Mothers of Plaza de Mayo: Maldonado Victim of ‘State Violence’
teleSUR – August 8, 2017
The Grandmothers and Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have blamed the Argentine government for the disappearance of Santiago Maldonado, an activist who disappeared after a military police raid on a Mapuche community Aug. 1.
The award-winning human rights group say Maldonado was a victim of “institutional state violence” and demand President Mauricio Macri recovers the activist alive.
“The Argentine community knows we have a disappearance in the democracy of Mr. Macri.” Estela de Carlotto, president of the Grandmothers and Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo, said at a press conference.
The organization said it will occupy the Plaza de Mayo on Friday to pressure the government to deliver Maldonado.
Argentina’s Center for Legal and Social Studies and the Permanent Human Rights Assembly have joined the call to recover Maldonado, claiming the state deliberately disappeared the activist to threaten the Mapuche community.
“This Friday at 5 p.m. we will occupy the Plaza de Mayo with one message: Santiago Maldonado must be found alive.”
“This attack against the community is no coincidence. It is a message from the government to say, ‘guys, don’t mess with us,’” said Norma Rios, president of the Permanent Human Rights Assembly.
Maldonado was last seen during a military police eviction operation against the Pu Lof Mapuche community in the Chubut department of Cushamen. Witnesses say they saw officers shove the 28-year-old into a van and drive away.
Maldonado’s family blame the military police for the young man’s disappearance but the government denies its involvement.
‘The Palestine Exception’: War on BDS is now a war on American democracy
By Ramzy Baroud | MEMO | August 7, 2017
There is something immoral in Washington D.C., and its consequences can be dire for many people, particularly for the health of US democracy.
The US government is declaring war on the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement. The fight to defeat BDS has been ongoing for several years, but most notably since 2014.
Since then, 11 US states have passed and enacted legislation to criminalise the movement, backed by civil society, which aims to put pressure on Israel to end its occupation of Palestine.
Washington is now leading the fight, thus legitimising the anti-democratic behaviour of individual states. If the efforts of the US government are successful, an already struggling US democracy will take yet another step back, and many good people could potentially be punished for behaving in accordance with their political and moral values.
Senate Bill 720 (S.720), also known as the “Anti-Israel Boycott Act”, was largely drafted by the notorious and powerful Israel lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
According to its own “2017 Lobbying Agenda”, AIPAC has made the passing of the bill its top priority.
The US Congress is beholden by Israel’s interests and by the “stranglehold” of AIPAC over the elected representatives of the American people.
Thus, it was no surprise to see 43 senators and 234 House representatives backing the bill, which was first introduced in March.
Although the Congress has habitually backed Israel and condemned Palestinians – and any politician or entity that dared recognise Palestinian rights – this time, the Congress is going too far and is jeopardising the very basic rights of its own constituencies.
The First Amendment to the US Constitution has been the pillar in defense of people’s right to free speech, freedom of the press, “the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” This right, however, has often been curtailed when it applies to Israel. The Centre for Constitutional Rights refers to this fact as “The Palestine Exception”.
S.720, however, if it passes, will cement the new US status, that of “flawed democracy” as opposed to a full democratic nation that legislates and applies all laws fairly and equally to all of its citizens. The law would make it a “felony” for Americans to support the boycott of Israel.
Punishment of those who violate the proposed law ranges from $250,000 to $1 million, and/or 20 years in prison.
The bill has already had chilling effects on many groups in the country, especially among African American activists, who are fighting institutionalised racism. If the bill becomes law, the precedent will become the norm, and dissidents will find themselves standing trial for their mere opinions.
With regard to Israel, the US Congress is united. Both Republican and Democratic lawmakers often act in ways contrary to the interests of their own country, just to appease the Israeli government. This is no secret.
However, the real danger is that such laws go beyond the traditional blind allegiance to Israel – into a whole level of acquiescence, where the government punishes people and organisations for the choices they make, the values they hold dear or the mere inquiry of information about an issue that they may find compelling.
On 17 July, the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a letter calling on lawmakers who signed the Senate version of the bill to reconsider. The bill would punish businesses and individuals, based solely on their point of view. Such a penalty is in direct violation of the First Amendment ACLU stated.
Only one person, thus far, has reportedly reconsidered her support, junior Democratic Senator from New York, Kirsten Gillibrand. She requested for her name to be removed from the list of co-signatories.
AIPAC’s reaction was immediate, calling on its army of supporters to pressure the Senator to reinstate her name on the list and to “reaffirm her commitment to fighting the international de-legitimisation of Israel.”
Dire as it may seem, there is something positive in this. For many years, it has been wrongly perceived that Israel’s solicitation of American support against Palestinians and Arabs is, by no means, a foreign country meddling or interfering in the US political system or undermining US democracy.
The “Israel Anti-Boycott Act”, however, is the most egregious of such interventions, for it strikes down the First Amendment, the very foundation of American democracy, by using America’s own lawmakers to carry out the terrible deed.
This bill exposes Israel, as well as its hordes of supporters, in Congress. Moreover, it presents human rights defenders with the opportunity to champion BDS, thus the rights of the Palestinian people and also the rights of all Americans. It would be the first time in many years that the battle for Palestinian rights can be openly discussed and contextualised in a way that most Americans find relevant to their everyday life.
Actually, this was one of the aims of BDS, from the start. While the boycott and de-legitimisation of the Israeli military occupation of the Palestinians is at the core of the civil society-backed movement, BDS also aims at generating an urgent discussion on Israel and Palestine.
