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tagged w/ Conflict
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Who Does War Help?
http://youtu.be/C2uAmQfyxtI
Reading the headlines today, particularly about Iran's firing a cruise missile and threatening the U.S., I thought about how conflict arises and what happens after that.
Every work day I am expected to behave as an adult. If someone offends me or hurts my feelings, I am not free to react without reflection. It is my responsibility as an adult to consider the other person's motivations, along with the context of our interaction, and then act with maturity to ensure that we might continue to work together without conflict.
If conflict seems to be inevitable, it is my responsibility to talk with the other person to find the source of our differences and then make sincere efforts to reconcile those differences. If conflict continues, I must report the situation to my supervisor, who is charged with settling such matters so that our organization might go forward without disruption.
On the world's political stage, however, a different standard seems to apply. When one nation is offended or feels its interests have been violated by another, that nation often threatens war. This is why the United Nations was organized in the 1940s- to serve as a supervisor in matters where nations may be in conflict. Many people felt that the U.N. was a way to bring adult behavior into the geopolitical arena, and for a while there was hope that war could be abolished.
Since the 1940s, millions have died in conflicts that the U.N. was unable or unwilling to resolve, and many believe that the U.N. is a toothless organization which is a waste of time and money.
It is clear, then, that if we wish to stop war, we must individually resolve to turn away from the ideas and behaviors that lead to war: greed, fear, fanaticism, intolerance, and nationalism. If we do not resolve to so so, we will end our lives in a world where threats, fear, and destruction rule. Our world will slowly but inevitably be consumed in the fires we have ignited, and the opportunity for a life which includes learning, propsperity, and love will vanish. Inside the fireball of war, our souls and bodies will transform into heat and light which consumes our world and then vanishes into the silence which stretches into infinity around our planet. How will that serve anyone's interests?
Photo Attribution (All photos obtained via Creative Commons with attribution license):
Cruise Missile:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/mattie_shoes/4471192090/
U.N. Headquarters:
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-3782297615
Gun Training:
http://www.fotopedia.com/items/flickr-5497066531
Nuclear Fireball:
http://www.arteyfotografia.com.ar/2287/fotos/20810/
Earth:
http://www.soil-net.com/album/Places_Objects/slides/Globe%20Planet%20Earth%20NASA.htmlhttp://youtu.be/C2uAmQfyxtI Reading the headlines today, particularly about... more-
- Progresshiv
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Third Day of Violence Rocks Cairo | Demotix.com
Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with security forces in a third day of street battles in the capital as protesters demanded that the country's military rulers hand power immediately to a civilian administration. Egypt. 18th December 2011Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with security forces in a third day of... more-
- jeffreybright
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Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo | Demotix.com
Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo
Clashes continue between military and protesters for a second day at the Occupy Cabinet demonstration. Cairo, Egypt, 17th December 2011Occupy Cabinet clashes continue in Cairo Clashes continue between military and... more-
- jeffreybright
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A Word Or Two From Erich Fromm About Conflict Resolution - 1971
Words for insane times.-
- Gordonskene
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- 2 months ago
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Climate-driven migration challenge underestimated
The challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as millions of people will either move into or be trapped in areas of risk by 2060, rather than migrating away, a British government report showed on Thursday.
The report, by the government-backed Foresight Program, examined the likely movement of people both within and between countries to 2060. It found the greatest risks will be borne by people who are unable or unwilling to relocate.
Those risks may also be made worse by policies which seek to prevent migration.
"We have assumed mass migration away from affected areas, but millions of people will also migrate into vulnerable areas and there will also be those who cannot migrate out," John Beddington, chief scientific adviser to the British government, told reporters.
"They pose different challenges to the international community," he added.
The United Nations estimates there were 210 million international migrants in 2010. A further 740 million were internal migrants in 2009.
An average 25 million people a year have been displaced due to weather-related events since 2008, which will likely rise as such events become more extreme and frequent, Beddington said.
The report estimates there will be between 154 and 179 million people living in rural coastal floodplains by 2060 who will be unable to move away due to poverty.
These trapped communities will need to be made more resilient to environmental events.
Up to 192 million people will also move into urban coastal floodplains in Africa and Asia by 2060 in search of work and a better economic situation.
This kind of migration could be beneficial by opening up new sources of income which help people become stronger and more resilient, enabling households to stay in a place for longer, the report said.
Migration should be considered when funds are being allocated at U.N. climate talks in November in Durban, South Africa, the report said.
The cost of doing nothing will be higher than the cost of measures to tackle migration, especially if they reduce the likelihood of displacement, it added.
"I would hope to see initiatives on migration, forestry and agriculture to follow the Durban meeting," said Beddington, adding that he does not expect a universally binding emissions reduction agreement to emerge this year.
