Day: December 19, 2009

Viva Palestina Gaza convoy reaches Konya

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19 December, 2009 — Viva Palestina

Freedom for Gaza convoy received a heartfelt welcome from the residents of Konya as it arrived in the city on Şeb-i Arus (the night of Rumi’s union with Allah, namely his death).

The Gaza aid convoy arrived in Konya on a cold December night. It was welcomed by local people with Palestinian flags. They waited for the convoy to arrive at town entrance for hours despite freezing temperatures.

Convoy participants spent the night at Selçuklu Cultural Center, sleeping in sleeping bags they had brought with themselves.

On 18 December at 10: a.m. a demonstration was held at Salı Pazarı with attendance of a large crowd. Huge Palestinian flags were carried and support to the Palestinian people was voiced.

Latif Selvi, president of Konya NGOs Platform, addressed the crowd saying “I greet the entire group that will go to Gaza. Let this case of sensitivity be an example to the world.”

“Gaza is people’s conscience. We call upon everyone to own the Gaza cause,” said Veli Tolu, Konya provincial head for Saadet Partisi (Felicity Party).

Kevin Ovenden, an organizer for the UK part of the convoy, said they were welcomed well in Turkey and found the people of Turkey really concerned about the Palestinian issue.

Bülent Yıldırım, president of the IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation, organizer of the Turkish leg of the convoy, said: “If British citizens go to Gaza leaving behind their families and children, then we have to do much more. We as Muslims should help our brothers and sisters there. I am urging everyone to march to streets if this convoy is not let into Gaza from Egypt.”

“I am calling on Arab leaders in particular. If Gaza goes down, you will go down too. Gaza is the cause of all of us. I am urging everyone to support this convoy”, he added.

The convoy headed for the city of Adana after completing its program in Konya.

For further developments on the Viva Palestina convoy to Gaza visit www.vivapalestina.org and www.ihh.org.tr

———————
Alice Howard
Viva Palestina UK – Administration Manager
Tel: 07944 512 469
Email: alice@vivapalestina.org
Website: http://www.vivapalestina.org/

An unholy alliance: The Media, the State and Big Business By William Bowles

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19 December, 2009 — Strategic Culture Foundation

Readers might not be very familiar with Private Eye, the UK’s one and only satirical magazine that’s been going for decades and long a thorn in the side of the Establishment in spite of the fact that its editors are very much a part of the Establishment. But then this why they get the ‘inside dope’ on the corruption and other neferious ‘dealings’ that occupy the ruling elite who assist their business pals in ripping off the public purse.

For me as a lifelong adsorber of information of all kinds, PE’s major strength is in its inside info on the relationship between (big) business and the state, whether at the national or local level. Pretty much every major scandal that finally breaks in the mainstream press, for example the Trafigura disaster was reported in PE first. The oil trading company Trafigura dumped thousands of tons of toxic waste in the Ivory Coast, 31,000 people were injured by the foul stuff and 16 died.[1]

When the story finally broke in the corporate press, Trafigura tried to get the story squashed and they hired the solicitors Carter-Ruck to get an injunction forbidding publication of news about the catastrophe Trafigura had unleashed on The Ivory Coast (which succeeded, but only for a while, see below). Affectionately known in the pages of PE as Carter-Fuck, it is a company that seems to get mentioned in almost every issue.

“Messrs Carter-Fuck, London’s most vainglorious solicitors, tout for business by boasting of their matchless skills in “reputation management”. — ‘Carter-Rucking Hell’, Private Eye, No.1248, 30 Oct-12 Nov, 2009

The story concerns a secret injunction that Carter-Ruck obtained that actually gagged Parliament from talking about things Trafiguran. It’s called a super-injunction[2] that “anonymises” the names of those involved in the legal proceedings (the gag order on the media talking about things Trafiguran even in Parliament). Eye calls this “censorship by judicial process” and Carter-Ruck are the experts at it.

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Yemen: Pentagon's War On The Arabian Peninsula By Rick Rozoff

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15 December, 2009 — Global Research – Stop NATO

Yemen will become a battleground for a proxy war between the United States and Saudi Arabia – whose state-to-state relations are among the strongest and most durable of the entire post-World War II era – on one hand and Iran on the other.

It is perhaps impossible to determine the exact moment at which a U.S.- supported self-professed holy warrior – trained to perpetrate acts of urban terrorism and to shoot down civilian airliners – ceases to be a freedom fighter and becomes a terrorist. But a safe assumption is that it occurs when he is no longer of use to Washington. A terrorist who serves American interests is a freedom fighter; a freedom fighter who doesn’t is a terrorist.

Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon’s and the White House’s law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the Pentagon is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda.

BBC News reported on December 14 that 70 civilians were killed when aircraft bombed a market in the village of Bani Maan in northern Yemen.

The nation’s armed forces claimed responsibility for the deadly attack, but a website of the Houthi rebels against whom the bombing was ostensibly directed stated “Saudi aircraft committed a massacre against the innocent residents of Bani Maan.” [1]

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Boys from Bullingdon are bad for Britain By George Anthony

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20 December, 2009

George Anthony asks can Labour win in May 2010?

The boys from Bullingdon had a bit of a shock when they opened the Sunday papers of November 29th for the Ipso MORI survey put the Tories on 37% and Labour on 31%, with the Lib-Dems on 17%. This means-on the present parliamentary line up with a Labour bias in the distribution of voters per constituency-the Tories need to win 117 seats to achieve a simple majority, but 140 for a working majority, which is a huge mountain to climb.

A fairly reliable political weather vane and right-winger, Andrew Rawnsley wrote in the Observer of 6/12/2009,

“The Tories have put all their chips on Cameron. The downside to his adroitness at catching the prevailing wind is uncertainty about where he’ll drop anchor. It has been fluent, slick and largely well-modulated talk, but the strain of sustaining the act is beginning to show. There are evident Tory jitters about the recent erosion of their poll lead and more behind the scenes angst about why this is happening.”

But, true to form, on December 12th, he wasn’t so sure, finding holes in the Pre-Budget Report.

The Bullingdon Club members are composed of wealthy hooligans whose qualification for membership is that they are able to pay for the damage they cause after a drunken spree.

Cameron for instance has £30 million, plus his wife’s money as Lady Astor’s daughter.

Osborne’s  personal wealth is estimated at £4.3 million, in addition being next in line to inherit the family baronetcy of Ballentaylor in County Tipperary. As well as a substantial share of Osborne & Little, his father’s luxury wallpaper company.

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