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South Africa slams US, EU over Iran oil sanctions

Press TV – April 19, 2013

South Africa has lashed out at the United States and European Union for imposing oil sanctions on Iran over its nuclear energy program without first consulting major importers of the Iranian energy supplies.

South Africa’s Energy Minister Elizabeth Dipuo Peters, who is in India to attend the Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) meeting, said that such decisions have geopolitical implications and mostly affect “the poorest of the poor” that are in dire need of energy supplies and have no alternative.

“When decisions are made at bilateral or unilateral levels that have serious geopolitical consequences, we need to engage seriously,” Peters said.

“When we had to look for crude of the kind we got from Iran, it came at a premium,” she added.

“It has a multiple knock-on effect, especially on the poorest. When these decisions are taken, they must always consider the impact and consequences of their decisions at the geopolitical level. Or at least involve other countries so that when the decision is made they can say South Africa is taking it consciously. They have calculated the impact on them but not on others,” the South African minister said.

At the beginning of 2012, the US and EU imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

On October 15, 2012, the EU foreign ministers reached an agreement on another round of sanctions against Iran.

The sanctions have been imposed on Iran over the groundless charges of a potential military diversion in Iran’s nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the unfounded allegations over its nuclear energy program, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

Peters said that that the petroleum industry is a victim of financial sanctions, which include US sanctions on dollar-denominated trading and EU sanctions on insurance for shipping companies.

She emphasized that the US 18-month exemption for Iran oil sanctions had not benefited South Africa because the EU has refused to grant waivers.

On December 8, 2012, the US added China, India, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa, Sri Lanka, Turkey, and Taiwan to the list of countries exempted from the sanctions for another six months.

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April 19, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Nearly 30 migrant workers shot in Greece

Press TV – April 18, 2013

More than two dozen workers have been injured in a dispute over unpaid salaries in southern Greece when their supervisor shot them, police reports.

The incident took place on Wednesday near the village of Manolada, about 260 kilometers (160 miles) west of the capital, Athens.

Police Captain Haralambos Sfetsos said the shooting occurred after at least one of three foremen opened fired on a crowd of about 200 migrant strawberry pickers, who demanded six months’ back pay.

Thirty workers most of them from Bangladesh were wounded in the shooting. Eight of those hurt are in serious condition in hospital.

The owner of the farm, who was not present at the time of the incident, has been taken into custody for questioning while arrest warrants have been issued for the three foremen, who are all Greek.

On March 16, the Council of Europe’s commissioner for human rights rapped Greece for not having tough measures to combat a surge in racist violence in the country.

The Manolada area has reportedly been at the center of several cases involving violence against migrant workers in recent years.

In 2012, two Greek men were arrested for beating an Egyptian worker, ramming his head in a car window and dragging him for about one kilometer.

Migrants on farms in the area went on a four-day strike in 2008 to protest salaries as low as five euros a day and unsanitary living conditions.

April 18, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Subjugation - Torture | , , , | Leave a comment

Europe’s Stark Choice: Resignation or Revolution

By Don Quijones | Testosterone Pit | April 14, 2013

Two years ago this May, Madrid’s Puerta del Sol and Barcelona’s Plaza Catalunya, Spain’s two most important city squares, were occupied by thousands of indignant protestors. For many of the nation’s highly educated but disillusioned youth, enough was enough, and for a short while it seemed that a new era of political mobilization beckoned.

A few weeks later, however, such hopes were brutally dashed when the riot division of Catalonia’s police force, the Mossos D’esquadra, unleashed the untamed fury of the state upon the protestors’ makeshift camp, under the rather dubious pretext of ridding the city of a health and safety risk (this is Europe, after all!). The message was clear: all attempts to resist the new European economic reality, no matter how peaceful, would be brutally suppressed.

In little more than an hour, a whirlwind of police violence cleared the square of all the occupants and pretty much all of their belongings, many of which were never returned. All the while, a thick, dense ring of shell-shocked protestors and curious bystanders gathered around the square, looking on in a mixture of bewilderment, fear and anger.

And I was one of them. As I strolled around the square, with one wary eye on the aggrieved protestors and the other on the fearsomely armed and highly unpredictable mossos d’esquadra, a placard caught my attention. Its message was beautifully simple: “No soy anti sistema, el sistema es anti yo” (I’m not anti-system; the system is anti-me).

The placard was held aloft by a small child riding on his father’s shoulders. The cynical realist within me knew full well that the boy, who must have been no more than five or six years old, was merely channeling his father’s thoughts. But that didn’t stop my more romantic side from imagining that the child was, in actual fact, eloquently speaking out for his soon-to-be lost generation.

For if there is one thing of which you can be sure about present-day Europe, it is that its political and economic systems are not meant to serve or protect the interests of the youth; on the contrary, they have been designed to gradually erode their last-remaining freedoms and rights and, by leaving them the tab for the transgressions and greed of the global banking sector, deprive them of all hope of ever attaining the standards of living once taken for granted by their parents or grandparents.

Spain is a perfect case in point: In the two intervening years since the country’s 15-M moment, the economy has spiraled into a bottomless depression. Official youth unemployment in the country has reached a mind-boggling 60 percent. Thousands of Spanish savers and pensioners have been robbed of their life savings, victims of the national banks’ cunning (and, it goes without saying, unpunished) preferentes sleight of hand.

All the while, taxes continue to skyrocket and essential welfare spending has been mercilessly sacrificed on the altar of bank recapitalization. Countless of the nation’s homes have – and continue to be – repossessed, to later be given away at a fraction of their value to wealthy international property speculators.

Perhaps worst of all, the country’s current government, which took the reins of power six months after the inception of the 15th May movement, has proven itself to be the most corrupt and incompetent in living memory.

But Spain is by no means unique; it is, if anything, a mere symptom of what is happening throughout the eurozone. From Cyprus to Portugal and from France to Slovenia, an all-out war has been declared against the continent’s industrious middle classes.

And now, with Winter turning to Spring, and Spring soon to Summer, the people of Europe face the starkest of choices: resignation to the EU’s neoliberal, neofeudal agenda, and with it, the gradual elimination of the few remaining freedoms and opportunities we still enjoy; or a spirited last-stand against the encroaching totalitarianism of the European superstate.

Before you make your choice (if, of course, you are European), let me first make a few of my own personal observations vis-a-vis our current situation and future outlook.

1. In case you hadn’t noticed, we are already owned, lock, stock and smoking barrel, by the international cartel of too-big-to-fail banks.

2. Pretty much all our political representatives and institutions, whether at the national or EU level, have also been bought off by the same banks, whose agents – the national central banks, the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), the ECB, the European Commission, the IMF, OECD and World Bank – now stand head and shoulders above all other players in the global political order.

