Mazin Qumsiyeh looks at how the illegal creation of Israel came about:
[Quote of the day] "The last thing that should interest us is the Palestinians' concern. Before the Palestinian issue, what should interest us is our friends in the world. We spoke to them and most said 'help us to help you'." Avigdor Lieberman speaking to Israel Radio about a 10 month "slowdown" of settlement growth (contrary to Road Map Commitments)
The UN General assembly voted 29 November 1947 to recommend partition of Palestine to give the Zionist movement control over 55% of Palestine and leave the Palestinians with 45% of Palestine. The Palestinian natives were then more than 2/3rd of the population and owned 93% of the land. Jews constituted a third of the population (most of them illegal new immigrants) who had land ownership of less than 7%. In the planned "Jewish state", there would be almost an equal number of Christian and Muslim Palestinians as Jews. The Zionist movement accepted the idea of a Jewish state but rejected the other parts of the proposal: borders designated, Internationalization of Jerusalem, economic union, and no ethnic cleansing. There were no viable local leaders of Palestinians (decimated by the British between 1936-1939 and sold-out by dictatorial Arab regimes). The people (and here we are talking about Christians, Muslim, and Jewish native Palestinians) were however largely against partition of their country. The illegal "vote" at the UN (illegal because it violated the UN charter) succeeded because of significant pressure from the US government. President Truman pushed and pressured governments to adopt it because of his need for Jewish support in elections (see http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0994/9409074.htm ). Other factors sometimes cited are sympathy for the Zionist movement following the genocides of WWII and perhaps a way of getting rid of the “Jewish problem” in the West by dumping it on Palestine. There was however strong collaboration by the Zionist movement with both the Nazis themselves and the Nazi goals (see Lenni Brenner "51 Documents: history of the Nazi-Zionist collaboration and look at books and articles written about the successful efforts of the Zionist movement to prevent opening migration doors in Western countries to European Jews).
James Forestall, US Secretary of Defense at the time described in his diaries that “the method that has been used to bring coercion and duress on other nations in the General Assembly bordered on to scandal”. The power politics machinations that led to this infamous resolution (which violated the UN charter itself) were captured by an Arab diplomat of the time:
“The Arab delegations had tried actively to convince other delegations to vote against partition by appealing to logic, justice and law. Their efforts were successful with delegations who had a living conscience end an independent judgment. But some delegations were compelled to change their stand when they saw power end the material interests of their countries on the other side. We remember how the delegate of Haiti shed tears when he was forced to change his country's vote to one in favour of partition. We recall how General Romulo of the Philippines left the U.S.A, because of Zionist threats. Dr Arce of the Argentine, who had stood against partition, came to me and said that he was sorry that he had to abstain rather than to vote against partition, but this was the result of pressure on his government. These are a few of the several delegates who were forced to vote against their convictions. Sometime before the vote was taken I was talking with Lester Pearson, then Minister of Foreign Affairs of Canada and later Prime Minister. I said, "Mr Pearson, do you believe that the act of partitioning Palestine against the will of its inhabitants is an act dictated by conscience and law?" He answered me frankly, "Dr Jamali, politics doesn't know conscience or law unless they are supported by power. As for us today, we are obliged to comply with the policy of the U.S.A. in what she decides on Palestine." Thus Lester Pearson remained a strong supporter of Zionism, not because of conscientious conviction or for legal reasons, but because power and political interests required it of him. The same held true for the representative of Czechoslovakia who also said that the legal aspect of the Palestine problem had been ignored and that the politics of the Great Powers decided the issue and that the U.S.A. had the last word in the matter of Palestine.”
(Experiences in Arab Affairs 1943-1958 by Mohommed Fadhel Jamali, Former Prime Minister of Iraq Web published http://physics.harvard.edu/~wilson/Fadhel.html)
The CIA predicted accurately the meaning of Truman's push to partition Palestine (in order to ensure he would be elected) despite the wishes of its inhabitant and despite the UN charter and they wrote in a now declassified document (ORIGINAL November 28, 1947):
"Armed hostilities between Jews and Arabs will break out if the UN General Assembly accepts the plan to partition Palestine into Jewish and Arab states....The Jews are expected to be able to mobilize some 200,000 fighters in Palestine.. The Jewish armed groups in Palestine are well equipped and well trained in commando tactics. Initially they will achieve marked success over the Arabs because of superior organization and equipment....The US by supporting partition has already lost much of its prestige in the Near East In the event that partition is imposed on Palestine, the resulting conflict will seriously disturb the social, economic, and political stability of the Arab world, and US commercial and strategic interests will be dangerously jeopardized. ..The poverty, unrest, and hopelessness upon which Communist propaganda thrives will increase throughout the Arab world. (and later in the document, p. 6) US prestige on the other hand has steadily decreased with each new indication that the US supports the Zionists. The good will enjoyed by the US at the time of the Rosevelt-Ibn Saud Conference and following backing of Lebanese and Syrian claims for independence was short lived as a result of President Truman's support of Jewish immigration to Palestine and of the Anglo-American Committee report. Because of the long standing cultural ties between the US and the Arab world, the friendly role that the US played in the achievement of Syrian and Lebanese independence, the partial dependence of certain Arab states on oil royalties from US companies, and the promise of increased royalties in the future, the Arab states would like to maintain friendly relations with the US. ... Little of this (positive) development will be possible, if the US supports a Jewish state in Palestine."
As time showed, catering to Zionist greed for someone else's land only brought death and destruction and not just on the native Palestinians themselves. Ramifications included many wars (most lately Lebanon, Gaza, Iraq, and Afghanistan) that still try to feed the greed of the created apartheid regime and protect its loot. The UN has tried to make-up for the injustice by humanitarian aid and by designating November 29 as an international day of solidarity with the Palestinians people. For us, solidarity means boycotts, divestments, and sanctions on Israel until it complies with International law and basic human rights (staring with the internationally recognized basic right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and lands).
Where next for Palestinians?
http://www.odsg.org/co/index.php/Articles/31-general/1561-where-next-for-palestinians.html
(Amazing story) A teenager's quest for justice
http://www.amedtrust.org/component/content/article/321-2009-november/6365-defying-israeli- genocide-at-home-in-school-and-abroad-in-court.html
Mazin Qumsiyeh, PhD
A Bedouin in Cyberspace, a villager at home
http://www.qumsiyeh.org
http://www.pcr.ps
Sunday, November 29, 2009
Friday, November 27, 2009
Tehran denies seizing Shirin Ebadi's Nobel medal--although this report doesn't tell why because it's Iran after all..
Iran has denied confiscating the Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the lawyer and human rights activist, Shirin Ebadi.
The foreign ministry also criticised Norway, who had earlier summoned the Iranian ambassador over the claim, for trying to interfere in Iran's affairs.
It followed an accusation by Ms Ebadi that the medal and accompanying diploma had been taken from a safety-deposit box on the orders of the judiciary.
Ms Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to be awarded a Nobel prize in 2003.
She left Iran for a conference the day before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in June and has not returned since, blaming "threatening messages" she had been sent by officials.
'First time'
In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Ms Ebadi said the Iranian authorities' actions, which also included freezing her and her husband's bank accounts and pensions, had been against the law and contravened international standards.
She also rejected allegations that she owed $410,000 in taxes on the $1.3m prize money she was given by the Nobel committee.
"According to our tax laws, there is no tax payable on the Nobel Prize. But assuming they are telling the truth and I have to pay tax on this prize, why have they confiscated it and seized the bank account and the box belonging to my husband?" she asked.
Even if tax hypothetically needed to be paid, an order to seize the bank account would have come from the tax authorities, not Tehran's Revolutionary Court, the former judge added.
Ms Ebadi said her French Legion d'Honneur award and a ring given by the German association of journalists had also been taken.
Norway, which presents the award, said it was "shocked" by the claim that the award had been confiscated.
The country's foreign ministry said it was the first time national authorities had taken such action and compared the treatment of Ms Ebadi with that of the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Su Kyi.
'Politicised'
Ms Ebadi had previously criticised Iran's recent disputed election and the subsequent treatment of protesters.
She has not been back to Iran since the result, which gave the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad victory, leading thousands of people to protest for several days.
Ms Ebadi said she had "received many threatening messages" since criticizing the government's treatment of those who were arrested during the demonstrations.
Nobel Peace Institute director Geir Lundestad: "We find it totally unacceptable"
"They said they would detain me if I returned, or that they would make the environment unsafe for me wherever I am," she said, adding that her colleagues still in the country had also been "detained or banned from travelling abroad".
She also said her sister, who also lives in Tehran, had been told to leave.
But Ms Ebadi said she would not let anyone prevent her from carrying out her "legal activities" and would eventually go back to Iran.
"I will return whenever it is useful for my country," she said.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a spokesman for Ms Ebadi's human rights group, said the prize money had been used "to help prisoners of conscience and their families".
"The account has been blocked by the officials and they do not allow withdrawals," the AFP news agency quoted the lawyer as saying.
Mr Dadkhah described both the blocking of the account and the confiscation of the award as "politicised".
The Norwegian foreign ministry said it was also concerned about the alleged beating of Ms Ebadi's husband in Tehran and said "the persecution of Dr Ebadi and her family shows that freedom of expression is under great pressure in Iran".
The foreign ministry also criticised Norway, who had earlier summoned the Iranian ambassador over the claim, for trying to interfere in Iran's affairs.
It followed an accusation by Ms Ebadi that the medal and accompanying diploma had been taken from a safety-deposit box on the orders of the judiciary.
Ms Ebadi became the first Muslim woman to be awarded a Nobel prize in 2003.
She left Iran for a conference the day before President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's disputed re-election in June and has not returned since, blaming "threatening messages" she had been sent by officials.
'First time'
In an interview with the BBC on Friday, Ms Ebadi said the Iranian authorities' actions, which also included freezing her and her husband's bank accounts and pensions, had been against the law and contravened international standards.
She also rejected allegations that she owed $410,000 in taxes on the $1.3m prize money she was given by the Nobel committee.
"According to our tax laws, there is no tax payable on the Nobel Prize. But assuming they are telling the truth and I have to pay tax on this prize, why have they confiscated it and seized the bank account and the box belonging to my husband?" she asked.
Even if tax hypothetically needed to be paid, an order to seize the bank account would have come from the tax authorities, not Tehran's Revolutionary Court, the former judge added.
Ms Ebadi said her French Legion d'Honneur award and a ring given by the German association of journalists had also been taken.
Norway, which presents the award, said it was "shocked" by the claim that the award had been confiscated.
The country's foreign ministry said it was the first time national authorities had taken such action and compared the treatment of Ms Ebadi with that of the Burmese opposition leader, Aung San Su Kyi.
'Politicised'
Ms Ebadi had previously criticised Iran's recent disputed election and the subsequent treatment of protesters.
She has not been back to Iran since the result, which gave the incumbent President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad victory, leading thousands of people to protest for several days.
Ms Ebadi said she had "received many threatening messages" since criticizing the government's treatment of those who were arrested during the demonstrations.
Nobel Peace Institute director Geir Lundestad: "We find it totally unacceptable"
"They said they would detain me if I returned, or that they would make the environment unsafe for me wherever I am," she said, adding that her colleagues still in the country had also been "detained or banned from travelling abroad".
She also said her sister, who also lives in Tehran, had been told to leave.
But Ms Ebadi said she would not let anyone prevent her from carrying out her "legal activities" and would eventually go back to Iran.
"I will return whenever it is useful for my country," she said.
Mohammad Ali Dadkhah, a spokesman for Ms Ebadi's human rights group, said the prize money had been used "to help prisoners of conscience and their families".
"The account has been blocked by the officials and they do not allow withdrawals," the AFP news agency quoted the lawyer as saying.
Mr Dadkhah described both the blocking of the account and the confiscation of the award as "politicised".
The Norwegian foreign ministry said it was also concerned about the alleged beating of Ms Ebadi's husband in Tehran and said "the persecution of Dr Ebadi and her family shows that freedom of expression is under great pressure in Iran".
Israel approves 28 schools for West Bank settlements
Existing building work continued the day after the announcement Israel's government has approved 28 new schools for settlements in the West Bank, a day after it announced a 10-month halt to new residential building.
Defence Minister Ehud Barak said construction would completed before the beginning of the 2010-11 school year.
Settlers have been angered by the decision to limit building, although the Palestinians say it is not enough.
They refuse to restart peace talks without a total freeze and are angry the policy does not include Jerusalem.
Under the Israeli new policy, backed by the security cabinet on Wednesday, permits for new homes in the West Bank will not be approved for 10 months. But municipal buildings and hundreds of houses already under construction will still be allowed to go ahead.
 |  Netanyahu has betrayed the very principles for which he stood for all his life  Danny Dayan Chairman of the Yesha Council |
The Palestinian Authority and some members of the international community, including Russia and the UK, want Israel to go further and include East Jerusalem. However, Israel does not consider Jerusalem occupied territory.
Nevertheless, right-wing Israeli leaders have been angered by what they see as capitulation by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the Likud party, and vowed to keep building.
The chairman of the settler group, the Yesha Council, Danny Dayan said on Wednesday that Mr Netanyahu had "betrayed the very principles for which he stood for all his life".
'Real test'
After approving the 28 educational institutions, Mr Barak said: "Alongside our duty to be open and attentive to the settler public we must not confuse ourselves, the state means what it says."
"Everybody who asks whether the political echelon intends to fulfil its decision, I say, the answer is positive. This is a real test for the Israeli democracy," he added.
The row over settlements has dogged US President Barack Obama's attempts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians since he took office.
Israel previously pledged to freeze all settlement activity under the 2003 Middle East peace plan known as the Roadmap, which also called on the Palestinian Authority to dismantle militant groups.
However, the administration of former US President George W Bush did not pressure it to curtail building in the settlement blocs which it was widely expected to keep in any eventual deal.
Mr Obama's administration began by pressing for a total freeze, but softened its language in the face of refusals from Mr Netanyahu and his right-leaning government.
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Settlement building in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, is illegal under international law - although Israel disputes this.
