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Beirut: It may be that researchers would want to examine as long ago as the period from the 3rd century BC until the beginning of the 17th century in order to find a regime so frenetically building walls and barriers in a hopeless quest to hold onto stolen lands as we in Lebanon may soon witness in the south of the country. It was back in 221 BC that in order to protect China from the land claims of the Xiongnu people from Mongolia, the Xiongnu tribe being China’s main enemy at that time who sought the return of lands they claimed the Chinese had stolen, that the emperor Qin Shi Huang ordered the construction of a wall to guard China’s territorial gains.

Lots of walls have been built throughout history to preserve occupied lands. The Romans built Hadrian’s Wall in England to keep the Picts out and the East Germans built the Berlin wall to keep the people in. But no regime in history has built, in the span of six decades, the number of walls as the paranoid regime in Tel Aviv has erected. And it plans at least five more “anti-terrorist protective walls” including one slated to begin soon along the Lebanese-Palestine border at the Lebanese village of Kfar Kila. And that one may present a problem.

The decision to build a wall “to replace the existing Israeli technical fence” along the Blue Line near the town of Kfar Kila was announced last month by Tel Aviv. The announcement followed a meeting between the Israel military and UNIFIL and both are keeping fairly mum about what it knows about this latest wall but UNIFIL spokesman Neeraj Singh hinted to this observer that the first section will be about half a mile long and approximately 16 feet high.

Some south Lebanon residents are strongly objecting for among other reasons that the high wall will block the scenic views into Palestine. Others are ridiculing the reasons for the wall expressed by the US-Israeli lobby that will ask the American taxpayer to pay for it.

Israel firster, David Schenker, from the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, set up by AIPAC, told a Congressional hearing recently: “South Lebanon is obviously a very sensitive area [for Israel], being so close to Metula and the possibility of infiltration by Hezbollah and Palestinians is a legitimate concern. The Israeli government believes that a this wall will prevent terrorists from launching direct line-of-sight firing of things like RPGs and mortars. Even the throwing of stones which some tourists visiting the area are in the habit of doing.”

Local observers, UNIFIL officials and experts like Timor Goksel, who worked as UNIFIL’s spokesman for 24 years along the blue line, expressed surprise at why Israel is claiming that Kfar Kila is a particularly dangerous area that needs a wall.

In point of fact the area has not been a particularly hazardous or “sensitive” one historically, even when the PLO controlled the area in the 1970’s. Goksel explained; “In my 24 years’ experience, there were never any attacks there because it’s adjacent to a Lebanese village, so any attack there will make life for the Lebanese difficult. I don’t think anybody has ever thought of doing anything there. Moreover, even if you cross into Israel at Kifa Kula there, you’re not going to come across an Israeli position for a long time, so it doesn’t make sense for anyone to attack from there. What are you going to attack? There’s no target.”

Some local observers are speculating that the real reason Israel wants the barrier in Kfar Kila might be to stop its troops from bargaining for drugs in exchange for weapons and classified military information, as the IDF’s drug problem among its “northern command” soldiers has escalated since the battering it took in the July 2006 war.

Israel’s newest frontier wall will follow the one being erected along the 150-mile boundary between the Sinai and Negev deserts. That wall building project is due to be completed by the end of this year of 2012. Once the Kfar Kila wall is finished, Israel will be almost completely enclosed by steel, barbed wire and concrete, leaving only the southern border with Jordan between the Dead and Red Seas without a physical barrier. But that too, may be walled in the future according to Shenker. He testified that the reason was due to the uncertainty in Jordan and its increasingly wobbly government.

Yet another wall, approximately seven miles from the Mediterranean along the southern border will meet the fence Israel has already been built around Gaza. This wall runs for 32 miles, with a buffer zone, which Palestinians are forbidden from entering, and extends close to 1,000 meters inside the narrow Gaza Strip, walling off more prime Palestinian agricultural land. This “security war” has caged Palestinians inside Gaza but did not prevent the cross-border capture of IDF soldier Gilad Shalit in 2006.

Along the Palestine-Lebanon border, a barrier built by Israel in the 1970s along the boundary was reconstructed, after Israel was forced out of Lebanon in 2000 following a 22-year occupation. This barrier did not prevent Hezbollah in a cross-border ambush in 2006, capturing two Israeli soldiers in order to negotiate a prisoner exchange. Nor did it prevent Hezbollah from firing of thousands of rockets during the ensuing 33-day war in retaliation for Israeli bombing much of south Lebanon.

And the “protective walls” rise like mushroom after a summer rain.

Further east from Lebanon, an Israeli barrier has been constructed on the ceasefire line drawn at the end of the 1973 Yom Kippur war, running between the Golan Heights, which Israel has illegally occupied for nearly 45 years, and Syria. It was here that hundreds of pro-Palestinian demonstrators entered occupied Palestine last May, in the Golan and along the Lebanese border. More than a dozen people were killed and scores injured when Zionist forces opened fire on the unarmed civilians.

A crossing at Quneitra, now operated by the UN, does allow some movement of UN personnel, truckloads of apples, a few Druze students and the occasional Syrian bride in white.

A few miles north of Quneitra is Shouting Hill, where Druze families in the Golan yell greetings across the barrier to relatives in Syria.

Moving south through heavily mined fields and hills, the 1973 ceasefire line is bordered by Israeli military bases and closed military zones, and shells of tanks from past battles, until it connects with the border with Jordan. It then joins with one of Israel’s first walls, constructed in the late 1960s, which now stretches almost from the Sea of Galilee down the Jordan Valley to the Dead Sea. Most of this line is not Israel’s border, but rather a barrier separating Jordan from the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Around a third of the way down this stretch, the barrier joins the infamous huge steel-and-concrete West Bank wall. This runs along or inside the 1949 armistice line, swallowing up tracts of Palestinian agricultural land, slicing through communities and separating farmers from their fields and olive trees. As with its other 18 walls and barriers, the Zionist regime claims it is simply a security measure, but many believe it marks the boundaries of a future Palestinian state, consuming an additional 12 per cent of the West Bank. Approximately two-thirds of its 465-mile length is complete, mostly as a steel fence with wide exclusion zones on either side. According to the current route, 8.5 per cent of the West Bank territory and 27,520 Palestinians are on the “Israeli” side of the barrier. Another 3.4 percent of the area (with 247,800 inhabitants) is completely or partially surrounded by the barrier.

Two similar barriers, the Israeli Gaza Strip barrier and the Israeli-built 7-9 meter (23 – 30 ft) wall separating Gaza from Egypt (temporarily breached on January 23, 2008), which is currently under Egyptian control, are also widely condemned by the international community.

Returning to the subject of the latest wall project, increasingly the Zionist regime opposes discussions, hearings, visits, expressions of solidarity with Palestinians, and even the viewing its garrison state from south Lebanon. Cutting off a view that people throughout history have marveled at represents a continuation of its isolation and xenophobia.

