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President Barack Obama has pledged that planned cuts in defence spending will not affect America’s military presence in east Asia, as the US seeks to play a larger role in shaping the region’s future.

Speaking to the Australian parliament in Canberra, Mr Obama said Washington hoped to improve co-operation with Beijing, but stressed that the US was “here to stay” as a Pacific power despite China’s dramatic economic and military advances. The Asia Pacific region, he added, was now a “top priority”.

The speech, one of the most significant foreign policy statements of Mr Obama’s presidency, brought together several important shifts in US strategy that have been taking shape over the past two years and are aimed at addressing the rise of China. These include the winding down of the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and increased attention on south-east Asia and the South China Sea.

The president also emphasised Washington’s desire for India to play a larger role in regional issues.

“Here is what the region must know. As we end today’s wars, I have directed my national security team to make our presence and missions in the Asia Pacific a top priority,” said Mr Obama. “The United States is a Pacific power and we are here to stay.”

He was speaking a day after he formally announced 2,500 US marines would be based in northern Australia next year, along with more aircraft and naval vessels, providing the American military with a new platform for intervening in the region. “We are deepening our alliance and this is the perfect place to do it,” he said later in the day in Darwin.

While the Pentagon is planning at least $450bn of spending cuts over the next decade, Mr Obama said Asia would be exempt from such pressures: “Reductions in US defence spending will not – I repeat, will not – come at the expense of the Asia Pacific. We will preserve our unique ability to project power and preserve peace.”

The new agreement with Australia was criticised by Chinese officials, who fear that the US is bent on trying to contain their country’s rise.

“It may not be quite appropriate to intensify and expand military alliances and may not be in the interest of countries within this region,” Liu Weimin, a Chinese foreign ministry spokesman, said.

Mr Obama used a regional summit last weekend in Hawaii to promote the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade pact that at the moment does not include China. It is expected that he will use another regional summit this weekend in Indonesia to raise the issue of maritime security in the South China Sea, despite Beijing’s opposition.

During his first year in office, Mr Obama sought to avoid confrontation with China and even appeared to offer a strong partnership with Beijing to manage a host of global issues.

However, over the past year his administration has appeared increasingly sceptical about China’s ambitions. Unnerved by what some see as more aggressive behaviour by China, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Vietnam and several other countries have encouraged the US to increase its engagement with the region.

Mr Obama said Washington was not looking to contain China and hoped to improve collaboration with the People’s Liberation Army.

“We’ll seek more opportunities for co-operation with Beijing, including greater communication between our militaries to promote understanding and avoid miscalculation,” he said. “All our nations have a profound interest in the rise of a peaceful and prosperous China.”

By Geoff Dyer

18 November 2011

@ Financial Times

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, was recently persuaded by Netanyahu and Barak to support such a move.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defense Minister Ehud Barak are trying to muster a majority in the cabinet in favor of military action against Iran, a senior Israeli official has said. According to the official, there is a “small advantage” in the cabinet for the opponents of such an attack.

Netanyahu and Barak recently persuaded Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who previously objected to attacking Iran, to support such a move.

Although more than a million Israelis have had to seek shelter during a week of rockets raining down on the south, political leaders have diverted their attention to arguing over a possible war with Iran. Leading ministers were publicly dropping hints on Tuesday that Israeli could attack Iran, although a member of the forum of eight senior ministers said no such decision had been taken.

Senior ministers and diplomats said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s report, due to be released on November 8, will have a decisive effect on the decisions Israel makes.

The commotion regarding Iran was sparked by journalist Nahum Barnea’s column in Yedioth Ahronoth last Friday. Barnea’s concerned tone and his editors’ decision to run the column under the main headline (“Atomic Pressure” ) repositioned the debate on Iran from closed rooms to the media’s front pages.

Reporters could suddenly ask the prime minister and defense minister whether they intend to attack Iran in the near future and the political scene went haywire.

Western intelligence officials agree that Iran is forging ahead with its nuclear program. Intelligence services now say it will take Iran two or three years to get the bomb once it decides to (it hasn’t made the decision yet ).

According to Western experts’ analyses, an attack on Iran in winter is almost impossible, because the thick clouds would obstruct the Israel Air Force’s performance.

Netanyahu did not rule out the possibility of the need for a military action on Iran this week. During his Knesset address on Monday, Netanyahu warned of Iran’s increased power and influence. “One of those regional powers is Iran, which is continuing its efforts to obtain nuclear weapons. A nuclear Iran would constitute a grave threat to the Middle East and the entire world, and of course it is a direct and grave threat on us,” he said.

Barak said Israel should not be intimidated but did not rule out the possibility that Israel would launch a military attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities. “I object to intimidation and saying Israel could be destroyed by Iran,” he said.

“We’re not hiding our thoughts. However there are issues we don’t discuss in public … We have to act in every way possible and no options should be taken off the table … I believe diplomatic pressure and sanctions must be brought to bear against Iran,” he said.

Strategic Affairs Minister Moshe Ya’alon said he preferred an American military attack on Iran to an Israeli one. “A military move is the last resort,” he said.

Interior Minister Eli Yishai has not made his mind up yet on the issue. In a speech to Shas activists in the north on Monday Yishai said “this is a complicated time and it’s better not to talk about how complicated it is. This possible action is keeping me awake at night. Imagine we’re [attacked] from the north, south and center. They have short-range and long-range missiles – we believe they have about 100,000 rockets and missiles.”

Intelligence and Atomic Energy Minister Dan Meridor said he supports an American move against Iran. In an interview to the Walla! website some two weeks ago Meridor said “It’s clear to all that a nuclear Iran is a grave danger and the whole world, led by the United States, must make constant efforts to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons. The Iranians already have more than four tons of 3-4 percent enriched uranium and 70 kgs. of 20 percent enriched uranium. It’s clear to us they are continuing to make missiles. Iran’s nuclearization is not only a threat to Israel but to several other Western states, and the international interest must unite here.”

Former Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said he feared a “horror scenario” in which Netanyahu and Barak decide to attack Iran. He warned of a “rash act” and said he hoped “common sense will prevail.”

On Tuesday, Barak said at the Knesset’s Finance Committee that the state budget must be increased by NIS 7-8 a year for five years to fulfill Israel’s security needs and answer the social protest. “The situation requires expanding the budget to enable us to act in a responsible way regarding the defense budget considering the challenges, as well as fulfill some of the demands coming from the Trajtenberg committee,” he said.

By Barak Ravid, Amos Harel, Zvi Zrahiya and Jonathan Lis

2 November 2011

@ Haaretz.com

Clashes continued yesterday in cities across Egypt, on the fifth day of mass protests demanding the overthrow of the US-backed Egyptian military junta. The protests started Saturday, when police used live ammunition and rubber bullets against a sit-in by a few hundred protesters in Tahrir Square, in Cairo.

Demonstrations have spread across the country, with hundreds of thousands filling Tahrir Square and clashing with police outside the Interior Ministry, which oversees Egypt’s hated police forces. Demonstrations also shook Alexandria, Port-Said, Qena, Aswan, Assiut, and other cities. There are calls for a million-man march in Cairo tomorrow.

These are the most powerful demonstrations since mass strikes and protests in February forced out pro-US dictator President Hosni Mubarak. The masses are turning against the military, whose leaders control much of the wealth of the country and formed the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF) junta led by Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi to replace Mubarak. Protesters rejected Tantawi’s proposals on Tuesday to erect a civilian caretaker government next year, correctly fearing that this would only be a façade for continuing military rule.

The army and security forces have responded with an orgy of violence, trying to smash the protests. Significantly, Egyptian state media have cited police repression of Occupy Wall Street protests in the United States as a justification for the army’s deadly violence against the Egyptian people.

As of yesterday morning, at least 35 protesters had been killed and an estimated 2,000 wounded by Egyptian security forces over the five days of protests. Three more protesters were reported shot and killed in Cairo yesterday morning, as protesters took the wounded to hospitals in ambulances or on scooters. Security forces also shot a 10-year-old boy in the head with a bullet; he was not expected to survive.

