barak-obamaObama’s Final State of the Union: Lies, Evasions and Threats

By Patrick Martin, January 13 2016

The final State of the Union speech delivered Tuesday night by President Barack Obama was a demonstration of the incapacity of the American political system to deal honestly or seriously with a single social question.

yemen_children_unicefStatement by UNICEF Representative

By Julien Harneis, January 13 2016

Statement attributable to Julien Harneis, UNICEF Representative in Yemen “With no end in sight to the deadly conflict in Yemen, nearly 10 million children inside the country are now facing a new year of pain and suffering.”

china japanJapan Threatens East China Sea Stability, Plans to “Drive away Chinese Naval Ships”

By Kou Jie, January 13 2016

Japan plans to use Self-Defense Force units to drive away “Chinese naval ships” from waters near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, a move that experts say will break the currently controlled status-quo and may lead to escalated tensions or even open confrontation in the East China Sea.

Human-rights-watchRussia Names ‘Color Revolutions’, Foreign NGOs as Security Threats

By Russia Insider, January 13 2016

Russia just issued its revised national security document which names so-called color revolutions as a potential high risk to the country.

West Papua’s Cry for FreedomCivil Resistance in West Papua

By Jason Macleod, January 13 2016

West Papua is a secret story. On the western half of the island of New Guinea, hidden from the world, in a place occupied by the Indonesian military since 1963, continues a remarkable nonviolent struggle for national liberation.

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First published by WhoWhatWhy

I first met William Weyland Turner at a political conference, in a hotel bar in Los Angeles. He was 71, and Parkinson’s disease made his every move a staggering, slow-motion effort; walking, taking a sip of a drink, even laughing. Yet his brain remained sharp.

We bonded immediately over our distaste for our hotel. The rooms, all bad angles and David Lynch lighting, had allegedly been designed with feng shui in mind. Rooms of absurd discomfort resulted, with tiny nonsensical chairs and televisions that were propped up six inches off the ground and facing the window, as if for the benefit of local birds. The elevators were bathed in ominous red light;  when moving between floors, they produced ominous whispering rather than Muzak.

Most importantly, neither of us could turn on the overhead lights in our rooms, so we were forced to rely on the closet light for illumination. “I’m a smart guy,” Turner said. “You’re a smart guy. And we still can’t figure this out.” I ordered another $15 cocktail, unhappy about the tab but happy with the company.

William Turner – or, forever after, Bill – was in the final chapter of one hell of a life. He started off as the embodiment of one of those pragmatic, respectable, square-jawed men celebrated on mid-twentieth century American television, but wound up among hippies and conspiracy theorists. And the damndest thing about it was that the progression actually made perfect logical sense.

Born in 1927, he enrolled in the Navy at age 17, and was assigned to the Pacific shortly before the bombs were dropped in Japan. Returning home, he played semi-pro hockey, at one point flirting with the New York Rangers of the NHL.

But the FBI paid better – back then anyway. He stayed with the Bureau from 1951 to 1961, becoming increasingly dubious about its tactics and the curious obsessions of its leader, J. Edgar Hoover. When he finally left the FBI for good – he had tried to leave in 1957 but was assured that changes were in store – he didn’t go out, as he put it, with “the customary hearts and flowers routine.”[1] Instead, he decided to file suit for violations of his free speech rights, and although it was unsuccessful he did manage to get some negative assessments into the public record from other agents.

Turner had become increasingly uncomfortable with the director’s focus on rooting out a largely illusionary Communist threat, the beginnings of COINTELPRO (a program that targeted mostly black organizations, such as the Black Panthers, as well as Malcolm X and Dr. Martin Luther King), wiretapping and illegal “black-bag” jobs. In Turner’s opinion, the FBI seemed to be little more than the church of J. Edgar Hoover, which was dangerous for national security. As Turner himself jocularly relates in his autobiography:

…Hoover projected an image of perfection…An example of this is the story about the New York agents who cornered a fugitive at a subway entrance. A shootout ensued, and one agent was taken to the hospital with a leg wound. The next morning Hoover appeared with his civic group as scheduled. “Gentlemen,” he began, “I am with you this morning even though my heart is heavy, for last night in New York one of my agents was killed in a gun battle.” When the Director’s words reached New York, agents drew straws to see who would go to the hospital and finish off the wounded agent.[2]

Turner realized he was at a crossroads. He had served in the Navy and spent ten years investigating and prosecuting crime as one of Hoover’s finest. So what would he do? He would become a journalist, and not just any journalist – he would wind up as the editor of Ramparts magazine.

Along with Paul Krassner’s iconoclastic The Realist, Ramparts was one of the most radical magazines of its time: an ostensibly Catholic publication that was in practice a leftist attack on the status quo. Typical articles probed government surveillance or CIA infiltration of liberal groups. Authors included members of the Black Panther party .

In the 50s, every red-blooded American kid ran around with a Junior G-man badge; in the next decade, the FBI would be seen as yet another arm of an oppressive state. And somehow Bill Turner had moved from one to the other. It was like television star Donna Reed suddenly appearing in a West African dashiki.

The fact is, Turner had stayed true to his principles. He was a patriot, but he wasn’t a fool – and when he saw the FBI as part of the problem, he didn’t hesitate to join the other side.

The cover of Ramparts, June 1967. This issue contained an article by William W. Turner titled “"JFK Assassination: The Inquest”. Photo credit: Newmanology

As editor of Ramparts under publisher Warren Hinckle, he produced some of the most radical writing of the period, as well as giving voice to what was labeled the New American Left. This was a reaction to the Vietnam War, the emerging surveillance state, the presidencies of Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon, and the major assassinations of the Sixties – John and Robert Kennedy, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X.

In many ways, Turner was ahead of his time. One example is an article he wrote in the January 1967 Ramparts about the right-wing militia called the Minutemen. In words that could scarcely be more relevant today, he berates the FBI for spending all its time chasing the ghosts of Communism when a real American threat grows within our own society – disenfranchised white men violently opposed to racial change.

The article gained credence coming from someone who had recently been involved in the very organization he now criticized. Although offended, Hoover’s outfit realized that confronting Turner was pointless. An internal FBI memo notes that “Due to Turner’s attitude toward the Bureau, it would be useless to contact him to set him straight…No further action is necessary as this article merely represents another of Turner’s attempts to smear the Bureau.”[3]

That same issue of Ramparts played an important role in history for quite another reason: it contained William Pepper’s scathing anti-war article, “The Children of Vietnam.”

FBI Redactions regarding William W. Turner and Ramparts Magazine Photo credit: governmentattic.org

After reading Pepper’s piece, Dr. King  asked the author to speak to his Atlanta congregation. This relationship spurred the civil-rights leader to turn his attention to the Vietnam war, which he condemned in his famous April 4, 1967,speech. (King would be assassinated exactly one year after that speech.)

Meanwhile, Turner’s Minutemen article attracted the attention of New Orleans District Attorney Jim Garrison, who asked Turner to help him investigate the assassination of John F. Kennedy.[4]

A key figure in this investigation, dramatized in Oliver Stone’s 1991 movie, JFK, was a New Orleans businessman and CIA contract agent named Clay Shaw, whom Garrison accused of conspiring to kill Kennedy.

Turner agreed to help Garrison, and almost a year later wrote a cover story in Ramparts: “In my opinion, there is no question they have uncovered a conspiracy.”

One aspect of the case that Ramparts magazine focused on in the early going was a cluster of mysterious deaths of people involved in some way with the assassination.

An FBI memorandum, dated 10/27/1966, notes that in previous articles the magazine “…focused on at least 10 persons known to have been murdered, to have committed suicide, or died in suspicious circumstances since the Kennedy assassination…” Then there is a space and one remark: “The Director asked, What do we know of [REDACTED].”

A most intriguing redaction.

Turner himself wrote about some of these suspicious deaths, including that of Gary Underhill. Underhill had been in military intelligence in World War II, before working for the CIA and serving as an advisor to LIFE Magazine publisher Henry Luce, who controlled the famous Zapruder film of the Kennedy assassination .[5]

Several days after the JFK assassination, Underhill told a friend that he knew a drug-running faction of the CIA had killed Kennedy, adding, ominously, “they knew that he knew.” Underhill would later be found shot dead, with a pistol under his left arm. His death was ruled a suicide, despite the fact that Underhill was right-handed.

Turner wrote:

J . Garrett Underhill had been an intelligence agent during World War II and was a recognized authority on limited warfare and small arms. A researcher and writer on military affairs, he was on a first-name basis with many of the top brass in the Pentagon. He was also on intimate terms with a number of high ranking CIA officials – he was one of the Agency’s “un-people” who performed special assignments. At one time he had been a friend of Samuel Cummings of Interarmco, the arms broker that numbers among its customers the CIA and, ironically, Klein’s Sporting Goods of Chicago, from whence the mail order Carcano allegedly was purchased by Oswald.[6]

Having spent so much time aiding Garrison on the latter’s doomed investigation of President Kennedy’s assassination — Shaw was eventually acquitted of involvement — Turner would find himself investigating the murder of another Kennedy, John’s brother Robert, shot to death in June 1968. The resulting book (written with Jonn Christian), The Assassination of Robert F. Kennedy: The Conspiracy and Coverup, continues to be one of the key volumes written on the case, along with Shane O’Sullivan’s Who Killed Bobby?

The general public is mostly unaware of the evidence for a conspiracy in the death of RFK, even though the physical evidence is easier to understand than in the JFK case. Although witnesses saw Sirhan Sirhan shoot at RFK while facing his front, the Senator’s wounds are in his back and the rear of his head, from a gun fired at point-blank range.

An astonishing story in its own right, complete with a Girl in a Polka Dot Dress, a “Walking Bible,” and mind control, the RFK assassination narrative is too complex to relate here. However, Turner and Christian must have done something right, because Random House destroyed 20,000 copies of the book rather than publish it, allegedly in response to the threat of a lawsuit by a known criminal with an FBI rap sheet.[7]

Turner would go on to write more books, including an autobiography. Although slowed in later years by his Parkinson’s, his ailments did not affect his mind. He continued to write and research, and remained as passionate as ever about exposing the truth behind government obfuscations.

Bill Turner died on December 26, 2015.

I worked with him numerous times over the years, helping him deliver his speeches at the yearly Coalition on Political Assassinations (COPA) conferences, and he was always flexible, polite, and pleasant. (This may not seem like much, but when you work with dozens of remote speakers from all over the world, an affable and cooperative manner truly matters).

In a research “community” too often characterized by cut-throat competitiveness, Bill made himself a lot of friends for his gentle spirit and his kindness. His memory, as well as his work, will live on.

Notes:


[1] Ibid, 15.

[2] Turner, William. Rearview Mirror (Penmarin Books: Granite Bay, CA: 2001), 3.

[3] Memorandum, 1/19/1967, to W. S. Sullivan from C. D. Brennan, Subject: “Minutemen”

[4] Turner, 116.

[5] DiEugenio, James. Destiny Betrayed (Skyhorse Publishing: New York, NY: 2012), 98.

[6] Turner, William, “The Inquest,” Ramparts, June 1967.

[7] Turner, Rearview Mirror, 259.


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The Syrian Air Force has targeted a convoy of 20 tankers smuggling oil from territories held by ISIS on the al-Mayadin Highway near the city of Dayr al-Zawr.

A top commander of al-Qaeda-linked Ahrar al-Sham terrorist group, Abu Talib, was killed in a trap explosion in the Idlib province.

The loyalist forces are advancing in the southeastern part of the Hama province. Last night, clashes resumed along the northern bank of the Orontes River. The Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and its allies clashed with Al-Nusra and Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham at the village of Jarjisah located north of the terrorist-controlled town of Al-Rastan. The SAA reportedly killed about 25 militants and imposed control of Jarisah as result of these clashes. Next expected aim of the Syrian forces is the town of Al-Rastan.

Separately, a number of civilians sustained injuries after militants groups launched mortar attacks on the northern part of the Syrian province of Hama.

On Monday, the pro-government forces launched military operations to capture the town of Al-Rashiddeen in South Aleppo clashing with militants of Al-Nusra, Harakat Ahrar Al-Sham, Liwaa Suqour Al-Sham, and Harakat Nouriddeen Al-Zinki. The SAA reportedly captured the militants’ supply route to Al-Rashiddeen. The urban fighting is continuing.

The tensions have been raised between a Christian militia, called the Gozarto Protection Forces (GPF), and the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in the city of Al-Qamishli. 1 GPF member was reportedly killed and 3 locals wounded in the clashes observed inside the Al-Wasta District of Al-Qamishli last night. Other reports argue that the GPF fighters killed 3 YPG fighters which is a branch of the SDF, defending their positions in the district. The development shows that despite the US support the predominantly Kurdish SDF forces are unable to advance to the territories with major non-Kurdish populations.

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ISIS and other terrorist groups are killing Syrians they hold captive by appalling atrocities,  exposure to freezing temperatures, denial of vital medical treatment, and starvation.

Syrian armed forces so far haven’t freed trapped Fuaa and Kafrya residents in Idlib province mountainous areas. They may freeze to death from exposure or perish from denial of essential to life services.

Syrians in Aleppo province Nubl and Al-Zahra areas are threatened the same way. Unknown numbers are dying out of sight and mind, their situation ignored by the media- suffering at the hands of US-supported ISIS and other terrorist groups, holding them captive under siege and endless war.

Anyone attempting to leave risks being lethally shot by snipers. Many hundreds of desperate men, women and children were killed or wounded, medical care mostly unavailable.

Earlier Syrian attempts to deliver humanitarian aid were blocked or stolen. Nubl and Al-Zahra have been under siege for years.

Fake Western, Saudi and Qatari media images alleging Madaya starvation substitute for explaining the plight of Syrians besieged by ISIS and other terrorist groups.

On Monday, humanitarian aid reached Madaya residents – 44 trucks delivering food, medicines, blankets and other supplies, despite ISIS terrorists controlling most of the area.

They routinely steal humanitarian aid, using it for themselves along with selling it at unaffordable prices – around $250 for a kilogram of rice.

Residents complained of confiscated government aid – current supplies at risk.

On Monday, the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) reported 65 trucks of humanitarian aid reaching Madaya, Kafrya and Fuaa – a cooperative Syrian government, Syrian Red Crescent, ICRC and UN initiative.

Whether supplies reach desperate people in need remains to be seen, given terrorists’ attempts to steal them.

Separately, Russia reports its aerial campaign struck 1,100 terrorist targets since January 1 alone – permitting Syrian armed forces to continue retaking territory lost earlier, inflicting heavy casualties and loss of equipment on ISIS and other takfiris.

Two key terrorist field commanders were killed in combat – Bashar Mohamed Al-Qatur and Mohamed Ismael.

Operations are impeded by Ankara directly aiding terrorist fighters – letting them freely cross back and forth between Turkey and Syria.

Erdogan provides them with weapons, munitions, equipment and supplies. He sells their smuggled oil, waging proxy war on Syria complicit with Washington.

 Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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A rarely told story of the 1948 war that founded Israel concerns Nazareth’s survival. It is the only Palestinian city in what is today Israel that was not ethnically cleansed during the year-long fighting. Other cities, such as Jaffa, Lydd, Ramleh, Haifa and Acre, now have small Palestinian populations that mostly live in ghetto-like conditions in what have become Jewish cities. Still others, like Tiberias and Safad, have no Palestinians left in them at all.

Nazareth was not only an anomaly; it was a mistake. It was supposed to be cleared of its Palestinian population, just like those other Palestinian cities now in Israel. Much to Israel’s regret, it has become an unofficial capital for Israel’s 1.6 million Palestinian citizens, a fifth of the Israeli population.

The reason for Nazareth’s survival are the actions of one individual. Ben Dunkelman, a Canadian Jew who was the commander of the Israeli army’s Seventh Armoured Brigade, disobeyed orders to expel Nazareth’s residents.

Dunkelman’s role has been largely obscured in the historical record – and for good reason. Israel would prefer that observers make an unjustified assumption: that “Christian” Nazareth survived, unlike other Palestinian cities, because its leaders were less militant or because they preferred to surrender. Dunkelman’s story proves that was not the case.

It is therefore a welcome development that a major Canadian newspaper, the Toronto Star, has revisited Dunkelman’s role in Nazareth, even if its reporter, Mitch Potter, has contributed in his own way to the mythologising of Dunkelman in an article headlined: “The Toronto man who saved Nazareth”.

Excised memories

It is worth bearing in mind, when we consider the attacks on Palestinian cities in 1948, how sensitive these matters were for Israel. Both Dunkelman and another commander, Yitzhak Rabin, who would later become a prime minister, wrote memoirs that included their experiences of the 1948 war.

Under pressure from the Israeli military authorities, both excised from their accounts the sections they had written dealing with the attacks on the Palestinian cities they were responsible for attacking. That was because those accounts were the proof, long denied by Israel and its supporters, that the Israeli leadership had intended and carried out the ethnic cleansing of most of the Palestinian population during 1948.

Some 750,000 Palestinians – out of 900,000 living inside the borders of what was to become the new Jewish state – were forced out and refused the right to return. In fact, the expulsion rate was far higher than the ostensible 80 per cent figure. Under pressure from the Vatican, Israel allowed many Christian refugees back; it did a land swap with Jordan in 1949 that brought more than 30,000 Palestinians into the new state; and many Palestinian refugees managed to sneak back to surviving communities like Nazareth and blend in with the local population in preparation for what they hoped would be their return to their villages.

Rabin led the attack on the Palestinian cities of Lydd and Ramleh, near Tel Aviv and today the mostly Jewish cities of Lod and Ramla. According to the missing section of his autobiography, later publicised in the New York Times, Rabin asked David Ben Gurion, Israel’s first prime minister, what to do with the 50,000 inhabitants of Lydd and Ramleh. Rabin recounted: “Ben Gurion waved his hand in a gesture that said: ‘Drive them out!’” Rabin did exactly that, after a terrible massacre of hundreds of residents who were sheltering in a local mosque.

Ben Gurion, as the Israeli historian of the period Ilan Pappe has noted in his book The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine, was careful not to leave a paper trail showing that he had ordered the expulsion of Palestinians. Instead, Israel would promote the myth that the Palestinian population had been ordered by neighbouring Arab leaders to flee.

Relieved of command

We do not know if Dunkelman had a similar meeting with Ben Gurion. What we do know, and the Star’s account confirms, is that it had been made clear to Dunkelman that he was supposed to expel the inhabitants of Nazareth. Dunkelman disobeyed, and allowed the city to surrender. He was relieved of his command in Nazareth a day later.

The Star reports on a page referring to the attack on Nazareth that was removed from Dunkelman’s 1976 memoir, Dual Allegiance. We know about it only because his ghostwriter, the late Israeli journalist Peretz Kidron, tried to interest the New York Times in Dunkelman’s story, as a counterpart to Rabin’s. The Times published the Rabin story but ignored Dunkelman’s.

Interestingly, Dunkelman kept the account of his role in the Nazareth attack so quiet that, according to their quotes in the Star, neither his son nor his publisher at Macmillan knew about it.

Dunkelman writes that he was “shocked and horrified” at the order to depopulate Nazareth. He told his superior, Haim Laskov: “I would do nothing of the sort.” He demanded that his replacement give his “word of honour” that the inhabitants would be allowed to stay, and concludes: “It seems that my disobedience did have some effect … It seems to have given the high command time for second thoughts, which led them to the conclusion that it would indeed be wrong to expel. There was never any more talk of the evacuation plan, and the city’s Arab citizens have lived there ever since.”

‘Swallowing’ Nazareth

In fact, we know what those “second thoughts” were. Stripped of a pretext to justify expulsions from Nazareth in the supposed “heat of battle”, Ben Gurion came up with Plan B (or maybe it was Plan E, given that the ethnic cleansing was inspired by Plan Dalet, or D in Hebrew).

In the wake of the 1948 war, during a near two-decade period of military government imposed on Israel’s new Palestinian minority, Ben Gurion decided to establish Nazareth Ilit (Upper Nazareth) almost on top of Nazareth. It was the flagship of his “Judaisation of the Galilee” campaign. Ben Gurion was aghast not only that Nazareth had survived, but that it had doubled in size as thousands of refugees from surrounding villages fled to it seeking sanctuary.

According to Israeli state archives, Michael Michael, the military governor for Nazareth in this period, stated that the goal of Nazareth Ilit was to “swallow up” Nazareth. In short, Israel hoped retrospectively to destroy Nazareth as a Palestinian city, transforming it into another Lydd. The Jewish city of Nazareth Ilit would become with the main city, with Nazareth its own shadow ghetto. Despite Israel’s best efforts, it largely failed in this goal, not least because it struggled to attract Israeli Jews to live next to a large Palestinian population .

Why was it so important for the Israeli leadership to destroy Nazareth? Because they feared that a Palestinian city – with its intellectuals, political activists, and advanced education system under the control of international Christian institutions – might encourage the emergence of an effective resistance, one that would be able to mount opposition to a state privileging Jews. Such a political and cultural capital might articulate to the outside world exactly what Israel was up to in Judaising places with large Palestinian populations like the Galilee.

Mortar barrages

The Toronto Star’s starry-eyed account of Dunkelman includes the following observation: “He won no medals for refusing to molest civilians [in Nazareth], nor any credit from his Israeli superiors.” He is painted as a man who stuck close to the rules of war and avoided hurting civilians wherever possible in a series of “almost bloodless” attacks.

But in fact, as the Star notes in passing, Dunkelman’s chief military talent was for making innovative use of “concentrated mortar barrages”, a skill he learnt during the Second World War. In other words, he was an expert at firing large numbers of imprecise shells into populated areas, inevitably killing and wounding civilians.

Two Canadians have published posts making important criticisms of the Star’s account.

Peter Larson, chair of Canada’s National Education Committee on Israel-Palestine, points out that the operation in July 1948 led by Dunkelman was an attack on communities like Nazareth that were supposed to be firmly part of an Arab state under the terms of the United Nations Partition Plan, set out nine months earlier. As Larson writes, “Nazareth was forcibly incorporated into the new State of Israel contrary to the UN plan and despite the wishes of its residents.”

Protection for Christians

There is archival evidence to suggest that Dunkelman believed Christian Palestinians needed protecting, a view he did not extend to Muslim Palestinians.

Israeli historian Benny Morris notes a cable from Dunkelman as his troops marched through the Galilee in November 1948: “I protest against the eviction of Christians from the village of Rama and its environs. We saw Christians at Rama in the fields thirsty for water and suffering from robbery. Other brigades expelled Christians from villages that did not resist and surrendered to our forces. I suggest that you issue an order to return the Christians to their villages.”

Morris mentions that under the influence of Dunkelman, among others, the Israeli army’s guidelines on the expulsion of Christian Palestinians changed over time.

In contrast to his decision to protect Nazareth and Christians, Dunkelman and his soldiers were ruthless in driving out Palestinians from many of the more than 500 Palestinian communities razed by Israel in 1948 and afterwards.

War crimes

In Saffuriya, a large Muslim village a few kilometres from Nazareth that was attacked by the Seventh Brigade a day earlier, barrel bombs were dropped on the village as the residents were at home breaking that day’s Ramadan fast. All of Saffuriya’s inhabitants were driven out, and their homes destroyed. Today it is an exclusively Jewish farming community called Tzipori.

Without a doubt, Dunkelman directly participated in the mass expulsion of many tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians from their homes – a war crime by the laws of war that had recently emerged in the wake of the Second World War. He also admitted in his memoir that he allowed his troops to loot Palestinian property, another war crime.

But, while he does not refer to them in Dual Allegiance, Dunkelman is also implicated in some of the more notorious Israeli massacres of Palestinians in 1948.

In the worst case, in the village of Safsaf, north of Safad, notes Canadian journalist Dan Freeman-Moloy, Dunkelman had command responsibility as he led Operation Hiram in late October 1948. His troops’ behaviour in Safsaf and elsewhere is made clear in documents in Israel’s military archives uncovered by Morris for his book The Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem.

Drawing on a declassified briefing from November 1948 by Israel Galili, Ben Gurion’s number two in the defence ministry, Morris writes of the actions of Dunkelman’s troops:

“At Saliha it appears that troops blew up a house, possibly the village mosque, killing 60-94 persons who had been crowded into it. In Safsaf, troops shot and then dumped into a well 50-70 villagers and POWs [prisoners of war]. In Jish, the troops apparently murdered about 10 Moroccan POWs (who had served with the Syrian Army) and a number of civilians, including, apparently, four Maronite Christians, and a woman and her baby.”

Morris concluded:

“These atrocities, mostly committed against Muslims, no doubt precipitated the flight of communities on the path of the IDF advance. … What happened at Safsaf and Jish no doubt reached the villagers of Ras al Ahmar, ‘Alma, Deishum and al Malikiya hours before the Seventh Brigade’s columns. These villages, apart from ‘Alma, seem to have been completely or largely empty when the IDF arrived.”

Dunkelman can no doubt take credit for Nazareth’s survival. But a full and proper historical accounting is still needed of the war crimes committed not only by Dunkelman but by those he answered to.

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If the future of labor unions is in the hands of the Supreme Court, the outlook is bleak. Labor’s denial was shattered when Judge Alito signaled that the Court had the votes to decimate union membership nationwide. This specific attack aims at public sector unions, the last high-density stronghold of the labor movement. It also foreshadows that private sector unions will be further attacked, into dust this time.   

The Friedrichs decision now seems inevitable, but nothing is inevitable in politics. The decision will not be announced until June, and this 5 month delay allows unions time to fully express their power. A nationwide series of actions would certainly make the Supreme Court think twice. And the Supreme Court is especially politically sensitive.

A primary yet unofficial duty of the Supreme Court is to gauge and express public opinion, by codifying it into law. The biggest decisions in Supreme Court history were the expressions of mass movements, organized social demands that forced themselves onto the pages of the constitution and other landmark precedents that deeply affected millions of people.

The winning of civil rights, ending segregation, a woman’s right to choose, and laws that allow for the formation of strong labor unions were not granted by the Supreme Court, but foisted upon it through sustained collective action. The recent victory of the LGBTQ movement was won through years of militant organizing, not cheerfully bestowed by the conservative Supreme Court.

The landmark labor law that Friedrichs seeks to destroy was itself won through mass struggle. In 1977 the labor movement won a resounding victory in ‘‘Abood vs Detroit.” In discussing the Abood decision, the Supreme Court acknowledged — and continues to discuss — the “social peace” motive that was at the core of the Abood decision.

In 1977 “social peace” referred to the nationwide strike waves in the public sector that raged from the late 60’s and 70’s. The teacher unions were especially active, with a thousand strikes that involved hundreds of thousands of teachers.

The main demand of these public sector unions — strong unions — became legal rights recognized by the Supreme Court. This Abood victory was, like other social movement victories, a power forced onto the Supreme Court, not freely given.

Unions are under attack now because their prior strength appears zapped. Union membership has shrunk for decades and the power that won Abood seems vulnerable to a thrashing. Unions are backed into a corner, and they can either fight for dear life or be steamrolled while frozen in the headlights.

Unions have five months to fight back. The public’s mind is not made up. Social media can influence millions of minds in days. In fact, unions have already successfully transformed opinion about unions in recent years. The ongoing success of the “fight for 15” and high publicity actions like the Chicago Teachers Union strike have deeply resonated with the public.

According to the most recent Gallop poll, union support continues to rise, with a 5% increase in the last year. Now 66% of young people support unions. These are powerful statistics that can and must be transformed into action. Immediately.

If the Supreme Court sees millions of feet in the street, it would take notice. If the Court saw the coordinated occupation of state capitols across the country, à la Wisconsin 2011, the Court wouldn’t dare rule against unions, since the judges know better than to ignite social fires. Their sworn but unspoken duty is to put them out.

The Supreme Court is the arbitrator of social forces in the country, and for unions to get the best possible ruling they must apply the maximum of social force. Unions cannot temper their demands now, they must maximize them.

For example, the unions in California that filed a ballot measure for a $15 minimum wage are boldly riding the tsunami of the “fight for 15,” while an opposite example can be found in Washington state, where unions bargained against themselves by filing a ballot measure for $13.50 instead. Now is the time to shoot for the stars; there is nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Millennials are dying for living wages, stable jobs, and the dignity that comes with the job protections that unions offer. They understand their situation would improve with a strong union. They are waiting to be organized and brought into the labor movement.

The South is likewise very pro-union, and like millennials most people in the South have no union. The basic math here favors unionization strongly, but only a strong and dedicated union movement can take advantage of this.

A nationwide coordinated day of action that promises something like ’50 Wisconsin’s in 50 States’ would certainly grab the Supreme Court’s attention, by the throat. Unions have the power to do something incredible like this, and desperate times demand desperate measures.

Union members must insist that their leaders work with other unions in organizing mass rallies while pouring resources into educating and mobilizing the public behind demands like $15, rent control, and the creation of public sector jobs through taxing the rich. Unions should also link up with the Black Lives Matter movement and demand that Democratic nominees for president become champions for a pro-union Friedrichs decision.

Unions cannot wish Friedrichs away. Not organizing powerfully and broadly will empower the Supreme Court to rule against us, striking a blow that can’t be simply shaken off. It won’t be a mild concussion either, but a coma; one that unions might not wake from for another 30 years.

Shamus Cooke is a Chief Steward for SEIU 503, and writer for Workers Action (www.workerscompass.org). He can be reached at [email protected]

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The information age is actually a media age. We have war by media; censorship by media; demonology by media; retribution by media; diversion by media – a surreal assembly line of obedient clichés and false assumptions ~ John Pilger

.

Madaya.  Here is my list of 36 questions that the mainstream media should have asked but didn’t:

  1.  How many civilians are in Madaya?
  2. What is the history of Madaya and the region?
  3. How important is Hezbollah’s presence in the region?
  4. How does this affect Israel’s agenda and links to the various terrorist factions involved?
  5. Who precisely is occupying Madaya. What % are Ahrar al Sham, Al Nusra or FSA?
  6. Are those gangs from Madaya originally or have they been imported into Madaya?
  7. If imported into Madaya, who by and for what reason?
  8. To whom are the villagers of Madaya allied?
  9. If they are indeed anti Assad, why are we seeing video footage of pro Assad demonstrations and the citizens chanting “The Syrian people and the Syrian Army are one hand”?
  10. If it is the SAA, Hezbollah and the Syrian Government imposing the “starvation” why then do we see video footage of civilians arguing with terrorists and saying. “we are hungry not you”?
  11. Why have we not seen one image of a starving terrorist?
  12. Why if the Syrian Government is not allowing aid into Madaya have we been told that the Red Cross/UN entered Madaya on the 19th October with enough food to last 2 months?
  13. Why if the Syrian Government is not allowing aid into Madaya was the UN able to enter on the 28th December 2015 and evacuate 126 wounded terrorists?
  14. Why, if the UN evacuated wounded terrorists, did they not evacuate the “starving” children or at least mention that conditions were deteriorating in Madaya?
  15. Why do relief campaigns state clearly that there is food available but at extortionate prices?
  16. If food is available at extortionate prices who is stockpiling it? Those who occupy Madaya ie the terrorists or the SAA who are outside Madaya and have no control over the food once it has been delivered by the UN allowed in by the SAA?
  17. If the terrorists are stockpiling the food delivered by the UN with permission of the Syrian Government, who is responsible for any subsequent starvation?
  18. The food for Madaya comes from Damascus which is a Government held area.  If the Syrian Government is intent upon starving its own people or even those who might be in opposition why would it allow food to leave Damascus to be taken to Madaya?
  19. The Syrian Government is accused of bombing its own people time and time again, why, therefore, did the Syrian Government not simply bomb Madaya but instead allowed food into the village and evacuated terrorists as part of an ongoing Amnesty deal?
  20. Why are we publishing photos without verifying them?
  21. Why are we relying on information from “activists” and not sending reporters to Madaya to witness the reality?
  22. Why, if people have died of starvation, have no names been released or records produced?
  23. Why, if we know Kafarya and Foua are a part of the ongoing negotiations for amnesty and release of civilians from terrorist siege in Kafarya and Foua, do we never mention these villages that have been under genuine starvation since March 2015 and partial siege and assault since 2011.
  24. Why might the village of Madaya be under siege by the SAA?
  25. If it is under siege, for how long? When did this siege start and what events coincide?
  26. How does this siege relate to the ongoing amnesty negotiations?
  27. Is siege a normal event in warfare? What other sieges in history compare?
  28. Why do we not mourn the 1700 lives lost in Kafarya and Foua with the same intensity that we mourn lives lost in Madaya that we cannot prove have been lost?
  29. Why do we not listen to the Red Cross spokesperson when he says Madaya had enough food for 2 months [delivered on the 19th October] or that they have now delivered enough food for 40,000 people
  30. Why do we not register the fact that the same Red Cross spokesperson stated clearly that they have no problem entering Government held areas with the exception of Deir Ezzor but they cannot enter any “moderate rebel” held areas.
  31. Why, if the FSA are the recognised “moderate rebels” are they working with Al Nusra [Al Qaeda] and Ahrar al Sham [Al Qaeda affiliate] in Madaya?
  32. Why are hundreds of residents of the town of Madaya Rural Damascus fleeing toward the Syrian army positions asking to be evacuated to government controlled areas?
  33. Where does all the money go that is raised by the Government agencies loosely masquerading as NGOs?
  34. Why do we condemn before we have asked the right questions?
  35. Why do we never discuss the NATO US GCC Israeli siege of Syria?
  36. Why do we lie and keep lying even when the truth is looking us straight in the eye?
  37. How do we sleep at night?

It’s 100 years since the First World War. Reporters then were rewarded and knighted for their silence and collusion. At the height of the slaughter, British prime minister David Lloyd George confided in CP Scott, editor of the Manchester Guardian:

“If people really knew [the truth] the war would be stopped tomorrow, but of course they don’t know and can’t know.”

It’s time they knew. ~ John Pilger 

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Fars News reported Iranian military forces seized two small US naval vessels on Tuesday, detaining 10 crew members – “trespassing (provocatively three nautical miles within) Iran’s territorial waters.”

Pentagon and State Department officials made dubious claims about one boat experiencing mechanical problems, contact lost with both vessels before entering Iranian waters.

Washington spies intensively on Iran, both vessels likely involved in surveillance, conducting operations illegally in Iranian waters, caught red-handed. GPS devices taken from crew members confirmed their illegal presence in Iranian waters.

On Wednesday, Fars News reported Iran’s Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) issuing a statement, saying “it has released the US marines and their vessels in international waters” after determining no harm done by entering Iranian waters.

Crew members were treated humanely. “The Americans have undertaken not to repeat such mistakes.”

The IRGC blamed Washington for “excited and unprofessional moves,” saying it prioritizes regional calm.

John Kerry was in contact with his Iranian counterpart, Foreign Minister Javad Zarif. He requested a formal apology, Kerry extending it, according to Fars News.

On Wednesday, Iranian Armed Forces’ Chief of Staff Major General Hassan Firouzabadi said “(w)e hope the incident…which will not probably be the American forces’ last mistake in the region, will be a lesson to (US congressional members) seeking to sabotage” last year’s nuclear deal.

He stressed Iranian vigilance in confronting provocative regional moves. Following the seizure of US vessels, Iranian naval commander Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi said:

“the US Navy and (a nearby) aircraft carrier resorted to unprofessional behavior as well as aerial and seaborne provocations in the area, which were deflected through the IRGC’s timely action.”

“Any country’s territorial waters are where the presence of vessels should come with prior notification and permission.”

Last October, Defense Secretary Ashton Carter asserted America’s right to “fly, sail and operate” anywhere it wishes globally, governed solely by its own rules, risking world peace and stability.

Provocations repeat with disturbing regularity. Was Tuesday’s incident the result of a mechanical problem as Washington claims or a spying mission caught red-handed?

Iranian authorities diplomatically downplayed it, choosing calm over confrontation.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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The USDA Secretary of Agriculture, Tom Vilsack, previously indicated he would be back to business as usual as soon as government officials returned to work from their holiday break. Now he has reportedly announced a closed-door, invitation-only meeting to continue the bidding of the biotech industry. [1]

Natural Society has pointed out Vilsack’s very obvious conflict of interest in his position before as it pertains to Big Biotech and other health/food related sectors, but this planned meeting makes it even more obvious that he has no intention of protecting the small farmer, or US agriculture in general.

Vilsack’s plan for a secret meeting is timed with Campbell’s Soup Company’s announcement that it is going to adopt GMO labeling for all of its products. While representatives from Big Food and Big Biotech, including Monsanto executives, will be invited to the meeting in Washington D.C., it seems odd that not one official representative will be invited from the four states that have recently passed obligatory GMO labeling laws: Alaska, Connecticut, Maine, and Vermont.

There should be no ‘secret’ invitation-only meetings. They should all be open to the public, and at the very least broadcast or live recorded for all to participate in the democratic process of deciding what is to become of our food.

Furthermore, any federal GMO labeling law, rule, or policy MUST be mandatory – not voluntary – and no state’s rights should be trampled upon in any new ‘regulations’ imposed, as was attempted with the DARK Act.

GMO labeling is indeed already a compromise to a full-out ban. More than 90% of the public has demanded labeling, and any closed-door meetings only insinuate the patent truth – – that Vilsack plans to sneak more legislation into our country…that he would keep you from knowing what is in your food.

Notes:

[1] GMO Free USA

AltHealthWorks

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After the killing of Michael Brown in the streets of Ferguson, Missouri in the late summer of 2014, protests erupted, and the Black Lives Matter spread across North America to protest police violence, too often systematically directed at poor and racialized communities.

The massive police presence at these protests, with weapons and armoured vehicles that looked and felt like major military deployments, made it clear to all that something fundamental had taken place in policing practices and strategies. The intensification and extension of the coercive and security branches of the state was well-known since the declaration of the ‘war on terror’ in 2001, and the subsequent leaks of official documents by Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning and others. The hardening of the state in its day-to-day operations at the most local levels could now be seen everywhere by all, in an increasing confrontation with the democratic rights of assembly and protest.

Lesley Wood’s recent book, Crisis and Control: The Militarization of Protest Policing (2014), locates these developments in a longer term perspective in relation to the spread of neoliberalism. Analyzing police agencies, strategies and practices from the mid-1990s to the present, she identifies a range of the structural and political forces that have led to the militarization of policing, particularly in North America, but also in trends that extend to Europe. This involves detailing a new matrix in the relations between the security, national police and defence apparatuses of the state with local police forces and the defence and security industries. Professional police associations and their various conferences and conventions have become important nodes for the spread of ‘best-practice policing’, in the form of kettling, barricading, infiltration and pre-emptive arrests, usage of new anti-protest weaponry, security screening, local intelligence-gathering capacities and the like. But also as sites where the case is made for an increase in police budgets, more capital intensification of policing and thus for accumulation by the ‘coercive’ industries (which define modern urbanism as much as the so-called ‘creative’ sector).

In a period of sharpening inequality, permanent neoliberal austerity, and hard right forces gaining ground, the logic for a further militarization of policing, securitizing of cities, and curtailing and limiting protests. In her book, Wood seeks not only to map these developments in North America through time, but also to expose the contradictions in the new forms of policing in capitalist states, and begin to pose how social and anti-capitalist movements will have to respond to ‘demilitarize our relations’.

Lesley Wood teaches sociology at York University, Toronto and Greg Albo teaches political science at York University.

*

Greg Albo (GA): Your book is a powerful dissection of the ways that the policing of protests have been transformed over the last decade or so. When did you start noticing these shifts? What was it that made you want to take it up as a necessary research project for the anti-capitalist and social justice movements?

Lesley J. Wood (LJW): I’ve been going to protests since I was in high school, starting with anti-death penalty, anti-apartheid, and anti-nuclear mobilizations. Most of these protests were permitted, routine and very large affairs. As a white woman, my experience with the police was limited and relatively predictable. However, when I attended protests against the Democratic Republican Convention in Chicago in 1996, I was struck by a different style of police action – there were masses of police surrounding the march, funnelling the crowd into a fenced pen where we were supposed to protest, organizers were grabbed and arrested, and organizing spaces were raided by hundreds of police. We had to flee and hide out in a warehouse in the South Side of Chicago. I saw this style again when I moved to New York City and became involved in anti-police brutality and Reclaim the Streets protests in 1998. The police would attempt to trap us on the sidewalk, using barricades and bikes; they would grab organizers in advance, and attempt mass arrests – any trust or predictability quickly dissolved.

During this same period, the global justice movement emerged, and one could see both the style of protest transform, not just in the U.S. but in Canada. My earlier writing looked at this transformation of protest tactics, and the use of direct action, but activist friends pushed me to understand the other side of the puzzle, the simultaneous and interactive changes to protest policing.

GA: Many of us in North America would identify the increase of coercion and police presence with the anti-globalization protests of the late 1990s, and in Canada with the Summit of the Americas protests in Quebec City. How do you date these trends in the militarization of policing and what are some of its main features and practices?

LJW: Clearly, the pepper spraying of protesters at the Asian Pacific Economic Community (APEC) summit by the RCMP in 1997, and the tear gassing, pepper spraying and mass arrests at the WTO protests in Seattle in 1999 were turning points that justified a change in protest policing strategy. John Noakes and Pat Gillham cite a Philadelphia police official that argues that the Seattle protests were parallel to Pearl Harbor in the way that the changed protest policing. However, the roots of the shift go back to the use of armoured personnel carriers and SWAT teams in Black and Latino communities during the heyday of the War on Drugs, and the new less lethal weapons like pepper spray that began to be used by police in the mid-1990s after the LAPD beat Rodney King on camera – and people rioted. This militarized equipment was combined with an emphasis on spatial control by 2000, and then after 9/11, incorporated an emphasis on threat assessment and intelligence led policing.

The new model of protest policing that emerged in the late 1990s has been called “strategic incapacitation,” “the Miami Model” or as the French translation of my book calls it, “neutralization.” It involves a logic of pre-emption and control – that evaluates protest as a potential threat. As a result it combines four elements, first an emphasis on intelligence gathering and threat assessments; second, spatial control; third, militarized units with less lethal weapons, and fourth, pre-emptive mass arrests.

GA: A lot of your prior research has been on the history of social movements and protests. These movements for social justice have always had to confront the coercive apparatuses of the state, and often police violence, from setting up and defending picket lines to protesting war. What are some of the historical comparisons we need to keep in mind in understanding the current period?

LJW: Police repression is clearly not new. Explicit repression also tends to increase when waves of protests accelerate. In the early part of the 20th century, the 1930s and in the late 1960s, many movements in North America and beyond were militant and disruptive, and in such periods police actions became extremely brutal as they attempted to maintain control. The period from the mid-1970s through the 1990s included a wide range of movements, but many of them were relatively routinized and cooperated with police permit processes and their attempts to manage and control the disruptiveness of protest.

This ‘negotiated management’ or ‘liason policing’ model was still repressive, but it worked through negotiation, permits and management. As more disruptive movements arose, activists challenged this model, and the police responded with more explicit force. In the past fifteen years we’ve seen a sequence of short lived but significant waves of protest – the global justice movement, the anti-war movement, Occupy, Idle No More, the Quebec Student Movement and anti-austerity mobilizations and Black Lives Matter. These movements are all facing police using strategic incapacitation.

GA: If maintaining social order is always one of the necessary functions that a capitalist state undertakes in defence of the ruling classes, the administrative organization of policing practices – what you call a ‘public order management system’ building on ideas from Bourdieu – is little studied or understood on the Left. What did you uncover and why did this lead you to insist on a new phase in the militarization of protest policing in Canada and North America?

LJW: On the left we tend to talk about the police as either the armed, mindless thugs doing the bidding of the capitalists or some sort of omnipotent force strategically destroying our movements. These caricatures don’t help us to understand the shift in policing and variation amongst times and places. While recognizing that the police institution plays a unique role in defending the status quo, in other ways, they are much like other institutions. Like other institutions, police agencies and leaders struggle to defend their legitimacy, resources, and autonomy. When these are challenged by movements, politicians, the media or even other policing agencies or experts, they often work to reassert these things. What happened with the clashes between police and the global justice movement was a crisis in the legitimacy of the existing police strategy, and the development of a new one – using the products and practices being promoted by the most powerful actors in the field of policing.

What I found, through looking at the policing literature, attending policing events and examining court transcripts and policy documents is that there is a shared logic of threat assessment being utilized within a field of policing that is increasingly transnational, integrated through professional policing associations like the International Association of Chiefs of Police. These networks bring together key police agencies like the NYPD, LAPD and the RCMP and security and defence corporations like TASER. Such opinion leaders can then promote ‘best practices’ and products which spread to other agencies facing criticism and seeking to shore up their profile as successful, effective police agencies.

The legitimacy of this integrated field of professional policing and security facilitated the spread of this new model, particularly in the post-9/11 period which justified a push toward integration of policing with homeland security and threat assessment.

GA: A particularly important theme that comes across from the book is how the privatization of particular aspects of policing functions has in fact gone along with strengthening the centralized command and control capacities of the coercive apparatuses of the state. Thus even the coercive branches of the state have followed, to varying degrees, the neoliberal norms of the ‘new public management’ animating state administration.