With fingers crossed behind their backs, Israelis offer to halt settler construction in the West Bank. How can anyone trust these people who play games with Palestinian lives?
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Nobel Peace Prize medal 'confiscated' by Iran
 Shirin Ebadi was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 20 |
A Nobel Peace Prize medal awarded to Iranian human rights lawyer Shirin Ebadi has been confiscated, she says.
The 2003 medal and the accompanying diploma were taken from a bank box in Tehran about three weeks ago, she said.
The Norwegian foreign ministry said it was "shocked", describing the confiscation as the first time national authorities had taken such action.
Ms Ebadi has criticised Iran's disputed election earlier this year and the subsequent treatment of protesters.
'Unheard of'
In Norway, where a committee chooses the annual recipient, Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere said: "Such an act leaves us feeling shock and disbelief."
| I will return whenever it is useful for my country Shirin Ebadi |
The ministry summoned Iran's charge d'affaires to protest about the confiscation.
Iran has not made any official comment on the issue.
The Norwegian ministry was also concerned about the alleged beating of Ms Ebadi's husband in Tehran, with Mr Stoere saying the "persecution of Dr Ebadi and her family shows that freedom of expression is under great pressure in Iran".
The Norwegian Nobel Committee's permanent secretary, Geir Lundestad, said the move was "unheard of" and "unacceptable", Associated Press reported.
The result of June's election, in which President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was re-elected, saw thousands of people protesting for several days, with hundreds arrested.
Ms Ebadi said Iranian authorities had also demanded taxes on the $1.3m she was awarded, but that the prize is exempt under local law, AP said.
She left the country the day before the 12 June election for a conference and has not returned, although she said the "threatening messages" she had received would not deter her.
"I will return whenever it is useful for my country," she said.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
Palestinians shun Israeli settlement restriction plan
Construction at Gilo settlementPalestinians say the move makes little difference in practice
The Palestinian Authority has reacted negatively to Israel's offer to temporarily restrict construction in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Chief negotiator Sayeb Erekat said any settlement freeze that did not include East Jerusalem was unacceptable.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the 10-month restriction was part of a policy he hoped would give a new impetus to peace talks.
The US said Israel's decision would help "move forward" peace efforts.
"We believe that through good-faith negotiations the parties can mutually agree on an outcome which ends the conflict and reconciles the Palestinian goal of an independent and viable state based on the 1967 lines, with agreed swaps, and the Israeli goal of a Jewish state with secure and recognised borders," US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said in a statement.
US Middle East envoy George Mitchell said the move did not represent a settlement construction freeze, but was nevertheless "significant" and might have "a substantial impact on the ground".
"We will not halt existing construction and we will continue to build synagogues, schools, kindergartens and public buildings essential for normal life"
Benjamin Netanyahu
Israeli prime minister
'Deception'
But Mr Erekat said there was nothing new in the offer, adding that Israel would continue building 3,000 housing units in the West Bank it had just started.
"This is not a moratorium," he said, quoted by the Associated Press. "Unfortunately, we hoped he would commit to a real settlement freeze so we can resume negotiations and he had a choice between settlements and peace and he chose settlements."
Senior Palestinian MP Mustafa Barghouti went further.
"What Netanyahu announced today is one of his biggest attempts at deception in his history," he said.
"In reality he will continue settlement construction in the same pace as before.
WEST BANK SETTLEMENTS
Construction of settlements began in 1967, shortly after the Middle East War
Some 280,000 Israelis now live in the 121 officially-recognised settlements in the West Bank
A further 190,000 Israelis live in settlements in Palestinian East Jerusalem
The largest West Bank settlement is Maale Adumim, where more than 30,000 people were living in 2005
There are a further 102 unauthorised outposts in the West Bank which are not officially recognised by Israel
The population of West Bank settlements has been growing at a rate of 5-6% since 2001
Source: Peace Now
Challenge of Israeli settlements
In a televised statement earlier, Mr Netanyahu said his security cabinet had earlier authorised the "policy of restraint regarding settlements which will include the suspension of new permits and new construction in [the West Bank] for a period of 10 months".
"This is a far-reaching and painful step," he said.
Mr Netanyahu said the restrictions would apply only to the construction of new homes, and that any work currently under way would continue.
"We will not halt existing construction and we will continue to build synagogues, schools, kindergartens and public buildings essential for normal life," he added.
He also stressed that the policy did not apply to Jerusalem, saying: "We do not put any restrictions on building in our sovereign capital."
The BBC's Katya Adler in Jerusalem says many will see Wednesday's announcement as a cynical move to appease the US.
Israeli PM Benjamin Netanyahu and US envoy George Mitchell on the plans
The row over settlements has dogged US President Barack Obama's attempts to restart peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians for months.
Israel previously pledged to freeze all settlement activity under the 2003 Middle East peace plan known as the roadmap. The plan also called for Palestinians to dismantle militant groups.
However, the administration of former US President George W Bush did not pressure it to curtail building in settlement blocs it was widely expected to keep in an eventual deal.
Mr Obama's administration began by pressing for a total freeze, but softened its language in the face of refusals from Mr Netanyahu and his right-leaning government.
Nearly 500,000 Jews live in more than 100 settlements built on occupied territory in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
A number of UN Security Council resolutions have condemned settlement building in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, as illegal - although Israel disputes this.
Whistle-blower site taken offline
A controversial website that allows whistle-blowers to anonymously post government and corporate documents has been taken offline in the US.
Wikileaks.org, as it is known, was cut off from the internet following a California court ruling, the site says.
The case was brought by a Swiss bank after "several hundred" documents were posted about its offshore activities.
Other versions of the pages, hosted in countries such as Belgium and India, can still be accessed.
However, the main site was taken offline after the court ordered that Dynadot, which controls the site's domain name, should remove all traces of wikileaks from its servers.
The court also ordered that Dynadot should "prevent the domain name from resolving to the wikileaks.org website or any other website or server other than a blank park page, until further order of this Court."
Other orders included that the domain name be locked "to prevent transfer of the domain name to a different domain registrar" to prevent changes being made to the site.
Wikileaks claimed that the order was "unconstitutional" and said that the site had been "forcibly censored".
Web names
The case was brought by lawyers working for the Swiss banking group Julius Baer. It concerned several documents posted on the site which allegedly reveal that the bank was involved with money laundering and tax evasion.
Wikileaks logo
The site was founded in 2006
The documents were allegedly posted by Rudolf Elmer, former vice president of the bank's Cayman Island's operation.
A spokesperson for Julius Baer said he could not comment on the case because of "pending legal proceedings".
The BBC understands that Julius Baer asked for the documents to be removed because they could have an impact on a separate legal case ongoing in Switzerland.
The court hearing took place last week and Dynadot blocked access from Friday evening.
Wikileaks says it was not represented at the hearing because it was "given only hours notice" via e-mail.
A document signed by Judge Jeffery White, who presided over the case, ordered Dynadot to follow six court orders.
As well as removing all records of the site form its servers, the hosting and domain name firm was ordered to produce "all prior or previous administrative and account records and data for the wikileaks.org domain name and account".
The order also demanded that details of the site's registrant, contacts, payment records and "IP addresses and associated data used by any person...who accessed the account for the domain name" to be handed over.
Wikileaks allows users to post documents anonymously.
Information bank
The site was founded in 2006 by dissidents, journalists, mathematicians and technologists from the US, Taiwan, Europe, Australia and South Africa.
It so far claims to have published more than 1.2 million documents.
It provoked controversy when it first appeared on the net with many commentators questioning the motives of the people behind the site.
It recently made available a confidential briefing document relating to the collapse of the UK's Northern Rock bank.
Lawyers working on behalf of the bank attempted to have the documents removed from the site. They can still be accessed.
Dynadot was contacted for this article but have so far not responded to requests for comment.
"Bomb detonated in World Trade Ctr. Pls get back to Mike Brady w/a quick assessment of your areas and contact us if anything is needed."---One of the 9-11 eye-witness accounts that Wikileaks reported which is now censored.
UN officials call for intensified efforts to eliminate violence against women
www.chinaview.cn
2009-11-26 05:49:06
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday led a chorus of United Nations officials in calling on the international community to make greater efforts to tackle the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.
"In every country, women and girls continue to be plagued by violence, causing tremendous suffering," Ban said in a message marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, observed annually on Nov. 25.
He noted that such violence undermines development, generates instability and makes peace harder to achieve, stressing that the international community must demand accountability for the violations and take concrete steps to end impunity.
"Our goal is clear: to end these inexcusable crimes -- whether it is the use of rape as a weapon of war, domestic violence, sex trafficking, so-called 'honor' crimes or female genital mutilation," said Ban.
It is crucial to address the root causes of violence by eradicating discrimination and changing the mindset that reinforces prejudice, he said, highlighting his "UNite to End Violence Against Women" campaign that calls for nations to put in place strong laws, action plans, preventative measures, data collection and systematic measures to address sexual violence in conflict situations.
"Women around the world are the very linchpin keeping families, communities and nations together," he said. "On this International Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to women's human rights and let us do all it takes to end these horrific assaults once and for all."
On Tuesday the secretary-general marked the 10th anniversary of the International Day by launching a Network of Men Leaders, which brings together current and former politicians, activists, religious and community figures to combat the global pandemic.
"These men will add their voices to the growing global chorus for action," he said, noting that 70 percent of women experience in their lifetime some form of physical or sexual violence from men, the majority from husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.
The head of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) praised women's rights activists around the world for harnessing broader support to combat the scourge, saying that it is now an issue of human rights and peace and security as well as a matter of urgent concern to both men and women.
"There are now more national plans, policies and laws in place than ever before, and momentum is also growing in the intergovernmental arena," said UNIFEM Executive Director Ines Alberdi.
She said that despite these achievements, it is "shocking" that up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime. "It happens everywhere -- at home and at work, on the streets and in schools, during peacetime and in conflict."
Alberdi said that the solution to ending violence against women and girls lies within each individual by raising "a generation that will not resort to violence, by volunteering to provide services, by raising funds and by raising our voices to say no to violence against women."
An independent UN human rights expert said that the reality on the ground around the world demonstrates that many forms of violence against women remain endemic, cutting across national boundaries, race, class, culture, tradition and religion.
"The consequences include the violation of dignity and also of the right to equality, non-discrimination, physical integrity and freedom from violence," said Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences Rashida Manjoo in her message for the Day.
States have a responsibility to eliminate violence against women through legal and policy measures, a robust criminal justice system, the provision of social services and economic policies that empower women, said Manjoo.
"The due diligence standard requires States to promote the right to be free from all forms of violence, both private and public; and also to develop and implement legislation, policies and programs that specifically address prevention, protection, prosecution and compensation," she said.
2009-11-26 05:49:06
UNITED NATIONS, Nov. 25 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday led a chorus of United Nations officials in calling on the international community to make greater efforts to tackle the global pandemic of violence against women and girls.
"In every country, women and girls continue to be plagued by violence, causing tremendous suffering," Ban said in a message marking the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, observed annually on Nov. 25.
He noted that such violence undermines development, generates instability and makes peace harder to achieve, stressing that the international community must demand accountability for the violations and take concrete steps to end impunity.
"Our goal is clear: to end these inexcusable crimes -- whether it is the use of rape as a weapon of war, domestic violence, sex trafficking, so-called 'honor' crimes or female genital mutilation," said Ban.
It is crucial to address the root causes of violence by eradicating discrimination and changing the mindset that reinforces prejudice, he said, highlighting his "UNite to End Violence Against Women" campaign that calls for nations to put in place strong laws, action plans, preventative measures, data collection and systematic measures to address sexual violence in conflict situations.
"Women around the world are the very linchpin keeping families, communities and nations together," he said. "On this International Day, let us reaffirm our commitment to women's human rights and let us do all it takes to end these horrific assaults once and for all."
On Tuesday the secretary-general marked the 10th anniversary of the International Day by launching a Network of Men Leaders, which brings together current and former politicians, activists, religious and community figures to combat the global pandemic.
"These men will add their voices to the growing global chorus for action," he said, noting that 70 percent of women experience in their lifetime some form of physical or sexual violence from men, the majority from husbands, intimate partners or someone they know.
The head of the UN Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) praised women's rights activists around the world for harnessing broader support to combat the scourge, saying that it is now an issue of human rights and peace and security as well as a matter of urgent concern to both men and women.
"There are now more national plans, policies and laws in place than ever before, and momentum is also growing in the intergovernmental arena," said UNIFEM Executive Director Ines Alberdi.
She said that despite these achievements, it is "shocking" that up to 70 percent of women experience physical or sexual violence from men in their lifetime. "It happens everywhere -- at home and at work, on the streets and in schools, during peacetime and in conflict."
Alberdi said that the solution to ending violence against women and girls lies within each individual by raising "a generation that will not resort to violence, by volunteering to provide services, by raising funds and by raising our voices to say no to violence against women."
An independent UN human rights expert said that the reality on the ground around the world demonstrates that many forms of violence against women remain endemic, cutting across national boundaries, race, class, culture, tradition and religion.
"The consequences include the violation of dignity and also of the right to equality, non-discrimination, physical integrity and freedom from violence," said Special Rapporteur on Violence against Women, its causes and consequences Rashida Manjoo in her message for the Day.
States have a responsibility to eliminate violence against women through legal and policy measures, a robust criminal justice system, the provision of social services and economic policies that empower women, said Manjoo.
"The due diligence standard requires States to promote the right to be free from all forms of violence, both private and public; and also to develop and implement legislation, policies and programs that specifically address prevention, protection, prosecution and compensation," she said.
The Invention of the Jewish People by Shlomo Sand
From The Sunday Times
November 15, 2009
Every nation cherishes its own myths and legends. Most Americans believe themselves to be anti-imperialists, though their ancestors colonised a continent, almost annihilating its native inhabitants. The French fancy themselves descended from ancient Gauls, though like the rest of us they are mongrels.
But Israel’s favoured historical narrative possesses special significance, because it defines the state’s proclaimed right to existence. It holds that the world’s Jews are descended from the ancient tribes of Israel, evicted by the Romans following the fall of the temple in AD70, and today permitted to return to their rightful homeland after almost 2,000 years of foreign persecution.
