Via: Socialist Project.
On January 12, Haiti was hit with an earthquake 7.0 on the Richter scale, leaving possibly 200,000 dead and 3 million affected. Much of Port-au-Prince, Haiti’s capital, is now living in makeshift camps with their water, food, and health at risk. While many countries around the world responded with aid, the U.S. and Canada also quickly deployed troops. This presentation explores current events and press coverage in the context of the past decade of Western policy toward Haiti, as well as the prospects for constructive relief and solidarity work.
Justin Podur visited Haiti in 2005 to study the UN occupation and the government after the 2004 coup. This is a recording of a public event that took place in Toronto on February 2, 2010 at the Centre for Social Justice.
Resources:
- Bullet #297: Relief Efforts in the Shadow of Past “Help” by Dan Freeman-Maloy
- Bullet #296: Our Role in Haiti’s Plight by Peter Hallward
- Haiti: Damming the Flood – with Peter Hallward (June 2, 2008)
Via: Dissident Voice.
Written by Joe Mowrey.
Narrated and Edited by Anthony Lawson.
Anthony Lawson is a retired, international-prize-winning TV commercials director, cameraman and editor, and a professional voiceover artist living in Thailand. His entire catalog of YouTube videos can be viewed online. Read other articles by Anthony.
Cartoon Khalil Bendib
Via: Rebel News.
The US has begun stepping up it’s anti-Iran propaganda to justify its decision to deploy a missile shield in Europe.
Washington’s latest disinformation campaign about the alleged threat from Iran’s advanced missile technology is being implemented to demonize Iran, even though the Islamic Republic has never threatened its neighbors and Iran’s military technology is clearly only being developed to ensure the country can defend itself against any potential enemies.
“Our revised approach is tailored to address the emergent threat coming to the region from Iran,” US State Department spokesman Philip Crowley said on Thursday.
“We’re going to protect our interests and those of our allies,” AFP quoted Crowley as saying.
He confirmed that Romania would host medium-range ballistic missile interceptors as part of the shield system.
Romanian President Traian Basescu said on Thursday that Bucharest had agreed to participate in the system, which is expected to be operational by 2015.
In September 2009, the US shelved a plan to place missile defense facilities in the Czech Republic and Poland after Russia vehemently protested.
Related:
The Iran Versus U.S.-Israeli-NATO Threats
Nuclear Deceit – The Times And Iran
What Americans Need to know about Mordechai Vanunu
Iran’s nuclear threat is a lie
US Hypocrisy on North Korea: Let’s Talk About Israel’s Nukes
An Ominous Double Standard
Via: Workers World.
The 20 U.S. Navy and Coast Guard ships, 63 helicopters, 204 joint operations vehicles and approximately 13,000 military personnel — 10,000 afloat and 3,000 ashore — occupying Haiti, were sanctioned by the U.N. as of Jan. 22. No request from Haiti was needed — the U.S. wanted to send troops and it did. The occupation and the U.N. approval have no legal basis.
These U.S. Marines, Airborne troops and sailors have little to no training in humanitarian missions. Their basic job is to kill or disable the Pentagon’s enemies on the battlefield.
Haitian President René Préval criticized a lack of coordination among countries bringing aid to the Caribbean nation. The Haitian government, a creation of a U.S.-sponsored kidnapping in 2004 that ousted the elected President Jean-Bertrand Aristide, is itself unable to coordinate the aid effort.
The U.S. claims that it has committed to spending $317 million on aid to Haiti, but of each U.S. taxpayer dollar being used for “aid,” 40 cents is going to the U.S. military. Another 36 cents funds the U.S. Agency for International Development’s disaster assistance — which includes items ranging from $5,000 generators to $35 hygiene kits with soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste for a family of five, according to a Jan. 27 AP report. Only 1 cent on a dollar goes to the Haitian government. read more…
Evolution of the “non-Islamic” national movement in Palestine since the 1980s. By Julien Salingue
Via: International Viewpoint.
The object of this report is to deal with the evolution of the non-Islamic national movement since the end of the 1980s. That is why I have chosen to “amalgamate” the two reports that had originally been suggested into only one, inasmuch as it is difficult to consider the evolution of the Left independently of the evolution of the majority current of the Palestinian Liberation Organization (PLO), Fatah.
The starting point of the report will be the year 1987, because that marks a turning point, insofar as there can be turning points in history and politics, with the outbreak of the first Intifada. We obviously cannot understand these events and their consequences without looking further back, but given the time limits, I will try and cover what is essential, in a way that will necessarily be rapid and schematic.
The Palestinian national movement really began to develop after 1967 and of the defeat of the Arab armies and states by Israel during the Six Day War. Up until then, the Palestinian question had remained in the hands of the Arab states, whose control was expressed in the creation of the PLO in 1964, on the initiative of the states of the Arab League, in particular of Nasser’s Egypt. The Charter of the PLO specified for example that the organization did not exert any regional sovereignty over the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
These territories were respectively administered by Jordan and Egypt, which, with different modalities and in the framework of a struggle for influence, equipped themselves with autonomous Palestinian “national” currents, while at the same time basing themselves on the local elites (in particular the great families of notables). read more…
Via: Press TV.
