Shameful actions of Brits in deporting Tamils to almost certain death

Hard to believe in a so-called enlightened and civilised society that the UK is today deporting Tamils back to Sri Lanka in the knowledge that they are likely to be killed by the brutal and undemocratic regime there.

"Dozens of Tamil asylum-seekers will be forcibly removed from Britain on a secretive deportation flight today despite credible evidence that they face arrest and retribution on their return.

A chartered plane, PTV030, is due to take off at 15.30 from an undisclosed London airport and fly direct to Colombo. Human-rights organisations have called on the UK Border Agency to halt the flight on the grounds that Tamils who are known to be critical of the Sri Lankan government have been brutally treated following their return.

The forced removals come as Mahinda Rajapaksa, who was the architect of Sri Lanka's final victorious push three years ago against the Tamil Tigers – a military offensive which defeated the brutal insurgency group but also led to the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians – flies into the UK to join the Queen's Diamond Jubilee celebrations.

Human Rights Watch has documented 13 credible cases over the past two years in which failed Tamil asylum-seekers from Europe have been tortured after landing in Sri Lanka, and warns that those cases are likely to be "just the tip of the iceberg".

Mr Rajapaksa's government has been accused of committing war crimes during the military offensive and of continuing to preside over a culture of impunity in which kidnap, extra-judicial killings and torture are still commonplace, particularly in the heavily militarised Tamil areas in the north.

The Foreign Office's latest report on human rights describes Sri Lanka as an area of "serious concern" when it came to abuses. But that has not stopped the UK Border Agency, which is under political pressure from the Government to ramp up deportations, from forcibly removing hundreds of Tamils in recent months."

The duplicity of major corporations on climate change

From the Union of Concerned Scientists under the banner headline "Leading Companies Contradict Own Actions on Climate Science, Policy - Half of Reviewed Companies Misrepresented Climate Science Despite Publicly Expressing Concerns"

"Many of the country’s leading companies have taken contradictory actions when it comes to climate change science while pumping a tremendous amount of resources into influencing the discussion, according to an analysis released today by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS).

The science advocacy group examined 28 companies in the S&P 500 that participated in climate policy debates over the past several years. All of them publicly expressed concern about climate change or a commitment to reducing emissions through websites and public statements, but half (14) also misrepresented climate science in their public communications. Many more contributed to the spread of misinformation about climate science in less direct ways, such as through political contributions, trade group memberships, and think tank funding.

“Corporations' increased ability to influence policy should come with an increased responsibility to let the public know how they are doing so,” said Francesca Grifo, director of UCS's Scientific Integrity Program and a contributor to the report. “Companies may play a role in policy discussions, but right now, it’s simply far too easy for them to get away with misrepresenting science to achieve their goals.”

Utilizing an array of publicly available data, the report systematically examines how corporate influence fosters confusion on climate change. The analysis found that some American companies, including NRG Energy, Inc., NIKE, Inc. and AES Corporation, accept the findings of climate science and have taken actions in support of science-based policy. Other corporations, including Peabody Energy Corporation, Valero Energy Corporation, and FMC Corporation, have worked aggressively to undermine climate policies and have misrepresented climate science to do so.

Several companies stand out for taking contradictory actions on climate change. Caterpillar Inc., for instance, highlights its commitment to sustainability and climate change mitigation on its website. But the company also serves on the boards of two trade groups that regularly attempt to undermine public understanding of climate science: the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Caterpillar also funds the Cato Institute and the Heritage Foundation, two think tanks that have misrepresented climate science.

Similarly, ConocoPhillips says on its website that it recognizes human activity is “contributing to increased concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere that can lead to adverse changes in global climate.” But in comments to the Environmental Protection Agency, the company criticized scientific evidence on the ways climate change can harm public health.

“The difference between what many of these companies say and what they actually do is quite stark,” said Gretchen Goldman, an analyst in the Scientific Integrity Program and a report contributor. “And because we know only limited amounts about their activities, it’s relatively simple for companies to show one face to the public and another to policymakers.”

The report found that companies also utilized their considerable financial resources to oppose climate policy. Lobbying expenditures for energy sector companies increased by 92 percent from 2007 to 2009, when climate change bills were actively debated in Congress. Meanwhile, Valero Energy Corporation donated more than $4 million to the Yes on Prop 23 campaign, which sought to undermine California’s climate change law, but was ultimately rejected by voters.

“The actions of many of these companies come right from the tobacco industry playbook, where the end goal is delaying sensible regulations that protect our health and safety,” said Grifo. “Companies generally find that complying with new rules is not as burdensome as they first imagined. But that doesn’t prevent them from obfuscating the science to create confusion and delay.”

Your number plate determines on which road you travel

Israel denies the proposition that it has become an apartheid State.    This map shows the road on which Israelis can travel as against those, very limited ones, on which Palestinians can.   Yes, your number plate determines on which one is permitted to travel.

Spending big-time to get votes

For any outsider, to see what American politicians, and now the Super PACS, spend on election-related matters is mind-boggling.

Politico reveals the sort of money the GOP, and its supporters, plan on throwing between now and November at the upcoming election .

"Republican super PACs and other outside groups shaped by a loose network of prominent conservatives – including Karl Rove, the Koch brothers and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce – plan to spend roughly $1 billion on November’s elections for the White House and control of Congress, according to officials familiar with the groups’ internal operations.

That total includes previously undisclosed plans for newly aggressive spending by the Koch brothers, who are steering funding to build sophisticated, county-by-county operations in key states. POLITICO has learned that Koch-related organizations plan to spend about $400 million ahead of the 2012 elections - twice what they had been expected to commit.

Just the spending linked to the Koch network is more than the $370 million that John McCain raised for his entire presidential campaign four years ago. And the $1 billion total surpasses the $750 million that Barack Obama, one of the most prolific fundraisers ever, collected for his 2008 campaign."

A virus to fear

Cyberspace espionage has been ratcheted up by a significant notch if this piece, "Flame Thrower" on FP, is correct.    We should all be concerned as Governments around the world harness technology to snoop on what their citizens are talking about (via phone) or emailing (via their computer, tablet or smartphone).

"Welcome to the new frontier of cyber-espionage, and remember this name: "Flame" -- a mysterious new cyber spy tool that hit the headlines on Monday, May 28. Its code is 20 times larger than Stuxnet, the mysterious computer worm that temporarily crippled Iran's Siemens nuclear centrifuges, and it "might be the most sophisticated cyber weapon yet unleashed" according to Kaspersky Lab, a Russian-based cybersecurity firm. Kaspersky published the findings of its analysis on Monday in addition to the Iranian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT) and Budapest University. Most of the infected systems are located in the Middle East, with Iran, Israel, Palestine, Sudan, Syria, Lebanon, and Hungary topping the list. Flame stands out in the various ways through which it "exfiltrates" data, including surreptitiously recorded audio data captured by internal microphones. However, unlike Stuxnet, Flame was designed to spy -- not destroy.
 
The variety of spy tools that Flame employs is astonishing. According to Kaspersky, "of course, other malware exists which can record audio, but key here is Flame's completeness -- the ability to steal data in so many different ways." It also takes snapshots of instant messages and records a user's keystrokes. Flame is remotely controlled through a command and control server and it's highly dynamic. In other words, it has been updated remotely since it was first launched at least as early as March 2010 and its "creators are constantly introducing changes into different modules" which expand its functionality. Now that it has been detected, the Iranian CERT apparently offers infected users a removal tool.

