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ISLAMABAD – United States ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter’s alleged meeting with one of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s most wanted men – Jamaat-ul-Daawa (JuD) amir Professor Hafiz Mohammad Saeed – seems to be the principal reason for his premature exit from Islamabad, after having served just over 18 months since his appointment in October 2010.

Munter, a career diplomat, abruptly quit his job last week, hardly 24 hours after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton declared Saeed responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai carnage and announced that the US was prepared to work with India to bring the JuD amir to justice. The November 2008 attacks were 11 coordinated shooting and bombing incidents across Mumbai by terrorists who allegedly came from Pakistan. The three-day rampage cost 166 lives, including six Americans, with at least 308 people injured.

Munter’s decision to quit the ambassadorship prematurely has been confirmed by Mark Stroh, an embassy spokesman, who said, “He will be leaving this summer at the conclusion of his two years in the job. The ambassador had been weighing the option of continuing for a third year, but decided against it.” No replacement has been named.

However, well-placed diplomatic officials in the federal capital claim that Munter’s decision has more to do with behind-the-scenes developments that took place in Islamabad following the April 1, 2012, decision of the Barack Obama administration to put a price of US$10 million on information and evidence leading to the arrest and conviction of the JuD’s Saeed. Saeed is also the founder of the pro-Kashmir proscribed jihadi organization Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT). The bounty was announced for his alleged role in the Mumbai attacks.

Just hours after the US State Department announced the bounty, Saeed appeared on Pakistan’s Geo TV. He said he was a free man – living in Pakistan – and was ready to speak with US officials at any time.

While some high-ups in the Pakistani Foreign Office claim that Munter has taken the decision to quit on his own for not being kept in the loop by the US State Department, there are those in diplomatic circles who maintain that the envoy is being made to resign by his seniors because of his seemingly soft line over Saeed’s bounty issue, which has not gone down well with the Obama administration.

According to a report in the Indian Express, Munter had informed Washington that an apology “was in order” after a cross-border North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) air strike killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last year, but his advice was overruled by the Pentagon. “Pakistan’s insistence on an apology for the NATO attack has emerged as a key irritant in moves to reset its relationship with the US after a year of crises that took ties to a new low,” the paper reported.

However, the instant cause of Munter’s exit is believed to be his clandestine meeting with Saeed that took place in Islamabad almost a month ago, after the US announced the bounty.

Diplomatic circles say the Munter-Saeed meeting was intended to remove misunderstandings created by the bounty announcement, which had prompted the JuD amir to step up his anti-US public campaign by laughing off the American action against him.

According to the sources, Saeed presented solid evidence to Munter, showing that he had no links to the Mumbai carnage. The US envoy subsequently sent a detailed report to the US administration on Saeed’s viewpoint, but the State Department reportedly made it clear to Munter that it would not be responsible for any assurances given by him to the JuD chief.

To recall, following the bounty announcement, Saeed addressed a press conference in Rawalpindi on April 4 and dared the US to carry out a military raid against him like the one that killed al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad a year ago.

Taunting the US to give him the head money offered for information leading to his arrest under the Rewards for Justice Program, Saeed said he would inform the US authorities about his whereabouts so he could claim the cash. “I am not hiding in caves and mountains, I am here in Rawalpindi. If the Americans want to contact me, I am present here, they can contact me. I am also ready to face any US court, or wherever there is proof against me or my group’s involvement in terrorist activities.”

Saeed then mocked the US bounty decision for someone who lives so openly in Pakistan. “These Americans seriously lack information. Don’t they know where I go and where I live and what I do? These rewards are usually announced for people who are hiding in mountains or caves. I wish the Americans would give this reward money to me.”

Munter, who is known for his conciliatory approach, decided to pacify Saeed in a one-on-one meeting in Islamabad that was kept secret and which is still not being confirmed officially by either side as it is perceived to be damaging for both parties.

The US Embassy spokesman in Islamabad has categorically refuted that any meeting between Munter and Saeed took place. “Ambassador Munter has never met with Hafiz Saeed and no US official has made any promises to, or agreements with, Hafiz Mohammad Saeed who is a wanted terrorist responsible for the deadly attack on Mumbai in November 2008 that killed 166 people, including six Americans. The JuD amir is subject to UN Security Council Resolution 1267/1989 sanctions and there is an international responsibility on the member states to bring the perpetrators of the 26/11 Mumbai attacks to justice,” the US embassy spokesperson said in an official press release.

Approached for comments, JuD spokesman Mohammad Yahya Mujahid too denied reports of a meeting between Saeed and Munter, saying his amir was not at all interested in holding secret meetings with someone who represented the enemy of Islam and Pakistan. “[The United States] has butchered millions of Muslims in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.”

But the fact remains that Munter had declared in Lahore (soon after his alleged meeting with Saeed) on April 28, that the US government did not announce any bounty or head money specifically for the JuD amir and that the matter had been misreported in the Pakistani media.

“The Pakistani media is very active and responsible but it misreported the issue of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed,” Munter said in reply to queries after the annual dinner of the American Business Forum at the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club in Lahore. “Though Hafiz Saeed is a suspected accused of the Mumbai terror attacks, the US government didn’t place either a bounty or head money for him,” he said.

Diplomatic circles in Islamabad say these developments were brought to the knowledge of Clinton, who apparently did not appreciate Munter’s actions as they could be perceived as rolling back the tough stance that was later spelled out by Clinton during her Indian tour, when she bluntly reprimanded Pakistan for not taking any action against Saeed as the alleged mastermind of the Mumbai attacks.

Delivering a speech in Kolkata on May 8, and lending support to India to fight terrorism, Clinton confirmed the bounty on Saeed. Calling the amir one of the principal architects of the Mumbai attacks, she said the bounty was meant to show solidarity with the people of India.

“I am well aware that the Pakistani government had not yet taken steps to help secure Hafiz Saeed’s conviction. We’re going to be pushing that. So it’s a way of raising the visibility and pointing out to those who are associated with him that there is a cost for that,” Clinton said, adding that Pakistan should do more to ensure that its territory is not used as a launching pad for carrying out more terrorist attacks.

Hardly 24 hours after Clinton’s Kolkata speech, which clearly negated Munter’s earlier stance on the Saeed head money issue, the US ambassador made public his decision to quit.

By Amir Mir

11 May 2012

@ Online Asia Time

Amir Mir is a senior Pakistani journalist and the author of several books on the subject of militant Islam and terrorism, the latest being The Bhutto murder trail: From Waziristan to GHQ.

Western style “democracy” is destroying Africa. It seems everywhere you look in Africa you see elections marked by violence and bloodshed. “Buy, rig or steal” is the name of the game and if that doesn’t work, send in the French army and UN “peacekeepers” and rocket the presidential residence and just take over by brute force.

“Democracy” is supposed to mean that the leaders of a nation do what their people want them to do.

If you ask almost all Africans what they want most from their leaders they will tell you;

1) Enough food to eat.

2) Clean water to drink

3) A roof over their heads

4) Accessible and affordable medical care

5) Education for their children

Elections are way down on the list of grassroots African priorities.

Food, water, shelter and medical care, if a countries leadership is getting these priorities taken care of then they are actually practicing democracy and if they don’t provide these services to their people they are not democratic, no matter the praised heaped on them by their neo-colonial masters in the west.

All of the nations of Africa except one is caught in the western elections trap. And all of Africa except one is bleeding, and in more than one way.

Many if not most African countries pay more in interest on their debts to western banks than the combined total of all expenditures on medical care and education.

Many if not most African countries suffer from food dependancy, they do not grow enough food to feed their people.

Many if not most African countries are economic basket cases, even Nigeria with its oil, staggering from one western bankster emergency bailout to another.

Everywhere you look in Africa it seems you see conflict and war and everywhere you look you see western style “democracy”, elections.