3. Said banks are, to all intents and purposes, bankrupt, both financially and morally. They are also quite literally a law unto themselves. By allowing them to continue to operate in a mark-to-model fantasy world as well as gorge themselves on virtually interest-free central bank credit and regular transfusions of tax-payer funds, our politicians have shown all too clearly on which side their bread is buttered. As such, as long as the current financial system remains in place, the banks and their senior executives will be free to continue bleeding dry our national economies and personal bank accounts.

As Golem XIV recently wrote in his blog, there now exists an official list, drawn up by the Financial Stability Board, of 28 banks that are now free to operate beyond any legal jurisdiction. Like HSBC, they can consort with and engage in business with some of the world’s most wanted criminals, at absolutely no risk of legal action. And as Golem notes, this month (April 2013), we can look forward to the announcement of “another list, this time of Globally Systemically Important Insurers (G-SIIs). They too will be above the Law.”

4. Democracy has absolutely no role, beyond a figurative one, in the European Union. The continued survival and expansion of the European superstate supersedes all other concerns, whether moral, political, social or economic. As such, no genuine form of democracy or civic political engagement will be allowed to take root. As in Stalinist Russia, complete power and authority will reside in the hands of faceless, unaccountable apparatchiks, all doing the bidding of the large global banks and conglomerates.

5. As the real economy (i.e. everything that is not the stock exchange) continues its descent into the abyss, businesses will continue to close down, jobs will continue to vanish at an alarming rate and taxes will continue to rise. What’s more, at a politically expedient moment, the final nail will be driven deep into the coffin of Europe’s welfare state system, once the envy of the world. Needless to say, the newly privatized healthcare, education and pension systems that will take its place will be the sole preserve of the upwardly mobile (i.e. not us).

Instead of paying for essential public services and utilities such as health care, education, pensions and infrastructure, the public’s ballooning tax burden will be directed toward two purposes: keeping the big banks afloat and sustaining the ever-expanding police-state apparatus that will be needed to keep the collapsing civic society in line. Put simply, we will be forced to finance our own enslavement.

6. Most importantly of all, the global financial system’s days are already numbered. Put simply, the system is buckling under the combined weight of unsustainable debt, unpayable pension schemes and a derivatives market whose total value dwarfs global GDP by magnitudes that exceed all human logic.

The question is, once it does collapse, who’s going to pick up the pieces and rebuild a new, more sustainable system in its ashes? Will it be us, the people, or will it be the same bankers, central bankers and heavily compromised political half-wits that got us here in the first place? Will we bravely stake our claim to a new future, or resign ourselves, in fear and despair, to the global bankers’ totalitarian nirvana?

Whatever choice Europeans make in the coming months and years, one thing is clear: the human, social and economic costs will be tremendous either way. For the unpleasant truth is that we have allowed ourselves to be led so far down the rabbit hole of exponential debt that reemerging into the light of day will take years of collective struggle and sacrifice.

Don Quijones is a freelance writer and translator based in Barcelona, Spain. His blog, Raging Bull-Shit, is a modest attempt to challenge some of the wishful thinking and scrub away the lathers of soft soap peddled by our political and business leaders and their loyal mainstream media.

Also by Don Quijones: Spain’s Descent Into Banana Republicanism

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April 14, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Economics, Solidarity and Activism, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

How Europe’s Fight with Google Over Privacy Ignores Real Privacy

By Alfredo Lopez | This Can’t Be Happening | April 10, 2013

Last week the governments of France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, and the United Kingdom fired a warning shot at Google and it appears they’re reloading the gun with real ammunition.

This past December, about a year after the Internet behemoth announced a new privacy policy, a working group of representatives from these countries called the policy grossly abusive of people’s privacy and said Google had four months to bring itself into compliance with European law. Google dismissed the ultimatum: “Our privacy policy,” it said, “respects European law and allows us to create simpler, more effective services.” The European countries response was that they will take actions, based on their national laws and in coodination with each other, by the Fall.

These government/corporation tiffs are frequent and their rhetorical fire normally turns into quickly dissipated smoke. This one could be different. It comes at a time when the world’s powerful are trying to decide how much privacy we people will have and what the term privacy actually means, and this squabble’s outcome will affect that and, of course, our freedom. That alone makes it worth watching.

But there’s something deeper here that transcends this conflict. Privacy is, in fact, a core component of democracy and any infringement on complete privacy is an obscene attack on the possibility of having a free and democratic society. As important as the outcome of this show-down might be, the most important and frightening development is that it’s taking place at all.

The political shoot-out began a year ago when Google announced that it was unifying about 60 privacy policy agreements, covering its myriad services, into one big one. The company explained that lumping together these “agreements” (the things you’re asked to read before pressing the “I Accept” button on a website) was a matter of efficiency and transparency. There’s a logic to that: how many privacy policies have you read on the Internet? One would assume that if you don’t read one, you can hardly be expected to read 60.

That, however, is a corporate shell game. Google made this move not to make our reading easier but to make gathering information about us more efficient. Google is a marketing company and nothing makes a marketing company more powerful and valuable to advertisers than having pertinent information on hundreds of millions of people all over the world. Its privacy policy is fitted to that purpose. It says that, once you sign up and begin using these services as an identified user, you give up that right of refusal. So, because people don’t read that privacy policy, they don’t realize that it effectively eliminates their privacy.

For a very long time, Google has known who uses each of its services and how, but now it knows which combination of services you use and how they interact with each other in your daily life. It also knows cities or towns of residence (and, in many cases, addresses) of its registered users, the IP addresses of their computers, their names (and often the names of their family members and friends), what they do on the Internet every day, what they buy and consider buying and, for those using Gmail, who they write to and what they write. It can hone in a your specific physical location with Goodgle Maps and will store that info if you map it. In fact, all this info is stored on Google’s databases with members’ tacit approval and Google’s complete understanding of what all this means.

“If you have something that you don’t want anyone to know, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it in the first place,” Google CEO Eric Schmidt said in 2009. “If you really need that kind of privacy, the reality is that search engines — including Google — do retain this information for some time and it’s important, for example, that we are all subject in the United States to the Patriot Act and it is possible that all that information could be made available to the authorities.”

The information Google holds rivals and in some cases surpasses the information most governments have on their own citizens. So when Google released this new policy which permits it to combine that information and use it for evaluation, marketing and advertising, these governments commissioned France’s CNIL to investigate.

That selection, in itself, is striking. The CNIL is an independent, government-supported authority that specializes in data privacy law enforcement. France has among the strongest data collection restrictions in the world and, while CNIL has often been criticized by advocates for being too sheepish in its advocacy, data protection “sheepishness” in France would be considered ferocity in many other countries.