According to the Washington Post, some analysts see the United States and Israel behind Flame. Kaspersky will only go so far as to say that it's likely the work of a nation-state rather than a private entity or hacking group because of the sophistication and the geographic location of the infected systems, For now, the perpetrator's identity remains unknown. Flame was designed to avoid being detected, hiding in large amounts of code and using a programming language unusual for malware. Victims include individuals, private companies, educational institutions, and state-related organizations. Other details are also unclear at this point, however, such as how Flame accesses a system in the first place. Kaspersky considers Flame an operation likely to have been run in tandem with Stuxnet."

Obama: The Big Decider.....of America's "kill list"

Yet another dimension to a lawyer and one-time law lecturer.....Obama, the US President, said to be a liberal and now the Big Decider of what people the US will assassinate.    More than breath-taking.    T

"Mr. Obama is the liberal law professor who campaigned against the Iraq war and torture, and then insisted on approving every new name on an expanding “kill list,” poring over terrorist suspects’ biographies on what one official calls the macabre “baseball cards” of an unconventional war. When a rare opportunity for a drone strike at a top terrorist arises — but his family is with him — it is the president who has reserved to himself the final moral calculation.

“He is determined that he will make these decisions about how far and wide these operations will go,” said Thomas E. Donilon, his national security adviser. “His view is that he’s responsible for the position of the United States in the world.” He added, “He’s determined to keep the tether pretty short.”

Nothing else in Mr. Obama’s first term has baffled liberal supporters and confounded conservative critics alike as his aggressive counterterrorism record. His actions have often remained inscrutable, obscured by awkward secrecy rules, polarized political commentary and the president’s own deep reserve.

In interviews with The New York Times, three dozen of his current and former advisers described Mr. Obama’s evolution since taking on the role, without precedent in presidential history, of personally overseeing the shadow war with Al Qaeda.

They describe a paradoxical leader who shunned the legislative deal-making required to close the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, but approves lethal action without hand-wringing. While he was adamant about narrowing the fight and improving relations with the Muslim world, he has followed the metastasizing enemy into new and dangerous lands. When he applies his lawyering skills to counterterrorism, it is usually to enable, not constrain, his ferocious campaign against Al Qaeda — even when it comes to killing an American cleric in Yemen, a decision that Mr. Obama told colleagues was “an easy one.”

Rupert picked over......

An interesting piece in The New York Review of Books on the Sun King, Rupert Murdoch.   Well worth reading an analysis of the man and the events which have led to the position in which he, his family and the companies publishing newspapers now find themselves.

"Much academic research has confirmed my own instinct that newspapers do not in fact decide the results of elections. But politicians believe they do, and that is what empowers Murdoch. Successive party leaders and prime ministers have thought that they could be elected, and then govern, only with his consent. A former Blair aide said that they always felt at Downing Street as though Murdoch were the invisible twenty-fifth presence at the Cabinet table; and the recent conduct of Cameron, Hague, Gove, and Hunt has conveyed the strong impression that Her Majesty’s Government is a subsidiary of News International.

Quite apart from the benefits to all newspapers of the Wapping putsch, “Murdochia” is not simply a monolithic evil empire. Even Fox Television gave us the glorious achievement that is The Simpsons and Sky Sports has no more devoted, or addicted, viewer than this writer, who was only one of several hundred million people from England to Brazil to China watching the climax to the English soccer season, with Manchester City winning the pennant in the dying seconds. The admirable Times Literary Supplement remains the piano player in Murdoch’s London bordello, while The Wall Street Journal has continued its tradition of scrupulously objective reporting (on its news pages, at least) while covering the News International story, and Sky News, the British channel, has been exemplary in reporting on Leveson.

There is a final defense of Murdoch: if he has enjoyed the kind of sway he has, then the blame lies not with him but with the democratically elected leaders who have truckled to him. Now they, even Cameron and his unimpressive entourage, must realize that the game is up for this extraordinary old man. Whatever happens to Brooks and the other defendants, or however long it takes the despondent investors of News Corp to be rid of the toxic London papers, the spell is broken. Rupert Murdoch has gone from Svengali to Tar Baby, sticky and tainting to the touch. Cameron thought he was going to profit from his closeness to the great magnate; it could yet finish his prime ministership, with “laugh out loud” as his political epitaph."

One misguided Congressman rooting for Israel

Now here is one US Congressman seemingly in thrall and in the pocket of AIPAC and singularly outrageous in his support of Israel.    Stand up Congressman Kirk.    And don't forget to read some of his utterly breathtaking quotes.

"Senator Mark Kirk (R, IL) has distinguished himself amongst his fellow Members of Congress by promoting the most extreme positions in opposition to Middle East peace. This may come as a shock to many of his constituents, who see him as a “moderate” Republican, occasionally breaking ranks with his party on some Senate votes.

A little closer look at his history, statements, and policies should set that illusion to rest. And it should raise fundamental questions about whether Senator Kirk represents the aspirations of his constituents or the narrow interests of a lobby that seeks to undermine a just and lasting peace between Palestinians and Israelis.

Despite our nation’s dire economic situation, this lobby has obtained an unconditional commitment to $30 billion in military aid to Israel from 2009 to 2018. [1] This amounts to $1.5 billion from Illinois taxpayers over that 10-year period. [2]

According to former AIPAC (American Israel Public Affairs Committee) staffer – now critic – MJ Rosenberg, Mark Kirk cultivated a relationship with AIPAC since he was a Congressional aide.  According to Rosenberg, between 2000 and 2010 – Representative Mark Kirk received $1,025,437 from “pro-Israel” PACs, making him #7 out of all members of Congress and #1 of all House members. [3]

According to Rosenberg: It is not because Kirk is pro-Israel. Virtually every member of the House and Senate supports our special relationship with and aid to Israel. It is because no one is more reliable than Mark Kirk when it comes to supporting the status quo. His idea of supporting Israel is simply to keep things just as they are, which, not coincidentally, is also the way the lobby sees it…

The lobby and its PACs will be going all out for Kirk this year [2010].  In fact, his election will surely be their #1 priority.  If he wins, the lobby will have a stalwart enforcer of the status quo who can be expected to pressure his colleagues to fall in line. [4]

During Israel’s attack on Gaza, Operation Cast Lead, in 2008 – 2009, almost 1400 Palestinians (mostly civilians) and 13 Israelis were killed [5]. At that time, then U.S. Representative Mark Kirk made the following public statement, “To misquote Shakespeare, something is rotten in Gaza and now it’s time to take out the trash.” [6]

Kirk’s cheerleading for the slaughter of hundreds of innocents and the destruction of vital water, medical, housing, and educational facilities has to earn him a special place on some “Wall of Shame.” Few supporters of Israel’s actions have so clearly enunciated disdain for the destruction of Palestinian life and vital human services – which are still, to this day, largely unrepaired because of the inhumane blockade of Gaza and U.S. support for it.

The horror of Houla....and tragedy of Syria

Yes, the image is confronting and when one realises that some 32 children were executed in Houla, the horror of what is going on in Syria only gets worse.

John Lee Anderson writing in The New Yorker:

"Sooner or later, every armed conflict in which victory is determined by control of the civilian population—as opposed to, say, physical territory—has its My Lai, its Srebrenica, its Sabra and Shatila. And Syria’s civil war (because that, in the end, is what it is) now has a hallmark bloodbath—its before-and-after moment. Saturday, in the small town of Houla, some hundred and eight civilians, including at least thirty-two children, were killed at the hands, apparently, of the Syrian army and the shabiha thugs who often do its dirty work. It’s not that there haven’t been previous atrocities in this fifteen-month-old conflict; there have been scores of them, each adding its quota of blood and agony and vengeance. Houla’s hundred-odd dead may offer a mere shiver of horror to deadened and bewildered onlookers, and statistically may represent only a fraction of the mounting casualties—Syria’s number of dead is calculated by the U.N. to be over ten thousand, but there may well be a thousand or so more, depending on who is doing the counting.

