Terror reigns on Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier
May 23rd, 2010 § 1 Comment
by Rustam Shah Mohmand
The devastation could not be more heartbreaking. From one end to the other, the whole tribal area presents the spectacle of a war zone. Houses blown up, villages decimated, infrastructure no more.
Add Dir, Buner and Swat to that. Vast swaths are in ruins in Maidan, in the Dir region. Whole villages in Buner have disappeared. Matta and the adjoining areas in Swat present a picture of a powerful cyclone having devastated the whole area.
Between Khar and Nawagai, in what once was a most fertile area, villages on both sides of the road have been razed to the ground.
Many of the returning IDPs of Bajaur and Dir could not determine where their villages had once stood, to say nothing of their homes. They had to make return journeys to their camps.
In Qaudahari, in the Safi area of Mohmand, the situation is no better. The wreckage of a war is everywhere, with houses and villages having ceased to exist.
Bara, in Khyber Agency, an area once administered by an Assistant Political Agent, presents the picture of a ghost town.
Tariq Ali LSE Arts Lecture
May 22nd, 2010 § 1 Comment
Tariq Ali (Photo: Steve Forrest/Insight-Visual )
Tariq Ali’s May 11th public lecture at the London School of Economics where he discusses his Islam Quintet, a collection of 5 historical novels focused on relationships between Islamic and Christian civilizations in Europe which challenge common negative stereotypes that continue to perpetuate about Islam today.
The concluding Night of the Golden Butterfly was released just this month.
For information on the first four books, check out this 2006 interview in the Socialist Review.
Alleged Death Flight Pilot Fights Charges with Legal Tools Denied to Victims of Argentina’s Dirty War
May 22nd, 2010 § 1 Comment
Julio Alberto Poch, whose career progressed from death flights to commercial flights. (Photo: El País)
by Kurt Fernández
BUENOS AIRES—Julio Alberto Poch, the former Argentine naval pilot being held on charges that he flew hundreds of “vuelos de la muerte” or death flights during the 1976-83 military dictatorship, appeared relaxed as he walked into federal court in Buenos Aires on May 20.
Poch was recently extradited from Spain in a sequence of events that began after alarmed colleagues at the Dutch airline Transavia.com testified to an Argentine federal judge that Poch, an airline employee, had bragged about such feats as having piloted planes that disposed of leftist terrorists during Argentina’s “Guerra Sucia,” or Dirty War.
In an affirmation of the rule of law—and in stark contrast to the conditions in which many victims of the Dirty War were “brought to justice”—Poch was neither hooded nor in leg irons nor naked nor drugged as he stepped from the fourth floor elevator at the federal judicial building in Buenos Aires’ Retiro neighborhood.
Brazil Slams US Approach to Iran
May 21st, 2010 § Leave a Comment
For background, check out Teymoor Nabili’s recent post on Al Jazeera’s blog section.
Politician’s Disappearance Raises Questions About Mexico’s Security Strategy
May 20th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by Kristin Bricker
A shorter version of this article appears on the Security Sector Reform Centre’s blog.
The presumed kidnapping of Diego “The Boss” Fernández de Cevallos, one of Mexico’s most powerful politicians, has put Mexico’s security crisis in the international spotlight yet again.
The Mexican government hasn’t officially classified de Cevallos’ disappearance as a kidnapping. However, the fact that his car was found abandoned on his ranch with traces of blood and signs of struggle has lead his family to plea that his “captors” make contact in order to negotiate his release. At the time of writing, it is unknown if de Cevallos is alive or dead.
The crime itself isn’t shocking—kidnappings are all-too-common in Mexico. Nor would de Cevallos be the first politician to fall victim to violent crime—several local politicians have been killed or attacked in recent weeks as the country prepares for interim elections. What sets this crime apart from others is that the victim is one of the most powerful men in Mexico.
« Read the rest of this entry »
The Only Democracy in the Middle East: 15-22.5.10
May 20th, 2010 § 3 Comments
After the Israeli soldiers arrested the reporter, they used this incendiary device to start a fire. (Photography by Edo Medicks, http://bit.ly/959T8h
In Bil’in, the villagers tried yet another creative attempt at ending apartheid, dressing up as the assassinated Naji al-Ali’s Handala and carrying the symbolic 1948 key.
The army, like a well oiled machine, attacked with chemical warfare, invaded the village to abduct an Al-Arabiya reporter, using a smoke screen canister that spits fire as well.
Fires sparked due to the combination of Middle Eastern heat and ammunition. About 20 olive trees were lost, as it took the fire truck about an hour to arrive and the army had to be begged to stop gassing us, so we could approach the burning areas. Video clips after the fold.
Jeff Halper on Talking Stick TV
May 20th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Cofounder of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions Jeff Halper’s recent interview on Talking Stick TV.
Thomas Friedman reports progress in Mexican baby names
May 19th, 2010 § 6 Comments
Havana hotel where foreign affairs columnists can afford room service but not Russian breakfast.
In the mid 1990s, before the responsibilities of The New York Times Foreign Affairs columnist were largely reduced to complaining about the deficiencies of the Arab/Muslim world, Thomas Friedman used to write with more frequency about things like Mexico.
In fact, one of the landmarks of Friedman’s journalism career occurs in a 1995 article that begins with “Ricarda Martinez, a 60-year-old Mexican peasant living in a tumbledown shack on the edge of Mexico City,” whom he describes as “peeling cactus from her garden” while denying awareness of “dollar-linked peso bonds, George Soros or Merrill Lynch’s emerging markets fund.” This is one of the rare historical instances in which Friedman identifies and interacts with someone who is not a CEO, politician, “Middle East expert Stephen P. Cohen,” or “Johns Hopkins foreign policy expert Michael Mandelbaum.”
Drill Baby Drill, Spill Baby Spill
May 18th, 2010 § 1 Comment
Drones and Democracy
May 18th, 2010 § Leave a Comment
by Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier
Islamabad: On May 12th, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes.
One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, General Secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very difficult circumstances in the area, pressured by both militant groups and the Pakistani government. Six of his colleagues have been killed while reporting in North and South Waziristan. The other man, who asked us not to disclose his name, is from Miranshah city, the epicenter of North Waziristan. He works with the locally based Waziristan Relief Agency, a group of people committed to helping the victims of drone attacks and military actions. “If people need blood or medicine or have to go to Peshawar or some other hospital,” said the social worker, “I’m known for helping them. I also try to arrange funds and contributions.”
