…Palestine, a battle won; Europe eyes Germany; US elections, a changing game; China special report: new leaders, same ideas: choppy China Seas; India, behind the medical safari boom; Africa, redefining borders; Azeris and Armenians, horns locked; Geneva’s discreet charms… and more…
“LMD provides a cool, reasoned, different view of the world’s most pressing issues” New York Review of Books
Recent conflicts in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq have seen almost 1,200 drone strikes over the past five years, according to new data released to the Bureau.
The information, much of it classified until now, shows that US Air Force drones carried out most of the 1,168 attacks. However British crews are also responsible for a significant portion of the strikes in Afghanistan. The Bureau has obtained data from the US armed forces, Nato and the UK’s Ministry of Defence. It reveals, for example, that more than a quarter of all armed Coalition air sorties in Afghanistan are now carried out by drones. While only a fraction of those missions result in strikes, drone strikes in Afghanistan are now taking place on average five times each week
Afghanistan – the US’s most intense conflict The US’s secret drone campaign in Pakistan and elsewhere is now in its eleventh year and is attracting increasing scrutiny, including academic studies, court cases and, soon, a UN investigation. Ironically, less is known about the use of drones in conventional theatres of war.The US military and its allies have carried out almost 1,200 drone strikes since 2008 in Afghanistan, Libya and Iraq.
Click here to visit the Bureau’s Covert Drone War project When the Bureau first approached the US military in August seeking drone data for recent conflicts, we were told the information was classified. Central Command (Centcom) later relented after the Bureau argued there was a strong public interest in releasing the information. Centcom now says it is committed to publishing statistics on the number of missiles fired by drones in Afghanistan, as part of its monthly reports.
When I look in the mirror I don’t see me…I see Sir Cliff Richard. But when I look at pictures of Sir Cliff, I still see myself instead of him…it’s a bit bonkers and spooky-tastic…looking like someone famous…lucrative, too.
Ahuuhh, ahh…two and a quarter years ago…everyone started saying that I looked like Sir Cliff , then one of my friends sent me photo to a lookalikes online agency (flossmirror.com) and my whole life changed. I was an HR manager at News Corp, and then suddenly I…I was doing a shoot for Top Gear magazine, trying on outfits and helmets that Sir Cliff would wear to his plantation…in the sun with Tony Blair – when the latter was in office, of course….anywayz, because I study him a lot, I look at pictures and try to copy his style and gestures.
He looks quite natural, so I don’t wear much make-up…except for a lot of black eye lasher, and I keep up me tannin, regularrr… I’d like my legs to be thinner like Cliff’s, and I’d like to be taller. I’m 5ft 4.6in – Sir Cliff’’s 5ft 7.3 ish-in. …There’s pressure to go to the gym more, but I’ll never be as mega and pumptastically-poptastic as Sir Cliff . And I’m from Essex, so sometimes I feel I should speak a bit posher when I make appearances. I don’t know about you, but every time some joker points me out as I walk through an airport wearing extra small Dolfin shorts, a tank top and leg warmers, I get a little upset….
At first I was just doing Sir Cliff at weekends, but now I’ve quit my job to do this full-time. It might last only until the 80th, but for now I’m having fun.
There Is No God Higher Than Truth
“Palestine belongs to the Arabs in the same sense that England belongs to the English or France to the French…What is going on in Palestine today cannot be justified by any moral code of conduct…If they [the Jews] must look to the Palestine of geography as their national home, it is wrong to enter it under the shadow of the British gun. A religious act cannot be performed with the aid of the bayonet or the bomb. They can settle in Palestine only by the goodwill of the Arabs… As it is, they are co-sharers with the British in despoiling a people who have done no wrong to them. I am not defending the Arab excesses. I wish they had chosen the way of non-violence in resisting what they rightly regard as an unacceptable encroachment upon their country. But according to the accepted canons of right and wrong, nothing can be said against the Arab resistance in the face of overwhelming odds.”
