takeoff Harrier fighters and attack helicopters. The other two vessels are the Oak Hill and Trenton.  Some 2,200 U.S. Marines from the 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit, at Camp Lejeune, N.C. could be deployed to Haiti at short notice, according to Washington.

With the departure of President Aristide, Washington, however, has no intention of disarming its proxy rebel paramilitary army, which is now slated to play a role in the “transition”. In other words, the Bush administration will not act to prevent the occurrence of killings and political assassinations of Lavalas and Aristide supporters in the wake of the president’s kidnapping and deportation.

Needless to say, the Western media has not in the least analyzed the historical background of the Haitian crisis. The role played by the CIA has not been mentioned. The so-called “international community”, which claims to be committed to governance and democracy, has turned a blind eye to the killings of civilians by a US sponsored paramilitary army. The “rebel leaders”, who were commanders in the FRAPH death squadrons in the 1990s, are now being upheld by the US media as bona fide opposition spokesmen. Meanwhile, the legitimacy of the former elected president is questioned because he is said to be responsible for “a worsening economic and social situation.” 

The worsening economic and social situation is largely attributable to the devastating economic reforms imposed by the IMF since the  1980s. The restoration of Constitutional government in 1994 was conditional upon the acceptance of the IMF’s deadly economic therapy, which in turn foreclosed the possibility of a meaningful democracy. High ranking government officials respectively within the Andre Preval and Jean Bertrand Aristide governments were indeed compliant with IMF diktats. Despite this compliance, Aristide had been “blacklisted” and demonized by Washington.  

The Militarization of the Caribbean Basin

Washington seeks to reinstate Haiti as a full-fledged US colony, with all the appearances of a functioning democracy. The objective is to impose a puppet regime in Port-au-Prince and establish a permanent US military presence in Haiti. 

The US Administration ultimately seeks to militarize the Caribbean basin.

The island of Hispaniola is a gateway to the Caribbean basin, strategically located between Cuba to the North West and Venezuela to the South.  The militarization of the island, with the establishment of US military bases, is not only intended to put political pressure on Cuba and Venezuela, it is also geared towards the protection of the multibillion dollar narcotics transshipment trade through Haiti, from production sites in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia.

The militarisation of the Caribbean basin is, in some regards, similar to that imposed by Washington on the Andean Region of South America under “Plan Colombia’, renamed “The Andean Initiative”. The latter constitutes the basis for the militarisation of oil and gas wells, as well as pipeline routes and transportation corridors. It also protects the narcotics trade.

This article was subsequently publish in Michel Chossudovsky’s Book entitled The Globalization of War. 

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Michel Chossudovsky

The “globalization of war” is a hegemonic project. Major military and covert intelligence operations are being undertaken simultaneously in the Middle East, Eastern Europe, sub-Saharan Africa, Central Asia and the Far East. The U.S. military agenda combines both major theater operations as well as covert actions geared towards destabilizing sovereign states.

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Nuremberg Principles of International Law 6: Crimes against humanity:

Such as (c) Inhuman acts done against any civilian population. United Nations Convention on Genocide Article II genocide means acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national or other group, as such: (c) deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part.

Ongoing Crime Against Humanity Being Openly Committed

Reuters reported that even prior to last Friday’s clarification from the US Treasury, European buyers were already slashing purchases because of concerns over payments. Reuters reported that two of the world’s largest oil traders, Vitol and Trafigura, said that they would comply with all US sanctions.

The Wall Street Journal reported oil storage is “filling up” in Venezuela because of a lack of buyers.

Moreover, not only are the effects of the sanctions more far-reaching, but also more immediate. PDVSA, Petróleos de Venezuela, S.A. the Venezuelan state-owned oil and natural gas company has demanded upfront payment, likely because it fears not being paid at all or having the revenues steered to the opposition. Indeed, the US effort to steer PDVSA and its revenues into the hands of the US-backed opposition leader Juan Guaido appears to be a decisive turning point.

Oil tankers linked to Chevron, Lukoil and Respsol are delayed, redirected or sitting offshore because of lack of payment. The WSJ says that several of those tankers…”are now anchored off the coast of Maracaibo sitting idle”.

“This is an absolute disaster,” Luis Hernandez, a Venezuelan oil union leader, told the WSJ. “There’s almost no way to move the oil.”

Unable to sell any oil, the Venezuelan government could quickly run out of cash. The result could be a humanitarian catastrophe, a merciless and destructive objective that the Trump administration seems to have in mind.

Then there are the Brits

The Bank of England is currently withholding $1.2 billion in gold from Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro’s government, but is being urged by Washington to release it to the chairman of the National Assembly, Juan Guaido. Last week, the US backed Guaido as the legitimate president of Venezuela, after he declared himself interim president.

The Venezuelan government must sue the US government in the International Court of Justice for triggering economic instability and poverty by sanctioning all its oil sales, seizing its assets and bank deposits

According to the Charter of the United Nations[1], only the UN Security Council has a mandate by the international community to apply sanctions (Article 41). Only the UN Security Council. Principle 6 of the Nuremberg Principles of International Law[2] defines Crimes against humanity: inhuman acts done against any civilian population. I.e. inhuman acts done against any civilian population is a crime against humanity deserving punishment.

Stealing, confiscating and misappropriating of funds needed to feed a population and blocking its government with sanctions from income in trade in order to feed its population certainly are certainly current and past inhuman acts against the civilian population of Venezuela.

The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide[3] was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948 The Convention entered into force on 12 January 1951.  United Nations -Treaty Series Convention on Genocide.

  • Article I: The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
  • Article II: In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group, as such: (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part:

Officials of United States government are deliberately inflicting on the Venezuelan nation conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in part and causing serious bodily and mental harm to Venezuelans, and by the The Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide adopted by the United Nations General Assembly this is a punishable crime of genocide.

The Venezuela government MUST sue the US in the International Court of Justice for creating famine by & blocking all oil sales & seizing bank deposits.

In 1986, the International Court of Justice in adjudicating The Republic of Nicaragua v. The United States of America,  held that the U.S. had violated international law by supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government international law supporting the Contras in their rebellion against the Nicaraguan government and by mining Nicaragua’s harbors. Never mind that the United States refused to participate in the proceedings after the Court rejected its argument that the ICJ lacked jurisdiction to hear the case. Never mind that U.S. also blocked enforcement of the judgment by the United Nations Security Council and thereby prevented Nicaragua from obtaining any compensation.

The General Assembly voted twice in favor of a resolution calling for full and immediate compliance with the judgement with only Israel voting against with the USA, but more importantly, probably because of the great attention the US conviction received in ‘the court of public opinion,’ the US stopped mining Nicaragua’s harbors and lessened outright support for the Contra’s murderous attacks. The Venezuela government must sue the United States in the International Court of Justice for creating famine by & blocking all its oil sales & stealing its bank deposits.

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This article was originally published on The Ghion Journal.

Jay Janson is an archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; has lived and worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and in the US by Dissident Voice, Global Research; Information Clearing House; Counter Currents, Minority Perspective, UK and others. Jay now resides in NYC.

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Since 1980, the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) — the world’s largest scientific society and publisher of several journals, including Science — has presented an annual award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility to “scientists, engineers or their organizations, whose exemplary actions have demonstrated scientific freedom and responsibility in challenging circumstances.” As explained on the AAAS website:1

“The types of actions worthy of this award include acting to protect the public’s health, safety or welfare; focusing public attention on important potential impacts of science and technology on society by their responsible participation in public policy debates; or providing an exemplary model in carrying out the social responsibilities of scientists, engineers or in defending the professional freedom of scientists and engineers.

Some awardees have risked their freedom and even physical safety by their actions, while others have been honored for their advocacy and their leadership.”

2019 Award Winners

This year, the AAAS was slated to present the Scientific Freedom and Responsibility award to two human health researchers who have published papers linking glyphosate exposure to chronic kidney disease of unknown etiology (CKDu) in Sri Lankan farmers:

  • Dr. Sarath Gunatilake,2 professor of health science at the University of California, whose areas of expertise includes occupational and environmental health research.
  • Channa Jayasumana, Ph.D.,3 a faculty member of Medicine and Allied Sciences at the Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, who conducts research into nephrotoxins (kidney toxins) and the causes and treatments for chronic kidney disease.

Their paper “Glyphosate, Hard Water and Nephrotoxic Metals: Are They the Culprits Behind the Epidemic of Chronic Kidney Disease of Unknown Etiology in Sri Lanka?”4 was published in 2014, followed by “Simultaneous Exposure to Multiple Heavy Metals and Glyphosate May Contribute to Sri Lankan Agricultural Nephropathy,”5 and “Drinking Well Water and Occupational Exposure to Herbicides Is Associated With Chronic Kidney Disease in Padavi-Sri Pura, Sri Lanka,”6 in 2015.

In the third paper listed, the team found people who drank water from wells where glyphosate and heavy metal concentrations are higher had a fivefold increased risk of CKDu.

