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Are Democracy Now!’s Libyan Correspondents Feeding Us the State Department and Pentagon Line on Libya?

By Bruce A. Dixon | Black Agenda Report | October 5, 2011

Let’s bomb Libya some more

Have Democracy Now’s correspondents in Libya, Anjali Kamat and Sharif Abdel-Kodous minimized or avoided reporting upon the persecution of black Libyans and sub-Saharan African migrants in by US-backed Libyan rebels? Have they reported massacres that may not have happened, and mercenaries who might not have existed? Have they ignored or minimized the impact of US and NATO bombing and the presence of Saudi, Qatari and other foreign forces on the ground in Libya, also in support of the US-backed Libyan rebels? Have they simply embedded themselves with US-backed forces in Libya to pass the views of the Pentagon and State Department to us as “independent, unembedded news”?

It’s hard to know all of this for certain. We’re over here, they’re over there, and Libya is very much a war zone.

I’m not in Libya and never have been, but people who have say the country is anywhere from a quarter to half what we would call “black” in the US. It’s hard not to notice that Anjali Kamat can’t find any black Libyans to talk to, and that none are visible among the US-backed Libyan rebels.

There have been many persistent reports from too many sources that have pointed to widespread persecution of black Libyans and migrants from sub-Saharan Africa. There are reports of all-black towns in Libya which have been wiped off the map by the Libyan rebels and their allies. Our own Cynthia McKinney has visited the families of some who were lynched — hanged by jeering mobs who used their cell phones to record the ghastly spectacle. Some of the videos of these lynchings were still on YouTube as late as last week.

Make no mistake, Democracy Now is one of the few places that have reported the persecution of migrants and black Libyans at all. But a careful search of Democracy Now stories from the past six or seven months reveals that of this handful of mentions of ethnic cleansing in Libya, all except one on March 7, 2011, in which Anjali Kamat interviewed migrants from several countries awaiting transport out of Libya originated from Democracy Now studios stateside. DN’s correspondents in Libya apparently have more important things to do than interview the black Libyan and migrant victims of what Kamat called “populist rage,” a curious and revealing term for lynch law in Libya.

In that same segment, Kamat queried Peter Bouckaert of Human Rights Watch about the existence and identity of Khadaffi’s alleged “African mercenaries”

PETER BOUCKAERT: I think the whole story of the African mercenaries in Libya should be a case study for journalism schools all across the United States, because it’s a prime example of irresponsible reporting and just lazy reporting. You know, rather than going out and investigating these incidents and whether they’re true, these rumors, Western journalists from very reputable publications just published the rumors as true. And they talked about African men running wild, raping women and all of these things, which is just about as racist a myth as you can get.

ANJALI KAMAT: Can you say a little bit about who the mercenaries actually are?

PETER BOUCKAERT: Certainly, it’s possible that Gaddafi used African mercenaries, because Gaddafi has been involved in training and financing and arming rebel groups around Africa. He’s been very involved in the Chadian civil war, and he’s been involved in the conflict in Darfur, where he’s been financing some rebel factions just to have a role around the negotiation table. So he does have the capacity not to go recruit African mercenaries, but to use the groups that he’s already training and financing. And it’s possible that some of those fighters have been mobilized around Tripoli or even in the east. But before we jump to that conclusion, we should investigate. And for the moment, all of the cases we have investigated in the east, these allegations have turned out not to be true.

Clearly Anjali Kamat is one of those lazy and irresponsible reporters. She has carried tales of African mercenaries fighting for Muammar Khadaffi many times over the last few months, with no more proof than the rest. Here is a representative segment of hers from a February 25 DN broadcast…

We saw some of the ammunition that was used against demonstrators by the pro-Gaddafi security forces and by mercenaries hired by the Gaddafi regime against these protesters. They included live ammunition as well as much larger — what doctors called anti-aircraft artillery, you know, incredibly large-looking bullets that were pulled out from the bodies of wounded and killed protesters.

Many of the patients that I spoke to talked about being — coming out to the protests being very inspired by what they had seen on their televisions from the scenes from Tunisia and Egypt. And when they saw what happened in Tunisia and when they saw what happened in Egypt, they felt that they had to rise up, as well, against their dictatorship in their own country. And they talked about going out in largely peaceful protests. They were armed only with stones and rocks, and they were met with very heavy machine-gun fire.