Protesters in Cairo chanted “The people want the removal of the Field Marshal” and “Shame, shame, shame, the Army kills revolutionaries.”

The state-owned daily Al Ahram reported that police broke a two-hour truce negotiated by Muslim clerics yesterday evening on Mohamed Mahmoud Street, near the Interior Ministry. They fired intense volleys of tear gas against protesters who shouted, “We will not leave, SCAF should leave” and “Muslims and Christians are one hand.”

Protesters in the port city of Alexandria set up barricades outside police headquarters and were attacked by security forces. One protester was reportedly shot dead.

Al Jazeera wrote that there was an element of “self-preservation” in police attacks in Alexandria, as police fear that protesters might raid their weapon stockpiles and arm themselves for defense against the junta. Police headquarters, reporter Rawya Rageh noted, “is not only a place of law and order, but also a place where there is a large stockpile of weapons. [The police] cannot let the protesters take over.”

Questions are emerging about the massive use of tear gas by police forces, especially after several people reportedly died due to asphyxiation by gas. Khalid Hamdi, working at a field clinic in Tahrir Square, told Al Jazeera: “We’ve seen many faintings and we’d never seen that before. About 70 percent of the injuries are fainting. People are coming in with asthma, convulsions sometimes—this wasn’t often [the case] before.”

Many protesters have taken to wearing gas masks when going to demonstrations.

In a press conference yesterday, Health Minister Amr Helmy acknowledged the use of live ammunition against protesters since Saturday—which had previously been denied by police. He denied reports, however, that Egyptian police have put nerve agents in tear gas, noting that the tear gas canisters came from the United States. Helmy claimed that “seizures and fainting symptoms were from the tear gas.”

The two main companies exporting tear gas to Egypt are Combined Systems Inc. and NonLethal Technologies Inc., both based in the US state of Pennsylvania.

Renewed mass protests against the US-backed junta have exploded the lies the Western powers used against revolutionary struggles that broke out in the Middle East this year. Washington, which funds the Egyptian military to the tune of $1.3 billion per year, postured as supporting a SCAF-led “democratic transition” in Egypt—while continuing to back the junta’s dictatorial rule against the working class. The US government and its European allies are again desperately trying to disarm and suppress revolutionary struggles against a Western-backed puppet regime.

For the time being, the US government is still backing Tantawi’s plans. On Wednesday US State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland endorsed a July 2012 deadline Tantawi set for handing over power to an elected government.

The Western press is increasingly backing proposals, first made by official “opposition” politician Mohamed ElBaradei, for a formal transfer of power to a “national salvation” government, presided by a politician chosen by the junta. There are calls to scrap the SCAF-controlled elections and immediately install a civilian government.

German government spokesman Steffen Seibert said : “The demonstrators’ demands … for a quick transition to a civilian government are understandable from the German government’s point of view.”

These plans are increasingly driven by a fear that the SCAF regime may collapse. In a comment titled “Egypt’s Doomed Elections” in yesterday’s New York Times, Andrew Reynolds argued that Egypt “is careening toward a disastrous parliamentary election that begins on November 28 and could bring the country to the brink of civil war.” Reynolds cited Egyptian Coptic Christians’ fear of a government dominated by the right-wing Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, and evidence that election rules still favored incumbents in parliamentary elections.

In the British Guardian, Ahdaf Soueif wrote: “The crucial thing now is to stand firm until SCAF hands over power. To whom? To a government headed by any one or more of our potential presidential candidates—and this government would run for elections.”

These comments evade the critical point: such a government would be reactionary and correctly rejected as illegitimate by the Egyptian population, precisely because it would emerge not from the revolutionary struggles of the Egyptian working class, but the plots of the SCAF. Its goal would be to protect the wealth and power of the Egyptian ruling class and their ties to the major imperialist powers.

The objective logic of the mass struggles underway against the Egyptian military dictatorship demands that the working class overthrow the junta and take power, instead of accepting another regime vetted by the Egyptian generals, NATO, and Washington. A new, socialist perspective is required. The working class must form its own organizations to overthrow the junta and take state power, based on a struggle to place the economic resources of Egypt and the world under its democratic control.

The most dangerous opponents of this perspective have been Egypt’s “left” opposition parties, who have promoted a bankrupt perspective of working with the Islamists and pushing for “democratic space” under the aegis of the junta’s dictatorship. Such politics, which have allowed the Islamist parties to posture as the leading opposition to the regime, are increasingly despised by the working class.

On Tuesday night Abou El-Ghar of Egypt’s Social-Democratic Party felt compelled to distance himself from his party’s decision to participate in meetings with SCAF vice-president Sami Anan. Claiming that he had believed the junta’s claims that “violence would stop immediately,” he said he was “truly sorry for participating in the meeting with the SCAF.”

By Alex Lantier

On the edge of the Sahel, Niger: “Sahel” in Arabic means “coast” or “shoreline.” Unless one was present 5000 years ago when, according to anthropologists, our planets first cultivation of crops began in this then plush, but now semiarid region where temperatures reach 125 degrees F, and only camels and an assortment of creatures can sniff out water sources, it seems an odd geographical name place for this up 450 miles wide swatch of baked sand that runs from the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea.

Yet, when standing along its edge, the Sahel does have the appearance of a sort of dividing shoreline between the endless sands of the Sahara and the Savanna grasses to the south. Parts of Mali, Algeria, Niger, Chad, and Sudan, all along the Libyan border fall within this supposed no man’s land.

Today the Sahel is providing protection, weapons gathering and storage facilities, sites for training camps, and hideouts as well as a generally formidable base for those working to organize the growing Libyan Liberation Front (LLF). The aim of the LLF is to liberate Libya from what it considers NATO installed colonial puppets. The Sahel region is only one of multiple locations which are becoming active as the Libyan counter revolution, led by members of the Gaddafi and Wafalla, make preparations for the next phase of resistance.

When I entered an office conference room in Niger recently to meet with some recent evacuees from Libya who I was advised were preparing to launch a “people’s struggle employing the Maoist tactic of 1000 cuts “against the current group claiming to represent Libya,” two facts struck me.

One was how many were present and did not appear to be scruffy, intensely zealous or desperate but who were obviously rested, calm, organized and methodical in their demeanor.

My colleague, a member of the Gadhafi tribe from Sirte explained “More than 800 organizers have arrived from Libya just to Niger and more come every day”. An officer in uniform added, “It is not like your western media presents the situation, of desperate Gadhafi loyalists frantically handing out bundles of cash and gold bars to buy their safety from the NATO death squads now swarming around the northern areas of our motherland. Our brothers have controlled the borderless routes in this region for thousands of years and they know how not to be detected even by NATO satellites and drones.”

The other subject I thought about as I sat in an initial meeting was what a difference three decades can make. As I sat there I recalled my visit with former Fatah youth leader Salah Tamari, who did good work at the Israeli prison camp at Ansar, south Lebanon during the 1982 aggression, as the elected negotiator for his fellow inmates.

Tamari insisted on joining some of them at a new PLO base at Tabessa, Algeria and invited me for a visit.

This was shortly after the PLO leadership, wrongly in my judgment agreed to evacuate Lebanon in August of 1982 rather than wage a Stalingrad defense (admittedly minus the nonexistent expected Red Army) and the PLO leadership apparently credited Reagan administration promises of “an American guaranteed Palestinian state within a year. You can take that to the bank” in the words of US envoy Philip Habib.

Seemingly ever trustful of Ronald Reagan for some reason, PLO leader Arafat kept Habib’s written promise in his shirt pocket to show doubters, including his Deputy, Khalil al Wazir (Abu Jihad) and the womenfolk among others in Shatila Camp who had grave misgivings about their loved ones and protectors leaving them.

At Tabessa, somewhere in the vast Algerian desert, the formerly proud PLO defenders were essentially idle and caged inside their camp and apart from some physical training sessions appeared to spend their days drinking coffee and smoking and worrying about their loved ones in Lebanon as news of the September 1982 Israeli organized massacre at Sabra-Shatila fell on Tabessa Camp like a huge bomb and many fighters rejected Tamari’s orders and left for Shatila Camp.

