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The Dwindling of Afghanistan’s Coalition of the Willing

By DEEPAK TRIPATHI | July 13, 2010

The British government’s decision to withdraw troops from Sangin in Helmand province marks a watershed in the relentless conflict in Afghanistan. The military mission has been very costly for the United Kingdom, with a third of the total casualties sustained in one district alone. More than a hundred lives of soldiers lost and many more wounded coming home is a sign of how difficult the mission has been. In a classic display of guerrilla tactics of asymmetrical warfare, the armed opposition has refused to fight a modern army equipped with high-tech weaponry on its enemy’s terms. Instead, the insurgents have fought on their terms, using rudimentary explosive devices and small weapons with devastating effect. Reaction of Afghans in Sangin will shock many in Britain.

Writing in the Daily Telegraph (July 7, 2010), Ben Farmer reported local residents saying little that is complimentary about the British. One resident openly complained that, in their four-year deployment in Sangin, the British brought only fighting and too little development. The previous Anglo-Afghan wars have left a particularly bitter legacy, although there is also a tendency that things look far better on the other side. Afghanistan remains a fragmented country like it has been for centuries. Rubbing salt in British wounds, an Afghan from a small neighboring settlement said that areas under American control had done better. Ask people in US-controlled areas and their reaction would likely be the opposite. Afghans regularly protest against civilian deaths at the hands of US-led occupation forces all over the country, although many die in suicide attacks directed against people supposed to be cooperating with NATO and the US-installed government in Kabul. Among the latest this month were anti-US and anti-government demonstrations in the northern city of Mazar-i-Sharif. Residents come out to protest against civilians killings in the south and the east. News travels fast in that devastated country.

‘Afghanistan: Now It’s America’s War,’ said the Independent newspaper’s front-page story loudly in black. For eight years, the British people’s growing unease had been ignored. The United Kingdom, with a population of 62 million and fewer than 200000 regulars (and 42000 volunteers) in the armed forces, had been punching way above its weight. Former prime minister Tony Blair’s personal kinship with George W Bush in his ‘war on terror’ cost the United Kingdom dearly, in economic, political, moral terms. With Blair’s New Labour losing the May 2010 general election, it was relatively easier for the emerging Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government to face up to the reality of the Afghan conflict. The inevitable was bound to happen.

There has been a distinct cooling in the relationship between London and Washington since President Obama’s inauguration. Partly it is because President Bush and Prime Minister Blair are no longer in power. But equally significant, Britain’s new prime minister, David Cameron, and Obama have not made a good start. The Conservative Party is generally pro-military and, in opposition in parliament, voted for war against Afghanistan in 2001 and Iraq in 2003. The Liberal Democratic Party, with a much more democratic structure, has significant sections in its membership opposed to, or circumspect about, war. The overall effect of a coalition between the two parties now runs counter to Britain’s continuing involvement in the Afghan conflict that has taken a heavy toll. The rhetoric about continued military involvement in Afghanistan is gloomy. Official statements emphasize the need for British troops to come home as soon as Afghanistan is ‘stable’. What it means remains undefined. The timescale often mentioned is 3-4 years, meaning before the next election.

Initial encounters have a determining effect on relations between leaders. From this perspective, Obama and Cameron did not appear to connect well. Of course, diplomatic niceties were maintained. The British are particularly adept at that. But the difference of emphasis in Washington and London over Afghanistan cannot be hidden. And the megaphone diplomacy over the BP oil spill laid bare the reality that the days of ‘special relationship’ – an exaggerated claim – were decidedly over. President Obama did not hesitate to resort to raw nationalism undermining that ‘special relationship’ to deflect domestic criticism of his handling of the environmental disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

In doing so, Obama stepped back a decade into the past before British Petroleum and Amoco merged to form an international oil giant that was regarded as much American as it was British until the accident. He resorted to new rhetoric, way below his previous standards, to speak of an assault on US shores (not true because the rig that broke down was extracting oil within US continental waters). The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig leased by BP was owned by Transocean, a company that traces its origins to Alabama in the 1950s. With its headquarters now based in Switzerland and offices in the United States and other countries, Transocean quenches the business ethos of ‘drill baby drill’ very well. And Obama’s ‘kicking ass’ remark was not the sort of political language heard in Europe. Senior figures, including ex-diplomats and politicians, began to react publicly, calling for the need to ‘send a message’ to the Americans. A telephone call from the British prime minister David Cameron followed. The conversation was courteous, the message clear. The oil disaster was saddening and frustrating. But it would be in no one’s interest to crush BP and to let the temperature rise any further. Obama responded that he had no interest in undermining the value of BP, but that was precisely the result. Obama was accused of holding ‘his boot on the throat’ of pensioners whose incomes depended on investments in the company.