Much like neoliberal deregulation of industry, this has not required less but more regulation. As well, police budgets, as well as those for security, the military, courts, prisons, and so forth, continue to go up. How do you locate the militarization of policing strategies of protests and in general in relation to these developments?

LJW: Despite neoliberal austerity policies that attack other social spending, surveillance technologies and the privatization of security, police budgets continue to grow across Canada and in many other countries. Where police budgets face cuts – like in the UK and some areas of the U.S., often regional, federal or private security, intelligence and anti-terrorism initiatives take their place. There is massive growth in the security and defense industries and markets like less lethal weapons and surveillance technology.

These shifts are due to the way that policing leaders have embraced the idea that through information technology and an emphasis on ‘measurable results’, they can predict and pre-empt criminal activity. The drive to show the efficiency and effectiveness of this social control expands the reach of the police and justifies their increasing budgets and powers. Political leaders and the media feed into this with law and order agendas that allow a very narrow idea of ‘security’ to trump all other social goods. This works at the level of anti-terrorism initiatives and community policing.

Police forces are replacing social services in many low income neighbourhoods. Instead of social workers in schools, we see police officers. Instead of quality community housing, youth centres and access to public space, we see ‘hot spot’ policing initiatives. Clearly this logic goes far beyond protest policing, and most directly affects racialized communities. Some of these issues have been highlighted by the Black Lives Matter movement.

GA: In many parts of the world as well as North America, the hard right has been gaining political ground, including political office. This new hard right has varied lineages and affinities to fascism. It is hard not to see the current period of permanent austerity as associated with an authoritarian phase of neoliberalism. In the recent Socialist Register on the the Politics of the Right, you have an essay which situates policing in this new political context. What are your thoughts on how the militarization of policing today figures into these developments?

Mall of America.

LJW: There is clearly less space for dissent in a society that is driven by a demand for ‘total security’ in the most efficient way possible. Communities and their resistance to this authoritarianism are evaluated in terms of threat. Clearly histories of white supremacy, xenophobia and colonialism shape those criteria. We can see this in the way that indigenous people fighting for their lands are coded as terrorists, Black communities are criminalized, or the way that immigrants are represented as the sources of violence.

An easy example of the way this works can be seen in the photo many people are sharing on social media. It shows the riot police surrounding the Black Lives Matter rally at the Mall of America, and the commentary beside it points out how this police strategy is radically different to the gentle way police are handling the Oregon militia protests.

GA: In conclusion, what are the strategic insights you want to convey about the struggle against the militarization of policing and the cautions we need to take up in organizing mass protests and long-term mobilization and building alliances against neoliberalism?

LJW: I hope that by understanding the police logic a little better we can pay more attention to the ways that the resources, legitimacy and autonomy of the police are not fixed or guaranteed. In various cities, the efforts of grassroots movements and legal challenges have limited the adoption of TASERs, Long Range Acoustic Devices, and challenged barricading practices. Community opposition can limit the expansion of the police into new sites and tasks, and can challenge increases in police power and police budgets.

The police are dependent on alliances with politicians, policing experts, corporations, the media and different communities for their legitimacy, resources and autonomy. These alliances vary. Even though reforms are not going to solve the problem, they may save lives. By paying attention to the gaps, tensions, contestation amongst these actors we can work to limit police power and control. In doing this, we are defending the space for the movements and communities fighting for a more just, peaceful society.

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Japan plans to use Self-Defense Force units to drive away “Chinese naval ships” from waters near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, a move that experts say will break the currently controlled status-quo and may lead to escalated tensions or even open confrontation in the East China Sea.

Analysts have also said that Japan may want to play up East China Sea tensions to suppress the domestic opposition before its controversial security bill comes into effect in March.

Responding to Japan’s warning, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said Tuesday that China’s resolve in upholding territorial sovereignty is unswerving when it comes to the Diaoyu Islands but urged Japan to exercise restraint.

“An escalation of tensions in the East China Sea is the last thing we want to see. We are willing to properly manage and settle the relevant issue through dialogue and consultations,” Hong said.

The status-quo in the East China Sea has been controlled so far as both China and Japan have dispatched only coast guard vessels to patrol the area, a situation that will change once Japan dispatches military vessels, analysts said.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday that “if a foreign naval vessel transits our waters for [purposes] other than ‘innocent passage,’ we will order a sea patrol and take the step of having the Self-Defense Force unit order withdrawal.”

Japan had informed China of its decision in November and Japan’s government had approved the course of action last May, Suga was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Suga’s comments come after a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun that Japanese naval ships would be sent to urge “Chinese naval ships” to leave if they come within about 22 kilometers of the islands for reasons other than “innocent passage.”

According to international law, a passage is innocent if it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal state.

“By introducing its military into the disputes over the East China Sea, Japan has unilaterally escalated tensions and it may lead to war,” Wang Pin, a researcher on Japanese studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Warning measures

According to Japan’s Defense Ministry, the Self-Defense units will first send warnings to “Chinese naval vessels” and ask them to leave. If the Chinese vessels refuse to comply, the Self-Defense units will take certain measures to drive them off.

A representative from Japan’s Defense Ministry told the Global Times on Tuesday that China’s vessels can be “allowed” to pass as long as they don’t violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and pose no threats to the coastal countries’ peace and order.

“Japan’s claim has no legal basis. The Diaoyu Islands belong to China, thus our vessels do not need Japan’s approval to pass the nearby waters of the islands. Japan is using the so-called international law to cover up its own misdeeds and is trying to shift the blame to China,” Wang said.

The Diaoyu Islands are a sticking point between the two countries. In 2014, China and Japan agreed to gradually resume political, diplomatic and security dialogues while acknowledging different positions on the Diaoyu Islands.

The status-quo in the East China Sea has been controlled so far as both China and Japan have only dispatched coast guard vessels to patrol the area. If Japan unilaterally uses its Self-Defense units, China will deploy its naval force in return, which will greatly increase the chance of open confrontation, Wang said.

“In that sense, Japan’s move to deploy Self-Defense units is an aggressive military provocation. The escalated tensions will pose a great threat to regional stability,” Wang further noted.

Raised concerns

“Japan’s claim signals a potential threat to the stability of East China Sea, which should raise China’s concerns,” said Hu Lingyuan, a professor from the Japanese Research Center at Shanghai-based Fudan University.

Japan’s controversial security bill that allows its military to operate overseas for the first time since the end of World War II will take effect in March despite widespread public opposition. The country is trying to play up the East China Sea tension to suppress domestic opposition as well as mislead the public into supporting the Japanese military’s overseas operations in the future, Hu said.

“Japan’s wild ambition has been thoroughly exposed as it calls for mutual cooperation on one hand but deteriorates regional stability on the other,” Hu said.

“Japan should think twice before taking any action. In the face of military provocation, China will definitely respond with its naval power, as Japan’s claim will pose great threats to China’s national interests and territorial integrity,” Wang said.

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Japan plans to use Self-Defense Force units to drive away “Chinese naval ships” from waters near the disputed Diaoyu Islands, a move that experts say will break the currently controlled status-quo and may lead to escalated tensions or even open confrontation in the East China Sea.

Analysts have also said that Japan may want to play up East China Sea tensions to suppress the domestic opposition before its controversial security bill comes into effect in March.

Responding to Japan’s warning, China’s foreign ministry spokesperson Hong Lei said Tuesday that China’s resolve in upholding territorial sovereignty is unswerving when it comes to the Diaoyu Islands but urged Japan to exercise restraint.

“An escalation of tensions in the East China Sea is the last thing we want to see. We are willing to properly manage and settle the relevant issue through dialogue and consultations,” Hong said.

The status-quo in the East China Sea has been controlled so far as both China and Japan have dispatched only coast guard vessels to patrol the area, a situation that will change once Japan dispatches military vessels, analysts said.

Japan’s Chief Cabinet Secretary Yoshihide Suga said on Tuesday that “if a foreign naval vessel transits our waters for [purposes] other than ‘innocent passage,’ we will order a sea patrol and take the step of having the Self-Defense Force unit order withdrawal.”

Japan had informed China of its decision in November and Japan’s government had approved the course of action last May, Suga was quoted as saying by Reuters.

Suga’s comments come after a report in the Yomiuri Shimbun that Japanese naval ships would be sent to urge “Chinese naval ships” to leave if they come within about 22 kilometers of the islands for reasons other than “innocent passage.”

According to international law, a passage is innocent if it is not prejudicial to the peace, good order or security of the coastal state.

“By introducing its military into the disputes over the East China Sea, Japan has unilaterally escalated tensions and it may lead to war,” Wang Pin, a researcher on Japanese studies with the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, told the Global Times Tuesday.

Warning measures

According to Japan’s Defense Ministry, the Self-Defense units will first send warnings to “Chinese naval vessels” and ask them to leave. If the Chinese vessels refuse to comply, the Self-Defense units will take certain measures to drive them off.

A representative from Japan’s Defense Ministry told the Global Times on Tuesday that China’s vessels can be “allowed” to pass as long as they don’t violate the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea and pose no threats to the coastal countries’ peace and order.

“Japan’s claim has no legal basis. The Diaoyu Islands belong to China, thus our vessels do not need Japan’s approval to pass the nearby waters of the islands. Japan is using the so-called international law to cover up its own misdeeds and is trying to shift the blame to China,” Wang said.

The Diaoyu Islands are a sticking point between the two countries. In 2014, China and Japan agreed to gradually resume political, diplomatic and security dialogues while acknowledging different positions on the Diaoyu Islands.

The status-quo in the East China Sea has been controlled so far as both China and Japan have only dispatched coast guard vessels to patrol the area. If Japan unilaterally uses its Self-Defense units, China will deploy its naval force in return, which will greatly increase the chance of open confrontation, Wang said.

“In that sense, Japan’s move to deploy Self-Defense units is an aggressive military provocation. The escalated tensions will pose a great threat to regional stability,” Wang further noted.

Raised concerns

“Japan’s claim signals a potential threat to the stability of East China Sea, which should raise China’s concerns,” said Hu Lingyuan, a professor from the Japanese Research Center at Shanghai-based Fudan University.

Japan’s controversial security bill that allows its military to operate overseas for the first time since the end of World War II will take effect in March despite widespread public opposition. The country is trying to play up the East China Sea tension to suppress domestic opposition as well as mislead the public into supporting the Japanese military’s overseas operations in the future, Hu said.

“Japan’s wild ambition has been thoroughly exposed as it calls for mutual cooperation on one hand but deteriorates regional stability on the other,” Hu said.

“Japan should think twice before taking any action. In the face of military provocation, China will definitely respond with its naval power, as Japan’s claim will pose great threats to China’s national interests and territorial integrity,” Wang said.

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Fifty years ago the focus shifted from non-violent direct action to urban rebellion

This year’s national commemoration of the 87th birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. comes during a period of renewal in the anti-racist movement.

King was born on January 15, 1929 in Atlanta, Georgia. The annual official commemoration of his birthday always falls on the third Monday of the month.

Since 1986, the date has been designated as a federal holiday. However, there is almost no information transmitted by the corporate media, the educational system or through numerous organizations that hold events in honor of the holiday, that speak directly about the work that the Civil Rights and anti-war leader was involved in.

It is almost never mentioned over these official channels that King was arrested over thirty times and towards the end of his life he became a staunch opponent of the United States military invasion and occupation of Vietnam. Neither is there any recognition of his desire to eradicate poverty in the U.S. and the call for a guaranteed income as well as mandatory full employment.

Three major campaigns of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), co-founded by King in 1957, during the final two years of his life (1966-1968), have tremendous bearing on the task facing African Americans, the working class and the progressive movement in general today. These efforts center around the SCLC’s intervention in the Chicago Freedom Movement of 1966 demanding open housing; the linking of the struggle for Civil Rights with the demand for a unilateral withdrawal from Vietnam; and support for striking African American sanitation workers in Memphis, who were fighting for recognition as a union against the-then racist city administration of Mayor Henry Loeb.

King’s Legacy and the Anti-Racist Struggle in 2016

Since the police killing of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri on August 9, 2014, a significant amount of media focus has rightly been on the rash of police killings of African Americans in cities, suburbs and small towns across the United States. Myths about the U.S. being a “post-racial” society were gaining currency within certain political circles.

However, actual events would shatter these illusions. A vigilante murder of Trayvon Martin in Sanford, Florida in early 2012 and the subsequent acquittal of his assailant in 2013 reawakened the consciousness of oppressed and anti-racist youth around the country.

Even though President Barack Obama has been elected twice as the first occupant of the White House by a person of African descent, race relations and the social plight of African Americans had worsened under his tenure.  Census data and a series of reports looking at the correlations between poverty and race illustrate clearly that national and class oppression is intensifying under the current period of capitalist downturn and restructuring.

Not only is this rising consciousness taking place in the urban areas, a series of demonstrations at university and college campuses highlighted the symbols of institutional racism and the lack of sensitivity on the part of administrators to the demands of African American students as well. These demonstrations during the fall of 2015 began on some of the most elite higher educational institutions and were led by those African Americans who were deemed by the ruling class as being privileged and destined to find a secure position within bourgeois society.

Within the purported “color-blind” social context, schools and building named after slave owners and ideological racist remained without being challenged. The dreaded Confederate flag was still flying on state capitol buildings and public locations 150 years after the conclusion of the Civil War in 1865, which ostensibly ended the legalized enslavement of four million Africans.

These realities were further magnified when Dylan Roof massacred nine African Americans in Charleston, South Carolina at one of the most historic places of worship, the Mother Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church, which dates back to the antebellum period in one of the most concentrated slave production states in the U.S.

Nevertheless, with all of the mass demonstrations and three significant rebellions in Ferguson and later Baltimore in 2015, no effective action has been taken by the federal government to address the worsening situation. The administration is claiming that the financial crisis of 2008 has been corrected and that the jobless rate stands at only five percent.

The fact that the labor participation rate is at its lowest level in four decades and African American poverty is rising as a direct result of the Great Recession is testament to the failure of the current Democratic White House. The campaign of presidential aspirant Hilary Clinton has not proposed any legislative or executive programs to improve the social conditions of African Americans, leaving the political landscape open for left forces to articulate and organize around a program that speaks directly to the status of the oppressed and workers in the U.S.

Reigniting the Movement in the Cities

Some fifty years ago, Dr. King and the SCLC moved into Chicago to join the Freedom Movement in that urban area. The African American masses in Chicago exploded in anger after the Democratic Mayor Richard Daley refused to seriously consider the demands for the abolition of slums and a policy of open housing.

SCLC in alliance with local organizations exposed the hypocrisy of Democratic Party controlled political machines such as that of Daley in Chicago, which provided lip service to Civil Rights but practiced segregation and therefore facilitating super-exploitation. The Chicago campaign coming in the aftermath of the Watts Rebellion of August 1965 prompted the escalation of tensions between the Chicago authorities and the African American community resulting in mass demonstrations against racism and a full-blown rebellion on the West Side in late July of that year.

Rebellions had erupted in numerous cities in 1966 including Cleveland, Ohio and Omaha, Nebraska. Chicago would prove to be the most violent and disruptive. Instead of granting the demands of the Chicago Freedom Movement in totality, King and the other organizations were blamed for inciting the rebellions.

There are profound lessons from the Chicago Freedom Movement and the plight of cities today as it relates to the housing question, police brutality, political and economic power.

Although the housing question in 2016 takes on a different character than in 1966, it is still a pressing concern for the oppressed and working people. Millions were driven from their homes during the Great Recession while the administrations of both President George W. Bush and Obama did nothing to alleviate the suffering of the people.

In 1966 de facto segregation was prevalent in cities like Chicago, Detroit, New York, Cleveland, Los Angeles and many other municipalities. Five decades later the marginalization and oppression of African Americans through the denial of jobs, decent wages, quality education, access to water and utility services, environmental justice and affordable housing, represents the continuation of institutional racism well into the 21st century.

It will take an even more revolutionary movement than which emerged during the 1950s and 1960s to complete the struggle for absolute equality and national liberation. These efforts, like King’s in 1967-1968, must bring together progressive elements from all the oppressed nations, in alliance with the workers and the poor.

Ultimately socialism must become the rallying cry of the majority of the people within capitalist society. A genuine anti-capitalist movement that will upend private property and all exploitative relations of production, is the only solution to the current crisis in the U.S. and globally.

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The South China Sea Crisis and the “Battle for Oil”

January 13th, 2016 by Brian Kalman

This article first published in January 2016 analyzes the ongoing confrontation between the US and China in relation to the South China Sea.

A long brewing crisis of both regional and global proportions has been festering in the South China Sea in recent years between claimants to a variety of islands, reefs and shoals and more importantly access to oil and natural gas resources that are worth trillions of dollars. Although this dispute, or more accurately put, many individual and interlocking disputes, have gained in importance in recent years, they have been a bone of contention for centuries.

The discovery of vast stores of oil and natural gas and the assertiveness of a resurgent China have brought a long dormant dispute back to a level of international importance.

The “dispute” may be broken down into three main areas of argument.

The first is the matter of delineating territorial waters and economic exclusivity zones (EEZ) for each individual nation that borders the South China Sea and how these areas may often overlap.

The second issue are the legal rights to exploration and exploitation of oil and natural gas, mineral and renewable resources in the overlapping EEZs as well as the international sea zone that lies outside territorial and EEZ areas.

The third matter of contention is the free passage of international commercial traffic and warships through United Nations delineated “International” waters.

At first glance it may seem easy to rely on the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982) to resolve these issues; however, a number of factors make this quite difficult.

UNCLOS exists in part to establish the legal status of territorial waters and to lay down a framework to determine who has the right to harvest the bounty of the world’s oceans both between nations with maritime borders and those that are land locked. It also sets up a legal framework for dispute resolution. This dispute resolution framework exists partly due to the fact that the adopted method for delineating EEZs often leads to overlapping EEZs between one or more nations. This is the case in the South China Sea.

To add to the legal ambiguity, there are historical factors that only magnify the ambiguity. For example, who has right to the ownership of islands that no one has ever built permanent settlements on when their location was known for centuries? Now that vast oil and natural gas fields may lie under these remote areas that cannot independently support human habitation, a number of nations are claiming historical precedent to ownership regardless of their lack of utilization and the generally laissez faire attitude toward their sovereignty for hundreds of years.

China submitted an official case to the United Nations in 2009, laying out the Chinese claim to most of the South China Sea. What has come to be known as the “Nine Dash Line Claim” (which China has asserted in one form or another for years) asserts that almost the entire South China Sea is the sovereign waters of the Peoples Republic of China. China sights both historical factors and their interpretation of UNCLOS to support this claim. A group of nations bordering the South China Sea, and who have conflicting claims refute the Chinese position. A number of nations without any legal claim to these waters for purposes of territorial waters or EEZs, also refute the Chinese claim for a number of significant reasons.

Territorial Waters and the EEZ

The UNCLOS clearly specifies how the borders of a nation’s territorial waters are to be established and delineated:

Article 2

 Legal status of the territorial sea, of the air space over the territorial sea and of its bed and subsoil

  1. The sovereignty of a coastal State extends, beyond its land territory and internal waters and, in the case of an archipelagic State, its archipelagic waters, to an adjacent belt of sea, described as the territorial sea.
  2. This sovereignty extends to the air space over the territorial sea as well as to its bed and subsoil.
  3. The sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this Convention and to other rules of international law.

Furthermore:

Article 3

Breadth of the territorial sea

Every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines determined in accordance with this Convention.

Article 4

Outer limit of the territorial sea

 The outer limit of the territorial sea is the line every point of which is at a distance from the nearest point of the baseline equal to the breadth of the territorial sea.

Furthermore, it less clearly specifies how the extent and borders of a nation’s Economic Exclusivity Zone (EEZ) are to be established and delineated:

Article 55

Specific legal regime of the exclusive economic zone

 The exclusive economic zone is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea, subject to the specific legal regime established in this Part, under which the rights and jurisdiction of the coastal State and the rights and freedoms of other States are governed by the relevant provisions of this Convention.

Article 56

Rights, jurisdiction and duties of the coastal State in the exclusive economic zone

  1. In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State has:

(a) sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, currents and winds;

 (b) jurisdiction as provided for in the relevant provisions of this Convention with regard to:

(i) the establishment and use of artificial islands, installations and structures; 44

(ii) marine scientific research;

(iii) the protection and preservation of the marine environment;

 (c) other rights and duties provided for in this Convention.

  1. In exercising its rights and performing its duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State shall have due regard to the rights and duties of other States and shall act in a manner compatible with the provisions of this Convention.
  2. The rights set out in this article with respect to the seabed and subsoil shall be exercised in accordance with Part VI.

Article 57

Breadth of the exclusive economic zone

The exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

(United Nationals Convention of Law of the Sea, 1982)

Obviously, these definitions were created by lawyers, as they are somewhat ambiguous and leave ample room for limitless future argument; such arguments guaranteeing lawyers a livelihood since time immemorial. They have created a patchwork of overlapping EEZs and legally agreed to or disputed territorial waters delineations.

China’s claim

The UNCLOS attempts to legally delineate territorial waters and provide for established EEZs for the benefit of coastal nations. That being said, it is quite easy to see that China has a much easier to justify claim, both historically and legally to most of the Paracel Islands. The majority of them lie in their EEZ, they have built settlements and installations on some of the islands, and they have fought and won at least two past naval engagements with Vietnam (in 1974 and 1988) to enforce sovereignty. A justifiable claim to the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal by China is another matter altogether. The map below easily illustrates the established EEZs (as proposed under UNCLOS, which China is a signatory).

Map of EEZs and International waters in the South China Sea.

Conflicting claims in the South China Sea

Apparently, China has decided to push their claim to a majority of the South China Sea by actually establishing habitation and extensive facilities of both commercial and military significance on a number of islands in both the Paracel and Spratly Island chains, as well as around Scarborough Shoal (although to a lesser extent there).

China is clearly embracing the old adage that “ownership is nine tenths of the law”. When one considers this strategy alongside the significant Chinese modernization and expansion of its naval area control and denial capability in the past two decades, it is obvious that China aims to overthrow the current status quo. The old status quo does not support China’s interests, so they aim to change it. Other parties to the conflict, most notably the United States desire to maintain the status quo.

Chinese land reclamation efforts at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands August 2014 – January 2015.

Chinese land reclamation efforts at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands August 2014 – January 2015.

Vietnam has chosen a more tactful and nuanced approach. Vietnam has decided to seek international diplomatic support for its claims, diplomatic mediation, as well as a robust yet less ambitious naval modernization strategy. While the United States pledged $18 million (USD) to help Vietnam protect its territorial waters and coastline in June of 2015, a long-standing U.S. arms embargo is still in effect. Vietnam had been reliant on Russian naval arms for 40 years; however this is changing as Vietnam looks to supplement its relatively small navy with western armaments and patrol craft.

Vietnam has chosen the strategy of building a more powerful and robust coastwise navy, planning to acquire more modern vessels of small displacement such as patrol boats, corvettes and frigates. This will bolster Vietnam’s territorial defense capabilities, while not fomenting an arms race that they have no hope of winning with their larger neighbor China.

Indigenously produced Patrol Boat TT-400TP of the Vietnam Peoples’ Navy underway.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

The United States and the Issue of Freedom of Navigation in the International Waters

The issue of freedom of navigation in international waters in the South China Sea is a valid concern by many “neutral” parties. This is a centuries old concept; that there should always be free and uninhibited commercial and military traffic (both on the water and now in the air as well) on internationally recognized waterways of the high seas. These international free transit corridors are a core foundation of international trade and cooperation that must always maintain their neutrality and absence of sovereignty. They, quite simply put, belong to all nations and individuals of the world for the purposes of transportation and commerce.

This age old concept is essential to maintaining what should be a universally embraced concept of equality amongst all peoples and all sovereign nations of the world and their equal and unequivocal right to commerce and peaceful pursuits on the high seas. The determination of the United States to defend this concept is honorable, just and essential; however, it is not through righteousness and altruism alone that the government of that nation has adopted such a stance. At some point in the past, when the United States still held the moral high ground and obeyed international law in all respects one could honestly come to such a conclusion; but any concept of truly altruistic intent in the geopolitical maneuvering of any nation is naïve. All nations act in their own interests, regardless of the nation, or the era of human history.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

The United States has an undeniable interest in keeping the South China Sea an international waterway, free of any national controls. An estimated $5 trillion (USD) in international trade passes through this waterway annually. It also has many self-serving interests in keeping the resources of this area divided amongst a host of claimants.

As we have seen all too often in recent history, such as in the Middle East, the United States’ foreign policy has focused on the dissolution and fragmentation of power and resources of any potential single benefactor other than itself. In extremely simplified terms, it is a classic divide and conquer strategy. Sowing discord and disagreement in a regional dispute, while inserting an outside international influence of a military nature of magnified proportions, will do nothing but enflame the situation and lead not only to a regional naval arms race, but force all parties to look for a military solution where a combination of diplomacy and proportional military deterrence would have naturally provided a more equitable answer over time.

The simple fact is that the United States realizes that time favors China in this dispute. China has far more resources in diplomatic, economic and military terms to throw at determining this dispute in its favor than all of the other claimants combined. The United States needs to use its military power in a way that nullifies all parties involved and not as a buttress to the claims of those parties that it favors.

Conclusions

The current territorial disputes in the South China Sea have been festering for centuries, but the relatively recent discovery of significant oil and natural gas deposits in the area have added a sense of urgency and veracity that had been historically absent. As the nations in the region scramble for the necessary resources they will need to grow and prosper in the coming decades, they will inevitably be faced with disputes over legal rights to resources and sovereignty, and will be challenged to find a means by which to resolve these disputes. There currently exist both positive and negative influences on both the efforts of de-escalation and conflict resolution.

All parties involved apparently have legitimate claims to certain areas in dispute dependent upon legal grounds and historic precedent. None possess a legitimate claim to all of the areas that they have stipulated should fall under their UNCLOS jurisdiction or sovereignty. China clearly has no legally defensible claim under UNCLOS, or supported by any historical evidence of particular merit to all of the area included in their “Nine Dash Line” claim.

China is relying upon their own ingenuity, industry and force of will to develop these areas and make them their own in very material terms. They are occupying and developing islands that have never been used for human habitation of any significance, by anyone in the course of human history, at a scale that is unprecedented. In such a case, do they not have a claim of sovereignty to these islands, and if they do, to what internationally recognized extent? Does a nation that peacefully develops a previously barren area of the world not have any claim of sovereignty over it, when many nations claim sovereignty over land that has changed hands many times as a result of war and conquest? What legitimizes the claim of the United States to Saipan or Guam, or the claim of Britain to Gibraltar other than the argument of the legitimacy of imperial conquest or the favorable outcome of war in their favor? This is the very status quo foundation of sovereignty that China is challenging.

The United States can use its military might and diplomatic influence to mediate in an impartial manner in the cause of international law and the honorable and indispensable concept of freedom of navigation on the high seas. This would be a welcomed endeavor in the eyes of most nations of the world. The United States can also play a destructive and counterproductive role as the outside agitator and schoolyard bully, as it so often has done in international affairs in recent years. We can only hope that in the U.S., statesmanship and wisdom overcomes imperial hubris, and that in China, pragmatism overcomes ambition.

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The South China Sea Crisis and the “Battle for Oil”

January 13th, 2016 by Brian Kalman

This article first published in January 2016 analyzes the ongoing confrontation between the US and China in relation to the South China Sea.

A long brewing crisis of both regional and global proportions has been festering in the South China Sea in recent years between claimants to a variety of islands, reefs and shoals and more importantly access to oil and natural gas resources that are worth trillions of dollars. Although this dispute, or more accurately put, many individual and interlocking disputes, have gained in importance in recent years, they have been a bone of contention for centuries.

The discovery of vast stores of oil and natural gas and the assertiveness of a resurgent China have brought a long dormant dispute back to a level of international importance.

The “dispute” may be broken down into three main areas of argument.

The first is the matter of delineating territorial waters and economic exclusivity zones (EEZ) for each individual nation that borders the South China Sea and how these areas may often overlap.

The second issue are the legal rights to exploration and exploitation of oil and natural gas, mineral and renewable resources in the overlapping EEZs as well as the international sea zone that lies outside territorial and EEZ areas.

The third matter of contention is the free passage of international commercial traffic and warships through United Nations delineated “International” waters.

At first glance it may seem easy to rely on the United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS, 1982) to resolve these issues; however, a number of factors make this quite difficult.

UNCLOS exists in part to establish the legal status of territorial waters and to lay down a framework to determine who has the right to harvest the bounty of the world’s oceans both between nations with maritime borders and those that are land locked. It also sets up a legal framework for dispute resolution. This dispute resolution framework exists partly due to the fact that the adopted method for delineating EEZs often leads to overlapping EEZs between one or more nations. This is the case in the South China Sea.

To add to the legal ambiguity, there are historical factors that only magnify the ambiguity. For example, who has right to the ownership of islands that no one has ever built permanent settlements on when their location was known for centuries? Now that vast oil and natural gas fields may lie under these remote areas that cannot independently support human habitation, a number of nations are claiming historical precedent to ownership regardless of their lack of utilization and the generally laissez faire attitude toward their sovereignty for hundreds of years.

China submitted an official case to the United Nations in 2009, laying out the Chinese claim to most of the South China Sea. What has come to be known as the “Nine Dash Line Claim” (which China has asserted in one form or another for years) asserts that almost the entire South China Sea is the sovereign waters of the Peoples Republic of China. China sights both historical factors and their interpretation of UNCLOS to support this claim. A group of nations bordering the South China Sea, and who have conflicting claims refute the Chinese position. A number of nations without any legal claim to these waters for purposes of territorial waters or EEZs, also refute the Chinese claim for a number of significant reasons.

Territorial Waters and the EEZ

The UNCLOS clearly specifies how the borders of a nation’s territorial waters are to be established and delineated:

Article 2

 Legal status of the territorial sea, of the air space over the territorial sea and of its bed and subsoil

  1. The sovereignty of a coastal State extends, beyond its land territory and internal waters and, in the case of an archipelagic State, its archipelagic waters, to an adjacent belt of sea, described as the territorial sea.
  2. This sovereignty extends to the air space over the territorial sea as well as to its bed and subsoil.
  3. The sovereignty over the territorial sea is exercised subject to this Convention and to other rules of international law.

Furthermore:

Article 3

Breadth of the territorial sea

Every State has the right to establish the breadth of its territorial sea up to a limit not exceeding 12 nautical miles, measured from baselines determined in accordance with this Convention.

Article 4

Outer limit of the territorial sea

 The outer limit of the territorial sea is the line every point of which is at a distance from the nearest point of the baseline equal to the breadth of the territorial sea.

Furthermore, it less clearly specifies how the extent and borders of a nation’s Economic Exclusivity Zone (EEZ) are to be established and delineated:

Article 55

Specific legal regime of the exclusive economic zone

 The exclusive economic zone is an area beyond and adjacent to the territorial sea, subject to the specific legal regime established in this Part, under which the rights and jurisdiction of the coastal State and the rights and freedoms of other States are governed by the relevant provisions of this Convention.

Article 56

Rights, jurisdiction and duties of the coastal State in the exclusive economic zone

  1. In the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State has:

(a) sovereign rights for the purpose of exploring and exploiting, conserving and managing the natural resources, whether living or non-living, of the waters superjacent to the seabed and of the seabed and its subsoil, and with regard to other activities for the economic exploitation and exploration of the zone, such as the production of energy from the water, currents and winds;

 (b) jurisdiction as provided for in the relevant provisions of this Convention with regard to:

(i) the establishment and use of artificial islands, installations and structures; 44

(ii) marine scientific research;

(iii) the protection and preservation of the marine environment;

 (c) other rights and duties provided for in this Convention.

  1. In exercising its rights and performing its duties under this Convention in the exclusive economic zone, the coastal State shall have due regard to the rights and duties of other States and shall act in a manner compatible with the provisions of this Convention.
  2. The rights set out in this article with respect to the seabed and subsoil shall be exercised in accordance with Part VI.

Article 57

Breadth of the exclusive economic zone

The exclusive economic zone shall not extend beyond 200 nautical miles from the baselines from which the breadth of the territorial sea is measured.

(United Nationals Convention of Law of the Sea, 1982)

Obviously, these definitions were created by lawyers, as they are somewhat ambiguous and leave ample room for limitless future argument; such arguments guaranteeing lawyers a livelihood since time immemorial. They have created a patchwork of overlapping EEZs and legally agreed to or disputed territorial waters delineations.

China’s claim

The UNCLOS attempts to legally delineate territorial waters and provide for established EEZs for the benefit of coastal nations. That being said, it is quite easy to see that China has a much easier to justify claim, both historically and legally to most of the Paracel Islands. The majority of them lie in their EEZ, they have built settlements and installations on some of the islands, and they have fought and won at least two past naval engagements with Vietnam (in 1974 and 1988) to enforce sovereignty. A justifiable claim to the Spratly Islands or Scarborough Shoal by China is another matter altogether. The map below easily illustrates the established EEZs (as proposed under UNCLOS, which China is a signatory).

Map of EEZs and International waters in the South China Sea.

Conflicting claims in the South China Sea

Apparently, China has decided to push their claim to a majority of the South China Sea by actually establishing habitation and extensive facilities of both commercial and military significance on a number of islands in both the Paracel and Spratly Island chains, as well as around Scarborough Shoal (although to a lesser extent there).

China is clearly embracing the old adage that “ownership is nine tenths of the law”. When one considers this strategy alongside the significant Chinese modernization and expansion of its naval area control and denial capability in the past two decades, it is obvious that China aims to overthrow the current status quo. The old status quo does not support China’s interests, so they aim to change it. Other parties to the conflict, most notably the United States desire to maintain the status quo.

Chinese land reclamation efforts at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands August 2014 – January 2015.

Chinese land reclamation efforts at Fiery Cross Reef in the Spratly Islands August 2014 – January 2015.

Vietnam has chosen a more tactful and nuanced approach. Vietnam has decided to seek international diplomatic support for its claims, diplomatic mediation, as well as a robust yet less ambitious naval modernization strategy. While the United States pledged $18 million (USD) to help Vietnam protect its territorial waters and coastline in June of 2015, a long-standing U.S. arms embargo is still in effect. Vietnam had been reliant on Russian naval arms for 40 years; however this is changing as Vietnam looks to supplement its relatively small navy with western armaments and patrol craft.

Vietnam has chosen the strategy of building a more powerful and robust coastwise navy, planning to acquire more modern vessels of small displacement such as patrol boats, corvettes and frigates. This will bolster Vietnam’s territorial defense capabilities, while not fomenting an arms race that they have no hope of winning with their larger neighbor China.

Indigenously produced Patrol Boat TT-400TP of the Vietnam Peoples’ Navy underway.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

The United States and the Issue of Freedom of Navigation in the International Waters

The issue of freedom of navigation in international waters in the South China Sea is a valid concern by many “neutral” parties. This is a centuries old concept; that there should always be free and uninhibited commercial and military traffic (both on the water and now in the air as well) on internationally recognized waterways of the high seas. These international free transit corridors are a core foundation of international trade and cooperation that must always maintain their neutrality and absence of sovereignty. They, quite simply put, belong to all nations and individuals of the world for the purposes of transportation and commerce.

This age old concept is essential to maintaining what should be a universally embraced concept of equality amongst all peoples and all sovereign nations of the world and their equal and unequivocal right to commerce and peaceful pursuits on the high seas. The determination of the United States to defend this concept is honorable, just and essential; however, it is not through righteousness and altruism alone that the government of that nation has adopted such a stance. At some point in the past, when the United States still held the moral high ground and obeyed international law in all respects one could honestly come to such a conclusion; but any concept of truly altruistic intent in the geopolitical maneuvering of any nation is naïve. All nations act in their own interests, regardless of the nation, or the era of human history.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

Three US Arleigh Burke Class DDGs on maneuvers in the Pacific.

The United States has an undeniable interest in keeping the South China Sea an international waterway, free of any national controls. An estimated $5 trillion (USD) in international trade passes through this waterway annually. It also has many self-serving interests in keeping the resources of this area divided amongst a host of claimants.

As we have seen all too often in recent history, such as in the Middle East, the United States’ foreign policy has focused on the dissolution and fragmentation of power and resources of any potential single benefactor other than itself. In extremely simplified terms, it is a classic divide and conquer strategy. Sowing discord and disagreement in a regional dispute, while inserting an outside international influence of a military nature of magnified proportions, will do nothing but enflame the situation and lead not only to a regional naval arms race, but force all parties to look for a military solution where a combination of diplomacy and proportional military deterrence would have naturally provided a more equitable answer over time.

The simple fact is that the United States realizes that time favors China in this dispute. China has far more resources in diplomatic, economic and military terms to throw at determining this dispute in its favor than all of the other claimants combined. The United States needs to use its military power in a way that nullifies all parties involved and not as a buttress to the claims of those parties that it favors.

Conclusions

The current territorial disputes in the South China Sea have been festering for centuries, but the relatively recent discovery of significant oil and natural gas deposits in the area have added a sense of urgency and veracity that had been historically absent. As the nations in the region scramble for the necessary resources they will need to grow and prosper in the coming decades, they will inevitably be faced with disputes over legal rights to resources and sovereignty, and will be challenged to find a means by which to resolve these disputes. There currently exist both positive and negative influences on both the efforts of de-escalation and conflict resolution.

All parties involved apparently have legitimate claims to certain areas in dispute dependent upon legal grounds and historic precedent. None possess a legitimate claim to all of the areas that they have stipulated should fall under their UNCLOS jurisdiction or sovereignty. China clearly has no legally defensible claim under UNCLOS, or supported by any historical evidence of particular merit to all of the area included in their “Nine Dash Line” claim.

China is relying upon their own ingenuity, industry and force of will to develop these areas and make them their own in very material terms. They are occupying and developing islands that have never been used for human habitation of any significance, by anyone in the course of human history, at a scale that is unprecedented. In such a case, do they not have a claim of sovereignty to these islands, and if they do, to what internationally recognized extent? Does a nation that peacefully develops a previously barren area of the world not have any claim of sovereignty over it, when many nations claim sovereignty over land that has changed hands many times as a result of war and conquest? What legitimizes the claim of the United States to Saipan or Guam, or the claim of Britain to Gibraltar other than the argument of the legitimacy of imperial conquest or the favorable outcome of war in their favor? This is the very status quo foundation of sovereignty that China is challenging.

The United States can use its military might and diplomatic influence to mediate in an impartial manner in the cause of international law and the honorable and indispensable concept of freedom of navigation on the high seas. This would be a welcomed endeavor in the eyes of most nations of the world. The United States can also play a destructive and counterproductive role as the outside agitator and schoolyard bully, as it so often has done in international affairs in recent years. We can only hope that in the U.S., statesmanship and wisdom overcomes imperial hubris, and that in China, pragmatism overcomes ambition.

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Western television viewers are being bombarded with daily reports about the savage Syrian Army and its barbaric siege of the ‘moderate’ rebel-controlled town of Madaya.

If you listen to the media like a responsible taxpayer should, Assad is personally starving all the women and children living in Madaya.

The problem is that according to Madaya residents, there is food, it’s just being withheld by Al-Nusra Front and other bastions of democratic values:

Excerpts:

The anti-government groups are nothing but traders of people’s blood. They only cared about securing food supplies for themselves and their families, and sell the rest to people for astronomical prices.

And:

Ahrar al-Sham and the Nusra Front have food but they do not feed anybody. We had to make do by eating grass.

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Originally Appeared at German Economic News. Translated from the German by Werner Schrimpf

Russia just issued its revised national security document which names so-called color revolutions as a potential high risk to the country. The strategy document is a reaction to the Ukraine coup that was masterminded by the Western alliance, and the military threat from NATO member states following the coup.

Russia sees a threat to its security caused by activities from foreign parties, organizations, and NGOs. These groups are quite active in former Eastern bloc states and intend to conduct so-called color revolutions – that means to agitate and provoke an elected government until it can be overthrown. Despite the argumentation of U.S. news agency Reuters, the new doctrine is not directed in any way against the U.S. — at least according to the Russian news agency, TASS.  According to TASS, the new strategy document identifies “radical social groups which use nationalist and religious extremist ideologies, foreign and international NGOs, and also private citizens who work to undermine Russia’s territorial integrity.” Those movements would intend to destroy Russia’s traditional spiritual and moral values. Reuters wording [of the headline] “Russia names United States among threats in new Russian security strategy” could be seen as a — possibly unintended — interpretation from Reuters that the US could be behind such color revolutions.

Reuters and TASS are essentially reporting the same thing: a newly released appraisal signed by President Putin, confirming a more prominent role of Russia in the settlement of global problems and international conflicts. Russia’s independent national and international proceedings provoked counter actions by the U.S. and its allies who intend to conserve their global and full spectrum dominance. These various counter actions are increasing the pressure on Russia in political, economic, and military terms. The new strategy document replaces a former version from 2009 which did not yet mention NATO and the U.S. as a potential threat.

The reasons behind the revised Russian strategy document are the events and the coup d’etat which took place in the Ukraine in 2014. The U.S. and the EU had masterminded an anti-constitutional overthrow of the legally elected government which ended in a deep disruption within the Ukraine population and a subsequent military conflict. Steady NATO encroachment on Russia’s borders represents another threat to Russia.

For the time being, Western states are denying any involvement in the coup despite the fact that recorded telephone calls from U.S. special envoy, Victoria Nuland, clearly proving that she was promoting and pushing today’s premier minister Arseni “Jaz” Jazenjuk who took over the legally elected former president Janukowytsch. A current research analysis from Ottawa University, whose conclusions were based on the manifest content of videos and media reports, confirms Moscow’s point of view of the Maidan Massacre. The analysis from Ottawa University demonstrates that snipers who were simultaneously shooting at protesters and police forces had not been hired by the government but by Western opposition parties and groups in order to create turmoil and to overthrow the legal government.

The Russian document comes rather late which could be an indication that Putin had initially hoped that relations with the West might improve. This assumption was confirmed by former U.S. foreign minister Henry Kissinger some weeks ago, who stated he did not receive any indication during his talks with President Putin of a new Cold War being revived.

But on the other hand, NATO as well as Germany have modified their military doctrines in the meantime, and both parties are calling Russia a new enemy. An appropriate response from Russia is actually overdue.

Syria is not mentioned in the new strategy document. Since the 30th of September 2015, Russia has been conducting air strikes against extremist terror groups in Syria in coordination with the U.S.  Basically, Putin and Obama have agreed to a common approach in Syria.

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Cashing in on Death: The David Bowie Commemorative Extravaganza

January 13th, 2016 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

“Look up here, I’m in Heaven!  I’ve got scars that can’t be seen…” – David Bowie, “Lazarus” (2015)

Each age values its own species of celebrity.  But each age also brings with it the phenomenon of reflected adulation. Cashing in on death, in other words, remains the business of business itself, the celebrity machine that draws out its replicas, its snivelling types, and its more rapacious breeds.  David Bowie’s passing presented a glowing opportunity, not to be missed.

The first use of the Bowie aura, and a fitting one at that, was by the man himself.  Gordon Rayner and Hannah Furness of The Telegraph decided to see him as a cunning being, one who managed to redefine his own death artistically, and by keeping his impending demise at the hands of ravaging cancer under wraps.  “David Bowie,” opened the article, “spent his entire career defining the art of popular music and on Sunday he pulled off perhaps his greatest ever coup when he turned his own death into one last spellbinding performance.”[1]

The release of his final album, Blackstar, was a performance “bordering on the supernatural”.  It constituted a requiem of sorts, with various “pointers to his demise,” prophetically fulfilled two days later.  There is much talk about morbidity and x-rays.  The video of one of the first tracks, Lazarus, features the singer in a hospital bed, concluding with him vanishing into a wardrobe.  Tony Visconti, Bowie’s long-time producer, added some fuel to the mix.  “His death was no different from his life – a work of art.”

Bowie, however, was not to be left alone to his own bit of selling. Once dead, the adulation brigade would come out grabbing at every grain of the Bowie phenomenon with rampant enthusiasm.  Such antics at times verged on the grotesque.  They revealed the comingling of celebrity worship, political tribute, “reality” television and the desperation on the part of the entertainment complex to get the quick, financial fix.  Such matters are all fair game.

Arguably the most notable political narcissist in the modern era, Britain’s former prime minister, Tony Blair, certainly thought so. Having turned No. 10 into a celebrity processing factory during his stewardship seeded by spin, Blair could not help expressing his views in The Times on Bowie, of which he was “a huge fan.”

Just as he did in office, Blair found skewing the account hard to avoid, continuing that ever disingenuous tendency he made famous with New Labour’s “Cool Britannia” project.  “From the time I saw his Ziggy Stardust concert as a student I thought he was a brilliant artist and an exciting and interesting human being.”[2]

The Mail Online was more sceptical about Blair’s university-Ziggy Stardust experience, though it did concede that Blair probably saw a Bowie concert at some point.  “Blair was 19 when the Ziggy Stardust tour first visited Oxford for concerts in May and June 1972 – although Blair would not have been at the university yet.”[3]  He only matriculated at St. John’s College in October that year.

