Accused people smuggler 'pitied' AfghansAdam Gartrell
July 1, 2009 - 11:29AM
An alleged people smuggling kingpin in prison in Indonesia says he tried to help asylum seekers reach Australia because he felt sorry for them.
In an exclusive interview with AAP, Ali Cobra has sought to downplay his role in Indonesia's people smuggling racket, even though authorities believe he is one of country's "big fish".
Cobra, also known as Labasa Ali, Ali Basa and Sultan Ali, claims he has only been involved in two people smuggling operations.
He says he took part in them because he wanted to help mostly Afghan asylum seekers find a better life.
"I was moved to help them," he said from his prison cell in Kupang, West Timor.
"They said once they left their country, they could not go back.
"If they went back, they could have been killed.
"I pitied them. Their stories made me sad."
But Cobra, 30, also admits to profiting from people smuggling.
Cobra was seized in May in a joint operation between Indonesian and Australian police.
He was found in a house in the Indonesian port city of Makassar with 10 Afghan asylum seekers he admits he was trying to help smuggle to Australia.
At the time, Immigration Minister Chris Evans labelled Cobra a "serious and major player" in people smuggling.
But Cobra, who describes himself as a humble "man of the sea" from Sulawesi, says his only involvement with people smuggling has been sourcing boats for asylum seekers to use.
Other people smugglers promised him 50 million rupiah - about $A6,000 - to find a boat for the Afghans in Makassar, he said.
Authorities also believe Cobra helped organise a brazen breakout from an immigration detention centre in West Timor in January, then put 18 escaped asylum seekers on a fishing boat bound for Australia.
But at least nine people - including a nine-year-old boy - drowned when the boat capsized in rough seas just hours later.
Again, Cobra claims he was only responsible for buying the boat, and played no part in the breakout.
"They said they had someone who could get them out of immigration detention," he said.
"I said, 'if all I have to do is find them a boat, I can help'."
Reports have linked Cobra to some of Indonesia's most wanted people smugglers. Police believe he is also connected to smugglers based in Afghanistan, one of the major source countries for asylum seekers.
But Cobra, who refused to name names, said he knows only "three other people" involved in people smuggling.
"Maybe there are others, but I don't know about them. I've only heard of them," he said.
Prosecutors are completing an indictment for Cobra, and he is expected to face court in the coming weeks.
Although people smuggling is not a crime in Indonesia, it is understood Cobra could face up to 12 years' jail if he is convicted over his involvement in January's fatal voyage.
Cobra has not hired a lawyer to represent him, saying it would cost too much.
"I leave it in the hands of the almighty," he said.
Cobra said Afghans choose to seek asylum in Australia because they believe it will afford them the best protection.
"When I was talking with them, I asked why they chose Australia and they said 'Because it's safe there'," he said.
"They just want to be safe."
© 2009 AAP
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Anthony Dowsley
July 01, 2009 12:00am
UPDATE 1.10pm: THE Maryborough woman killed by a falling tree yesterday has been named as Gail Coomber.
Ms Coomber, 48, was walking across a basketball court at a Maryborough school with a family member when tragedy struck.
She suffered head injuries, internal injuries and cardiac arrest. Paramedics rushed her from the Highview Christian Community College to Maryborough Hospital but she could not be revived.
Ms Coomber was one of three people hit by falling trees as galeforce wind up to 120km/h and thunderstorms swept across the state.
Emergency workers rescued a seriously injured man trapped in his car after a tree fell on it in St Arnaud East.
The SES has answered more than 620 calls for help as the wild weather that began yesterday continued to lash the state.
Fallen power lines and trees were behind the majority of the calls to the State Emergency Service, and the weather bureau warns the wind hasn't finished yet.
Senior Forecaster Richard Carlyon at the Bureau of Meteorology says wind gusts of around 90km/h will hit the state on Wednesday, with gusts of up to 100 km/h in the alps.
"We have a severe weather warning for damaging winds across the ranges and along the coast," Mr Carlyon said.
He said Mt Hotham can also expect gusts of around 100km/h.
The ski resorts are expecting snow today down to 1400 metres as cold, unstable air crosses the region.
Swells along the Bass Strait coastline from South Australia to Lakes Entrance are expected to peak at 7m as gale force winds gust through the area, according to the bureau.
July 01, 2009 12:00am
UPDATE 1.10pm: THE Maryborough woman killed by a falling tree yesterday has been named as Gail Coomber.
Ms Coomber, 48, was walking across a basketball court at a Maryborough school with a family member when tragedy struck.
She suffered head injuries, internal injuries and cardiac arrest. Paramedics rushed her from the Highview Christian Community College to Maryborough Hospital but she could not be revived.
Ms Coomber was one of three people hit by falling trees as galeforce wind up to 120km/h and thunderstorms swept across the state.
Emergency workers rescued a seriously injured man trapped in his car after a tree fell on it in St Arnaud East.
The SES has answered more than 620 calls for help as the wild weather that began yesterday continued to lash the state.
Fallen power lines and trees were behind the majority of the calls to the State Emergency Service, and the weather bureau warns the wind hasn't finished yet.
Senior Forecaster Richard Carlyon at the Bureau of Meteorology says wind gusts of around 90km/h will hit the state on Wednesday, with gusts of up to 100 km/h in the alps.
"We have a severe weather warning for damaging winds across the ranges and along the coast," Mr Carlyon said.
He said Mt Hotham can also expect gusts of around 100km/h.
The ski resorts are expecting snow today down to 1400 metres as cold, unstable air crosses the region.
Swells along the Bass Strait coastline from South Australia to Lakes Entrance are expected to peak at 7m as gale force winds gust through the area, according to the bureau.
Death toll rises to 16 in Italy's train explosion
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-30 21:50:24 Print
ROME, June 30 (Xinhua) -- At least 16 people were killed and 36 others injured in northern Italy when a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded just before midnight Monday, local health authorities said Tuesday.
Three children were among the dead and the death toll could rise further as rescuers searched through the rubble of nearby buildings badly destroyed by the blast, the ANSA news agency reported.
Health director Giancarlo Sassoli said 14 of the 36 injured were in serious condition.
Some 1,000 people were evacuated after the blast in the northern Italian town of Viareggio, about 350 km north of Rome.
The train traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa exploded as it jumped the rails near the station at Viareggio, sweeping the streets with fire and knocking down buildings as people slept.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has visited the scene and the government is set to report to parliament on Wednesday on the accident.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking at the scene, said public prosecutors and the public works ministry had opened investigations.
Maroni said either European Union rules regarding the transport of dangerous substances "were inadequate" or that they "had not been respected."
The chief of state railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato, Mauro Moretti, said earlier that he ruled out human error at this stage of the investigation.
"From preliminary evidence the drivers did not make mistakes," he said, adding that the derailment could have been caused by the malfunction of an axle on the first train car.
Editor: Wang Guanqun
www.chinaview.cn 2009-06-30 21:50:24 Print
ROME, June 30 (Xinhua) -- At least 16 people were killed and 36 others injured in northern Italy when a freight train carrying liquefied petroleum gas derailed and exploded just before midnight Monday, local health authorities said Tuesday.
Three children were among the dead and the death toll could rise further as rescuers searched through the rubble of nearby buildings badly destroyed by the blast, the ANSA news agency reported.
Health director Giancarlo Sassoli said 14 of the 36 injured were in serious condition.
Some 1,000 people were evacuated after the blast in the northern Italian town of Viareggio, about 350 km north of Rome.
The train traveling from the northern city of La Spezia to Pisa exploded as it jumped the rails near the station at Viareggio, sweeping the streets with fire and knocking down buildings as people slept.
Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi has visited the scene and the government is set to report to parliament on Wednesday on the accident.
Interior Minister Roberto Maroni, speaking at the scene, said public prosecutors and the public works ministry had opened investigations.
Maroni said either European Union rules regarding the transport of dangerous substances "were inadequate" or that they "had not been respected."
The chief of state railway operator Ferrovie dello Stato, Mauro Moretti, said earlier that he ruled out human error at this stage of the investigation.
"From preliminary evidence the drivers did not make mistakes," he said, adding that the derailment could have been caused by the malfunction of an axle on the first train car.
Editor: Wang Guanqun
Can You Apologize to Victoria Stewart? Or to 50,000 other Dead Children?
An Open Letter to the People, the Churches, and the Government of Canada on the First Anniversary of Canada's "Apology" to Residential School Survivors, from indigenous elders. June 11, 2009
Despite the self-congratulatory message filling Canada today that the Indian residential school nightmare is being "healed and reconciled", the truth is very different:
- Not one person has been arrested or tried for the death of a child in a residential school
- The churches responsible for the deaths of more than 50,000 children in these "schools" have been exonerated for their crime
- There will be no criminal investigation, naming of names or accountability regarding the residential schools
- The remains of the children who died have not been returned for a proper burial
- Over half of the survivors of the residential schools genocide have been disqualified from any compensation or recognition
- All of the survivors continue to die at genocidal levels because of what they suffered in these "schools"
- Justice is obstructed, as the full truth of the residential schools genocide continues to be suppressed and denied by the government and churches responsible
No-one who caused the death of even a single child would claim to be "reconciled" with their victim's family, or freed from prosecution, simply by issuing a verbal "apology" and a bit of money. On the contrary, such behaviour would be considered an attempt to miscarriage justice.
Then why, and how, have the Catholic, Anglican and United churches been able to do so, over their killing of untold thousands of children, aided by the government of Canada?
We have spent years trying to hold these murderers accountable for their crimes against our people and our land. But since they are the law, and determine "justice" and "healing" on their own terms, we will never win justice from them.
A year ago, "Prime Minister" Steven Harper exonerated his government and these churches with a hollow "apology" that released them from any responsibility for their murder of our children. Today, we declare that these institutions are not absolved from their guilt, or their liability, for their murder of our people.
As elders from the Nishgaa, Coast Salish, Cree, Anishinabe and Metis Nations, in alliance with Euro-Canadians who have renounced their allegiance to the genocidal Canadian state and the so-called "crown", we declare our intent to put these criminal bodies of church and state on trial and bring the guilty to justice by the following measures:
1. We hereby and forever expel the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada from our territories;
2. We declare a public banning and boycott of these churches and ask all people to avoid all contact with or funding of them;
3. We hereby and forever declare our sovereignty as indigenous nations under a federated Republic of Kanata, and sever all connection with the so-called "crown" and the government of Canada, and all its agents, including the fraudulent "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", native band council chiefs and the government-funded "Assembly of First Nations";
4. We hereby establish indigenous courts of law on our own territories, in which we will try and convict those responsible for residential school crimes, including the murder of children, and all other crimes against our lands and our people, and
5. We call for international and diplomatic recognition of these measures, and request international human rights monitors and peacekeeping teams to come to our territories as witnesses to our efforts and demands.
These are the steps by which justice will be won for our people, and for the murdered residential school children. We will issue a more formal Declaration of Independence this September.
We call upon all people of conscience to rally behind us and our five steps.
Respectfully,
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg
Chief Steve Sampson
Chemainus Tribe, Coast Salish Nation, Vancouver island
Elder Carol Martin - Spirit Tree Woman
Nishgaa Nation, Vancouver
Elder Lillian Shirt
Cree Nation, Edmonton
Elder Jeremiah Jourdain
Metis Nation, Winnipeg
Eagle Strong Voice - Kevin Annett
Adopted Member of the Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg
This statement is endorsed by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, and The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada.
website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
email: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.caThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
pager:1-888-265-1007 (Canada)
11 June, 2009
Issued on unceded and occupied Coast Salish Territory
An Open Letter to the People, the Churches, and the Government of Canada on the First Anniversary of Canada's "Apology" to Residential School Survivors, from indigenous elders. June 11, 2009
Despite the self-congratulatory message filling Canada today that the Indian residential school nightmare is being "healed and reconciled", the truth is very different:
- Not one person has been arrested or tried for the death of a child in a residential school
- The churches responsible for the deaths of more than 50,000 children in these "schools" have been exonerated for their crime
- There will be no criminal investigation, naming of names or accountability regarding the residential schools
- The remains of the children who died have not been returned for a proper burial
- Over half of the survivors of the residential schools genocide have been disqualified from any compensation or recognition
- All of the survivors continue to die at genocidal levels because of what they suffered in these "schools"
- Justice is obstructed, as the full truth of the residential schools genocide continues to be suppressed and denied by the government and churches responsible
No-one who caused the death of even a single child would claim to be "reconciled" with their victim's family, or freed from prosecution, simply by issuing a verbal "apology" and a bit of money. On the contrary, such behaviour would be considered an attempt to miscarriage justice.
Then why, and how, have the Catholic, Anglican and United churches been able to do so, over their killing of untold thousands of children, aided by the government of Canada?
We have spent years trying to hold these murderers accountable for their crimes against our people and our land. But since they are the law, and determine "justice" and "healing" on their own terms, we will never win justice from them.
A year ago, "Prime Minister" Steven Harper exonerated his government and these churches with a hollow "apology" that released them from any responsibility for their murder of our children. Today, we declare that these institutions are not absolved from their guilt, or their liability, for their murder of our people.
As elders from the Nishgaa, Coast Salish, Cree, Anishinabe and Metis Nations, in alliance with Euro-Canadians who have renounced their allegiance to the genocidal Canadian state and the so-called "crown", we declare our intent to put these criminal bodies of church and state on trial and bring the guilty to justice by the following measures:
1. We hereby and forever expel the Catholic, Anglican and United Church of Canada from our territories;
2. We declare a public banning and boycott of these churches and ask all people to avoid all contact with or funding of them;
3. We hereby and forever declare our sovereignty as indigenous nations under a federated Republic of Kanata, and sever all connection with the so-called "crown" and the government of Canada, and all its agents, including the fraudulent "Truth and Reconciliation Commission", native band council chiefs and the government-funded "Assembly of First Nations";
4. We hereby establish indigenous courts of law on our own territories, in which we will try and convict those responsible for residential school crimes, including the murder of children, and all other crimes against our lands and our people, and
5. We call for international and diplomatic recognition of these measures, and request international human rights monitors and peacekeeping teams to come to our territories as witnesses to our efforts and demands.
These are the steps by which justice will be won for our people, and for the murdered residential school children. We will issue a more formal Declaration of Independence this September.
We call upon all people of conscience to rally behind us and our five steps.
Respectfully,
Chief Louis Daniels - Whispers Wind
Turtle Clan, Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg
Chief Steve Sampson
Chemainus Tribe, Coast Salish Nation, Vancouver island
Elder Carol Martin - Spirit Tree Woman
Nishgaa Nation, Vancouver
Elder Lillian Shirt
Cree Nation, Edmonton
Elder Jeremiah Jourdain
Metis Nation, Winnipeg
Eagle Strong Voice - Kevin Annett
Adopted Member of the Anishinabe Nation, Winnipeg
This statement is endorsed by The Friends and Relatives of the Disappeared, and The International Human Rights Tribunal into Genocide in Canada.
website: www.hiddenfromhistory.org
email: hiddenfromhistory@yahoo.caThis e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it
pager:1-888-265-1007 (Canada)
11 June, 2009
Issued on unceded and occupied Coast Salish Territory
French warship saves stranded NZ familyJuly 1, 2009 - 11:54AM
A French warship has rescued a family of eight from their stricken yacht in the Pacific north of New Zealand, rescue officials said.
The French warship La Glorieuse picked up the Bradfield family after their boat was dismasted and the rigging became tangled around the keel and rudder, Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) said.
RCCNZ search and rescue officer Christine Wilson said La Glorieuse was on its way to New Zealand when it diverted course late on Tuesday after the rescue centre picked up a distress signal.
It then found the yacht with the family of two adults and six children 375km north of the northern tip of New Zealand.
No one on the yacht, which was sailing from Tonga to New Zealand where the family live, was injured, Wilson said.
Charles and Joy Bradfield - and their six children - had to watch their vessel scuttled by the French navy.
The family will arrive in Auckland on Thursday on La Glorieuse, in an inglorious end to their sailing holiday, a trip to Tonga which began in May.
The children - Josh, 18, Matt, 16, Emma, 14, Tom, 13, Abby, 10, and Rebekah, 6, - have kept an internet blog on their voyage, which they called the Bradfields Adventure to Tonga.
A French warship has rescued a family of eight from their stricken yacht in the Pacific north of New Zealand, rescue officials said.
The French warship La Glorieuse picked up the Bradfield family after their boat was dismasted and the rigging became tangled around the keel and rudder, Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand (RCCNZ) said.
RCCNZ search and rescue officer Christine Wilson said La Glorieuse was on its way to New Zealand when it diverted course late on Tuesday after the rescue centre picked up a distress signal.
It then found the yacht with the family of two adults and six children 375km north of the northern tip of New Zealand.
No one on the yacht, which was sailing from Tonga to New Zealand where the family live, was injured, Wilson said.
Charles and Joy Bradfield - and their six children - had to watch their vessel scuttled by the French navy.
The family will arrive in Auckland on Thursday on La Glorieuse, in an inglorious end to their sailing holiday, a trip to Tonga which began in May.
The children - Josh, 18, Matt, 16, Emma, 14, Tom, 13, Abby, 10, and Rebekah, 6, - have kept an internet blog on their voyage, which they called the Bradfields Adventure to Tonga.
Fifteen killed in car bomb in Iraq's KirkukJuly 1, 2009 - 1:59AM
At least 15 people were killed and around 20 wounded in a car bomb attack on a market area in Kirkuk on Tuesday, an interior ministry official told AFP.
The blast occurred around 6 pm (1500 GMT) in the central Shurga district, he said.
The blast devastated the area, an AFP reporter at the scene added.
© 2009 AFP
At least 15 people were killed and around 20 wounded in a car bomb attack on a market area in Kirkuk on Tuesday, an interior ministry official told AFP.
The blast occurred around 6 pm (1500 GMT) in the central Shurga district, he said.
The blast devastated the area, an AFP reporter at the scene added.
© 2009 AFP
New Delhi: Following the sudden death of pop legend Michael Jackson, People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) has asked for the rights of the singer's solo hit "Ben" to raise awareness about rats and other rodents used in laboratory experiments.
Written in 1972 for a film with the same name, "Ben" is about the friendship between a lonely boy and a rat named Ben.
"Michael Jackson's hit has always been a moving testament to the power of empathy for animals," Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of PETA, said in a statement released here on Tuesday.
"If more people could be inspired by his song to stop supporting the cruel and ineffective animal-testing industry, it would be a fitting and enduring tribute to this talented performer," she added.
Rodents comprise vast majority of animals used in laboratories, but because of their exclusion from the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), they are denied the minimal protections provided under the law to other animals.
The song would also be used to spread the message that rats are frequently misunderstood. In the song, Jackson sings, "Ben, most people would turn you away. I don't listen to a word they say. They don't see you as I do. I wish they would try to."
Written in 1972 for a film with the same name, "Ben" is about the friendship between a lonely boy and a rat named Ben.
"Michael Jackson's hit has always been a moving testament to the power of empathy for animals," Tracy Reiman, executive vice president of PETA, said in a statement released here on Tuesday.
"If more people could be inspired by his song to stop supporting the cruel and ineffective animal-testing industry, it would be a fitting and enduring tribute to this talented performer," she added.
Rodents comprise vast majority of animals used in laboratories, but because of their exclusion from the federal Animal Welfare Act (AWA), they are denied the minimal protections provided under the law to other animals.
The song would also be used to spread the message that rats are frequently misunderstood. In the song, Jackson sings, "Ben, most people would turn you away. I don't listen to a word they say. They don't see you as I do. I wish they would try to."
It strange, but I actually cannot believe that Michael Jackson is dead. To me, it hasn't really happened.
Tears and tributes for the flawed 'genius' of pop
Shaun Tandon
June 26, 2009
The world's most powerful figures from politics to entertainment joined Friday in mourning Michael Jackson, hailing him as a musical genius but also grieving over a life filled with tragedy.
The death of the "King of Pop" reverberated throughout the world, with heads of state, entertainment heavyweights and ordinary fans offering condolences for one of the most influential artists in pop history.
Fans from Los Angeles to Sydney held candlelit vigils for the 50-year-old superstar who died on Thursday from a cardiac arrest. At the Glastonbury pop festival in Britain, thousands danced to Jackson's best-known songs such as "Thriller" and "Billie Jean."
US President Barack Obama thought the singer was a "spectacular performer, a musical icon" and offered condolences to family and fans of Jackson -- who like Obama is credited with helping bridge racial divides.
"The president also said that he had aspects of his life that were sad and tragic," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy voiced admiration for Jackson's ability to stir "emotion from different kinds of people all over the world" and said he would always remember the singer's "Moonwalk" dance.
"I felt great emotion firstly because a page has turned and I found it quite distressing to see these images of a young Jackson with his childish face and hair and colour that had not changed," Sarkozy said.
In one of the most moving statements, Hollywood screen legend Elizabeth Taylor said her "heart and mind" were broken by her close friend's demise.
"I loved Michael with all my soul and I can't imagine life without him. We had so much in common and we had such loving fun together," said the 77-year-old two-time Oscar-winning actress.
The top names in pop music described Jackson as a legend.
"I can't stop crying over the sad news," pop diva Madonna told celebrity website People.com. "The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever."
Beatle Paul McCartney, who collaborated with Jackson in the 1980s before an apparent falling-out, hailed him as "massively talented" and said he had "a gentle soul."
Singer Liza Minnelli called Jackson "a genius talent, who revolutionized show business."
The star's first wife Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, said: "I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him, and for his family."
Jackson's influence was also highlighted by the new generation of pop stars.
Justin Timberlake -- who like Jackson is known for both his singing and dancing -- said in a statement that the world had "lost a genius and a true ambassador of not only pop music, but of all music."
Singer Beyonce said: "The incomparable Michael Jackson has made a bigger impact on music than any other artist in the history of music."
"Just as there will never be another Fred Astaire or Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley, there will never be anyone comparable to Michael Jackson," film director Steven Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly.
Jackson's career hit a pinnacle after 1982's "Thriller," the top-selling album ever. But his behavior later became increasingly eccentric. In 2005, he was acquitted after a sensational trial on allegations of child molestation.
But the Vatican's newspaper Osservatore Romano said that "no accusation, however serious or shameful, is enough to tarnish his myth among his millions of fans throughout the entire world."
Jackson was remembered particularly fondly in Africa. The pop star in 1985 co-wrote the song "We Are The World" with Lionel Richie to raise aid for victims of Ethiopia's famine.
"In big Ethiopian cities, many people will have a special feeling towards his death," said Mahmoud Dirrir, the country's tourism and culture minister.
"Apart from his personal behaviour, he will be remembered as an icon, especially for his song calling for us to leave this world a better place for future generations," Dirrir said.
Mohammed Al Fayed, owner of London department store Harrods, said he would erect a statue in honor of Jackson, as he did for the late Princess Diana.
At Wimbledon, two-time champion Serena Williams said that Jackson remained a "complete icon."
"Everyone listens to his music. You think of the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. They are lifetime icons that are never forgotten. Everyone of every colour and race is a huge Michael Jackson fan," she said.
Roger Federer, the five-time Wimbledon champion, said he first heard Jackson's music in the late 1980s when he came to Basel and the future tennis star and his sister listened from outside the stadium.
"I love his music. It's a very sad moment I think in the music world. He touched many people. Same for me," Federer said.
© 2009 AFP
Tears and tributes for the flawed 'genius' of pop
Shaun Tandon
June 26, 2009
The world's most powerful figures from politics to entertainment joined Friday in mourning Michael Jackson, hailing him as a musical genius but also grieving over a life filled with tragedy.
The death of the "King of Pop" reverberated throughout the world, with heads of state, entertainment heavyweights and ordinary fans offering condolences for one of the most influential artists in pop history.
Fans from Los Angeles to Sydney held candlelit vigils for the 50-year-old superstar who died on Thursday from a cardiac arrest. At the Glastonbury pop festival in Britain, thousands danced to Jackson's best-known songs such as "Thriller" and "Billie Jean."
US President Barack Obama thought the singer was a "spectacular performer, a musical icon" and offered condolences to family and fans of Jackson -- who like Obama is credited with helping bridge racial divides.
"The president also said that he had aspects of his life that were sad and tragic," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy voiced admiration for Jackson's ability to stir "emotion from different kinds of people all over the world" and said he would always remember the singer's "Moonwalk" dance.
"I felt great emotion firstly because a page has turned and I found it quite distressing to see these images of a young Jackson with his childish face and hair and colour that had not changed," Sarkozy said.
In one of the most moving statements, Hollywood screen legend Elizabeth Taylor said her "heart and mind" were broken by her close friend's demise.
"I loved Michael with all my soul and I can't imagine life without him. We had so much in common and we had such loving fun together," said the 77-year-old two-time Oscar-winning actress.
The top names in pop music described Jackson as a legend.
"I can't stop crying over the sad news," pop diva Madonna told celebrity website People.com. "The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever."
Beatle Paul McCartney, who collaborated with Jackson in the 1980s before an apparent falling-out, hailed him as "massively talented" and said he had "a gentle soul."
Singer Liza Minnelli called Jackson "a genius talent, who revolutionized show business."
The star's first wife Lisa Marie Presley, the daughter of Elvis Presley, said: "I am so very sad and confused with every emotion possible. I am heartbroken for his children, who I know were everything to him, and for his family."
Jackson's influence was also highlighted by the new generation of pop stars.
Justin Timberlake -- who like Jackson is known for both his singing and dancing -- said in a statement that the world had "lost a genius and a true ambassador of not only pop music, but of all music."
Singer Beyonce said: "The incomparable Michael Jackson has made a bigger impact on music than any other artist in the history of music."
"Just as there will never be another Fred Astaire or Chuck Berry or Elvis Presley, there will never be anyone comparable to Michael Jackson," film director Steven Spielberg told Entertainment Weekly.
Jackson's career hit a pinnacle after 1982's "Thriller," the top-selling album ever. But his behavior later became increasingly eccentric. In 2005, he was acquitted after a sensational trial on allegations of child molestation.
But the Vatican's newspaper Osservatore Romano said that "no accusation, however serious or shameful, is enough to tarnish his myth among his millions of fans throughout the entire world."
Jackson was remembered particularly fondly in Africa. The pop star in 1985 co-wrote the song "We Are The World" with Lionel Richie to raise aid for victims of Ethiopia's famine.
"In big Ethiopian cities, many people will have a special feeling towards his death," said Mahmoud Dirrir, the country's tourism and culture minister.
"Apart from his personal behaviour, he will be remembered as an icon, especially for his song calling for us to leave this world a better place for future generations," Dirrir said.
Mohammed Al Fayed, owner of London department store Harrods, said he would erect a statue in honor of Jackson, as he did for the late Princess Diana.
At Wimbledon, two-time champion Serena Williams said that Jackson remained a "complete icon."
"Everyone listens to his music. You think of the Beatles, Elvis Presley and Michael Jackson. They are lifetime icons that are never forgotten. Everyone of every colour and race is a huge Michael Jackson fan," she said.
Roger Federer, the five-time Wimbledon champion, said he first heard Jackson's music in the late 1980s when he came to Basel and the future tennis star and his sister listened from outside the stadium.
"I love his music. It's a very sad moment I think in the music world. He touched many people. Same for me," Federer said.
© 2009 AFP
Outpouring over Michael Jackson unlike anything since Princess Di
About 15% of all Twitter posts mentioned Jackson when the news of his death broke Thursday evening. (©Motown)
The psychology of celebrity worship
Remembering Ed McMahon: The perfect second banana
Michael Jackson's death boosts music vendor sales
By Daniel B. Wood
Los Angeles -- Since news of Michael Jackson's passing, there has been an emotional outpouring not seen perhaps since Princess Diana's death in 1997.
The 24-hour news cycle and social media are probably amplifying the reaction. But the response seems genuinely broad and intense -- which may be surprising given the pop star's transformation into something of a bizarre and controversial recluse in his last 20 years.
If the death of a pop star was to be measured by tweets alone, Michael Jackson's would seem to be of monumental importance. About 15 percent of Twitter posts mentioned Jackson when the news broke Thursday evening, noted Harvard researcher Ethan Zuckerman in one tweet, comparing that with hot topics such as Iran and swine flu that never crossed 5 percent.
By Friday afternoon, 9 of the top 10 albums selling on iTunes were Michael Jackson's, Amazon.com had sold out all his CDs, and major retailers coast to coast were running out of his music. Online, Facebook and news websites were swamped with tributes. And Fans gathered across the world, from a mass moonwalk in London to tributes on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles to vigils in Paris and Tokyo.
The overriding reason is his extraordinary musical influence.
"The reason you are seeing this global outpouring of interest is that Michael Jackson is singular in the history of pop culture. No one even comes close," says Professor James Peterson at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., who teaches hip-hop culture, African-American literature, and sociolinguistics. Mr. Peterson points out that Jackson's achievement of 750 million in global album sales will never again be equaled because of the absolute change in the music business caused by the Internet.
Besides having had a dramatic influence on such artists as Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake, Jackson "at once captures and encapsulates the history of blacks in dance. Any number of popular artists could not exist at the level they have without Michael Jackson," says Mr. Peterson.
For some, Jackson's body of work may trump all the other questionable aspects of his lifestyle -- the child molestation charges, facial alteration, and reclusiveness.
"There have been at least three generations of listeners -- one for each of his musical incarnations," Peterson notes, adding that he has a 10-year-old son who is now getting immersed in Jackson watching Peterson and his wife in mourning. "A fourth generation of followers is going to emerge because of this," he says.
Jackson was also one of the few musicians to transcend narrow ideas about how a black man should look and act and reach a global audience, says Professor Jeff Melnick, who teaches African American studies and popular culture at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
But the intense response to Jackson's death also reveals society's deep investment in celebrity culture worldwide, he says, adding that there is an acknowledgement that the demands of celebrity culture wounded Jackson from the moment he hit the scene as a boy in the late 1960s.
"The outpouring is partly guilt, then -- it is a confession of sorts," says Mr. Melnick, "of the culpability of the fan in the premature death of the artist."
With virtually no offstage in his life, "Jackson became a canvas on which fans projected all kinds of fantasies -- about proper gender behavior, about racial norms and what we should do with our bodies."
Jackson also gave more than $300 million over the course of his life to charities all over the world, which may have something to do with tributes coming from several world leaders, from Britain's Gordon Brown to former president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung and South Africa's Nelson Mandela.
Other cultural anthropologists and researchers suggest the current economic downturn has accelerated global notions of nostalgia.
"We mourn the loss of ourselves through this pop icon," says Tracy Johnson, Research Director of Context-Based Research Group which studies consumer behavior.
"We recognize that we, particularly in America, have lost a little bit of what we were all about," she says. "Someone like Michael Jackson who so embodied the American Dream just makes that loss all that much more palpable."
Above all, it was his music and unique, energetic performance style that attracted fans around the world.
"One reason Michael Jackson's death is having such a wide impact is because his music had such a wide, and even sustained impact," says John Covach, a music historian at the University of Rochester. "Few artists have so completely saturated the market as Jackson did during the 1980s. It's comparable to the Beatles in the 60s or Elvis in the 50s. When an artist or performer is so well known and loved, the reaction to his or her passing is bound to be strong and widespread."
"One important difference between Jackson's career and those of many others is that he was a child star who became an adult star -- a very difficult transition to pull off," says Professor Covach. "Even those who were too young to be fans of Jackson when he was a child have seen the clips of him performing with a mastery far beyond his years. The adult Michael Jackson that fans loved in the 1980s thus already had a bit of history -- people felt like they knew him already."
And so, people from around the world continue to talk with friends and strangers about this musical legend, their voices spread more widely by new means of communication.
In the hours after Jackson's passing, AOL's instant messaging service was down for 40 minutes due to an increase in traffic. In a statement, AOL also noted that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."
As if to connect the two major icons of celebrity lost in recent years, the Telegraph in London reports that Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed has announced that he will erect a Michael Jackson Memorial at the store to join the one of his late son, Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.
About 15% of all Twitter posts mentioned Jackson when the news of his death broke Thursday evening. (©Motown)
The psychology of celebrity worship
Remembering Ed McMahon: The perfect second banana
Michael Jackson's death boosts music vendor sales
By Daniel B. Wood
Los Angeles -- Since news of Michael Jackson's passing, there has been an emotional outpouring not seen perhaps since Princess Diana's death in 1997.
The 24-hour news cycle and social media are probably amplifying the reaction. But the response seems genuinely broad and intense -- which may be surprising given the pop star's transformation into something of a bizarre and controversial recluse in his last 20 years.
If the death of a pop star was to be measured by tweets alone, Michael Jackson's would seem to be of monumental importance. About 15 percent of Twitter posts mentioned Jackson when the news broke Thursday evening, noted Harvard researcher Ethan Zuckerman in one tweet, comparing that with hot topics such as Iran and swine flu that never crossed 5 percent.
By Friday afternoon, 9 of the top 10 albums selling on iTunes were Michael Jackson's, Amazon.com had sold out all his CDs, and major retailers coast to coast were running out of his music. Online, Facebook and news websites were swamped with tributes. And Fans gathered across the world, from a mass moonwalk in London to tributes on the Walk of Fame in Los Angeles to vigils in Paris and Tokyo.
The overriding reason is his extraordinary musical influence.
"The reason you are seeing this global outpouring of interest is that Michael Jackson is singular in the history of pop culture. No one even comes close," says Professor James Peterson at Bucknell University in Lewisburg, Pa., who teaches hip-hop culture, African-American literature, and sociolinguistics. Mr. Peterson points out that Jackson's achievement of 750 million in global album sales will never again be equaled because of the absolute change in the music business caused by the Internet.
Besides having had a dramatic influence on such artists as Usher, Chris Brown, and Justin Timberlake, Jackson "at once captures and encapsulates the history of blacks in dance. Any number of popular artists could not exist at the level they have without Michael Jackson," says Mr. Peterson.
For some, Jackson's body of work may trump all the other questionable aspects of his lifestyle -- the child molestation charges, facial alteration, and reclusiveness.
"There have been at least three generations of listeners -- one for each of his musical incarnations," Peterson notes, adding that he has a 10-year-old son who is now getting immersed in Jackson watching Peterson and his wife in mourning. "A fourth generation of followers is going to emerge because of this," he says.
Jackson was also one of the few musicians to transcend narrow ideas about how a black man should look and act and reach a global audience, says Professor Jeff Melnick, who teaches African American studies and popular culture at Babson College in Wellesley, Mass.
But the intense response to Jackson's death also reveals society's deep investment in celebrity culture worldwide, he says, adding that there is an acknowledgement that the demands of celebrity culture wounded Jackson from the moment he hit the scene as a boy in the late 1960s.
"The outpouring is partly guilt, then -- it is a confession of sorts," says Mr. Melnick, "of the culpability of the fan in the premature death of the artist."
With virtually no offstage in his life, "Jackson became a canvas on which fans projected all kinds of fantasies -- about proper gender behavior, about racial norms and what we should do with our bodies."
Jackson also gave more than $300 million over the course of his life to charities all over the world, which may have something to do with tributes coming from several world leaders, from Britain's Gordon Brown to former president of South Korea Kim Dae-jung and South Africa's Nelson Mandela.
Other cultural anthropologists and researchers suggest the current economic downturn has accelerated global notions of nostalgia.
"We mourn the loss of ourselves through this pop icon," says Tracy Johnson, Research Director of Context-Based Research Group which studies consumer behavior.
"We recognize that we, particularly in America, have lost a little bit of what we were all about," she says. "Someone like Michael Jackson who so embodied the American Dream just makes that loss all that much more palpable."
Above all, it was his music and unique, energetic performance style that attracted fans around the world.
"One reason Michael Jackson's death is having such a wide impact is because his music had such a wide, and even sustained impact," says John Covach, a music historian at the University of Rochester. "Few artists have so completely saturated the market as Jackson did during the 1980s. It's comparable to the Beatles in the 60s or Elvis in the 50s. When an artist or performer is so well known and loved, the reaction to his or her passing is bound to be strong and widespread."
"One important difference between Jackson's career and those of many others is that he was a child star who became an adult star -- a very difficult transition to pull off," says Professor Covach. "Even those who were too young to be fans of Jackson when he was a child have seen the clips of him performing with a mastery far beyond his years. The adult Michael Jackson that fans loved in the 1980s thus already had a bit of history -- people felt like they knew him already."
And so, people from around the world continue to talk with friends and strangers about this musical legend, their voices spread more widely by new means of communication.
In the hours after Jackson's passing, AOL's instant messaging service was down for 40 minutes due to an increase in traffic. In a statement, AOL also noted that, "Today was a seminal moment in Internet history. We've never seen anything like it in terms of scope or depth."
As if to connect the two major icons of celebrity lost in recent years, the Telegraph in London reports that Harrods owner Mohamed Fayed has announced that he will erect a Michael Jackson Memorial at the store to join the one of his late son, Dodi and Diana, Princess of Wales.
I would respectfully suggest to Mr. Hannaford that many of these men likely do feel like they have nothing to lose. They deserve our empathy, compassion, and support- so that conflict resolution can help them to see that they, too have a stake in what is a marvellous and beautifully structured society. Western societies really do have it all: they have law and order, a tradition of literacy, numerous outlets for fun and recreation, arts and rich culture. They have an amazing code of fashion, with a wonderful industry that centres on this tradition. They have people speaking out on all fronts and all issues. They have cooperation between myriad groups. They have theatre and the opera and cleverly scripted acts on television. They have some of the world's greatest novels.
What they don't have, and critically need, is a way to work with certain people. A way to say, hey, you're like me, and I'm like you, and fundamentally, even though you're a bit of a square peg, I'm going to teach you to find a round hole and fulfill some critical need of mine. I'm going to milk your knowledge, and let you give me the full benefit of your knowledge and enthusiasm. What they are currently failing in is the win-win approach.
There are other ways to do things, that would lead to radically different results. It is no good vitally crippling people, then having bitter reactions to what transpires. Wouldn't it be better to enable people to be our close friends? To motivate them to love us, to inspire each other, to make things work at long last?
There have been some awful failures in human history. Its your choice to see the reason in this, and the sense behind it. There is an awful lot.
Roots that grow gangs and terrorists are similar
By Nigel Hannaford, Calgary HeraldJune 30, 2009Be the first to post a comment
It was three years ago that a group of young Muslim men, mostly born in this country, hatched a plot to--among other things --attack the Parliament building and behead the prime minister. It had not been that long since London had suffered a series of bomb attacks on public transport, perpetrated by young Muslim men, born in Great Britain. Meanwhile, NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were routinely picking up prisoners who were fighting for the Taliban, or for al-Qaeda, but who had been born and raised in a liberal democracy. Canada has its own case in the person of Omar Khadr, born in Toronto in 1986 to immigrant parents.
Naturally, the question asked was "Why?"
That is, one could understand how a person raised in squalor and perceiving themselves as having nothing to lose, might sign up for a radical cause.
But, why would anybody raised in the liberty and comfort of a country such as Canada, or Great Britain decide to give it all up and either fight for their country's enemies in a foreign field, or detonate themselves at home in an attempt to kill as many of their fellow countrymen as they could?
No doubt there is more than one reason. Young Khadr seems to have been pointed in that direction by his family at an early age, and is thus something of a special case.
Still, almost by definition these young men are alienated from society. A frequent contributor to these pages, Pakistan-born college professor Mahfooz Kanwar, told me a few years ago the problem actually began when a young man felt he didn't belong to the old country culture, but felt he couldn't fully embrace the new culture chosen by his immigrant parents. It was a recipe for confusion, and the urgent desire for simple clarity opened the way to radical voices prepared to offer it.
Right now, one could hardly say it was a problem out of control.
However, at last week's Alberta Gang Crime Summit, Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson made the disturbing observation that there are similarities between what makes young men join criminal gangs, and the attractions of radical politics. It's a serious matter: Criminal gangs are a problem we have already and if not quite out of control, it is certainly eating up a lot of law-enforcement resources. Now terrorists?
One commonality is that both criminal gangs and terrorist radicals offer certainty. They also offer --crucially--identity, and the satisfaction of being chosen to belong to a small in group. For young men, these are keys to personal significance. "Greed," observed Hanson in an interview later, "is usually the last reason somebody gets involved in a gang."
It would also be the last reason somebody signed up to be a terrorist, an occupation in which life expectancy is too short to lend much point to accumulation.
Hanson presented a strong case that Canadian law-enforcement officials should be studying trends in Great Britain, Europe and the U. S., usually reliable predictors of what is coming next in Canada.
Specialists in the field welcome Hanson's frank warning, but offer cautions.
"It is a vast problem, and it is a relief to see the police addressing themselves to it," comments David Harris, president of Democracy House, a former chief of strategic planning for CSIS, and a longtime commentator on national security issues. "They need to be realistic, though. They're not theologians and if they're going to do outreach to religious groups, they need to make sure they pick the right ones." Harris says there are serious questions to be asked, for instance, about RCMP patronage of the Muslims of Tomorrow 2009 conference in Surrey, B. C. earlier this month. "There are serious doubts about the RCMP's own outreach approaches, that suggest some of those people who in the past have been in charge of such initiatives have had the full capacity for distinguishing between those sympathetic to radical ideology and those who genuinely reject radicalism."
For now, Hanson's approach to early detection of terrorist tendencies mirrors that of police strategy to spot criminals early on. "It's all about watching for signs. Too much money, too young, secretive behaviour, the kind of things parents once put down to a kid going through a phase. And we have to start early, even in elementary school."
He adds that ethnic communities seem genuinely anxious to get help, to keep their kids from heading down the wrong path, and to use the help the police can offer.
The bad news is that it is a formidable task. It will not be easy, and all the programs in the world don't help when a young man is searching for some reason to believe that he, like a hero in a book, is endowed with some special significance beyond his peers.
The good news however is that city police are at least prepared to admit they have a job to do. A few years ago, we couldn't even get them to admit there was a gang problem or to name criminal associations.
Now, Hanson has named the issue. It is the important first step, and he deserves kudos for doing so.
nhannaford@theherald. canwest.coM
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
What they don't have, and critically need, is a way to work with certain people. A way to say, hey, you're like me, and I'm like you, and fundamentally, even though you're a bit of a square peg, I'm going to teach you to find a round hole and fulfill some critical need of mine. I'm going to milk your knowledge, and let you give me the full benefit of your knowledge and enthusiasm. What they are currently failing in is the win-win approach.
There are other ways to do things, that would lead to radically different results. It is no good vitally crippling people, then having bitter reactions to what transpires. Wouldn't it be better to enable people to be our close friends? To motivate them to love us, to inspire each other, to make things work at long last?
There have been some awful failures in human history. Its your choice to see the reason in this, and the sense behind it. There is an awful lot.
Roots that grow gangs and terrorists are similar
By Nigel Hannaford, Calgary HeraldJune 30, 2009Be the first to post a comment
It was three years ago that a group of young Muslim men, mostly born in this country, hatched a plot to--among other things --attack the Parliament building and behead the prime minister. It had not been that long since London had suffered a series of bomb attacks on public transport, perpetrated by young Muslim men, born in Great Britain. Meanwhile, NATO troops in Iraq and Afghanistan were routinely picking up prisoners who were fighting for the Taliban, or for al-Qaeda, but who had been born and raised in a liberal democracy. Canada has its own case in the person of Omar Khadr, born in Toronto in 1986 to immigrant parents.
Naturally, the question asked was "Why?"
That is, one could understand how a person raised in squalor and perceiving themselves as having nothing to lose, might sign up for a radical cause.
But, why would anybody raised in the liberty and comfort of a country such as Canada, or Great Britain decide to give it all up and either fight for their country's enemies in a foreign field, or detonate themselves at home in an attempt to kill as many of their fellow countrymen as they could?
No doubt there is more than one reason. Young Khadr seems to have been pointed in that direction by his family at an early age, and is thus something of a special case.
Still, almost by definition these young men are alienated from society. A frequent contributor to these pages, Pakistan-born college professor Mahfooz Kanwar, told me a few years ago the problem actually began when a young man felt he didn't belong to the old country culture, but felt he couldn't fully embrace the new culture chosen by his immigrant parents. It was a recipe for confusion, and the urgent desire for simple clarity opened the way to radical voices prepared to offer it.
Right now, one could hardly say it was a problem out of control.
However, at last week's Alberta Gang Crime Summit, Calgary Police Chief Rick Hanson made the disturbing observation that there are similarities between what makes young men join criminal gangs, and the attractions of radical politics. It's a serious matter: Criminal gangs are a problem we have already and if not quite out of control, it is certainly eating up a lot of law-enforcement resources. Now terrorists?
One commonality is that both criminal gangs and terrorist radicals offer certainty. They also offer --crucially--identity, and the satisfaction of being chosen to belong to a small in group. For young men, these are keys to personal significance. "Greed," observed Hanson in an interview later, "is usually the last reason somebody gets involved in a gang."
It would also be the last reason somebody signed up to be a terrorist, an occupation in which life expectancy is too short to lend much point to accumulation.
Hanson presented a strong case that Canadian law-enforcement officials should be studying trends in Great Britain, Europe and the U. S., usually reliable predictors of what is coming next in Canada.
Specialists in the field welcome Hanson's frank warning, but offer cautions.
"It is a vast problem, and it is a relief to see the police addressing themselves to it," comments David Harris, president of Democracy House, a former chief of strategic planning for CSIS, and a longtime commentator on national security issues. "They need to be realistic, though. They're not theologians and if they're going to do outreach to religious groups, they need to make sure they pick the right ones." Harris says there are serious questions to be asked, for instance, about RCMP patronage of the Muslims of Tomorrow 2009 conference in Surrey, B. C. earlier this month. "There are serious doubts about the RCMP's own outreach approaches, that suggest some of those people who in the past have been in charge of such initiatives have had the full capacity for distinguishing between those sympathetic to radical ideology and those who genuinely reject radicalism."
For now, Hanson's approach to early detection of terrorist tendencies mirrors that of police strategy to spot criminals early on. "It's all about watching for signs. Too much money, too young, secretive behaviour, the kind of things parents once put down to a kid going through a phase. And we have to start early, even in elementary school."
He adds that ethnic communities seem genuinely anxious to get help, to keep their kids from heading down the wrong path, and to use the help the police can offer.
The bad news is that it is a formidable task. It will not be easy, and all the programs in the world don't help when a young man is searching for some reason to believe that he, like a hero in a book, is endowed with some special significance beyond his peers.
The good news however is that city police are at least prepared to admit they have a job to do. A few years ago, we couldn't even get them to admit there was a gang problem or to name criminal associations.
Now, Hanson has named the issue. It is the important first step, and he deserves kudos for doing so.
nhannaford@theherald. canwest.coM
© Copyright (c) The Calgary Herald
$1m allocated for Afghan vote observers
July 1, 2009 - 10:14AM
Australia will provide $1 million for Asian observers to watch over the upcoming Afghan elections.
It is very important the international community sees a transparent and fairly conducted election, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says.
Another 120 Australian soldiers are being dispatched specifically to enhance election security.
Australia has already committed $8 million for the Afghan independent election commission.
The Asia Foundation, an American-based non-government organisation, is working with a range of Asian nations to have observers at the presidential and local council elections.
"And we are supporting that," Mr Smith told Sky News, adding Australia would also be providing a small team of monitors for the August 20 elections.
Australia is deploying additional trainers to Afghanistan, with total troop strength expected to reach about 1,550.
Insurgent forces are expected to increase attacks on the Afghan government and coalition forces in the lead-up to the polls.
Mr Smith also announced Australia would provide $5 million for displaced people in Pakistan.
The bulk of that funding would be used to provide food through a UN program, taking Australia's humanitarian assistance to Pakistan to more than $20 million.
© 2009 AAP
July 1, 2009 - 10:14AM
Australia will provide $1 million for Asian observers to watch over the upcoming Afghan elections.
It is very important the international community sees a transparent and fairly conducted election, Foreign Minister Stephen Smith says.
Another 120 Australian soldiers are being dispatched specifically to enhance election security.
Australia has already committed $8 million for the Afghan independent election commission.
The Asia Foundation, an American-based non-government organisation, is working with a range of Asian nations to have observers at the presidential and local council elections.
"And we are supporting that," Mr Smith told Sky News, adding Australia would also be providing a small team of monitors for the August 20 elections.
Australia is deploying additional trainers to Afghanistan, with total troop strength expected to reach about 1,550.
Insurgent forces are expected to increase attacks on the Afghan government and coalition forces in the lead-up to the polls.
Mr Smith also announced Australia would provide $5 million for displaced people in Pakistan.
The bulk of that funding would be used to provide food through a UN program, taking Australia's humanitarian assistance to Pakistan to more than $20 million.
© 2009 AAP
I was inspired to make banana pudding from the menu at Kangaroo Island eco-resort.
Here is the resort's URL: http://www.kiwr.com/
Don't forget to check out the images at the image gallery; they're absolutely phenomenal.
Here is the resort's URL: http://www.kiwr.com/
Don't forget to check out the images at the image gallery; they're absolutely phenomenal.
Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan
17 hours ago
KABUL (AFP) — Air strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
17 hours ago
KABUL (AFP) — Air strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
This is really interesting. I totally think that he is right. I also feel a bit strange about the fact that with the current burnout of the military, that anybody would really care about this issue. Its a little weird. I do hope that progressives are going to be more concerned about the war, with a capital W, than gay rights in the military, but hey- whatever floats people's boats.
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
July 1, 2009
On paper, Dan Choi is everything the US military could hope for: a graduate of West Point academy, he has served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic and Korean.
Despite his talents and experience, the army is seeking to get rid of Lieutenant Choi because of a personal quality it considers incompatible with military life: he is openly gay.
In one of the last instances of government-sanctioned discrimination, the military allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military only if they keep quiet about their sexuality. For more than a year after meeting his boyfriend and falling in love, Lieutenant Choi was forced to lie or risk joining a list of almost 13,000 gay and lesbian personnel discharged in the past 16 years under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
"What if I deploy and he can't come to the tarmac to wish me goodbye," he asked himself, "or kiss me when I come back?" If he were to fall in combat, to whom would the army present the flag that draped his coffin?
"I started my first relationship ever in life at age 27," Lieutenant Choi said. "I'm understanding finally what love is. I have to make the decision: am I going to continue lying?"
He decided the answer was no. In March he announced on television he was a gay soldier. The military responded with a letter saying he would be charged with violating army regulations. Lieutenant Choi faces a disciplinary panel.
"You admitted publicly that you are a homosexual," the letter read. "Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard."
"It's an insult to their professionalism," Lieutenant Choi said of the insinuation that fellow soldiers cannot abide a gay comrade. "They care about what a person can do for the team. We're in a time of war. We have bigger things to worry about than people being gay."
A military administrative board on Tuesday recommended Lieutenant Choi be discharged for violating the military's policy against openly homosexual service members.
The recommendation must be approved by the chief of the National Guard Bureau.
The discharge of thousands of people because of their sexuality over the past 16 years has generated strong criticism that the military is diminishing its strength when the country cannot afford it.
The Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns make onerous demands on manpower and relations remain tense with Iran and North Korea. But lawyers say the army has discharged 59 gay Arabic linguists and nine gay Farsi linguists in the past five years.
Lieutenant Choi may be offered an honourable discharge. But he intends to fight. If he loses, he risks forfeiting his military pension and health benefits.
Guardian News & Media, with AP
Daniel Nasaw in Washington
July 1, 2009
On paper, Dan Choi is everything the US military could hope for: a graduate of West Point academy, he has served in Iraq and is fluent in Arabic and Korean.
Despite his talents and experience, the army is seeking to get rid of Lieutenant Choi because of a personal quality it considers incompatible with military life: he is openly gay.
In one of the last instances of government-sanctioned discrimination, the military allows gay men and lesbians to serve in the military only if they keep quiet about their sexuality. For more than a year after meeting his boyfriend and falling in love, Lieutenant Choi was forced to lie or risk joining a list of almost 13,000 gay and lesbian personnel discharged in the past 16 years under the "don't ask, don't tell" policy.
"What if I deploy and he can't come to the tarmac to wish me goodbye," he asked himself, "or kiss me when I come back?" If he were to fall in combat, to whom would the army present the flag that draped his coffin?
"I started my first relationship ever in life at age 27," Lieutenant Choi said. "I'm understanding finally what love is. I have to make the decision: am I going to continue lying?"
He decided the answer was no. In March he announced on television he was a gay soldier. The military responded with a letter saying he would be charged with violating army regulations. Lieutenant Choi faces a disciplinary panel.
"You admitted publicly that you are a homosexual," the letter read. "Your actions negatively affected the good order and discipline of the New York Army National Guard."
"It's an insult to their professionalism," Lieutenant Choi said of the insinuation that fellow soldiers cannot abide a gay comrade. "They care about what a person can do for the team. We're in a time of war. We have bigger things to worry about than people being gay."
A military administrative board on Tuesday recommended Lieutenant Choi be discharged for violating the military's policy against openly homosexual service members.
The recommendation must be approved by the chief of the National Guard Bureau.
The discharge of thousands of people because of their sexuality over the past 16 years has generated strong criticism that the military is diminishing its strength when the country cannot afford it.
The Iraq and Afghanistan campaigns make onerous demands on manpower and relations remain tense with Iran and North Korea. But lawyers say the army has discharged 59 gay Arabic linguists and nine gay Farsi linguists in the past five years.
Lieutenant Choi may be offered an honourable discharge. But he intends to fight. If he loses, he risks forfeiting his military pension and health benefits.
Guardian News & Media, with AP
Agence France-Presse
Los Angeles, June 26, 2009
First Published: 08:16 IST(26/6/2009)
Last Updated: 14:33 IST(26/6/2009)
Pop diva Madonna revealed she was left in tears over the death of Michael Jackson on Thursday, saying the music world had lost "one of the greats.
In a statement to a celebrity website, the veteran singing star said: "I can't stop crying over the sad news.
"I have always admired Michael Jackson. The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever! My heart goes out to his three children and other members of his family. God bless."
Jackson died Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles, sending shockwaves rippling around the entertainment world.
Los Angeles, June 26, 2009
First Published: 08:16 IST(26/6/2009)
Last Updated: 14:33 IST(26/6/2009)
Pop diva Madonna revealed she was left in tears over the death of Michael Jackson on Thursday, saying the music world had lost "one of the greats.
In a statement to a celebrity website, the veteran singing star said: "I can't stop crying over the sad news.
"I have always admired Michael Jackson. The world has lost one of the greats, but his music will live on forever! My heart goes out to his three children and other members of his family. God bless."
Jackson died Thursday after suffering a cardiac arrest at his home in Los Angeles, sending shockwaves rippling around the entertainment world.
I have been quite curious about Seoul, and haven't really had time to check in with what was happening there. I'm really glad that they're managing to weather the storm.
June 30, 2009
CROWDED, dynamic, bewildering Seoul — the thrusting capital of Australia's third-largest trading partner; the world's most technologically wired nation-city, boasting the world's fastest broadband; home to the world's best airport; and, thanks to its kimchi-loving commuters, the only mass transit system that permanently reeks of garlic.
After a week of interviews here, it's clear that South Koreans are feeling pretty pleased with themselves and not just because, like Australia and their northern neighbour with the twitchy nuclear finger, they've qualified for next year's World Cup.
No, remarkably for such an export-dependent economy — think Kias, LGs, Samsungs and Hyundais — South Korea has so far managed to dodge the recession from the now two-year-old global economic crisis that spread toxically from the West.
Despite exports slumping 18 per cent, South Korea posted economic growth of 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year. That's a close shave, it's true. But at least the economy grew and such are the tough times the world is enduring, it's almost akin to a boom. Gross domestic product growth, even marginally measured, is something Korea's fellow Asian export economies like Taiwan, Japan and Singapore can't boast.
The Government and the central Bank of Korea have warned that the economy will contract this year for the first time since 1998, but six months in, Koreans are holding on valiantly. Bars and restaurants seem full, outwardly and anecdotally. Seoul seems lively.
Indeed, there's very little of the concern among Koreans about the economy that one divines in stricken economies elsewhere. More concerning to 50 million South Koreans are the ICBMs lurking among the 24 million of their brainwashed cousins just 45 kilometres to Seoul's north. They point across the troubled peninsula towards Japan and Alaska and as far east as Hawaii in the mid-Pacific (which also means a North Korean nuke launched southward could lob somewhere around Brisbane).
South Koreans are sanguine about their economy because, compared with the catastrophe that engulfed them during the "Asian contagion" of the late 1990s, this crisis is a relative ripple. Much of South Korea was bankrupted in 1997-98.
By comparison with the present flat GDP figures, in each quarter of 1998 South Korea's economy contracted by an average of 6.65 per cent. The Korean won weakened 25 per cent against the US dollar last year; during 1997-98 it fell 60 per cent.
This crisis around, the "Land of Morning Calm" is reacting with, well, morning calm.
"We wake up and get the bad news from New York and London, but it's OK, we had our big crisis in 1998," explains HSBC bank's Changsoo Lee, "so we've been well prepared for this one."
So against this relatively buoyant backdrop, South Korean bankers still have their reputations intact and have begun launching financial products that remain years away from re-appearing in the West, if they ever surface again.
Among Western investors, mortgage-backed securities are now about as popular as Fred Nile chaperoning a Cronulla Sharks footy trip. It was the confidence collapse in these poisonous derivatives in the US in mid-2007 that sent the world careering into its financial pickle.
But in the first such bond launched in the region since the financial crisis, HSBC and Citibank have helped South Korea's biggest private bank, Kookmin, arrange a $US1 billion ($A1.2 billion) bond covered by its mortgage and credit card portfolio. That's a structure that would send chills through places like Parkes and Wingecarribee, among the scores of Australian municipalities that bought $2 billion of dodgy Lehman Brothers paper secured by dodgier American subprime mortgages.
But the Korean version is comprised of anything but the overleveraged "Deadbeat Dad" or "ghetto loans" packaged into the US nightmare. Kookmin's mortgages are solid Korean middle class; few Koreans owe their bank more than 50 per cent of the conservative value of their homes, a regulation instituted after the 1998 crisis.
More to the point, the five-year Kookmin facility was six times oversubscribed. About 55 per cent of it was taken up by Asian investors — further evidence, if any were needed besides China's huge continued flotation of the US economy, that the future indeed tilts eastwards.
Eric Ellis writes for Forbes from Asia
June 30, 2009
CROWDED, dynamic, bewildering Seoul — the thrusting capital of Australia's third-largest trading partner; the world's most technologically wired nation-city, boasting the world's fastest broadband; home to the world's best airport; and, thanks to its kimchi-loving commuters, the only mass transit system that permanently reeks of garlic.
After a week of interviews here, it's clear that South Koreans are feeling pretty pleased with themselves and not just because, like Australia and their northern neighbour with the twitchy nuclear finger, they've qualified for next year's World Cup.
No, remarkably for such an export-dependent economy — think Kias, LGs, Samsungs and Hyundais — South Korea has so far managed to dodge the recession from the now two-year-old global economic crisis that spread toxically from the West.
Despite exports slumping 18 per cent, South Korea posted economic growth of 0.1 per cent in the first quarter of this year. That's a close shave, it's true. But at least the economy grew and such are the tough times the world is enduring, it's almost akin to a boom. Gross domestic product growth, even marginally measured, is something Korea's fellow Asian export economies like Taiwan, Japan and Singapore can't boast.
The Government and the central Bank of Korea have warned that the economy will contract this year for the first time since 1998, but six months in, Koreans are holding on valiantly. Bars and restaurants seem full, outwardly and anecdotally. Seoul seems lively.
Indeed, there's very little of the concern among Koreans about the economy that one divines in stricken economies elsewhere. More concerning to 50 million South Koreans are the ICBMs lurking among the 24 million of their brainwashed cousins just 45 kilometres to Seoul's north. They point across the troubled peninsula towards Japan and Alaska and as far east as Hawaii in the mid-Pacific (which also means a North Korean nuke launched southward could lob somewhere around Brisbane).
South Koreans are sanguine about their economy because, compared with the catastrophe that engulfed them during the "Asian contagion" of the late 1990s, this crisis is a relative ripple. Much of South Korea was bankrupted in 1997-98.
By comparison with the present flat GDP figures, in each quarter of 1998 South Korea's economy contracted by an average of 6.65 per cent. The Korean won weakened 25 per cent against the US dollar last year; during 1997-98 it fell 60 per cent.
This crisis around, the "Land of Morning Calm" is reacting with, well, morning calm.
"We wake up and get the bad news from New York and London, but it's OK, we had our big crisis in 1998," explains HSBC bank's Changsoo Lee, "so we've been well prepared for this one."
So against this relatively buoyant backdrop, South Korean bankers still have their reputations intact and have begun launching financial products that remain years away from re-appearing in the West, if they ever surface again.
Among Western investors, mortgage-backed securities are now about as popular as Fred Nile chaperoning a Cronulla Sharks footy trip. It was the confidence collapse in these poisonous derivatives in the US in mid-2007 that sent the world careering into its financial pickle.
But in the first such bond launched in the region since the financial crisis, HSBC and Citibank have helped South Korea's biggest private bank, Kookmin, arrange a $US1 billion ($A1.2 billion) bond covered by its mortgage and credit card portfolio. That's a structure that would send chills through places like Parkes and Wingecarribee, among the scores of Australian municipalities that bought $2 billion of dodgy Lehman Brothers paper secured by dodgier American subprime mortgages.
