November 11, 2009
AsiaNews.it, Nov. 11, 2009
Peter Jacob, NCJP executive secretary, slams the creation of an “Islamic State” based on a law that strikes minorities as well as Muslims. Groups in government, parliament and the military back fundamentalism. The activist hopes that a “common front” can emerge to “bring democracy to the country”.
Rome (AsiaNews) – In Pakistan, an attempt is underway to create an “Islamic State” that would deny the principle of “equality of its citizens” as intended by the country’s father, Ali Jinnah, in a speech he delivered to the constituent assembly in 1947, said Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the National Commission for Justice and Peace (NCJP) during a press conference organised by AsiaNews on blasphemy. Pakistan is the only country in the world with a “blasphemy law”.
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Tags: a “blasphemy law”, “Islamic State”, minorities in Pakistan, Muslims, Pakistan, Peter Jacob
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November 10, 2009
Stephen Lendman, Baltimore Chronicle, Noveber 9, 2009
Today’s major media journalism is biased, irresponsible, sensationalist reporting that distorts, exaggerates or misstates the truth. It’s misinformation or agitprop disinformation masquerading as fact to boost circulation, readership, viewers, or listeners, and on vital issues lie about or suppress uncomfortable truths to provide unqualified support for state and/or corporate interests – to the detriment of the greater good that’s always sacrificed for profits and imperial aims.
As a result, major media sources produce a daily propaganda diet and what Project Censored calls “junk food news,” and get most people to believe it. In their landmark book, Manufacturing Consent, Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky explained the “propaganda model” that controls the public message by “filter(ing)” disturbing truths, “leaving (behind) only the cleansed residue fit to print” or air.
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Tags: ACORN under attack, BBC as an imperial tool, CIA activities, disinformation, imperial wars as liberation, media journalism, Norman Solomon, role of the New York Times, Stephen Lendman, support for corporate interests, Wall Street Journal
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November 10, 2009
By Fidel Castro, ZNet, Nov. 9, 2009
Fidel Castro’s ZSpace Page
Anyone with some information can immediately see that the sweetened ‘Complementation Agreement for Defense and Security Cooperation and Technical Assistance between the Governments of Colombia and the United States’ signed on October 30, and made public in the evening of November 2, amounts to the annexation of Colombia to the United States.
The agreement puts theoreticians and politicians in a predicament. It wouldn’t be honest to keep silence now and speak later on sovereignty, democracy, human rights, freedom of opinion and other delights, when a country is being devoured by the empire as easy as lizards catch flies. This is the Colombian people; a self-sacrificing, industrious and combative people. I looked up in the hefty document for a digestible justification and I found none whatsoever.
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Tags: Colombia, Fidel Castro, murder of Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, United States, US and Colombia agreement
Posted in Commentary, imperialism, Uncategorized, US policy, USA | Leave a Comment »
November 10, 2009
Part 1
By Chris Talbot, WSWS.og, June 17, 2009
This is the first of a three-part series comprising a lecture by WSWS correspondent Chris Talbot to meetings of the International Students for Social Equality in Britain. Part 2 was posted on June 18 and Part 3 on June 19.
We have organised these meetings of the International Students for Social Equality in honour of Charles Darwin from a different standpoint from the many other bicentenary events. We want to bring out the connection between Darwin and that other great thinker of the mid-19th century, Karl Marx.
Charles Darwin
The importance of Marx hits you when you take in the events of the last few months. We are now in a world economic crisis comparable to, if not more severe than, that of the 1930s, which will have a major effect on all of our futures. Current economic theory completely failed to predict this crisis. The economists cannot explain how it happened and have no answer to it [1]. In contrast, Karl Marx spent much of his life developing an economic analysis that explains the inherent instability of capitalism and provides a scientific basis for the development of the socialist working class movement.
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Tags: Charles Darwin, Chris Talbot, economics, historical evolution in Nature, importance of Marx, Karl Marx, On the Origin of Species, political economy of capitalism, rise of imperialism and two world wars, significance of Darwin
Posted in Commentary, Uncategorized | 1 Comment »
November 10, 2009
The Independent/UK, Nov. 8, 2009
One by one over the past eight years, the arguments for the continued presence of Nato troops in Afghanistan have fallen away. The last one, which held us back until now from calling for withdrawal, was the need to police the Afghan election in August. That election process is now over: last week the president’s main opponent pulled out, and Hamid Karzai was formally re-elected. That is not a happy outcome. For British soldiers to be deployed in support of a president whose position is bolstered by ballot-rigging tips the balance of our view from reluctant backing for the mission in Afghanistan to regretful opposition.
