Category: news
Hey Milt, sir, howdeedoodlee?
4th quater earnings wayyyy off. We needta work harder and smarter, Larry. Harder and smarter.
Milt, sir, iya, I have a kinda neat proposal to realise your direction….implement immediate cessation of discretionary leezure time at plant C.
Keep talkin, keep talkin Larry. I’m kinda…
And, and in addition to the cessation of discretionary leezure, we can enhance the plant C iSlave diet with MOERP…
MOERP?
motiv-ation-al optimum efficiency realisation powder…
Motivational opti…powder….for the iSlave function enhancement?
Sir, Milt, sir…heck, that’s affirmative.
Pop me the topline on current iSlave time and motion…
Yesssir, Milt sir…presto pronto…
Opinion: Bailed-out banks facilitate $21tn offshore cash hoard
July 23rd, 2012 | by Nick Mathiason | Published in All Stories, Views from the Bureau of Investigative Journalism (+ another jfreos pic)
Investigative economist James Henry exhaustively trawled through financial information held by the IMF, World Bank, Bank for International Settlements, central banks and national treasuries to come up with the most definitive report ever written on the super-rich and offshore wealth.
Henry’s Price of Offshore Revisted report, commissioned by Tax Justice Network, shows:
– between $21 trillion and $32 trillion of financial assets is owned by High Net Worth Individuals in tax havens. This does not include real estate, art or jewels.
– a conservative 3% return on that $21tn taxed at 30% would generate $189bn – a figure easily eclipsing what OECD industrialised nations spend on overseas development aid.
– the top 50 private banks collectively managed more than $12.1tn in cross-border invested assets for private clients, including their trusts. This is up from $5.4tn in 2005.
– fewer than 10 million members of the global super-rich have amassed a $21tn offshore fortune. Of these, less than 100,000 people worldwide own $9.8tn of wealth held offshore.
Accompanying the Price of Offshore Revisited is a separate paper (which I co-wrote). It reveals that data used by individual countries to assess the gap between rich and poor is inaccurate. And as a result, inequality is far more extreme than policymakers realise. This is because economists calculating inequality fail to include the vast majority of offshore cash in their findings. So the wealthy are far better off than the studies suggest.
In Inequality: you don’t know the half of it, eight of the world’s leading economists were asked whether offshore wealth was largely excluded from inequality studies. Ranging from the World Bank’s acting chief economist to academics at the Paris School of Economics and the Brookings Institute in the US, they all confirmed this was the case.
“We used to think that climate worked like a dial – slow to heat up and slow to cool down – but we’ve since learned that it can also act like a switch.”
Laurence C Smith, Professor of Earth and Space sciences, UCLA.
Climate change very slow but real. So far all cures worse than disease. Shale gas huge breakthrough for US. Half carbon of coal and oil.
(via the aptly named Twitter)
Current issue: July 2012
…Egypt in transition; Libya’s election; Europe, German fears; Norway a year on; who really rules Mexico? the Kazakhs speak out; China, where your iPad is made; Ecuador’s environmental misstep; special report, the cult of tourism; London’s summer of celebration…and more…
click here for stories (freely avail. in English from Le Monde)
“Le Monde diplomatique is a crusading voice in journalism with especially good foreign coverage”
William Dalrymple
(South Asia correspondent of the New Statesman)
This week, the Greens are introducing a bill into Parliament to prevent media ownership changes unless they pass a public interest test. Labor Communications Minister Stephen Conroy is supportive of the idea — but the media moguls are already attacking the proposal — and without his support, the bill will die. But if we give Conroy our backing now, we can push Labor to side with the public and stop the runaway consolidation of our media.
The media used to serve the public as a check on government; now these corporate media barons are using it to control government.
Sign the petition to Minister Conroy now to ensure Labor backs the bill to stop them and send this to everyone:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/australia_media_reform/?bBdLddb&v=15489
Here at the interpretOr, we support Avaaz as an independent, member-driven group that has been instrumental in building the foundation for media reform. From pushing for this year’s independent inquiry, to submitting thousands of public comments onto the public record, our influence has made a crucial difference.