It is so bad then when an election is held without a major outbreak of violence it is considered a “victory for African democracy” even if the serving president is the only one on the ballot (see Liberia; Plenty “democracy”, No electricity)

After WWII the western colonialists found out the hard way that they couldn’t continue to militarily occupy their “possessions” so they created neocolonialism to control Africa and used western style “democracy” to run it.

Traditionally, Africans practiced their own forms of “democracy” most often via a council of elders persuading all parties to arrive at a consensus where everyone got something.

It wasn’t a win or lose situation like takes place in a western style election.

Being that all parties agreed to the final decision all parties were duty bound to respect and enforce what they had agreed to and thus the peace was kept and folks got along with each other.

As for national decisions, there were Kings or high Chiefs who almost always consulted a council of tribal or clan elders. In many societies, and this was a society of villages, there were often times chiefs, but still the most often used dispute resolution was consensus, a mediation by elders. Peace was maintained and societies unity preserved.

Western “democracy” in Africa creates just the opposite. In Kenya, the Kikuyu, an ethnic minority installed in power by the departing British empire has to win the election or risk losing everything to their larger tribal rivals, the Luo. The result? Elections and thousands dead and hundreds of thousands displaced. This upcoming election may see even worse.

The Congo? Ethiopia? Even that supposed success story for African Democracy, Senegal, saw blood in the streets.

Yet there is one island of peace and stability in the midst of all this chaos and crisis. One place where the people of the country, especially the people of the villages, still some 70%, will tell you that the government has kept its promises, and the proof is there for all to see. The solar powered wells, the micro dams for irrigation, the medical clinics and schools, all are spreading to even the most remote villages.

HIV/AIDS down by 40%, the best in Africa by a mile, malaria mortality down 80%, the biggest breakthrough in malaria history. Maternal and infant mortality seeing “remarkable improvement” (from the World Bank, no less) and the Millennium Development goals all on track for achieving. And on top of this, the fastest growing economy in Africa.

The one real success story in Africa and the only country NOT to have elections.

Maybe, just maybe, not allowing western “democracy” is what it takes for Africa to succeed.

Eritrea and Eritreans want nothing to do with neocolonialism and “democracy” western style. No thanks, we have our own version of democracy, real democracy, and our people are seeing the benefits.

Paradise? No, life is still hard for most, but the very poorest are the priority and their lives have changed, dramatically.

In Africa the poor are most of the people and if you are not taking care of them first and foremost, you are NOT democratic.

If elections mean democracy, and sick and hungry children in their millions is business as usual than Eritreans will tell you to keep your “democracy”. This is about Africa’s one “undemocratic” country, where peace reigns and our lives are getting better, especially for those most in need.

Don’t shoot me, I am just the messenger, though a real believer in the message. I have lived here in Eritrea since 2006 and am telling you what I have witnessed and come to believe in.

Instead of falling into the western “democracy” trap, try taking an unbiased look at a role model here in Africa instead of another African victim, bleeding from neocolonialism

So before I finish let me pass on what is probably the only reliable first hand account of how that Founder of American Democracy, Thomas Jefferson treated “his” Africans.

“After dinner the master [Jefferson] and I went to see the slaves plant peas. Their bodies dirty brown rather than black, their dirty rags, their miserable, hideous half-nakedness, these haggard figures, this secretive anxious air, the hateful timorous looks, altogether seized me with an initial sentiment of terror and sadness that I ought to hide my face from. Their indolence in turning up the ground with the hoe was extreme. The master [Jefferson] took a whip to frighten them, and soon ensued a comic scene. Placed in the middle of the gang, he menaced, and turned far and wide ( on all sides) turning around. Now, as he turned his face, one by one, the blacks changed attitude; those whom he looked at directly worked best, those whom he half saw worked least, and those he didn’t see at all, ceased working altogether; and if he made an about-face, the hoe was raised to view, but otherwise slept behind his back”.

This first hand account is from a founding member of the French “Society for Friendship with Blacks”, the first French antislavery organization. His name was Constantine Volney and he was the publisher of that African-Centered classic historical work, “Ruins; Or, Meditations on the Revolutions of Empires” in 1791. It is a fascinating account about his visit to Africa’s Nile Valley before the last major desecration’s began.

Being an honest, antiracist historian, Volney believed, based on what he saw with his own eyes in the Egyptian tombs and temples, that civilization began in Africa, on the banks of the Nile River.

In his own words; “It was there that a people, since forgotten, discovered the elements of science and art, at a time when all other men were barbarous, and that a race, now regarded as the refuse of society, because their hair is wooly and their skin is dark, explored among the phenomena of nature, those civil and religious systems which have since held mankind in awe”.

“Ruins” was one of the most widely read historical texts of the late 18th and early 19th century. It was published in 6 languages in over 15 editions.

Volney was eventually driven from the USA by the forerunner of the Undesirable Aliens Act, passed by a slave owner Congress still having difficulties achieving a good nights sleep, haunted by dreams of the revolution in Haiti and the slaughter of their fellow slave owners by their erstwhile captives, Toussaint and his fellow Africans.

It remains a bitter fact that the works of Volney, one of history’s truly great scholars remains a mystery to most all of today’s students.

To say that Thomas Jefferson was in anyway a “progressive” in his day is to fly in the face of all that Volney stood for. Let us use Volney’s first hand recollection to once and for all provide a proper burial for the idea that the USA was founded by persons of noble character or democratic principles.

The USA was racist in essence at birth and remains racist in essence today. That despite a black American President, a black American Attorney General, a black American Supreme Court Justice, a black American UN Ambassador and multiple black military generals, it is only an illusion that anything has really changed for the masses of black folk in the USA.

And they want to export this slave owners democracy to Africa? At least here in Eritrea “we the people” know what we want and that is real democracy, taking care of all our people, starting with our neediest.

By Thomas C. Mountain

30 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Thomas C. Mountain is the only independent western journalist in the Horn of Africa, living and reporting from Eritrea since 2006. He can be reached at thomascmountain at yahoo dot com

Congressional Committee Proposal would raise US taxpayer support for Israel’s military in 2013 to a record $4 billion

(WASHINGTON DC) – As news about Israeli political parties merging dominates headlines, this one is being overlooked. The US House of Representatives Defense Appropriations Subcommittee yesterday approved almost $1 billion for Israel’s anti-missile defense programs.

The expensive systems are called Arrow 3. The American politicians propose spending this exorbitant amount in order to upgrade the current Arrow system, David’s Sling, and Iron Dome.

The names are fancy, unlike the missiles they say they are defending themselves from. The munitions fired from Gaza are al Qassam rockets and they are little more than unguided fireworks.

Israeli and American media portray the ‘rocket attacks from Gaza’ as a serious danger and they claim that the large U.S. tax payer contributions are necessary in order to ‘defend’ Israel. The Gaza rockets have in all time, killed a total of 28 Israeli citizens. Some place the number at 29.

The total appropriation is the highest ever approved for the four programs; it reflects the willingness of the United States to back yet another racist, apartheid government that uses American investments to send Israeli youth to college, and to kill Palestinians; Muslims and Christians, who have few rights under a system that Israel created, offering one set of laws and punishments to Jews, and a different set for all other human beings.

Of course the bottom line issue always, is that Israel will see that any country that objects to its deadly politics is attacked militarily. Iraq heads the list of these nations, and now Iraq’s old rival, Iran, continually remains in Israel’s gun sights when THERE IS NO HISTORY OF AGGRESSION FROM IRAN TOWARD ISRAEL.

Iran’s president did not say Israel should be ‘wiped from the map’, but then accurate language translations get in the way, amazingly the world is unable to check those words themselves. Iran seeks nuclear power, Israel stands armed with hundreds of illegal, undeclared nuclear weapons. The U.S. and Israel are highly illegal and politically deceptive in nature.

