16 February 2012
An uncle of mine, a quite extraordinary individual, used to say that he was privileged to have a ‘ringside seat’ when viewing the rampages of capitalism. To which I must add that the ticket to gain admission has been extremely costly, for the planet, but not for my uncle in spite of his lefty leanings. But privileged he was, as all of us are here in the West, insulated from the worst extremes of Empire by all those dead brown bodies.
14 February 2012 — Syria’s ‘Arab Spring’: failed or hijacked? – The Drum Opinion (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is ‘disgusted’ at the stance taken by Russia and China against foreign military intervention in Syria. But clearly ‘Madame Clinton‘, as many Syrians enjoy calling her, has not made time to read the report by the Head of the Arab League (AL) Observer Mission that was deployed throughout Syria‘s provinces from December 24, 2011 to January 18, 2012.
14 February 2012 — Truthout | News Analysis
Retired Republican House and Senate staffer Mike Lofgren spoke with Truthout in Washington, DC, this fall. Lofgren’s first commentary for Truthout, “Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult,” went viral, drawing over a million unique views.
15 February 2012 — PCHR Palestinian Centre for Human Rights LTD (non profit) – Press Release Ref: 19/2012
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) is gravely concerned over the current power crisis in the Gaza Strip. The Gaza power plant stopped working yesterday as the fuel required for it operation ran out completely, which has caused long periods of outages throughout the Gaza Strip. Continue reading
15 February 2012 — Global Research: IRAQ UNDER US MILITARY OCCUPATION: Maliki Proxy Government orders Execution of former PM Tariq Aziz
Ms Navanethem Pillay, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, United Nations, Geneva.
Dear Ms Navanethem Pillay and Colleagues,
I am forwarding this self explanatory alert, as is.
Iraq has been illegally invaded, occupied and decimated. Surely the UN cannot sit by as these terrible executions – pogroms – go ahead. Death sentences for no other reason than that Mr Aziz and his colleagues were part of the legitimate, sovereign government of Iraq – a ‘sovereignty and territorial integrity’ which was guaranteed by the UN itself, prior to the invasion.
15 February 2012 — 012
15 February 2012
Prequel: I’m going to write a longer piece on this issue, not Ali per se but on the entire ‘orientalism’ approach that saturates all of us, left and right.
All quotes from, ‘Assad must go to save Syria from intervention’, RT 15 February 2012
Today, I see that the well known ‘revolutionary’ Tariq Ali is telling that:
“He [Assad] has to be pushed out,” Tariq Ali insists, for which “the Syrian people are doing their best”.
14 February 2012 — PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Ref: 18/2012
15 February 2012 — The Real News Network
Michael Hudson: Greek crisis used to find out how far finance can drive down wages and privatize
14 February 2012 — The Real News Network
At the annual top security conference in Israel sharp divisions over talk of attacking Iran
In Israel the debate over whether to attack Iran has seen the political leadership of the Minister of Defense, Ehud Barak and the Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu face a resistant security echelon with the heads of Israel’s intelligence agencies (and their predecessors) opposing such an attack. The question of Iran was expected to be at the top of the agenda at this year’s Herzeliya Conference, which took place last week. The conference is Israel’s main security and strategic gathering with speakers from the army, various ministries, major corporations, and security think tanks. The army’s chief of staff, head of military intelligence, minister of defense, and the former head of the Mossad spoke, with the later warning for the leadership to be patient as the sanctions are working.
13 February 2012 — Aleppo betrayed by attacks that are foreign to its nature – The National
Aleppo is a town of eminent consequence, and in all ages its fame has flown high. The kings who have sought its hand in marriage are many, and it place in our soul is dear. — Ibn Jubayr, Arab-Andalusian traveller, June 1184
Last week’s suicide bombings that killed at least 28 people in Aleppo are drawing Syria‘s second city into a conflict that it had struggled to avoid for the past year. President Bashar Al Assad blamed Al Qaeda terrorists, while the Syrian opposition accused the regime. American officials, despite Washington’s hostility to Mr Al Assad and the recent closure of the US embassy in Damascus, told McClatchey Newspapers correspondent Jonathan Landay they thought Mr Al Assad was right.
