Global Research

In the lead-up to COP21, a hundred French and international personalities are signing an appeal on Mediapart, entitled :

 “Let’s leave the fossil fuels in the ground. That’s how to put an end to climate crimes”.

And we, simple citizens, are invited to sign too. One would like to be able to sign, but alas, the text is not suitable : not because of what it says, which is generally true, but because of what it doesn’t say and which immediately casts great doubt on the rest. For to say half a truth and omit the other half is not truth-telling.

This appeal says rightly that we must take now the urgent measures that will – perhaps – put a stop to global warming and climate disruption in time to prevent the planet from becoming uninhabitable, and that failure will amount to « ecocide… doing violence to all living beings, ecosystems and societies, and threatening the rights of future generations ». But to continue the production and consumption of nuclear energy, what is that if not an « ecocide… doing violence to all living beings, ecosystems and societies, and threatening the rights of future generations » ? Failure to say a word about this is not at all insignificant. It amounts to tacit preference for one ecocide over another, denouncing the first and accepting the second. Even if that is not being done deliberately.

The appeal actually declares : « We know that multinationals and governments will not easily abandon the profits they draw from extracting reserves of coal, gas and oil or from globalised industrial agriculture greedy for fossil energy ». According to this appeal, there are therefore three sources of fossil fuel to be banned : coal, gas and oil. A more prudent appeal, that of the NGOs issued last June on Mediapart, expressed a wish to « ban all new projects involving polluting energies and thus guarantee that access to clean inexpensive and secure energy becomes a public good», without citing any particular energy source, but in fact excluding nuclear energy, which is not clean or inexpensive or secure. Why then, in this new personalities’ appeal, is not uranium extraction cited among the « reserves » from which certain multinationals (AREVA for example) and certain governments (such as France) seek – with greater or lesser success, admittedly – to « draw profits from» ?

Is that because they view uranium as a mineral and not a « fossil fuel » ? Is it just a semantic concern, a mere question of definition ?

Let’s look closer. What do we describe as « fossil » ? The Larousse online dictionary says : « things in the state of fossils ». Enlightening, eh ? But fossils ? There it says « debris or print of a plant or animal buried in rocky strata before the current geological period and conserved there». That definition is unchanged since the printed Larousse Encyclopedia (1962, vol. 5).

Coal, gas and oil do not bear the print of plants and animals, and they cannot be called « debris » either, even if they derive from plants. Obviously that’s not what makes people call them « fossil ». So in what other sense ?

Simply the first sense of the word « fossil », if we refer this time to the “Online Dictionary” (and also to “Reverso”) : « what is extracted or sourced from inside the earth ». This meaning matches the etymology indicated by Larousse : « from the latin fossilis, drawn out of the earth. »

So the « fossil fuels » are called « fossil » not because they result from the decomposition of plants, but because they are produced from materials extracted from the ground – where they exist in limited quantities« unlike renewable energies » as the online Larousse puts it. This is a definition that fits nuclear energy, so long as it depends on the extraction and treatment of uranium ore. The fact that the « natural uranium » in the ore is then enriched (into Uranium 235), whereas crude oil is refined, makes no difference. We must therefore say once and for all, to stop the cunning tricks of the nucleocrats : nuclear energy is not only fissile, it is also fossil. It forms part of the fossil energies, drawn out of the ground and exhaustible. It should be named every time anyone lists the « fossil energies».

Having solved this question of vocabulary, how can we explain the favorable treatment given to nuclear energy ? It is certainly a favor to omit it from listings of the « fossil energies » being pilloried for their nasty effects on climate.

Here too, we must point to the clever propaganda of the nucleocrats, who are even rash enough to claim that « nuclear energy is good for the climate». In reality, nuclear energy, viewed merely from the perspective of climate, shares all the defects of the other fossil fuels.

It is non-renewable, as we have just said. At the current rate of extraction and consumption, the known reserves of uranium will be exhausted roughly as soon as the reserves of crude oil, maybe before. And the collapse would occur even sooner if the number of nuclear power-plants grows through the proliferating actions of the nucleocrats.

The growing rarity of its fuel means that nuclear energy will merely compound the « oil wars » by creating « uranium wars », which have already started in Africa, notably in the form of terrorism.

Nuclear energy exploits the countries of extraction (for example AREVA in Niger). maintaining a neocolonial system and endangering the health of the local populations.

It pollutes even more seriously than the other fossil energies do. The inhabitants of Pripiat and Fukushima, the 600 000 liquidators of Chernobyl (or their survivors), the thousands of cancer victims, non-smoking and not exposed to pesticides, the victims of nuclear tests after those of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, to mention only the best-known victims – all those people can testify to that.

Finally and above all, nuclear energy contributes also to global warming :

 directly, by heating the atmosphere through the plumes of steam that rise continuously from the « cooling towers » which are indeed « climate warming towers », and by putting into waterways or the ocean its cooling water which heats the climate ;
 indirectly, by using other fossil energies that produce greenhouse gases, in all the activities involved in the building and fuelling the plants, all the way from the mine to the « treatment » plant.

These are common faults of fossil energies, to which nuclear energy adds at least three of its own :

 Its effects are, like radioactivity, invisible, inaudible, odourless, tasteless, in short, undetectible except by special devices, and therefore much harder to avoid… and harder to inculpate after they have affected people’s health (as was learnt bitterly by the civilian and military victims of France’s nuclear tests) ;

 Its deadly effects are almost eternal (half-life of plutonium : 240 000 years ; half-life of uranium 238 : 4,5 billion years), which means that the radioactive pollution adding to that of greenhouse gases is impossible to pin down in space and also in time ;

– last but not least, its fuel is usable and is indeed used to make weapons of mass destruction (16 000 currently in existence), which permanently threaten to explode the planet.

All the same, let’s recognise one advantage that nuclear has over the other fossil energies : although the particular ecocide it causes is more insidious than climate ecocide, the wholesale death that it threatens us with will be much more brutal than that of global warming.

Whether by multiplying Chernobyls and Fukushimas (in France most likely), nuclear energy will save us from having to combat climatic ecocide, since there will be very few people left to suffer from it.

But that should not stop us from thinking and saying out loud that no, no, no, to propagate nuclear cholera is not the way to treat the climate plague.

The signatories of the Appeal « Let’s leave the fossil fuels in the ground. That’s how to put an end to climate crimes» would be well advised to say so too. By publishing, why not, an extra codicil to their appeal.

Jean-Marie Matagne
President of ACDN (Action des Citoyens pour le Désarmement Nucléaire)
Acteur (de base) d’Alternatiba

Today’s selected articles brought to you by Global Research focus on the impacts of state sponsored social and financial engineering: law enforcement, urban transformation, the control  and manipulation of the news chain,  the demise of pension funds, the abolition of cash.  

SELECTED ARTICLES

First US State Approves Drones with Rubber Bullets, Tasers, Pepper Spray, Tear Gas, Sound Cannons for Domestic Use

By Robert Barsocchini, August 28, 2015

Looting Made Easy: the $2 Trillion Buyback Binge

By Mike Whitney, August 28, 2015

The Financial Times has published an anonymous article which calls for the abolition of cash in order to give central banks and governments more power.

Entitled The case for retiring another ‘barbarous relic’, the article laments the fact that people are stockpiling cash in anticipation of another economic collapse, a factor which is causing, “a lot of distortion to the economic system.”

“The existence of cash — a bearer instrument with a zero interest rate — limits central banks’ ability to stimulate a depressed economy. The worry is that people will change their deposits for cash if a central bank moves rates into negative territory,” states the article.

Complaining that cash cannot be tracked and traced, the writer argues that its abolition would, “make life easier for a government set on squeezing the informal economy out of existence.”

Abolishing cash would also give governments more power to lift taxes directly from people’s bank accounts, the author argues, noting how “Value added tax, for example, could be automatically levied — and reimbursed — in real time on transactions between liable bank accounts.”

The writer also calls for punishing people who use cash by making users “pay for the privilege of anonymity” so they will, “remain affected by monetary policy.” Dated bank notes would lose their value over time, while people would also be charged by banks for swapping electronic reserves for physical cash and vice versa.

The article echoes an argument made by Kenneth Rogoff, former chief economist of the International Monetary Fund, who has called for high denomination banks notes such as the €100 and €500 notes to be phased out of existence.

As we previously reported, Rogoff attended a meeting in London earlier this year where he met representatives from the Federal Reserve, the ECB as well as participants from the Swiss and Danish central banks. The issue of banning cash was at the forefront of the agenda.

Last year, Rogoff also called for “abolishing physical currency” in order to stop “tax evasion and illegal activity” as well as preventing people from withdrawing money when interest rates are close to zero.

The agenda to ban cash was also discussed at this year’s secretive Bilderberg Group meeting, which wasattended by the Financial Times’ chief economics commentator Martin Wolf.

Former Bank of England economist Jim Leaviss penned an article for the London Telegraph earlier this year in which he said a cashless society would only be achieved by “forcing everyone to spend only by electronic means from an account held at a government-run bank,” which would be, “monitored, or even directly controlled by the government.”

In the UK, banks are treating the withdrawal of cash in amounts as low as £5,000 as a suspicious activity, while in France, citizens will be banned from making cash payments over €1,000 euros from Tuesday onwards. The withdrawal and deposit of cash over the amount of €1,000 euros will also be subject to ID verification.

“There is no more egregious anti-liberty economic policy imaginable than banning cash,” writes Michael Krieger.

“Of course, if cash were involuntarily “ended,” there would be a surge in demand for physical gold and silver, which would then necessitate a ban on those items. Then the cycle of economic and financial tyranny would be complete, and crawling our way out of it, nearly impossible.”

Subscribe to Paul Joseph Watson’s Youtube page:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PrisonPlanetLive

The US repeatedly asked Norway to detain and deport whistleblower Edward Snowden if he tried to enter its territory in the aftermath of his leaks on mass US global surveillance, Norwegian media revealed citing formal requests.

Protegidos pelo blecaute político-midiático, estão descendo na Europa enxames de paraquedistas em pé de guerra. Trata-se da “Swift Response” (Resposta Rápida), “o maior exercício militar da Otan de forças aerotransportadas, cerca de cinco mil homens, desde o fim da guerra fria”.

Realiza-se de 17 de agosto a 13 de setembro na Itália, Alemanha, Bulgária e Romênia, com a participação também de tropas estadunidenses, britânicas, francesas, gregas, holandesas, polonesas, espanholas e portuguesas. Naturalmente, confirma um comunicado oficial, sob a “direção do exército dos Estados Unidos”.

Para a “Resposta Rápida”, o exército dos Estados Unidos” emprega, pela primeira vez na Europa depois da guerra contra a Iugoslávia em 1999, a 82ª Divisão aerotransportada, incluindo a 173ª Brigada baseada em Vicenza (Itália). A mesma que treina desde abril, na Ucrânia, os batalhões da guarda nacional de clara composição neonazista, subordinada ao Ministério do Interior e que agora, depois de um exercício com fogo realizado na Ucrânia em seis de agosto, começa a treinar também as forças armadas “regulares” de Kíev”.

A “Swift Response” foi precedida em agosto pelo exercício militar bilateral EUA-Lituânia “Uhlan Fury”, acompanhado por um semelhante na Polônia e pela denominada “Allied Spirit”, realizado na Alemanha, sempre sob o comando estadunidense, com a participação de tropas italianas, georgianas e até mesmo sérvias. E, pouco depois da “Swift Response”, se desenvolverá de três de outubro a seis de novembro uma das maiores manobras militares da Otan, a “Trident Juncture 2015”, que mobilizará sobretudo na Itália, Espanha e em Portugal forças armadas de mais de 30 países aliados e parceiros, com 36 mil homens, mais de 60 navios e 10 aviões.

Quem explica o escopo dessas manobras militares da Otan sob o comando dos Estados Unidos, que se desenvolvem doravante sem interrupção na Europa, é o novo chefe do estado maior do exército dos Estados Unidos, o general Mark Mil­ley. Depois de ter definido a Rússia como uma “ameaça existencial porque é o único país do mundo com uma capacidade nuclear no nível de destruir os Estados Unidos” (audiência no Senado em 21 de julho), no seu discurso de posse (14 de agosto) declarou: “A guerra, o ato político com o qual uma parte tenta impor a sua vontade a outra, se decide sobre um terreno em que as pessoas vivem. E é sobre esse terreno que o exército dos Estados Unidos, o mais bem armado e treinado do mundo, não deve jamais fracassar”. O “terreno” de onde são lançadas as operações dos Estados Unidos e da Otan para o Leste e o Sul, mais uma vez, é o europeu. No sentido não apenas militar, mas também político.

É emblemático o fato de que a UniãoEuropeia como tal participa da “Trident Juncture 2015” (com um silêncio político geral). Não é de espantar, uma vez que 22 dos 28 países da União Europeia são membros da Otan e o artigo 42 do Tratado sobre a União Europeia reconhece o seu direito de realizar “a defesa comum por meio da Organização do Tratado do Atlântico Norte”, que (sublinha o protocolo número 10) “continua sendo o fundamento da defesa coletiva da União Europeia”.

A Otan – cujo comandante supremo aliado na Europa é sempre nomeado pelo presidente dos Estados Unidos e cujas demais posições de mando estão nas mãos dos Estados Unidos – serve para manter a União Europeia na esfera de influência estadunidense. As oligarquias europeias tiram vantagem disto, pois em troca da “fidelidade atlântica” de seus países participam na divisão dos lucros e áreas de influência com as estadunidenses. Enquanto isso, os povos europeus são arrastados a uma perigosa e custosa nova guerra fria contra a Rússia e a situações críticas, como a do dramático êxodo de fugitivos provocado pelas guerras dos Estados Unidos e da Otan na Líbia e na Síria.

Manlio Dinucci

 

Fonte:  http://ilmanifesto.info/quei-para-sulle-nostre-teste/

Traduzido do italiano por José Reinaldo Carvalho, para o Blog da Resistência

*Manlio Dinucci é jornalista, geógrafo e cientista político. Escreve regularmente no jornal italiano Il Manifesto

Coperti dal blac­kout politico/mediatico, stanno scen­dendo in Europa nugoli di para­ca­du­ti­sti in pieno assetto di guerra. È la «Swift Response» (Rispo­sta rapida), «la più grande eser­ci­ta­zione Nato di forze avio­tra­spor­tate, circa 5mila uomini, dalla fine della guerra fredda». Si svolge dal 17 ago­sto al 13 set­tem­bre in Ita­lia, Ger­ma­nia, Bul­ga­ria e Roma­nia, con la par­te­ci­pa­zione anche di truppe sta­tu­ni­tensi, bri­tan­ni­che, fran­cesi, gre­che, olan­desi, polac­che, spa­gnole e por­to­ghesi. Natu­ral­mente, con­ferma un comu­ni­cato uffi­ciale, sotto «la dire­zione dello U.S. Army».

Per la «Rispo­sta rapida» lo U.S. Army impiega, per la prima volta in Europa dopo la guerra con­tro la Jugo­sla­via nel 1999, la 82a Divi­sione avio­tra­spor­tata, com­presa la 173a Bri­gata di stanza a Vicenza. Quella che adde­stra da aprile, in Ucraina, i bat­ta­glioni della Guar­dia nazio­nale di chiara com­po­si­zione neo­na­zi­sta, dipen­denti dal Mini­stero degli interni, e che ora, dopo una eser­ci­ta­zone a fuoco effet­tuata sem­pre in Ucraina il 6 ago­sto, ini­zia ad adde­strare anche le forze armate «rego­lari» di Kiev.

La «Swift Response» è stata pre­ce­duta in ago­sto dall’esercitazione bila­te­rale Usa/Lituania «Uhlan Fury», accom­pa­gnata da una ana­loga in Polo­nia, e dalla «Allied Spi­rit» svol­tasi in Ger­ma­nia, sem­pre sotto comando Usa, con la par­te­ci­pa­zione di truppe ita­liane, geor­giane e per­fino serbe. E, poco dopo la «Swift Response», si svol­gerà dal 3 otto­bre al 6 novem­bre una delle più grandi eser­ci­ta­zioni Nato, la «Tri­dent Junc­ture 2015», che vedrà impe­gnate soprat­tutto in Ita­lia, Spa­gna e Por­to­gallo forze armate di oltre 30 paesi alleati e part­ner, con 36 mila uomini, oltre 60 navi e 140 aerei.

Quale sia lo scopo di que­ste eser­ci­ta­zioni Nato sotto comando Usa, che si svol­gono ormai senza inter­ru­zione in Europa, lo spiega il nuovo capo di stato mag­giore dello U.S. Army, il gene­rale Mark Mil­ley. Dopo aver defi­nito la Rus­sia «una minac­cia esi­sten­ziale poi­ché è l’unico paese al mondo con una capa­cità nucleare in grado di distrug­gere gli Stati uniti» (audi­zione al Senato, 21 luglio), nel suo discorso di inse­dia­mento (14 ago­sto) dichiara: «La guerra, l’atto di poli­tica con cui una parte tenta di imporre la sua volontà all’altra, si decide sul ter­reno dove vive la gente. Ed è sul ter­reno che l’esercito degli Stati uniti, il meglio armato e adde­strato del mondo, non deve mai fal­lire». Il «ter­reno» da cui ven­gono lan­ciate le ope­ra­zioni Usa/Nato verso Est e verso Sud, ancora una volta, è quello euro­peo. In senso non solo mili­tare, ma politico.

Emble­ma­tico il fatto che alla «Tri­dent Junc­ture 2015» par­te­cipa (nel silen­zio poli­tico gene­rale) l’Unione euro­pea in quanto tale. Non c’è da stu­pir­sene, dato che 22 dei 28 paesi della Ue sono mem­bri della Nato e l’art. 42 del Trat­tato sull’Unione euro­pea rico­no­sce il loro diritto a rea­liz­zare «la difesa comune tra­mite l’Organizzazione del Trat­tato del Nord Atlan­tico», che (sot­to­li­nea il pro­to­collo n. 10) «resta il fon­da­mento della difesa col­let­tiva della Ue».

La Nato — in cui il Coman­dante supremo alleato in Europa è sem­pre nomi­nato dal pre­si­dente degli Stati uniti e sono in mano agli Usa gli altri comandi chiave — serve a man­te­nere la Ue nella sfera d’influenza sta­tu­ni­tense. Se ne avvan­tag­giano le oli­gar­chie euro­pee, che in cam­bio della «fedeltà atlan­tica» dei loro paesi par­te­ci­pano alla spar­ti­zione di pro­fitti e aree di influenza con quelle sta­tu­ni­tensi. Men­tre i popoli euro­pei sono tra­sci­nati in una peri­co­losa e costosa nuova guerra fredda con­tro la Rus­sia e in situa­zioni cri­ti­che, come quella del dram­ma­tico esodo di pro­fu­ghi pro­vo­cato dalle guerre Usa/Nato in Libia e Siria.

Manlio Dinucci

Corporations are taking the retirement savings of elderly public employees and using them to inflate their stock prices so wealthy CEOs and their shareholders can enrich themselves at the expense of their companies. And it’s all completely legal. Under current financial regulations, corporate bosses are free to repurchase their own company’s shares, push stock prices into the stratosphere, skim off a generous bonuses for themselves in the form of executive compensation, and leave their companies drowning in red ink.

Even worse, a sizable portion of the money devoted to stock buybacks is coming from  “massively underfunded public pension” funds that retired workers depend on for their survival. According to Brian Reynolds, Chief Market Strategist at New Albion Partners,  “Pension funds have to make 7.5%,” so they are putting their money “in these levered credit funds that mimic Long-Term Capital Management in the 1990s.” Those funds, in turn, “buy enormous amounts of corporate bonds from companies which put cash onto company balance sheets…and they use it to jack their stock price up, either through buybacks or mergers and acquisitions…It’s just a daisy chain of financial engineering and it’s probably going to intensify in coming years.”   (“How a Public Pension Crisis Is Driving an Epic Credit Boom“, Financial Sense)

So, once again, ordinary working people are caught in the crosshairs of a corporate scam that could blow up in their faces and leave them without sufficient resources to muddle through their retirement years.

The amount money that’s being funneled into buybacks is simply staggering. According to Dave Dayen at the Intercept:

“Last year, companies spent $553 billion to repurchase outstanding shares, just short of the record $589.1 billion in 2007. Large companies like Apple, General Motors, McDonald’s, Pfizer, Microsoft and more have engaged in buybacks in recent years.

Returning profits to shareholders through buybacks and dividends accounted for 95 percent of all earnings in 2014. As a result, each additional dollar of corporate earnings now translates to under 10 cents of reinvestment, according to a study by J.W. Mason of the Roosevelt Institute.”

(“SEC Admits It’s Not Monitoring Stock Buybacks to Prevent Market Manipulation“, Dave Dayen, Intercept)

This explains why business investment (Capex) is at record lows.  It’s because the bulk of earnings is being recycled into buybacks, over $2.3 trillion dollars since 2009 to be precise. And it’s all connected to the Fed’s zero rate policy.  Zero rates have created an environment in which corporations no longer look for ways to grow their businesses, expand operations, hire more employees or improve productivity.  Instead, they look for the quick fix, that is, load up on debt, buy more shares, goose the stock price, and walk away with a bundle.

It’s all about incentives. The Fed has created incentives that encourage financial engineering and stock manipulation as opposed to growth and productivity. And keep in mind that repurchasing shares is a form of margin buying, the same type of margin buying that triggered Stock Market Crash of 1929.

According to Dayen: “Prior to the Reagan era, executives avoided buybacks due to fears that they would be prosecuted for market manipulation. But under SEC Rule 10b-18, adopted in 1982, companies receive a “safe harbor” from market manipulation liability on stock buybacks if they adhere to four limitations.”

We won’t go over the regulations now because, as you can see,  they obviously don’t work or these corporations wouldn’t be $2 trillion in the hole. But it is interesting to note that, at one time,  policymakers saw how destructive buybacks were and were prepared to prosecute offenders for manipulation. I doubt that any of our regulators today would even dream of bringing a case against these corporate behemoths, after all, they pretty much own the whole show lock, stock and barrel.

The real danger of this buyback phenom, is that the corporations have piled on so much debt that any sharp decline in the market could push one or two of these giants into default.  That, in turn, could quickly take down other counterparties touching off another financial crisis.    So, the question regulators should be asking themselves,  is how much red ink are these corporations hiding on their balance sheets and what are the risks to the public if they’re unable to repay their debts.  According to Henry Blodget at Business Insider:

“As corporations have borrowed more and more money, the level of corporate debt relative to the size of the economy has continued to increase. As the chart below shows, this ratio is now at its highest level ever — even higher than it was in 2007, before the last debt-fueled economic implosion. Importantly, corporate net debt — the amount of debt that corporations are carrying minus the cash they have on hand (green line below) — is also at its highest level ever as a percent of the economy.”

(“Now It’s Time To Think About What Will Happen When Companies Stop Buying Back So Much Stock“, Business Insider)

Let’s summarize:

1. Buybacks are driving the stock market higher.

2. Corporations purchase buybacks with credit.

3. “The level of corporate debt relative to the size of the economy… is now at its highest level ever.”

What can we deduce from these three observations?

First, that stock prices are a bubble and, second, that a significant stock market shakeout could leave some of the nation’s biggest corporations teetering towards insolvency.

Of course, none of this is going to stop corporations from engaging in the same risky behavior. Heck, no.   In fact,  CEOs are actually looking for ways to speed up the buyback process. I’m not kidding. Check clip from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal:

“Companies are increasingly turning to accelerated share repurchase agreements…to return cash to shareholders and secure an immediate boost to per-share profits…..But these turbo-charged stock buybacks can backfire, especially when a steep market plunge—such as the 5.3% drop in the markets over the past two trading days. That’s because a steep plunge in stock prices can force the companies to potentially pay more to buy the shares through an ASR than what they would pay if they purchased the shares over time on the open market.
 
“Things can go wrong,” said Robert Leonard, head of specialty equity transactions at Citigroup Inc….
(“Accelerated Buybacks Less Favorable During Market Swoons“, Wall Street Journal)

You’re darn right, they can go wrong, but who gives a rip? Not America’s insatiable CEOs, that’s for sure. They’re just looking for faster ways to cash in, that’s all that matters to them. These guys aren’t even thinking about the health of their companies, let alone their customers. ‘Making widgets for the masses, is for suckers’, right?  Corporate honchos have bigger fish to fry, like leveraging up their whole operation to its eyeballs, skimming the cream off the top, stuffing the moolah in an unmarked Caymans account, and slipping out the backdoor before the whole rickety structure comes crashing to earth. That’s modern-day capitalism in a nutshell. Slash and burn, Baby, just like big boys at the Pentagon.

One last thing: Just to show the extent to which these corporate mandarins will go to enrich themselves at their company’s expense, check out this blurb from this 2014 article at Bloomberg:

“International Business Machines Corp. (IBM) is reducing stock buybacks after an $8.2 billion first-quarter splurge… IBM said last week it won’t sustain its rate of share repurchases in the first quarter, when buybacks more than tripled from a year earlier to the most since 2007. The company plans to spend less than $5.8 billion total in the final nine months of this year….
. 
 IBM’s sales have fallen from a year earlier for eight straight quarters…Declining sales and rising buybacks have squeezed IBM’s free cash flow…The repurchases, meanwhile, have taken a toll on IBM’s balance sheet. Total debt climbed to $44 billion in the first quarter, up from $33.4 billion a year ago….
 
 During the first quarter, IBM issued $4.5 billion of new bonds, clearly used to fund buybacks, Black said….
“The company tapped the bond market five different times last year, then you have a pretty sizable February issuance,” Black said in the interview. “I feel like there is investor fatigue on the name.” 
(“IBM End to Buyback Splurge Pressures CEO to Boost Revenue“, Bloomberg)

Okay, let’s translate this into English: IBM spent $8.2 billion in first-quarter on stock buybacks, even though “sales have dipped “from a year earlier for eight straight quarters”; even though “declining sales and rising buybacks have squeezed IBM’s free cash flow”; even though buybacks “have taken a toll on IBM’s balance sheet”; and even though “Total debt climbed to $44 billion in the first quarter, up from $33.4 billion a year ago.”

Unbelievable, right? And that’s not even the best part. The best part is the fact that “The company tapped the bond market five different times last year.”  In other words, they went to the bond market with ‘cup in hand’ and appealed to gullible investors to lend them more money to pay their lavish executive bonuses, to shower more dough on their worthless, do-nothing shareholders, and to keep this whole ridiculous farce going on a bit longer.

Talk about balls!

Tell me this, dear reader, when can we stop referring to this activity as “buybacks” and call it by its real name; looting?

On Tuesday evening, we asked what would happen if emerging markets joined China in dumping US Treasurys. For months we’ve documented the PBoC’s liquidation of its vast stack of US paper.

Back in July for instance, we noted that China had dumped a record $143 billion in US Treasurys in three months via Belgium, leaving Goldman speechless for once. 

Approximately 4,500 people, many civilians, have been killed in Yemen since the Saudi-led coalition began bombing 150 days ago, according to the UN. 23,000 more have been wounded.  [GR Editor’s note, the UN figures presented in this article tend to underestimate the number of civilian casualties]

Today, Iraq stands at a turning point in its contemporary history. It has been experiencing a grave situation which demands now the full awareness on current affairs, their consequences and implications and their critical impact on the present, near and distant future of Iraq and Iraqis.

Upon its legitimate responsibilities, its influence in the national effort exerted in the past few years of Iraq’s time under occupation, the significant confidence it enjoys by many Iraqis and in response to appeals received occasionally, AMSI has during the last three months communicated with the diverse powers that stand against the current political situation in Iraq and the foreign dominance. This communication meant to discuss the circumstances of the current stage and its requirements and comes within the serious and active pursuit to firmly establish the basis for concordance, for the purpose of making change in Iraq. This is in order to end the misery of its people, save the country from its tragic situation and put it back on its normal course.

AMSI has tried in the past years until 2009 to culminate its efforts by holding a conference with the aim to come out with a large-scale front. Such was a perception under which all the keen Iraqi groups could join to form the launching stage of this significant scheme. AMSI has made several requests to a number of Arab states to host this conference, and has approached the Arab League more than once for persuasion, but all its attempts were to no avail.

Although we realise how difficult it has been to establish a wide-scale national Iraqi front under those hard and gloomy circumstances experienced in Iraq in the past years and under our current circumstances – with this being the result of several thematic factors that lie beyond our control and of the realities that obstruct such an establishment; and as every act of such nature entails several requisites in order to succeed, with the foremost being the availability of suitable international and regional circumstances, it is within the belief of the AMSI that there is an opportunity today that may bring this effort back, one way or another. It also sees a potential to benefit from the current situation in the Arab and international arenas and a chance to avail itself of the opportunity of hopelessness facing the Iraqi people – combined with the current political regime’s catastrophic failure in achieving the minimum level of security, stability and welfare and in securing the necessary needs for living.

Initiative Causes:

One: Having suffered for long the predominance of successive governments and their oppressive apparatus that confiscated the people’s right to demand their rights and their right to protest against the corrupt and unjust policies, the Iraqi people had to peacefully revolt against their government on 25/2/2011 in 16 out of 18 Iraqi governorates, condemning the policy of killing, arrest and corruption that infiltrated throughout the state’s entire institutions.

That was a revolution made by the Iraqi people with all their components, who were subject to grave oppression for almost a decade, under well-known types of suppression that included: excessive acts of killing, arrests, torture and rape; cleansing, exclusion, marginalisation; financial and administrative corruption; systematic and predetermined humiliation; theft of public money and the absence of services, with known and horrific statistics and figures being the tip of the iceberg.

A second round of national protests surged through demonstrations and strikes starting on 23/12/2012, also suppressed with fire and arms. Hundreds of peaceful protesters fell in strike squares including those injured and dead, forcing people to seek self-defence in an armed confrontation that shifted the protests from their course and circumvented their ends.

Today, we are witnessing the signs of a third round of national revolt which started in our southern governorates moving up to the capital city, Baghdad. This comes after a state of bankruptcy that emerged, of which the concerned parties have earlier warned, as the result of rampant corruption. It had its consequences affecting what is left of the exhausted country that has been inflicted with thefts and money laundering and where people’s fate and future was controlled by war lords. This can only show that our great nation has become bored with these situations and is no longer capable of taking that burden, looking today for salvation.

Two: The Iraqi people have been forced into a war with which they have nothing to do. Their children have shed dear blood. Their strength is waning in its flames day after day. Nobody knows why this war ever broke out or who is benefiting from it or where it is ending. [Nobody knows] why do Iraqi people send their children to die in a proxy conflict stirred by foreign international parties who wish Iraq and its people no good. [Nobody knows] for whose interest are millions of people being displaced from their homes and towns, dispersed throughout the country between the deserts, or seeking shelter in other places that can only intensify their sufferance and that of their hosts. Following all this it was necessary for the wise men to do something to stop the bloodshed, eliminate division and separation factors, restore national unity of a nation that has never divided along its history and bring home every Iraq to live safe and secure in their homes.

Three: It is unquestionable that the current political regime in Baghdad does not represent all the Iraqi people. It is designed to serve the interests of certain parties and groups far from people’s interests and far from the constitution – a constitution which has led into this political system. It stands as the cornerstone behind the grave and successive failures of this regime and its political process. This cannot but manifest the fact that changing the foundation of this current political regime in Iraq – in any satisfying format capable of guaranteeing the sustenance of Iraq’s primary constituents and preserving its unity and free sovereignty – may all but lend a true opportunity to rebuild a new Iraq that is capable of closing the circles of conflict on its soil, provide a secure living for its people and prevent its use as a passageway to inflict harm on countries of the region and the world.

Four: This is an experience that has lasted for over 13 years, during which all various aspects of the political process have failed. It has failed in its principles, figures and applications; in running the affairs of Iraq, in binging security and in preserving its powers. It has earned itself with merit the title given to it by the concerned international organisations as ‘the failed state’. Following this bitter experience it is impossible to persuade the world that those faces will achieve success this time should they be granted more international support. To retest the already tested is a futile attempt. Any patchwork solution that reinstates the rules of the current political game, as is, whilst keeping the same politicians who have committed such sins and errors in their posts will prove ineffective at all. As such, this would only push Iraq and the region into a deeper abyss while, instead, a search for a proper exit should begin to put things back on their normal course, set things right and root out corruption and [acts of] destruction.

Five: The outbreak of conflict between the components of Iraq’s political process itself, as a natural result of what was committed against Iraq and Iraqis, warns yet of further grave consequences with foreseen future for the people of Iraq that can only open for them more gates of hell. We have, time and again, alerted and warned about the consequences and risks of what has come now in the open for everyone to see, proving wrong all those who argued. This calls for [a swift action] to rectify the situation before it reaches a point of no return, and before we enter another dark tunnel that can succumb what is left of the country and the constituents of its people.

Six: All international attempts to alleviate the damage, mend the faults and reach conciliations have failed, including efforts made by the UN through its delegated SG special envoys, making no achievement that is worth-mentioning. This reached an extent where the international community was so greatly bewildered by the way to deal with the Iraqi question and its ongoing consequences. We appreciate that among the main reasons for this situation is that the competent Iraqi powers have been absent from the scene, while the country has been run by those incompetent.

Subject of Initiative:

Based on the aforementioned, it is within the perception held by the AMSI that the current stage is in dire need for a (certain) format of a joint Iraqi action based on clarity which allows for combining between joint views, orientations and thoughts for the purpose of finding effective and decisive solutions to the extent possible. Thereby, AMSI through this meeting, announces the launch of its initiative, for the purpose mentioned, under the title: “The Inclusive Iraq Scheme – The Proper Solution for Saving Iraq and the Region.”

The initiative consists of the following:

a. A call to hold extensive consultative meetings between the Iraqi powers that stand against the current political situation in Iraq, for the purpose of agreeing on and coordinating the principles and basics of the Inclusive Iraq Scheme and its activation.

b. A call to convene a series of extensive seminars between the competent members and elites of the civil society, its active groups, its opinion leaders and social fronts, to bring closer the different points of views and reach perceptions that are as convergent as possible.

c. A call on significant society groups, entities and titles to hold meetings, within their anticipated participation in any forthcoming collective Iraqi effort, and in support of and expansion of an Iraqi public opinion transforming into an active mass movement.

d. A call to hold a public conference on the establishment of an inclusive Iraqi framework, under one title that regulates the ideas and thoughts of the aforementioned Iraqi powers. This is to be reached through a joint action charter based on the foundations of unity, independence of the Iraqi decision, rejection of near and distant foreign dependency and the enhancement of civil peace. This should stop any attempts to singly influence some powers dragging them towards individual concessions or into traps set here and there. This comes in preparation for a proper solution that can prevent Iraq from falling prey to deadly vacuum.

 Following the foregoing, it must be stated herein that the ultimate goal of all Iraqis is not only limited to stopping those corrupt, but goes also beyond that to build a genuine Iraqi scheme that sets a comprehensive vision for the future. This should guarantee the initiation of the free will of the Iraqi people to transform them from their current situation to another, where free and independent political activity can be exercised through free elections, under terms that guarantee their integrity and participation of all Iraqis. This is with aim to produce their real representatives in order to draft a constitution that can achieve the expectations of all the Iraqi people and to meet their aspirations. It is also to guarantee them a peaceful transfer of power away from favouritism, selfishness and exclusion, so that they can come out of the dark tunnel in which they live and reverse their unknown future.

As we adopt the aforementioned and rely on the strategy of rescue and change towards an Inclusive Iraq, we are aware that this is not such an easy task. We are also fully aware that Iraq’s current situation suffers from Iranian intervention, a growing influence and an undeclared occupation that is badly detrimental to its interests, which has confused the region and raised the concerns of its countries. This may also anticipate that any process to be worked out in order to reach a format of understanding among Iraqis and to establish a stable Iraqi state will be met with obstructions.

It is worth reminding the international community, and foremost the United States, that it is all but useless to insist on labelling the conflict in the Iraqi scene as being between the current two fighting parties, while ignoring that the real causes have emerged from the political process in Iraq, its miserable based-on constitution, the reliance on corrupt figures in running the country and the exclusion of national powers with all possible means. This has been a way that was tried for one full decade and has shown its failures with an increased bill of human and physical losses – a true reality that is beyond reason. This is a way that will lead into no result but rather keep the region in turmoil.

Countries of the world, especially regional ones, have a historic opportunity before them to become a fair and effective party, by persuading the international community and the sponsors of the political process to rectify the wrong course in Iraq – instead of insisting on it. [They have the chance to] adopt a new policy that makes its priority not to stand in the way of Iraqi powers that were previously ignored deliberately and excluded – which suggested to the world that they did not exist at a time when they were capable of saving their country, building it in the right way and achieving effective and lasting treatment after the situation had fallen deep into the abyss and hit the very bottom. In addition, the agreeing Iraqi, Arab, regional and international wills to find realistic and comprehensive solution beliefs are capable of ending Iraq’s serious problems. This can be done by putting our trust in God alone, by the sincere intentions and by making the serious action.

The emergence of such powers clearly visible within an Inclusive Iraqi framework can certainly make them a legitimate party that represents the Iraqi powers which had been forced into absence in any international effort towards resolving the Iraqi crisis.

The Inclusive Iraq Scheme that we call for is capable of terminating the conflict and its justifications in Iraq. It is capable of keeping at bay all powers and groups that do not wish for the situation in the region to calm down. This is possible by means of introducing real programs that provide equal opportunities for everyone, eliminate the chaos and enforce security. Laying the foundations for this promising scheme can achieve the following points:

1- Remove the concerns that some groups and diversities in the Iraqi society may have with regard to possible change consequences.

2- Expand the public participation in resisting foreign interference and influence detrimental to Iraq and its citizens, and to persuade them that an alternative to this is possible.

3- Attract opinion leaders, active and influential figures in the Iraqi society to take part in the real change.

4- Unite the efforts of Iraqi powers and expand the circle of participating powers in the change project, under an inclusive umbrella that bears responsibility for setting the course and distributing the tasks.

Initiative Specifics and its General Framework:

Finally, it is worth stressing that the aforementioned initiative details come within the framework of the following specifics and firm beliefs:

1. Full adherence to the independence of Iraq and its territorial integrity and the preservation of its identity. Its policies on development shall be based on the common interests of its citizens. The building of the modern state shall be in accordance with the necessary foundations, constitutionally, legally, economically, militarily, socially and culturally.

2. Commitment to the pluralistic approach and freedom of opinion, based on mechanisms that are consistent with and respect our values and traditions.

3. Exclusion of political revenge mechanisms and allowing for justice. This should be based on a consensual agreement between Iraqis in order for it to take its course in preserving the rights, the lives and dignities and to prevent the events that took place and currently taking place from happening again.

4. Being aware that our tragedy in Iraq is not a tragedy of a certain group, race, region, governorate or any particular place. It is the tragedy of the homeland and the nation. Giving instant attention to partial problems that arise here or there should not affect seeing the whole picture of this tragedy.

5. Rights are not given, but acquired by uninterrupted effective acts, arduous efforts and great sacrifices. Identity is the product of pride in position, mission and mandate. It is not a favour given by anyone nor the result of effect of an action event, effect and reaction, however this may be painful, harsh and long.