This is our chance to begin building the kind of media our democracy so desperately needs.
Lang Hancock thought journalists were either “socialists” or “communists”. Gina, too, is deeply scornful of the press. Very few reporters…
Nick Bryant’s piece @ the mOnthly continues here and is freely available by clicking this line.
For the Norb Fones perspective on the concentration of media ownership, please click below:
Norb Fones: good morning ‘stralia and welcome to Stomurdhart
Tartus (Arabic: طرطوس / ALA-LC: Ṭarṭūs; also transliterated Tartous) is a city on the Mediterranean coast of Syria. Tartus is the second largest port city in Syria (after Latakia), and the largest city in Tartus Governorate. The population size is 115,769 (2004 census).[2]
During the 1970s, similar support points were located in Egypt and Latakia, Syria. In 1977, the Egyptian support bases at Alexandria and Mersa Matruh were evacuated and the ships and property were transferred to Tartus, where the naval support base was transformed into the 229th Naval and Estuary Vessel Support Division. Seven years later, the Tartus support point was upgraded to the 720th Logistics Support Point.[9]
(source: AFP & Wikipedia)
This morning at nine o’clock while writing a post titled “Some Australians are More Equal Than Others”, that deals with issues relating to the deportation of Julian Assange, I was interrupted by a message that lasted for only a second or less.
My post was replaced by a deep blue screen with a smaller bordered message in the centre.
The message simply stated “He’s dead Jim”
The message instantly disappeared and my computer shut down.
At first I struggled to work out what had happened and why. On reflection I thought someone or some large organisation must have been responsible. How did they know my name or that I use the shortened version Jim, while my co-blogger also named James always uses his full name?
They, whoever they are, must also have considerable surveillance resources because I was only part way through my blog when the message flashed on my screen.
Who would have the technical ability to so quickly override my computer?
Despite its clarity and simplicity, the message has an ambiguity that needs to be considered. It was not saying I was or would be dead. The tone did not seem overtly threatening to me. It was almost like friendly advice or a simple statement of fact.
So was the message an implied threat? Or was it a whistle-blower warning me of the certain fate awaiting Julian Assange?
The certainty of the message “He’s dead ..”, would imply that the author strongly believes or knows that Assange’s future is fait accompli.
Perhaps that now Assange has lost his appeal, everything has been arranged for his extradition or rendition to the USA with the active support of Sweden and the compliance of the Australian Government.
So who would intercept my blog and send me such a message? There are a number of possible suspects who might have an interest but few with the resources, and all of these are linked to Governments.
We at theinterpretor would like to know if anyone else has had the same or a similar experience?
Some Australians More Equal Than Others
Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard and her ministerial team have chanted a well-rehearsed mantra when questioned about their lack of assistance to Julian Assange, who faces extradition to Sweden even though he has not been charged or found guilty of any offence in Sweden.
The mantra used is “We are providing the same level of consular support that we provide for every other Australian citizen who is facing difficulties overseas.“
When asked if her government has asked the USA Government if it intends to apply for Assange to be extradited to the USA from Sweden, Julia Gillard and her Ministers give exactly the same answer that “they have not provided us with that information”. Clearly she is avoiding the question because the true answer would be unpopular with the electorate which strongly supports Assange.
Do we compare Assange’s “equal treatment” to that given to David Hicks who was illegally incarcerated in Guantanamo Bay where he was brutalised and put through an illegal kangaroo court process. Or can we compare it with Mamdouh Habib who was left to rot after he was seized by the US forces and sent to an Egyptian prison where he was incarcerated without trial and tortured.
In each case the Howard Government made no complaint against their illegal and brutal treatment or even demanded that they be given a fair trial. Prime Minister Julia Gillard proclaimed Assange as being guilty even though he has not been charged with any offence in Australia or abroad.
The current government is too ashamed to allow the truth of its position to be known. Following freedom of information requests from Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam for documents recording discussion between the Australian and US Governments relating to Julian Assange’s extradition; Senator Ludlam was provided with FOI documents that had so much of the printing blacked out “for security reasons” that no sense could be made of the information.