Bowie’s own views of “Cool Britannia” – Blair’s vain effort to gather popularity from the pop and entertainment fraternity – dripped with scorn.  In 1999, he would tell Jeremy Paxman that such a project was “so clichéd and silly and ineffective”. His response was to meet Blair in high heels and a vicar’s dog collar, neither of which the then fawning prime minister noticed.

In Britain, UK Celebrity Big Brother also found the Bowie cash cow irresistible, making hay by cornering the singer’s ex-wife, Angie, on national television with news that the star had snuffed it.  This, in turn, created a domino effect of Bowie publicity, stormily condemning Big Brother for its purportedly insensitive policies.

The entire revelation was broadcast from the habitually obscene “diary room camera”. Initially, Angie says that she had not seen Bowie “in so many years” and could not “make a big drama about it, but… feel an era has ended”. The frontal calm dissipates, leaving those Big Brother irritants known as “house guests” to comfort the distraught Angie. “The stardust has gone.”  A true spectacle!

Irrespective of the authentic emotional state of Bowie’s former partner, the entire grotesquery was part and parcel of an industrial entertainment complex, one of collusion and collaboration.  Those at Channel Five, which received a dozen complaints after the airing, would have felt it worth it.  The Bowie name was too good to avoid streaming through the popular unconsciousness of the program, and reality television was there to make a killing. After all, Angie was largely there as a link to Bowie’s name, a vicarious “celebrity” herself.  And she was not, to the consternation of some Big Brother watchers, going anywhere.

Besides, suggested Angie’s manager, Ray Santilli, the former model “had plenty of time to consider her position off-camera to process the news.”  The ambush, in other words, hardly counted as such.  Big Brother had already readied her for a simulated emotional collapse.  “She made the decision to go back into the house, she made the decision to be interviewed afterwards.”[4]

It was time for Angie to take advantage of the Bowie name for another round.  Television, even in its reality format, is ever an enemy of reality, a stimulant for dissimulation.  Bowie would have understood that.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Notes:

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Civil Resistance in West Papua

January 13th, 2016 by Jason Macleod

West Papua is a secret story. On the western half of the island of New Guinea, hidden from the world, in a place occupied by the Indonesian military since 1963, continues a remarkable nonviolent struggle for national liberation.

In Merdeka and the Morning Star, academic Jason MacLeod gives an insider’s view of the trajectory and dynamics of civil resistance in West Papua. Here, the indigenous population has staged protests, boycotts, strikes and other nonviolent actions against repressive rule.

This is the first in-depth account of civilian-led insurrection in West Papua, a movement that has transitioned from guerrilla warfare to persistent nonviolent resistance. MacLeod analyses several case studies, including tax resistance that pre-dates Gandhi’s Salt March by two decades, worker strikes at the world’s largest gold and copper mine, daring attempts to escape Indonesian rule by dugout canoe, and the collection of a petition in which signing meant to risk being shot dead.

Merdeka and the Morning Star is a must-read for all those interested in Indonesia, the Pacific, self-determination struggles and nonviolent ways out of occupation. [Order the book by clicking on the image of it on the right]

West Papuans Testify

We have come to testify. There is much that we want the world to know.

We want you to travel with us to the remote places of Papua—Wamena, Paniai, the Jayawijaya Highlands, the Star Mountains, Mindiptana, Timika, Arso, Mamberamo, Biak, Merauke, Asmat and many other places. We want you to hear stories of suffering from the mouths of ordinary people. Our memories are clear and sharp.

‘In this river our father was murdered’

‘On that mountain slope there used to be villages. They were destroyed by the military’

‘On that open field, our old men were forced to burn their koteka [penis sheaths] because they were considered primitive’

‘In the past that mountain was ours, now people have destroyed our mother’

We want you to travel with us to the sites of the massacres. We want to testify about the killings and the beatings with rifles.

We want to testify about the people who were disappeared, those who were imprisoned and those who were tortured.

There have been many forms of torture – the burning, the stabbing of the genitals, the rape of women.

These are some of the injustices that we want the world to know.

On some days bombs have fallen like rain. We have been up against Hercules aircraft and helicopters and boats. They had overwhelming power.

And after the massacres or murders, the injustices always continue.

Rather than acknowledge the truth, they tell lies.

The perpetrators are promoted not punished, while the victims are dragged into court.

Some of us have spent years in prison. One of us was jailed for 15 years simply for raising our Morning Star flag.

Over years we have faced one injustice after another and then another.

There has been violation after violation since 1963. Entire villages have been destroyed. And Papuan people have been turned against other Papuans.

Injustices continue to this day. Today we face human rights violations, economic injustice, and every week thousands more migrants come in white ships and planes. We are becoming a minority in our land.

Those who resist face continuing discrimination. We are excluded from employment, education and health care. And for women, it has been worse.

They suffered the rapes and assaults and then even more. They were shamed by their own families and often marriages broke apart. These are forms of double injustice and women’s suffering that no one should ever have to face.

These are just some of the injustices that we are testifying to today.

We want the world to know about this.

We also want to testify to the effects of these injustices

Some of our bodies bear the scars.

And so do our souls. We will never forget the sound of the killings.

Some of us still feel the fear. For those who fled we don’t know if we will be safe when we return.

Other survivors have been left with physical disabilities and troubles in the mind.

The rapes brought shame – so much shame that some women did not seek medical help.

And sometimes survivors may feel guilty for being alive. The killings can make us doubt that we have a right to live.

There have been effects for children too. Fear came to the children who did not go to school for months.

When the foreigners have taken our land, cut down our forests and destroyed our rivers, this destruction affects us too. The loss of our sacred places has brought sickness to our people.

And sometimes we feel like we are slaves in our own land. Some of us have to struggle everyday just to feed our families and send our children to school.

But there is more that we want you to know.

We want you to know our testimonies of remembrance.

We are survivors and also witnesses. We have always remembered those who were killed. We will remember them until we die.

There are many ways that we do this.

We have cultural ways of joining in memory and in prayer. We place stones or wreaths of flowers. And there are traditional songs that we use to connect us with those who have died and with the ancestors. These are songs we can sing to those who have passed. We do this in a quiet place, a garden, a beach.

Or we remember through making statues of our loved ones, or photos, or lighting candles. We commune with our ancestors.

But we never forget them. They are with us. Those of us who are still alive have a responsibility to keep progressing the struggle. I have dreams of those who were killed in the jungle. They come to me in my dreams and they encourage me to keep going. I dreamt of them just last week. I listen to their voices.

If they knew that we were meeting together now, if they knew that we were gathering this testimony, they would be very happy. This would mean something to them.

They have gone over there to another world. We will always remember them.

We also want you to know the stories of our resistance, action and rescue

Our people have a long, long history of resistance. We Papuans have been resisting outsiders for centuries. Back to the 1850s, the Dutch who were seeking to protect their spice trade, faced more than 40 Papuan rebellions – both violent and nonviolent. Diverse tribes came together to resist. Angganeta Menufandu, a Konor (indigenous prophet) from Biak Island, led a mass defiance of government and mission bans on wor (ritual singing and dancing) and urged her followers not to pay taxes and to withhold labor. When the Japanese invaded, towards the end of World War Two, they were initially welcomed but, after acts of cruelty, the movement for a free and independent West Papua began again. The killings and massacres began in these times. And our resistance continued.

Our struggle for freedom continued after WWII when the US drove the Japanese out of West Papua at the cost of thousands of lives. And since 1963 we have resisted Indonesian government rule.

We remember our long history of resistance. This history raises us up.

We carry it on.

Many of us have formed organisations of action. We come together for survivors of human rights abuses, for women, for people all over Papua.

We form resistance groups. We are students, young people, older people, women, men, religious leaders and traditional leaders. We take action on behalf of those who are living and those who are no longer alive.

Some of us, who witnessed massacres, were involved in acts of rescue on the days when bullets were raining down, and when the sky was on the fire. After the Biak Massacre our family gave shelter to two men who were fleeing for their lives. My father gave them his clothes. He sat my sisters on their laps. We sat down quietly and we opened all the doors and all the windows. When the soldiers came in with all their weaponry, we stood there shaking. As they held their guns at us, and asked us if we were hiding anyone, we said no. We were all shaking, my father, my sisters, myself, but we survived, and the two men survived too. For four days they stayed with us. We had almost no food but my mother found a way to feed us. We are survivors, rescuers and resistors.

Right across Papua, and for so many years, we have continued to resist, to rescue and to raise the Morning Star. When we cannot fly our flag we have painted it on our bodies, stitched it into noken string bags. When one of us was imprisoned for 15 years for raising our flag, he was offered amnesty if he apologised, but he refused. ‘Why should I say sorry? I have done nothing wrong. It is the Indonesian state who has to say sorry. And not just to me but to all the Papuan people. They have to return our sovereignty.’

And even though it is risky for us there are many times we have come out on to the streets in our thousands, even in our tens of thousands, to demand freedom.

These are just some of our stories of resistance. There are stories of resistance all over Papua.

We want you to know that building unity is not easy – but we are doing it

The Indonesian government and corporations use many methods to divide us. To turn Papuans against Papuans. If some people raise their voice, the company will come – or the government will come – and say, ‘Hey come into the office, let’s talk.’ They then give that person money, or a scholarship, or a good job. These are some of the ways our opponent uses to break our resistance.

But we keep taking steps to come together. There is a long history to this. When the Amungme have a problem we build a traditional house. In this house – this Tongoi – people come, sit down and talk. We invite every leader and chief from every village. People come together in one mind. When people then go out of the Tongoi they are going to bring a change. These are traditional ways of calling up assistance. In our culture, no one can stand up by themselves. Everyone needs everyone.

So we keep taking steps to come together. We have now formed the United Liberation Movement for West Papua. Inside this United Movement are the National Federal Republic of West Papua (NFRWP), the West Papua National Coalition of Liberation (WPNCL), National Committee for West Papua (KNPB), National Parliament for West Papua (PNWP) and other non-affiliated groups. We are strengthening our struggle and as we do so more and more people join us. People in other Pacific nations are raising their voices.

Our resistance is like a mat or noken – many strands woven together to become one.

Our resistance is like a spear, sharp and dangerous.

Our resistance is like a drum that speaks with the voices of the ancestors.

We want you to know about Papuan skills in survival

Despite all the injustices we have faced, we are survivors and we have many skills. We are wise about when to speak, when to stay quiet, and when to sing our songs. Some of these songs were written in prison for the future of West Papua. Some of our singers have been arrested and murdered. But we continue to sing freedom.

We also have our dances. We wear our traditional dress, and dance traditional Papuan dances. Our Papuan culture helps us to love and care for one another. When we live inside our culture we are free.

We have prayer, faith in Jesus Christ, and God as our witness.

And we have each other. We are among friends and we want to acknowledge all those who have stood with us.

There are other Papuan survival skills too.

Like mothers’ skills of endurance. Mothers who sell fruit and vegetables to feed their families and send their children to school display their produce on hessian mats by the side of the road. Rain, hail, sun and dust they sit. They survive.

Some of us travelled by canoe with 43 others all the way to Australia to seek another life. Years later, some of us sailed back to West Papua with the Freedom Flotilla. The West Papuans, Aboriginal elders and other Australian supporters on board the Flotilla carried a message of peace and solidarity, and reignited ancient connections.

And we have skills in humour, in jokes and in laughter. Even in the hardest times, we pray, we sing, we dance, and somehow we find a way to laugh.

We want you to know about our hopes and our dreams

We carry a big hope together … a free West Papua. We have held onto this hope for many, many years.

As we lift up these injustices to the light, then all the other cases will also be lifted up.

And we carry a hope for justice – international justice, western justice, West Papuan justice, spiritual justice.

That is why we are testifying today.

We are sharing with you testimonies of injustice.

We are speaking about the effects of these injustices.

We are sharing testimonies of remembrance.

We are sharing stories of resistance, action and rescue.

We are sharing the ways we build unity.

We are sharing our Papuan survival skills.

And we are testifying to our hopes and to our dreams.

What we are testifying here has been an open secret. We have always known this, God has always known this, but now you will know it too.

This means that now you are also witnesses.

So these stories and our hopes will now also be carried by you.

Thank you.

Jason MacLeod is an organiser, researcher and educator. He is the author of the just-published book ‘Merdeka and the Morning Star: civil resistance in West Papua’. Order his book here.

This testimony was written in collaboration with Mama Tineke and Daniel Rayer, two West Papuan activists who survived the Biak Massacre, and David Denborough from the Dulwich eCntre. It contains the voices of many of the people of West Papua Jason has collaborated with and is in part based on a similar testimony developed for the Biak Massacre Citizens Tribunal.

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New surveillance laws set to be approved in the UK are “totalitarian” and could cost British lives, security whistleblower William Binney [Pictured left, Photo: Jacob Applebaum/flickr/cc] told members of Parliament (MPs) on Wednesday.

Lawmakers are debating the controversial Investigatory Powers Bill, introduced by Home Secretary Theresa May and dubbed the “Snooper’s Charter” by opponents. It is expected to pass later this year and would, among other things, require telecommunications companies to store records of websites visited by every UK citizen for 12 months for access by law enforcement agencies.

That kind of sweeping, invasive surveillance strategy “costs lives, and has cost lives in Britain because it inundates analysts with too much data,” said Binney, who worked for the National Security Agency (NSA) for 30 years before exposing the ineffectiveness of its various intelligence programs.

Binney also criticized a UK government surveillance program known as Black Hole, launched in 2008 and made public in 2013 by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden, which lists everyone in the world who has ever visited a website.

“It is 99 percent useless,” Binney said. “Who wants to know everyone who has ever looked at Google or the BBC?  We have known for decades that that swamps analysts.”

In fact, Binney charged, those kinds of expansive measures prevented intelligence agents from uncovering the September 11 plot, as the deluge of information strained resources within the NSA and impeded its ability to investigate leads.

“Sixteen months before the attacks on America, our organization [Signit Automation Research Center, or SARC] was running a new method of finding terrorist networks that worked on focusing on ‘smart collection’. Their plan was rejected in favor of a… plan to collect all communications from everyone,” Binney told a committee of MPs scrutinizing the draft bill. “The US large-scale surveillance plan failed. It had to be abandoned in 2005. Checks afterwards showed that communications from the terrorists had been collected, but not looked at in time.”

“Britain should not go further down this road and risk making the same mistakes as my country did, or they will end up perpetuating loss of life,” he said.

Rather than vacuuming up bulk data and sifting through it for valuable intel, Binney urged Parliament to focus on a more targeted collection technique, which he said would streamline the process and make it more effective at uncovering and thwarting plans for attacks. It would also safeguard against violating private communications of legally protected groups like lawyers, journalists, and MPs.

“This approach reduces the burden on analysts required to review extremely large quantities of irrelevant material with consequent improvement to operational effectiveness,” he said. “At the same time, it reduces the privacy burden affecting the large number of innocent and suspicion-free persons whose communications are accessible to our systems.”

In an interview with Wired UK ahead of his testimony, Binney explained, “Fundamentally, bulk acquisition is a major impediment to success by analysts and law enforcement.”

“Retroactively analyzing people, anybody you want, any time you want, that’s certainly possible with bulk acquisition of data but that’s certainly not what democracies are built on. That’s what totalitarian states are built on,” he continued. “It doesn’t give people security, it makes them more vulnerable; we’re more vulnerable than we’ve ever been because of this.”

 

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To justify U.S. “regime changes,” the U.S. government has routinely spread rumors and made other dubious claims which – even when later doubted or debunked – are left in place indefinitely as corrosive propaganda, eating away at the image of various “enemies” and deforming public opinion.

Even though this discredited propaganda can have a long half-life – continuing to contaminate the public’s ability to perceive reality for years – President Barack Obama and his administration have shown no inclination to undertake a kind of HAZMAT clean-up of the polluted information environment that American citizens have been forced to live in.

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)

Image: Secretary of State Hillary Clinton testifies before Congress on Jan. 23, 2013, about the fatal attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11. 2012. (Photo from C-SPAN coverage)

A recent case in point was the emergence – in the State Department’s New Year’s Eve release of more than 3,000 emails to and from former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton – of evidence that two key propaganda themes used to advance violent “regime change” in Libya in 2011 may have originated with rebel-inspired rumors passed on by Clinton’s private adviser Sidney Blumenthal.

A March 27, 2011 email from Blumenthal reminded Clinton that

“I communicated more than a week ago on this story — [Libyan leader Muammar] Qaddafi placing bodies to create PR stunts about supposed civilian casualties as a result of Allied bombing — though underlining it was a rumor. But now, as you know, [Defense Secretary] Robert Gates gives credence to it.”

Blumenthal’s email, which was slugged “Rumor: Q[addafi]’s rape policy,” then plunged ahead into his new rumor:

“Sources now say, again rumor (that is, this information comes from the rebel side and is unconfirmed independently by Western intelligence), that Qaddafi has adopted a rape policy and has even distributed Viagra to troops. The incident at the Tripoli press conference involving a woman claiming to be raped is likely to be part of a much larger outrage. Will seek further confirmation.”

A month later, this bizarre Viagra-rape angle became part of a United Nations presentation by then U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Susan Rice who brought up the Viagra charge in a debate about the evils of Muammar Gaddafi’s regime.

A U.N. diplomat at the closed session on April 28, 2011, told The Guardian that

“It was during a discussion about whether there is moral equivalence between the Gaddafi forces and the rebels. She listed human rights abuses by Gaddafi’s forces, including snipers shooting children in the street and the Viagra story.”

On Blumenthal’s other propaganda point, it’s not clear where Defense Secretary Gates got the idea to accuse Gaddafi of “staging” scenes of U.S.-inflicted carnage, but Blumenthal’s email indicates that he was disseminating that rumor which might have been picked up by Gates, rather than independently confirmed by Gates. (It’s also true that the “staging” excuse has been used before when evidence emerges of U.S. bombs killing civilians.)

Media Self-Interest

Yet, regardless of the truth or falsity of such U.S. claims and counter-claims, the chance that someone inside Official Washington is going to review the lies and exaggerations used to rationalize a major U.S. foreign policy initiative – in this case, the violent overthrow of the Gaddafi regime – to, in effect, “clear” Gaddafi’s name is remote at best.

The few cases of the media debunking U.S. propaganda, such as exposing the made-up claims about Iraqi soldiers killing babies on incubators before the Persian Gulf War in 1990-91, are rare exceptions to the rule. Even rarer are cases when the U.S. government admits that it relied on false information, such as the intelligence community recanting its pre-invasion claims about Iraq hiding WMD stockpiles in 2002-03.

The much more common approach is to simply leave the decaying propaganda in place and move on to the next target of opportunity. There is little benefit for anyone to undertake the painstaking work of separating whatever slices of truth exist within the rot of lies and exaggerations that were used to justify some war.

President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)

Image: President Barack Obama at the White House with National Security Adviser Susan Rice and Samantha Power (right), his U.N. ambassador. (Photo credit: Pete Souza)

The way mainstream journalism usually works in America is that a reporter who challenges U.S. government propaganda aimed at a foreign “enemy” is putting his or her career at risk. The reporter’s patriotism will be questioned amid suggestions that he or she is a “fill-in-the-blank-with-the-villain’s-name” apologist.

And since the reality – whatever it is – is usually fuzzy, there is almost never any vindication for a brave stance. So, the smart career play is to go along with the propaganda or stay silent.

A similar reality exists inside the U.S. government. Honest intelligence analysts can expect no rewards if they debunk one of these propaganda themes, especially after a number of important U.S. officials have gone out publicly and sold the falsehood to the people. Making the Secretary of State or the Defense Secretary or the President look bad is not a great career move.

France’s Designs

Plus, the propaganda themes, which stress American righteousness in standing up to foreign evil, are useful in obscuring the self-interested motives that often circle around a killing field like the one that Libya has become.

For instance, another Blumenthal memo to Clinton explained France’s political and pecuniary interests in toppling Gaddafi and thus thwarting his ambitious plans to use Libya’s oil wealth as a means of freeing parts of Africa from French domination.

In an April 2, 2011 email, Blumenthal informed Clinton that sources close to one of Gaddafi sons were reporting that “Qaddafi’s government holds 143 tons of gold, and a similar amount in silver” and the hoard had been moved from the Libyan Central Bank in Tripoli closer to the border with Niger and Chad.

“This gold was accumulated prior to the current rebellion and was intended to be used to establish a pan-African currency based on the Libyan golden Dinar. This plan was designed to provide the Francophone African Countries with an alternative to the French franc (CFA).”

Blumenthal then added that

“According to knowledgeable individuals, this quantity of gold and silver is valued at more than $7 billion. French intelligence officers discovered this plan shortly after the current rebellion began, and this was one of the factors that influenced President Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to commit France to the attack on Libya.”

The email added:

“According to these individuals, Sarkozy’s plans are driven by the following issues: a. A desire to gain a greater share of Libya oil production, b. Increase French influence in North Africa, c. Improve his internal political situation in France, d. Provide the French military with an opportunity to reassert its position in the world, e. Address the concern of his advisors over Qaddafi’s long term plans to supplant France as the dominant power in Francophone Africa.”

In an earlier email, dated March 27, 2011, Blumenthal also discussed the French interests in the conflict, citing “knowledgeable individuals” who said that Sarkozy “is pressing to have France emerge from this crisis as the principal foreign ally of any new government that takes power.”

French President Nicolas Sarkozy

Image: French President Nicolas Sarkozy

So do you think it would it be easier for the Obama administration to rally American support behind this “regime change” by explaining how the French wanted to steal Libya’s wealth and maintain French neocolonial influence over Africa – or would Americans respond better to propaganda themes about Gaddafi passing out Viagra to his troops so they could rape more women while his snipers targeted innocent children? Bingo!

Seeing No Jihadists

In selling the Libyan policy to the American people, it was also important to downplay another part of the crisis: that Gaddafi was right when he warned of the danger from Islamic radicals, including Al Qaeda’s North African affiliate, operating in eastern Libya.

Gaddafi’s original military offensive was aimed at these groups, but the Obama administration’s propagandists twisted the issue into Gaddafi supposedly committing “genocide” against the people of eastern Libya, thus requiring a U.S.-led “responsibility to protect” or “R2P” mission.

However, in the emails to Clinton, Blumenthal conveyed the actual reality – that these supposedly innocent anti-Gaddafi rebels in the east indeed included jihadist elements. He wrote:

“Sarkozy is also concerned about continuing reports that radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC [the rebel’s National Transitional Council] and its military command.

“Accordingly, he [Sarkozy] asked [a] sociologist … who has long established ties to Israel, Syria, and other nations in the Middle East, to use his contacts to determine the level of influence AQIM and other terrorist groups have inside of the NLC. Sarkozy also asked for reports setting out a clear picture of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the rebel leadership.”

Blumenthal added:

“Senior European security officials caution that AQIM is watching developments in Libya, and elements of that organization have been in touch with tribes in the southeastern part of the country. These [European] officials are concerned that in a post-Qaddafi Libya, France and other western European countries must move quickly to ensure that the new government does not allow AQIM and others to set up small, semi-autonomous local entities — or ‘Caliphates’ — in the oil and gas producing regions of southeastern Libya.”

In other words, the danger of Islamic terror groups exploiting the power vacuum that the Obama administration and its Western allies were creating inside Libya was well understood in March 2011, but the supposed “R2P” mission pressed ahead nevertheless.

The “R2P” advocates also turned a blind eye to evidence that black Africans working for Gaddafi’s government were being systematically rounded up and murdered. As Blumenthal reported to Clinton, “Speaking in strict confidence, one rebel commander stated that his troops continue to summarily execute all foreign mercenaries captured in the fighting.”

These so-called “mercenaries” were contractors from black Africa where many people viewed Gaddafi as a champion of the continent’s development, independent of the former Western imperial powers and the harsh demands of the International Monetary Fund. While some of these blacks were part of Gaddafi’s security structure, others were involved in construction projects.

Slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi

Image: Slain Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi

Whatever their assignments, executing prisoners of war is a war crime – and the image of U.S.-backed rebels singling out black Africans for execution turns the pretense of an “R2P” mission on its head – or perhaps all those noble humanitarian arguments were just phony from the start.

As Brad Hoff of the Levant Report wrote,

“historians of the 2011 NATO war in Libya will be sure to notice a few of the truly explosive confirmations contained in the new emails: admissions of rebel war crimes, special ops trainers inside Libya from nearly the start of protests, Al Qaeda embedded in the U.S. backed opposition, Western nations jockeying for access to Libyan oil, the nefarious origins of the absurd Viagra mass rape claim, and concern over Gaddafi’s gold and silver reserves threatening European currency.”

Reality’s Hard Sell

But it probably would have been a hard sell to the American people if the U.S. government explained the dark side of the “R2P” mission – that it involved systematic executions of blacks and rapacious Western officials grasping for oil and gold – as well as creating a vacuum for jihadists. Instead, it worked much better to promote wild rumors about Gaddafi’s perfidy.

It is in this way that U.S. citizens, the “We the People” who were supposed to be the nation’s sovereigns, are treated more like cattle herded to the slaughterhouse.

Some of us did try to warn the public about these risks. For instance, on March 25, 2011, days before Blumenthal’s emails, I described the hazard from the neocon “regime change” strategies in Libya and Syria, writing:

“In rallying U.S. support for these rebellions, the neocons risked repeating the mistake they made by pushing the U.S. invasion of Iraq. They succeeded in ousting Saddam Hussein, who had long been near the top of Israel’s enemies list, but the war also removed him as a bulwark against both Islamic extremists and Iranian influence in the Persian Gulf. …

“By embracing these uprisings, the neocons invited unintended consequences, including further Islamic radicalization of the region and deepening anti-Americanism. Indeed, a rebel victory over Gaddafi risked putting extremists from an al-Qaeda affiliate in a powerful position inside Libya.

“The major U.S. news media aided the neocon cause by focusing on Gaddafi’s historic ties to terrorism, including the dubious charge that he was behind the Pan Am 103 bombing in 1988. There was little attention paid to his more recent role in combating the surge in al-Qaeda activity, especially in eastern Libya, the base of the revolt against him.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Neocons Regroup on Libyan War.”]

Though the 2011 concerns about Al Qaeda have since morphed into worries about its spinoff, the Islamic State, the larger point remains valid regarding Libya, which descended into the status of failed state after Gaddafi’s ouster and his brutal torture-murder on Oct. 20, 2011. Secretary Clinton greeted the news of Gaddafi’s demise with glee, exulting, “we came, we saw, he died” and then laughed. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Hillary Clinton’s Failed Libya Doctrine.”]

More than four years later, the Obama administration still struggles to piece together some order from the chaos in Libya, where Western governments have even abandoned their Tripoli embassies. Meanwhile, the Islamic State and other jihadist groups continue to expand their control of Libyan territory.

In Syria, President Bashar al-Assad has hung on despite continued efforts by the Obama administration and its regional Sunni allies to remove him. The four years of war – waged mostly by jihadists armed and financed by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Western powers – have killed a quarter million people and made millions homeless, now spreading the Mideast’s disorders into Europe where the refugee crisis is dividing the European Union.

Of course, in the U.S. mainstream media, the Syrian deaths and destruction are blamed almost entirely on Assad, much as the conflict in Libya was blamed on Gaddafi and the U.S. invasion of Iraq was blamed on Saddam Hussein. In the world created by U.S. propaganda, it is always some other guy’s fault.

In the Syrian case, the major decaying propaganda theme that continues to contaminate public understanding of the crisis has been the accusation that Assad “gassed his own people” with sarin on Aug. 21, 2013. Although independent evidence has long been pointing in the direction of a rebel provocation, perhaps aided by Turkey, the old rotting propaganda is routinely dug up by neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks to justify why “Assad must go!” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “The Collapsing Syria-Sarin Case.“]

In the case of Libya, Blumenthal’s emails provide a useful window into what was actually happening behind the scenes – and what Secretary of State Clinton knew.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com).

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The National Endowment for Democracy, or NED, is an organization that presents itself as an NGO officially dedicated to “the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world”.  But in reality it gets 95% of its budget from the United States Congress.  It was officially created by the Reagan administration in 1982.

The nature of the NED has led many contemporary intellectuals and researchers to describe it as an agency enabling the secret services of the US to overthrow governments that the US State Department dislikes.

This description was supported by the testimony of Oliviet Guilmain, a researcher at the CECE (Centre for the Comparative Study of Elections), during an information session at the French Senate concerning financing of the electoral process.  It is known that the NED finances opposition parties in numerous countries and provides special aid to exiles and opponents of regimes targeted by the US State Department.

In  the case of Syria, NED’s main organization is the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. It is also a partner of the International Human Rights Federation (FIDH) which received $140,000 following a meeting in December 2009 between Carl Gershman and self-styled French human rights organizations. NED’s French contact was François Zimeray, who was former Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner’s Ambassador for Human Rights. Those present during that meeting included the Catholic Committee against Hunger and for Development (CCFD), the African section of AEDH (Act Together for Human Rights), Reporters Without Borders, SOS Racisme and the FIDH.

The International Federation of Human Rights is thus an official partner of the NED, as is also shown by its support for the allegations made by the ex-secretary general of the Libyan Human Rights League – also attached to the FIDH – against the government of Moammer Kadhafi.  Those allegations, also supported by the NGO “U.N Watch”, were what set off the diplomatic procedures against the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya.

In the case of Syria, Dr. Radwan Ziadeh is the director of the Damascus Center for Human Rights Studies. His highly impressive biography makes clear his engagement is in favor of US foreign policy in the Middle East. In particular, he is a member of the Middle East Studies Association (MESA) and director of the Syrian Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Washington. He was present alongside Aly Abuzakuuk – one of the NED representatives in Libya – for the Round Table of the Democracy Awards, which is an event that honors so-called “human rights activists” by the NED.

Moreover, there are strong similarities between the process that created the Humanitarian War in Libya and what is being elaborated in regard to Syria. For example, UN Watch, an organization that coordinates the operations of the NED and the FIDH in Geneva, has already launched several petitions against the Syrian regime and Bachar Al-Assad. These petitions against Syria make the same allegations of massacres as those put forth by the ex-secretary of the Libyan Human Rights League, Sliman Bouchuiguir, at the UN Human Rights Council against Libya.

It is therefore an urgent matter to denounce these procedures. It is all the more important since recent history shows us that these allegations were not verified in the case of Libya. Nor was there any proof based on any solid evidence about the allegations made against Tripoli, contrary to the claims of the International Criminal Court.

Julien Teil is a videographer and investigative documentary film maker from France.

War in Yemen: Ever-growing Threat to the Lives of Children

January 13th, 2016 by Julien Harneis

Statement attributable to Julien Harneis, UNICEF Representative in Yemen

“With no end in sight to the deadly conflict in Yemen, nearly 10 million children inside the country are now facing a new year of pain and suffering.

“Continuous bombardment and street fighting are exposing children and their families to a deadly combination of violence, disease and deprivation.

“The direct impact of the conflict on children is hard to measure. The statistics confirmed by the UN (747 children killed and another 1,108 injured since March last year; 724 children pressed into some form of military activity) tell only part of the story. But they are shocking enough in themselves.

“The broader effects of the violence on innocent civilians extend much further. Children make up at least half of the 2.3 million people estimated to have been displaced from their homes, and of the more than 19 million people struggling to get water on a daily basis; 1.3 million children under five face the risk of acute malnutrition and acute respiratory tract infections. And at least 2 million children cannot go to school.

“Public services like health, water and sanitation have been decimated and cannot meet the ever-increasing needs of a desperate population. Few of the 7.4 million children requiring protection (including psycho-social support to help deal with the effects of their exposure to violence) will actually receive it.

“The longer-term consequences of all this for Yemen – which was already the Middle East’s poorest nation even before the conflict — can only be guessed at.

“Agencies like UNICEF are doing the best they can, in an extremely hazardous working environment. As a result, in 2015, more than 4 million children under 5 were vaccinated against measles and polio, and 166,000 children were admitted for treatment against malnutrition.  Over 3.5 million affected people were provided with access to water and 63,520 people belonging to extremely poor communities were assisted with humanitarian cash transfers in the cities of Sanaa and Taiz.

“But so much more is needed. The children of Yemen need urgent help and they need it now.

“That can happen if all parties involved in the conflict – as is their duty under International Humanitarian Law — were to allow unhindered access to areas affected by the fighting, where civilians are dying because hospitals are not functioning, medicines are in short supply and children are at risk of dying from preventable diseases. Aid agencies would then be able to scale up their work accordingly.

“But what is really needed — above all else — is an end to the conflict. Only in that way can the children of Yemen look forward to 2016 with hope rather than despair.”

UNICEF promotes the rights and wellbeing of every child, in everything we do.  Together with our partners, we work in 190 countries and territories to translate that commitment into practical action, focusing special effort on reaching the most vulnerable and excluded children, to the benefit of all children, everywhere.  For more information about UNICEF and its work visit: www.unicef.org

For further information, please contact:

Mohammed Al-Asaadi, UNICEF Yemen, [email protected], +967 711760002
Bismarck Swangin, UNICEF Amman, [email protected] +962 790 157 636
Najwa Mekki, UNICEF New York, [email protected], +1 917 209 1804

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The final State of the Union speech delivered Tuesday night by President Barack Obama was a demonstration of the incapacity of the American political system to deal honestly or seriously with a single social question.

Obama evaded the real issues that affect tens of millions of working people in America every day of their lives. He painted a ludicrous picture of economic recovery and social progress that insulted the intelligence of his television audience—and went unchallenged by the millionaire politicians assembled in the chamber of the House of Representatives.

Summing up what he called “the progress of these past seven years,” Obama gave first place to “how we recovered from the worst economic crisis in generations.” The so-called “recovery” has been a bonanza for corporate profits, stock prices, and the wealth and income of the super-rich. For the working people who are the vast majority of the population, it has been a disaster.

By most social indices, the American people are worse off in January 2016 than when Obama took office seven years ago. The real wages of working people have fallen, social services have deteriorated, pension benefits have been gutted, and cities such as Detroit and San Bernardino have been forced into bankruptcy.

According to a report by the National Association of Counties issued on the eve of the State of the Union address, of the 3,069 counties in the United States, 93 percent are worse off than before the 2008 financial crash according to at least one of four economic indicators: total employment, the unemployment rate, the size of the economy and home values.

In 27 states, not a single county has recovered fully from the 2008 crash and the deep economic slump that followed. These include such major states as Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

Obama, however, painted a picture of nearly unblemished economic advance, declaring, “The United States of America, right now, has the strongest, most durable economy in the world.” He boasted,

“We’re in the middle of the longest streak of private-sector job creation in history. More than 14 million new jobs; the strongest two years of job growth since the ‘90s; an unemployment rate cut in half.”

The president did not acknowledge that the post-2008 “recovery” is the weakest on record, that the vast majority of the new jobs created have been low-wage and many of them part-time, or that the drop in the unemployment rate is primarily due to the withdrawal of millions of people from the work force because they lost all hope of getting a decent-paying job.

He went on, tellingly, to cite the auto industry as a symbol of success, declaring that it “just had its best year ever.” This perfectly expresses the utter blindness, not just of Obama, but of the entire political establishment. The “best year ever” was for General Motors, Ford and Fiat-Chrysler, which enjoyed record profits, not for the auto workers who produced those profits.

Real wages for auto workers have dropped sharply since the Obama White House forced through a 50 percent cut in wages for all new hires as part of the bankruptcy reorganization of the industry in 2009. Mass discontent among auto workers was expressed at the end of 2015 in the rejection of contracts at Fiat-Chrysler and Nexteer, a major supplier, and in widespread demands for strike action, smothered by Obama’s stooges in the United Auto Workers union.

“Anyone claiming that America’s economy is in decline is peddling fiction,” Obama concluded. The social position of the American working class has, in fact, suffered a dramatic decline, through the combined efforts of the corporate bosses, the unions and the two capitalist parties, the Democrats and Republicans.

The president conceded that economic inequality has grown in the United States, but he described it as the outcome of long-term trends such as globalization and automation, as though the policies of his administration—bailouts for Wall Street, budget cuts and wage cuts for workers—had nothing to do with it.

In the seven years since the financial crash, brought on, as he admitted, by “recklessness on Wall Street,” not a single banker or speculator has been prosecuted or jailed. On the contrary, the billionaires have greatly increased their wealth, gobbling up 95 percent of all new income since Obama entered the White House.

Obama listed a few other policy “successes,” claiming that “we reformed our health care system, and reinvented our energy sector… we delivered more care and benefits to our troops and veterans.” He was referring, however, to a series of social disasters: the reactionary attack on health benefits for workers and their families known as Obamacare; the devastation of Appalachia and other energy-producing regions; and the abuse of ex-soldiers, wounded in body and mind, by the Veterans Administration.

Obama sought to defend the foreign policy record of his administration from criticism, mainly from the Republican right, where demands are being raised for military escalation in the Middle East and stepped-up attacks on democratic rights at home in the name of fighting “terrorism.”

While he claimed to reject an American role as the world’s policeman, he nonetheless boasted, “The United States of America is the most powerful nation on Earth. Period. It’s not even close. We spend more on our military than the next eight nations combined.”

He continued, “Our troops are the finest fighting force in the history of the world,” winning the bipartisan standing ovation that always accompanies any mention of American soldiers engaged in combat overseas.

Obama indulged in the glorification of killing that has become an essential part of the degraded spectacle that passes for political discourse in America. Describing the US war against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, he claimed, “With nearly 10,000 air strikes, we are taking out their leadership, their oil, their training camps, and their weapons.”

He called on Congress to pass an Authorization for the Use of Military Force against ISIS, but vowed to wage war with or without legislative approval. The leaders of ISIS, he proclaimed,

“will learn the same lessons as terrorists before them. If you doubt America’s commitment—or mine—to see that justice is done, ask Osama bin Laden. Ask the leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, who was taken out last year…”

Then he declared, in language that will be noted by nations all over the world, that when it comes to waging war against potential adversaries, “our reach has no limit.”

Obama concluded his speech with an appeal to his Republican opponents to work with his administration and pull back from the extreme anti-immigrant and anti-Muslim rhetoric that has characterized the contest for the Republican presidential nomination.

In a clear reference to Donald Trump, he argued that “we need to reject any politics that targets people because of race or religion. This is not a matter of political correctness, but understanding what makes us strong.”

Obama was making an argument, not so much that racism and bigotry are intrinsically wrong, but that they make it more difficult for American imperialism to maintain its dominant world role. “When a politician insults Muslims,” he said, “it makes it harder to achieve our goals.”

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La Reserva Federal de Estados Unidos jala el gatillo

January 13th, 2016 by Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

El Sistema de la Reserva Federal (Fed, por su acrónimo en inglés) de Estados Unidos finalmente lo hizo, jaló el gatillo: el miércoles 16 de diciembre de 2015, en punto de las 14 horas (hora en Washington, Distrito de Columbia), se anunció la decisión de elevar el precio del dinero en 25 puntos base. De esta manera, la tasa de interés de los fondos federales (federal funds rate), la que se cobran los bancos entre sí por préstamos de 1 día, aumentó desde un nivel mínimo entre cero y 0.25 por ciento en el que se encontraba desde finales de 2008, a otro que oscila entre 0.25 por ciento y medio punto porcentual.

Se trata de la primera vez que se lleva a cabo un alza de tipos de interés en casi 1 década, la última subida tuvo lugar en 2006, cuando comenzaban a emerger las primeras señales de la crisis hipotecaria (subprime) en Estados Unidos. Cierto es que hace ya un buen tiempo que la presidenta del Fed, Janet Yellen, venía advirtiendo a propios y extraños que, más temprano que tarde, iba a elevar la tasa de interés de los fondos federales, un referente clave que determina el costo del crédito en el ámbito internacional.

De acuerdo con la mayoría de los integrantes del Comité Federal de Mercado Abierto (FOMC, por su sigla en inglés) del Fed, el aspecto más preocupante de la economía estadounidense tenía que ver con la evolución del mercado de trabajo. Según se puede leer en sus estatutos, el Fed tiene la obligación de cumplir con tres objetivos fundamentales: la estabilidad financiera, la baja inflación y el pleno empleo.

Si se los compara con los puntajes alcanzados en 2008, hoy en día los principales índices de la bolsa de valores de Nueva York (el Dow Jones, el Nasdaq y el índice Standard & Poor’s 500) parecen haberse recuperado, con todo y que la economía estadounidense aún no consigue registrar los niveles de inversión productiva ni de empleo alcanzados hace 7 años. Pero para el Fed todo se encuentra bajo control, pues la volatilidad observada durante el último año en el mercado bursátil no es tanto un reflejo de los problemas “estructurales” de la economía de Estados Unidos, sino que obedece a pequeñas “correcciones” en los precios de los títulos financieros.

Por lo tanto, si bien existen ciertas amenazas sobre la estabilidad financiera, no son tan grandes como para poner en cuestión la recuperación económica, a juicio de varios funcionarios del Fed. En cambio, sí hay bastante angustia en torno a la inflación. Pues el nivel de precios en Estados Unidos se ha mantenido por debajo de 2 por ciento, el objetivo del Fed, desde hace más de 3 años. Es que si bien la meta del Fed es mantener baja la inflación, si el nivel de precios se mantiene en un nivel demasiado bajo por un largo tiempo, es una señal inequívoca de que algo anda realmente mal en la economía.

Los estímulos monetarios y fiscales implementados por el Fed y el Departamento del Tesoro, respectivamente, no lograron apuntalar la inflación en Estados Unidos; el peligro mayor está en que en algún momento la baja inflación termine por convertirse en deflación (caída de precios), la peor pesadilla de los capitalistas. Según los datos del Departamento del Trabajo, en octubre pasado el índice de precios al consumidor (IPC) creció apenas 0.2 por ciento con respecto al mismo periodo de 2014, mientras que si se excluyen los precios de los alimentos y la energía, el incremento fue de 1.9 por ciento. En noviembre los datos mostraron una leve mejoría, el IPC creció 0.5 por ciento en términos anuales, y los precios subyacentes al consumidor aumentaron 2 por ciento.

Janet Yellen confía en que en el mediano plazo, a medida que la recuperación siga cobrando fuerza, la inflación va a terminar por acercarse cada vez más al objetivo de 2 puntos porcentuales. Y por último, el Fed debe velar por un mercado laboral boyante. Pleno empleo en la jerga económica significa estar en una situación en la que el país en cuestión utiliza la mayor parte de sus capacidades productivas. Cuando la tasa de desempleo se ubica en alrededor de 5 por ciento, el gobierno de Estados Unidos considera que hay pleno empleo.

Y según las cifras más recientes, la nómina no agrícola consiguió incrementos importantes durante el último tramo de 2015, en especial en noviembre, cuando aumentó en 211 mil. Así, la tasa de de desempleo oficial cayó de 10 por ciento en 2009, a cerca de 5 por ciento. Sin embargo, se deja de lado que si se tomara en cuenta una definición mucho más amplia de desempleo, la metodología U-6, que considera a las personas que han abandonado la búsqueda de empleo, así como a los trabajadores dispuestos a cumplir con una jornada de tiempo completo, la tasa de desempleo se ubica en casi 10 por ciento.

“En general, la información económica y financiera recibida desde nuestra reunión de octubre ha sido consistente con nuestras expectativas de una mejora continuada del mercado laboral […] si [el Fed] retrasa el inicio de una normalización de la política demasiado, probablemente acabemos teniendo un endurecimiento político relativamente abrupto que evitará que la economía supere nuestros objetivos”, sentenció Yellen a principios de diciembre de 2015.

El Fed elevó sus expectativas de crecimiento para el próximo año hasta 2.4 por ciento, la estimación previa era de 2.3 por ciento. También disminuyó su proyección para el desempleo en 2016 a 4.7 por ciento, por debajo de la anterior de 4.8 por ciento. No obstante, ese optimismo desbordado soslaya por completo que los empleos ganados son, sobre todo, a tiempo parcial en el sector de los servicios; en contraste, tanto las empresas de la manufactura y el sector de la energía (en especial las vinculadas con los hidrocarburos) han realizado despidos masivos en los últimos meses. Por otro parte, los salarios, si bien han aumentado poco a poco, el incremento es todavía insuficiente para conseguir aumentos significativos en el nivel de consumo, y sobre todo, en la inflación.

¿Cómo nos afectará la decisión que tomó el Fed? ¿Qué pasará con la economía mundial? El dólar se revaluó apenas unas horas después de que el Fed subió la tasa de interés de los fondos federales. Luego los precios de los hidrocarburos tocaron el piso: el precio del barril de petróleo Brent se situó en 37.44 dólares, una caída de 3.44; mientras que el precio del crudo en su variedad West Texas Intermediate (WTI) cayó 4.81 por ciento, hasta 35.56 dólares por barril.

