Updates from April, 2009 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • InI 10:26 on April 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Full Text of President Ahmadinejad’s Remarks at U.N. Conference on Racism By Jeremy R. Hammond 

    21 April, 2009

    [This is a rush transcript of the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s remarks at the United Nations Durban Review Conference on racism in Geneva, Switzerland, on April 20, 2009.]

    In the name of God, the Compassionate, the Merciful… [Protestors in clown costumes escorted out by security] May he bestow upon his prophets… Praise be upon Allah, the Almighty, who is just, kind, and compassionate. May he bestow upon his prophets his blessings and his grace from Adam to Noah; Abraham, Moses, Jesus Christ, and His last prophet, Mohammed. Peace be upon them all who are the harbingers of monotheism, fraternity, love … [Applause] … human dignity and justice.

    Mr. Chairman. I call upon all distinguished guests to forgive these ignorant people.

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  • InI 09:59 on April 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Iraq: Attacks Commence by Dahr Jamail 

    21 April, 2009 | T r u t h o u t

    Everyone knows the analogy of the beehive. When it is goaded, countless bees emerge, attacking the tormentor. Right now in Iraq, the formerly US-backed al-Sahwa (Sons of Iraq) Sunni militia, ripe with broken promises from both the occupiers of their country and the Iraqi government that they would be given respect and jobs, have gone into attack mode.

    It is an easily predictable outcome. An occupying power (the US) sets up a 100,000-strong militia composed of former resistance fighters and even some members of al-Qaeda, pays them each $300 per month to not attack occupation forces, and attacks decrease dramatically. Then, stop paying most of them and tell them they will be incorporated into Iraqi government security forces. Proceed to leave them high and dry as the government of Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki begins targeting them – assassinating leaders, detaining fighters and threatening their families. Allow this plan to continue for over six months, unabated.

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  • InI 09:09 on April 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Wounds Of the Heart: An Artist and Her Nation 

    18 April, 2009

    SEE THE TRAILER OF JOHN HALAKA’S FILM ON PTT TV!

    wounds.jpgBorn and raised in the village of Tarsheha in the Galilee, Rana Bishara is a Palestinian Visual Artist whose creative practice includes sculpture, installation work and performance art. Her artwork functions simultaneously as an elegy to the Palestinian Nakba (the Arabic term for The Great Disaster that began in 1948), an unmasking of the brutality of the Israeli occupation of Palestine and a critique of the biased Western media’s depiction of the Palestinians’ struggle against their occupiers. The objects employed in her artwork perform as surrogates for the body and spirit of Palestine and its people. Her work, in both its physical and conceptual manifestations is an expression of the inseparable blending of the personal and political experiences that define the identity of every Palestinian.

    As a Palestinian citizen of Israel, Rana deeply understands how feelings of belonging and claims of ownership, irrevocably separate, yet permanently connect Arabs and Jews in their struggle for a land that is called Palestine by one group and Israel by the other. Each of the two cultures wants to hold on to every inch of land claimed by the other. The Palestinians strongly feel that they belong to the land, while the Israelis insist that the land belongs to them.  Bishara’s artwork is deeply embedded in and informed by the Palestinian experiences of displacement, exile and occupation and the desire of Palestinian refugees to return to the lands they were displaced from. Through her work, Rana wants to convey the wounds of the heart inflicted upon her father’s generation and subsequent generations of Palestinians. She wants to bear witness to a once multicultural Palestinian society that was destroyed in 1948 and a once thriving agricultural society that has been irrevocably changed.

    2009 release by SittingCrow Productions

    http://www.sittingcrowproductions.com

    Produced, filmed, written, narrated and directed by John Halaka.

    Edited by Marissa Bowman.

    Music composed and performed by the Ramallah based musician Samer Totah

    Running time: 53 minutes

    For further information regarding the film, please contact John Halaka at sittingcrowproductions@gmail.com, or call 619.260.4107.

    http://palestinethinktank.com/ptt-tv/

    SEE ALSO: http://www.art.net/~samia/pal/palart/rana/rana.html

    http://www.tribes.org/web/2008/01/30/homage-to-palestine-by-rana-bishara/

     

  • InI 08:58 on April 22, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Obama: Beyond Savior or Trickster By Norman Solomon 

    As President Obama enters his fourth month in office, two tendencies among progressive-minded Americans seem most hazardous to the political health of the country. The gist of one approach is that Obama can’t do anything seriously wrong; the other is that he can’t do anything seriously right.

