Noam Chomsky: ‘As long they get the backing of dictators, it doesn’t matter to western governments what Arab populations think’ – video
September 2, 2011The US-Saudi counter-revolution against the ‘Arab spring’
September 2, 2011
Saudi Arabian troops enter Bahrain to crush the democratic uprising.
By Samer Araabi, Links
August 23, 2011 — RightWeb — At the end of February 2011, it looked as though the old order was crumbling across the Arab world. Inspired by the self-immolation of a Tunisian street vendor, massive popular demonstrations ousted Tunisia’s president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Egypt’s president Hosni Mubarak was not long to follow. Similar uprisings began to swell in Algeria, Jordan, Bahrain and Yemen, and the anciens regimes appeared helpless against the rising tide of popular anger and nonviolent resistance.
Saudi Arabia, meanwhile, actively worked to encourage the forces of counter-revolution throughout the region. From Morocco to Bahrain, Saudi finance, support and intelligence has sought to prevent political turmoil, reinforce existing dynasties and crush nascent democratic movements before they could reach critical mass. This reactionary tide has been supported by some ideologues in Washington, which worries that Arab democratisation would be detrimental to US policy objectives.
Though allowing Saudi Arabia to stifle change and suffocate democratic aspirations within the region may appear to serve US interests in the short term, it will certainly have blowback down the road. At a watershed political moment, the United States has failed to act in accordance with its stated principles, and as a result, popular anger towards Saudi Arabia’s counter-revolutionary campaigns is causing increasing numbers of Arabs to turn against the United States as well. The fallout from Washington’s support for the Arab counter-revolution could haunt US policy for decades to come.
PHILIPPINES: Medical practice–the poor are likely to die
September 2, 2011By Danilo Reyes
The common phrase that the poor suffers the most, in all aspects of life, is not difficult to comprehend. But no one could ever grasp the depth of the poor’s suffering in a life in which he was conditioned to live. It is not like an experimental exposure where a person can immerse himself in a situation in order to get a feel, knowing full well that he can simply step out of it when it becomes too much for him.
The experience I had as to how the disadvantaged suffer from the poor state of the medical practice in the Philippines is limited to me, my family and my relatives. I could articulate the experiences of the others but it would be broad and in an abstract idea as to how they have suffered; and my evidence to those experiences are anecdotal.
Yes. If you are poor, you have no political connection, you are not known to the medical service provider and if the latter thinks you have no education, you are likely to die.
“No one shall be subjected to enforced disappearance”
September 1, 2011Reporters Without Borders, August 30, 2011
As the world marks International Day of the Disappeared today, Reporters Without Borders notes that many countries are still violating international law on this matter, including the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance, which the UN General Assembly adopted in 2006.
Reporters Without Borders calls for the universal ratification of this convention, which has so far been signed by 91 countries and ratified by 29. Combating enforced disappearance is vital in the struggle against dictatorships and arbitrary rule.
Enforced disappearance includes both secret imprisonment and secret house arrest, in which the families of the victims are denied any information about their fate or where they are being held. It is a form of abduction and sometimes ends in murder.
It is a radical method of oppression in which human rights defenders, opposition activists, free speech activists and independent journalists are removed from society because they are often on the front line of the struggle against authoritarian regimes. As well censoring calls for freedom and justice, dictatorships target those who make the calls.
Azerbaijan: Rights Defender, 6 Activists Convicted
September 1, 2011End Crackdown on Critical Voices
Human Rights Watch, August 29, 2011
These trumped-up charges and flawed trials show how this government operates to silence critical voices. This is not the way any state – far less a Council of Europe member – should respond to grievances of its own people.
Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director
(New York) – Azerbaijani courts sentenced a human rights defender to three years in prison following a flawed trial on dubious charges of interference with parliamentary elections, Human Rights Watch said today. Separately, six other opposition activists were sentenced to terms of up to three years following unfair trials over their role in anti-government protests.
The Azerbaijani authorities should end its crackdown on critics of the government and release the imprisoned activists, Human Rights Watch said.
“These trumped-up charges and flawed trials show how this government operates to silence critical voices,” said Hugh Williamson, Europe and Central Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “This is not the way any state – far less a Council of Europe member – should respond to grievances of its own people.”
Washington Threatens Palestinian Statehood Bid
September 1, 2011Stephen Lendman, MWC News, Aug. 29, 2011
Washington wages wars multiple ways, including militarily, financially, and politically by supporting wrong over right each time.
