Updates from January, 2010 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts

  • InI 12:08 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Russian Report: Did U.S. weapon against Iran cause Haiti earthquake? By Andrew Moran 

    23 January, 2010 — Digital Journal

    An unconfirmed report by the Russian Northern Fleets suggests that the devastating Haiti earthquake was caused by a United States Navy ‘earthquake weapons’ test, which was intended to be used against Iran.

    On Thursday, Digital Journal reported that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez accused the United States of causing the Haiti earthquake, which killed more than 100,000 people, through a tectonic weapon. Chavez also accused the US of trying to use the deadly earthquake to occupy Haiti.

    According to an unconfirmed report by the Russian Northern Fleets, the tragic earthquake in Haiti was caused by a US navy earthquake weapon that went ‘horribly wrong,’ reports Press TV. The weapons test was originally supposed to be used against Iran but caused the cataclysmic earthquake in the Caribbean country.

    The purpose of the earthquake weapon being used against Iran, according to the Russian report, was to topple the current Islamic system in the country.

    Vive TV reports that the unconfirmed Russian report also suggests that the US instigated the 6.5 magnitude earthquake in the Pacific Ocean earlier this month. That earthquake did not cause any deaths or injuries but did damage many residential and commercial buildings.

    The report further states that the system carrying out these tests is the High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP). The data also coincides with a previous report that associates the 2008 7.8 magnitude earthquake in China with HAARP.

    Although Russia has accused the US of holding such a type of weapon, a Georgia Green Party leader claimed that Moscow, allegedly possessing similar weapons, caused an earthquake on Georgian territory several years ago.

    The Russian Northern Fleets report has not been confirmed or verified by official sources.

    Update
    See: Hugo Chavez Did Not Accuse the U.S. of Causing the Haitian Earthquake

     

  • InI 10:38 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    MERCY-NARY: My appearance January 21 on The Rachel Maddow Show By Jeremy Scahill 

    21 January, 2010 — Rebel Reports

    MERCY-NARY: My appearance January 21 on The Rachel Maddow Show, discussing how US mercenary companies are looking to cash in on the earthquake in Haiti.



    more about “MERCY-NARY: My appearance January 21 …“, posted with vodpod
     

  • InI 10:34 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Disaster Capitalism in Haiti By Stephen Lendman 

    24 January, 2010 — Atlantic Free Press – Hard Truths for Hard Times

    In her book, ‘The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism,’ Naomi Klein explores the myth of free market democracy, explaining how neoliberalism dominates the world with America its main exponent exploiting security threats, terror attacks, economic meltdowns, competing ideologies, tectonic political or economic shifts, and natural disasters to impose its will everywhere.

    As a result, wars are waged, social services cut, public ones privatized, and freedom sacrificed when people are too distracted, cowed or in duress to object. Disaster capitalism is triumphant everywhere from post-Soviet Russia to post-apartheid South Africa, occupied Iraq and Afghanistan, Honduras before and after the US-instigated coup, post-tsunami Sri Lanka and Aceh, Indonesia, New Orleans post-Katrina, and now heading to Haiti full-throttle after its greatest ever catastrophe. The same scheme always repeats, exploiting people for profits, the prevailing neoliberal idea that ‘there is no alternative’ so grab all you can.

    On Her web site, Klein headlines a ‘Haiti Disaster Capitalism Alert: Stop Them Before They Shock Again,’ then quotes the extremist Heritage Foundation saying:

    ‘In addition to providing immediate humanitarian assistance, the US response to the tragic Haiti earthquake offers opportunities to re-shape Haiti’s long-dysfunctional government and economy as well as to improve the public image of the United States in the region.’

    Continue reading this post...

     

  • InI 10:16 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti needs emergency relief, not military intervention — add your name to open letter 

    21 January 2010 — Green Left

    The ‘open letter’ published below has been initiated by the Canada Haiti Action Network. CHAN is calling for individuals and organisations to add their names to the statement, You can add your name here

    21 January 2010

    We, the undersigned, are outraged by the scandalous delays in distributing essential aid to victims of the earthquake in Haiti. Since the US Air Force seized unilateral control of the airport in Port-au-Prince, it has privileged military over civilian humanitarian flights. As a result, untold numbers of people have died needlessly in the rubble of Port-au-Prince, Leogane and other abandoned towns.

    If aid continues to be withheld, many more preventable deaths will follow. We demand that US commanders immediately restore executive control of the relief effort to Haiti’s leaders, and to help rather than replace the local officials they claim to support.