Like a trained bulldog, CNIL investigated all the Google data policies for nine months and then presented its report. It was devastating, accusing Google of policies and mechanisms that effectively violate privacy laws in most European countries. Based on that report, 24 of the EU’s 27 data regulators wrote Google a letter last December proposing about a dozen changes: among them that Google shouldn’t collect information on users without their consent, combine information from different services without additional consent or use the data it collects for advertising.

The four months passed. “Google did not provide any precise and effective answers,” CNIL said last week. “In this context, the EU data protection authorities are committed to act and continue their investigations. Therefore, they propose to set up a working group, led by the CNIL, in order to coordinate their reaction, which should take place before summer.”

In the diplomatic jargon of international regulation, those are fighting words. “Coordinate their reaction” is something the European Union’s countries seldom do (witness their financial crisis) and they almost never make threats around technology. Action against Google in Europe could affect the company’s relationship with one of its largest markets and a critical marketing link in the world-wide chain that is the Internet. Google could be crippled. That’s what that statement threatens.

But let’s not kid ourselves. A capitalist government, like those in Europe, has a system to protect and, to do the protecting, its police agencies routinely use data collected on the Internet about its citizens. As Google’s Schmidt put it in 2010: “In a world of asynchronous threats it is too dangerous for there not to be some way to identify you. We need a [verified] name service for people. Governments will demand it.”

So the issue here isn’t really how to protect people’s privacy; it’s how to balance the various approaches to impinging on it. Google says it needs information about you to match its marketing to what you buy; governments say they need information about you to monitor and control what you do the rest of the time. They’re trying to work out how these two approaches to information gathering can co-exist and not conflict with each other.

If, for example, a particular policy draws too much public attention to this issue or provokes a large lawsuit or gets people asking why their government isn’t — or is — doing something, that’s a problem. The government will then find its own privacy policies in the spotlight. That’s only one way this balance can become unbalanced, but in any case balance is the issue being disputed. There is really no debate about whether or not you have a right to privacy on the Internet. As far as both sides are concerned, you don’t, and both sides are most pleased if you’re not paying much attention to that fact.

It’s persistently perplexing how little most people care about this issue. Even many of the most politically conscious will often just shrug and say “there’s nothing that can be done about it”. After decades of increasing surveillance (oiled by a government-encouraged paranoia about terrorism) we expect the powerful of our society to know everything about us and, apparently, most of us can live with that. Some of us appear to think we can’t live without it.

But that battering of our democratic consciousness has not only lowered our guard against violations of our privacy; it has actually fostered a distorted understanding of what privacy actually is. Or better put: it’s convinced many of us that a small part of the privacy debate is the entire debate.

For purposes of the Internet, privacy is your ability to communicate with other people excluding anyone you want from that conversation and your ability to say what you want to those people (and listen to what they have to say) excluding people you don’t want listening.

Sure, what you say to your family or which websites you visit or what you consider buying on the Internet should, in a sane society, be your business and taking a snapshot of all this is a horrible personal violation. But the more dangerous violation is that, in establishing the means to eavesdrop on your life and honing the ability to store and analyze that information, powerful forces are systematically limiting what the Internet can be about.

What humanity created as a tool of freedom and, in many cases, struggle has been taken over by corporations and governments wielding lawsuits, imprisonment and largely unnoticed anti-freedom laws to pervert its original intent.

“When the Internet began… it was seen largely as a non-commercial oasis,” free-speech advocate and writer Robert McChesney told Democracy Now in a recent interview. “It was a place where people could go and be equal and be empowered as citizens to take on concentrated economic and political power, to battle propaganda… And there was no surveillance. People could do what they wanted and not be tracked.

“What’s been taking place… is that on a number of different fronts, extraordinarily large, monopolistic corporations have emerged: AT&T, Verizon, Comcast, at the access level; Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, at the application and use level. And these firms have changed the nature of the Internet dramatically… (and) they work closely with the government and the national security state and the military. They really walk hand in hand collecting this information, monitoring people, in ways that by all democratic theory are inimical to a free society.”

“Privacy” isn’t primarily individual and privacy laws aren’t in place only to address individual activities. In fact, you can’t be individually private on the Internet because then you wouldn’t be using the Internet. The privacy laws are there to make sure people can function in our exercise of free speech, exchange of information and association. They are, and always have been, a way to protect us from government inquiry and inquisition. Those laws that say a cop can’t just walk into your house and search it without a warrant or question you and those with you or keep close tabs on everything you do and who you do it with — those are privacy laws. They protect our collaborative activity from
government repression.

That collaborative activity is what the Internet has deepened and broadened. It lets us communicate with people all over the world involved in activities emanating from issues and concerns similar to ours. It lets people who are fighting for their rights in a country where such activity can get you jailed or killed talk to people world-wide who can support them. It permits coordination of struggles going on in vastly different environments in far-away countries. It cuts through our media’s lies about other countries with solid truth we learn from people in those countries. It helps unify us and helps us support each other in a rapid, almost immediate, way.

It’s what humanity needs and it’s the reason why the Internet now reaches two billion people.

But if the privacy is taken away, if a government or a corporation can read your email or follow you around as you visit and use websites, your use of the Internet for its most important political purpose becomes stored information that can be used to oppose and repress you.

Privacy, viewed that way, is the litmus test of a free environment. In that context, Google is a monster and the governments that are challenging it on such restricted grounds aren’t much better.

Yes, the progressive response to the European initiative on Google privacy should be to encourage it but with an understanding of its pitfalls and a loud outcry about them. Even if Europe has its way, the outcome will still be an erosion of our privacy and a further empowerment of those who would, in some situations, repress our movements for change.

So right now, those of us who are truly concerned about the future of this society and the world, need to place Internet privacy among our most prominent issues.

April 11, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Putin: No plans to close NGOs, public has right to know

RT | April 5, 2013

Recent checks in Russian NGOs are completely in line with the law and have the sole objective of informing the Russian public on these groups’ activities, according to President Vladimir Putin.

In an interview with the German broadcaster ARD, Putin said that the recently-approved law on foreign agents that caused the major NGO audit had parallels in international practice. He also noted the extremely disproportionate representation of non-governmental presence from foreign countries in Russia.

In the very beginning of the interview, the Russian President noted that it was not the objective of the NGO inspections to scare the public or the activists, adding that the mass media was performing that function.

Putin added that the real situation differed greatly from what was presented by the Western mass media. In particular, the fresh Russian law demanding that non-government organizations engaged in Russia’s internal political processes and sponsored from abroad must be registered as foreign agents was noting new. The United States has had a very similar law since 1938.

