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Arabs shut out of Israeli public sector

By Jonathan Cook | The National | May 16. 2010

Nazareth// Unemployed computer engineer Morad Lashin would like to work in Israel’s Electricity Company, a large state utility, but admitted his chances of being recruited are slim.

The reasons were set out in graphic form this month when a parliamentary committee revealed that only 1.3 per cent of the company’s 12,000 workers are Arab, despite the Arab minority constituting nearly 20 per cent of the population.

The committee’s report presents a picture of massive under-representation of Arab citizens across most of the public sector, including in government companies and ministries, where the percentage of Arab staff typically falls below two per cent of employees.

According to Sikkuy, a group lobbying for greater civic equality, discriminatory hiring policies have left thousands of Arab graduates jobless, even though the government promised affirmative action a decade ago.

Mr Lashin, 30, from Nazareth, said his remaining hope was to find a job in the public sector after a series of short-term contracts in private hi-tech firms. “Everywhere you go, they ask if you have served in the army. Because Arab citizens are exempt, the good jobs are always reserved for Jews.”

Ali Haider, a co-director of Sikkuy, said: “What kind of example is set for the Israeli private sector when the government consistently finds excuses not to employ Arab citizens too?”

Ahmed Tibi, who heads the parliamentary committee on Arab employment in the public sector, said that even when government bodies appointed Arabs it was invariably in lowly positions. “The absence of Arabs in [senior] roles means that they have no say in the ministries’ decision-making processes,” he said.

The issue of under-representation in the public sector was first acknowledged by officials in 2000, when the Fair Representation Law was passed under pressure from Arab political parties.

However, no target was set for the proportion of Arab employees until 2004, when the government agreed that within four years Arabs should comprise 10 per cent of all staff in ministries, state bodies and on the boards of hundreds of government companies. Later the deadline was extended to 2012.

The new report found that overall six per cent of the country’s 57,000 public sector workers were Arab, only marginally higher than a decade ago.

But Mr Tibi noted that the figures were substantially boosted by the large number of “counter staff” in the interior, welfare, health and education ministries employed to provide basic services inside Arab communities.

On publication of the report this month, Avishai Braverman, the minorities minister, admitted there was no hope of reaching even the delayed target. He criticised his own government for not setting its sights higher, at 20 per cent representation.

The committee’s findings, said Mr Tibi, showed officials had systematically broken their promises on fair representation. He noted that even in the parliament itself there were only six Arab workers out of 439, or 1.6 per cent. “What does it say that in the temple of Israeli democracy there is such rank discrimination?”

Similar percentages were found in key government departments, including the prime minister’s office, the foreign ministry, the treasury, the housing ministry, and the trade and industry ministry, as well as such state agencies as the Bank of Israel, the Land Administration and the Water Authority.

The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, to which Israel acceded last week, reported last year that 15,000 Arab graduates were either unemployed or forced into work outside their professions, often as teachers.

Mr Tibi said he was particularly concerned that there were no Arabs in key roles inside government ministries. “Not by chance are there no senior Arab civil servants, no deputy directors in the ministries, no legal advisers,” he said.

He said the absence of Arab policy-makers was reflected in the lack of public services and resources made available to Arab communities. Poverty among Arab families is three times higher than among Jewish families.

Yousef Jabareen, director of the Dirasat policy centre in Nazareth, said increased recruitment of Arab workers by the government could solve at a stroke two urgent problems: the large pool of Arab graduates who could not find work, and the community’s lack of influence on national policy.

He added that discrimination against Arabs was “built into the institutional structure of a Jewish state”.

The report was received with hostility by some MPs. Yariv Levin, chairman of the parliament’s House Committee and a member of prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, said the report was “delusional and ignores the fundamental fact that a significant portion of Israel’s Arabs are disloyal to the state”.

Saleem Marna, 37, who graduated as an information systems engineer 10 years ago from the prestigious Technion University in Haifa, said he had given up hope of finding regular work in either the private or public sectors.

Married with four children, he said he had applied to emigrate to Canada. “I am hopeful that being an Arab won’t count against me there.”

Hatim Kanaaneh, a Harvard-educated doctor who worked as one of the few senior Arab officials in the Israeli health ministry until his resignation in the early 1990s, documented the many battles he faced in the government bureaucracy in his recent book Doctor in Galilee.

Dr Kanaaneh said no Arab had ever risen above the position of sub-district physician he held two decades ago. Although the health ministry had the largest number of Arab employees of any ministry, he said none had ever been appointed to a policy-making position.

“In fact, people in the ministry tell me things have gone backwards under recent right-wing governments.”

He added that the lack of Arab policymakers in government had concrete consequences that damaged the Arab community. When he worked in the health ministry, he noted, the Arab infant mortality rate was twice that of the Jewish population. Two decades later the ratio of Arab to Jewish infant deaths, rather than declining, had increased by a further 25 per cent.

The prejudice faced by educated Arabs seeking employment was highlighted by a survey last November. It found that 83 per cent of Israeli businesses in the main professions admitted being opposed to hiring Arab graduates.

