For fans of European football, July is pretty much downtime until mid- to late-August when the UEFA, German, Spanish and other supercups officially conclude the previous season. After the excitement of the Champions League and European Football Championship (EURO 2012), the spotlight shifted to transfers and lower-key international friendlies, which help clubs prepare for their upcoming domestic seasons. This year, though, a spotlight off the pitch continued to compete strongly for media and fan attention. I am, of course, referring to “racism,” an unfortunate solecism that is more emotional than accurate.
At EURO 2012, jointly hosted by Poland and Ukraine, UEFA launched the anodyne “Respect Diversity” campaign. Despite its bumptious aim of eliminating racism, some sort of official program does seem necessary:
- Hours before EURO 2012 began, Polish thugs attacked English-speaking fans and hurled racist epithets at Dutch stars.
- During the championship, the Croatia Football Association was fined €80,000 for fan misconduct, which included hurling insults at Italian star Mario Balotelli, who is ethnically Ghanaian.
- Later, the Russian and Spanish football associations were fined €30,000 and €20,000, respectively, because their fans exhibited racist behaviour and engaged in racist chanting toward specific black players.
Moreover, long before EURO 2012 started, the English Premier League was embroiled in two major racial issues. Luis Suarez of Liverpool FC was found to have insulted Manchester United defender Patrice Evra during an Oct. 14, 2011, match at Old Trafford. He would be suspended for eight games. The incident is also thought to have cost Liverpool FC coach Kenny Dalglish his job because he had come to Suarez’s defence.
Just over two months later, on Dec. 21, Chelsea FC captain John Terry was accused of insulting the ethnic origin and colour of Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand. This July, the incident actually landed Terry in a Magistrate’s Court, where he was found not guilty of a racially aggravated public order offence. Earlier, Fabio Capello resigned as coach of the English national team because he could not abide the Football Association’s peremptory decision to strip Terry of his captaincy. Most recently, the FA decided to charge Terry despite the not-guilty verdict.
“Racism” is not new to international football, but high-profile cases over the past year have given the beautiful game a black eye. How the sport does, and does not, deal with intolerance, shows that its insistence on ethical behaviour is really only skin deep.
On the one hand, if a black player is verbally abused the incident will be thoroughly investigated. The accused offender(s) can expect to be pilloried in the media and punished if found guilty. However, if an Arab player is physically abused, as in the case of Mahmud Sarsak of the Palestinian national team, virtually no action will be taken. One would think that the deliberate physical abuse of a player would merit stronger condemnation and punishment than mere name-calling (“sticks and stones” and all that), but because Israel was the offender, FIFA exhibited the moral cowardice and double-standard typical of high-minded organizations.
Sarsak’s ordeal began on July 27, 2009—three years ago—when he arrived at a border crossing in the northern Gaza Strip en route to joining the Balata Youth club football team in the West Bank. Despite having the required travel permit from the Civil Administration of the Israeli Ministry of Defense, Sarsak, a university student with no political affiliations, was arrested on suspicion of being a terrorist (!) and sent to an Israeli jail.
In April, he went on a hunger strike, and by July, his condition had deteriorated to the point where he had to be taken to hospital. His plight sparked a major international campaign to save his life. Because intense international attention was making Israel look bad, it finally agreed to release Sarsak. That was the end of it.
For its part, FIFA’s response reeked of timidity. When apprised of Sarsak’s condition, Sepp Blatter politely wrote to the Israel Football Association to express “grave concern and worry about the alleged illegal detention of Palestine football players… in apparent violation of their integrity and human rights…” [my emphasis]
I contacted FIFA in Geneva to ask how Blatter could call such a blatant offence “alleged.” I was told that the accuracy of Sarsak’s story was not certain because it came from third-party reports. This excuse is indefensible. If nothing else, it shows that for three years, FIFA did nothing to secure Sarsak‘s release..
But let’s be charitable for a moment. Let’s assume that FIFA had no knowledge of Israel’s racially motivated arrest and abuse of Sarsak, and let’s pass over Blatter’s feeble response to Sarsak’s hunger strike. What does FIFA do now? Sanction Israel? Suspend Israel? Investigate Sarsak’s arrest? No. Nothing.
As I thought about Israel, racism and FIFA—even beyond the Sarsak incident—I thought about South Africa, racism and FIFA. I called Geneva to find out what it would take for FIFA to suspend or expel Israel the way it did South Africa, and was treated to this gem: “The case of 1964 which you mention was different, as the South African football association was at that time not complying with the FIFA Statutes.”
In other words, South African apartheid was a football matter, and therefore punishable; Israel’s apartheid is political, and therefore outside the authority of FIFA. This is indeed a curious response. First, in July 1972, FIFA “clarified” its suspension of South Africa by stating that it was done not for contravention of football rules, but because of South African government policy! Second, even if such an argument were defensible, the abuse of Sarsak, a football player, clearly makes his abuse a football matter.
Ethical double-standard?—It’s hard not to come to that conclusion. In fact, FIFA admits its tolerance for Israeli apartheid in the language of is own anti-racism campaign:
“The Respect Diversity programme will be implemented with the cooperation of UEFA’s long-time anti-discrimination partner the “Football against Racism in Europe” (FARE) network and its eastern European partner organization Never Again. One key aspect of the initiative will be the monitoring by Never Again of racist and discriminatory chanting and symbols. Such monitoring activities have been an important aspect of FARE’s work at major international final rounds for several years”, as was stated in the message.”
“Never Again,” as we all know, is the shibboleth of Jewish exceptionalism and Holocaust® propaganda. How ironic that FIFA should unknowingly parade its Israeli subservience before the whole world!
If FIFA can grant Israel membership in UEFA by special resolution (see sidebar below), it can also take it away. Instead of integrity, though, we’re just going to get more of Sepp’s blather.
SIDEBAR
ISRAELI MEMBERSHIP IN UEFA
According to the UEFA Statutes, in exceptional circumstances, a national football association that is situated in another continent may be admitted for membership, provided that it is not a member of the Confederation of that continent, or of any other Confederation, and that FIFA approves its membership of UEFA.
