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PinoyMonkeyPride, Yellow Magic and the both sides of the same peso

2011-11-08T02:33:00.000-08:00

PinoyMonkeyPride, Yellow Magic and the both sides of the same peso

by Anton Dulce

freely translated by Katleah Ulrike

Here lies started a great fight in YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and the entire Filipino cyberspace.

The former, whose YouTube account is named "PinoyMonkeyPride" made Pro-Marcos propaganda viral, the latter, is a former professor of History in the University of the Philippines, who is also a well known supporter of Akbayan, a partylist of Noynoy Aquino.

Strong and realistic are the actions of the "PNP": the fraud made by the Cojuangco-Aquino family towards the farmers of Hacienda Luisita, the responsibility of former President Cory on the Mendiola Massacre, the worst human rights violations made by the military during Cory's term as Commander-in-Chied, and the responsibility of the Cojuangco-Aquino family over the Hacienda Luisita Massacre.

It is important to unveil those videoes, that the propaganda was fiercely invested upon to create the demi-god like reputation of the Aquinos being used by Noynoy in order to win during the last elections. Many were forgetting the fact that that Cory is the second who had worst human rights violations after Marcos. It was also during last elections that the Public Relations team of Noynoy called the Farmers of Hacienda Luisita as "bad", "Paid", "Communist", etc.

On the other hand, there are positive aspect of the counter-propaganda of the pro-Aquino: that the EDSA 1 is the sporadic revolt of the people against an unpopular individual in the history of the Philippines. That millions of Filipinos started the revolt in EDSA and other parts of the country. More people are even showed support in the means of not defending Marcos on that time.

But since they have good points, they also have lies and misfortunes!

The pro-Aquinos, they insulted the victims of Mendola and Haciena Luisita by insisting the militarist line of the Farmers as initiator of the said tragedies, while those who are pro-Marcos, they insulted the millions of victims of Martial law by saying that there's "Democracy" under the Dictatorship. Worse, they call for Economic liberalization as the answer to the rampan poverty due to the rule of the local elites in the country.

The question on Economic Liberalization should be given emphasis in order to know clearly this fight between pro-Marcos and pro-Aquino. They showed that the economy should be entirely opened to foreign investors in order to end the "reign of the oligarchs" (such as Ayala, Lopez, Sy, etc.). They even separate local capitalists to foreign ones.

And Economic Liberalization? That policy was insituted long in the country. That is why Php144.4 billion

gained from the mining companies last 2010, while Php13.7 million are the taxes being paid.

This is even a hell of a kind foolishnes: Look at MERALCO, we simply know it as an electric company owned by the Lopezes and Danding Cojuangco, but they didn't know that PLDT had its share of it, via Pangilinan, that 52% of it is being owned by a foreign corporation. The local and foreign Capitalist are long partners in exploiting the Filipino people.

And if you remember, even Noynoy himself advocated Economic Liberalization through the means of Charter Change. Surely, he's not agressive like those of pro-Marcos individuals and groups because they are already taking place, and yet they estimate the impact of people's anger and resistance.

So, what are watching in the Internet today? Nothing but a fight between the two different sides of the same peso. The Marcoses and the Aquinos belonged to the same class: they are Landlords, they used their powers to favor their cronies/relatives, they are human rights violators, they are coddlers of U.S. in expoliting the country in exchange for their support.

Their rumble today is part of an unfinished rumble between different factions of the ruling class like a game known as "Trip to Jerusalem: especially today that they know each other's weaknesses. And the showing of videoes of "PNP", Although helpful in exposing the blood and dirt under the name 'Aquino', is in the final analysis only an attempt to beautify the name of Marcos.

So it is important to know clearly, both we and others, that the real progress and democracy is not a multiple-choice exam that is limited to "A.) Aquino" or "B.) Marcos". The real struggle for Demcoracy and Freedom is an essay-type exam. And the People should write its own will different from what the ruling class wanted.

Expecting "Patriotism" and "Life" written by "Harlots" and "Merchants"

2011-10-28T22:37:00.001-07:00

Expecting "Patriotism" and "Life"

written by "Harlots" and "Merchants"

Sorry for the name of this post, but this writeup mirrors the reality how today's contemporary culture outweighs patriotism resulting to what everybody else thinks about what the Philippines, both country and people is.

That, basing much on our surroundings, and on what mass media propagates, the culture prevailing nowadays is a culture of the west and east simply being adored by many to the extent of putting some "Filipino" twist to accommodate more and perhaps in pursuit of making it "Filipino" the way an Italian Spaghetti should be sweet and sour to accommodate the Filipino taste.

However,

Due to the overtly influx of foreign goods, including TV programs and movies, people became totally dependent from it; and as from the earlier statement, putting some "Filipino" twist to accommodate more, thus generating profits to those who tried to insist through; no matter what response from the people would say so about it.

That, we sought a massive trend prevailing and making near-carbon copies of it such as drug-sex-brag laced "mainstream" Hip-Hop culture whether it is from the Ghettoes controlled by African-Americans or Chicanos (that some old-school Hip Hop fans as well as Progressive ones would dare to oppose it), Movies and TV programs from the Far East (especially those from Korea) and last but not the least the prevailing culture from the U.S.-a legacy what Filipinos tried to break away entirely ...or not.

And no matter most people dare to put some "Filipino" flavor in it, its appearance would still look a rehash of its very own past (unless some from it making it purely realistic and Filipino in character no matter what foreign genre is): that most Hip-hoppers for example would hear sex-themed music and women wear skimpy clothing and trying to get attention yet Hip Hop originally speaks of emancipation from the Ghetto and of the individual from the repressive social order; that Tupac Shakur dared to challenge the order the way his parents (both members of the Black Panther party) did; but why Soulja Boy? Or in case of the Filipino experience, having BLKD venting social realism (such as Poverty, Tuition Fee Increases) in his words during a Rap battle session but why those from the street would still hear Juan Thugs, Gagong Rapper, and others who usually sings about being unlucky in love, about a narcotic, or everything just to provide escape from realities? (Sorry to the listener for that, I am just making an assessment although I do listen for quite some time)

Of cultural idealists people didn't think upon as artists

On the other hand, there are people whose idealism and looking at realities tried to create something yet people had least to understand it's very own essence. Francis Magalona tried to instill Patriotism in his music and his clothing range of course, but people simply think of it as a mere fad that they wear clothes bearing "Three Stars and a Sun" simply because that came from his, that because it is popular, that is to show being "Filipino", and so forth. Same goes in Noel Cabangon's music-obviously he's once an activist preaching about change, that his song "Tatsulok" speaks about the Filipino society as a majority being ruled by a minority; even "Kanlungan" that speaks about leaving and returning, but then it end up a sell-out than of making people know about what their country is: that most would say that "Kanlungan" was the song from an old McDonald commercial and "Tatsulok" was sung by Bamboo Manalac, memorizing the lyrics without knowing its substance.

If that's the case then does having a fashion, music, movie, TV program using a "Patriotic" statement make a person Patriotic? Or just a fad, a ploy used by the prevailing order in desperately currying popular support and making them contented to it?

The Balkan experience and its near similarities to Filipino contemporary pop music

Well, it all reminds me of a country that shared the similar fate, especially in music: the former Yugoslavia and Romania.

Yugoslav culture was so similar despite religious and territorial differences that, in pursuit of "Brotherhood and Unity" it tried to infuse different cultures-in a manner that Croats, Serbs, Slovenes, Bosnians, having belonged to the Slavic ethnicity be described altogether as "Yugoslavs" same as their homeland was-and their culture.

However, since most people in Yugoslavia were urbanized, its culture was also affected, especially folk music-resulting to a variety of music genres such as Turbo Folk.

Turbo Folk was and is, one of the recognized music the way Novelty songs being played most of the time in the Philippines-they have similarities that, aside from acquiring a massive audience, of having modern-day (like synthesizer and Drum machine) and traditional instruments (especially acoustic guitar) being fused and used, they carry meaningless or quasi-meaningful lyrics with a variety of topics such as "love", "fame", and "struggle" while its people, especially those who escape the crisis sought solace in it.

But then, it fell down to imitating western music despite using native language and music as its producers and creators of Turbo-folk, in making the genre popular have copied the aesthetics of American rap or pop clips, filling every shot with scantily clad women and covered everyone with so much jewellery that the combined weight of gold and jewels would undoubtedly number in the kilos or girls imitating Britney Spears, Jennifer Lopez and the like yet much seductive like Goca Sekulić, Olja and Jelena Karleuša and Ceca Raznatovic.

As a writer, upon listening to Turbo Folk, as well as Manele (a music genre in Romania), as well as relating it to the present music in the Philippines (especially novelty and rap music), it simply carries the same appeal as it reached the hearts and minds of the lower class regardless of its near-meaningless topics such as "love"-to the extent of calling it as "erotic", as well as "drug-and-gun culture influenced" in its words being sung and its singer-like Ceca Raznatovic, who aside from making Turbo Folk popular, also married a notorious criminal and paramilitary leader named Zeljko Raznatovic, known by his nom de guerre, Arkan (with their marriage being called a matrimony of pornography and patriotism). Same goes in the Philippines (although not related to music, but carried some populist appeal) like Korina Sanchez (a newscaster) who married Mar Roxas (then a Senator, and even proposed marriage earlier in front of the audience of a show hosted by Willie Revilliame), or even much earlier, when Congressman Jules Ledesma married sexy actress Assunta de Rossi, and much much earlier, when Congressman Ferdinand Marcos married "the rose of Tacloban" Imelda Romualdez.

These experiences, whether music or not, yet affected the minds of the people made these a tactic of the ruling class to use the masses, from mind to persona for their own benefit although controversial-as Ceca, known for singing erotic-laced Turbo Folk married to a gun-toting politico-criminal Arkan; or Mar Roxas used Willie Revilliame's show back then in ABS-CBN proposing marriage to Korina Sanchez. Sorry to say so, but it unveils the system raping popular culture, of using the feelings of the masses for their very own benefit-making some people criticize the culture they sought much for celebrating the external symbols of easy acquisition of wealth, being too eroticized, promoting violence, escapism and exaggeration of feelings.

Otherwise, such content we usually see, hear, taste, and experience all the time are merely representatives of the global pop-cultural scene, of wholesale westernization being excessively integrated into the common Filipino culture (like noontime shows, that originally based on both talent and game shows; and soap operas basing much on comics and pocketbook romances). They even point out that an average music video shown on MTV, MYX, or its sound being played on Love Radio or being downloaded online and played in Mp3 Players depicts just as many if not more "women treated as objects", golden chains on muscular bodies, repetition of green jokes, and generally everything that is recognized and condemned as banal, vulgar, sub-intellectual and unsophisticated; even it has "patriotic flavor" in it like treating patriotic symbols as mere logos devoid of meaning, leaving it merely as aesthetic nonsense or if too much, chauvinism and xenophobia like those who rant out of Spratlys.

For sure most people are enough of these experiences and wanting to stop it. Yes, that some are tired of listening, or seeing people becoming vulgar, having almost pornographic kitsch, glorifying crime, and a corrupted moral around the community with its appearances, as what Ivana Kronja said, a manifestation of an "aggressive, sadistic and pornographically eroticised iconography" that justifies the prevalence of Machismo chauvinism and subjugation of women in all spheres in the society.

After all, trying to parallel the current music scene with those of the balkans, it somehow becomes enough connected despite its different ethnic backgrounds: that the novelty music and love songs within contemporary OPM music being blared most of the time in mainstream radio in the Philippines are similar enough to those of Turbo-folk and Pop-folk in former Yugoslavia and Romania; that the love songs of Yugoslavia's Ceca Raznatovic are quite like those of the Philippines' very own Imelda Papin (or Ara Mina for late 90s and 00s sake).

Conclusion

To conclude this writeup, I, as a writer would say that the Philippines tried to "modernize" its culture yet it end up submitting to the wishes of those imposing agreements that seemed unequal to Filipino sovereignty. We may see people wearing "Barong Tagalog", dancing the "Kuratsa Mayor", looking at the Apayew (Rice Terraces) and getting satisfied after eating Lechon or having a Hilot massage yet these are merely reduced to a mere formal significance to say there's a culture prevailing for all tourists to see, same as collective action that end up a mere rhetoric for politicians appeasing the growing tide of masses who themselves bond collectively to counter their rule. Comparing to Malaysia, Japan, China that had still keeping its culture by modernizing it-with the Petronas towers had striking resemblance to traditional architecture using modern methods, and urging people to drive cars such as Proton.

And since these countries had its culture intact, why not start modernize, innovate what comes directly from the root than getting contented on mere exports? Of having lives and love of home be written by serious, hardworking people basing their dreams and aspirations from concrete realities than of those who trying to throw themselves to the dogs or those who make profit from it?

Sorry to say some of the words being vented upon in this writeup, but then this nation needs a overhaul in all sides. And for sure few would likely to understand this while more and more entice to enjoy a gold-foiled shit (sorry for the term) served upon to everyone. God forbid, but like sugar, too much costs loss of knowledge, brawn, and perhaps lives supposed be contributive to social well being. I do recognize people trying enough to instill patriotism like Magalona, but in the eyes of a common man, would think of it as an artist making rap music popular than a patriot trying to instill patriotism using his talent.

Rizal's "Idealism" is the Filipino Everydayman's Realism

2011-10-28T22:35:00.000-07:00

Rizal's "Idealism" is the Filipino Everydayman's Realism

"Each one writes history according to his convenience."

These are the words Jose Rizal said to Ferdinand Blumentritt during his sojourn in Europe in 1886.At first we think of it as true since most of us are making our own fate that made us "convenient" especially to those who tend to escape from everything disastrous in pursuit of something that is "peace and quiet." However, These words somehow also made Rizal think how people creates its own fate same as its own society, and it somehow corresponds to a Chinese quote and it said, 'The Masses Are the Makers of History'; yes, for it is the masses who endure repression, not just the ones who initiated are the ones who started the clamor for radical change.

But then, every quote being said so are likely to be reduced into a mere sentiment or an idea being bannered upon to by such individuals and calling it as "idealism" or a "figment of an imagination." If so, then how come every event corresponds to what Rizal hath said in his books?

I may not been against "Idealists" so to speak, but then most of them tend to act like Jose Rizal in order to negate the rising tide of radical change coming from the laboring people. They may've used Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo just to justify favoring "Reform" over "Revolution", of Ibarra over Simoun, but then how come there are still Elias and Cabesang Tales around us? Like Cervantes, Rizal may've been taking time focusing on books and artwork; like Don Quixote searching for an "Impossible Dreamand its fans wasting time on his works and emulating his way of self-gratification guised as knowledge, yet the vast majority end up in pain in their back and out of it, willing to take revenge than getting contented to it as possible.

His longing for Leonor Rivera for example, this so-called "obsession", despite Rivera married the British Kipping made him not to seriously gave way to other women whom he met and perhaps loved with, like Boustead, Jacoby or O Sei San; all except for the Irish Josephine Bracken whom he seriously being with as a "permanent substitute", or I should say in a Tagalog parlance a "Panakit butas" in his barren heart. How come Rizal can't move on until he met Bracken? Was Rivera really correspond to the Philippines in the form of Maria Clara? Whose beauty, charm and submission, contentment embodies the psyche of a Filipina? Yet on the other hand praised the Spartan women whom likely to take arms and fight for their and others' lives as what Josephine Bracken did? Which of the two really corresponds to the Filipina then?

Well, back to the main topic (sorry for tackling Rizal's love life) Perhaps his consumption of hashish as an experiment made his mind having "colour" in it. Sorry to say so again in regards to that, but like his, we tend to experiment ourselves out of our realities, of our senses. That also became an infuence in our later works and to others as basis for our "ideals", but then Rizal's experiences aren't really idealism; Americans simply codified it as his "idealism" but in fact products of his very own realities as scenes from Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo continues to linger even in an era of Cellphones, Internet and other sorts of wholesale westernization. I may have disagreed Rizal's passivism but then I still acknoledge him as a hero-he may not carried weaponry nor lead directly as what Bonifacio did, for he preferred acting as a scapegoat, a nitrogycerin bomb in Simoun's hand triggering a change that is left unfinished.

But then, despite all these, we sought a distorted picture of Rizal and his fellow heroes and noble countrymen. ‘We are brainwashed to glorify traitors and enemies of the Revolution and the Motherland’ according to Domingo de Guzman, that despite unearthing everything about his and other's lives, we kept on thinking that Rizal was merely an idealist who dissuade people from advancing armed struggle in favor of reforms that deemed impossible; not noticing that Rizal also became an inspiration by those who insist so as well as he himself offered Antonio Luna for the revolution whilst keeping himself aloof in it. Yes, he favored education over revolution but why not he joined in and head the education department of the Katipunan?

Anyway, as Rizal said to Blumentritt:

"We want the happiness of the Philippines, but we want to obtain it through noble and just means. If I have to commit villainy to make her happy, I would refuse to do so, because I am sure that what is built on sand sooner or later would tumble down."Good to read this kind of quote Rizal hath said, especially that he urged Filipinos to traverse the long and winding road to self determination and prosperity by means beneficial to them. But to others, especially those who took his words as detrimental to the tide of popular change it meant reducing things to mere sentiment-like reducing struggles to lobbying and negotiations for example; Rizal perhaps wanted everything "by all means" especially in the latter days as a patriot although he still wanted to give reforms, education a chance over Bonifacio as well as others who chose taking up arms, but still how come Filipinos rally over the one who endures than the one who sees? Especially to those whose reason was land and bread rather than "National independence" alone? Yes, Rizal may have wrote Noli and El Fili, but compare to the one who endure forced labor which is worth fighting for? Anyway, it unveils himself as "the spirit of contradiction; a soul that dreads the revolution, although deep down desires it." according to Unamuno, and it was shown by his actions contradicting his works, or rather say his idealism that contradicts his realities.I personally made this work not to misjudge him, but rather to think that Rizal himself is a realist rather than an idealist as others may've seen of him. Aguinaldo, and later the Americans made him a hero due to his works and ideals, whilst his words and actions are being reduced to mere sentiment as we suspect of it; not noticing how come El Filibusterismo still had an open ending and one by one willing to write an unfinished part or another book to continue in it. Hernandez somehow did it with his Ibong Mandaragit, that involved both education and organization as tools for self determination as we ought to see and take, but then we tend to look at the perspective of those trying to dissuade people from the very meaning of change. Of substituting sheeps for wolves, of tamed slaves than a noble savage.Sorry to say so but that's fit enough to be called "true", we expect people tend to "just" codify his thought and be dubbed thee as "idealism" not noticing that his words aren't just sprout from his mind but rather out of realities he've sought or experienced as an individual-as during his time everything, even morals are tied to the economic structure such as feudalism; that superstition and overtly literal interpretation of Christian faith justified corvée labor and massive accumulation of wealth by the vested gentry; and Rizal wanted these to be "break" down whilst keeping the productive and positivistic ones as he himself wanted a major overhaul in the society in pursuit of the advancing times. That justifying self-desire for total greed is one of the narrowest of all justifications, tell it to the massed ranks of hungry, destitute peoples crying for land, peace, bread, justice and they will respond with direct fists and kicks, aggro over the wretched parasites who steal wealth from those who create in it like what Bonifacio or earlier leaders of spontaneous revolts insisted. And somehow these meant what Filipino ought and how to struggle for self-determination, he may still insist education like Crisostomo Ibarra, but more and more Simouns will be its results. As what one writeup said:"In his first novel "Noli Me Tangere", Rizal did not endorse a bloody revolution, instead, he introduced the possibility of reformation. In his second novel "El FIlibusterismo", Rizal showed how the abuse and maltreatment of the Spanish system would lead the Filipinos to revolt against them."But despite these, the system still clings to the desperate "idealism" just as what America tries to codify Rizal's thought, but instead of Ibarras and Simouns, we'll expect more and more Basio Macunats and Senor Pastas out of it. Or as what Constantino thinks of: Veneration without understanding.

Regarding Qaddafi's death and the (succeeding) consequences of the Libyan situation

2011-10-28T22:33:00.000-07:00

Regarding Qaddafi's death

and the (succeeding) consequences of the Libyan situation

"I’m not ashamed to admit I’m writing this with tears in my eyes."

These are the first words said in a writeup regarding Qaddafi by James P. of the American Front. It somehow pleases methat despite the "hatred", of being demonized by the media, there are still people around the world paid respect to a man who, despite his contributions to Libyan society end up lynched and shot by a mob.

Sad isn't it that despite wanting him to put on trial or what they end up putting him killed "for the sake of democracy", while at the same time thinking that despite trying-hard means to put things in order will rather end up contrary to it-as most people would clamor for free electricity, good roads, good education and social services rather than be ruled by a mob, sponsored by vested interests scrambling for oil in a once-proud African country.

And although I oppose some of his moves that seemed "anti-popular", Gaddafi somehow put forward what real self-determination was, and that was to make a "new" Libya willing to take the risk of getting intervened by outside powers such as England, France or the United States and its domestic puppets and turncoats-including taking a vow of sacrifice like himself, and his people end up as corpses blood flowing in Sirte or Misrata. And people would remember him much that they afford free electricity and a good literacy rate all despite the odds given especially as what we've seen lately.

In fact, I remember reading a copy of a his "Green Book" when I was a student; and what I had seen on that book is entirely a critique-assessment on what every society goes on and on-especially in regards to politics and culture. Especially that Qaddafi criticized "Democracy" and "Parliaments" as misrepresenting people and in favor of the elite. Yes, despite having different perspectives I agreed in his stance as I or we obviously sought elitists and not the masses who took decisions in it; worse having the fact that votes can be bought and falsified during elections and choices limited to the wishes of the few whilst letting the people choosing which is which.

And thus,

As we expect these things around us, of having Oligarchs, insufficient distribution of welfare in exchange for labour, is this "Democracy" preached by everyone? Having elections bought, sold, falsified? A "Democracy" ran by an elite and with vested interests whilst disregarding or reducing social justice into a mere sentiment? For sure most of us are greatly concerned or confused about this hell of a kind matter, especially to those who end up having a boycott out of it simply because of having a rotten system maintained with a hodge-podge of promises and pepper spray, of carrot and stick. After all, Qaddafi's writeup somehow showed an idea what Democracy should be and that is the rule of the people.

And with his and his people's deaths during the civil war, of the growing number of wounded casualties, bullets being spent, houses and buildings being bombed, of foreign intervention led by NATO, it all somehow justifies Mao Zedong's quote concerning war and peace, that:

"War is a continuation of politics, and there are at least two types: just (progressive) and unjust wars, which only serve bourgeois interests. While no one likes war, we must remain ready to wage just wars against imperialist agitations."

Weird to say so about it, but the fact is that the battle sponsored by the west was and is an example of an unjust wars only to serve someone else's interests. Iraq's people were killed for an obvious reason of pumping oil in it, and so is Libya's; "The freedom of a human being is lacking if his or her needs are controlled by others, for need may lead to the enslavement of one person by another. Furthermore, exploitation is caused by need. Need is an intrinsic problem and conflict is initiated by the control of one's needs by another." as what Qaddafi said in his book, and for sure entities willing to exploit Libyan oil are for sure realizing this quotation. NATO bombed houses as they need it in ousting Qaddafi, then oil companies go through exploiting oil in it-then selling it expensively for they need profits in it! So what's the essence of their "freedom" if they themselves not noticed that they are indirectly exploited by the west? I personally against atrocities made during Qaddafi's regime same as those being called "rats" but then to sum it all who's benefiting the conflict? Is it the people who kept on waving the flag of Idris? Will it inculcate plans and opportunities better than what Qaddafi did?

Anyway,

People someday will know that they will laugh at themselves and regret their actions. EDSA Revolution for instance, whose product is rampant poverty worse than the latter days of the Marcos regime and a system worsened by vested interests also made some people lay low and nearly regret what they've did to it;

But on the other hand more are willing to advance an idea greater than the man from Sirte did; and whether we like it or not, it will involve blood and iron as what Bismark said.

Condolences for the fallen, but Libya will never be the same, especially when people had:

free electricity,

free great medical care,

interest free loans,

govt. paid 50% for purchase of a car,

govt gave newly married couples $50,000 to buy a house...

Everything to say that "Qaddafi was worth remembering."

We will continue the fight, which is also our Fight.

To Victory or Death. Yours for the Resistance,

Paul S.

SUCs Strike against budget cuts, Malacanang issues budget "insufficient" accdg. to SUCs

2011-09-23T10:37:00.000-07:00

SUCs Strike against budget cuts,

Malacanang issued budget "insufficient" accdg. to SUCs

About 8.000 students from different State Colleges and Universities marched hand in hand to Mendiola last Friday fighting for greater state subsidy as well as against budget cuts.

Known as "The March for Education", the University of the Philippines, as well as member schools of the Philippine Association of State Universities and Colleges marched from Diliman, Sta. Mesa, and others directly to Mendiola all against the policies laid by the government especially those of cutting its budget on education.

The protest even featured a mass planking of students in Mendola, that according to the organizers, a "record" as protesters converged and planked altogether as a form of protest. That, according to Raymond Palatino of the Kabataan Partylist, 20,000 students, teachers, and SUC officials took part in mass planking, walkouts and marches in nationwide protests.

"The nationwide strike embodies the outrage of our SUCs against the inaction of the Aquino administration to reverse the cuts and provide sufficient funding for our public universities," he said in a press statement Friday.

However, according to Malacanang, it has proposed a P5.54-billion budget for UP in 2012, higher than this year’s P1.39 billion but not enough as it goes far from the estimate P18 billion UP needed for its campuses according to student groups. The budget cut even likely to justify increase in tuition and other fees in SUCs same goes in Private schools who oppose yearly increases. The policy Malacanang made rather realizes its side effect as President Aquino in his budget statement last year stated that there were indeed cuts in SUC spending:

“We allocated P23.4 billion to 112 State Universities and Colleges (SUCs) in 2011. This is 1.7 percent lower than the P23.8 billion budget for 2010. We are gradually reducing the subsidy to SUCs to push them toward becoming self-sufficient and financially independent..”

Student groups meanwhile also said the budget “contains an overall cut of P569.8 million” for some 50 state schools. Some 220 SUCs will share the budget as enrollment increases in public tertiary schools amid rising tuition in private schools. Self sufficiency had limits, as it negates the essence of being a State-supported institution such as a university, that even other State supported entities such as hospitals also faced problems such as lack of medicine and supplies like those of Fabella Hospital in Sta.Cruz Manila according to Einstein Recedes in his speech.

Students who joined this week’s protest came from the University of the Philippines-Diliman, UP Manila, Polytechnic University of the Philippines, Eulogio Amang Rodriguez Institute of Science and Technology, Rizal Technological University, Bulacan State University, Philippine Normal University as well as Private schools such as University of the East and University of Sto. Tomas.

Driver's strike paralyzed over Metro Manila in response to the growing oil prices

2011-09-19T03:46:00.000-07:00

Driver's strike paralyzed Metro Manila, provinces

in response to the growing oil prices

Last 7:00 AM, drivers around the Philippines staged a nationwide strike especially in Metro Manila and nearby provinces.

The protests are made in response to the Overpricing on oil, Value Added Tax, Oil Deregulation Law, and other Government policies that resulted to mass discontent of drivers trying to earn a living. And according to Elmer Labog of the Kilusang Mayo Uno, a beginning of much bigger protests to be wage upcoming month.

Originally a joint protest with the Alliance of Concerned Transport Operators (Acto), Pasang Masda, and the Federation of Jeepney Operators and Drivers Association of the Philippines (Fejodap), the three backed out of the planned protest following the meeting with President Noynoy Aquino, leaving PISTON and other smaller transport groups go on with the strike.

According to PISTON Secretary-General George San Mateo, “We did not get any guarantee from the President that he will do something about high fuel prices,” justifying the militant organization's stance to push through the driver's strike.

The protests continued still all despite Government interference to quell the actions. In Philcoa, Quezon City, protesters were forcibly driven away by the policemen in Commonwealth Avenue as part of the strike, while the former even done Planking in the road as part of the protest; while in Valencia, Bukidnon, where protesters are being harassed by the police.

There is even a commotion between DOTC Secretary Manuel Rozas III and Bayan Muna Representative Teddy Casino in Cubao, after Roxas told to Casino and Bayan Muna not to get involve with the protests - justifying Casino's anger telling him that the people are greatly affected by the increase in oil prices made by oil companies and an "inutile Government". After the commotion, security guards as well as policemen tried to disperse the protesters.