Following the joint meeting at Kkar Kila noted above, UNIFIL Major-General Serra said: “The meeting was called to assist Israel in putting in place additional security measures along the Blue Line in the Kafr Kila area in order to minimize the scope for sporadic tensions or any misunderstandings that could lead to escalation of the situation.”

In fact, the opposite with likely happen. In a recent visit to Ahmad Jibril’s Palestinian camp in the Bekaa Valley, and in discussion with salafist groups in Saida, it’s plain the wall will likely become an object of target practice and strain further UNIFIL and Hezbollah efforts to keep theborder calm.

In a scathing commentary in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel’s biggest-selling newspaper, defense analyst Alex Fishman recently wrote: “We have become a nation that imprisons itself behind fences, which huddles terrified behind defensive shields.” It has become, he said, a “national mental illness”.

By Franklin Lamb

21 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Franklin Lamb is doing research in Lebanon and is reachable c/o fplamb@gmail.com

The poet hopes his latest work, What Must Be Said, will prompt others to break their silence on Israel’s nuclear weapons

The anti-war poem published by Günter Grass is a subtle but straightforward example of a tendency in Germany that the historian Dan Diner has called “exonerating projection”: the relativisation of the Holocaust through the implicit equation of Israel with Nazi Germany. In the poem, What Must Be Said, the 84 year-old Nobel prize-winner who was a member of the Waffen SS as a teenager imagines himself as a “survivor” of an Israeli nuclear strike on Iran.

What must be said, according to Grass, is that “the nuclear power Israel” – rather than Iran – “endangers an already fragile world peace”. Grass says he had not spoken out previously because his nationality “forbade” it: any German breaking the silence on the Israel nuclear programme may be accused of antisemitism.

But, Grass goes on, the recent agreement to sell a sixth German Dolphin submarine to Israel meant Germany would now be partly responsible for “a crime that can be foreseen”. It could not therefore make “any of the usual excuses” – presumably a reference to excuses made by Germans about the Holocaust. Grass thus felt he must break his silence “with my last drop of ink” – suggesting that this is the writer’s last word. He says he hopes the poem will prompt others to “liberate themselves from silence” about Israel’s nuclear weapons.

The publication of the poem in the Süddeutsche Zeitung and other European newspapers has already prompted furious reactions in Germany and Israel. Josef Joffe writes in Die Zeit that Grass’s poem was more about self-exoneration than about submarines. In an interview with Der Spiegel, the Israeli historian Tom Segev says that the poem seems to be more about Grass’s long silence about his own Nazi past than about German silence about Israel’s nuclear programme.

However, what makes the publication of the poem significant is that it expresses a sense of anger against Israel that – justified or not – many Germans seem increasingly to share. This anger is partly a response to Israel’s rightward shift during the past decade. But it seems also to be a product of developments in Germany and in particular the way that the Holocaust has receded in significance during the last decade. Increasingly, Germans seem to see themselves as victims rather than perpetrators.

A poll in January 2009 – during the Gaza war – suggested that German attitudes to Israel were in flux. Nearly half of respondents said they saw Israel as an “aggressive country” and only around a third of respondents said they felt Germany had a special responsibility towards Israel. Sixty per cent said Germany had no special responsibility (the figure was even higher among younger Germans and among those living in the former East Germany).

This anger against Israel is exacerbated by the sense some Germans have of not being able to say what they really think – as Grass suggests in the poem. This has created a pent-up resentment towards Israel that could at some point explode. It will be interesting to see whether Grass’s poem leads in the next few weeks and months to the debate about Germany’s “special relationship” with Israel that he seems to hope it would.

Angela Merkel – who has declined to comment on Grass’s poem – is personally committed to the Jewish state but is under increasing pressure on this issue, on which she is unusually out of step with German public opinion.

Last year, Germany voted in favour of a UN resolution demanding a halt to Israeli settlement expansion – an unusual break with Israel. Later in the year, Germany opposed the Palestinian statehood bid at the UN. But according to one poll, 84% of Germans supported Palestinian statehood and 76% believed Germany should act to recognise it – an even higher proportion in each case than in France or the UK.

An Israeli military strike on Iran could create a sudden rupture between Germany and Israel in the way that the Iraq war did between Germany and the US. My sense is that were Israel to launch a military strike on Iran, what remaining sympathy there is in Germany for Israel would evaporate almost overnight.

A military strike would prompt another competition in Germany between the two principles of “Never again war” and “Never again Auschwitz”, like the one that took place during the Kosovo war in 1999. At that time, Germans seemed to choose “Never again Auschwitz”. But my instinct is that, a decade later, they would choose “Never again war”.

By Hans Kundnani

5 April 2012

@ The Guardian

The United Nations University International Human Dimensions Programme recently ran a writing contest with a focus on the human dimensions of the Green Economy. Young scholars from all over the world were invited to submit their articles, with those from developing countries particularly encouraged to take part. Our World 2.0 is pleased to share the winning entry by Joy Merwin Monteiro who is currently completing his Ph.D. at the Centre for Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the Indian Institute of Science in Bangalore.

Energy is a fundamental necessity for life, let alone a vigorous society or civilization. This fact has been recognized by humans for a very long time — Sun, Wind, Fire and Water (in the form of rivers and waterfalls and rain), worshipped by most cultures, are manifestations of energy in one form or the other. The main difference between pre-industrial times and the present day is that we have restricted our worship only to Fire, neglecting the others almost entirely. Why this became the case, and as humanity again pays due attention to the other Gods again, what entities must again return into our moral equations, is what this essay tries to describe.

Sun, Wind and Water are, by nature, non-constant but rhythmic entities. The sun is up every day, but disappears during the night, winds change according to seasons, some rivers dry up in the summer and others flood during the rains and still nobody understands perfectly how the rains come and go.

Other important aspects of these sources of energy are that they are diffuse and not easy to store. Sunlight, wind and flowing water cannot be stored by themselves, but must be converted to some other form that can be stored. Such entities are normally called “fluxes”, and they are the most natural form in which energy is present around us. Even the purest form of energy that we know, electricity, is a flux and has to be converted to chemical energy in batteries before it can be stored.

The fact that these sources were hard to handle and diffuse (or not concentrated) was counterbalanced by the fact that they are, for all practical purposes, eternal. A European sailor planning to come to India to trade had to plan his visit to catch the monsoon winds, but he did not need to fear that these winds would stop some day. If today is cloudy, you can sun-dry your vegetables tomorrow. Pre-industrial society’s entire existence revolved around recognizing this variability and developing means to “harvest” this energy. Economic, social and cultural activity revolved around this ebb and flow of energy. Agriculture, wind/water mills were among the primary methods of harvesting this flux of energy, converting it into stocks of energy (in food grains) or using it immediately.

The main issue with these “gods”, as mentioned above, is that they are quite moody. Thus, those human activities that had to happen without break, everyday, like cooking for example, could not depend on them. It was Fire that came to our rescue.