Due to the tense political situation in this particular part of the world in the beginning of the 1990s, Israel asked for its affiliation to UEFA. Its clubs were not given the chance to participate in club competitions under the umbrella of the Asian Football Confederation as most of the Arab countries objected to meeting Israeli teams. In an effort to contribute to the development of football and to give an opportunity to as many people as possible to enjoy the game, the UEFA Executive Committee decided to accept the affiliation request.
This was done in three steps:
• 19 September 1991 in Montreux, Switzerland: Admission of teams from Israel in European Clubs competitions.
• 19 September 1993 in Cyprus: The UEFA Executive Committee agrees on a provisory admission of the Football Association of Israel (IFA).
• 28 April 1994 in Vienna, Austria: The UEFA Congress agrees on a definite admission of the IFA to UEFA.
July 31, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Timeless or most popular | FIFA, Israel, Sepp Blatter, South Africa, UEFA |
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OAK RIDGE, TN – Early this morning three plowshares activists performed a disarmament action in response to Government plans to invest $80 billion to sustain and modernize the nuclear weapons complex.
Calling themselves Transform Now Plowshares, Michael R. Walli (63), Megan Rice (82), and Greg Boertje-Obed (57) entered the Y-12 nuclear weapons facility before dawn.
They released a faith-based statement saying, “A loving and compassionate Creator invites us to take the urgent and decisive steps to transform the U.S. empire, and this facility, into life-giving alternatives which resolve real problems of poverty and environmental degradation for all.”
The actors also delivered an indictment citing U.S. Constitutional and Treaty Law as well as the Nuremberg Principles:
“The ongoing building and maintenance of Oak Ridge Y-12 constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels. We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.”
This action is one of a long tradition of Plowshares disarmament actions in the US and around the world which challenge war-making and weapons of mass destruction.
At Y-12 NNSA plans to replace facilities for production and dismantlement of enriched uranium components with a new consolidated Uranium Processing Facility (UPF). It is budgeted to cost more than $6.5 billion.
Statement from Transform Plowshares activists about Y-12 nuclear weapons facility:
Oak Ridge Y-12 Indicted for War Crimes
Today, through our nonviolent action, we—Transform Now Plowshares—indict the U.S. government nuclear modernization program, including the new Uranium Processing Facility planned at Oak Ridge and the dedication of billions of public dollars to the continuation of the Y-12 facility.
WHEREAS, This program is an ongoing criminal endeavor in violation of international treaty law binding on the United States under the supremacy clause of the U.S. Constitution (Article VI):
This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
WHEREAS, The United States is bound by the United Nation’s Charter, ratified and signed in 1945. Its preamble affirms that its purpose is to “save future generations from the scourge of war”. It directs that “all nations shall refrain from the use of force against another nation”. Article II regards the threat to use nuclear weapons as ongoing international criminal activity.
WHEREAS, The Nuremberg Principles, also promulgated in 1945, primarily by the U.S., prohibit crimes against peace, crimes against humanity, war crimes and genocide. They render nuclear weapons systems prohibited, illegal, and criminal under all circumstances and for any reason.
WHEREAS, The U.S. government is obligated as well by the Non Proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970 that requires the signers to pursue negotiations in good faith and to eliminate nuclear weapons at an early date. The U.S. government is also obligated by the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, which prohibits full-scale nuclear explosions.
THEREFORE, The work planned at Oak Ridge violates all these agreements and is thus criminal.
Oak Ridge Y-12 is slated to receive more than $6.5 billion in federal funding over the next decade for continuing nuclear weapons production. The new Uranium Processing Facility is expected to sustain a nuclear arsenal of 3000-3500 weapons beyond the middle of the century. Additional production facilities are sought as well. Instead of eliminating nuclear weaponry, Oak Ridge Y-12 perpetuates it through the nuclear modernization program.
Against these continuing violations of treaty law, we assert our human right to civil resistance. Furthermore we affirm as crucial the human right to be free from these crimes. The Nuremberg Principles not only prohibit such crimes but oblige those of us aware of the crime to act against it. “Complicity in the commission of a crime against peace, a war crime, or a crime against humanity…is a crime under International Law”.
The ongoing building and maintenance of Oak Ridge Y-12 constitute war crimes that can and should be investigated and prosecuted by judicial authorities at all levels. We are required by International Law to denounce and resist known crimes.
For the sake of the whole human family threatened by nuclear weapons, and for the sake of our Planet Earth, which is abused and violated, we indict the Oak Ridge Y-12 nuclear weapon facility and all government officials, agencies, and contractors as responsible for perpetuating these war crimes.
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Nuremberg Principles, Oak Ridge, Oak Ridge Tennessee, United States, Warfare and Conflict |
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World Nuclear News, the information arm of the World Nuclear Association which seeks to boost the use of atomic energy, last week heralded a NASA Mars rover slated to land on Mars on Monday, the first Mars rover fueled with plutonium.
“A new era of space exploration is dawning through the application of nuclear energy for rovers on Mars and the Moon, power generation at future bases on the surfaces of both and soon for rockets that enable interplanetary travel,” began a dispatch from World Nuclear News. It was headed: “Nuclear ‘a stepping stone’ to space exploration.”
In fact, in space as on Earth there are safe, clean alternatives to nuclear power. Indeed, right now a NASA space probe energized by solar energy is on its way to Jupiter, a mission which for years NASA claimed could not be accomplished without nuclear power providing on board electricity. Solar propulsion of spacecraft has begun. And also, scientists, including those at NASA, have been working on using solar energy and other safe power sources for human colonies on Mars and the Moon.
The World Nuclear Association describes itself as “representing the people and organizations of the global nuclear profession.” World Nuclear News says it “is supported administratively and with technical advice by the World Nuclear Association and is based within its London Secretariat.”
Its July 27th dispatch notes that the Mars rover that NASA calls Curiosity and intends to land on August 6th, is “powered by a large radioisotope thermal generator instead of solar cells” as previous NASA Mars rovers had been. It is fueled with 10.6 pounds of plutonium.
