Aljazeera.net

November 20, 2009 Shooting the Messenger – Part 1 Shooting the Messenger – Part 2 Shooting the Messenger – Part 3 Shooting the Messenger – Part 4 Shooting the Messenger, Al Jazeera’s documentary on the deliberate killing and intimidation of journalists in conflict zones, has been nominated for a presitigious Emmy award. In the past, members of the media were considered to be neutral in time of war. They were much like paramedics in the sense that their main concern was not victory, but saving lives. Two months ago Fadel Shana’a, a well-known cameraman with the Reuters news agency, was on a routine assignment east of the Gaza Strip to investigate reports that some villagers had been injured in an Israeli attack. On his way back from the village, he stopped his jeep to get some more video footage of the area. He was spotted by the Israeli military and shelled. Shana’a’s jeep was clearly marked with the words ‘Press’ and ‘TV’. Nevertheless, Israeli shell fire struck the jeep, tearing it apart. Fadel and three others died instantly. Shana’a’s case is but one of many in recent years which has indicated that journalists reporting from conflict zones are no longer regarded as impartial by the combatants. As a result, increasing numbers of journalists have joined the casualty lists. The deliberate targeting of the press in war zones can probably be dated back to the Balkan conflict of the 1990’s. When the shocking atrocities committed by the Serbs, Bosnian Muslims and Croats were filmed or reported, the media fell under suspicion, and was accused of supporting one faction against another. ‘Embedding’ A significant change occurred during the second invasion of Iraq in 2003 when, under the guise of protecting journalists, the military took the media firmly under its wing. This was called ‘embedding’ and meant that the journalist went where the military wanted them to go and saw what the military wanted them to see, in the hope that they would report what the military wanted them to report. In short, this was the military’s effort to protect themselves. With the 2003 invasion of Iraq, media crews began ‘embedding’ with the military Terry Lloyd was a veteran reporter with Britain’s ITN organisation and during the invasion he and his crew were one of the few independent, unembedded crews to operate inside Iraq. Caught in crossfire, Terry, his recordist and translator were killed by a deliberate but mistaken US onslaught. In 2006, while covering an attack on the revered al-Askari mosque in Samarra, Al Arabiya journalist Atwar Bhajat was abducted and later shot dead. Before joining Al Arabiya TV, Atwar worked for Al Jazeera, and was not that station’s first loss. In April 2003, Sami al-Hajj, a Sudanese cameraman working for Al Jazeera, was seized by Pakistani forces on the Afghan border. He was held on suspicion of being involved in terrorism, and handed over to US forces who imprisoned him in their Guantanamo Bay base in Cuba. In May 2008, after almost seven years, he was released without charge. His lawyer, Clive Stafford-Smith, said: “…The folk[s] in Guantanamo honestly believe that Sami is a terrorist. They are crazy. He’s no more a terrorist than my granny.” Intimidation Elsewhere in the world, intimidation is a bigger threat to journalists than abduction. In Zimbabwe, after 28 years as president, Robert Mugabe, is clinging to power. Massive inflation, starvation and chaos has seen a third of the population flee abroad. The country’s only real opposition voice in the media comes from outside. The Zimbabwean is a newspaper edited in England and printed in South Africa. There is also, for two hours a night, S W Radio Africa, which is intensely critical of the government, but broadcasts from London - 10,800km away. Across the border in Johannesburg, exiled journalists watch the accelerating destruction of their country, helpless spectators on the sidelines. “A number of journalists were being abducted, so it wasn’t safe for me, especially as they [Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation] knew where I was staying and were constantly visiting my place, so I saw I was in danger and had to move out of the country,” Trust Matsilele says. In Sri Lanka intimidation and threats to media workers have lead to the creation of a safe house for journalists to use as both a sanctuary and a work base. More than 100,000 people have been killed in the island’s civil war since 1983, and the Tamil Tigers’ exploitation of the suicide bomb made it the weapon of choice for extremists worldwide. There is no pretence of a free press here. The government considers any criticism of it as Tamil propaganda, bordering on treason. But dare attack the Tamils and you might never write again. Both sides in this war consider journalists to be their enemies and as Sanath Balasooriya, the president of the Free Media group, says: “The government thinks if we write the truth, they will lose public support for this war.” Gaza Perhaps the most dangerous place for cameramen and reporters worldwide is the tiny, densely populated Palestinian territory of Gaza. Palestinians there are virtual prisoners, locked within their own borders, dependent on Israel for basic essentials such as food, water, medicine, fuel and power. The daily explosions, gunfire and missile attacks from Israeli incursions and Palestinian resistance have long been part of the Gaza routine. Palestinians know the value of propaganda pictures, as do the Israelis. Five years ago, Saira Shah and James Miller came to film the children of Gaza. They came under fire themselves and took refuge in a house nearby. That night, knowing they were surrounded by Israeli soldiers, Saira and James decided to leave – cautiously. Carrying a white flag and a torch, they identified themselves loudly as “British journalists”. The response from Israeli snipers was several shots, one of which hit James in the neck and killed him. Saira said: “I don’t know whether James was killed because he was a journalist or in spite of being a journalist. I know he was killed and he shouldn’t have been killed.” Targeted For news agency cameramen like Fadel Shana’a and Mahmoud Al Agaramey, days when they become the targets are unexceptional. They survive it one day and then go back again the next. Fadel Shana’a, a Reuters cameraman, became the story when he was killed by Israeli shelling Both men became legends in Gaza. Two years ago, Fadel was on his way to film the aftermath of an explosion in a village, when his jeep took a direct hit from a missile fired from an Israeli helicopter. The words ‘TV’ and ‘PRESS’ were painted in red on his vehicle, but they did not protect him. He was critically wounded but survived. Having had several narrow escapes, Mahmoud’s luck almost ran out in Jebaliah. He was filming children goading an Israeli tank crew. Without warning, they fired a shell that narrowly missed the children, but the blast from the explosion flattened Mahmoud, and he was unconscious for six hours. The Erez Crossing at Beit Hanoun marks the border with Israel. For half a mile into Gaza all buildings, homes, offices and factories have been demolished. It is no man’s land. Al Jazeera wanted to film there, but first we thought it wise to check with the Israeli military who were observing us from their watchtowers. There was no mistaking their answer: “Leave now or you will be shelled.” We left. A few minutes later they shelled anyway, and hit another target – three students who had detoured through no man’s land on their way home. Shana’a, passed us, already on his way to the hospital to film the aftermath of the shelling. But it was too late by the time we got there. Such deaths are common place in Gaza. Cameramen like Shana’a record every one of them and the mass mourning that follows. Two months on and Shana’a himself became the latest victim of the campaign against journalists. Journalists and cameramen like Shana’a and Al Agaramey risk their lives daily to bring us the news. The tragedy is that those who have so much to hide do what they can to prevent it and they shoot the messenger. Shana’a was a messenger, and as he put it: “I can’t give up journalism. Only two things can stop me – if I die, or lose my legs.” The Emmy-nominated film, Shooting the Messenger, can be seen from Sunday November 22 at the following times GMT: Sunday 1400; Monday 0600 and 1900; Tuesday 0300.

