‘US to stay in Afghanistan for decades’
Press TV – June 14, 2011
A new report has revealed that secret talks between American and Afghan officials could see foreign troops remain in Afghanistan for several decades.
In a report published Monday, The Guardian, quoted US and NATO sources, as saying that secret negotiations have reportedly been underway for more than a month.
American negotiators will be in Kabul for a new round of talks later this month. The talks are aimed at securing a strategic partnership agreement that includes US presence in Afghanistan beyond the 2014 withdrawal deadline.
According to the report, any such agreement is likely to see American troops, spies and air power stay in the country for decades.
Meanwhile, senior NATO officials have also predicted that their troops will remain in Afghanistan far beyond 2014. However, Russia, China and India have voiced concern over any such ‘strategic partnership’ deal that would prolong US presence in the region.
The report comes days after and Washington exchanged proposals on possible US presence in Afghanistan beyond 2014.
“Our proposal had gone to the US government in response to their proposal. A delegation will come from the United States to discuss this and that will determine the nature of US presence in Afghanistan (after 2014),” Karzai said during an official visit to the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, on Saturday.
Senior US and NATO officials have signaled that foreign troops will remain in the country beyond 2014. This is while US President Barack Obama had pledged a major drawdown from Afghanistan by July 2011.
Experts have described the new contradictory transition dates as a devastating truth for Americans.
Washington says the transition does not mean that Afghan forces will be in charge everywhere. Obama has promised to keep American forces in Afghanistan even after other Western countries withdraw their troops.
According to official figures, over 2,500 US-led soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since the US-led invasion began in 2001.
After Running Out Of Anesthesia, All Surgeries In Gaza Put On Hold
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 14, 2011
Dr. Atef Al Kahloot, head of the Medical Services in the Gaza Strip, reported Monday that all surgeries in hospitals across the coastal region have been put on hold until further notice as they ran out of anesthesia medications and supplies.
Al Kahloot stated that all hospitals and medical centers in the Gaza Strip will be totally out of all supplies related to Anesthesia within 48 hours. Al Kahloot added that there are 180 types of medications that have run out of in addition to 200 types of medical supplies.
He called on the international community and international human rights groups to intervene, and to save the residents from a serious humanitarian crisis.
Al Kahloot further called on the Ministry of Health in the central West Bank city of Ramallah to act on sending all needed medical supplies to the hospitals and medical facilities in the Gaza Strip.
Over 300 patients have died, since Israeli imposed the siege on Gaza in 2007, due to a lack of essential medical equipment. The patients were denied permits to leave the Gaza Strip to seek medical attention elsewhere.
Israeli forces demolish 5 wells in Hebron
Ma’an – 14/06/2011
HEBRON — Israeli forces demolished five water wells in the southern West Bank city of Hebron on Tuesday morning, targeting a neighborhood in the city’s south.
The wells belonged to the Al-Jamal family, brother of the owner Samir Abdul-Hamid told Ma’an.
Soldiers and crews from Israel’s Civil Administration arrived on the property early, Samir said, assaulting family members who attempted to prevent the demolitions and then deploying tear-gas to drive them out of the area.
Five wells were destroyed and filled-in, “under the guise that they were built without a license,” Samir said.
An Israeli military spokesman said border police securing the area had used “riot dispersal mechanisms” in the area, but officials from the unit could not be reached for comment, nor could a representative of the Civil Administration.
On 30 May, eight wells near Jenin were demolished by order of the Civil Administration, which said the wells were unlicensed.
A spokesman for Israel’s Civil Administration said the wells had not been approved by the Joint Water Commission, a body set up under the Oslo Accords. According to the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs, Israeli partners on the committee “constantly vetoed Palestinian water projects, hindering any development.
“Due to the non-functioning management of the water sector there are no water recycling pumps that will allow the people to have enough water for agriculture,” the spokesman noted, though researchers say attempts to build water treatment facilities have been stymied.
Breaches of international law lay behind unrest on Golan Heights
While much of the Western media have ignored the recent bloodshed on the Golan Heights, the limited reports that have been released appear to misunderstand the background to the present confrontation. Richard Lightbown explains the history. Many media reports of the confrontations on the Golan Heights on 5 June did not accurately represent the background to the protests. The Guardian reported on 6 June that the clashes occurred “on the Syrian border” and their analysts referred to “deliberate antagonism of Israel by the Syrian regime”.
On the same day a report on BBC’s “Today” programme referred to “a disputed border” before stating that Syria “had lost the Golan Heights to Israel”. A review of the history and current status of the area, therefore, appears required reading for some foreign correspondents.