Es que los precios de las materias primas (commodities) se comportan de manera inversamente proporcional a las cotizaciones del dólar. El cobre, el oro, el petróleo, la plata, así como la mayor parte de los commodities se encuentran financiarizados, esto es, su valor monetario depende en gran medida de las fluctuaciones de precios en los mercados de derivados (denominados en dólares). De modo inevitable, las empresas exportadoras de Estados Unidos tendrán mayores dificultades para colocar sus mercancías en el mercado mundial (ante el encarecimiento del dólar).

Visto desde el otro lado, las monedas de los países emergentes tendrán una depreciación más pronunciada. Sus exportaciones deberían ganar competitividad (ante el abaratamiento de sus monedas) si no fuera porque en estos momentos el comercio internacional registra sus niveles más bajos de las últimas 3 décadas.

Por ejemplo, las exportaciones latinoamericanas entre 2013 y 2015 registraron el peor nivel de los últimos 80 años, según las estimaciones de Alicia Bárcena, la secretaria ejecutiva de la Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe (Cepal). Es que no hay tantos países a los cuales vender, incluso la región de Asia-Pacífico se encuentra en franca desaceleración.

Por lo tanto, el efecto negativo se observará sobre todo por la vía de las finanzas, cientos de miles de dólares de capitales de cartera se fugarán de los países emergentes hacia Estados Unidos, con lo cual los mercados bursátiles (de los países emergentes) sufrirán graves pérdidas, sus monedas se depreciarán aún más y el monto de la deuda externa aumentará (denominada en dólares).

“2016 será un reto para los mercados emergentes conforme la caída de precios de las materias primas, y el débil crecimiento del comercio mundial extiende la experiencia reciente de las presiones presupuestarias y de balanza de pagos”, declaró a The Wall Street Journal el economista jefe de Deutsche Bank, David Folkerts-Landau.

Ante ese complicado escenario, lamentablemente no cabe más que esperar fuertes recortes de gasto público en las naciones emergentes. De acuerdo con las proyecciones actualizadas a diciembre de 2015, publicadas por la Cepal, nuestra región cerró 2015 con una contracción de -0.4 por ciento del producto interno bruto (PIB), y solamente crecerá 0.2 por ciento el próximo año, uno de los desempeños más mediocres desde 2009. No obstante, una vez que se realicen los ajustes de corte neoliberal exigidos por las burguesías locales (lo mismo en Colombia y México, que en los países que ostentan tener gobiernos progresistas como Brasil y Venezuela), la recesión será de mayor calado, y por lo tanto, la expansión económica en la región será mucho menor a lo estimado por la Cepal. Larga vida aún tiene esta crisis…

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez

 

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez es economista, egresado de la Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). Twitter: @noyola_ariel.

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Those who have been reading my work for any length of time know I have been adamant we would someday face a “global margin call”. I believe this call was issued last week! No matter how you look at the world, whether financially, geopolitically, macro, micro or whatever …what underlies everything in our world today is “credit”.

Credit is used to build, wage war, to produce and deliver, to consume or to trade, EVERYTHING runs on credit. As a side note, in order for credit to be extended, the borrower must have some sort of “collateral”. This collateral can be physical, financial, or simply “faith”, meaning a good credit rating or at least trust by the lender.

We’ve now arrived at a point very similar to where we were in the fall of 2008 with several very grave exceptions. The world is facing a global margin call again, only this time there are no sovereign entities left with a clean balance sheet that can be levered up further.

There are also no tools left available to the various central banks to administer monetary policy. They have already printed, monetized debt and lowered rates to zero. Richard Fisher has even admitted they have no ammunition left! As a side note, rates were cut to zero to make the higher debt balances serviceable but now even zero percent rates are not enough. From a macro standpoint, real economic activity is not generating enough cash flow (profits and tax revenues) to support this current debt. Lastly, there is no more “collateral” left to borrow against. Whether it be stocks, bonds, real estate, commodities or even “faith”, we are at the end of the road in the collateral department.

We have recently found out (not that we did not already know) through admission that many statistics have been wrong, and wrong for many years. What was reported and paraded as fantastic employment news on Friday turned out to really be a stinker as the truth turned out to be a whopping 11,000 job gain

http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/newsflash-from-the-december-jobs-report-the-us-economy-is-dead-in-the-water/ !

What would have been considered heresy just 10 years ago is now “normal”, the Swiss National Bank has become a huge global hedge fund along with the PBOC and Bank of Japan. Does anyone doubt the Fed is not deeply in U.S. equity markets also (by the way, US monetary aggregates have gone into SHARP decline since the Dec. 6th report)? What kind of monetary policy is this? Sovereign “money” (currency) is foundationed on stock markets? Please keep in mind that global trade is crashing with the Baltic Dry Index making all time lows this past week and reports of tankers (non oil) all over the world being docked and empty. As for oil, there is such a global glut there are now fears of lack of storage space. All of this points toward a collapsing real global (depression) economy …which must service the most financial debt in the history of history!

This past week, markets all around the globe convulsed greatly with almost nothing left unscathed. There was a different excuse each day for the drops. We first heard about the Saudi/Iran disconnect of diplomatic ties, then, everything was down because of the yuan devaluation and their market hitting the 7% circuit breakers. I even heard someone say that everyone has such great profits they wanted out …but not until the 2016 tax year which is why they waited until the first week.

I do not believe any of it and would instead say we are simply receiving a global margin call. This had to come sooner or later as the world sits upon the greatest credit build in all of history. We are simply at the end of a “credit cycle” …unfortunately the largest credit cycle EVER! Everyone “knew” this day would come yet no one paid attention to it in their daily lives as “life just went on” as if nothing was wrong! I am sure we will hear reason after reason in the future …the real reason being too much debt with not enough collateral left nor enough economic activity to support it. Simple!

Now, the margin call comes. Now comes the great unwind! “Collateral” of all sorts will be questioned. The questions will be of the “strength, liquidity, ownership and even whether the collateral even exists”. Everything will be questioned and nothing taken for granted or even at face value. The issue of “trust” and even “who” can you trust will come forward. Institutions who have traded with each other for decades will suddenly be looking at each other with different eyes. Questions like “will I get paid” or “will I receive what I paid for” will be an everyday exercise.

There will surely be “blame” but what will it be? Several years into the future it will be understood for what it really is, too much debt, leverage and financially modified products such as derivatives. In the immediate, the blame might go on anything or anyone. We could see a banking collapse in China, Europe or start somewhere insignificant like “Pottersville”.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-08/35-trillion-neutron-bomb-keeps-kyle-bass-night

It could be some sort of military action.

Maybe in the Middle East, eastern Europe, China South Sea. It could involve any number of characters from the US, China, Russia or Saudis, Israelis, Iran, Syria, Iraq? Who knows? It could begin with oil. It could begin with gold. It could begin with “truth” coming out in the form of a “truth bomb” and finger pointing. We might see a global trade war or outright currency war.

Do the Chinese, Russians and Saudis have enough Treasury securities to dump and cause an interest rate spike? Are the Saudis still U.S. allies or do they view us now as pro Iran and they switch alliances? Will, and which treaties will be honored when push comes to shove? If I had to guess, whatever happens will certainly not be “petro dollar” friendly!

All of these questions and many more will be asked. The most important of course being whether or not “you” can meet the margin call or whether you do business with a cross partner who cannot meet the call. When I write “you” I mean to say everyone, every entity, and every sovereign government. This is how we will get the long awaited reset, the markets will close and accounts will be settled and liquidated if necessary, only upon the reopenings will you understand what you really have. The great global unwind is here and now with the most dreaded of all phrases about to be announced

“MARGIN CALL GENTLEMEN”!

 

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GUANTANAMOUN Human Rights Experts Urge US to close Guantánamo and End Impunity for Abuses

By United Nations, January 12 2016

Human rights experts from the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) today called on the United States Government to promptly close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and end impunity for abuses in the so-called ‘global war on terror’ such as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ and extraordinary rendition.

ErdoganMore Evidence of Turkey’s Support of the Islamic State (ISIS), in Liaison with US and NATO

By Stephen Lendman, January 12 2016

Evidence keeps mounting on how Turkey directly aids ISIS, complicit with Washington, other NATO countries and regional partners.

Uncle_Sam_pointing_finger_U.S. Dropped 23,144 Bombs on Muslim Countries in 2015

By Adam Johnson, January 12 2016

Council of Foreign Relations resident skeptic Micah Zenko recently tallied up how many bombs the United States has dropped on other countries and the results are as depressing as one would think.

Syria/Libya versus Bahrain: A BBC FactoidMadaya: West Engineer Another ‘Humanitarian’ Media Hoax in Syria

By 21st Century Wire and RT, January 12 2016

This last month has seen a tidal wave of western propaganda regarding the “Siege of Madaya” in Syria. Some of the mainstream media efforts have centered around the use of old or fake photo images of starving children and residents…

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. © Ammar Awad / ReutersBehind Netanyahu’s Ban on the “Islamic Movement” in Israel

By Jonathan Cook, January 12 2016

The decision to outlaw the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel was announced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on November 17, 2015, days after attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, left 130 dead in Paris.

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Angela Merkel, Refugees and the Cologne Acts of Sexual Violence

January 12th, 2016 by Dr. Binoy Kampmark

Huge pressure was already on Angela Merkel’s shoulders prior to the New Year celebrations. When it came in its waves of chaos on the eve, the security services in Cologne were found wanting.  The police document from Cologne, leaked to Der Spiegel, speaks of chaos and lack of control.  “Women, accompanied or not, literally ran a ‘gauntlet’ through masses of heavily intoxicated men that words cannot describe.”[1]

A range of activities, altogether some 170 criminal acts, are documented: women being surrounded by gangs of men; unwanted hands being laid on clothing, grabbing between legs, buttocks, and breasts, and a good bit of thieving for good measure.

It also outlines a considerable inability to identify and prosecute the alleged offenders, even instances of disbelief and confusion in the face of such violence.  Screams of help were ignored.  The police involved were short of personnel, vastly outnumbered.

It was a boon for the reactionary right, but it was also a bitter reality for those keen on pursuing injustices to persons caught in sexual violence.  Eyes have been on such statements in the leaked police report as that of a man who yelled: “I’m Syrian!  You have to treat me kindly!  Frau Merkel invited me.”

The result has been a besmirching of a range of positions – feminists accused of not doing enough by preferring political correctness over attacking gender hatred; progressives accused of being apologists; and a general sense that discussions of the refugee problem have ignored the dimension of gender.

Tempting as the last option is, the numbers simply do not hold up to scrutiny, at least in terms of violent sexual avalanche.  It is reported that some 32 individuals came out of 1,000 young men were supposedly involved in a range of sexual crimes.  They comprise nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, three Germans, one Iraqi, one Serb, and one American.  A subsequent report from the Interior Ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) state notes that 516 criminal complaints were registered, 237 being criminal in nature.

Merkel seems to be on a hiding to nothing.  She has had a diminishing luxury in terms of how she deals with refugees.  The huge numbers have presented an alibi for increasing hostility within Germany, and a considerable headache for her ruling coalition.  It is precisely such a number that conjures up images of a loss of control, the borderless nightmare.

Anger is being registered across party circles and certain figures. Carsten Linnemann, a member of the Christian Democrats (CDU), has claimed that, “If the influx continues as it has, then integration can’t work.”  Merkel has consistently insisted on how, “Wir können das schaffen, under wir schaffen das.”[2] (We can handle this, and we will handle this.)

To Merkel’s “we can do this” message, Linnemann showed less enthusiasm.  “If we get another 800,000 or a million people arriving this year, then we won’t be able to do this.”[3]

The Alternative for Germany (AfD) have seen their chance to pounce.  Dirk Driesang needed a provocative image to use, and decided that Egypt’s Arab Spring protestors supplied one.  “Anyone who opens the borders wide must know they are bringing Tahrir Square to Germany.”

Noisy Pegida protesters made their presence felt in Leipzig, though a police spokeswoman did confirm that they were met person to person by counter-demonstrators.  Cologne has seen retaliations, leading to injuries on 11 individuals, including Pakistanis, Syrians and Guineans.

The new policy in itself will not make an overwhelming difference in terms of expulsion.  Offenders, insisted Merkel, “must feel the full force of the law.”  The “right to asylum can be lost if someone is placed on probation or jailed.”  Asylum remains a legal principle controlled by legal regulation and qualification.

There is nothing new or provocative about this, though some parties on the left insist that her supposedly revised stand involved “shooting from the hip”.  But Merkel has so far resisted the move to introduce the notorious cap on numbers, and the Hungarian solution of closing borders.  Were Germany to do that, it would certifiably kill off the Schengen zone and the principle of mobility.

The issue of gender violence, and its appropriation by various groups for a protection agenda, was never far away from the incidents. The Mayor of Cologne, Henriette Reker, did not make matters any easier by suggesting that women had failed in their endeavours of self-protection.  They would do better than to keep strangers “at an arm’s length”.  That said, she also claimed on Tuesday that, “There are no indications that this involved people who have sought shelter in Cologne as refugees.”[4]

The more balanced view is that a handful of criminal actions do not, by their nature, criminalise an entire fleeing populace.  Many of the refugees currently in Germany can count themselves as survivors of sexual abuse, one of the inglorious nasties of war and conflict.

An interesting contrast would be to assess hefty, alcohol-fuelled acts of domestic violence on New Year’s that happen among local nationals every year.  Leave the patriotic nonsense aside, and get into the social policy.  Now that might provide an interesting corrective for the fatherland conservative types worried about nationalist, gendered pollution from Africa and the Middle East.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge.  He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]
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Militancy in Aden continues to challenge the Saudi-backed Hadi government as militant groups contest control of the city. The southern resistance militants and the Islamist presence in the city have prevented Hadi’s government from establishing control. At least 17 people were killed in the recent clashes between local security forces and Islamists for control of the port of Aden. Aden’s instability shows the Hadi government’s inability to govern in southern Yemen even with Saudi Arabia’s support.

The Yemeni army, backed by the Popular Committees supporting the Houthi Ansarullah movement, has liberated the al-Hanah district of the province of Ta’izz. In another development, the Houthi forces clashes with the Saudi mercenaries in the Dhubab district of Ta’izz.

AQAP is attempting to expand its presence in southern and central Yemen. AQAP forces clashed with popular resistance troops in Zinjibar, the capital of the Abyan province. Zinjibar and Ja’ar have been controlled by AQAP since December 2015. AQAP will likely attempt to expand its positions in the Abyan province in the nearest future.

Separately, Ansar al Sharia, AQAP’s militant arm in Yemen, released two videos showing the interrogation of al Houthi captives, as part of the group’s ongoing assistance to the Saudi-led coalition.

If you have a possibility, if you like the content and approaches, please, support the project. South Front’s work isn’t possible without your help: PayPal: [email protected] or via: http://southfront.org/donate/

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The decision to outlaw the northern wing of the Islamic Movement in Israel was announced by Benjamin Netanyahu’s government on November 17, 2015, days after attacks claimed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS, left 130 dead in Paris. Although the ban had been long in the making, the timing was patently opportunistic, with Netanyahu even comparing Israel’s Islamic Movement to ISIS. It is still unclear how the Israeli intelligence services and police will enforce the ban, given that the group has thousands of paid-up members among Israel’s large Palestinian minority, and ties to welfare associations and charities in Palestinian communities across Israel. The movement’s leader, Sheikh Ra’id Salah, has vowed to carry on, declaring: “The movement is not a passing phenomenon but one with deep roots everywhere.”

The only person arrested so far, more than a month on, is not Salah, but a 64-year old female resident of East Jerusalem. Zinat Jallad was brought to court on December 11, accused of belonging both to the Islamic Movement and to the Murabitat (Defenders of Islam). The latter group comprises women who study and pray at the Haram al-Sharif, or Noble Sanctuary, a compound in Jerusalem’s Old City that contains the al-Aqsa Mosque and the gold-topped Dome of the Rock shrine. To Jews, it is known as the Temple Mount, after two long-lost temples that they believe lie beneath the esplanade. The Murabitat and an associated group of men known as the Murabitun were declared illegal organizations by Netanyahu’s government in September, as a prelude to the crackdown on the northern Islamic Movement. The groups, established in 2012, were accused by Netanyahu of acting as Salah’s agents at al-Aqsa.

The prohibition on the Islamic Movement was formally issued by the defense minister, Moshe Yaalon, based on emergency regulations inherited from the British Mandatory authorities. But the driving force was Netanyahu himself and his strong antipathy to Salah and his activities at al-Aqsa. After weeks of unrest in Jerusalem and the West Bank that began in the late summer of 2015, Netanyahu held a press conference in early October in which he stated: “We are in the midst of a wave of terrorism with knives, firebombs, rocks and even live fire. While these acts are mostly unorganized, they are all the result of wild and mendacious incitement by Hamas, the Palestinian Authority, several countries in the region and—no less and frequently much more—the Islamic Movement in Israel, which is igniting the ground with lies regarding our policy on the Temple Mount.”

A month later Netanyahu’s office announced the outlawing of the movement, claiming it was required “in the name of state security, public safety and public order,” and as a “vital step to prevent the loss of life.” Officials also declared Salah’s movement a “sister” organization of Hamas, arguing that there was “close and secret” cooperation between them. No evidence was provided.

Netanyahu’s efforts to blame “incitement” from the Islamic Movement for Palestinian protests and sporadic attacks conflicted with the advice he was receiving from his intelligence services. In early November, shortly before the ban was announced, Herzi Halevi, head of military intelligence, told the cabinet that a mix of “despair” and a sense that that they had “nothing to lose,” and to a lesser extent what he termed “incitement” from social media, were the factors driving Palestinians to carry out “terror” attacks. He did not mention the Islamic Movement. The domestic intelligence service, the Shinbet, concurred. A report issued a week before the outlawing of Salah’s movement concluded that Palestinian attackers were chiefly motivated by “feelings of national, economic and personal deprivation.”

Behind the scenes, the Israeli daily Haaretz reported, the Shinbet had advised Netanyahu that there was no evidence linking the Islamic Movement to terror attacks and that it was operating within the law. The Shinbet’s head, Yoram Cohen, was also known to have lobbied the cabinet against the ban, warning that it was likely to be interpreted as a declaration of war not only on Salah’s movement but also on the Muslim community in Israel generally, as well as an assault on the wider political rights of the Palestinian minority.

Facts on Jerusalem’s ground

The security services began scrutinizing Salah’s organization from the moment of its birth in 1996, when it broke away from the rest of the Islamic Movement, Israel’s branch of the Society of Muslim Brothers. The split had been provoked by the Oslo accords concluded three years earlier. Salah, along with Hamas in the occupied Palestinian territories, rejected the terms of a diplomatic process premised on a two-state solution, fearing that it would be seen implicitly to recognize Israel as a Jewish state. Further, Salah, then mayor of Umm al-Fahm, vehemently opposed the decision of the rest of the movement, now labeled the southern wing, to participate in Israel’s parliamentary elections. But unlike Hamas, Salah made clear he eschewed violence, arguing that the struggle from within Israel must take a different form.

Instead Salah pursued a strategy familiar to other marginalized Muslim Brother movements, concentrating his energies on building up a network of charities and welfare associations—including kindergartens, health clinics, sports associations and cultural centers—in some of the poorest Palestinian communities in Israel. The northern wing’s good works, and Salah’s quiet charisma, soon won it support. More significantly, Salah recruited a large following by turning the Haram al-Sharif into a political project for Israel’s Palestinian minority, 1.6 million citizens comprising a fifth of the population.

Salah was quick to recognize the dangers implicit in the Oslo accords for al-Aqsa and the surrounding esplanade. The re-partition of historical Palestine assumed to be at the heart of the new diplomatic initiative would be most hotly contested in Jerusalem. It was generally assumed that the eastern sections of the city, occupied by Israel in 1967, would become part of the Palestinian state presaged by Yasser Arafat and the PLO’s return to the West Bank and Gaza. But Salah, unlike the newly established Palestinian leadership in the Occupied Territories, believed Israel was likely to respond to the Oslo process by intensifying its Judaization policies in East Jerusalem rather than conceding it as a capital of a future Palestinian state.

Just as Oslo witnessed a rapid expansion of Jewish colonization of the West Bank, with settlers running to “seize the hilltops,” as Israeli general-turned-politician Ariel Sharon commanded, it also unleashed a new urgency to create facts on the ground in Jerusalem. In 1996, the year the northern Islamic Movement was born, Netanyahu, in his first term as prime minister, authorized the opening of the Western Wall tunnels. These extensive excavations ran close by the al-Aqsa compound and triggered Palestinian riots and a lethal response from Israeli security forces. Those confrontations were the bloodiest since the conclusion of the Oslo accords.

With the occupation of Jerusalem in 1967, the holy esplanade had acquired an ever-greater centrality in the thinking of both religious and secular Jews. The Temple Mount served a useful political purpose: It was a symbol that brought the religious and secular populations closer together by blurring the differences between them. Control over the Temple Mount could exemplify both the rebirth of God’s plan in the Promised Land and the reassertion in the Middle East of the earthly powers of a long-exiled people. As Israeli politicians cultivated a popular attachment to the Temple Mount, it soon came to serve a totemic function none of them could afford to be seen neglecting.

At the Camp David summit in the summer of 2000, the presumed conclusion of the Oslo process, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak staked Israel’s claim to sovereignty over al-Aqsa in front of President Bill Clinton. Contrary to popular perception of a flexible and “generous” Israeli approach, Barak was reported by his own advisers to have “blown up” the negotiations on this single issue.

Off-limits

Salah and the northern Islamic Movement not only identified Israel’s increasingly aggressive ambitions toward al-Aqsa, but also the lack of a credible Palestinian or Islamic response. Over time, the northern Islamic Movement stepped in to fill an organizational and strategic void at al-Aqsa that grew ever more apparent after the signing of the Oslo accords.

Following Israel’s seizure of East Jerusalem in 1967 and the Palestinian city’s annexation, formal control over al-Aqsa remained with the waqf, an Islamic authority controlled by Jordan. But with Oslo’s establishment of a Palestinian Authority under Yasser Arafat in the territories, Israel gradually exploited the weakening lines of authority at the esplanade to undermine the roles of both the PA and Jordan. After the outbreak of the second intifada, Israel moved swiftly to bar the PA from Jerusalem entirely; and with diplomatic relations deteriorating, Jordan could exercise its power only at arm’s length. The only other major Palestinian faction, Hamas, was treated as a terrorist organisation by Israel and locked out of having any meaningful political role at al-Aqsa.

The partition principle inherent in Oslo—and enforced one-sidedly by Israel—added to the isolation of the holy esplanade. While settlers moved into the Occupied Territories in greater numbers than ever, Palestinians found themselves increasingly locked into ghettoes. Permits and checkpoints limited movement through the 1990s, culminating in the construction of a massive separation barrier from 2003. Jerusalem became off limits to most Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza. And in turn, that meant few could reach al-Aqsa to pray.

It was in this atmosphere, in late 2000, as the holy esplanade (and, indeed, all of East Jerusalem) was being physically separated from its Palestinian hinterland, that Sharon made his incendiary visit to al-Aqsa, backed by hundreds of armed police. There he asserted de facto Israeli sovereignty over al-Aqsa, in the immediate wake of Barak’s failure at Camp David to win US recognition of Israel’s de jure sovereignty. The visit triggered the second intifada.

‘Al-Aqsa sheikh’

Salah was far from idle as these developments unfolded. Soon after founding the northern wing, he launched a political campaign for the Palestinian public in Israel, popularizing the slogan, “al-Aqsa is in danger.” An annual rally in Umm al-Fahm attracted tens of thousands of Palestinian citizens of Israel. Salah was determined to bolster the status of al-Aqsa mosque as a religious and nationalist symbol for Palestinians to inoculate it from the counter-narrative being advanced by Israeli politicians.

At the holy esplanade, Salah took a decisive hand. He recruited volunteers from the Muslim community inside Israel to do much of the heavy lifting as the waqf renovated extensive areas of the compound in the late 1990s. The restoration of prayer halls expanded the number of worshipers the site could accommodate, further highlighting the importance of attendance by Palestinians from Israel. To the irritation of Jordanian and PA officials, Salah had soon earned the popular moniker “al-Aqsa sheikh.”

Additionally, Salah arranged buses to ferry large numbers of supporters from Palestinian heartlands in Israel’s north and south to restore al-Aqsa as a central place of Muslim worship and to shop in Jerusalem’s Old City, where the tourist trade was suffering after the outbreak of the second intifada in late 2000. Merchants and residents of the Old City were indebted to him, benefiting from this new kind of Palestinian tourism to Jerusalem—one that replaced the foreign tourists, who were too fearful to visit the region, and West Bank Palestinians, who were shut out.

Salah’s increasing identification with al-Aqsa—not only locally but in the Arab and Muslim worlds—brought prestige and funding that helped him to expand the busing operations and a growing network of charities and religious institutions. The southern wing had its two or three members sitting in the Knesset; Salah had al-Aqsa and his credibility bolstered as both a spiritual leader and a forceful independent political actor.

It was therefore inevitable that he would run afoul of Sharon after the latter became prime minister in 2001. Sharon immediately began tearing up the Oslo accords by reinvading and locking down the West Bank, and then approving a separation barrier that would run through Jerusalem. Jordan had cut ties with Israel. Only Salah and his Islamic Movement stood in the way of al-Aqsa’s complete isolation.

Campaign of harassment

It was in May 2003 that Salah was awakened in the hospital, at the bedside of his dying father, to find himself surrounded by Israeli police and camera crews. He and 15 other northern Islamic Movement officials were arrested, accused both of funneling money to Hamas to “oil the wheels of murderous terrorism” and of making contact with an Iranian “foreign agent.”

In fact, as later became clear, Salah was being charged over his charitable work, under a new kind of offense Israel was promoting—one now popular with US and European governments, too. The northern movement was accused of directing millions of dollars to Palestinian charities in the Occupied Territories that Israel alleged were allied to Hamas and which had been set up to help the victims of Israel’s military operations, including widows and orphans. Salah later stated that he had received permission from the Shinbet to make the transfers. But no matter: The money to humanitarian causes could now be presented as a form of assistance, even if indirect, to a terror organization.

During Salah’s 18-month trial, the charges were progressively scaled back, the allegation that he had met a foreign agent was dropped, and dramatic evidence Sharon’s office kept promising would soon be presented to the court never materialized. In early 2005, a plea bargain was announced in which Salah was sentenced to three and a half years. He was released a short time later.

In interviews at that time, Salah pointed out that his arrest and trial followed Sharon’s repeated efforts to outlaw the Islamic Movement. But, as his successors would discover, there was stiff opposition from the Shinbet. The intelligence service was worried that banning the movement would cause more problems than it solved. It would be hard to enforce a ban on a movement with more than 10,000 members and an extensive network of charities, many of them carrying out vital work in deprived Palestinian communities the state had forsaken. The movement would be driven underground, making it harder to track, and some of its members might be pushed toward violence. And there was the fear that Salah’s popularity would rocket following a ban, “radicalizing,” in the words of officials, the wider Palestinian public in Israel.

Instead Salah found himself the target of a campaign of relentless personal harassment. He was repeatedly arrested, accused of making inflammatory sermons, or insulting or assaulting police officers. He has spent much of the intervening period under heavy surveillance, in jail or under travel restrictions, either barring him from traveling abroad or from entering Jerusalem. Paradoxically, if Salah’s lawyers soon exhaust the appeals process in a long-running court case, his first stint in prison following the ban may be for a speech he gave in 2007 in which he is alleged to have incited the audience to violence.

Noteworthy parallels

When Netanyahu returned to power in 2009, Salah was high in his sights, both for his work at al-Aqsa and for his wider role among the Palestinian minority in Israel.

Israel has a history of suppressing Palestinian political movements that challenge the very ideological foundations on which a Jewish state was created. The first serious threat of that kind had been posed by al-Ard, a secular pan-Arabist movement established in 1959, when the Palestinian minority lived under military rule. Al-Ard was officially outlawed in 1964, and a year later the Israeli Supreme Court disqualified its list of candidates from running in the 1965 general election.

In recent times the only other Palestinian leader in Israel who had troubled the political-security establishment as much as Salah was Azmi Bishara, leader of the secular democratic nationalist Balad party, or Tajammu‘ in Arabic. Like Salah, he had founded a new party in reaction to Oslo. In his case, he identified the key unresolved question for the Palestinian minority in Oslo’s presumed partition of historical Palestine as the nature of continuing citizenship for non-Jews in a Jewish state.

There are noteworthy parallels between the Bishara and Salah approaches, and their respective handling by Israel.

In 2007, when Bishara was abroad, the Shinbet announced that, if he returned, he would put on trial for treason. He was forced into political exile. The main accusation, barely credible, was that he had helped direct Hizballah rocket fire into Israel during Israel’s confrontation with the Lebanese faction in 2006. More likely, the leadership had grown incensed by Bishara’s confrontational positions, his efforts to develop ties between the Palestinian minority and surrounding Arab states, and his demands that Israel be reformed from a Jewish state into “a state of all its citizens.”

Around this latter idea, Bishara and his Balad party had campaigned for educational and cultural autonomy as a way to strengthen Palestinian society in Israel. They also urged reform of the minority’s only national political body, the Arab Higher Follow-Up Committee, to make it more representative and accountable to the Palestinian public. Balad saw these moves as essential defenses against the disruptive powers of a state with highly developed national institutions serving only the Jewish population.

Extreme measures

In many ways Salah shared a similar vision, if one with an obviously more religious tone. As well as trying to infuse the public with greater Islamic zeal, the northern movement’s network of charities and associations was designed to strengthen the Palestinian minority, especially poorer communities, and provide it with a degree of autonomy from a hostile state.

That was particularly evident in the Naqab (Negev), where the movement quickly used its mosques and associations to find favor with local Bedouin youth. Many of their parents and grandparents, cut off and vulnerable in Israel’s semi-desert south, had tried to accommodate Israel by serving in the army and taking casual and low-paid jobs in the Israeli economy. But the younger generation saw how their elders had failed to advance in spite of their loyalty: Their rights to their ancestral lands were rejected and their villages criminalized, denied water and electricity and their homes demolished in a bid to pressure them into townships lacking infrastructure and employment opportunities.

Salah’s movement offered a route out of degrading dependence and a chance at dignity. When Netanyahu’s government tried to force tens of thousands of Bedouin off their lands under the Prawer Plan, large protests, assisted significantly by the organizational work of the Islamic Movement, forced a government climbdown in late 2013. For Israeli officials, the resolve of the Bedouin to resist their mistreatment was proof of “radicalization”—and the Islamic Movement was blamed.

Salah, like Bishara’s Balad party, was also sympathetic to the idea of reforming the Follow-Up Committee. It was the Jewish-Arab Communist Party and the local, more tribally based mayors that were opposed. Like Bishara, Salah had also raised the Palestinian minority’s profile in the region—in his case through his work at al-Aqsa. And, in ways appreciated by Balad activists, Salah accentuated the nationalist as much as the Islamic significance of the holy esplanade in Jerusalem.

For these reasons, Netanyahu and the Shinbet wanted Salah “neutralized,” just as Bishara had earlier been. Two incidents in particular suggested to observers that Netanyahu’s government was seeking ways, possibly extreme ones, to eliminate Salah as a threat.

In 2010, the sheikh was among a handful of Israeli-Palestinian leaders who joined an aid flotilla to break Israel’s blockade of Gaza. The main ship, the Mavi Marmara, was intercepted by the Israeli navy in an operation in international waters that killed nine of the humanitarian activists aboard. First reports suggested that Salah was among the dead. With astonishing speed, large numbers of police were drafted into Palestinian areas in Israel in expectation of violent protests. Only later did it emerge that the commandos had killed a man, shot in the head at point-blank range, who closely resembled Salah. It has been hard to dispel the impression among the Palestinian minority that Israel hoped to take advantage of the interception to rid itself of Salah.

A year later the sheikh managed to travel outside Israel again, this time to Britain. The British media appeared familiar with Salah from the moment of his arrival, warning that he was a “preacher of hate,” a “vile militant extremist” and an anti-Semite. Shortly before he was due to address a public meeting in the parliament building, he was arrested in his hotel. The British government insisted on his immediate deportation, saying he had managed to enter despite being on an entry blacklist. But as a series of tribunal hearings dragged on for many months, it emerged that British officials had acted exclusively on briefings provided by the Community Security Trust, a local right-wing Zionist organization with close ties to the Israeli government. The tribunal overruled the deportation order, with the judge criticizing the British government for acting on erroneous information, including a patently faulty translation of one of Salah’s speeches made by the Israeli right-wing daily, the Jerusalem Post.

Digging in

Israel’s Judaization efforts, especially in the areas immediately around al-Aqsa, intensified in East Jerusalem following the outbreak of the second intifada and the PA’s exclusion from the city. Emek Shaveh, an organization of dissident Israeli archaeologists, has sounded repeated warnings that Israel is aggressively using archaeological pretexts to encircle the holy esplanade. Most notably, a settler organization, Elad, assisted by the government, police and Jerusalem municipality, created an archaeological park, claiming to be the City of David, next to the esplanade’s southern wall, immediately below the al-Aqsa Mosque. Palestinian residents of neighboring Silwan are being gradually driven out of the area as Elad quite literally digs in.

Salah has expressed equal concern about what he believes is ultimately intended inside the Haram al-Sharif itself. According to oral understandings between Israel and Jordan, known as the “status quo,” Israel has responsibility for overseeing security arrangements at al-Aqsa, while the Jordanian-controlled waqf is supposed to have sole religious authority over the esplanade. In practice, however, Israel’s security mandate means it has an active role in shaping the physical environment at al-Aqsa and deciding who can enter. That has resulted in extremist Jews, some of them committed to the destruction of al-Aqsa and its replacement with a third temple, gaining ever greater access to the site, with a near-doubling of such visits recorded over the last six years. Salah characterizes these developments as a prelude to Israel dividing al-Aqsa “temporally and spatially.” Israel, he says, intends to introduce de facto changes to the status quo that will provide Jews either with their own section for prayer or their own dedicated prayer times.

Salah’s claims are not simple conspiracy theory. They are rooted in fears that Israel will try to reproduce its success in Hebron, where in the 1990s it split the Ibrahimi mosque in two, giving settlers control of a section now called the Tomb of the Patriarchs. For that reason, his concerns resonated with many Palestinians, including even the PA President Mahmoud ‘Abbas. He issued a similar warning to the UN General Assembly in September 2015.

In a counter-move in 2012, two groups of Islamic guardians were established at al-Aqsa, known as the Murabitun and Murabitat: men and women committed to being present at and defending the holy esplanade. Although Salah denies being directly responsible for founding the groups, his northern Islamic Movement undoubtedly helped to organize and fund them. The Murabitun and Murabitat run prayer circles (halaqat) and education courses in al-Aqsa mosque and the Dome, respectively, for men and women. Netanyahu and his officials accuse the Islamic groups of harassing “tourists” visiting al-Aqsa. In fact, the groups target not tourists, but ultra-nationalist Jews, backed by Israeli police, who have been coming in ever larger numbers to the holy esplanade to assert Jewish control at the site and the right to pray there. Typically, the Murabitun and Murabitat confront and intimidate such Jews by massing near them and crying out “Allahu akbar!”

In addition, young men from East Jerusalem—nicknamed Shabab al-Aqsa by the Israeli media—became a more visible and active presence at the Haram al-Sharif, clashing frequently with police as Israel intensified restrictions on Palestinian worship and access by extremist Jews increased. Israeli security officials accused the northern wing of organizing the youths and inspiring their violence.

More generally, Palestinian unrest found an outlet in Jerusalem from the summer of 2014 onward. By then ordinary Palestinians had grown exasperated by the failure of Mahmoud ‘Abbas’ PA to make diplomatic headway on statehood. The trigger for unrest that summer was the kidnapping and burning to death of a local 16-year old boy, Muhammad Abu Khudayr, by extremist Jews. Immediately afterward, Israel launched another lethal attack on Gaza, Operation Protective Edge. While the West Bank’s population was kept largely in check by the PA’s repressive security forces, Jerusalem erupted into violence.

The clashes with Israeli police lasted weeks and were supplemented by sporadic attacks over the next months carried out by individual Palestinians on Israelis—many of them stabbing or car-ramming incidents. At the time Netanyahu loudly accused Salah’s Islamic Movement of helping to organize the violence in Jerusalem, although again he produced no evidence. The Israeli media reported that the prime minister had demanded that the Shinbet investigate how to implement a ban on the Islamic Movement.

When Jerusalem, and more specifically the holy esplanade, became the center of trouble again at summer’s end in 2015, as the Jewish high holidays brought large numbers of ultra-nationalist Jews to the Haram al-Sharif, a drastic move against Salah’s Islamic Movement seemed all but inevitable. The waters were tested first by outlawing the Murabitun and Murabitat in September.

The mood sours

A ban on the northern wing had long been blocked by the Shinbet, but their resolve weakened as regional and global opinion hardened toward political Islam. Following the 2013 military coup in Egypt, Field Marshal ‘Abd al-Fattah al-Sisi helped pave the way for Netanyahu’s move by outlawing the Muslim Brothers at home and waging a low-level war on Hamas in Gaza. Meanwhile, the mood in Europe and the United States soured after the Paris attacks. Netanyahu knew the international community was unlikely to raise objections or study too closely the comparisons he was making between Salah’s Islamic Movement, Hamas and ISIS.

According to Salah, the US and an Arab state—almost certainly Jordan—played an important part behind the scenes in giving Netanyahu a green light. He says the ban was engineered at a meeting in late October between Netanyahu and Secretary of State John Kerry. The talks focused on introducing cameras on the holy esplanade, an idea proposed by Netanyahu but for which Jordan’s King ‘Abdallah II was accorded the credit. The ostensible purpose of the cameras was to reassure Palestinians that Israel was not trying to change the status quo at the Haram al-Sharif, in the hope of calming tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank. Palestinians immediately feared a trap, however, suspecting that Israel would use the footage, which is supposed to be broadcast online, as a way to identify activists and harass or arrest them.

Salah told me that, according to his sources, the parties at that meeting more specifically wanted to find a way to “clear the path to banning the Islamic Movement, to get us out of the way.” That assessment is partially confirmed by a diplomatic source who said Jordan had been growing increasingly unhappy about the role of the Islamic Movement at al-Aqsa. Amman, the source said, was worried that Salah’s prominence had undermined its own authority there. It also preferred that the spotlight during the current wave of unrest be removed from the esplanade.

Although the Shinbet decided not to stand in Netanyahu’s way, the ban on the northern Islamic Movement sets them a task they seem unsure how to carry out. Highlighting the decision’s political rather than security rationale, it was reported by Haaretz that the head of the Shinbet, Yoram Cohen, had tried to persuade the cabinet to avoid a ban only a fortnight before Netanyahu’s announcement was made. Two unnamed government ministers said Cohen had observed that the move would do “more harm than good” and that his agency had found no evidence of links to “terrorism.”

In contrast to the Shinbet’s position, the Israeli police were reported to be “enthusiastic” about enforcing a ban on Salah and his followers. Veteran Israeli journalist Ben Caspit summed up the police’s optimistic view: “Any agitation arising among Israeli Arabs will be insignificant and containable, while the legal tools given to the authorities to neutralize incitement and extreme Islam in Israel will be substantial.” Netanyahu also faced no meaningful political opposition. Isaac Herzog, the head of the centrist Zionist Union, the official opposition, praised the ban, adding only a mild rebuke to Netanyahu for not acting sooner: “It’s a shame it took him so long to take this necessary step.”

An unclear ban

Technically, anyone supporting the Islamic Movement now risks being arrested and jailed, as happened to Zinat Jallad. According to Israeli legal expert Aeyal Gross, the emergency regulation invoked against the movement means: “Anyone who belongs to an outlawed organization, acts on its behalf, holds a job in it, does any work for it, attends one of its meetings or possesses one of its books, periodicals, fliers or any other publication may be prosecuted and sentenced to up to ten years in prison.”

But it is still unclear how strictly the ban will be implemented. Polls conducted beforehand showed that more than half of the Palestinian minority believes Salah’s movement represents them, including many Palestinian Christians. A tenth said they identified with the movement more closely than any other organization in Israel.

Further complicating the picture for the Shinbet, the organizational links between the northern and southern wings are not always clear-cut, making disentangling them difficult. The northern Islamic Movement also has strong support from major extended families, giving it a powerful social standing. Disbanding the movement would require a massive and costly security operation and campaign of intimidation, including imprisoning many of its members, shutting down its mosques and closing its network of welfare associations.

The signs so far are that the Shinbet is reluctant to take such a draconian step, fearful of the potential backlash. Instead it appears readier to use a light touch in the short term, exploiting the new situation to isolate, harass and possibly imprison Salah’s inner circle, and find ways to defund the movement’s activism in Jerusalem. That was the impression created by a senior Israeli official, who told the local media: “The problem is that in the law you can’t distinguish each element with tweezers—the police and the Shinbet will decide where it is proper to act and the priority will of course be against incitement over the Temple Mount and similar things.”

Over the long term, its foes probably hope, the movement can be weakened through a war of attrition, persuading some supporters to gravitate to the southern wing. The danger is that others will be driven underground, and seek ideological consolation in more extreme or militant groups. In recent months, Israel has claimed to uncover several small cells of ISIS supporters inside the Green Line. The credibility of these specific claims is open to question, but the prospect of greater extremism is real.

It is equally unclear what tools the northern Islamic Movement can muster to challenge the decision. A 30-day window to appeal the ban has now expired. The movement’s lawyers are pondering instead whether to turn to Israel’s Supreme Court. Ostensibly, they have a good case. Adalah, a legal group for Israel’s Palestinian minority, has questioned the legitimacy of exploiting the colonial legal framework of emergency regulations drafted by the British in 1945 rather than using the normal legal requirements for “conducting investigations and collecting evidence to support the state’s accusations.”

Further, the Supreme Court should approve the ban only if it can be demonstrated that the “dominant purpose and actions” of the Islamic Movement are illegal. Given the lack of evidence that the group’s leaders justify violence, that would be hard to do. Lawyers add that instances of incitement by the movement’s leaders should be dealt with through individual prosecutions, not through a sweeping ban.

The hesitation of Salah’s lawyers to pursue legal avenues, however, is prompted by concerns about the state’s reliance on classified information and the makeup of the Supreme Court, which, like Israeli society, has shifted to the right in recent years. Should the judges reject an appeal, Netanyahu’s decision, which currently smells of a purely political maneuver, would be given the stamp of judicial authority.

Next in the firing line

For the time being Salah and his followers, locked out of their offices in Umm al-Fahm, have decamped to a protest tent in a large covered market on the outskirts of the city. Attendance varies from days when only a few hundred turn up to days when many thousands come to show their support at protest events.

Salah has found backing from all the other political factions, which are only too aware of the red line Netanyahu has crossed in imposing the ban. Yusuf Jabarin, a Knesset member with the Communist Front party, which shares little ideological ground or sympathy with Salah, called the decision “dangerous political persecution and a serious violation of a national minority’s basic right for the freedom of expression, the freedom of religious, and the freedom of assembly.” Immediately after the northern wing was outlawed, the Follow-Up Committee called a general strike in Palestinian communities, though one that was not universally observed.

One seasoned observer of the Palestinian political scene in Israel, Raef Zreik, contends that the ban is the most significant change in relations between Israel and its Palestinian citizens since martial law ended for them in 1966. He considers it a potential “rethinking [of] 1948 and the granting of Israeli citizenship to Palestinians who remained within the state’s borders.”

The reasonable fear is that, with Salah’s movement out of the way, other political movements and civil society organizations will be next in the firing line. Atop the list is likely to be Bishara’s Balad party, which, despite his exiled status, still operates and has three members in the current Knesset, part of the wider coalition of Arab parties known as the Joint List. One of Balad’s MKs, Hanin Zu‘bi, has been the target of almost relentless vilification and repeated efforts to deny her the right to stand for election. It is not beyond the realm of the possible that Netanyahu will seek to ban the entire party before the next national elections.

If he does so, it will pose a severe problem to the rest of the Joint List, whose participation in the Knesset, following the ban on the northern Islamic Movement, is already looking discredited to many. If Balad is outlawed, it is difficult to imagine how the other Arab parties and the joint Arab-Jewish Communist Party could legitimately continue to serve in the Knesset.

But even if Netanyahu fails to extend the ban to other parties, the move against the Islamic Movement alone may be enough to bolster the already significant boycott of recent Knesset elections by the Palestinian citizenry. In March 2015, as Israelis went to the polls, Netanyahu issued a much-criticized warning that the Arab population were turning out en masse to help in the election of a center-left government. With the Islamic Movement out of the way, Zreik notes, “the concern of the prime minister over Palestinians streaming to the polls ‘in droves’ will thus be resolved.”

Happily for Netanyahu and the rest of his far-right government, the further depression of the Arab vote would likely guarantee their continuing hold on power for the foreseeable future.