More at the linkThe challenges of human migration due to climate change have been underestimated as... more-
- JanforGore
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- 4 months ago
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‘We do not challenge legitimacy of Israel’ - Abbas
President Mahmoud Abbas has exclusively told RT that he cannot understand why the Palestinian bid for full UN membership and peace negotiations with Israel should not happen in parallel.
The Palestinian president is well aware of American and Israeli accusations of acting unilaterally in making a bid for Palestinian statehood at the UN, but, he says, Palestinians have been waiting in vain since 1947, when UN Resolution 181 on separate states of Israel and Palestine was adopted. Yet while the state of Israel was created, the Palestinian one has existed on paper only.
Abbas insisted that it was not the existence or legitimacy of Israel that was being questioned, but the legitimacy of the occupation of Palestinian territories and ongoing Israeli settlement activities that are the stumbling blocks.
http://rt.com/news/abbas-palestinian-statehood-israel-901/President Mahmoud Abbas has exclusively told RT that he cannot understand why the... more-
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Climate change: "last straw" pushes millions from their homes
With political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions failing to materialise, a multi-pronged approach is needed to protect the millions of people who are being displaced as a result of environmental factors driven largely by climate change, experts say.
"Climate change is looming as a potentially very serious and underappreciated complicating factor when it comes to international displacement," said Erika Feller, the assistant high commissioner for protection in the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees.
More is needed from the international community to address this challenge "in a coordinated and pragmatic manner", she told IPS.
Of paramount importance is that national authorities play a central role in developing appropriate responses to both the internal and external dimensions of climate-related displacement, while affected persons and communities must be made fully aware of their rights and given opportunities to participate in decision-making, Feller said.
"Decisions about where, when and how to relocate communities, for example, must be made in consultation with the affected populations and be sensitive to cultural and ethnic identities and boundaries to avoid possible tensions and conflicts," she added.
Last to Pollute, First to Suffer the Consequences
That the poor are always hardest-hit by natural disasters is a fact recently underlined by the Least Developed Countries (LDCs) Report 2010, which says that these nations "will be disproportionally affected by changing climatic conditions".
This despite the fact that LDCs account for less than one percent of the world's total greenhouse gas emissions, responsible for heating up the atmosphere and altering rainfall and weather patterns.
The frequency and intensity of extreme weather events in these regions are five times higher now (519 events in 2000-2010) than during the 1970s (116). In the last decade, about 40 percent of all casualties related to natural disasters were found in the poorest countries of the world, the report says.
Climate change affects LDCs in different ways. While Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia are facing droughts and floods, some Asian LDCs, together with Small Island Developing States (SIDS) in the Pacific, are at risk particularly from rising sea levels and storms.
The 2009 "Human Impact Report - Climate Change" by the Geneva-based Global Humanitarian Forum estimated that 2.8 billion people are living in areas prone to one or more of the physical manifestations of climate change.
"The global nature of climate change calls for the widest possible cooperation by all countries and their participation in an effective and appropriate international response, in accordance with their common but different responsibilities and respective capabilities and their social and economic conditions," declared the Istanbul Programme of Action agreed to at the Fourth United Nations Conference on the Least Developed Countries (LDC-IV) in Turkey in May and which was adopted by the U.N. General Assembly.
The list of necessary actions outlined in the programme, especially by so-called development partners, hinge on an urgent demand for promised financial and technical support – which critics say the world's richest countries, and those most culpable for climate change, have been dragging their feet on.
Staying close to home
The overwhelming majority of people who are displaced by environmental factors become internally displaced persons (IDPs) within their own countries. Just a fraction will likely cross international borders, said Michele Klein-Solomon, director of the Migration Policy, Research and Communications Department at the International Organisation for Migration (IOM).
"[The latter group tends to move] from countries in the South, in the developing world, to other countries in the 'less emitting world', and it is also not likely to be the most vulnerable who move," she explained.
More frequent and severe floods, storms, landslides or land degradation, droughts and water shortages – so called slow-onset natural and human-made disasters – can all be triggers for migration.
Those most in need of protection tend to lack sufficient resources to adapt to the new living conditions, and that can include an inability to move away or migrate to other countries.
Speaking at a conference at Columbia Law School in May on migration and climate change, Klein-Solomon stressed that it was important to grasp these facts to counter "the overwhelming fears of the developed world being awash with people who are coming into their countries, taking jobs and burdening social security mechanisms".
Even under worst case scenarios, in which some 250 million people could be displaced due to climate change over the next 25 to 30 years, it still would be "a tiny portion of the world's population", she said.
"We are really not talking about enormous numbers relative to global populations and we are not talking about hordes of people flooding into the Western, industrialised, developed countries. We do not need further repressive legislation and xenophobic debates as a result of this discussion," she added.
