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Five reasons why the TTIP talks are looking a bit wobbly

By Guy Taylor | TruePublica | February 26, 2016

Why TTIP negotiations are looking a bit like it might all fail

The twelfth round of negotiations for TTIP, the biggest trade deal of them all, started this week in Brussels. The impacts of TTIP are disturbing and well documented elsewhere on this site, but we are seeing signs of panic setting in on the pro-TTIP side of the fence. They’re right to panic.

1) TTIP is hugely behind schedule. It should have been signed off by now, and well into the ‘legal scrubbing’ stage where the lawyers tie up the legal loose ends and smooth of the rough edges. These negotiations are not open ended. Every delay, every extra month taken up at this stage is a threat to the entire project. We have the US elections looming, two of the frontrunners are against the new generation trade deals like TTIP and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP). There is no secret about the desperation of the Obama machine as they try to get the deal done and signed off before he vacates the White House at the end of the year. Obama is due to visit Germany in April to plead with all concerned to get a move on with the project. It is not impossible for the ratification vote in the European parliament to be held in 2019, after the next elections. That would make ratification in Europe very uncertain indeed.

2) There is a huge crisis over the proposals of corporate courts or ‘ISDS’ as it is often known. As the most contentious part of TTIP, it has attracted huge criticism and upset amongst members of the European parliament and in the public domain as well. In 2014, 150,000 responded to a European consultation on the issue and 97% of those responses were very negative. Since then, the trade commissioner in Brussels has dreamt up the Investor Court System as a proposed alternative. It has been made very clear that ICS is not alternative, more a repackaging of the dangerously flawed ISDS. Earlier this month,the largest association of German Judges completely slammed the ICS idea as undemocratic and undermining the sovereignty of domestic courts.  Slowly, our representatives in Brussels are beginning to realise this. We need to keep shouting about this

3) You might have noticed, but there is going to be a referendum on membership of the EU in the UK in June. Everything is up for grabs. If the UK votes to leave the EU, TTIP will probably still apply to us. In the horse-trading and arguments that will rage between now and the day of the vote, there will be concessions and deals struck – maybe, just maybe, TTIP could become a casualty. And in the run up to the referendum, the very idea of Brussels politicians signing off on such a far-reaching corporate power grab is adding a whole lot of fuel to the Brexit fire.

4) Procurement at all levels of government, both sides of the Atlantic is proving to be a sticking point. The EU wants access to state level procurement in the US – that’s a huge market to access. And at country level in the EU there’s an almost equally lucrative market to exploit for US corporations. The trouble is, this isn’t a deal being negotiated at state or nation state level. The US Trade Representative and the DG Trade in Europe are doing their utmost to keep scrutiny and influence at that level to a minimum, but agreeing stuff that is essential to their underlings at local level is part and parcel of TTIP and is inflaming opposition. Local authorities across the EU and in the UK are declaring their opposition to TTIP and CETA. In the States, there’s a similar move afoot. It was recently announced that the EU and USA were going to swap procurement market access offers at the end of this month and then hold a special intercessional meeting to discuss them.

5) And finally, one thing that cannot be ignored, is the growing movement of ordinary people across the EU & the US gaining knowledge and understanding about the deals (despite the best efforts of our governments and media). From the 3.2 million people who signed their opposition in the European Citizens’ Initiative last year, to the trade unions and community organisations saying ‘no’ to the deals, we are building a force that will be hard to resist. We can win this fight if we continue to step up the pressure.

More atglobaljustice.org.uk

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Israeli settlers escorted by army raid village in Salfit district

settlers_soldiers

Ma’an – February 27, 2016

SALFIT – A group of Israeli settlers escorted by Israeli military forces raided the village of Yasuf in the northern West Bank district of Salfit on Saturday.

The head of the Yasuf village council, Hafith Ebayya, said that a group of Israeli settlers raided the village and attempted to enter the al-Basatin area in central Yasuf.

