Shirin Ebadi was awarded the 2003 Nobel Peace Prize and is Haleh Esfandiari's lawyer. Muhammad Sahimi is professor of chemical and petroleum engineering at the University of Southern California.
Ebadi, writing in Tribune Media Services - and reproduced in the IHT - questions where George Bush is heading in relation to Iran:
"The confrontation between Iran and the West has developed a new dimension over the detention of several Iranian scholars, journalists and political activists who have been living in the West for years and have recently traveled to their homeland.
Parnaz Azima, a reporter for the U.S.-funded Radio Farda, which broadcasts Persian programs into Iran, has been prohibited from leaving Iran since her passport was seized in January. Mehrnoushe Solouki, an Iranian-French journalist, has not been able to leave since February. Haleh Esfandiari, the director of the Middle East Program at the Washington-based Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, has been jailed since May 7. Kian Tajbakhsh, a senior research fellow at The New School in New York was also detained in May.
What is the root cause of these events? Part of it is the deep unpopularity of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Internal opposition to his government is becoming increasingly louder as Iranians are recognizing the danger in his foreign policy and his failure to improve the economy."
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Mariane Pearl speaks
Mariane Pearl, wife of murdered journalist, Daniel Pearl, speaks via an interview in Foreign Policy [FP]:
"The remarkable life and brutal murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is the topic of a gripping new film, A Mighty Heart, based on the book by his widow, Mariane. In this week’s Seven Questions, FP spoke with Mariane Pearl about the murder, her activism, the film, and the war on terror."
The first of the 7 questions:
"FOREIGN POLICY: Did you have any hesitations about turning your book, A Mighty Heart, into a film?
Mariane Pearl: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This wasn’t something I considered seriously before I met Brad Pitt [a producer of the film]. It was a delicate choice to make. Only if I met someone who I felt had the same intentions in making a movie as I had in making the book, would I consider. But [Pitt] really read the book and we were in the same frame of mind. We are both people who want to have children, are aware of what’s going on in the world, and want and feel that we have to do something about it. If [the film serves] that purpose, it works for me."
"The remarkable life and brutal murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl is the topic of a gripping new film, A Mighty Heart, based on the book by his widow, Mariane. In this week’s Seven Questions, FP spoke with Mariane Pearl about the murder, her activism, the film, and the war on terror."
The first of the 7 questions:
"FOREIGN POLICY: Did you have any hesitations about turning your book, A Mighty Heart, into a film?
Mariane Pearl: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. This wasn’t something I considered seriously before I met Brad Pitt [a producer of the film]. It was a delicate choice to make. Only if I met someone who I felt had the same intentions in making a movie as I had in making the book, would I consider. But [Pitt] really read the book and we were in the same frame of mind. We are both people who want to have children, are aware of what’s going on in the world, and want and feel that we have to do something about it. If [the film serves] that purpose, it works for me."
Inching toward another war? - with Iran?
Patrick J Buchanan on his blog WorldNetDaily cites a number of facts which point to the US inchig toward a war with Iran - apparently without any input, let alone a green-light, from Congress:
"Has Congress given George Bush a green light to attack Iran?
For he is surely behaving as though it is his call alone. And evidence is mounting that we are on a collision course for war.
Iran has detained several Iranian-Americans, seemingly in retaliation for our continuing to hold five Iranians in Iraq.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran is making progress in the enrichment of uranium and denying it access to Iran's nuclear sites.
Bush is calling on Russia and China to toughen sanctions.
A flotilla of U.S. warships, including the carriers Stennis and Nimitz, has passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell has told CNN there is "very credible intelligence" Iran is funding Sunni extremists engaged in the roadside bombing of U.S. troops.
CBS reports the United States has engaged in the industrial sabotage of Iran's nuclear program by making the equipment Iran acquires on the black market unusable or destructive.
ABC reports Bush has authorized the CIA to mount a "black" operation to destabilize Iran, using "non-lethal" means. The absence of White House outrage over the leak suggests it may have wanted the information out.
ABC.com reports U.S. officials are supporting a militant group, Jundallah, in the "tri-border region" of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jundallah, a Sunni Islamist group seeking independence for Baluchistan, claims to have killed hundreds of Iranians."
"Has Congress given George Bush a green light to attack Iran?
For he is surely behaving as though it is his call alone. And evidence is mounting that we are on a collision course for war.
Iran has detained several Iranian-Americans, seemingly in retaliation for our continuing to hold five Iranians in Iraq.
The U.N. nuclear watchdog agency, the International Atomic Energy Agency, says Iran is making progress in the enrichment of uranium and denying it access to Iran's nuclear sites.
Bush is calling on Russia and China to toughen sanctions.
A flotilla of U.S. warships, including the carriers Stennis and Nimitz, has passed through the Strait of Hormuz into the Persian Gulf.
U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell has told CNN there is "very credible intelligence" Iran is funding Sunni extremists engaged in the roadside bombing of U.S. troops.
CBS reports the United States has engaged in the industrial sabotage of Iran's nuclear program by making the equipment Iran acquires on the black market unusable or destructive.
ABC reports Bush has authorized the CIA to mount a "black" operation to destabilize Iran, using "non-lethal" means. The absence of White House outrage over the leak suggests it may have wanted the information out.
ABC.com reports U.S. officials are supporting a militant group, Jundallah, in the "tri-border region" of Iran, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Jundallah, a Sunni Islamist group seeking independence for Baluchistan, claims to have killed hundreds of Iranians."
A powder-keg waiting to explode
That things are going from bad to worse in Gaza seems beyond doubt. 40 years after first being occupied, not only are Palestinians fighting amongst themselves but Isreal continues its relentless attacks on Palestinians and the general infrastructure in the territory. Now comes news that the US is funding the Fatah Abbas "camp" in the dispute between Hamas and Fatah. Of course the US and many European countries simply do not recognise Hamas even if they were democratically elected.
As CommonDreams reports [reproducing a piece from Inter Press Service] the position of people in Gaza is getting increasingly worse. There can be little doubt, as most sensible commentators report, that Gaza is a powder-keg waiting to explode:
"Workers in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel have suffered another year of drastic decline in living standards and rising poverty, unemployment, social disintegration and political chaos, the ILO said in a new report.
The proportion of households below the poverty line increased 26 percent between March 2006 and March 2007, according to the report released Monday, which is based on the findings of high-level missions sent by the ILO (International Labour Organisation) in April to Israel and the occupied Arab territories.
Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 40 percent in those areas between 1999 and 2006.
Seven out of 10 households, comprising around 2.4 million people, are living in poverty in the occupied territories, says the report, which will be studied at the May 30-Jun. 15 sessions of the International Labour Conference, held every year in Geneva.
Only one out of three people in the territories work, while “two out of three persons are without employment, either because they are unemployed or because they are outside the labour force,” says the report. Around 206,000 people are unemployed, equivalent to 24 percent of the workforce.
ILO Director General Juan Somavía said the situation in the occupied territories is “desperate”. The violence has not ceased, and continues to affect both Palestinian and Israeli civilians, although to differing degrees of intensity, he said."
As CommonDreams reports [reproducing a piece from Inter Press Service] the position of people in Gaza is getting increasingly worse. There can be little doubt, as most sensible commentators report, that Gaza is a powder-keg waiting to explode:
"Workers in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel have suffered another year of drastic decline in living standards and rising poverty, unemployment, social disintegration and political chaos, the ILO said in a new report.
The proportion of households below the poverty line increased 26 percent between March 2006 and March 2007, according to the report released Monday, which is based on the findings of high-level missions sent by the ILO (International Labour Organisation) in April to Israel and the occupied Arab territories.
Per capita gross domestic product (GDP) dropped 40 percent in those areas between 1999 and 2006.
Seven out of 10 households, comprising around 2.4 million people, are living in poverty in the occupied territories, says the report, which will be studied at the May 30-Jun. 15 sessions of the International Labour Conference, held every year in Geneva.
Only one out of three people in the territories work, while “two out of three persons are without employment, either because they are unemployed or because they are outside the labour force,” says the report. Around 206,000 people are unemployed, equivalent to 24 percent of the workforce.
ILO Director General Juan Somavía said the situation in the occupied territories is “desperate”. The violence has not ceased, and continues to affect both Palestinian and Israeli civilians, although to differing degrees of intensity, he said."
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
A new job for Wolfie?
Perhaps tongue in cheek, but as the US ABC News reports in its The Blotter section, a GOP member of Congress has proposed a new job for Paul Wolfowitz now that he has been ousted as President of the World Bank:
"Paul Wolfowitz may have been ousted from his post at the World Bank, but a free-speaking GOP lawmaker has an idea to keep the so-called "architect" of the Iraq War from standing in the unemployment line.
"I would like to suggest...that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over [to Iraq] as mayor," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., "since the neocons got us in over there."
As deputy secretary of defense from 2000 to 2005, Wolfowitz helped develop the strategy and public rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He publicly stated that coalition troops would be greeted as liberators, and the nation of Iraq would be largely capable of financing its own rebuilding through oil revenues."
"Paul Wolfowitz may have been ousted from his post at the World Bank, but a free-speaking GOP lawmaker has an idea to keep the so-called "architect" of the Iraq War from standing in the unemployment line.
"I would like to suggest...that maybe we give Paul Wolfowitz a new job and send him over [to Iraq] as mayor," said Rep. Walter Jones, R-N.C., "since the neocons got us in over there."
As deputy secretary of defense from 2000 to 2005, Wolfowitz helped develop the strategy and public rationale for the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He publicly stated that coalition troops would be greeted as liberators, and the nation of Iraq would be largely capable of financing its own rebuilding through oil revenues."
They just don't get it!
That John Howard and his Ministers simply don't understand global warming and climate change is evident from Howards' attack on the Professor Stern yesterday. According to Howard Stern is a European. So? The electorate certainly appears to be switched on to the issue. How could they not be as weather around the world seems to have gone haywire.
Someone ought to provide Howard and his troglodyte Ministers with a copy of this "The Big Thaw" - from National Geographic:
"From the high mountains to the vast polar ice sheets, the world is losing its ice faster than anyone thought possible. Even scientists who had monitored Chacaltaya since 1991 thought it would hold out for a few more years. It's no surprise that glaciers are melting as emissions from cars and industry warm the climate. But lately, the ice loss has outstripped the upward creep of global temperatures.
Scientists are finding that glaciers and ice sheets are surprisingly touchy. Instead of melting steadily, like an ice cube on a summer day, they are prone to feedbacks, when melting begets more melting and the ice shrinks precipitously. At Chacaltaya, for instance, the shrinking glacier exposed dark rocks, which sped up its demise by soaking up heat from the sun. Other feedbacks are shriveling bigger mountain glaciers ahead of schedule and sending polar ice sheets slipping into the ocean."
Someone ought to provide Howard and his troglodyte Ministers with a copy of this "The Big Thaw" - from National Geographic:
"From the high mountains to the vast polar ice sheets, the world is losing its ice faster than anyone thought possible. Even scientists who had monitored Chacaltaya since 1991 thought it would hold out for a few more years. It's no surprise that glaciers are melting as emissions from cars and industry warm the climate. But lately, the ice loss has outstripped the upward creep of global temperatures.
Scientists are finding that glaciers and ice sheets are surprisingly touchy. Instead of melting steadily, like an ice cube on a summer day, they are prone to feedbacks, when melting begets more melting and the ice shrinks precipitously. At Chacaltaya, for instance, the shrinking glacier exposed dark rocks, which sped up its demise by soaking up heat from the sun. Other feedbacks are shriveling bigger mountain glaciers ahead of schedule and sending polar ice sheets slipping into the ocean."
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Why listen to these [discredited] people?
The First Post makes some more than valid points in this piece - the a critical one being the question why anyone should even listen to people like John Bolton or Richard Perle let alone attribute any credibility to what they say:
"While the foreign policy think-tank Chatham House declares Iraq to be on the point of total collapse, the intellectual architects of pre-emptive war continue to attract surprisingly respectful media attention.
One can be revolted - but not surprised - at the spectacle of Bush and Blair, the Laurel and Hardy of the War on Terror, congratulating each other on their strategic vision from the White House lawn. But whose bright idea was it to let Richard Perle, the US hawk known as the 'prince of darkness', make a PBS documentary arguing that the world needs more military 'interventions'? And what explains the ubiquitous media presence of John Bolton, the troglodyte former US ambassador to the UN?
Only last week Bolton was interviewed by John Humphrys on the Today programme.
What is striking about Bolton is the homicidal intent that shows through the patter
Listening to that conversation was a grim experience that was not unlike being trapped with the Kevin Spacey serial killer character from Seven.
It wasn't just that Bolton's arguments were bizarre and illogical to the point of insanity, such as his description of Humphrys and the millionaire philanthrophist George Soros as members of the 'extreme left'. Or his ludicrous assertion that the invasion of Iraq has laid the basis for a more stable and peaceful Middle East. It wasn't even his fanaticism, his arrogance and his utter contempt for the opinions of the non-American world. What is striking about Bolton is the savagery and homicidal intent that shows through the statesmanlike patter.
In the same week that Bolton was explaining why 'we' should act against Iran, the son of Andrew Bacevich was killed serving in Iraq. An ex-US Army colonel and a political conservative, Bacevich has been a passionate and outspoken critic of the Iraq war from the beginning.
Having served in Vietnam, Bacevich knows war at firsthand and wrote
a book analysing how the American public has become 'seduced' by a fantasy version of cost-free militarism.
This process of seduction is partly due to the tireless efforts of war trolls such as Perle and Bolton. To the imperial mindset of these desktop warriors, foreign policy always boils down to the cathartic killing of America's enemies, generally of the darker-skinned variety. No matter how great the carnage, they are unrepentant and utterly indifferent, dismissing the destruction of entire societies as strategic victories.
These men are cynical, shameless and without honour. Asked by a distraught young American widow whose husband had died in Iraq why the administration went to war, Perle replied without batting an eyelid that the information on 'our desks' kept saying that Saddam had WMD. Perle does not mention that such information was essentially commissioned - a manoeuvre that enables men like him to lie without actually lying."