As Israel keeps threatening the regional countries with war, Egyptian maritime sources say the Israeli navy has deployed two missile ships to the Persian Gulf.
Citing the sources, Yediot Ahronot reported Saturday that two Israeli missile ships passed through the Suez Canal en route to the Red Sea on Thursday morning.
The sources said the ships are expected to reach the Persian Gulf within the next four days.
According to the report, Cairo adopted tight security measures to ensure the safe passage of the Israeli ships through the canal.
The waterway, which had not previously been used by Israeli vessels for intelligence reasons, was traversed for the first time in June 2009 when a Dolphin-class submarine reportedly sailed from the Mediterranean to reach military exercises in the Red Sea.
Via: SocialistWorker.org.
ONE MONTH after the devastating earthquake, Haiti continues to suffer under apocalyptic conditions.
The quake killed more than 200,000 people, injured 250,000 and has left over 3 million dependent on assistance for food, water and housing. Contrary to the puff pieces in the media, the relief operation has been a miserable failure. The United Nations admitted at the end of January that had only been able to feed 1 million people, leaving many more without access to food. Whole sections of Port-au-Prince and surrounding towns never even saw relief convoys.
Amid this catastrophe, imperial powers and corporate vultures are circling, eyeing the profits to be made from reconstruction.
The Street, an investment Web site, published an article, misleadingly titled “An Opportunity to Heal Haiti,” that lays out how U.S. corporations can cash in on the catastrophe. “Here are some companies,” they write, “that could potentially benefit: General Electric, Caterpillar, Deere, Fluor, Jacobs Engineering.”
Other commentators–like James Dobbins, a former U.S. special envoy to Haiti under President Bill Clinton–likewise see an opportunity to remake Haiti along free market lines. As he wrote in the New York Times, “This disaster is an opportunity to accelerate oft-delayed reforms.” As director of the International Security and Defense Policy Center at the Rand Corporation, the reforms he advocates are not designed to meet people’s needs, but to pad corporate profits through mechanisms like privatization.
New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff attempted to pass off the exploitation of cheap labor as a humanitarian initiative:
[T]he best strategy for Haiti: building garment factories. The idea (sweatshops!) may sound horrific to Americans. But it’s a strategy that has worked for other countries, such as Bangladesh, and Haitians in the slums would tell you that their most fervent wish is for jobs. A few dozen major shirt factories could be transformational for Haiti.
All of this reads like a sick parody of Naomi Klein’s arguments in her book The Shock Doctrine. There, she documents how the U.s. and other imperial powers take advantage of natural and economic disasters to impose free-market plans for the benefit of the elites and their corporations, and to the detriment of the victims. She writes:
Disaster capitalists have no interests in repairing what was. In Iraq, Sri Lanka and New Orleans, the process deceptively called “reconstruction” began with finishing the job of the original disaster by erasing what was left of the public sphere and rooted communities, then quickly moving to replace them with a kind of corporate New Jerusalem–all before the victims of war or natural disaster were able to regroups and stake their claims to what was theirs.
THE U.S. actually had a Shock Doctrine for Haiti on hand–the same one that it has imposed for decades. read more…
Via: Foreign Policy.
Probably the most controversial claim in my work with John Mearsheimer on the Israel lobby is our argument that it played a key role in the decision to invade Iraq in 2003. Even some readers who were generally sympathetic to our overall position found that claim hard to accept, and some left-wing critics accused us of letting Bush and Cheney off the hook or of ignoring the importance of other interests, especially oil. Of course, Israel’s defenders in the lobby took issue even more strenuously, usually by mischaracterizing our arguments and ignoring most (if not all) of the evidence we presented.
So I hope readers will forgive me if I indulge today in a bit of self-promotion, or more precisely, self-defense. This week, yet another piece of evidence surfaced that suggests we were right all along (HT to Mehdi Hasan at the New Statesman and J. Glatzer at Mondoweiss). In his testimony to the Iraq war commission in the U.K., former Prime Minister Tony Blair offered the following account of his discussions with Bush in Crawford, Texas in April 2002. Blair reveals that concerns about Israel were part of the equation and that Israel officials were involved in those discussions.
Take it away, Tony:
As I recall that discussion, it was less to do with specifics about what we were going to do on Iraq or, indeed, the Middle East, because the Israel issue was a big, big issue at the time. I think, in fact, I remember, actually, there may have been conversations that we had even with Israelis, the two of us, whilst we were there. So that was a major part of all this.”