    Among the tendencies, the first is more widespread and more dangerous. All kinds of atrocious policies — from Lyndon Johnson’s war on Vietnam to Jimmy Carter’s midterm swerve rightward to Bill Clinton’s neoliberal measures such as NAFTA, “welfare reform” and Wall Street deregulation — were calamities facilitated by acquiescence or mild dissent from many left-leaning Democrats.

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  • InI 18:31 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Obama's Real Plan in Latin America By Shamus Cooke 

    20 April, 2009 – Global Research

    At first glance Obama seems to have softened U.S. policy toward Latin America, especially when compared to his predecessor. There has been no shortage of editorials praising Obama’s conciliatory approach while comparing it to FDR’s ”Good Neighbor” Latin American policy.

    It’s important to remember, however, that FDR’s vision of being neighborly meant that the U.S. would merely stop direct military interventions in Latin America, while reserving the right to create and prop up dictators, arm and train unpopular regional militaries, promote economic dominance through free trade and bank loans, conspire with right-wing groups, etc

    And although Obama’s policy towards Latin America has a similar subversive feeling to it, many of FDR’s methods of dominance are closed to him. Decades of U.S. “good neighbor” policy in Latin America resulted in a continuous string of U.S. backed military coups, broken-debtor economies, and consequently, a hemisphere-wide revolt.

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  • InI 17:50 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Green Left – The challenge of climate change: We need an eco-revolution By Simon Butler 

    18 April, 2009

    The April 2 G20 summit brought together the leaders of some of the world’s most economically significant countries. They were intent on working out a rescue plan for the capitalist system, the very system that is killing the planet and condemning billions of people to poverty and oppression.

    Today’s crisis is the most serious since the Great Depression. The situation calls for a clear break with business-as-usual. The G20 failed on all counts.

    The G20 declaration was long on rhetoric and short on detail. Tacked on the end was a vague promise about meeting the challenge of preventing global warming.

    US$1.1 trillion was pledged to stimulate the world economy. Not one cent was tied to investment in climate-friendly projects.

    The economic crisis is just one reason to take urgent action on climate change. It’s the perfect time for major public investment in renewables, public transport infrastructure, energy efficiency and sustainable farming.

    The best reason for immediate action, however, is this: human-made climate change threatens life on the planet and we are desperately short of time.

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  • InI 14:52 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    The Economic Model That is in Crisis Needs Urgent Change 

    As representatives from a wide diversity of trade union, farmer, indigenous, women’s, youth, consumer advocacy, human rights, environmental and, in general, social and civil organizations that are part of hemispheric networks such as the Hemispheric Social Alliance and united here at the IV People’s Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago, we wish to transmit this message from the people we represent:

    1) The Summit of the Americas continues to be marked by exclusion and lack of democracy. First, we consider the continued exclusion of Cuba from hemispheric governmental forums to be inexplicable and unacceptable. No reason suffices to justify this exclusion, especially when nearly all countries of the hemisphere – the only exception being the U.S. – have diplomatic relations with this sovereign nation. We demand the full inclusion of Cuba in all hemispheric spaces in which it chooses to participate and, above all, an end to the illegitimate and unjust blockade that the United States has imposed on the island for decades. [This Summit represents an opportunity for President Obama to demonstrate whether or not he intends to truly change hemispheric relations that have been based on impositions]. Continue reading this post...

     

  • InI 14:42 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    The Arab World and Israel's Nuclear Arsenal WRITTEN BY Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem 

    18 April, 2009

    DimonaThe vociferous Israeli campaign against the Iranian nuclear program is undoubtedly a classical example of Israel’s pornographic hypocrisy in this regard.

    After all, it was Israel that introduced nuclear weapons into the Middle East more than four decades ago, with the knowledge and acquiescence of western powers.

    The CIA first concluded that Israel had begun to produce nuclear weapons in 1968, but few details emerged until 1986 when Mordechai Vanunu, a former technician at the Dimona nuclear facility, gave the Sunday Times detailed descriptions that led defence analysts to rank the Jewish state as the sixth largest nuclear power.