But the Korean version is comprised of anything but the overleveraged "Deadbeat Dad" or "ghetto loans" packaged into the US nightmare. Kookmin's mortgages are solid Korean middle class; few Koreans owe their bank more than 50 per cent of the conservative value of their homes, a regulation instituted after the 1998 crisis.
More to the point, the five-year Kookmin facility was six times oversubscribed. About 55 per cent of it was taken up by Asian investors — further evidence, if any were needed besides China's huge continued flotation of the US economy, that the future indeed tilts eastwards.
Eric Ellis writes for Forbes from Asia
Australian TV journalist freed from Singapore jail
Jun 22, 2009
SINGAPORE (AFP) — An Australian television journalist has been freed from a Singapore jail after serving nearly seven months of his 10-month sentence for drug offences, a prison spokeswoman said.
Peter Lloyd, the former New Delhi-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was jailed on December 2 after pleading guilty to three drug charges.
"It is confirmed that he was released today," a spokeswoman for Singapore's Changi Prison told AFP without giving details.
A legal source said prisoners who behave well usually have their sentences cut by one third.
Judge Hamidah Ibrahim sentenced Lloyd to eight months for possessing 0.41 grams (0.014 ounces) of the stimulant methamphetamine and another eight months for consuming it. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
Lloyd received an additional two months in jail for possessing drug paraphernalia stained with ketamine, an anaesthetic commonly used at dance parties.
Singapore's attorney general earlier withdrew a charge of trafficking 0.15 grams of methamphetamine, an offence that carries a prison term of between five and 20 years as well as five to 15 strokes of the cane.
It was unclear whether Lloyd would return to Australia.
Lloyd was arrested while on holiday in Singapore on July 16 last year.
His lawyer had argued that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress because of his work as a journalist covering wars and disasters in Asia, including the 2002 bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Lloyd took methamphetamine as a way of dealing with nightmares caused by the tragedies he had covered, his lawyer had said.
Singapore, one of Asia's safest cities, follows an uncompromising line against drugs and other crimes. Trafficking certain amounts of drugs is punishable by death, a sentence carried out by hanging.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
Jun 22, 2009
SINGAPORE (AFP) — An Australian television journalist has been freed from a Singapore jail after serving nearly seven months of his 10-month sentence for drug offences, a prison spokeswoman said.
Peter Lloyd, the former New Delhi-based correspondent for the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, was jailed on December 2 after pleading guilty to three drug charges.
"It is confirmed that he was released today," a spokeswoman for Singapore's Changi Prison told AFP without giving details.
A legal source said prisoners who behave well usually have their sentences cut by one third.
Judge Hamidah Ibrahim sentenced Lloyd to eight months for possessing 0.41 grams (0.014 ounces) of the stimulant methamphetamine and another eight months for consuming it. The sentences were ordered to run concurrently.
Lloyd received an additional two months in jail for possessing drug paraphernalia stained with ketamine, an anaesthetic commonly used at dance parties.
Singapore's attorney general earlier withdrew a charge of trafficking 0.15 grams of methamphetamine, an offence that carries a prison term of between five and 20 years as well as five to 15 strokes of the cane.
It was unclear whether Lloyd would return to Australia.
Lloyd was arrested while on holiday in Singapore on July 16 last year.
His lawyer had argued that he was suffering from post-traumatic stress because of his work as a journalist covering wars and disasters in Asia, including the 2002 bomb attacks on the Indonesian island of Bali.
Lloyd took methamphetamine as a way of dealing with nightmares caused by the tragedies he had covered, his lawyer had said.
Singapore, one of Asia's safest cities, follows an uncompromising line against drugs and other crimes. Trafficking certain amounts of drugs is punishable by death, a sentence carried out by hanging.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved
By Dave Durbach
Contributing Writer
In an event that reiterates Korea's historical contribution to the world while showcasing its contemporary cultural flair, a group of artists from Seoul are currently exhibiting at the Frauenmusuem (Women´s Museum), in the former West German capital of Bonn.
``Hanji: Paper Road'' is an exhibition of both young and established Korean female artists who are using Korean hanji not only in the time-honored way, but are also reinterpreting the medium for contemporary audiences.
The exhibition is divided into four themes, the first tracing the history of hanji from China in 105 AD, its introduction to Korea in the next century, and its subsequent spread to the rest of Asia, to North Africa and finally to Europe in the 12th century. A display of small hanji dolls help show the step-by-step fabrication process. Also on show are some pieces on loan form the Hanji Development Institute. One can find traditional jeonji, jiseung and jiho papercraft in the form of furniture, bags, hanbok, hats, lanterns, pillows and sculptures.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the exhibition is the contemporary hanji oeuvre, featuring sculptures, lamps, dolls and wall-mounted hanji canvases by young Korean artists such as Cho Jung-eun. Kim Young-sung, Jun Chang-ho, Jung-soon Kim, Park Wol-ran, Bean So, as well as Young-ja Bang-Cho, who has been living in Germany for 30 years, and who helped initiate the exchange program between German and Korean female artists.
Bang-Cho makes it clear that hanji is a ``treasure'' that has played an important role in historical rituals, but that is just as useful today as it was a thousand years ago. It has a huge variety of uses; it grows fast, meaning that other forests are protected; and unlike other kinds of paper, it lasts for hundreds of years.
The exhibition in Bonn comes at an important time for Korean art. According to one of the organizers, Young-Soon Cha from the College of Art and Craft at Ewha Womans University, ``Korean Modern Arts suffered hardship throughout history: Japanese occupation, the Korean War, social turmoil, and dictatorships from the early 60s to the late 80s. From the 90s, Korean artists tried to find their own identities and represent them in their works. A major contemporary trend found in Korea is the quest for Korean-ness, sometimes criticised strongly in Korea itself and abroad. In my personal opinion, this is a step we should go through with.''
Of course it is also about bridging Korea and Europe. In Korea, Cha explains, ``we have relatively lots of information about Germany. From the opening of our country to abroad in late 19th century, the Germany was always a model for the study of science, engineering, medicine, law and most of all philosophy.''
In Germany, however, the Korean community, though well-established, remain relative outsiders. Bang-Cho explains that there are Koreans ``in every large city in Germany. Most came here around 1965 as guest workers in nursing, mining and shipyards. I myself came to Germany as a nurse's assistant.'' There are numerous Korean cultural, sports and church societies in Germany, many of which have existed for over 30 years."
This exhibition is about redefining that link between Germany and Korea, particularly from a feminist perspective. Cha explains, ``For us, it's very meaningful to make an exhibition in Frauen Museum, which is the world's first museum for women-artists. We can make contacts and share Asian or Korean cultures with Europeans, and we can shed light on marginalized people, for example women in a foreign society.''
``The German Women´s movement has been active for a long time, since the 60s,'' says Bang-Cho. ``But in Korea it started later. Through mutual symposia like this, a lot is exchanged - what problems we have at work, cultural differences, and how jobs and activities are differentiated. Through sharing, the young generation have taken the task, the challenge of women´s rights. Even art must still serve this.''
The exhibition in Bonn runs until the 12th of July. In Korea there is a Hanji exhibition at the Paper Museum in Seoul (Jongi Nara), moving to Wonju in September, and Chungju in October 2009. In September 2010, the Wonju International Paper Congress willl take place, with smaller exhibitions in Chungju, Jeonju, Seoul and Busan.
durbdev@yahoo.co.in
The writer is a South African freelance journalist who lived in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, until February 2009, and is currently based in Berlin as part of the International Journalists Program (IJP).
Contributing Writer
In an event that reiterates Korea's historical contribution to the world while showcasing its contemporary cultural flair, a group of artists from Seoul are currently exhibiting at the Frauenmusuem (Women´s Museum), in the former West German capital of Bonn.
``Hanji: Paper Road'' is an exhibition of both young and established Korean female artists who are using Korean hanji not only in the time-honored way, but are also reinterpreting the medium for contemporary audiences.
The exhibition is divided into four themes, the first tracing the history of hanji from China in 105 AD, its introduction to Korea in the next century, and its subsequent spread to the rest of Asia, to North Africa and finally to Europe in the 12th century. A display of small hanji dolls help show the step-by-step fabrication process. Also on show are some pieces on loan form the Hanji Development Institute. One can find traditional jeonji, jiseung and jiho papercraft in the form of furniture, bags, hanbok, hats, lanterns, pillows and sculptures.
Perhaps the most exciting part of the exhibition is the contemporary hanji oeuvre, featuring sculptures, lamps, dolls and wall-mounted hanji canvases by young Korean artists such as Cho Jung-eun. Kim Young-sung, Jun Chang-ho, Jung-soon Kim, Park Wol-ran, Bean So, as well as Young-ja Bang-Cho, who has been living in Germany for 30 years, and who helped initiate the exchange program between German and Korean female artists.
Bang-Cho makes it clear that hanji is a ``treasure'' that has played an important role in historical rituals, but that is just as useful today as it was a thousand years ago. It has a huge variety of uses; it grows fast, meaning that other forests are protected; and unlike other kinds of paper, it lasts for hundreds of years.
The exhibition in Bonn comes at an important time for Korean art. According to one of the organizers, Young-Soon Cha from the College of Art and Craft at Ewha Womans University, ``Korean Modern Arts suffered hardship throughout history: Japanese occupation, the Korean War, social turmoil, and dictatorships from the early 60s to the late 80s. From the 90s, Korean artists tried to find their own identities and represent them in their works. A major contemporary trend found in Korea is the quest for Korean-ness, sometimes criticised strongly in Korea itself and abroad. In my personal opinion, this is a step we should go through with.''
Of course it is also about bridging Korea and Europe. In Korea, Cha explains, ``we have relatively lots of information about Germany. From the opening of our country to abroad in late 19th century, the Germany was always a model for the study of science, engineering, medicine, law and most of all philosophy.''
In Germany, however, the Korean community, though well-established, remain relative outsiders. Bang-Cho explains that there are Koreans ``in every large city in Germany. Most came here around 1965 as guest workers in nursing, mining and shipyards. I myself came to Germany as a nurse's assistant.'' There are numerous Korean cultural, sports and church societies in Germany, many of which have existed for over 30 years."
This exhibition is about redefining that link between Germany and Korea, particularly from a feminist perspective. Cha explains, ``For us, it's very meaningful to make an exhibition in Frauen Museum, which is the world's first museum for women-artists. We can make contacts and share Asian or Korean cultures with Europeans, and we can shed light on marginalized people, for example women in a foreign society.''
``The German Women´s movement has been active for a long time, since the 60s,'' says Bang-Cho. ``But in Korea it started later. Through mutual symposia like this, a lot is exchanged - what problems we have at work, cultural differences, and how jobs and activities are differentiated. Through sharing, the young generation have taken the task, the challenge of women´s rights. Even art must still serve this.''
The exhibition in Bonn runs until the 12th of July. In Korea there is a Hanji exhibition at the Paper Museum in Seoul (Jongi Nara), moving to Wonju in September, and Chungju in October 2009. In September 2010, the Wonju International Paper Congress willl take place, with smaller exhibitions in Chungju, Jeonju, Seoul and Busan.
durbdev@yahoo.co.in
The writer is a South African freelance journalist who lived in Chungju, North Chungcheong Province, until February 2009, and is currently based in Berlin as part of the International Journalists Program (IJP).
It is always interesting to see what is happening in Japan.
Is a national 'Manga Museum' at last set to get off the ground?
There's long been talk of creating a Japan mecca devoted to anime, cartoons, video games and digital art — but an election looms and the latest plan is fast becoming a political football
By EDAN CORKILL
Staff writer
When it was announced in April that ¥11.7 billion had been set aside in 2009's supplementary budget to create a new National Center for Media Arts (NCMA) — a museum for manga, anime, video games and technology art — the news was greeted in the same way that most cultural-policy issues are in Japan.
Future visions: An initial plan for the National Center for Media Arts (above). This "Power of Expression, Japan" exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2007 (below) suggests how the new facility may look inside. AGENCY FOR CULTURAL AFFAIRS
In other words, except for a few short, businesslike reports, it was ignored.
By the end of May, however, the plan had rocketed to center stage. In his first debate with Prime Minister Taro Aso, new Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama devoted one of just seven questions to the supplementary budget and what he derisively referred to as the "State-run Manga Cafe."
The need for a central facility to research, archive and exhibit the country's popular culture — and to act as a kind of international clearinghouse for these art forms — has been debated in think tanks hosted by the government's Agency for Cultural Affairs for around a decade. So long had deliberations dragged on that in an interview with The Japan Times this time last year, Tamotsu Aoki, the agency's head, said he didn't think the plan would get off the ground any time soon.
But what a difference 12 months can make.
Not only is the plan off the ground, but with the supplementary budget now enacted by the Diet, it is hurtling toward fruition at a very unbureaucratic speed. "Our job is to proceed with preparations as quickly as possible," Aoki told this newspaper last week.
Yet while most commentators on cultural policy are cautiously applauding the development, important questions remain. Why, for instance, has the plan developed so swiftly over the last year? Why is the DPJ so hostile to it? And will the facility meet the expectations of those who have called for its creation for so long?
The answers to the first two questions are related. Put simply, the DPJ thinks the plan was fast-tracked either on the orders of, or to curry favor with, Prime Minister Taro Aso, who is a fan of anime and manga.
"It's Taro Aso who likes anime. Now the bureaucracy has decided to build (a museum) for him. . . . It's a nonsense and a terrible waste of money," Hatoyama told an audience in Aomori on May 9. (For most media outlets, it was this speech that made the NCMA newsworthy.)
Yoshiyuki Oshita, a cultural policy specialist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, said that Hatoyama's and the DPJ's attacks could be explained in one of two ways. "Either they are being made without proper understanding of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' proposed plan," said Oshita, noting that the NCMA is not just for manga and anime, but also for technology and digital arts. Or the criticisms "represent a purely politically motivated intervention into the cultural sphere," he said.
There's probably some truth in both analyses. But the degree to which Aso was really involved in the plan's genesis is debatable.
The first official mention of a national facility for media arts was made in February 2007, in the Second Basic Policy on the Promotion of Culture and the Arts. "There is a need to consider the establishment of an international facility for new cultural art forms such as media art," noted that document — approved by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet.
Even that was hardly out of the blue. The original Basic Policy, from 2002, had declared that "young media artists should be nurtured . . . and facilities related to these art forms" should be bolstered. And since 1997, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has been hosting an annual two-week Japan Media Arts Festival celebrating these arts.
Last year, just a year into his tenure as head of the agency, Aoki, an academic by training, created an advisory panel to examine ways in which Japan could improve the promotion of its culture abroad. In its final report, the panel urged that the issue of the establishment of a museum for media arts be "addressed quickly."
Heeding that advice, in July 2008 Aoki set up a second committee to consider preparations for such a facility. Chaired by University of Tokyo Professor Yasuki Hamano, the body published a report this April that has become a rough blueprint for the new facility.
While the NCMA plan's decade-long gestation period precludes it from having been initiated entirely at the behest of Aso, the timing of the Hamano committee's report has raised eyebrows.
The results of a JT poll of foreign tourists asked if they would visit the proposed new facility. MATTHEW KAUNDART / JT GRAPHIC
An Agency for Cultural Affairs spokesperson confirmed that "there had been talk within the committee that their report would be published in the summer." For some reason, however, that date was advanced to April — in time to be included in the supplementary budget. The DPJ thinks this speed-up followed pressure from Aso, and that — in the words of DPJ Diet member, Seiji Ohsaka — "they've rushed it into the budget before anything is decided."
Agency for Cultural Affairs head Aoki explained what happened as follows: "In March, we were told it would be possible to apply for funding for this kind of facility within the supplementary budget. We were very appreciative of this opportunity."
In other words, the "pressure" — if it can be called that — was interpreted less as a stick than as a carrot, and a particularly attractive one at that.
"The Agency's annual budget is very small in comparison with other countries," Aoki added, noting its ¥102 billion allocation for 2009 is about a third less than South Korea's and seven times less than France's. "This opportunity was much appreciated," he repeated.
Of course, the official line on the NCMA plan's inclusion in the supplementary budget is that it will serve as a fiscal stimulus in the current economic downturn — which is why the supplementary budget was created in the first place.
Mitsubishi UFJ's Oshita added his analytic weight to this argument, explaining that in terms of immediate economic stimulus, ¥11.7 billion spent on a museum is no worse, and no better, than spending it on a new road or bridge or, for that matter, "digging a hole and filling it again." The important question, he said, is whether or not it can stimulate industry in the future.
Promotion of Japan's so-called media-contents industries (including manga, anime, TV and film) has recently become a high priority within several government ministries — including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. Hence it was probably this prioritization, Oshita suggested, that convinced Cabinet members that the NCMA-as-fiscal-stimulus idea was worth a try.
The DPJ's objections to the NCMA have subsided slightly since the ruling Liberal Democratic Party used their coalition majority in the Lower House to enact the supplementary budget — effectively overruling the objections of the Upper House's DPJ majority. However, argument about the NCMA will likely flare again during the upcoming election. Importantly, the DPJ is refusing to say whether or not it will terminate the plan if it wins power. "We're still considering how to approach that issue," a party spokesperson said by phone last week.
For his part, Aoki would not be drawn on the consequences of a change of government. "We will respond to the circumstances in which we find ourselves," he said.
So, as things stand — and with ¥11.7 billion now in the coffers for buying land and constructing the building — it is full speed ahead as far as the Agency for Cultural Affairs is concerned.
Fast forward: Exhibits at the new "Manga Museum" are likely to resemble those at 2007's "Power of Expression, Japan," an exhibition held to document the first 10 years of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Media Arts Festival. AGENCY FOR CULTURAL AFFAIRS
The April report tentatively names the new facility the Kokuritsu Media Geijutsu Sogo Senta (which, for lack of an official version, this writer translates as "National Center for Media Arts"). It also recommends that the center should be four or five stories high and around 10,000 sq. meters in total area — and that it should be built within the next two or three years in Tokyo's waterfront Odaiba district.
As for its activities, the plan says the NCMA should research, collect, nurture and exhibit the work of young creators in the fields of manga, anime, video games and art forms using computers or electronic media.
It is envisaged that such a center would attract 600,000 visitors a year, including researchers and tourists from around the world, and generate ¥150 million in ticket sales annually.
However, nothing is set in stone, and deliberations on all of these details are set to continue within the NCMA "planning office" recently established within the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and also within a new committee of specialists that will be convened in the near future. An Agency spokesperson revealed to The Japan Times on Friday that the new committee will publish a revised "basic plan" for the NCMA in July and that an architectural competition will be held soon after that. In September the architect, location and a detailed NCMA "project plan" will be announced.
In terms of attracting researchers from abroad, most commentators agree that the potential is great. "Still," explained Jaqueline Berndt, deputy director of Kyoto International Manga Museum's research center, "I worry whether this will be a scholarly institution. At the moment we get many many e-mails from foreign scholars, especially graduate students, who want to research or want information or resources." The new NCMA, she said, will need the resources and staff to foster such exchanges.
It is also expected that the facility will be popular with tourists. "This could be a really vital tourist resource," said Takeshi Komiya, senior director of HIS Experience Japan, a leading inbound travel agency. But he warned: "You can't just say, 'OK, we built a center.' You need to explain to visitors, 'Yes, we have Kyoto and Nara, but this is also an important part of Japanese culture.' "
Top 'crat: Tamotsu Aoki, head of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, discusses plans for the new National Center for Media Arts in a JT interview this month. EDAN CORKILL
In a quick survey of foreign tourists in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza shopping district and in the "subculture Mecca" of Akihabara last week, The Japan Times found that in each location 60 percent of 20 tourists polled said they would visit such a facility.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the April report is that it says management of the facility will be outsourced to private enterprise, with the intention of it being entirely self-financing.
The closest thing to a precedent for such a business model would be Japan's regional museums, management of which can now be outsourced to "appointed administrators." The key difference, however, is that in the case of the regional museums, the appointed administrators are paid a set fee to run the facilities. The NCMA administrator would have to operate the entire institution solely on whatever income they manage to wring from it.
Even stranger is the suggestion that the NCMA's collection would be bankrolled by its own income. It is hard to imagine that a private management firm appointed on a three- or perhaps five-year contract would bother expending precious operating funds on a cost-heavy, largely unprofitable collection.
"There has been talk of there being some manga artists willing to donate works to the NCMA," one Agency for Cultural Affairs spokesperson said sheepishly, before Aoki added that this, too, is an area awaiting further consideration.
The planned NCMA has also been criticized from within the manga and anime fraternities.
Manga artist Kei Ishizaka declared at a DPJ hearing on the plan that, "manga fans would not come and look at original drawings hung in frames using government money."
But, for every skeptic, there appears to be a supporter.
For instance, manga artist Machiko Satonaka was so "fearful that the plan would be swept aside" that she gathered like-minded colleagues and set up her own press conference on June 4 to register their support.
"The preservation and restoration of precious original manga drawings, which are deteriorating rapidly, is urgently required," she told the assembled reporters.
Others still have voiced concerns that the NCMA plan might be a cynical attempt by the government to enlist manga and anime for the enhancement of Japan's geopolitical influence. If so, that's news to Berndt, of the Kyoto International Manga Museum. She recalled a recent foreign graduate student hellbent on uncovering just such a motivation. "Maybe from a European perspective, it looks like that, but in Japan . . . there really isn't one," she said, almost with a hint of disappointment.
Still, perhaps the most important point is one that Aoki, from his position as head of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, is at pains to make.
"People keep referring to this as a museum of manga and anime, but it is not," he said. "It also includes all the technology and digital forms of expression."
Mitsubishi UFJ's Oshita went even further. "The definition of media art is very difficult. Although it does include manga and printed matter, I think at its core will be the idea of eizo (video content)," he said. "As can be seen from the popularity of (video-sharing Web site) YouTube, videos are now the central parlance of the Internet. They will change the way we communicate."
Oshita sees the new facility as a potential clearinghouse to filter out and preserve the best of the myriad, but ephemeral, video content that now floods the Internet — from television programs to advertising to amateur-produced parodies and video diaries.
While not quite as revolutionary in his thinking, Aoki also has his sights set on distinguishing Japan from the rest of the world. "Japan has been a global leader not just in anime and manga, but in digital art," he said. "Making a facility like this is a way to maintain that leadership."
Perhaps. But while Aoki and others are keeping one eye on the world and the other on the task of quickly planning for their new facility, there's a lingering threat that in the next few months their feet could be pulled from under them, and the museum could be demolished before it is ever built.
Is a national 'Manga Museum' at last set to get off the ground?
There's long been talk of creating a Japan mecca devoted to anime, cartoons, video games and digital art — but an election looms and the latest plan is fast becoming a political football
By EDAN CORKILL
Staff writer
When it was announced in April that ¥11.7 billion had been set aside in 2009's supplementary budget to create a new National Center for Media Arts (NCMA) — a museum for manga, anime, video games and technology art — the news was greeted in the same way that most cultural-policy issues are in Japan.
Future visions: An initial plan for the National Center for Media Arts (above). This "Power of Expression, Japan" exhibition at the National Art Center in Tokyo in 2007 (below) suggests how the new facility may look inside. AGENCY FOR CULTURAL AFFAIRS
In other words, except for a few short, businesslike reports, it was ignored.
By the end of May, however, the plan had rocketed to center stage. In his first debate with Prime Minister Taro Aso, new Democratic Party of Japan President Yukio Hatoyama devoted one of just seven questions to the supplementary budget and what he derisively referred to as the "State-run Manga Cafe."
The need for a central facility to research, archive and exhibit the country's popular culture — and to act as a kind of international clearinghouse for these art forms — has been debated in think tanks hosted by the government's Agency for Cultural Affairs for around a decade. So long had deliberations dragged on that in an interview with The Japan Times this time last year, Tamotsu Aoki, the agency's head, said he didn't think the plan would get off the ground any time soon.
But what a difference 12 months can make.
Not only is the plan off the ground, but with the supplementary budget now enacted by the Diet, it is hurtling toward fruition at a very unbureaucratic speed. "Our job is to proceed with preparations as quickly as possible," Aoki told this newspaper last week.
Yet while most commentators on cultural policy are cautiously applauding the development, important questions remain. Why, for instance, has the plan developed so swiftly over the last year? Why is the DPJ so hostile to it? And will the facility meet the expectations of those who have called for its creation for so long?
The answers to the first two questions are related. Put simply, the DPJ thinks the plan was fast-tracked either on the orders of, or to curry favor with, Prime Minister Taro Aso, who is a fan of anime and manga.
"It's Taro Aso who likes anime. Now the bureaucracy has decided to build (a museum) for him. . . . It's a nonsense and a terrible waste of money," Hatoyama told an audience in Aomori on May 9. (For most media outlets, it was this speech that made the NCMA newsworthy.)
Yoshiyuki Oshita, a cultural policy specialist at Mitsubishi UFJ Research and Consulting, said that Hatoyama's and the DPJ's attacks could be explained in one of two ways. "Either they are being made without proper understanding of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' proposed plan," said Oshita, noting that the NCMA is not just for manga and anime, but also for technology and digital arts. Or the criticisms "represent a purely politically motivated intervention into the cultural sphere," he said.
There's probably some truth in both analyses. But the degree to which Aso was really involved in the plan's genesis is debatable.
The first official mention of a national facility for media arts was made in February 2007, in the Second Basic Policy on the Promotion of Culture and the Arts. "There is a need to consider the establishment of an international facility for new cultural art forms such as media art," noted that document — approved by then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's Cabinet.
Even that was hardly out of the blue. The original Basic Policy, from 2002, had declared that "young media artists should be nurtured . . . and facilities related to these art forms" should be bolstered. And since 1997, the Agency for Cultural Affairs has been hosting an annual two-week Japan Media Arts Festival celebrating these arts.
Last year, just a year into his tenure as head of the agency, Aoki, an academic by training, created an advisory panel to examine ways in which Japan could improve the promotion of its culture abroad. In its final report, the panel urged that the issue of the establishment of a museum for media arts be "addressed quickly."
Heeding that advice, in July 2008 Aoki set up a second committee to consider preparations for such a facility. Chaired by University of Tokyo Professor Yasuki Hamano, the body published a report this April that has become a rough blueprint for the new facility.
While the NCMA plan's decade-long gestation period precludes it from having been initiated entirely at the behest of Aso, the timing of the Hamano committee's report has raised eyebrows.
The results of a JT poll of foreign tourists asked if they would visit the proposed new facility. MATTHEW KAUNDART / JT GRAPHIC
An Agency for Cultural Affairs spokesperson confirmed that "there had been talk within the committee that their report would be published in the summer." For some reason, however, that date was advanced to April — in time to be included in the supplementary budget. The DPJ thinks this speed-up followed pressure from Aso, and that — in the words of DPJ Diet member, Seiji Ohsaka — "they've rushed it into the budget before anything is decided."
Agency for Cultural Affairs head Aoki explained what happened as follows: "In March, we were told it would be possible to apply for funding for this kind of facility within the supplementary budget. We were very appreciative of this opportunity."
In other words, the "pressure" — if it can be called that — was interpreted less as a stick than as a carrot, and a particularly attractive one at that.
"The Agency's annual budget is very small in comparison with other countries," Aoki added, noting its ¥102 billion allocation for 2009 is about a third less than South Korea's and seven times less than France's. "This opportunity was much appreciated," he repeated.
Of course, the official line on the NCMA plan's inclusion in the supplementary budget is that it will serve as a fiscal stimulus in the current economic downturn — which is why the supplementary budget was created in the first place.
Mitsubishi UFJ's Oshita added his analytic weight to this argument, explaining that in terms of immediate economic stimulus, ¥11.7 billion spent on a museum is no worse, and no better, than spending it on a new road or bridge or, for that matter, "digging a hole and filling it again." The important question, he said, is whether or not it can stimulate industry in the future.
Promotion of Japan's so-called media-contents industries (including manga, anime, TV and film) has recently become a high priority within several government ministries — including the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry, the Internal Affairs and Communications Ministry and the Foreign Ministry. Hence it was probably this prioritization, Oshita suggested, that convinced Cabinet members that the NCMA-as-fiscal-stimulus idea was worth a try.
The DPJ's objections to the NCMA have subsided slightly since the ruling Liberal Democratic Party used their coalition majority in the Lower House to enact the supplementary budget — effectively overruling the objections of the Upper House's DPJ majority. However, argument about the NCMA will likely flare again during the upcoming election. Importantly, the DPJ is refusing to say whether or not it will terminate the plan if it wins power. "We're still considering how to approach that issue," a party spokesperson said by phone last week.
For his part, Aoki would not be drawn on the consequences of a change of government. "We will respond to the circumstances in which we find ourselves," he said.
So, as things stand — and with ¥11.7 billion now in the coffers for buying land and constructing the building — it is full speed ahead as far as the Agency for Cultural Affairs is concerned.
Fast forward: Exhibits at the new "Manga Museum" are likely to resemble those at 2007's "Power of Expression, Japan," an exhibition held to document the first 10 years of the Agency for Cultural Affairs' Media Arts Festival. AGENCY FOR CULTURAL AFFAIRS
The April report tentatively names the new facility the Kokuritsu Media Geijutsu Sogo Senta (which, for lack of an official version, this writer translates as "National Center for Media Arts"). It also recommends that the center should be four or five stories high and around 10,000 sq. meters in total area — and that it should be built within the next two or three years in Tokyo's waterfront Odaiba district.
As for its activities, the plan says the NCMA should research, collect, nurture and exhibit the work of young creators in the fields of manga, anime, video games and art forms using computers or electronic media.
It is envisaged that such a center would attract 600,000 visitors a year, including researchers and tourists from around the world, and generate ¥150 million in ticket sales annually.
However, nothing is set in stone, and deliberations on all of these details are set to continue within the NCMA "planning office" recently established within the Agency for Cultural Affairs, and also within a new committee of specialists that will be convened in the near future. An Agency spokesperson revealed to The Japan Times on Friday that the new committee will publish a revised "basic plan" for the NCMA in July and that an architectural competition will be held soon after that. In September the architect, location and a detailed NCMA "project plan" will be announced.
In terms of attracting researchers from abroad, most commentators agree that the potential is great. "Still," explained Jaqueline Berndt, deputy director of Kyoto International Manga Museum's research center, "I worry whether this will be a scholarly institution. At the moment we get many many e-mails from foreign scholars, especially graduate students, who want to research or want information or resources." The new NCMA, she said, will need the resources and staff to foster such exchanges.
It is also expected that the facility will be popular with tourists. "This could be a really vital tourist resource," said Takeshi Komiya, senior director of HIS Experience Japan, a leading inbound travel agency. But he warned: "You can't just say, 'OK, we built a center.' You need to explain to visitors, 'Yes, we have Kyoto and Nara, but this is also an important part of Japanese culture.' "
Top 'crat: Tamotsu Aoki, head of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, discusses plans for the new National Center for Media Arts in a JT interview this month. EDAN CORKILL
In a quick survey of foreign tourists in Tokyo's upmarket Ginza shopping district and in the "subculture Mecca" of Akihabara last week, The Japan Times found that in each location 60 percent of 20 tourists polled said they would visit such a facility.
Perhaps the most worrying aspect of the April report is that it says management of the facility will be outsourced to private enterprise, with the intention of it being entirely self-financing.
The closest thing to a precedent for such a business model would be Japan's regional museums, management of which can now be outsourced to "appointed administrators." The key difference, however, is that in the case of the regional museums, the appointed administrators are paid a set fee to run the facilities. The NCMA administrator would have to operate the entire institution solely on whatever income they manage to wring from it.
Even stranger is the suggestion that the NCMA's collection would be bankrolled by its own income. It is hard to imagine that a private management firm appointed on a three- or perhaps five-year contract would bother expending precious operating funds on a cost-heavy, largely unprofitable collection.
"There has been talk of there being some manga artists willing to donate works to the NCMA," one Agency for Cultural Affairs spokesperson said sheepishly, before Aoki added that this, too, is an area awaiting further consideration.
The planned NCMA has also been criticized from within the manga and anime fraternities.
Manga artist Kei Ishizaka declared at a DPJ hearing on the plan that, "manga fans would not come and look at original drawings hung in frames using government money."
But, for every skeptic, there appears to be a supporter.
For instance, manga artist Machiko Satonaka was so "fearful that the plan would be swept aside" that she gathered like-minded colleagues and set up her own press conference on June 4 to register their support.
"The preservation and restoration of precious original manga drawings, which are deteriorating rapidly, is urgently required," she told the assembled reporters.
Others still have voiced concerns that the NCMA plan might be a cynical attempt by the government to enlist manga and anime for the enhancement of Japan's geopolitical influence. If so, that's news to Berndt, of the Kyoto International Manga Museum. She recalled a recent foreign graduate student hellbent on uncovering just such a motivation. "Maybe from a European perspective, it looks like that, but in Japan . . . there really isn't one," she said, almost with a hint of disappointment.
Still, perhaps the most important point is one that Aoki, from his position as head of the Agency for Cultural Affairs, is at pains to make.
"People keep referring to this as a museum of manga and anime, but it is not," he said. "It also includes all the technology and digital forms of expression."
Mitsubishi UFJ's Oshita went even further. "The definition of media art is very difficult. Although it does include manga and printed matter, I think at its core will be the idea of eizo (video content)," he said. "As can be seen from the popularity of (video-sharing Web site) YouTube, videos are now the central parlance of the Internet. They will change the way we communicate."
Oshita sees the new facility as a potential clearinghouse to filter out and preserve the best of the myriad, but ephemeral, video content that now floods the Internet — from television programs to advertising to amateur-produced parodies and video diaries.
While not quite as revolutionary in his thinking, Aoki also has his sights set on distinguishing Japan from the rest of the world. "Japan has been a global leader not just in anime and manga, but in digital art," he said. "Making a facility like this is a way to maintain that leadership."
Perhaps. But while Aoki and others are keeping one eye on the world and the other on the task of quickly planning for their new facility, there's a lingering threat that in the next few months their feet could be pulled from under them, and the museum could be demolished before it is ever built.
The wild heat.
Severe Heat Wave Grips Many Parts Of India
Friday, 26 June 2009
Dogs join daily wage laborers and rickshaw pullers as they take rest seated over wet sand to keep off the heat in New Delhi, 26 Jun 2009A severe heat wave sweeping across the plains of India has claimed at least 100 lives. It has also led to power and water shortages in many parts of the country, including the capital, New Delhi.
As temperatures hovered around 44 degrees Celsius across northern, eastern and central India, officials in several states reported scores of heat-related deaths. Many of the victims belong to India's poorest states such as Orissa and Jharkhand.
In Orissa, hospitals opened special wards for heat stroke victims.
High temperatures are common starting May, but seasonal monsoon rains usually bring some cooling showers in June. However there has been no respite from the scorching weather due to poor rains in recent weeks.
The impact of the prolonged heat spell has been aggravated by acute power and water shortages in many parts of the country.
In New Delhi, angry residents in parts of the city have held street protests to draw attention to the dry taps and lengthy power outages.
Purnima Mehta, who lives in Delhi's posh south, reports power outages for up to six hours a day.
"Lack of power leads to immense discomfort for everyone, and of course water is a basic necessity, and without that how can any household function?" Mehta asked.
Officials say there is little they can do to ease the situation. Levels in water reservoirs are dire, and power stations are unable to cope with the massive surge in demand as air conditioners work overtime.
New Delhi's chief minister, Shiela Dikshit, has warned of tough days ahead if monsoon rains do not arrive soon, and is asking people to conserve both water and power.
The warning came after officials forecast that monsoons are likely to be "below normal", and the maximum shortfall will be in northwestern India.
Minister of Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said this week that government officials are monitoring the situation that may arise due to the deficit in rains.
"There are many implications about irrigation, about electricity generation, about drinking water and steps to mitigate that would be taken," Chavan said.
Officials have resorted to a variety of measures to cope with the situation. In New Delhi, summer vacations in schools have been extended by one week to protect school children from the blazing sun. In Punjab - a relatively rich, agricultural state - the state government has ordered that air conditioners in government offices should be turned off so that power can be conserved to pump water to farms. In Andhra Pradesh, the government has drawn up plans for cloud seeding operations if rains are delayed further.
Severe Heat Wave Grips Many Parts Of India
Friday, 26 June 2009
Dogs join daily wage laborers and rickshaw pullers as they take rest seated over wet sand to keep off the heat in New Delhi, 26 Jun 2009A severe heat wave sweeping across the plains of India has claimed at least 100 lives. It has also led to power and water shortages in many parts of the country, including the capital, New Delhi.
As temperatures hovered around 44 degrees Celsius across northern, eastern and central India, officials in several states reported scores of heat-related deaths. Many of the victims belong to India's poorest states such as Orissa and Jharkhand.
In Orissa, hospitals opened special wards for heat stroke victims.
High temperatures are common starting May, but seasonal monsoon rains usually bring some cooling showers in June. However there has been no respite from the scorching weather due to poor rains in recent weeks.
The impact of the prolonged heat spell has been aggravated by acute power and water shortages in many parts of the country.
In New Delhi, angry residents in parts of the city have held street protests to draw attention to the dry taps and lengthy power outages.
Purnima Mehta, who lives in Delhi's posh south, reports power outages for up to six hours a day.
"Lack of power leads to immense discomfort for everyone, and of course water is a basic necessity, and without that how can any household function?" Mehta asked.
Officials say there is little they can do to ease the situation. Levels in water reservoirs are dire, and power stations are unable to cope with the massive surge in demand as air conditioners work overtime.
New Delhi's chief minister, Shiela Dikshit, has warned of tough days ahead if monsoon rains do not arrive soon, and is asking people to conserve both water and power.
The warning came after officials forecast that monsoons are likely to be "below normal", and the maximum shortfall will be in northwestern India.
Minister of Earth Sciences Prithviraj Chavan said this week that government officials are monitoring the situation that may arise due to the deficit in rains.
"There are many implications about irrigation, about electricity generation, about drinking water and steps to mitigate that would be taken," Chavan said.
Officials have resorted to a variety of measures to cope with the situation. In New Delhi, summer vacations in schools have been extended by one week to protect school children from the blazing sun. In Punjab - a relatively rich, agricultural state - the state government has ordered that air conditioners in government offices should be turned off so that power can be conserved to pump water to farms. In Andhra Pradesh, the government has drawn up plans for cloud seeding operations if rains are delayed further.
This charity's webpage absolutely made my day. The fact that people would devote their lives to a cause this wonderful was so heartening to know. After so much experience of evil, when you see the good, it makes you gasp with wonder.
http://www.bba.org.in/
http://www.bba.org.in/
A CHILD was pulled alive from rough seas after a Yemeni Airbus A310 jet carrying 153 people crashed as it came in to land in the Indian Ocean island nation of Comoros yesterday.
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Yemenia plane crash
A Yemenia plane carrying 150 passengers disappeared in the Indian Ocean as it prepared to land in...
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It was the second time in less than a month that an Airbus had crashed into the ocean, and immediately there were calls by the EU for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines.
French authorities said the Yemeni carrier had been under surveillance and that problems had been reported with the jet.
Bodies and wreckage from the Yemenia Airways flight were spotted in the sea near the archipelago's capital, Moroni.
Hopes there would be survivors among the 142 passengers and 11 crew on Flight IY 626 were realised when a five-year-old child was plucked from the sea and taken to hospital, officials said. In Yemen's capital, Sanaa, Yemenia's deputy managing director for operations, Mohammed al-Sumairi, said three bodies had been recovered. But there was no word on other survivors.
Fishermen had also found wreckage, passengers' handbags and other effects, said rescuers in Comoros.
Yemeni aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash."The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said.
Witnesses said they saw the jet trying to land at Moroni airport, but then disappear.
"It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," said former civil aviation chief Mohamed Yahya, adding that its engines were making a noise as though it was in trouble.
Flight IY626 had started in Paris early on Monday, with passengers boarding a more modern Airbus A330-200 for the flight via Marseille to Sanaa, where passengers switched to the Airbus A310 for the journey to Djibouti and Moroni.
Moroni international airport lost contact with the jet just before it was due to land in bad weather, said airport director Hadji Mmadi Ali.
French civil aviation officials said 66 passengers were French. Three small babies were also among the passengers. France sent two navy ships and a plane from its nearby Indian Ocean territories to help the rescue.
Airbus, which is still reeling from the crash of an Air France A330-200 into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people on board, set up a crisis cell and sent investigators to the Comoros.
The European plane-maker said the jet that crashed off Moroni was made in 1990 and had been operated by Yemenia since 1999.
EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani called for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines like that in the EU.
"If we want to achieve better safety I'm convinced that we need to have a worldwide blacklist; the European blacklist works pretty well in Europe," he said.
France's Transport Minister, Dominique Bussereau, said inspectors had noted numerous faults on the Airbus and Yemenia was being closely monitored by EU authorities, although it was not on the blacklist.
He also said the crashed aircraft had been banned from French airspace several years ago because of "irregularities".
Yemen's transport minister, Khaled al-Wazir, said the Airbus was checked in May and had no technical faults.
Airbus said the jet had accumulated about 51,900 hours in the air from 17,300 flights.
Yemenia, created in 1978, is 51 per cent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 per cent by Saudi Arabia.
AFP
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Yemenia plane crash
A Yemenia plane carrying 150 passengers disappeared in the Indian Ocean as it prepared to land in...
Views today: 1043Sorry, this video is no longer available.
It was the second time in less than a month that an Airbus had crashed into the ocean, and immediately there were calls by the EU for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines.
French authorities said the Yemeni carrier had been under surveillance and that problems had been reported with the jet.
Bodies and wreckage from the Yemenia Airways flight were spotted in the sea near the archipelago's capital, Moroni.
Hopes there would be survivors among the 142 passengers and 11 crew on Flight IY 626 were realised when a five-year-old child was plucked from the sea and taken to hospital, officials said. In Yemen's capital, Sanaa, Yemenia's deputy managing director for operations, Mohammed al-Sumairi, said three bodies had been recovered. But there was no word on other survivors.
Fishermen had also found wreckage, passengers' handbags and other effects, said rescuers in Comoros.
Yemeni aviation official Mohammad Abdel Kader said it was too early to speculate on the cause of the crash."The weather was very bad ... the wind was very strong," he said.
Witnesses said they saw the jet trying to land at Moroni airport, but then disappear.
"It looked to me as though the plane was having difficulties landing," said former civil aviation chief Mohamed Yahya, adding that its engines were making a noise as though it was in trouble.
Flight IY626 had started in Paris early on Monday, with passengers boarding a more modern Airbus A330-200 for the flight via Marseille to Sanaa, where passengers switched to the Airbus A310 for the journey to Djibouti and Moroni.
Moroni international airport lost contact with the jet just before it was due to land in bad weather, said airport director Hadji Mmadi Ali.
French civil aviation officials said 66 passengers were French. Three small babies were also among the passengers. France sent two navy ships and a plane from its nearby Indian Ocean territories to help the rescue.
Airbus, which is still reeling from the crash of an Air France A330-200 into the Atlantic on June 1 with 228 people on board, set up a crisis cell and sent investigators to the Comoros.
The European plane-maker said the jet that crashed off Moroni was made in 1990 and had been operated by Yemenia since 1999.
EU Transport Commissioner Antonio Tajani called for a worldwide blacklist of unsafe airlines like that in the EU.
"If we want to achieve better safety I'm convinced that we need to have a worldwide blacklist; the European blacklist works pretty well in Europe," he said.
France's Transport Minister, Dominique Bussereau, said inspectors had noted numerous faults on the Airbus and Yemenia was being closely monitored by EU authorities, although it was not on the blacklist.
He also said the crashed aircraft had been banned from French airspace several years ago because of "irregularities".
Yemen's transport minister, Khaled al-Wazir, said the Airbus was checked in May and had no technical faults.
Airbus said the jet had accumulated about 51,900 hours in the air from 17,300 flights.
Yemenia, created in 1978, is 51 per cent owned by the Yemeni government and 49 per cent by Saudi Arabia.
AFP
1 July 2009
Refugees, asylum seekers and Australia: some cold hard facts
by Andrew Bartlett
The website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) contains all the statistical data anyone could want on refugees, asylum seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.
There are many different ways to analyse this data, but a few clear-cut aspects are worth emphasising. First, Australia consistently ranks near the top of industrialised nations in receiving refugees who waiting resettlement — often, but not always, in refugee camps.
Second, the reason Australia can appear so generous with offshore resettlement is because Australia consistently ranks near the bottom of industrialised nations when in comes to people arriving and seeking asylum. The controversies that erupt when a few hundred refugees arrive in boats can be seen as all the more irrational when contrasted to the tens of thousands who arrive year after year seeking asylum in some European countries which are far smaller in population and size.
A report in October 2008 showed that Iraqis were still by far the top nationality arriving in developed countries seeking asylum. Third on that list is China, which most Australians do not realise is our top source country for asylum seekers, because almost none of them arrive by boat. Instead, they arrive by plane on various temporary visas and apply for asylum later.
But the burden on all industrialised countries is insignificant when placed against poorer countries. 80 percent of the world’s refugees are in developing nations — most of them in insecure, unsafe or tenuous situations. The host countries obviously have far fewer resources to handle these numbers.
The single fact that sticks out most obviously of all is that the numbers of people in these desperate situations is huge and is likely to stay that way. The UNHCR’s global trends report for 2008 estimated “the number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year.”
And things have got worse in the first part of 2009 with “substantial new displacements, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia.”
People on the move from Pakistan include many originally from Afghanistan who have already been waiting for years in insecure situations for it to be safe to return. Australia tends to be a destination country for some who originate in Pakistan/Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.
This graph from the Possie in Aussie blog shows clearly that “the main reason why flows of asylum seekers decreased under the Howard government — they decreased around the world.”
Let’s not forget all these stats and trends are before the full effects of climate change start to be felt. A recent story in The Economist quoted the view of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that there will be 200 million “climate-change induced migrants” by 2050. At the moment, the global community can’t even agree on how best to label such people — with many rejecting the refugee terminology — let alone how to handle them.
The policy dilemmas thrown up by this situation are huge. In one sense, there is no full solution, short of world peace and an end to poverty globally. But the least we could do is stop pretending we can just block them all out.
Policies which try to put up a wall or restrict the ability to seek asylum can work for a while — unlike those who seek to make life unpleasant for people after they arrive, which have no effect other to inflict injustice on the innocent (often at public expense) and impede their long-term ability to integrate. But this quickly becomes a race to the bottom. The worst excesses of the Howard era are now being surpassed by countries like Italy, intercepting and returning refugees to Libya — whose human rights record — including returning refugees to danger — is dismal at best.
Eventually Australia is going to have to engage more directly with the large numbers of displaced people in our region. Spending money in an effort to use Indonesia as a holding pen so refugees don’t risk their lives on boats coming to Australia may work for a while, but it is untenable in the long term if refugees waiting in Indonesia are not able to find safe resettlement within a reasonable period.
An even bigger concern is the horrendous treatment many asylum seekers and displaced people are subjected to in Malaysia. These appalling and systematic human rights abuses have received little attention in Australia until recently, but we can’t continue to turn a blind eye. This post from a Malaysian blog documents some of that terrible treatment. It also notes “There are 171,000 refugees in Malaysia, fleeing persecution in their home countries.”
Australia has recently started taking in some refugees from Burma, including most recently Rohinya people from western Burma. This is very welcome, but it also means public awareness of how many of these refugees are treated by surrounding countries in our region will grow. It will present a diplomatic and human rights challenge for Australia.
A report just released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute — called The Human Tide — reinforces the need for us to stop denying the obvious in the hope we can somehow make it all go away.
The report’s author, Dr Mark Thomson, says:
“The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another.”
“Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.”
It’s time we ditched the fear and loathing approach that has lain beneath so much of Australia’s political psyche over so many years, and gave a rational approach a go. It wouldn’t hurt us — and it very probably would reduce the hurt suffered by people who are already suffered more than enough. We did it in the Fraser era in respect of refugees from Vietnam and that worked out well.
Andrew Bartlett is a blogger for Crikey and is also a Research Fellow in the Migration Law Practice Program at ANU.
Refugees, asylum seekers and Australia: some cold hard facts
by Andrew Bartlett
The website of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) contains all the statistical data anyone could want on refugees, asylum seekers, returned refugees, internally displaced and stateless people around the world.
There are many different ways to analyse this data, but a few clear-cut aspects are worth emphasising. First, Australia consistently ranks near the top of industrialised nations in receiving refugees who waiting resettlement — often, but not always, in refugee camps.
Second, the reason Australia can appear so generous with offshore resettlement is because Australia consistently ranks near the bottom of industrialised nations when in comes to people arriving and seeking asylum. The controversies that erupt when a few hundred refugees arrive in boats can be seen as all the more irrational when contrasted to the tens of thousands who arrive year after year seeking asylum in some European countries which are far smaller in population and size.
A report in October 2008 showed that Iraqis were still by far the top nationality arriving in developed countries seeking asylum. Third on that list is China, which most Australians do not realise is our top source country for asylum seekers, because almost none of them arrive by boat. Instead, they arrive by plane on various temporary visas and apply for asylum later.
But the burden on all industrialised countries is insignificant when placed against poorer countries. 80 percent of the world’s refugees are in developing nations — most of them in insecure, unsafe or tenuous situations. The host countries obviously have far fewer resources to handle these numbers.
The single fact that sticks out most obviously of all is that the numbers of people in these desperate situations is huge and is likely to stay that way. The UNHCR’s global trends report for 2008 estimated “the number of people forcibly uprooted by conflict and persecution worldwide stood at 42 million at the end of last year.”
And things have got worse in the first part of 2009 with “substantial new displacements, namely in Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Somalia.”
People on the move from Pakistan include many originally from Afghanistan who have already been waiting for years in insecure situations for it to be safe to return. Australia tends to be a destination country for some who originate in Pakistan/Afghanistan or Sri Lanka.
This graph from the Possie in Aussie blog shows clearly that “the main reason why flows of asylum seekers decreased under the Howard government — they decreased around the world.”
Let’s not forget all these stats and trends are before the full effects of climate change start to be felt. A recent story in The Economist quoted the view of the International Organisation for Migration (IOM) that there will be 200 million “climate-change induced migrants” by 2050. At the moment, the global community can’t even agree on how best to label such people — with many rejecting the refugee terminology — let alone how to handle them.
The policy dilemmas thrown up by this situation are huge. In one sense, there is no full solution, short of world peace and an end to poverty globally. But the least we could do is stop pretending we can just block them all out.
Policies which try to put up a wall or restrict the ability to seek asylum can work for a while — unlike those who seek to make life unpleasant for people after they arrive, which have no effect other to inflict injustice on the innocent (often at public expense) and impede their long-term ability to integrate. But this quickly becomes a race to the bottom. The worst excesses of the Howard era are now being surpassed by countries like Italy, intercepting and returning refugees to Libya — whose human rights record — including returning refugees to danger — is dismal at best.
Eventually Australia is going to have to engage more directly with the large numbers of displaced people in our region. Spending money in an effort to use Indonesia as a holding pen so refugees don’t risk their lives on boats coming to Australia may work for a while, but it is untenable in the long term if refugees waiting in Indonesia are not able to find safe resettlement within a reasonable period.
An even bigger concern is the horrendous treatment many asylum seekers and displaced people are subjected to in Malaysia. These appalling and systematic human rights abuses have received little attention in Australia until recently, but we can’t continue to turn a blind eye. This post from a Malaysian blog documents some of that terrible treatment. It also notes “There are 171,000 refugees in Malaysia, fleeing persecution in their home countries.”
Australia has recently started taking in some refugees from Burma, including most recently Rohinya people from western Burma. This is very welcome, but it also means public awareness of how many of these refugees are treated by surrounding countries in our region will grow. It will present a diplomatic and human rights challenge for Australia.
A report just released by the Australian Strategic Policy Institute — called The Human Tide — reinforces the need for us to stop denying the obvious in the hope we can somehow make it all go away.
The report’s author, Dr Mark Thomson, says:
“The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another.”
“Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.”
It’s time we ditched the fear and loathing approach that has lain beneath so much of Australia’s political psyche over so many years, and gave a rational approach a go. It wouldn’t hurt us — and it very probably would reduce the hurt suffered by people who are already suffered more than enough. We did it in the Fraser era in respect of refugees from Vietnam and that worked out well.
Andrew Bartlett is a blogger for Crikey and is also a Research Fellow in the Migration Law Practice Program at ANU.
India opposed to 'reinventing' Doha negotiations talk
My understanding of this is that a lot of smallfarmers in India are going to starve if this deal goes down the way that some member nations appear to be pushing for.
D RAVI KANTH / Paris June 29, 2009, 0:47 IST
India is committed to an “early” deal in the stalled Doha trade negotiations if it addresses the “legitimate developmental concerns” of developing countries in a balanced way, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told Business Standard in a wide-ranging conversation.
“Our government is fully committed to an early breakthrough in the Doha agreement based on December 2008 draft texts in agriculture and industrial goods. It must be a balanced agreement that addresses the legitimate concerns of developing countries,” he said.
“India is opposed to ‘reinventing’ the Doha negotiating process at this late hour,” Sharma said, arguing that Doha talks were based on a multilateral framework.
The US has now demanded what are called bilateral negotiations to provide clarity on what it is getting from key emerging countries. Many developing countries have opposed this demand on the ground that it would undermine multilateral solutions to global trade problems.
“Further I have made it clear that Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) is not for negotiation as it concerns the livelihood of poor farmers,” Sharma maintained, squashing rumours that India is prepared to give up on this vital developmental flexibility for which it waged a major negotiating battle all these years.
The US and leading farm exporting countries like Australia, Uruguay, Thailand and Malaysia are opposed to having a flexible SSM that would enable developing countries, like India and China to impose safeguard duties for countering unforeseen surges in imports of major food products.
“Further, the developed countries,” said Sharma, “will have to revisit the subsidy dossier in the Doha agriculture package, as several outstanding issues remain unaddressed.” The US has repeatedly claimed that the subsidy dossier is almost completed as there are no substantive issues to address, a claim that Argentina recently challenged.
After participating in a series of ministerial meetings on the margins of the annual Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual session in Paris on Thursday and Friday, commerce minister spoke to Business Standard about his assessment on the state of play in the Doha trade talks and his bilateral meetings.
“I have introduced specific language that global trading system must be fair, equitable and addresses the legitimate aspirations of the developing countries in the India, Brazil and South Africa declaration,” Sharma stated, arguing that any outcome in the Doha talks must satisfy these three requirements.
“India is all for re-energisng the Doha talks but not re-inventing them all over again,” he repeatedly said, suggesting that there should be no confusion on where India stands on this issue.
“There is no question that we will accept a new negotiating arrangement at this point and I have insisted that multilateral negotiations must resume on the basis of the draft texts issued in December 2009,” Sharma clarified, adding that his suggestion was accepted.
But much would depend on what happens at the G-8 plus five leaders meeting in Italy next week when the US will push hard for a specific bilateral route in addition to the ongoing multilateral talks to conclude the Doha talks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the G-8 meeting in which China, Brazil, and South Africa have decided to oppose any change in the Doha negotiating process.
India and its key allies — Brazil, China, South Africa, and Argentina — have also opposed the US’ demand to start what are called focused bilateral negotiations to extract more concessions from developing countries.
“It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to assume that further unilateral concessions from developing countries will be forthcoming, especially in the context of the current economic crisis,” India, Brazil and South Africa said in their joint statement.
At the Paris meeting, Argentina, China, Brazil and South Africa also took a strong stand on sectoral tariff elimination for industrial goods as pushed by the US, which wants key emerging countries to join the sectoral talks on chemicals, electrical and electronics, and industrial engineering goods.
All these four countries vehemently opposed demands on sectoral tariff elimination maintaining that the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration clearly stipulated that participation in these talks is “voluntary” and not mandatory.
My understanding of this is that a lot of smallfarmers in India are going to starve if this deal goes down the way that some member nations appear to be pushing for.
D RAVI KANTH / Paris June 29, 2009, 0:47 IST
India is committed to an “early” deal in the stalled Doha trade negotiations if it addresses the “legitimate developmental concerns” of developing countries in a balanced way, Commerce Minister Anand Sharma told Business Standard in a wide-ranging conversation.
“Our government is fully committed to an early breakthrough in the Doha agreement based on December 2008 draft texts in agriculture and industrial goods. It must be a balanced agreement that addresses the legitimate concerns of developing countries,” he said.
“India is opposed to ‘reinventing’ the Doha negotiating process at this late hour,” Sharma said, arguing that Doha talks were based on a multilateral framework.
The US has now demanded what are called bilateral negotiations to provide clarity on what it is getting from key emerging countries. Many developing countries have opposed this demand on the ground that it would undermine multilateral solutions to global trade problems.
“Further I have made it clear that Special Safeguard Mechanism (SSM) is not for negotiation as it concerns the livelihood of poor farmers,” Sharma maintained, squashing rumours that India is prepared to give up on this vital developmental flexibility for which it waged a major negotiating battle all these years.
The US and leading farm exporting countries like Australia, Uruguay, Thailand and Malaysia are opposed to having a flexible SSM that would enable developing countries, like India and China to impose safeguard duties for countering unforeseen surges in imports of major food products.
“Further, the developed countries,” said Sharma, “will have to revisit the subsidy dossier in the Doha agriculture package, as several outstanding issues remain unaddressed.” The US has repeatedly claimed that the subsidy dossier is almost completed as there are no substantive issues to address, a claim that Argentina recently challenged.
After participating in a series of ministerial meetings on the margins of the annual Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development’s annual session in Paris on Thursday and Friday, commerce minister spoke to Business Standard about his assessment on the state of play in the Doha trade talks and his bilateral meetings.
“I have introduced specific language that global trading system must be fair, equitable and addresses the legitimate aspirations of the developing countries in the India, Brazil and South Africa declaration,” Sharma stated, arguing that any outcome in the Doha talks must satisfy these three requirements.
“India is all for re-energisng the Doha talks but not re-inventing them all over again,” he repeatedly said, suggesting that there should be no confusion on where India stands on this issue.
“There is no question that we will accept a new negotiating arrangement at this point and I have insisted that multilateral negotiations must resume on the basis of the draft texts issued in December 2009,” Sharma clarified, adding that his suggestion was accepted.
But much would depend on what happens at the G-8 plus five leaders meeting in Italy next week when the US will push hard for a specific bilateral route in addition to the ongoing multilateral talks to conclude the Doha talks. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will attend the G-8 meeting in which China, Brazil, and South Africa have decided to oppose any change in the Doha negotiating process.
India and its key allies — Brazil, China, South Africa, and Argentina — have also opposed the US’ demand to start what are called focused bilateral negotiations to extract more concessions from developing countries.
“It would be unreasonable and unrealistic to assume that further unilateral concessions from developing countries will be forthcoming, especially in the context of the current economic crisis,” India, Brazil and South Africa said in their joint statement.
At the Paris meeting, Argentina, China, Brazil and South Africa also took a strong stand on sectoral tariff elimination for industrial goods as pushed by the US, which wants key emerging countries to join the sectoral talks on chemicals, electrical and electronics, and industrial engineering goods.
All these four countries vehemently opposed demands on sectoral tariff elimination maintaining that the Hong Kong Ministerial Declaration clearly stipulated that participation in these talks is “voluntary” and not mandatory.
"Method" acting in India! :) I remember reading a lot about this style of acting, popularized by Strasberg at the Actor's Studio in New York City decades ago, back when I was in my early twenties. Its very famous and India, with its fabulous Bollywood industry, is the perfect place for a school devoted to this technique. Many noted faces in the west have been "method" trained-some have even won Oscars.
In an exciting new venture into the development of international acting talent, the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, home of Strasberg's trademarked 'Method' acting training process, has announced a partnership with Optimus Management Group, of Hartford, Connecticut, to open the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India, home of the burgeoning Bollywood film industry. The partners plan to open Strasberg Institute India in two locations, Mumbai and Hyderabad, by early 2010.
Founder and CEO of Optimus Management Group, Ahmed A Ahsan, and esteemed Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail have formed an exclusive partnership to operate the Lee Strasberg Institute in India. In a contract signed today with co-founder Anna Strasberg and CEO David Lee Strasberg, they have entered into an agreement to develop the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India which will offer students the only sanctioned 'Method' training facility outside of the US. Currently, there are two Strasberg Theater and Film Institutes operating in this country; at their headquarters in New York City and in Los Angeles.
The Strasberg Institute India will be run by veteran Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail who has more than 30 films to his credit including some of the biggest blockbusters of the Indian cinema. Rawail is also keenly interested in the development of young talent. As CEO of the Institute in India, Rawail hopes to offer the next generation of talented Indian actors the chance to compete globally as the country continues to export more of its films and its stars to the international market.
Strasberg Institute India's co-founder, Ahmed A Ahsan, has grown the Optimus Management Group in Hartford, Connecticut into an award-winning company which provides management consulting and human resource solutions throughout the country. Ahsan was inspired by recent growth in the Bollywood film industry and decided to apply his business acumen to the development of a top-notch Acting School in India so that interested and talented young actors who couldn't afford the expense of studying abroad could take advantage of the best actors' training available. He also envisions the long-term potential for attracting a stream of production opportunities to Connecticut and North America. The development of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India is the first step in that direction.
ALSO READ: Now, a film on Shiney controversy!