Notice that Blair is not saying that Israel dreamed up the idea of attacking Iraq or that Bush was bent on war solely to benefit Israel or even to appease the Israel lobby here at home. But Blair is acknowledging that concerns about Israel were part of the equation, and that the Israeli government was being actively consulted in the planning for the war.
Blair’s comments fit neatly with the argument we make about the lobby and Iraq. Specifically, Professor Mearsheimer and I made it clear in our article and especially in our book that the idea of invading Iraq originated in the United States with the neoconservatives, and not with the Israeli government. But as the neoconservative pundit Max Boot once put it, steadfast support for Israel is “a key tenet of neoconservatism.” Prominent neo-conservatives occupied important positions in the Bush administration, and in the aftermath of 9/11, they played a major role in persuading Bush and Cheney to back a war against Iraq, which they had been advocating since the late 1990s. read more…
Via: SteveLendmanBlog.
On February 3, a Department of Justice press release headlined “Aafia Siddiqui Found Guilty in Manhattan Federal Court of Attempting to Murder US Nationals in Afghanistan and Six Additional Charges.”
At her scheduled May 6 sentencing, she “faces a maximum sentence of 20 years in prison on each of the attempted murder and armed assault charges; life in prison on the firearms charge; and eight years in prison on each of the remaining assault charges. SIDDIQUI faces a mandatory minimum sentence of 30 years in prison on the firearms charge.”
On February 3, New York Times writer CJ Hughes headlined: “Pakistani Scientist Found Guilty of Shootings,” convicting her on all seven counts, including attempted murder – “capping a trial that drew notice for its terrorist implications as well as its theatrics,” but omitting convincing evidence of Siddiqui’s innocence. Instead, Hughes said she was arrested with “instructions (in her purse) on making explosives and a list of New York landmarks, including the Statue of Liberty, the Brooklyn Bridge and the Empire State Building.” Her defense team acknowledged their existence, but Siddiqui denied packing them or knowing of their origin. She later suggested she copied them from a magazine, planned no terrorist acts, nor did her indictment claim them.
Hughes also said she “raised suspicions when she and her three children vanished in Pakistan in 2003.” She didn’t vanish. Her mother said she “left the family home in Gulshan-e-lqbal in a taxi on March 30, 2003 to catch a flight for Rawalpindi, but never reached the airport.” Pakistani intelligence agents abducted her, turned her over to US authorities, after which her long ordeal of secret imprisonment, interrogations, and years of brutalizing torture began, even though she wasn’t charged.
Her son Mohammed was later released on condition he say nothing. Her other two children, Maryam and Suleman, disappeared and may have been killed.
In May 2004, Pakistan’s Interior Minister confirmed she was turned over to US authorities in 2003 after no link between her and Al Qaeda was established. In 2006, Amnesty International called her one of many of the “disappeared” in America’s “war on terror.” In 2007, a Ghost Prisoner Human Rights Watch report suggested she was held in secret CIA detention. read more…
Canada accuses Venezuela of stifling democracy while Parliament remains prorogued. By Camilo Cahis
Via: Hands Off Venezuela.
The Canadian minister responsible for the Americas recently made a short stop in Venezuela. While there, Peter Kent took the opportunity to express the Canadian government’s concerns over the “shrinking democratic space” in Venezuela.
The Venezuelan government recently sanctioned three TV stations including RCTV, the network that played a key role in organizing the coup that briefly overthrew the Venezuelan government in 2002. The three TV stations refused to comply with Venezuela’s broadcasting laws and had their licenses temporarily suspended. The broadcasting laws in Venezuela are similar in scope to CRTC regulations in Canada; they establish standards for child and adult programming, prohibit racist, sexist or inflammatory content and incitement to violence, place limits on commercial advertising, and require stations to broadcast important government announcements. As recently as three weeks ago, RCTV had aired an interview with Noel Álavarez, the president of the bosses’ union FEDECAMARAS where Álvarez had called for another “military solution” to the political situation in Venezuela. Surely, the CRTC would have suspended any TV or radio station that sanctioned a “military solution” to the Stephen Harper government!
While passing through Venezuela Kent said, “Canada is concerned over the Venezuelan government’s recent suspension of broadcasting of [three] television stations and the death of two students in protests related to this action. These events are further evidence of a shrinking democratic space in Venezuela.”
Kent’s concerns could be laughable if it were not for the real threat that countries like the US and Canada pose to Venezuela. Many will remember that it was the same Peter Kent that was the most vocal supporter of the military coup d’etat that overthrew democratically-elected Mel Zelaya in Honduras this past June. The dictatorship that was installed in Honduras has killed scores of people. However, the Canadian government did not even cut off military aid to the Honduran dictatorship! read more…
Via: Al Jazeera.
Abu Abdullah has never been charged with a crime, but he has been arrested by Palestinian security forces so many times in the past two years that he has lost count.
He has been arrested at work, in the market, on the street, and, more than once, during violent raids by masked men who burst into his home and seized him in front of his family.
