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Awkwardest and Most Authoritative Ever Comments on Drones

By David Swanson | War is a Crime | October 17, 2013

The comments come from Malala and the U.N. respectively.

President Obama invited Malala Yousafzai, a 16-year-old Pakistani advocate for girls’ education, to meet with his family. And she promptly explained that what he is doing works against her agenda and fuels terrorism.

Malala is a victim of violence in Pakistan, having been attacked by religious fanatics opposed to her work. But Obama may not have expected her to speak up against other forms of violence in her country.

Malala recounted: “I also expressed my concerns that drone attacks are fueling terrorism. Innocent victims are killed in these acts, and they lead to resentment among the Pakistani people. If we refocus efforts on education, it will make a big impact.”

President Obama may also have not expected most people to notice or care. The corporate media have virtually ignored this part of a widely-reported meeting.

It’s up to us to surprise everyone with the depth of our interest and concern. Almost 100,000 have thus far signed a petition to ban weaponized drones, soon to be delivered to the U.N., the I.C.C., the State Department, the White House, Congress, and embassies.

The United Nations has released a report on “armed drones and the right to life” (PDF). The report begins by noting that, as of now, weaponized drones are legal:

“Although drones are not illegal weapons, they can make it easier for States to deploy deadly and targeted force on the territories of other States. As such, they risk undermining the protection of life in the immediate and longer terms. If the right to life is to be secured, it is imperative that the limitations posed by international law on the use of force are not weakened by broad justifications of drone strikes.”

Drones, the U.N. Special Rapporteur reports, risk making war the normal state of affairs:

“Peace should be the norm, yet such scenarios risk making its derogation the rule by privileging force over long-term peaceful alternatives. . . . Given that drones greatly reduce or eliminate the number of casualties on the side using them, the domestic constraints — political and otherwise — may be less restrictive than with the deployment of other types of armed force. This effect is enhanced by the relative ease with which the details about drone targeting can be withheld from the public eye and the potentially restraining influence of public concern. Such dynamics call for a heightened level of vigilance by the international community concerning the use of drones.”

The U.N. Charter and this report seek to make war an exceptional state of affairs. This is a very difficult, and a morally depraved thing to attempt with an institution that deserves total abolition.  War does not work as a tool with which to eliminate war.  But, even within that framework, the U.N. finds that drones create extra-legal war:

“An outer layer of protection for the right to life is the prohibition on the resort to force by one State against another, again subject to a narrowly construed set of exceptions. The protection of State sovereignty and of territorial integrity, which onoccasion presents a barrier to the protection of human rights, here can constitute an important component of the protection of people against deadly force, especially with the advent of armed drones.”

The strongest excuse for war is the claim of defense against an actual attack.  The next best thing is to pretend an attack is imminent.  The Obama Administration has famously redefined “imminent” to mean eventual or theoretical — that is, they’ve stripped the word of all meaning.  (See the “white paper” PDF.)  The U.N. doesn’t buy it:

“The view that mere past involvement in planning attacks is sufficient to render an individual targetable even where there is no evidence of a specific and immediate attack distorts the requirements established in international human rights law.”

U.S. lawyers at Congressional hearings have tended to maintain that drone killing is legal if and only if it’s part of a war.  The U.N. report also distinguishes between two supposedly different standards of law depending on whether a drone murder is separate from or part of a war.  Disappointingly, the U.N. believes that some drone strikes can be legal and others not:

“Insofar as the term ‘signature strikes’ refers to targeting without sufficient information to make the necessary determination, it is clearly unlawful. . . . Where one drone attack is followed up by another in order to target those who are wounded and hors de combat or medical personnel, it constitutes a war crime in armed conflict and a violation of the right to life, whether or not in armed conflict. Strikes on others confirmed to be civilians who are directly participating in hostilities or having a continuous combat function at the time of the follow-up strike could be lawful if the other international humanitarian law rules are respected.”

The complex mumbo-jumbo of multiple legal standards for multiple scenarios, complete with calculations of necessity and distinction and proportionality and collateral damage, mars this report and any attempt to create enforceable action out of it. But the report does, tentatively, find one little category of drone murders illegal that encompasses many, if not all, U.S. drone murders — namely, those where the victim might have been captured rather than killed:

“Recent debates have asked whether international humanitarian law requires that a party to an armed conflict under certain circumstances consider the capture of an otherwise lawful target (i.e. a combatant in the traditional sense or a civilian directly participating in hostilities) rather than targeting with force. In its Interpretive Guidance, ICRC states that it would defy basic notions of humanity to kill an adversary or to refrain from giving him or her an opportunity to surrender where there manifestly is no necessity for the use of lethal force.”

