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Arundhati Roy Responds to Threat of Arrest for Sedition

Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice.

Arundhati Roy | Pulse Media | October 26, 2010

Kashmir — I write this from Srinagar, Kashmir. This morning’s papers say that I may be arrested on charges of sedition for what I have said at recent public meetings on Kashmir. I said what millions of people here say every day. I said what I, as well as other commentators have written and said for years. Anybody who cares to read the transcripts of my speeches will see that they were fundamentally a call for justice. I spoke about justice for the people of Kashmir who live under one of the most brutal military occupations in the world; for Kashmiri Pandits who live out the tragedy of having been driven out of their homeland; for Dalit soldiers killed in Kashmir whose graves I visited on garbage heaps in their villages in Cuddalore; for the Indian poor who pay the price of this occupation in material ways and who are now learning to live in the terror of what is becoming a police state.

Yesterday I traveled to Shopian, the apple-town in South Kashmir which had remained closed for 47 days last year in protest against the brutal rape and murder of Asiya and Nilofer, the young women whose bodies were found in a shallow stream near their homes and whose murderers have still not been brought to justice. I met Shakeel, who is Nilofer’s husband and Asiya’s brother. We sat in a circle of people crazed with grief and anger who had lost hope that they would ever get insaf-justice-from India, and now believed that Azadi-freedom-was their only hope. I met young stone pelters who had been shot through their eyes. I traveled with a young man who told me how three of his friends, teenagers in Anantnag district, had been taken into custody and had their finger-nails pulled out as punishment for throwing stones.

In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free.

October 26, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Illegal Occupation | 1 Comment

JOHN ASHCROFT’S IMMUNITY AND THE U.S. LEGAL SYSTEM

By Dr. Lawrence Davidson | 26. Oct, 2010

The Situation

One of the cases the Supreme Court of the United States will take up in its 2011 session is Ashcroft vs. al-Kidd. John Ashcroft was the Attorney General under President George Bush Jr. In that capacity he appears to have knowingly violated the U.S. Constitution (as well as periodically forced his employees to listen to his horrendous singing voice). Abdullah al-Kidd is a Muslim American citizen who Ashcroft illegally ordered detained through the illicit use of a material witness warrant. Kidd was one of 70 detained in this manner. He was picked up at Dulles International Airport after the FBI lied to a judge in order to get the warrant for his seizure. Al-Kidd was subsequently held for long periods in a security cell where the lights never went out.

That John Ashcroft is the criminal and al-Kidd his victim is certain. That is how the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals sees it. That court has refused to dismiss al-Kidd’s lawsuit against Ashcroft noting that the former Attorney General can be held personally responsible for action “repugnant to the Constitution.” That he knowingly and criminally acted to “arrest and detain American citizens for months on end, in sometimes primitive conditions, not because they have committed a crime, but merely because the government wants to investigate them for possible wrongdoing.” Ashcroft’s lawyers avoid the question of the illegality of his actions and simply say that he is immune from lawsuits for actions he took as Attorney General. On that basis they have asked the Supreme Court to dismiss the suit. The Justices have now decided to consider Ashcroft’s request.

Certainly John Ashcroft is not the first high U.S. official to reveal himself as an alleged criminal. Nor is it the first time that high government officials have acted in an unconstitutional manner. Right out of the starting gate , so to speak, the young United States created the Alien and Sedition Acts (1798) through which the Federalist party sought, quite unconstitutionally, to jail its political opponents. Andrew Jackson spit in the eye of both the Supreme Court and the Constitution by evicting the Cherokee Indians (1838), James Polk should have been impeached for high crimes and misdemeanors for lying to the Congress in order to start the Mexican-American War (1846), Abraham Lincoln probably violated the Constitution by some of his police actions during the Civil War, the raids and deportations that took place as a result of the Red Scares of the 1920s were at least in part unconstitutional, then you have Watergate, Irangate and now multiple potential Bushgates. Few of the politicians who ordered these criminal actions, or those who carried out those orders, ever faced punishment.