The Syrian Golan Heights (as the UN refers to the region) was recognized as Syrian sovereign territory by an Armistice Agreement signed between Israel and Syria under UN auspices in 1949. Because of its rich volcanic soils and water resources, the Golan has long been coveted by Zionists. Attempts were made starting in 1891 to buy land there, and Zionist President Chaim Weizmann wrote to British Prime Minister Lloyd George in 1919 expressing designs for the region to form part of the Jewish National Home in Palestine. (Dr Weizmann wrote to oppose the Sykes-Picot Agreement of 1916 by which Britain and France had agreed the carve up of the Ottoman Empire after the World War I. These imperial designs interfered with Zionist schemes for the Levant.)
Article 2 (4) of the UN Charter requires the respect of every state’s territorial integrity. Newly admitted to the UN in 1949, Israel began almost immediately to encroach beyond its boundaries as agreed under the 1949 Armistice. Fortifications were built in the UN-administered demilitarized zone, while illegally deployed Israeli soldiers obstructed UN observers and even threatened to kill them on one occasion. Arab residents of the area were evicted and their homes looted and destroyed. The UN Security Council (UNSC) passed a resolution in May 1951 demanding that Israel allow the residents to return. Other resolutions against Israeli violations of international law followed in 1953, 1956 and 1962, all to no avail.
Prior to the 1967 invasion there were many clashes between Syrian and Israel forces. The former Israeli defence minister, Moshe Dayan, later opined that more 80 per cent of these clashes were deliberately provoked by Israel, explaining that kibbutzim covetous of Syrian land had pressed the Israeli government to invade the Golan Heights. Another Israeli, Mattityahu Peled, who served as a member of the General Staff during the 1967 war, also stated in a newspaper interview that all the incidents were Israeli initiated.
At the time of the invasion during the 1967 war there were 137,000 Arab residents in the area that was occupied. Following the attack, 130,000 of them were expelled from their homes in two cities, 130 villages and 112 farms, all of which were destroyed. (The Golan capital of Quneitra had been a city with 25,000 population. When liberated by Syrian armour in 1973, troops discovered all the buildings destroyed or uninhabitable. This included houses, shops, mosques and the hospital.)
UNSC Resolution 242 of 1967 requiring “withdrawal of Israel armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict” was ignored by Israel. On 14 December 1981 the Knesset passed the Golan Heights Law, which extended Israeli laws to occupied Syrian areas. The UN Security Council responded to this breach of customary international law by passing Resolution 497 declaring the Israeli legislation “null and void and without international legal effect”. The resolution demanded that the legislation be rescinded. No other country has recognized this de facto annexation, but Israel made no attempt to comply with its legal obligations.
However, the remaining local population had no intention of being absorbed into the occupying state. Following the invasion some 7,000 residents occupying six villages in the north of the Golan were permitted to stay. This was part of a divide-and-rule policy by Israel. The Arab residents of the villages are mostly of the Druze religious community and the rulers of the Zionist state have been trying to develop a Druze buffer zone subservient to Israel in the border region between Lebanon and Syria. These people were required by Israel’s rogue legislation to give up their Syrian citizenship and adopt that of Israel. A six-month general strike followed, and most of the new Israeli identity cards were publicly burned. The Israeli government eventually gave way to the protests and most of the residents still retain their Syrian nationality. Israeli attempts to eliminate the Arab national identity have also been opposed. Indoctrination by unqualified teachers instructing the Hebrew language, Israeli literature and Israel’s version of history is still strongly resisted within this community.
The long-standing Zionist greed for the Golan has been realized through the establishment of 33 settlements in the region, and a programme is ongoing to extend this process of colonization (in defiance of UN Security Council resolutions and the Fourth Geneva Convention). Only these settlements are allowed to irrigate their crops, giving the colonizers a major competitive advantage over the Arab farmers. Israel also extracts more than its fair share of water from the Jordan River System. Studies published in 2006 indicate that while Israeli territory contributed 11.4 per cent of the total water to the system, the Israeli state extracted 50 per cent of the total. (Syria contributed 31 per cent and extracted 18.5 per cent. Palestine, Jordan and Lebanon all extracted less than their contributions.) The study found Israeli abstraction to be inequitable and unreasonable, and in contravention of international water law.
Within Israel it is generally held as an article of faith that holding the Golan is a guarantee of Israeli security. It is true that in both the wars of 1967 and 1973 the Golan was conquered by armour. Yet this does not take account of modern warfare methods. During the war between Israel and Lebanon in 2006 Merkava tanks were destroyed by Lebanese missiles. (In 2004 the then Israeli chief of staff said in a newspaper interview that the Israeli army would be able to defend any border. Israeli air power, after all, is omnipotent in the region and can inflict serious damage.)