They were fired upon by Gaddafi’s security forces as well as mercenaries. And some of these mercenaries were captured by citizen groups in Al Bayda. And we talked to some of the hospital staff, as well as patients, about these mercenaries. They uniformly said that all of the mercenaries were foreigners, were not Libyans, but what we heard from some of the doctors and nurses was that some of the mercenaries had admitted to the doctors that they had been paid quite well by Muammar Gaddafi in order to come and attack protesters in Al Bayda.

So like every other Western reporter, Anjal Kamat never saw any “mercenaries,” just their oversized bullets. She never saw any mass graves of the hundreds or thousands allegedly killed by Khadaffi’s “heavy machine gun fire” either, or that would be on Democracy Now too. It’s not. Nobody’s located the thousands of wounded survivors either, that must have been the result of shooting into crowds killing hundreds of people, and none of this has stopped Democracy Now from carrying the story just like Fox News or CNN or MSNBC.

Something is really wrong with this picture. We have to wonder whether, at least as far as the war in Libya goes, whether Democracy Now is simply feeding us the line of corporate media, the Pentagon and the State Department’s rather than fulfilling the role of unembedded, independent journalists.

Twenty years ago the US trained and supplied Indonesian army was on a genocidal rampage through East Timor. Blessed by the White House and the Pentagon and ignored by corporate media they would ultimately slaughter a horrific one third of East Timor’s inhabitants.

Amy Goodman was one of a handful of unbought, unbossed Western journalists and film makers who worked, at the risk of her own life and freedom, with Timorese reporters to get the story of the US endorsed genocide out. In November 1991 Goodman and Australian reporter Alan Nairn witnessed and tried to intervene in the massacre of a funeral procession in Santa Cruz. They were savagely beaten, but survived. They were doing what correct and courageous journalists have always done.

In 2004 unembedded journalist Dahr Jamail took his life in his hands to enter the beseiged Iraqi city of Fallujah, while US Marines were shelling its hospitals and TV stations, dropping white phosphorus on houses and sniping at civilians whenever the appeared in the streets. Many of his reports then and since have also appeared on Democracy Now. Again, Jamail was doing what honest reporters in a war zone are supposed to do.

Democracy Now reporters used to question authority and empire, not serve it. Goodman in the 1990s and Jamail in 2004 told stories that made US officials furious, all of us uncomfortable, and that sometimes put their own safety at risk. That’s not what we see from Democracy Now’s coverage in Libya today, which can hardly be distinguished from that of Al-Jazzeera or CNN.

On Democracy Now’s September 14 show, African scholar Mahmood Mandami pointed out Anjali Kamat’s blind spot.

MAHMOOD MAMDANI: I’ve never been to Libya, OK? So, what struck me about Anjali’s description is the backdrop is missing. The backdrop is the manner of change in Libya, the heavy involvement of external forces in expediting, rapid fashion, change in Libya, and that manner of involvement being basically bombardment. In East Africa, which is where I’ve been for the last eight months, this has been the cause of huge concern, huge concern because Libya is not atypical. Egypt and Tunisia might be slightly atypical when it comes to the African continent. Libya is far more characteristic of countries which are divided, which have leaders who have been in power for several decades, which have strong military forces and sort of formally democratic regimes, but otherwise really autocratic regimes, and where the opposition is salivating the prospect of any kind of external involvement which will bring about a regime change inside these countries. So there is a real sense of danger around the corner. What is going to happen to the African continent? That’s one thing.

There it is. What Uncle Sam has done in Libya can be done in almost any African country. Is this right? Is this just? Is this what the US government ought to be doing with our dollars and lives? These are the questions Democracy Now reporters in Libya, and its hosts at home should be asking more often.

As for Ms. Kamat, she is missing her calling. She can make a lot more money at CNN or MSNBC or some other big time English language place. She knows what to say, and has been auditioning all year long. It’s time for her to go, and for Democracy Now to find a real reporter or two, if that’s the business they’re still in. I hope it is.