“Next year,” said World Nuclear News, “China is to launch a rover for the Moon” that also will be “powered by a nuclear battery.” And “most significant of all” in terms of nuclear power in space, continued World Nuclear News, “could be the Russian project for a ‘megawatt-class’ nuclear-powered rocket.” It cites Anatoly Koroteev, chief of Russia’s Keldysh Research Centre, as saying the system being developed could provide “thrust… 20 times that of current chemical rockets, enabling heavier craft with greater capabilities to travel further and faster than ever before.” There would be a “launch in 2018.”
The problem—a huge one and not mentioned whatsoever by World Nuclear News—involves accidents with space nuclear power systems releasing radioactivity impacting on people and other life on Earth. That has already happened. With more space nuclear operations, more atomic mishaps would be ahead.
NASA, before last November’s launch of Curiosity, acknowledged that if the rocket lofting it exploded at launch in Florida, plutonium could be released affecting an area as far as 62 miles away—highly-populated and including Orlando. Further, if the rocket didn’t break out of the Earth’s gravitational field, it and the rover would fall back into the atmosphere and break up, potentially releasing plutonium over a massive area. In its Final Environmental Impact Statement for the mission, NASA said in this situation plutonium could impact on “Earth surfaces between approximately 28-degrees north latitude and 28-degrees south latitude.” That includes Central America and much of South America, Asia, Africa and Australia.
The EIS said the costs of decontamination of plutonium in areas would be $267 million for each square mile of farmland, $478 million for each square mile of forests and $1.5 billion for each square mile of “mixed-use urban areas.” The Curiosity mission itself, because of $900 million in cost overruns, now has a price of $2.5 billion.
NASA set the odds very low for a plutonium release for Curiosity. The EIS said “overall” on the mission, the likelihood of plutonium being released was 1-in-220.
Bruce Gagnon, coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space, for more than 20 years the leading opposition group to space nuclear missions, declared that “NASA sadly appears committed to maintaining its dangerous alliance with the nuclear industry. Both entities view space as a new market for the deadly plutonium fuel… Have we not learned anything from Chernobyl and Fukushima? We don’t need to be launching nukes into space. It’s not a gamble we can afford to take.”
Plutonium has long been described as the most lethal radioactive substance. And the plutonium isotope used in the space nuclear program, and on the Curiosity rover, is significantly more radioactive than the type of plutonium used as fuel in nuclear weapons or built up as a waste product in nuclear power plants. It is Plutonium-238 as distinct from Plutonium-239. Plutonium-238 has a far shorter half-life–87.8 years compared to Plutonium-239 with a half-life of 24,500 years. An isotope’s half-life is the period in which half of its radioactivity is expended.
Dr. Arjun Makhijani, a nuclear physicist and president of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, explains that Plutonium-238 “is about 270 times more radioactive than Plutonium-239 per unit of weight.” Thus in radioactivity, the 10.6 pounds of Plutonium-238 being used on Curiosity is the equivalent of 2,862 pounds of Plutonium-239. The atomic bomb dropped on Nagasaki used 15 pounds of Plutonium-239.
The far shorter half-life of Plutonium-238 compared to Plutonium-239 results in it being extremely hot. This heat is translated in a radioisotope thermoelectric generator into electricity.
The pathway of greatest health concern for plutonium is breathing in a particle leading to lung cancer. A millionth of a gram of plutonium can be a fatal dose. The EIS for Curiosity speaks of particles that would be “transported to and remain in the trachea, bronchi, or deep lung regions.” The particles “would continuously irradiate lung tissue.”
There hasn’t been an accident on the Curiosity mission. But the EIS acknowledged that there have been mishaps previously—in this space borne game of nuclear Russian roulette. Of the 26 earlier U.S. space missions that have used plutonium listed in the EIS, three underwent accidents, it admitted. The worst occurred in 1964 and involved, it noted, the SNAP-9A plutonium system aboard a satellite that failed to achieve orbit and dropped to Earth, disintegrating as it fell. The 2.1 pounds of Plutonium-238 fuel on board dispersed widely over the Earth. Dr. John Gofman, professor of medical physics at the University of California at Berkeley, long linked this accident to an increase in global lung cancer. With the SNAP-9A accident, NASA switched to solar energy on satellites. Now all satellites and the International Space Station are solar powered.
The worst accident of several involving a Soviet or Russian nuclear space systems was the fall from orbit in 1978 of the Cosmos 954 satellite powered by a nuclear reactor. It also broke up in the atmosphere as it fell, spreading radioactive debris over 77,000 square miles of the Northwest Territories of Canada.
In 1996, the Russian Mars 96 space probe, energized with a half-pound of Plutonium-238 fuel, failed to break out of the Earth’s gravity and came down—as a fireball—over northern Chile. There was fall-out in Chile and neighboring Bolivia.
Initiatives in recent years to power spacecraft safely and cleanly include the launch by NASA last August 8th of a solar-powered space probe it calls Juno to Jupiter. NASA’s Juno website currently reports: “The spacecraft is in excellent health and is operating nominally.” It is flying at 35,200 miles per hour and is to reach Jupiter in 2016. Even at Jupiter, “nearly 500 million miles from the Sun,” notes NASA, its solar panels will be providing electricity.
Solar power has also begun to be utilized to propel spacecraft through the friction-less vacuum of space. The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency in 2010 launched what it termed a “space yacht” called Ikaros which got propulsion from the pressure on its large sails from ionizing particles emitted by the Sun. The sails also feature “thin-film solar cells to generate electricity and creating,” said Yuichi Tsuda of the agency, “a hybrid technology of electricity and pressure.”
As to power for colonies on Mars and the Moon, on Mars, not only the sun is considered as a power source but also energy from the Martian winds. And, on the Moon, as The Daily Galaxy has reported: “NASA is eying the Moon’s south polar region as a possible site for future outposts. The location has many advantages; for one thing, there is evidence of water frozen in deep dark south polar craters. Water can be split into oxygen to breathe and hydrogen to burn as rocket fuel—or astronauts could simply drink it. NASA’s lunar architects are also looking for what they call ‘peaks of eternal light’—polar mountains where the sun never sets, which might be perfect settings for a solar power station.”