In an exciting new venture into the development of international acting talent, the prestigious Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute, home of Strasberg's trademarked 'Method' acting training process, has announced a partnership with Optimus Management Group, of Hartford, Connecticut, to open the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India, home of the burgeoning Bollywood film industry. The partners plan to open Strasberg Institute India in two locations, Mumbai and Hyderabad, by early 2010.
Founder and CEO of Optimus Management Group, Ahmed A Ahsan, and esteemed Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail have formed an exclusive partnership to operate the Lee Strasberg Institute in India. In a contract signed today with co-founder Anna Strasberg and CEO David Lee Strasberg, they have entered into an agreement to develop the first Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India which will offer students the only sanctioned 'Method' training facility outside of the US. Currently, there are two Strasberg Theater and Film Institutes operating in this country; at their headquarters in New York City and in Los Angeles.
The Strasberg Institute India will be run by veteran Bollywood director Rahuul Rawail who has more than 30 films to his credit including some of the biggest blockbusters of the Indian cinema. Rawail is also keenly interested in the development of young talent. As CEO of the Institute in India, Rawail hopes to offer the next generation of talented Indian actors the chance to compete globally as the country continues to export more of its films and its stars to the international market.
Strasberg Institute India's co-founder, Ahmed A Ahsan, has grown the Optimus Management Group in Hartford, Connecticut into an award-winning company which provides management consulting and human resource solutions throughout the country. Ahsan was inspired by recent growth in the Bollywood film industry and decided to apply his business acumen to the development of a top-notch Acting School in India so that interested and talented young actors who couldn't afford the expense of studying abroad could take advantage of the best actors' training available. He also envisions the long-term potential for attracting a stream of production opportunities to Connecticut and North America. The development of the Lee Strasberg Theatre and Film Institute India is the first step in that direction.
ALSO READ: Now, a film on Shiney controversy!
I was surprised by this particular article after a string of really negative reportage from the same author, but India can really captivate people :)
STEPHANIE NOLEN
Delhi, India — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
05:16PM EDT
.Four hundred years ago, Emperor Shah Jahan rode his elephant from his sprawling marble palace of an afternoon, out along Chandni Chowk, the street named for the moonlight that reflected in its tree-lined canal. Both sides of the road were lined with restaurants and stands selling chaat, small savouries. Shah Jahan, in addition to being a conqueror of peoples, a builder of cities and a patron of the arts, really liked a good snack.
Under his royal patronage, this jewel of a street became the snack capital of the world, a title it arguably continues to hold today.
At the spice market, mix essential seasonings – such as turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed and cloves – used in favourite dishes in Old Delhi’s truly local food destinations.
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However, much else has changed from the emperor's era. The canal is paved over. The trees are a distant memory. The palaces and mansions of courtiers are tumbledown and ransacked. The royal elephant has been replaced by a honking, filth-spewing snarl of cars and trucks and buses and rickshaws and bicycles and bullock carts. Stinking drains drip into the streets, and while the moon still rises over Chandni Chowk, one is hard-pressed to spot it beneath the explosion of pirated electric wires and clouds of smog that blot out the sky.
But don't let any of that put you off. The snacks have endured gloriously well.
If you should find yourself with just one afternoon in Delhi – on your way to the beaches of Goa, a trek in the Himalayas, or meetings in one of the new high-tech centres – you can plunge into India's history by eating your way across the Old City, the first city, at the heart of the modern capital.
Delhi, it is often said, is in fact seven cities, one built on top of the next – from the first built by Hindu kings of the 10th century through to the tidy capital of the British raj. Each epoch left its architectural imprint here – and Salma Husain, the city's foremost food historian, explains that the successive empires left their mark on the food as well.
Once a researcher in India's national archives, Ms. Husain – a self-described foodie who hails from Mumbai – began hunting in manuscripts she translated from Persian for references to food. She quickly became fondest of Moghul-era documents, because the Moghuls brought the same more-is-more sensibility to cuisine that led to other of their creations, such as the Taj Mahal.
Ms. Husain's initial curiosity became a hungry obsession, and she travelled across India and then internationally, hunting for more manuscripts that made mention of food. She learned how the Moghuls brought Central Asian favourites with them as they conquered the area, but welcomed contributions from Persia and Afghanistan – early fusion, as it were.
Then she started eating in Old Delhi – and learned that, happily for today's visitor, it is still possible to sample much of what the emperors loved to eat, as long as you are prepared to make the trek into the heart of their city, or what is left of it.
Ms. Husain suggests you start out in late afternoon; you want to avoid the worst of the heat, and most of the street food vendors don't set up until 4 p.m. Take a taxi or an auto-rickshaw to the centre of Old Delhi, get out near Town Hall and, with the looming bulk of the Lal Qila, the Red Fort, behind you, head down the street in the other direction. To get in the mood for this adventure, begin where Chandni Chowk ends, at the spice market. Here, rows of stalls sell the essentials of Indian cookery: turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed, cloves, red chili and black pepper. The discriminating Delhi shopper selects some of each and has them ground together into a masala, rather than buying one of the pre-mixed packets – there is, sniffs Ms. Husain, “a lot of adulteration” by unscrupulous spice merchants who slip some flavourless pepper in place of a pricier key ingredient.
From the spice market, walk back west toward the Red Fort, along the congested sidewalks of Chandni Chowk. Begin your snacking on the sidewalk: Near Town Hall sit vendors with chaat – the name comes from the Hindi verb for “to taste” – such as kachori, small pastry shells holding masala potatoes. You can have a small plate for eight rupees, or two cents. There is, of course, the risk of belly troubles that always comes with street food, and this venture is not for the faint of stomach, but if you stick to the items that are solid and scraped into your pressed-leaf plate from a sizzling grill (rather than something such as gol gappa, pastry balls filled with watery coriander sauce), you should be fine.
For something a little more solid, head toward the fort, keeping an eye out for an alleyway that turns off from the right-hand side of the street – the landmark is a shop advertising “pure desi ghee.” Follow the alley through two twists and turns (or just ask anyone) to Pandit Gaya Prasad Shiv Charan. This hole-in-the-wall, established in 1872, was a favourite haunt of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and it remains a beacon for lovers of parantha – stuffed flatbread. That may sound like something of an oxymoron, but parantha are an elaborate treat: Wheat dough is kneaded together with a filling – anything from finely chopped eggplant to peas and cauliflower to shredded chilies and fennel seeds – and rolled flat, then fried. This shop offers a whopping 23 varieties of parantha, and each is served on a metal tray with coriander chutney, mint chutney, mixed vegetable pickle, paneer and potato curry, potato and fenugreek curry, and sitaphal – mashed, sautéed sweet pumpkin. Rip up your parantha (no one seems to manage to wait until it cools from the griddle, so there's some tossing it back and forth from hand to hand for the first few bites) to scoop up a mix of everything. Your bill here, for one tray of goodies and three parantha: about $1.
Leaving the paranthawallah, you can take a quick diversion to the right to visit one of Old Delhi's most magical streets – the gaudy and glittering market of wedding accessories. Tiny shops sell gold organza gift bags, gilt-dusted grooms' turbans, flower garlands, gem-encrusted saris and handy pop-up statues of the elephant god Ganesh. But soon head back to Chandni Chowk and proceed right, further toward the Fort – it's time for some sweets.
Just a minute or two along the right-hand side of the street is a shop called Ganthewala, founded in 1790 and run today by descendants of that first family. The original shop sold sweets, and in a bit of good public relations used to present them to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he processed by on his elephant – or so the story goes. The emperor may or may not have enjoyed the sohan halva, for which the shop remains famous (a mix of wheat sprouts, sugar and ghee – clarified butter – with almonds, pistachios and cashews pressed on top as it hardens). But the elephant loved it and would stop outside, refusing to go further until she got her share. She would toss her head impatiently, and the jingling from her decorative harness gave the shop its name – ganthe is Hindi for bell. Her favourite sweet is sold today at $9 per kilogram.
But you may want to tuck your halva in your pocket and keep walking, for the treats at your next destination must be eaten fresh and hot to be experienced in their true, insulin-coma-inducing glory. Keep walking in the same westward direction, past the Sikh gurdwara (where, as with any Sikh temple, they will take you in and give you a hot meal and place to sleep, regardless of your faith, should you require). About 10 paces later, on the corner, is a tiny stand where the sole sign exhorts you to pay first before you collect your sweets. It's shop #130, the self-described Old Famous Jelabi Weallah. At the back of the closet-sized shop, the jelabi maker sits cross-legged on a stool, above a vast vat of sizzling ghee atop a propane burner. He holds a muslin sack with a hole cut in the corner, full of batter made of flour, sugar and egg. With a swirling motion of his wrist, he spins coils of batter into the oil where they form tight rounds. He flips them, flips them again, and a minute later lifts them golden from the ghee and plunges them into the adjoining vat of sugar syrup. Then just as quickly he flips them out again and – if your timing is right – onto a small foil plate. Mostly Delhiwallahs buy them by the kilogram ($7). They are crisp and airy and shockingly sweet.
“I'm the third generation,” owner Kailash Jain boasts. “The recipe is a secret, and I don't tell anyone.” Ms. Husain, who has made careful study of the issue, believes that his jelabi are the best in the city. Possibly anywhere.
To walk off the jelabi, hang a right at the shop off Chandni Chowk and plunge into the markets. The streets will twist and turn a bit, but keep to your general southerly direction and just ask anyone for directions to the Jama Masjid. This is the largest mosque in Asia; completed in 1656, it holds 10,000 people for Friday prayers. If you're not hungry again just yet, then check your shoes at the door and have a wander around inside.
Leave the mosque through the opposite side – you will find yourself on a wider street beneath a gate labelled “No. 1.” A small street will stretch north in front of you. Go about four metres and look for a tiny alleyway on your left. Can't spot it? Don't panic – just say the word Karim's. In fact, you probably won't get past the first syllable, and everyone on the street will point you through the crevice in the wall that leads to one of Delhi's most famous restaurants.
The founder of Karim's was a chef in the Moghul court who lost his job and fled for his life in 1857, the year of the Indian Rebellion, when the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was dethroned. Haji Karimuddin moved to a small town in Uttar Pradesh in disguise, and scrambled for a way to make a living, but secretly passed the secrets of imperial cuisine on to his son. By 1911, a new generation thought it was safe to go back to Delhi, where a festival was being held to celebrate the coronation of King George V. He began with a roadside stand selling just two items, but within a couple of years had established a restaurant with the family name outside the gates of the great mosque, with the slogan “Serving royal food to the common man.”
Karim's has a gritty, honest charm. On one side of the Ping-Pong-table-size courtyard is a small, raised room where bakers sit cross-legged rolling out and baking naan flatbread. Across from them is the charcoal grill where a cook uses a sheet of cardboard to flame coals beneath a dozen kinds of grilling kebabs. Customers are ushered to Formica tables in one of four rabbit-warren dining rooms, lit by fluorescent strips. Food comes quickly, served up by a battalion of worse-for-wear waiters: the spicy kebabs that the emperor loved best. Tender lamb ishtu, made with whole spices in thick gravy. And butter chicken – marinated in yogurt, cooked, then coated in butter and served in thick tomato sauce that a succession of diners exclaims is the best they have ever had anywhere. The naan is puffy, hot and buttery. Follow it with a small clay dish of firni (rice pudding) and a cup of chai. Dinner for two costs only about $8.
“Here, food became aromatic and wonderful, because it had the patronage of royalty,” says Ms. Husain, ordering up just one more kind of kebab for visitors, and then holding forth on which of its spices came from which part of the empire.
Four doors from Karim's, back toward the mosque, stands a rival restaurant, Al-Jawahar. It does not have Karim's royal past, nor the venerable reputation – but in Ms. Husain's carefully considered opinion its kebab and its parantha are in fact more authentic and even better. While Karim's sometimes draws in the odd tourist, at Al-Jawahar you will dine surrounded by sprawling Delhi families and tables full of bickering Koranic scholars.
If you can possibly bear the idea of eating any more, head back toward the street that runs along the mosque. In either direction, come nightfall, dozens of tiny dhaba fire up their grills: There is spicy chicken, roasted or fried, a particular favourite of Delhiwallahs; a variety of stuffed and fried breads; sugar cane juice, and dhuwan wali kheer, a smoked rice pudding.
Ms. Husain shakes her head at the jostling crowds and the dirt in the streets, the decrepit buildings and shrilling car horns. But when she samples from the roadside stands, she gives a brisk nod of approval. “It's authentic here,” she says. “It tastes like it used to.”
STEPHANIE NOLEN
Delhi, India — From Saturday's Globe and Mail
05:16PM EDT
.Four hundred years ago, Emperor Shah Jahan rode his elephant from his sprawling marble palace of an afternoon, out along Chandni Chowk, the street named for the moonlight that reflected in its tree-lined canal. Both sides of the road were lined with restaurants and stands selling chaat, small savouries. Shah Jahan, in addition to being a conqueror of peoples, a builder of cities and a patron of the arts, really liked a good snack.
Under his royal patronage, this jewel of a street became the snack capital of the world, a title it arguably continues to hold today.
At the spice market, mix essential seasonings – such as turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed and cloves – used in favourite dishes in Old Delhi’s truly local food destinations.
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However, much else has changed from the emperor's era. The canal is paved over. The trees are a distant memory. The palaces and mansions of courtiers are tumbledown and ransacked. The royal elephant has been replaced by a honking, filth-spewing snarl of cars and trucks and buses and rickshaws and bicycles and bullock carts. Stinking drains drip into the streets, and while the moon still rises over Chandni Chowk, one is hard-pressed to spot it beneath the explosion of pirated electric wires and clouds of smog that blot out the sky.
But don't let any of that put you off. The snacks have endured gloriously well.
If you should find yourself with just one afternoon in Delhi – on your way to the beaches of Goa, a trek in the Himalayas, or meetings in one of the new high-tech centres – you can plunge into India's history by eating your way across the Old City, the first city, at the heart of the modern capital.
Delhi, it is often said, is in fact seven cities, one built on top of the next – from the first built by Hindu kings of the 10th century through to the tidy capital of the British raj. Each epoch left its architectural imprint here – and Salma Husain, the city's foremost food historian, explains that the successive empires left their mark on the food as well.
Once a researcher in India's national archives, Ms. Husain – a self-described foodie who hails from Mumbai – began hunting in manuscripts she translated from Persian for references to food. She quickly became fondest of Moghul-era documents, because the Moghuls brought the same more-is-more sensibility to cuisine that led to other of their creations, such as the Taj Mahal.
Ms. Husain's initial curiosity became a hungry obsession, and she travelled across India and then internationally, hunting for more manuscripts that made mention of food. She learned how the Moghuls brought Central Asian favourites with them as they conquered the area, but welcomed contributions from Persia and Afghanistan – early fusion, as it were.
Then she started eating in Old Delhi – and learned that, happily for today's visitor, it is still possible to sample much of what the emperors loved to eat, as long as you are prepared to make the trek into the heart of their city, or what is left of it.
Ms. Husain suggests you start out in late afternoon; you want to avoid the worst of the heat, and most of the street food vendors don't set up until 4 p.m. Take a taxi or an auto-rickshaw to the centre of Old Delhi, get out near Town Hall and, with the looming bulk of the Lal Qila, the Red Fort, behind you, head down the street in the other direction. To get in the mood for this adventure, begin where Chandni Chowk ends, at the spice market. Here, rows of stalls sell the essentials of Indian cookery: turmeric, coriander, cumin, cardamom, aniseed, cloves, red chili and black pepper. The discriminating Delhi shopper selects some of each and has them ground together into a masala, rather than buying one of the pre-mixed packets – there is, sniffs Ms. Husain, “a lot of adulteration” by unscrupulous spice merchants who slip some flavourless pepper in place of a pricier key ingredient.
From the spice market, walk back west toward the Red Fort, along the congested sidewalks of Chandni Chowk. Begin your snacking on the sidewalk: Near Town Hall sit vendors with chaat – the name comes from the Hindi verb for “to taste” – such as kachori, small pastry shells holding masala potatoes. You can have a small plate for eight rupees, or two cents. There is, of course, the risk of belly troubles that always comes with street food, and this venture is not for the faint of stomach, but if you stick to the items that are solid and scraped into your pressed-leaf plate from a sizzling grill (rather than something such as gol gappa, pastry balls filled with watery coriander sauce), you should be fine.
For something a little more solid, head toward the fort, keeping an eye out for an alleyway that turns off from the right-hand side of the street – the landmark is a shop advertising “pure desi ghee.” Follow the alley through two twists and turns (or just ask anyone) to Pandit Gaya Prasad Shiv Charan. This hole-in-the-wall, established in 1872, was a favourite haunt of India's first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, and it remains a beacon for lovers of parantha – stuffed flatbread. That may sound like something of an oxymoron, but parantha are an elaborate treat: Wheat dough is kneaded together with a filling – anything from finely chopped eggplant to peas and cauliflower to shredded chilies and fennel seeds – and rolled flat, then fried. This shop offers a whopping 23 varieties of parantha, and each is served on a metal tray with coriander chutney, mint chutney, mixed vegetable pickle, paneer and potato curry, potato and fenugreek curry, and sitaphal – mashed, sautéed sweet pumpkin. Rip up your parantha (no one seems to manage to wait until it cools from the griddle, so there's some tossing it back and forth from hand to hand for the first few bites) to scoop up a mix of everything. Your bill here, for one tray of goodies and three parantha: about $1.
Leaving the paranthawallah, you can take a quick diversion to the right to visit one of Old Delhi's most magical streets – the gaudy and glittering market of wedding accessories. Tiny shops sell gold organza gift bags, gilt-dusted grooms' turbans, flower garlands, gem-encrusted saris and handy pop-up statues of the elephant god Ganesh. But soon head back to Chandni Chowk and proceed right, further toward the Fort – it's time for some sweets.
Just a minute or two along the right-hand side of the street is a shop called Ganthewala, founded in 1790 and run today by descendants of that first family. The original shop sold sweets, and in a bit of good public relations used to present them to Emperor Bahadur Shah Zafar when he processed by on his elephant – or so the story goes. The emperor may or may not have enjoyed the sohan halva, for which the shop remains famous (a mix of wheat sprouts, sugar and ghee – clarified butter – with almonds, pistachios and cashews pressed on top as it hardens). But the elephant loved it and would stop outside, refusing to go further until she got her share. She would toss her head impatiently, and the jingling from her decorative harness gave the shop its name – ganthe is Hindi for bell. Her favourite sweet is sold today at $9 per kilogram.
But you may want to tuck your halva in your pocket and keep walking, for the treats at your next destination must be eaten fresh and hot to be experienced in their true, insulin-coma-inducing glory. Keep walking in the same westward direction, past the Sikh gurdwara (where, as with any Sikh temple, they will take you in and give you a hot meal and place to sleep, regardless of your faith, should you require). About 10 paces later, on the corner, is a tiny stand where the sole sign exhorts you to pay first before you collect your sweets. It's shop #130, the self-described Old Famous Jelabi Weallah. At the back of the closet-sized shop, the jelabi maker sits cross-legged on a stool, above a vast vat of sizzling ghee atop a propane burner. He holds a muslin sack with a hole cut in the corner, full of batter made of flour, sugar and egg. With a swirling motion of his wrist, he spins coils of batter into the oil where they form tight rounds. He flips them, flips them again, and a minute later lifts them golden from the ghee and plunges them into the adjoining vat of sugar syrup. Then just as quickly he flips them out again and – if your timing is right – onto a small foil plate. Mostly Delhiwallahs buy them by the kilogram ($7). They are crisp and airy and shockingly sweet.
“I'm the third generation,” owner Kailash Jain boasts. “The recipe is a secret, and I don't tell anyone.” Ms. Husain, who has made careful study of the issue, believes that his jelabi are the best in the city. Possibly anywhere.
To walk off the jelabi, hang a right at the shop off Chandni Chowk and plunge into the markets. The streets will twist and turn a bit, but keep to your general southerly direction and just ask anyone for directions to the Jama Masjid. This is the largest mosque in Asia; completed in 1656, it holds 10,000 people for Friday prayers. If you're not hungry again just yet, then check your shoes at the door and have a wander around inside.
Leave the mosque through the opposite side – you will find yourself on a wider street beneath a gate labelled “No. 1.” A small street will stretch north in front of you. Go about four metres and look for a tiny alleyway on your left. Can't spot it? Don't panic – just say the word Karim's. In fact, you probably won't get past the first syllable, and everyone on the street will point you through the crevice in the wall that leads to one of Delhi's most famous restaurants.
The founder of Karim's was a chef in the Moghul court who lost his job and fled for his life in 1857, the year of the Indian Rebellion, when the last Mughal king, Bahadur Shah Zafar, was dethroned. Haji Karimuddin moved to a small town in Uttar Pradesh in disguise, and scrambled for a way to make a living, but secretly passed the secrets of imperial cuisine on to his son. By 1911, a new generation thought it was safe to go back to Delhi, where a festival was being held to celebrate the coronation of King George V. He began with a roadside stand selling just two items, but within a couple of years had established a restaurant with the family name outside the gates of the great mosque, with the slogan “Serving royal food to the common man.”
Karim's has a gritty, honest charm. On one side of the Ping-Pong-table-size courtyard is a small, raised room where bakers sit cross-legged rolling out and baking naan flatbread. Across from them is the charcoal grill where a cook uses a sheet of cardboard to flame coals beneath a dozen kinds of grilling kebabs. Customers are ushered to Formica tables in one of four rabbit-warren dining rooms, lit by fluorescent strips. Food comes quickly, served up by a battalion of worse-for-wear waiters: the spicy kebabs that the emperor loved best. Tender lamb ishtu, made with whole spices in thick gravy. And butter chicken – marinated in yogurt, cooked, then coated in butter and served in thick tomato sauce that a succession of diners exclaims is the best they have ever had anywhere. The naan is puffy, hot and buttery. Follow it with a small clay dish of firni (rice pudding) and a cup of chai. Dinner for two costs only about $8.
“Here, food became aromatic and wonderful, because it had the patronage of royalty,” says Ms. Husain, ordering up just one more kind of kebab for visitors, and then holding forth on which of its spices came from which part of the empire.
Four doors from Karim's, back toward the mosque, stands a rival restaurant, Al-Jawahar. It does not have Karim's royal past, nor the venerable reputation – but in Ms. Husain's carefully considered opinion its kebab and its parantha are in fact more authentic and even better. While Karim's sometimes draws in the odd tourist, at Al-Jawahar you will dine surrounded by sprawling Delhi families and tables full of bickering Koranic scholars.
If you can possibly bear the idea of eating any more, head back toward the street that runs along the mosque. In either direction, come nightfall, dozens of tiny dhaba fire up their grills: There is spicy chicken, roasted or fried, a particular favourite of Delhiwallahs; a variety of stuffed and fried breads; sugar cane juice, and dhuwan wali kheer, a smoked rice pudding.
Ms. Husain shakes her head at the jostling crowds and the dirt in the streets, the decrepit buildings and shrilling car horns. But when she samples from the roadside stands, she gives a brisk nod of approval. “It's authentic here,” she says. “It tastes like it used to.”
Tata of India to open call center in RP
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:15:00 06/30/2009
Filed Under: business process outsourcing (BPO), Investments, Economy and Business and Finance
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T-bill rates rise across the board
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Close this MANILA, Philippines—Giant conglomerate Tata Group of India is setting up call center operations here, with an initial capacity of 250-300 seats.
According to Jonathan de Luzuriaga, executive director for industry affairs for the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, the Indian group was currently conducting a due-diligence study in the country.
“They’ve been badly burned by the talent shortage in India, so they’re looking at the Philippines as a new location,” he said of Tata and many other Indian business process outsourcing firms. “A lot of Indian BPOs are really looking at setting up shop here.”
For Tata’s call center facility, he said the group was looking at areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“The trend of site-hunting now has tipped. It’s now Mindanao first, Visayas second, and Luzon third. They know that Metro Manila is already very congested, so they’re looking at the ‘Next Wave Cities’ for their investments,” he said.
The Commission on Information and Communications Technology yesterday launched its Cyber Corridor Roadshow, a 10-city tour of local areas best suited to BPO operations.
The roadshow would also be done simultaneously with BPAP’s Talent Caravan in the so-called Next Wave Cities.
Included in the roadshow and talent caravan are Metro Laguna, Metro Cavite, Iloilo, Davao, Bacolod, Angeles-Clark-Mabalacat in Pampanga, Baliuag-Marilao-Meycuayan in Bulacan, Malolos-Calumpit also in Bulacan, Cagayan de Oro, and Lipa in Batangas.
While focusing on the BPO sector and the career opportunities that it offered, CICT chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III said the roadshow also aimed to make residents of these cities aware of the overall benefits of ICT.
The roadshow, in particular, aimed to spread awareness about e-government, human capital development, information infrastructure, and cyber services, he said.
“The industry still has a lot of potential. This roadshow is not limited to job generation alone. We also want to focus on education, (small and medium enterprises) and local government units,” he said in an interview yesterday.
By Abigail L. Ho
Philippine Daily Inquirer
First Posted 00:15:00 06/30/2009
Filed Under: business process outsourcing (BPO), Investments, Economy and Business and Finance
Most Read Other Most Read Stories x
Business
Tata of India to open call center in RP
PLDT taps Meralco for new venture
Aim to retire with no debts
Metrobank boosts loan activities
Land of compromise
Piltel transforms into holding firm
RCBC bent on expansion
Corporate war comes to Philex
T-bill rates rise across the board
Napocor to bid out coal supply deals for Sual
Meralco: Adequate Luzon supply until 2015
EDC to raise P18B more
Business Most Read RSS
Close this MANILA, Philippines—Giant conglomerate Tata Group of India is setting up call center operations here, with an initial capacity of 250-300 seats.
According to Jonathan de Luzuriaga, executive director for industry affairs for the Business Processing Association of the Philippines, the Indian group was currently conducting a due-diligence study in the country.
“They’ve been badly burned by the talent shortage in India, so they’re looking at the Philippines as a new location,” he said of Tata and many other Indian business process outsourcing firms. “A lot of Indian BPOs are really looking at setting up shop here.”
For Tata’s call center facility, he said the group was looking at areas in the Visayas and Mindanao.
“The trend of site-hunting now has tipped. It’s now Mindanao first, Visayas second, and Luzon third. They know that Metro Manila is already very congested, so they’re looking at the ‘Next Wave Cities’ for their investments,” he said.
The Commission on Information and Communications Technology yesterday launched its Cyber Corridor Roadshow, a 10-city tour of local areas best suited to BPO operations.
The roadshow would also be done simultaneously with BPAP’s Talent Caravan in the so-called Next Wave Cities.
Included in the roadshow and talent caravan are Metro Laguna, Metro Cavite, Iloilo, Davao, Bacolod, Angeles-Clark-Mabalacat in Pampanga, Baliuag-Marilao-Meycuayan in Bulacan, Malolos-Calumpit also in Bulacan, Cagayan de Oro, and Lipa in Batangas.
While focusing on the BPO sector and the career opportunities that it offered, CICT chair Ray Anthony Roxas-Chua III said the roadshow also aimed to make residents of these cities aware of the overall benefits of ICT.
The roadshow, in particular, aimed to spread awareness about e-government, human capital development, information infrastructure, and cyber services, he said.
“The industry still has a lot of potential. This roadshow is not limited to job generation alone. We also want to focus on education, (small and medium enterprises) and local government units,” he said in an interview yesterday.
Lightning kills 35 in eastern India
1 day ago
PATNA, India (AFP) — At least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, officials said Monday.
Around 18 people were killed late Sunday by bolts of lightning across Bihar, including six children, State Disaster Management Minister Devesh Chand Thakur said.
"The children were playing in the pre-monsoon showers when lightning struck them," Thakur told AFP from the state capital Patna.
Twelve others who were injured were hospitalised, he said.
Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the impoverished state on Sunday night, he said.
In neighbouring Jharkhand, 17 people including two children were killed by lightning strikes, also late on Sunday night, a disaster management spokesman said in the capital Ranchi.
Lightning strikes during the June-September monsoon season are common, with villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts most at risk of death and injury.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
1 day ago
PATNA, India (AFP) — At least 35 people including eight children were killed after they were struck by lightning in the adjoining eastern Indian states of Bihar and Jharkhand, officials said Monday.
Around 18 people were killed late Sunday by bolts of lightning across Bihar, including six children, State Disaster Management Minister Devesh Chand Thakur said.
"The children were playing in the pre-monsoon showers when lightning struck them," Thakur told AFP from the state capital Patna.
Twelve others who were injured were hospitalised, he said.
Torrential rains accompanied by strong winds uprooted trees, damaged houses and brought down power cables across the impoverished state on Sunday night, he said.
In neighbouring Jharkhand, 17 people including two children were killed by lightning strikes, also late on Sunday night, a disaster management spokesman said in the capital Ranchi.
Lightning strikes during the June-September monsoon season are common, with villagers housed in bamboo-and-grass huts most at risk of death and injury.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved.
30 Afghan Teachers Undergoing Training In Malaysia
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Bernama) -- Beginning today, 30 teachers from Afghanistan will attend a three-month teachers training programme here.
The aim of the programme is to enable them to master the English language and Islamic teachings.
The 27 male and three female teachers will undergo the stint at the International Languages Teacher Training Institute in Lembah Pantai for the English language, and at its Bangi campus for Islamic teaching.
"This programme will help the teachers to increase their knowledge, exchange experiences and enhance the development of delivery in teaching," said Education Ministry Teachers Professional Development Sector deputy director-general Datin Asariah Mior Shaharuddin.
The teachers are here under the auspices of the Malaysia-Australia Education Project for Afghanistan (MAEPA), a collaborative programme involving the education ministries of Malaysia, Australia and Afghanistan Education Ministry, to train teachers from Afghanistan and develop their country's education system.
The MAEPA programme is the outcome of a meeting between former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during his inaugural visit to Malaysia on July 10, last year.
-- BERNAMA
KUALA LUMPUR, June 29 (Bernama) -- Beginning today, 30 teachers from Afghanistan will attend a three-month teachers training programme here.
The aim of the programme is to enable them to master the English language and Islamic teachings.
The 27 male and three female teachers will undergo the stint at the International Languages Teacher Training Institute in Lembah Pantai for the English language, and at its Bangi campus for Islamic teaching.
"This programme will help the teachers to increase their knowledge, exchange experiences and enhance the development of delivery in teaching," said Education Ministry Teachers Professional Development Sector deputy director-general Datin Asariah Mior Shaharuddin.
The teachers are here under the auspices of the Malaysia-Australia Education Project for Afghanistan (MAEPA), a collaborative programme involving the education ministries of Malaysia, Australia and Afghanistan Education Ministry, to train teachers from Afghanistan and develop their country's education system.
The MAEPA programme is the outcome of a meeting between former prime minister Tun Abdullah Ahmad Badawi and Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd during his inaugural visit to Malaysia on July 10, last year.
-- BERNAMA
Notes from a slaughter.
Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan PrintAir strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Three dozen Taliban said killed in Afghanistan PrintAir strikes and ground battles killed three dozen Taliban and two civilians while an insurgent suicide bombing on the border claimed two more lives in Afghanistan, authorities said Tuesday.
The US military said it had called in air strikes in remote mountains in eastern Afghanistan near the border with Pakistan overnight and killed more than a dozen Islamist militants in bunkers.
A local official said 22 men were killed, many of them foreign nationals.
The strikes in the eastern province of Khost were called in against senior commanders of the Haqqani network, a Taliban outfit that is linked to Al-Qaeda and accused of some of the most sophisticated attacks in Afghanistan.
"Coalition force aircraft were called in and destroyed a pair of command bunkers, killing more than a dozen militants," a US statement said.
The statement described the network as one of the "most lethal Taliban organisations" and said it operated out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Area just across the border.
The network is said to be behind several attacks in Kabul, including one on a five-star hotel in 2008 and the attempted assassination of President Hamid Karzai in April last year.
The strikes were in a border district called Waza Khwar and 22 Taliban were killed, said district governor Abdul Wali Zadran.
Zadran claimed the dead were all foreign nationals but there was no way to confirm this. An Afghan media report said some were Arabs.
Also on the border with Pakistan, a suicide attacker blew himself up at a checkpoint, killing a policeman and a 12-year-old child, a provincial government spokesman said.
The attacker struck near a room at the Torkham border post used for searching women travellers, Nangarhar province spokesman Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told AFP.
Three policemen, a policewoman and six civilians were injured, he said.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack but most similar bombings have been claimed by insurgents from the Taliban militia that was ousted from power in late 2001 by a US-led invasion of Afghanistan.
In the northern province of Baghlan, a clash erupted Monday after Taliban had demanded a "tax" from farmers, which the locals refused, police said.
The locals called the police and fighting lasted into the night, provincial police spokesman Jawaid Basharat said.
"In the clashes 15 Taliban were killed and another 13 Taliban were wounded. Two locals who also took part and were fighting the Taliban with policemen were killed," he said.
The Taliban-led insurgency has intensified this year as Afghan and international troops launch operations to clear them out of hotspots ahead of the August 20 presidential and provincial council elections.
There are concerns the violence may derail the elections and Afghanistan's partners are sending in thousands of military reinforcements.
This year has seen a 43 percent increase in the monthly average number of security incidents compared to last year, according to the United Nations.
The UN mission in Afghanistan recorded 800 civilian casualties to the end of May, a 24 percent increase over the same period in 2008, it said in a report delivered to the UN Security Council last week.
Most of the deaths were caused by anti-government elements and 33 percent by international and Afghan forces, while the remainder could not be attributed to any party, it said.
Monday, June 29, 2009
Pakistan militants abandon peace deal
Shah Khalid
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers observe area from a rooftop of a checkpoint at Abbato Karaz village near Chaman, a town in Pakistan, southwest along Afghanistan border, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Pakistani authorities beefed up security and vigilance to nab Taliban militants fleeing neighboring Afghanistan.
By ASIF SHAHZAD; The Associated Press
MIR ALI, Pakistan --
Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan say they're scrapping a peace deal with the government.
The decision by insurgents in North Waziristan raises the prospect of wider unrest now that the army is stepping up offensives against the Taliban.
The peace pact was reached in February 2008, but few details have been publicly released about it. It was struck with a Taliban faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
The pact appeared to keep things more peaceful in North Waziristan than neighboring South Waziristan, where the army plans its next major offensive.
Bahadur spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said Monday that U.S. missile strikes and army operations prompted the Taliban faction to end the accord.
Shah Khalid
Pakistani paramilitary soldiers observe area from a rooftop of a checkpoint at Abbato Karaz village near Chaman, a town in Pakistan, southwest along Afghanistan border, Sunday, June 28, 2009. Pakistani authorities beefed up security and vigilance to nab Taliban militants fleeing neighboring Afghanistan.
By ASIF SHAHZAD; The Associated Press
MIR ALI, Pakistan --
Taliban militants in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan say they're scrapping a peace deal with the government.
The decision by insurgents in North Waziristan raises the prospect of wider unrest now that the army is stepping up offensives against the Taliban.
The peace pact was reached in February 2008, but few details have been publicly released about it. It was struck with a Taliban faction led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur.
The pact appeared to keep things more peaceful in North Waziristan than neighboring South Waziristan, where the army plans its next major offensive.
Bahadur spokesman Ahmadullah Ahmadi said Monday that U.S. missile strikes and army operations prompted the Taliban faction to end the accord.
From the Aussie Age
Afghan police chief killed in KandaharJune 29, 2009 - 7:29PM
The police chief of Afghanistan's province of Kandahar is among 10 policemen killed in a shoot-out with local security guards employed by US forces, the head of the provincial council says.
It was not clear what sparked the shoot-out outside one of the offices of the attorney-general in the city of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai said on Monday.
"In a shoot-out between Afghan private security guards and police, 10 policemen including Kandahar police chief Mutaiullah Khan Qateh and the criminal investigation police chief, have been killed," said Karzai.
He had earlier said that seven policemen including the two commanders were dead. The guards had been trained by US soldiers, said Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai.
"This is preliminary information and we do not know as of now what exactly caused the shoot-out," he said.
Witnesses confirmed the exchange of fire and said US soldiers were also at the scene but it was not clear if they were involved.
The US military spokesman in Kabul, Colonel Greg Julian, confirmed to AFP there had been an incident but he did not immediately have details.
"I am not sure which unit was involved," he said.
"It does appear that there were some Afghan police casualties."
© 2009 AFP
The police chief of Afghanistan's province of Kandahar is among 10 policemen killed in a shoot-out with local security guards employed by US forces, the head of the provincial council says.
It was not clear what sparked the shoot-out outside one of the offices of the attorney-general in the city of Kandahar, Ahmad Wali Karzai said on Monday.
"In a shoot-out between Afghan private security guards and police, 10 policemen including Kandahar police chief Mutaiullah Khan Qateh and the criminal investigation police chief, have been killed," said Karzai.
He had earlier said that seven policemen including the two commanders were dead. The guards had been trained by US soldiers, said Karzai, a brother of President Hamid Karzai.
"This is preliminary information and we do not know as of now what exactly caused the shoot-out," he said.
Witnesses confirmed the exchange of fire and said US soldiers were also at the scene but it was not clear if they were involved.
The US military spokesman in Kabul, Colonel Greg Julian, confirmed to AFP there had been an incident but he did not immediately have details.
"I am not sure which unit was involved," he said.
"It does appear that there were some Afghan police casualties."
© 2009 AFP
I think we've made the baby Jesus cry.
Rising toll at US military hospital in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 4 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Rising toll at US military hospital in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 4 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Confused About Afghanistan
Posted by Michael Cohen
I'm really confused about what's going on with US policy in Afghanistan. First, there is this recent guidance from General McCrystal to US troops:
Success will be defined by the Afghan people's freedom to choose their future--freedom from coercion, extremists, malign foreign influence, or abusive government actions.
I feel like I'm sort of beating a dead horse on this one, but here again is what President Obama said in March about US goals for Afghanistan:
We are not in Afghanistan to control that country OR TO DICTATE ITS FUTURE. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and our allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists. So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved.
I realize that I'm not an expert on counter-insurgency and there are those who think I have trouble connecting dots, but doesn't what Gen. McCrystal said in his initial guidance to US troops not contradict what President Obama announced in March? Or at the very least, does it not herald a long US mission in Afghanistan?
Now in fairness the President's original statement on Afghanistan was a bit unclear and as several folks have mentioned to me it is certainly open to some interpretation, because the President also does talk about the need to improve governance and local reconciliation. However, this particular passage from the Obama's March speech does seem less ambiguous:
I have already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops . . . These soldiers and Marines will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan Security Forces and to go after insurgents along the border. This push will also help provide security in advance of the important presidential election in August.
But then I read this from a WPost interview two weeks back with General McCrystal:
"We are going to look at those parts of the country that are most important -- and those typically, in an insurgency, are the population centers," McChrystal said.
McChrystal's comments suggested that he wanted to pull forces out of some of the more remote, mountainous areas of Afghanistan where few people live and where insurgent fighters may be seeking refuge. In recent months these isolated pockets have been the scene of some of the most intense fighting between U.S. troops and insurgents.
So now we're so focused on protecting civilians in Afghanistan that we're not even going after the enemy, as President Obama insisted we would in March! This is not to mention the fact that perhaps Gen. McCrystal's focus is not in the right place -- a point nicely made by Joshua Foust:
The last army to do an “ink stain” approach to Afghanistan were the Soviets, who felt that the population was in the cities, so if they just controlled the cities the countryside would fall into line. . . .The Taliban are not strongest in the cities, but outside of them: you’ll find the insurgency grinding in the hills above Lashkar Gah, the countryside to the west and north of Kandahar, the plains of Zabul, the Khost bowl, the mountains of Paktya and Paktika, and the narrow valleys from Kapisa to Kunar and Nuristan. None of them are urban, or even sort of urban. I really hope they’ve learned by now that Afghanistan is not urban, that the insurgency—and the people—are scattered into small rural communities throughout the country. Securing the cities has never been the Coalition’s weakness.
Now, even if you believe that engaging in a long-term counter-insurgency and eliminating the Taliban's political influence in Afghanistan will accomplish the President's goals then shouldn't someone in the US government (preferably the President) make that very clear to the American people? This seems particularly important when you have the US commander in Afghanistan also saying this:
The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area that: Protects the Afghan people--allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of. Provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency
While also admitting this:
"We've got to ruthlessly prioritize, because we don't have enough forces to do everything, everywhere,"
I think everyone would agree that providing a secure environment and allowing for good government (pretty much firsts in the sad history of Afghanistan) will take a very long time to achieve. And maybe this is the absolute right approach to protecting America's interests and ensuring that Afghans enjoy a stable and reasonably prosperous future (although color me deeply skeptical).
But really this isn't about the efficacy of counter-insurgency. It's about, what the hell are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan? What exactly is our strategy there and what is the end game? If we don't have "enough forces to do everything" in Afghanistan then why is our top general embarking on an operational approach that under current policy constraints he is unlikely to see to its fruition?
And at a time when we can't agree to spend more than $1 trillion dollars on ensuring every American has access to health care or are reluctant to ask Americans to pay more out of pocket so that we can finally begin to roll back global warming shouldn't we level with the American people about the true costs of a full-fledged counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan? Considering that fact that we've already appropriated approximately $225 billion for the war in Afghanistan it seems like a legitimate conversation for this country to be having.
It's entirely possible that a year or two from now this Administration will decide to declare victory and go home and all my worrying will be for naught. But if 5 years from now we're still in Afghanistan chasing the dream of modernizing and stabilizing a country with little hope of achieving either . . . well I really don't want to be the one to say I told you so.
June 29, 2009 at 11:33 AM | Permalink
Posted by Michael Cohen
I'm really confused about what's going on with US policy in Afghanistan. First, there is this recent guidance from General McCrystal to US troops:
Success will be defined by the Afghan people's freedom to choose their future--freedom from coercion, extremists, malign foreign influence, or abusive government actions.
I feel like I'm sort of beating a dead horse on this one, but here again is what President Obama said in March about US goals for Afghanistan:
We are not in Afghanistan to control that country OR TO DICTATE ITS FUTURE. We are in Afghanistan to confront a common enemy that threatens the United States, our friends and our allies, and the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan who have suffered the most at the hands of violent extremists. So I want the American people to understand that we have a clear and focused goal: to disrupt, dismantle and defeat al Qaeda in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and to prevent their return to either country in the future. That's the goal that must be achieved.
I realize that I'm not an expert on counter-insurgency and there are those who think I have trouble connecting dots, but doesn't what Gen. McCrystal said in his initial guidance to US troops not contradict what President Obama announced in March? Or at the very least, does it not herald a long US mission in Afghanistan?
Now in fairness the President's original statement on Afghanistan was a bit unclear and as several folks have mentioned to me it is certainly open to some interpretation, because the President also does talk about the need to improve governance and local reconciliation. However, this particular passage from the Obama's March speech does seem less ambiguous:
I have already ordered the deployment of 17,000 troops . . . These soldiers and Marines will take the fight to the Taliban in the south and east, and give us a greater capacity to partner with Afghan Security Forces and to go after insurgents along the border. This push will also help provide security in advance of the important presidential election in August.
But then I read this from a WPost interview two weeks back with General McCrystal:
"We are going to look at those parts of the country that are most important -- and those typically, in an insurgency, are the population centers," McChrystal said.
McChrystal's comments suggested that he wanted to pull forces out of some of the more remote, mountainous areas of Afghanistan where few people live and where insurgent fighters may be seeking refuge. In recent months these isolated pockets have been the scene of some of the most intense fighting between U.S. troops and insurgents.
So now we're so focused on protecting civilians in Afghanistan that we're not even going after the enemy, as President Obama insisted we would in March! This is not to mention the fact that perhaps Gen. McCrystal's focus is not in the right place -- a point nicely made by Joshua Foust:
The last army to do an “ink stain” approach to Afghanistan were the Soviets, who felt that the population was in the cities, so if they just controlled the cities the countryside would fall into line. . . .The Taliban are not strongest in the cities, but outside of them: you’ll find the insurgency grinding in the hills above Lashkar Gah, the countryside to the west and north of Kandahar, the plains of Zabul, the Khost bowl, the mountains of Paktya and Paktika, and the narrow valleys from Kapisa to Kunar and Nuristan. None of them are urban, or even sort of urban. I really hope they’ve learned by now that Afghanistan is not urban, that the insurgency—and the people—are scattered into small rural communities throughout the country. Securing the cities has never been the Coalition’s weakness.
Now, even if you believe that engaging in a long-term counter-insurgency and eliminating the Taliban's political influence in Afghanistan will accomplish the President's goals then shouldn't someone in the US government (preferably the President) make that very clear to the American people? This seems particularly important when you have the US commander in Afghanistan also saying this:
The ongoing insurgency must be met with a counterinsurgency campaign adapted to the unique conditions in each area that: Protects the Afghan people--allowing them to choose a future they can be proud of. Provides a secure environment allowing good government and economic development to undercut the causes and advocates of insurgency
While also admitting this:
"We've got to ruthlessly prioritize, because we don't have enough forces to do everything, everywhere,"
I think everyone would agree that providing a secure environment and allowing for good government (pretty much firsts in the sad history of Afghanistan) will take a very long time to achieve. And maybe this is the absolute right approach to protecting America's interests and ensuring that Afghans enjoy a stable and reasonably prosperous future (although color me deeply skeptical).
But really this isn't about the efficacy of counter-insurgency. It's about, what the hell are we trying to accomplish in Afghanistan? What exactly is our strategy there and what is the end game? If we don't have "enough forces to do everything" in Afghanistan then why is our top general embarking on an operational approach that under current policy constraints he is unlikely to see to its fruition?
And at a time when we can't agree to spend more than $1 trillion dollars on ensuring every American has access to health care or are reluctant to ask Americans to pay more out of pocket so that we can finally begin to roll back global warming shouldn't we level with the American people about the true costs of a full-fledged counter-insurgency campaign in Afghanistan? Considering that fact that we've already appropriated approximately $225 billion for the war in Afghanistan it seems like a legitimate conversation for this country to be having.
It's entirely possible that a year or two from now this Administration will decide to declare victory and go home and all my worrying will be for naught. But if 5 years from now we're still in Afghanistan chasing the dream of modernizing and stabilizing a country with little hope of achieving either . . . well I really don't want to be the one to say I told you so.
June 29, 2009 at 11:33 AM | Permalink
from the NYT
No one seems to know how old Mohammed Jawad was when he was seized by Afghan forces in Kabul six and a half years ago and turned over to American custody. Some reports say he was 14. Some say 16. The Afghan government believes he was 12.
What is not in dispute is that he was no older than an adolescent, and that since his capture he has been tortured and otherwise put through hell. The evidence against him has been discredited. He has tried to commit suicide. But the U.S. won’t let him go.
The treatment of the young captive was so egregious that the decorated U.S. Army officer assigned to prosecute him — a man gung-ho to secure a conviction against a defendant he believed had committed a serious crime against the American military — ended up removing himself from the case and declaring that he could no longer “in good conscience” participate in the military commissions set up to try accused terrorists.
Jawad was accused of hurling a hand grenade into a vehicle occupied by two American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in December 2002. All three occupants of the vehicle were seriously injured.
Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld of the U.S. Army Reserve, a recipient of the Bronze Star, among other commendations, was named the lead prosecutor on the case in 2007. By then, Jawad had already been held for nearly five years. Colonel Vandeveld assumed that the case would be uncomplicated and that a conviction could be easily secured.
Jawad had confessed to the attack and, according to the charges against him, had acted as a member of an insurgent group called Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.
As Colonel Vandeveld began a diligent effort to assemble what he assumed would be the evidence that would convict Jawad, he became increasingly distressed and ultimately dismayed. It turned out, as a military judge would later rule, that Jawad’s Afghan captors had obtained his confession by torturing him. Then the boy was taken by U.S. authorities to Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, where he was held before eventually being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Colonel Vandeveld — “by sheer happenstance,” as he put it — came across a written summary of an interview of Jawad by a special agent of the Army Criminal Investigation Division. The summary, which was part of the official record of an entirely different case at Bagram, detailed extensive abuse that Jawad said had been inflicted on him at Bagram.
In a sworn affidavit, Colonel Vandeveld said, “This abuse included the slapping of Mr. Jawad across the face while Mr. Jawad’s head was covered with a hood, as well as Mr. Jawad’s having been shoved down a stairwell while both hooded and shackled.”
Jawad’s account had the ring of truth. As Colonel Vandeveld said in the affidavit, the interviewer “later testified as a defense witness ... that Mr. Jawad’s statement was completely consistent with the statements of other prisoners held at Bagram at the time and, more importantly, that dozens of the guards had admitted to abusing the prisoners in exactly the way described by Jawad.”
Jawad also complained about being mistreated at Guantánamo, saying he had been moved with absurd frequency from cell to cell — the idea being to deprive him of sleep. A check of the official prison logs showed that Jawad had in fact been moved 112 times, without explanation, from one cell to another in a two-week period — an average of eight moves a day for 14 days.
As Colonel Vandeveld said in his affidavit: “Upon further investigation, we were able to determine that Mr. Jawad had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program popularly referred to as the ‘frequent flyer’ program.” The colonel said he lacked the words “to express the heartsickness” he felt as he came to fully understand the way Jawad had been treated by American soldiers.
On Dec. 25, 2003, Jawad tried to kill himself by repeatedly banging his head against a wall of his cell.
There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad’s freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible — without merit, of no value.
Colonel Vandeveld is no longer on active duty and has joined the effort by military defense lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union to secure Jawad’s freedom. Six years of virtual solitary confinement, he said, is enough for someone who was not much older than a child when he was taken into custody.
What is not in dispute is that he was no older than an adolescent, and that since his capture he has been tortured and otherwise put through hell. The evidence against him has been discredited. He has tried to commit suicide. But the U.S. won’t let him go.
The treatment of the young captive was so egregious that the decorated U.S. Army officer assigned to prosecute him — a man gung-ho to secure a conviction against a defendant he believed had committed a serious crime against the American military — ended up removing himself from the case and declaring that he could no longer “in good conscience” participate in the military commissions set up to try accused terrorists.
Jawad was accused of hurling a hand grenade into a vehicle occupied by two American soldiers and their Afghan interpreter in December 2002. All three occupants of the vehicle were seriously injured.
Lt. Col. Darrel Vandeveld of the U.S. Army Reserve, a recipient of the Bronze Star, among other commendations, was named the lead prosecutor on the case in 2007. By then, Jawad had already been held for nearly five years. Colonel Vandeveld assumed that the case would be uncomplicated and that a conviction could be easily secured.
Jawad had confessed to the attack and, according to the charges against him, had acted as a member of an insurgent group called Hezb-e-Islami Gulbuddin.
As Colonel Vandeveld began a diligent effort to assemble what he assumed would be the evidence that would convict Jawad, he became increasingly distressed and ultimately dismayed. It turned out, as a military judge would later rule, that Jawad’s Afghan captors had obtained his confession by torturing him. Then the boy was taken by U.S. authorities to Bagram Air Field, the main U.S. military installation in Afghanistan, where he was held before eventually being transferred to Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
Colonel Vandeveld — “by sheer happenstance,” as he put it — came across a written summary of an interview of Jawad by a special agent of the Army Criminal Investigation Division. The summary, which was part of the official record of an entirely different case at Bagram, detailed extensive abuse that Jawad said had been inflicted on him at Bagram.
In a sworn affidavit, Colonel Vandeveld said, “This abuse included the slapping of Mr. Jawad across the face while Mr. Jawad’s head was covered with a hood, as well as Mr. Jawad’s having been shoved down a stairwell while both hooded and shackled.”
Jawad’s account had the ring of truth. As Colonel Vandeveld said in the affidavit, the interviewer “later testified as a defense witness ... that Mr. Jawad’s statement was completely consistent with the statements of other prisoners held at Bagram at the time and, more importantly, that dozens of the guards had admitted to abusing the prisoners in exactly the way described by Jawad.”
Jawad also complained about being mistreated at Guantánamo, saying he had been moved with absurd frequency from cell to cell — the idea being to deprive him of sleep. A check of the official prison logs showed that Jawad had in fact been moved 112 times, without explanation, from one cell to another in a two-week period — an average of eight moves a day for 14 days.
As Colonel Vandeveld said in his affidavit: “Upon further investigation, we were able to determine that Mr. Jawad had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program popularly referred to as the ‘frequent flyer’ program.” The colonel said he lacked the words “to express the heartsickness” he felt as he came to fully understand the way Jawad had been treated by American soldiers.
On Dec. 25, 2003, Jawad tried to kill himself by repeatedly banging his head against a wall of his cell.
There is no credible evidence against Jawad, and his torture-induced confession has rightly been ruled inadmissible by a military judge. But the Obama administration does not feel that he has suffered enough. Not only have administration lawyers opposed defense efforts to secure Jawad’s freedom, but they are using, as the primary basis for their opposition, the fruits of the confession that was obtained through torture and has already been deemed inadmissible — without merit, of no value.
Colonel Vandeveld is no longer on active duty and has joined the effort by military defense lawyers and the American Civil Liberties Union to secure Jawad’s freedom. Six years of virtual solitary confinement, he said, is enough for someone who was not much older than a child when he was taken into custody.
Judge denies Afghan's challenge to detention
By NEDRA PICKLER – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge who issued a groundbreaking order allowing military detainees in Afghanistan to go to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their confinement said Monday that the right doesn't apply to an Afghan prisoner.
U.S. District Judge John Bates' ruling means the United States can continue to detain Haji Wazir indefinitely at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Court documents say he has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in the United Arab Emirates in 2002.
In April, Bates had allowed three foreign detainees at Bagram who had been captured outside the country to challenge their detention in his court to prevent the U.S. from being able to "move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely." The government has appealed the Bates' decision.
It was the first time a judge had extended rights given to terrorism suspects held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to detainees held elsewhere in the world. The order drew an immediate rebuke from congressional Republicans who said Bates was endangering national security and should not be involved in battlefield decisions.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in court. But the government — first the Bush administration then the Obama administration — had argued that it did not apply to the detainees in Afghanistan because it is in an overseas war zone.
At the time of his initial ruling, Bates gave attorneys on both sides more time to argue whether Wazir should be able to challenge his detention. He said Wazir was a different case because releasing him to the host country where he's a citizen of could cause "friction" with Afghanistan. He also suggested that access to U.S. courts may not be available to Bagram detainees who were captured in Afghanistan.
Tina Foster, an attorney with the International Justice Network who has been representing Wazir in the case, says the government has given no indication of why he's being detained. She expressed frustration that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration stance of holding Bagram detainees indefinitely without charge.
"All we know is that he's being held in us custody and according to this administration there's no court in which he has an ability to challenge his detention," Foster said in a telephone interview. "No matter what this administration says about torture ending and abusive practices ending, the fact that it won't even allow transparency into what it's doing is extremely troubling."
Foster said Wazir was a businessman who owned a money exchange business with an office in Dubai, and he split his time between Afghanistan and the UAE. She objected to the idea that his rights should be different based solely on where he was born.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By NEDRA PICKLER – 7 hours ago
WASHINGTON (AP) — A federal judge who issued a groundbreaking order allowing military detainees in Afghanistan to go to U.S. civilian courts to challenge their confinement said Monday that the right doesn't apply to an Afghan prisoner.
U.S. District Judge John Bates' ruling means the United States can continue to detain Haji Wazir indefinitely at Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan. Court documents say he has been in U.S. custody since he was captured in the United Arab Emirates in 2002.
In April, Bates had allowed three foreign detainees at Bagram who had been captured outside the country to challenge their detention in his court to prevent the U.S. from being able to "move detainees physically beyond the reach of the Constitution and detain them indefinitely." The government has appealed the Bates' decision.
It was the first time a judge had extended rights given to terrorism suspects held at the U.S. detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to detainees held elsewhere in the world. The order drew an immediate rebuke from congressional Republicans who said Bates was endangering national security and should not be involved in battlefield decisions.
The Supreme Court ruled last year that detainees at Guantanamo Bay have the right to challenge their detention in court. But the government — first the Bush administration then the Obama administration — had argued that it did not apply to the detainees in Afghanistan because it is in an overseas war zone.
At the time of his initial ruling, Bates gave attorneys on both sides more time to argue whether Wazir should be able to challenge his detention. He said Wazir was a different case because releasing him to the host country where he's a citizen of could cause "friction" with Afghanistan. He also suggested that access to U.S. courts may not be available to Bagram detainees who were captured in Afghanistan.
Tina Foster, an attorney with the International Justice Network who has been representing Wazir in the case, says the government has given no indication of why he's being detained. She expressed frustration that the Obama administration is continuing the Bush administration stance of holding Bagram detainees indefinitely without charge.
"All we know is that he's being held in us custody and according to this administration there's no court in which he has an ability to challenge his detention," Foster said in a telephone interview. "No matter what this administration says about torture ending and abusive practices ending, the fact that it won't even allow transparency into what it's doing is extremely troubling."
Foster said Wazir was a businessman who owned a money exchange business with an office in Dubai, and he split his time between Afghanistan and the UAE. She objected to the idea that his rights should be different based solely on where he was born.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
UNITED NATIONS, June 26 (Xinhua) -- UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Friday urged governments to go on the offensive in the fight against torture, stressing there can be no justification under any circumstances for such "cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment," in a message marking the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture.
"I urge all United Nations member states that have not yet done so to ratify and implement in good faith the Convention against Torture (CAT)," Ban said in the message. "Let us step up the fight against torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment and punishment, wherever they occur."
Echoing Ban's statements, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that no exceptional "circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, maybe invoked as a justification of torture."
Pillay stressed that no one should be let off the hook for torture, including the policy-makers and public officials who define the policy and give the orders.
Since its adoption in 1984, a total of 146 nations, or three-quarters of the world, has ratified the convention, noted Pillay, who urged the remaining countries to sign up and current signatories to abide by its "very clear" rules.
"Many states that have ratified CAT continue to practice torture, some of them on a daily basis," she said, adding that other states enable torture by sending back asylum-seekers to countries they know carry out torture, which is also clearly prohibited by the treaty.
The high commissioner noted that the terrorist attacks of Sept.11, 2001 resulted in some countries backsliding on commitments not to practice or condone torture, looking for "ingenious ways to get around CAT, or stretch its boundaries."
"The Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, in particular, became high-profile symbols of this regression," she said. "New terms such as 'water-boarding' and 'rendition' entered the public discourse, as human rights lawyers and advocates looked on in dismay."
Welcoming United States President Barack Obama's decisions to close Guantanamo and ban methods of interrogation that contravene international law, Pillay said that leadership plays a crucial role in upholding the total prohibition of torture.
"As CAT makes clear, people who order or inflict torture can not be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should be scrutinized," she said.
Pillay also said that while Guantanamo was "reprehensible," it paled in comparison to the scale and nature of torture taking place in prisons, police stations and other government premises in countries all around the world.
There are thousands of such places and tens of thousands of victims, she said, including child criminals and street children, she said, not just suspected terrorists and political activists.
"I call on leaders across the world to send a clear and unequivocal message that torture will no longer be tolerated," she said.
"I urge all United Nations member states that have not yet done so to ratify and implement in good faith the Convention against Torture (CAT)," Ban said in the message. "Let us step up the fight against torture and cruel, degrading and inhuman treatment and punishment, wherever they occur."
Echoing Ban's statements, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay said that no exceptional "circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, maybe invoked as a justification of torture."
Pillay stressed that no one should be let off the hook for torture, including the policy-makers and public officials who define the policy and give the orders.
Since its adoption in 1984, a total of 146 nations, or three-quarters of the world, has ratified the convention, noted Pillay, who urged the remaining countries to sign up and current signatories to abide by its "very clear" rules.
"Many states that have ratified CAT continue to practice torture, some of them on a daily basis," she said, adding that other states enable torture by sending back asylum-seekers to countries they know carry out torture, which is also clearly prohibited by the treaty.
The high commissioner noted that the terrorist attacks of Sept.11, 2001 resulted in some countries backsliding on commitments not to practice or condone torture, looking for "ingenious ways to get around CAT, or stretch its boundaries."
"The Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib prisons, in particular, became high-profile symbols of this regression," she said. "New terms such as 'water-boarding' and 'rendition' entered the public discourse, as human rights lawyers and advocates looked on in dismay."
Welcoming United States President Barack Obama's decisions to close Guantanamo and ban methods of interrogation that contravene international law, Pillay said that leadership plays a crucial role in upholding the total prohibition of torture.
"As CAT makes clear, people who order or inflict torture can not be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should be scrutinized," she said.
Pillay also said that while Guantanamo was "reprehensible," it paled in comparison to the scale and nature of torture taking place in prisons, police stations and other government premises in countries all around the world.
There are thousands of such places and tens of thousands of victims, she said, including child criminals and street children, she said, not just suspected terrorists and political activists.
"I call on leaders across the world to send a clear and unequivocal message that torture will no longer be tolerated," she said.
Torture: "These Weren't the Kind of Men You Send to Jail"
by Nightprowlkitty
Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 06:38:03 AM PDT
Today is Torture Accountabilty Day. There will be events across the country, American citizens making the case that those who committed the moral crime against humanity of torture be held accountable for their actions.
Holding those in the highest positions of power to the law, what a notion. We know the politics that prevents this, the powers who want these crimes once again swept under the rug.
We heard on Monday from the Supreme Court that Valerie Plame's suit against Cheney, et al., will not be allowed to go forward. Scooter Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice. Mister Bush commuted his sentence. And surprise, surprise, there now is no case, even as we all know what happened. There is no accountability.