Link: english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/06/2008619125018644639.html

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Town halls are installing cameras inside suburban homes to spy on the neighbourhood.

The Big Brother tactic – which is allowed under the anti-terrorist Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act – is being used by Croydon council in South London to catch those suspected of ‘anti-social behaviour’.

The CCTV cameras are placed inside the house of a willing resident, but trained on the street.

If deemed successful, the £1,000 cameras could be installed across the country to catch low-level offenders.

Charles Farrier, of the campaign group No-CCTV, said: ‘There is no evidence they act as a deterrent and we should be concentrating on the root problem anyway and working to gel our communities.’

Simon Davies, of Privacy International, said: ‘Unless the public are aware of where these cameras are, I believe this council should be taken to court for a breach of human rights.’

Critics say the scheme has echoes of the East German Stasi secret police, which recruited members of the public as spies.

The cameras cannot be seen from the street, and officials have refused to say in which areas they have been installed. Evidence gleaned from the cameras can be used to take people to court.

Croydon councillor Gavin Barwell said: ‘We’ll be working together with the police to put them to best use.’

But some local residents have backed the idea. Kirenna Chin, 30, said: ‘Louts use my hedge as a bouncy castle and urinate in my front garden. It’s very intimidating.

‘It’s a fantastic idea to fit hidden CCTV. If they offered me one I would definitely take it.’

Croydon has one of London’s most advanced CCTV networks.

The control room is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and there are 77 fixed cameras, a rapid-response mobile unit, and three wireless units.

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by Stella Dallas / November 14th, 2009

Among the most prominent of President Obama’s hope-based initiatives was his promise to re-frame America’s approach to the conflict in Palestine, epitomized in his June 2007 speech in Cairo, where Obama called for a “new beginning between the United States and Muslims”, a new dawn based on equality and mutual respect rather than the vestiges of a “colonialism that denied rights and opportunities” to Muslim majorities held prisoner to proxy regimes without regard to the legitimate aspirations of their people. The speech was welcomed by tens of millions of people all over the world willing to believe, despite mountains of historical evidence to the contrary, that America had finally resolved to remake itself as a facilitator rather than an obstacle to justice for the occupied and abused people of Palestine, and by implication, for the poor and dispossessed throughout the Muslim world.

As with much of Obama’s rhetoric, it is difficult to discern whether the President’s Cairo speech was sincere or a cynical maneuver intended to provide cover under which the status quo would be maintained. In any case, expectations were raised even higher when Obama followed up the Cairo speech by appointing the venerable George Mitchell as his chief negotiator and demanding that Israel immediately freeze all settlement building as a condition precedent to a resurrected “peace process” leading to the creation of a contiguous and viable Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

As remarkable as Obama’s Cairo speech was, no less remarkable was the speed of Obama’s retreat from its lofty rhetoric when confronted with political realities.

Under the leadership of newly re-cycled right wing hardliner Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu, Israel predictably responded to Obama’s demand by raising its middle finger to Israel’s only remaining benefactor, by authorizing the construction of 455 new Jewish-only housing units in and around Jerusalem and announcing that some 3000 units under construction would be completed regardless of any hypothetical moratorium.

Even the cynical Netanyahu must have been amazed at the ease with which the Obama government backed down from his settlement freeze demand in a series of remarkable genuflections notable mostly for the unctuousness with which they were delivered. To gain a full picture of the scope of Obama’s capitulation to the Israel Lobby, we must consider the timeliness of Judge Richard Goldstone’s report on war crimes committed during Israel’s most recent massacre in Gaza, during Operation Lead Cast in January 2009.

Goldstone’s 575-page report meticulously documenting Israel’s various crimes was released on September 15, 2009, just as the Netanyahu government was concocting new ways to placate its settler-based constituency by expressing its contempt for Obama’s peace initiative. Thus, by virtue of its timing, the public release of the Goldstone report provided a perfect opportunity for Obama to play hardball with Bibi.

Obama could have threatened to simply allow (or even support) Judge Goldstone’s recommendation – that the report be referred to the United Nations Security Council and possibly to the International Criminal Court should Israel refuse to undertake a genuine investigation of its findings – to be implemented unless Israel agreed to a freeze of all settlement activity, including Jerusalem. Given the importance to Israel of preserving its reputation as a civilized member of the “international community” (meaning, the West), such a strategy might well have succeeded, and would have allowed the Obama administration to avoid the more serious political implications of resorting to the most obvious exercise of America’s leverage – cutting off loan guarantees that are used to subsidize Israel’s illegal settlement building, a threat that would surely provoke a full-blown rebellion from AIPAC-infested U.S. Congress.

Instead, Obama immediately dispatched UN Ambassador Susan Rice to vacuously express Obama’s “serious concerns” over the “unbalanced, one-sided and basically unacceptable” work of the Goldstone commission, without of course identifying any specific flaws in the report’s findings, logic or conclusions. Worse yet, by means of some behind-the-scenes arm-twisting, Obama forced the hapless Palestinian leader, Mahmoud Abbas, to in effect adopt the Likud-endorsed, grotesquely Orwellian formulation that to hold Israel accountable for its war crimes would deal a “fatal blow” to the peace process.