Meanwhile, the government, especially the Armed Forces issued free rides for commuters in the main thoroughfares over Metro Manila. And issued a threat as the Land Transportation Franchising and Regulatory Board (LTFRB) warned operators and drivers against joining the transport strike, although LTFRB board member Manuel Iway said the agency would impose penalties only if transport routes are paralyzed. Some 5,000 uniformed policemen are deployed today in Metro Manila to ensure peace and order during the jeepney strike by militant transport groups.

But the protests remained dominant all despite threats as according to the reports, nearly 60 up to 100% of jeepney routes all over Metro Manila are paralyzed, including Camanava reaching 85%. In Monumento, Caloocan city, almost 100 jeepney drivers stopped driving and joined the protests, while members of Anakpawis, Gabriela, Anakbayan, Kilusang Mayo uno and Confederation of Unity, Recognition, and Advancement of Government Employees also joined the protests in support for the drivers against Oil Deregulation and Overpricing of oil products. In Laguna, 85% of all public transport routes are paralyzed especially in San Pablo City and Calamba same as in Mindanao, where Davao City reached 92% with ten schools including Ateneo de Davao having their classes suspended, Cagayan de Oro with 80%, and Iligan City with 90%.

In assessment, the protests, as what KMU's Elmer Labog said, would create another round of strikes as the government fails to seriously heed the call of the masses in midst of the prevailing socio-economic crisis.

Hamas pledges Gaza ceasefire to end five days of bloodshed Group hopes temporary truce will stop escalating violence spiralling out of control

2011-08-25T19:34:00.000-07:00

Hamas pledges Gaza ceasefire to end five days of bloodshed

Group hopes temporary truce will stop escalating violence spiralling out of control*

By Donald Macintyre in Gaza

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Hamas has told Egypt it will enforce a ceasefire by militant factions in Gaza aimed at halting bloodshed which started with the killing of eight Israelis by gunmen last week.

The truce was finalised yesterday in Gaza after the Popular Resistance Committees, the faction blamed by Israel for last Thursday's lethal attack near the Red Sea resort of Eilat, finally agreed to what it called a "temporary" ceasefire.

Although Hamas was thought, along with Israel, to be anxious not to let the cycle of Israeli air strikes and Palestinian rocket attacks to spiral out of control, the agreement in Gaza appeared to be a success for Egyptian diplomacy, backed by the UN.

Around 15 rockets and mortars were fired by Gaza militants overnight, causing no injuries. Israel responded with an air strike which targeted a rocket launcher.

At least 15 Palestinians have been killed in the air strikes, mainly militants, but also including a doctor, and three children under the age of 14.

A 38-year old Israeli man was killed in a rocket attack on Beersheeva on Saturday night. The PRC claimed responsibility for the attack.

Israel has made clear that it has not made an agreement with the Palestinian factions but that it will respond in kind provided the rocket attacks stop. Israel's President Shimon Peres said while on a tour of the southern Israeli communities that are most affected by rocket attacks: "If they will cease fire, there will be a cease-fire."

However, an Israeli official warned that the military would reserve the right to attack those attempting to fire rockets, whether before or after the rockets had actually been fired, and to fire on those Palestinians who approach too close to the border fence with Israel.

The official declined to confirm that Israel had helped to pave the way for the factions' agreement to a ceasefire by making clear in advance to the Egyptians that it would respond positively if one was called. But an Israeli delegation was in Cairo on Sunday while its terms were being drawn up.

Israel has been anxious to maximise co-operation with the post-Mubarak authorities after a diplomatic row blew up at the weekend.

Egypt threatened to withdraw its ambassador from Tel Aviv over complaints that three of its security personnel had been killed by Israeli troops firing on gunmen as they retreated across the border after Thursday's attack along Route 12, which is 20km from Eilat.

In a rare statement issued during the Sabbath, Defence Minister Ehud Barak expressed Israel's "regret" for the deaths of the three security men and promised a joint investigation to be carried out by both the Israeli and Egyptian military authorities.

The air strikes on Gaza started within hours of Thursday's attack.

One of the strikes – believed to be by a drone – killed five prominent PRC members in the yard of a house in the southern town of Rafah. But the strike also killed the two-year-old son of one of the PRC members.

Meanwhile, the Israel Defence Force has not yet released any names of the seven gunmen that it says it hit. But it says that it killed at least four gunmen in the fierce exchanges of gunfire which followed on from Thursday's well-executed attack.

Israeli officials say they knew that the attack was the work of the PRC because of prior intelligence that the organisation planned an attack in the area – intelligence some Israeli critics have argued should have enabled security forces to prevent the attack. While the information was detailed this did not extend to the timing of the attack, an unexpectedly bold raid conducted in daylight.

Meanwhile a senior Israeli military officer, Colonel Zvika Haimovitch, acknowledged yesterday that the new "Iron Dome" rocket defence system did not offer full protection against all the salvos that had been fired from Gaza over the last few days.

It shot down four out of five Grad rockets fired by the PRC at Beersheeva, for example, but the fifth rocket killed an Israeli civilian. The man had left his car as the attack was underway.

*Url:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/hamas-pledges-gaza-ceasefire-to-end-five-days-of-bloodshed-2342169.html

Gaddafi defeat 'a matter of time'

2011-08-25T19:33:00.000-07:00

Gaddafi defeat 'a matter of time'*

Tuesday, 23 August 2011

Libyan ruler Colonel Muammar Gaddafi's forces are cornered and his defeat is "only a matter of time", Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said today.

After chairing a meeting of the National Security Council, Mr Clegg insisted the reappearance in Tripoli of the dictator's son Saif Al-Islam was "not the sign of some great comeback for the Gaddafi regime".

But he acknowledged there would be "frustrations and setbacks" before the regime fell.

Mr Clegg said: "Our assessment is that Free Libya forces now control much, but not all, of Tripoli.

"Yes, there will be frustrations and setbacks but the remaining remnants of the Gaddafi regime are now cornered. It's only a matter of time before they are finally defeated and Libya is completely free."

Mr Clegg played down the significance of Gaddafi's son Saif turning up at Tripoli's Hotel Rixos, where a number of foreign journalists are staying.

"He is not roaming freely through Tripoli. He and the remaining pro-Gaddafi forces are now cornered, they are making their last stand, and it's only a matter of time before they are finally defeated. About that we are very confident indeed."

Colonel Gaddafi's whereabouts is still unknown, while Saif's elder brother Mohammed is also missing after reportedly breaking free from house arrest last night.

Mr Clegg's comments came as television images showed a jubilant and free Saif, regarded as his father's immediate successor, meeting supporters outside the loyalist-held Hotel Rixos before claiming that forces loyal to his father had "broken the backbone" of the rebel offensive.

He also indicated that Gaddafi remained in the violence-torn capital, stating that the weakening regime remained in control.

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell blamed confusion over Saif's apparent arrest on the "fog of warfare" but acknowledged there would be a "bumpy ride" over the coming days.

"There was a lot of confusion, there are quite long lines of communication involved," he told the BBC Radio 4's Today programme.

"It's inevitable in this situation, with the warfare going on as it is, that there will be some confusion."

On BBC1's Breakfast he added: "This will be a bumpy ride, as the Prime Minister made clear in his statement yesterday.

"But if you look at the events over the past week or so it is clear that the Free Libya forces are doing well and now occupy very large parts of Libya."

Prime Minister David Cameron, who resumed his family holiday in Cornwall today, and US President Barack Obama discussed the rapidly unfolding situation during a telephone conversation last night in which they called on Gaddafi to "relinquish power once and for all" and discussed plans for a "peaceful transition to democracy".

Forces loyal to Gaddafi continue to fight fierce battles with rebels surging into Tripoli from all sides and taking control of large areas of the city.

There were significant casualties after clashes around the dictator's heavily fortified compound.

The head of the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC), Mustafa Abdel Jalil, warned that victory was not yet complete.

But he added: "The youth of Libya have written an epic heroic battle."

Nato spokesman Colonel Roland Lavoie told Today the alliance was not in "direct contact" with the rebels and had no plans to send in ground troops.

But he said the no-fly zone authorised by United Nations Security Resolution 1973 would continue to be enforced by Nato jets.

"We have enough to be busy with the current situation," said Col Lavoie. "This mission is not finished yet."

* Url:http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/africa/gaddafi-defeat-a-matter-of-time-2342368.html

Libya: secret role played by Britain creating path to the fall of Tripoli

2011-08-25T19:30:00.000-07:00

Libya: secret role played by Britain creating path to the fall of Tripoli*

Gordon Rayner, Thomas Harding and Duncan Gardham,

The Telegraph,

London, 22 August 2011

The key role played by Britain in equipping and advising Libya’s rebel fighters for their final push on Tripoli was becoming clear last night as Col Muammar Gaddafi’s remaining forces staged a last stand around his bunker.

For weeks, military and intelligence officers have been helping the rebels plan their co-ordinated attack on the capital, and Whitehall sources have disclosed that the RAF stepped up raids on Tripoli on Saturday morning in a pre-arranged plan to pave the way for the rebel advance.

MI6 officers based in the rebel stronghold of Benghazi had honed battle plans drawn up by Libya’s Transitional National Council (TNC) which were agreed 10 weeks ago.

The constantly-updated tactical advice provided by British experts to the rebel leaders centred on the need to spark a fresh uprising within Tripoli that could be used as the cue for fighters to advance on the city.

But when it finally came, the speed with which it achieved its goal took everyone, including the rebels, by surprise.

The Daily Telegraph has learnt that although the uprising in Tripoli began on Saturday night, the first phase of the battle for the capital had begun hours earlier, when RAF Tornado GR4 aircraft attacked a key communications facility in south-west Tripoli as part of the agreed battle plan.

On Saturday morning five precision-guided Paveway IV bombs were dropped on the Baroni Centre, a secret intelligence base headed by Gaddafi’s brother-in-law Abdullah Senussi.

The aircraft then struck at least one main battle tank belonging to Gaddafi’s troops, and in the afternoon another RAF patrol destroyed an artillery piece on the western edge of Tripoli and a nearby command and control facility.

On the ground, the rebels had spent weeks smuggling weapons, communications equipment and battle-hardened fighters into Tripoli, setting up secret arms dumps around the capital and waiting for a pre-arranged signal to trigger the uprising.

Mahmoud Shammam, a spokesman for the TNC, told the Daily Telegraph that the agreed signal was a televised speech by the TNC chairman, Mustafa Abd-al-Jalil, which was broadcast via the Qatar-based Libya TV on Saturday evening.

Mr Jalil told the citizens of Tripoli “you have to rise to the event”, and as dusk fell at around 8pm local time a group of rebels seized their chance and took control of the Ben Nabi Mosque close to the city centre.

Using loudspeakers which normally call people to prayer, they began anti-Gaddafi chants to confirm the start of what rebel leaders called Operation Mermaid Dawn – the battle for Tripoli, which is nicknamed Mermaid in Arabic.

Mr Shammam said: “The start of the uprising was pre-arranged. We used our TV station for Mr Jalil to give a speech calling for the uprising and soon most of the people of Tripoli were on the streets.”

The timing of the uprising caught Gaddafi completely by surprise; the rebels had spent that day flushing out that last of his forces from Zawiyah, 30 miles west of Tripoli, and the Brother Leader had clearly expected them to regroup, reorganise and re-arm - as they had done in the past after each major battle - before making an attempt on Tripoli.

Instead, the rebels who had been fighting in Zawiyah were making a dash for the capital, and in the skies overhead RAF Tornados and Typhoons were launching further surgical strikes on pre-planned targets.

The RAF and its alliance partners carried out 46 sorties on Sunday alone, relying heavily on the RAF’s Brimstone ground attack missile system that can pick out targets close to civilian areas with incredible accuracy, minimising the risk of civilian casualties.

Gaddafi’s bunker at Bab al-Aziziya was pounded throughout the night, and the Tornados’ advanced electronics also enabled aircraft already in the sky to hit Gaddafi targets as they were identified, using a system known as dynamic targeting.

Gaddafi’s command and control centres, set up in industrial buildings or even empty schools, were also attacked, crippling the Libyan despot’s ability to direct his troops.

On the ground, meanwhile, the rebels sent out mass text messages to regime opponents waiting in Tripoli for a signal to rise up, and as Gaddafi’s forces tried in vain to suppress the revolt it spread out across 13 suburbs.

By Sunday afternoon the rebels who had been fighting in Zawiyah were just miles away from the outskirts of Tripoli.

William Hague, the Foreign Secretary, confirmed yesterday that Britain had equipped the fighters with a range of “non-lethal” kit including advanced telecommunications equipment and 1,000 sets of body armour.

They had also been given night vision goggles, which proved crucial in picking out snipers who had been sent by Gaddafi to impede their progress towards the capital.

The battle plan also included a sea-borne assault on Tripoli launched from the port of Misrata to the east, which landed at dawn on Sunday.

Gaddafi took to the airwaves to make a series of increasingly desperate appeals for Libyans to defend Tripoli from the rebels as “a matter of life and death” but the crackling recordings of his voice – and a lack of any video footage – led to speculation that he had either fled the country or had gone into hiding in a 2,000-mile network of tunnels built in the 1980s.

His soldiers, sensing the battle was lost, had begun dumping their uniforms wherever they stood, and by midnight on Sunday the rebels had reached Green Square, the symbolic heart of Tripoli, with little resistance.

The speed of the rebel advance was such that Gaddafi’s intended heir, his son Saif al-Islam, had no time to reach his father’s compound, and was captured by rebels on Saturday night.

His brother, Mohammed, was giving a telephone interview to a broadcaster when a gunfight broke out inside his home. The line went dead and seconds later he too was captured.

Mr Shammam said: “The plan was very successful. Our assumption was that it would take a few days but the results were clear in a few hours.

“We were expecting more resistance from Gaddafi’s troops. We thought they were determined to fight to the last moment but it seems like they got tired or lost the cause.”

David Cameron, who was on a family holiday in Cornwall, also seemed to have been caught out by the rapid turn of events.

Although he had been kept up to date with the rebels’ plans, no-one had expected Tripoli to fall so quickly, and the Prime Minister scrambled to get back to Downing Street to chair a meeting of the National Security Council yesterday.

Speaking outside Number 10, he paid tribute to the “incredible bravery, professionalism and dedication” of the RAF pilots, adding: “This has not been our revolution, but we can be proud that we have played our part.”

As the fighting continued in Tripoli last night, the rebels had gained control of around 90 per cent of the city, with the bloodiest battle raging around Gaddafi’s compound at Bab al-Aziziya.

Another of Gaddafi’s sons, Khamis, was reported to have led his eponymous Khamis Brigade into battle from the compound, killing what one official described as “a big number” of rebels.

Tanks rolled out of the compound to begin shelling the city, and snipers fired from rooftops to prevent rebels joining the battle at Bab al-Aziziya.

Loyalist tanks were also deployed at the port, but the rebels continued to press on, and scored further victories.

By mid-afternoon yesterday they had reportedly captured a third son of Gaddafi, Saadi, and at 4pm Libya’s state broadcaster went off the air, removing one of the despot’s final and most important tools in his ability to maintain any form of resistance.

Across Tripoli, its citizens tore down every green flag of the Gaddafi regime they could find, chanting “freedom” in English. By last night, Green Square had been renamed Martyrs’ Square as 42 years of tyranny finally came to an end.

“We came out today to feel a bit of freedom,” said Ashraf Halaby, 30, as he joined the celebrations in the square. “We still don't believe that this is happening.”

* Url:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/africaandindianocean/libya/8716758/Libya-secret-role-played-by-Britain-creating-path-to-the-fall-of-Tripoli.html

Gadaffi son rallies loyalists

2011-08-25T19:25:00.000-07:00

Gadaffi son rallies loyalists*

Tuesday, 23rd August, 2011

Free: Gaddafi's son Saif al-Islam raises his hands to supporters in Tripoli. Reuters

A son of Muammar Gadaffi who rebels said they had captured made a surprise appearance with jubilant supporters in Tripoli overnight and issued a rallying cry to loyalists to fight off opponents who say they control most of the Libyan capital.

Saif al-Islam, who has been seen as his father's heir apparent, visited the Tripoli hotel where foreign journalists are staying to declare that the government was winning the battle against the rebels.

He took journalists to his father's Bab al-Aziziyah stronghold. Television footage showed Saif smiling, waving and shaking hands with supporters, as well as holding his arms aloft and making the V for victory sign.

"We broke the back of the rebels. It was a trap. We gave them a hard time, so we are winning," Saif said.

"Take up arms today, take up arms today," Saif told loyalists waiting to be given weapons. "Inshallah (God willing) we will attack the rats today," he said to cheers.

Saif's arrest had been reported both by rebels and the International Criminal Court in The Hague and his appearance before the foreign media raised questions as to the rebels' credibility.

He said Tripoli was under government control and that he did not care about the arrest warrant issued by the International Criminal Court seeking him and his father for crimes against humanity.

Gadaffi himself has not been seen in public for several weeks before the rebels arrived in the capital at the weekend. But when asked if his father was safe and well in Tripoli, Saif told journalists: "Of course."

World leaders urged Gadaffi, 69, to surrender to prevent more bloodshed and appealed for an orderly transition of power, as the six-month-old battle for control of the oil-producing North African nation appeared to enter its final stages.

* Url:http://www.newvision.co.ug/D/8/12/763360

CIA Asset: We Have Just Handed Libya Back to Islamic Radicals

2011-08-25T19:21:00.000-07:00

CIA Asset: We Have Just Handed Libya Back to Islamic Radicals

NATO SLAUGHTER IN TRIPOLI: "Operation Mermaid Dawn" Signals Assault by Rebels' Al Qaeda Death Squads

2011-08-25T19:18:00.000-07:00

NATO SLAUGHTER IN TRIPOLI:

"Operation Mermaid Dawn" Signals Assault by Rebels' Al Qaeda Death Squads*

By Thierry Meyssan

Voltaire Network

Monday, Aug 22, 2011

Tripoli, Libya, Aug. 22, 2011, – On Saturday evening, at 8pm, when the hour of Iftar marked the breaking of the Ramadan fast, the NATO command launched its “Operation Mermaid Dawn” against Libya.

The Sirens were the loudspeakers of the mosques, which were used to launch Al Qaeda’s call to revolt against the Qaddafi government. Immediately the sleeper cells of the Benghazi rebels went into action. These were small groups with great mobility, which carried out multiple attacks. The overnight fighting caused 350 deaths and 3,000 wounded.

The situation calmed somewhat on Sunday during the course of the day.

Then, a NATO warship sailed up and anchored just off the shore at Tripoli, delivering heavy weapons and debarking Al Qaeda jihadi forces, which were led by NATO officers.

Fighting stared again during the night. There were intense firefights. NATO drones and aircraft kept bombing in all directions. NATO helicopters strafed civilians in the streets with machine guns to open the way for the jihadis.

In the evening, a motorcade of official cars carrying top government figures came under attack. The convoy fled to the Hotel Rixos, where the foreign press is based. NATO did not dare to bomb the hotel because they wanted to avoid killing the journalists. Nevertheless the hotel, which is where I am staying, is now under heavy fire.

At 11:30pm, the Health Minister had to announce that the hospitals were full to overflowing. On Sunday evening, there had been 1300 additional dead and 5,000 wounded.

NATO had been charged by the UN Security Council with protecting civilians in Libya. In reality, France and Great Britain have just re-started their colonial massacres.

At 1am, Khamis Qaddafi came to the Rixos Hotel personally to deliver weapons for the defense of the hotel. He then left. There is now heavy fighting all around the hotel.

*Url:http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_63610.shtml

Obligations Under Signed Agreements Must Be Complied With -NDF

2011-08-23T00:44:00.000-07:00

Obligations Under Signed Agreements Must Be Complied With*

Fidel V. Agcaoili
NDFP Negotiating Panel
22 August 2011

Atty. Alexander Padilla, Chairperson of the Negotiating Panel of the Government of the Philippines (GPH), is foolish in hurling false and vicious accusations against the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP).

The Joint Statements signed in January and February 2011 in Oslo, Norway, between the GPH and the NDFP, clearly stipulate that the GPH shall release most or all of the 17 NDFP personnel protected under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), before the second round of formal talks in June 2011. It is now August 2011 and there are still 13 JASIG-protected individuals in prison.

The GPH is under obligation to comply with signed agreements, if it expects the NDFP to enter into an agreement on social and economic reforms. The GPH must have palabra de honor and release most or all of the JASIG-protected individuals before the rescheduled second round of talks in September which it has itself proposed to the Royal Norwegian Government (RNG) in a letter dated 15 July 2011. There is a Tagalog saying that concretely applies to the present situation: ang balasubas ay kailanma'y di mapagkakatiwalaan (one who reneges on agreements can never be trusted).

In shooting down the NDFP offer of truce and alliance, Atty. Padilla has also foolishly misinterpreted the offer given that is based on the Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace. It is obvious that Atty. Padilla is hellbent on scuttling the peace negotiations, both its regular and special tracks.

For the information of Atty. Padilla, the regional authorities of the revolutionary movement have the right to hold Lingig Mayor Henry Dano for investigation for actively participating in military operations against the people. Mayor Dano shall be dealt with in accordance with the laws of the people's democratic government.

Atty. Padilla should stop accusing the NDFP of what the GPH is precisely doing – holding hostage the JASIG-protected individuals to extract concessions from the NDFP or set preconditions for the second round of talks. He should instead recognize the clear obligations of the GPH under signed agreements. But thanks to his foolish talk, the NDFP is now duly forewarned of the malicious intention of the GPH in the peace negotiations.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/obligations-under-signed-agreements.html

GPH is accountable for putting to risk the safety of NPA captives by launching full-scale military offensives -NDF

2011-08-23T00:43:00.000-07:00

GPH is accountable for putting to risk the safety of NPA captives

by launching full-scale military offensives*

Rubi del Mundo
NDFP-Southern Mindanao
21 August 2011

Not only is Alex Padilla lost in a daydream, he also wants to obfuscate the revolutionary movement’s record of handling prisoners of war and those accused and held under its own legal and judicial system. In the process, he is endangering the lives of the GPH members because of military offensives in the region.

This was the contention of Rubi del Mundo, spokesperson for the National Democratic Front-Southern Mindanao, in reaction to the recent pronouncement of the GPH peace panel chief who called it a “blackmail” and “bad precedence” to negotiate for the release of the four PNP/BJMP personnel prisoners of war and arrested GPH Mayor Henry Dano and two military intelligence escorts.

“The GPH is engaged in treachery, where on one hand, it is on a murderous rampage, with its AFP scouring the countryside in various acts of reprisal and offensive military operations, using as dubious pretext the so-called rescue operation for the NPA captives, while on the other hand, it is foisting the issue as blackmail in the non-resumption of the peace negotiations with the NDFP,” del Mundo said.

The 75th, 28th, 67th, 66th Infantry Battalions and the 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion of the Philippine Army and PNP contingents are using “rescue operations” for GPH Mayor Dano and two escorts to cover up its fascist offensives against the peasant communities in the towns of Lingig, Boston, Monkayo, Cateel, Bagangga, Trento and Mangagoy. In the towns of Kitaotao, Kibawe, Arakan, Magpet and Makilala, the 8th, 57th and 61st Infantry Battalions are also engaged in offensive actions in search of the PNP/BJMP POWs.

Del Mundo scoffed at the AFP and the US-Aquino regime “for mercilessly endangering the lives of the prisoners of war and the three arrested while maliciously demanding for the unconditional release of the latter.”

“The GPH is accountable for putting to risk the safety and security of the NPA captives by ordering the full-scale military offensives, by refusing to acknowledge the Geneva Conventions-mandated protective status of the four PNP/BJMP personnel, and by ignoring the status of GPH Mayor Dano who enjoys his rights while under custodial investigation.”

The revolutionary movement has a long history of dealing with prisoners of war and those accused who were arrested for various crimes, a track record which “Mr. Padilla wants to gloss over in a veiled attempt to belittle the achievements of the people’s democratic government in upholding international humanitarian law and its own legal and judicial process,” del Mundo said.

Contrary to a news report stating otherwise, GPH Mayor Dano was able to call his wife on the evening of August 15. In respecting his legal rights as an accused, the NPA custodial force facilitated the communication between the couple, since GPH Mayor Dano was concerned that his wife -- who has a heart ailment -- would be unduly worried over his situation.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/gph-is-accountable-for-putting-to-risk.html

NPA hits PA-AFP troops on combat-cum-rescue mission in North Cot; army sergeant, 3 others killed

2011-08-23T00:41:00.001-07:00

NPA hits PA-AFP troops on combat-cum-rescue mission in North Cot;

army sergeant, 3 others killed*

Ricardo Fermiza
Magtanggol Roque Command,
Guerilla Front 51 Operations Command,
NPA-Southern Mindanao
20 August 2011

The NPA's Magtanggol Roque Command-Guerilla Front 51 Operations Command in Southern Mindanao ambushed a platoon of enemy troops under the 57th Infantry Battalion-Philippine Army-AFP, killing four of the troops including an Army sergeant last August 16, 11:00 AM in Sitio Malumpine, Barangay Old Balatukan in Makilala town, North Cotabato. No casualties were reported on the side of the Red fighters.

The enemy troops were conducting combat operations related to the four BJMP/PNP prisoners of war when hit by the Red fighters. These operations went full-scale since the taking of the four POWs last July 21 at the Davao-Bukidnon national highway. Despite the assurance of the NPA custodial unit, the Herminio Alfonso Command-Guerilla Front 53 Operations Command, that the rights of the four prisoners of war (POWs) were fully respected; and their safety and welfare fully ensured, the AFP continues to endanger their lives with these combat operations in the boundaries of Davao, Bukidnon and North Cotabato.

Again, the GPH-AFP must understand that military and police offensive operations in the guerilla areas will only put the lives of the POWs in peril and will be met with tactical offensives by the NPA.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/npa-hits-pa-afp-troops-on-combat-cum.html

GPH negotiating panel chairperson Padilla gives notice of no formal talks next month -NDF

2011-08-23T00:41:00.000-07:00

GPH negotiating panel chairperson Padilla gives notice

of no formal talks next month*

Fidel Agcaoili
Spokesperson,
NDFP Negotiating Panel
20 August 2011

As spokesperson of the Negotiating Panel of the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP), I am obliged to answer the press statements of Alex Padilla of the Negotiating Panel of the Government of the Philippines(GDP) which reveal publicly the contents of his letter to the NDFP Negotiating Panel Chairperson Luis Jalandoni dated 19 August 2011. In due time, the latter shall send his reply.

In said letter, Padilla gives notice to Jalandoni that there will be no formal talks of the panels in Oslo next month and indefinitely until the reciprocal working committees on CASER shall have completed the common tentative agreement on social and economic reforms. He also declares that before then, there shall be no formal talks between the panels about issues involving the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG), including the reconstruction of the list of DI holders under JASIG.

He insists that the GPH has no obligation under JASIG or under the Oslo Joint Statements of 2011 to release most or all of the JASIG-protected persons before what should have been the second round of formal talks last June or next September and no NDFP personnel shall enjoy the protection of JASIG until formal talks are made possible by the completion of the common tentative agreement on social and economic forms.

The GPH position expressed in writing by Padilla brazenly violates the JASIG and the entire peace process and alerts the NDFP that the GPH is already scuttling the peace negotiations. We also take notice that Padilla has scorned the NDFP offer of alliance and truce and is shooting it down in a press statement today.

Now, we fully understand why Padilla has been issuing press releases every day like an extremely irresponsible and provocative psywar agent of the reactionary armed forces and not as a negotiator with some amount of dignity and political sense.

We thank him for unwittingly justifying the determination of the armed revolutionary movement to defend the people against worsening exploitation and oppression and the escalating campaigns of military suppression, which are propagandized by the US-directed Aquino regime as peace and development operations.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/gph-negotiating-panel-chairperson.html

Punish the perpetrators of the Plaza Miranda Bombing of 1971 and other fascist crimes -CPP (NDF)

2011-08-23T00:37:00.000-07:00

Punish the perpetrators of the Plaza Miranda Bombing of 1971

and other fascist crimes*

Communist Party of the Philippines
August 20, 2011

The Communist Party of the Philippines (CPP) joins the Filipino people in commemorating the Plaza Miranda Bombing of August 21, 1971. The dastardly bombing of the Liberal Party miting de avance was carried out by criminal henchmen of the US-Marcos dictatorship. Blaming the political opposition and the armed revolutionary movement for the bombing, Marcos ordered the suspension of the writ of habeas corpus and declared martial law a year later.