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GMO promoters enthuse about how GM crops will be able to help the poor and hungry, far in the future, writes Claire Robinson. But they are silent about the currently-planted GM crops – 99% of them herbicide-tolerant or insecticidal. Could it be because opponents of the technology are being proved right at every turn?

Insofar as reason and science are concerned, the GMO industry has lost. All they have is golden rice and gene editing. But they don’t even have those. Both have thus far failed to live up to their promises and are kept afloat largely by wishful thinking.

Over the course of 2015, I became convinced we’re winning the GMO debate.

And paradoxically, what convinced me was the experience of facing off against pro-GMO lobbyists in person and in print.

What did they say to convince me? Here’s a quick guide.

1. Everyone hates Monsanto

Dr. Shanta Karki studies rice plants being grown at IRRI's Biotech labs, which have worked on the development of Golden Rice. From the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

Dr. Shanta Karki studies rice plants being grown at IRRI’s Biotech labs, which have worked on the development of Golden Rice. From the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

In Europe at least, even the most die-hard promoters of GMOs refuse to defend Monsanto and claim to despise the company. Even Vivian Moses, chairman of the industry-funded pro-GMO information serviceCropgenwriting today on how the “biotech industry is winning the war” on GMOs, concedes that

Monsanto was cast as the prime villain for seeking to import GM soya into Europe … Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target.

So, the GMO enthusiasts say, we should forget about Monsanto and embrace ‘public good’ GMOs instead. The problem with that is in the real world it is Monsanto that is the dominant force in the marketplace.

In any case it makes little difference whether it’s Monsanto or a public research institution that owns the patent on a GMO. The profit motive rules either way and takes precedence over issues of public health, the environment, and scientific integrity.

Through intellectual property mechanisms, the public research institutions that develop GMOs effectively become indistinguishable in their behaviour from corporations. We are treated to the unedifying spectacle – already common – of scientists and academics acting as salespeople.

2. Don’t mention the GM crops we actually grow

Over 99% of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered to survive being sprayed with herbicides or to express an insecticide. Opponents of GM crops often speak about the fact that these GM crops are failing under the weight of herbicide-resistant superweeds and Bt toxin-resistant pests.

They talk about the rapid decline of the monarch butterfly due to its main food plant beingwiped out by the Roundup herbicide sprayed on GM crop fields. They point out thatRoundup stands accused of causing birth defects and cancer in Argentine people and of being a ‘probable’ human carcinogen.

They even show the uninspiring vision of what’s in the GMO commercialization pipeline: GM crops that tolerate being sprayed with even more herbicides – and potentially more toxic ones at that.

They can talk about all these things. But it will be a one-sided conversation. Because in spite of the ubiquity of these GM crops in those countries that have adopted GMOs, GMO promoters don’t want to talk about them. At all.

3. Talk a lot about golden rice and gene editing

What GMO promoters do want to talk about is:

  • GMO golden rice, which they say will save poor people from vitamin A deficiency, and
  • Gene editing, which they say will save GM technology from its old problems of imprecision and unpredictability – problems that until now they have always sought to deny!

What do these two hopes for the GMO future have in common? Mostly that they are about future promise, not actual delivery. GMO golden rice has been beset by basic R&D problems and disappointing yields in field trials.

And gene editing has not so far proved the revolution in precision that has been claimed. The limited research that has been carried out shows numerous off-target effects.

In fact, public interest scientists say new GM techniques like gene editing give rise to GMOs that must be labeled under European law.

But GMO promoters insist that the products of gene editing must not be classified as GMOs. Their reasoning is not scientific. It is geared to ensuring that these products will dodge regulation and avoid being stigmatized in the marketplace.

The take-home lesson is that this technology is too fragile to survive the transparency that’s increasingly being demanded by consumers.

4. Don’t ask too many questions about golden rice or gene editing

When it’s pointed out that GM golden rice still isn’t ready to use despite swallowing tens of millions in research funding, and that experiments show gene editing isn’t yet precise or predictable, GMO promoters have no answers. They don’t reply with contradictory evidence. Neither do they admit they’re wrong. They merely say, “Research must continue.”

Meanwhile, the Philippines has gone a long way towards solving its vitamin A deficiency problem without GMOs. Undoubtedly the problem would be completely solved if a fraction of the funding wasted on trying to genetically engineer beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor) into rice had been spent on techniques that are already proving effective at combatting malnutrition.

And non-GM breeding continues to outstrip GM in supplying safe, nutritious, and high-performing crops that thrive in a wide variety of conditions. That’s despite the fact that GM keeps being pushed at the expense of approaches that we already know work!

5. Don’t mention two of the most prominent GMO lobbyists

GMO lobbyist and climate science denier Patrick Moore made history last year by getting caught on camera telling a journalist he’d be happy to drink a glass of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide – and then running away when the journalist offered him a glass.

If you’re not impressed, you’re not alone. Since his refusal to walk the pro-GMO talk and his irresponsible promotion of a toxic herbicide as a beverage, other GMO promoters have started to view Moore as an embarrassment and a no-go topic for discussion.

Likewise with Kevin Folta, a pro-GMO scientist with a massive social media presence whomade the fatal error of not telling the truth about his links to the industry. Folta retains a circle of vicious online defenders. But people who have attended public meetings where he has appeared tell us that he has lost credibility even among GMO supporters.

It looks as if these formerly high-profile pro-GMO spokespeople are now being airbrushed from history.

‘Forward-looking statements’ and broken promises

Our conclusion about the state of the GMO debate from studying the best arguments that the GMO lobby can muster is this. Insofar as reason and science are concerned, they’ve lost. All they have is golden rice and gene editing.

But they don’t even have those. Both have thus far failed to live up to their promises and are kept afloat largely by wishful thinking and ‘forward-looking statements’, as Monsanto likes to call them.

In countries like the UK that have pro-GMO governments, forward-looking whimsy, fuelled by the promise of profits from intellectual property rights on GMOs, may be enough to keep the research funding pipeline flowing for a few years. But that pipeline is running counter to the mainstream. The global rejection of GM foods is growing.

The US government was the first to embrace GMOs – but American consumers are rejecting them in droves. In 2014, non-GMO foods and beverages generated $200 billionin sales and the total global market for non-GMO products is predicted to almost double by 2019. And Campbell’s, the world’s largest soup company, has just announced that it will label GMO ingredients in its products in the interests of transparency.

The two countries other than the US that grow the most GMOs are facing a public health crisis. In Argentina, 30,000 doctors and health professionals have demanded a ban on glyphosate, the herbicide that over 80% of GM crops are grown with.

In Brazil, after the WHO’s classification of glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’, the national cancer institute blamed GM crops for placing the country in the top ranking globally for pesticide consumption and called for a massive shift to agroecological farming.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of European countries, including all parts of the UK other than England, have rejected those GM crops already in the approvals pipeline.

GM Bt cotton in India and Pakistan is increasingly in meltdown. In the Philippines, a Supreme Court ruling has put a stop to GMO field trials and approvals. Since the Philippines is the country targeted for GM golden rice, one of the GMO lobby’s great hopes for the future now faces an extra obstacle.

The GMO food venture appears to be at death’s door – unless gene edited foods are exempted from labelling. If they are, these ‘hidden GMOs’ could lead to a collapse of consumer confidence in the food market as a whole.

Is the food industry willing to take a bullet for the GMO industry? Probably not – but citizens will have to make a lot of noise to ensure that this attempted deception doesn’t succeed.

So when it comes to Vivian Moses’s claim today that “Supermarket opposition has softened in the UK” and that “much of the European public has become bored with the issue”, it’s up to us to prove him wrong.

Claire Robinson is an editor at GMWatch.

  • Posted in English
  • Comments Off on How GMO Lobbyists Taught Me “We’re Helping the Poor and Hungry”

GMO promoters enthuse about how GM crops will be able to help the poor and hungry, far in the future, writes Claire Robinson. But they are silent about the currently-planted GM crops – 99% of them herbicide-tolerant or insecticidal. Could it be because opponents of the technology are being proved right at every turn?

Insofar as reason and science are concerned, the GMO industry has lost. All they have is golden rice and gene editing. But they don’t even have those. Both have thus far failed to live up to their promises and are kept afloat largely by wishful thinking.

Over the course of 2015, I became convinced we’re winning the GMO debate.

And paradoxically, what convinced me was the experience of facing off against pro-GMO lobbyists in person and in print.

What did they say to convince me? Here’s a quick guide.

1. Everyone hates Monsanto

Dr. Shanta Karki studies rice plants being grown at IRRI's Biotech labs, which have worked on the development of Golden Rice. From the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

Dr. Shanta Karki studies rice plants being grown at IRRI’s Biotech labs, which have worked on the development of Golden Rice. From the image collection of the International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) on Flickr (CC BY-NC-SA).

In Europe at least, even the most die-hard promoters of GMOs refuse to defend Monsanto and claim to despise the company. Even Vivian Moses, chairman of the industry-funded pro-GMO information serviceCropgenwriting today on how the “biotech industry is winning the war” on GMOs, concedes that

Monsanto was cast as the prime villain for seeking to import GM soya into Europe … Certainly the industry remains unpopular in some quarters: Monsanto in particular is still seen by activist protesters as a large and visible target.

So, the GMO enthusiasts say, we should forget about Monsanto and embrace ‘public good’ GMOs instead. The problem with that is in the real world it is Monsanto that is the dominant force in the marketplace.

In any case it makes little difference whether it’s Monsanto or a public research institution that owns the patent on a GMO. The profit motive rules either way and takes precedence over issues of public health, the environment, and scientific integrity.

Through intellectual property mechanisms, the public research institutions that develop GMOs effectively become indistinguishable in their behaviour from corporations. We are treated to the unedifying spectacle – already common – of scientists and academics acting as salespeople.

2. Don’t mention the GM crops we actually grow

Over 99% of all GMOs grown worldwide are engineered to survive being sprayed with herbicides or to express an insecticide. Opponents of GM crops often speak about the fact that these GM crops are failing under the weight of herbicide-resistant superweeds and Bt toxin-resistant pests.

They talk about the rapid decline of the monarch butterfly due to its main food plant beingwiped out by the Roundup herbicide sprayed on GM crop fields. They point out thatRoundup stands accused of causing birth defects and cancer in Argentine people and of being a ‘probable’ human carcinogen.

They even show the uninspiring vision of what’s in the GMO commercialization pipeline: GM crops that tolerate being sprayed with even more herbicides – and potentially more toxic ones at that.

They can talk about all these things. But it will be a one-sided conversation. Because in spite of the ubiquity of these GM crops in those countries that have adopted GMOs, GMO promoters don’t want to talk about them. At all.

3. Talk a lot about golden rice and gene editing

What GMO promoters do want to talk about is:

  • GMO golden rice, which they say will save poor people from vitamin A deficiency, and
  • Gene editing, which they say will save GM technology from its old problems of imprecision and unpredictability – problems that until now they have always sought to deny!

What do these two hopes for the GMO future have in common? Mostly that they are about future promise, not actual delivery. GMO golden rice has been beset by basic R&D problems and disappointing yields in field trials.

And gene editing has not so far proved the revolution in precision that has been claimed. The limited research that has been carried out shows numerous off-target effects.

In fact, public interest scientists say new GM techniques like gene editing give rise to GMOs that must be labeled under European law.

But GMO promoters insist that the products of gene editing must not be classified as GMOs. Their reasoning is not scientific. It is geared to ensuring that these products will dodge regulation and avoid being stigmatized in the marketplace.

The take-home lesson is that this technology is too fragile to survive the transparency that’s increasingly being demanded by consumers.

4. Don’t ask too many questions about golden rice or gene editing

When it’s pointed out that GM golden rice still isn’t ready to use despite swallowing tens of millions in research funding, and that experiments show gene editing isn’t yet precise or predictable, GMO promoters have no answers. They don’t reply with contradictory evidence. Neither do they admit they’re wrong. They merely say, “Research must continue.”

Meanwhile, the Philippines has gone a long way towards solving its vitamin A deficiency problem without GMOs. Undoubtedly the problem would be completely solved if a fraction of the funding wasted on trying to genetically engineer beta-carotene (vitamin A precursor) into rice had been spent on techniques that are already proving effective at combatting malnutrition.

And non-GM breeding continues to outstrip GM in supplying safe, nutritious, and high-performing crops that thrive in a wide variety of conditions. That’s despite the fact that GM keeps being pushed at the expense of approaches that we already know work!

5. Don’t mention two of the most prominent GMO lobbyists

GMO lobbyist and climate science denier Patrick Moore made history last year by getting caught on camera telling a journalist he’d be happy to drink a glass of Monsanto’s Roundup herbicide – and then running away when the journalist offered him a glass.

If you’re not impressed, you’re not alone. Since his refusal to walk the pro-GMO talk and his irresponsible promotion of a toxic herbicide as a beverage, other GMO promoters have started to view Moore as an embarrassment and a no-go topic for discussion.

Likewise with Kevin Folta, a pro-GMO scientist with a massive social media presence whomade the fatal error of not telling the truth about his links to the industry. Folta retains a circle of vicious online defenders. But people who have attended public meetings where he has appeared tell us that he has lost credibility even among GMO supporters.

It looks as if these formerly high-profile pro-GMO spokespeople are now being airbrushed from history.

‘Forward-looking statements’ and broken promises

Our conclusion about the state of the GMO debate from studying the best arguments that the GMO lobby can muster is this. Insofar as reason and science are concerned, they’ve lost. All they have is golden rice and gene editing.

But they don’t even have those. Both have thus far failed to live up to their promises and are kept afloat largely by wishful thinking and ‘forward-looking statements’, as Monsanto likes to call them.

In countries like the UK that have pro-GMO governments, forward-looking whimsy, fuelled by the promise of profits from intellectual property rights on GMOs, may be enough to keep the research funding pipeline flowing for a few years. But that pipeline is running counter to the mainstream. The global rejection of GM foods is growing.

The US government was the first to embrace GMOs – but American consumers are rejecting them in droves. In 2014, non-GMO foods and beverages generated $200 billionin sales and the total global market for non-GMO products is predicted to almost double by 2019. And Campbell’s, the world’s largest soup company, has just announced that it will label GMO ingredients in its products in the interests of transparency.

The two countries other than the US that grow the most GMOs are facing a public health crisis. In Argentina, 30,000 doctors and health professionals have demanded a ban on glyphosate, the herbicide that over 80% of GM crops are grown with.

In Brazil, after the WHO’s classification of glyphosate as a ‘probable carcinogen’, the national cancer institute blamed GM crops for placing the country in the top ranking globally for pesticide consumption and called for a massive shift to agroecological farming.

Meanwhile, two-thirds of European countries, including all parts of the UK other than England, have rejected those GM crops already in the approvals pipeline.

GM Bt cotton in India and Pakistan is increasingly in meltdown. In the Philippines, a Supreme Court ruling has put a stop to GMO field trials and approvals. Since the Philippines is the country targeted for GM golden rice, one of the GMO lobby’s great hopes for the future now faces an extra obstacle.

The GMO food venture appears to be at death’s door – unless gene edited foods are exempted from labelling. If they are, these ‘hidden GMOs’ could lead to a collapse of consumer confidence in the food market as a whole.

Is the food industry willing to take a bullet for the GMO industry? Probably not – but citizens will have to make a lot of noise to ensure that this attempted deception doesn’t succeed.

So when it comes to Vivian Moses’s claim today that “Supermarket opposition has softened in the UK” and that “much of the European public has become bored with the issue”, it’s up to us to prove him wrong.

Claire Robinson is an editor at GMWatch.

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The following is a letter written to the CBC ombdusman by an informed member of the public in Canada, enraged by the blatant anti-Syrian stance in the CBC reporting of the Madaya “starvation” situation.

It reads as follows:

“Hello,

I have counted The Current and CBC news as among the most reliable sources of news and information we have. I consider myself an informed listener and I consult with many and diverse news sources to get the fullest and clearest understanding of world affairs possible.

That’s why it is disappointing, and sometimes infuriating when I hear the CBC reduced to an echo chamber and propaganda conveyance when it comes to news from the Middle East.

The CBC’s use of unreliable and unverified sources and information that presents and thus promotes only one side of events, and a distorted one at that, is shocking to me. Is it due to cutbacks that you are unable to have investigative reporting from conflict areas that reports on all sides of an event, or is there something more sinister going on exercising editorial control over what Canadians are allowed to hear from the Middle East via our national broadcaster?

Specifically, I was very upset to hear The Current’s Jan 8th report with Lyse Doucet on the situation in Madaya, Syria that gave a completely distorted and misinformed picture of the siege of this town (and several others that are getting zero news coverage).

The presenter relied on only one source, a citizen journalist named Rami Jarrah who works for the George Soros funded ANA Press, and is a self-avowed advocate and spokesperson for the terrorist factions, disingenuously called “the opposition” by uncritical media, that has the town of Madaya and several others in the West and North of Syria under militant siege. It is these Islamist militants–Ahrar al Sham and al Qaeda– that seized the food aid delivered by the ICRC last October–meant to last for 2 months–and is keeping the towns people on starvation rations, stockpiling the food then trying to sell it to the towns people for obscene prices.

Why isn’t that being reported on?

It is the militants that are refusing to let the townspeople leave to find refuge in safe zones. It is these militants who are starving and killing them. These Islamist militants, “the opposition” as propagandists call them, are using the starving people under their control to deceive the world, including the use of now exposed deceptive pictures of starving people stolen from the internet to foment outrage–pictures that are uncritically and irresponsibly used by media outlets like the CBC as some kind of “proof” that the Assad regime is responsible for this suffering.

While these areas of conflict are surrounded by government forces, it is the terrorists occupying the villages that are not surrendering and continue to use people as human shields ad for propaganda. Did The Current or is the CBC news desk presenting any of this balance at all to your stories on Syria? No. You are being played, and worse are a willing participant in a one-sided, anti-Syrian government, pro-Syria destruction campaign.

Why Madaya?

Why now?

Why fake pictures?

These are the questions you should be asking. The answer is because Jarrah and these “humanitarian interventionists” are using and abusing these civilians to enlist more western involvement.

You are not listening to any of the voices coming from inside Syria because you seem to value those minority voices outside Syria that are vying for overthrow of the government and seek to grasp power for themselves in lockstep with western hegemonic agendas.

Thus you are not doing your job.

What you are promoting, maybe inadvertently, maybe not, is for Syria to be devastated by NATO the way Iraq and Libya were, and not for the human rights of the people of Syria.

So shame on you.

This is despicable and my respect for the CBC has diminished significantly.

I urge the CBC to return to it’s roots of unbiased investigative journalism and be committed to the truth so that I can feel confidence again to tune into CBC news and trust we are getting the best information.

Balance your blatantly biased sources with “the other side”– the Syrian government that is backed by the vast majority of Syrian people, and the Syrian doctors and activists that are actually working to free their country from the terrorists!! Listen to the Syrians INSIDE SYRIA!

Why would you NOT do that?

Sincerely…

The text above originally appeared at The Wall Will Fall.

NOTE: Just last week, the CBC appeared to be leading the propaganda effort, with stories of famine in Madaya, with media operatives from the World Food Program (WFP) providing ‘neutral’ reporting – subtly spun and placing blame on the Syrian government and allied Hezbollah militia – as being responsible for the “blockade in humanitarian aid” to the residents of Madaya.

The CBC finished off the effort by posting this amazing image, courtesy of the highly dubious and western-funded, Syrian Observatory For Human Rights (SOHR):

1-CBC-fake-photos-Madaya-Syria
No real verification or citation of this image of the starving man was provided by the CBC or the SOHR, so we can assume then that this photo was one of many fakes which have also appeared in a number of western mainstream media outlets, and all promoting the same familiar western pro-war and pro-regime change propaganda lines.

In this same report, for added effect, the CBC also included the west’s popular “barrel bombs” talking point:

“They [the newly formed ‘Opposition Council’] also told him [the UN envoy] that before negotiations, Assad’s government, which has military support from Russia and Iran, must halt the bombardment of civilian areas and barrel bombing, and release detainees in line with the resolution.”

The Canadian Broadcast Corporation has been producing a steady supply of distorted state broadcaster propaganda about the Syrian Conflict since it began – including persuasive reporting which sought to blame Bashar al Assad for ‘chemical weapons’ attacks in late 2013. There was also the case of the CBC’s deceptive use of a photograph from Syria in 2014. Not surprisingly, CNN proffered the original fraud which quickly went viral.  Tony Seed reports:

“AN IMAGE claimed by CNN journalists and rebroadcast on the state-owned CBC as well as CTV on February 17 to be of a 4-year-old Syrian child discovered alone near the Jordanian borders while his leg was cut and bandaged with plastic bags, is apparently part of a different image, where the family of the child are seen walking ahead of him and his leg is fine, euronews (and here), the London Guardian and the website Friends of Syria report. A CBC blog by John Bowman of cbcnews.ca also admitted later on Feb. 18 that “the fact that his family was just metres away was left behind.”

(See the doctored image below)

1-CBC-fake-photos-Syria
“Andrew Harper, head of the UN Refugee Agency’s mission in Jordan, posted the photo of the young refugee, whom the UN called “Marwan,” on Twitter Sunday night, Feb. 16. The picture was then retweeted by Hala Gorani, a reporter and anchor for CNN International, on Monday as “news”. Gorani later added another tweet 30 minutes later saying that, according to the UNHCR, Marwan was found in the Jordanian desert, with his possession in a small plastic bag. According to her tweet, “the boy was found “crossing the desert alone after being separated from family fleeing Syria.” The dramatic story went viral in the monopoly media; overnight it became the poster child to justify ‘humanitarian intervention’.”

Yet more proof of how leading media organisations are engaged in outright deception and fraud when it comes to their ‘news’ coverage in conflict zone coveted by western governments.

Author Vanessa Beeley is a contributor to 21WIRE, and since 2011, she has spent most of her time in the Middle East reporting on events there – as a independent researcher, writer, photographer and peace activist. She is also a member of the Steering Committee of the Syria Solidarity Movement, and a volunteer with the Global Campaign to Return to Palestine. See more of her work at her blog The Wall Will Fall.

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Using the pretext of alleged incidents of sexual harassment in Köln (Cologne), the German media has launched a hysterical, racist campaign against millions of immigrants and Muslims.

On New Year’s Eve, thousands of people gathered in Köln and in other major cities throughout Germany to celebrate the holiday. The next day, police issued a press release stating that there was a “festive mood” at the celebrations and that the atmosphere that evening was “overall peaceful.”

However, one day later, a second statement was issued that referred for the first time to alleged attacks on women. On January 5, Köln’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-backed Mayor Henriette Reker said at a press conference that there was “no evidence that people who are residing in Köln as refugees are amongst the perpetrators.”

Suddenly, the media exploded with allegations of mass sexual abuse, setting into motion a hysterical campaign directed against the immigrant population. On January 7, anonymous police officers told the media that “most” of those suspected were migrants. A January 8 report by the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced that out of 31 suspects, 18 were refugees. Among the suspects were two Germans and an American.

It was not until the period between January 8 and January 10 that the number of those alleging sexual harassment rose from 170 to over 400. So far, only two people have been arrested, and they have been released.

What actually occurred in Köln is not yet known. Some reports point to a provocation. Various international media outlets, including CNN, have reported that at least one undercover police agent had infiltrated the crowd and later reported she was assaulted.

It is, of course, possible that there were incidents of hooliganism in which women were harassed. Unfortunately, such behavior is not uncommon in large crowds almost anywhere in the world where liquor is flowing freely as it was on New Year’s Eve. At last year’s Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Louisiana, for example, over 140 people were arrested, 50 for felonies. At last year’s Oktoberfest in Munich, the number of sexual assault allegations rose to 20.

At any rate, given the absence of factual substantiation of what remain, at this point, no more than allegations, the ferocity of the press response can be explained only in political terms. The political parties and the media have launched a campaign that for many decades would have been considered impossible in Germany.

Some 70 years after the collapse of the Third Reich, the media is making use of the same disgusting types of racial stereotyping, with open appeals to paranoid sexual obsessions, in which the Nazis specialized. Once again, a shameless German media is evoking images of pure Nordic women being preyed upon by dark-skinned untermenschen (sub-humans).

On Saturday, the magazine Focus published on its cover an image of a nude woman covered by black handprints. The weekend edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung carried an image of a white woman’s body with a black hand grasping her genitals. The newspaper also disseminated the image on Facebook.

When a wave of protest erupted, the Süddeutsche apologized. However, Chief Editor of Focus Ulrich Reitz refused to apologise on the grounds that “we are depicting what is unfortunately happening.” Whoever said the cover was racist, he claimed, was “fearful of the truth.”

It is not only degenerate journalists who are purveying this racist filth. Leading German academics are also getting into the act. Professor Jörg Baberowski of Berlin’s Humboldt University has written a column for the far-right BaslerZeitung accusing “Germany’s leading media” of remaining silent when “on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of Arab men sexually harassed, humiliated and robbed women on the Cathedral Square in Köln.”

There is no mass popular base for the racialist campaign. It is being instigated and directed by the political elites.

The new edition of Der Spiegel states: “A year ago, on New Year’s Eve 2014, similar assaults would have been (unfortunately) just an issue for the local press.” Der Spiegel adds, “Any attack could just as well have provided the material for national excitement—a child murder in a city park or any other crime in which primal fears are concentrated, stereotypes combined and foreigners involved in one form or another.”

However, this does not prevent Der Spiegel from legitimizing the media campaign. It declares that the events in Köln show the need for the strengthening of the police to defend “our canon of values.”

The political coordinates in Germany have shifted so far to the right that even the Left Party—a monument to political spinelessness—endorses calls for an authoritarian state. This universal shift to the right in all sections of the political establishment has, in fact, nothing to do with the events in Köln. It is, rather, entirely bound up with the resurgence of German militarism.

It is now two years since President Gauck and officials in the federal government announced the end of foreign policy restraint and stated that Germany was, in the words of Social Democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, “too big to comment on foreign policy only from the sidelines.” Since then, the government has supported the right-wing coup in Kiev, participated in NATO’s deployment against Russia, sent troops to Mali and reinforced the military mission in Afghanistan. Recently, German Tornado jets joined the bombing campaign in Syria.

But despite intensive efforts, the ruling elites have thus far failed to break the ingrained resistance of broad social layers to militarism. The vast majority of Germans still oppose foreign missions and war operations by the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces). Now the issue of sexual violence against women is being employed in an attempt to overcome this resistance. The events in Köln are being exaggerated and exploited to this end. The racist smear campaign against refugees and immigrants is a means to prepare the expansion of the military intervention in the Middle East.

The entire tragic and disastrous experience of the 20th century proves that Germany’s ruling class cannot wage war without resorting to racism and erecting an authoritarian regime.

In recent months, the most popular film in Germany has been Er ist wieder da(He’s Back). It is a satirical political fantasy that imagines how a resurrected Hitler, emerging from his World War II bunker, would rebuild his political career with the help of the modern media. During the past week, the filmmaker’s satire has acquired an all too disturbing element of reality.

Peter Schwarz

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The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), backed by the Syrian and Russian warplanes, reportedly destroyed an array of ISIS strongholds in Damascus countryside. The SAA’s artillery units targeted ISIS strongholds in the outskirts of the town of Jobar in the eastern countryside of Damascus and the towns of Saqaba and Zobedin in eastern Ghouta. According to the pro-government sources, dozens terrorists have been killed and many more wounded.

We remember, on Jan.6, Jaish al Islam militants shelled the center of Damascus from their positions in Eastern Ghouta. At least 8 civilians were killed and 23 injured.

Separately, the Syrian warplanes pounded the militants’ positions in the towns of Hazarma, al-Nashabiyah and Hosh al-Farah.

The pro-government forces, supported by Russian air strikes, regained control of Tal Kherba, Al Juba and Height 1023 in Latakia’s mountainous regions.

The Syrian forces are making significant efforts to seize the terrorist stronghold of Salma in the Kurdish Mountains. The SAA partly surrounded the town with imposing control over Wadi Nabi’ Miro at the western flank of Salma. The clashes are continuing.

Heavy clashes also were observed in al-Dowah west of Palmyra, and close to the towns of Tir Ma’ala, Quaryatayn, Talbiseh and near the village of Maksar al-Hassaan.

About 20 militant commanders of different militant groups have been killed by unknown fighters since December. It’s definitely known that 7 commanders of Al Nusra, 6 commanders of Ahrar ash-Sham were in his list. The last development was observed on Jan.5 when Abu Rateb al-Homsi, Ahrar ash-Sham commander in the Homs province, was killed by unknown fighters. According to some experts, these actions could be conducted by the Syrian Special Forces which use information of the Russian Electronic Intelligence.

On Jan.10, the Syrian al Qaeda group Al-Nusra took two journalists, Hadi al-Abdallah and Raed Fares, hostage in a raid on a radio station in the town of Kafranbel in the Idlib province. The militants also seized the radio station’s broadcasting and technical equipment as well as its electricity generators.

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The Legacy of Racism and the Economic Crisis in South Africa

January 12th, 2016 by Abayomi Azikiwe

Social media post reflects regime-change efforts amid financial downturn

Several developments in South Africa over the last few weeks have brought to the attention of the public the ongoing unfinished quest for national liberation and economic justice.

A social media post by Penny Sparrow, a real estate agent and member of the opposition Democratic Alliance party, denigrating Africans, went viral and ignited a discussion on the need for stiffer laws against hate speech.

Sparrow in an entry referred to the majority African population of the post-apartheid nation as “monkeys”.

Decrying the policy of integration where all residents and visitors of the Republic of South Africa under the leadership of the ruling African National Congress (ANC) party are allowed to enjoy beaches and other public areas of the country, Sparrow revealed the continuing racist sentiments of many whites, particularly those who constitute the actual leadership of the DA, which is the second largest political party within the South African parliament in Cape Town, having gained 22 percent of the vote in the national elections of 2014.

In response to the furor generated over these statements, the DA announced the expulsion of Sparrow saying there was no place for racists within their party. The DA’s KwaZulu-Natal provincial leader Zwakele Mncwango stressed in a press release that, “I can confirm that Penny is no longer a member of the DA and after serving her suspension last week I can confirm that she resigned this morning.” (Eyewitness News, Jan. 8)

Sparrow is also facing criminal charges and will have to appear before the South African Human Rights Commission (SAHRC) and the Estate Agency Affairs Board. Human Settlements Minister Lindiwe Sisulu instructed the board to initiate a probe. In addition to these developments, Sparrow’s former bosses at Jawitz Properties will be pursuing legal action against her as well.

These racist comments were not the only ones gaining attention in South Africa in recent weeks. According to Eyewitness News “The SAHRC is also investigating after concerns about racist comments made by Sparrow as well as economist Chris Hart and Justin van Vuuren on social media in recent days, saying further legal steps could be taken against all three.”

ANC Celebrates 104th Anniversary

This discussion arose amid the commemorations surrounding the 104th anniversary of the founding of the African National Congress (ANC) on January 8. This liberation movement turned political party is the oldest of such organizations on the continent.

Tens of thousands attended rallies and other celebrations throughout the country marking this date when the party was formed at the height of European colonial rule in Africa in 1912. In five consecutive national elections since 1994, the ANC has won well over 60 percent of the vote.

The largest opposition party to emerge since the democratic breakthrough of 22 years ago has been the DA. The organization uses various strategies to recruit and promote Africans in an effort to obscure its racist, neo-liberal and imperialist agenda.

In early 2014, the DA attempted to stage a march on the ANC headquarters in Johannesburg but was rebuffed by thousands of party supporters who were mobilized to defend their offices. DA criticisms of the ANC within parliament are clearly designed to agitate for the return of the system of white supremacy and a close alliance with the imperialist states.

South African President Jacob Zuma said in an address before the ANC anniversary celebrations in Rustenburg located in the Northwest province that “Economic freedom must become a reality in our lifetime. The ANC has long set out to place our economy on a new growth path that will deracialize the economy and make a fundamental break with the ownership patterns of the past.” (Bloomberg, Jan. 9)

During the same speech Zuma also demanded that the ANC be given “space to govern” in light of recent calls by the DA and other opposition forces for his resignation. He also derided the factionalism which has begun to plague the party and the Tripartite Alliance with the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party (SACP).

Condemning what Zuma characterized as “obstructions to government,” he emphasized “You can’t lose elections and hope to interrupt and obstruct the government that has been elected by the people through taking every issue to court or disrupting Parliament. The party that wins elections must be given space to govern. The ANC must be given space to govern – this is the fundamental basic principle of democracy and is practiced throughout the world that is why it is called majority rule.”

Warning that those fomenting divisions will not be tolerated, the president said “Tendencies such as factionalism, careerism, gatekeeping, arrogance of power patronage – have no place in the ANC. We also wish to remind those who continue to perpetuate division and counter-revolution within our movement that there is no place for them.”

Global Capitalist Crisis Impacts Internal Politics

Like many so-called “emerging economies”, South Africa is experiencing a crisis due to the decline in commodity prices and the ongoing dependency upon the world system dominated by capitalist modes of production and relations. The continuing depressed value of the national currency, the rand, the rise in joblessness and low wages has triggered various responses including an apparent right-wing oriented demonstration in December demanding the resignation of President Jacob Zuma.

On January 11, there was yet another decline in the value of the rand on international currency markets. This continues a pattern began during 2015 which precipitated a change in the finance ministers twice within the course of a few days during December. This instability in the finance portfolio was credited with a previous drop in the currency value.

An article published by Newscom.au, reported “The rand fell more than nine per cent to 17.9950 against the US dollar, by far its weakest level on record, on fears that China wants to weaken its currency aggressively and boost its export competitiveness. The South African unit had recovered somewhat to 16.6500 by 0220 Tuesday AEDT, but was still down two per cent from Friday’s close. It was the weakest performer in a basket of 25 emerging market currencies tracked by Reuters.” (Jan. 11)

Zuma said in response to the decline that it was an overreaction to overall developments in the global economy. Some market analysts echoed this assessment although such a phenomenon does not bode well for the immediate future of the country.

Other factors involving relations with the U.S. through the Africa Growth and Opportunities Act (AGOA) has played a role in the economic insecurity of the country by holding up the renewal of South Africa’s eligibility in the program which was established under the Clinton administration in 2000. An announcement was made recently that the outstanding issues related to the refusal of South Africa to accept certain meat products due to health concerns had been resolved.

South African Minister of Trade, Rob Davies, revealed on January 9 that an agreement had been reached to allow the importation of the meat products in question. Nonetheless, U.S. Trade Representative Michael Froman said while Washington welcomed the progress made in resolving the outstanding technical issues, the real measure of the resolution would be based on the ability of South African consumers to buy these meats in domestic outlets.

The Obama administration had threatened to suspend South Africa from the trade agreement on January 4. AGOA was reauthorized by Congress in June. The Act eliminates import taxes on more than 7,000 products ranging from textiles to manufactured items in 39 African nations.

 

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Líbia, o plano da conquista

January 12th, 2016 by Manlio Dinucci

“O ano de 2016 se anuncia muito complicado em nível internacional, com tensões difusas também em nossa vizinhança. A Itália fará sua parte com o profissionalismo das suas mulheres e dos seus homens e junto ao compromisso dos aliados”: assim o primeiro-ministro Matteo Renzi comunicou aos filiados do Partido Democrático (PD) a próxima guerra em que a Itália participará, a da Líbia, cinco anos depois da primeira.

O plano está em vigor: forças especiais do Serviço Aéreo Especial (SAS, na sigla em inglês) da Grã Bretanha – informa “The Daily Mirror” – já estão na Líbia para preparar a chegada de cerca de mil soldados  britânicos. A operação – “acordada entre Estados Unidos, Grã Bretanha, França e Itália” – envolverá cerca de seis mil soldados e marines estadunidenses e europeus com o objetivo de “bloquear cerca de cinco mil extremistas islâmicos que se apossaram de uma dúzia dos maiores campos petrolíferos e, do reduto do chamado Estado Islâmico em Sirte, preparam-se para avançar até a refinaria de Marsa al Brega, a maior do Norte da África”.

A gestão do campo de batalha no qual as forças do SAS estão instruindo não identificados “comandantes militares líbios”, prevê a mobilização de “tropas, tanques, aviões e navios de guerra”. Para realizar bombardeios na Líbia, a Grã Bretanha está enviando mais aviões ao Chipre, onde já estão instalados 10 Tornados e 6 Typhoons para os ataques na Síria e no Iraque, enquanto um destroier está a caminho da Líbia. Já estão na Líbia – confirma o “Defesa Online” – também algumas equipes da Marinha de Guerra dos Estados Unidos.

Toda a operação estará formalmente “sob direção italiana”. No sentido em que a Itália suportará o ônus mais gravoso e custoso, pondo à disposição bases e forças para a nova guerra na Líbia. Nem por isso terá o comando efetivo da operação. Este será na realidade exercido pelos Estados Unidos através da própria rede de comando e daquela da Otan, sempre sob comando estadunidense.

Um papel chave será desempenhado pelo U.S. Africa Command, o Comando África dos Estados Unidos: este acaba de anunciar, em 8 de janeiro, o “plano quinquenal” de uma campanha militar para “enfrentar as crescentes ameaças provenientes do continente africano”. Entre os seus principais objetivos, “concentrar os esforços sobre o Estado falido da Líbia, contendo a instabilidade no país”. Foi o Comando África dos Estados Unidos que, em 2011, dirigiu a primeira fase da guerra, depois dirigida pela Otan, sempre sob o comando estadunidense, que com forças infiltradas e 10 mil ataques aéreos demoliu a Líbia transformando-a em um “Estado falido”.

Agora, o Comando África está pronto a intervir novamente para “conter a instabilidade no país”, e é também a Otan que, segundo declarou o secretário geral Stoltenberg, está “pronta para intervir na Líbia”. E novamente a Itália será a principal base de lançamento da operação. Dois dos comandos subordinados ao U.S. Africa Command se encontram na Itália: em Vicenza, o do U.S. Army Africa (Exército dos EUA para a África), em Nápoles o da U.S. Naval Forces Africa (Força Naval dos EUA para a África).

Esta última está sob as ordens de um almirante estadunidense, que é também o chefe da Força Naval dos EUA na Europa, do Comando Conjunto da Otan com quartel general em Lago Pátria) e, a cada  dois anos, da Força de Resposta da Otan. O almirante está, por sua vez, sob as ordens do comandante supremo aliado na Europa, um general estadunidense nomeado pelo presidente, que ao mesmo tempo está na chefia do Comando Europeu dos Estados Unidos.

Nesse quadro, terá lugar a “direção italiana” da nova guerra na Líbia, cujo escopo real é a ocupação da zona costeira econômica e estrategicamente mais importante. Guerra que, como a de 2011, serà apresentada como “operação de manutenção da paz e humanitária”.

Manlio Dinucci

Fonte: Il Manifesto;

Tradução de José Reinaldo Carvalho para o Blog da Resistência

 Manlio Dinucci é jornalista e geógrafo.

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Human rights experts from the United Nations and the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) today called on the United States Government to promptly close the Guantánamo Bay detention facility and end impunity for abuses in the so-called ‘global war on terror’ such as ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ and extraordinary rendition.

“The United States must clean up its own house – impunity only generates more abuses as States do not feel compelled to stop engaging in illegal practices,” the experts said in an Open Letter published today, 14 years after the detention centre became operational.

“Long-term security can be regained if a page is turned on this dark chapter of post-9/11 practices in response to terrorism,” they noted, referring to ‘war on terror’ launched after Al Qaeda’s deadly attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September, 2001.

“Everyone implicated, including at the highest level of authority, must be held accountable for ordering or executing extraordinary renditions, secret detention, arbitrary arrest of civilians and so-called ‘enhanced interrogation techniques’ in the name of combatting terrorism,” they said in a press statement on the Letter.

The experts recalled that close to 100 detainees still languish in Guantánamo after years of arbitrary detention without trial, outside the rule of law and the reach of the US regular courts, despite an executive order issued by President Barak Obama in January 2009 to release or transfer them and close the facility within one year.

“They are the forgotten ones as the United States moves from a ‘war on terror’ to a ‘war on extremism,’ without having acknowledged, reflected and made amends for past violations of fundamental human rights,” they stressed.

The experts called for an immediate end to the prolonged arbitrary detention of all Guantánamo Bay detainees by releasing them to their home country or to a third country should they be at risk of persecution, or transferring them to regular detention centres on the US mainland so they can be prosecuted before ordinary courts.

“The US Government must also ensure that current and former Guantánamo detainees as well as individuals who have been secretly detained have access to full redress for violations of their freedom from arbitrary detention, torture and ill-treatment,” they stressed.

The signatories included the UN Special Rapporteurs on torture, Juan E. Méndez; on human rights and counterterrorism, Ben Emmerson; on independence of the judiciary, Mónica Pinto; the Chair-Rapporteur of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Seong-Phil Hong; and the director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, Michael Georg Link.

Four years ago, then UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay spoke out against the failure to close the facility despite Mr. Obama’s order and to ensure accountability, citing it as a clear breach of international law.

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David Cameron’s Conservative government is seeking to ensure that workers lose their rights whilst Labour loses £6m a year in funding, with the introduction of the trade union bill.

Patrick Wintour at the Guardian has described the trade union bill as:

the biggest crackdown on trade union rights for 30 years.

The bill is also a crackdown on democracy. It proposes that 50% of members must vote in order for a ballot to be valid, and 40% of those eligible to vote must back action for strikes. This would mean trade unions would have to have a higher turnout and higher support than our very own government was elected by. The government failed to win the backing of 40% of the population and if this was applied to Conservative MPs the vast majority, 274, would fail to be elected. The clear aim here is to make it as difficult as possible for people to take industrial action and to make the right to strike a thing of the past.

The trade union bill has been criticised by the Conservative MP, David Davis, who agrees with much of the bill but even he struggled to comprehend how it would be acceptable for his party to implement a plan where people would have to give their names to police.

Davis said:

there are bits of it [the bill] which look OTT, like requiring pickets to give their names to the police force. What is this?

Davis answered his own question by describing it as something akin to Franco’s dictatorship in Spain:

This isn’t Franco’s Britain, this is Queen Elizabeth II’s Britain.

But the Conservative party is now hellbent on making its political rival broke.

The Guardian has revealed information contained in a confidential party document which outlines how Labour will lose £6m a year due to the bill. The bill will do this by changing how unions pay into their union political fund and it will mean every single union member will have to write every five years to opt into paying the levy, rather than opting out, as it presently stands. As things stand, unions will only be given three months to get their member’s signature that allows the payment.

The unions provide around 20% of the Labour party’s funding, which equates to more than £30m over a five-year parliament. The proposed changes to unions funding has caused immense concern to the Labour party, the paper reads:

The party could not absorb a loss of £5-6 m and maintain its current structure. With an annual salary cost in excess of over 50% of total costs, it is clear that current staffing levels could not be sustained. In addition to a staffing review, all contracts would need to be challenged to remove any discretionary costs and offices considered for sale or sublet.

While trade unions are run by democratically elected individuals, the Conservative party’s funding is far murkier.

In 2013, the largest donor to the Conservative party was a hedge fund founder, Michael Farmer, who gave over £2m. He was followed by a property developer, David Rowland, who gave over £1m. In addition, the Conservative party has received more than £1m from May Makhzoumi, the wife of billionaire Fouad Makhzoumi, the man at the centre of the Jonathan Aitken arms scandal. In 2015, the Tories got around £19m from 27 of the wealthiest asset managers in the UK. In the same year, it also received 10 times more than Labour in the final week before the election with more than £1m being received from companies like Lycamobile UK- who can donate to the Tories but struggle to pay corporation tax. They also received £90,000 from Stanley Tollman- a convicted tax fraudster.

While trade unions represent the working-classes and ordinary people, the government’s key donors represent the richest business elite in society. David Cameron’s Conservative party seeks to destroy trade unions and the Labour party, so there is no-one to oppose his draconian austerity measures which are designed to make his donors even richer.

Mike Carr is a third year student at the University of Portsmouth reading Politics and International Relations.

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Ucraina: Heil mein Nato!

January 12th, 2016 by Manlio Dinucci

O roteiro para a cooperação militar Otan-Ucrânia, assinado em dezembro, praticamente integra doravante as forças armadas e a indústria bélica de Kiev nas da Aliança sob a condução dos Estados Unidos. Nada mais falta a não ser a entrada formal da Ucrânia na Otan.

O presidente Poroshenko anunciou para esse efeito um « referendo » cuja data está por definir, prenunciando uma clara vitória do « sim » sobre a base de uma pesquisa já realizada. Por seu lado, a Otan garantiu que a Ucrânia, « um dos mais sólidos parceiros da Aliança », está « firmemente comprometida a realizar a democracia e a legalidade ».