"While the foreign policy think-tank Chatham House declares Iraq to be on the point of total collapse, the intellectual architects of pre-emptive war continue to attract surprisingly respectful media attention.
One can be revolted - but not surprised - at the spectacle of Bush and Blair, the Laurel and Hardy of the War on Terror, congratulating each other on their strategic vision from the White House lawn. But whose bright idea was it to let Richard Perle, the US hawk known as the 'prince of darkness', make a PBS documentary arguing that the world needs more military 'interventions'? And what explains the ubiquitous media presence of John Bolton, the troglodyte former US ambassador to the UN?
Only last week Bolton was interviewed by John Humphrys on the Today programme.
What is striking about Bolton is the homicidal intent that shows through the patter
Listening to that conversation was a grim experience that was not unlike being trapped with the Kevin Spacey serial killer character from Seven.
It wasn't just that Bolton's arguments were bizarre and illogical to the point of insanity, such as his description of Humphrys and the millionaire philanthrophist George Soros as members of the 'extreme left'. Or his ludicrous assertion that the invasion of Iraq has laid the basis for a more stable and peaceful Middle East. It wasn't even his fanaticism, his arrogance and his utter contempt for the opinions of the non-American world. What is striking about Bolton is the savagery and homicidal intent that shows through the statesmanlike patter.
In the same week that Bolton was explaining why 'we' should act against Iran, the son of Andrew Bacevich was killed serving in Iraq. An ex-US Army colonel and a political conservative, Bacevich has been a passionate and outspoken critic of the Iraq war from the beginning.
Having served in Vietnam, Bacevich knows war at firsthand and wrote
a book analysing how the American public has become 'seduced' by a fantasy version of cost-free militarism.
This process of seduction is partly due to the tireless efforts of war trolls such as Perle and Bolton. To the imperial mindset of these desktop warriors, foreign policy always boils down to the cathartic killing of America's enemies, generally of the darker-skinned variety. No matter how great the carnage, they are unrepentant and utterly indifferent, dismissing the destruction of entire societies as strategic victories.
These men are cynical, shameless and without honour. Asked by a distraught young American widow whose husband had died in Iraq why the administration went to war, Perle replied without batting an eyelid that the information on 'our desks' kept saying that Saddam had WMD. Perle does not mention that such information was essentially commissioned - a manoeuvre that enables men like him to lie without actually lying."
Israeli settlements officially illegal!
It's official! They are illegal! - despite what the Israelis have been claiming for 40 years. As The Independent reports on a 1967 Report on Israeli's actions in establishing those ever-increasing number of settlements in the West Bank:
"A senior legal official who secretly warned the government of Israel after the Six Day War of 1967 that it would be illegal to build Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories has said, for the first time, that he still believes that he was right.
The declaration by Theodor Meron, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser at the time and today one of the world's leading international jurists, is a serious blow to Israel's persistent argument that the settlements do not violate international law, particularly as Israel prepares to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the war in June 1967.
The legal opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent, was marked "Top Secret" and "Extremely Urgent" and reached the unequivocal conclusion, in the words of its author's summary, "that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."
The declaration by Theodor Meron, the Israeli Foreign Ministry's legal adviser at the time and today one of the world's leading international jurists, is a serious blow to Israel's persistent argument that the settlements do not violate international law, particularly as Israel prepares to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the war in June 1967.
The legal opinion, a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent, was marked "Top Secret" and "Extremely Urgent" and reached the unequivocal conclusion, in the words of its author's summary, "that civilian settlement in the administered territories contravenes the explicit provisions of the Fourth Geneva Convention."
A very odd notion of freedom
Call it surge or whatever, but the Coalition of the Willing still isn't making any progress in war-torn Iraq 4 years after the invasion.
Frank Rich, writing in the NY Times, certainly no friend of the Bush Administration, again takes a blow-torch to it in his column "Operation Freedom from Iraqis" - and what it has "done" in Iraq:
"When all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization has now become America's sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy.
However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people in the administration's reckless bet to "transform" the Middle East. From "Stuff happens!" on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded contempt for the beneficiaries of our supposed munificence. Now this animus is completely out of the closet. Without Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to kick around anymore, the war's dead-enders are pinning the fiasco on the Iraqis themselves. Our government abhors them almost as much as the Lou Dobbs spear carriers loathe those swarming "aliens" from Mexico.
Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That's a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq's child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation's. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what's happening in the country he gave "God's gift of freedom."
It's easy to see why. To admit that Iraqis are voting with their feet is to concede that American policy is in ruins. A "secure" Iraq is a mirage, and, worse, those who can afford to leave are the very professionals who might have helped build one. Thus the president says nothing about Iraq's humanitarian crisis, the worst in the Middle East since 1948, much as he tried to hide the American death toll in Iraq by keeping the troops' coffins off-camera and staying away from military funerals."
Frank Rich, writing in the NY Times, certainly no friend of the Bush Administration, again takes a blow-torch to it in his column "Operation Freedom from Iraqis" - and what it has "done" in Iraq:
"When all else fails, those pious Americans who conceived and directed the Iraq war fall back on moral self-congratulation: at least we brought liberty and democracy to an oppressed people. But that last-ditch rationalization has now become America's sorriest self-delusion in this tragedy.
However wholeheartedly we disposed of their horrific dictator, the Iraqis were always pawns on the geopolitical chessboard rather than actual people in the administration's reckless bet to "transform" the Middle East. From "Stuff happens!" on, nearly every aspect of Washington policy in Iraq exuded contempt for the beneficiaries of our supposed munificence. Now this animus is completely out of the closet. Without Donald Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz to kick around anymore, the war's dead-enders are pinning the fiasco on the Iraqis themselves. Our government abhors them almost as much as the Lou Dobbs spear carriers loathe those swarming "aliens" from Mexico.
Iraqis are clamoring to get out of Iraq. Two million have fled so far and nearly two million more have been displaced within the country. (That's a total of some 15 percent of the population.) Save the Children reported this month that Iraq's child-survival rate is falling faster than any other nation's. One Iraqi in eight is killed by illness or violence by the age of 5. Yet for all the words President Bush has lavished on Darfur and AIDS in Africa, there has been a deadly silence from him about what's happening in the country he gave "God's gift of freedom."
It's easy to see why. To admit that Iraqis are voting with their feet is to concede that American policy is in ruins. A "secure" Iraq is a mirage, and, worse, those who can afford to leave are the very professionals who might have helped build one. Thus the president says nothing about Iraq's humanitarian crisis, the worst in the Middle East since 1948, much as he tried to hide the American death toll in Iraq by keeping the troops' coffins off-camera and staying away from military funerals."
Monday, May 28, 2007
Australia's indigenous = Australia's shame
This report in Crikey [reproduced here in full] makes all Australians stand condemned:
"The 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth power to legislate for indigenous people and required the census to count indigenous people as members of the Australian population.
And 40 years on? The statistics provided in this article are intended as a general snapshot only. The process of depicting an 'average Aborigine' is fraught on several fronts, not least of all because of a paucity of available data.
For example, some figures are only available from 2001, while others are from 2006. Also, the gap in some areas between Indigenous people in remote regions and those in metropolitan regions is huge, particularly in relation to health, employment and income.
But all that said, the 'average Aborigine' as depicted here correlates almost exactly with what those familiar with indigenous affairs would expect to see:
Indigenous Australians make up a little under 2.5 per cent of the national population.
Our 'average Aboriginal' is 20 years old, which was the median age for the entire Indigenous population in 2001, versus 36 for the non-Indigenous population.
He more than likely lives in a family of 3.5 people, compared to a white family which averages about 2.6 people.
An Aboriginal male born today has a life expectancy of about 59 years. But our 'average Aboriginal' is already 20 years of age, so his life expectancy at birth was much less, probably around 54 years. So in seven years time - at age 27 - he will have already lived half his life.
Nationally, the average indigenous Australian is about 15 times more likely to go to prison than a non-indigenous Australian.
On the day our Aboriginal turns 25, about six per cent of his countrymen will be in prison.
In some areas of the country, as many as one in three Aboriginal males will go to prison at some stage in their life. So while our average Aboriginal may not, on average someone from his family is likely.
He more than likely lives in a metropolitan or urban area - only about 25 percent of the indigenous population live in remote or very remote regions of Australia. Which is lucky for him - if he'd been born in a remote region, his life expectancy would have been under 50 years of age.
Superannuation is obviously of little relevance to him - he will likely die long before he claim it.
And he's unlikely to have any superannuation anyway. While the official unemployment statistics claim only about 20 per cent of indigenous Australians are unemployed, the real figure is much higher (probably around 50 per cent). More than 30,000 indigenous people are on the black work-for-the dole program (CDEP), yet still classified as employed.
His average weekly household income (according to 2001 figures) was $364, compared to $585 for white households. Were he to live in a very remote area, his average weekly household income would have been $267.
His father, on average, is probably already dead, with 45 percent of Aboriginal men dying before the age of 45.
Our average Aboriginal's sister - if she marries - is 25 times more likely to suffer domestic violence than a non-Indigenous woman.
On the education front, our average Aborigine is highly unlikely to have finished a Year 12 education - only about 38 percent of indigenous students do, compared to 76 percent of non-indigenous students. On the balance of probabilities, he probably dropped out during Year 11 or Year 10.
Ironically, the longer he stayed at school, the worse his achievements (set against white students). In Year 3, he was more than likely to meet the national literacy benchmark. But by Year 7, he was already on average failing to meet the national numeracy benchmark.
University is a pipe dream for him. In 2001, for example, less than 2 per cent of the indigenous population attended university, which was less than half of the proportion of the total Australian population that attended university.
He's unlikely to ever own a home - only about one third of indigenous Australians achieve home ownership, compared to three-quarters of the white population.
As for his health, our average Aboriginal's outlook is horrendous. Life expectancy gap aside, he is almost certainly a smoker (49 percent of indigenous Australians are, compared to 22 percent of non-indigenous Australians).
He's almost three times more likely to develop heart disease. And if he does present at a hospital, he's 40 per cent less likely to receive diagnostic procedures than his non-indigenous counterparts. And believe it nor not, if he is admitted to hospital for his coronary problems, he's 2.3 times more likely to die than if he stays at home (where he's 1.4 times more likely to die).
With the four worst rate of type diabetes on the planet, our average Aboriginal is 10 times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than a white Australian, and seven times more likely to be hospitalised because of it.
If he marries and his wife attempts to have children, she's five times more likely to die at childbirth.
Because he's over 15 years of age, he's more likely to be obese or overweight - 61 percent more likely, compared to non-indigenous Australians (48 percent).
It all adds up to our average Aboriginal being about five times more likely to commit suicide than a white Australian, with 108 indigenous male suicides per 100,000 population, compared to 21 for white Australians."
"The 1967 referendum gave the Commonwealth power to legislate for indigenous people and required the census to count indigenous people as members of the Australian population.
And 40 years on? The statistics provided in this article are intended as a general snapshot only. The process of depicting an 'average Aborigine' is fraught on several fronts, not least of all because of a paucity of available data.
For example, some figures are only available from 2001, while others are from 2006. Also, the gap in some areas between Indigenous people in remote regions and those in metropolitan regions is huge, particularly in relation to health, employment and income.
But all that said, the 'average Aborigine' as depicted here correlates almost exactly with what those familiar with indigenous affairs would expect to see:
Indigenous Australians make up a little under 2.5 per cent of the national population.
Our 'average Aboriginal' is 20 years old, which was the median age for the entire Indigenous population in 2001, versus 36 for the non-Indigenous population.
He more than likely lives in a family of 3.5 people, compared to a white family which averages about 2.6 people.
An Aboriginal male born today has a life expectancy of about 59 years. But our 'average Aboriginal' is already 20 years of age, so his life expectancy at birth was much less, probably around 54 years. So in seven years time - at age 27 - he will have already lived half his life.
Nationally, the average indigenous Australian is about 15 times more likely to go to prison than a non-indigenous Australian.
On the day our Aboriginal turns 25, about six per cent of his countrymen will be in prison.
In some areas of the country, as many as one in three Aboriginal males will go to prison at some stage in their life. So while our average Aboriginal may not, on average someone from his family is likely.
He more than likely lives in a metropolitan or urban area - only about 25 percent of the indigenous population live in remote or very remote regions of Australia. Which is lucky for him - if he'd been born in a remote region, his life expectancy would have been under 50 years of age.
Superannuation is obviously of little relevance to him - he will likely die long before he claim it.
And he's unlikely to have any superannuation anyway. While the official unemployment statistics claim only about 20 per cent of indigenous Australians are unemployed, the real figure is much higher (probably around 50 per cent). More than 30,000 indigenous people are on the black work-for-the dole program (CDEP), yet still classified as employed.
His average weekly household income (according to 2001 figures) was $364, compared to $585 for white households. Were he to live in a very remote area, his average weekly household income would have been $267.
His father, on average, is probably already dead, with 45 percent of Aboriginal men dying before the age of 45.
Our average Aboriginal's sister - if she marries - is 25 times more likely to suffer domestic violence than a non-Indigenous woman.
On the education front, our average Aborigine is highly unlikely to have finished a Year 12 education - only about 38 percent of indigenous students do, compared to 76 percent of non-indigenous students. On the balance of probabilities, he probably dropped out during Year 11 or Year 10.
Ironically, the longer he stayed at school, the worse his achievements (set against white students). In Year 3, he was more than likely to meet the national literacy benchmark. But by Year 7, he was already on average failing to meet the national numeracy benchmark.
University is a pipe dream for him. In 2001, for example, less than 2 per cent of the indigenous population attended university, which was less than half of the proportion of the total Australian population that attended university.
He's unlikely to ever own a home - only about one third of indigenous Australians achieve home ownership, compared to three-quarters of the white population.
