Former Israeli minister Tzipi Livni to visit UK after change in arrest law

October 4, 2011

Critics claim change in law governing arrest warrants for war crimes is motivated by political pressure from Israel

Tzipi Livni

Tzipi Livni, now opposition leader in Israel, will meet foreign secretary William Hague in Britain. Photograph: Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images

The former Israeli foreign minister, Tzipi Livni, will meet the foreign secretary, William Hague, in Britain on Thursday in the first test of a new law governing arrest warrants for war crimes.

Westminster magistrates court issued an unprecedented arrest warrant for Livni in 2009 – a move that led to an review of the issuing of such warrants.

The warrant, which was issued at the request of lawyers acting for Palestinian victims of Israel‘s operations in Gaza, was withdrawn amid embarrassment in the Foreign Office.

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INDIA: Endgame in Gujarat?

October 4, 2011
By Badri Raina, ZNet, October 04, 2011

“The abuse of greatness is when it disjoins remorse from power”

Julius Caesar

There comes a time in Macbeth’s  bloody-minded totalitarianism when, wishing to control every little mite of time, space, and freedom of action, he realizes that in so doing he has in fact come to lose all control over everything.

Indeed, the one profound and profoundly enacted truth of Macbeth’s career is to communicate the fearful irony at the heart of all  absolutist ambition, namely, that far from achieving any omnipotent security of selfhood or regime, every successive crime calculated to nail opposition leaves a residue which in course metamorphoses into an uncontrollable  destiny. All moral compass lost, a madly irrational anarchy overtakes the tyrant, until  his only pathetic rationale for going forward or turning back comes to be  which end is physically closer and more accessible: “I am in blood/Stepped in so far that, should I wade no more/Returning were as tedious as go o’er” (Macbeth, Cambridge, ed. John Dover Wilson.)

This seems to be the point at which politics in Gujarat may now have arrived.

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Pravda: USA plots operation against Pakistan

October 3, 2011
Sergei Balmasov, Pravda,  Sept. 30, 2011

USA plots operation against Pakistan. 45507.jpegThe conflict between the U.S. and Pakistan continues to evolve. Pakistani Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar has provided a tough and undiplomatic answer to the senior US authorities, including her American counterpart, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who accused Islamabad of “pandering to terrorists” from the “Taliban.” The head of Pakistan’s foreign ministry, in fact, accused the U.S. intelligence agencies of committing a series of terrorist attacks against U.S. facilities in Afghanistan to write it off to Pakistan.

Earlier, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, U.S. Admiral Mike Mullen, at a hearing in the Senate criticized Islamabad, accusing it of supporting Pakistan’s “Haqqani” (ISI) that allegedly could have ordered the militants to attack the U.S. embassy in Kabul on September 13.

According to the senior military officer, “Haqqani” is “a direct continuation of the ISI.” In addition, Washington virtually accused Islamabad of committing other attacks as well. Among them is a recent attack on a U.S. base in eastern Afghanistan where 77 soldiers were injured.

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In Pakistan, a pattern of disappearances

October 3, 2011

Karin Brulliard/THE WASHINGTON POST – Amina Janjua holds a photo of herself with her husband, Masood Janjua, who disappeared in Peshawar in 2005, and remains missing. She has since formed a network of more than 1,000 families whose relatives have disappeared.

By , The Washington Post, October 3, 2011

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In between hearings on an employment dispute and a property crime, a lawyer stood in Courtroom 3 on a recent morning to recount what seemed a terrifying offense. Fourteen months ago, he said, civil servant Adil Shah was buying vegetables when he was detained by about 10 men in military and police uniforms, and his family had not seen or heard from him since.

The judge barely blinked. There was no gasp from the wooden benches of the gallery. So routine are the grim cases of enforced disappearances in Pakistan — referred to here as missing persons — that they are now discussed like other chronic woes, such as power cuts and inflation. This northwestern city’s High Court hears five cases a day.Continues >>

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New York City police arrest over 700 anti-Wall Street protesters

October 3, 2011

By Sandy English, wsws.org,  October 3, 2011

Over 700 anti-Wall Street protesters were arrested Saturday on the Brooklyn Bridge by the New York Police Department (NYPD) after the cops had allowed them to enter the roadway reserved for motorized vehicles.

The mass arrests mark a major escalation in police intimidation tactics. It came on the heels of acts of police brutality, such as the pepper-spraying of unresisting demonstrators and the arrest of over 80 marchers last weekend, which have sparked widespread anger and resulted in the swelling of the protest’s ranks.

Behind the demonstration, which began as an occupation of Zuccotti Plaza, a park near Wall Street, is the growing opposition in the US to the policies of the banks, corporations and the Obama administration, particularly among students and younger workers who confront an increasingly hostile jobs market, massive indebtedness due to student loans and the relentless attacks on wage levels and social benefits.