Putin noted that the US law is enforced by the Department of Justice. All groups operating in the US must regularly submit information about their activities and this information is then reviewed by the counterespionage section.

The German reporter admitted he was not aware of such practices in the United States.

Putin went on to point out that there were 654 foreign-funded groups operating in Russia, while Russia sponsored only two foreign NGOs – one in France and one in the United States.

He also disclosed that foreign diplomatic missions transferred $1 billion. Eight hundred and fifty-five million was to the accounts of Russian-based NGOs in just the four months that passed since the approval of the Foreign Agents Law.

Putin told the interviewer that in his view, Russian society had the full right to know about the extensive network of foreign-sponsored organizations operating in the country, as well as about the amount of funding these groups were getting from their foreign sponsors.

The Russian leader then again stressed that the Russian authorities did not intend to pressure or shut down any organizations.

“We only ask them to admit: ‘Yes, we are engaged in political activities, and we are funded from abroad,’” Putin said. “The public has the right to know this.”

Putin also emphasized in his interview that the Russian authorities fully supported political competition, as without it the development of the country and the people is impossible. He said that the opposition had every right to protest, but even during these protests the rally-goers must abide by the law.

“There must be order. It is a well-known rule. It is universal and applicable in any country,” he stated, noting that the recent events in North Africa were a vivid example of what might happen if this principle is neglected.

The president recalled the recent changes in the law on political parties that drastically simplified both the registration and the work of these organizations. He also spoke of as other moves to liberalize the political system, such as the return of the gubernatorial elections, saying that this was proof that he and his supporters encouraged political competition.

‘Feeling the Cyprus pinch’

When asked about the scope of Russian investment in Cyprus, Putin said it was “absurd” to view private Russian business interests operating in an EU country as having any connection with the activities of the Russian government itself.

He did, however, state that following the $13 billion bailout agreement with Cyprus, which included a one-time tax on deposits held in Cypriot banks, foreign investors feeling the pinch in the EU were more likely to “come to our financial institutions and keep their money in our banks.”

Reacting to claims that Cyprus was a safe haven for dirty money, Putin stressed that Russia neither created the offshore zone, nor had anyone provided evidence of financial misconduct on the Mediterranean island. But while no criminal wrongdoing has been proven, people who had merely deposited their money without breaking any laws now risk forfeiting 60 percent of their deposits as a result of the Cyprus bailout deal.

The Russian president continued that apart from Cyprus, other zones had been created by the European Union, and it was a red herring to place the blame for illicit activities on investors who benefited from them.

“If you consider such zones a bad thing, then close them. Why do you shift responsibility for all problems that have arisen in Cyprus to investors irrespective of their nationality (British, Russian, French or whatever else).”

When asked if he had felt snubbed by the EU when it opted not to turn to Russia for help despite the number of Russian nationals affected, Putin resolutely answered no.

“On the contrary I am even glad, to some extent, because the events have shown how risky and insecure investments in Western financial institutions can be.”

‘We trust the Euro’

Despite previous criticism of certain aspects of the European financial system, Putin stated emphatically that “we trust the euro.”  

Putin was unwilling to comment in depth on the internal workings of the EU that had no direct bearing on Russia, as it would be disrespectful to EU leaders.

He did say, however, that despite several points of contention between the EU and Russia, they “are fundamentally moving in the right direction” and Russia had made the right decision in keeping such a large share of its gold and currency reserves “in the European currency.”

Reiterating Russia’s trust in the economic policy of major European countries, Putin remains confident that Europe will overcome the difficulties it is currently facing.

Click here to read the full transcript of the interview

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April 5, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Economics | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Chinese tanker loads Iranian crude for first time since EU ban

Press TV – April 3, 2013

A Chinese supertanker loaded crude from Iran’s largest export terminal in late March, for the first time since Europe enforced sanctions on Iranian oil shipment insurers in July 2012.

According to shipping data and a Chinese industry official, the Yuan Yang Hu supertanker, able to haul 2 million barrels of crude, docked at Kharg Island on March 20-21 and is currently en route to China.

The vessel is owned by Dalian Ocean, a subsidiary of state shipping giant China Ocean Shipping (Group) Company (COSCO).

At the beginning of 2012, the US and the European Union imposed new sanctions on Iran’s oil and financial sectors with the goal of preventing other countries from purchasing Iranian oil and conducting transactions with the Central Bank of Iran.

China has relied mainly on the National Iranian Tanker Company (NITC) to ship Iranian crude to Chinese refineries over the past nine months.

According to Chinese customs data, China imported about 410,000 bpd of Iranian crude in the first two months of 2013, a figure which is 3 percent higher than one year earlier.

The US has spearheaded several rounds of Western sanctions against Iran in recent years, based on the unfounded accusation that Iran is pursuing non-civilian objectives in its nuclear energy program.

Iran rejects the allegations, arguing that as a committed signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), it has the right to use nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.

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April 3, 2013 Posted by | Economics, Wars for Israel | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Cyprus bailout inside info? 132 companies pull out over $900mn in deposits

RT | April 02, 2013

One hundred and thirty-two companies reportedly had inside knowledge of Cyprus’ impending levy tax as they withdrew deposits worth US$916 million in the run-up to the bailout deal.

The companies withdrew their savings in the two week period (between March 1 to March 15) leading up to the rescue deal that enforced heavy losses on wealthy depositors in Cypriot banks, according to Greek newspaper Proto Thema.

Shortly after this the EU ministers and the IMF hammered out a 10-billion-euro (US$13 billion) bailout agreement with Cyprus, which included a one-time tax on deposits held in Cypriot banks.

In the meantime all banks in Cyprus temporarily froze the amounts required to pay the tax on their clients’ deposits and stopped all transactions while the government negotiated the details of the agreement.

The companies on the list withdrew their deposits in euro, USD, GBP and Russian rubles and later transferred to banks outside of Cyprus. The total amount withdrawn comes to US$916 million.

The list consists of shipping and energy companies, legal practices and state-run companies, Der Spiegel reported. The published list was not yet verified.

It includes A Loutsios & Sons Ltd, reportedly co-owned by John Loutsios, the husband of Nikos Anastasiadis’ daughter Elsa. The company said to have transferred 21 million euro (US$27 million) from Laiki Bank in the week running up to the bailout. The money was then deposited in a London bank, Haravgi newspaper reported.

A Loutsios & Sons Ltd denied that it had withdrawn any money from its Cyprus bank account.

Anastasiades also denied the charges and called the reports an “attempt to defame companies or people linked to my family … [This] is nothing but an attempt to distract people from the liability of those who led the country to a state of bankruptcy.”