Perhaps Senator Ludlam would have learned more if he had asked Anonymous.
Contrast the above treatment of Australian citizens with that of Melinda Taylor, an Australian lawyer working for the International Criminal Court, who has recently been imprisoned in Libya. The Australian Government has made strong public and consular statements in support of Ms Taylor.
The Foreign Minister Bob Carr was quickly sent to the Middle East to pressure the Libyan Government to in turn pressure the local officials holding Ms Taylor to set her free.
“Our ambassador is working closely with his international counterparts, with the ICC and with Libyan authorities to seek full consular access to Ms Taylor and a swift end to her detention,” Senator Carr said.
This great variation in the level of protection provided to Australian citizens can be only be explained by looking at who is imprisoning them. In the case of Hicks and Habib it was the US military and with Assange it is likely that the final destination is again the US military who would like to silence him. At no stage did an Australian Minister intervene or even complain about their torture.
Ms Taylor while unfortunate to be caught up in a power struggle between the central government and local officials is lucky that she is detained in a small newly created “democratic state”, rather than by a large superpower so powerful it can ignore international law, and the concerns of the rest of the world with impunity.
The implications of a failure of courage by middle sized countries to stand up to the excesses of the superpowers has worrying implications for the future of everyone on the planet. We will not have a world free from conflict and tyranny unless all of us stand up for justice without regard to whom it applies.
If we are silent about the rendition and imprisonment of those who expose the truth of such tyranny and injustice, we are choosing to live in a world that will become our own prison.
Rupert Murdoch joined in an “over-crude” attempt by US Republicans to force Tony Blair to accelerate British involvement in the Iraq war a week before a crucial House of Commons vote in 2003, according to the final volumes of Alastair Campbell‘s government diaries.
‘The fact that Kim Kardashian’s marriage lasted only 72 days can have a longer-lasting impact on the news in America than any environmental policy initiative. High gasoline prices (in the US “high” means that a liter of gasoline costs the equivalent of €0.77, or less than half the price of gasoline in Germany) are so important to so many people that they could decide the election. The fact that 52 percent of Republicans in Mississippi believe that Obama is a Muslim, or that 46 percent of Americans believe that man was created precisely as is written in the Bible can make political debates extraordinarily tedious…’
The President of Disappointments: How Obama Has Failed to Deliver click through to Der Spiegel
By Ullrich Fichtner, Marc Hujer and Gregor Peter Schmitz
Christmas 2010, David Cameron had a festive lunch at the home of Rebekah Brooks, also in attendance was her then boss, James Murdoch…oh, and Elisabeth Murdoch and Matthew Freud too. Cosy…(see earlier interpretOr circa mid 2011)
June 2012 and Old Etonian, ex Carlton Communications PR man, David Cameron PM is before the Leveson inquiry.
Just how was that lunch, David Cameron?
FORMER Deputy Prime Minister Lord Prescott (UK) has accused the Tory Cameron government of exploiting cheap labour. It came after unpaid workers were bussed into London for the event and left stranded in the middle of the night.
The former deputy prime minister said there had been a “complete disregard” for the conditions of the stewards.
They were forced to sleep in the cold under London Bridge in the early hours of Sunday morning.
He also warned the incident could set the tone for the treatment of workers during the Olympics.
Speaking to BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, he said: “It raises many questions on the provision of unpaid labour in these kind of positions, not only on the Jubilee event, but also particularly for the coming Olympic ones.”
source & more @ The Scotsman
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…and a few of the above too.audience source: WordPress.com for the interpretOr (as of June 2012) |
Psychological research can often confirm existing hunches. For those of us that find Fox ‘News’, Caucasian editorials, Abbott rhetoric and resource business platitudes STUPID, as well as offensive, the May ’12 issue of the Psychologist (journal of the British Psychological Society) is coming to the rescue…
‘Think less and become more conservative’:
“The less time or mental effort a person puts into thinking about an issue, the more likely they are to espouse a politically conservative perspective. That’s according to a new study by Scott Eidelman and his team, who stress that their point is ‘not that conservatives rely on low effort thought’ but that ‘low effort thinking promotes political conservatism’…
….reduced mental effort encourages more conservative beliefs fits with prior research suggesting that attributions of personal responsibility (versus recognising the influence of situational factors), acceptance of hierarchy and preference for the status quo – hallmarks of conservative belief.”