    We note that obsessive foreign concerns with ‘security’ and ‘looting’ are largely refuted by actual levels of patience and solidarity on the streets of Port-au-Prince. The decision to avoid what US commanders have called ‘another Somalia-type situation’ by prioritizing security and military control is likely to succeed only in provoking the very kinds of unrest they condemn.

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  • InI 09:36 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti: A history of exploitation and struggle By Amanda Zivcic 

    23 January 2010 – Green Left

    Since the earthquake struck Haiti on January 12, there has been a global outpouring of support. Many people, horrified by the scenes of sheer devastation, the astronomical death toll and the struggle of survivors to gain access to medicines, food and shelter, are left wondering: why so many?

    The oft-repeated tag of Haiti being ‘the poorest nation in the Western hemisphere’ is true but this did not just happen. It is the result of a history of colonialism, slavery, imperialism, foreign military intervention, foreign-imposed dictatorships and unjust debt.

    The Caribbean nation’s indigenous people were all but wiped out by 1520 due to the disease and exploitation that came with the arrival of the Spaniards in 1492. After France and Spain divided the island of Hispaniola into Haiti and the Dominican Republic, French and Spanish settlers arrived.

    The colonisers brought enslaved Africans with them to establish tobacco, sugar and coffee plantations.

    The slave plantations began Haiti’s environmental destruction, the destabilisation of its soils, helping make natural disasters, such as landslides, much more destructive.

    After a successful slave revolt, Haiti became the world’s first post-colonial black state.

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  • InI 09:33 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti: US military occupation worsens suffering, blocks aid By Tony Iltis 

    23 January 2010 — Green Left

    Right-wing columnist David Brooks began his January 15 New York Times piece by reminding his readers that when, in October 1989, the San Francisco Bay Area was hit by an earthquake similar in magnitude to the one that devastated Haiti on January 12, the death toll was 63.

    The death toll in Haiti is estimated to be 200,000 and is still rising.

    Brooks used crude racism to blame ‘a complex web of progress-resistant cultural influences [including] the influence of the voodoo religion’.

    Most media coverage of Haiti’s latest tragedy lacks Brooks’ crudeness, but the same assumptions dominate. This racist narrative is being used as a smokescreen, behind which the US is cynically using the earthquake to increase its military, political and economic control of Haiti. (Actively hampering relief efforts in the process.)

    US President Barack Obama immediately responded to the tragedy with trademark lofty rhetoric, declaring: ‘I have directed my administration to respond with a swift, coordinated, and aggressive effort to save lives.

    ‘The people of Haiti will have the full support of the United States in the urgent effort to rescue those trapped beneath the rubble, and to deliver the humanitarian relief — the food, water and medicine — that Haitians will need in the coming days.’

    Unfortunately, he lied.

    Continue reading this post...

     

  • InI 08:12 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Just like a Waving Flag 

    23 January, 2010 — Climate & Capitalism

    K’naan sang this powerful song on the Hope for Haiti telethon on Canadian television last night ….By coincidence, I heard Wavin’ Flag for the first time earlier this week, and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since. Somalia born K’naan moved to Canada in 1991, when he was 13. Much of his music is about Africa and Somalia. This song appears on his most recent album, Troubadour. A version of Wavin’ Flag (same chorus, different verses) has been chosen as the official song for the Africa leg of the 2010 FIFA World Cup trophy tour.

    more about “Just like a Waving Flag“, posted with vodpod
     

  • InI 07:55 on January 24, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Rabbinic Text or Call to Terror? By Daniel Estrin 

    20 January 20, 2010 — Jewish Forward

    Jerusalem — The marble-patterned, hardcover book embossed with gold Hebrew letters looks like any other religious commentary you’d find in an Orthodox Judaica bookstore — but reads like a rabbinic instruction manual outlining acceptable scenarios for killing non-Jewish babies, children and adults.

    “The prohibition ‘Thou Shalt Not Murder’” applies only “to a Jew who kills a Jew,” write Rabbis Yitzhak Shapira and Yosef Elitzur of the West Bank settlement of Yitzhar. Non-Jews are “uncompassionate by nature” and attacks on them “curb their evil inclination,” while babies and children of Israel’s enemies may be killed since “it is clear that they will grow to harm us.”

    “The King’s Torah (Torat Hamelech), Part One: Laws of Life and Death between Israel and the Nations,” a 230-page compendium of Halacha, or Jewish religious law, published by the Od Yosef Chai yeshiva in Yitzhar, garnered a front-page exposé in the Israeli tabloid Ma’ariv, which called it the stuff of “Jewish terror.”