6. Inspiring the spirit of resistance, uprisings, protests and popular revolts is crucial and necessary in determining our path towards change and deliverance.

Finally, AMSI declares:

AMSI declares that its doors are open to all the Iraqi people of all components and groups for communicating. It provides all its efforts in order to achieve the objectives of this initiative, to guarantee that all effective work is put right on track again. This comes in taking its responsibilities, pledging to be an active part in any effort made and in being a productive, aiding, advising and mentoring element. Our main concern is to facilitate the ways and to give access to the wheel of action to run on its track by collective cooperation upon mutual cooperation format. We firmly believe that point of strength in the Inclusive Iraq Scheme comes from the united word of its parties, their cooperation and concord.

May God guide us to the sound way!

The dawn of a new era in US/Iranian relations didn’t arrive on July 14 in Vienna – with consummation of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOC). Far from it. Washington’s deal-making history is deplorable – consistently breaching agreements. 

On Friday, Obama’s Treasury sanctions czar, Adam Szubin, arrived in Israel – to reassure its regime of continued US hardline anti-Iranian policy, ready to impose new “severe financial penalties for its (nonexistent) sponsorship of terrorism and support of military proxies,” according to The New York Times.

He’ll reassure Israeli officials about Washington’s “continued efforts to target Iran’s (nonexistent) malign activities” – intending “intensif(ied) sanctions (to) ensur(e) they bite even deeper,” he explained.

Washington agreeing in Vienna to remove Iranian sanctions was a Big Fat Lie. In return for ending some (on Iran’s nuclear program), new ones apparently will be imposed offsetting them, the usual US dirty game, pledging one thing, doing another with disturbing regularity.

The Times quoted Szubin saying “(w)e plan to enforce (sanctions) with all the toughness that people have come to expect from the US Treasury.”

On Friday, Obama will address the Jewish Federations of North America and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations (the nation’s leading Zionist groups, AIPAC its best known member) by webcast.

He’ll sell the benefits of the nuclear deal he already plans to breach – to please Israel and its Zionist Lobby.

On September 3, Vice President Biden will meet with US Jewish leaders (including major Democrat party fundraisers) in Florida – selling the nuclear deal. He’ll host a Labor Day Washington Rosh Hashanah (Jewish new year) event.

On Wednesday, nearly 200 retired US generals and admirals wrote Congress – urging lawmakers reject the Iran nuclear deal, on the phony claim of threatening national security.

The letter is the latest AIPAC effort to undermine a chance for preventing greater Middle East war. It’s similar to one sent last week by three dozen other retired senior US military officers – repeating the long ago discredited claim about facilitating Tehran’s path to the bomb, along with other familiar canards.

Obama appears to have enough support to prevent a two-thirds majority overriding his veto when Congress is expected to reject the Iran nuclear deal in September.

With Treasury’s Szubin explaining tough anti-Iranian sanctions remain official US policy, the JCPOC may not be worth the paper it’s written on – unless other P5+1 countries go their own way, breaking with US policy, not likely except for Russia and China.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

The U.S.-backed Ukrainian Armed Forces, on Wednesday August 26th, resumed their all-out war against the breakaway Donbass region, according to an announcement on August 27th by the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR) Deputy Commander, Eduard Basurin. Donetsk is the largest city in Donbass — the region that broke away from Ukraine after the February 2014 U.S. coup in Kiev, which threw out the democratically elected Ukrainian President, for whom the residents of Donbass had voted over 90%. If this apparent re-invasion of Donbass by U.S.-backed forces is true, it would flagrantly violate the Minsk II Agreementthat Germany’s Angela Merkel and France’s Francois Hollande had achieved, and that the warring parties had signed, six months ago, on February 11th.

As reported August 27th by the Fort Russ news site, Mr. Basurin said:

The situation in the DPR has drastically deteriorated. … From 5 P.M. [August 26th], punitive forces [that’s to say, forces aiming to ‘punish’ Donbass for rejecting Obama’s coup in Ukraine] began massively shelling positions of the DPR army and the civilian areas of Belaya Kamenka, Novolaspa, Staroslava, and Staroignatovka.

The fascists have used heavy artillery prohibited by the Minsk Agreements against the civilian areas of Aleksandrovka and Marinka. The outskirts of Donetsk have been struck.

The shelling has been carried out from the positions of the 72nd mechanized brigade under the command of the criminal Grishchenko, as well as the 19th infantry battalion. The enemy is using ACS howitzers of 152 and 122 mm, mortars of 120 and 80 mm, and tanks.

Basurin said that “According to our estimate, the enemy is trying to provoke a response by our troops and with such activity convince the army command of the DPR to prepare for an offensive in this direction of the UAF,” so that DPR’s strategy of — as much as possible — not initiating fire, but only responding to it, will be broken. That would then provide the U.S. side the opportunity to charge the DPR side with violating Minsk II.

Basurin went on to say:

the criminal fascist regime is purposefully trying to disrupt the Minsk Agreement. The bloodthirsty Kiev puppets are out to disrupt the establishment of peaceful life in the Republic, thereby showing the whole world their inability to conduct civilized negotiations. The paranoiacs in power are leading Ukraine into the abyss!

The President of Ukraine seeks to resume hostilities and lead a new escalation of tensions in Eastern Europe, and therefore, we appeal to the people and officers of Ukraine: sabotage the criminal orders of the UAF command, show acts of defiance, and demonstrate an absence of support for the aggressive plans of Poroshenko.

Basurin is urging the U.S.-backed forces to violate their instructions, which would be an extremely dangerous thing for those troops to do. However, a significant number of Ukrainian soldiers have, in fact, defected to the ‘rebels.’

As I reported earlier, a conflict within the Obama Administration broke out on May 15th, when Victoria Nuland, the Assistant Secretary of State whom Obama had placed in charge of policy on Ukraine (and who had masterminded the coup and selected the post-coup government), contradicted her nominal superior, Secretary of State John Kerry, and said that, despite Kerry’s warning to Ukraine’s President Petro Poroshenko not to violate Minsk II, Poroshenko would have America’s full backing if he were to follow through on his repeated threats to re-invade Donbass, regardless of what had been agreed to, and signed, at Minsk.

From that time to this, the Obama Administration has been ambiguous about its intentions on the matter, but Mr. Kerry has never reiterated his warning to Poroshenko; while Ms. Nuland has continued to maintain that the U.S. will support the Ukrainian side no matter what; and so, Donbass has been on constant alert, expecting Poroshenko to resume the invasion at any time.

In the interim since the first of the two Minsk agreements, the U.S. Congress has endorsed Obama’s policy and authorized funds for retraining Ukraine’s troops and for resupplying them with weapons.

Perhaps the decision has finally now been made in the White House to resume the war at full force. The next few days could make clear whether that is the case, or whether, instead, this is just yet another of the many relatively minor violations of Minsk, which both sides have engaged in during the past six months.

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

 

New South Wales is the latest Australian state to hear calls for sharks to be culled, in response to a spate of fatal and non-fatal incidents.

NSW Premier Mike Baird has implemented a new surveillance program, while resisting calls for a cull on the basis that it doesn’t work.

Put simply, there is no scientific support for the concept that culling sharks in a particular area will lead to a decrease in shark attacks and increase ocean safety.

Western Australia tried culling sharks with baited drum lines last year. The tactic did not improve the safety of swimmers, surfers or divers – one of the reasons why scientists actively opposed the cull. A similar long-standing policy in Queensland has shown little evidence of effectiveness.

Born survivors

Sharks have inhabited this planet for more than 400 million years, and have survived five mass extinctions. Earth is now entering its sixth – this time caused by humans – and sharks are at the pointy end, with 90% of the species already considered threatened.

It is not just an issue on NSW’s surf breaks. Humanity’s growing demand for protein has put substantial pressure on oceanic systems, and industrial fishing techniques have have reduced predatory fish populations to less than 10% of their historic numbers. Sharks are especially vulnerable because of their low reproductive rates, slow growth and delayed rates of maturity.

The Indo-Australasian region is recognised as a hot-spot for global shark biodiversity, and in in this region Australia trumps all, with more than 36% of all known shark species living in Australian waters.

What’s more, sharks play a pivotal role within the ecosystems they inhabit. As apex predators, they maintain community structure and biodiversity by regulating predator and prey abundance. Even light fishing pressure such as species-target line fisheries can cause dramatic declines in populations of large coastal sharks. Meanwhile, indirect fishing via shark meshing programs can catch a range of targeted and non-targeted species of sharks.

 

 

What would a cull do to sharks and ecosystems?

Shark culling is best thought of as an indiscriminate method of removing sharks from our coastal ecosystems. The WA and Queensland culls have led to the capture and death of many non-targeted sharks. We also know that many shark species do not cope with capture well – a recent Australian study found that 100% of hammerheads caught by line fishing will die of stress within an hour of capture.

Similarly, spinner and dusky sharks have very low survival rates within the first few hours of being hooked, and sharks that are hooked and subsequently released do not necessarily survive.

Hooking in the gut is very common. New South Wales’ flagship threatened aquatic species, the greynurse shark, will most probably die over time if hooked in the gut and then released. Stainless steel hooks do not rust out but become encapsulated in the tissue over time, causing starvation, wasting of the body (known as cachexia), and eventual death.

If we remove sharks as top predators from the ecosystem, the effects will filter down to animals lower down the food chain and cause unexpected changes to ecosystems. We are already seeing such changes in areas where sharks are overfished.

Declines in the number of blacktip sharks in North Carolina in the late 1970s and 1980s caused an increase in the relative abundance of cownose rays and a corresponding decrease in scallops over the ensuing decades. Healthy aquatic ecosystems are typified by a complexity of players in the food chain, and removing such macropredators will result in decreasing ecosystem resilience.

What can we do instead of culling?

Indiscriminately culling sharks is dangerous to marine ecosystems, not to mention expensive and futile. We would be far better off allocating resources to achieving a greater understanding of the ecology and behaviour of these large predators. We can increase knowledge of why and where sharks are likely to attack humans by tagging sharks and following their movements over time, or through genetic studies that can assess effective population sizes.

Current aerial surveys are unlikely to be a successful strategy, however. Scientific analysis has already discredited aerial programs in NSW. Aerial surveys have only a 12.5% success rate in spotting a coastal shark from a fixed-wing aircraft, and a 17.1% success rate in helicopters. As surveys are only done for a few hours per week, and pass over a particular beach in minutes, these patrols can give the public a false sense of security.

Other non-invasive methods of mitigation are currently being developed, including the use of erratic walls of bubbles to deter sharks, and the development of wetsuits and surfboards that sharks are less likely to mistake as prey.

But ultimately, we also need to take personal responsibility, and reduce the likelihood of an attack by not swimming at dawn and dusk, not entering the water at the mouth of estuaries with poor visibility, or in areas of baitfish. After all, even sharks can make mistakes.

New South Wales is the latest Australian state to hear calls for sharks to be culled, in response to a spate of fatal and non-fatal incidents.

NSW Premier Mike Baird has implemented a new surveillance program, while resisting calls for a cull on the basis that it doesn’t work.

Put simply, there is no scientific support for the concept that culling sharks in a particular area will lead to a decrease in shark attacks and increase ocean safety.

Western Australia tried culling sharks with baited drum lines last year. The tactic did not improve the safety of swimmers, surfers or divers – one of the reasons why scientists actively opposed the cull. A similar long-standing policy in Queensland has shown little evidence of effectiveness.

Born survivors

Sharks have inhabited this planet for more than 400 million years, and have survived five mass extinctions. Earth is now entering its sixth – this time caused by humans – and sharks are at the pointy end, with 90% of the species already considered threatened.

It is not just an issue on NSW’s surf breaks. Humanity’s growing demand for protein has put substantial pressure on oceanic systems, and industrial fishing techniques have have reduced predatory fish populations to less than 10% of their historic numbers. Sharks are especially vulnerable because of their low reproductive rates, slow growth and delayed rates of maturity.

The Indo-Australasian region is recognised as a hot-spot for global shark biodiversity, and in in this region Australia trumps all, with more than 36% of all known shark species living in Australian waters.

What’s more, sharks play a pivotal role within the ecosystems they inhabit. As apex predators, they maintain community structure and biodiversity by regulating predator and prey abundance. Even light fishing pressure such as species-target line fisheries can cause dramatic declines in populations of large coastal sharks. Meanwhile, indirect fishing via shark meshing programs can catch a range of targeted and non-targeted species of sharks.

 

 

What would a cull do to sharks and ecosystems?

Shark culling is best thought of as an indiscriminate method of removing sharks from our coastal ecosystems. The WA and Queensland culls have led to the capture and death of many non-targeted sharks. We also know that many shark species do not cope with capture well – a recent Australian study found that 100% of hammerheads caught by line fishing will die of stress within an hour of capture.

Similarly, spinner and dusky sharks have very low survival rates within the first few hours of being hooked, and sharks that are hooked and subsequently released do not necessarily survive.

Hooking in the gut is very common. New South Wales’ flagship threatened aquatic species, the greynurse shark, will most probably die over time if hooked in the gut and then released. Stainless steel hooks do not rust out but become encapsulated in the tissue over time, causing starvation, wasting of the body (known as cachexia), and eventual death.

If we remove sharks as top predators from the ecosystem, the effects will filter down to animals lower down the food chain and cause unexpected changes to ecosystems. We are already seeing such changes in areas where sharks are overfished.

Declines in the number of blacktip sharks in North Carolina in the late 1970s and 1980s caused an increase in the relative abundance of cownose rays and a corresponding decrease in scallops over the ensuing decades. Healthy aquatic ecosystems are typified by a complexity of players in the food chain, and removing such macropredators will result in decreasing ecosystem resilience.

What can we do instead of culling?

Indiscriminately culling sharks is dangerous to marine ecosystems, not to mention expensive and futile. We would be far better off allocating resources to achieving a greater understanding of the ecology and behaviour of these large predators. We can increase knowledge of why and where sharks are likely to attack humans by tagging sharks and following their movements over time, or through genetic studies that can assess effective population sizes.

Current aerial surveys are unlikely to be a successful strategy, however. Scientific analysis has already discredited aerial programs in NSW. Aerial surveys have only a 12.5% success rate in spotting a coastal shark from a fixed-wing aircraft, and a 17.1% success rate in helicopters. As surveys are only done for a few hours per week, and pass over a particular beach in minutes, these patrols can give the public a false sense of security.

Other non-invasive methods of mitigation are currently being developed, including the use of erratic walls of bubbles to deter sharks, and the development of wetsuits and surfboards that sharks are less likely to mistake as prey.

But ultimately, we also need to take personal responsibility, and reduce the likelihood of an attack by not swimming at dawn and dusk, not entering the water at the mouth of estuaries with poor visibility, or in areas of baitfish. After all, even sharks can make mistakes.

America is deemed the repository dreams, but it is also the supreme engine of nightmares. Fantasies of perfection just as often become realisations of bloody awareness.

Where grievances are resolved by bullets and briefs, the appearance of the former is bound to cause an avalanche of comment. Witness the killing of two individuals on WDBJ-TV on “live” television near Moneta: reporter Alison Parker and cameraman Adam Ward. The interviewee, executive director of the Smith Mountain Lake Regional Chamber of Commerce Vicki Gardner, was injured.

The gunman was Vester Flanagan II, a former employee who had been fired by the network. When working for the station, he would use the on-air name of Bryce Williams. His 23 page fax to the ABC outlined a range of disagreements, citing racial discrimination and sexual harassment.

“It is effectively an execution,” says the stunned CNN anchor. Live executions certainly have their power. The followers of ISIS understand it, and attempt to disseminate raw images in their totality. Editing is eschewed. Beheadings are released on the net like cruel bolts of realisation. The response then, is to limit circulation, cut the images and maybe bar them altogether. The war of images is not only to show them, but how not to show them.

In the US, the debate on broadcasting executions – albeit those inflicted by the state, rather than private citizens- is not new. In 2011, Zachary B. Shemtob and David Lat suggested in the New York Times that executions should be televised.[1] Democracy demands transparency and accountability. “As long as executions remain behind closed doors, these are impossible.”

The dreadful irony of this was missed when discussion shifted to whether the late gun man would also, should he survive, face the death penalty. The news community noted that Virginia is in the “top five” in the executioner’s league. The debate proved to be academic in the end: Williams would die of his self-inflicted wounds.

This brings us to another feature of the news community. What these shootings demonstrated was a paternalistic censorship. People cannot see what actually happened. Reality is too grotesque, the great unpardonable, to be allowed in US media. Demons and targets of moral opprobrium are – the gunman was given a due serving on “live” television, and there was even a sense of remorse that he might survive his own self-inflicted wounds to make a trial.

The Hollywood cleansing is needed, a cloth that does the cleaning rounds on the wickedness that is reality. Only those in the media channels can view it – repeatedly, there is this homely southern decency that some things ought not to be done.

Bryce Williams was one of the few to witness his handiwork. He was witnessing the live shot, both the bullets that were being fired, and the actual interview. He was killing, literally, live. In its purest vulgarity, it was a statement of anti-editing, a direct lethal statement.

In a perverse sense, he was moving beyond the fanciful hypocrisies of the news establishment, the self-censorship mechanism that governs the release of news to the general public. The very notion of doing things “live” in news is often far from the truth. Much is contrived. Much is delayed. Subjects are interviewed in offices that are not theirs, doing work that is staged for the camera shot. There is, in other words, very little live about a medium that tends to simulate a form of death. The life, in short, has left the screen. It is delayed, even suspended.

Central to the deception is the idea that exactitude and accuracy count, and that these are supposedly conveyed to the public. “We will read the tweets out to you. Exactly as they were said.” This is the CNN anchor line in the wake of the shootings, and of course, such accuracy should immediately get one thinking: reality is only tolerable through the sorting medium of the televised medium.

Not even Facebook continued to air the video. Links were deleted. The most live of feeds had gone into the mode of censure and suspension. Viral videos showing koalas scurrying after vehicles in Australia are permissible; the spectacle of a former colleague shooting those he has a beef with is not.

Naturally, the sentimental complex immediately took hold. There were toothy grins, and depictions of happy humans, the best pictures, the most enthusiastic vignettes of Parker and Ward. Ad hoc memorials were being organised.

Then, as with every murder event that makes the US news circuit, the shrink commentariat had to make a show. What was the mental furniture looking like for the shooter? The assailant had “anger management issues”; there were issues of disturbance. From without, the ventriloquists were taking over. The medication route was suggested by such individuals as psychiatrist as Janet Taylor.

The news providers had become the news. This was a supreme indication about the anchors becoming the centre of the world. The bullets gave them a bloody centre stage. We are unlikely to hear the last of this, not because it was a tragedy (yes it was) but because it typified the assumptions of the media establishment. Williams, if he appreciated nothing else, understood the power of death on “live” television.

Dr. Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne. Email: [email protected]

Note

[1] http://www.nytimes.com/2011/07/31/opinion/sunday/executions-should-be-televised.html?_r=0

 

The Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution states: “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

For someone trained to interpret the law logically and based on principles of reason, it is puzzling that the conservative majority of the Supreme Court reached the decision in 2008 that “The Second Amendment protects an individual right to possess a firearm unconnected with service in a militia,”

And we are compelled to agree with the dissenting opinion of Justice John Paul Stevens that the majority opinion constituted “a strained and unpersuasive reading” of the Second Amendment.

The two parts of the Second Amendment are not independent assertions brought together by accident in the same sentence.  The prefatory part of the Second Amendment __ “A well-regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state,__” clearly forms the context and the framework within which the second part is to be understood.

A well-regulated militia at the time of the enactment of the Second Amendment obviously meant a citizen-based defense force to protect the newly-independent United States from the threat of invasion by the British colonial forces. 

In the context of nearly two-and a half centuries of change and since the United States “no longer uses horses and bayonets” to defend its national sovereignty (to borrow a famous phrase), it also does not use the “arms” kept by civilians to defend itself.

So to read the Second Amendment in its modern context, only the U.S. military and the National Guard and those whose duties expose them to danger, such as police officers and border guards, must have the right to bear arms, when on duty. Some provisions, however, can be made for bona fide farmers and ranchers enabling them to own registered, medium-caliber shotguns.

Handing in the Weapons held by US citizens

Of course with some 300 million guns purportedly in the hands of U.S. citizens, there is no suggestion here of removing these arms without fair and equitable compensation. Clearly the vast majority of citizens possessing the arms have purchased them lawfully.  They could be required to hand them in to appropriate authorities within a reasonable time (for example, six to twelve months) and receive from a central assessing authority a certificate of value based on the full current market value of the arms thus handed in. In order not to create a complicated bureaucracy, these “certificates of value” can then be filed along with income tax returns, and the full value of each certificate deducted from the certificate holder’s taxes.  Given the enormous cost of such compensation, these tax deductions can be spread over a three- or five-year period. For those whose low income does not require them to pay any taxes, a cheque for the full value of the arms handed in could be mailed to the owners.

The NRA’s argument that weapons in the hands of “good guys” assure security is both disingenuous and misinformed. Human personality is not carved in stone and the “good guys” do not always remain “good.”  Some perfectly law-abiding citizens do break down under pressures of life and do commit desperate acts.  Much of the “crimes of passion” committed during domestic disputes are usually committed by “good guys” who have faltered under stress.

Clearly it is the easy availability of guns that is the cause of the firearms-related tragedies we have been observing throughout the United States__ the horrific mass murder of a whole cohort of the very young children in Newtown, Connecticut and the latest murder of two young journalists in Virginia, though surpassing all previous tragedies, are only the continuation of the same pattern of violence.

Alan Danesh is a political scientist trained in law.  He lives in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada

The World’s attention has been drawn to the very North for several years now, as the Arctic reveals its potential filled with energy and mineral resources. A rush for the new Klondike has begun since the second half of the twentieth century, mainly in the vast northern Russia; but also in Yukon and Alaska. Oil fields are popping up at an astounding rate as new assessments of potential reserves of oil and gas flow pushed by the promess of large profits with the barrel valued at more than $ 100.00,

(http://www. mondialisation.ca/la-ru-e-vers-les-ressources-nerg-tiques-de-l-arctique/9115).

Another factor favoring this craze towards the Arctic is the ice cap melting faster than expected which creates a free marine passage between Europe and Asia.

If companies are about to hit a great deal, we must fear the impact of Arctic natural resources exploitation on wildlife habitats, which are already undermined by the effect of climatic changes. In this context, our attention turns toward the polar bear, the emblem of the Arctic, because it will have to adapt to major changes in its habitat. Recall that the Arctic name comes from the ancient Greek ἄρκτος (Arktos) meaning bear in reference to the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, both located near the north celestial pole.

We propose here to give an overview of polar bears actual situation (Ursus maritimus) throughout the circumpolar world. We will present the phenomenon of melting ice which is considered as the main threat to bear’s habitat and we will outline the main elements of the the species management plan, coordinated and implemented as a cooperative effort between the Arctic states of Canada, Norway, Russia, the United States and Denmark.

I. The Arctic

An immense territory, cold and arid (Figure 1)

The Arctic is a vast area covering about 18 million square kilometers, representing an even greater surface than the russian territory of 17,098,242 square kilometers. Caracterized by long, cold winters contrasting with short, cool summers; this area receive few solar radiation due to its inclination toward the tropics (where the sun is directly overhead). During the theoretically six month lasting winter, the sun is completely absent. The temperatures are usually below – 10 ° C, but they approach 0 ° C at the North Pole in July and August.

“The cold winter temperatures (monthly averages below – 10 ° C to – 20 ° C) greatly influence the biodiversity within the Arctic. The region is caracterized by the presence of a persistent frozen ground (permafrost) to a great depth, even under the seabed. The long lasting snow cover duration and the prevalence of ice (marsh, lake, river and coastal) prevent the circulation of surface water for a period of almost 200 days a year. The ice sheets persistence (Greenland) and the island caps (Spitzberg, Baffin Island, etc.) whose emissaries give birth to small icebergs. ”

“Because the Arctic heart is the seat of an anticyclone, the region displays a certain aridity featuring frosty deserts. The region’s precipitation average is of 250 mm annually, mostly in the form of snow. However, Atlantic disturbances affect the climat all year long bringing winds, fog and snow. The presence of the Greenland ice sheet and the large volume of sea ice help maintaining cool temperatures throughout the year, although the coastal fringes are somehow warmer during the short summers. ”

“Minimum temperatures up to – 70 ° C were recorded in Greenland and Verkhoyansk, Siberia. Although the arctic winds are less common and weaker than the ones found in South Pole, Arctic coastal areas can still be severely swept by storms. ”

“The polar night lasts about five months, after which arises a one month period of days and nights alternance. At first, the days are very short, and then they gradually lengthen to last 24 hours reaching what we call the polar day, which lasts about five months ” (http://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/autre -region / Arctic / 106015).

Figure 1. The Arctic space or Top of the World

The peoples of the Arctic (Figure 2)

The name “Arctic” also refers to the Inuit people, whose are present from Greenland to Eastern Siberia, through northern Canada and Alaska, including the Yupik nation of Alaska and Siberia and the Sami nation of northern Scandinavia and northwest of Russia. There are about 20 others nations living in the Arctic Siberian Russia. Among them, we find the Yakuts one hand, and the so-called “Small Northern peoples” on the other Aleuts, the Dolgans the Evens, the Evenks, the Ket people, the Khanty, the Koryak, the Mansi, the Nenets, the Nganasans the Selkup people, the Chukchi, the Youkaghirs etc …)

(http://www.underthepole.com/milieu -polaire / the-peoples-de-larctique /).

“The Arctic is occupied by man since a very long time, for instance the Inuit nation from Mongolian is one famous civilization that first colonized the territory. They envaded the Arctic from Asia about 10 000 years ago most likely to ensure their subsistence based on fishing and big mammals hunting such as seals, walruses, whales and caribou. Nowadays, farming, hunting and fishing have undergone profound changes but traditional practices still carry on in few remote areas. ”

“The Lapps, people of Finno-Ugric origin, are present in the north of Norway, Sweden and Finland, as well as in north-west Russia (these territories constituting the Lapland). Mainly land reindeer hunters and fishermen along the coast, the Lapps have developed in recent years sedentary activities, such as reindeer husbandry. “

Figure 2. Arctic Peoples 

Source: http://www.underthepole.com/milieu-polaire/les-peuples-de-larctique/

Political organizations (Figure 3)

Arctic nations are grouped around six organizations for the defence of their rights and their political and economic interests. We have the Saami Council – SC, the Aleut International Association – AIA, the Arctic Athabaskan Council – AAC, the Inuit Circumpolar Council and the Gwich’in Council International – GCI (http://www.underthepole.com/milieu-polaire/les-peuples-de-larctique/).

Figure 3. Political Organizations of Arctic peoples 

Source: http://www.underthepole.com/milieu-polaire/les-peuples-de-larctique/

II. The Arctic Biodiversity

The Arctic biodiversity is very rich. It reaches its greatest development in polynyas (Figure 4). These areas play an important role in the ecology of the Arctic Ocean. They offer open water to marine mammals, such as penguins and polar bears that do not migrate during winter. Plankton wealth – that can develop when the Sun appears – brought by polynyas, initiates the Arctic food chain, allowing wildlife to thrive

(http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/resources/news-and-press/news-archive/918-arctic-oases-the-role-of-polynyas).

These marine ecosystems are among the most productive in the world. Many species of invertebrates, fish, birds and marine mammals are found in these sites considered the most important biological hotspots in the Arctic. For example, the entire world population of spectacled eider, a large sea duck, overwinters in the sea ice south of St. Lawrence Island in the eastern Bering Sea. Large recurring polynyas provide the conditions for a wide range of birds during winter as well as for ice species such as seals and whales

(http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/resources/news-and-press/news-archive/918-arctic-oases-the-role-of-polynyas).

Figure 4. Location of concentrations of polynyas in the Arctic Ocean 

 

Source: http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/resources/news-and-press/news-archive/918-arctic-oases-the-role-of-polynyas

III. The polar bear (Figures 5 and 6)

The polar bear, also called the Lord, is the emblem of the Arctic. It is the largest urside of the planet and most likely the deadliest Arctic predator. Powerful symbol of strength and resistance, this tireless hunter sees its survival threatened by global warming. Its critical habitat depends upon the presence of delicate sea ice on which the very foundation of the entire Arctic ecosystem is balanced. This sea ice is now literally melting between the polar bears’ legs. Its scientific name Ursus maritimus means “sea-bear” a great fitting name for an animal who spent most of its lifetime in the freezing water (http: //www.wwf.ca/fr/conservation/arctique/faune_arctique/ours_polaire/).

Figure 5. On the Hudson Bay during a hunting trip north of Sanikiluaq (ᓴᓂᑭᓗᐊᖅ) on the north shore of Flaherty Island Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut Canada. It is the southernmost community of the territory. Photo taken in February 2015.

Source: Piita Kattuk, member of the Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board.

Figure 6. Akpatok Island, Ungava Bay. Nunavut. Hunting polar bear destination for Nunavik Inuit

Source: http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/IOTD/view.php?id=2223

The population of the polar bear and its spatial distribution

According to data harvested in the circumpolar Management Plan – Draft – 2014 the population of polar bears has been estimated at 20 000 to 25 000 individuals. Canada displays the largest coastline inhabited by polar bears, followed by Russia, Greenland, the United States and Norway (see Figure 7 and Table 1). This large area of over 22 million square kilometers is mainly composed of Canadian Arctic archipelago, recognized for its large biological productivity, which most certainly justifiies the preference of polar bears for the region. Their number in the area is estimated at 16,413 individuals, where more than the two third of the total population is found in 13 of the 19 Arctic subpopulations (Management Plan – Draft – 2014).

Polar bears’ most active denning area is found on Akimiski Island in James Bay, Canada. Despite a confirmed presence in High Arctic around Ellesmere Island and northern Greenland, polar bears are more active in southern areas. This geographic repartition could be explained by better ice conditions in southern areas and the lack of food in deep waters.”(Draft Management Plan -. 2014).

Figure 7. Limits Range in polar bear populations since June 2014

 Source :   Circumpolar Action Plan Draft Volume I – Conservation Strategy for the Polar Bear – August 2014

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Table 1: Data of PBSG on subpopulations of polar bears throughout the Arctic – 2014

Arctic Basin (AB): Unknown Population; area of the management unit: 4,233,530 km2 Territory: Circumpolar Region.

Baffin Bay (BB): Estimated enrollment of 1,546 individuals in 2004 on an area of 1,078,840 km2 – Territories: Canada (Nunavut) and Greenland.

Barents Sea (BS): Estimated enrollment of 2,644 individuals in 2004 on an area of 1,691,458 km2 – Territories: Norway and Russia.

Sea Tchoukthes (CS): Estimated enrollment of 2,000 individuals in 1993 on an area covering an area of 1,836,922 km2 – Territories: Russia and the United States.

Davis Strait (DS): Estimated enrollment of 2,158 individuals in 2007 on a space with an area of 2,620,106 km2 – Territories: Canada (Nunavut, Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador) and Greenland.

East Greenland (EG): unknown Employees – Area: 2,054,115 km2 – Territory: Greenland

Foxe Basin (FB): 2,580 people in 2010 over an area of 1,181,019 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut, Quebec)

Gulf of Boothia (GB): Estimated population of 1,592 individuals in 2000 on an area of 171,136 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut)

Kane Basin (KB): Estimated enrollment of 164 individuals in 1997 on an area of 166,514 km2 – Territories: Canada (Nunavut) and Greenland.

Kara Sea (KS): Unknown Numbers – area of 1,763,680 km2 – Territory: Russia.

Lancaster Sound (LS): Estimated enrollment of 2,541 individuals in 1998 on an area of 487,532 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut).

Laptev Sea (LP): From 800 to 1200 individuals in 1993 over an area of 2,459,282 km2 – Territory: Russia.

M’Clintock Channel (TM): Estimated population of 284 individuals in 2000 on an area of 495,256 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut)

Northern Beaufort Sea (NB): Estimated enrollment of 2,191 individuals in 2014 over an area of 944,667 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut, Northwest Territories)

Norwegian Bay (NW): Estimated enrollment of 203 individuals in 1997 on an area of 147,262 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut)

Southern Beaufort Sea (SB): Estimated population of 1,215 individuals in 2014 over an area of 715,030 km2 – Territories: Canada (Yukon, Northwest Territories) and the United States.

Southern Hudson Bay (SH): Estimated enrollment of 951 individuals in 2012 over an area of 1,135,249 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut, Quebec, Ontario)

Detroit Viscount Melville (VM): Estimated population of 161 individuals in 1992 on an area of 209,962 km2 – Territory: Canada (Nunavut)

Western Hudson Bay (WH): Estimated population of 1,030 individuals in 2011 on an area of 502,379 km2 – Territory: Canada (Manitoba, Nunavut)

Source: Action Plan – Conservation Strategy of the polar bear (draft). August 2014

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Subpopulations trends (Figure 8)

The establishment of the situation on the 19 subpopulations trends shows that over the last twelve years, researchers based on the Detroit M’Clintock saw one subpopulation size increases, three others decrease and six remained stable. The remianing subpopulations size remain unknown (http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html). We just learned that the Norwegians and the Russians will cooperate for counting subpopulations of their territory which have not been done over the last 11 years (barentsobserver.com).

Figure 8. Subpopulations trends

Source: http://www.wwf.ca/fr/conservation/arctique/faune_arctique/ours_polaire/

Its habitat

The polar bear is considered a marine mammal. Its average weight is between 400 and 600 kg (male) and between 150 and 250 kg (female). Its life expectancy is about 25 years. Its preferred habitat is located on the glaciated areas near open water portions. He uses ice as a platform to feed on its favorite food, ringed seals, one of the species of common seals in the Arctic. They also eat bearded seals, harp seals, and harbor seals. The polar bear uses its sense of smell to detect the breathing of seals that can be up to a kilometer away. It may hunt walrus, beluga and narwhal. Because of its difficulties to feed, the polar bear has the ability to slow down its metabolism in order to conserve energy without feeding up to ten days

(http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids/animal-facts /polar_bear.asp).

The polar bear is an excellent swimmer. His thick layer of fat allows him to keep warm and helps flotting. His large feet serve as oars. It can swim up to a speed of 10 kilometers per hour and cover a distance of 90 kilometers without stopping. He can hold his breath under water for one minute (http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids/animal-facts/polar_bear.asp) (Figure 9).

Figure 9. On the Hudson Bay during a hunting trip near Sanikiluaq (ᓴᓂᑭᓗᐊᖅ) located on the north shore of Flaherty Island Belcher Islands in Hudson Bay in the Qikiqtaaluk region of Nunavut in Canada. It is the southernmost community of the territory.

Source: Piita Kattuk, member of the Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board.

Life on the ice

“The future of the polar bear is inseparable from the fate of its habitat, the sea ice. Less ice, fewer bears. But global warming results in the reduction of the ice cover in summer and thicker layers in winter, which ultimately threatens the bear survival. The ice pack is the foundation of Arctic marine life; the ecosystem on which all aspects of the bear’s life is based. In fact, the ice is more than a hunting space, its also a nursery ”

(http://www.wwf.ca/fr/ conservation / Arctic / faune_arctique / ours_polaire /).

The females give birth every three years. They usually give birth to one or two offspring, it can be up to four cubs per litter.

The main threats to its habitat

According to the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG), the main threats to the polar bear habitat is melting sea ice due to climate change, diseases, deaths caused by man, and oil activities gas, mining, contaminants, navigation and tourism. Given the crucial importance of the presence of sea ice for the polar bear we provide an overview of the process of melting and thinning observed for the last thirty years, and then an idea of the risks surrounding the oil and gas.

The relentless melting of the Arctic ice (figure 9)

According to Michel Alberganti, using data from the Goddard Space Flight Center, “the surface of the Arctic Ocean covered by ice has reached 5.83 million square kilometersin 2013, against the minimum of 4.34 million square kilometersregistered in August 2012, and even 3.41 million square kilometersSeptember 16: “In 2012, the coverage rate did not exceed half the average recorded between 1979 and 2010” (http: //www.slate.com / life / 77458 / Kick-cold Arctic) (figure 10). Indeed, in 2012, according to analysis and preliminary observations from the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC) (University of Colorado at Boulder), the Arctic sea ice reached its lowest level in over 30 years! An alarming trend according to scientists.

“For the first time, Arctic sea ice reached its lowest since satellite observations (1979), beating the 2007 record. The extent of sea ice was only 4.10 million square kilometersin August 26 2012. This is 70,000 square kilometers less than the previous record registered on 18 September 2007. This corresponds to a loss equivalent to the size of Ireland. On 5 September 2012, the ice was still melting with an area of less than 4 million kilometers square, about ten days after the end of the Arctic melt season “.

Figure 10. Extension monthly average of sea ice in the Arctic (December 1978-2013)

 Source: http://sciences.blogs.liberation.fr/home/2014/01/banquises-arctique-et-antarctique-sopposent.html

“Walt Meier, a scientist at NSIDC said,” By itself, it is only a number and sometimes new records were established. But in the context of what has happened in recent years and over satellite observations, it is an indication that the Arctic sea ice is changing fundamentally ”

(http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_3454_record_fonte_banquise_arctique.php).

Under the Arctic Sea Ice News & Analysis’ the extent of sea ice in December 2014 (Figure 12) showed an average of 12.52 million kilometers square, or 540,000 square kilometers below the average observed between 1981 and 2010 of 13,060,000 square kilometers and 500,000 square kilometers above the record for the month observed in 2010 “.

“The extent of sea ice in December 2014 ranked ninth of the lowest satellite data. For 2014, the rate of decline for December exceeds «Walt Meier, scientist at NSIDC said, “By itself, it is only a number and sometimes new records were established. But in the context of what has happened in recent years and via satellite observations, it is an indication that the Arctic sea ice is changing fundamentally “

(http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_3454_record_fonte_banquise_arctique.php).

As of March 20, 2015, the maximum ice extent of the Arctic Ocean appears to be the lowest ever measured. The maximum extent of Arctic ice was the lowest measured in winter this year since the beginning of satellite observations in 1979, said the American Center of snow and ice (National Snow and Ice Data Center / NSIDC). The surface of the sea ice has reached more than 14.54 million square kilometers on 25 February, which should be the maximum for the year, according to a preliminary estimate, representing 1.10 million square kilometers below the average of 15.64 million square kilometers measured from 1981 to 2010 and 130,000 square kilometers below the previous minimum in 2011.

This year, the maximum was reached two weeks earlier than the average between 1981 and 2010 according to the NSIDC. The date of the maximum extent of Arctic sea ice varies considerably from year to year from 24 February 1996 at the earliest to 2 April at the latest in 2010, specify these scientists (levif.be).

During the 2014-2015 winter, the ice in the Arctic Ocean rose by 9.91 million square kilometers, a much lower increase compared to 2013-2014, which saw a record increase. The low ice formation during this last winter was partial in February characterized by an unusual combination of the jet stream, which resulted in an Arctic warming of Pacific Ocean causing a small extent ice in the Bering Sea and Okhotsk. During the first two weeks of March, temperatures across the Arctic was about several degrees above average up ten degrees in the Barents Sea northern Norway, said the NSIDC.