Deep in the heart of the Deheishe refugee camp on the outskirts of Bethlehem, Abu Abdullah describes in detail the beatings he has endured in custody, the numerous cold, sleepless nights in cramped and filthy cells, the prolonged periods bound in painful stress positions, and the long hours of aggressive questioning.
“The interrogations always begin the same way,” Abu Abdullah explains. “They demand to know who I voted for in the last election.”
Abu Abdullah is not alone. Since Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad’s caretaker government took power in Ramallah in June 2007, stories like Abu Abdullah’s have become commonplace in the West Bank.
The arrests are part of a wider plan being executed by Palestinian security forces – trained and funded by American and European backers – to crush opposition and consolidate the Fatah-led government’s grip on power in the West Bank.
An international effort
The government of Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, is bolstered by thousands of newly trained police and security forces whose stated aim is to eliminate Islamist groups that may pose a threat to its power – namely Hamas and their supporters.
Under the auspices of Lieutenant-General Keith Dayton, the US security coordinator, these security forces receive hands-on training from Canadian, British and Turkish military personnel at a desert training centre in Jordan.
The programme has been carefully coordinated with Israeli security officials. read more…
The Battlefields Chosen by Contemporary Imperialism: Conditions for an Effective Response from the South. By Samir Amin
Via: Monthly Review.
In the art of war, each belligerent chooses the terrain considered most advantageous for its battle for the offensive and tries to impose that terrain on its adversary, so that it is put on the defensive. The same goes for politics, both at the national level and in geopolitical struggles.
For the last 30 years or so, the powers forming the Triad of collective imperialism (the United States, Western Europe, and Japan) have been defining two battlefields, which are still current: “democracy” and “the environment.”
This paper aims first to examine the concepts and substance in the definitions of each of these two themes selected by the Triad powers and to make a critical analysis of them from the viewpoint of the interests of the peoples, nations, and states at which they are targeted, the countries of the South, after those of the former East. Then we shall look at the role of all the instruments brought into play by the strategies of imperialism to wage its battles: “liberal” globalization, with its accompanying ideology (conventional economics), the militarization of globalization, “good governance,” “aid,” the “war on terrorism” and preventive warfare, as well as the accompanying ideologies (cultural post-modernism). And each time we shall highlight the conditions for an effective response from the peoples and states of the South to the challenge presented by the reorganization of the Triad’s imperialism.
1. “Democracy,” What “Democracy”?
It was a stroke of genius of Atlantic alliance diplomacy to choose the field of “democracy” for their offensive, which was aimed, from the beginning, at the dismantling of the Soviet Union and the re-conquest of the countries of Eastern Europe. This decision goes back to the 1970s and gradually became crystallized in the Conference of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and then with the signing of the final Act in Helsinki in 1975. Jacques Andreani, in his book with the evocative title Le Piège, Helsinki et la chute du communisme (The Trap: Helsinki and the Fall of Communism), explains how the Soviets, who were expecting an agreement on the disarmament of the NATO and a genuine détente, were quite simply deceived by their Western partners.1
It was a stroke of genius because the “question of democracy” was a genuine issue and the least one could say was that the Soviet regimes were certainly not “democratic,” however one defined its concept and practice. The countries of the Atlantic Alliance, in contrast, could qualify themselves as “democratic,” whatever the limitations and contradictions in their actual political practices, subordinated to the requirements of capitalist reproduction. The comparison of the systems operated in their favor. read more…
Via: Anti-Empire Report.
It’s a good thing the Haitian government did virtually nothing to help its people following the earthquake; otherwise it would have been condemned as “socialist” by Fox News, Sarah Palin, the teabaggers, and other right-thinking Americans. The last/only Haitian leader strongly committed to putting the welfare of the Haitian people before that of the domestic and international financial mafia was President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. Being of a socialist persuasion, Aristide was, naturally, kept from power by the United States — twice; first by Bill Clinton, then by George W. Bush, the two men appointed by President Obama to head the earthquake relief effort. Naturally.
Aristide, a reformist priest, was elected to the presidency, then ousted in a military coup eight months later in 1991 by men on the CIA payroll. Ironically, the ousted president wound up in exile in the United States. In 1994 the Clinton White House found itself in the awkward position of having to pretend — because of all their rhetoric about “democracy” — that they supported the democratically-elected Aristide’s return to power. After delaying his return for more than two years, Washington finally had its military restore Aristide to office, but only after obliging the priest to guarantee that after his term ended he would not remain in office to make up the time lost because of the coup; that he would not seek to help the poor at the expense of the rich, literally; and that he would stick closely to free-market economics. This meant that Haiti would continue to be the assembly plant of the Western Hemisphere, with its workers receiving starvation wages, literally. If Aristide had thoughts about breaking the agreement forced upon him, he had only to look out his window — US troops were stationed in Haiti for the remainder of his term. [1] read more…
Via: Nader.org.