    Now, the yeshiva is in the news again, with a January 18 raid on Yitzhar by more than 100 Israeli security officials who forcibly entered Od Yosef Chai and arrested 10 Jewish settlers. The Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic security agency, suspects five of those arrested were involved in the torching and vandalizing of a Palestinian mosque last month in the neighboring Palestinian village of Yasuf. The arson provoked an international outcry and condemnation by Israeli religious figures, including Ashkenazi Chief Rabbi Yona Metzger, who visited the village to personally voice his regret.

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  • InI 17:52 on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    U.S.-China Military Tensions Grow By Rick Rozoff 

    20 January, 2010 — Global Research

    Even though the U.S. military budget is almost ten times that of China’s (with a population more than four times as large) and Washington plans a record $708 billion defense budget for next year compared to Russia spending less than $40 billion last year for the same, China and Russia are portrayed as threats to the U.S. and its allies.

    China has no troops outside its borders; Russia has a small handful in its former territories in Abkhazia, Armenia, South Ossetia and Transdniester. The U.S. has hundreds of thousands of troops stationed in six continents.

    While Gates was in charge of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and responsible for almost half of international military spending he was offended that the world’s most populous nation might desire to “deny others countries the ability to threaten it.”

    On December 23 of last year Raytheon Company announced that it had received a $1.1 billion contract with Taiwan for the purchase of 200 Patriot anti-ballistic missiles. In early January the U.S. Defense Department cleared the transaction “despite opposition from rival China, where a military official proposed sanctioning U.S. firms that sell arms to the island.” [1]

    The sale completes a $6.5 billion weapons package approved by the previous George W. Bush administration at the end of 2008. In the words of the Asia bureau chief of Defense News, “This is the last piece that Taiwan has been waiting on.” [2]

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  • InI 12:26 on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti Newslinks 22-23 January, 2010 

    23 January, 2010

    Africa Policy Outlook 2010 | EthioSun: We all are Haitians!
     By Atse Minilik
    The argument that AFRICOM is primarily designed to provide humanitarian support has largely disappeared. Yet the United States still struggles to persuade African people of the benefits of AFRICOM. To most observers, Africa has never …
    http://www.ethiosun.com/africa-policy-outlook-2010/

    Celebrities Go Low-Key, and Sometimes Nameless, in the Haiti Telethon
     New York Times
    The star-studded fund-raiser on Friday that he organized for victims of the Haiti earthquake was a study in carefully muted star power. …
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/arts/television/23watch.html

    Haiti’s Icon of Power, Now Palace for Ghosts
     New York Times
    By MARC LACEY PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti — The only sound inside Haiti’s National Palace comes from the crunch underneath one’s soles. Its ornate reception rooms …
    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/23/world/americas/23palace.html

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  • InI 09:31 on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Jean Saint-Vil, Haiti realities #3 – 100120 

    21 January, 2010

    Jean Saint-Vil of Canada Haiti Action is interviewed by Pat Van Horne regarding realities and myths about Haiti – recorded in Ottawa for Straight Goods News on January 20, 2010. Part 3 of 3.



     

  • InI 09:28 on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Jean Saint-Vil, Haiti realities #2 

    20 January, 2010

    Jean Saint-Vil of Canada Haiti Action is interviewed by Pat Van Horne regarding realities and myths about Haiti – recorded in Ottawa for Straight Goods News on January 20, 2010. Part 2 of 3.



     

  • InI 09:23 on January 23, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Jean Saint-Vil, Haiti realities #1 

    20 January, 2010

    Jean Saint-Vil of Canada Haiti Action is interviewed by Pat Van Horne regarding realities and myths about Haiti – recorded in Ottawa for Straight Goods News on January 20, 2010. Part 1 of 3. Video: Kevin Caners. Producer: Ish Theilheimer.

    more about “Jean Saint-Vil, Haiti realities #1“, posted with vodpod
     

  • InI 19:07 on January 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    US: Campaign financing: Corporations can now spend unlimited amounts 

    22 January, 2010

    Yesterday, the Supreme Court announced a disastrous rollback of campaign finance laws. Their 5-4 decision gives corporations free rein to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections.

    It’s a horrible decision. But we can undo some of the damage if Congress passes public financing of elections, which would give progressives and populists who don’t have industry backing the ability to compete.