It’s been a month since the arrival in Syria of two hundred and seventy or so U.N. observers, the result of a partial agreement between President Assad and Kofi Annan. The observers have not stopped the killing, and have not reduced it, either, despite some initial wishful claims to the contrary. (Where have U.N. observers, or peacekeepers, for that matter, ever stopped anything?) The killings in Houla took place a mere fifteen miles from the U.N. observers posted in Homs. Unlike in an old Western, the cavalry never arrived. In this gruesome reality show that we all now inhabit, the U.N. men arrived afterwards, in time to film the bodies left behind by their killers, with the merit of at least having confirmed that an atrocity took place. In Houla, the videos show that some of the civilian victims—with pieces of their bodies missing—were probably nonspecific, by which I mean that, as in all wars, they were simply killed because they were in the wrong place at the wrong time, and the men who pressed the “fire” buttons on the artillery piece, or on the tank that fired the shells that ripped them apart, meant them no specific harm, per se, as individuals. Others, though, seem to show the telltale traces of up-close murders—the result of guns pressed against people’s heads and fired, and of knives drawn deeply across throats.

These latter victims, who include some of Houla’s dead children, are the most troubling of the deaths that are occurring in Syria today. They raise the question of whether there is any kind of peace plan, at this point, that is viable, at least in the minds of the actors in the conflict. That is why Houla is such a watershed event (and why the regime is claiming it is a set-up, to make it look bad)."





****

"Ban Ki-moon has said that there is no U.N. “Plan B” in Syria.  Plan A, to sum it up roughly, relies upon goodwill and a change of heart on the part of the Assad regime and the rebels fighting it. The thing is: What does one do when men become capable of cutting the throat of a small child?"

Is $33 million enough for getting away with murder?

Not for the first time Robert Fisk, veteran journalist with The Independent, highlights the hypocrisy of the West.    On this occasion it's in relation to Pakistan.

"La Clinton hath spoken. Thirty-three million smackers lopped off Pakistan's aid budget because its spooks banged up poor old Dr Shakeel Afridi for 33 years after a secret trial. And, as the world knows, Dr Afridi's crime was to confirm the presence of that old has-been Osama bin Laden in his grotty Abbottabad villa.

Well, that will teach the Pakistanis to mess around with a brave doctor who is prepared to help the American institution that tortures and murders its enemies. Forget the CIA's black prisons and rendition and water-boarding, and the torture of the innocents in the jails of our friendly dictators. Dr Afridi was just doing the free world a favour. And WOW, Dr Afridi got shopped by Leon Pannetta when he was CIA boss, and now Barack Obama is accused of letting him down.

Well, I pause here. Dr Afridi was brought before a secret trial in the Khyber tribal area – no charge sheets, no lawyers, no statements from the defendant or the prosecution, just a measly accusation of conspiracy against the state of Pakistan and "high treason". I've never known the difference between "treason" and "high treason" but – since Pakistan's security apparatus is a mirror image of the British Empire – I assume it was invented by us. "High treason" means treason against the monarch. By fingering Bin Laden, after using a ruse about vaccinating his family against hepatitis B to gain access to him, Dr Afridi was committing treason against King Asif Ali Zardari, otherwise known as the President of Pakistan.

But hold on a moment. Let's suppose Vladimir Putin sent a KGB/FSB hit squad to Britain to murder a former agent called Alexander Litvinenko who had turned against his old spymasters. And let's suppose that the Russians murdered Litvinenko. Which – in real life – they did. And Litvinenko – in real life – was indeed a trusted agent of the Russians, just as Bin Laden was a much-admired servant of the CIA when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan."

Continue reading here.

The human, and financial, cost of the Iraq and Afghan wars

On a day when USA "celebrates" Memorial Day, a piece on AlterNet should give Americans considerable pause for thought.    The "cost" - in multiple ways - flowing from the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is already huge and certainly going to increase for many, many years to come.

"According to a new report from the Associated Press, a record 45% of the 1.6 million veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are compensation for service-related injuries.

This is more than double the rate for Gulf War veterans. For all the publicity given to “Gulf War syndrome,” only an estimated 21% of the veterans of that conflict have filed disability claims.

The recent applicants are also citing a much larger number of ailments than veterans of previous wars — an average of eight or nine per person, which has shot up over the past year to 11 to 14. This compares to less than four for Vietnam War veterans who are currently receiving compensation, and just two for veterans of World War II and Korea.

The causes of the increase, and to what extent it simply reflects the poor economy, are not clear. “Government officials and some veterans’ advocates say that veterans who might have been able to work with certain disabilities may be more inclined to seek benefits now because they lost jobs or can’t find any,” the AP explains.

Much of the change, however, is clearly the legitimate result of more soldiers surving life-threatening injuries, along with an increased incidence of concussions and severe hearing loss resulting from IED blasts.

Even the heavy body armor that helps save lives can often leave soldiers with back, shoulder, and knee problems that sometimes require orthopedic surgery. In addition, 400,000 veterans have already been treated for mental health problems, most often post-traumatic stress disorder, and these have been exacerbated by multiple deployments.

Whatever the cause, the flood of applicants is putting strain on a system that is badly backlogged — as a result of 1.3 million claims in 2011 alone — and is still dealing largely with paper records. “We have 4.4 million case files sitting around 56 regional offices that we have to work with; that slows us down significantly,” Allison Hickey, the VA’s undersecretary for benefits, told the AP.

The real burden, however, may become apparent only 30 or 40 years from now, when the cost of caring for disabled veterans is multipled by the effects of old age. Harvard economist Linda Bilmes estimates that it will amount to $600 billion to $900 billion overall."

Arrogance of power and a reality check on Iran

Stephen Walt, writing his latest blog under the headline, "The arrogance of power" on FP, reflects on the ongoing issue of Iran acquiring a nuclear capacity.    He also suggests a reality check.....

"While we're being realistic, let's keep a few other bedrock realities in mind.

Right now, the United States has thousands of sophisticated nuclear weapons in its arsenal. Israel has a couple of hundred. Four other members of the P5+1 have nuclear weapons as well, and the fifth member -- Germany -- has had access to nuclear weapons through "dual key" arrangements with the United States.

Right now, the United States is far and away the world's greatest military power, with no enemies nearby. Israel is the strongest military power in the Middle East. We spend close to a trillion dollars on various national security programs each year; Iran spends maybe $15 billion, tops. Iran is a minor military threat at best.

Right now, the United States and Israel are actively engaged in a variety of covert actions directed against Iran, and the United States still have military forces and bases all around that country. Top U.S. officials, Senators and Congressmen have openly called for "regime change" in Iran. And then we wonder why, oh why, Iran might be wary of us, and why some Iranians might think that having an effective deterrent to counter our vast military superiority might be a good idea.

Right now, the United States and its allies have imposed increasingly punishing economic sanctions against Iran. Iran has no way to retaliate in kind, no matter how its leaders may bluster about oil and gas embargoes."

****

"As I noted awhile back, the current impasse reflects a significant shift in our approach to arms control. In the past, we understood that arms control was a diplomatic process of mutual compromise, designed to produce a situation that was ultimately better for both sides. Arms control agreements didn't get the participants everything they might want, but they worked if each side understood that they'd be better off striking a reasonable deal. Today, "arms control" consists of our making unilateral demands, and insisting that other side give us what we want before we'll seriously consider what they want. It reflects what late Senator J. William Fulbright called the "arrogance of power," the tendency for powerful states to think they can dictate to others with near-impunity. This approach hasn't worked yet with Iran, and it's not likely to work in the future."