Earlier Haravgi newspaper reported that Cypriot Finance Minister Michalis Sarris has confirmed that the government knew in advance that the Eurogroup planned to impose a tax on bank deposits of more than 100,000 euro.

The list raises suspicion that certain companies had inside knowledge of the decision adopted by the eurozone’s 16 countries to finance Cyprus’ deficit.

Just last week the troika of international lenders along with Cyprus agreed on a 10 billion euro ($13 billion) bailout plan, according to which the depositors with more than 100,000 euro ($128,000) in the Bank of Cyprus would lose 37.5 per cent of their savings in exchange for bank shares.

These big depositors may further lose up to 22.5 per cent more if the experts consider the bank’s balance insufficient.

This means that those with big deposits in Cyprus’ largest bank could lose could lose up to 60 per cent of their savings in the harsh new EU and IMF bailout deal. Those with deposits less than 100,000 euro will be protected under the Cyprus deposit guarantee.

Financial journalist Clem Chambers believes other eurozone countries will follow the sad example of Cyprus.

“The system is not addressing the underlying problem of all of this, which is deficits – state deficits, trade deficits. Europe and America are bleeding to death and they are not doing anything about it,” he told RT.

“Unless they turn that round – and there is no sign they are going to – then the dominos must fall.”

The list, provided by the Greek newspaper Proto Thema, of the 132 companies that allegedly made substantial withdrawals prior to the levy’s announcement can be viewed at RT.

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April 3, 2013 Posted by | Corruption, Deception | , , , | Leave a comment

UN Sanctions on Iran: The Dance of Mutual Deniability

By Joy Gordon | Fletcher Forum | March 27, 2013

The comprehensive economic sanctions imposed on Iraq by the UN Security Council in the 1990s fundamentally changed the way we think about sanctions. Sanctions had been seen as a middle route, which was nonviolent, yet more robust than diplomacy. But in Iraq, the humanitarian impact was devastating: child mortality spiked, malnutrition was widespread, the middle class disappeared, and critical infrastructure, such as electricity and water treatment, declined precipitously and never recovered. As the humanitarian crisis continued, activists, practitioners and scholars questioned the ethical legitimacy of sanctions.

The response was the development of targeted “smart” sanctions, which would ostensibly harm only the political or military leadership of the targeted state, or block prohibited goods, without impacting the civilian population. Targeted sanctions included arms embargoes, asset freezes of individual persons and companies, visa denials, and targeted trade sanctions, such as conflict diamonds. There were still unilateral measures that were patently indiscriminate, most prominently the U.S. embargo against Cuba. But by the late 1990s, the Security Council was no longer imposing new measures that were comprehensive.

In the last couple of years we have seen a return to aggressive, deeply damaging measures that are designed to cripple the target nation’s economy as a whole, particularly in the case of Iran. The U.S. sanctions on Iran have been extreme, broadly prohibiting trade, shipping, banking transactions, and investment in Iran’s energy sector. In the last few years we’ve seen the U.S. expand these prohibitions, to restrict not only American companies, but foreign banks and companies as well. The U.S. has aggressively prosecuted major global financial institutions for violations of U.S. sanctions law, and in the last two years there have been a number of cases where banks paid penalties on the order of half a billion dollars each.

Unsurprisingly, the result has been a considerable chilling effect: it is now common to see companies refusing to engage in any transactions at all with Iranian nationals, even for clearly legal purposes. For example, a Swiss organization, the GAVI Alliance, provides vaccines to developing countries. The GAVI Alliance is not subject to U.S. law, but its efforts to provide medical goods to Cuba and Sudan are hampered by U.S. restrictions on shipping companies. Canada’s TD Bank summarily closed down the accounts of Iranians residing legally in Canada. In the U.S., there are growing reports that Iranian-Americans, who in principle are permitted to send remittances to family members in Iran, cannot find any bank in the U.S. or elsewhere that will transfer the funds.

No one could plausibly claim that the U.S. sanctions on Iran are “smart” sanctions. They have crippled Iran’s ability to export oil, to buy gasoline, to import goods of all kinds, to extract and refine oil and natural gas, and to manufacture pharmaceuticals. The irony is that the UN Security Council measures on Iran are perceived to be narrowly crafted to avoid exactly this outcome. The Security Council resolutions only require member states to address cargo, technology, or financial transactions that could contribute to Iran’s nuclear program or ballistic missiles. No one would think that such a specific mandate could have humanitarian consequences—how can depriving a country of nuclear weapons affect education and food security?

But the resolutions contain “hooks” that are then invoked by U.S. allies to impose measures that mirror those of the United States, in a kind of dance of mutual deniability. The Security Council resolutions invite nations to “exercise vigilance” in their dealings with Iran, specifically with Iran’s Central Bank, and with two of its leading banks, Bank Saderat and Bank Melli. It is hard to imagine a term that is more vague and less informative than “exercise vigilance.” After all, we exercise vigilance every time we cross a street or lock a door. But a number of U.S. allies, known as the “like-minded” countries—the European Union, Canada, Australia, Japan, and South Korea—have invoked the call to “vigilance” as justification for imposing broad, damaging measures on Iran, approaching the blanket nature and severity of the U.S. sanctions. Last year, the EU cut off gasoline sales to Iran, and blocked Iranian access to European ports and shipping lines. SWIFT, the global hub for financial messaging critical for international commercial transactions, cut off access to Iran last year.

This disconnect between a seemingly narrow mandate and its broad application is far from a coincidence; it is a deliberate strategy that affords the international community mutual deniability. The EU and the “like-minded” countries can claim that they are not acting unilaterally; they are just being vigilant, as the Security Council has asked them to. At the same time, the Security Council can maintain that it has not imposed unreasonable measures on Iran; its sanctions only concern nuclear weapons and are meant to minimize the humanitarian damage.

In the end, the result is not so different than what we saw in Iraq two decades ago. If you cripple a nation’s access to shipping, energy, and banking, that will cripple its ability to provide health care, food security, electricity, transportation, and other basic needs of its population. The dance of mutual deniability may mean that it’s harder to see how the sanctions work. But that doesn’t mean they’re doing any less harm.

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March 28, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

India insists on continuing Iran oil imports

Press TV – March 26, 2013

India’s Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister M. Veerappa Moily has emphasized that his country will not halt imports of Iranian crude oil, rejecting recent Western news reports to the contrary.

While noting that unilateral anti-Iran sanctions by the US and the European Union have caused some difficulties for India in terms of insuring Iranian oil shipments, Moily told reporters in New Delhi that his country intends to establish a special fund for insuring oil imports originating from the Islamic Republic, IRNA reported on Tuesday.