Israel Business News reports that:

The House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee is due to vote on the draft bill today, which will include $948,736,000 for Israel’s missile defense programs for the 2013 fiscal year, which begins in October. This money is separate from the $3.1 billion in annual military aid for Israel for 2013. If the proposal passes, Israel will receive a record total of $4 billion in military aid in the next fiscal year.

The US aid for Israel’s missile defense programs is part of the US defense appropriations. The items in the House bill includes $74,692,000 for the “upper-tier component to the Israeli Missile Defense Architecture” – the Arrow 3 anti-ballistic missile (which can intercept missiles in space, above the reach of the Arrow 2). Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd’s (IAI) (TASE: ARSP.B1) Malam Division is developing the missile.

The House subcommittee also approved $44,365,000 for the Arrow System Improvement Program, including development of a long range, ground and airborne, detection suite.

The House subcommittee approved $149,679,000 for the Short Range Ballistic Missile Defense (SRBMD) program (David’s Sling), including cruise missile defense R&D under this program, of which $15,000,000 is for production of missiles in the US and Israel to meet Israel’s defense requirements. Rafael Advanced Defense Systems Ltd. and Raytheon Company (NYSE: RTN) are jointly developing David’s Sling.

The House subcommittee approved $268.7 million for these three programs, compared with $235 million they are receiving in the 2012 fiscal year.

The Iron Dome program will receive $680 million. This appropriation is in addition to the $205 million appropriated for the program in the US defense budget for the 2011 fiscal year.

The article states that the substantial increase in US aid for the Iron Dome was expected, after the Pentagon announced in March that it would work with Congress to fund deployment of the system.

With another ‘underwear bomber’ propaganda story dominating U.S. headlines, we are reminded that Leon Panetta is another American whose allegiance is to Israel, he is clearly a supporter of apartheid.

“Supporting the security of the state of Israel is a top priority of President Obama and Secretary Panetta,” said the Pentagon in a statement at the time.

“The Department of Defense has been in conversations with the government of Israel about US support for the acquisition of additional Iron Dome systems and intends to request an appropriate level of funding from Congress to support such acquisitions based on Israeli requirements and production capacity.”

Israel’s Ambassador to the US Michael Oren, said, “We remain committed to resolving the conflict based on the principle of two states for two people. But until that is achieved, we have no choice but to rely on both our defensive and offensive capabilities. For America, as well as for Israel, an investment in the Iron Dome system is an investment in diplomacy – helping to create the conditions conducive to peace.”

Oren was taken to task recently on 60 Minutes for his ridiculous position. Of course Oren is the American face of Israel that the Zionist state wants Americans to see and relate to. Israel is not a nation of people who look like Americans, those are the Ashkenazi Jews, the ‘white Jews’ who dominate Israeli policy and don’t just discriminate against Palestinians, dark-complected Jews are increasingly challenged in Israel, ironically a land of white supremacy.

The Israel Business News article concluded with:

The Republicans control the House of Representatives. The Democrat-controlled Senate is ignoring bills initiated by the House, letting them die in committee. However, there is no disagreement between the two houses of Congress when it comes to aid for Israel.

Tim King has more than twenty years of experience on the west coast as a television news producer, photojournalist, reporter and assignment editor. Tim is Salem-News.com’s Executive News Editor. His background includes covering the war in Afghanistan in 2006 and 2007, and reporting from the Iraq war in 2008. Tim is a former U.S. Marine.

Tim holds awards for reporting, photography, writing and editing from The Associated Press the National Coalition of Motorcyclists, the Oregon Confederation of Motorcycle Clubs, Electronic Media Association and The Red Cross In a personal capacity, Tim has written 2,026 articles as of March 2012 for Salem-News.com since the new format designed by Matt Lintz was launched in December, 2005.

Serving readers with news from all over the globe, Tim’s life is literally encircled by the endless news flow published by Salem-News.com, where more than 100 writers contribute stories from 20+ countries and regions.

By Tim King

10 May 2012

@ Salem-News.com

Tim specializes in writing about political and military developments worldwide with an emphasis on Palestine and Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan, and the U.S. Marines. You can write to Tim at this address: tim@salem-news.com. Visit Tim’s Facebook page

In its quest to find new sources of energy, China is increasingly looking to its western provinces. But the nation’s push to develop fossil fuel and alternative sources has so far ignored a basic fact — western China simply lacks the water resources needed to support major new energy development

If you were to fly over the great continental expanse of China at night, you would find clusters of bright lights hugging near the eastern coast — sprawling, populous cities such as Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen. But the farthest west you travel, the fewer such illuminated megalopolises you would encounter. To be sure, China also has large cities in its interior, but they are fewer and farther between. Rather like the United States, China’s major centers of population and industry are concentrated near its eastern seaboard. So, too, are its energy needs.

Yet ironically, China’s great and untapped opportunities for developing both traditional fossil fuels and alternative energy lie primarily in its western hinterlands. For instance, the sparsely populated, sun-drenched northwestern province of Gansu is fast becoming a hub of China’s efforts to develop domestic wind and solar energy. Likewise, as eastern coal reserves are gradually depleted, new mining operations are under development in the western provinces of Inner Mongolia, Qinghai, Ningxia, Xinjiang, Shanxi, Shaanxi, and Gansu. But they also lie far from where most of the energy will eventually be consumed — and that’s the rub.

Transporting coal from western mines over long distances – via railroad or truck, or by barges drifting down the Yangtze River — is a costly, troublesome undertaking; freight charges can add more than 50 percent to the cost of coal. In adverse weather conditions, shipment becomes a precarious obstacle. When a 2008 blizzard blanketed southeastern China in snow and shut down major rail lines, the lights went off in several southeastern cities to which coal shipments were delayed. When last summer’s severe drought grounded barge traffic on the lower Yangtze, the largest utility company in downstream Shanghai announced that nearby factories would face rotating blackouts (despite its sheen of modernity, even mainland China’s wealthiest city is not immune to power failure).

The country’s top leaders have made provisions for both increasing overall coal production and easing the coal-transportation bottleneck. The most recent Five-Year Plan, the central government’s primary planning document, calls for significantly increasing coal production, which will be achieved by developing and expanding 14 large “coal-industry bases” across western China; these bases will include facilities for coal mining, petrochemical processing, and coal-fired power plants.

Moreover, the plans call for installing high-voltage, cross-country transmission lines. Instead of shipping all that coal in rumbling rail cars, at least a portion of it would be converted to power on site, and the electricity then transmitted by cable to power-hungry eastern cities like Shanghai. But the environmental impacts of carrying out these plans have not yet been fully considered.

In China today, fully 80 percent of electricity is generated from coal. Yes, it’s true that the contribution from renewable sources is also increasing — you’ve perhaps seen photos of glistening new wind turbines in China’s deserts — but green energy isn’t currently displacing fossil fuel sources; it’s supplementing them. Both are growing rapidly. Between 2000 and 2010, China’s total coal consumption increased threefold, according to estimates from the U.S. Energy Administration. China’s coal-dependency isn’t going away anytime soon — quite the reverse.

Yet, in expanding coal-industry bases in west China, one crucial challenge has so far received far less attention than it deserves: Coal-based industries are massively water-intensive (in fact, coal mining, coal-based power generation, and petrochemical processing together account for more than one-fifth of China’s total water usage). And much of western China is already short on water — think Gobi desert and camels, as opposed to Pearl River Delta rice paddies. “The west of China is an environmentally fragile area,” says Professor Wang Xiujun, who conducts research on climate and precipitation jointly for the Xinjiang Institute of Ecology and Geography and the University of Maryland. “There’s not much water to spare.”

When new industry comes to town, water is secured by tapping local lakes and rivers, pumping groundwater, and constructing reservoirs to capture rainwater, which diverts its normal flow and reabsorption into the soil. All three have unintended environmental consequences, says Sun Qingwei, climate and energy campaigner for Greenpeace China and a former government scientist based in western Gansu province.