Still, the pressure by promoters of nuclear energy on NASA and space agencies around the world to use atomic energy in space is intense—as is the drive of nuclear promoters on governments and the public for atomic energy on Earth.
Critically, nuclear power systems for space use must be fabricated on Earth—with all the dangers that involves, and launched from Earth—with all the dangers that involves (1 out of 100 rockets destruct on launch), and are subject to falling back to Earth and raining deadly radioactivity on human beings and other life on this planet.
Karl Grossman, professor of journalism at the State University of New York/College of New York, is the author of the book, The Wrong Stuff: The Space’s Program’s Nuclear Threat to Our Planet. Grossman is an associate of the media watch group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR). He is a contributor to Hopeless: Barack Obama and the Politics of Illusion.
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Environmentalism, Nuclear Power, Timeless or most popular | Institute for Energy and Environmental Research, NASA, Plutonium, Plutonium-238, World Nuclear Association |
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The world’s super rich, according to a new report, are squirreling away phenomenal quantities of their cash in secret tax havens.
Are America’s rich getting richer? Certainly. Every official yardstick shows that America’s most affluent are upping their incomes much faster than everyone else.
How fast? Between 1980 and 2010, note economists Emmanuel Saez and Thomas Piketty, incomes for America’s top 1 percent more than doubled after inflation. They now average a little more than $1 million.
The top 0.1 percent saw their incomes more than triple, to $4.9 million, over that same span. And income more than quadrupled for the top 0.01 percent — the richest 16,000 Americans — to nearly $24 million.
And what about the rest of us? After inflation, average incomes for America’s bottom 90 percent actually fell — by 4.8 percent — between 1980 and 2010, from $31,337 to $29,840.
These numbers tell us how much people make. Measuring wealth gauges how much people have. The two, common sense tells us, ought to be related. If incomes are getting much more unequal, then the distribution of our national wealth ought to become much more unequal too.
But that doesn’t seem to be the case. A Congressional Research Service of new Federal Reserve data indicates that the gap between the wealth of America’s most awesomely affluent and everyone else is holding steady.
In 2010, the Fed data show, the top 1 percent held 34.5 percent of the nation’s wealth, almost the same exact share as in 1995, and not that much more than the 30.1 percent share they held in 1989.
These numbers just don’t add up — income is increasingly skewed toward the top, but wealth distribution is holding steady. What can explain this paradox?
Maybe the Federal Reserve isn’t doing a good job of assessing just how much wealth the wealthiest Americans own. Indeed, Fed researchers do acknowledge that they don’t take into account — for privacy reasons — the wealth of anyone listed in the Forbes magazine annual list of America’s 400 richest.
But including these 400 only moves the top 1 percent’s share of America’s wealth up by a bit over a percentage point. It isn’t enough to explain the disconnect between the extraordinary income gains of America’s rich and the modest rise in their share of national wealth.
Maybe the rich are simply living large, wasting their astronomical incomes on caviar, private jets, and other luxuries. But wasteful consumption can’t explain the inequality paradox either. Deep pockets in America’s top 0.01 percent could shell out $5,000 every single day of the year and still have 93 percent of their annual incomes left to spend.
So what in the end can explain the inequality paradox? The London-based Tax Justice Network has an answer. The world’s super rich, the group has just reported, are squirreling away — and concealing — phenomenal quantities of their cash in secret global tax havens.
The Network’s new tax-dodging study “conservatively” computes the total wealth stashed in these havens at $21 trillion. That total could plausibly run as high as $32 trillion.
Americans make up, we know from previous research, almost a third of the global super rich. That would put the American share of unrecorded offshore assets as high as $10 trillion.
Add this $10 trillion to the wealth of America’s top 1 percent and the inequality disconnect between wealth and income largely disappears. Paradox solved.
Now we have to tackle a much bigger challenge: ending the march to ever greater inequality. Shutting down tax havens would make a great place to start.
~
Sam Pizzigati’s latest book is titled Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Economics, Supremacism, Social Darwinism, Timeless or most popular | Tax haven, Tax Justice Network, United States |
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Egyptian and Sudanese policy failures have lead to a looming strategic threat to both countries’ most important resources – the Nile. Israel has now signed an agreement with the South Sudanese authorities over rights to the country’s precious water source.
There was an outcry in Egypt and Sudan over last week’s signing of a cooperation agreement between Israel and South Sudan on water infrastructure and technology development. Warnings abounded that the pact between the government in Juba and Israeli Military Industries Ltd posed a threat to the water security of the two downstream countries and should be countered. Largely overlooked was the fact that their own inaction was mostly to blame for it.
Israeli designs on the waters of the Nile and on the resources of the African continent are hardly new. For years Israel has striven hard to forge ties with a number of African states and strengthen its presence in the continent, for both economic and security reasons.
In South Sudan, Israel has flaunted its ties with the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) – now the new country’s absolute ruler – and other southern faction leaders ever since the first southern rebellion began in Sudan in the 1950s. This was in line with a longstanding strategic doctrine, which was revisited in a 2008 lecture on Israel’s regional strategy by former Israeli security minister Avi Dichter.
This doctrine held, among other things, that Sudan, with its vast resources and economic potential, should not be allowed to become an asset to the power of the Arab world as a whole. As development in a stable Sudan would make it a threat to Israel, despite its geographical distance, Israel and its agencies should actively encourage the destabilization of the country by fueling successive crises until that instability becomes chronic.
The other acknowledged motive for Israeli intervention in Sudan was that the country constitutes the “strategic depth” of Egypt. In this regard, nothing could conceivably pose a greater strategic concern to Egypt and Sudan alike than a potential threat to their supplies of water from the Nile. Israel has succeeded in mounting such a threat with its latest pact with South Sudan and earlier agreements with other Nile littoral states in recent years.
The move comes against a backdrop of tensions over water issues between Egypt and Sudan and the majority of the other Nile Basin countries (the other riparian states are Ethiopia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Eritrea, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda).