For WWF “this should be a wake-up call.”

“Climate change will not stop at the Arctic Circle and without a drastic reduction greenhouse emissions, we will have a completely different climate, unpredictable and destructive to ecosystems and humans,” said in a statement Samantha Smith, head of the Climate and Energy Initiative of the organization. She recalled that 2014 was the warmest year on the globe since the beginning of temperature readings in 1881

(http://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/l-etendue-maximum-des-glaces-de-l-ocean-arctique-la-plus-faible-jamais-mesuree/article-normal-372657.html).

the record of satellite data qui est 3.4% per decade ”

(http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/01/december-ends/).

Figure 11. Total area of Arctic sea ice – 2012 and 2013

 Source : http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_3454_record_fonte_banquise_arctique.php

Figure 12. Extent of Arctic sea ice August 26, 2012 compared to the average minimum extent for the period 1979-2010 (orange line)

Source : http://www.notre-planete.info/actualites/actu_3454_record_fonte_banquise_arctique.php

Figure 13. Extension of Arctic sea ice in 2014. Maximum in March; minimum in September

Source : http://www.clubdesargonautes.org/actualites/news2015.php –

Les lignes magenta indiquent les moyennes d’extension sur la période 1981-2010. Arctic Report Card 2014

The thinning of sea ice (Figure 14)

Using modern measurement techniques (since 2000 the records were replaced by a host of airborne measurements and satellites, as well as other data collection methods directly on or under the ice) and historical data, Washington University researchers were able to observe the way in which the thickness of Arctic sea ice has changed over the past decades. The study, published in The Cryophere, shows that the ice in the central Arctic Ocean has thinned by 65% between 1975 and 2012 from 3.59 m to 1.25 m.

The thinning is even more marked in September when the sea ice is at its thinnest after the summer melt. During this 37-year period of observation, the thickness of the ice in September has thinned by 85%, from 3.01 to 0.44 m: “The ice has thinned considerably said the Lead researcher Ron Lindsay, a climatologist from Applied Physics Laboratory of the University. We knew the ice was thinner, but we now have further confirmation on the speed with which the phenomenon occurs and we can see that it does not slow down ” (http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2015/03/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-dramatically-study-finds-06-03). 

Figure 14. The melting of Arctic sea ice

Source : http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2015/03/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-dramatically-study-finds-06-03

Figure 15. The predicted changes for the twenty-first century in the Arctic                 

Source: http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/shift-in-climatic-zones-arctic-scenario_1154

The scenarios presented by the Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) shows a significant increase in temperatures in the Arctic, greatere than in many other parts of the world, which can have impacts such as tundra areas decrease in continuous permafrost, moving towards the north of the tree line and a reduced Arctic sea ice. The synthesis is based on several models and different sets. The map shows that the situation is likely to occur at the end of the XXI century (http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/shift-in-climatic-zones -arctic-scenario_1154) (Figure 15).

The risks associated with oil and gas development (Figure 16)

Several oil and gas exploitation are currently active in the Arctic:

“The Prudhoe Bay site, one of the oldest in the Arctic, provides (2007) 700 Mbbl / d of oil, for the remaining reserves of 3 Gbbl; the maximum production was 2 Mbbl / d in 1988. It justified the establishment of the Alaska pipeline. In Russia, we have the Hammerfest LNG site, linked to Snøhvit. In addition, the Prirazlomnoe oilfield, discovered in 1989 in the south-east of the Barents Sea, the Gulf between the estuary of the Pechora and Novaya Zemlya, began to be exploited 24 years after Gazprom discharged in early May 2014 a first load of 70,000 tons of oil ARCO (brand new oil of the Russian Arctic shelf) of inferior quality compared to the Urals. The license for the deposit belongs to Gazprom Neft Shelf and the operator is Gazprom Neft; investments in the mining project on the Arctic shelf reach about 1.8 billion euros; Prirazlomnoe the platform was installed in August 2011 and started operation in late 2013; available reserves are estimated at 72 million tonnes; for 2014, the planned production of 300 000 tonnes ”

(http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9trole_et_gaz_naturel_en_Arctique#Zones_en_cours_d.E2.80.99exploitation).

Figure 16. Environmental threats in the Barents Sea

Source : http://www.grida.no/images/series/et-common/envthreatinregion_L.jpg

According to the PBSG, “oil spill in the polar bear habitat are particularly worrying. The exploration and oil and gas development in the Arctic increasing, coupled with increased transport associated with the longest season of open water, increase the potential for oil spills in the marine environment. ” (Action Plan – Conservation Strategy of the polar bear (draft) in August 2014.)

“In Russia, in general, the Pollution of the Russian Arctic Oil does not exceed the established maximum thresholds, except in some regions, particularly in the Barents Sea … In Alaska, since 2014, no major spill occurred. However, small chronic leaks from underwater pipelines could cause undetected release of large amounts of oil off … In Canada, since 2014, the only gas production within the range of Polar bear in the Canadian Arctic occurs in the deposit Ikhil in the Mackenzie Delta. The gas is produced from two wells, and is routed through a 50 km pipeline to Inuvik where it is used for power generation and heating … In Norway, at present, the only deposits of oil / gas subject to industrial development are those of Snøhvit and Goliat “(Action Plan – Conservation Strategy of the polar bear (draft) in August 2014).

IV. The Management Plan. A Circumpolar Cooperation (Figures 17, 18 and 19)

The state of the polar bear’s varies in function of the conservation efforts. The purpose of this Plan is:

– Ensure a long-term persistence of polar bear genetic bagage in the wilderness;

– Preserve a great range of polar bears ecological diversity and its habitat throughout the short and medium term Arctic.

“To protect the environment, the precautionary approach shall be widely applied by States according to their capabilities. Where there are threats of serious or irreversible damage, lack of full scientific certainty should not be an excuse for postponing the adoption of effective measures to prevent environmental degradation. ” (Principle 15 of the Rio Declaration on Environment and Development in 1992) .

Recognize that the polar bear is an important resource that plays a vital role in the social and cultural well-being of local communities in the Arctic. As well as recognize the subsistence needs of indigenous peoples in the Arctic, so that conservation is best achieved in partnership with communities traditionally dependent on polar bears and their participation in management decision making (Action Plan – Conservation Strategy of the polar bear (draft), August 2014).

Figure 17. Distribution of protected areas in the circumpolar region is wholly or partly within the potential range of polar bears

 Source : Circumpolar Action Plan Draft Volume I – Conservation Strategy for the Polar Bear – August 2014.

Figure 18.  Protected areas and wilderness

Source : http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/protected-areas-and-wilderness_60e9

Territories covered by legislation

The total marine area occupied by the sub-populations in the circumpolar region is estimated at 15,523,600 square kilometers, of which about 548 600 square kilometers (4%) are protected. The marine protected area is about two-thirds of the protected land area (circumpolar action plan Volume I. Conservation Strategy of the polar bear, August, 2014) (Figure 14).

Management of subpopulations habitats (Table 2)

Subpopulations habitat management systems are in place in all states based on national strategies and implementation plans that cover all areas frequented by the species. Numerous actions taken show a real will to reduce the vulnerability of ecosystems that support it. A beautiful illustration of this political will is found in Norway where we created free areas of oil exploitation in the Barents Sea (Figure 19).

Table 2. Plan of the Bear conservation systems throughout the circumpolar region

NORWAY

In Norway, with a total area of 1.4 million square kilometers, the Barents Sea is protected under the provisions of the Svalbard Act of 2002. In this region, more than 65% of the territory and 87% of marine areas are protected. A national action plan has been in force since 2013 and its revision is planned for 2018.

CANADA

Canada Arctic Islands are the favorite area of the polar bear which is under the authority of multiple laws. Therefore, there are five national wildlife areas, three marine protected areas, 11 national parks and 58 provincial parks land. It conducts an annual evaluation of the 13 sub-populations in the territory according to the National Conservation Strategy which was last revised in 2011.

RUSSIA

The territory covered by conservation measures covers an area of 1,763,680 square kilometers. This is primarily the Kara Sea and the Laptev Sea where applied the Federal Law on wildlife. There are four State Natural Reserves (zapovedniks) covering an area of 49,537 square kilometers, the National Russian Arctic Park with an area of 14 260 square kilometers , three national wildlife reserves, national parks and national marine reserve, five natural resource reserves of the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia). The Action Plan of the Russian Federation established in 2010 is in force until 2020.

DENMARK (GREENLAND)

The total area covered by the conservation measures is 2,054,115 square kilometers according to the provisions of the “Greenland Home Rule Act No. 12 of October 29, 1999, Hunting and Game” and the “Executive Order on the Protection and Hunting of Polar Bear “in 2006. Protected areas in the Melville Bay covers an area of 10 500 square kilometers and the Greenland National Park with 972,000 square kilometers. An assessment of sub-populations present in the area is coming.

UNITED STATES        

The territories under conservation measures are the Chukchi Sea or Alaska Tchoukotk region and Southern Beaufort Sea with a total area of 715,030 square kilometers. On 7 December 2010, the Service has identified about 484,734 square kilometers as critical habitat for polar bears following three categories: sea ice, barrier islands as habitat resting and denning habitat

Chukchi Sea. The management of polar bears hunting is governed by the Agreement between the United States and the Russian Federation on the Conservation and Management of the Alaska-Chukotka Polar Bear Population. This agreement was enacted in the US in 2006. The Management was concluded in collaboration with Alaska Nanuuq Commission, the principal co-management partner established in 1994

Source: Circumpolar Action Plan Draft Volume I – Conservation Strategy for the Polar Bear – August 2014.

Figure 19. Mer de Norvège et Mer de Barents. Zones exemptes de l’exploitation pétrolière

Source : http://www.grida.no/graphicslib/detail/barents-sea-oil-free-zones_f319

Conclusion

Most analyzes on the situation of the polar bear exhibit concerns about its survival after the ice will be gone. The terms used to describe the fate of the case are related to drama or disaster: The polar bear is endangered. A different view is found in Government of Nunavut that exposes a reassuring perspective: “Polar bears are very smart and quickly adapt to changing circumstances. As they have survived many climate change cycles in the past, they are likely to be able to adapt to changes that may occur in the future. However, it is quite possible that there are changes in their range and their composition. Some areas could see a fall in the polar bear population or disappearance in these regions during the hottest periods. Other regions could see an increase in the number of polar bears to measure that climate change will make the most favorable habitats for bears, driving the reduction in multi-year ice. In still other areas, the number and the reproductive rate of polar bears could remain relatively constant “(http://env.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/3154-315_climate_french_sm.pdf).

We believe that the efforts made by members of the Polar Bear Specialist Group (PBSG) in implementing the Plan of management of polar bear habitat have given and will give good results. The objectives are ensured by law conservation of resources upon which depends the species and the decrease of subpopulation vulnerability through careful management of polar bears habitats (circumpolar action plan Volume I. Conservation Strategy of the polar bear, August 2014).

2013 Declaration of Ministers of the countries of the circumpolar area on climate change and the extent and sea ice composition

According to the PBSG, “Environmental change is the most serious threat in the long term for the polar bear and its habitat. The projected warming in much of its range, the associated reductions in the extent and thickness of multi-year sea ice and the length and thickness of the annual sea ice will affect direct and indirect on the species. Habitat loss is one of the direct effects (ie extent of and composition of the sea ice). Indirect effects include changes throughout the ecosystem affecting the availability of prey such as seals, isolation dens areas and land shelters, the release and transfer of contaminants, and the expansion of human activities resulting in an increase in the likelihood of interactions between humans and bears. The earlier melting of sea ice in summer and the later formation of ice in the fall will ensure that the bears depend more of the terrestrial areas. ”

“We recognize that the fight against climate change is important to the long-term conservation of polar bears. Recognize the need to manage habitat of the polar bear to reduce the vulnerability of polar bear populations and to take into account the long-term expected changes in the conditions of sea ice in the Arctic, as well as impact of these changes on polar bears and their prey “(circumpolar action plan Volume I. Polar Bear Conservation Strategy, August 2014).

Statement by the Minister of the Environment of Nunavut

“The Inuit have always had the ability to adapt to change, and change happens very quickly. If we adapt this is done partly at the expense of our health, our families and our culture. We are committed – to oppose the elements that cause harm to the population – and to make positive, achievable changes that will allow us to be better prepared to face the future. “Tamapta: Our Future Together”.

Note : My thanks are addressed to :

–        Piita Kattuk, member of the Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board, Sanikiluaq, Nunavut, Canada.

–        Sophie Fillion, Wildlife Liaison Officer, Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board.

Article in French: 

L’ours blanc dans l’espace arctique circumpolaire: Un symbole de la survie de la Biosphère, 28 of April of 2015

 

References

ALBERGANTI, Michel. 2013. En Arctique et en Antarctique, l’été n’a pas été caniculaire. Slate FR. September 9, 2013: http://www.slate.fr/life/77458/coup-de-froid-arctique

ARCTIC COUNCIL. 2014. Arctic oases: The role of polynyas. August 13, 2014: http://www.arctic-council.org/index.php/en/resources/news-and-press/news-archive/918-arctic-oases-the-role-of-polynyas

ARCTIC SEA ICE NEWS & ANALYSIS. 2015. Arctic Sea Ice, 2014 in review. December ends, 2014 in review. January 7, 2015: http://nsidc.org/arcticseaicenews/2015/01/december-ends/

CANADIAN GEOGRAPHIC. Fast Facts: Polar bear: http://www.canadiangeographic.ca/kids/animal-facts/polar_bear.asp

CANADIAN WILDLIFE SERVICE. 2011. National Polar Bear Conservation Strategy for Canada. Ottawa. August 2011. 23 pages.

CANADIAN WILDLIFE SERVICE. 2011. National Polar Bear Conservation Strategy for Canada. Summary.  Ottawa. August 2011. 7 pages.

CONSERVATION OF ARCTIC FLORA AND FAUNA (CAFF). Marine Biodiversity Monitoring Plan: http://www.caff.is/marine/marine-monitoring-plan

DÉSIRONT, André. 2012. Violence familiale dans l’île d’Akpatok. Express Voyage à destination. September 7, 2012: http://www.expressvoyage.ca/reportages.php?sequence_no=40340

DUFOUR, Jules. 2007. L’Arctique, militarisation ou coopération pour le développement ? Géopolitique et militarisation du grand Nord canadien (Deuxième partie). Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM). July 31, 2007: http://www.mondialisation.ca/l-arctique-militarisation-ou-coop-ration-pour-le-d-veloppement/6417

DUFOUR, Jules. 2008. La ruée vers les ressources énergétiques de l’Arctique. Le sommet du Groenland et la coopération circumpolaire. Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM). May 29, 2008 : http://www.mondialisation.ca/la-ru-e-vers-les-ressources-nerg-tiques-de-l-arctique/9115

DUFOUR, Jules. 2010.  L’Arctique, un « diamant précieux » pour l’environnement global et l’humanité. Nécessité de la préservation de l’Arctique pour la survie de la Biosphère. Montréal, Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM). September 20, 2010: http://www.mondialisation.ca/l-arctique-un-diamant-pr-cieux-pour-l-environnement-global-et-l-humanit/21111

GATTOLIN, André. 2014. Arctique : Préoccupations européennes pour un enjeu global. Rapport d’information n° 684 (2013-2014) fait au nom de la commission des affaires européennes, déposé le 2 juillet 2014. Sénat: http://www.senat.fr/rap/r13-684/r13-684_mono.html

GOUVERNEMENT DU NUNAVUT. UPAGIAQTAVUT. PAVÉE LA VOIE. Impacts et adaptation liés aux changements climatiques. Ministère de l’Environnement. 32 pages: http://env.gov.nu.ca/sites/default/files/3154-315_climate_french_sm.pdf

INUIT TAPIRIIT KANATAMI. 2003. Inuit Kanatami. 36 pages.

KULLERUD, Lars et Nils Ræstad. Oil and Gas resources in the Barents Sea. Arctic Times. University of the Arctic. En ligne : http://www.grida.no/publications/et/at/page/2543.aspx

L’EXPRESS LE VIF. 2015. L’étendue maximum des glaces de l’océan arctique, la plus faible jamais mesurée. Levif.be. March 20, 2015: http://www.levif.be/actualite/environnement/l-etendue-maximum-des-glaces-de-l-ocean-arctique-la-plus-faible-jamais-mesuree/article-normal-372657.html

MAGDELAINE, Christophe. 2012. La fonte de la banquise arctique vient de battre un nouveau record. notre-planete.info – September  4, 2012: http://www.notreplanete.info/actualites/actu_3454_record_fonte_banquise_arctique.ph

MELTON, Bruce. 2015. Greenland Reels: Climate Disrupting Feedbacks Have Begun. TRUTH-OUT.ORG. Le 5 mars 2015. En ligne : http://truth-out.org/news/item/29462-greenland-reels-climate-disrupting-feedbacks-have-begun

NUNAVIK MARINE REGION BOARD. 2014. Public Hearing. Establishment of a Total Allowable Take for the Southern Hudson Bay Polar Bear Subpopulation. February 12th – 14th, 2014. Inukjuak, QC.

OBBARD, Martyn E., Kevin R. Middel, Seth Stapleton, Isabelle Thibault, Vincent Brodeur, and Charles Jutras. 2013. Wildlife Research Series 2013-01. Estimating abundance of the Southern Hudson Bay polar bear subpopulation using aerial surveys, 2011 and 2012. 33 pages.

PETTERSEN, Trude. 2015. Norwegian and Russian scientists are going to cooperate on counting the number of polar bears around Svalbard and Franz Josef Land. Barents Observer. February 25, 2015: http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2015/02/russians-and-norwegians-cooperate-polar-bear-inventory-25-02

PETTERSEN, Trude. 2015. Arctic sea ice ‘thinning dramatically’, study finds. Barents Observer. March 6, 2015 : http://barentsobserver.com/en/nature/2015/03/arctic-sea-ice-thinning-dramatically-study-finds-06-03

POLAR BEAR SPECIALISTS GROUP. 2014. Plan d’action circumpolaire volume I (ébauche). Stratégie de conservation de l’ours blanc. August 2014. 74 pages.

POLAR BEAR SPECIALISTS GROUP. 2015. États de l’aire de répartition de l’ours blanc. Plan d’action circumpolaire pour l’ours blanc.  Partie II. February 11, 2015. 39 pages.

POLAR BEAR SPECIALISTS GROUP. 2015. Summary of polar bear population status per 2014. IUCN/SSC PBSG. Le 20 janvier 2015. En ligne : http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/status/status-table.html

RADIO-CANADA. 2014. Réchauffement climatique : la biodiversité de l’Arctique se transforme déjà. June 4, 2014 : http://ici.radio-canada.ca/regions/est-quebec/2014/06/04/010-rechauffement-climat-arctique.shtml

IUCN/SSC Polar Bear Specialist Group. The official website for the Polar Bear Specialist Group of the IUCN Species Survival Commission: http://pbsg.npolar.no/en/

WIKIPÉDIA. L’ours blanc: http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ours_blanc

WIKIPÉDIA. Pétrole et gaz naturel en Arctique. Dernière mise à jour : Le 2 février 2015. En ligne : http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/P%C3%A9trole_et_gaz_naturel_en_Arctique#Zones_en_cours_d.E2.80.99exploitation

 

Jules Dufour, Ph.D., C.Q.. is Emeritus Professor of Geography , University of Quebec, Research Associate, Centre for Research on Globalization.

Member Knight of the National Order of Quebec, Member of the World Commission on Protected Areas of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN), Gland, Switzerland, Member of the Universal Circle of Ambassadors for Peace, Paris, Member of COFEX-North. Great Whale Hydroelectric project assessment (1992-1994)Member of the Nunavik Commission (1999-2001) Member of the Eeyou Marine Region Wildlife Board (James Bay and Hudson Bay), Waskaganish, Eeyou Istchee (2013-)

On 27 August, Polish Radio announced that two people have presented evidence that they have discovered Nazi Germany’s legendary “Gold Train,” containing art and that’s especially “laden with precious metals,” and that the pair are demanding a 10% cut of its value, for finding this nearly 200-yard-long train, in a hidden mountain tunnel in the Polish town of Walzbrych, formerly the German town of Waldenburg. Nazis had constructed the tunnel in 1943, to hide valuables from Soviet forces, in the event that Germany might lose the war.

Soviets conquered Nazi forces at Waldenburg on 8 May 1945; and, until now, this heavily armored train had not been found. On August 27th, the town announced that agreement was reached with the German citizen and the Polish citizen, who jointly claim to have made the find, agreeing to pay them their demanded 10%. The report says, “As outlined in their claim to Wałbrzych authorities, ‘the train contains valuable objects, costly industrial materials and precious metal ores’.” So, the town is now seeking assistance from the Polish government, to provide mine-detection and other help, so that the site can safely be entered by the town’s officials, in order that the train’s cargo can be itemized and estimated. According to a report in Britain’s Telegraph, Poland’s military are “cordoning off” the area.

The initial Polish report noted that, “As Germans fled the advancing Red Army at the end of the war, innumerable valuables were evacuated. Thousands of these, including artworks such as Raphael’s ‘Portrait of a Young Man’, which had been looted from Poland’s Czartoryski Museum during the war, have not been traced until this day.”

According to warhistoryonline,

“Damien Simonart, France Info’s Warsaw correspondent, said: ‘If there is Nazi gold in this train, we are not talking about Indiana Jones here but gold pulled from the teeth of Jews in death camps.’ He added that if the two unidentified treasure hunters really have struck gold, they will have to question their consciences over its origin if they do seal a deal to take home 10 per cent of its value.”

However, with the announcement now, that Walzbrych has agreed to that payment, there will also be complex legal decisions by the Polish Government, and perhaps also some broader questions of international law, regarding whether and how assets that were extracted from people who were exterminated can belong legally to any government, and to any finders; and, if so, then at what percentages.

The report by Simonart says that,

“The Walbrzych region is home to dozens of kilometers of underground galleries. The Nazis had dug them during the war to secretly produce strategic weapons, but it may very well hide a train full of gold.”

Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They’re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST’S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity.

North Dakota has become the first state to approve government use of drones equipped with “less than lethal weapons”, including “rubber bullets, pepper spray, tear gas, sound cannons, and Tasers”.

The bill passsed largely due to the inherent corruption of the US political system, as the wording was modified to allow for weaponized drones and approved “thanks to a last-minute push by a … lobbyist representing law enforcement—tight with a booming drone industry”.

The Republican who originally proposed the bill had written it to ban all weaponization of drones, and he was dismayed that it ultaimately passed in a form that allows non-lethal weaponization.

Police claim the drones will only be used in “non-criminal” situations, such as surveilance, but did not mention that they have already been used in at least one criminal situation, or that the claim is dubious at best given the ultra-militarized and brutal state of policing in the US, which many, particularly those in ethnic minority groups, liken to military occupation.

A police deputy, explaining why he opposed requiring search warrants for use of drones, told Daily Beast that “you don’t want things that would potentially have a chilling effect on [drone] manufacturers”.

“It’s really all about the commercial development,” said Republican rep. Gary Paur.

As Daily Beast puts it, “In other words, limit civil liberties so Big Drone can spread its wings.”

Of course, there is a bit more to it than that, as numerous US crackdowns on pro-democracy protesters, including mass arrests of civilians and journalists, demonstrate.

Author Robert Barsocchini can be found on Twitter: @_DirtyTruths

Europe and Iran demand Nuclear Free Middle East as AIPAC-funded Congress creates nuclear-armed  Israel a global weapons supplier

A Congressional Research Service study, on June 10, concluded that American military aid has  ‘helped Israel build a domestic defence industry, which ranks as one of the top 10 suppliers of arms worldwide,’ ** (read ‘attack’ for ‘defence’).

Under pressure from AIPAC, the Zionist Lobby in Washington, the White House is reported to be intending to increase its military aid to Israel to unprecedented levels i.e. to $3.5 billion a year for each of the next ten years.   The U.S. also announced a $1.88 billion gift to Israel of bombs and  precision guided weapons including BLU-113, 5000-pound penetrating bombs for use on buried targets – such as Iran’s atomic energy research sites. However, unlike Israel, Iran has no nuclear weapons and subscribes to the entire Middle East being designated a Nuclear Weapons Free Zone (NWFZ) as wanted by the EU.

Israel will also apparently be offered the new F-35, fifth generation American strike fighter aircraft in order to maintain Qualitative Military Edge, or QME – an incredible policy enacted into law by a heavily AIPAC-influenced  U.S. congress, in 2008, that requires all US presidents to ensure that Israel possesses a ‘qualitative military edge’.

These unprecedented policies that maintain the only undeclared nuclear state in the world are implemented at a huge cost to the American tax payer, who receives nothing in return other than the threat of a future nuclear war in the Middle East that would almost certainly lead to the deployment of American troops and their inevitable sustainment of heavy losses in a foreign theatre of war.

Rarely if ever mentioned, however, is the apparently secret, federal gag order in force in the U.S. that prohibits informed debate regarding Israel’s nuclear program and that it is apparently an offence for any federal employee to mention the Israeli arsenal of nuclear warheads, in the Iran deal debate. Doing so could end in being summarily fired and possibly imprisoned!  (*see link below).   It is a matter of conjecture as to the precise reasons for such an unprecedented, clandestine, draconian gagging order and as to which country specifically benefits from it, given that it has no bearing on U S national security.

Tragically, President Obama has little alternative but to comply with laws enacted under the previous Bush administration under pressure from the Israel lobby – although he clearly disapproves of a policy that disturbs the balance of global power in favour of a small, strategically insignificant, Mediterranean state – the prime minister of which heads up a right-wing Likud coalition government whose aim is to ethnically cleanse the whole of former Palestine.

Anthony Bellchambers, London.  August 2015

[email protected]

Note

1. http://www.globalresearch.ca/israeli-nukes-are-finally-newsworthy-as-us-government-both-releases-and-gags-information/5472127

Beirut is burning; it is hurt, angry and uncertain about its own future.

Ambulances are howling. Hundreds are injured. Rubber bullets are flying and so is live ammunition.

A Revolution? A rebellion?

Who are those men, stripped from their waist up, muscular, throwing stones at the security forces in the center of Beirut? Are they genuine revolutionaries? Are they there in order to reclaim so badly discredited “Arab Spring”?

Or did they come here in a show of force, because the West is paying them? If the Lebanese state collapses, ISIL could move in, and occupy at least a substantial part of Lebanon. That would suit the West’s interests, and those of Turkey, as well as the Gulf States.

Or Israel could take advantage of the vacuum, and invade Lebanon, once again. Or both ISIL and Israel.

Two weeks ago, a friend of mine said jokingly: “I met a kid in Beirut. He told me that he is going to get a job at some European NGO. His duty would be to help to destabilize Lebanon”.

She named the country funding the NGO, but I’d rather not mention it here, in order not to add more oil to fire. We had a good laugh then, but it does not appear too funny, anymore.

Yesterday she told me: “Security forces fired at him.”

He was there. He was not bragging. It was not a joke.

Nothing appears to be a joke in Lebanon, anymore!

Or could there be two “types” of protesters at the same place and at the same time? Those who are fighting for a better Lebanon, and those who are paid to fight for sectarianism and for the foreign interests (which in this country is almost the same thing)?

*

Just one day before the street battles erupted, I drove from Beirut, crossing the mountains and then progressing north, through Bekaa Valley.

Night descended on the ancient city of Baalbek. Mayada El-Hennawy, the great Syrian pan-Arab classical musician, began singing, her pronounced voice amplified, then carried towards the mountains that form the border between two sisters: Lebanon and Syria,

What a sight! What madness! Behind Mayada’s back, sits the enormous structure of the Temple of Bacchus, above her, helicopter drones. Tanks and hundreds of soldiers were stationed all over Baalbek, protecting the site and the venue. Just a few kilometers away, Hezbollah is engaged in its epic battle with ISIL.

But thousands of people arrived, in striking defiance, refusing to succumb to fear. They drove here from Beirut and other cities of a battered, now almost dysfunctional Lebanon.

They came to celebrate life and the Arabic culture; they came to listen to their beloved songs and to pay tribute to this celebrated Syrian diva. Some, clearly, came to pay tribute to Syria itself – to Syria and to life.

As Mayada El-Hennawy began singing, people roared.

*

24 hours after the concert, a crowd clashed with the Lebanese security forces in the center of Beirut, near the government palace.

Dozens were injured and on 24 August, it was reported that one person died in the hospital.

The “You stink” movement first organized the protests. Thousands of people hit the streets in response to an ongoing garbage crisis, which, according to many, has made the already difficult life in Beirut almost unbearable.

“You Stink”! For 18 years, the government was unable (or unwilling) to build a permanent garbage-recycling site. For 18 years, poor villagers near the “provisory” garbage dumping grounds were suffering, getting poisoned, dying from unusually high level of cancer and from respiratory diseases. Then, finally, they said “Halas! Enough.” They blocked the site. And after they did, the garbage began accumulating on the streets of Beirut. Instead of finding a permanent solution, the government dispersed white toxic rat poison over the piles of rotting trash. People in the capital began getting sick.

But it is not only the garbage that is making life in the capital, and in fact all over the country, almost intolerable.

One thing has to be understood: Lebanon is not Iraq, Libya or Syria. All these countries had strong leadership, and they had robust socialist and social programs (despised by the West): from the medical care to education, public housing and pensions.

In total contrast, Lebanon’s government is dysfunctional, corrupt and divided. The country has been surviving over a year without a President, despite the Cabinet meeting more than 20 times in an attempt to elect one.

Garbage was just a tip of the iceberg. The infrastructure of Lebanon is collapsing: there are water shortages and constant electricity blackouts. There is hardly any public transportation to speak of, almost no green public areas. There are land grabs all over the country. Health and education are at disastrous levels. It is an extremely brutal place for many.

Lebanon is perhaps one of the most capitalist countries on earth. There is almost nothing public, nothing socialist left here, anymore. And the savage capitalism (always prescribed by the Western “partners” for its client states) in Lebanon, as everywhere in the world, simply does not work.

The country hardly produces anything. There are more Lebanese people living abroad than in Lebanon itself, and it is remittances that are keeping the state somehow afloat. There is also substantial income pouring in from the shady businesses in West Africa, in Iraq, but also income from the banking industry (mainly servicing the Middle East and the Gulf States) and from the narcotics grown in Bekaa Valley.

There is plenty of cash in individual’s pockets and in their bank accounts, but almost no money for basic public services. Lamborghinis and Ferraris are racing at night along Cornish, and the Zaitunay Bay Marina puts its counterpart in Abu Dhabi to shame. But most of the city is polluted, crumbling, and desperate.

In between those contrasting facades, desperate Syrian refugees are begging.

Nothing seems to be enough. Money comes in, and mysterious, big chunks of it simply evaporate.

Now the country is totally broke. Government sources claim that the Lebanon’s public debt currently stands at about 143 percent of gross domestic product.

Lebanon is divided along sectarian lines: 18 religious groups. The main ones are Christians, Sunni Muslims, Shia Muslims, and a small Druze minority. Because of sectarianism, there is hardly any national unity, or a “national project”.

Several protesters I spoke to claim that they are fed up with sectarianism and divisions. They want one, strong, united Lebanon. Or that’s what they say.

Ahmed, one of the demonstrators, a middle age professional from Beirut, explained:

“I don’t want Lebanon of Christians and Muslims. I want one Lebanon, one country, united!”

But there seems to be no ideology truly uniting these protesters. There are only grievances that they have in common.

Demands appear to be legitimate.

But in Lebanon, one cannot be certain of what lies below the surface. There are rumors that each religious group is now sending its fighters to the barricades.

For years and decades, competing political interests are pulling this tiny country in different directions.

“I spotted a guy who was protesting and who was obviously a British”, a diplomat based in Beirut who did not want to be identified, told me. “He was not a reporter, he was actually one of the protesters! And he spoke no Arabic. There are many bizarre characters at the protests.”

Who is who and who is with whom, is often extremely difficult to define.

Allegiances of the Christians are mostly with the West. Sunni Muslims are closely allied with the Gulf States, and indirectly, with the West. Shia Muslims, including Hezbollah, are leaning towards Iran.

Almost everyone here agrees that Hezbollah is the only sound social force in the country. It is also aiming at uniting Lebanon, by reaching out to non-Shia groups.

Presently, Hezbollah is locked in an epic fight against the ISIL, a brutal terrorist army that was originally supported and trained by the West, Turkey, generally by NATO. Hezbollah is opposed to terrible acts of destruction that are being spread by the West and by Israel all over the region. For that reason Hezbollah’s name is firmly engraved in the selective US terrorist list.

Lebanon is squeezed from all sides. Civil war in Syria fueled by the West has already forced at least 2 million Syrian people to cross the border and to seek asylum in this tiny country. The ISIL is continuously trying to grab the territory in the Northern part of Lebanon. While Hezbollah is doing most of the fighting against ISIL, the Lebanese army and security forces are trained in the West. Saudi Arabia recently paid for the French supply of arms to Lebanon. Israel is constantly threatening to invade. To add to the list of distresses, there has been renewed fighting in the Palestinian refugee camps in the South of Lebanon, with several dead and many injured.

“What we want is to get rid of sectarianism”, explained Ahmed, standing in front of the concrete wall erected to prevent protesters from marching on the government building. “No more Christians and Muslims; Just Lebanese! And if we win, then there will be definitely much more socialism here, more social reforms, better health, education, infrastructure.”

But can this group really win against a tremendous capitalist and religious inertia?

“It is still so difficult to imagine how we could win”, admits Ahmed. “We need at least one million people to change this country.”

But the number of angry and determined people is constantly growing.

“We’ve had enough. Enough!” Shouts a man who is carrying a plastic bag filled with garbage as a symbol.

Few minutes later I am told by a group of demonstrators: “There are plenty of foreign interests here… French, the United States, Saudi… We need real independence.”

*

All the demonstrators that I talk to are fed up, but very few of them can see a way out of the crisis. In Lebanon, there is no ideology, and no serious talk about socialism. Latin America has not been mentioned even once.

The original group of the protesters is horrified. Many of them went to protest with their little children on their backs and with their grandparents in tow. They thought they are going to engage in discussion with the government. Instead they were welcomed by water cannons, rubber bullets and teargas.

Clashes, and terrible injuries followed. Then a wall was erected, outside the Grand Serail, just to be dismantled next day. Barbed wire is still all over the center of the city. The pavement is dotted with rocks, shop windows broken, cars burned. Tires are scorching, blocking main arteries of the city.

Security forces are omnipresent, on foot, on board their Humvees and on top of the tanks. And so are the medics and paramedics, ready for further escalations.

“Is this a continuation of the Arab Spring?” I asked.

“Yes”, I was told.

Who is behind this uprising?

Everyone at the protest site claims that the rebellion is absolutely spontaneous, that there is no foreign influence.

“Revolution!” protesters are shouting, repeatedly.

“This is not like those color revolutions,” I am told. A protester is referring to the West-backed movements paid to perform the “regime-changes” all over the world. “Here, we are on our own. We want a united, free and better Lebanon!”

There is no doubt that many protesters who are now fighting in the center of the capital are “genuine” and outraged citizens. But others are clearly not. The situation used to be the same in almost all other “Arab Spring countries”: initial desire for reforms and for social policies. Then the infiltration from several political (mainly pro-Western and pro-Saudi) groups followed soon. Time after time, genuine agendas were kidnapped.

Are all rebellions in the Arab world doomed from the start? Are they all going to end in the US and EU orchestrated coups, in bloody massacres and finally, in horrific collapses of the nations? Is the Libyan scenario really inevitable?

One of the leading professors at the American University in Beirut, told me recently: “This university is where most of the leaders from the Gulf States get educated. And those who are not, are actually dreaming that they would be.”

Then one of the “international experts” based in the region, reminds me: “I am sure you already know that the workshops that were held for activists to ‘spark’ The Arab Spring were held in Lebanon”.

I know. And it says a lot. For many years and decades, Beirut was attracting those who wanted to taste “Western the world” without leaving the Middle East. This is where the indoctrination was disseminated, and where so many shady deals between the West and the local rulers and movers were sealed.

Few thousands of protesters in the center of Beirut are closely watched. It goes without saying that each and every move they make is being analyzed, and that the West is going to try to turn the events to its advantage.

This does not mean that one should not try to improve the world, or to fight for a much better country. But it means that those few authentic protesters will be always outnumbered, and they will always have to face the leaders of the savage Lebanese capitalist establishment, backed by the West, and the Gulf States. They will also have to face those other “protesters” who already managed to infiltrate this small rebellion, and who are handled by the various political interests, local and foreign.

If what is happening has origins abroad, then why is there suddenly such a rush to bring Lebanon down? Is it because increasingly successful Russian diplomatic initiatives to stop all conflicts in the Middle East? Or is there a plan to almost fully encircle Syria? Could Hezbollah be now on the hit list of the West?

Rumors are plentiful, while information scarce. One thing is certain: if Lebanon collapses, the entire region will once again become a colony.

Andre Vltchek is a philosopher, novelist, filmmaker and investigative journalist. He covered wars and conflicts in dozens of countries. His latest books are: “Exposing Lies Of The Empire” and “Fighting Against Western Imperialism”. Discussion with Noam Chomsky: On Western Terrorism. Point of No Return is his critically acclaimed political novel. Oceania – a book on Western imperialism in the South Pacific. His provocative book about Indonesia: “Indonesia – The Archipelago of Fear”. Andre is making films for teleSUR and Press TV. After living for many years in Latin America and Oceania, Vltchek presently resides and works in East Asia and the Middle East. He can be reached through his website or his Twitter.

 

 

Pentagon Goes Barbarian

The Pentagon’s new Law of War Manual – a 1,200-plus page document issued in June by the Defense Department’s Office of the General Counsel – is barbaric.

The Manual is so bad that one of the leading experts on the law of war (Dr. Francis Boyle) – who wrote the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention, served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International, and teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign – says :

This Law of War Manual reduces us to the level of Nazis. There’s no other word for it.

Boyle also says the Manual:

Reads like it was written by Hitler’s Ministry of War.

Why is the Manual so bad?

Manual Authorizes Slaughter of Innocent Civilians

Because – according to Boyle – the Manual allows massacres of civilian populations. The most comprehensive previous such document – the 1956 Pentagon field manual – assumed that any deliberate targeting of civilians was illegal and a war crime.

Reporters Can Be Assassinated

And the Manual treats allows reporters to be treated as “unprivileged combatants”, who can be assassinated.

Boyle points out that this retroactively legalizes assassination of reporters, such as Al Jazeera reporters during Iraq war. Boyle notes that even a SPY would be treated better, and given a trial.

(As we’ve previously noted, the U.S. government treats real reporters as terrorists. Because the core things which reporters do could be considered terrorism, in modern America, journalists are sometimes targeted under counter-terrorism laws.)

Manual Authorizes Barbarous War Crimes

Boyle also says the Manual authorizes the following barbarous war crimes:

(1) Warfare with nuclear weapons. Specifically, the manual states:

There is no general prohibition in treaty or customary international law on the use of nuclear weapons.

This flies in the face of the United Nations Charter, which – as noted by the World Court in its Advisory Opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons – makes even threatening to use nuclear weapons a war crime.