This is not the case with Libyan evacuees in Niger. They have the latest model satellite phones, laptops and better equipment than most of the rich news outlets that showed up with fancy equipment at Tripoli’s media hotels over the past nine months.

This observers, “how did you all get here and where did you secure all this new electronic equipment so fast?” question was answered with a mute smile and wink” from a hijabed young lady who I last saw in August handing out press releases at Tripoli’s Rixos Hotel for Libyan spokesman Dr. Musa Ibrahim late last august. On that particular day, Musa was telling the media as he stood next to Deputy Foreign Minister Khalid Kaim, a friend to many Americans and human rights activists, that Tripoli would not fall to NATO rebels and “we have 6,500 well trained soldiers who are waiting for them.” As it turned out, the commander of the 6,500 was owned by NATO and he instructed his men not to oppose the entering rebel forces. Tripoli fell the next day and the day after Khalid was arrested and is still inside one of dozens of rebel jails petitioning his unresponsive captors for family visits while an international, American organized, legal team is negotiating to visit him.

The LLF has military and political projects in the works. One of the latter is to compete for every vote in next summers promised election. One staffer I met with has the job of studying the elections in Tunisia, Egypt and elsewhere in the region for possible applications to Libya.

Another LLF committee is putting together a Nationalist campaign electoral theme plus specific campaign planks for their candidates to run on and vetting lists of recommendations for specific candidates. Nothing is firmly decided yet, but one Libyan professor told me “for sure Women’s rights will be a major plank. Women are horrified by what NTC Chairman Jalil said while seeking support from Al Qaeda supporters who threaten to control Libya, about polygamy being the future in Libya and the fact that women will no longer be given the home when divorced. Under Gadhafi Libya has been very progressive with women’s rights as with Palestinian rights.” Aisha Gadhafi, the only daughter of Muammar who is now living next door in Algeria with family members including her two month old baby, was a major force behind the 2010 enactment by the Peoples Congresses of more rights for women. She has been asked to write a pamphlet on the need to retain women’s rights in Libya which will be distributed if the 2012 elections actually materialize.

While their beloved country lay in substantial NATO bombed ruin, the pro-Gadhafi LLF has some major pluses on its side. One is the tribes who during last summer were starting to stand up against NATO just as Tripoli fell before they launched their efforts which included a new Constitution. The LLF believes the tribes can be crucial in getting out the vote.

Perhaps an even a more powerful arrow in the LLF’s quiver as it launches its insurgency is the 35 years of political experience gained by the hundreds of Libyan People’s Congresses long established in every village in Libya along with the Secretariats of the People’s Conferences. While currently inactive (outlawed by NATO–truth be told) they are quickly regrouping and are expected to be able to dominate any forthcoming election in terms of getting out the vote.

Libya’s Peoples Congresses have sometimes been the objects of ridicule by some under informed self-styled Libya “experts, “the People’s Congresses, based on the Green book series written By “Baba” Moammar.” In fact they are actually quite democratic and a study of their work makes clear that they have increasingly functioned not as mere rubber stamps for ideas that were floated from over the walls of Bab al Azziza barracks.

A secretary general of one of the Congresses, now working in Niger, repeated what one western delegation was told during a fascinating late June three hour briefing at the Tripoli HQ of the national PC Secretariat. Participants were shown attendance and voting records as well of each item voted on, for the past decade and the minutes of the most recent People’s Congress debates. They illustrate the similarities between the People’s Congresses and New England Town Meeting in terms of the local population making decisions that affect their community and an open agenda where complaints and new proposals can be made and debated. Libyan leaders, including Muammar Gadhafi lost plenty of votes on items they favored or had originally proposed. In the last few years the Guide declined to take public positions on the items to be voted on in the PC’s because he preferred not to influence or interfere with what he called “the decisions of the masses.”

This observer particularly enjoyed his 4 years term representing Ward 2A in the Brookline, Massachusetts Town Meeting while in college in Boston, sometimes sitting next neighbors Kitty and Michael Dukakis who I am told still live on Perry Street. While we both won a seat in the election, I received 42 votes more than Mike in our Irish and Jewish neighborhood ( actually winning my seat wasn’t all that complicated, I simply took my friend Rachel Cohen with me door to door at Jewish homes seeking votes and Mary O’Malley with me to Irish homes) but Michael rose politically while it should be said that I sort of sank, following my joining Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), the ACLU and the Black Panthers all in one semester as an undergraduate Boston University. My quick political evolution in politics followed an inspiring meeting with Professor Noam Chomsky and Professor Howard Zinn in Chomski’s office at MIT. An admittedly simple fellow from a small Oregon town, I left our 90 minute meeting with a book bag full of political epiphanies and have not been the same since.

The Brookline Town Meeting debates were interesting and productive and “Mustafa”, the National Secretary of the Libyan People’s Congress, who studied at George Washington University in WDC and wrote a graduate thesis on New England Town Meetings, claimed his country patterned their People’s Congresses on the New England model. Unfortunately, “Mustafa” is also now incarcerated by the NTC according to mutual friends.

Who LLF candidates will be if an election is actually held is unknown but some are suggesting that Dr. Abu Zeid Dorda, now recovering from his “guilt driven suicide attempt” according to an NTC spokesmen (the former Libyan UN Ambassador was thrown out of a second floor window during interrogations last month by NATO agents but he survived in front of witnesses so is now recovering in prison medical ward) as the credibility of yet another NTC media release crumbles.

Contrary to media stories, Saif al Islam is not about to surrender to the International Criminal Court and, like Musa Ibrahim, is well. Both are being urged to lay low for now, rest, and try to heal a bit from NATO’s killing of family members and many close friends.

Some legal and political analysts think the ICC will not proceed with any trials relating to Libya for reasons of the ICC convoluted rules and structure and uncertainly of securing convictions of the “right” suspects. Whatever happens on this subject, if a case goes forward, researchers are preparing to fill the ICC courtroom with documentation of NATO crimes during its 9 month, 23,000 sorties and 10,000 bombing attacks on the five million population country.

Some International Criminal Court observers are encouraged by the ICC Prosecutor’s office pledge this week and as reported by the BCC: “to investigate and prosecute any crimes committed both by rebel and pro-Gadhafi forces including any committed by NATO.”

As one victim of NATO crimes, who on June 20, 2011 lost four of his family members including three infant children, as five NATO American MK-83 1,000 lb. bombs were dropped and two missiles fired on the Tripoli suburb family compound in a failed assassination attempt against his father, a former aide to Colonel Gadhafi, wrote this observer yesterday from his secret sanctuary, “This is very good news if it is true..”

As NATO moves its focus and recalibrates its drones to the Seral, it is possible that its nearly 300 days and nights of carnage against this gentle country and people will not in the end achieve its goals. The Libyan people may yet defeat NATO’s neo-colonial project both by armed resistance and at the ballot box.

A rejuvenated national resistance has begun on Libya’s borders.

By Franklin Lamb

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Libya.

Thousands of people, including women and children, are being illegally detained by rebel militias in Libya, according to a report by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. Many of the prisoners are suffering torture and systematic mistreatment while being held in private jails outside the control of the country’s new government.

The document, seen by The Independent, states that while political prisoners being held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, their places have been taken by up to 7,000 new “enemies of the state”, “disappeared” in a dysfunctional system, with no recourse to the law.

The report will come as uncomfortable reading for the Western governments, including Britain, which backed the campaign to oust Gaddafi. A UN resolution was secured in March in order to protect civilians from abuses by the regime, which was at the time mercilessly suppressing the uprising against the Gaddafi regime.

There was evidence, says the report by Ban Ki-moon, due to be presented to the Security Council, that both sides committed acts amounting war crimes in the bitter battle for Colonel Gaddafi’s hometown, Sirte. The Secretary-General who recently visited Libya, echoes the concern expressed by many world leaders over the killing of the former dictator by rebel fighters pointing out that Gaddafi was captured alive before being put to death.