Yossi Coten, director of a training programme in Nazareth, said of 84,000 jobs in the country’s hi-tech industries, only 500 were filled by Arab engineers.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

Genetically modified crops failing worldwide

Tom Lewis | Environmental News Examiner | May 17, 2010
Weeds like this pigweed, that have become immune to Roundup, are devastating American farms.
Weeds like this pigweed, that have become immune to Roundup, are devastating American farms.
Photo by H. Zell via Wikimedia

The Green Revolution — a misleading name applied by PR firms to the onset of globalized, chemical-intensive, industrial agriculture that is anything but friendly to the environment — is coming unraveled around the world, bringing devastation to farmers from the plains of China to the plains of America.

It was revealed last week that China is dealing with an explosive infestation of the formerly inconsequential mirid bug in its orchards and cotton fields. The bug’s population exploded as a result of widespread planting of cotton that had been genetically altered to be resistant to the bollworm, formerly cotton’s worst enemy. Cotton farmers stopped spraying insecticides, since their plants shrugged off the bollworms, and thus allowed other insects, especially the mirid bug, to multiply without interference.

According to a study published last week by Kongming Wu at the State Key Laboratory for Biology of Plant Diseases and Insect Pests in Beijing (reported by Reuters), the mirid bug is now laying waste to orchards and cotton fields in at least six provinces in Northern China, affecting 10 million farmers. Controlling one pest, as chemical companies boast frequently that they have discovered how to do, inevitably unleashes others in a cascade of unintended consequences. The lesson in this case, according to Wu, is that “We have to study the whole ecosystem.” Indeed.

Similar effects are being felt by farmers in the American breadbasket as the result of their reliance on a single chemical. For decades, chemical farming was limited by the fact that pesticides were terribly persistent and toxic, and while they could kill broadleaf weeds without affecting cereal crops with narrow leaves, they could not distinguish between narrow-leafed weeds and those cereal crops, such as corn. Then Monsanto came up with Roundup, a glyphosate killer of weeds both broad- and narrow-leafed, that broke down quickly into inert compounds, and it then introduced genetically engineered seeds that produced crops that were immune to Roundup. (For more details see my book, Brace for Impact: Surviving the Crash of the Industrial Age by Sustainable Living.)

Thanks to massive advertising and public-relations campaigns (that shouted down repeated studies by the US Department of Agriculture and United Nations that showed no particular advantages to GM crops) within ten years over half of all American cropland was planted with Roundup-resistant crops.

One inevitable result of drenching large areas with a chemical designed to kill all weeds is that some weeds, by accident, will be immune to that particular chemical. They will reproduce and, finding much less competition around them, will flourish. All this was known by non-chemical farmers and scientists from the beginning of the Roundup debacle. Yet the New York Times was surprised, last week, to find that what could go wrong, had gone wrong. (See Deepwater Horizon, et al.)

Throughout the American heartland, farmers who were persuaded to stop cultivating, stop spraying more toxic weed sprays and give their faith to Roundup are being overcome by resurgent weeds. One of them, pigweed, is a mutant monster that can reach seven feet in height and can ruin a combine. The high costs of the modified seed, the increasing cost of applying more and more Roundup to less and less effect, added to the need to resume tilling and the use of older chemicals, adds up to “…the single largest threat to production agriculture that we have ever seen,” according to Andrew Wargo III, the president of the Arkansas Association of Conservation Districts.

In response to the rising emergencies around the world, Monsanto is desperately at work on genetically altering plants so they will be resistant to, of all things, the carcinogen 2,4-D. Perhaps they should take a cue from Mr. Wu, and “study the whole ecosystem.”

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Environmentalism | 3 Comments

Arab League hails Iran nuclear declaration

Press TV – May 17, 2010

Arab League (AL) Secretary General Amr Moussa has praised Iran’s nuclear declaration as a positive step towards dispelling Western fears over its nuclear program.

Iran announced a nuclear declaration on Monday following trilateral talks with non-permanent UN Security Council members Turkey and Brazil — under which Iran agrees to swap its low-enriched uranium for reactor fuel in Turkey.

Moussa said he hoped the move would “solve the current problem regarding the Iranian nuclear file,” DPA reported. The AL chief also hailed efforts by Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, a fierce advocate of diplomacy in ending the standoff over Iran’s nuclear program.

While Moussa and NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander in Europe, US Admiral James Stavridis, have welcomed the declaration, the European Union and Israel expressed skepticism and cast doubt on whether Iran’s latest concession would answer all concerns.

Both Brasilia and Ankara have opposed US-led efforts to slap tougher UN sanctions on Tehran over Western accusations that the Islamic Republic is harboring a covert nuclear weapons program.

Iran has denied the charges, insisting that its nuclear program is aimed at civilian purposes such as electricity generation and medical research. The nuclear declaration is the latest step in convincing Western powers that the country’s nuclear program is peaceful.

As a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), Tehran stresses its civilian nuclear program is within a legal framework.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Solidarity and Activism | 5 Comments

I’M SURPRISED ISRAEL DID NOT GIVE CHOMSKY THE ‘RED CARPET’ WELCOME

By Steve Amsel | Desert Peace | May 17, 2010

Yesterday a post appeared on this Blog dealing with Noam Chomsky being denied entry to Israel. In the report, Chomsky is referred to as a ‘Left wing American Jewish Intellectual’.In his own words, he admits that his barred entrance has nothing to do with positions he might hold about Israel. Take notice that he does not mention the FACT that Israel is in violation of International Law by determining who can or cannot enter the Palestinian Territories. This also indicates that the Occupied West Bank is under siege, not only the Gaza Strip.

