Day: August 18, 2010

A beautiful gift from the BBC by Ken O’Keefe

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18 August, 2010 — Uprooted Palestinians

Uprooted Palestinians are at the heart of the conflict in the M.E Palestinians uprooted by force of arms. Yet faced immense difficulties have survived, kept alive their history and culture, passed keys of family homes in occupied Palestine from one generation to the next.

If you haven’t seen it, look for BBC Panorama’s “Death in the Med” program online, you will be treated to first class propaganda as only the BBC can deliver.

I am one of the passengers/witnesses interviewed for this program and I am very much aware of BBC’s role in justifying war and covering up Israeli crimes.

I am in no way naive about this; to the contrary my motivation for the interview lay largely in the all too likely opportunity to expose the BBC. A relevant job considering the BBC’s role in the slaughter of over one million Iraqi’s, a direct role by virtue of the war they justified. BBC from start to present, justifying Iraq, a massive war crime and crime against humanity based entirely on lies (propagated intensely by the BBC).

The British Broadcasting Corporation, synonymous with millions of orphans and refugees and countless lives destroyed in Iraq, beating the drums of war without pause, the ultimate prostitutes of propaganda.

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WILL CHINESE WORKERS CHALLENGE GLOBAL CAPITALISM?

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18 August, 2010 — The Real News Network

Minqi Li: Wave of strikes for higher wages could become a political movement

Bio
Minqi Li is an Assistant Professor at the University of Utah specializing in Political Economy, World Systems and the Chinese Economy. He was a political prisoner in China from 1990 to 1992. He is the author of “After Neoliberalism: Empire, Social Democracy, or Socialism?

Transcript

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Ben Werschkul and Tom Zeller, Jr., “The Fight for a Mountaintop”

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18 August, 2010 — MRZine

“Someday coal’s gonna run out. And we’re going to have to have jobs, we’re going to have to have energy, when that happens. So, why not start now?” — Lorelei Scarbro, Coal River Mountain Wind Project

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Video.4250078


Produced by the New York Times. See, also, Tom Zeller, Jr., “A Battle in Mining Country Pits Coal against Wind” (New York Times, 14 August 2010). Visit iLoveMountains.org and Appalachian Voices.

Sabereh Kashi, "The Mourners and Me"

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18 August, 2010 — MRZine

“In Tehran, I met a construction worker named Ali, who plays the role of Hossein in Ashura passion plays in his rural village. He sees the connection between the hardship that comes from Western-imposed sanctions and Yazid’s oppression of Hossein.” — Sabereh Kashi

“You know, it’s interesting that some of the worst violence that has happened in Iran happened during Ashura, and it’s interesting that people use the occasions, the mourning occasions, again to demonstrate their dissatisfaction with the system.” — Hooman Majd

Sabereh Kashi is an Iranian-American filmmaker. The video above is an excerpt from her work in progress.

China-US: Wisdom not gunboats By Eric Walberg

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18 August, 2010 — Eric Walberg

A new US military doctrine, war games, and ASEAN troops in Afghanistan have stirred up an oriental hornet’s nest, says Eric Walberg

“From a historical perspective, the US has continuously found enemies and waged wars. Without enemies the US cannot hold the will of the whole nation,” concluded Chinese Air Force Colonel Dai Xu, after perusing the 2010 US defense report. He points to the attempt to turn the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) into an Asian NATO — Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand already have troops in Afghanistan, and the ongoing military games in the South China Sea with Vietnam and in the Yellow Sea with Korea — employing enough firepower for a full-scale war.

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Part II: U.S.-China Crisis: Beyond Words To Confrontation By Rick Rozoff

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18 August, 2010 — Stop NATO

On August 16 the U.S. and its South Korean military ally began this year’s Ulchi Freedom Guardian military exercises in South Korea. The ten-day warfighting drills involve 56,000 troops from the host country and 30,000 from the U.S. Last year’s version of the annual war games featured the same amount of South Korean soldiers but only a third as many American troops, 10,000. The commander in charge of the American forces, General Walter Sharp, described the current exercise as ‘one of the largest joint staff directed theater exercises in the world.’ In all over 500,000 South Korean military and government participants are involved. [1]

Ulchi Freedom Guardian 2010 is the latest and largest in a series of almost uninterrupted war games and naval maneuvers conducted over the past five weeks in the region: The Korean Peninsula, the seas on either side of it, and the South China Sea.

Three of the four nations involved are regional actors: South Korea, China and Vietnam. The other is not: The United States.