“There is not enough water to support a lot of industry and coal operations in western China,” Sun says. “If water resources are exploited by the coal industry, that will lead to land degradation and desertification. And the livelihood of the local communities is damaged.” Greenpeace China, which takes a research-based approach to its work (in contrast to the organization’s penchant for protest in other countries), is currently working on a report to map the availability of water in west China against the anticipated usage of new coal industry.

A glimpse of what the future may bring can be seen in Inner Mongolia — the region’s vast grasslands are gradually becoming a dust bowl. Over the last decade, as new coal mines, petrochemical plants, and coal-fired power stations have been built, local rivers have been dammed and multiple wells dug. As a result, the water table has sunk, and grasslands such as Xilingol have turned unproductive. The Wulagai Wetland has all but dried up.

“The coal industry has changed the environment because it uses the underground water,” says Da Lintai, a researcher at Inner Mongolian University. A changing climate, he adds, has likely also contributed to desertification in Inner Mongolia. The result is that “it is more difficult now for the herdsmen to find areas with sufficient water sources. And the lack of water also influences the growth of the grass to feed their animals.”

Last May, a coal truck slammed into and killed a herder near Xilinhot, Inner Mongolia. The protests that flared up after the incident were widely reported as an instance of ethnic unrest, because the herder belonged to the Mongolian minority group, and the driver was Han Chinese. But locals say the root of anger was less about ethnic differences than the fact that coal trucks have become a hated symbol of the arrival of an industry that has destroyed local livelihoods.

To be sure, planners elsewhere in China are making efforts to conserve water. In Ningxia in northwest China, for instance, a large coal-fired power station that opened in 2010 was designed to use one-fifth the water of traditional coal-fired plants, according to an investment stock statement obtained by the US-based NGO Circle of Blue. This seems an encouraging example of foresight. However, higher installation costs and energy-usage of such air-cooled power plants may prove a hurdle to widespread adoption.

What is gradually becoming apparent — in China, as elsewhere — is that energy and water must be planned for together. Speaking recently at the Beijing offices of the Nature Conservancy, Jennifer Turner, director of the Woodrow Wilson Center’s China Environment Forum, called this connection the “water-energy nexus.” The imperative to conserve water in China is especially urgent now because, as she added, “with climate change, China is already losing water every year.”

By Christina Larson

4 May 2012

@ Yale Environment 360

Christina Larson is a journalist focusing on international environmental issues, based in Beijing and Washington, D.C. She is a contributing editor for Foreign Policy, and her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The International Herald Tribune, and The New Republic. In previous articles for Yale Environment 360 she has reported on how water shortages threaten China’s economic development and about how one industrial Chinese city is emerging from its smoggy past.

A huge crowd gathered for several hours and marched for over two miles in the hot sun to oppose NATO and U.S. wars on Sunday in Chicago. Finishing the march outside the NATO meeting, numerous U.S. veterans of current wars denounced their previous “service” and threw their medals over the fence, a scene not witnessed since the U.S. war on Vietnam.

This event, with massive turnout and tremendous energy, saw the participation of numerous groups from Chicago and the surrounding area, including students, teachers, and activists on a variety of issues, as well as anti-war activists and Occupiers from around the country and the world. No one can have been disappointed with the turnout, but it might have been bigger if not for the fear that was spread prior to Sunday. In the face of that fear, Sunday’s action was remarkable.

The fear was the result of a massive militarized police build up, rumors of evacuations, the boarding up of windows, brutal police assaults on activists, preemptive arrests, disappearances, and charges of terrorism. A segment of the activist world plays into these police tactics, wearing bandanas, shouting curses, antagonizing police, and eroding credibility for claims that violence is all police-initiated.

Yet the vast majority of the crowd was disciplined, nonviolent, and effective. It is critical that the people of Afghanistan know the people of the U.S. oppose what NATO is doing to them. Speaking at the end of the march were members of Afghans for Peace, who read a message from Afghan Youth Peace Volunteers.

It is also vital that the people of Russia know that we do not want to make their nation our enemy; only our government and our weapons makers do. And it is important that those who have been actively opposing NATO in Europe for years see that we in the nation that provides the bulk of NATO’s forces are waking up to what that entails.

Americans cannot help but know more about NATO this week than they did a week ago. We’ve even received a small taste of the violence that NATO imposes on others — courtesy of the Chicago police and various imported state, city, and federal police/soldiers. For NATO to meet in Chicago it was deemed necessary to import a few night raids and a great deal of brutality.

A massive crowd of activists was significantly outnumbered on Sunday by armed police, many in riot gear. They lined the march route. They swarmed off buses. They looked a little ridiculous as we marched nonviolently, just as we’d intended to do. The marching didn’t harm anyone or destroy any accumulated riches or smash any of the windows that were not boarded up.

Police did not allow the day to end without any use of their training and weapons. Not long after I left, according to numerous reports, all hell broke loose. If it hadn’t, think of how many of those people fearfully watching Sunday’s march from their high balconies would have joined in the next one and invited their friends!

Am I suggesting that government officials try to manipulate public opinion? Well, let me just say this: there is a bipartisan effort in Congress to lift the official ban on using dishonest propaganda against U.S. citizens. The measure passed the House on Friday as part of the latest National “Defense” Authorization Act.

On Monday, Occupy Chicago will take the protest to Boeing :

“Occupy Celebrates Victory of Non-Violent Direct Action with March to Boeing, All-Day Rally: People Power Stops the War Machine as Boeing Corporation Directs Employees to Stay Home, Shuts Down!”

My kind of town.

By David Swanson

David Swanson’s books include ” War Is A Lie .” He blogs at  http://davidswanson.org and http://warisacrime.org and works for the online activist organization http://rootsaction.org . He hosts Talk Nation Radio . Follow him on Twitter: @davidcnswanson and FaceBook .

Kuala Lumpur — IT’S OFFICIAL – George W Bush is a war criminal.

In what is the first ever conviction of its kind anywhere in the world, the former US President and seven key members of his administration were today (Friday) found guilty of war crimes.

Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld and their legal advisers Alberto Gonzales, David Addington, William Haynes, Jay Bybee and John Yoo were tried in absentia in Malaysia.

The trial held in Kuala Lumpur heard harrowing witness accounts from victims of torture who suffered at the hands of US soldiers and contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan.

They included testimony from British man Moazzam Begg, an ex-Guantanamo detainee and Iraqi woman Jameelah Abbas Hameedi who was tortured in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison.

At the end of the week-long hearing, the five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered guilty verdicts against Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and their key legal advisors who were all convicted as war criminals for torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment.

Full transcripts of the charges, witness statements and other relevant material will now be sent to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

The Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission is also asking that the names of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Gonzales, Yoo, Bybee, Addington and Haynes be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals for public record.

The tribunal is the initiative of Malaysia’s retired Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, who staunchly opposed the American-led invasion of Iraq in 2003.

He sat through the entire hearing as it took personal statements and testimonies of three witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rahul Ahmed, another British citizen.

After the guilty verdict reached by five senior judges was delivered, Mahathir Mohamad said: “Powerful countries are getting away with murder.”

War crimes expert and lawyer Francis Boyle, professor of international law at the University of Illinois College of Law in America, was part of the prosecution team.

After the case he said: “This is the first conviction of these people anywhere in the world.”

While the hearing is regarded by some as being purely symbolic, human rights activist Boyle said he was hopeful that Bush and Co could soon find themselves facing similar trials elsewhere in the world.

“We tried three times to get Bush in Canada but were thwarted by the Canadian Government, then we scared Bush out of going to Switzerland. The Spanish attempt failed because of the government there and the same happened in Germany.”

Boyle then referenced the Nuremberg Charter which was used as the format for the tribunal when asked about the credibility of the initiative in Malaysia. He quoted: “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such a plan.”

The US is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremberg Charter said Boyle who also believes the week-long trial was “almost certainly” being monitored closely by both Pentagon and White House officials.