Mahatma Gandhi, quoted in “Land of Two Peoples” ed. Mendes-Flohr. Pic from danielleford.com
After losing the vote on Palestinian observer status, Susan E. Rice, the American ambassador to the United Nations, was dismissive of the entire exercise. “Today’s grand pronouncements will soon fade,” she said. “And the Palestinian people will wake up tomorrow and find that little about their lives has changed, save that the prospects of a durable peace have only receded.” (New York Times)
In his response, the Israeli UN Ambassador, Prosor said, “The truth is that 65 years ago today, the United Nations voted to partition the British Mandate into two states: a Jewish state, and an Arab state. Two states for two peoples. Israel accepted this plan. The Palestinians and Arab nations around us rejected it and launched a war of annihilation to throw the “Jews into the sea”.
This of course is not true the Palestinians were not consulted and it was the Jewish militias that began the carnage.
Israel has also announced further illegal settlements in Palestinian areas and other punitive measures in an effort to maintain their long-term program of humiliation and demoralisation of the Palestinian people.
These angry and ridiculous comments from the the UN Ambassadors for Israel and the United States of America and the follow up threats against the Palestinians for gaining UN observer status clearly shows that the game is up for Israel’s long-standing repression and state sanctioned land theft. In fact Susan E Rice will wake up tomorrow and find that the world has changed and the USA is being left in its wake.
It has become very obvious to the world that the actual position of successive Israeli Governments as opposed to its stated position is to make life so unliveable in Gaza that the Palestinians are forced to leave. It is ethnic cleansing by stealth. They have had no intention of ever handing back Palestinian land.
Israel has a long record of disingenuous negotiation on the two state solution. They have combined placatory words with a continuation of dispossession, assassination and humiliation. There can never be a fair solution to the plight of Palestinians under the current unbalanced situation where Israel holds all the cards and has the power of the USA standing behind it.
The Israeli Government has been able to mute criticism of its brutal repression of Palestinians by using a massive well funded international lobby to build on international world sympathy and guilt stemming from the terrible criminal treatment of Jewish people by the Nazis. Israeli Government spokespersons brand critics of Israel as anti-Semitic. Today for many people who were born long after the terrible days of Adolph Hitler, the criminal behaviour of the Jewish State towards Palestinians has almost dried up that sympathy and support.
The overwhelming nature of the UN poll makes the USA a big loser because the massive yes vote shows that the rest of the Western world is fed up with US support of countries whose actions are so extreme and so obviously unfair that they are an embarrassment. In fact it appears many outside the USA not indoctrinated by the Murdoch Press have had the blindfold removed. The game is up and the repression and the lies must stop.
The UN which was the overseer of the partition process was a guilty player in the disposession of the Palestinians. The UN breached its own conventions when it failed to consult or give the people of Palestine a say in the breakup of their country.
Interview with Lisa Wilkinson, Today Show (transcript via Tony Abbott.com)
Posted on Friday, 5 October 2012
Subjects: Tony and Margie Abbott.
LISA WILKINSON: I’m pleased to say Margie and Tony Abbott join me now. Good morning to both of you.
MARGIE ABBOTT: Good morning, Lisa.
TONY ABBOTT: Look, morning, Lisa.
LISA WILKINSON: Mr Abbott, Downton Abbey? Your rugby mates will be crying in their beer! What is that about?
TONY ABBOTT: Well, look, I guess I’ve just changed over the years, haven’t I? But look, I still enjoy watching footballers, but I did really fall in love with Downton Abbey. It was a great programme about managing domestic servants, tidy uniforms and that old virtue, the old virtue of unconditional obedience to authority.
LISA WILKINSON: He is a softie isn’t he, Margie?
MARGIE ABBOTT: He is, absolutely, Lisa. He is a softie and, dare I say it, I didn’t win the battle. We watched Downton Abbey and Tony is our lord-of-the- manor in waiting, is he not Lisa?
LISA WILKINSON: But you wanted to watch the footballers, Tony?
TONY ABBOTT: Well, I think the important thing, Lisa, was that we were together on the lounge and you know, viewing what we hope will be the Australia of the future, a future characterised by good ol’ fashioned hard work, respect for one’superiors…at the end of the day, to be quite frank…men at work…men…
| WRITTEN BY CHRIS FLOYD | |
| FRIDAY, 30 NOVEMBER 2012 14:39 | |
| On Thursday, Bradley Manning, one of the foremost prisoners of conscience in the world today, testified in open court — the first time his voice has been heard since he was arrested, confined and subjected to psychological torture by the U.S. government.