~

Bruce A. Dixon is managing editor at Black Agenda Report, and lives in Marietta GA, where he is a state committee member of the Georgia Green Party.

October 5, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Venezuelan President: Syria is exposed to Foreign Conspiracy

SANA | October 02, 2011

CARACAS – Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez stressed on Sunday that Syria is being exposed to a foreign conspiracy led by the US and some EU countries.

In a statement published by Venezuelan newspapers, Chavez expressed his support and solidarity with Syria in the face of this conspiracy, saying “We, from Venezuela, express our solidarity and support to the Syrian people and President Bashar al-Assad.”

He added the Syrian people,under the leadership of President al-Assad, are resisting an imperialist aggression.”

October 2, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Palestinian man wounds eight Israelis in Tel Aviv

By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | August 29, 2011

Israeli sources report that a Palestinian man attacked a crowd of Israelis outside a nightclub early Monday morning, stabbing several of them with a knife.

The stabbings came after the man stole a taxi, then ran over a Border Police officer near the nightclub. A barrier had been set up by Border police outside of the Tel Aviv nightclub ‘Hoamin 17’ for a big party attended by 2,000 people. The attacker drove through the barricade, then jumped out of the vehicle and began stabbing both police and partygoers, according to the Israeli police.

One employee of the nightclub told reporters with Ha’aretz newspaper, “We saw the taxi run into the barrier and we ran to help. We thought it was an accident.”

Border police added that they originally thought the driver was drunk, and drove through the barrier by accident. But when he pulled a knife and stabbed people with it while shouting ‘Allahu akbar (God is great)’, they say they realized it was a politically-motivated attack, and subdued the man.

He was taken to a Tel Aviv hospital with wounds sustained when Israeli border police subdued the man. Israeli authorities confirm that he is currently undergoing interrogation by Israeli intelligence services.,

According to Israeli police, the attacker, who resides in Nablus in the West Bank, hailed a cab in the city of Jaffa, south of Tel Aviv, and then stabbed the taxi driver in the hand and stole the taxi.

The attack comes after a week of deadly Israeli airstrikes on Gaza that killed eighteen. A shooting attack against Israeli soldiers and civilians in southern Israel the previous week was initially blamed on Palestinians by the Israeli authorities, but was apparently carried out by Egyptians.

August 29, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

NATO armed rebels attack Venezuelan ambassador’s residence in Tripoli

TeleSURtv.net* | August 24, 2011

Venezuela’s ambassador in Libya, Tajeldine Afif, said Wednesday that his home in Tripoli was attacked by armed groups which fired shots into the air as they entered the scene. This action was condemned by Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

Tajeldine Afif said that “at the embassy as such nothing happened, what happened today in our home (was that) armed groups entered this morning to my residence, asked for me and began to carry off all the goods, cars, ransacked the house, left nothing and gave a few shots into the air,” he said.

He explained that at the time of the incident he was in the residence by himself and vigilant when the rebels “took some shots at the door and entered”.

Tajeldine condemned the facts and stressed that it was “a demonstration of the violation of international law.”

“This site is our territory, Venezuela. Which must be respected. The violation is done by groups armed by NATO against our sovereignty,” he asserted.

Earlier, President Hugo Chavez had considered the situation in Libya an outrage.

“Regardless of the situation in Libya nothing can justify this outrage, it is an outrage against the world and a threat to the world,” said the president.

Chavez made the remarks during a brief news conference at the Miraflores Palace (Government House) after bidding farewell to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.

In the Libyan capital fighting continues on Wednesday after the advance of rebel forces of the National Transitional Council.

*Translation by Aletho News

August 24, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

The Libyan Soldier: The True Heroes of NATO’s War

A Black Agenda Radio commentary by Glen Ford – August 24, 2011

The story is not over – not by a long shot – but the saga of the Libyan resistance to the superpower might of the United States and its degenerate European neocolonial allies will surely occupy a very special place in history. For five months, beginning March 19, the armed forces of a small country of six million people dared to defy the most advanced weapons systems on the planet, on terrain with virtually no cover, against an enemy capable of killing whatever could be seen from the sky or electronically sensed. Night and day, the eyes of the Euro-American war machine looked down from space on the Libyan soldiers’ positions, with the aim of incinerating them. And yet, the Libyan armed forces maintained their unit integrity and personal honor, with a heroism reminiscent of the loyalist soldiers of the Spanish Republic under siege by German, Italian and homegrown fascists, in the late 1930s.