Expediency, always a strong motive, propels political leaders to do the unexpected. They are not averse to injecting political venom into the body of an ally when they want to deflect domestic criticism. Eight years on, the ‘coalition of the willing’ President George W Bush assembled following his infamous threat ‘you’re either with us, or against us’ to invade Afghanistan and then Iraq, that alliance is unraveling. And we may be witnessing the beginning of the end of yet another phase of great power adventurism in Afghanistan.

Deepak Tripathi set up the BBC Bureau in Afghanistan in the early 1990s and was the resident correspondent in Kabul. His latest book Overcoming the Bush Legacy in Iraq and Afghanistan is available from Amazon.com. He can be reached at: DandATripathi@gmail.com.

July 13, 2010 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | Leave a comment

The spot-and-shoot game, remote-controlled killing

By JONATHAN COOK – July 13, 2010

It is called Spot and Shoot. Operators sit in front of a TV monitor from which they can control the action with a PlayStation-style joystick.

The aim: to kill terrorists.

Played by: young women serving in the Israeli army.

Spot and Shoot, as it is called by the Israeli military, may look like a video game but the figures on the screen are real people — Palestinians in Gaza — who can be killed with the press of a button on the joystick.

The female soldiers, located far away in an operations room, are responsible for aiming and firing remote-controlled machine-guns mounted on watch-towers every few hundred metres along an electronic fence that surrounds Gaza.

The system is one of the latest “remote killing” devices developed by Israel’s Rafael armaments company, the former weapons research division of the Israeli army and now a separate governmental firm.

According to Giora Katz, Rafael’s vice-president, remote-controlled military hardware such as Spot and Shoot is the face of the future. He expects that within a decade at least a third of the machines used by the Israeli army to control land, air and sea will be unmanned.

The demand for such devices, the Israeli army admits, has been partly fuelled by a combination of declining recruitment levels and a population less ready to risk death in combat.

Oren Berebbi, head of its technology branch, recently told an American newspaper: “We’re trying to get to unmanned vehicles everywhere on the battlefield … We can do more and more missions without putting a soldier at risk.”

Rapid progress with the technology has raised alarm at the United Nations. Philip Alston, its special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions, warned last month of the danger that a “PlayStation mentality to killing” could quickly emerge.

According to analysts, however, Israel is unlikely to turn its back on hardware that it has been at the forefront of developing – using the occupied Palestinian territories, and especially Gaza, as testing laboratories.

Remotely controlled weapons systems are in high demand from repressive regimes and the burgeoning homeland security industries around the globe.

“These systems are still in the early stages of development but there is a large and growing market for them,” said Shlomo Brom, a retired general and defence analyst at the Institute of National Security Studies at Tel Aviv University.

The Spot and Shoot system — officially known as Sentry Tech — has mostly attracted attention in Israel because it is operated by 19- and 20-year-old female soldiers, making it the Israeli army’s only weapons system operated exclusively by women.

Female soldiers are preferred to operate remote killing devices because of a shortage of male recruits to Israel’s combat units. Young women can carry out missions without breaking the social taboo of risking their lives, said Mr Brom.

The women are supposed to identify anyone suspicious approaching the fence around Gaza and, if authorised by an officer, execute them using their joysticks.

The Israeli army, which plans to introduce the technology along Israel’s other confrontation lines, refuses to say how many Palestinians have been killed by the remotely controlled machine-guns in Gaza. According to the Israeli media, however, it is believed to be several dozen.

The system was phased-in two years ago for surveillance, but operators were only able to open fire with it more recently. The army admitted using Sentry Tech in December to kill at least two Palestinians several hundred metres inside the fence.

The Haaretz newspaper, which was given rare access to a Sentry Tech control room, quoted one soldier, Bar Keren, 20, saying: “It’s very alluring to be the one to do this. But not everyone wants this job. It’s no simple matter to take up a joystick like that of a Sony PlayStation and kill, but ultimately it’s for defence.”

Audio sensors on the towers mean that the women hear the shot as it kills the target. No woman, Haaretz reported, had failed the task of shooting what the army calls an “incriminated” Palestinian.

The Israeli military, which enforces a so-called “buffer zone” — an unmarked no-man’s land — inside the fence that reaches as deep as 300 metres into the tiny enclave, has been widely criticised for opening fire on civilians entering the closed zone.