On this day in 1982, Chinese American immigrant Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat, at his own bachelor party, by racist white auto workers in Detroit who blamed Japan for layoffs in the US auto industry. The murderers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were convicted of manslaughter. They served no jail time, were given three years probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman said, "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail."
On July 14, 2008, Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez was beaten to death by racist white teens shouting anti-Mexican epithets, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The murderers, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, were convicted of simple assault. Two days ago, they were respectively sentenced to 6 and 7 months in county jail. Piekarsky's lawyer Frederick Fanelli said, "You would be proud to have any of these kids in your classroom, and any of them as your children."
And what does all this have to do with holding those in power accountable for torture? What are these connections I am making?
I could cite so many examples of the two-tiered supposed "justice" we see in America. I could write about Postville, Iowa, where justice was utterly subverted because those who were harmed had no power and did not have white skin. I could write about our prison system, and how the disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated begins before they even finish school.
And I could write about the people of color who have been tortured in the name of a War on Terror and how the architects of that torture are walking free today, living well, still given crediblity in our media and our national discourse.
"These weren't the kind of men you send to jail." Socially desirable white boys or highly powerful and mostly white men. But these are the kind of people, the powerless, the targets of our fears, who because we fear them, we can do anything we wish to them with no consequences. No consequences.
From The Editors over at The Sanctuary, "The Luis Ramirez Murder: A Logical Step in the Process of Establishing a Subhuman Class" (emphasis mine):
The process of defining a subhuman class and institutionalizing discrimination and violence against that group is not new. How quickly and conveniently some of us allow our collective memory to cover its own tracks. Parasite, diseased, leeching, dangerous, over-breeding, vermin. These terms and this imagery have been deployed for ages, on various groups of people, on various pieces of land, in the service of various endeavors; and always to bring about the same ends. To demonize and dehumanize a group of people so that other people come to understand that the social compact with the demonized group is broken; that discrimination and violence against the dehumanized class now carries no moral consequence. That is the meaning of this latest ruling by an all-white jury in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Racial murder of a Mexican carries the same consequence as walking up to a white person and punching them in the belly: simple assault.
The notion of a categorically subhuman class of persons who exists below the rules and obligations the rest of humanity warrants is as simple as it is ugly. Ugly like the prison at Guantánamo, where unfortunate bodies from the Middle East are deprived of anything resembling the law, ideals, or morality most Americans feel they deserve by mere existence. Ugly like Abu Ghraib. Ugly like the prisons in Baghdad and Bagram, where atrocities appear to be the norm. Even as our government promised that it was "fighting Them There" in order to prevent "Them" from coming "Here", an ideology of dehumanizing terror was propagating and swelling in our own ranks and within our own borders; an ideology which devalues "Hajis" in the same way that it foists hatred upon Mexicans and all others who sound or appear somehow Latin American.
Can we see the connections here? Can we see how whether it be torturing at Gitmo and Bagram, hate crime murders and disproportionate and unfair imprisonment here in the USA, we are slowly losing our humanity when we don't hold the criminals of hatred accountable for their actions? How many are now above the law and how many are victims of the law, and what does it take before the law itself becomes irrevocably destroyed?
We cheer the young men and women in Iran as our own country has tortured their neighbors in Iraq and Afghanistan and no one has been held to account. No one, that is, other than a few powerless lower level soldiers who have been blamed for the orders of their superiors.
And those who have committed this crime walk free and prosper and remain influential in our culture.
George W. Bush. Richard Cheney. Jay Bybee. Condoleeza Rice. Scooter Libby. Karl Rove. Douglas Feith. Donald Rumsfeld. David Addington. Alberto Gonzalez. William Haynes. John Yoo. Stephen Bradbury. A partial list. They belong in jail.
And how would this change our system of justice, how would this help those folks now in prison or who are victims of hate crimes?
I believe it would change our system of justice. I believe it would let all the citizens of this country know that no matter how powerful or well connected, dehumanizing another human being whether by torture, bad judicial or law enforcement decisions made for expediency or fueled by cultural prejudice, will be discovered, and those who now feel above the law in making those decisions and committing those acts will be held accountable. And it would let those people who have suffered for so long under this unequal system of justice know that we are not a nation who is indifferent to their humanity, that we are all equal under the law.
by Nightprowlkitty
Thu Jun 25, 2009 at 06:38:03 AM PDT
Today is Torture Accountabilty Day. There will be events across the country, American citizens making the case that those who committed the moral crime against humanity of torture be held accountable for their actions.
Holding those in the highest positions of power to the law, what a notion. We know the politics that prevents this, the powers who want these crimes once again swept under the rug.
We heard on Monday from the Supreme Court that Valerie Plame's suit against Cheney, et al., will not be allowed to go forward. Scooter Libby was found guilty of obstruction of justice. Mister Bush commuted his sentence. And surprise, surprise, there now is no case, even as we all know what happened. There is no accountability.
On this day in 1982, Chinese American immigrant Vincent Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat, at his own bachelor party, by racist white auto workers in Detroit who blamed Japan for layoffs in the US auto industry. The murderers, Ronald Ebens and Michael Nitz, were convicted of manslaughter. They served no jail time, were given three years probation, fined $3,000 and ordered to pay $780 in court costs. Wayne County Circuit Judge Charles Kaufman said, "These weren't the kind of men you send to jail."
On July 14, 2008, Mexican immigrant Luis Ramirez was beaten to death by racist white teens shouting anti-Mexican epithets, in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. The murderers, Brandon Piekarsky and Derrick Donchak, were convicted of simple assault. Two days ago, they were respectively sentenced to 6 and 7 months in county jail. Piekarsky's lawyer Frederick Fanelli said, "You would be proud to have any of these kids in your classroom, and any of them as your children."
And what does all this have to do with holding those in power accountable for torture? What are these connections I am making?
I could cite so many examples of the two-tiered supposed "justice" we see in America. I could write about Postville, Iowa, where justice was utterly subverted because those who were harmed had no power and did not have white skin. I could write about our prison system, and how the disproportionate number of people of color incarcerated begins before they even finish school.
And I could write about the people of color who have been tortured in the name of a War on Terror and how the architects of that torture are walking free today, living well, still given crediblity in our media and our national discourse.
"These weren't the kind of men you send to jail." Socially desirable white boys or highly powerful and mostly white men. But these are the kind of people, the powerless, the targets of our fears, who because we fear them, we can do anything we wish to them with no consequences. No consequences.
From The Editors over at The Sanctuary, "The Luis Ramirez Murder: A Logical Step in the Process of Establishing a Subhuman Class" (emphasis mine):
The process of defining a subhuman class and institutionalizing discrimination and violence against that group is not new. How quickly and conveniently some of us allow our collective memory to cover its own tracks. Parasite, diseased, leeching, dangerous, over-breeding, vermin. These terms and this imagery have been deployed for ages, on various groups of people, on various pieces of land, in the service of various endeavors; and always to bring about the same ends. To demonize and dehumanize a group of people so that other people come to understand that the social compact with the demonized group is broken; that discrimination and violence against the dehumanized class now carries no moral consequence. That is the meaning of this latest ruling by an all-white jury in Shenandoah, Pennsylvania. Racial murder of a Mexican carries the same consequence as walking up to a white person and punching them in the belly: simple assault.
The notion of a categorically subhuman class of persons who exists below the rules and obligations the rest of humanity warrants is as simple as it is ugly. Ugly like the prison at Guantánamo, where unfortunate bodies from the Middle East are deprived of anything resembling the law, ideals, or morality most Americans feel they deserve by mere existence. Ugly like Abu Ghraib. Ugly like the prisons in Baghdad and Bagram, where atrocities appear to be the norm. Even as our government promised that it was "fighting Them There" in order to prevent "Them" from coming "Here", an ideology of dehumanizing terror was propagating and swelling in our own ranks and within our own borders; an ideology which devalues "Hajis" in the same way that it foists hatred upon Mexicans and all others who sound or appear somehow Latin American.
Can we see the connections here? Can we see how whether it be torturing at Gitmo and Bagram, hate crime murders and disproportionate and unfair imprisonment here in the USA, we are slowly losing our humanity when we don't hold the criminals of hatred accountable for their actions? How many are now above the law and how many are victims of the law, and what does it take before the law itself becomes irrevocably destroyed?
We cheer the young men and women in Iran as our own country has tortured their neighbors in Iraq and Afghanistan and no one has been held to account. No one, that is, other than a few powerless lower level soldiers who have been blamed for the orders of their superiors.
And those who have committed this crime walk free and prosper and remain influential in our culture.
George W. Bush. Richard Cheney. Jay Bybee. Condoleeza Rice. Scooter Libby. Karl Rove. Douglas Feith. Donald Rumsfeld. David Addington. Alberto Gonzalez. William Haynes. John Yoo. Stephen Bradbury. A partial list. They belong in jail.
And how would this change our system of justice, how would this help those folks now in prison or who are victims of hate crimes?
I believe it would change our system of justice. I believe it would let all the citizens of this country know that no matter how powerful or well connected, dehumanizing another human being whether by torture, bad judicial or law enforcement decisions made for expediency or fueled by cultural prejudice, will be discovered, and those who now feel above the law in making those decisions and committing those acts will be held accountable. And it would let those people who have suffered for so long under this unequal system of justice know that we are not a nation who is indifferent to their humanity, that we are all equal under the law.
Code Pink protested outside John Yoo's house, despite police presence (number of cops fluctuated between 3 and 2 officers on duty to defend John Yoo). UC police were on the scene as John Yoo is still an employee, a law professor, for UC Berkeley.
From 4 to 6pm late Sunday afternoon, Code Pink protested outside John Yoo's house, despite police presence (number of cops fluctuated between 3 and 2 officers on duty to defend John Yoo). UC police were on the scene as John Yoo is still an employee, a law professor, for UC Berkeley.
John Yoo wrote the torture memos for George Bush, creating a legal framework for water-boarding, starvation tactics, physical endurance tactics, and et cetera.
John Yoo is still seen as a valuable asset to UC Berkeley. It should be noted that when asked about the contraversy regarding John Yoo, UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau stated: "We're actually a fairly broad church here. We've got the law professor John Yoo, who has been a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy, and the biggest student club on campus is the Republican."
(http://cio.chance.berkeley.edu/chancellor/Birgeneau/remarks/7-11-06-guardian-interview.htm)
John Yoo can be reached at his Berkeley home: 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley
There is ample street parking, and a public sidewalk across from his house.
From 4 to 6pm late Sunday afternoon, Code Pink protested outside John Yoo's house, despite police presence (number of cops fluctuated between 3 and 2 officers on duty to defend John Yoo). UC police were on the scene as John Yoo is still an employee, a law professor, for UC Berkeley.
John Yoo wrote the torture memos for George Bush, creating a legal framework for water-boarding, starvation tactics, physical endurance tactics, and et cetera.
John Yoo is still seen as a valuable asset to UC Berkeley. It should be noted that when asked about the contraversy regarding John Yoo, UC Chancellor Robert Birgeneau stated: "We're actually a fairly broad church here. We've got the law professor John Yoo, who has been a prime advocate of the US government's torture policy, and the biggest student club on campus is the Republican."
(http://cio.chance.berkeley.edu/chancellor/Birgeneau/remarks/7-11-06-guardian-interview.htm)
John Yoo can be reached at his Berkeley home: 1241 Grizzly Peak Blvd., Berkeley
There is ample street parking, and a public sidewalk across from his house.
Yikes. There is quite a movement in Northern Ireland to stop all this. It will be interesting to see where it goes.
Northern Ireland: Shannon Airport used for torture flights - Irish government must investigate
Posted: 29 June 2009
The Irish government must admit that Shannon Airport was used as a launching pad for rendition operations by the CIA and act to ensure this can never happen again. The call came from Amnesty International as it launched a new report, the organisation's most comprehensive examination yet of renditions in Ireland.
The report documents the cases of four men, Abu Omar, Khaled al Maqtari, Khaled el Masri and Binyam Mohamed, where CIA agents used Shannon Airport in the course of rendition operations.
The Irish government established a special cabinet sub-committee at the end of October 2008 whose brief includes reviewing the law on searching suspected rendition flights. It is expected that this committee will meet next week, but this will be only its second meeting since it was set up.
"The Irish Government has turned a blind eye to illegal rendition flights through Ireland," says Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director of Amnesty International.
"It does not know what is going through Ireland's airports on secret CIA flights, because it does not want to know.
"CIA planes illegally claimed to be civilian aircraft while travelling through Irish airspace and using Shannon Airport, and yet the Irish government cannot be bothered to investigate.
"The fact is, as our report reveals, Shannon has been used by the CIA as a launching pad for kidnapping and torture. This is illegal under international law. The Irish government is losing credibility every day that it prevaricates on launching an investigation."
Amnesty's report identifies the key priorities a government review must examine to ensure a robust system to protect against renditions is put in place:
Proactive identification of aircraft and operators that have used Irish territory for renditions. Currently data is collected by concerned citizens, journalists or organisations like Amnesty International.
Irish authorities cannot identify foreign civilian aircraft that may be engaged in rendition. Current legislation does not go far enough and must be tightened up.
The review must result in a system requiring detailed information on passengers and flight plan from all aircraft operators travelling through Irish airspace.
Although President Obama's Executive Order 'Ensuring Lawful Interrogations' ends the CIA's programme of long-term secret detention it does not end the practice of rendition. The order allows the CIA to use detention facilities on a short-term basis, or to use foreign-controlled facilities to detain and interrogate individuals.
Northern Ireland: Shannon Airport used for torture flights - Irish government must investigate
Posted: 29 June 2009
The Irish government must admit that Shannon Airport was used as a launching pad for rendition operations by the CIA and act to ensure this can never happen again. The call came from Amnesty International as it launched a new report, the organisation's most comprehensive examination yet of renditions in Ireland.
The report documents the cases of four men, Abu Omar, Khaled al Maqtari, Khaled el Masri and Binyam Mohamed, where CIA agents used Shannon Airport in the course of rendition operations.
The Irish government established a special cabinet sub-committee at the end of October 2008 whose brief includes reviewing the law on searching suspected rendition flights. It is expected that this committee will meet next week, but this will be only its second meeting since it was set up.
"The Irish Government has turned a blind eye to illegal rendition flights through Ireland," says Patrick Corrigan, Northern Ireland Programme Director of Amnesty International.
"It does not know what is going through Ireland's airports on secret CIA flights, because it does not want to know.
"CIA planes illegally claimed to be civilian aircraft while travelling through Irish airspace and using Shannon Airport, and yet the Irish government cannot be bothered to investigate.
"The fact is, as our report reveals, Shannon has been used by the CIA as a launching pad for kidnapping and torture. This is illegal under international law. The Irish government is losing credibility every day that it prevaricates on launching an investigation."
Amnesty's report identifies the key priorities a government review must examine to ensure a robust system to protect against renditions is put in place:
Proactive identification of aircraft and operators that have used Irish territory for renditions. Currently data is collected by concerned citizens, journalists or organisations like Amnesty International.
Irish authorities cannot identify foreign civilian aircraft that may be engaged in rendition. Current legislation does not go far enough and must be tightened up.
The review must result in a system requiring detailed information on passengers and flight plan from all aircraft operators travelling through Irish airspace.
Although President Obama's Executive Order 'Ensuring Lawful Interrogations' ends the CIA's programme of long-term secret detention it does not end the practice of rendition. The order allows the CIA to use detention facilities on a short-term basis, or to use foreign-controlled facilities to detain and interrogate individuals.
Out this week in Oz.
Don't let torturers off the hook: UNCynthia Banham
June 25, 2009
THE public officials, lawyers and doctors involved in ordering, developing and implementing torture policies - as well as the perpetrators - should not be let off the hook, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.
And the commissioner's regional representative for the Pacific says Australia could do more to promote issues about torture in the region, which has one of the poorest rates of ratifying international human rights treaties.
In a statement to mark the international day in support of victims of torture tomorrow, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 had a "devastating impact" on the fight to eliminate torture, with some states previously careful not to practice or condone torture becoming "less scrupulous", and government lawyers looking for "ingenious ways" to get around the UN Convention Against Torture.
As the debate continues in the US over what to do about the Bush administration officials responsible for its torture policies carried out in places such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, Ms Pillay said the Convention Against Torture made it clear that "people who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinised".
She said there was "still much to do before the Guantanamo chapter is truly brought to a close". This included trying before a court of law its remaining inmates or setting them free, while those who were at risk of torture or other ill-treatment in their country of origin "must be given a new home, where they can start to build a new life".
The UN this week will also publish a report into the gaps in anti-torture policies and laws in the Pacific region, where only two countries - Australia and New Zealand - have ratified the Convention Against Torture.
Matilda Bogner, the regional representative for the Pacific office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Suva, told The Age Australia could "do more in the Pacific region to promote human rights", including to stress the importance of countries signing up to the convention.
"There's great room for improvement," she said.
Ms Bogner said Australia, as a huge aid donor in the region, had a large program on policing and the training of police, and it could strengthen its program to incorporate human rights and issues about torture.
Canberra could also raise the issue at a political level, and "explain what Australia is doing to try and stop torture", and offer help to other states in the region to do the same.
The Federal Government has committed to ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against torture - something the Howard government refused to do.
It has also said it will introduce legislation making torture a federal criminal offence.
But Ms Bogner said Australia had to ensure the systems it put in place under the Optional Protocol to monitor places of detention were strong and independent to deter law enforcement officers and prison officers from breaching laws against torture and ill-treatment.
Don't let torturers off the hook: UNCynthia Banham
June 25, 2009
THE public officials, lawyers and doctors involved in ordering, developing and implementing torture policies - as well as the perpetrators - should not be let off the hook, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights has said.
And the commissioner's regional representative for the Pacific says Australia could do more to promote issues about torture in the region, which has one of the poorest rates of ratifying international human rights treaties.
In a statement to mark the international day in support of victims of torture tomorrow, UN Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay said the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001 had a "devastating impact" on the fight to eliminate torture, with some states previously careful not to practice or condone torture becoming "less scrupulous", and government lawyers looking for "ingenious ways" to get around the UN Convention Against Torture.
As the debate continues in the US over what to do about the Bush administration officials responsible for its torture policies carried out in places such as Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, Ms Pillay said the Convention Against Torture made it clear that "people who order or inflict torture cannot be exonerated, and the roles of certain lawyers, as well as doctors who have attended torture sessions, should also be scrutinised".
She said there was "still much to do before the Guantanamo chapter is truly brought to a close". This included trying before a court of law its remaining inmates or setting them free, while those who were at risk of torture or other ill-treatment in their country of origin "must be given a new home, where they can start to build a new life".
The UN this week will also publish a report into the gaps in anti-torture policies and laws in the Pacific region, where only two countries - Australia and New Zealand - have ratified the Convention Against Torture.
Matilda Bogner, the regional representative for the Pacific office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, based in Suva, told The Age Australia could "do more in the Pacific region to promote human rights", including to stress the importance of countries signing up to the convention.
"There's great room for improvement," she said.
Ms Bogner said Australia, as a huge aid donor in the region, had a large program on policing and the training of police, and it could strengthen its program to incorporate human rights and issues about torture.
Canberra could also raise the issue at a political level, and "explain what Australia is doing to try and stop torture", and offer help to other states in the region to do the same.
The Federal Government has committed to ratifying the Optional Protocol to the Convention Against torture - something the Howard government refused to do.
It has also said it will introduce legislation making torture a federal criminal offence.
But Ms Bogner said Australia had to ensure the systems it put in place under the Optional Protocol to monitor places of detention were strong and independent to deter law enforcement officers and prison officers from breaching laws against torture and ill-treatment.
Why Demand to Prosecute Torture Will Grow
By David Swanson
(Remarks at Torture Accountability Action Day rally in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2009 -- video of this and other speeches at AfterDowningStreet.org)
Have you ever held a little baby in your arms? Raise your hand if you have. A toddler is as delicate and precious as a baby, but able to move around and get hurt. Bigger kids can move faster and farther. Our instincts should be to protect them.
By David Swanson
(Remarks at Torture Accountability Action Day rally in Washington, D.C., June 25, 2009 -- video of this and other speeches at AfterDowningStreet.org)
Have you ever held a little baby in your arms? Raise your hand if you have. A toddler is as delicate and precious as a baby, but able to move around and get hurt. Bigger kids can move faster and farther. Our instincts should be to protect them.
Top Torture Lawyers Still in Government Employ
by David Swanson
Share this on Twitter - Top Torture Lawyers Still in Government Employ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 08:52:37 AM PDT
We've heard of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales, and maybe even Jay Bybee. Some of us recall John Ashcroft, Michael Mukasey, and even David Addington. William Haynes, Stephen Bradbury, and Douglas Feith occasionally make the news. If I had any say about it all 40 of these facilitators of torture would be universally known -- plus the eight more that readers of this article will call to my attention and angrily accuse me of trying to cover for by only being aware of 40. I would also make universally known the fact that two of the worst now work for President Barack Obama.
David Swanson's diary :: ::
Even if you haven't read them, you probably know that the Justice Department under Bush-Cheney produced memos pretending to legalize torture, gruesome memos stipulating exactly how many times a particular victim could "legally" be tortured with a particular technique. John Yoo and Jay Bybee wrote the worst of these memos. But the memos take the form of responses to inquiries from a guy named John Rizzo. Yes, Mr. Rizzo, you may slam that guy against a wall. No, Mr. Rizzo, you may not drown that one unless you have a doctor present. And so on. The memos are all headlined thus: "MEMORANDUM FOR JOHN A. RIZZO."
So, Yoo and Bybee didn't invent the torture techniques out of their own sadistic imaginations. They replied to Rizzo's requests for "legal" permission to use detailed techniques. What if those requests from Rizzo had been turned into news headlines, rather than the Justice Department's responses? Would activists then be focused on demanding Rizzo's, rather than Yoo's, removal from one of our prestigious institutions of higher learning? That's actually a very easy question to definitively answer, and the answer is no. Rizzo doesn't work in academia: he is still, until he retires this summer the top lawyer at the CIA.
Retirement is what counts as accountability these days in Washington. Future consiglieri are hereby put on notice: you back torture and death squads and drone strikes and you'll be forced to retire with the LA Times printing a profile on your great influence and wonderful taste in expensive suits. Rizzo served as top lawyer at the CIA for years, without the title, because the Senate wouldn't approve him. Serving as the "Acting So-and-So" is what now counts as compliance with the Constitution. Senators are hereby put on notice: you fail to confirm an appointee, and he or she will get the job without the title.
Rizzo oversaw in detail the use of illegal detention, rendition, and torture at sites around the world. He requested Justice Department memos to cover his actions. He illegally sanctioned the destruction of videotapes demonstrating what he had done. He brazenly testified before Congress that torture was not torture. He authorized torture prior to receiving the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos. After receiving the memos, he authorized torture that far exceeded what they pretended to allow. He lied to the Justice Department, claiming that a captive (Abu Zubaydah) was not cooperative in the absence of torture. He ignored warnings that all of this was illegal, but made clear his awareness of guilt by requesting the memos and destroying the tapes.
And Rizzo didn't do all of this alone. He had help from another top lawyer at the CIA, Jonathan M. Fredman. Fredman now works in the Obama administration in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with -- as far as I know -- no plans to leave. According to the Senate Armed Services Committee:
"On October 2, 2002, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center, attended a meeting of GTMO staff. Minutes of that meeting indicate that it was dominated by a discussion of aggressive interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, death threats, and waterboarding, which was discussed in relation to its use in SERE training. Mr. Fredman's advice to GTMO on applicable legal obligations was similar to the analysis of those obligations in OLC's first Bybee memo. According to the meeting minutes, Mr. Fredman said that 'the language of the statutes is written vaguely... Severe physical pain described as anything causing permanent damage to major organs or body parts. Mental torture [is] described as anything leading to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality.' Mr. Fredman said simply 'It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong.'"
People like Rizzo and Fredman should not be working for our government a single day longer. They should be impeached. They should be prosecuted. They should be given fair trials and be imprisoned if convicted. And all existing information on what they did should be made public. Fed up with waiting for Congress or the Justice Department to act, a coalition of groups headquartered at http://DisbarTortureLawyers.com has gone ahead and filed complaints with bar associations to have torture lawyers disbarred and to call attention to the need for further accountability. Having already filed complaints against 12 torture lawyers, Disbar Torture Lawyers filed three more on Monday. Two of these were against Rizzo and Fredman.
Disbar Torture Lawyers held a press conference on Monday at the National Press Club, with remarks by Kevin Zeese, who filed the complaints, by Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration lawyer, and by Shahid Buttar, Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. I was not in town but am certain we can count on the Washington Post to give the story all the coverage it deserves.
by David Swanson
Share this on Twitter - Top Torture Lawyers Still in Government Employ Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 08:52:37 AM PDT
We've heard of John Yoo and Alberto Gonzales, and maybe even Jay Bybee. Some of us recall John Ashcroft, Michael Mukasey, and even David Addington. William Haynes, Stephen Bradbury, and Douglas Feith occasionally make the news. If I had any say about it all 40 of these facilitators of torture would be universally known -- plus the eight more that readers of this article will call to my attention and angrily accuse me of trying to cover for by only being aware of 40. I would also make universally known the fact that two of the worst now work for President Barack Obama.
David Swanson's diary :: ::
Even if you haven't read them, you probably know that the Justice Department under Bush-Cheney produced memos pretending to legalize torture, gruesome memos stipulating exactly how many times a particular victim could "legally" be tortured with a particular technique. John Yoo and Jay Bybee wrote the worst of these memos. But the memos take the form of responses to inquiries from a guy named John Rizzo. Yes, Mr. Rizzo, you may slam that guy against a wall. No, Mr. Rizzo, you may not drown that one unless you have a doctor present. And so on. The memos are all headlined thus: "MEMORANDUM FOR JOHN A. RIZZO."
So, Yoo and Bybee didn't invent the torture techniques out of their own sadistic imaginations. They replied to Rizzo's requests for "legal" permission to use detailed techniques. What if those requests from Rizzo had been turned into news headlines, rather than the Justice Department's responses? Would activists then be focused on demanding Rizzo's, rather than Yoo's, removal from one of our prestigious institutions of higher learning? That's actually a very easy question to definitively answer, and the answer is no. Rizzo doesn't work in academia: he is still, until he retires this summer the top lawyer at the CIA.
Retirement is what counts as accountability these days in Washington. Future consiglieri are hereby put on notice: you back torture and death squads and drone strikes and you'll be forced to retire with the LA Times printing a profile on your great influence and wonderful taste in expensive suits. Rizzo served as top lawyer at the CIA for years, without the title, because the Senate wouldn't approve him. Serving as the "Acting So-and-So" is what now counts as compliance with the Constitution. Senators are hereby put on notice: you fail to confirm an appointee, and he or she will get the job without the title.
Rizzo oversaw in detail the use of illegal detention, rendition, and torture at sites around the world. He requested Justice Department memos to cover his actions. He illegally sanctioned the destruction of videotapes demonstrating what he had done. He brazenly testified before Congress that torture was not torture. He authorized torture prior to receiving the Office of Legal Counsel (OLC) memos. After receiving the memos, he authorized torture that far exceeded what they pretended to allow. He lied to the Justice Department, claiming that a captive (Abu Zubaydah) was not cooperative in the absence of torture. He ignored warnings that all of this was illegal, but made clear his awareness of guilt by requesting the memos and destroying the tapes.
And Rizzo didn't do all of this alone. He had help from another top lawyer at the CIA, Jonathan M. Fredman. Fredman now works in the Obama administration in the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, with -- as far as I know -- no plans to leave. According to the Senate Armed Services Committee:
"On October 2, 2002, Jonathan Fredman, who was chief counsel to the CIA's Counter Terrorist Center, attended a meeting of GTMO staff. Minutes of that meeting indicate that it was dominated by a discussion of aggressive interrogation techniques including sleep deprivation, death threats, and waterboarding, which was discussed in relation to its use in SERE training. Mr. Fredman's advice to GTMO on applicable legal obligations was similar to the analysis of those obligations in OLC's first Bybee memo. According to the meeting minutes, Mr. Fredman said that 'the language of the statutes is written vaguely... Severe physical pain described as anything causing permanent damage to major organs or body parts. Mental torture [is] described as anything leading to permanent, profound damage to the senses or personality.' Mr. Fredman said simply 'It is basically subject to perception. If the detainee dies you’re doing it wrong.'"
People like Rizzo and Fredman should not be working for our government a single day longer. They should be impeached. They should be prosecuted. They should be given fair trials and be imprisoned if convicted. And all existing information on what they did should be made public. Fed up with waiting for Congress or the Justice Department to act, a coalition of groups headquartered at http://DisbarTortureLawyers.com has gone ahead and filed complaints with bar associations to have torture lawyers disbarred and to call attention to the need for further accountability. Having already filed complaints against 12 torture lawyers, Disbar Torture Lawyers filed three more on Monday. Two of these were against Rizzo and Fredman.
Disbar Torture Lawyers held a press conference on Monday at the National Press Club, with remarks by Kevin Zeese, who filed the complaints, by Bruce Fein, a former Reagan administration lawyer, and by Shahid Buttar, Director of the Bill of Rights Defense Committee. I was not in town but am certain we can count on the Washington Post to give the story all the coverage it deserves.
Obama Vows to Prosecute Torturers, But There's a Catch
Written by Jason Leopold
Monday, 29 June 2009 07:53
By Jason Leopold
President Barack Obama just announced that the U.S. government is determined to prosecute officials who are responsible for torturing prisoners. But there’s a catch. Obama’s pledge only applies to torturers working for other governments.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Obama quietly released a statement on Friday that called on the international community “to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”
Obama singled out the governments of Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe for human rights violations and engaging in “elaborate deceptions” aimed at concealing “their abuses from the eyes of the world... and denying access to international human rights monitors.”
Obama also cited Iraq under the previous government of Saddam Hussein, saying that “with Iraq’s liberation, the world is only now learning the enormity of the dictator’s three decades of victimization of the Iraqi people” and “a vast array of sadistic acts perpetrated against the innocent.”
While denouncing alleged torture by states that Washington dislikes, Obama was silent on the controversy over the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other torture tactics on detainees held by U.S. authorities during the “war on terror.” Some also were held as “ghost prisoners” at “black sites” out of the reach of the international human rights monitors.
Nor did Obama mention how U.S. forces abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the same prison used by Saddam Hussein. Nor was there any reference to prisoners whom the United States “renditioned” to countries like Egypt and Syria which tortured them essentially at the behest of the Bush administration.
Obama also left out his decision to “look forward, not backward” on the issue of Bush-era torture or how he has discouraged any investigation of former President George W. Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials involved in sanctioning and practicing torture, brutal tactics that human groups claim killed at least 100 prisoners in U.S. custody.
Instead, in his statement, Obama simply declared that “the United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.”
Reagan-Era Treaty
The 1984 Convention Against Torture was approved by 145 nations, including the United States which signed it in 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He hailed the treaty as "a significant step" in preventing torture, "an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today."
The Convention declares that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Moreover, the Convention says individuals who resort to torture cannot defend their actions by saying they were acting on orders from superiors and it mandates that torturers be prosecuted wherever they are found. According to that provision, "each state party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
In a May 20, 1988, message to the U.S. Senate, Reagan noted, "the core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.'"
It was this Convention, ratified by the Senate in 1994, that Bush administration officials sought to bypass with legal memos, many drafted by John Yoo of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Obama’s sanctimonious declaration on Friday comes at a time when the international community has become acutely aware of the policy of torture implemented by the Bush administration – and of Obama’s resistance to any type of comprehensive investigation whether it be by a congressional committee, a blue-ribbon commission or the Justice Department.
It’s also clear that the United States is guilty of many of the precise offenses that Obama said were committed by what he called “rogue regimes.” For example, under the Bush administration, the military routinely hid prisoners in U.S. custody from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In a Jan. 2, 2004, memo drafted for military police and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and signed by Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was entitled “New plan to restrict Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib.” The contents of that memo have never been released.
Ghost Prisoner
In 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that at the request of then-CIA Director George Tenet, he authorized the U.S. military in the fall of 2003 to hide an Iraqi prisoner from the ICRC and other organizations that monitor the treatment of prisoners.
Rumsfeld told reporters at a June 17, 2004, press briefing that Tenet sent him a letter asking the U.S. military to imprison the Iraqi who was believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish terrorist group suspected of links to al-Qaeda. Tenet further told Rumsfeld to be sure the detainee was kept off the prisoner rolls, which he was for six months.
"We were asked not to immediately register the individual, and we did that," Rumsfeld told reporters at the time.
Documents obtained by the Senate Armed Services Committee go even further. Minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002, meeting at which Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, then the chief military lawyer at Guantanamo whose responsibilities included working with the ICRC, discussed concealing abusive interrogation tactics when ICRC officials visited.
"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around," Beaver said, according to the minutes. "It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques."
"We have had many reports from Bagram [detention center in Afghanistan] about sleep deprivation being used," responded Dave Becker of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"True, but officially it is not happening," Beaver said. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."
Jonathan Fredman, who was the chief counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, noted that the "the CIA is not held to the same rules as the military" when it comes to using aggressive techniques to interrogate detainees.
"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said. "The Torture Convention prohibits torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The US did not sign up on the second part, because of the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), but we did sign the part about torture. This gives us more license to use more controversial techniques."
Beaver interjected: "We will need documentation to protect us."
High-Minded Words
Taking office in January, Obama announced that his administration would not condone or practice torture, but he also opposed holding Bush administration officials accountable out of fear that his actions might be deemed vindictive. He has held to that position although Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA Director Leon Panetta both agreed that the near-drowning experience of waterboarding was torture.
Bush’s Justice Department lawyers also approved a list of other torture techniques to be used against so-called “high-value” prisoners, including beatings, sleep deprivation for 11 consecutive days, placing insects inside a confinement box to induce fear, exposing detainees to extreme heat and cold, and shackling prisoners to the ceilings of their prison cells or in other painful “stress positions.”
Under the Convention Against Torture, the clear record that the Bush administration used waterboarding and other brutal techniques should have triggered the United States to conduct a full investigation and to prosecute the offenders. If the United States refused, other nations would be obligated to act under the principle of universality.
Instead, Obama’s high-minded declaration on Friday substituted words for action, condemning torture techniques in the abstract and pointing the finger at countries that the United States doesn’t like.
“These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice,” Obama said. “The suffering of torture victims must end, and the United States calls on all governments to assume this great mission.”
Written by Jason Leopold
Monday, 29 June 2009 07:53
By Jason Leopold
President Barack Obama just announced that the U.S. government is determined to prosecute officials who are responsible for torturing prisoners. But there’s a catch. Obama’s pledge only applies to torturers working for other governments.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment, Obama quietly released a statement on Friday that called on the international community “to join with the United States and the community of law-abiding nations in prohibiting, investigating, and prosecuting all acts of torture and in undertaking to prevent other cruel and unusual punishment.”
Obama singled out the governments of Burma, Cuba, North Korea, Iran and Zimbabwe for human rights violations and engaging in “elaborate deceptions” aimed at concealing “their abuses from the eyes of the world... and denying access to international human rights monitors.”
Obama also cited Iraq under the previous government of Saddam Hussein, saying that “with Iraq’s liberation, the world is only now learning the enormity of the dictator’s three decades of victimization of the Iraqi people” and “a vast array of sadistic acts perpetrated against the innocent.”
While denouncing alleged torture by states that Washington dislikes, Obama was silent on the controversy over the Bush administration’s use of waterboarding and other torture tactics on detainees held by U.S. authorities during the “war on terror.” Some also were held as “ghost prisoners” at “black sites” out of the reach of the international human rights monitors.
Nor did Obama mention how U.S. forces abused Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, the same prison used by Saddam Hussein. Nor was there any reference to prisoners whom the United States “renditioned” to countries like Egypt and Syria which tortured them essentially at the behest of the Bush administration.
Obama also left out his decision to “look forward, not backward” on the issue of Bush-era torture or how he has discouraged any investigation of former President George W. Bush, ex-Vice President Dick Cheney and other officials involved in sanctioning and practicing torture, brutal tactics that human groups claim killed at least 100 prisoners in U.S. custody.
Instead, in his statement, Obama simply declared that “the United States is committed to the world-wide elimination of torture and we are leading this fight by example.”
Reagan-Era Treaty
The 1984 Convention Against Torture was approved by 145 nations, including the United States which signed it in 1988 under President Ronald Reagan. He hailed the treaty as "a significant step" in preventing torture, "an abhorrent practice unfortunately still prevalent in the world today."
The Convention declares that: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture."
Moreover, the Convention says individuals who resort to torture cannot defend their actions by saying they were acting on orders from superiors and it mandates that torturers be prosecuted wherever they are found. According to that provision, "each state party is required either to prosecute torturers who are found in its territory or to extradite them to other countries for prosecution."
In a May 20, 1988, message to the U.S. Senate, Reagan noted, "the core provisions of the Convention establish a regime for international cooperation in the criminal prosecution of torturers relying on so-called 'universal jurisdiction.'"
It was this Convention, ratified by the Senate in 1994, that Bush administration officials sought to bypass with legal memos, many drafted by John Yoo of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel.
Obama’s sanctimonious declaration on Friday comes at a time when the international community has become acutely aware of the policy of torture implemented by the Bush administration – and of Obama’s resistance to any type of comprehensive investigation whether it be by a congressional committee, a blue-ribbon commission or the Justice Department.
It’s also clear that the United States is guilty of many of the precise offenses that Obama said were committed by what he called “rogue regimes.” For example, under the Bush administration, the military routinely hid prisoners in U.S. custody from the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In a Jan. 2, 2004, memo drafted for military police and interrogators at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and signed by Col. Marc Warren, the top legal adviser to Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, was entitled “New plan to restrict Red Cross access to Abu Ghraib.” The contents of that memo have never been released.
Ghost Prisoner
In 2004, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld admitted that at the request of then-CIA Director George Tenet, he authorized the U.S. military in the fall of 2003 to hide an Iraqi prisoner from the ICRC and other organizations that monitor the treatment of prisoners.
Rumsfeld told reporters at a June 17, 2004, press briefing that Tenet sent him a letter asking the U.S. military to imprison the Iraqi who was believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish terrorist group suspected of links to al-Qaeda. Tenet further told Rumsfeld to be sure the detainee was kept off the prisoner rolls, which he was for six months.
"We were asked not to immediately register the individual, and we did that," Rumsfeld told reporters at the time.
Documents obtained by the Senate Armed Services Committee go even further. Minutes of an Oct. 2, 2002, meeting at which Lt. Col. Diane Beaver, then the chief military lawyer at Guantanamo whose responsibilities included working with the ICRC, discussed concealing abusive interrogation tactics when ICRC officials visited.
"We may need to curb the harsher operations while ICRC is around," Beaver said, according to the minutes. "It is better not to expose them to any controversial techniques."
"We have had many reports from Bagram [detention center in Afghanistan] about sleep deprivation being used," responded Dave Becker of the Defense Intelligence Agency.
"True, but officially it is not happening," Beaver said. "It is not being reported officially. The ICRC is a serious concern. They will be in and out, scrutinizing our operations, unless they are displeased and decide to protest and leave. This would draw a lot of negative attention."
Jonathan Fredman, who was the chief counsel for the CIA's Counterterrorism Center, noted that the "the CIA is not held to the same rules as the military" when it comes to using aggressive techniques to interrogate detainees.
"In the past when the ICRC has made a big deal about certain detainees, the DOD has 'moved' them away from the attention of the ICRC," Fredman said. "The Torture Convention prohibits torture and cruel, inhumane and degrading treatment. The US did not sign up on the second part, because of the 8th amendment (cruel and unusual punishment), but we did sign the part about torture. This gives us more license to use more controversial techniques."
Beaver interjected: "We will need documentation to protect us."
High-Minded Words
Taking office in January, Obama announced that his administration would not condone or practice torture, but he also opposed holding Bush administration officials accountable out of fear that his actions might be deemed vindictive. He has held to that position although Attorney General Eric Holder and CIA Director Leon Panetta both agreed that the near-drowning experience of waterboarding was torture.
Bush’s Justice Department lawyers also approved a list of other torture techniques to be used against so-called “high-value” prisoners, including beatings, sleep deprivation for 11 consecutive days, placing insects inside a confinement box to induce fear, exposing detainees to extreme heat and cold, and shackling prisoners to the ceilings of their prison cells or in other painful “stress positions.”
Under the Convention Against Torture, the clear record that the Bush administration used waterboarding and other brutal techniques should have triggered the United States to conduct a full investigation and to prosecute the offenders. If the United States refused, other nations would be obligated to act under the principle of universality.
Instead, Obama’s high-minded declaration on Friday substituted words for action, condemning torture techniques in the abstract and pointing the finger at countries that the United States doesn’t like.
“These despicable crimes cannot be tolerated by a world committed to justice,” Obama said. “The suffering of torture victims must end, and the United States calls on all governments to assume this great mission.”
I really don't know how much more this person can take, but obviously we're meant to find out, yeah?
June 29, 2009
Judge Dismisses Bagram Habeas Case
A federal judge today dismissed the habeas case of a detainee held at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, finding that Congress had not acted unconstitutionally by stripping the court’s ability to hear such cases.
The ruling comes three months after the same judge found that other prisoners at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility did have the right to challenge their status as enemy combatants. In those cases, the three men were non-Afghans who had been captured in other countries and brought to the prison, located just outside Kabul.
Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the men’s special circumstances entitled them to access American courts. He ruled that a fourth man, Haji Wazir, an Afghan citizen, did not have that right however, because his release could cause undue tension with Afghanistan’s government. The judge nonetheless held off on a final decision in the case in order to look at a separate set of constitutional issues.
That ruling came today. Wazir’s lawyers had argued that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which banned federal courts from hearing habeas cases brought by detainees, violated the constitutional separation of powers by essentially telling judges how to decide cases that were already pending before them.
Bates found differently. Citing U.S. v. Klein, the judge ruled that Congress is allowed to pass statutes that affect the underlying law involved in a case, so long as they do not dictate specific factual findings or results to a court.
June 29, 2009
Judge Dismisses Bagram Habeas Case
A federal judge today dismissed the habeas case of a detainee held at a U.S. military base in Afghanistan, finding that Congress had not acted unconstitutionally by stripping the court’s ability to hear such cases.
The ruling comes three months after the same judge found that other prisoners at the Bagram Theater Internment Facility did have the right to challenge their status as enemy combatants. In those cases, the three men were non-Afghans who had been captured in other countries and brought to the prison, located just outside Kabul.
Judge John Bates of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia found that the men’s special circumstances entitled them to access American courts. He ruled that a fourth man, Haji Wazir, an Afghan citizen, did not have that right however, because his release could cause undue tension with Afghanistan’s government. The judge nonetheless held off on a final decision in the case in order to look at a separate set of constitutional issues.
That ruling came today. Wazir’s lawyers had argued that the Military Commissions Act of 2006, which banned federal courts from hearing habeas cases brought by detainees, violated the constitutional separation of powers by essentially telling judges how to decide cases that were already pending before them.
Bates found differently. Citing U.S. v. Klein, the judge ruled that Congress is allowed to pass statutes that affect the underlying law involved in a case, so long as they do not dictate specific factual findings or results to a court.
Tell us why.
NEW YORK, Jun 26 (IPS) - An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that former detainees at the U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.
The BBC’s conclusions are based on interviews with 27 former detainees who were held at Bagram between 2002 and 2006. None of these men were ever charged with a crime. Hundreds of detainees are still being held in U.S. custody at the Afghan prison without charge or trial.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told IPS, "The BBC investigation provides further confirmation of the United States' mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram."
"These abuses are the direct consequence of decisions made at the highest levels of the U.S. government to avoid the Geneva Convention and forsake the rule of law. For too long, the unlawful detention and mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram has gone on outside the public eye," he said. "Hopefully, this investigation will help change that."
"When prisoners are in American custody and under American control, no matter the location, our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake," Hafetz said.
In April, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at Bagram, including the number of people currently detained, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention.
The ACLU is also seeking records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants".
"The U.S. government's detention of hundreds of prisoners at Bagram has been shrouded in complete secrecy," said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney. "The American people have a right to know what's happening at Bagram and whether prisoners have been tortured there."
Amnesty International said it was "shocked" by the Bagram claims. It noted that a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.
Another prominent human rights organisation, the British-based Reprieve, called on the British government to take action concerning two Pakistanis who it says the U.K. helped render there from Iraq.
"The legal black hole in Bagram underlines the British government’s moral black hole when it comes to rendering two Pakistani prisoners there in 2004," said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve. "These men were in British custody in Iraq, were turned over to the U.S., and have now been held for five years without any respect for their legal rights."
In February 2009, British Defence Secretary John Hutton announced to the House of Commons that Britain had handed two anonymous Pakistani men over to the U.S., and they had subsequently been rendered to Afghanistan, where they were still being held.
"We have been assured that are held in a humane, safe and secure environment, meeting international standards consistent with cultural and religious norms," Hutton said at the time.
"As we have said all along, beating people and holding them incommunicado is not humane, safe and secure," Stafford Smith told IPS. "Britain has a moral duty to identify these men, so that we can reunite them with their legal rights, yet Mr. Hutton refuses to do this."
No prisoner in Bagram has been allowed to see a lawyer, or challenge his detention. According to the BBC, the U.S. justice department argues that because Afghanistan is an active combat zone it is not possible to conduct rigorous inquiries into individual cases and that it would divert precious military resources at a crucial time.
"These men were never in Afghanistan until the UK and the U.S. took them there," said Stafford Smith. "It is the height of hypocrisy to take someone to Bagram and then claim that it is too dangerous to let them see a lawyer. Even Guantánamo Bay is better than this."
The Pentagon has denied the BBC’s charges of harsh treatment and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.
The Bagram Airbase built by the Soviet military in the 1980s. The approximately 600 people held there are classified as "unlawful enemy combatants". None was charged with any offence or put on trial - some even received apologies when they were released.
Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the BBC interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.
In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate.
"They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said.
"They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
The BBC said its findings were shown to the Pentagon. Lt. Col. Mark Wright, a spokesman for the U.S. secretary of defence, insisted that conditions at Bagram "meet international standards for care and custody". He said the U.S. Defense Department has a policy of treating detainees humanely.
But he acknowledged that, "There have been well-documented instances where that policy was not followed, and service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases."
Since coming to office, U.S. President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month. But unlike its detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention.
(END/2009)
Send your comments to the editor
NEW YORK, Jun 26 (IPS) - An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) has revealed that former detainees at the U.S. Bagram airbase in Afghanistan were beaten, deprived of sleep and threatened with dogs.
The BBC’s conclusions are based on interviews with 27 former detainees who were held at Bagram between 2002 and 2006. None of these men were ever charged with a crime. Hundreds of detainees are still being held in U.S. custody at the Afghan prison without charge or trial.
Jonathan Hafetz, an attorney with the American Civil Liberties Union’s National Security Project, told IPS, "The BBC investigation provides further confirmation of the United States' mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram."
"These abuses are the direct consequence of decisions made at the highest levels of the U.S. government to avoid the Geneva Convention and forsake the rule of law. For too long, the unlawful detention and mistreatment of prisoners at Bagram has gone on outside the public eye," he said. "Hopefully, this investigation will help change that."
"When prisoners are in American custody and under American control, no matter the location, our values and commitment to the rule of law are at stake," Hafetz said.
In April, the ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request for records pertaining to the detention and treatment of prisoners held at Bagram, including the number of people currently detained, their names, citizenship, place of capture and length of detention.
The ACLU is also seeking records pertaining to the process afforded those prisoners to challenge their detention and designation as "enemy combatants".
"The U.S. government's detention of hundreds of prisoners at Bagram has been shrouded in complete secrecy," said Melissa Goodman, an ACLU staff attorney. "The American people have a right to know what's happening at Bagram and whether prisoners have been tortured there."
Amnesty International said it was "shocked" by the Bagram claims. It noted that a new detention centre is currently under construction at the camp.
Another prominent human rights organisation, the British-based Reprieve, called on the British government to take action concerning two Pakistanis who it says the U.K. helped render there from Iraq.
"The legal black hole in Bagram underlines the British government’s moral black hole when it comes to rendering two Pakistani prisoners there in 2004," said Clive Stafford Smith, director of Reprieve. "These men were in British custody in Iraq, were turned over to the U.S., and have now been held for five years without any respect for their legal rights."
In February 2009, British Defence Secretary John Hutton announced to the House of Commons that Britain had handed two anonymous Pakistani men over to the U.S., and they had subsequently been rendered to Afghanistan, where they were still being held.
"We have been assured that are held in a humane, safe and secure environment, meeting international standards consistent with cultural and religious norms," Hutton said at the time.
"As we have said all along, beating people and holding them incommunicado is not humane, safe and secure," Stafford Smith told IPS. "Britain has a moral duty to identify these men, so that we can reunite them with their legal rights, yet Mr. Hutton refuses to do this."
No prisoner in Bagram has been allowed to see a lawyer, or challenge his detention. According to the BBC, the U.S. justice department argues that because Afghanistan is an active combat zone it is not possible to conduct rigorous inquiries into individual cases and that it would divert precious military resources at a crucial time.
"These men were never in Afghanistan until the UK and the U.S. took them there," said Stafford Smith. "It is the height of hypocrisy to take someone to Bagram and then claim that it is too dangerous to let them see a lawyer. Even Guantánamo Bay is better than this."
The Pentagon has denied the BBC’s charges of harsh treatment and insisted that all inmates in the facility are treated humanely.
The Bagram Airbase built by the Soviet military in the 1980s. The approximately 600 people held there are classified as "unlawful enemy combatants". None was charged with any offence or put on trial - some even received apologies when they were released.
Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the BBC interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers.
In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate.
"They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said.
"They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
The BBC said its findings were shown to the Pentagon. Lt. Col. Mark Wright, a spokesman for the U.S. secretary of defence, insisted that conditions at Bagram "meet international standards for care and custody". He said the U.S. Defense Department has a policy of treating detainees humanely.
But he acknowledged that, "There have been well-documented instances where that policy was not followed, and service members have been held accountable for their actions in those cases."
Since coming to office, U.S. President Barack Obama has banned the use of torture and ordered a review of policy on detainees, which is expected to report next month. But unlike its detainees at the U.S. naval facility at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, the prisoners at Bagram have no access to lawyers and they cannot challenge their detention.
(END/2009)
Send your comments to the editor
If you want to know why, realize this: nobody likes being tortured. And people can only take so much of it. I'll always remember the story of the girl who walked into a store to buy lighter fluid to set herself on fire. And people bantered about it, told huge jokes about it, made it funny. 'Cause, hey, what's more entertaining about speculating how long it will take for her to burn herself to death and freaking laughing about it?
Really.
What's not to be cool about?
Three years, boys and girls. Every day of her life. It was a sick, sick story, and ain't no one said it was wrong. Well, maybe one person.
So you see the conundrum of your world.
And you see why people have the reactions that they do.
'Cause I sure do.
Bagram: Where the future of Guantanamo meets its tortuous past
Post a comment (1)By: Moazzam Begg
Tags: Uncategorized, aafia siddiqui, Afghanistan, bagram, bbc, binyam mohamed, bisher al rawi, cageprisoners, farid hilali, foreign office, guantanamo, jamil elbanna, jamil rahman, mi5, moazzam begg, omar deghayes, omar khadr, richard belmar, shaker aamer, torture
- Moazzam Begg is Director for the British organisation, Cageprisoners. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Little seems to have changed regarding the treatment of prisoners held at the U.S. military-run Bagram prison since I was there (2002-2004). The recent study conducted by the BBC shows allegations of sleep deprivation, stress positions, beatings, degrading treatment, religious and racial abuse have gone unabated. On a personal level though, I can’t help wonder if British intelligence services are still involved.
In April this year, a report issued by Cageprisoners entitled Fabricating Terrorism II highlighted through eyewitness testimony the cases of 29 people, all of them either British residents or citizens, who had allegedly been tortured and abused in the presence of British intelligence agents or at their behest.
One of them, the case of Farid Hilali, featured in the Guardian newspaper, showed how allegations of complicity in torture against British intelligence predated the Sept. 11 attacks. The story of Jamil Rahman too – regarding allegations of British complicity in his torture in Bangladesh – would have been included in the report but he was worried at the time about the safety of his family. The recurrent factor in all these cases is the extent to which denial and prevarication remain as much a part of the intelligence services’ arsenal as outsourcing torture and abuse. The others include the British cases of Omar Deghayes, Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil Elbanna, Richard Belmar, Shaker Aamer and Binyam Mohamed – all of whom were held at Bagram.
Shortly after I returned from Guantanamo my father showed me a letter he received from the British Foreign Office. The letter, written in 2002, claims that UK officials were not given access to prisoners in Bagram. At the time, I was being held captive there by the U.S. military and, amongst other alphabet intelligence agencies, was being interrogated by MI5, who were aware that torture, abusive and degrading treatment was being meted out to prisoners– including British citizens.
During my time there I saw two people being beaten severely: one after he’d lost consciousness following days of having his hands shackled to the top of a cage; the other after a very crude and ultimately futile escape attempt. Both were killed.
In eleven months of custody in Bagram I was hogtied, punched, kicked, shackled to the top of a door, hooded, strip-searched regularly, put in stress positions and deprived of sleep.
Of course, this wasn’t always the case, and there were some decent soldiers who balked at the very idea of such abuse. (Some of the soldiers have even expressed clear remorse and regret to me since my return. One of them is Damien Corsetti who was brought up for charges of detainee abuse in both Bagram and Abu Ghraib prisons).
Nonetheless, such treatment wasn’t unusual. The worst of it for me was hearing the sounds of a woman screaming I was led to believe was my wife being tortured while an interrogator waved pictures of my children in front of me asking: “Do you think you’ll ever see them again?” or “What do you think happened to them the night we took you?” Several months later I learned that my family were safe but, those screams I knew were not make-believe.
In July 2005, four prisoners carried out an unprecedented but successful escape attempt from Bagram. Later, they participated in an interview on an Arabic language television channel describing how they had seen a woman in custody. After his release from Guantanamo earlier this year, Binyam Mohamed told me that he recognised the picture I showed him of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani woman - whom the U.S. authorities deny was ever held at Bagram – who he had last seen in Bagram in a state of near insanity.
I met at least five children in Bagram (2002) – four of whom were taken to Guantanamo and two of whom are still there. One of them, Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, was brought in at the age of fifteen so terribly wounded he looked like he was dead. His left eye was shot out and there were two huge exit wounds to his shoulder and chest. Another, a young Afghan teenager called Shams was shot in his hip by a U.S. soldier and unable to walk. I used to help to carry him to take him to the improvised barrel we had to use as a toilet – amongst 10 of us. Other than that walking and talking were prohibited in Bagram.
Earlier this year, when the new U.S. president was promising the world he’d close down Guantanamo and the secret detention sites and put an end to torture, I was touring the UK with a former U.S. soldier who had guarded some of us in Guantanamo. We were both telling the world that while we welcomed the announcement of the closure of the world’s most infamous prison, nothing was being said about places like Bagram. Several films, including the oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, were made about this place, but still little Bagram was off the international radar. As people who had served time on both sides of the wire we hoped that someone was listening. The truth is that by the time I’d passed through Bagram I was looking forward to Guantanamo.
After becoming the public relations disaster Guantanamo clearly is, we’re told days are numbered. But judging by the escalation of military activity in Afghanistan and the possibility that some Guantanamo prisoners might be transferred there , the abuses in Bagram may continue to get noticed – every couple of years or so.
Really.
What's not to be cool about?
Three years, boys and girls. Every day of her life. It was a sick, sick story, and ain't no one said it was wrong. Well, maybe one person.
So you see the conundrum of your world.
And you see why people have the reactions that they do.
'Cause I sure do.
Bagram: Where the future of Guantanamo meets its tortuous past
Post a comment (1)By: Moazzam Begg
Tags: Uncategorized, aafia siddiqui, Afghanistan, bagram, bbc, binyam mohamed, bisher al rawi, cageprisoners, farid hilali, foreign office, guantanamo, jamil elbanna, jamil rahman, mi5, moazzam begg, omar deghayes, omar khadr, richard belmar, shaker aamer, torture
- Moazzam Begg is Director for the British organisation, Cageprisoners. The opinions expressed are his own. -
Little seems to have changed regarding the treatment of prisoners held at the U.S. military-run Bagram prison since I was there (2002-2004). The recent study conducted by the BBC shows allegations of sleep deprivation, stress positions, beatings, degrading treatment, religious and racial abuse have gone unabated. On a personal level though, I can’t help wonder if British intelligence services are still involved.
In April this year, a report issued by Cageprisoners entitled Fabricating Terrorism II highlighted through eyewitness testimony the cases of 29 people, all of them either British residents or citizens, who had allegedly been tortured and abused in the presence of British intelligence agents or at their behest.
One of them, the case of Farid Hilali, featured in the Guardian newspaper, showed how allegations of complicity in torture against British intelligence predated the Sept. 11 attacks. The story of Jamil Rahman too – regarding allegations of British complicity in his torture in Bangladesh – would have been included in the report but he was worried at the time about the safety of his family. The recurrent factor in all these cases is the extent to which denial and prevarication remain as much a part of the intelligence services’ arsenal as outsourcing torture and abuse. The others include the British cases of Omar Deghayes, Bisher Al-Rawi, Jamil Elbanna, Richard Belmar, Shaker Aamer and Binyam Mohamed – all of whom were held at Bagram.
Shortly after I returned from Guantanamo my father showed me a letter he received from the British Foreign Office. The letter, written in 2002, claims that UK officials were not given access to prisoners in Bagram. At the time, I was being held captive there by the U.S. military and, amongst other alphabet intelligence agencies, was being interrogated by MI5, who were aware that torture, abusive and degrading treatment was being meted out to prisoners– including British citizens.
During my time there I saw two people being beaten severely: one after he’d lost consciousness following days of having his hands shackled to the top of a cage; the other after a very crude and ultimately futile escape attempt. Both were killed.
In eleven months of custody in Bagram I was hogtied, punched, kicked, shackled to the top of a door, hooded, strip-searched regularly, put in stress positions and deprived of sleep.
Of course, this wasn’t always the case, and there were some decent soldiers who balked at the very idea of such abuse. (Some of the soldiers have even expressed clear remorse and regret to me since my return. One of them is Damien Corsetti who was brought up for charges of detainee abuse in both Bagram and Abu Ghraib prisons).
Nonetheless, such treatment wasn’t unusual. The worst of it for me was hearing the sounds of a woman screaming I was led to believe was my wife being tortured while an interrogator waved pictures of my children in front of me asking: “Do you think you’ll ever see them again?” or “What do you think happened to them the night we took you?” Several months later I learned that my family were safe but, those screams I knew were not make-believe.
In July 2005, four prisoners carried out an unprecedented but successful escape attempt from Bagram. Later, they participated in an interview on an Arabic language television channel describing how they had seen a woman in custody. After his release from Guantanamo earlier this year, Binyam Mohamed told me that he recognised the picture I showed him of Dr. Aafia Siddiqui, the Pakistani woman - whom the U.S. authorities deny was ever held at Bagram – who he had last seen in Bagram in a state of near insanity.
I met at least five children in Bagram (2002) – four of whom were taken to Guantanamo and two of whom are still there. One of them, Omar Khadr, a Canadian national, was brought in at the age of fifteen so terribly wounded he looked like he was dead. His left eye was shot out and there were two huge exit wounds to his shoulder and chest. Another, a young Afghan teenager called Shams was shot in his hip by a U.S. soldier and unable to walk. I used to help to carry him to take him to the improvised barrel we had to use as a toilet – amongst 10 of us. Other than that walking and talking were prohibited in Bagram.
Earlier this year, when the new U.S. president was promising the world he’d close down Guantanamo and the secret detention sites and put an end to torture, I was touring the UK with a former U.S. soldier who had guarded some of us in Guantanamo. We were both telling the world that while we welcomed the announcement of the closure of the world’s most infamous prison, nothing was being said about places like Bagram. Several films, including the oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, were made about this place, but still little Bagram was off the international radar. As people who had served time on both sides of the wire we hoped that someone was listening. The truth is that by the time I’d passed through Bagram I was looking forward to Guantanamo.
After becoming the public relations disaster Guantanamo clearly is, we’re told days are numbered. But judging by the escalation of military activity in Afghanistan and the possibility that some Guantanamo prisoners might be transferred there , the abuses in Bagram may continue to get noticed – every couple of years or so.
What do you think is happening in Bagram even as I type this?
See, that's the downside of imagination.
It means that you know.
Transcript
VOICEOVER: On Friday, June 26, the Obama administration came out with "an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely." (Dafna Lanzer and Peter Finn, "White House Weighs Order on Detention," The Washington Post, June 27, 2009) Just the day before, rallies and marches took place across the United States as part of Torture Accountability Action Day, so designated by a large coalition of human rights groups.
MARJORIE COHN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD: In fact, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including a state of war, can ever be used as a justification for torture.
KEVIN ZEESE, DIRECTOR, VOTERSFORPEACE.US: And now President Obama hiding the evidence of a widespread torture program so that Americans can be fooled into thinking this just happened in Guantánamo, this just happened at Abu Ghraib. In fact, this was a widespread torture program affecting thousands of people at dozens of bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, and around the world, and those photos would would have shown that.