The Germans and Italians and Generalissimo Franco won that war, just as the Americans, British, French and Italians may ultimately overcome the Libyan army. But they cannot convey honor or national legitimacy to their flunkies from Benghazi, who have won nothing but a badge of servitude to foreign overseers. The so-called rebels won not a single battle, except as walk-ons to a Euro-American military production. They are little more than extras for imperial theater, a mob that traveled to battle under the protective umbrella of American full spectrum dominance of the air. They advanced along roads already littered with the charcoal-blackened bodies of far better men, who died challenging Empire.

One thing is sure: the Americans and Europeans have never respected their servants. The so-called rebels of Libya will be no different. Washington, Paris and London know perfectly well that is was their 18,000 aircraft sorties, their cruise missiles, their attack helicopters, their surveillance satellites and drones, their command and control systems, their weapons, and their money, that managed to kill or wound possibly half the Libyan army. Not the rabble from Benghazi.

The rebels should not take too seriously being fawned over by the ridiculous hordes of corporate media tourists that have come to Tripoli to record the five-month war’s finale. They are highly paid cheerleaders. And, although it may appear that they are cheering for the rebels, don’t be fooled – at the end of the day, the western corporate media only cheer for their own kind. They are celebrating what they believe is a victory over the Libyan demon they have helped to construct in their countrymen’s minds. Next year, rebel, that demon might be you.

Or next year, it might be many Libyans, including those who were no friends of Col. Moammar Gaddafi. The Americans treat their native minions like children in need of supervision – and there is a certain logic to this, since whoever would entrust his nation’s sovereignty and resources to the Americans is, surely, either exceedingly stupid, or hopelessly corrupt. But Libya’s honor and her place in history has already been secured by a small African army that held out nearly half a year against the NATO barbarians.

Glen Ford can be contacted at Glen.Ford@BlackAgendaReport.com.

August 24, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

Whither Gaddafi and Libya?

The Strange Calm Over Tripoli

By FRANKLIN LAMB | CounterPunch | August 22, 2011

Tripoli – The large gold framed portrait of Colonel Muammar Qaddafi that adorned the wall behind the reception desk of my hotel since it opened many years ago has vanished. Also gone are the 72 green flags that flew on the white poles which have also been removed. It’s not polite to inquire of the skeleton staff about who removed these items because the act of removal could become very serious offenses depending on the final outcome here.  But, my friend Ismail, manning the front desk, just grinned at me when I commented on the hotel’s fine new mirror that hangs in the leader’s space.

Looking over the skyline of Tripoli at 7:30 a.m. 8/22/11 from the 26th floor of the Corinthia Hotel it seems that it’s just about over for the Qaddafi regime.

All night one heard in central Tripoli mainly celebratory gunfire from areas like the nearby newly renamed “Martyrs Square” (formerly ‘Green Square’) but so many questions are on most people minds this morning.  Some ask, are the Qaddafi forces opening a trap for the rebel forces allowing them to come in quickly and easily and then when they are gathered in public celebrations and seek rest, counter attack?

The claim of the NTC representative this morning that the rebels control 95 per cent of Tripoli seems farfetched. This is a very spread out city and its clear rebel forces are not deployed everywhere.

A column of 22 camouflaged painted military vehicles full of government fighters slowly passed by our hotel at 8:10 this morning and turned right into the seaside compound which includes the Bab al Bahar Hotel (“gate to the sea”), and on its edge, the unoccupied JW Marriott, from which witnesses said the sniper who shot me in my right leg yesterday morning was perched. My doctor gave me the bullet as a souvenir and I will be fine although the damned thing hurts. An arriving hotel worker just reported seeing government forces assembling in Tripoli’s neighborhoods over the past several hours.

On the other side of my hotel I can see rebel pickups filled with fighters and new tricolor Libyan flags driving very slowly towards Green (Martyr’s) Square. I am thinking what would happen if they make a wrong turn.