Pathetically, the report finds that if a government is going to pretend that murdering someone abroad is “self-defense” the action must be reported to the U.N. — thereby making it sooooo much better.

A second UN report (PDF) goes further, citing findings that U.S. drones have killed hundreds of civilians, but failing to call for prosecutions of these crimes.  That is to say, the first report, above, which does not list specific U.S. drone murders of civilians, discusses the need for prosecutions.  But this second report just asks for “a detailed public explanation.”

The fact that an insane killing spree is counter-productive, as pointed out to Obama by Malala, in case he hadn’t heard all his own experts, is not enough to end the madness.  Ultimately we must recognize the illegality of all killing and all war. In the meantime, prior to the U.N.’s debate on this on the 25th, we can add our names to the growing movement to ban weaponized drones at http://BanWeaponizedDrones.org.

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October 18, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Japanese Sovereignty Should Not Be Violated

Eve’s Thoughts | October 12, 2013 

Petitioning the American government and the United Nations to take over the Fukushima clean-up would be morally wrong and a political folly.

The argument goes that since TEPCO and the Japanese government have shown themselves incompetent and untrustworthy in their information policies regarding the Fukushima disaster, now the international community and especially the United States government should step in and take over.

However, looking at the US’s own track record in giving comprehensive and accurate information about its  nuclear accidents and the failure of its nuclear industry to even implement the most basic safety precautions would actually be letting the fox guard the hen house. It wasn’t just the Three Mile Island disaster. In reality 56 of the 99 globally recorded reactor accidents occurred in the United States. And charging a US dominated UN organization with the task would not be any better. This would be similar to what happened with the fake swine-flu scare, where the Big-Pharma dominated WHO licensed Pharma corporations which before had been caught red-handed at contaminating ordinary flu-vaccines with live bird-flu viruses to produce anti-swine-flu vaccines.

Demanding an American take-over of the clean-up efforts at Fukushima would also imply that the Japanese, after a catastrophe like this happening to one of their nuclear installations,  are incapable of cleaning up the mess themselves; that everything is fine and dandy with western — and especially American — nuclear facilities, since Americans and other westerners via the western dominated UN must step in to rescue the Japanese.

Nothing could be further from the truth.

In the Al Jazeera documentary “Danger Zone: Ageing US Nuclear Reactors” the decrepit state of many American nuclear reactors and the corrupt relationship of the industry with its supposedly regulating government agency is shown in terrifying detail. Vital infrastructure at nuclear sites is often in a state of corrosion or are even falling apart. And still these reactors are getting their licenses renewed. Like in Japan, many reactors were built in earthquake-prone areas and to the same design as the Fukushima reactors and to standards that do not allow them to withstand major earthquakes beyond 7.2 on the Richter scale.

The money that has to be expended to repair and renew the infrastructure would make the reactors financially no longer viable. This means that the industry would have to shut down a large part of its reactors and the US government regulating agency therefore looks the other way rather than having to risk a shut-down.

This insane attitude endangers the American people and the rest of humanity just as much as a possible further melt-down at Fukushima.

While the Japanese government might have lots of reasons for not informing their own population of the severe danger they are in at the moment, especially the people of Tokyo, it has all the reasons in the world for the best and most carefully deliberated actions to clean up the fuel-pool at the Fukushima reactor 4.

The people who will be most effected by a further melt-down are the people of northern Japan, including the political and economic elites themselves. Once the nuclear clouds reach the rest of the northern hemisphere their impact will be far more diluted.

Japan is a highly developed country, has a population of 127 million people with many highly educated technicians, engineers and scientists in the nuclear field. The Japanese government already has consulted with foreign nuclear experts and without doubt they will do so in the future. There is no reason to believe that an American dominated international group of experts could do a better or more competent job than a Japanese dominated one. The Japanese people have the most to lose and would therefore be the most intent to avert a further nuclear catastrophe.

Japanese workers are already risking their lives every single day in the clean-up efforts motivated not by money but by wanting to protect their families and their fellow citizens. Those who will start the dangerous work in November will be no less motivated.

