A tale of two schools
By Alex Kane on June 26, 2010
When plans were announced in February 2007 to open the Khalil Gibran International Academy (KGIA), New York City’s first dual-language Arabic public school, ugly anti-Arab racism and Islamophobia reared its head.
Yesterday, the New York Times profiled a Brooklyn-based Hebrew language charter school. There has been barely a peep about this school–a stark reminder of the privilege Jewish-Americans hold in our society and how racism against Arabs is an accepted part of our national discourse.
Here’s an excerpt from a great New York Times profile by Andrea Elliott of KGIA’s founding principal Debbie Almontaser about the concocted controversy:
In newspaper articles and Internet postings, on television and talk radio, Ms. Almontaser was branded a “radical,” a “jihadist” and a “9/11 denier.” She stood accused of harboring unpatriotic leanings and of secretly planning to proselytize her students. Despite Ms. Almontaser’s longstanding reputation as a Muslim moderate, her critics quickly succeeded in recasting her image.
The conflict tapped into a well of post-9/11 anxieties. But Ms. Almontaser’s downfall was not merely the result of a spontaneous outcry by concerned parents and neighborhood activists. It was also the work of a growing and organized movement to stop Muslim citizens who are seeking an expanded role in American public life. The fight against the school, participants in the effort say, was only an early skirmish in a broader, national struggle.
One of the more pernicious, and completely false, charges against KGIA was that the school had a political agenda to indoctrinate students to believe in “radical Islam.”
The Hebrew-language charter school, on the other hand, does have politics, namely Zionism, infused into it:
There are reminders of Israel everywhere — blue-and-white flags adorn the walls of one classroom, and another class often watches an Israeli children’s show. The students celebrated Israeli Independence Day this year. (In the parlance of 5- and 6-year-olds, the day was known as the country’s “62nd birthday,” and prompted a project of construction-paper birthday cards.)
The Obama administration adopts an imperious tone with Turkey
By Paul Woodward on June 26, 2010
Philip H Gordon is the US Assistant Secretary of State at the Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs. He sat down with an AP reporter this week to talk about Turkey.
Turkey is alienating US supporters and it needs to demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West, Gordon says. “We think Turkey remains committed to NATO, Europe and the United States, but that needs to be demonstrated,” he said. “There are people asking questions about it in a way that is new, and that in itself is a bad thing that makes it harder for the United States to support some of the things that Turkey would like to see us support.”
“There are people…” Gordon says.
And those people would be?
Oh yeah — members of the United States Congress who serve at the pleasure of the Israel lobby.
Gordon cited Turkey’s vote against a U.S.-backed United Nations Security Council resolution on new sanctions against Iran and noted Turkish rhetoric after Israel’s deadly assault on a Gaza-bound flotilla last month. The Security Council vote came shortly after Turkey and Brazil, to Washington’s annoyance, had brokered a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran as an effort to delay or avoid new sanctions.
Some U.S. lawmakers who have supported Turkey warned of consequences for Ankara since the Security Council vote and the flotilla raid that left eight Turks and one Turkish-American dead. The lawmakers accused Turkey of supporting a flotilla that aimed to undermine Israel’s blockade of Gaza and of cozying up to Iran.
The raid has led to chilling of ties between Turkey and Israel, countries that have long maintained a strategic alliance in the Middle East.
Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, expressed surprise at Gordon’s comments. He said Turkey’s commitment to NATO remains strong and should not be questioned.
“I think this is unfair,” he said.
Tan said Turkish officials have explained repeatedly to U.S. counterparts that voting against the proposed sanctions was the only credible decision after the Turkish-brokered deal with Iran. Turkey has opposed sanctions as ineffective and damaging to its interests with an important neighbor. It has said that it hopes to maintain channels with Tehran to continue looking for a solution to the standoff over Iran’s alleged nuclear arms ambitions.
“We couldn’t have voted otherwise,” Tan said. “We put our own credibility behind this thing.”
Tan said that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to discuss these issues with President Barack Obama on the margins of a summit of world economic powers in Toronto on Saturday.
Gordon said Turkey’s explanations of the U.N. episode have not been widely understood in Washington.
“There is a lot of questioning going on about Turkey’s orientation and its ongoing commitment to strategic partnership with the United States,” he said. “Turkey, as a NATO ally and a strong partner of the United States not only didn’t abstain but voted no, and I think that Americans haven’t understood why.”
Just two weeks ago, before Gordon decided his primary duty was to placate the Israel lobby, in an interview with the BBC he rejected the suggestion that the US and Turkey have become strategic competitors in the Middle East.
“I think the United States and Turkey remain strategic partners,” he said. “We have so many interests in common. We can have disagreements, and there are things we disagree on, not least the vote on Iran at the United Nations. Throughout that process we have been frank with each other about our differences. We’ve explained to them why we think it was important for countries to vote yes in the Iran resolution. They have explained to us why they think the Tehran declaration was something worth pursuing. And we’ve explained to them what we think the shortcomings are. That’s what friends and partners do.”
But can friends be so overbearing that they issue demands for a demonstration of commitment to their partnership?