Fiddling while Rome (Syria) burns......

Credited to The Independent

Rear-end view of New Yorkers

Let it not be said that this isn't a novel approach......



"Australian photographer Bridget Fleming push-biked her way into New York's zeitgeist by snapping at its tail. Follow her cycle path in this cheeky video.

In the most photographed city in the world finding a new angle is quite a feat. But that's what Bridget Fleming has managed to pull off with her series Downtown From Behind.

After she posted the photographs online, a number of major media outlets, including The New York Times, published her novel images of artists, fashionistas and chefs riding their bikes on the city's streets. ''All of a sudden it went viral, globally,'' recounts 31-year-old Fleming."

Australia's shame

Australia, like many countries around the world, is confronted with so-called illegal immigrants seeking to enter the country.  Problem is that Australia deals with the issue in a harsh and inhumane way.    No less importantly, as the case detailed below so clearly shows, actions such as those of the Australian security agency, create an untenable and outrageous result - that is, the possible detention of a mother and child indefinitely without trial and their no knowing the basis for it.

"David Manne of the Refugee and Immigration Legal Centre has launched a High Court action to break the impasse facing refugees who have been adversely assessed by ASIO.

His action is to be applauded. The problem, which currently affects 62 people in Australian detention centres, needs to be solved urgently.

The problem is exemplified by the case of Ranjini. Shortly before Mothers Day, Ranjini and her two children, aged 6 and 9 years, were removed from the community and placed in detention at Villawood.

They are refugees: that fact is accepted by the Government. They are in detention now because their protection visas have been cancelled.

Why? Because ASIO has assessed them adversely on security grounds. They will not tell her why. The best guess is that her husband, who is dead, may once have been a driver for Tamil separatists in Sri Lanka. Even if that is true, it does not involve the woman and her children in any sort of offence, and it says nothing about their character.

They may remain in detention for years, perhaps forever. How can that be, in a free democratic country like Australia? It is the result of two court decisions which most Australians have never heard of.

First, if a person is adversely assessed by ASIO, they are not told what facts ASIO took into account in forming its views, so it is virtually impossible to show that ASIO was wrong."

****

"This case, and the case of Ranjini and her children, raises three questions we should face squarely. The way we answer these questions will define what we are as a country:

Should any person be held in custody indefinitely, absent any allegation that they have broken the law?

Should any person be locked up indefinitely without being given a chance to challenge, in a meaningful way, the reason for their detention?

Should any child face the prospect of lifetime imprisonment?

At present, Australian law allows a child to be imprisoned (potentially for life) without having broken the law and without being able to challenge the reason for their imprisonment.

It is a scandal that our law allows this. Regardless of your views about refugees, I cannot think that many Australians would support such obvious injustice. Regardless of your views about refugees, we should all hope that this High Court challenge succeeds."

The motley Murdoch "crew" know no bounds

If this revelation as disclosed by The Independent is even half-true, then it confirms that the Murdochs, and their entire "operation", are rogues - it brings to mind the proposition put to James Murdoch at the Parliamentary Committee Inquiry of Mafia like conduct - who simply know no bounds, legal or otherwise.

"Detectives carrying out the multimillion-pound investigation into illegal newsgathering techniques at Rupert Murdoch's British newspaper group have been asked to investigate whether it attempted to blackmail politicians.

The alleged plot centres on News International's apparent efforts to warn off MPs on a parliamentary committee from disproving its discredited defence that phone hacking was the work of a single "rogue reporter".

According to the former senior News of the World journalist Neville Thurlbeck, News International ordered the Sunday paper's reporters to scour the private lives of MPs on the Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee in 2009. At the time, Mr Murdoch's company was mounting what it now admits was a mistakenly "aggressive" response to allegations that the interception of voicemail messages was rife at its headquarters in Wapping, east London. On the advice of the parliamentary authorities, the Labour MP Tom Watson has now asked the Metropolitan Police to investigate the allegation.

According to Mr Thurlbeck, reporters were told by those in "deepcarpetland" to obtain evidence of affairs or gay relationships. The aim, he claimed, was to "to find as much embarrassing sleaze on as many members as possible in order to blackmail them into backing off from its highly forensic inquiry into phone hacking". In a letter – a copy of which has been obtained by The Independent – to the Deputy Assistant Commissioner leading the Met's inquiries into News International, Sue Akers, Mr Watson wrote: "If these allegations are found to be true, it suggests there was a conspiracy to blackmail."

Syria: The world sits on its hands

Remember all the rhetoric before the Coalition of the Willing waged war on Iraq.  Not only did the Saddam regime have WMDs (which they didn't!) but Saddam was a dictator who had massacred his own people.     Same story about Gaddafi in Libya.    Now, the UN estimates that some 15,000 people have been killed by the Assad regime in Syria.   And what is the West doing?  Talking.....

The Independent editorialises:

"That something utterly appalling happened outside the Syrian city of Houla on Friday is beyond doubt. As the sickening pictures of murdered children showed – pictures rightly reprinted by several British newspapers, including our sister paper The Independent on Sunday – many victims were children, at least some of whom had had their throats cut. Even as the Syrian authorities denied responsibility, blaming Islamists and terrorists, they conceded that at least 90 people had been killed. Of these more than 30 were children, slaughtered, as the pictures attest, in cold blood. Opposition activists accused pro-regime gunmen of the massacre."

****

"At which point the argument becomes more complicated. For all the expressions of outrage from Western leaders and the calls for something to be done – an urgent meeting of the UN Security Council (Britain), a summons to the Friends of Syria group (France), "intensified pressure on Assad and his cronies" (the US) – direct military intervention, as hoped for by Syria's opposition, is unrealistic.

Syria is not Kosovo, nor is it Libya. It is a big country in a highly volatile neighbourhood and is slipping ever closer to all-out civil war. While there are entrenched areas of resistance, the opposition itself has been plagued by splits and by no means all Syrians are convinced of the need to remove the Assad clan. Any change of power needs to be supported and sustained by Syrians themselves."

****

"If any one country can wield influence in Syria, it is Russia. But its co-operation is also crucial if the international community is to show a united front, which is essential if anything is to change. In present circumstances, the temptation will be to write off the UN process and Kofi Annan's six-point plan. But it has not been exhausted. While there have been violations of the ceasefire aplenty, of which the Houla massacre is by far the most egregious, the ceasefire did bring some diminution of the violence and might have brought more, had there been more observers than the 260 now there. Massively beefing up this operation should be the priority."

The travesty of Gitmo....and one man's ordeal

"It was James, a thickset American interrogator nicknamed “the Elephant,” who first told Lakhdar Boumediene that investigators were certain of his innocence, that two years of questioning had shown he was no terrorist, but that it did not matter, Mr. Boumediene says.

The interrogations would continue through what ended up being seven years, three months, three weeks and four days at the prison camp at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.

An aid worker handling orphans in Sarajevo, Mr. Boumediene (pronounced boom-eh-DIEN) found himself swept up in the panic that followed Sept. 11, 2001. He likens himself to a caged cat, toyed with and tormented by fate and circumstance.

“I learned patience,” Mr. Boumediene, 46, said. He is a private man, trim and square-jawed and meticulously kempt, his eyes set in deep gray hollows. “There is no other choice but patience.”

The United States government has never acknowledged any error in detaining Mr. Boumediene, though a federal judge ordered his release, for lack of evidence, in 2008. The government did not appeal, a Defense Department spokesman noted, though he declined to answer further questions about Mr. Boumediene’s case. A State Department representative declined to discuss the case as well, except to point to a Justice Department statement announcing Mr. Boumediene’s transfer to France, in 2009."