There are several memorial services and events being planned for Howard Zinn whom The New York Times called a “historian, shipyard worker, civil rights activist and World War II bombardier, when he passed away at age 87 late last month.”
His legion of friends, students, admirers and colleagues will be out in force reminding the country about his impact as a civic leader, motivational teacher, author of the ever more popular book A People’s History of the United States, and all around fine, compassionate, and level-headed human being.
Judging by similar gatherings for remembering other progressive activists and writers, the encomiums for Professor Zinn, who taught at Spelman College in the late fifties and early sixties (two of his students were Marian Wright Edelman and Alice Walker) and at Boston University until 1988, will be heartfelt, wide-ranging and inspiringly anecdotal.
Receptions will follow and those in attendance will return to their homes, hoping that what Howard Zinn spoke and wrote and how he acted will serve as an example for those who follow his public philosophy of being and doing.
Mr. Zinn’s legacy, however, needs more than sweet memories that carry forward the spirit of people. His impact needs more than the adult and youth book version (now in a television miniseries via the History Channel) to continue inspiring what the Times described as “a generation of high school and college students to rethink American history.”
How about drawing on the large, national constituency whose lives he has informed honestly and helped improve to support the establishment of the Howard Zinn Institute for Advancing Peace and Justice? Thought and action in a seamless flow toward returning the definition of “freedom” back to the words of Marcus Cicero as “participation in power.” read more…
Via: Middle East Monitor.
Following the release of Israel’s report to the UN on Friday in which the Israeli Defence Force (IDF) essentially looked into their own behaviour during operation Cast Lead, in which over 1400 Palestinians were killed following the Israeli military assault just over a year ago, MEMO contacted one of the four co-authors of the Goldstone report, Colonel Desmond Travers, for an exclusive reaction to the Israeli report.
According to an article by Rory McCarthy in the Guardian, 1st February, one of the few incidents the report looked into, in its mere 46 pages, was the Israeli destruction of the Al-Badr flour mill. Following Israel’s report which “stated there was no evidence of an air strike” on the mill and that they “specifically denied it was hit by an air strike”, McCarthy drew attention to the UN mine action team who had reached a contrary conclusion and stated that there clearly was evidence that Israel had attacked the mill from the air with precise munitions, a conclusion backed up by photographic evidence. As McCarthy says, “this evidence directly contradicts the findings of the Israeli report” and he states “It is not clear why Goldstone did not use evidence from the UN team in his report.”
MEMO put that question to Colonel Travers who explained that, at the time of the Goldstone fact-finding mission, they were not aware of the existence of the UN mine team’s findings but that, in any event, the findings of both are essentially in agreement that Israel employed an air-strike against the mill and so it would not have made any substantial difference to the outcome of the Goldstone Report anyway. Travers therefore stands by the Goldstone reports findings in which it was stated that the attacks were “intentional and precise” and “carried out for the purpose of denying sustenance to the civilian population.” read more…
Via: The Palestine Chronicle.
If you’re a budding student of surrealism, I would recommend Israel. It will prove to be your greatest project. I can assure you that Israel’s bizarre political landscape will provide you with material beyond your wildest dreams.
Described by the Oxford dictionary as an “expression of the sub-conscious mind through imagery”, surrealism communicates its meaning through absurd, irrational and capricious nonsense. It is a metaphor in which nothing is what it seems.
And if we weren’t addressing one of the modern era’s most vexing conflicts, we would all be laughing by now. For the issue of Erez Israel, the “greater” Israel, is a serious one.
For those of us who might need reminding, Israel was the political end-result of a project; a project initiated by European Jewish secularists at the end of the 1800’s to create a Jewish homeland.
Whilst this aspiration (called Zionism) was initially seen as a noble end in itself, its means – the Palestinian people being displaced at the point of a gun – has become, as Nelson Mandela once said, one of the world’s biggest unresolved questions.
This is because for its most ardent and unbending disciples, Zionism in the 21st century has morphed into a golden calf. This is why in its inviolable, idolatrous name Gaza can be bombed and besieged, and why helicopters can murder Hamas leaders from the sky.
Zionist reasoning is that if you question Zionism, you strike at the heart of a mythical, homogenous “collective Jew”. That this “collective Jew” is an emotional red-herring, and that the idol is actually nationalism – and not Judaism – should be clear to all of us.
Nationalism by definition is a blind groupthink in which morality is suspended for the sake of a greater cause – in this case, power over Palestinians who pose a threatening counter nationalism by just existing. read more…
Via: Socialist World.