In separate incidents in April, a 21-year-old Palestinian demonstrator was shot dead and a Maltese solidarity activist wounded when they took part in protests to plant a Palestinian flag in the buffer zone. The Maltese woman, Bianca Zammit, was videoing as she was hit.

It is unclear whether Spot and Shoot has been used against such demonstrations.

The Israeli army claims Sentry Tech is “revolutionary”. And that will make its marketing potential all the greater as other armies seek out innovations in “remote killing” technology.

Rafael is reported to be developing a version of Sentry Tech that will fire long-range guided missiles.

Another piece of hardware recently developed for the Israeli army is the Guardium, an armoured robot-car that can patrol territory at up to 80km per hour, navigate through cities, launch “ambushes” and shoot at targets. It now patrols the Israeli borders with Gaza and Lebanon.

Its Israeli developers, G-Nius, have called it the world’s first “robot soldier”. It looks like a first-generation version of the imaginary “robot-armour” worn by soldiers in the popular recent sci-fi movie Avatar.

Rafael has produced the first unmanned naval patrol boat, the “Protector”, which has been sold to Singapore’s navy and is being heavily marked in the US. A Rafael official, Patrick Bar-Avi, told the Israeli business daily Globes: “Navies worldwide are only now beginning to examine the possible uses of such vehicles, and the possibilities are endless.”

But Israel is most known for its role in developing “unmanned aerial vehicles” – or drones, as they have come to be known. Originally intended for spying, and first used by Israel over south Lebanon in the early 1980s, today they are increasingly being used for extrajudicial executions from thousands of feet in the sky.

In February Israel officially unveiled the 14 metre-long Heron TP drone, the largest ever. Capable of flying from Israel to Iran and carrying more than a ton of weapons, the Heron was tested by Israel in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in winter 2008, when some 1,400 Palestinians were killed.

More than 40 countries now operate drones, many of them made in Israel, although so far only the Israeli and US armies have deployed them as remote-controlled killing machines. Israeli drones are being widely used in Afghanistan.

Smaller drones have been sold to the German, Australian, Spanish, French, Russian, Indian and Canadian armies. Brazil is expected to use the drone to provide security for the 2014 World Cup championship, and the Panamanian and Salvadoran governments want them too, ostensibly to run counter-drug operations.

Despite its diplomatic crisis with Ankara, Israel was reported last month to have completed a deal selling a fleet of 10 Herons to the Turkish army for $185 million.

Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

July 13, 2010 Posted by | Full Spectrum Dominance, Militarism, War Crimes | 1 Comment

U.S. To Jordan: Change Your Nuclear Program or We’ll Cut Aid

By Bart Farrell | IMEMC | July 13, 2010

Reports from Arab media sources, on Monday, indicated that U.S. authorities are demanding that Jordan share its uranium enrichment with Israel.

The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordon could lose its pecuniary aid from the United States should it continue to enhance its nuclear program without cooperation with Israel, Israeli news source Ynet reported.

Amman ignored Israeli requests to be involved in the extraction and enrichment of uranium which prompted the threat from Washington. The U.S. and Jordan discussed Jordan’s nuclear plan for six months, but the Jordanians were unable to obtain US approval.

The program began three years ago when over 65,000 tons of uranium ore, one of the largest deposits in the world, was discovered in the Jordanian desert.

All but five percent of Jordan’s energy is imported from other countries, primarily Saudi Arabia and Iraq. The enrichment program is a means by which The Hashemite Kingdom can shed some of its dependence on foreign sources of energy while gaining the ability to export power throughout the region.

Yet the Jordanian economy is hinged on American aid which limits its ability to hold its ground in talks with Washington. This year, the US transferred at least $665 million during the first half of the year, over half of which was for financial aid and the rest for military aid.

The aid Jordan receives from the US is to ameliorate Jordanian financial and social problems. Additionally the aid is sent to bolster national security as the US sees Jordan as a partner in the War on Terror.

King Abdullah condemned Israel for impeding his country’s efforts in its nuclear program last month. The king told the Wall Street Journal that France and South Korea were being persuaded by the Israeli government to not sell nuclear technologies to Jordan. He added that Israeli-Jordanian relations have sunk to a point they have not been since the two countries signed a peace agreement after being in a state of war for nearly half a century.

July 13, 2010 Posted by | Nuclear Power, Wars for Israel | 1 Comment

Abducted Iranian at Iran’s office in US

Press TV – July 13, 2010

Iranian academic Shahram Amiri, who was abducted by the US last year, has been escorted by American forces to Iran’s interest section in Washington.

IRIB reported on Tuesday that Amiri took refuge in Iran’s interest section in Washington, urging an “immediate return” to Iran.