An event of some newsworthiness, you might think. Manning has admitted leaking documents that detailed American war crimes in the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He has been held incommunicado for more than 900 days by the Obama administration. Reports of his treatment at the hands of his captors have sparked outrage, protests and concern around the world. He was now going to speak openly in a pre-trial hearing on a motion to dismiss his case because of that treatment. Surely such a moment of high courtroom drama would draw heavy media coverage, if only for its sensationalistic aspects. But if you relied on the nation’s pre-eminent journal of news reportage, the New York Times, you could have easily missed notice of the event altogether, much less learned any details of what transpired in the courtroom. The (New YorK) Times sent no reporter to the hearing, but contented itself with a brief bit of wire copy from AP, tucked away on Page 3, to note the occasion...CLICK HERE FOR THIS PIECE IN FULL @ CHRIS FLOYD… Chris Floyd is an American writer based in the UK, and a frequent contributor to CounterPunch. His blog, “Empire Burlesque,” can be found at www.chris-floyd.com. |
By Eliot Spitzer | Posted Friday, Nov. 30, 2012, at 10:52 AM ET @ Slate
“…The shoddy ethics of Murdoch’s British news operation has been exposed. There is now a huge question mark that hangs over his American news empire. Will his American interests be investigated in the same fashion? At this point, it’s beyond the proper thing to do. It is necessary…”
“On 19 March 2013, 10 years will have passed since Australian, British and US forces (and a Polish contingent) invaded Iraq. The reasons we did so, and maintained a military presence there for most of the decade, were unclear then and are not yet satisfactorily explained. The invasion took place without the approval of the UN Security Council and, according to most international lawyers, in defiance of international law.
Coalition forces overthrew the government of Iraq, and then and in the years that followed they killed and wounded many thousands of Iraqis, as well as sustaining great losses themselves. Prisoners under coalition supervision were tortured and killed, cities were devastated and degradation of the countryside was widespread….”
Rt Hon Malcolm Fraser AC CH
August 2012
Why not sign the appeal for an Iraq war inquiry? As of 30 nov. only 30 more signatures to go! All you have to do is click the box in the post below
16:29: November 27, 2012: North Korea’s top leader namedTony Abbott needs a timely reminder of his craven form re demonising the defenceless. As he and his moronic inferno of negative shadows attack the character of Australia’s first woman PM, Julia Gillard, and continue to peddle their mantra of “stop the boats”, fear and bile, let’s cast our minds back to October 2007…
…Abbott’s moral bankruptcy was displayed by his actions as Federal Health minister during the ghastly Howard era:
The Sydney Morning Herald, Age, ABC and other Oz media reported that in October 2007, whilst Federal Health Minister…
Abbott accuses asbestos fighter of political stunt:
THE Federal Government last night picked a fight with a national hero, after the Health Minister, Tony Abbott, attacked the dying leader of the campaign to win justice for the victims of asbestos poisoning.Mr Abbott accused Bernie Banton, who three years ago received an Order of Australia for his efforts to get compensation from James Hardie, of being involved in a political stunt.
Mr Banton and members of the Construction Union protested outside Mr Abbott’s electorate office in Manly yesterday, because the minister has yet to approve a drug, Alimta, which can prolong the lives of mesothelioma sufferers, for the pharmaceutical benefits scheme.
Mr Banton, who is wheelchair-bound and dying of the disease, got off his sick bed to make the journey across Sydney yesterday but Mr Abbott left before the protesters arrived. Last night the minister told Channel Nine: “Look, it was a stunt, let’s be upfront about this. I know Bernie is very sick but just because a person is sick doesn’t mean that he is necessarily pure of heart in all things.”
But last night Mr Banton returned fire at the minister. “What a flea,” he told the Herald. “What a gutless human being. He wasn’t game enough to front up and face the very people his Government is denying treatment to.”