Unrest at the boundaries of Israeli-occupied territory may well serve a Syrian government under pressure for regime change. But the roots of this unrest are long-standing genuine grievances against the expansionist and tyrannical policies of the Israeli state. Western media sources seldom comment or reflect this reality, nor do they seem to be aware of the legality of the occupation and its artificial boundaries. In so doing they render a disservice to the victims of criminality, while failing to uphold the highest standards of professional journalism.
Much of the data for this article are derived from papers presented to the London International Conference on the Golan in 2007.
Israel Prevents Jerusalem Mufti From Traveling To Jordan
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC & Agencies | June 12, 2011
Israeli Authorities prevented Sheikh Ikrima Sabri, the Imam of the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem and the Holy Land, from traveling to Jordan to participate in a conference in Jordan.
The conference, Sheikh Sabri was invited to attend, was organised by the Jerusalem Cultural Forum, and the Jordanian Engineers Union.
The Mufti intended to highlight the situation in Jerusalem and its holy sites amidst the ongoing Israeli violations, in addition to highlighting the dire situation of the Palestinians in the occupied city suffering violations by the occupation and the illegal settlement movement.
Conference organisers said that the conference aims at shedding light on Israel’s escalating violations that target the Arab and Islamic history and culture of the holy city, and to come up with ideas to preserve the historic city and its culture in order to solidify the existence of its native Arab and Palestinian population.
Israel provided no ‘justification’ for denying the Mufti his right to travel.
Armed settlers raid Nablus village
Ma’an – 12/06/2011
NABLUS — Dozens of armed Israeli settlers on Saturday attacked residents of Qusra village in the northern West Bank, Palestinian officials said.
PA settlement affairs official Ghassan Doughlas said settlers beat several residents at the entrance of the village, south of Nablus, and smashed the windscreen of a truck belonging to Husni Abu Reeda.
Doughlas said the settlers were from an illegal outpost Alei Ayin, which the Israeli army recently evacuated.
Settlers from the outpost were suspected of torching and vandalizing a mosque near Ramallah on Tuesday.
Among anti-Arab slogans sprayed in graffiti on the walls of the mosque, vandals sprayed “Alei Ayin” and “Price tag.”
Meanwhile, in the nearby village Iraq Burin, Israeli forces sprayed tear gas and stun grenades at protesters in a weekly anti-settlement rally, residents said.
Locals told Ma’an that Israeli forces surrounded the village on Saturday morning to stop activists joining the protest.
Blood in the Amazon: Brazilian Activists Murdered as Deforestation Increases
José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva
Early in the morning on May 24, in the northern Brazilian Amazon, José Cláudio Ribeiro da Silva and his wife Maria do Espírito Santo da Silva got onto a motorcycle near the nature reserve they had worked on for over two decades. As the couple rode past the jungle they dedicated their lives to protecting, gunmen hiding near a bridge opened fire, killing them both.
Brazilian law enforcement officials said that the killing appeared to be the work of hired gunmen, due to the fact that an ear was cut off each of the victims. This is often done to prove to whoever paid for the killings that the job was carried out.
The murder took place the same day the Brazilian Congress passed a change to the forestry code that would allow agribusinesses and ranchers to clear even more land in the Amazon jungle. Deforestation rose 27 percent from August 2010 to April 2011 largely due to soybean plantations. The levels will likely rise if the changes to the forestry code are passed by the Senate.
Ribeiro knew he was in danger of being killed for his struggle against loggers, ranchers and large scale farmers who were deforesting the Amazon. In fact, just six months earlier, in November 2010 at an environmental conference in Manaus, Brazil, he told the audience “I could be here today talking to you and in one month you will get the news that I disappeared. I will protect the forest at all costs. That is why I could get a bullet in my head at any moment. … As long as I have the strength to walk I will denounce all of those who damage the forest.”
The life and death of Ribeiro has been rightly compared to that of Chico Mendes, a Brazilian rubber tapper, union leader and environmentalist who fought against logging and ranching, winning international attention for his successful campaigns against deforestation. In 1988, Mendes was murdered by gunmen hired by ranchers.