    Today, Israel is widely believed to possess 250-300 nuclear weapons, along with their delivery systems which include the Yariho (Jericho) missiles and the long-range F-15 and F-16 fighter warplanes.

    Needless to say, these nuclear missiles are not trained toward Berlin or Warsaw but toward Muslim capitals such as Cairo, Damascus and Tehran.

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  • InI 14:09 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    VTV, "Eduardo Galeano's Book Soars to No. 1 after Being Gifted to Obama by Chávez" 

    The Best Seller in a Matter of Hours

    Open Veins of Latin America, a book by Eduardo Galeano, soared from No. 54,295 to No.1 once the Venezuelan leader gave a copy of it to his US counterpart at the Fifth Summit of the Americas.

    The Amazon.com sales rank of the English version of Las venas abiertas de América Latina (Open Veins of Latin America) by Uruguayan writer Eduardo Galeano soared to No. 1 in a matter of hours, according to YVKE Mundial, which was able to verify it this Saturday thanks to a group of Facebook (social networking site) users. Its rise began after President Hugo Chávez presented a copy of the book to his US counterpart Barack Obama.

    Las venas abiertas . . . was written by Eduardo Galeano in 1971. It’s a book of chronicles and narratives that demonstrate the constant plunder of natural resources suffered by the Latin American continent through the course of its history from the 15th century till the final years of the 20th century, and it remains a reference book for anyone interested in Latin America. The book is often quoted by Chávez.

    The English Version, titled Open Veins of Latin America: Five Centuries of the Pillage of a Continent, was in 54,295th place on Friday in the ranking system of Amazon.com, one of the most popular online bookstores that allow credit card purchase and mail delivery.

    However, this Saturday, by 11:57 AM in Venezuela, about four hours after Chávez’s official gift to Obama, the book had risen to the 288th in sales ranking; by the evening of the same day, it had become No. 1.

    At Barnes & Noble, considered to be the second most important online store after Amazon, the book is in 183rd place, whereas on the 11th of April, according to the Google cache, its sales ranking was the 84,483rd.

    A similar rise occurred when President Chávez, during his speech at the General Assembly of the United Nations in 2006, showed Noam Chomsky’s book Hegemony or Survival: America’s Quest for Global Dominance, which shot up to No. 7 in sales, after being in 160,000th place.

    Correction: Later in the day, VTV changed the article’s headline and text, now saying that Open Veins of Latin America rose to No.2, not No.1.

    The original article ‘Libro de Eduardo Galeano subió al puesto Nº 1 tras ser regalado por Chávez a Obama’ was published by Venezolana de Televisión (VTV) on 18 April 2009. Translation by Yoshie Furuhashi.

    Source: MRZine – Monthly Review


     

  • InI 13:37 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Emir Sader, "'What about Cuba, Mr. Obama?'" 

    Barack Obama hopes to be received differently at the summit in Trinidad and Tobago: he can talk about the crisis, his administration’s new positions on Iraq and Iran, and any number of other things, but he can’t escape the fact that what matters most is his position on Cuba.

    The imperial vision of the United States in relation to Latin America is summed up in its position on Cuba. That was made clear when the United States was faced with a truly revolutionary process, which overthrew one of the region’s many dictatorships backed by Washington, and whose new government in Havana moreover radically reclaimed Cuba’s sovereignty, while making progress in the construction of a just society, beginning with land reform.

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  • InI 13:13 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Evelyn Rico, "Israel Forcefully Condemned at UN Conference against Racism" 

    The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, attended the conference to condemn the Israeli government’s brutal and repressive policy against the Palestinians. The European delegates walked out when he called the government of Israel ‘racist,’ but the Latin Americans stayed. The United States and eight other countries boycotted the event.

    The Israeli government’s stance against the Palestinian people, as well as unconditional support for the Israeli government given by not only the US but also some European governments, has been the main point of controversies this Monday at the United Nations’ World Conference against Racism, which is being held in Geneva, Switzerland.