Professor Gurdial Singh Nijar, who headed the prosecution said: “The tribunal was very careful to adhere scrupulously to the regulations drawn up by the Nuremberg courts and the International Criminal Courts”.

He added that he was optimistic the tribunal would be followed up elsewhere in the world where “countries have a duty to try war criminals” and he cited the case of the former Chilean dictator Augustine Pinochet who was arrested in Britain to be extradited to Spain on charges of war crimes.

“Pinochet was only eight years out of his presidency when that happened.”

The Pinochet case was the first time that several European judges applied the principle of universal jurisdiction, declaring themselves competent to judge crimes committed by former heads of state, despite local amnesty laws.

Throughout the week the tribunal was packed with legal experts and law students as witnesses gave testimony and then cross examination by the defence led by lawyer Jason Kay Kit Leon.

The court heard how

· Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old engineer from Fallujah in Iraq had his fingernails removed by pliers.

· Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted and hung from a wall.

· Moazzam Begg was beaten, hooded and put in solitary confinement.

· Jameelah was stripped and humiliated, and was used as a human shield whilst being transported by helicopter.

The witnesses also detailed how they have residual injuries till today.

Moazzam Begg, now working as a director for the London-based human rights group Cageprisoners said he was delighted with the verdict, but added: “When people talk about Nuremberg you have to remember those tried were all prosecuted after the war.

“Right now Guantanamo is still open, people are still being held there and are still being tortured there.”

In response to questions about the difference between the Bush and Obama Administrations, he added: “If President Bush was the President of extra-judicial torture then US President Barak Obama is the President of extra judicial killing through drone strikes. Our work has only just begun.”

The prosecution case rested on proving how the decision-makers at the highest level President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the lawyers and the other commanders and CIA officials – all acted in concert. Torture was systematically applied and became an accepted norm.

According to the prosecution, the testimony of all the witnesses exposed a sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanising course of conduct against them.

These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering, said lawyers.

The president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the prosecution had established beyond a “reasonable doubt that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

President Lamin told a packed courtroom: “As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

“The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicised accordingly.

“The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions”.

By Yvonne Ridley

12 May 2012

@ Information Clearing House

British journalist Yvonne Ridley is also a patron of Cageprisoners

President of the Tribunal delivering the judgement to a packed court room

KUALA LUMPUR, 11 May 2012 – The five-panel tribunal unanimously delivered a guilty verdict against former United States President George W. Bush and his associates at the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Tribunal hearing that had started on Monday.

On the charge of Crime of Torture and War Crimes , the tribunal finds the accused persons former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General guilty as charged and convicted as war criminals for Torture and Cruel, Inhumane and Degrading Treatment of the Complainant War Crime Victims.

Earlier in the week, the tribunal heard the testimonies of three witnesses namely Abbas Abid, Moazzam Begg and Jameelah Hameedi. They related the horrific tortures they had faced during their incarceration. The tribunal also heard two other Statutory Declarations of Iraqi citizen Ali Shalal and Rhuhel Ahmed, a British citizen.

Testimony showed that Abbas Abid, a 48-year-old chief engineer in the Science and Technology Ministry had his fingernails removed by pliers. Ali Shalal was attached with bare electrical wires and electrocuted and hung from the wall. Moazzam Begg was beaten and put in solitary confinement. Jameelah was almost nude and humiliated, used as a human shield whilst being transported by helicopter. All these witnesses have residual injuries till today.

These witnesses were taken prisoners and held in prisons in Afghanistan (Bagram), in Iraq (Abu Gharib, Baghdad International Airport) and two of them namely Moazzam Begg and Rhuhel Ahmed were transported to Guantanamo Bay.

In a submission that lasted a day, the prosecution showed in an in depth submission how the decision-makers at the highest level President Bush, Vice-President Cheney, Secretary of Defence Rumsfeld, aided and abetted by the lawyers and the other commanders and CIA officials – all acted in concert. Torture was systematically applied and became an accepted norm.

According to the prosecution, the testimony of all the witnesses shows a sustained perpetration of brutal, barbaric, cruel and dehumanizing course of conduct against them. These acts of crimes were applied cumulatively to inflict the worst possible pain and suffering.

After hearing the defence of the Amicus Curiae and the subsequent rebuttal the prosecution, the tribunal ruled unanimously that there was a prima facie case made out by the prosecution.

After hours of deliberation, the tribunal, in the verdict that was read out by the president of the tribunal Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus Lamin, found that the prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused persons, former President George Bush and his co-conspirators engaged in a web of instructions, memos, directives, legal advice and action that established a common plan and purpose, joint enterprise and/or conspiracy to commit the crimes of Torture and War Crimes, including and not limited to a common plan and purpose to commit the following crimes in relation to the “War on Terror” and the wars launched by the U.S. and others in Afghanistan and Iraq:

(a) Torture;

(b) Creating, authorizing and implementing a regime of Cruel, Inhumane, and

Degrading Treatment;

(c) Violating Customary International Law;

(d) Violating the Convention Against Torture 1984;

(e) Violating the Geneva Convention III and IV 1949;

(f) Violating the Common Article 3 of the Geneva Convention of 1949.

(g) Violating the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the United Nations Charter.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has established beyond a reasonable doubt that the Accused persons are individually and jointly liable for all crimes committed in pursuit of their common plan and purpose under principles established by Article 6 of the Charter of the International Military Tribunal (the Nuremberg Charter), which states, inter alia , “Leaders, organizers, instigators and accomplices participating in the formulation or execution of a common plan or conspiracy to commit war crimes are responsible for all acts performed by any person in execution of such plan.”

The Principles of the Nuremberg Charter and the Nuremberg Decision have been adopted as customary international law by the United Nations.  The government of the United States is subject to customary international law and to the Principles of the Nuremburg Charter and the Nuremburg Decision.

The Tribunal finds that the prosecution has proven beyond reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers, gave ‘advice’ that “the Geneva Conventions did not apply (to suspected al Qaeda and Taliban detainees); that there was no torture occurring within the meaning of the Torture Convention, and that enhanced interrogations techniques, (constituting cruel, inhumane, and degrading treatment,) were permissible.”

The prosecution has also established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers “knew full well their advice was being sought to be acted upon, and in fact was acted upon, and such advice paved the way for violations of international law, the Geneva Conventions and the Torture Convention.”

The accused lawyers’ advice was binding on the accused Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney, each of whom relied on the accused lawyers’ advice.  Others, such as CIA Director George Tenet and Diane Beaver, officer in charge at Guantanamo, relied on the accused lawyers’ advice. The prosecution had established beyond a reasonable doubt that the accused lawyers are criminally liable for their acts, and for participating in a joint criminal enterprise.

The president read that the Tribunal orders that reparations commensurate with the irreparable harm and injury, pain and suffering undergone by the Complainant War Crime Victims be paid to the Complainant War Crime Victims. While it is constantly mindful of its stature as merely a tribunal of conscience with no real power of enforcement, the Tribunal finds that the witnesses in this case are entitled ex justitia to the payment of reparations by the 8 convicted persons and their government.

It is the Tribunal’s hope that armed with the findings of this Tribunal, the witnesses will, in the near future, find a state or an international judicial entity able and willing to exercise jurisdiction and to enforce the verdict of this Tribunal against the 8 convicted persons and their government. The Tribunal’s award of reparations shall be submitted to the War Crimes Commission to facilitate the determination and collection of reparations by the Complainant War Crime Victims.

President Lamin read, “As a tribunal of conscience, the Tribunal is fully aware that its verdict is merely declaratory in nature. The tribunal has no power of enforcement, no power to impose any custodial sentence on any one or more of the 8 convicted persons. What we can do, under Article 31 of Chapter VI of Part 2 of the Charter is to recommend to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission to submit this finding of conviction by the Tribunal, together with a record of these proceedings, to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court, as well as the United Nations and the Security Council.