The Position of the Obama Administration

What is interesting about the present case of Ashcroft vs. al-Kidd is that the Obama administration has decided to make illegality acceptable by institutionalizing the concept of immunity for highly placed men like Ashcroft. The administration will try to do this not through legislation, but through precedent– by defending Ashcroft’s claim to immunity before the Supreme Court. At first it seems strange that a professed liberal president such as Barack Obama would do this. But unfortunately, it is quite consistent with the illiberal stance he has maintained on the question of the constitutional responsibility of his predecessors in the Bush White House. From the beginning of his presidency, Obama decided to shield them from the consequences of their crimes. This position was initiated by the president’s “we should look forward” statement in January of 2009. In this statement he made it clear that he did not want to pursue those who had ordered or implemented (in this case) torture under the Bush administration. When popular pressure forced the president to allow his attorney general, Eric Holder, to open an investigation of the issue of torture it was arranged so the inquiry would have no teeth. Publically and up front we were told that no one would be prosecuted whatever the outcome of the probe. That is the last anyone has heard of Holder’s investigation of torture American style. The long and short of this is that the principle set down at Nuremberg, to wit following orders is no excuse for criminal behavior, will not be applied. Nor will giving the orders incur a penalty. The decision to defend Ashcroft’s claim of immunity is in solid accord with this position.

The logic of this position, and its likely consequences, warrants close examination. If we were to ask President Obama why he has decided to defend the immunity of alleged criminals who happen to be high government officials, and if he were to be perfectly candid in his reply, here is what he might say:

1. President Obama – It would be difficult for the president, or those who carry out his orders, to act freely and as needed if they had always to worry about litigation after the fact. This is particularly true in time of war and emergency.

My Reply – This assertion has been made by leaders of states from time immemorial. It is a variation on the raison d’etat argument that has historically allowed all manner of bad behavior under the guise of state interests. On the other hand, it is true that following the law can prove inconvenient under wartime or emergency conditions. Nonetheless, in the long run, lawlessness is much worse than inconvenience. It is to be noted that, in the American case, appointed and elected high officials (particularly attorney generals!) are sworn to uphold the law not to transgress it.

2. President Obama – While I have stopped the more egregious policies of the Bush administration, I am still responsible for the safety of all American citizens and, in our modern age, I have to be able to use all the methods, high tech and otherwise, to achieve this goal. Some of these methods might very well prove unconstitutional (warrantless wiretaps, for instance) and yet I must be free to use them because another 9/11 style attack must be prevented. And, if I am to use these methods, then I can not prosecute those who have done so before me. Otherwise I would be accused of being a hypocrite by my political foes.

My Reply – This argument juxtaposes unattainable 100% security against the traditional freedoms that makes America the country its founders intended. Do we want to sacrifice the latter for the illusion of the former? As James Madison once observed, “The means of defense against foreign danger historically have become instruments of tyranny at home.” That is the slippery slope President Obama seems willing to take us down. It also prioritizes the president’s political interests over the Constitution. This latter point of view can be carried further.

3. President Obama – You have to understand, that if I do not do all that is possible, be it constitutional or otherwise, to protect the nation I put myself in mortal political danger. I open myself to the accusation by my political rivals that I am “soft” on security or terrorism. And, if something does happen, such as another terrorist attack, then I am politically dead.

My Reply – Well, yes, this is so. However, what is also true is that prioritizing politics above law always leads us in the direction of corruption, or worse. By defending Ashcroft isn’t President Obama saying it is all right to break the law if you are highly placed and so lacking in imagination that you can not figure out a legal way of dealing with an emergency? For let us be clear, there is no evidence that after 9/11 the unconstitutional route was the only possible route to defend the country. Were the legal options and their constitutional variants ever seriously itemized and discussed? The Obama administration, like the Bush operatives, have never publically addressed this question.