Os fatos falam claramente. A Ucrânia de Poroshenko – o oligarca que enriqueceu com o saque das propriedades do Estado e a quem o primeiro-ministro italiano Renzi louva como « sábia liderança » – decretou por lei em dezembro o banimento do Partido Comunista da Ucrânia, acusado de « incitação ao ódio étnico e violação dos direitos humanos e das liberdades ». Estão proibidos por lei mesmo os símbolos comunistas : cantar A Internacional resulta numa pena de 5 a 10 anos de prisão.

É o ato final de uma campanha de perseguição semelhante à que marcou o advento do fascismo na Itália e do nazismo na Alemanha. Sedes de partidos destruídas, dirigentes linchados, jornalistas torturados e assassinados, militantes queimados vivos na Bolsa do Trabalho de Odessa, civis sem armas massacrados em Marioupol, bombardeados com fósforo branco em Slaviansk, Lougansk e Donetsk.

Um verdadeiro golpe de Estado sob a direção da dupla EUA/Otan, com o objetivo estratégico de provocar na Europa uma nova guerra fria para golpear e isolar a Rússia e, ao mesmo tempo, fortalecer a influência e a presença militar dos Estados Unidos na Europa. Como força assalto, foram utilizados, no golpe da Praça Maidan e nas ações sucessivas, grupos neonazistas treinados e armados para esse efeito, como provam as fotos de militantes de Uno-Unso treinados em 2006 na Estônia. As formações neonazistas foram em seguida incorporadas na Guarda Nacional, adestradas por centenas de instrutores estadunidenses da 173ª divisão aerotransportada, transferida de Vicenza para a Ucrânia, acompanhada por outras da Otan.

A Ucrânia de Kiev foi assim transformada no « viveiro » do nazismo renascente no coração da Europa. Chegam a Kiev neonazistas de toda a Europa (inclusive da Itália) e dos EUA, recrutados sobretudo pelo partido de extrema direita Pravy Sektor e pelo batalhão Azov, cuja identidade nazista é representada pelo emblema decalcado das SS do Reich. Depois de terem sido treinados e postos à prova nas ações militares contra os russos da Ucrânia e no Donbass, retornam a seus países com o « salvo-conduto » do passaporte ucraniano. Simultaneamente difunde-se na Ucrânia a ideologia nazista entre as jovens gerações. Disto, ocupa-se em particular o batalhão Azov, que organiza campos de treinamento militar e de formação ideológica para crianças e adolescentes, aos quais se ensina antes de tudo o ódio aos russos.

Isto advém da conveniência dos governos europeus: por iniciativa de um parlamentar da República Tcheca, o chefe do batalhão Azov, Andriy Biletsky, aspirante a « Führer » da Ucrânia, foi recebido pelo parlamento europeu como « orador convidado ». Tudo no quadro do « Apoio prático da Otan à Ucrânia », compreendendo o « Programa de potencialização da educação militar », no qual participaram em 2015, 360 professores ucranianos, instruídos por 60 experts da Otan. Num outro programa da Otan, « Diplomacia pública e comunicações estratégicas », ensina-se às autoridades como «contrapor-se à propaganda russa» e aos jornalistas como « gerar histórias factuais desde a Crimeia ocupada e a Ucrânia oriental ».

Manlio Dinucci

Fonte : Il manifesto

porochenko_nazi

Ucraina: Heil mein Nato!

Tradução de José Reinaldo Carvalho para o Blog da Resistência 

Na edição original, em italiano, foi publicado com este título em alemão, uma alusão ao famigerado « Heil, Hitler ! »

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Mounting U.S. Household Debt and Bank Overdraft Fees

January 12th, 2016 by Devon Douglas-Bowers

We have all been shafted by overdraft fees from our bank at some time or another. It’s an annoyance and frustration, especially to those of us who already don’t have much money as well as a constant puzzle: If one doesn’t have $5, how are they going to pay an extra $35?  Yet banks continue to do this and rake in money, as can be seen by them having made $35 billion[1] in overdraft fees in 2014. In order to get a better handle on the problem of overdrafts, we need to understand the history of such fees as well as reframe how we look at the situation, changing our perspective to see overdraft fees as a sort of loan rather than a fee.

After World War 2, society as a whole began to change, included how people borrowed money. Credit itself began to change with things such as pawning and open-book credit (in which goods are shipped with the recipient promising to make payments) declined in usage and were replaced with other forms of loans such as payday loans, credit cards, and overdraft protection. However, it wasn’t as if everyone had access to overdraft protection, it was generally reserved for those high-income customers who were having short-term problems. Yet, as time wore on more and more people gained access to overdraft protections, with “banks and credit unions [offering] ‘courtesy pay’ or overdraft features” starting in the mid-1990s “so that consumers could overdraw their checking or debit accounts, for a fee.”[2] What was important, though, was that people were accruing these fees on their own, however this would change in the new millennium.

In 2003, it was reported that around 1,000 banks were “encouraging customers with low balances to overdraw their checking accounts, allowing the banks to skirt credit laws and collect billions of dollars in new fees.”[3] Banks were now actively encouraging people with little money to spend beyond their limit as to have to pay massive amounts in fees. From the banks’ perspective, this made since as USA Today noted in 2005 that overdraft fees “provide a more stable source of income to banks than products tied to fluctuating interest rates.”[4]

According to an FDIC 2006 survey, it was reported that “overdraft fees on average represent 6% of total net operating revenues of FDIC-insured banks.”[5] It seems that only a small group of banks are making money off of overdraft fees. Data from the company SNL Financial showed that during the first quarter of 2015, the three largest banks (JP Morgan Chase, Bank of America, and Wells Fargo) “collectively generated $1.14 billion from overdraft fees and related service charges”[6] and that those very same banks were also the ones that collected the highest ATM fees of the first quarter. So, not only have banks been actively encouraging people to get overdraft fees, but they were making a killing from it.

There are a number of other problems with overdraft fees, such as their similarity to payday loans and how they act like credit cards, but are worse. A 2005 report from the Consumer Federation of America found that overdraft fees were similar to payday loans in that those without enough money to make ends meet until the next payday were effectively given a cash advance by being able to overdraw their account, however, overdrawing one’s account was similar credit card usage.[7] Yet, with credit cards, banks aren’t allowed to take funds directly from a person’s bank account to pay off a credit card debt, but those who overdraw their account with a debit card “lack this protection. A bank can use the right of setoff when a customer creates an overdraft with a debit card to repay itself immediately when the customer deposits funds into the account.”[8] Of course, this doesn’t just cover the general costs, but also the overdraft fees that are applied to the account.

The report also found that in many cases, banks allow people to overdraw on purpose when they pay checks that result in overdrawn accounts, “knowingly permit consumers to electronically withdraw funds at the ATM or to make purchases at point of sale,” or “pay pre-authorized debits despite the lack of funds in the consumer’s account.”[9]

In addition to this, banks don’t tell consumers of better alternatives, from that same report:

For example, Citizens Bank’s overdraft protection language on its website sells its line of credit or savings account transfer overdraft protection product as offering ‘convenience and peace of mind.’ On the other hand, Citizens Bank sent an addendum to its deposit disclosure in late 2004 describing the account’s ‘courtesy’ overdraft provisions and informing consumers that overdrawing a check, ATM or debit card transaction would incur a fee of between $25 and $33 each, depending on the number of days the account remains overdrawn. This disclosure did not inform consumers that they could purchase optional savings account overdraft transfer coverage for $3 per month or apply for an overdraft protection line of credit which costs $20 annually, both of which could be more affordable for consumers.[10] (emphasis added)

It seemed that things would change for the better in 2010 as the rules regarding overdraft fees changed. Starting in July, banks were now “required to allow debit card customers to opt-in to overdraft fees rather than automatically enrolling card users in programs that charge $20 to $30 whenever there are insufficient funds to cover purchases,”[11] meaning that if one didn’t have the necessary funds to complete a transaction, their debit cards would be declined at the register. Unfortunately, banks found a way around this by engaging in bank fee manipulation. Information came out in August 2010 when a federal judge ordered Wells Fargo “to pay California customers $203 million in restitution for claims that it had manipulated transactions to maximize the overdraft fees it charged.”[12]

What occurred was that, rather than dealing with each transaction in the order it was received, Wells Fargo put through the largest to smallest transactions, resulting in people paying increased overdraft fees. The very next year, Bank of America paid out $410 million for the same reasons.[13] But the bank fee manipulation continued, with Forbes reporting on the findings of a 2012 Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB) report which showed that it was still ongoing.[14]

The situation can get much, much worse though. The Center for Responsible Lending complied a report in July 2013 which found that while the average banks charges an overdraft fee of $35, some banks “also add a ‘sustained overdraft fee’ once the account has remained overdrawn for several days. At some banks, this is a one-time additional fee in the $35 range; at others, it is a fee in the $6-$8 range charged daily until the account balance is returned to positive” and that while a few banks have put limits on such sustained fees, it “still [allows] for daily fees in the hundreds of dollars.”[15] So not only are people’s bank fees being manipulated so that they pay more money in overdraft fees, but unless they can come up with the money quickly, the problems worsen.

For all this talk that’s been going on, though, we still have yet to discuss exactly who suffers from overdraft fees.

In 2008, the FDIC found that “9 percent of checking account customers bear about 84 percent of overdraft fees” and that evidence pointed to overdraft fees disproportionately impacting low-income and young customers.[16] A CFPB 2014 report reinforced this information as one of the key findings was that “eight percent of customers incur nearly 75 percent of all overdraft fees” and that “10.7 percent of the 18-25 age group [have] more than 10 overdrafts per year.”[17]
What effectively occurs with overdraft fees is that the poor subsidize the rich. In an article for The Economist, it was reported that “according to the FDIC low income (people who earn less than $30,000) earners are nearly twice as likely to have paid an overdraft fee”[18] and that it wasn’t uncommon for many of these low-income people to rack up fees to the point where they can’t pay them all.

When this occurs, banks close the indebted accounts and it is extremely difficult for people to open accounts at other banks. They are effectively shut off from formal banking, thus forcing them to turn to services such as pre-paid cards which “charge for all kinds of things checking account customers are used to getting for free: loading funds on to the card, point-of-sale purchases, talking to a customer service representative, cutting a check”[19] or check cashing which “can incur an average of 3-5% of the check amount in fees, regardless of the nature of the check.”[20] The costs of both of these can easily add up to more than what it would cost to have a regular checking account.

Alternatives to overdraft fees are asking one’s bank about a linked line of credit[21] or an affordable small-dollar loan.[22] However, the best solution would be to get rid of overdraft fees entirely. By combating overdraft fees, we will be able to free millions of people from the worry of debt and its potential long-term effects.

Notes

1: Statistic Brain Research Institute, Overdraft Fee Statistics, http://www.statisticbrain.com/total-overdraft-fees/

2: Andrea Ryan, Gunnar Trumbull, Peter Tufano, A Brief Postwar History of US Consumer Finance, Harvard Business School, http://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Publication%20Files/11-058.pdf (2010)

3: Alex Berenson, Banks Are Reaping Billions From Stealth Overdraft Charges, Citizen Review Online, http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/jan_2003/banks.htm (January 23, 2003)

4: Kathy Chu, “Rising Bank Fees  Hit Consumers,” USA Today, October 4, 2005 (http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/money/industries/banking/2005-10-04-bank-fees-usat_x.htm)

5: Todd J. Zywicki, “The Economics and Regulation of Bank Overdraft Protection,” Washington and Lee Law Review 69:2 (2012), pg 1153

6: Jon C. Ogg, Banks Making The Most From Overdraft and ATM Fees, 24/7 Wall Street, http://247wallst.com/banking-finance/2015/06/17/banks-making-the-most-from-overdraft-and-atm-fees/ (June 17, 2015)

7: Jean Ann Fox, Patrick Woodall, Overdrawn: Consumers Face Hidden Overdraft Charges From Nation’s Largest Banks, http://www.consumerfed.org/pdfs/CFAOverdraftStudyJune2005.pdf (June 9, 2005)

8: Ibid, pg 5

9: Ibid, pg 7

10: Ibid, pgs 7-8

11: Connie Prater, Fed: Consumers Must Opt In To Debit Card Overdraft Fees, http://www.creditcards.com/credit-card-news/opt-in-fed-debit-card-overdraft-fee-rules-1271.php (September 13, 2010)

12: Ron Lieber, Andrew Martin, “Wells Fargo Loses Ruling on Overdraft Fees,” New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/08/11/business/11wells.html (August 10, 2010)

13: Ben Popken, Bank of America Paying Out $410 Million For Reordering Your Transactions To Maximize Overdraft Fees, The Consumerist, http://consumerist.com/2011/07/14/bank-of-america-paying-out-410-million-for-reordering-your-transactions-to-maximize-overdraft-fees/ (July 14, 2011)

14: Halah Touryalai, “Yes, Banks Are Reordering Your Transactions And Charging Overdraft Fees, “ Forbes, June 11, 2013 (http://www.forbes.com/sites/halahtouryalai/2013/06/11/yes-banks-are-reordering-your-transactions-and-charging-overdraft-fees/)

15: Rebecca Borne, Peter Smith, The State of Lending in America and its Impact On U.S. Households, Center for Responsible Lending, http://www.responsiblelending.org/state-of-lending/reports/8-Overdrafts.pdf (July 2013), pg 3

16: Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, CFPB Launches Inquiry Into Overdraft Practices, http://www.consumerfinance.gov/newsroom/consumer-financial-protection-bureau-launches-inquiry-into-overdraft-practices/ (February 22, 2012)

17: Trevor Bakker, Nicole Kelly, Jesse Leary, Éva Nagypál, Data Point: Checking Account Overdraft, Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, http://files.consumerfinance.gov/f/201407_cfpb_report_data-point_overdrafts.pdf (July 2014). pg 5

18: A.S., “How The Poor Subsidize The Rich,” The Economist, http://www.economist.com/blogs/freeexchange/2010/08/money_and_banking (August 2, 2010)

19: Claes Bell, Check Cashing: Still Not A Good Deal, Bankrate, http://www.bankrate.com/financing/banking/check-cashing-still-not-a-good-deal/ (November 18, 2011

20: Account Now, Check Cashing Centers: Pros and Cons, http://www.accountnow.com/content/check-cashing/check-cashing-centers-pros-and-cons/

21: Jax Federal Credit Union, Overdraft Protection: Overdraft Line of Credit & Courtesy Pay, https://jaxfcu.org/checking/overdraft-protection.html

22: Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, FIL-50-2007, https://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2007/fil07050a.html

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One of the more encouraging (?) developments in Acceptable American Discourse over the last five years or so has been the gradual acceptance, even among Serious Media Outlets, that American voters no longer have any real control over their own government, and more broadly, their collective destiny.

In April 2014, Princeton University published a study which found that “economic elites and organised groups representing business interests have substantial independent impacts on US government policy, while average citizens and mass-based interest groups have little or no independent influence.”

Then in October of the same year, a Tufts University professor published a devastating critique of the current state of American democracy, “National Security and Double Government,” which

catalogs the ways that the defense and national security apparatus is effectively self-governing, with virtually no accountability, transparency, or checks and balances of any kind. He uses the term “double government”: There’s the one we elect, and then there’s the one behind it, steering huge swaths of policy almost unchecked. Elected officials end up serving as mere cover for the real decisions made by the bureaucracy.

The Boston Globe’s write-up of the book was accompanied by the brutal headline, “Vote all you want. The secret government won’t change.” Imagine a headline like that during the Hope and Change craze of 2008. Yeah, you can’t. Because nobody’s that imaginative.

Yes, people are beginning to smell the rot — even people who watch television in hopes of not having to confront the miserable reality that awaits them once they turn off their 36-inch flatscreens. In September, Jimmy Carter warned Oprah Winfrey:

We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life,” the 90-year-old former president told Winfrey.

The live audience were probably hoping for free Oprah cars. Instead, an ex-president told them that their democracy is in the gutter. What a bummer.

The latest canary in the coal mine is none other than ex-longtime GOP staffer turned best-selling author Mike Lofgren, whose new book, “The Deep State: The Fall of the Constitution and the Rise of a Shadow Government,” confirms what is already painfully apparent:

The deep state has created so many contradictions in this country. You have this enormous disparity of rich and poor; and you have this perpetual war, even though we’re braying about freedom. We have a surveillance state, and we talk about freedom. We have internal contradictions. Who knows what this will fly into? It may collapse like the Soviet Union; or it might go into fascism with a populist camouflage.

Some excerpts from Salon’s recent interview with Lofgren:

On how the deep state operates:

Well, first of all, it is not a conspiracy. It is something that operates in broad daylight. It is not a conspiratorial cabal. These are simply people who have evolved [into] a kind of position. It is in their best interest to act in this way.

And given the fact that people would rather know about Kim Kardashian than what makes up the budget or what the government is doing in Mali or Sudan or other unknown places, this is what you get: a disconnected, self-serving bureaucracy that is … simply evolving to do what it’s doing now. That is, to maintain and enhance its own power.

On who (and what) is part of the deep state: 

The key institutions are exactly what people would think they are. The military-industrial complex; the Pentagon and all their contractors (but also, now, our entire homeland security apparatus); the Department of Treasury; the Justice Department; certain courts, like the southern district of Manhattan, and the eastern district of Virginia; the FISA courts. And you got this kind of rump Congress that consists of certain people in the leadership, defense and intelligence committees who kind of know what’s going on. The rest of Congress doesn’t really know or care; they’re too busy looking about the next election.

Lofgren goes on to explain that the private sector works hand-in-hand with the deep state, regardless of which “party” is in power. According to Lofgren, “There are definable differences between Bush and Obama. However, the differences are so constrained. They’re not between the 40-yard lines; they are between the 48-yard lines.”

Of course, millions of Americans will still enjoy rooting for the candidate whom they would most enjoy drinking Bud Lite Lime with, but probably deep in their hearts they all know they’re doomed.

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Libia, il piano della conquista

January 12th, 2016 by Manlio Dinucci

«Il 2016 si annuncia molto complicato a livello internazionale, con tensioni diffuse anche vicino a casa nostra. L’Italia c’è e farà la sua parte, con la professionalità delle proprie donne e dei propri uomini e insieme all’impegno degli alleati»: così Matteo Renzi ha comunicato agli iscritti del Pd la prossima guerra a cui parteciperà l’Italia, quella in Libia, cinque anni dopo la prima.

Il piano è in atto: forze speciali Sas – riporta «The Daily Mirror» – sono già in Libia per preparare l’arrivo di circa 1000 soldati britannici. L’operazione – «concordata da Stati uniti, Gran Bretagna, Francia e Italia» – coinvolgerà circa 6000 soldati e marine statunitensi ed europei con l’obiettivo di «bloccare circa 5000 estremisti islamici, che si sono impadroniti di una dozzina dei maggiori campi petroliferi e, dal caposaldo Isis di Sirte, si preparano ad avanzare fino alla raffineria di Marsa al Brega, la maggiore del Nordafrica». La gestione del campo di battaglia, su cui le forze Sas stanno istruendo non meglio identificati «comandanti militari libici», prevede l’impiego di «truppe, carrarmati, aerei e navi da guerra». Per bombardare in Libia la Gran Bretagna sta inviando altri aerei a Cipro, dove sono già schierati 10 Tornado e 6 Typhoon per gli attacchi in Siria e Iraq, mentre un cacciatorpediniere si sta dirigendo verso la Libia. Sono già in Libia – conferma «Difesa Online» – anche alcuni team di Navy Seal Usa.

L’intera operazione sarà formalmente «a guida italiana». Nel senso che l’Italia si addosserà il compito più gravoso e costoso, mettendo a disposizione basi e forze per la nuova guerra in Libia. Non per questo avrà il comando effettivo dell’operazione. Esso sarà in realtà esercitato dagli Stati uniti attraverso la propria catena di comando e quella della Nato, sempre sotto comando Usa. Un ruolo chiave avrà lo U.S.

Africa Command, il Comando Africa degli Stati uniti: esso ha appena annunciato, l’8 gennaio, il «piano quinquennale» di una campagna militare per «fronteggiare le crescenti minacce provenienti dal continente africano». Tra i suoi principali obiettivi, «concentrare gli sforzi sullo Stato fallito della Libia, contenendo l’instabilità nel paese». Fu il Comando Africa degli Stati uniti, nel 2011, a dirigere la prima fase della guerra, poi diretta dalla Nato sempre sotto comando USA, che con forze infiltrate e 10mila attacchi aerei demolì la Libia trasformandola in uno «Stato fallito». Ora il Comando Africa è pronto a intervenire di nuovo per «contenere l’instabilità nel paese», e lo è anche la Nato che, ha dichiarato il segretario generale Stoltenberg,  è «pronta a intervenire in Libia». E di nuovo l’Italia sarà la principale base di lancio dell’operazione. Due dei comandi subordinati dello U.S. Africa Command si trovano in Italia: a Vicenza quello dello U.S. Army Africa (Esercito Usa per l’Africa), a Napoli quello  delle U.S. Naval Forces Africa (Forze navali Usa per l’Africa). Quest’ultimo è agli ordini di un ammiraglio Usa, che è anche a capo delle Forze navali Usa in Europa, del Jfc Naples (Comando Nato con quartier generale a Lago Patria) e, ogni due anni, della Forza di risposta Nato.

L’ammraglio è a sua volta agli ordini del Comandante supremo alleato in Europa, un generale Usa nominato dal Presidente, che allo stesso tempo è a capo del Comando europeo degli Stati uniti.

In tale quadro si svolgerà la «guida italiana» della nuova guerra in Libia, il cui scopo reale è l’occupazione delle zone costiere economicamente e strategicamente più importanti. Guerra che, come quella del 2011, sarà presentata quale «operazione di peacekeeping e umanitaria».

 Manlio Dinucci

 

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This last month has seen a tidal wave of western propaganda regarding the “Siege of Madaya” in Syria.

Some of the mainstream media efforts have centered around the use of old or fake photo images of starving children and residents in the small Syrian town of Madaya.The object of this western government-media-human-rights ring is to provide PR backing for ‘regime change’ in Syria by blaming this humanitarian disaster on Syrian president Bashar al Assad.

Here are just a few exhibits of mainstream deception…

HBO’s pseudo ‘Indy’ media outlet, VICE News, was also caught using some of the same cache of fake photos, but quickly erased them from its website after  being exposed by diligent independent watchers online.

Similarly, the BBC was also caught red-handed trying to pass off old footage from 2014, from Yarmouk, Syria, as being from Madaya.

In addition, Canada’s CBC also submitted its own entry into what is turning out to be the mainstream media’s own contest for fake news coming out of Syria.

Finally, Al Jazeera also got into the act, tweeting out its own fake photos of ‘starving Syrians’ in order to help pile global condemnation on the Damascus government.

Why are these major media outlets engaged in such blatant propaganda?

1-Madaya-Syria-fake-photo-2
The image of this starving young girl went viral, only it was taken in Amman, Jordan in 2014, belonging to a Syrian refugee covered in an al-Arabiya news channel report, then referred to as “Syria’s Mona Liza.”

Below is one excellent and extremely accurate report filed by RT, which clearly exposes the fraudulent narrative being plied by mainstream outlets like CNN, the BBC, Al Jazeera and others, deriving some of their fabricated images and heavily-spun ‘reports’ from organisations like the Syrian Network For Human Rights (SN4HR), and other western ‘activist’ front groups.

See the full stunning report here:

On its website, SN4HR, posts a twisted version of events, claiming that the Syrian government is responsible for ‘mass-starvation’.  This is another example of made-to-order propaganda, designed to bolster US State Department and British Foreign Office calls for ‘regime change’ in Damascus:

“Syrian government forces (army, security forces, local and foreign militias) use hunger as a weapon of war for years in regions under the control of armed opposition. This systemized weapon of human destruction had its impact on the Syrian society, whereas the latest victim of siege and hunger has been Madaya town in Damascus suburbs. Madaya town is located in Damascus suburbs and has been under siege since the end of 2013.”

The clear spin shown here by SN4HR collapses when confronted with actual reports on the ground which clearly show that “rebel” and terrorist fighting groups have not only seized international food deliveries, but have also been selling items at inflated prices to trapped residents. RT also documented on camera in the interview segment (above), how al Nusra “rebels” terrorists threatened to shoot them if residents tried to flee the town of Madaya.

1-Syrian-Network-for-Human-Rights
The SN4HR website has no information on who funds the group, and its website ownership information is hidden from public view but shows that it is hosted in the US. The organisation identifies itself as an outgrowth of “the revolution in Syria” (clearly a partisan organization, see at the very bottom of their home page) claims to be ‘a trusted source’ that supplies information about the Syria Conflict to all leading human rights organisations, charities and government departments including the UN, Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and even the US State Department. “The network’s database and archives are considered as a reliable source and reference for international and local media outlets, and international organizations and agencies working in the field of human rights.”

Note that when readers go to visit the Syrian Network For Human Rights (sn4hr.org), they will see at bottom right of the their home page a statement which shows they are a “coalition” member of ICR2P (responsibilitytoprotect.org),  part of a larger web of western-backed “soft power” front organisations, based out of New York City:

International Coalition for the Responsibility to Protect
c/o World Federalist Movement
Institute for Global Policy
708 Third Avenue, Suite 1715
New York, NY 10017

The ICRtoP website states that their mission:

“brings together NGOs from all regions of the world to strengthen normative consensus for RtoP, further the understanding of the norm, push for strengthened capacities to prevent and halt genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity and mobilize NGOs to push for action to save lives in RtoP country-specific situations.”

What we are seeing here is a covert attempt by the US and its allies to cloak their ‘regime change’ and geopolitical hegemony goals and objects underneath a public relations veil of ‘humanitarianism’ through an intricate web of human rights and ‘progressive’ organisations. According to Sourcewatch: “The Responsibility to Protect-Engaging Civil Society (R2PCS) project is housed at the Institute for Global Policy (IGP) in New York. IGP is associated with the World Federalist Movement (WFM).” Funding for ICRtoP is delivered by a number of dubious soft power sources including the International Crisis Group, who in turn is financed by George Soros and the Open Society Institute, the Ford Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

The Syrian Conflict (not a ‘civil war’ as characterized by western leaders) has become one of the great receptacles for soft power propaganda this century.

What’s been shown in this article is the small tip of a much larger iceberg of lies and fabrications which western mainstream media organisations have been manufacturing to help sell their plans for “change” in Syria since 2011.

Just look at what they’ve done to Syria – and the region so far, and Washington still has the nerve to try and blame it on the Syrians.

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Evidence keeps mounting on how Turkey directly aids ISIS, complicit with Washington, other NATO countries and regional partners.

Foreign support lets terrorist groups in Syria, Iraq and Libya thrive. Without it they’d become a spent force, unable to operate effectively on their own – what media scoundrels never explain, perpetuating the myth of US war on ISIS.

On January 10, London’s Guardian headlined “Isis ‘ran sophisticated immigration operation” on Turkey-Syria border,” saying:

Documents seized by Kurdish forces dated December 2014 – March 2015 have ISIS “department of immigration” and “department of transport” stamps.

They show its fighters freely moved back and forth through Turkish and Syrian border areas. Seven manifests contain names, dates of birth and other ID information of 70 people, including men, women and infants.

The Guardian enlisted help from ISIS expert Aymenn al-Tamimi to verify the authenticity of the documents.

They “coincide with other(s), illustrating daily bus routes within Islamic State territory,” he said. “Though private companies provide the actual transportation, the Islamic State bureaucracy is responsible for authorizing and overseeing the routes.”

Turkey claims controlling its 566-mile border with Syria is impossible – failing to explain its complicity with ISIS at the highest regime levels.

The Guardian said the authenticated documents it obtained reveal a “formalised (arrangement) of passage” from Turkey to Syria and return.

“The manifests were sent to the Guardian by Syrian Kurdish forces spokesman, Redur Xelil, and bear the same stamp marks and logos as other Isis documents the newspaper has been able to verify.”

What occurred over a documented four-month period indicates standard daily practice through other border crossing areas.

Responding to the Guardian, a Turkish regime official lied, claiming no evidence of illegal crossings. He said security forces arrested over 200,000 individuals attempting to cross into Turkey illegally from Syria.

Turkey is one of the world’s leading human rights abusers. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu claims his government has “a moral responsibility…to accept refugees” crossing its border.

Columbia University researcher into links between Turkey and ISIS David Phillips believes Erdogan’s regime “knows the movements of all persons and can control the flow across the border if it chooses.”

“(A) steady stream of vehicles, individuals, weapons, financing (and) oil” transit freely cross-border because Ankara permits it.

“It’s not like people are putting on their hiking boots and crossing over rough terrain. There’s an extensive surface transport network which is highly regulated and controlled…on both sides of the border.”

Volumes of documented evidence show Turkish complicity with ISIS, the Guardian’s report the latest example.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

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Analysing updates published by the Ministry of Defence (MoD) of RAF operations in Iraq and Syria give something of an insight into the use of drones and aircraft for strikes by British forces in 2015.  The updates do not give a complete picture as some strikes are omitted (for example the targeted killing of Reyaad Khan) and the number of strikes recorded in the reports do not match officially published figures. Nevertheless they do give a broad indication of British air operations against ISIS. (Note the MoD’s definition of a ‘strike’ and how it calculates the number of a strikes it has launched is extremely convoluted and has changed during the year – see this explanation from the MoD.

Strikes in Iraq

UK-drone-air-strikes-2015 by month- c

*Note figures are from our analysis of MoD updates on operations against ISIS

According to the updates there was a steep rise in British air strikes in Iraq from early November which continued following the Parliamentary vote authorising strikes in Syria at the beginning of December.  In fact according to our analysis of the figures, one-third of all UK air strikes against ISIS in 2015 took place in Iraq in the final two months of the year.

Strikes in Syria

UK-drone-air-strikes-2015 -SYRIA by month- d

*Note figures are from our analysis of MoD updates on operations against ISIS – they do not include the well publicised drone strike against Reyaad Khan in August 2015.

As some have noted, the actual number of British strikes in Syria since the vote is very small – three separate engagements of Tornados/Typhoons launching 16 strikes and one Reaper drone strike on Christmas Day. The steep rise in British strikes in Iraq compared with the small number of strikes in Syria is in stark contrast to the arguments put forward by the Prime Minister that Britain had a military and moral duty to launch strikes in Syria. While the small number of strikes in Syria may only be temporary due to the focus on retaking Ramadi, it may indicate as commentators and officials have reported, the lack of targets in Syria.

Reapers vs Tornados

While the MoD regularly argues that the primary role of Reaper drones is surveillance, British drones have been carrying out almost as many air strikes as the UK’s dedicated strike aircraft. According to our analysis of the MoD updates, over 2015 as a whole, British Reaper drones have carried out 40% of UK air strikes against ISIS (with monthly figures fluctuating between 28% and 64%).  It may be that with thedeployment of addition British military aircraft to the Middle East that the Reaper drones will be used less to undertake strikes and more for surveillance. We shall watch the figures carefully over the coming months.

percentage-2015

The table below details the targets of UK strikes in 2015 according to the MoD updates.  While Tornados and Typhoons have undertaken the majority of strikes and therefore hit the majority of targets in the various categories, drones have been used more to target vehicles, checkpoints, IED emplacers/vehicles and storage compounds.

2015-table-category-b

Civilian Casualties

The UK continues to insist that there is no evidence that any civilians have been killed in the hundreds of air strikes it has undertaken in Iraq and Syria. However civilian casualties from Coalition air strikes continue to be reported.

Airwars, which monitors Coalition air strikes in Iraq and Syria, regularly reports on civilian casualties from Coaltion air strikes and reported just before Christmas that British strikes had been carried out on days and in locations when civilian casualties occurred. However in response the Ministry of Defence told the media that it would not be investigating reports of civilians casualties unless they came directly from UK military personnel, or ‘local forces’ deemed friendly.  Such a position is not only absurd but immoral. Reports of civilian casualties from UK air and drone strikes from reliable sources must be taken seriously and investigated.  Otherwise the UK’s insistence that no civilians have been killed or injured in the hundreds of air and drone strikes it has carried out is not just incredible, but simply no longer believable.

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U.S. Dropped 23,144 Bombs on Muslim Countries in 2015

January 12th, 2016 by Adam Johnson

Council of Foreign Relations resident skeptic Micah Zenko recently tallied up how many bombs the United States has dropped on other countries and the results are as depressing as one would think. Zenko figured that since Jan. 1, 2015, the U.S. has dropped around 23,144 bombs on Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia, all countries that are majority Muslim.

The chart, provided by the generally pro-State Department think tank, puts in stark terms how much destruction the U.S. has leveled on other countries. Whether or not one thinks such bombing is justified, it’s a blunt illustration of how much raw damage the United States inflicts on the Muslim world:

Sources: Estimate based upon Combined Forces Air Component Commander 2010-2015 Airpower Statistics; Information requested from CJTF-Operation Inherent Resolve Public Affairs Office, January 7, 2016; New America Foundation (NAF); Long War Journal (LWJ); The Bureau of Investigative Journalism (TBIJ).

It does not appear to be working either. Despite the fact that the U.S. dropped 947 bombs in Afghanistan in 2015, a recent analysis in Foreign Policy magazine found that the Taliban control more territory in Afghanistan than at any point since 2001. The U.S. has entered its 16th year of war in Afghanistan despite several promises by the Obama administration to withdraw. In October of last year, President Obama reversed his position and decided to keep American troops in Afghanistan until the end of 2017.

The last four U.S. presidents have bombed Iraq, and that includes the current one since airstrikes were launched on Aug. 7, 2014. The war against ISIS was originally framed as a “limited,” “humanitarian” intervention. Since then, former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has insisted it will be a “30-year war” and the White House has spoken vaguely of a “long-term effort” in both Iraq and Syria.

Another red flag Zenko noted was the complete lack of civilian deaths being tallied as a result of those 23,144 bombs.

Remarkably, they also claim that alongside the 25,000 fighters killed, only 6 civilians have “likely” been killed in the seventeen-month air campaign. At the same time, officials admit that the size of the group has remained wholly unchanged. In 2014, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) estimated the size of the Islamic State to be between 20,000 and 31,000 fighters, while on Wednesday, Warren again repeated the 30,000 estimate. To summarize the anti-Islamic State bombing calculus: 30,000 – 25,000 = 30,000.

So after more than 20,000 bombs, the U.S. Defense Department only cops to the deaths of six civilians. This is a position largely accepted by the media, which rarely asks who is actually being extinguished by the airstrikes in Syria and Iraq.

In October, 30 civilians died after the U.S. bombed a hospital in Kunduz, Afghanistan. The incident is still being investigated, but it has already been revealed that many elements of the original story were either false or deliberately misleading.

Adam Johnson is an associate editor at AlterNet. Follow him on Twitter at @adamjohnsonnyc.
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Click to read part 1

Five months ago, I wrote an article titled “Jimmy Carter’s Blood-Soaked Legacy” about how the former President’s record in office contradicted his professed concern for human rights. Despite campaigning on a promise to make respect for human rights a central tenet of the conduct of American foreign policy, Carter’s actions consistently prioritized economic and security interests over humanitarian concerns.

I cited the examples of Carter’s administration providing aid to Zairian dictator Mobutu to crush southern African liberation movements; financially supporting the Guatemalan military junta, and looking the other way as Israel gave them weapons and training; ignoring calls from human rights activists to withdraw support from the Suharto dictatorship in Indonesia as they carried out genocide in East Timor; refusing to pursue sanctions against South Africa in the United Nations after the South African Defence Forces bombed a refugee camp in Angola, killing 600 refugees; financing and arming mujahideen rebels to destabilize the government of Afghanistan and draw the Soviet Union into invading the country; and providing aid to the military dictatorship in El Salvador, despite a letter from Archbishop Oscar Romero – who was assassinated by a member of a government death squad weeks later – explicitly calling for Carter not to do so.

This list was not meant to be exhaustive, but merely to highlight some of the most prominent contradictions between Carter’s ideals and his actions. After subsequent research and reader feedback, I realized there were many examples I had not mentioned. Their significance to the history of American foreign policy, and the repercussions they produced, is worth exploring in a subsequent analysis.

Carter announced in early December that he is cancer free. Sadly, that news was followed shortly thereafter by the tragic, premature death of his 28-year-old grandson. But Carter seems to have maintained his positivity. He has kept up his public schedule and says that healthwise he still feels good.

A person’s record and legacy should be debated while they are still alive – rather than after they are gone, when nostalgia or reluctance to speak ill of the dead can easily lead to embellishment and historical revisionism. And a person should be able to defend himself and his actions. Otherwise, it is merely an academic exercise instead of a demand for accountability. In this spirit, I present six more foreign policy positions that demonstrate Carter’s prioritization of American political and economic hegemony over actual support for human rights while he held the highest office in the United States.

Vietnam

Article 21 of the Paris Agreement in 1973 stipulated that:

“the United States will contribute to healing the wounds of war and to postwar reconstruction of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam and throughout Indochina.”

When asked in 1977 if the United States had a moral obligation to help rebuild Vietnam, Carter responded that:

“The destruction was mutual. You know, we went to Vietnam without any desire to capture territory or to impose American will on other people. We went there to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese. And I don’t feel that we ought to apologize or to castigate ourselves or to assume the status of culpability.”

The United States went to Vietnam after they could not convince the French to further continue a war to recolonize Vietnam. The Geneva Accords reached between France and the Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1954 called for a temporary division of Vietnam pending unification, which was to take place after national elections two years later.

In 1955, the Eisenhower administration began granting direct aid and providing American military advisers to the Bao Dai monarchy. Ngo Dinh Diem assumed control later that year through a fraudulent election. Knowing he would be trounced by the Communist party, he declined to participate in reunification elections called for by the peace agreement..

The United States government was indispensable to the survival of the Diem regime – and after complicity in Diem’s assassination, the Theiu regime. They funded and organized the police, military and intelligence services and were complicit in the reign of terror they unleashed on the South Vietnamese. Throughout the military dictatorship, tens of thousands of people were imprisoned without charges or trial; tortured and held in notorious Tiger Cages; assassinated extrajudicially; and displaced forcibly from their homes and transferred to concentration camps as American forces “helped to defend the freedom of the South Vietnamese.”

The South Vietnamese people are still suffering from the refusal to grant reparations for the devastation wrought by the U.S. military. More 100,000 Vietnamese have been killed or injured (an average of 2,500 per year) due to land mines and other ordnance dropped on Vietnam that did not explode on impact.

Residents also still suffer the horrific after effects of chemical weapons. The U.S. military sprayed millions of gallons of chemical defoliants, including Agent Orange, throughout South Vietnam. The President’s Cancer Panel in 2010 determined that “(a)pproximately 4.8 million Vietnamese people were exposed to Agent Orange, resulting in 400,000 deaths and disabilities and a half million children born with birth defects.”

Had Carter not so flippantly dismissed the U.S.’s role in the destruction of Vietnam and recognized its responsibility to uphold their obligation to pay reparations, likely tens of thousands of lives may have been saved with funds that could have been used for demining, and the cleanup and treatment of chemical agents that have gone on spreading the horrors of war for decades after the fighting ended.

Nicaragua

“Carter Must End Aid To Somoza,” proclaimed an editorial in The Harvard Crimson in September 1978. The paper demanded that the U.S. government cut off all forms of aid to the dictatorship of Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza, who was using indiscriminate force to try to crush a popular revolutionary movement to oust him, so the Nicaraguan people could choose their own manner of governance.

William Blum writes in Killing Hope that with the Somoza regime on the verge of collapse, “Carter authorized covert CIA support for the press and labor unions in Nicaragua in an attempt to create a ‘moderate’ alternative to the Sandinistas.” The Carter administration’s plan, according to Blum, was to allow the Somoza regime to take part in a new government, while leaving the state’s military and security institutions largely intact.

The Sandinistas were victorious in July 1981, as Somoza was forced to flee the country in disgrace. They were able to dismantle the dictatorship and create a new revolutionary government.

The meddling and funding for opposition organizations by the Carter administration, however, would pale in comparison to the full-scale terrorism and aggression that would follow under Ronald Reagan, who had by then taken over as President.

Cambodia

Starting in March 1969, President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger waged a massive, secret bombing campaign (Operation Menu) on Cambodia in which the U.S. military was instructed “anything that flies on anything that moves.”

The American aggression likely caused higher than official estimates of 150,000 Cambodian civilian deaths. When the operation was discovered by a Congressional Committee, it was not even included in the impeachment articles against Nixon, much less used as a basis to refer Nixon and Kissinger for prosecution for war crimes.

Radicalized, destitute and shell-shocked by the destruction wrought by the American bombing, Pol Pot and his previously marginal Khmer Rouge were able to rally enough recruits to seize control of the government in 1975.

It is generally accepted that the Khmer Rouge’s massacres in the Killing Fields and drastic measures to create a primitive agrarian society amounted to genocide. On the high end, two million deaths is a common number – though that number has likely been highly inflated for anti-Communist propaganda purposes. The American establishment and media were loudly outspoken against Khmer Rouge atrocities, especially considering the near unanimous silence regarding the nearly simultaneous genocide by the Indonesian military taking place in East Timor.

But, strangely, after a Vietnamese invasion in 1978 ousted them, the Khmer Rouge lost their status as evil Communists, as the official American foreign policy narrative recast them as victims of Vietnamese aggression.

The Carter administration began supporting the Khmer Rouge, who had been relegated to remote rural sections of the country, by financial and diplomatic means. Carter’s national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski reportedly told an American journalist he “encouraged the Chinese to support Pol Pot… Pol Pot was an abomination. We could never support him, but China could.”

According to columnist William Pfaff, financial support started by the Carter administration and continued by the Reagan administration to the Khmer Rouge totaled more than $15 million annually.

Despite the fact they had been driven from power, with American support the Khmer Rouge managed to maintain their UN seat – as the Carter administration had refused to recognize the government installed after the Vietnamese invasion.

The remnants of the Khmer Rouge fought a guerilla war until Pot’s death in 1998. There is no precise count of the dead and injured that resulted from the fighting so long after the regime was ousted, but it is known that hundreds of thousands of people were displaced from their homes and became refugees.

The Carter administration’s decision to fan the flames of violence for frivolous reasons – mainly to punish Vietnam for their defeat of American forces five years earlier – was a scandalous example of vindictiveness.

South Korea

In December 1979, the South Korean military led by General Chun Doo Hwan led a coup d’ état in which Chun imprisoned potential military rivals and cleared the way to his succession as dictator. On May 17, 1980, Chun declared martial law across the country. The next day, popular protests emerged in the city of Kwangju in opposition.

Chun’s support from the United States would be crucial to maintain legitimacy as he brought in the military to crush the uprising.

“The White House had tacitly shelved President Carter’s human rights campaign in its anxiety that nothing should ‘unravel and cause chaos in a key American ally’,” writes The Guardian.

“It agreed to continue supporting thuggish General Chun Doo Hwan, a major figure behind the coup who was by now imposing stringent military rule.”

Journalist Tim Shorrock studied more than 3,500 documents obtained by FOIA request and determined that more than mere complicity, the Carter administration played a “significant background advisory role in the violent 1980 military crackdown that triggered the May 18 citizens’ uprising.”

William Gleysteen, who Carter had personally appointed ambassador to South Korea, told Chun the U.S. would not object if he were to use the military to quell large-scale student protests.

Shorrock notes that declassified documents show that:

U.S. officials in Seoul and Washington knew Mr. Chun’s contingency plans included deployment of Korean Special Warfare Command troops, trained to fight behind the lines in a war against North Korea. The ‘Black Beret’ Special Forces, who were not under U.S. command, were modeled after the U.S. Green Berets and had a history dating back to their participation alongside American troops in the Vietnam War.

On May 22, Shorrock writes, “the Carter administration approved further use of force to retake the city and agreed to provide short-term support to Mr. Chun if he agreed to long-term political change.”

The Special Warfare troops carried out a massacre in which officially 200 people were killed, but estimates place the likely number of victims 10 times higher. Chun continued ruling as a dictator until 1988.

The George H. W. Bush administration would whitewash American involvement during the 1980 uprising by claiming the U.S. government had no knowledge of the use of the Korean special forces and did not approve of any such actions. Chun’s dictatorship in South Korea would continue until popular protests were able to force democratic elections in 1988.

Philippines

In September 1972, Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law in Proclamation No. 1081. It would not be lifted until three days before the end of Jimmy Carter’s tenure as President in 1981.

This would not prevent the Carter administration from continuing the billions of dollars provided by the U.S. government to the Marcos dictatorship in military aid. As he had with Indonesian Major General and President Suharto, Carter kept the spigot flowing to a dictator who demonstrated not just lack of respect, but outright hostility to the human rights of his subjects.

The quid pro quo in the Philippines was a Military Bases Agreement agreed to in December 1978. The Filipino-American socialist newspaper the Katipunan said that after signing the agreement, the Carter administration ignored Marcos’s many human rights violations.

“Especially now, in light of renewed threats to its imperialist hegemony of the world, the Carter administration has made it very clear that such considerations as human rights, democracy, etc., take a back seat, to the protection of American global interests, insofar as U.S.-R.P. relations are concerned,” the paper wrote in April 1980.