Think more and become less conservative? Bring it on.
The hedge fund Magnetar helped create billions of dollars’ worth of risky deals called collateralized debt obligations, many of which failed spectacularly in the financial crisis. Magnetar, meanwhile, had taken positions that allowed the firm to profit when many of those same CDOs collapsed. Since Magnetar’s dealings was reported on two years ago, there’s been a long line of investigations and settlements related to the hedge fund.
Magnetar itself has never been charged with wrongdoing, and it has always maintained that it did not have a strategy to bet against CDOs they were involved with. But today’s Wall Street Journal reported that Magnetar is indeed under investigation by the SEC.
But the Journal reports that the SEC’s investigation is looking into whether Magnetar took such a prominent role in structuring some of the CDOs in which it invested that it became a de facto collateral manager, responsible for selecting the assets in a CDO. If that were the case, Magnetar might have some responsibility to all the investors in the deal.
The SEC has been circling around the Magnetar deals for some time, hitting some of the investment banks and managers involved. Here’s a roundup of all the charges, settlements, and investigations that we know of stemming from Magnetar deals:
Settled:
June 2011: JPMorgan agrees to pay $153.6 million to the SEC to settle allegations that it misled investors by not telling them that Magnetar was involved in the creation of a CDO called Squared CDO 2007-1. In reaching the settlement, JP Morgan did not admit or deny the SEC’s allegations.February 2012: State Street Global Advisors pays the state of Massachusetts $5 million to settle allegations that it did not disclose to investors that Magnetar was involved in constructing the CDO Carina CDO Ltd. State Street did not admit or deny Massachusetts’ allegations.
Charged:
June 2011: The SEC files a complaint against manager Edward Steffelin for his involvement in structuring JPMorgan’s Squared CDO 2007. In October 2011, a judge threw out part of the SEC’s case, ruling that Steffelin had not engaged in “fraud or deceit.” Other charges are still pending. A lawyer for Steffelin declined to comment on an ongoing case.Under investigation:
June 2011: The SEC is reportedly investigating Merrill Lynch and the firm NIR Capital Management over the Magnetar CDO called Norma.September 2011: The SEC is reportedly investigating the Japanese Bank Mizuho and an executive there, Alexander Rekeda, over the making and marketing of the CDO Tigris, another Magnetar deal. Mizuho did not immediately respond to our requests for comment on the current status of the investigation.
September 2011: The SEC warns it may bring charges against the Ratings Agency Standard & Poor’s, which abruptly downgraded a Magnetar CDO called Delphinus CDO 2007-1. (In an SEC filing in February, S&P’s parent company, McGraw Hill, said that the SEC’s warnings “have no basis and they will be vigorously defended.”)
February 2012: The SEC warns Alexander Rekeda that it may bring charges against him for misleading investors about Magnetar’s role in creating Delphinus. Rekeda, who is now at the investment firm Guggenheim Capital, could not be reached today for comment.
May 2012: According to the Wall Street Journal, Magnetar itself is under investigation by the SEC. Magnetar told ProPublica in our original story that the SEC was “looking broadly” at CDOs and had requested information from Magnetar, but said that they were unaware of a particular target of the investigation.
The Journal also reports that the SEC continues to investigate NIR and its founder, Corey Ribotsky, for its role in creating Norma with Merrill Lynch. NIR did not respond to our requests for comment, but a lawyer for NIR and Ribotsky told the Journal that the firm had not acted improperly in selecting Norma’s assets. A spokesman for Bank of America, which now owns Merrill Lynch, declined to comment.
This article was by ProPublica.