Shlomo Sand, who teaches contemporary history at Tel Aviv University, rejects most of this as myth. He argues that the alleged history of the Jewish people has been distorted, reshaped or invented in modern times to fit the political requirements of Zionism.
His book, first published in Hebrew, has caused widespread outrage in his native land. But it represents, at the very least, a formidable polemic against claims that Israel has a moral right to define itself as an explicitly and exclusively Jewish society, in which non-Jews, such as Palestino-Israelis, are culturally and politically marginalised.
He disputes the claim that Israel existed for thousands of years as a nation. This, he says, relies chiefly on a willingness to suppose that the Old Testament story is broadly valid, in defiance of archeological and other historical evidence. He refuses to believe that a unified Jewish nation occupied Canaan in the era of David and Solomon, or that the flight from Egypt occurred as described. The Old Testament “is not a narrative that can instruct us about the time it describes” — centuries before it was written — “but is instead an impressive didactic theological discourse”.
He rejects the assertion, dependent on the testimony of the 1st-century Hellenised Jewish historian Josephus, that Jews were forcibly deported from Jerusalem after the fall of the Temple. Rome behaved savagely to defeated rebels, but never expelled whole populations, not least because it required their services.
Historical evidence, says Sand, shows large Jewish communities living all over the Mediterranean, including Rome, before AD70. Cicero complained in 59BC: “You know how numerous that crowd is, how great is its unanimity, and of what weight it is in popular assemblies.”
The author suggests that there was steady economic migration from Palestine after the fall of the Temple, but most Jews remained, eventually to be converted to Islam following the Muslim conquest in the 7th century and afterwards. Some modern Palestinians are more likely to be descended from the ancient Israelites than are modern Israelis who have migrated from Russia.
Acknowledging uncertainty about much that happened in the last millennium before Christ and the first thereafter, Sand dismisses the proposition of Zionist historians that the Jewish communities that grew up all over Europe were descended from Jews driven out of Israel. Many, he says, were indigenous peoples converted to Judaism by small numbers of wandering, literate Jews.
He focuses special attention on the Khazar empire, the Jewish society that flourished around the Volga and Caucasus between the 4th and 13th centuries, and provided seed for the large Jewish communities of eastern Europe. Zionists assert that those Jews had migrated east from Germany. Sand says there is no evidence for this, save that they spoke Yiddish.
He believes, instead, that these were locals who adopted the Jewish religion. He claims that modern Israeli historians refuse to study the Khazar empire honestly, lest they find themselves confronted by evidence that might seem to delegitimise Israel. He writes scornfully of Zionists “entirely caught up in the mythology of an eternal ‘ethnic’ time”.
Sand launches a further broadside at Israeli geneticists who have devoted much energy to identifying a common “Jewish gene” among diaspora communities around the world. He is scornful of such research, perhaps not least because of the ghastly memory of Nazi scientists who pursued alleged Aryan identity.
Sand’s fundamental thesis is that the Jewish people are joined by bonds of religion, not race or ancient nationhood. He deplores the explicitly racial basis of the Israeli state, in which the Arab minority are second-class citizens. “No Jew who lives today in a western democracy would tolerate the discrimination and exclusion experienced by the Palestino-Israelis… The state’s ethnocentric foundation remains an obstacle to [its liberal democratic] development.”
It is easy to see why Sand’s book has attracted fierce controversy. The legend of the ancient exile and modern return stands at the heart of Israel’s self-belief. It is no more surprising that its people enjoy supposing that Joshua’s trumpets blew down the walls of Jericho — at a time when, Sand says, Jericho was a small town with no walls — than that we cherish tales of King Alfred and his cakes.
The author rightly deplores the eagerness of fanatics to insist upon the historical truth of events convenient to modern politics, in defiance of evidence or probability. No modern British historian’s reputation could survive, for instance, claiming the factual accuracy of all the charming medieval stories in Froissart’s Chronicles, which nonetheless bear a closer relationship to events than does the Old Testament.
Yet Sand, whose title is foolishly provocative, displays a lack of compassion for the Jewish predicament. It is possible to accept his view that there is no common genetic link either between the world’s Jews or to the ancient tribes of Israel, while also trusting the evidence of one’s own senses that there are remarkable common Jewish characteristics — indeed, a Jewish genius — that cannot be explained merely by religion.
Jewish faith is visibly declining, in Israel as much as anywhere else. There is much dismay among diaspora communities about the steady increase in the frequency of their members “marrying out”. Yet who can doubt that Jews possess a social identity that transcends any narrow issue of belief? Sand produces some formidable arguments about what Jews may not be, but he fails to explain what it is they are.
His book serves notice on Zionist traditionalists: if an Israeli historian can display such plausible doubts about important aspects of the Israeli legend, any Arabs hostile to the state of Israel can exploit a fertile field indeed.
Yet whatever the rights and wrong of the past, Israel has established its existence. If the Middle East is to advance beyond perpetual conflict, all parties must abandon both claims and grievances rooted in history, and address the now and the future.
I am of Ashkenazi descent on my mother's and her mother's side of my family. I have had my dna tested which confirms Khazar ancestry and the Khazar Ashkenazim movement westward from Central Asia to Eastern Europe as far as I'm concerned. I am genetically linked to Uzbekistan, Slovakian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian-Austrian, and Netherlands Jews with slight traces of Sephardic or "real" Semitic genetic ancestry from Tunisia and Libya. To use these tiny traces of Semitic ancestry as "proof" of Jewish legitimate claim to the land of Palestine is absurd. Most every ethnic group living in countries around the eastern end of Mediterranean Sea will also show such Semitic traces and yet are Kurds demanding the "right of return" to Palestine? It would be almost like Muslims living in China demanding Mecca and Saudi Arabia as their "homeland". And even if every Jews in the world was genetically connected to Palestine what ethnic population in the world except Jews have ever demanded their homelands back after leaving them for nearly two thousand years. Again, the idea is absurd and if every ethnic group acted on these absurdities the world's nations would be in chaos. Yet we allow Jews to bamboozle the whole world with a totally fraudulent claim to Palestine. We allow Zionist Jews to kill for these myths of origin.
It was a sick day for world peace when the fledgling U.N. totally under the control of the Big Five nations in 1947 violated international law and human rights of Palestinians, the clear majority ethnic group at 70% in 1947, by taking their land away from them without a single Palestinian vote. Such an act by the U.N. done now would cause an outrage of most all U.N. participants for violating international laws protecting sovereignty and human rights. Why did America support this? Because of oil. It's always been because of oil for the U.S. as it is for Europe. Afraid of Muslim control over the vast oil deposits in the Middle East the Western nations just had to have a pro-Western colony established to seize control of the region which is why America armed Israel which now has the 5th largest army in the world. So much for human rights and political asperations of indigenous populations in the way of U.S. and European paranoia of Muslim control of their own oil supplies.
November 15, 2009
Every nation cherishes its own myths and legends. Most Americans believe themselves to be anti-imperialists, though their ancestors colonised a continent, almost annihilating its native inhabitants. The French fancy themselves descended from ancient Gauls, though like the rest of us they are mongrels.
But Israel’s favoured historical narrative possesses special significance, because it defines the state’s proclaimed right to existence. It holds that the world’s Jews are descended from the ancient tribes of Israel, evicted by the Romans following the fall of the temple in AD70, and today permitted to return to their rightful homeland after almost 2,000 years of foreign persecution.
Shlomo Sand, who teaches contemporary history at Tel Aviv University, rejects most of this as myth. He argues that the alleged history of the Jewish people has been distorted, reshaped or invented in modern times to fit the political requirements of Zionism.
His book, first published in Hebrew, has caused widespread outrage in his native land. But it represents, at the very least, a formidable polemic against claims that Israel has a moral right to define itself as an explicitly and exclusively Jewish society, in which non-Jews, such as Palestino-Israelis, are culturally and politically marginalised.
He disputes the claim that Israel existed for thousands of years as a nation. This, he says, relies chiefly on a willingness to suppose that the Old Testament story is broadly valid, in defiance of archeological and other historical evidence. He refuses to believe that a unified Jewish nation occupied Canaan in the era of David and Solomon, or that the flight from Egypt occurred as described. The Old Testament “is not a narrative that can instruct us about the time it describes” — centuries before it was written — “but is instead an impressive didactic theological discourse”.
He rejects the assertion, dependent on the testimony of the 1st-century Hellenised Jewish historian Josephus, that Jews were forcibly deported from Jerusalem after the fall of the Temple. Rome behaved savagely to defeated rebels, but never expelled whole populations, not least because it required their services.
Historical evidence, says Sand, shows large Jewish communities living all over the Mediterranean, including Rome, before AD70. Cicero complained in 59BC: “You know how numerous that crowd is, how great is its unanimity, and of what weight it is in popular assemblies.”
The author suggests that there was steady economic migration from Palestine after the fall of the Temple, but most Jews remained, eventually to be converted to Islam following the Muslim conquest in the 7th century and afterwards. Some modern Palestinians are more likely to be descended from the ancient Israelites than are modern Israelis who have migrated from Russia.
Acknowledging uncertainty about much that happened in the last millennium before Christ and the first thereafter, Sand dismisses the proposition of Zionist historians that the Jewish communities that grew up all over Europe were descended from Jews driven out of Israel. Many, he says, were indigenous peoples converted to Judaism by small numbers of wandering, literate Jews.
He focuses special attention on the Khazar empire, the Jewish society that flourished around the Volga and Caucasus between the 4th and 13th centuries, and provided seed for the large Jewish communities of eastern Europe. Zionists assert that those Jews had migrated east from Germany. Sand says there is no evidence for this, save that they spoke Yiddish.
He believes, instead, that these were locals who adopted the Jewish religion. He claims that modern Israeli historians refuse to study the Khazar empire honestly, lest they find themselves confronted by evidence that might seem to delegitimise Israel. He writes scornfully of Zionists “entirely caught up in the mythology of an eternal ‘ethnic’ time”.
Sand launches a further broadside at Israeli geneticists who have devoted much energy to identifying a common “Jewish gene” among diaspora communities around the world. He is scornful of such research, perhaps not least because of the ghastly memory of Nazi scientists who pursued alleged Aryan identity.
Sand’s fundamental thesis is that the Jewish people are joined by bonds of religion, not race or ancient nationhood. He deplores the explicitly racial basis of the Israeli state, in which the Arab minority are second-class citizens. “No Jew who lives today in a western democracy would tolerate the discrimination and exclusion experienced by the Palestino-Israelis… The state’s ethnocentric foundation remains an obstacle to [its liberal democratic] development.”
It is easy to see why Sand’s book has attracted fierce controversy. The legend of the ancient exile and modern return stands at the heart of Israel’s self-belief. It is no more surprising that its people enjoy supposing that Joshua’s trumpets blew down the walls of Jericho — at a time when, Sand says, Jericho was a small town with no walls — than that we cherish tales of King Alfred and his cakes.
The author rightly deplores the eagerness of fanatics to insist upon the historical truth of events convenient to modern politics, in defiance of evidence or probability. No modern British historian’s reputation could survive, for instance, claiming the factual accuracy of all the charming medieval stories in Froissart’s Chronicles, which nonetheless bear a closer relationship to events than does the Old Testament.
Yet Sand, whose title is foolishly provocative, displays a lack of compassion for the Jewish predicament. It is possible to accept his view that there is no common genetic link either between the world’s Jews or to the ancient tribes of Israel, while also trusting the evidence of one’s own senses that there are remarkable common Jewish characteristics — indeed, a Jewish genius — that cannot be explained merely by religion.
Jewish faith is visibly declining, in Israel as much as anywhere else. There is much dismay among diaspora communities about the steady increase in the frequency of their members “marrying out”. Yet who can doubt that Jews possess a social identity that transcends any narrow issue of belief? Sand produces some formidable arguments about what Jews may not be, but he fails to explain what it is they are.
His book serves notice on Zionist traditionalists: if an Israeli historian can display such plausible doubts about important aspects of the Israeli legend, any Arabs hostile to the state of Israel can exploit a fertile field indeed.
Yet whatever the rights and wrong of the past, Israel has established its existence. If the Middle East is to advance beyond perpetual conflict, all parties must abandon both claims and grievances rooted in history, and address the now and the future.
I am of Ashkenazi descent on my mother's and her mother's side of my family. I have had my dna tested which confirms Khazar ancestry and the Khazar Ashkenazim movement westward from Central Asia to Eastern Europe as far as I'm concerned. I am genetically linked to Uzbekistan, Slovakian, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Hungarian-Austrian, and Netherlands Jews with slight traces of Sephardic or "real" Semitic genetic ancestry from Tunisia and Libya. To use these tiny traces of Semitic ancestry as "proof" of Jewish legitimate claim to the land of Palestine is absurd. Most every ethnic group living in countries around the eastern end of Mediterranean Sea will also show such Semitic traces and yet are Kurds demanding the "right of return" to Palestine? It would be almost like Muslims living in China demanding Mecca and Saudi Arabia as their "homeland". And even if every Jews in the world was genetically connected to Palestine what ethnic population in the world except Jews have ever demanded their homelands back after leaving them for nearly two thousand years. Again, the idea is absurd and if every ethnic group acted on these absurdities the world's nations would be in chaos. Yet we allow Jews to bamboozle the whole world with a totally fraudulent claim to Palestine. We allow Zionist Jews to kill for these myths of origin.
It was a sick day for world peace when the fledgling U.N. totally under the control of the Big Five nations in 1947 violated international law and human rights of Palestinians, the clear majority ethnic group at 70% in 1947, by taking their land away from them without a single Palestinian vote. Such an act by the U.N. done now would cause an outrage of most all U.N. participants for violating international laws protecting sovereignty and human rights. Why did America support this? Because of oil. It's always been because of oil for the U.S. as it is for Europe. Afraid of Muslim control over the vast oil deposits in the Middle East the Western nations just had to have a pro-Western colony established to seize control of the region which is why America armed Israel which now has the 5th largest army in the world. So much for human rights and political asperations of indigenous populations in the way of U.S. and European paranoia of Muslim control of their own oil supplies.