Ebayya said that the settlers were escorted by military vehicles and soldiers, and that a military checkpoint was set up at the entrance of the village.

Clashes erupted between dozens of Palestinian youths and Israeli forces.

Israeli forces fired live bullets, rubber-coated steel bullets and tear gas at youths and several farmers who were in their fields nearby.

Several youths and farmers suffered from tear gas inhalation.

An Israeli army spokesperson told Ma’an they were looking into the report.

Three quarters of Yasuf’s lands are located in Area C — under full Israeli military and administrative control. According to a report by the Applied Research Institute-Jerusalem (ARIJ), over the years, some 602 dunams (148.7 acres) of Yasuf land have been seized to establish settlement housing.

Several Israeli settlements are located near Yasuf, including Ariel, the fourth largest settlement in the West Bank. These settlements in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem are illegal under international law.

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Subjugation - Torture | , , , , | Leave a comment

UN Sanctions Won’t Put Pyongyang Off Nuclear Weapons

Sputnik – 28.02.2016

The draft resolution for tougher sanctions against North Korea that the US submitted to the UN with China’s backing will not discourage Pyongyang from developing nuclear and ballistic missiles, North Korean expert Michael Madden told Sputnik.

On Friday, Washington, with Beijing’s backing, submitted a new resolution to the UN Security Council for additional sanctions against North Korea to deter it from progressing further with its nuclear and ballistic missile programs.

Michael Madden, a North Korean expert who runs the North Korean Leadership Watch blog, told Radio Sputnik that the sanctions are unlikely to succeed in stopping the programs, even if they do harm to the North Korean economy.

​”It’s not a terrific economy but in the last couple of years they’ve had modest growth and they’ve had some progress in terms of domestic economic development so it will remain to be seen if the sanctions affect that,” Madden said.

“One of the things that they’ve done is to allow the technocrats that are within North Korea’s cabinet to start managing programs, these people are very experienced [in dealing with] the fundamental flaws in North Korea’s economy, they know some of the fixes they need to make.”

“There have been some light reform measures that they’ve taken since Kim Jong-un has come to power, there’s a little more flexibility for the technocrats, there’s a little more flexibility in terms of food production, there’s some very basic market principles that they’re applying to their economy and I think that has affected growth rates over the last couple of years.”

North Korean President Kim Jong-un and many of those in his circle are more open-minded because they were educated abroad, and Madden said the president is aware of the gaps in his knowledge and open and amenable to advice, particularly from technocrats and economic planners.

“There is a certain degree – a very specific degree because it’s a totalitarian state – of flexibility that he has allowed officials to have in terms of formulating policies.”

However, that flexibility does not extend to its nuclear program, and sanctions will not make Pyongyang give up its nuclear program, Madden warned.

“North Korea has basically said on a number of occasions that they have no intention of giving up their nuclear weapons program, and no intention of stopping space launches, and we’re going to have to take them at their word.”

“They have numerous reasons for that, they’ll say ‘Iraq and Libya got rid of their WMD programs, look what happened there,’ and to a certain degree they’re justified in their thinking based on what they’ve seen happen to other similar political systems after they negotiated away their WMD programs.”

Madden said that Beijing has supported the US proposal for tougher sanctions against Pyongyang because of legitimate concerns about the potential for nuclear fallout and earthquakes as a result of the weapons tests, which “annoy China to a great extent, especially the nuclear weapons tests.”

While China and North Korea share a close relationship, China’s influence is somewhat exaggerated by a lot of external observers and government policy makers, and Pyongyang is likely to react with open hostility to the proposed sanctions, Madden said.

“Kim Jong-un spent last week inspecting military exercises; we’re probably going to see him inspecting more military exercises, they’re certainly going to tighten social controls.”

“Once the sanctions are passed, we’ll see some very interesting statements coming out of North Korea, they’ll just continue to heighten tensions on the Korean peninsula, and that’s what we’ll be seeing.”

