Day: November 6, 2010

Deaths in British custody spark outrage over police brutality – RT Top Stories

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6 November, 2010 — RT Top Stories

In Britain, one person is said to die of contact with police every week as relatives of the victims have taken to the streets to bring attention to the alarming number of deaths in police custody.

Sean Rigg-David, mentally ill, was restrained by four police officers and bundled into a van, and in the five minutes it took to get to the police station, had stopped breathing. He died a short time later.

Two years on, his death has not been investigated. And the results of investigations are often unsatisfactory. During last year’s G20 riots, police knocked down Ian Tomlinson, who later died. No conviction was brought against the officer responsible.

The vast majority of people killed in police custody belong to a class of have-nots – the marginalized, often from tough inner-city areas. More than half had previously been involved with the mental health services. But despite more than 400 deaths in or directly following police custody in the last 10 years, no policeman has ever been convicted of murder or manslaughter.

On average, one person per week dies as a result of contact with the police, according to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. And that’s not even counting deaths in prison, immigration centers and mental institutions.

‘Police officers don’t just commit minor crime, but they commit the crime of manslaughter, and that is the main reason why people are here today and asking people to do something about it. If there are human right abuses in Iran we are complaining, or in China we complain, but human right abuses in Britain and it seems to be silence,’ says Ken Ferrow, activist of the United Families and Friends Campaign.

That’s worth shouting about, these people say. But this protest fell on deaf ears. The police at Downing Street refused to take their petition – and they had to leave it tied to the railings.

The WikiLeaks Enigma By Elena PUSTOVOITOVA

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2 November, 2010 — Strategic Culture Foundation

What the phenomenon of WikiLeaks, a powerful outlet of classified information, reflects is not only the immense potential of the Internet but also the fact that the implementation of a sophisticated program of brainwashing must be underway.

The very first outburst of former secrets – the Afghan dossier containing reports by commanders of various ranks, details of combat missions, analytical papers, etc. – sent a shock worldwide. Tens of thousands of secret documents shedding light on the entire range of NATO operations in Afghanistan suddenly became available to the public. Given the recent new wave of revelations published by the site – the Iraqi dossier with some 400,000 (!) Pentagon’s documents concerning the military campaign in Iraq – it makes sense to take a closer look at the essence of WikiLeaks.

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The echo of the past war By Natalia Meden

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5 November, 2010 — Strategic Culture Foundation

Great Britain has unveiled plans to cut its military budget by 8% in the next four years, which is the biggest cut since the end of the World War II. On hearing it Washington voiced concern over possible weakening of its ally’s defense potential. In Germany the reaction on the plan of David Cameron’s Cabinet to withdraw the British troops from Germany by 2020 (not by 2035) in order to save money for the state budget was quite controversial.

After World War II Britain had the third biggest contingent (in terms of numbers – 150,000 servicemen) on the territory of the defeated Third Reich. Three tank divisions formed the core of the British armed forces deployed in Germany. At present there are only 20,000 British servicemen left in Germany or twice as much if we take into account the members of their families. The British authorities were gradually reducing the number of servicemen of its Rhine Army (this is how the British troops in Germany called until 1994). When by 1967 the number of the British troops had been reduced almost 10% to 58,000 people, the Spiegel magazine melted: the British soldiers came to Germany as occupants but became the defenders of the defeated nation. The article painted a rosy picture of a happy life of British soldiers in Germany (1). However, Spiegel did not explain why many Germans looked at Brits as at the second rate people – the journalist had no courage to admit that many Germans see the British servicemen commissioned in Germany not as their defenders but as occupants.

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New from Strategic Culture Foundation 30 October – 5 November, 2010

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5 November, 2010 — Strategic Culture Foundation

The echo of the past war

05.11.2010 | 21:27 | MEDEN Natalia
In Germany the reaction on the plan of David Cameron’s Cabinet to withdraw the British troops from Germany by 2020 (not by 2035) in order to save money for the state budget was quite controversial… Here are some of the comments from readers on the web site of Neue Westfälische Zeitung newspaper: ”Finally the occupants get out from here”. “Super! Good news! Finally the occupants are going home. We had enough. The empty houses and barracks can be successfully used for other purposes”… A. Merkel is confident that at the Lisbon summit “a very good document heading to the future” will be signed, and Spiegel has already announced that NATO’s new concept does not envisage the removal of the US nuclear troops from Germany (not a single word was said about the removal of military bases).… When the Russian troops left Germany the soldiers sang a song with the words “Good bye, Germany, our native country waits for us”. As for the British soldiers who are to leave Germany in 10 years it is not their home country but a distant land which is waiting for then – Afghanistan…

1789 for US Establishment Liberals?