The Pakistani Embassy in Washington preserves Iran’s interests in the United States, since the two countries have no diplomatic relations.

In collaboration with Saudi forces, US security forces kidnapped Amiri while he was on a pilgrimage in Saudi Arabia in June 2009 and took him to America. Since then, two videos and one audio message featuring him have emerged.

In the first video, Amiri said that he was abducted “in a joint operation by terror and kidnap teams from the US intelligence service, CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) and Saudi Arabia’s Istikhbarat” from Medina.

In the second video, he contradicted his earlier statements, saying that he was in the US of his own free will to further his education, dismissing all rumors about his defection.

However, in the latest audio message obtained by Iran’s intelligence sources, Amiri insists that he was offered $10 million to appear on CNN and announce that he had willingly defected to the US.

Holding the US accountable for Amiri’s abduction, the Iranian Foreign Ministry summoned the Swiss charge d’affaires, whose embassy represents US interests in Iran, earlier this month and handed over new documents related to the abduction of the Iranian national by the CIA.

Analysts say US intelligence officials decided to free Amiri after they failed to advance their propaganda campaign against Iran’s nuclear program via fabricating interviews with the Iranian national.

July 13, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | 1 Comment

Info commissioner finds saintly CRU crew guilty

By Andrew Orlowski • The Register • 8th July 2010

Climatic Research Unit director Phil Jones was being whisked back to his desk at the University of East Anglia by the University’s Russell enquiry yesterday.

But with exquisite timing, the Information Commissioner’s office chose the same day to confirm that CRU had twice broken the Freedom of Information regulations – once by ignoring the request, and twice by refusing the actual data. The breaches carry a civil penalty.

More is to come, as this was one of four complaints by David Holland under consideration by the ICO, which adjudicates on both FOI requests and EIRs, or Environmental Information Regulations. Other bodies include the Department of Energy and Climate Change (DECC) and the Met Office.

Bodies involved in the IPCC’s procedures are obliged to “ensure that the assessment was undertaken on a comprehensive objective open and transparent basis; … ensure that all written expert and government review comments were retained in an open archive for a period of at least 5 years, and ensure that Review Editors who supervised the assessment submitted a ‘written report’ – by the IPCC’s own rules.

The Met Office initially responded to Holland by claiming that it had destroyed the data – it had kept no working papers and no correspondence. Then the Met changed its excuse. It said it hadn’t destroyed the data – but that its Director of Climate Science John Mitchell OBE (who has since left the Met) was conducting his work as Review Editor for the IPCC in a personal capacity, and so it wouldn’t say what he was doing.

When it emerged that the taxpayer had paid for Mitchell to perform his work for the IPCC (the Met even met his expenses), the excuse for refusal changed once more, claming it wasn’t in the public interest.

Holland tried again, under EIR Regulation 11, hoping for a speedier result than the prevarication with which public bodies meet FOI requests. Under FOI they can stall until they are no longer obliged to disclose the information. CRU refused to provide the reviewers’ comments outright.

The Met stalled, at first refusing to consider the request under EIR rules, then claiming a loophole, regulation 2(1) that “These archiving and contribution procedures, instructions and correspondence are administrative information and not environmental information”

The UEA claimed the same loophole as the Met. In yesterday’s ruling, the ICO reminded UEA that the 2(1) could not be interpreted so narrowly, and that public bodies had to interpret it as widely as possible. His notes are here.

The damning archive of emails, source code and station data was called FOIA.ZIP, and is believed to have been to have been compiled by an insider.

In January, the ICO said it had prima facie evidence that CRU academics had broken the law – repeatedly promising to evade requests and asking colleagues to remove data that Holland had requested. The evasion began in 2005, long before the trickle of polite requests became a deluge last year. In one case, Jones even requested Briffa to delete data the very day after one of Holland’s requests.

Remarkably, the Russell inquiry did not ask Jones whether he deleted any email. Russell’s report cites two of the most damning deletion requests, then declares: “There seems clear incitement to delete emails, although we have seen no evidence of any attempt to delete information in respect of a request already made.”

One of the inquiry team, Lancet editor Richard Horton declared in a newspaper article that this would be the “final inquiry”. He’s either being hasty, or optimistic. MP Graham Stringer described the Russell inquiry as inadequate and called for Parliament to re-open an investigation.

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July 12, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Bad News For Holland

By Steve Goddard | July 12, 2010

The World Cup was bad news for Holland, but that isn’t what I am talking about.

The world’s preeminent climatologist Dr. James Hansen (who is well known for quiet understatement) has forecast that Holland will drown in the next century. Looks like East Anglia is doomed too. Is that a bad thing?