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The Curse of Cluster Bombs

October 3, 2011

By Tom Fawthrop, FPIF, September 30, 2011

Mother pod full of unexploded cluster bombs
Mother pod full of unexploded cluster bombs

Laos, a small landlocked country in Southeast Asia known as “the most bombed country on earth,” fittingly hosted an international disarmament conference in November 2010.

This was a follow-up to an Oslo conference in 2008 when 94 nations signed the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM), an international treaty to ban all cluster weapons following in the footsteps of the global campaign to ban landmines which came into force in 1999.

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Michael Parenti: Class Warfare Indeed

October 3, 2011
by Michael Parenti, CommonDreams.org, October 2, 2011

Over the last two decades or more, Republicans have been denouncing as “class warfare” any attempt at criticizing and restraining their mean one-sided system of capitalist financial expropriation. 

The moneyed class in this country has been doing class warfare on our heads and on those who came before us for more than two centuries. But when we point that out, when we use terms like class warfare, class conflict, and class struggle  to describe the system of exploitation we live under—our indictments are dismissed out of hand and denounced as Marxist ideological ranting, foul and divisive.

Amanda Gilson put it perfectly in a posting on my Facebook page: “[T]he concept of  ‘class warfare’ has been hi-jacked by the wrong class (the ruling class). The wealthy have been waging war silently and inconspicuously against the middle and the poor classes for decades! Now that the middle and poor classes have begun to fight back, it is like the rich want to try to call foul—the game was fine when they were the only ones playing it.”

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Police State Justice Under Obama

October 3, 2011

By Stephen Lendman, opednews.com, Oct. 3, 2011

 Police state America under Obama.

Lawlessness, injustice, and contempt for democratic values define his administration. He delivered change all right – for the worst, and nothing ahead looks promising.

Obama-style “rules of engagement” include bullets, bombs, slit throats, knives in the back, or drone attacks justice.

Targeted victims are declared guilty by accusation. Due process and judicial fairness are discarded artifacts. US citizens are as vulnerable as global enemies.

No one is safe anywhere in a world ruled by rogue leaders, taking the law into their own hands with impunity.

As a result, freedom and security were jettisoned to memory hole oblivion. Let’s count the ways.

 

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Bhagat Singh: Why I am an Atheist

October 2, 2011

Why I am an Atheist

By Bhagat Singh 1931, Marxists Internet Archive

Written: October 5–6, 1930
Source/Translated: Converted from the original Gurmukhi (Punjabi) to Urdu/Persian script by Maqsood Saqib;
translated from Urdu to English by Hasan for marxists.org, 2006;
HTML/Proofread: Andy Blunden and Mike Bessler;
CopyLeft: Creative Common (Attribute & ShareAlike) marxists.org 2006.

Note: Bhagat Singh also called Bhagat Singh Shaheed (1907 – 1931) was an influential Indian revoutionary during the  Indian freedom movement against the  British colonial rule.

It is a matter of debate whether my lack of belief in the existence of an Omnipresent, Omniscient God is due to my arrogant pride and vanity. It never occurred to me that sometime in the future I would be involved in polemics of this kind. As a result of some discussions with my friends, (if my claim to friendship is not uncalled for) I have realised that after having known me for a little time only, some of them have reached a kind of hasty conclusion about me that my atheism is my foolishness and that it is the outcome of my vanity. Even then it is a serious problem. I do not boast of being above these human follies. I am, after all, a human being and nothing more. And no one can claim to be more than that. I have a weakness in my personality, for pride is one of the human traits that I do possess. I am known as a dictator among my friends. Sometimes I am called a boaster. Some have always been complaining that I am bossy and I force others to accept my opinion. Yes, it is true to some extent. I do not deny this charge. We can use the word ‘vainglory’ for it. As far as the contemptible, obsolete, rotten values of our society are concerned, I am an extreme sceptic. But this question does not concern my person alone. It is being proud of my ideas, my thoughts. It cannot be called empty pride. Pride, or you may use the word, vanity, both mean an exaggerated assessment of one’s personality. Is my atheism because of unnecessary pride, or have I ceased believing in God after thinking long and deep on the matter? I wish to put my ideas before you. First of all, let us differentiate between pride and vanity as these are two different things.

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Britain: Anti-fascists mark Cable Street’s 75th

October 2, 2011
 Morning Star Online, Sunday 02 October 2011
by John Millington at Cable Street

Over 1,000 anti-fascists took over the streets of east London today sending a defiant message to mark 75 years since the historic victory over the blackshirts at Cable Street.

Veterans and campaigners led a march and rally to the scene of the famous battle, fought by an alliance including the local Jewish community, Communist Party members and London workers against Oswald Mosley’s uniformed thugs.

They said the fight against Mosley’s modern-day equivalents would be equally tough.

Representatives from the local Jewish and Bengali communities were flanked by trade unionists from across the movement.

Cable Street veteran and former Communist councillor Max Levitas emphasised the need for the trade union movement today to fight “modern fascism.”

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