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Economics, Militarism, Timeless or most popular | , | Leave a comment

Is the world ready for further reduction of nuclear weapons?

Dr Alexander Yakovenko – RT – February 27, 2016

One of the most important tasks in the field of international security is to rid the world of the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction.

Russia has been constantly advocating further limitations and reductions of nuclear weapons stockpiles along with strengthening international regimes of arms control and non-proliferation.

However, further dialogue on nuclear disarmament, held both bilaterally and multilaterally, could only be successful if the core principle of international security is observed, i.e. that the security of one country should not be strengthened at the expense of the security of others.

Unfortunately, what is happening now is a far cry from what the international community has been striving for. Among other things it is about global stability and deterrence; the trust between Russia and the West is diminishing. Some of the critical Russian concerns are left unaddressed.

First of all, as a result of the Russia-US New START Treaty, which entered into force in 2011, the number of nuclear warheads has already been reduced to the level of late 1950s or early 1960s. Thus, it brings up the issue of other nuclear states, including UK, joining the effort.

Secondly, further reductions are impossible while Washington is busy creating a global BMD system and conducting research into conventional weapons with a strategic range.

There is also serious concern over the possible transfer of the arms race to outer space. The Russian initiative to draft a legally binding document to ban the deployment of weapons in outer space is, unfortunately, hindered by the West. Before any concrete steps are made in this area, we’ve got to have guarantees against any imbalances in conventional armaments. The lack of progress in coming into force of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty is also a major factor.

Where are, after all, political logic and common sense, when the US pushes forward its disarmament proposal, while continuing to undermine Russia’s defense and industrial potential through restrictive measures and sanctions?

Above all, the trust between our sides is well below the “Cold War” level as the West launched an unprecedented media campaign against Russia and its political leadership. We cannot seriously consider proposals that amount to playing a one-sided game or rather, a game with no rules or with rules that are arbitrarily changed in Washington.

If, and when, all of the above circumstances change and our concerns and priorities are taken into account, including equal and indivisible security for all states, then it will be possible to consider discussing further nuclear reduction.

Dr Alexander Yakovenko, Russian Ambassador to the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, Deputy foreign minister (2005-2011). Follow him on Twitter @Amb_Yakovenko

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Syrian Army Not Returning Fire at Russian Request After Damascus Shelled

Sputnik — 28.02.2016

The Syrian army, following a request from the Russian center on reconciliation, did not return fire after Damascus was shelled Saturday from the regions of Ghuta and Jobar, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Sunday.

According to the statement, the Syrian capital of Damascus was shelled six times on Saturday morning from the regions of eastern Ghuta and Jobar, where the so-called “moderate opposition” is stationed.

“The Syrian government troops did not return fire, upon the request of the Russian center on reconciliation,” the statement read.

A ceasefire between Syrian government and rebel forces that entered its second day is largely holding, the head of Russia’s ceasefire monitoring center at the Hmeymim airbase in Latakia said Sunday.

The ceasefire went into force at 22:00 GMT early Friday, or midnight Damascus time. It does not apply to designated terrorist organizations, including Daesh and the Nusra Front.

February 28, 2016 Posted by | Militarism | | Leave a comment

Hillary Goes to War

By Diana Johnstone | CounterPunch | February 26, 2016

When voters elected Bill Clinton president of the United States in 1992, they were also electing his wife. Bill announced the fact himself, but after the failure of her health reform plan, Hillary’s only political success was her excellent performance in the role of a faithful wife who “stands by her man”. Her brave defense of her frivolous husband was widely appreciated, but as a qualification for the highest office in the land, it seems a bit skimpy. Having played a part in wars in the former Yugoslavia might seem more presidential.