Tuesday, November 24, 2009
Israel police 'arrest Mossad spy on training exercise'
Mossad logo
Mossad does not give uniformed police advance notice of training sessions
A trainee spy for Israel's secret service agency Mossad was arrested by Tel Aviv police while taking part in a training operation, media reports say.
The young trainee was spotted by a female passer-by as he planted a fake bomb under a vehicle in the capital.
He was only able to persuade police he was a spy after being taken in by an officer for questioning on Monday.
The authorities have refused to comment on the story although Israeli media outlets have expressed their surprise.
'Just a drill'
Mossad does not tell local uniformed police about its training exercises.
The country's commercial Channel 10 said it hoped the agent's operatives were "more effective abroad", AFP news agency reported.
Niva Ben-Harush, the woman who reported the novice's suspicious behaviour to police, told Ynet News that 15 minutes after she made the call, Tel Aviv's port was closed and people evacuated.
She said police initially asked her to come with them and identify the suspect.
"But after a few minutes, they told me it was just a drill," she said.
Up to three agency employees were believed to have been suspended following the incident, Ynet reported.
It quoted the prime minister's office as saying it did "not respond to information about such activities undertaken by security agencies or attributed to them".
Training for anti-terrorism or terrorism? A spy agency with a religious logo. Imagine what the world would think if the CIA had a Christian cross on its logo.
Sunday, November 22, 2009
Bolivia election: Cocaine casts shadow on campaign
As Bolivia's Evo Morales campaigns for re-election ahead of polls in December, his support from the nation's indigenous coca producers is again coming under scrutiny. Andres Schipani reports from La Paz.
Evo Morales, celebrates his 50th birthday in the Aymara community of Batallas
Evo Morales is a champion for indigenous Bolivians
Many around the world see the coca leaf - the raw ingredient of cocaine - as a source of misery. For them, it stands for crack, cocaine and all the inherent evils of the illegal drugs.
But for indigenous Bolivians, the leaf is an intrinsic part of their ancient culture and economy. And it was partly to defend it that they voted four years ago for Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president - and a man who himself grows coca leaf.
As his campaign for re-election gathers pace, the coca growers or "cocaleros" are backing him financially. The coca unions are combining to put money into his campaign, coming out of their harvest.
"I am backing President Morales with everything I can because he is one of us - an indigenous peasant, a coca grower, who knows what suffering means," says coca grower and trade unionist, Emilio Mamani, cupping a bunch of shiny green leaves.
We are the backbone of this government, of this process of change
Sabino Mendoza
Coca trade unionist
"He is fighting for the rights of the indigenous poor, the peasants, that for centuries here were, basically, shadowed people."
The growers share a trade and passion with President Morales, who remains head of the country's largest coca trade union.
And they definitely want him to stay in office for another term.
Dark side
"We are the backbone of this government, of this process of change. It is a huge responsibility we have, we coca growers," Sabino Mendoza, a young coca trade unionist and government adviser, told the BBC in one of the world's only two legal coca markets.
Samuel Doria Medina
The only sector that has had an important growth in these past four years, is the coca production and also the cocaine industry
World drugs in graphics
Since the mid-1980s, the coca growers have always been at the forefront of the political struggle in this country and have been key to President Morales's success, so he needs their support to cement his power base.
Industrial users of coca include the cosmetics and food industries. It is also used in traditional medicines, chewed, used in coca tea, and in some Andean religious ceremonies.
But there is a darker side to the coca growers' trade. In the past four years, coca production in Bolivia has increased. But, so too has the production of cocaine.
Since the start of his presidency in January 2006, Mr Morales has had a simple message for his followers: "Zero cocaine, but not zero coca."
But he admits there is a problem. "Lamentably, I, as a coca producer, have to tell the truth - the illegal price, the price of cocaine, is what regulates the price of coca. As long as it stays this way, illegal coca cultivations will keep mushrooming," he told reporters.
So the opposition has seized on cocaine production as a reason not to re-elect him.
Political polarisation
"The only sector that has had an important growth in these past four years is the coca production and also the cocaine industry," Samuel Doria Medina, a wealthy businessman, who is one of the main contenders for President Morales's post, told the BBC.
"I would say that the main investments in this country have been in the cocaine business," he added.
However, despite four years of harsh political polarisation and the increase in drug production, there is still strong support for the man seen as the champion of the coca leaf and the indigenous masses.
Emilio Mamani
Emilio Mamani says he is backing Mr Morales because he is "one of us"
Known as the "peasant president", the left-wing Mr Morales is favourite to win re-election in December. Recent opinion polls give him more than 50% support.
Riding strong support from the country's indigenous majority, Mr Morales won sweeping victories in a recall vote in August and a constitutional referendum in January.
Some analysts say it is perfectly valid that coca growers are backing him. Nor should it be an issue, says Jim Shultz of the Cochabamba-based think tank the Democracy Centre.
"It's no big surprise that the coca growers are backing Evo Morales, including with finances and other political support", said Mr Shultz.
"This is no different than large businesses supporting [former US President] George Bush financially when he ran for re-election or labour unions supporting Barack Obama in the United States when he ran. Political bases get out the vote, they contribute money, they do these kinds of things."
So, as the polls approach, the key question is whether Evo Morales is the coca leaf champion or the president who has let the rest of the country slide.
The split on this issue reflects the wider division between Bolivia's indigenous and non-indigenous people, and will play a large part in the way they vote in the presidential election.
But for coca growers such as Mr Mendoza, there is no discussion: "We, the coca growers, gave birth to this political process, to this revolution. It is an obligation to support our president with the product of our labour."
If all drugs were legal, how would criminals make money? We treat drugs differently than we do any other poisons which are all around us and which we LEARN not to eat or use because they will kill us, fast or slow, no matter how good they taste or how addicting they might be, e.g. poisonous mushrooms, something every society where they grow learns to deal with without need of laws. Since many drugs are now an integral part of human healthcare and social recreation, we need to teach our children correct information about all drugs that they will likely come across through the years of childhood and teens and as adults. This is the adult way to deal with drugs. Punishment, prohibitions, do not work and only create another way for criminals to make lots of money and fuck up societies wherever they and their drugs and drug money go.
Evo Morales, celebrates his 50th birthday in the Aymara community of Batallas
Evo Morales is a champion for indigenous Bolivians
Many around the world see the coca leaf - the raw ingredient of cocaine - as a source of misery. For them, it stands for crack, cocaine and all the inherent evils of the illegal drugs.
But for indigenous Bolivians, the leaf is an intrinsic part of their ancient culture and economy. And it was partly to defend it that they voted four years ago for Evo Morales, the country's first indigenous president - and a man who himself grows coca leaf.
As his campaign for re-election gathers pace, the coca growers or "cocaleros" are backing him financially. The coca unions are combining to put money into his campaign, coming out of their harvest.
"I am backing President Morales with everything I can because he is one of us - an indigenous peasant, a coca grower, who knows what suffering means," says coca grower and trade unionist, Emilio Mamani, cupping a bunch of shiny green leaves.
We are the backbone of this government, of this process of change
Sabino Mendoza
Coca trade unionist
"He is fighting for the rights of the indigenous poor, the peasants, that for centuries here were, basically, shadowed people."
The growers share a trade and passion with President Morales, who remains head of the country's largest coca trade union.
And they definitely want him to stay in office for another term.
Dark side
"We are the backbone of this government, of this process of change. It is a huge responsibility we have, we coca growers," Sabino Mendoza, a young coca trade unionist and government adviser, told the BBC in one of the world's only two legal coca markets.
Samuel Doria Medina
The only sector that has had an important growth in these past four years, is the coca production and also the cocaine industry
World drugs in graphics
Since the mid-1980s, the coca growers have always been at the forefront of the political struggle in this country and have been key to President Morales's success, so he needs their support to cement his power base.
Industrial users of coca include the cosmetics and food industries. It is also used in traditional medicines, chewed, used in coca tea, and in some Andean religious ceremonies.
But there is a darker side to the coca growers' trade. In the past four years, coca production in Bolivia has increased. But, so too has the production of cocaine.
Since the start of his presidency in January 2006, Mr Morales has had a simple message for his followers: "Zero cocaine, but not zero coca."
But he admits there is a problem. "Lamentably, I, as a coca producer, have to tell the truth - the illegal price, the price of cocaine, is what regulates the price of coca. As long as it stays this way, illegal coca cultivations will keep mushrooming," he told reporters.
So the opposition has seized on cocaine production as a reason not to re-elect him.
Political polarisation
"The only sector that has had an important growth in these past four years is the coca production and also the cocaine industry," Samuel Doria Medina, a wealthy businessman, who is one of the main contenders for President Morales's post, told the BBC.
"I would say that the main investments in this country have been in the cocaine business," he added.
However, despite four years of harsh political polarisation and the increase in drug production, there is still strong support for the man seen as the champion of the coca leaf and the indigenous masses.
Emilio Mamani
Emilio Mamani says he is backing Mr Morales because he is "one of us"
Known as the "peasant president", the left-wing Mr Morales is favourite to win re-election in December. Recent opinion polls give him more than 50% support.
Riding strong support from the country's indigenous majority, Mr Morales won sweeping victories in a recall vote in August and a constitutional referendum in January.
Some analysts say it is perfectly valid that coca growers are backing him. Nor should it be an issue, says Jim Shultz of the Cochabamba-based think tank the Democracy Centre.
"It's no big surprise that the coca growers are backing Evo Morales, including with finances and other political support", said Mr Shultz.
"This is no different than large businesses supporting [former US President] George Bush financially when he ran for re-election or labour unions supporting Barack Obama in the United States when he ran. Political bases get out the vote, they contribute money, they do these kinds of things."
So, as the polls approach, the key question is whether Evo Morales is the coca leaf champion or the president who has let the rest of the country slide.
The split on this issue reflects the wider division between Bolivia's indigenous and non-indigenous people, and will play a large part in the way they vote in the presidential election.
But for coca growers such as Mr Mendoza, there is no discussion: "We, the coca growers, gave birth to this political process, to this revolution. It is an obligation to support our president with the product of our labour."
If all drugs were legal, how would criminals make money? We treat drugs differently than we do any other poisons which are all around us and which we LEARN not to eat or use because they will kill us, fast or slow, no matter how good they taste or how addicting they might be, e.g. poisonous mushrooms, something every society where they grow learns to deal with without need of laws. Since many drugs are now an integral part of human healthcare and social recreation, we need to teach our children correct information about all drugs that they will likely come across through the years of childhood and teens and as adults. This is the adult way to deal with drugs. Punishment, prohibitions, do not work and only create another way for criminals to make lots of money and fuck up societies wherever they and their drugs and drug money go.
Hacked Emails Show Climate Science Ridden with Rancor
The Wall Street Journal
NOVEMBER 21, 2009, 3:39 P.M. ET
By KEITH JOHNSON
The picture that emerges of prominent climate-change scientists from the more than 3,000 documents and emails accessed by hackers and put on the Internet this week is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices. It could undermine the idea that the science of man-made global warming is entirely settled just weeks before a crucial climate-change summit.
Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, were victims of a cyberattack by hackers sometime Thursday. A collection of emails dating back to the mid-1990s as well as scientific documents were splashed across the Internet. University officials confirmed the hacker attack, but couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of all the documents posted on the Internet.
The publicly posted material includes years of correspondence among leading climate researchers, most of whom participate in the preparation of climate-change reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative summaries of global climate science that influence policy makers around the world.
The release of the documents comes just weeks before a big climate-change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, meant to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change. Momentum for an agreement has been undermined by the economic slump, which has put environmental issues on the back burner in most countries, and by a 10-year cooling trend in global temperatures that runs contrary to many of the dire predictions in climate models such as the IPCC's.
A partial review of the emails shows that in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discussed ways to paper over differences among themselves in order to present a "unified" view on climate change. On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to "beef up" conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash."
The release of the documents has given ammunition to many skeptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific "consensus" was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracized other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.
Since the hacking, many Web sites catering to climate skeptics have pored over the material and concluded that it shows a concerted effort to distort climate science. Other Web sites catering to climate scientists have dismissed those claims.
The tension between those two camps is apparent in the emails. More recent messages showed climate scientists were increasingly concerned about blog postings and articles on leading skeptical Web sites. Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centered on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent skeptics, for example.
Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as "prats" and "utter prats." In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" a prominent, skeptical U.S. climate scientist.
In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.
One email from 1999, titled "CENSORED!!!!!" showed one U.S.-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics. "As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' … as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email said.
More recent exchanges centered on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers. The hacked folder is labeled "FOIA," a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures.
Many of the email exchanges discussed ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was intellectual property. In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some U.K. researchers asked foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary. In others, they discussed boycotting scientific journals that require them to make their data public.
NOVEMBER 21, 2009, 3:39 P.M. ET
By KEITH JOHNSON
The picture that emerges of prominent climate-change scientists from the more than 3,000 documents and emails accessed by hackers and put on the Internet this week is one of professional backbiting and questionable scientific practices. It could undermine the idea that the science of man-made global warming is entirely settled just weeks before a crucial climate-change summit.
Researchers at the Climatic Research Unit at the University of East Anglia, England, were victims of a cyberattack by hackers sometime Thursday. A collection of emails dating back to the mid-1990s as well as scientific documents were splashed across the Internet. University officials confirmed the hacker attack, but couldn't immediately confirm the authenticity of all the documents posted on the Internet.
The publicly posted material includes years of correspondence among leading climate researchers, most of whom participate in the preparation of climate-change reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the authoritative summaries of global climate science that influence policy makers around the world.
The release of the documents comes just weeks before a big climate-change summit in Copenhagen, Denmark, meant to lay the groundwork for a new global treaty to curb greenhouse-gas emissions and fight climate change. Momentum for an agreement has been undermined by the economic slump, which has put environmental issues on the back burner in most countries, and by a 10-year cooling trend in global temperatures that runs contrary to many of the dire predictions in climate models such as the IPCC's.