The report also stresses that it is a matter of great praise that the country has been liberated after 42 years of totalitarian rule. The victorious opposition – which formed a new interim government this week – fully intends to follow a democratic path and introduce a functioning legal system, he says. The report is due to be circulated among members of the UN Security Council, and discussed next week.

However, Ban Ki-moon also presents a grim scenario of the growing power of the armed militias that control of the streets of many towns, including those of the capital, Tripoli, and the settling of internecine feuds through gun battles resulting in deaths and injuries.

Meanwhile the lawlessness has resulted in the vast majority of the police force not being able to return to work. In the few places where they have been back on duty under experienced officers, such as Tripoli, their role has been restricted largely to directing traffic.

Libya is the only Arab uprising to have attracted direct Western military support, despite the closer links forged with the West in recent years by the Gaddafi regime. The resistance in London, Washington and elsewhere to Nato-led intervention in other Arab countries has centred largely on a lack of coherent opposition. Political backers of the air strikes in Libya had cited the National Transitional Council (NTC) as a credible alternative to the Gaddafi regime.

The scope of escalating strife, inside the country as well as the wider region, is highlighted by the caches of weapons abandoned by the regime and subsequently looted. These include shoulder-launched surface-to-air missiles, known as Manpads, capable of bringing down commercial airliners.

The Report of the Secretary-General on United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL) states that: “Libya had accumulated the largest known stockpile of Manpads, of any non-Manpad-producing country. Although thousands were destroyed during the seven-month Nato operations, there are increasing concerns over the looting and likely proliferation of these portable defence systems, as well as munitions and mines, highlighting the potential risk to local and regional stability.”

But the continuing human rights abuses, says the Secretary-General’s report, are the most pressing concern. The report says that “while political prisoners held by the Gaddafi regime have been released, an estimated 7,000 detainees are currently held in prisons and makeshift detention centres, most of which are under the control of revolutionary brigades, with no access to due process in the absence of a functioning police and judiciary.”

Of particular worry was the fate of women being held for alleged links with the regime, often due to family connections, sometimes with their children locked up alongside them.

“There have also been reports of women held in detention in the absence of female guards and under male supervision, and of children detained alongside adults,” says the report.

A number of black Africans were lynched following the revolution following claims, often false, that they were hired guns for the Gaddafi regime. The city of Tawerga, mainly comprised of residents originally from sub-Saharan countries, was largely destroyed by rebel fighters from neighbouring Misrata. The port city had withstood a prolonged and brutal siege in the hands of the regime forces during which, it is claimed, fighters from Tawerga were particularly aggressive and brutal.

The report says that ”sub-Saharan Africans, in some cases accused or suspected of being mercenaries, constitute a large number of the detainees. Some detainees have reportedly been subjected to torture and ill treatment. Cases have been reported of individuals being targeted because of the colour of their skin.”

The document continues: “Tawergas are reported to have been targeted in revenge killings, or taken by armed men from their homes, checkpoints and hospitals, and some allegedly later abused or executed in detention. Members of the community have fled to various cities across Libya.”

The UN findings chart the vicious abuse carried out by the regime until the final days of the civil war. In a personal note in the document, Ban Ki-Moon said: “I was deeply shocked by my visit to an agricultural warehouse in the Khallital-Ferjan neighbourhood of Tripoli where elements of the Gaddafi regime had detained civilians in inhuman conditions, had subjected some to torture and had massacred as many as they could and burned their bodies.

“The international community must support the efforts to establish the fate of missing persons and to bring to justice perpetrators with the greatest responsibility for such crimes.”

By Kim Sengupta

24 November 2011

The Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) followed the Namibian Genocide (1904-1907) in which the Germans murdered 0.1 million Namas and Hereros in South West Africa . 1.5 million Armenians  perished in the Turkish-imposed Armenian Genocide (1915-1923). However Turkey denies the Armenian Genocide and the US , US Zionists and Apartheid Israel refuse to acknowledge the genocidal nature of the atrocity. British and Australian invasion of Turkey in 1915 contributed to the deadly and catastrophic Turkish xenophobia but British and Australian historians have largely deleted this atrocity from their national histories. While Armenian American celebrity  Kim Kardashian has demanded recognition of the 1.5 million-victim Armenian Genocide, arguing that genocide ignored will  yield more genocide, even the most progressive of  Australia ‘s major  newspapers evidently does not want its readers to read, know or think about this.

The Armenian Genocide.

The Armenian Genocide commenced on 24 April 1915, the day before the Allied invasion Turkey at Gallipoli and 24 April is commemorated as Armenian Genocide Day. The 25 April is commemorated as  Anzac Day by   Australia and New Zealand after the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps (ANZAC) that was involved in the invasion that occurred after months of Allied shelling in the Dardanelles . The Turks were being attacked in the West by the British, French, Australian and New Zealand invaders and in the East by the Russians and this greatly exacerbated xenophobia to a deadly and disastrous level. The Armenian Genocide began with the rounding up of Armenian community leaders and thence butchery of the Armenian population  with millions being driven into the Syrian desert to die. It is estimated that 1.5 million Armenians died in the Armenian Genocide (1915-1923) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armenian_Genocide ).

Armenian Genocide denial by Turkey, the US, racist Zionists and genocidal Apartheid Israel .

Turkey has consistently denied the reality of the Armenian Genocide and indeed has made assertion of an Armenian Genocide a criminal offence. The US , the pro-Zionists, the  US B’nai B’rith (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Defamation_League ), the racist Zionists and the race-based, genocidal, Anglo-American racist Zionist colony of  Apartheid Israel all refuse to recognize the atrocity as an Armenian Genocide.

Armenian American Kim Kardashian urges recognition of Armenian Genocide.

Kim Kardashian and her sisters are famous as lifestyle entrepreneurs. Kimberly Noel “Kim” Kardashian (born October 21, 1980 ) is an American businesswoman, socialite, television personality, model, and actress. She is known for the TV  reality series that she shares with her family called “Keeping Up with the Kardashians”. Her paternal great-grandparents emigrated from Armenia to Los Angeles . “Kardashian” in Armenian means “stonemason”. Kim Kardashian has two sisters, Kourtney and Khloé, and one brother, Robert. She has stepbrothers Burton Jenner, Brandon Jenner, and reality TV star Brody Jenner, step-sister Casey Jenner, and half-sisters Kendall Jenner and Kylie Jenner (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kim_Kardashian ).

Kim Kardashian has spoken thus about the Armenian Genocide (2011): “My family and I are incredibly proud of our heritage. My dad taught me a lot about Armenian culture, and I have a strong connection with my roots.  Every year, I honor the memory of the martyrs who were killed during the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Even though so many countries around the world recognize the Genocide, the government of Turkey still denies it.

It happened before Rwanda , Darfur , and the Holocaust. Maybe none of those other genocides would have happened if more nations had condemned the Armenian Genocide, when 1.5 million Armenians were massacred.

Some people might wonder why I’m talking about history on my blog. And that’s what I’m trying to show…it’s not history. Until this crime is resolved truthfully and fairly, the Armenian people will live with the pain of what happened to their families and the fear of what might happen again to their homeland. So out of respect for all those innocent people that died, I’m putting a spotlight on it today.

Today, thousands of Armenians will come together in Los Angeles to protest against the denial of the genocide and urge the United States government to recognize the Armenian Genocide. I hope that I can bring some attention to this today.

And, this year, April 24 falls on Easter Sunday. Armenians are the first Christian Nation in the world, and almost everyone will be in church to celebrate Easter. Even on this really happy day, we’re going to be remembering the Genocide.

There’s going to be a National Day of Prayer in churches across America to celebrate Easter and commemorate the Genocide.

My thoughts and prayers are with all my fellow Armenians on this really important day. I stand proud with you always” (see Kim Kardashian, “Time to recognize the Armenian Genocide”, Celebuzz, 21 April 2011: http://kimkardashian.celebuzz.com/2011/04/21/kim-kardashian-armenian-genocide-protest-recognize/ ).