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  • InI 12:55 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    "Trade Union Leader Bala Tampoe on the Sri Lankan War" 

    Al Jazeera reports today that “the Sri Lankan government has given them [Tamil Tigers] till noon on Tuesday to surrender or face further military action. . . . It’s not known how many civilians are trapped inside the Tamil Tigers’ last stronghold. The government here in Colombo put it at around 60,000. The United Nations estimate 100,000″ (David Chater,  “Time Running Out for Sri Lanka’s Tamil Tigers,” 21 April 2009).For an analysis of the Sri Lankan war, listen to Tamil trade union leader Bala Tampoe (General Secretary, the Ceylon Mercantile Union).




     

  • InI 12:35 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Haitians Reject Electoral Sham By Stephen Lendman 

    Whoever wins, it will be impossible to call the results legitimate

    On April 19, sham elections were held to fill 12 open seats in the 30-member Haitian Senate, but most Haitians refused to go along.

    Earlier in February on procedural grounds, Haiti’s Provisional Election Council (CEP) disqualified Fanmi Lavalas (FL) candidates from participating, the party most Haitians support.

    Mass outrage and apprehension showed up in Priorities Project (HPP) pre-election polls with only 5% of eligible voters stating an intention to participate.

    HPP’s Jacob Francois told Inter Press Service (IPS):

    ‘We organized our census primarily through town hall meetings, where organizers spoke to people in groups and individually. From this we tallied the opinions of what we estimated to be 65,000 from an eight million population.’ From this sampling, a 5% participation rate was calculated.

    Francois added: ‘They just do not learn. They can’t exclude a major party,’ and do it on a first time ever procedural technicality, ‘that’s total exclusion. It will undermine the entire process. In addition, the CEP has no business (interfering with) the internal affairs of Lavalas,’ or taking orders from Washington to do it.

    Secretary General of the Organisation of American States, Jose Miguel Insulza, said in a press release:

    ‘I cannot help but express my concern about the possibility that an important group of Haitian citizens might feel that they are not being represented in this process.’

    In a pre-election radio interview, one Haitian activist said:

    ‘In the matter of elections, basically what you have is a decision to explode Fanmi Lavalas (FL)….with the complicity of President Rene Preval (and the international community)….because everyone knows FL is the majority party in the country.’

    Meanwhile, the Haiti Information Project (HIP) reported at 3:00PM on April 19 that ‘today’s senatorial elections (are) a total failure.’ Port-au-Prince polling stations ‘had more election workers and police than actual voters.’ Normally busy city streets were ‘virtually deserted. A rough exit sampling from journalists (on the ground) shows that voter turnout may be as low as 3%.’

    Astonishing. Imagine holding a national election and virtually no one shows up. Because of clear electoral rigging, FL leaders urged Haitians to support a national boycott. In overwhelming numbers, they complied by staying home and not voting. Whoever wins, it will be impossible to call the results legitimate.

    –
    Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at:
    #
    lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net http://sjlendman.blogspot.com

     

  • InI 10:56 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti: Fanmi Lavalas Banned, Voter Apprehension Widespread By Jeb Sprague 

    20 April, 2009

    NEW YORK, Apr 17 (IPS) – Weekend senatorial elections in Haiti are mired in controversy as Fanmi Lavalas (FL), the political party widely backed by the poor majority, has been disqualified.

    As the global financial crisis unfolds, U.N. officials in New York City and Port-au-Prince are struggling to defend a troubled electoral process while gathering donor aid.

    Meanwhile, a recent study by the Florida-based advocacy organisation Haiti Priorities Project (HPP) has found widespread popular apprehension and disaffection among Haitians ahead of the upcoming senatorial elections.

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  • InI 10:47 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    U.S. behind fraudulent election in Haiti 

    19 April, 2009

    The U.S. government has a new strategy to stop Jean-Bertrand Aristide and his Fanmi Lavalas party from winning elections in Haiti.

    Keeping Aristide in exile and Fanmi Lavalas off the ballot in Haiti is easier than arranging another coup, like the two Washington administrations previously pulled off against Aristide.

    Of course, the U.S. foreign policy operatives will never admit that this is U.S. policy. Even though it was U.S. security agents that forced President Aristide onto a U.S. plane on Feb. 29, 2004, and flew him to Africa.

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  • InI 10:44 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti: Canada's Bloody Hands By JOHN MAXWELL 

    19 April, 2009

    In my teenage years, my stepfather used to buy Colliers and the Saturday Evening Post; I bought Newsweek and occasionally TIME, and those magazines formed, for a little while, my window into the modern world.