“Israel will not be able to take further steps and take risks for peace if it is denied the right of self-defense”, said Netanyahu on October 1, affirming that the right to commit crimes against humanity with absolute impunity is an essential weapon in Israel’s peace arsenal. Threatened by the Netanyahu-Obama axis with who-knows-what dire consequences if he failed to fall into line, Abbas was forced to agree, and withdrew the Palestinian Authority’s demand that the Goldstone report be sent to the UN General Assembly for possible action.

This was the first of the self-inflicted wounds visited upon Obama’s feckless peace initiative, which, like its equally feckless predecessors, depends on identifying and propping up a Palestinian “partner for peace” to participate in chimerical negotiations: On the day following Abbas’ announcement, the “Arab street” erupted in protests, marches and statements of condemnation, not only from his Hamas rivals, but from human rights groups, intellectuals and media pundits all over the world (except of course the United States). Abbas quickly reversed course and re-affirmed the PA’s commitment to having the Goldstone report referred to the UN Security Council. It was too little, too late, to salvage Abbas’ credibility.

The second and fatal blow – to Abbas’ viability with his own people and thus to Obama’s Cairo agenda – was landed when in late October, Obama’s loathsome Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, told reporters that Netanyahu’s patently meaningless offer to “restrain some” (as opposed to “freeze all”) settlement activities in the West Bank amounted to an “unprecedented restriction” on Israel’s colonization project. (Clinton’s assertion was true in the trivial sense that notwithstanding numerous commitments to freeze settlement activities, most recently at George W. Bush’s 2007 Annapolis conference and before that in the 2003 Road Map agreement, in practice Israel has never significantly “restrained” its settlement activities at any time; however, insofar as it in effect congratulated Netanyahu for Israel’s bad faith in rejecting the most basic request issued by her own boss, Clinton’s statement was thoroughly false in a deeper sense.)

The Clinton episode was the last straw for Mr. Abbas, who promptly announced that he would withdraw his candidacy for the coming presidential election in the Palestinian Authority. It is not readily apparent who will replace Abbas, assuming he is serious about his decision to cede the leadership role to someone more willing to play the patsy role in the absurd charade known as the American-sponsored “peace process.” What is clear, however, is that Obama’s inability to back up his Cairo rhetoric with even the semblance of spine in dealing with Israel’s intransigent leadership has consigned the latest Middle East peace initiative to failure, exactly like the similar initiatives of every American President since Jimmy Carter.

Obama’s gamesmanship vis-à-vis Mahmoud Abbas nicely illustrates the paradox of Israel’s relationship to Palestinian leadership generally:

Israel complains (in the words of Ehud Barak) that it cannot negotiate because it has no Palestinian “partner for peace.” But to the extent that any hand-picked Palestinian leader is acceptable as a “partner” – to that extent the Palestinian leader invariably lacks credibility with his own people, and for that reason cannot legitimately represent the popular Palestinian position in any negotiation. Thus, the hand-picked Palestinian leader cannot negotiate because he has no real power, and Israel is once again able to complain about having no partner for peace.

This cycle suits Israel fine, because postponement of the “peace process” means preservation of the status quo, and preserving the status quo serves (apparent) Israeli interests for one reason: the status quo allows, or more accurately consists in, the constant, never-ending, incremental construction of yet more Jewish-only settlements on stolen land, and the consequent incremental dispossession of Palestinian populations and their increasing isolation in ever-shrinking disconnected ghettos.

(Just as the space of the occupation is less a container within which events unfold than the medium for the events themselves (see Eyal Weizman, The Hollow Land), so the temporality of the occupation should be understood as part of its implementation: The occupation’s end (via agreement on final status) is constantly, interminably, forever deferred, and in the meantime, everything that occurs (the building of settlements and “outposts”, military “incursions” and “operations”, agreements, understandings, cease fires, checkpoints, barriers, suspensions of law and rights in the name of security, etc.) is characterized as temporary, conditional, of “interim status”, allowing the nearly imperceptible creation of “facts on the ground” that incrementally but permanently alter reality, rendering any possible agreement or negotiated solution moot.)

Martin Indyk of the Brookings Institute, an advisor to George Mitchell, recently remarked that with Abbas exiting the scene, “we are entering a new era.” In this new era, the challenge for the next Palestinian leader will be to resist the “peace process” altogether, based on a clear understanding that the United States cannot, now or ever, play a constructive role in bringing about a just outcome to the conflict.

As Sara Roy has demonstrated, the function of the “peace process” is to permanently remove the conflict from the framework of international law, as expressed in the well-established international consensus regarding its resolution based on UN Resolution 242, a consensus consistently blocked over the past 30 years by Israel and the United States. This removal is accomplished by creating and sustaining the illusion of a genuine “negotiation” of land for peace, but the concept of negotiation assumes the existence of two more or less equal parties, each of whom runs the risk of palpable loss should negotiations fail.

This assumption does not apply in this case, because all the power is on one side, and the relationship between the parties is that of domination: The Palestinians have nothing to give that Israel can’t take by force, and Israel has nothing to lose should negotiations fail. The only real restraint on Israel’s actions in the occupied territories is its public image in the United States Congress, which provides the money, the weapons and the legal cover for Israel’s ongoing colonization project. There are limits to gullibility, even inside the Beltway, and the day when Israel is no longer able to portray itself as the victim rather than the aggressor will be the day Israel will agree to negotiate in good faith. That is why the Goldstone report is so very dangerous from the Israeli government’s perspective.

At this point, the only possible outcome of the peace process – certain to be resurrected in some form by the Obama administration – is to force the Palestinian leadership accept national existence within a network of isolated, walled-in enclaves and call it a “state”, while lacking that most basic characteristic of any genuine state, namely, sovereignty (over borders, defense, airspace, resources, etc.). The longer the Palestinians resist that outcome, the greater the pressure on Israel to conform to its public image in the United States as a liberal democracy – by offering equal political rights, including the right to vote, to the 4 million Arabs under its rule.

