CounterCurrents Newsletter 9 March, 2010: Dafur $’s Funding West Bank Settlements
First Iceland, Then The World By Michael Collins
Who cleans up the mess when ignorant, greedy bankers rack up massive debt then go broke? The people of Iceland made a strong statement Saturday. The sins of big bankers and government regulators shouldn’t fall on the citizens. By a 93% to 2% margin, they voted down a proposal requiring them to cover bad debt incurred by one of the nation’s oldest and largest banks. Covering the debt would have cost Iceland’s 317,000 citizens around $17,000 each
http://www.countercurrents.org/collins090310.htm
Dafur $’s Funding West Bank Settlements By Thomas C. Mountain
Persons working with aid organizations assisting the victims of the Dafur conflict have passed on the news that they have confirmed through their contacts in the so called “Save Dafur Coalition” that millions of dollars raised to help the Dafur refugees have ended up in Israeli bank accounts. These accounts help fund programs that include illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank
http://www.countercurrents.org/mountain090310.htm
Amir (10) Abducted By Israeli Soldiers From His Bed By Nora Barrows-Friedman
Terrifying and harrowing experience of a Hebron boy at the hands of Israeli soldiers
http://www.countercurrents.org/friedman090310.htm
The Truth About Israel As Only Gideon Levy Can Tell It By Alan Hart
Gideon Levy writes for Ha’aretz, the newspaper than enables some Israelis, sadly a minority, to cling on to their sanity. I have described him in the past as the conscience of Israeli journalism. But he is far more than that. He is the conscience of all Israeli Jews. On 7 March 2010, he writes about the Israeli peace camp, which in terms of the headline over his article “Never was and never will be.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/hart090310.htm
Israel’s Apartheid By Murray Dobbin
There is absolutely no doubt that the system of separation of Arabs and Jews can be compared with the apartheid system in South Africa. Indeed, many experts on how the apartheid system was run claim that Israel’s system of hafrada, or separation, is far more brutal and deliberately humiliating than anything devised by the racist regimes of Pretoria
http://www.countercurrents.org/dobbin090310.htm
The Threatening Dangers By Fidel Castro
You can believe it or not, challenging the data –in my view irrefutable—of the most serious scientists of the world and the overwhelming majority of the most knowledgeable and honest people worldwide, who think that at the current pace the planet is warming up, the greenhouse gases will rise temperature not only by 1.5 degrees, but up to 5 degrees, and that the medium temperature is already the highest of the past 600 thousand years, long before the existence of human beings as a species on the planet. It is absolutely unthinkable that nine billion human beings who will inhabit the world by 2050 could survive such a catastrophe
http://www.countercurrents.org/castro090310.htm
Don’t Buy Obama’s Greenwashing Of Nuclear Power By Erich Pica
President Obama has said that “environmentalists and entrepreneurs” should no longer retread the same arguments about nuclear energy. But Vermont Yankee shows us that there’s nothing new in nuclear that merits revisiting; clean and safe nuclear energy remains an “Atoms for Peace” pipedream. There may be a shiny green coat of paint on the cooling tower, but dangerous chemicals still leak from the pipes
http://www.countercurrents.org/pica090310.htm
Global Women: Good News, Bad News By Katha Pollitt
And the winner is… Iceland! According to the 2009 Global Gender Gap report of the World Economic Forum, the land of glaciers and puffins, population 319,000, is the most gender egalitarian country on earth, with women having closed 80 percent of the gap with men. Finland (2), Norway (3), Sweden (4) and Denmark (7) are in the top ten too, as is New Zealand (5). You could try harder, Spain (17) and Germany (12)—in 2007 you were in the top ten. And O, Canada: 25
http://www.countercurrents.org/pollitt090310.htm
What White People Fear By Robert Jensen
I have a choice: I can be white—that is, I can refuse to challenge white supremacy or centrality—or I can be a human being. I can rest comfortably in the privileges that come with being white, or I can struggle to be fully human. But I can’t do both. Though the work is difficult, the choice for those of us who are white should be easy
http://www.countercurrents.org/jensen090310.htm
Israeli Siege Causing De-development of Gaza David Cronin interviews Mahmoud Abu Rahma