The Tribunal also recommends to the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission that the names of all the 8 convicted persons be entered and included in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and be publicized accordingly.

The Tribunal recommends to the War Crimes Commission to give the widest international publicity to this conviction and grant of reparations, as these are universal crimes for which there is a responsibility upon nations to institute prosecutions if any of these Accused persons may enter their jurisdictions.

For further information, please contact

Dato’ Dr Yaacob Merican

Secretary General of the KLWCC Secretariat

Tel: +6012-227 8680

Ms Malkeet Kaur

Media Representative of KLWCC

malkeet@dbook.com.my

Tel: +6012-3737 886

The Tribunal Members

Tan Sri Dato Lamin bin Haji Mohd Yunus,

Tunku Sofiah Jewa

Prof Salleh Buang

Mr Alfred Lambremont Webre

Datuk Mohd Sa’ari Yusof.

The Prosecution

Prof Gurdial S Nijar

Prof Francis Boyle

Mr Avtaran Singh

Ms Gan Pei Fern

Amicus Curiae (appointed Defence team)

Mr Jason Kay

Dr Mohd Hisham

Dr Abbas Hardani

Ms Galoh Nursafinas

The Charge

Crime of Torture and War Crimes against former U.S. President George W. Bush and his associates namely Richard Cheney, former U.S. Vice President, Donald Rumsfeld, former Defence Secretary, Alberto Gonzales, then Counsel to President Bush, David Addington, then General Counsel to the Vice-President, William Haynes II, then General Counsel to Secretary of Defence, Jay Bybee, then Assistant Attorney General, and John Choon Yoo, former Deputy Assistant Attorney-General.

The Tribunal will adjudicate and evaluate the evidence presented on facts and law as in any court of law. The judges of the Tribunal must be satisfied that the charge is proven beyond reasonable doubt and deliver a reasoned judgement. The verdict and the names of the persons found guilty will be entered in the Commission’s Register of War Criminals and publicised worldwide.

By Kuala Lumpur Foundation To Criminalise War

12 May 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

About Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (KLWCC)

The KLFCW established the Kuala Lumpur War Crimes Commission (The Commission), to investigate cases of war crimes that have been neglected by established institutions such as the International Criminal Court. The Commission seeks to influence world opinion on the illegality of wars and occupation undertaken by major Western powers.

The aim of The Commission is thereby to hold perpetrators of war crimes accountable for their actions especially when relevant international judicial organs fail to do so.

The Commission

The commission’s function is to:

i) receive complaints from any victim(s) of any conflict on:

(a) Crimes against peace

(b) Crimes against humanity

(c) Crimes of genocide

(d) War crimes

ii) investigate the same and prepare a report of its findings. To further call for more evidence or where The Commission is satisfied to recommend prosecution

The Legal Team

The legal team’s aim is to present the complaints of victim(s) of any conflict and to act on the recommendation of The Commission’s report and to frame charges and prosecute accused person(s).

The Tribunal

The Tribunal shall adjudicate on the charges filed against the accused person(s) The applicable standard of proof shall be beyond reasonable doubt.

About the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW)

Malaysia’s fourth Prime Minister Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad founded the Kuala Lumpur Foundation to Criminalise War (KLFCW), a non-governmental organisation established under the laws of Malaysia on 12 March 2007.

The main objectives of the Foundation, as stated in its Statutes are, inter alia:

1.     To undertake all necessary measures and initiatives to criminalise war and energise peace;

2.     To provide relief, assistance and support to individuals and communities who are    suffering from the effects of war and armed conflict wherever occurring and without discrimination on the grounds of nationality, racial origin, religion, belief, age, gender or other forms of impermissible differentiations;

3.     To promote the education of individuals and communities suffering from the effects of war or armed conflict;

4.     To foster schemes for the relief of human suffering occasioned by war or armed conflict;

5.     To provide for mechanisms or procedures in attainment of the above purposes.

Apparently, we should ‘take care’ because we are ‘worth it.’ These are the feel-good catch phrases on English language TV channels in India that are being used to sell certain products. The commercials employ the same wording and that has been used in the West to sell these products for years. The actual news bulletins in India also bear a striking resemblance to the ‘newsworthiness’ agenda used by western channels. In many respects, as in the West, the commercials and the news are becoming virtually one and the same.

Take the various Indian channels that were running wall-to-wall coverage of Bollywood star Shah Rukh Khan’s Mumbai stadium scuffle with security guards and officials, until it was eclipsed by Zohal Hameed’s alleged ordeal of sexual abuse in relation to Australian cricketer Luke Pomersbach. Both incidents were associated with that glorified, media-hyped, money spinning cricket fest known as the Indian Premier League.

As far as these channels are concerned, it seems that it is only the rich and affluent who really count and are ‘worth it’ in terms of news coverage. Our alleged female victim is getting an extraordinary amount of media attention. She and the cricketer in question are much more newsworthy than the 50 million plus ordinary females who have been eliminated from the population as a result of foeticide, infanticide, dowry murder or just plain murder.

Women are battered, raped and subjected to all kinds of violence in India every day. But this affluent, articulate, light-skinned US-Indian woman grabs banner headlines. Who requires real news when a sex and cricket celebrity hotel scandal will do? Each day, a mere few column inches appear in the press about a woman who has been murdered, attacked or raped. By and large, these crimes are underreported by the media.

India faces massive problems, ranging from mass poverty and female genocide to environmental degradation. You wouldn’t know it if you watched these channels.

But this is the world we live in. Sex and celebrity are, as an ad for a deodorant product says, ‘very, very sexy.’ Who cares about the plight of a (dark-skinned) dalit woman who is raped and murdered? Who gives a damn about women being trafficked from Nepaland poor parts of India to work in city brothels?

These outrages are not outrages because they are a fact of everyday life. Too boring for headline status. Too unsettling for the middle class palate. Can’t offend their sensibilities and have them channel hopping. Just think of all that lost ad revenue.

This white looking woman who has been dominating the news definitely fits the ratings bill. She is indeed ‘very, very sexy’ because ‘dark is out’ and ‘white is in,’ according to another ad industry sound bite. The ugly world of skin whitening is supposed to make you look more beautiful and really ‘cool.’ This racist nonsense goes unquestioned and is quite acceptable across many sections of Indian society. It’s not good enough to buy into the West’s values. You must look like white people too!

When satellite TV appeared on the scene in India, concern was expressed about thousands of years of Indian culture being eroded as a result of foreign channels’ output. Then came the transnationals pushing their products. In order to sell them, mindsets had to be changed. Whether it’s the ‘white is in’ phenomenon, the hedonistic ‘live life to the max’ mantra or the sexualisation of the individual, there is an ongoing attempt to dismantle the social and cultural fabric of Indian from the top down in order to fit the needs of powerful corporate players.

Individualism has increasingly become an accepted form of reality, of how we view ourselves and evaluate those around us. If you do not stand out from the crowd (or become part of the ‘cool’ crowd), you are not hip. If you don’t buy this product, wear that item or apply some skin colouring cream, you somehow don’t cut it.

Consumerism and a notion of ‘the self’ in terms of individualism, rather than the communal, fits ‘free market’ ideology. There is now a never ending list of disposable commodities to be fetishised, individually consumed then spat out when they pass their very short sell by dates, all built on celebrity endorsements and highly ‘newsworthy,’ commercialized IPL-like events. A ‘new’ India is in the making, even in the villages where most people still live, given the increasing access to TV in rural India over the last decade.

The question is, however, whose brave new India is this? Who is setting the criteria and ultimately benefits? A quick glimpse at the TV news and the commercials shows precisely who is calling the shots.

Are you really ‘worth it?’ Are you truly ‘very, very sexy?’ Do the product makers really like you so much that they really do want you to ‘take care?’ On all counts, the answer is no.