If that isn’t bad enough, NASA’s Cape Canaveral, Key West, and Miami are toast!

Dr. Hansen says :

I find it almost inconceivable that “business as usual” climate change will not result in a rise in sea level measured in metres within a century.

According to the University of Colorado, sea level has been rising at 3.2 mm/yr since 1994, and has generally been slowing down over the last five years (except for the El Niño spike.)

http://sealevel.colorado.edu/current/sl_noib_global_sm.jpg

That means it will only take 312 years to rise one metre. Which is not far off from what it has been doing for the last century.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/images/thumb/0/0f/Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png/700px-Recent_Sea_Level_Rise.png

It is imperative that we make plans to protect Holland. First step is to hire Hansen to put his finger in the dike. Second step is to teach their strikers how to kick the ball somewhere besides straight to the goalkeeper.

At least they didn’t lose a penalty shootout this year.

July 12, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | 1 Comment

Witch-hunt Begins in Israeli Schools and Colleges

By Jonathan Cook – Nazareth – July 12, 2010

Hundreds of Israeli college professors have signed a petition accusing the education minister of endangering academic freedoms after he threatened to “punish” any lecturer or institution that supports a boycott of Israel.

The backlash against Gideon Saar, a member of the prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud party, comes after a series of moves suggesting he is trying to stamp a more stridently right-wing agenda on the Israeli education system.

The education minister has outraged the 540 professors who signed the petition by his open backing of a nationalist youth movement, Im Tirtzu, which demands that teachers be required to prove their commitment to right-wing Zionism.

Two of Mr Saar’s predecessors, Yossi Sarid and Yuli Tamir, are among those who signed the petition, which calls on the minister to “come to your senses … before it’s too late to save higher education in Israel”.

Mr Saar’s campaign to “re-Zionise” the education system, including introducing a new right-wing Jewish studies syllabus and bringing soldiers into classrooms, has heightened concerns that he is stoking an atmosphere increasingly hostile to left-wing academics and human-rights activists.

Neve Gordon, a politics professor at Ben Gurion University in Beersheva who called for an academic boycott of Israel last year, has reported receiving death threats, as has a school teacher who refused to participate in Mr Saar’s flagship programme to encourage high-school recruitment to the Israeli military.

Daniel Gutwein, a professor of Jewish history at Haifa University, said: “A serious red flag is raised when the education minister joins in the de-legitimisation of the academic establishment. This is a method to castrate and abolish Israeli academia.”

Mr Saar’s sympathies for Im Tirtzu were first revealed earlier this year when he addressed one of its conferences, telling delegates the organisation would be “blessed” for its “hugely vital” work.

The youth movement emerged in 2006 among students demanding that the government rather than ordinary soldiers be held to account for what was seen as Israel’s failure to crush Hizbollah during that year’s attack on Lebanon. It has rapidly evolved into a potent right-wing pressure group.

Its biggest success to date has been a campaign last year against Israeli human rights groups that assisted a United Nations inquiry led by Judge Richard Goldstone in investigating war crimes committed during Israel’s assault on Gaza in 2008. The human rights organisations are now facing possible government legislation to restrict their activities.

Im Tirtzu’s latest campaign, against what it calls “the reign of left-wing terror” in the education system, was backed by Mr Saar during a parliamentary debate last month. He told MPs he took very seriously a report by the movement claiming that anti-Zionist professors have taken over university politics departments and are silencing right-wing colleagues and students.

Mr Saar also warned that calls for boycotts against Israel were “impossible to accept” and that he was talking to higher education officials about taking “action” this summer, hinting that he would cut funds for the professors involved and their institutions.

Yossi Ben Artzi, the rector of Haifa University and the most senior university official to criticise Mr Saar, warned him against “monitoring and denouncing” academics. He added that the Im Tirtzu report “smells of McCarthyism”.

The universities are already disturbed by a bill submitted by 25 MPs last month that would make it a criminal offence for Israelis to “initiate, encourage, or aid” a boycott against Israel and require them to pay compensation to those harmed by it.

The bill is likely to be treated sympathetically by the government, which is worried about the growing momentum of boycott drives both internationally and in the occupied West Bank. Mr Netanyahu has called the emergence of a boycott movement inside Israel a “national scandal”.

Prof Gordon, who wrote a commentary in the Los Angeles Times a year ago supporting a boycott, said Im Tirtzu had contributed to a growing “atmosphere of violence” in the country and on campuses.