The US wants Turkey to help advance America’s agenda in the Middle East. Is the Obama administration helping advance Turkey’s agenda in the region? Turkey after all is now in a much stronger position to promote regional stability than any of its Western tutors.
As deeply in debt as the United States is, there is one currency that it can use without fear of ever running short and it’s a currency whose value is appreciated in every corner of the globe. It’s called respect. A little goes a long way.
Peace campaigner, 85, classified by police as ‘domestic extremist’
By Paul Lewis and Rob Evans | The Guardian | 25 June 2010
For John Catt, protest has never been about chaining himself to a railing or blocking a road in an act of civil disobedience. The 85-year-old peace campaigner’s far milder form of dissent typically involves turning up at a demonstration with his daughter, Linda, taking out his sketch pad and drawing the scene.
However this, it seems, has been enough for police to classify Catt and his 50-year-old daughter “domestic extremists”, put their personal information on a clandestine national database and record their political activities in minute detail.
Secret files have revealed how police have systematically documented their political activities, undermining official claims that only hardcore activists were placed under surveillance.
The National Public Order Intelligence Unit (NPOIU) recorded their presence at more than 80 lawful demonstrations over four years, logging details such as their appearance, and slogans on their T-shirts.
Catt and his daughter, from Brighton, were aware that surveillance teams were often in the vicinity during their protests, but they had no idea how closely they were being monitored until their files were released under the Data Protection Act
Police said they did not legally have to disclose them, but did so to show there was “nothing sinister in what we hold”.
The Catts, who have no criminal records, said they were “shocked and terrified” when they read their files. “Our activities were totally legitimate – we were not interested in non-violent direct action,” said Linda . “My dad likes to sketch and I will hold a banner and shout a few things. But I’m careful about what I say.”
They said the most worrying aspect was the seemingly banal information the surveillance officers had been logging, from observations about their demeanour and car number plates, to notes about their conversations with local reporters.
Amid the pages of detailed logs was an entry that noted how on the morning of 25 September 2005, John Catt was “clean shaven” when he attended a demonstration by Sussex Action for Peace. The Catts have been part of a long running campaign against an arms factory in Brighton, run by the American-owned EDO MBM Technology, over sales to Israel.
Since 2004, campaigners have mounted more or less weekly demonstrations outside the factory, in particular protests at which the activists bang drums and other objects to produce a cacophony.
Catt’s artistic endeavours received particular scrutiny. “John Catt sat on a folding chair by the southern most gate of EDO MBM and appeared to be sketching,” states one of several logs. “He was using his drawing pad to sketch a picture of the protest and police presence,” said another from 10 March 2006. A separate report, about his sketch of a Guantánamo Bay detainee, noted: “John Catt was very quiet and was holding a board with orange people on it.”
Last year, anti-EDO campaigners held a series of a “anti-war creativity” workshops with music, poetry and artwork. These included an exhibition of art by Catt and others, a fact recorded on the NPOIU database as “including … the classic drawings of John Catt, veteran anti-war activist”.
When the Guardian first revealed details about a police monitoring system that keeps tabs on political activists last year, police gave assurances they were not interested in everyday campaigners. They said surveillance was needed to monitor “domestic extremists” – a term that has no legal basis but is defined by police as activists who are determined to break the law to further their political aims.
Anton Setchell, who is national co-ordinator for domestic extremism for the Association of Chief Police Officers and is responsible for the NPOIU database, said most campaigners would never be considered domestic extremists.
However, information about the Catts has been transferred to the Police National Computer in Hendon and in July 2005, they were stopped by police under the Terrorism Act after driving into the east London to help a family member move house. They later discovered police had placed a marker against their car registration on the database, triggering an alert – “of interest to public order unit, Sussex police” – each time they drove beneath an automatic number plate reading camera.
The Catts said they were particularly shocked to discover that they had been tracked for two days in Manchester in 2008, during the Labour party conference, while their involvement in events only fleetingly connected to protest activity was recorded. “At 1020 hours … seen at Lobby point on Peter Street were two anti-war protesters from Brighton, John Catt and Linda Catt”, reads the entry.
Three times police noted Linda Catt had sat in the public gallery of Brighton magistrates court, to witness the trial of fellow campaigners for alleged breaches of public order law or local bylaws arising out of the EDO MBM protests.
The final entry on John and Linda Catt’s file was on 27 September last year, after the pair marched against New Labour. The record observed that the protest had been “organised by a number of trade unions”, adding: “Seen as part of the protest was John Catt and Linda Catt”.
When asked about the Catts today, Setchell said most of the protests against EDO had been “lawful … but some have been violent and disorderly, leading to a large number of arrests”.
Police had therefore monitored the demonstrations and “a small number” of lawful protesters, including the Catts, “will have their names recorded alongside others at protest events”. He accepted the Catts had not been responsible for the violent disorder.
Last year Setchell had said: “If it is just a street type of protest, or sitting in a field or something, I will probably never ever speak to those forces about it whatsoever. I deal with the more serious stuff, that requires slightly more sophisticated analysis and co-ordination and investigation, which doesn’t mean people sitting in roads or chaining themselves to a fence.”