ENVER MASUD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE WISDOM FUND: And Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times. And a transcript released by the CIA just this month show that he admitted he lied because he was being tortured. He wanted to end the torture, so he said whatever they wanted to hear.
VOICEOVER: The demonstrators then marched to the Department of Justice with an intention to ask Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor for torture.
PROTESTER: We were assuming that with the new administration there would be a change. We've seen we see no difference.
DAVID SWANSON, AUTHOR, BLOGGER, AND ACTIVIST: There is this idea in recent days and weeks that the push for prosecutions of torture is going to go away because the president is stalling, because Congress is waiting for a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility here and won't act until that report comes, and it's likely it's not [going to] ever come because of that. There's an idea that it's all going to go away. The problem with that is that increasingly there are reports of ongoing torture. There are events like this one happening all over the country. There are a couple in California—San Francisco and Pasadena—where formal complaints are being delivered to the Ninth Circuit against Judge J. Bybee, who, of course, worked in the Justice Department under Bush and Cheney and was one of the key lawyers in drafting these memos that facilitated torture, as well is a nice memo legalizing illegal war for any future presidents. I saw a poll today that showed a strong majority of Americans favoring a complete ban on torture complete. But I have yet to see a poll on what percentage of Americans know that torture is banned, that torture is illegal under US law and international law, because there was this grand pretense throughout the Bush-Cheney years that we had to ban torture, that Congress should try to ban torture, and they should make loopholes for the CIA, and then the president would signing-statement those partial bans away, and this whole charade happening while the people at the top or writing memos to each other, worrying about the actual laws that were on the books, worrying that we might prosecute them at some point, perhaps now, perhaps later. And yet they went ahead, they pushed through, they put up this grand pretense of legalizing what was patently illegal, and we then came to the point where we had a new regime in power, both in Congress and the White House. And yet we have people putting politics, not even necessarily smart politics, but politics ahead of the rule of law. We have leaders of the Democratic Party who really want the American people to address torture by electing Democrats who might torture less than Republicans, rather than having our laws enforced. Nothing needs to be done to make it illegal. It is, has been for many years, and always will be illegal under our law and international law. Only by prosecuting it can we end that. And I think the American people grasp that, but they've been giving this new administration time to mess up. And they are becoming increasingly aware that it is messing up.
See, that's the downside of imagination.
It means that you know.
Transcript
VOICEOVER: On Friday, June 26, the Obama administration came out with "an executive order that would reassert presidential authority to incarcerate terrorism suspects indefinitely." (Dafna Lanzer and Peter Finn, "White House Weighs Order on Detention," The Washington Post, June 27, 2009) Just the day before, rallies and marches took place across the United States as part of Torture Accountability Action Day, so designated by a large coalition of human rights groups.
MARJORIE COHN, PRESIDENT, NATIONAL LAWYERS GUILD: In fact, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment or Punishment says that no exceptional circumstances whatsoever, including a state of war, can ever be used as a justification for torture.
KEVIN ZEESE, DIRECTOR, VOTERSFORPEACE.US: And now President Obama hiding the evidence of a widespread torture program so that Americans can be fooled into thinking this just happened in Guantánamo, this just happened at Abu Ghraib. In fact, this was a widespread torture program affecting thousands of people at dozens of bases in Afghanistan, Iraq, Cuba, and around the world, and those photos would would have shown that.
ENVER MASUD, FOUNDER AND CEO, THE WISDOM FUND: And Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of 9/11, was waterboarded 183 times. And a transcript released by the CIA just this month show that he admitted he lied because he was being tortured. He wanted to end the torture, so he said whatever they wanted to hear.
VOICEOVER: The demonstrators then marched to the Department of Justice with an intention to ask Attorney General Eric Holder to appoint an independent prosecutor for torture.
PROTESTER: We were assuming that with the new administration there would be a change. We've seen we see no difference.
DAVID SWANSON, AUTHOR, BLOGGER, AND ACTIVIST: There is this idea in recent days and weeks that the push for prosecutions of torture is going to go away because the president is stalling, because Congress is waiting for a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility here and won't act until that report comes, and it's likely it's not [going to] ever come because of that. There's an idea that it's all going to go away. The problem with that is that increasingly there are reports of ongoing torture. There are events like this one happening all over the country. There are a couple in California—San Francisco and Pasadena—where formal complaints are being delivered to the Ninth Circuit against Judge J. Bybee, who, of course, worked in the Justice Department under Bush and Cheney and was one of the key lawyers in drafting these memos that facilitated torture, as well is a nice memo legalizing illegal war for any future presidents. I saw a poll today that showed a strong majority of Americans favoring a complete ban on torture complete. But I have yet to see a poll on what percentage of Americans know that torture is banned, that torture is illegal under US law and international law, because there was this grand pretense throughout the Bush-Cheney years that we had to ban torture, that Congress should try to ban torture, and they should make loopholes for the CIA, and then the president would signing-statement those partial bans away, and this whole charade happening while the people at the top or writing memos to each other, worrying about the actual laws that were on the books, worrying that we might prosecute them at some point, perhaps now, perhaps later. And yet they went ahead, they pushed through, they put up this grand pretense of legalizing what was patently illegal, and we then came to the point where we had a new regime in power, both in Congress and the White House. And yet we have people putting politics, not even necessarily smart politics, but politics ahead of the rule of law. We have leaders of the Democratic Party who really want the American people to address torture by electing Democrats who might torture less than Republicans, rather than having our laws enforced. Nothing needs to be done to make it illegal. It is, has been for many years, and always will be illegal under our law and international law. Only by prosecuting it can we end that. And I think the American people grasp that, but they've been giving this new administration time to mess up. And they are becoming increasingly aware that it is messing up.
This is out maintenant.
Swans - June 29, 2009 "War is Terrorism" puts war in a special file, separate from "Just Wars" and other euphemisms that strike me as pacifiers -- abstract bones for us to chew on. Tiziano Terzani's collection of letters, each of which is a treasure trove, goes even further: "Killing under all circumstances is murder."
I have read two letters so far, Letter From The Himalayas, written in Florence in December 2002, and Letter From Kabul. What is great about these letters? They are well-written, with passion and without that terrible downer: Hopeless, Get Used To It.
Terzani is an Italian, not an embedded journalist. He is a freelancer, reporting for Der Speigel. He surveys Kabul and its destruction and the Himalayas where he "can look at (them) without feeling I have to climb them. When I was young I'd have wanted to conquer them. Now I can let them conquer me."
These are fine opening lines, setting the stage for a gradual assent, word-step by word-step, to where he can say that "A society gains much more strength by its moral resolution than it does by acquiring new weapons," and, finally, the climax: "these are days in which it's still possible to do something. So let's do it, sometimes on our own, sometimes all together. It's an opportunity."
In his weeks in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, in the first horrors of the war and carpet-bombing, Terzani is overcome by destruction and the roar of military planes carrying bombs to new sites. The destruction is by sophisticated murder from above by the latest entry in the Empire business, our own nation, America. Terzani knows his history, delves into millennia past. Afghanistan has been a crossroads of trade and armies and it has had its years of peace and beauty.
The valley traversed by a river on whose banks Kabul itself was built; Kabul, the city of which a poet once wrote, in a play on the two Persian syllables which make up its name: "My home? here is my home: a drop of dew amid the petals of a rose." The old bazaar of the Four Arcades, where they used to say you can find every object made by nature or human skill. The mosque of Puli-i-Khisti. The mausoleum of Timur Shah. The sanctuary of the King of Two Swords, built in honor of the first Muslim commander who, according to the legend, had his head cut off in battle in the seventh century A.D. but fought on regardless with a weapon in each hand, so determined was he to impose Islam, the new, aggressive religion recently founded in Arabia, on a population that for more than a thousand years had been happily Hindu or Buddhist.
He investigates the strike on Al Jazeera's headquarters, finds that it was not a mistake; it was a deliberate selection of target in a street where all houses look alike, no military contrivance anywhere near.
He looks at the mountains, but is not at peace. "I can't enjoy it, because I've never felt the stupidity of the fate to which man has devoted himself as keenly as I do when I look out of these dusty windows."
In no way can Kabul still be called a city. It's a teeming anthill of human misery, an immense dusty cemetery. Everything is dust, and more and more I get the feeling that this dust which constantly blackens my hands, fills my nose and enters my lungs is all that remains of the bones, the palaces, the houses, the parks, the flowers and the trees which made this valley a paradise." (1)
Scene after scene of dust and destruction, from the time of Mongol hordes to the surge of United States military.
Chris Hedges speaks even more plainly.
The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by US warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat. (2)
Once in a while mainstream media tally the dead American fighters. They steer away from the wounded. It's from the dead and the wounded that we must go to, in all humility, for truth about war -- not embedded journalists. Once you have seen your comrades die, it's a haunting lodged in your brain, set to pounce.
When I walked away from combat for the last time I happened to look up at chestnut trees on the high ridge connected to the high ground that we had taken, with the usual cost. I heard those trees say, "We had no part in this." Sounds like hallucination, and it is, but war is that way, total stupidity and craziness. I did hear those trees. I joined two other walking woundeds and we came to a pipe gushing water and stopped to take sulfa tablets and by then the night had taken us back to relative sanity.
It is not combat memories alone that drive veterans to take the path of peace, take to the streets, join the Grannies, one of whom is still active though dying of cancer. It is being on the ground or on the sea, wherever the newest war play grinds on, learning the hypocrisy, the lies, the evasions, the shame. Veterans For Peace, in contact with other veteran outfits working against war, took up the phrase, "Death From Above," which means missiles, bomblets, and bombs from on high, whether piloted by a human or not. The latest "Death From Above" are Predator and Reaper, fully operational drones guided to their targets by operators in an air base in Nevada. If you don't know who you are killing and who is killing your comrades, is it murder? It is.
Listen to a mother, Cindy Sheehan.
As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead. (3)
I don't believe that peace agreements, even the grand founding of the United Nations, lead to the next war. That is superficial reasoning. Behind the wars and the truces lie the systems of empire that we don't like to examine because that gets us into home territory where we discover that greed for profit and power guides the schemes of empire.
What can we do? asks Tiziano Terzani. He suggests in the strongest way he can that together we can do thousands of things. I suggest that one of those things is learn the art of the politically impossible. The art of the politically possible is what guides our leaders, including that clever craftsman, Barack Obama. We have to get over slavish loyalty keeping us caged in a box canyon so cleverly designed by our corporate culture. We can up the ante, dare the art of impossibility. Is there a little crack in that canyon? Of course there is. Let's find it. Si, se puede. We can do it.
Or, we can wait, watch Reaper and Predator kill from above, and kill again, terrorize villages, build high the body count. For what purpose? Ask Cindy Sheehan.
Notes
1. See Swans complete posting of "Letters Against The War," Swans.com, September 8, 2008 (republished June 1, 2009). (back)
2. Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. He was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. His new book, Empire Of Illusion: The End Of Literacy And The Triumph of Spectacle, will be available in July of this year. (back)
3. Cindy Sheehan, on her way to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, a Palestinian Rights gathering. (back)
Swans - June 29, 2009 "War is Terrorism" puts war in a special file, separate from "Just Wars" and other euphemisms that strike me as pacifiers -- abstract bones for us to chew on. Tiziano Terzani's collection of letters, each of which is a treasure trove, goes even further: "Killing under all circumstances is murder."
I have read two letters so far, Letter From The Himalayas, written in Florence in December 2002, and Letter From Kabul. What is great about these letters? They are well-written, with passion and without that terrible downer: Hopeless, Get Used To It.
Terzani is an Italian, not an embedded journalist. He is a freelancer, reporting for Der Speigel. He surveys Kabul and its destruction and the Himalayas where he "can look at (them) without feeling I have to climb them. When I was young I'd have wanted to conquer them. Now I can let them conquer me."
These are fine opening lines, setting the stage for a gradual assent, word-step by word-step, to where he can say that "A society gains much more strength by its moral resolution than it does by acquiring new weapons," and, finally, the climax: "these are days in which it's still possible to do something. So let's do it, sometimes on our own, sometimes all together. It's an opportunity."
In his weeks in Kabul, capital of Afghanistan, in the first horrors of the war and carpet-bombing, Terzani is overcome by destruction and the roar of military planes carrying bombs to new sites. The destruction is by sophisticated murder from above by the latest entry in the Empire business, our own nation, America. Terzani knows his history, delves into millennia past. Afghanistan has been a crossroads of trade and armies and it has had its years of peace and beauty.
The valley traversed by a river on whose banks Kabul itself was built; Kabul, the city of which a poet once wrote, in a play on the two Persian syllables which make up its name: "My home? here is my home: a drop of dew amid the petals of a rose." The old bazaar of the Four Arcades, where they used to say you can find every object made by nature or human skill. The mosque of Puli-i-Khisti. The mausoleum of Timur Shah. The sanctuary of the King of Two Swords, built in honor of the first Muslim commander who, according to the legend, had his head cut off in battle in the seventh century A.D. but fought on regardless with a weapon in each hand, so determined was he to impose Islam, the new, aggressive religion recently founded in Arabia, on a population that for more than a thousand years had been happily Hindu or Buddhist.
He investigates the strike on Al Jazeera's headquarters, finds that it was not a mistake; it was a deliberate selection of target in a street where all houses look alike, no military contrivance anywhere near.
He looks at the mountains, but is not at peace. "I can't enjoy it, because I've never felt the stupidity of the fate to which man has devoted himself as keenly as I do when I look out of these dusty windows."
In no way can Kabul still be called a city. It's a teeming anthill of human misery, an immense dusty cemetery. Everything is dust, and more and more I get the feeling that this dust which constantly blackens my hands, fills my nose and enters my lungs is all that remains of the bones, the palaces, the houses, the parks, the flowers and the trees which made this valley a paradise." (1)
Scene after scene of dust and destruction, from the time of Mongol hordes to the surge of United States military.
Chris Hedges speaks even more plainly.
The bodies of dozens, perhaps well over a hundred, women, children and men, their corpses blown into bits of human flesh by iron fragmentation bombs dropped by US warplanes in a village in the western province of Farah, illustrates the futility of the Afghan war. We are not delivering democracy or liberation or development. We are delivering massive sophisticated forms of industrial slaughter. And because we have employed the blunt and horrible instrument of war in a land we know little about and are incapable of reading, we embody the barbarism we claim to be seeking to defeat. (2)
Once in a while mainstream media tally the dead American fighters. They steer away from the wounded. It's from the dead and the wounded that we must go to, in all humility, for truth about war -- not embedded journalists. Once you have seen your comrades die, it's a haunting lodged in your brain, set to pounce.
When I walked away from combat for the last time I happened to look up at chestnut trees on the high ridge connected to the high ground that we had taken, with the usual cost. I heard those trees say, "We had no part in this." Sounds like hallucination, and it is, but war is that way, total stupidity and craziness. I did hear those trees. I joined two other walking woundeds and we came to a pipe gushing water and stopped to take sulfa tablets and by then the night had taken us back to relative sanity.
It is not combat memories alone that drive veterans to take the path of peace, take to the streets, join the Grannies, one of whom is still active though dying of cancer. It is being on the ground or on the sea, wherever the newest war play grinds on, learning the hypocrisy, the lies, the evasions, the shame. Veterans For Peace, in contact with other veteran outfits working against war, took up the phrase, "Death From Above," which means missiles, bomblets, and bombs from on high, whether piloted by a human or not. The latest "Death From Above" are Predator and Reaper, fully operational drones guided to their targets by operators in an air base in Nevada. If you don't know who you are killing and who is killing your comrades, is it murder? It is.
Listen to a mother, Cindy Sheehan.
As the plane was on the approach to John Wayne airport, the Captain came on the intercom to remind us all to "remember our brave troops who have died for our freedom." Even in this post 9-11 paranoid paradigm, if I wasn't belted in for landing, I would have popped out of my seat at 13D and charged up to the cockpit to let the pilot know that my son was killed in Iraq and not one person anywhere in this world is one iota more free because he is dead. (3)
I don't believe that peace agreements, even the grand founding of the United Nations, lead to the next war. That is superficial reasoning. Behind the wars and the truces lie the systems of empire that we don't like to examine because that gets us into home territory where we discover that greed for profit and power guides the schemes of empire.
What can we do? asks Tiziano Terzani. He suggests in the strongest way he can that together we can do thousands of things. I suggest that one of those things is learn the art of the politically impossible. The art of the politically possible is what guides our leaders, including that clever craftsman, Barack Obama. We have to get over slavish loyalty keeping us caged in a box canyon so cleverly designed by our corporate culture. We can up the ante, dare the art of impossibility. Is there a little crack in that canyon? Of course there is. Let's find it. Si, se puede. We can do it.
Or, we can wait, watch Reaper and Predator kill from above, and kill again, terrorize villages, build high the body count. For what purpose? Ask Cindy Sheehan.
Notes
1. See Swans complete posting of "Letters Against The War," Swans.com, September 8, 2008 (republished June 1, 2009). (back)
2. Chris Hedges writes a regular column for Truthdig.com. He was for nearly two decades a foreign correspondent for The New York Times. His new book, Empire Of Illusion: The End Of Literacy And The Triumph of Spectacle, will be available in July of this year. (back)
3. Cindy Sheehan, on her way to Orange County from Sacramento to attend the al-Awda Conference, a Palestinian Rights gathering. (back)
Skateistan Hits the Headlines :)
By Jonathon Burch
KABUL (Reuters) - It was an unlikely scene in the Afghan capital on Sunday as dozens of boys and girls took to the streets on skateboards, weaving in and out of traffic, past market stalls, donkey carts and hooting cars.
Police in a pick-up truck provided an escort. With sirens blaring, officers shouted commands through a megaphone at motorists telling them to make way for the kids of Afghanistan's first skateboarding school: Skateistan.
"In the name of God!" cheered one man at the side of the road, clapping and smiling in disbelief.
"Long live Afghanistan!" the children shouted in reply as they skated past.
Wearing white T-shirts adorned with "Skateistan" logos, the children zipped from the national stadium -- once the scene of public Taliban executions -- to another part of the city to take part in a competition in honour of world Go Skateboarding Day.
One of the world's poorest and most conservative countries seems like a strange place to set up a skateboarding school, but the founders of Skateistan say it has proven a remarkably successful way to reach out to marginalised kids.
"It's more than just skateboarding," said Oliver Percovich, an Australian who co-founded the school in 2007 with just three skateboards and has since watched it grow with Western donations of $650,000.
"It's a way to connect with the youth of Afghanistan. These kids are the future leaders and we hope that through skateboarding it can provide a little bit of a level playing field for both the rich and the poor," he said as skateboarders as young as eight skidded behind him trying tricks.
At the moment, all the children have to skate in is an old, disused fountain in the middle of the city, but this week the school will lay the corner stone for what will become Afghanistan's biggest indoor sports arena.
The new 1,800 square metre Skateistan indoor arena will have a skateboard park and two air-conditioned classrooms equipped with computers where students can study in between skating.
Percovich said his school has attracted a wide range of children from street beggars to those from wealthier families. His school has even helped three children back into real school, by paying what they used to earn working on the street and allowing them to teach other children to skateboard.
Ten-year-old Fazila from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, used to beg on the streets, maybe getting $2 a day. Now she is back in school and teaches other girls how to skateboard.
"It's a good thing. It benefits people. It's good for both boys and girls. Those who are interested should come and skate here," she said, smiling.
Girls were out on the street as well as boys, something still unusual in Afghanistan where women athletes often train in private and some have been attacked for taking part in sports.
"This is the only sport in Afghanistan where girls are in the public sphere. It's very important for people to see that," said Percovich.
KABUL (Reuters) - It was an unlikely scene in the Afghan capital on Sunday as dozens of boys and girls took to the streets on skateboards, weaving in and out of traffic, past market stalls, donkey carts and hooting cars.
Police in a pick-up truck provided an escort. With sirens blaring, officers shouted commands through a megaphone at motorists telling them to make way for the kids of Afghanistan's first skateboarding school: Skateistan.
"In the name of God!" cheered one man at the side of the road, clapping and smiling in disbelief.
"Long live Afghanistan!" the children shouted in reply as they skated past.
Wearing white T-shirts adorned with "Skateistan" logos, the children zipped from the national stadium -- once the scene of public Taliban executions -- to another part of the city to take part in a competition in honour of world Go Skateboarding Day.
One of the world's poorest and most conservative countries seems like a strange place to set up a skateboarding school, but the founders of Skateistan say it has proven a remarkably successful way to reach out to marginalised kids.
"It's more than just skateboarding," said Oliver Percovich, an Australian who co-founded the school in 2007 with just three skateboards and has since watched it grow with Western donations of $650,000.
"It's a way to connect with the youth of Afghanistan. These kids are the future leaders and we hope that through skateboarding it can provide a little bit of a level playing field for both the rich and the poor," he said as skateboarders as young as eight skidded behind him trying tricks.
At the moment, all the children have to skate in is an old, disused fountain in the middle of the city, but this week the school will lay the corner stone for what will become Afghanistan's biggest indoor sports arena.
The new 1,800 square metre Skateistan indoor arena will have a skateboard park and two air-conditioned classrooms equipped with computers where students can study in between skating.
Percovich said his school has attracted a wide range of children from street beggars to those from wealthier families. His school has even helped three children back into real school, by paying what they used to earn working on the street and allowing them to teach other children to skateboard.
Ten-year-old Fazila from Kunduz in northern Afghanistan, used to beg on the streets, maybe getting $2 a day. Now she is back in school and teaches other girls how to skateboard.
"It's a good thing. It benefits people. It's good for both boys and girls. Those who are interested should come and skate here," she said, smiling.
Girls were out on the street as well as boys, something still unusual in Afghanistan where women athletes often train in private and some have been attacked for taking part in sports.
"This is the only sport in Afghanistan where girls are in the public sphere. It's very important for people to see that," said Percovich.
Toshiba Australia invests in India
By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: Toshiba Australia has set its sights on India and will be investing its money in an Australian contingent in the Subcontinent.
It’s all in the name of sport, however, with Toshiba Australia becoming an official Team Partner of the Australian Commonwealth Games team for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, which will run from 3 to 14 October 2010 in locations in and around the country’s capital, New Delhi.
It will be Australia’s biggest ever overseas Commonwealth Games team, with over 600 team members, including around 440 athletes. There are 17 sports in the 2010 Commonwealth Games: Aquatics, Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Cycling, Gymnastics, Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Rugby 7s, Shooting, Squash, Table Tennis, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
For the past few years, Toshiba has sponsored the Australian Cyclones Cycling Team and their brand ambassador is multiple World Championship and Olympic medalist, Anna Meares.
“It was a good match,” said Toshiba Australia marketing director, Mariana Thomas, regarding Toshiba Australia’s sponsorship of cycling. “The technology and the mobility of cycling match our products.”
As brand ambassador, Anna Meares has also provided some great brand associations due to her successful and high profile comeback from disaster.
“Anna has been fantastic for us, she’s done all the right things, she’s a fantastic person…her integrity is incredible,” said Thomas. “And from January, having a broken neck, to winning an Olympic silver medal just a few months later is just incredible, she is a very strong person.”
This Commonwealth Games Team Partner sponsorship extends to the entire Australian team however, not only cycling — it gives Toshiba exclusive rights to use the Commonwealth Games logo and imagery in the computers and television categories.
Toshiba’s other recent sporting partnerships include global sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup in 2006, including the Asian qualifying rounds; the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France; and Gold Partnership of the forthcoming World Masters Games, which will be held in Sydney from 10 to 18 October 2009.
Toshiba stated that it will soon start to use the Commonwealth Games association in an advertising campaign highlighting its technology and green credentials with its IT and AV products.
By Martin Vedris
SYDNEY: Toshiba Australia has set its sights on India and will be investing its money in an Australian contingent in the Subcontinent.
It’s all in the name of sport, however, with Toshiba Australia becoming an official Team Partner of the Australian Commonwealth Games team for the 2010 Delhi Commonwealth Games, which will run from 3 to 14 October 2010 in locations in and around the country’s capital, New Delhi.
It will be Australia’s biggest ever overseas Commonwealth Games team, with over 600 team members, including around 440 athletes. There are 17 sports in the 2010 Commonwealth Games: Aquatics, Archery, Athletics, Badminton, Boxing, Cycling, Gymnastics, Hockey, Lawn Bowls, Netball, Rugby 7s, Shooting, Squash, Table Tennis, Tennis, Weightlifting and Wrestling.
For the past few years, Toshiba has sponsored the Australian Cyclones Cycling Team and their brand ambassador is multiple World Championship and Olympic medalist, Anna Meares.
“It was a good match,” said Toshiba Australia marketing director, Mariana Thomas, regarding Toshiba Australia’s sponsorship of cycling. “The technology and the mobility of cycling match our products.”
As brand ambassador, Anna Meares has also provided some great brand associations due to her successful and high profile comeback from disaster.
“Anna has been fantastic for us, she’s done all the right things, she’s a fantastic person…her integrity is incredible,” said Thomas. “And from January, having a broken neck, to winning an Olympic silver medal just a few months later is just incredible, she is a very strong person.”
This Commonwealth Games Team Partner sponsorship extends to the entire Australian team however, not only cycling — it gives Toshiba exclusive rights to use the Commonwealth Games logo and imagery in the computers and television categories.
Toshiba’s other recent sporting partnerships include global sponsorship of the FIFA World Cup in 2006, including the Asian qualifying rounds; the 2007 Rugby World Cup in France; and Gold Partnership of the forthcoming World Masters Games, which will be held in Sydney from 10 to 18 October 2009.
Toshiba stated that it will soon start to use the Commonwealth Games association in an advertising campaign highlighting its technology and green credentials with its IT and AV products.
From ABC:
Nearly 200 people from a boat intercepted by the Navy yesterday are on Christmas Island having their claims for asylum assessed.
But the Federal Government says Australia should expect many more refugees fleeing from wars and unrest across Asia.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says the key to reducing the number of people coming here is to help improve living conditions in poorer countries.
It has released a new report recommending that Australia expand its aid program in the Asia-Pacific region and do more to try to slow population growth in countries like East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
The Federal Opposition says yesterday's arrival of asylum seekers is proof the Government has softened Australia's border protection laws.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans, however, says it is due to unrest in several parts of Asia.
His argument is supported by Dr Mark Thomson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another," Dr Thomson said.
"Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.
"Hopefully though, as globalisation spreads around the world and prosperity improves, the number of such circumstances will decrease."
Social responsibility
On Monday Dr Thomson published a report called The Human Tide, which looks at the implications of development and demographics for Australia's strategic environment.
It predicts seismic economic changes in the developing world and a large increase in the populations of poor countries.
But he says there is no evidence that illegal migration will increase. He believes it could actually decrease.
"As prosperity has been spreading itself around world in last 40 or 50 years, the imperative for people to seek a better life from one country to another has in general, on average, reduced," he said.
"And in the future, with the sort of projections we have for economic development in many parts of the world that favourable circumstance will continue."
While being optimistic about globalisation's ability to improve living conditions around the world, Dr Thomson warns that some of Australia's closest neighbours are not keeping up.
He says if East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands do not see improved economic growth, people will want to leave those countries and come to Australia.
Help needed
Dr Thomson says as the largest and most prosperous country in the region, Australia must help those countries.
"If there's unrest, if there's starvation, if people are living at subsistence levels on our doorstep, that's not something that I think is going to be sustainable for any government in Australia to allow," he said.
"The second thing is, that when those sort of circumstances emerge in a country, there's also a range of other adverse outcomes that occur.
"They can become a hub for transnational crime. Drug trafficking can emerge and they can be influenced by external powers whose interest might not align with Australia's."
Family planning
The key recommendation in the report is that Australia's international aid program prioritise family planning.
"If we were to put a greater emphasis on family planning; an emphasis on empowering people in developing countries to control their own fertility, it would have a multiplier effect in their prosperity in the longer term," he said.
"If we can avoid the sort of pressures that high population growth will put on countries in terms of demand for resources, demand for services, increasingly large urban areas, we're heading off problems in the future and getting best value for money for our aid dollar."
Dr Thomson also says Australia should increase its aid program.
He has suggested that the Federal Government look at expanding the Pacific Guest Workers Scheme and do more to encourage Australian investment in the poorer countries of the region.
Nearly 200 people from a boat intercepted by the Navy yesterday are on Christmas Island having their claims for asylum assessed.
But the Federal Government says Australia should expect many more refugees fleeing from wars and unrest across Asia.
The Australian Strategic Policy Institute says the key to reducing the number of people coming here is to help improve living conditions in poorer countries.
It has released a new report recommending that Australia expand its aid program in the Asia-Pacific region and do more to try to slow population growth in countries like East Timor and Papua New Guinea.
The Federal Opposition says yesterday's arrival of asylum seekers is proof the Government has softened Australia's border protection laws.
Immigration Minister Chris Evans, however, says it is due to unrest in several parts of Asia.
His argument is supported by Dr Mark Thomson from the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
"The principal cause of people seeking refuge is events which cause them to seek refuge; unrest in one part of the world or another," Dr Thomson said.
"Will this stop in the future? No. There will always be parts of the world where there are problems and where people will try and seek safety offshore.
"Hopefully though, as globalisation spreads around the world and prosperity improves, the number of such circumstances will decrease."
Social responsibility
On Monday Dr Thomson published a report called The Human Tide, which looks at the implications of development and demographics for Australia's strategic environment.
It predicts seismic economic changes in the developing world and a large increase in the populations of poor countries.
But he says there is no evidence that illegal migration will increase. He believes it could actually decrease.
"As prosperity has been spreading itself around world in last 40 or 50 years, the imperative for people to seek a better life from one country to another has in general, on average, reduced," he said.
"And in the future, with the sort of projections we have for economic development in many parts of the world that favourable circumstance will continue."
While being optimistic about globalisation's ability to improve living conditions around the world, Dr Thomson warns that some of Australia's closest neighbours are not keeping up.
He says if East Timor, Papua New Guinea, and the Solomon Islands do not see improved economic growth, people will want to leave those countries and come to Australia.
Help needed
Dr Thomson says as the largest and most prosperous country in the region, Australia must help those countries.
"If there's unrest, if there's starvation, if people are living at subsistence levels on our doorstep, that's not something that I think is going to be sustainable for any government in Australia to allow," he said.
"The second thing is, that when those sort of circumstances emerge in a country, there's also a range of other adverse outcomes that occur.
"They can become a hub for transnational crime. Drug trafficking can emerge and they can be influenced by external powers whose interest might not align with Australia's."
Family planning
The key recommendation in the report is that Australia's international aid program prioritise family planning.
"If we were to put a greater emphasis on family planning; an emphasis on empowering people in developing countries to control their own fertility, it would have a multiplier effect in their prosperity in the longer term," he said.
"If we can avoid the sort of pressures that high population growth will put on countries in terms of demand for resources, demand for services, increasingly large urban areas, we're heading off problems in the future and getting best value for money for our aid dollar."
Dr Thomson also says Australia should increase its aid program.
He has suggested that the Federal Government look at expanding the Pacific Guest Workers Scheme and do more to encourage Australian investment in the poorer countries of the region.
From the Australian.
The threat facing our foodFont Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Necia Wilden | June 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A CANADIAN whistleblower says that if Australians want to eat as safely as Europeans, they need to ban the five major contaminants of modern industrial food production: growth hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouse wastes, genetically modified organisms and pesticides.
Microbiologist Shiv Chopra, sacked after warning parliament of the dangers of bovine growth hormone, says Australia's food safety regulations place the country at risk of repeating the mistakes of Canada, where 80 per cent of the food is contaminated by GMOs. In contrast, he says, the EU has already banned three of the five contaminants -- hormones, antibiotics and slaughterhouse wastes -- has not yet approved GMOs and is in the process of banning pesticides.
A fellow of the World Health Organisation and former senior scientific adviser to Health Canada, Dr Chopra is visiting Australia this week to promote his book, Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower.
Speaking in Sydney yesterday at the Rockpool Bar & Grill -- a leading proponent of ethical beef production -- Dr Chopra said it was not the job of the public to prove additives are harmful.
"The onus should be on the government and big business to prove that these substances are not harmful, because they're the ones who are making money from them. Unless they can prove that these substances aren't harmful, we should be telling our governments that we don't want them in our food supply."
Dr Chopra said the Australian government's desire to promote the country overseas as a source of "clean, green" food was at odds with its policies.
"Australia could be the world's leading exporter of clean, green produce. Why would you do anything to jeopardise that?"
Dr Chopra's visit comes as Food Standards Australia New Zealand has been criticised for placing trade ahead of public health. Health and dietary experts have called for an independent review of the food safety regulator, one of the few in the world to have approved every application for genetically modified products.
FSANZ recently declined to follow the lead of other countries in banning or restricting a range of additives linked to behavioural abnormalities in children.
Overseas, food ethics have moved from the fringe to the mainstream with the release of two documentaries, both attracting the publicity and rave reviews usually reserved for multi-million-dollar Hollywood productions. The US film Food, Inc exposes the horrors of the industrial farming system. The British film The End of the Line indicts government overfishing policies and has already prompted bans by retailers of some species of unsustainable fish.
The threat facing our foodFont Size: Decrease Increase Print Page: Print Necia Wilden | June 25, 2009
Article from: The Australian
A CANADIAN whistleblower says that if Australians want to eat as safely as Europeans, they need to ban the five major contaminants of modern industrial food production: growth hormones, antibiotics, slaughterhouse wastes, genetically modified organisms and pesticides.
Microbiologist Shiv Chopra, sacked after warning parliament of the dangers of bovine growth hormone, says Australia's food safety regulations place the country at risk of repeating the mistakes of Canada, where 80 per cent of the food is contaminated by GMOs. In contrast, he says, the EU has already banned three of the five contaminants -- hormones, antibiotics and slaughterhouse wastes -- has not yet approved GMOs and is in the process of banning pesticides.
A fellow of the World Health Organisation and former senior scientific adviser to Health Canada, Dr Chopra is visiting Australia this week to promote his book, Corrupt to the Core: Memoirs of a Health Canada Whistleblower.
Speaking in Sydney yesterday at the Rockpool Bar & Grill -- a leading proponent of ethical beef production -- Dr Chopra said it was not the job of the public to prove additives are harmful.
"The onus should be on the government and big business to prove that these substances are not harmful, because they're the ones who are making money from them. Unless they can prove that these substances aren't harmful, we should be telling our governments that we don't want them in our food supply."
Dr Chopra said the Australian government's desire to promote the country overseas as a source of "clean, green" food was at odds with its policies.
"Australia could be the world's leading exporter of clean, green produce. Why would you do anything to jeopardise that?"
Dr Chopra's visit comes as Food Standards Australia New Zealand has been criticised for placing trade ahead of public health. Health and dietary experts have called for an independent review of the food safety regulator, one of the few in the world to have approved every application for genetically modified products.
FSANZ recently declined to follow the lead of other countries in banning or restricting a range of additives linked to behavioural abnormalities in children.
Overseas, food ethics have moved from the fringe to the mainstream with the release of two documentaries, both attracting the publicity and rave reviews usually reserved for multi-million-dollar Hollywood productions. The US film Food, Inc exposes the horrors of the industrial farming system. The British film The End of the Line indicts government overfishing policies and has already prompted bans by retailers of some species of unsustainable fish.
A Northland Conservation board member says the regional council is flouting public opinion by weakening its policy on genetically modified organisms.
The Northland Regional Council this week stepped away from efforts by councils from Auckland to the Far North, to exert local controls on genetically modified organisms.
Its chairman Mark Farnsworth says the job is one for central government not local councils.
Robin Lieffering, from the Conservation Board, says there was no mandate to change the council's long-term plan and the chairman has indulged his own political leanings.
Mr Farnsworth says the new GE policy is still precautionary but better reflects his council's position.
Copyright © 2009 Radio New Zealand
The Northland Regional Council this week stepped away from efforts by councils from Auckland to the Far North, to exert local controls on genetically modified organisms.
Its chairman Mark Farnsworth says the job is one for central government not local councils.
Robin Lieffering, from the Conservation Board, says there was no mandate to change the council's long-term plan and the chairman has indulged his own political leanings.
Mr Farnsworth says the new GE policy is still precautionary but better reflects his council's position.
Copyright © 2009 Radio New Zealand
Austria wants powers to impose unilateral GM bans
ENDS Europe
Tuesday 23 June 2009
EU legislation should be changed to allow member states to impose unilateral bans on genetically modified crops, according to a paper to be submitted by the Austrian government at a meeting of environment ministers on Thursday.
ENDS Europe
Tuesday 23 June 2009
EU legislation should be changed to allow member states to impose unilateral bans on genetically modified crops, according to a paper to be submitted by the Austrian government at a meeting of environment ministers on Thursday.
Out today.
Aucklanders will be asked whether trials of genetically modified organisms should be allowed in their area as councils consider imposing local bans.
Several councils in the Northland and Auckland regions have grown increasingly frustrated at what some say is a lack of proper control over GM field trials by Government authorities.
A telephone poll next month - jointly funded by the Auckland regional and Waitakere, Rodney, Far North, Whangarei and Kaipara city and district councils - will ask a sample of more than 2000 residents whether they are happy to leave GM controls to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) or if they would like additional local rules.
A working group of seven Auckland and Northland councils (the six backing the poll and the Northland Regional Council) has obtained a legal opinion concluding councils probably have the power to ban or limit GM activities using rules in district plans.
Working group co-ordinator Dr Kerry Grundy, of the Whangarei District Council, said there was a lot of concern over who would foot the bill if genetically engineered field trials went wrong and contaminated the produce of other farmers, or tarnished a region's "clean, green" image.
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AdvertisementCouncils wanted to know if there was support in the community for local regulation, he said.
Members of the working party are considering whether they could agree on a common regulatory system to apply north of the Auckland urban centre.
Erma approves or rejects applications to import and develop genetically engineered material in New Zealand.
This month GE-free New Zealand won a High Court ruling that Erma was wrong to accept applications from taxpayer-funded science company AgResearch for the laboratory testing of human and monkey cell lines and the development of GM cows, buffalo, sheep, pigs, goats, llamas, alpacas, deer and horses.
Green Party GM spokeswoman Jeanette Fitzsimons said that case and examples of poorly managed field trials of Erma-approved projects showed Government authorities were getting it wrong.
"Erma rules have been shown not to work ... so I really applaud the councils for taking action."
She said councils were right to consult residents first to see whether they wanted them to get involved.
Dr Grundy said the phone poll would be done by Colmar Brunton and would ask enough people to be statistically significant.
The next stage could be a public submissions process that would allow interest groups to have a say.
Several councils unsuccessfully lobbied the Government to amend the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Actto clarify councils' responsibilities or to give them a say in Erma's decision-making process.
Many councils from Auckland north have already adopted statements saying they support a cautious approach to, or may look at banning, GE trials in their areas until there is more information about the risks and benefits.
In February, a 10-year genetic modification trial was cancelled and another put on hold after two years when anti-GMcampaigners exposed breaches of field trial rules that risked contamination of the environment.
The Crown science institute Plant and Food Research admitted serious failures in a vegetable trial at Lincoln, near Christchurch, after plants that should have been destroyed were instead left to flower, exposing the environment to their GM pollen.
At the time, a Plant and Food spokesman said the breach was an embarrassing lapse by the institute.
Supporters of the trial said it promised important benefits in food production and would keep New Zealand up with the world in science.
Aucklanders will be asked whether trials of genetically modified organisms should be allowed in their area as councils consider imposing local bans.
Several councils in the Northland and Auckland regions have grown increasingly frustrated at what some say is a lack of proper control over GM field trials by Government authorities.
A telephone poll next month - jointly funded by the Auckland regional and Waitakere, Rodney, Far North, Whangarei and Kaipara city and district councils - will ask a sample of more than 2000 residents whether they are happy to leave GM controls to the Environmental Risk Management Authority (Erma) or if they would like additional local rules.
A working group of seven Auckland and Northland councils (the six backing the poll and the Northland Regional Council) has obtained a legal opinion concluding councils probably have the power to ban or limit GM activities using rules in district plans.
Working group co-ordinator Dr Kerry Grundy, of the Whangarei District Council, said there was a lot of concern over who would foot the bill if genetically engineered field trials went wrong and contaminated the produce of other farmers, or tarnished a region's "clean, green" image.
%3Cbody%20style%3D%22margin%3A0%22%3E%3Cdiv%20id%3D%22adDiv%22%3E%3CSCRIPT%3E/*XXXIXXX*/%3C/SCRIPT%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%3CIFRAME%20SRC%3D%22http%3A//ad.au.doubleclick.net/adi/N3799.NZHerald/B3717972.2%3Bsz%3D300x250%3Bclick%3Dhttp%3A//ads.apn.co.nz/accipiter/adclick/CID%3D00004b3767d37c2500000000/aamsz%3D300X250/acc_random%3D71034288046/pageid%3D43343575904/site%3DNZH/area%3DSEC.NATIONAL.STY/keyword%3Dcouncils%20look%20local%20controls%20government%20aucklanders%20asked%20trials%20genetically%20modified%20organisms%20allowed%20area%20consider%20imposing%20bans%20northland%20auckland%20regions%20grown%20increasingly%20frustrated%20lack%20proper%20control%20field%20authorities%20telephone/relocate%3D%3Bord%3D71034288046%3F%22%20width%3D300%20height%3D250%20MARGINWIDTH%3D0%20MARGINHEIGHT%3D0%20HSPACE%3D0%20VSPACE%3D0%20FRAMEBORDER%3D0%20SCROLLING%3Dno%20BORDERCOLOR%3D%27%23000000%27%20id%3D%22iframeA19255%22%3E%0D%0A%3CSCRIPT%20language%3D%27JavaScript1.1%27%20SRC%3D%22http%3A//ad.au.doubleclick.net/adj/N3799.NZHerald/B3717972.2%3Babr%3D%21ie%3Bsz%3D300x250%3Bord%3D71034288046%3F%22%3E%3C/SCRIPT%3E%0D%0A%3C/IFRAME%3E%0D%0A%3CNOSCRIPT%3E%0D%0A%3CA%20HREF%3D%22http%3A//ads.apn.co.nz/accipiter/adclick/CID%3D00004b3767d37c2500000000/aamsz%3D300X250/acc_random%3D71034288046/pageid%3D43343575904/site%3DNZH/area%3DSEC.NATIONAL.STY/keyword%3Dcouncils%20look%20local%20controls%20government%20aucklanders%20asked%20trials%20genetically%20modified%20organisms%20allowed%20area%20consider%20imposing%20bans%20northland%20auckland%20regions%20grown%20increasingly%20frustrated%20lack%20proper%20control%20field%20authorities%20telephoneord%3D71034288046%3F%22%3E%0D%0A%3CIMG%20SRC%3D%22http%3A//ad.au.doubleclick.net/ad/N3799.NZHerald/B3717972.2%3Babr%3D%21ie4%3Babr%3D%21ie5%3Bsz%3D300x250%3B%3Bord%3D71034288046%3F%22%20BORDER%3D0%20width%3D300%20height%3D250%20ALT%3D%22Click%20Here%22%3E%3C/A%3E%0D%0A%3C/NOSCRIPT%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%3Cscript%20type%3D%27text/javascript%27%3E%0D%0Aif%20%28navigator.userAgent.indexOf%28%22Firefox%22%29%21%3D-1%29%7B%20%0D%0A%09var%20existingIframes%20%3D%20document.getElementsByTagName%28%27iframe%27%29%3B%0D%0A%09var%20iframeID%20%3D%20document.getElementById%28%27iframeA19255%27%29%3B%0D%0A%09if%28existingIframes%20%26%26%20existingIframes.length%20%26%26%20iframeID%29%7B%0D%0A%09%09for%28var%20ii%20in%20existingIframes%29%7B%0D%0A%09%09%09if%28typeof%28existingIframes%5Bii%5D%29%20%3D%3D%20%27object%27%29%7B%20%0D%0A%09%09%09%09existingIframes%5Bii%5D.contentWindow.location.href%20%3D%20existingIframes%5Bii%5D.src%3B%09%0D%0A%09%09%09%7D%0D%0A%09%09%7D%0D%0A%09%7D%0D%0A%7D%0D%0A%3C/script%3E%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%0D%0A%3C/div%3E
Advertisement
AdvertisementCouncils wanted to know if there was support in the community for local regulation, he said.
Members of the working party are considering whether they could agree on a common regulatory system to apply north of the Auckland urban centre.
Erma approves or rejects applications to import and develop genetically engineered material in New Zealand.
This month GE-free New Zealand won a High Court ruling that Erma was wrong to accept applications from taxpayer-funded science company AgResearch for the laboratory testing of human and monkey cell lines and the development of GM cows, buffalo, sheep, pigs, goats, llamas, alpacas, deer and horses.
Green Party GM spokeswoman Jeanette Fitzsimons said that case and examples of poorly managed field trials of Erma-approved projects showed Government authorities were getting it wrong.
"Erma rules have been shown not to work ... so I really applaud the councils for taking action."
She said councils were right to consult residents first to see whether they wanted them to get involved.
Dr Grundy said the phone poll would be done by Colmar Brunton and would ask enough people to be statistically significant.
The next stage could be a public submissions process that would allow interest groups to have a say.
Several councils unsuccessfully lobbied the Government to amend the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms Actto clarify councils' responsibilities or to give them a say in Erma's decision-making process.
Many councils from Auckland north have already adopted statements saying they support a cautious approach to, or may look at banning, GE trials in their areas until there is more information about the risks and benefits.
In February, a 10-year genetic modification trial was cancelled and another put on hold after two years when anti-GMcampaigners exposed breaches of field trial rules that risked contamination of the environment.
The Crown science institute Plant and Food Research admitted serious failures in a vegetable trial at Lincoln, near Christchurch, after plants that should have been destroyed were instead left to flower, exposing the environment to their GM pollen.
At the time, a Plant and Food spokesman said the breach was an embarrassing lapse by the institute.
Supporters of the trial said it promised important benefits in food production and would keep New Zealand up with the world in science.
Super long, sorry :)
Out of New Zealand.
Food Fight: the latest battle in the US food wars
4:00AM Saturday Jun 27, 2009
By Peter Huck
Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden got agribusiness worried. Photo / AP
Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden got agribusiness worried. Photo / AP
The latest skirmish in the United States food wars erupted last month, when Washington State University announced it had dumped a common reading programme in which first-year students would read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's scathing critique of agribusiness.
Officials, who had bought 4000 copies of Pollan's book, a bible for the organic and locally grown food movements, cited budget cuts. The blogosphere erupted, with critics talking darkly of political censorship by agribusiness. When Bill Marler, a local lawyer who has litigated against agribusiness, offered to pay Pollan's fee to speak at the university, it backed down.
But if the grassroots are on fire - Pollan wants President Barack Obama to reform the "entire food system" - then Big Food shows no signs of surrendering. Last year biotech giant Monsanto, which markets genetically modified (GM) seeds and the herbicide Roundup, began an advertising campaign that stressed its sustainable credentials. "How can we squeeze more food from a raindrop?" one ad asked, suggesting the solution to hunger and water scarcity was genetically modified food.
For a war is raging over what we eat, where it comes from, who benefits, and the cascading environmental impacts caused by global food chains. Its footsoldiers are grassroots activists, writers and agribusiness marketers.
It is a war for the hearts and minds of consumers and policymakers, with food a key factor at the connection between climate change, health care, energy use, water scarcity, collapsing ecosystems and hunger.
It is also a struggle over the identity of food. Is it what you buy at the supermarket - Pollan's advice is to never buy food that you've seen advertised - or what you can buy at a farmers' market or grow in your backyard?
In this analysis it's a battle between the grassroots and the corporate food business, with the latter the biggest trencherman at the table. And critics claim that agribusiness is indulging in "greenwash", by dressing up its products with green language, without regard for any negative impacts on the environment
A key word in this debate is "sustainability". It sounds laudable enough. But one man's sustainability, when it comes to this contentious food fight, is another's poison.
At heart it is a clash of two irreconcilable farming systems: one seeks sustainability via harmony with nature; the other seeks to impose a technological fix.
Agribusiness has used sustainability to push those technical fixes that it says are critical to enhancing food production in the 21st century.
Critics, who have growing consumer support, believe sustainable farming necessitates root and branch reform.
n this context words like "sustainable", "natural", and "local" - emblazoned on supermarket products - are indicators of the power struggle over what we eat.
The fight is exacerbated by fears for food security - how can harvests be guaranteed in the face of climate change?; for safety - the H1N1 swine flu pandemic is the latest scare; and by public health concerns, especially links between Western diets and a growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity.
Rebel hopes intensified with Obama's election and expectations that he will tackle health care, energy use and climate change - all issues that spill into the food arena.
Even innocuous events trigger seismic activity between opposing views on agriculture. When Michelle Obama decided to plant an organic vegetable garden at the White House, to emphasise her belief that Americans should eat fresh, unprocessed and locally grown food, rebels were thrilled but agribusiness sensed danger. In a cackhanded PR move, the Mid American Croplife Association, which represents pesticide companies, wrote a letter reminding the First Lady of the role "conventional agriculture plays in the US". Use chemicals, Michelle.
The White House garden quickly assumed iconic status for opponents of agribusiness - the National Gardening Association says seven million more Americans will grow veges and fruit at home this year, up 19 per cent from last year - and was embraced as a harbinger of change by reformers.
And as turbulence rocks the car, energy and financial industries, agribusiness has noted the success of organic foods, which, while they account for only 3.5 per cent of total US sales, rose 16 per cent between 2007 and last year to reach US$22.9 billion ($36.5 billion). The underlying trend is clear: pegging your product as "sustainable" or "local" can attract the green dollar.
Thus, eco-conscious shoppers trolling US supermarket aisles may have been surprised to learn that Frito-Lay potato chips were made locally, a clear bid to attract souls who shop for US grown food. But Frito-Lay's claim was disingenuous; all food is "local" in some sense. Or, as Pollan quipped, "it doesn't come from Mars".
Then there's stealth marketing, when companies that sell organics start non-organic lines with similar packaging. "Our suspicion is that they are trying to ride on the assumption, that consumers have, that the products are organic," says Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association.
Or products can mimic a proven product. Witness the brouhaha that ensued when an English producer charged £55 ($142) for small pots of Cornish "manuka" honey - which New Zealand producers dismissed as unlikely to bear much resemblance to genuine manuka honey.
One thing that helps the food marketers - who Pollan says burn through a US$32 billion budget - is that "sustainable" has no official weight with the US Department of Agriculture, unlike the word "organic".
"No one knows what 'sustainable' means. It's not defined," says Marion Nestle, the author of Food Politics and a nutrition professor at New York University. "It's the only part of the food industry that's growing [although the recession has slowed growth]. The food industry is in terrible trouble."
Nestle says there is "enormous distrust" of the US food industry, especially as regards food safety. "In this country there's nothing to reassure people that somebody's minding the store in a serious way."
The US Centres for Disease Control estimates that the bulk of the US$1.5 trillion the US spends on preventable diseases - out of a US$2 trillion annual healthcare budget - involves food-related issues.
"It's too soon to tell what will happen," says Nestle. "But the food industry has caught on to the fact that the only way they can sell food is by having it appear nutritious, good for the environment, or good for farm animals."
But like the battered US car industry, agribusiness may have hit the wall with an unsustainable business model.
"We have twice as much food available in the US as is required by the population," says Nestle.
"On top of that they have to grow every 90 days - difficult when there's a surplus - for Wall Street expects publicly traded companies to post a quarterly profit."
This is a big problem if your product is junk food. "You can't convert it to a health food. You can only make it look like a health food."
All of the companies in the anti-sustainability business want to make it seem as if they are the best and brightest," says Doreen Stabinsky, Greenpeace USA's agriculture campaigner.
"It's an old strategy by industry, to take over the words of alternatives or water them down."
Thus, while food activists blast Big Food for waste and environmental degradation, Monsanto, Syngenta, Nestle and other corporate giants all tout the "S" word on websites.
"I recommend to you the 'Six Sins of Greenwashing'," says Scott Exo, executive director of the Food Alliance, referring to a website hosted by Terra Choice. "It enumerates the common missteps made by marketers. It's a good guide for evaluating claims made by food products."
And while some food companies are "sincere" in their efforts to be more sustainable - Exo cites Starbucks, which releases a carbon footprint report and uses recycled materials in cardboard cups - others, through greed or naivety or both, "put forth inflated [green] claims".
"I haven't seen the word 'sustainable' on food labels here," says Annabel McAleer, editor of Auckland-based Good magazine, billed as "New Zealand's Guide to Sustainable Living".
"It's one of those words that can be co-opted quite easily, because it doesn't have a globally recognised meaning [in the context of food]. 'Natural' is another one of those words. You do see 'natural' a lot here. I think food manufacturers have been using these words for years to claim health benefits. 'Lite' is a perfect example."
Like the US and Europe, New Zealand is seeing signs of a shift in consumer consciousness, as seen in the popularity of farmers' markets, official definitions of terms like "organic", "fair trade" and "carbon neutral", backyard food gardens, and vege box deliveries.
"It's part of a bigger trend where people want to get in touch with where their food comes from," says McAleer.
Any attempt to officially define "sustainable", she says, would have to take into account such elements as packaging, transport and ingredients, then weigh up a product's carbon footprint.
Since the food miles issue erupted, debate has become more nuanced, focusing on the global food system. "A lot of UK supermarkets have sustainability plans around their seafood sourcing," says McAleer. "They're real leaders. They don't buy orange roughy any more. They're trying to include carbon footprint data for products." But while New Zealand consumers are becoming aware, local supermarkets are resistant to change.
So, given the confusion, what is sustainable? Dan McGovern, publisher of US-based Sustainable Food News, says you need "a third-party certification to back up your claim". He suggests the certification handed out to sustainable fisheries by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council as one example of a working scheme.
Given the bitter argument between small producers and food giants to agree on a US organic certification, no one is holding their breath for agreement on a standard for sustainability.
The only working model, by no means universal, is offered by the Food Alliance. It offers a holistic vision that includes labour conditions, impacts on wildlife, soil and water conservation, animal welfare and pest control. It is hard to imagine US agribusiness warming to that menu.
A big challenge is defining exactly what parameters to use. Should the model be narrowly focused or adopt a wider vision, where farming is indivisible from nature?
For the past three decades Big Food has emphasised nutrients, rather than fresh food, as part of the American diet. Processed foods flooded supermarket shelves. The grassroots revolt has placed the emphasis back on food. As Pollan says in his latest book, In Defence of Food: "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." Taken literally, this could be a death knell for the industrial food system.
"Obviously, our agriculture system needs to change," says Stabinsky. "It's not sustainable in any way, shape or form." She favours "ecological farming", an approach that bans pesticides and stresses biodiversity and a healthy soil. "That for me is sustainability. How are we going to feed people in a hundred years? If we treat our soil like dirt we wouldn't be able to." In a climate change world Stabinsky says ecological farming will better withstand floods and droughts. "Healthy soil will sequester carbon. Without healthy soil there is no sustainable agriculture."
Monsanto stresses the biotech fix. The company plans to spend US$1.3 billion to bring what it says will be drought-resistant, genetically modified maize seed to five African nations by 2017 in a venture with the Gates Foundation and the Howard Buffett Foundation.
"We've got to drive yield up on a per capita basis," says Kevin Eblen, Monsanto's vice-president for Sustainable Yield Commitment. "That's the most efficient use of our resources, without bringing more land into production."
He says GM seeds will save water, increase production and help over five million small farmers by 2020. Detractors point to biotech's dismal record in India, where thousands of peasant farmers who used GM seeds - which cost more than conventional seeds - have killed themselves when crops failed, leaving them deep in debt and land impoverished.
A New Zealander, Peter Proctor, was among those who dealt with that crisis, in his case by teaching many Indians how to rebuild exhausted soils using Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic composting methods.
Eblen points to the Keystone Group, a think tank of 30 food companies, universities and green groups like the World Wildlife Fund, and "its commitment to sustainable yield".
But "it's Monsanto's front group," says Michele Simon, author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. Big Food "just flips" negative attacks through ad campaigns based on greenwash - claiming non-existent environmental virtues - and lobbies to write or weaken regulations, she says..
And while Monsanto and other GM proponents argue that biotech will boost food production, the Union of Concerned Scientists says GM crops have largely failed to deliver.
Monsanto's Africa push mirrors efforts by China, India and other nations to lease or buy African land to grow food or raise biofuel crops. This may not be a sustainable business model if their hosts snatch land back in a food crisis.
Those hoping for change in US food policies took heart at some of Obama's appointments, including Kathleen Merrigan, the Deputy Agriculture Secretary, who helped write the US organic certification standard, and her chief of staff Douglas O'Brien. Both were on a short list circulated by Free Democracy Now, a blog maintained by Iowa farm activist David Murphy, who says 95,000 people signed up to campaign for sustainability.
Rebels may have a foot in the door at the USDA, but Big Food retains enormous clout. In 2008 agribusiness got US$7.5 billion in subsidies. Organic farming got US$15 million.
"It's wishful thinking that agribusiness will change on their own," says Simon. Big Food's business model precludes that, beyond niche products to lure, say, green customers, such as Wal-Mart's organics. "As long as the other guy isn't changing, why should they? It's all a matter of competition and making sure costs are low to maximise profits. Sustainable practices do not fit that model. It's not enough to have Michael Pollan write a few nice books."
When Team Obama, seeking money for child health, tried to cut agribusiness subsidies earlier this year, it was rebuffed by Big Food supporters. "This proposal is ill-timed, ill-conceived, and completely out of touch with the realities of agriculture production," snapped the ranking minority member on the House Agriculture Committee.
Meanwhile, the Global Food Security Act, waved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March, seeks to promote GM crops as a condition of US aid overseas.
This has a troubling parallel with the Bush-era Aids funding that bundled money with messages such as abstinence. "It would force GM on to African countries that are struggling to keep traditional farming alive," says Baden-Meyer. "This is just so cynical. It's horrible."
Critics like Baden-Mayer depict Monsanto, which has bought many independent seed companies, as bent on removing genetic information from public hands so it can sell its patented seeds. "That's why we're consuming most of our calories in high-fructose corn syrup. It's an invidious business model. They're trying to destroy the genetic material we need to survive on this planet."
Foreign Policy in Focus, a US think tank, describes the Global Food Security Act as "a co-ordinated roll-out of the 'new Green Revolution', a project that includes the Gates Foundation's multi-billion-dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa." Monsanto may preach sustainability, say critics, but how sustainable is reliance on GM seeds?
Yet in the tussle between Big Food and its grassroots opponents, the future of agriculture - and the pressure to feed an estimated 9.3 billion mouths by 2050 - may be decided by increasing concerns about global warming.
"Climate change is the lurking monster," says Murphy. "We don't know how bad the impacts might be. It will have a bottom line impact for farmers all around the world. It's already had a negative impact on crop yields in the US."
And while Monsanto may engineer plants that need less water, the organic camp says this will not resolve soil deterioration from industrial farming. "The problem when you dump a lot of chemicals on soils, it that it eventually decreases the soil's ability to hold water," says Murphy. "It's much drier than no-till or organic soil."
As the US prepares for December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, agribusiness will probably be identified - by activists at any rate - as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. A 2006 UN report said cattle farming worldwide was a major cause of land and soil degradation and emitted more greenhouse gases than transportation. One way of reducing gases is to shift from grain feedlots, common in the US, to mixed grass pasture.
In a climate change world, food, and the sustainability of production systems, are likely to come into sharp relief. Nations are unlikely to leave this challenge to the market.
"We are going to undergo a transformation in agriculture whether we like it or not," warns Exo. "One fundamental question is whether farmers will have change forced upon them, or whether they will make changes themselves."
Out of New Zealand.
Food Fight: the latest battle in the US food wars
4:00AM Saturday Jun 27, 2009
By Peter Huck
Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden got agribusiness worried. Photo / AP
Michelle Obama's White House vegetable garden got agribusiness worried. Photo / AP
The latest skirmish in the United States food wars erupted last month, when Washington State University announced it had dumped a common reading programme in which first-year students would read The Omnivore's Dilemma, Michael Pollan's scathing critique of agribusiness.
Officials, who had bought 4000 copies of Pollan's book, a bible for the organic and locally grown food movements, cited budget cuts. The blogosphere erupted, with critics talking darkly of political censorship by agribusiness. When Bill Marler, a local lawyer who has litigated against agribusiness, offered to pay Pollan's fee to speak at the university, it backed down.
But if the grassroots are on fire - Pollan wants President Barack Obama to reform the "entire food system" - then Big Food shows no signs of surrendering. Last year biotech giant Monsanto, which markets genetically modified (GM) seeds and the herbicide Roundup, began an advertising campaign that stressed its sustainable credentials. "How can we squeeze more food from a raindrop?" one ad asked, suggesting the solution to hunger and water scarcity was genetically modified food.
For a war is raging over what we eat, where it comes from, who benefits, and the cascading environmental impacts caused by global food chains. Its footsoldiers are grassroots activists, writers and agribusiness marketers.
It is a war for the hearts and minds of consumers and policymakers, with food a key factor at the connection between climate change, health care, energy use, water scarcity, collapsing ecosystems and hunger.
It is also a struggle over the identity of food. Is it what you buy at the supermarket - Pollan's advice is to never buy food that you've seen advertised - or what you can buy at a farmers' market or grow in your backyard?