Constant movement

Before moving onto the miracle of fire, it is necessary to analyse the moral universe of a person in a pre-industrial society. By necessity, a lot of objects in the world needed to be incorporated into her moral decision-making, the way she would decide something was “good” or “bad”. The rhythms of nature that manifest themselves in the movement of the sun, the seasons, flowering of plants, migration of animals, fruiting of trees were very important. Any activity that did not fit into this rhythm was not desirable. Restrictions on grazing, fishing, hunting, leaving land fallow, plucking flowers and fruits at certain times in the year are all indicators of the consciousness that humans depend to a very large extent on natural cycles over which they have no control. Therefore, any decision on the goodness or badness of any activity depended on the season, the time and the natural environment we found ourselves in. This was not due to altruism or an abstract love for nature, but due to sheer necessity.

Fire is unlike others in this pantheon. Rather than being energy in itself, it is a signature of a source of energy. Not only that, it indicates the presence of a highly concentrated source of energy. Sunlight in itself cannot become fire, but when concentrated through a lens or a mirror, it can become a very destructive fire as Archimedes discovered. Fire also yields easily to his worshippers, you can switch him on and off at will, once you have mastered the art. Therefore, it was but natural that those human activities that required constancy were built upon the foundation of fire. As long as there was fuel available, fire was there, regardless of time, region or season.

It is therefore not surprising that Prometheus, the one who gave fire to mankind in Greek mythology, is treated as a great champion of mankind. If gods are defined to be the masters of humanity, then fire, in giving us greater control over our own destiny, made us gods. The fundamental reason for this capacity of fire is that it depends on stocks of energy already stored and not the eternal fluxes that surround us at all times.

Not only was constancy attractive to the trader, but also to every section of humanity: constancy implied security and it increased the natural capacity of humans to build upon their ancestor’s work.

As humanity grew from being primarily agricultural to also indulging in trade and commerce, the prominence of fire grew very rapidly. The reason for this lies in the very nature of trade and commerce — it is the movement of things, people, ideas and cultures and all movement requires energy in one form or the other.

Controlling trade to some extent means controlling the energy that drives it. For this reason, initial trade (and, by implication, industry) was driven by animal and human (slave) power, firewood and sail boats. Mankind was making the move from harvesting energy to “mining” it from forests, animals and other, more unfortunate humans.

From the point of view of the enterprising businessman or trader, constant movement (of something or other) was required — movement implied trade and trade implied profit. Not only was constancy attractive to the trader, but also to every section of humanity: constancy implied security and it increased the natural capacity of humans to build upon their ancestor’s work. In this sense, it is a hallmark of civilization itself. This demand for constancy was at odds with what we had to work with — seasonal winds, disobedient labourers, lazy slaves and rapidly depleting forests that simply did not grow back as fast as we wanted.

It is from this point of view that the shift to coal (and later to oil) must be seen. It reduced the necessity to include the multitude of objects that previously entered our moral equations. Mankind could finally look inward and achieve magnificent progress without too many worries about what was happening in the non-human world. This was the era in which both the pessimists and the optimists, when discussing the future of the world, were simply discussing the future of the human species. Nature did not matter, for sooner or later we would completely conquer it anyway.

Fossil fuel-based transport, electricity to drive industries and homes, pesticides and fertilizers, which made agriculture less of a gamble, all combined together to provide the constancy we wanted and ensured a period of unparalleled prosperity and population growth. A mining civilization had more or less replaced the harvesting one. Fire was now our one and true God.

With fire came a profound shift in the way we worked and viewed the world. Farmers who could previously grow certain crops only at certain times of the year, could now grow them all around the year. People who previously aligned work and leisure with the sun and seasons now relied on casual leave, medical leave and government holidays. We began to work all year round, eat strawberries all year round and live in houses that were maintained at 27°C all year round. Corporations set up branches all over the world, so that the sun never set on their empires, forcing people to stay awake when they are supposed to sleep and vice-versa. Like the Red Queen in Alice in Wonderland, we had to keep running to stay in the same place. Constancy was showing us that it was not all great, after all.

The severe jolt

It is therefore not surprising that, gradually, what was “good” and “bad” was decided by taking ever fewer objects into consideration, the logical conclusion of which came to be enshrined in the Homo economicus. To be fair, a life driven by coal and oil does not provide one with the time to do otherwise. Nothing but a severe jolt to the sensibility of humans could shake them out of their breathless but optimistic race towards an ever-receding perfection.

One by one, every resource that humanity has mined over the past few hundred years has either withered away or stood up in revolt. The first signs came when the humans being mined for their energy and skill revolted under the banners of communism and socialism. The frenetic movement that characterises our era moved diseases, plants and animals to places where they were not known, not always with good results. Agriculture is currently under siege by stubborn insects that simply refuse to be eradicated, no matter what is thrown at them. The oceans are nearly empty of fish, and the sky full of gases that threaten to heat our planet beyond the capacities of our best air-conditioners. When you play with fire, it is unlikely you won’t get burnt.

Slowly but surely, and somewhat reluctantly, humanity is beginning to realize that an inward looking civilization simply cannot survive forever. Those unsightly trees and insects will always have to be part of our culture, no matter what we do. The first few steps towards this consciousness have been taken (somewhat ironically) by identifying the rhythms of the Sun, Wind, Water and Life itself. Scientists are mapping out what are the best places to harvest solar energy, what areas of the world have high wind energy potential, hydroelectric potential and what places have large biodiversity. Modifying crops to suit local circumstances, using biological control for pests, understanding the response of ecosystems to our activities are under way. In essence, what was known before, and conveniently forgotten, is being painfully relearnt in a more “scientific” manner. Our moral universe is slowly but surely being reclaimed from the wasteland to which it was condemned for the past few hundred years.

The survival and prosperity of all life must be embodied within our notions of justice.

However, as we are making this shift, a very fundamental contradiction arises — our civilization, still predominantly a mining one, wants to be driven by technologies that belong to a harvesting civilization. We demand the constancy that we have been used to for many generations, and which we idolize as the epitome of civilization, but we hope this constancy will be driven by technologies that are moody, uncontrollable and unanswerable to anyone.

This contradiction is manifesting itself in many contemporary debates and concerns: Can organic farming feed the world as it is designed today? How can solar thermal plants run round the clock? How can we design an electricity grid that is smart enough to provide constant power supply when connected to solar and wind installations? How can we design newer batteries and fuel cells to shelter us against the vagaries of the Sun, Wind and Water? What are the “sustainable” pollution levels that our skies and oceans can tolerate?

That we can go back to a completely harvesting society is a pipe dream, similar to the nineteenth century dreams of infinite progress and complete social equality. But it is equally apparent that unless our moral decision-making does not encompass at least a larger part of our natural and social environments, we cannot achieve what we cherish and aspire toward. The energy industry has always sought to modify consumer behaviour through prices. However, given that the largest consumers are those that are also the most affluent, it is questionable how effective this strategy will be in the future. It is unlikely that a person living in a house with an A/C, goes to work in an office with an A/C and travels in a car with an A/C will even relate to the symptoms of global warming.