A sample entry from police log of the Catts’ activity on the National Public Order Intelligence Unit database:
“At 16.24 hrs on Wednesday 24th of September 2008 a Silver Car was driven to Home Farm Road by Linda Catt,” said one entry on the UK-wide system that stores information about campaigners. The Catts were among protesters campaigning to close down a local arms factory owned by EDO MBM, a US-owned firm, over sales to Israel.
“John Catt was in the front passenger seat. Upon arrival the vehicle parked close to the footpath entrance and both occupants got out of the vehicle. John Catt removed a frame piece of art work from the rear of the vehicle and put it on display. The artwork was a cartoon sketch of the EDO MBM site with the following text: ‘EDO MBM Listed on the stock exchange’. During the demonstration Linda Catt and an individual had a discussion together away from the main group.”
Rwanda ‘assassins’ kill reporter
BBC | June 25, 2010
A journalist working for a private newspaper has been shot dead in front of his house in the Rwandan capital.
Witnesses say Jean Leonard Rugambage, the acting editor of Umuvugizi newspaper, was fired on by two men who then fled in a car.
The authorities had recently suspended the paper, prompting it to start publishing online instead.
Police say they do not know who was behind the attack – the paper’s exiled chief editor has blamed the government.
‘South Africa shooting link’
Editor Jean Bosco Gasasira, who fled to Uganda in April after his paper was suspended, said Kigali had master-minded the assassination of Mr Rugambage who died in hospital after the shooting.
“I’m 100% sure it was the office of the national security services which shot him dead,” he told US state-funded radio Voice of America.
Mr Gasasira said it was because of an article published on the Umuvugizi website relating to the attempted killing last weekend of former army chief Lt Gen Faustin Kayumba Nyamwasa in South Africa.
Rwanda has denied accusations it was behind the shooting of Lt Gen Nyamwasa.
He went into exile in South Africa earlier this year after falling out with President Paul Kagame, who he accused of corruption.
Mr Kagame denies these charges and his government accuses Lt Gen Nyamwasa of being behind grenade attacks in Rwanda earlier this year.
In April, Mr Kagame reshuffled the military leadership and two high-ranking officers were also suspended and put under house arrest.
Earlier in the month, Umuvugizi was suspended for six months by the press council for inciting opposition to the government.
Its website, launched in May, is not currently accessible through Rwandan internet providers; the authorities deny involvement in blocking it.
Mr Rugambage, who is survived by his wife and a child, was acquitted of genocide crimes by a local “gacaca” court in 2006.
The BBC’s Geoffrey Mutagoma in Kigali says his death has shocked many journalists in the country.
Presidential elections are due in Rwanda in August – the second such vote since the 1994 genocide.
Human rights groups have accused the Rwandan government of repressing independent media in the country, which Kigali denies.
Mr Kagame’s government argues that it must take care to control the media and politicians to avoid a repeat of the genocide, in which some 800,000 ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus were slaughtered.
Earlier this week, UN chief Ban Ki-moon appointed Mr Kagame to co-chair a committee of “superheroes to defeat poverty” – to push for progress in achieving the UN’s Millennium Development Goals.
He has been praised for trying to modernise Rwanda’s economy since coming to power at the end of the genocide.
The Bhopal Disaster: an ongoing tragedy
By Saffi Ullah Ahmad | Pulse Media | June 26, 2010
Twenty five years after the world’s biggest industrial disaster, Union Carbide’s old pesticide factory remains untouched, haunting the crowded city of Bhopal, a constant reminder of the region’s darkest night.
On the night of 3 December 1984 the lethal gas methyl isocyanate (MIC) alongside other noxious fumes, engulfed the city of Bhopal and killed thousands. It is thought that the disaster has claimed 25,000 lives thus far, and adversely affected over 500,00. Gross negligence by Union Carbide is widely viewed as the cause of the tragedy.
Earlier last week, after a quarter century of waiting and sloppy, almost reluctant court action, lamentable sentences were passed down to seven Union Carbide India Limited (UCIL) officials. Sentences of two years were administered to some of those presiding over the corporation when the tragedy occurred; a small group of incredibly wealthy Indian men, all in their 70’s, one of whom is a billionaire, and none of whom are expected to serve their sentences. In addition to the sentencing, each of the seven men were fined a paltry £1400, an amount which would barely pay for the yearly healthcare of one of the victims, let alone serve as meaningful punishment for this appalling crime.
These convictions are so far the only to have materialized in a case that was opened the day after the tragedy in 1984. Those ultimately responsible for the tragedy, namely the corporation’s CEO and equally negligent Western officials, remain unpunished.
Survivors and campaigners have been outraged, calling last week’s decision an ‘insult’. However, as we are about to see, this is only the most recent of a long history of insults.
‘That night’
In 1969, a pesticide factory was shoddily built by Union Carbide (UC) on the outskirts of Bhopal.