The Katipunan said that political considerations led Carter’s State Department to reverse their previous condemnation to claim the Marcos regime was improving its record. “The State Department might as well have congratulated Marcos for torture, salvaging, mass arrests, indefinite detention, etc.,” they wrote.

The Middle East

No one is more responsible for the vast proliferation of foreign U.S. military bases – now about 800, compared to about 30 for the rest of the world combined – than Jimmy Carter.

Any rational geopolitical analysis of the post-war period until Carter’s presidency would have concluded the Soviet Union had absolutely no intention of military expansion beyond their immediate satellite states. But Carter – like each of his predecessors since World War II – was delusional in his imagination of a Soviet threat behind every corner. His anti-communist, Cold-War strategy called for a military presence everywhere American economic interests existed. Using the phantom “Soviet threat,” Carter laid out what became known as the Carter Doctrine.

“In his January 1980 State of the Union address, President Jimmy Carter announced a policy change that rivaled Roosevelt’s destroyers for bases deal in its significance for the nation and the world,” writes anthropologist David Vine in Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World. “Carter soon launched what became one of the greatest base construction efforts in history. The Middle East buildup soon approached the size and scope of the Cold War garrisoning of Western Europe and the profusion of bases built to wage wars in Korea and Vietnam. U.S. bases sprang up in Egypt, Oman, Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere in the region to host a ‘Rapid Deployment Force,’ which was to stand permanent guard over Middle Eastern petroleum supplies.”

Post-Presidency

In my first article on Carter’s legacy, I wrote that he has – by far – the most impressive record of any American President after leaving office. I cited the examples of his condemnations of Israel’s policies in the occupied Palestinian territories and his Carter Center’s work independently verifying voting systems and electoral processes – specifically their endorsement of Venezuela’s 2013 election – as invaluable accomplishments for social justice.

Since then, Carter has bolstered his already impressive post-Presidency record even more. First, Carter told Oprah Winfrey in a September interview that:

“We’ve become now an oligarchy instead of a democracy. And I think that’s been the worst damage to the basic moral and ethical standards of the American political system that I’ve ever seen in my life.”

His summation of the state of the American sociopolitical system is both precise and brutally honest. While academic studies have already reached the same conclusion, Carter putting the issue in simple terms for a mainstream audience demonstrates his willingness to take on matters that would be considered taboo for the rest of the elite class. We can hope that the impact of his statement will be similar to his calling Israeli rule over Palestinians apartheid, something also taboo among elites at the time but increasingly gaining currency in mainstream discourse.

In October, Carter wrote an Op-Ed in the New York Times calling for “A Five-Nation Plan to End the Syrian Crisis.” Carter writes that since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, the Carter Center had explained to Washington that the Obama administration’s demand for Bashar al-Assad’s removal would preclude the achievement of a political solution.

Meetings with Russian President Vladimir Putin led Carter to believe that a peace proposal endorsed by the United States, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Saudi Arabia would gain enough support among the Syrian parties to end the fighting.

“The involvement of Russia and Iran is essential. Mr. Assad’s only concession in four years of war was giving up chemical weapons, and he did so only under pressure from Russia and Iran. Similarly, he will not end the war by accepting concessions imposed by the West, but is likely to do so if urged by his allies,” Carter writes.

The peace plan that Secretary of State John Kerry essentially copied from Russia – and has now endorsed as his own at the United Nations – looks very much like that laid out by Carter. There is good reason to think that if the Obama administration had not stubbornly ignored Carter’s advice four years ago – when they still believed, before Russia’s military intervention on Assad’s behalf, that they could overthrow the regime by force through proxy groups like the CIA-backed Free Syrian Army – the unimaginable violence and devastation could have been largely been avoided.

While in power, Carter and the officials he hand-picked to serve in his administration acted with the same Cold War zeal as their predecessors to relentlessly combat – with overwhelming force and the power of the U.S. government’s diplomatic muscle- threats to global corporate capitalist dominance, both real and imagined.

What accounts for the discrepancy between Carter’s actions in and out of office is a matter of speculation. Was it merely a change of heart? A reflection of the nature of authority? Or of the limits of the office of President and its subordination to the power of unelected, entrenched bureaucracy?

The bottom line is that, unfortunately, when Carter was afforded the opportunity to change the direction of U.S. foreign policy after receiving a mandate from the American voters, he was unable or unwilling to do so. We can only hope this missed opportunity will not be the last.

Matt Peppe writes about politics, U.S. foreign policy, and Latin America. You can follow him on twitter. Read other articles by Matt, or visit Matt’s website.

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Six years after the earthquake, death and destruction freely roam through Haiti in the form of new epidemics on people and plants. Bill and Hillary Clinton, who ushered the country’s dismantlement through the introduction of subsidized Arkansas rice in the 1990s, an occupation by United Nations troops starting in 2004, and a state of emergency that began within two months of the January 2010 earthquake, have tried to distance themselves during this United States election year from the mess they’ve made.

I will not go into the Clinton-led reconstruction here, because I have dealt elsewhere with the alleged financial crimes of this project, and besides, a search through the rubble for the reconstruction funds has become a yearly practice of the alternative press on earthquake anniversaries. Instead, I will focus on a looming disaster.

5368999MilletMagnaporthe-a

[pictured right: Gray leaf spot or Magnaporthe grisea symptoms on millet (Credit: Paul Bachi, University of Kentucky Research and Education Center, Bugwood.org)]

Something quite sinister has been developing in Haiti while the popular attention has been on the debacle of the country’s failed elections. On December 22, 2015, the city of Petit-Goâve’s Coordinator of the Association of Growers for Agricultural Development, Yves Placide, reported that a disease was ravaging the area’s millet plantations. Mr. Placide sent an SOS about the epidemic and asked Haiti’s Ministry of Agriculture, Natural Resources and Rural Development (MARNDR) to dispatch scientists to the plantations to identify and control the disease. Petit-Goâve is in Haiti’s southern peninsula and formally in the country’s West Department.

Within two weeks, vast plantations of millet had been ravaged in Haiti’s Center Department, quite far from Petit-Goâve and near to the Dominican Republic. Affected towns included Maïssade, Hinche,  Thomassique, and Thomonde, all of them in the country’s notoriously fertile Central Plateau.  Ironically, the blight happened close to the county office of MARNDR in Hinche. According to farmer-agronomist Beaudler Louis, of MARNDR, “the millet leaves dried up, and their clusters were invaded by insects.” The agronomist said that he did not manage to save even a bunch of millet from his plantation of several hectares because the destruction happened in a “split second.”

This blight represents a disaster for the farmers of the Central Plateau and an extreme emergency. Millet is a major source of starch for poor Haitians, and, in addition, millet leaves serve as a food for farm animals. Before the dumping of subsidized Arkansas rice on Haiti, when this cereal was a delicacy, rice farmers used to sell their crops and buy millet for themselves. With Haiti’s peasant rice agriculture destroyed, and the price of imported rice climbing, Millet has become an important safeguard against famine in the country. This latest problem of a scarcity of millet and rising prices is compounded by the fact that farm animals will not eat the diseased millet leaves.

Gray leaf spot or Magnaporthe grisea sign on millet (Credit: Paul Bachi, University of Kentucky Research and Education Center, Bugwood.org).

The desperate farmers call on the government for assistance, but like the earthquake of January 2010, this new disaster will likely be exploited by the authorities to solicit foreign aid that will never reach the afflicted people. Already the failure of the millet crop is being blamed on climate change as a reason to beg for money. Who will help the farmers? Is it merely coincidental that six Haitian agronomists were murdered in 2015? The most recent such attack was the July 8 assassination, in broad daylight, of 39-year old Professor Tebert Oscar, of the Agronomy and Veterinary Medicine Department of Haiti’s National University (Université d’Etat d’Haiti, UEH), by supposed unidentified armed bandits. Dr. Oscar was a farmer’s son and a strong supporter of the peasants in his native town of Jean-Rabel. Others killed include 68-year old Jean-Ives Banatte, a former professor of the Université Notre-Dame d’Haiti, staunch defender of the environment, and host of the radio show “Chat on the environment” (Ti koze sou anviwònman).

What is the source of the new scourge on Haiti? The physical appearance of the disease and the rapid rate at which it ravaged the millet crop suggest that it could have been caused by the “blast fungus” or “gray leaf spot fungus” Magnaporthe grisea, also called Pyricularia grisea. One possibility is that this fungus has spread from recently introduced crops of rice, corn, wheat, or barley. Some pathogens, especially fungi that attack millet, are shared with other small-seed grasses that are cereal crops for humans. Another possibility, and this cannot be discounted in light of the fact that a vicious war has been waged against Haiti’s creole pig and native rice, is that the pathogen was deliberately introduced in the millet plantations.

3231058442_aa35c07ea6_oM. grisea is the best-studied fungus that ravages plant crops. Its effect is described as being apocalyptic, and the Haitian farmers depict their plantings as having the appearance of being burned in an instant. When M. grisea’s genome was sequenced by US scientists about 13 years ago, reviewers of the work noted that “the fungus has an even darker side: ‘bad guys’ could use it as a bioweapon to attack world food supplies….”

There has been ample time to study the mechanisms of disease of Magnaporthe grisea and generate crops of rice and other cereals that are resistant to it. Though this appears innocent enough, the first step in making a bioweapon is to develop protection against it for oneself. If the blight in Haiti is due M. grisea, it is easy to guess who our bad guys would be. Haiti has never been attacked by anything but governments with imperialist designs and their associated corporations. We will know for sure when we learn who buys the small millet farms of Haiti’s Central Plateau at fire sale prices for their replacement with vast monocultures of M. grisea resistant crops.

It has been six years, and Haiti is not being reconstructed but rather being demolished in every way and depopulated. Under the guise of humanitarianism, the international community is engaged in a ruthless project to undo the Haitian Revolution. If we do not stop counting the years post-earthquake, wake from our shock, rid ourselves of these plagues, and reset the clock, it will be our peril as a people, culture, and country.

Note from the Editor of NJP: Photographs one and three from United Nations Photo archive; photographs two and five by Paul Bachi (see caption); photograph four by Zoriah; photograph seven by Lucas and composite image eight by ScabeaterFor more from Dady Chery, read We Have Dared to be Free: Haiti’s Struggle Against Occupation, available as a paperback from Amazon and e-book from Kindle.

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Canadian government spies on Brazil — and its own citizens.

This article was first published by the CCPA Monitor in 2013.  

In the September issue of the CCPA Monitor, I reported on the U.S. National Security Agency’s (NSA) spying on hundreds of millions of its citizens, as revealed by whistle-blower and former NSA contractor Edward Snowden. Now it appears that the Canadian government, too, is engaged in surreptitiously spying on its citizens, in collaboration with the NSA.

Canada has also been caught spying on Brazil. The United States and Canada are clearly close partners in the creation of an insidious global surveillance system that blatantly violates domestic and international human rights with impunity.

In October [2013], Snowden exposed the extent of the Canadian government’s spying activities. The Canadian counterpart to the NSA is the Communications Security Establishment Canada (CSEC). The two agencies have had close relations for more than six decades and share intelligence on each other’s citizens. Both spy on their own citizens as well as on each others’ nationals, and pass this information on to each other, thereby circumventing any legal restrictions on domestic surveillance.

Such close co-operation is part of the “Five Eyes” program of the U.S., Canada, Australia, Britain and New Zealand, which have shared responsibilities for a massive global surveillance system that includes commercial espionage.

CSEC has a staff of more than 2,000, with another 1,000 military personnel assisting it, a yearly budget worth hundreds of millions of dollars, and a new headquarters that cost $1 billion to build. As one observer put it, “CSEC operations are shrouded in almost total secrecy, authorized under ministerial directives that are themselves so secret that their subject matter, let alone their contents, is secret.”

Economic spying appears to be the reason for CSEC’s surveillance of Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy. According to documents leaked by Snowden, in 2012 CSEC used a spying program code-named Olympia “to map the phone calls, e-mails, and video conferences made within the mines and energy ministry.”

More than 40 Canadian companies are active in Brazil’s mining sector, including Kinross Gold, Teck, Yamana Gold, Aura Minerals, Luna Gold, and El Dorado Gold. Canadian investment in Brazil is worth $9.8 billion, while Brazil’s investment in Canada amounts to $15.8 billion. With a population of 200 million, Brazil has one of the world’s largest economies boasting a major industrial sector and enormous oil deposits.

Brazil’s Embraer corporation is one the largest aircraft manufacturers in the world, while the state-owned Petrobras has the second biggest oil reserves in South America. Canada and Brazil are rivals in the economic sectors of aircraft exports, oil exploitation, mining, and agriculture.

Canadian spying on Brazil’s Ministry of Mines and Energy appears to be aimed at giving Canadian companies an advantage over competitors in the bidding for drilling rights on auctioned oil blocks in Brazil, and getting information related to the perceived competitive threat posed by Brazil’s oil sector to Canada’s tar sands as a destination for foreign investment. Four Canadian companies recently secured 10 Brazilian oil blocks in an auction of 200 blocks.

Brazilian Foreign Minister Luis Alberto Machado expressed outrage at the revelations of Canadian spying and demanded an explanation, as did Brazilian President Dilma Rousseff, who accused Canada of violating her country’s sovereignty. She called the spying “unacceptable” and an act of industrial espionage.

“The fact that our Ministry of Mines and Energy was the target of espionage confirms the strategic and economic reasons behind such acts,” the President stated. Rousseff had already frozen all major relations with the United States and cancelled her planned visit to Washington after that country’s spying on Brazil was also revealed by Snowden in September.

According to The Globe and Mail, Canada-Brazil economic relations are at a “standstill” due to the spying revelations, and Brazilian officials have pledged “to closely scrutinize the activities of Canadian mining companies and other investors in Brazil.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper has responded to the major spying scandal disingenuously by saying that he is “very concerned” about reports that CSEC is involved in industrial espionage in Brazil (as if he hadn’t known about it). Harper vaguely promised “appropriate follow-up” on the charges, indicating further disdain for Brazil’s sovereignty.

An October 9 article in The [UK] Guardian makes clear that CSEC is the espionage arm of corporate Canada. The newspaper explains that “[CSEC] has participated in secret meetings in Ottawa where Canadian security agencies briefed energy corporations. Claims of spying on the [Brazilian] ministry by CSEC come amid the Canadian government’s increasingly aggressive promotion of resource corporations at home and abroad, including unprecedented surveillance and intelligence sharing with companies. According to freedom of information documents obtained by the Guardian, the meetings — conducted twice a year since 2005 — involved federal ministries, spy and police agencies, and representatives from scores of companies who obtained high-level security clearance.

Meetings were officially billed to discuss ‘threats’ to energy infrastructure, but also covered ‘challenges to energy projects from environmental groups,’ ‘cyber security initiatives,’ and ‘economic and corporate espionage.’ The documents — heavily redacted agendas — do not indicate that any international espionage was shared by CSEC officials, but the meetings were an opportunity for government agencies and companies to develop ‘ongoing trusting relations’ that would help them exchange information ‘off the record,’ wrote an official from the Natural Resources ministry in 2010.

At the most recent meeting in May 2013, which focused on ‘security of energy resources development,’ meals were sponsored by Enbridge, a Canadian oil company trying to win approval for controversial tar sands pipelines. Since coming to power, Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper has used his government apparatus to serve a natural resources development agenda, while creating sweeping domestic surveillance programs that have kept close tabs on indigenous and environmental opposition and shared intelligence with companies. Harper has transformed Canada’s foreign policy to offer full diplomatic backing to foreign mining and oil projects, tying aid pledges to their advancement and jointly funding ventures with companies throughout Africa, South America and Asia.

Keith Stewart, an energy policy analyst with Greenpeace Canada, said: ‘There seems to be no limit to what the Harper government will do to help their friends in the oil and mining industries. They’ve muzzled scientists, gutted environmental laws, reneged on our international climate commitments, labelled environmental critics as criminals and traitors, and have now been caught engaging in economic espionage in a friendly country. Canadians, and our allies, have a right to ask who exactly is receiving the gathered intelligence and whose interests are being served’.

Snowden leaked the CSEC spying documents to Guardian journalist Glen Greenwald, who lives in Brazil. Greenwald then gave the information to the Brazilian OGlobo channel television investigative journalism program Fantastico. In an interview with The Globe and Mail, Greenwald explained that “Brazil is the tip of the iceberg on Canadian spying” and that “more disclosures about Canada’s aggressive foreign spying activities are coming.”

According to Greenwald, “There is a huge amount of stuff about Canada in these archives [held by Snowden] because Canada works so closely with the NSA… Canadians should know that there is nothing really unique about what Canada is doing to Brazil — it’s not like Brazil is the only target for Canada. The reason this is so newsworthy is that the U.S. and its allies love to say the only reason they are doing this kind of mass surveillance is they want to stop terrorism and protect national security — but these documents make clear that it is industrial and economic competition, it’s about mining resources and minerals.”

Canada works so closely with the NSA that both collaborated with GCHQ, which is Britain’s NSA equivalent, in spying on the closest allies of all three countries — France and Germany. According to Guardian reports based on Snowden’s documents, CSEC, NSA and GCHQ together spied on diplomats participating in the G-20 meeting in London in 2009. This very “sensitive” operation included breaking into the delegates’ smart-phones to gather their e-mail messages and calls. CSEC has also spied on Japan, South Korea, and Mexico for commercial purposes.

Greenwald was struck by how avidly Canada participated in the NSA’s most damaging activities. These include the NSA’s “highly aggressive” Tailored Access Operations” (TAO) unit. “TAO is one of the most aggressive and insidious parts of the NSA – they’re hackers, and they hack other people’s computers exactly the way hackers that the U.S. puts in prison do,” Greenwald said. “Canada is working with the NSA on some of the most aggressive techniques that the NSA did.”

Such aggressive techniques include the important part CSEC has played in the NSA’s attempts to break encrypted information on the Internet. CSEC’s help has allowed the NSA to create a “backdoor to secretly decrypt data that millions regarded as safe.”

Significantly, Greenwald added in an interview with the CBC that there would be further revelations also about CSEC spying on “ordinary [Canadian] citizens”: “There’s a lot of other documents, about [CSEC] spying on ordinary citizens, on allied governments, on the world, and their co-operation with the U.S. government, and the nature of that co-operation… I think most Canadian citizens will find [this] quite surprising, if not shocking, because it’s all done in secret and Canadians are not aware of it.”

In June, a Globe and Mail article made clear that CSEC is conducting a vast program of domestic surveillance in Canada that blatantly violates Canadians’ civil liberties. Since 2005, “CSEC has been systematically mining the metadata of Canadians’ electronic communications — phone calls, e-mails, text messages, Internet visits, and collecting, thereby, information that can be used to develop comprehensive profiles of the habits and social networks of targeted individuals and groups.”

Peter Mackay, Canada’s Defence Minister, told Parliament in response to a question about the mass surveillance of Canadians’ communications: “I have a heads-up for the member… This is something that has been happening for years.”

According to Keith Jones writing on the World Socialist website: “As Canada’s government from 1994 and 2006, the Liberals oversaw a vast expansion of the repressive powers of the state, including the issuing by Defence Minister Bill Graham of a ministerial directive in 2005 authorizing the metadata mining of Canadians’ electronic communications.”

Canadian officials maintain that the country’s laws prevent CSEC from spying on Canadians, but, as Jones puts it: “This is a patent lie, and the fact that the government and CSEC invoke it so readily is itself in an indication that there is much they want to hide.”

CSEC is actually required to spy on Canadians as part of its official mandate because one of its main tasks is to help the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS — Canada’s CIA), the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, Canada Border Services, and other police forces carry out “national security” investigations. Also, the NSA gives CSEC information on Canadians regularly and in exchange receives the same kind of information on Americans. Both agencies claim that they do not spy on their citizens, which is questionable; but even if this were true, the claim is deceptive because they can get the information they seek on their citizens from any of the other “Five Eyes” agencies.

Ed Patrick points out on the World Socialist website that, “Since almost all Canadian Internet traffic passes through the United States – an e-mail from Montreal or Toronto could pass through several American locations before being returned to Canada – Canadian communications are inevitably intercepted en masse by the NSA, which has no legal or constitutional restrictions on eavesdropping on Canadians. In response to direct questions on the subject, the Canadian government has systemically refused to deny that the NSA passes on information to Canada’s national-security apparatus.”

As Canada’s Solicitor-General during 2002-03, former Liberal MP Wayne Easter was the cabinet minister in charge of CSIS and the RCMP. Easter says that it was “common” for the NSA “to pass on information about Canadians.” At that time, the “Five Eyes” partners of Canada would scan global intelligence signals and would be “looking for key words on Canadians… and they’d give it to the Canadian agencies,” Easter explained. William Binney, former NSA technical director, adds that NSA and CSEC “have integrated personnel,” which means they exchange employees to “improve seamless collaboration.”

In order to provide legal justification for spying on its citizens, the Canadian government conveniently considers metadata the container in which a communication occurs, and so not constitutionally exempt from surveillance. The government’s position is that it has the right to spy on who you send e-mails to and receive them from, with the same being the case for phone calls and text messages, as long as CSEC does not look at the content of all these messages. But, with such detailed information, a lot can be discovered about any person, and this obviously constitutes massive spying. Also, once CSEC has all this information, how do we know it is not examining the contents of the communications as well? Are we to trust the word of a government that is already spying on us without our permission?

As Keith Jones explains: “Through such metadata mining it is possible for the state to rapidly develop a detailed portrait of an individual — including his place of work, political views, associates, and whereabouts — and of the members and supporters of any group deemed by the state to be a potential threat to national security.”

While justifying its metadata spying, the Canadian government denies that CSEC has access to the NSA’s PRISM Program and has been using it as a means of looking at Canadians’ communications. PRISM, as I reported in September, allows the NSA to gain access to the servers of Microsoft, Apple, Google, AOL, YouTube, Skype, Yahoo, PalTalk, and Facebook, thereby turning the Internet into a colossal spying system. This official Canadian denial cannot be taken seriously, given that the NSA and CSEC are very close partners and have been sharing intelligence for more than six decades.

Following the Obama administration in the U.S., the Harper government is well on its way to turning Canada into a police state in which civil liberties are openly violated. In Canada’s case, this would be a petro-police state since both the Harper government’s spying on Brazil and its ominous domestic surveillance appear tied to its economic strategy based on expanding the profits of Canada’s oil and mining companies. This obsessive focus on resource extraction has already made Canada an international disgrace by turning it into a leading destroyer of the global environment. The spying scandal further shames Canada worldwide and damages its relations with an important country. The resource obsession has also deindustrialized Canada, made it increasingly a puppet of Washington, and violated its people’s basic freedoms.

As a February Guardian article by Stephen Leahy titled “Canada’s Environmental Activists Seen as Threat to National Security” puts it: “Monitoring of environmental activists in Canada by the country’s police and security agencies has become the ‘new normal,’ according to a researcher who has analyzed security documents released under freedom of information laws. Security and police agencies have been increasingly conflating terrorism and extremism with peaceful citizens exercising their democratic rights to organize petitions, protest and question government policies, said Jeffrey Monaghan of the Surveillance Studies Centre at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario.

The RCMP and CSIS view activist activities such as blocking access to roads or buildings as ‘forms of attack’ and depict those involved as national security threats, according to the documents. Protests and opposition to Canada’s resource-based economy, especially oil and gas production, are now viewed as threats to national security, Monaghan said.

In 2011, a Montreal man who wrote letters opposing shale gas fracking was charged under Canada’s Anti-Terrorism Act. Documents released in January show the RCMP has been monitoring Quebec residents who oppose fracking. ‘Any Canadians going to protest the Keystone XL pipeline in Washington DC had better take precautions,’ Monaghan said. In a Canadian Senate committee on national security and defence meeting on Feb. 11, Richard Fadden, the director of CSIS, said they are more worried about domestic terrorism, acknowledging that the vast majority of its spying is done within Canada. Fadden said they are ‘following a number of cases where we think people might be inclined to acts of terrorism’.

Such purported inclinations to “terrorism” resulted in many activists being jailed by the police in Toronto in 2010, a week before the G-20 Summit began there. The activists had done absolutely nothing wrong. Their only “offence” was that they might do something the government would not like after the G-20 leaders arrived, making it clear that Canadians have no right to demonstrate or even plan to do so.

Asad Ismi is the CCPA Monitor’s international affairs correspondent. He is author of the anthology The Latin American Revolution [now available from the CCPA] and the radio documentary Capitalism is the Crisis. For his publications, visit www.asadismi.ws.

 

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In today’s UK Column News we spoke to Vanessa Beeley about the events taking place in Madaya, Syria, where, it is alleged, thousands of people are being starved because they are under siege by forces loyal to President Assad.

But what is the truth? 

Interview with Vanessa Beeley

You can see the full news programme here:

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The US Navy’s “goals and objectives” outline for 2016, released last week, does not mince words: the first goal listed in the second subhead reads: “Buy more ships.”

And that is exactly what the world’s most powerful navy is doing. On Wednesday, the Defense Department announced it was moving forward with plans to replace its Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines, the most lethal killing machines in the history of mankind, with a completely new design beginning in 2021.

Each Ohio-class ballistic submarine is, by itself, the fifth most powerful military in the world. The Navy operates 14 of them. Each submarine carries 24 Trident II missiles, with each missile carrying eight warheads with a yield six times greater than the “little boy” bomb that killed over a hundred thousand people in the US bombing of Nagasaki, Japan, in 1945.

Image: The Navy’s Goals and Objectives outline for 2016

With an effective range of more than 7,456 miles, a single Ohio-class submarine in the waters outside of San Diego could obliterate 192 cities in western China, with a combined population of 400 million people, if the commander-in-chief were so inclined.

Image: A comparison of the world’s aircraft and helicopter carriers

But the Ohio class is apparently in need of an upgrade, and the White House gave the Pentagon the go-ahead last Monday to send a “Request for Proposal” to the ship’s contractor, General Dynamics Electric Boat, approving funds for the building of a prototype. Each submarine, of which there will be 12, will cost an estimated $6-8 billion—not including research and development costs, the price of each submarine’s nearly 200 nuclear warheads, and associated operating costs—up from $2 billion for the Ohio class.

The day after the White House gave the go-ahead for replacing the Ohio-class submarines, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) reported Monday that up to a million people will lose food stamp benefits in 2016.

Twenty-three states are expected this year to lift a moratorium on one of the harshest austerity measures imposed by the Clinton administration’s “welfare reform” program, which caps the amount of time many people are eligible for food stamps at three months. The time limits were halted during the recession, but under the pretense that there is “no money,” to pay for food stamps, states all over the country are re-imposing the time limits.

“The loss of this food assistance, which averages approximately $150 to $170 per person per month for this group, will cause serious hardship among many,” reported the organization. The CBPP notes, “USDA data show that the individuals likely to be cut off by the three-month limit have average monthly income of approximately 17 percent of the poverty line, and they typically qualify for no other income support.”

In announcing the food stamp cuts, Clinton pledged to “spend the taxpayers’ money wisely and with discipline, that we can spend more money on the future.” If he had been telling the truth, he would have declared that he was proposing the cuts so that the Navy could “Buy more ships.”

After all, the money has to come from somewhere. And it’s easiest to take from those who are the least capable of defending themselves. In addition to the poor people who depend on food stamps to survive, working class children have been targeted.

The same day that the White House gave the go-ahead for the design of the new submarines, the CBPP released a report showing that funding for schools has been slashed in most states since 2008, and in 15 states by more than 10 percent. Arizona has cut education spending by 23.3 percent, Alabama by 21.4 percent, Idaho by 16.9 percent, and Georgia by 16.5 percent.

Image: States have slashed education spending since 2008

While there is, of course, no money for children and the poor, defense contractors are licking their chops over the expected uptick in global military spending resulting from the wars flaring out of control in the Middle East and the growing standoff in Eastern Europe and the Pacific.

Defense industry analyst Deloitte gleefully declared earlier this month that military spending is “poised for a rebound” as a result of “heightened tensions” around the world.

It notes,

“2015 was a pivotal year that saw heightened tensions between China, its neighbors and the US over ‘island building’ in the South and East China Seas, and the related claims of sovereign ocean territory rights by China. In addition, Russia and the Ukraine are at odds related to Russia’s takeover of Crimea and their military actions in Eastern Ukraine,”

while “The recent tragic bombings in Paris, Beirut, Mali, the Sinai Peninsula, and other places have emboldened nations to join in the fight against terrorism.”

Image: The US spends more on its military than the next seven countries combined

The report notes that “improved profitability” will result from “renewed interest from buyers” in acquiring “armored ground vehicles, ground attack munitions, light air support aircraft” and “maritime patrol ships and aircraft,” as “the military operations tempo is likely to increase and more missions are executed.”

The global uptick in military spending coincides with a major new shopping spree by the United States, which spends as much money on its military as the next seven countries—China, Russia, Saudi Arabia, France, the UK, India and Germany—combined. The US expends $609.9 billion out of the $1.7 trillion spent worldwide by all countries each year on war.

But this figure is slated to surge as “Many large, mainly US [Department of Defense] programs representing billions of US dollars, are likely to start soon, enter the engineering manufacturing design phase, and reach low-rate or full-scale production over the next few years. These programs include Ohio Class Submarine replacement, F-35 fighter jet, KC-46A aerial refueling tanker, and Long Range Strike Bomber.”

Just one of these programs, the F-35 “Lightning II,” plagued with delays and cost-overruns, will cost $1.45 trillion over its lifecycle, more than twice the amount that state, federal, and local governments spend educating 50 million children each year.

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German Media Incites Racist Hysteria

January 12th, 2016 by Peter Schwarz

Using the pretext of alleged incidents of sexual harassment in Köln (Cologne), the German media has launched a hysterical, racist campaign against millions of immigrants and Muslims.

On New Year’s Eve, thousands of people gathered in Köln and in other major cities throughout Germany to celebrate the holiday. The next day, police issued a press release stating that there was a “festive mood” at the celebrations and that the atmosphere that evening was “overall peaceful.”

However, one day later, a second statement was issued that referred for the first time to alleged attacks on women. On January 5, Köln’s Christian Democratic Union (CDU)-backed Mayor Henriette Reker said at a press conference that there was “no evidence that people who are residing in Köln as refugees are amongst the perpetrators.”

Suddenly, the media exploded with allegations of mass sexual abuse, setting into motion a hysterical campaign directed against the immigrant population. On January 7, anonymous police officers told the media that “most” of those suspected were migrants. A January 8 report by the Federal Ministry of the Interior announced that out of 31 suspects, 18 were refugees. Among the suspects were two Germans and an American.

It was not until the period between January 8 and January 10 that the number of those alleging sexual harassment rose from 170 to over 400. So far, only two people have been arrested, and they have been released.

What actually occurred in Köln is not yet known. Some reports point to a provocation. Various international media outlets, including CNN, have reported that at least one undercover police agent had infiltrated the crowd and later reported she was assaulted.

It is, of course, possible that there were incidents of hooliganism in which women were harassed. Unfortunately, such behavior is not uncommon in large crowds almost anywhere in the world where liquor is flowing freely as it was on New Year’s Eve. At last year’s Mardi Gras celebrations in New Orleans, Louisiana, for example, over 140 people were arrested, 50 for felonies. At last year’s Oktoberfest in Munich, the number of sexual assault allegations rose to 20.

At any rate, given the absence of factual substantiation of what remain, at this point, no more than allegations, the ferocity of the press response can be explained only in political terms. The political parties and the media have launched a campaign that for many decades would have been considered impossible in Germany.

Some 70 years after the collapse of the Third Reich, the media is making use of the same disgusting types of racial stereotyping, with open appeals to paranoid sexual obsessions, in which the Nazis specialized. Once again, a shameless German media is evoking images of pure Nordic women being preyed upon by dark-skinned untermenschen (sub-humans).

On Saturday, the magazine Focus published on its cover an image of a nude woman covered by black handprints. The weekend edition of the Süddeutsche Zeitung carried an image of a white woman’s body with a black hand grasping her genitals. The newspaper also disseminated the image on Facebook.

When a wave of protest erupted, the Süddeutsche apologized. However, Chief Editor of Focus Ulrich Reitz refused to apologise on the grounds that “we are depicting what is unfortunately happening.” Whoever said the cover was racist, he claimed, was “fearful of the truth.”

It is not only degenerate journalists who are purveying this racist filth. Leading German academics are also getting into the act. Professor Jörg Baberowski of Berlin’s Humboldt University has written a column for the far-right BaslerZeitung accusing “Germany’s leading media” of remaining silent when “on New Year’s Eve, hundreds of Arab men sexually harassed, humiliated and robbed women on the Cathedral Square in Köln.”

There is no mass popular base for the racialist campaign. It is being instigated and directed by the political elites.

The new edition of Der Spiegel states: “A year ago, on New Year’s Eve 2014, similar assaults would have been (unfortunately) just an issue for the local press.” Der Spiegel adds, “Any attack could just as well have provided the material for national excitement—a child murder in a city park or any other crime in which primal fears are concentrated, stereotypes combined and foreigners involved in one form or another.”

However, this does not prevent Der Spiegel from legitimizing the media campaign. It declares that the events in Köln show the need for the strengthening of the police to defend “our canon of values.”

The political coordinates in Germany have shifted so far to the right that even the Left Party—a monument to political spinelessness—endorses calls for an authoritarian state. This universal shift to the right in all sections of the political establishment has, in fact, nothing to do with the events in Köln. It is, rather, entirely bound up with the resurgence of German militarism.

It is now two years since President Gauck and officials in the federal government announced the end of foreign policy restraint and stated that Germany was, in the words of Social Democratic Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, “too big to comment on foreign policy only from the sidelines.” Since then, the government has supported the right-wing coup in Kiev, participated in NATO’s deployment against Russia, sent troops to Mali and reinforced the military mission in Afghanistan. Recently, German Tornado jets joined the bombing campaign in Syria.

But despite intensive efforts, the ruling elites have thus far failed to break the ingrained resistance of broad social layers to militarism. The vast majority of Germans still oppose foreign missions and war operations by the Bundeswehr (Armed Forces). Now the issue of sexual violence against women is being employed in an attempt to overcome this resistance. The events in Köln are being exaggerated and exploited to this end. The racist smear campaign against refugees and immigrants is a means to prepare the expansion of the military intervention in the Middle East.

The entire tragic and disastrous experience of the 20th century proves that Germany’s ruling class cannot wage war without resorting to racism and erecting an authoritarian regime.

In recent months, the most popular film in Germany has been Erist wieder da(He’s Back). It is a satirical political fantasy that imagines how a resurrected Hitler, emerging from his World War II bunker, would rebuild his political career with the help of the modern media. During the past week, the filmmaker’s satire has acquired an all too disturbing element of reality.

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La semana pasada, se dio a conocer un inusual cruce de comunicados entre Costa Rica y Venezuela. Se trata del comunicado oficial de Venezuela en el que las autoridades venezolanas le exigieron a Costa Rica no intervenir en sus asuntos internos (ver  nota  de La Nación).

Inusualmente vehemente (con expresiones extremadamente duras) y emitido en la fecha del 5 de enero del 2016, el texto responde a un comunicado oficial del Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores de Costa Rica circulado el día anterior (en horas de la tarde) por Costa Rica: en su comunicado,  Costa Rica externaba su preocupación por el posible efecto en la conformación de la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela de algunas impugnaciones aceptadas por las autoridades electorales venezolanas. El tema de las impugnaciones ante el órgano venezolano a cargo de fiscalizar las elecciones ha sido particularmente delicado en años recientes: cabe recordar que en septiembre del 2013, el mismo Secretario General de la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) había recomendado que, pese a peticiones de la oposición venezolana, este tipo de reclamos no deberían ser examinados por los órganos de la OEA (ver  nota  de El País). Como también se recordará, un día antes de surtir jurídicamente efectos la denuncia del pacto de San José anunciada por parte de Venezuela el 10 de septiembre del 2012 (Nota 1), la oposición presentó en septiembre del 2013 una denuncia ante la Comisión Interamericana de Derechos Humanos sobre las impugnaciones que le fueron rechazadas (ver  nota  de El Universal).

Al final de esta nota el lector encontrará el texto de ambos comunicados oficiales emitidos la semana pasada en San José y en Caracas, de manera a poder apreciar con precisión su contenido exacto. Advertimos desde ya que la comparación entre ambos textos refleja una diferencia de tono sustancial. Esta última obedece no solamente al carácter extremadamente polémico de este tema,  sino también a razones que derivan de la aplicación de  algunos principios y reglas del derecho internacional público.


Los Presidentes de Costa Rica y de Venezuela durante la III Cumbre de la CELAC realizada en enero del 2015 en Costa Rica. Foto extraída de artículo de prensa titulado: ” Maduro: “la III Cumbre de la CELAC marca un nuevo ciclo geopolítico regional”

Una posición de Costa Rica al parecer aislada

Antes de analizar la perspectiva jurídica, resulta oportuno indicar que, pese a mantener relaciones poco armoniosas con Venezuela en años recientes, Colombia y Panamá no se pronunciaron sobre los efectos de estas impugnaciones a cargos de diputados en Venezuela (que antecedieron la instalación de la nueva Asamblea Nacional en Venezuela realizada la semana pasada). Cabe también señalar que, en Costa Rica, el domingo 3 de enero del 2016, en horas de la tarde, un comunicado de un partido político costarricense (ver  comunicado ) criticaba duramente el actuar de las autoridades electorales venezolanas.

Por más polémico que sea un tema relacionado con la situación imperante dentro de un Estado, las valoraciones realizadas por partidos políticos, sus líderes u otros entes desde otro Estado no interesan mayormente las reglas vigentes en el ordenamiento jurídico internacional: se trata de entidades privadas, de igual manera que las manifestaciones provenientes de figuras públicas (ex Presidentes por ejemplo), de líderes religiosos, de agrupaciones políticas internacionales o de importantes medios o formadores de opinión. Un Estado puede reaccionar airadamente mediante algún comunicado ante una manifestación de esta naturaleza, o ante alguna publicación en alguna revista de prestigio (o pedir explicaciones sobre el contenido de una nota que considera ofensiva), pero no tiene como invocar alguna regulación del derecho internacional aplicable a la materia.

En cambio, las valoraciones de un Estado sobre la situación interna en otro Estado interpelan varias reglas del derecho internacional.

Una de ellas es un principio que se considera como uno de los pilares del derecho internacional público.

El principio de no intervención en asuntos internos.

El principio de no intervención en asuntos internos ha sido consagrado en un sinnúmero de instrumentos internacionales, incluyendo la Carta de las Naciones Unidas de 1945 o la Carta que crea la Organización de Estados Americanos (OEA) suscrita en 1948. Esta norma obliga a los Estados y a sus representantes (en particular a la hora de referirse a situaciones de índole interna en otro Estado) a abstenerse de toda valoración crítica y manifestarse con gran cautela. Esta misma prudencia explica que los representantes oficiales de un Estado acreditados en otro Estado deban revisar con especial esmero su léxico: por ejemplo, las últimas disculpas formales presentadas por Costa Rica a otro Estado se deben a las declaraciones emitidas en un programa de radio por su embajador en Panamá, Melvin Sáenz Biolley. Estas declaraciones obligaron a Costa Rica a enviar en marzo del 2013 una carta expresando “sus más sentidas disculpas por las expresiones emitidas por don Melvin y las molestias que estas causaron al ilustrado Gobierno de Panamá” (Nota 2).

En otros casos, las valoraciones públicas de una autoridad de un Estado particularmente duras tienen un objetivo preciso: torpedear algún tipo de acercamiento o dificultar alguna iniciativa conjunta. Para citar un ejemplo que refiere a Costa Rica (entre muchos más que ofrece la práctica internacional), en el 2006, el Presidente de Oscar Arias Sánchez (2006-2010) indicó (en respuesta a una carta pública del Vicepresidente de Cuba Carlos Lage Dávila) que: “No me atrevo a llamar a nadie mentiroso y tampoco permito que me llamen mentiroso/…/ Yo tengo muchos defectos, pero mentiroso no soy” (ver  nota  de prensa de AlDía).

Manifestaciones de otros Estados aceptadas sin causar fricciones

La numerosa correspondencia diplomática indica que ciertas manifestaciones externadas por un Estado con relación a alguna situación interna no afectan mayormente las relaciones entre dos Estados: es usualmente el caso de expresiones de pesar o de solidaridad a raíz de alguna catástrofe o de drama nacional. El  comunicado  de Panamá titulado: ”Panamá se solidariza con Paraguay por daños a causa de fuertes lluvias” del 29 de diciembre del 2015 se inscribe en esta lógica, y busca reafirmar lazos  de solidaridad entre dos Estados. De igual manera una voluntad de acercamiento es a menudo perceptible en las felicitaciones enviadas por Estados al celebrarse alguna conmemoración nacional significativa, o bien al culminar un proceso electoral (para citar algunos ejemplos). Sobre este último tipo de manifestaciones, tuvimos la oportunidad de examinar brevemente las numerosas felicitaciones recibidas por las nuevas autoridades de Costa Rica en abril de 2014 por parte de gran cantidad de Estados – con la notable excepción de Panamá (Nota 3).

Como muchos otros Estados, Costa Rica celebró la culminación del proceso electoral en Venezuela en diciembre del 2015, mediante un comunicado con fecha del 7 de diciembre, en el que concluía que: “manifiesta su convicción  de que la República Bolivariana de Venezuela  y Costa Rica, continuarán profundizando sus tradicionales relaciones de amistad y cooperación, así como la agenda común de valores y propósitos compartidos en el plano bilateral, regional y mundial” (Nota 4).

Manifestaciones susceptibles de causar tensiones

A diferencia de los ejemplos antes descritos, una valoración o una simple preocupación por parte de un Estado sobre el funcionamiento de una entidad estatal de otro Estado (o un juicio de valor o crítica sobre una determinada situación) pueden ser consideradas como una indebida intromisión. Si la decisión de un Estado es la de realizar una manifestación crítica con relación a lo que ocurre en otro Estado, la crítica debe ser velada, y formulada con extrema prudencia y mesura. El uso de cada vocablo, el título mismo del comunicado, la puntuación y otros detalles deben ser cuidadosamente revisados y sopesados en aras de evitar herir susceptibilidades y provocar una reacción negativa por parte del otro Estado. En caso de querer enviar un mensaje externando veladamente alguna crítica, el arte consiste en escoger los términos más neutros cuya interpretación y alcance puedan ser variables.  En caso de alguna reacción posterior del Estado a la crítica proviniendo de otro Estado, el invocar una mala interpretación del primero permite solventar el malestar.

La sensibilidad del Estado objeto de dicha valoración es, como previsible, mucho mayor en caso de estar viviendo momentos de tensión interna. Desde este punto de vista seres humanos y Estados compartimos las mismas variaciones en cuanto a nuestro grado de susceptibilidad: tiende a aumentar significativamente cuando pugnamos en nuestro interior.

Como indicado en las líneas anteriores, remitimos al lector al texto de ambos comunicados de prensa, reproducidos al final de esta breve nota. En caso de que Venezuela haya emitido otra protesta similar contra algún otro Estado latinoamericano en días recientes, agradeceríamos enviarnos (al correo electrónico: cursodicr(a)gmail.com) algún dato o referencia que se nos pueda haber escapado. Hemos procedido a revisar cuidadosamente las informaciones en estos días y realizado diversas búsquedas sin registrar ninguna protesta adicional a la emitida por Venezuela contra Costa Rica. A ese respecto, la lectura del comunicado emitido por Argentina el 6 de enero del 2016 (es decir dos días después del comunicado de Costa Rica) con relación a los resultados electorales en Venezuela reviste especial interés, incluyendo su título (un tanto evocador): “Asunción de los nuevos integrantes de la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela” (Nota 5).

La probable ausencia de otra protesta de Venezuela hace más llamativo aún el comunicado emitido por Costa Rica (que pareciera – salvo error de nuestra parte –  ser el único en la región latinoamericana en haberse preocupado por los efectos de las impugnaciones sobre la composición de la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela).

La tensión provocada en el 2007

Cabe recordar que en el 2007, una fuerte tensión entre Venezuela y Costa Rica se originó a partir de declaraciones del Presidente Oscar Arias Sánchez sobre la forma de gobernar en Venezuela: en aquella oportunidad, el 1ero de febrero del 2007, el Presidente de Costa Rica señaló en una entrevista realizada en Colombia (con relación a los nuevos poderes concedidos por el Parlamento al Poder Ejecutivo en Venezuela) que: “Hay una diferencia sencilla entre un dictador y un demócrata: si el demócrata no tiene oposición su deber es crearla, mientras que el sueño del dictador es eliminar toda oposición” (ver  nota  de prensa de El Universal). Venezuela, luego de declaraciones de su Presidente, amenazó con suspender las operaciones de una empresa venezolana de producción de aluminio en Costa Rica denominada ALUNASA (en la que trabajaban 400 personas). Consultas al más alto nivel y gestiones personales del mismo Ministro de Relaciones Exteriores de Costa Rica de la época, Bruno Stagno (ver  nota  de El Universal)  lograron que Venezuela optara por reanudar las operaciones de ALUNASA en los últimos días del mes de febrero del 2007 (ver  nota  de La Nación). Se leyó por parte del Presidente de Costa Rica que: “Me parece maravilloso. Estaba en juego no sólo el empleo de 400 trabajadores, sino el sustento de 2.500 personas“, (ver  nota  de IPS).