Most of the upstream countries want major changes made to the arrangements that have long governed the management of the Nile’s waters. These include a 1929 agreement which requires Egypt to approve any large-scale water projects in upstream countries that would affect the flow of Nile waters. They also oppose a 1959 pact that allocates an annual 55.5 billion cubic meters of Nile water to Egypt and 18.5 billion cubic meters to Sudan, which they argue is unfair. Six countries have demanded a reallocation under a proposed new Entebbe Agreement, but Egypt and Sudan have rejected it. The pair – especially Egypt, which since ancient times has relied on the Nile for more than 95 percent of its water – would rather keep their historic shares, and insist there can be no new water agreement until contentious issues have been resolved.
Egyptian and Sudanese objections will not, however, stop South Sudan – which with its independence became the Nile’s 11th riparian state – and other countries from proceeding with large-scale water projects to meet their pressing development needs. These are bound to increase their consumption and impede the downstream flow. South Sudan occupies a strategic location in this regard, with about 45 percent of the Nile Basin’s water in its territory, and 28 percent of the river’s water flowing through it to Sudan and Egypt.
Yet both countries could have acted to avoid getting to this point.
Sudan’s relations with South Sudan began deteriorating from the moment the latter seceded, with political, territorial and financial disputes triggering military confrontation within months. The opportunity was missed of holding negotiations prior to independence on what proportion the South would get of Sudan’s water allocation, which would have enabled Khartoum to safeguard its interests. Water issues have since been overshadowed by other quarrels.
For Egypt, the Nile Water question arguably represents the greatest of the country’s many Mubarak-era foreign policy failures. The former regime neglected Africa diplomatically, and failed to sustain Egypt’s once-strong relations with the countries concerned. Its most tangible failure in this regard was its inability to persuade South Sudan to agree to the resumption of work on the long-stalled Jonglei Canal project, designed to save between 40 and 50 billion cubic meters of Nile water annually from evaporation.
Israel was quick to fill the vacuum. It has seized every possible opportunity to offer its backing to water projects in the upstream countries, through which to both put pressure on Egypt and Sudan, and gain leverage to help overcome its own water shortage.
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | Africa, Democratic Republic of Congo, Egypt, Israel, Nile, South Sudan, Sudan |
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US Army Maj. Gen. David Hogg (C) inspects Sierra Leone troops in Freetown during a deployment ceremony this year. (File photo)
A new report has unveiled that the US Army is “quietly equipping and training” thousands of African troops to prepare them for a war against al-Shabab fighters in Somalia.
“Officially, the troops are under the auspices of the African Union (AU). But in truth, according to interviews by US and African officials and senior military officers and budget documents, the 15,000-strong force pulled from five African countries is largely a creation of the State Department and Pentagon, trained and supplied by the US government,” Los Angeles Times reported on Monday.
The report added that the American officers along with dozens of retired foreign military personnel, hired through private contractors, are guiding the African soldiers.
“Nearly 20 years after US Army Rangers suffered a bloody defeat in Somalia, losing 18 soldiers and two Black Hawk helicopters, Washington is once again heavily engaged in the chaotic country. Only this time, African troops are doing the fighting and dying,” the report said.
Freetown, Sierra Leone’s capital is one of the bases the US army uses to train African soldiers, it said.
Through deploying African troops to Somalia, “the Obama administration is trying to achieve US military goals with minimal risk of American deaths and scant public debate,” the report added.
“The US can underwrite the war in Somalia for a relative pittance — the cost over four years has been less than USD 700 million, a tenth of what the military spends in Afghanistan in a month — but the price tag is growing. More than a third of the US assistance has been spent since early 2011,” the American newspaper said.
African forces are supplied “with surveillance drones, ammunition, small arms, armored personnel carriers, night-vision goggles, communications gear, medical equipment and other sophisticated aid and training,” the report added.
“The US government has done extremely well in providing for us and we are grateful for that, but they can do more,” said Brig. Gen Komba Mondeh, Sierra Leone’s chief of operations and plans.
“This is real war, and we expect to see the body bags coming back home,” he said.
The report came as the US has recently stepped up its assassination drone operations in the famine-stricken Somalia.
The weak Western-backed transitional government in Mogadishu has been battling al-Shabab for the past five years and is propped up by a strong AU force from Uganda, Burundi, and Djibouti.
The country has not had a functioning government since 1991, when warlords overthrew former dictator Mohamed Siad Barre.
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Militarism | African Union, Al-Shabaab, Komba Mondeh, Somalia, United States |
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Five Palestinian men were arrested by the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) in a night raid inside the old city of Nablus on Saturday, July 28. Tear gas and sound bombs were used against families and civilians protesting the arrests. 19 young men suffered asphyxiation and were taken to hospital. Israeli soldiers remained inside the city until 6 a.m. terrorizing residents.
A Palestinian woman walks through the destroyed home of the Kharuf family | Team Palestina & Free Gaza
Military incursions in Nablus, which is located in Area A and therefore under Palestinian military jurisdiction, are breaches of the Oslo Agreement, but nonetheless occur regularly. As always in occupied Palestine, human rights and agreements take the back seat to Israel’s political desires.
Among the families who were particularly afflicted by the night raid was the al-Kharuf family. At 2 a.m. their home was attacked by Israeli soldiers shooting tear gas at the 9 inhabitants, 5 of whom are children under 12 years old. The children were terrified by the attack and have now been sent to stay with relatives outside the city. An elderly woman had to go to the hospital after suffocating from the tear gas.
The IOF entered the house, where they seized Walid Kharuf. He was questioned on the whereabouts of his brother Omar and was severely beaten. When Walid claimed he did not know where his brother was, he was threatened by the commanding officer, “if you are lying and I find you brother here, I will destroy the house.”
The Kharuf home was turned upside down in the search for Omar, who was eventually found. After arresting the 23 year old young man, Israeli soldiers ordered everyone outside while they applied a bomb to one of the walls in the house. The blast that followed tore a hole in the house and devastated the room in which it was placed.
A Palestinian man looks into a wardrobe of the home of the Kharuf family after Israeli forces carried out a raid and bombed a wall of the home | Team Palestina & Free Gaza
All of Saturday the Kharuf family was busy clearing their home of rubble and broken furniture scattered throughout the house.