As the sun sets on the two-state solution, that pressure is already well on its way to becoming intolerable – in Israel, with the growing domination of the political scene by extreme right-wing ethnic nationalists like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, in the United States with the rise of AIPAC alternatives such as the J-Street organization, and in the rest of the world with the inability of functionaries like Barack Obama to bury the Goldstone report and with it, the truth.

Stella Dallas can be contacted at lout1956@gmail.com. Read other articles by Stella.

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The snow – heaviest in the area since records began – has caused more than half a billion dollars in damage, including the collapse of more than 7,000 buildings and damage to 297,000 acres (120,000 hectares) of crops, the Civil Affairs Ministry said Friday.

In Hebei province, three children died after the roof of their canteen collapsed under the weight of the snow. Another 28 were hospitalized.

Another child died in neighbouring Henan province and seven were injured, again when the roof the school canteen collapsed. Three of the students are in a critical condition.

This is the second year and a row that China has been hammered by massive snowstorms. About 20 months ago, the most severe snowstorm in five decades in southern China caused an estimated $22 billion in direct economic losses, destroying 29.4 million acres (11.9 million hectares) of cropland, and forcing the government to hand out 63.3 billion yuan of subsidies to farmers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/asia-pacific/8358162.stm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091113/ap_on_re_as/as_china_snow_storms

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20670001&sid=ad0dn1Nzvk8g

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Left-wing groups enraged by Germany municipality’s decision not to allow anti-Zionist Israeli historian to speak at governmental institution. Pappe writes to Munich mayor his policy reminiscent of Nazi Germany

Sarah Stricker

‘Words don’t kill’

Germany’s left-wing party, green party and the ATTAC organization, which is against globalization, came to Pappe’s defense and criticized the mayor for giving in to the Jewish organization.

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After several months of secrecy and controversy, on October 28th the US and Colombia signed an agreement to allow the US military extensive access to seven Colombian bases, notwithstanding serious concerns about true intentions and eventual consequences.

Despite pledges by Colombian and U.S. governments about the limitations of the agreement, the agreement text and U.S. military documents contradict such assurances. One of the principal concerns raised by regional governments after news was leaked of the pending agreement has been the possibility of the bases’ use for aggressions against neighboring countries. In an interview Sunday with the Colombian daily El Tiempo, Ambassador Brownfield claimed that joint operations aren’t planned outside of Colombia, and that Article IV of the agreement expressly forbids such operations. In fact, a careful review of the text of the agreement reveals no such prohibition.

Not only that, but similar assurances by Colombian Defense Minister Gabriel Silva that the agreement “has no geopolitical or strategic connotation, other than being more effective in the fight against drug trafficking” are even more hard to believe after reading a recently-uncovered Pentagon budget document that expresses clear regional intentions for the Palanquero base. The document describes the U.S. presence in Palanquero as an “opportunity for conducting full spectrum operations throughout South America,” and confirms the fears of Colombia’s neighbors when it discusses the possibility of using the base to confront the “threat” of what it calls “anti-US governments.” The most chilling phrase, however, is the discussion of the potential use of Palanquero to “expand expeditionary warfare capability.”

Perhaps in hope that the true scope of the agreement wouldn’t be discovered, the Colombian government has pushed through the signing of the agreement without Congressional approval, claiming that as a mere bilateral agreement no approval is required. This is despite the fact that Colombia’s State Council, a judicial body that advises the government on administrative issues, found that the agreement is in fact a treaty and should be reviewed by Congress. The Council also called the agreement “very unbalanced for the country.”

For Colombians who live near the bases, the deal is also worrisome, as the agreement lacks environmental protections. The U.S. has no obligation to remediate ecological damage, nor does the deal provide for damages claims on behalf of the Colombian government. The agreement states, for example, that bases will be turned over in “as is” condition upon termination of the agreement. Given the U.S. military’s legacy of environmental damage around the world, this is a serious concern for the land and populations surrounding the bases.

Criticism of the deal signing has come from many corners. Presidential candidate and Senator Gustavo Petro urged the Colombian government to renounce the deal, calling it illegal without Congressional approval and pointing to the regional tensions it has fueled. Brazilian president Lula da Silva proposed a “non aggression pact” for UNASUR (Union of South American Countries) over concerns about the “gaps” in the deal that could allow U.S. military personnel based in Colombia to participate in attacks on neighboring countries. Twenty-seven European organizations signed a letter to President Obama just before the deal was signed, urging him to reconsider. On November 1st, several pacifist organizations from the U.S. and other countries protested at the Palanquero air base, raising a “no to US troops in Colombia” banner and comparing the plan to “a little School of the Americas in Colombia.” The activists commemorated the 1998 massacre of 17 peasant farmers launched from the Palanquero base and carried out with the participation of pilots from a U.S. company under contract with Occidental Petroleum.

You too can support a change U.S. policy toward Colombia by urging your Representative to sign a Dear Colleague letter to Secretary Clinton. The letter, initiated by Representatives McGovern, Schakowsky, Payne and Honda, calls for reduced aid to Colombia’s military and increased support for human rights and humanitarian efforts. Click here to take action.

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Ahmadinejad, centre, called for Islamic principles to replace capitalist values [AFP]

Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, has appealed for closer trade ties with fellow Muslim countries to help Afghanistan break its cycle of conflict.

Karzai met representatives of eight governments, including Abdullah Gul, the Turkish president and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, on the sidelines of an economic summit held by the Organisation of the Islamic Conference (OIC) in Istanbul.

Most trade with landlocked Afghanistan passes through the conflict-ridden border with Pakistan and through Iran.

Karzai said: “Afghanistan’s interest is primarily in having close brotherly relations with its neighbours, freedom of trade and transit, and an effective environment of co-operation.”