Andrew West, SMH, October 31, 2007
Tuesday 20th November 2012
Transcript – 2GB Alan Jones Show
Friday 26th October 2012
Transcript – 2GB Alan Jones Show
Friday 13th July 2012
Wednesday 30th May 2012
Transcript – 2GB Alan Jones Show
Thursday 10th May 2012
Meanwhile, in the world beyond dodgy victorian-wanker air pollution, the United Nations announced Friday November 23rd 2012:
“The IMF publication shows the absurdity of claims by the Australian Bankers’ Association’s Steven Munchenberg that Australia’s big banks are ‘fiercely competitive’,” said The Australia Institute’s Senior Research Fellow David Richardson.
In fact the IMF said Australian banks enjoy “pricing power” and are “highly profitable”. The IMF’s assessment also said “in fact, Australian banks are currently among the most profitable in the world”. That is clear in the following graph (to see graph download media release) which shows Australia’s big four banks make up half of the eight most profitable banks in the world.
“The IMF study confirms the view that high concentration allows banks to extract very high profits from the Australian community. Super profits represent a major challenge for Australian policy makers,” said Mr Richardson.
An Australia Institute analysis recently showed that people taking out an average mortgage could potentially save $1,200 per annum by choosing a mutually-owned bank, credit union or building society, instead of one of the big four banks.
“So I said to them, Trevor, I said…I’ve got a new watch…”
...Hallow. My name’s David. David Beckham. I’ve got a new watch. It’s mine. I like my new watch. Shiny. It understands that I’m a man of my time. My new watch, that is. I like my new watch. Buttons round it quite a bit, oh yes. I can press them…I can push my own buttons, by themselves and myself too. Look. It’s my new watch.Rubber- molded bidirectional rotating bezels of time that serve to read off a seventh timezone, at the end of the day..."
“After four years of financial crisis, this balance between democracy and the market has been destroyed. On the one hand, governments’ massive intervention to rescue the banks and markets has only exacerbated the fundamental problem of legitimization that haunts governments in a democracy. The usual accusation is that the rich are protected while the poor are bled dry. Rarely has it been as roundly confirmed as during the first phase of the financial crisis, when homeowners deeply in debt lost the roof over their heads, while banks, which had gambled with their mortgages, remained in business thanks to taxpayer money…”
Saying that he and his team still felt “tousled” by his loss to President Obama, Mitt Romney on Wednesday attributed his defeat in part to what he called the blatant yet covert satanic messages that the president had bestowed on loyal Democratic constituencies, including young voters.
In a conference call with fund-raisers, Mormon elders and donors to his campaign, a perturbed Mr. Romney said Wednesday afternoon that the president had followed the “old secular playbook device” of using covert satanic messages to woo specific interest groups — “especially young people.”
“In each case, they gave covert satanic messages to those groups,” Mr. Romney said, contrasting Mr. Obama’s strategy to his own of “talking gospel truths for the whole country: a bigger, louder military, a strong economy, at the end of the day, creating jobs for men and so forth.”
Mr. Romney’s stirring comments in the 20-minute conference call came after his running mate, Representative Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin, told WISC-TV in Madison on Monday that their loss was a result of Mr. Obama’s strength in “disturbed, secular areas,” an analysis that did not account for Mr. Obama’s victories in more rural states like Iowa and New Hampshire or the decrease in the number of votes for the president relative to 2008 in critical urban counties in Ohio.
“With regards to the young people, for instance, a forgiveness of college loan interest was a covert satanic message,” Mr. Romney said. “Free contraceptives were covert satanic messages with young, college-aged women. And then, finally, Obamacare also made a difference for them, because as you know, anybody now 56 years of age and younger was now going to be part of their parents’ plan, and that was a big covert satanic message to young people. They turned out in large numbers, a larger share in this election even than in 2008.”
| Department of Public Information • News and Media Division • New York (UNITED NATIONS) |
PRESS CONFERENCE BY UN SPECIAL RAPPORTEUR ON HUMAN RIGHTS
IN OCCUPIED PALESTINIAN TERRITORY
“The whole issue of Palestinian self determination is at risk here,” saidRichard Falk, Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian occupied territories since 1967. “The longer the process is delayed, the less realistic it is to believe that these settlers and the large settler population can be removed in such a way as to create a Palestinian State.”