Australian Armenian Genocide ignoring and genocide ignoring in general.

Australia was intimately connected with the Armenian Genocide because its invasion of Turkey helped precipitate the genocidal destruction of the first Christian nation in the World. While Australia ‘s invasion of Turkey at Gallipoli is regarded by historians as a key event in Australia ‘s history and nation building, the linked Armenian Genocide is scrupulously ignored by Australian historians writing histories of Australia . Indeed Australia has been involved in 24 genocidal atrocities, 10 of them ongoing, but these are utterly ignored by Australian media, academics, politicians and people. Politically correct racist (PC racist) White Australia declares itself to be non-racist but has been  involved  in  – and continues to be involved in – appalling genocidal atrocities, noting that genocide represents the  ultimate in racism (see Gideon Polya, “Australian Anzac, Armenian Genocide. Australia ‘s secret genocide history”, MWC News, 25 April 2011: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/10256-australian-anzac-a-armenian-genocide.html).

Australian genocide ignoring, and ignoring of the Armenian Genocide in particular, is well illustrated by recent censorship by The Age newspaper, arguably Australia’s most progressive Mainstream medium but pro-Zionist like the rest of the Australian Mainstream media. On 2 November 2011, The Age On-line National Times published an article by  lawyer and writer Emma McDonald about the Kardashian celebrities and entitled , “Why do so many of us keep up with the vacuous Kardashians”:http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/why-do-so-many-keep-up-with-the-vacuous-kardashians-20111101-1mt2m.html . Key quotes: “ the reality is that millions of people follow the lives of the Kardashians. I take my hat (and fascinator) off to them for successfully and ruthlessly feeding the insatiable appetite of an audience hungry for news and information about a bunch of fabulous nobodies. ” Kim Kardashian was visiting Australia in early November 2011 but left very upset after only a few days.

I sent the following 2 carefully researched comments on the article to The Age but both were completely censored, evidently as containing material that the Age does not want its readers to read, know or think about (for details of the article and the censorship see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2011/11/01/8584472-australian-writer-slams-armenian-us-celebrities-as-vacuous-kardashians ).

Censored comments #1: “Kim Kardashian is not just a “fabulous nobody” as asserted by the article but a person whose serious commitment to human rights should be urgently emulated by presently genocide-ignoring  academics, journalists, politicians and Mainstream “celebrities” around the world, not least in look-the-other-way Australia.

Thus this is Kim Karadashian on the Armenian Genocide: “My family and I are incredibly proud of our heritage. My dad taught me a lot about Armenian culture, and I have a strong connection with my roots.  Every year, I honor the memory of the martyrs who were killed during the 1915 Armenian Genocide. Even though so many countries around the world recognize the Genocide, the government of Turkey still denies it. It happened before Rwanda , Darfur , and the Holocaust. Maybe none of those other genocides would have happened if more nations had condemned the Armenian Genocide, when 1.5 million Armenians were massacred.”

Kim Kardashian is saying what the Mainstream steadfastly refuses to say.  Thus  the US refuses to acknowledge the genocidal reality of  the Armenian Genocide  and is  complicit in an ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Somali Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide (Google  these terms describing ongoing genocides recognized by non-racist scholars but essentially unknown to the taxpayer-funded ABC, “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide” and “Climate Genocide”).”

Censored comments #2: “My previously-submitted, carefully researched comments having not been published, I feel morally compelled to re-state their essence in another way.

Kim Kardashian is not a “vacuous Kardashian” or “fabulous nobody” – she has spoken out about the Armenian Genocide (1.5 million murdered, 1915-1923) and the vital,  core message (remorselessly ignored by Mainstream media, academics and politicians in the Western Murdochracies and Lobbyocracies) that ignoring genocide helps lead to new genocides.

Thus the following US Alliance-imposed genocides ignored by the mainstream (war-and occupation-related deaths/ refugees  in parentheses): Palestinian Genocide (0.3 million/7 million), Iraqi Genocide (4.6 million/5-6 million), Afghan Genocide (5.6 million/3-4 million), Somali Genocide (2.2 million/2.0 million), Pakistani Pashtun Genocide (0.1 million?/2 million), Libyan Genocide (0.04 million/0.1 million) and the worsening Climate Genocide (about 10 billion people, overwhelmingly non-European,  are predicted by top climate scientists to perish this century due to unaddressed man-made global warming).

To discover what Australian and Western mainstream academics , politicians and media (notoriously the taxpayer-funded ABC)  resolutely ignore simply Google the above  phrases. Holocaust ignoring is far, far worse than repugnant holocaust denial.?”

While non-historian, non-academic, non-college graduate  Kim Kardashian has spoken out about the Armenia Genocide, given an estimate of how many people died (1.5 million) and enunciated the core message that genocide ignoring may lead to further genocides, leading Australian historian Professor Geoffrey Blainey (Companion of the Order of Australia and formerly of the  University of Melbourne) totally ignored the Armenian Genocide in his books “A Short History if the World” (Viking 2000), “A Very Short History of Australia” (Viking, 2004) and “The Great Seesaw. A new view of the Western World, 1750-2000” (Macmillan, 1988).

British ignoring of the Armenian Genocide.

British Imperialism against Turkey and the Ottoman Empire (tricking Turkey into WW1; British invasion of Iraq , 1914; British invasion of the Dardanelles , 1915) evidently exacerbated Turkish xenophobia. The Armenian Genocide occurred after months of Anglo-French shelling of the Dardanelles and specifically commenced the night before the Allied invasion at Gallipoli. Yet the Armenian Genocide  is shockingly ignored by historians writing histories of England e.g. it is not mentioned, for example,  in “A History of Britain” by E.H. Carter and R.A.F. Mears (Clarendon, 1960), G.M. Trevelyan’s “History of England” (Longmans, 1960), Colin McEvedy’s “The Century World History Factfinder” (Century 1984), and Simon Schama’s “A History of Britain” (BBC, 2002). Andrew Roberts’ 736-page “A History of the English-speaking Peoples” (Harper, 2007) merely allocates the following words: “nationalism is the antithesis of a cosmopolitan empire” [Hugh Trevor-Roper]. Although Armenians, who suffered badly, would take exception to that generalisation being extended to the Ottoman Empire ” and H.G. Wells’ “The Outline of History” (Cassell, revised edition, 1951). merely refers to post-WW1 massacres of Armenians: “He [the Turk] was not only driving back the attacking Greek, but he was, after his age-long traditions, massacring Armenians”. Just imagine a history of Germany that failed to mention the WW2 Holocaust.

Summary.

The Armenian Genocide killed 1.5 million Armenians in 1915-1923 but has been denied as a genocide by Turkey , the US , racist Zionists and genocidal Apartheid Israel . Armenian American entrepreneur and celebrity  Kim Kardashian has urged recognition of the Armenian Genocide, indicating that genocide ignored may lead to genocide repeated. While British, French, New Zealand  and Australian invasion of Turkey on 25 April 1915 evidently disastrously exacerbated Turkish xenophobia and helped precipitate the Armenian Genocide, this atrocity has been remarkably excluded from Australian History and World History works by Australian historians and from histories of England and Britain . Genocide ignored yields genocide repeated and genocide ignoring is far, far worse than repugnant genocide denial or holocaust denial because the latter at least admit the possibility of debate.

By Dr Gideon Polya

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career.

I have expressed my views relating to the media in several T.V. interviews I gave as well as in my articles in some newspapers.

However, many people, including many media people, wanted clarification and amplification of some of the issues I had raised. Many media people (including several T.V. channels) wanted interviews with me but I told them that I will not give interviews for some time, since it does not create a good impression if one keeps giving interviews frequently. However, since some controversy appears to have been raised about what I said a clarification is in order.

Today India is passing through a transitional period in our history, the transition being from feudal agricultural society to modern industrial society. This is a very painful and agonizing period in history. The old feudal society is being uprooted and torn apart, but the new modern industrial society has not been fully and firmly established. Old values are crumbling, but new modern values have not yet been put in place. Everything is in flux, in turmoil. What was regarded good yesterday, is regarded bad today, and what was regarded bad is regarded good. As Shakespeare said in Macbeth “Fair is foul and foul is fair”.