Likely Consequences

If the Obama Justice Department proceeds with its plans to defend Ashcroft’s immunity claim and if, as is likely, the Supreme Court upholds that claim, we will be left with a politically based two tier legal system. It will set free to break the law every highly placed federal official every time he or she can claim an emergency situation. Then, after the fact, they will cite the immunity precedent. In the meantime, the fact that high federal officials are sworn to uphold the laws of the land will be rendered worthless, just another bit of political hypocrisy.

So what is it that we want for America? Do we want a two tier legal system where presidents and their appointees can break the law with impunity? Do we want a legal system where it is accepted that citizens and residents can disappear into federal dungeons? Is it all right with us that our fellow citizens, following the orders of the president, will torture, detain, shackle and otherwise abuse others without any regard for law – and they too will be immune? Because, whether they realize it or not, that is what the Obama Justice Department is arguing for when it defends John Ashcroft.

DR. LAWRENCE DAVIDSON is professor of Middle East history at West Chester University in West Chester, PA, and the author of America’s Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood (University of Florida Press, 2001), Islamic Fundamentalism (Greenwood Press, 2003), and Foreign Policy, Inc.: Privatizing American National Interest (University of Kentuck Press, 2009).

October 26, 2010 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Progressive Hypocrite | 3 Comments

Federal Court Rules Government Can Keep Secret Basic Facts About Bagram Prisoners

More Transparency Needed On Detention Practices At Massive U.S. Prison In Afghanistan, Says ACLU

ACLU | October 25, 2010

NEW YORK – The Defense Department can continue to withhold key information from the public about the hundreds of detainees imprisoned by the U.S. military at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan, according to a federal court ruling today.

The ruling came in an American Civil Liberties Union Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Defense Department and the CIA for records related to the detention and treatment of prisoners at Bagram (now known as Parwan). The Defense Department has released the names of the 645 prisoners who were detained there as of September 2009, but has kept secret other vital information including their citizenship, how long they have been held, in what country they were captured and the circumstances of their capture. The ACLU charged that the Defense Department is improperly withholding these basic facts about Bagram prisoners and their detention, and asked the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York to order the Defense Department to turn over the information. In denying the ACLU’s motion, the court also ruled that the CIA did not act improperly when it refused to even confirm or deny whether the CIA had records about the rendition and interrogation of Bagram detainees.

The U.S. military has announced its intention to transfer control of Bagram prison to the Afghan government next year. However, media outlets have reported that the Obama administration intends to maintain control over a portion of the prison and to continue detaining some prisoners in U.S. custody there, including non-Afghan terrorism suspects captured outside of Afghanistan and prisoners considered “enduring security threats.”

The following can be attributed to Melissa Goodman, staff attorney with the ACLU National Security Project:

“Despite concerns that Bagram has become the new Guantánamo, the public remains in the dark when it comes to basic facts about the facility and whom our military is holding in indefinite military detention there. The public has a right to know how long the U.S. has kept people locked up in military detention and under what circumstances. The lack of transparency about these key facts is even more disturbing considering the possibility that the U.S. will continue holding and interrogating prisoners at Bagram well into the future. Unfortunately, today’s ruling will allow the government to continue hiding this vital information.”

More information about the ACLU’s FOIA lawsuit, including today’s filings, is online at: www.aclu.org/national-security/bagram-foia

CONTACT: (212) 549-2666

October 26, 2010 Posted by | Progressive Hypocrite, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | Leave a comment

Emir of Qatar: US Won’t be Allowed to Use Its Base to Attack Iran

Al-Manar – 26/10/2010

The US would not be allowed to use its base in Qatar to launch attacks against Iran and US President Barack Obama should try to re-engage with Tehran, said the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani, in Doha during interview with the Financial Times published Tuesday.

“As a neighbor to Iran, and we have lived with Iranians for a long time together, we believe that the best thing is dialogue. The Americans should speak with Iran. The Iranians are all the time mentioning that their nuclear (program) is there for peaceful purposes. What is the role of the United Nations, the Security Council? They should go and check this,” said Thani.