Although inadvertently, the Congress is now making this very much possible.
The bill, and the larger legislative efforts across the US – and Europe – are also a source of hope in the sense that it is recreating the very events that preceded the demise of the apartheid regime in South Africa.
The US and British governments, in particular, opposed the South African liberation movement, condemned the boycott and backed the racist authoritarian role of P. W. Botha to the very end. Former President, Ronald Reagan, perceived Nelson Mandela to be a terrorist. Mandela was not removed from the US terror list until 2008.
It is quite telling that the US, UK and Israel were the most ardent supporters of South Africa’s apartheid.
Now, it is as if history is repeating itself. The Israeli version of apartheid is fighting for legitimacy and refuses to concede. It wants to colonise all of Palestine, mistreat its people and violate international law without a mere word of censure from an individual or an organisation.
The US government has not changed much, either. It carries on supporting the Israeli form of apartheid, while shamelessly paying lip service to the legacy of Mandela and his anti-apartheid struggle.
Although the new chapter of the anti-apartheid struggle is called “Palestine”, the US and its western backers continue to repeat the same costly policies they committed against the South African people.
As for true champions of human rights, regardless of their race, religion or citizenship, this is their moment. No meaningful change ever occurs without people being united in struggle and sacrifice.
In one of his speeches, an American abolitionist and former slave, Frederick Douglass said: “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”
The US Congress, with the help of AIPAC, is criminalising this very demand of justice.
Americans should not stand for this, if not for the sake of Palestinians, then for their own sake.
Jeff Sessions Endorses Theft
By Ron Paul | August 7, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions recently ordered the Justice Department to increase the use of civil asset forfeiture, thus once again endorsing an unconstitutional, authoritarian, and increasingly unpopular policy.
Civil asset forfeiture, which should be called civil asset theft, is the practice of seizing property believed to be involved in a crime. The government keeps the property even if it never convicts, or even charges, the owner of the property.
Police can even use civil asset theft to steal from people whose property was used in criminal activity without the owners’ knowledge. Some have even lost their homes because a renter or houseguest was dealing drugs on the premises behind the owners’ backs.
Civil asset theft is a multi-billion dollar a year moneymaker for all levels of government. Police and prosecutors receive more than their “fair share” of the loot. According to a 2016 study by the Institute for Justice, 43 states allow police and prosecutors to keep at least half of the loot they got from civil asset theft.
Obviously, this gives police an incentive to aggressively use civil asset theft, even against those who are not even tangentially involved in a crime. For example, police in Tenaha, Texas literally engaged in highway robbery — seizing cash and other items from innocent motorists — while police in Detroit once seized every car in an art institute’s parking lot. The official justification for that seizure was that the cars belonged to attendees at an event for which the institute had failed to get a liquor license.
The Tenaha police are not the only ones targeting those carrying large sums of cash. Anyone traveling with “too much” cash runs the risk of having it stolen by a police officer, since carrying large amounts of cash is treated as evidence of involvement in criminal activity.
Civil asset theft also provides an easy way for the IRS to squeeze more money from the American taxpayer. As the growing federal debt increases the pressure to increase tax collections without raising tax rates, the IRS will likely ramp up its use of civil asset forfeiture.
Growing opposition to the legalized theft called civil asset forfeiture has led 24 states to pass laws limiting its use. Sadly, but not surprisingly, Attorney General Jeff Sessions is out of step with this growing consensus. After all, Sessions is a cheerleader for the drug war, and civil asset theft came into common usage as a tool in the drug war.
President Trump could do the American people a favor by naming a new attorney general who opposes police state policies like the drug war and police state tactics like civil asset theft.
Israel to expel Al Jazeera, block broadcasts & revoke journalists’ credentials
RT | August 6, 2017
Israel has announced plans to effectively expel the Al Jazeera network from the country, revoking journalists’ credentials, shutting the company’s bureau in Jerusalem and pulling its broadcasts from national cable and satellite television networks.
Israeli Communications Minister Ayoub Kara announced the measures Sunday at a news conference. Journalists and representatives from Al Jazeera were not permitted to attend.
“We are going to set measures in order to illustrate our war on terrorism, on radical Islam and our solidarity with the sane Arab world,” Kara stated.
While the proposal will not take immediate effect, Kara confirmed that both the Arabic and English versions of the news channel will be shuttered once the proposal is passed in the Knesset (Israel’s parliament).
“I am the only one [in government] who is an Arabic speaker, who understands Arabic and my native language is Arabic. You cannot fool me with Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic. I know how to identify how disturbing reporting becomes incitement instead of being free speech,” he added.
Kara claimed that such extreme measures are ostensibly intended to improve journalistic practice in the country by creating “a situation that channels based in Israel will report objectively.”
“We have based our decision on the move by Sunni Arab states to close the Al Jazeera offices and prohibiting their work.”
“I congratulate the Minister of communications, Ayoob for my guidance took today in line with practical steps to stop the activity of incitement in Israel,” Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said of Kara’s proposal on Twitter.
In July, Netanyahu announced that he was working to shut down the network which he accuses of stoking tensions and inciting violence in Israel, particularly at the al-Aqsa mosque where six Palestinians and five Israelis, including two police officers, have been killed in recent clashes.
“This attack on Al Jazeera is really an attack on all critical independent journalism.” Aidan White, director of the London-based Ethical Journalism Network told Al Jazeera.