Reports of Saif and Mohammad Qaddafi’s capture supports the idea that the government here wildly exaggerated its solid support and that the public largely believed them. Already among the few staff and some kids who come early to jump the hotel fence and use the swimming pool, and their trademark chants of “Allah, Mohammad, Muammar, Libya wa bass” have ended their chants and now support for ousting “the leader” is widespread. Most hotel staff at my hotel appear crestfallen.

The outpouring of support for Qaddafi’s departure by the same crowds who seemed to adore him at Green Square the past five months I have been monitoring them is surprising but perhaps reveals why all powerful despots are often more form than substance and can collapse quickly under certain conditions.

The questions being asked here this morning by student friends include what happened to the resistance to NATO and its supported rebels, where are the “65,000 professional soldiers waiting to repel “NATO’s rebels” from entering Tripoli, mentioned just last night by Government spokesman, Musa Ibrahim, was there ever a real Libyan army of thousands ready to defend Tripoli, what will the transition be like, will there be tribal conflicts for power, will Libya have to pay for all the infrastructure damage, will NATO countries, given the widespread hostility to NATO killing  so many civilians be granted oil contracts, will the US get another military base (Wheelus was closed by Qaddafi on June 1970), will the new government recognize Israel as NATO  is said to be  demanding, will the National Transition Council fulfill its pledges for a just, quick transition with early elections, and on and on.

Yesterday morning, as I embarked on a bike tour of Tripoli, there were signs that something incongruous was happening. Security guards, normally about 20 outside the hotel were nowhere to be seen. Also, no staff came to work. Ismail and the IT guy slept at the hotel—and the British lady “Miss Lorraine” who is in charge of hotel Hospitality lives at the hotel and was understandably and visibly upset.

As I left the hotel close to 7:30 a.m. by bicycle yesterday morning I was surprised to see one woman standing alone on the street in front of the hotel. I was more surprised when she lit up with a broad smile as she chimed “Hello Mr. Lamb!”

She is Marianne, who works with Lorraine somewhere in the bowels of this claimed “7 Star Hotel” I had spoken with her on the phone but we never met personally.  When I asked her why she was standing in the empty street,  she replied, “I need to find a ride to the port!” That seemed odd, given what is happening here, so I asked her why. “My two week vacation starts today and I need to get a boat to Malta”.  I was shocked, “Sweetheart, please, for sure there is no boat to Malta now and it’s dangerous for you to go to the Port.”  “But, my boyfriend is waiting for me in Malta” she wailed. “Ok, but if you find a ride call my room and I will pay half and come with you to the Port”. Marianne agreed. I never saw her again.

The UN delegation left yesterday after their five day “fact finding mission.” Not sure what facts they found because they mainly stayed in the hotel waiting and waiting, like most other foreigners here do, for a promised appointment with a government official or someone. Their leader, a stellar Palestinian lady from Nazarath in Occupied Palestine, convinced NATO to let some foreigners make use of empty UN plane seats so this hotel was essentially emptied of guests.

There has been no sign of Colonel Gaddafi. A strange calm has spread over Tripoli.

Franklin Lamb is in Tripoli.  He can be reached c/o fplamb@gmail.com.

August 22, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

15 Palestinians killed and 40 wounded in 24 hours

Palestine Information Center – 19/08/2011

GAZA — The number of victims in the Gaza Strip in the latest Israeli occupation aggression rose to 15 martyrs and 40 wounded over the past 24 hours, the latest of whom were three victims killed while riding a motorcycle in the centre of Gaza City.

Palestinian sources said that Israeli aircraft fired at least one rocket at a motorcycle travelling on Road 30 in the centre of Gaza City ridden by more than one person including a child resulting in the death of three Palestinians.

Adham Abu Selmeyyah, spokesman of the emergency services in Gaza, said that three Palestinians including a two-year-old child died and a number of wounded people, including a woman were brought to hospital.

The victims were Dr. Monther Qureqe and his brother Mu’taz who is a commander affiliated with the Quds Brigades, the armed wing of the Islamic Jihad and his two-year-old son who were riding a motorcycle to hospital to seek treatment for the child.