During the 2008 Democratic Party primaries, Hillary evoked the foreign policy experience she had gained as First Lady by repeatedly regaling audiences with an exciting account of her trip to the Bosnian city of Tuzla in 1996:

“I certainly do remember that trip to Bosnia,” she told audiences. “There was a saying around the White House that if a place was too small, too poor, or too dangerous, the president couldn’t go, so send the First Lady. I remember landing under sniper fire. There was supposed to be some kind of a greeting ceremony at the airport, but instead we just ran with our heads down to get into the vehicles to get to our base.”

As word got around of what she was telling audiences, Hillary’s story was rapidly denied by numerous eyewitnesses to the event, as well as by television footage showing Ms. Clinton arriving in Tuzla with her daughter Chelsea and being greeted by little children offering flowers.

Cornered by the Philadelphia Daily News editorial board during an interview in late March, 2008, Hillary Clinton was forced to acknowledge that there were no snipers, but eased her way out:

“I think that, a minor blip, you know, if I said something that, you know, I say a lot of things – millions of words a day – so if I misspoke it was just a misstatement.”

She never had to dodge sniper fire, but she does know how to dodge embarrassing questions. The fact that she utters “millions of words per day” is supposed to give her a generous quota of possible “misstatements”, or to put it more simply, lies.

The claim to have run from snipers was historically absurd and morally pretentious, in addition to being blatantly false. Four months before her visit, the hostilities in Bosnia had been decisively brought to a halt by the Dayton peace accords, signed on November 21, 1995. She could not fail to know that. Indeed, far from being sent to a place that was “too dangerous” for the
Johnstone-Queen-Cover-ak800--291x450President, the visit by the First Lady and her daughter was intended precisely to emphasize that the White House had not lost interest in Bosnia even though peace had been restored. Hillary’s spokesman Howard Wolfson had also added to the “misstatements” by claiming that she was “on the front lines” of “a potential combat zone”. Aside from the fact that there could be no “front lines” or “combat zone” when the war was over, Tuzla had never been either one. Tuzla was a largely Muslim- inhabited industrial center which had been selected as a U.S. military base, probably in part because it was a particularly safe environment.

Lying about Bosnia was nothing unusual, but this was a particularly silly, self-aggrandizing lie. Hillary evidently assumed that a brush with gunfire would be considered by the masses as adding to her qualifications to become Commander in Chief. It also showed a persistent tendency to view conflicts as occasions to display personal toughness, instead of as challenges calling for intelligent understanding of political complexities. Hillary’s claim to have braved sniper fire is not so far removed from Sarah Palin’s claim to understand Russia because she could see it from Alaska.

Hillary’s recorded statements concerning the former Yugoslavia revealed the same tendency to play to the galleries in matters of foreign policy that would mark her subsequent term as Secretary of State.

The Holocaust Pretext

In her star-struck biography of the First Lady, Hillary’s Choice, Gail Sheehy reported Hillary’s plea in favor of bombing Yugoslavia in 1999 as a major point in her favor. According to Sheehy’s book, Hillary convinced her reluctant husband to unleash the 78-day NATO bombing campaign against the Serbs with the argument that: “You can’t let this ethnic cleansing go on at the end of the century that has seen the Holocaust.”

This line is theatrical and totally irrelevant to the conflict in the Balkans. As a matter of fact, there was no “ethnic cleansing” going on in Kosovo at that time. It was the NATO bombing that soon led people to flee in all directions – a reaction that NATO leaders interpreted as the very “ethnic cleansing” they claimed to prevent by bombing. But Hillary’s remark illustrates the fact that Yugoslavia marks the start of using reference to the Holocaust as the most emotionally-potent argument in favor of war.