As noted by Indra Sinha, controversially in the late 70s following the acquirement of several licenses, UC executives decided that the First World War gas MIC, an incredibly volatile substance 500 times deadlier than hydrogen cyanide, would be stored on site. MIC was to be used as a cost-effective intermediary for the production of the pesticide Carbaryl, even though other manufacturers had refused to use the substance on the grounds of safety. Although chemical engineers recommended, if absolutely necessary, that the gas remain stored in the smallest quantities, on this particular site the decision was taken to store the substance in a giant tank. Equally alarmingly is the fact that UC had opted to use previously unproven technology in the Bhopal plant’s MIC unit, and decided not to store the gas at an identical installation in West Virginia.
Following a poor start owing to local farmers not being able to afford their products, UC bosses decided to go on a cost cutting spree which involved the reckless enforced redundancy of maintenance staff, the use of cheaper, often defective materials in repair work, and the disengagement of safety systems such as the MIC unit’s refrigerator (the gas remains more stable when cooled). The few maintenance staff that did remain were expected to understand English safety manuals even though very few had a grasp of the language.
A 1982 safety audit by US engineers noted the filthy condition of the plant, including corroding pipelines and faulty valves, and warned of dangerous toxic release. As the situation worsened and minor gas leaks began to occur, often injuring and even killing workers, journalists and factory staff began warning locals of a terrible danger. Notably, Raj Keswani wrote a series of articles in which he claimed Bhopal was ‘about to be annihilated’ and begged the region’s Chief Minister, unsuccessfully, to investigate the factory before it became ‘Hitler’s gas chamber’.
On the night of 2 December 1984, following an explosive reaction with water, a deadly stream of gas began to seep out of the Bhopal plant’s MIC tank, as all six safety systems designed to contain such a leak failed. The density of the gas, accompanied by a gentle breeze, ensured it rolled along the ground and gradually enveloped the city. Across the city people were waking up in agony, water streaming from their eyes and noses, coughing violently as the gas attacked eye and lung tissue, as well as the central nervous system. No one quite knew what was happening, just that they should run, in whatever clothes they were wearing. In total panic, locals ran alongside dogs and even cattle, with several people being trampled to death in the ensuing commotion.
People were vomiting uncontrollably, frothing at the mouth, suffering visual impairment, and losing control of their bowels – passing urine as they ran. Others suffered convulsions, writhing uncontrollably in the moments before their end. Not even the unborn were spared; over half of all pregnant women caught up in the commotion suffered spontaneous abortions. An Indian Doctor on the scene famously stated ‘Tonight, the Bhopalis are going through Hiroshima’.
By morning Bhopal resembled a scene from hell. In all, 40 tons of MIC which wreaks havoc upon the human body in the tiniest of proportions, had escaped and thousands of bodies were scattered across the old city — along narrow alley ways, road sides and on lawns. In the days to come, the leaves of trees within roughly 40 square miles of the factory were to turn yellow, wither and drop off. Depending on religious custom, some bodies were to be buried in mass graves, and others burnt on mass pyres. Although the authorities give more conservative figures (around the 3000 mark), others estimate up to 8,000 people died that night and anywhere between 15- 25,000 since the event.
Survivors overwhelmed hospitals in which bewildered junior doctors had no idea what treatments to administer. Many were rubbing their eyes with sewage water to ease the searing pain.
Exacerbating the situation, the officials at UC refused to release extensive information they had gathered following years of internal research on the effects of MIC on the human body, nor the exact make up of the gas, calling them ‘trade secrets’, and fearing a dip in profits. With doctors having no proper treatment protocols to follow, the number of deaths multiplied and excessive amounts of drugs for temporary relief, such as steroids, antibiotics and psychotic drugs became the mainstay of medical care, each often causing their own severe side effects.
Roughly 500,000 were injured through exposure to the gas, which in the absence of winds, lingered in the city for days. Ailments directly linked to the disaster include blindness, respiratory difficulties, a variety of cancers and gynecological problems. Many survivors today cannot walk a few steps without gasping for breath, and others suffer sensory delusions, hearing voices in their heads. In addition to the multitude of medical conditions experienced by the victims, the situation wasn’t at all helped by the central government’s abrupt and unexplained decision to stop all research into the medical effects of the gas cloud in 1994.
The second wave of casualties
Adil
Today, instead of leaking gas into the skies, the old UC factory leaks deadly chemicals into the soil and ultimately into the water supply of locals.
Approximately 8,000 tons of toxic and carcinogenic chemicals lie abandoned in the old plant, including mercury, due in large part to a lack of political willpower to enforce the financing of a multimillion dollar cleanup operation. Over two decades of monsoons have washed much of these chemicals in to an underground aquifer which feeds into wells and boreholes used by locals to extract drinking water.
Having no other water supply, many of the locals have been forced to effectively poison themselves by drinking this contaminated water over the years since the disaster. The chemicals leaking from the old plant have been directly linked to a shocking variety of conditions including: skin problems, aches and pains, headaches, nausea, dizziness, anxiety, constant exhaustion, kidney failure, diabetes, a range of cancers, and tuberculosis. Not only are the original survivors still being punished, but so is a subsequent generation; prior gas exposure to mothers coupled with the consumption of these chemicals has led to thousands of gruesome birth defects, with many newborns barely recognizably human, and widespread growth retardation in children.