Sharp working class policies and strategy needed to prevent total ruin
Segun Sango, General Secretary, Democratic Socialist Movement (DSM – CWI in Nigeria)
Socially and economically, Nigeria appears set for a rapid race into a bottomless pit. Presently, the impact of several years of pro-rich, anti-people policies adopted and embraced by both the military and civilian sections of the capitalist ruling elite has now driven Nigeria to the brink of an unimaginable social and political disaster. Economically, the sharpest expression of this disaster is the continued and deepening mass poverty, in the midst of abundant resources, with only a tiny proportion of the population (i.e. the top politicians, state officials and their capitalist allies) wallowing in stupendous, but needless, personal wealth. This, it must be stressed, is primarily responsible for the ‘Catch 22’ situation, which dominates Nigeria’s political landscape today. There is in power a ruling elite, which, for all useful purposes, is a complete failure and irredeemably corrupt. In a truly democratic atmosphere, the kind of ruling elements that dominate Nigeria would not be tolerated by the people, let alone being expected to win elections. However, such is the brazen recklessness of these rotten and horrible elites, that every election is manipulated in such a way that only they, and/or their surrogates, can emerge as winners!
There is widespread disaffection and anger across the country against the palpable failure of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)-controlled central government. Regardless of promises to implement electoral reforms, the 2011 general elections will not be any fairer than the farce of the 2007 general elections. This will only deepen the prevailing mass discontent within society. Already, there have been barely-hidden calls for military coups. However, still heavily weighed upon by the burden of its own past crimes, the military has apparently, for now, decided not to emerge as “saviours” of the country and its eternally suffering masses once again. However, the retention of power by the PDP in another farcical exercise come 2011, will certainly aggravate all the current tensions arising from social and economic deprivation as well as Nigeria’s religious crises and national questions. This kind of explosive atmosphere, which another rigged election will bring about, could push significant sections of the ruling elite to, once again, resort to support for a military coup, as an option to effect regime change, so as to prevent a mass revolt that would challenge the entire capitalist system. read more…
Via: Counter Punch.
The Free Market Fetish
Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan answered that he had placed his trust in a flawed theory when he was called before Congress to explain why he, Goldman Sachs Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin and Deputy Treasury Secretary Larry Summers, prevented Brooksley Born, head of the Commodity Futures Trading Corporation, a government regulatory agency, from doing her job of regulating over-the-counter derivatives.
The efficient markets theory is that unregulated markets are efficient and rational. According to this theory in which Greenspan placed his trust, unregulated markets produce the best possible result. Any regulatory interference worsens the outcome.
Greenspan blamed his own bad judgment on a theory. The theory, or Greenspan’s understanding of it, nevertheless still holds sway as Congress has proved impotent to re-regulate the gambling casino that is Wall Street. Clearly, the theory serves powerful interests.
But what is the truth?
The truth is that markets are a social institution. Their efficiency depends on the rules that govern the behavior of people in markets. When free market economists talk about markets deciding this or that, they are reifying a social institution and ascribing to it decision-making power. But, of course, markets do not act or make decisions. People act and make decisions, and markets reflect the decisions and actions of people. read more…
Theatre in the shadow of the Palestinian Nakba. By Mustafa Khalili, Laurence Topham and Andrew Dickson
Via: The Guardian.
Brought up in Galilee among the ruined villages and displaced lives that were the legacy of the 1948 conflict, playwright Amir Nizar Zuabi explains how the ghosts of the past – not least the British – informed his latest theatre piece, I Am Yusuf and This Is My Brother read more…
Via: SPINWATCH.
Now we know the extent to which MPs are facilitating access to the House of Commons facilities for commercial lobbyists, thanks to information from the Commons banqueting office being made public.
The rules state that dining rooms must be ‘sponsored’ by an MP on behalf of an outside interest, with the MP in attendance, although David Cameron has already been pulled up on this.
Among those consultant lobbying firms out to impress their clients – almost treating the Commons as a private dinning room – are Edelman, which hosted seven functions in 18 months; Lexington Communications – two lunches, a tea and a dinner in 2005-06; and Political Intelligence, which notched up eleven dinners and receptions in just two years. Three of these were hosted by former Lib Dem MP Richard Allan, who stood down in 2005 before becoming a lobbyist for Political Intelligence’s one-time client, Cisco.
Other lobbying firms using Parliament’s facilities to entertain clients include Citigate Public Affairs (a reception for 80); Connect Public Affairs (tea for 50); Grayling Political Strategy (a reception for 100 on the Terrace) and Weber Shandwick (registered as Weber Sandwich), which held a dinner for 14 on 23 March 2006, courtesy of Labour MP Jamie Reed.
Until his election in 2005 Reed was working for British Nuclear Fuels Ltd (BNFL), a Weber Shandwick client. The previous week – just after the government announced an energy review in early 2006 that reintroduced the prospect of new nuclear power – the pro-nuclear MP hosted a large reception for another lobbying firm heavily involved in the push for nuclear power in the UK, Sovereign Strategy.
MPs with a clear material interest in the organisation they are playing host to include Ian Taylor MP, who held a reception on 25 Sept 2008 for Avanti Communications Group of which he is a paid director. The reception was held three days after Taylor enjoyed “a night’s accommodation and a day’s shooting” from Avanti Communications. Tim Yeo’s sponsoring of an event for the Environmental Investment Network has also raised eyebrows.
