Obama Team Debates Stance on Israeli Attack Threat

And another excellent analysis of the US-Israel-Iran triangle and the machinations within the new Obama administration concerning a possible Israeli ‘pre-emptive’ strike against Iran by Jim Lobe and Gareth Porter

A recent statement by the chief of the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), Gen. David Petraeus, that Israel may decide to attack Iranian nuclear sites has been followed by indications of a debate within the Barack Obama administration on whether Israel’s repeated threats to carry out such a strike should be used to gain leverage in future negotiations with Tehran.

In the latest twist, Vice President Joseph Biden, who has been put in charge of the administration’s non-proliferation agenda, appeared to reject the idea. “I don’t believe that Prime Minister Netanyahu would [launch a strike],” he told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Tuesday. “I think he would be ill-advised to do that.”
Continue reading “Obama Team Debates Stance on Israeli Attack Threat”

PERU: Where the Poor Pay More for Water

On a slightly different note, Ángel Páez of IPS reports about the shocking state of water distribution in Peru. Not only do 8 million people (out of a population of 28 million) lack access to piped water but the inhabitants of the capital’s slums pay almost 8 times more than Lima’s super-rich elite for access to clean water.

In Lomas de Manchay, an area of slum-covered hills outside of the Peruvian capital that is home to 50,000 people, mainly poor indigenous migrants from the highlands, clean
water is worth gold – almost literally.

Local residents of the shantytown pay 3.22 dollars per cubic metre of water, compared to just 45 cents of a dollar that is paid a few blocks away, across the main avenue, in Rinconada del Lago, one of Lima’s most exclusive neighbourhoods.


Continue reading “PERU: Where the Poor Pay More for Water”

Spain Investigates What America Should

The end of impunity? Marjorie Cohn reports about criminal proceedings initiated by a Spanish court against John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith.

A Spanish court has initiated criminal proceedings against six former officials of the Bush administration. John Yoo, Jay Bybee, David Addington, Alberto Gonzales, William Haynes and Douglas Feith may face charges in Spain for authorizing torture at Guantánamo Bay.

If arrest warrants are issued, Spain and any of the other 24 countries that are parties to European extradition conventions could arrest these six men when they travel abroad.
Continue reading “Spain Investigates What America Should”

The IMF Rules the World

Michael Hudson writes that “in a nutshell, the solution to a debt crisis is to be yet more debt. If debtors can’t pay out of what they are able to earn, lend them enough to keep current on their carrying charges. Collateralize this with their property, their public domain, their political autonomy – their democracy itself.”

Not much substantive news was expected to come out of the G-20 meetings that ended on April 2 in London – certainly no good news was even suggested. Europe, China and the United States had too deeply distinct interests. American diplomats wanted to lock foreign countries into further dependency on paper dollars. The rest of the world sought a way to avoid giving up real output and ownership of their resources and enterprises for yet more hot-potato dollars. In such cases one expects a parade of smiling faces and statements of mutual respect for each others’ position – so much respect that they have agreed to set up a “study group” or two to kick the diplomatic ball down the road.

Continue reading “The IMF Rules the World”

Noam Chomsky on the Economy and Democracy

Continue reading “Noam Chomsky on the Economy and Democracy”

A Relaxing Place, So Calm and Beautiful

Bimb-ho
Miss Universe: Proof that there is life on Mars.

No, I am not talking about Shangri-La. That is Miss Universe Dayana Mendoza describing Guantanamo Bay prison, where she apparently also met ‘military dogs’ who performed ‘a very nice demonstration of their skills’. Claire Soares reports.  

Wishing for world peace is so passe; nowadays, Miss Universe can be found blogging about Guantanamo Bay.

“I didn’t want to leave, it was such a relaxing place, so calm and beautiful,” Dayana Mendoza gushed at the end of a five-day trip. It may not be a sentiment that Binyam Mohamed would share about his time at the US base in Cuba, but then he wasn’t buying souvenir necklaces to take home at the end of his four years of incarceration.

Ms Mendoza, a Venezuelan model, was crowned Miss Universe last summer. Since then, she has clocked up stops in Indonesia, Spain, the Bahamas and Puerto Rico. “This week, Guantanamo!!!” she trumpeted on her blog.

Her visit to the base was designed as a morale-boosting treat for troops. “The first thing we did was attend a big lunch, and then we visited one of the bars they have in the base. We talked about Gitmo and what it was like living there,” wrote Ms Mendoza.

Continue reading “A Relaxing Place, So Calm and Beautiful”

De Menezes taught the Met nothing

Duncan Campbell argues that footage of the police assaulting the late Ian Tomlinson, a bystander at the G20 protests, suggests we should be rather less trusting of power. The incident exposes the docile complicity of the mainstream British media.

The last thing either the government or the Metropolitan police wanted, on the day that Britain played host to the G20 leaders last week, was a death during the demonstrations being staged simultaneously in the City of London. So perhaps it should be no surprise that initially the fate of Ian Tomlinson, the man who died in the midst of the main protest close to the Bank of England, was barely noted.

Continue reading “De Menezes taught the Met nothing”

Israel created ‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza

More evidence of Israel’s state terrorism comes to light. Following charges of war crimes by Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the Guardian’s own investigative team, a new report commissioned by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society accuses Israel of  “creating terror without mercy to anyone” and “terrorising the population.” Here’s a rather bland summary of the report by the Guardian’s Rory McCarthy:

The Israeli military attacked civilians and medics and delayed – sometimes for hours – the evacuation of the injured during the January war in Gaza, according to an independent fact-finding mission commissioned by Israeli and Palestinian medical human rights groups.

Physicians for Human Rights-Israel and the Palestinian Medical Relief Society yesterday said their findings showed Israel’s military committed serious violations of international humanitarian law. In their 92-page report, compiled by five senior health experts from across the world, they documented several specific attacks, with interviews from 44 separate witnesses.

Continue reading “Israel created ‘terror without mercy’ in Gaza”

Focus on Gaza – Legacy of war

Focus on Gaza takes a closer look at one deadly legacy of the war on Gaza – unexploded munitions. Plus, we examine the obstacles facing young Gazans as they attempt to pursue an education.

Continue reading “Focus on Gaza – Legacy of war”

Paris liberation made ‘whites only’

‘Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a “whites only” victory,’ writes Mike Thomson. Yes, that was the ‘good war’ that allegedly defeated institutionalized racism.

French troops march through Paris, 18 June 1945, pic credit: Eric Deroo
Many of the “French” division which led the liberation of Paris were Spanis

Papers unearthed by the BBC reveal that British and American commanders ensured that the liberation of Paris on 25 August 1944 was seen as a “whites only” victory.

Many who fought Nazi Germany during World War II did so to defeat the vicious racism that left millions of Jews dead.

Yet the BBC’s Document programme has seen evidence that black colonial soldiers – who made up around two-thirds of Free French forces – were deliberately removed from the unit that led the Allied advance into the French capital.

By the time France fell in June 1940, 17,000 of its black, mainly West African colonial troops, known as the Tirailleurs Senegalais, lay dead.

Many of them were simply shot where they stood soon after surrendering to German troops who often regarded them as sub-human savages.

Their chance for revenge came in August 1944 as Allied troops prepared to retake Paris. But despite their overwhelming numbers, they were not to get it.

Continue reading “Paris liberation made ‘whites only’”