Month: October 2008

Sergei MARKEDONOV: Abkhazia as the Theatre of Georgia’s Terrorist Activities and Sabotage

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31 October, 2008

The renewed attempts to destabilise the situation in Abkhazia against the background of the unquiet life in South Ossetia and Georgia’s territory adjacent to it, need consideration and assessment of these new threats to the security of South Caucasian states recognised by Russia and to Russia itself as a guarantor of their statehood and the right of self-determination.

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On October 15, 2008 a group of unidentified persons opened fire in the village of Bargyab, Abkhazia’s Gala district, heavily wounding Beslan Chkonia, the chief of the local police department.

Since the end of the first Georgian-Abkhazian conflict in 1993, the lower zone of the Ghali district has been regarded the most dangerous territory of this republic. Abkhazian law enforcement agencies regard it as the most probable theatre of sabotage and acts of terror Georgia can undertake.

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Igor TOMBERG: Under Sign of Cartels

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28 October, 2008

The global financial crisis prompted Moscow to intensify its participation in energy price formation. Being the major oil and gas producer worldwide, until recently Russia has had no opportunity to set up export prices: the issue was in the competence of western stocks, while Russia sold its resources at the prices set up by speculative traders controlling the international financial flows. Now that the credit market has thinned, leaving few chances for speculations, Moscow begins to play a more adequate role in fuel price formation. Having carrying out some calculations, Russian experts concluded that the lack of liquidity would make the law of supply and demand more influential. And Russia is capable of affecting the demand. The crisis lead to weaker economic activity, decreased oil consumption and caused lower prices.

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Max Kantar: A Case Study Of Power And Media: The Washington Post

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31 October, 2008

Last week’s unilateral attack on Syria and the subsequent coverage of the events by the mainstream US media give us an impeccable illustration of the prevailing ideologies that dictate how news is received, composed, and understood by respectable journalists and reporters.

In fact, considering all of the variables surrounding the recent US attack, this single case could not be a more perfect example to evaluate for the sake of gaining a clear understanding not only of the rationale behind US foreign policy, but the ideological constraints that shackle our ‘free’ press.

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Kawther Salam – Jewish Terrorist attacks Church of the Holy Sepulcher

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sepuchre.jpgIn the night of Wednesday, October 29, an extremist orthodox Jew – chosen by God, invaded the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the old city of Jerusalem. The Jewish terrorist tried to harm three monks who were worshiping God in the church. The monks saw the terrorist Jew and escaped from his attack, but then the terrorist left the Church and went on to vandalize several Palestinian shops nearby the Church. He broke many wooden crosses before the Palestinians shop owners called the Israeli Police.

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GazaFriends: 31 October, 2008 Palestinian Fishing Boats Attacked by Israeli gunboats

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For Immediate Release

For More Information, Please Contact:
Greta Berlin (Cyprus) +357 99 081 767 / iristulip@gmail.com
Osama Qashoo (Cyprus) +44 (0)78 3338 1660 / osamaqashoo@gmail.com
Angela Godfrey Goldstein (Jerusalem)  +972 (0)54 736 6393 / angela@icahd.org

At 10:00 am Cyprus time, three Israeli gunboats attacked Palestinian fishing boats in the territorial waters of Gaza. Eleven internationals have accompanied the fishermen on five of the boats. The internationals were from the Free Gaza Movement and had landed on the shores of Gaza on October 29 aboard the SS DIGNITY.

According to David Schermerhorn, one of the internationals on board, “Three naval vessels attacked us with machine gun fire and water cannons. All three boats have machine guns on board, one of them has a huge water cannon. The water from the cannon was so fierce, it blasted a lot of the equipment overboard as well as my GPS locator. At the time of the attack, we were about 9 miles offshore fishing. Several of us got on the radio to the Israeli navy and shouted, “We are human rights watchers. We are unarmed internationals, and we are recording everything you are doing. They completely ignored us and continued menacing all of the boats.”

As David was talking to us, one of the gunboats came back to within 45 meters, shearing the water and making it difficult for the small boat to steer its course.

Greta Berlin
Media Team
Free Gaza Movement
357 99 08 17 67
www.freegaza.org
www.anis-online.de/office/events/FreeGazaSong.htm
www.flickr.com/photos/29205195

Desmond Tutu – Q&A: "We Must Rethink the International Economic System"

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Desmond Tutu

Credit:Bankole Thompson/IPS

DETROIT, Michigan, Oct 30 (IPS) – Archbishop Desmond Tutu is South Africa’s first black Anglican bishop. An elder statesman whose moral voice and advocacy against the racist apartheid regime in South Africa first brought him to the world stage in the 1980s, Tutu received the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984.

Today he is an international peace negotiator, a man sought after by world leaders and governments for his counsel, and a teacher of peace, justice and non-violence on the campuses of major colleges and universities around the world.

IPS correspondent Bankole Thompson had a one-on-one interview with the man Nelson Mandela trusted with the Truth and Reconciliation Commission to bring racial healing to South Africa. Tutu was in Michigan Wednesday to receive the University of Michigan’s Wallenberg Medal in Ann Arbor for his humanitarian work.

Tutu told IPS that the current global financial crisis shows something is wrong with the ‘free market’ system and called for a review of the fundamentals of capitalism. He said African governments should form cartels to protect their institutions if Western nations are protecting their own financial companies, lamented that Africa’s political and religious leadership failed Zimbabweans, and hailed the prospect of a Barack Obama presidency in the U.S.