“So now we are homeless,” Walid solemnly noted, surveying the damage to his home.
July 30, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Civil Liberties, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture | International Solidarity Movement, Israel, Nablus |
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Five years ago, I met Nasser Nawaja and his family, and the community of Palestinian Susiya (not to be confused with the illegal Zionist colony of Susiya, in the same south of Hebron, West Bank area, whose colonists regularly viciously attack and aggress Susiya Palestinians, including elderly, children and women).
When in 2007 I met Nasser, his parents, his wife, brothers and extended family, they had been enduring for years, almost two decades, aggressions by the Israeli army and by Zionist colonists. They had been forcibly moved from their very functional, cool in summer, and innovative cave homes to arid dessert land on which, periodically, the Israeli occupation army would invade and destroy the ramshackle homes these displaced families had constructed.
The layers of injustice inflicted on these peaceable, innovative people are countless, and in the many months I spent with them in 2007, I and other justice activists I joined, attempted to document both the injustices heaped upon these Palestinians and the beauty of their sustainably-living lives–when not attacked by the IOF and Zionist colonists (see Susiya Palestinians suffer).
*Khalil Nawaja, 2007, his leg broken by Zionist colonists in 2006
*photo of 2008 Zionist attack on Imran Nawaja, Khalil, and his wife Manam, and other family members, courtesy B’Tselem “shooting back” documentation project–photo and video footage taken by Khalil Nawaja’s neice
Nasser has in the past few years–and against all odds, while providing for his wife and children and documenting the injustices inflicted on his community (at the expense of his own personal safety, many times attacked and beaten by Zionist colonists and for no reason except Occupation arrested by the IOF)–studiously expanded his knowledge of human rights law and the English language, to the point that he is able to now write poignant articles in well-read alternative press.
Please see his op-ed “Palestinian from Area C on a life in constant need of rebuilding” –wherein he describes Susiya life and how his village, surrounded by illegal Zionist colonies and outposts, was called “an illegal outpost” with the ultimatum of demolition, below:
I am Nasser Nawaj’ah. I am 30 years old. My mother gave birth to me in a cave in Susya El-Kadis. You know of Susya as a Jewish settlement in the South Hebron Hills, but Susya is first of all a Palestinian village that existed before the establishment of the State of Israel.
I was named after my grandfather, who was still alive at the time. In 1948, he was displaced from his village near Arad, now in southern Israel. When they were expelled, my father was just a little boy and my grandfather carried him in his arms until they reached their family in Susya El Kadis. They hoped one day to return to their village, but my grandfather died without ever seeing it again.
Nasser Nawaj’ah (L) and Salam Fayyad (Courtesy of B’Tselem)
A year after I was born, in 1983, the settlement of Susya was established. In 1986, after Israeli archaeologists found remnants of a synagogue in our village, we were expelled again. I was 4 years old. My father took me in his arms while bulldozers destroyed our homes and blocked the caves that we lived in. We scattered in our agricultural lands around the village. The grown-ups hoped that we would one day return to our caves, but a fence was built around the village and it was turned into an archaeological site. Today we still live on our agricultural land and I can see the place where I was born, but cannot go there. Israelis and foreigners from all over the world enter the site, but I cannot.
After 1990, the expulsion attempts started up again. Despite the fact that we have documents proving that the land belongs to us, the caves we lived in and our water wells were destroyed. But each time, we returned and built anew. At the same time, the Israeli settlement of Susya continued to flourish and grow. In 2001, after the murder of Yair Har Sinai, settlers arrived with the army and again destroyed the caves and the wells and uprooted our trees. It was only after 10 days and an interim decision by the Israeli High Court that we were able to return to our homes.
Today we live in tents – and even these were threatened with demolition orders forcing us to obtain permits for them. This is the life of a Palestinian in Area C of the West Bank. We are denied building permits, and are disinherited and banished from our land. Each time we request permits from the Israeli army, we are denied. The water pipes of Israel’s Mekorot water company pass several meters away from our village – they bring water to illegal outposts around us but we can’t get water from them. We don’t have access to the water that flows in those pipes, even though this is our water, water that Israel pumps from the West Bank.
We are forced to live off of rain water that we collect in our wells. The water situation in the South Hebron Hills is dire, and we are always forced to supplement by buying water brought in tankers to sustain ourselves through the summer. We pay NIS 35 for a cubic meter of water – about four times as much as you pay for water inside Israel.
Four months ago, the Regavim organization filed a petition to the High Court demanding that our village, Susya, be destroyed. They refer to it as an “illegal outpost” and claim that our village presents a security threat. Last week there was a hearing in the Israeli High Court. They call my village an illegal Palestinian outpost. But these have been our lands since before the establishment of the State of Israel. My father is older than your state and I am not legal on my own land? I ask you: where is the justice in that? In your court there is a difference between a Palestinian and a settler. You call it illegal construction but what we’re talking about is an underground cave that is hundreds of years old.
Illegal Israeli settlement outposts are all around us in the Susya area, and there are many buildings inside settlements with pending demolition orders – but they have everything. The government provides them with infrastructure for water and electricity despite the fact that according to Israeli law they are illegal, and nothing happens to them. And now you want to displace the old man from his home? To expel us from land that belongs to us, that we have lived on generation after generation, that is all that we know.
Resources:
My Susiya notes, 2007
2007 video on Susiya Palestinians
2005 video on Susiya Palestinians
Civil Administration threatens to demolish most of Susiya village
Settlers beat Jamal a-Nawaj’a and throw stones at his mother and wife, in Susiya, March 2006
Settlers assault Palestinian shepherds sleeping in tents in the southern Hebron hills, 26 March 2006
July 29, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | Hebron, Israel, Israeli settlement, Mount Hebron, Susya, West Bank |
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Tehran – A report published on Sunday in Ha’aretz reveals that US National Security Adviser Tom Donilon has presented Washington’s contingency plans for a possible attack on Iran to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu once the nuclear negotiations reach an impasse.