While the energy corporation TEPCO might be too cash-strapped to carry the enormous costs of the operation, the argument that the Japanese government could not carry them either does not hold any water at all.

While America is the greatest debtor nation on the planet, Japan is next to China as the second greatest creditor nation. It holds about 6% of the American debts in its central bank. Cashing in on those debts and using this money would certainly cover whatever astronomic costs might be incurred by the clean-up.

There is no necessity whatsoever to violate Japanese sovereignty over the Fukushima clean-up attempts.

To do so would create a dangerous precedent that would allow American and UN interference in a quasi take-over of every country that has suffered natural or man-made disasters.

It also would be a dangerous re-writing of international law and one more increase of power for the un-elected corporate elites which rule America and have enormous influence on most of the UN organizations.

Yes, we should have more transparency of information. Different from what the governments of our nations think, the general population has indeed a right to the truth and is quite capable of processing truthful information in a productive manner. One thing that would emerge out of it would be more pressure on governments all over the world to shut down or at least phase out their nations’ nuclear reactors and replace this dangerous form of energy-production with a better, less poisonous and destructive one.

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October 12, 2013 Posted by | Nuclear Power | , , , , | Leave a comment

Israel seeks 2nd seat in the UN Security Council

MEMO | October 4, 2013

On Thursday, Israel’s Ambassador to the UN, Ron Prosor, said that his country plans to compete for one of the non-permanent seats on the Security Council for 2019-20. According to Prosor, Israel is trying hard to win this. “It should have happened a long time ago,” he claimed.

To win a seat in the Security Council, Israel must win a two-thirds majority in the UN General Assembly, which has 193 members. The five regional groups nominate the candidates, but they are elected by the General Assembly.

Prosor said that Israel would compete against Germany and Belgium for the two seats reserved for Western European and other countries. Israel should be in the group with Asian and Pacific Ocean countries, along with the other countries in the Middle East, but Muslim-majority countries prevented its inclusion. In 2000, Israel agreed to join the West European and other countries group temporarily. The group includes the United States and in 2004 Israel’s membership was made permanent.

UN diplomats said that it will not be easy for Israel to win the seat as most of the UN member states are part of the Non-Aligned Movement and are either lukewarm or openly hostile towards it.

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October 4, 2013 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism | , , | Leave a comment

Sudan calls to condemn American “denial” of visa to president Bashir

Sudan Tribune | September 27, 2013

KHARTOUM/WASHINGTON – Sudan’s foreign minister has called on the United Nations General Assembly to condemn the United States “denial of entry visa” to the Sudanese president Omer Al Bashir, as the foreign ministry in Khartoum summoned the American chargé d’affaires to protest the delay on the same day.

“It is with deep regret I inform you of the refusal by the authorities of the United States to give an entry visa to president Omer Al Bashir and his delegation”, said minister Ali Karti, in a speech on Friday before the Assembly general.

The Sudanese top diplomat described Washington’s position as “a very serious precedent in the history of the United Nations”, adding “it requires a firm position be taken on this matter” by all the UN membership.

He also called on the Secretary General Ban Ki-moon to react against “this denial of legitimate right” and to protect the rights of the member states under the agreement signed with the host country.

U.S. State Department officials said recently that Bashir’s visa demand is “pending” stressing that there are different considerations to be taken into account on this regard.

“There are a lot of considerations going into this request, including the outstanding warrant against him (Al-Bashir)” further said Marie Harf, State Department deputy spokesperson on Friday 20 September.

Al-Bashir is wanted by the International Criminal Court which issued two arrest warrants against him for war crimes and genocide in Darfur.

Rights groups said they would legally seek his arrest if he arrives on American soil, and also the ICC urged the American administration to cooperate with the court and to arrest him.

SUDAN SUMMONS U.S. CHARGÉ D’AFFAIRES

In Khartoum, the foreign affairs ministry summoned the American chargé d’affaires on Friday to formally protest against delaying the issuance of the entry visa for president Bashir to participate in the meetings of the 68th session of the UNGA.

In a statement released on Friday, the foreign ministry said that Ambassador Joseph Stafford was summoned to officially protest the “U.S. administration’s procrastination” in issuing a visa to the Sudanese president.

Ambassador Abdalmahmood Abdalhaleem, deputy undersecretary of the foreign ministry told Stafford that the non-issuance of the visa “so far disrupted the vital national interests of the Sudan”.