If one studies the history of Europe from the 16th to the 19th Centuries, when the transition from feudalism to modern society was taking place, one will know that this transitional period was full of turbulence, turmoil, wars, revolutions, chaos, social churning, and intellectual ferment. It was only after going through this fire that modern society emerged in Europe. India is presently going through that fire. We are going through a very painful period in our country’s history, which, I guess, will last another 15 to 20 years. I wish this transition would take place painlessly and immediately but unfortunately that is not how history functions.

In this transition period the role of ideas, and therefore of the media, becomes extremely important. At a particular historical juncture, ideas become a material force. For instance, the ideas of liberty, equality and fraternity, and of religious freedom (secularism) became powerful material forces during the Age of Enlightenment in Europe and particularly during the American and French Revolutions. In the age of transition in Europe, the media (which was only the print media at that time) played a great, historical role in the transformation of feudal Europe to modern Europe.

Historically, the print medium arose as an organ of the people against feudal oppression. At that time, the established organs of power were all in the hands of the feudal, despotic authorities (kings, aristocrats, etc.). Hence the people had to create new organs which could represent their interests. That is why the print medium became known as the Fourth Estate. In Europe and America it represented the voice of the future, as a contrast to the established feudal organs which wanted to preserve status quo.

Great writers like Voltaire, Rousseau, Thomas Paine, ‘Junius’ (whose real name we yet do not know) played an outstanding role in this connection (see Will Durant’s ‘The Age of Voltaire’ and ‘Rousseau and Revolution’). The Encyclopaedists like Voltaire, Diderot, Helvetius, Holbach etc. created the Age of Reason, which paved the way for a modern Europe. Diderot wrote that “Men will be free when the last king is strangled with the entrails of the last priest”. Voltaire, in his satirical novels ‘Candide’ and ‘Zadig’ lashed out at religious bigotry, superstitions, and irrationalism. Rousseau in his ‘Social Contract’ attacked feudal despotism by propounding the theory of the ‘general will’ (which broadly stands for popular sovereignty). Thomas Paine wrote about the Right of Man, and Junius attacked the corruption of the Ministers of the despotic George III. Dickens criticized the terrible social conditions in 19th Century England. These, and many others, were responsible for creating modern Europe.

In my opinion the Indian media too should play a progressive role similar to the one played by the European media. This it can do by attacking backward and feudal ideas and practices like casteism, communalism, superstitions, oppression of women, etc. and propagating modern rational and scientific ideas, secularism, and tolerance.

At one time a section of our media played a great role in our country. Raja Ram Mohan Roy courageously attacked backward customs like sati, child marriage, purda, etc in his newspapers ‘Miratul Akbhar’ and ‘Sambad Kaumudi’. Nikhil Chakravarty wrote about the horrors of the Bengal Famine of 1943. Munshi Premchand and Sharat Chandra Chattopadhyaya wrote against feudal practices and oppression of women. Saadat Hasan Manto wrote about the horrors of Partition.

When I criticized the Indian media, and particularly the electronic media for not playing such a progressive and socially responsible role, I was furiously attacked by a section of the media for my views. Some even launched a personal attack on me saying that I was an agent of the government.

I could have retaliated back in the same tone by saying that most media persons are agents of the corporates who have hired them, but I refrained from doing so as I did not want to stoop down to their level. When serious issues are raised about the functioning of the media it was expected that those issues would be addressed seriously instead of launching personal attacks on me, or simply dismissing me as ‘irresponsible’ (as one Exalted Person has done).

By criticizing the media I wanted to persuade the media to change its manner of functioning and not that I wanted to destroy it. The Indian media has a historical role to play in the age of transition, and I wanted to remind the media persons of their historical duty to the nation. Instead of taking my criticism in the correct spirit, a veritable diatribe was launched against me by a section of the media, which painted me as some kind of dictatorial monster.

The great Hindi poet Rahim has written:

“Nindak nearey raakhiye

Aangan kuti Chawaye”

The media should regard me as their well wisher. I criticized them because I wanted media persons to give up many of their defects (some of which I had mentioned in my T.V. interviews and articles) and follow the path of honour which the European media was following, and which will give them the respect of the Indian people.

I mentioned that 80% of our countrymen are living in horrible poverty, there is massive unemployment, skyrocketing prices, lack of medical care, education etc. and barbaric social practices like honour killing, dowry death, caste oppression, religious bigotry, etc. Instead of seriously addressing these issues 90% of the coverage of our media goes to entertainment, e.g., lives of film stars, fashion parades, pop music, disco dancing, cricket etc, or showing superstitions like astrology.

No doubt the media should provide some entertainment also to the people, but if 90% of its coverage is devoted to entertainment, and only 10% to all the socio-economic issues put together, then the sense of priorities of the media has gone haywire. The real issues before the people are the socio-economic issues, and the media is seeking to divert their attention to the non issues like film stars, fashion parades, disco, pop, cricket etc. Does a hungry or unemployed man require entertainment, or food and a job? It is because of this lack of a sense of priorities and for showing superstitions, that I criticized the media.

One should not be afraid of criticism, nor should one resent it. People can criticize me as much as they like, I will not resent it, and maybe I will benefit from it. But similarly the media too should not mind if I criticize them. My aim in doing so is to make them better media people.

While criticizing, however, fairness requires that one should report the words of one’s opponent accurately, without twisting or distorting them. That was the method used by our philosophers. They would first state the views of their opponent, in what was called as the ‘purvapaksha’. This was done with such accuracy and intellectual honesty that if the opponent were present he could not have stated his views better. Thereafter it was sought to be refuted. In this connection one may read Madhavacharya’s ‘Sarva Darshan Sangrah’ (Madhavacharya was the founder of the Dvait school of Vedanta). The views of the Charvaks (Materialist thinkers), the Buddhists, Jains, etc are stated in the ‘purvapaksha’ with such accuracy that if they were present they could not have put them better.

Unfortunately, this practice is often not followed by our media, and my words were distorted by many, and then I was furiously attacked. To give only two examples: (1) In my interview to Mr. Karan Thapar, I stated that in my opinion the majority of media people are of a poor intellectual level. This statement of mine was twisted and distorted by several persons on T.V. channels who quoted me as saying that all media persons are ‘uneducated’ and ‘illiterate’. I telephoned the lady journalist who anchored one of such T.V. panel discussions and asked her why she had distorted my words. She had begun the panel discussion by saying “Katju called journalists uneducated”. She said she only interpreted what I said. I told her that first she should have quoted my exact words, and then only should she have interpreted them. I would like to clarify this further.

Firstly, I did not make a statement about all media people but only of the majority. There are many media people for whom I have great respect. I had mentioned the name of Mr. P. Sainath, whose name should be written in letters of gold in the history of India journalism (for highlighting farmer’s suicides and other farmers issues). I can name several others. Mr. Paranjoy Guha Thakurta and Mr. Shreenivas Reddy did a commendable job in exposing in detail the scandal of paid news. I also have high respect for Mr. Vinod Mehta, Mr. Vinod Sharma, Mr. N. Ram and many others.

I may also mention that before my interview with Mr. Karan Thanpar I sat for about 10 minutes in his office having a cup of coffee with him. At that time I mentioned the name of Emile Zola to him, and he immediately said ‘J’ Accuse’. That one word made him go up high in my esteem. I earlier did not have a very high opinion of him, but that single word completely changed my opinion, and I realized I was in the presence of a highly educated man.

So I wish to clarify have that I did not paint the entire media with the same brush, but my words were totally distorted.

Secondly, I did not say that this majority was uneducated or illiterate. This again was a deliberate distortion of what I said. I never used the word ‘uneducated’. I said that the majority is of a poor intellectual level. A person may have passed B.A. or M.A. but yet may be of a poor intellectual level.