Moral decision-making must include a notion of duties towards other beings, human, non-human and even non-living. Some actions must be performed simply because we consider them to be our duty towards others. Our moral universe must not be one forged in Fire, but also kissed by the Sun and caressed by the Winds and Water. Most importantly, as these elements come together in the glorious phenomenon called Life, the survival and prosperity of all life must be embodied within our notions of justice. Our happiness and survival depend on an intricate web of causality that encompasses everything from simple molecules to the well-being of the vast oceans. May it never be thought of otherwise.

By Joy Merwin Monteiro

3 April 2012

@ Our World 2.0

A new digital divide is opening up between countries that make effective use of information and communications technology, and those that do not, argue the authors of a new report published Wednesday by Insead and the World Economic Forum.

“Despite efforts over the past decade to develop ICT infrastructure in developing economies, a new digital divide in terms of ICT impacts persists,” say the authors of the 11th annual Global Information Technology Report: Living in a Hyperconnected World, published by the Forum.

The report compares the availability and use of technology in 142 countries and focuses this year on what the authors describe as “the transformational impacts of ICT on the economy and society”.

Sweden and then Singapore top the Networked Readiness Index ranking in the report which says that four Nordic countries are the most successful in leveraging ICT in their competitiveness strategies.

Among other countries in the top 10, the US ranks number eight and the UK number 10. However, Professor Soumitra Dutta, co-author of the report, said the US ranking in particular reflected a cautionary note. He warned that businesses in the US are increasingly concerned about the economic effectiveness of government, and that “weaknesses in the political and regulatory environment are beginning to hinder its overall performance”.

The report’s main conclusion, however, is that developing countries, including the Bric nations (Brazil, Russia, India and China, which ranks number 51), lag far behind the more advanced economies of northern Europe and North America.

Despite improvements in many drivers of competitiveness, the Brics still face important challenges to more fully adopt and leverage ICT. An insufficient skills base and institutional weaknesses, especially in the business environment, present a number of shortcomings that stifle entrepreneurship and innovation. Nevertheless, China has pulled ahead of India (69th) in the rankings in recent years and is outperforming many countries in southern Europe and most in Latin America including Brazil (65th).

The bottom of the list is dominated by countries in sub-Saharan Africa, reflecting what the report describes as “significant lags in connectivity due to insufficient development of ICT infrastructure, which remains too costly, and … poor skill levels that do not allow for an efficient use of the available technology”.

But even in those countries where ICT infrastructure has been improved, ICT-driven impacts on competitiveness and wellbeing trail behind, resulting in a new digital divide, the report suggests.

“Although many would consider that the phrase ‘digital divide’ is passé, GITR data show that it remains a stubborn reality; in spite of the spectacular global spread of mobile telephony, poor countries, especially in Africa, still suffer from lack of infrastructure and connectivity,” said Bruno Lanin, executive director of Insead’s eLab.

By Paul Taylor in New York

5 April 2012

@ Financial Times

Negotiations in Istanbul on Saturday between Iran and the P5+1 grouping—the US, Britain, France, China, Russia and Germany—have done nothing to defuse the tense standoff over Iran’s nuclear programs. None of the substantive issues was discussed, let alone resolved; even as harsh new sanctions on Iran are due to come into effect in July and the US and Israel continue to threaten military action against Tehran.

Eight hours of talks produced a decision to hold further discussions in Baghdad on May 23 over a “confidence building” agreement. European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who presided at the Istanbul meeting, told the media that the negotiations had been “constructive and useful,” but acknowledged that neither side had addressed specific issues.

As far as “confidence building” is concerned, the onus is all on Iran. Ashton told CNN that the steps to be discussed in Baghdad “will be designed to build the confidence that there isn’t going to be a nuclear weapons program. That might be, for example, enabling inspectors to have more access [to Iran].”

The US has made clear that Iran must make major concessions. In the lead up to the talks in Istanbul, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton insisted that Iran’s rejection of nuclear weapons was not a matter of “abstract belief.” It had to involve shipping Iran’s 20 percent enriched uranium out of the country and “constant inspections and verifications.”

Iran requires uranium enriched to 20 percent as fuel for a research reactor in Tehran that produces medical isotopes. This level is well short of the 90 percent enrichment required for nuclear weapons. All Iran’s nuclear facilities and stockpiles of enriched uranium are already monitored and inspected by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu scathingly described the Istanbul meeting as a “freebie” for Iran. “It has got five weeks to continue enrichment without any limitation, any inhibition. I think Iran should take immediate steps to stop all enrichment, take out all enriched material and dismantle the nuclear facility in Qom,” he said.

Israel’s demand that Iran dismantle its Fordo enrichment plant near the city of Qom is especially provocative. Netanyahu and Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak have repeatedly issued thinly disguised threats of military strikes against Iran’s nuclear facilities. Closing the heavily defended Fordo plant would leave all Iran’s nuclear programs open to Israeli attack.

The Israeli defence minister has declared 2012 as “a critical year” for stopping Iran. The Obama administration has echoed this rhetoric in recent weeks, stating on several occasions that “time is short” and billing the current P5+1 talks as the last chance for negotiations. President Obama has underscored the threat by declaring that his policy toward Iran is not one of containment, but of prevention—that is, the US will take all measures, including military attacks, to halt Iran’s nuclear programs.

An unnamed senior US official told the Financial Times: “We all understand that we do not have an indeterminate amount of time.” Another unnamed diplomat said: “We may need more meetings after Baghdad. But my masters will not be happy if we are still mucking around like this towards the end of the year. Our patience is great but the world is a dangerous place.”

Top Iranian negotiator Saaed Jalali reiterated Iran’s rights under the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, including to enrich uranium. He pointedly addressed the media in front of a banner with pictures of five Iranian nuclear scientists assassinated over the past three years—in all likelihood by Israel operating with tacit US support.

Before the Istanbul meeting, Jalali indicated that Iran might consider steps in relation to its 20 percent enriched uranium, but would expect reciprocal actions such as the easing of international sanctions. Punitive US and European measures have impacted severely on the Iranian economy, producing a 50 percent drop in the value of its currency. Further sanctions to be imposed at the end of January include a European ban on Iranian oil imports and harsh US penalties against countries and corporations doing business with Iran.

The prospects for an agreement in Baghdad are slim. Even if Iran were to concede all the US demands, more would follow. The US is demanding that Iran prove the impossible—in effect that it has no future intention of building nuclear weapons and that nowhere in its territory does it have the capacity to do so.

In reality, Washington is using the nuclear issue as a convenient pretext to fashion a regime in Tehran, by war if necessary, conducive to American economic and strategic interests. Iran is central to the broader US strategy of shoring up its dominant position in the energy-rich regions of the Middle East and Central Asia and undermining the influence of other countries, including China and Russia.

The latest round of P5+1 talks is a useful expedient for the Obama administration. The meetings allow the US to paint Iran as a “rogue state” if and when they fail. At the same time, the talks put pressure on Israel to hold off on any attack Iran until the process is completed. While Israel and the US are the closest of allies, there are tactical differences over the timing of any military strikes. At this stage, Obama has indicated he does not want an attack before the US presidential election in November.