Bashir had to take part in a meeting of the African Union Peace and Security Council on the relations between Sudan and South Sudan, he also wanted to deliver a speech to the UNGA.

September 28, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

“It is time we ban nuclear weapons”

Civil society statement to the UN high-level meeting on nuclear disarmament

Delivered by Nosizwe Lise Baqwa of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN) on behalf of civil society

26 September 2013, New York

The use of a nuclear weapon on a major populated area would immediately kill tens if not hundreds of thousands of people—women, men, and children.

Hundreds of thousands more would be alive—but severely injured. Blinded, burned, crushed. The immediate effects of even a single nuclear weapon are shocking and overwhelming. Its destructive force capable of nightmarish scenes of death and despair. Of suffering. They go far beyond what is considered acceptable, even in the context of war.

The blinding flash will leave people sightless; the massive blast will level cities; the searing heat and spreading fires will melt steel and engulf homes, and can coalesce into a firestorm that will suck the air from anyone still breathing.

And the survivors of these physical traumas may yet be poisoned by radioactivity, which invades and destroys their bodies over the days and weeks that follow.

In addition to this, there are significant long-term impacts of a nuclear weapons explosion.

A single nuclear weapon will cause devastating damage to infrastructure, critical industry, to our livelihoods and to our lives. The lives of fathers, of mothers, of grandparents; the lives of our children. The long-term effects of exposure to radiation will lead to increased incidence of leukemia and solid cancers among survivors, and a heightened risk of hereditary effects for future generations. Their use would result in large-scale forced or voluntary migration—floods of refugees into neighboring countries, who would be unable to return home for decades, if ever. A nuclear weapons explosion will affect the environment and agricultural production for decades to come.

If multiple nuclear weapons were used, the combined effects of their firestorms would seriously disrupt the global climate, causing widespread agricultural collapse and famine that could blight the lives of millions. Global communications and electrical and electronic systems would be disrupted. An extensive nuclear exchange would produce temperatures lower than the last ice age.

The effects will spread beyond borders, to areas far away from where the bombs were dropped.

There will be a disproportionate impact on the most vulnerable people around the world: those without enough food; those without access to health care, water, and education; those who are already suffering from the lack of resources.

The Conference on the Humanitarian Impact of Nuclear Weapons in Oslo held in March this year, concluded that it would not be possible to coordinate and deliver any meaningful humanitarian response, to a catastrophe brought about by nuclear weapons. No international organization or state could adequately deal with the situation.

Any use of nuclear weapons would eradicate hospitals, food, water and medical supplies, transportation and communications—infrastructure required for the treatment of survivors.

Physicians and paramedics arriving from outside would have to work without resources needed for effective treatment; furthermore, radiation, as we know from both Chernobyl and Fukushima, can make it impossible for rescuers to enter highly contaminated areas.

There are still many aspects of the impact of nuclear weapons that are rarely discussed. We look forward to the upcoming conference in Mexico next year, where we hope all governments will continue to engage in a fact-based discussion around the humanitarian impact of nuclear weapons. The horror that these weapons threaten is stark.

That nuclear weapons have not already been clearly declared illegal for all, alongside the other prohibited weapons of mass destruction, is a failure of our collective social responsibility.

The time has come for committed states to correct that failure. The time has come to ban nuclear weapons once and for all.

The current framework provided for multilateral nuclear disarmament negotiations has not been able to overcome the lack of political will of nuclear-armed states to comply with their obligations to disarm. Let us not allow deadlocks in meetings to be the legacy we leave behind us, for our children.

A treaty banning nuclear weapons is achievable. It can be initiated by states that do not possess nuclear weapons. Nuclear-armed states should not be allowed to prevent such negotiations. We should not abandon productive or promising efforts in other forums, but neither should we ignore the opportunity that lies before us now, to make history.

History shows that legal prohibitions of weapon systems—of their use or their possession—facilitate their elimination. Weapons that have been outlawed increasingly become seen as illegitimate. They lose their political status, and so do not continue compelling money and resources to be invested in their production, modernisation, proliferation, and perpetuation.

The ban on nuclear weapons will raise the political and economic costs of maintaining them, by prohibiting assistance with the development, production, or testing of nuclear weapon systems.

The new treaty will perhaps be the most important tool in our collective work towards eliminating nuclear weapons, and this tool can actually be achieved now.