Few legal protections
Rapid-onset disasters attract far more attention from the media, policymakers and researchers than gradual environmental changes – such as the human consequences of rising sea levels, soil salination, deforestation and desertification.
Precise estimates on climate-induced migration are hard to come by. However, recent events such as last year's nationwide flooding in Pakistan, severe mudslides following heavy rainfall in Brazil and Colombia this spring, and the ongoing humanitarian disaster in drought-hit Somalia show that millions of people are already being driven from their homes and property due to extreme weather patterns.
International protection strategies are often marked by a humanitarian focus on "the immediate need of the person without necessarily looking at the causes of the phenomenon nor to a response in a longer term," said Paola Pace, acting head of the International Migration Law Unit at IOM's International Cooperation and Partnerships Department.
When emergencies occur, immediate funding is provided which lasts about three to six months, but for the subsequent "recuperation phase" it is very difficult to find donor support. This wastes the knowledge acquired in the initial months and squanders an opportunity to "really tackle the causes that brought about that emergency", Pace stressed in an interview with IPS.
The lack of a long-term strategy is a major problem for those seeking to protect and support affected populations. A better approach would go beyond basic needs – food, water, shelter – to address trauma and stress-induced illnesses, and provide opportunities for sustainable development in a new environment, she said.
The climate-displaced also face an uncertain legal situation. Neither international humanitarian law nor international refugee law has a legal definition for this group, making it difficult to hold governments responsible for their wellbeing.
Often, there are multiple, complex, interconnected factors at work, from extreme weather events to land degradation or sea-level rise, and identifying the exact culprit is impossible.
"[I]t is a bit like the straw that broke the camel's back," said Jane McAdam, an expert on refugees and international migration law at the University of New South Wales.
"Climate change is never the only reason why people move, there are always other factors like underlying socioeconomic conditions, for example," she told IPS.
Finding appropriate legal and policy responses requires a combination of strategies, "rather than an either/or approach", she said.
More at the linkWith political will to dramatically cut the world's greenhouse gas emissions... more-
- JanforGore
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- 6 months ago
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Can water end the Arab-Israeli conflict?
Around three weeks ago on a late Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers armed with a truck and a digger entered the Palestinian village of Amniyr and destroyed nine water tanks. One week later, Israeli forces demolished water wells and water pumps in the villages of Al-Nasaryah, Al-Akrabanyah and Beit Hassan in the Jordan Valley. In Bethlehem, a severe water shortage have led to riots in refugee camps and forced hoteliers to pay over the odds for water just to stop tourists from leaving.
Palestinians insist that the Israeli occupation means that they are consistently denied their water rights which is why they have to live on 50 litres of water a day while Israeli settlers enjoy the luxury of 280 litres. Clearly, water is at the heart of the Israel-Palestine conflict, but commentators are now insisting that shared water problems could help motivate joint action and better co-operation between both sides, which could in turn help end the conflict.
"It's a shame that water is being used as a form of collective punishment when it could be used to build trust and to help each side recognise that the other is a human being with water rights," says Nader Al-Khateeb, the Palestinian director of the environmental NGO Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME).
"We should be using water as a tool for peace and to bridge the gap of confidence in the region - not to create a water crisis," he adds. As part of his work with FoEME - which also operates in Israel and Jordan - Al-Khateeb says he has already witnessed the success of co-operative water projects. Over the past ten years, the FoEME "Good Water Neighbors" initiative has brought together 29 cross-border communities to encourage them to work together to resolve shared water problems.
According to Gidon Bromberg, the Israeli director of FoEME, the project has managed to leverage around $120 million in investments to help build sewerage plants and replace old and leaky water pipes. Most of this aid, which has come through agencies such as USAID, World Bank, the EU and other foreign governments, has gone to the occupied Palestinian territories. "There are mutual benefits to be had through co-operative work which identifies common interests and we've seen physical improvements on the ground. Nothing speaks louder than the investment of $120m," said Bromberg.
Co-operative work on water issues has also been able to tackle wider political aspects of the Israeli occupation. Bromberg recalls the case of the Palestinian village of Wadi Fuqin and Israeli community of Tzur Hassadeh who worked together to tackle water issues in 2010 but also came together to stop the separation wall from being built between their communities. "Till this day that wall hasn't been built which shows that working together on water can build real trust between individuals and presents a model where everyone benefits."
International backing
It's not just locally based environmental groups that think that water may be the solution to the Middle East's problems. This year a report titled "Blue Peace: Rethinking Middle East Water" was released by the Strategic Foresight Group and concluded that water could be a useful "instrument of peace and co-operation" in the region. Funded by Swiss and Swedish governments, the report promoted the concept of a "Blue Peace" which states that, if countries work together to protect water and the environment, this could secure peace in their own countries as well as the region.