The New York Times - for once, to its credit - has a piece "After Guantánamo, Starting Anew, in Quiet Anger" exposing the devastating effect on one man, rendered and imprisoned in Gitmo.

"Mr. Boumediene arrived at Guantánamo on Jan. 20, 2002, nine days after the camp began operations. He was beaten on arrival, he said. Refusing food for the final 28 months of his detention, he was force-fed through a tube inserted up a nostril and down his throat, he said. There was a hole in the seat of the chair to which he was chained, sometimes clothed, sometimes not; as the liquid streamed into his stomach, his bowels often released.

He emerged gaunt, with wrists scarred from seven years of handcuffs, almost unable to walk without the shackles to which he had grown accustomed, he said. Crowds terrified him, as did rooms with closed doors, said Nathalie Berger, a doctor who worked with Mr. Boumediene shortly after his release.

Dr. Berger was moved, she said, by his equanimity and his “strength to live.”

The USA's Lord High Executioner

As if the US policy of assassinating people - including its own citizens - wherever in the world wasn't bad enough, it now appears that a political hack in the White House is going to be the one to determine who is to be the target of the killing.

Scott Horton writing in Harper's Magazine......

"Kimberley Dozier of the Associated Press reports that the burden of making the life-and-death decisions surrounding drone use is settling on the shoulders of a single man, White House counterterrorism adviser John Brennan:

White House counterterror chief John Brennan has seized the lead in guiding the debate on which terror leaders will be targeted for drone attacks or raids, establishing a new procedure to vet both military and CIA targets. The move concentrates power over the use of lethal U.S. force outside war zones at the White House.

The process, which is about a month old, means Brennan’s staff consults the Pentagon, the State Department and other agencies as to who should go on the list, making a previous military-run review process in place since 2009 less relevant, according to two current and three former U.S. officials aware of the evolution in how the government targets terrorists. In describing Brennan’s arrangement to The Associated Press, the officials provided the first detailed description of the military’s previous review process that set a schedule for killing or capturing terror leaders around the Arab world and beyond.

The report notes that Brennan’s role has been justified by the winding down of the Pentagon’s role in drone use in Afghanistan, where U.S. military operations are entering their next, lower-profile stage. The Pentagon’s drone deployments have, however, been far less controversial than the CIA-dominated deployments in places like Pakistan and Yemen. Brennan has distinguished himself as a champion of a militarized CIA, outfitted with drone technology and given a critical role on the hot battlefield just south of the Durand Line between Afghanistan and Pakistan. This position has been unsurprising considering his career at CIA, where he was a key architect of the agency’s war-on-terror strategies."

****

"Brennan’s misstatements may have prepared him for the comic-opera role of Lord High Executioner, but they disqualify him from playing the more serious part of adviser to the president on drone assassinations. We do need more information about how drones are being used, and on how the decisions about their use are being made, but we’ve seen enough from Brennan to know that he’s not going to provide it—and that he’s not fit to be managing this program."

Canada's "Maple Spring"

First we had the "Arab Spring".   Now Canada has its own "Maple Spring" - with good cause.    Yet another example of Governments imposing ever-increasing restrictions on the freedoms on their citizens.     truthdig has awarded the 400,000 protesters in Montreal its weekly Truthdiggers of the Week award.

"More than 400,000 Canadians—students and defenders of freedom of expression—filled the streets of Montreal this week to demonstrate against a 75 percent university tuition hike and emergency legislation that placed draconian penalties on people exercising their right to protest.

Almost 1,000 demonstrators were arrested as the protest passed its 100th day this week. Many times that number marched in defiance of Bill 78, passed May 18, which suspended the current academic term, laid out regulations that required protesters to notify police of demonstrations eight hours in advance and of any protest involving 50 or more people, and threatened to fine student associations $125,000 if they disobeyed or failed to stop others from protesting.

In light of the new law, the week’s protests appear to be the largest act of civil disobedience in Canadian history. And they did not come without a price. In addition to the hundreds arrested, 11 people were hospitalized at the beginning of May when police fired rubber bullets and tear gas into a crowd in Victoriaville. Two demonstrators suffered serious injuries: One lost an eye and another was critically wounded.

The government’s attempt to stem the protests with Bill 78 backfired. Speaking on “Democracy Now!,” Anna Kruzynski, assistant professor at Concordia University in Montreal, said “there was an explosion of support for the student movement” when the bill was passed, “but also a real questioning of the legitimacy of this government, this government that is trying to push through austerity measures that the majority of the population do not want to see.” By Kruzynski’s assessment, a genuine, broad-based social movement, which includes families, children, the elderly and others, is mounting around concern for Canadian youth and affordable education."

Bibi: Puffery + getting the facts wrong

The other day Time magazine featured the Israeli PM on its cover and had a detailed article about him.    All too sadly, and probably predictable, the piece was fawning in the extreme.   Worse still, it was plainly wrong in part - and a critical one at that.

"I finally managed to get all the way through Richard Stengel's fawning cover story about Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

At a moment when incumbents around the world are being shunted aside, he is triumphant. With his bullet-proof majority, he has a chance to turn himself into the historic figure he has always yearned to be.

And it traces what it says is Netanyahu's appeal to U.S. audiences:

He appeared regularly on Nightline and became the Israeli-American It boy–confident, handsome, fearsomely articulate in virtually accentless English. Every suburban Jewish mother had a crush on him.


"Bibi was the streetwise local anchorman who told it like it was," Stengel adds.

You might find that all a bit much, but Stengel badly misleads readers with this:

When Obama took office, people thought he would bring a new dynamic to the talks that would favor the Palestinians. Obama asked Bibi to freeze settlement construction for one year as an act of good faith. And then Abbas did not come to the table. When Abbas was finally coaxed to do so, he presented Bibi with the same package Olmert had negotiated. Abbas says he won't talk while settlements are being built, and Bibi says he wants talks "without preconditions." The only freeze now is in the negotiations themselves.

But Israel's supposed "settlement freeze" didn't actually freeze settlements. As I wrote in Extra! (12/10), a few outlets noted that the "freeze" months were hardly any different than the non-frozen ones. As the New York Times noted (7/15/10), "In many West Bank settlements, building is proceeding apace," since the so-called freeze "came with the assertion that some 3,000 units were grandfathered in and would proceed during the moratorium." And an Associated Press investigation (9/23/10) revealed: "How much of a freeze has there actually been on West Bank Jewish settlement building by Israel? Very little, an Associated Press analysis of the numbers suggests."

Stengel gives Netanyahu points for his ability to woo U.S. media. Indeed."

Whew......it's getting hot!

Feel that things are hotting up, temperature-wise, where you live?   The explanation for that is simple.....

"Climate-heating carbon emissions set a record high in 2011, in a 3.2 percent increase over the previous year, the International Energy Agency reported this week. The main reason for this dangerous increase is that governments are failing to implement policies to prevent catastrophic increases of global temperatures.


A new report released on the last days of international climate talks in Bonn, Germany this week reveals that the planet is heading to a temperature rise of at least 3.5 degrees Celsius, and likely more, according to the Climate Action Tracker (CAT), despite an international agreement to keep global temperature rise below two degrees Celsius."


****

"In fact, commitments to reduce emissions have been deadlocked since the 2009 Copenhagen Accord. Even if governments implemented the most stringent reductions they have proposed, world emissions would still need to decline another 9 billion tons by 2020 and every year after.

Meanwhile, 2011 emissions are one billion tons greater than 2010.