This is also particularly worrisome because – as documented in
Towards a World War III Scenario, by Michel Chossudovsky –  the U.S. is so enamored with nuclear weapons that it has authorized low-level field commanders to use them in the heat of battle in their sole discretion … without any approval from civilian leaders.

2. Depleted uranium. The use of depleted uranium can cause cancer and birth defects for decades (seethis, this, this, this, this and this).

3. Landmines.

4. Cluster bombs.

5.  Napalm, which is banned under Protocol III of the 1980 UN Convention on Certain Conventional Weapons.

6. Expanding hollow-point bullets, banned under the 1868 St. Petersburg declaration.

7. Herbicides, like Agent Orange in Vietnam.

The Good News

The good news – according to Dr. Boyle – is that both Congress and the president have power to revoke the Manual.

So – if we stand up and raise holy hell – we might be able to walk back from the fascist path we’re heading down.  And we can prove that we’re not the rogue nation that the rest of the world thinks we are.

A revealing light was shed on the Abbott government’s constant resort to terrorist scare campaigns when the federal director of public prosecutions (DPP) this week dropped the sole “terrorism” charge against a Melbourne teenager accused in April of plotting an attack on Anzac Day war ceremonies. According to the DPP’s statement, there was “insufficient evidence” to continue the prosecution.

Harun Causevic, 18, from Hampton Park, a working class suburb in outer-southeastern Melbourne, was finally released on bail. Despite protests by his family, he was kept in a maximum-security prison for more than four months, held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.

Causevic and four other teenagers were arrested in a series of violent pre-dawn police raids on April 18, supposedly for planning to behead a police officer, take his gun and go on a shooting rampage on the 100th anniversary of Australia’s involvement in the World War I, British-led invasion of Turkey’s Gallipoli peninsula.

Planned by successive governments for years, the official Anzac Day centenary events were intended to be the highpoint of a four-year multi-million dollar campaign to “celebrate” World War I and condition public opinion for a new period of war.

The alleged “Anzac Day plot” was the subject of lurid headlines throughout the corporate media, fed by police claims that the “plot” was “ISIS [Islamic State of Iraq and Syria]-inspired.” Prime Minister Tony Abbott, Labor Party leader Bill Shorten and Daniel Andrews, the Labor premier of the state of Victoria, seized upon the arrests to whip up support for the nationalist and militarist displays on Anzac Day and to justify a heavy police mobilisation for the events.

“This was a potential attack at an advanced stage of planning,” Abbott declared immediately. He urged people to defiantly “turn up in very large numbers at Anzac events … to support our values, our interests, our armed forces.” Shorten called on people to demonstrate that “we will not be deterred by a fear of terrorism.” Andrews demonised the five teenagers as “simply evil, plain and simple.”

Typifying the media hysteria, the Melbourne Age reported that the alleged attack would have been “shockingly similar” to the 2013 murder of British soldier Lee Rigby in London. “The alleged plotters had discussed opening fire at one or more Anzac Day events in southeast Melbourne suburbs,” the Fairfax Media newspaper reported, citing police sources.

Now, it seems, there is “insufficient evidence” to even prosecute one of the key accused “plotters.”

Causevic was facing possible life imprisonment under Australia’s draconian post-2001 “counter-terrorism” laws, on one vague charge of “conspiring to do an act in preparation or planning for a terrorist act.”

Before being charged, he was detained without trial under a Preventative Detention Order. He became the first person in the state of Victoria to be imprisoned under such an order, for which the police only need to assert a “reasonable suspicion” that a person could commit an “imminent” terrorist act.

Causevic has been granted bail after agreeing to plead guilty to relatively minor weapons charges—the possession of two knives and some knuckle dusters. The maximum penalty is two years’ jail, but his lawyers told a Melbourne magistrate that he should be given a good behaviour bond.

Of the five Melbourne teenagers arrested, only one, Sevdet Besim, 18, remains accused of participating in the “conspiracy” to prepare a terrorist act. The basis for this charge appears to be police allegations that Besim had social media communications with a British boy, now aged 15.

The British boy last month pleaded guilty in England to “incitement” of terrorism, after supposedly encouraging Besim, via the Internet, to “get your first taste of beheading.” Besim’s trial will not commence for many months. Last week, he appeared in court via a prison video link and was told that he would remain behind bars until a two-day committal hearing in December.

Two of the five arrested Melbourne teenagers were quickly released without charge. Another, Mehran Azami, 19, was never charged with a terrorist offence, but later pleaded guilty to importing weapons, such as knives and knuckle-dusters, and is in prison awaiting a sentencing hearing.

Despite the collapse of the case against Causevic, both Premier Andrews and the Victoria Police this week stridently defended the April raids, in which about 200 para-military police smashed their way into homes, battered down doors, broke windows and physically attacked and injured the teenagers and some family members.

“When police have a reasonable belief that they need to take steps to keep the community safe, then that’s exactly what they do,” Andrews declared. The police stated: “The AFP [Australian Federal Police] and Victoria Police have repeatedly said that the current counter-terrorism environment dictates that police will always act in the interest of ensuring community safety.”

These statements can be taken as a warning that similar methods will be unleashed again. Over the past 12 months an intensifying pattern has emerged of major police raids and operations that appear to be politically timed, in order to justify the Abbott government’s barrage of draconian new “counter-terrorism” laws and the dispatch of more Australian forces to join the predatory US-led war in Iraq and Syria.

These operations also serve as a distraction from the worsening economic conditions, including rising unemployment, and the government’s mounting political crisis, produced by its failure to impose the deep cuts to social spending and working conditions demanded by the corporate elite.

April’s raids ramped-up an atmosphere of fear-mongering fuelled by huge police raids in Sydney and Melbourne last September, followed days later by the police killing of Abdul Haider, another 18-year-old from southeast Melbourne. Above all, last December’s Sydney café siege, which involved a sole deranged hostage-taker, Man Haron Monis, was turned into a national “terrorist” incident by the federal and state governments.

Now, a year on from last September’s raids, the Abbott government is anxious to again foment terrorism scares, just as it prepares to announce that it will extend the Australian air force bombing operations from Iraq to Syria, thus joining the illegal US-led operation to oust the Assad regime. Under the guise of combatting terrorism, the government is also trying to push legislation through parliament to allow the immigration minister, by arbitrary decree, to strip Australian citizenship from targeted individuals.

Facing a sharp economic downturn and the emergence of opposition in the working class to the ongoing assault on jobs and conditions, the Abbott government is preparing to ramp up its militarist agenda. Australian Financial Review political editor Laura Tingle reported two weeks ago that the cabinet National Security committee “recently asked for a list of national-security-related things that could be announced weekly” in the lead-up to next year’s scheduled federal election.

This program of war abroad, accompanied by police-state measures at home, has the unconditional support of the Labor Party. It is just as committed as the Liberal-National government to backing US militarism and seeking to divert the rising domestic class tensions.

Amid continuing global share market volatility, the financial elites around the world have been intently focussed on the movement of Chinese stock markets and more broadly on the state of the Chinese economy. Yesterday’s rise of the benchmark Shanghai Composite Index, after falls in six successive trading sessions, produced an almost audible sigh of relief as share prices responded by rising on major markets internationally.

The deluge of media commentary on the Chinese economy reflects the degree to which the world economy as a whole is dependent on continued growth in China. Speaking on the Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s “Lateline” program last night, Ken Courtis, chairman of Starfort Holdings, pointed out that “this year we’re expecting 35 to 40 percent of all the world’s growth to come from China.” If that did not happen, “then we have a real problem.”

Concerns in ruling circles that China’s economic slowdown will lead to political instability were evident in an article published in the Financial Times (FT) on Tuesday entitled, “Questions over Li Keqiang’s future amid China market turmoil.” Analysts and party insiders who spoke to the FT suggested that the Chinese premier was “fighting for his political future” after the Shanghai Composite Index plunged by 8.5 percent on Monday—its largest decline since early 2007.

Analyst Willy Lam from the Chinese University of Hong Kong told the newspaper:

“Premier Li’s position has certainly become more precarious as a result of the current crisis. If the situation worsens and if there comes a point where [President Xi Jinping] really needs a scapegoat, then Li fits the bill.”

Li and Vice Premier Ma Kai were closely associated with efforts in early July to stem the falling share markets, including a ban on short selling and new stock offerings and share sales by large investors. According to the FT, state-owned institutions pumped an estimated $200 billion into the share market, only to see it plummet over the past week.

The Chinese leadership is more broadly under fire. A lengthy article in the New York Times last weekend reported that Xi had been told by powerful party elders to focus more on restoring economic growth and less on his anti-corruption drive.

Xi, however, has exploited high-profile anti-corruption cases to consolidate his grip on power, jail potential rivals or challengers, and intimidate factions critical of his government’s accelerating pro-market reform and further opening up to investment. A shrinking economy will only fuel tensions within the isolated and sclerotic Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime and open up the prospect of renewed factional infighting.

Having all but abandoned its socialistic posturing, the CCP leadership has depended for its legitimacy on continued high levels of economic growth. The fear in Beijing and major financial centres around the globe is that rising unemployment and deepening social inequality will lead to social unrest, particularly in the working class, which is now estimated to number 400 million.

The official growth figures have fallen this year to 7 percent—well below the 8 percent level that the CCP long regarded as the minimum required for social stability. Many analysts, however, regard even 7 percent as significantly overstating actual growth. A recent Bloomberg survey of 11 economists put the median estimate of Chinese growth at 6.3 percent.

Others put the figure far lower. Analyst Gordon Chang told the Diplomatwebsite that “influential people in Beijing” were “privately saying that the Chinese economy was growing at a 2.2 percent rate.” He pointed to other indicators of declining economic activity: rail freight (down 10.1 percent in the first two quarters of 2015), trade volume (down 6.9 percent), construction starts by area (down 15.8 percent) and electricity usage (up by just 1.3 percent).

While the Beijing leadership is under pressure to boost the economy, the slowdown in China is bound up with the broader global crisis of capitalism. The restoration of capitalism in China over the past three decades has transformed the country into a vast cheap labour manufacturing platform that is heavily reliant on exports to the major economies.

In highlighting China’s contribution to world growth, Ken Courtis noted on “Lateline” yesterday that “Japan is contracting or in great difficulty still, the US is growing at 2, 2.5 percent, [and] Europe is slugging around at 1.5, 1 percent.” These economies, however, are precisely the markets on which China depends. The latest figures for July showed that exports slumped by 8.3 percent year-on-year, with exports to Europe and Japan down 4 percent, partially compensated by a rise of 7 percent to the US.

Following the 2008 global financial crisis, the CCP leadership only maintained economic growth through a massive stimulus package and the expansion of credit. However, with exports and industrial production stagnating, the money flowed into infrastructure spending, property speculation and, more recently, stock market speculation. Notwithstanding occasional rallies in response to government measures to ease credit, falling property prices over the past year, and now plunging share prices, underscore the fact that these speculative bubbles are unsustainable.

The Chinese regime is under international pressure to accelerate its pro-market reform agenda, including privatisation of state-owned enterprises (SOEs) and the further liberalisation of the financial sector to open up new profit opportunities for foreign investors. Such measures, however, will only heighten the social gulf between rich and poor and provoke wider social unrest. The last round of privatisations in China resulted in the destruction of tens of millions of jobs.

The Beijing regime, which represents the interests of the tiny layer of Chinese millionaires and billionaires, is deeply fearful of the emergence of a movement of the working class. The fact that questions are being raised about the future of Prime Minister Li Keqiang is an indicator of the existing sharp tensions that will only intensify as financial and economic turmoil worsens and impacts on the lives of hundreds of millions of people.

At least since the 1980s – when Ronald Reagan made war seem like fun again and the modern mainstream media took shape – the Democratic Party has lacked a coherent foreign policy, highlighted today by the fact that its top 2016 presidential candidates have largely evaded the topic in favor – almost exclusively – of domestic issues.

Part of the problem is that Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton has a record of pandering to the neoconservatives during her time as a U.S. senator from New York and as Secretary of State. She voted for the Iraq War in 2002 and, while President Barack Obama’s top diplomat, supported what some call “liberal interventionism,” which is barely distinguishable from neoconservatism.

Indeed, arch-neocon Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the infamous Project for the New American Century, said – in his praise of Clinton’s aggressive foreign policy – that he was ready to jettison the term “neoconservative” in favor of the phrase “liberal interventionist.”

Kagan, who was made an adviser to Clinton’s State Department, said in 2014: “If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.” [For more, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?”]

So, it’s understandable why Hillary Clinton’s campaign has downplayed the details of how she would conduct foreign policy. Many Democrats, who opposed the Iraq War and are uncomfortable with the hawkishness that Clinton displayed as Secretary of State, would recoil at the prospect of her being a Trojan Horse for Kagan and the neocons to sneak inside another Democratic administration to continue their bloody strategies.

Though Sen. Bernie Sanders, her principal challenger, also has chosen to downplay foreign policy issues in favor of economic ones, the Vermont “democratic socialist” can at least point to his prescient opposition to the Iraq War in 2002.

In a Senate floor speech, Sanders cited five reasons for voting against President George W. Bush’s war resolution: the death and destruction that would result, the dangerous precedent of “a unilateral invasion,” the damage to the war on terror, the “extremely expensive” price tag of “a war and a long-term American occupation,” and the “unintended consequences.”

On the last point, Sanders asked: “Who will govern Iraq when Saddam Hussein is removed and what role will the U.S. play in [an] ensuing civil war that could develop in that country? Will moderate governments in the region who have large Islamic fundamentalist populations be overthrown and replaced by extremists? Will the bloody conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authority be exacerbated? And these are just a few of the questions that remain unanswered.”

Back-burner Issues

Though right about Iraq, Sanders is unwilling to put forward a comprehensive strategy for dealing with today’s Mideast chaos and other international tensions, including the Ukraine crisis which was partly fomented by Kagan’s neocon wife, Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland, who rose to prominence under the protective wing of Secretary of State Clinton.

When Sanders has spoken about the Mideast, he has framed his comments in ways that make them acceptable to Official Washington but that ultimately make little sense. For instance, in an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, Sanders suggested that Saudi Arabia and other oil-rich sheikdoms replace the United States as the region’s policeman in the fight against Sunni terrorists in the Islamic State (also called ISIS).

“Saudi Arabia is the third largest military budget in the world,” Sanders said. “They’re going to have to get their hands dirty in this fight. We should be supporting, but at the end of the day this is fight over what Islam is about, the soul of Islam, we should support those countries taking on ISIS.” [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Sanders’s Screwy Mideast Strategy.”]

Frankly, it’s hard to believe that Sanders is that naïve. A core reality of the Mideast crisis is that Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other Sunni Gulf states have been the principal funders and ideological supporters of the Sunni extremists who have organized into violent jihadist movements, including Al Qaeda, its Syrian affiliate Al Nusra Front, and a hyper-violent spinoff, the Islamic State.

Vice President Joe Biden blurted out this reality at Harvard’s Kennedy School last October, when he said: “Our allies in the region were our largest problem in Syria … the Saudis, the emirates, etc., what were they doing? They were so determined to take down [President Bashar al-] Assad and essentially have a proxy Sunni-Shia war, what did they do? They poured hundreds of millions of dollars and tens of thousands of tons of military weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad, except the people who were being supplied were Al Nusra and Al Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis coming from other parts of the world.” [Quote at 53:20 of clip.]

Biden had confirmed something that was well-known in the region and inside the U.S. intelligence community, that many of these terrorist groups were supported, directly and indirectly, by elements of Saudi Arabia’s royal family and by oil-rich sheiks around the Persian Gulf who see themselves fighting a sectarian war against Iran and the Shiites. The Vice President later apologized for speaking the truth, but the cat was out of the bag. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Why Islamic State Is Winning.”]

Saudi Arabia’s Dirty Hands

The Saudi role in this regional chaos dates back to its financing of fundamentalist Wahabbi teachings and its encouragement of Iraq’s invasion of Iran in 1980. Later that decade, the Saudis co-sponsored – with the CIA – the Afghan mujahedeen who fought a Soviet-backed secular government in Kabul. The Afghan conflict poured billions of dollars in weapons into the hands of Islamic extremists, including a Saudi named Osama bin Laden, and created the basis for an international jihadist terror movement called Al Qaeda.

Even after Al Qaeda’s 9/11 attacks, U.S. officials shielded the Saudis from the wrath of the American people. After consulting with Saudi Ambassador Bandar bin-Sultan, Bush agreed to let bin Laden’s family members in the United States board the first planes let back into the air, with only perfunctory FBI questioning. Later, Bush suppressed a 28-page section of the congressional 9/11 report about Saudi support for the 19 hijackers, 15 of whom were identified as Saudi nationals. (Obama has continued to withhold those 28 pages.)

But the Saudis were not always happy with Bush’s actions. In 2003, when Bush’s invasion of Iraq had the unintended consequence of replacing a Sunni autocrat, Saddam Hussein, with Shiite autocrats, the Saudis saw the regional balance of power tilt toward Shiite-ruled Iran, which suddenly had allies in power in Baghdad.

In response, the Saudis stepped up their support of Sunni militant movements in Iraq and then Syria with the goal of frustrating Iraq’s government and removing Syria’s Assad, an Alawite (a Shiite spinoff sect), and replacing him with a Sunni.

As Saudi Arabia intervened more aggressively in this regional fight against Iran, the Saudi royals reached out to Israel, which shared Riyadh’s hostility toward Iran. Israel also favored “regime change” in Syria and saw the war there as a way also to undermine Lebanon’s Hezbollah movement, a Shiite force on Israel’s northern border. This de facto Saudi-Israeli alliance guaranteed strong support within the U.S. government and media for the effort to remove Assad from power. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Did Money Seal Israeli-Saudi Alliance?”]

The Gulf states also recognized that the most effective fighters against Assad were the Sunni jihadists, especially Al Qaeda’s Nusra Front and the Islamic State. Thus, much of the Gulf money and weapons flowed in those directions, as Biden revealed.

So, in regards to Sanders’s lament about the need for the super-rich Saudis to “get their hands dirty,” the truth is that the Saudis have long been getting their hands not only dirty but bloody.

A Looming Genocide

The Sunni terror groups operating in Iraq and Syria have served essentially as Saudi Arabia’s irregular forces fighting a sectarian war against the Shiites. In Syria, these Sunni extremists also have targeted the Christians, Alawites and other minorities for possible extermination if Assad’s military collapses.

Besides these proxy forces, the Saudis have intervened directly in Yemen with an indiscriminate bombing campaign against Houthi rebels who follow a version of Shiite Islam. The Saudi attacks have not only killed thousands of civilians but created a humanitarian crisis in the poverty-stricken country on Saudi Arabia’s southern border.

Thus, Sanders’s idea that – just because the Saudis are rich – they should expand their military operations throughout the region is as dangerous as it is ludicrous. It would guarantee a major escalation of the bloodletting and the chaos. The proposal only serves to underscore how bereft the Democrats are when it comes to expressing a coherent alternative foreign policy as a challenge to the dominance of the neocons and their liberal-interventionist cohorts.

So, what could be an alternative that would allow Democratic candidates to make sense and avoid being dismissed as unrealistic pacifists or foolhardy isolationists? And no progressive should underestimate the political risk that goes with any deviation from the “tough-guy/gal-ism” of Official Washington. The easiest attack line against anyone advocating restraint and negotiations is a reference to Neville Chamberlain’s “appeasement” of Adolf Hitler at Munich before World War II.

But there are politically savvy ways to counter the power of the neocons and the liberal hawks:

–Stand for transparency in foreign policy. Instead of letting neocons and liberal hawks shape the narratives of foreign crises by demonizing foes and hiding inconvenient truths, demand as much disclosure as possible especially regarding pivotal events. Over the past several decades, the neocons and liberal hawks have monopolized the information flows, allowing them to exaggerate threats beyond what the actual intelligence supports. We have seen this pattern in every crisis, from Iraq’s bogus WMD threat in 2003 to the mystery of who shot down Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 over Ukraine in 2014. American voters would not punish a candidate for insisting that more information be shared with the people.

–On a related point, repudiate the notion that information should be shaped into a strategic weapon of propaganda warfare. It is now a trendy concept inside the State Department and Washington think tanks that clever propaganda can be used as a “soft power” weapon to weaken an adversary. Some liberal interventionists think this “soft power” manipulation of facts is preferable to “hard power” military action, but that misses the point, since deceiving the public, which must include the American people as well as a foreign target audience, is an assault on democracy. Also, as we have seen, propaganda can be a gateway drug to full-scale war.

No Entangling Alliances

–Remind voters about the wisdom of the early U.S. presidents who warned repeatedly against foreign entangling alliances. Endless warfare against exaggerated bogeymen around the world may sound tough during a debate or a talking-head moment on TV but such belligerence inevitably destroys the Republic. A more recent example of how foolhardy hasty interventionism can be is the Iraq War, which was embraced by not only neocons but many liberals who fancied themselves as doves until they realized that their careers might suffer so they reinvented themselves as hawks. As an opponent of the Iraq War, Sanders, in particular, is in a very strong position to hammer away the “geniuses” who gave us the disastrous Iraq War.

–This is harder but be prepared to stand in the way of the next propaganda-driven stampede against some demonized foreign “enemy.” To do so requires some political courage. You will surely be called a “(fill-in-the-blank) apologist,” but respond by noting the much greater danger of another “group think.” Remind people how other Orwellian “five minutes hate” sessions against various foreign leaders led the United States into terrible mistakes and bloody misjudgments.

–Sometimes, non-governmental organizations with labels asserting their commitment to “human rights” or “democracy promotion” can be very successful in focusing attention on some particularly offensive act in a target country (while ignoring similar or worse offenses in “friendly” countries). Remember, this is how propaganda works – by using selective outrage. Not all NGOs are fair-minded observers. Some are fronts for governments and special interests.

–Stress the value of “realism” in foreign policy, i.e., the concept of weighing the cons as well as the pros of some intervention. Just because taking action at some passion-filled moment may feel good, it doesn’t necessarily do good.

–Reflect on how America does best, both economically and geopolitically, when countries are at relative peace and have achieved some prosperity. America’s greatest “soft power” is its ability to sell its products to the world and to benefit from the symbiosis that comes when people around the world appreciate U.S. inventiveness and innovation. By destabilizing entire regions and promiscuously imposing economic sanctions, the U.S. government disrupts these positive relationships. Perhaps a new slogan could be: “Make money, not war.”

Just as police domestically should work on conflict resolution rather than pulling out their tasers and guns, U.S. diplomats should concentrate on deescalating crises rather than swaggering in with harsh rhetoric, sanction threats and “regime change” strategies.

–Though this point is risky, suggest that America might benefit from rearranging its alliances in the Middle East, confronting Saudi Arabia over its covert support of terrorism and demanding that Israel finally resolve its disruptive conflict with the Palestinians. As part of this shift, the United States could encourage Iran to play a stabilizing role in Iraq and Syria and push both governments to share power more equitably with Sunnis, thus undercutting jihadist violence. Russia, with its influence in Iran and Syria, could be helpful, too.

What’s Possible?

But can an alternative foreign policy really be built around truth-telling, resistance to “perception management” and respectful diplomacy even toward adversarial governments? Obviously, a big problem is the U.S. news media which tends to hype whatever propaganda is being spread about some designated villain and then berates anyone who dares suggest that there might be two sides to the story.

Building a more independent and fair-minded media will be a long-term project. Right now, challenges to the latest “group think” are confined mostly to some Internet sites and small-audience radio shows. And there’s the additional confusion because some hip Internet sites are simply the latest fad in propaganda, essentially fronts for the same misinformation that gets spread by the mainstream media except operating behind the façade of “civic journalism” or some innocent-sounding goals like “fighting corruption” and “protecting human rights.”

Yet, despite all the difficulties that a politician would confront if he or she chose to strike out in a more peaceful and more truthful direction, there is urgency to undertake this mission.

For one, continued U.S. confusion over the civil war in Syria – whether it be Hillary Clinton’s fanciful notions about arming the non-existent “moderate” rebels or Bernie Sanders’s silly idea about demanding that Saudi Arabia subdue the Mideast by force – could lead to a genuine catastrophe if the black flag of Al Qaeda and/or the Islamic State is raised over Damascus.

Between Al Qaeda plotting new terror attacks on the West and the Islamic State chopping off the heads of Christians, Alawites, Shiites and other “heretics,” there might be little choice for the U.S. president – whoever he or she is – to intervene on a massive scale, launching a new hopeless war that could well be the final death blow to the American Republic.

Even more dangerous is the showdown with nuclear-armed Russia over Ukraine. Since February 2014 when Assistant Secretary of State Nuland plotted “regime change” in Kiev, the American public has been fed a steady diet of anti-Russian propaganda with the special demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Though a resolution to the Ukrainian civil war should have been relatively simple – autonomy for ethnic Russians in the east and respect for Crimea’s secession referendum from Ukraine – the extreme rhetoric about “Russian aggression” and the West’s imposition of economically disruptive sanctions have ratcheted up tensions and raised the possibility of a nuclear war.

Though all might hope that cooler heads will prevail before the nuclear codes come out, the West’s “tough-guy/gal-ism” over Ukraine has contributed to less existential though still serious problems, including the risk of another global financial meltdown because the sanctions have helped stall Europe’s already sluggish recovery from the Wall Street crash of 2008.

At this moment when the world’s economy needs more commerce and more consumer buying power, the Ukraine crisis has contributed to less business and less spending, dragging down the economies of China and the United States as well as Europe.

Meanwhile, the neocon-liberal-hawk-driven chaos of the Middle East has added to Europe’s budgetary and political pressures by flooding the Continent with refugees and migrants from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya and Africa. Not only is this humanitarian crisis deepening Europe’s economic woes, it is threatening to splinter the Continent’s fragile unity with many countries refusing to open their borders to these waves of humanity.

Given these cascading dangers, it is well past time for American politicians of both parties to get serious about practical ways to ease geopolitical tensions, not exacerbate them. Instead, pretty much all we’re getting from Republicans and Democrats is more unrealistic tough talk.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book,America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

The British political and media elite have been agreed on one thing this summer: the need to character-assassinate Jeremy Corbyn, the only half-decent politician (make that, human being) running for the Labour leadership.

If Corbyn wins, it would be the first time in living memory that the UK has had a Labour leader who is actually of the left. It is a prospect terrifying our supposedly liberal media, including the BBC and most of the Guardian’s senior staff, from Polly Toynbee to Jonathan Freedland.

Because all indications are that Corbyn will win in a fair fight, the caretaker Labour leadership is trying to stitch up the election to ensure he loses. Corbyn’s entry into the race has led to a tripling of Labour’s membership, as those who had grown disillusioned with Labour politics or joined the Greens consider returning to the Labour fold. You would think the Labour party would be cock-a-hoop. Think again.

The problem is that, if Labour admits Corbyn is actually harnessing massive support from the real left, it would also have to concede that long ago it departed from its roots, becoming just another wing of the neoliberal elite. And more significantly, it would also have to be prepared to contemplate changing course, opening itself up to the possibility that someone with social democratic convictions might again lead the party.

Neither is about to happen, so Labour is finding the flimsiest of excuses to purge itself of any voters it can identify as likely to back Corbyn in the leadership vote. Farcically, among those is Mark Serwotka, the leader of one of the UK’s biggest trade unions, after he said he would consider affiliating his PCS civil servants union with Labour if Corbyn wins.

Below is a great article from Kerry-anne Mendoza, another of those purged. She’s not a Tory mischief-maker or a Militant entryist. She’s an old-fashioned Labour supporter. Her mistake was to tweet her local Labour MP before the last election to say she would be voting Green after becoming fed up with the neoliberal takeover of Labour. That was the pretext to bar her from the coming leadership vote.

As she points out, she’s exactly the kind of voter the Labour party needs if it ever wants to form a government again. Instead she’s been cast out.

Notice also how the self-righteous New Labour elites characterise her – a long-standing Labour supporter who became disillusioned with the party – as an “infiltrator”. They were so sure of themselves they even included her in a list of people they had barred from the vote that they then issued to the media. The list ended up being published uncritically by the Guardian.

If despite all this, Corbyn does win, there can be no doubt it will be far from the end of the story. The Labour party establishment will make the job of leading the party impossible, and Corbyn will face an even more intense campaign to discredit him from all parts of the media.

If there is any consolation to be drawn from these events, it is this: the pervasive myth that Britain still enjoys pluralism in its politics and media may finally be unmasked.

www.scriptonitedaily.com/2015/08/26/labour-rejected-me-in-the-purge-then-outed-me-in-the-media-as-an-infiltrator/

 

Documents related to discussions between US, British and European officials and multinational tobacco corporations concerning the regulation of tobacco under a new trade agreement were censored by the European Commission.

This censorship has stoked fears that Big Tobacco is planning an end run around existing laws concerning the use of tobacco with the assistance of public officials working on the trade deal.

According to Paul Gallagher, writing today in The Independent, activists with Corporate Europe Observatory revealed the meetings through a Freedom of Information request, but the documents were heavily edited:

Almost all the content, including the names of officials and tobacco lobbyists involved, the issues discussed and even the dates some meetings took place, had been redacted.

TTIP is an agreement that parallels the corporate power grab knows as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), but is limited to the United States and Europe. Like TPP, TTIP is written by and for transnational business interests looking to loosen regulations.

Among the objectives of TTIP is further deregulating Wall Street/finance capital, lowering food safety and environmental standards, and weakening trade unions. In other words, the same agenda Big Business has always had but with new legal, regulatory, and political tools to see their agenda achieved.

The new order brought in under TTIP and TPP creates opportunities for Big Tobacco. The further empowerment of the corporate sector under the trade deals means businesses can sue governments to weaken regulations. It’s something Big Tobacco has already started doing using existing international agreements.

In 2011, Australia enacted a “plain packaging” law for cigarettes that required cigarette boxes to be in simple colors with an image showing the dangers of smoking. Philip Morris International sued the government of Australia and lost. But previous to the law being enacted and the lawsuit being filed, Philip Morris had moved the trademark related to the Australian market to Philip Morris Asia in Hong Kong.

That maneuver allowed Philip Morris to use investor-state dispute settlement (ISDS) provisions of a 1993 bilateral agreement between Australia and Hong Kong to sue Australia for compensation for harming Hong Kong-based Philip Morris Asia’s investments in Australia. Whichever way that suit is resolved, the message is clear — Big Tobacco will use trade agreements to attack public health laws related to smoking.

Will TTIP contain provisions making it easier for Big Tobacco to sue the US and countries in Europe for harming their investments by passing anti-smoking laws? Might that be what government officials and the tobacco companies wanted censored?

 

Today, Global Research brings to the attention of its readers a list of articles focussing on the war in Yemen, the immigration crisis in the Mediterranean, the social, political and economic impact of global environmental decay.

SELECTED ARTICLES

“Responsibility to Destroy” (R2D): Total War in Yemen, Humanitarian Catastrophe, Ignored by Western Media

By Tony Cartalucci, August 27, 2015

Ten Years Since Hurricane Katrina: A Social and Political Crime

By Joseph Kishore, August 27, 2015

Proving yet again the ubiquitous ties between government and private interests, four-star General Ray Odierno — who retired as the U.S. Army’s Chief of Staff on August 14 — made a rather abrupt leap in career choice to senior adviser for JPMorgan Chase less than a week later.

Not that the commander of the 4th Infantry Division — whose notorious reputation during the Iraq “War” included a penchant for indiscriminate, mass detention and extrajudicial killings of civilians — was otherwise considering humanitarian work when the megabank advising position happened to open up. It would seem the new role is perfect for Odierno, as he will be advising CEO Jamie Dimon, the Board of Directors, and the Operating Committee with “international planning and country risk analysis, technology, operations, and the rapidly evolving issues of physical and cyber security,” according to a company statement.

JPMorgan’s statement mentions the ex-general’s role with “physical security” in his upcoming duties, but even a cursory glance at the practices by those under his command in Iraq makes those goals seem, well, questionable.

A military intelligence specialist at the time, Sgt. Kayla Williams, said they passed by Odierno’s 4th Infantry Division, whose soldiers appeared “mean and ugly. They stood on top of their trucks, their weapons pointed directly at civilians . . . What could these locals possibly have done? Why was this intimidation necessary? No one explained anything, but it looked weird and felt wrong.”

Though troops under Odierno’s command were credited with capturing Saddam Hussein, their philosophy — which can be summarized as “round[ing] up all the military-aged males” because they didn’t know (or bother to find out) “who’s good or bad” — was dubious for transforming erstwhile neutral civilians into willing combatants.

In fact, a member of the psychological operations unit attached to Odierno’s artillery brigade found it necessary to file a formal complaint concerning those troops’ treatment of Iraqi civilians.

After returning from Iraq, Odierno achieved the rank of Chief of Staff in 2011 — while still maintaining his support of the Bush administration’s decision to invade the country in the first place. According to The Intercept, he explained earlier this year that Saddam “was moving toward terrorism and I believe that if he continued to have problems, we don’t know what he would have done in terms of being part of the problem with terrorism.”

Though Odierno’s abrupt transplant from top military commander to high-powered, international banking adviser might have you shaking your head, such a convenient arrangement is far from atypical. As reported in the Boston Globe in 2010, 80% of generals with at least three stars found placement as executives or consultants in the private sector — largely within the defense industry — nearly immediately upon retirement.

“Ray has dedicated his life to serving our country, rising to the top of the Army with proven leadership that delivers results,” stated Dimon in the announcement of Odierno’s new position. “His experience, vision and impressive track record of success when confronting overwhelming challenges will provide significant value to our leadership team, the firm and our clients across a wide range of issues.”

Success, it would seem, is in the eye of the beholder.

Claire Bernish writes for theAntiMedia.org. Anti-Media Radio airs weeknights at 11pm Eastern/8pm Pacific. If you spot a typo, email [email protected].

She joined Anti-Media as an independent journalist in May of 2015. Her topics of interest include social justice, police brutality, exposing the truth behind propaganda, and general government accountability. Born in North Carolina, she now lives in Ohio. Learn more about Bernish here!

The U.S. policy in the Middle East has proved unsustainable once again. The Pentagon’s first attempt to train Syrian opposition to fight ISIS ended in “an abject failure”, CBS News reported in early August. The contingent of 54 fighters was trained by the U.S. military at a base in Turkey and sent across the border into Northern Syria. But instead of facing ISIS, they unexpectedly came under attack by Al-Nusra Front. As a result, the American-trained rebels scattered. Some were captured, some fled to Turkey, others were simply missing or likely turned the side and joined the Islamic State.

It was clear from the very beginning that the costly program to train “good” rebels to fight “bad” ones was doomed to failure. The Pentagon planned to spend half a billion dollars on the program. The U.S. has already faced misfortunes like that in its history. As we know, Washington took part in the creation of Al-Qaeda, the largest terrorist organization in the world until now. But as soon as the fighters got stronger they turned their weapons against the Americans.

The same situation is developing around the so called New Syrian Force. Returning to Syria the Pentagon-trained rebels joined the organization they were supposed to struggle against.

It is hard to escape a conclusion that the U.S. doesn’t learn from its own mistakes. But the situation may be much more complex. Given the Pentagon’s great experience in covert operations it may appear that the U.S. special services planned the rebels would turn the side beforehand. To cover this fact the U.S. defense and state departments usually very sophisticated in concealing or justifying their failures were easy to accept their mistake this time.

The Islamic State that was supposedly also created by Washington has been in great need of qualified personnel of late to operate the U.S. weapons and equipment lost or intentionally left by the Iraqi forces retreating from Mosul in June 2014.

Haider al-Abadi, the new Iraqi prime minister, announced in the early June 2015 that terrorists had captured a great number of U.S.-made weaponry including 2,300 Humvee armored vehicles, at least 40 M1A1 main battle tanks, 74,000 machine guns, and as many as 52 M198 howitzer mobile gun systems, plus small arms and ammunition. The U.S. mass media wrote that “the U.S. has armed ISIS”.

Several dozen people that joined the ISIS would hardly change the situation in Syria but they evidently were not supposed to. They may become instructors and train Islamic State fighters to use American weapons.

However, the U.S. is playing very dangerous games with terrorists. Washington’s model of controlled chaos in the Middle East may go out of order at any moment and hit the Americans back. In that case thousands people would pay with their lives for all those covert operations.

Raising the US flag in Havana, John Kerry admits that US policy toward Cuba has failed. But he restates US determination that Cuba be democratic. Democracy, by definition, is rule by the people. What this means is not obvious. Simón Bolívar, visiting Europe in 1805, wrote that “the great problem of human freedom [was] … inconceivable [to Europeans], a mystery that would only be made clear in the New World”. It has been made clear in the New World, or at least clearer, if we care to notice.

Bolívar was a liberal, a man of the Enlightenment, admirer of Hobbes and Locke, Montesquieu and Rousseau. But Bolívar considered European philosophers naïve about political freedom. They were ignorant about colonies, not knowing what it meant to be “even lower than servitude . . . lost, or worse, absent from the universe”.[1] Bolívar famously commented that Latin Americans had been sent misery in the name of liberty.

José Martí warned “slaves of Liberty” about the same naïve conception that bothered Bolívar. Leader of Cuba’s last independence war against Spain, Martí predicted political freedoms would not endure without a deeper kind of freedom, rooted in self-knowledge. He went so far as to proclaim, in his influential “Our America”, that the biggest hurdle was not, after all, US aggression; rather, it was that Latin America “show herself as she is … rapidly overcoming the crushing weight of her past”.

He raised a question that would not occur to European philosophers: If one is lost or absent from the universe, how is one known? How does one know others? If one rules the world, one doesn’t ask how the world’s peoples are known. One assumes they are known or one doesn’t care, or need to.

Martí, as revolutionary, articulated for his region an ancient philosophical imperative: Know thyself. Unlike Europeans, enthralled by what Che Guevara called “the myth of the self-made man”, Bolívar, Martí and Guevara knew the dehumanizing “logic” of imperialism.[2]They wanted human liberation and they did not take the “human” part of that concept for granted.

Knowing dehumanization, one wonders how the invisible and the voiceless, and their real needs, become identifiable, including to themselves. This motivated Bolívar in his drive to transform institutions, and in his insistence on strong central government to do so. It motivated Martí, who abandoned liberalism in his youth, and whose independence program, as a result, was a “revolution in thinking”[3] .

Even before Martí, radical Cuban liberation activists condemned a popular presupposition of European philosophy: We act on “our own” when we follow our dreams just because they are ours. Some call it “the bourgeois myth of self-origination”, the idea that we ourselves cause our desires. In contrast, Guevara referred to a cage: One attempts to escape alienation by doing one’s own thing but the remedy “bears the germs of the same sickness”, not permitting “escape from the invisible cage”.[4]

The cage is not just power structures. It is also accepted beliefs. Martí mistrusted “the Yankee and European book”, at least for democracy, because “imported forms and ideas … have in their lack of local reality” prevented real self-government. Some of those ideas were about freedom itself. Martí praised the poet José María de Heredia who dared “to be free in a time of pretentious slaves”, suggesting that “pretentious slaves” are “so accustomed . . . to servitude that [they become] … slaves of Liberty!”