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We won’t give up our right to a Palestinian state – Haniyeh

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18 August, 2010 – RT.com

In an interview to Russian correspondent Nadezhda Kevorkova, head of the government in Gaza Ismail Haniyeh shares his vision of different countries’ contributions to Middle East settlement and its perspectives.

He also discusses if there is a difference between Russia’s and America’s contribution into the settlement.

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The troops in Iraq are simply being renamed – activist – RT Top Stories

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18 August, 2010 — RT Top Stories

At least 60 people were killed and over a hundred wounded by a suicide bomber in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. Iraqi authorities say Al Qaeda was behind the attack.

The blast happened close to where a thousand people had gathered near an army recruitment center.

The attack was one of the bloodiest this year. It comes just two weeks before the US starts a withdrawal from Iraq, leaving behind 50,000 troops to train local forces.

Iraq has been trying to build up its own security forces ahead of the American pullout.

But Carol Turner from the Stop the War Coalition says there’s no actual combat troop pullout anyway.

‘The reality is that the US has not built security in Iraq, but instead destroyed the little security that existed before,’ Turner told RT. ‘The troops that exist are being renamed, and instead of being called combat troops they are referred to as trainers, support forces. But they are the same people with a different name.’

France urged to repay Haiti billions paid for its independence By Kim Willsher

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15 August 2010 — The Guardian

Leading activists write to Nicolas Sarzoky urging president to repay more than €17bn to help earthquake-hit country rebuild

A group of international academics and authors has written to Nicolas Sarkozy calling on France to reimburse the crushing “independence debt” it imposed on Haiti nearly 200 years ago.

The open letter to the French president says the debt, now worth more than €17bn (£14bn), would cover the rebuilding of the country after a devastating earthquake that killed more than 250,000 people seven months ago.

Its signatories – including Noam Chomsky, the American linguist, Naomi Klein, the Canadian author and activist, Cornel West, the African-American author and civil rights activist, and several renowned French philosophers – say that if France repays the money it would be a solution to the shortfall in international donations promised following the earthquake.

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Gender-Based Violence In Haiti By Stephen Lendman

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17 August, 2010 — CounterCurrents

The Institute for Justice and Democracy in Haiti (IJDH) works with grassroots groups there, in America, and the Haitian Diaspora, developing effective human rights advocacy for some of the world’s most oppressed, impoverished, and long-suffering people, over 500 years and counting.

In late July, it issued a new report titled, “Our Bodies Are Still Trembling: Haitian Women’s Fight Against Rape,” a problem Amnesty International (AI) highlighted in March saying:

“Sexual violence is widely present in the camps where some of Haiti’s most vulnerable live. It was already a major concern (pre-quake), but the situation in which displaced people are living exposes women and girls to even greater risks,” the issue IJDH examined in its report, explaining that Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps “exacerbated the already grave problem of sexual violence,” two US lawyer delegations and a women’s health specialist investigating the problem firsthand in May and June, interviewing over 50 rape or attempted rape survivors.

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Information Clearing House Newsletter 18 August, 2010: Dismantling America

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18 August, 2010 — Information Clearing House

Fear Not
 By Israel Shamir
The enemies of Israel will be taken out one after another, each with help of the next still unsuspecting victim.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26174.htm

Afghan Women Have Already Been Abandoned
By Ann Jones
I know Bibi Aisha, the young Afghan woman pictured on the August 9 cover of Time, and I rejoice that her mutilated nose and ears are going to be surgically repaired. But the logic of those who use Aisha’s story to convince us that the US military must stay in Afghanistan escapes me.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26181.htm

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Cuba Update, Tuesday 17 August 2010

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Cuba Update, Tuesday 17 August 2010

1. CHOMSKY ARTICLE IN FULL
2. AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL URGES OBAMA NOT TO EXTEND BLOCKADE LAW
3. CUBA HAS TRAINED OVER 8,000 DOCTORS FROM 54 NATIONS
4. CUBA SOLIDARITY CAMPAIGN JOB VACANCIES
5. MIAMI 5 VIGIL AND OTHER FORTHCOMING EVENTS
…

1. CHOMSKY ARTICLE IN FULL

Folowing it’s publication in the magazine of the Cuba Solidarity Campaign, CubaSi, the full Noam Chomsky introduction to a new book on terrorism against Cuba is reproduced on the Cuba Solidarity Capaign website to promote Keith Bolender’s tour of the UK in September.