In this analysis it's a battle between the grassroots and the corporate food business, with the latter the biggest trencherman at the table. And critics claim that agribusiness is indulging in "greenwash", by dressing up its products with green language, without regard for any negative impacts on the environment
A key word in this debate is "sustainability". It sounds laudable enough. But one man's sustainability, when it comes to this contentious food fight, is another's poison.
At heart it is a clash of two irreconcilable farming systems: one seeks sustainability via harmony with nature; the other seeks to impose a technological fix.
Agribusiness has used sustainability to push those technical fixes that it says are critical to enhancing food production in the 21st century.
Critics, who have growing consumer support, believe sustainable farming necessitates root and branch reform.
n this context words like "sustainable", "natural", and "local" - emblazoned on supermarket products - are indicators of the power struggle over what we eat.
The fight is exacerbated by fears for food security - how can harvests be guaranteed in the face of climate change?; for safety - the H1N1 swine flu pandemic is the latest scare; and by public health concerns, especially links between Western diets and a growing epidemic of diabetes and obesity.
Rebel hopes intensified with Obama's election and expectations that he will tackle health care, energy use and climate change - all issues that spill into the food arena.
Even innocuous events trigger seismic activity between opposing views on agriculture. When Michelle Obama decided to plant an organic vegetable garden at the White House, to emphasise her belief that Americans should eat fresh, unprocessed and locally grown food, rebels were thrilled but agribusiness sensed danger. In a cackhanded PR move, the Mid American Croplife Association, which represents pesticide companies, wrote a letter reminding the First Lady of the role "conventional agriculture plays in the US". Use chemicals, Michelle.
The White House garden quickly assumed iconic status for opponents of agribusiness - the National Gardening Association says seven million more Americans will grow veges and fruit at home this year, up 19 per cent from last year - and was embraced as a harbinger of change by reformers.
And as turbulence rocks the car, energy and financial industries, agribusiness has noted the success of organic foods, which, while they account for only 3.5 per cent of total US sales, rose 16 per cent between 2007 and last year to reach US$22.9 billion ($36.5 billion). The underlying trend is clear: pegging your product as "sustainable" or "local" can attract the green dollar.
Thus, eco-conscious shoppers trolling US supermarket aisles may have been surprised to learn that Frito-Lay potato chips were made locally, a clear bid to attract souls who shop for US grown food. But Frito-Lay's claim was disingenuous; all food is "local" in some sense. Or, as Pollan quipped, "it doesn't come from Mars".
Then there's stealth marketing, when companies that sell organics start non-organic lines with similar packaging. "Our suspicion is that they are trying to ride on the assumption, that consumers have, that the products are organic," says Alexis Baden-Mayer, political director of the Organic Consumers Association.
Or products can mimic a proven product. Witness the brouhaha that ensued when an English producer charged £55 ($142) for small pots of Cornish "manuka" honey - which New Zealand producers dismissed as unlikely to bear much resemblance to genuine manuka honey.
One thing that helps the food marketers - who Pollan says burn through a US$32 billion budget - is that "sustainable" has no official weight with the US Department of Agriculture, unlike the word "organic".
"No one knows what 'sustainable' means. It's not defined," says Marion Nestle, the author of Food Politics and a nutrition professor at New York University. "It's the only part of the food industry that's growing [although the recession has slowed growth]. The food industry is in terrible trouble."
Nestle says there is "enormous distrust" of the US food industry, especially as regards food safety. "In this country there's nothing to reassure people that somebody's minding the store in a serious way."
The US Centres for Disease Control estimates that the bulk of the US$1.5 trillion the US spends on preventable diseases - out of a US$2 trillion annual healthcare budget - involves food-related issues.
"It's too soon to tell what will happen," says Nestle. "But the food industry has caught on to the fact that the only way they can sell food is by having it appear nutritious, good for the environment, or good for farm animals."
But like the battered US car industry, agribusiness may have hit the wall with an unsustainable business model.
"We have twice as much food available in the US as is required by the population," says Nestle.
"On top of that they have to grow every 90 days - difficult when there's a surplus - for Wall Street expects publicly traded companies to post a quarterly profit."
This is a big problem if your product is junk food. "You can't convert it to a health food. You can only make it look like a health food."
All of the companies in the anti-sustainability business want to make it seem as if they are the best and brightest," says Doreen Stabinsky, Greenpeace USA's agriculture campaigner.
"It's an old strategy by industry, to take over the words of alternatives or water them down."
Thus, while food activists blast Big Food for waste and environmental degradation, Monsanto, Syngenta, Nestle and other corporate giants all tout the "S" word on websites.
"I recommend to you the 'Six Sins of Greenwashing'," says Scott Exo, executive director of the Food Alliance, referring to a website hosted by Terra Choice. "It enumerates the common missteps made by marketers. It's a good guide for evaluating claims made by food products."
And while some food companies are "sincere" in their efforts to be more sustainable - Exo cites Starbucks, which releases a carbon footprint report and uses recycled materials in cardboard cups - others, through greed or naivety or both, "put forth inflated [green] claims".
"I haven't seen the word 'sustainable' on food labels here," says Annabel McAleer, editor of Auckland-based Good magazine, billed as "New Zealand's Guide to Sustainable Living".
"It's one of those words that can be co-opted quite easily, because it doesn't have a globally recognised meaning [in the context of food]. 'Natural' is another one of those words. You do see 'natural' a lot here. I think food manufacturers have been using these words for years to claim health benefits. 'Lite' is a perfect example."
Like the US and Europe, New Zealand is seeing signs of a shift in consumer consciousness, as seen in the popularity of farmers' markets, official definitions of terms like "organic", "fair trade" and "carbon neutral", backyard food gardens, and vege box deliveries.
"It's part of a bigger trend where people want to get in touch with where their food comes from," says McAleer.
Any attempt to officially define "sustainable", she says, would have to take into account such elements as packaging, transport and ingredients, then weigh up a product's carbon footprint.
Since the food miles issue erupted, debate has become more nuanced, focusing on the global food system. "A lot of UK supermarkets have sustainability plans around their seafood sourcing," says McAleer. "They're real leaders. They don't buy orange roughy any more. They're trying to include carbon footprint data for products." But while New Zealand consumers are becoming aware, local supermarkets are resistant to change.
So, given the confusion, what is sustainable? Dan McGovern, publisher of US-based Sustainable Food News, says you need "a third-party certification to back up your claim". He suggests the certification handed out to sustainable fisheries by the London-based Marine Stewardship Council as one example of a working scheme.
Given the bitter argument between small producers and food giants to agree on a US organic certification, no one is holding their breath for agreement on a standard for sustainability.
The only working model, by no means universal, is offered by the Food Alliance. It offers a holistic vision that includes labour conditions, impacts on wildlife, soil and water conservation, animal welfare and pest control. It is hard to imagine US agribusiness warming to that menu.
A big challenge is defining exactly what parameters to use. Should the model be narrowly focused or adopt a wider vision, where farming is indivisible from nature?
For the past three decades Big Food has emphasised nutrients, rather than fresh food, as part of the American diet. Processed foods flooded supermarket shelves. The grassroots revolt has placed the emphasis back on food. As Pollan says in his latest book, In Defence of Food: "Eat Food. Not too much. Mostly Plants." Taken literally, this could be a death knell for the industrial food system.
"Obviously, our agriculture system needs to change," says Stabinsky. "It's not sustainable in any way, shape or form." She favours "ecological farming", an approach that bans pesticides and stresses biodiversity and a healthy soil. "That for me is sustainability. How are we going to feed people in a hundred years? If we treat our soil like dirt we wouldn't be able to." In a climate change world Stabinsky says ecological farming will better withstand floods and droughts. "Healthy soil will sequester carbon. Without healthy soil there is no sustainable agriculture."
Monsanto stresses the biotech fix. The company plans to spend US$1.3 billion to bring what it says will be drought-resistant, genetically modified maize seed to five African nations by 2017 in a venture with the Gates Foundation and the Howard Buffett Foundation.
"We've got to drive yield up on a per capita basis," says Kevin Eblen, Monsanto's vice-president for Sustainable Yield Commitment. "That's the most efficient use of our resources, without bringing more land into production."
He says GM seeds will save water, increase production and help over five million small farmers by 2020. Detractors point to biotech's dismal record in India, where thousands of peasant farmers who used GM seeds - which cost more than conventional seeds - have killed themselves when crops failed, leaving them deep in debt and land impoverished.
A New Zealander, Peter Proctor, was among those who dealt with that crisis, in his case by teaching many Indians how to rebuild exhausted soils using Rudolf Steiner's biodynamic composting methods.
Eblen points to the Keystone Group, a think tank of 30 food companies, universities and green groups like the World Wildlife Fund, and "its commitment to sustainable yield".
But "it's Monsanto's front group," says Michele Simon, author of Appetite for Profit: How the Food Industry Undermines Our Health and How to Fight Back. Big Food "just flips" negative attacks through ad campaigns based on greenwash - claiming non-existent environmental virtues - and lobbies to write or weaken regulations, she says..
And while Monsanto and other GM proponents argue that biotech will boost food production, the Union of Concerned Scientists says GM crops have largely failed to deliver.
Monsanto's Africa push mirrors efforts by China, India and other nations to lease or buy African land to grow food or raise biofuel crops. This may not be a sustainable business model if their hosts snatch land back in a food crisis.
Those hoping for change in US food policies took heart at some of Obama's appointments, including Kathleen Merrigan, the Deputy Agriculture Secretary, who helped write the US organic certification standard, and her chief of staff Douglas O'Brien. Both were on a short list circulated by Free Democracy Now, a blog maintained by Iowa farm activist David Murphy, who says 95,000 people signed up to campaign for sustainability.
Rebels may have a foot in the door at the USDA, but Big Food retains enormous clout. In 2008 agribusiness got US$7.5 billion in subsidies. Organic farming got US$15 million.
"It's wishful thinking that agribusiness will change on their own," says Simon. Big Food's business model precludes that, beyond niche products to lure, say, green customers, such as Wal-Mart's organics. "As long as the other guy isn't changing, why should they? It's all a matter of competition and making sure costs are low to maximise profits. Sustainable practices do not fit that model. It's not enough to have Michael Pollan write a few nice books."
When Team Obama, seeking money for child health, tried to cut agribusiness subsidies earlier this year, it was rebuffed by Big Food supporters. "This proposal is ill-timed, ill-conceived, and completely out of touch with the realities of agriculture production," snapped the ranking minority member on the House Agriculture Committee.
Meanwhile, the Global Food Security Act, waved through the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in March, seeks to promote GM crops as a condition of US aid overseas.
This has a troubling parallel with the Bush-era Aids funding that bundled money with messages such as abstinence. "It would force GM on to African countries that are struggling to keep traditional farming alive," says Baden-Meyer. "This is just so cynical. It's horrible."
Critics like Baden-Mayer depict Monsanto, which has bought many independent seed companies, as bent on removing genetic information from public hands so it can sell its patented seeds. "That's why we're consuming most of our calories in high-fructose corn syrup. It's an invidious business model. They're trying to destroy the genetic material we need to survive on this planet."
Foreign Policy in Focus, a US think tank, describes the Global Food Security Act as "a co-ordinated roll-out of the 'new Green Revolution', a project that includes the Gates Foundation's multi-billion-dollar Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa." Monsanto may preach sustainability, say critics, but how sustainable is reliance on GM seeds?
Yet in the tussle between Big Food and its grassroots opponents, the future of agriculture - and the pressure to feed an estimated 9.3 billion mouths by 2050 - may be decided by increasing concerns about global warming.
"Climate change is the lurking monster," says Murphy. "We don't know how bad the impacts might be. It will have a bottom line impact for farmers all around the world. It's already had a negative impact on crop yields in the US."
And while Monsanto may engineer plants that need less water, the organic camp says this will not resolve soil deterioration from industrial farming. "The problem when you dump a lot of chemicals on soils, it that it eventually decreases the soil's ability to hold water," says Murphy. "It's much drier than no-till or organic soil."
As the US prepares for December's Copenhagen conference on climate change, agribusiness will probably be identified - by activists at any rate - as a major source of greenhouse gas emissions. A 2006 UN report said cattle farming worldwide was a major cause of land and soil degradation and emitted more greenhouse gases than transportation. One way of reducing gases is to shift from grain feedlots, common in the US, to mixed grass pasture.
In a climate change world, food, and the sustainability of production systems, are likely to come into sharp relief. Nations are unlikely to leave this challenge to the market.
"We are going to undergo a transformation in agriculture whether we like it or not," warns Exo. "One fundamental question is whether farmers will have change forced upon them, or whether they will make changes themselves."
And in Delhi, there are activists that are on much the same front.
New Delhi, June 28: The CIC has directed the Department of Biotechnology to provide crucial data pertaining to genetically modified agricultural products to an environmentalist working with voluntary group Greenpeace.
In a decision by its full bench, the Commission has refuted the arguments put forward by "third party" MAHYCO, a firm which markets Bt Cotton and other genetically modified seeds, that disclosure of data pertaining of such agriculture products will affect their business interests.
The company claimed non-disclosure of data citing section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act which exempts information from disclosure if it includes commercial confidence, trade secrets and intellectual property. But it has a rider that such details can be disclosed in larger public interest.
The Commission held, "toxicity and allergenicity of any product to be put on large-scale trial is a matter of overriding public interest."
Activist Divya Raghunandan, in her RTI application, had sought list of field trials of genetically engineered brinjal, okra, mustard and rice approved by review committee of genetic manipulation. She also sought toxicity, allergenicity data about the products and minutes of the committee meeting.
The department had allowed disclosure of toxicity and allergenicity data but Mahyco filed an appeal with the CIC to stop the disclosure arguing that this would affect its business interests.
Bureau Report
New Delhi, June 28: The CIC has directed the Department of Biotechnology to provide crucial data pertaining to genetically modified agricultural products to an environmentalist working with voluntary group Greenpeace.
In a decision by its full bench, the Commission has refuted the arguments put forward by "third party" MAHYCO, a firm which markets Bt Cotton and other genetically modified seeds, that disclosure of data pertaining of such agriculture products will affect their business interests.
The company claimed non-disclosure of data citing section 8(1)(d) of the RTI Act which exempts information from disclosure if it includes commercial confidence, trade secrets and intellectual property. But it has a rider that such details can be disclosed in larger public interest.
The Commission held, "toxicity and allergenicity of any product to be put on large-scale trial is a matter of overriding public interest."
Activist Divya Raghunandan, in her RTI application, had sought list of field trials of genetically engineered brinjal, okra, mustard and rice approved by review committee of genetic manipulation. She also sought toxicity, allergenicity data about the products and minutes of the committee meeting.
The department had allowed disclosure of toxicity and allergenicity data but Mahyco filed an appeal with the CIC to stop the disclosure arguing that this would affect its business interests.
Bureau Report
More from Oz on this issue: lucky, lucky, lucky Australians! :)
GM activist: Australians are eating unsafe food
Annolies Truman
27 June 2009
PERTH — A Canadian food safety expert, Dr Shiv Chopra, has claimed the US and Canadian governments are the most corrupt when it comes to unsafe food practices. Australia is not far behind.
More than 100 people gathered at Lotteries House in West Perth on June 20 to hear Chopra promote his new book, Corrupt to the Core.
The book examines dangerous food practices and explores the role multinationals play in putting pressure on governments to accept dangerous products.
It discusses the issues of genetically manipulated foods, pesticides and herbicides, hormones and antibiotics, and rendered dead animal wastes in food production systems.
Chopra played a critical role in banning a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone when he worked for the department of health in Canada.
The hormone is now banned in Australia and other countries. However, he and two colleagues have since been dismissed while trying to prevent the release of other dangerous products.
He recommended Australia follow the European model of food safety.
“Europe has banned hormones, antibiotics and rendered dead animal wastes from animal food production and grows very few GM crops”, he said. “It also has transparent GM labelling.”
GM activist: Australians are eating unsafe food
Annolies Truman
27 June 2009
PERTH — A Canadian food safety expert, Dr Shiv Chopra, has claimed the US and Canadian governments are the most corrupt when it comes to unsafe food practices. Australia is not far behind.
More than 100 people gathered at Lotteries House in West Perth on June 20 to hear Chopra promote his new book, Corrupt to the Core.
The book examines dangerous food practices and explores the role multinationals play in putting pressure on governments to accept dangerous products.
It discusses the issues of genetically manipulated foods, pesticides and herbicides, hormones and antibiotics, and rendered dead animal wastes in food production systems.
Chopra played a critical role in banning a genetically engineered bovine growth hormone when he worked for the department of health in Canada.
The hormone is now banned in Australia and other countries. However, he and two colleagues have since been dismissed while trying to prevent the release of other dangerous products.
He recommended Australia follow the European model of food safety.
“Europe has banned hormones, antibiotics and rendered dead animal wastes from animal food production and grows very few GM crops”, he said. “It also has transparent GM labelling.”
There is mandatory labeling of GE proteins in Australia, but they would like to go one better. Bravura.
Vivienne Reiner
June 24, 2009
I am an avid reader of food labels so must admit I'm more obsessed than most about the health effects of what I eat.
But I have only recently discovered that a majority of processed food on supermarket shelves could contain genetically modified organisms. Yet you are unlikely to learn this by reading the label.
----------------------------
POLL: Do you trust GE foods?
----------------------------
A Newspoll last year found a majority of Australians are less likely to buy food if they know it contains GE ingredients and nine in ten are in favour of labelling of GE food.
In the months before Kevin Rudd gained government, Federal Labor promised not to approve the release of GE crops unless they could be proven safe "beyond reasonable doubt". Labor also supported the "comprehensive labelling of genetically modified food" but now any firm decision has been relegated to the ministerial council's review, which is expected to last for a year.
Meanwhile, Australia's leading food brands, including Goodman Fielder (Meadow Lea, White Wings, Helga's), Kellogg's, Coles house brands and ALDI exclusive range, have been responding to consumer sentiment by pledging to avoid GE ingredients. Nutritionist Rosemary Stanton has weighed in, as have chefs Neil Perry, Bill Granger, Kylie Kwong and Margaret Fulton, who are among more than 180 other foodies committed to support full labelling of GE food.
Unlike in the EU, here only food where GE proteins can be detected must be labelled. This means that foods containing highly refined GE ingredients need not mention this on the label and nor do products from animals fed GE feed.
But why all the fuss over GE food in particular? One issue is the lack of peer-reviewed, independent safety testing. Where tests have been done, serious concerns have been raised in the areas of increasing toxins in our bodies as well as allergens and even the potential for altered hormones. As well, there are worrying health risks regarding the associated increased pesticides in GE foods and the use of antibiotic-resistant genes. Epidemiologist and author Judy Carman says without proper testing and labelling, it is almost impossible to track any resultant health problems.
Once consumers know about GE food, there may well be less demand for Australian farmers to continue growing GE canola. In Canada, the export market for canola to Europe collapsed after the introduction of GE canola. Markets like Europe and Japan are against GE, as are most Australians who know about it.
In any case, anecdotal evidence suggests farmers here have not been rushing to embrace GE, with many openly resistant, despite promises that genetically engineered crops will reap greater profits.
When considering the enticing arguments in favour of GE, it is also telling to look at the history of Monsanto, which has brought GE canola crops to Australia. Monsanto, whose other business interests focus on chemical production, was behind Agent Orange. Do we really want to entrust the future of our food to a seed monopoly that genetically engineers its seeds to withstand its associated herbicides and is known for its huge PR budgets and strategically placed "research” funding? Truth or profit – I know which one I'd go with.
Vivienne Reiner is a freelance journalist who works a casual communications officer for Greenpeace's GE campaign.
Vivienne Reiner
June 24, 2009
I am an avid reader of food labels so must admit I'm more obsessed than most about the health effects of what I eat.
But I have only recently discovered that a majority of processed food on supermarket shelves could contain genetically modified organisms. Yet you are unlikely to learn this by reading the label.
----------------------------
POLL: Do you trust GE foods?
----------------------------
A Newspoll last year found a majority of Australians are less likely to buy food if they know it contains GE ingredients and nine in ten are in favour of labelling of GE food.
In the months before Kevin Rudd gained government, Federal Labor promised not to approve the release of GE crops unless they could be proven safe "beyond reasonable doubt". Labor also supported the "comprehensive labelling of genetically modified food" but now any firm decision has been relegated to the ministerial council's review, which is expected to last for a year.
Meanwhile, Australia's leading food brands, including Goodman Fielder (Meadow Lea, White Wings, Helga's), Kellogg's, Coles house brands and ALDI exclusive range, have been responding to consumer sentiment by pledging to avoid GE ingredients. Nutritionist Rosemary Stanton has weighed in, as have chefs Neil Perry, Bill Granger, Kylie Kwong and Margaret Fulton, who are among more than 180 other foodies committed to support full labelling of GE food.
Unlike in the EU, here only food where GE proteins can be detected must be labelled. This means that foods containing highly refined GE ingredients need not mention this on the label and nor do products from animals fed GE feed.
But why all the fuss over GE food in particular? One issue is the lack of peer-reviewed, independent safety testing. Where tests have been done, serious concerns have been raised in the areas of increasing toxins in our bodies as well as allergens and even the potential for altered hormones. As well, there are worrying health risks regarding the associated increased pesticides in GE foods and the use of antibiotic-resistant genes. Epidemiologist and author Judy Carman says without proper testing and labelling, it is almost impossible to track any resultant health problems.
Once consumers know about GE food, there may well be less demand for Australian farmers to continue growing GE canola. In Canada, the export market for canola to Europe collapsed after the introduction of GE canola. Markets like Europe and Japan are against GE, as are most Australians who know about it.
In any case, anecdotal evidence suggests farmers here have not been rushing to embrace GE, with many openly resistant, despite promises that genetically engineered crops will reap greater profits.
When considering the enticing arguments in favour of GE, it is also telling to look at the history of Monsanto, which has brought GE canola crops to Australia. Monsanto, whose other business interests focus on chemical production, was behind Agent Orange. Do we really want to entrust the future of our food to a seed monopoly that genetically engineers its seeds to withstand its associated herbicides and is known for its huge PR budgets and strategically placed "research” funding? Truth or profit – I know which one I'd go with.
Vivienne Reiner is a freelance journalist who works a casual communications officer for Greenpeace's GE campaign.
The Aussies already label genetically modified food; some want it off the shelves altogether!
Out today.
By Vikki Campion
June 26, 2009 12:00am
FRANKENSTEIN food could be outlawed across the state if a grass-roots campaign to push it out of town gains momentum.
One of the first councils to consider pulling it from shelves is about to vote on a damning report that calls for genetically modified (GM) crops to be scrapped in the area and for stringent new labelling laws on packaging.
Scientists maintain genetically modified foods are safe. But the Looking After People GM Food Production report, which is before Blue Mountains City Council, recommends banning crops and lobbying the Federal Government to bring in mandatory labelling. If the report is adopted formally, the Blue Mountains would become a GM-free zone.
Under the changes, the council's own kiosks would be cleared of GM foods which, according to True Food Australia, would mean no more Coca-Cola, Ritz, Kraft, Masterfood, Trident, Uncle Toby's or Sara Lee brands.
"This report recommends that the council take a precautionary approach towards GM food supply in the council's food services until the long-term benefits and risks associated with it are better understood by amending food service contracts to specify that the council favours GM-free food supply," it says.
Foodies are hailing the report as a catalyst for national change over where GM crops are grown and labelling on GM-containing products. Only GM soy, corn, canola and cotton products are sold commercially - processors are required by Food Standards Australia to document if their foods are GM but not to label it on the packet, the report adds.
Esther Barrale, who runs a grocery at Glenbrook at the foot of the Blue Mountains with husband Ross, said customers sought fresh food over GM so they sourced from local growers.
Glenbrook resident Natasha Clark, mum of Harrison, 3, said she steered away from processed foods.
"We never eat from boxes or packets and make all our sauces from scratch," she said.
Blue Mountains Food Co-op spokesman Peter Brownlee said the ground-breaking report could trigger "urban-affairs type activism".
"People are saying 'Write to the council and congratulate them for writing the report and encourage them to approve it'," he said.
"It's a watershed for change. It is a very reasonable step for proper labelling of what is in your food. To say we don't want GM production in the Blue Mountains may be doable."
CSIRO plant industry division deputy chief and leading researcher Dr TJ Higgins said farmers had been breeding and modifying crops for hundreds of years. He said there was no need to be scared of GM food, adding it was strictly supervised.
"Genetic modification is a recent technique," he said. "That's why in some cases people can be sceptical."
Out today.
By Vikki Campion
June 26, 2009 12:00am
FRANKENSTEIN food could be outlawed across the state if a grass-roots campaign to push it out of town gains momentum.
One of the first councils to consider pulling it from shelves is about to vote on a damning report that calls for genetically modified (GM) crops to be scrapped in the area and for stringent new labelling laws on packaging.
Scientists maintain genetically modified foods are safe. But the Looking After People GM Food Production report, which is before Blue Mountains City Council, recommends banning crops and lobbying the Federal Government to bring in mandatory labelling. If the report is adopted formally, the Blue Mountains would become a GM-free zone.
Under the changes, the council's own kiosks would be cleared of GM foods which, according to True Food Australia, would mean no more Coca-Cola, Ritz, Kraft, Masterfood, Trident, Uncle Toby's or Sara Lee brands.
"This report recommends that the council take a precautionary approach towards GM food supply in the council's food services until the long-term benefits and risks associated with it are better understood by amending food service contracts to specify that the council favours GM-free food supply," it says.
Foodies are hailing the report as a catalyst for national change over where GM crops are grown and labelling on GM-containing products. Only GM soy, corn, canola and cotton products are sold commercially - processors are required by Food Standards Australia to document if their foods are GM but not to label it on the packet, the report adds.
Esther Barrale, who runs a grocery at Glenbrook at the foot of the Blue Mountains with husband Ross, said customers sought fresh food over GM so they sourced from local growers.
Glenbrook resident Natasha Clark, mum of Harrison, 3, said she steered away from processed foods.
"We never eat from boxes or packets and make all our sauces from scratch," she said.
Blue Mountains Food Co-op spokesman Peter Brownlee said the ground-breaking report could trigger "urban-affairs type activism".
"People are saying 'Write to the council and congratulate them for writing the report and encourage them to approve it'," he said.
"It's a watershed for change. It is a very reasonable step for proper labelling of what is in your food. To say we don't want GM production in the Blue Mountains may be doable."
CSIRO plant industry division deputy chief and leading researcher Dr TJ Higgins said farmers had been breeding and modifying crops for hundreds of years. He said there was no need to be scared of GM food, adding it was strictly supervised.
"Genetic modification is a recent technique," he said. "That's why in some cases people can be sceptical."
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Congress of the Humanities - Afghanistan and Canada: Is There an Alternative to the War?
By Kim Elliott | June 28, 2009
At the 2009 Congress of the Humanities, Carleton University's International Policy Forum presented a panel discussion to promote the launch of "Afghanistan and Canada: Is there an Alternative to the War?".
Speakers:
Lucia Kowaluk - co-editor of the book, grassroots community organizer and former coordinator of Montreal's Urban Ecology Centre
Steve Staples - co-editor of the book, Director of the Rideau Institute, defence and public-policy researcher
Stephen Cornish - contributor to the book, Policy & Advocacy Advisor for CARE Canada
Introduction by Loren Hunter - Director of the International Policy Forum, Carleton University
From Black Rose Books:
For over six years, thousands upon thousands of troops have been in Afghanistan fighting a seemingly endless war. Billions of dollars of foreign aid have been poured into the country. Thousands of military and civilian causalities are the tragic human cost. International observers report that corruption is rampant, and the opium trade flourishes. A new Taliban insurgency is active.
Washington has lined-up its junior partners to hold down Afghanistan, especially since 9/11 while the Americans devote their main energies to keeping Iraq from falling apart.
In Canada, meanwhile, an unprecedented public concern has emerged, shown with every opinion poll which shows a majority of Canadians want to end Canada's currently defined military involvement in Afghanistan. In Quebec, the public demand for immediate withdrawal is highest and very visible.
Afghanistan and Canada brings together some of the most articulate and expert persons on this hot public issue. The contents lucidly review the facts about what is going on in this war-torn country. The changes brought about in both Canadian foreign policy and defense policy by the current Conservative government are critically examined. The impact of a massively increased military budget of billions of dollars and the corporate contracts changing Canada's domestic and international priorities are analyzed. The massively advertised military recruitment campaign and the changed role of the Canadian armed forces are shown to have a distorting effect on society. These and related issues are brought to light in this cogently edited anthology.
Contributors to this major book include these distinguished persons: Michael Neuman, Murray Dobbin, D'Abord Solidaires, John W.Warnock, Tariq Ali, Echec a la Guerre, Stephen Cornish, Linda McQuaig, Ira Basen, Ligue des droits et libertes, Richard Preston, Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims, Asad Ismi, Rose Marie Whalley, John Foster, A.Walter Dorn, Pierre Beaudet, Claude Castonguay, Richard Preston, Peggy Mason, Lucia Kowaluk and Steven Staples.
Artist: Kim Elliott
Title: Afghanistan and Canada: Is There an Alternative to the War?
Album: Needs No Introduction
Genre: Panel Discussion
Year: 2009
Length: 35:31 minutes (32.55 MB)
Format: Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
You can listen to this here:
http://www.rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/needs-no-introduction/2009/06/congress-humanities-afghanistan-and-canada-there-altern
By Kim Elliott | June 28, 2009
At the 2009 Congress of the Humanities, Carleton University's International Policy Forum presented a panel discussion to promote the launch of "Afghanistan and Canada: Is there an Alternative to the War?".
Speakers:
Lucia Kowaluk - co-editor of the book, grassroots community organizer and former coordinator of Montreal's Urban Ecology Centre
Steve Staples - co-editor of the book, Director of the Rideau Institute, defence and public-policy researcher
Stephen Cornish - contributor to the book, Policy & Advocacy Advisor for CARE Canada
Introduction by Loren Hunter - Director of the International Policy Forum, Carleton University
From Black Rose Books:
For over six years, thousands upon thousands of troops have been in Afghanistan fighting a seemingly endless war. Billions of dollars of foreign aid have been poured into the country. Thousands of military and civilian causalities are the tragic human cost. International observers report that corruption is rampant, and the opium trade flourishes. A new Taliban insurgency is active.
Washington has lined-up its junior partners to hold down Afghanistan, especially since 9/11 while the Americans devote their main energies to keeping Iraq from falling apart.
In Canada, meanwhile, an unprecedented public concern has emerged, shown with every opinion poll which shows a majority of Canadians want to end Canada's currently defined military involvement in Afghanistan. In Quebec, the public demand for immediate withdrawal is highest and very visible.
Afghanistan and Canada brings together some of the most articulate and expert persons on this hot public issue. The contents lucidly review the facts about what is going on in this war-torn country. The changes brought about in both Canadian foreign policy and defense policy by the current Conservative government are critically examined. The impact of a massively increased military budget of billions of dollars and the corporate contracts changing Canada's domestic and international priorities are analyzed. The massively advertised military recruitment campaign and the changed role of the Canadian armed forces are shown to have a distorting effect on society. These and related issues are brought to light in this cogently edited anthology.
Contributors to this major book include these distinguished persons: Michael Neuman, Murray Dobbin, D'Abord Solidaires, John W.Warnock, Tariq Ali, Echec a la Guerre, Stephen Cornish, Linda McQuaig, Ira Basen, Ligue des droits et libertes, Richard Preston, Cheshmak Farhoumand-Sims, Asad Ismi, Rose Marie Whalley, John Foster, A.Walter Dorn, Pierre Beaudet, Claude Castonguay, Richard Preston, Peggy Mason, Lucia Kowaluk and Steven Staples.
Artist: Kim Elliott
Title: Afghanistan and Canada: Is There an Alternative to the War?
Album: Needs No Introduction
Genre: Panel Discussion
Year: 2009
Length: 35:31 minutes (32.55 MB)
Format: Mono 44kHz 128Kbps (CBR)
You can listen to this here:
http://www.rabble.ca/podcasts/shows/needs-no-introduction/2009/06/congress-humanities-afghanistan-and-canada-there-altern
Twelve Taliban killed in Pakistan
June 27, 2009
At least 12 militants have been killed and more than a dozen wounded in Pakistani military attacks on the suspected bases of feared Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, officials say.
"Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddha, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others," local tribal police official Syed Akbar Khan told AFP on Saturday.
Makeen and Laddah are the main South Waziristan strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for a number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Pakistan.
The tolls could not be verified independently as the areas are out of bounds to journalists because of the ongoing military operation and presence of Taliban militants.
In a separate incident militants early Saturday fired six rockets at a security camp and a paramilitary fort in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, a government official said.
The security forces in retaliation shelled the Taliban militants, killing two and injuring three others.
"Two Taliban were killed and three others injured when security forces fired artillery shells on militant hideouts," local government official Allah Bagh Khan told AFP.
South Waziristan is Mehsud's stronghold, and the US - which has been a vocal supporter of Islamabad's anti-Taliban push - alleges that al-Qaeda fighters are in the region plotting attacks on Western targets.
Security forces say they are wrapping up an eight-week campaign against Islamist militants in the northwest Swat valley and have opened up a second front against Taliban chief Mehsud and his network along the Afghan border.
© 2009 AFP
June 27, 2009
At least 12 militants have been killed and more than a dozen wounded in Pakistani military attacks on the suspected bases of feared Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, officials say.
"Two Pakistani fighter jets pounded Taliban militant hideouts in Makeen and Laddha, killing 10 Taliban and injuring 15 others," local tribal police official Syed Akbar Khan told AFP on Saturday.
Makeen and Laddah are the main South Waziristan strongholds of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief Baitullah Mehsud, who is blamed for a number of suicide attacks and bomb blasts in Pakistan.
The tolls could not be verified independently as the areas are out of bounds to journalists because of the ongoing military operation and presence of Taliban militants.
In a separate incident militants early Saturday fired six rockets at a security camp and a paramilitary fort in Wana, the main town of South Waziristan, a government official said.
The security forces in retaliation shelled the Taliban militants, killing two and injuring three others.
"Two Taliban were killed and three others injured when security forces fired artillery shells on militant hideouts," local government official Allah Bagh Khan told AFP.
South Waziristan is Mehsud's stronghold, and the US - which has been a vocal supporter of Islamabad's anti-Taliban push - alleges that al-Qaeda fighters are in the region plotting attacks on Western targets.
Security forces say they are wrapping up an eight-week campaign against Islamist militants in the northwest Swat valley and have opened up a second front against Taliban chief Mehsud and his network along the Afghan border.
© 2009 AFP
It has finally started.
This is from Spokane, Washington.
Letters / June 28, 2009
Torture should be punished
So, psychologists Mitchell and Jesson have been fired by the CIA. The designers of the Bush administration’s program of torture lived and worked right here in Spokane. Now, just like the Bush administration that hired them, they can just walk away unscathed after the diabolic evil they orchestrated.
I read recently that 58 percent of Americans think it is sometimes OK for our government to torture people. My god! What has this country become? Are we so easily manipulated by fear to believe the lies we are told to justify the most grotesque evil? It is against all of our laws.
The Bush administration key players who ordered torture and carried it out should be investigated, arrested, tried and sentenced as harshly as the law allows.
In this country, supposedly, no one is above the law. Not Bush, not Cheney, not Rice or Rumsfield. If we let this slide, it could easily happen again.
I strongly disagree with the current administration and Congress that we need to “move on.” The world will not forget, nor will it forgive, unless we clean our own house. The time is now. No more excuses.
Mary Weathers
Spokane
This is from Spokane, Washington.
Letters / June 28, 2009
Torture should be punished
So, psychologists Mitchell and Jesson have been fired by the CIA. The designers of the Bush administration’s program of torture lived and worked right here in Spokane. Now, just like the Bush administration that hired them, they can just walk away unscathed after the diabolic evil they orchestrated.
I read recently that 58 percent of Americans think it is sometimes OK for our government to torture people. My god! What has this country become? Are we so easily manipulated by fear to believe the lies we are told to justify the most grotesque evil? It is against all of our laws.
The Bush administration key players who ordered torture and carried it out should be investigated, arrested, tried and sentenced as harshly as the law allows.
In this country, supposedly, no one is above the law. Not Bush, not Cheney, not Rice or Rumsfield. If we let this slide, it could easily happen again.
I strongly disagree with the current administration and Congress that we need to “move on.” The world will not forget, nor will it forgive, unless we clean our own house. The time is now. No more excuses.
Mary Weathers
Spokane
I knew it; Italian ice cream IS taking over the world. There can be no better fixation.
ISTANBUL - The tough and chewy Kahramanmaraş style ice cream is probably the most popular frozen dessert in Turkey. Yet in Istanbul, Italian style gelato ice cream parlors are making a big splash this summer. Here is a list of a few to enjoy.
Cremeria Milano was established a few years ago at the end of İstiklal Avenue, near the Tünel and Asmalı Mescit areas. Many were pleasantly surprised and shocked at the similarities of its gelato to the original creamy, smooth kinds of Italy, going as far as calling it "the best ice cream outside of Italy." Although a bit pricey (3 Turkish Liras for a single scope) compared to other ice cream parlors in Beyoğlu, this Italian parlor instantly became a legend, attracting ice cream lovers from all localities. Fans around Istanbul could travel from Sariyer or even the Asian side for an authentic version of their gelato.
Cremeria Milano’s café seating area is a bit narrow, thus it might be better to get gelato to go and continue strolling İstiklal Avenue. The most popular flavors are bitter chocolate, fior di latte (kaymak), tiramisu and Baileys. Fruity flavors mix well with creamier chocolate and nut flavors, such as the Turkish raspberry, frambuaz, and other seasonal fruit essences.
Recently Cremeria Milano opened their first branch in Nişantaşı. Although this petite parlor on Maçka Street has no seating area, the businessmen, socialites and shoppers of the area seem to immensely enjoy this creamy and caloric Italian frozen dairy dessert.
Asmali Mescit Mahallesi Istiklal Caddesi No 164/A Beyoğlu, Tel: 0212 245 5064
Situated between Bahar Patisserie and Bodrum Manti near Arnavutköy’s Police Station is La Girondola, the new comer of Italian-style ice cream parlors right on the Bosphorus waterfront. Owner Aslı Eraltan specialized her training in ice cream at university in Italy. Thus, she hand makes the frozen desserts, cooking the milk and syrup and using only seasonal ingredients. During the summer months, one finds flavors such as fresh sour cherry, melon and strawberry in addition to classics such as chocolate, caramel and the Turkish version of plain ice cream, "kaymak," or clotted cream. Other original variations include mascarpone, chocolate brandy, mojito, créme brûlée, and during the wintertime pumpkin, fig, green apple and chestnut. In terms of making a selection, the fresh gelato choices are so tempting that one feels they have to return soon to sample the other variations. While La Girandola’s indoor and outdoor seating area has a pleasant view of the Bosphorus, it is recommended to savor this gelato on the lovely waterfront walk from Arnavutköy to Bebek.
La Girandola, Arnavutköy Caddesi 109, Arnavutköy. Tel: 0212 265 2629.
ISTANBUL - The tough and chewy Kahramanmaraş style ice cream is probably the most popular frozen dessert in Turkey. Yet in Istanbul, Italian style gelato ice cream parlors are making a big splash this summer. Here is a list of a few to enjoy.
Cremeria Milano was established a few years ago at the end of İstiklal Avenue, near the Tünel and Asmalı Mescit areas. Many were pleasantly surprised and shocked at the similarities of its gelato to the original creamy, smooth kinds of Italy, going as far as calling it "the best ice cream outside of Italy." Although a bit pricey (3 Turkish Liras for a single scope) compared to other ice cream parlors in Beyoğlu, this Italian parlor instantly became a legend, attracting ice cream lovers from all localities. Fans around Istanbul could travel from Sariyer or even the Asian side for an authentic version of their gelato.
Cremeria Milano’s café seating area is a bit narrow, thus it might be better to get gelato to go and continue strolling İstiklal Avenue. The most popular flavors are bitter chocolate, fior di latte (kaymak), tiramisu and Baileys. Fruity flavors mix well with creamier chocolate and nut flavors, such as the Turkish raspberry, frambuaz, and other seasonal fruit essences.
Recently Cremeria Milano opened their first branch in Nişantaşı. Although this petite parlor on Maçka Street has no seating area, the businessmen, socialites and shoppers of the area seem to immensely enjoy this creamy and caloric Italian frozen dairy dessert.
Asmali Mescit Mahallesi Istiklal Caddesi No 164/A Beyoğlu, Tel: 0212 245 5064
Situated between Bahar Patisserie and Bodrum Manti near Arnavutköy’s Police Station is La Girondola, the new comer of Italian-style ice cream parlors right on the Bosphorus waterfront. Owner Aslı Eraltan specialized her training in ice cream at university in Italy. Thus, she hand makes the frozen desserts, cooking the milk and syrup and using only seasonal ingredients. During the summer months, one finds flavors such as fresh sour cherry, melon and strawberry in addition to classics such as chocolate, caramel and the Turkish version of plain ice cream, "kaymak," or clotted cream. Other original variations include mascarpone, chocolate brandy, mojito, créme brûlée, and during the wintertime pumpkin, fig, green apple and chestnut. In terms of making a selection, the fresh gelato choices are so tempting that one feels they have to return soon to sample the other variations. While La Girandola’s indoor and outdoor seating area has a pleasant view of the Bosphorus, it is recommended to savor this gelato on the lovely waterfront walk from Arnavutköy to Bebek.
La Girandola, Arnavutköy Caddesi 109, Arnavutköy. Tel: 0212 265 2629.
This was very interesting.
Google trial in Italy: freedom v. responsibility
By ARIEL DAVID – 5 days ago
ROME (AP) — An Italian court on Tuesday postponed the trial against four Google executives accused of defamation and violating privacy for allowing a video to be posted online showing an autistic youth being abused.
All four deny wrongdoing. The case could set the tone for new limits on sharing videos and other content on the Web.
Google says the case violates EU rules by trying to place responsibility on providers for content uploaded by users.
The Mountain View, California, company also considers the trial a threat to freedom on the Internet because it could force providers into an impossible task — prescreening the thousands of hours of footage uploaded every day onto Web sites like the Google-owned YouTube.
Prosecutors and civil plaintiffs insist they don't want to censor the Internet, and maintain the case is about enforcing Italy's privacy rules as well as ensuring large corporations do their utmost to block inappropriate content, or quickly delete it.
"It's the first case of this kind in Italy and Europe," said Alessandro del Ninno, a lawyer and expert on Internet law. "The risk is that it will force providers to preventively control the content, something that goes against the very nature of the Internet."
The monthslong trial reopened Tuesday but was quickly adjourned to Sept. 29 because an interpreter didn't show up, making it impossible to proceed with planned testimony from a Google technician who was to explain how the company's video service works, lawyers said.
The defendants, who are being tried in absentia in Milan, are Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes, senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.
The probe was sought by Vivi Down, an advocacy group for people with Down syndrome, which alerted prosecutors to the 2006 video showing an autistic student in Turin being beaten and insulted by bullies at school. In the footage, the youth is being mistreated while one of the teenagers puts in a mock telephone call to Vivi Down.
The events shortly preceded Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube.
Google Italia, which is based in Milan, eventually took down the video, though the two sides disagree on how fast the company reacted to complaints. Thanks to the footage and Google's cooperation, the four bullies were identified and sentenced to community service by a juvenile court.
But prosecutors also sought trial for the Google executives, who could face up to three years in jail, for failing to protect the youth's privacy by allowing the video to be uploaded.
"We feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong," Google said in a statement ahead of Tuesday's session. "It's akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post."
"Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet," it said.
The trial opened in February, with the court so far dealing with procedural matters. The family of the youth withdrew from the trial when it opened, leaving Vivi Down as the main plaintiff in a civil lawsuit attached to the case.
"It is not correct to talk about censorship, this is not our goal," said Guido Camera, a lawyer for the group. "We ask that at least users be made aware of their responsibilities."
Prosecutors say they are aware Google cannot screen all videos, but maintain the company didn't have enough automatic filters in place as well as warnings to users on privacy and copyright laws. They also say Google didn't have enough workers assigned to its Italian service in order to react quickly to videos flagged as inappropriate by viewers.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Google trial in Italy: freedom v. responsibility
By ARIEL DAVID – 5 days ago
ROME (AP) — An Italian court on Tuesday postponed the trial against four Google executives accused of defamation and violating privacy for allowing a video to be posted online showing an autistic youth being abused.
All four deny wrongdoing. The case could set the tone for new limits on sharing videos and other content on the Web.
Google says the case violates EU rules by trying to place responsibility on providers for content uploaded by users.
The Mountain View, California, company also considers the trial a threat to freedom on the Internet because it could force providers into an impossible task — prescreening the thousands of hours of footage uploaded every day onto Web sites like the Google-owned YouTube.
Prosecutors and civil plaintiffs insist they don't want to censor the Internet, and maintain the case is about enforcing Italy's privacy rules as well as ensuring large corporations do their utmost to block inappropriate content, or quickly delete it.
"It's the first case of this kind in Italy and Europe," said Alessandro del Ninno, a lawyer and expert on Internet law. "The risk is that it will force providers to preventively control the content, something that goes against the very nature of the Internet."
The monthslong trial reopened Tuesday but was quickly adjourned to Sept. 29 because an interpreter didn't show up, making it impossible to proceed with planned testimony from a Google technician who was to explain how the company's video service works, lawyers said.
The defendants, who are being tried in absentia in Milan, are Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer David Drummond, former chief financial officer George Reyes, senior product marketing manager Arvind Desikan and global privacy counsel Peter Fleischer.
The probe was sought by Vivi Down, an advocacy group for people with Down syndrome, which alerted prosecutors to the 2006 video showing an autistic student in Turin being beaten and insulted by bullies at school. In the footage, the youth is being mistreated while one of the teenagers puts in a mock telephone call to Vivi Down.
The events shortly preceded Google's 2006 acquisition of YouTube.
Google Italia, which is based in Milan, eventually took down the video, though the two sides disagree on how fast the company reacted to complaints. Thanks to the footage and Google's cooperation, the four bullies were identified and sentenced to community service by a juvenile court.
But prosecutors also sought trial for the Google executives, who could face up to three years in jail, for failing to protect the youth's privacy by allowing the video to be uploaded.
"We feel that bringing this case to court is totally wrong," Google said in a statement ahead of Tuesday's session. "It's akin to prosecuting mail service employees for hate speech letters sent in the post."
"Seeking to hold neutral platforms liable for content posted on them is a direct attack on a free, open Internet," it said.
The trial opened in February, with the court so far dealing with procedural matters. The family of the youth withdrew from the trial when it opened, leaving Vivi Down as the main plaintiff in a civil lawsuit attached to the case.
"It is not correct to talk about censorship, this is not our goal," said Guido Camera, a lawyer for the group. "We ask that at least users be made aware of their responsibilities."
Prosecutors say they are aware Google cannot screen all videos, but maintain the company didn't have enough automatic filters in place as well as warnings to users on privacy and copyright laws. They also say Google didn't have enough workers assigned to its Italian service in order to react quickly to videos flagged as inappropriate by viewers.
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
From the Montreal Gazette:
Since the death of Michael Jackson Thursday, a Rosemont man who has been impersonating the singer locally and internationally in the past year said he feels added pressure to do honour to the singer's memory.
"I want to meet people's expectations, but I'm even more stressed about doing right by Michael Jackson now that he's gone," says Thierry Marceau.
Marceau, 29, holds a master's degree in visual arts and works independently on various projects for festivals and events. In an interview before his appearance in the Festival de Théâtre de rue de Lachine yesterday, he explained his craft as being about more than impersonations.
"Studying and assuming the character of someone like Michael Jackson is something very special and deeply important to me," he said. "I feel very close to him because I've been working on his character."
Marceau, who took part in the Jeux du Québec ceremonies as Michael Jackson this winter, said the news of his death was difficult to swallow.
"I was actually setting up for my performance (in Lachine) when the news broke," he said. "It was very weird, like a part of my family had just died. I got all kinds of phone calls and letters from friends and family asking if I was okay and how I was handling it."
Friday night was his first time performing as Michael Jackson since the singer's death. Marceau said it was a strange and difficult experience. "Before dressing as Michael, I talked to the crowd about how I was not sure how to deal with his death. I told them I'd do my best but that the meaning of the show has changed, and asked the crowd for their understanding."
Since Jackson's death, he said, he must now rethink every movement and gesture in his performance.
"I don't want anything to be comical or in bad taste at all," Marceau said. "I want it to be a happy experience for people and just a tribute to him. I have to rethink a lot of my project now - the meaning has changed."
The Rosemont resident said he is now faced with new challenges because of enhanced interest in his performance.
"I really wasn't expecting this much attention," he said. "But since he died, the media have been calling and now I have to make sure to use what happened in a good way to honour him and not for the publicity of my work, so I'm kind of in a strange position."
Marceau said that his appreciation of Jackson goes beyond being a fan. "I'm a visual artist, that's my life. Michael Jackson is the best visual artist that has ever lived. The detail in his shows, videos and costumes, it's all perfect - he was a workaholic."
The singer's death also meant the death of Marceau's dream to see Jackson in concert. He had tickets to attend one of the comeback shows beginning in London next month. While disappointed, he said that Jackson's legacy as an artist will persist.
"Michael will never die, he left us so many images and memories. He's the biggest artist in any discipline."
For now, Marceau will focus on revamping his Michael Jackson project to incorporate the singer's death, a task that he says won't be easy.
"I'll definitely have a small moment of silence before I go on stage again," Marceau said.
But as with all productions big or small, the show must go on.
Since the death of Michael Jackson Thursday, a Rosemont man who has been impersonating the singer locally and internationally in the past year said he feels added pressure to do honour to the singer's memory.
"I want to meet people's expectations, but I'm even more stressed about doing right by Michael Jackson now that he's gone," says Thierry Marceau.
Marceau, 29, holds a master's degree in visual arts and works independently on various projects for festivals and events. In an interview before his appearance in the Festival de Théâtre de rue de Lachine yesterday, he explained his craft as being about more than impersonations.
"Studying and assuming the character of someone like Michael Jackson is something very special and deeply important to me," he said. "I feel very close to him because I've been working on his character."
Marceau, who took part in the Jeux du Québec ceremonies as Michael Jackson this winter, said the news of his death was difficult to swallow.
"I was actually setting up for my performance (in Lachine) when the news broke," he said. "It was very weird, like a part of my family had just died. I got all kinds of phone calls and letters from friends and family asking if I was okay and how I was handling it."
Friday night was his first time performing as Michael Jackson since the singer's death. Marceau said it was a strange and difficult experience. "Before dressing as Michael, I talked to the crowd about how I was not sure how to deal with his death. I told them I'd do my best but that the meaning of the show has changed, and asked the crowd for their understanding."
Since Jackson's death, he said, he must now rethink every movement and gesture in his performance.
"I don't want anything to be comical or in bad taste at all," Marceau said. "I want it to be a happy experience for people and just a tribute to him. I have to rethink a lot of my project now - the meaning has changed."
The Rosemont resident said he is now faced with new challenges because of enhanced interest in his performance.
"I really wasn't expecting this much attention," he said. "But since he died, the media have been calling and now I have to make sure to use what happened in a good way to honour him and not for the publicity of my work, so I'm kind of in a strange position."
Marceau said that his appreciation of Jackson goes beyond being a fan. "I'm a visual artist, that's my life. Michael Jackson is the best visual artist that has ever lived. The detail in his shows, videos and costumes, it's all perfect - he was a workaholic."
The singer's death also meant the death of Marceau's dream to see Jackson in concert. He had tickets to attend one of the comeback shows beginning in London next month. While disappointed, he said that Jackson's legacy as an artist will persist.
"Michael will never die, he left us so many images and memories. He's the biggest artist in any discipline."
For now, Marceau will focus on revamping his Michael Jackson project to incorporate the singer's death, a task that he says won't be easy.
"I'll definitely have a small moment of silence before I go on stage again," Marceau said.
But as with all productions big or small, the show must go on.
This was very sad news. I have been privileged enough to hear some of Romey's music, and thoroughly enjoyed it. My head is bowed twice over today (the first, obviously, was for Michael), and my condolences are with his family.
Punjabi Vocalist Romey Gill Passed Away
June 24 2009 14:25 PST
We have some unfortunate news to report today as Punjabi vocalist Romey Gill has sadly passed away. While detail s of his death are vague, the details on his vibrant life are with the world forever. Romey Gill's most popular track to date is 'Dhol Vajda' which was produced by Tigerstyle off of the album, 'Extended Play.'
However his most recent work is the track, 'Puch Bhabiye' off of Aman Hayer's 'Groundshaker 2' album.
Some of Romey's other popular tracks include, 'Jeeto,' 'Nahron Paar Bangla,''Jatt,' 'Tutt Gaye Yarane' and 'Nakhra Chari Jawani Da,' among many others. There's no doubt Romey Gill will be greatly missed in the Bhangra world and beyond.
Punjabi Vocalist Romey Gill Passed Away
June 24 2009 14:25 PST
We have some unfortunate news to report today as Punjabi vocalist Romey Gill has sadly passed away. While detail s of his death are vague, the details on his vibrant life are with the world forever. Romey Gill's most popular track to date is 'Dhol Vajda' which was produced by Tigerstyle off of the album, 'Extended Play.'
However his most recent work is the track, 'Puch Bhabiye' off of Aman Hayer's 'Groundshaker 2' album.
Some of Romey's other popular tracks include, 'Jeeto,' 'Nahron Paar Bangla,''Jatt,' 'Tutt Gaye Yarane' and 'Nakhra Chari Jawani Da,' among many others. There's no doubt Romey Gill will be greatly missed in the Bhangra world and beyond.
Bitter Vietnam lessons lost in Afghanistan
Simon Jenkins
June 28, 2009
COMMENT
IF GOOD intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan. History rarely declares when folly turns to disaster, but it does so now. US President Barack Obama and Britain's Gordon Brown are uncannily repeating the route taken by American leaders in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975.
Vietnam began with President Kennedy's 1963 intervention to keep the communist menace at bay and make the world safe for democracy. That is what George Bush and Tony Blair said of terrorism and Afghanistan. By 1965, despite Congress scepticism, American advisers, then planes, then ground forces were deployed. Allies were begged to join but few agreed.
The presence of Americans on Asian soil turned a local insurgency into a regional crusade. The hard-pressed Americans resorted to ever more extensive bombing, deep inside neighbouring countries, despite evidence it was ineffective and counterproductive.
No amount of superior firepower could quell a peasant army that came and went by night and could terrorise or merge into the population. Tales of American atrocities rolled in. The army counted success in enemy dead. A desperate attempt to "train and equip" a new Vietnamese army made it as corrupt as it was unreliable. Billions of dollars were wasted.
Every one of these steps is being re-enacted in Afghanistan. Every sane observer, even serving generals and diplomats, admits that "we are not winning" and show no sign of doing so.
Generals are entitled to plead for more resources and yet claim victory is just round the corner, even when they know it is not. They must lead men into battle. A heavier guilt lies with liberal apologists for this war who continue to invent excuses for its failure and offer glib preconditions for victory.
A classic is an editorial in last Monday's New York Times, congratulating Barack Obama on "sending more troops to the fight" but claiming that there were still not enough.
Strategy, declared the sages of Manhattan, should be "to confront the Taliban head on", as if this had not been tried before. Afghanistan needed "a functioning army and national police that can hold back the insurgents". The way to achieve victory was for the Pentagon, already spending a stupefying $US60 billion ($A74.5 billion) in Afghanistan, to spend a further $US20 billion, increasing the size of the Afghan army from 90,000 to 250,000. This was because ordinary Afghans "must begin to trust their own government".
These lines might have been written in 1972 by General Westmoreland in his Saigon bunker. The New York Times has clearly never seen the Afghan army, or police, in action. Eight years of training costing $US15 billion have been near useless, when men simply decline to fight except to defend their homes. Since the Pentagon originally armed and trained the Taliban to fight the Soviets, this must be the first war where it has trained both sides.
Neither the Pentagon nor the British Ministry of Defence will win Afghanistan through firepower. The strategy of "hearts and minds plus" cannot be realistic, turning Afghanistan into a vast and indefinite barracks with hundreds of thousands of western soldiers sitting atop a colonial Babel of administrators and professionals. It will never be secure. It offers Afghanistan a promise only of relentless war, one that Afghans outside Kabul know that warlords, drug cartels and Taliban sympathisers are winning.
The 2001 policy of invading, capturing Osama bin Laden and ridding the region of terrorist bases has been tested to destruction and failed. Strategy is reduced to the slaughter of hundreds of western soldiers and thousands of Afghans. Troops are being sent out because governments lack the guts to admit that the bid to quell the Islamist menace by force of arms was crazy.
Vietnam destroyed two presidents, Johnson and Nixon, and destroyed the global confidence of a generation of young Americans. Afghanistan — obscenely dubbed the "good war" — could do the same. There will soon be 68,000 American troops in that country.
This is set to be a war of awful proportions, cockpit for the feared clash of civilisations. Each new foreign battalion taps more cash for the Taliban from the Gulf. Each new massacre from the air recruits more youths from the madrasas. Obama is trapped by past mistakes, as were Kennedy and Johnson, cheered by an offstage chorus crying "not enough" and "just one more surge". He has to find a way to disengage from Afghanistan. It is hard to imagine a greater tragedy than for the most exciting US president in a generation to be led by a senseless intervention into a repeat of America's greatest postwar debacle.
Simon Jenkins
June 28, 2009
COMMENT
IF GOOD intentions ever paved a road to hell, they are doing so in Afghanistan. History rarely declares when folly turns to disaster, but it does so now. US President Barack Obama and Britain's Gordon Brown are uncannily repeating the route taken by American leaders in Vietnam from 1963 to 1975.
Vietnam began with President Kennedy's 1963 intervention to keep the communist menace at bay and make the world safe for democracy. That is what George Bush and Tony Blair said of terrorism and Afghanistan. By 1965, despite Congress scepticism, American advisers, then planes, then ground forces were deployed. Allies were begged to join but few agreed.
The presence of Americans on Asian soil turned a local insurgency into a regional crusade. The hard-pressed Americans resorted to ever more extensive bombing, deep inside neighbouring countries, despite evidence it was ineffective and counterproductive.
No amount of superior firepower could quell a peasant army that came and went by night and could terrorise or merge into the population. Tales of American atrocities rolled in. The army counted success in enemy dead. A desperate attempt to "train and equip" a new Vietnamese army made it as corrupt as it was unreliable. Billions of dollars were wasted.
Every one of these steps is being re-enacted in Afghanistan. Every sane observer, even serving generals and diplomats, admits that "we are not winning" and show no sign of doing so.
Generals are entitled to plead for more resources and yet claim victory is just round the corner, even when they know it is not. They must lead men into battle. A heavier guilt lies with liberal apologists for this war who continue to invent excuses for its failure and offer glib preconditions for victory.
A classic is an editorial in last Monday's New York Times, congratulating Barack Obama on "sending more troops to the fight" but claiming that there were still not enough.
Strategy, declared the sages of Manhattan, should be "to confront the Taliban head on", as if this had not been tried before. Afghanistan needed "a functioning army and national police that can hold back the insurgents". The way to achieve victory was for the Pentagon, already spending a stupefying $US60 billion ($A74.5 billion) in Afghanistan, to spend a further $US20 billion, increasing the size of the Afghan army from 90,000 to 250,000. This was because ordinary Afghans "must begin to trust their own government".
These lines might have been written in 1972 by General Westmoreland in his Saigon bunker. The New York Times has clearly never seen the Afghan army, or police, in action. Eight years of training costing $US15 billion have been near useless, when men simply decline to fight except to defend their homes. Since the Pentagon originally armed and trained the Taliban to fight the Soviets, this must be the first war where it has trained both sides.
Neither the Pentagon nor the British Ministry of Defence will win Afghanistan through firepower. The strategy of "hearts and minds plus" cannot be realistic, turning Afghanistan into a vast and indefinite barracks with hundreds of thousands of western soldiers sitting atop a colonial Babel of administrators and professionals. It will never be secure. It offers Afghanistan a promise only of relentless war, one that Afghans outside Kabul know that warlords, drug cartels and Taliban sympathisers are winning.
The 2001 policy of invading, capturing Osama bin Laden and ridding the region of terrorist bases has been tested to destruction and failed. Strategy is reduced to the slaughter of hundreds of western soldiers and thousands of Afghans. Troops are being sent out because governments lack the guts to admit that the bid to quell the Islamist menace by force of arms was crazy.
Vietnam destroyed two presidents, Johnson and Nixon, and destroyed the global confidence of a generation of young Americans. Afghanistan — obscenely dubbed the "good war" — could do the same. There will soon be 68,000 American troops in that country.
This is set to be a war of awful proportions, cockpit for the feared clash of civilisations. Each new foreign battalion taps more cash for the Taliban from the Gulf. Each new massacre from the air recruits more youths from the madrasas. Obama is trapped by past mistakes, as were Kennedy and Johnson, cheered by an offstage chorus crying "not enough" and "just one more surge". He has to find a way to disengage from Afghanistan. It is hard to imagine a greater tragedy than for the most exciting US president in a generation to be led by a senseless intervention into a repeat of America's greatest postwar debacle.