He noted the prevalent idea that “there could be no theme better, more stimulating or conducive to depth and grandeur than the study of oneself”. That idea remains prevalent. It undermines knowledge and understanding. Martí noticed that someone who looks inside themselves for the grounds of personal freedom risks delusion. Such a person, believing the “myth of the self-made man”, is like “an oyster in its shell, seeing only the prison that traps him and believing, in the darkness, that it is the world”.

Martí and Máximo Gomez knew the stakes. Thus, the Montecristi Manifesto (1895) of the Cuban Revolutionary Party “declares [the Party’s] faith [that it can know] . . . the reality of the ideas that produce or extinguish deeds and the reality of the deeds that are born from ideas”. Not often do revolutionary leaders, heading into war, express concern for the foundations of knowledge. For Martí, though, the struggle for independence was not “between civilization or barbarity” (i.e. “developed” or ‘developing”). Rather, it targeted the “false erudition” persuading Latin Americans they know what these are.

The question occurred to Eugène Ionesco, concerned about fascism. His 1959 play Rhinoceros is about a small town where people turn into rhinoceroses. At first, everyone is horrified by the rhinoceroses but as more people become rhinos, the change is seductive. Even the town’s logician becomes a rhinoceros, wanting to “move with the times”. Finally, one man, Berenger, remains. Now he is the monster.

Ionesco said his play is about totalitarianism, but not political. Indeed, George Orwell wrote in the original preface to Animal Farm, lost for 25 years, that the greatest threat to freedom of thought and expression is not authoritarian government after all. Rather, it is a prevailing
orthodoxy of beliefs: “Unpopular ideas can be silenced, and inconvenient facts kept dark,” not by official bans but because of “an orthodoxy, a body of ideas which it is assumed that all right- thinking people will accept without question”.

This includes ways of identifying oneself and one’s aspirations. Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci commented that everyone is a philosopher, meaning that everyone, whatever their society or social role, deliberating daily about their lives, employs ideas about what it means to be human, usually without noticing. At each such moment, we bolster an existing conception or, by thinking differently, work toward a better one.

In the end, Berenger reminds himself that “[a] man’s not ugly to look at, not ugly at all!”’. However, a few sentences later he says “I should have gone with them while there was still time. . . . Now I am a monster, just a monster”. Berenger’s conviction about his humanity waivers. He might, after all, go with the rhinos without regret, suggesting that rhinoceritis is not as serious a problem as identifying it as a problem, once everyone is a monster.

Many acknowledge that after three hundred years, capitalism has shown itself to be incapable of promoting human flourishing. But few refer to this problem as one about what human flourishing means or, better, what “human” means. Speaking in Venezuela in 1999, Fidel Castro suggested that people are confused by “nicely sweetened but rotten ideas … that man is an animal moved only by a carrot or when beaten by a whip”. They are confused about what it means to be human.

Even fewer see the problem as being about how to know what it means to be human. One reason is the popular belief that there is nothing to know. Canadian philosopher Charles Taylor says we live in an “age of authenticity” in which what matters is personal choice, the more the better. One does not have to look far, he suggests, to see that human meaningfulness is whatever one believes it to be.

In the Ebola crisis of 2014, The Wall Street Journal reported: “Few have heeded the call, but one country has responded in strength: Cuba.” Cuba sent more than 450 doctors and nurses, chosen from over 15,000 volunteers, by far the largest medical mission of any country.

It is worth asking why. Cubans, more than 15,000 of them, saw the fate of West Africans as their own, and volunteered immediately. The “nicely sweetened but rotten ideas” that human beings are best motivated by material incentives don’t explain how this is possible. But it can be explained – by ideas predating the Cuban revolution, and even Marx.

They are philosophical ideas expressing the relationship between human beings and nature, implying that one person’s life (causally) affects others’. It is a view common to various (non-European) cultures, including indigenous peoples. It is scientific, based in cause and effect, acknowledging, as was clear to Martí, that “through the wonderful compensation of Nature whoever gives of himself, grows”. On such a view we need to engage with and change the world in order to know it, and its peoples, including ourselves.

Cuba has quietly challenged European ideas for 200 years, especially the cherished liberal idea that we live best when we live “from the inside”, satisfying desires, following personal dreams. One reason the idea fails is that knowing one’s desires is not automatic. If rhinoceritis threatens, and it does, Martí’s “revolution in thinking” is worth noting, in the North. We won’t realize democracy if, aiming for freedom, we are unwittingly seeing an oyster’s shell and believing in the darkness that it is the world.

Differences between the US and Cuba are not, most interestingly, about the Cold War. Kerry’s goal, probably, involves counting the political parties running in Cuban elections. The idea of a single party was favoured by Martí, who was not a Leninist or even, strictly speaking, a Marxist. He knew the need to build more appropriate institutions, resources for more adequate “forms and ideas”, and he knew appropriate direction was required to do that. We might learn from such traditions. Or, at least, we could learn from the questions that explain them. The issue of Cuba’s democracy, and ours, would be more interesting.

As outlandish as Donald Trump is as a presidential candidate, it’s pretty obvious why he’s topping the polls of Republican voters: he’s tipping over the carts of “politics as usual” that Americans understandably hate. In a much more responsible way, Bernie Sanders is doing the same with Democratic voters though he’s still trailing Hillary Clinton in most polls.

One of the strongest arguments for Trump and Sanders is that they have refused to prostitute themselves in the scramble for million-dollar donations, a core corruption of the U.S. political process. Trump, a real estate mogul and reality-TV star, boasts about how he rejects big-money donors because he can finance his own campaign.

Sanders relies heavily on small donations and turned down an offer to create a “super PAC” that could have raised millions of dollars from wealthy supporters. Sanders’s campaign says its average donation is $31.30 as Sanders has tapped broad support among progressives in raising $15.2 million as of July, an impressive sum but still “far behind Mrs. Clinton’s fund-raising juggernaut,” the New York Times reported.

Neither Trump nor Sanders has competed in what many political analysts consider the key initial test for any “serious” candidate – the “silent primary” of lining up super-rich Americans who pour millions of dollars into campaign war chests so candidates can hire high-priced consultants and finance negative TV ads to tear down opponents. That process has made candidates from both parties dependent on special interests.

Ironically, for a nation that denounces Iran, Cuba and other countries for having special panels of religious elders or party leaders who approve rosters of acceptable candidates, the United States now has a political system that requires most candidates to parade themselves before billionaires who then select the finalists much like the judges do at one of Trump’s beauty pageants.

Trump is not wrong when he bluntly describes how this process works, noting that the wealthy donors are sure to show up after the election with their hands out for favors if their hand-picked candidate wins. The presidency and pretty much every elected office in the United States are up for sale.

Americans across the political spectrum are rightly disgusted by this corrupt system and thus Trump stands out as someone whose personal wealth and almost comedic self-confidence make him harder to buy than, say, Jeb Bush, Scott Walker or almost any of the other Republican candidates. For different reasons, democratic socialist Bernie Sanders does too.

Clinton’s Style

Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton is part of a political dynasty that has made an art form out of vacuuming up money from Wall Street, Hollywood and everywhere in between as well as faraway lands. Bill and Hillary Clinton have sucked up million-dollar bundles of campaign cash, six-figure speaking fees from mega-corporations, and massive donations from foreign potentates to the Clinton Foundation.

With the Clintons, it seems like everything is for sale, leaving much of the public dubious about where their true allegiances lie. They appear to move through the political landscape triangulating as they go, calculating what is most advantageous to say at each moment and then immediately recalculating for the next moment.

As a U.S. Senator and as Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton either showed extraordinarily bad judgment or simply substituted this family process of endless triangulation for what passes as judgment. For instance, she voted for the Iraq War in 2002 not apparently out of any firm conviction that it was the right thing to do for U.S. national security but rather what looked best then for her political career.

At nearly every juncture, Hillary Clinton has opted for what seemed like the safe play at the time. Indeed, it is hard to think of any case in which she showed anything approaching genuine political courage or statesmanlike wisdom. Here is just a short list of her misjudgments after the Iraq War:

–In summer 2006, as a New York senator, Clinton supported Israel’s air war against southern Lebanon which killed more than 1,000 Lebanese. At a pro-Israel rally in New York on July 17, 2006, Clinton shared a stage with Israel’s Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman, a renowned Muslim basher who proudly defended Israel’s massive violence against targets in Lebanon.

“Let us finish the job,” Gillerman told the crowd. “We will excise the cancer in Lebanon” and “cut off the fingers” of Hezbollah. Responding to international concerns that Israel was using “disproportionate” force in bombing Lebanon and killing hundreds of civilians, Gillerman said, “You’re damn right we are.” [NYT, July 18, 2006] Clinton did not protest Gillerman’s remarks.

–In late 2006, Clinton fell for the false conventional wisdom that President George W. Bush’s nomination of Robert Gates to be Secretary of Defense was an indication that Bush was preparing to wind down the Iraq War when it actually signaled the opposite, the so-called “surge.” Later, to avoid further offending the Democratic base as she ran for president, she opposed the “surge,” though she later acknowledged that she did so for political reasons, according to Gates’s memoir Duty.

In the early months of the Obama administration, with Gates still Defense Secretary and Clinton the new Secretary of State, Gates reported what he regarded as a stunning admission by Clinton, writing:

“Hillary told the president that her opposition to the surge in Iraq had been political because she was facing him in the Iowa primary [in 2008]. She went on to say, ‘The Iraq surge worked.’”

–In 2009, Clinton joined with Gates and General David Petraeus to pressure President Barack Obama into a similar “surge” in Afghanistan which – like the earlier “surge” in Iraq – did little more than get another 1,000 U.S. soldiers killed along with many more Iraqis and Afghans while extending the bloody chaos in both countries.

–Also, in 2009, Clinton supported a right-wing coup in Honduras, overthrowing left-of-center President Manuel Zelaya.

–In 2011, Clinton helped spearhead the U.S.-backed “regime change” in Libya, which led to the torture/murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi as Clinton chuckled, “we came, we saw, he died.” Like the “regime change” in Iraq, the Libyan “regime change” left the once-prosperous nation in bloody anarchy with major gains by Islamic extremists, including the Islamic State.

–Also, in 2011, Clinton pressed for a similar “regime change” in Syria adopting the popular though false notion that a “moderate opposition” would neatly fill the void after the ouster of President Bashar al-Assad. The reality was that Al Qaeda and its spin-off, the Islamic State, stood to be the real beneficiaries of the U.S.-supported destabilization of Syria. These Islamic terrorist groups now have major footholds in all three Arab countries where Clinton supported “regime change” – Iraq, Syria and Libya.

Neocon Fellow-Traveler

Throughout her time as Senator and Secretary of State, Clinton supported the aggressive foreign policy prescriptions of the neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist allies. In each of these cases, the neocons and liberal hawks were dominating Official Washington’s debate and it would have taken some political courage to stand in their way. Hillary Clinton never did.

The enduring mystery with Hillary Clinton is whether she is a true neocon or whether she simply judges that embracing neocon positions is the “safest” course for her career – that by parroting the neocon “group think” she can win praise from the national-security elite and that big donors who favor a hard-line strategy for the Middle East will reward her with campaign contributions.

Whatever the case, Clinton has carefully curried favor with key neocons, including consulting with Robert Kagan, a co-founder of the neocon Project for the New American Century, and promoting his wife, Victoria Nuland, making her the State Department spokesperson and putting her on track to become Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs. In that post, Nuland orchestrated “regime change” in Ukraine, which like other neocon targets has descended into bloody chaos, but this adventure also has precipitated a dangerous showdown with nuclear-armed Russia.

Kagan has become a big Clinton booster. According to a New York Times article on June 16, 2014, Kagan said his neocon views – which he has redubbed “liberal interventionist” – will have a strong standing in a possible Hillary Clinton administration. The Times reported that Clinton “remains the vessel into which many interventionists are pouring their hopes.”

Kagan was quoted as saying:

“I feel comfortable with her on foreign policy. …  If she pursues a policy which we think she will pursue … it’s something that might have been called neocon, but clearly her supporters are not going to call it that; they are going to call it something else.” [For more, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Is Hillary Clinton a Neocon-Lite?”]

Clinton has won praise from another leading neocon, Max Boot, who wrote in a review of Gates’s book that

“it is clear that in [Obama] administration councils she was a principled voice for a strong stand on controversial issues, whether supporting the Afghan surge or the intervention in Libya.”

In other words, Democrats will have to decide if they wish to nominate a “closet neocon” to be the next president, someone who will triangulate her way into appointing the likes of Kagan and/or Nuland as key advisers or possibly to senior State Department posts. So far the Democratic campaign has focused overwhelmingly on domestic issues, giving Clinton and even Sanders a pass on their foreign policy positions.

Meanwhile, on the Republican side, the more traditional candidates all have embraced hawkish positions on international issues with the limited exception of Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has shown less enthusiasm for foreign interventions while still trying to avoid the “isolationist” label that was stuck on his father, Rep. Ron Paul of Texas.

But the rest of the traditional field has criticized President Obama for alleged weakness and some have attacked Trump for supposedly lacking foreign policy expertise. Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-South Carolina, who has been one of the most consistent neocons, lectured Trump about his supposed ignorance of the Middle East, a region that Graham and his fellow travelers have thoroughly messed up.

Given all that, is it so surprising that many conservative Republicans – as disgusted with Official Washington as many progressives are – would prefer a renegade like Trump to the bland cast of grubbing politicians who are regarded by the mainstream press as the “serious candidates”? The bigger question is whether progressive Democrats are ready to make a similar break from the pack and make Sanders that sort of alternative, too.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon andbarnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includesAmerica’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

An official has admitted Iranian aviation companies’ interest in Russia’s Superjet passenger planes amid Tehran’s quest for new aircraft to build up the country’s aging fleet, the Fars news agency says. 

Vice President for science and technology Sorena Sattari also spoke highly of Superjet International, describing it an “extraordinary aircraft”, during a 2.5-hour tour of Russia’s largest air show near Moscow along with President Vladimir Putin.

“Superjet is built in cooperation with Airbus and Boeing and Iranian aviation companies are interested in having it since it is a very low-cost aircraft while there is no Airbus in the 100-seat size,” he said.

According to Fars, Iran’s Kish Air, Zagros Airlines and Caspian Airlines have held negotiations with the Russians.

The 100-seat Superjet is the symbol of Russia’s bid to assert its share in the jet manufacturing business. The country has delivered over 50 aircraft since operating the first SSJ100 commercial flight in 2011.

Sattari said Superjet is built by an intentional consortium, with 80% of the aircraft parts being made by Western and non-Russian companies.

“Given Superjet 100’s similarities to Airbus, we will have no problem for repair and maintenance of the aircraft,” he said.

In July, Russia’s Transport Minister Maxim Sokolov said his country was in talks to sell passenger planes to Iran. Russian media, citing aviation officials, have reported on possible delivery of three Superjets to Iran, beginning in 2016.

Officials say Iran will need about 400 civilian aircraft worth at least $20 billion in the next decade to renovate its aviation fleet which has suffered under years of US and European sanctions.

Representatives of Boeing Co will soon visit Iran to discuss rebuilding the country’s ageing aviation fleet, Transport Minister Abbas Akhoundi said this month.

Akhoundi also visited Paris in June and “demanded a plan for reconstruction of our aviation fleet” in a meeting with Airbus executives.

How did the US propel itself so far ahead, to the point that it could, alone, comprise about half of global military spending?

Professor of history at Cornell University: “The idea that the commodification and suffering and forced labor of African-Americans is what made the United States powerful and rich is not an idea that people necessarily are happy to hear. Yet it is the truth.”

Even divided in half, the two halves of the US would still be tied for the lead in global military spending, 89 billion dollars each ahead of the number two spender, China.

Also notice how North Korea’s spending is represented by a pin-prick dot above South Korea, and that Iran’s budget is not high enough even to be given a number on the chart (it was under 10 billion in 2009).

It would take 16 billion dollars to clean up the un-exploded bombs the US left in Laos, which continue to kill thousands of people, mostly children.  But the US won’t pay it.

Robert Barsocchini can be found on Twitter: @_DirtyTruths

This week marks the tenth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, which made landfall on the US Gulf Coast on August 29, 2005.

The world looked on in horror as events unfolded a decade ago. The storm surge that accompanied Hurricane Katrina breached New Orleans’ hopelessly inadequate levee systems, flooding four-fifths of the city. Tens of thousands of residents, unable to escape the storm’s path, were trapped in their homes, in many cases clinging to rooftops, without food or drinking water. Thousands remained stranded for days in horrific conditions at the New Orleans Superdome. Hundreds of patients were trapped in hospitals that had lost electrical power.

At least 1,800 people were killed across five states by the hurricane and the catastrophe that followed. One million people were displaced from their homes and forced to move to cities throughout the region.

Amidst the plethora of media commentary already produced for the anniversary, there is little that speaks to the real significance of these events. The tragedy that struck the city of New Orleans, along with coastal areas from Florida to Texas, was not simply a natural disaster, but a social and political crime.

The devastation wrought by the storm exposed the reality of American capitalism—the Third World levels of poverty, the pervasive inequality, the disastrous consequences of decades of neglect of social infrastructure, the stunning incompetence of the political establishment, the indifference with which the ruling class treated one of the most important economic and cultural centers of the country, not to mention its working-class inhabitants.

That a serious hurricane could produce such a disaster was neither unforeseeable nor unforeseen. Scientists had warned that New Orleans’ levee system was inadequate to protect the city from a direct hit. Yet nothing was done.

It was known that a breach of the levees would lead to mass flooding. Yet no evacuation plan was put in place.

As the storm approached, residents were urged to leave on their own, but thousands lacked the means or resources to do so. There was no mechanism in place to provide public transportation, medical assistance or emergency aid to alleviate the human suffering caused by the floods.

The response of the Bush administration to Hurricane Katrina came to epitomize its particular combination of stupidity and ruthlessness. While the government ensured unlimited resources for waging war abroad and, in the name of “homeland security,” building the framework of a police state at home, it washed its hands of responsibility for the disaster. Rejecting federal initiatives to aid victims of the hurricane, Bush urged the American people to make contributions to charitable organizations.

Foreshadowing the government’s response to the Boston Marathon bombing and protests against police violence, the main response of the state was to send in the armed forces, including the National Guard and federal troops. Curfews were imposed and a media campaign organized around sensationalized and exaggerated claims of “looters” roaming the streets. In one incident, police shot and killed fleeing residents attempting to cross the Danziger Bridge. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco, a Democrat, declared at the time, “They have M16s and are locked and loaded. These troops know how to shoot and kill and I expect they will.”

Both Democrats and Republicans have blood on their hands for what happened a decade ago. For 25 years, administrations of both parties had diverted social resources from infrastructure and social programs and funneled them into the coffers of the corporate and financial aristocracy.

Subsequent efforts to cast the government’s response to Katrina primarily in terms of “racist Republicans” conveniently ignored the role of Mayor Ray Nagin, a former executive for Cox Communications. He personifies the layer of African-American politicians in the Democratic Party who have long promoted right-wing, pro-business policies. It was Nagin (who was later sentenced to ten years in prison for corruption) who oversaw the policies of the city in the years following Katrina.

The destruction of New Orleans was seen by the ruling class as an opportunity to restructure class relations in the city and make it a model for the entire country. In the decade since the hurricane, virtually the entire public school system has been dismantled or handed over to for-profit companies. Major public housing projects have been razed. Charity Hospital, founded in 1736 to provide for the poor and indigent, was shut down in 2005 despite minimal flood damage, depriving thousands of uninsured residents of a crucial source of health care.

Entire sections of New Orleans were depopulated. Tens of thousands who fled have been unable to return. The official population of the city collapsed from 455,000 to 208,000. Today, it is 379,000, according to the latest figures from the US Census.

However, in some neighborhoods (including the Lower 9th Ward, which was among the hardest hit by the flooding) the population is still barely a third of what it was a decade ago. Other sections of the city, such as the Tremé neighborhood—a historic center of jazz and working-class culture—have been gentrified.

The ruling class used Katrina to accelerate a social counterrevolution that was already underway. The assault on public education and social services and privatization of public assets carried out under the cover of “rebuilding” New Orleans has since been extended to Detroit, under the auspices of a dictatorial “emergency manager” and the federal bankruptcy courts.

The financial equivalent of Katrina, the 2008 Wall Street crash, has been used under President Obama to carry out an unprecedented transfer of wealth from the working class to the rich and the super-rich.

It is for this reason that the official commemorations of Hurricane Katrina contain an element of celebration. The ruling class is cheering its “success.”

The New York Times summed up the general sentiment in official circles in its main article on the anniversary, writing:

“In a city long marinated in fatalism, optimists are now in ascendance. They promise that an influx of bright newcomers, a burst of entrepreneurial verve and a new spirit of civic engagement have primed the city for an era of greatness, or, at least, reversed a long-running civic-disaster narrative.”

At the time of social catastrophe triggered by Katrina, the World Socialist Web Site wrote:

Hurricane Katrina has laid bare the awful truths of contemporary America—a country torn by the most intense class divisions, ruled by a corrupt plutocracy that possesses no sense either of social reality or public responsibility, in which millions of its citizens are deemed expendable and cannot depend on any social safety net or public assistance if disaster, in whatever form, strikes… The central lesson of New Orleans is that the elementary requirements of mass society are incompatible with a system that subordinates everything to the enrichment of a financial oligarchy.

These basic truths resonate all the more clearly ten years later.

Around 50 refugees and asylum seekers were found dead in the hold of a boat off the coast of Libya Wednesday morning. While rescuers were able to save 439 other people on board, the latest reports indicated that 51 people had died.

According to the Italian coast guard, the Swedish ship Poseidon, working as part of the European Union’s border control agency Frontex, discovered the bodies after it went to a stricken wooden boat that was in difficulty.

The latest number of fatalities is similar to the 49 migrants who perished on August 15 in the hold of another boat. That vessel was also found off the Libyan coast, south of the Italian island of Lampedusa. Those deaths are thought to have been caused by the migrants being asphyxiated after inhaling fumes from fuels as the boat’s hold took on water.

The nationality of those who died Wednesday has not yet been reported, but they are almost certainly from the war zones of Syria, Afghanistan, Libya or other African countries. Hundreds of thousands of the many millions who have been made refugees are seeking to reach Europe from throughout the Middle East and sub-Saharan Africa. They are fleeing as the result of more than a decade of wars and carnage, carried out by the imperialist powers and their proxies. An estimated 10 million people have been made homeless in Syria alone.

The vast scale of the crimes of imperialism is evident by the enormous numbers attempting to cross the Mediterranean every day. At least 2,300 have died trying to make the crossing this year, in what has been designated the most dangerous journey for any refugee on the globe.

Streams of refugees have attempted to seek shelter in Europe, mainly via the continent’s southern states, Italy and Greece. According to the International Organization for Migration, 293,000 refugees and migrants have reached Europe by sea so far this year. This is already one-third more than the total that arrived in 2014.

Also Wednesday, Italian rescue services received 10 calls for help from various boats in difficulty. The calls were from vessels located in an area around 30 miles from the Libyan coast, according to the Italian coastguard. It said at least 2,000 migrants, and “probably more” were in danger. These included an Irish coast guard ship attempting to rescue up to 500 people from a boat. That day:

* An Italian coast guard vessel saved 113 people from a partially-deflated rubber boat. One passenger, already fighting to survive, died soon after.

* Poseidon, the same rescue vessel that found the dead bodies in the hold, earlier saved 130 people from a rubber boat.

* A merchant ship reportedly picked up 225 people.

The local .it web site reported yesterday that according to Italian sources,

“another boat with some 700 people aboard was in trouble in the same area. Moas, a Malta-based private organisation, said in a tweet that its boat, the Phoenix, was taking part in a complex rescue operation.”

Moas tweeted, “Phoenix are working with Italian and Swedish vessels to assist thousands.”

This year Greece overtook Italy as the country receiving the most migrants. So far, more than 160,000 have entered the country, whose population is impoverished due to years of savage austerity. As well as the Mediterranean crossing from Africa, thousands are making the shorter but still dangerous trip to Greece’s eastern Aegean islands, via the Turkish coast.

In the 24 hours until Wednesday morning, the Greek coastguard rescued 578 people in 15 separate incidents at sea near the islands of Lesbos, Chios, Samos and Kos. These figures did not include those now arriving daily, often in unsafe inflatable dinghies, from the Turkish coast.

Just days earlier, on August 22, Italian coastguard teams rescued 4,400 people, a record number, in 22 operations over a single 24-hour period. This followed the rescue of 5,300 migrants off the Libyan coast the previous week.

The 22 rescue operations were carried out in seas near Libya. According to AP, Italian coast guard, navy and border police boats as well as Norwegian and Irish naval vessels co-ordinated the rescues. Those rescued were travelling on unseaworthy boats and motorized rubber dinghies, all overcrowded with desperate men, women and children.

The rescues took place in a relatively small area around 30 miles (50 km) from the Libyan coast. That so many had to be rescued in such a tiny area of sea in the eastern Mediterranean, which covers a total area of 637,000 square miles (1.65 million square kilometres), highlights the scope of this vast movement of refugees, which is without parallel since World War II.

Some 110,000 migrants have been rescued off the Libyan coast and taken to southern Italian ports.

Those who manage to enter Europe are being treated as an invading army to be repelled by brute force. As news was emerging of the latest tragic deaths, Hungarian riot police reported to have attacked around 200 migrants in the town of Roszke, near the border with Serbia. According to the AFP, police were sent in “after migrants tried to leave the main processing centre without being fingerprinted…”

The agency added, “Tensions escalated after more than 2,500 people, the highest ever daily total, arrived in Hungary on Tuesday from non EU-member Serbia.”

As with those refugees reaching Greece and Italy, most of the 100,000 migrants arriving in Hungary, via various routes in the Balkans, are fleeing their devastated homes in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

To stop refugees and migrants entering, Hungary’s right-wing government is constructing a massive, 109-mile fence on its border with Serbia. On Wednesday, it announced that 2,100 police officers would be sent to guard the fence.

This is just the initial stage of repression. Hungary’s ruling party said Wednesday it would ask parliament to back sending the army to help seal its southern border. Szilard Nemeth, deputy head of the National Security parliamentary committee, said the ruling Fidesz party wants to “make possible the use of the army for tasks related to border defence and migration.”

Every day features new reports of the latest harrowing tragedy engulfing refugees in the Mediterranean.

In June, the EU held a summit to discuss the escalating crisis. This was prompted by a wave of public revulsion at the indifference of the European powers, in the face of a series of mass drownings of refugees in which hundreds of lives were lost. The assembled heads of state failed to agree on a policy, clashing over whether to set quotas for how many immigrants each country should take.

On Monday, German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande met in Berlin to discuss the refugee crisis. They threatened to put the entire Balkan region on the list of “safe countries” from which no immigrants would be accepted. This would increase pressure on governments in the Balkans to step up their already savage repression of refugees.

Humankind has a choice to make, a stark and very clear choice: toxic pesticides which kill the bees, or the bees themselves which pollinate our plants, bring life to our fields and food on our tables. No bees, no plants, no food. The bees disappear, we follow. However, certain powerful lobbies, and governments, could not care less.

Neonicotinoids are powerful pesticides which have been linked to the collapse of the honey bee, an important insect responsible for the pollination of our plants across the globe. A series of studies have linked neonicotinoids to honey-bee colony collapse disorder (CCD) due to the neuro-active chemical actions which also have an adverse effect on species of birds which feed on the insects these pesticides combat.

Millions of dead bees

Introduced in the 1990s, by the end of the decade, neonicotinoids were being blamed for the loss of large numbers of honey bees and birds, so much so that the European Union and several other countries banned the use of certain neonicotinoids in 2013. Certain but not all. Seven remain in use: Imidacloprid (Bayer CropScience), Thiamethoxam (Syngenta), Clothianidin (Sumitomo Chemical/Bayer CropScience), Acetamiprid (Nippon Soda), Thiacloprid (Bayer CropScience), Dinotefuran (Mitsui Chemicals), Nitenpyram (Sumitomo Chemical)

Neonicotinoids alter the social behavior of bees and indeed, neither the honey bee nor the bumble bee seem able to avoid the plants sprayed with neonicotinoids, and forage elsewhere, according to tests made with the three most commonly used neonicotinoids, imidacloprid (IMD), thiamethoxam (TMX), and clothianidin (CLO). Worse, IMD and TMX appear to actively attract bees – they have been shown to eat more sucrose solution laced with these drugs than pure sucrose.

Still marketed

These substances have been directly linked to the deaths of millions of bees. So why are they still on the market, and why are some governments trying to skirt round the bans? The answer is crystal clear: registered in over 120 countries, neonicotinoids represent a global turnover of one point five billion Euro, making up around 25 per cent of the global pesticide market.

So once again we see that many Governments are not representing the people who elected them to implement policies the people voted for in a democratic process. Rather, they are pandering to the whims and answering the calls of the corporate lobbies which either placed their members in office or else closed ranks around them once they were elected.

Welcome to the corporatist model, a sham and a farce and everything but democratic. It is a cynical manipulation of the system and the people the system is supposed to represent. Today, the bees. Tomorrow, Humankind. Do the corporatist lobbies and their pawns care?

No, so long as they make their billions, they couldn’t care less, until it is too late.

([email protected])

Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has worked as a correspondent, journalist, editor, of printed and online news, TV stations and media groups. He is also a Media Partner of Humane Society International, fighting for animal rights.

After the devaluation of the yuan, the international financial markets started trembling. Washington accused Beijing of taking advantage of the market. As China wants to incorporate the yuan into the Special Drawing Rights, it is inconvenient to prolong the devaluation. Furthermore, if a currency war broke out, China would risk increasing the economic and geopolitical tensions between countries in the Asian-Pacific region. That way, the United States would have more possibilities to disrupt regional co-operation initiatives and thereby undermine China’s rise as a world power.

The three devaluations of the yuan, between 10 and 12 August, have key implications for the world economy and the geopolitical balance in the Asia-Pacific[1]. The “relatively big” trade surplus keeps the effective exchange rate “relatively high” and therefore, it is not “entirely consistent with the expectations of the market”, specifies the People’s Bank of China in a statement. The investors’ panic will not last long. The exchange rate ends up at 6,3306 yuan per dollar and the devaluation will not increase more than 5%.

Every time China shows interest in incorporating the yuan into the Special Drawing Rights (SDR)[2], the currency basket the International Monetary Fund (IMF) established in 1969, it is clear that the worth of its currency must remain stable, as it is one of the requirements that world currencies have to meet (the dollar does not meet this requirement and as a result, it decreased 70 to 60% as an international reserve of central banks between 1999 and 2014)[3].

The media campaign against the yuan

However, most of the Western press did not have any problem with sustaining that the devaluation of the “currency of the people” (‘renminbi’) is a way to support the export capacity of the economy deviously. Donald Trump, the favourite pre-candidate for presidency on behalf of the Republican Party, was dead set against the measure taken by the central bank: the Chinese try to “destroy” US industries.

The media campaign against China is not new. For years Washington has accused China of manipulating the exchange rate. However, the truth is that the yuan has not depreciated “artificially”, but rather appreciated itself in comparison to the US currency. Since 2005 (when the currency system became more flexible) until now, the Chinese currency has appreciated approximately 30% in comparison to the dollar, which makes it clear that claiming the devaluation of the yuan with 4,6% during the second week of August is the main reason for the US economy’s collapse is extremely exaggerated.

It is true that cheap goods produced in China are sold to US citizens like never before. However, every time well-paid jobs are sorely lacking for decades, families and companies are more worried about solving debt problems than about questioning the origins of their cheap everyday products from self-service stores.

Nevertheless, the US government insists on smearing the People’s Bank of China’s policy. That is not strange at all: central banks are not known for reaching agreement. History shows that, in times of crisis and worldwide turbulence, institutions responsible for monetary policy apply unilateral measures in order to move their economies forward.

The US Federal Reserve System is by far the most illustrative case. Without consulting any other central bank in advance and without being subjected to Congress, its former president, Ben S. Bernanke, announced in December 2013 that the Quantitative Easing programme would be cut down. As a consequence, both the stock market and the exchange rate of emergent economies plummeted.

A year later, the new president of the Federal Reserve System, Janet Yellen, announced she decided to increase the federal funds rate over the course of 2015. Even though Yellen has not yet contracted the credit (‘tightening’), currencies in the rest of world have accelerated the disaster over the last months.

This situation led the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan to launching liquidity-providing programs similar to those of the Federal Reserve System to limit the increase of the dollar in respect to their own currencies. On the other hand, the People’s Bank of China has not taken any special measures, but the yuan remained stable. Why?

In practice, the Chinese currency has a good relationship with the market rates of the dollar. This way, while half-way of 2014 and in the beginning of 2015, the dollar was appreciated between 15 and 20% in respect to the currencies used most in trade (such as the euro, pound sterling, yen et cetera), but only 0,6% in respect to the yuan[4].

Chinese juggling with various balls

However, the Asian juggernaut has to overcome many obstacles[5]. Since a couple of years, the Chinese government has implemented a series of ‘structural reforms’ so that the economy will change from an accumulation pattern that sustains on massive investment into a pattern that favours expansion of the domestic market.

The big challenge of the Communist Party of China is to increase the consumption of inhabitants by increasing their buying power through salary and to decrease the centrality of savings. This turn is more necessary than ever in the light of shrinking company investments and the downfall of external demand.

Last month the Chinese exportations reached 8,3% in annual terms, while its importations fell by 8,1%. That backlash is in synchrony with the extreme weakness of world trade: its expansion is at its lowest since the last 20 years[6].

 “Despite the fact that rates are still high, the growth of the Chinese GDP has also slowed down: the devaluation, however low, could reverse this tendency”, sentenced Paulo Nogueira Batista, the vice-president of the BRICS (acronym of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Development Bank, in an interview with Sputnik Mundo[7].

Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that Chinese co-operations export almost 60% of their goods to industrialised countries, according to Jonathan Anderson, member of the Emerging Advisors Group[8]. Given the fact that the G-7 countries (Germany, Canada, United Stated, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom) are still immersed in stagnation and close to deflation (downfall of prices), invigoration of the Chinese economy through international trade will be complicated.

On the other hand, the real estate sector starts to feel the effects of overinvestment. Promotion agencies of houses and apartments cannot find enough clients on the Chinese market anymore. The fall of sales does not permit increasing investments. As a consequence, companies that produce building equipment (steel, cement, wood, glass etc.) have been seriously damaged as they have a close tie to the real estate sector[9].

The bank’s actions to handle the economic slowdown are very varied and not only limited to devaluating the currency. During last year, the People’s Bank of China reduced the repo rate and capital requirements of the bank system to stimulate credit granting to productive activity. Furthermore, China launched a fiscal stimulus programme, the costs of which are estimated on 12% of the GDP.

The Chinese government developed a game of juggling with various balls[10]. The Chinese try to change from an economy centred on mass investment into an economy stimulated by consumption without sacrificing its growth: they seek to stop speculation in the real estate sector (stock exchange, commodities, etc.) without cutting off the sector’s credit, they aspire to lead without coping with the financial volatility that the world market imposes. Will it be possible for the Chinese government to accomplish that?

The danger of world-wide deflation

It is a big challenge. The authorities in Peking seem to worry more and more about the global panorama. The world market hastens deflation. It is not just about the instable prices of commodities and the economic stagnation with deflation that countries such as Japan have suffered since the 1990s.

The deflationary crisis has consolidated in Greece and threatens to spread over most of the European economies. According to data published by Elstat, inflation in Greece fell by 2,2% in annual terms during last month, which means that deflation has been going on for 29 consecutive months now[11].

After the Troika (established by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission) imposed a new bail-out plan on Athens, which stimulates austerity, it is clear that deflation will eventually be stimulated and, by that, will become a death threat to Germany, China’s fourth biggest trade partner.

All in all, Peking does not spare any effort to scare away from recessive tendencies that are coming to their economy gradually and that, incidentally, come as a surprise to more and more countries: from Germany, France and the United Kingdom to Canada, Mexico and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.).

Washington aims its missiles at Beijing 

The regional economic context is not free from deflation either[12]. The weakened position of the yuan is not well-received by China’s neighbouring countries[13]. The currencies of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand fell to minimum levels after the devaluation of the ‘renminbi’, while simultaneously the stock exchange closed with a decrease between 0,5% and 1,5%.

If central banks in Asia-Pacific give in to the temptation of starting a devaluation tendency by means of a beggar-thy-neighbour policy[14], successful convocations led by China in order to move the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road fund and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific forward will be seriously threatened.

In opposition, US companies do not miss out on the opportunity to seek for the support of several Asian leaders to widen the scope of the Trans-Pacific Partnership[15]. The Pentagon wants to use the ‘Pivot to Asia’ strategy again, this time with the military support of Japan.

Without a doubt, it is a tricky plan from the United States to suffocate China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific. In light of the American imperial offensive, the Chinese government has to remain alert and in particular take note of general Sun Tzu’s (author of ‘The art of war’) lessons: defeat the enemy without entering in combat.

The devaluation of the yuan has made clear that the coming months will be crucial for the consolidation of China’s rise as a world power. Only time will tell whether or not it is possible to resolve economic inconsistencies in domestic policy without risking the regional cohesion. The Chinese currency is in the air…

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, economist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Translation: Thirza Toes.

Source: Russia Today.

 

After the devaluation of the yuan, the international financial markets started trembling. Washington accused Beijing of taking advantage of the market. As China wants to incorporate the yuan into the Special Drawing Rights, it is inconvenient to prolong the devaluation. Furthermore, if a currency war broke out, China would risk increasing the economic and geopolitical tensions between countries in the Asian-Pacific region. That way, the United States would have more possibilities to disrupt regional co-operation initiatives and thereby undermine China’s rise as a world power.

The three devaluations of the yuan, between 10 and 12 August, have key implications for the world economy and the geopolitical balance in the Asia-Pacific[1]. The “relatively big” trade surplus keeps the effective exchange rate “relatively high” and therefore, it is not “entirely consistent with the expectations of the market”, specifies the People’s Bank of China in a statement. The investors’ panic will not last long. The exchange rate ends up at 6,3306 yuan per dollar and the devaluation will not increase more than 5%.

Every time China shows interest in incorporating the yuan into the Special Drawing Rights (SDR)[2], the currency basket the International Monetary Fund (IMF) established in 1969, it is clear that the worth of its currency must remain stable, as it is one of the requirements that world currencies have to meet (the dollar does not meet this requirement and as a result, it decreased 70 to 60% as an international reserve of central banks between 1999 and 2014)[3].

The media campaign against the yuan

However, most of the Western press did not have any problem with sustaining that the devaluation of the “currency of the people” (‘renminbi’) is a way to support the export capacity of the economy deviously. Donald Trump, the favourite pre-candidate for presidency on behalf of the Republican Party, was dead set against the measure taken by the central bank: the Chinese try to “destroy” US industries.

The media campaign against China is not new. For years Washington has accused China of manipulating the exchange rate. However, the truth is that the yuan has not depreciated “artificially”, but rather appreciated itself in comparison to the US currency. Since 2005 (when the currency system became more flexible) until now, the Chinese currency has appreciated approximately 30% in comparison to the dollar, which makes it clear that claiming the devaluation of the yuan with 4,6% during the second week of August is the main reason for the US economy’s collapse is extremely exaggerated.