Left  wingers do not oppose a boycott and divestment from Israel…. neither do they hold the views expressed by Chomsky in the following…

Audio: Challenging Noam Chomsky’s opposition to boycotting Israel (Ali Abunimah & Jeff Blankfort)

Why does Noam Chomsky oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and why does he think Palestinians should not talk about justice and redress for their ethnic cleansing from their homeland in 1948? Why does Chomsky dismiss any talk about the influence of the Israel lobby? His pathetic views on the Lobby can be seen in THIS video.

Click here to download the download the Abunimah and Blankfort response

or listen to it at Ali Abunimah’s Blog

Israel could have welcomed Chomsky with open arms. His non participation in the Movement is exactly the type of ‘left winger’ Israel loves.

Universities in the Palestinian Territories have scores of professors to chose from that hold views in support of their cause. Chomsky is definitely not one of them.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Deception | Leave a comment

Half an hour of mobile use a day ‘increases brain cancer risk’

A landmark study into the health dangers posed by mobiles has found people who speak on their handset for more than half an hour a day over 10 years are at greater risk of brain cancer.

Telegraph | 17 May 2010

The World Health Organisation’s Interphone report, to be published this week, will say that “heavy users” are more at risk of developing glioma tumours.

It concludes that there is no increased risk of developing the disease in other users. However, the minimum amount of time which researchers designated at heavy use was just 30 minutes a day.

The study also excluded anyone under 30 from its results, prompting scientists to demand further research into the health implications of mobile ‘phone technology.

“Today mobile ‘phone use has become much more prevalent and it is not unusual for young people to use mobile ‘phones for an hour or more a day,” said the scientists in a statement.

The project conducted studies in 13 countries, interviewing tumour sufferers and people in good health to see whether their mobile phone use differed. It questioned about 12,800 people between 2000 and 2004.

A spokesman for the Mobile Operators Association has previously indicated that more than 30 scientific reviews had found no adverse health effects.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

SEC Admits to Inadequate Tools to Conduct Investigation

Trader’s Harrowing Tape of Market Plunge Reveals Big Name Sellers

By PAM MARTENS | May 17, 2010

SEC Chair Mary Schapiro made a stunning admission during House subcommittee hearings last week seeking answers to the May 6 hit and run in the stock market which briefly trimmed 998 points off the Dow and caused massive losses to small investors who had placed stop loss orders on individual stocks.

According to Ms. Schapiro, the SEC has no consolidated audit trail that captures time and sales in a chronological order among the 40 or more electronic trading platforms and exchanges that constitute today’s deeply fragmented U.S. stock market.

Ms. Schapiro said in her testimony before the House Subcommittee on Capital Markets, Insurance and Government Sponsored Enterprises that there were 66 million trades on May 6, coming from the 40 or more stock trading venues.  The SEC has requested the individual trading records and must figure out how to review all the disparate trading in sequential time order.  Some trading records reside at unregulated entities like hedge funds.  Other trades are done by dark pools, internal matching of buys and sells inside brokerage firms (benignly called internalization) and over the counter derivative trades that could impact the stock market but have no oversight by anyone.  Ms. Schapiro said she has issued subpoenas but didn’t say to whom.

Ms. Schapiro’s testimony raises the question as to whether the SEC has been properly monitoring potentially rigged trading in real time up to this point.

As far back as five months ago, the SEC was gently coaxing Wall Street to let it police it with proper tools.  Below is an excerpt from a speech delivered by James Brigagliano, Deputy Director of the SEC’s Division of Trading and Markets on January 21, 2010 to the Securities Industry and Financial Markets Association (SIFMA), the heavy handed trade and lobby association of Wall Street:

“Chairman Schapiro has expressed her commitment to improving intermarket surveillance.  As a step towards fulfilling that commitment, she created an inter-division task force to work with markets to explore ways to establish a comprehensive consolidated audit trail for orders and executions across all markets.  While we recognize that such a proposal would require a substantial effort by the SROs [Self Regulatory Organizations] and their members, a consolidated audit trail could be an invaluable regulatory tool to enhance the ability of the SROs and the Commission to detect illegal activity across multiple markets, and would greatly benefit investors and help to restore trust in the securities markets.”

Since when do real cops ask the perps for permission to police them?
Many eyebrows were raised among Wall Street skeptics when President Obama appointed Ms. Schapiro to head the SEC on January 20, 2009.  Ms. Schapiro came to the SEC from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA), the self regulatory watchdog of Wall Street, where she served as CEO.  Prior to that, she was the Chairman and CEO of the predecessor self regulator, NASD Regulation, which carried the stigma of running a private justice system for Wall Street that investors, industry employees and lawyers felt was rigged in favor of the industry.  Why Ms. Schapiro did not insist on creating a consolidated audit trail in her prior regulatory roles or after the four-decade Madoff swindle was revealed  remains a nagging question.

Another person to provide Congressional testimony on May 11 was Chief Operating Officer of the New York Stock Exchange, Larry Leibowitz, who was also unable to explain what caused the crash on May 6.  Mr. Leibowitz’ younger brother, Comedy Central’s Jon Stewart, had upstaged the hearings the day before on his program “The Daily Show” with his own apt diagnosis.   Showing an endless stream of news anchors characterizing everything from the GM bailout to the mortgage crisis to the rescue of AIG as caused by the “perfect storm,”  Stewart said:  “I’m beginning to think these are not perfect storms.  I’m beginning to think these are regular storms and we have a sh*tty boat.”