Award Winners Are Both Outspoken Critics of Glyphosate

Both Gunatilake and Jayasumana have previously taken a strong stance against glyphosate-based herbicides, highlighting the dangers of herbicide adjuvants. In a 2018 Daily Mirror article,7 Gunatilake noted that adjuvants added to glyphosate-based herbicides “are 1,000 times more toxic than glyphosate itself.” He went on to say:

“The point I’m trying to raise is that glyphosate without adjuvants is not very useful. Therefore, manufacturers have added these toxic chemicals into glyphosate and nobody is talking about them! Over the last 25 years, the pesticide industry had us hoodwinked by referring only to glyphosate and not to the adjuvants or additives included in these herbicides.”

Jayasumana, meanwhile, provided testimony8 at the yearlong International Monsanto Tribunal,9 which began December 2015, asserting that glyphosate use has resulted in ecocide.

In its February 4, 2019 press release,10,11 (which has since been removed from its website12), AAAS stated Gunatilake and Jayasumana “faced death threats and claims of research misconduct while working to determine the cause of a kidney disease epidemic that has claimed tens of thousands of lives in their home country of Sri Lanka and around the world. Ultimately, their advocacy led to the culprit, an herbicide called glyphosate, being banned in several affected countries.”

Jessica Wyndham, director of the AAAS Scientific Responsibility, Human Rights and Law Program, said:13

“To right a wrong when significant financial interests are at stake and the power imbalance between industry and individual is at play takes the unique combination of scientific rigor, professional persistence and acceptance of personal risk demonstrated by the two scientists recognized by this year’s award.”

2019 Award Retracted Amid Controversy Over Glyphosate’s True Danger

According to Gunatilake and Jayasumana, consumption of glyphosate-contaminated water may contribute to chronic kidney disease by facilitating the transport of heavy metals such as arsenic and cadmium into the kidneys.14

The AAAS award announcement incited a rash of critique by defenders of glyphosate, leading the AAAS to issue another statement just two days later, saying the organization is “taking steps to reassess the 2019 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility, after concerns were voiced by scientists and members. This award will not be presented … as originally planned while we further evaluate the award selection.”

(Incidentally, AAAS CEO Rush Holt announced his retirement on that same day.15) One outspoken critic was Kevin Folta — a pro-GMO University of Florida professor caught intentionally hiding his funding from Monsanto — who stated that the pair’s 2014 paper merely “presented a hypothesis. There were no data. There were no experiments. It was a semi-well-crafted hypothesis that could be tested.”16 In a recent article, GMWatch.org rebuts Folta’s claims, saying:

“Folta’s claim that there are ‘no data’ in the paper is false. There are plenty of data in this and the authors’ follow-up papers — from epidemiological and case-control studies, as well as geographical surveys — that support the idea that glyphosate herbicides should be withdrawn from use as a precautionary measure until they can be proven safe.

Are these data conclusive? No. They point to an association. It’s true that the link between glyphosate exposure and chronic kidney disease will always remain a ‘hypothesis’ until it is proven in controlled long-term animal feeding studies …

The truth is that they are unlikely to be done, due to the massive expense and the unwillingness of industry and governments to fund studies that could show that they were responsible for exposing people to poisons over many years.”

Should Scientific Freedom Award Be Revoked Based on Controversial Findings?

True, Gunatilake and Jayasumana’s theory is just one of dozens of hypotheses for what might be causing chronic CKDu.17,18,19 (Cadmium toxicity is on that list, though.) Overall, it doesn’t appear as though any one given influence can explain all, or even most, cases of CKDu, so the search for answers continues.

The problem with the AAAS’ revocation is that whether the research findings are absolutely “true” is not entirely relevant for this particular award. As tweeted by Jack Heinemann,20 a professor at the University of Canterbury in New Zealand, whose research topics include horizontal gene transfer, GMO risk assessment, conflicts of interest in research and sustainable agriculture:21

“Whether or not the link between glyphosate (or formulation) and kidney disease is right misses the point. A scientific freedom award is given for persecution. If you only give it for proven science, it would be delayed decades and it would only benefit those who persecute.”

Gunatilake and Jayasumana are relatively cautious in their own conclusions, describing the link between glyphosate and CKDu as follows:22

“A strong association between the consumption of hard water and the occurrence of this special kidney disease has been observed, but the relationship has not been explained consistently. Here, we have hypothesized the association of using glyphosate, the most widely used herbicide in the disease endemic area and its unique metal chelating properties.

The possible role played by glyphosate-metal complexes in this epidemic has not been given any serious consideration by investigators for the last two decades … Although glyphosate alone does not cause an epidemic of chronic kidney disease, it seems to have acquired the ability to destroy the renal tissues … when it forms complexes with a localized geo environmental factor (hardness) and nephrotoxic metals.”

Former AAAS President Is Now Biotech Shill

While it may seem cynical to cry foul at every turn, industry influence and conflicts of interest have become so commonplace these days that it simply cannot be ignored. In a recent tweet, science journalist Paul D. Thacker23 (who also had a hand in writing the Open Payments Act, which mandates the disclosure of compensation from the pharmaceutical and medical industry) noted:24

“If you ever worried that science was being warped by corporate interests, this backpedal by AAAS in giving an award to pesticide researcher [sic] should lay that to rest. Answer seems to be ‘yes.'”

In a series of tweets, Thacker also points out links between former AAAS president Nina Fedoroff and the biotech industry, which has become well-known for pressuring medical journals and other organizations to revoke and discredit undesirable research and/or journalism.25

In 2015, Fedoroff, a plant molecular biologist, joined the OFW Law firm — which lobbies for the agrochemical industry — as senior science adviser for agriculture policy, global food security and government affairs.26

She was also present at the 2017 release of “Little Black Book of Junk Science,”27 a book by the American Council on Science and Health (ACSH), a chemical industry front group that I’ve written about on several occasions, and was a chosen speaker at a GMO Answers symposium cosponsored by Scientific American in 2016.28

GMO Answers was created by the PR firm Ketchum, which works on behalf of the Council for Biotechnology Information to improve the public image of GMOs. U.S. Right to Know has previously called attention to a video ad in which the firm talks about how it doubled positive GMO coverage using online social media monitoring.29

AAAS Has ‘Mixed Record on Public Interest Issues’

Considering how strong professional ties can be, even when officially severed, it doesn’t seem farfetched to suspect Fedoroff’s association with AAAS and the agrochemical industry might have an influence. GM Watch also notes:30

“The AAAS has a mixed record when it comes to public interest issues. In 2013 the AAAS’ board of directors issued a statement opposing the labeling of GM foods in the U.S. … The AAAS was at the time chaired by Nina Fedoroff, who has close ties to the GMO industry.

But in an incident that showed that the AAAS is not monolithic but contains scientists who do not toe the GMO lobby’s line, a group of scientists and physicians that included many long-standing AAAS members condemned the AAAS board of directors’ statement as ‘an Orwellian argument that violates the right of consumers to make informed decisions.’

They pointed to evidence showing that Roundup, the herbicide used on most GM crops, could pose risks that consumers might reasonably want to avoid. Sadly, the AAAS board seems more likely than its membership to have the power to decide on the fate of the award that was to be given to the Sri Lankan scientists.”

Latest GMO Monopoly Driven by Fear

While glyphosate-based herbicides still dominate the global market, rapidly mounting weed tolerance has led to the introduction of dicamba-based herbicides and a new crop of genetically engineered (GE) plants designed to withstand it. Dicamba is an incredibly potent toxin, and dicamba drift damaged or destroyed an estimated 3.6 million acres across the U.S. between 2016 and 2017 alone.

This included not only fields growing non-dicamba-resistant crops but also trees. In response, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency placed some restrictions on dicamba usage. For instance, special training is required to apply the herbicide, and its application is prohibited when wind speeds are greater than 10 mph. Farmers are also asked to assess the risk that spraying could have on nearby crops, as well.

Despite this, reports of damage from dicamba drift continued through 2018. What’s worse, many farmers report feeling they have no choice but to buy Monsanto-Bayer’s GE dicamba-tolerant seeds, or else they risk having their crop destroyed by dicamba drift from their neighbors.

Randy Brazel, a soybean grower, tells NPR31 he had little choice but to switch to dicamba-tolerant soybeans after one of his neighbors called saying he was making the switch. NPR writes:

“[D]icamba fumes from fields of Xtend soybeans have curled up the leaves of sycamore trees and millions of acres of traditional soybeans across much of the Midwest and South. Brazel wasn’t willing to take the risk of that happening to his crops.

He canceled his entire order and bought the new dicamba-tolerant soybeans instead. ‘Then I have to get on the phone and call every other neighbor and say, ‘Listen, I did not want to do this. But I am going to be forced to go dicamba.’ Well, then that forces all those neighbors to call all their neighbors. And eventually what you have is a monopoly,’ he says.”

In some parts of the U.S., protecting your crop from dicamba damage from neighbors is part of the sales pitch for the dicamba-resistant Xtend soybeans, NPR reports. In response to this mounting pressure to switch or lose your farm, a lawsuit has been filed against Monsanto on behalf of farmers, arguing the dicamba-tolerant seeds violate antitrust law.

As noted by NPR, “The lawsuit claims that the company understood that the risk of drifting dicamba could drive competitors out of the market.” Bayer (which bought Monsanto in May, 2018) has asked for the lawsuit to be dismissed. A decision from the court is still pending.

