Arrest warrant plans make a mockery of universal jurisdiction By Daniel Machover

30 March 2011 — The Guardian, Comment is Free

Giving suspects from ‘protected countries’ immunity from war crimes arrests would turn the UK into a safe haven for suspects

The rationale behind universal jurisdiction is that certain crimes – piracy, war crimes, genocide, torture, crimes against humanity and hostage taking – are so harmful to international interests that states are entitled, and in some cases even obliged, to bring proceedings, regardless of the location of the crime and the nationality of the perpetrator or the victim. In accordance with that principle, in December 2009 a British judge granted an arrest warrant against Tzipi Livni, who had been the foreign minister during Israel’s assault on Gaza a year earlier. It was withdrawn when it emerged that she had not travelled here after all, but the Labour government, backed by the Conservative leadership, expressed outrage that the warrant had been issued.

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Cuba50.org culture news & events 30 March 2011

30 March 2011 — Cuba Update

Welcome to the Cuba50 newsletter – for Cuban cultural events in the UK. For many more see http://www.cuba50.org/ or contact office@cuba50.org

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NEWS

Cuban filmmaker Gerardo Chijona presents new feature, ‘Boletin al Paraiso’ (ticket to Paradise), to Cuban audiences, as it goes on national release. The film is about a group of young people and explores the subject of HIV AIDS in Cuba in the ’90s. more>>

Calling all fans of Cuban music – check out this wide range of CDs more>>

More News from Cuba50 >>

EVENTS more events >>

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Libya Newslinks 29-30 March 2011

30 March 2011 19:23:52 — creative-i.info

30 March 2011

Libya Newslinks 29-30 March 2011

30 March 2011 19:21:17 — creative-i.info

30 March 2011

9/11 Revisited by Paul Carline

30 March 2011 — Greanville Post

Cards on the table. I’ve been a “truther” since early 2002 when I came across the first major challenge to the official 9/11 story in the shape of the wonderful “Hunt the Boeing” site created by French researcher Thierry Meyssan. Until then I’d accepted the standard “Left” version of the government account – that a group of daring Muslims acting on behalf of the victims of US foreign policy had struck back at the great tyrant. The photographic and other evidence presented by Meyssan demonstrated beyond reasonable doubt that whatever it was that had caused the damage to the Pentagon, it certainly wasn’t a large Boeing jet. If the government’s story was a lie on that major point, then the whole story was brought into question. I knew at once that I had to find out as much as I could about the event which everyone was saying had “changed the world”. Continue reading

Concern grows over possible use of depleted uranium in Libya

30 March 2011 — International Coalition to Ban Uranium Weapons

The likelihood of DU use in Libya has now increased following the deployment and use of A-10 and Harrier AV-8B aircraft. ICBUW calls for pressure to be brought on the US to clarify the situation, and to put DU ammunition beyond use.

A-10s are known to have been active in Libya on the 26th and 27th of March, and are likely to have been used in operations since those dates. The 30mm PGU-14 Armour Piercing Incendiary DU round is fired from the GAU-8 heavy rotary cannon fitted beneath the cockpit of the A-10. It was designed for attacking armoured vehicles from the air, the kind of mission currently being undertaken by the A-10s.

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Stop Nato Updates on Libyan war: 29 March 2011

29 March 2011 — Stop NATO

  • NATO Conducts More Air Strikes West Of Libyan Capital
  • NATO Bombs Libya With Depleted Uranium Warheads
  • More Countries Slam NATO Attacks In Libya
  • U.S., Britain, France, Germany: NATO Quad Heads Of State Hold Libya Talks
  • U.S. Low-Flying Attack Planes Intervene In Libyan Ground War
  • NATO Official: Regime Change Is Goal, Even If UN Resolution Doesn’t Say So
  • Shadow NATO Member Sweden Offers Eight Warplanes For Libyan War
  • Canadian Warplanes Join NATO Bombing Frenzy In Libya
  • After Afghan, Iraqi Wars: U.S. To Use Romania Air Base For Libyan War
  • Joschka Fischer Excoriates Berlin For Not Plunging Into Libyan War
  • NATO’s “International” Partner: UAE Warplanes In Italy For Libya War
  • Libya And The “International Community”: Humanitarian Imperialism, Like Colonialism, Will Come To An End

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Statewatch News Online, 30 March 2011 (09/11)

30 March 2011

Home page: www.statewatch.org/
News Online: www.statewatch.org/news/newsfull.htm
e-mail: office@statewatch.org
You can now follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/#!/StatewatchEU