The remarks by the Indian official came in response to the Western media reports on New Delhi’s decision to halt its Iranian oil purchases, which he strongly denied.

Meanwhile a deputy petroleum minister in India further reiterated that details of an insurance fund for Iranian oil shipments will be outlined in the near future, noting that the country’s national insurance companies, Oil India Development Board as well as major players in the nation’s oil industry will contribute funds to the insurance fund.

According to the report, Western media outlets, particularly Reuters have cited unnamed and unofficial sources in recent weeks who pointed to the possibility that India will soon halt its crude imports from Iran.

Indian officials, however, have insisted on continued oil imports from Iran while reiterating that they will not submit to the Western pressures on the issue, the report further adds.

India is among Asia’s major importers of energy, relying on the Islamic Republic to satisfy a portion of its energy requirements.

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March 26, 2013 Posted by | Economics | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Funding and Denouncing Israeli Occupation: Hypocritical EU Must Make a Stand

By Ramzy Baroud | Palestine Chronicle | March 12 2013

More bad news emerged from Israel in recent weeks. Indeed, good news is seldom associated with Israel and its military occupation and institutionalized discrimination and mistreatment of Palestinians.

But now even those international organizations that are often supportive of Israel’s militancy seem to be joining the consensus that Tel Aviv is on an irrevocably perilous course.

Few international law experts would defend Israel’s fervent settlement-building on occupied Palestinian land.

Yet the Western powers, led by the United States, have brought little pressure to bear on Israel to cease its illegal activities.

In fact, without US and European funding it would have been nearly impossible for Israel to build settlements and transfer over half a million Israelis over the years to live on stolen Palestinian land, in violation of numerous international laws including the Fourth Geneva Convention.

Worse still, trade with European and other countries sustained these illegal settlements, allowing them to flourish at the expense of Palestinians who have suffered massive ethnic cleansing campaigns since 1967.

But at last EU diplomats in east Jerusalem and the West Bank are speaking out in unequivocal terms.

In a report released at the end of last month, the diplomats declared that “settlement construction remains the biggest single threat to the two-state solution. It is systematic, deliberate and provocative.”

The report called on EU states “not to support … research, education and technological co-operation” with settlements and to “discourage” investing in Israeli companies that operate in the occupied territories.

Expectedly, the report is non-binding. And even if such recommendations are considered, Israel and its EU friends and lobbyists are likely to find loopholes that would deprive any EU action of substance and vigor.

Without civil society action focused on turning up the heat on European governments, especially die-hard supporters of Israel such as the British government, business with Israel is most likely to carry on as usual.

Not only is Israel flouting international law but the supposed guardians of international law are the very ones that are empowering Israel in carrying out its illegal acts, disempowering and bankrupting Palestinians.

Last January an Oxfam report said that the Palestinian economy, which is currently in utter disarray, could generate urgently needed income – $1.5 billion to be exact – if Israel eased its restrictions in the Jordan Valley alone.

But without suitable access to their own land and to water sources, Palestinians in the valley continue to struggle while the settlers are thriving.

Although the US government is well known to have done everything in its power to defend Israel at any cost and ensure Israel’s superiority and military edge over all of its neighbors, the EU has falsely acquired a more balanced reputation. Nothing could be further from the truth.

In a recent report the Palestinian rights group al-Haq emphasized that trading in produce grown in settlements had “directly contributed to the growth and viability of settlements by providing an essential source of revenue that allows them to thrive.”

The reported value of total EU trade with illegal Israeli settlements amounts to approximately $300 million a year. This may appear small compared with the $39bn of total trade between the EU and Israel reported in 2011, for example, but it does mean that “the EU has some room for leverage given it is Israel’s largest trade partner, and it receives some 20 per cent of total Israeli exports,” as pointed out by Dalia Hatuqa writing for al-Monitor.

The fact is that Europe is ultimately taking part in the subjugation of the Palestinians by funding Israel’s illegal occupation and its massively growing settler population. And no amount of diplomatic “recommendations” or newspeak can alter that fact.

But settlement growth cannot be considered in a vacuum. It makes no sense to talk about boycotting settlements while supporting the main organs that ordered or sanctioned the illegal settlements in the first place.

So differentiating between products made in Israel or those made in the settlements is absurd at best.

The settlers are not self-sustaining autonomous outposts. They are considered part and parcel of the so-called Israel proper.

In the eyes of the Israeli government there is little distinction between settlers from Ma’ale Adumim or residents of Tel Aviv.

Yigal Palmore of the Israeli Foreign Ministry responded to the EU report in withering terms.

“A diplomat’s mission is to build bridges and bring people together, not to foster confrontation. The EU consuls have clearly failed in their mission,” he said.

Nothing is random in Israeli planning. As is already the case in various parts of the occupied territories, Palestinians are becoming an unwanted presence on their own land.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s has decided to develop more settlements in an area known as E1, which is set to cut off east Jerusalem from the rest of the West Bank.

There is unlikely to be a turning back from the construction plans, which include the building of 3,000 settler homes in the land corridor near Jerusalem.

Israel is unrelenting and seems to have no regard for international law. It is emboldened in its actions by the weakness of its neighbors, the unhindered backing of its friends, and the gutlessness of its critics, who all too often are consumed in intellectual tussles over the boundaries of language and proper ways to frame the discourse.

None of this wrangling is of any concern to Israel, which is merely winning time to achieve its own harrowingly ugly version of apartheid.

For those who still feel uneasy with this provocative term, consider the latest Israeli transport ministry’s initiative. It has designated bus line No 210, which shuttles cheap Palestinian laborers to and from the West Bank, to be “Palestinian only.”

Of course this is not an isolated policy but a continuation of a dreadful track record.

Bad news from Israel is likely to continue.

Almost every day there is a new disturbing development in Israeli practices against Palestinians.

All too often this is merely met with feeble international criticism without any substantial action.

Civil society organizations and groups must tell their governments that enough is enough.

While Israel should be held responsible for its own behavior, the EU and other countries should not finance the occupation while decrying the settlements. This hypocrisy can no longer be tolerated.

– Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an internationally-syndicated columnist and the editor of PalestineChronicle.com. His latest book is: My Father was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza’s Untold Story (Pluto Press).