04.11.2010 | 17:21 | KERANS David (USA)
The Republican Party’s recapture of control of the House of Representatives and recovery of several seats in the Senate in the midterm elections of 2010 will certainly affect the tenor of US government over the next two years. The Republicans will assume leadership of House Committees, and distort policy even further towards corporate special interests, including the defense sector, with its lust for foreign conflicts and the large government contracts attending them…

Acquired Amnesia Syndrome. On US Medical Experiments in Guatemala

03.11.2010 | 11:50 | LEBEDEVA Irina (US)
Last October, headlines in US media were grabbed by reports showing that some six decades ago US “researchers” deliberately exposed Guatemalans to syphilis and gonorrhea. The revelations forced the US to apologize… What seems strange about the whole story is that the US did make an apology for what was done ages ago. US history abounds with cases where one or another American Doctor Mengele subjected humans to experiments with a panacea against some XX or XXI century plague…

The WikiLeaks Enigma

02.11.2010 | 21:16 | PUSTOVOITOVA Elena
You will not learn from WikiLeaks how for years the Iraqi oil used to be stolen and delivered to the US via Turkey’s seaport of Ceyhan to be sold below cost. Nor does WikiLeaks mention the fact that mutant children are born in numbers in Fallujah, the city which survived strikes by US shells containing low-enriched uranium…

The Dawn of the Rousseff Epoch

02.11.2010 | 09:49 | NIKANDROV Nil
The majority of polls picked Dilma Rousseff as the frontrunner on the eve of the presidential runoff in Brazil. Brazil’s outgoing president Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva, a hyper-popular leader whose rating at the final stage of the term in office topped 80%, strengthened Rousseff’s bid for presidency by reiterating that voting for Dilma was in fact the same as voting for him… Lula must be credited with resolving the political continuity problem: his former right-hand woman Dilma Rousseff is sure to take over her predecessor’s list of strategic priorities…

The Two Myths Behind Globalism

01.11.2010 | 09:16 | GORDEEV Konstantin
While only 350 terrorist acts perpetrated by suicide bombers were recorded in 1980-2003 and only 15% of them targeted US citizens, in the much shorter 2004-2009 period of time the number reached 1,833, US citizens being victims in 92% of the cases. Evidently, the surge of suicide bombings over the past six years must be attributable to the US-led NATO campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and to the Western occupation of the countries.

The Geopolitics of Drug Trafficking

31.10.2010 | 21:01 | SHUSTOV Aleksandr
The geography of drug supplies from Afghanistan explains the drug lords’ increasing interest in the northern drug trafficking route…The Talib surge in Afghanistan’s northern provinces, the fighting with insurgents in Tajikistan’s Rasht valley, and the second Kyrgyz “revolution” may be elements of the same picture – the establishment of favorable conditions for the transit of drugs from Afghanistan… Moscowis increasingly concerned over the situation in Tajikistan…

BRIC at UNSC

31.10.2010 | 12:34 | MAHAPATRA Aurobinda (India)
The selection of India this month as a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has catapulted the Brazil – Russia – India – China (BRIC) nations at the highest international body as a force to reckon with… It may not be a pure coincidence that the coming months in this year will see high powered visits from important players in the world to India. While November will witness the visits of the US President and the French President, the month of December will witness the visit of the Russian President and the Chinese Premier…

A Death Sentence to Tariq Aziz Against the WikiLeaks Backdrop

30.10.2010 | 20:10 | MEZYAEV Alexander
Sentencing Tariq Aziz to death came against the backdrop of the WikiLeaks revelations about the war in Iraq. The site published tons of information concerning the war crimes committed by the US and Iraqi military in the country… 31 civilians were killed daily since the outbreak of the war in 2003, and the data shows that lethality in Iraq is five times higher than in Afghanistan… Three years ago Baghdad requested that the UN Security Council set up an international tribunal for Iraq. No response followed at the time, but currently there is no doubt that the tribunal is necessary…

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