… France, next chapter; US and China, partners still; Egypt and Libya, Islamists in action; Al-Jazeera’s star wanes; African mercenaries for US wars; Vietnam, universities on the cheap; Occupy, the first year; Russia’s new middle class; US, the enemy within; Tony Judt, wise words…and more…
Le Monde Diplomatique is informative, broad and available in English by clicking on the May 2012 hotlink below.
http://mondediplo.com/tag/open-access
“LMD provides a cool, reasoned, different view of the world’s most pressing issues”
New York Review of Books
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism, May 2012 report on Putin’s mega wealth:
Back in 2011, surrounded by press, Vladimir Putin emerged from the murky waters of the Black Sea clutching the discovered remnants of ancient buried treasures. The discovery later turned out to be nothing more than a PR stunt. He hadn’t found the artefacts after all. But the stunt had achieved its purpose. Putin was once again seen as the bare-chested, judo-master, tiger-pacifying, untouchable leader of Russia.
But it was another apparent PR stunt – the spontaneous gifting of a £5,500 watch to a peasant boy – which led some to question whether Putin did not have buried treasure of his own. How could a politician with a declared annual salary of around $140,000 (£88,000) afford to live a life seemingly full of luxury watches, as well as yachts and palaces?
The Bureau of Investigative Journalism decided to investigate and has produced a documentary for Al Jazeera’s People & Power. We travelled from Moscow to St Petersburg looking into the origins and scale of Putin’s wealth.
Declared earnings
On March 6, Putin was once again elected president of Russia. He regained the role he had relinquished in 2008, when he had stepped down because of rules preventing more than two consecutive terms, becoming prime minister instead.
As part of his latest election bid, Putin was required to declare his worth. His declaration seems modest for a world leader.
Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst, claims Putin could be worth as much as $70bn, a figure that would make him the richest man in the world.
According to the Russian Central Electoral Commission, Putin has $179,612 in the bank and has earned around half a million dollars in the past four years. His wife Lyudmila has $261,541 in four bank accounts. Putin’s declared assets are also rather spartan. He has claimed to have a share in a public garage, apartments in Moscow and St Petersburg and a 1,500-square metre plot of land outside Moscow.
But there is increasing concern that Putin has not declared all of his worldly goods.
Watches
One of the reasons for such concern is that, despite his modest income, Putin has shown something of a flair for the finer things in life. He is rarely seen without a luxurious watch and has been photographed several times wearing expensive brands, including a £70,000 Patek Philippe Perpetual Calendar, and a £15,000 Breguet Marine.
Not that the Russian leader is uncharitable: he has also been spotted giving away £11,000 worth of Blancpain watches. The first was gifted to the shepherd boy and the second, rather more reluctantly, to a metal worker who brazenly asked the Russian leader for a keepsake. Both instances were captured by the media.
In total Putin has been photographed wearing around £160,000 of wrist wear. A remarkable feat for a man who earns, before tax, £80,000.
It is something that other journalists have been alert to. Luke Harding has reported for the Guardian newspaper on Putin’s wealth for years, and has been banned from Russia in the process. He said, ‘it is unlikely that [Putin] – or any of the presidential administration – would have items of this value without any kind of supplementary income.’
We asked the Kremlin about the watches. Were they his personal property or owned by the state? They declined to tell us.
But high-end watches are positively discreet compared to luxury yachts and palaces.
Luxury accomodation
As president, Putin will have access to the presidential yacht, Chakya. Bought under Medvedev’s rule, the luxury yacht came with a £26m price tag. It has six luxury cabins, wine cellar, jacuzzi, barbecue and other luxuries.
The yacht was bought with presidential funds. However, another extravagant purchase, which some have linked to Putin’s personal wealth, is a mansion overlooking the Black Sea.
The palace, sold recently for £350m, is rumoured to have been built as a holiday home for the Russian president-elect.
Leaked photographs of the Palace show richly decorated interiors, ornate grounds, gates topped by a two-headed eagle and a lift down to the beach.
Security around the palace is high, barbed wire and guard dogs kept our reporters at a distance. Putin denies any connection to the palace and current, official owner Alexander Ponomarenko says the palace is a ‘holiday home.’
However, local resident admit seeing Putin frequenting the area and when environmental activists broke into the compound in 2011 protesting the building’s construction on protected land, they were met by Federal Protection Service guards.