Economic support

A Turkish foreign ministry official said there would be a follow-up conference on Afghanistan in the near future, which Turkey had offered to host.

Turkey has troops serving with Nato forces in Afghanistan and Gul said Afghanistan would need foreign military and economic support until Afghans were trained and equipped to look after their own security.”As stakeholders in the region, we cannot expect that the United States and other Western powers solve the problems by themselves. We should shoulder our responsibilities,” Gul said.

The widespread fraud reported during the Afghan election and the refusal of Karzai’s chief rival to contest a run-off have damaged Karzai’s credibility at the start of his second term.

Karzai was seen as a guarantor of Western aid when he was first elected in 2004, but his relations with the US and other Western allies have become strained by allegations of corruption and poor governance.

His popularity has dwindled as many ordinary Afghans believe they have not benefited from billions of dollars in aid.

Islamic trade

Also speaking at the summit, Ahmadinejad said the global economic order needs “radical change”, calling for Islamic principles to replace capitalist values.

“The present economic crisis is due to the capitalist system. The world needs radical change,” the Iranian president said.

Describing interest rates as the “biggest and most fundamental problem of the capitalist system,” Ahmadinejad said economic programmes based on Islamic principles offered the way out.

“The world is looking for fairer values that we cannot find in  the capitalist system. The world system based on usury has collapsed, proving its failure,” he said.

“We have to draw up programmes based on Islamic economic thinkers. That way we can guide people to happiness, security, justice and honesty. This is the most correct way to salvation.”

The president urged member countries of the OIC to agree to carrying out trade in their national currencies and setting up a common market.

“By announcing the type of money to be used between member countries, we will be saved from the adverse effects of global capitalism,” he said.

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By Mazal Mualem, Haaretz Correspondent

November 8, 2009 The Hamas rulers of the Gaza Strip said Sunday that they would never negotiate with the “Zionist enemy”, hours after Kadima MK Shaul Mofaz presented a plan to hold talks with the group and establish a Palestinian state in 60 percent of the West Bank within one year. In its official response, Hamas called Mofaz’s offer “Zionist vulgarity” and said it would never recognize Israel or give legitimacy to the occupation. “Any negotiation with the Zionist enemy regarding rights and legitimate recognition would only give it further excuse to commit crimes,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum. The former IDF chief of staff earlier Sunday urged dialogue with the Islamist Palestinian group, saying that “at the moment that Hamas sit down at the negotiating table, assuming that Hamas are elected and want to talk, they accept the Quartet’s guidelines and are no longer a terrorist organization.” Speaking at a press conference at which he presented his diplomatic plan, Mofaz explained that “the state of Israel must sit down with any group that changes its priorities.” “I believe that responsible leaders sit down with such groups,” he continued. “I know that Hamas continues to fire and amass long-range missiles and prepare for conflict with Israel, and I want to tell Hamas leaders that if they continue on this path, their fate will be decided.” Mofaz developed his proposal following consultations with figures in the defense establishment, the heads of think tanks and politicians. He contends that the stalemate in the negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is dangerous from a demographic standpoint and with respect to Israel’s legitimacy in the world. Mofaz’s declaration upset some of his fellow Kadima members, who said he should have consulted with the party before presenting a plan of his own. “If he has a diplomatic plan, he should have presented it to the party,” said one party member. According to the Mofaz plan, in the initial stage of the establishment of a Palestinian state with provisional borders there would be no need to uproot Jewish settlers in the West Bank, but legislation would be enacted to show Israel’s serious intent, providing for the subsequent relocation in the Galilee and in West Bank settlement blocs of about 70,000 residents of isolated settlements. Mofaz has not excluded the possibility that outlying Jerusalem neighborhoods would eventually become part of the independent Palestinian state. Mofaz accused Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of stalling the Middle East peace process and of wasting time that the country doesn’t “have the privilege to waste.” Mofaz’s proposal is a challenge not only to Netanyahu but also to his own party’s leader, Tzipi Livni. The Mofaz plan provides a centrist, pragmatic approach. He intends to initiate a debate on his plan at a meeting of the Kadima party council. From a political standpoint, Mofaz has signaled that he has no interest in returning to Likud and that he seeks to make a bid for the leadership of Kadima.

Link: www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1126655.html

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Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged his armed forces to be prepared for possible war with Colombia amid growing diplomatic and border tensions.

He said the best way to avoid war was to prepare for it. In response, Colombia said it would seek help from the United Nations.

Venezuela blames the tension with its neighbour on closer military ties between Colombia and the US.

Colombia says US forces are only there to battle rebels and drug traffickers.

“Let’s not waste a day on our main aim: to prepare for war and to help the people prepare for war, because it is everyone’s responsibility,” Mr Chavez said during his TV and radio show Alo, Presidente.

Mr Chavez has also ordered 15,000 troops to the border, citing increased violence by Colombian paramilitary groups.

In response, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said his government would seek help from the UN Security Council and also the Organization of American States.

“Colombia has not made nor will it make any bellicose move toward the international community, even less so toward fellow Latin American nations,” a statement by Mr Uribe said.

Ties between Colombia and Venezuela have been frozen since July when Bogota said it would let the US army use its military bases for anti-drugs operations.

The agreement has caused alarm among some of Colombia’s neighbours, who object to an increased US military presence in the region.

When news of the deal first broke in August, Mr Chavez warned that “winds of war” were blowing across the continent.

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Controversial private US security firm, Blackwater is reportedly hiring ex-Pakistan security officials at mind-boggling salaries.

Islamabad, Nov.6 : Controversial private US security firm, Blackwater is reportedly hiring ex-Pakistan security officials at mind-boggling salaries.

According to The Nation, the US firm has offered some of the retired Pakistani officials a whopping salary package of 60,000 dollar per month.

But what is more noticeable is that it has hired former CIA officer, Steven Cash to operate as Commander In Charge of its operations in Peshawar.

Steven Cash is a former senior US government official and has served as an Intelligence Officer with the Central Intelligence Agency, first as an Assistant General Counsel, and then with the Directorate of Operations.