For fifteen years after the Plaza Miranda Bombing, Marcos propped himself up as a military dictator, whipped up anti-communist hysteria, suppressed the people's mass movement, imprisoned mass activists as well as the political opposition and unleashed counterrevolutionary violence in the countryside in order to monopolize political power and enrich himself and his cronies. For fifteen years, Marcos was supported by the US imperialists by encouraging American investments, extending loans, supplying arms to the fascist military and providing counterinsurgency training and advise.

During the entire period of martial law, Marcos and his military henchmen surpassed the Plaza Miranda bombing with one fascist crime after another. Under martial law, tens of thousands of people were illegally arrested, tortured, summarily killed, abducted and forcibly disappeared. These fascist crimes were carried out by the AFP with utter impunity.

Forty years after the bombing of Plaza Miranda, none of the criminal perpetrators has been charged and punished. None of the past reactionary regimes after Marcos succeeded in having him face criminal responsibility for the Plaza Miranda bombing or any of the fascist crimes perpetrated during his rule. The failure of the past regimes to punish the perpetrators of the Plaza Miranda bombing and other fascist crimes reflects the state of justice of the ruling political system.

The ruling classes are lenient to their own kind. Like Marcos, past presidents and key officials charged with high crimes have never been put to justice, resulting in the perpetuation of the rotten and fascist ruling system. In particular, not a single officer of the AFP has been put to justice for the innumerable crimes perpetrated under martial law and under the past US-designed campaigns of suppression carried out since 1986. As a result, the military and other armed agents of the state continue to trample on human rights and carry out fascist crimes against the people without letup.

Forty years after the Plaza Miranda Bombing, the CPP joins the Filipino people in declaring: We will not forget! As long as the fascist criminals and plunderers continue to prevail, the aspiration for justice will continue to fire the Filipino people and drive them to wage revolution.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/punish-perpetrators-of-plaza-miranda.html

The GPH is responsible for prolonging the peace negotiations through long interruptions and violations of agreements

2011-08-23T00:36:00.000-07:00

The GPH is responsible for prolonging the peace negotiations through long interruptions and violations of agreements*

Fidel V. Agcaoili
NDFP Negotiating Panel
19 August 2011

Atty. Alexander Padilla, Chairperson of the Negotiating Panel of the Government of the Philippines (GPH, formerly designated as the GRP), has the penchant for blaming the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP) of among others prolonging the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations supposedly for 25 years since 1986.

What are the facts as reflected in the time line study of the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations?

There were no peace negotiations during the Cory Aquino regime. There were merely ceasefire negotiations which resulted in a short-lived Ceasefire Agreement. The negotiating panels of both sides were still trying to hammer out an agenda for peace negotiations when the massacre of peasants calling for genuine land reform occurred on 22 January 1987 and the ceasefire broke down. The massacre was followed by the “unsheathing of the sword of war” by Mrs. Aquino in March 1987.

It took more than five (5) years and six (6) months after March 1987 before The Hague Joint Declaration (THJD) was signed on 1 September 1992. This should have led to further preparations for the opening of the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations but Ramos in self-contradiction created the National Unification Commission to prevent such preparations.

It was only in 1994 when the GPH formed its negotiating panel to engage its NDFP counterpart in further preliminary talks and forge, among others, the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) and the Joint Agreement on the Formation, Sequence and Operationalization of the Reciprocal Working Committees (RWCs).

These agreements, together with The Hague Joint Declaration, paved the way for the opening of the formal peace negotiations on 26 June 1995 in Brussels, Belgium upon the facilitation of the Belgian Government. Strictly speaking, the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations started sixteen years ago, not 25 years ago.

From 1 September 1992 (signing of THJD) to 15 February 2011 (opening of the formal talks under the Benigno Aquino III regime), there were only 34 interface meetings in formal and informal talks between the GPH and NDFP negotiating panels which involved a total of 128 days. There were also the normal recesses in between rounds of formal talks which totaled around eleven months.

On the other hand, there have been 12 interruptions, all of which were at the instance of the GPH except for one by the NDFP. This was in August 2004 when the NDFP postponed the formal talks scheduled on that month to give time for the GPH to comply with its obligations under THJD, the JASIG, the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and the 2004 First and Second Oslo Joint Statements.

Among the major interruptions initiated by the GPH from 1992 to 2011 were:

1. The nearly two (2) years of interruption (1 September 1992 till June 1994) imposed by the Ramos regime after the formation of the National Unification Commission (NUC) on 16 September 1992.

2. After the appointment of Howard Dee as the GPH negotiating panel chairperson, he caused further interruptions by unilaterally making declarations of suspension, indefinite recess and collapse which totaled almost two (2) years, including a one year suspension (June 1995 to June 1996) because Gen. Renato de Villa refused to release Sotero Llamas, a Document of Identification (DI) holder under the JASIG.

3. The more than two (2) years of interruption instigated by the Joseph Estrada regime when it suspended the peace negotiations on 24 February 1999 and officially terminated these on 31 May 1999 and declared all-out-war against the revolutionary movement (the termination ended in March 2001).

4. A total of more than eight (8) years of suspension (from September 2001 to September 2003 and from December 2004 to December 2010) by the Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo regime when it tried to defeat and/or render irrelevant the revolutionary movement by carrying out military suppression campaigns in the countryside and urban areas, accompanied by widespread and systematic violations of human rights against residents of communities and members of legal democratic organizations, through Oplan Bantay Laya I and II.

These four major interruptions come to a total of 14 years (excluding the five years and six months during the Cory Aquino regime). Together with other GPH interruptions, more than 21 years were wasted by the GPH since 1987 in attempting to resolve the armed conflict in the country militarily and to impose its will on the NDFP across the negotiating table.

The GPH should comply with all signed agreements in the GPH-NDFP peace negotiations instead of raising irrelevant issues to avoid obligations under, or worse, negate these agreements. Only for the second time in June 2011 did the NDFP call for the postponement of formal talks between the negotiating panels because the GPH failed to fulfill its obligation to release all or most of the 17 JASIG-protected individuals before said month. The recurrent problem is that the GPH does not fulfill its obligation and comply with agreements.

The NDFP has no interest in prolonging the peace negotiations. It recognizes the military superiority of the GPH in terms of personnel and resources and the harm that such power has been wreaking on the people in the countryside and urban areas. But the Filipino people must continue to defend themselves against the violence of the reactionary state, hold their destiny in their own hands, and fight for an independent, democratic, just, progressive and prosperous Philippines.

The GPH must exercise strong political will in addressing the roots of the armed conflict. It must agree to carry out basic social, economic and political reforms in the country. The GPH must exhibit patriotism, if it has any, and must respect the national and democratic rights and interests of the Filipino people, especially in these times of grave crisis which goads the people to resist. It should formally reply to the proposal of the NDFP for a round of formal talks in Oslo in September 2011 and to the offer of truce and alliance on the basis of the ten-point Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/gph-is-responsible-for-prolonging-peace.html

Resist US imperialist push for charter change! -CPP (NDF)

2011-08-23T00:35:00.000-07:00

Resist US imperialist push for charter change!*

Information Bureau
Communist Party of the Philippines
August 18, 2011

US imperialism is now vigorously pushing the local ruling reactionary classes to subject the 1987 Philippine constitution to amendments. Working with key economic and financial officials of the Aquino regime, US Ambassador Harry Thomas is now openly campaigning for charter change, completely disregarding Philippine sovereignty and in outright violation of the principle of non-interference between sovereign states.

The US imperialist ambassador has publicly espoused the position of the US government to amend the 1987 constitution to remove provisions prohibiting foreign entities from holding majority stakes in companies operating in the Philippines. He has also publicly expressed exhilaration over the fact that key officials of the Aquino government—including the Supreme Court Chief Justice, the House Speaker and Senate President—have already declared their openness to changing the economic provisions of the Philippine constitution.

The US government and officials of the Aquino regime are working hand in glove to have the Philippines included in the Trans-Pacific Partnership—a so-called "free trade" bloc that aims to eliminate tariffs by 2015 among participating countries which include Australia, Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Peru, Singapore, Vietnam and the US. The US ambassador has outrightly declared that for the Philippines to join the TPP, the Aquino regime must amend the Philippine constitution.

The Filipino people must exert all effort to resist the US-instigated campaign for charter change ("cha-cha"). The amendments being pushed by the US aim to further diminish Philippine economic sovereignty which has already been significantly weakened in the past twenty-five years by the liberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization policies of successive puppet regimes. The amendments being pushed by the US will complete the economic recolonization of the Philippines and lead to ever deeper crisis.

In reality, though, the provisions of the 1987 constitution which are supposed to protect economic sovereignty have never really stopped the imperialists from ravishing the Philippines’ national patrimony. Since the late 1980s, a number of economic laws have been enacted in compliance with policies imposed by the International Monetary Fund which sought, among others, to further open up the economy to the operations of foreign monopoly capitalists. In line with these policies, numerous laws have been passed which have made a mockery of the Philippine constitution.

Right after the 1987 constitution was enacted, the Corazon Aquino regime pushed for the passage of the Omnibus Investments Code which exempted foreign entities from the 60% rule in operating local enterprises in so-called pioneer projects and priority areas of investment. Investment laws for foreign capitalists were further liberalized by the Foreign Investments Act of 1991. Through one amendment after another, these laws further relaxed regulations and provided incentives to foreign capitalist investors.

In subsequent years, more laws were passed favoring foreign capitalists. In 1995, the Special Economic Zone Act was passed. This was followed by related laws creating the special economic zones in Cagayan, Zamboanga City and in the Calabarzon area where foreign investors were given full freedom to operate. In 1994, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) was ratified under which the all-out liberalization of trade and investment laws was further carried out. Further laws were enacted that liberalized foreign investments, among them the Bank Liberalization Law of 1994, the Build-Operate-Transfer Law of 1994, the Mining Act of 1995, the Oil Deregulation Law of 1997 and the Investment House Liberalization of 1997.

To create an environment "attractive" to foreign investors, laws were passed which further suppressed Filipino workers and pulled down the cost of Filipino labor. In 1989, the Wage Regionalization Act was enacted to counter demands for wage increases and abolish national minimum wage standards. In the same year, the Herrera Law was enacted which amended the Labor Law, allowed labor contractualization and imposed additional restrictions on the right to strike. This law was taken advantage of by capitalists to further push down wages and prevent workers from establishing labor unions. For more than twenty years, workers’ wages have been virtually at a standstill, falling way behind the rapid rise in the cost of living and condemning Filipino workers to ever worsening social conditions. Since then, the number of unions and unionized workers in the Philippines has dropped by more than 80%.

Successive IMF-approved Medium Term Philippine Development Plans (MTPDPs) were implemented by the Aquino, Ramos, Estrada and Arroyo regimes. All these were marked by efforts to bring in foreign investors to do business in the Philippines and fully exploit cheap labor power of Filipino workers. Foreign capital was invested in privatized and deregulated industries such as power generation, water and electricity distribution utilities, road infrastructure, transportation and in business process outsourcing to take advantage of the deregulated regime and generate assured profits for big foreign monopoly capitalists.

None of the past four foreign-investment oriented six-year programs was able to address the need to develop the local economy. There has been a continuous decline in manufacturing, which is generally considered as the engine of an economy that creates value. The number of manufacturing firms has fallen from 7,500 in 1999 to just 4,600 in 2008 with a concomitant drop in employment from 1.1 million to 860,000 or a decline of 4% percent in its share in total employment. Manufacturing contributes only around 23% of the total gross domestic product—the same level it was more than 50 years ago.

For several decades now, "attracting foreign investments" has been the key element in the economic programs designed by IMF-trained technocrats of all past puppet regimes. However, for sixty five years under the neocolonial republic, the Philippine economy has been in a constant state of crisis, unable to achieve self-reliance and always dependent on the foreign loans and capital infusion. The wealth being created by the Filipino peasantry and working class is constantly being siphoned out by big foreign capitalists and consumed by the parasitic local ruling classes.

Unemployment, landlessness, poverty, hunger, homelessness, disease and other social maladies worsen from one decade to another. As the ruling puppet states constantly serve the interests of big foreign capital, they are increasingly unable to address the people’s economic needs and have constantly shifted the burden of crisis on the working people. While foreign capitalists are provided with tax incentives and tax havens, the broad masses are fleeced with more and more taxes. While foreign capitalists are allowed full freedom to raise prices, workers’ wages are constantly held back. While more and more funds are allocated to partner with foreign big business, public spending on social services experience bigger and bigger budget slashes.

In pushing for amendments to the 1987 constitution, the US imperialists and their local political henchmen aim to do away with all pretensions to economic sovereignty. They seek to break down all barriers and allow foreign big capital to plunder the local economy with impunity.

The US imperialist push to amend the Philippine constitution is closely linked to the desperation of the US government in the face of one of its worst economic recession. By seeking to shatter the economic boundaries of the Philippines and other semicolonies, it aims to open up the Philippines’ remaining economic frontiers for American capitalists to expand their sourcing of raw materials and cheap labor. It seeks to subject the Filipino working class to ever disastrous working terms and conditions. It seeks to further drown the Filipino peasantry in debt and bankruptcy as a result of the unmitigated dumping of foreign agricultural products.

US imperialist spinmeisters are acutely aware of the political dangers of coming all-out for charter change. Under the past three regimes, attempts to push for charter change have been widely opposed by the people as these have been invariably linked to the political ambitions of the ruling clique. In pushing for charter change, the tacticians of the US Embassy in Manila are trying to generate a pro-"chacha" groundswell by gathering the support of key officials of the judiciary and legislature. A number of them, including the chief puppet baton holder Juan Ponce Enrile, have issued statements in favor of amending the 1987 constitution, carefully avoiding the issue of extending the terms of office of government officials.

However, if the US and its puppets decisively push "chacha", they will ultimately have to contend with the Filipino people’s determined resistance to further imperialist domination, oppression and exploitation. In resisting the US-instigated "chacha", the Filipino people sharply oppose the neoliberal framework of imperialist globalization that calls for the complete breakdown of protective national barriers of semicolonial countries while trade and investment walls continue to stand high in imperialist countries.

After almost three decades of worsening conditions resulting from the IMF-imposed policies of liberalization, deregulation, privatization and denationalization, the Filipino people clamor for national sovereignty and demand nationalist policies in the field of economics. They seek an end to foreign economic domination and a radical shift in economic policy that will put the interests of the Filipino people above all.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/information-bureau-communist-party-of.html

Presence of GPH military camps near schools and civilian population are blatant violations of IHL but AFP and CHR sees nothing wrong in militarizing

2011-08-23T00:29:00.002-07:00

Presence of GPH military camps near schools and civilian population are blatant violations of IHL but AFP and CHR sees nothing wrong in militarizing communities*

Anvil Guinto
Crucifino Uballas Command,
NPA-Southern Mindanao
15 August 2011

The New People's Army (NPA) in Compostela Valley province today lambasted the 10th Infantry Division-Philippine Army-Armed Forces of the Philippines and the Commission on Human Rights (CHR)-XI for blaming the NPA for the unintended wounding of a CAFGU’s kin during the August 9, 2011 attack on an army patrol base in Barangay Tagnanan, Mabini while conveniently skirting the fact that the presence of its army camps near schools and civilian population are continuing acts of serious violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

In the recent tactical offensive by the Crucifino Uballas Command of Guerilla Front 2 that resulted in the seizure of seven high-powered rifles, the killing of three GPH combatants and the wounding of two other paramilitary CAFGUs, it was unfortunate that two family members of one of the CAFGU casualties were also hit in the course of the battle. While the CUC-NPA asserts that it only targeted the enemy combatants in a raid of a legitimate military target, it must be pointed out that the close proximity of the 72nd Infantry Battalion detachment to the civilian population is in fact the real culprit. While it was unintentional on the part of the NPA, it is deliberate on the part of the AFP to imperil the lives and properties of the civilian population.

Early last year, the National Democratic Front of the Philippines-Southern Mindanao has informed the public and the media that the 10th ID-PA-AFP is putting the lives of about 300,000 civilians in danger as its detachments and camps were established within civilian communities and close to civilian structures and facilities such as schools, barangay centers, health centers and places for public recreation like gyms and plazas. Apart from army patrol bases usually of the 72nd IB/Cafgus, the operating units of the 10th ID-PA-AFP regularly avail of these civilian structures and facilities as their quarters and as tactical command posts during combat operations by its maneuver battalions and special operations by its special operations teams or SOTs.

To argue that these are part of their “civili-military operations” is an acceptance that the AFP purposely use civilians as their unwitting shields.

It becomes more condemnable when a GPH agency such as the CHR condones this blatant violation of the Geneva Conventions and its Protocols and the GPH-NDFP Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL). When CHR-XI Regional Director Atty. Alberto Sipaco denounces the NPA for the wounding of the two civilians but turns a blind eye on the larger issue of the AFP militarizing the places of abode of the civilian population, we can only say that he is a coddler of an HR/IHL violator. And by failing to criticize this, the CHR is all the more exposed as an apologist for the AFP. Department of Education (DepEd)-XI spokesperson Mr. Jenelito “Dodong” Atillo fare better than him in that the former recently expressed serious concerns over confirmed reports about army camps situated near public schools which endanger the schoolchildren.

Hereunder is a partial list of elementary schools in the towns of Maragusan and Maco in Compostela Valley alone where there are 72nd IB-10th ID detachments in the vicinity. This is merely part of a long lost list which Atty. Sipaco and the CHR see as a non-issue and a perfectly acceptable set up. Definitely, more of the same set up can be seen in numerous army camps in Southern Mindanao and elsewhere.

1. Paloc Elementary School (Maragusan);

2. Tandik Elementary School (Maragusan);

3. Parasanon Elementary School (Maragusan);

4. Cambagang Elementary School (Maragusan);

5. New Leyte Elementary School (Maco); and

6. Sangab Elementary School (Maco).

Also, we provide an initial list of the numerous PA camps in Mabini, Maco and Pantukan located dangerously close to the civilian population. Their continuing existence directly violates Article 12, Part IV of the GRP (now GPH)-NDFP CARHRIHL which provides that "Civilian population shall have the right to be protected against the risks and dangers posed by the presence of military camps in urban centers and other populated areas".

1. 2nd Scout Ranger Battalion camp in Brgy. Pangibiran, Mabini;

2. 71st IB headquarters at the back of the municipal hall in Brgy. Poblacion, Pantukan;

3. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Anitapan, Mabini;

4. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Panamin, Mabini;

5. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Cabuyuan, Mabini;

6. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. New Visayas, Maco;

7. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. New Asturias, Maco;

8. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Libay-libay, Maco;

9. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Kinuban, Maco;

10. 72nd IB patrol base in Brgy. Mapaang, Maco;

11. 72nd IB patrol base in Sitio Palo, Brgy. Napnapan, Pantukan;

12. 72nd IB patrol base in Sitio Bukobuko sa Anay, Brgy Napnapan, Pantukan; and

13. 72nd IB Patrol base in Sitio Gumayan, Brgy. Napnapan, Pantukan.

Dodging the issue would only further expose the 10th ID-PA-AFP and the CHR as state instruments of repression of the people’s rights and interests. All the necessary measures should immediately be undertaken to remove the conditions for such continuing acts of violations by the GPH armed forces. The AFP strategy of militarizing civilian communities must be exposed, denounced and opposed.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/presence-of-gph-military-camps-near.html

Irresponsible talk by GPH does disservice to the Peace Talks

2011-08-23T00:29:00.001-07:00

Irresponsible talk by GPH does disservice to the Peace Talks*

Fidel V. Agcaoili
Spokesperson, Negotiating Panel,
National Democratic Front of the Philippines
16 August 2011

The Government of the Philippines (GPH, formerly designated as the GRP) has really gone berserk in its extremely irresponsible disinformation campaign against the revolutionary movement in connection with the recent arrest of four (4) Prisoners of War (POWs) and three detainees under the custody of the New People's Army (NPA) in Mindanao.

The GPH wants to hide the fact that it still has more than 350 political prisoners under its custody who have either been charged or convicted with common crimes in violation of the Comprehensive Agreement on Respect for Human Rights and International Humanitarian Law (CARHRIHL) and have suffered torture while undergoing interrogation and in detention.

These political prisoners have been on hunger strike since 25 July 2011, prompting Manila Auxiliary Bishop Broderick Pabillo, head of the National Secretariat for Social Action-Justice and Peace of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) to call for the “immediate and unconditional release of those whose arrests are deemed to be politically motivated” and “have already served long and completely unjust sentences.”

Among the political prisoners are the 13 remaining individuals protected under the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees (JASIG) whose releases have long been overdue – before the second round of formal talks slated in June 2011 as provided for in the 21 February 2011 Joint Statement signed in Oslo, Norway between the GPH and the National Democratic Front of the Philippines (NDFP). The GPH is bound in solemn agreement to expeditiously release all, if not most, of the 17 JASIG protected individuals by June 2011.

It is now August 2011, yet only four of the 17 have been released. So I ask Atty. Alexander Padilla, Chairman of the GPH Negotiating Panel: which side is delaying the resumption of the second round of formal talks? The GPH should immediately comply with signed agreements and not engage in dilatory tactics in an attempt to exert pressure on the NDFP.

Moreover, the Aquino regime deliberately glosses over the fact that it has been condoning the culture of impunity in the Armed Forces of the Philippines (AFP), the Philippine National Police (PNP) and their paramilitary groups (Civilian Armed Forces Geographical Units/CAFGUs and Civilian Volunteers Organizations/CVOs). Such tolerance is manifested in the failure to bring to justice the human rights violators under the Arroyo regime and to address the continuing violations of human rights under its own rule.

Under the Aquino regime, human rights groups have already documented 50 cases of extra-judicial killings and eight (8) cases of disappearances from 30 June 2010 to 31 July 2011 – the most recent of which involved three peasant organizers in Negros Occidental last 19 July.

There have also been a spate of arrests of peasant and labor organizers – most recently in La Union and Batangas – as well as surveillance, harassment, threats and attacks on human rights groups and advocates. For example, it is now deemed an “act inimical to national security” to render assistance to human rights groups as evidenced by the resolution of the National Police Commission signed by Interior Secretary Jesse Robredo, depriving a local official of administrative control over the police for helping a local human rights group.

Under Oplan Bayanihan, the Aquino regime continues the practice of the previous regime’s Oplan Bantay Laya in attacking communities and deploying thousands of troops in areas suspected to be under the influence, control or supportive of the revolutionary movement. These troops base themselves in schools, health centers, church premises, barangay halls and civilian houses. They conduct surveillance and interrogation of the populace under the guise of census-taking and civic action. They actively recruit members into the CAFGUs and CVOs and set-up Barangay Intelligence Network (BIN).

They harass, threaten, arrest and torture people, including children, who oppose their presence and recruitment and protest their rowdy behavior during their daily drinking sessions which often lead to the indiscriminate shooting of work animals and houses. They molest local women, restrict the free movement of residents and the flow of food into the community, thereby disrupting the normal lives of the people during planting and harvesting seasons and the education of schoolchildren. They act as occupying troops over these communities.

The Aquino regime should not begrudge the New People's Army (NPA) for having the capability to arrest four (4) armed components of its counterrevolutionary and coercive apparatus, and an abusive local official and his two bodyguards who are deemed to have taken active part in military operations against the revolutionary forces.

The NDFP is a legitimate national liberation movement and a co-belligerent in the ongoing armed conflict in the country within the purview of international law and international humanitarian law. As a principled revolutionary organization, the NDFP represents 17 allied organizations and local organs of political power that are present throughout the country in urban and rural areas and in more than 120 guerrilla fronts with a mass base running into millions and an armed force operating nationwide under the guidance of a central political authority that functions within the framework of the Guide for Establishing the People's Democratic Government.

As Atty. Padilla knows very well, the NDFP has acquired such status of belligerency by dint of hard struggle since a long time ago against the US-Marcos fascist dictatorship. He should ask Atty. Marvic Leonen of this fact and point of international law. Such status was not bestowed by any entity external to the revolutionary movement. Direct or implied recognition by any foreign State merely enhances such status inherent in the people's revolutionary government.

Atty. Padilla should be reminded that there are two governments in the Philippines. One is the revolutionary government of workers and peasants based in the countryside and the other is the reactionary government of big compradors and landlords represented by Mr. Aquino in Manila. The NDFP Negotiating Panel has always declared that it represents the revolutionary organs of democratic political power, together with the CPP as the ruling party, the New People's Army as the main armed component of people's state power, the mass organizations and the broad masses of the people.

Since its founding and in the course of decades of practice, the NPA has treated POWs well in accordance with the 1969 Basic Rules of the New People's Army, international humanitarian law, the CARHRIHL and within its capabilities and circumstances. These have been publicly attested to by former POWs themselves, such as Gen. Victor Obillo, PA Major Eduardo Montealto, P/Major Rene Francisco, P/Major Roberto Bernal, among others, and by the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).

Let me also assure Atty. Padilla that the people's court of the democratic people's government is guided by the principle of fair administration of justice in observing the rights of individuals to due process. This is provided for in Part III on the Fundamental Rights and Duties of Citizens in the Guide for Establishing the People's Democratic Government. Atty. Padilla has nothing to fear for the POWs and the detainees in the criminal justice system of the revolutionary movement.

The NDFP is committed to pursue the peace negotiations with the GPH to bring about just and lasting peace in the country by addressing the roots of the armed conflict. It has even offered truce and alliance with the Aquino regime provided it firmly stands up for national sovereignty, democracy and social justice on the basis of the NDFP ten-point proposal for a Concise Agreement for an Immediate Just Peace issued on 27 August 2005. What the GPH should do is to respond to the NDFP proposal instead of engaging in irresponsible provocative talk that threatens to terminate the peace negotiations.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/irresponsible-talk-by-gph-does.html

Legal and judicial processes of the People's Democratic Government are applicable to GPH Mayor -NDF

2011-08-23T00:29:00.000-07:00

Legal and judicial processes of the People's Democratic Government

are applicable to GPH Mayor*

Rubi del Mundo
NDFP-Southern Mindanao Region
15 August 2011

GPH in a state of denial of the raging civil war and the existence of two governments in the country; Legal and judicial processes of the People's Democratic Government are applicable to GPH Mayor

When the GPH brands as “criminal” the NPA’s humanitarian act of according the prisoner of war status to four of its armed personnel and the application of revolutionary legal and judicial processes to Lingig Mayor Henry Dano, it shows that it is stuck in a sordid state of denial of the reality of a raging civil war between two governments in the country.

By alleging that the revolutionary forces have no right to undertake these humanitarian and legal acts, the GPH ignores and deceitfully forgets the following facts:

1) The 1996 NDFP Unilateral Declaration to Apply the Geneva Conventions and Protocol I;

2) That the 1998 GRP-NDFP CARHRIHL:

a) affirms that the principles of human rights and the principles of international humanitarian law are universally-acceptable;

b) acknowledges that the prolonged armed conflict in the country necessitates the application of the principles of HR and IHL; and

c) realizes the necessity and significance of assuming separate duties and responsibilities for upholding, protecting and promoting the principles of human rights and IHL.

3) That in the course of the civil war between the GPH and the revolutionary forces and people as represented by the NDFP in peace negotiations, many of its armed personnel have been captured, detained and released as POWs;

4) That in the course of this civil war, two governments –- one being the Manila-centered reactionary government of the ruling class of big compradors and landlords, and the other revolutionary government of the oppressed and exploited peoples based in the countryside –- exist in the country;

5) That the legal and judicial system and processes of the people’s democratic government which exist, continuously develop and in force in its guerilla territories in the country has had administered the dispensation of revolutionary justice over the last four decades; and

6) That the 1992 The Hague Declaration that laid the framework of the current GPH-NDFP peace negotiations does not give any right to the GPH to presume, much less demand from the NDFP, that the revolutionary forces and its people recognize, work under and lay prostrate before the GPH political authority, constitution, legal system and judicial processes.