A partial review of the emails shows that in many cases, climate scientists revealed that their own research wasn't always conclusive. In others, they discussed ways to paper over differences among themselves in order to present a "unified" view on climate change. On at least one occasion, climate scientists were asked to "beef up" conclusions about climate change and extreme weather events because environmental officials in one country were planning a "big public splash."
The release of the documents has given ammunition to many skeptics of man-made global warming, who for years have argued that the scientific "consensus" was less robust than the official IPCC summaries indicated and that climate researchers systematically ostracized other scientists who presented findings that differed from orthodox views.
Since the hacking, many Web sites catering to climate skeptics have pored over the material and concluded that it shows a concerted effort to distort climate science. Other Web sites catering to climate scientists have dismissed those claims.
The tension between those two camps is apparent in the emails. More recent messages showed climate scientists were increasingly concerned about blog postings and articles on leading skeptical Web sites. Much of the internal discussion over scientific papers centered on how to pre-empt attacks from prominent skeptics, for example.
Fellow scientists who disagreed with orthodox views on climate change were variously referred to as "prats" and "utter prats." In other exchanges, one climate researcher said he was "very tempted" to "beat the crap out of" a prominent, skeptical U.S. climate scientist.
In several of the emails, climate researchers discussed how to arrange for favorable reviewers for papers they planned to publish in scientific journals. At the same time, climate researchers at times appeared to pressure scientific journals not to publish research by other scientists whose findings they disagreed with.
One email from 1999, titled "CENSORED!!!!!" showed one U.S.-based scientist uncomfortable with such tactics. "As for thinking that it is 'Better that nothing appear, than something unacceptable to us' … as though we are the gatekeepers of all that is acceptable in the world of paleoclimatology seems amazingly arrogant. Science moves forward whether we agree with individual articles or not," the email said.
More recent exchanges centered on requests by independent climate researchers for access to data used by British scientists for some of their papers. The hacked folder is labeled "FOIA," a reference to the Freedom of Information Act requests made by other scientists for access to raw data used to reach conclusions about global temperatures.
Many of the email exchanges discussed ways to decline such requests for information, on the grounds that the data was confidential or was intellectual property. In other email exchanges related to the FOIA requests, some U.K. researchers asked foreign scientists to delete all emails related to their work for the upcoming IPCC summary. In others, they discussed boycotting scientific journals that require them to make their data public.
Another torpedoing of peace initiatives by Palestinians: Israel gives cold shoulder to Hamas' rocket-cessation statement
www.chinaview.cn
2009-11-22 21:08:20
by David Harris
JERUSALEM, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Hamas announced on Saturday it reached an agreement with other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to only fire rockets against Israeli targets in response to any future Israeli military incursion into the coastal enclave.
Just hours after the Hamas statement, Israel responded to a rocket attack fired from Gaza earlier on Saturday. Israeli aircraft targeted what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said were two weapons-making facilities in northern and central Gaza and one smuggling tunnel under the border between Gaza and Egypt.
ROCKET FIRE FROM GAZA
Fathi Hamad, interior minister of the deposed Hamas government ruling Gaza announced the rocket attacks cessation agreement during a meeting with journalists in Gaza on Saturday afternoon.
Islamic Jihad, then, issued a statement denying that it was a signatory to any such understanding.
Israel's reaction to the Hamas statement has been minimal. "We will judge them by their actions, not by their words," an Israeli official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
However, just as the weekly cabinet meeting was underway Sunday in Jerusalem, the IDF did issue a statement regarding rocket fire.
"Nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead on Jan. 18, 2009, in comparison to over 3,300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the operation. The last month had seen approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from Gaza," said the statement.
"The IDF will not tolerate any attacks by terror organizations against Israel and its citizens," added the statement.
Israel launched what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead in December in retaliation for what it claimed thousands of rockets fired from Gaza over a period of some seven years.
During the 22-day military operation, as many as 1,300 Palestinians were killed, though Israel questions the number of civilians Palestinian officials said died during the fighting.
Both Israel and Hamas have been accused of possibly committing war crimes in the Goldstone Report, which was compiled by a UN committee headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone.
BEHIND HAMAS' STATEMENT
Analysts believe there are a number of key reasons for Hamas's decision to hold rocket fire.
Naji Shurab, professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza, said Hamas wants to show Gaza residents that it takes the reins of the strip, but it will not negotiate directly with Israel.
As a result, it made the declaration in order to show it can keep Gazans safe, he said.
"If you want to keep your authority, you know that you have to guarantee that there is no threat to your strength, government or authority," said Shurab.
Moshe Marzuk, a researcher at the International Institute of Counter-terrorism at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center, said that show of strength is not only aimed at Gaza, but also intended to deliver a message to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The PNA headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, Hamas' bitter rival, holds sway in the West Bank.
Hamas is hoping that when elections are held in the West Bank sometime next year, support for Hamas will increase and will deal a damaging and possibly fatal blow to Abbas' political career.
Marzuk believes that Hamas is trying to tell voters that its modus operandi achieves more for the Palestinians than that of Fatah and the PNA.
Without negotiating directly with Israel, Hamas is trying to ensure a long-term stability for Gazans and it appears it will soon take the limelight with the release of some 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Both Shurab and Marzuk see a direct connection to the ongoing talks between Israel and Hamas regarding the possible upcoming exchange of prisoners.
Germany is currently mediating a mechanism for the swap of the Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas more than three years ago.
Shurab also highlighted what he believes Hamas' desire to be recognized as a credible player on the diplomatic scene. By showing it can act as an efficient government and not launch attacks on Israel, it hopes it will be treated as a serious regional player.
TO JUDGE BY DEEDS
Shurab did not believe that the announcement from Islamic Jihad is a bad news. Hamas "can keep security, can keep peace on the border between Gaza and Israel and can keep any Palestinian militia from launching missiles against Israel," he said.
But Marzuk disagreed, saying, "Of course Hamas is in control, but not 100 percent. There's no such thing."
Islamic Jihad and a couple of factions linked to Jihad have ways to bypass Hamas and launch attacks against Israel, according to Marzuk.
The rocket launches in the past few days are a clear attempt by these organizations to scupper the prisoner-exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, he said.
All the while Israel monitors the situation with more than a little passing interest.
Despite the relative quiet in the past few months compared to the situation in 2008, Israeli radars and warning systems still encircle Gaza and residents of the towns and villages nearby still speak of their fear each time another rocket is fired in their direction.
While Israel will not comment specifically on the Hamas statement regarding the cessation of rocket fire, it is very clear that it will retaliate anything it perceives as a terrorist activity -- that includes aerial attacks like those carried out overnight between Saturday and Sunday.
"It's clear that Israel will judge Hamas by its deeds," said Marzuk, adding that Hamas knows full well that if it does not rein in the attacks, Operation Cast Lead will most definitely not be the last Israeli military strike against Gaza.
Israel doesn't want peace because it knows peace means stopping Israel's further land grabs of Palestinian territory. What Israel really wants is all of Palestine with Palestinians removed, "transported" to Jordan or anywhere else but their own homeland which Zionists believe rightfully belongs to European Jews, Ashkenazim, the vast majority of Jewish immigrants in Israel.
2009-11-22 21:08:20
by David Harris
JERUSALEM, Nov. 22 (Xinhua) -- Hamas announced on Saturday it reached an agreement with other Palestinian factions in the Gaza Strip to only fire rockets against Israeli targets in response to any future Israeli military incursion into the coastal enclave.
Just hours after the Hamas statement, Israel responded to a rocket attack fired from Gaza earlier on Saturday. Israeli aircraft targeted what the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) said were two weapons-making facilities in northern and central Gaza and one smuggling tunnel under the border between Gaza and Egypt.
ROCKET FIRE FROM GAZA
Fathi Hamad, interior minister of the deposed Hamas government ruling Gaza announced the rocket attacks cessation agreement during a meeting with journalists in Gaza on Saturday afternoon.
Islamic Jihad, then, issued a statement denying that it was a signatory to any such understanding.
Israel's reaction to the Hamas statement has been minimal. "We will judge them by their actions, not by their words," an Israeli official told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
However, just as the weekly cabinet meeting was underway Sunday in Jerusalem, the IDF did issue a statement regarding rocket fire.
"Nearly 270 rockets and mortar shells were fired at Israel since the end of Operation Cast Lead on Jan. 18, 2009, in comparison to over 3,300 rockets and mortars fired in the year before the operation. The last month had seen approximately 15 rockets and mortar shells fired at Israel from Gaza," said the statement.
"The IDF will not tolerate any attacks by terror organizations against Israel and its citizens," added the statement.
Israel launched what it dubbed Operation Cast Lead in December in retaliation for what it claimed thousands of rockets fired from Gaza over a period of some seven years.
During the 22-day military operation, as many as 1,300 Palestinians were killed, though Israel questions the number of civilians Palestinian officials said died during the fighting.
Both Israel and Hamas have been accused of possibly committing war crimes in the Goldstone Report, which was compiled by a UN committee headed by South African judge Richard Goldstone.
BEHIND HAMAS' STATEMENT
Analysts believe there are a number of key reasons for Hamas's decision to hold rocket fire.
Naji Shurab, professor of political science at al-Azhar University in Gaza, said Hamas wants to show Gaza residents that it takes the reins of the strip, but it will not negotiate directly with Israel.
As a result, it made the declaration in order to show it can keep Gazans safe, he said.
"If you want to keep your authority, you know that you have to guarantee that there is no threat to your strength, government or authority," said Shurab.
Moshe Marzuk, a researcher at the International Institute of Counter-terrorism at Israel's Interdisciplinary Center, said that show of strength is not only aimed at Gaza, but also intended to deliver a message to the Palestinian National Authority (PNA).
The PNA headed by Mahmoud Abbas, the leader of Fatah, Hamas' bitter rival, holds sway in the West Bank.
Hamas is hoping that when elections are held in the West Bank sometime next year, support for Hamas will increase and will deal a damaging and possibly fatal blow to Abbas' political career.
Marzuk believes that Hamas is trying to tell voters that its modus operandi achieves more for the Palestinians than that of Fatah and the PNA.
Without negotiating directly with Israel, Hamas is trying to ensure a long-term stability for Gazans and it appears it will soon take the limelight with the release of some 1,000 Palestinians from Israeli prisons.
Both Shurab and Marzuk see a direct connection to the ongoing talks between Israel and Hamas regarding the possible upcoming exchange of prisoners.
Germany is currently mediating a mechanism for the swap of the Palestinians for Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas more than three years ago.
Shurab also highlighted what he believes Hamas' desire to be recognized as a credible player on the diplomatic scene. By showing it can act as an efficient government and not launch attacks on Israel, it hopes it will be treated as a serious regional player.
TO JUDGE BY DEEDS
Shurab did not believe that the announcement from Islamic Jihad is a bad news. Hamas "can keep security, can keep peace on the border between Gaza and Israel and can keep any Palestinian militia from launching missiles against Israel," he said.
But Marzuk disagreed, saying, "Of course Hamas is in control, but not 100 percent. There's no such thing."
Islamic Jihad and a couple of factions linked to Jihad have ways to bypass Hamas and launch attacks against Israel, according to Marzuk.
The rocket launches in the past few days are a clear attempt by these organizations to scupper the prisoner-exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, he said.
All the while Israel monitors the situation with more than a little passing interest.
Despite the relative quiet in the past few months compared to the situation in 2008, Israeli radars and warning systems still encircle Gaza and residents of the towns and villages nearby still speak of their fear each time another rocket is fired in their direction.
While Israel will not comment specifically on the Hamas statement regarding the cessation of rocket fire, it is very clear that it will retaliate anything it perceives as a terrorist activity -- that includes aerial attacks like those carried out overnight between Saturday and Sunday.
"It's clear that Israel will judge Hamas by its deeds," said Marzuk, adding that Hamas knows full well that if it does not rein in the attacks, Operation Cast Lead will most definitely not be the last Israeli military strike against Gaza.
Israel doesn't want peace because it knows peace means stopping Israel's further land grabs of Palestinian territory. What Israel really wants is all of Palestine with Palestinians removed, "transported" to Jordan or anywhere else but their own homeland which Zionists believe rightfully belongs to European Jews, Ashkenazim, the vast majority of Jewish immigrants in Israel.
Saturday, November 21, 2009
[Levin should recluse himself for pro-Israel Jewish bias] Levin: May be more troubling e-mails from Hasan
Associated Press
Writers Pamela Hess And Anne Gearan
WASHINGTON – There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday.
The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.
Levin said his committee is focused on determining whether the Defense Department's representative on the terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively.
Levin also said he considers Hasan's shooting spree, which killed 13 and wounded more than 30, an act of terrorism.
"There are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism but there is significant evidence that is. I'm not at all uneasy saying it sure looks like that," he said.
He said his committee will also look into whether military members have the ability to report suspicious behavior evinced by colleagues.
FBI and military officials have provided differing versions of why Hasan's critical e-mails to al-Awlaki and others did not reach Army investigators before the shooting.
FBI officials have said a military investigator on the task force saw the e-mails and looked up Hasan's record, but finding nothing particularly worrisome, the investigator neither sought nor got permission to pass the e-mails on to other military officials.
But the senior defense official has countered that the rules of the task force prevented that military representative from passing the records on without approval from other members of the task force.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said it appears there was enough information available to law enforcement, the military and intelligence agencies to raise alarm bells about Hasan but no one connected the dots.
"Had it been gathered on one desk, someone might have said 'Nidal Malik Hasan is dangerous,'" Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told reporters after the briefing.
The Pentagon may reconsider rules governing participation in extremist organizations that some lawmakers say appear outdated and too narrow in light of the shooting rampage at the Army base in Texas.
Lieberman said Congress may recommend such a review, and a Pentagon spokesman said Friday that the rules could be among the policies scrutinized by a wide-ranging inquiry aimed at preventing another similar attack.
The Pentagon wrote regulations on "dissident and protest activities" in response to soldier participation in skinhead and other racially motivated hate groups. The current rules were written in 1996 and last updated in 2003.