It will take courage. It will take the leadership by states free of nuclear weapons. And you will have the support of civil society. My name is Nosizwe Lise Baqwa and I am a campaigner from ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons. Campaigners like me, from all around the world, are demanding action to finally achieve the outlawing and elimination of nuclear weapons. It is time. It is time to change the status quo. It is time we ban nuclear weapons.

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September 27, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Venezuelan President Denied Travel through US Airspace

RT | September 19, 2013

Venezuelan Foreign Minister Elias Jaua told media that an aircraft carrying President Nicolas Maduro was denied a path over Puerto Rico’s airspace.

President Maduro’s flight, which was to depart for China, was forced to find an alternate flight path according to Jaua, who denounced the act as “an act of aggression.”

“We have received the information from American officials that we have been denied travel over its airspace,” Jaua said, speaking to reporters during an official meeting with his South African counterpart.

“We denounce this as yet another aggression on the part of North American imperialism against the government of the Bolivarian Republic,” he added.

“No one can deny airspace to a plane carrying a president on an international state visit.”

There is “no valid argument” for denying travel through American airspace, Jaua said, adding that he expected the US to rectify the situation.

President Maduro was due to arrive in Beijing this weekend for bilateral talks with the Chinese government. Jaua was adamant that the Venezuelan leader would reach his destination, regardless of any perceived interference.

Though the US has yet to issue an official response, the latest incident will likely add to already strained relations between the two countries.

In July, the Venezuelan president announced that his government was halting attempts to improve relations with the US. The move was in response to comments made by the newly appointed US Ambassador to the UN, Samantha Power, who told a Senate committee that her new role would include challenging the “crackdown on civil society” abroad, including in Venezuela.

Relations under former President Chavez had been acrimonious, as he had long held suspicions that the US had actively intervened on behalf of an attempted coup in 2002. Since his election in April, President Maduro has often made pointed criticisms at alleged US interference in Venezuelan affairs.

Bolivian President Evo Morales, whose own plane was grounded this summer allegedly due to suspicions by US authorities that the aircraft was transporting whistleblower Edward Snowden, said that ALBA bloc nations should consider a boycott of the upcoming UN General Assembly in New York as a response.

“We cannot accept that the US carries on with politics of intimidation and the prohibition of flights by presidents,” said Morales, adding that the latest incident “demonstrates the country’s predisposition to humiliate other governments” and commit crimes against other nations.

Dispute over visas ahead of UN summit

The Venezuelan President also spoke of attempts by the US to set “conditions” on a visa issued to General Wilmer Barrientos, one of Maduro’s ministers who is slated to attend meetings during the UN General Assembly next week.

“They want to put conditions, if we decide to go to New York… They don’t want to give a visa to my minister,” said Maduro. “Do we want to go as tourists? We’re going to the United Nations. You’re obligated to give visas to all the delegation.”

Appearing via the television network TeleSUR on Thursday, Maduro indicated that he had directed his foreign minister, Elías Jaua, and Venezuela’s Ambassador to the UN, Samuel Moncada, to “activate all mechanisms” in reference to the visa dispute.

“US, you are not the UN’s owner. The UN will have to move out of New York,” remarked Maduro.

He warned that if he has to take “measures” against the government of the US, he would be prepared to take “the most drastic measures necessary” to ensure Venezuelan sovereignty.

September 20, 2013 Posted by | Aletho News | , , , , | Leave a comment

The UN did NOT create Israel

By Alison Weir | September 18, 2013

I thought I would clarify the question of whether the UN “created Israel,” since most people – even many of those who are otherwise well-versed on Palestine – are misinformed on this important matter.

The fact is that UN General Assembly Resolution 181, the Partition Plan (read below), was a recommendation that was to go to the Security Council. In the resolution the General Assembly requested that the Security Council take it up. This never happened, and the partition plan has no force of law.

Israeli propagandists, however, perpetrated the myth that the UN created Israel, and this interpretation has then been repeated by numerous others. Please see an excellent article on this, “New States Are Not Created in the UN.” Below is an excerpt:

“…was it true that Israel owed its very existence to the U.N., as it became popularly perceived years later? … This same line of argument was repeated… by an Israeli analyst in the opinion section of the New York Times, who wrote that the vote on Nov. 29 was the “legal basis for the establishment of the State of Israel.”