Ambika Vishwanath, the principal researcher of the report says that we must move on from the focus on land in the Israel-Palestine conflict. "History shows that using land as a means to achieve peace and co-operation has not worked and therefore it's only prudent that we try to achieve the same through water. New avenues are worth attempting ... if not the problem is only likely to worsen."
More at the linkAround three weeks ago on a late Tuesday morning, Israeli soldiers armed with a truck... more-
- JanforGore
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- 6 months ago
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Gaddafi`s troops fight among themselves, showing the tension they are under
Gaddafi`s troops fight among themselves, showing the tension they are under-
- FreePressTV
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- 8 months ago
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Island nations looking to maintain sovereignty if lands become uninhabitable due to sea level rise
Global sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small island states in the Pacific and Indian oceans. But this week, a collection of international lawyers and politicians have begun work to ensure that doesn't happen.
They can't prevent what many scientists see as the physical inevitability: a rise in ocean levels of 1 to 2 meters (3 to 6 feet) by 2100, even if all greenhouse gas emitting into the atmosphere were to cease tomorrow. Rather, they are exploring ways to use existing formal and informal rules that would allow many nations to continue as legal entities entitled to ocean fishing and mineral exploration rights, even if their entire populations were forced to relocate elsewhere.
The tiny nations of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati and more are among those at most risk in the Pacific. These atoll nations are among the lowest-lying in the world, and should their archipelagos not completely submerge, it's likely that rising sea levels and extreme saltwater flooding will permanently damage freshwater supplies and destroy agriculture, making them uninhabitable. The Maldives and Seychelles in the Indian Ocean face the same risks.
But at a three-day discussion on their legal options at Columbia University, wrapping up today, scholars are pointing out ways that these states can still maintain an identity and international legal authority, even as they lose all their habitable territory.
"It's important to maintain a government that can defend its interests in the international arena," advised international law expert Jenny Grote Stoutenburg of the University of California, Berkeley.
Creating a new field of law
Conceived last year by the government of the Marshall Islands, this week's three-day seminar on "Legal Implications of Rising Seas and a Changing Climate" is the first to gather experts together to develop a formal body of knowledge that can guide the most vulnerable nations, should their worst fears become reality.
Hosted by Columbia Law School, the event drew hundreds of international law experts, maritime lawyers, government officials and diplomats from distant island states and representatives from the United States, Australia, South Korea and more. The United Nations has yet to take up the sensitive topic, but the large number of U.N. officials participating in the talks suggested that the world body eventually will.
"There's been a certain amount of academic discourse on some of these issues, and certainly at the U.N. climate negotiations there is some talk of them, but the General Assembly hasn't taken any action on these questions," noted Michael Gerrard, head of the Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School.
The questions are serious ones, and at the same time intellectually interesting.
What happens to the people forced to relocate, and what is their citizenship status? Do their governments survive, and if so, do they retain their full seats at the United Nations, even though they have no habitable land to control? And do they still control the fisheries and mineral rights to the surrounding seas they now enjoy, or do those become international waters?
Nations have disappeared before. After the fall of the Berlin Wall, the governments of both Czechoslovakia and the German Democratic Republic were dissolved, and both states instantly lost their U.N. memberships. Those were special cases, but they were highlighted here as examples of how a country could simply cease to exist should it fail to keep up any of the trappings of a state, let alone lose all or most of its landmass.
Some in attendance argued that they shouldn't be discussing these issues at all, and instead should focus attention on obtaining new binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction commitments from the world's largest emitters.
But between the hand-wringing, vulnerable nations did get some valuable advice that could help them remain U.N. member states, with legal defined ocean territories and allotted resource exploitation rights, all while they maintain sovereign government status.
http://www.nytimes.com/cwire/2011/05/25/25climatewire-island-nations-may-keep-some-sovereignty-if-63590.htmlGlobal sea level rise has put a handful of nations at risk of extinction -- small... more-
- JanforGore
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- 9 months ago
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Climate change bringing infection, hunger and illness
Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the spread of infectious diseases and respiratory ailments across the globe and contributed to thousands of deaths through heat waves and other extreme weather events. It's even fueled recent revolts in the Middle East and North Africa.
That's according to Dan Ferber and Dr. Paul Epstein, the authors of a new book, Changing Planet, Changing Health: How the Climate Crisis Threatens Our Health and What We Can Do about It (University of California Press, April 2011).
The health of all humans is directly tied to how we, as communities, nations, and a global population, respond to the growing climate threat, says Ferber, a science journalist and Epstein, Associate Director of the Center for Health and the Global Environment at Harvard Medical School.