The network’s offices in the Palestinian territories of Gaza and the West Bank city of Ramallah would not be affected.
The network will not give up its Jerusalem bureau without a fight, however.
“Al Jazeera deplores this action from a state that is called the only democratic state in the Middle East and considers what it has done is dangerous,” an unnamed official with Al Jazeera told the AFP.
The broadcaster “will follow up the subject through appropriate legal and judicial procedures,” he added.
Saudi Arabia and Jordan have both shut Al Jazeera bureaux this year as part of the ongoing ‘cold war’ playing out in the Gulf, which culminated in the full blockade of Qatar.
Egypt banned the Al Jazeera network and several other websites that were critical of the government in May and broadcasts have also been blocked in the UAE.
‘Leaked transcripts show mania in DC – nothing too bad to do to Trump’
RT | August 4, 2017
What could be more damaging to national security if the US president can’t talk to a foreign leader frankly without the fear of his or the other person’s comments going public, questions former US diplomat Jim Jatras?
The Washington Post published Thursday two leaked confidential transcripts of President Trump’s phone calls with foreign leaders.
Both calls took place in January and, according to the paper, the transcripts had been prepared by White House staff, but not released.
According to the call records, Trump insisted Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto, stop publicly saying his country will not pay for Trump’s proposed wall on the US-Mexican border.
Additionally, the report revealed details of Trump’s phone call with Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull on the issue of refugees.
The leak comes a day before Attorney Jeff Sessions is scheduled to hold a news conference detailing efforts to crack down on leaks.
RT: How damaging is it to US national security that the president’s confidential phone calls are leaked?
Jim Jatras: What could be more damaging if the President of the US cannot talk to a foreign leader frankly without fear of his comments going public, or those of the person he’s talking to? How do you conduct diplomatic business which should be the top priority of the president? The leaking of this information just simply shows the kind of mania we have here in Washington – that nothing is too bad to do to this president. He is such an illegitimate, such a bad president that all the rules can be broken and this criminal activity, this criminal leaking is – “sure, why not, it is actually patriotic to do that.”
RT: Could these leaks of the president’s confidential phone calls make foreign leaders less apt to speak openly with the US president?
JJ: Of course, I think it is indeed a part of the purpose in leaking them in the first place – to put a chilling effect on anything this president might do while they continue to set him up for removal. I’ll be very interested to hear what Attorney General Jeff Sessions has to say. Frankly, from the day he walked in his office, the first thing he should have done was convene a high-level task force to track down these leakers, prosecute them and put them in jail. He should have impaneled a Grand Jury months ago.
Meanwhile, we hear today that Mr. (Robert) Mueller has impaneled a Grand Jury, even though we haven’t heard any evidence there has even been a crime committed. So there is a complete disconnect between the real criminality – we know it’s going on, it is not being dealt with – and these efforts to essentially bring down the constitutionally elected president.
RT: White House staff reportedly made the two transcripts. What’s the likelihood there are one or more moles inside Trump’s team?
JJ: It is very unlikely this came from Trump’s team or the White House. Remember one of the last things Mr. Obama did, when he left the White House was to open up the purview for distribution of certain types of information, which means a lot more agencies and a lot more bureaucrats if you will ‘deep staters,’ have access to this information. And of course, the Washington Post is a primary outlet for this kind of information and has a very cozy relationship with their, if you will burrowed in sources, mainly in the intelligence community. I’m guessing that is partly where it came out. Is it going to be tough to track down – you bet it is. So that is why you need a top investigatory team, whose job is to find it.
RT: Do you believe that those who would like to undermine Trump have gone too far in their effort to show him in a bad light?
JJ: It’s been going too far for quite some months now. Indeed from even before Mr. Trump took the oath of office these efforts were already underway. It is a conscious effort, if you will, a conspiracy to overturn the results of the election. This is simply another symptom of it, and you can bet that tomorrow and next week there’ll be another shoe dropping, and another shoe dropping, and another shoe dropping, and this will continue going on. These people want to remove Trump; they want to neutralize him, pending that. But let’s make no mistake about what the agenda is here.
Rutherford Institute Asks Virginia Supreme Court to Prohibit Police From Using License Plate Readers as Surveillance Tool to Track Citizens
Rutherford Institute | August 2, 2017
RICHMOND, Va. — Denouncing the fact that Americans cannot even drive their cars without being enmeshed in the government’s web of surveillance, The Rutherford Institute has asked the Virginia Supreme Court to prohibit Virginia police from using license plate readers as surveillance tools to track drivers’ movements. Mounted next to traffic lights or on police cars, Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR), which photograph up to 3,600 license tag numbers per minute, take a picture of every passing license tag number and store the tag number and the date, time, and location of the picture in a searchable database. The data is then shared with law enforcement, fusion centers and private companies and used to track the movements of persons in their cars. There are reportedly tens of thousands of these license plate readers now in operation throughout the country. It is estimated that over 99% of the people being unnecessarily surveilled are entirely innocent. In challenging the use of license plate readers by Fairfax police, Rutherford Institute attorneys argue that Fairfax County’s practice of collecting and storing license plate reader data violates a Virginia law prohibiting the government from amassing personal information about individuals, including their driving habits and location.
The amicus brief in Neal v. Fairfax County Police Department is available at www.rutherford.org.