They regard you as worthless – why else would you need these products if it wasn’t to make you feel a little more worthy? And they don’t really ‘care’ about you. They just want to con you out of your cash with their temporary-feel-good, permanently-need-more products that have as much substance as the bogus science they use to hype them.

As long as consumerism’s world view is fed to us and corporate ‘news’ organisations follow suit with sensationalist, celebrity-related infotainment formats that dovetail with the images created by the celebrity endorsed commercials and high-profile events, fewer and fewer people will recognize this controlling culture for what it is, let alone strive to challenge its hegemony.

By Colin Todhunter

Colin Todhunter : Originally from the northwest of England, writer Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Deccan Herald (the Bangalore-based broadsheet), New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have on occasion also appeared in the Kathmandu Post, Rising Nepal, Gulf News, North East Times (India), State Times (India), Meghalaya Guardian, Indian Express and Southern Times (Africa). Various other publications have carried his work too, including the London Progressive Journal and Kisan Ki Awaaz (India’s national farmers’ magazine). A former social policy researcher, Colin has been published in the peer-reviewed journals Disability and Society and Social Research Update, and one of his articles appears in the book The A-Z of Social Research (Sage, 2003).

Suddenly, it has become easy to see how the euro — that grand, flawed experiment in monetary union without political union — could come apart at the seams. We’re not talking about a distant prospect, either. Things could fall apart with stunning speed, in a matter of months, not years. And the costs — both economic and, arguably even more important, political — could be huge.

This doesn’t have to happen; the euro (or at least most of it) could still be saved. But this will require that European leaders, especially in Germany and at the European Central Bank, start acting very differently from the way they’ve acted these past few years. They need to stop moralizing and deal with reality; they need to stop temporizing and, for once, get ahead of the curve.

I wish I could say that I was optimistic.

The story so far: When the euro came into existence, there was a great wave of optimism in Europe — and that, it turned out, was the worst thing that could have happened. Money poured into Spain and other nations, which were now seen as safe investments; this flood of capital fueled huge housing bubbles and huge trade deficits. Then, with the financial crisis of 2008, the flood dried up, causing severe slumps in the very nations that had boomed before.

At that point, Europe’s lack of political union became a severe liability. Florida and Spain both had housing bubbles, but when Florida’s bubble burst, retirees could still count on getting their Social Security and Medicare checks from Washington. Spain receives no comparable support. So the burst bubble turned into a fiscal crisis, too.

Europe’s answer has been austerity: savage spending cuts in an attempt to reassure bond markets. Yet as any sensible economist could have told you (and we did, we did), these cuts deepened the depression in Europe’s troubled economies, which both further undermined investor confidence and led to growing political instability.

And now comes the moment of truth.

Greece is, for the moment, the focal point. Voters who are understandably angry at policies that have produced 22 percent unemployment — more than 50 percent among the young — turned on the parties enforcing those policies. And because the entire Greek political establishment was, in effect, bullied into endorsing a doomed economic orthodoxy, the result of voter revulsion has been rising power for extremists. Even if the polls are wrong and the governing coalition somehow ekes out a majority in the next round of voting, this game is basically up: Greece won’t, can’t pursue the policies that Germany and the European Central Bank are demanding.

So now what? Right now, Greece is experiencing what’s being called a “bank jog” — a somewhat slow-motion bank run, as more and more depositors pull out their cash in anticipation of a possible Greek exit from the euro. Europe’s central bank is, in effect, financing this bank run by lending Greece the necessary euros; if and (probably) when the central bank decides it can lend no more, Greece will be forced to abandon the euro and issue its own currency again.

This demonstration that the euro is, in fact, reversible would lead, in turn, to runs on Spanish and Italian banks. Once again the European Central Bank would have to choose whether to provide open-ended financing; if it were to say no, the euro as a whole would blow up.

Yet financing isn’t enough. Italy and, in particular, Spain must be offered hope — an economic environment in which they have some reasonable prospect of emerging from austerity and depression. Realistically, the only way to provide such an environment would be for the central bank to drop its obsession with price stability, to accept and indeed encourage several years of 3 percent or 4 percent inflation in Europe (and more than that in Germany).

Both the central bankers and the Germans hate this idea, but it’s the only plausible way the euro might be saved. For the past two-and-a-half years, European leaders have responded to crisis with half-measures that buy time, yet they have made no use of that time. Now time has run out.

So will Europe finally rise to the occasion? Let’s hope so — and not just because a euro breakup would have negative ripple effects throughout the world. For the biggest costs of European policy failure would probably be political.

Think of it this way: Failure of the euro would amount to a huge defeat for the broader European project, the attempt to bring peace, prosperity and democracy to a continent with a terrible history. It would also have much the same effect that the failure of austerity is having in Greece, discrediting the political mainstream and empowering extremists.

All of us, then, have a big stake in European success — yet it’s up to the Europeans themselves to deliver that success. The whole world is waiting to see whether they’re up to the task.

By Paul Krugman

Paul Krugman is professor of Economics and International Affairs at Princeton University and a regular columnist for The New York Times. Krugman was the 2008 recipient of the Nobel Prize in Economics. He is the author of numerous books, including The Conscience of A Liberal, The Return of Depression Economics, and his most recent, End This Depression Now!.

Thirteen Army, Law-Enforcement and Civilian Martyrs Laid to Rest

The martyrs are:

­        Colonel Engineer Ahmad Hasan Halabieh, from Aleppo.

­        Lieutenant Colonel Yasser Ali Mahmoud, from Lattakia.

­        Major Hussein Mahmoud Kharma, from Lattakia.

­        Captain Imad Jaber Shakira, from Homs.

­        Chief Warrant Officer Mohammad Ahmad Fares Ammari, from Daraa.

­        Corporal Mohammad Ahmad Mustafa, from Aleppo.

­        Policeman Ali Omar Hussein, from Aleppo.

­        Conscript Hasan Ibrahim Sharbo, from Aleppo.

­        Conscript Ali Ahmad Mohammad, from Idleb.

­        Conscript Salah-Eddin Hussein al-Obeid, from Hasaka.

­        Conscript Taha Khalaf al-Ali, from Hasaka.

­        Civilian Omar Adnan Qabouni, from Damascus.

The martyrs’ families expressed pride in the martyrdom of their sons who sacrificed their souls for the sake of defending Syria’s stability and pride.

They called for confronting the armed terrorist groups, who have no relation with humanity, freedom and democracy, expressing readiness to sacrifice their lives in defending their homeland.

They expressed confidence in Syria’s ability to overcome the crisis thanks to the sacrifices of the Syrian army.

Two Law-enforcement Members Martyred by Terrorists Gunfire in Hama, Homs Countryside

GOVERNORATES, (SANA)_An armed terrorist group targeted on Thursday a bus carrying law-enforcement members on Homs-al-Salamieh road, killing a law-enforcement member and injuring another.

SANA correspondent quoted a source in the governorate as saying that the terrorist group opened fire at the bus, killing Ali Shahoud and injuring another who was rushed to al-Salamieh National Hospital.

Competent Authorities Raid Terrorists’ Hideout in Aleppo Countryside, Arrest Three

The competent authorities raided on Thursday a terrorists’ hideout in al-Hamra village in Aleppo countryside and arrested three terrorists.

A source in the governorate said that weapon-manufacturing materials and an amount of weapons, including 20 explosive devices weighing nearly 15 kg each, were seized.

Terrorist Group Kills 4 Workers, Steals 7 SYP Millions from the Fuel Company Branch in Hama

An armed terrorist group shot dead 4 workers after breaking into their rented house in Jub al-Safa village in al-Hamra, Hama countryside.

SANA correspondent quoted a source in the governorate as saying that the terrorist group opened fire and killed Torky Joma’a al-Osman, Joma’a Torky al-Osman, Kaddour Mohammad al-Osman and Torky Mohammad Sadek.