However, the report was immediately denied by a top Israeli official who spoke on condition of anonymity. He said, “Nothing in the article is correct. Donilon did not meet the prime minister for dinner, he did not meet him one-on-one, nor did he present operational plans to attack Iran.”
A quick justification for this denial could be that such a contingency plan was not supposed to be publicized and should have remained confidential for as long as necessary.
Still, there is no denial that Washington and Israel are the two sides of a coin and it is manifest that they have in their political wheeling and dealing formed a united front against Iran.
US GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney has recently paid a visit to Israel to marshal up support of the Israelis on the one hand and express his unswervingly servile commitment to Israel (including his anti-Iran stance) on the other. Dan Senor, a top foreign policy adviser for the GOP presidential candidate, says that Romney would support “Israel’s decision to launch a military strike against Iran to keep that country from achieving nuclear capabilities, but hopes diplomatic and military measures will dissuade Tehran from pursuing its path toward nuclear acquisition.”
Furthermore, he told reporters ahead of the speech, planned for late Sunday near Jerusalem’s Old City, “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing the capability, the governor would respect that decision.”
With a more somber tone, however, Romney himself has repeatedly said that he has a “zero tolerance” policy toward Iran obtaining the capability to build a nuclear weapon.
In the recent past, Washington has frequently threatened Iran with a military strike. The threats, which evidently run counter to all international laws, are generally uttered by a massive number of officials influenced by the powerful Zionist lobby in Washington. A brazen instance of these threats is that Washington may use the 14-ton bunker buster (20ft long, 1ft wide weapon) known as Massive Ordnance Penetrator (MOP), the world’s largest conventional bomb against Iran nuclear sites. Michael Donley, the US Air Force Secretary, said the bomb would be available if necessary.
“We continue to do testing on the bomb to refine its capabilities, and that is ongoing,” he said “We also have the capability to go with existing configuration today.”
In order to justify their illegal threats and sanctions, the US has apparently embarked on a systematic program of fomenting Iranophobia in the US and the rest of the world. In this pernicious Iranophobic campaign, a number of groups and parties including the Tea Party, neocons and AIPAC are actively involved.
By this program, the US is hell bent on distorting the realities of the Islamic Republic as well as brainwashing public opinion in the world into believing that Iran is seeking to build nuclear weapons, and that Iran poses a grave danger to the security of the world. In this smear campaign, Washington also makes use of its allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Israel in the region.
A politically bankrupt politician who does have but little respect in his own country, Romney follows the selfsame Iranophobic campaign, takes an aggressive stand on Iran in Israel where he is falsely emboldened and says Tehran’s leaders are giving the world “no reason to trust them with nuclear material.” He even voiced support for an Israeli decision for military action “to prevent Iran from gaining nuclear capability”.
“Make no mistake: The ayatollahs in Tehran are testing our moral defenses. They want to know who will object, and who will look the other way. My message to the people of Israel and the leaders of Iran is one and the same: I will not look away; and neither will my country.”
These facts aside, the duo have recently started a string of false flag terrorist attacks taking place in different parts of the world. With Washington pointing the finger of blame at Iran, Israel feels more fallaciously entitled to tone up its war rhetoric against the Islamic Republic and make the best of the fabricated ops. In the same line, former UN Ambassador John Bolton has called on the Zionist entity to attack Iran in retaliation for the alleged killing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria, saying “the time has come for the Jewish state to quit threatening and take action”.
“This is obviously a very dangerous period for Israel with the civil war in Syria, refugees reported going across the border into Lebanon, and Hezbollah well armed with rockets on Israel’s northern border,” Bolton told Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren Thursday night. “So I think if there were ever a time to retaliate, and directly against Iran this time, this is it.”
In the final analysis, one can see that the real threat in the world is being posed and imposed by those warmongers in Washington who will turn the situation to the best of their own interests in the region as well as by Israel who will in the wake of a war against Iran reap the benefits of such aggression if of course they ever outlive such an act of belligerence.
– Dr. Ismail Salami is an Iranian writer, Middle East expert, Iranologist and lexicographer. He writes extensively on the US and Middle East issues.
July 29, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, War Crimes, Wars for Israel | Benjamin Netanyahu, Iran, Israel, Mitt Romney, United States |
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The Department of Interior today released the final version of a policy that will smooth the way for industrial-scale solar energy development on public lands throughout America’s southwestern deserts. Even though Interior weakened environmental protections seen in earlier drafts, and crafted the policy to meet industry demands–essentially putting on paper what is already Interior’s de facto policy of allowing solar companies to bulldoze wherever they please–several national environmental groups still applauded the announcement, including the Sierra Club, NRDC, the Wilderness Society, and the national Audubon Society. Their statements of support for the policy probably represent efforts to put positive spin on what is ultimately an environmental catastrophe for the renewable energy industry and our public lands.
Corporate Giveaway of Public Lands
The final policy–which is expected to be signed by Secretary Salazar later this year–designates nearly 32,000 square miles of desert habitat as suitable for industrial-scale solar energy development. About 445 square miles will be designated as “solar energy zones,” where companies will be encouraged (but not required) to build their facilities. Some national environmental groups initially supported a policy that would only allow energy companies to build in the proposed solar zones, minimizing potential with conservation efforts outside of the zones. It became apparent last year that Interior was more interested in giving public lands away to industry under an alternative known as the Solar Energy Development Program, so environmental groups began to pretend that this was also their preferred alternative.
To highlight the backtracking in these environmental groups’ own position, several national environmental groups urged Interior to adopt a “zone-based” approach to solar development in a May 2011 press release, and had this to say about the Solar Energy Development Program:
“the agency’s Preferred Alternative, goes much farther by opening up an additional 21 million acres outside those zones that have yet to be studied for potential resource conflicts. Conservation groups disagreed with the choice of the Preferred Alternative, and argued neither alternative offered the certainty that the groups, solar developers, and the agency itself needs to move forward on a smart path.”
Fast forward to today, and now the national environmental groups are singing praises for the same misguided policy in a press release. Jim Lyons of Defenders of Wildlife appeared to be preparing a new job at the Chamber of Commerce in this statement from today’s press release:
“Balancing our nation’s energy production by increasing solar, wind and geothermal sources will strengthen our economy, improve energy security and reduce greenhouse gases. This solar energy plan is an important step in that direction.”