Hundreds of students at his university have staged demonstrations demanding his dismissal. He was also recently sent a letter from someone signing himself “Im Tirtzu” calling the professor a “traitor” and warning: “I will reach Ben Gurion [University] to kill you.”

Prof Gordon said: “I have tenure and Im Tirtzu cannot easily get me fired. But they are trying to become the ‘guards at the gate’ to make sure other academics do not follow in my path.”

Only three Israeli academics have so far openly endorsed a boycott, he added, with many others fearful that they will be punished if they do so. But Im Tirtzu and its supporters were using the issue as a pretext for cracking down on academics critical of rightwing policy. He called Israel an increasingly “proto-fascist” state.

Prof Gordon cited the recent case of Assaf Oren, a statistics lecturer and peace activist who had been told he was the leading candidate for a post in Ben Gurion’s industrial engineering department until right-wing groups launched a campaign against him.

In a further sign of what Prof Gordon and others have labelled a McCarthyite climate, MPs in the parliamentary education committee — which has come to closely reflect Mr Saar’s views — summoned for questioning two head teachers of prestigious schools after they criticised official policies.

One, Ram Cohen, has condemned Israel’s occupation of the Palestinians, while the other, Zeev Dagani, has spoken against the programme to send army officers into classrooms to encourage pupils to enlist.

Mr Dagani was the only head teacher in the 270 selected schools to reject the programme, saying he opposed “the blurring of boundaries when officers come and teach the teachers how to educate”. He subsequently received a flood of death threats.

The education ministry has announced a new core curriculum subject of Jewish studies in schools that concentrates on nationalist and religious themes and is likely to be taught by private rightwing and settler organisations.

Avi Sagi, a philosopher at Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv, warned in the liberal Haaretz newspaper that the syllabus offered “an opening for dangerous indoctrination”.

A modern history curriculum published this month has been similarly criticised for leaving out study of the Oslo peace process and Palestinian politics.

Also in the sights of education officials are hundreds of Arab nursery schools, many of them established by the Islamic Movement. Zevulun Orlev, head of the education committee, has accused the schools of “poisoning the minds” of Arab children in Israel.

Mr Saar appointed a special committee last month to inspect the schools and shut them down if they were found to be teaching “anti-Israel” material.

Arab MPs have called the claims “ridiculous”, pointing out that the schools were set up after the education ministry failed to build nursery schools in Arab communities.

– Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His latest books are “Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the Plan to Remake the Middle East” (Pluto Press) and “Disappearing Palestine: Israel’s Experiments in Human Despair” (Zed Books). His website is www.jkcook.net.

July 12, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Full Spectrum Dominance | Leave a comment

Guyana recommits to peaceful resolution of border issue with Venezuela

GINA – July 10, 2010

GEORGETOWN, Guyana — Prime Minister Samuel Hinds said Guyana looks forward to working with Venezuela in resolving the border issue under the aegis of the new mechanism employed by the ‘Good Officer Process’ of the United Nations Secretary General aimed at assisting both countries to find a solution.

Hinds was speaking at the 199th Independence Anniversary of Venezuela on July 8.

The Prime Minister said the commitment to the principle of comity among nations, non-interaction in the internal affairs of sovereign states and the peaceful coexistence of all nations remain the cornerstone of Guyana’s foreign policy.

“We are pleased Venezuela is one of the countries promoting adherence to these standards which is gaining not only expressions of support but growing commitment from the international community.”

Prime Minister Hinds stated that President Bharrat Jagdeo is expected to visit Venezuela on the invitation of President Hugo Chavez and it is hoped that the discussions will provide added political impetus to the development of relations between the two countries.

Guyana eagerly anticipates the convening of the Fifth Meeting of the Guyana/Venezuela high level bilateral commission which has the potential to provide the drive for a more improved programme of functional cooperation, the Prime Minister said.

Venezuela and Guyana signed a rice trade agreement on October 21, 2009 in which Guyana would supply the oil-rich nation with 10,000 tons of white rice and 40,000 tons of paddy. To date over 17,000 tons of paddy has been delivered.

In the energy sector Guyana continues to benefit from the Petro-Caribe agreement with the provision of credit on preferential terms for the purchase of fuel.

Prime Minister Hinds mentioned that the partial financing of fuel purchases under the Petro-Caribe agreement has enabled the government to create a foreign exchange fund from which the latest power generating station of the Guyana Power and Light (GPL) was financed.

That station has been providing a very much needed 20 megawatts of new, reliable power.
Venezuela has also partnered with Guyana in advancing the welfare of vulnerable groups with the construction of the Rehabilitation and Reintegrated Centre at Onverwagt, West Coast Berbice.