Another terrorist group stole a car rented by Hama Fuel Company branch with SYP 7 millions inside while it was on its way to deposit the sum at the Commercial Bank at the Industrial City in Hama.

The source added that the competent authorities arrested on Thursday Mohammad Dorzi al-Mheimid on al-Raqqa –Salamieh road near al-Mzeira’a village and seized two guns and two bombs he was carrying.

The body of citizen Mohammad Hikmat Hadid from Ma’ardes was found in Taibet al-Imam town. A terrorist group also opened fire in al-Arba’in neighborhood in Hama, injuring Ahmad Nasser, a 10 years old child.

Two law enforcement members injured by explosive in Aleppo

Two law enforcement members were injured today by an explosive device detonated by an armed terrorist group near al-Dala Square, al-Neil Street in Aleppo.

SANA reporter said that the weight of the explosive was 3 KG, it was detonated from remote area and it caused some material damages.

Al-Shaar: Syria Achieved Great Success in Pursuing Armed Terrorist Groups

That came during the ceremony of the graduation of a new batch of law-enforcement members and guards at the police academy in Damascus.

Minister al-Shaar pointed to the reform steps which have been translated into a concrete reality through laws and decrees issued by President Bashar al-Assad, stressing that the support of the Syrian people to their leadership disappointed the conspirators who increased their criminal acts and intensified the suicide bombings to undermine the security and stability of Syria.

He called on those who were misled by outside parties to execute their plans and plots and whose hands were not stained with the blood to hand themselves into police stations in their regions to settle their cases to be released immediately.

International Observers Tour a number of Syrian Provinces

Other teams visited the neighborhoods of the Southern Stadium and Dawwar al-Jub in Hama.

Gen. Mood: Those Who Use Violence against the Syrian People and International Observers Should Reconsider Their Acts

In a press statement reported by the United Press International, Gen. Mood praised the cooperation provided by the Syrian government to the international observers in this regard.

He talked about the incident which happened to one of his teams in Khan Sheikhoun town in the province of Idleb, in which two of their vehicles broke down.

“This is definitely not the kind of violence we want,” said Gen. Mood, expressing hope that this kind of violence would not be repeated.

He noted that the observer team have just left Khan Sheikhoun and were on their way back to Damascus.

Head of the international observer mission thanked the Syrian authorities for their cooperation, applauding the Syrian government’s role in facilitating and coordinating the transport of the two hit vehicles and the team’s departure from the town of Khan Sheikhoun.

On Tuesday, a team of the observers were hit in an explosive device blast targeting one of their vehicles in Khan Sheikhoun town in the Idleb, which caused damage to two vehicles, while no one was harmed.

Dvorkovich: Russia Opposes Adopting Statement by G8 on Syria and Iran That Could Be Used to Impose Provisions in Security Council Decisions

MOSCOW, (SANA)- The Russian President’s Representative to the Group of Eight, Arkady Dvorkovich, stressed Russia’s opposition to adopting a statement by the Group on Syria and Iran that includes conclusions about provisions that could be later imposed by the Group’s leaders when adopting decisions at the Security Council

Dvorkovich said in a statement on Thursday that the Group of Eight summit will discuss international security and other issues like the situation in Syria and Iran.

He emphasized that the most important issue for Russia in this regard is committing to its principles and excluding any attempts at making the Group of Eight’s statement include conclusions about provisions that could be later imposed by the Group’s leaders when endorsing decisions at the Security Council.

He stressed that Moscow considers it necessary to give a strong signal to all the parties in Syria to work to make the situation secure for everybody inside the country as well as in the neighboring countries and the entire world, adding that the signal should includes calls on the authorities in Syria and those protesting against them to work peacefully.

He noted that agreement on shaping the Group of Eight’s stance towards Syria has not been reached yet, adding that efforts are underway to reach an agreement in this regard.

The Group of Eight summit is scheduled in Camp David on May 18-19.

Iran Stresses Cooperation to Make Success of Annan’s Plan to Avoid Problems in the Region

In a statement to the Iranian students news agency ISNA, Salehi expressed hope in the success of Annan’s plan to resolve the crisis in Syria, calling upon all countries interested in the Syrian issue not to take actions they would later regret.

He warned that the repercussions of not solving the Syrian crisis through dialogue would include the region entirely.

The Iranian Foreign Minister stressed the importance of giving the Syrian government the chance to implement Annan’s plan, lauding the good reform steps made by the Syrian leadership particularly those of the new constitution and the recently conducted parliamentary elections.

Salehi noted that the Syrian government has expressed complete readiness to conduct dialogue with the opposition, voicing hope that no measures will be taken that would cause problems to the region.

Visiting Russian Delegation to Produce Documentaries about Events in Syria

The delegation members, who came to produce documentaries about the events in Syria, pledged to be committed to objectivity and impartiality in documenting the facts related to the crisis.

Head of the delegation, Viktor Barabash, clarified that the Russian people realize the specialty of the Syrians who are an example of amity, expressing hope that the Syrians will remain united in defending their homeland and rejecting the foreign agendas.

For his part, Tartous Governor, Atef Naddaf, stressed the importance of Russian delegation’s expected project in documenting the situation in Syria away from distortion which has been utterly adopted by anti-Syrian media campaigns seeking to spread hatred among the Syrians and disfigure their image before the Arab and international public opinion.

Naddaf hoped that these documentaries would be soon displayed on Arab and international TV channels to convey the reality to the world.

Russian Media Delegation Visits Lattakia

The Russian media delegation also visited the city of Lattakia, meeting its governor and the head of al-Baath Arab Socialist Party branch in the city.

During this meeting, the delegation members said that what they witnessed firsthand and the testimonies of wounded soldiers, families of martyrs and citizens made them more aware of the conspiracy against Syria, adding that they sensed the Syrians’ determination to supporting reforms and preserving the country.

They voiced commitment to portraying facts as they are and relay reality with transparency, objectivity and credibility.

For their part, Lattakia’s Governor Abdelkader Mohammad al-Sheikh and head of al-Baath Party branch Mohammad Shreiteh voiced the Syrians’ appreciation of Russia’s stances in support of the Syrians’ choices.

The delegation members toured Lattakia and visited families of martyrs, offering them condolences and listening to their testimonies.

The Russian delegation includes thirteen members of different specializations including directors, journalists, professors, photographers, reporters and others.

Washington Post: Influx of Arms to Armed Syrian Opposition with Gulf States’ Money and U.S. Coordination

The newspaper added, according to opposition activists and U.S. and foreign officials, that the flow of weapons, most still bought on the black market in neighboring countries, has significantly increased after a decision by Saudi Arabia, Qatar and other gulf states to provide millions of dollars in funding each month, after armed opposition figures warned two months ago that they were running out of ammunition.

The article titled ‘Syrian rebels get influx of arms with gulf neighbors’ money, U.S. coordination’ noted that Obama administration officials emphasized that the United States is neither supplying nor funding the lethal arms, which includes antitank weaponry. Instead, they said, the administration has expanded contacts with opposition military forces to provide the gulf nations with assessments of rebel credibility and command-and-control infrastructure.

“We are increasing our nonlethal assistance to the Syrian opposition, and we continue to coordinate our efforts with friends and allies in the region and beyond in order to have the biggest impact on what we are collectively doing,” the Washington Post quoted a senior State Department official as saying.

The newspaper said that “the U.S. contacts with the rebel military and the information-sharing with gulf nations mark a shift in Obama administration policy.”

It cited Mulham al-Drobi, a member of Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood’s executive committee, as saying that the Brotherhood also said it has opened its own supply channel to the rebels, using resources from wealthy private individuals and money from gulf states, including Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The newspaper added, according to another opposition figure that “large shipments have got through,” and that “Some areas are loaded with weapons.”

Other opposition figures were quoted as saying that they have been in direct contact with State Department officials to designate worthy rebel recipients of arms and pinpoint locations for stockpiles.