Thirdly, even if one did not agree with my view, he could have coolly and patiently disagreed in a civil tone and expressed his own views instead of shouting and raving on the TV screen and giving an ugly display of temper. And this by a person who belongs to a profession a large section of which is accused of the scandal of paid news, Radia tapes, etc. Really, the Lady doth protest too much! (Shakespeare: Hamlet).

(2) I have again and again said in my articles, speeches and TV interviews that I am not in favour of harsh measures against the media. In a democracy, issues are ordinarily resolved by discussion, persuasion, consultation, and dialogue, and that is the method I prefer, rather than using harsh measures. If a channel/newspaper has done something wrong I would prefer to call the persons responsible ad patiently explain to them that what they have done is not proper. I am sure that in 90% or more cases that would be sufficient. I strongly believe that 90% of people who are doing wrong things can be reformed and made good people.

It is only in extreme cases, which would only be about 5 to 10%, that harsh measures would be required, and that too after repeated use of the democratic method has failed and the person proves incorrigible.

This statement of mine was again distorted and a false impression created that I wanted to impose emergency in the country, cartoons were published in some newspapers showing me as some kind of dictator, etc., etc.

The truth is that I have always been a strong votary for liberty, and the proof of this is my judgments in the Supreme Court and the High Court in which I have consistently held that judges are guardians of the liberties of the citizens, and they will be failing in their duties if they do not uphold these liberties. However, liberty does not mean license to do anything one wishes. All freedoms are subject to reasonable restrictions in the public interest, and are coupled with responsibilities.

We may now discuss the question of self regulation.

Self regulation by electronic media

At present, there is no regulatory authority to cover the electronic media. The Press Council of India governs only the print media, and even in cases of violation of journalistic ethics by the latter the only punishment which can be given is admonition or censure.

I have written to the Prime Minister requesting him to initiate legislation to amend the Press Council Act by (1) bringing electronic media also under the ambit of the Press Council, and (2) giving more teeth to the Press Council.

The electronic media has strongly opposed bringing it under the Press Council. Their claim is of self regulation. But even Judges of the Supreme Court and High Courts do not have such an absolute right. They can be impeached by Parliament for misconduct. Lawyers are under the Bar Council, who can suspend or cancel their license for professional misconduct. Doctors come under the Medical Council who can suspend/cancel their license. Auditors are in the same position. Why then is the electronic media shy of coming under any regulatory authority? Why these double standards? If they do not wish to come under the Press Council (because the present Chairman is a wicked and/or undesirable person) then the N.B.A., and B.E.A. should indicate under which regulatory authority they wish to come. Are they willing to come under the proposed Lokpal? I have repeatedly raised this question in several newspapers, but my question has always been met either by stony silence on the part of the N.B.A., and B.E.A. or dismissing the very question as ‘irresponsible’.

T.V. news and shows have a large influence on a wide section of our public. Hence in my opinion T.V. channels must also be made accountable to the public.

If the electronic media insists on self regulation, then by the same logic politicians, bureaucrats, etc., must also be granted the right of self regulation, instead of being placed under the Lokpal. Or does the electronic media regard itself so holy, so ‘doodh ka dhula’ that nobody should regulate it except itself. In that case, what is paid news, Radia tapes, etc? Is that the work of saints?

In fact there is no such thing as self regulation, which is an oxymoron. Everybody is accountable to the people in a democracy, and so is the media.

By Justice Markandey Katju

15 November 2011

@ The Hindu

Over the past week, evidence has been mounting of an intense debate in Israeli ruling circles over the launching of air strikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities in the not too distant future. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barack have reportedly been campaigning inside the cabinet and seeking to overcome resistance within sections of the country’s military and intelligence establishment to a war with Iran.

The internal debate was first made public by prominent journalist Nahum Barnea in Yediot Aharonot on October 28 and was confirmed by the liberal Ha’aretz newspaper last week. While pointing to the dangers of “an eternal war with Tehran,” Ha’aretz columnist Ari Shavit described the government’s decision as “the decision of our generation,” warning: “If Israel acts too late on Iran, the implications could be critical for our survival.”

Israel’s right-wing foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman dismissed the media reports as having no connection to reality, but neither he nor any other cabinet member has ruled out an attack on Iran. Speaking to the BBC yesterday, Defence Minister Barack said he did not “underestimate the nature of the Iranian threat; it is a major threat to the stability of the whole region.” He said Israel believed that harsh sanctions could halt Iran’s nuclear programs, then added that “no options should be removed from the table.”

Israeli President Shimon Peres also warned yesterday that an attack on Iran was becoming increasingly likely. “The possibility of a military attack against Iran is now closer to being applied than the application of a diplomatic option… I don’t think that any decision has been already made, but there is an impression that Iran is getting closer to nuclear weapons,” he told the Israel Hayom newspaper.

The debate in Israel takes place as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) prepares to release a report this week on Iran’s nuclear programs. Aspects of the report have been leaked to the press by unnamed Western diplomats, seeking to prepare the ground for what are likely to be sensationalised commentaries that Iran is building nuclear weapons. One source told the Financial Times yesterday, however, that the report contained “no smoking gun” but only “a gradual and telling accumulation of evidence.”

Iran has repeatedly denied any plans to build an atomic bomb. In a press conference on Saturday, Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi accused the IAEA of succumbing to Western pressure, saying: “Iran has already responded to the alleged studies in 117 pages. We’ve said time and again that these are forgeries similar to faked notes.” He drew attention to the forged documents that were used by the US to claim that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger and to justify the 2003 US invasion of Iraq.

It is certainly possible that faked documents are being used to provide a pretext for war against Iran. Much of the IAEA’s “evidence” against Iran comes from American, European and Israeli intelligence agencies. Moreover, it is widely recognised that Israel’s intelligence agency Mossad is actively seeking to sabotage Iran’s nuclear programs through the use of computer viruses and the assassination of key Iranian nuclear scientists.

The release of previous IAEA reports has been preceded by new nuclear “revelations” about Iran and strident criticisms from Washington. In Israel, thinly veiled threats of a military attack on Iran have been used to intensify the pressure on the US and other powers to take stronger diplomatic measures and impose tougher sanctions.

This time, however, the content of the leaks is far more menacing. Two Israeli cabinet members—Benny Begin and Dan Meridor—are apparently opposed to air strikes on Iran but nevertheless bitterly attacked the media and the defence establishment for leaking details of the discussion. Begin described the public debate as “utterly irresponsible” for impeding “the government’s ability to make decisions,” suggesting that an attack on Iran was seriously being considered, rather than being used a diplomatic ploy.

Last Wednesday, the Israeli military test-fired a long-range ballistic missile that has the potential to strike Iran. Less widely reported was an exercise involving Israeli war planes using an airbase on the Italian island of Sardinia, which is specially fitted for training by NATO. Israeli planes used the drills to practice for long-range operations that would be needed to reach Iran. Over the weekend, US Assistant Secretary of State for Political/Military Affairs Andrew Shapiro announced the largest ever joint exercise with Israel. It will involve testing Israel’s capacity to block a ballistic missile attack of the type that Iran might launch in response to air raids on its nuclear facilities.

Several articles in the US media have pointed to concerns in Washington that Israel might unilaterally attack Iran. An American official told CNN over the weekend that in the past the White House had thought it would receive advanced warning of any Israeli military action against Iran, but “now that doesn’t seem so ironclad.” In reality, Israel is completely dependent economically, politically and strategically on the US and would not take action without Washington’s tacit approval at least. Far from being at odds with the US, Israeli plans for attacking Iran are in line with military preparations by the US and Britain that were leaked in British newspapers last week (See “US/Britain prepare for war against Iran”.)

At last weekend’s G20 summit, the US and France both warned of tough action against Iran and underlined their support for Israel. US President Barack Obama highlighted the “continuing threat posed by Iran’s nuclear program” and his agreement with French President Nicholas Sarkozy to maintain “unprecedented pressure” on Iran. For his part, Sarkozy declared: “Iran’s behaviour and this obsessional desire to acquire nuclear military [capability] is in violation of all international rules… If Israel’s existence were threatened, France would not stand idly by.”