At the same time, the Pentagon has boosted its forces in the Persian Gulf in preparation for a war against Iran. A lengthy article in the Wall Street Journal on Saturday reviewed the build-up, including the doubling of the US fleet of Avenger-class mine-sweeping ships and the fitting of US warships with sophisticated weapons to counter Iranian torpedoes and small patrol boats. The US military is also “rushing to upgrade its largest conventional bomb to better penetrate fortified [Iranian] underground facilities.” The US navy had already doubled the number of its aircraft carriers in or near the Persian Gulf

By Peter Symonds

16 April 2012

@ WSWS.org

Havana, April 11, 2012: One of the major challenges facing Cuba as it designs climate change adaptation policies is the preservation of its coastal ecosystems against the predicted rise in sea level and increasingly catastrophic extreme weather events.

With the country’s 5,500 km of coastline and 4,000 cays and islets, almost everyone on the Cuban archipelago feels their life is tied to the sea in one way or another. “It’s lovely, but it is also dangerous,” said 78-year-old Teresa Marcial, who lives on the coast in Santa Fé, in the northern outskirts of Havana.

For decades, Marcial has lived with the ocean practically lapping her patio. In 2005, floods caused by hurricane Wilma left her family and neighbours virtually on the street. “Huge waves swept everything away. We were taken by surprise. The water took away an extremely heavy wardrobe, which simply disappeared,” she told IPS.

Her son, Martín Pérez Marcial, added that they have decided to sell their house and move to a safer place.

“But as you can imagine, with the expectation that future hurricanes will be more intense because of climate change, no one wants to come and live here,” said a neighbour who did not mention his name.

A few blocks away, builders are constructing a house that is raised more than two metres above ground level, using part of an older house and strong pillars for support. “If there is flooding, the water can circulate freely underneath the house,” said the construction foreman, José Luis Martínez.

Behind the house, which is being built by “self help”, as private construction initiatives are called in Cuba, there is an outer wall of solid concrete and hard stone. “It saves on cement, and does not require steel, which rusts over time,” Martínez said.

The talkative builder showed how the base of the containment wall has spillways for drainage, to let water flow back and forth. At the corners, the walls are shaped like a ship’s prow, “to break up the waves.” Several houses in the vicinity have similar walls, which “cost a pretty penny,” Pérez said.

Santa Fé is at permanent risk of flooding due to hurricanes. Studies by state bodies put it among the coastal areas of the capital that face the greatest direct impact of tropical storms, and to a lesser extent of rising sea levels.

Adaptation, an inevitable necessity

Carlos Rodríguez, a researcher on land use planning and the environment for the government’s Physical Planning Institute (IPF), says 577 human settlements could suffer the combined onslaught of rising sea levels and oversized waves from swells and storm surges associated with hurricanes.

In an interview with IPS, Rodríguez emphasised that according to a joint study by several Cuban scientific institutions, led by the Ministry of Science, Technology and the Environment and including IPF, an area of 2,550 square km of coast could be submerged by 2050.

By 2100, the flooded area could expand to some 5,600 square km, according to sea level rise projections, he said.

Out of the 577 vulnerable settlements, 262 have ground surfaces less than one metre above sea level within the first 1,000 metres from the coastline. “These are the ones we are flagging as sensitive coastal settlements,” said Rodríguez.

Out of these 262 low-lying towns and villages, 122 may be exclusively affected by the rise in sea level, with permanent loss of ground area, buildings, power grids and public services. “Immediate measures must be taken in these settlements for concrete regulation and adaptation,” he said.

Fifteen settlements are likely to disappear under water by 2050, and another seven by 2100. These communities must be relocated or protected, depending on their characteristics and importance, although most of them have few permanent residents and are basically beaches for local recreation, located on the lowest parts of the coast, he said.

Rodríguez stressed that adaptation measures must also be planned for inland areas impacted by the combination of higher sea levels and over-height waves from the swells and storm surges produced by hurricanes.

In these cases, adaptation must aim, among other things, at reducing the vulnerability of houses and buildings, creating protection systems, recovering and implementing drainage systems and carrying out essential works for the protection of the population.

“Every new investment and every plan for coastal areas in our country must necessarily take climate change forecasts into account. Twenty years ago we did not have the knowledge that we have now. We should not reproduce our vulnerabilities, but reduce them and learn to live with the risks,” Rodríguez said.

In his view, adaptation in the field of urban planning involves finding ways to resettle people in the same place, putting up lightweight installations in public spaces in the most exposed areas in already existing settlements and towns, and reducing both building density and the number of residents per block.

Plans also need to be made for the removal of some buildings to higher ground, and to ensure that designs for new building projects include the use of more resistant materials and stronger roofing from the outset, to cope with the combined actions of rain, wind and storm surges.

“There are also engineering solutions such as containment dikes, although they are more expensive,” Rodríguez said. He pointed out that all Caribbean islands must prepare for higher temperatures, recurrent droughts and shortage of drinking water, among other challenges accompanying climate change. “In Cuba, the biggest risks are concentrated in coastal areas and the eastern part of the island,” he said.

Rodríguez said Cuba can offer cooperation on climate change issues to the rest of the Caribbean region. “We have the trained human resources and the knowledge, as well as an organised society and political will to enable us to address the problems and identify affordable solutions,” he said.

By Patricia Grogg

15 April 2012

@ Inter Press Service

Former Veterans For Peace Director Elliot Adams and the Coalition to Ground the Drones indict military and personnel of Hancock, NY Drone Air Force Base along with their chain of command up through Obama. History of the court of public opinion’s power. Goals of the new Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now Campaign noted.

In this age of instant world wide personal communication, once calls for prosecution of government officials ordering murderous attacks in vulnerable nations begin they will spread and sweep the world.

Former Veterans For Peace President Elliot Adams wrote an indictment of the military and workers of Hancock NY Drone Air Force Base. It was read by three women from The Upstate Coalition to Ground the Drones, who were able to reach the air bases entrance gate, a few days ago. Elliot Adams had been arrested with others while marching toward the base.

“Indictment of the Drone Warriors

To the Service Members of Hancock Air Base, Each one of you, when you joined the United States Armed Forces or police, publicly promised to uphold the United States Constitution. We … call your attention to Article VI of the Constitution, which states in the supremacy clause, that, without exception, treaties shall be the supreme Law of the Land.

One Treaty duly ratified by the US is the United Nations Charter. It was agreed to by a vote of 89 to 2 in the US Senate, and signed by the President, in 1945. It remains in effect today. As such, it is the supreme law of the land.

The preamble of the UN Charter states that ‘all nations shall refrain from the use of force against an another nation.’

This Treaty applies both collectively and individually to all members of the US armed forces, who have sworn to uphold the Constitution, which includes Article VI. Under the UN Charter and long established international laws, anyone – citizen, military, politician, or judge, – that knowingly engages in illegal use of force against another nation is committing a war crime.

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice of the U.S., you are required to disobey any clearly unlawful order from a superior.