Substantial Amounts of Glyphosate Found in Food

The sad fact of the matter is, if you’re eating nonorganic foods, especially processed food, then you’re eating glyphosate on a regular basis. Farmers apply nearly 5 billion pounds (over 2 billion kilograms) of glyphosate to farm crops each year, worldwide.32 Approximately 300 million pounds are applied on U.S. farmland.

Testing has revealed 70 percent of Americans had detectable levels of glyphosate in their system in 2016; between 1993 and 2016, the glyphosate levels in people’s bodies increased by 1,208 percent.33A recent investigation by journalist Carey Gillam34 revealed Roundup has been found in virtually all foods tested, including granola and crackers.

The Health Research Institute Labs (HRI Labs) has also conducted glyphosate testing, finding the chemical in Ben & Jerry’s ice cream. Other foods typically contaminated with glyphosate include grains, legumes, beans, orange juice and wine.

HRI’s testing also reveals people who eat oats on a regular basis have twice as much glyphosate in their system as people who don’t (likely because oats are desiccated with glyphosate before harvest). Meanwhile, people who eat organic food on a regular basis have an 80 percent lower level of glyphosate than those who rarely eat organic.

Glyphosate May Affect Your Health in Several Ways

Glyphosate actually has a glycine molecule as part of its structure (hence the “gly” in glyphosate). Glycine is a very common amino acid your body uses to make proteins. As a result, a senior scientist at MIT, Stephanie Seneff, Ph.D., believes your body can substitute glyphosate for glycine, which results in damaged proteins being produced.

Glycine also plays a role in quenching inflammation, as explained in “Glycine Quells Oxidative Damage by Inhibiting NOX Superoxide Production and Boosting NADPH,” and is used up in the detoxification process. As a result of glyphosate toxicity, many of us may not have enough glycine for efficient detoxification. According to research published in the journal Entropy in 2013, the main toxic effects of glyphosate are related to the fact that it:35,36

  • Inhibits the shikimate pathway, found in gut bacteria in both humans and animals
  • Interferes with the function of cytochrome P450 enzymes, required for activation of vitamin D in the liver, and the creation of both nitric oxide and cholesterol sulfate, the latter of which is needed for red blood cell integrity
  • Chelates important minerals, including iron, cobalt and manganese. Manganese deficiency, in turn, impairs mitochondrial function and can lead to glutamate toxicity in the brain
  • Interferes with the synthesis of aromatic amino acids and methionine, which results in shortages in critical neurotransmitters and folate
  • Disrupts sulfate synthesis and sulfate transport

Glyphosate also disrupts, destroys, impairs or inhibits:37

  • The microbiome, thanks to its antibiotic activity
  • Sulfur metabolism
  • Methylation pathways
  • Pituitary release of thyroid stimulating hormone, which can lead to hypothyroidism

How to Test Your Glyphosate Level and Eliminate It From Your System

The chemical has also been linked to an increased risk of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma and lung cancer.38Considering the possible dangers of glyphosate, it would make sense to minimize your exposure, and if you have high levels already, to take steps to detoxify it.

HRI Labs has developed home test kits for both water and urine, and if you have elevated levels, you can drive out the glyphosate by taking an inexpensive glycine supplement.

Dr. Dietrich Klinghardt recommends taking 1 teaspoon (4 grams) of glycine powder twice a day for a few weeks and then lowering the dose to one-fourth teaspoon (1 gram) twice a day. This forces the glyphosate out of your system, allowing it to be eliminated through your urine.

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Hezbollah’s defeat of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in the July war of 2006 was heroic and an essential redress to the Middle East power balance. I supported Hezbollah’s entirely defensive action then and I continue to applaud it now. That, beyond any shadow of a doubt, makes me guilty of the criminal offence of “glorifying terrorism”, now that Sajid Javid has proscribed Hezbollah as a terrorist organisation. I am unrepentant and look forward to the prosecution.

A large majority of the public, and certainly almost everyone who remembers that 2006 invasion, would revolt from my being prosecuted on those grounds. The very absurdity of it is a sure measure that Sajid Javid has simply gone too far in naming Hezbollah – the legitimate political party representing in parliament the majority rural population in Southern Lebanon – as a terrorist organisation.

Together with the largely manufactured “Corbyn anti-semitism” row, Javid’s move is aimed at achieving in the UK the delegitimisation of political opposition to Israeli aggression and absorption of the occupied territories and the Golan Heights, in the way that has been achieved in the USA. However, there is a much better educated population in the UK and a great deal of popular awareness of decades of Israeli crimes. In fact, the continuing resilience of the Labour vote shows that at least over a third of the British population does not buy the “anti-semitism” tag applied to all those concerned at the continued plight of the Palestinians.

Hezbollah has never been implicated in any terrorist attack on the UK. Its military posture in Southern Lebanon vis a vis Israel is entirely defensive; it evolved as a military force in reaction to wave after wave of Israeli invasion of Lebanon, in which the Israeli “Defence” Force casually decimated Shia communities en route to attacking Palestinian refugee camps. Hezbollah has never invaded Israel. Hezbollas played an effective and laudable role in assisting the defeat of Isis and their Jihadist allies in Syria.

Oh look, I just “glorified terrorism” again.

Javid’s move is primarily aimed at pleasing Israel and looking to score political points over Jeremy Corbyn, whose past contacts with Hezbollah can now be deemed terrorist. But it is also a move to please the UK elite’s other paymaster, Mohammed Bin Salman, by further forwarding his attempt to delegitimise and to subjugate Arab Shia communities. Coupled with the irony of announcing DFID support of £200 million for Yemeni victims of our very own bombs and “military support”, this is a shameful week for British foreign policy.

I first became devoted to the Palestinian cause as a first year student at Dundee University, when I watched a film about Israeli destruction of Palestinian olive trees in the occupied territories, to devastate their economic base and force families to leave. That film made me cry.

It is a matter of despair that, 42 years later, this practice continues, and indeed has been ongoing for that entire time. I find this almost as heinous as the continuing killing and imprisonment of Palestinian children. I find it a useful exercise every morning to ask yourself this question:

How many children has the Israeli “Defence” Force killed since the MSM last reported one?

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News about humanitarian aid shipments to Venezuela almost never compare how tiny a fraction this aid is relative to the devastating damage that US sanctions against Venezuela have caused, which is now as draconian as the pre-Iraq war sanctions were, says CEPR’s Mark Weisbrot.

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GREG WILPERT: It’s The Real News Network, and I’m Greg Wilpert, coming to you from Baltimore.

The conflict over Venezuela is heating up again. Thursday evening, the former head of Venezuela’s intelligence services, Hugo Carvajal, turned against Maduro in a video address. In a statement, he called on the military to reject Maduro, and said the government was completely beset by corruption. He also urged Maduro to take in the humanitarian aid that is being sent by the U.S. and international donors. Carvajal himself had long been under U.S. sanctions and allegations of being involved in drug trafficking. He’s currently a representative of Venezula’s National Assembly.

Then on Friday, dueling concerts are taking place on the Venezuela-Colombia border. On the Colombian side, the billionaire and Virgin Atlantic airline founder Richard Branson organized a fundraising concert for humanitarian aid for Venezuela. And on the Venezuelan side, the government organized a rival concert with government supporters. Then on Saturday, self-proclaimed interim president Juan Guaido is promising to deliver tens of millions of dollars of international aid, mainly from the U.S., Canada, Colombia, and Brazil, into Venezuela, with the help of opposition supporters. President Maduro has denounced the effort, saying it is a pretext for military action. International aid groups such as the Red Cross and the UN have declined to participate, saying that the aid has been politicized, and thus does not meet their criteria for involvement.

Meanwhile, U.S.-imposed sanctions continue to wreak havoc on Venezuela’s economy. Oil companies report that U.S. Gulf coast refineries are scrambling to find new supply sources for the heavy crude they once received from Venezuela. Venezuela itself says it can sell its oil to India and China instead of the U.S., but it’s not clear yet how the payments will be processed. Also, a battle has erupted over who controls Citgo when the U.S. said it would impose a new board of directors that interim president Juan Guaido has named.

Joining me now to discuss the effects of the sanctions and some of the most recent developments in Venezuela is Mark Weisbrot. Mark is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Thanks for joining us today, Mark.

MARK WEISBROT: Thanks for inviting me, Gregory.

GREG WILPERT: So let’s start with the sanctions. We’ve discussed these here before on several occasions, but it’s increasingly becoming clear that the last round of sanctions that were imposed on January 28, only five days after opposition leader Juan Guaido swore himself into office, are more draconian than most sanctions the U.S. has imposed. How would you compare these sanctions to, let’s say, the ones that have been imposed on Iraq? And just how much damage are they causing at the moment?