Leading international legal scholars have vociferously rejected this claim. The noted Australian legal scholar Professor Julius Stone wrote in 1980 that Israel “does not derive its legal existence from the Partition Plan.”

Even Cambridge University’s Professor James Crawford… concluded in his monumental book on the creation of states in international law that Israel was not created on the basis of Resolution 181…”

In reality, Israel was created by a war of of conquest and ethnic cleansing, which it calls its “War of Independence.”

I hope people will read my article on this subject: “ The Real Story of How Israel Was Created. Among other things, this piece describes how Zionists bribed and threatened varous UN member nations in order to procure sufficient votes to pass the resolution. (For citations on this see my article on how the US-Israel “special relationship” was created.)

Below is an excerpt from General Assembly Resolution 181, also called The Partition Plan [emphases added]. (Read the full resolution at the link below.)

The General Assembly,

Having met in special session at the request of the mandatory Power to constitute and instruct a special committee to prepare for the consideration of the question of the future government of Palestine at the second regular session;

Having constituted a Special Committee and instructed it to investigate all questions and issues relevant to the problem of Palestine, and to prepare proposals for the solution of the problem, and

Having received and examined the report of the Special Committee (document A/364) 1/ including a number of unanimous recommendations and a plan of partition with economic union approved by the majority of the Special Committee,

Considers that the present situation in Palestine is one which is likely to impair the general welfare and friendly relations among nations;

Takes note of the declaration by the mandatory Power that it plans to complete its evacuation of Palestine by 1 August 1948;

Recommends to the United Kingdom, as the mandatory Power for Palestine, and to all other Members of the United Nations the adoption and implementation, with regard to the future government of Palestine, of the Plan of Partition with Economic Union set out below;

Requests that

(a) The Security Council take the necessary measures as provided for in the plan for its implementation…

http://unispal.un.org/unispal.nsf/0/7F0AF2BD897689B785256C330061D253

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September 18, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Illegal Occupation, Timeless or most popular | , , , , | Leave a comment

Surveillance at the United Nations

By Danny O’Brien and Katitza Rodriguez | EFF | September 17, 2013

The surveillance scandal has now reached the United Nation’s Human Rights Council, which opened its 24th session last week to a volley of questions about privacy and spying, many of them targeted at the United States and United Kingdom. (That’s perhaps not surprising, since U.N. representatives were among those listed as being monitored by the NSA and GCHQ).

The opening statement by the eminent South African human rights lawyer Navi Pillay (now the U.N.’s High Commissioner for Human Rights) warned of the “broad scope of national security surveillance in countries, including the United States and United Kingdom,” and urged all countries to “ensure that adequate safeguards are in place to prevent security agency overreach and to protect the right to privacy and other human rights.” On September 13, the German Ambassador Schumacher delivered a joint statement on behalf of Austria, Germany, Liechtenstein, Norway, Switzerland and Hungary expressing their concern about the consequences of “surveillance, decryption and mass data collection.”

One part of the potential solution to those concerns will be officially launched this Friday in a Human Rights Council side-meeting on digital privacy hosted by these same concerned countries: the International Principles on the Application of Human Rights to Communications Surveillance.

For over a year, EFF has been working with other civil liberties groups to develop these principles that spell out how existing human rights law applies to modern digital surveillance. The 13 Principles — which have been signed by 258 organizations across the world— also provide a benchmark that people around the world can use to evaluate and push for changes in their own surveillance laws. For this 24th session, EFF has joined RSF and APC in a joint written submission to the HRC, advocating for these checks and balances.

The Human Rights Council isn’t the only diplomatic venue at the United Nations where complaints about the United States’ surveillance practices are being heard. The Human Rights Committee is also set to scrutinize the United States on its compliance with Article 17 (right to privacy) of the International Coventant on Civil and Political Rights. The United States’ written response to Human Rights Committee has already laid out its diplomatic response in favor of the Patriot and FISA provisions. It notably dodges the key question that is emerging from other countries regarding these programs: if the U.S. government cannot rein in its domestic surveillance program, riven as it is with constitutional and statutory problems, just how much worse are the controls on the surveillance of non-US persons?

More directly relevant to the diplomatic community is a connected question: how can the United States accuse, with a straight face, other countries of undermining “Internet Freedom” through the use of malware and mass spying, when it seems that there are precious few internal limits to what its own security services are permitted to do in the same arena?