Israeli preparations for a war with Iran are not motivated primarily by the “nuclear threat.” It is an open secret that Israel has had its own nuclear weapons for decades and the means to deliver them anywhere in the region. Unlike Iran, Israel has refused to sign the Nuclear Non-proliferation treaty or to allow IAEA inspections of its nuclear facilities.

While the press constantly refers to the Iranian “threat,” Israel, unlike Iran, has a long record of unprovoked attacks on countries within the region. These included the 1981 air strike on Iraq’s nuclear reactor and a similar attack in 2007 on a Syrian site where the US claimed Syria was building a nuclear reactor. This latter raid was widely viewed as a practice run for air strikes against Iran.

The Israeli political establishment remains intent on maintaining its military advantage over any regional rival, but the current push for air strikes against Iran is driven by the political and economic crisis within the region and Israel itself. The Israeli elite has been deeply concerned by the revolutionary upheavals of the working class in the Middle East and North Africa that have removed or threaten to remove regimes on which the Israeli state has depended for decades. In particular, the uprising in Egypt that led to the replacement of President Hosni Mubarak by an unstable regime resting on the Egyptian military has undermined Israel’s position within the region.

Above all, the Israeli ruling class fears the movement of Israeli workers and youth that resulted in the country’s largest ever protests in September, directed against the government and its policies that have produced a profound social divide between rich and poor. Those protests, which renewed last month, threaten to link up with workers and youth internationally over social inequality and poverty, particularly within the Middle East.

A war by the Netanyahu government against Iran would, at least initially, bury the class issues under an outpouring of chauvinism and racism, and poison relations between workers and young people throughout the Middle East. It must be opposed by the working class in Israel and throughout the region and internationally on the basis of a fight for the United Socialist States of the Middle East.

By Peter Symonds

Peter Symonds is a WSWS.org writer

Medical professionals in Israel are being accused of failing to document and report injuries caused by the ill-treatment and torture of detainees by security personnel in violation of their ethical code.

A report by two Israeli human rights organisations, the Public Committee Against Torture (PCAT) and Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), claims that medical staff are also failing to report suspicion of torture and ill-treatment, returning detainees to their interrogators and passing medical information to interrogators.

The report, Doctoring the Evidence, Abandoning the Victim, to be published later this month, is based on 100 cases of Palestinian detainees brought to PCAT since 2007. It says: “This report reveals significant evidence arousing the suspicion that many doctors ignore the complaints of their patients; that they allow Israeli Security Agency interrogators to use torture; approve the use of forbidden interrogation methods and the ill-treatment of helpless detainees; and conceal information, thereby allowing total immunity for the torturers.”

Alleged ill-treatment of detainees, some of whose cases are detailed in the 61-page report, includes beatings, being held for long periods in stress positions, hands being tightly tied with plastic cuffs, sleep deprivation and threats. Israel denies torturing or ill-treating prisoners.

Doctors are failing to keep proper medical records of injuries caused during interrogations. The report cites “countless cases wherein individuals testified to injuries inflicted upon them during detention or in interrogation, and yet the medical record from the hospital or the prison service makes no mention of it.”

Without such evidence, the report says, it is very difficult to obtain legal redress for ill-treatment. “Effective documentation of the injury can be a decisive factor in initiating an investigation, in bringing the perpetrators to trial and in ensuring that justice is carried out.”

A medical report should include a description and photograph of the injury, the victim’s account of events and a record of treatment, the report says.

Among the cases it cites is “BA”, arrested in November 2010. In an affidavit he alleged he was beaten, held in stress positions and deprived of sleep. He said he told doctors of his ill-treatment and said he was suffering from severe arm, leg and back pain. His medical record shows that he was seen by doctors but the only comment noted is that the patient had no complaints and was in good overall condition.

Another, “MA”, arrested in June 2008, claimed in an affidavit that his hands were cuffed with tight plastic ties, he was held in kneeling position resting on his fingertips for hours, and his head was slammed into a bench 20 times causing an eye injury. A medical report the following day included a comment from a doctor: “Overall condition satisfactory, heartbeat regular.” A further examination, two weeks later, resulted in doctor’s comment: “Complains of pain in teeth, eyes”. A few days later, a judge referred MA to an eye doctor for treatment with the comment, “Claims he was beaten in the course of his arrest, complains that he does not feel well and complains of blurring in the eyes”.

The report also accuses medics of returning detainees to interrogators following treatment of injuries. This, it says, is in violation of ethical obligations and “also serves as a stamp of approval for the interrogators, who rely on the doctors’ action as having granted medical permission to continue with their practices”.

Among the PCAT/PHR report’s recommendations are clear guidelines regarding the medical treatment of prisoners, investigations of and disciplinary action against staff who violate rules, and protection for whistleblowers.

Israel prohibits torture or “inhuman treatment” during interrogation, although its high court has ruled that physical means of interrogation could be defensible to save lives.

“In Israel it is illegal to abuse inmates, including security prisoners,” said government spokesman Mark Regev. “Guidelines have been passed to the relevant authorities. If years ago the guidelines were not clear, they are today. And if there are allegations of wrongdoing against people in custody, they are investigated thoroughly.”

The ministry of health and prisons service did not respond to requests for comment.

By Harriet Sherwood

3 November 2011

@ The Guardian

Because “Christian” Kenya was reaching out to “Jews”, Muslims had “a responsibility” to act, said a spokesman for al-Shabaab, the Somali jihadist group.

Shimon Peres, Israel’s president, said his country would “make everything available” for Kenya to secure its borders and boost internal security as it continues its incursion into its anarchic neighbour.

There were few details of the surprise deal, which came a month after Kenya’s invasion of Somalia to hunt down the Islamists.

But Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said: “Kenya’s enemies are Israel’s enemies”.

“We have similar forces planning to bring us down,” he said after meeting Raila Odinga, Kenya’s prime minister, who was visiting Jerusalem. “I see it as an opportunity to strengthen our ties.”

News of the agreement immediately drew fresh threats from al-Shabaab, which has been fighting Somalia’s Western-backed government since 2007.

“We want to tell the Muslim world that we have the same religion, the same faith and the same god,” Mohammed Ali Rage, al-Shabaab’s spokesman, said in a message broadcast on jihadist radio stations.

“It is their responsibility to support their Muslim brothers in Somalia because the Kenyan Christians are seeking support from the Jews in Israel.” Analysts warned that publicly linking Israel to the Kenyan mission threatened to “erode” the broad backing for the offensive among moderate Somalis.

“This move will give [al-Shabaab] room to push the perception that this is not just Kenya fighting for itself, but that it is a coalition of Christian or non-Muslims fighting against Muslims,” said Andrews Atta-Asamoah of the Institute for Security Studies in Nairobi, the Kenyan capital.

“It would have been preferable to delay this, or to accept help covertly.

“Now al-Shabaab will be the beneficiary, it will get more funding, more recruits, and the support that Kenya was getting on the ground will be eroded.”

The deal could also backfire within Kenya, said another Somalia expert in Nairobi.

“There are large numbers of radicalised Muslim youth in Kenya already, and this kind of thing, using megaphone diplomacy to boast that Israel’s behind you, will do no end of harm to trying to contain them,” he said.

But Mr Odinga said that increasing threats “called for more advanced and improved security measures”. Israel gave Kenya logistical help following al-Qaeda attacks on the US embassy in the capital, Nairobi, in 1998.

Four years later, al-Qaeda blew up a hotel on Kenya’s coast popular with Israeli tourists, and tried but failed to shoot down a holiday jet taking off from Mombasa for Tel Aviv.

The news of the fresh Kenyan-Israeli agreement came as Unicef, the UN’s children’s charity, said the number of children killed and wounded in southern Somalia had soared in recent weeks.

Sikander Khan, the agency’s representative for Somalia, said that 24 children were killed and 58 seriously injured in conflict in October – nearly double the number in every other month this year.

By Mike Pflanz

15 November  2011

@ The Telegraph