KABUL, June 28 (Xinhua) -- A suicide car bombing against international troops in eastern Afghan province of Nangarhar claimed the live of one child and injured nine others, including five police Sunday afternoon, provincial administration spokesman said.
"It occurred at 3 p.m. local time (1030 GMT) when a man driving explosive-laden car exploded himself next to a convoy of U.S.-led forces near the airport in provincial capital city of Jalalabad," Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told Xinhua.
However, he said it was not clear if there were causalities on the U.S. troops but five police and four civilians sustained injuries in the incident.
Meantime, Taliban's purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed, in talks with media through cell phone from undisclosed location, claimed that his man Mohammad Yousuf carried out the attack.
Mujahed also said that his men inflected casualties on U.S. forces.
Taliban's attack, mostly in the shape of suicide and roadside bombing, have claimed the lives of dozens of people in southern and eastern region during the past days as five civilians were killed on Saturday when their car struck a mine in Andir district of Ghazni province in southern part of the war-plagued nation.
"It occurred at 3 p.m. local time (1030 GMT) when a man driving explosive-laden car exploded himself next to a convoy of U.S.-led forces near the airport in provincial capital city of Jalalabad," Ahmad Zia Abdulzai told Xinhua.
However, he said it was not clear if there were causalities on the U.S. troops but five police and four civilians sustained injuries in the incident.
Meantime, Taliban's purported spokesman Zabihullah Mujahed, in talks with media through cell phone from undisclosed location, claimed that his man Mohammad Yousuf carried out the attack.
Mujahed also said that his men inflected casualties on U.S. forces.
Taliban's attack, mostly in the shape of suicide and roadside bombing, have claimed the lives of dozens of people in southern and eastern region during the past days as five civilians were killed on Saturday when their car struck a mine in Andir district of Ghazni province in southern part of the war-plagued nation.
Karzai heading for unpopular winDexter Filkins, Kabul
June 29, 2009
WITH Afghanistan's nationwide election only weeks away President Hamid Karzai appears likely to win, while at the same time being deeply unpopular.
Many blame Mr Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, for the failures that have plagued the US-led mission in the past eight years, from the resurgence of the Taliban to the explosion of the poppy trade.
Yet at the same time, Mr Karzai enjoys a commanding lead in the race for the presidency, to be decided in an election on August 20. Since the beginning of the year, Mr Karzai has deftly outmanoeuvred a once formidable array of opponents, either securing their backing or relegating them to the status of long shots.
Mr Karzai's unpopularity and the likelihood of his victory have cast a pall of resignation over the campaign, with many Afghans preparing for another five years of a leader they feel they already know too well.
The danger, say Mr Karzai's opponents and other leading Afghans, is a kind of national demoralisation, which will discourage Afghans from voting and dash hopes for substantial progress after the election.
For the US, the prospect of Mr Karzai's re-election risks an even closer association with an unpopular president with a record of mismanagement. With the Taliban stronger than ever — early this month, attacks reached their highest level since 2001 — a Karzai victory could threaten the US-led push to turn the war around.
"Karzai will not change, he has demonstrated that," said Ashraf Ghani, once a close friend but now running against Mr Karzai. "If he wins, there will be a downward spiral."
US officials, who have provided indispensable support for Mr Karzai since he took office in 2001, have recently tried to put him at some distance. New US ambassador Karl Eikenberry took the unusual step last week of attending news conferences of the leading challengers to Mr Karzai, including Mr Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.
The Obama Administration has reversed the previous US policy of nearly unconditional support for Mr Karzai. President Barack Obama has chastised Mr Karzai for his Government's weakness and corruption.
Yet there is a widespread perception that Mr Karzai is the US favourite. Some US officials express resignation that they may be stuck with him for five more years. His unpopularity was spelled out in a recent poll by the International Republican Institute, a non-partisan group that the US Government supports.
Only 31 per cent of Afghans said they would vote for Mr Karzai again, down from the 54 per cent of votes he received in the 2004 election. If no candidate wins 50 per cent of the vote, the two top voter-getters would face each other in a run-off.
Yet the same IRI survey found Mr Karzai easily outpolling his rivals. Only 7 per cent favoured Mr Abdullah and just 2 per cent Mr Ghani, and they are considered to be Mr Karzai's most serious rivals. In Trieste the Group of Eight leading powers have turned their attention to stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan in the leadup to the election. Afghanistan has been flooded with refugees fleeing a Pakistani army offensive in the Swat valley.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the talks focussed on "the development of economic infrastructure - opening trade corridors.
NEW YORK TIMES, AFP
June 29, 2009
WITH Afghanistan's nationwide election only weeks away President Hamid Karzai appears likely to win, while at the same time being deeply unpopular.
Many blame Mr Karzai, who has led Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in 2001, for the failures that have plagued the US-led mission in the past eight years, from the resurgence of the Taliban to the explosion of the poppy trade.
Yet at the same time, Mr Karzai enjoys a commanding lead in the race for the presidency, to be decided in an election on August 20. Since the beginning of the year, Mr Karzai has deftly outmanoeuvred a once formidable array of opponents, either securing their backing or relegating them to the status of long shots.
Mr Karzai's unpopularity and the likelihood of his victory have cast a pall of resignation over the campaign, with many Afghans preparing for another five years of a leader they feel they already know too well.
The danger, say Mr Karzai's opponents and other leading Afghans, is a kind of national demoralisation, which will discourage Afghans from voting and dash hopes for substantial progress after the election.
For the US, the prospect of Mr Karzai's re-election risks an even closer association with an unpopular president with a record of mismanagement. With the Taliban stronger than ever — early this month, attacks reached their highest level since 2001 — a Karzai victory could threaten the US-led push to turn the war around.
"Karzai will not change, he has demonstrated that," said Ashraf Ghani, once a close friend but now running against Mr Karzai. "If he wins, there will be a downward spiral."
US officials, who have provided indispensable support for Mr Karzai since he took office in 2001, have recently tried to put him at some distance. New US ambassador Karl Eikenberry took the unusual step last week of attending news conferences of the leading challengers to Mr Karzai, including Mr Ghani and Abdullah Abdullah, a former foreign minister.
The Obama Administration has reversed the previous US policy of nearly unconditional support for Mr Karzai. President Barack Obama has chastised Mr Karzai for his Government's weakness and corruption.
Yet there is a widespread perception that Mr Karzai is the US favourite. Some US officials express resignation that they may be stuck with him for five more years. His unpopularity was spelled out in a recent poll by the International Republican Institute, a non-partisan group that the US Government supports.
Only 31 per cent of Afghans said they would vote for Mr Karzai again, down from the 54 per cent of votes he received in the 2004 election. If no candidate wins 50 per cent of the vote, the two top voter-getters would face each other in a run-off.
Yet the same IRI survey found Mr Karzai easily outpolling his rivals. Only 7 per cent favoured Mr Abdullah and just 2 per cent Mr Ghani, and they are considered to be Mr Karzai's most serious rivals. In Trieste the Group of Eight leading powers have turned their attention to stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan in the leadup to the election. Afghanistan has been flooded with refugees fleeing a Pakistani army offensive in the Swat valley.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the talks focussed on "the development of economic infrastructure - opening trade corridors.
NEW YORK TIMES, AFP
This was an interesting message in a time of spiritual defilement.
Germany sees it crucial to hear voices of developing nations in tackling world financial crisis
UNITED NATIONS, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Germany said here on Thursday that it is crucial to hear the voices from all countries, including developing nations, in search of a solution to the current global financial and economic crisis.
The statement came as Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German federal minister for economic cooperation and development, was speaking at the high-level UN conference on the global financial and economic crisis and its impact on development. The high-level meeting was opened on Wednesday and it will last three days.
"The G-20 (the Group of 20 largest economies in the world) has taken some important and far-reaching decisions," she said. "And yet it takes an organization with the legitimacy of the UN to tackle the crisis; in our search for a solution all countries' voices, including developing countries' voices, must be heard."
"With this conference and its outcome document we strengthen the UN's role in global economic governance," she said. "This is a remarkable success!"
Earlier this week, negotiators eventually bridged their gaps and agree on the draft outcome document to be adopted at the high-level UN meeting after rounds of hard talks.
"We specifically welcome the proposal of a panel of experts on the world economic and financial crisis," she said. "Its work should encompass expertise from all regions of the world and help identify structural global risks."
"This conference is ultimately a strong signal that we -- the international community -- join efforts to achieve freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to live in dignity," she said. "This conference is an act of solidarity with all those whom these rights have been denied so far-including the freedom of expression."
"Unless we take action now, an average of between 200,000 and 400,000 more children will die each year between 2009 and 2015," she said. "We must do everything to prevent such a humanitarian catastrophe from taking place."
Editor: Mu Xuequan
Germany sees it crucial to hear voices of developing nations in tackling world financial crisis
UNITED NATIONS, June 25 (Xinhua) -- Germany said here on Thursday that it is crucial to hear the voices from all countries, including developing nations, in search of a solution to the current global financial and economic crisis.
The statement came as Heidemarie Wieczorek-Zeul, German federal minister for economic cooperation and development, was speaking at the high-level UN conference on the global financial and economic crisis and its impact on development. The high-level meeting was opened on Wednesday and it will last three days.
"The G-20 (the Group of 20 largest economies in the world) has taken some important and far-reaching decisions," she said. "And yet it takes an organization with the legitimacy of the UN to tackle the crisis; in our search for a solution all countries' voices, including developing countries' voices, must be heard."
"With this conference and its outcome document we strengthen the UN's role in global economic governance," she said. "This is a remarkable success!"
Earlier this week, negotiators eventually bridged their gaps and agree on the draft outcome document to be adopted at the high-level UN meeting after rounds of hard talks.
"We specifically welcome the proposal of a panel of experts on the world economic and financial crisis," she said. "Its work should encompass expertise from all regions of the world and help identify structural global risks."
"This conference is ultimately a strong signal that we -- the international community -- join efforts to achieve freedom from want, freedom from fear, and freedom to live in dignity," she said. "This conference is an act of solidarity with all those whom these rights have been denied so far-including the freedom of expression."
"Unless we take action now, an average of between 200,000 and 400,000 more children will die each year between 2009 and 2015," she said. "We must do everything to prevent such a humanitarian catastrophe from taking place."
Editor: Mu Xuequan
It will happen again. If there is one prediction that I can make for the future, it is this.
Thank you, Michael, for giving the world so much. You were everybody's angel, without question.
I am heartbroken that this happened to you, and my thoughts are with your family.
"You Are Not Alone"
Another day has gone
I'm still all alone
How could this be
You're not here with me
You never said goodbye
Someone tell me why
Did you have to go
And leave my world so cold
Everyday I sit and ask myself
How did love slip away
Something whispers in my ear and says
That you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
But you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
But you are not alone
'Lone, 'lone
Why, 'lone
Just the other night
I thought I heard you cry
Asking me to come
And hold you in my arms
I can hear your prayers
Your burdens I will bear
But first I need your hand
Then forever can begin
Everyday I sit and ask myself
How did love slip away
Something whispers in my ear and says
That you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone
Whisper three words and I'll come runnin'
And girl you know that I'll be there
I'll be there
You are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone...
Thank you, Michael, for giving the world so much. You were everybody's angel, without question.
I am heartbroken that this happened to you, and my thoughts are with your family.
"You Are Not Alone"
Another day has gone
I'm still all alone
How could this be
You're not here with me
You never said goodbye
Someone tell me why
Did you have to go
And leave my world so cold
Everyday I sit and ask myself
How did love slip away
Something whispers in my ear and says
That you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
But you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
But you are not alone
'Lone, 'lone
Why, 'lone
Just the other night
I thought I heard you cry
Asking me to come
And hold you in my arms
I can hear your prayers
Your burdens I will bear
But first I need your hand
Then forever can begin
Everyday I sit and ask myself
How did love slip away
Something whispers in my ear and says
That you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone
Whisper three words and I'll come runnin'
And girl you know that I'll be there
I'll be there
You are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though you're far away
I am here to stay
For you are not alone
For I am here with you
Though we're far apart
You're always in my heart
For you are not alone...
A fresh campaign to reform dual citizenship laws has been launched in Berlin. Currently, children who are born in Germany to foreign parents must choose between nationalities by age 23.
The campaign was launched last week by a coalition of politicians, churches, social groups, lawyers, and academics who say it is unfair to force children of migrants to choose between Germany, where they were raised, and the birthplace of their parents, whose culture and traditions they often share.
Since 2000, children born in Germany automatically become German citizens when at least one parent has permanent residency status. Up until adulthood those children can also retain citizenship of their parents' country of origin. Sometime between their 18th and 23rd birthday, however, they must renounce their foreign citizenship in order to maintain their status in Germany.
The only exception is for children born in Germany after 1990 to parents from EU member states. Germany's large Turkish community is the group most affected by the current system.
Dual citizenship a loyalty problem?
Kenan Kolat, head of the Turkish community, is a supporter of the campaign. "The government now has the opportunity to win over young people, if they forgo this law," he says.
The campaigners have set-up a website to argue their case that, until now, has found little public support. Their main message is that dual citizenship does not equate to a loyalty problem. Marieluise Beck of the Green Party says that forcing foreigners' children to choose a nationality creates a sense of mistrust between the state and children of migrants.
It is also a very emotional decision for many people. Dieter Wiefel-Spütz, the Social Democratic Party's domestic policy expert, told the "Frankfurter Rundschau" newspaper that, "the so-called 'options model' is a bureaucratic monster which tortures people."
This year around 3,900 young people with dual nationality in Germany will have to make their decision on whether to remain German or to become a foreigner.
vj/epd/dpa/Frankfurter Rundschau
Editor: Andreas Illmer
The campaign was launched last week by a coalition of politicians, churches, social groups, lawyers, and academics who say it is unfair to force children of migrants to choose between Germany, where they were raised, and the birthplace of their parents, whose culture and traditions they often share.
Since 2000, children born in Germany automatically become German citizens when at least one parent has permanent residency status. Up until adulthood those children can also retain citizenship of their parents' country of origin. Sometime between their 18th and 23rd birthday, however, they must renounce their foreign citizenship in order to maintain their status in Germany.
The only exception is for children born in Germany after 1990 to parents from EU member states. Germany's large Turkish community is the group most affected by the current system.
Dual citizenship a loyalty problem?
Kenan Kolat, head of the Turkish community, is a supporter of the campaign. "The government now has the opportunity to win over young people, if they forgo this law," he says.
The campaigners have set-up a website to argue their case that, until now, has found little public support. Their main message is that dual citizenship does not equate to a loyalty problem. Marieluise Beck of the Green Party says that forcing foreigners' children to choose a nationality creates a sense of mistrust between the state and children of migrants.
It is also a very emotional decision for many people. Dieter Wiefel-Spütz, the Social Democratic Party's domestic policy expert, told the "Frankfurter Rundschau" newspaper that, "the so-called 'options model' is a bureaucratic monster which tortures people."
This year around 3,900 young people with dual nationality in Germany will have to make their decision on whether to remain German or to become a foreigner.
vj/epd/dpa/Frankfurter Rundschau
Editor: Andreas Illmer
These Tears
An article on the passing of an immense legend.
Michael will never be forgotten, by people all over the world.
His children are still so young.
Michael Jackson acquitted by jury but not by public
June 29, 2009 - 8:19AM
Michael Jackson called his trial on child molestation claims, "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life". Acquitted of all charges by a jury but convicted by public opinion, he spent the rest of his life trying to recover from the ordeal.
On many fronts, it was a losing battle. Late night comedians derided him as a pedophile. Prosecutors who lost the case against him never accepted the jury verdict and Jackson felt driven to give up his beloved Neverland Ranch and leave the country.
This month, exactly four years after the verdict, the King of Pop was on the verge of a dazzling comeback. His This Is It concert tour was to be his artistic rebirth, a vivid signal that he had at last recovered from the trial.
But Thomas Mesereau Jr., the lawyer who defended Jackson, said the star never fully recovered from the trial.
"The jury said `not guilty' 14 times," Mesereau recalls. "You couldn't have a verdict that got any closer to full vindication."
On the acquittal day, Mesereau issued a statement: "Justice is done. The man's innocent. He always was."
Mesereau said the effort by prosecutors and many media outlets to demonise Jackson during the 2005 trial took a physical and emotional toll on the already fragile defendant that was difficult to erase.
"These were horrible charges to accuse any one of and they were completely bogus," he said.
Jackson could have gotten nearly 20 years behind bars if convicted of charges that he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at his Neverland ranch in 2003. Jurors also acquitted Jackson of getting the boy drunk and of conspiring to imprison the accuser and his family at the ranch.
Jackson's defence team prevailed with evidence that he was the victim of mother-and-son con artists and a prosecutor with a vendetta.
Mesereau recalled Jackson visibly withering as the trial progressed, losing weight, his cheeks sunken, his skin pale. Twice he was taken to a hospital emergency room for treatment.
"The poor fellow couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. He was very worried about what would happen to his children if he was sent away. It took a horrible toll on him," said Mesereau.
The lawyer said Jackson suffered at the hands of a media contingent that wished him to be convicted.
"Much of the media was having a field day trying to make him out as a monster," he said. "People were trying to build careers off a conviction."
At first, though, the hysteria that would surround the trial was fed by Jackson the showman. On the day he pleaded not guilty, he responded to the cheers of fans by jumping atop a sport utility vehicle and doing some dance steps.
About 1,500 people, including fans and media from around the world, swarmed outside the courthouse in a scene reminiscent of a concert, with vendors selling T-shirts, steaks and hot dogs to the many fans who had come in chartered buses and cars.
By the time the trial began, over a year later, a media tent city of 2,200 reporters and camera crews sprang up outside the courthouse. There were no more antics by Jackson, although he commissioned a costume designer to create his outfits for court, favouring military style jackets with a rainbow of different coloured vests and armbands.
Mesereau said Jackson deteriorated rapidly. The artist known for his electric, moonwalking performances was rendered motionless, seemingly frozen in his courtroom chair as his private world became utterly public.
The hardest part, the lawyer said, was for Jackson to be accused by a child. It had happened once before in 1993 but that case was settled without a trial. "He didn't really trust adults," Mesereau said. "He looked to children as the people who wouldn't hurt him."
When the trial was over, Jackson left the courthouse, waving weakly to the crowds of fans who never left him. And then he disappeared.
"He loved Neverland and Santa Barbara County but he fled to the Middle East and then he lived like a rolling stone in England, Ireland, Las Vegas," Mesereau said. "He never found an anchor."
In his only post-trial interview , Jackson called an AP reporter from Bahrain three months after the verdict to express his thanks for fair coverage. He said then that the trial was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life" and that he and his children were still "resting and recovering".
Jackson said he was at work on a charity song for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"I'm constantly working on it," he said.
But like many projects he began, it was never completed.
AP
Michael will never be forgotten, by people all over the world.
His children are still so young.
Michael Jackson acquitted by jury but not by public
June 29, 2009 - 8:19AM
Michael Jackson called his trial on child molestation claims, "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life". Acquitted of all charges by a jury but convicted by public opinion, he spent the rest of his life trying to recover from the ordeal.
On many fronts, it was a losing battle. Late night comedians derided him as a pedophile. Prosecutors who lost the case against him never accepted the jury verdict and Jackson felt driven to give up his beloved Neverland Ranch and leave the country.
This month, exactly four years after the verdict, the King of Pop was on the verge of a dazzling comeback. His This Is It concert tour was to be his artistic rebirth, a vivid signal that he had at last recovered from the trial.
But Thomas Mesereau Jr., the lawyer who defended Jackson, said the star never fully recovered from the trial.
"The jury said `not guilty' 14 times," Mesereau recalls. "You couldn't have a verdict that got any closer to full vindication."
On the acquittal day, Mesereau issued a statement: "Justice is done. The man's innocent. He always was."
Mesereau said the effort by prosecutors and many media outlets to demonise Jackson during the 2005 trial took a physical and emotional toll on the already fragile defendant that was difficult to erase.
"These were horrible charges to accuse any one of and they were completely bogus," he said.
Jackson could have gotten nearly 20 years behind bars if convicted of charges that he molested a 13-year-old cancer survivor at his Neverland ranch in 2003. Jurors also acquitted Jackson of getting the boy drunk and of conspiring to imprison the accuser and his family at the ranch.
Jackson's defence team prevailed with evidence that he was the victim of mother-and-son con artists and a prosecutor with a vendetta.
Mesereau recalled Jackson visibly withering as the trial progressed, losing weight, his cheeks sunken, his skin pale. Twice he was taken to a hospital emergency room for treatment.
"The poor fellow couldn't sleep, couldn't eat. He was very worried about what would happen to his children if he was sent away. It took a horrible toll on him," said Mesereau.
The lawyer said Jackson suffered at the hands of a media contingent that wished him to be convicted.
"Much of the media was having a field day trying to make him out as a monster," he said. "People were trying to build careers off a conviction."
At first, though, the hysteria that would surround the trial was fed by Jackson the showman. On the day he pleaded not guilty, he responded to the cheers of fans by jumping atop a sport utility vehicle and doing some dance steps.
About 1,500 people, including fans and media from around the world, swarmed outside the courthouse in a scene reminiscent of a concert, with vendors selling T-shirts, steaks and hot dogs to the many fans who had come in chartered buses and cars.
By the time the trial began, over a year later, a media tent city of 2,200 reporters and camera crews sprang up outside the courthouse. There were no more antics by Jackson, although he commissioned a costume designer to create his outfits for court, favouring military style jackets with a rainbow of different coloured vests and armbands.
Mesereau said Jackson deteriorated rapidly. The artist known for his electric, moonwalking performances was rendered motionless, seemingly frozen in his courtroom chair as his private world became utterly public.
The hardest part, the lawyer said, was for Jackson to be accused by a child. It had happened once before in 1993 but that case was settled without a trial. "He didn't really trust adults," Mesereau said. "He looked to children as the people who wouldn't hurt him."
When the trial was over, Jackson left the courthouse, waving weakly to the crowds of fans who never left him. And then he disappeared.
"He loved Neverland and Santa Barbara County but he fled to the Middle East and then he lived like a rolling stone in England, Ireland, Las Vegas," Mesereau said. "He never found an anchor."
In his only post-trial interview , Jackson called an AP reporter from Bahrain three months after the verdict to express his thanks for fair coverage. He said then that the trial was "the hardest thing I've ever done in my life" and that he and his children were still "resting and recovering".
Jackson said he was at work on a charity song for victims of Hurricane Katrina.
"I'm constantly working on it," he said.
But like many projects he began, it was never completed.
AP
Saturday June 27 2009
Every so often, I have to stop reading books that are considered to be lofty or overtly intellectual. Some, I have to read for work and others, I just want to read for no particular reason. The book world appears to be rife with snobbery and intellectual posturing (in fact, the same can be said of the 'arts' broadly). If I talk about a particular book on the radio or write about it in this column, I might be accused of dumbing down or of being too esoteric (why not 'dumbing up'?) depending on the book in question.
Authors of so-called 'chick-lit' are often accused of writing 'light' books. Does this mean that those who read them aren't that bright or that they want an easier literary escape than the guy who is reading D-Day by Anthony Beevor? What about adults who read Harry Potter? Are they juvenile or 'limited' in their reading habits or are they just grown-up fans of an ostensibly younger book series?
Around 15 years ago, I read The Firm by John Grisham and got a great kick out of it. I tried reading some more of his but felt that they were pretty much all the same so I stopped. I loved The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon by Thomas Harris but Hannibal was dreadful. More recently, The Da Vinci Code got me through 10 minutes (although I did enjoy the ridiculous film version of Angels and Demons a few weeks ago).
Last summer, I was interested to read the Bond book, Devil May Care, written by Sebastian Faulks. I loved Birdsong and was curious to see what he would do with the Fleming creation. As it transpired, I found it a disappointing experience that failed to live up to my expectations despite the exotic location in which I was reading it (a friend's wedding on the Amalfi Coast).
I decided to stick to the movies after that, although I am open to suggestions when it comes to a Fleming recommendation (I read recently that one of JFK's favourite books was From Russia With Love?!) Similarly with the Bourne series, I've never read any of them but I love the films so if any of you could recommend a Ludlum title, please get in touch. In total, I've read between five and 10 'international bestseller' thrillers in the last few years so I was ready for a new one.
And so, we decided to choose The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as our book of the month for the Tubridy Show for the month of June. I hadn't read it and was happy to have it as one of my holiday reads when I was off the radio for the first three weeks in June. I was intrigued by the book for a few reasons. Firstly, the author is a Swedish journalist called Stieg Larsson. Larsson wrote a trilogy of which this was the first part. It seems he wrote the three novels and handed them into his publisher at the same time. Shortly after he handed the manuscripts in, he died.
The first book has so far sold 7.5 million copies around the world and there is a phenomenal demand for the next parts (the paperback of part two is out next week and the third part is published in Europe already but not in English, which is driving fans around the twist). Stieg Larsson didn't live to see any of this success and this merely adds to the mystery that surrounds what has become one of the great publishing stories of recent times.
As thrillers go, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a classic page turner of a thriller the like of which I haven't read since Red Dragon or The Firm. The Swedish setting is unconventional but something I've become accustomed to thanks to the Wallander series (the television version rather than the books, which I haven't read). The storyline is suitably ridiculous and yet bizarrely relevant. A famous business family all living in a small part of rural Sweden are hiding dark secrets that are discovered by a wronged journalist and a tattooed waif with attitude.
Along the way we have corrupt international bankers and industrialists who are busy making a fortune at the expense of the Swedish economy (wouldn't happen here, etc), there is plenty of sex (wouldn't happen here, etc) and there is a cellar where awful things happen.
Naturally, the film has been made and I found myself casting the movie as each new character was presented in the book. No doubt, the other two films will be produced such is the demand for gripping books being swiftly transferred to the big screen. Unfortunately for fans of the Millennium Trilogy (as they are formally known), barring an intervention by Sebastian Faulks, there will be no more books, movies, etc.
Like the Grisham books, these are not intellectually challenging in the strict sense of the word and book snobs (come on, you know who you are) will scoff at such pulp fiction, claiming, sotto voce, that it's beneath them. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it to be perfect holiday reading. Anyone I've spoken to agrees and found that they couldn't put it down.
Every so often, I have to stop reading books that are considered to be lofty or overtly intellectual. Some, I have to read for work and others, I just want to read for no particular reason. The book world appears to be rife with snobbery and intellectual posturing (in fact, the same can be said of the 'arts' broadly). If I talk about a particular book on the radio or write about it in this column, I might be accused of dumbing down or of being too esoteric (why not 'dumbing up'?) depending on the book in question.
Authors of so-called 'chick-lit' are often accused of writing 'light' books. Does this mean that those who read them aren't that bright or that they want an easier literary escape than the guy who is reading D-Day by Anthony Beevor? What about adults who read Harry Potter? Are they juvenile or 'limited' in their reading habits or are they just grown-up fans of an ostensibly younger book series?
Around 15 years ago, I read The Firm by John Grisham and got a great kick out of it. I tried reading some more of his but felt that they were pretty much all the same so I stopped. I loved The Silence of the Lambs and Red Dragon by Thomas Harris but Hannibal was dreadful. More recently, The Da Vinci Code got me through 10 minutes (although I did enjoy the ridiculous film version of Angels and Demons a few weeks ago).
Last summer, I was interested to read the Bond book, Devil May Care, written by Sebastian Faulks. I loved Birdsong and was curious to see what he would do with the Fleming creation. As it transpired, I found it a disappointing experience that failed to live up to my expectations despite the exotic location in which I was reading it (a friend's wedding on the Amalfi Coast).
I decided to stick to the movies after that, although I am open to suggestions when it comes to a Fleming recommendation (I read recently that one of JFK's favourite books was From Russia With Love?!) Similarly with the Bourne series, I've never read any of them but I love the films so if any of you could recommend a Ludlum title, please get in touch. In total, I've read between five and 10 'international bestseller' thrillers in the last few years so I was ready for a new one.
And so, we decided to choose The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo as our book of the month for the Tubridy Show for the month of June. I hadn't read it and was happy to have it as one of my holiday reads when I was off the radio for the first three weeks in June. I was intrigued by the book for a few reasons. Firstly, the author is a Swedish journalist called Stieg Larsson. Larsson wrote a trilogy of which this was the first part. It seems he wrote the three novels and handed them into his publisher at the same time. Shortly after he handed the manuscripts in, he died.
The first book has so far sold 7.5 million copies around the world and there is a phenomenal demand for the next parts (the paperback of part two is out next week and the third part is published in Europe already but not in English, which is driving fans around the twist). Stieg Larsson didn't live to see any of this success and this merely adds to the mystery that surrounds what has become one of the great publishing stories of recent times.
As thrillers go, The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo is a classic page turner of a thriller the like of which I haven't read since Red Dragon or The Firm. The Swedish setting is unconventional but something I've become accustomed to thanks to the Wallander series (the television version rather than the books, which I haven't read). The storyline is suitably ridiculous and yet bizarrely relevant. A famous business family all living in a small part of rural Sweden are hiding dark secrets that are discovered by a wronged journalist and a tattooed waif with attitude.
Along the way we have corrupt international bankers and industrialists who are busy making a fortune at the expense of the Swedish economy (wouldn't happen here, etc), there is plenty of sex (wouldn't happen here, etc) and there is a cellar where awful things happen.
Naturally, the film has been made and I found myself casting the movie as each new character was presented in the book. No doubt, the other two films will be produced such is the demand for gripping books being swiftly transferred to the big screen. Unfortunately for fans of the Millennium Trilogy (as they are formally known), barring an intervention by Sebastian Faulks, there will be no more books, movies, etc.
Like the Grisham books, these are not intellectually challenging in the strict sense of the word and book snobs (come on, you know who you are) will scoff at such pulp fiction, claiming, sotto voce, that it's beneath them. I, for one, thoroughly enjoyed the experience and found it to be perfect holiday reading. Anyone I've spoken to agrees and found that they couldn't put it down.
I'm very curious about what will happen here. I can guess.
NATO and Russia resume military ties
Slobodan Lekic
June 28, 2009
NATO and Russia have agreed to resume military ties in their first high-level meeting since Russia's war with Georgia disrupted their relations 10 months ago.
NATO's outgoing Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced on Saturday that the so-called NATO-Russia Council, a panel set up in 2002 to improve ties between the former Cold War rivals, is operational again.
"It was my ambition to leave to my successor an NRC that is up and running," said de Hoop Scheffer, whose term as secretary-general ends on August 1.
"After the meeting which just ended, I have achieved that aim. Because there was clearly a sense in that meeting that the NRC, which had been in neutral... is now back in gear," he said. "We also agreed to restart the military-to-military contacts."
Relations between the alliance and the Russian military were frozen after the five-day Georgian war last August. Although political ties have thawed considerably over the past five months, there had been no formal military contacts since then.
The resumption of talks means NATO and Russia can cooperate on range of security issues, including Afghanistan and efforts to fight piracy, terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his counterparts from NATO's 28 member nations on the western Greek island of Corfu on Saturday ahead of a broader informal meeting of ministers from the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
De Hoop Scheffer described the talks as "open and constructive, which means we did not try to paper over our differences on Georgia, for example. But we agreed not to allow those agreements to bring the NRC to a halt."
He said the renewed military contacts will involve meetings of the chiefs of staff of Russia and NATO countries.
The meeting in Corfu, which came as President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prepare to hold a summit next week, reflected the trend toward improved relations with Russia.
De Hoop Scheffer said Lavrov and the other ministers raised the issue of Georgia extensively, and he said there continue to be "fundamental differences on the territorial integrity of Georgia".
"But despite the fact I do not expect the twain to meet, there are a lot of things in NRC we can discuss and we can agree upon," De Hoop Scheffer said.
Lavrov said that "overall I view this meeting as very useful".
"We had a very frank discussion, at the centre stage of which was the need on how to work together in the future," Lavrov said.
"We spoke extensively on confidence building measures, but it is important to put those words into practice."
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis were the only heads of government to attend the conference.
"We want to forget (the past) and resume total cooperation on all the issues on which we have decided to collaborate," Berlusconi told journalists on his arrival at the meeting.
Despite last year's disruption of ties with NATO, Russia has continued cooperating with individual NATO nations such as the US, France or Germany by allowing them to use Russia's rail network and aerial corridors to resupply international forces in Afghanistan, and its navy has worked with NATO warships on their joint anti-piracy patrols.
NATO commanders have been particularly interested in Russia's cooperation on the trans-shipments of military supplies to the rapidly expanding US-led force in Afghanistan.
The normal supply route to landlocked Afghanistan via Pakistan has come under repeated Taliban attack, and the generals are keen to have an alternate overland supply route available through Russia and the Central Asian countries.
© 2009 AP
NATO and Russia resume military ties
Slobodan Lekic
June 28, 2009
NATO and Russia have agreed to resume military ties in their first high-level meeting since Russia's war with Georgia disrupted their relations 10 months ago.
NATO's outgoing Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer announced on Saturday that the so-called NATO-Russia Council, a panel set up in 2002 to improve ties between the former Cold War rivals, is operational again.
"It was my ambition to leave to my successor an NRC that is up and running," said de Hoop Scheffer, whose term as secretary-general ends on August 1.
"After the meeting which just ended, I have achieved that aim. Because there was clearly a sense in that meeting that the NRC, which had been in neutral... is now back in gear," he said. "We also agreed to restart the military-to-military contacts."
Relations between the alliance and the Russian military were frozen after the five-day Georgian war last August. Although political ties have thawed considerably over the past five months, there had been no formal military contacts since then.
The resumption of talks means NATO and Russia can cooperate on range of security issues, including Afghanistan and efforts to fight piracy, terrorism and the spread of nuclear weapons.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov met his counterparts from NATO's 28 member nations on the western Greek island of Corfu on Saturday ahead of a broader informal meeting of ministers from the 56-nation Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
De Hoop Scheffer described the talks as "open and constructive, which means we did not try to paper over our differences on Georgia, for example. But we agreed not to allow those agreements to bring the NRC to a halt."
He said the renewed military contacts will involve meetings of the chiefs of staff of Russia and NATO countries.
The meeting in Corfu, which came as President Barack Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev prepare to hold a summit next week, reflected the trend toward improved relations with Russia.
De Hoop Scheffer said Lavrov and the other ministers raised the issue of Georgia extensively, and he said there continue to be "fundamental differences on the territorial integrity of Georgia".
"But despite the fact I do not expect the twain to meet, there are a lot of things in NRC we can discuss and we can agree upon," De Hoop Scheffer said.
Lavrov said that "overall I view this meeting as very useful".
"We had a very frank discussion, at the centre stage of which was the need on how to work together in the future," Lavrov said.
"We spoke extensively on confidence building measures, but it is important to put those words into practice."
Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Greek counterpart Costas Karamanlis were the only heads of government to attend the conference.
"We want to forget (the past) and resume total cooperation on all the issues on which we have decided to collaborate," Berlusconi told journalists on his arrival at the meeting.
Despite last year's disruption of ties with NATO, Russia has continued cooperating with individual NATO nations such as the US, France or Germany by allowing them to use Russia's rail network and aerial corridors to resupply international forces in Afghanistan, and its navy has worked with NATO warships on their joint anti-piracy patrols.
NATO commanders have been particularly interested in Russia's cooperation on the trans-shipments of military supplies to the rapidly expanding US-led force in Afghanistan.
The normal supply route to landlocked Afghanistan via Pakistan has come under repeated Taliban attack, and the generals are keen to have an alternate overland supply route available through Russia and the Central Asian countries.
© 2009 AP
Russians continue to rewrite Soviet history
By: Gwynne Dyer
28/06/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
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In the old Soviet Union, the future was always certain; only the past was liable to change without notice. The signal that it had changed was often the publication of a pseudo-scholarly article that denounced the "falsifications" of the existing version of history.
Here we go again. Recently, Colonel Sergei Kovalev, the director of the scientific research department at the Institute of Military History, published an article on the website of the Russian Ministry of Defence entitled Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the U.S.S.R.'s Role On the Eve of the Second World War. He says it was the Poles who started the war in 1939, not the Nazis.
The British and the French were to blame too, because earlier in 1939 they guaranteed Poland's independence if it stood up to Hitler's demands. That gave the Poles "delusions of grandeur," unfortunately, and misled them into rebuffing Germany's "very modest" requests.
Germany only made two demands to Warsaw in 1939. One was the return of Danzig, a German-speaking city that had been separated from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War. The other was a German road and rail corridor across the strip of territory that gave the Poles access to the Baltic Sea, but separated eastern Germany from the rest of the country.
Kovalev is right about one thing: Hitler's demands were reasonable enough. By 1939, almost everybody agreed that the Versailles treaty had been wrong to blame the First World War on Germany, and that the five million Germans whose lands had been handed out to neighbouring countries under that treaty had been treated unfairly. But most historians also think that Hitler's demands were just an opening bid.
The conventional wisdom is that Hitler was determined on world conquest from the start, and that if Poland had accepted his terms in 1939 it would just have faced further demands not much later. But the conventional historians may be wrong, for Hitler also offered Poland a secret alliance against the Soviet Union when he made his demands.
Poland's military rulers rejected the whole package, trusting in the Anglo-French guarantee to protect them. From the day that the guarantee was issued in March 1939, they refused even to discuss it with the Germans. That may have been a mistake for, when war came in September, Britain and France were unable to help them militarily and Poland was overrun in a month.
But this hardly explains why Kovalev blames Poland for causing the war and why the Russian ministry of defence put his article on its website. The reason for that, most likely, lies with their need to rewrite the history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
That was the secret agreement of August 1939 in which Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Eastern Europe between them. The Russians got eastern Poland, all of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and parts of Romania. The Finns fought back and managed to save most of their country, but all the rest succumbed.
This deal has always been hard for the Russians to defend, especially since the Nazis attacked them two years later anyway. They usually say they were just trying to win time, but Stalin clearly fooled himself into believing that he had a real deal with the Nazis. He was recovering almost all the lands that had won their freedom from the Russian empire after the First World War.
The Soviet secret police killed or deported hundreds of thousands of "politically unreliable" people in the newly conquered territories. So it's not surprising that some people in the Baltic states welcomed German troops as liberators in 1941 and that very few people anywhere in Eastern Europe saw Red Army troops as liberators when they came back in 1944.
This has always infuriated the Russians, who see the Red Army as heroes and liberators. Col. Kovalev's article blaming the Poles for the war was bound to appeal to Russian patriots just as much as it would appal Poles, Estonians and all the other eastern Europeans who had to live for decades under the Soviet yoke.
The Polish ambassador in Moscow protested and Kovalev's article has now been removed from the ministry of defence's website, but the broader trend in Russia is clearly to rewrite history in ways that rehabilitate the Soviet past. Indeed, last month Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered the creation of the Commission to Counteract the Falsification of History to the Detriment of Russian Interests.
That sounds slightly less weird in Russian, but not much. And there's now legislation before the Duma (parliament) that would outlaw any portrayal of the Red Army as invaders "even on the territory of former Soviet republics." Of course, Moscow could not enforce that legislation without invading (sorry, liberating) them again, so it has little practical effect, but it is indicative of the mood in the country.
Russia isn't planning to invade anybody, but it is feeling spectacularly touchy and grumpy at the moment. So far, Medvedev (and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin) are managing to ride the tiger, but if they fall off they could be eaten up in a flash.
Gwynne Dyer's new book, Climate Wars, was published recently in Canada by Random House.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 28, 2009 A10
By: Gwynne Dyer
28/06/2009 1:00 AM | Comments: 0
Print E–mail Share This
In the old Soviet Union, the future was always certain; only the past was liable to change without notice. The signal that it had changed was often the publication of a pseudo-scholarly article that denounced the "falsifications" of the existing version of history.
Here we go again. Recently, Colonel Sergei Kovalev, the director of the scientific research department at the Institute of Military History, published an article on the website of the Russian Ministry of Defence entitled Fictions and Falsifications in Evaluating the U.S.S.R.'s Role On the Eve of the Second World War. He says it was the Poles who started the war in 1939, not the Nazis.
The British and the French were to blame too, because earlier in 1939 they guaranteed Poland's independence if it stood up to Hitler's demands. That gave the Poles "delusions of grandeur," unfortunately, and misled them into rebuffing Germany's "very modest" requests.
Germany only made two demands to Warsaw in 1939. One was the return of Danzig, a German-speaking city that had been separated from Germany by the Treaty of Versailles that ended the First World War. The other was a German road and rail corridor across the strip of territory that gave the Poles access to the Baltic Sea, but separated eastern Germany from the rest of the country.
Kovalev is right about one thing: Hitler's demands were reasonable enough. By 1939, almost everybody agreed that the Versailles treaty had been wrong to blame the First World War on Germany, and that the five million Germans whose lands had been handed out to neighbouring countries under that treaty had been treated unfairly. But most historians also think that Hitler's demands were just an opening bid.
The conventional wisdom is that Hitler was determined on world conquest from the start, and that if Poland had accepted his terms in 1939 it would just have faced further demands not much later. But the conventional historians may be wrong, for Hitler also offered Poland a secret alliance against the Soviet Union when he made his demands.
Poland's military rulers rejected the whole package, trusting in the Anglo-French guarantee to protect them. From the day that the guarantee was issued in March 1939, they refused even to discuss it with the Germans. That may have been a mistake for, when war came in September, Britain and France were unable to help them militarily and Poland was overrun in a month.
But this hardly explains why Kovalev blames Poland for causing the war and why the Russian ministry of defence put his article on its website. The reason for that, most likely, lies with their need to rewrite the history of the Nazi-Soviet Pact.
That was the secret agreement of August 1939 in which Germany and the Soviet Union carved up Eastern Europe between them. The Russians got eastern Poland, all of Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, and parts of Romania. The Finns fought back and managed to save most of their country, but all the rest succumbed.
This deal has always been hard for the Russians to defend, especially since the Nazis attacked them two years later anyway. They usually say they were just trying to win time, but Stalin clearly fooled himself into believing that he had a real deal with the Nazis. He was recovering almost all the lands that had won their freedom from the Russian empire after the First World War.
The Soviet secret police killed or deported hundreds of thousands of "politically unreliable" people in the newly conquered territories. So it's not surprising that some people in the Baltic states welcomed German troops as liberators in 1941 and that very few people anywhere in Eastern Europe saw Red Army troops as liberators when they came back in 1944.
This has always infuriated the Russians, who see the Red Army as heroes and liberators. Col. Kovalev's article blaming the Poles for the war was bound to appeal to Russian patriots just as much as it would appal Poles, Estonians and all the other eastern Europeans who had to live for decades under the Soviet yoke.
The Polish ambassador in Moscow protested and Kovalev's article has now been removed from the ministry of defence's website, but the broader trend in Russia is clearly to rewrite history in ways that rehabilitate the Soviet past. Indeed, last month Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered the creation of the Commission to Counteract the Falsification of History to the Detriment of Russian Interests.
That sounds slightly less weird in Russian, but not much. And there's now legislation before the Duma (parliament) that would outlaw any portrayal of the Red Army as invaders "even on the territory of former Soviet republics." Of course, Moscow could not enforce that legislation without invading (sorry, liberating) them again, so it has little practical effect, but it is indicative of the mood in the country.
Russia isn't planning to invade anybody, but it is feeling spectacularly touchy and grumpy at the moment. So far, Medvedev (and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin) are managing to ride the tiger, but if they fall off they could be eaten up in a flash.
Gwynne Dyer's new book, Climate Wars, was published recently in Canada by Random House.
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition June 28, 2009 A10
When you strip a man of everything he is, body and soul, and everything he has, he will fight you, and it is not wrong. The fight represents foulness and corruption at its core that need to be challenged, through valiant self reliance, through economic pressure, and through global respect. It is these weapons, which can win hearts and change minds. It is also the concept of shame and honour which it make it difficult for people to admit that they have made mistakes. Yet until they do, the fight is a legitimate one.
This is my hope for the future, and my dream for the world: that people recognize that they are never powerless, whatever their circumstances or however their future.
Vive le resistance.
June 27, 2009.
Victoria, British Columbia,
The Dominion of Canada.
This is my hope for the future, and my dream for the world: that people recognize that they are never powerless, whatever their circumstances or however their future.
Vive le resistance.
June 27, 2009.
Victoria, British Columbia,
The Dominion of Canada.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
KABUL (AFP) — Four Afghan climbers and two French guides will next week attempt to scale Afghanistan's tallest mountain, Noshaq, which has never before been conquered by an Afghan, the team said.
The climbers will set out for the 7,492-metre (24,723-foot) peak on the border with Pakistan on July 1 and hope to reach the summit around 20 days later, guide Louis Meunier told AFP.
"The expedition will enable the first Afghan to climb Noshaq and plant the Afghan flag in a sign of hope for peace," Meunier told AFP.
The mountain is in the Wakhan corridor, a finger of land jutting out of northwestern Afghanistan and part of the mighty Hindu Kush mountain range.
"Maybe it will also inspire other potential travellers to come to the Wakhan, a region spared by the conflict," Meunier said, referring to decades of war that have blighted Afghanistan.
One of the Afghan climbers, Malang Daria, told AFP he estimated his chances of success at 70 percent.
"We are going to plant the Afghan flag ... which will be a proud moment for all Afghans," he said.
In preparation, the team travelled to France to train in mountain-climbing techniques, the 35-year-old said.
They spent nearly a month in the French Alps mastering skills needed to deal with snow, rocks and ice, and to acclimatise to the high altitude, Meunier said. The expedition would be carried out with no oxygen tanks, he said.
"Adaptation to the thin oxygen is very important," said Malang.
While much of Afghanistan is dealing with a bloody Islamist insurgency, in the Wakhan there was no risk for the team, he said.
The climbers would be accompanied to a base camp by about 50 porters, he said.
Noshaq was first conquered by Japanese climbers in 1960 and became a popular climb until the 1979 Soviet invasion that plunged Afghanistan into war.
It is the second highest peak in the Hindu Kush after Tirich Mir, which has an altitude of about 7,700 metres, in Pakistan.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
The climbers will set out for the 7,492-metre (24,723-foot) peak on the border with Pakistan on July 1 and hope to reach the summit around 20 days later, guide Louis Meunier told AFP.
"The expedition will enable the first Afghan to climb Noshaq and plant the Afghan flag in a sign of hope for peace," Meunier told AFP.
The mountain is in the Wakhan corridor, a finger of land jutting out of northwestern Afghanistan and part of the mighty Hindu Kush mountain range.
"Maybe it will also inspire other potential travellers to come to the Wakhan, a region spared by the conflict," Meunier said, referring to decades of war that have blighted Afghanistan.
One of the Afghan climbers, Malang Daria, told AFP he estimated his chances of success at 70 percent.
"We are going to plant the Afghan flag ... which will be a proud moment for all Afghans," he said.
In preparation, the team travelled to France to train in mountain-climbing techniques, the 35-year-old said.
They spent nearly a month in the French Alps mastering skills needed to deal with snow, rocks and ice, and to acclimatise to the high altitude, Meunier said. The expedition would be carried out with no oxygen tanks, he said.
"Adaptation to the thin oxygen is very important," said Malang.
While much of Afghanistan is dealing with a bloody Islamist insurgency, in the Wakhan there was no risk for the team, he said.
The climbers would be accompanied to a base camp by about 50 porters, he said.
Noshaq was first conquered by Japanese climbers in 1960 and became a popular climb until the 1979 Soviet invasion that plunged Afghanistan into war.
It is the second highest peak in the Hindu Kush after Tirich Mir, which has an altitude of about 7,700 metres, in Pakistan.
Copyright © 2009 AFP.
Afghan unrest kills 11: officials
10 hours ago
KABUL (AFP) — Insurgent bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday killed a provincial deputy police chief and two civilians as Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint overnight and killed eight policemen, officials said.
A roadside bomb planted by "enemies" killed the police officer for northeastern Kunar province as he was travelling in eastern Laghman province, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Another man was killed with him, it said, without identifying the person.
Laghman provincial spokesman Sayed Ahmad Safi said the other casualty was a civilian. Three other people, including the officer's son, were wounded, Safi told AFP.
In another explosion on Saturday, an Afghan civilian who was supplying containers to international troops in the eastern town of Khost was killed by a bomb put into his car, a provincial official said.
An Afghan translator for US forces was killed in a similar attack in the same town on Friday.
The interior ministry also blamed this attack on "the enemies", a reference to insurgents.
Taliban militants meanwhile stormed a police checkpoint in southern Helmand province overnight and killed eight policemen, the provincial government said.
The ambush took place just north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. "Eight police were killed," Helmand government spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
Helmand is perhaps Afghanistan's most intense battlefield in an insurgency that has brought roughly 90,000 international troops to the country, with more on the way.
Police are on the frontline of the battle, frequently bearing the brunt of the attacks because they are not as well equipped or as well trained as the Afghan army and the international security forces.
The Taliban control a handful of districts in Helmand, where British and US troops have recently stepped up operations against the insurgents.
Afghan forces have also been trying to clear out insurgent hotspots ahead of August 20 presidential elections, a test of the fragile country's attempts to transition to democracy.
President Hamid Karzai called Saturday on the Taliban and other insurgent groups to vote in the elections and not attack the polls.
Copyright © 2009 AFP
10 hours ago
KABUL (AFP) — Insurgent bomb attacks in Afghanistan on Saturday killed a provincial deputy police chief and two civilians as Taliban militants stormed a checkpoint overnight and killed eight policemen, officials said.
A roadside bomb planted by "enemies" killed the police officer for northeastern Kunar province as he was travelling in eastern Laghman province, the interior ministry said in a statement.
Another man was killed with him, it said, without identifying the person.
Laghman provincial spokesman Sayed Ahmad Safi said the other casualty was a civilian. Three other people, including the officer's son, were wounded, Safi told AFP.
In another explosion on Saturday, an Afghan civilian who was supplying containers to international troops in the eastern town of Khost was killed by a bomb put into his car, a provincial official said.
An Afghan translator for US forces was killed in a similar attack in the same town on Friday.
The interior ministry also blamed this attack on "the enemies", a reference to insurgents.
Taliban militants meanwhile stormed a police checkpoint in southern Helmand province overnight and killed eight policemen, the provincial government said.
The ambush took place just north of the provincial capital Lashkar Gah. "Eight police were killed," Helmand government spokesman Daud Ahmadi told AFP.
Helmand is perhaps Afghanistan's most intense battlefield in an insurgency that has brought roughly 90,000 international troops to the country, with more on the way.
Police are on the frontline of the battle, frequently bearing the brunt of the attacks because they are not as well equipped or as well trained as the Afghan army and the international security forces.
The Taliban control a handful of districts in Helmand, where British and US troops have recently stepped up operations against the insurgents.
Afghan forces have also been trying to clear out insurgent hotspots ahead of August 20 presidential elections, a test of the fragile country's attempts to transition to democracy.
President Hamid Karzai called Saturday on the Taliban and other insurgent groups to vote in the elections and not attack the polls.
Copyright © 2009 AFP
This sounds so fabulous. Too bad there were no pictures, but even major celebrities deserve some privacy.
Oprah fetes 1,700 employees and their families in Barcelona
MADRID (AFP) — US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey celebrated her 55th birthday by taking over a popular tourist attraction in Barcelona to hold a party for 1,700 of her employees and their families, Spanish media said Monday.
The fiesta Sunday night at the Poble Espanyol, a reconstruction of a Spanish village with shops, bars and restaurants, included concerts and performances by flamenco dancers, the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia said.
It said the guests are to spend three days in the northeastern Spanish city before being treated to a 10-day Mediterranean cruise.
They will travel from Barcelona on the Norwegian Gem liner, which has space for 3,000 passengers, to Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Malta.
The Chicago Sun Times said last week that Winfrey is paying for everything from transportation to food to "special activities" at a cost of about 5,400 dollars (3,900 euros) per person.
La Vanguardia said the Barcelona party was part of celebrations to mark Winfrey's 55th birthday on January 29.
In 2005, the billionaire talk show host, actress, producer and magazine publisher took her staff on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
The Poble Espanyol, built in 1929 on a hill in Barcelona, has 117 buildings, streets and squares that represent different architectural styles from across Spain.
Oprah fetes 1,700 employees and their families in Barcelona
MADRID (AFP) — US talk show queen Oprah Winfrey celebrated her 55th birthday by taking over a popular tourist attraction in Barcelona to hold a party for 1,700 of her employees and their families, Spanish media said Monday.
The fiesta Sunday night at the Poble Espanyol, a reconstruction of a Spanish village with shops, bars and restaurants, included concerts and performances by flamenco dancers, the Barcelona-based newspaper La Vanguardia said.
It said the guests are to spend three days in the northeastern Spanish city before being treated to a 10-day Mediterranean cruise.
They will travel from Barcelona on the Norwegian Gem liner, which has space for 3,000 passengers, to Italy, Turkey, Greece, and Malta.
The Chicago Sun Times said last week that Winfrey is paying for everything from transportation to food to "special activities" at a cost of about 5,400 dollars (3,900 euros) per person.
La Vanguardia said the Barcelona party was part of celebrations to mark Winfrey's 55th birthday on January 29.
In 2005, the billionaire talk show host, actress, producer and magazine publisher took her staff on an all-expenses-paid trip to Hawaii.
The Poble Espanyol, built in 1929 on a hill in Barcelona, has 117 buildings, streets and squares that represent different architectural styles from across Spain.
Checking In With Manila
This is from the Australian:
A TROPICAL storm has raged across the central Philippines today, leaving at least six people dead, including four fishermen whose motorboat was destroyed.
The storm packing winds of 75km/h struck the eastern Samar province yesterday and by today was roaring westward over the Philippines towards the South China Sea.
The winds have destroyed houses while about 10,000 people are stranded aboard hundreds of ferries and motorboats.
People on watercraft have been ordered to stay docked for safety, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.
At least two people are believed to have drowned in the floods.
More than 60 domestic flights have been cancelled, airline officials said.
A TROPICAL storm has raged across the central Philippines today, leaving at least six people dead, including four fishermen whose motorboat was destroyed.
The storm packing winds of 75km/h struck the eastern Samar province yesterday and by today was roaring westward over the Philippines towards the South China Sea.
The winds have destroyed houses while about 10,000 people are stranded aboard hundreds of ferries and motorboats.
People on watercraft have been ordered to stay docked for safety, the National Disaster Coordinating Council said.
At least two people are believed to have drowned in the floods.
More than 60 domestic flights have been cancelled, airline officials said.
I am really curious about this music, so this is just a quick reminder to myself to download some of it later. We shall see.
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: June 26, 2009
The Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson writes music that sits at the border of classical Minimalism and indie pop. His last two recordings — “IBM 1401: A User’s Manual” (2006) and “Fordlandia” (2008) — were concept albums with a symphonic patina. Each had recurring musical themes as well as overarching narratives about mythology and archaic technology. And each leaned heavily on lush, dark-hued string timbres and simple, slowly cycling themes. Around and within those textures, though, Mr. Johannsson wove electronic bass lines, beats, feedback, buzzing timbres and, occasionally, heavily processed vocals.
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Mr. Johannsson, who played the piano and oversaw some of the electronic sound, and Matthias Hemstock, who handled electronics and percussion, were joined by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, better known as ACME, at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday evening. The concert was Mr. Johannsson’s first in New York, and in ACME he had flexible collaborators who understand (and individually dabble in) the stylistic alchemy that underpins his work.
Nearly half the music that Mr. Johannsson offered was drawn from his 2002 debut album, “Englaborn.” He began with the melancholy title track and ended with “Odi et Amo,” a soaring recorded soprano line nestled into a glacial string score. “Salfraedingur,” a hypnotic four-minute tornado driven by percussion and synthetic bass, and “Joi & Karen,” a graceful rumination on a sparkling, gradually morphing five-note piano theme, also represented that early CD.
The rest of the program touched briefly on Mr. Johannsson’s recent evocations of technological dystopias. “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black,” from “IBM 1401,” sounds as you would expect of a work with that title. Not that any of Mr. Johannsson’s music is especially cheerful. And from “Fordlandia,” Mr. Johannsson and the ensemble performed the plaintive, shapely “Fordlandia: Aerial View” and the texturally dense “Rocket Builder.” Also included were excerpts from two of Mr. Johannsson’s theater scores, “Corpus Camera” (1999), arranged mostly for strings, and a beat-heavy, dancelike section from “Viktoria og Georg.”
The ACME musicians — Caleb Burhans and Keats Dieffenbach, violinists; Nadia Sirota, violist; and Clarice Jensen, cellist — produced a sweet, refined sound with a rich vibrato, both in Mr. Johannsson’s music and in its curtain-raising performance of Gavin Bryars’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Between the National and the Bristol”).
Mr. Bryars’s 24-minute piece, composed for the Arditti Quartet in 1985, begins with a two-note Minimalist seesaw and moves stylistically backward (at least, for a time), toward the sumptuousness of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Few composers are as adept as Mr. Bryars at taking a promising notion and wearing out its welcome. As this quartet grows increasingly episodic, and takes to swooping from a “Verklärte Nacht”-like ardor to its Philip Glassian opening figure and back, you begin to wish that Mr. Bryars would either find the thread and tie it up or just throw on a double bar and cut his losses. He chose the second option.
By ALLAN KOZINN
Published: June 26, 2009
The Icelandic composer Johann Johannsson writes music that sits at the border of classical Minimalism and indie pop. His last two recordings — “IBM 1401: A User’s Manual” (2006) and “Fordlandia” (2008) — were concept albums with a symphonic patina. Each had recurring musical themes as well as overarching narratives about mythology and archaic technology. And each leaned heavily on lush, dark-hued string timbres and simple, slowly cycling themes. Around and within those textures, though, Mr. Johannsson wove electronic bass lines, beats, feedback, buzzing timbres and, occasionally, heavily processed vocals.
Skip to next paragraph
Blog
ArtsBeat
The latest on the arts, coverage of live events, critical reviews, multimedia extravaganzas and much more. Join the discussion.
More Arts News
Mr. Johannsson, who played the piano and oversaw some of the electronic sound, and Matthias Hemstock, who handled electronics and percussion, were joined by the American Contemporary Music Ensemble, better known as ACME, at Le Poisson Rouge on Thursday evening. The concert was Mr. Johannsson’s first in New York, and in ACME he had flexible collaborators who understand (and individually dabble in) the stylistic alchemy that underpins his work.
Nearly half the music that Mr. Johannsson offered was drawn from his 2002 debut album, “Englaborn.” He began with the melancholy title track and ended with “Odi et Amo,” a soaring recorded soprano line nestled into a glacial string score. “Salfraedingur,” a hypnotic four-minute tornado driven by percussion and synthetic bass, and “Joi & Karen,” a graceful rumination on a sparkling, gradually morphing five-note piano theme, also represented that early CD.
The rest of the program touched briefly on Mr. Johannsson’s recent evocations of technological dystopias. “The Sun’s Gone Dim and the Sky’s Turned Black,” from “IBM 1401,” sounds as you would expect of a work with that title. Not that any of Mr. Johannsson’s music is especially cheerful. And from “Fordlandia,” Mr. Johannsson and the ensemble performed the plaintive, shapely “Fordlandia: Aerial View” and the texturally dense “Rocket Builder.” Also included were excerpts from two of Mr. Johannsson’s theater scores, “Corpus Camera” (1999), arranged mostly for strings, and a beat-heavy, dancelike section from “Viktoria og Georg.”
The ACME musicians — Caleb Burhans and Keats Dieffenbach, violinists; Nadia Sirota, violist; and Clarice Jensen, cellist — produced a sweet, refined sound with a rich vibrato, both in Mr. Johannsson’s music and in its curtain-raising performance of Gavin Bryars’s String Quartet No. 1 (“Between the National and the Bristol”).
Mr. Bryars’s 24-minute piece, composed for the Arditti Quartet in 1985, begins with a two-note Minimalist seesaw and moves stylistically backward (at least, for a time), toward the sumptuousness of the late-19th and early 20th centuries. Few composers are as adept as Mr. Bryars at taking a promising notion and wearing out its welcome. As this quartet grows increasingly episodic, and takes to swooping from a “Verklärte Nacht”-like ardor to its Philip Glassian opening figure and back, you begin to wish that Mr. Bryars would either find the thread and tie it up or just throw on a double bar and cut his losses. He chose the second option.
Al Jazeera gets breakthrough in U.S. TV market
Barcelona News.Net
Friday 26th June, 2009
Al Jazeera English will be seen in the U.S. from July 1st.
The Qatar-based TV network is well known throughout the Arab world but has been shunned by U.S. TV and cable networks due to its graphic coverage of events in the Middle East.
The network has come under fire from the U.S. government, in particularly the military, but more so under the previous Bush administration.
The network has now inked a deal with a cable TV company in Washington DC area, according to a report by Arabian Business on Friday.
“On July 1 we are going to launch the first operation in cable distribution in the United States,” Al Jazeera's director general, Wadah Khanfar, told the publication in an interview.
“I can tell you that on July 1 we are going to launch an agreement with a Washington DC based company that has around 2.3 million subscribers.”
The English language version of the Qatari news channel is available in 140 million homes in forty countries, including Israel, but has been unable to enter America, the world's most important English-language market.
Local operators in Burlington, Vermont and Toledo, Ohio have been the only two exceptions to date.
Many Americans associate the Al Jazeera brand with the Arabic news channel's airing of video tapes from Osama Bin Laden, and US cable operators have been reluctant to add Al Jazeera English to their line-ups amid allegations that it is a “mouthpiece for terrorists”.