MARK WEISBROT: Well, the Iraq sanctions during the ’90s were quite damaging. The UN estimates, other estimates of the number of children who died as a result of those sanctions is in the hundreds of thousands, during the ’90s. And yet these are even worse, because the trade embargo–first you have to understand that when they recognized Guaido as president, that created a trade embargo, because Venezuela sells its oil for dollars around the world. And three quarters of its export markets consist of the United States and the countries that have joined the Trump regime change effort and recognized the Guaido government. And so that money, that foreign exchange, the source of almost all of the foreign exchange for the whole economy of Venezuela–not just the government, but the whole economy–that’s gone with this. And they made some, they carved out some exceptions for their oil companies. But those are temporary, and the whole thing is still a sweeping trade embargo.

And so that’s quite devastating. Now, they did this to Iraq, but they actually had an oil for food program that allowed them to export a fair amount of oil. So this is really a devastating set of sanctions that they’ve just imposed. But even before that, since August of 2017, that executive order by Trump created a financial embargo. And that was devastating. That, and I think we discussed this before, you know, that cut hundreds of thousands of barrels of oil out of production, and cost them at least six billion dollars in terms of lost oil production. And again, if you compare that to their total goods imports for 2018, which are $11 billion, that’s huge. Or you compare it to the $2 billion that they used to spend on medicine.

So this is really a devastating set of sanctions going back quite a while. And if you want to go back further to when Obama issued the executive order in March of 2015, those sanctions also damaged the economy. Because even though they say those sanctions are targeted on individual,s when they target government officials who have to handle financial transactions around the world, then that causes enormous problems, as well. And the banks and financial institutions take their cue from that, and they stop lending. And that really started a couple of years before the August of 2017 Trump sanctions.

GREG WILPERT: Now, legally, the only way the U.S. can impose sanctions is by naming Venezuela an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States. No one ever seems to mention this. Is it perhaps because this is actually an irrelevant clause in U.S. law?

MARK WEISBROT: Yes, that’s very important. Not only do they say in every executive order since March of 2015 that Venezuela poses an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security of the United States, but they also declare a national emergency for the United States caused by Venezuela. So it’s exactly what Trump did with the wall. Exactly the same thing. He’s declaring a national emergency. And that goes completely unnoticed. But it’s–and I think it’s important, actually, because organizations like Public Citizen have sued the Trump administration immediately, and some state governments, after he announced that he was going to use–he was going to use the national emergency declaration to build the wall and pay for it and take funds from elsewhere.

And I think a lawsuit could definitely be filed for the same thing around this national emergency. It’d be more difficult to win, because in the United States we don’t–the rule of law is very weak when it comes to foreign policy. The courts have generally let the president get away with almost anything. Although that now is also changing, with the House just a week or so ago using the War Powers Resolution to, in fact, restrict the president’s ability to get involved in wars. And this is very similar, and the Senate’s going to vote on this, and so on.

So that is changing some in Congress. And there’s also a bill right now in Congress with 33 cosponsors from Cicilline, Representative Cicilline, and that just says flatly that the Congress will not authorize any military intervention in Venezuela.

GREG WILPERT: Actually, I want to get to that point in a moment. But first I want to ask about something else that’s a huge issue, which is this coming weekend there will be an effort to bring some monetary aid into Venezuela that the opposition is organizing with the help of the United States and the governments of Colombia and Brazil. Many groups, such as the Inter-American Dialogue, a think tank based in Washington, D.C., are calling on Maduro to accept this aid, but do not want to say a word about the effects of the sanctions. Now, just–this raises the question just how do the sanctions compare to the aid that is being offered?

MARK WEISBROT: Yeah, the aid is tiny compared to what the sanctions, the billions of dollars that are lost to the economy. And that’s what makes the whole thing so farcical. Imagine here is this huge power, and it’s doing everything it can to deprive people of food and medicine. It’s really that that’s what they’re doing. And spare parts, and everything that the economy needs. And wiping out the income of millions of people and doing this very–as forcefully as it can really do. As I said, the only exception they carved out from the latest set of sanctions is to protect–is to protect the profits of some of their own oil industry.

But this is really a massive effort to increase the suffering there so that people will rebel or the army will rebel. They’ve said that openly. And at the same time, then, they say as a PR stunt we’re going to try and get this aid across the border. And then they openly admit, both the Trump administration and the their allies inside Venezuela, that the purpose of this operation is to get the army to disobey orders from Maduro so that it will weaken him enough to topple the government. And they say this very openly. And that’s why the international organizations that really care about humanitarian aid, like the International Red Cross or the United Nations, they want nothing to do with this so-called relief effort. But I have to say, you know, if you weren’t following this very, very closely, and you were just watching the television news, or most of the news that people get here, their whole PR stunt appears to be pretty solid. It looks like they’re actually trying to help, and this evil person that they’ve demonized is trying to prevent people from getting their benefits and aid.

GREG WILPERT: Now, another issue which is related to the point you raised earlier is that a spokesperson for Bernie Sanders recently told Newsweek that Sanders opposes the threat of U.S. military intervention in Venezuela. Immediately, Florida Democrats criticized Sanders very strongly. And Representative Donna Shalala, as a matter of fact, said that the statement was regrettable, and suggested that Sanders would never be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020.

Now, this also parallels a resolution that you mentioned already that was introduced in the House of Representatives with 33 cosponsors, including Ro Khanna, Tulsi Gabbard, Mark Pocan, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, et cetera, as stating that the president should not have a congressional authority to intervene militarily in Venezuela. Now, do you see this resolution as having a chance of passing? And if not, why are Democrats such as Shalala playing Trump’s game in Venezuela?

MARK WEISBROT: I think it does have a chance of passing. I think that even the worst kind of pro-sanctions Democrats, like Elliott Engel, the chair of the Foreign Relations Committee, who supported the recognition of Guaido and therefore–as an interim president–and therefore is supporting this new trade embargo. They don’t–even they don’t want a military option there. They said clearly that there’s no–there is not going to be any military option. So that is the majority view, certainly overwhelming majority among Democrats and some Republicans.

Now, how it plays out, you know, with the Florida delegation doing what it’s doing and what it’s been doing since the Cuban revolution, this is a real curse. You know, these people are just–and I think these people are just looking at it from the point of view of their right-wing base, right-wing Cubans, Venezuelans, other right-wing Latin Americans that go to southern Florida. And this is a lobby. And since Florida is a swing state, this is something that affects the presidential election. They’re trying to intimidate Bernie right now. There was a tech piece in Politico going after him.

But I don’t think they have even most of the mainstream media on their side on this. You know, or the State Department, or possibly even the Pentagon in terms of the military intervention. And a lot of the other things they’re saying they don’t–they’re in a minority trying to punish him for not being hostile enough to the government of Venezuela. I don’t think they’ll get that far with this. They really do represent extremist elements. Of course, we do have some of the most violence-prone and extreme elements in Bolton, Rubio, Abrams. Trump himself, who’s openly said why don’t we attack Venezuela, because they’ve got the oil and they’re in our backyard? And Bolton talking about the oil companies, as well. You know, this is almost unprecedented in the 21st or late 20th century for them to be so candid about this.

So I think though the Florida thing is very big, you know, if they were going to give this relief, so-called relief operation, a name, it should be Operation Florida 2020. If I had to guess the main reason why Trump is doing this, well, the oil is definitely part of it. He looks at these things this way. He said the same thing about Iraq, why didn’t we grab their oil. But it’s also Florida. And it is–it’s a real problem. But I don’t think they’re going to prevail.

GREG WILPERT: OK. Well, we’re going to leave it there for now. I was speaking to Mark Weisbrot, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. Thanks again, Mark, for having joined us today.

MARK WEISBROT: Thank you, Gregory.

GREG WILPERT: And thank you for joining The Real News Network.

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Mark Weisbrot is Co-Director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., and the president of Just Foreign Policy. He is also the author of “Failed: What the ‘Experts’ Got Wrong About the Global Economy” (2015, Oxford University Press).

I discussed the possibility in a previous article, considering whether the Trump regime intends inventing a pretext for military intervention.

It’s an option Trump prefers based on his previous comments. The EU, Latin and Central American states oppose intervening in Venezuela militarily.

It’s unclear if Pompeo, Bolton and their point man for regime change in the country, convicted felon Elliott Abrams, prefer this option over others.

Most likely for now at least, sanctions war will continue,  along with US-orchestrated violence and chaos in the country likely to intensify.

Trump and regime hardliners are hellbent for wanting Maduro toppled – Bolivarian social democracy eliminated, US-controlled puppet leadership replacing it.

A similar scenario is playing out in Iran, aiming for the same result. If ongoing war by other means fails in either or both countries, military intervention may be the Trump regime’s fallback option – despite world community opposition.

The US prefers so-called “coalition” support for its imperial adventurism. At the same time, governance in Washington is so extremist, hardliners running things may be willing to go it alone in trying to topple Maduro if unable to get partners for hot war.

In mid-February, Cuba said the US has been covertly deploying special forces and military equipment to regional countries close to Venezuela – speculating on whether military intervention is planned, adding:

“Between February 6 and 10, military transport aircraft have flown to the Rafael Miranda Airport of Puerto Rico, the San Isidro Air Base, in the Dominican Republic and to other strategically located Caribbean islands, probably without knowledge of the governments of those nations.”

“These flights originated in American military installations from which units of Special Operations and Marine Corps operate, which are used for covert actions.”