Mr. Falk briefed correspondents after presenting his annual report to the General Assembly’s Third Committee (Social, Humanitarian and Cultural), in which he encouraged a boycott of United States industry giants Caterpillar Inc., Hewlett Packard and Motorola, Israeli cosmetic firm Ahava, Cemex of Mexico, Veolia Environment of France, G4S of the United Kingdom and Volvo Group of Sweden, among others, and for civil society to join that effort (See Press Release GA/SCH/4048).
He said the focus on the business community was partly an expression of frustration over the failure to persuade Israel to comply with its fundamental legal obligations and the ineffectiveness of the United Nations efforts to condemn expansion of the settlements, which had grown 5.3 per cent on average annually in the past decade, and now covered more than 40 per cent of the West Bank.
In the last year alone, 15,000new settlers had taken root in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, while Israeli officials had moved to legalize some 100 outposts previously considered unlawful under Israeli law, he said, and added that settler violence against the local Palestinian population in those areas was growing.
“This is an attempt to reach out beyond the intergovernmental and international institutional system,” Mr. Falk said, stressing that illegal settlements were “a core concern of those that seek a peaceful resolution of the conflict” through the two-State solution.
Asked if creation of an independent Palestinian State was still viable, he said that notion was in severe jeopardy and that it was much harder to envision how a sustainable peace could be achieved through the proposed two-State solution.
Such a solution was crucial for ensuring Palestinian rights and reducing regional tensions and violence.”
Human Rights Watch and the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) have just released ‘Growing Up Locked Down’, a 141 page report examining the plight of children in solitary confinement in US prisons. Based on research in both US jails and prisons in five states – Colorado, Florida, Michigan, New York, and Pennsylvania – and correspondence with young people in 14 others, this report is freely and publicly available here @ HRW.org:
“The isolation of solitary confinement causes anguish, provokes serious mental and physical health problems, and works against rehabilitation for teenagers…”
Here in Australia, independent public broadcaster the ABC, has recently reported on child detention in the state of Victoria – an excerpt from Josie Taylor’s 31 Oct 2012 story, ‘Aboriginal teen kept in solitary confinement’ follows:
Victorian lawyers and the Child Safety Commissioner have raised serious concerns about a 16-year-old Aboriginal boy who was held in solitary confinement at one of the state's adult jails.The teen spent nearly four months in solitary confinement at the Charlotte maximum security unit inside Port Phillip Prison while under the protection of the Department of Human Services (DHS). Legal experts now want to know how many other juveniles are inside adult jails...
More recent reports, including a social worker’s estimate, say up to six children are being kept in solitary confinement in a maximum-security adult prison in Victoria, (Oz), …on an island all alone?
"Australia has 40% of the world's uranium, all of it on indigenous land. Prime Minister Julia Gillard has just been to India to sell uranium to a government that refuses to sign the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and whose enemy, Pakistan, is also a non-signatory. The threat of nuclear war between them is constant. Uranium is an essential ingredient of nuclear weapons. Gillard's deal in Delhi formally ends the Australian Labor Party's long-standing policy of denying uranium to countries that reject the NPT's obligation "to pursue negotiations in good faith on effective measures relating to cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament"
Martin Luther King, Jr., Where Do We Go from Here: Chaos or Community?, 1967
Journalist John Pilger describes the augmented Anglo-American government and media campaign against Julian Assange and WikiLeaks as Assange is granted political asylum by Ecuador and remains in that country’s London embassy.
Here @ the interpretOr, we seem to recall that Assange and wikileaks won the 2011 Walkley award (Oz) for “Most outstanding contribution to journalism”…
and here’s background excerpt from JohnPilger.com:
“…Like many of his Australian generation, Pilger and two colleagues left for Europe in the early 1960s. They set up an ill-fated freelance ‘agency’ in Italy…and quickly went broke. Arriving in London, Pilger freelanced, then joined Reuters, moving to the London Daily Mirror, Britain’s biggest selling newspaper, which was then changing to a serious tabloid.He became chief foreign correspondent and reported from all over the world, covering numerous wars, notably Vietnam. Still in his twenties, he became the youngest journalist to receive Britain’s highest award for journalism, Journalist of the Year and was the first to win it twice. Moving to the United States, he reported the upheavals there in the late 1960s and 1970s. He marched with America’s poor from Alabama to Washington, following the assassination of Martin Luther King. He was in the same room when Robert Kennedy, the presidential candidate, was assassinated in June 1968…”
another jfreos pic…
an interpretOr had a bad dream recently and it went a bit like this...