    You can sign the petition urging Congress to pass public financing of elections quickly below:

    http://pol.moveon.org/fairelectionsnow/?r_by=-9290531-c60iRex&rc=paste


     

  • InI 16:36 on January 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    A Haiti Disaster Relief Scenario Was Envisaged by the US Military One Day Before the Earthquake by Michel Chossudovsky 

    21 January, 2010 — Global Research

    A Haiti disaster relief scenario had been envisaged at the headquarters of US Southern Command (SOUTHCOM) in Miami one day prior to the earthquake.

    The holding of pre-disaster simulations pertained to the impacts of a hurricane in Haiti. They were held on January 11. (Bob Brewin,  Defense launches online system to coordinate Haiti relief efforts (1/15/10) — GovExec.com, complete text of article is contained in Annex)

    The Defense Information Systems Agency (DISA), which is under the jurisdiction of the Department of Defense (DoD), was involved in organizing these scenarios on behalf of US Southern Command.(SOUTHCOM).

    Defined as a “Combat Support Agency”, DISA has a mandate to provide IT and telecommunications, systems, logistics services in support of the US military. (See DISA website: Defense Information Systems Agency).

    On the day prior to the earthquake, “on Monday [January 11, 2010], Jean Demay, DISA’s technical manager for the agency’s Transnational Information Sharing Cooperation project, happened to be at the headquarters of the U.S. Southern Command in Miami preparing for a test of the system in a scenario that involved providing relief to Haiti in the wake of a hurricane.” (Bob Brewin, op cit, emphasis added)

    Continue reading this post...

     

  • InI 10:19 on January 22, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti Newslinks 21-22 January, 2010 

    22 January, 2010

    Analysis: Rachel Cohen and Alan Maass
     THE SIEGE OF HAITI
    A ring of U.S. warships on patrol off Haiti’s coast to stop desperate people from trying to flee is a stark symbol of Washington’s attitude toward refugees.
    socialistworker.org/2010/01/22/siege-of-haiti

    Comment: Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor
     THE MEDIA’S SCAPEGOATING REFLEX
    The earthquake that rocked Haiti has brought back hard memories of the racist atmosphere whipped up after the Katrina disaster in New Orleans.
    socialistworker.org/2010/01/22/media-scapegoating-reflex

    Comment: Sasha Kramer
     HAITI’S HOPE AMID THE SUFFERING
    An activist describes how Haitians are enduring in dire circumstances—in contrast to the media reports of violence.
    socialistworker.org/2010/01/21/hope-amid-the-suffering

    US rejects Latin American claim it is ‘occupying’ Haiti
     AFP
    Her comments came after Venezuela, Bolivia and Nicaragua — all three led by anti-US governments — claimed Washington was using the international relief …
    http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hxPFjXRHzg1A1D9UuUAKhbd7j98A

    Morales deplores US ‘occupation’ of Haiti
     Carlos Valdez, Associated Press
    LA PAZ, Bolivia — President Evo Morales said Wednesday that Bolivia would seek U.N. condemnation of what he called the U.S. military occupation of earthquake-stricken Haiti. “The United States cannot use a natural disaster to militarily occupy Haiti,” he told reporters at the presidential palace. “Haiti doesn’t need more blood,” Morales added, implying that the militarized U.S. humanitarian mission could lead to bloodshed.
    feedblitz.com/r.asp?l=43924886&f=157895&u=3170875&c=0

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  • InI 17:44 on January 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Disasters are Big Business By William Bowles 

    21 January, 2010

    I am staggered. There are 10,000 ‘NGOs’ (Non-Governmental Organizations) in Haiti, one for every 900 inhabitants and each one of them has no doubt at least one Westerner working within, yet aside from the Cuban health workers, it seems they could do nothing until the gringos arrived with their Blackhawks and nuclear-tipped aircraft carrier and of course, the 82nd Airborne, paying yet another ‘visit’ to this benighted and super-exploited land to ‘secure’ the place for the locust storm of aid to come (too late for too many).

    Now I’ve never been a fan of ‘NGOs’ not only because my own experience with them has been less than edifying but because they are the direct result of ‘benign neglect’ on the part of the state. In other words they initially appeared to fill a void left when states washed their hands of the mess they’d left behind or they just ditched their responsibilities.

    But unlike governments who are, in theory anyway, answerable to their electorate, ‘NGOs’ are answerable to no one. They are not elected, they are not representative. In their way they are more like neo-colonial ‘stand-ins’ for the former colonizers, at least at the ‘social services’ end of things. Well, it seems many of the 10,000 have been tested and found wanting.