Despite the Supreme Court ordering that affected children be afforded health insurance, over 100,000 remain without any, and with the majority of affected families being of low social status or caste, outsiders are often reluctant to help, treating victims as untouchables.
UC likely knew of the dangers of such contamination from as early as 1980, when cattle mysteriously began dying in nearby fields. A subsequent internal study in 1989 confirmed this and UC chose not to share these findings with locals, lest cries for compensation multiply. […]
As for levels of contamination, a major water and soil study was conducted by Greenpeace in 1999. After testing samples in and around the factory, deadly chemicals were found everywhere, including in hand pumps that gushed out drinking water. In the water, levels of carbon tetrachloride and chloroform were found several hundred times higher than the US Environmental Protection Agency limits. In the soil, levels of mercury were found to be anywhere up to 6 million times higher than those found in uncontaminated soil. Similarly, organochlorides such as the banned pesticide DDT were present throughout the region.
More recent reports include one released in 2009 by the Sambhavna Trust which show a presence of large quantities of the aforementioned chemicals, as well as nickel, chromium, lead and others in vegetables, and even in the breast milk of nursing mothers. As a result of ongoing and horrific birth defects, mothers in the area had become too scared to breast feed their own children.
‘People are ill in the communities. Babies are sick. There are many deformed births. It’s as if they really hate us. As if they’re trying to punish us for protesting when they gassed us before and killed our families.’ These were the words of Sunil Kumar, an orphaned community leader (following the catastrophe), who went on to commit suicide some years ago.
As each monsoon washes more and more chemicals in to the area’s ground water, an ever increasing number of people are becoming sick. According to the International Campaign for Justice in Bhopal, upwards of 150,000 remain chronically ill and over 50,000 are not able to work.
The court battle
The day after the disaster began one of the longest running prosecutions in India’s history. Within four days of the tragedy, UC’s CEO Warren Anderson was allowed by Indian authorities to fly back — on a government plane — to the US on bail, never to return.
Recognizing a potential easy ride in Indian courts, UC managed to persuade a US court that the case be heard in India. The Manhattan District Court agreed on the provision that UC Corporation agree to abide by the Indian courts’ decision. However, when the Indian courts summoned US executives to answer criminal charges, UC executives were advised by their lawyers to claim Indian courts had no jurisdiction over them. They have been absconding ever since.
In 1989 Rajiv Gandhi’s government came to an out of court settlement with Union Carbide India Limited without consulting survivors, under which $470m — the exact sum UC was afforded by their insurers — would be paid in compensation resolving all outstanding legal issues.
At first glance this figure may appear significant, but after being divided between roughly 550,000 people, and with various administrative problems, it amounted to approximately $500 per victim to cope with a lifetime of misery, or, as Indra Sinha points out, 7p a day. This is the cost of a cup of tea. Prior to this settlement, victims had received $5 per month, and stunningly, even this figure was stingily deducted from the final pay out. Amazingly, UC also failed to take responsibility for the disaster, speaking instead of ‘sabotage’.
Just how derisory this figure was can be seen when we compare it to the pay out after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, where even Alaskan sea otters were afforded more compensation than Bhopal victims, and the recent BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico, where BP recently set aside a $20 billion fund for victims along the coastline. Not surprisingly, once news of the UC payout emerged, with investors having expected a much larger sum, their share price went through the roof.
To add to the locals’ problems, this settlement completely ignored environmental damage, despite the ever worsening contamination in the area, and overlooked second and third generation victims. Also, UC’s lawyers saw to it that further court action couldn’t be taken in the US.
In 1994, most probably as a strategy to avoid further liability and in light of threats by Indian courts to seize their assets, UC sold its Indian branch to Eveready Industries India Limited.
UC was then officially purchased by the Dow Chemical Company in 2001, a controversial corporation with a murky history. Whereas Dow was quick to set aside billions for UC asbestos workers in Texas, it immediately denied liability for UC’s doings in Bhopal, stating that the 1989 payment fulfilled their financial responsibility to the disaster.
Having legally acquired all of UC’s assets and liabilities, Dow continues to refuse to clean up the site, administer appropriate compensation or even disclose the composition of the gas leak, despite pleas even by its own shareholders, sending a dangerous message to other corporate giants.
With regard to criminal charges, in 1996 initial charges of culpable homicide were controversially diluted to criminal negligence, reducing potential maximum jail sentences of UC officials from ten years to two, explaining the recently administered sentences.
UC and Dow have been aided along the way not just by the underdeveloped tort law framework in India and the clogged legal system, but also corrupt bureaucrats and potentially even judges. Indian officials and politicians, most notably those from the BJP, are also known to have taken money from Dow, often going on to claim on public platforms that there is no water contamination in Bhopal. The prospect of Dow bringing more business to India has made officials even more reluctant to administer justice to the Bhopalis. With regard to Anderson, the Bhopal Medical Appeal believes that ‘neither the American nor the Indian government seem interested in disturbing him with an extradition.’