“We’re on the losing end of a technological revolution that has already taken hostage our computers, our phones, our finances, our entertainment, our shopping, our appliances, and now, it’s focused its sights on our cars,” said constitutional attorney John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute and author of Battlefield America: The War on the American People. “By subjecting Americans to surveillance without their knowledge or compliance and then storing the data for later use, the government has erected the ultimate suspect society. In such an environment, there is no such thing as ‘innocent until proven guilty.’”
Since 2010, the Fairfax County Police Department (FCPD) has used Automated License Plate Readers (ALPR) to record the time, place, and driving direction of thousands of drivers who use Fairfax County roads daily. License plate readers capture up to 3,600 images of license tag numbers per minute and convert the images to a computer format that can be searched by tag number. This information, stored in a police database for a year, allows the police to determine the driving habits of persons as well as where they have been. In 2014, Fairfax County resident Harrison Neal filed a complaint against FCPD asserting its collection and storage of license plate data violates Virginia’s Government Data Collection and Dissemination Practices Act (Data Act), a law enacted because of the fear that advanced technologies would be used by the government to collect and analyze massive amounts of personal information about citizens, thereby invading their privacy and liberty. The lawsuit cited a 2013 opinion by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli that ALPR data is “personal information” that the Data Act forbids the government from collecting and storing except in connection with an active criminal investigation. Despite this opinion, FCPD continued its practice of collecting and storing ALPR data in order to track the movements of vehicles and drivers. In November 2016, a Fairfax County Circuit Court judge ruled that license plate reader data was not “personal information” under the Data Act because license tag numbers identify a car and not a person. In weighing in on the case before the Virginia Supreme Court, Rutherford Institute attorneys refute the lower court ruling and argue that the history of the Data Act affirms its prohibition on the collection and maintenance of ALPR data by the government.
The Rutherford Institute, a nonprofit civil liberties organization, provides legal assistance at no charge to individuals whose constitutional rights have been threatened or violated and educates the public on a wide spectrum of issues affecting their freedoms.
Opposition journalist investigated for ‘treason & terrorism’ in Ukraine
RT | August 2, 2017
Ukraine’s Security Service have launched an investigation into a journalist and blogger whom they accuse of treason as well as his alleged attempts to violate the country’s territorial integrity via publications critical of the government in Kiev.
The Security Service of Ukraine (SBU) released a statement Wednesday, reporting that it had “ended the activity” of a journalist from the Zhitomir region in central Ukraine, who they claim worked on the “instructions of Russian curators” and “prepared and distributed anti-Ukrainian materials.”
“Since 2014 the journalist had been writing tendentious articles at the request of the Russian government propaganda news agencies,” the agency said without releasing the name of the suspect.
His work has had a “manipulative influence on the readers’ minds” and threatened “the sovereignty and independence of our state,” the SBU claimed.
The blogger, identified by the Ukrainian media as Vasily Muravitsky, was publishing his articles on at least six websites, the SBU said, adding, that the man initially signed his work under his real name, but started using aliases after that.
The journalist’s works also allegedly contained “calls to incite national enmity within the country and between Ukraine and neighboring friendly states,” the security agency added.
If found guilty the opposition journalist may face up to 15 years in prison, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The Russian foreign ministry has condemned the persecution of the journalist, saying in a statement the investigation of the blogger is “just another episode of the campaign led by Kiev and aimed at violent suppression of the opposition journalists and total cleansing of Ukraine’s information sphere for the benefit of the ruling regime.”
“The mass closure of Russian news and internet media outlets as well as persecution and oppression of the Ukrainian journalists conducted on a large scale are blatant violations of the fundamental principles of the freedom of expression that lie at the core of the civilized approach to the media and are embodied in the key documents of the UN, OSCE and the Council of Europe,” the statement said.
The ministry further called on member states of the OSCE and the Council of Europe as well as other international organizations to join Russia in condemning “Kiev’s barbaric and criminal policy towards media.”
Fanciful Terrors: Bomb Plots and Australian Airport Security
By Binoy Kampmark | Dissident Voice | July 31, 2017
In the classroom of international security, Australia remains an infant wanting attention before the older hands. During the Paris Peace talks, Prime Minister William Morris (“Billy”) Hughes screamed and hollered Australia’s wishes to gain greater concessions after its losses during the Great War, urging, among other things, a more punitive settlement for Germany.
In the post-September 2001 age, recognition comes in different forms, notably in the field of terrorism. Australian authorities want recognition from their international partners; Australian security services demand attention from their peers. The premise of this call is simple if masochistic: Australia is worth torching, bombing and assailing, its values, however obscure, vulnerable before a massive, inchoate threat shrouded in obscurantism.
Over the weekend, the security services again displayed why adding fuel to the fire of recognition remains a burning lust for the Australian security complex. The inner-city suburb of Surry Hills in Sydney, and the south-western suburbs of Lakemba, Wiley and Punchbowl, witnessed raids and seizures of material that could be used to make an improvised explosive device.
What was notable here was the domesticity behind the alleged plot. Focus was specific to Surry Hills in what was supposedly an attempt to create an IED involving a domestic grinder and box containing a multi-mincer. At stages, those with a culinary inclination might have been confused: were Australia’s best and brightest in the front line of security getting excited about the ill-use kitchen appliances might be put to?
The arrest provided yet another occasion Australian audiences are becoming familiar with: individuals arrested and detained, usually with no prior convictions let alone brush with the law, while the celebratory stuffing is sought to file charges under anti-terrorism laws.
But this was not a time for ironic reflection. Australians needed to be frightened and reassured, a necessary dialectic that governments in trouble tend to encourage. First, comes the fear of death, launched by a sinister fundamentalist force; then comes the paternal reassurance of the patria: those in blue, green and grey will protect you.
