Peace and Justice Post

Human Rights Watch, 2011

The February 2010 presidential election ended the political turmoil that has characterized Ukraine in recent years. Viktor Yanukovich won the election over incumbent Viktor Yushschenko in a contest that international observers declared generally in accordance with international standards. Upon taking office President Yanukovich initiated far-reaching reforms, drawing criticism for pushing through changes without respecting democratic procedures or engaging the opposition.

Ukraine’s relationship with Russia improved significantly in 2010. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who had clashed frequently with Yushschenko, voiced hope that the “black page” in relations between Russia and Ukraine following the Orange Revolution of 2005 would be turned. Yanukovich, widely-seen as pro-Russian, visited Moscow in March and agreed to extend the lease on Russia’s Black Sea fleet in the Crimea for another 25 years. Medvedev reciprocated by discounting gas prices to Ukraine.

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Midtøstenutsendingen kan presses ut av jobben fordi han anses som altfor pro-israelsk.

Les også:

• Abbas: FN-søknad behandlet i løpet av uker
• Diplomatisk spill for å unngå krise i FN
• Blair leter etter kompromiss i FN

Den tidligere britiske statsministeren har vært utsending for den såkalte “Kvartetten”; Storbritannia, USA, Russland og EU – siden 2007. Helt siden starten har elementer i den palestinske ledelsen vært skeptisk til at Blair fordi de har ansett ham som ubalansert i sitt syn på konflikten mellom Israel og de palestinske områdene.

Nå har begeret rent over, sier flere palestinske ledere til den britiske avisen The Daily Telegraph.

– Vi har vært svært misfornøyde med ham helt siden han ble utsending, men spesielt de siste ukene, sier en kilde i den palestinske ledelsen til den britiske avisen.

Årskaen til at misnøyen har økt de siste ukene, skal være at Blair har jobbet hardt for å få europeiske land til å stemme imot forslaget om å gi Palestina anerkjennelse i FN som en egen, selvstendig stat.

Enstemmig avgjørelse

Denne uken skal ledelsen, trolig med palestinernes president Mahmoud Abbas i spissen, samles for å drøfte hva de skal gjøre med Blair. Ifølge The Telegraph ligger det et forslag på bordet som går ut på å fryse den tidligere statsministeren ute – å gjøre ham til en “persona non grata”.

Det vil i så fall gjøre det svært vanskelig for Blair å fortsette som Kvartettens midtøstenutsending.

Kilder i den palestinske ledelsen forteller den britiske avisen at avgjørelsen trolig vil bli tatt, og at den vil være enstemmig.

Det er ikke bare anonyme palestinske tjenestemenn som nå angriper Tony Blair. I forrige uke, da president Abbas sa frem forslaget om FN-anerkjennelse i New York etter å ha vært utsatt for massivt press fra USA til ikke å gjøre det, anklaget flere palestinere Blair for å løpe USAs og Israels ærend.

– Han høres til tider ut som en israelsk diplomat, sa Nabil Shaath, en høytstående palestinsk forhandler.

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Admiral Mike Mullen’s speech to lawmakers last week accusing Pakistan’s intelligence service of colluding with the Haqqani insurgent group was inaccurate and overstated, according to anonymous officials speaking with the Washington Post.

A senior Pentagon official with access to intelligence files on Pakistan said Mullen’s language “overstates the case,” because there is little evidence of direct control or cooperation with the Haqqanis. Mullen suggested otherwise and cited the recent 20-hour attack on the US Embassy in Kabul as a case in point.

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Is it not time to enquire whether U.S. policy has not created more terrorists than the CIA has managed to kill? Asks Patrick Seale.

Middle East Online, Sept.28, 2011

U.S. President Barack Obama is piling up foreign policy disasters. In at least three areas, crucial for world peace and American interests — Arab-Israel, Afghanistan-Pakistan and Yemen-Somalia — he is pursuing a course which can only be described as foolhardy. The anger and hate towards the United States which he is generating could take a generation to dispel.

His abject surrender to Israel on the Palestine question has shocked a large part of the world and gravely damaged America’s standing among Arabs and Muslims. To court the Jewish vote at next year’s presidential election, he has thrown into reverse the policy of outreach to the Muslim world which he expressed so eloquently in his 2009 Cairo speech. If he is now driven to use America’s veto at the Security Council to block the application of a Palestinian state for UN membership, he will have been defeated by the very forces of racism, Islamophobia, neocon belligerence and Greater Israel expansionism he once hoped to tame.

Obama’s policy in Afghanistan is equally perverse. On the one hand he seems to want to draw the Taliban into negotiations, but on the other some of his army chiefs and senior diplomats want to kill the Taliban first. This is hardly a policy likely to bring the insurgents to the table. In an interview with the Wall Street Journal, Ryan Crocker, America’s new ambassador to Kabul, actually said that the conflict should continue until more of the Taliban are killed. Who, one wonders, is in charge of U.S. policy?