It is futile for the GPH to expect that on the basis of its myopic insistence of the supposed “non-belligerent” status of the CPP-NPA-NDFP, the people’s army would default on its revolutionary duty to undertake humanitarian acts in accordance with IHL and the NPA policy of humane and lenient treatment of its POWs. Nor would the People’s Court turn a blind eye on the cases filed before it, more so when it involves the people’s rights, security and welfare. It is not up to the GPH to determine the belligerency status of the CPP-NPA-NDF; the revolutionary resistance and achievements of the masses speak for itself.

It is for the benefit of the four PNP/BJMP personnel and the two AFP intelligence operatives masquerading as Mayor Dano’s security escorts that they are being held consistent with the NPA’s policy of humane and lenient treatment of its captives and in accordance with Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions. It is also for the benefit of Mayor Dano and the complainants that the legal and judicial processes of the people’s democratic government are applied to them.

Unlike the NPAs taken by the mercenary AFP who are either tortured, killed, declared missing, or were unjustly charged in the reactionary courts and left to languish in various jails, the four armed PNP/BJMP personnel are held under protective status, Mayor Dano enjoys legal rights as befitting suspects charged in the People’s Court and the two military intelligence operatives legally processed in accord with pertinent provisions of Protocol I relating to acts of espionage. In contrast, it is the GPH which acts criminally and unjustly against abducted innocent civilians, noncombatants and NPA hors d' combat.

Contrary to the GPH peace panel’s twisted pronouncement, the People’s Court -- by which the Lingig mayor is under auspices of -- is a revolutionary judicial tribunal that upholds the basic principles of due process and other legal standards in its rules and procedures. Thus Mayor Dano’s fundamental rights as a suspect are guaranteed; it is malicious and baseless for the GPH to say otherwise.

Essentially, the GPH authorities -- the GPH principal Benigno Aquino III, the AFP-PNP and GPH peace panel -- are acting contrary to the interest of the seven GPH personnel when they dispute the protective status and ongoing legal-judicial processes and intensify its military and police operations. The GPH ignores the logical path of negotiation, dismisses the rights of those in the NPA custody, and sets up stumbling blocks to the speedy resolution of these cases.

Instead of issuing hypocritical pronouncements and self-serving demands, the GPH peace panel should avail of the various methods of negotiation and stop the empty, uninformed and irresponsible pronouncements.

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/legal-and-judicial-processes-of-peoples.html

Double-dealing Aquino regime must release Eduardo Sarmiento and all NDFP peace consultants

2011-08-23T00:28:00.000-07:00

Double-dealing Aquino regime must release Eduardo Sarmiento

and all NDFP peace consultants*

Fr. Santiago "Sanny" Salas
NDF - Eastern Visayas
August 14, 2011

The National Democratic Front-Eastern Visayas today said the Aquino regime's seriousness for peace negotiations is under question as long as Eduardo Sarmiento and other NDFP peace consultants are not released. The NDF-EV spokesperson, Fr. Santiago Salas, also noted the regime talks of peace but has militarized the region with 11 army battalions. “The Government of the Philippines (GPH) and the NDFP signed this year the January 18 Joint Communique, with the Norwegian government as witness, where the GPH committed to immediately releasing the detained NDFP peace consultants and personnel covered by the Joint Agreement on Safety and Immunity Guarantees. But after many months, obviously, the Aquino regime has not released Eduardo Sarmiento, NDFP peace consultant for Eastern Visayas, and his fellow consultants.”

Fr. Salas added that, “As far as Eastern Visayas is concerned, the Aquino regime is on the warpath in militarizing the region with 11 army battalions under the euphemism of “peace and development.” In NDF-EV's view, the Aquino regime is double-dealing by deliberately stalling the peace talks and ordering the 8th Infantry Division to crush the NPA in the region under Oplan Bayanihan. If the Aquino regime is really for peace, it should have been working for the progress of the peace talks and restrained the search-and-destroy mission of the 8th ID masquerading as “peace and development” operations.”

The NDF-EV spokesperson called on the Aquino regime to release Eduardo Sarmiento and all NDFP peace consultants as well as other political prisoners, end the anti-people Oplan Bayanihan, and work on the peace talks to deliver socio-economic reforms. “Eduardo Sarmiento has been languishing in jail since February 2009 on trumped-up charges, like his fellow NDFP peace consultants and other political prisoners. His release is not only because of his role in the peace talks, but also a matter of justice. Eduardo Sarmiento and the people have all been victims of the GPH's wanton violations of human rights and international humanitarian law.

“The people of Eastern Visayas are only suffering war and misery under the the contradiction in terms of Oplan Bayanihan's “peace and development” operations. The people are questioning why “peace and development” are not being discussed at the negotiating table by the GPH and the NDFP, but being mouthed by armed minions of the state who are violating human rights with impunity. If the Aquino regime persists in betraying the interests of the people, it will surely become isolated and vulnerable to the wrath of the people who desire a just and lasting peace.”

* Url:http://theprwcblogs.blogspot.com/2011/08/double-dealing-aquino-regime-must.html

Israeli Army Arrests over 50 Palestinians in Hebron

2011-08-23T00:25:00.000-07:00

Israeli Army Arrests over 50 Palestinians in Hebron

Ramallah, Aug 21 (Prensa Latina) Israeli forces arrested over 50 Palestinians in Hebron on Sunday, in the biggest raid carried out in the last eight years in the city, announced Palestinian sources.

Detained include various leaders and relatives linked to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas), one of them legislator Mohamed Abu Dheishe and some children of the members of the organization, said deputy Samira Halaik, and Maan and Wafa news agencies.

The Israeli forces accompanied by more than 100 military vehicles invaded the city of Hebron, in the south of West Bank, Sunday at dawn, and in neighboring villages such as Dura, Surif, Beit Umma, Yatta, and Samua.

Official Wafa news agency of the Palestine National Authority reported 40 arrests, though the estimates are higher.

Libyan Government and Rebels Claim Control of Zones

2011-08-23T00:24:00.001-07:00

Libyan Government and Rebels Claim Control of Zones

Trípoli, Aug 21 (prensa Latina) The Libyan leader Muamar el Qaddafi assured in a recorded speech to have eliminated rats, as he called his opponents backed by NATO; while his opponents assured they will soon control the city.

Rats want to destroy the country, said Gadaffi who added that he will stay in Libya while official sources announced the recapture of Brega city, under seige for days, and from where the self-styled National Transition Council (NTC) admitted that it had to retreat because of intense bombing.

Gadaffi's message also served to give the lie to versions previously spread by different sources saying that he ran away to South Africa or Bolivia seeking political asylum.

In another TV message Saif al-Islam, son of the Libyan leader and chief of the 32nd Brigade, the most powerful of the army, appeared on a TV broadcast reiterating his father's call to "withstand and win". although he ratified the readiness of the government to negotiate without pre-conditions.

The NTC demands removal from his post and the country of Gadaffi, who assured he would never leave the country.

Songun and Unity

2011-08-23T00:16:00.000-07:00

Songun and Unity

article by ASSPUK and JISGE on occasion of 51st anniversary

of Songun revolutionary leadership

On the 25th of August it will be 51 years since the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il gave on-the spot guidance to the Seoul Ryu Kyong Su 105 Guards Tank Division of the Korean People's Army. This tank division was the tank divsion that liberated Seoul(thus earning the title of Guards division) in the Fatherland Liberation War, smashing the walls of division and liberating the oppressed people of south Korea. Their tanks were first to rush into Seoul. A shining example in the history of revolutionary wars. It can be said that the Seoul Ryu Su 105 tank division was steeled in the flames of anti-imperialist war and class struggle. Also that it is a vanguard unit on the anti-imperialist military front. Therefore visiting the unit took on a profound and special significance. This on-the spot guidance marked the start of the Songun revolutionary leadership of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il.

The five decades of Songun revolutionary leadership have produced great results and vast achievements. Of course the main one is the DPRK, a socialist state of Juche has been able to maintain solidly its independence and defy all imperialist attempts to encroach on its sovereignty. It has proudly held high the banner of socialism despite the frustration of socialism in a number of countries, it has rejected so called "reform" and "opening up" which are just a trick to destroy socialism from within.

Another durable achievement and one that effectively underpins everything is army-people unity. In the DPRK the people and army are united. The KPA is deeply respected by the people. This is a contrast to the imperialist countries. In imperialist countries soldiers are viewed with suspicion because of their role in imperialist wars and in oppressing the people or even contemptuously viewed as "thick squaddies" -people of low intelligence unable to do any other job. However in the DPRK service in the army is a matter of honour and every youth wants to join the army. The army is respected by the people and seen as their army , the army of the people.

The DPRK has established firm traditions of army-people unity. Their origins lay in the anti-Japanese armed struggle and the Fatherland Liberation War. During the anti-Japanese armed struggle the great leader comrade Kim Il Sung always emphasised that just as a fish could not live outside water the guerrillas could not live without the people. During the Fatherland Liberation war the KPA and Korean established firm bonds of fraternity. The army-people unity displayed in the Fatherland Liberation War was an important factor propelling the victory of the Korean people against the US imperialists.

Starting his Songun revolutionary leadership in 1960 the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il did everything to solidify and enhance the firm tradition of army-people unity declaring that the People's Army is the main pillar of the revolution, the core of society. Admirable traits of the people assisting the army and the army assisting the people have come into full bloom . The KPA participates vigorously in the work of economic construction and improving the people's living standards. Several "army-people" power stations have been built such as the Anbyon Power station. People feel that it is that duty to assist and help the army.

If the US imperialists attack Korea then the people and army will become one, an indestructible force under the command of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il which will wipe out the imperialists to the last soldier.

The DPRK is marching ahead under the Songun revolutionary leadership of the great leader comrade Kim Jong Il in the spirit of Songun-based army-people unity. Indeed the DPRK is the most united society in the world ,this year many countries have been shaken by upheavals and disturbances owing to internal con traditions but the DPRK is united and racing towards the goal of a great prosperous powerful socialist nation under the Songun revolutionary leadership.

ASSPUK

JISGE

Nepal: Maoist‚ UML hold talks on national unity govt

2011-08-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

Nepal: Maoist‚ UML hold talks on national unity govt

2011-08-20

KATHMANDU: Top leaders of two leftist parties- UCPN (Maoist) and the CPN-UML- on Friday held talks on matters relating to the formation of the national consensus government.

The meeting held at Singh Durbar was focused on forging ahead by becoming united on the issues relating to the peace process, constitution drafting process and formation of the national consensus government, it is learnt.

The parties have agreed to hold further discussions after forging consensus on the peace process and constitution drafting process with other parties.

The bilateral talks also concluded that completion of the peace process and the constitution drafting process, the present main agendas of the country, were possible only by the government of the national consensus.

Talking to media persons after the meeting, UCPN-Maoist Vice Chairman Narayan Kaji Shrestha said in the present context there was no other alternative for parties than forming the national consensus government.

"The meeting held serious discussions on expediting talks with other parties for forming the national unity government", he added.

UCPN (Maoist) Chairman Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Vice Chairman and prime ministerial candidate from the party, Dr Baburam Bhattarai and another Vice Chairman Mohan Baidya Kiran were among those present in the talks.

Similarly, CPN (UML) Chairman and Prime Minister Jhala Nath Khanal, talks team coordinator Madhav Kumar Nepal, General Secretary Ishwor Pokharel, Vice Chairman Bamdev Gautam and senior leader Bhim Rawal attended the meeting.

* Url:http://www.thehimalayantimes.com/fullNews.php?headline=Maoist%26sbquo%3B+UML+hold+talks+on+national+unity+govt&NewsID=299938

NATO discusses ground operation, Libya promises hell

2011-08-23T00:12:00.000-07:00

NATO discusses ground operation, Libya promises hell*

by Marie Edwards

2011/05/04

The aerial bombardment of Libya has reached a dead end, which has intensified talk among NATO members about a possible land operation, a move that threatens to escalate massively the violence that already exists there.

The alliance's spokesman has admitted there is still little sign of progress for either side in the conflict, so there is a need for a new UN resolution to approve sending foreign troops in.In the meantime, civilian casualties from allied bombing continue to mount as fresh NATO air strikes have been heard in the Libyan capital overnight.

At a video conference with Russian students, a NATO spokesman revealed his organization’s proposed solution: send in ground troops.

“The UN Security Council should adopt a new resolution on Libya. Resolution 1973 does not envisage land operations. We need a new resolution,” professed James Appathurai.

Western forces planned that all along, says a leading US international law professor, Francis Boyle, of the University of Illinois.

“Clearly what we are seeing unfolding in Libya is a pre-existing war plan, by NATO, by the British, by the French, by the Americans to attack Libya,” Boyle claimed.

“And now everything is going according to plan, which is why I believe that since they have failed to depose Gaddafi with their steps so far, the next stage will be moving into a ground invasion.”

NATO powers have duped the international community into supporting war, notes author William Engdahl.

Protecting civilians was the claim, but grabbing the country’s resources is their real goal.

“This is one of the most brazen transgressions of rights of nation national sovereignty in international law we have seen in the post-WWII period,” he said.

“The West: the US, France and Britain have been covertly – according to the evidence that is leaking out – arming the opposition to Gaddafi in hopes of grabbing control of the oil and different parts of Libya,” William Engdahl insists.

The Libyan government promises “hell” for NATO if it sends in ground troops. Some agree such a war may be tougher, than expected.

“We will see increased military activity not only in the air but also on the ground and maybe this will solve the problem from the perspective of the NATO countries, but mayby we will simply get into a deeper imbroglio,” shared Professor Mark Almond of Bilkent University.

Bombing from 30,000 feet, coalition pilots feel fairly safe, but anti-war activists warn putting troops on the ground risks not just more civilian killing, but NATO deaths as well.

“The further they get from hi-tech, the nearer they get to low-tech – the greater the danger of casualties on both sides,” warns Jim Brann from the Stop The War Coalition.

Turkey, China and Russia have all criticized the bombardment of Libya. Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov thinks NATO’s already gone far beyond the first UN resolution to maintain a no-fly zone. He hints a second resolution to move in ground troops may not come as easy, now several nations feel tricked.

"If anybody wants to ask for this mandate, welcome to the UN Security Council. We will discuss, try to understand what is planned, because the digressions from the mandate that we are seeing now are enough to learn lessons,” Sergey Lavrov railed.

With international opposition on the rise, NATO states face an uphill task to make the case for more war.

While Britain’s prime minister ruled out ground troops, now his Defense Secretary Dr Liam Fox tells Parliament they plan exactly that. But UN members are angered at the number of civilian deaths from NATO bombing, and are unlikely to welcome an escalation of the conflict.

* Url:http://pub.mathaba.net/2011/05/04/nato-discusses-ground-operation-libya-promises-hell/

Libya: "We want Muammar to come back! We want the green flag back!"

2011-08-23T00:11:00.000-07:00

Libya: "We want Muammar to come back! We want the green flag back!"*

Benghazi Rebels Death Squad in full force

by Marie Edwards

2011/07/30

Abdel-Fattah Younis, the Libyan rebels' military commander, was killed by fellow rebels while in custody. Mohammed Agoury told the AP news agency on Friday that he was present when a group of rebels from a faction known as the February 17 Martyrs’ Brigade came to Younis’ operations room at Zoueitina, just east of the main front at Brega before dawn Wednesday demanding that Younis come with them for interrogation. Younis was summoned to the rebel stronghold of Benghazi because of alleged links among his family to the Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi. Agoury said he tried to accompany his commander, "but Younis trusted them and went alone. Instead, they betrayed us and killed him," he said.

The February 17 Martyrs Brigade is made up of civilians who took up arms to join the rebels. Their fighters participate in the front-line battles with government forces but also act as a semi-official internal security force for the rebels. Some of its leadership comes from the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, an Islamic militant group that waged a campaign of violence against the Libyan government in the 1990s.

The killing raises fear and uncertainty in Benghazi. Thousands marched behind Younis’ coffin, wrapped in the rebels' tricolor monarchist flag, to the graveyard for his burial, chanting that he was a martyr "beloved by God." Troops fired a military salute as the coffin arrived, and angry and grieving supporters fired wildly into the air with automatic weapons.

At the graveside, Younis' son, Ashraf, broke down, crying and screaming as they lowered the body into the ground and - in a startling and risky display in a city that was the first to shed Muammar Al-Qadhafi's leadership nearly six months ago - pleaded hysterically for the return of the Libyan leader to bring stability and a return to normalcy after months of chaos in the country.

"We want Muammar to come back! We want the green flag back!" he shouted at the crowd, referring to Muammar Al-Qadhafi's national banner.

Younis was Muammar Al-Qadhafi's interior minister until he defected to the rebels early in the uprising, which began in February. He was among the army officers who joined the 1969 revolution and remained the leader’s ally for more than 40 years. His move raised hopes among rebels and Western allies that the uprising could succeed in forcing out the country's leader of more than four decades. But some rebels remained deeply suspicious that he retained loyalties to Muammar Al-Qadhafi.

An officer with the rebels' internal security forces - the official security force of the National Council - told AP that the council ordered Younis' arrest after a letter appeared earlier this week connecting the commander to the Libyan Leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi. He said Younis was brought back to the Benghazi area Wednesday and held at a military compound until Thursday, when he was summoned to the Defense Ministry for questioning.

As they left the compound, two lieutenants from the security team escorting the detainees opened fire on Younis from their car with automatic weapons, said the officer, who was at the compound and saw the shooting. He said the two men were members of the February 17 Martyrs Brigade and shouted that Younis was a traitor who killed their father in Derna, an eastern town that was once a stronghold of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group.

The attackers shot Younis, slit his throat, set fire to his body and dumped it outside Benghazi along with the bodies of two colonels who were his top aides, his nephew Hisham Al-Obaidi told The Associated Press.

A member of the Martyr's Brigade said his group had evidence that Younis was a "traitor." He told the AP "the evidence will come out in a few days." The brigade member spoke on condition of anonymity because he feared reprisals.

From Tripoli, Libya’s deputy foreign minister, Khaled Kaim, said the government forces had no role in Younis' death. He called for a forensic investigation of Younis' remains, saying that even though he was a "traitor" to the government "he was still a Libyan citizen."

The city of Benghazi woke up to fierce shooting Friday, as the news of Younis' death spread confusion and suspicion. Among those firing were members of Younis' powerful Obeidat tribe.

The killing opens up the possibility of a tribal split within the rebel alliance. Rebel leader Abdul-Jalil was urgently trying to reassure the tribes that the killing of Younis was basically carried out by a rogue unit instead of being sanctioned by the leadership.

The rebel leadership offers an alternative claim--the killing was carried out by “The Abu Obeida Al-Jarah Brigade” a secretive brigade responsible for internal security. Members of the little-known Abu Obaida Al-Jarah Brigade had been sent to Mr. Younis's front-line headquarters near the oil city of Brega to summons Mr. Younis for questioning before a judicial committee. The soldiers killed Mr. Younis on the outskirts of Benghazi before he was brought in for questioning. Abu Obaida Al-Jarah Brigade doesn't answer to the normal Minister of Defense chain of command. No further details were provided about the brigade or who it does answer to.

In extensive inquiries on Friday, it was impossible to find anyone in Benghazi, among rebel officials, rebel fighters, rebel commanders, and ordinary citizens, who said they had heard of the brigade or knew anything about it.

Most of the rebels leadership account of the events leading up to Mr. Younis' death was corroborated earlier in the day by one of Mr. Younis' longtime body guards, Abdullah Baio.

Mr. Baio said in an interview that Mr. Younis returned to Benghazi after he was summoned by a rebel brigade in his own vehicle accompanied by his personal guard detail, which included five body guards as always.

At 10 a.m., Mr. Younis called his family in Benghazi to tell them he was on his way back, his nephew, Abdel Hakim, said at his funeral.

Mr. Younis and his guards stopped at a military base in Gammines, on Benghazi's outskirts, according to Mr. Baio. It isn't clear why Mr. Younis stopped at the base.

Inside the base, soldiers from the Abu Obaida Al-Jarah Brigade turned their weapons on Mr. Younis and his bodyguards, according to Mr. Baio's account.

Mr. Younis ordered his outnumbered guards to lower their weapons.

The rogue unit disarmed Mr. Younis' guards, stole their boots, and tied them up, before disappearing with Mr. Younis, Mr. Baio said.

At 2 a.m. the next morning, Mr. Younis' body and those of two of his subordinate officers, were found shot and burned not far from Mr. Younis's home.

Questions are being raised, if the Abu Obaida Al-Jarah Brigade actually exists or if it is just another deliberate untruth by the rebels’ leadership with the intent to deceive and hold their fragile group of Islamists, CIA operatives and traitors together.

* Url:http://pub.mathaba.net/2011/07/30/libya-we-want-muammar-to-come-back-we-want-the-green-flag-back/

Libya: Another Reason for the War on Libya.

2011-08-23T00:08:00.000-07:00

Libya: Another Reason for the War on Libya.*

by Marie Edwards

2011/05/05

Some believe it is about protecting civilians, others say it is about oil, but some are convinced intervention in Libya is all about Gaddafi’s plan to introduce the gold dinar, a single African currency made from gold, a true sharing of the wealth.

“It’s one of these things that you have to plan almost in secret, because as soon as you say you’re going to change over from the dollar to something else, you’re going to be targeted,” says Ministry of Peace founder Dr James Thring. “There were two conferences on this, in 1986 and 2000, organized by Gaddafi. Everybody was interested, most countries in Africa were keen.”

Gaddafi did not give up. In the months leading up to the military intervention, he called on African and Muslim nations to join together to create this new currency that would rival the dollar and euro. They would sell oil and other resources around the world only for gold dinars.

It is an idea that would shift the economic balance of the world.

A country’s wealth would depend on how much gold it had and not how many dollars it traded. And Libya has 144 tons of gold. The UK, for example, has twice as much, but ten times the population.

“If Gaddafi had an intent to try to re-price his oil or whatever else the country was selling on the global market and accept something else as a currency or maybe launch a gold dinar currency, any move such as that would certainly not be welcomed by the power elite today, who are responsible for controlling the world’s central banks,” says Anthony Wile, founder and chief editor of the Daily Bell.

“So yes, that would certainly be something that would cause his immediate dismissal and the need for other reasons to be brought forward from moving him from power.”

And it has happened before.

In 2000, Saddam Hussein announced Iraqi oil would be traded in euros, not dollars. Some say sanctions and an invasion followed because the Americans were desperate to prevent OPEC from transferring oil trading in all its member countries to the euro.

A gold dinar would have had serious consequences for the world financial system, but may also have empowered the people of Africa, something black activists say the US wants to avoid at all costs.

“The US have denied self-determination to Africans inside the US, so we are not surprised by anything the US would do to hinder the self-determination of Africans on the continent,” says Cynthia Ann McKinney, a former US Congresswoman.

The UK’s gold is kept in a secure vault somewhere in the depths of the Bank of England. As in most developed countries, there is not enough to go around.

But that is not the case in countries like Libya and many of the Gulf States.

A gold dinar would have given oil-rich African and Middle Eastern countries the power to turn around to their energy-hungry customers and say: “Sorry, the price has gone up, and we want gold.”

Some say the US and its NATO allies literally could not afford to let that happen.

* Url:http://pub.mathaba.net/2011/05/05/libya-another-reason-for-the-war-on-libya/

US Intelligence contradicts US government's optimistic picture of Libyan rebels

2011-08-23T00:07:00.000-07:00

US Intelligence contradicts US government's optimistic picture of Libyan rebels*

By Marie Edwards

2011/08/05

Despite the official claims of the US government in regards to their trust in the Libyan rebels, US intelligence channels paint another picture of the situation in Libya.

Brief from a US intelligence channel on August 4, 2011

Libyan loyalist forces, which are usually described as “demoralized” in Western media accounts based on rebel sources, consistently mount spirited counter-attacks to retake lost ground even though they lack any effective defense against punishing NATO airstrikes, actions not usually seen in dispirited or demoralized forces. Though the rebel line maintains that most of Qadhafi’s men are only waiting for an opportunity to defect, nearly five months have passed without any significant increase in defections from the rank-and-file, many of whom have had ample opportunity to cross the lines by now. Those eastern-based troops who defected early in the struggle continue to contribute little to the rebel effort, which is still dominated by poorly-trained amateurs who view orders as suggestions and follow only those commanders they like. Rivalries and distrust have made creating a single military leadership difficult enough – extending a centralized command and control system throughout the rebel ranks will be extremely difficult.

The violent dissension within the rebel movement has emboldened the Qadhafi regime, which has withdrawn an offer of a ceasefire if NATO stops its bombing campaign. The government is also now offering an amnesty for rebels returning to the fold, sweetened by offers of promotions and various other rewards (Reuters, August 3). The regime has also taken the opportunity of sowing further discord in the rebel ranks by announcing it is in contact with leading figures in the TNC, including former Qadhafi loyalists Mahmud Jibril and Ali Essawi, as well as Islamist leader Ali al-Salabi (AFP, July 30). In an August 3 interview with the New York Times, Sa’if al-Islam Qadhafi (son of the Libyan leader) said the government had formed an alliance with Ali al-Salabi against the rebels. Al-Salabi acknowledged having discussions with regime representatives, but denied forming a pact with them (AFP, August 4).

Psychologically at least, Qadhafi has the upper hand on the rebels, whose military leadership, cobbled together from ex-Qadhafi loyalists, CIA assets and radical Islamists, is in danger of being consumed by distrust, paranoia and internal disputes. If further rebel purges follow, the rebel movement stands at risk of complete collapse.

* Url:http://pub.mathaba.net/2011/08/05/us-intelligence-contradicts-us-government%E2%80%99s-optimistic-picture-of-libyan-rebels/

Benghazi: Terror in the Streets

2011-08-23T00:05:00.000-07:00

Benghazi: Terror in the Streets*

By Marie Edwards

August 20, 2011

In Benghazi homes are raided, neighbors dragged off, suspects executed. Many people are unemployed. Large companies, including German construction firm Bilfinger Berger, have pulled out of the city. Young men race around town with tires screeching, others strut around in public buildings brandishing their knives. At night, the streets are reminiscent of Sao Paolo gang wars, the only difference being that the youths here wear flak jackets.

Many young academics who were about to complete their studies and to get a good job are starting to get frustrated. One, who only talks on the condition that he remains anonymous, studied economics at the Gharyounis University. He was offered a job as a manager at Bilfinger Berger and would have earned good money. Now he's unemployed. He says of the rebels: "They are under 30 and don't have wives. They are proud of the weapons they looted from barracks. They don't know how to control themselves. They quickly become aggressive. They've got these weapons and lose themselves."

Militias in Benghazi possess sophisticated weaponry, ranging from antitank missiles to rocket-propelled grenades and people here speak of tribes settling old accounts and power struggles emerging. Sporadic gunfire can be heard daily in the rebel capital, and hundreds of men walk around town armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles.

People's concern in Benghazi focus on gangs wearing the army fatigues favored by the rebels, terrorizing citizens and robbing them at gunpoint. "It is not safe anymore to travel in some parts of the city," says Dawud Salimi, 41. "Criminals are taking advantage of the instability for their own profit. Recently, they have targeted foreigners. A group of men wearing military outfits broke into the hotel room of a Western journalist, assaulted her and ran off with her electronic equipment”.

Across Benghazi city, armed squads are being dispatched to crack down on supporters of Libyan Leader Muammar al-Qadhafi. Thousands have been arrested in the night raids.

Under the cover of darkness, the Benghazi 'protection squad' gathered. Speaking in muted, tense tones, clutching loaded guns, the men began the hunt. In swift, silent convoy they drive across the city, targeting the homes of suspected loyalists.

The armed men drove to a farmhouse just outside Benghazi. The choice of target had been discussed back at their base, in an office strewn with handwritten papers, the intelligence on potential suspects.

Pulling up silently, muffling the closing of car doors, fingers on the triggers of the loaded guns, they set up their positions. Two men pointed their weapons, sniper like, through gaps in the outer walls. Faces covered with balaclavas, others snuck through the front gate and surrounded the farm. The only noise to be heard under the clear moonlit sky was the sound of guard dogs' barks.

Drivers waited, the engines running. "This is very, very dangerous. Often there are gun battles," muttered one driver.

The farm was empty. Disappointed, the squad returned to cars. Onto the next target. "They know we are looking for them. They cannot stay in one place. Often they bribe neighbors not to give us information," says the squad leader.