Sergei Kolesnikov, a Russian businessman and former associate of Putin, claims the palace was built for Putin through a web of transactions with its ownership being held in anonymous bearer shares.
The Bureau has also obtained building contract documents for work on the palace which bear the signature of Vladimir Kozhin, the head of the Presidential Administration Property Development.
Read more about the Black Sea Palace.
Hidden wealth?
But it is not just watches, yachts and palaces. There are others who believe that Putin’s declaration of modest wealth simply does not add up. Stanislav Belkovsky, a political analyst and critic of Putin, is one of the most outspoken. He claims Putin could be worth as much as $70bn, a figure that would make him the richest man in the world.
This extraordinary sum is based on claims that Putin owns shares in three major oil and gas companies: 4.5% of national gas giant Gazprom, 37% of oil supplier Surgutneftegas and a major shareholder of a company that cannot be named for legal reasons. That company strenuously denies any links to Putin.
‘The figure of $40bn emerged in 2007. That figure could now have changed, I believe at the level of $60-70bn,’ Belkovsky says.
His estimate is based on information gained from confidential sources around the corporations, Belkovsky claims. But he is reluctant to reveal more.
All three companies have opaque ownership structures, and it is impossible to identify the shareholdings claimed by Belkovsky.
Gas and oil producer Surgutneftegas is secretive – an attitude that has not always played in its favour. In 2009 the company bought a 21.2% stake in Hungarian company MOL. However, when Surgutneftegas came to register as a voting shareholder, it was refused. MOL said the company’s lack of transparency around its ownership structure did not comply with Hungarian law. Gazprom is the biggest gas extractor in the world; the Russian government controls it with a 50.002% stake. But while Gazprom is more transparent over share ownership, Belkovsky claims Putin’s share is hidden through ‘a non-transparent scheme of successive ownership of off-shore companies and funds’.
Gazprom and Surgutneftegas did not respond to the Bureau’s questions.
Despite repeating the claims several times and it being reported widely, Belkovsky has never faced legal action disputing them.
Investigating Putin
As Bureau reporters travelled across Russia we came across others that had tried to investigate Putin in the past.
Deep in the countryside, outside St Petersburg, we met with Marina Salyle.
In 1992 Salye investigated a deal made in the St Petersburgh City office deal which involved the export of $100m worth of raw materials in exchange for food. According to Salye Putin oversaw the deal but while the raw materials were shipped from the city, the promised food never arrived. Her accusation, made up until her recent death, was that Putin benefited from this incomplete deal.
The Kremlin argue that Putin never signed the paper authorising it, though Salye has papers that she claims do contain the President-elect’s authorising signature.
Back in St Petersburg, Lt. Col. Andrei Zykov, a former senior investigator at the Russian Interior Ministry, described his own work looking into Putin’s past.
In June 1999, when Putin was serving his first term as president, Zykov was put in charge of criminal case, number 144 128.
The case involved a construction company called Twentieth Trust, which officials suspected had been used to siphon money from St Petersburg’s city budget in the early 1990s. Zykov claims that Putin benefited from a Spanish villa from the deal.
The investigation was shut down on the grounds of ‘insufficient proof’ and according to Zykov he was fired a year and a half later.
We asked the Kremlin to respond to Mr Zykov’s claims. It has declined to do so.
Read more about Putin’s past. (and link back to the Bureau of Investigative Journalism)
In the early days of his first term as president, Putin had promised to rid Russia of its corrupt oligarchs.
However, as he now prepares to enter a third term as leader of Russia, it is the luxury lifestyle of a tsar that awaits him.
“One cannot believe people are comparing Rupert Murdoch to Satan. Yes, he’s evil, but he’s not as bad as Rupert Murdoch.”
Retweeted 2685 times
“It is interesting to pick one’s way through the obstacles of censorship, but freedom can’t be stopped in the internet age…”
click here for Ai Weiwei’s piece in today’s Guardian
$500,000,000,000 = amount of oz resources profit going
OVERSEAS in next 10 years (Australia Institute)
Al Jazeera and wires breaking that Anonymous has hacked into home pages of Chinese government websites. Online visitors were this morning greeted with Anonymous planted messages:
“Chinese people, the government controls the internet in your country and strives to filter what it considers a threat to it..”