It is true that cheap goods produced in China are sold to US citizens like never before. However, every time well-paid jobs are sorely lacking for decades, families and companies are more worried about solving debt problems than about questioning the origins of their cheap everyday products from self-service stores.

Nevertheless, the US government insists on smearing the People’s Bank of China’s policy. That is not strange at all: central banks are not known for reaching agreement. History shows that, in times of crisis and worldwide turbulence, institutions responsible for monetary policy apply unilateral measures in order to move their economies forward.

The US Federal Reserve System is by far the most illustrative case. Without consulting any other central bank in advance and without being subjected to Congress, its former president, Ben S. Bernanke, announced in December 2013 that the Quantitative Easing programme would be cut down. As a consequence, both the stock market and the exchange rate of emergent economies plummeted.

A year later, the new president of the Federal Reserve System, Janet Yellen, announced she decided to increase the federal funds rate over the course of 2015. Even though Yellen has not yet contracted the credit (‘tightening’), currencies in the rest of world have accelerated the disaster over the last months.

This situation led the European Central Bank (ECB), the Bank of England and the Bank of Japan to launching liquidity-providing programs similar to those of the Federal Reserve System to limit the increase of the dollar in respect to their own currencies. On the other hand, the People’s Bank of China has not taken any special measures, but the yuan remained stable. Why?

In practice, the Chinese currency has a good relationship with the market rates of the dollar. This way, while half-way of 2014 and in the beginning of 2015, the dollar was appreciated between 15 and 20% in respect to the currencies used most in trade (such as the euro, pound sterling, yen et cetera), but only 0,6% in respect to the yuan[4].

Chinese juggling with various balls

However, the Asian juggernaut has to overcome many obstacles[5]. Since a couple of years, the Chinese government has implemented a series of ‘structural reforms’ so that the economy will change from an accumulation pattern that sustains on massive investment into a pattern that favours expansion of the domestic market.

The big challenge of the Communist Party of China is to increase the consumption of inhabitants by increasing their buying power through salary and to decrease the centrality of savings. This turn is more necessary than ever in the light of shrinking company investments and the downfall of external demand.

Last month the Chinese exportations reached 8,3% in annual terms, while its importations fell by 8,1%. That backlash is in synchrony with the extreme weakness of world trade: its expansion is at its lowest since the last 20 years[6].

 “Despite the fact that rates are still high, the growth of the Chinese GDP has also slowed down: the devaluation, however low, could reverse this tendency”, sentenced Paulo Nogueira Batista, the vice-president of the BRICS (acronym of Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) Development Bank, in an interview with Sputnik Mundo[7].

Nevertheless, it should be mentioned that Chinese co-operations export almost 60% of their goods to industrialised countries, according to Jonathan Anderson, member of the Emerging Advisors Group[8]. Given the fact that the G-7 countries (Germany, Canada, United Stated, France, Italy, Japan, and the United Kingdom) are still immersed in stagnation and close to deflation (downfall of prices), invigoration of the Chinese economy through international trade will be complicated.

On the other hand, the real estate sector starts to feel the effects of overinvestment. Promotion agencies of houses and apartments cannot find enough clients on the Chinese market anymore. The fall of sales does not permit increasing investments. As a consequence, companies that produce building equipment (steel, cement, wood, glass etc.) have been seriously damaged as they have a close tie to the real estate sector[9].

The bank’s actions to handle the economic slowdown are very varied and not only limited to devaluating the currency. During last year, the People’s Bank of China reduced the repo rate and capital requirements of the bank system to stimulate credit granting to productive activity. Furthermore, China launched a fiscal stimulus programme, the costs of which are estimated on 12% of the GDP.

The Chinese government developed a game of juggling with various balls[10]. The Chinese try to change from an economy centred on mass investment into an economy stimulated by consumption without sacrificing its growth: they seek to stop speculation in the real estate sector (stock exchange, commodities, etc.) without cutting off the sector’s credit, they aspire to lead without coping with the financial volatility that the world market imposes. Will it be possible for the Chinese government to accomplish that?

The danger of world-wide deflation

It is a big challenge. The authorities in Peking seem to worry more and more about the global panorama. The world market hastens deflation. It is not just about the instable prices of commodities and the economic stagnation with deflation that countries such as Japan have suffered since the 1990s.

The deflationary crisis has consolidated in Greece and threatens to spread over most of the European economies. According to data published by Elstat, inflation in Greece fell by 2,2% in annual terms during last month, which means that deflation has been going on for 29 consecutive months now[11].

After the Troika (established by the International Monetary Fund, the European Central Bank and the European Commission) imposed a new bail-out plan on Athens, which stimulates austerity, it is clear that deflation will eventually be stimulated and, by that, will become a death threat to Germany, China’s fourth biggest trade partner.

All in all, Peking does not spare any effort to scare away from recessive tendencies that are coming to their economy gradually and that, incidentally, come as a surprise to more and more countries: from Germany, France and the United Kingdom to Canada, Mexico and South America (Argentina, Brazil, Venezuela, etc.).

Washington aims its missiles at Beijing 

The regional economic context is not free from deflation either[12]. The weakened position of the yuan is not well-received by China’s neighbouring countries[13]. The currencies of South Korea, Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and Thailand fell to minimum levels after the devaluation of the ‘renminbi’, while simultaneously the stock exchange closed with a decrease between 0,5% and 1,5%.

If central banks in Asia-Pacific give in to the temptation of starting a devaluation tendency by means of a beggar-thy-neighbour policy[14], successful convocations led by China in order to move the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the Silk Road fund and the Free Trade Area of the Asia-Pacific forward will be seriously threatened.

In opposition, US companies do not miss out on the opportunity to seek for the support of several Asian leaders to widen the scope of the Trans-Pacific Partnership[15]. The Pentagon wants to use the ‘Pivot to Asia’ strategy again, this time with the military support of Japan.

Without a doubt, it is a tricky plan from the United States to suffocate China’s growing influence in the Asia-Pacific. In light of the American imperial offensive, the Chinese government has to remain alert and in particular take note of general Sun Tzu’s (author of ‘The art of war’) lessons: defeat the enemy without entering in combat.

The devaluation of the yuan has made clear that the coming months will be crucial for the consolidation of China’s rise as a world power. Only time will tell whether or not it is possible to resolve economic inconsistencies in domestic policy without risking the regional cohesion. The Chinese currency is in the air…

Ariel Noyola Rodríguez, economist graduated from the National Autonomous University of Mexico.

Translation: Thirza Toes.

Source: Russia Today.

 

The expansion of Israel’s ‘separation barrier’ is targeting Christian-Palestinian communities in the West Bank, reports Noreen Sadik.

On 17 August, Issa al-Shatleh, of Beit Jala, Palestine, started his day with news that Israeli soldiers were on the land that had belonged to his family for hundreds of years. When he arrived, he found ‘they were destroying the land, and cutting my ancient olive trees, some hundreds of years old’. ‘They came without a warning,’ he said.

And it is not just al-Shatleh’s land that is being confiscated. Close to 3 hectares of private land were razed that morning and 45 trees, some of them over 100 years old, were uprooted. As landowners tried to stop the destruction, violent clashes broke out, sending al-Shatleh’s brother to the hospital.

Beit Jala is located in the Cremisan Valley, near the Bethlehem area in Palestine. It lies between the illegal Israeli settlements of Gilo in East Jerusalem and the illegal West Bank settlement Har Gilo. Approximately 16,000 people live there, the majority of whom are Christian. Christians number about 2% of the population of the West Bank.

The Cremisan Valley is home to the Salesian Sisters’ Convent and school, and to the 19th-century Salesian Monastery and Cellars.

The green, fertile land is a source of livelihood for many local families, and is dotted with pine, apricot and olive trees, as well as other agricultural delicacies, including grapevines, used by the Cremisan winery. Not only is it a place of spirituality, it also serves as the last piece of agricultural and recreational land available to residents of Bethlehem.

For years, it has also been a source of contention and legal battles between Israel’s Ministry of Defense and the residents of Beit Jala, including the Salesian Monastery and the Salesian Convent.

Extending the wall

In 2006, the Israeli military declared its plan to extend the already-existing Separation Barrier, which had gaps in it, thereby dividing the land of Beit Jala.

The army’s original plan would have led to the confiscation of privately and church-owned land, and would separate 58 Palestinian families from their agricultural lands, affecting their livelihoods.

It would also have left the monastery and orchards on the Israeli side of the barrier, and the convent and school on the Palestinian side. Access between the two sides would have had to be given via an agricultural gate. With the convent and school surrounded by the barrier, and a military road nearby, hundreds of schoolchildren would essentially be living in a military zone.

On 24 April 2013, the Special Appeals Committee of the Tel Aviv Magistrate’s Court approved the land confiscation for the Separation Barrier along a route that would have annexed 75% of the convent’s property and enclosed it on three sides.

Two years later, this past April, after years of fighting to keep their lands, the residents of Beit Jala enjoyed the sweet taste of victory when the Israeli Supreme Court ruled against the Ministry of Defense’s proposal. The Court ordered the Ministry to find a route which would be less disruptive to the Palestinians.

On 6 July 2015 however, Beit Jala residents were shocked when the Court reversed its April decision, thereby permitting the Ministry of Defense to begin building the extension following an alternative route. The Ministry was instructed to leave monastery and convent lands untouched.

According to NGO Stop the Wall, ‘The Supreme Court ruling applies the need to re-route the Wall only as far as the lands surrounding the Salesian Sisters’ Convents and the Salesian Monastery and its agricultural lands. The court ruled that the Israeli authorities can initiate building the Wall on privately owned lands in Beit Jala.’

Construction of the Separation Barrier between Israel and the West Bank, also known as the Wall, began in 2002. Israel claims that it is a security measure designed to prevent attacks by Palestinians in the West Bank. In 2004, the International Court of Justice declared that the ‘construction by Israel of a wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory and its associated regime are contrary to international law’.

Hundreds of hectares were confiscated from Beit Jala to build the 3 settlements of Gilo, Har Gilo and Giv’at Hamatos, as well as the part of the wall currently standing. The new extension to the wall is going to destroy another 350 hectares.

Residents of Beit Jala consider it to be a land grab, a means of linking Gilo and Har Gilo, and therefore annexing further Palestinian land to Israel.

According to Israeli human rights organization B’tselem, 85% of the barrier’s planned route of 709 kilometres runs through Palestinian land, rather than on the Green Line (representing the 1948-established borders). Upon completion, 46% of Palestinian land will have been annexed, and the barrier will be almost twice as long as the border, as it zigzags around Palestinian communities.

‘What can we do if the world doesn’t stand with us? The land of Jesus is calling you. Stop the aggression against us. We are human and we have rights. We just want to live in peace’

Meanwhile, Catholic leaders have been holding vigils every Friday in the Cremisan Valley since 2011, drawing international, diplomatic and media attention. Over the years, appeals for help have been made to several world leaders, including Pope Francis, who visited the area last year.

On 30 July 2015, the Society of St Yves Center for Human Rights, representatives of the Convent, submitted a new petition to the Supreme Court. It requested that ‘the Ministry of Defense reveal and present its whole planned route of the Separation Wall in Cremisan before it proceeds with building it in the privately owned lands’.

St. Yves also requested the High Court issue an order ‘to prevent the army from building the Wall before such a route plan is presented, and after allowing all parties and petitioners to submit their objections, especially for the landowners, who will incur severe damages from the construction of the Separation Wall’.

But in spite of that, while the landowners and residents of the community were waiting for yet another decision from the Israeli Supreme Court, the bulldozers rolled in, beginning the construction of the extension of the barrier.

A solidarity tent has been set up on the land, and public events and protests have been organized.

‘We are calling on the European Union and the international community, including the Vatican, to go beyond their statements of concern and condemnations, and to put real pressure on Israel to stop the construction of the Apartheid Wall, dismantle the Wall and the settlements and to respect international law and human rights,’ Stop the Wall declared.

In Beit Jala, frustrated and angry, al-Shatleh says: ‘What can we do if the world doesn’t stand with us? The land of Jesus is calling you. Stop the aggression against us. We are human and we have rights. We just want to live in peace.’

Sharmini Peries: The Dow Jones trading took a deep drive this week, dropping over 1,000 points in the first 20 minutes of trading. It is now slowly reversing itself, but it was the greatest loss in trading since the 2010 crash. Here to discuss all of this, we’re joined by Michael Hudson. Michael Hudson is a distinguished research professor of economics at the University of Missouri, Kansas City. His latest book, which we promise to unpack in detail very soon, is Killing the Host: How Financial Parasites and Debt Destroy Global Economy. You can get a digital download of it at CounterPunch. Michael, thank you so much for joining us.

Michael Hudson: Good to be here. And the hard print will be out in another two weeks from Amazon.

Peries: Look forward to it, Michael. So Michael, some mainstream news outlets are saying that this is the China contagion. They need someone to blame. What’s causing all of this?

Hudson: Not China. China’s simply back to the level that it was earlier in the year. One of the problems with the Chinese market that is quite different from the American and European market is that a lot of the big Chinese banks have lent to small lenders, sort of small wholesale lenders, that in turn have lent to retail people. And a lot of Chinese are trying to get ahead by borrowing money to buy real estate or to buy stocks. So there are these intermediaries, these non-bank intermediaries, sort of like real estate brokers, who borrowed big money from banks and lent it out to a lot of little people. And once the small people got in it’s like odd lot traders in the United States, small traders, you know that the boom is over.

What you’re having now is a lot of small speculators have lost their money. And that’s put the squeeze on the non-bank speculators. But that’s something almost unique in China. Most Americans and most European families don’t borrow to go into the market. Most of the market is indeed funded by debt, but it’s funded by bank lending and huge, huge leverage borrowings for all of this.

This is what most of the commentators don’t get. All this market run-up we’ve seen in the last year or two has been by the Federal Reserve making credit available to banks at about one-tenth of 1 percent. The banks have lent to big institutional traders and speculators thinking, well gee, if we can borrow at 1 percent and buy stocks that yield maybe 5 or 6 percent, then we can make the arbitrage. So they’ve made a 5 percent arbitrage by buying, but they’ve also now lost 10 percent, maybe 20 percent on the capital.

What we’re seeing is that short-term thinking really hasn’t taken into account the long run. And that’s why this is very much like the Long-Term Capital Management crash in 1997, when the two Nobel prize winners who calculated how the economy works and lives in the short term found out that all of a sudden the short term has to come back to the long term.

Now, it’s amazing how today’s press doesn’t get it. For instance, in theNew York Times Paul Krugman, who you can almost always depend to be wrong where money and credit are involved, said that the problem is a savings glut. People have too many savings. Well, we know that they don’t in America have too many savings. We’re in a debt deflation now. The 99
percent of the people are so busy paying off their debt that what is counted as savings here is just paying down the debt. That’s why they don’t have enough money to buy goods and services, and so sales are falling. That means that profits are falling. And people finally realized that wait a minute, with companies not making more profits they’re not going to be able to pay the dividends.

Well, companies themselves have been causing this crisis as much as speculators, because companies like Amazon, like Google, or Apple especially, have been borrowing money to buy their own stock. Corporate activists, stockholder activists, have told these companies, we want you to put us on the board because we want you to borrow at 1 percent to buy your stock yielding 5 percent. You’ll get rich in no time. So these stock buybacks by Apple and by other companies at high prices can push up their stock price in the short term. But when prices crash, their net worth is all of a sudden plunging. And so we’re in a classic debt deflation.

Peries: Michael, explain how buybacks are actually causing this. I don’t think ordinary people quite understand that.

Hudson: Well, what they cause is the runup–companies are under pressure. The managers are paid according to how well they can make a stock price go up. And they think, why should we invest in long-term research and development or long-term developments when we can use the earnings we have just to buy our own stock, and that’ll push them up even without investing, without hiring, without producing more. We can make the stock go up by financial engineering. By using our earnings to buy [their own] stock.

So what you have is empty earnings. You’ve had stock prices going up without corporate earnings really going up. If you buy back your stock and you retire the shares, then earnings per shares go up. But all of a sudden the whole world realizes that this is all financial engineering, doing it with mirrors, and it’s not real. There’s been no real gain in industrial profitability. There’s just been a diversion of corporate income into the financial markets instead of tangible new investment in hiring.

Peries: Michael, Lawrence Summers is tweeting, he writes, as in August 1997, 1998, 2007 and 2008, we could be in the early stages of a very serious situation, which I think we can attribute some of the blame to him. What do you make of that comment, and is that so? Is this the beginnings of a bigger problem?

Hudson: I wish he would have said what he means by ‘situation’. What people don’t realize usually, and especially what Lawrence Summers doesn’t realize, is that there are two economies. When he means a bad situation, that means for his constituency. The 1 percent. The 1 percent think oh, we’re going to be losing in the asset markets. But the 1 percent has been making money by getting the 99 percent into debt. By squeezing more work out of them. By keeping wages low and by starving the market so that there’s nobody to buy the goods that they produce.

So the problem is in the real economy, not the financial economy. But Lawrence Summers and the Federal Reserve all of a sudden say look, we don’t care about the real economy. We care about the stock market. And what you’ve seen in the last few years, two years I’d say, of the stock runup, is something unique. For the first time the central banks of America, even Switzerland and Europe, are talking about the role of the central bank is to inflate asset prices. Well, the traditional reason for central banks that they gave is to stop inflation. And yet now they’re trying to inflate the stock market. The Federal Reserve has been trying to push up the stock market purely by financial engineering, by making this low interest rate and quantitative easing.

The Wall Street Journal gets it wrong, too, on its editorial page. You have an op-ed by Gerald  O’Driscoll, who used to be on the board of the Dallas Federal Reserve, saying gee, the problem with low interest rates is it encourages long-term investment because people can take their time. Well, that’s crazy Austrian theory. The real problem is that low interest rates provide money to short-term speculators. All this credit has been used not for the long term, not for investment at all, but just speculation. And when you have speculation, a little bit of a drop in the market can wipe out all of the capital that’s invested.

So what you had this morning in the stock market was a huge wipeout of borrowed money on which people thought the market would go up, and the Federal Reserve would be able to inflate prices. The job of the Federal Reserve is to increase the price of wealth and stocks and real estate relative to labor. The Federal Reserve is sort of waging class war. It wants to increase the assets of the 1 percent relative to the earnings of the 99 percent, and we’re seeing the fact that this, the effect of this class war is so successful it’s plunged the economy into debt, slowed the economy, and led to the crisis we have today.

Peries: Michael, just one last question. Most ordinary people are sitting back saying well, it’s a stock market crash. I don’t have anything in the market. And so I don’t have to really worry about it. What do you say to them, and how are they going to feel the impact of this?

Hudson: It’s not going to affect them all that much. The fact is that so much of the money in the market was speculative capital that it really isn’t going to affect them much. And it certainly isn’t going to affect China all that much. China is trying to develop an internal market. It has other problems, and the market is not going to affect either China’s economy or this. But when the 1 percent lose money, they scream like anything, and they say it’s the job of the 99 percent to bail them out.

Peries: What about your retirement savings, and so on?

Hudson: Well, if the savings are invested in the stock market in speculative hedge funds they’d lose, but very few savings are. The savings have already gone way, way up from the market. And the market is only down to what it was earlier this year. So the people have not really suffered very much at all. They’ve only not made as big of gains as they would have hoped for, but they’re not affected.

With almost a whimper, the Western media reported that the US-backed regimes of Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), and their auxiliary fighters drawn from Al Qaeda have begun carrying out what is the ground invasion of Yemen. Along with an ongoing naval blockade and months of bombing raids, the ground invasion adds a lethal new dimension to the conflict – for both sides.

Landing at the port city of Aden on Yemen’s southern tip, it is reported that an “armor brigade” consisting of between 1,000 – 3,000 troops primarily from the UAE are now moving north, their ultimate destination Sana’a, the capital of Yemen.

Columns of the UAE’s French-built Leclerc main battle tanks were seen moving out of the port city though their numbers are difficult to establish. Reports claiming that the UAE unit is brigade-sized might indicate as many as 100 tanks involved – a third of the UAE’s total armored force.

The bold move comes after months of frustrating failures for the two Arabian regimes. Their Yemeni proxies – loyalists of the ousted president Abd-Rabbu Mansour Hadi – have proven all but useless in fighting Houthi fighters across most of Yemen despite air superiority provided to them by their Arabian allies. And while it appears the well-equipped Arab forces are able to concentrate firepower, overwhelming Houthi fighters in pitched battles, the ability for Saudi, UAE, and Al Qaeda forces to actually hold territory they move through is questionable at best.

Opportunity 

The Roman Empire throughout much of its reign was feared as invincible. After suffering several major defeats, the veneer of invincibility began to peel and along with it crumbled inevitably their empire. Likewise, Western hegemony has been propped up by the illusion of military superiority on the battlefield. By carefully picking its battles and avoiding critical defeats, the West, and the US in particular, has maintained this illusion of military invincibility

As the US moves against nations with larger, better equipped and trained armies, it has elected to use proxies to fight on its behalf. Thus, any humiliating defeat could be compartmentalized.

However, by most accounts the war in Yemen is not only a proxy war between Iran and the Persian Gulf monarchies, it is one of several such conflicts raging regionally that constitutes a wider proxy war between the US and its regional allies on one side, and Iran, Syria, Russia, and even China on the other.

With the presence of Western main battle tanks in Yemen attempting to move north, the opportunity now presents itself to punch holes through this illusion of Western invincibility. Yemen as the graveyard for an alleged brigade of French-built Leclerc main battle tanks would be one such hole. It would also set the UAE’s extraterritorial military ambitions back, if not overturn them entirely, and finally, would leave whatever fighting was left in Yemen to the Saudis who have thus far proven incompetent.

Perhaps this is one of the many reasons the Western media has decided not to cover the events unfolding in Yemen.

Yemen Vs. Ukraine 

One might ask how – in the context of international law – it is possible for unelected absolute autocracies like Saudi Arabia and the UAE to intervene militarily in Yemen with naval blockades, aerial bombardments, and now an overt ground invasion including armor columns to restore an ousted regime. This is done with seemingly little concern from the United Nations and with the enthusiastic support both politically and militarily of the United States.

The answer to this question becomes more confounding still when considering Western condemnation of Russia for any attempt to support or defend the ousted government of Ukraine, a nation now overrun by NATO-backed Neo-Nazi militias who in turn are backing a criminal regime in Kiev which includes foreigners assigned to cabinet positions and even as governors. Saudi and UAE military aggression in Yemen makes it increasingly difficult for the West to maintain the illusion of moral superiority regarding Ukraine.

Russia’s relative restraint when compared to US-backed aggression on the Arabian Peninsula exposes once again the pervasive hypocrisy consuming Western legitimacy.

This may be yet another reason the Western media refuses to cover the events unfolding in Yemen.

Responsibility to Protect…? 

After NATO’s attempt to invoke the “responsibility to protect” (R2P) as justification for the destruction of Libya, it became clear that NATO was merely hiding behind the principles of humanitarian concern, not upholding them. And while it may be difficult to believe, there are still those across the Western media and policy think-tanks attempting to use R2P to justify further military aggression against nations like Syria.

However, R2P is conveniently absent amid what little talk of Yemen that does take place in the Western media. US-backed blockades and months of aerial bombardments have tipped Yemen toward a humanitarian catastrophe. Not only does both the UN and the West fail to demand an end to the bombings and blockades, the West has continued to underwrite Saudi Arabia and the UAE’s military adventure in Yemen.

The carnage and injustice visited upon Yemen serves as yet another stark example of how the West and its institutions, including the United Nations, are the greatest dangers to global peace and stability, using the pretext of defending such ideals as a means to instead undo them.

Considering this, we discover yet another potential reason the Western media’s coverage of Yemen is muted.

It remains to be seen how the Houthi fighters react to the ground invasion of Yemen by Emirati troops. Dealing severe losses to the UAE’s armor while continuing to weather aerial bombardment may see the stalling or even the withdrawal of this latest incursion. Not unlike the 2006 Lebanon War where Hezbollah fighters expertly used terrain to negate Israeli advantages in airpower and armor, forcing an early end to the fighting, the Houthis may yet answer this latest move by US-backed proxies operating in Yemen.

Perhaps this possibility above all, is why the Western media would rather the general public knew little of what was going on in Yemen. It would represent yet another conventional Western-equipped proxy army defeated by irregular forces in yet another failed campaign fought in the interests of Wall Street and Washington. While the Western media refuses to cover the events unfolding in Yemen with the attention and honesty they deserve, the conflict is nonetheless pivotal, and may determine the outcome of other proxy wars raging across the Middle East and North Africa, and even beyond.

Tony Cartalucci, Bangkok-based geopolitical researcher and writer, especially for the online magazine“New Eastern Outlook”.

In The Matrix in which Americans live, nothing is ever their fault. For example, the current decline in the US stock market is not because years of excessive liquidity supplied by the Federal Reserve have created a bubble so overblown that a mere six stocks, some of which have no earnings commiserate with their price, accounted for more than all of the gain in market capitalization in the S&P 500 prior to the current disruption.

In our Matrix existence, the stock market decline is not due to corporations using their profits, and even taking out loans, to repurchase their shares, thus creating an artificial demand for their equity shares.

The decline is not due to the latest monthly reporting of durable goods orders falling on a year-to-year basis for the sixth consecutive month.

The stock market decline is not due to a week economy in which after a decade of alleged economy recovery, new and existing home sales are still down by 63% and 23% from the peak in July 2005.

The stock market decline is not due to the collapse in real median family income and, thereby, consumer demand, resulting from two decades of offshoring middle class jobs and partially replacing them with minimum wage part-time Walmart jobs without benefits that do not provide sufficient income to form a household.

No, none of these facts can be blamed. The decline in the US stock market is the fault of China.

What did China do? China is accused of devaluing by a small amount its currency.

Why would a slight adjustment in the yuan’s exchange value to the dollar cause the US and European stock markets to decline?

It wouldn’t. But facts don’t matter to the presstitute media. They lie for a living.

Moreover, it was not a devaluation.

When China began the transition from communism to capitalism, China pegged its currency to the US dollar in order to demonstrate that its currency was as good as the world’s reserve currency. Over time China has allowed its currency to appreciate relative to the dollar. For example, in 2006 one US dollar was worth 8.1 Chinese yuan. Recently, prior to the alleged “devaluation” one US dollar was worth 6.1 or 6.2 yuan. After China’s adjustment to its floating peg, one US dollar is worth 6.4 yuan. Clearly, a change in the value of the yuan from 6.1 or 6.2 to the dollar to 6.4 to the dollar did not collapse the US and European stock markets.

Furthermore, the change in the range of the floating peg to the US dollar did not devalue China’s currency with regard to its non-US trading partners. What had happened, and what China corrected, is that as a result of the QE money printing policies currently underway by the Japanese and European central banks, the dollar appreciated against other currencies. As China’s yuan is pegged to the dollar, China’s currency appreciated with regard to its Asian and European trading partners. The appreciation of China’s currency (due to its peg to the US dollar) is not a good thing for Chinese exports during a time of struggling economies. China merely altered its peg to the dollar in order to eliminate the appreciation of its currency against its other trading partners.

Why did not the financial press tell us this? Is the Western financial press so incompetent that they do not know this? Yes.

Or is it simply that America itself cannot possibly be responsible for anything that goes wrong. That’s it. Who, us?! We are innocent! It was those damn Chinese!

Look, for example, at the hordes of refugees from America’s invasions and bombings of seven countries who are currently overrunning Europe. The huge inflows of peoples from America’s massive slaughter of populations in seven countries, enabled by the Europeans themselves, is causing political consternation in Europe and the revival of far-right political parties. Today, for example, neo-nazis shouted down German Chancellor Merkel, who tried to make a speech asking for compassion for refugees.

But, of course, Merkel herself is responsible for the refugee problem that is destabilizing Europe. Without Germany as Washington’s two-bit punk puppet state, a non-entity devoid of sovereignty, a non-country, a mere vassal, an outpost of the Empire, ruled from Washington, America could not be conducting the illegal wars that are producing the hordes of refugees that are over-taxing Europe’s ability to accept refugees and encouraging neo-nazi parties.

The corrupt European and American press present the refugee problem as if it has nothing whatsoever to do with America’s war crimes against seven countries. I mean, really, why should peoples flee countries when America is bringing them “freedom and democracy?”

Nowhere in the Western media other than a few alternative media websites is there an ounce of integrity. The Western media is a Ministry of Truth that operates full-time in support of the artificial existence that Westerners live inside The Matrix where Westerners exist without thought. Considering their inaptitude and inaction, Western peoples might as well not exist.

More is going to collapse on the brainwashed Western fools than mere stock values.

Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency head Gen. Michael Flynn is not backing down from his claims that elements of the US government were aware of and supported the rise of jihadists in Syria as a means by which to overthrow its president, Bashar Assad.

As the US moves ever closer to a full-out invasion of Syria the lack of media interest in Flynn’s story is reminiscent of the one-sided (pro-war) coverage of the run up to the 2003 Iraq War.

More on the disturbing new revelations in a special edition of the Ron Paul Liberty Report:

Today, Global Research brings to the attention of its readers a selection of analytical articles relating to the global economy.

Around the  world, billions of dollars of wealth are seamlessly being moved from one hand to another, from one country to the next.

The global economy is run by powerful economic networks which undermine national sovereignty. These networks are controlled by non-representative neo-conservative “intellectuals” and corporate banking elites.

Below, you will see how such an agenda can lead to sketchy bailouts, rigged financial markets and covert transactions by central bankers. 

SELECTED ARTICLES

 

The Greek Elections and the EU Bailout: From Hope to Fear and Despair. Greece’s National Wealth For Sale

By Prof. James Petras, August 26, 2015

President Bashar al-Assad asserted that terrorists are the true tool of the Israeli aggression on Syria and that the terrorists’ acts are more dangerous than Israel’s, therefore confronting Israel requires confronting its tools first.

In an interview given to al-Manar TV, President al-Assad said the essence of the crisis in Syria is foreign interference, and once this interference ceases in all its forms, then it would be possible to say that the crisis is in its final stages, because then confronting terrorism would be easier.

His Excellency said that so far, there is no suitable environment or essential elements for the political track to succeed in reaching a solution for the crisis, noting that the states that support terrorism are imposing figures in any dialogue that represent these states and not the Syrian state.

President al-Assad said that the United States doesn’t want terrorism to triumph, and at the same time doesn’t want to become weak to the point that stability is achieved in the region; rather the United States wants matters to continue moving towards chaos and wakening all states, adding that the crisis proved that Recep Tayyip Erdogan is a mere puppet with dreams, the last of these dreams being the buffer zone, but he can’t move in this direction without the approval of his U.S. master.

He stressed that defending the homeland isn’t just by bearing arms; rather defending the homeland is done by all things that make it stronger and more resilient in the face of attacks, adding that the Syrians’ hope for victory is the incentive for confronting terrorists and the plot devised for Syria.

President al-Assad said that if any international envoy were completely impartial, then the west wouldn’t have approved them, and so the biased statements of envoys are part of their role. He also reiterated that any initiative must respect Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and leave the decision to the Syrian people while prioritizing counterterrorism.

Following is the full interview:

Syrians’ hope for victory is the incentive for confronting terrorists and the plot

In response to a question on Syria’s confidence in emerging victorious from the terrorist war waged on it and what this confidence is based on, President al-Assad said that if there hadn’t been hope of victory among the citizens, then Syria wouldn’t have persevered for four and a half year.

“This hope is the incentive for confronting terrorists and confronting the plot devised for Syria and applied in it like it was applied in a number of other Arab countries,” he said.

“We rely firstly on people, of course after relying on God, but if you don’t have public support then you cannot withstand. If you don’t have public support then there is no value for any political or national direction you adopt as a president or official or state. First, you rely on the people, and second on friends who stand firm alongside Syria and support in the region and in the world,” His Excellency said.

On the opinions that imply that the crisis in Syria is currently in its last quarter, President al-Assad said “I can’t say that we have reached the last quarter until the cessation of the basis of the problem in Syria which seems complicated and has many details and intertwined elements. But the essence of this problem is foreign interference, the paying of funds, and sending weapons and terrorists to Syria.

When we reach the stage where the countries involved in conspiring on Syria and in shedding Syrian blood stop supporting terrorism, then we can say that we are in the last quarter, because other details that are called a political solution or a political track or anything similar become simple details and of little value, and when we say ‘of little value’ this means that they aren’t essential in resolving the crisis, and they become details on which an agreement can be reached.

His Excellency asserted that once foreign support stops, combating terrorists becomes much easier, and until now that point hasn’t been reached, adding “the general atmosphere may show a shift, true, that shift exists, but a shift is one thing and reaching the end of the crisis is something else. It might be close; I’m not making things out to be melancholic or showing pessimism, but sometimes before reaching the last quarter, you witness a massive escalation. The escalation may be an indicator of reaching the last quarter, but we’re not there yet.”

On how everyone should interpret President al-Assad’s talk of a political solution, President al-Assad said that he doesn’t use the term “political solution” but rather the term “political track,” as the solution is the solution of a problem, and a solution consists of various sides including combating terrorism and a political side based on what was proposed during the beginning of the problem.

“It was proposed that the crisis had political causes. This is incorrect. As I said before, the cause is foreign interference, but we went along with all that was proposed. They said the problem is about the constitution, so we amended the constitution. They said the problem is about the laws, so we changed the laws. They said the problem is about the economic track of the state’s economic policies, so we changed many of those policies at that time. We may be wrong, and they may be right, but at the same time we wanted to prove to others that those proposals were untrue,” President al-Assad explained.

For political track to have an effect, it must be between Syrian independent political forces

Now, they propose that there must be dialogue with political forces to reach a solution for the crisis, and we say there’s no reason not to do so; let those forces that present themselves as representatives of the Syrian people come and prove that they represent them or have influence, and we would hold dialogue with them without hesitation. This is what is called the political track.

“But in fact, for this political track to have an effect, it must be between Syrian independent political forces that belong to the Syrian people and have their roots in Syria and Syria alone, unlike what we see now in several of the forces we hold dialogue with that are bound financially and politically to foreign sides,” His Excellency said.

President al-Assad said that the political dialogue and track are essential not just to resolve the crisis, but also to develop Syria. However, the elements or environment necessary to have this dialogue reach final results haven’t coalesced yet, and this is accompanied by the continuing support for terrorism, which constitutes a huge obstacle hindering any actual and productive political effort on the ground.

Oman has important role in dealing with various points of tension in region and cooling them down

On the recent involvement of Oman and the visit paid to it by Deputy Prime Minister, Foreign and Expatriates Minister Walid al-Moallem and how that may be one of the keys for solution, President al-Assad said that Oman has an important role in dealing with various points of tension in the region and cooling them down, leading to a solution, and it’s self-evident that the Foreign Minister’s visit is in the context of resolving the crisis, and it’s also self-evident that the Omani role is to help resolve the crisis.

His Excellency said that these meetings aimed to inform the Omani side about the Syrian vision of how to reach a solution, and at the same time they are assessing the regional and international conditions through their relations to achieve a specific thing, adding that it’s still too early to talk about the role Oman could play, as we should wait for this dialogue to proceed to see where things are going.

Regarding the repeated Israeli aggressions on Syrian territories that took place recently and how to deal with them, and if the Zionist enemy could create a different status quo in Syria or in the occupied Syrian Golan, President al-Assad said “if we look at Lebanon’s experience during the past few decades, what emboldened Israel against the Lebanese? It was the fact that some of the Lebanese were connected to foreign sides. Some of them were connected to Israel. Some called and begged for foreign interference in its various forms,” stressing that that gave an image and weakness, and thus the Israeli enemy was emboldened against Lebanon.

He said that the same thing applies to Syria, as when there are Syrian groups that accept to deal with enemies, whether Israel or other enemies, and call them to interfere in Syria, then this would embolden others against Syria.

If we want to confront Israel, we have to face its tools, the terrorists, within Syria

“Today, the main Israeli tool that is more important than that aggression are the terrorists in Syria, meaning that what they do is much more dangerous than what Israel does from time to time to support them. They are the basis of the problem. So, if we want to confront Israel, first we have to face its tools within Syria. You cannot confront an external enemy when you have an internal enemy. This matter must be resolved within Syria, and then things will be back to the way they were, and no-one would dare act against Syria; not Israel nor anyone else,” President al-Assad asserted.

On whether Israel’s awareness that Syria’s priority is fighting Takfiri terrorists made it rush into committing those aggression, President al-Assad said this could be a contributing factor, but the main factor is that there are those who are ready to cooperate with the Israeli enemy, who are prepared to receive treatment in its hospitals, and who are audacious enough to praise Israel for attacking their homeland on social media.

The President stressed that the strength of a country is primarily based on the unity of the people before relying on its army or political system, and the greater part of the people are unified, but when there are elements of treason, extremism, and terrorism, then these points constitute weak points that cannot be ignored, and must be dealt with when other elements become secondary.

Regarding the change in the rules of engagement with the Israeli enemy, something which Secretary General of Hezbollah, Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah, had mentioned, President al-Assad said “Of course, taking into account the difference between Syria and Lebanon; the geographic difference and demographic difference in terms of borders. On the borders between the resistance and Israel, there is the Lebanese resistance on the Lebanese side, but on the borders between us and Israel, there are agents of Israel, ones that are similar to the Lahad army and Saad Haddad army in the past, therefore this issue must be dealt with before the geographic or political issues that follow.”

On the confusion regarding the interpretations of some of the things said by President al-Assad in his latest speech, specifically regarding the army and its influence and regarding “giving the country to Iran and Hezbollah,” His Excellency said “regarding the first point, I was clear and candid. There is no doubt that times of war lead to more army desertion cases. I said that clearly in the speech; I didn’t deny it and I speak transparently with the Syrian citizen. We don’t care what the malicious media says. This has a negative impact in any battle and in any army, and this happened even to the United States during the Vietnam War and to all armies. However, when this war is of a special type and you’re finding an enemy with limitless resources – particularly in terms of manpower – then its effect becomes stronger.”

On the issue of retreating from some areas, President al-Assad reiterated that retreating and advances have occurred in the same areas in less than a month, which is natural in wars, and he focused on that point in his speech to motivate youths to join the armed forces.

Defending homeland isn’t just by bearing arms, but also by making it more resilient

Regarding the second point, which was raised when he said that “the homeland is for those who defend it,” President al-Assad said that this is correct, but defending the homeland isn’t done just by bearing arms, explaining “for example, adversaries and enemies want Syria to fall, or, in one of the stages if that isn’t possible, they want it to be paralyzed in all aspects of life to prepare for its fall. Everyone who stands against this paralysis is defending the homeland, everyone who is doing their daily work. Employees, businessmen, doctors treating patients, those who help the poor, those who try to spread patriotic values and high morals; all of those are defending the homeland.”

President al-Assad noted that there are those who are living abroad but defend Syria in whatever way they can based on their positions and resources, and all those are patriotic people, while at the same time there are people living in Syria who are wishing for NATO airstrikes or maybe foreign forces to enter on land, adding “I don’t mean presence in the literal meaning, nor defense in the literal meaning of carrying a gun; I mean everyone who is defending the homeland by making it more resilient and strengthening the elements that keep it standing in the face of attacks, and here I’m only talking about Syrians.”