Qadhafi supporters drive around in cars firing at pedestrians in order to spread fear, say the rebels. "There are thousands of them here," said the gang leader of the night raid.

"We have many people - students, post-graduates, businessmen who still stand with Qadhafi. They are in hiding now, organizing themselves,” says lifelong Benghazi resident Sami Hassan, 37.

Rebels fear that "pro-Qadhafi" citizens in Benghazi are acting as spies for the Libyan government. "Don't trust anyone, we are in a psychological war," admits Council spokesperson Issam Giriani. "Even now, I know some are walking around us here, recording."

Perhaps the accusations are true. There are signs that Benghazi has not given itself to the rebel's cause. A table at an office in the court house is strewn with the weapons found on infiltrating attackers: Kalashnikovs, assault rifles, and dynamite. "There have been many attempts at attacking the court house," says Ibrahim Gheriani in charge of security.

Before being stopped in their tracks by NATO air strikes, Qadhafi's advance on Benghazi emboldened some of his supporters to show themselves. "In two days we will win, Muammar will be back," a man told a reporter before slipping quietly back into the crowd.

The incidences prompted the crackdown by the rebel leader who announced that Qadhafi sympathizers had 24 hours to hand over their weapons. If they didn't, they would be treated as murderers and enemies of the rebels. "Those with bloodstained hands will be punished," says Issam Giriani.

Fed by fear, war breeds suspicion and mistrust. Determining loyalties in this fluid environment can be an impossible task. Some of the targets are suspects on dangerously loose criteria.

The regime loyalty of a person's home town, a photograph of the Libyan leader in the wallet and family ties, are all considered 'evidence'.

"This man is from Sirte. Most people from there are Ligen Thauria. His family is from there too," says Hani in explanation of the midnight armed raid on the farmhouse.

The rebels have their own spying game. "Sometimes we use women; they go inside to the houses, perhaps pretending they are poor and need something. There they see if the person has guns, she tries to find them."

Captives are taken to a military base. In the closed cement quadrangle courtyard lined by cells sit rows of captives. On the right are the foreign prisoners, thought by the rebels to be "mercenaries". Lined on the left were dozens of black Libyans.

Their imprisonment is indefinite. "God knows when I will be allowed to go home," says a black Libyan who says he was captured at a bus stop as he tried to get home.

Often the raids are run by adrenaline-pumped youth. Before going out, in the secret base where they gathered, the squad of youths joked, jumped, shouted; pumped with for the night's hunt. "Most of these guys have been my friends since school," said the squad leader. "Let's go!" he said to the enthusiastic clacks of his gang loading their weapons.

Excited and power hungry the commander wielded his loaded Kalashnikov dangerously with a manic smile. His military training was cut short when he was kicked out from the college. "I had a fight with the colonel in college. He swore at me, kicked me out."

The raids can be violent. Some members of this gang have been killed. "On the first raid, we went to find Qadhafi’s people who were trading guns said Hani. There was a forty-minute gun battle in which the squad lost one of its men. "We captured four guys and I killed one," he said proudly. The night raids are growing in number and size. "We caught dozens last week," said a squad organizer who works at the Benghazi rebel's courthouse.

From the start of the conflict the rebels relied on its Western backers. The rebels have failed to broaden their appeal precisely because the key opposition leaders are perceived as exactly what they are: sellouts. The Libyan people know that the leading members of the rebels are imperial puppets.

Before the war social and economic rights were so widely developed that Libya hosted hundreds of thousands of foreign workers. And with all its wealth, Libya remained a socialist country. Muammar Al-Qathafi asked: “How can one not be a socialist and spreading the wealth of one’s country equally among its citizens?”

This was hard for Western capitalists to swallow and the opportunities for profit from a war with Libya were hard for Western capitalists to pass up. The objective of Washington and its allies consists in confiscating and managing Libya's vast wealth and controlling its resources. So they initiated a foreign-propelled civil war in Libya.

But the rebels are unable to use the tactical advantage that NATO air superiority provides to them. Had the rebel forces support among the Libyan masses they would have claimed more territory. Few analysts believe that the Libyan leader’s loyalists can be easily defeated, if at all. Reports from Libya indicate the rising tide of massive support for the Libyan leader Muammar Al-Qadhafi by his followers, who have attended rallies and demonstrated their preparedness to confront the rebels and their backers.

The rebels are not loved, given the speech of Muammar Al-Qadhafi as he addressed his supporters of more than a million people in the northwestern town of Al-Zawiya not far from Tripoli. The crowd reached a deafening crescendo when he spoke in a recorded message.

Meanwhile the Libyan government forces have regained control of most of Libyan territory and in over five months after the NATO aggression against Libya, key oil installations and, above all, the so far impregnable capital are firmly in the hands of the Libyan government.

The information war against Libya is gigantic. Oceans of lies and misinformation are poured on the heads of unsuspecting listeners and readers on a daily basis. Events in Libya are showing how monstrous Orwellian lies can be easily used to manipulate people’s minds in an age of information technologies. Frontrunners in manipulation are Qatar’s Al-Jazeera and the Western media outlets. The lies are so blatant, that one has to wonder why the paper is not rejecting the print.

The West's blame for where it now finds itself in Libya has a long pedigree. The aggression against Libya parallels the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq. The latter is still reeling from the wounds of the sectarian strife unleashed by Washington's invasion and the former is the proverbial NATO failed state.

NATO is losing and they don't like it--they better wake up, for the US taxpayer will not fund another huge atrocity against humanity. The truth is coming out.

* Url:http://pub.mathaba.net/2011/08/20/benghazi-terror-in-the-streets/

Qaddafi's speech in Sirte in midst of the civil war over Libya

2011-08-23T00:04:00.000-07:00

Qaddafi's speech in Sirte in midst of the civil war over Libya

War in Libya: NATO gunship fires on unarmed civilians in Zawia Square

2011-08-23T00:01:00.000-07:00

War in Libya:

NATO gunship fires on unarmed civilians in Zawia Square*

August 18, 2011

(Susan Lindauer) On August 18, 201, Tribal Chief Dr. Moussa Ibrahim’s younger brother was killed in Zawia by NATO. An Apache gunship fired on innocent civilians in the Square at Zaia City– killing many unarmed civilians. The people of Zawia were celebrating the route of NATO rebels from their city by the Libyan army, contradicting mainstream media reports that NATO controls the city.

Libyans are angry about NATO’s bombing of electric power stations. They were all talking about it today. “How is NATO protecting innocent people by bombing power stations?” This is the desert, many people in the suburban areas of Tripoli suffered from noon until night without electricity. That means SEVERE HEAT, no water, no refrigeration, no light, no phones for emergency. NATO is now terrorizing the innocent people here. NATO is now the “North Atlantic Terrorist Organization”- The US should declare war on NATO as part of the “war on terror”

There are few gangs in Zawia. As soon as the Libyan army arrives, they are defeated or they run away. When the army completely finishes the pockets in Zawia, a source says they will head immediately to Sorman where all the runaway rebels have gone. He says they estimate that there are around 1000 rebels there but they are all very young (15,16,17,18) with no military experience, no organization and they fight amongst themselves. He said there will not be a protracted battle, this will end quickly.

Without NATO’s rain of terror, this bloodshed would have been finished months ago.

The rebels are desperate, NATO is becoming more desperate, there is no humanity, just blatant, wanton killing.

There is no excuse, no valid reason for any of this. It is not about democracy, the tribal system in Libya is pure democracy. The bottom line is, the Rebel Transitional Council has no ability to unite the Libyan people, no ability to run a government. There will be anarchy, there will be no contracts for foreign oil companies, no contracts for foreign construction companies. The TNC has less than 10% support here, I guess NATO will have to make a police state to keep their puppets in power.

The big oil companies had better wake up and lobby their respective governments if they ever want to come back to Libya.

When will the people of the world rise up against this inhumanity?

* Url:http://www.federaljack.com/?p=97668

Christopher Busby: Chernobyl-like radiation found in Tokyo

2011-08-22T23:55:00.000-07:00

Christopher Busby: Chernobyl-like radiation found in Tokyo

RussiaToday

17 Aug 2011

Workers at Japan’s Fukushima plant say the ground under the facility is cracking and radioactive steam is escaping through the fissures. They also say pipes and at least one reactor were seriously damaged before the tsunami hit the area in March. RT talks to Christopher Busby of the European Committee on Radiation Risks.

Qassam Brigades end truce with Israel

2011-08-22T23:53:00.000-07:00

Qassam Brigades end truce with Israel*

Sat Aug 20, 2011

At least 16 Palestinians have been killed in two days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza.

The armed wing of Hamas, the Al-Qassam Brigades, has ended their two-year de facto ceasefire in response to two days of Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that killed at least 16 people.

“There is no longer any truce with the enemy,” the Al-Qassam Brigades said in a statement broadcast over a Hamas radio station on Saturday.

At least sixteen Palestinians have been killed and dozens have been injured over the past two days by Israeli airstrikes on the Gaza Strip, which began on Thursday, shortly after eight Israelis were killed near the Red Sea resort town of Eilat.

Medical sources said that children as young as three were among the Palestinian casualties in the attacks on Gaza.

Israeli officials have blamed a Gaza-based militant group called the Popular Resistance Committee (PRC) for Thursday's attack and have vowed a “full force” response targeting Gaza.

Israel said the attackers had infiltrated from the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, although the PRC, which is not affiliated with Hamas, denied involvement in the incident.

Hamas has said that it had nothing to do with the assault and has warned against any act of aggression against the Gaza Strip.

PG/HGL

* Url:http://www.presstv.ir/detail/194767.html

The Stirrings in the workforce our Masters don't want us to talk about

2011-08-22T23:48:00.000-07:00

The Stirrings in the workforce our Masters don't want us to talk about*

Since Reagan's Revolutionary "recovery" after he and Congress drove the economy into the free market ground worker satisfaction with our "jobs" has diminished across the economy.

No wonder why. The jobs this country has created in every recovery are lower waged, less skilled, and, far worse, without benefits of pension, retirement, or the ability to save for that future when Wall Street dreams of grasping its evil hands on that leaden lock box called Social Security.

The shrinking of union work is suggestive too, but since our unions are increasingly reformist - accommodating corporate structures in exchange for a "cut" in union dues and prestige - unions are a far cry from their militant origins, when its goal was worker control of production, not high wages, no management except self-management.

So late 20th century and 21st century workers find themselves in a predicament. They were driven into the strategic hamlets we call cities over a century ago in the wake of the Industrial Revolution; they were trained to work on a treadmill [viz., factory floor, pushing paper in a cubicle]; and they can now can do little more than survive by keeping the wheel of their own destruction spinning ... spinning the twine to make the noose that hangs them.

When ends don't meet, they spin faster, and have even a generation ago begun to send their teen-aged children to work the treadmill. Because, to blow the mill out of the universe - to destroy it - would leave too many workers with a skill-set barely enabling them to tie a shoe but little else.

We can't farm. We can't build. Many can't even pull apart their car engines and rebuild them. The urbane existence we are supposed to consider a pinnacle of civilization has in reality done what the antebellum slave master could not do: many of those African slaves risked life and limb to read and write and to escape. We are grown, illiterate children.

My Tennessee grandparents talked a lot about this in my youth, when they rued the next Depression. The one they survived in the 1930's they survived because while they were dirt poor, they had food from their land and practical skills to sustain themselves.

We deeply loathe our employment, but the Stockholm Syndrome says we are one with it too. Our jobs do less and less for us, except eek out the barest minimum existence, but this basic we've turned into ..."I am lucky to have a job" and bow and curtsey, tug-at-your-locks obedience.

So we are caught between the proverbial rock of joblessness and no means to feed/house ourselves and the hard place of work.

Two reasons employers are not fretting about this.

One must be their deep-seeded faith that we workers will not seek alternatives beyond what the master provides. Thanks to lessons learned in the factory system of education, we've learned to shut up. Otherwise, I should think an employer who has even 50% of his workforce actively seeking work elsewhere would be alarmed.

Two that where the employer may lose a portion of that job-dependent 50% to another job, there's another job-dependent 70% waiting to step in - if only for a moment.

The wasted costs of training and the signal that your workers' minds are elsewhere is no concern, possibly because the training is so minimal, the work not critical. Ask yourself in whatever job you labor if you'd trust a surgeon or even an dentist to operate on you with the level of training you and your colleagues got. If the answer is No, your training is probably over-blown and over-hyped.

Make no mistake. This is a powder-keg. What will ultimately ignite it is hard to pinpoint; and how that coming disaster will destruct is hard to predict. Because when workers take a page from the stockbroker and stop looking at the picture but at the broader canvass - even into the next economic quarter - all Hell will break loose.

* Url:http://lowellbdennyinsurgency.blogspot.com/2011/08/stirrings-in-workforce-our-masters-dont.html

US keeps Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba on terror blacklist

2011-08-22T23:46:00.001-07:00

US keeps Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba on terror blacklist*

Trend News Agency

August 19, 2011

The United States retained Iran and its ally Syria as well as Sudan and Cuba on a list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism Thursday, after blacklisting the countries the previous year, AFP reported.

In an annual report, the State Department said "Iran remained the most active state sponsor of terrorism in 2010," citing "financial, material and logistic support" for militant groups in the Middle East and Central Asia.

It said Iran backed Palestinian groups Hamas, the Palestinian Islamic Jihad and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command, along with Lebanon's Hezbollah, the Taliban in Afghanistan and Iraqi Shiite Muslim militant groups.

The State Department said its support for such groups "had a direct impact on international efforts to promote peace, threatened economic stability in the Gulf, and undermined the growth of democracy."

Iran was first designated a state sponsor of terror in 1984.

The Country Reports on Terrorism was published late, more than three months after its April 30 due date, at which time US law requires the secretary of state to provide Congress a full report about countries and groups deemed to be implicated in terrorism.

* Url:http://en.trend.az/regions/iran/1920287.html

Magnitude 6.8 quake jolts Japan off Fukushima, no damage

2011-08-22T23:43:00.000-07:00

Magnitude 6.8 quake jolts Japan off Fukushima, no damage*

Fri, Aug 19 2011

TOKYO (Reuters) - A strong earthquake with a preliminary magnitude of 6.8 jolted northeastern Japan off Fukushima prefecture on Friday, the Japan Meteorological Agency said, although no damage was reported and a tsunami advisory for the area was lifted after no waves were sighted.

Some highways were closed and high-speed bullet trains were halted after the quake, public broadcaster NHK said.

A 50 cm (20 inch) tsunami advisory was issued for the coastal areas of Fukushima and Miyagi prefectures that were severely damaged by the massive March 11 quake and tsunami, but was lifted about 35 minutes later.

Tokyo Electric Power Co said no abnormalities had been found at radiation monitoring posts at the crippled Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant, about 240 km (150 miles) northeast of Tokyo, or the nearby Daini plant, and that cooling operations at the damaged reactors were continuing.

Tohoku Electric Power said there were no abnormalities at its Onagawa nuclear power plant, which has been shut since the March disaster.

The focus of the tremor was off the coast of Fukushima, 20 km below the earth's surface, the Japan Meteorological Agency said.

On March 11, the northeast coast was struck by a magnitude 9 earthquake, the strongest on record in Japan, and a massive tsunami that triggered the world's worst nuclear crisis in 25 years at the Fukushima Daiichi plant. The disaster left about 20,400 dead or missing.

(Reporting by Yoko Kubota; Editing by Edmund Klamann)

* Url:http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/08/19/us-japan-quake-idUSTRE77I0S620110819

S. Korean Authorities′ Suppression of Jeju Islanders, Biggest Since 1948 -KCNA

2011-08-22T23:38:00.000-07:00

S. Korean Authorities′ Suppression of Jeju Islanders, Biggest Since 1948

Pyongyang, August 19 (KCNA) -- The south Korean puppet authorities on August 14 hurled police of five companies equipped with water cannons and other repressive gears to Jeju Island to put down the protesters opposing the construction of a naval base there.

On August 15 the authorities issued an emergency alert order to all the repressive forces on Jeju Island.

Members of the All-Islanders Measure Committee for Checking the Jeju Military Base, the People for Achieving Peace and Reunification and other organizations of south Korea, Kangjong villagers, peace activists and opposition party members protested against the puppet security authorities' fascist suppression on Jeju Island on August 15.

They tied themselves with wires and set up barricades in street corners likely to be manned with police.

It is the first time since the April 3 Popular Uprising on Jeju Island in 1948 that the repressive forces were hurled from the inland to put down the people's action, they said. The authorities' repressive actions have gone beyond the danger line, they added.

The authorities' fascist crackdown will meet a strong protest of the people, they warned.

The south Korean Measure Council for Checking the Construction of Jeju Naval Base in a statement on August 15 said the authorities' intensified suppression may lead to the recurrence of the massacre during the April 3 Popular Uprising.

The Ideology of the Loser is Not a Winning Strategy

2011-08-22T06:19:00.001-07:00

The Ideology of the Loser is Not a Winning Strategy*

By Peter Chamberlin

2011/08/22

"The truth is: we are not telling the truth about these wars.

America is not winning these wars."

The more that we observe our fellow man, the more obvious it becomes that humanity is unable to understand the problems that it causes for itself. If humans do not have the intellectual capacity to recognize most of their problems as being self-generated, then they are obviously incapable of correcting any of these life-threatening obstacles to the progression of mankind’s advancement, on their own. Leaving intellectually inferior beings in charge of the safety of the human race in the middle of an epochal historical confluence of multiple calamities is an existential form of negligence. The survival of the race requires that ways be found to institute a more capable decision-making process in the halls of power.

No better example of our intellectual shortcomings could be found than in the recently concluded battle in Washington over raising the debt ceiling. Instead of solving the problems between the contrasting prevailing political opinions, the negotiating heads preferred to fight-out an opinion battle in the national press, proving that American government has degenerated into a “three-ring circus,” or a never-ending soap opera. Despite the threats, no real damage was done to the veterans, the elderly and the disabled, other than increasing their stress levels. The damages that have been done to our already mud-stained reputation are only helping to accelerate the global economic crisis.

The nature of the unfolding world crisis is one of an endless series of overlapping crises, with each crisis compounding the effects of previous blow-ups. An overwhelming global economic interruption is underway, but all of its negative effects are being made worse by endless military adventurism, which is heaping debt upon the center by the trillions. Before Obama got his way, most of us had never even contemplated what a “trillion dollars” actually meant. Now we toss the word around like it is really just business as usual, and not the most obvious signal that the whole thing has blown-up in their faces.

We are witnessing the outcome of a failed political system, which allows our Nation’s fate to be subjected to political considerations. By allowing government policy to be set by a dialectical see-saw, where the latest “winner takes all” politician jerks the decision-making process to either the right or the left, regardless of the fact that the correct answer would be a steady hand on the tiller, holding it like an anchor to the center.

Despite the fact that the losing party understands precisely the damage being done to our Constitutional Republic by their actions or inactions, it is usually the losing party which is the most vicious in its knee-jerk political actions. Invariably you will find, that it is the losing party which wages war upon the Republic itself as the means to correct the policies of the “treasonous” opponent. Instead of proving their wild ideas, they would prefer to hold their opponents to task, no matter what the human cost.

In this ideology of the loser, no actions taken to rectify the serious “errors” of their opponents can be considered to be as severe or as harmful as the opposition’s rhetorical attacks. It seems that terrorism is an acceptable form of battle in the war against seditious ideas. Knowledge that those entrusted to lead us attach greater importance to discrediting their opponents’ ideas than they do to validating their own (that the political battle is more important than the ideas being fought over), provides us a key to understanding the inadequacies of the human mind.

Vanity is the racial guarantor of our species’ stagnation. We have to make an effort to rise above our pride and accept new ways of thinking which make room for some sort of decision-making mechanism which relies upon intellects greater than the minds of individual men. Whether this new intellectual force is to be AI, cybernetically-enhanced human minds, or some computer-aided mechanism for tapping into the collective intellect of the greatest living minds, the human race must find some way to inject intellect into the governmental decision-making process. Stupid decisions are killing us. Individual personalities in control, like we have now, produce not just government gridlock, but the situation which we face, where every effort made to improve the situation as determined by the greatest political minds, only serves to make matters worse.

Human potential is equal to the total mass of all human “prodigies” added together, even the overlooked ones locked behind the barriers of poverty and the great class divide. Our potential to overcome our problems is limitless, if our potential were ever really tapped-into. This tells us that a true human renaissance awaits our children, in the very near future, dependent only upon us to make the changes which set their positive future into motion. The key to its unlocking it lies dormant, unused, because it has been hidden by hands which have a monetary stake in preventing a great awakening. Our civilization will either dead-end in the great ash heap of history, or we will step onto a new track to a better destination, together. The decision will either be made at the highest levels to do what is best for the American people and for the human race, or we will drink deeply of a deadly dose of apathy, but only if we lose the will to live.

Once the world of money and politics is revealed as a great parasitic infestation, that is sapping the life out of the human race, with its vapid political/military solutions to every problem that comes our way, then the popular support for tyranny will simply fade away. The time will soon come when all the emperors will stand naked before us, after they have been completely discredited the political/economic system that has nurtured them and their evil ways, overwhelming them with rivers of profits. The great injustice is that the economic tsunami which they have let loose upon the world will not focus solely upon the wave’s creators, but will dispense injustice equally to us all. Those at the top who are holding-on so tightly to the reigns of economic power (trying to squeeze every drop of profit out of the bankrupt systems in vain attempts to save themselves as well as their ill-gotten possessions) are strangling the lifelines for us all. Breaking their death grips will not spare anyone from the deluge that is coming, but it will open the supply lines that should already be flowing from a “humanitarian” government to the people, before the emergency hits, making survival easier for someone.

So you see, we are faced with two constants, which, when added together, reveal that our world is headed full speed to a great collision with the overtaking new world. It will either be the “New World Order” that many of us dread, or it will be a new world of our own making, a world that can only be discovered through experiments in collective “pulse-taking” (lessons to be learned from in place social networking), or other efforts to find the paths to democracy. When our worlds collide, visions of Empire will go up in smoke, but some new order will arise from the ashes, none the less. When the constant of the inevitability of the failure of political government is realized, then that is the moment when our greatest opportunity will arise. It will be the great moment of hope for all mankind, when genius is given the opportunity to provide the answers which human guile could never supply.

How do we steer away from the corporate New World Order, and set a course for freedom and universal human rights? Look toward our leaders and compare their words with leading thinkers–how do they compare? The recognized leaders all speak with one voice, even though they claim to be from different political parties. They project an aura of self-assurance, righteousness in the cause of justice. Yet their actions consistently contradict their words. Activists from both the right and the left spend their time trying to make the corrupted leadership eat their own words. In this ideological struggle, truth is the only weapon. He who possesses the most verifiable truth wins the war.

The truth is - we are not winning this war; we are not telling the truth about the war; we are not the good guys this time.

Social agitators, activists and other agents for change are people driven by their own vision - seeing into our negative future binds us all to a compulsory moral duty, to work for positive changes. If we see that our species, that our children will one day in their future, reach the point of losing all hope, then we would not be “fit parents,” allowing that to happen. If their last real hope was in us, that we would NOT let that happen to them and to their world, then who, or what force could stop us from throwing ourselves into the gears of the Imperial war machine? This is what makes us so dangerous to the powers that be. We who foresee the need to stand-up for something greater than ourselves, will willingly give-up our lives to stop them, once we understand the gravity of the situation. The knowledge of what has been done to America and the darkness that is still planned for us are powerful testimony of the loyalties of the people who have been running this country. It is irrefutable. Making more and more people aware of the true connection between our government and world terrorism will light political fires that no corrupted system could withstand. The power of the people will be an awesome sight to see.

Our great despair is that we are among a growing minority, those who can see where we are heading, including the unfortunate timing of our births. We have been privy to the birth pains of the coming Great Changing of humankind, aware of the great things to come, even though many of us will not be parties to the joyous event itself. The best that we can hope for in the here and now is to find all the truth that is within our grasp and then use it as the ultimate weapons available to us, in order to knock-down the walls which conceal the greatest truths from us all. The politics of money is a process of creating divisions and building walls. The impending human awakening will come when we either learn how to rise above all the walls, or acquire the means to tear them all down.

When the political path collapses before us, reducing all the walls that have been erected to enforce the man-made divisions, into great piles of rubble. The cost of recovery will be set by the amount of time required to set humanity upon a new, better path. The longer that we remain on the negative path to destruction, before turning around to begin the reconstruction, the greater the amount of limited funds that will be wasted in the fires of war—the less that will be available for the time of building.

At that time, it will become clear to all, that the true revolutionary is the man or woman who can see a better way, NOT he who is a journeyman at committing political violence. The violent radical who fancies himself a true “revolutionary,” is merely someone who is taking credit for the inevitable collapse of a failing Empire, at best, they may have helped to speed-up parts of that collapse.

It turns-out that the most revolutionary act is one of simple persuasion, trying to convince the men who have the most to lose, to turn the machinery onto the path of creativity, away from the road to our destruction. The problem with this approach is the futility of the task, the utter impossibility of convincing the ultra-wealthy to give-up the very thing that has given them all of this power. (Shoving a camel through the eye of a needle might really be easier). In order to convince lesser mortals to work towards turning humanity around, you must first persuade them to give-up hope in the great capitalist dream. The power of that dream maintains a terrible grip upon the minds of mankind, breaking it will necessarily require a series of individual awakenings, until the weight of that awakened minority is felt by the whole mass of humanity. We increase our numbers of aware individuals until we affect, or infect the whole.

This line of thinking reveals three tasks before us - giving credibility to the negative vision, giving form to the new direction, and creating the conviction of inevitability. We have already covered the first task to a great degree by covering the conspiracies that are guiding the chaos. The collapsing economy and the perpetuation of persistent conflict are both products of ineptitude and deception. Proving incompetence and that we have been lied to on a grand scale will help to convince the people that our leaders are idiots and their solutions are merely prolongations of the problems nothing more than political theater and propaganda. The second task will be a bit harder, in that it is far more difficult to bring substance to a vision out of thin air, painting an image of a better way to invest in mankind. The third task of communicating the abstract quantity of “inevitability” to a church filled with the under-educated faithful could border on the impossible.

Democracy is NOT a “two-party system.” Our glorious political system is a formula for manufacturing divisions, if not a template for outright civil war. Pushing this upon the world is a criminal act. What our “trusted” leaders have done is to strangle the American Republic to the point of near death, in an organized scheme of mass-extortion and bribery, focused on the perpetuation of power and the subjugation of an entire Nation. Pushing this arrangement upon other countries under pretense of helping is a formula for taking-over the political system of those countries.

Not being satisfied with the mass-rape and looting operations which have destroyed the American economy, these same leaders and the political factions which they represent, are mid-stream in the world’s greatest plot to seize control of the entire planet. Waist-deep in a raging economic river of their own making, our fearless leaders are also being swept away by the forces that they have helped to unleash and by those that they should have worked to contain. Instead of working to control the uncontrolled flood, they are content to roll with it, pouring endless sacks of money into the torrent, never once stopping to fill any of those same canvas bags with sand. Why build dams or levees in hopes of containing the destruction, when half of your men are busy dynamiting other levees?

The insanity of political man will continue to prevail until men and women of reason stand-up and show us a better way. The parade of idiots will continue and the dead weight of their archaic political beliefs will override common sense for as long as we let them. Until we fully realize the great genetic gifts that we have been blessed with, we will continue to follow the crooked path that leads us to the “idiot nation.” Until we utilize the greatest computer ever built by the hands of God, or at least dedicate the best computers built by man, to the task of preserving our species, we will continue to flounder on the rocks of ignorance.

What could be worse than total idiots leading the blind?

http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=628154

Mainstream media are waging a Psychological War on People of Tripoli

2011-08-22T06:18:00.000-07:00

Mainstream media are waging a Psychological War on People of Tripoli*

2011/08/22

The mainstream media are working with NATO to spread disinformation and waging a psychological war on the people of Tripoli.

Mahdi Nazemrova, a reporter and political analyst in Tripoli, says that what the world is witnessing is NATO's war against Libya. NATO is in control and the 'rebels' follow NATO's lead. The 'rebels' sporadic attacks in Tripoli have been aimed to break down the morale and cause panic in NATO's psychological war.