As for his health, our average Aboriginal's outlook is horrendous. Life expectancy gap aside, he is almost certainly a smoker (49 percent of indigenous Australians are, compared to 22 percent of non-indigenous Australians).
He's almost three times more likely to develop heart disease. And if he does present at a hospital, he's 40 per cent less likely to receive diagnostic procedures than his non-indigenous counterparts. And believe it nor not, if he is admitted to hospital for his coronary problems, he's 2.3 times more likely to die than if he stays at home (where he's 1.4 times more likely to die).
With the four worst rate of type diabetes on the planet, our average Aboriginal is 10 times more likely to have type 2 diabetes than a white Australian, and seven times more likely to be hospitalised because of it.
If he marries and his wife attempts to have children, she's five times more likely to die at childbirth.
Because he's over 15 years of age, he's more likely to be obese or overweight - 61 percent more likely, compared to non-indigenous Australians (48 percent).
It all adds up to our average Aboriginal being about five times more likely to commit suicide than a white Australian, with 108 indigenous male suicides per 100,000 population, compared to 21 for white Australians."
Cheney's back at it again
Make no mistake about it! Dick Cheney, VP of the US, is a dangerous man - and from what can gauge, a misguided missile in every sense of the word.
If the report in The Washington Note is to be believed, Cheney is even workimg behind his bosses back to see Iran being taken on militarily. Now that would unleash things no end in the Middle East,with repercussions around the globe.
"There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.
On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.
The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.
However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.
But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging."
Harper's Magazine has an article on the same topic [a serious one!] under the headline "Cheney's Thirst for War".
If the report in The Washington Note is to be believed, Cheney is even workimg behind his bosses back to see Iran being taken on militarily. Now that would unleash things no end in the Middle East,with repercussions around the globe.
"There is a race currently underway between different flanks of the administration to determine the future course of US-Iran policy.
On one flank are the diplomats, and on the other is Vice President Cheney's team and acolytes -- who populate quite a wide swath throughout the American national security bureaucracy.
The Pentagon and the intelligence establishment are providing support to add muscle and nuance to the diplomatic effort led by Condi Rice, her deputy John Negroponte, Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, and Legal Adviser John Bellinger. The support that Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and CIA Director Michael Hayden are providing Rice's efforts are a complete, 180 degree contrast to the dysfunction that characterized relations between these institutions before the recent reshuffle of top personnel.
However, the Department of Defense and national intelligence sector are also preparing for hot conflict. They believe that they need to in order to convince Iran's various power centers that the military option does exist.
But this is worrisome. The person in the Bush administration who most wants a hot conflict with Iran is Vice President Cheney. The person in Iran who most wants a conflict is Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force would be big winners in a conflict as well -- as the political support that both have inside Iran has been flagging."
Harper's Magazine has an article on the same topic [a serious one!] under the headline "Cheney's Thirst for War".
Middle East: An ever-widening problem
News late last week of the Iranian President [ a hot-head and seemingly hard to play at the best of times] threatening Israel that it would suffer severe retribution if it again attacked Lebanon is hardly comforting.
More troubling yet is news that there seems to be race underway in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons. That possibility must be of grave concern to everyone, especially as Israel does have nuclear weapons - despite the world accepting Israel's ambigious position on whether it does, or does not, have a nuclear armory.
The LA Times reports:
"As Iran races ahead with an illicit uranium enrichment effort, nearly a dozen other Middle East nations are moving forward on their own civilian nuclear programs. In the latest development, a team of eight U.N. experts on Friday ended a weeklong trip to Saudi Arabia to provide nuclear guidance to officials from six Persian Gulf countries.
Diplomats and analysts view the Saudi trip as the latest sign that Iran's suspected weapons program has helped spark a chain reaction of nuclear interest among its Arab rivals, which some fear will lead to a scramble for atomic weapons in the world's most volatile region.
The International Atomic Energy Agency sent the team of nuclear experts to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to advise the Gulf Cooperation Council on building nuclear energy plants. Together, the council members — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the seven sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates — control nearly half the world's known oil reserves.
Other nations that have said they plan to construct civilian nuclear reactors or have sought technical assistance and advice from the IAEA, the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, in the last year include Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, as well as several North African nations."
More troubling yet is news that there seems to be race underway in the Middle East to acquire nuclear weapons. That possibility must be of grave concern to everyone, especially as Israel does have nuclear weapons - despite the world accepting Israel's ambigious position on whether it does, or does not, have a nuclear armory.
The LA Times reports:
"As Iran races ahead with an illicit uranium enrichment effort, nearly a dozen other Middle East nations are moving forward on their own civilian nuclear programs. In the latest development, a team of eight U.N. experts on Friday ended a weeklong trip to Saudi Arabia to provide nuclear guidance to officials from six Persian Gulf countries.
Diplomats and analysts view the Saudi trip as the latest sign that Iran's suspected weapons program has helped spark a chain reaction of nuclear interest among its Arab rivals, which some fear will lead to a scramble for atomic weapons in the world's most volatile region.
The International Atomic Energy Agency sent the team of nuclear experts to Riyadh, the Saudi capital, to advise the Gulf Cooperation Council on building nuclear energy plants. Together, the council members — Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the seven sheikdoms of the United Arab Emirates — control nearly half the world's known oil reserves.
Other nations that have said they plan to construct civilian nuclear reactors or have sought technical assistance and advice from the IAEA, the Vienna-based United Nations nuclear watchdog agency, in the last year include Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Turkey and Yemen, as well as several North African nations."
Sunday, May 27, 2007
A 40 years hiatus - and no solution in sight
The Economist soberly analyses the outcome of the Six Day War 40 years ago in its piece "Israel's Wasted Victory" - and where it has left Israel and the Palestinians:
"On the seventh day Jews everywhere celebrated Israel's deliverance from danger. But 40 years after that tumultuous June of 1967, the six-day war has come to look like one of history's pyrrhic victories. That is not to say that the war was unnecessary. Israel struck after Egypt's President Nasser sent his army into the Sinai peninsula, evicted United Nations peacekeeping forces and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel's victory opened the waterway and smashed its enemies' encircling armies, averting what many Israelis sincerely expected to be a second Holocaust. And yet, in the long run, the war turned into a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbours."
See also an accompanying piece "Forty Years On" here, also in The Economist.
To round out the picture it is interesting to reflect on how Israel constantly calls on the Palestinians to abide by UN Resolutions. It is now beyond question that Israel ignores virtually all Resolutions affecting it, especially the now "famous" [infamous?] Resolution 242, passed back on 22 November, 1967.
"On the seventh day Jews everywhere celebrated Israel's deliverance from danger. But 40 years after that tumultuous June of 1967, the six-day war has come to look like one of history's pyrrhic victories. That is not to say that the war was unnecessary. Israel struck after Egypt's President Nasser sent his army into the Sinai peninsula, evicted United Nations peacekeeping forces and blockaded Israeli shipping through the Gulf of Aqaba. Israel's victory opened the waterway and smashed its enemies' encircling armies, averting what many Israelis sincerely expected to be a second Holocaust. And yet, in the long run, the war turned into a calamity for the Jewish state no less than for its neighbours."
See also an accompanying piece "Forty Years On" here, also in The Economist.
To round out the picture it is interesting to reflect on how Israel constantly calls on the Palestinians to abide by UN Resolutions. It is now beyond question that Israel ignores virtually all Resolutions affecting it, especially the now "famous" [infamous?] Resolution 242, passed back on 22 November, 1967.
An all too familiar ring....
Can anyone forget the disgraceful bigotry and racism of PM John Howard, and his Minister Reith, who not only played the race-card in the 2001 election but also, knowingly, falsely accused boat people of throwing their children into the sea - and then went on to proclaim that we don't want "these people" in Australia.
No wonder George W and John Howard are such good friends..... It all seems like a case of deja vu when one reads this on TomPaine.common sense:
"President Bush today: "These people attacked us before we were even in Iraq!"
Can we have a little frankness, please?
The President of the United States is a racist. Or at the very least, an anti-Muslim bigot.
In Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunni are fighting each other to the death. Under what possible logic can they be joined by a common identity?
There is no "these people" except in their common Middle East-ness.
Iran and Iraq fought a decade-long war - Shia against Sunni. They are, to our president, "these people." "They" attacked us. "They" continue to attack us. Iran, Iraq: all the same.
The people who attacked us on September 11 were from a group called "al Qaeda." According to U.S. intelligence, Iraq was one of the few countries in the Middle East where Al Qaeda did not have a beachhead.
In the 1960s, to much of the public, China and Russia were equally "these people." Even as those countries were on the verge of nuclear war with one another. Bad people stoked the equivilance of the two even after they knew better. They did it to keep a monstrous war going, as the American people began to know better.
It's much worse now. Who are "these people," Mr. President? Why are you worse than McCarthy?"
No wonder George W and John Howard are such good friends..... It all seems like a case of deja vu when one reads this on TomPaine.common sense:
"President Bush today: "These people attacked us before we were even in Iraq!"
Can we have a little frankness, please?
The President of the United States is a racist. Or at the very least, an anti-Muslim bigot.
In Iraq, Shi'ites and Sunni are fighting each other to the death. Under what possible logic can they be joined by a common identity?
There is no "these people" except in their common Middle East-ness.
Iran and Iraq fought a decade-long war - Shia against Sunni. They are, to our president, "these people." "They" attacked us. "They" continue to attack us. Iran, Iraq: all the same.
The people who attacked us on September 11 were from a group called "al Qaeda." According to U.S. intelligence, Iraq was one of the few countries in the Middle East where Al Qaeda did not have a beachhead.
In the 1960s, to much of the public, China and Russia were equally "these people." Even as those countries were on the verge of nuclear war with one another. Bad people stoked the equivilance of the two even after they knew better. They did it to keep a monstrous war going, as the American people began to know better.
It's much worse now. Who are "these people," Mr. President? Why are you worse than McCarthy?"
Iraq: Told you so!
As time marches on and the Democrat-controlled Congress and Senate probes ever more into the Iraq War and what assessments were made about it before the Coalition of the Willing invaded Iraq, the revelations emerging are appalling. Such predictions as there were on the table were extremely negative and warned of dire consequences.
The Washington Post reports:
"Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.'"
An interesting question arises here. Were these diabolical reports provided to John Howard and Tony Blair? A fertile line of probing and questions for some good journalists.....
The Washington Post reports:
"Months before the invasion of Iraq, U.S. intelligence agencies predicted that it would be likely to spark violent sectarian divides and provide al-Qaeda with new opportunities in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to a report released yesterday by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. Analysts warned that war in Iraq also could provoke Iran to assert its regional influence and "probably would result in a surge of political Islam and increased funding for terrorist groups" in the Muslim world.
The intelligence assessments, made in January 2003 and widely circulated within the Bush administration before the war, said that establishing democracy in Iraq would be "a long, difficult and probably turbulent challenge." The assessments noted that Iraqi political culture was "largely bereft of the social underpinnings" to support democratic development.'"
An interesting question arises here. Were these diabolical reports provided to John Howard and Tony Blair? A fertile line of probing and questions for some good journalists.....
Saturday, May 26, 2007
Come in Mike Moore....
By all accounts the latest Mike Moore movie, "Sicko" has attracted critical acclaim at the Cannes Film Festival. In typical Moore fashion it evidently takes no prisoners!
On his blog / web site, Moore "reports" on Cannes and his new film:
"At the press screening for "Sicko," the Wall Street Journal reported that hardened reporters and critics wept. Even those who have been harsh to me in the past, or who have not agreed with my politics, were moved. Aside from my stated desire that "Sicko" ignite a fire for free, universal health care (and a larger wish that we, as Americans, do a better job of treating each other with a true sense of solidarity and respect), I continue to hope that I can make a contribution to the art of cinema and give people a good reason to get out of the house for a few hours."
On his blog / web site, Moore "reports" on Cannes and his new film:
"At the press screening for "Sicko," the Wall Street Journal reported that hardened reporters and critics wept. Even those who have been harsh to me in the past, or who have not agreed with my politics, were moved. Aside from my stated desire that "Sicko" ignite a fire for free, universal health care (and a larger wish that we, as Americans, do a better job of treating each other with a true sense of solidarity and respect), I continue to hope that I can make a contribution to the art of cinema and give people a good reason to get out of the house for a few hours."
A couple doing a reno of their [er, our] "home"
Just a couple doing a bit of renovating? Not quite, as Mike Carleton points out in his piece in the SMH on how the PM Howard and "the little woman" have had their hands deep - very deep - in the taxpayer's pockets spending on their living quarters.
"As anyone who has ever done it knows only too well, working to a tight budget can be a renovator's nightmare. But one Sydney-based professional couple has shown just what magical results can be achieved with a bold sense of style while, at the same time, keeping a tight rein on costs.
John, a prime minister, and his wife Janette, a former schoolteacher turned political guru, make their home in a splendid sandstone colonial mansion on Kirribilli Point overlooking a sparkling panorama of sails and sunshine on Sydney Harbour. They also share a graceful country residence in leafy Canberra, not much more than a stone's throw from Parliament House where busy John has his office."
Howard may be a good politician, but Carleton's piece is an interesting background on a boring, colourless and pedestrian couple - except that it is your and my money being spent. As Carleton points out, his figures are taken from those publicly available.
"As anyone who has ever done it knows only too well, working to a tight budget can be a renovator's nightmare. But one Sydney-based professional couple has shown just what magical results can be achieved with a bold sense of style while, at the same time, keeping a tight rein on costs.
John, a prime minister, and his wife Janette, a former schoolteacher turned political guru, make their home in a splendid sandstone colonial mansion on Kirribilli Point overlooking a sparkling panorama of sails and sunshine on Sydney Harbour. They also share a graceful country residence in leafy Canberra, not much more than a stone's throw from Parliament House where busy John has his office."
Howard may be a good politician, but Carleton's piece is an interesting background on a boring, colourless and pedestrian couple - except that it is your and my money being spent. As Carleton points out, his figures are taken from those publicly available.