Without even questioning the likelihood of success in any of these ventures (would this supposed device have ever gotten onto a plane?), such networks as Channel Nine news would insist that this could be the “13th significant conspiracy to be foiled by Australian authorities since the country’s terror threat level was raised to ‘probable’ in 2014.”
The Herald Sun was already dubbing this a Jihadi “meat mincer bomb plot”, happy to ignore the obvious point that details were horrendously sketchy. The Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull, deemed the conspiracy “elaborate”. (The foe must always be elevated to make the effort both worthwhile and free of folly.) The AFP Commissioner, Andrew Colvin, was convinced that this was “Islamic-inspired terrorism. Exactly what is behind this is something we will need to investigate fully.”
Depending on what you scoured, reports suggested that this was a “non-traditional” device which was set to be used for an “Islamist inspired” cause. The usual cadre of experts were consulted to simply affirm trends they could neither prove nor verify, with the “lone wolf” theme galloping out in front.
John Coyne of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s Border Security Program, for instance, plotted a kindergarten evolution for his audience: planes were used in September 2001; then came regionally focused incidents such as the Bali bombings, and now, in classic fatuity, “a new chapter arising or a return chapter almost”. “This is much more panned and deliberate, if the allegations are correct.”
Rita Panahi, whose writings prefer opinion to the inconvenience incurred by looking at evidence, cheered the weekend efforts and issued a reminder: “Remember the weekend’s terror raids next time you have to surrender a tube of sunscreen as you pass through airport security a second time, this time barefooted and beltless, and fearful you might miss your flight.”
For Panahi, this was a case that was done and dusted. These were “wannabe jihadis” (dead cert); they had plotted to inflict “mayhem and destruction on Australian soil” (naturally) and Australians needed to understand that an ungainly super structure of intrusive security measures were indispensable to security. Thank the counter-terrorism forces, luck and distance.
Such occasions also provide chicken feed for pecking journalists, many of whom have ceased the task of even procuring their beaks for the next expose. Indeed, some were crowing, including one on ABC 24, that the “disruption” of an “imminent” attack had taken place at speed; that this “cell” had little chance of ever bringing their device to an aircraft. Evidence and scrutiny are ill-considered, and the political classes are permitted to behave accordingly.
The Border Protection Minister, Peter Dutton, never happy to part with anything valuable on the subject of security, refused to confirm whether there had been an international dimension, a tip-off from intelligence agencies, or assistance.
“There will be lots of speculation around what the intent was,” claimed Dutton, “but obviously all of us have been working hard over recent days and we rely upon the expertise of the Federal Police and ASIO and other agencies.” He observed that there was “a lot of speculation around” which he did not wish to add to.
He need not have bothered, given that the opinion makers have formed a coalition of denial and embellishment so vast and enthusiastic so as to make Australia matter in the supposed global jihadi effort. It would come as a crushing disappointment to the infant in that room of international relations to realise otherwise.
Binoy Kampmark was a Commonwealth Scholar at Selwyn College, Cambridge. He lectures at RMIT University, Melbourne and can be reached at: bkampmark@gmail.com.
Saudi forces set ablaze Shia homes in restive Awamiyah
An al-Alam photo shows rubble caused by the Saudi demolition of Awamiyah, Eastern Province, Saudi Arabia.
Press TV – August 1, 2017
Saudi forces have set fire to homes belonging to Shia residents in the besieged town of Awamiyah that has been the scene of a heavy-handed regime crackdown on the minority community.
Based on local reports, Saudi forces have thrown Shia citizens out of their homes and then torched their properties.
Awamiyah, situated in Eastern Province, has long been a flashpoint between the Saudi kingdom and the inhabitants complaining of discrimination.
It has witnessed renewed deadly clashes between the military and residents since May, when Saudi forces began razing the town’s old quarter, known as al-Mosawara.
Saudi authorities claim that Mosawara’s narrow streets have become a hideout for militants suspected of being behind attacks on security forces in Eastern Province.
The UN, however, said Saudi Arabia was erasing cultural heritage and violating human rights through Mosawara’s demolition.
Karima Bennoune, the UN special rapporteur in the field of cultural rights, said Saudi authorities ignored repeated pleas by the world body to halt the destruction.
“These destructions erase the traces of this historic and lived cultural heritage and are clear violations of Saudi Arabia’s obligations under international human rights law,” Bennoune said, accusing the Saudi forces of “irreparably burning down” historic buildings and forcing residents to flee their homes.
Leilani Farha, the UN special rapporteur on the right to adequate housing, also warned that the Saudi move “constitutes a forced eviction under international human rights law.”
Additionally, Ali al-Dubisi, the head of the Berlin-based European Saudi Organization for Human Rights, said the Saudi forces were following a scorched-land policy in Awamiyah, launching rocket attacks and shelling residential buildings and civilians who are resisting Saudi pressures to evacuate.
Since February 2011, Saudi Arabia has stepped up security measures in Shia-dominated Eastern Province, which has been rocked by anti-regime demonstrations, with protesters demanding free speech, the release of political prisoners, and an end to economic and religious discrimination.
The government has suppressed pro-democracy movements, but they have intensified since January 2016 when Saudi Arabia executed respected Shia cleric Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr.