This is not just a matter of the United States’ international reputation. The greatest risk to the Internet in the international arena right now lies in the  formation of an unholy alliance between countries who are already seeking excuses to spy and censor the net and those, like the United States, who have previously argued against such practices, but are now having to defend their own surveillance excesses with similar language.

Without promising substantive reform at home, the U.S. and the U.K. risk alienating their own allies at the United Nations, while granting a carte blanche for other countries to pursue a repressive Internet agenda abroad. The Western countries implicated in the NSA scandal should grab onto the full set of principles as a liferaft: a way that they can show a commitment to transparency and proportionality in a way that obliges other countries to follow the same standards. Otherwise, the U.S. and the U.K. will be seen as having started a race to the bottom of privacy standards: a race too many other countries will be happy to join.

September 18, 2013 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Corruption, Deception, Full Spectrum Dominance | , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

WHO Refuses to Publish Report on Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq Caused by Depleted Uranium Ammunition

By Denis Halliday | Global Research | September 13, 2013

The World Health Organisation (WHO)  has categorically refused in defiance of its own mandate to share evidence uncovered in Iraq that US military use of Depleted Uranium and other weapons have not only killed many civilians, but continue to result in the birth of deformed babies.

This issue was first brought to light in 2004 in a WHO expert report “on the long-term health of Iraq’s civilian population resulting from depleted uranium (DU) weapons”. This earlier report was “held secret”, namely suppressed by the WHO:

The study by three leading radiation scientists cautioned that children and adults could contract cancer after breathing in dust containing DU, which is radioactive and chemically toxic. But it was blocked from publication by the World Health Organization (WHO), which employed the main author, Dr Keith Baverstock, as a senior radiation advisor. He alleges that it was deliberately suppressed, though this is denied by WHO. (See Rob Edwards, WHO ‘Suppressed’ Scientific Study Into Depleted Uranium Cancer Fears in Iraq,  The Sunday Herald, February 24, 2004)

Almost nine years later,  a joint WHO- Iraqi Ministry of Health Report on cancers and birth defect in Iraq was to be released in November 2012. “It has been delayed repeatedly and now has no release date whatsoever.”

To this date the WHO study remains “classified”.

According to Hans von Sponeck, former Assistant Secretary General of the United Nations,

“The US government sought to prevent the WHO from surveying areas in southern Iraq where depleted uranium had been used and caused serious health and environmental dangers.” (quoted in Mozhgan Savabieasfahani Rise of Cancers and Birth Defects in Iraq: World Health Organization Refuses to Release Data, Global Research, July 31, 2013

This tragedy in Iraq reminds one of US Chemical Weapons used in Vietnam. And that the US has failed to acknowledge or pay compensation or provide medical assistance to thousands of deformed children born and still being born due to American military use of Agent Orange throughout the country.

The millions of gallons of this chemical dumped on rural Vietnam were eagerly manufactured and sold to the Pentagon by companies Dupont, Monsanto and others greedy for huge profits.

Given the US record of failing to acknowledge its atrocities in warfare, I fear those mothers in Najaf and other Iraqi cities and towns advised not to attempt the birth of more children will never receive solace or help.

A United Nations that is no longer corrupted by the five Permanent Members of the Security Council is what is needed.

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September 13, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

UN Asks for NSA Help in Reopening Investigation of 1961 Death of UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld

By Noel Brinkerhoff | AllGov | September 11, 2013

Suspicion has lasted for decades over the mysterious crash of the plane carrying the United Nations’ top official more than 50 years ago. A new investigation of the accident says evidence may exist that could prove the aircraft was shot down, and that the U.S. National Security Agency (NSA) could possess some of this evidence.

In September 1961, UN Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld set out to visit the war-torn Congo to help broker peace between the country’s Soviet-backed government and rebels supported by former colonial power Belgium and Western mining interests.

But the Swedish-born diplomat’s plane never reached its destination of Ndola. It crashed on September 18 into a forest in Northern Rhodesia, now Zambia.

An initial investigation cited pilot error as the cause of the accident, a conclusion rubber stamped by subsequent probes. But many observers suspected foul play.

Now, an international panel of retired judges looking into the incident has recommended that the UN reopen its investigation.

The Hammarskjöld Commission said it had uncovered new findings, and that the NSA might hold crucial evidence supporting the theory that the plane was shot down.