While a temperature increase of 3.5 degrees Celsius may seem small, it would create conditions not seen on the planet for 30 to 60 million years.

Most of the increase in emissions last year is from increased coal use in China and India, according to preliminary estimates from the International Energy Agency (IEA) released Thursday. Developed countries, led by Europe and the United States, reduced emissions by .6 percent collectively."

BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) justified

Gideon Levy, an op-ed writer for Haaretz, the Israeli daily newspaper, comes out swinging why boycotting goods manufactured in settlements in the West Bank is fully justified.    Interesting question?   Is Levy an anti Israeli or anti-Zionist or seeking to delegitimise the country in which he lives? - an accusation freely hurled at those calling for BDS.

"I don't buy merchandise that comes from the settlements and I never will. To my way of thinking, those are stolen goods and, like any other goods that have been stolen, I try not to buy them. Now perhaps the South Africans and the Danes also will not buy them; meanwhile their governments have merely requested that products from the settlements be marked so as not to deceive their customers. Just as there was no need in the past to label merchandise from the British colonies as British products, so there is no need to mark products from Israel's colonies as Israeli. Anyone who wants to support the Israeli colonial enterprise can buy them; those who are opposed can boycott them. As simple as that, and as necessary.

Israel, which boycotts Turkey's beaches and Hamas, should have been the first to understand that. Instead we have heard heart-rending cries and angry rebukes. Not yet to the Danes, who are nice, but to the South Africans, who are less nice in our eyes. The decision was labeled "a step with racist characteristics" by the Foreign Ministry spokesman, referring to the country that waged the most courageous war against racism in the history of mankind.

Yes, the new South Africa can teach Israel a lesson in the war against racism; and yes, Israel can teach the world a lesson in racism. It has once again been proven that Israel's chutzpah knows no bounds: Israel, of all countries, accuses South Africa, of all countries, of being racist. Is there anything more ridiculous?"







Continue reading here.

The Turnaround Artist

 

 Credited to Nate Beeler, The Columbus Dispatch

Thomas F caught out

Oh dear, good ol' Thomas Friedman caught out attempting a bit of revisionism.

FAIR reports:

"Thomas Friedman on Face the Nation this past Sunday (5/20/12):

You know, I believed from the beginning we had four choices in Afghanistan, Bob: lose early, lose late, lose big, or lose small. And, you know, my hope was that we would lose small and early.

Thomas Friedman in the New York Times, November 2, 2001:

A month into the war in Afghanistan, the hand-wringing has already begun over how long this might last. Let's all take a deep breath and repeat after me: Give war a chance."

Iran: Who is calling the shots on US policy?

If what is revealed in this piece "U.S. Hard Line in Failed Iran Talks Driven by Israel" on Inter Press Service is correct, then yet again, it is the Israelis who are, in the main, calling the shots on US policy with respect to Iran developing a nuclear capacity.  Problem with all of that is that we may all be affected by whatever action the Americans take on Iran.

"Negotiations between Iran and the United States and other members of the P5+1 group in Baghdad ended in fundamental disagreement Thursday over the position of the P5+1 offering no relief from sanctions against Iran.

The two sides agreed to meet again in Moscow Jun. 18 and 19, but only after Iran had threatened not to schedule another meeting, because the P5+1 had originally failed to respond properly to its five-point plan.

The prospects for agreement are not likely to improve before that meeting, however, mainly because of an inflexible U.S. diplomatic posture that reflects President Barack Obama's need to bow to the demands of Israel and the U.S. Congress on Iran policy."

****

"The U.S. demand for the closure of the Fordow facility, which is now under surveillance by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), was a direct response to pressure from Israel. Prime Minister Benjamen Netanyahu declared that demand one of his "benchmarks" for the talks on Mar. 2."

****

"After being lobbied by 12,000 activists attending the conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) in March, the House of Representatives passed a resolution demanding a policy of preventing Iran from having a "nuclear weapons capability" by a vote of 401-11."

Facebook faces the music

Now, haven't we all been here before?    No lessons learned from the same shenanigans before on Wall Street's "crew" of the usual suspects, JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, et al.   And of course, no one - not even the man in the White House despite all the huffing and puffing - to reign in these cowboys on Wall Street.  

First, this, as reported in The Guardian:

"Facebook's founder, Mark Zuckerberg, has gone from hero to zero as the stockmarket flotation of the decade flounders amid lawsuits and accusations of greed, hype and deception.

The law firm that won a $7bn settlement for Enron's shareholders is pursuing Zuckerberg, his board and the long list of banks advising the company for making "untrue statements" about its financial performance.

Robbins Geller is bringing the second class action law suit in as many days against Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Barclays and a host of Silicon Valley luminaries including PayPal guru Peter Thiel. A separate suit filed in California on Tuesday by investor Darryl Lazar claims that the social network's share prospectus contained "materially false and misleading statements".

The regulators are also closing in. Mary Schapiro, chair of America's main financial watchdog, the Securities and Exchange Commission, said: "I think there is a lot of reason to have confidence in our markets and in the integrity of how they operate, but there are issues that we need to look at specifically with respect to Facebook."

And some background, via The Daily Beast, on the "charming" Mr Zuckerburg:

"But none of this should come as a surprise to anyone who has been following Facebook in recent years. Since its origin in a Harvard dorm room in 2004, the company has been dogged by complaints by people who felt tricked and ill-treated by CEO and cofounder Mark Zuckerberg.

First came allegations that Zuckerberg had stolen the idea for Facebook from fellow Harvard students, and a lawsuit that Facebook settled.

Zuckerberg insisted that he didn’t steal the idea, though he had agreed to write code for the other guys who were creating their own social network. And in an instant-message exchange from that time, Zuckerberg said of the guys who had hired him, “I’m going to fuck them. Probably in the ear.”

Then came reports that, while he was a student, Zuckerberg had hacked into the private email of reporters at The Harvard Crimson, and had hacked into the rival social network created by the guys he’d threatened to “fuck in the ear,” in order to disrupt its operations.

Then there emerged an IM string from the early days of Facebook, in which Zuckerberg offered to give a pal access to private information that Facebook was collecting from people who had joined the service, saying, “They ‘trust me.’ Dumb fucks.”

Then one of his cofounders, Eduardo Saverin, sued Zuckerberg claiming he’d been defrauded, after his stake in the company was diluted. Later, emails emerged revealing that Zuckerberg asked his lawyers if there’s “a way to do this without making it painfully apparent to him that he’s being diluted.”

Then came Mark Pincus, an early investor in Facebook and adviser to Zuckerberg who believed so strongly in the company that he built his own company, Zynga, to make social games that run on top of Facebook. That worked fine until Zynga started making money, at which point Zuckerberg changed the rules and said that, from now on, Zynga would have to give Facebook a 30 percent cut of the revenues it generated on Facebook. Pincus was furious, but where could he go? His whole business was built on Facebook.

Then came Facebook’s hundreds of millions of users, who signed up for the service under one set of privacy rules only to have Zuckerberg change them after the fact, in ways that force them to reveal more about themselves—leading Facebook, in 2011, to settle charges brought by the Federal Trade Commission that said the company had made “unfair and deceptive” claims and had violated federal law. (Facebook did not admit guilt when it settled.)"
 

Africa to roll on, big-time, in the next years

All of Africa is generally portrayed as a basket-case.  Reports of disease and poverty prevail in reports in the media.    Surprising then to learn that Africa is destined to grow, gang-busters, in the next years and equal Asia.

"Africa, with a population expected to roughly double by mid-century, has become recognized as the world's fastest growing continent. But the less-told story is of Africa's economic rise. In the last decade Africa's overall growth rates have quietly approached those of Asia, and according to projections by the IMF, on average Africa will have the world's fastest growing economy of any continent over the next five years.