In the fight between Rick Perry and climate scientists — He’s winning
By Ross McKitrick – The Hill – 07/27/17
Policy makers and the public need to understand the extent to which major scientific institutions like the American Meteorological Society have become biased and politicized on the climate issue. Convincing them of this becomes much easier when the organizations themselves supply the evidence.
This happened recently in response to a CNBC interview with Energy Secretary Rick Perry. He was asked “Do you believe CO2 [carbon dioxide] is the primary control knob for the temperature of the Earth and for climate?”
It was an ambiguous question that defies a simple yes or no answer. Perry thought for moment then said, “No, most likely the primary control knob is the ocean waters and this environment we live in.” He then went on to acknowledge the climate is changing and CO2 is having a role, but the issue is how much, and being skeptical about some of these things is “quite all right.”
Perry’s response prompted a letter of protest from Keith Seitter, executive director of the American Meteorological Society. The letter admonished him for supposedly contradicting “indisputable findings” that emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases are the primary cause of recent global warming, a topic for which Seitter insists there is no room for debate.
It is noteworthy that the meteorological society remained completely silent over the years when senior Democratic administration officials made multiple exaggerated and untrue statements in service of global warming alarmism.
When Secretary of State John Kerry falsely claimed in 2016 that “storms that used to happen once every 500 years are becoming relatively normal,” or when Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Gina McCarthy claimed in 2015 that green house gases are behind upward trends in “extreme heat, cold, storms, fires and floods,” the meteorological society said nothing, even though the evidence clearly contradicts these positions.
When President Obama tweeted in 2013 that “97 percent of scientists agree that climate change is real, man-made and dangerous” the meteorological society said nothing, even though no such survey existed and the meteorological society’s own membership survey the next year showed nearly half of its members doubted either that climate change was even happening or that CO2 played a dominant role.
But the meteorological society leapt to condemn Perry for a cautious response to an awkward question. Perry could not reasonably have agreed with the interviewer since the concept of a “control knob” for the Earth’s temperature wasn’t defined. Doubling CO2 might, according to models, cause a few degrees of warming. Doubling the size of the sun would burn up the planet. Doubling cloud cover might trigger an ice age. So which is the “primary control knob”? The meteorological society letter ignored the odd wording of the question, misrepresented Perry’s response and then summarily declared their position on climate “indisputable.” Perry’s cautious answer, by contrast, was perfectly reasonable in the context of a confusing question in a fast-moving TV interview.
Furthermore, Seitter’s letter invites skepticism. It pronounces confidently on causes of global warming “in recent decades” even though this is where the literature is most disputed and uncertain. Climate models have overestimated warming in recent decades for reasons that are not yet known. Key mechanisms of natural variability are not well understood, and measured climate sensitivity to CO2 appears to be lower than modelers assumed. Climate models tweaked to get recent Arctic sea ice changes right get overall warming even more wrong, adding to the list of puzzles. But to the meteorological society, the fact that these and many other questions are unresolved does not prevent them from insisting on uniformity of opinion.
The meteorological society letter is all about enforcing orthodoxy, which speaks ill of the leadership’s overall views on open scientific debate.
In an Orwellian twist, in 2015 the meteorological society commissioned Edward Maibach of George Mason University to undertake a new survey of its members’ views on climate, just after Maibach had helped organize a letter to President Obama and Attorney-General Loretta Lynch calling for a criminal racketeering investigation into climate skeptics. Even still, notwithstanding the potential risks of revealing one’s views on climate to Maibach, a third of respondents still indicated that they did not view CO2 and green house gases as dominant influences on climate.
On that point, it is ironic that Seitter tells Perry that American Meteorological Society members “stand ready” to help him. He meant it in a condescending way, but clearly there are many members who side with Perry. And by reminding these scientists that a little skepticism is “quite all right” perhaps it is Perry who will end up helping the meteorologists.
Ross McKitrick is a professor of economics at the University of Guelph and an Adjunct Scholar at the Cato Institute.
How Prison Labor is the New American Slavery and Most of Us Unknowingly Support it
If you buy products or services from any of the 50 companies listed below (and you likely do), you are supporting modern American slavery
Return to Now | June 13, 2016
American slavery was technically abolished in 1865, but a loophole in the 13th Amendment has allowed it to continue “as a punishment for crimes” well into the 21st century. Not surprisingly, corporations have lobbied for a broader and broader definition of “crime” in the last 150 years. As a result, there are more (mostly dark-skinned) people performing mandatory, essentially unpaid, hard labor in America today than there were in 1830.
With 5 percent of the world’s population and 25 percent of the world’s prison population, the United States has the largest incarcerated population in the world. No other society in history has imprisoned more of its own citizens. There are half a million more prisoners in the U.S. than in China, which has five times our population. Approximately 1 in 100 adults in America were incarcerated in 2014. Out of an adult population of 245 million that year, there were 2.4 million people in prison, jail or some form of detention center.
The vast majority – 86 percent – of prisoners have been locked up for non-violent, victimless crimes, many of them drug-related.
Big Business is making big bucks off of prison labor:
While prison labor helps produce goods and services for almost every big business in America, here are a few examples from an article that highlights the epidemic:
Whole Foods – You ever wonder how Whole Foods can afford to keep their prices so low (sarcasm)? Whole Foods’ coffee, chocolate and bananas might be “fair trade,” but the corporation has been offsetting the “high wages” paid to third-world producers with not-so-fair-wages here in America.
The corporation, famous for it’s animal welfare rating system, apparently was not as concerned about the welfare of the human “animals” working for them in Colorado prisons until April of this year.