Read the entire article at:
www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/cubasi_article.asp?ArticleID=121
…

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Riddle Or Conspiracy of Traitors By Kawther Salam

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17 Aug, 2010 — Palestine Think Tank

Is this a Palestinian-Israeli riddle or a conspiracy? Yesterday I was searching and documenting the bloody crimes of several Israeli officials who were involved in genocide, crimes against humanity and war crimes against the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, among others I was interested in Maj. Gen. Avi Mizrahi, Brig. Gen. Yoav “Polly” Mordechai, Brig. Gen. Nitzan Alon, Lt. Col Guy Hazut, Lt. Dean Nahum. My research is about the recent crimes of genocide and ethnic cleansing perpetrated by commanders who signed several military orders against Palestinian civilians in Hebron and around cities and towns in the occupied West Bank and Gaza. My research is towards a legal file which I could use to prosecute these criminals under the provisions of international laws and regulations related to the occupation, war crimes, genocide and crimes against humanity.

mizrahi-1I was busy documenting details about the new wave of ethnic cleansing under the Mizrahi-Mordachai-Alon military orders of deportation, homes demolitions, incarcerations, razing of agricultural lands, destroying electricity and water infrastructure, terrorizing civilian women and children in their homes and arresting the men before the eyes of the children.

During the last month, July 2010, the thugs of Mizrahi, Mordachai and Lt. Col. Guy Hazut, commander of the so-called Hebron military brigade who recently replaced the war criminal Col. Udi ben Moha, as well as Lieutenant Dean Nahum, a war criminal who caused death for patients from Gaza at the “Erez” military base and involved in genocide and war crimes and who replaced Aviv Figel at the DCL office in Hebron, sent their soldiers and bulldozers four times in 12 days to terrorize the Palestinian civilians who have lived in the Al Baqa’a valley forever, to carry out demolitions of artesian wells, water pipes, razing of plants, shooting grenades at the women and children, arresting the youths of the families and accusing them of obstructing the mission of the IDF, (which are crimes against humanity by the standards of anybody who has a minimum of decency).

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U.S.-China Conflict: From War Of Words To Talk Of War Part I By Rick Rozoff

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15 August, 2010 — Global Research – Stop NATO

Relations between the U.S. and China have been steadily deteriorating since the beginning of the year when Washington confirmed the completion of a $6.4 billion arms deal with Taiwan and China suspended military-to-military ties with the U.S. in response.

In January the Chinese Defense Ministry announced the cessation of military exchanges between the two countries and the Foreign Ministry warned of enforcing sanctions against American companies involved with weapons sales to Taiwan.

The Washington Post reported afterward that during a two-day Strategic and Economic Dialogue in Beijing this May attended by approximately 65 U.S. officials, Rear Admiral Guan Youfei of the People’s Liberation Army accused Washington of “plotting to encircle China with strategic alliances” and said arms deals with Taiwan “prove that the United States views China as an enemy.” [1]

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A Different Kind of Ownership Society By Marjorie Kelly and Shanna Ratner

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16 August, 2010 — Solidarity Economy – Yes! Magazine

Innovative strategies for cooperative local ownership make it possible for prosperity to be shared as well as sustainable

wind-turbine.jpg

Photo by Brent Danley

Aug. 3 2010 – Drive across southern Minnesota near the city of Luverne, and you’ll see clusters of wind turbines poking up through the cornfields. Climb into one of these sleek, gleaming, white towers, and you’ll find sophisticated computer controls monitoring dozens of factors every moment (wind speed, pressure on the blades, and so on). Yet the way the turbines are funded and owned is just as innovative as the technology that runs them.

These wind developments were created by Minwind Energy, a limited liability company that is structured as a cooperative. Back when only corn was harvested in these fields, Minwind invited hundreds of local residents to make investments of $5,000 apiece, eventually raising $4 million to fund the turbines. In return, the residents became owners of the project—alongside the farmers on whose land the turbines stand.

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VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 17 August, 2010: Breaking The Silence: Photos Of soldiers Posing With detainees Are The Norm Not Exception

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17 August, 2010 — VTJP

News

International Middle East Media Center

Jerusalem residents pray with exiled legislators in Red Cross tent
IMEMC – 17 Aug 2010 – Wednesday August 18, 2010 – 01:06, A number of Palestinian residents of Jerusalem have traveled to the Gaza-Israel border each day since Ramadan began last Wednesday, to break their daily Ramadan fast with legislators who have been threatened with deportation by the Israeli government.

An Israeli female soldier poses in front of Kidnapped Palestinians
IMEMC – 17 Aug 2010 – Tuesday August 17, 2010 – 19:42, Photos of an Israeli female soldier posing in front of Palestinian detainees posted on the social networking site Facebook, were met with anger by Palestinians.

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