The judges claim a Belgian pilot confessed to firing on the DC6 carrying Hammarskjöld. Additionally, recently interviewed eyewitnesses claim to have seen other aircraft approaching the CD6 and firing on it. A similar account was given by the lone survivor of the crash, an American whose death in a local hospital also raised questions.

In her 2011 book, Who Killed Hammarskjöld?, British academic Susan Williams argues that British authorities covered up Harrarskjöld’s assassination by hardline Belgian colonialists who were angered over UN support for the Congolese government.

Swedish investigator Göran Björkdahl has no doubt the diplomat was murdered. “It’s clear there were a lot of circumstances pointing to possible involvement by western powers,” he told The Guardian. “The motive was there – the threat to the west’s interests in Congo’s huge mineral deposits.”

Because the NSA has long been known to monitor worldwide communications, the agency may have a copy of the radio traffic from September 18-19 that could shed light on what transpired.

“It is a near certainty not only that Ndola’s radio traffic was being monitored routinely by the NSA from Cyprus or elsewhere, but that one or both of the large USAF [United States Air Force] aircraft which had been flown in to Ndola on the crucial night and were parked throughout on the tarmac were there for the specific purpose of monitoring the local radio traffic,” the commission wrote in its report.

To date, the NSA has refused to turn over any documents or recordings sought by the commission, which tried to use the U.S. government’s Freedom of Information Act to request the materials.

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September 11, 2013 Posted by | Deception, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Syria Calls on UN to Stop US Strike, “Prevent Absurd Use of Force”

Al-Manar | September 2, 2013

Syria asked the UN to prevent “any aggression” against Syria following a call over the weekend by US President Barack Obama for punitive strikes against the Syrian military for last month’s chemical weapons attack.

US military action will be put to a vote in Congress, which ends its summer recess on September 9.

In a letter to UN chief Ban Ki-moon and President of the Security Council Maria Cristina Perceval, Syrian UN envoy Ambassador Bashar Ja’afari called on “the UN Secretary General to shoulder his responsibilities for preventing any aggression on Syria and pushing forward reaching a political solution to the crisis in Syria”, state news agency SANA said on Monday.

He called on the Security Council to “maintain its role as a safety valve to prevent the absurd use of force out of the frame of international legitimacy”.

Ja’afari said the United States should “play its role, as a peace sponsor and as a partner to Russia in the preparation for the international conference on Syria and not as a state that uses force against whoever opposes its policies”.

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September 2, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Obama bypassing UN, making Congress his world court: Venezuela

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Press TV – September 1, 2013

Venezuela has condemned US President Barack Obama for bypassing the United Nations and asking US Congress to approve a military offensive against Syria, saying the move can lead to destruction of international institutions.

During a visit to the South American country of Guyana on Saturday, Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro said that the US president was shamelessly bypassing the UN and turning Congress into his personal world court.

“If multilateral bodies and the international system are disregarded like this, what lies ahead of us in this world is war, is destruction,” Maduro warned.

“It is a very serious thing indeed when President Obama tries to take the place of UN bodies, and that he has tried and convicted the Syrian government, and that he has decided to invade, to militarily attack the people of Syria, and that he has chosen the US Congress as a sort of high world court in place of the UN Security Council,” Maduro said after holding a meeting with his Guyanese counterpart Donald Ramotar.

Earlier in the day, Obama said he has decided that Washington must take military action against the Syrian government, which would mean a unilateral military strike without a UN mandate.

Obama said that despite having made up his mind, he will take the case to Congress. But he added that he is prepared to order military action against the Syrian government at any time.

Obama once again held the Syrian government responsible for the chemical weapons attack that killed hundreds of people in the suburbs of Damascus.

On Thursday, the second meeting of the UN Security Council’s permanent members ended without reaching an agreement on Syria.

Representatives from the US, Britain, France, Russia, and China met on Thursday afternoon at the UN headquarters in New York for the second time in two days, but the meeting broke up after less than an hour, with the ambassadors steadily walking out.

The Western members of the council have been pushing for a resolution on the use of force while Russia and China are strongly opposed to any attack on Syria.

The call for military action against Syria intensified after foreign-backed opposition forces accused the government of President Bashar al-Assad of launching a chemical attack on militant strongholds in the suburbs of Damascus on August 21.

Syria has strongly rejected the allegations and says terrorists carried out the deadly chemical weapons attack.

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September 1, 2013 Posted by | Militarism, Progressive Hypocrite, War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

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