For decades, it subverted peace negotiations and Palestine’s bid for statehood. The Obama administration’s now doing it again, besides waging multiple wars and undermining freedom wherever it surfaces, abroad and at home.
On August 26, Haaretz headlined: “US: We will stop aid to Palestinians if UN bid proceeds,” saying:
America “will stop all financial aid to the Palestinian Authority if they” pursue statehood and de jure UN membership In September.
US Consul General Daniel Rubenstein told chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat that Washington will veto a UN Security Council resolution if it’s sought unilaterally within June 1967 borders, despite its illegality under international law and its pledge not to do so against any state seeking UN membership.
India: Parliament and the Anna Putsch
September 1, 2011
Much of the capitulation of the State to the Anna putsch is to be understood in terms of a recognition of the corporate power behind the putsch
Badri Raina Delhi, Hard News, Aug. 2011
It should be obvious by now that a majority of Dalit and Muslim organizations are opposed to the sort of denigration of parliament that seems inherent in the Anna putsch as it has developed over the last few days. Add to that most Other Backward Classes as well whose leaderships may make opportunist statements but who also remain staunchly wedded to parliamentary supremacy against the claims of “direct democracy” made by Anna’s well-endowed backers.
The social character of this polarization is of the highest significance, and must interest all those for whom Indian democracy is a work-in-progress towards the enhancement of equity and non-discriminatory justice.
Truth and Reconciliation in Kashmir
September 1, 2011Mass grave sights in Kashmir offer only one solution to India and Pakistan
by David Wolfe, Foreign Policy Journal, September 1, 2011
The recent acknowledgement by authorities of the mass graves discovered in Indian Administered Kashmir over three years ago by Dr. Angana Chatterji and her colleagues initially brought hope to a region that the truth of the last 60 years in this troubled region will finally come to light. Additionally, there is recognition that the graves are in fact civilians who had “disappeared”, and not, as the Indian Military claimed, “foreign combatants from Pakistan”, by not only local officials, but groups such as Amnesty International, as well as Hindu-based groups in both India and the Kashmir region. The recognition by Hindu-based organizations not only grants a greater sense of legitimacy, but highlights a fundamental complexity that the outside world continues to misunderstand with regards to the historical and ethnic complexities of the region. In fact, the mass graves reveal that local issues are at the heart of the matter, and that to some, that a terrorist from Pakistan and Indian Military Personnel are one in the same. It is through this recognition along communal lines that South African style ‘truth and reconciliation’ may be the ultimate way forward to solving this six decade long conflict.
Dick Cheney, the Ultimate American Terrorist
September 1, 2011William Rivers Pitt, Truthout | Op-Ed, Aug. 31, 2011
Vice President Dick Cheney in a June 20, 2007 file photo. (Photo: Doug Mills / The New York Times)
It is axiomatic by now: when someone leaves government service, especially from a high-profile position, they write a book. They all do it, sometimes more than once. Richard Nixon is the main example of one who produced a multi-volume apologia; by the time he went into the ground, he’d penned enough books to fill a wide shelf. Henry Kissinger was similarly prolific, which leads one to wonder about the relationship between criminal activities and the printed page. Nixon was chased from office after a series of crimes that, at the time, had no precedent, and Kissinger is still so infamous that he cannot travel abroad for fear of arrest. Both wrote enough books to take up half the political science section of any local bookstore, perhaps in the vain attempt to explain away the…
Syria crackdown horror catalogued in Amnesty deaths in detention report
August 31, 2011Majority of 88 detainees who have died since start of uprising against regime said to have been tortured
- Nour Ali, guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 30 August 2011
An image from a YouTube video apparently showing Syrian forces beating up detainees near Homs. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images
At least 88 people, including 10 children, have died in detention in Syria since the uprising against the regime began in March in what amounts to “systematic persecution on a vast scale”, according to Amnesty International.
The majority of victims were tortured or ill-treated, with injuries ranging from beatings, burns and blunt-force traumas to whipping marks, electrocution, slashes and mutilated genitals.
Amnesty documented the names, dates and places of arrest of victims, while independent forensic pathologists have established possible causes of death in some cases by examining film of the bodies.
Amnesty’s report was released as at least seven people were killed when thousands protested outside mosques following prayers to mark the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
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