In light of the central governments ongoing lack of action, in 2004 campaigners for a clean water supply successfully petitioned the Supreme Court of India, which ordered the piping of safe water into affected communities. When this didn’t happen, several mothers took their damaged children to government offices in protest, only to meet severe hostility including a beating with police sticks. Many police officers wept as they carried out their orders. In a related instance in 2009, survivors chained themselves to railings outside government offices only to receive a similar response… Full article
*Shanu and Adil source site images: http://galleries.bhopal.org/main.php?g2_itemId=30
Guantanamo and presidential priorities
By Glenn Greenwald | June 26, 2010
The headline from this morning’s New York Times article by Charlie Savage says it all — not just about this issue but about the administration generally:
Closing Guantanamo Fades as a priority
Savage writes that it is “unlikely that President Obama will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013”; quotes Sen. Carl Levin as saying that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration; and describes how Sen. Lindsey Graham — who is actually trying to close the camp — is deeply frustrated with the White House’s refusal to spend time or energy to do so, quoting him as saying that the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.” So that appears to be a consensus: Guantanamo — the closing of which was one of Obama’s central campaign promises — will still be open as of 2013, by which point many of the detainees will have been imprisoned for more than a decade without charges of any kind and without any real prospect for either due process or release, at least four of those years under a President who was elected on a commitment to close that camp and restore the rule of law.
None of this is news to anyone even casually watching what’s been going on, but there are several aspects of this article which are so noteworthy for illustrating how this administration works. Let’s begin with this: Obama officials — cowardly hiding behind anonymity as usual — raise the typical excuse which they and their defenders perpetually invoke for their “failures” to fulfill their campaign positions: it’s all Congress’ fault (“They blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame,” Savage writes). It’s true that Congress has enacted measures to impede the closing of Guantanamo, and threatened to enact others, but the Obama administration’s plan was never so much to close Guantanamo as to simply re-locate it to Thompson, Illinois (GTMO North), in the process retaining one of its key, defining features — indefinite, due-process-free detention — that made it such a menace in the first place (that’s the attribute that led Candidate Obama to scorn it as a “legal black hole”).
The only meaningful way to “close Guantanamo” is to release the scores of detainees whom the administration knows are innocent and then try the rest in a real court (as Pakistan just did with Americans they accused of Terrorism). Imprisoning only those people whom you convict of crimes is a terribly radical, purist, Far Leftist concept, I know — the Fifth Amendment is so very un-Pragmatic and pre-9/11 — and that is something the administration therefore refused from the start even to consider.
But more important — and this goes to the heart of the debate I had all week with Obama defenders over his alleged inability to influence Congress — the primary reason why Congress has acted to impede the closing of Guantanamo is because the Obama White House has allowed it to, and even encouraged it to do so with its complete silence and inaction. I was accused by various Obama defenders all last week of being politically ignorant for arguing that Obama possesses substantial means of leverage to influence Congress to do what he wants, and that often, when the excuse is made that it’s not Obama’s fault because he can’t control Congress, the reality is that Congress is doing what it does because the White House is content with or even supportive of that, while pretending in public to lament it. I provided numerous examples proving that was true, none of which was answered, but one need not believe me and my starry-eyed political ignorance. Just listen to Carl Levin, who sort of knows how the process works given that he’s been in the Senate for about 400 years, explaining the real reason Guantanamo will not close:
“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee . . . . .
Mr. Levin portrayed the administration as unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence, contrasting its muted response to legislative hurdles to closing Guantánamo with “very vocal” threats to veto financing for a fighter jet engine it opposes.
Last year, for example, the administration stood aside as lawmakers restricted the transfer of detainees into the United States except for prosecution. And its response was silence several weeks ago, Mr. Levin said, as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees voted to block money for renovating the Illinois prison to accommodate detainees, and to restrict transfers from Guantánamo to other countries — including, in the Senate version, a bar on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. About 130 of the 181 detainees are from those countries.
“They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue,” Mr. Levin said of White House officials. “It’s pretty dormant in terms of their public positions.”
That — what Levin just said there — is the heart of the critique of the Obama administration which its defenders steadfastly refuse to address, opting instead to beat the same strawman over and over no matter how many times it’s pointed out what they’re doing… Full article
Obama Regime Warns Turkey Must Show Commitment to West
Al-Manar TV – 26/06/2010
The United States warned Turkey that it is alienating US supporters and needs to demonstrate its commitment to partnership with the West.
The remarks by Philip Gordon, the Obama administration’s top diplomat on European affairs, were a rare admonishment of a crucial NATO ally.
“We think Turkey remains committed to NATO, Europe and the United States, but that needs to be demonstrated,” Gordon told The Associated Press in an interview. “There are people asking questions about it in a way that is new, and that in itself is a bad thing that makes it harder for the United States to support some of the things that Turkey would like to see us support.”