F@*k the Zones: Industry Can Bulldoze Wherever They Want
The only places where the energy industry cannot build their projects will be lands that are already protected, such as National Parks and Areas of Critical Environmental Concern. Other than the creation of weak incentives for zone-based development, this policy is essentially no different than the last few years of solar energy siting in our deserts, where companies have ignored environmental concerns and built their projects on some of the most ecologically valuable desert habitat. Nevertheless, the Wilderness Society’s Chase Huntley in typical Washington Beltway double-speak claimed “this is the quickest route to meeting the renewables targets set by Congress consistent with protecting our dwindling undeveloped wildlands.”
Protect Endangered Species (Optional)
The one aspect of the solar policy that some groups might claim to be a victory for wildlife is actually a glossy sheen added at the last minute that will only be as good as the political will of environmental stewards in the BLM and US Fish and Wildlife Service. A proposal to exclude solar energy development from critical desert tortoise connectivity areas was added late last year, but the proposal appears to have been significantly weakened by industry lobbying, and now only amounts to words of discouragement from the US Fish and Wildlife Service that developers can ignore.
Interior initially designated desert tortoise connectivity areas that are assessed to be essential to the recovery and survivability of this Federally listed species, where solar energy development would be strictly controlled or excluded. The draft exclusion policy would have kept projects off of desert habitat where the desert tortoise population exceeded 2 per square mile in the connectivity area. Another land designation known as “variance” areas would have required companies to maintain a wildlife corridor at least 3 miles in width and prohibited projects that would require the translocation of more than 35 adult tortoises. These requirements have been eliminated from the final policy, and replaced with vague references to protecting wildlife corridors that will ultimately give companies the discretion to override scientific concerns, unless wildlife officials are willing to say no to the companies. Because of political pressure from Washington, however, local land management and wildlife officials have been under pressure to fast-track and approve most projects.
The tortoise connectivity corridors are still referenced in the policy, but only to show companies where they are discouraged from building. Perhaps not surprisingly, a vast swath of tortoise connectivity designation was abandoned in a region of the Mojave Desert along the California-Nevada border where BrightSource Energy is proposing to build two massive solar projects — Hidden Hills and Sandy Valley solar projects. The only real requirement that remains in the wildlife protection aspect of the policy is that developers have to meet with Department of Interior, and possibly listen to words of discouragement before they continue with their application.
The Sierra Club’s Barbara Boyle had this to say about the plan’s protection of wildlife:
“This Administration’s design for solar development on public lands is based on sound principles, particularly by focusing projects in locations with the lowest impacts on wildlife habitat, lands and water.”
It’s unfortunate when the words of our supposed environmental guardians become hollow and pointless. These groups have already shown a willingness to abandon the principles of sustainability and environmental protections for yet another darling industry that will save us from climate change. … Full article
July 29, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Corruption, Environmentalism | BrightSource Energy, Mojave Desert, Public land, Sierra Club, Solar energy, United States, Wilderness Society |
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Mitt Romney, during a speech in Jerusalem, pledged unflinching U.S. support for Israel as president, saying the two allied nations are “bound together” and determined to prevent a nuclear-armed Iran.
“I believe that the enduring alliance between the state of Israel and the United States of America is more than a strategic alliance: it is a force for good in the world,” Romney said in summing up a speech that betrayed no daylight between the two countries.
“America’s support of Israel should make every American proud. We should not allow the inevitable complexities of modern geopolitics to obscure fundamental touchstones,” he said. “No country or organization or individual should ever doubt this basic truth: A free and strong America will always stand with a free and strong Israel.”
The presumptive Republican nominee made no mention of President Obama during the 17-minute address, delivered before a friendly crowd of Jewish leaders and supporters, including the billionaire GOP donor, Sheldon Adelson. The tone of the speech was in keeping with Romney’s stated insistence that he would not criticize Obama nor undermine the administration’s foreign policy prerogatives while on foreign soil.
Yet Romney’s speech was full of implicit reminders of the critique he has leveled at Obama for years: that he has failed to slow Iran’s pursuit of a nuclear weapon and that his administration’s occasionally fraught relationship with the Israeli government has undermined the security of the Jewish state.
“With Hezbollah rockets aimed at Israel from the north, and Hamas rockets aimed from the south, with much of the Middle East in tumult, and with Iran bent on nuclear arms, America’s vocal and demonstrated commitment to the defense of Israel is even more critical,” Romney said. “Whenever the security of Israel is most in doubt, America’s commitment to Israel must be most secure.”
Romney was typically forceful when it came to Iran. Preventing the regime in Tehran from acquiring a nuclear weapon “must be our highest national security priority,” he said. “That threat has only become worse,” Romney said, since he first outlined his views on Iran five years ago.
“We must not delude ourselves into thinking that containment is an option,” Romney said. “We must lead the effort to prevent Iran from building and possessing nuclear weapons capability. We should employ any and all measures to dissuade the Iranian regime from its nuclear course, and it is our fervent hope that diplomatic and economic measures will do so.”
“In the final analysis, of course, no option should be excluded. We recognize Israel’s right to defend itself, and that it is right for America to stand with you,” he added.
Romney’s visit to Israel is the second stop on a foreign trip that has taken him to the United Kingdom and a scheduled visit to Poland on Monday.
He met with top Israeli leaders including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday and said he shared their concerns about the threat from a nuclear-armed Iran.
Earlier Sunday, a top Romney foreign policy adviser Dan Senor said the GOP candidate would back an Israeli military strike prevent Tehran from developing nuclear weapons.
“If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision,” Senor said to reporters.
Romney gingerly took a step back from those comments in an interview with CBS. He avoided repeating his aide’s remarks or talk of a strike, saying that he would “use my own words, and that is I respect the right of Israel to defend itself, and we stand with Israel.”
July 29, 2012
Posted by aletho |
Militarism, Timeless or most popular, Wars for Israel | Iran, Israel, Mitt Romney, Romney, Sheldon Adelson, United States |
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