From 2001 to 2003 Cash also served as a Professional Staff Member and Counsel for the US Senate Select Committee on Intelligence.

Meanwhile, Interior Minister Rehman Malik has denied any presence of Blackwater personnel in Pakistan.

“I reassure people that not a single American is allowed into Pakistan without stamping of visa. There are only 411 American nationals in Pakistan out of whom 286 are diplomats while others work with different NGOs,” Malik told media persons during a press conference at the Parliament House.

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KARACHI – The foreigners affiliated with the notorious private military contractor Blackwater, whose security company Blackwater was later renamed as Xe Services LLC, arrived in Islamabad on Tuesday through a PIA flight, sources told TheNation.

“Of the 274 passengers, who boarded Pakistan’s national flag carrier-PIA, flight PK-786 from Heathrow Airport UK, 202 were foreigners but they were fluently speaking Urdu language,” disclosed the sources.
The officials on duty at Shaheed Benazir International Airport Islamabad said, “We had instructions to allow the foreigners entry without custom procedure.”

The sources said that the plane reached the Islamabad airport at 4:08am, and they had received the official instructions from the authorities not to inspect any of them and clear them immediately from the airport.

An official of PIA confirmed that the PIA flight PK-786 from Heathrow reached Islamabad at its destination at 04:08 am and said that the plane had the capacity of 358 passengers but total 274 passengers travelled on the flight.

He declined to comment the presence of large number of foreigners in the flight saying that they had no information in this regard.

Former Chief of Army Staff Mirza Aslam Beg claimed that former President Pervez Musharraf had given Blackwater the green signal to carry out its terrorist operations in the cities of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Peshawar and Quetta.

He also claimed that the Blackwater was directly involved in the murder of Benazir Bhutto and Lebanese Rafiq Hariri.

According to the New York Times August 20, 2009 report by Mark Mazzetti, the Central Intelligence Agency in 2004 hired contractors from the private security contractor Blackwater USA as part of a secret programme to locate and assassinate top operatives of Al-Qaeda.

“It has also drawn a controversy. Blackwater employees hired to guard American diplomats in Iraq were accused of using excessive force on several occasions, including shootings in Baghdad in 2007 in which 17 civilians were killed. Iraqi officials have since refused to give the company an operating licence.”

“Several current and former government officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they were discussing details of a still classified programme,” the NYT reported.

The newspaper report said that despite publicly breaking with it, the State Department continued to award the company, formerly known as Blackwater, more than $400 million in contracts to fly its diplomats around Iraq, guard them in Afghanistan, and train security forces in anti-terrorism tactics at its remote camp in North Carolina.

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The former Etonian and SAS officer, 56, was sentenced in July last year after he admitted taking part in a coup to overthrow President Teodoro Obiang.

Mr Obiang’s information ministry confirmed that the president had already signed the pardon which was “a complete pardon for humanitarian grounds”.

A statement on the website of Equatorial Guinea’s Information Ministry said Mann was granted a full pardon on humanitarian grounds.

The country is Africa’s third biggest oil producer but many of its people remain poor. It is also considered to be among the continent’s worst violators of human rights.

Following Mr Mann’s trial, lawyers and diplomatic sources said that he had negotiated a deal with the government whereby he implicated individuals and foreign governments in return for his freedom.

He was arrested in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 2004 with dozens of South African mercenaries when their private plane landed to collecting a cache of weapons and spent four years in prison there before being transferred for trial.

Among the most high-profile figures implicated in the case was Sir Mark Thatcher, the son of Margaret Thatcher, the former prime minister, who appeared to feature in a letter Mr Mann had smuggled out of his Harare prison cell asking for help from “Scratcher”.

Also implicated was businessman Ely Calil, who Mr Mann suggested during his trial had masterminded the plot. Both have repeatedly and strenuously denied any involvement.

The decree issuing the pardon for Mann said that he had been released because of his state of health and given his need “to receive regular medical treatment and to be with his family”. It was previously reported that he underwent a hernia operation while in prison.

Mr Mann’s wife Amanda, who lives in Hampshire with their children, made a tearful public appearance last year when her husband was moved from Zimbabwe to an Equatorial Guinea jail, saying the country had refused to give her any assurances on his wellbeing or how he would be treated.

The decree also said that Mann’s “attitude during the investigation … and his behaviour during the trial and while being held in prison … showed sufficient and credible signs of repentance”.

However, when sentencing him in June last year, the presiding judge Carlos Mangue said he had failed to show “an attitude of regret”.

A spokesman for the Foreign Office could not confirm the reports last night, saying: “We are aware of the reports about the proposed release of Simon Mann and are seeking to clarify this but it is an issue for Equatorial Guinean authorities at this stage.”

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Eyes Wide Open, a love story between two Orthodox Jewish men, provoked anger at its screening

A series of controversial Israeli films are provoking outrage and plaudits in equal measure at the London Film Festival.

The best documentary award has gone to one of the year’s most controversial films.

Defamation is a polemic by Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir. In his expose of America’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL), he claims anti-Semitism is being exaggerated for political purposes. He argues that American Jewish leaders travel around the world exploiting the memory of the Holocaust to silence criticism of Israel.

He gets inside the ADL, which claims to be the most powerful lobby group of its type anywhere in the world. With unprecedented access, he travels with them as they meet foreign leaders, and use the memory of the Holocaust to further their pro-Israeli agenda.

At one point, an ADL leader admits to Shamir that “we need to play on that guilt”.

Shamir says his film, Defamation, started out as a study of “the political games being played behind the term anti-Semitism”.

“It became more a film about perceptions and the way Jews and Israelis choose to see themselves and define themselves – a lot of the time unfortunately choosing the role of eternal victims as a way of life.”

Israel’s national psyche

He wanted to find out how this mentality has become part of Israel’s national psyche.
The film suggests that the attitude is thrust upon children from an early age. School trips to concentration camps in Poland run year-round.

From just 500 children in the 1980s, he claims around 30,000 are now flown to Europe every year.