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March 13, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

U.S.-EU Trade Deal is the Foundation For a New Global Economic Order

By Dana Gabriel | Be Your Own Leader | February 25, 2013

The U.S. and EU have agreed to launch negotiations on what would be the world’s largest free trade deal. Such an agreement would be the basis for the creation of an economic NATO and would include trade in goods, services and investment, as well as cover intellectual property rights. There are concerns that the U.S. could use these talks to push the EU to loosen its restrictions on genetically modified crops and foods. In addition, the deal might serve as a backdoor means to implement ACTA which was rejected by the European Parliament last year. A U.S.-EU Transatlantic trade agreement is seen as a way of countering China’s growing power and is the foundation for a new global economic order.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Barack Obama officially announced that the U.S. would launch talks on a comprehensive Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership with the European Union (EU). A joint statement issued by European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso, European Council President Herman Van Rompuy and U.S. President Obama explained that, “Through this negotiation, the United States and the European Union will have the opportunity not only to expand trade and investment across the Atlantic, but also to contribute to the development of global rules that can strengthen the multilateral trading system.” In a separate speech, European Commission President Barroso also emphasized that, “A future deal between the world’s two most important economic powers will be a game-changer. Together, we will form the largest free trade zone in the world. So this negotiation will set the standard – not only for our future bilateral trade and investment, including regulatory issues, but also for the development of global trade rules.”

The decision to pursue a free trade deal was based on the recommendations put forth by the High Level Working Group on Jobs and Growth which was created to deepen U.S.-EU economic integration. In their final report, they called on leaders from both sides to, “initiate as soon as possible the formal domestic procedures necessary to launch negotiations on a comprehensive trade and investment agreement.” According to U.S. and EU officials, talks could start in June with the hopes of completing a deal by the end of 2014. The proposed trade pact would include removing import tariffs, dismantling hurdles to trade in goods, services, and investment, as well as harmonizing regulations and standards. It would also cover intellectual property protection and enforcement. This could be used as an opportunity for a backdoor implementation of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). It was a result of public pressure associated with risks to internet freedom and privacy which lead to ACTA being rejected by the European Parliament in July of 2012. There have already been attempts to use Canada-EU trade negotiations to sneak in parts of ACTA.

Public Citizen’s Global Trade Watch Director, Lori Wallach cautioned how U.S.-EU talks, “are aimed at eliminating a list of what multinational corporations call ‘trade irritants’ but the rest of us know as strong food safety, environmental and health safeguards.” She went on to say, “European firms are targeting aspects of the U.S. financial reregulation regime, our stronger drug and medical device safety and testing standards and more.” Wallach further added, “U.S. firms want Europe to gut their superior chemical regulation regime, their tougher food safety rules and labeling of genetically modified foods.” In a press release, Earth Open Source warned that, “An EU-U.S. free trade deal would obliterate EU safeguards for health and the environment with regard to genetically modified (GM) crops and foods.” Research Director Claire Robinson pointed out, “If the new trade agreement goes through, it will be illegal under World Trade Organisation rules for the EU to have a stronger regulatory system for GMOs than the U.S. system.” This is disturbing considering that in many cases, GM foods in the U.S. do not require any special regulatory oversight or safety tests.

Overshadowed by the proposed U.S.-EU trade deal are ongoing Canada-EU negotiations on a Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). Despite talks being in their final stages, both sides still have some important gaps to be bridged before a deal can be reached. Thomas Walkom of the Toronto Star acknowledged that, “Europe’s real interest in negotiating a trade deal with Ottawa was to demonstrate to the Americans that a trans-Atlantic free trade pact was possible.” He noted, “EU negotiators will be even more reluctant to make concessions to Canada for fear of weakening their bargaining hand with the Americans.” Walkom argued that, “Canada is under more pressure to make a deal while Europe is under less.” He concluded that. “A Canada-EU deal seems inevitable. But now, with America in the mix, the terms for Canada may be even less favorable than expected.” The Globe and Mail recently reported that the EU is demanding additional concessions from Canada before any agreement can be signed. In order to wrap things up, a desperate Canada may be willing to give up even more. This was a bad deal from the start and it would be in their best interest to just walk away from CETA.

In the coming months, you can expect the anti-corporate globalization movement on both sides of the Atlantic to mobilize against the U.S.-EU trade agreement. It is big business and financial institutions who are pushing this deregulation agenda which threatens health, environmental and food safety standards. Just like NAFTA, the proposed U.S.-EU trade deal is also likely to include an investor-state dispute process which would give corporations the right to challenge government policies that restrict their profits. A trade agreement between the U.S. and EU is a building block for a new global trading system. If you combine NAFTA, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and a U.S,-EU Transatlantic trade deal, you have the makings for a global free trade area.

~

Related articles by Dana Gabriel:
Deepening the U.S.-EU Transatlantic Trade Partnership
Growing Opposition to the Canada-EU Trade Agreement
Advancing the Transatlantic Agenda
From NAFTA to CETA: Canada-EU Deep Economic Integration

Dana Gabriel is an activist and independent researcher. He writes about trade, globalization, sovereignty, security, as well as other issues. Contact: beyourownleader@hotmail.com Visit his blog at Be Your Own Leader

February 28, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Economics | , , , | Leave a comment

Britain’s UKIP – another Zionist lobby tool

Is the UK Independence Party planning to free us from the EU and handcuff us to Israel?

By Stuart Littlewood | Salem-News | February 22, 2013

The main aim of the United Kingdom Independence Party (UKIP) is withdrawal from the European Union. A ComRes poll for the Independent on Sunday and the Sunday Mirror puts UKIP in third place on 14 per cent, well ahead of the Liberal Democrats.

A few weeks ago YouGov, with the European Parliament in mind and using two different methods, put support for UKIP at between 17 per cent and 19 per cent. So, the Conservatives are under pressure while the Liberal Democrats (on a measly 8 per cent) are set to lose badly.

Spouting Israeli propaganda

After 20 years and eight leader changes UKIP still has no seat in the British Parliament, but with 12 seats in the European Parliament it is now a force to be reckoned with, and the Zionists in their determination to cover all bases appear to have infiltrated the leadership core. It is no longer the likable anti-European Union protest party it used to be.

In its foreign affairs policy statement “Out of the EU, into the world”, UKIP says it

fully supports the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state… Israel is surrounded by hostile states committed to its destruction. The tiny state has been the frequent victim of rocket attacks and suicide bombings from terrorist groups, almost all deliberately targeting civilians. Israel has every right to respond with proportionate force to these attacks, and a UKIP government would do the same were Britain similarly threatened.

UKIP rejects the notion that Israel should be punished through sanctions or cancellation of trade deals (such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement) for defending itself from attack.