Ferber and Epstein spoke with Reuters Health Thursday about how malaria, Lyme disease, and cholera, as well as food shortages and malnutrition, are all becoming increased risks with steadily rising temperatures. (See the live blog from the discussion here: bit.ly/lJnshE)
While getting out of the corner humanity has backed itself into will take a worldwide effort, they say that effort may be led by a surprising player: industry.
"Changing finance is a critical part of ... rewriting the rules" on climate management, Epstein said.
For the financial industry, there's a lot at stake, Epstein continued.
"With the uptake in extreme events -- particularly as it's affecting food security globally and food prices -- we're going to see a renewed interest on the part of the investors and insurers in the stability of society," he said. Already, "the financial industry has at times in the last several decades been acutely aware of the dangers and risks of climate change."
MANY THREATS, ONE CAUSE
Climate change is hitting human health -- and political and social stability -- from all sides, Epstein and Ferber said. On a daily basis many of those impacts are hidden from view -- until you take a step back.
Even slight increases in temperature -- a couple of degrees -- can broaden the habitat of pests that cause infectious diseases, from malaria in Kenya to Lyme disease in Maine, they said.
And the claim that regions saturated with infectious disease will just shift, rather than expand, isn't helpful because it misses other key points, Epstein said.
For example, in parts of Honduras it's gotten too hot for malaria-carrying mosquitoes to thrive. "But it's been so dry and hot that the people have moved as well, and they've moved into the northern area, into the forest, where there's plenty of malaria," he explained.
Pests also target wildlife, wiping out forests and increasing the risk of fires, such as in the Rockies and Cascades, where it used to be too cool for those pests to venture to high altitudes.
Another result of a changing climate: heat and carbon dioxide magnify the effects of asthma and allergies, particularly in cities where more and more children are developing respiratory problems.
And a combination of heat waves -- such as the one that killed thousands of Russians last summer -- and droughts not only causes immediate local health crises but also threatens global public health by destroying crops and driving up food prices, the authors said.
Food availability may be the most pressing issue of all.
"Our food, our air, our water, these are the issues that really underlie our public health," Epstein said. "These are the life support systems. These are the ones that ultimately are most critical and most sensitive to climate instability."
An unstable climate, Epstein explained, is directly linked to social and political unrest. "I think we're looking at increasing damages and social disruption from the climate instability and extremes," he said. "The earth itself can go to a new equilibrium, but we need to back off. We're pushing it hard
cont.Climate change threatens far more than our environment. It's already led to the... more-
- JanforGore
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Israel's Critical Security Needs for a Viable Peace
With all the unpredictable events occurring now in the Middle East, some would say that there is a ripeness for peace between Israel and the Palestinians that should be taken advantage of. Still, Israel must meet its critical security needs in order for any peace agreement to be viable. Read more at www.jcpa.org.With all the unpredictable events occurring now in the Middle East, some would say... more-
- judyinjerusalem
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- 9 months ago
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Jos violence: 'Everyone lives in fear of his neighbour'
Reverend Noah Maikano shows me what remains of the house he spent most of his adult life building in the central Nigerian Plateau state. It has been burnt for a third time.
Plateau, at the crossroads between Nigeria's predominantly Muslim north and the largely Christian south, was once celebrated as "The Home of Peace and Tourism".
Now it is home to neither. The state capital, Jos, is stuck in a cycle of sectarian violence stretching back more than a decade.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-12985289Reverend Noah Maikano shows me what remains of the house he spent most of his adult... more-
- littlwarrior
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- 10 months ago
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Sudan accuses Israel of attack near port city
(Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on Tuesday near Port Sudan that killed two people and said Khartoum reserved the right to react to the aggression.
"This is absolutely an Israeli attack," he told reporters.
He said Israel undertook the attack in order (to) scupper Sudan's chances of being removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.
One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government, he said.
Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.
Sudanese officials have offered different versions on how the strike was carried out. Police say a missile struck the car near the port city, but a state government official blamed a bombing by a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.
Sudanese officials in 2009 said unknown aircraft had killed scores in a strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers on a remote road in the east, which some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.
Sudan is on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, but Washington this year initiated the process to remove it from that list after a peaceful January referendum in which the country's south voted to secede.
(Reporting by Deepa Babington and Khaled Abdelaziz; Editing by Matthew Jones)
http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/world/9149250/sudan-accuses-israel-of-attack-near-port-city/(Reuters) - Sudan's Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of... more-
- Schnookums
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- 10 months ago
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Obama on Libya: George W. Bush 2.0
by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis, March 31, 2011
His lines may be better delivered, but Barack Obama is sounding – and acting – more like the heir to George W. Bush than the answer sold to the public in his award-winning ad campaign. Indeed, when not sending billions of dollars to repressive governments across the globe, the great liberal hope is authorizing deadly drone strikes and military campaigns in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and now, in his most morally righteous war yet, Libya.