He discovers that the trips are not designed to educate, but to provoke an emotional reaction. They fly out of Israel euphoric, and end their journey in tears, talking about their shared hatred.

They are accompanied by secret service agents who prevent them from talking to any locals – they are led to believe that most Poles are anti-Semites.

The end result is disturbing. The victim mentality is being used to justify Israel’s occupation and colonisation of the West Bank and siege of Gaza.

In the film, one Israeli Jew tells Shamir that she refuses to get upset by Israeli aggression against the Palestinians because “we” faced worse. To her, the Holocaust justifies anything the Israeli army does.

And for Shamir, that is the real danger. “We are experiencing the most right-wing government we’ve ever had, and there is very little room for discussion. Putting so much focus on hate and the negative, I don’t see it as a healthy thing.”

In Israel, the film has received a mixed response. “It’s kind of a love or hate type of response to the film,” Shamir says. “It’s very hard to get people to come and watch documentaries in the cinemas in Israel.”

Touchy subject

In the UK, too, there is anger towards Defamation.

Mark Gardiner from one of Britain’s biggest anti-Semitism campaign groups, the Community Security Trust, believes the film could put Jews at risk.

Samuel Maoz’s film, Lebanon, has sparked debate inside Israel

“All of a sudden some bloke appears out of nowhere, oh he’s an Israeli, oh he’s a Jew, therefore what he says must have more credence than what organisations like my own and the ADL have said for years – I think that shows a deep-seated bias.”And he is furious at the suggestion that anti-Semitism is being used for political purposes.

“This assumption that people are saying it because they’re being malicious, because they know that it’s not anti-Semitic, but hey lets use anti-Semitism in order to win the Israel case, that’s what I find really really offensive,” Gardiner says.

Shamir is not surprised by reactions like that.

“Anti-Semitism is a very touchy subject and making a film about anti-Semitism is almost like walking on thin ice, you’re going to hurt people’s feelings.”

Martial Kurtz from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) believes the film can make a difference to activists like him.

He says all too often Israel’s supporters label groups like the PSC as anti-Semitic.

“There are many Jewish organisations which campaign [with us] against the occupation, campaign against the siege in Gaza,” he says. “So the whole argument falls flat.”

‘Rocking the boat’

Defamation is not the only controversial movie at this year’s London Film Festival.

Eyes Wide Open provoked anger and walkouts when it was screened.

It is a love story between two Orthodox Jewish men set in Jerusalem. Despite trying to keep their affair secret, the pair are threatened with violence by the community’s elders, leading to tragedy.

Director Haim Tabakman knew the film would not be easy for some Jews to watch. “This film has a provocative pitch,” he says. “Every good film is political.”

But he just wants people to face reality. “If you talk about it, it exists, so it’s not in their interests to talk about it,” he told Al Jazeera.

“It’s like the flood with Noah and his ark – the water came to destroy everything but something new came out of it. Sometimes it’s good to shake the boat.”

‘Victims of war’

Another director causing waves is Samuel Maoz, whose war film Lebanon is sparking debate inside Israel.

“You can’t change anything without first of all talking about it,” he says. “The film moves people to talk, even to argue with each other.”

Maoz’s film, which won the top prize at the Venice Film Festival in September, is based on his own experiences as his army invaded Lebanon in 1982. He says he made the film because of the guilt which still haunts him to this day.

“I’m not comparing between the suffering of a Lebanese woman who lost her family to the suffering of a soldier who fell into a no way out situation and needs to kill. If I can make some kind of scale, she is in level 10 and he is in the bottom, he is in level two. But both of them are victims of war.”

He knows words like that will cause controversy in Israel, but he is ready for the backlash.

“The army is not something holy, especially after the 2006 Lebanon war. In war itself there are no good guys and bad guys. The war is the bad guy.”

Maoz believes that Israel will only become less belligerent when civilians are shown the realities of war.

“First of all it was a need to unload and expose the war as it is, naked, without all the heroic stuff and the rest of the cliches.”

But Maoz has a bigger aim – to stop Israel launching attacks on Palestinians and Lebanese.

“Every film has its ambition to change something … the film is attacking war itself,” he says.

“Peace will come but it’s just a question of time and time is blood. If we can find a short cut we can save a lot of blood for both sides.”

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House to Vote on Resolution to Reject Goldstone Report

By Jeremy R. Hammond

November 02, 2009 “Information Clearing House” — The U.S. House of Representatives will vote on Tuesday on a resolution calling on President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ in multilateral fora.”

Headed by Justice Richard Goldstone, a former judge of the Constitutional Court of South Africa and Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda, the U.N. report found that evidence indicates both Israel and Hamas committed war crimes during Israel’s 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip, dubbed “Operation Cast Lead”, which began on December 27, 2008.

The report recommended that allegations of war crimes by both parties be investigated.

The current text of the proposed Congressional resolution, H. Res. 867, contains numerous factual inaccuracies, beginning with the assertion that the U.N. inquiry had “pre-judged” its findings and was “one-sidedly” mandated to “investigate all violations of international human rights law and International Humanitarian Law by . . . Israel, against the Palestinian people . . . particularly in the occupied Gaza Strip, due to the current aggression”.

The actual mandate adopted on April 3 was “to investigate all violations of international human rights law and international humanitarian law that might have been committed at any time in the context of the military operations that were conducted in Gaza during the period from 27 December 2008 and 18 January 2009, whether before, during or after.”

The quoted text is not from the April 3 mandate, but from U.N. General Assembly resolution S-9/1 on January 12, 2009, which resulted in the later appointment of the mission by the U.N. Human Rights Council (UNHRC).

Also, omitted in the draft resolution’s reproduction of the text are the words “occupying Power” before “Israel”. Under international law, the occupying power is in fact obligated to investigate allegations of war crimes and violations of human rights.

The draft U.S. resolution states that the Goldstone report “makes no mention of the relentless rocket and mortar attacks, which numbered in the thousands and spanned a period of eight years, by Hamas and other violent militant groups in Gaza against civilian targets in Israel, that necessitated Israel’s defensive measures”.