More on this story as it evolves…
(Reuters) – The United States, European allies and even Israel generally agree on three things about Iran’s nuclear program: Tehran does not have a bomb, has not decided to build one, and is probably years away from having a deliverable nuclear warhead.
Discover the new iPhone app that makes a killing in Syria. What are the latest government actions against human rights and freedom of press? This video will speak for itself… or maybe not.
YOUSEF N. ZEIDAN, United Nations Permanent Observer of Palestine, said there had been little progress, if any, towards achieving children’s rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, where Palestinian children continued to suffer from the occupation’s impact. In addition to killing those children, the occupying forces had also illegally imprisoned and detained hundreds of children, seized and photographed them in a “mapping exercise”, and targeted and attacked homes, schools, hospitals and places of worship.
In the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem, home demolitions and evictions continued to render Palestinian children homeless. Roads leading to schools continued to be destroyed, while schools were also being given demolition orders. Children were repeatedly traumatized, never knowing when or if their home or school would be next.
Palestinian children living in the occupied Gaza Strip suffered from the same hardships, but they also had to endure the harsh and cruel ramifications of Israel’s illegal blockade, he said. Schools that were callously destroyed in 2008-2009 remained in rubble, while the international community’s reconstruction efforts were intentionally delayed by Israel. The international community must hold the Israeli occupying forces that committed crimes against Palestinian children accountable and bring them to justice. Moreover, reports, including by the United Nations, had documented the recent rise in lethal and violent attacks by settlers against Palestinians, including children, despite the responsibility of the occupying Power for the presence of settlers and their acts of lawlessness.
YOUSEF N. ZEIDAN, United Nations Permanent Observer of Palestine, has appealed for immediate and decisive action to bring Israel, the occupying Power, into compliance with international law, including its obligation under the Fourth Geneva Convention and relevant United Nations resolutions.
more @ www.un.org/News/Press/docs/2011/gashc4013.doc.htm
‘He signed it. We’ll fight it.’
President Obama opened 2012 by signing the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) into law. ACLU are concerned that “it contains a sweeping worldwide indefinite detention provision.”
“The dangerous new law can be used by this and future presidents to militarily detain people captured far from any battlefield. He signed it. Now, we have to fight it wherever we can and for as long as it takes. Sign the ACLU’s pledge to fight worldwide indefinite detention for as long as it takes.” (ACLU)
The interpretOr would add that these concerns are legitimate and we only have to recall the practice of ‘Extraordinary Rendition’ that was a hallmark of the Bush/Cheney presidential era. Habeas Corpus denied again? What of the protections afforded by the Geneva Conventions?
That such sweeping legislation is enacted over a traditional ‘slow news’ holiday period further diminishes any semblance of honouring the public interest.
more @ https://secure.aclu.org/site/SPageServera=JServSessionIdr004&s_subsrc=120103_NDAA_mar&pagename=120103_NDAAGOLAsk
share your feelings @rupertmurdoch
Huge crowds and many near-riots were reported wherever Nike’s new $1,800 “Air Israel” sandals went on sale. Police in Seattle said about 20 people were pepper-sprayed after fights broke out amongst a queue of 13,000 youths gathered on Christmas Eve. One man was arrested for punching an officer. “He did not get his sandals; he went to jail,” said a spokesman.
BBC and wires flashing that internationally renowned Fear Trade spokesperson, Ben Harridan, was among the first to secure a pair. Breathless Ben was quoted as follows on his thrilling new purchase:
“Phew, heck, huhhh. The new Air Israels are the definitive sandal. An a-m-a-z-ing piece of kit.They promise more grip and traction while climbing in areas such as Le Massif Cavité Anal des Politiques. I guess another huge breakthrough is the built in pocket for cheese triangles and…quite frankly, they’re so flexible that….”