My only quibble with Stewart’s analysis is that it’s not just that we have a sh*tty boat.  It’s that the pirates have a souped up speedboat with computers run by algorithms and have infiltrated the water patrol.

The Congressional testimony of Terry Duffy, Executive Chairman of the Chicago and New York based futures exchanges, known as the CME Group, Inc., raised more alarm bells.  Mr. Duffy told the House hearing that “The CME [Chicago Mercantile Exchange] markets functioned properly on May 6, 2010.”  “Functioned properly” is clearly a subjective term as his market came within 3 points of being locked limit down.  Locked limit down is when the futures market hits a preset percentage decline that automatically halts trading. Without the S&P 500 trading, the cash stock market would have had even less price transparency and this would have accelerated panic selling.

Speaking of the popular futures contract on the Standard and Poor’s 500 called the E-Mini, Mr. Duffy reported that “the market traded in a largely orderly manner…the bid/ask spread momentarily widened to 6.5 points…Market Regulation staff ultimately concluded that there were no anomalies represented by the level of activity or the trading strategies employed by market participants.”

Mr. Duffy’s testimony stands in stark contrast to a harrowing audio tape of the bungee jump  in the Standard and Poor’s 500 futures pit between 2:42 and 2:51 p.m. New York time; 1:42 and 1:51 Central time. The tape was made by Ben Lichtenstein, who has worked on the trading floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME) for 17 years.  Starting out as a runner, then member, then trader, Mr. Lichtenstein launched a savvy service for private investors, traders and asset management companies who need to take the pulse of the futures market in real time.  Called TradersAudio.com, the service provides a live audio feed directly from the trading pit in Chicago with Mr. Lichtenstein calling out the play by play as trades occur.  He says it’s “like being in the pits without all the pushing and shoving.”

Mr. Lichtenstein has confirmed that this is an authentic tape of his broadcast during the plunge.

At several points on the tape, Mr. Lichtenstein clearly indicates that there is a 10 point spread between the bid and the ask.  Mr. Duffy told the House hearing that the spread reached a maximum of 6.5 points.  A 10 point spread shows a seriously illiquid market where big players have pulled their support.

At one point on the tape Mr. Lichtenstein yells out: “This is probably the craziest I’ve seen it down here ever.”  At another point he says the move through the figure was “just nuts,” meaning when the S&P 500 broke its support level of 1100 no buying support came in; a highly unusual occurrence.

Mr. Lichtenstein calls out the names of Salomon and Morgan Stanley as sellers as the plunge worsens.  Both of these firms received taxpayer bailouts and Salomon, a unit of Citigroup, is currently a ward of the taxpayer.  If these firms were shorting the market for their own in-house casinos, (their proprietary trading desks), the American people have a right to know and so does Congress.  It goes to the very heart of legislative proposals to ban proprietary trading at banks holding insured deposits.

In the brief morning comments that are broadcast in the audio, Mr. Lichtenstein calls out that Pru Bache is selling.  Stockbrokers I checked with were shocked to learn Prudential  Bache has miraculously arisen from the dead. The company was depicted in Kurt Eichenwald’s epic tome, “Serpent on the Rock,” regarding its massive securities fraud in limited partnerships in the 1980s and 90s.  The jacket cover reads: “Backstabbing. Lying. Embezzling. Coverups.  Just another day on Wall Street in history’s biggest corporate swindle.”  It’s less than comforting to know that the name Pru Bache is being called out on a day that looks like serious manipulation at work.

Nor is it comforting to hear that Salomon is selling.  Citigroup uses many monikers to trade around the world.  Salomon is one of them.  Here’s how Bloomberg described a trade  Citigroup code named “Dr. Evil” in 2004:

“On Aug. 2, 2004, between 10:28 and 10:29 a.m., Citigroup traders sold 11.3 billion euros of government bonds in 18 seconds using MTS, according to the Financial Services Authority. A further 1.5 billion euros of bonds were sold on other markets. At the time, an average 13.5 billion euros of bonds traded each day on MTS. The traders had planned to sell only 8 billion euros to 9 billion euros of bonds and weren’t expecting the system to work as well as it did, the FSA said. About seven minutes later, they started buying back 3.8 billion euros of bonds after the securities dropped in price. The Citigroup team also bought 66,214 futures contracts and booked an $18.5 million profit on the day, the FSA said.”

I asked the CME if they would aggregate all the trades done by Citigroup and its affiliates and subsidiaries (Citigroup, Citibank, Salomon, Smith Barney, etc.) to see if Mr. Duffy’s statement would hold up that there “were no anomalies represented by the level of activity or the trading strategies employed by market participants.”  The CME’s spokesperson, Allan Schoenberg, responded:

“Per your request for access to client trading information we do not provide access to that.  As for your question about Citigroup and access to their information specifically you would have to discuss that with Citigroup.  As CFTC Chairman Gensler noted, data that he and his staff have reviewed shows that the trades he referred to in his testimony appeared to be a bona fide hedging strategy.”