Yet another question about the USA's actions in Iraq
AlterNet reproduces this piece from The Nation - with a question which needs to be answered. Has the US employed the use of cluster bombs in Iraq? If so, then the Americans, and its allies, stand sorely condemned.
"Did the U.S. military use cluster bombs in Iraq in 2006 and then lie about it? Does the U.S. military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?
These are just two of the many unanswered questions related to the largely uncovered air war the U.S. military has been waging in Iraq.
What we do know is this: Since the major combat phase of the war ended in April 2003, the U.S. military has dropped at least 59,787 pounds of air-delivered cluster bombs in Iraq -- the very type of weapon that Marc Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls, "the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon that is in use." We also know that, according to expert opinion, rockets and cannon fire from U.S. aircraft may account for most U.S. and coalition-attributed Iraqi civilian deaths and that the Pentagon has restocked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these weapons in recent years."
"Did the U.S. military use cluster bombs in Iraq in 2006 and then lie about it? Does the U.S. military keep the numbers of rockets and cannon rounds fired from its planes and helicopters secret because more Iraqi civilians have died due to their use than any other type of weaponry?
These are just two of the many unanswered questions related to the largely uncovered air war the U.S. military has been waging in Iraq.
What we do know is this: Since the major combat phase of the war ended in April 2003, the U.S. military has dropped at least 59,787 pounds of air-delivered cluster bombs in Iraq -- the very type of weapon that Marc Garlasco, the senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch (HRW) calls, "the single greatest risk civilians face with regard to a current weapon that is in use." We also know that, according to expert opinion, rockets and cannon fire from U.S. aircraft may account for most U.S. and coalition-attributed Iraqi civilian deaths and that the Pentagon has restocked hundreds of millions of dollars worth of these weapons in recent years."
Friday, May 25, 2007
Trying to come to grips with George W
Marty Kaplan, writing in The Huffington Post, raises a not uncritical and important question:
"I wonder what Bush thinks of us.
I don't mean us as in, left blogistan; I mean us as in, America. Day after day, the president sees polls saying that at least 70% of the country consistently believes that he's, oh, put the country on the wrong course, mired us in a hopeless quagmire, politicized the justice system, handed over the regulatory reins to the corporate sector, transferred massive wealth from the middle to the robber barons, obliterated civil liberties, and so on.
Along with our view of what he's done to the country, we 70-percenters also have our pet theories of his character and psychology, of why he's done it. When pollsters ask Americans what words come to mind to describe the president, terms like "delusional," "ideologue," "stubborn" and "idiot" top the charts, suggesting the kind of explanations that Americans use to account for his behavior, to motivate his disastrous persistence.
But surely, when the president looks at his approval numbers, he, too, must have his own pet theories about why we Americans put him in the cellar. How might he explain our overwhelming rejection of him?"
Kaplan's answers to his own questions? Read them here.
"I wonder what Bush thinks of us.
I don't mean us as in, left blogistan; I mean us as in, America. Day after day, the president sees polls saying that at least 70% of the country consistently believes that he's, oh, put the country on the wrong course, mired us in a hopeless quagmire, politicized the justice system, handed over the regulatory reins to the corporate sector, transferred massive wealth from the middle to the robber barons, obliterated civil liberties, and so on.
Along with our view of what he's done to the country, we 70-percenters also have our pet theories of his character and psychology, of why he's done it. When pollsters ask Americans what words come to mind to describe the president, terms like "delusional," "ideologue," "stubborn" and "idiot" top the charts, suggesting the kind of explanations that Americans use to account for his behavior, to motivate his disastrous persistence.
But surely, when the president looks at his approval numbers, he, too, must have his own pet theories about why we Americans put him in the cellar. How might he explain our overwhelming rejection of him?"
Kaplan's answers to his own questions? Read them here.
40 years later - justice and a home
It's an event which has attracted little media coverage. But, at long last - 40 years in fact - as The Guardian reports, long-overdue justice has been shown to the Chagossians. They can now return to the home, their island, from which they were so forcibly removed as a result of outragous conduct by the British in cahoots with the Americans.
"Hundreds of Indian Ocean islanders who were forcibly deported from their homeland by Britain 40 years ago won a battle yesterday which could see them set sail for an emotional return within days.
The court of appeal in London found the British government guilty of "abuse of power" for attempting to prevent the Chagos Islanders from reclaiming land leased from under their feet by Britain to the US in the 1960s.
Three judges upheld a ruling in the islanders' favour last year, ordered the government to pay their legal costs and withheld support for an appeal to the House of Lords. Giving his reason for the ruling Lord Justice Sedley wrote: "Few things are more important to a social group than its sense of belonging, not only to each other but to a place. What has sustained peoples in exile, from Babylon onwards, has been the possibility of one day returning home." The judge added: "The barring of that door, however remote or inaccessible it may be for the present, is an act requiring overwhelming justification."
An estimated 2,000 Chagossians were driven from their homes between 1967 and 1971 after Britain made a secret deal to lease the island of Diego Garcia to the US for use as an airbase. They were tricked out of their homes, encouraged to leave on temporary trips, and not allowed back.
Later, the islanders were subjected to intimidation. At one point US soldiers rounded up their dogs and gassed them. The departing Chagossians were loaded on to boats, allowed to take only one bag with them, and deposited in Mauritius, where most have lived in poverty ever since. The base has served as a refuelling stop and base for air raids in a succession of wars, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Veteran journalist, writer and film-maker John Pilger has been one of the few who has taken up the cause of the Chagossians and reported on it. Read a piece by Pilger written a year ago here.
"Hundreds of Indian Ocean islanders who were forcibly deported from their homeland by Britain 40 years ago won a battle yesterday which could see them set sail for an emotional return within days.
The court of appeal in London found the British government guilty of "abuse of power" for attempting to prevent the Chagos Islanders from reclaiming land leased from under their feet by Britain to the US in the 1960s.
Three judges upheld a ruling in the islanders' favour last year, ordered the government to pay their legal costs and withheld support for an appeal to the House of Lords. Giving his reason for the ruling Lord Justice Sedley wrote: "Few things are more important to a social group than its sense of belonging, not only to each other but to a place. What has sustained peoples in exile, from Babylon onwards, has been the possibility of one day returning home." The judge added: "The barring of that door, however remote or inaccessible it may be for the present, is an act requiring overwhelming justification."
An estimated 2,000 Chagossians were driven from their homes between 1967 and 1971 after Britain made a secret deal to lease the island of Diego Garcia to the US for use as an airbase. They were tricked out of their homes, encouraged to leave on temporary trips, and not allowed back.
Later, the islanders were subjected to intimidation. At one point US soldiers rounded up their dogs and gassed them. The departing Chagossians were loaded on to boats, allowed to take only one bag with them, and deposited in Mauritius, where most have lived in poverty ever since. The base has served as a refuelling stop and base for air raids in a succession of wars, most recently in Afghanistan and Iraq."
Veteran journalist, writer and film-maker John Pilger has been one of the few who has taken up the cause of the Chagossians and reported on it. Read a piece by Pilger written a year ago here.
Thursday, May 24, 2007
Howard's 11 years of shame.....
It is 10 years since the publication of the Report on the Stolen Aboriginal generation, "Bringing Them Home", and 40 years next weekend since a referendum granted aboriginals the right to vote.
At a ceremony at Parliament House today to mark the 10 year anniversary of the landmark Report, Lowitja O'Donoghue was a keynote speaker.
ABC News on Line reports:
"The former chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has attacked the Federal Government for a lack of effort on the Stolen Generation in the last decade.
Lowitja O'Donohue, a member of the Stolen Generation, has addressed a gathering at Parliament House in Canberra to mark 10 years since the 'Bringing Them Home' report.
Ms O'Donohue says of the 54 recommendations made in the report, 35 have been ignored.
"That is two thirds. The Prime Minister either doesn't get it or he doesn't care and I'm not sure which is worse," she said.
"There has been a failure of moral authority and ethical leadership in Australia over the last 10 years.
"This country is in a position to be a world leader in human rights and social justice. Instead it is, as Aboriginal people would say, a shame job."
Yes, PM Howard and his minions, just don't get it! Their obstinate refusal to say 'sorry' shames all Australians and clearly puts on display the lack of character and decency of the Howard Government - 11 years after coming into office.
At a ceremony at Parliament House today to mark the 10 year anniversary of the landmark Report, Lowitja O'Donoghue was a keynote speaker.
ABC News on Line reports:
"The former chairwoman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC) has attacked the Federal Government for a lack of effort on the Stolen Generation in the last decade.
Lowitja O'Donohue, a member of the Stolen Generation, has addressed a gathering at Parliament House in Canberra to mark 10 years since the 'Bringing Them Home' report.
Ms O'Donohue says of the 54 recommendations made in the report, 35 have been ignored.
"That is two thirds. The Prime Minister either doesn't get it or he doesn't care and I'm not sure which is worse," she said.
"There has been a failure of moral authority and ethical leadership in Australia over the last 10 years.
"This country is in a position to be a world leader in human rights and social justice. Instead it is, as Aboriginal people would say, a shame job."
Yes, PM Howard and his minions, just don't get it! Their obstinate refusal to say 'sorry' shames all Australians and clearly puts on display the lack of character and decency of the Howard Government - 11 years after coming into office.
Amnesty Report [continued]
The Israelis have already countered [not refuted!] what Amnesty International has recorded in its 2007 Report, but the statistics and background provided by Amnesty with respect to the death of Palestinians appear beyond doubt or question.
The Independent provides the details:
"More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18. Amnesty defines civilians, "as people that are reasonably supposed never to have been involved in armed operations".
While Amnesty said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank it pointed out that most of the increase resulted from aerial and artillery bombardments in Gaza after the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in late June and in response to increased Qassam rocket fire on Israel. These included, for example, the shelling of a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun which killed 17 members of the Athamneh family.
The report said 21 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians militants in the same year, the lowest figure since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.
Amnesty also accused soldiers and settlers of committing "serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings against Palestinians mostly with impunity". Although it said settler attacks on farmers in the West Bank had decreased, they were continuing.
It said that, at times, security forces were present at such incidents and did not intervene. It also accused the security forces of often only opening investigations after the cases had been highlighted by journalists and human rights groups."
The Independent provides the details:
"More than 320 civilians were among a threefold increase in the number of Palestinians killed by Israeli security forces last year, according to Amnesty International. The human rights group's 2007 report says that over half of the more than 650 Palestinians killed in 2006 were civilians, 120 of them children and young people under 18. Amnesty defines civilians, "as people that are reasonably supposed never to have been involved in armed operations".
While Amnesty said that dozens of Palestinians were killed in the West Bank it pointed out that most of the increase resulted from aerial and artillery bombardments in Gaza after the abduction of the Israeli corporal Gilad Shalit in late June and in response to increased Qassam rocket fire on Israel. These included, for example, the shelling of a house in the northern town of Beit Hanoun which killed 17 members of the Athamneh family.
The report said 21 Israeli civilians were killed by Palestinians militants in the same year, the lowest figure since the beginning of the second intifada in 2000.
Amnesty also accused soldiers and settlers of committing "serious human rights abuses, including unlawful killings against Palestinians mostly with impunity". Although it said settler attacks on farmers in the West Bank had decreased, they were continuing.
It said that, at times, security forces were present at such incidents and did not intervene. It also accused the security forces of often only opening investigations after the cases had been highlighted by journalists and human rights groups."
The Road to Jerusalem
Robert Fisk is the most incisive and best informed journalist and writer about events in the Middle East. Rare amongst Western journalists, he has been stationed in Beirut now for some 30 years. So, he is more than well qualified to report and comment on the region and all its ever-ongoing upheavels.
Lebanon is again in focus. Tumult reigns and violence continues once again. Fisk, writing in The Independent, "The Road to Jerusalem" puts into context what is currently happening, the causes and where it might all be leading to:
"They came into Lebanon last summer when the world was watching Israel smash this small nation in a vain attempt to destroy the Hizbollah. But the men who set up their grubby little office in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, some of them fighters from the Iraq war, others from Yemen, Syria or Lebanon itself, were far more dangerous than America and Israel believed the Hizbollah to be. They had come, they told the few journalists who bothered to seek them out "to liberate" Jerusalem because "to free our territory is a sacred duty inscribed in the Koran".
That the men of Fatah al-Islam should believe that the road to Jerusalem lay through the Lebanese city of Tripoli and might be gained by killing almost 30 Lebanese soldiers - many of them Sunni Muslims like themselves, four of whom it now emerges had their heads cut off - was one of the weirder manifestations of an organisation which, while it denies being part of al-Qa'ida, is clearly sympathetic to the "brothers" who serve the ideas of Osama bin Laden."
Lebanon is again in focus. Tumult reigns and violence continues once again. Fisk, writing in The Independent, "The Road to Jerusalem" puts into context what is currently happening, the causes and where it might all be leading to:
"They came into Lebanon last summer when the world was watching Israel smash this small nation in a vain attempt to destroy the Hizbollah. But the men who set up their grubby little office in the Nahr el-Bared refugee camp, some of them fighters from the Iraq war, others from Yemen, Syria or Lebanon itself, were far more dangerous than America and Israel believed the Hizbollah to be. They had come, they told the few journalists who bothered to seek them out "to liberate" Jerusalem because "to free our territory is a sacred duty inscribed in the Koran".
That the men of Fatah al-Islam should believe that the road to Jerusalem lay through the Lebanese city of Tripoli and might be gained by killing almost 30 Lebanese soldiers - many of them Sunni Muslims like themselves, four of whom it now emerges had their heads cut off - was one of the weirder manifestations of an organisation which, while it denies being part of al-Qa'ida, is clearly sympathetic to the "brothers" who serve the ideas of Osama bin Laden."
Howard, Bush and Mugabe: Fellow travellers
It couldn't be more damning - the Amnesty Intereportnational Report for 2007 joins John Howard, George Bush and Robert Mugabe, equally and as one, in their infraction of human rights.
As the ABC reports:
"Amnesty International has accused the Federal Government of fearmongering by portraying asylum seekers as a threat to national security.