Was de Mistura impartial, the US and the West wouldn’t have brought him

On the evaluation of the work done by UN Special Envoy on Syria Staffan de Mistura, who continues to make accusations against the Syrian state in his statements, President al-Assad said “we’re used to this. It’s difficult for some to come with the approval of the United States and the West for the reason that they’re impartial. If that person was impartial, they wouldn’t have brought that person.

Now we see those biased statements. He talks about deaths among terrorists. Of coruse, for them, everyone who is killed is an innocent civilian as if there are no terrorists and as if they aren’t bearing arms. And at the same time, when there are civilian martyrs due to terrorists’ shelling of Damascus or Aleppo or any other area in Syria with rockets, we hear no statements from them. This is the role they’re required to play, and if they don’t, they will have no place, and someone else will come instead. This is the truth.

On whether de Mistura has a chance of steering the crisis towards a solution or if he’s just performing a role, President al-Assad said that when the envoy proposed the issue of reconciliation in Aleppo, the Syrian government supported it directly without hesitation, adding that in practice, issues in international relations aren’t based on trust because things change all the time; rather relations are based on mechanisms, and it isn’t an issue of personal relations, because relations among states or with organizations or figures representing states or organizations or the UN, then the relation is based on mechanisms.

We won’t support any proposal by UN mediators if it doesn’t suit our national interests

“In order to say that we can proceed with de Mistura in his initiative, we have to wait to see which initiative is logical and what the suitable mechanisms to implement this initiative are. The Aleppo initiative was good, but there were no mechanisms and he wasn’t allowed to implement or propose mechanisms, therefore we weren’t able to support him because the initiative was stillborn,” President al-Assad explained, adding that this has been a recurring theme with mediators, adding “if they don’t propose something that suits us and suits our national interests, we won’t support them and we won’t proceed with them.”

President al-Assad addressed a question regarding the manipulations of statements in the media, particularly regarding the Russian position, where while Moscow asserts the strength of its relations with Syria and that it hasn’t abandoned it, U.S. President Obama comes up and claims that Russia and Iran believe that the situation isn’t in President al-Assad’s favor, with His Excellency saying that to figure out which is the more correct statement, one must look at the political course or performance of a state. Regarding Russia, the President said that evaluating it requires looking at its behavior for decades, how it treats states, peoples, friends, and opponents, and contrasting that behavior to the behavior of the U.S., at which point one would see where the truth lies.

US has backstabbing policy, Russia’s policy is based on principles

“The United States, throughout its history, has been elusive with its statements, and of course as time went on, this quality for the United States became the basis of policy. This means that what one official says, another official will contradict within days, and what one official says in the morning in a speech or a statement, they will say the opposite on the next day. This is one of the qualities of U.S. policies; abandoning allies, abandoning friends, backstabbing,” he said.

His Excellency said that on the other hand, Russia’s policy was never like that, not during the days of the Soviet Union and not now, asserting that Russia’s policy is based on principles and growing more so, and therefore when the Russian Foreign Minister makes several statements and other officials make statements in the same context, it becomes obvious that Russia’s policy is concrete.

The President asserted that Russia doesn’t support individuals or a specific president, saying that this would be unacceptable and would constitute interference in internal affairs; rather Russia supports specific principles which are the sovereignty of state and people.

We have great trust in the Russians, they aim at pushing for dialogue to cut off calls for war

On Russian efforts now that Geneva 3 is looming, President al-Assad said “We have great trust in the Russians, and they have proved throughout this crisis for four years now that they are honest and transparent with us in relations and that they are principled. These are important points. So, when they meet various sides, we don’t feel concern that these sides might distort the true image for the Russians. The Russians have close relations with Syria and are capable of finding out about all that is happening accurately. We believe the goal of the Russians is to bring political sides towards dialogue to cut off calls for war.

This is the goal, but in the end there won’t be an agreement over anything unless we the Syrians sit with each other and hold dialogue with each other. It won’t be the Russians who impose any solution, so we encourage them to meet all forces and we are relieved when a Russian official meets any figure, without exception.

His Excellency went on to say that these meetings seek to pave the way towards either Geneva 3 or Moscow 3, and this naturally depends on the international climate and not just Russia, as there are various forces involved with the United States at their forefront.

On whether these forces would go towards Geneva or Moscow, the President said that the difference is that Moscow 3 would work towards finding common denominators and therefore would make Geneva 3 easier and less likely to fail, which would avoid repeating the Geneva 1 and Geneva 2 scenarios that failed to achieve anything.

Syria’s sovereignty, territorial integrity, decision of its people and combating terrorism are the principles when dealing with any initiative

On the principles that set Syria’s position regarding any initiative, President al-Assad said that first among those is Syria’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, and the decision of the Syrian people, which means that there can be no dictations from any side and that any decision must be purely Syrian.

“Practically, there must be basis of any initiative, one that begins at and is based on combating terrorism. Any initiative that doesn’t contain an article on fighting terrorism as a priority has no value,” he asserted.

Regarding some proposals that suggest things like revising the constitution or holding elections under international supervision, His Excellency said that things like revising the constitution aren’t a problem as long as they result from a Syrian decision and from national dialogue and accord, but elections under international supervision are unacceptable as they constitute interference in sovereignty, wondering “which international side is authorized to give us a certificate of good behavior? We don’t accept that.”

He noted that in the last presidential elections, a number of states sent observers in the context of cooperation, not in the context of supervision, and in this context there can be cooperation with friends to assert that what is happening in Syria is a proper and democratic political process.

“However, bringing in international organizations… international organizations need certificates of good behavior showing that they are impartial, and they are in no position to give us certificates,” the President added.

On the relation between the crisis in Syria and the nuclear Iranian deal, and whether Syria could be a victim in this regard or was an offering that provided gains, President al-Assad asserted that Syria is certainly not a victim, simply because it wasn’t a part of the nuclear negotiations, despite the fact that western forces tried to coerce Iran to involve the Syrian issue as a part of the nuclear issue in order to get concessions from Iran regarding its support for Syria, but Iran was adamant and refused this completely, which was a correct, objective, and smart decision.

“Was Syria presented as an offering? Certainly not, but we could say that Syria made offerings,” the President elaborated, saying that when one’s allies are strong, that makes you strong, and when they are weakened, you are weakened as well, but saying that Syria’s steadfastness led to the nuclear deal is an oversimplification as the deal is the result of a long process that was started by the Iranian people a long time ago, with Iran withstanding pressure for 12 years and holding fast to its principles throughout the negotiations during the past two years.

“In this context, the steadfastness and unity of the Iranian people regarding the nuclear issue are the two most important factors that led to this achievement. As for the Syrian factor, perhaps I can’t be certain; the Iranians are best suited to specify this point, but it could have been one of the contributing factors,” he added.

In answer to a question on whether the world is heading toward a new form of coalition, with Syria possibly being closer to a coalition with Iran than with anyone else, President al-Assad said that the alliance between Syria and Iran is 35 years old, and so being allied to Iran and vice versa is nothing new, noting that when Iran was subjected to an unjust war, Syria stood by its side, and now that Syria is subjected to an unjust war, Iran is standing by its side.

Iran’s strength will strengthen Syria, and Syria’s victory will be a victory for Iran

Regarding the political scene after Syria emerges victorious and Iran’s potential role in it, President al-Assad said that what would change is probably the influence of the Syrian-Iranian alliance on the international arena, because Iran now has more prospects to play a bigger role in it, and Iran’s strength will strengthen Syria, and in the same way Syria’s victory will be a victory for Iran.

His Excellency said that Syria and Iran share viewpoints and have mutual principles, and they form the axis of resistance, and so the principles will not change; only some tactics may change, or maybe some results on the ground.

In response to a question on the disillusionment of Syrians over the state of the Arab nation and whether he excuses that feeling, President al-Assad said “Excusing it doesn’t mean that we all pursue that direction. We excuse them because conditions promoted citizens to turn against Arabism, and this is a fact for most citizens. This promoted them to make no distinction between true, genuine Arabism and those who hide behind Arabism while in fact their hearts, minds, sentiments, and interests lie elsewhere that is completely outside the region.

This is similar to what has happened in the past, maybe in several areas, but less than before; confusing those who exploit Islam like the Muslim Brotherhood and other extremist and terrorist organizations with true Islam. There was confusion; they believed that all those who use the word Islam or Muslim are true Muslim. This confusion happens constantly.

I would like to say to everyone who doubts or confuses the two issues that Arabism is an identity we cannot abandon. You belong to a family, and maybe one person or more from that family would treat you wrong, but even if you change your surname, you will continue to belong to that family in your upbringing, identity, nature, and everything about you. You cannot emerge from the identity. The Arab identity isn’t a choice; to belong to a religion and a nationality is your identity, and when you would reach this point, this is what the enemies want: for us to disavow ourselves of our identity. The essence of the cause now and the wars that are happening isn’t about toppling regimes; rather this is a stage and a tool, nor is it about undermining states and economy. All those are tools. The final goal is undermining the identity, and when we would reach that point preemptively, we will be giving the enemies a free present that precludes their need later for military intervention or for using terrorists.

Iraqis are aware the enemy is one, unifying the battle gives better results

On the effect of the political activity in Iraq on the coordination between Syria and Iraq, the President asserted that coordination with Iraq hasn’t been affected negatively, as Iraqis are aware that they are embroiled in the same battle against a mutual enemy, and that what happens in Syria will reflect on Iraq and vice versa, so by unifying the battle, like what is happening between Syria and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, there are better results in less time and at a lower cost.

Regarding what the difference is between the presence of Hezbollah fighters in Syria and the other side having foreign fighters, the President said that the difference lies in legitimacy, stressing that Hezbollah entered Syria through agreement with the Syrian state which is the legitimate, elected representative of the Syrian people and is supported by their majority, so the state has the right to invite forces to defend the Syrian people, while the other forces are terrorists who came to murder Syrians and against the will of the people and the state.

The relationship with Nasrallah is one of a resistant state and a true resistant figure

On the President’s relation with Nasrallah, His Excellency said that this relation is strong and dates back to more than 20 years ago, and any observer can see that this is a relation characterized by honesty and transparency, as Nasrallah is absolutely honest, transparent, principled, and loyal to his principles and his associates and friends to the extreme.

“The relationship is one of a resistant state and a true resistant figure who gave his son in defense of Lebanon,” President al-Assad said, adding that evaluating a relationship requires a third person to observe it and talk about it.

When asked about how the Syrian Armed Forces commit to ceasefire orders when they receive them, and who has the decision to uphold a ceasefire on the other side, President al-Assad said that this very issue was discussed with envoys who talked about ceasefire, noting that he rejects this term because ceasefire is between states and armies, not between a state and terrorist groups, so terms like “ceasing operations” or “appeasement” are preferred.

“However, we asked envoys the same thing; if you want a ceasefire, then which is the group and who is the leader? Who will commit to you? What are their numbers? They used to say that they estimate the presence of hundreds, or more than a thousand, some said 1,200, groups. Maybe after mergers now they’re in the hundreds. But you make a good point; there is no-one who can vouch for all those groups, although we know that they are subservient to other forces. So, we can’t say that these forces can hold those groups to a decision, because those groups are also involved in acts of robbery, theft, corruption, and immorality, and only commit to decisions when it suits them. Therefore, no group or state or side can make those sides comply with any appeasement or cessation of combat activity, even for a brief time,” the President said.

Any alliance or act or dialogue that leads to stopping bloodshed is a priority

On how Syria can be a part of a coalition to fight terrorism alongside those it accuses of supporting terrorism, President al-Assad said that politics is about achieving goals, and goals must be in the interest of the Syrian people, so any alliance or act or step or dialogue that leads to stopping the shedding of Syrian blood must be a priority and must be pursued without hesitation.

“What concerns us is the result on the ground. Logically, as you said, it’s impossible for states that supported terrorism to fight terrorism, but there remains a slight chance that those states want to atone or they realized that they were moving in the wrong direction, or maybe they have purely self-serving reasons and are worried over terrorism spreading to their countries, so they decided to fight terrorism. So, there is no objection. What matters is to manage to form an alliance that fights terrorism. The Syrian Foreign Minister said this would be a miracle… but what if it happened? Would we reject it? Of course we wouldn’t reject it, we would pursue it,” His Excellency said.

On the escalation by Saudi Arabia against Syria, specifically the statements of the Saudi Foreign Minister following reports of Syrian-Saudi meetings, President al-Assad said that media escalation is of no concern, as what matters is actual practices of states, so when a state supports terrorism, then what value does media escalation or media appeasement have?

The Saudi state supports terrorists in Syria, this is a fact everyone knows

“This is what concerns us, and in the end the result is the same, meaning that with and without escalation, the Saudi state supports terrorists in Syria, this is a fact that everyone knows, so escalation here is meaningless,” he said, adding that in terms of the verbal escalation, then Syria could respond in a similar manner and ask what one would expect from a group that hasn’t entered human civilization?

“Would one expect them discourse that is moral, objective, has a political dimension, or is wise? We shouldn’t expect any of those. If we do expect that, then the problem lies with us, not with them,” he said.

On the President’s statements in his last speech on opposition and how some observers said the opposition is treated as an incidental situation and not a deep-rooted situation capable of influencing public opinion, His Excellency reiterated that if dialogue is to produce results, it must be among patriotic Syrians whose roots are in Syria.

“But in dealing with reality, the most important question is who has influence? Meaning that if we hold an in-depth dialogue with patriotic figures that have no influence, and we reached results and said let’s apply these results and they say we have no influence on the ground, then what good is that dialogue? We would be wasting time,” he said.

President al-Assad stressed that dialogue must be with patriotic and influential figures, and while some have various levels of influence, the major problem is that most of those with whom dialogue is held aren’t patriotic, and this is something imposed by the states that support terrorism and interfere in dialogue, as those states want figures to represent them, not the Syrian people. Therefore, both patriotism and influence on the ground are the essential criteria, especially since terrorists have openly refused to deal with the so-called foreign opposition.

If Washington’s training for Syrian opposition figures was embarrassing or confusing to the Syrian accounts or not, President al-Assad said this is an episode in a long series, so if we were to worry, we have to worry about the series… This series is a continued conspiring one against Syria that will not stop at this crisis… this episode, in itself, would not change anything in the context of terrorism in Syria because if it wouldn’t train those, there are other countries that train others and there are other countries which support, send weapons and money… the track of events in Syria wouldn’t stop at this group… there is another thing which is bigger and more dangerous that we would worry about, it is the West’s disregard, on top the US, of the danger of terrorism in the whole region.

On the US stance and if it inclines into more strictness or into imposing recognition of fait accompli that wouldn’t come in the interest of the US administration, the President said “strictness or leniency is a feature of the US stance which doesn’t embody the reality of the US policy… strictness or leniency sometimes aims at a psychological war, sometimes sending messages to the lobbies inside the US, so reading those stances wouldn’t give the real image of the US stance.

As for the truth about equation being raised that “Syria is in return for Yemen,” President al-Assad said that this is proposed in media, but in reality, we didn’t hear it from any friendly country, like Russia or Iran, and maybe Iran would be more concerned in this issue as it is located in the Gulf, but this issue was not proposed to us.

Erdogan is a puppet with big dreams, the latest is “the buffer zone”

Answering a question about to any extent the Turkish talk on the “buffer zone” and the possibility of implementing that is taken seriously, the President said “Erdogan has dreams… big dreams to be a leader, to be a Muslim brotherhood sultan… he wants to combine between the experiment of Sultanate and that of the new Muslim brotherhood on which he has built great aspirations… those dreams have collapsed now… what remains is his aspirations that his masters respond to him as Erdogan and Davutoglu have proven in this crisis that they are mere puppets that have a big dream in Syria; which is the dream of ‘buffer zone’, and it is the last dream after all their previous dreams in Syria were doomed.”

On Jordan’s talk about a “buffer zone” and the presence of a joint military and security operations room, President al-Assad said “Is Jordan talking about a Jordanian decision or an American decision? this is the question. When a country or an official says something, we have to ask to what extent this official or that country is independent to give their opinion.”

Answering a question on what the Jordanian king seeks through his involvement in the crisis in Syria, the President said “We go back to the same question, ‘Is Jordan independent in its polices so that to ask for its vision or the vision of its officials…When it proves it is independent, then we can discuss. Until now, the majority of the Arab countries are directed by the US’s steering wheel and have no role.”

We want Egypt to play the brotherly country and not act as launching pad against other Arab countries

On the Syrian-Egyptian relations and the responsibility of Egypt for the delay of their return, President al-Assad said “We definitely care for the relationship with Egypt…Communication between Syria and Egypt did not break even under Morsi…There are a number of institutions in Egypt that rejected to sever the relations and continued to communicate with Syria, and we listened to national and pan-Arab discourse from them.

“What we want, at the first stage, is that Egypt not act as a launching pad against Syria or against any other Arab country, but at the next stage, we want Egypt to play the role of the important country…the brotherly important influential country that helps the other Arab countries.”

On the possibility of Egypt making use of the Syrian experience in combating terrorism that is spreading in its land, the President said “What I said about communication, we said it through direct communication between us and them on the level of important officials, mainly security officials from Syria and Egypt in the past few weeks…they have a vision on how to benefit from Syria and we now have a vision on how to benefit from Egypt. We will definitely reach that point through this communication… the important thing is that we have now deep experience in this issue gained through the past four years and few months and before that through our struggle with the terrorist Muslim Brotherhood in the late 1970s and early 1980s.”

The President said the relations between “Syria and Egypt are the ones that achieve balance in the Arab arena… Syria believes that it stands in the same trench with the Egyptian army and with the Egyptian people against terrorists” who continuously change their names; taking once the name of Muslim Brotherhood and the name of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) in other times.

Asked about any possible additional measures to ease the Syrian citizens’ living conditions, President al-Assad referred to the reconstruction project that has kicked off and is moving forward with steady steps, referring also to the relaunching of several production projects.

“In spite of all conditions, we still have the ability to get the economy to take off gain” no matter how slowly or not much effectively at this stage, said the President, referring also to continued efforts towards administrative reform, combating corruption and providing more financial and tax-related facilitations.

 

The British Labour Party no longer represents the working class. Under UK prime minister Tony Blair, the Labour Party became a vassal of the One Percent. The result has been a rebellion in the ranks and the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, a principled Labourite intent on representing the people, a no-no in Western “democracies.”

Corbyn is too real for the Labour Party Blairites, who hope to be rewarded with similar nest eggs as Blair for representing the capitalist One Percent. So what is the corrupted Labour Party doing to prevent Corbyn’s election?

The answer is that it is denying the vote to Corbyn supporters. You can read the story here:

http://www.globalresearch.ca/britains-labour-party-purge-is-underway-preventing-supporters-from-voting-for-jeremy-corbyn/5471194

The illegal Egyptian military dictatorship that overthrew on Washington’s orders the first democratically elected government in Egyptian history has issued an edict prohibiting journalists from contradicting the military dictatorship. In brief, the dictatorship installed by Washington has outlawed facts.

Washington rejected the government that the Egyptian people elected, because it appeared that the democratically elected government would have a foreign policy that was at least partially independent of Washington’s. Remember, according to the neocons who, together with Israel, control US foreign policy, countries with independent foreign policies, such as Iran, Russia, and China, are America’s “greatest threats.”

The Egyptian military thugs, following Washington’s orders, have more or less eliminated all of the leadership of the political party that was democratically elected. The party was called the Muslim Brotherhood. In the presstitute Western media, the political party was described more or less as al Qaeda, and how are the ignorant, brainwashed, and propagandized Americans to know any difference? Certainly neither “their” government nor the presstitute media will ever tell them.

With the military dictatorship’s edict, independent news reporting no longer exists in Egypt. Washington is pleased and rewards the dictatorship with bags full of money paid by the hapless and helpless American taxpayers.

Americans should keep in mind that most of the dollars that they pay in income tax are spent either spying upon themselves and the world or killing people in many countries. Without resources taken from American taxpayers millions of women, children, and village elders would still be alive in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Yemen, Pakistan, Ukraine, South Ossetia, and other countries. America is the greatest exporter of violence the world has ever known. So wear your patriotism on your sleeve and be proud. You are a depraved citizen of the world’s worst killer nation. Compared to the USA, Rome was a piker.

France herself seems to be collapsing as a democracy and no longer respects her own laws. According to this report from Kumaran Ira on World Socialist Website  ,

In the name of the “war on terror,” the French state is dramatically accelerating its use of clandestine operations to extra-judicially murder targeted individuals. French President François Hollande reportedly possesses a “kill list” of potential targets and constantly reviews the assassination program with high-ranking military and intelligence officers.

This program of state murder, violating basic constitutional rights in a country where the death penalty is illegal, underscores the profound decay of French bourgeois democracy. Amid escalating imperialist wars in France’s former colonial empire and deepening political crisis at home, the state is moving towards levels of criminality associated with the war against Algerian independence and the Vichy regime of Occupied France.

Where do you suppose the socialist president of France got his idea of an illegal and unconstitutional “kill list”? If you answer from “America’s First Black President,” you are correct.

The French people should be outraged that “their” president is nothing more than a murderer and an agent of Washington. But they aren’t. False flag operations have made them fearful. The French like other Western peoples, have ceased to think.

Every western democracy is gone with the wind. Washed up, Finished. Every value that defined Western civilization and made it great has been flushed by power and greed and arrogance.

Proconsuls have replaced democracy.

I certainly do not believe that Western civilization was ever pure as snow and devoid of sins and crimes against humanity. But it is a fact that in Western civilization, despite the numerous injustices, reforms were possible that improved life for the lower classes. Reforms were possible that restricted the rapaciousness of the rich and powerful. In the US reforms made the impossible come true: ladders of upward mobility made it possible for members of the lowest economic class to become multimillionaires. And this actually happened.

The governments in Washington committed many crimes, but on occasion Washington prevented crimes. Remember President Eisenhower’s ultimatum to Washington’s British, French, and Israeli allies to remove themselves from the Suez Canal in Egypt or else.

Today Washington pushes its allies to commit crimes against humanity.  That is what NATO and the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) are for.

In my lifetime Americans have always had a good opinion of themselves. But in the 21st century this good opinion has hyper-jumped into hubris and arrogance. If you haven’t been around very long in terms of a human life, you don’t see this. But older people do.

Just as the Roman Empire ended in the destruction of the Roman people, the American Empire will end in the destruction of the American people. Judging from histories, Roman citizens were superior to American citizens; yet, Rome failed.

Americans shouldn’t expect any other outcome. The price to be paid for insouciance, self-satisfaction, and complicity is high.

Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books areThe Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West and How America Was Lost.

Russian Parliament member Yevgeny Fedorov claims that Russian oligarchs are in negotiations with top American corporations and the White House to foment an astroturf revolution that will lead to the ouster of President Vladimir Putin and the collapse of the Russian Federation within two years.

Press TV has interviewed Michael Chossudovsky, a professor of Economics at the University of Ottawa, about China’s recently declared decision to reduce its main interest rates, in a bid to stop global market indices from taking a nosedive.

Following is a rough transcription.

—

Press TV: Professor, how do you assess China’s decision to reduce its main interest rate?

Chossudovsky: Well, I think that it is a very symbolic action and has absolutely nothing to do with the mechanisms of stock markets and it is certainly not a solution. Having examined the situation and based on past experience, the collapse of the Shanghai stock exchange is most probably the result of the process of market manipulation.

We have to look at the broader picture; from August of last year to approximately the end of June, the value of the Shanghai stock exchange, the composite index, increased by approximately 150 percent and then it started to collapse. This has all the features of a carefully planned rigging of financial markets where speculators push up the values of the stock market and then ultimately push them down. It is a well-known process that’s called ‘pump and dump’: artificially inflating the price of stock and then selling at inflated prices and then gathering profits subsequently when it goes down again.

Video Interview

Press TV: Of course professor, some have doubts about China being the world’s second largest economy because of this incident. How genuine and credible is such a claim?

Chossudovsky: Well, these economic benchmarks are invariably used to explain major shifts in stock market values whether it is in China or the United States. They say [there is] uncertainty about China’s economy and whether it is 7, 6 or 5 percent growth. I simply do not buy that explanation.

We are dealing with something far more complex. There is no spontaneity in market responses which would trigger this downturn. There are instruments of manipulation which are well-known – short-selling, options trade- in other words, buying an option on let’s say the Dow Jones Industrial Average, under assumption that it goes up and then of course, these powerful  financial institutions have the ability to push it up and they also control the media reports which then influence the broader directions of these transactions.

I should mention that a large share of financial transactions are actually implemented through computer programmed trading. In other words, they are called high-frequency trading programs and Goldman Sachs as well as other major financial institutions are known to use these trading programs with a view to manipulating stock market transactions.

We should not dismiss the fact that the major players in the stock market have been involved in serious manipulations, both of stock markets and currency markets. We recall that last year in fact, several financial institutions were actually indicted for manipulation of the currency markets.

Introduction

Eight months will have passed since the election of Syriza onJanuary 25 up to the snap elections in September. During that time Syriza’s leaders play-acted their ‘opposition to austerity’ and then knelt down in submission to the ‘Troika’.

The contrast between January and now is dramatic: Syriza’s leader, Prime Minister Alexi Tsipras, aroused joy and great hope among the Greek voters with his promises to end Greece’s subjugation to the European oligarchs (the “Troika”) but now convokes snap elections exploiting the pervasive fear and misery among the population. Greeks confront a future of even greater impoverishment and despair with an entire generation bound up and delivered to forty years of debt slavery and colonial subjugation by their elected Syriza leaders.

In January, Syriza swept into office on its promise of ‘change’ without specifics. ‘Change’ turned out to be an empty slogan. Changes did take place: Changes for the worse! Since his election, Tsiprasemptied the Greek Treasury to pay the EU bankers; stripped pension and municipal funds to meet IMF obligations and, worse yet, he allowed the flight of over 40 billion Euros to be transferred from Greek banks to overseas accounts – essentially de-capitalizing the financial system.

The linguistic perversion of “change” was not the worst of Syriza’s contribution to the corruption and discredit of the European left. Its slavish pillage of the economy shocked and confused the impoverished Greek majority. The voters had expected Syriza and its radical phrasemongers to do the opposite – to save the national economy and lead the country!

For a while Tsipras’s submission and betrayal was disguised by his theatrical poses of the ‘tough negotiator’ with the German bankers.  His perpetual boyish grin, frozen on his face, as if to reassure his followers: “You can trust me. I will make sure Madame Merkel and company do not shove another bristly cucumber up your backsides!” Tsipras feigned resistance before the bankers, setting a stylistic template for other Syriza legislators, who likewise ‘protested and submitted’. They too came to believe that ‘their efforts’ (and not their results) deserved public approval!

Between February and April, Tsipras endured stern lectures from his overlords in the EU, returning to Greece with his silly grin and empty pockets.

Tsipras did everything possible to distract, to entertain, to bluster and deceive Syriza’s befuddled supporters.

Tsipras resorted to radical rhetoric, empty gestures and verbal defiance.

His emotional outburst were just ‘hollow farts’ (kfes pourdes in demotic Greek) in the poetic language of an insightful, indignant grandmother whose pension had been cut by 40%!

Syriza bent and broke before the predictable intransigence of their German overlords and their 28 rubber-stamping, vassal states. Syriza got nothing and worse. The more they talked, the less they achieved…

Tsipras broke the Greek financial system and then declared defeat, but not before mounting one more grand electoral fraud. Syriza announced a popular ‘referendum’ on the EU dictates and 61% of the Greek voters said ‘no’ to the EU demands. But Tsipras immediately said yes!

Tsipras accepted the complete sell-off –-‘privatization’– of all the strategic, lucrative, major and minor public enterprises, properties and sources of Greek national wealth.

There were no popular uprisings in the street on Tsipras’ capitulation: just a little ‘tempest in the teapot’ in the Greek Parliament when the “Left Platform” voted no, showed their backsides to their now ex-leader, defected and formed a new party – Popular Unity. With no mass organization and not supporting mass action, the ‘Left Platform’ just rose up on their hind legs . . . to bray out a manifesto calling for ‘popular unity’….within the confines of the Parliamentary cesspool of knaves and scoundrels. Meanwhile, Syntagma (Constitution) Square was full of pigeons and homeless vagabonds… Is this another hollow fart?

These armchair rebels, who sat in the Cabinet and slavishly followed Tsipras for seven months, engaging in sterile internal party debates and giving interviews to the dwindling bands of leftist academic tourists, while ignoring the street fighting youth, will face a new election in one month. They have the insurmountable task of convincing a cowed, confused and fearful electorate that they should unite, organize and reject Tsipras, Syriza and infinite regression.

Tsipras, for his part, will take the EU ‘bailout funds’, pay the banks and finance his own campaign. He will get free publicity from the domestic and foreign press (the Financial Times editorializes in praise of ‘his courage and good sense’) and employ an army of campaign workers with bail-out funds to obliterate the ‘Left Platform’. He will thus gain support from the Greek oligarchs and having adopted the platform of the right opposition, he has little to fear electorally from the boring old kleptocrats of Pasok and New Democracy, who cannot match his giveaways, theatrics and demagogy at the ballot box.

Disillusion and direct action—strikes, marches and fiery barricades– will set in after the September elections when Tsipras has further slashed pensions and shredded labor rights, when privatizations lead to massive layoffs at the docks, airports, power companies and oil refineries. Tsipras’ call for rapid elections was designed to secure votes from a shocked electorate before the pain of his massive sell-out is fully felt.

With time, there will be tempestuous protests, but the EU will have pillaged Greece of its present and future wealth. Tsipras’ electoral support will dwindle and tear gas will once again perfume the streets of Athens. Then, the old political whores and kleptocrats from the Right will trot out to center stage once more. And who knows, Tsipras may even form a new ‘inclusive’ coalition regime with the sluts of the right. Bankers, oligarchs and kleptocrats are not fussy about their bed-partners, even played-out traitors with boyish grins are worth a ‘romp in the sack’ if it gets them back in power…

Conclusion

The financial press and the mass media concocted an image of Syriza as “far left” or “hard left”. In fact, Syriza did everything possible to destroy the hopes of the majority of downwardly mobile Greeks desperate for a reversal of the shock austerity policies imposed by the EU.

From the very first day in office, Syriza leaders embraced theoligarchical structure of the EU, retaining the Euro currency and recognizing the illicit foreign debt.

Caged from the outset, Syriza just made a big racket, rattling the bars and pleading for a long leash and more time.

The trained eyes of the EU autocrats recognized Syriza leaders as captives, given to inconsequential political ejaculations and ‘outraged protestations’. They made no concessions: Indeed bankers decided to really punish the Greek voters for electing the clowns…

The Germans immediately sized Tsipras up as a marshmallow leftist – organically incapable of breaking out of the EU cage, of renouncing the Euro and the debt. With their long historical experience, Euro-imperialists know how to treat ‘socialist’ and ‘nationalist’ subjects, who negotiate on bended knee: “The more you kick them, the less they ask”

Tsipras begged for money to pay the European and US banks! He agreed to sell twenty-nine Greek airports to German capitalists in order to pay the German bankers.

In other words, Syriza and Tsipras have impoverished millions of Greeks and sold off all of Greece’s lucrative enterprises so that German, French and English holders of Greek bonds will not miss a single interest payment!

Was Tsipras just posing as a Prime Minister while serving as a pimp for gang rape?

According to the latest polls, the Greek people will re-elect him! The victims have gone mad!…God bless Greece –the cradle of democracy has become a roiling nest of vipers!

 

Good news, everybody! The markets are rebounding! Yes, we just a hit a minor bump in the road there, but don’t worry, everything is back to normal now. Let’s forget about the tail end of last week and this week’s Black Monday, shall we? Pay no mind to the uncomfortable low lights of the global stock rout:

• The staggering $5 trillion wipeout of funny money paper promise “wealth” since the yuan deflation began ($2.7 trillion on Monday alone).
• The all-time record spike on the volatility index (aka the “Fear Index”).
• The 1000 point Dow plunge off the opening bell on Monday morning.
• The halting of every major US index during the market mayhem.
• The 4500 mini crash events that forced indices worldwide to halt and unhalt at a dizzying pace.
• The amazing magic levitating act courtesy of our friends at the Plunge Protection Team that brought about the largest intraday point swing in Dow history.

Nope, nothing to see here. And now that this dead cat bounce is underway, surely there will be no more commodity deflation or global economic slowdown or worldwide currency war orhistorically unprecedented bond bubbles to worry about, right?

OK, enough sarcasm. Readers of this column will know by now that the phony baloney stock markets, manipulated as they are from top to bottom and juiced as they are on the Fed’s QE heroin, are no longer reflective of economic reality. The only question is how far this particular dead cat market will bounce, and whether it will be helped along with more heroin from the Fed.

But there is already one vitally important take away from these events that the independent media must articulate now, before it’s too late. Namely: This crisis was engineered by the central banks. It is their fault.

Let me repeat that again in case you missed it: This crisis was engineered by the central banks.

This point is not even controversial. It has been the universal consensus of institutions ranging from the Bank for International Settlements to the Official Monetary and Financial Institutions Forum, and from OECD officials toformer Fed Governors and even Alan “Bubbles” Greenspan himself.

In fact, analyst after analyst and pundit after pundit–including the most mainstream of mainstream publications–have been sounding the alarm on the stock market bubble for much of the past year.

This tells us two things: the current market mayhem was perfectly predictable (and predicted), and the central banks not only stayed the course but actually doubled down with more and more QE injections.

It is the central banks that have created this mess, and what’s more they have created this mess in the full knowledge that their actions would lead to disaster. And now, one can be sure, the same central bankers and their political puppet mouthpieces will use this crisis to continue the construction of the “New World Order” that they called for in the wake of the 2008 collapse.

Anyone who can’t see the endgame now–global government by the bankers, of the bankers and for the bankers–is either blind or wilfully ignorant.

It is especially important to state these obvious truths now, because we can already see a false narrative underway. This narrative has two main thrusts: one is to paint China as the culprit for the global downturn and the other is to assume that only central banks can save the day (with even greater liquidity injections and even deeper rate cuts).

The China-as-economic-villain narrative ranges from the subdued (“China’s ‘Black Monday’ sends markets reeling across the globe“) to the blatant (“Chinese Economy Causes Markets to Fall“) to the silly (“Don Yuan Causes Heartbreak“), but they all convey the same message: China has brought this on the world all by itself. It’s not that China is reacting to a global monetary environment created by the Fed and fostered by other central banks, or a global economic slowdown that is biting into a heavily export-driven economy, or the conflicting pressures on the country as it tries to navigate its way toward global reserve currency status. Nope, it’s just a bull in a china shop (or is that a China in a bull market?) knocking things over and causing mayhem (Trump was right!).

The only-central-banks-can-save-us narrative is even more infantile, but also more dangerous. We are told that the crash came because China’s central bank failed to act. We are told that it’s now up to Turkey’s central bank to bolster the flagging lira. We are told that the Lehman collapse occurred because of too little central bank intervention. We are told that only the European Central Bank is capable of “riding to the rescue” and preventing a market rout.

In other words the very same institutions that engineered this crisis are the only ones that can save us.

It is the height of insanity that anyone would believe this nonsense, but then again the world fell for it after Lehman, and they’re likely to fall for it again. Unless we spread the word.

The banksters did it. And unless we derail their agenda, they’re going to do it again.

Longstanding US/Israeli plans call for redrawing the Middle East map, replacing independent governments with pro-Western puppet regimes, balkanizing Iraq, Syria, Iran and other regional countries for easier control, looting their resources, and exploiting their people.

Analyst Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya says plans call for “creating an arc of instability, chaos, and violence extending from Lebanon, Palestine, and Syria to Iraq, the Persian Gulf, Iran, and the borders of NATO-garrisoned Afghanistan” – by color revolutions or wars.

Violent protests rock Beirut – ongoing for days, a so-called “You Stink” campaign over uncollected rubbish, people demanding “corrupt” government officials resign for letting it pile up.

Lebanon has been without a president for over a year. Obama’s war on Syria created an enormous burden. More than 1.2 million refugees flooded into a nation of 4.5 million people on top of half a million displaced Palestinians – the equivalent of around 130 million in a nation the size of America or about 500 million for China.

Other issues affect Lebanon like in most other countries – mainly governance serving monied interests at the expense of most others.

Yet violent street protests haven’t erupted globally. Just cause exists in many countries remaining quiet.

Crisis began after Beirut’s Naameh landfill closed on July 17. New sites or alternative arrangements weren’t chosen. Trash began piling up everywhere.

Since August 22, violent protests gripped the capital. Prime Minister Tammam Salam warned “(w)e’re heading towards collapse if things continue as they are.”

Tuesday’s cabinet meeting failed to resolve things. Protest organizer Marwan Maalouf said “(i)n the beginning, this was a battle over the trash issue…But now there is a general battle against the political class.”

Protesters openly call for regime change. Are Israeli and US dirty hands manipulating things covertly? Is another imperial color revolution attempt ongoing?

Is uncollected garbage a pretext to topple another regional government? People elsewhere facing much greater problems don’t protest violently for days.

These type incidents are manipulated. Several thousand protesters don’t reflect the sentiment of most Beirut residents.

If Lebanon’s government falls, Washington and Israel gain at the expense of Syria and Iran. They’ll achieve another triumph toward redrawing the Middle East map – adversely affecting ordinary people across the region and beyond.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at [email protected].

His new book as editor and contributor is titled “Flashpoint in Ukraine: US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III.”

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network.

It airs three times weekly: live on Sundays at 1PM Central time plus two prerecorded archived programs.

 

Crashing global stock markets – punctuated by the bracing 1,000-plus point drop in the Dow Jones Industrial Average at the start of Monday’s trading before a partial bounce-back – are a reminder about the interdependence of today’s world economy and a wake-up call to those who think that the neocon-driven ideology of endless chaos doesn’t carry a prohibitively high price.

The hard truth is that there is a limit to the amount of neocon-induced trouble that the planet can absorb without major dislocations of the international economic system – and we may be testing that limit now. The problem is that America’s neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks continue to put their ideological priorities ahead of what’s good for the average person on earth.

In other words, it may make sense for some neocon think tank or a “human rights” NGO to demand interventions via “hard power” (military action) or “soft power” (economic sanctions, propaganda or other non-military means). After all, neocon think tanks raise money from self-interested sectors, such as the Military-Industrial Complex, and non-governmental organizations always have their hands out for donations from the U.S. government or friendly billionaires.

But the chaos that these neocons and liberal interventionists inflict on the world – often justified by claims about “democracy promotion” and “human rights” – typically ends up creating conditions of far greater horror than the meddling was meant to stop.

For instance, the Islamic State butchers and their former parent organization, Al Qaeda, are transforming Iraq and Syria into blood-soaked killing fields. But the neocons and liberal hawks still think the higher priority was and is to eliminate the relatively stable and prosperous dictatorships of Iraq’s Saddam Hussein and Syria’s Bashar al-Assad.