For the first time since September 2006, Mahmoud Abu Rahma, a leading figure in the Palestinian human rights group Al Mezan, has been granted permission to travel outside Gaza. More than 30 applications to leave the strip had previously been turned down by the Israeli authorities and it was not until German diplomats made representations on his behalf that he was finally allowed to visit Europe
http://www.countercurrents.org/cronin090310.htm
Fiction Of Marja As City Was U.S. Information War By Gareth Porter
The picture of Marja presented by military officials and obediently reported by major news media is one of the clearest and most dramatic pieces of misinformation of the entire war, apparently aimed at hyping the offensive as a historic turning point in the conflict. Marja is not a city or even a real town, but either a few clusters of farmers’ homes or a large agricultural area covering much of the southern Helmand River Valley
http://www.countercurrents.org/porter090310.htm
Informed Consent By William Blum
William Blum’s latest Anti-Empire report
http://www.countercurrents.org/blum090310.htm
Human Rights Learning By Shulamith Koenig
For all to know human rights as a way of life
http://www.countercurrents.org/koenig090310.htm
Rule By The People or By Wall Street By Ron Forthofer
Wall Street has kept Congress from enacting any strong reforms that would reduce the chances of yet another collapse. In fact, since these Wall Street firms and banks now know that they will be bailed out in a future crisis, they are pursuing the same and even riskier strategies than those that helped to create the 2008 disaster. By continuing to provide almost free money to the banks, the Federal Reserve is again fueling the growth of another risky bubble that is likely to dwarf the ongoing crisis
http://www.countercurrents.org/forthofer090310.htm
The Social Earthquake In Chile By Roger Burbach
Chile is experiencing a social earthquake in the aftermath of the 8.8 magnitude quake that struck the country on February 27. “The fault lines of the Chilean Economic Miracle have been exposed,” says Elias Padilla, an anthropology professor at the Academic University of Christian Humanism in Santiago. “The free market, neo-liberal economic model that Chile has followed since the Pinochet dictatorship has feet of mud.”
http://www.countercurrents.org/burbach090310.htm
Understanding Toyota Sudden Acceleration By Joel S. Hirschhorn
As a materials and manufacturing engineer with decades of experience with failure analysis of manufactured products, and as an owner of a Toyota vehicle, I am saddened by the lack of expertise and insight shared with Congress and the public about the sudden acceleration problem
http://www.countercurrents.org/hirschhorn090310.htm
“The Hurt Locker”: When Great Art Meets Lousy Politics By Bernard Weiner
I despise the implicit pro-Iraq War politics of “The Hurt Locker”: There is no examination or even mention in the film of why the U.S. might be fighting there, no look at the neo-conservative ideology that sent our troops there, no questioning of the aggressive tactics aimed at Iraqi civilians, no overt politics at all, for that matter. But I cannot deny the movie’s aesthetic power. It is a great film, one of the few war movies that really got into my gut. It well deserves its Best Picture Oscar
http://www.countercurrents.org/weiner090310.htm
The Business Of Water: Privatizing An Essential Resource By Stephen Lendman
Water is being privatized at an alarming rate
http://www.countercurrents.org/lendman090310.htm
Can The FBI-DOJ Probe Of New Orleans’ Police Hurricane Katrina Shootings Facilitate A Banana Republic? By Barbara Ann Jackson
Decades of horrific Civil Rights violations by New Orleans police, by elected officials and by sitting judges, make it hard not to suspect the motives of the newly launched local FBI-DOJ probe into that year 2005 shootings of unarmed Hurricane Katrina victims and the coverup. Prior to national media attention, the local FBI and Justice Department had been glaringly indifferent to what took place; and Judge Bigelow’s skewed dismissal of the criminal case against those officers, did not help those Katrina victims and their families receive justice
http://www.countercurrents.org/jackson090310.htm
State And Liberal Ideas By Irfan Engineer
In order to strengthen the liberal forces within both the communities, a larger responsibility falls on the state to create a conducive and non-intimidating environment where the liberals within all communities have equal opportunity and fair chance to compete and put across their views and ideas as well
http://www.countercurrents.org/engineer090310.htm
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