It was not always so. At the end of World War II, both the long- suffering survivors and those who discovered the horrors of the Nazi concentration camps wanted only to draw the conclusion that this was yet another powerful reason never again to go to war. But as time passed, by the strange chemistry of the Zeitgeist, the memory of the Holocaust has now become the strongest rhetorical argument for war. It is a sort of imaginary revisionism of past history that gets in the way of facing the present. Hillary’s sentence is a way of saying, “I would have said no to Hitler at Munich”, or “I would have bombed Auschwitz”. The history of World War II, and even world history itself, has been totally overshadowed in recent decades by the tragedy of the Holocaust to such an extent that even Western heads of State may find themselves acting out the dramas of the past instead of facing the realities of the present. The conflict in Kosovo was so obscure, so unfamiliar to Americans and so distorted by deception and self-deception , that the easiest way to think of it was by analogy with a conflict everyone knew about, or thought they knew about. The moral reward seemed immense, especially in consideration of the low cost, since it entailed bombing a country with inadequate air defenses, with no great risk to our side.

It is worth noting that Hillary urged Bill to bomb the Serbs via telephone, while she was in North Africa, touring Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco. Her guide on that trip was her new assistant, Huma Abedin, the young daughter of Muslim scholars and her trusted expert on the Muslim world. Many secular Arab nationalists in North Africa sympathized with the Serbs, due to past good relations with Yugoslavia during the days of the Non-Aligned Movement. However, Hillary had become an apprentice in learning to appreciate the fundamentalist Muslim outlook, and the Muslims of Bosnia and Kosovo enjoyed widespread, even fanatical support, in the Islamic world at this point. Did Huma assure Hillary that Muslims everywhere would applaud the Clinton administration for bombing Serbs?

Nevertheless, there are strong reasons to doubt that Hillary’s moralistic urging was the sole cause of the NATO bombing of what remained of the former Yugoslavia in 1999. Strategists were concerned with less sentimental geopolitical reasons, briefly alluded to above. But there is much less reason to doubt that Hillary did indeed urge Bill to bomb. And there is no reason at all to doubt that she boasted of this to her awed biographer, as a way of proving her “resolve” to use U.S. military power on a “humanitarian” mission. It fits her chosen image as “tough and caring”.

This article is excerpted from Diana Johnstone’s Queen of Chaos: the Misadventures of Hillary Clinton (CounterPunch Books).

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Book Review, Deception, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

Guatemala convicts ex-officers for crimes during civil war

Press TV – February 27, 2016

A court in Guatemala has sentenced two former military officials to over 100 years in prison each for murder, rape and sexual enslavement of the country’s indigenous women during the civil war in 1980s.

On Friday, state media reported that the court found Francisco Reyes Giron and Heriberto Valdéz Asij guilty of crimes carried out during the early 1980s and sentenced them to 120 and 240 years in prison, respectively.

The men were both accused of carrying out “forced disappearances” and forcing 15 indigenous women into sexual and domestic slavery.

Giron was also found guilty of killing one woman and her two daughters, while Valdez Asij was found to be responsible for the forced disappearance of seven men.

According to the unidentified women from the indigenous Q’eqchis community, Guatemala’s military treated them as sexual and domestic slaves during the time period.

“We the judges firmly believe the testimony of the women who were raped in Sepur Zarco,” said Yassmin Barrios, chief judge of the court, adding, “Rape is an instrument or weapon of war, it is a way to attack the country, killing or raping the victims, the woman was seen as a military objective.”

Armed forces reportedly attacked the village of Sepur Zarco a number of times in 1982, killing or abducting Mayan leaders there who had been seeking to apply for land titles.

Lawyers representing the men said the case was fabricated. Moises Galindo, the defense lawyer for Reyes Giron, even claimed his client had never been to the site of the crimes.

“We are going to appeal. We are going to succeed in having this case thrown out,” Galindo said.

Under Guatemalan law, the amount of time a person may spend in prison is 50 years.

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , | Leave a comment

The US war against Cuba

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Timeless or most popular, Video | , , | Leave a comment

A brief history of falling off buildings

Xymphora | January 20, 2007

Throwing people off high buildings is one of the ways, along with drowning and shooting, that the American authorities get rid of inconvenient people (the Europeans seem to like poisoning).  From an article by Roger Bowen, the biographer of Canadian diplomat E. Herbert Norman:

“A Canadian diplomat and scholar who was serving in Japan at the onset of the Second World War, and was interned there following the attack on Pearl Harbor, Mr. Norman was accused of being a Communist in 1951 by allies of Joseph McCarthy in the U.S. Senate. Interrogated twice in secret by the RCMP at the urging of U.S. intelligence agencies, he was exonerated by Canadian authorities and allowed to resume his duties in the foreign service.