“A TITANIC battle of wills took place yesterday between the Gillard government and the Abbott opposition…”GREG SHERIDAN, FOREIGN EDITOR, The Australian
This imediately under the headline:
‘Opposition has key to stopping boat arrivals’
Errr, Sheridan, the Titanic sank. Here’s hoping HMS News may too.
Invoking ‘border protection’ to justify demonizing of the defenceless…yet more fascist politics of the gutter from Abb on Botty and his odious sidekicks. Salivating over Nauru is disgusting in the extreme. They have no shame – oh, but they have no conscience or empathy either.
“The country that George W. Bush and Tony Blair have left behind is free of Saddam Hussein, but it is needy and volatile and may tip back into sectarian war. In addition to 4,500 US soldiers, well over 100,000 civilians have lost their lives. Millions have fled into exile or have had to leave their homes in Iraq, ancient Christian communities have been obliterated, and only a shared pursuit of oil revenues keeps the country’s most important groups (the Shia Arabs, the Sunni Arabs, and the Kurds) precariously united…
…Recent pro-democratic upheavals in the Middle East have had little connection with the policies of the Bush administration. The first of these happened not in Tunisia in December 2010, but more than a year earlier, on the streets of Tehran…”
Christopher de Bellaigue was born in London in 1971 and has worked as a journalist in the Middle East and South Asia since 1994. His first book, In the Rose Garden of the Martyrs: A Memoir of Iran, was shortlisted for the Royal Society of Literature’s Ondaatje Prize. He lives in Tehran with his wife and two children. His article in full at NY Review of Books (click text in green or our blogroll for link).
‘…By framing the matter as a debate about people smuggling, Australian politicians are skirting the crux of the issue: the needs of the vulnerable people seeking protection from persecution. These people are asking for the nation’s help. Australia needs to wake up to their grisly plight, and start facilitating adequate alternative pathways for their escape.’
more @ NewStatesman – see our ‘blogroll’ for link
“I’d rather sit in a bath full of pirhanas with white noise on my ipod and stick cocktail sticks into my toes” said one disgruntled punter. Other spectators offered their feedback – “isn’t dinghy sailing the preserve of dentists and xxxxs?”, “INXS are shite”, “we hated the Americas Cup almost as much”….ad nauseum…
Perth ISAF saw things differently, as the following extract from their website demonstrates:
16. Besides spectators at Fremantle, how many people worldwide are expected to watch the Regatta? More than half a billion households or 564 million viewers worldwide are expected to watch the Regatta on television and through the Internet
(Source: FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS, THE DREAM BEGINS IN PERTH, PERTH 2011 ISAF SAILING WORLD CHAMPIONSHIPS)
World Sailing has been about as exciting as watching paint dry, with numbers to match.
Squire Longley of Perth was quoted in a recent Herald piece on the dour turn out for the Perth ISAF launch: “people don’t just rock up to these things”. (The Fremantle Herald, 10/12/11). Yo, yo, yo, John, ma maan… the term “rock up” used by the Squire is about as cringe making as Prince Charles disco dancing to Sir Cliff and the Shadows.
“The dream begins in Perth”‘ (Perth ISAF tagline) Errr, make that a wet one.
Isn’t it the moment of most profound doubt that gives birth to new certainties? Perhaps hopelessness is the very soil that nourishes human hope; perhaps one could never find sense in life without first experiencing its absurdity.
Vaclav Havel
The Weakened Caucasian continues with its campaign to demonstrate to readers and the broader community that it doesn’t actually represent the public interest.
“Business to politicians: time to lead as boom ‘won’t last forever.”
BY: JOHN DURIE, The Australian, December 17, 2011 12:00AM
Well John, Farto, Woopert et al, call this news? At least we have a federal government that actually demonstrates a degree of humanity – errr, and a bit of leadership too. Whoops, but the News agenda is to represent the interests of ‘Business Politicians’ aka Fear Trade ambassadors. Lovers of numbers.
When politicians and business are symbiotic, Newsworld is very happy – they loved John ‘the flag’ and his steely determination, his ‘big picture’ (sic) world of more numbers, toil, division and fear.
the interpretOr 