Gordon cited Turkey’s vote against a US-backed United Nations Security Council resolution on new sanctions against Iran and noted Turkish rhetoric after Israel’s deadly assault on a Gaza-bound flotilla last month. The Security Council vote came shortly after Turkey and Brazil had brokered a nuclear fuel-swap deal with Iran as an effort to delay or avoid new sanctions.
Turkey’s ambassador to the United States, Namik Tan, expressed surprise at Gordon’s comments. He said Turkey’s commitment to NATO remains strong and should not be questioned. “I think this is unfair,” he said.
Tan said Turkish officials have explained repeatedly to US counterparts that voting against the proposed sanctions was the only credible decision after the Turkish-brokered deal with Iran. Turkey has opposed sanctions as ineffective and damaging to its interests with an important neighbor. It has said that it hopes to maintain channels with Tehran to continue looking for a solution to the standoff over Iran’s alleged nuclear arms ambitions. “We couldn’t have voted otherwise,” Tan said. “We put our own credibility behind this thing.”
Tan said that Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan was expected to discuss these issues with US President Barack Obama on the margins of a summit of world economic powers in Toronto, Canada, on Saturday.
Gordon said Turkey’s explanations of the UN episode have not been widely understood in Washington. “There is a lot of questioning going on about Turkey’s orientation and its ongoing commitment to strategic partnership with the United States,” he said. “Turkey, as a NATO ally and a strong partner of the United States, not only didn’t abstain but voted no, and I think that Americans haven’t understood why.”
Shalit, for example
By Uri Avnery | June 26, 2010 | Excerpt
[Gilad] Shalit has become a living symbol – a symbol of Israeli reality, of the inability of our leaders to make decisions, of their moral and political cowardice, of their inability to analyze a situation and draw conclusions.
If there had been an opportunity to free Shalit through military action, the Israeli government would have seized it eagerly.
So much is obvious, because the Israeli public always prefers solving a problem by force than doing anything that might be interpreted as weakness. The rescue of the hostages at Entebbe in 1976 is considered one of the most glorious exploits in the history of Israel, even though there was only a hair’s breadth between success and failure. It was a gamble with the lives of the 105 hostages and the soldiers, and it was successful.
In other cases, though, the gamble did not succeed. Not in Munich in 1972, when they gambled with the lives of the athletes, and lost. Not in Ma’alot in 1974, when they gambled with the lives of the schoolchildren, and lost. Not in the attempt to free the captured soldier Nachschon Wachsman in 1994, when they gambled with his life, and lost.
If there had been any chance of freeing Shalit by force, they would have risked his life, and probably lost. Fortunately for him, there has been no such chance. So far.
Actually, this is quite remarkable. Our security services have hundreds of secret collaborators in the Gaza Strip, in addition to high tech surveillance. Yet it seems that no reliable information about Shalit’s whereabouts has been obtained.
How has Hamas succeeded in this? Among other measures, by not allowing any contact with the captive – no meetings with the Red Cross or foreign dignitaries, just two short videos, almost no letters. They simply cannot be pressured. They refuse all requests of this nature.
This problem could possibly be overcome if our government had been ready to give assurances that no attempt would be made to free him by force, in return for a Hamas undertaking to let him meet with the Red Cross. To be credible, such an undertaking would probably need a guarantee by a third party, perhaps the US.
Absent such an arrangement, all the sanctimonious speeches by foreign statesmen about “letting the Red Cross meet with the soldier” are just so many empty words.
No less hypocritical are the demands of foreign personalities to “free the kidnapped soldier.”
Such demands are music to the Israeli ear, but completely disregard the fact that the subject has to be an exchange of prisoners.
Shalit is alive and breathing, a young man whose fate arouses strong human emotions. But so are the Palestinian prisoners. They are alive and breathing, and their fate, too, arouses strong human emotions. They include young people, whose lives are being wasted in prison. They include political leaders, who are being punished for simply belonging to one or another organization. They include people who, in Israeli parlance, “have blood on their hands,” and who, in Palestinian parlance, are national heroes who have sacrificed their own freedom for their people’s liberation.
The price demanded by Hamas may seem exorbitant – a thousand for one. But Israel has already paid such a price for other prisoners in the past, and that has become the standard ratio. Hamas could not accept less without losing face.
The 1,000 Palestinian prisoners have families – fathers, mothers, husbands, wives and children, brothers and sisters. Exactly like Gilad Shalit. They, too, cry out, demand, exert pressure. Hamas cannot ignore them.
The whole affair is shocking evidence of the inability of our government – both the previous and the present one – to take decisions and even to think logically.
Hamas already fixed the price four years ago, according to past precedents. Their demand has not changed since then… Full article
IOF soldiers abduct daughter of businessman, serve demolition notice
Palestine Information Center – 26/06/2010
File Photo – IOF Home Invasion
TULKAREM — Israeli occupation forces (IOF) have stormed the home of Palestinian businessman Ali Al-Dadu in Tulkarem city and kidnapped his daughter Yasmin after confiscating a number of personal computers in the house.
Local sources said that the IOF troops broke into the house before dawn Friday and thoroughly searched it, wreaking havoc in the process.