Strutting out to a podium before an audience of uniformed military personnel – wonder where he got that idea from – a confident, some would say cocky, American president offered a fierce albeit belated speech justifying another preemptive war against a country that posed no threat to the United States. And if you closed your eyes, you could almost hear that faux-Texas drawl.
"As Commander-in-Chief, I have no greater responsibility than keeping this country safe," the president declared, adopting his predecessor’s favorite title for himself. "I’ve made it clear that I will never hesitate to use our military swiftly, decisively, and unilaterally when necessary to defend our people, our homeland, our allies and our core interests."
Put another way, President Obama says he will only start a war – without consulting Congress, much less the public – when it is absolutely necessary for defending the "homeland" or for, you know, whatever he deems an "interest."
Enter Muammar Gadhafi, a caricature of a tyrant whom the Obama administration just a matter of months ago was looking to sell $77 million in weapons, including more than 50 armored troop carriers. Back then, Gadhafi was a thuggish but reliable client in his old age. And he happened to rule over a country that has the largest oil reserves in Africa.
Funny how friendship works.
But a few short weeks ago, Gadhafi became unreliable – a public relations nightmare – when he started using the weapons he purchased from his erstwhile allies against his own people. Like Saddam Hussein before him, he became a liability.
So now Obama believes Gadhafi to be a "tyrant" who has lost his "legitimacy" – as if there was anything "legitimate" about his previous 42 years of dictatorial rule. On Monday, the president argued war was necessary to prevent Gadhafi from massacring rebel forces and their supporters in Benghazi. Such a massacre "would have reverberated across the region and stained the conscience of the world," said the war president. "I refused to let that happen."
I – me – the imperial president. Cue the commander-in-chief landing on an aircraft carrier.
But if the threat of a massacre is what spurs President Obama to action, what are we to make of his reaction to Israel’s massacre of more than 1,400 Palestinians during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, or what Amnesty International calls "22 days of death and destruction"? Giving Israel an additional $30 billion in American weapons is a rather curious response, no?
And what about the hundreds of civilians killed by drone attacks in Pakistan since Obama took office – as many as 1,850 according to the New America Foundation? In early March, the very administration cloaking its new war in moralizing rhetoric carried out a massacre of 40 Pakistani civilians – a massacre the president who authorized the attack couldn’t even be bothered to comment on.
Right now, the Obama administration is actively supporting brutal regimes in Yemen, Iraq, and Bahrain – to name a few – where protest movements are being violently suppressed on the American taxpayers’ dime. And the Obama administration is selling $60 billion in weapons to the Saudis, who not only oppress their own dissidents but recently occupied neighboring Bahrain and violently cracked down on peaceful protesters there with the U.S.’s stamp of approval.
So if one thing’s clear, it’s that the U.S. government is fine with tyranny – when it’s "pro-American." Fancy rhetoric aside, there is no "freedom agenda."
Speaking to reporters this week, Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor Denis McDonough conceded as much, saying that the White House doesn’t "make decisions about questions like intervention based on consistency or precedent." Rather, "We make them based on how we can best advance our interests in the region."
And as history professor and war supporter Juan Cole helpfully notes, the rebels control significant swaths of oil-rich territory and have taken "key oil towns" thanks to the U.S.-led bombing campaign – of 200 cruise missiles fired so far, 193 have been fired from American warships. They are also on the verge of taking 80 percent of the Buraiqa Basin, writes Cole, which "contains much of Libya’s oil wealth."
Bingo: We just found "our interests." And unsurprisingly, they don’t involve protecting innocent people from being killed so much as they do protecting the natural resource on top of which they’re dying – and then having the freshly liberated locals pick up the tab for American contractors to rebuild everything American missiles destroyed.
Major General Smedley Butler had it right: war is a racket.
But even assuming Obama has the best of intentions – with which the road to hell is paved, mind you – U.S. intervention in Libya is more likely to do harm than good. Besides the inevitable "collateral damage," meaning widowed mothers and orphaned children, war sets off an unpredictable chain reaction of evil – evil that no side has a monopoly over.
Indeed, The Los Angeles Times reports that while the intervention is sold as in defense of human rights, the Libyan rebels on whose behalf the U.S. is intervening are actively rounding up hundreds of their perceived political opponents and imprisoning them without charge in Gadhafi’s former torture chambers. Those being rounded up are primarily black immigrants, with rebel spokesman Abdelhafed Ghoga telling the paper that suspected Gadhafi mercenaries who don’t voluntarily turn themselves in will be subjected to extra-judicial "justice" (read: murder) for being "enemies of the revolution." If they seize the country, who will stop roundups – and massacres – in Tripoli and elsewhere of those deemed to be supporters of the Gadhafi regime, perhaps for no reason other than the color of their skin?