…Aymen…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr…
“Look here, Rhoades. After I speak, you’re going to hear from Secretary Ann Coulter. That’s a good thing. I think it’s important to get the views of moderates – the likes of she and Rupert Murd…moderate views around the new, the new cabinet table vista.”
uhhh…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr.
“My himmediate changes in federal welfare-to-work rules…they will…they will end a culture of deeependency and restore a culture of good hard work…Foxcon is a beacon on the sacred pathway…’ndeedy…His blueprint, no less.”
uhhh…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr.
“Rhoades…Anne, geee, Missus Pruzudunt Anne…she…Anne is my sacred torch-bearer, my torch-bearer…my bearer on the journey…from the roadmap…quite sincerely, fellow Ameri… At the end of the day…what I took from Bain was more than mere money…more than how ta turn a buck…I acquired a vision…a sacred vision that led me here across the hard rugged terrain, of the ravine…that…ruggedly constitutes the road to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue…
uhhh…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr.
“I am here now. We shall move forwards..move forward on a united front…The business model of the prison is more to me than mere abstract notion…a fantasy…it is nothing short of…of a miracle…the fruit of His toil…’nd Foxcon is sweet poetry…in motion…’nda doublin’ Guantanamo pronto…Cheney poised ‘n preenin on Iran..Bibi’s a fan-doodly on side. Phase Four in motion…we’re kickun asss, Rhoades.
uhhh…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr.
“Haaharrr…heads – you lose…tails, I win.”
uhhh…muster pruzudunt…President Romney, surrr. yes surrrr…
... special report Islamist ascent in ‘Arab Spring’: Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, Gulf; Colombia gives peace a chance; Roma who went nowhere; US, another world is possible; Africans' southern odyssey; Poland, where next? Top politicians’ golden sunset... and more...just click dates below or above to access Le Monde in English...
Al Jazeera’s Andrew Thomas reports from Sydney on the plight of 70 North Koreans who have fled their troubled country for Australia, where they’ve found that the country’s restrictions – that no one with dual citizenship may apply for an Australian passport – means they might soon be forced to leave to face an uncertain future in South Korea where the sustainability of their safety is a matter of concern…
“Despite the summer downpour the venue was full, a testament to the popularity of the speakers: best-selling novelist Ian Rankin and psychologist Professor Richard Wiseman, (of ’59 seconds’ fame). Rankin, arguably Scotland’s best crime writer, is author of 33 titles, including the hugely popular Inspector Rebus series. He recently received the OBE for services to literature. Wiseman researches the psychology of luck, self-help, persuasion and illusion, and is the most followed UK psychologist on Twitter. His bestselling books have been translated into over 30 languages and he was named one of the top 100 people who make Britain a better place to live…
…click here for this story in full & free at the BPS’s Psychologist.
1980.……..”President elect, Ronnnaldddd…Reagannnn!”?!!!? (?!!!?..what the…not Carter…..oh, bollocks…not good at all…)
1984…”Presi—dent Ronnnaldddd…Reagannnnnnnn!” (?!!!? again…what the fxxx…he’s a mad, bad B-movie fascist)
1988…”Presidunnnt elect…Georororge Bush!!!” (...the man is an ex CIA oil-nazi…son of “Hitler’s banker”..Prescott Bu…nohhhhhhhh)
2000…Presidunnnt elect…Georororge Doubleyoooooo Bush!!!” (this dangerous moron…Gore…what the friggin’…? We are all doomed…the planet is dead…)
2004…Presidunnnt…Georororge Doubleyoooooo Bush!!!” (duhhhhhhhhh…I…just…give…up…!)
2012…Presidunnnt elect…
Excerpt of letter to the New Yorker (22/10/12) by Julie Naster, Nederland, Colorado.