How much more do we need to know of the lobbying industry’s activities before we demand full transparency from the industry – as recommended by the Public Administrations Select Committee in 2009 and rejected late last year by the government.
Via: Global Research.
“The military industrial complex” is thriving
We all would do well to read or re-read perhaps, Anthony Sampson’s outstanding anatomical study or investigation into the international arms trade: “The Arms Bazaar”. As it gives us some perspective on how the “defence industry” has grown to become what it is now; an unwieldy Golem, that’s out of control.
Currently, “the military industrial complex” seems to be thriving even in these hard times. There are mammoth weapon sales galore underway on a global scale. For instance in Asia, the U.S is bolstering militarily co-operation with its close alley and Chinese foe, by selling a large weapons package to the island of Taiwan. A regional arms race seems to be developing. This has really riled the Chinese who have “vehemently” protested by means of all diplomatic channels available to them. The reaction to Washington’s planned military shipment to Taipei was swift and strident. “The People’s Daily” considers the U.S. move to be a sign of a” pre-emptive cold-war mentality and moral hypocrisy,” it stated.
In response to the $ 6.4 billion USD deal, Beijing has cut off all “military dialogue” with Washington in the wake of the arms deal with Taiwan. China has also threatened economic reprisals. Beijing is considering sanctions against U.S defence firms involved with Taiwanese the deal such as “Boeing” corporation which has reportedly sold 12 missiles to Taiwan as part of the overall sale. The arms shipment to Taiwan totals in all, 114 patriot missiles and 60 attacks Black Hawk helicopters (1).
Analysts are concerned about the growing tensions which could perhaps occur along the strait of Taiwan for instance, which separates mainland China from the “break-away” Island. read more…
Via: Badil.
4 February 2010 – BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee Rights has released new working paper under the title:
Principles and Mechanisms to Hold Business Accountable for Human Rights Abuses: Potential Avenues to Challenge Corporate Involvement in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People
The paper is authored by U.S. attorney Yasmine Gado.
About the Working Paper
Palestinians would not be a people displaced, dispossessed and oppressed in 2010 if states and the UN had held Israel accountable for its massive violation of international law and the Nakba over 60 years ago. However, not only governments and the UN, but also business corporations continue to render aid and assistance to Israel’s unlawful policies and practices until today. By conducting business as usual with Israel’s official and private sector, foreign enterprises help maintain a situation in which Israel abuses Palestinians’ basic human rights on a massive scale. Many of those engaged in efforts for justice, have therefore focused their efforts on holding corporations accountable.
These efforts for corporate accountability have begun to reap significant successes in recent months: Dexia Bank (France Belgium) has stopped funding Israeli settlements, BlackRock Bank, TIAA-CREF (US pension fund), and PFZW (Dutch pension fund) have divested from Africa-Israel, Veolia has announced its intention to withdraw from the illegal Jerusalem Light Rail project, and campaigns against other corporate offenders continue.
In examining mechanisms available within the existing legal and economic framework to advance corporate accountability for human rights abuses, and for their conduct in other areas of social concern, this Working Paper focuses on three primary categories: (1) domestic US law regulation and litigation under state domestic legal systems; (2) international law: binding international law governing corporate complicity in international crimes and non-binding international norms on the issue of business and human rights; and (3) market forces: socially responsible investment funds, shareholder activism, consumer boycotts, etc. The paper summarizes the latest developments in each of these areas and assesses the possibilities of building on these past experiences to hold corporations involved in the violation of Palestinians’ rights accountable.
This paper was prepared by Badil as a resource for the Palestinian civil society-led Campaign for Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it abides by its obligations under international law and all those engaged in efforts to end impunity for egregious human rights abuses.
About Badil Working Papers
BADIL Working Papers provide a means for experts, practitioners and activists to publish research relevant to durable solutions and reparations for Palestinian refugees and IDPs as part of a just and permanent solution of the Palestinian/Arab-Israeli conflict. Working papers do not necessarily reflect the views of BADIL. Past working papers can be downloaded at:
http://badil.org/en/documents/category/2-working-papers
Title: Principles and Mechanisms to Hold Business Accountable for Human Rights Abuses: Potential Avenues to Challenge Corporate Involvement in Israel’s Oppression of the Palestinian People
Author: Yasmine Gado
ISSN:1728-1660
To download a free copy, go to:
http://badil.org/documents/category/2-working-papers?download=754%3Abadil-wp-11
To purchase a print copy, visit:
http://www.badil.org/publications?page=shop.product_details&flypage=garden_flypage.tpl&product_id=120&category_id=2
Note: Link to this Badil release at:
http://www.badil.org/en/press-releases/135-2010/1942-release-workingpaper11
Via: OpEndNews.