I took and passed the commodities licensing exam in 1986.  At that time, a bona fide hedger was a party like an oil company hedging the price of oil; or a farmer in the Midwest hedging the price of corn.  I don’t think securities laws intended that a Wall Street firm could trade for its own account, against the interest of its customers,  and call it bona fide hedging.  Until we know just what account these big firms were trading for and the aggregated volume of these trades by firm, we know nothing useful about their May 6 conduct.  And let’s remember that these firms are already under investigation for potential rigging of the credit default swap and collateralized debt obligation markets.

According to Mr. Duffy, there were 1.6 million (yes, million) contracts traded in the E-Mini S&P 500 in the pivotal hour of 2:00 to 3:00 p.m. New York time.  Each E-Mini trades at 50 times the level of the S&P 500 futures price.  At 1100 on the S&P, that would be $55,000 per contract or about $88 billion (yes, billion) in one hour, an astonishing amount.

Last week Reuters leaked an internal document from the CME showing that Waddell & Reed has sold 75,000 contracts during that period with the suggestion that it might have triggered the plunge.  The idea that this tiny Midwest mutual fund firm pulled something over on the Wall Street bad boys is specious at best and an intentional distraction at worst.  If the report is correct, Waddell & Reed’s contracts represented 4.7 percent of those traded in that hour.

The Senate Banking Committee’s Subcommittee on Securities, Insurance and Investment is slated to pick up where the House left off this coming Thursday from 10:00 a.m. to 12:30 p.m.  Hopefully, the Senate will probe the issues raised above, along with the following:

During the House hearings, no mention was made of the fact that three of the largest market cap stocks in the S&P 500 suffered losses far in excess of the overall market decline on May 6, raising a strong warning sign of potential manipulation.

The S&P 500 is weighted by the market capitalization of the individual stocks. Market capitalization is the share price times the number of shares outstanding.  The impact of a price change in the S&P 500 index is proportional to significant price changes in the stocks ranking highest in market cap weighting. (Big price declines in a handful of the top tier stocks can crater the market index.) Apple Computer, GE and Procter and Gamble all fall within the top 10 component stocks of the S&P 500 and each of these stocks appears to have been targeted for excessive selling by some entity or algorithmic program on May 6. Sharp price declines in these pivotal stocks in the cash stock market quickly transmuted  into selling in the futures market, creating a frenzy in the highly leveraged Chicago futures pits.

According to Standard and Poor’s website on May 14, 2010, Apple Computer ranks number 2 in importance in the S&P 500; GE ranks 4th; Procter and Gamble ranks 5th.  At the worst point in the market, Apple had declined by 21.5 percent; GE by 16.6 percent; and Procter and Gamble by a whopping 36 percent.  The overall market at its worst level had declined by only 9.2 percent. (3M dropped by 21 percent at its worst point but does not rank in the top 10 of the S&P by market cap.)

Before our so-called fair and efficient markets become the brunt of jokes on more comedy shows around the globe, the Senate needs to stop trying to legislate reforms in the dark and get to the bottom of just how rigged Wall Street really is.

Pam Martens worked on Wall Street for 21 years; she has no security position, long or short, in any company mentioned in this article other than being long Procter & Gamble.  She and family members own less than 500 shares in Procter & Gamble.  She writes on public interest issues from New Hampshire.  She can be reached at pamk741@aol.com

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Economics | Leave a comment

Kagame threatens challenger with prison for talking to press

By Ann Garrison | Digital Journal | May 14, 2010

The Rwanda New Times reported that Rwandan Prosecutor General Ngoga threatened to jail Victoire Ingabire Umuhoza for speaking with press. Ingabire has not been allowed to register to formally run against Rwandan President Paul Kagame.

She is now facing criminal charges brought against her for challenging Kagame and his ruling Rwandan Patriotic Front Party government. According to Ngoga:

“The Prosecution is more specifically concerned with continued posting declarations and newspaper interviews she has been doing. The case against her is not one of robbery in which restraining physical movement would be enough to contain further damage. It is a case of destructive and divisive ideology whose damage does not require physical proximity of the offender.

Law Professor Peter Erlinder, the U.S. attorney and Lead Defense Counsel at the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, who has been retained to defend Ingabire, said:

“Ngoga’s threats reveal that the real purpose of the criminal charges against Madame Ingabire is to serve notice that no political opposition will be tolerated in Rwanda. And, that the 2003 ‘sham elections’ as reported by EU election monitors, and other outside human rights observers, will be repeated in 2010, unless the Rwandan government completely changes its policies to permit a functioning democracy.”

Ingabire is charged with associating with terrorists, and violations of the “genocide ideology” statutes creating speech and thought crimes unique to Rwanda, which Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, the Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative and even the U.S. State Department have denounced.

Prof. Erlinder will appear at Ingabire’s next hearing, on May 24th in Kigali, to insist on her continued release on bail, return of her computers and property, an end to the state’s interference with her presidential campaign and the full disclosure of prosecution evidence and witnesses.

Erlinder has said he intends to argue that Ingabire’s internationally recognized rights to free speech have been violated, and that she is being denied due process.

He has also submitted letters to his Minnesota Senators and Congressional Representative, and to the U.S. State Department, to request protection, stating that he has reason to believe that his own life could be in danger while he is in Rwanda, because of leaked memos identifying him as a foreign enemy of the government and target for assassination.