US war on Venezuela by other means is causing “thousands of times greater” harm to its economy and people than so-called “humanitarian aid” can alleviate, a political stunt unrelated to providing help.

On Tuesday, Russian Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev said the Trump regime deployed troops to Puerto Rico and Colombia, “preparing (for) a military invasion on an independent state,” adding:

“(T)he landing of US forces in Colombia and other facts clearly indicate that the Pentagon is reinforcing the grouping of troops in the region in order to overthrow the lawfully elected incumbent President Maduro.”

“And the Venezuelan people understand this well. Hence, such a reaction, the refusal to accept cargo from the aggressor country and the support of their president.”

After proposing talks with Russia on Venezuela, Trump regime hardliners U-turned on holding them, Patrushev explained.

Since Hugo Chavez’s December 1998 election, four right-wing US Republican and undemocratic Dem regimes plotted to replace Venezuelan social democracy with US-controlled puppet rule.

The plot is more intense under Trump than his predecessors, going all-out to try succeeding where they failed.

Is military intervention on the table if other tactics fail – in Iran and Venezuela? It’s ominously possible in both countries.

My view is as follows. Putin intervened in Syria against US-supported terrorists, changing the dynamic on the ground, foiling Washington’s attempt to topple Assad – even though endless war continues, diplomatic efforts for resolution since 2012 achieving no major breakthroughs.

Similar Russian intervention is needed to preserve and protect Iranian and Venezuelan sovereignty, ideally with cooperation from Beijing, a joint initiative.

In a previous article, I proposed that they send peacekeepers to Venezuela. The same goes for Iran if Trump regime hardliners escalate efforts to topple its government.

Thousands of Russian and Chinese peacekeepers to these countries would give the US pause about intervening militarily, risking war with either or both – deterring a military option, I believe, without firing a shot.

The way to preserve and protect Iran and Venezuela is aiding them this way. It’s not without risks. Failing to take this step entails greater ones, I believe.

The time has come for Russia and China to draw a red line not to be crossed on these countries, letting Washington know clearly where they stand. It may be the best strategy to save them and world peace at the same time – at least for now until US hardliners cook up new ways to pursue their imperial agenda.

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Award-winning author Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected]. He is a Research Associate of the Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG)

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Featured image is from Black Agenda Report

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Canadian Military Flouts Access to Information Law

February 28th, 2019 by Yves Engler

If Canada’s armed forces exist to protect our democracy why does its leadership flout laws meant to protect citizens’ rights to know what the government is doing?

Recently the Ottawa Citizen’s David Pugliese reported that top military officers denied the existence of an internal report even though they were warned doing so would be illegal under the Access to Information Act, which gives individuals the right to government records for a small fee. The office of the Canadian Forces’s top legal adviser, Judge Advocate General Commodore Geneviève Bernatchez, denied the existence of an internal report highlighting problems with the court martial system. But, in reality, there were electronic and paper copies of the document.

This incident falls on the heels of a DND official telling the pre-trial hearing of Vice Admiral Mark Norman that his superiors deliberately omitted his name from documents to skirt Access to Information rules. After receiving an access request concerning Norman, the official brought it to his superior. According to the testimony, “he gives me a smile and says … ‘Don’t worry, this isn’t our first rodeo. We made sure we never used his name [in internal communications]. Send back nil return.” (Feeling the need to protect  the military witness from reprisals, the judge ordered a publication ban on their name.)

In fact, DND has repeatedly broken access laws. Informed that an officer attended a talk that Rideau Institute director Steven Staples delivered about the war in Afghanistan on January 26, 2006, Pugliese requested all CF documents mentioning public speeches in Halifax between January 15 and 30 of that year. Department officials claimed they did “a thorough and complete search” and couldn’t find any record of an officer who attended the function and wrote a report. But, the officer assigned to Staples’ speech inadvertently left a record. When the Ottawa Citizen turned it over to the information commissioner, DND finally acknowledged the record existed.

The secrecy is long-standing. In 1996 Information Commissioner John Grace pointed to a “culture within ND [national defense]/CF of secrecy and suspicion of those seeking information.” As part of its cover-up of the murderers committed by Canadian soldiers in Somalia, CF officials illegally doctored documents concerning the brutal murder of Shidane Arone. As part of an investigation into the March 1993 slayings in Somalia, CBC reporter Michael McAuliffe requested briefing notes for officers dealing with the media. DND was caught hiding documents, wildly inflating the cost of releasing them and altering files. At the 1995-97 inquiry into the killings in Somalia, Chief of Defence Staff Jean Boyle admitted the CF deliberately violated the spirit of Access rules, while a colonel and commander were convicted by a military court of altering documents requested under that legislation. Dishonoured Legacy: The Lessons of the Somalia Affair: Report of the Commission of Inquiry Into the Deployment of Canadian Forces to Somalia described DND’s “unacceptable hostility toward the goals and requirements of access to information legislation.”

The secrecy is not about security. DND can restrict information under access legislation for numerous reasons. This includes if information is deemed “injurious to the conduct of international affairs, the defence of Canada or the detection, prevention or suppression of subversive or hostile activities.”

DND also has more explicit means of bypassing access requests since the law doesn’t apply to much of the military. Since the early 2000s DND has massively expanded the special forces — Canadian Special Operations Forces Command now has nearly 3,000  personnel — partly because they are not required to divulge any information about their operations. But, noted the late Toronto Sun columnist Peter Worthington, “a secret army within the army is anathema to democracy.”

It seems the military leadership would prefer the public only learn about the Canadian Forces what they deem necessary to release, despite laws that say otherwise.

Should we trust an institution that flouts the rules of democracy to defend democracy?

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The world of conservation has thrown up various voices of tenacity.  There was Aldo Leopold, a vital figure behind establishing the first wilderness area of the United States when he convinced the Forest Service to protect some five hundred thousand acres of New Mexico’s Gila National Forest.  There was Robert Marshall, the founder of The Wilderness Society.  There was Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring (1962), a solidly aimed blow at the use of DDT and its environmental effects.

Then there are the savvy showmen, the exploiters few short of a scruple, and manipulators keen on lining pockets.  The animal kingdom, for such types, is entertainment, much in the way that the automobile world is there for a figure such as Jeremy Clarkson.  Awareness of the existence of animals – their importance, their relevance – is drummed up by means of display and provocation.  The more dangerous, in a sense, the better, for here, human kind can be shown to be jousting with crocodile, sting ray and lion.  Humankind can return to savage roots, confronting other species in gladiatorial encounters with film crew and an extensive promotion strategy.  This is bullfighting, with a conservationist twist. 

Such a figure was Steve Irwin, who made his way from Australia to the US, assisted by the solid contacts of his American wife Terri Raines, to build a name in the animal show business.  He became – and here the language is instructive – the self-styled Crocodile Hunter, audacious, brash and vulgar in his animal chase.  He established Australia Zoo, which sports a vision of being “the biggest and best wildlife conservation facility in the entire world, and” (note the entertainment gong here) “there is no other zoo like Australia zoo!”  The emphasis here is also vital: zoos vary in history in terms of what they have done for conservation, turning species as much into museum species for spectacle as any act of preservation.

Irwin teased out the voyeur in the spectator: would he be added to the crocodile’s next meal?  Or, even more daringly, would he add his baby to it?  Punters, take your pick, and wait for the outcome – you know you are in store for something grand and grisly.   

This assertion is not far-fetched; in 2004, the showman introduced his one-month old son in what was promoted as “Bob’s Croc Feeding Debut” to a crocodile at feeding time, real fun for the family. While apologising for his actions in the face of strident protest, Irwin’s rather particular view on animal advertising came through.  He had, for one, been professional in keeping “a safe working distance with that crocodile when that took place”.  He would also have been “a bad parent if I didn’t teach my children to be crocodile savvy because they live here – they live in crocodile territory.”  Responsible, indeed. 

His unique interpretation of safe working distance was again at play when he met his death on the Great Barrier Reef near Port Douglas in the course of making an instalment in September 2006 for the series Ocean’s Deadliest.  The ingredients were all there: identifying a species that could kill rather than anything cuddly or cute; chasing a choice sample of that species; recording, for camera, its behaviour, using whatever means necessary. In the process, the barb of a stingray pierced his heart.  Marine biologists and zoologists make it clear that “they are not aggressive, reacting only when stepped on or improperly handled.”  The throngs of grieving supporters were revealing about how sapping the cult of celebrity can be.  Critics were few and far between.

One was fellow Australian, herself a superstar of sorts, Germaine Greer.  Greer reproached Irwin for not having “a healthy respect for stingrays, which are actually commoner, and bigger, in southern waters than they are near Port Douglas.”  Irwin never seemed to comprehend the vital fact “that animals needs space.”  No habitat was sacred to Irwin’s celebrity predations; creatures “he brandished at the camera” were distressed.  Left in such vulnerable situations, their options were limited: succumb or strike.

Irwin, whose birthday was commemorated by Google in one their “doodles” on Friday, did enough to drive the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) to a state of sheer consternation.  Google described the doodle as a celebration of “the legendary Australian wildlife advocate & TV personality whose bravery & passion opened the eyes of millions to the wonders of wildlife.”   