We charge that the Air National Guard of the United States of America, headquartered at Hancock Field Air National Guard Base, home of the 174th Fighter Wing of the Air National Guard, under the command of 174th Fighter Wing Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, is maintaining and deploying the MQ-9 Reaper robotic aircraft.

Extrajudicial targeted killings such as the U.S. carries out by unmanned aircraft drones are intentional, premeditated, and deliberate use of lethal force in violation of US and international human rights law.

It is a matter of public record that the US has used drones for targeted killings in Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, and Pakistan, with no rigorous criteria for deciding which people are targeted for killing, no procedural safeguards to ensure the legality and accuracy of the killings, and no mechanisms of accountability.

We charge the chain of command, from President Barack Obama, to Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta, to Commander Colonel Greg Semmel, to every drone crew, to every service member supporting or defending these illegal actions, with the following crimes: extrajudicial killings, violation of due process, wars of aggression, violation of national sovereignty, and the killing of innocent civilians.

As citizens of this nation, which maintains over 700 military bases around the globe, and the largest, most deadly military arsenal in the world, we believe these words of Martin Luther King still hold true, ” the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today is my own government.” There is hope for a better world when WE THE PEOPLE hold our government accountable to the laws and treaties that govern the use of lethal force and war.

Let all accused in this indictment understand that our words are spoken nonviolently. All are invited to stop the use of drones and refuse to participate in illegal warfare.

Since Truman, presidents of the US National Security State have felt themselves securely above the law in ordering unconstitutional, illegal, undeclared murderous wars in nations anywhere they were advised to.

Obama, though himself a lawyer and therefore precisely aware of the criminal nature of his acts, is no exception. No president before him has been so audacious in preposterously proclaiming the sanctity of the deadly military attacks he has ordered, appearing oblivious to the possibility of future prosecution and punishment.

Corporate controlled media has reenforced the idea that all US wars are above prosecution. Thus everyone participating in this brutal national behavior of taking lives daily, year in year out, feels reassured their participation is not criminal. Kids dutifully pulling the triggers, their parents willingly paying their war supporting taxes, the media personalities knowingly bending the truth to work up public fears and war acceptance, the leaders of organized clergy devilishly calling wars on poor people just, and the financiers behind the wars all try to relax and void their conscience of feelings of guilt.

However there have been many citizen indictments during these sixty-three years of US undeclared wars that bode some reason for alarm among those involved in crimes against humanity. Here below, are noted but a few.

– Quite a number of US soldiers have faced trial for atrocities committed.

– The world has learned that Chief Nuremberg Prosecutor Telford Taylor once said he would have been proud to prosecute the US pilots shot down while bombing cities in Vietnam. GOP Vice-presidential candidate Sen. John McCain was one of those pilots shot down.

– Now, Veterans For Peace, once tough young men tricked into serving murder incorporated for Wall St. shaming themselves and their country are indicting participants in these criminal wars of mass homicide.

– Mothers like Cindy Sheehan, painfully suffering from regret for not preventing their sons from entering the military, lead bitter public condemnation of their public officials.

– Cardinal Spellman is identified in history books as a key proponent of the Vietnam war that Rev. Martin Luther King prosecuted in the court of public opinion as an atrocity.

– At Nuremberg, five Nazi media personalities were tried and sentenced. One was hung.

– Financier David Rockefeller’s close confidants and high appointed war-running officials, the Dulles brothers are now clearly documented in encyclopedias as master war criminals; his Henry Kissinger, now careful where he travels to avoid arrest, was sued in a District Court as an accomplice to murder; Rockefeller cohort Zbigniew Brzezinski tries to excuse his bragging of being responsible for covert CIA attack in Afghanistan to frighten the Soviets in.

– “Former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has been stripped of legal immunity for acts of torture against US citizens authorized while he was in office. The 7th Circuit Court made the ruling.” [ Welcome to Boston, Mr. Rumsfeld. You Are Under Arrest , Global Research , 9/20/2011]

– “Former US Vice President Dick Cheney and his daughter, Elizabeth, have canceled a planned speaking engagement at Toronto’s Metro Convention Centre next month … “He felt that in Canada the risk of violent protest was simply too high. They specifically referenced what happened in Vancouver.” A fierce protest of Cheney’s speech in British Columbia last September necessitated the use of Vancouver riot police and kept Cheney locked inside the speaking venue for seven hours while crowds were dispersed.”

Who’s Afraid of War Crimes Prosecution? Cheney Cancels Canada , Global Research , Canada, 5/19/2012

In his mind, does Obama dismiss internationally highly regarded MIT professor, Noam Chomsky’s recently reiterated prescient warning that “Every US President since WW II, if they had brought to trial under the Nuremberg Principles set of laws and convicted, could have been hung? “

This writer imagines a somewhat older Ex-President Obama one day telling a judge and jury “I had no choice.” [but to keep murdering all those men, women and children in nearly a half-dozen nations for more than a decade] “We were attacked on 9/11.”

… And the prosecutor answering, ‘But while you illegally ordered the mass destruction of human beings in so many other nations, you knew the 9/11 suicide attack was carried out and funded by citizens of a US ally, Saudi Arabia, which you never ordered bombed.’

All Americans, who have participated in cruel and inhuman US wars in nations still suffering impoverishment from more than a century of conquest, exploitation and plundering by the investment bank run empires of Europe and America, take heed. There is a now a campaign titled Prosecute US Crimes Against Humanity Now that features, following the examples of peoples historian Howard Zinn and Martin Luther King Jr., an educational country-by-country history of US crimes.

If the world superpower of the moment can prosecute other leaders of governments for crimes, like it did Slobodan Milosovitch and its own wayward agents, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, and if an ally like Spain can arrest and extradite US darling Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ex-dictator of Chile, it should not be inconceivable that the world suffering US wars for its Wall Street investments for more than six decades, will one day prosecute US leaders, if for no other reason, for some measure of compensation and restitution.

When such prosecution happens, all adult American citizens will feel the condemnation in the eyes of the citizens of the many nations invaded, bombed and otherwise attacked over more than a half century. For as the demonstrators indictment of ordinary servicemen and personnel of the drone base in New York would seem to indicate, it takes the collaboration of the whole nation to be able to make war on so many many countries over a period of more than a half century.

In his mind, does Obama dismiss internationally highly regarded MIT professor, Noam Chomsky’s recently reiterated prescient warning that “Every US President since WW II, if they had brought to trial under the Nuremberg Principles set of laws and convicted, could have been hung? “

This writer imagines a somewhat older Ex-President Obama one day telling a judge and jury “I had no choice.” [but to keep murdering all those men, women and children in nearly a half-dozen nations for more than a decade] “We were attacked on 9/11.”

… And the prosecutor answering, ‘But while you illegally ordered the mass destruction of human beings in so many other nations, you knew the 9/11 suicide attack was carried out and funded by citizens of a US ally, Saudi Arabia, which you never ordered bombed.’

http://prosecuteuscrimesagainsthumanitynow.blogspot.com/

If the world superpower of the moment can prosecute other leaders of governments for crimes, like it did Slobodan Milosevic and its own wayward agents, Manuel Noriega and Saddam Hussein, and if an ally like Spain can arrest and extradite US darling Gen. Augusto Pinochet, ex-dictator of Chile, it should not be inconceivable that the world suffering US wars for its Wall Street investments for more than six decades, will one day prosecute US leaders, if for no other reason, for some measure of compensation and restitution.