Seven of the world's 10 fastest-growing economies are African. The continent is famously resource rich, which has surely helped, but some recent studies suggest that the biggest drivers are far less customary for Africa, and far more encouraging for its future: wholesale and retail commerce, transportation, telecommunications, and manufacturing.

A recent report by the African Development Bank projected that, by 2030, much of Africa will attain lower-middle- and middle-class majorities, and that consumer spending will explode from $680 billion in 2008 to $2.2 trillion. According to McKinsey and Co., Africa already has more middle class consumers than India, which has a larger population.

American media have largely failed to pick up on these trends, hewing instead to their long-running traditional narratives of African violence and suffering to the exclusion of most other news. Corporate America, though, is proving itself increasingly attentive to Africa as a big new growth story. Big companies, from retail to technology, are approaching Africa as a promising new growth frontier. Many are already investing heavily there."

Money, influence, the GOP and easy entree to the White House

Aahh, politics America-style, at its best.   Money, influence and how to gain access to the White House.    And yes, Obama, is really no different to Romney in accepting funds from......no less than Romney's old firm, Bain Capital.     Glenn Greenwald, writing in Salon, reveals the facts.

"We all know that Bain Capital, Mitt Romney’s former firm, is the paragon of capitalist evil, destroying the middle class in order to enrich greedy vulture oligarchs. We also all know that the Democratic Party is the defender of the middle class and the bold adversary of corporate pillaging. That’s why these facts generate so much cognitive dissonance:

Democrats have accepted more political donations than Republicans from executives at Bain Capital, complicating the left’s plan to attack Mitt Romney for his record at the private-equity firm.

During the last three election cycles, Bain employees have given Democratic candidates and party committees more than $1.2 million. The vast majority of that sum came from senior executives.

Republican candidates and party committees raised over $480,000 from senior Bain executives during that time period.

While Romney himself has received more contributions from his former firm than Obama has, “President Obama received a sizable share as well.” More generally, “campaign finance records show that Democrats collect more money from Wall Street than does the GOP.”

Why would these cunning Master of the Universe villains want so robustly to fund a party that is so adverse to their interests? The only coherent answer is that the party which they’re funding is anything but adverse to their interests. From today’s Washington Post, comparing White House visitor logs to lobbyist registration records:

The lobbying industry Obama has vowed to constrain is a regular presence at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. The records also suggest that lobbyists with personal connections to the White House enjoy the easiest access. . . . "

Continue reading, here, to see who gets into the White House, etc.

No Susie, all Israelis are not created equal!

Israel the only democracy in the Middle East?    The much touted claim?   Actually, not all, as this personal, and powerful piece in the IHT Global Opinion so graphically details.

"I’m a Palestinian who was born in the Israeli town of Lod, and thus I am an Israeli citizen. My wife is not; she is a Palestinian from Nablus in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. Despite our towns being just 30 miles apart, we met almost 6,000 miles away in Massachusetts, where we attended neighboring colleges.

A series of walls, checkpoints, settlements and soldiers fill the 30-mile gap between our hometowns, making it more likely for us to have met on the other side of the planet than in our own backyard.

Never is this reality more profound than on our trips home from our current residence outside Washington.

Tel Aviv’s Ben-Gurion International Airport is on the outskirts of Lod (Lydda in Arabic), but because my wife has a Palestinian ID, she cannot fly there; she is relegated to flying to Amman, Jordan. If we plan a trip together — an enjoyable task for most couples — we must prepare for a logistical nightmare that reminds us of our profound inequality before the law at every turn.

Even if we fly together to Amman, we are forced to take different bridges, two hours apart, and endure often humiliating waiting and questioning just to cross into Israel and the West Bank. The laws conspire to separate us.

If we lived in the region, I would have to forgo my residency, since Israeli law prevents my wife from living with me in Israel. This is to prevent what Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once referred to as “demographic spillover.” Additional Palestinian babies in Israel are considered “demographic threats” by a state constantly battling to keep a Jewish majority. (Of course, Israelis who marry Americans or any non-Palestinian foreigners are not subjected to this treatment.)

Last week marked Israel’s 64th year of independence; it is also when Palestinians commemorate the Nakba, or “catastrophe,” during which many of Palestine’s native inhabitants were turned into refugees.

In 1948, the Israeli brigade commander Yitzhak Rabin helped expel Lydda’s Palestinian population. Some 19,000 of the town’s 20,000 native Palestinian inhabitants were forced out. My grandparents were among the 1,000 to remain.

They were fortunate to become only internally displaced and not refugees. Years later my grandfather was able to buy back his own home — a cruel absurdity, but a better fate than that imposed on most of his neighbors, who were never permitted to re-establish their lives in their hometowns.

Three decades later, in October 1979, this newspaper reported that Israel barred Rabin from detailing in his memoir what he conceded was the “expulsion” of the “civilian population of Lod and Ramle, numbering some 50,000.” Rabin, who by then had served as prime minister, sought to describe how “it was essential to drive the inhabitants out.”

Two generations after the Nakba, the effect of discriminatory Israeli policies still reverberates. Israel still seeks to safeguard its image by claiming to be a bastion of democracy that treats its Palestinian citizens well, all the while continuing illiberal policies that target this very population. There is a long history of such discrimination.

In the 1950s new laws permitted the state to take control over Palestinians’ land by classifying them “absentees.” Of course, it was the state that made them absentees by either preventing refugees from returning to Israel or barring internally displaced Palestinians from having access to their land. This last group was ironically termed “present absentees” — able to see their land but not to reach it because of military restrictions that ultimately resulted in their watching the state confiscate it. Until 1966, Palestinian citizens were governed under martial law.

Today, a Jew from any country can move to Israel, while a Palestinian refugee, with a valid claim to property in Israel, cannot. And although Palestinians make up about 20 percent of Israel’s population, the 2012 budget allocates less than 7 percent for Palestinian citizens."

Watching Fox News makes one stupider

Fox News "operates" under the banner or tag "Fair and Balance".    It is neither of course.   Worse still, the channel is one-sided and has such an extreme GOP-type agenda that it can be fairly said that it doesn't even really present news to the viewing public.

Now, a study has concluded that watching Fox News makes one stupider.   Not surprise there!

"......And that is only partially because it claims to be “Fair and Balanced” when it is neither.

Rather, it is because it fails the fundamental test of journalism: are you informing your audience? According to a new study by Farleigh Dickinson University, Fox viewers are the least knowledgeable audience of any outlet, and they know even less about politics and current events than people who watch no news at all.

Respondents to the survey were able to answer correctly an average of 1.8 of 4 questions about international news and 1.6 out of 5 questions about domestic affairs. “Based on these results, people who don’t watch any news at all are expected to answer correctly on average 1.22 of the questions about domestic politics, just by guessing or relying on existing basic knowledge,” said Dan Cassino, the poll’s analyst.

“The study concludes that media sources have a significant impact on the number of questions that people were able to answer correctly,” wrote Cassino and his colleagues. “The largest effect is that of Fox News: all else being equal, someone who watched only Fox News would be expected to answer just 1.04 domestic questions correctly—a figure which is significantly worse than if they had reported watching no media at all. On the other hand, if they listened only to NPR, they would be expected to answer 1.51 questions correctly.”

Wake up America! Reflections post a Global Conference

Stephen Walt, professor of International Relations at Harvard, was an attendee and participant at the recently held Istanbul Political World Forum.  In his latest blog-posting on FP he reflects on the Conference.   As he himself notes American officials should wake up and take note of how America is viewed in the changing world.