Abu Selemeyyah said that Anwar Salim and Imad Abu Abdeh after an occupation aircraft targeted the motorcycle they were riding at the southern entrance to the Buraij refugee camp in the central Gaza Strip. Both of them are affiliated with the Quds Brigades.

PIC correspondent said that occupation aircraft Friday evening fired one rocket towards a group of residents in Abasan al-Jadida to the east of Khan Younis in the southern Gaza Strip, but no casualties were reported.

Occupation aircraft also targeted a motorcycle in the Sheikh Zayed neighbourhood in the northern Gaza Strip killing Samed Abed, who is affiliated with the Salahuddin Brigades.

Earlier the PIC correspondent reported that occupation aircraft targeted a group of people at a stone cutting factory near the Wafa hospital to the east of Gaza City wounding two people one of theme a 15-year-old child.

Muhammad Enaya (22 years) was killed and another person was wounded in a separate airstrike targeting a group of people in east Gaza City.

Two others, including a pregnant woman, were wounded in a separate airstrike.

This is in addition to the victims of the airstrikes that took place on Thursday evening.

August 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

8 dead, dozens injured in south Israel attacks

Ma’an – 19/08/2011

TEL AVIV, Israel — At least eight Israeli citizens have been killed and dozens injured in two shooting attacks on buses near the city of Eilat, officials said Thursday.

Three militants armed with Kalashnikovs opened fire on a bus traveling from Beersheba to Eilat causing multiple injuries, Israel’s Channel 10 television reported.

Reports suggest that armed men opened fire from a car following the bus, which was traveling about 30 kilometers north of Eilat near Netafim in Israel’s south.

The Israeli army said five soldiers were among a total of nine people injured.

“This morning’s incident, near the southern Israeli city of Netafim, left four soldiers moderately injured and one soldier lightly injured,” a statement from the military said.

“Several people were injured as a result of an explosive device, detonated on an IDF force that arrived at the scene and drove over it,” the statement said.

Later, the military identified one of the soldiers as Moshe Naftali, 22, from Ofra.

“Naftali was killed as a result of a terrorist attack on his force while en-route to assist a civilian bus that was fired upon by terrorists,” the army said in a statement.

“Crossfire ensued between the force and the cell of terrorists.”

Assailants also attacked a second bus and a car soon after, an Al-Arabiya correspondent reported. Five people were killed, including one in the first bus attack, the correspondent said.

Israeli security officials said at least eight people were killed in all the attacks.

In a third incident, mortars were reportedly fired at Israeli forces near the southern border causing injuries, although initial reports were ambiguous about the origin of the artillery.

The Hebrew-language daily Yedioth Ahronoth, quoting foreign sources, reported that Jordan had delivered a warning based on intelligence that such an attack was likely.

An Egyptian official, meanwhile, denied that the attack originated in the Sinai.

Meanwhile, Israeli defense minister Ehud Barak said that “this terror attack originated from Gaza. We will exhaust all measures against the terrorists,” Israel’s Ynet news site reported.

Senior Hamas official Salah Bardawil rejected Barak’s accusations and warned that Israel was preparing to attack Gaza during Ramadan, adding that resistance would be swift if this occurred.

In an interview with Ma’an radio, Bardawil accused Israel of blaming Hamas and Gaza groups in order to deflect attention from its domestic economic crisis and security failures.

Security forces are still investigating the nature of the incidents and latest reports from Israeli radio suggest three of the attackers have been killed by Israeli forces, with the clashes now over.

A search is currently underway in Eilat to locate other suspects in the attack, as the police presence across Israel intensifies.

Twenty-five people have been taken to Eilat hospital, Arabic media reported, and emergency services were immediately deployed to the scene of the attacks.

The identity of the attackers is unknown.

August 19, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

UK detains 3,000 people in unrest

Press TV – August 14, 2011

Latest reports indicate that the British security forces have detained nearly 3,000 people since an unprecedented wave of unrest hit the United Kingdom.

The British courts are said to have worked around the clock over the weekend to process a third of the detainees.

Some reports put the number of those arrested during the ongoing unrest at 4,000.

A teenager and a young man have been charged with the murder of three Muslim men who were protecting their neighborhood in Birmingham.