When such prosecution happens, all adult American citizens will feel the condemnation in the eyes of the citizens of the many nations invaded, bombed and otherwise attacked over more than a half century. For as the demonstrators indictment of ordinary servicemen and personnel of the drone base in New York would seem to indicate, it takes the collaboration of the whole nation to be able to make war on so many many countries over a period of more than a half century.

By Jay Janson

27 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Jay Janson, 80, archival research peoples historian activist, musician and writer; lived, worked on all continents; articles on media published in China, Italy, UK, India and the US; now resides in NYC.

The US Central Intelligence Agency is seeking to expand its authority to carry out remote-control assassinations in Yemen, according to a report Thursday in the Washington Post. CIA Director David Petraeus has made the request to the White House and the National Security Council is now discussing it, the newspaper said.

Petraeus is seeking permission to engage in “signature strikes,” using drone-fired missiles to attack targets identified “solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior,” the Post reported, without knowing exactly who was being targeted for extermination.

For all practical purposes, this means turning large parts of Yemen, a sovereign country whose government has a military alliance with the United States, into a free-fire zone, in which US missiles could be fired at virtually any gathering of men thought to be armed. The country is awash in weapons, particularly in the rural areas where tribal sheiks, rather than the central government, hold sway.

The request marks a significant escalation of the US operations in Yemen, which are conducted both by the CIA and the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command. Both agencies use remote-controlled missiles as their primary weapons, selecting targets based on satellite intelligence and reports from on-the-ground spotters. According to published estimates, US agencies have conducted at least 27 strikes against Yemeni targets in the last three years, killing some 250 people.

Petraeus greatly increased the role of special forces in Afghanistan during his year as the commander of US military forces there, and he has continued this focus on covert paramilitary operations since becoming CIA director in 2011. “Signature strikes” have been a staple of CIA operations in the tribal regions of Pakistan, and now Petraeus wants to extend these methods into Yemen.

The Post report quoted an unidentified “senior administration official” to the effect that up to now the White House had opposed extensive strikes against targets in Yemen, limiting drone attacks to “only those who have a direct interest in attacking the United States.” The CIA was required to select “personality” targets from a hit list approved by Obama, and fire missiles only when those individuals were being targeted.

This was the official story of the drone attack last September that killed Anwar al-Awlaki, a US citizen born of Yemeni parents who had moved back to Yemen and become a propagandist for Islamic fundamentalism, posting English-language sermons online.

The Obama administration claimed that al-Awlaki was a leader of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), linked to several attacks inside the US, including both the November 2009 shootings at Fort Hood in Texas and the attempt to bomb a Detroit-bound jetliner a month later. Al-Awlaki and another US citizen were killed in a drone missile strike last September 30. Two weeks afterwards, al-Awlaki’s teenage son, also a US citizen, was killed in another strike, allegedly aimed at a different AQAP figure.

The murder of al-Awlaki became the occasion for the assertion of an extraordinary expansion of presidential power. Obama claimed the “right” to assassinate any American citizen based on his own determination that the citizen was an enemy combatant, without any legal proceeding or judicial review of his actions.

Another “senior US official” quoted anonymously by the Post expressed concern that the expanded military intervention could have wider political repercussions, given the political turmoil in Yemen, whose longtime president Ali Abdullah Saleh stepped down in February after a year of anti-government demonstrations and bloody repression. “I think there is the potential that we would be perceived as taking sides in a civil war,” the official said.

According to a report last month in the Los Angeles Times, which gave details of a missile strike in Yemen conducted by the Joint Special Operations Command, “As the pace quickens and the targets expand, however, the distinction may be blurring between operations targeting militants who want to attack Americans and those aimed at fighters seeking to overthrow the Yemeni government. US officials insist that they will not be drawn into a civil war and that they do not intend to put ground troops in Yemen other than trainers and small special operations units” (emphasis added).

This article both confirmed the growing US intervention in the civil war, and revealed that the Obama administration has begun, without any public announcement, the same type of operation that was conducted last year in Libya: US troops are already on the ground in Yemen and playing a key role in directing and facilitating air strikes.

By this account, the main targets of the US attacks are three southern Yemeni provinces, Abyan, Shabwa, and Bayda, which have been largely outside central government control for several years. Even the US government admits that most of the armed men in these provinces are local Yemeni tribesmen who oppose the government in Sana, and resent the longstanding US military aid and support for that dictatorial regime.

US operations in southern Yemen are closely coordinated with the government in Sana, now headed by Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi, Saleh’s vice president. Last month Yemen’s army chief of staff, Maj. Gen. Ahmed Ali Ashwal, went to Washington for talks with Pentagon officials. He was urged to reorganize the military for an offensive into the southern provinces, which will require use of tanks and artillery to dislodge tribal fighters.

More than 2,000 people were killed in the civil strife of the past year in Yemen, according to the country’s Ministry of Human Rights, the vast majority of them slaughtered by military forces or paramilitary gunmen loyal to Saleh. Yemen is the poorest of the Arab countries and one of the poorest in the world, with the second highest rate of chronic malnutrition; only US-occupied Afghanistan is worse.

Whether or not the White House approves the current CIA request, the United States is moving inexorably towards greater military involvement in Yemen and its surrounding region, including the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, key waterways for international trade, and particularly for the supply of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe, with tankers traveling for hundreds of miles along the Yemeni coast on their way to the Suez Canal.

The region includes a number of geopolitical flashpoints, including Somalia, where the US military has conducted a series of drone strikes and commando raids targeting Islamic groups battling the US-backed regime in Mogadishu, and the Sudan, which this week declared war on South Sudan, the country formed through the secession of its southern half. Sudan and South Sudan have been in conflict for months over disputed territory along their border, the location of oil fields that are a major source of supply to China.

By Patrick Martin

21 April 2012

@ WSWS.org

China has shut down the country’s leading leftist websites as the ruling Communist party tries to calm a fight over power and ideology ahead of its once-in-a-decade leadership transition.

The move came as the party also stepped up its campaign for ideological control of the military, seen as a potential key player in the power struggle.

Utopia, a website which regularly carries articles criticising pro-market reforms, demonises the US and glorifies Mao Zedong, said on Friday the government had closed it down for a month. Mao Zedong Flag Web, another Maoist page, and the online chatroom of The fourth Media, the nationalist website formerly called Anti CNN, were closed down as well.

Supporters of Bo Xilai, the former Communist party secretary of Chongqing who was purged from his position in March, had used the sites to defend him and his Maoist revival policies even after his downfall, highlighting the broader split in the party.