The mainstream media are an arm of NATO to spread disinformation. NATO has been bombing the civilian security checkpoints guarded by volunteers with the help of the mainstream media reporters locating them in Tripoli. The role of the mainstream media is to spread lies, acting as part of the NATO's war machine.

The truth reporters, most independent reporters, are now being shot at and hunted by the snipers.

Watch the real report directly from Tripoli.

* Url:http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=628175

Chavez denounces West over Libya: "They're practically demolishing Tripoli with their bombs"

2011-08-22T06:16:00.001-07:00

Chavez denounces West over Libya:

"They're practically demolishing Tripoli with their bombs"*

2011/08/22

Chavez: "Let's pray to God for the Libyan people"

Venezuelan popular democratic president Hugo Chavez, a staunch ally of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, has slammed white racist powers for "destroying Tripoli with their bombs," as terrorist rebels surged to seize control of the African capital.

"Today we are seeing images of the democratic governments of Europe, along with the supposedly democratic Government of the United States destroying Tripoli with their bombs," Chavez said on Sunday.

The bombs, Chavez pointed out, were "falling on schools, hospitals, workplaces, farmland."

"Let's pray to God for the Libyan people," Chavez said during a televised speech.

Chavez condemned the latest NATO airstrikes in the country, as well as the roles of the United States and some European nations, which make up the military force of NATO.

"Today they dropped I don't know how many bombs, and they're falling in a shameless and open way... on schools, hospitals, homes, work places, factories, farm fields at this very moment," Chavez said.

"They're practically demolishing Tripoli with their bombs."

He said US and other powers had sought excuses to try to take over the country.

"It's the excuse to intervene and seize a country and its riches," Chavez said.

Chavez and other leaders in Latin America and Africa have consistently denounced the 6 month-long non-stop bombing of Libya by NATO which is carrying out a grab of Africa's wealthiest resources on behalf of western bankers.

* Url:http://www.mathaba.net/news/?x=628182

U.S. Cowards Deploy 2 More Remote Killing ‘Predator Drones’ Against Libya

2011-08-22T06:13:00.000-07:00

U.S. Cowards Deploy 2 More Remote Killing ‘Predator Drones’ Against Libya*

NATO is facing increasing problems as it had relied on terrorist rebels (so-called tebels) to overthrow a popular democratic government and to try to kill the father of modern Libya who brought into being a democratic and socialist system which allows the people, and not an elite, to enjoy high living standards.

Mathaba.net

18 August 2011

The United States has deployed two more Predator drones which they claim are for “surveillance operations” over Libya, while NATO is failing in its war in preventing Libyans from fighting back terrorists which had taken control of some cities and driven out the inhabitants.

NATO has been bombing Africa’s most wealthy state since March under clear skies in what they said would be a “2 or 3 day war” to eliminate Libyan historic symbol Muammar Qaddafi who had vowed to help Africa with billions of dollars to free itself from foreign economic control and poverty.

The drones arrived earlier this week, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. It was not immediately clear how many U.S. drones were currently deployed on the NATO mission and at least one has been shot down by Libyan defence forces.

The drones are flown by remote control from inside the USA itself, by computer operators, thus allowing missile strikes and bombings to take place which have massacred already thousands of civilians.

Those who are controlling the drones as well as the pilots who have bombed the country out of range of defensive missiles at a height of 10km (30,000 feet) are subject to future war crimes tribunals for committing crimes against humanity.

The U.S. decision to send additional drones follows calls last month by NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen for members of the alliance to provide more air support, especially given that during the current holy month of Ramadan, NATO bombers have had their view obscured by cloud.

This has allowed for Libya’s industrial coastal town of Misrata, which had been held by terrorist rebels (known as “tebels”) to lay siege to the town driving out much of its population many of whom had to flee to sea, only to be allowed to sink under the watchful eye of NATO warships.

Black skinned Libyans were shot on sight and some tortured and hung from lamp posts as the racist “Al-Qaida” allies of NATO have sought to terrorise the population and eliminate anyone with a green national flag of Libya or photograph of Muammar Qaddafi, the much loved father of modern Libya.

Libyans enjoy free medical and dental treatment without limits including the funding of operations abroad, as well as studies and education to any location around the world, and are provided a free house, free electricity and tools of trade of choice such as for agriculture as well as land.

It is the only country in the world to provide all services for free and also shares the revenue from its natural resources across the entire population, by depositing the remainder of the national income into the bank accounts of each Libyan, to the tune of around $500 each month.

At the outset of the aggression against Libya to attempt to overthrow the “Jamahiriya” direct participatory democratic system of people’s conferences and people’s committees, and to assassinate the founder of the Jamahiriya, who wrote a “Green Book” on democracy, the U.S. and Western Europe stole the entire approximately $150 billion of assets of Libya including those earmarked for African Union projects, confiscating the funds from western banks.

The lesson not lost on populations the world over is that it is not safe now to keep money in banks, as any pretext can be invented by governments to “seize assets” — in the case of Libya it was claimed that Qaddafi was ordering the air force to bomb civilians, a claim since revealed to be a lie. Qaddafi had on the contrary ordered restraint and prevented the armed forces from intervening in the plot by terrorists in Benghazi so as not to endanger lives.

Russian military has also since shown video to the world which reveals the imagery from Russian military spy satellites — images which no doubt also exist on western military satellite footage and even on live Google maps — which showed that no flights took place at all during the period it was claimed bombings had taken place, and also that the reports had come from “Twitter” and were not verified. Further, Twitter is not accessible from inside Libya.

Meanwhile the popularity of Qaddafi’s ideas which have reached a world wide audience as the world has been surprised to find a leader with such popularity who is so loved by his people, whilst leaders in other countries, and especially the states which are attacking Libya, face mass demonstrations and uprisings against their unpopular economic, political and social policies, where services are not available free for the people but enjoyed only by elites.

In other news, Mathaba news reporters visiting neighbouring Tunisia have reported on the large number of Libyans now living in that country — an estimated 3 million — who have been displaced by the war. They occupy the prime most expensive houses overlooking the beautiful Mediterranean Sea and drive new cars, unlike the Tunisians who still live in poverty. Some of them work across the border in Libya and return at night to their homes in Tunisia, as the area has come under large scale bombing by NATO in an attempt to provide cover for terrorists entering Libya from across the border.

* Url:http://info-wars.org/2011/08/19/u-s-cowards-deploy-2-more-remote-killing-predator-drones-against-libya/

US keeps Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba on terror blacklist

2011-08-22T06:09:00.000-07:00

US keeps Iran, Syria, Sudan, Cuba on terror blacklist*

Agence France Presse

August 19, 2011

WASHINGTON — The United States retained Iran and its ally Syria as well as Sudan and Cuba on a list of alleged state sponsors of terrorism Thursday, after blacklisting the countries the previous year.

Iran was first designated a state sponsor of terror in 1984.

Allied with Iran, Syria was also kept on the list for supporting the same Palestinian militant groups and Lebanon's Hezbollah. It was first designated a state sponsor of terror in 1974

In justifying its move, the State Department noted the external leadership for the Palestinian groups were based in Damascus and operated within Syria. Damascus is also home to Sunni Muslims affiliated with the Baath Party of late Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.

"Iraqi Baathists continued to congregate in the Syrian capital and some of them call for violence against the Iraqi government, Iraqi civilian targets and American and coalition forces within Iraq," it said.

It also stressed that Al-Rai television, owned by Iraqi politician Mishan al-Juburi, a Baathist, broadcasts from a suburban Damascus location "transmitted violent messages in support of terrorism in Iraq throughout the year."

Sudan, which was designated a state sponsor of terror in 1993, remained on the blacklist even though the State Department acknowledged it was "a cooperative partner in global counter-terrorism efforts" against Al-Qaeda last year.

However, it said Al-Qaeda-inspired extremists and others remained in Sudan "as gaps remained in the Sudanese government's knowledge of and ability to identify and capture" them and stop them from smuggling goods through the country.

Some Iraqi insurgents are also living in Sudan and "may be in a position to use their expertise to conduct attacks within Sudan or to pass on their knowledge," the State Department added.

First designated a state sponsor of terror in 1982, Cuba was kept on the list again.

The State Department said there "was no evidence" that the communist island "had severed ties with elements from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC)," despite its public stance against terror and terror financing.

It pointed to reports that current and former members of the Basque separatist group ETA live in Cuba.

* Url:http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gmt-Jh6nWNoCr_OprFbFL4BXNllA?docId=CNG.4a32e73d06c0936d1f612feda972b621.491

How Money Restricts Life’s Pleasures*

2011-08-22T06:08:00.001-07:00

How Money Restricts Life’s Pleasures*

Spare a thought for the super-rich, the poor darlings can't appreciate a tin of spam, a lump of coal or a cardboard box the way you and I can.

It's a mystery why money doesn't make us happy, because it feels like it damn well should. With money we can buy whatever we want, go wherever we want, even be whoever we want. Surely that should make us happy?

And yet study after study shows that in affluent societies money might bring satisfaction, but it doesn't bring much happiness.

Perhaps, as people become really rich, they don't choose more enjoyable activities (i.e. they stay in the office working)? Perhaps material goods just can't make us happy? Or perhaps there is always someone richer, spoiling the party with their more impressive wealth?

Failure to savour

There's something missing from these accounts, though, and it's the old argument that when you live in luxurious surroundings, have experienced the best restaurants and received the most lavish gifts, it becomes more difficult to savour the simple things in life.

Supporting this account, a new study published in Psychological Science has found that participants were less able to savour positive emotions both when they were richer themselves and when they were prompted to think about wealth by looking at a picture of money (Quoidbach et al., 2010).

In a second study participants who were cued with the idea of money didn't enjoy or savour a chocolate bar as much as those not reminded of money. When participants looked at a picture of money beforehand, the average time spent eating the chocolate went down from 45 seconds to 32 seconds. Levels of enjoyment reported afterwards also went down, from 5 to 3.6 on a scale of 1 to 7, where 7 is maximum enjoyment.

And this is only the effect of looking at a picture of money for a few seconds. Think what our society, with its constant reminders of opulence in both public and private, are doing to us. It's a wonder we can enjoy anything.

Relativistic psychology

This is just one facet of our mind's habit of comparing everything with everything else, from complex concepts like money right down to the most basic perceptual level. Like when you open your eyes in the morning, or turn up the volume on your mp3 player; for a moment the senses are overloaded but soon the contrast fades as the mind acclimatises.

It's easy to forget that things aren't 'loud' or 'bright', they are just 'louder' or 'brighter' than something else. Money is just one more thing that our minds treat in this relativistic fashion.

So spare a thought for the super-rich, the poor darlings can't appreciate a tin of spam, a lump of coal or a cardboard box in quite the same way that you and I can. It's not much of a silver lining I'll grant you, but it's something to hold on to.

Image credit: Darrren Hester

* Url:http://www.spring.org.uk/2010/07/how-money-restricts-lifes-pleasures.php

Rioting!

2011-08-22T06:04:00.000-07:00

Rioting!*

Vincent Wood

of Vincent J Wood's blog

August 18th, 2011

I have just come back from three weeks in England, most of which spent in London. I watched events unfold and how the media covered it all from the initial understanding of the Police shooting a man who may or may not have had a gun through to the more rabid hang ‘em and flog ‘em chorus that is still playing out.

What is really striking though is the complete and total divide within the ordinary working people. I spoke to quite a few people over the period and while a riot could be happening in Hackney - or more accurately, a part of Hackney - the clientele of a pub in nearby Stratford were shouting at the TV in an echo of the tabloid commentary. Working people are divided. They are not mixing with each other let alone sharing their anger.

When stepping even slightly outside of working class London, the gulf widens further. I spoke to people living on the more affluent suburbs - decent, Liberal types - who obviously inhabit a different country.

Was all of this any different from the riots of the early eighties? That’s an interesting discussion. I remember those riots too. I remember white working class pub goers ‘tooling up’ in case black rioters came into the area. There was division then too. The us and them, encouraged and fostered by Thatcherism, manifested itself in these divisions within the working class - the white pub goers, soon to depart the East End for the sanctuary of Basildon and Billericky, to aspire to become Middle Class, leaving ‘others’ behind.

All of this is a manifestation of the success of Thatcher and her successors to debunk the idea of Society and have us compete against each other - a competition that has to have winners and losers, us and them, whites and blacks and not cooperation, solidarity and shared understandings. Alas, it also underlines the failure of the left to move beyond sectarianism and navel gazing and work in a broad project to defend Society and offer a vision for the 21st century. Its an open goal. Shoot!

* Url:http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/08/18/rioting

Social Unrest and Government Policy

2011-08-22T06:03:00.000-07:00

Social Unrest and Government Policy*

Michael Burke

of Socialist Economic Bulletin

August 17th, 2011

There’s a very good piece on LabourList titled ‘Who Didn’t Predict a Riot?’ It lists many of the bodies or leading individuals who warned that deep cuts to public spending would lead to social unrest and violence. The short piece is worth reading in full, but here is a (far from exhaustive) list of those who did predict riots and civil disturbances because of the policies of the Tory-led government:

Derek Barnett, president of the Police Superintendents’ Association

The Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police

Karen Ward, senior economist at HSBC

The Governor of the Bank of England

The Archbishop of Canterbury

Nick Clegg, and not least,

Youth workers in some of the affected areas

The latter prediction was made in response to the closure of most of the youth clubs in Haringey, but all the warnings were made in an assessment of the impact of the cuts.

The disturbances were therefore not only a predictable cause of the government’s policies, they were predicted by a broad array of specialists and commentators, many of whom are not particularly hostile to the government (and one is a leading member of it). Based on historical experience, not least the effects of Thatcher’s cuts in the early 1980s, it was inevitable that riots and other disturbances would follow as a consequence of government policy. The list is a bit long and comprehensive for the Tories to dismiss them all as excusing rioting - although doubtless that won’t stop them.

Analysis from the Guardian has shown that, while rioting and looting include many layers of society and has many motivations, the striking fact is that of those currently charged with offences, 41% live in the most deprived 10% of areas in England. This too is predictable. As bodies such as the Institute for Fiscal Studies have pointed out, the poorest have been hardest hit by the cuts. Therefore, just as it is inevitable that deep cuts to public spending will lead to social unrest, those most harmed by the cuts, or at least some living in those communities will be at the forefront of that unrest. Latest analysis from the TUC shows that in some of the riot-affected areas there are 20 jobskeekers for every job vacancy.

Of course, even in the most deprived areas, the majority of people do not riot, still fewer engage in looting or approve of it. But opinion polls also show that while most think the police responded well to the riots (despite widespread media criticism of them) most also believe that David Cameron, Theresa May and Boris Johnson did not respond well to the riots.

Strikingly, while a majority of between 8% and 10% believe that government policies on welfare, education and law and order will make matters worse, double that level, 20% believe that government economic policies will have the same effect. A net 23% also oppose the cuts to police budgets.

Although opinion polls only ever represent a snapshot, and views expressed are often contradictory, this set of opinions reflects a fundamental truth. Government policies are not only impoverishing the majority, they have predictably led to violent social unrest. The continuation of these policies will only exacerbate those trends.

Tory policies are making the overwhelming majority worse off while also making their neighbourhoods and town centres less safe.

* Url:http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/08/17/social-unrest-government-policy/

China sends emergency aid to war-torn Libya

2011-08-22T06:02:00.000-07:00

China sends emergency aid to war-torn Libya

TIANJIN, Aug. 18 (Xinhua) -- The first batch of emergency humanitarian relief materials, sent by the Red Cross Society of China to war-torn Libya, departed from the Tianjin airport early Thursday morning.

The relief materials, weighing about 90 tonnes, included rice, edible oil and medicine, and are scheduled to arrive in Benghazi Thursday afternoon Beijing time.

The Red Cross Society of China said it decided to offer two batches of humanitarian relief aid to Libya in the Islamic holy month of Ramadan. The aid is worth 50 million yuan (about 7.825 millon U.S. dollars) in total.

The organization didn't say when the second batch of the relief aid would be shipped.

It said as a member of International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement, it had been closely following the development of the situation in Libya, adding Chinese people deeply sympathize with the Libyan people.

NATO, Rebels Accused of War Crimes in Libya

2011-08-22T06:00:00.000-07:00

NATO, Rebels Accused of War Crimes in Libya*

Alex Newman

Thursday, 18 August 2011

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) is being heavily criticized for civilian casualties and a series of bombings apparently targeting essential non-military infrastructure in Libya, with some observers calling the actions war crimes. The Libyan rebels being supported by coalition forces have also been accused of wanton savagery and even crimes against humanity.

Most recently, a NATO bombing campaign near the Libyan city of Zlitan earlier this month reportedly killed almost 100 civilians — more than half of them women and children. The attack sparked a new wave of outrage worldwide as journalists and activists called for investigations.

Representatives of the Gadhafi regime took a large group of foreign reporters to the site. They were reportedly shown bodies of women and children, including the remains of a baby. Multiple bombed out homes were also presented to international journalists.

“Today was yet another crime by NATO against civilians,” Libyan regime spokesman Moussa Ibrahim was quoted by Fox News as saying about the attack, noting that over 1,000 civilians had been killed by NATO so far. “They are killing women and children. This happens every day. Help us to stop this madness.”

The Western military alliance defended the strikes, saying they were against “legitimate” targets. According to NATO spokespeople, the coalition believed the town was being used as a staging ground for pro-Gadhafi forces and tribes aimed at repelling an upcoming rebel invasion of Tripoli.

But the victims cited in news reports said that was not the case. "NATO bombed us, for what reason? We did not do anything to them. We are civilian people," a man who lost his daughter and his home in the strike was quoted as saying in The Australian newspaper. “Why did they kill us? We had peace in my house with our family. What did we do to the other countries?"

International law expert Franklin Lamb, writing in the Foreign Policy Journal from Tripoli over the weekend, accused NATO of committing a “massacre” after visiting the bombing site. Citing international lawyers, U.S. congressional staffers and human rights activists visiting the war-torn nation, he charged that NATO had “committed war crimes and crimes against humanity.”

Other foreign reporters — particularly from Russia — have been fiercely critical of the NATO campaign for months. “Do those who planned this and other crimes have a right to live? I'm talking about the Bilderberg club. What would they feel if their families are also deprived of a quiet life, and then killed in cold blood?” wrote Russian columnist Konstantyn Scheglikov following the bombings, attacking the “NATO maniacs who do not like the resistance of the small North African country.”

Other reporters who toured the site offered similarly devastating analyses of what happened. Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya with the Centre for Research on Globalization said civilians in Tripoli and other major Libyan cities were “bombed indiscriminately by NATO” in recent weeks.

“In Zliten, 85 people were killed including 33 children, 32 women, and 20 men as a result of NATO’s deliberate targeting of residential areas and civilian infrastructure,” he wrote, posting a dozen pictures showing the aftermath of the attack, which he called “photographic evidence of NATO war crimes.”

International human rights groups also had questions about the bombing. "NATO continues to stress its commitment to protect civilians,” said Amnesty International’s Hassiba Hadj Sahraoui in a statement. “To that effect, it should thoroughly investigate this and all other recent incidents in which civilians were reportedly killed in western Libya as a result of air strikes."

In addition to the hundreds or even thousands of “collateral damage” deaths so far, NATO is also under fire for air strikes on civilian infrastructure. On July 25, the Associated Press reported that the international coalition bombed a hospital, leaving several doctors dead.

Another infrastructure attack that drew international condemnation was the bombing of facilities associated with Libya’s so-called Great Man-Made River system, a pipeline that delivers water to a large percentage of the population. The Pakistan Observer said the attack was “a clear war crime” and could easily lead to a “humanitarian disaster.”

On July 30, NATO warplanes also repeatedly bombed a Libyan television station, killing three and injuring 15. Surviving journalists blasted the attack and called for international support from other reporters.

“We are not a military target, we are not officers in the army and not a threat to civilians,” the Libya Broadcasting Department Employees said in a statement after the attack, which it called an “act of international terrorism” and a violation of international law. “We are doing our job as journalists in representing what from the bottom of my heart we believe is the reality of the NATO aggression and violence in Libya.”

Countless press-freedom groups including the International News Safety Institute and the International Federation of Journalists have demanded an investigation of the attack. But NATO defended the bombing, saying the TV station was being used to spread pro-Gadhafi propaganda.

A separate incident in early August involving NATO’s alleged failure to rescue ocean-bound refugees in distress has also been widely criticized around the world. According to news reports, up to 100 people died escaping Libya on a rickety boat after the engine died and nearby NATO ships failed to respond to SOS calls.

“The idea that NATO, with all its surveillance technology, was not aware of a boat of this size is a story that not even Little Red Riding Hood would believe,” charged Italian Parliamentarian Roberto Castelli. The government of Italy has requested an inquiry to find out why the refugees were apparently left to die.

The internationally backed rebels trying to seize power in Libya have also been accused of numerous war crimes and wide-scale barbarity — some of it too horrendous even to mention. Numerous gruesome videos have been posted online showing beheadings, lynchings and other crimes, proving that at least some of the allegations are true.

“The evidence provided by these videos makes clear that the rebels' conception of warfare has more in common with that of Al-Qaeda than that of the Geneva Conventions,” explained John Rosenthal in a piece for the U.S.-based Hudson Institute. “The abuses documented in the videos could serve as textbook examples of precisely the sort of savagery that the Geneva Conventions were supposed to prevent.”

As The New American and countless other sources have reported, the NATO-backed rebels are, in many cases, led by self-described leaders of al Qaeda and other extreme Islamic groups that have boasted of battling American forces everywhere from Iraq to Afghanistan. Some of the leaders are even former U.S. prisoners who were held in Guantanamo Bay.

Suspicions about the rebels’ true motives and supporters were also raised when the self-proclaimed Interim Transitional National Council announced the creation of a new central bank weeks after the NATO invasion. It remains unclear whether the new monetary authority will follow the Gadhafi regime’s state-owned model, or if it is to be privately owned like the U.S. Federal Reserve.

Though Western powers were arming the rebels well before intervention became official, the Obama administration and NATO publicly intervened in Libya in mid-March to enforce a United Nations resolution. Since then, the “mission” has morphed into “regime change,” with foreign powers hoping to oust dictator Moammar Gadhafi and install the rebels as the new government.

Without congressional approval, which Obama himself acknowledged in 2007 is required by the U.S. Constitution prior to foreign militarism, critics have charged that American involvement is itself illegal. And while the administration has already informed Congress that it would ignore any attempt to rein in the war, critics worldwide are still hoping that there will eventually be some accountability and justice if crimes were indeed committed.

* Url:http://www.thenewamerican.com/world-mainmenu-26/africa-mainmenu-27/

Libyan Deaths, Media Silence Were Dozens Killed in Majer NATO Airstrikes?

2011-08-22T05:59:00.001-07:00

Libyan Deaths, Media Silence

Were Dozens Killed in Majer NATO Airstrikes?

8/18/11

Allegations of Libyan civilian deaths as a result of NATO bombing have often been covered in the corporate media as an opportunity to scoff at the Gadhafi regime's unconvincing propaganda (FAIR Blog, 6/9/11).

But dramatic new allegations that dozens of civilians were killed in Majer after NATO airstrikes on August 8 have been met with near-total media silence.

According to Libyan officials, 85 civilians were killed in Majer-- a town south of Zliten, a site of frequent clashes and NATO airstrikes. There is no reason journalists should take this claim at face value.

But reports from the scene suggest that something significant happened. According to Agence France Presse (8/9/11), "Reporters attended the funerals of victims and saw 28 bodies buried at the local cemetery.... In the hospital morgue, 30 bodies -- including two children and one woman -- were shown along with other bodies which had been torn apart."

The AFP report included NATO denials, with a spokesman claiming that the target "was a military facility clearly."

A Reuters correspondent (8/9/11) "counted 20 body bags in one room, some of them stacked one on top of the other.... In total, reporters saw about 30 bodies at the Zlitan hospital." The New York Times (8/10/11) ran a 170-word version of a Reuters dispatch which noted:

"There was no evidence of weapons at the farmhouses, but there were no bodies there, either. Nor was there blood."

Amnesty International has called for an investigation, which led to this mention from CNN anchor John King (8/11/11):

Amnesty International is demanding that NATO investigate whether a Monday strike on Moammar Gadhafi's forces killed 85 Libyan civilians including 33 children. NATO says it has no evidence of civilian casualties at this point.

A Nexis database search yields very little coverage in U.S. outlets. But that is not because no reporters were present. CNN correspondent Ivan Watson covered a mass funeral after the strikes. But his report aired only on CNN International (8/10/11). Watson reported a visit to "three or four houses that had been demolished by some kind of missiles from the sky."

He added: We were also shown a morgue where there were the bodies of at least 25 people. Many of them appeared to be men. There were some women and children included among those corpses.

Watson noted that it was "impossible for us, from this perspective, to confirm whether or not 85 people were in fact killed, but it does appear that at least some women and were among those hurt in this deadly strike." (You can watch Watson's report here).

Watson's CNN.com report (8/10/11) included an interview with a Libyan who claimed that nine members of his family were killed in the attack,

including his two-year old daughter. Watson also interviewed a man who was burying his daughter.

It is curious that Watson's reporting was shared with CNN's international audience, but not broadcast to its domestic audience. But Watson did appear on CNN a few days earlier from the scene of another NATO strike in Zliten. The point of that report (8/5/11) was to suggest that official claims of civilian deaths were suspicious. In that segment, Watson noted that on a visit to a law school that had been attacked by NATO forces, he found what "appear to be uniforms over here, these olive green pants. And then we have got boxes here that look an awful lot like they could have been holding ammunition."

Reporting that undermines Libyan claims of civilian casualties has been a staple of the war so far-- as evidenced by headlines like "Libya Government Fails to Prove Claims of NATO Casualties" (Washington Post, 6/6/11) and "Libya Stokes Its Machine Generating Propaganda" (New York Times, 6/7/11).

Is Majer being ignored by the media because it is just more clumsy Libyan propaganda? Or is it because the story might conflict with the media's overriding message that Libyan civilians aren't dying in NATO's airstrikes? In any event, corporate media outlets that have so diligently sought to debunk Libyan claims of civilian deaths should investigate what happened in Majer. On the BBC website, reporter Matthew Price published one such effort (8/11/11), headlined "What really happened in Libya's Zlitan?" There should be more like it.

South Korea's dependent economy

2011-08-22T05:51:00.000-07:00

South Korea's dependent economy

The south Korean economy is indeed a dependent economy and a modern version of a colonial economy. Lets briefly survey some facts.

South Korea's external debt is $370 billion dollars (or $7,400 per head of population and its internal debt is $319 billion dollars. South Korea's debts are actually much higher than at the

the time of the IMF bailout in 1998.

South Korea belongs to the imperialist controlled IMF , World Bank, World Trade Oganisation ,the G20 and APEC.

It is a number of shackling economic agreements with the US and recently conclude a so called "Free Trade Agreement ". South Korea is a playground for the transnational corporations of international monopoly capitalism. Here is a by no means exhaustive or list of foreign companies in south Korea.

US-owned companies:

General Motors
Ford
IBM
Microsoft
Hewlett Packard
Exxon Mobil
Energizer
Chevron
Bank of America
Citibank
Metlife
J P Chase Morgan
Bank of New York
Coca Cola
Pepsi Cola
Johnson & Johnson
McDonalds
Burger King
Pizza Hut
Kraft
Hilton Hotels
7 Eleven
Jones Lang LaSalle
Starbucks

Japanese-owned companies:

Aichi
Casio
Kubota
Mitibushi
Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ bank
Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation
Mizuho Corporate Bank
Toshiba
Sony
Nissan
Honda
Toyota
Lotte
NEC
Sanyo
Mitsui
Nikon
Canon
Sanrio
Fujitsu
Hitachi
Family Mart
Sharp
Sanwa

British companies:

SC First Bank
HSBC
Barclays Bank
Tesco
BP
CBRE
Marks and Spencer
ICI
German
Deutsche Bank
BASF
Netherlands
Shell
Italy
Fila

French-owned companies:

Renault
BNP Paribas

All these firms suck out billions out of south Korea every year and make the south Korean people becoming slaves of foreign Capitalists and its domestic cohorts.