The emir also told the Financial Times that Qatar would not allow the US using its base there to launch a strike on Iran, should it decide to do so, and warned that the Israelis are those “who have the most dangerous weapons, the nuclear weapons.”

He said Qatar’s relations with Iran would continue and “We never thought to [support] the Americans against Iran or against Hezbollah. Again, we feel that we know our region more than the Americans.”

Thani said that in the Gaza war the Israelis “refused to allow us to send mobile hospitals to Gaza and we were seeing the children being killed and they didn’t allow us to send food.” “We told them, we are the only country in the Gulf where you have your [trade] office and you should treat us better,” he said.

Thani also commented on the so-called peace process, saying that “The Americans should tell the Israelis that they have to do something to achieve peace in the Middle East. And the Americans should tell them that we are not going to follow you. We have other friends in the region and they are suffering because of your decisions against the Palestinians.”

The emir stated that the peace process is not “in the hands of the Arabs, because the Arabs until now have not been able to represent themselves to find a way for peace,” adding that an alternative to the Arab Peace initiative has not been developed.

October 26, 2010 Posted by | Wars for Israel | 2 Comments

The Betrayal of Omar Khadr – and of American Justice

By Andy Worthington | 26.10.10

Yesterday morning, wearing a dark suit, a white shirt and a dark tie, Omar Khadr, the Canadian citizen who was just 15 years old when he was seized after a firefight in Afghanistan in July 2002, ended an eight-year struggle — first by the Bush administration, and then by the Obama administration — to convict him in a war crimes trial at Guantánamo, when he accepted a plea deal in exchange for a reported eight-year sentence.

According to an article in the Miami Herald, drawing on comments made by “two legal sources with direct knowledge” of the deal, Khadr said he “eagerly took part in a July 28, 2002 firefight with US Special Forces in Afghanistan that mortally wounded Sgt 1st Class Christopher Speer.” This was the crux of the case against him, and a charge that he had always previously denied. He also said that he had “aspired as a teen to kill Americans and Jews,” and described his father, Ahmed Said Khadr, who had been responsible for taking him on numerous visits to Pakistan and Afghanistan as a child, leading to the events on the day of his capture, as “a part of Bin Laden’s inner circle, a trusted confidant and fundraiser.”

Khadr’s plea was submitted to the judge, Army Col. Patrick Parrish, by his military defense lawyer, Army Lt. Jon Jackson, and Col. Parrish made sure that he knew what he was doing as he ran through the charges. “Yes,” Khadr replied. “You should only do this if you truly believe it is in your best interests,” Col. Parrish then told him. “Yes,” Khadr replied again. According to the Miami Herald, his voice was “a near whisper,” but became stronger as Col. Parrish read out the charges.

As the Globe and Mail described it, Khadr “assented to knowing that he was attacking civilians, that he wanted to kill US troops, that he planted mines and that he received one-on-one terrorist training from an al-Qaeda operative.” He also agreed that he was a member of al-Qaeda, and was an “alien, unprivileged, enemy belligerent,” who was “unqualified therefore to shoot back or engage in combat hostilities with US or other coalition forces,” and also said that he understood that he was guilty of “murder in violation of the laws of war.”

For the United States, the plea deal means that a trial has been avoided, dimming the glare of the global media spotlight on the embarrassing prospect of the first war crimes trial of a child soldier since the Second World War. Instead, according to the Military Commission rules, a limited amount of evidence will be submitted this week — including testimony from Tabitha Speer, the widow of the Special Forces soldier killed by the grenade in the firefight that led to Khadr’s capture, and statements by mental health professionals for both the prosecution and the defense — before a seven-member military jury will deliver its own sentence. As the details of Khadr’s plea deal have not been made public, this strange formality (which involves a sentence without a trial) will only mean anything if the jury delivers a less severe sentence than the one negotiated in secret.