The Human Rights Committee of the EU Parliament has written to Rwanda’s Ambassador to Belgium Gérard Ntwari objecting to Ingabire’s arrest, and to ongoing repression of political and civil rights, including the right to free speech.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties | Leave a comment

Iran’s declaration on nuclear swap deal

Iran, Turkey agree on nuclear swap deal

Press TV – May 17, 2010

Tehran has agreed to a draft proposal whereby Iran will ship its domestic low-enriched uranium to Turkey in exchange for 20 percent enriched uranium in return.

After several hours of intense negotiations on Monday, the trilateral meeting between Iran, Brazil and Turkey ends with Tehran agreeing to send some 1,200 kilograms of its 3.5 percent enriched uranium over to Turkey in exchange for a total of 120 kilogram of 20 percent enriched uranium, Press TV reported.

Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki read the ten-point detailed deceleration on the nuclear swap deal at a press conference held in the Iranian capital Tehran.

1. We reaffirm our commitment to the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) and in accordance with the related articles of the NPT, recall the right of all state parties, including the Islamic Republic of Iran, to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy (as well as nuclear fuel cycle including enrichment activities) for peaceful purposes without discrimination.

2. We express our strong conviction that we have the opportunity now to begin a forward looking process that will create a positive, constructive, non-confrontational atmosphere leading to an era of interaction and cooperation.

3. We believe that the nuclear fuel exchange is instrumental in initiating cooperation in different areas, especially with regard to peaceful nuclear cooperation including nuclear power plant and research reactors construction.

4. Based on this point, the nuclear fuel exchange is a starting point to begin cooperation and a positive constructive move forward among nations. Such a move should lead to positive interaction and cooperation in the field of peaceful nuclear activities replacing and avoiding all kinds of confrontation through refraining from measures, actions and rhetorical statements that would jeopardize Iran’s rights and obligations under the NPT.

5. Based on the above, in order to facilitate the nuclear cooperation mentioned above, the Islamic Republic of Iran agrees to deposit 1200 kilograms LEU in Turkey. While in Turkey this LEU will continue to be the property of Iran. Iran and the IAEA may station observers to monitor the safekeeping of the LEU in Turkey.

6. Iran will notify the IAEA in writing through official channels of its agreement with the above within seven days following the date of this declaration. Upon the positive response of the Vienna Group (US, Russia, France and the IAEA) further details of the exchange will be elaborated through a written agreement and proper arrangement between Iran and the Vienna Group that specifically committed themselves to deliver 120 kilograms of fuel needed for the Tehran Research Reactor (TRR).

7. When the Vienna Group declares its commitment to this provision, then both parties would commit themselves to the implementation of the agreement mentioned in item 6. The Islamic Republic of Iran expressed its readiness to deposit its LEU (1200 kilograms) within one month. On the basis of the same agreement the Vienna Group should deliver 120 kilograms fuel required for TRR in no later than one year.

8. In case the provisions of this Declaration are not respected, Turkey, upon the request of Iran, will return swiftly and unconditionally Iran’s LEU to Iran.

9. We welcome the decision of the Islamic Republic of Iran to continue as in the past their talks with the 5+1 countries in Turkey on the common concerns based on collective commitments according to the common points of their proposals.

10. Turkey and Brazil appreciated Iran’s commitment to the NPT and its constructive role in pursuing the realization of nuclear rights of its member states. The Islamic Republic of Iran likewise appreciated the constructive efforts of the friendly countries Turkey and Brazil in creating the conducive environment for realization of Iran’s nuclear rights.

###

Al-Manar reports:

Turkey sees “no need” for further UN sanctions against Iran after this deal, Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmed Davutoglu told reporters. “This agreement should be regarded positively and there is no need for sanctions now that we (Turkey and Brazil) have made guarantees and the low enriched uranium will remain in Turkey,” he said.

May 17, 2010 Posted by | Wars for Israel | 14 Comments

Lies and Forgeries on Iran´s Nuclear Program

by Toles

By Yusuf Fernandez | Al-Manar TV* | May 14, 2010

Nowadays, everyone knows that the US invaded and occupied Iraq through lies, which were echoed by US mass media. These media projected lies as corroborated facts. A large part of this information, including the discredited claim that Iraq wanted to acquire uranium from Niger, came from Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith, two pro-Israeli neocons. With the White House’s support, they created the so-called Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon in 2001 in order to collect and spread disinformation and lies that could be used to “justify” the invasion of Iraq. After the invasion, the Office was disbanded. Admitted spy for Israel Larry Franlkin worked at the OSP.

Now, history is repeating. The US has accused Iran, without any evidence, of deviating from peaceful goals in its nuclear program. Any progress in Tehran´s program is denounced as a new effort in this sense. However, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has not found any proof of a nuclear military program in Iran.

The US authorities have not  refrained from using fake documents in its anti-Iran campaign. They were accused of presenting fabricated papers to French courts in order to support their demand for extradition of Majid Kakavand, an Iranian engineer who was detained in France in March 2009 at the request of the US authorities, which demanded his extradition for allegedly breaching the US embargo against Iran.

Recently, he was acquitted of all charges brought against him in France and vowed to take legal action against US authorities. “Given that I have spent fourteen months in jail on false charges, it is my legal right to sue US authorities as soon as possible,” said Kakavand, who arrived in Tehran, IRNA reported. Kakavand´s advocate Diane Francois said that some of the documents included e-mail copies with attachments that did not have corresponding dates concluding that the documents were falsified, reported Expatica.com on March 31.