UKIP urges Israel to adopt a lasting solution based on a political dialogue and not just military strength…

UKIP wishes to see a peaceful and mutually amicable settlement reached between Israel and the Palestinians. It is not for us to set the terms for these talks, nor the boundaries for any peace deal. This is an issue the Israelis and Palestinians must work out between themselves…

This stuff reads like it was written in Tel Aviv by the regime’s chief spin-master, Mark Regev himself. There’s no acknowledgement that the Palestinians have suffered illegal occupation, dispossession and ethnic cleansing for the last 65 years and they too are entitled to defend themselves. As for “political dialogue”, what does UKIP think has been going on for decades to no avail? Notice they don’t mention law and justice as the path to a solution, don’t demand due process nor an end to the illegal occupation of the West Bank and the blockade of Gaza, nor require compliance with those countless UN resolutions. They’re just happy for the oppressor and the oppressed to carry on arguing, one with a gun to the other’s head, with no prospect of a just peace.

Are they really too thick to understand there can be no peace under occupation?

The same policy document says UKIP believes a nuclear Iran would be unacceptable, and they’d support efforts to eliminate its nuclear weapons capability “by targeted military means” if necessary. UKIP conveniently ignores the fact that Israel possesses hundreds of nuclear warheads (and the means to deliver them), menaces the whole region and beyond, and defies calls to sign up to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and place all its nuclear facilities under comprehensive International Atomic Energy Agency safeguards.

What part of Article 2 of the EU-Israel Association Agreement does UKIP not understand?

Rejecting calls for the suspension of trade deals such as the EU-Israel Association Agreement is further evidence of UKIP’s woeful ignorance. The purpose of the agreement is to promote (1) peace and security, (2) shared prosperity through, for example, the creation of a free trade zone, and (3) cross-cultural rapprochement. It governs not only EU-Israel relations, but Israel’s relations with the EU’s other Mediterranean partners, including the Palestinian National Authority. To enjoy the association’s privileges Israel undertook to show “respect for human rights and democratic principles” as set out as a general condition in Article 2, which says:

Relations between the Parties, as well as all the provisions of the Agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and international policy and constitutes an essential element of this Agreement.

Note that “respect for human rights and democratic principles” is an essential element – not optional.

The clause allows steps to be taken to enforce the contractual obligations regarding human rights and to dissuade partners from pursuing policies and practices that disrespect those rights. The agreement also requires respect for self-determination of peoples and fundamental freedoms for all.

Honourable politicians would have enforced Article 2, insisted on the observance of all other codes of behaviour and not let matters slide. They would have suspended Israel’s membership until the regime complied 100 per cent. Israel relies heavily on exports to Europe so the EU could, at a stroke, end the brutal occupation, murder and land theft, and resolve the problem in the Holy Land.

Bristling with lies and distortions

UKIP’s leadership has also decided that the party needs a “Friends of Israel” fan club. I include the mission statement http://foi-ukip.org/mission/ in full for its sheer entertainment value to those who know the truth about the situation in the Holy Land:

The State of Israel remains to date the only liberal democracy in the Middle East. It is also the world’s only Jewish state, surrounded and largely unrecognized by 21 Arab nations.

Despite constant assault from within and without, Israel has maintained an impeccable human rights record and remains the only country in the Middle East to extend full civil and political rights to all of its citizens, regardless of race or religion. Yet somehow it is cast as the oppressor, vilified as an “apartheid state” and singled out for disproportionate criticism.

Decades of malicious propaganda campaigns have seen to it that a one-sided historical narrative which portrays the Palestinians as blameless victims now successfully masquerades as reality. Little attention is paid to the fact that an independent Palestinian state has existed under the name of Jordan since 1946, and that the Palestinian leadership has consistently rejected a two-state solution whenever it has been offered, choosing instead to resort to terrorism.

The State of Israel, like all nation-states, has three fundamental rights which must be championed by freedom-loving people the world over: the right to exist, the right to secure borders, and the right to defend itself. In addition, it must also be allowed to preserve its unique Jewish character if it is to remain a safe-haven for Jews in a part of the world where violent anti-Semitism is still rife.

The purpose of Friends of Israel in UKIP is to support Israel’s right to exist as a viable, sovereign homeland for the Jewish people, and to oppose attempts to discredit, dissolve or damage it. FOI in UKIP does not seek to proffer a solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict, but rather to promote an impartial understanding of the issues by providing a counter-balance to the anti-Zionist rhetoric which currently dominates the debate.

Of course, friendship is more than mere political advocacy. FOI in UKIP will also seek to foster links with the Israeli government and people in order to provide an avenue for the discourse and meeting of minds which cement true friendship.

Doesn’t this just bristle with lies and distortion? UKIP’s leader, Nigel Farage, has been described by the Jewish Chronicle as “a good friend of Israel”. The party’s secretary, Michael Zuckerman, is the one who set up Friends of Israel. “There is tremendous support for Israel within UKIP,” Zuckerman told the Jewish Chronicle. The group has the backing of party leader Farage and others among their MEPs, he said.

The objectives of UKIP’s FoI include organizing delegations to Israel; ensuring that UKIP has “a fully informed” foreign policy (no joking); providing UKIP’s elected representatives with information relevant to Britain and Israel’s mutual security concerns (imagine the Zio-nonsense being circulated); and ensuring Israel gets a fair hearing in all forums in which UKIP is represented. Clearly UKIP, or at least those members who provide “tremendous support” to its Israel admiration society, are expected to act as agents for that foreign power.

As disenchantment with the corrupt, extravagant and unaccountable EU continues to grow, UKIP is the only party with a clear intention to bring us out. With its cluster of MEPs, UKIP is targeting local (county council) elections this year, and hoping to profit in the European parliamentary elections next year and the UK general election in 2015.

Fascists, racists and psychopaths

But UKIP is tainted with the extremism of groups to which it has become affiliated within the European Parliament, such as the odious EFD (Europe of Freedom and Democracy), which Farage co-chairs. Given this gruesome alliance, linking up with the racist psychopaths in Tel Aviv is no doubt seen as a “good fit”. It is obvious when listening to remarks by some of the leading lights of the EDF, for example Bastiaan Belder (Netherlands) who chairs the Delegation for Relations with Israel and sits on the Foreign Affairs Committee, that they have swallowed the Israeli propaganda narrative hook, line and sinker and still think the Palestinians are the terrorists.

I hear that if a UKIP MEP refuses to sit alongside those obnoxious EFD people he/she face disciplinary action.

More than likely, voters who are planning to tick UKIP’s box next time they go into a polling booth – and indeed many of the party’s members and activists – are unaware of this dark and dangerous side to the UK Independence Party. UKIP started life with the right idea but sadly has fallen into the wrong hands, like all the others.
Note
At the time of filing this article I found access to UK FoI’s mission statement blocked. Maybe it’s temporary. Maybe they’re feverishly rewriting it.

February 22, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation | , , , , , | Leave a comment

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