This, however, is not the main problem with yesterday’s outcome, which blurs the parameters of justice horribly, creating the impression that Khadr is guilty, even though he may only have agreed to confess in order to secure a favorable sentence. This is something that Daphne Eviatar, an observer for Human Rights First, noted in an excellent article in the Huffington Post, when she explained that “it was clear that prosecutors had taken the opportunity to throw the kitchen-sink-full of charges at him — including far more crimes than he’d even been charged with. Most importantly, Khadr pled guilty to killing two Afghan soldiers who accompanied US forces in the 2002 assault on the compound. The government has never presented any evidence whatsoever that Khadr was responsible for that, and did not claim he was in its opening statement at trial.”

In addition, Khadr’s guilty plea enables the Obama administration to disguise the many fundamental flaws with the Military Commissions, which might have been exposed during a trial.

Because Khadr’s plea deal is presumed to stipulate that he cannot appeal, the administration will be able to tell the world that the Commissions are “fair and just,” although they are no such thing. One problem, of course, is that a former child prisoner has been subjected to a trial after eight years of imprisonment in an experimental prison devoted to arbitrary detention and coercive interrogation, when he should have been rehabilitated, according to the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the involvement of children in armed conflict (which the US ratified in December 2002), but another concerns the nature of the crimes to which he confessed.

This second problem — which focuses on the fundamental legitimacy of the Commissions — was illustrated starkly in the Globe and Mail’s description of how Khadr agreed that he was an “alien, unprivileged, enemy belligerent,” who was “unqualified therefore to shoot back or engage in combat hostilities with US or other coalition forces,” and also how he reportedly understood that he was guilty of “murder in violation of the laws of war.”

Back in April, Lt. Col. David Frakt, a law professor and the former military defense attorney for two other Guantánamo prisoners, Mohamed Jawad and Ali Hamza al-Bahlul, spelled out the problems with these charges in no uncertain terms. Writing of the central charge of “murder in violation of the law of war,” Lt. Col. Frakt explained that, even if Khadr did throw the grenade, “there is no evidence that he violated the law of war in doing so.”

As I explained in an article about Khadr two months ago, he added that “the confusion arose initially because the Bush administration wanted to find a way to ensure that ‘any attempt to fight Americans or coalition forces was a war crime,’ and that Congress, in enacting two pieces of legislation relating to the Military Commissions in 2006 and in 2009, maintained this unjustifiable position by refusing to distinguish between legitimate and illegitimate actions during wartime.”

Lt. Col. Frakt also explained that the Bush administration’s original invented charge for the Commissions — “Murder by an Unprivileged Belligerent” — was, essentially, replaced by the Congress-endorsed “Murder in Violation of the Law of War,” even though it “conflated two different concepts — unprivileged belligerents and war criminals.”

He continued:

Under Article 4 of the Geneva Prisoner of War Convention it is clear that while a member of an organized resistance movement or militia may be an unprivileged belligerent (because of not wearing a uniform or failing to carry arms openly, for example) he may still comply with the laws and customs of war, so not all hostile acts committed by unprivileged belligerents are war crimes. Attacks by unprivileged belligerents which comply with the law of war (in that they attack lawful military targets with lawful weapons) may only be tried in domestic courts. In Iraq, for example, insurgents who try to kill Americans by implanting roadside bombs are properly arrested and tried before the Central Criminal Court of Iraq as common criminals. Attacks by unprivileged belligerents which violate the law of war, such as attacks on civilians or soldiers attempting to surrender, or using prohibited weapons like poison gas, can be tried in a war crimes tribunal.

With Khadr’s plea deal, the uncomfortable truth about the Commissions — that they have been established to try non-existent war crimes — has been swept aside as thoroughly as it was in the case of Ibrahim al-Qosi, who accepted a plea deal in July. As a result, Omar Khadr may have taken the only realistic route open to him, but the price has been the apparent validation of a fundamentally lawless process, which could have been legally challenged had he been subjected to a full trial.