Iran, for its part, had demanded Kakavand´s immediate release. On March 16, Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said: “The innocence of (Majid) Kakavand is evident and we urge France not to be trapped in American propaganda and release him.”

US propaganda has also spread rumors about an alleged Iranian plan to build ballistic missiles capable of striking the United States in five years. However, Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi has rejected the reports. The intention behind these allegations is clear: to persuade the US public that the Islamic Republic of Iran, which has never attacked another country – except when it was invaded by Saddam Hussein´s army in the 1980-88 war, is a “threat” to the US.

While the US and Western countries have reacted with suspicion to Iran’s development of new deterrent missiles, Tehran has made it clear that its missile capabilities only serve defensive purposes against a possible attack. Actually, the US stance is completely hypocritical. It threatens Iran with a military attack and at the same time it considers any Iranian military development as a “threat”.

Washington and its allies are trying to boost their campaign for sanctions in the international media. In this framework, the British daily ‘Times’ published on December 14, 2009 a story that claimed that Iranian scientists had conducted experiments into neutron sources aimed at producing the trigger for a nuclear bomb. The report was based on an undated two-page document in Farsi (Persian) that according to unnamed “foreign intelligence agencies” would have been written in early 2007. The Times did not mention the source of the document, but it quoted “an Asian intelligence source” – a term some media outlets use for Israeli intelligence officials.

The document was intended to be used as a possible pretext for war. International Institute for Strategic Studies analyst Mark Fitzpatrick told The Times: “The most shattering conclusion is that, if this was an effort that began in 2007, it could be a casus belli. If Iran is working on weapons, it means there is no diplomatic solution.” The story of the alleged Iranian document provoked a new round of expressions of US and European support for tougher sanctions against Iran.

The article had all the signs of a fabricated story designed to generate public concern about Iran´s nuclear program. It also sought to undermine a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) issued by US intelligence agencies in late 2007 that concluded that Iran had put an end to any military nuclear program in 2007. The 2007 NIE was harshly criticized in the US and Israel by those promoting tougher measures, including military attacks, against Iran.

Tehran dismissed the claims as “baseless”. Like other reports provided to the IAEA by Western intelligence services that supposedly revealed Iran’s weapons documents, there were lots of doubts about the authenticity of this one. It is noteworthy to point out that that key documents used by the Bush government to justify its invasion of Iraq in March 2003 -involving Baghdad´s alleged acquisition of uranium in Niger- were proven to be forgeries.

Soon, the hallmarks of a forgery could be seen. Analyst Gareth Porter exposed three of them in an article published by IPS and other outlets with the title of “New Revelations Tear Holes in Nuclear Trigger Story”:

First of all, a columnist for the Times acknowledged that the document published by the newspaper was not a photocopy of the original document but an expurgated and retyped version of the original. A translation of a second document also published by the Times contradicted the claim by the newspaper itself that the “nuclear trigger” document had been written within an organization run by an Iranian military scientist, Mohsen Fakhrizadeh.

Secondly, George Maschke, whose specialty is Near Eastern languages and culture, pointed out: “This allegedly Iranian document was composed on a computer that evidently lacked Persian (Farsi)- the Iranian national language- resources. It is readily apparent that the document was composed using Arabic and not Persian letters. For example the Arabic letter corresponding to the English “y” is ي

In Persian, however, the dots are always omitted when the letter appears at the end of the word.”

Thirdly, the subject of the document would be highly classified under any state’s security system. Yet there is no confidentiality marking on the document, as can be seen from the photograph of the original published by the Times.

Iran insisted that Fakhrizadeh had procured the technologies in question for nonmilitary uses by various components of the Imam Hussein University, where he was a lecturer.

IPS also quoted [former] Central Intelligence Agency official Philip Giraldi, who said that US intelligence judges the “nuclear trigger” document to be a forgery. The IPS story also pointed out that the document lacked both security markings and identification of either the issuing organization or the recipient. Giraldi, who was a CIA counterterrorism official from 1976 to 1992, told Gareth Porter that intelligence sources had pointed out that the United States had nothing to do with forging the document, and that Israel is the primary suspect. The sources did not rule out a British role in the fabrication either.

Porter indicated that The Times “is part of a Murdoch publishing empire that includes the Sunday Times, Fox News and the New York Post. All Murdoch-owned news media report on Iran with an aggressively pro-Israeli slant.” “The Rupert Murdoch chain has been used extensively to publish false intelligence from the Israelis and occasionally from the British government,” Giraldi said.

Porter concludes his report claiming that “after reviewing documentation submitted by Iran and verifying some of its assertions by inspection on the spot, the IAEA concluded in its February 22, 2008, report that Iran’s explanation for Fakhrizadeh´s role in obtaining the items had been truthful after all.”

Another stage of the anti-Iranian campaign started last year after Tehran announced the existence of the Qom enrichment plant, situated within a mountain, which would assure continuation of enrichment if the Natanz Enrichment Plant were attacked. Washington immediately claimed that Iran had been working in the plant for several years and it was an evidence of a covert military nuclear program. Obama called the second enrichment facility “a direct challenge to the basic foundation of the non-proliferation regime”, saying Iran had broken “rules that all nations must follow”.

In November and after IAEA inspectors had visited the Qom site, former Director General Mohamed ElBaradei commented that they had found “nothing to be worried about” and that the facility was indeed a backup to the Natanz plant as Iran had maintained. “It is a hole in a mountain,” ElBaradei said.