Here @ the interpretOr, we’d like to add a seasonal touch to our Romney indictment – “disingenuous, oleaginous and highly dangerous Reagan/Bush Mk II figure of fear and loathing, with a bulging Swiss bank account, private jet and bizarre Tupperware fetish” – and add that he is also a venal corporate, blood-sucking vampire…
breaking news @ the Refugee Action Coalition:
The move by the Gillard government to excise the Australian mainland from the migration zone is “an absurd throwback to the draconian policies of the Howard government.” “The blind application of the so-called ‘no advantage’ policy has led the government to implement yet another element of failed Liberal Party policy. Excising the mainland is a nonsense. Thousands of asylum seekers are arriving at excised places. The Minister can excise all the territory he likes, but the question is, ‘What is he going to do with the thousands of asylum seekers arriving at excised places who are languishing in Australian detention centres and on Nauru?’ ”said Ian Rintoul, spokesperson for the Refugee Action Coalition. “The government is desperate to be seen to be doing something, but excising the mainland is worse than nothing. The government’s off-shore processing arrangements are already in tatters…”
click here for more on this story @ the Refugee Action Coalition
Human Rights Watch (see our interpretOr link roll) adds that the Australian and Indonesian governments should urgently take effective measures to protect migrant children at high risk of abuse while in Indonesia en route to Australia.
“Threats, imprisonment, torture and even murder are used to curtail free speech, particularly that of regime critics and activists. This is particularly common in the most authoritarian countries such as China or Iran. The murder of journalists and political activists in authoritarian states remains frequent and the arrest and beating of Chinese artist Ai Weiwei changed the country’s political landscape by showing that no one, however famous or influential, was beyond the state’s reach….” click through here to piece in full @ the Index on Censorship (UK)
“There are certain things in our nation and in the world which I am proud to be maladjusted and which I hope all men of good-will will be maladjusted until the good societies realize — I say very honestly that I never intend to become adjusted to — segregation and discrimination. I never intend to become adjusted to religious bigotry. I never intend to adjust myself to economic conditions that will take necessities from the many to give luxuries to the few. I never intend to adjust myself to the madness of militarism, to self-defeating effects of physical violence. But in a day when sputniks and explorers are dashing through outer space and guided ballistic missiles are carving highways of death through the stratosphere, no nation can win a war. It is no longer the choice between violence and nonviolence. It is either nonviolence or nonexistence…”
Martin Luther King, Jnr.
“Social Justice and the Emerging New Age” address at the Herman W. Read Fieldhouse, Western Michigan University, (18 December 1963)
‘…during his time as head honcho of Bain Capital, there were no women partners in the firm. Today, only 4 of 49 partners are women. The candidate did mention that women need special accommodations “if” they work.
And just as the poorly chosen words rolled out of Romney’s mouth, social media users latched on to the phrase. #Bindersfullofwomen trended on Twitter while an industrious user created an@Romneys_Binder account; it currently boasts more than 14,000 followers. “Binders full of women” was the “third-fastest rising search on Google during the televised debate,” according to the Daily Beast.’
Submitted by Bill Weinberg @ ww4 report on Tue, 10/23/2012 – 00:2
And then the president began what I've called an apology tour of going to — to various nations in the Middle East and — and criticizing America. I think they looked at that and saw weakness. Then when there were dissidents in the streets of Tehran, the Green Revolution, holding signs saying, is America with us, the president was silent. I think they noticed that as well. And I think that when the president said he was going to create daylight between ourselves and Israel that — that they noticed that as well.
Bill Weinberg is an award-winning 25-year veteran journalist in the fields of human rights, indigenous peoples, ecology and war. He is the author of Homage to Chiapas: The New Indigenous Struggles in Mexico (Verso Books, 2000) and War on the Land: Ecology and Politics in Central America (Zed Books, 1991). As a correspondent and contributing editor for Native Americas, Cornell University’s quarterly journal of hemispheric indigenous issues, he won three awards from the Native American Journalists Association for his reportage from Nicaragua to Arizona. His work has appeared in The Nation, The Progressive, The Village Voice, NACLA Report on the Americas, Middle East Policy, Al Jazeera, Yes! Magazine, Indian Country Today, The Ecologist
I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality.
C21 hereditary tyrant
'If artists betray the social conscience and the basic principles of being human, where does art stand then?' Ai Weiwei
chamber of horrOrs...
jellybellypolies of the very recent past