You know that $12-a-pound tilapia you thought you were buying from “sustainable, American family farms?” It was raised by prisoners in Colorado, who were paid as little as 74 cents a day. And that fancy goat cheese? The goats were raised and milked by prisoners too.
McDonald’s – The world’s most successful fast food franchise purchases a plethora of goods manufactured in prisons, including plastic cutlery, containers, and uniforms. The inmates who sew McDonald’s uniforms make even less money by the hour than the people who wear them.
Wal-Mart – Although their company policy clearly states that “forced or prison labor will not be tolerated by Wal-Mart,” basically every item in their store has been supplied by third-party prison labor factories. Wal-Mart purchases its produce from prison farms, where laborers are often subjected to long hours in the blazing heat without adequate food or water.
Victoria’s Secret – Female inmates in South Carolina sew undergarments and casual-wear for the pricey lingerie company. In the late 1990’s, two prisoners were placed in solitary confinement for telling journalists that they were hired to replace “Made in Honduras” garment tags with “Made in USA” tags.
AT&T – In 1993, the massive phone company laid off thousands of telephone operators—all union members—in order to increase their profits. Even though AT&T’s company policy regarding prison labor reads eerily like Wal-Mart’s, they have consistently used inmates to work in their call centers since ’93, barely paying them $2 a day.
BP (British Petroleum) – When BP spilled 4.2 million barrels of oil into the Gulf coast, the company sent a workforce of almost exclusively African-American inmates to clean up the toxic spill while community members, many of whom were out-of-work fisherman, struggled to make ends meet. BP’s decision to use prisoners instead of hiring displaced workers outraged the Gulf community, but the oil company did nothing to reconcile the situation.
The full list of companies implicated in exploiting prison labor includes:
Bank of America
Bayer
Cargill
Caterpillar
Chevron
Chrysler
Costco
John Deere
Eli Lilly and Company
Exxon Mobil
GlaxoSmithKline
Johnson and Johnson
K-Mart
Koch Industries
McDonald’s
Merck
Microsoft
Motorola
Nintendo
Pfizer
Procter & Gamble
Pepsi
ConAgra Foods
Shell
Starbucks
UPS
Verizon
WalMart
Wendy’s
While not all prisoners are “forced” to work, most “opt” to because life would be even more miserable if they didn’t, as they have to purchase pretty much everything above the barest necessities (and sometimes those too) with their hard-earned pennies. Some of them have legal fines to pay off and families to support on the outside. Often they come out more indebted than when they went in.
“Prison farms” aka “modern plantations”
In places like Texas, however, prison work is mandatory and unpaid – the literal definition of slave labor.
According the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, prisoners start their day with a 3:30 a.m. wake-up call and are served breakfast at 4:30 a.m. All prisoners who are physically able are required to report to their work assignments by 6 a.m.
“Offenders are not paid for their work, but they can earn privileges as a result of good work habits,” the website says.
Most prisoners work in prison support jobs, like cooking, cleaning, laundry, and maintenance, but about 2,500 of them work in the Texas prison system’s own “agribusiness department,” where they factory-farm 10,000 beef cattle, 20,000 pigs and a quarter million egg-laying hens. The prisoners also produce 74 million pounds of livestock feed per year, 300,000 cases of canned vegetables, and enough cotton to clothe themselves (and presumably others). They also work at meat packaging plants, where they process 14 million pounds of beef and 10 million pounds of pork per year.
While one of the department’s stated goals is to reduce operational costs by having prisoners produce their own food, the prison system admittedly earns revenue from “sales of surplus agricultural production.”
Prisoners who refuse to work – again, unpaid – are placed in solitary confinement. When asked if Texas prisons still employ “chain gangs” in the FAQ section, the department responds:
“No, Texas does not use chain gangs. However, offenders working outside the perimeter fence are supervised by armed correctional officers on horseback.”
Similar “prison farms” exist in Arizona, Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Louisiana, Mississippi, Ohio and other states, where prisoners are forced to work in agriculture, logging, quarrying and mining. Wikipedia says while the agricultural goods produced on prison farms is generally used to feed prisoners and other wards of the state (orphanages and asylums) they are also sold for profit.
In addition to being forced to labor directly for the profit of the government, inmates may be “farmed out” to private enterprises, through the practice of convict leasing, to work on private agricultural lands or related industries (fishing, lumbering, etc.). The party purchasing their labor from the government generally does so at a steep discount from the cost of free labor.
Hate PLC
By Gilad Atzmon | July 27, 2017
In March 2016, the British government pledged 13.4 million pounds to the Community Security Trust (CST), a Jewish body that is committed to fighting hatred against one group only. One would expect that with all that money, the CST would do its job and curb anti Semitism. But the miracle is that the opposite has occurred. Just two weeks later, according to the CST’s statistics, anti Semitism went through the roof. The Daily Mail reports today that 767 anti Semitic hate crimes were logged by the CST in the first six months of 2017, a 30 per cent rise over 2016. It is the highest figure since statistics were first kept 33 years ago. The CST reports an “unprecedented run of over 100 incidents each month back to April 2016.”
A mere few days after the British government vowed to wire millions of pounds to the CST, the number of ‘anti Semitic incidents’ rose by 30% to over 100 incidents a month. The results, at least according to the CST’s statistics, are that the more public money is allocated to fight anti Semitism, the more anti Semitic the Brits become.