Some Western media have also reproduced the fabricated story about an alleged Iraqi attempt to acquire uranium in Niger -which was used before the invasion of Iraq by then US Vice President Dick Cheney to justify the war- but changing this time some of the players: Iran instead of Iraq and Zimbabwe instead of Niger. On April 25, a report published in the British daily Daily Telegraph claimed that a deal had been reached between Iran and Zimbabwe. According to the agreement, Zimbabwe would allow Iran to mine Zimbabwean uranium reserves in exchange of the African country´s access to Iranian oil.

The report said that the agreement was sealed secretly last month during a visit to Tehran by a close aide to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe. Britain and other Western powers have passed sanctions against Zimbabwe and have showed their support for a regime change in this country.

Industry and Commerce Minister Welshman Ncube rejected the report, saying there was no evidence suggesting that Zimbabwe had such deposits. “It is not true. No such agreement was signed,” said Ncube.

The story was published some days after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad paid an official visit to Zimbabwe last week. During his visit, he met his counterpart Robert Mugabe, attended the official opening of Zimbabwe’s International Trade Fair and signed a number of trade and cooperation agreements in the areas of banking, finance and insurance. The Iranian president told reporters before his departure that the visit came as part of his government´s plan to consolidate ties with African countries.

*Additional editing by Aletho News

May 16, 2010 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Wars for Israel | 1 Comment

Ahmadinejad welcomes Lula da Silva

Press TV – May 16, 2010

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has officially welcomed his Brazilian counterpart Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva in the capital of Tehran ahead of the G15 summit.

President Lula arrived in Tehran, accompanied by a 300-member delegation — including five Brazilian cabinet ministers — to attend the Group of 15 summit on Monday.

The Brazilian president is expected to meet with the Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei during his visit.

According to IRNA, Brazilian and Iranian officials signed eleven memorandums of understanding on Sunday to promote bilateral cooperation in the fields of economy, agriculture, and industry.

Brazil, a non-permanent member of the United Nations Security Council, has been making efforts to break the deadlock over Iran’s nuclear program and help reach an agreement on a fuel swap deal.

The G15 is made up of countries from Asia, Africa, and Latin America with a common goal of economic growth.

Earlier on Saturday, foreign ministers from the group of 15 met to discuss measures to tackle the global economic crisis.

May 16, 2010 Posted by | Economics, Solidarity and Activism | Leave a comment

Israel refuses re-entry to 5 Druze who made condolence call in Syria

Golan Heights residents stuck in Syria

By Yuval Azoulay | Haaretz | May 14, 2010

Five Druze residents of the Golan Heights have been stuck for more than six weeks in Syria after Israeli authorities denied them permission to cross back into the Golan.

The group includes two women, Hamaa Shaar, 36, and Johara Shakhrur, 56, from the Golan Heights town of Buqata, who were visiting their families in Suwara, Syria following the death of Sha’ar’s brother and Shakhur’s mother.

The family’s lawyer, Haran Riechman, wrote the Interior Ministry’s Population Administration bureau in Kiryat Shmona that when the women left for Syria, MK Ayoob Kara (Likud ) had obtained special permission for them to stay for two weeks instead of the 48 hours the Israeli authorities had initially given them.

Riechman wrote that for unknown reasons, five days after the women left, the Interior Ministry demanded they return.

Six other Israeli residents of the Golan Heights in Syria received the same instruction; some managed to make it to the Quneitra crossing within a few hours.

However, the women only reached the crossing a day later, together with three other Israeli Golan Heights residents who had also been in Suwara. Their families were already waiting for them, as were the Military Police and the Red Cross, but the Interior Ministry official did not show up, the border remained closed, and the women returned to Suwara, Riechman told Haaretz.

“One of the soldiers told the family that the army was preventing their return and it was unclear why,” Riechman also said.

Riechman wrote the Population Administration that if the women are not allowed back by the weeked, he will appeal to the High Court of Justice.

Interior Ministry spokeswoman Sabin Hadad, said Thursday that the Israel Defense Forces is responsible for the Quneitra crossing.

May 16, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | Leave a comment

Jewish Settler Flees Scene After Ramming Vehicle Into Mother with Two Little Girls

By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies – May 16, 2010

Palestinian medical sources in Bethlehem reported Saturday at night that a Jewish settler rammed his vehicle into a mother and her two girls in Al Jab’a village near Bethlehem, and fled the scene.

The sources identified the woman as Aneesa Hasan Al Tous, 35, and her two daughters Ro’a, 2 years old, and Nagham, 5. They were moved to Al Ahli Hospital In Hebron; the mom and one of her children are in moderate conditions while the second child is in a serious condition.

Eyewitnesses reported that the mother and her children were walking at the entrance of the village when the settler rammed his vehicle into them and fled the scene.

The Israeli army managed to apprehend the settler later on.

Al Jab’a is located south of Bethlehem and is under full Israeli security and military control and its residents are facing constant violations and attacks carried out by the settlers.

In a separate incident, resident Ahmad Al Alami, 22, from Beit Ummar town near Hebron, was also wounded after a settler rammed his vehicle into him. He was moved to Hadassah Israeli hospital in Jerusalem. His condition was described as moderate but stable. This time, the settler reportedly did not leave the scene and called an Israeli ambulance.

May 16, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | 11 Comments

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