Back in July, Omar Khadr refused to accept a plea deal, and, in a letter to Dennis Edney, one of his Canadian lawyers, wrote, “there must be somebody to sacrifice to really show the world the unfairness [of the Commissions], and really it seems that it’s me.” It is understandable that — faced with an eight-year sentence, or the possibility of a life sentence in exchange for a “sacrifice” — Khadr chose the former option.

However, it remains deeply depressing that the Obama administration will be able to maintain the fiction that the Military Commissions are capable of delivering justice, and also that it now appears to be irrelevant that Khadr was a juvenile prisoner, subjected to horrific treatment, because he has conceded, in circumstances that may not have been conducive to telling the truth, that he was in fact a terrorist.

October 26, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Subjugation - Torture | 1 Comment

‘I do not support U.S. gov’t war guarantees or military aid to any country’ — John Dennis

By John Dennis | Mondoweiss | October 25, 2010

Over the weekend Mondoweiss ran a post criticizing the Israel-Palestine stance of John Dennis, an antiwar Republican who is challenging Nancy Pelosi from the left in her San Francisco district. John Dennis had this response today:

Matthew Taylor’s blog post referenced statements I made in a debate this past spring. In it, I attempted to make a nuanced point about how to handle U.S.-Israeli relations in the likely event that foreign aid for Israel continues. His blog post misinterpreted my statements and doesn’t represent my record and beliefs.

For the record, I do not support U.S. government foreign aid to any country. I do not support U.S. government war guarantees or guaranteed military support for any country. My read is that the U.S. government does not have the constitutional authority to give foreign aid or military assurances to any country. This works well for me, because I also happen to think that aid and/or assurances are not prudent for all parties involved.

I am a committed non-interventionist running for federal office. The Constitution and the writings of the founders, I think, support a non-interventionist foreign policy. I am also an advocate of peaceful solutions to conflict and disagreement. I would like for nothing more than the people in the Middle East to live in peace.

However, I cannot run for elective federal office and concurrently be a political activist. Should I now, or in the future, become an elected official, I would best serve my district and my oath to the Constitution by staying committed to non-interventionist principles.

I appreciate all fair attempts to keep anyone running for office on his/her toes. I welcome the chance from Mondoweiss to clarify.

I am also willing to debate my opponent, Nancy Pelosi, on this matter. I am happy to take any questions on this or any other matter from the media or the constituents of the 8th Congressional District of California.

In this case, as much as I appreciate the blogger’s challenge, a fairer, more interesting and far less provocative discussion might have come by simply asking me to clarify my statements.

In liberty,

John

October 25, 2010 Posted by | Militarism, Wars for Israel | Leave a comment

Antarctic Ocean: The Big Kahuna of glacial period carbon sinks

October 25, 2010 by Anthony Watts

UF research gives clues about carbon dioxide patterns at end of Ice Age

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — New University of Florida research puts to rest the mystery of where old carbon was stored during the last glacial period. It turns out it ended up in the icy waters of the Southern Ocean near Antarctica.

The findings have implications for modern-day global warming, said Ellen Martin, a UF geological sciences professor and an author of the paper, which is published in this week’s journal Nature Geoscience.

“It helps us understand how the carbon cycle works, which is important for understanding future global warming scenarios,” she said. “Ultimately, a lot of the carbon dioxide that we’re pumping into the atmosphere is going to end up in the ocean. By understanding where that carbon was stored in the past and the pathways it took, we develop a better understanding of how much atmospheric carbon dioxide the oceans can absorb in the future.”

Scientists know that during the transition from the last glacial period to the current inter-glacial period about 14,000 years ago, carbon dioxide levels rose very quickly at the same time that the age of the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere fell, as measured by radiocarbon data. That suggests carbon dioxide had been stored in the ocean and suddenly released, she said.

One idea holds that it was building up in the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, where extensive sea ice on the surface of the ocean initially prevented the exchange of gasses into the atmosphere, Martin said. The other possibility is that the same process occurred in the Northern Hemisphere with ice sheets in the North Pacific Ocean, she said.