PETA begged to differ.  Irwin, the organisation tweeted, “was killed while harassing a ray; he dangled his baby while feeding a crocodile and wrestled wild animals who were minding their own business.” The doodle sent “a dangerous, fawning message Wild animals are entitled to be left alone in their natural habitats.” 

The organisation also reiterated that Irwin was distinctly off message in terms of conservation.  “A real wildlife expert & someone who respects animals for the individuals they are leaves animals to their own business in their natural homes.”

This did not sit well in the Twattersphere and other social media outlets where outrage, not debate, characterise arguments.  Unsurprisingly, Irwin’s methods are irrelevant to the persona of challenging, sporting buffoon.  He entertained, and did so well; that was what counted.  His cheer squad ranged across the fields of entertainment and sport, fitting given the same fold he came from.  Baseball writer Dan Clark scolded PETA for not accepting the premise that Irwin had “saved the lives of countless of animals in his sanctuaries”, “loved animals and cared for them greatly.”  Love, and shoddy pedagogy, are clearly variable things.

Irwin had even won over certain wildlife conservationists such as Anneka Svenska, who claimed on BBC Radio 1 Newsbeat that he “has inspired the next generation of conservationists.”  Even she had to admit that “now it wouldn’t be looked at as so good to touch the animals like he used to.” 

The problem with the Irwin legacy is how consequences are divorced from actions.  Certain actions, be it the business model of display and torment, and the encouragement his actions supposedly did for conservationists and the cause, are blurred.  

PETA might be called out for some its more shonky and inconsistent protests when it comes to the world of animal ethics, but in the scheme of things, their notes of protest were valid.  Irwin was, first and foremost, a man of business, a rumbling combination of yahoo, entrepreneur and Tarzan.  That business might well have involved an element of conservation, but this was ancillary to the man, to his yob image, a person made wealthy on the fate and good deal of harassing, to use PETA’s term, deadly members of the animal kingdom. For that, he paid the ultimate price.

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Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne.  He is a frequent contributor to Global Research and Asia-Pacific Research. Email: [email protected]

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A Russian defense contractor, Kalashnikov Concern, named after one of the most famous small-arms designers of all time, is now producing kamikaze drones designed to destroy remote ground targets.

The “high-precision unmanned aerial system” KUB-BLA was for the first time showcased at the International Exhibition of Arms and Military Equipment 2019 in Abu Dhabi. The drone delivers an explosive charge on the coordinates of the target, which are set manually or can be acquired automatically by uploading image of the target into the guidance system.

The KUB-BLA has a 3-kilogram payload, a flying time of 30 minutes, and a 80-130-kilometer-per-hour speed. It measures 1210mm wide by 950mm long and 165mm high. Typically, the payload is apparently a high-explosive charge. Kalashnikov Concern says that the advantages of the system are “hidden launch, high accuracy of the shot, noiselessness and ease of handling”.

Furthermore, it seems that the KUB-BLA has already been battle-tested in Syria.

On October 19, 2015, a swarm of five mysterious suicide drones attacked a military position of the Ahrar al-Sham Movement near the town of Maar Shamarin in the Syrian province of Idlib. A few hours after the attack, the local SMART News Agency interviewed the fighters who survived the attack. They all seemed to be shocked and terrified by the “Wunderwaffe” that killed one of their comrades and destroyed most of their equipment.

Back then, nobody was able to identify these drones. Some sources suggested that these were the ZALA 421-16E. However, this drone has no offensive capabilities and the vestiges of the employed suicide UAVs showed little match with its design.

In turn, the design of the KUB-BLA appeared to be similar, even in small details, to the mysterious suicide drones, which hit the Ahrar al-Sham position. Another factor is the location of the attack. Maar Shamarin is 27km north of Morek, the stronghold of Syrian government forces back in 2015. Taking into account the declared characteristics of the KUB-BLA, the kamikaze drone should be capable of hitting  targets in the range of about 40km. This range was more than enough to reach the Ahrar al-Sham position even if the drone was launched from the area behind the frontline.

This was not the first time when the Russians Defense Ministry used Syria as a test-ground for its modern weapons and equipment. According to official data, Russia tested over 300 types of weapons and equipment, including the Su-57 fifth generation fighter jet, the Uran-9 unmanned combat ground vehicle and the Terminator-2 armored fighting vehicle, in Syrian since the start of its anti-terrorist operation in the war-torn county in 2015. However, the October 19 event is the first case ever when it is reasonable to assume with a high probability that the Russian side employed an attack drone of any kind during the conflict.

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The British empire may strike many of us as distant history that has no more than a marginal impact on our 21st-century lives. But we can’t really understand Brexit — the British move to exit the European Union — without understanding how that empire ended and, more pointedly, how Britain’s rich reacted to that demise. Two scholars at the University of Oxford, Sally Tomlinson and Danny Dorling, have an incisive new book out that explores the chain of events that have brought us to Brexit. This excerpt from that book, Rule Britannia: Brexit and the End of Empire (Biteback, 2019), offers a historical perspective that seldom informs our daily news doses on the latest in Brexit maneuvering.

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Partly, if not largely, because of failing to come to terms with its loss of a huge empire, the UK had been ramping up economic inequality since the late 1970s, reaching a point where the gap between rich and poor in Britain was wider than in any other European country.

When India, and then most colonies in Africa, won their freedom, the British rich found themselves suddenly becoming much poorer. They blamed the trade unions and socialists in the 1970s. To try to maintain their position, from 1979 onwards they cut the pay of the poorest in a myriad of ways and vilified immigrants in the newspapers they owned or influenced, while managing to hold on to some of the pomp and ceremony that their imperial grandparents had enjoyed.

Something had to break, and, in the end, it was a break with the EU — it was Brexit. It is true that Brexit was partly the language of the unheard — the masses cocking a snook at the demands of their overlords — and there were some who actually believed the propaganda that problems in health, housing, and education were due to immigrants, and some who really thought “their” country was being taken over by colonial and EU immigrants, by refugees from anywhere, or even by Islam. But there were many others who voted Leave out of hope. They just hoped for something better than what they had.

The British had been distracted from the rise in inequality and the consequent poverty that grew with it by decades of innuendo and then outright propaganda suggesting that immigration was the main source of most of their woes. Without immigrants, they were told, there would be good jobs for all.

Then they were told, at first in whispers, and later through tabloid headlines, that without immigrants their children could get into that good school, or the school they currently go to would not be so bad.

Without immigrants, they could live in the house of their dreams, a home currently occupied by immigrants who have jumped the queue and taken their birthright. “We” (always “we,” always “us”) need to cap net immigration to the “tens of thousands” and then all will be so much better.

All this was said to distract people from looking at who was actually becoming much wealthier and who was funding a political party to ensure that the already wealthy could hoard even more in future.

Or, as Alex Massie of The Spectator wrote in 2016: “If you spend days, weeks, months, years, telling people they are under threat, that their country has been stolen from them, that they have been betrayed and sold down the river, that their birthright has been pilfered, that their problem is they’re too slow to realize any of this is happening … at some point something or someone is going to snap.”

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Sally Tomlinson is emeritus professor at Goldsmiths University and honorary fellow of the education department at Oxford. A selection of her work appears in The Politics of Race, Class and Special Education (2014) in the Routledge World Education series.

Danny Dorling is the Halford Mackinder Professor in geography at the University of Oxford. His work focuses on housing, health, employment, education, wealth, and poverty, and his books include The Real World Atlas (Thames and Hudson), Inequality and the 1% (Verso), Population 10 Billion (Constable) and All That Is Solid (Allen Lane).

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A group family member victims of the 1940s WWII Holocaust and U.S.-supported 1980s genocides in Central America are calling on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council’s Committee on Conscience to remove Elliot Abrams from its board, questioning how “a proven supporter of some of the world’s most nefarious perpetrators of genocide and mass murderers for nearly 40 years—could be a member of your committee (whose) … core mission (is to) prevent genocide.”

The group of 12, which includes a Salvadoran “tortured by police under orders of two generals trained by the US military at the School of the Americas (and) a survivor of torture under Rios Montt dictatorship,” are circulating an online petition to gather support for their demand on the anti-genocide committee to take away Abrams’ seat at the table.

“We have come together in the name of advancing values like those contained in the Council’s core mission of preventing genocide. Our letter to you is written in the spirit of continuing the urgent work of the Committee on Conscience: to ‘confront and work to halt acts of genocide or related crimes against humanity.’

“It is in this spirit we write to question the choice of the Council in granting a committee seat to Mr. Elliott Abrams,” say the survivors of genocides orchestrated and oversaught by Abrams in the 1980s when he served as Assistant Secretary of State for Human Rights and Humanitarian Affairs and Assistant Secretary for Inter-American Affairs under the Ronald Reagan administrations.

Abrams was recently named by United States President Donald Trump to the nation’s Special Envoy to Venezuela. The high-ranking U.S. official, who supported genocides in El Salvador in Guatemala in the 1980s has claimed that the El Mozote massacre in El Salvador that wiped out 900 poor civilians in less than two days in 1981 couldn’t be confirmed. The former human rights official backed Guatemalan dictator Rios Montt’s massacre of over 1,700 Indigenous.