But this criticism itself ignores the fact that even if Israel’s military operations were justifiable as  “defensive measures”, Israel would still be legally obligated to conduct its operations in accordance with international law, and to conduct investigations into alleged war crimes conducted by its own forces.

The draft resolution also makes no mention of the relentless siege of Gaza by Israel, or the fact that Hamas had been strictly observing a cease-fire agreed to in June, only firing rockets after Israel had first violated that truce with repeated attacks against Gazans, a continuation of the crippling siege, and an airstrike and invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces on November 4 that ultimately resulted in the complete breakdown of the truce.

It also makes no mention of the fact that the Goldstone report contains a section dedicated to examining the impact of rocket and mortar attacks by Palestinian militants on southern Israel, or that mission’s efforts to do so were impeded by Israel’s refusal to cooperate.

The draft resolution states that the U.N. mission “included a member who, before joining the mission, had already declared Israel guilty of committing atrocities in Operation Cast Lead by signing a public letter on January 11, 2009, published in the Sunday Times, that called Israel’s actions ‘war crimes’”.

That letter to the Sunday Times also stated, “We condemn the firing of rockets by Hamas into Israel and suicide bombings which are also contrary to international humanitarian law and are war crimes.”

But criticism of the Goldstone report on the similar basis that one of its members had beforehand declared Hamas guilty of war crimes is lacking in the draft resolution.

It calls the Goldstone report’s findings “that the Israeli military had deliberately attacked civilians during Operation Cast Lead” “unsubstantiated”. In fact, the 575 page report provides extensive documentation for its findings.

The draft resolution states that “the authors of the report, in the body of the report itself, admit that ‘we did not deal with the issues . . . regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas and second-guessing decisions made by soldiers and their commanding officers ‘ in the fog of war.’”

This is an outright fabrication. Those words do not in fact appear in the body of the actual report.

Those words actually come from an alleged e-mail from Richard Goldstone in which he explained why the U.N. report did not rely on a Colonel Kemp for its inquiry. The full text of the statement from that e-mail, replacing the part omitted in the draft resolution, reads “we did not deal with the issues he raised regarding the problems of conducting military operations in civilian areas…” (emphasis added).

The draft resolution states that Richard Goldstone had been quoted in the October 16 edition of the Jewish daily Forward as saying, “If this was a court of law, there would have been nothing proven”.

But omitted is the further context of that remark in the same article, which added, “He recalled his work as chief prosecutor for the international war crimes tribunal in Yugoslavia in 1994. When he began working, Goldstone was presented with a report commissioned by the U.N. Security Council based on what he said was a fact-finding mission similar to his own in Gaza.

“’We couldn’t use that report as evidence at all,’ Goldstone said. ‘But it was a useful roadmap for our investigators, for me as chief prosecutor, to decide where we should investigate. And that’s the purpose of this sort of report.”

The draft resolution asserts that the Goldstone report “in effect, denied the State of Israel the right to self-defense”, but offers no supporting evidence for this.

The Goldstone report found that “While the Israeli Government has sought to portray its operations as essentially a response to rocket attacks in the exercise of its right to self-defence, the Mission considers the plan to have been directed, at least in part, at a different target: the people of Gaza as a whole.”

The draft resolution states that “the report usually considered public statements made by Israeli officials not to be credible, while frequently giving uncritical credence to statements taken from what it called the ‘Gaza authorities’, i.e. the Gaza leadership of Hamas”, but offers no examples from the report.

The report does, in fact, question the credibility of Israeli officials. It notes in one instance that “it considers the credibility of Israel’s position damaged by the series of inconsistencies, contradictions and factual inaccuracies in the statements justifying the attack.”

In another example illustrating Israel’s lack of credibility, it “acknowledges that significant efforts [were] made by Israel to issue warnings”, but that “The credibility of instructions to move to city centres for safety was also diminished by the fact that the city centres themselves had been the subject of intense attacks”.

The Goldstone report also observed that “By refusing to cooperate with the Mission, the Government of Israel prevented it from meeting Israeli Government officials, but also from travelling to Israel to meet Israeli victims and to the West Bank to meet Palestinian Authority representatives and Palestinian victims.”

The U.N. report also noted that “In establishing its findings, the Mission sought to rely primarily and whenever possible on information it gathered first-hand. Information produced by others, including reports, affidavits and media reports, was used primarily as corroboration.”

The draft resolution asserts that “notwithstanding a great body of evidence that Hamas and other violent Islamist groups committed war crimes by using civilians and civilian institutions, such as mosques, schools, and hospitals, as shields, the report repeatedly downplayed or cast doubt upon that claim”.

The “great body of evidence” is an apparent reference to remarks from Israeli officials found to be demonstrably lacking in credibility, which were commonly simply repeated by U.S. officials and the mainstream media.

The U.N. mission did examine “whether and to what extent the Palestinian armed groups violated their obligation to exercise care and take all feasible precaution to protect the civilian population in Gaza” and found that “Palestinian armed groups were present in urban areas during the military operations and launched rockets from urban areas”.

But it “found no evidence, however, to suggest that Palestinian armed groups either directed civilians to areas where attacks were being launched or that they forced civilians to remain within the vicinity of the attacks.”

While there is no evidence that Hamas deliberately used civilians as human shields, the Goldstone report “investigated four incidents in which the Israeli armed forces coerced Palestinian civilian men at gunpoint to take part in house searches during the military operations” and concluded “that this practice amounts to the Use of Palestinian civilians as human shields and is therefore prohibited by international humanitarian law.”

The draft resolution, besides calling upon the White House and State Department to reject the Goldstone report and its recommendations, also “reaffirms its support for the democratic, Jewish State of Israel, for Israel’s security and right to self-defense, and, specifically for Israel’s right to defend its citizens from violent militant groups and their state sponsors.”

It makes no similar mention of the right of Palestinians to security and self-defense from Israel and its U.S. sponsor.

Human rights groups, including the Israeli organization B’Tselem, have called upon the international community to implement its recommendation that suspected violations of international law be investigated.

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