    I was never as credulous as my contemporaries, and my faith in TIME and Newsweek began to fray with their reporting of the clash between Peron and La Prensa in Argentina. It disappeared almost entirely the first time I read a report in those magazines allegedly about Jamaica. These doubts came flooding back half a century later when I tried to find an address in Managua, Nicaragua. It went something like this: Third house on the left on the second road on the right next to the Esso gas station on the road by the zoo.

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  • InI 10:34 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Electoral Exclusion in Haiti By KEVIN PINA 

    16 April 16, 2009

    Obama’s First Foreign Policy Disaster?

    The Obama administration and the international community have largely remained silent the past two weeks concerning a decision by Haiti’s election council to move forward with controversial Senate elections scheduled for April 19. A visit in early March by former president Bill Clinton and U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon to ‘draw attention to Haiti and promote development,’ an international donors conference on Haiti held in Washington D.C. yesterday, and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s visit to Haiti today, have only temporarily distracted attention away from the controversial election.

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  • InI 09:37 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Electoral Sham in Haiti By Stephen Lendman 

    17 April, 2009

    Few people anywhere have suffered more for so long, yet endure and keep struggling for change. For brief periods under Jean-Bertand Aristide, they got it until a US-led February 29, 2004 coup d’etat forced him into exile where he remains Haiti’s symbolic leader – for his supporters, still head of the Fanmi Lavalas (FL) party he founded in 1996 to reestablish links between local Lavalas branches and its parliamentary representatives.

    From then to now, nothing has been the same. UN paramilitaries occupy the country. Washington effectively controls it. President Rene Preval got a choice – go along or pay the price. He submitted knowing what awaits him if he resists. Nonetheless, he’s disappointed bitterly.

    Haitians suffered dearly as a result, deeply impoverished, at times starving, denied the most basic essentials, plagued by violence, a brutal occupier, police repression, an odious and onerous debt, and exploitive sweatshop conditions for those lucky enough to have a job in a country plagued by unemployment and deprivation.

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  • InI 09:06 on April 21, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    EUROPEAN AIRS: UNITY OF THE LEFT – CHIMERA OR REALITY? By Gaither Stewart 

    (Rome-Paris) — Four parties and movements of the quarrelsome and divided Italian Left have allied for the European parliamentary elections next June. That is good news. Communist Refoundation, Party of Italian Communists, Socialism 2000, and United Consumers have agreed to unify their meagre forces in order to surpass the 4% electoral barrier so that Communists, with their red flag with the hammer and sickle emblem, can again sit in the Assembly of the European Union.

    For many years now such unity on the Italian Left has been painfully absent, its former voters, bewildered and confused, wandering from center-left to right, in an electoral diaspora. Running separately in national elections in 2006, the two parties using the name Communist garnered a total of 10% of the vote. In comparison to today’s numbers those were the good old days. For during the breakdown of Left unity, proletarians in the Rome periphery even voted for the neo-fascist National Alliance and workers in north Italy cast their votes for the rightwing Northern League. Communists now hope to win back their traditional Left vote that once—though today almost a political relic—counted one-third of the nation’s electorate.

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  • InI 11:16 on April 20, 2009 Permalink | Reply
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    Obama's Cockeyed Optimism: "We are starting to see glimmers of hope across the economy." By Mike Whitney 

    18 April, 2009 – Global Research

    Retail sales fell in March as soaring job losses and tighter credit conditions forced consumers to cut back sharply on discretionary spending. Nearly every sector saw declines including electronics, restaurants, furniture, sporting goods and building materials. Auto sales continued their historic nosedive despite aggressive promotions on new vehicles and $13 billion of aid from the federal government. The crash in housing, which began in July 2006, accelerated on the downside in March, falling 19 percent year-over-year, signaling more pain ahead. Mortgage defaults are rising and foreclosures in 2009 are estimated to be in the 2.1 million range, an uptick of 400,000 from 2008. Consumer spending is down, housing is in a shambles, and industrial output dropped at an annual rate of 20 percent, the largest quarterly decrease since VE Day. The systemwide contraction continues unabated with with no sign of letting up.

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