The small group that has growing support says that after investigating Abrams’ history they realized he is “in fact a member of the Council’s Committee on Conscience,” given a seat on the prestigious committee in 2009.

“We write because, given the crucial mission of this institution, we cannot fathom how Abrams—a proven supporter of some of the world’s most nefarious perpetrators of genocide and mass murderers for nearly 40 years—could be a member of your committee,” says the survivors who are calling on the larger public to join their request to the council.

The naming of Abrams to the U.S. envoy by Trump has caused an uproar in Congress and human rights circles who know Abrams was also a principal author in the Iran-Contra affair in the 1980s that funded the violent Contras, a Nicaraguan para-military group.

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After the Indian military bombed Pakistani territory last night, Pakistan promised to respond and the UK has been criticised for arming both sides.

The Indian Air Force claimed to have targetted a training camp of the militant Jaish-e-Mohammed group in Pakistan.

Pakistan said the bombs fell on an empty area but said it would respond “at the time and place of its choosing”.

The Indian and Pakistani governments have been hostile to each other for decades, mainly over the disputed region of Kashmir. Over 850,000 people have been killed in clashes between the two countries.

Both sides of the conflict, although particularly India, have been armed by arms companies based in the UK with exports approved by the UK government.

Andrew Smith of Campaign Against Arms Trade said:

“For years now, the UK has armed both India and Pakistan. This has meant ignoring the tensions and dangers, and putting arms sales ahead of peace-building and human rights.

“These arms sales have only added to the volatility of the situation, when what is needed is diplomacy and dialogue. The Government must put the need for peace and disarmament before the interests of the arms companies.”

Both countries have nuclear weapons and the UK government and arms companies have been complicit in India’s development of these weapons.

When it was revealed that India was upgrading Jaguar aircraft to fire nuclear weapons, the UK refused to halt the sale of UK-built components that were being used to keep the aircraft airborne and could be used to build the Jaguar delivery systems.

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Joe Lo is a freelance journalist and reporter for Left Foot Forward.

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Russia, Japan and the USA: The Unfinished Business of War

February 28th, 2019 by Christopher Black

As the USA and North Korea meet in Vietnam to discuss the possibility of a peace treaty between the two after decades of hostility against North Korea from the USA, the governments of Russia and Japan are engaged in talks about concluding a peace treaty to formally end the war between them that began during the Second World War. The two meetings are related since they concern peace and security in Asia and the Pacific and because the stumbling block to peace in both instances is the threat posed by the United States conventional and nuclear forces in the region.

North Korea has long sought a peace treaty with the USA along with a firm guarantee that the USA will not attack. North Korea’s requests for peace have been met, up until now, with nothing but false promises, unjust sanctions, attempts to isolate it from the world and threats of annihilation. The USA, on the other hand, has only one objective, the nuclear disarmament of North Korea, making it vulnerable to American attack while claiming the right to retain and develop its triad of nuclear forces and the right to use them whenever it sees fit. Since the word of the US leadership is not worth much, as the world has seen time and again as the US reneges on one international agreement after another, hopes of something positive coming out of the Korean-American meeting in Vietnam are slim. But we can hope.

The situation between Japan and Russia is also at an impasse and once again the basic cause for this is the USA. The key sticking point between them since the 1950’s has been, and remains, control over the Kuril Islands that lie north of the Japanese Island of Hokkaido and south of the Russian territories on the Kamchatka Peninsula. The islands have changed hands between them several times in history but with the defeat of Japan in 1945 the islands were given to the USSR by international agreement with Japan protesting that it should have ownership and control of the four southern islands in the chain. The islands have been in Russian hands ever since.

In 1956 the USSR and Japan entered into negotiations to try to conclude a peace treaty that resulted in a Joint Declaration paragraph 9 of which stated,

9. Japan and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics agree to continue, after the restoration of normal diplomatic relations between Japan and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, negotiations for the conclusion of a peace treaty.

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, desiring to meet the wishes of Japan and taking into consideration the interests of Japan, agrees to hand over to Japan the Habomai Islands and the island of Shikotan. However, the actual handing over these islands to Japan shall take place after the conclusion of a peace treaty between Japan and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.”

A peace treaty has never been concluded and the main reason is the signing in 1960 of a military treaty between Japan and the USA, the Treaty of Mutual Cooperation and Security, first signed in San Francisco in 1954, but amended in January 1960, which the USSR regarded as a hostile act. One of the key elements of the amended agreement, and which highlights Japan’s status as an occupied nation, provides for the continued presence of US military bases in Japan. The provisions of the treaty stipulate that it was to remain in force permanently unless one party gives a year’s notice that it wishes to terminate it. Since Japan is still, in reality, an occupied nation it is unlikely that any Japanese government will give such a notice unless it wants to draw down on itself the full measures of retaliation for which the USA is notorious.

The implications of the treaty were recognized by many in Japan at the time and the leftist opposition tried to prevent its ratification by the Japanese Diet. There were physical confrontations between members of the Japanese Socialist Party that opposed it and the Liberal Democratic Party deputies supporting it and this was followed by massive demonstrations and rioting by students and trade unions. A Peoples Council to stop the treaty was formed representing a cross section of Japanese society including labour unions, farmers, teachers, poetry circles theater groups, student and women’s organisations and groups affiliated with the Socialist and Communist Parties but they were unsuccessful.

They took issue with the treaty primarily because of Article 6 that contains a Status of Forces Agreement on the stationing of US forces in Japan that permits the US to make major changes in the placement and location of bases and the use of those bases for US combat operations other than in defence of Japan, that is for offensive operations against other nations, with Japan thrown the bone of being “consulted” on these issues. It was a confirmation to many at the time that Japan remained an occupied country even though the formal military occupation had been declared at an end.

The consequences of the treaty are still important today as the US bases on the Japanese island of Okinawa continue to meet resistance from the people while successive Japanese governments, controlled by reactionary forces, act in lock step with the US in enforcing the agreement against the peoples’ wishes. Just this week Prime Minister Abe ignored a referendum that opposed the presence of the largest Okinawa base and instead approved the US plans for its relocation on the island.

As a result of the amendment of the Japan–US treaty, the USSR in January 1960, issued a Memorandum which needs to be read in full:

The Soviet Union certainly cannot ignore such a step as Japan’s conclusion of a new military treaty which undermines the basis for peace in the Far East and creates obstacles to the development of Soviet-Japanese relations. A new situation has formed in relation to the fact that this treaty actually deprives Japan of independence and that foreign troops stationed in Japan as a result of Japan’s surrender remain on Japanese territory. This situation makes it impossible for the Soviet Government to fulfill its promises to return the islands of Habomai and Shikotan to Japan.

It is because the Soviet Government met Japan’s wishes and took into consideration the interests of Japan and the peace-loving intentions expressed by the Japanese Government during the Soviet-Japanese negotiations that it agreed to hand over such islands to Japan after the signing of a peace treaty. But since the new military treaty signed by the Japanese Government is directed against the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China, the Soviet Government cannot contribute to extending the territory available to foreign troops by handing over such islands to Japan.

Thus, the Soviet Government finds it necessary to declare that the islands of Habomai and Shikotan will be handed over to Japan, as was stated in the Soviet-Japanese Joint Declaration of October 19, 1956, only if all foreign troops are withdrawn from Japan and a Soviet-Japanese peace treaty is signed.”

So, the USSR saw the Japan US treaty as a hostile act against both it and China, as a statement that Japan remained an occupied nation and was willing to conclude a peace treaty if, and only if, US forces were withdrawn from Japan.

The present Russian government states that this memorandum does not clarify conditions for handing over the islands and so further clarification is needed. What this language means is not clear but it is not a repudiation of the demand by the USSR that US forces be removed from Japan before a peace deal can be concluded. The dilemma for Russia is that the US forces in Japan are a threat to peace in the region and to Russia and China. Further, they fear that if they ignore the Soviet memorandum and go ahead with a peace treaty and hand over the designed islands to Japan the islands will be quickly occupied by US forces which will install their AEGIS missile systems there that can deploy nuclear armed missiles close to Russia in the Pacific and will allow them to threaten the large Russian naval base at Vladivostok. Yet the Japanese government, backed by the US, is pushing for the return of the islands as a precondition of a peace treaty. The Russians refuse to allow this.

In return the Russians can use the Memorandum as a lever to force the Japanese to kick the US forces out of Japan. So the impasse remains.

That these issues were discussed at a meeting on February 16 between Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov and the Japanese Foreign Minister Kono at the Munich Conference is indicated by the statement of the Japanese Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshida Suga at a press conference in Tokyo that “there was a frank, though sometimes heated, exchange of views’ between the two,” diplomatic language for a blazing row.