Just two weeks before he was killed, Mendes also spoke hauntingly about the likelihood that he would be murdered for his activism. “I don’t want flowers, because I know you are going to pull them up from the forest. The only thing I want is that my death helps to stop the murderers’ impunity…”
Yet since the murder of Mendes, impunity in the Brazilian countryside has become the norm. In the past 20 years, over 1,150 rural activists have been killed in conflicts related to land. Of these murders, less than 100 cases have gone to court, only 80 of the killers have been convicted, and just 15 of the people who hired the gunmen were found guilty, according to Catholic Land Pastoral, a group monitoring land conflicts. Impunity reigns in rural areas due to the corruption of judicial officials and police, and the wealth and power of the ranchers, farmers and loggers who are often the ones who order the killings.
The recent murder of Ribeiro and Santo combined with the danger posed by changes to the forestry code are devastating indications of the direction Brazil is heading in the Amazon. For some, the expansion of logging, ranching and soybean operations into the Amazon are inevitable steps toward economic progress. But for others, a different kind of progress is necessary if the planet is to survive. As Chico Mendes explained just days before his death in 1988, he wanted to “demonstrate that progress without destruction is possible.”
***
Benjamin Dangl is the author of the new book Dancing with Dynamite: Social Movements and States in Latin America (AK Press). He edits TowardFreedom.com, a progressive perspective on world events, and UpsideDownWorld.org, a website on activism and politics in Latin America. Email Bendangl(at)gmail(dot)com
Israeli soldier to activists who were detained near Beit Ommar: “I could kill you.”
11 June 2011 | International Solidarity Movement
On Saturday June 11 three International Solidarity Movement activists were stopped by the Israeli army when trying to enter the village of Beit Ommar in the southern West Bank. The activists were going to participate in a non-violent demonstration against the illegal settlements in the area.
As the activists tried to enter the village Israeli soldiers stopped them and claimed that the area had been declared a closed military zone. When questioned about not being able to show the official paper needed to prove this, one soldier pointed at a sign which stated that the area is under Palestinian Authority and that no Israelis were allowed to enter the area. The soldier used this as justification for not allowing the internationals to enter. He went on to complain that Israelis were not able to enter the village, despite it being, as he put it, a part of “Israel”.
The activists then attempted to leave the village when the soldiers apparently changed their mind and dragged them from the bus they had boarded. No explanation was given when the activists asked why they were being detained. One of the soldiers had a more aggressive approach than the others, and was interested in discussing politics with the activists. He called them “leftist shits”, and told them “I could kill you”, before spitting at them and cursing them in Hebrew. He also told the activists that Palestinians were terrorists and that Beit Ommar was a dangerous village.
The soldiers lied and told the activists that they would be free to go if they showed them their passports, however they took this back after one of the activists showed her passport. One activist managed to escape detention and left the area, however the other two were asked to step into a military jeep when it arrived. When refusing to do this, since no reason had been given, the soldiers dragged the two activists into the jeep with force, despite them telling the soldiers that they need a female police officer to arrest them. They were taken to the commander of the force who amongst other things accused the activists of being terrorists and Syrian spies, spying on the Israeli military. After being taken to the police station in Kiryat Arba, an illegal settlement in the outskirts of Hebron, the activists were released after a few minutes without charge.
The demonstration in Beit Ommar went ahead as planned and protesters managed to successfully reach and work on the land belonging to the farmers of Beit Ommar.
US arms sales to Bahrain rise
Press TV – June 11, 2011
The US increased its military sales to Bahrain just before Manama began its brutal crackdown on protesters in February, says a report by the US State Department.
The annual report that provides sales figures between the US weapon manufacturers and foreign governments showed a USD 112 million increase in military sales to Bahrain between 2009 and 2010, The Washington Post reported.
In total, the US government has approved USD 200 million in military sales to the Persian Gulf kingdom during this period.
Previously, the sales included military hardware for aircraft and military electronics. However, in 2010, the US government also approved the sale of USD 760,000 in rifles, shotguns and assault weapons to Bahrain.
Since the anti-government demonstrations began in mid-February this year, the Al Khalifa regime has confronted the demonstrators with armed military and police, firing live ammunition. Scores have been killed and hundreds injured.
This comes as the West has remained silent on the Al Khalifa regime’s massive crackdown on the anti-government protesters. […]
In 2009, the first year of US President Barack Obama’s term, Washington sold an overall of USD 40 billion in military hardware to countries in the Middle East and North Africa.
This is an increase from the final year of former President George W. Bush’s term in 2008, when the US State Department approved USD 34.2 billion in military sales. – Full article
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A not-so-trivial quiz
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | 14 March 2010
Maidhc Ó Cathail names and shames the top 19 politicians, academics and policy makers – all con men and all Zionist Jews – who lied and conspired to steer the US toward aggression against the Iraqi people. … continue
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