If this is the case, the cure for British anti Semitism may be within reach – to fight anti Semitism, deprive the CST and similar organisations of taxpayers’ money!
Anti Semitism is not really a social phenomenon, it is instead a multi million pound industry. The more we spend on the fight against it, the more incidents are ‘recorded’ to justify further spending.
If the British government genuinely wants to fight anti Semitism it would do better to reinstate British liberal values of universalism and tolerance that go beyond the interests of one group. If British Jews feel unsafe, they should insure that they are stripped of their exceptional status. They should insist that they are Brits like all other Britons: protected by the same laws as their neighbours.
In December 2016, the British Government decided to step up the battle against anti Semitism by adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism. The IHRA’s definition was designed to suppress any criticism of Jewish politics, Zionism or Israel. Its intent was to make impossible the utterance of any criticism of anything in any way Jewish related. Yet, according to the new CST statistics, even this drastic measure didn’t reduce anti Semitism at all. If anything, anti Semitism increased sharply since the British Government adopted the new definition.
I would advise both Jews and the British authorities that it is the exceptional treatment of one group that contributes to the growing animosity towards Jewish politics and Jewish lobbying.
But there is another problem that must be addressed. Though it is not clear whether anti Semitism is actually on the rise, it is certain that a growing number of Brits have been subjected to an orchestrated slanderous campaign run by Zionist institutions that are funded by British taxpayer money such as CST and CAA. These organisations attack Jeremy Corbyn, the Labour party, venues, intellectuals, artists, musicians, authors and anyone else they decide has dared to point at Israeli brutality and extensive Jewish political lobbying in Britain.
If Britain still cares for values of tolerance and intellectual exchange, it better spend some taxpayer money defending its citizens, gentiles as well as Jews, from these foreign bodies. And if Britain truly cares for its Jews, it should protect them from the unfortunate consequences of the CST, CAA and other Israeli lobbies operating in our midst.
Featured Video
IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen
or go to
Aletho News Archives – Video-Images
From the Archives
The great ADHD swindle
By Daniel Ken | TCW Defending Freedom | May 20, 2023
Over more than two decades in the classroom I’ve taught thousands of children and teenagers: some were lovely and lots were hard-working. On the other hand, quite a number were disruptive and argumentative, and a number were violently opposed to learning. But I don’t think I’ve taught more than a handful of kids who could be properly described as having the symptoms of ADHD. And that handful could just as easily have had something else wrong with them. Because here’s the thing: despite the fact that the best part of a million children are medicated for the condition, ADHD doesn’t exist.
There’s no definitive medical test for it, experts can’t agree on what it actually means, and most of the symptoms disappear if the child in question has lots of exercise, good diet and, crucially, a set of clear behavioural boundaries, preferably set early in childhood and, for the boys at least, enforced by a stable adult male living at home. … continue
Blog Roll
Aletho News- IRAN WAR “ON PAUSE” – w/ Prof. Glenn Diesen
- Zelensky threatens to attack Belarus
- UK to send Ukraine 150,000 drones
- ‘Biased censorship’: Iran deputy FM slams X for stripping him of blue tick
- Hezbollah lawmaker says Israel has 60 days to withdraw from Lebanon
- Iran rules out IAEA inspections of war-damaged nuclear sites
- Israeli regime’s only interest is ‘permanent war,’ Iran’s FM Araghchi says
- Syria, Lebanon, and the limits of power
- How Multipolarity Forced Trump to Capitulate… For Now
- Switzerland confirms US-Iran talks planned for Friday are cancelled
- If Americans Knew
- 15 articles a day: The extent of the Israeli army’s media interference
- Greek Orthodox Patriarchate denounces Israeli seizure of church land in Jerusalem
- How Hillel International uses antisemitism training and ‘campus climate’ concerns to attack Palestine solidarity
- Old Iraq war architects rise up against Trump’s Iran deal
- Unmasking Axios, its Israeli ties and agenda
- Israel Is Bleeding Support in the U.S. – and Pouring Tens of Millions Into Trying to Change That
- Israeli army included on UN blacklist for 3rd year over ‘grave violations’ against children
- Trita Parsi on the Iran deal, Israel, and how Iran has been a ‘cash cow’ for AIPAC
- JD Vance speaks truth to Israel: “You can’t just kill your way out of every problem” – Daily Update
- What Ceasefire? Israel Has Now Killed Over 1,000 Palestinians in Gaza Since October
- No Tricks Zone
- New Study: Chile’s Relative Sea Level Was 3.2 Meters Higher Than Today During The Mid-Holocene
- Beyond The Pitch: Why FIFA’s World Cup Is One Of Humanity’s Best Investments
- Climate Alarmists Now Using Natural Phenomena To Support Their Claims
- New Study: Significant CO2 Fluxes From Non-Volcanic Sources Are Largely Neglected In Carbon Budgets
- Women Climate Scientists Being Harassed, Insulted By Skeptics, Claims Berkeley Earth Researcher
- Germany’s Longterm Spring Climate Data Show “No Climate Trend”
- New Study: Solar Photovoltaic, Wind Power Fail To Meet Annual Energy Demands 62% Of The Time
- Germany’s Die Welt: “Too Much Is Too Much” … Green Energies Are Cannabalizing Each Other!
- Germany’s Ecological Holocaust… Once Fairy Tale Forests Getting Cleared For Wind Turbines
- A Grand Solar Minimum Has Arrived…Global Cooling Of At Least 1°C Is Expected By The 2030s, 2040s
Aletho News 