15 February 2012 — Bahrain crackdown: Tactics & weapons imported from UK — RT
Pictures of a crackdown by heavily armed police on protesters in Bahrain appear to be similar to many others during the Arab Spring. This time the weapons, as well as the tactics, have been imported from the UK.
15 February 2012 — williambowles.info
012
US-Backed Regime Replays State of Emergency to Crush Pro-Democracy Movement by Finian Cunningham
Dandelion Salad Today at 07:12
by Finian Cunningham Featured Writer Dandelion Salad Ethiopia 14 February 2012 Bahrain’s first anniversary of its pro-democracy protests has been met with massive police and army violence, with many civilians injured from regime forces firing birdshot and teargas into homes and at cars. Reports are coming in of Saudi-backed troops and mercenaries attacking mainly Shia […]
14 February 2012 — Eric Walberg
Greek protesters defied the pleading of their prime minister in a televised address to the nation to accept austerity measures to allow a massive loan and “debt swap” plan by the IMF and EU to stave off bankruptcy. The measures approved by parliament involve slashing the minimum wage by up to one-third, deregulating the labour market to make it easier to lay off workers, and cutting pensions.
14 February 2012 — VTJP
News
International Middle East Media Center
UN Envoy Tours Palestinian Territories To Assess Settler Violence
IMEMC – After a recent increase in Israeli settler attacks against Palestinian civilians, property and holy sites, the UN envoy Richard Falk arrived in the West Bank this weekend to begin an eleven-day tour of the Palestinian Territories to examine the situation. …
15 February 2012 — Eric Walberg
Ard ard (Surface-to-surface): The story of a graffiti revolution
Sheif Abdel-Megid
Egyptian Association for Books 2011
ISBN 978-977-207-102-9
Graffiti — the art of the masses, by the masses, for the masses — has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Greece, the Roman Empire, and arguably to Pharaonic Egypt. Sherif Abdel-Megid, a writer who works for Egyptian television, boasts that Egypt‘s revolution and the explosion of popular art that followed it finds its roots in the decay of the Sixth dynasty in Egypt‘s Old Kingdom, following the reign of Pepi II (2278-2184 BC), credited with having the longest reign of any monarch in history at 94 years (Mubarak, eat your heart out). His own decline paralleled the disintegration of the kingdom and it is thanks to Pharaonic graffiti that we know about it. Continue reading
13 February 2012 — Information Clearing House
Israel and Proxy Terrorism
By Robert Wright
Should Israel be classified as a state sponsor of terrorism? http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article30532.htm
15 February 2012 — Stop NATO
The press wires are reporting on intensified fighting in Mali between the nation’s military and ethnic Tuareg rebels of the Azawad National Liberation Movement in the north of the nation.
As the only news agencies with global sweep and the funds and infrastructure to maintain bureaus and correspondents throughout the world are those based in leading member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, BBC News and Deutsche Presse-Agentur – the coverage of ongoing developments in Mali, like those in most every other country, reflects a Western bias and a Western agenda.
15 February 2012 — Stop NATO
The press wires are reporting on intensified fighting in Mali between the nation’s military and ethnic Tuareg rebels of the Azawad National Liberation Movement in the north of the nation.
As the only news agencies with global sweep and the funds and infrastructure to maintain bureaus and correspondents throughout the world are those based in leading member states of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization – the Associated Press, Reuters, Agence France-Presse, BBC News and Deutsche Presse-Agentur – the coverage of ongoing developments in Mali, like those in most every other country, reflects a Western bias and a Western agenda.
15 February 2012 — World Socialist Website
The first response of Washington, London, and Paris to the revolutionary overturns in Tunisia and Egypt was a pre-emptive campaign for regime change in Libya, working through local proxies whose task was to prepare the way for military intervention. The pattern is being repeated in Syria.
The New Dark Age 