In the fall of 1956, following the Suez crisis, Mr. Norman, then 47, was Canada’s ambassador to Egypt. Mr. Norman worked tirelessly to find a peaceful solution in negotiations with Gamal Abdel Nasser. His eventual success in persuading Egypt’s president to admit United Nations peacekeepers into his country was, for that era, a singular achievement. Mr. Norman’s boss, Lester Pearson, later won the Nobel Peace Prize, in part because of Mr. Norman’s efforts.

In March of 1957, suspicions about Mr. Norman were revived by the U.S. Senate. On April 4, Mr. Norman stepped off the roof of a nine-storey apartment building in the heart of Cairo.”

and:

“. . . it is clear that someone or some agency fabricated the details of Mr. Norman’s death and ‘leaked’ them to the U.S. press in 1957, making it appear that Mr. Norman was guilt-ridden and psychologically unstable, and that he chose to kill himself rather than face additional inquiries over his alleged Communist background.

One of several suicide notes leaked to the press then seemed to imply that Mr. Norman had had a close, perhaps homosexual, relationship with the Swedish ambassador to Egypt, Brynolf Eng. The New York Daily News account in April of 1957 reported Mr. Norman as having written to Mr. Eng on the eve of his death: ‘I wanted to spend some time with you during these last few days of my life and tell you about what has been worrying me but am afraid that even in this letter I cannot bring myself to tell you [the] true reasons that impel me to commit suicide. I have decided to die near your home. I know this may cause you some trouble and I am sorry but you are my best friend. Farewell. Sincerely, Norman.’

This account stood as the ‘truth’ for 30 years, contradicted only by Canadian sources whose comments did not register in the U.S. in 1957. The actual note Mr. Norman wrote to Mr. Eng, in his handwriting and found in the RCMP files, reads: ‘Mr. Eng, I beg forgiveness for using your flat. But it is the only clear jump where I can avoid hitting a passerby. E. H. N.’”

Norman is a fairly important guy, as his negotiations invented the concept of UN peacekeepers. Bowen has made repeated requests to the CIA to release its remaining cache of classified documents on Norman, without success. What are they hiding? It is clear that the Americans fabricated the released ‘suicide note’ to the press in order to create a motive for Norman’s suicide. If they had nothing to do with the death, why did they go to all this trouble?  I note that the Canadian Right, represented by David Frum’s father-in-law, the ancient Peter Worthington, maintains the cold war interpretation of the death of Norman.

Throwing people off tall buildings is a perfect method of assassination as it doesn’t leave any forensic evidence of a crime if it is done properly (both drowning and shooting can leave inconvenient forensic evidence).  The only tricky part is forging the suicide note, or forcing the victim to write it.  Some other prominent examples:

  1. The recent death of progressive lawyer Paul Sanford.  It has been surmised that this was Karl Rove’s revenge for an embarrassing question that Sanford asked then press secretary Scott McClellan about Rove, but my guess would be that it related to what Sanford was working on just before his death. From the Monterey Herald account, we learn that he was pacing the hallway of an upper floor, his car was parked next to the hotel, but he was not checked in as a guest. It appears he was invited to the upper floor, presumably by people who had rented a room. They could very well have tried to convince him not to publish what he was working on, ‘for the good of the country’. His pacing outside the room might reflect his trying to make up his mind. When he told them his conscience wouldn’t allow him to suppress the truth, they threw him out the window.
  2. The deaths of State Department official John J. Kokal, and long-time American government policy advisor Gus W. Weiss, both opposed to the Iraq attack.
  3. The amazing story of CIA victim Dr. Frank Olson (excellent coverage here, despite the crappy author, including discussion of CIA use of defenestration as a method of assassination, and the use of LSD as a truth serum regarding Olson’s knowledge of American biological weapons programs). After years of denial, the American government finally admitted that the CIA had given Olson LSD without his knowledge, and that this led to the suicide of Olson. It then turned out that Olson had committed ‘suicide’ by going through a closed window. Since no one would commit suicide by jumping at a closed window, it was apparent that the U. S. government admissions were part of a ‘limited hangout’ to hide the fact that the CIA had thrown Olson through the closed window. I assume CIA training handbooks now include instructions to open the window before throwing the victim out!
  4. James Forrestal, first United States Secretary of Defense, was almost certainly suicided, probably as a direct result of his principled opposition to American assistance in the stealing of land required to establish the State of Israel.

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

The NY Times, Netanyahu’s Stenographer

By Barbara Erickson | TimesWarp | February 27, 2016

The New York Times serves as Benjamin Netanyahu’s stenographer in a story this week that reports his latest rant against critics of Israeli policy, repeating his claims at length but making no attempt to verify or even question the distortions in his response.

The Israeli prime minister was reacting to comments by British Prime Minister David Cameron, who criticized Israel’s settlement construction in and around East Jerusalem during a session in parliament Wednesday, saying that he found the situation “genuinely shocking.” The Times, which made no mention of Cameron’s remarks at the time, now presents us with an article by Isabel Kershner framed around the official Israeli response.

Her story, “Benjamin Netanyahu Rebukes David Cameron for Criticizing Israel,” gives much space to the prime minister’s assertions and allows him the final word. It also quotes Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barkat and allows the comments of both men to stand without challenge.

Netanyahu, speaking at a political meeting Thursday, portrayed Israel as the peacekeeper in East Jerusalem, saying that “only Israeli sovereignty” has prevented ISIS “and Hamas from igniting the holy sites as they are doing all over the Middle East.”

He implied that Israel has brought prosperity to Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, citing “roads, clinics, employment and all the other trappings of normal life that their brethren do not enjoy elsewhere in the Middle East.” Mayor Barkat also stated that Israel is building “the newest, most advanced schools” for Palestinian youth and paving new roads for residents.

The Times made no attempt to challenge the veracity of these comments although they grossly misrepresent the situation Palestinians face in occupied East Jerusalem. The data is available for all to see and is certainly familiar to Kershner and Times editors.

For instance, as of January 2011:

  • Entire Palestinian neighborhoods were not connected to a sewer system and lacked paved roads and sidewalks.
  • West Jerusalem had 1,000 public parks compared to 45 in East Jerusalem.
  • West Jerusalem had 34 swimming pools; East Jerusalem had three.
  • Nearly 90 percent of the sewage pipes, roads and sidewalks in the city were found in West Jerusalem.
  • West Jerusalem had 26 libraries; East Jerusalem had two.

More recent news also belies the claims of Netanyahu and Barkat. Far from working to provide education, health care and road access for Palestinian residents, Israeli policies and actions have made life more and more difficult for the non-Jewish residents of the city:

  • In 2015, Israel placed dozens of Palestinian children under house arrest in East Jerusalem, preventing them from attending school.
  • The Israeli government has been working with settler groups to dispossess Palestinians of their homes.
  • More than a third of East Jerusalem students are unable to complete high school because there are not enough classrooms. (Under an order by the Israeli High Court, some new classrooms are being built, but these will only alleviate the shortage by half.)
  • Some 38 percent of East Jerusalem’s planned areas have been confiscated for the development of Jewish settler neighborhoods, while only 2.6 percent is zoned for public buildings—such as schools—for the city’s indigenous Palestinians.
  • Israeli invasions of Makassed hospital in East Jerusalem hospital and restrictions on patients attempting to enter the hospital prompted several United Nations agencies to condemn the actions as violations of international law.
  • By Feb. 22,  Israeli forces had demolished 27 Palestinian-owned structures in East Jerusalem, including a school, since the beginning of this year.