However, Khanfar said a more benevolent political climate means that the channel will be able to sign distribution deals across the U.S. in the second half of this year.
“I think the atmosphere is changing now. We have negotiations taking place with many cable companies in the United States and Canada and I hope that very soon we are going to hear a lot of good news,” he told Arabian Business.
Al Jazeera English began broadcasting in November 2006, after hiring a number of well known international journalists, including veteran UK broadcaster Sir David Frost.
Barcelona News.Net
Friday 26th June, 2009
Al Jazeera English will be seen in the U.S. from July 1st.
The Qatar-based TV network is well known throughout the Arab world but has been shunned by U.S. TV and cable networks due to its graphic coverage of events in the Middle East.
The network has come under fire from the U.S. government, in particularly the military, but more so under the previous Bush administration.
The network has now inked a deal with a cable TV company in Washington DC area, according to a report by Arabian Business on Friday.
“On July 1 we are going to launch the first operation in cable distribution in the United States,” Al Jazeera's director general, Wadah Khanfar, told the publication in an interview.
“I can tell you that on July 1 we are going to launch an agreement with a Washington DC based company that has around 2.3 million subscribers.”
The English language version of the Qatari news channel is available in 140 million homes in forty countries, including Israel, but has been unable to enter America, the world's most important English-language market.
Local operators in Burlington, Vermont and Toledo, Ohio have been the only two exceptions to date.
Many Americans associate the Al Jazeera brand with the Arabic news channel's airing of video tapes from Osama Bin Laden, and US cable operators have been reluctant to add Al Jazeera English to their line-ups amid allegations that it is a “mouthpiece for terrorists”.
However, Khanfar said a more benevolent political climate means that the channel will be able to sign distribution deals across the U.S. in the second half of this year.
“I think the atmosphere is changing now. We have negotiations taking place with many cable companies in the United States and Canada and I hope that very soon we are going to hear a lot of good news,” he told Arabian Business.
Al Jazeera English began broadcasting in November 2006, after hiring a number of well known international journalists, including veteran UK broadcaster Sir David Frost.
Awestruck.
Hundreds protest in France to defend illegal immigrants
Posted: 28 June 2009 0442 hrs
Anti-globalization militants, members of trade unions and political unions demonstrate in Calais northern France
CALAIS, France : Hundreds of leftist demonstrators from Europe on Saturday protested against the fate of illegal immigrants living in France's northern city of Calais, a key exit point to Britain.
Screaming "Stone by stone, brick by brick, we will raze your prisons," protestors from France, Belgium, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands marched through the town flanking the Channel which separates France from Britain.
The protestors, whom police said numbered about 1,000 but organisers said totalled double that figure, held up banners flaying the right-wing government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We will dance on the ashes of your detention centres," said one. Another read: "Immigration is a boon for France, all men merit respect."
About 2,000 policemen and security officials fanned out across the town to prevent violence and a helicopter surveyed the demonstrators from the air.
Ever since a Red Cross detention centre in Sangatte was closed in November 2002 after concerns it had become a base for illegal immigration into Britain, hundreds of illegal immigrants -- mainly Afghans, Eritreans, Iraqis and Somalis -- are living precariously in Calais.
"After the (peaceful) demonstration, how can the state justify the presence of 2,000 security officials and a helicopter hovering over Calais," said Meriem, a spokeswoman for the "No Border" group fighting for the rights of illegal immigrants and their right to freely move through Europe.
"The violence comes from the state," she said.
- AFP /ls
Hundreds protest in France to defend illegal immigrants
Posted: 28 June 2009 0442 hrs
Anti-globalization militants, members of trade unions and political unions demonstrate in Calais northern France
CALAIS, France : Hundreds of leftist demonstrators from Europe on Saturday protested against the fate of illegal immigrants living in France's northern city of Calais, a key exit point to Britain.
Screaming "Stone by stone, brick by brick, we will raze your prisons," protestors from France, Belgium, Britain, Germany and the Netherlands marched through the town flanking the Channel which separates France from Britain.
The protestors, whom police said numbered about 1,000 but organisers said totalled double that figure, held up banners flaying the right-wing government of French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
"We will dance on the ashes of your detention centres," said one. Another read: "Immigration is a boon for France, all men merit respect."
About 2,000 policemen and security officials fanned out across the town to prevent violence and a helicopter surveyed the demonstrators from the air.
Ever since a Red Cross detention centre in Sangatte was closed in November 2002 after concerns it had become a base for illegal immigration into Britain, hundreds of illegal immigrants -- mainly Afghans, Eritreans, Iraqis and Somalis -- are living precariously in Calais.
"After the (peaceful) demonstration, how can the state justify the presence of 2,000 security officials and a helicopter hovering over Calais," said Meriem, a spokeswoman for the "No Border" group fighting for the rights of illegal immigrants and their right to freely move through Europe.
"The violence comes from the state," she said.
- AFP /ls
ISLAMABAD (AFP) — Pakistan's prime minister Thursday told Washington's visiting top security adviser that the United States must halt drone attacks on its soil, after they killed dozens of people in the northwest.
James Jones held talks with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as part of a short regional tour that has already taken in neighbouring Afghanistan to assess the United States' new strategy in the region.
The Barack Obama administration has put Pakistan at the heart of a strategy to tackle Al-Qaeda and other extremists who Washington says are huddled along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border plotting attacks on Western targets.
Gilani "called for stopping the drone attacks in order to ensure success of Pakistan's strategy for isolating the militants from the tribes," a statement issued from his office said.
Two US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal South Waziristan district on Tuesday reportedly killed about 50 people as suspected Taliban militants gathered for a funeral, military and administration officials have said.
Jones, who also met President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, in a statement made no mention of any rift over the use of drones to target militants in the lawless tribal belt.
"Together, the US and Pakistan are enhancing border cooperation, trade, energy and economic development to help Pakistanis face the challenges posed by extremists," the statement said.
"Terrorism is not simply the enemy of America -- it is a direct and urgent threat to the Pakistani people."
Foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit, who said Thursday that the drone attacks were "unacceptable and must be stopped", revealed the talks centred around Islamist extremism and how to bring stability to Afghanistan.
Militants slip easily across the porous, mountainous border between the two countries, and Basit said they discussed reinforcing troop numbers on the Afghan side, where there is a significant US military presence.
"They do understand our concerns... now it is a matter how these additional troops would be deployed, this is what is currently being discussed by our two sides," Basit told reporters.
US officials have voiced strong support for a Pakistani military offensive to clear Taliban militants from swathes of the northwest, with troops currently readying for an assault on the tribal belt.
The statement from Gilani's office said Jones "lauded (the) Pakistan Army's successful operation against terrorists", but said that Pakistan needed more help from donors to fund its war against the militants.
Prior to visiting Islamabad Jones was in Afghanistan holding meetings with political and military leadership, an official said.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said Jones met Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide and Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, among other top officials.
He also had talks with US ambassador Karl Eikenberry and ISAF commander, General Stan McChrystal.
Jones "emphasized the need for the international community to support the Afghan government's efforts to enhance security, promote economic development, and provide good governance and rule of law," Hammer said.
Obama's top security aide also met the Afghan Independent Election Commission as well as several opposition presidential candidates.
"The United States neither supports nor opposes any legitimate candidates and we are concentrating our efforts on helping to create a level playing field for all your candidates," Jones told reporters.
After leaving Pakistan on Thursday, Jones will head to India.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
James Jones held talks with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as part of a short regional tour that has already taken in neighbouring Afghanistan to assess the United States' new strategy in the region.
The Barack Obama administration has put Pakistan at the heart of a strategy to tackle Al-Qaeda and other extremists who Washington says are huddled along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border plotting attacks on Western targets.
Gilani "called for stopping the drone attacks in order to ensure success of Pakistan's strategy for isolating the militants from the tribes," a statement issued from his office said.
Two US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal South Waziristan district on Tuesday reportedly killed about 50 people as suspected Taliban militants gathered for a funeral, military and administration officials have said.
Jones, who also met President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani, in a statement made no mention of any rift over the use of drones to target militants in the lawless tribal belt.
"Together, the US and Pakistan are enhancing border cooperation, trade, energy and economic development to help Pakistanis face the challenges posed by extremists," the statement said.
"Terrorism is not simply the enemy of America -- it is a direct and urgent threat to the Pakistani people."
Foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit, who said Thursday that the drone attacks were "unacceptable and must be stopped", revealed the talks centred around Islamist extremism and how to bring stability to Afghanistan.
Militants slip easily across the porous, mountainous border between the two countries, and Basit said they discussed reinforcing troop numbers on the Afghan side, where there is a significant US military presence.
"They do understand our concerns... now it is a matter how these additional troops would be deployed, this is what is currently being discussed by our two sides," Basit told reporters.
US officials have voiced strong support for a Pakistani military offensive to clear Taliban militants from swathes of the northwest, with troops currently readying for an assault on the tribal belt.
The statement from Gilani's office said Jones "lauded (the) Pakistan Army's successful operation against terrorists", but said that Pakistan needed more help from donors to fund its war against the militants.
Prior to visiting Islamabad Jones was in Afghanistan holding meetings with political and military leadership, an official said.
National Security Council spokesman Mike Hammer said Jones met Afghan President Hamid Karzai, UN Special Representative for Afghanistan Kai Eide and Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak, among other top officials.
He also had talks with US ambassador Karl Eikenberry and ISAF commander, General Stan McChrystal.
Jones "emphasized the need for the international community to support the Afghan government's efforts to enhance security, promote economic development, and provide good governance and rule of law," Hammer said.
Obama's top security aide also met the Afghan Independent Election Commission as well as several opposition presidential candidates.
"The United States neither supports nor opposes any legitimate candidates and we are concentrating our efforts on helping to create a level playing field for all your candidates," Jones told reporters.
After leaving Pakistan on Thursday, Jones will head to India.
Copyright © 2009 AFP. All rights reserved. More »
Its too bad that this story didn't make the Canadian mainstream media. Vraiment etrange, but as you'll note, there are certain groups in the east that are supportive of this project.
Al Jazeera seeks Canadian outlet
Blake Lambert Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: June 27. 2009 8:09PM UAE / June 27. 2009 4:09PM GMT
Nour Odeh, a correspondent for the Al Jazeera English-language news channel, which hopes to be broadcast in Canada. Mohammed Abed / AFP
TORONTO // Al Jazeera has launched a bid to broadcast in Canada after a failed attempt by the Doha-based network’s Arabic service five years ago.
The national broadcast regulator is now deciding whether its English-language counterpart can be distributed by cable and satellite companies.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently finished considering the application submitted by Toronto-based Ethnic Channels Group Ltd, a distributor of foreign channels, including Abu Dhabi TV, and the domestic sponsor of Al Jazeera English.
In 2004 the CRTC allowed satellite companies distribution rights to Al Jazeera if they followed strict conditions. The companies would have to retain records of all programming, not broadcast abusive comments as part of that programming and either alter or cut programming to ensure no abusive comment is aired.
No company is willing to carry it as a result of the conditions.
The first application by the Arabic-language channel was opposed by about 500 individuals or groups.
Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, accused the Al Jazeera Arabic channel of propagating “clear outright anti-Semitic Holocaust denial”.
“Canada has CRTC regulations that targets broadcasts that would promote hate,” Mr Farber said.
However, the English-language channel has reason for optimism. Chief among them is Tony Burman, the Canadian who serves as its managing director.
As the former top editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, he has an understanding of the country and enjoys access to its business, media and political elites. Mr Burman delivered speeches to a variety of audiences in May and June while launching a grassroots lobbying effort that incorporated the website, IWantAJE.ca.
He stressed that his channel is separate from its Arabic counterpart. They are part of the same company, Mr Burman said, and share resources and a brand name, but the former serves a global audience and the latter is aimed at an Arabic audience primarily in the Middle East.
Mr Burman told Ontario public television that the channel’s editorial leadership “is a very western group”.
To counteract the accusations of an anti-Jewish slant, he said there are more Israeli government officials interviewed on Al Jazeera English than any other network outside that country.
According to Mr Burman, Israelis respect the opportunity to communicate directly with the Arab world.
“So it mystifies me, totally mystifies me, why there wouldn’t be a comparable openness in some parts of Canada,” he told Ontario public television.
His view is shared by some politicians, student groups, activists and media consumers, all of whom wrote letters of support of Al Jazeera English.
Two campaigners for the channel said more than 1,000 parties responded, the majority of them positively.
They praised the channel’s comprehensive international coverage with its 69 foreign bureaus, combined with its Arabic parent, which Mr Burman said was more than either the BBC or CNN.
What appealed to supporters is Al Jazeera English’s mandate of allowing information to flow from the developing world instead of having an agenda dictated by the West.
Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, and Senator Hugh Segal wrote that Al Jazeera English’s reporting reflected Canadian values of multiculturalism and freedom of expression.
David Halton, who spent 40 years as a national and foreign correspondent with CBC before his retirement, indicated the need for people to have the opportunity to watch the channel is reinforced by the cutbacks by the Canadian media to their foreign bureaus.
“Absolutely, Canadians should have access to this channel,” said Julie Payne of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. “We don’t want to be caught surprised as we were last time [by the CRTC’s ruling].”
To reduce resistance to the channel, Mr Burman has made incentive-laden promises to members of parliament and Jewish-Canadian groups.
Mr Layton wrote that Al Jazeera English is committed to opening a Canadian bureau, which would give the world a new perspective on this country.
B’nai Brith, a Jewish advocacy and service organisation, and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) said Mr Burman agreed to form a consultative committee with them to allay their concerns about the parent network and grant them input into the content of Al Jazeera broadcasts in this country.
Neither group is opposed to the current application, although the CJC noted its support was conditioned on its participation in a committee to review the channel’s performance. “The albatross hanging around Al Jazeera English’s neck is its brand-name,” Mr Farber said. “It’s not anything else.”
The CRTC has not set a deadline for its decision, but it could take several weeks.
Mr Burman is hopeful to get the regulator’s seal of approval.
If that happens, he said, he expects cable and satellite companies to quickly include Al Jazeera English as part of their services.
Then Canadians will be able to be part of the channel’s more than 140 million viewers in more than 100 countries.
blambert@thenational.ae
Al Jazeera seeks Canadian outlet
Blake Lambert Foreign Correspondent
Last Updated: June 27. 2009 8:09PM UAE / June 27. 2009 4:09PM GMT
Nour Odeh, a correspondent for the Al Jazeera English-language news channel, which hopes to be broadcast in Canada. Mohammed Abed / AFP
TORONTO // Al Jazeera has launched a bid to broadcast in Canada after a failed attempt by the Doha-based network’s Arabic service five years ago.
The national broadcast regulator is now deciding whether its English-language counterpart can be distributed by cable and satellite companies.
The Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) recently finished considering the application submitted by Toronto-based Ethnic Channels Group Ltd, a distributor of foreign channels, including Abu Dhabi TV, and the domestic sponsor of Al Jazeera English.
In 2004 the CRTC allowed satellite companies distribution rights to Al Jazeera if they followed strict conditions. The companies would have to retain records of all programming, not broadcast abusive comments as part of that programming and either alter or cut programming to ensure no abusive comment is aired.
No company is willing to carry it as a result of the conditions.
The first application by the Arabic-language channel was opposed by about 500 individuals or groups.
Bernie Farber, chief executive officer of the Canadian Jewish Congress, accused the Al Jazeera Arabic channel of propagating “clear outright anti-Semitic Holocaust denial”.
“Canada has CRTC regulations that targets broadcasts that would promote hate,” Mr Farber said.
However, the English-language channel has reason for optimism. Chief among them is Tony Burman, the Canadian who serves as its managing director.
As the former top editor at the Canadian Broadcasting Corp, he has an understanding of the country and enjoys access to its business, media and political elites. Mr Burman delivered speeches to a variety of audiences in May and June while launching a grassroots lobbying effort that incorporated the website, IWantAJE.ca.
He stressed that his channel is separate from its Arabic counterpart. They are part of the same company, Mr Burman said, and share resources and a brand name, but the former serves a global audience and the latter is aimed at an Arabic audience primarily in the Middle East.
Mr Burman told Ontario public television that the channel’s editorial leadership “is a very western group”.
To counteract the accusations of an anti-Jewish slant, he said there are more Israeli government officials interviewed on Al Jazeera English than any other network outside that country.
According to Mr Burman, Israelis respect the opportunity to communicate directly with the Arab world.
“So it mystifies me, totally mystifies me, why there wouldn’t be a comparable openness in some parts of Canada,” he told Ontario public television.
His view is shared by some politicians, student groups, activists and media consumers, all of whom wrote letters of support of Al Jazeera English.
Two campaigners for the channel said more than 1,000 parties responded, the majority of them positively.
They praised the channel’s comprehensive international coverage with its 69 foreign bureaus, combined with its Arabic parent, which Mr Burman said was more than either the BBC or CNN.
What appealed to supporters is Al Jazeera English’s mandate of allowing information to flow from the developing world instead of having an agenda dictated by the West.
Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party, and Senator Hugh Segal wrote that Al Jazeera English’s reporting reflected Canadian values of multiculturalism and freedom of expression.
David Halton, who spent 40 years as a national and foreign correspondent with CBC before his retirement, indicated the need for people to have the opportunity to watch the channel is reinforced by the cutbacks by the Canadian media to their foreign bureaus.
“Absolutely, Canadians should have access to this channel,” said Julie Payne of Canadian Journalists for Free Expression. “We don’t want to be caught surprised as we were last time [by the CRTC’s ruling].”
To reduce resistance to the channel, Mr Burman has made incentive-laden promises to members of parliament and Jewish-Canadian groups.
Mr Layton wrote that Al Jazeera English is committed to opening a Canadian bureau, which would give the world a new perspective on this country.
B’nai Brith, a Jewish advocacy and service organisation, and the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC) said Mr Burman agreed to form a consultative committee with them to allay their concerns about the parent network and grant them input into the content of Al Jazeera broadcasts in this country.
Neither group is opposed to the current application, although the CJC noted its support was conditioned on its participation in a committee to review the channel’s performance. “The albatross hanging around Al Jazeera English’s neck is its brand-name,” Mr Farber said. “It’s not anything else.”
The CRTC has not set a deadline for its decision, but it could take several weeks.
Mr Burman is hopeful to get the regulator’s seal of approval.
If that happens, he said, he expects cable and satellite companies to quickly include Al Jazeera English as part of their services.
Then Canadians will be able to be part of the channel’s more than 140 million viewers in more than 100 countries.
blambert@thenational.ae
Iftekhar A. Khan
General Stanley McChrystal, US new military leader in Afghanistan, acknowledged in his interview with Ammy Goodman of Democracy Now that he never regretted torturing prisoners and that he never would. Torture has no ethical burden on his conscience, which reveals his proclivity for brutality. It's fine since more than 50 percent of the Americans in a recent poll favoured using torture as a technique to extract confessions -desired confessions. McChrystal's penchant for torture is therefore in order as he represents the majority of his civilised and democratic nation.
Occupation and torture go together when a killing machine rolls into a defenceless country to occupy it. To quell resistance, the recalcitrant must face coercion, prison, humiliation and torture. US has occupied Afghanistan for last eight years but has failed to put down resistance. US-led NATO troops have inflicted untold atrocities upon the Afghans whose death toll remains unknown but whose legendary spirit of freedom lives.
Now arrives in the war-ravaged country a military leader known for his killer instincts. He brings with him past experience of applying torture to obtain confession. McChrystal commanded Joint Services Operation Command (JSOC) from 2003 to 2008, including setting up and supervising camp NAMA (Nasty Ass Military Area) near Baghdad, Iraq. Even the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch did not have access to it; the camp virtually operated outside the pale of Geneva conventions. Pashtun inmates at Bagram Theatre Internment Facility similar to NAMA will likely see no blood yet any bones left functioning in their emaciated bodies if they had a chance to breathe free.
The Telegraph of London first broke the news of Obama administration's refusal to release pictures of detainees' abuse and sexual torture in captivity, including an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner.
McChrystal specialises in setting up secret killing teams, which journalist Semour Hersh calls 'executive assassination wings' that secretly penetrate countries to subdue resistance and to eliminate politicians opposed to US agenda. Reportedly, even the CIA sometimes does not know about the activities of the assassination wings. During Bush administration, McChrystal was Cheney's favourite and reported to him directly, bypassing all channels. His appointment as top dog, replacing General McKierman, gives him freedom to choose his favourite deputies adept at secrecy, torture and execution of bad guys. What his predecessor failed to accomplish, Obama administration expects McChrystal to achieve. It's likely the new commander will not only escalate war against Pashtun subsumed under Taliban in Afghanistan but would also ensure to widen it to Pakistan since he disregards the Durand Line in the backdrop of AfPak strategy.
Under the pretence of pursuing high-value Al-Qaeda targets, Mullah Umer or apocryphal bin Laden, assassination squads would cross over to Pakistan as Hillary Clinton reportedly announced that US did not need Pak permission for stealthy operations. If nothing else, esoteric 'actionable intelligence' will come in handy to mount attacks. On the home front, security forces have already moved into South Waziristan. Their involvement according to analysts would be for a prolonged period. As FATA fronts hot up, large populations are likely to move to settled areas of NWFP, and desperate elements are likely to target the cities by suicide attacks. A UN official recently said 40000 Pakistanis fled South Waziristan before the security forces moved in.
Stepping up drone attacks in FATA, which Obama has no intention to stop hence his gift to an ally, and appointing a new man to head the occupation force in Afghanistan seems US strategists' last bet to gain control of the region. Yet there're two years to go. Because ten years is the span before an empire realised that Afghanistan, after all the body bags, was not worth it. Recall Russia 1979-1989. But what would we be left with? Nothing but chaos and fractured lives as the US left behind in Cambodia, its staging ground for Vietnam, after its last soldier left clutching foothold of a helicopter that took off from the rooftop of its embassy in Saigon. Meanwhile, let's rejoice at $1.5 billion US aid yearly for another five years. Sobering thought: it's aid based on performance.
The writer is a freelance columnist
E-mail: pinecity@gmail.com
General Stanley McChrystal, US new military leader in Afghanistan, acknowledged in his interview with Ammy Goodman of Democracy Now that he never regretted torturing prisoners and that he never would. Torture has no ethical burden on his conscience, which reveals his proclivity for brutality. It's fine since more than 50 percent of the Americans in a recent poll favoured using torture as a technique to extract confessions -desired confessions. McChrystal's penchant for torture is therefore in order as he represents the majority of his civilised and democratic nation.
Occupation and torture go together when a killing machine rolls into a defenceless country to occupy it. To quell resistance, the recalcitrant must face coercion, prison, humiliation and torture. US has occupied Afghanistan for last eight years but has failed to put down resistance. US-led NATO troops have inflicted untold atrocities upon the Afghans whose death toll remains unknown but whose legendary spirit of freedom lives.
Now arrives in the war-ravaged country a military leader known for his killer instincts. He brings with him past experience of applying torture to obtain confession. McChrystal commanded Joint Services Operation Command (JSOC) from 2003 to 2008, including setting up and supervising camp NAMA (Nasty Ass Military Area) near Baghdad, Iraq. Even the Red Cross and Human Rights Watch did not have access to it; the camp virtually operated outside the pale of Geneva conventions. Pashtun inmates at Bagram Theatre Internment Facility similar to NAMA will likely see no blood yet any bones left functioning in their emaciated bodies if they had a chance to breathe free.
The Telegraph of London first broke the news of Obama administration's refusal to release pictures of detainees' abuse and sexual torture in captivity, including an American soldier raping a female detainee and a male translator raping a male prisoner.
McChrystal specialises in setting up secret killing teams, which journalist Semour Hersh calls 'executive assassination wings' that secretly penetrate countries to subdue resistance and to eliminate politicians opposed to US agenda. Reportedly, even the CIA sometimes does not know about the activities of the assassination wings. During Bush administration, McChrystal was Cheney's favourite and reported to him directly, bypassing all channels. His appointment as top dog, replacing General McKierman, gives him freedom to choose his favourite deputies adept at secrecy, torture and execution of bad guys. What his predecessor failed to accomplish, Obama administration expects McChrystal to achieve. It's likely the new commander will not only escalate war against Pashtun subsumed under Taliban in Afghanistan but would also ensure to widen it to Pakistan since he disregards the Durand Line in the backdrop of AfPak strategy.
Under the pretence of pursuing high-value Al-Qaeda targets, Mullah Umer or apocryphal bin Laden, assassination squads would cross over to Pakistan as Hillary Clinton reportedly announced that US did not need Pak permission for stealthy operations. If nothing else, esoteric 'actionable intelligence' will come in handy to mount attacks. On the home front, security forces have already moved into South Waziristan. Their involvement according to analysts would be for a prolonged period. As FATA fronts hot up, large populations are likely to move to settled areas of NWFP, and desperate elements are likely to target the cities by suicide attacks. A UN official recently said 40000 Pakistanis fled South Waziristan before the security forces moved in.
Stepping up drone attacks in FATA, which Obama has no intention to stop hence his gift to an ally, and appointing a new man to head the occupation force in Afghanistan seems US strategists' last bet to gain control of the region. Yet there're two years to go. Because ten years is the span before an empire realised that Afghanistan, after all the body bags, was not worth it. Recall Russia 1979-1989. But what would we be left with? Nothing but chaos and fractured lives as the US left behind in Cambodia, its staging ground for Vietnam, after its last soldier left clutching foothold of a helicopter that took off from the rooftop of its embassy in Saigon. Meanwhile, let's rejoice at $1.5 billion US aid yearly for another five years. Sobering thought: it's aid based on performance.
The writer is a freelance columnist
E-mail: pinecity@gmail.com
From Outside.
It seems like a million years ago that I actually wanted to write for Outside. I wonder if -
who knows?
who can say?
its kinda like the fly in amber and its musings. Still, I'd rather call myself a witch and strike for some approximation of freedom.
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't?I happen to love goat, so much so that I've taken to tugging one along on almost all my expeditions. These hardy ungulates can trek for days, provide spirit-lifting protein when you need it most, and, as it turns out, carry a king-size duvet with ease. When my vegan climbing partner Rupert mockingly calls me Goat Boy, I explain that the numbers, and history, are in my corner: Outside of Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada, goat is an extremely popular meat, and it's been that way for a while—the goat was domesticated about 10,000 years ago, making it among the earliest barnyard critters. But because goats can tolerate a nomad's lifestyle and eat all kinds of low-grade weeds, they earned a historical reputation for being trashy—foolish snobbery that kept the delicious creatures from getting a hoof-hold on menus from London to L.A. That's changing, though: Goat-meat imports have more than tripled in the past decade. According to Stephanie Mitcham, author of Meat Goats: Their History, Management and Diseases, this is due to demand from immigrant communities, health freaks banking on the low-fat goodness, and the introduction of plumper varieties, like the South African Boer. Chew on that, Rupert.
It seems like a million years ago that I actually wanted to write for Outside. I wonder if -
who knows?
who can say?
its kinda like the fly in amber and its musings. Still, I'd rather call myself a witch and strike for some approximation of freedom.
How come most of the world's cultures enjoy eating goat, but Americans don't?I happen to love goat, so much so that I've taken to tugging one along on almost all my expeditions. These hardy ungulates can trek for days, provide spirit-lifting protein when you need it most, and, as it turns out, carry a king-size duvet with ease. When my vegan climbing partner Rupert mockingly calls me Goat Boy, I explain that the numbers, and history, are in my corner: Outside of Western Europe, the U.S., and Canada, goat is an extremely popular meat, and it's been that way for a while—the goat was domesticated about 10,000 years ago, making it among the earliest barnyard critters. But because goats can tolerate a nomad's lifestyle and eat all kinds of low-grade weeds, they earned a historical reputation for being trashy—foolish snobbery that kept the delicious creatures from getting a hoof-hold on menus from London to L.A. That's changing, though: Goat-meat imports have more than tripled in the past decade. According to Stephanie Mitcham, author of Meat Goats: Their History, Management and Diseases, this is due to demand from immigrant communities, health freaks banking on the low-fat goodness, and the introduction of plumper varieties, like the South African Boer. Chew on that, Rupert.
I remember a long, long time ago having a conversation with someone wherein they said that they would never, ever visit Australia because too many fauna could kill you Down Under. You would live in fear over there, the person, said, shuddering at the very thought. So I think the calculus is that Aussies are brave. And that they survive.
FOUR months after losing his hand in a great white shark attack at Bondi Beach, surfer Glenn Orgias decided it was time to get back into the water.
"The night before I was feeling very anxious and I didn't sleep very well," Mr Orgias said yesterday. "I was worried that I would freak out."
Far from losing his nerve, the energy trader was euphoric when he stepped into the ocean.
"When I walked from the car to the sand and from the sand to the water, the feeling of excitement overtook everything," he said. "I was excited to be in the water, alive and to be able to enjoy myself -- I actually had a lot of fun."
Mr Orgias, 32, spent three weeks in intensive care at St Vincent's Hospital after he was attack on February 12, while surfing at dusk.
In an attempt to save his hand, doctors had to make a cut to allow blood to flow out. He had 18 hours of microsurgery.
"At one time my body was like a big tube: blood going in one hand and out the other end," he said.
The experience has changed his life and left him grateful to those who donated blood.
"I feel indebted to all those people who donated blood and who have allowed me to go on with my life," he said. "I feel I need to pay them back.
"When I was in hospital I used almost 150 blood donations when they were trying to save my hand and keep me alive."
Mr Orgias has been battling through the recovery phase.
"It was very tough at the start and a bit painful, but it's going really well now," he said. "My arm is loosening up now and the range of movement and strength has improved bit by bit."
Mr Orgias will be taking part in this year's City to Surf fun run to raise awareness for blood donation.
"I'm getting around 100 people running with me and we'll all be wearing Australian Red Cross T-shirts."
Instead of collecting monetary sponsorships, Mr Orgias is asking for blood donor pledges. "We hope to get to our ambitious target of 5000 pledges," he said.
Mr Orgias said he had been inspired to see the quick recovery of Paul de Gelder, the navy clearance diver who lost his hand and right leg after a bull shark attack in Sydney Harbour.
Supporters can register to donate blood as part of Mr Orgias's City to Surf run at www.runningonblood.com
FOUR months after losing his hand in a great white shark attack at Bondi Beach, surfer Glenn Orgias decided it was time to get back into the water.
"The night before I was feeling very anxious and I didn't sleep very well," Mr Orgias said yesterday. "I was worried that I would freak out."
Far from losing his nerve, the energy trader was euphoric when he stepped into the ocean.
"When I walked from the car to the sand and from the sand to the water, the feeling of excitement overtook everything," he said. "I was excited to be in the water, alive and to be able to enjoy myself -- I actually had a lot of fun."
Mr Orgias, 32, spent three weeks in intensive care at St Vincent's Hospital after he was attack on February 12, while surfing at dusk.
In an attempt to save his hand, doctors had to make a cut to allow blood to flow out. He had 18 hours of microsurgery.
"At one time my body was like a big tube: blood going in one hand and out the other end," he said.
The experience has changed his life and left him grateful to those who donated blood.
"I feel indebted to all those people who donated blood and who have allowed me to go on with my life," he said. "I feel I need to pay them back.
"When I was in hospital I used almost 150 blood donations when they were trying to save my hand and keep me alive."
Mr Orgias has been battling through the recovery phase.
"It was very tough at the start and a bit painful, but it's going really well now," he said. "My arm is loosening up now and the range of movement and strength has improved bit by bit."
Mr Orgias will be taking part in this year's City to Surf fun run to raise awareness for blood donation.
"I'm getting around 100 people running with me and we'll all be wearing Australian Red Cross T-shirts."
Instead of collecting monetary sponsorships, Mr Orgias is asking for blood donor pledges. "We hope to get to our ambitious target of 5000 pledges," he said.
Mr Orgias said he had been inspired to see the quick recovery of Paul de Gelder, the navy clearance diver who lost his hand and right leg after a bull shark attack in Sydney Harbour.
Supporters can register to donate blood as part of Mr Orgias's City to Surf run at www.runningonblood.com
Signatories to the Convention on Cluster Munitions
Afghanistan 03-Dec-08
Albania 03-Dec-08 16-June-09
Angola 03-Dec-08
Australia 03-Dec-08
Austria 03-Dec-08 2-Apr-09
Belgium 03-Dec-08
Benin 03-Dec-08
Bolivia 03-Dec-08
Bosnia and Herzegovina 03-Dec-08
Botswana 03-Dec-08
Bulgaria 03-Dec-08
Burkina Faso 03-Dec-08
Burundi 03-Dec-08
Canada 03-Dec-08
Cape Verde 03-Dec-08
Central African Republic 03-Dec-08
Chad 03-Dec-08
Chile 03-Dec-08
Colombia 03-Dec-08
Comoros 03-Dec-08
Congo, Democratic Republic of 18-Mar-09
Congo, Republic of 03-Dec-08
Cook Islands 03-Dec-08
Costa Rica 03-Dec-08
Côte d'Ivoire 04-Dec-08
Croatia 03-Dec-08
Czech Republic 03-Dec-08
Denmark 03-Dec-08
Ecuador 03-Dec-08
El Salvador 03-Dec-08
Fiji 03-Dec-08
France 03-Dec-08
Gambia 03-Dec-08
Germany 03-Dec-08
Ghana 03-Dec-08
Guatemala 03-Dec-08
Guinea 03-Dec-08
Guinea Bissau 04-Dec-08
The Holy See 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Honduras 03-Dec-08
Hungary 03-Dec-08
Iceland 03-Dec-08
Indonesia 03-Dec-08
Ireland 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Italy 03-Dec-08
Jamaica 12-June-09
Japan 03-Dec-08
Kenya 03-Dec-08
Lao PDR 03-Dec-08 18-Mar-09
Lebanon 03-Dec-08
Lesotho 03-Dec-08
Liberia 03-Dec-08
Liechtenstein 03-Dec-08
Lithuania 03-Dec-08
Luxembourg 03-Dec-08
Macedonia, FYR 03-Dec-08
Madagascar 03-Dec-08
Malawi 03-Dec-08
Mali 03-Dec-08
Malta 03-Dec-08
Mexico 03-Dec-08 06-May-09
Moldova, Republic of 03-Dec-08
Monaco 03-Dec-08
Montenegro 03-Dec-08
Mozambique 03-Dec-08
Namibia 03-Dec-08
Nauru 03-Dec-08
Netherlands 03-Dec-08
New Zealand 03-Dec-08
Nicaragua 03-Dec-08
Niger 03-Dec-08 02-June-09
Nigeria 12-June-09
Norway 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Palau 03-Dec-08
Panama 03-Dec-08
Paraguay 03-Dec-08
Peru 03-Dec-08
Philippines 03-Dec-08
Portugal 03-Dec-08
Rwanda 03-Dec-08
Samoa 03-Dec-08
San Marino 03-Dec-08
Sao Tomé and Principe 03-Dec-08
Senegal 03-Dec-08
Sierra Leone 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Slovenia 03-Dec-08
Somalia 03-Dec-08
South Africa 03-Dec-08
Spain 03-Dec-08 17-June-09
Sweden 03-Dec-08
Switzerland 03-Dec-08
Tanzania 03-Dec-08
Togo 03-Dec-08
Tunisia 12-Jan-09
Uganda 03-Dec-08
United Kingdom 03-Dec-08
Uruguay 03-Dec-08
Zambia 03-Dec-08
Afghanistan 03-Dec-08
Albania 03-Dec-08 16-June-09
Angola 03-Dec-08
Australia 03-Dec-08
Austria 03-Dec-08 2-Apr-09
Belgium 03-Dec-08
Benin 03-Dec-08
Bolivia 03-Dec-08
Bosnia and Herzegovina 03-Dec-08
Botswana 03-Dec-08
Bulgaria 03-Dec-08
Burkina Faso 03-Dec-08
Burundi 03-Dec-08
Canada 03-Dec-08
Cape Verde 03-Dec-08
Central African Republic 03-Dec-08
Chad 03-Dec-08
Chile 03-Dec-08
Colombia 03-Dec-08
Comoros 03-Dec-08
Congo, Democratic Republic of 18-Mar-09
Congo, Republic of 03-Dec-08
Cook Islands 03-Dec-08
Costa Rica 03-Dec-08
Côte d'Ivoire 04-Dec-08
Croatia 03-Dec-08
Czech Republic 03-Dec-08
Denmark 03-Dec-08
Ecuador 03-Dec-08
El Salvador 03-Dec-08
Fiji 03-Dec-08
France 03-Dec-08
Gambia 03-Dec-08
Germany 03-Dec-08
Ghana 03-Dec-08
Guatemala 03-Dec-08
Guinea 03-Dec-08
Guinea Bissau 04-Dec-08
The Holy See 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Honduras 03-Dec-08
Hungary 03-Dec-08
Iceland 03-Dec-08
Indonesia 03-Dec-08
Ireland 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Italy 03-Dec-08
Jamaica 12-June-09
Japan 03-Dec-08
Kenya 03-Dec-08
Lao PDR 03-Dec-08 18-Mar-09
Lebanon 03-Dec-08
Lesotho 03-Dec-08
Liberia 03-Dec-08
Liechtenstein 03-Dec-08
Lithuania 03-Dec-08
Luxembourg 03-Dec-08
Macedonia, FYR 03-Dec-08
Madagascar 03-Dec-08
Malawi 03-Dec-08
Mali 03-Dec-08
Malta 03-Dec-08
Mexico 03-Dec-08 06-May-09
Moldova, Republic of 03-Dec-08
Monaco 03-Dec-08
Montenegro 03-Dec-08
Mozambique 03-Dec-08
Namibia 03-Dec-08
Nauru 03-Dec-08
Netherlands 03-Dec-08
New Zealand 03-Dec-08
Nicaragua 03-Dec-08
Niger 03-Dec-08 02-June-09
Nigeria 12-June-09
Norway 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Palau 03-Dec-08
Panama 03-Dec-08
Paraguay 03-Dec-08
Peru 03-Dec-08
Philippines 03-Dec-08
Portugal 03-Dec-08
Rwanda 03-Dec-08
Samoa 03-Dec-08
San Marino 03-Dec-08
Sao Tomé and Principe 03-Dec-08
Senegal 03-Dec-08
Sierra Leone 03-Dec-08 03-Dec-08
Slovenia 03-Dec-08
Somalia 03-Dec-08
South Africa 03-Dec-08
Spain 03-Dec-08 17-June-09
Sweden 03-Dec-08
Switzerland 03-Dec-08
Tanzania 03-Dec-08
Togo 03-Dec-08
Tunisia 12-Jan-09
Uganda 03-Dec-08
United Kingdom 03-Dec-08
Uruguay 03-Dec-08
Zambia 03-Dec-08
Delegates from over 80 countries pledging to destroy their cluster bombs started a two-day conference in Berlin to assess progress since a 2008 agreement banning the weapons.
Absent however were the United States, Israel, Russia and Georgia -- countries which have used cluster bombs in recent years and which refuse to sign up the agreement. China, India and Pakistan also stayed away.
A cluster bomb is a weapon fired by artillery or dropped by aircraft that splits open and scatters multiple -- often hundreds -- of smaller submunitions, or bomblets, over a large area.
Often many of these bomblets fail to explode immediately and can lie dormant for many years, killing and maiming civilians -- many of them children -- long after the original conflict is over.
First employed by the German Luftwaffe on the English town of Grimsby in 1943 and by the Red Army the same year, their use really took off in the US bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
Most recently they were deployed by both sides in Georgia's war with Russia in 2008, and in Israel's bombardment of southern Lebanon in 2006, rights groups say, and by the United States and allies in Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan in 2001-02.
They were also put to deadly effect by NATO in Serbia in 1999, by the British in the Falkland Islands in 1982, during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, by Ethiopia and Eritrea, by Morocco and by Sudan, these groups say.
According to a 2006 report by Handicap International, there have been at least 11,000 recorded and confirmed post-conflict casualties and that the actual number -- levels of reporting being low -- may be as high as 100,000.
Around 98 percent of these are civilians, Handicap International says. A quarter of these are children, who often tragically mistake the bomblets for a toy.
Last year around 100 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, agreed to ban their use, development, production, transfer and stockpiling, creating the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).
Ten countries have since ratified the CCM. Once 30 have done so -- as campaigners hope they will by the end of 2009 -- the treaty comes into force, giving the 98 signatories eight years to destroy their stockpiles.
It also requires clearing areas of unexploded submunitions within 10 years, and establishes a framework for assistance to victims.
But the United States, which has as many as one billion cluster munition bomblets, rights groups say, has not signed up. And nor have China and Russia, both of which are thought to have around the same amount.
The US has argued that destroying its stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk, and that cluster bombs often result in less collateral damage than bigger bombs or larger artillery.
Other notable non-signatories include Israel, India, Pakistan, South Korea and North Korea, as well as Turkey, Georgia, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, said he hoped the Berlin conference would encourage some to drop their opposition.
"Our main focus is to get as many countries to ratify as soon as possible, get more countries to sign on so that we remove the stigma from the treaty," Nash told AFP.
"And that means telling the US, telling other allies that haven't signed the treaty, that they need to get rid of it, that this weapon is a thing of the past. It is no longer a legitimate or morally appropriate weapon to have in your arsenal."
Common Dreams/AFP
Absent however were the United States, Israel, Russia and Georgia -- countries which have used cluster bombs in recent years and which refuse to sign up the agreement. China, India and Pakistan also stayed away.
A cluster bomb is a weapon fired by artillery or dropped by aircraft that splits open and scatters multiple -- often hundreds -- of smaller submunitions, or bomblets, over a large area.
Often many of these bomblets fail to explode immediately and can lie dormant for many years, killing and maiming civilians -- many of them children -- long after the original conflict is over.
First employed by the German Luftwaffe on the English town of Grimsby in 1943 and by the Red Army the same year, their use really took off in the US bombing of Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos in the 1960s and 1970s.
Most recently they were deployed by both sides in Georgia's war with Russia in 2008, and in Israel's bombardment of southern Lebanon in 2006, rights groups say, and by the United States and allies in Iraq in 2003 and in Afghanistan in 2001-02.
They were also put to deadly effect by NATO in Serbia in 1999, by the British in the Falkland Islands in 1982, during the Balkan conflicts of the 1990s, by Ethiopia and Eritrea, by Morocco and by Sudan, these groups say.
According to a 2006 report by Handicap International, there have been at least 11,000 recorded and confirmed post-conflict casualties and that the actual number -- levels of reporting being low -- may be as high as 100,000.
Around 98 percent of these are civilians, Handicap International says. A quarter of these are children, who often tragically mistake the bomblets for a toy.
Last year around 100 countries, including Britain, France, Germany, Australia and Japan, agreed to ban their use, development, production, transfer and stockpiling, creating the Convention on Cluster Munitions (CCM).
Ten countries have since ratified the CCM. Once 30 have done so -- as campaigners hope they will by the end of 2009 -- the treaty comes into force, giving the 98 signatories eight years to destroy their stockpiles.
It also requires clearing areas of unexploded submunitions within 10 years, and establishes a framework for assistance to victims.
But the United States, which has as many as one billion cluster munition bomblets, rights groups say, has not signed up. And nor have China and Russia, both of which are thought to have around the same amount.
The US has argued that destroying its stockpiles would put the lives of its soldiers and those of its coalition partners at risk, and that cluster bombs often result in less collateral damage than bigger bombs or larger artillery.
Other notable non-signatories include Israel, India, Pakistan, South Korea and North Korea, as well as Turkey, Georgia, Iran, Libya, Syria, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Nigeria, Sudan and Sri Lanka.
Thomas Nash from the Cluster Munition Coalition, a coalition of non-governmental organisations, said he hoped the Berlin conference would encourage some to drop their opposition.
"Our main focus is to get as many countries to ratify as soon as possible, get more countries to sign on so that we remove the stigma from the treaty," Nash told AFP.
"And that means telling the US, telling other allies that haven't signed the treaty, that they need to get rid of it, that this weapon is a thing of the past. It is no longer a legitimate or morally appropriate weapon to have in your arsenal."
Common Dreams/AFP
One reason the government is determined not to let the extra photographs of prisoner abuse under Bush-Cheney come to light is that they would show that exactly the same torture techniques we saw at Abu Ghraib were systemic across every major theater of combat as the US turned into a rogue nation under Bush-Cheney. Bagram may well have been among the worst - and it's still operating (though, presumably, without torture since the day after Obama's inauguration). The BBC has been investigating some of the reports. Its story comports with everything we know about Cheney's determination to torture prisoners using the techniques perfected by the Communist Chinese:
The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months... None were charged with any offence or put on trial; some even received apologies when they were released. Just two of the detainees said they had been treated well. Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers. In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan. "They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said. "They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
The BBC interviewed 27 former inmates of Bagram around the country over a period of two months... None were charged with any offence or put on trial; some even received apologies when they were released. Just two of the detainees said they had been treated well. Many allegations of ill-treatment appear repeatedly in the interviews: physical abuse, the use of stress positions, excessive heat or cold, unbearably loud noise, being forced to remove clothes in front of female soldiers. In four cases detainees were threatened with death at gunpoint.
"They did things that you would not do against animals let alone to humans," said one inmate known as Dr Khandan. "They poured cold water on you in winter and hot water in summer. They used dogs against us. They put a pistol or a gun to your head and threatened you with death," he said. "They put some kind of medicine in the juice or water to make you sleepless and then they would interrogate you."
Rising toll at US military hospital in Afghanistan
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 2 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
By JASON STRAZIUSO and EVAN VUCCI – 2 days ago
BAGRAM AIR BASE, Afghanistan (AP) — The urgent call came in: Roadside bombs had ripped through two Humvees and wounded eight or nine U.S. soldiers.
Medevac helicopters immediately hit the air to ferry the soldiers to the main U.S. military hospital. But when they arrived, they carried only five patients.
The other four were dead.
With 2009 expected to be the bloodiest year since the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, medical personnel at Bagram's SSG Heath N. Craig Joint Theater Hospital say they've already seen an increase in casualties and expect more. The flow of dead and wounded puts enormous strain on the soldiers and the medical staff who must face it head on.
"Everything I've experienced is boredom or terror," said Air Force Maj. Adrian Stull, a 36-year-old emergency physician from Beavercreek, Ohio. "And if I have to choose between the two, I'd have to choose boredom, because everyone goes home with all their fingers."
June 1 was a day of terror.
It started when two roadside bombs hit the same convoy of 10th Mountain Division soldiers only a couple of miles apart in Wardak, a province west of Kabul. The damage was so severe that one of the Humvees split in half.
By the time the helicopters arrived, four men were already dead. Their comrades loaded them into body bags, tense with anger and grief.
In the meantime, the emergency room prepared to move from zero to a thousand miles per hour — "organized chaos," as medical Tech Sgt. Carol Granger put it.
Then the stretchers arrived.
Three of the soldiers had open fractures in their legs, raw and bleeding. The one being treated by Air Force Capt. Shannan Corbin was in his early 20s, with open leg wounds, dental contusions and a bleeding head.
Wounds from blasts and explosive devices are considered the hallmark injuries of the Afghan war. Because armor covers the body's core, injuries to arms and legs are common.
As the medics worked, with the American flag in the background, they sweated. The heat was turned up because critically injured patients cannot regulate their own body temperatures.
A soldier screamed, so loudly that emergency room physician Capt. Travis Taylor couldn't tune it out. The soldier, who had an open fracture, had just learned one of his buddies was killed.
"That one was tough," Taylor said. "He was really screaming, and it snapped me out of my focus on the patient I was with."
Another soldier, Pfc. Anthony Vandegrift, had broken both legs. His left eye was swollen shut. The two soldiers in the front of his Humvee were killed, along with the gunner who had been standing halfway out the top.
He called his father while still on the emergency room table.
"I said, 'Hey dad, remember how you told me not to join the infantry? Well, I don't regret it, but I got blown up,'" Vandegrift, of Mililani, Hawaii, said.
Recalling the blast, he said it was "like a video game almost."
"You're going along and everything goes black. I could hear everything but I couldn't see everything," Vandegrift said. "Everything went black and I just remember 'boom.' Not sure if I passed out or not, but when I was able to move around I was upside down. My chunk of the Humvee was blown off from the rest."
Doctors at Bagram say there is nowhere in the world — except other war zones — where physicians face such severe wounds day after day. That constant stream takes a toll.
Granger, who is stationed at Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, said she tries not to personalize her work.
"We have to process it later on, but at the time you have a job to do. We've seen a lot ... and I hope we can handle it when the time comes," she said.
Corbin says home bases try to prepare the medical staff "mentally, emotionally and spiritually" for the deployment, but she's not sure it works.
"You can see pictures. You can hear people talk, but I don't know that anything really prepares you," said the 39-year-old nurse from Biloxi, Miss. "We hope emotionally and mentally that it's just another string of events. But I don't know how we can walk away from this as just another string of events."
In the intensive care ward nearby, Vandegrift lay beside the one other soldier in his Humvee who survived. The soldier may be paralyzed.
Holding a guitar, Vandegrift strummed a song for his friend: "The Star-Spangled Banner."
Copyright © 2009 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Toronto Star editorial
Jun 26, 2009 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (4)
What is Canada's military mission in Afghanistan costing Canada's taxpayers? As Jack Layton's New Democrats discovered earlier this month, it's not always easy to find out.
When the NDP filed an access-to-information request for the hard numbers, the defence department's first impulse was to refuse to provide them. It cited secrecy concerns with respect to "the defence of Canada." When the NDP rightly raised a ruckus, the military did a strategic retreat and coughed up the information.
For the record, we're spending roughly $1.5 billion this year and next in "incremental" military costs, and we will have spent some $9 billion in total from 2001 through 2011, when the mission is scheduled to wind down.
But those numbers offer an incomplete picture of the true cost.
Given Ottawa's reflexive secrecy and interest in downplaying the cost of the mission, it's good to have an impartial figure such as Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page keeping an independent eye on the books. Last year, in a telling report, he pegged the total cost of Canada's Afghan mission at $18 billion or so, including the long-term cost of caring for injured troops. That figure is probably closer to the truth.
It's scandalalous, then, that Page finds himself battling to preserve his integrity and to get the modest $2.8 million budget he was promised when he took on the complex job of budget officer. A parliamentary committee wants to muzzle him by insisting he first obtain permission from MPs before going public with his research findings.
If the NDP experience is anything to judge by, senators and MPs should be cheering Page on in the interests of transparency, not tripping him up.
Jun 26, 2009 04:30 AM
Comments on this story (4)
What is Canada's military mission in Afghanistan costing Canada's taxpayers? As Jack Layton's New Democrats discovered earlier this month, it's not always easy to find out.
When the NDP filed an access-to-information request for the hard numbers, the defence department's first impulse was to refuse to provide them. It cited secrecy concerns with respect to "the defence of Canada." When the NDP rightly raised a ruckus, the military did a strategic retreat and coughed up the information.
For the record, we're spending roughly $1.5 billion this year and next in "incremental" military costs, and we will have spent some $9 billion in total from 2001 through 2011, when the mission is scheduled to wind down.
But those numbers offer an incomplete picture of the true cost.
Given Ottawa's reflexive secrecy and interest in downplaying the cost of the mission, it's good to have an impartial figure such as Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page keeping an independent eye on the books. Last year, in a telling report, he pegged the total cost of Canada's Afghan mission at $18 billion or so, including the long-term cost of caring for injured troops. That figure is probably closer to the truth.
It's scandalalous, then, that Page finds himself battling to preserve his integrity and to get the modest $2.8 million budget he was promised when he took on the complex job of budget officer. A parliamentary committee wants to muzzle him by insisting he first obtain permission from MPs before going public with his research findings.
If the NDP experience is anything to judge by, senators and MPs should be cheering Page on in the interests of transparency, not tripping him up.
Liberals suddenly silent The shrill voices of the local Bush-bashers have grown surprisingly quiet, except for those fringe Democrats still demanding prosecutions for using enhanced interrogation methods on three high-level terrorists.
Now that Barack Obama is surging troops into the undeclared war in Afghanistan, where are the massive protests? Is expanding a war in the Middle East with no timetable for withdrawal, no exit strategy and a rising military and civilian body count suddenly acceptable? And whatever happened to those "Another Neighbor For Peace" and "No War For Oil" signs?
Now that Obama has decided to keep troops in Iraq for an extended period and to maintain some military tribunals for our Gitmo guests, where are the calls for his impeachment?
Now that Obama is authorizing predator drone attacks that have killed innocent women and children, where's the outrage?
Now that Obama has packed his Cabinet and high-level administration positions with long-term Washington lobbyists and serial tax cheats, where's the criticism? Where are the calls for congressional hearings and Justice Department inquiries into cronyism? Are these tax cheats paying their "fair share?"
Now that Obama has turned General Motors into Government Motors, nationalized private companies and set himself up as corporate America's titular CEO, where is the outcry for exceeding the constitutional authority of the office?
Now that Obama, with the full support of our new one-party system of government, has doubled our budget deficit and tripled our national debt, where is the clamor for fiscal restraint and anguish about impoverishing our children and grandchildren?
Why is it Bush could do no right, but Obama can do no wrong? Such selective indignation! The silence of the local liberals has become deafening!
DAVID HANVELT
Eau Claire
Now that Barack Obama is surging troops into the undeclared war in Afghanistan, where are the massive protests? Is expanding a war in the Middle East with no timetable for withdrawal, no exit strategy and a rising military and civilian body count suddenly acceptable? And whatever happened to those "Another Neighbor For Peace" and "No War For Oil" signs?
Now that Obama has decided to keep troops in Iraq for an extended period and to maintain some military tribunals for our Gitmo guests, where are the calls for his impeachment?
Now that Obama is authorizing predator drone attacks that have killed innocent women and children, where's the outrage?
Now that Obama has packed his Cabinet and high-level administration positions with long-term Washington lobbyists and serial tax cheats, where's the criticism? Where are the calls for congressional hearings and Justice Department inquiries into cronyism? Are these tax cheats paying their "fair share?"
Now that Obama has turned General Motors into Government Motors, nationalized private companies and set himself up as corporate America's titular CEO, where is the outcry for exceeding the constitutional authority of the office?
Now that Obama, with the full support of our new one-party system of government, has doubled our budget deficit and tripled our national debt, where is the clamor for fiscal restraint and anguish about impoverishing our children and grandchildren?
Why is it Bush could do no right, but Obama can do no wrong? Such selective indignation! The silence of the local liberals has become deafening!
DAVID HANVELT
Eau Claire
The North pays for the wars with money; the South pays for the wars with blood. Always the same story.
Wars' end is the real goal
5:43 PM Thu, Jun 25, 2009 | Permalink
Letter to the Editor E-mail | Suggest a blog topic
We have almost 200,000 troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. President George W. Bush found it difficult to bring them home. Now we find that our new president, who built his political base on an anti-war message, is also finding it difficult to bring them home. Ending wars is much more difficult than starting wars.
More discussion of how to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq to the point where we can bring our troops home would be nice.
John Stettler, Dallas
Wars' end is the real goal
5:43 PM Thu, Jun 25, 2009 | Permalink
Letter to the Editor E-mail | Suggest a blog topic
We have almost 200,000 troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. President George W. Bush found it difficult to bring them home. Now we find that our new president, who built his political base on an anti-war message, is also finding it difficult to bring them home. Ending wars is much more difficult than starting wars.
More discussion of how to stabilize Afghanistan and Iraq to the point where we can bring our troops home would be nice.
John Stettler, Dallas
Here is some more juice.
Bagram: Obama's Gitmo, only worse
June 25, 8:46 PM
Comment ShareThisRSS Email Print There has been plenty of justified praise for President Obama as he slowly but surely closes the Gitmo Gulag. It is by well known that the Bush Regime used this prison, as well as others, to torture men who committed the “crimes” of resisting the American desert-killing fields in Mesopotamia and having Arab names. We later learned out from Blitzkrieg Rumsfeld that these “terrorists” were actually beaten, starved, deprived of sleep, and tortured with insects in an attempt to produce a false 9/11-Iraqi link.
But what about the lesser known, and even crueler, military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan? What goes on at Bagram makes Gitmo look like a day-care camp. According to a 2,000 page U.S. Army report, two prisoners were chained to the ceiling and then beaten to death. Autopsies later revealed extreme trauma to both of their legs, describing it as similar to being run over by a bus. The International Red Cross Report reported massive overcrowding, harsh conditions, threats of HIV-infection and sodomy, weeks of complete isolation, routine beatings, and stress positions (a favorite at Abu Ghraib).
It went nearly unnoticed, but Obama’s “Justice” Department stated that it agreed with the previous Administration that the over 600 detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. Courts to challenge their detention, and it only took two sentences. That's it. No investigations, no hearings, no discussions. Bush’s Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the scariest pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen, was used to justify these indefinite imprisonments, and Obama’s silence on Bagram can only mean he condones this Caesar-esque power.
Why is Obama closing one U.S. Gulag but keeping open another? Well, Gitmo is 90 miles off the shore of Florida, so its stain hits closer to home, and it’s a way of throwing a bone to his anti-war base while he pulls new war levers like a debt-ridden gambler at a casino. You might not know it from any of the Pharoah-fanning media, but Obama is doing his best Alexander the Great Slaughterer impression in Afghanistan as his 21,000 troop “surge” is beginning to arrive. In fact, the bombing of Afghanistan has increased every single month Obama has been in office. There’s going to be a lot more detainees headed Bagram’s way thanks to O-bomber (and his equally bloodthirsty Sec. of State Hillary the Hawk) as he spends $200 million dollars a day bombing the Afghan countryside.
I bring up Obama’s torture two-face because tomorrow, June 26, is the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture. The CIA, FBI, and the Pentagram Pentagon might be up for weeks if they thought about all of their victims of torture, as well as the other rarely-discussed victims: the 5th and 8th Amendments of the Bill of Rights. The 8th protects against “cruel and unusual punishment,” and the 5th declares that no one “shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.” Obama, like Bush before him, is willing to use tortured confessions to prosecute detainees, and Obama’s civil liberties axe is just as sharp as Bush’s.
On Torture Day, Obama’s White House will continue to be haunted by the ghosts of Bagram.
-R.T.
Please visit my bi-weekly column at San Francisco's "Dream Not Of Today."
Author: Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor is an Examiner from San Francisco. You can see Robert's articles on Robert's Home Page.
Bagram: Obama's Gitmo, only worse
June 25, 8:46 PM
Comment ShareThisRSS Email Print There has been plenty of justified praise for President Obama as he slowly but surely closes the Gitmo Gulag. It is by well known that the Bush Regime used this prison, as well as others, to torture men who committed the “crimes” of resisting the American desert-killing fields in Mesopotamia and having Arab names. We later learned out from Blitzkrieg Rumsfeld that these “terrorists” were actually beaten, starved, deprived of sleep, and tortured with insects in an attempt to produce a false 9/11-Iraqi link.
But what about the lesser known, and even crueler, military prison in Bagram, Afghanistan? What goes on at Bagram makes Gitmo look like a day-care camp. According to a 2,000 page U.S. Army report, two prisoners were chained to the ceiling and then beaten to death. Autopsies later revealed extreme trauma to both of their legs, describing it as similar to being run over by a bus. The International Red Cross Report reported massive overcrowding, harsh conditions, threats of HIV-infection and sodomy, weeks of complete isolation, routine beatings, and stress positions (a favorite at Abu Ghraib).
It went nearly unnoticed, but Obama’s “Justice” Department stated that it agreed with the previous Administration that the over 600 detainees at Bagram Airfield cannot use U.S. Courts to challenge their detention, and it only took two sentences. That's it. No investigations, no hearings, no discussions. Bush’s Military Commissions Act of 2006, one of the scariest pieces of legislation I’ve ever seen, was used to justify these indefinite imprisonments, and Obama’s silence on Bagram can only mean he condones this Caesar-esque power.
Why is Obama closing one U.S. Gulag but keeping open another? Well, Gitmo is 90 miles off the shore of Florida, so its stain hits closer to home, and it’s a way of throwing a bone to his anti-war base while he pulls new war levers like a debt-ridden gambler at a casino. You might not know it from any of the Pharoah-fanning media, but Obama is doing his best Alexander the Great Slaughterer impression in Afghanistan as his 21,000 troop “surge” is beginning to arrive. In fact, the bombing of Afghanistan has increased every single month Obama has been in office. There’s going to be a lot more detainees headed Bagram’s way thanks to O-bomber (and his equally bloodthirsty Sec. of State Hillary the Hawk) as he spends $200 million dollars a day bombing the Afghan countryside.
I bring up Obama’s torture two-face because tomorrow, June 26, is the International Day of Support for Victims of Torture. The CIA, FBI, and the Pentagram Pentagon might be up for weeks if they thought about all of their victims of torture, as well as the other rarely-discussed victims: the 5th and 8th Amendments of the Bill of Rights. The 8th protects against “cruel and unusual punishment,” and the 5th declares that no one “shall be compelled to be a witness against himself.” Obama, like Bush before him, is willing to use tortured confessions to prosecute detainees, and Obama’s civil liberties axe is just as sharp as Bush’s.
On Torture Day, Obama’s White House will continue to be haunted by the ghosts of Bagram.
-R.T.
Please visit my bi-weekly column at San Francisco's "Dream Not Of Today."
Author: Robert Taylor
Robert Taylor is an Examiner from San Francisco. You can see Robert's articles on Robert's Home Page.