There is always a fixation about getting rid of some designated “bad guy” even if the result is some “far-worse guys.” This has been a pattern repeated over and over again, from Libya to Sudan/South Sudan to Ukraine/Russia to Venezuela (just to name a few). In such cases, we see the neocons/liberal hawks release a flood of propaganda against some unpleasant target (Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi/Sudan’s Omar al-Bashir/Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych/Russia’s Vladimir Putin/Venezuela’s Hugo Chavez or Nicolas Maduro) followed by demands for “regime change” or at least punishing economic sanctions.

Anyone who tries to provide some balance to offset the propaganda is denounced as a “(fill-in-the-blank) apologist” and pushed out of the room of acceptable debate. Then, with no one in Official Washington left to challenge the “group think,” the only question is how extreme should the punishment be – direct military assault (as in Iraq, Libya and Syria), a political coup d’etat (as in Ukraine and almost in Venezuela) or economic sanctions (as in Russia and Sudan).

For many Americans trying to do international business, it can be confusing as to where the legal lines are, who is or who isn’t on some black list, what kinds of transactions are allowed or forbidden. I know of one counselor who helps people overcome stuttering who had to reject Skype lessons with a prospective patient in Iran because it wasn’t clear whether that might violate the draconian U.S. sanctions regime.

Spreading the Chaos

Arguably some narrowly focused sanctions against a particularly nefarious foreign leader might make sense. Even a limited military intervention might not upset the entire world’s economy. But the proliferation of these strategies has combined to destabilize not just the targeted regimes but nations far from the front lines and is now contributing to global economic chaos.

In tracing these patterns, you can go back in time to such misguided fiascos as the CIA’s huge covert operation in Afghanistan in the 1980s (which gave rise to the Taliban and Al Qaeda). However, for argument’s sake, let’s start with the neocon success in promoting President George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq in 2003. Not only did that war divert more than $1 trillion in U.S. taxpayers’ money from productive uses into destructive ones, but it began a massive spread of chaos across the Middle East.

Add in President Barack Obama’s 2011 “humanitarian” interventions in Libya (via Western bombing operations to topple Muammar Gaddafi’s regime) and in Syria (via covert support for rebels and sanctions against President Assad’s government) – and you have two more Mad Max scenarios in two once relatively prosperous Arab states.

These human catastrophes have sent waves of refugees crashing into other Mideast countries and into Europe where the European Union was already stumbling economically, still trying to recover from Wall Street’s 2007-08 financial crisis. After tasting the bitter medicine of austerity for years, Europeans now find their fairly generous welfare systems stretched to the breaking point by refugees seeking asylum.

Having just returned from a visit to Europe, I was struck by the intensity of feelings about the refugee crisis. Some EU nations are throwing up anti-migrant barriers while everyone seems to be squabbling over who should foot the bill at a time when there are financial crises in Greece and other southern-tier countries, which coincidentally are bearing the brunt of the refugee problem.

Toss into this volatile mix of a Europe seemingly close to explosion the Obama administration’s “neocon/liberal interventionist” policies toward Ukraine, where neocon holdover Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland helped orchestrate a 2014 coup to remove democratically elected President Yanukovych after he was demonized in the U.S. mainstream media as corrupt.

Citing “democracy promotion” and “anti-corruption,” the Obama administration backed the creation of a coup regime that has relied on neo-Nazi and Islamist militias to serve as its tip of the spear against ethnic Russian Ukrainians who have resisted the ouster of Yanukovych. Thousands — mostly eastern Ukrainians — have died. Of course, all this was explained to the American people as a simple case of “Russian aggression.”

After the coup, when the ethnic Russians of Crimea voted to secede from Ukraine and rejoin Russia, that became a “Russian invasion,” justifying harsh economic sanctions against Moscow, with the Obama administration strong-arming the Europeans to forgo their profitable trade relations with Russia to punish the Russian economy. But that also added to the pressure on the European economy.

As this madness has escalated, the neocons and their liberal-hawk pals now envision destabilizing the Putin government in nuclear-armed Russia. They don’t seem to recognize that the guy who might follow Putin may not be some obliging Boris Yeltsin but a hard-line ultranationalist ready to brandish the Kremlin’s nuclear arsenal in defense of Mother Russia.

Misguided Interventions

While these various U.S. “hard” and “soft” power interventions are justified by the principles of “human rights,” they often end up working against that goal. A discrete example is the case of Sudan and South Sudan, a crisis that traces back to the demands for a “humanitarian intervention” over Sudan’s alleged genocide in Darfur in 2003.

That horrible conflict was painted in stark black and white colors in the U.S. press, innocent good guys versus evil bad guys, but was actually much more nuanced than what was shown to the American people. The war was touched off by Darfur rebels, but the Sudanese army struck back brutally. The “human rights” community settled on Sudan’s President Bashir as the designated villain, who now faces an indictment in the International Criminal Court.

So, there was great sympathy for carving South Sudan away from Sudan in 2011 and making it an independent country (although oddly Darfur remained part of Sudan). But South Sudan, which possesses significant oil reserves, could sustain itself only if it could get its oil to market and the pipelines went north through Sudan.

And, since the United States and other countries were busy sanctioning Sudan for not turning over Bashir to the ICC, oil companies were unable to assist South Sudan in exploiting its valuable resource, which in turn caused hardship in South Sudan and contributed to a bloody civil war pitting one tribe against another. That led to, you guessed it, calls to sanction South Sudan.

The ongoing tragedy of Sudan/South Sudan is horrific enough, but it is only emblematic of the unintended consequences of rigid neocon/liberal interventionist ideology, which rejects negotiations with “bad guys,” insisting instead on “regime change” or endless punishment of entire populations through sanctions even when those “solutions” inflict more hardship and death.

But now these destructive strategies are going global. They are threatening the economic well-being of the entire planet – taking their place along with other misguided theories such as “free-market” absolutism and “austerity” in the face of recessions. The cumulative impact from these various follies has been to put the West’s Middle Class under severe pressure regarding income and purchasing power, which finally has slowed China’s growth and prompted a crash of its financial markets.

That, in turn, is reverberating back across the rest of the world’s stock markets, erasing trillions of dollars in wealth and further reducing the savings of the Middle Class. As this vicious cycle starts spinning, that could mean even less consumer spending and further economic retrenchment.

The prospects for a global recession, if not a full-scale depression, can no longer be ignored. And such economic hardship would only contribute to more death, devastation and destabilization.

Pragmatic Solutions

So what can be done? As dark as the gathering economic storm may be, one silver lining could be that Americans and other Westerners will finally begin pushing back against the powerful neoconservatives and their liberal-interventionist fellow-travelers.

Perhaps, instead of President Obama’s Iranian nuclear deal being a one-off affair that may barely survive a determined neocon assault in the U.S. Congress, it could become a model for pragmatic approaches to other international crises. The core of this pragmatism would be that one doesn’t have to love or even like the leadership of another country to cooperate on global concerns, whether they are economic, geopolitical or environmental.

There also should be a recognition that no country has all the answers or a monopoly on morality. American self-righteousness is not only hypocritical – given the many flaws in the U.S. political system from the buying of our campaigns to our repeated violations of international law – but it is self-defeating, requiring the endless expenditure of blood and treasure to act as self-appointed global “policeman” whether the world wants it or not.

If pragmatism replaced exceptionalism as the focus of U.S. international relations, there would be some obvious moves that could reduce world tensions and alleviate some of the economic dislocations that are contributing to the deepening economic crisis.

For instance, instead of a potential nuclear confrontation with Russia over Ukraine, what’s wrong with the eastern Ukrainians receiving more autonomy and the right to keep their Russian language? Why shouldn’t the people of Crimea have the right to break their political bonds with Kiev and renew them with Moscow? Why has President Obama bent to the neocon prescriptions of Assistant Secretary Nuland when a little give-and-take could make life better for Ukrainians, Russians and Europeans?

Similarly, why can’t the United States accept a compromise in Syria that includes power-sharing for whatever moderate Sunnis remain and accepts at least the temporary continuation of President Assad’s rule as part of a secular state protecting the lives and interests of Christians, Shiites, Alawites and other minorities? Why not a joint U.S.-Russian-Iranian effort to stabilize the war-torn country, block the expansion of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda, and ease the refugee crisis in the Mideast and Europe?

Yes, I realize that geopolitical pragmatism is anathema to many power centers of Official Washington, particularly the influential neocons, their benefactors in the Israel Lobby and the Military-Industrial Complex, and the many self-interested NGOs of the “human rights” community which favor “humanitarian wars” and seem to care little if their purity leads to even more suffering.

But – as the world’s economy teeters and global markets tumble – the American people no longer have the luxury of intervening willy-nilly around the globe. International pragmatism, including working with adversaries, may be the only way to prevent the swelling geopolitical pressures from building into a devastating financial crash.

Investigative reporter Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s. You can buy his latest book, America’s Stolen Narrative, either in print here or as an e-book (from Amazon and barnesandnoble.com). You also can order Robert Parry’s trilogy on the Bush Family and its connections to various right-wing operatives for only $34. The trilogy includes America’s Stolen Narrative. For details on this offer, click here.

Right-wing extremists attacked refugee accommodations over the weekend in the small town of Heidenau near Dresden. Over three successive nights they repeatedly attacked police and left-wing counter-demonstrators with fireworks and stones, all while chanting Nazi slogans.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democrats, CDU) Vice Chancellor Sigmar Gabriel (Social Democrats, SPD) and other politicians released official statements in which they condemned the violence against refugees. But the crocodile tears being shed cannot disguise the fact that the state apparatus and the German government’s right-wing policies contributed considerably to the violence.

The attacks came as no surprise; the fascist National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) registered a demonstration to pass through Heidenau on Friday. On social media and in forums, right-wing extremists urged “blockades” and “civil war” to stop the plan to open the housing for refugees over the weekend.

Despite this, only 135 police officers were present. Encouraged by this balance of forces, between 600 and 1,000 right-wing extremist demonstrators entered the empty warehouse, which was due to begin accommodating asylum seekers on Saturday. They attacked police with stones and fireworks, injuring 31 officers. Nazi and anti-immigrant slogans were repeatedly chanted, such as “We are the people,” “Foreigners Out!” and “national resistance.” “Sieg Heil!” calls were also heard.

Even after this experience, the contingent of police was strengthened by 40 to 175 officers for the opening of the accommodation on Saturday. In addition, 150 people gathered in front of the building to demonstrate their solidarity with the refugees.

After right-wing extremists once again gathered at the warehouse on Saturday evening, throwing stones and fireworks, the police called on the supporters of the refugees to end their demonstration on the grounds that their security could not be guaranteed. In subsequent clashes, more police were injured. The first refugees were brought into the accommodation under police escort.

On Sunday, a large contingent of officers was deployed, two water cannons were set up and a so-called control zone was established in a 500-metre radius around the camp, within which police could search individuals merely on suspicion, issue expulsions, and ban people from the area.

But the state power was ultimately deployed more against counter-demonstrators who had travelled to the town from Leipzig and Dresden, rather than the right-wing vandals. As the protesters clashed with right-wing extremists at a petrol station, the police deployed tear gas and rubber bullets, and according to eyewitnesses forced the left-wing demonstrators to the train station and onto trains. There were no further attacks on the refugee centre on Sunday.

Confronted with this chronology of events, the question is posed: to what extent were the attacks encouraged by the Saxony state government, or at least tolerated by it? Shaghayegh, a 30-year-old activist from the Asylum Seekers Movement who was in the area on Friday and Saturday, said in an interview with the Süddeutsche Zeitung that even the choice of accommodation had been dubious.

“The question we are asking ourselves is why accommodate refugees in a town like this,” Shaghayegh said. Heidenau has a strong right-wing scene. At the most recent town council elections, the NPD secured 7.5 percent of the vote. In addition, the warehouse, left unoccupied for two years, is not a fit place for people to live in. A total of 600 refugees are to be housed in one large room.

Similar scenes played out 15 kilometres away in the state capital, Dresden. According to doctors, at a tent camp for 800 refugees that was established earlier this year, human rights were trampled underfoot. There were insufficient sanitary facilities and inadequate medical care.

The NPD organised demonstrations in July against the refugees in Dresden. Left-wing counter-demonstrators were attacked by right-wing extremists, and several counter-demonstrators were seriously injured.

These are not isolated cases. According to official government figures, there were 200 attacks on refugee centres during the first six months of the year. Remarkably, 42 of them took place in Saxony. However, the state takes in only around 5 percent of all refugees.

The reason for this is that the connections between the government and the right-wing extremist milieu are particularly close in Saxony. The judiciary, police and domestic intelligence agency have been targeting Nazi elements for years, while the right-wing extremists continue with their activities unhindered.

Last year, the right-wing Pegida movement was systematically built up. The anti-Islamic group, which had its centre in Dresden, immediately won the support of the state office for political education. Along with SPD leader Sigmar Gabriel, several members of the state government spoke out in favour of a “dialogue” with the right-wing radicals.

In addition, the government of Saxony has adopted the programme of the far right in recent years. Two weeks ago, Saxony CDU General Secretary Michael Kretschmer welcomed the Hungarian plan to build a 175-kilometre long fence along its border with Serbia.

The state spokesman for interior affairs in the CDU, Christian Hartmann, even called for the reintroduction of border controls within the European Union. Last year, Saxony’s interior minister Markus Ulbig urged the creation of a special police unit to target asylum seekers committing criminal offences.

The ability of the neo-Nazi mob to run riot again in Germany is the direct product of these right-wing politics, not only at state level but also throughout the country. Right-wing extremist forces have been encouraged by a refugee policy that is openly based on deterrence.

The unrest involving ultra right-wing elements has in turn been exploited by politicians and the media to justify renewed attacks on refugees. Even as the violence in Heidenau continued, Peter Karstens published a comment in theFrankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung headlined “The downside of the open culture.” In it he criticised the fact that, “in a climate of misunderstood tolerance and laziness,” politicians for years had avoided “deporting rejected asylum seekers.”

Then he cited the interior spokesman for the CDU/Christian Social Union parliamentary faction, Stefan Mayer, who said, “The inadequate level of deportations of rejected asylum seekers is one of the main problems in overcoming the tense asylum seeker situation.”

The foul propaganda against refugees and immigrants can only be understood in a broader political context. A policy is being carried out against refugees, in collaboration with right-wing forces, which is in reality aimed against all workers. The basic social and democratic rights denied to refugees today will be called into question in general tomorrow. A policy like that being imposed by the German government in Greece, and the preparation of new wars, are not compatible with democratic rights for the working class.

It is thus all the more cynical when representatives of all the establishment political parties respond to attacks on refugees by calling for the further strengthening of the state apparatus, which is itself responsible for organising the misery faced by refugees.

Saxony’s representative for external affairs, Geert Mackenroth (CDU), has already announced the deployment of “professional security services”, as well as video surveillance and bans on demonstrations. Such security services have been in the headlines many times over the past year for torturing and severely abusing refugees.

The appointment by Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu of one of his most hawkish and outspoken rivals as Israel’s new ambassador to the United Nations has prompted widespread consternation.

As one Israeli analyst noted last week, Danny Danon’s appointment amounts to a “cruel joke” on the international community. The new envoy “lacks even the slightest level of finesse and subtlety required of a senior diplomat”.

Last year Netanyahu sacked Danon as deputy defence minister, describing him as too “irresponsible” even by the standards of Israel’s usually anarchic politics. Danon had denounced the prime minister for “leftist feebleness” in his handling of Israel’s attack on Gaza last summer.

Danon is a UN official’s worst nightmare. He is a vocal opponent of a two-state solution and has repeatedly called for the annexation of the West Bank.

Back in 2011, days before the UN General Assembly was due to vote on Palestinian statehood, Danon dismissed the forum as irrelevant: “Even if there will be a vote [in favour], it will be a Facebook state.”

On the face of it, Netanyahu’s timing could not be worse. Danon is to represent Israel as the Palestinians are expected to step up efforts at the UN to entrench recognition of their statehood. He will also be a leading spokesman as Israel tries to fend off war crimes investigations at the International Criminal Court in the Hague.

The generally accepted explanation is that Netanyahu’s move is driven by domestic, not diplomatic, calculations. Danon is the Israeli right’s poster boy, one who makes the prime minister look too cautious and conciliatory.

The two faced off for the Likud party leadership last November. Danon lost but Netanyahu doubtless fears, as his party and the Israeli public shift ever rightwards, that his rival’s time is coming.

The posting removes Danon as head of the Likud’s powerful central committee, dispatches him to a distant land, and should provide him with opportunities aplenty to self-harm.

But that is not the whole story. Danon’s appointment reveals something more significant about Israel’s deteriorating relations even with its international supporters.

It is hard nowadays to recall that Israel once took the UN very seriously indeed. It had to.

In the decade following 1948, Abba Eban, the country’s foremost diplomat, sought to carve out international recognition and respectability for Israel at the UN.

Eban often used deceit and misdirection – he is reported to have avowed that “diplomats go abroad to lie for their country”. But he never forgot the importance of creating a façade of moral justification for Israel’s actions, even as it launched wars of aggression in 1956 at Suez and again against Egypt in 1967.

Reality caught up with Israel when the UN adopted a resolution in 1975 equating Israel’s official ideology, Zionism, with racism. The resolution was only revoked 16 years later, after the Soviet Union collapsed and the United States emerged as the world’s sole superpower.

Washington arm-twisted the General Assembly with promises that Israel would engage in a peace process with the Palestinians, culminating a short time later in the Oslo Accords.

But as Oslo slowly unravelled, and Israel’s leaders – not least Netanyahu himself – were exposed as the true rejectionists, Israel was forced on to the back foot again.

Today, the consensus in Israel is not only that the UN is a bastion of anti-Israel prejudice but that it is an incubator of global anti-semitism, much of it supposedly spawned by Arab states. Israel is blameless, so this story goes, but the world has fallen under the haters’ spell.

The parting shot of Danon’s predecessor, Ron Prosor, last week was to accuse yet again a leading UN official, Jordan’s Rima Khalaf, of anti-semitism for pointing out the untold misery caused by Israel’s near-decade blockade of Gaza.

Earlier this year, after stepping down as Israel’s ambassador to the US, Michael Oren went further, arguing that the plague of anti-semitism had infected even America’s leading Jewish journalists. Their critical coverage of Israel was proof of self-hatred, he claimed.

The need for such desperate diplomacy has grown as Israel’s moral image has tarnished, even for its allies. But the hectoring and intimidation by seasoned diplomats like Prosor and Oren has produced diminishing returns.

Danon’s posting is part of a discernible pattern of recent appointments by Netanyahu that reflect a growing refusal to engage in any kind of recognisable diplomacy. Confrontation is preferred.

The trend started with Netanyahu’s decision in 2009 to let the thuggish Avigdor Lieberman lead the foreign ministry and Israel’s diplomatic corps.

Notably, Netanyahu picked Ron Dermer, a high-profile partisan of the US Republican party, to replace Oren in 2013. Dermer is widely credited with engineering Netanyahu’s provocative address earlier this year to the US Congress, in an undisguised effort to undermine President Barack Obama’s talks with Iran.

Danon’s appointment, like Dermer’s, indicates the extent to which the Israeli right has abandoned any hope of persuading the international community of the rightness of its cause – or even of working within the rules of statecraft.

Just as Dermer has turned Obama’s White House into a diplomatic battlefield, Danon can be expected to barrack, abuse and alienate fellow ambassadors at the UN in New York.

An Israel that has no place for negotiations or compromise wants only to tell the world that it is wrong and that Israelis don’t care what others think. Danon is the right man for that task.

Binyamin Netanyahu has been left sidelined as UK re-opens its embassy in Teheran in anticipation of renewed diplomatic and commercial ties between these two major world economies and as European firms race for Iranian oil projects worth up to $185 billion.

In the meantime, however, the Israeli government, with zero oil and dependent on imports, has instructed AIPAC, its foreign affairs agency in Washington, to make every effort – including the spending of $20million – to try to persuade members of the American House of Representatives to overturn the agreed deal between the five permanent members of the UN Security Council plus Germany, with Iran.

Failing which, the Israeli state is prepared to use all means at its disposal to get a future Republican White House to break the long worked-for deal in a deliberate strategy to foment a regional war with Iran in which it hopes to persuade the United States to deploy, on its behalf, thousands of American troops.

Apart from a potentially huge loss of life, such a war on behalf of an oil-deficient, nuclear Israel against a non-nuclear, oil-rich Iran would lead to the destabilisation of the entire Middle East and the Gulf with catastrophic consequences for the rest of the world. Such a scenario must be prevented at all costs by putting Mr Netanyahu firmly back in his box and screwing down the lid, tight.

The British political and media establishment is aware that Jeremy Corbyn’s win in the Labour leadership election would present a very significant obstacle to the political and militarist business as usual. Having a leading peace campaigner as leader of the opposition puts the anti-war argument centre-stage and can potentially help to mobilise vast swathes of the public against social injustices and endless wars. His popularity demonstrates that there is a great hunger for change.

The potential is shown by the fact that Jeremy Corbyn has called for the Labour Party to apologise for the Iraq War. The invasion of Iraq clearly broke international law and was based on concocted intelligence dossiers, as Dr David Kelly noted shortly before his unexplained death. The invasion led to the death of around a million Iraqis, and an unquantifiable amount of suffering. It also set off the cycle of hatred and violence which is still enveloping the Middle East and North Africa. Hear Lindsey German speak on Channel 4 News in support of Jeremy Corbyn’s call for the Labour Party to apologise for the war.

Don’t miss Stop the War’s national conference

2015 National Conference

Stop the War’s AGM for members and delegates

10am – 5pm 19th September 2015

University of London Union

Malet Street

London WC1E 7HY

Jeremy Corbyn will be speaking at the Stop the War national conference, which is where we discuss the politics of the present situation, the risks of the spread of war and our campaigning priorities. The conference is open to members and group delegates. The deadline to become a member of Stop the War so you can attend the conference is the end of this month. Please make sure you book early to secure your place.

Full details of the AGM can be found on our web site.

Don’t Bomb Syria public meeting

Thursday 10 September, 6.30pm

Bloomsbury Central Baptist Church

235 Shaftsbury Avenue

London WC2H 8EP

Speakers include:

Diane Abbott MP

Seamus Milne, journalist

Andrew Murray, UNITE chief-of-staff

Details and booking »

See the action page for more details about how you can get involved.

The West’s guilt for refugees fleeing war can’t be washed away by calling them migrants

The UN confirmed that the overwhelming majority of people fleeing are refugees from Anglo-American wars. Instead of welcoming these people with care and hospitality, they are being “greeted” with heartless xenophobia. Stop the War Coalition advocates for the compassionate treatment of all refugees, and for an end to vicious military interventions which have created this immense refugee crisis.

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Stop the War Coalition | [email protected] | 020 7561 4830

 

Unbeknown to many, most of human history took place in Africa, where women were equal, if not superior, to men. For thousands of years, African societies were matriarchal and they prospered. By bringing an oppressive form of Colonial Christianity to Africa, Europeans replaced millennia of prosperous matriarchy with oppressive patriarchy.

The world’s first civilizations arose from the spiritual, economic and social efforts of African women and African women, in turn, went on to lead those Matriarchal societies.

Feminist artist Lauren Webber’s works on traditional fabrics at the First Floor Art Gallery in Zimbabwe explore the complex relationship between the past and present condition of African women, by exposing the continent’s long history of female dominance and how it has been subverted by Christian patriarchies.

The rituals and culture of African matriarchy did not celebrate violence; rather, they promoted fecundity, exchange and redistribution. Matriarchy in ancient Africa was not a mirror image of patriarchy today; because, it was not based on appropriation and violence.

Frantz Fanon once remarked, “Colonialism is not a thinking machine, nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state”. Webber illustrates how for centuries, Christianity has been the shield that justifies colonialism; what is less known, is that it has also served as the sword, up and down the African continent, leaving piles of bones in its wake. Just as violence cannot be separated from colonialism, Christianity cannot be separated from colonial violence.

Early man was unaware of the link between sexual intercourse and birth; they thought only women created life. Consequently, women were the first Gods, which formed the basis of gender equality in Africa.

Historian, Cheikh Anta Diop illustrates how as early as 10,000 BC women in Africa pioneered organized crop and livestock cultivation, thereby creating the pre-conditions for surplus, wealth and trade. African women are responsible for the greatest invention for the well-being of human kind, namely, food security. It is the practice of organized agriculture that made population expansion, food surpluses and civilization possible.

Pre-capitalist, matriarchal civilizations in Africa included: the Nigerian Zazzau, Sudanese Kandake, Angolan Nzinga, and Ashanti of Ghana, to name but a few. The quintessential African matriarchal system was most evident and most enduring in Black Ancient Egypt.

Women in Ancient Egypt owned and had complete control over both movable and immovable property, such as real estate in 3000 BC. As late as the 1960s, this right could not be claimed by women in some parts of the United States.

A close look at ancient Egyptian papyrus’ reveals that society was strictly matrilinial and inheritance and descent was through the female line. The Egyptian woman enjoyed the same legal and economic rights as the Egyptian man, and the proof of this is reflected in Egyptian art and historical inscriptions. Egypt was an unequal society, but the inequality was based much more upon differences in the social classes, rather than differences in gender.

From ancient legal documents, we know that women were able to manage and dispose of private property, including: land, portable goods, servants, slaves, livestock, and financial instruments, such as endowments and annuities. A woman could administer all her property independently and according to her free will and in several excavated cemeteries the richest tombs were those of women.

The independence and leadership roles of ancient Egyptian women are part of an African cultural pattern that began millennia ago and continued into recent times, until Europeans brought Colonial Christianity to Africa.

In the 1860s, the colonial explorer and Christian missionary, Dr. David Livingstone, wrote of meeting female chiefs in the Congo, and in most of the monarchical systems of traditional Africa, there were either one or two women of the highest rank who occupied a position on a par with that of the king or complementary to it.

Professor of Ancient African History, Barbara Lesko, illustrates how anthropologists who have studied African history and records of early travelers and missionaries tell us, “everywhere in Africa that one scrapes the surface one finds ethno-historical data on the authority once shared by women.”

In the years just before colonization, African women were largely equal to men. The significant value of African women’s productive labour in producing and processing food created and maintained their rights in domestic, political, cultural, economic, religious and social spheres, among others. Because women were central to production in these pre-class societies, systematic inequality between the sexes was nonexistent, and elder women in particular enjoyed relatively high status.

With the advent of Colonial Christianity, the marginalization of women came in several ways. Firstly, the true history of Jesus Christ was whitewashed, in order to subjugate Black Africans and promote a European male patriarchy. The Jesus that Africans were introduced to by European missionaries was a white skinned, blue eyed man.

It is a historical and Biblical fact that Jesus was actually a dark skinned man.The Bible itself offers evidence of Jesus’ dark skin; and The Book of Revelation likens Jesus’ feet to “fine brass, as if burned in a furnace.” In the Book of Daniel, it says the hair of the Messiah’s head would be “like the pure wool” of a lamb. The scholarly consensus is that Jesus was, like most first-century Jews, a dark–skinned man. According to The New Testament, Mary and Joseph travelled South among dark skinned people to hide baby Jesus from Herod. Clearly hiding a white baby amongst dark skinned people would not have been possible.

Jesus’ race is important because the historically false image of a white Jesus has been utilized to justify slavery and the genocide of millions of indigenous peoples in Africa and beyond.

Patriarchal Christianity, and its masculine fundamentalism, have brought to Africa the monogamous nuclear family unit, whose sole purpose was to pass on private property in the form of inheritance from one generation of males to the next. Under Colonial Christianity, the modern nuclear family is founded on the somewhat concealed domestic slavery of the wife.

A glance at the dictionary will reveal that the word family, has rather telling Latin origins. “Famulus” literally means domestic slave; and “familia,” signified the total number of slaves belonging to one man.

Colonial Christianity also brought to Africa the concept of the Victorian woman: a woman who should stay in the private domain and leave the “real work” to the men. Due to the Victorian concept of women held by colonialists, African women were excluded from the new religious, political, and socioeconomic systems.

The imported patriarchal religion does not allow women to play the leading roles they have in the indigenous African religion. In Ancient African religions it is not only God who is a “She”, but also the main guardian spirits and sacred principles are of the female gender. The concept of a Supreme Mother is also documented by Rosalind Jeffries, who, in a paper entitled “The Image of Woman in African Cave Art”, shows how in the African Creation stories, the Primordial Mother created woman then man.

Clearly, Europeans manipulated true Christianity for profit and plunder. If the colonialists’ understanding of Christianity could be used to justify rape, theft, murder and empire, then their understanding of Christianity is completely wrong. The barbarism of colonialism in Africa was committed in the name of Christianity, in clear violation of the teachings of Jesus Christ, Moses and the prophets, Muhammad, and founders of other great religions – all of whom pushed for just and equitable treatment of all of God’s children.

The greatest threat towards African women having a glorious future is our people’s ignorance of African women’s glorious past. Armed with knowledge, Africans must now fight to restore African women to a position of respect and dignity that exceeds that which she enjoyed before colonialism.

Garikai Chengu is a scholar at Harvard University. Contact him on [email protected] 

People are not equal in death, either. Some deaths are more newsworthy than others. The media and politicians love spectacular acts of terror, fires, disaster, the death of the wealthy and privileged, a death conducive to a cause. Such is the death of 300 passengers and crew of the Malaysian airliner flight 17 in the crash in Donbass, near Russian-Ukrainian border. Their deaths, regrettable as they were, are deemed to be of much greater importance, or at least newsworthiness than those of some ten thousand local people killed by the indiscriminate shelling of Donbass towns by Kiev regime troops, or that of a million Arabs. It is conducive to the cause of pushing Russia into a corner.

The US and its allies wanted Russia branded with a scarlet letter. They manoeuvred Putin into a no-win situation: appear submissive or appear a mass murderer. Heads I win, tails you lose. They introduced into the UN Security Council a draft resolution on the formation of a special tribunal for the crashed Malaysian liner, containing a reference to Chapter VII, the deadliest of all, dealing with “threat to the peace, breach of the peace, or act of aggression” and authorising use of force. If such a resolution would pass, it would mean Russia gave up its sovereignty. Even in the unlikely case of fair trial, the impact of such a submission would be huge. And the trial would be by a hostile court for whom Truth Is No Defence.

It would be a miracle for Russia to escape condemnation at such a court. You say, but Russia is clearly innocent in the disaster. So what? These guys are not after truth at all – they hanged Saddam, they brutalised Qaddafi, they keep Palestinians locked in Gaza, they want to destroy and subjugate strong-minded Russia. And what would be a better gambit than a resolution with the magic words “Chapter VII”. Their magic can unleash the dogs of war.

However the worst consequence would be the surrender of Russian sovereignty. If they accepted this, they could be trampled upon at will. No great state ever agreed to be tried and judged. This is a sign of “limited sovereignty”, of submission to supreme authority.

The US never did. The US did not agree to join the International Criminal Court, so its citizens could never be tried. There were a hundred cases in which the US could and should have been brought to trial, but it never happened.

As I write this, the sad anniversary of Hiroshima reminds us of the greatest crime of the last century, never brought to trial, but it happened a long time ago.

In 1980s the US mined harbours of Nicaragua, and in 1986 the ICJ (International Court of Justice) found the US guilty. The US refused to comply. They did not recognise the Court’s right to judge them.

In 1989 they invaded Panama, kidnapped its president and locked him up in the dungeon of Barad Dur, Florida. The majority of the Security Council voted for theresolution condemning the invasion, in clear and unambiguous language: “The Security Council …strongly deplores the intervention in Panama by the US Armed Forces which constitutes a fragrant violation of the international law and demands immediate cessation of the intervention” but the US and its allies vetoed the resolution.

Since then, there have been many wars and invasions, but the US never agreed to be judged, always refused to comply with judgements and vetoed any draft implying a check upon its sovereignty.

Now, all of a sudden, they have become adepts of international law.

It would be a deadly error for the Russians to submit. Such tribunals are highly political, and they decide as they are ordered. The Russians had recently had an unpleasant experience: they agreed to a tribunal in the Hague to arbitrate with the run-away oligarchs who claimed Putin had stolen their hard-earned winnings. They thought their case was so clear, and they believed in the impartiality of the tribunal. They were surprised when the Hague tribunal ordered them to pay fifty billion dollars to the fugitives. They are not likely to step on the same rake a second time.

Poets describe such tribunals better than lawyers: “I’ll be judge, I’ll be jury… I’ll try the whole case, and condemn you to death”, in the words of Lewis Carroll.

Russia vetoed the draft, and there was a deafening media scream condemning Russia for non-compliance. None of these screamers bothered to demand US compliance in a single case of transgression. They knew it would not work. Not only the US: even the smaller Jewish state of Israel has never agreed to face a tribunal.

Why does Israel refuse? Justice is a great concept, and Jews are natural born lawyers, so the Jews know: a judge can always rule the way he finds fit and find reasons for the judgment he likes.

The law is so quirky, and changes so fast! Fifty years ago, an American would get a jail sentence for having sex with a person of a different race or the same sex. Nowadays, race is no objection, but a woman of 30 gets 22 years in jail for her amorous affair with three 17-year old kids in Florida. Why, she would get less if she were to kill them.

Vladimir Lenin, a lawyer by education, considered the courts and lawyers to be a tool of the ruling class. He did not believe in objective justice. Indeed, the judges do the will of the rulers. As the rulers want to find Russia guilty, so they will, given a chance.

Granting all that, what actually happened in the air over Donetsk? There are many versions: it was a bomb planted on board the plane, the plane was hit by a ground-to-air-missile, it was shot down by an fighter jet. There are complicated conspiracy versions aplenty, combining these causes, that would provide strong competition to 9/11. The more elaborate versions connect this crash with the mysterious disappearance of Malaysian Airlines flight 370 a few months earlier.

There is no doubt that the Russians did not want to hit the passenger airliner. The Donetsk rebels could not, for this feat of hitting a plane flying at such altitude is above their grade. It is said that Kiev regime, or the then lord of Dnepropetrovsk, the Chabad tycoon Kolomoysky did it in order to implicate Russians, but I doubt that.

There are witnesses to the flight of a Ukrainian Su-25 jet fighter based in Dnepropetrovsk that possibly could have shot down the airliner, believing it was the Russian airliner Rossiya carrying President Putin. They give even the pilot’s name: captain Vladislav Voloshin.

Alternatively, there are witnesses that saw a ground-to-air missile battery belonging to Kiev or even to the rebels (which is quite unlikely: they are not that sophisticated). Who knows the truth? Such things happen in wartime, and that was a time of intensive warfare between the rebels and the Kiev regime.

I’ll tell you an old soldier’s tale. In 1973 my battalion of Israeli paratroopers seized the Egyptian Ataka Heights, in the desert between Suez Canal and Nile Valley. We had sent a group of our best fighters out for a reconnaissance raid. A friend of mine took command. It was a dark night in October. On their way back, my friend forgot to signal his return, and our sentries opened fire. My friend and three soldiers were killed. Friendly fire is not a rare thing. If friends die of friendly fire, strangers who got into wrong place in the wrong time are also likely to suffer.

I would not blame anybody in the plane disaster, excepting those who had sent the plane over the fighting zone – Kiev or Dnepropetrovsk flight dispatchers.

Neither the Ukrainian nor Russian SAM operators, nor the rebels wanted to shoot down a civilian aircraft. Even if the Ukrainian jet fighter downed the plane, he did it without understanding the nature of the target. But in war, things happen. In 1988, the Americans shot down a civilian Iranian airliner Airbus A-300. 300 people were killed, including 52 women and 66 children – same as in the Donetsk tragedy.

Initially, the Americans denied their responsibility – they said the aircraft flew in a forbidden area, and the pilot did not respond to friend/foe request. President Reagan acquitted the commander of the cruiser that shot down a civilian airliner. Later it turned out, the airliner flew at a permitted altitude, gave the right responses to the query, but the ship’s missile defence system, the Aegis, misinterpreted the signals, and the captain pushed the red button.

In February 1973, Israel shot down a Libyan civilian airliner and killed more than a hundred passengers. The airliner strayed from its route during a sandstorm and Israeli fighter-interceptors shot it down. Israelis said the flag of Libya looked similar to the flag of Egypt, or the plane could be hijacked by terrorists, for it flew towards Israel … In the end, Israel has been deemed guilty, the state never conceded its guilt but paid for the insurance.

In these two cases, there was no real war, even though it was a tension in the area. But Donbass has had a full-scale war at the time. Anyone of the combatants could bring down the ill-fated aircraft, mistaking it for an enemy – if they had technical means.

The sloppy Ukrainians could do it even in peace time out of sheer recklessness as they downed the Siberia flight from Tel Aviv to Novosibirsk ten years ago. To this very day the Ukrainians haven’t admitted their fault.

Conspiracy theories can be useful – they calm media-induced frenzy. But I would not take them seriously. At war, the qui prodest rule is not working. People and planes can be destroyed just by chance. Israel was a beneficiary of the tragedy, as it diverted the world’s attention from the bloody war in Gaza. Kolomoysky, an Israeli citizen, fiery Zionist, a tycoon and the ruler of Dnepropetrovsk, a man capable of anything, was a man partly responsible for the crash, as his dispatchers ordered the liner to lower its altitude, and the captain Vladislav Voloshin was under his command. But this does not mean that Zionists downed the plane.

I am certain the Russians weren’t knowingly involved, for they opened all their secret communications for the investigators to see. If they were involved, the Americans would see it via their satellites, and they would spread the word right away. But the US keeps mum; they did not present their data. Nor did the Kiev regime: they sit on the recordings of the dispatchers with the plane. Will they publish their records? I wonder.

One thing is certain – peace be upon the victims. Allah Yerham, Lord have mercy on them, as our Arab brothers say in such cases. Anton Chekhov, the playwright, said: a gun hanging on the wall in the first act will be shot by the last act. So is a resolution referring to Chapter VII. Good that the Russians had guts to veto the draft and postponed a war for another time. Otherwise, we would have to ask for the Lord’s mercy on great many people.

Israel Shamir can be contacted at [email protected]

 

In an anti-democratic decision that is clearly bad politics and which colludes in serious human rights violations, David Cameron is currently ignoring the demand of 85,000 British citizens for the arrest of Benjamin Netanyahu on alleged war crime charges, regardless of diplomatic immunity, should the Israeli Prime Minister enter Britain. 

 

Netanyahu is an Israeli born, American educated politician who is alleged to have committed a serious war crime by having authorised the killing of over 2000 unarmed civilian men, women and children, in 2014, during Israel’s reprisal attack against dissidents in Gaza.

However, the Cameron government is apparently now so dependent on the supply of Israeli drugs for the NHS plus Israeli-made drones and military equipment for Britain’s armed forces, that it finds itself in the invidious position of having to welcome and entertain a suspected war criminal.

If Mr Cameron had any political sense he would cancel this proposed visit by a politician who is probably less welcome in Britain than Zimbabwe’s Robert Mugabe.

One obvious lesson to be drawn from this dangerous and unsavoury situation is that Britain should in future source all pharmaceutical supplies and military equipment from one or more of the 28 member states of the European Union and not from a country in the Middle East that is not a member of NATO, nor a party either to the IAEA or the NPT, or the Chemical / Biological Weapons Conventions.

For any EU government to ignore these vital facts by acting otherwise, is to contribute to a high-level, future security risk to Europe.

https://petition.parliament.uk/petitions/105446