When completed the centre would accommodate 200 males and 100 females in separate dormitories and would include medical, recreational, kitchen, conference and dining facilities as well as production mechanism for those desirous of gainful employment.

In relation to agriculture, the Venezuelan Government has aided in improving the life of the underprivileged through the provision of funding from the ALBA Food Fund.

“That assistance, which seeks to further develop and improve the quality of smaller agri producers, including diary producers is timely. It would inevitably contribute to the strengthening of the agri industry thus enhancing food security and helping Guyana increase its potential to export agricultural produce in the region and further a field while at the same time enhancing the livelihood of the poor in rural Guyana,” Prime Minister Hinds declared.

He noted that Venezuela continues to play a vanguard role in the promotion of programmes that would bring direct benefit to the people of South America and the Caribbean especially those in small economic and vulnerable groups within the hemisphere.

“July 5th symbolizes not only the birth of the independent nation of Venezuela but also the celebration of the dreams and aspirations of the regional era for a free and independent hemisphere,” the Prime Minister added.

Today that vision is what gives member states of the continent the determination to further the cause for deeper and closer relationships among Caribbean and South America countries aimed at promoting integration and cooperation among member states, he said.

July 12, 2010 Posted by | Economics | Leave a comment

Ireland seeks to block Israel’s access to data on EU citizens

By Ora Coren | Haaretz | July 11, 2010

Ireland is seeking to stop a European Union initiative that would enable Israel to receive sensitive information about European citizens, due to concerns about the use that Israel would make of this information, the Irish minister for justice said over the weekend.

In what may be another blow to Israel’s international status, Dermott Ahern said that since Israel allegedly used forged Irish passports to carry out the hit on Hamas official Mohammed al-Mabhouh in Dubai, Israel should not be allowed access to this data. Israel has not admitted to a role in the assassination.

Under a plan put forward at the beginning of the year, the European organizations for protecting individuals’ privacy agreed that Israeli companies and European companies should be able to exchange information about customers.

For example, this would mean that an Israeli customer of a local cell phone company, say, Pelephone, would be able to use his phone to connect to the Internet, say, in Italy, and the Italian telecom would be able to receive his personal data from Pelephone and charge his account accordingly. The same would be true for people with European cell phones in Israel who wanted to use Israeli networks.

In addition, multinational corporations would be able to entrust Israeli companies to secure their databases, and the data could be stored on servers in Israel. Plus, information about employees could be passed freely between European and Israeli branches of the same company.

In agreeing to grant this access, the EU authorities decided that Israel had proper information protection systems in place.

However, the plan still needs to be ratified by the government of each individual EU member country before it can take force.

Beyond easing companies’ operations, the plan is also intended to make it easier for the authorities to catch cases of money laundering.

Currently, passing data between Israel and Europe is dependent on explicit contracts, which fund many a lawyer’s income. The initiative would do away with one of the last remaining trade barriers with Europe.

July 11, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | 1 Comment

Amazongate: At last we reach the source

By Christopher Booker | The Telegraph | July 10, 2010

Last week, after six months of evasions, obfuscation, denials and retractions, a story which has preoccupied this column on and off since January came to a startling conclusion. It turns out that one of the most widely publicised statements in the 2007 report of the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change – a claim on which tens of billions of dollars could hang – was not based on peer-reviewed science, as repeatedly claimed, but originated solely from anonymous propaganda published on the website of a small Brazilian environmental advocacy group.

The ramifications of this discovery stretch in many directions. First, it seems to show that the IPCC – whose reports governments rely on to justify presenting mankind with the largest bill in history – has been in serious breach of its own rules.

Second, it raises hefty question marks over the credibility of the world’s richest and most powerful environmental pressure group, the WWF, credited by the IPCC as the source of its unsupported claim.

And third, it focuses attention once more on a bizarre scheme, backed by the UN and promoted by the World Bank, whereby the WWF has been hoping to share in profits estimated at $60 billion, paid for by firms all over the developed world.

“Amazongate”, it may be recalled, was one of the rash of scandals which rocked the authority of the IPCC last winter, when it was revealed that many of the more alarmist statements in its 2007 report originated not from peer-reviewed science but from papers written by environmental pressure groups. One which aroused particular controversy was a warning that climate change was putting at risk up to 40 per cent of the Amazon rainforest. Chapter 13 of the IPCC’s Working Group II report on “climate impacts” specifically claimed that “up to 40 per cent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation”. It went on to say that this would cause such chaos in local climate systems that the forest could rapidly revert to savannah.