U.S.-R.O.K. War Maneuvers under fire -KCNA

2011-08-22T05:49:00.000-07:00

U.S.-R.O.K. War Maneuvers under fire

Pyongyang, August 16 (KCNA) -- The British Group for the Study of the Juche Idea and the British Association for the Study of Songun Policy issued a joint statement on Aug. 10 denouncing the U.S.-south Korea joint military exercises.

Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises to be staged by the U.S. and south Korea are apparently a grave provocation against the DPRK, the statement said, branding them as a foolish attempt to stifle the socialist system in the DPRK by force.

The exercises have nothing to do with "freedom" advertised by the U.S. but are aimed to expand its forces to the whole Korean Peninsula and, furthermore, secure hegemony over Asia-Pacific, it noted.

It supported the Panmunjom Mission of the Korean People's Army for sending an open letter to the U.S. and the south Korean authorities demanding them stop the joint military exercises.

It went on:

If the U.S. is interested in peace on the Korean Peninsula, it should unconditionally stop the joint military exercises.

We strongly demand the immediate withdrawal of the U.S. forces from south Korea.

We will always stand by the Korean people, the statement said, appealing to all the Juche idea and Songun idea followers of the world to unite more closely around socialist Korea of Juche.

US-S. Korea drill is 'declaration of war': North

2011-08-22T05:48:00.000-07:00

US-S. Korea drill is 'declaration of war': North*

Agence France Presse

August 18, 2011

SEOUL (AFP) - North Korea on Thursday slammed a joint military exercise between the United States and South Korea as a declaration of "all-out war".

The 10-day exercise is an "unpardonable heinous provocation" against the communist state, the North's Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea (CPRK) said.

"This is a declaration of an all-out war against the DPRK (North Korea)," the state body said in an English-language statement carried by Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency.

The exercise, which began on Tuesday, involves more than 530,000 troops, including some 3,000 military personnel from the US and other bases around the Pacific region.

The two allies have described the annual Ulchi Freedom Guardian (UFG) drill as defensive and routine, but the CPRK said it was a rehearsal for an attack against the North's leadership, nuclear and missile bases.

The UFG has stripped the United States and South Korea of their "mask of peace and dialogue," the CPRK said, adding that the two countries had reacted to Pyongyang's "patient efforts for peace" with "provocative manoeuvres for a war of aggression".

South Korean news agency Yonhap, quoting military officials, has said the exercise will see troops simulate the detection and destruction of North Korean atomic bombs, missiles and chemical weapons.

The comments from the CPRK come a day after the isolated communist state responded to the start of the exercise by vowing to bolster its nuclear deterrent.

The North's foreign ministry spokesman said Wednesday that the "extremely provocative and aggressive" exercise showed the US sticks to its "invariable hostile aim" to stifle the North "by force of arms".

"It is self-evident that the DPRK should put spurs to bolstering its nuclear deterrent for self-defence both in quality and quantity to cope with this situation," he said.

The North habitually labels such joint drills as rehearsals for invasion and launches its own counter-exercises.

Last week it urged Washington and Seoul to show their willingness to work towards denuclearisation by scrapping the exercise, and demanded a peace treaty to replace the current armistice that ended the 1950-1953 war.

Pyongyang officials met counterparts in Seoul and Washington last month, raising hopes that the talks involving the two Koreas, Russia, China, Japan and the United States could resume after last taking place in December 2008.

The North has repeatedly expressed a desire to return to the forum, but the United States has urged it to show more sincerity and mend ties with the South first.

* Url:http://nz.news.yahoo.com/a/-/world/10067043/uss-korea-drill-is-declaration-of-war-north/

Ulji Freedom Guardian slammed -KCNA

2011-08-22T05:47:00.000-07:00

Ulji Freedom Guardian slammed

Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea Wednesday issued a statement assailing the U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet warmongers for kicking off the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises on Tuesday.

The statement said:

The U.S imperialists and the south Korean puppet warmongers finally started the provocative Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises despite the strong warnings of the DPRK and the unanimous denunciation of the public at home and abroad.

Involved in the frantic war maneuvers which will be staged across south Korea for 11 days from August 16 to 26 are over 30 000 U.S. troops in south Korea and overseas and troops under the commands of three services of the puppet army and units under them, 530 000 troops in all, even according to an official announcement.

They hurled into this saber-rattling even military personnel of different countries which participated in the past Korean War, bringing to light their scenario to ignite the second Korean war.

The CPRK bitterly denounces with surging resentment UFG as a grave challenge to all the fellow countrymen aspiring after peace on the Korean Peninsula and the public opinion at home and abroad and an unpardonable heinous provocation against the DPRK.

What should not be overlooked in the war maneuvers is that the U.S. and the puppet warmongers included the drill for special warfare aimed at daring strike the leadership of the DPRK and the drill for mounting a preemptive attack on its nuclear and missile bases as main parts of this saber-rattling.

The puppet group, not content with committing such hideous provocations as doing harm to the dignity of the leadership of the DPRK, is contemplating applying those provocations to large-scale war maneuvers against it in collusion with the U.S. This is lashing the army and people of the DPRK into bitter resentment and hatred.

This is a declaration of an all-out war against the DPRK.

The war maneuvers started by the U.S. and the puppet group completely stripped them of their mask of peace and dialogue.

They reacted to the DPRK's patient efforts for peace with the provocative maneuvers for a war of aggression. This proves that they do not have any slightest will for dialogue and the improvement of relations but are only pursuing aims to escalate confrontation and ignite a war.

The group of traitors is none other than wicked hooligans and war maniacs who talked about the "era of peace and cooperation" before us but kicked off the war maneuvers against the north as soon as they went back.

The chief executive of south Korea is busy convening a security meeting with his American master after kicking off the above-said saber-rattling, strengthening the alert posture of the army and staging a drill for evacuating inhabitants.

It is the height of shamelessness for such war maniac without an equal to talk about confidence and sincerity.

The on-going war maneuvers brought into bolder relief the true colors of the puppet group as confrontation maniacs and war-like elements.

The whole world now clearly sees who is a real provocateur and who is a wrecker of peace and dialogue on the peninsula.

Those who like to play with fire are bound to perish in the flames.

If the U.S. and the puppet warmongers ignite a war of aggression at any cost, the army and people of the DPRK will give vent to the pent-up resentment and wipe out the aggressors on this land to the last one and realize the cherished desire for national reunification.

The U.S. and the puppet group should no longer mock at the DPRK.

The on-going saber-rattling goes to prove that the path chosen by the DPRK so far is right and hardens its determination to keep to the road in the days ahead.

The army and the people of the DPRK will never pardon the provocative war maneuvers of the U.S. and the puppet warmongers but shatter them mercilessly.

KCNA slams Ulji Freedom Guardian

2011-08-22T05:46:00.001-07:00

KCNA slams Ulji Freedom Guardian

Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- The U.S. and the south Korean puppet forces kicked off provocative Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises for aggression despite repeated warnings of the DPRK and strong protest and denunciation of the public at home and abroad.

This is a reckless action contrary to the expectation and desire of the Korean and other world people aspiring after denuclearization and peace of the Korean Peninsula and an extremely dangerous action to ignite a new war.

They claim that the exercises are "annual" and aim to "cope with threat." But this is no more than sheer sophism intended to cover up their aggressive nature.

Involved in this saber-rattling are more than 30 000 troops of the U.S. forces and at least 56 000 troops of the puppet forces, 530 000 in all, and modern war hardware including sophisticated nuclear strike means. The theatre of these war maneuvers covers vast areas linking the Korean Peninsula with Pacific and the U.S. mainland. This clearly proves the danger of the saber-rattling.

It is also proved by the fact that a drill for eliminating someone's WMDs will be conducted under the simulated conditions of an actual war while the military exercises are under way, pursuant to the new scenario for a war against the DPRK.

This military provocation perpetrated by them in utter disregard of the concern of the international community over the escalating tension on the peninsula and the region goes to prove that the U.S. is the arch criminal harassing peace and standing in the way of the process for the denuclearization of the peninsula.

The reality goes to clearly prove that it is impossible to defuse the military confrontation and danger of war on the peninsula nor is it possible to realize its denuclearization as long as the U.S. vicious hostile policy toward the DPRK and the south Korean conservative authorities' moves to escalate the confrontation with it are allowed to persist.

It is the steadfast stand of the DPRK government to realize the denuclearization on the peninsula.

The denuclearization can never be realized by the efforts of one party alone. This must be a comprehensive and fair one as it should include defusing the danger of war and nuclear threat to the DPRK.

The denuclearization of the peninsula can never go with war maneuvers.

The army and people of the DPRK still remain unchanged in their will and stand to take toughest counteraction against the test nuclear war and preliminary war aimed to mount a surprise preemptive attack on the DPRK.

Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry slams Ulji Freedom Guardian -KCNA

2011-08-22T05:45:00.000-07:00

Spokesman for DPRK Foreign Ministry slams Ulji Freedom Guardian

Pyongyang, August 17 (KCNA) -- A spokesman for the Foreign Ministry of the DPRK Wednesday issued the following statement denouncing the U.S. and the south Korean authorities for kicking off the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises:

The United States and the south Korean authorities kicked off extremely provocative and aggressive Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises targeted against the DPRK despite the repeated warnings of the DPRK.

This saber-rattling started by the U.S. in collusion with the south Korean authorities is maneuvers for a nuclear war against the DPRK which brought to light their invariable hostile aim to stifle it by force of arms.

This is entailing such adverse consequences as vitiating the atmosphere of dialogue created with much effort in reflection of the unanimous desire and wishes of the people at home and abroad for peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and straining the situation.

The U.S. is staging exercises for a war of aggression against its dialogue partner while putting up signboard of dialogue. This incoherent behavior on the part of the U.S. is only adding to the skepticism about whether it is sincere towards dialogue or not.

It is preposterous for the U.S. to urge the DPRK to refrain from bolstering its nuclear deterrent, while whetting its swords for a war of aggression behind the scene of dialogue.

It is very ill-boding that the U.S. let "a special action unit" participate in the on-going joint military exercises as it is one tasked to detect and destroy nuclear weapons of the DPRK.

The prevailing situation goes to prove that the U.S. is not set to realize the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula through dialogue and negotiations but seize an opportunity to deprive it of nuclear deterrent by a brigandish method.

It is self-evident that the DPRK should put spurs to bolstering its nuclear deterrent for self-defence both in quality and quantity to cope with this situation.

Invariable is the stand of the DPRK to preserve peace and denuclearize the peninsula through dialogue and negotiations.

No attempt on the part of the U.S. to do harm to the DPRK by force of arms can go with dialogue. This will only face the mode of merciless counteraction of Korean-style.

Why Eurobonds are Essential and Fiscal Union a Folly

2011-08-22T05:42:00.000-07:00

Why Eurobonds are Essential and Fiscal Union a Folly*

(Or how to escape the equally untenable positions of German economists

Thomas Straubhaar and Otmar Issing)

Yanis Varoufakis

of Yanis Varoufakis.eu

August 17th, 2011

The context: In the middle of a mighty bushfire the fire brigade just held a summit between its chief fire fighters (Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy) to discuss the importance of biodiversity, leaving the flames to destroy the forest. Italy and Spain are collapsing. The EFSF, the only institution that was set up to deal with the fall of member-states, is both too feeble and too toxic, while the ECB is, knowingly, fighting a losing battle in the secondary bond markets. Eurobonds are the only short term brake that may slow down, indeed reverse, these developments. And yet Mrs Merkel and Mr Sarkozy were the only Europeans yesterday that did not discuss… eurobonds. Elsewhere, even in Germany, eurobonds are appearing as a fait accomplis. The trouble is, they are erroneously identified with fiscal union.

The argument here: Eurobonds are the only impediment to the euro’s unravelling. But a transfer or a fiscal union (that most Germans fear) is neither necessary nor desirable. The way forward must involve eurobonds issued and guaranteed exclusively by the ECB - as proposed by the Modest Proposal.

In my previous post, commenting on George Soros’ three point plan for addressing the euro crisis, I argued against jointly guaranteed eurobonds in exchange for centralised fiscal limits and a loss of national authority. Why? Because such a solution is practically infeasible, financially suboptimal, economically recessionary and politically undemocratic.

The gist of the problem can be gleaned through two articles written by two German economists that adopt diametrically opposed positions on eurobonds et al. One is Thomas Straubhaar (Professor of Economics at the University of Hamburg), the other Otmar Issing, one of the euro’s architects.

Professor Thomas Straubhaar’s Six Point Plan

In an article recently published by Der Spiegel Professor Straubhaar embraced the idea of a fully fledged fiscal/transfer union ”…in which all members are jointly liable for each other’s obligations”. In addition to these commonly guaranteed eurobonds, he advocated that the EFSF be given an unbounded funding limit to deal with member-state insolvencies. In exchange, member-states should forfeit national autonomy in relation to fiscal policy and in inverse proportion to their usage of the common funds raised via the touted common eurobond.

In greater detail, Professor’s Straubhaar’s six points can be summarised thus:

The German and French leadership pledge their preparedness to use all the means at their disposal to prevent fellow euro-zone countries from going broke - something similar to their commitment that all bank deposits would be safe after the Crash of 2008

The European Financial Stability Facility (EFSF), should be expanded without limits. Loans at cheap interest rates and with long maturities will be offered to any euro-zone country that needs it in exchange of the loss of sovereignty of fiscal policy.

The European Central Bank (ECB) to cease and desist from bond purchases. “Bringing debt under control is a matter of financial policy. It’s a problem that states should solve - and not the central bank.”

Institute a fiscal or transfer union in which all members are jointly liable for each other’s obligations.

The ECB and other EU bodies should not utilise the ratings of the ratings agencies

Eurozone countries should orchestrate a shift in power from markets to the Union (e.g. ban short-selling permanently and “keep public budgets in order over the long term”

Otmar Issing’s objections

In sharp contrast, Otmar Issing, in an article in the Financial Times, presented the reasons why jointly guaranteed eurobonds ought to be shunned. He writes:

“The idea of issuing bonds which all member states of the eurozone guarantee insofar seems sensible, as it would immediately lower interest rates for the highly indebted countries. However, there is a problem too, given it would also lead to higher interest rates for those countries that enjoyed credibility with financial markets in the past. Those who claim that this effect would be small succumb either to an illusion or deliberately underestimate this risk.”

Issing’s point is that joint guarantees mean debt pooled across the different eurozone members, which will necessary translate into an averaging out of interest rates. Therefore, the benefits to the deficit nations will be bought at the expense of higher interest rates paid by the surplus member-states.

While it is impossible to know how the markets will price such jointly guaranteed eurobonds, Herr Issing’s argument is not to be dismissed lightly. Even if he is wrong (as the Modest Proposal‘s co-author, Stuart Holland, wrote in his recent letter to the Financial Times), his argument will prove exceptionally powerful within the German polity and electorate, effectively operating as an impediment to German acquiescence to the fiscal union proposed by Professor Straubhaar and others.

But there is a second argument in Otmar Issing’s piece which should not be taken lightly: Alluding to both Soros’ and Straubhaar’s suggestion that member-states in need of financing from eurobond-sourced funding fiscal autonomy must first forfeit their autonomy, Issing mentions, quite rightly, that this constitutes a violation of the time-honoured Bostonian principle (No Taxation Without Representation). His words were: “This type of political union would not survive. Its collapse would be brought by resistance from the people. In the past cries of “no taxation without representation” have brought war. This time the consequence would be to threaten the collapse of the most successful project of economic integration in the history of mankind.” I very much fear he is right.

Straubhaar and Issing are both wrong: Fiscal union, loss of national autonomy and eurobonds do not have to go together

Otmar Issing is right: Commonly guaranteed eurobonds may turn out to be financially of much less value than currently imagined and, more importantly, they will prove extremely unpopular both by the electorates of the surplus countries (who fear higher interest rates) and of the deficit countries (for whom the euro’s preservation is not worth more than the preservation of their hard-earned democratic representation rights). Moreover, even if we were all agreed on effecting the fiscal union advocated by Professor Straubhaar, George Soros and others, the political process of changing the Lisbon Treaty will not even have progressed before the euro has collapsed.

Having paid him his dues, Herr Issing’s negative assessment of the fiscal union solution, part of which are the jointly guaranteed eurobonds, does precisely nothing to suggest a way out of this Crisis. Herr Issing may have good reasons to distrust the EFSF, excellent arguments against turning the ECB into a bad bank, and a decent case against fiscal union. What he lacks is a policy recommendation for stopping the euro’s unfolding. Repeating ad nauseum the importance of fiscal discipline, in the midst of an almighty deleveraging debt-recessionary crisis, is to demonstrate a unique capacity to misread our collective predicament.

Eurobonds and a continental consolidation without a fiscal union: The Modest Proposal‘s gist

At the very least, it is good news that this debate is being held, even belatedly. The change of heart in Germany, which led opinion makers there even to contemplate fiscal union, reveals the extent to which this Crisis has propelled the public debate in the surplus countries. From staunch denial we have now shifted to a reasoned assessment of our collective options. Clearly, the Crisis has put paid to unsustainable faith in the eurozone’s main policy (of expensive loans by the surplus to the deficit member states in exchange for stringent austerity measures).

This is the good news. The bad news is that the debate seems to have swung to the opposite side of a sterile debate on whether the eurozone should or should not embrace a fiscal (or transfer) union. This abrupt shift of the pendulum can be as problematic as its initial reluctance to move an inch. Indeed, I very much fear that the pendulum’s recent swing, e.g. Professor Straubhaar’s article, does not augur well for the eurozone. The problem is that the Gestalt Shift we Europeans need is not one that takes us from exorcising a fiscal union to embracing it but, rather, one that allows us to see that a fiscal union is neither necessary nor sufficient for arresting the Crisis and rationally recalibrating the eurozone.

Otmar Issing’s article contains all the elements that ought to convince us the a fiscal union will not happen before the euro is history. Which means that the change of heart represented by Professor Straubhaar’s article will come to naught. Yet this does not spell the end of either homogenous eurobonds (as opposed to the EFSF’s heterogenous ones) or of the idea of some consolidation of the European continent (starting with a redesign of the eurozone’s architecture) that is both feasible and sensible. Indeed, the very purpose of our Modest Proposal was to point the way to a politically neutral, yet highly rational, debt management scheme that is consistent with a growth strategy and, importantly, a cleansing of our banking sector. No fiscal union, no loss of national sovereignty; just a rational plan according to which the ECB can act as a go between global capital and the eurozone’s private and public sectors. In short,

Policy 1 of the Modest Proposal recommends that the ECB issues its own bonds in order to finance the servicing of only the Maastricht-compliant debt. Thus, this new bond will not have any effect on German interest rates since (a) Germany will not be guaranteeing these eurobonds, and (b) the ECB’s issue will be revenue-neutral (in the sense that the ECB only services the Maastricht-compliant debt but debits its costs of the member-states, albeit at the lower eurobond interest rate). Moreover, the fact that only the Maastricht-compliant debt is transferred to the ECB (courtesy of the debit accounts that the ECB will open for each member-state, and into which the latter will be making their payments in the long term, so as to shoulder the burden of the ECB’s eurobonds)

Policy 2 of the Modest Proposal finds a non-degenerative role for the currently toxic EFSF: It turns it into a much needed banking sector re-capitaliser and pan-European banking supervisory authority

Policy 3 of the Modest Proposal maps out a pan-European investment policy which, based on the existing capacity of the European Investment Bank to mobilise international capital for investment purposes in both the private and the public sectors, boosts it substantially by pairing it to the ECB’s new (see Policy 1) powers to issue eurobonds - effectively extending the usage of these ECB-bonds from the realm of managing the Maastricht-compliant debt to that of funding an investment-led recovery (along the principles of Roosevelt’s New Deal).

The main point to note here is that the three policies that make up the Modest Proposal address the concerns of both polarised camps: the one represented here by Herr Issing and the other expressed through Professor Straubhaar’s article. The former can rest assured that, when the ECB starts issuing its own bonds, the surplus countries’ interest rates will not be affected in the slightest (just like they were not when the European Investment Bank started issuing its own bonds); there will be no moral hazard problem necessitating the institutionalised loss of national autonomy (since the ECB-eurobonds will not finance debts over and above the Maastricht limit); and, lastly, the EFSF will not drag them down (the way it is currently doing). As for the other, pro-fiscal union, camp, the Modest Proposal gives them all they need while liberating them from the disadvantages of a fiscal union: A homogenisation of the Maastricht-compliant debt, the end of the euro’s unravelling, a pan-European New Deal-like investment-led Recovery Program and a future for the ideal of a United Europe.

Summing up

The debate in Germany, and of course elsewhere, has left Europe’s leadership behind. However, the polarisation between advocates and opponents of fiscal union is unhelpful. Eurozone consolidation, debt homogenisation, an end of the banking crisis and a pan-European New Deal can all be effected without loss of national autonomy, without forfeiting the truly precious Bostonian Principle (of No Taxation without Representation) and without having the surplus countries guarantee the debt of the deficit nations. The key to achieving this golden rule are ECB-issued eurobonds guaranteed by no one else than the ECB itself.

* Url:http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/08/17/eurobonds-essential-fiscal-union-folly-escape-equally-untenable-positions-german-economists-thomas-straubhaar-otmar-issing

More than three years without full economic recovery in the developed economies – the latest GDP figures in context

2011-08-22T05:41:00.000-07:00

More than three years without full economic recovery in the developed economies

– the latest GDP figures in context*

John Ross

of Key Trends in the World Economy

August 17th, 2011

The publication of the European Union (EU) and German 2nd quarter GDP figures, following those for the US and Japan, completes the data regarding the state of the business recovery in the main developed economies. The picture is completely clear - Figure 1:

By the 2nd quarter of 2011 none of the major regions among the developed economies has recovered their peak level of GDP more than three years after the high point of the previous business cycle.

US GDP is 0.4% below its peak level in the the 4th quarter of 2007.

EU GDP is 1.8% below its peak level in the 1st quarter of 2008.

Japan’s GDP is 6.0% below its peak level in the 1st quarter of 2008 - Japan’s data is of course affected by the earthquake and tsunami.

Overall, taking the period as a whole, this represents over three years of net negative growth in the developed economies. The key economic issue is not the possibility of a double dip recession, which the media is speculating on, but this extremely low growth rate even without one.

For comparison it may be noted that China’s economy has grown by over 30% in this same three year period.

Figure 1

* Url:http://www.irishleftreview.org/2011/08/17/years-full-economic-recovery-developed-economies-latest-gdp-figures-context

Who leaked the S&P downgrade news?

2011-08-22T05:39:00.000-07:00

Who leaked the S&P downgrade news?*

Wall Street was given plenty of warning,

and now the SEC may be looking into who knew what and when.

By Kim Peterson

Aug 12, 2011

Standard & Poor's downgraded the U.S. credit rating late last Friday, and the news wasn't much of a surprise. Wall Street had heard a rumor early on that the downgrade was coming. News sites reported the rumor all day.

Unless it was all a huge coincidence, it's likely that someone in the know leaked the information. The questions are who and whether the leak led to early insider trading.

That's what the Securities and Exchange Commission is reportedly investigating. The SEC has asked Standard & Poor's to disclose who exactly knew about the downgrade before it was announced, the Financial Times reports. It's the start of a preliminary look into potential insider trading.

It will be a tough nut to crack. It's one thing to ask who knew the downgrade would take place. It's entirely a different beast to figure out where the information went from there -- and then to find out whether any improper insider trading was committed based on the information.

There's a very real consequence at stake. A 2006 law says a credit ratings firm like S&P could have its license revoked if it did leak information about the downgrade, MarketWatch reports.

The SEC could hunt for evidence of anyone shorting Treasury securities, one law professor told MarketWatch. "Once you find out who is trading in usual large volumes, then you can look into whether they have associations with anyone at S&P," the professor, John Coffee, added.

Wall Street already knew that a downgrade was likely. S&P had already put the U.S. on "CreditWatch negative" -- saying there was at least a 50% chance of a downgrade if lawmakers didn't "change the trajectory" of the nation's debt rate.

It seems like the SEC would have to investigate leaks on the government side as well. S&P notified the Treasury Department about the downgrade before the public, and someone from Treasury could have blabbed. Will the SEC also look at whether government employees made improper trades?

Standard & Poor's has done something few people thought possible: unite Democrats and Republicans. Both are demanding more scrutiny of the agency and possibly restrictions on its influence, The Wall Street Journal reports.

The Senate Banking Committee is reportedly considering a hearing to investigate the process that led to S&P's downgrade. Banking regulators "almost made it a given that you have to have these ratings," said Randy Neugebauer, a House Republican from Texas, the Journal reported. "What we're saying is we don't want them totally relying on ratings in making those determinations."

http://money.msn.com/exchange-traded-fund/article.aspx?post=77dc9185-ed4f-4b98-bdba-6b818b601f86

NKorea threatens to bolster its nuclear arsenal

2011-08-22T05:37:00.000-07:00

NKorea threatens to bolster its nuclear arsenal*

By HYUNG-JIN KIM

Associated Press

08/17/2011

SEOUL, South Korea—North Korea threatened Wednesday to bolster its nuclear arsenal in response to annual U.S.-South Korean military drills that Pyongyang calls a rehearsal for invasion.

The North's warning came on the second day of computer-simulated war games that the United States and South Korea call Ulchi Freedom Guardian. The allies say the 11-day drills are purely defensive, but North Korea says the training is extremely provocative and undermines recent attempts to promote peace on the Korean peninsula.

Last month, diplomats from the United States and the two Koreas held tentative talks on restarting long-dormant negotiations aimed at ending Pyongyang's nuclear weapons program in exchange for aid and other concessions.

"The U.S. is staging exercises for a war of aggression against its dialogue partner, while putting up a signboard of dialogue," an unidentified North Korean Foreign Ministry spokesman said Wednesday.

"It is self-evident that (North Korea) should put spurs to bolstering its nuclear deterrent for self-defense both in quality and quantity to cope with this situation," he said in a statement carried by the North's official Korean Central News Agency.

The statement didn't elaborate on how the North would strengthen its nuclear arsenal. The country has issued similar threats in the past when the United States and South Korea have conducted military drills.

North Korea is believed to have enough plutonium for at least a half-dozen weapons and revealed last November that it has a uranium enrichment facility that could give it another way to make atomic bombs.

Tension on the Korean peninsula spiked last year after the North's alleged torpedoing of a South Korean warship and its deadly bombardment of a South Korean border island. A total of 50 South Koreans died.

The Korean peninsula remains technically in a state of war after the 1950s Korean War ended in a truce, not a peace treaty.

http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_18697860?source=rss#ixzz1VlEat5Za

* Url:http://www.denverpost.com/nationworld/ci_18697860?source=rss

People’s artist Iwao Lewis Suzuki recognized for activism

2011-08-22T05:35:00.000-07:00

People’s artist Iwao Lewis Suzuki recognized for activism

By Masao Suzuki

Berkeley, CA - On Aug. 14, artist Iwao Lewis Suzuki was inducted into the La Peña Cultural Center Community Hall of Fame, which recognizes cultural activism for social change. Previous inductees into the Community Hall of Fame include Dolores Huerta, Victor Jara, Linda Tillery and Angela Davis.

More than 50 people attended the reception at La Peña in Berkeley where Mr. Suzuki was inducted. The reception featured dozens of paintings, posters and other works of Mr. Suzuki that are now on exhibit at the center. Paul Chin of La Peña began the short program by explaining that the cultural center began in the 1970s in response to the U.S.-backed military coup in Chile on Sept. 11, 1973. This coup overthrew the elected government of socialist Salvador Allende and thousands of revolutionaries and progressives, including President Allende, were killed by the military.

Laura Ruiz, also of La Peña, gave a brief biography of Mr. Suzuki, including his art schooling in Los Angeles, New York and Oakland, some of the artistic awards his paintings had won and his service on the Berkeley Arts Commission. “La Peña,” she said, “was inducting Lewis Suzuki into the Hall of Fame for his spirit of social activism.”

Finally, Mr. Suzuki spoke briefly. He thanked those who worked and volunteered at La Peña, saying that they will change society. “We are the richest country in the world,” said Mr. Suzuki, “but there are many people who can’t get health care or who can’t afford to pay for college.” He added, “Let’s get out of Iraq and Afghanistan. One day we will have peace, where U.S. troops are not overseas and we can have freedom throughout the world.”