This year Amnesty's annual report into global human rights abuses focuses on the politics of fear, and argues fear thrives on "myopic and cowardly leadership".
The Government is singled out for criticism for its portrayal of "asylum seekers in leaky boats" as a "refugee invasion", which Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan says contributed to John Howard's election win in 2001.
Ms Khan says the new refugee exchange deal with the US proves the offshore processing centres have failed."
The SMH reports the Amnesty Report here. Amnesty International, and its Report, can be accessed here directly.
As the ABC reports:
"Amnesty International has accused the Federal Government of fearmongering by portraying asylum seekers as a threat to national security.
This year Amnesty's annual report into global human rights abuses focuses on the politics of fear, and argues fear thrives on "myopic and cowardly leadership".
The Government is singled out for criticism for its portrayal of "asylum seekers in leaky boats" as a "refugee invasion", which Amnesty secretary-general Irene Khan says contributed to John Howard's election win in 2001.
Ms Khan says the new refugee exchange deal with the US proves the offshore processing centres have failed."
The SMH reports the Amnesty Report here. Amnesty International, and its Report, can be accessed here directly.
Yet another new dimension to the Iraq War
There can be little doubt that despite the best efforts of Western nations, Afghanistan remains the leader in the growth of opium crops in the world. For many locals, it is the only source of income.
Now it has come to light that Iraqi "farmers" are trying to get into the act too. It's obviously a quick cash crop. This new situation is presumably a totally unexpected fall-out and dimension to the outcome of the decision to invade Iraq. As The Independent reports:
"Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.
Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months."
Now it has come to light that Iraqi "farmers" are trying to get into the act too. It's obviously a quick cash crop. This new situation is presumably a totally unexpected fall-out and dimension to the outcome of the decision to invade Iraq. As The Independent reports:
"Farmers in southern Iraq have started to grow opium poppies in their fields for the first time, sparking fears that Iraq might become a serious drugs producer along the lines of Afghanistan.
Rice farmers along the Euphrates, to the west of the city of Diwaniya, south of Baghdad, have stopped cultivating rice, for which the area is famous, and are instead planting poppies, Iraqi sources familiar with the area have told The Independent.
The shift to opium cultivation is still in its early stages but there is little the Iraqi government can do about it because rival Shia militias and their surrogates in the security forces control Diwaniya and its neighbourhood. There have been bloody clashes between militiamen, police, Iraqi army and US forces in the city over the past two months."
Wednesday, May 23, 2007
Cuba: A rare insight
Cuba is some 90 miles off the US mainland. Fidel Castro is still hanging in there as a now very long serving dictator. In fact Cuba is a last-gasp communist bastion in an otherwise very different world. Perhaps in typical blinkered fashion the US doesn't recognise Cuba even if it's on its doorstep.
We rarely get an insight into Cuba other than when Castro makes some statement or other which attracts attention.
Antony Loewenstein, writing in The Guardian, provides a rare insight into Cuba, in particular how the population seeks to harness the internet and all it has to offer:
"Cuba is the least technologically connected country in Latin America, falling way behind in mobile phone and internet penetration. The Castro regime has blamed the long-standing US embargo for the communication restrictions - and must utilise satellite technology as a result - but the situation is far more complicated than the government likes to publicly admit. For example, Cubans are required to obtain a permit to buy a computer or subscribe to an ISP, therefore making regular contact with the outside world a virtual impossibility for the vast majority of citizens."
We rarely get an insight into Cuba other than when Castro makes some statement or other which attracts attention.
Antony Loewenstein, writing in The Guardian, provides a rare insight into Cuba, in particular how the population seeks to harness the internet and all it has to offer:
"Cuba is the least technologically connected country in Latin America, falling way behind in mobile phone and internet penetration. The Castro regime has blamed the long-standing US embargo for the communication restrictions - and must utilise satellite technology as a result - but the situation is far more complicated than the government likes to publicly admit. For example, Cubans are required to obtain a permit to buy a computer or subscribe to an ISP, therefore making regular contact with the outside world a virtual impossibility for the vast majority of citizens."
Colin Powell in "speaking" in retrospect
Colin Powell - then US Secretary of State, who so famously spoke at the UN before the Iraq War declaring positively what we now know were false claims and facts about Iraq and Saddam - is still seen by many as a decent man. He clearly didn't have the ear of the Bush cabal at the White House when it really mattered.
"Former Secretary of State Colin Powell talks with author David Samuels about the relative advantages of using “soft power” and “hard power” in spreading American influence and ideas, and about the current state of American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere".
Read the interview, in The Atlantic Monthly, here.
"Former Secretary of State Colin Powell talks with author David Samuels about the relative advantages of using “soft power” and “hard power” in spreading American influence and ideas, and about the current state of American diplomatic efforts in the Middle East and elsewhere".
Read the interview, in The Atlantic Monthly, here.
Not a record to be proud of
For whatever reason the Americans do it bigger and allegedly better - be it with a negative or positive effect.
As Tom of TomDispatch writes in pulling together some of Americas "records"...
"Hey, aren't we the most exceptional nation in history? George Bush and his pals thought so -- and they were in a great American tradition of exceptionalism. Of course, they were imagining us as the most exceptional empire in history (or maybe at the end of it), the ultimate New Rome. Anyway, explain this to me: Among all the exceptional things we claim to do, how come we never take credit for what may be the most exceptional of all, our success of successes, the thing that makes us uniquely ourselves on this war-ridden planet -- peddling more arms to Earthlings than anyone else in the neighborhood? Why do we hide this rare talent under a bushel? In the interest of shining a proud light on an under-rated national skill, I asked Frida Berrigan to return the United States to its rightful place in the Pantheon of arms-dealing nations."
Frida's "list" is not one to be proud of. Read it here.
As Tom of TomDispatch writes in pulling together some of Americas "records"...
"Hey, aren't we the most exceptional nation in history? George Bush and his pals thought so -- and they were in a great American tradition of exceptionalism. Of course, they were imagining us as the most exceptional empire in history (or maybe at the end of it), the ultimate New Rome. Anyway, explain this to me: Among all the exceptional things we claim to do, how come we never take credit for what may be the most exceptional of all, our success of successes, the thing that makes us uniquely ourselves on this war-ridden planet -- peddling more arms to Earthlings than anyone else in the neighborhood? Why do we hide this rare talent under a bushel? In the interest of shining a proud light on an under-rated national skill, I asked Frida Berrigan to return the United States to its rightful place in the Pantheon of arms-dealing nations."
Frida's "list" is not one to be proud of. Read it here.
Tuesday, May 22, 2007
David Hicks revisited
David Hicks is back in Australia. Of course the whole melodrama of getting Hicks back from Gitmo to South Australia can only be described as a farce. The US wouldn't allow Hicks to over-fly American air-space and in the end the Australian tax-payer had to pick up the tab of some $520,000 for a private jet to transport Hicks. Then it seems this rather pathetic character was thought to warrant no less than both South Australian and Federal Police officers on board the plane.
It is timely to remind oneself of the disgrace which backgrouds the whole Hicks process. Tim McCormack, the Australian Red Cross professor of international humanitarian law at the Melbourne Law School has done so, in an op-ed piece in The Age. McCormick attended the proceedings against David Hicks in Cuba in March as an adviser to the defence team on law-of-war issues.
"Now that David Hicks is back in Australia to serve out the rest of his sentence at Yatala, it is opportune to reflect on the implications of his "trial" for the future of the US military commission process. It is not a pretty picture.
One of Major Michael Mori's recurrent criticisms of the proposed US military commissions (mark I and II) was the complete lack of judicial independence from the executive arm of the US Government. He repeatedly used a cricketing analogy, likening the trial process to the absurd scenario of dispensing with the independent umpire and allowing the bowlers themselves to determine whether or not to declare the batsmen out lbw."
It is timely to remind oneself of the disgrace which backgrouds the whole Hicks process. Tim McCormack, the Australian Red Cross professor of international humanitarian law at the Melbourne Law School has done so, in an op-ed piece in The Age. McCormick attended the proceedings against David Hicks in Cuba in March as an adviser to the defence team on law-of-war issues.
"Now that David Hicks is back in Australia to serve out the rest of his sentence at Yatala, it is opportune to reflect on the implications of his "trial" for the future of the US military commission process. It is not a pretty picture.
One of Major Michael Mori's recurrent criticisms of the proposed US military commissions (mark I and II) was the complete lack of judicial independence from the executive arm of the US Government. He repeatedly used a cricketing analogy, likening the trial process to the absurd scenario of dispensing with the independent umpire and allowing the bowlers themselves to determine whether or not to declare the batsmen out lbw."
Rarely heard voices: Gaza voices
The Middle East is yet again in crisis. Lebanon is confronted with an "internal" war, said to be the worst since the civil war 15 years ago. In Gaza, there is conflict between Palestinians and Israel is attacking Palestinians in that strife-torn area.
There seems little doubt that Israel is using the present problems in Gaza as the catalyst or front for "taking" out Palestinians. Now, it is threatening to kill the Palestinian PM. As Times on Line reports:
"Israeli politicians said that they would no longer differentiate between elected Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament and its militant leaders. “None of them are immune,” said Danny Yatom, who sits on the Israeli security cabinet. “Hamas has one political and military leadership. They act as a unified body and will be targeted as such.”
Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader-in-exile who lives in Damascus, was listed as Israel’s No 1 target. Mohammed Dief, Israel’s most-wanted man, was also cited alongside politicians such as Mr Haniya."
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports:
"Internal clashes in the Gaza Strip, in combination with the renewed Israeli attacks, have claimed the lives of more than 65 people over the past week.
Though there is now yet another negotiated ceasefire, many ordinary Palestinians fear the worst."
Laila El-Haddad, from Al Jazeera, has spoken to and reports on four Gaza residents about how the internal violence and the Israeli siege have affected their lives, how they are coping, and whether they are optimistic about what the future holds. It is an insight into something rarely reported in perhaps other than the Middle East media.
There seems little doubt that Israel is using the present problems in Gaza as the catalyst or front for "taking" out Palestinians. Now, it is threatening to kill the Palestinian PM. As Times on Line reports:
"Israeli politicians said that they would no longer differentiate between elected Hamas members of the Palestinian parliament and its militant leaders. “None of them are immune,” said Danny Yatom, who sits on the Israeli security cabinet. “Hamas has one political and military leadership. They act as a unified body and will be targeted as such.”
Khaled Meshaal, the Hamas leader-in-exile who lives in Damascus, was listed as Israel’s No 1 target. Mohammed Dief, Israel’s most-wanted man, was also cited alongside politicians such as Mr Haniya."
Meanwhile, Al Jazeera reports:
"Internal clashes in the Gaza Strip, in combination with the renewed Israeli attacks, have claimed the lives of more than 65 people over the past week.
Though there is now yet another negotiated ceasefire, many ordinary Palestinians fear the worst."
Laila El-Haddad, from Al Jazeera, has spoken to and reports on four Gaza residents about how the internal violence and the Israeli siege have affected their lives, how they are coping, and whether they are optimistic about what the future holds. It is an insight into something rarely reported in perhaps other than the Middle East media.
The fastest growing religions
We are constantly told about the rise of islamists around the world and the approaching threat of some sort of "clash of civilisations". From seemingly nowhere, the world of Islam seems to be in the news in one form or another - often negative - almost daily.
So, what are the fastest growing religions?
From Muslims in Europe to evangelical Christians in Africa, it is religious believers who are shaping the early 21st Century. Charismatic movements are sweeping throughout the Southern Hemisphere, while high birth rates among immigrants are provoking soul-seeking in the historically Christian West. FP [Foreign Policy - the magazine] looks at the fast-growing faiths that are upending the old world order.
So, what are the fastest growing religions?
From Muslims in Europe to evangelical Christians in Africa, it is religious believers who are shaping the early 21st Century. Charismatic movements are sweeping throughout the Southern Hemisphere, while high birth rates among immigrants are provoking soul-seeking in the historically Christian West. FP [Foreign Policy - the magazine] looks at the fast-growing faiths that are upending the old world order.
Monday, May 21, 2007
'Sicko"
Documentary film-maker, Michael Moore, is more than a gad-fly. Controversial yes, and perhaps a publicity seeker - but nevertheless a telling, punchy and powerful maker of a point. Consider his powerful movie "Fahrenheit 9/11".
Now Moore has taken on the US health system, flawed as it is. By all accounts the new movie holds no bars. The film has just been shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, as the IHT details.
"Three years after conquering the Cannes film festival and winning the Palme d'Or for "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore has returned the amour big time with "Sicko," his most fluidly crafted provocation to date. A persuasive, insistently leftist indictment of the American health care system, as well as a funny valentine to all things French - and many things Canadian, British and Cuban - the film shows that while Moore remains a radical partisan, he has learned how to sell his argument with a softer touch. He's still the P.T. Barnum of activist cinema, but he no longer runs the entire circus from directly under the spotlight.
To that shrewd end, almost an entire hour has lapsed before Moore lumbers in front if the camera in "Sicko," his aw-shucks grin and baseball cap firmly in place. By that point, he has introduced a wealth of evidence (photographs, news clips and archival footage) and a sprawling cast of characters (patients, health care workers and Washington politicians), each another piece in the evolving puzzle. How did we get here and why, Moore asks in his faux-folksy, at times icky-sticky voice-over. Though of course, there's never any doubt that Moore, the director of "Bowling for Columbine," a blistering attack on American gun culture, believes he knows who is to blame for the state of the nation's health care and why."
Now Moore has taken on the US health system, flawed as it is. By all accounts the new movie holds no bars. The film has just been shown for the first time at the Cannes Film Festival, as the IHT details.
"Three years after conquering the Cannes film festival and winning the Palme d'Or for "Fahrenheit 9/11," Michael Moore has returned the amour big time with "Sicko," his most fluidly crafted provocation to date. A persuasive, insistently leftist indictment of the American health care system, as well as a funny valentine to all things French - and many things Canadian, British and Cuban - the film shows that while Moore remains a radical partisan, he has learned how to sell his argument with a softer touch. He's still the P.T. Barnum of activist cinema, but he no longer runs the entire circus from directly under the spotlight.