In her lab, Martin and lead author Chandranath Basak, a UF graduate student in geological sciences; Keiji Horikawa, a UF postdoctoral fellow in geological sciences; and Thomas Marchitto, a University of Colorado geology professor, studied that question by using a technique to measure isotopes of neodymium, a rare earth element not commonly found in marine sediments but preserved in microscopic fossil fish teeth. The isotopic signature of a water mass, which is captured in the fish teeth, reflects the location where the water mass came from, she said.

“It’s essentially what we call a water mass tracer,” Martin said. “You can tell where the water masses have formed and where they have moved to by using this tracer.”

The researchers took samples that had been shown to have old carbon in them and measured the neodymium isotopes on fish teeth from the sediments to see if they could reconstruct whether they had come from the North Pacific or the Southern Ocean, she said.

“When we did this, we got a signal that looks very much like the Southern Ocean,” she said. “It implies that all the carbon was being stored in the Southern Hemisphere and as the ice sheet melted back, it released that carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing part of the big increase in carbon dioxide and introducing old carbon back into the atmosphere.”

By giving information about environmental conditions during the last glacial period, the research findings can help scientists to reconstruct what the world was like at that time, she said.

The implications are that while large amounts of carbon could be stored in the ocean when there was a great deal of sea ice, the opposite is the case in a world that is warming, with less ice, which allows more carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere, Martin said. Thus, in a warming scenario the oceans may not be able to store as much carbon dioxide as they could under glacial conditions

The oceans are a critical part of the carbon dioxide cycle, Martin said. “The oceans have 60 times more carbon dioxide in them than the atmosphere, so when we worry about what’s happening with carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, we often look to the oceans as a potential source or sink.”

The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere during the glacial periods was about 200 parts per million, compared with 280 parts per million during a typical interglacial period, Martin said. Today that level has soared to about 380 parts per million, she said.

The time period that encompasses the last glacial period to the current interglacial period when carbon dioxide levels went up very quickly is often referred to as the “mystery interval” because scientists hadn’t known where the carbon was stored, Martin said.

“Now we have a better understanding of how the system worked,” she said.

October 25, 2010 Posted by | Science and Pseudo-Science | Leave a comment

Soldiers abandon Palestinian farmers in Kufr Qalil

24 October 2010 | International Solidarity Movement

Farmers in Kufr Qalil, near Nablus, were scheduled to receive army protection yesterday through the Israeli District Coordination Office (DCO), in order to harvest their olives on land near the illegal Bracha settlement. The family, accompanied by four international activists, went to the land and was initially pleased to find army jeeps nearby as planned. Later in the morning, two settlers came down from the nearby outpost, yelling at the Palestinians and internationals from across the settler-only road. As the nearby army vehicle came down, seemingly to intervene, the farmers were again relieved by the fact that the DCO was keeping their word. But the jeeps soon disappeared, while the settlers remained. Tension was high in the olive groves, and fear of what could happen prompted a phone call to Rabbis for Human Rights, who got in touch with the DCO, demanding that the “protection” return. The soldiers eventually came back, driving to the settlers and joining them across the road from the olive fields. They walked together, talking casually, but the army never approached the Palestinian farmers. After a short time, the owner of the farmland decided to give up and continue harvesting a safer plot of land, farther from the settlement, as he was feeling very nervous, and had three of his young grandchildren with him.

The Israeli DCO provides farmers with permits to access their own land with the protection of Israeli forces. Often these permits are only for a day or two (usually not long enough to complete a harvest), and the DCO decides which days the farmers can go. This means that they frequently have to choose between “army protection” and the best day for harvesting their livelihood, which often results in the army playing the opposite role, forcing farmers to leave their land. As can be seen from yesterday, even when Palestinians receive a permit and comply with the decisions of the DCO, they often don’t receive any sort of real protection, with the army leaving, or even protecting settlers when they harass the farmers.