Wen Jiabao, premier, has stepped up his push for more reforms since Mr Bo’s removal from his Chongqing post on March 15. Mr Wen indicated larger financial reforms this week, saying the government wanted to “smash” the monopoly of the big state banks. In addition, some liberal Communist party officials say Mr Wen is pushing for a re-examination of the Tiananmen massacre in 1989.

Utopia said internet regulators from the Beijing Municipal government and from the State Council Information Office had conducted talks with those in charge of the website and accused them of publishing “articles that violated the constitution, viciously attacked national leaders and fantasised about the 18th Party Congress”.

Meanwhile the Liberation Army Daily, the main military newspaper, warned the armed forces on Friday to ignore rumours and obey the party’s political line.

“Resist with determination the invasion of all kinds of erroneous thought, do not let noises disturb you, do not let rumours confuse you, do not let undercurrents move you, and ensure that the troops absolutely obey the directions of party, the Central Military Commission and chairman Hu [Jintao],” it said in a front-page editorial.

The article follows a series of similar exhortations stressing the party’s leadership over the armed forces published since February, as is common in a period seen as politically sensitive. It also echoes a broader propaganda campaign conducted through other state media to resurrect a façade of unity and stability.

Following Mr Bo’s purge, wild rumours have been circulating, including a rumour two weeks ago that Zhou Yongkang, the top Communist party official in charge of security, had staged a military coup to rescue Mr Bo.

Mr Bo has close personal ties to some senior military leaders, partly through his background as son of one of the People’s Liberation Army’s revolutionary veterans, and has repeatedly courted the military.

By Kathrin Hille in Beijing

6 April 2012

@ The Financial Times

Additional reporting by Zhao Tianqi, Beijing

The predicament of humanity today has been called “a race between education and catastrophe”. Modern science has, for the first time in history, offered humankind the possibility of a life of comfort, free from hunger and cold, and free from the constant threat of death through infectious disease. At the same time, science has given humans the power to obliterate their civilization with nuclear weapons, or to make the earth uninhabitable through overpopulation and pollution. The question of which of these paths we choose is literally a matter of life or death for ourselves and our children. It would be enormously important to have some public discussion in the mass media of the serious challenges that face the world today.

How do the media fulfill this life-or-death responsibility? Do they give us insight? No, they give us pop music. Do they give us an understanding of the sweep of evolution and history? No, they give us sport. Do they give us an understanding of need for strengthening the United Nations, and the ways that it could be strengthened? No, they give us sit-coms and soap operas. Do they give us unbiased news? No, they give us news that has been edited to conform with the interests of the military-industrial complex and other powerful lobbys. Do they present us with the need for a just system of international law that acts on individuals? On the whole, the subject is neglected. Do they tell of of the essentially genocidal nature of nuclear weapons, and the need for their complete abolition? No, they give us programs about gardening and making food.

A consumer who subscribes to the “package” of broadcasts sold by a cable company can often search through all 35 or 45 channels without finding a single program that offers insight into the various problems that are facing the world today. What the viewer finds instead is a mixture of pro-establishment propaganda and entertainment. Meanwhile the neglected global problems are becoming progressively more severe.

In general, the mass media behave as though their role is to prevent the peoples of the world from joining hands and working to change the world and to save it from thermonuclear and environmental catastrophes. The television viewer sits slumped in a chair, passive, isolated, disempowered and stupefied. The future of the world hangs in the balance, the fate of children and grandchildren hang in the balance, but the television viewer feels no impulse to work actively to change the world or to save it. The Roman emperors gave their people bread and circuses to numb them into political inactivity. The modern mass media seem to be playing a similar role.

One is faced with a dilemma, because on the one hand artistic freedom is desirable and censorship undesirable, but on the other hand some degree of responsibility ought to be exercised by the mass media because of their enormous influence in creating norms and values.

To do justice to the mass media, one also has to say that in recent years they have made efforts to educate the public about global warming and other environmental problems. Furthermore, today’s heros and heroines are not shown with cigarettes hanging from their lips. In fact we are a little shocked to see old Humphrey Bogart films where scenes of smoking are constantly on the screen. If the mass media can accept the degree of responsibility needed to delegitimize racism, to delegitimize unnecessary CO2 emissions, and to delegitimize smoking, can they not also delegitimize nuclear weapons? One can hope for future restraint in the depiction of violence and war, and in the depiction of international conflicts. One can hope for future support for cross-cultural understanding.

It would be enormously helpful if every film or broadcast or computer game could be evaluated not only for its popularity and artistic merit, but also in terms of the good or harm that it does in the task of building a stable and peaceful future world. Of course, there must be entertainment and escapism – but there should also be insight. This must be made available for people who care about the fate of the world. At present it is not available.

Why doesn’t the United Nations have its own global television network?

Such a network could produce an unbiased version of the news. It could broadcast documentary programs on global problems. It could produce programs showing viewers the music, art and literature of other cultures than their own. It could broadcast programs on the history of ideas, in which the contributions of many societies were adequately recognized. At New Year, when people are in the mood to think of the past and the future, the Secretary General of the United Nations could broadcast a “State of the World” message, summarizing the events of the past year and looking forward to the new year, with its problems, and with his recommendations for their solution. A United Nationstelevision network would at least give viewers a choice between programs supporting militarism and consumerism, and programs supporting a global culture of peace and sustainability. At present they have little choice.

Whose responsibility is it to save the world by changing it? Whose responsibility is it to replace our anachronistic social, political and economic institutions by new institutions that will harmonize with the realities of the new world that modern science has created? If you ask politicians they say it is not their responsibility. They cannot act without popular support if they want to be re-elected. If you ask ordinary people they say it is not their responsibility. What can one person do? If you ask journalists, they say that if they ever reported the news in a way that did not please their employers, they would immediately lose their jobs. But in reality, perhaps all three actors – politicians, ordinary people, and journalists – have a responsibility to be more courageous and far-sighted, and to act together. No one acting alone can achieve the changes that we so desperately need; but all of us together, joining hands, can do it.

By John Scales Avery

14 April 2012

@ Countercurrents.org

Suggestions for further reading

1. O.N. Larsen, ed., “Violence and the Mass Media”, Harper and Row, (1968).

2. R.M.. Liebert et al., “The Early Window: The Effects of Television on Children and Youth”, Pergamon, Elmsford, NY, (1982).

3. G. Noble, “Children in Front of the Small Screen”, Constable, London, (1975).

4. J.L. Singer and D.G. Singer, “Television, Imagination and Aggression: A Study of Preschoolers”, Erlbaum, Hillsdale, NY, (1981).

5. H.J. Skornia, “Television and Society”, McGraw-Hill, New York, (1965).

is a theoretical chemist noted for his research publications in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science. Since the early 1990s, Avery has been an active World peace activist. During these years, he was part of a group associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science and World Affairs. In 1995, this group received the Nobel Peace Prize for their efforts. Presently, he is an Associate Professor in quantum chemistry at the University of Copenhagen. This article is an extract from Avery’s book “Crisis 21; Civilization’s Crisis in the 21st Century”, which can be freely downloaded from several places on the Internet, for example from http://www.vrijemeje.com/en/node/129