Day: September 10, 2008

Double Standards: Israeli military occupation is not a bar to EU partnership By David Morrison

Leave a comment

www.david-morrison.org.uk
david.morrison1@ntlworld.com

Israel’s military occupation is not a bar to EU partnership

On 1 September 2008, the EU decided that meetings with Russia about a new partnership agreement would be postponed “until [Russian] troops have withdrawn to the positions held prior to 7 August” [1], that is, until no Russian troops are present in Georgia outside South Ossetia.

On 28 November 1995, the EU allowed Israel to become a partner, under Euro-Mediterranean Partnership arrangements with states bordering on the Mediterranean. At the time, Israeli troops were occupying parts of Lebanon and Syria and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (the West Bank and Gaza) and had been for many years – Lebanon since 1978, the rest since 1967.

Continue reading →

Bad News From Haiti: U.S. Press Misses the Story

Leave a comment

By NACLA

Protests in Haiti over high food prices have dominated U.S. media coverage of the country in recent months. While these reports have drawn international attention to an urgent situation, they have often lacked proper context. Haiti’s problems did not suddenly arise, yet the media began paying attention to them only after the food protests erupted in April, especially after six people were killed and the prime minister, Jacques-Edouard Alexis, was forced out of office.[1]

If the U.S. media have failed to cover the story of political instability in Haiti with the depth it deserves, it is certainly not the first time. In fact, it is the latest episode in a pattern of U.S. reporting on Haiti that has given many of the most important stories only a cursory glance. To get an idea of how and why this happens, I interviewed several U.S. journalists who have reported from Haiti, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity.

Continue reading →

“Liquid Bomb” Plot: Trumping up the charges By Dr. Sahib Mustaqim Bleher

Leave a comment

“Liquid Bomb” Plot: Trumping up the charges By Dr. Sahib Mustaqim Bleher

Whilst the British government is gloating at having secured convictions of sorts, the fact is that its whole story of a plot to blow up airliners has been exposed as fiction.

“Three men have been found guilty of a massive terrorist conspiracy to murder involving home-made bombs.” This is how the BBC leads its article on the recent conviction of three British Muslims for to murder persons unknown. Most other news outlets carried similar hype, with only a few providing a more balanced picture of the outcome of the trial. In truth, the headline should have read: “There never was a conspiracy to blow up airliners with liquid explosives.” Whilst the government is gloating at having secured convictions of sorts, the fact is that its whole story of a plot on account of which every traveller in Europe had to surrender drinks at airport check-ins and carry toiletries in a clear plastic bag has been exposed as fiction.

Continue reading →

UPDATE FROM GAZA ON FISHERMEN ACCOMPANIMENT THIS PAST SATURDAY By Andrew Muncie

Leave a comment

Andrew Muncie is a Scottish national & human rights worker

On Saturday the 6th of September, human rights workers from the Free Gaza Movement and the International Solidarity Movement again accompanied Palestinian fishermen in Gaza. It was just 09:30 in the morning, and we were only 4 miles out to sea, having barely left Gaza’s coastline behind, when the gunboat’s heavy machine gun opened up, spraying the wake around our hull with bullets.

Continue reading →