U.S. officials have publicly acknowledged an al-Qaeda presence among the rebels, bringing to mind U.S. support for the Afghan mujahideen in the 1980s. And with the self-proclaimed leadership consisting of former top-level Gadhafi cronies who had no problem with the regime’s human rights abuses four weeks ago, those lionizing the rebels – and suggesting the U.S. illegally arm them – should take a closer look at who the U.S. and its allies are preparing to put in power when Gadhafi’s gone.
The Obama administration and supporters of the war — who a month ago couldn’t tell the difference between Benghazi and Baghdad — portray the intervention in Libya as a simple morality tale, with evil on one side and good on the other. But the reality is more nuanced than the applause lines the president laid out in his speech. In the real world, peace is rarely achieved by dropping bombs and installing the most avowedly "pro-American" locals you can find in power. Just look at Afghanistan and Iraq, where George Bush started wars that Barack Obama has only continued – and in the case of the former, escalated.
"Some nations may be able to turn a blind eye to atrocities in other countries," Obama said this week. "The United States of America is different." And credit where credit’s due, he’s right: From Gaza to the Arabian peninsula, Obama doesn’t stand idly by while others carry out atrocities – he funds and arms those carrying them out.
And just like Bush, he doesn’t let his hypocrisy get in the way of a good war.by Medea Benjamin and Charles Davis, March 31, 2011 His lines may be better... more-
- pinkpanther
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- 11 months ago
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US Fighter Jet Crashes in Libya
FTA:
"A US warplane has crashed in eastern Libya, following an apparent mechanical failure, the US military has said.
It said there was no indication the F-15E Eagle had been brought down by hostile fire. Both crew members ejected and are safe.
The plane went down near the rebel stronghold of Benghazi after a third night of allied air strikes against Col Muammar Gaddafi's forces.
The coalition is enforcing a UN resolution to protect civilians.
The US military would not give the exact location the F-15E Eagle came down, but said both crewmen suffered only minor injuries after ejecting.
The aircraft was based in England and was operating out of Aviano in Italy."FTA: "A US warplane has crashed in eastern Libya, following an apparent... more-
- Jake_Leonard
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- 11 months ago
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Obama tarnishes Nobel Peace Prize with “indiscriminate” military action in Libya
Moscow harshly condemns an international military operation against forces loyal to Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, while Washington downplays its role in the hostilities.
It has taken US President Barack Obama just over one year – and less than that if we consider that he earlier agreed to keep open the Guantanamo Bay detention facility – to damage his Nobel Peace Prize, awarded in Oslo, Norway in October 2009.
On Saturday, US warships unleashed a massive sea-based missile salvo against targets inside of Libya, where Col. Muammar Gaddafi has been engaged in a desperate showdown against anti-government forces. The battle is largely centered on the city of Benghazi, where oppositional forces have announced an “interim Libyan government.”
US warships and submarines fired more than 110 Tomahawk cruise missiles into Libyan territory to disable air-defense systems, allowing French and British fighter jets to more easily enforce a no-fly zone. The attack on Libya marks the third Muslim country that the United States is now engaged in military operations with.
So much for "sitting down and talking with enemies," as Obama promised to do during his political campaign for the US presidency.
It should be no surprise that Washington is going out of its way to disassociate itself from the Libyan military campaign, or at least the leadership part of it.
“We did not lead this,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told a gaggle of reporters in Paris over the weekend. “We did not engage in unilateral actions in any way, but we strongly support the international community taking action against governments and leaders who behave as Gaddafi is unfortunately doing.”
Observers say Washington’s reluctance to advertize its hefty contribution in the military operation suggests that the Obama administration, already under attack inside of its own party for “towing the Bush line,” is an attempt to deflect hostility from the Muslim world, not to mention Main Street, U.S.A., which certainly cannot afford to foot the bill for yet another overseas adventure.
“They [the Obama administration] really want this to be a short, jolly operation,” remarked a senior British defense analyst, who asked not to be identified due to his position. “But all the bets are off on this one. Nobody is quite sure what the allied forces will be able to accomplish [in Libya] over the long haul.”
Incidentally, Saturday’s attack also marked the eighth anniversary of the start of the Iraq War, begun by Obama’s predecessor, George W. Bush.
Russian officials have slammed the US missile attack, while calling on the international coalition to stop the “indiscriminate use of force” it says has killed civilians.
Foreign Ministry spokesman Alexander Lukashevich said the air strikes exceed the mandate of the UN Security Council resolution, which approved a no-fly zone and authorized all necessary measures to protect civilians.