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Tags: Afghanistan war, British soldiers, Karzai and vote-rigging, NATO soldiers in Afghanistan, Tony Blair and Afghanistan war
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November 10, 2009
Middle East Online, November 10, 2009
‘Shame on you’, the hardline premier was told
Hardline Netanyahu leaves White House without Obama appearance amid Israeli defiance.
WASHINGTON – Hardline Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu left the White House Monday after spending an hour and forty minutes inside, emerging without US President Barack Obama.
It is not immediately clear whether Netanyahu spent the entire time in closed-door talks with Obama.
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Tags: Hillary Clinton praises Netanyahau, illegal Jewish settlers, Obama-Netanyahu meeting, PM Netanyahu, settlement freeze rejected, US President Barack Obama
Posted in Commentary, Peace Movement, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | 1 Comment »
November 9, 2009
by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu, Israel National News, Nov. 3, 2009
An unprecedented number of American generals, along with 1,400 U.S. army soldiers, are participating with top IDF brass in the high-level Juniper Cobra military exercise that one U.S. Navy commander said is aimed at “specific threats.” Public affairs officials interrupted the naval commander in order to divert the conversation from the scenario of Israel attacking Iran’s nuclear facilities and defending itself from a counter-attack.
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Tags: IDF, Iran, Israel, Juniper Cobra military exercise, United States, US army generals
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November 8, 2009
By Pilger, John | ZNet, Nov. 7, 2009
John Pilger’s ZSpace Page
Thank you all for coming tonight, and my thanks to the City of Sydney and especially to the Sydney Peace Foundation for awarding me the Peace Prize. It’s an honour I cherish, because it comes from where I come from.
I am a seventh generation Australian. My great-great grandfather landed not far from here, on November 8th, 1821. He wore leg irons, each weighing four pounds. His name was Francis McCarty. He was an Irishman, convicted of the crime of insurrection and “uttering unlawful oaths”. In October of the same year, an 18 year old girl called Mary Palmer stood in the dock at Middlesex Gaol and was sentenced to be transported to New South Wales for the term of her natural life. Her crime was stealing in order to live. Only the fact that she was pregnant saved her from the gallows. She was my great-great grandmother. She was sent from the ship to the Female Factory at Parramatta, a notorious prison where every third Monday, male convicts were brought for a “courting day” – a rather desperate measure of social engineering. Mary and Francis met that way and were married on October 21st, 1823.
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Tags: Aboriginal Australia, Afghanistan war, Australia, Australia and Vietnam war, escating war in Afghanistan and Pakistan, Harold Pinter, Israel, John Pilger, occupied Palestine, Rudd government, United States
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November 7, 2009
Robert Dreyfuss, The Nation, November 6, 2009
The announcement by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas that he will not run for reelection is the exclamation point on the utter collapse of the Obama adminstration’s Middle East policy. Launched to great expectations — the appointment of George Mitchell, Obama’s Cairo declaration that the plight of the Palestinians is intolerable — it is now in complete disarray. It is, without doubt, the first major defeat for Obama’s hope-and-change foreign policy.
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Tags: Goldstone Report on Gaza, illegal settlements, Israel, Mahmoud Abbas, Obama adminstration's Middle East policy, Obama and Netanyahu, Robert Dreyfuss
Posted in Commentary, Palestine, President Barack Obama, Uncategorized, US policy, USA, Zionist Israel | 1 Comment »
November 7, 2009
Judge Richard Goldstone and the United Nations fact-finding mission on the Gaza conflict have issued a report about Gaza that is strongly critical of both Israel and Hamas for their violations of human rights. On Wednesday, a special meeting of the U.N. General Assembly began a debate on whether to refer the report to the Security Council.
In January 2009 rudimentary rockets had been launched from Gaza toward nearby Jewish communities, and Israel had wreaked havoc with bombs, missiles, and ground invading forces. Judge Goldstone’s claim is that they are both guilty of “crimes against humanity.” Predictably, both the accused parties have denounced the report as biased and inaccurate.
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Tags: crimes against humanity, deaths and damage in Gaza, destruction of Gaza, Gaza, Goldstone report, Israeli attack, plight of Gazans, President Jimmy Carter, rockerts from Gaza
Posted in Commentary, Gaza, Human rights, Uncategorized, war, war crimes, Zionist Israel | 1 Comment »
Pakistan, the only country in the world with a blasphemy law
November 11, 2009AsiaNews.it, Nov. 11, 2009
Peter Jacob, NCJP executive secretary, slams the creation of an “Islamic State” based on a law that strikes minorities as well as Muslims. Groups in government, parliament and the military back fundamentalism. The activist hopes that a “common front” can emerge to “bring democracy to the country”.
Continues >>
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Tags: a “blasphemy law”, “Islamic State”, minorities in Pakistan, Muslims, Pakistan, Peter Jacob
Posted in Commentary, Human rights, Pakistan, Uncategorized | Leave a Comment »