One must wonder why the Government of Canada feels the need to by-pass the Canadian electorate and announce changes in its policy relating to Israel/Palestine through Israeli media: these announcements should have been made in Canada because they have a profound impact on Canadian interests and need to be debated in Canada.
And our national media have gone AWOL on a number of issues when they are supposed to be their readers’ and viewers’ watchdogs, especially since Parliament has been prorogued.
First, we learned of the Security Agreement through the Jerusalem Post in 2007. On March 2, 2008, a Declaration of Intent was signed by then Minister of Public Safety Stockwell Day in Tel Aviv. Having a mutual security agreement with a country that grants rights according to religion rather than citizenship is not in accord with Canadian values.
The fact that Israel is an occupier state and uses its army against Palestinians while occupying their land should also raise a red flag as intelligence gathered on Canadian Arabs of Palestinian and Israeli background may be skewed, “shared”, and used against them. The implications of such an agreement should be the subject of parliamentary debate and oversight.
Second, the Israeli settler radio station Arutz Sheva said in October 2009 that Foreign Affairs Minister Lawrence Cannon had announced in Israel his intention “to present the Canadian Prime Minister with a plan to revive the multilateral “refugee committee’ headed by Canada that was established in the Madrid Conference in 1991.” The question of Palestinian refugees has been a core issue in the Arab-Israeli conflict since 1948. As the “gavel-holder” of the Refugee Working Group (RWG), Canada has a special responsibility towards all Palestinian refugees. read more…
Via: San Francisco Bay View.
You can walk down many of the streets of Port au Prince and see absolutely no evidence that the world community has helped Haiti.
Twenty three days after the earthquake jolted Haiti and killed over 200,000 people, as many as a million people have still not received any international food assistance.
On Feb. 4, the U.N. World Food Program reported they had given at least some food, mostly 55 pound bags of rice, to over a million people. The U.N. acknowledges that it still needs to reach another 1 million people. The 55 pounds of rice are expected to provide a two-week food ration for a family. Beans and cooking oil are scheduled to come later.
The Associated Press reported that people in Haiti at small protests were holding up banners reading, “Help us, we’re starving.”
Over a million people are displaced. About 10,000 families are in tents. The rest are living under sheets, blankets and tarps.
One of the people living under a sheet is a brand new mother with her 1-day-old baby. The New York Times reports that Rosalie Antoine, 33, and her 1-day-old baby were living in a neighbor’s yard with puppies and chickens under a sheet in the Bel-Air neighborhood of Port au Prince.
Haiti and the United Nations estimate 250,000 children under the age of 7 are living in temporary housing. Most need vaccinations.
Flavia Cherry of the Caribbean Association for Feminist Research and Action this week witnessed a pregnant double amputee give birth on the ground in one of the tent camps without any medical assistance at all. “This poor mother had nothing: no milk, no clothing for the baby, nothing!”
Even people who can afford to purchase food are having a difficult time. A 55-pound bag of rice costs 40 percent more today than it did before the earthquake. Dr. Louise Ivers, a Partners in Health physician in Port au Prince, reports a 25-kg (55-pound) bag of rice that sold for $30 U.S. dollars (1,207 Haitian Gourdes) before the quake now costs $42 U.S. dollars (1,690 Haitian Gourdes).
The World Food Program reports prices are still rising and people outside the earthquake zone are having difficulty meeting their basic food needs.
Twenty three days after the quake.
Bill Quigley just returned from Haiti. He is legal director at the Center for Constitutional Rights. His email is Quigley77@gmail.com.
Via: SteveLendmanBlog.
In November 1989, the UN General Assembly adopted the Convention on the Rights of the Child, recognizing “that in all countries in the world, there are children living in exceptionally difficult conditions, and that such children need special consideration.” Then in May 2000, the General Assembly adopted an Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography.
In 1990, the UN Commission on Human Rights appointed a Special Rapporteur on the sale of children, child prostitution and child pornography with a mandate to investigate the problem and submit reports to the General Assembly.
Today, Gulnara Shahinian holds the post, and on June 10, 2009 addressed Haiti’s Restaveks, a century-old system under which impoverished families, mostly rural and unable to adequately provide for their children, send them to live with wealthier or less poor ones in return for food, shelter, education, and a better life in return for tasks performed as servants – de facto slaves subjected to verbal and physical abuse.
Some as young as three are beaten, forced to do anything asked, request nothing, speak only when spoken to, display no emotion, and receive none of the benefits parents expected, just exploitation and mistreatment that’s often severe. Too often it’s from relatives as poor families often send their children to live with those better able to provide care, yet they seldom do.
Haiti’s poor also use them to help with domestic and other chores, and some work for homeless families under the worst of conditions, including nothing to eat for days, harder work, greater abuse, at times whippings leaving scars, getting attacked by rats in their sleep or street predators any time, and being easy prey for kidnappers who seize them for prostitution or forced labor, internally or abroad. read more…