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Council on Hemispheric Affairs – Colombia’s Political Horizon: The Rise of a New Left

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Colombia’s President Uribe: ‘I deplore that Senator Obama’

Current Political Landscape
In contemporary discourse regarding Latin America, Colombia is often characterized as a failed state mired by ruinous civil war and reflecting the pervasive influence of powerful drug-running paramilitaries. On the other hand, there are those who see the country as an enviable exemplar of democracy led by one of the most popular presidents of the region. The U.S. government, not surprisingly, is the indefatigable spokesperson for the latter interpretation. Comments by officials like former U.S. Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Nicolas Burns, who stated in 2006 that ‘during the last five years, the Colombian people have produced the greatest success story in Latin America,’ are unfortunately, common.

Depictions such as these above do little to deepen people’s understanding of this problematic country and its significance in contemporary Latin America. As of late, this type of inflated rhetoric has obfuscated developments which are challenging the status quo in Colombia and could fundamentally alter the country’s so-called ‘special’ relationship with the U.S., as well as with some of its Latin American neighbors. As of now, a challenge is emanating from multiple sectors of society, but particularly from the politically progressive wing comprised of the excluded, the dispossessed, and the indigenous, who are increasingly exerting anti-government pressure in the public forum in an effort to make themselves heard.

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Oct. 29th, 1948 in history: Massacres in Palestine

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Today in history is another black day in the Palestinian history.

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1. On October 29, 1948, when Israeli brigades captured the village of Safsaf. The known details of the massacre come to us via several contemporary second-hand Zionist reports and via Arab oral history. Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah (and later the director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee), recorded in his diary what he was told by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry:

In Safsaf, after … the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of fifty-sixty fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they raped several women… (quoted in Zertal, 2005, p. 171; see also Morris, 2005, p. 500).

Moshe Erem reported on the massacre to a meeting of the Mapam Political Committee but his words were censored from the minutes. According to the notes taken by another person present, Erem spoke of:

Safsaf 52 men tied together with a rope. Pushed down a well and shot. 10 killed. Women pleaded for mercy. 3 cases of rape . . . . A girl of 14 raped. Another four killed (Morris, 2004, p. 500).

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Crisis Chronicle: U.S. pulls the plug on the world

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The U.S. administration has prompted a huge surge in the U.S. dollar, which may help refinance its financial sector. The cost is a currency whirlwind that threatens the collapse not just of banks and companies but entire countries.

In the past week the financial crisis, which began in banking and spread to stocks, has careered into the currency markets. The U.S. actively decided back in September 2008 to shut down the investment banks that lend to the biggest professional investors. This has caused those investors to sell anything and everything and to settle their trades.

The result was a whirlwind of liquidation. Korean won, Turkish lira, Brazilian real, British pounds and commodities from oil and metals, all were sucked into the downdraft.

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Federico Fuentes: Bolivia: Unprecedented Alliance Defeats Right-Wing Assault

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LA PAZ: After three months of intense class struggle, there can be no doubt that the U.S.-backed right-wing opposition to the government of President Evo Morales has suffered three important defeats. The right’s offensive to topple Morales, which climaxed with the September 11-12 ‘civic coup’ attempt, has been decisively rolled back by the combined action of the government and social movements.

The government secured a historic vote in its favour with more than 67% endorsing Morales’ mandate in a referendum in August that also revoked the mandate of two opposition prefects. Another opposition prefect was arrested for his role in the coup. And now Morales has secured a referendum for the new draft Constitution to ‘refound Bolivia’ on the basis of justice for the indigenous majority.

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William Blum: Anti-Empire Report, Number 63

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Read this or George W. Bush will be president the rest of your life

October 30, 2008
www.killinghope.org

Don’t tell my mother I work at the White House. She thinks I play the piano in a whore house.

The Republican presidential campaign has tried to make a big issue of Barack Obama at one time associating with Bill Ayers, a member of the 1960s Weathermen who engaged in political bombings. Governor Palin has accused Obama of ‘palling around with terrorists’, although Ayers’ association with the Weathermen during their period of carrying out anti-Vietnam War bombings in the United States took place when Obama was around 8-years-old. Contrast this with who President Ronald Reagan, so beloved by the Republican candidates, associated with. Gulbuddin Hekmatyar was an Afghan warlord whose followers first gained attention by throwing acid in the faces of women who refused to wear the veil. This is how they spent their time when they were not screaming ‘Death to America‘. CIA and State Department officials called Hekmatyar ‘scary,’ ‘vicious,’ ‘a fascist,’ ‘definite dictatorship material’.[1] None of this prevented the Reagan administration from inviting the man to the White House to meet with Reagan, and showering him with large amounts of aid to fight against the Soviet-supported government of Afghanistan.

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Housman’s (London) Events Newsletter for November 2008

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CONTENTS:

  1. (book launch) Elizabeth Carola – ‘Hot’ – stories from Hackney
  2. (book event/talk) John Sinclair – ‘Rock and Revolution with the MC5 and the White Panther Party’
  3. (music) ‘Singing the Struggle: Voices, Women, Peace’ with Frankie Armstrong
  4. (book event/talk) ‘Digital Film Making’ with Mike Figgis
  5. (book event/music) ‘Forward Groove: the radical history of jazz’
    with Chris Searle
  6. (music) No Sweat @ Housmans -Triple Bill featuring King Blues’ frontman Itch Fox, Clayton Blizzard and PJ & Gaby
  7. (talk/party) War Resisters’ International website launch party
  8. (talk/music) ‘Lee ‘Scratch’ Perry – burning down the Ark’ with Henk Targowski
  9. DVDS & BOOKS
  10. John Sinclair – Guitar Army
  11. NEWS
  12. Housmans Peace Diary 2009

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