The IOF soldiers had detained Dia, Yasmin’s brother, a couple of days ago at the Karame crossing on returning from Jordan into the West Bank.
Dadu’s shop was burnt at the hands of Fatah elements after Hamas took over control of the Gaza Strip more than three years ago and his losses were estimated at millions of dollars. The businessman and his sons were repeatedly detained by Fatah militias and the IOF soldiers since then.
Hebrew press had reported that the IOF soldiers rounded up six Palestinians on Friday in northern and southern areas of the West Bank including two brothers in Qabatia, Jenin district.
Meanwhile, IOF troops delivered a demolition notice to a citizen in the northern Jordan Valley on Friday following a series of similar demolition notifications in the area.
Local sources told the PIC that the IOF soldiers handed Ahmed Nawaja’a a written order not to live or be present in the area of his residence and asked him to evacuate his home within 24 hours.
Israel seizes oxygen machines donated to PA
Haaretz | June 26, 2010
Israel confiscated seven oxygen machines en route to hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza based on the claim that there was a chance the generators attached to the machines would not be used for medical purposes, Palestinian news agency Ma’an reported Saturday.
According to Ma’an, the Ramallah-based health ministry said that the generators, which were donated to the Palestinian Authority by a Norwegian development agency, were seized by Israeli officials despite the fact that only one machine was bound for Gaza.
The generators “came under the category of possible use for non-medical purposes” if they were delivered to southern Gaza, the Palestinian health ministry said in a statement, adding that the six other machines were bound for government hospitals in the northern Gaza, inducing the European Hospital in Gaza City, the Rafdieyah hospital in Nablus, and other facilities in Ramallah and Hebron.
The Ministry of Health appealed to the Norwegian Development Agency, which supplied the machines, and asked that they intervene and demand the release of the equipment at the soonest possible date, Ma’an reported.
“Any delay in obtaining the medical equipment will negatively affect the health of patients,” the statement concluded.
2 bodies pulled from bombed Gaza tunnel
Ma’an – 26/06/2010
Gaza: Medics pulled two bodies from a Rafah-area tunnel following overnight airstrikes launched by Israeli fighter jets Friday.
Officials said the young men were inside the tunnels during the strike and were crushed by falling rock and sand.
One was identified by medics as Amer Abu Hadid, 23, while the second remains unnamed. A third was said to have been injured. All three were taken to the Abu Yousef An-Najjar Hospital in Rafah.
No injuries were reported on the strikes in northern Gaza, but severe damage to buildings was recorded.
The deaths mark the first resulting from Israeli fire since commandos boarded an aid ship in international waters and commandeered the vessels, killing eight Turkish nationals and one dual Turkish-US citizen.
Obama forgot vow of closing Gitmo?
Press TV – June 26, 2010
US President Barack Obama has sidelined efforts to close the Guantanamo prison, making it unlikely that he will fulfill his promise to close it before his term ends in 2013, US senators say.
The White House acknowledged last year that Obama will miss his initial January 2010 deadline for shutting the prison and to eventually move the detainees to one in Illinois.
“There is a lot of inertia” against closing the prison, “and the administration is not putting a lot of energy behind their position that I can see,” said Senator Carl Levin, the Michigan Democrat who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee and supports the Illinois plan.
He added that “the odds are that it will still be open” by the next presidential inauguration.
And Senator Lindsey Graham, a South Carolina Republican who supports the plan to close the plan, said the effort is “on life support and it’s unlikely to close any time soon.”
He says some fellow Republicans’ “demagoguery” and the administration’s poor planning and decision-making “paralysis,” have stymied the plan, The New York Times reported.
Some senior officials say privately that the administration has done its part, including identifying the Illinois prison, and blame Congress for failing to execute that endgame.
But Levin says the US administration is unwilling to make a serious effort to exert its influence.
Last year, for example, the administration stood aside as lawmakers restricted the transfer of detainees into the United States except for prosecution. And its response was silence several weeks ago, Levin said, as the House and Senate Armed Services Committees voted to block money for renovating the Illinois prison to accommodate detainees, and to restrict transfers from Guantanamo to other countries — including, in the Senate version, a bar on Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Somalia. About 130 of the 181 detainees are from those countries.
“They are not really putting their shoulder to the wheel on this issue,” Levin said of White House officials.
A recent Pentagon study, obtained by The New York Times, shows US taxpayers spent more than $2 billion between 2002 and 2009 on the prison.
The US Administration officials believe taxpayers would save about $180 million a year in operating costs if Guantanamo detainees were held at Thomson, which they hope Congress will allow the Justice Department to buy from the State of Illinois at least for federal inmates.
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The Lancet Accused Of Sacrificing The Poor On Pollution
By Paul Homewood | Not A Lot Of People Know That | January 18, 2018
I have highlighted much of the mendacious nonsense coming out of the Lancet concerning climate change and pollution issues.
Now a hard hitting report by Mikko Paunio, a specialist in public health matters has destroyed both the credibility and integrity of two of the Lancet’s recent papers on pollution. … continue
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