"One of the more vivid impressions I took from the conference was the prevailing wariness -- if not outright suspicion -- with which the United States was viewed by many of the attendees. Virtually any statement that cast even mild doubt about U.S. policy (on Iran, Middle East peace, past interventions, Iraq, etc.) drew spontaneous approval from the audience, even if the statements weren't especially provocative, penetrating, or anti-American. For example, in the panel on a possible war with Iran, I suggested that if the U.S. wanted to dissuade Iran from building nuclear weapons, it might make sense to stop threatening Tehran with regime change. The audience immediately burst into loud applause. Similar statements by journalist and professor Stephen Kinzer and Juergen Chrobog of the BMW Stiftung Herbert Quandt elicited much the same response. And most of the questions (or diatribes) from the audience were either explicitly or implicitly critical of the U.S. position. I had a similar experience in my other panel as well.

I wish some U.S. government officials had been there to observe this phenomenon, because it drove home to me the degree to which U.S. policy is regarded by many is inherently myopic, selfish, and illegitimate. (And the positive bump produced by Obama's election in 2008 is long gone). It's not a deep hatred of Americans themselves, but rather a simmering resentment of America's global role. And I think many Americans just don't get this, especially when they spend all their time talking to their counterparts (i.e., the global 1 percent) in other countries."

****

"Adding it all up, I'd argue that we are witnessing an important shift in world politics whose broader implications are worrisome for the United States. Political participation is broadening and deepening in more and more countries, and even if the results fall far short of some ideal vision of democracy (let alone the imperfect U.S. version of that ideal), these states are going to be increasingly sensitive to popular sentiment. Unfortunately, U.S. policy towards many parts of the world has depended more on cushy deals with oligarchs, dictators, and plutocrats, and past U.S. actions (most of them undertaken for various Cold War/anti-communist reasons) have left a toxic legacy that most Americans do not fully appreciate. Add to that our frequent resort to military force since the Cold War ended, our enthusiastic use of sanctions despite the human costs to ordinary citizens, and our insistence that there are really two sets of rules in world politics (the U.S. can violate other states' sovereignty whenever we want, but weaker states who object to this get demonized and/or threatened with more of the same). The result is a world where many people would like to take us down several pegs, and where it can be costly for political leaders to be openly supportive of U.S. initiatives (see under: Pakistan).

America is still very powerful, and plenty of governments still understand that some of our strategic interests overlap. But we're entering a world were fewer and fewer governments are going to be reflexively deferential to the United States, for the simple reason that they pay attention to popular sentiment and their own national interests aren't in fact identical to ours. If we expect governments in these countries to be as supine as some of their predecessors, we had better get used to disappointment. What will be needed is a lot more nuance, flexibility, and diplomatic skill, as well as a greater sense of humility and restraint. I only hope that we are better at displaying these qualities in the future than we've been in the recent past."

Possible retrograde step for women in Egypt

Whilst women were so much in the forefront in the Arab Spring protests in Egypt last year, the outlook for them in the upcoming election is far from rosy.  In fact it could see a substantial retrograde step and position for them.   The Washington Post reports.

"After Egyptian women stood shoulder to shoulder with men in the protests that toppled Hosni Mubarak, many looked forward to a role in the revolution’s next steps. But 15 months later, as Egyptians prepare to vote for a new president this week, rights activists complain that women are being excluded from key decisions.

“At the time of the revolution, women were needed to fill out the numbers,” said Hoda Badran, head of the Egyptian Feminist Union, which was banned under Mubarak but reinstated last year. “Now, the decision-makers don’t need women, and we’re back to this idea that femininity is inferior and masculinity superior.”

Women in Egypt are turning to graffiti as they demand more rights and freedoms and try to change the traditional perception of women there.

Women hold just over 2 percent of the seats in Egypt’s new parliament, down from about 12 percent in the last elections held under Mubarak. The sharp decline followed the elimination of a quota to ensure women’s representation, which had been seen by many as a way to stack the body with members of Mubarak’s political party.

Military rulers did not include any women in the committee that wrote constitutional amendments adopted in a nationwide referendum last year. And there are no women among the 13 candidates who will be on the ballot Wednesday, when voting begins in the country’s first post-Mubarak presidential election."

****

"But the Islamist-dominated parliament is discussing several proposals that could change women’s status here. They include lowering the legal age of marriage for girls from 18 to 13 and revoking divorced mothers’ custody of their boys at age 7 and girls at 9, rather than at 15, a move that would be in accordance with a strict interpretation of Islamic law."

United Kingdom: Forget about social mobility

Let it not be said that the revelations in the UK of the lack of social mobility, and the stark disparity between the poor and those reasonably well off, isn't only scandalous but rife for wide protests by the so-called 1%.    There can be little doubt that the same situation can be replicated in many other countries.

"There is a "stark gap" between the life chances of the poorest and the better-off in Britain, the Government will admit today, as it publishes alarming research that reveals how wide that gulf is.

The study, to be unveiled by Nick Clegg, shows that:

• l One child in five is on free school meals, but only one in 100 Oxbridge entrants is.

• l Only 7 per cent of children attend private schools, but these schools provide 70 per cent of High Court judges and 54 per cent of FTSE 100 chief executives.

• l One in five children from poorer homes achieves five good GCSEs, compared with three out of four from affluent homes."

Treaties the USA ought to ratify.....but doesn't

Yet another example of the USA "lecturing" the rest of the world about freedoms and rights of citizens that they must pursue to be truly democratic......but doesn't itself ratify treaties which do safeguard human rights and the like.     FP reports:

"The Obama administration, this month, decided to take up the fairly unrewarding task of pushing for the ratification of the U.N. Convention on the Law of the Sea. In a piece for FP today, James Kraska explains why ratification is long overdue. The treaty, which lays out rules for both military use of the seas and extraction of resources, went into effect in 1994, has been accepted by 161 nations, and was supported by both the Clinton and Bush administrations as well as U.S. Naval commanders. However it will still face a tough fight in Congress where many lawmakers feel it would constitute an unwarranted intrusion on U.S. sovereignty.

But the Law of the Sea is hardly the only major international agreement waiting for either a U.S. signature, or for Congress to approve ratification. Here's a quick look at a few of the other international treaties and conventions where the United States is conspicuous by its absence:

Convention on the Rights of the Child

Entered into force in 1990, signed by U.S. in 1995

Number of states parties: 193 (Fellow non-ratifiers: Somalia, South Sudan*)

Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women

Signed by U.S. in 1980, entered into force in 1981

Number of states parties: 187 (Fellow non-ratifiers: Palau, Iran, Somalia, Sudan, South Sudan, Tonga)

Mine Ban Treaty

Entered into force in 1999, never signed by U.S.

Number of states parties:159

Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities

Entered into force in 2008, signed by U.S. in 2009.

Number of states parties: 112

Convention on Cluster Munitions

Entered into force in 2010, never signed by U.S.

States parties: 71

Optional Protocol to the Convention against Torture

Entered into force in 2006, never signed by U.S.

Number of states parties: 63

International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance

Entered into force in 2010, never signed by U.S.

Number of states parties: 32 (91 have signed)

One could, of course, make the case that the fact that countries like Iran, North Korea, and Belarus have ratified many of these treaties suggests they don't actually accomplish very much. On the other hand, it doesn't look very good that the United States is considered a likely no vote when it comes to new human rights treaties, and at this point there's enough evidence from other states parties to suggest that ratifying an agreement on say, the rights of children, won't lead to U.N. bureaucrats telling parents how to raise their kids.

*In fairness to South Sudan, it has only been a country for about 10 months.