1.    EU: Council of the European Union: FRONTEX: Proposal for a Regulation
2.    EU: Council of the European Union: Handbook on EU-U.S. Mutual Legal Assistance and Extradition Agreements (MLATs)
3.    EU: Council of the European Union: Includes FRONTEX information exchanges with EU agencies and Member States
4.    EU-UK: HoL Select Committee on EU: The United Kingdom opt-in to the Passenger Name Record directive
5.    UK: Sixth police spy in protest movement unmasked
6.    UK: Parliamentary Joint Human Rights Committee: Facilitating peaceful protests
7.    EU Classified Information (EUCI): Agreement extending its Classified information rules to Member States
8.    ECHR: European Court of Human Rights: Carlo Giuliani judgment
9.    EU: European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS)
10.  USA: US court validates spying fears of journalists, activists
11.  EU: UK-OPT-IN TO TRAFFICKING DIRECTIVE
12.  Netherlands-USA: SWIFT data and MLA treaty
13.  ECJ: Highlights of the Access Info Europe judgment
14.  ECJ: Major victory for openness
15.  EU: ROAD SAFETY: European Commission
16.  EU-COE: ECHR-ACCESSION
17.  COE: Draft Outline Structure of the Recommendation concerning Foreign Prisoners
18.  EU: SECURITY RESEARCH: Lobbyists delight
19   EU: Proposed Commission changes to Regulation on access to documents fail to meet Lisbon Treaty commitments

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NATO’s Fascist War By Fidel Castro Ruz

29 March 2011 — MRZine

The rebel leaders tipped their hand too early.  Now the whole of Libya, including the rebels, understand what they are: traitors dependent on invaders.  The rebels thus now lack motive force as well as military training: “Libyan Rebels Flee as Kadafi’s Forces Defend Surt” (Los Angeles Times, 29 March 2011).  The only way they can defeat the Gaddafi forces is to get the NATO to massacre them and everyone else in their way.  Even then, they would never be able to govern Libya by themselves.  They may even lose, as Fidel says.  After all, what self-respecting Libyan wants to side with the traitors and invaders? — Ed.

I didn’t have to be a fortune teller to divine what I foresaw with rigorous precision in three Reflections which I published on the CubaDebate website between February 21 and March 3: “NATO’s Plan Is to Occupy Libya,” “Cynicism’s Danse Macabre,” and “NATO’s Inevitable War.” . . .

I do not share political concepts or those of a religious nature with the leader of that country.  I am a Marxist-Leninist and follower of the ideas of Martí, as I have already stated.

I see Libya as a member of the Non-Aligned Movement and one sovereign state out of the close to 200 belonging to the United Nations Organization.

Never before was a large or small country, in this case of barely 5 million inhabitants, the victim of such a brutal attack by the air force of a military organization which has at its disposal thousands of fighter planes, more than 100 submarines, nuclear aircraft carriers, and sufficient arsenal to destroy the planet countless times over.  Our species has never experienced such a situation and nothing like it existed 75 years ago when the Nazi bombers attacked targets in Spain.

Now, however, the discredited and criminal NATO is to write a “beautiful” story about its “humanitarian” bombing.

If Gaddafi honors the traditions of his people and decides to fight, as he has promised, until his last breath alongside Libyans who are confronting the worst bombardments that a country has ever suffered, he will sink NATO and its criminal plans into the mire of ignominy.

The peoples respect and believe in men and women who know how to fulfill their duty.

More than 50 years ago, when the United States murdered more than 100 Cubans with the sabotage of La Coubre merchant ship, our people proclaimed “Patria o Muerte.”  They have fulfilled and have always been prepared to keep their word.

“Whoever attempts to seize Cuba — exclaimed the most glorious combatant in our history [General Antonio Maceo] — will only recover the dust of its land saturated in blood.”

I ask you to excuse the frankness with which I have approached the subject.

Fidel Castro Ruz
March 28, 2011
8:14 p.m.


The text above is an excerpt form an English translation provided by Granma International.  En español.

 


A Hundred Years of Rain: Air War Comes Full Circle in Libya By Chris Floyd

21 March 2011 — Chris Floyd’s Empire Burlesque

Ian Patterson notes that the air war unleashed on Libya by the Western powers last week coincides very neatly with the 100th anniversary of the first military air strike — which was launched by a Western power against … Libya. From The London Review of Books:

The world’s first aerial bombing mission took place 100 years ago, over Libya. It was an attack on Turkish positions in Tripoli. On 1 November 1911, Lieutenant Cavotti of the Italian Air Fleet dropped four two-kilogramme bombs, by hand, over the side of his aeroplane. In the days that followed, several more attacks took place on nearby Arab bases. Some of them, inaugurating a pattern all too familiar in the century since then, fell on a field hospital, at Ain Zara, provoking heated argument in the international press about the ethics of dropping bombs from the air, and what is now known as ‘collateral damage’. (In those days it was called ‘frightfulness’.) The Italians, however, were much cheered by the ‘wonderful moral effect’ of bombing, its capacity to demoralise and panic those on the receiving end.

A hundred years on, as missiles rain down on Gaddafi’s defences and sleeping Libyan soldiers are blasted and burned, we hear claims of a similar kind: the might of the western onslaught will dissipate all support for Gaddafi’s regime and usher in a new golden age for everyone. Just as Shock and Awe were meant to in Iraq. Or bombing and defoliation were meant to in in Vietnam. Or as the London Blitz was meant to break Britain’s spirit. Yet all the evidence suggests that dropping high explosive on places where people live increases their opposition, their solidarity and their resolve. Happy Anniversary.

Note: For more on how the little acorn of atrocity planted by Lt. Cavotti has grown into the monstrous forest that shadows the world today, see this informative piece by Tom Englehardt.