    Now this is not say that there aren’t thousands, even tens of thousands of people who genuinely want to help (Brits have so far donated more than £30 million to Haiti Relief) but compare the role of the Cuban medical teams with most of the other ‘NGOs’ working in Haiti, all ten thousand of them. The Cubans have the direct backing of the Cuban state with all that that entails. Moreover, they were able to draw on their own experiences with disasters to which Cuba is no stranger and react immediately and effectively (not that you’d have seen it reported much on your TV screens but they were first on the scene).

    I have no idea how many people in the ‘developed’ world owe their living to other people’s misfortunes but it surely must run into millions and given that the most advanced of the capitalist states now have largely ‘service’ economies under which I assume ‘NGOs’ fall, disasters make a major contribution to their economies.

    Continue reading this post...

     

    • sartesian 21:44 on January 21, 2010 Permalink

      Oh it’s a big business, all right, a big religious business. Many of the NGOs are the new missionaries of free market Christianity, saving souls– no, actually accumulating souls like the little capitalists they are.

      Welcome to the military-industrial-evangelical complex.

  • InI 13:25 on January 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Haiti and the politics of climate change By Op Rana 

    18 January, 2010 — China Daily

    A chilling cartoon by Steve Bell in The Guardian says it all. Standing among the ruins of the Haitian presidential palace in Port-au-Prince are two persons. A speech balloon above one reads: ‘Perhaps if Haiti were a bank…’

    The country has been the victim of nature’s fury before. Barely one and half years ago, it was battered by four devastating hurricanes. And now this killer quake, which has leveled Port-au-Prince, has killed tens of thousands of people, left many trapped under rubble or missing, destroyed homes and livelihood, and shattered hope.

    The government doesn’t have enough resources and trained manpower to for a full-scale rescue and relief operation and has appealed to the international community for help. Promises have flown in from all corners of the globe.

    Some countries, including China, have already dispatched essentials and personnel. But most of the promises are yet to materialize.

    Well, Haiti is not a bank. It cannot expect to get what it has been promised. So what if it did not bring the disaster upon itself. Haiti is arguably the poorest countries in the Western hemisphere today. But till well into the 19th century it was one of the richest in the Caribbean (the richest French colony in the New World before its independence in 1804). And unlike the banks, the poor Haiti of today is not the result of its people but of foreign interventions and patronage of its dictators.

    Continue reading this post...

     

  • InI 13:15 on January 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    19th January 2010 – CNN report on Cuban medical teams in Haiti 

    19 January, 2010 — More Cuban Videos

    Cuban medical teams already on the ground in Haiti help victims of the earthquake. Graphic content.

     

  • InI 13:04 on January 21, 2010 Permalink | Reply
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    Cuba Update: BILLY BRAGG PLUS OTHER SPECIAL GUESTS TO PLAY CONCERT FOR HAITI 

    21 January, 2010 — Cuba Update

    DONATE TO CUBAN MEDICAL BRIGADES IN HAITI

    1. BILLY BRAGG PLUS OTHER SPECIAL GUESTS TO PLAY CONCERT FOR HAITI

    Billy Bragg and Cuban band Son Mas are among the very special guests performing at the Concert for Haiti – a fundraising concert for the TUC Aid Haiti Earthquake Appeal on Wednesday 3 February at the TUC Congress House, London.

    Tickets are now on sale priced £10 and proceeds will go to the Haiti Earthquake Appeal. Please buy tickets today and forward this email and website address to friends, family and colleagues today.

    Find out more and book your tickets now at: http://www.concertforhaiti.co.uk

    2. DONATE TO CUBAN MEDICAL BRIGADES IN HAITI

    A Cuban bank account has now been opened to receive financial contributions to help with the Cuban medical teams working in Haiti.

    Full details on how to donate directly to the Cuban medical brigades in Haiti here:
    http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news.asp?ItemID=1775

    Full reports and videos available at:
    http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news.asp?ItemID=1768

    Video interviews with Cuban docotrs in Haiti on the CSC YouTube site:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfQ1VUH2-hs&feature=channel

    Interviews with Cuban doctors working in Haiti:
    http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/news.asp?ItemID=1769

    Cuba Update is the news and information bulletin of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, UK. Reports in this bulletin are from various sources on the web and may contain opinions and phrasing that do not reflect the views of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign.

    VISIT OUR ONLINE SHOPPING SITE

    http://www.cubaconnect.co.uk

    Cuba Solidarity Campaign
    c/o Unite Woodberry
    218 Green Lanes
    London N4 2HB

    Tel. 020 8800 0155

    Email: office@cuba-solidarity.org.uk
    http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk

     

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