Kershner’s story, however, makes no mention of any of this. The focus here is solely on the Israeli show of outrage. Netanyahu and Barkat’s statements are allowed to stand, even the claim that Hamas and ISIS are working together to foment terrorism. In fact, the two are bitter enemies, but the Times has no interest in disabusing its readers of this inconvenient fact.

Cameron’s statements gave the Times an opening, a chance to examine the settlement enterprise, conditions in East Jerusalem and the attitudes of Palestinian leaders and citizens living under Israeli control. But this was not to be. Only the Israeli narrative was of interest to the Times, and even the prime minister of the United Kingdom could not make his voice heard above its strident demands.

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Italian Decision to Permit US Attack UAVs Contradicts Constitution

Sputnik – February 27, 2016

In an interview with Sputnik, military expert Antonio Mazzeo described Rome’s decision to allow armed US drones to fly from  the Sigonella military base in Sicily to Libya as a gross violation of the Italian Constitution.

According to him, the move will further add to the militarization of the Sigonella base.

He said that even the deployment of unarmed Global Hawk drones to Sicily nine years ago, was not quite in line with the nation’s constitutional provisions limiting the use of Italian military facilities to self-defense, given that their task is to detect targets for bombers.

“Even if they do not carry missiles, they can be called a weapon of attack, destruction, and the first strike,” Mazzeo said. Article 11 of the 1948 Italian Constitution states that “Italy repudiates war as an instrument offending the liberty of the peoples and as a means for settling international disputes.”

His remarks came after Italian Defense Minister Roberta Pinotti confirmed earlier this week that the United States had been given permission to use the Sigonella base to carry out drone strikes on Daesh targets in Libya.

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Illegal Occupation, Militarism | , , | Leave a comment

Merkel Asks German Businesses to be Patient With Anti-Russian Sanctions

Sputnik – February 27, 2016

German Chancellor Angela Merkel asked for business representatives reeling from the costly effects of anti-Russian sanctions to remain patient at the Christian Democratic Union’s (CDU) economic conference, the German news agency DPA reported.

“The sanctions have hit some sectors of the economy hard,” Merkel said in her annual address to the conference in Stralsund, northeast Germany, on Friday.

She told those present that the anti-Russian sanctions, which resulted in a 25 percent (7.5 billion euros, $8.2 billion) drop in German exports to Russia last year, will be lifted in accordance with the Minsk Agreements that the representatives of France, Germany, Ukraine and Russia agreed upon in February 2015.

There is no evidence that Russia has not fulfilled the conditions of the agreement, and earlier this month Russia’s Permanent Representative to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, Alexander Lukashevich, told the OSCE’s Permanent Council meeting about Moscow’ concern that Kiev is not carrying out its obligations under the agreement.

Local residents standing at what has remained of their house after another artillery shelling of Donetsk.

© Sputnik/ Irina Geraschenko

Breaches of the agreement include the bombardment of residential homes by the Ukrainian military, the shelling of a trip by the Principal Deputy Chief Monitor of the OSCE Special Monitoring Mission to Ukraine, and Kiev’s failure to pass legislation that would provide a special status to the eastern regions of Donetsk and Lugansk.

“One of the key problems is that our colleagues pretend that Kiev is faithfully complying with the Package of Measures. In fact, it’s the other way round,” Lukashevich said.

“The Minsk Package of Measures is the foundation of the peace process via a direct dialogue between the parties to the Ukraine conflict. It provides a framework for a sustainable solution to the crisis, and defines the principles of conserving the Donetsk and Lugansk regions as part of Ukraine with constitutional and legislative guarantees ensuring the rights of the people of Donbass.”

Read more: ECHR to Review 551 Complaints From Donbass Residents on Rights Violations

February 27, 2016 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , | Leave a comment

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