The rules prohibit membership or participation in "organizations that espouse supremacist causes," seek to discriminate based on race, religion or other factors or advocate force or violence. Commanders can investigate and can discipline or fire people who "actively participate in such groups."
The rules also cover the distribution and possession of "printed materials," and gatherings held outside military posts.
The language appears to loosely cover some of the activity law enforcement sources have ascribed to Hasan.
But it is geared toward racially motivated groups and toward preventing public espousal of hateful ideology, such as attendance at a rally or the recruitment of new members. The language also applies most directly to materials and communication in the pre-Internet age.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the 45-day probe on Thursday, the same day that retired Army Gen. John Keane told Congress that the existing rules will probably need revision to cover activity of "Islamic extremists."
Any revision would have to be done carefully to avoid First Amendment violations on the free exercise of speech and religion.
Keane was formerly the No. 2 Army official.
The Pentagon inquiry will get under way in earnest next week.
A senior military official said the inquiry's top leaders will meet with Gates on Monday and are likely to visit Fort Hood on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because plans are not final.
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.
Senator Carl Levin, another Jewish American in our government with pro-Israel sentiments, heads the Senate Committee on Armed Services. How will Americans ever be able to tell if he is voicing America's concerns or Israeli and Zionist Jewish concerns? As this news article shows, he is already throwing his weight into making sure the Ft. Hood gunman Nidal Hasan is tied to Muslim terrorist organizations in order to sway any court-martial or jury trial. Why do we let our 2% religious minority group have so much political and economic power over U.S. foreign policy? Are we fools? Didn't anyone take political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's book warning about undue Israeli influence over U.S. foreign policy seriously? We are paying again in loss of respect by the Muslim world, you know, the billion plus Muslims who were waiting with hope for Obama to do something different than his predecessors who were acting like puppets of Israel. It doesn't help our image to these people in the Middle East to see still another prominent Jewish-American who already controls important U.S. policy through his committee position trying to drive another nail into the coffin of U.S./Muslim cooperation.
Writers Pamela Hess And Anne Gearan
WASHINGTON – There may be additional e-mails that could have tipped off law enforcement or military officials to the Fort Hood shooter before he went on his deadly rampage, the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee said Friday.
The U.S. government intercepted at least 18 e-mails between Hasan and Anwar al-Awlaki, a radical American-born cleric. They were passed along to two Joint Terrorism Task Force cells led by the FBI, but a senior defense official said no one at the Defense Department knew about the messages until after the shootings. The official spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss intelligence procedures.
Sen. Carl Levin, D-Mich., said after a briefing from Pentagon and Army officials that his committee will investigate how those and other e-mails involving the alleged shooter, Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan, were handled and why the U.S. military was not made aware of them before the Nov. 5 shooting.
Levin said his committee is focused on determining whether the Defense Department's representative on the terrorism task force acted appropriately and effectively.
Levin also said he considers Hasan's shooting spree, which killed 13 and wounded more than 30, an act of terrorism.
"There are some who are reluctant to call it terrorism but there is significant evidence that is. I'm not at all uneasy saying it sure looks like that," he said.
He said his committee will also look into whether military members have the ability to report suspicious behavior evinced by colleagues.
FBI and military officials have provided differing versions of why Hasan's critical e-mails to al-Awlaki and others did not reach Army investigators before the shooting.
FBI officials have said a military investigator on the task force saw the e-mails and looked up Hasan's record, but finding nothing particularly worrisome, the investigator neither sought nor got permission to pass the e-mails on to other military officials.
But the senior defense official has countered that the rules of the task force prevented that military representative from passing the records on without approval from other members of the task force.
Sen. Joe Lieberman, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, said it appears there was enough information available to law enforcement, the military and intelligence agencies to raise alarm bells about Hasan but no one connected the dots.
"Had it been gathered on one desk, someone might have said 'Nidal Malik Hasan is dangerous,'" Lieberman, a Connecticut independent, told reporters after the briefing.
The Pentagon may reconsider rules governing participation in extremist organizations that some lawmakers say appear outdated and too narrow in light of the shooting rampage at the Army base in Texas.
Lieberman said Congress may recommend such a review, and a Pentagon spokesman said Friday that the rules could be among the policies scrutinized by a wide-ranging inquiry aimed at preventing another similar attack.
The Pentagon wrote regulations on "dissident and protest activities" in response to soldier participation in skinhead and other racially motivated hate groups. The current rules were written in 1996 and last updated in 2003.
The rules prohibit membership or participation in "organizations that espouse supremacist causes," seek to discriminate based on race, religion or other factors or advocate force or violence. Commanders can investigate and can discipline or fire people who "actively participate in such groups."
The rules also cover the distribution and possession of "printed materials," and gatherings held outside military posts.
The language appears to loosely cover some of the activity law enforcement sources have ascribed to Hasan.
But it is geared toward racially motivated groups and toward preventing public espousal of hateful ideology, such as attendance at a rally or the recruitment of new members. The language also applies most directly to materials and communication in the pre-Internet age.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced the 45-day probe on Thursday, the same day that retired Army Gen. John Keane told Congress that the existing rules will probably need revision to cover activity of "Islamic extremists."
Any revision would have to be done carefully to avoid First Amendment violations on the free exercise of speech and religion.
Keane was formerly the No. 2 Army official.
The Pentagon inquiry will get under way in earnest next week.
A senior military official said the inquiry's top leaders will meet with Gates on Monday and are likely to visit Fort Hood on Tuesday. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because plans are not final.
Associated Press writers Devlin Barrett and Eileen Sullivan contributed to this report.
Senator Carl Levin, another Jewish American in our government with pro-Israel sentiments, heads the Senate Committee on Armed Services. How will Americans ever be able to tell if he is voicing America's concerns or Israeli and Zionist Jewish concerns? As this news article shows, he is already throwing his weight into making sure the Ft. Hood gunman Nidal Hasan is tied to Muslim terrorist organizations in order to sway any court-martial or jury trial. Why do we let our 2% religious minority group have so much political and economic power over U.S. foreign policy? Are we fools? Didn't anyone take political science professors John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt's book warning about undue Israeli influence over U.S. foreign policy seriously? We are paying again in loss of respect by the Muslim world, you know, the billion plus Muslims who were waiting with hope for Obama to do something different than his predecessors who were acting like puppets of Israel. It doesn't help our image to these people in the Middle East to see still another prominent Jewish-American who already controls important U.S. policy through his committee position trying to drive another nail into the coffin of U.S./Muslim cooperation.
Friday, November 20, 2009
Petty and vengeful tyrants: Israel halts football stadium construction in West Bank
Palestinian football supporters at a match
Palestinians are keen football players and supporters
Israel has ordered construction work on an internationally financed football stadium being built for Palestinians in the occupied West Bank to be halted.
Palestinian municipal authorities in al-Bireh, near Ramallah, have been told they lack the correct permit to build.
This is because Israel has designated some of the plot for the planned stadium as under its exclusive control.
If Palestinian officials do not comply with the order, Israel could demolish the arena.
The stadium's development has been financed by the world football's governing body, Fifa, as well as France, Germany and Gulf states.
Palestinians have said that Israel's issuing of the stop-work order is unreasonable and politically motivated.
Israeli officials have said they are working with their Palestinian counterparts to resolve the issue.
Thursday, November 19, 2009
World leaders to meet on Iran's failure to halt nuclear program:
Iran lashes out as Obama says punitive steps against Tehran will come soon
By William Branigin and Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 19, 2009; 11:39 AM
Iran lashed out Thursday against a new warning from President Obama of tougher sanctions over its nuclear program, dismissing such measures as out of date and threatening a resolute response to U.S. "deception and mischief."
The verbal clash came as the United States and five other world powers prepared to meet in Brussels on Friday to discuss what steps could be taken against Tehran for its refusal so far to accept a deal aimed a resolving a long-running dispute over its uranium enrichment program. Attending the meeting are representatives from the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany, news agencies reported.
In a meeting with the negotiating group, known as the P5-plus-one, in Geneva on Oct. 1, Iran tentatively agreed to a deal under which it would send the bulk of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing into medium-enriched uranium, which would be returned to Iran in a form that could be used to power a research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes. The aim was to allay Western concerns by effectively stalling Iran's ability to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, while meeting Iran's need to make isotopes for the treatment of cancer and other medical purposes.
Since then, however, hard-liners in Tehran have apparently stymied the deal, and Iran has raised various alternatives that the West considers unacceptable. Earlier this month, Iran demanded full delivery of reactor fuel before it would give up its low-enriched uranium and balked at further efforts to hold international talks on its nuclear program.
On Wednesday, Tehran announced that it would not send its uranium abroad for processing but wanted any swap to take place within Iran.
Iran came under international pressure after the disclosure in September that it was building a secret uranium-enrichment facility at an underground site near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, in addition to a known enrichment plant at Natanz. A team of U.N. nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency
nspected the new site last month and came away with questions about whether other secret installations exist in the country, according to a confidential report made public Monday.
In a news conference in Seoul on Thursday as he was wrapping up an eight-day visit to Asia, Obama expressed frustration with Iran's response to the uranium-swap proposal, to which the other parties to the deal -- the United States, Russia and France -- have already agreed.
"Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say 'yes' to this proposal," Obama said in a joint appearance with the South Korean president. "We have seen on occasions that whether it's for internal political reasons or they are stuck in some of their own rhetoric, they are unable to get to 'yes.' "
As a result, Obama said, "we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences." When Iran "fails to take advantage of these opportunities," he cautioned, "it is not making itself more secure; it is making itself less secure."
Obama added: "Our expectation is that over the next several weeks, we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran. . . . I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door. I hope they do. But what I am pleased about is the extraordinary international unity that we have seen."
In an apparent response to Obama in a speech in Tabriz, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that Iran "is not pursuing aggression, does not have ill intentions and only wants to obtain . . . its bright future and its legal right" to a peaceful nuclear power program.
"Those who claim that they want to have constructive interaction must know that if a clear, fundamental and correct change is observed, and the Iranian nation sees that they have truly changed their attitude, have given up their aggressive and arrogant behavior, are respecting the right and dignity of the Iranian nation, and by returning the right and wealth of the nation they have honestly stretched a hand of friendship toward Iran, we will accept it," Ahmadinejad said.
Why is Iran always singled out for its nuclear program by the major powers and their Middle East control colony of Israel? Control of oil in the Middle East where Iraq and Iran sit on billions of barrels of oil necessary to run American and European nations. China too since it is economically tied to the prosperity of Western nations. Iran is strategically placed in the middle of a double region of huge oil deposits stretching from Uzbekistan to Saudi Arabia and the Western powers are deathly afraid of losing control over the region's oil deposits and refineries. Without oil, America and Europe would quickly fall apart because we are still so oil dependent, never having listened to Jimmy Carter's warnings as President about such dependency.
Israel capitalizes on this fear and adds its own fear of Muslims taking control of the region plus fear of Iranian/Syrian joing organization uniting Middle East Arab Muslim nations to counter to Israel's Army, the fifth largest army in the world as well as American and European invading armies.
These major powers are afraid of Muslim Iran and will create all sorts of reasons why Iran can't have nuclear power (or weapons) while these super powers can, while Israel can, a rogue state if ever there was one with a proven record of invading its' neighbors time and again, gets supported when push comes to shove in U.N. Resolution voting.
Instead of telling the world the truth, the super powers and Israel prefer to misdirect the world's attention away from their real reasons for fearing Iran--control of oil. It just doesn't sound ethically right, does it. Well, it isn't and it is leading us ever closer to a world war with Muslims. Instead of honest concern about Middle Eastern poverty and social justice, we get demonization of Muslims and especially Iranian Muslims, who, reacting to decades, centuries of European invaders and controllers, want what every nation wants, independence from foreign control in order to serve their own society's needs. It's what the American Revolution was about and yet America, since Truman and Zionists pushed for the establishment of the Jewish colony in Palestine, continually sides with King George.
Until we face the real reasons why we are in the Middle East fighting these wars with Middle Eastern nations, the control of their oil supplies, the same real reason we are in Afghanistan as well, we are going to be losing our wars with these people and of course all respect for American idealism. Please remember this about control of oil whenever you read about America or European or of other nations connected economically to these major power nations like China, which has it's own problems with Muslims, because there is a concerted propaganda effort to cover their real motives by demonizing Iran.
This is not meant to give Iran carte blanche approval because Iran and the Middle East must also recognize the failure of Islamic nations to keep up with the West, a fault they try to cover up by going backwards in time to the days when totalitarian religious beliefs were practiced and accepted, something impossible with the arrival of the worldwide Democracy movement. But until we are willing to deal with Muslim states as equals in world affairs instead of making war with them, we have only ourselves to blame when Muslims react and put forward their most militant advocates. War provokes war.
By William Branigin and Thomas Erdbrink
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, November 19, 2009; 11:39 AM
Iran lashed out Thursday against a new warning from President Obama of tougher sanctions over its nuclear program, dismissing such measures as out of date and threatening a resolute response to U.S. "deception and mischief."
The verbal clash came as the United States and five other world powers prepared to meet in Brussels on Friday to discuss what steps could be taken against Tehran for its refusal so far to accept a deal aimed a resolving a long-running dispute over its uranium enrichment program. Attending the meeting are representatives from the other four permanent members of the U.N. Security Council -- Russia, China, Britain and France -- plus Germany, news agencies reported.
In a meeting with the negotiating group, known as the P5-plus-one, in Geneva on Oct. 1, Iran tentatively agreed to a deal under which it would send the bulk of its stockpile of low-enriched uranium to Russia and France for processing into medium-enriched uranium, which would be returned to Iran in a form that could be used to power a research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes. The aim was to allay Western concerns by effectively stalling Iran's ability to produce enough highly enriched uranium for a nuclear weapon, while meeting Iran's need to make isotopes for the treatment of cancer and other medical purposes.
Since then, however, hard-liners in Tehran have apparently stymied the deal, and Iran has raised various alternatives that the West considers unacceptable. Earlier this month, Iran demanded full delivery of reactor fuel before it would give up its low-enriched uranium and balked at further efforts to hold international talks on its nuclear program.