The La Peña award followed earlier recognition of Mr. Suzuki for his art and activism. In January of 2010 the City of Berkeley honored Mr. Suzuki, and then in May of 2010 the Freedom Road Socialist Organization (FRSO), awarded Mr. Suzuki an honorary membership for his life of political activism.

Masao Suzuki is a regular contributor to Fight Back! Newspaper and the son of Iwao Lewis Suzuki.

* Url:http://www.fightbacknews.org/2011/8/16/people-s-artist-iwao-lewis-suzuki-recognized-activism

North Korea warns against Ulchi exercise

2011-08-22T05:33:00.000-07:00

North Korea warns against Ulchi exercise*

Aug. 17, 2011

SEOUL, Aug. 17 (UPI) -- North Korea said it would "deal a merciless counterblow" to South Korea if provoked by military exercises, including the ongoing Ulchi Freedom Guardian.

The annual South Korean-U.S. exercise -- called Ulchi Focus Lens up to 2007 -- runs through Aug. 26 in the Yellow Sea off the peninsula's west coast.

The exercise involves more than 80,000 troops from South Korea, the United States and the seven countries that sent forces to help the allies in the 1950-53 Korean War which ended in an armistice that divided the Korean peninsula.

North and South Korea remain technically at war.

The exercise focuses on how U.S. and South Korean forces would defend against a North Korean attack, military Web site Global Security said.

The focus is on the strategic, operational, and tactical aspects of military operations on the Korean Peninsula. The exercise also demonstrates U.S. resolve to support South Korea against external aggression while improving combat readiness and interoperability, Global Security said.

But a spokesman for the General Staff of North Korea's People's Army called the exercise a dry run for "full-dress military aggression" against the North, a report by North Korea's official news agency KCNA said.

The KCNA also carried a report and picture of a rally against the exercise in front of the Korean War Memorial Museum in Seoul.

The warning comes after a threat earlier this month that the exercise could undermine the possible restart of six-party peace talks on North Korea's nuclear weapons research.

The six countries in the talks are China, the two Koreas, Japan, the United States and Russia. The talks were shelved in 2009 when Pyongyang pulled out to protest U.N. sanctions over its nuclear tests.

South Korea has maintained there can be no talks unless the North demonstrates its denuclearization commitment and takes responsibility for the March 2010 sinking of the South Korean navy's frigate Cheonan, an incident in which 46 sailors died, as well as North Korea's shelling of Yeonpyeong Island in November that killed four people.

Hopes that the talks would soon restart were raised last month when First Vice Foreign Minister Kim Kye Gwan, involved in nuclear negotiations, visited New York. He had closed talks with U.S. officials including Stephen Bosworth, the top U.S. envoy on Korean Peninsula affairs.

Last month during a visit to South Korea, U.S. Navy Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, warned North Korea may attempt more provocations against the South. The provocations could be part of a strategy to give credibility to leader Kim Jong Il's successor-in-waiting, his third son Kim Jong Un.

"A succession plan being executed has been ongoing for some time and that's not an insignificant part of the whole provocation cycle," Mullen said.

* Url:http://www.upi.com/Top_News/Special/2011/08/17/North-Korea-warns-against-Ulchi-exercise/UPI-58391313575860/#ixzz1VlDRiDeY

STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF STANCE ON REFORM AND OPENING UP OF NORTH KOREA

2011-08-22T05:31:00.001-07:00

ASSOCIATION FOR THE STUDY OF SONGUN POLITICS UK

STATEMENT IN SUPPORT OF STANCE ON REFORM

AND OPENING UP OF NORTH KOREA

London 17th August Juche 100 (2011)

The ASSPUK and JISGE today issued a joint statement in support of the DPRK stance on

"reform " and "opening up" as expressed in the editorial of "Rodong Sinmun " the daily newspaper of the Workers' Party of Korea in an article entitled "Imperialists urged to roll -back their hostile policies towards the DPRK " on the 9th of August .

The editorial makes it plain the DPRK 's stance towards 'reform' and 'opening' . It does not need to 'reform' and 'open up'. It is totally absurd to speak about 'reform ' and 'opening up'.

"Reform " and "opening up" have been a disaster where they have been applied. The Soviet Union and the eastern European socialist countries adopted "reform" and "opening up" in the 1960s and renewed the policy in the 1980s causing the collapse of socialism in those countries. As a result the people of these countries have suffered unemployment , poverty and conflict. The capitalism system throughout the world is in deep crisis and conflict and disorder prevail.

To talk about "reform" and "opening up" is a grave infringement of the sovereignty of the DPRK. It is a despicable trick to destroy the Juche-based people-orientated socialist system.

Thus we Juche idea and Songun idea followers strongly support the stance of the DPRK .

ASSPUK

JISGE

Libya and the end of Western illusions

2011-08-22T05:29:00.000-07:00

Libya and the end of Western illusions*

Five months into the bombing campaign, it is no longer possible to believe the initial official version of the events and the massacres attributed to the “Gaddafi regime”. Moreover, it is now essential to take into account Libya’s legal and diplomatic rebuttal, highlighting the crimes against peace committed by television propaganda, the war crimes perpetrated by NATO military forces, and the crimes against humanity sponsored by political leaders of the Atlantic Alliance.

by Thierry Meyssan, Tripoli

Voltaire Network

16 August 2011

Just under half of Europeans still support the war against Libya. Their position is based on erroneous information. They still believe, in fact, that in February the “Gaddafi regime” crushed the protests in Benghazi with brutal force and bombed civilian districts in Tripoli, while the Colonel himself was warning of “rivers of blood” if his compatriots continued to challenge his authority.

During my two months’ investigation on the ground, I was able to verify that these accusations were pure propaganda intoxication, designed by the NATO powers to create the conditions for war, and relayed around the world by their television media, in particular Al-Jazeera, CNN, BBC and France24.

However, the reader who doesn’t know where he stands on this issue and who – despite the brainwashing of September 11 and Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction – is reluctant to accept that the United States, France, the UK and Qatar were actually capable of fabricating such lies, will be able to forge an opinion over time. NATO, the largest military coalition in history, has failed after five months of bombardments to overthrow the one it designated as a “tyrant.” Every Friday, a large demonstration in support of the regime is organized in a different city and all experts are unanimous in considering that Colonel Gaddafi enjoys at least 90% of popular support in Tripolitania and 70% across the entire country, including the “rebel” areas. These are people who every single day put up with the blockade, aerial bombardments and ground fighting. Never would they be defending with their flesh and blood someone who committed against them the crimes of which he has been accused by the “international community.” The difference between those in the West who believe that Gaddafi is a tyrant who fired on his own people, and those in Libya who believe that he is a hero of the anti-imperialist struggle, is that the former live in an illusion created by TV propaganda, whereas the others are exposed to the concrete reality on the ground.

That said, there is a second illusion to which the West has succumbed – and in the “Western” camp I now include not only Israel, where it has always claimed to belong, but also the monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council and Turkey which, though of Eastern culture, have chosen to embrace it -, the illusion to think that it is still possible to devastate a country and kill its people without legal consequences. It is true that, until now, international justice has been the justice of the victors or the powerful. One may recall the Nazi official who heckled the judges at Nuremberg telling them that if the Reich had won the war, the judges would have been the Nazis while those held accountable for the war crimes would have been the Allies.

More recently, we saw how NATO used the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia to try to justify post facto that the war in Kosovo was “the first humanitarian war in History,” according to the expression employed by Tony Blair. Or again, how the Special Tribunal for Lebanon was used in an attempt to overthrow the Syrian government, then to decapitate the Lebanese Hezbollah, and probably soon to accuse the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Not to mention, the International Criminal Court, the secular arm of the European colonial powers in Africa.

However, the development of instruments and organs of international justice throughout the twentieth century has gradually established an international order with which the superpowers themselves will have to comply or which they will have to sabotage in order to escape their responsibilities. In the case of Libya, the violations of international law are countless. The main ones, presented below, were established by the Provisional Technical Committee, a Libyan ministerial coordination organ, and expounded at various press conferences by the legal adviser to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya, French attorney Marcel Ceccaldi [1].

TV channels which, under the leadership of their respective Governments, have manufactured false information to lead to war, are guilty of “crimes against peace“, as defined by the relevant UN General Assembly resolutions in the aftermath of World War II [2]. The journalist-propagandists should be considered even more culpable than the military who perpetrated war crimes or crimes against humanity, to the extent that none of these crimes would have been possible without the one that preceded them: the “crime against peace.”

The political leaders of the Atlantic Alliance, who diverted the object and purpose of Resolution 1973 to engage in a war of aggression against a sovereign state, are personally responsible before international justice. Indeed, according to the jurisprudence established by the Tokyo Court following the Second World War, crimes cannot be ascribed to either States or organizations, but to individuals. Plundering the assets of a state, establishing a naval blockade and bombing infrastructure to cause people to suffer, attacking an army inside its barracks and ordering the assassination of enemy leaders or, failing this, terrorizing them by murdering their families, all amount to war crimes. Their systematic perpetration, as is the case today, constitutes a crime against humanity. This crime is imprescriptible, which means that Messrs. Obama, Sarkozy, Cameron and Al-Thani will be pursued by the law for the rest of their lives.

NATO, as an organization, is legally responsible for the material and human damage of this war. The law leaves no room for doubt that the organization must pay, even though it will surely try to invoke a privilege of jurisdiction to dodge its responsibilities. It will be up to the Alliance to decide how the bill for the conflict should be split among Member States, even though some of them may be on the verge of bankruptcy. This will be followed by disastrous economic consequences for their peoples, guilty of having endorsed such crimes. In a democracy, no one can claim to be innocent of the crimes committed in its name.

International justice will have to address more specifically the case of the Sarkozy “administration” – I use this Anglicism here to underscore the fact that the French president has been piloting his Government’s policy directly, without going through his prime minister. Indeed, France has played a central role in preparing for this war since October 2010 by organizing a failed military coup and then, as early as November 2010, by planning with the United Kingdom the bombing of Libya and the landing of ground troops on its soil, which was then believed to be feasible, and finally by actively conspiring in the lethal unrest in Benghazi which led to the war.

In addition, France, more than any other power, has deployed Special Forces on the ground – without uniforms, no doubt – and violated the arms embargo by supplying the insurgents, either directly or through Qatari airplanes. Not to mention that France has violated the UN freeze of Libyan assets, funnelling part of the fabulous cash from the Libyan Sovereign Fund to the CNT puppets, to the detriment of the Libyan people who wanted to guarantee the well-being of their children in the face of oil depletion.

These gentlemen from NATO, who hoped to escape international justice by crushing their victim, Libya, in a few short days so that it would not survive to pursue them, will be disenchanted. Libya is still there. She is filing complaints with the International Criminal Court, the Belgian courts (whose jurisdiction NATO falls under), the European Court of Justice, and the national courts of aggressor states. She is undertaking steps before the Council of Human Rights in Geneva, the Security Council and General Assembly of the United Nations. It will be not be possible for the big powers to extinguish these fires all at once. Worse, the arguments they will use to evade a court will ricochet against them in another court. In a few weeks or months, if they have not succeeded in destroying Tripoli, they will have no other way out to avoid humiliating convictions than to negotiate the withdrawal of the complaints at a very high price.

* Url:http://info-wars.org/2011/08/17/libya-and-the-end-of-western-illusions/

No to Britain's participation in "Ulji Freedom Guardian "-ASSPUK ,JISGE and UK KFA

2011-08-22T05:26:00.000-07:00

No to Britain's participation in "Ulji Freedom Guardian "

-ASSPUK ,JISGE and UK KFA

We have just learnt ,with shock and anger , the Britain is participating in the so-called "Ulji Freedom Guardian " war exercises of the US imperialists and south Korean puppets as part of the so called "UN command forces " in south Korea.

We, the UK Korean Friendship Association, the Association for the Study of Songun Politics of the UK and the Juche Idea Study Group, in a joint statement strongly denounce this.

The UFG exercises are nothing but war exercises aimed at a dry-run at invading the DPRK and destroying its socialist system. The so-called "UN command " in south Korea is a ghost like structure which simply aims at covering up US imperialist aggression in south Korea.

This gives an even more sinister complexion to the war exercises as the revival of the moribund "UN command" is an attempt to create 'multi-national force' as in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya. It is a disgrace that Britain is being reduced to a mere satellite state of US imperialism . Is the UK government planning to repeat the shameful past when Britain along with other satellite states of US imperialism sent troops to murder and oppress the Korean people and prevent the reunification of Korea.

We demand that Britain immediately withdraws its forces from these exercises and reiterate that the whole UFG exercise must be halted and cancelled immediately,

ASSPUK

JISGE

Shell, govt spin machine keeps lid on worst UK oil spill for decade

2011-08-22T05:22:00.000-07:00

Shell, govt spin machine keeps lid on worst UK oil spill for decade

Aug 16, 2011

Royal Dutch Shell says there are now only two barrels of oil a day leaking from one of its North Sea rigs. But with an estimated two hundred tons having leaked into the water over 6 days, environmentalists say the clean-up could take some time. It’s said to be the worst spill in British waters in more than a decade, and began last Wednesday. But it was only acknowledged by Shell two days later. Adam Ramsay from the UK-based People and Planet student organisation, thinks Shell and the government have been complicit in oil industry cover-ups for ages.

U.S-R.O.K Military Exercises under fire -KCNA

2011-08-22T04:57:00.000-07:00

U.S-R.O.K Military Exercises under fire

Pyongyang, August 16 (KCNA) -- Papers Tuesday in bylined commentaries slam the U.S. and south Korea for kicking off the Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises for aggression today.

The exercises are scheduled to last till August 26. The U.S. and south Korea claim that the exercises are aimed to "cope with and thwart threat" from someone. But, this is little short of openly declaring that they would escalate military confrontation on the Korean Peninsula, Rodong Sinmun says, and goes on:

The development proves that the exercises are a drill for an all-out war against the DPRK and largest-ever nuclear test war in the light of the means and scale of forces involved in them and their program and nature.

What should not be overlooked is that the U.S. warmongers are contemplating forming a joint task force with the 20th Support Command of the U.S. Army as the principal axis. The Command carried out the duty of detecting and destroying WMDs in Iraq. They also mull staging war exercises of "eliminating" nuclear facilities in the DPRK under the simulated conditions of an actual war.

The south Korean conservative forces make no scruple of plunging all the Koreans into a war disaster to realize their ambition for invading the north in collusion with foreign forces, Minju Joson notes, and goes on:

The Ulji Freedom Guardian clearly proves that the dialogue touted by the south Korean authorities is nothing but a cynical ploy to mislead the public opinion.

The DPRK is ready for both dialogue and war. The south Korea and U.S. should immediately stop the joint military exercises, though belatedly.

Ulji Freedom Guardian Kicked off -KCNA

2011-08-22T04:56:00.000-07:00

Ulji Freedom Guardian Kicked off

Pyongyang, August 16 (KCNA) -- The U.S. imperialists and the south Korean puppet belligerent group kicked off the provocative Ulji Freedom Guardian joint military exercises targeted against the DPRK across south Korea on Tuesday despite the strong protest and denunciation of the people at home and abroad.

According to the newly revised and supplemented scenario for a war against the north, modern war hardware including nuclear attack means and more than 30 000 troops of the U.S. imperialist aggressor forces, and commands of army corps, fleets and flying corps and above and troops of various services under them of the puppet army, 530 000 troops of huge aggressor forces in all, have entered into exercises for invading the north simultaneously.

They hurled even some satellite forces which had fought during the Korean War as part of "UN forces."

By starting the above-said saber-rattling they once again brought to light their belligerent and ugly colors as the very ones talking about peace but preparing a war while whetting sword behind the scene.

They would be well advised to bear in mind the resentment of the army and the people of the DPRK and their resolution to retaliate against them are running high. They are fully convinced that if a war breaks out on this land, they will lose only the Military Demarcation Line and gain the national reunification, the cherished desire.

Tunnel tactics employed during the Korean War -KCNA

2011-08-22T04:54:00.001-07:00

Tunnel tactics employed during the Korean War

Pyongyang, August 13 (KCNA) -- President Kim Il Sung advanced a tunnel tactics in the Fatherland Liberation War (June 25, 1950-July 27, 1953).

One day in late September Juche 40 (1951), the President ordered commanding officers of the Korean People's Army (KPA) to make tunnel-type defense positions in mountains.

In response to his order, army units tunneled heights in the front and coastal areas for defense positions, turning them into impregnable fortresses.

The tunnel warfare proved successful in many battles, including those to defend Height 1211.

When the enemy bombed and shelled the defense positions, KPA soldiers took a rest in tunnels, enjoying songs and dances.

The Juche-based tunnel warfare made it possible to maintain the forces to the utmost in hard-fought battles and frustrate the enemy's offensives.

Anniversary of Korea′s Liberation Observed by Foreign Papers -KCNA

2011-08-22T04:53:00.001-07:00

Anniversary of Korea′s Liberation Observed by Foreign Papers

Pyongyang, August 15 (KCNA) -- Uruguayan and Russian newspapers carried special write-ups on the 66th anniversary of Korea's liberation.

The Uruguayan newspaper La Juventud on August 7 carried an article titled "'Long live General Kim Il Sung ', the slogan the Koreans shouted at the top of their voices 66 years ago" with a portrait of smiling President Kim Il Sung .

The paper said in the article that the President who brought about the liberation of the country by making long journeys of bloody battles against the Japanese aggressors had wisely led the country and people for nearly half a century after its liberation.

The DPRK has turned into a socialist country centered on the popular masses and a powerful nation, independent in politics, self-supporting in economy and self-reliant in national defence, it noted, adding that Kim Il Sung was not only the genuine benefactor of the Korean nation's liberation but also the benevolent father of the people and great leader.

No. 8 issue of the Russian newspaper Raboche-Krestsiyanskaya Pravda carried a portrait of the President and an article praising the exploits he performed by accomplishing the cause of the

Britain Blames Social Media For Class Riots, Looks to Censorship

2011-08-22T04:48:00.000-07:00

Britain Blames Social Media For Class Riots, Looks to Censorship*

Jason Mick

August 12, 2011

British police tried to beat down rioters as class riots swept the island nation.

(Source: Pravista Today)

Britain is back to playing the censorship game in the wake of riots, looking to censor Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerry communications to prevent future dissent.

(Source: Virgin Films)

BlackBerry's blog was hacked after Research in Motion

pledged to turn rioters over to British police.

Facebook, Twitter, and BlackBerries are likely the first to be censored

Last week the fatal shooting of a 29-year-old man by members of the Metropolitan Police Service in Tottenham, North London, enraged the nation's working class. People in several British cities took to the streets engaging in looting, arson, burglary, robbery and "general disorder." Five civilians were killed, 186 police officers were injured, and over 1,200 people have been imprisoned for their role in the riots. Property damages are estimated at £100M ($161M USD)

I. Censor Social Media and Mobile Devices?

In the wake of the riots the situation remains tense. Britain has the lowest social mobility of any developed country and there's a growing wealth gap between the rich and poor. The lack of opportunity and equality is creating a growing public animus that threatens more violence.

To try to cut that off, the nation's political elite are considering a sweeping campaign of censorship of social media platforms like Twitter and Facebook.

In a Thursday speech to Parliament, embattled British Prime Minister David Cameron remarked, "Everyone watching these horrific actions will be struck by how they were organized via social media. Free flow of information can be used for good. But it can also be used for ill. And when people are using social media for violence, we need to stop them."

He said that the government and police are going "to look at whether it would be right to stop people communicating via these websites and services when we know they are plotting violence, disorder and criminality."

PM Cameron, a Conservative (though more of a centrist by American political standards), is courting the opposition Labour Party on the matter. And it appears to be working. Ivan Lewis, the Labour Party's shadow secretary of culture in the House of Commons, comments, "Free speech is central to our democracy, but so is public safety and security. We support the government's decision to undertake a review of whether measures are necessary to prevent the abuse of social media by those who organize and participate in criminal activities."

The Prime Minister has called for meetings with heads of top social network site Facebook and top microblogging platform Twitter -- both of which he said were used to spread word of the riots and encourage them. He's also contacted Canada's Research In Motion, Ltd. (TSE:RIM) as he claims that the company's BlackBerry smart phones were used to send messages spreading the riots.

II. Services Pledge to Cooperate, Met With Public Outrage

Facebook and Twitter both have agreed to the meeting, though they say they object to censoring or banning their services in the UK. Facebook, however, vowed to remove posts or user pages directly inciting rioting.

RIM has also expressed willingness to cooperate, promising to help London police in locating those who incited the riot or participated. This outraged some members of the English public and the official BlackBerry blog was hacked by a group calling itself TeaMp0isoN.

The group comments:

Dear Rim;

You Will _NOT_ assist the UK Police because if u do innocent members of the public who were at the wrong place at the wrong time and owned a blackberry will get charged for no reason at all, the Police are looking to arrest as many people as possible to save themselves from embarrassment.... if you do assist the police by giving them chat logs, gps locations, customer information & access to peoples BlackBerry Messengers you will regret it, we have access to your database which includes your employees information; e.g - Addresses, Names, Phone Numbers etc. - now if u assist the police, we _WILL_ make this information public and pass it onto rioters.... do you really want a bunch of angry youths on your employees doorsteps? Think about it.... and don't think that the police will protect your employees, the police can't protect themselves let alone protect others..... if you make the wrong choice your database will be made public, save yourself the embarrassment and make the right choice. don't be a puppet..

p.s - we do not condone in innocent people being attacked in these riots nor do we condone in small businesses being looted, but we are all for the rioters that are engaging in attacks on the police and government.... and before anyone says "the blackberry employees are innocent" no they are not! They are the ones that would be assisting the police

Curt Hopkins of ReadWriteWeb also objected to the planned censorship, writing, "Banning those convicted of crimes from accessing social networks (the idea being that they used such access to organize criminal activities) is no different than banning the same criminals from accessing goose quills and ink pots. It will have zero effect on crime, aside from criminalizing social media itself."

III. My Take (EDITORIAL)

Our basic take on the issue is that government-sponsored digital censorship attempts are inevitable, but futile.

It's hard to consider this developing story without thinking of the late English author and philosopher George Orwell. In his seminal work 1984 he paints a grim dystopian picture of an England in which impoverished working class is kept in line via constant government monitoring. Likewise Alan Moore's graphic novel masterpiece V is for Vendetta depicted a totalitarian British government. Note that in each case, though, for all the censorship, people did still rise up against oppression (though perhaps not so successfully in 1984's account).

England today is perhaps closer to that vision of "Big Brother" than any other nation around the world. There are cameras on the street corners. And there's a growing lack of opportunity for the nation's youth -- in short, it's hard to break out of poverty, and it's hard to step out of line.

Violent protests are obviously the domain of the desperate and, in their chaotic nature; they often fail to right whatever perceived wrong caused them in the first place. On the other hand, the American Revolution began with both peaceful and violent protests, so not all violent protests work out badly.

It's appealing to try to stomp out violence via censorship, but the question becomes how far the censorship must go to stop the violent. For example, it's hard to distinguish between a protest page against the English government supporting violence and one supporting a peaceful protest. And humans are clever creatures -- those who actually do want to engage in violent protest can simply engage in code-speak that no amount of censorship can full destroy.

Another compelling question is whether the UK government is truly interested in stomping out violence or whether its primarily interested in saving face and staying in power. After all, public unrest is bad for politicians’ health in the polls. At the end of the day many politicians are first focused on doing whatever it takes to stay in power, or to keep their party in power -- even if what it takes is censorship and public oppression.

But Britain is not alone in restricting free speech online and off. In America the U.S. Supreme Court has vacillated on numerous free speech issues, such as dissent about the government, anonymous literature, obscenity, and speech in schools.

In America protesters at political events are afforded special "free speech zones", but can be arrested if they peacefully demonstrate outside the zone.

In Branderburg v. Ohio the Supreme Court ruled that speech that incited "imminent lawless action" was punishable. Hence the U.S. has the legal means to practice much of the same brand of censorship that the UK has, though, thus far they haven't been tested to a great extent. In short, even free speech in the U.S. isn't so free.

The internet's wonders of anonymity and instant mass-communication likely will push the issue of free speech. It already played a key role in overthrowing several governments in the Middle East, despite those governments' best efforts at censorship.

The message for better or worse seems clear -- politicians can and will try internet censorship, but it's a doomed effort. If politicians fail to give opportunity and equity to their people, the disfranchised will rise up. When such digital dissidents are in the minority, they will inevitably be villainized and put down -- but when they become the majority, they will eventually rise up, no matter what censorship barriers are put in place.

*Url:http://www.dailytech.com/Britain+Blames+Social+Media+For+Class+Riots+Looks+to+Censorship/article22435.htm

What lays behind Cameron's public promotion of Bill Bratton as head of London's police?

2011-08-22T04:45:00.000-07:00

What lays behind Cameron's public promotion of Bill Bratton

as head of London's police?*

Monday, 15 August 2011

David Cameron is at the head of a campaign to bring former US police chief Bill Bratton over from the USA to head London's Metropolitan Police. Bratton is being pushed forward in the MSM as the man who cleaned up New York and LA when he was chief of police in those cities. One only has to read Vikram Dodd’s interview with Bratton in today’s Guardian to understand he is the type so favored by the MSM and political elites, and I might add the public relations industry. When he told Dodd, "I'm not coming in with the only bag of tricks in town," he revealed more about himself than he intended.

A political policeman to the core, before talking to Dodd he had clearly taken the measure of the Guardian, as trendy liberal watchwords slip from his tongue and are sprinkled throughout the interview. It is as if Bratton had been sitting on the knee of former Met Commissioner Ian Blair throughout his period in office, (Surely not, as the Tory Mayor of London sacked him.)

“I'm an advocate of gay and human rights.”

“I believe the role of the police is critical to the protection and advocacy of human rights."

“He would challenge existing police culture to make the service more open for minority groups.”

“No glass ceiling for anyone", including gay people and transvestites.” (That will get the heads spinning in Cameron’s local Tory club.)

According to US critics, Bratton is the type of policeman who has built his career going around the world to conferences and networking furiously. In this he is a mirror image of the UK’s political elite. This is the last thing the Met needs. We have recently witnessed enough of this with the phone hacking scandal which has shown where this type of corrupt networking leads. That Dodd failed to ask Bratton how well he knows Rupert Murdoch; and whether he ever enjoyed his families hospitality, was an omission to far. He also failed to put it to Bratton how come his tenure in New York only lasted 18 months, hardly long enough to redecorate his new New York office, let alone clean up the cities mean streets.

So what lays behind Cameron's public promotion of Bratton? Could it be yet another attempt by the Coalition to take us back to a 19th century type society. Until the late 1960s, Metropolitan Police Commissioners were political appointments made by the PM. Members of the establishment, mainly ex military, who gained what experience they had of policing in the colonies. Like most public appointments in those days, an ability to network amongst the ‘good and great’ and being of the ‘right type’ was the main criteria needed to be appointed to this position.

In the post WW2 period as blatant class prejudice faded slightly, people recognized this had been disastrous, as senior detectives at the Yard had been able to tip their hats in a servile way to the commissioner, whilst building criminal networks within the Met. Robert Mark was appointed to be the first commissioner to have come up through the ranks, because it was thought this would be the only way the Mets filthy stables could be adequately cleaned, and so it proved. After Mark left office in 1977, it became an unwritten rule that the commissioner must have served in all ranks of the police service, from constable upwards. For example Hugh Orde, Bratton’s main challenger for the post of commissioner, joined the Met in 1977, served as a constable until 1981, when he was promoted a sergeant in Brixton and subsequently rose through the ranks until he became chief Constable of the PSNI and later the head ACPO.

There is absolutely no doubt this was a democratization to far for the upper middle class Tory political elite whose representative on earth today is David Cameron. If he gets his way and is allowed to appoint Bratton, he will have set a precedent; and the current system of a commissioner having served in the ranks will end. The Met will return to the dark days of having an establishment titular head and beneath that, a group of often corrupt officers who lead waring factions.

The British armed forces in which working class squadies rarely rise beyond the rank of warrant officer, has always been a victim of such class elitism. If the police, the other armed hammer of the state also go down this road, it will confirm peoples fears that the UK has become the most undemocratic and class prejudiced nation in western Europe.

* Url:http://www.organizedrage.com/2011/08/what-lays-behind-camerons-public.html