October 25, 2010 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | 1 Comment

Iran: US behind Wikileaks revelations

Press TV – October 25, 2010
Mohammad-Javad Larijani

A senior Iranian diplomat says recent revelations by whistleblower website Wikileaks are Washington’s ploy to cover up human rights violations by the US.

In the largest-ever revelation of secret US military documents, Wikileaks released nearly 400,000 classified reports about the US-led war in Iraq.

The leaked documents, which cover the period between January 1, 2004, and January 1, 2010, have shed light on a myriad of crimes and offences committed in Iraq over the past few years, including assassinations, murders, torture and rape.

“It seems that these [revelations] are made upon the order of the US,” Secretary-General of Iran’s High Council for Human Rights Mohammad-Javad Larijani said on Monday at the summit for reviewing the human rights situation in the US.

“The message of Wikileaks documents is that the Iraqi people have been tortured by Iraq’s security forces, and the only wrongdoing of Americans is that they witnessed the incidents and remained silent,” IRNA quoted Larijani as saying.

“This is while the US had the main role in these incidents and is the defendant,” the Iranian diplomat added.

Larijani said unfortunately the Internet, which was supposed to provide all people with vast information, is being used for publishing anti-information in the world.

The head of Iran’s human rights council stressed that the US and certain Western countries take advantage of human rights violations and that “it is necessary to prevent and resist these political abuses.”

The new Wikileaks documents comprise the second such release from the controversial website, which accused the United States of “war crimes” after earlier releasing some 92,000 similar secret military files detailing operations in Afghanistan.

These documents charge the United States Defense Department with instructing American troops to ignore reports recounting torture; they also suggest “hundreds” of civilians have been killed at US military checkpoints since the beginning of the war.

Refusing to discus the Wikikeaks disclosures, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton merely condemned the leak of any document “putting Americans at risk.”

“We should condemn in the most clear terms the disclosure of any information by individuals and or organizations which puts the lives of United States and its partners’ service members and civilians at risk,” she said.

October 25, 2010 Posted by | Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Subjugation - Torture, War Crimes | 6 Comments

Children of Jahalin get innovative school

Aletho News | October 25, 2010

This year the Palestinian Bedouin children of Jahalin have a new school building built of bamboo. The new ‘desert school’ of the Wadi Abu Hindi community is the latest project of the Italian NGO Vento Di Terra and the Arcò group of architects.

The community was displaced from the Negev in 1948 and re-established in the West Bank, the community falls into the ‘Zone C’ area of Israeli civilian and military control. In 1997 the community resolved to build a school, but Israel demolished both the school and the homes twice.

Finally an Israeli court ruled the demolitions illegal and granted a temporary reconstruction permit. Like most of the constructions in Bedouin villages in area C, the school was a sheet metal structure which becomes unbearably hot. Despite the harsh conditions the school served 120 children. Vento di Terra has now improved the conditions with the use of special materials.

The ‘Desert School’ project faced specific restrictions imposed by the Israeli military authorities. Vento di Terra was able to respond to all of the challenges with the use of bamboo, earth and straw. The project moved forward with the community playing an active role in its planning, organization and realization. Local labor was utilized in retrofitting the buildings with improved climatic and acoustic insulation.

Respecting the centuries old history that has seen the Bedouins crossing the deserts of the Middle East, which continues to this day, dozens of kids cross the mountains by foot or with their inseparable mule to go from home to school. As soon as the bell announces the end of the school, a long line of children and mules disappear into the Palestinian desert.

Photographers: Andrea and Magda. (more pictures: http://www.andrea-magda.com/en/portfolio-8971-0-80-la-scuola-nel-deserto-by-vento-di-terra-e-arco.html )
If you are interested in hosting the exhibition or if you want to buy some pictures, please contact contact@andrea-magda.com
For any information about the school please visit www.ventoditerra.org or contact ventoditerra@ventoditerra.org

October 25, 2010 Posted by | Aletho News | Leave a comment

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