The only source cited for this claim was the Global Review of Forest Fires, a paper written for WWF and the International Union for Conservation of Nature in 2000, the lead author of which was an environmental activist and freelance journalist. This in turn appeared to cite a paper published in 1999 by a team led by Dr Daniel Nepstad, “senior scientist” with another advocacy group closely linked to the WWF, the Woods Hole Research Center. However, Nepstad’s paper was primarily concerned not with climate change but with the impact of logging and fires.

When this created a storm last January, the WWF quickly issued a “clarification”, stating that its own paper “does not say that 40 per cent of the Amazon forest is at risk from climate change”. But it went on to say that the real source of the claim quoted by the IPCC was a document, Fire in the Amazon, published by the “respected Instituto de Pesquiza Ambiental da Amazonia (IPAM)”. Headed by Nepstad, IPAM is a Brazilian advocacy group, also closely linked with the Woods Hole Research Center.

The document cited by the WWF, which it later described, after a full internal inquiry, as a “report”, proved remarkably difficult to track down. Since then, both the WWF and Dr Nepstad have cited other papers in support of their claim – but none of these provided any support for the specific claim about the impact of climate change made by the IPCC.

Only now, after I was able to confront them with evidence from an internet archive, has the WWF finally admitted the precise origin of the IPCC’s much-quoted claim. Fire in the Amazon, it turns out, was not a “report” or a scientific paper but, as the WWF now acknowledges, a “text published by IPAM… on its website in 1999”. It was merely a brief, anonymous and unreferenced note on the exposure of the forest to fire risks, posted in February 1999 and taken down four years later. Here, at last, is the sole source for the statement later published by the IPCC.

The original read: “Probably 30-40 per cent of the forests of the Brazilian Amazon are sensitive to small reductions in the amount of rainfall.” This was hyped up in the final drafting of the IPCC report, to claim that “up to 40 per cent of the Amazonian forests could react drastically to even a slight reduction in precipitation”. “Brazilian Amazon” – only around half the total rainforest area – was changed to include the entire forest. The word “sensitive” was changed to “react drastically”. And the original IPAM note had made no mention at all of climate change.

To begin with, this would seem to justify a formal complaint to the IPCC that it was acting in breach of its own rules. Annex 2 of its rules of procedure lays down that non-peer-reviewed material should only be cited when it has been subjected to rigorous critical appraisal and that “each chapter team should review the quality and validity of each source before including results from the source into an IPCC report”.

Last week I put it to the IPCC that it should at least acknowledge this blatant breach of its rules and withdraw the passage, as it did last winter when it was revealed that it had no scientific basis for claiming that Himalayan glaciers could disappear by 2035. To date I have had no reply.

Neither WWF nor Woods Hole come well out of this story. In seeking to justify their part in the IPCC’s statement, they have cited other studies which they claim support it – but neither, until now, has been honest enough to admit that it was based on an unsubstantiated website claim.

This curious episode may also point to another reason why WWF and Woods Hole have been so active in recent years to promote concern over the danger of global warming for the Amazon rainforest. As I revealed here on March 20, they have been closely allied in support of a scheme known as REDD (Reduction in Emissions from Deforestation and Degradation of Tropical Forests). Its aim is to turn the CO2 in forest trees into “carbon credits”, saleable on the world market to allow firms to continue emitting CO2. Backed by $80 million from the World Bank, WWF, Woods Hole and IPAM are partners in a consortium, supported by the Brazilian government, to protect and manage a vast area of forest in the Tumucumaque region, in return for which they would have the right to sell its carbon credits. In 2007 Dr Nepstad published a formula which would allow the carbon contained in the entire forest to be valued at $60 billion.

Although the REDD scheme was approved in principle at December’s UN Copenhagen conference, two serious snags remain. First, it has yet to be approved in detail (although they still hope to achieve this in Cancun later this year). Second, the US Senate still hasn’t passed its cap and trade bill, which would open up a lucrative new market for anyone involved in carbon trading, such as those with a stake in REDD.

Finally, we may recall, another newspaper recently published a prominent “correction” to its earlier report on Amazongate – accepting that “the IPCC’s Amazon statement is supported by peer-reviewed scientific evidence” and that this was “based on research by the respected IPAM which did relate to the impact of climate change”. Since neither of these statements seems to be true, perhaps we can look forward to a retraction of the retraction?

Equally unhappy may be all those global warming enthusiasts who took this climbdown as licence to crow shamelessly over those of us who, last January, helped to expose Amazongate as a major IPCC system failure. The IPCC, they chorused, had been totally vindicated, the climate change sceptics had been utterly routed. Today, I fear, it is they who have been put to rout and we who have been vindicated.

July 11, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

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