On Wednesday, Tehran announced that it would not send its uranium abroad for processing but wanted any swap to take place within Iran.
Iran came under international pressure after the disclosure in September that it was building a secret uranium-enrichment facility at an underground site near the Shiite Muslim holy city of Qom, in addition to a known enrichment plant at Natanz. A team of U.N. nuclear experts from the International Atomic Energy Agency
nspected the new site last month and came away with questions about whether other secret installations exist in the country, according to a confidential report made public Monday.
In a news conference in Seoul on Thursday as he was wrapping up an eight-day visit to Asia, Obama expressed frustration with Iran's response to the uranium-swap proposal, to which the other parties to the deal -- the United States, Russia and France -- have already agreed.
"Iran has taken weeks now and has not shown its willingness to say 'yes' to this proposal," Obama said in a joint appearance with the South Korean president. "We have seen on occasions that whether it's for internal political reasons or they are stuck in some of their own rhetoric, they are unable to get to 'yes.' "
As a result, Obama said, "we have begun discussions with our international partners about the importance of having consequences." When Iran "fails to take advantage of these opportunities," he cautioned, "it is not making itself more secure; it is making itself less secure."
Obama added: "Our expectation is that over the next several weeks, we will be developing a package of potential steps that we could take that will indicate our seriousness to Iran. . . . I continue to hold out the prospect that they may decide to walk through this door. I hope they do. But what I am pleased about is the extraordinary international unity that we have seen."
In an apparent response to Obama in a speech in Tabriz, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad insisted that Iran "is not pursuing aggression, does not have ill intentions and only wants to obtain . . . its bright future and its legal right" to a peaceful nuclear power program.
"Those who claim that they want to have constructive interaction must know that if a clear, fundamental and correct change is observed, and the Iranian nation sees that they have truly changed their attitude, have given up their aggressive and arrogant behavior, are respecting the right and dignity of the Iranian nation, and by returning the right and wealth of the nation they have honestly stretched a hand of friendship toward Iran, we will accept it," Ahmadinejad said.
Why is Iran always singled out for its nuclear program by the major powers and their Middle East control colony of Israel? Control of oil in the Middle East where Iraq and Iran sit on billions of barrels of oil necessary to run American and European nations. China too since it is economically tied to the prosperity of Western nations. Iran is strategically placed in the middle of a double region of huge oil deposits stretching from Uzbekistan to Saudi Arabia and the Western powers are deathly afraid of losing control over the region's oil deposits and refineries. Without oil, America and Europe would quickly fall apart because we are still so oil dependent, never having listened to Jimmy Carter's warnings as President about such dependency.
Israel capitalizes on this fear and adds its own fear of Muslims taking control of the region plus fear of Iranian/Syrian joing organization uniting Middle East Arab Muslim nations to counter to Israel's Army, the fifth largest army in the world as well as American and European invading armies.
These major powers are afraid of Muslim Iran and will create all sorts of reasons why Iran can't have nuclear power (or weapons) while these super powers can, while Israel can, a rogue state if ever there was one with a proven record of invading its' neighbors time and again, gets supported when push comes to shove in U.N. Resolution voting.
Instead of telling the world the truth, the super powers and Israel prefer to misdirect the world's attention away from their real reasons for fearing Iran--control of oil. It just doesn't sound ethically right, does it. Well, it isn't and it is leading us ever closer to a world war with Muslims. Instead of honest concern about Middle Eastern poverty and social justice, we get demonization of Muslims and especially Iranian Muslims, who, reacting to decades, centuries of European invaders and controllers, want what every nation wants, independence from foreign control in order to serve their own society's needs. It's what the American Revolution was about and yet America, since Truman and Zionists pushed for the establishment of the Jewish colony in Palestine, continually sides with King George.
Until we face the real reasons why we are in the Middle East fighting these wars with Middle Eastern nations, the control of their oil supplies, the same real reason we are in Afghanistan as well, we are going to be losing our wars with these people and of course all respect for American idealism. Please remember this about control of oil whenever you read about America or European or of other nations connected economically to these major power nations like China, which has it's own problems with Muslims, because there is a concerted propaganda effort to cover their real motives by demonizing Iran.
This is not meant to give Iran carte blanche approval because Iran and the Middle East must also recognize the failure of Islamic nations to keep up with the West, a fault they try to cover up by going backwards in time to the days when totalitarian religious beliefs were practiced and accepted, something impossible with the arrival of the worldwide Democracy movement. But until we are willing to deal with Muslim states as equals in world affairs instead of making war with them, we have only ourselves to blame when Muslims react and put forward their most militant advocates. War provokes war.
Wednesday, November 18, 2009
UN says hunger stunts some 200 million children
By ARIEL DAVID and MARIA CHENG (AP)
ROME — Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF Wednesday before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger.
The head of a U.N. food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1 billion hungry people.
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency's headquarters starting Monday.
The U.N. Children's Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food.
More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition, according to UNICEF.
While progress has been made in Asia — rates of stunted growth dropped from 44 percent in 1990 to 30 percent last year — there has been little success in Africa. There, the rate of stunted growth was about 38 percent in 1990. Last year, the rate was about 34 percent.
South Asia is a particular hotspot for the problem, with just Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83 million hungry children under five.
"Unless attention is paid to addressing the causes of child and maternal undernutrition today, the costs will be considerably higher tomorrow," said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a statement.
Diouf said he would begin a 24-hour fast on Saturday morning. The agency also launched an online petition against world hunger through a Web page featuring a video with Diouf counting from one to six to remind visitors that every six seconds a child dies from hunger.
The U.N. children's agency called for more strategies like vitamin A supplementation and breast-feeding to be rolled out more widely. That could cut the death rate in kids by up to 15 percent, UNICEF said.
Not everyone agreed.
"It is unrealistic to believe malnutrition can be addressed by any topdown U.N. scheme," said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. "The progress UNICEF's report points to in improving nutrition is almost certainly a result of economic growth, not U.N. strategies."
The Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02 billion globally, or one in six people, with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed.
The agency hopes its World Summit on Food Security, with Pope Benedict XVI and some 60 heads of state so far expected to attend, will endorse a new strategy to combat hunger, focusing on increased investment in agricultural development for poor countries.
The long-term increase in the number of hungry is largely tied to reduced aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture since the mid-1980s, according to FAO.
Countries like Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam that have invested in their small farmers and rural poor are bucking the hunger trend, FAO chief Diouf told the news conference.
They are among 31 countries that have reached or are on track to meet the goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015, he said.
"Eradicating hunger is no pipe dream," Diouf said. "The battle against hunger can be won."
FAO says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion in annual agricultural aid, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds and fertilizer as well as build roads and train farmers.
Agriculture investment from the private sector is also considered vital, and FAO is hosting a two-day forum in Milan starting Thursday with executives and business representatives to discuss how to coordinate such efforts.
ROME — Nearly 200 million children in poor countries have stunted growth because of insufficient nutrition, according to a new report published by UNICEF Wednesday before a three-day international summit on the problem of world hunger.
The head of a U.N. food agency called on the world to join him in a day of fasting ahead of the summit to highlight the plight of 1 billion hungry people.
Jacques Diouf, director-general of the Food and Agriculture Organization, said he hoped the fast would encourage action by world leaders who will take part in the meeting at his agency's headquarters starting Monday.
The U.N. Children's Fund published a report saying that nearly 200 million children under five in poor countries were stunted by a lack of nutrients in their food.
More than 90 percent of those children live in Africa and Asia, and more than a third of all deaths in that age group are linked to undernutrition, according to UNICEF.
While progress has been made in Asia — rates of stunted growth dropped from 44 percent in 1990 to 30 percent last year — there has been little success in Africa. There, the rate of stunted growth was about 38 percent in 1990. Last year, the rate was about 34 percent.
South Asia is a particular hotspot for the problem, with just Afghanistan, Nepal, India, Bangladesh and Pakistan accounting for 83 million hungry children under five.
"Unless attention is paid to addressing the causes of child and maternal undernutrition today, the costs will be considerably higher tomorrow," said UNICEF executive director Ann M. Veneman in a statement.
Diouf said he would begin a 24-hour fast on Saturday morning. The agency also launched an online petition against world hunger through a Web page featuring a video with Diouf counting from one to six to remind visitors that every six seconds a child dies from hunger.
The U.N. children's agency called for more strategies like vitamin A supplementation and breast-feeding to be rolled out more widely. That could cut the death rate in kids by up to 15 percent, UNICEF said.
Not everyone agreed.
"It is unrealistic to believe malnutrition can be addressed by any topdown U.N. scheme," said Philip Stevens, of International Policy Network, a London-based think tank. "The progress UNICEF's report points to in improving nutrition is almost certainly a result of economic growth, not U.N. strategies."
The Rome-based FAO announced earlier this year that hunger now affects a record 1.02 billion globally, or one in six people, with the financial meltdown, high food prices, drought and war blamed.
The agency hopes its World Summit on Food Security, with Pope Benedict XVI and some 60 heads of state so far expected to attend, will endorse a new strategy to combat hunger, focusing on increased investment in agricultural development for poor countries.
The long-term increase in the number of hungry is largely tied to reduced aid and private investments earmarked for agriculture since the mid-1980s, according to FAO.
Countries like Brazil, Nigeria and Vietnam that have invested in their small farmers and rural poor are bucking the hunger trend, FAO chief Diouf told the news conference.
They are among 31 countries that have reached or are on track to meet the goal set by world leaders nine years ago to cut the number of hungry people in half by 2015, he said.
"Eradicating hunger is no pipe dream," Diouf said. "The battle against hunger can be won."
FAO says global food output will have to increase by 70 percent to feed a projected population of 9.1 billion in 2050.
To achieve that, poor countries will need $44 billion in annual agricultural aid, compared with the current $7.9 billion, to increase access to irrigation systems, modern machinery, seeds and fertilizer as well as build roads and train farmers.
Agriculture investment from the private sector is also considered vital, and FAO is hosting a two-day forum in Milan starting Thursday with executives and business representatives to discuss how to coordinate such efforts.
Lack of top leaders hobbled UN Hunger summit: Diouf
(AFP) – 1 hour ago
ROME — The absence of leaders from the world's wealthiest states undermined the UN Hunger Summit, reducing it to a "technical" forum, the head of the UN food agency said Wednesday.
"If we don't have the leaders with authority over all the dossiers, who can coordinate the action... we sidestep the problem, we reduce the issue to its purely technical dimension," Jacques Diouf told a closing news conference.
The plight of the world's billion hungry people "has an economic, social, financial and I would say even cultural dimension," said the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Some 60 heads of state and government attended the three-day summit, but Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader of a Group of Eight nation to appear.
The summit came under fire for failing to generate pledges of new funding for agriculture, or including specific targets or timelines in its final declaration.
"The facts are that we need 44 billion dollars (nearly 30 billion euros) a year... and we have seen that in the world 1.34 trillion dollars a year is spent on arms, we've seen on the news it has been possible to mobilise trillions of dollars (to address the financial) crisis," Diouf said.
"I'm just thinking if it has been possible to mobilise (those funds), there's a possibility also to give some more focus on the priority constituted by one billion hungry people in the world," he said.
At the summit's closing session earlier Wednesday, the FAO boss said: "I am convinced that together we can eradicate world hunger, but in order to do so we must move from words to actions."
The humanitarian group Oxfam gave the summit a mark of two out of 10.
"One single meeting can not solve world hunger," said spokesman Gawain Kripke, "but we were expecting much more. The result does not match the problem of a billion hungry people. The near-total absence of leaders from rich countries sent out a bad message at the start of the summit".
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
ROME — The absence of leaders from the world's wealthiest states undermined the UN Hunger Summit, reducing it to a "technical" forum, the head of the UN food agency said Wednesday.
"If we don't have the leaders with authority over all the dossiers, who can coordinate the action... we sidestep the problem, we reduce the issue to its purely technical dimension," Jacques Diouf told a closing news conference.
The plight of the world's billion hungry people "has an economic, social, financial and I would say even cultural dimension," said the head of the Food and Agriculture Organisation.
Some 60 heads of state and government attended the three-day summit, but Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi was the only leader of a Group of Eight nation to appear.
The summit came under fire for failing to generate pledges of new funding for agriculture, or including specific targets or timelines in its final declaration.
"The facts are that we need 44 billion dollars (nearly 30 billion euros) a year... and we have seen that in the world 1.34 trillion dollars a year is spent on arms, we've seen on the news it has been possible to mobilise trillions of dollars (to address the financial) crisis," Diouf said.
"I'm just thinking if it has been possible to mobilise (those funds), there's a possibility also to give some more focus on the priority constituted by one billion hungry people in the world," he said.
At the summit's closing session earlier Wednesday, the FAO boss said: "I am convinced that together we can eradicate world hunger, but in order to do so we must move from words to actions."
The humanitarian group Oxfam gave the summit a mark of two out of 10.
"One single meeting can not solve world hunger," said spokesman Gawain Kripke, "but we were expecting much more. The result does not match the problem of a billion hungry people. The near-total absence of leaders from rich countries sent out a bad message at the start of the summit".
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
The face of Israeli fascism: 'Shot With My Hands In The Air'
1-Feature: Shot With My Hands In The Air
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=1
Submitted by: Jody.McIntyre
16.11.09
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/feature-shot-my-hands-air
Earlier this year, Khamis Fathe Abu Rahmah, aged 27, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister whilst participating in a non-violent demonstration at the wall in Bil'in, a Palestinian village. It was the same weapon the Israeli Occupation Forces would use to murder his close friend Bassem Abu Rahme, in the same village, just a few months later. Jody McIntyre spoke to Khamis to hear about his experiences:
Tell me about the time you were injured at the Wall?
On Friday 23rd January 2009, I went to participate in our weekly non-violent demonstration against the Wall. The Israeli soldiers immediately started throwing a huge amount of tear gas, so we were making our way back towards the village. The soldiers followed us in two jeeps, and started to shoot more gas at us. I was standing alone in the field, and my friend Bassem was crouched behind a rock nearby. They shot one tear gas canister at me, so I put my arms in the air to show that I was unarmed and clearly posing no threat. Then the soldiers shot me again – this time, the high-velocity canister hit me directly in the head.