"We are emphatically urging the coalition states to stop indiscriminate use of force," Lukashevich told reporters, according to Interfax.
"We are firmly convinced that the mandate deriving from Resolution 1973 of the UN Security Council, which was adopted as a rather controversial step, cannot be used for attaining goals going clearly beyond its provisions, spelling out measures solely intended to protect civilians," he said.
As “Operation Odyssey Dawn” kicked off on Saturday, missile strikes delivered on Libya also hit non-military facilities in the capital of Tripoli, as well as in Tarhuna, Maamur and Jmeil, Lukashevich said, before providing a grim picture of the attack’s collateral damage.
“As a result [of the missile strikes], 48 civilians have been killed and over 150 wounded,” Lukashevich revealed. “A medical center has been partially destroyed and roads and bridges have been damaged.”
Russia announced Sunday that it was evacuating some of its diplomatic staff and other citizens from Tripoli.
Meanwhile, Liberal-Democratic Party leader and State Duma Vice Speaker Vladimir Zhirinovsky has described the coalition forces' military operation against the Gaddafi regime as pure “aggression,” while calling for a “new Nuremburg.”
“Shame on NATO and all the murderers and barbarians,” the Russian firebrand told media on Sunday. “All of these rogues will be brought to account one day. The aggressors will get their due for the numerous crimes committed at an independent international tribunal, in a new Nuremberg trial.”
The UN Security Council voted on Thursday to impose a no-fly zone against pro-Gaddafi forces, which has been accused itself of using inordinate force against anti-government forces.
Russia and four other council members – China, Germany, Brazil and India – abstained from the vote.
According to Gaddafi, Tripoli regards the West's military operation against Libya "as an unlawful invasion of a sovereign state and sees it as nothing else but an act of terrorism."
Speaking on Libyan television, Gaddafi said that the United States and Europe had “proven to the world that you are not civilized, that you are terrorists – animals attacking a safe nation that did nothing against you.”
Libya is ranked as one of the top-ten biggest oil producers in the world.
http://rt.com/politics/libya-russia-military-force/Moscow harshly condemns an international military operation against forces loyal to... more-
- MotherForTruth
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“Airstrikes in Libya did not take place” – Russian military
The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly around the world. However, Russia's military chiefs say they have been monitoring from space – and the pictures tell a different story.
According to Al Jazeera and BBC, on February 22 Libyan government inflicted airstrikes on Benghazi – the country’s largest city – and on the capital Tripoli. However, the Russian military, monitoring the unrest via satellite from the very beginning, says nothing of the sort was going on on the ground.
At this point, the Russian military is saying that, as far as they are concerned, the attacks some media were reporting have never occurred.
The same sources in Russia’s military establishment say they are also monitoring the situation around Libya’s oil pumping facilities.
http://rt.com/news/airstrikes-libya-russian-military/The reports of Libya mobilizing its air force against its own people spread quickly... more-
- bundlebear
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- 12 months ago
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House Democrat to seek transparency of Supreme Court conflicts of interest
Rep. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) said Wednesday he would introduce legislation after next week's break that would require Supreme Court justices to publicly disclose why they have recused themselves from cases. Murphy said the bill would also require the Supreme Court to develop a process that would allow parties to a case to "request the court to decide whether a particular justice has a conflict of interest."
Murphy said his bill is needed in light of reports he said suggest Justices Antonin Scalia and Clarence Thomas might have had a conflict of interest in the Citizens United case. Republicans have said this decision rightly ended a government ban on independent political spending by companies and unions and prevents the government from deciding which entities can "speak" through spending in the political process.
More- http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/144499-house-democrat-to-seek-transparency-of-supreme-court-conflicts-of-interest
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What do you think? How closely should we be looking at the political activities of Supreme Court Justices? Do you believe Thomas and Scalia are compromised by their activities related to the Koch brothers?Rep. Christopher Murphy (D-Conn.) said Wednesday he would introduce legislation after... more-
- ZiggyStrange
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- 12 months ago
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"The Killing Fields" Still Topical 27 Years Later
"They brought in the entire press core. The want to sanitize the story!" Sydney Schanberg says in The Killing Fields as the U.S Army brings in the international press score to report on the accidental bombing of Neak Leung.The statement gets to the heart of what The Killing Fields is about, culpability for horrors committed during the Cambodian conflict -- who tries to hide from that, and who stands up. It's a dramatized version of experiences documented by the film's three main characters and real-life journalists: Dith Pran, Sydney Schanberg and Jon Swain. It explores the rule of the Khmer Rouge, the damage caused to Cambodia, and the execution of many citizens.
"They brought in the entire press core. The want to sanitize the story!"... more-
- chanelleberlin
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- 1 year ago
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