Si bien los trabajadores de la empresa mantuvieron sus fuentes de trabajo, en abril del 2007, la embajadora de Venezuela en Costa Rica, Nora Uribe, fue trasladada a otra sede diplomática de Venezuela, ante otras fricciones entre ambos Estados. Meses después, Costa Rica y Venezuela no habían extendido el beneplácito a sus futuros representantes oficiales (“placet” o “agrément”) (ver  nota  de prensa de El Universal). No fue sino hasta el 28 de octubre del 2008 que ambos Estados lograron normalizar plenamente sus relaciones, con la presentación de las credenciales del nuevo embajador de Venezuela a las autoridades de Costa Rica (ver  nota  de prensa de El Universal), antecedida por el mismo acto realizado por el embajador Vladimir de la Cruz de Lemos el 19 de agosto del 2008 en Caracas.

Perspectivas en el presente caso

Las perspectivas son un tanto inciertas. En particular para Costa Rica,  en la medida en que ningún otro Estado de América Latina o  de la Comunidad de Estados Latinoamericanos y del Caribe (CELAC), y ninguna organización regional o subregional de América Latina (ni ningún órgano de las Naciones Unidas) han optado por externar criterio alguno. Con ello no queremos en lo más mínimo minimizar la delicada situación existente en Venezuela, pero si hacer ver que los demás Estados se han mostrado extremadamente cautos y prudentes con relación a esta crisis en Venezuela. No cabe duda que el efecto de las impugnaciones examinadas por los órganos electorales de Venezuela sobre la composición del Poder Legislativo venezolano reviste interés, y genera un alto grado de preocupación para los venezolanos, en Venezuela y fuera de ella.

Si algún Estado de América Latina ha hecho ver su preocupación, fue utilizando canales diplomáticos sin que ello trascendiera a la luz pública. Con relación a los canales diplomáticos existentes entre ambos Estados, es de recordar que el actual embajador de Venezuela en San José, Jesús Arias Fuenmayor, presentó sus credenciales a las autoridades de Costa Rica el 19 de junio del 2014 (ver  nota  de prensa), a pocas semanas de asumir la nueva administración del Presidente Luis Guillermo Solís Rivera.

Dentro de la gestual corporal entre Estados (que no siempre se deja entrever), la designación de un nuevo representante al iniciarse un mandato puede a veces evidenciar la voluntad de relanzar relaciones bilaterales afectadas por fricciones o desencuentros pasados. En el caso de Costa Rica, no cuenta en la actualidad con un embajador en Caracas: el 26 de marzo del 2015, las autoridades de Costa Rica destituyeron al embajador designado en Venezuela, Federico Picado, por declaraciones emitidas sobre la política venezolana consideradas inapropiadas por sus superiores jerárquicos (ver  nota  de la agencia EFE).

Ambos aparatos diplomáticos conocen  seguramente la amplia gama de gestos y de señales a su disposición para hacer frente a la situación creada durante esta semana: pueden optar por agudizar la situación o al contrario buscar, en los próximos días, la manera de apaciguarla. Otra opción puede consistir en no referirse al tema mientras se solucione la delicada crisis política que vive Venezuela, y buscar luego la forma de normalizar sus relaciones.

Conclusión

A diferencia del cruce de palabras y de declaraciones iracundas plasmadas en medios de prensa que se leyeron en el 2007, esta vez  asistimos a un intercambio de comunicados oficiales, con uno, de Venezuela, particularmente duro, exigiendo a Costa Rica no intervenir en sus asuntos internos. Si ambos aparatos diplomáticos optan por mantener sus respectivas posiciones, tiempos difíciles en las relaciones políticas entre Costa Rica y Venezuela se podrían avecinar, con posibles efectos en Centroamérica: cabe recordar que Guatemala, Honduras y Nicaragua son Estados Miembros de PetroCaribe (ver  sitio oficial  ), una organización regional impulsada por Venezuela.

Nicolas Boeglin 

 

Notas

Nota 1: Sobre esta denuncia, remitimos a nuestra breve nota publicada en estas mismas páginas, BOEGLIN N., “La denuncia del Pacto de San José por parte de Venezuela”,  Informa-tico, 12/09/2012, Texto disponible  aquí .

Nota 2: El 7 de marzo del  2013, Costa Rica retiró a su embajador en Panamá (ver  nota  de prensa de  La Nación) y envió una nota en la que presentó sus disculpas formales a las autoridades panameñas. Ello se debió a declaraciones dadas por el embajador Melvin Sáenz Biolley, el 6 de febrero anterior, primero en las afueras de un estadio, y luego en un medio radial panameño conducido por la periodista Bettina García Muller. Costa Rica notificó oficialmente a Panamá que: “El Gobierno de Costa Rica desea hacer llegar sus más sentidas disculpas por las expresiones emitidas por don Melvin y las molestias que estas causaron al ilustrado Gobierno de Panamá” (ver nota de prensa de La Nación). En julio del 2013, el señor Melvin Sáenz Biolley presentó oficialmente sus credenciales como embajador de Costa Rica en Perú (ver  nota  de CRHoy).

Nota 3: Remitimos al lector a nuestra breve nota BOEGLIN N.,  “Estados felicitan al Presidente electo de Costa Rica”, Tribuglobal, edición del 14/04/2014. Texto  disponible  aquí.

Nota 4: El texto del comunicado de Costa Rica  se lee así: “07/12/2015 12:52 PM – Costa Rica celebra ejercicio democrático de elecciones parlamentarias en Venezuela – El Gobierno de Costa Rica expresa su cálido saludo al Honorable Pueblo y al Ilustrado Gobierno de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela  por el éxito del ejercicio democrático de  las elecciones parlamentarias, celebradas el domingo 6 de diciembre de  2015. Costa Rica brinda su reconocimiento al pueblo venezolano que con su participación cívica ha dado muestras de su vocación por la democracia, y saluda a los partidos participantes en la elección parlamentaria, por contribuir a revitalizar el ejercicio democrático en esa nación. Además, manifiesta su convicción  de que la República Bolivariana de Venezuela  y Costa Rica, continuarán profundizando sus tradicionales relaciones de amistad y cooperación, así como la agenda común de valores y propósitos compartidos en el plano bilateral, regional y mundial”.

Nota 5: El 6 de enero del 2015, Argentina circuló el siguiente comunicado de su Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores: “Miércoles 06 de enero de 2016. “Información para la Prensa N°: 003/16. – Asunción de los nuevos integrantes de la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela- . El Gobierno Argentino siguió con mucha atención las elecciones legislativas que se llevaron a cabo el 6 de diciembre pasado, para elegir los diputados que integrarán la Asamblea Nacional de Venezuela, y que fueran supervisadas por la Misión Electoral de UNASUR. Al respecto, el Gobierno Argentino está convencido de que el respeto absoluto de la voluntad de los pueblos expresada libre y democráticamente en las urnas, al igual que la estricta observancia de las atribuciones, prerrogativas y garantías constitucionales, son condiciones insoslayables para afianzar las democracias en América Latina. La República Argentina reafirma lo expresado en el Comunicado Conjunto de los Presidentes del Mercosur y Estados Asociados, emitido en la Cumbre de Asunción de diciembre pasado, en el sentido de reiterar “la importancia de la defensa y firme impulso de los valores y la plena vigencia de las instituciones democráticas y de la protección, promoción y respeto irrestricto de los Derechos Humanos, para consolidar los procesos democráticos, condición esencial para toda integración.” ( el texto del comunicado oficial de Argentina está disponible en este   enlace  ).

 

Materiales: comunicados oficiales de Venezuela (Documento 1) y de Costa Rica (Documento 2)

Documento 1.

El texto de comunicado oficial de Venezuela difundido el Martes 5/01/2016 se lee como sigue:

República Bolivariana de Venezuela Ministerio del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores

COMUNICADO

El Ministerio del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela se dirige al Ministerio de Relaciones Exteriores y Culto de la República de Costa Rica, a fin de elevar su más enérgica protesta por el injerencista comunicado emitido por dicha Cancillería el día 4 de enero de 2016. El insolente e inaceptable comunicado de la Cancillería de Costa Rica constituye una violación flagrante y deliberada tanto del Derecho Internacional como de principios expresamente consagrados en la carta de Naciones Unidas, como el respeto a la soberanía nacional, la autodeterminación de los pueblos y la no intervención en los asuntos internos, y además desconoce los Poderes Públicos de un Estado soberano. El Ministerio del Poder Popular para Relaciones Exteriores de la República Bolivariana de Venezuela califica este comunicado de la Cancillería costarricense como un acto inamistoso, que además evidencia cómo esa institución se presta de vasallo a intereses imperiales y subalternos de potencias extranjeras, de manera reiterada y sin sonrojo, contra un Estado latinoamericano”.

Documento 2:
El comunicado oficial de Costa Rica hecho público el Lunes 4/01/2016 en horas de la tarde se lee como sigue:

04/01/2016, 2:09 PM 

Gobierno de la República de Costa Rica insta a que se respete la legitimidad del voto popular en la República Bolivariana de Venezuela

La vocación democrática de un gobierno se expresa en su capacidad de dejar de ser hegemónico tras la realización de comicios limpios. En Venezuela, la oposición ganó las elecciones de medio período y se impone la necesidad de que este resultado se respete y garantice, escrupulosamente. La fortaleza de la institucionalidad y la convivencia democrática se verían afectadas en caso de insistirse en alterar o dilatar la concreción de la voluntad popular manifiesta en diciembre pasado, mediante la utilización del recurso contencioso de revisión del resultado electoral, instrumento que impediría la proclamación oficial de cuatro diputados electos y, eventualmente, la continuidad del trabajo legislativo a partir del próximo 5 de enero del 2016. Cuando en el pasado en América Latina se vulneró el ejercicio electoral y la debida designación de sus representantes, al mismo tiempo se socavó el derecho soberano del pueblo de escoger libremente y se puso en grave riesgo la paz social. El Gobierno de Costa Rica hace una respetuosa pero vehemente excitativa a las autoridades electorales y partidarias venezolanas para que, con lucidez y entendimiento, se abstengan de comprometer la legitimidad del voto popular, y enaltezcan los principios y valores democráticos tan dificultosamente alcanzados por los pueblos de nuestra América”.

 

 

Nicolas BoeglinProfesor de Derecho Internacional Público, Facultad de Derecho, Universidad de Costa Rica (UCR)

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War Propaganda and the Western Media: Fabricated Images. Fake Videos

January 12th, 2016 by Prof Michel Chossudovsky

This article was first published in 2008 brings to the forefront the routine practice of the mainstream media of  using fake images/videos in support of fabricated news stories. 

The New York Times admitted in April 2014 that it used fake images regarding an alleged involvement of Russian soldiers in Eastern Ukraine. 

Sorry, we made a mistake: The NYT’s retraction was presented as a technical error whereby the wrong pictures were mistakenly selected.

“A packet of American briefing materials that was prepared for the Geneva meeting asserts that the photograph was taken in Russia. The same men are also shown in photographs taken in Ukraine.

“Their appearance in both photographs was presented as evidence of Russian involvement in eastern Ukraine. The packet was later provided by American officials to The New York Times, which included that description of the group photograph in an article and caption that was published on Monday. … The dispute over the group photograph cast a cloud over one particularly vivid and highly publicized piece of evidence.” (NYT, April 22, 2014)

More recently, the BBC has used fake images with a view to accusing the government of Bashar al Assad of deliberately triggering famines by blocking supply routes int Madaya, a city controlled by the rebels close to Damascus.

Below a 2014 image in Yarmouk is used in support of  a BBC story pertaining to Madaya in January 2016

Photo montage by Prof Tim Anderson

What should be understood is that the use of fabricated images is a routine procedure of the Western media. Its ultimate intent is to sustain the lie and mislead public opinion.

There are many instances of media manipulation.

The following article first published eight years ago in the wake of the March 2008 Tibet riots shows how CNN used fake videos showing “Chinese cops” involved in the repression of Tibetan activists in Lhasa.

It turns out that the cops are not Chinese but Indian, and the protest movement is not in Lhasa, capital of Tibet but in India. 

CNN never retracted its “technical  error”. The report –which served to demonize the Chinese authorities– was not the object of controversy as in the case of the NYT’s coverage of the protest movement in Eastern Ukraine or the BBC’s use of fake images in relation to Madaya, Syria.

Michel Chossudovsky, April 25, 2014, updated: January 12, 2016 


Western Media Fabrications regarding the Tibet Riots

by Michel Chossudovsky

Global Research, April 16, 2008

On the day of the Lhasa Riots (March 14, 2008), there is evidence of media fabrication by CNN.

The videotape presented by CNN in its News Report on the 14th of March (1.00pm EST) was manipulated.

VIDEO: Tibet monks protest against Chinese rulers (CNN, March 14, 2008) 


The report presented by CNN’s Beijing Correspondent John Vause focussed on the Tibet protests in Gansu province and in the Tibetan capital Lhasa.

What was shown, however, was a videotape of the Tibet protest movement in India.

Viewers were led to believe that the protests were in China and that the Indian police shown in the videotape were Chinese cops.

At the outset of the report, a few still pictures were presented followed by a videotape showing police repressing and arresting demonstrators in what appeared to be a peaceful protest:
.
JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT

[CNN Vause reports on the protest movement in Gansu province. (starts at 1′.00)]

CNN received these photographs from Gansu province, where there is a large Tibetan population. [still photographs followed by video footage] According to Students for a Free Tibet, about 2,000 protestors took to the streets earlier today. They were there for about three hours. They flew the Tibetan flag and called for an independent Tibet. All of this comes after days of unrest in Tibet after monks, who were marking the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.(CNN News, 1.00pm EST, March 14, 2008)

The voice over of John Vause then shifts into reporting on violence in Lhasa. The videotape however depicts the Tibetan protest in Himashal Pradesh, India.

[JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT]

And what could be worrying here to Beijing is that these demonstrations are being joined by ordinary Tibetan civilians, lay Tibetans. The targets here are ethnic Chinese. We’ve been told by one Chinese woman that she was attacked by Tibetan rioters. Her injuries sent her to hospital.

Also under fire here, Chinese-owned businesses, as well as government offices, and also the security forces.

According to U.S.-based human rights groups, the three main monasteries on the outskirts of Lhasa have now been surrounded by Chinese troops, and they’ve been sealed off.

We’ve also heard over the last couple of days, according to human rights groups, that more than a dozen monks have been rounded up and arrested. And there are reports, unconfirmed, that at least two people have been killed.

The video footage, which accompanied CNN’s John Vause’s report, had nothing to do with China. The police were not Chinese, but Indian cops in khaki uniforms from the Northeastern State of Himachal Pradesh, India.

Viewers were led to believe that demonstrations inside China were peaceful and that people were being arrested by Chinese cops.

Chinese Cops in Khaki Uniforms

1′.27-1′.44″ video footage of “Chinese cops” and demonstrators including Buddhist monks. Chinese cops are shown next to Tibetan monks

Are these Chinese Cops from Gansu Province or Lhasa, the Tibetan capital, as suggested by CNN’s John Vause’s Report?

REPORT ON CHINA, MARCH 14


Alleged Chinese cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in China , CNN, March 14, 2008  1′.36”


Alleged Chinese cops in khaki uniforms repressing Tibet demonstrators in China, CNN, March 14, 2008  1’40”

Their khaki uniforms with berets seem to bear the imprint of the British colonial period.

Khaki colored uniforms were first introduced in the British cavalry in India in 1846.

Khaki means “dust” in Hindi and Persian.

Moreover, the cops with khaki uniforms and mustache do not look Chinese.

Look carefully.

They are Indian cops.

The videotape shown on March 14 by CNN is not from China (Gansu Province or Lhasa, Tibet’s Capital). The video was taken in the State of Himachal Pradesh, India. The videotape of the Tibet protest movement in India was used in the CNN report on the Tibet protest movement within China.

In a March 13 Report by CNN, demonstrators are being arrested by Indian police in khaki uniforms during a protest march at Dehra, about 50 km from Dharamsala in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh.

VIDEO; Tibet Protest movement in India, CNN, March 13, 2008 [See  Complete video below, this was the footage used for the report out of China] 

Indian police arrested around 100 Tibetans on Thursday, dragging them into waiting police vans, as they tried to march to the Chinese border to press claims for independence and protest the Beijing Olympics.” (REUTERS/Abhishek Madhukar (INDIA))

 

 

Below are still images from the CNN’s report on March 13, on the protest movement in Himachal Pradesh, India:

Compare these images to those in the March 14 CNN report.

Same cops, same uniforms, same Indian style moustache.

CNN MARCH 13 REPORT ON INDIA


Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  0′.53″


Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  1′.02″


Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008, 1′.18″


Indian cops repressing Tibet demonstrators in Himachal Pradesh, India CNN, March 13, 2008  2.04″

We invite our readers to examine these two reports as well as the Transcript of the March 14 CNN program.

The CNN’s March 14 report on the Tibet Protest movement in China shows Chinese cops in khaki uniforms, yellow lapels and berets. While the videotape is not identical to that of March 13, CNN’s coverage of the events in China on March 14 used a videotape taken from the coverage of the Tibet Protest movement in India, with Indian cops in khaki uniforms.

The protest movement in India on March 13 was “peaceful”. It was organised by the Dalai Lama’s “government in exile”. It took place within 50 km of the headquarters of the Dalai Lama in Dharamsala.

The Western media was invited in to film the event, and take pictures of Buddhist monks involved in a peaceful, nonviolent march. These are the pictures which circled the World.

So what has occurred is that CNN  has copied and pasted its own videotape of the Tibet Protest movement in India and has fabricated a Gansu Province/ Lhasa, China “peaceful” protest movement with Chinese cops in khaki British colonial style uniforms.

The Chinese never adopted the British style khaki uniform and beret.

These uniforms do not correspond to those used by the police in China. (See photograph below)


No khaki uniforms in China. These are the uniforms of China’s “Armed Police”.

Meanwhile, the images of the violent riots in Lhasa, in which a criminal mob set fire to shops, homes and schools, burning several people alive, and stabbing innocent civilians with knives were not shown on network TV in the US and Western Europe. Small segments of the riots in Lhasa were shown out of context and with a view to accusing the Chinese authorities of repressing a “peaceful protest”.(See our report on the events, see coverage of the Lhasa Riots by China’s CC-TV)

While the videotape used is not identical, both CNN reports, however, show the same cops in khaki uniforms and the same Tibetan demonstrators in India. The footage used in support of CNN’s March 14 coverage of the protext movement in China has nothing to do with China. it happened in India.

CNN has got its countries mixed up.

Sloppy journalism or media fraud?
VIDEO: Tibet monks protest against Chinese rulers (CNN, March 14, 2008)

VIDEO; Tibet Protest movement in India, (CNN, March 13, 2008)

COMPLETE TRANSCRIPT OF CNN NEWS COVERAGE ON TIBET (MARCH 14, 2008

CNN NEWSROOM 1:00 PM EST

March 14, 2008 Friday

 

[with Don Lemon and John Vause reporting from Beijing]

….

LEMON: All right. So this place, we know, should be known for peace. Right? But that is not what is happening here lately.

Buddhist monks demonstrating for independence from China. Ethnic Tibetans join in, and soon — soon streets are filled with screams, with gunfire, with rioting. And so far the Chinese government has refused to allow CNN to even enter Tibet.

Our John Vause brings us what he knows. He’s in Beijing.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOHN VAUSE, CNN CORRESPONDENT: The latest information from our sources in Lhasa tell us that the streets are basically deserted, except for patrols by police cars and armored military vehicles.

We’re told fires are still burning and phone lines are still down, but electricity has been restored. And the situation there now is described as relatively calm. But these protests do appear to be spreading to the east of the country.

CNN received these photographs from Gansu province [still picture followed by live video of Indian protest], where there is a large Tibetan population. According to Students for a Free Tibet, about 2,000 protestors took to the streets earlier today. They were there for about three hours. They flew the Tibetan flag and called for an independent Tibet. All of this comes after days of unrest in Tibet after monks, who were marking the 49th anniversary of a failed uprising against Chinese rule.

And what could be worrying here to Beijing is that these demonstrations are being joined by ordinary Tibetan civilians, lay Tibetans. The targets here are ethnic Chinese. We’ve been told by one Chinese woman that she was attacked by Tibetan rioters. Her injuries sent her to hospital.

Also under fire here, Chinese-owned businesses, as well as government offices, and also the security forces.

According to U.S.-based human rights groups, the three main monasteries on the outskirts of Lhasa have now been surrounded by Chinese troops, and they’ve been sealed off.

We’ve also heard over the last couple of days, according to human rights groups, that more than a dozen monks have been rounded up and arrested. And there are reports, unconfirmed, that at least two people have been killed.

Beijing has now moved to seal off Tibet, banning foreigners and journalists from traveling there. Flights and train services have also been canceled.

John Vause, CNN, Beijing.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

This is not the only example of media fabrication where video images and  photographs are manipulated.

What really happened.

Compare CNN’s report using a fake videotape to the coverage of the Lhasa riots on China State TV.

coverage of the Lhasa Riots by China State Television CC-TV

Who is Telling the Truth?

 

El Chapo versus Longstanding CIA Global Drugs Trafficking

January 11th, 2016 by Stephen Lendman

Drug lords come and go, El Chapo’s arrest of little consequence, doing nothing to stem the flow of illicit drugs. Business as usual continues.

His operation and others like his pale compared to CIA global drugs trafficking – a topic the media won’t touch.

Its involvement began in 1947, its first year of existence. In his book titled “The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade,” Alfred McCoy documented CIA and US government complicity in drugs trafficking at the highest official levels.

It continues today in Asia, Europe, the Middle East, South and Central America, facilitating the global supply of illicit drugs.

Gary Webb’s expose of CIA involvement in Nicaraguan drugs trafficking, supporting the Contras, dealing with Los Angeles crack dealers, made him a target for vicious vilification – hounding him out of journalism into deep depression, either committing suicide or succumbing to foul play.

He regularly received death threats. Credible sources believe he was murdered to silence him. Unidentified individuals were seen breaking into and leaving his residence before his demise.

In his books and other writings, Peter Dale Scott explained “(s)ince at least 1950 there has been a global CIA-drug connection operating more or less continuously” to this day.

The global drug connection is not just a lateral connection between CIA field operatives and their drug-trafficking contacts.

It is more significantly a global financial complex of hot money uniting prominent business, financial and government, as well as underworld figures,” a sort of “indirect empire (operating alongside) existing government.

Iran-Contra and Afghan opium cultivation for global heroin trafficking are two among numerous other examples.

Hundreds of billions of dollars of annual revenues are produced – a US government-supported bonanza for the CIA, organized crime and Western financial institutions, heavily involved in money laundering.

A 1996 Peter Dale Scott affidavit on CIA drugs trafficking explained his research into longstanding US government involvement.

“(G)overnments themselves, and the links they develop with major traffickers, are the key both to the drug-trafficking problem and to its solution,” he explained.

America is one of numerous governments involved, the most harmful and disturbing because of its imperial power and global reach, influencing or affecting virtually everything worldwide.

A 2013 UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNDOC) World Drug Report called Israel a major international cocaine trafficking hub.

A 2012 State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report called “Israel’s illicit drug grade…regionally focused…more of a transit country than a stand-alone significant market.”

The authorities continue to be concerned with illegal pharmaceutical sales, retail businesses which are suspected money-laundering enterprises, and corruption accusations against public officials.

An earlier State Department report said “the Israeli drug market continued to be characterized by high demand in nearly all sectors of society and a high availability of drugs including cannabis, ecstasy, cocaine, heroin, hashish and LSD.”

Israel is heavily involved in money laundering. Both activities operate in tandem, involving hundreds of millions to billions of illicit dollars.

Headlines highlight Mexican drug lord El Chapo’s reported arrest after a gun battle near his Sinaloa home, according to Mexican officials, ignoring high-level ones complicit in drugs trafficking.

He escaped Mexican captivity twice before. Extradition to America may follow this time. His operations continue as usual, with or without his involvement.

Drugs trafficking is big business, corrupt governments like America and business interests heavily involved. The CIA relies on it for huge amounts of revenues.

It bears repeating. Drug lords come and go. Dirty business as usual continues unabated – unreported by presstitutes, ignoring what demands public exposure.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

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.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

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First published

Note from the editors at WhoWhatWhy: At WhoWhatWhy, we’re proud that Dan Ellsberg [pictured left] a great patriot and American hero, has been on our Editorial Advisory Council since our earliest days. We’re also proud that we regularly feature the work and ideas of Peter Dale Scott, another figure of tremendous importance — and one whose name deserves to be a household word for his own ground-breaking studies in the dynamics of power.

In 1971, Ellsberg released to the New York Times documents revealing how the US had secretly enlarged the war in Vietnam by bombing Cambodia and Laos, and with coastal raids on North Vietnam — none of which was reported in the mainstream media. And President Johnson lied about it.

Here, we present a transcript of a recent talk delivered by Scott in honor of Ellsberg.

The Emerging Role of Whistleblowers in Mega-Societies

A Talk in Honor of Daniel Ellsberg, Economists for Peace and Security, January 4, 2016

I am very happy and honored to speak this evening, to this special audience of socially engaged economists, about my closest friend and mentor, Daniel Ellsberg. Though I have known Dan for forty years, I still continue to learn and appreciate new things about him.

Not long ago, for example, I told him there was a Berkeley economist who thought that Dan should have won the Nobel Prize in economics, and yet this man knew nothing about Dan and the Pentagon Papers. Dan in response told me of a conference in Vienna on his dissertation, with the title “Workshop on Risk, Ambiguity, and Decisions in honor of Daniel Ellsberg.” Many of the people there, he told me, also knew nothing about the Pentagon Papers.

Thus it was only by accident that I learned for the first time about the Ellsberg Paradox — something I am not going to mention further tonight, except to contrast it with another of Dan’s breakthroughs that might perhaps be called the Ellsberg Precept.

Timing of a Revelation, a Critical Factor

By the Ellsberg Precept I mean the revelation that the timely disclosure of suppressed truth can bring about needed social change. This sounds simple, but calls in its application for great intuition, intelligence and courage. Dan has sometimes said that he should have saved lives by going public years earlier with what he knew about the Vietnam War. I disagree: I think the spectacular impacts of Dan’s revelation depended on his having waited until he could sense the country was ready to respond to it. To ignite something, you need tinder, as well as a match.

It is important to recall the violence and paranoia of 1971 in America, ranging from the streets to the White House, when Dan gave the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. By 1971, Nixon, having been elected on a promise to end the war, had instead expanded it, first into Cambodia and then Laos. In response to the Laos incursion, the Weather Underground bombed the US Capitol Building in March 1971; and in the same month a break-in at an FBI regional office exposed the FBI’s COINTELPRO programs to “neutralize or otherwise eliminate” radical movements and their leaders.

By this time, Dan, obsessed by the countless lives being lost in an unwinnable war, had spent a year reading Gandhi, Thoreau, and Martin Luther King. His reflections about Gandhian satyagraha or truth-force led to this difficult, lonely, and dangerous decision: to release the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times. It was a most painful decision: In addition to the risk of 115 years in prison, he also had to accept that some of his closest intellectual friendships at RAND and in Washington would be ruptured, perhaps forever.

The response to his disclosures, as we all know, was an unforgettable drama. Many prominent newspapers followed first the Times and then the Post in defying the White House, an unprecedented situation. A few weeks later, in July 1971, Nixon created the White House Plumbers; and their first action was to burgle the office of Dan’s psychiatrist Lewis Fielding, in the hopes of finding dirt to smear Dan’s reputation.

Then the Fielding break-in — and subsequent government concealment of it — helped lead, in May 1973, to the dismissal of all charges in Dan’s trial, and they continued to be prominent in the Watergate scandal that led to Nixon’s resignation.

In the same month of May 1973, a new, more anti-war Congress voted to end funding for combat operations in Cambodia. Three months later, in August, the cutoff was expanded to Vietnam. In other words, Dan’s revelations helped ignite, perhaps for the first time in history, a democratic cutoff to an imperialistic war; they contributed also to the unprecedented resignation of an elected U.S. president. And as an English professor, let me add a philological footnote: Wikipedia tells us that December 1971 marks the first known instance of a new noun, “whistle-blowing”.

Dan was not the first whistle-blower — the same year 1971 saw Vladimir Bukowsky come forward in the Soviet Union. But the unforgettable impact of his disclosures began immediately to encourage others, mostly here but also abroad, from “Winslow Peck” (Perry Fellwock) to Edward Snowden.

Some of you may not know that last fall David Sassoon, who organized the recent exposure of Exxon’s role in suppressing what it knew about climate change, wrote a letter to Dan, thanking Dan for having inspired him to undertake this important research project.

Seek Out Potential Whistleblowers

Let me quote a little from Sassoon’s account of how Dan inspired him:

At a journalism conference in Phoenix, Daniel Ellsberg spoke to me over dinner …. He said journalists should not wait for whistleblowers to come forward — we should go looking for them.

In particular, in the case of climate reporting, he suggested to me that we find people inside energy companies to expose the origins of climate denialism.

“You’ll find people of conscience in every company,” he said. “I should know.”

In fact we can all think of more recent whistleblowers whose courageous acts have exposed lethal corporate scandals in the energy, tobacco, automobile, and pharmaceutical industries, and such government scandals as illegal NSA spying, Abu Ghraib, and the government lies about Iraq’s uranium that were used to justify the Iraq War.

Both the history and the future health of modern mega-societies have come to depend increasingly on whistle-blowers, as bureaucracies develop to a level where formal accountability is dangerously inadequate, and people of conscience must supply a human corrective.

1

Since the ‘70s, Dan has continued to strengthen the nonviolent movement as both a researcher, activist, and impassioned speaker, perhaps the most intelligent and inspirational speaker I have ever heard.

1979 Dan sat on the railway tracks in front of a train at the notorious Rocky Flats plant manufacturing plutonium weapons parts. In 1982, to protest Soviet nuclear testing, he sailed with Greenpeace into Leningrad Harbor. Four years later, in response to US funding of the Contras, he fasted for more than two weeks on the steps of the Capitol in Washington.

Through the last forty years Dan has been the principal inspiration in my personal life. With his extraordinary intelligence and intellectual curiosity, he has been a guiding light in my own thinking and writing on all manner of subjects, in both my prose and my poetry, I should add that he has been extraordinarily generous and patient in discussing and editing my writings, just as I have seen him be extraordinarily generous with others as well. With his rare combination of intellect, conscience, courage, passion, and love, I count the great privilege of knowing him to be among the greatest blessings of my life.

My thanks to you, and to Jamie Galbraith in particular, for inviting me to share my gratitude with you all tonight.

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Even as the fascist, corrupt U.S. government and its regulators (FDA and USDA) actively conspire with the biotech industry to poison Americans with genetically modified foods, Taiwan has already passed and implemented a nationwide law to protect its citizens from GMOs.

Nearly a full year ago, Taiwan passed ‘Food Act Amendments’ that achieve remarkable food safety milestones the U.S. government refuses to implement, placing Taiwan far ahead of the United States on food safety. These milestones include:

1) Requiring the mandatory labeling of GMOs on all food products that contain 3 percent or more GMOs. Foods that use no GMOs may be labeled “non-GMO” … and many already are, causing their sales to skyrocket across Taiwan. Just last year, imports of non-GMO soybeans to Taiwan grew nearly 300% to 58,000 tons.

2) Limiting the use of food additives to just 799 compounds approved by the Taiwan FDA. The FDA of the United States, by comparison, allows tens of thousands of chemicals to be used as additives, even when they are well known to cause cancer.

3) All GMO ingredients are required to be registered with the Taiwan government, and food manufacturers that use GMOs are required to establish an origins tracking system to identify where those GMOs originated.

4) All the soy milk, tofu, miso and other soy-derived products sold everywhere across the country — including at cafes and street food vendors — must be clearly labeled as GMOs if they use genetically modified soy.

5) Food products made using genetically modified soy as a processing agent or blended ingredient must also label their final food products as GMO, even if the soybean oil is not, itself, the final product.

6) Fines for violating these food safety provisions have been set at NT$50 million.

USA food safety lags far behind the rest of the world

This shows yet again just how far behind the United States is on food safety compared to the rest of the world. Instead of promoting actual food safety, the FDA gives a free pass to GMOs, heavy metals, artificial additives and other toxic chemicals, focusing almost exclusively on bacteriological contamination issues such as e.coli and salmonella.

That’s why the USA lags far behind the rest of the world on the banning of artificial additives and preservative chemicals, most of which have already been banned across the EU. The U.S. government continues to allow extremely toxic pesticides and herbicides to be used across the agricultural industry (including California’s strawberry operations), and as the news in this article shows, the USA now lags far behind Taiwan on the issue of GMO labeling and banning GMOs from school lunches.

Increasingly, U.S. food safety looks like a third world nation being run by a cartel of imperialistic food corporations that dictate government policy. Public health has NOTHING to do with government regulatory policy at this point. It’s all about appeasing Monsanto, Syngenta, DuPont, Kellogg’s, PepsiCo and all the other poison-pushing food and beverage companies that continue to poison a nation of food victims into epidemics of diabetes, cancer, heart disease and Alzheimer’s.

Taiwan bans GMOs from school menus

In yet another milestone for food safety, Taiwan has banned GMOs from school lunches.

“The latest amendments to the School Health Act are aimed at all school meal providers, to ban genetically modified raw ingredients and any processed foods that contain genetically modified organisms (GMOs) from school menus,” reports the China Post.

The Post also reports:

Legislator Lin Shu-fen, an advocate for passing the bill, said that studies abroad have shown a high connection between the consumption of GM foods and the prevalence of allergies, autism and rare diseases.

“Soy is a major ingredient in Taiwan’s school lunches,” said Lin. “Genetically modified soy has been shown to contains toxic residue from pesticides.”

You almost never hear such statements from the sellout politicians in America, nearly all of whom have been bribed and bought off by the biotech industry. Making matters even worse, poison-pushing U.S. publishers like Forbes.com — named the single most evil news publication of 2015 by EVIL.news — carry deceptive propaganda articles by sleazebag industry scientists like Henry Miller who ridiculously claims that herbicides are harmless and GMOs pose no health risks whatsoever.

Entire world revolting against U.S. agricultural imperialism and fascist, corporate-dictated government policy

The rest of the world, however, isn’t buying the U.S. propaganda. In fact, the rest of the world is revolting against U.S. agricultural imperialism where prostituted U.S. lawmakers and regulators are bought off by industry to shove GMOs down the throats of all the other countries under so-called “fair trade” regulations such as the TPP.

Taiwan’s pig farmers, for example, are also organizing a massive, nationwide protest over the U.S. pork industry’s continued usage of ractopamine, a toxic drug fed to pigs to cause rapid weight gain. The Taiwan government is under imperialistic pressure from U.S. trade representatives to lift its ban on the import of U.S. pork grown with the drug. If the ban is lifted, it would flood the Taiwan market with cheap, low-grade pork that’s been artificially multiplied with the use of a toxic drugs that isn’t used at all in the Taiwan pork industry, reports Asia News Network.

U.S. has long pushed tobacco products and other toxic chemicals onto Taiwan via international trade pressure. GMOs are also being aggressively shoved down the throats of the world’s children by the U.S. federal government, which is widely food as a “food bully” across the globe.

Perhaps that’s why countries like Taiwan are working so diligently to protect their own children from U.S. food policies that push poison for corporate (Monsanto) profits. “The passing of this bill not only means our children will be eating more safely, but it also indicates a heightened understanding of food safety in our society,” said legislator Lu Shiow-yen in the China Post article linked above.

Not surprisingly, there is virtually no Republican or Democrat in the entire U.S. Congress who’s willing to state GMOs and their accompanying herbicides are a danger to the health of children nationwide. In terms of the 2016 presidential election lineup, Hillary Clinton has very close ties to Monsanto and is known as the “Bride of Frankenfood.” Ted Cruz is likely to tow the GOP party line on GMOs and take a “pro business” stance that denies GMOs cause any harm. Only Donald Trump has any shot at being an anti-GMO candidate, as he’s already known to be a promoter of organic foods… and he can’t be bought off by Monsanto.

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north-korea-nuclear-usWhy North Korea Wants Nukes. Extensive U.S. War Crimes Committed against the DPRK

By Stephen Lendman, January 11 2016

Pyongyang has just cause to fear America. It knows how it raped Southeast Asia, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and Syria. Truman’s naked aggression was devastating, turning most of North Korea to rubble during the Korean War (1950-53).

obama_latinoamericaChina’s Financial Crisis Erupts as US Pivots to South America

By Jack Rasmus, January 11 2016

Jack Rasmus takes a look at this past week’s major event in the collapse of the China stock market, as well as the resurgence of Neoliberal policies in South America and the US pivot to that continent and destabilization of economies in Venezuela, Brazil and Argentine now underway.  What’s behind the most recent stock decline in China?

Cameron-King-Salman-650x360Britain and Saudi Arabia: Collusion in Barbarism

By Felicity Arbuthnot, January 11 2016

The British government under Prime Minister David Cameron’s leadership can claim absolute consistency in just one policy: towering, jaw dropping hypocrisy.

CAAT_Logo.jpgCameron Government Threatened with Legal Action over UK Arms Export Licences to Saudi Arabia

By Leigh Day, January 11 2016

Law firm Leigh Day, representing Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), has issued a pre-action protocol letter for judicial review challenging the government’s decision to export arms to Saudi Arabia despite increasing evidence that Saudi forces are violating international humanitarian law (IHL) in Yemen.

nuclear1No Danger of Nuclear War? The Pentagon’s Plan to Blow up the Planet

By Prof Michel Chossudovsky, January 11 2016

This policy of nuclear bombing of targeted cities is still on the drawing board of the Pentagon. While today’s list of targets remains classified, cities in Russia, China, the Middle East, North Korea are on the target list.

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“Every increase in motorized speed creates new demands on space and time. The use of the bicycle is self-limiting. It allows people to create a new relationship between their life-space and their life-time, between their territory and the pulse of their being, without destroying their inherited balance. The advantages of modern self-powered traffic are obvious, and ignored.” – Ivan Illich

India’s cities are in crisis. They are clogged with traffic, choked with pollution, blighted by concrete flyovers, overcrowded, suffer from power and water shortages, are prone to flooding and can at times be almost unbearable to live in. The plan to introduce ‘smart cities’ to India is intended to remedy many of these problems. These smart cities will function effectively, however, only if many of the underlying issues are addressed.

From the crisis in farming and associated rural migration to energy concerns and an expanding population, the problems are immense and varied. But let us focus on just one issue here – transport.

Delhi recently introduced ‘odd-even’ licence plate traffic days (vehicles with certain registration number endings allowed to be on the road on alternate days) to try to cut down on traffic congestion and pollution. Although this policy may bring some temporary relief, it will fail to solve the underlying problem because the model of social and economic ‘development’ being promoted is one that associates car ownership with progress and prosperity.

The greater the urban sprawl, the greater the benefits for the car industry and the real estate sector. As long as urban planning centres around motorised vehicles and warped notions of ‘development’ governed by powerful private-sector players, India’s cities will continue to sprawl ever outwards and be defined by traffic congestion and air and noise pollution. (And, as long as there is a headlong rush towards urbanisation, again, fuelled by corporate interests [not least global agribusiness], hundreds of millions will head for the cities and urban problems will mount).

India could do worse than look to somewhere like Denmark, which is a world leader in ‘green’ policies. For instance, over 20 per cent of the nation’s energy already comes from renewable energy, and the aim is to reach 100 per cent by 2050. But you don’t have to read up on statistics to appreciate Denmark’s record in this area. Go to Copenhagen and you will see ‘green’ and ‘sustainable’ all around, not least in the city’s approach to urban transport. Copenhagen alone has around 400 km of cycle paths and about 40 per cent of the capital’s population commute to work by bicycle.

Copenhagen is world famous for its cycling and has in recent years been voted the ‘best city for cyclists’ and the ‘world’s most liveable city’. The ‘liveability’ factor is due to many reasons, one of which stems from the emphasis placed on cycle transport. But, until the 1960s, Copenhagen’s history mirrored developments in many other Western cities – developments that are currently compounded many times over in Indian cities. It became increasingly difficult to ignore the traffic congestion and accidents and the growing traffic-pollution and noise problems. As in today’s Bengaluru where older residents wonder what happened to their ‘garden city’, Copenhagen was no longer the city that most Danes knew and loved.

The growing environmental movement at the time and the rising cost of oil helped the cause of the bicycle. The 1970s and 1980s witnessed conflicts between bicycle and car interests in Danish cities, not least because the authorities sought to establish road networks that cut across the beautiful lakes which separated the older part of the city from the more recent suburbs. This resulted in an urban transport solution that gave space to cars but perhaps more importantly to bicycles, pedestrians and public transport. Visit Copenhagen today and what is striking is the large amount of cyclists as well as the thoughtful planning that has facilitated an integrated system of bicycle lanes.

Throughout the world, there is now a desire to improve public health and combat climate change. As a result, Copenhagen’s renowned cycle-friendly policies are now serving as a template for some of the world’s most congested cities. In Mexico City, for example, the authorities are devising a bicycle strategy and recognise that, unlike cars, even the poorest segment of the population can access a bicycle. In this respect alone, the bicycle is a democratic means of mobility.

However, this type of transport is only truly democratic if spatial segregation is limited. Mexico City’s bicycle strategy attempts to address this issue through a comprehensive cycle path network, which aims to create mobility through areas that have been closed off due to previous planning strategies.

Cities designed for cars are also characterised by large distances and many obstacles which hamper movement both on foot and by bicycle. In some of the world’s metropolises, distances are so large that a well-developed cycle path network is insufficient to ensure mobility for all. In such cases this network has to be integrated with eco-friendly, bicycle friendly public transport.

To make cycling attractive, it is not enough just to created cycle lanes and make bicycles available to all (Copenhagen made 1,300 free bicycles available for cycling around the city centre; it now favours a ‘bike share’ programme). Interesting urban environments must be created. Long, monotonous stretches have to be broken down into smaller sections and offer appealing features at ground level. In other words, city planners have to stop thinking like motorists and plan for the needs of cyclists and pedestrians, in terms of, for instance, better and more greenery and intersections that allow for the free flow of cyclists.

In Denmark, the newly opened Copenhagen-Albertslund route is the first of a planned network that will comprise 26 Cycle Super Highways, covering a total of 300 km. The network will increase the number of cycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen by 15 percent and is predicted to reduce public expenditure by 40.3 million euros annually thanks to improved health. A total of 22 municipalities in the Greater Copenhagen area have all collaborated to build the new network of cycle routes. The project intends to expand, improve and link existing cycle lanes in Greater Copenhagen, as well as improving signage, so commuters can quickly identify the easiest route available.

Smart cities call for smart solutions in an age when carbon emissions and respect for the environment have come to the fore. And very often it is the low-energy, simpler forms of technology that can provide the answers. Writing in 1973, the philosopher and social commentator Ivan Illich stated the following:

“Man on a bicycle can go three or four times faster than the pedestrian, but uses five times less energy in the process. He carries one gram of his weight over a kilometer of flat road at an expense of only 0.15 calories… Equipped with this tool, man outstrips the efficiency of not only all machines but all other animals as well… In contrast, the accelerating individual capsule [the car] enabled societies to engage in a ritual of progressively paralyzing speed.”

According to Illich, bicycles offer a cheap, sustainable and affordable means of transport for the poor: 

“With his much lower salary, the Chinese acquires his durable bicycle in a fraction of the working hours an American devotes to the purchase of his obsolescent car. The cost of public utilities needed to facilitate bicycle traffic versus the price of an infrastructure tailored to high speeds is proportionately even less than the price differential of the vehicles used in the two systems.”

Much modern urban planning is car-centric. But where is the need for the car if work, school or healthcare facilities are close by? Less need for ugly flyovers or six lane highways that rip up communities in their path. Getting from A to B would not require a race against the clock on the highway that cuts through a series of localities that are never to be visited, never to be regarded as anything but an inconvenience to be passed through en route to big-mac nirvana, multiplex overload or shopping-mall hedonism.

Instead, how about an enjoyable walk or cycle ride through an urban environment defined by  ‘community’ rather than by the car and which is free from traffic pollution or noise, where the pedestrian is not regarded as an obstacle to be honked at with horn, where the cyclist is not a damned inconvenience to be driven off the road or where ‘neighbourhood’ has been stripped of its intimacy?

India is not Denmark, of course. Denmark is a small country with a low population. But, as in Mexico City, with its huge population and urban problems, India could learn much from Denmark’s attitude towards the bicycle. After all, smart cities call for smart thinking.
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