The Japanese have been in the process of signing military accommodation agreements with a number of Pacific Rim countries, including Canada, the past year, allowing for exchanges of military assistance, training, transfers of equipment and cooperation at the same time as it tries to wiggle out from the Japanese constitution imposed by the Americans that limits its military forces to defensive purposes. Japan wants to be a major power once again, not only economically, but also politically and militarily. It continues to rely on the American military umbrella as it does this and this also suits American immediate objectives since Japan can then become a powerful ally in the region. Japan seems to want to become more than an ally of the US. It wants to become again a power in the world in its own right. Until it has achieved its objective of again being a world power it can be expected to be a loyal ally to the USA and therefore a threat to Russia. It will not ask the US to withdraw its forces until it is ready; and the Russian government would face serious problems on the domestic front if it surrendered the islands to Japan under these conditions so it is unlikely that a peace treaty can be concluded between Russia and Japan in the near future.

So as North Korea, having suffered decades of Japanese military occupation, tries to deal with US militarism in the region, Russia has to contend with both US existing militarism and a rising Japanese militarism both of which constitute threats to its peace and security, a result of unfinished business from a world war that threatens a new world war.

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Christopher Black is an international criminal lawyer based in Toronto. He is known for a number of high-profile war crimes cases and recently published his novel “Beneath the Clouds. He writes essays on international law, politics and world events, especially for the online magazine “New Eastern Outlook.”

Featured image is from Russia Direct

Malaysia, on 12 January, one of the international hosts of the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships ethically boycotted Israel as a competitor.

Malaysia’s principled boycott was not directed against the athletes but against the Jewish state of Israel in protest of decades of Israel’s brutal illegal occupation, its 12 year illegal siege of Gaza and its months of recent sustained atrocities against Gaza’s unarmed protestors at the non-violent Great March of Return,

If hosting an international sporting event is more important than safeguarding the interests of our Palestinian brothers and sisters, than we have lost our moral compass.”  Syed Saddiq, Malaysia’s Minister of Youth and Sports

Perplexing to say the least was the response by the International Paralympic Committee (IPC) headed by its president, Andrew Parsons.

Would anyone of moral calibre, let alone a body that embraces athletes with impairments and is acutely aware that the courage and determination of these inspiring men and women is hard won through the mental and physical challenges, frustrations and inconveniences of daily life as well as dealing with societal attitudes, be ‘bitterly disappointed’ that Malaysia refuses visas to the delegation from terrorist Israel?

Israel’s mass maiming in Gaza

We are talking here of Israel – allowing for 15 minutes of objective research, the IPC  would find the indisputable fact that Israel is a vicious maiming machine manufacturing mental and physical disabilities in innocent Palestinian men, women and children over generations.

Did the IPC deliberate carefully on the present mass maiming in Gaza? Since the inception of the NON-VIOLENT Great March of Return on 30 March 2018, Israel’s calculated massacres and attacks (“Human Rights Watch concluded that the lethal crackdown was “planned at [the] highest levels of the Israeli government.”) have transmuted hundreds of  healthy unarmed young protestors into yet another disabled generation.

To arrive at an educated resolution, did the IPC Governing Board read testimonies of  Palestinian and international surgeons in ‘Will he lose his leg?’: Thousands of Gaza protesters facing life-altering injuries from Israeli high velocity bullets?                                                                 

And- shockingly – it is documented that Jewish Israeli snipers also targeted and killed disabled protestors.

From a witness,

“Gaza City—The sniper bullets don’t come in quick succession. It’s not a barrage of fire. It is methodical, patient, precise. A single shot rings out and someone falls. You wait a few minutes. The crosshairs settle on the next target. Another shot, another body drops. Again and again and again. It goes on for hours.

This is how the Israeli military shot more than 1,350 Palestinians in Gaza on a single day, on May 14. Slowly. 

As at least 60 people were being killed and over 2,700 wounded, White House officials clinked champagne glasses with their Israeli counterparts 50 miles away in Jerusalem to celebrate the transfer of the US embassy from Tel Aviv.”

On 3rd December 2018,

“According to the latest report issued by the Palestinian Ministry of Health, the total number of wounded is 24,516 since the Gaza Return March started.

The injuries in the lower limbs were 49.6% and 8.2% is the head and neck.

This gives a clear indication that the occupation is inflicting casualties on the largest number of citizens To cause permanent disabilities .. using explosive bullets in order to increase the suffering of the injured and affect them longer period.

The disabilities caused by the Israeli attacks since the beginning of Gaza March of Return reached 94, including 82 amputations in lower bodies, 12 amputations in upper body parts.”

The Great March of Return is now in its 48th week and despite the horror and carnage, young healthy as well as newly maimed Palestinians, children and grandchildren of the refugee survivors of the 1947-8 Nakba (Palestine’s holocaust) continue to protest for their legal Right of Return. Their resilience, courage and determination is phenomenal and is in contrast to IPC cowardice.

The IPC response

The IPC’s shabby response to Malaysia’s boycott was, “Politics and sport are never a good mix” 

This is the standard platitude for normalising injustice. The IPC knows, in the real world, that no individual is immune to politics and we all must take responsibility to reinforce our commitment to our fundamental moral and ethical principles that encompass inclusivity of all humanity to a life of peace and equity.

So did the IPC make a moral decision? A humanitarian one? No. The IPC hypocritically made the  politicaldecision to strip Malaysia of hosting the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships thereby normalising Israel’s brutal violations of international law and making mockery of IPC’s proclaimed ethical principles:

“Not only does this decision stress the importance of keeping sport and politics separate, but it also reinforces the IPC’s commitment to our fundamental moral and ethical principles that encompass inclusivity of all eligible Para athletes and nations to compete at IPC sanctioned events.”

The IPC has deliberately disregarded Israel’s butchering but I doubt there would be one para-athlete that would give impunity to any nation that has a brutal policy to systematically maim protected persons under occupation in violation of the 4th Geneva Convention. 

The WPSC hosts

Malaysia took the honourable stand – alone – unlike the IPC and the other hosts of the 2019 World Para Swimming Championships (WPSC) that are Israel’s shills:

Australia: is an obedient servant to Zionism, it has backed the illegal recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, has not supported UN resolutions condemning Israel’s illegal settlements. Does not recognise a Palestinian state.

USA:is the arch-apologist and shield for Israeli terrorism and war crimes, it arms and pays Israel $3.5 billion p.a. in ‘defence’ aid. Does not recognise a Palestinian state

Brazil: under president Lula da Silva, Brazil along with 137 nations has recognised the state of Palestine. Today’s fascist president Bolsonaro has vowed to move the Brazilian embassy to Jerusalem in defiance of international law. 

GB: since Israel’s 2014-war-crimes-war on Gazan families  it has sold to Israel $445 million of arms, including spare parts for sniper rifles’ despite the UK having ratified the UN Arms Trade Treaty (ATT) on 2nd April 2014. Does not recognise  a Palestinian state. 

Singapore: has a Special Relationship with Israel and strong diplomatic and economic ties since 1965 when IOF trained the newly established Singapore military. Does not recognise a Palestinian state 

Italy: has lucrative reciprocal military contracts with Israel that trump the Palestinian human right to life. Does not recognise a Palestinian state

Germany: since WWI Israel has led Germany by a nose-ring of outdated holocaust guilt to ironically support Israel’s systematic state-sponsored, racist holocaust of the Palestinian people. Does not recognise a Palestinian state

Conversely, Malaysia has a historical commitment to the fundamental moral and ethical principles that encompass Palestine’s human rights, 

“Malaysia’s support for Palestine stems from the 1970s. It was the first Southeast Asian nation to allow the Palestine Liberation Organisation to establish itself in its capital, Kuala Lumpur before having it upgraded to full embassy status in 1983. While Malaysia was a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council in 1989-1990, it helped the Palestinians lobby for support for their cause by allowing Palestine access to its network in the Non-Aligned Movement and Organisation of Islamic Cooperation. 

Additionally, Malaysia extended support for the cause financially and by having regular consultations. So much so that Tan Sri Razali Ismail, in his memoir, wrote that many of the UN resolutions on Palestine were written at the Malaysian mission in New York. Malaysia was an essential key player and important advocate of Palestinian issues. And throughout the years, Malaysia’s commitment stands firm. Its recent tenure in the UN Security Council was highly celebrated with the passing of Resolution 2334 declaring Israel’s settlement activity as a flagrant violation of international law and having no legal validity.”

And Malaysia’s President Dr Mahathir Mohamad has uncompromisingly withstood the predictable zionist slings and arrows of pseudo anti-semitism. 

Call for sanctions against Israel

The IPC should uphold its vision to ‘Inspire and excite – Touch the heart of all people for a more equitable society’ 

Israel, according to international law, is not equitable, it is a belligerent apartheid coloniser which daily perpetrates crimes against humanity and war crimes against the indigenous Palestinian people and therefore the IPC should place sanctions  against Israel until its ends its military occupation of Palestine.

Please demand that the International Paralympic Committee place sanctions against Israel: [email protected],[email protected], [email protected], [email protected]

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Dr. Vacy Vlazna is Coordinator of Justice for Palestine Matters and editor of a volume of Palestinian poetry, I remember my name. She was Human Rights Advisor to the GAM team in the second round of the Acheh peace talks, Helsinki, February 2005 then withdrew on principle. Vacy was convenor of  Australia East Timor Association and coordinator of the East Timor Justice Lobby as well as serving in East Timor with UNAMET and UNTAET from 1999-2001.