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Asian Human Rights Commision, Sept. 29, 2011

Urgent Appeal Case : The Asian Human Rights Commission (AHRC) has received information that human rights defender Mr. Perumal Sivakumara (32) of Kalpitiya Road, Norochchole in the Puttalam District has died after being tortured in public by officers attached to the Special Task Force of the Sri Lanka Police. Perumal a well-known civil rights activist had gone to the town along with a friend to buy some medicine. At that time a large number of people had gathered at the church because a stranger had been terrorizing the village. When Perumal approached the gathering police officers arrived and started to beat some of the people. Despite the pleadings of Perumal he was severely tortured and later admitted to the Puttalam Base Hospital where he later died. No investigation has been started into the torture and extrajudicial killing of Perumal. This case is yet another illustration of the exceptional collapse of the rule of law in the country.

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This week marks the beginning of what is supposed to be the final 100 days of the U.S. occupation of Iraq. But if U.S. troops are to leave Iraq at the end of this year as promised – repeatedly – it will take grassroots pressure to counter the growing “occupy-Iraq-forever” chorus in Washington.

Despite the fact that there is a Bush-era agreement with the Iraqi government to leave, despite the fact that the majority of Iraqis and Americans don’t support a continued U.S. presence, and despite the fact that Congress is supposedly in an all-out austerity mode, strong forces – including generals, war profiteers and hawks in both parties – are pushing President Obama to violate the agreement negotiated by his predecessor and keep a significant number of troops in Iraq past the December 31, 2011 deadline.

It’s true there has already been a major withdrawal of U.S. troops, from a high of 170,000 in 2007 to about 45,000 troops today (with most of the troops being sent over to occupy Afghanistan instead). That number, however, doesn’t tell the whole picture. . .

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Iranian peace activist Narges Mohammadi at her home in Tehran in 2001. Photograph: Behrouz Mehri/AFP/Getty Images

A prominent Iranian human rights activist who was taken seriously ill after being detained by the authorities has been sentenced to 11 years in jail.

Narges Mohammadi, 39, the deputy head of Iran‘s Defenders of Human Rights Centre (DHRC), a rights organisation presided over by the Nobel peace laureate Shirin Ebadi, was picked up last year by security officials who raided her house in middle of the night without a warrant for her arrest.

She was taken to Tehran’s Evin prison where she was kept in solitary confinement but was released after a month and taken to hospital.

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DUBAI — A Bahraini special court has upheld life jail sentences served on seven Shiite opposition leaders convicted of plotting to overthrow the regime in the Gulf kingdom, BNA official news agency said.

Jail sentences against seven other activists, ranging between two to 15 years and including Sunni opposition leader Ibrahim Sharif, were also upheld by the national safety appeals court, it said, quoting military general prosecutor Colonel Yusof Fulaifel.

Seven others, one sentenced to life in jail and the remainder to 15 years, remained at large and had not appealed against their sentences.

The appealed verdicts will go to a civil court of cassation for a final decision.

The eight activists sentenced to life include Hassan Mashaima, head of the Shiite opposition Haq movement, Abdulwahab Hussein, who leads the Shiite Wafa Islamic Movement, and Shiite human rights activist Abdulhadi al-Khawaja, who is also a Danish citizen.

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In comments today, Pakistani Prime Minister Yousef Raza Gilani cautioned that the US was risking fueling anti-American sentiment across Pakistan with its continued allegations that the Haqqani Network is a de facto wing of Pakistan’s military.

He also said the threats for a ground invasion of Pakistan’s tribal areas were “disturbing” and that any such invasion would be a “violation of our soveignty.” He added that such threats were not appropriate to make toward allies and that he warned Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that an invasion was “not acceptable to Pakistan.”

US officials have repeatedly hinted at unilateral ground action against the Haqqani Network, and over the weekend Sen. Lindsey Graham (R – SC) claimed there was “broad bipartisan support” in Congress for invading Pakistan.

Interesting, the US claim that the Haqqanis are under Pakistani control took a major hit today, as the Afghan Taliban claimed that they are actually in control of the network.

White House spokesman Jay Carney today insisted that the prospect of revoking all aid to Pakistan isn’t a “new warning” but rather a reiteration of the Obama Administration’s position. He added that the US is constantly considering revoking Pakistan’s aid.

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Environmentalists are blaming climate change for the unprecedented massive monsoon rains in Pakistan, which so far this year have affected eight million people, claiming 350 lives and damaging 1.3 million homes.

Women from Sultan-Abad Mughal village fetch drinking water from a pump surrounded by flood waters in Dadu district, Sindh province. (Photo by Asad Zaidi © UNICEF Pakistan)

Over the past month, the country’s southern region has received the highest monsoon rains ever recorded, local metrological experts confirm.

In August, the southern parts of the country received 270 percent above-normal monsoon rains. And in September, the monsoons rains were 1,170 percent above normal, says Dr. Qamar-uz-Zaman Chaudhry, Adviser Climate Affairs.

The Sindh province, where six million acres of land were inundated in current floods, had experienced severe drought conditions before the monsoon season and had not received any rainfall at all during the past 12 months.

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