I don't remember anything after that, but later I saw photos and videos of blood pouring from my head, my face in a blank expression... like I was dying, and people rushing to help me. To begin with, only Bassem and his brother Ahmed were there to support me; Ahmed was holding a wrapped up flag against my head, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood, and Bassem was holding my hand and calling for more people to help, shouting that someone had been injured and that it was urgent. I only know all this from the video footage... I can't remember anything after I was shot.
There was no ambulance, so some guys from the village carried me to someone's car. The whole time this was happening the Israeli soldiers, including the one who had shot me, just stood and watched. One Israeli activist went up to the Wall to tell them what had happened, but they didn't seem to care. After I had been driven away, the soldiers proceeded to shoot live ammunition at the villagers who were still out in the fields.
I was in a coma for 12 days, and after that had to go into hospital every day for a month. I had forgotten where I came from, what had happened, or who anyone was... including myself. The tear gas canister had smashed my skull and the blood from the injury had seeped into my brain and clotted, causing a paralysation of my left arm. That needed four months of injury to heal, and still isn't fully mobile.
Did the incident change the way you act at the demonstrations? Will you ever stop going?
No, I will never stop participating in our demonstrations at the Wall. We are non-violent, and it is our right to protest against the illegal confiscation of our land.
How have the recent military night incursions into the village, conducted by the Israeli Occupation Forces, affected your family?
They have invaded our home around six times, sometimes even in the day, when they claimed that they had seen kids coming from our house to damage the Wall. They once told my mother that they wanted to destroy our house because it's where all the problems come from... it's just because we live so close to the Wall.
What do you think about the international volunteers who come to stay in Bil'in?
They are very good people, coming from other countries to help us here in the village. They often stay with me in my house during the night raids, and go to confront the soldiers, often suffering beatings and injuries as a result. We eat and talk together, and often become good friends. Sometimes they are deported from the country, just for helping people...
What is your hope for the future?
I want to be normal, like I was before the injury. Now, my head is always aching and I have to take medicine all the time. I often feel dizzy, I'm always forgetting things, and I have to sleep a lot.
If you saw the soldier who shot you, what would you do?
I really don't know... maybe I'd ask him why he shot me when I had my hands in the air?
Do you think the people of Bil'in will ever get their land back?
Inshallah, God willing, we hope we will return to our land one day.
Words: Jody McIntyre. Ctrl.Alt.Shift writer Jody is reporting directly from Palestine.
Photos: Courtesy of Haitham al Katib, of Khamis, just after he was shot.
2-Helping Emad : Helping Emad Burnat to sow his crops in the shadow of the Apartheid Wall
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=213&Itemid=1
Today, all the internationals in beleaguered Bil'in mustered at 7.30AM to help Emad Burnat - video chronicler of the frequent and violent terror raids of the IOF into his village - sow his crops, as he is now largely incapitated due to the serious life threatening injuries he sustained a year ago when the brakes of a tractor he was driving failed on a steep encline close to the Apartheid Wall: Emad's life was almost certainly saved by the commendable insistence of the IOF medic who attended the scene to ambulance him to a Tel Aviv hospital rather than one in Ramallah, the task at hand was the clearance of the stones and weeds on his land to faciliate the sowing of diverse fruits and vegetables to sustain his family. In the afternoon, his brother Iyad and wife and the affable son of Israeli MK Dov Khenin, Edo, showed to assist in the stone clearing where shortly afterwards we downed tools to quiten our sharp hunger at a generous picnic provided by Emad on the concrete cap of a deep reservoir to water his growing crops and then head back to the international house tired but well pleased.
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice - Bilin
Email- bel3in@yahoo.com
www.bilin-ffj.org
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=214&Itemid=1
Submitted by: Jody.McIntyre
16.11.09
http://www.ctrlaltshift.co.uk/article/feature-shot-my-hands-air
Earlier this year, Khamis Fathe Abu Rahmah, aged 27, was shot in the head with a high-velocity tear gas canister whilst participating in a non-violent demonstration at the wall in Bil'in, a Palestinian village. It was the same weapon the Israeli Occupation Forces would use to murder his close friend Bassem Abu Rahme, in the same village, just a few months later. Jody McIntyre spoke to Khamis to hear about his experiences:
Tell me about the time you were injured at the Wall?
On Friday 23rd January 2009, I went to participate in our weekly non-violent demonstration against the Wall. The Israeli soldiers immediately started throwing a huge amount of tear gas, so we were making our way back towards the village. The soldiers followed us in two jeeps, and started to shoot more gas at us. I was standing alone in the field, and my friend Bassem was crouched behind a rock nearby. They shot one tear gas canister at me, so I put my arms in the air to show that I was unarmed and clearly posing no threat. Then the soldiers shot me again – this time, the high-velocity canister hit me directly in the head.
I don't remember anything after that, but later I saw photos and videos of blood pouring from my head, my face in a blank expression... like I was dying, and people rushing to help me. To begin with, only Bassem and his brother Ahmed were there to support me; Ahmed was holding a wrapped up flag against my head, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood, and Bassem was holding my hand and calling for more people to help, shouting that someone had been injured and that it was urgent. I only know all this from the video footage... I can't remember anything after I was shot.
There was no ambulance, so some guys from the village carried me to someone's car. The whole time this was happening the Israeli soldiers, including the one who had shot me, just stood and watched. One Israeli activist went up to the Wall to tell them what had happened, but they didn't seem to care. After I had been driven away, the soldiers proceeded to shoot live ammunition at the villagers who were still out in the fields.
I was in a coma for 12 days, and after that had to go into hospital every day for a month. I had forgotten where I came from, what had happened, or who anyone was... including myself. The tear gas canister had smashed my skull and the blood from the injury had seeped into my brain and clotted, causing a paralysation of my left arm. That needed four months of injury to heal, and still isn't fully mobile.
Did the incident change the way you act at the demonstrations? Will you ever stop going?
No, I will never stop participating in our demonstrations at the Wall. We are non-violent, and it is our right to protest against the illegal confiscation of our land.
How have the recent military night incursions into the village, conducted by the Israeli Occupation Forces, affected your family?
They have invaded our home around six times, sometimes even in the day, when they claimed that they had seen kids coming from our house to damage the Wall. They once told my mother that they wanted to destroy our house because it's where all the problems come from... it's just because we live so close to the Wall.
What do you think about the international volunteers who come to stay in Bil'in?
They are very good people, coming from other countries to help us here in the village. They often stay with me in my house during the night raids, and go to confront the soldiers, often suffering beatings and injuries as a result. We eat and talk together, and often become good friends. Sometimes they are deported from the country, just for helping people...
What is your hope for the future?
I want to be normal, like I was before the injury. Now, my head is always aching and I have to take medicine all the time. I often feel dizzy, I'm always forgetting things, and I have to sleep a lot.
If you saw the soldier who shot you, what would you do?
I really don't know... maybe I'd ask him why he shot me when I had my hands in the air?
Do you think the people of Bil'in will ever get their land back?
Inshallah, God willing, we hope we will return to our land one day.
Words: Jody McIntyre. Ctrl.Alt.Shift writer Jody is reporting directly from Palestine.
Photos: Courtesy of Haitham al Katib, of Khamis, just after he was shot.
2-Helping Emad : Helping Emad Burnat to sow his crops in the shadow of the Apartheid Wall
http://www.bilin-ffj.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=213&Itemid=1
Today, all the internationals in beleaguered Bil'in mustered at 7.30AM to help Emad Burnat - video chronicler of the frequent and violent terror raids of the IOF into his village - sow his crops, as he is now largely incapitated due to the serious life threatening injuries he sustained a year ago when the brakes of a tractor he was driving failed on a steep encline close to the Apartheid Wall: Emad's life was almost certainly saved by the commendable insistence of the IOF medic who attended the scene to ambulance him to a Tel Aviv hospital rather than one in Ramallah, the task at hand was the clearance of the stones and weeds on his land to faciliate the sowing of diverse fruits and vegetables to sustain his family. In the afternoon, his brother Iyad and wife and the affable son of Israeli MK Dov Khenin, Edo, showed to assist in the stone clearing where shortly afterwards we downed tools to quiten our sharp hunger at a generous picnic provided by Emad on the concrete cap of a deep reservoir to water his growing crops and then head back to the international house tired but well pleased.
Thank you for you continued support,
Iyad Burnat- Head of Popular Commitee in Bilin
co-founder of Friends of Freedom and Justice - Bilin
Email- bel3in@yahoo.com
www.bilin-ffj.org
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
US 'dismay' at Israel over Gilo plan
Guardian.uk
The White House yesterday expressed exasperation with Israel over a plan to build 900 new houses on the West Bank at a time when Barack Obama is trying to broker a Middle East peace agreement.
Although Obama is mainly focused on a tour of south-east Asia, the White House took time out to express disappointment over approval of the new houses at Gilo, a controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem.
It is politically risky for Israel to snub Obama so publicly. The White House has been pressing Israel for at least a week not to take this course of action. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said it was "dismayed" by the decision. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," he said.
Obama brought together the Israeli leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, in New York in September but failed to secure the restart of negotiations. Abbas said he would not enter negotiations while Israel continued to build settlements on the West Bank. The Jerusalem municipal planning committee approved the Gilo expansion yesterday.
The Palestinians denounced the move as a provocation. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "We condemn this in the strongest possible terms. It shows that it is meaningless to resume negotiations when this goes on."
Since the failure to secure a resumption of talks in September, Obama, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Middle East special envoy George Mitchell have been working to close the gap between the two sides.
The Palestinians want a complete freeze on settlement construction first while Netanyahu has offered a temporary freeze, excluding 2,500 houses he insists are already in the pipeline. The Gilo expansion is in addition to those.
Jerusalem and settlements are key sticking points in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967. It insists that east Jerusalem is part of Israel and rejects efforts to restrict building there. Palestinians consider the Jewish neighbourhoods there to be settlements.
In a statement, Netanyahu's office defended the plan. "This concerns a routine procedure of the district planning commission," it said. "The neighbourhood of Gilo is an integral part of Jerusalem."
Although the Obama administration has been more critical of Israel than the Bush administration and has expressed disapproval of settlement expansion in the West Bank, a reprimand such as yesterday's is still relatively rare.
The US state department expressed its disapproval yesterday and the White House could have chosen to leave it at that but opted instead to join the criticism.
Gibbs, reflecting White House unhappiness, said: "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations.
"The US also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear: the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties."
Although Gilo is on the Palestinian side of the 1967 Green Line, the border before that year's war, Israel claims it is not on the West Bank so is not a settlement.
The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as their capital.
On Friday, Gibbs had expressed regret over reports of the new construction, saying Obama did not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion.
Britain also criticised the plan yesterday. The Foreign Office said: "The foreign secretary has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital. Expanding settlements on occupied land in east Jerusalem makes that deal much harder. So this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it."
The White House yesterday expressed exasperation with Israel over a plan to build 900 new houses on the West Bank at a time when Barack Obama is trying to broker a Middle East peace agreement.
Although Obama is mainly focused on a tour of south-east Asia, the White House took time out to express disappointment over approval of the new houses at Gilo, a controversial settlement on the outskirts of east Jerusalem.
It is politically risky for Israel to snub Obama so publicly. The White House has been pressing Israel for at least a week not to take this course of action. The White House spokesman, Robert Gibbs, said it was "dismayed" by the decision. "At a time when we are working to relaunch negotiations, these actions make it more difficult for our efforts to succeed," he said.
Obama brought together the Israeli leader, Binyamin Netanyahu, and his Palestinian counterpart, Mahmoud Abbas, in New York in September but failed to secure the restart of negotiations. Abbas said he would not enter negotiations while Israel continued to build settlements on the West Bank. The Jerusalem municipal planning committee approved the Gilo expansion yesterday.
The Palestinians denounced the move as a provocation. Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat said: "We condemn this in the strongest possible terms. It shows that it is meaningless to resume negotiations when this goes on."
Since the failure to secure a resumption of talks in September, Obama, US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and Middle East special envoy George Mitchell have been working to close the gap between the two sides.
The Palestinians want a complete freeze on settlement construction first while Netanyahu has offered a temporary freeze, excluding 2,500 houses he insists are already in the pipeline. The Gilo expansion is in addition to those.
Jerusalem and settlements are key sticking points in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Israel captured east Jerusalem in 1967. It insists that east Jerusalem is part of Israel and rejects efforts to restrict building there. Palestinians consider the Jewish neighbourhoods there to be settlements.
In a statement, Netanyahu's office defended the plan. "This concerns a routine procedure of the district planning commission," it said. "The neighbourhood of Gilo is an integral part of Jerusalem."
Although the Obama administration has been more critical of Israel than the Bush administration and has expressed disapproval of settlement expansion in the West Bank, a reprimand such as yesterday's is still relatively rare.
The US state department expressed its disapproval yesterday and the White House could have chosen to leave it at that but opted instead to join the criticism.
Gibbs, reflecting White House unhappiness, said: "Neither party should engage in efforts or take actions that could unilaterally pre-empt, or appear to pre-empt, negotiations.
"The US also objects to other Israeli practices in Jerusalem related to housing, including the continuing pattern of evictions and demolitions of Palestinian homes. Our position is clear: the status of Jerusalem is a permanent status issue that must be resolved through negotiations between the parties."
Although Gilo is on the Palestinian side of the 1967 Green Line, the border before that year's war, Israel claims it is not on the West Bank so is not a settlement.
The Palestinians want east Jerusalem as their capital.
On Friday, Gibbs had expressed regret over reports of the new construction, saying Obama did not accept the legitimacy of continued settlement expansion.
Britain also criticised the plan yesterday. The Foreign Office said: "The foreign secretary has been very clear that a credible deal involves Jerusalem as a shared capital. Expanding settlements on occupied land in east Jerusalem makes that deal much harder. So this decision on Gilo is wrong and we oppose it."
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