To that shrewd end, almost an entire hour has lapsed before Moore lumbers in front if the camera in "Sicko," his aw-shucks grin and baseball cap firmly in place. By that point, he has introduced a wealth of evidence (photographs, news clips and archival footage) and a sprawling cast of characters (patients, health care workers and Washington politicians), each another piece in the evolving puzzle. How did we get here and why, Moore asks in his faux-folksy, at times icky-sticky voice-over. Though of course, there's never any doubt that Moore, the director of "Bowling for Columbine," a blistering attack on American gun culture, believes he knows who is to blame for the state of the nation's health care and why."
Iraq: The prognosis couldn't be worse
Those who consider these matters in detail, there seems little doubt that the Iraq War is a disaster - and getting worse nothwithstanding the recently announced "surge". Needless to say the politicians keep telling the public that things either are or will get better. It's hard to see how that might be as the daily news out of Iraq seems quite the contrary.
Now the respected Chatham House has weighed in with its assessment, as the Spiegel on Line reports:
"The highly respected UK think tank Chatham House on Thursday issued a dire report on the situation in Iraq. The country may be on the verge of becoming a failed state, says the study. Meanwhile, the US says things aren't that bad.
It hardly qualifies as breaking news anymore when a think tank comes out with a report saying that Iraq is in trouble. But rarely has a study been as scathing as that released on Thursday by the widely respected British foreign policy organization Chatham House. Iraq, the report says bluntly, is on the verge of "collapse and fragmentation."
The report argues that it is time to take a sober look at the realities in the country four years after the US-led invasion and to model future policy on a true understanding of the challenges presented. And according to the study, those challenges are many: the existence of multiple civil wars in the country between many different actors; a fracturing of the country into regional power bases; control of oil; a ripping apart of the social fabric; and the lack of authority in the hands of the Iraqi government among other, equally vexing problems."
Now the respected Chatham House has weighed in with its assessment, as the Spiegel on Line reports:
"The highly respected UK think tank Chatham House on Thursday issued a dire report on the situation in Iraq. The country may be on the verge of becoming a failed state, says the study. Meanwhile, the US says things aren't that bad.
It hardly qualifies as breaking news anymore when a think tank comes out with a report saying that Iraq is in trouble. But rarely has a study been as scathing as that released on Thursday by the widely respected British foreign policy organization Chatham House. Iraq, the report says bluntly, is on the verge of "collapse and fragmentation."
The report argues that it is time to take a sober look at the realities in the country four years after the US-led invasion and to model future policy on a true understanding of the challenges presented. And according to the study, those challenges are many: the existence of multiple civil wars in the country between many different actors; a fracturing of the country into regional power bases; control of oil; a ripping apart of the social fabric; and the lack of authority in the hands of the Iraqi government among other, equally vexing problems."
Sunday, May 20, 2007
Job seeker - qualified or not!
In her inimitable style, Maureen Dowd, writing in the NY Times [her column only available on subscription] puts into context Paul Wolfowitzs' possible quest for a new job now that he will be leaving the World Bank.
"Paul Wolfowitz may be out of a job soon, but think of what an amazing résumé he’ll be shopping around:
Work Experience
President of World Bank: 2005-2007
Responsibilities: Reining in European lefties, raining tax-free money on Arab girlfriend, and giving anti-corruption efforts a bad name.
Achievements: Paralyzed the international lending apparatus to the point where small countries had to max out their Visa cards to pay for malaria medicine. Learned the traditions of many cultures, including those of Turkey, where you apparently are not supposed to take off your shoes at mosques to reveal socks so full of holes that both big toes poke blasphemously through.
Deputy Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush: 2001-2005
Responsibility: Starting a war.
Achievements: Mismanaged the world’s most powerful army. Shattered the system of international diplomacy that kept the peace for 50 years. Undermined the credibility of American intelligence operations. Needlessly brought humankind to the brink of nuclear war. Destroyed Iraq.
Demented Visionary: 1993-2001
Responsibility: Concocting a delusional plan for regime change in Iraq with pals like Shaha Riza, Ahmad Chalabi and his merry band of Iraqi exiles who conjured up phony intelligence about Saddam’s W.M.D.
Achievements: Imagining an Iraq that didn’t exist.
Having Wolfie back on the job market is a tremendous opportunity. What do we want destroyed next? Could this walking curse on the world run Halliburton into the ground?
At the Pentagon, Wolfie tried to help Vice get rid of anything multi — multilateral treaties, multilateral institutions, multilateral alliances, multiculturalism. Multi, to them, meant wobbly, caviling, bureaucratic and obstructionist. Why be multi when you could be uni?
In the end, the forces of multilateralism took their revenge: Old Europe got rid of Wolfie.
But not before his gal pal played the multicultural victim card. In her statement to World Bank directors, Shaha complained that she had been denied promotions even before Wolfie got there. “I can only attribute this to discrimination — not because I am a woman, but because I am a Muslim Arab woman who dares to question the status quo both in the work of the institution and within the institution itself,” Shaha wrote.
She said that she had “met a wonderful American woman who told me that I should fight back for ‘us’: WOMEN. It never occurred to me as an Arab and Muslim woman that one day I would be asked by an American woman to fight on her behalf.”
Already aggrieved, Shaha got really furious when Wolfie came in 2005 and she was told she’d have to work out of the State Department.
“I was ready to pursue legal remedies,” she wrote in her statement, adding, “my life and career were torn asunder.”
According to Xavier Coll, the bank’s human resources vice president, Shaha outlined conditions for her departure that were “unprecedented” in terms of guarantees and rewards and way out of line with bank policy. Mr. Coll deemed it “inappropriate and imprudent for the president to offer Ms. Riza these terms.”
Bob Bennett, Wolfie’s lawyer, told Michael Hirsh of Newsweek that it was Shaha who “worked up the numbers” on a $60,000 raise to a $193,590 salary and cushy new deal. “She was outraged that she had to leave,” Mr. Bennett said.
The self-righteous Shaha played on Wolfie’s guilt, becoming “greedy in terms of power,” as a friend of the couple told Newsweek. Even though she had been a mere flack a few years ago and then a gender coordinator at the bank, Shaha mau-maued her man into giving her a salary that topped the secretary of state’s.
It’s like when Bill Clinton tells friends that he has to work hard to get Hillary elected president because he feels he owes her for bringing her to Arkansas in the 70s and interrupting her career. (But do we?)
Or when Tony Soprano gets Carmela some fancy piece of jewelry after he strays. Indeed, Wolfie sounded Sopranoish when he agitatedly told Mr. Coll to warn those at the bank he believed were attacking him: “If they $%#! with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to $%#! them, too.”
Wolfie used public compensation for private contrition. Gilt for guilt — not a good deal."
"Paul Wolfowitz may be out of a job soon, but think of what an amazing résumé he’ll be shopping around:
Work Experience
President of World Bank: 2005-2007
Responsibilities: Reining in European lefties, raining tax-free money on Arab girlfriend, and giving anti-corruption efforts a bad name.
Achievements: Paralyzed the international lending apparatus to the point where small countries had to max out their Visa cards to pay for malaria medicine. Learned the traditions of many cultures, including those of Turkey, where you apparently are not supposed to take off your shoes at mosques to reveal socks so full of holes that both big toes poke blasphemously through.
Deputy Secretary of Defense for President George W. Bush: 2001-2005
Responsibility: Starting a war.
Achievements: Mismanaged the world’s most powerful army. Shattered the system of international diplomacy that kept the peace for 50 years. Undermined the credibility of American intelligence operations. Needlessly brought humankind to the brink of nuclear war. Destroyed Iraq.
Demented Visionary: 1993-2001
Responsibility: Concocting a delusional plan for regime change in Iraq with pals like Shaha Riza, Ahmad Chalabi and his merry band of Iraqi exiles who conjured up phony intelligence about Saddam’s W.M.D.
Achievements: Imagining an Iraq that didn’t exist.
Having Wolfie back on the job market is a tremendous opportunity. What do we want destroyed next? Could this walking curse on the world run Halliburton into the ground?
At the Pentagon, Wolfie tried to help Vice get rid of anything multi — multilateral treaties, multilateral institutions, multilateral alliances, multiculturalism. Multi, to them, meant wobbly, caviling, bureaucratic and obstructionist. Why be multi when you could be uni?
In the end, the forces of multilateralism took their revenge: Old Europe got rid of Wolfie.
But not before his gal pal played the multicultural victim card. In her statement to World Bank directors, Shaha complained that she had been denied promotions even before Wolfie got there. “I can only attribute this to discrimination — not because I am a woman, but because I am a Muslim Arab woman who dares to question the status quo both in the work of the institution and within the institution itself,” Shaha wrote.
She said that she had “met a wonderful American woman who told me that I should fight back for ‘us’: WOMEN. It never occurred to me as an Arab and Muslim woman that one day I would be asked by an American woman to fight on her behalf.”
Already aggrieved, Shaha got really furious when Wolfie came in 2005 and she was told she’d have to work out of the State Department.
“I was ready to pursue legal remedies,” she wrote in her statement, adding, “my life and career were torn asunder.”
According to Xavier Coll, the bank’s human resources vice president, Shaha outlined conditions for her departure that were “unprecedented” in terms of guarantees and rewards and way out of line with bank policy. Mr. Coll deemed it “inappropriate and imprudent for the president to offer Ms. Riza these terms.”
Bob Bennett, Wolfie’s lawyer, told Michael Hirsh of Newsweek that it was Shaha who “worked up the numbers” on a $60,000 raise to a $193,590 salary and cushy new deal. “She was outraged that she had to leave,” Mr. Bennett said.
The self-righteous Shaha played on Wolfie’s guilt, becoming “greedy in terms of power,” as a friend of the couple told Newsweek. Even though she had been a mere flack a few years ago and then a gender coordinator at the bank, Shaha mau-maued her man into giving her a salary that topped the secretary of state’s.
It’s like when Bill Clinton tells friends that he has to work hard to get Hillary elected president because he feels he owes her for bringing her to Arkansas in the 70s and interrupting her career. (But do we?)
Or when Tony Soprano gets Carmela some fancy piece of jewelry after he strays. Indeed, Wolfie sounded Sopranoish when he agitatedly told Mr. Coll to warn those at the bank he believed were attacking him: “If they $%#! with me or Shaha, I have enough on them to $%#! them, too.”
Wolfie used public compensation for private contrition. Gilt for guilt — not a good deal."
Pinochet's ghost in Gaza?
Today brings news that Fatah and Hamas have declared their 5th cease-fire - this week! The carnage continues in Gaza and one must wonder what the Palestinians think is to be achieved by all this in-fighting. Certainly it has afforded the Israelis an unfettered dream run to yet again attack certain sites in Gaza and target individuals said to be terrorists. No one has stepped back to ask by what right Israel should be permitted these extra-judicial executions.
Tony Karon, writing in The Rootless Cosmopolitan [as reproduced on truthout] puts forward a position and revelation about all of this not normally read or revealed elsewhere:
"There's something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel "loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas." That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that has killed more than 25 Palestinians since Sunday is a showdown between Abbas and the Hamas leadership - which simply isn't true, although such a showdown would certainly conform to the desires of those running the White House Middle East policy.
"The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it's not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington's anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas - in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president's decision to join a unity government with Hamas."
Tony Karon, writing in The Rootless Cosmopolitan [as reproduced on truthout] puts forward a position and revelation about all of this not normally read or revealed elsewhere:
"There's something a little misleading in the media reports that routinely describe the fighting in Gaza as pitting Hamas against Fatah forces or security personnel "loyal to President Mahmoud Abbas." That characterization suggests somehow that this catastrophic civil war that has killed more than 25 Palestinians since Sunday is a showdown between Abbas and the Hamas leadership - which simply isn't true, although such a showdown would certainly conform to the desires of those running the White House Middle East policy.
"The Fatah gunmen who are reported to have initiated the breakdown of the Palestinian unity government and provoked the latest fighting may profess fealty to President Abbas, but it's not from him that they get their orders. The leader to whom they answer is Mohammed Dahlan, the Gaza warlord who has long been Washington's anointed favorite to play the role of a Palestinian Pinochet. And while Dahlan is formally subordinate to Abbas, whom he supposedly serves as National Security Adviser, nobody believes that Dahlan answers to Abbas - in fact, it was suggested at the time that Abbas appointed Dahlan only under pressure from Washington, which was irked by the Palestinian Authority president's decision to join a unity government with Hamas."
Whose worse? Nixon or Bush?
It seems Washington, and America generally, is debating who is worse - Nixon or George W Bush?
Jules Witcover, political columnist, writing in the NY Times, joins the debate:
"A favorite pastime of political scientists and pollsters is compiling lists of the best presidents. The results vary widely, as the judgments of history conflict with contemporary sentiments. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and F.D.R. always finish high on the lists, with more controversial choices like Truman and Reagan often thrown in.
Currently, however, we’re seeing an outbreak of consensus on the worst: George W. Bush. The Internet is awash with academic tomes, blogs and partisan rants, the condemnation coming often from liberal Democrats but also from such varied figures as that eminent historian, Donald Trump".
Jules Witcover, political columnist, writing in the NY Times, joins the debate:
"A favorite pastime of political scientists and pollsters is compiling lists of the best presidents. The results vary widely, as the judgments of history conflict with contemporary sentiments. Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and F.D.R. always finish high on the lists, with more controversial choices like Truman and Reagan often thrown in.
Currently, however, we’re seeing an outbreak of consensus on the worst: George W. Bush. The Internet is awash with academic tomes, blogs and partisan rants, the condemnation coming often from liberal Democrats but also from such varied figures as that eminent historian, Donald Trump".