Meanwhile, senior British officers are furious over British Prime Minister David Cameron’s decision to appoint an American police chief to advise them on crushing the wave of unrest and street gangs across the country.

President of the Association of Chief Police Officers Sir Hugh Orde has openly criticized Cameron’s appointment of former New York police commissioner Bill Bratton.

The unrest in Britain began on August 6 in the north London suburb of Tottenham, after a few hundred people gathered outside a police station to protest against the fatal shooting and killing of a black man, Mark Duggan, by the police.

Thereafter, violent protests erupted in major cities like Birmingham, Liverpool, and Bristol, contributing to Britain’s worst unrest since the 1980s.

London’s Metropolitan Police has announced that 16,000 police officers will be deployed on London streets. Deputy Assistant Commissioner Stephen Kavanagh also confirmed the prospects of police using baton rounds and plastic bullets.

August 14, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment

AFGHANISTAN: Nearly nine million face food shortages

Photo: Mohammad Popal/IRIN

IRIN |  August 9, 2011

KABUL  – Ongoing drought in northern, northeastern and western Afghanistan is likely to push 1.5-2 million more people into food insecurity this autumn, according to the UN World Food Programme (WFP).

This is in addition to the seven million country-wide already facing food shortages.

The Ministry of Agriculture, Irrigation and Livestock (MAIL) is reporting a failure of the rain-fed wheat crop, which accounts for about 55 percent of the total domestic wheat yield.

Irrigated wheat, which tends to yield more per hectare, has also been affected by the drought. The average wheat yield (without fertilizers) on irrigated land is about 2.7 tons per hectare (3.5 tons with fertilizer), versus only 1.1 tons on rain-fed land, according to MAIL.

In a normal year Afghanistan produces 4.5 million tons of wheat and around one million tons are imported. The shortfall of 1.9 million tons of wheat this year means more will either have to be imported or secured from other sources.

“Satellite derived rainfall estimates indicate that most of Afghanistan had an untimely and inadequate rain and snow season this year. As a result, there will be heavy losses in rain-fed wheat crops, underperforming irrigated wheat crops, poor pasture conditions, and low income earning opportunities in northern Afghanistan and the central highlands this year,” said the US Agency for International Development’s FEWSNET.

Increased need due to the drought comes as WFP is already facing a severe funding shortage for its existing programmes in Afghanistan.

“WFP had originally planned to feed more than seven million Afghans this year, but currently has the resources to reach less than four million,” WFP spokesman Assadullah Azhari told IRIN in Kabul.

He said additional funds would be required to cover the new drought-related needs.

President Hamid Karzai also expressed concern about the drought at a cabinet meeting on 30 July: “The current drought in certain provinces is hugely damaging to the life of people and their livestock.”

Sultan (he goes by only one name), 35, a farmer in Paghman District not far from Kabul, has been trying to truck in water for his wheat crop from a water source more than 10km from his village.

“All the water sources including the underground water have dried up in my village and now I need to pay a tanker to bring me water,” he told IRIN in Kabul. “I feel so sad… After two months my wheat is still only 20cm tall.”

He said that if he had had sufficient water for irrigation, his wheat crop would have been almost ready for harvest now. Even with expensive trucked-in water he would only get 20 percent of his normal crop, he added.

Assessments under way

According to MAIL officials, assessments are under way in drought-affected areas of the north, northeast, the west and the central highlands to determine exactly how many people will require food assistance and for how long.

Much of the looming wheat shortfall will be covered by government reserves and commercial imports. But additional humanitarian assistance may be required to support an estimated 1.5 to 2 million drought victims, according to WFP.

Karzai called on the ministries of commerce, finance and MAIL to take extra measures, and import wheat from India to try to meet needs.

WFP said the USA had cut its funding of WFP activities in Afghanistan by more than two-thirds since 2009. “But we continue to appeal to donors for the support that will allow us to ensure all those in need of help in the coming months are assisted,” said Azhari.

“The areas affected by drought are hard or impossible to reach by road during the winter. So it is critical to get food assistance in place early, before those people are cut off by snowfall,” he warned.

August 10, 2011 Posted by aletho | Aletho News | Leave a comment