Saturday, May 19, 2007
Not as free as you might think
Users of the internet, and all the options it offers, probably don't even think that it isn't quite as free and accessible everywhere as might be otherwise thought. A new report, just out, highlights that unfettered access to and use of the www is actually restricted in many parts of the word. It is not uncommon in some countries, notably some in the Middle East, Cuba and China, to actually imprison web-users or bloggers writing things which the powers that be don't like.
Technology Review [a MIT publication] provides the details:
"A report released today by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) concludes that the scale, the scope, and the sophistication of state-based Internet filtering have all increased dramatically in recent years. The survey highlights the tools and techniques used by countries to keep their citizens from viewing certain kinds of online material.
ONI is a collaboration among four leading universities: Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. The group's testing was carried out during 2006 and early 2007. ONI used a combination of tools that can remotely test filtering conditions within given countries. The group also relied heavily on local researchers who evaluated Internet conditions from inside certain countries. Some countries, such as Cuba and North Korea, were deemed too dangerous for either remote or in-country testing. But of the 41 different countries tested by ONI, 25 were found to block or filter online content."
Technology Review [a MIT publication] provides the details:
"A report released today by the OpenNet Initiative (ONI) concludes that the scale, the scope, and the sophistication of state-based Internet filtering have all increased dramatically in recent years. The survey highlights the tools and techniques used by countries to keep their citizens from viewing certain kinds of online material.
ONI is a collaboration among four leading universities: Cambridge, Oxford, Harvard, and Toronto. The group's testing was carried out during 2006 and early 2007. ONI used a combination of tools that can remotely test filtering conditions within given countries. The group also relied heavily on local researchers who evaluated Internet conditions from inside certain countries. Some countries, such as Cuba and North Korea, were deemed too dangerous for either remote or in-country testing. But of the 41 different countries tested by ONI, 25 were found to block or filter online content."
Your local news - from downtown New Delhi?
Outsourcing has been the go in business for quite some time now. It's simply cheaper to use manpower in downtown New Delhi or Calcutta than local employees.
The Fairfax group recently announced it would be reducing its pool of journalists. That's on top of the slash and burn which has been underway for some time now. Just reflect on the closure of overseas bureaux by newspaper groups which has occured over the last years. Much less expensive for a newspaper to sign up to a syndicate.
The news that some newspapers will now be oursourcing the writing of news to India is a travesty - on many levels. As AlterNet reports:
"The world may be flat, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written, but I always liked to think I was standing on a hill. Now comes the news that pasadenanow.com, a local news site, is recruiting reporters in India. The website’s editor points out that he can get two Indian reporters for a mere $20,800 a year -- and no, they won’t be commuting from New Delhi. Since Pasadena’s city council meetings can be observed on the web, the Indian reporters will be able to cover local politics from half the planet away. And if they ever feel a need to see the potholes of Pasadena, there’s always Google Earth."
The Fairfax group recently announced it would be reducing its pool of journalists. That's on top of the slash and burn which has been underway for some time now. Just reflect on the closure of overseas bureaux by newspaper groups which has occured over the last years. Much less expensive for a newspaper to sign up to a syndicate.
The news that some newspapers will now be oursourcing the writing of news to India is a travesty - on many levels. As AlterNet reports:
"The world may be flat, as New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman has written, but I always liked to think I was standing on a hill. Now comes the news that pasadenanow.com, a local news site, is recruiting reporters in India. The website’s editor points out that he can get two Indian reporters for a mere $20,800 a year -- and no, they won’t be commuting from New Delhi. Since Pasadena’s city council meetings can be observed on the web, the Indian reporters will be able to cover local politics from half the planet away. And if they ever feel a need to see the potholes of Pasadena, there’s always Google Earth."
A city of widows
Sadly Kabul, Afghanistan, is a city with more than its fair share of widows.
As The Independent reports:
"There are two million war widows in Afghanistan, and their plight is easy to forget in Hamid Karzai's capital, where Western-style shopping malls, bars and French restaurants are opening up for wealthy foreign aid workers and Afghan expatriates."
And no less troubling:
"Kabul, it is said, is the widows' capital of the world. As many as 50,000 women like Gul live in the city, and many make their home in the abandoned buildings that dot the suburbs, often living in horrific conditions. In a nation with a fractured infrastructure and, at £125 a year, one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the world, many widows are left without relatives able to take them in or offer even modest financial support.
There is no social security system in Afghanistan. Widows are not provided pensions or housing so there is no safety net for them to fall back on. In other Muslim countries, getting remarried can resolve the economic problems of widows. But in Afghanistan's that is not so. Most Afghan men do not want to bring up children from a previous marriage."
As The Independent reports:
"There are two million war widows in Afghanistan, and their plight is easy to forget in Hamid Karzai's capital, where Western-style shopping malls, bars and French restaurants are opening up for wealthy foreign aid workers and Afghan expatriates."
And no less troubling:
"Kabul, it is said, is the widows' capital of the world. As many as 50,000 women like Gul live in the city, and many make their home in the abandoned buildings that dot the suburbs, often living in horrific conditions. In a nation with a fractured infrastructure and, at £125 a year, one of the lowest per-capita incomes in the world, many widows are left without relatives able to take them in or offer even modest financial support.
There is no social security system in Afghanistan. Widows are not provided pensions or housing so there is no safety net for them to fall back on. In other Muslim countries, getting remarried can resolve the economic problems of widows. But in Afghanistan's that is not so. Most Afghan men do not want to bring up children from a previous marriage."
Friday, May 18, 2007
An ongoing 59 year catastrophe
The news today of on-going strife in Gaza - including the Israelis weighing in with attacks on the territory and targeted individuals - only highlights that something must be done to resolve the Palestinian "issue". Leaving to one side the undoubted difficulties between various Palestinian factions and despite what they proclaim, an apparent reluctance of the Israelis to see a long-term peace with its Palestinian neighbours, it is clear that 59 years after the establishment of Israel, the displacement of the Palestinians has been a running sore.
Sonja Karkar, President of Women for Palestine [in Melbourne in Australia] writes in counterpunch:
"Fifty-nine years is a long time to wait to return home, yet the Palestinian refugees have waited, and waited resolutely. However, despite every international law that recognises their right to return home, despite the universal consensus that has affirmed that right over 130 times in the UN, despite the humanitarian organisations that urge their return, despite the reams of authoritative papers and books documenting their 1948 existence, dispossession and displacement, and despite the global grassroots movements protesting their plight, the Palestinians have been left out in the cold. In fact, they have been living the catastrophe that saw them uprooted from their homes and homeland in 1948 ever since.
Today, there are 7.2 million Palestinian refugees. That number has escalated considerably from the original 750,000 Palestinians who fled in terror in the events leading up to the declaration of the new state of Israel on 14 May 1948, as well as in the weeks and months after. As the years slipped into each other and the world did nothing, Israel acted as if it had no responsibility for this despairing mass of humanity. Instead, it launched a devious campaign of myths and lies to convince a world still smarting after the revelations of the Holocaust in Europe that these refugees were really a nomadic people drifting in and out of desert land with no attachments at all to that place. This then became the barren land gifted by God to the Jews and so was born the catchcry "a land without people for a people without land". Perhaps the world forgot the reason for the 1947 UN Partition in the first place."
Lest it be thought that Women for Palestine is some rabid and loud reactionary group, their web site declares their position as follows:
"Women for Palestine is a network of Australian women who stand for nonviolence and human rights in the Holy Land. As women, we believe that our inherent inclination for healing and nurturing can indeed have a powerful effect on the attitudes and actions of all people who are caught in a spiral of hurt, anger and retribution. We believe that peace is the only solution to conflict and that even small beginnings can make a difference."
Interestingly, Forward magazine has published an article reporting on Israeli leadership being upraided by the likes of Elie Wiesel for Israel's lack of movement toward establishing a peace with the Palestinians:
"Some of Israel’s strongest supporters chastised the country’s leadership this week for failing to take up opportunities to solve the long-standing conflict with neighboring Arab countries.
The criticisms were aired Tuesday at the third annual Petra Conference in Jordan, a meeting of Nobel laureates and distinguished figures who brainstorm together to improve the world.
In an onstage interview before some 200 well-heeled participants and the world media, co-host Elie Wiesel grilled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over his country’s conditions for making peace with the Palestinians. “What does it mean?” asked Wiesel, one of Israel’s most prominent supporters, after Olmert said that terrorism must stop before negotiations can begin on the terms of peace negotiations. “You are negotiating to negotiate further?” asked the famed Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, drawing laughter from the audience."
Sonja Karkar, President of Women for Palestine [in Melbourne in Australia] writes in counterpunch:
"Fifty-nine years is a long time to wait to return home, yet the Palestinian refugees have waited, and waited resolutely. However, despite every international law that recognises their right to return home, despite the universal consensus that has affirmed that right over 130 times in the UN, despite the humanitarian organisations that urge their return, despite the reams of authoritative papers and books documenting their 1948 existence, dispossession and displacement, and despite the global grassroots movements protesting their plight, the Palestinians have been left out in the cold. In fact, they have been living the catastrophe that saw them uprooted from their homes and homeland in 1948 ever since.
Today, there are 7.2 million Palestinian refugees. That number has escalated considerably from the original 750,000 Palestinians who fled in terror in the events leading up to the declaration of the new state of Israel on 14 May 1948, as well as in the weeks and months after. As the years slipped into each other and the world did nothing, Israel acted as if it had no responsibility for this despairing mass of humanity. Instead, it launched a devious campaign of myths and lies to convince a world still smarting after the revelations of the Holocaust in Europe that these refugees were really a nomadic people drifting in and out of desert land with no attachments at all to that place. This then became the barren land gifted by God to the Jews and so was born the catchcry "a land without people for a people without land". Perhaps the world forgot the reason for the 1947 UN Partition in the first place."
Lest it be thought that Women for Palestine is some rabid and loud reactionary group, their web site declares their position as follows:
"Women for Palestine is a network of Australian women who stand for nonviolence and human rights in the Holy Land. As women, we believe that our inherent inclination for healing and nurturing can indeed have a powerful effect on the attitudes and actions of all people who are caught in a spiral of hurt, anger and retribution. We believe that peace is the only solution to conflict and that even small beginnings can make a difference."
Interestingly, Forward magazine has published an article reporting on Israeli leadership being upraided by the likes of Elie Wiesel for Israel's lack of movement toward establishing a peace with the Palestinians:
"Some of Israel’s strongest supporters chastised the country’s leadership this week for failing to take up opportunities to solve the long-standing conflict with neighboring Arab countries.
The criticisms were aired Tuesday at the third annual Petra Conference in Jordan, a meeting of Nobel laureates and distinguished figures who brainstorm together to improve the world.
In an onstage interview before some 200 well-heeled participants and the world media, co-host Elie Wiesel grilled Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert over his country’s conditions for making peace with the Palestinians. “What does it mean?” asked Wiesel, one of Israel’s most prominent supporters, after Olmert said that terrorism must stop before negotiations can begin on the terms of peace negotiations. “You are negotiating to negotiate further?” asked the famed Holocaust survivor and Nobel Peace Prize winner, drawing laughter from the audience."
Agent of intolerance
It's hard to really mourn the passing of Jerry Falwell. It's even harder to believe that anyone could have taken this man seriously. As this piece in The Nation, "Agent of Intolerance" highlights, the statements and epithets of Falwell made him the subject of ridicule by some but nevertheless supported by many. Only in America? - is a question one must ask.
"Falwell uttered countless epithets over his long life--in 1999 he warned that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's show Teletubbies, might be gay--but his most infamous remark arrived on the morning of 9/11, after the terrorist attacks, when he proclaimed, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
"Falwell uttered countless epithets over his long life--in 1999 he warned that Tinky Winky, a character on the children's show Teletubbies, might be gay--but his most infamous remark arrived on the morning of 9/11, after the terrorist attacks, when he proclaimed, "I really believe that the pagans, and the abortionists, and the feminists, and the gays and the lesbians who are actively trying to make that an alternative lifestyle, the ACLU, People for the American Way, all of them who have tried to secularize America. I point the finger in their face and say, 'You helped this happen.'"
Thursday, May 17, 2007
A rare insight into the car market - in China
BBC News reports on something we rarely get even a glimpse of or into - China's car industry:
"The sleepy, provincial town of Luizhou is more than 1,200 miles (1,931km) from Shanghai, and 10,000 miles from Detroit.
Yet for General Motors, which Toyota claims to have overtaken as the world's largest car company, it is Luizhou rather than Detroit where the company's future may be decided.
GM has come to Luizhou to produce a tiny minivan, the Wuling Sunshine, which is a best-seller in China, selling more than 460,000 vehicles a year.
The van costs $3,700 (£1,872), has a 0.8 litre engine, and weighs less than 1000kg - yet cheap labour costs mean that GM makes a substantial profit on each vehicle it sells.
Rather than use automation, the Wuling Sunshine is made on an old-fashioned assembly line, which would not look out of date in 1940s Detroit.
Rick Wagoner celebrated at the Wuling factory in 2005
But with labour costs of just $4 per hour - half the rate in Shanghai - GM Asia Pacific boss Nick Reilly says that the company is only spending $100 per vehicle on labour - and the factory is working around the clock on a three-shift system."
"The sleepy, provincial town of Luizhou is more than 1,200 miles (1,931km) from Shanghai, and 10,000 miles from Detroit.
Yet for General Motors, which Toyota claims to have overtaken as the world's largest car company, it is Luizhou rather than Detroit where the company's future may be decided.
GM has come to Luizhou to produce a tiny minivan, the Wuling Sunshine, which is a best-seller in China, selling more than 460,000 vehicles a year.
The van costs $3,700 (£1,872), has a 0.8 litre engine, and weighs less than 1000kg - yet cheap labour costs mean that GM makes a substantial profit on each vehicle it sells.
Rather than use automation, the Wuling Sunshine is made on an old-fashioned assembly line, which would not look out of date in 1940s Detroit.
Rick Wagoner celebrated at the Wuling factory in 2005
But with labour costs of just $4 per hour - half the rate in Shanghai - GM Asia Pacific boss Nick Reilly says that the company is only spending $100 per vehicle on labour - and the factory is working around the clock on a three-shift system."
What French First Lady?
All it needs is Maureen Dowd - writing in the NY Times [Dowd's column available only on subscription] - to "explain" things for us all about the wife of the newly installed French President and how she fits into the scheme of things:
"The French can be very, well, French when it comes to the personal lives of their leaders.
They take affairs, illegitimate children and tumultuous marriages in stride.
But they suddenly turn traditional when it comes to the role of the first lady. They do not like the idea of Nicolas Sarkozy entertaining world leaders alone at the Élysée Palace. It is not comme il faut.
Maybe that’s why this country is so mesmerized with the question of whether the beautiful Cécilia Sarkozy, a former Schiaparelli model who was for years her husband’s influential political adviser, is going to serve as the chatelaine of the Élysée, or run off again with a lover.
No one seems sure if she will bolt, leaving the entertaining duties to Sarko’s mother, an elegant lawyer, or agree to play a limited role at the palace.
“We have a hard time imagining an intermittent first lady at the Élysée,” sniffed Le Temps, a daily newspaper, online.
Cécilia was missing in action during the final weeks of her husband’s campaign. “I don’t see myself as first lady,” the 49-year-old said. “That bores me.”
Bound by strict privacy laws, and cozy with the elite ruling class, the French press shies away from printing the skinny on relationships, even though the skinny French public loves gossiping on the subject.
Trying to fathom what is going on with power couples here is like watching a French movie — scenes brimming with emotion and ambiguity.
Cécilia left Sarko for several months in 2005, moving to America to live with a French events organizer — reportedly a response to her husband’s affair with a French journalist.
When Paris Match published pictures of Cécilia with her lover in New York, Sarko became furious with his good friend, Arnaud Lagardère, the magazine’s owner. Soon, the editor was fired.
Mr. Lagardère stepped in again to kill a story in another publication he owns, Le Journal du Dimanche. On Sunday, the paper was going to reveal that Cécilia did not bother to vote.
On the night Sarko won the presidency, Parisians were watching Cécilia’s every move. She was not there when he won or when he made his acceptance speech, and some of her friends were saying that the marriage was over.
But her two pretty blonde daughters from a previous marriage apparently prevailed on her to show up later that night at a victory rally. She came dressed down in a gray sweater and white slacks, in what one friend said had originally been her “escape outfit,” and looked distracted as her husband spoke, plucking at her sweater.
At the post-rally party, Paris Match — now following the Sarko script — was given an exclusive on their happy reunion. They were in a hotel suite, the magazine said, behaving “like lovers.”
“And the new president, regaining for an instant the taste of rhythm that invaded him in his youth, took a step in dance,” the story said. “In front of all their friends reunited, he dances for a single person: Cécilia.”
When Paris isn’t fixated on Cécilia and Sarko, it’s buzzing about the town’s other power couple.
As Ségolène Royal tries to build on her strong showing to become the Socialist candidate for president in 2012, her relationship with the father of her four children and the head of her party, François Hollande, grows more byzantine.
She brazenly bounded past Mr. Hollande — who wanted to run himself — and now she wants to eclipse him totally. This competition — the opposite of Billary — certainly did not help her candidacy. “Every morning I would open the newspapers and ask myself which Socialist was going to attack me over what I was saying,” she told a party conference the other day.
Their relationship is the subject of a new book, “La Femme Fatale,” by two respected political reporters from Le Monde. The couple is suing to have some passages cut.
“Disappointed in her private life, she chose to go into battle without worrying anymore about François Hollande, but also with the assertion that she was more popular than him, and he hadn’t been able to renovate the Socialist Party despite hopes of party activists and elected officials,” Raphaëlle Bacqué, a co-author, told a journalist, noting that the fact that Sego and Mr. Hollande were at each other’s throats, while keeping their status a mystery, had “serious political consequences. They should have been unbeatable. ... him at the head of the party, her a candidate. But instead we saw two teams in endless competition.”
The book quotes an interview in which Mr. Hollande was asked where he would live if Sego won. “At my house!” he replied."
"The French can be very, well, French when it comes to the personal lives of their leaders.
They take affairs, illegitimate children and tumultuous marriages in stride.
But they suddenly turn traditional when it comes to the role of the first lady. They do not like the idea of Nicolas Sarkozy entertaining world leaders alone at the Élysée Palace. It is not comme il faut.
Maybe that’s why this country is so mesmerized with the question of whether the beautiful Cécilia Sarkozy, a former Schiaparelli model who was for years her husband’s influential political adviser, is going to serve as the chatelaine of the Élysée, or run off again with a lover.
No one seems sure if she will bolt, leaving the entertaining duties to Sarko’s mother, an elegant lawyer, or agree to play a limited role at the palace.
“We have a hard time imagining an intermittent first lady at the Élysée,” sniffed Le Temps, a daily newspaper, online.
Cécilia was missing in action during the final weeks of her husband’s campaign. “I don’t see myself as first lady,” the 49-year-old said. “That bores me.”
Bound by strict privacy laws, and cozy with the elite ruling class, the French press shies away from printing the skinny on relationships, even though the skinny French public loves gossiping on the subject.
Trying to fathom what is going on with power couples here is like watching a French movie — scenes brimming with emotion and ambiguity.
Cécilia left Sarko for several months in 2005, moving to America to live with a French events organizer — reportedly a response to her husband’s affair with a French journalist.
When Paris Match published pictures of Cécilia with her lover in New York, Sarko became furious with his good friend, Arnaud Lagardère, the magazine’s owner. Soon, the editor was fired.
Mr. Lagardère stepped in again to kill a story in another publication he owns, Le Journal du Dimanche. On Sunday, the paper was going to reveal that Cécilia did not bother to vote.
On the night Sarko won the presidency, Parisians were watching Cécilia’s every move. She was not there when he won or when he made his acceptance speech, and some of her friends were saying that the marriage was over.
But her two pretty blonde daughters from a previous marriage apparently prevailed on her to show up later that night at a victory rally. She came dressed down in a gray sweater and white slacks, in what one friend said had originally been her “escape outfit,” and looked distracted as her husband spoke, plucking at her sweater.
At the post-rally party, Paris Match — now following the Sarko script — was given an exclusive on their happy reunion. They were in a hotel suite, the magazine said, behaving “like lovers.”
“And the new president, regaining for an instant the taste of rhythm that invaded him in his youth, took a step in dance,” the story said. “In front of all their friends reunited, he dances for a single person: Cécilia.”
When Paris isn’t fixated on Cécilia and Sarko, it’s buzzing about the town’s other power couple.
As Ségolène Royal tries to build on her strong showing to become the Socialist candidate for president in 2012, her relationship with the father of her four children and the head of her party, François Hollande, grows more byzantine.
She brazenly bounded past Mr. Hollande — who wanted to run himself — and now she wants to eclipse him totally. This competition — the opposite of Billary — certainly did not help her candidacy. “Every morning I would open the newspapers and ask myself which Socialist was going to attack me over what I was saying,” she told a party conference the other day.
Their relationship is the subject of a new book, “La Femme Fatale,” by two respected political reporters from Le Monde. The couple is suing to have some passages cut.
“Disappointed in her private life, she chose to go into battle without worrying anymore about François Hollande, but also with the assertion that she was more popular than him, and he hadn’t been able to renovate the Socialist Party despite hopes of party activists and elected officials,” Raphaëlle Bacqué, a co-author, told a journalist, noting that the fact that Sego and Mr. Hollande were at each other’s throats, while keeping their status a mystery, had “serious political consequences. They should have been unbeatable. ... him at the head of the party, her a candidate. But instead we saw two teams in endless competition.”
The book quotes an interview in which Mr. Hollande was asked where he would live if Sego won. “At my house!” he replied."
Trying to get around illegality
An intriguing insight in how the Bush White House "operates" - illegally - is revealed in this piece in The Washington Post:
"On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left."
"On the night of March 10, 2004, as Attorney General John D. Ashcroft lay ill in an intensive-care unit, his deputy, James B. Comey, received an urgent call.
White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales and President Bush's chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., were on their way to the hospital to persuade Ashcroft to reauthorize Bush's domestic surveillance program, which the Justice Department had just determined was illegal.
In vivid testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee yesterday, Comey said he alerted FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III and raced, sirens blaring, to join Ashcroft in his hospital room, arriving minutes before Gonzales and Card. Ashcroft, summoning the strength to lift his head and speak, refused to sign the papers they had brought. Gonzales and Card, who had never acknowledged Comey's presence in the room, turned and left."
An unworthy Award - and misguided recipient
Maher Mughrabi, in an op-ed piece in The Age, writes:
"On May 20, Prime Minister John Howard will receive the Jerusalem Prize from the State Zionist Council of Victoria, the Zionist Federation of Australia and Israel's World Zionist Organisation "for his support of the Jewish community and Israel".
It's no secret that Israel enjoys support from both sides of the political establishment; Labor and Liberal leaders compete to secure the favour of Australia's Jewish community, but the matter goes deeper than that. From Kevin Rudd's stories of an ALP government casting the first vote at the UN for partition of Palestine to Tony Abbott's proclamation after Bali that "we are all Israelis now", Australian leaders promote the notion that this country is bound to Israel by shared democratic values against the backdrop of an undemocratic Middle East."
That the PM even considers accepting the award - whatever it's real worth other than curry favour with the Jewish community - is troubling enough more especially given the fact that the JNF is closely involved in the misappropriation of Palestinian land. Those actions have been condemned by numbers of UN resolutions. Then there is the fact that the message to Australia's Arab community [some half a million] is that Australia supports the actions of Israel. And finally the person presenting the award is a rabid right-winger, as Crikey has pointed out:
"What does trouble me is that he will share the podium with the hawkish chief guest at the dinner, American-Lebanese journalist Brigitte Gabriel, former newsreader for a televangelist TV channel and author of BECAUSE THEY HATE: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.
The book’s cover reflects Gabriel’s main thesis -- that “Islamic religious authorities … repeatedly state that they will destroy the United States”. The JNF’s official biography describes Gabriel as an innocent victim of the Lebanese civil war … "pitting the combined forces of militant Muslims and Palestinians against the Christian Lebanese".
Gabriel’s Lebanese upbringing is described as the "Arabic society, culture, and media [that] taught her that Israel and Jews were the devil". So, the entire Lebanese civil war was little more than Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims attacking Christians. I doubt too many people from any of Lebanon’s 18 religious sects would agree with such a simplistic explanation.
The JNF biography describes how a "barrage of Muslim rockets exploded in her house, leaving her wounded and buried under the rubble". I wasn’t aware that rockets actually had any religion.
Another biography of Gabriel is more telling. It describes the Lebanese civil war as "Lebanon … under Islamic attack". Gabriel expressed her views in an article penned for Frontpagemag.com. She dismissed the diversity of the Muslim world as “a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam … They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.”
For more on Gabriel, read here. Are these the types of views Howard wishes to be seen potentially endorsing on the eve of an election? Can Howard afford to share the podium with a far-right commentator with a track record of promoting conspiratorial religious hatred? Perhaps Howard’s office wasn't aware Gabriel was the guest-speaker. They know now."
"On May 20, Prime Minister John Howard will receive the Jerusalem Prize from the State Zionist Council of Victoria, the Zionist Federation of Australia and Israel's World Zionist Organisation "for his support of the Jewish community and Israel".
It's no secret that Israel enjoys support from both sides of the political establishment; Labor and Liberal leaders compete to secure the favour of Australia's Jewish community, but the matter goes deeper than that. From Kevin Rudd's stories of an ALP government casting the first vote at the UN for partition of Palestine to Tony Abbott's proclamation after Bali that "we are all Israelis now", Australian leaders promote the notion that this country is bound to Israel by shared democratic values against the backdrop of an undemocratic Middle East."
That the PM even considers accepting the award - whatever it's real worth other than curry favour with the Jewish community - is troubling enough more especially given the fact that the JNF is closely involved in the misappropriation of Palestinian land. Those actions have been condemned by numbers of UN resolutions. Then there is the fact that the message to Australia's Arab community [some half a million] is that Australia supports the actions of Israel. And finally the person presenting the award is a rabid right-winger, as Crikey has pointed out:
"What does trouble me is that he will share the podium with the hawkish chief guest at the dinner, American-Lebanese journalist Brigitte Gabriel, former newsreader for a televangelist TV channel and author of BECAUSE THEY HATE: A Survivor of Islamic Terror Warns America.
The book’s cover reflects Gabriel’s main thesis -- that “Islamic religious authorities … repeatedly state that they will destroy the United States”. The JNF’s official biography describes Gabriel as an innocent victim of the Lebanese civil war … "pitting the combined forces of militant Muslims and Palestinians against the Christian Lebanese".
Gabriel’s Lebanese upbringing is described as the "Arabic society, culture, and media [that] taught her that Israel and Jews were the devil". So, the entire Lebanese civil war was little more than Palestinians and Lebanese Muslims attacking Christians. I doubt too many people from any of Lebanon’s 18 religious sects would agree with such a simplistic explanation.
The JNF biography describes how a "barrage of Muslim rockets exploded in her house, leaving her wounded and buried under the rubble". I wasn’t aware that rockets actually had any religion.
Another biography of Gabriel is more telling. It describes the Lebanese civil war as "Lebanon … under Islamic attack". Gabriel expressed her views in an article penned for Frontpagemag.com. She dismissed the diversity of the Muslim world as “a canvas of hate decorated by different nationalities who share one common ideology of hate, bigotry and intolerance derived from one source: authentic Islam … They slither and they hiss, and they would eat each other alive, but they will unite in a hideous mass to achieve their common goal of imposing Islam on the world.”
For more on Gabriel, read here. Are these the types of views Howard wishes to be seen potentially endorsing on the eve of an election? Can Howard afford to share the podium with a far-right commentator with a track record of promoting conspiratorial religious hatred? Perhaps Howard’s office wasn't aware Gabriel was the guest-speaker. They know now."
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