24/12/2011
By Joseph Kishore – World Socialist Web Site*
US President Barack Obama staged a ceremony Tuesday (Dec. 21) morning at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland to mark the end of the Iraq War and the return of the top US commander in Iraq, General Lloyd Austin.
Source: Socialistworker.org
With the president nodding his agreement, Austin declared, “What our troops achieved in Iraq over the course of nearly nine years is truly remarkable. Together with our coalition partners and corps of dedicated civilians, they removed a brutal dictator and gave the Iraqi people their freedom.” Field Marshal Göring could not have put it better in speaking of the “liberation” of Poland.
The departure of the last “combat” troops from Iraq by no means marks an end to the US intervention in the country. It does, however, offer an opportunity to take the measure of one of the greatest crimes of the modern period.
Whatever the sickening and hypocritical invocations of “success” and “freedom,” the war and occupation have been a catastrophe for the people of Iraq and a tragedy for the people of the United States.
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23/12/2011
New York – Two years have elapsed since the devastating earthquake destroyed a whole country—Haiti, killing over 200,000 people. Still, three quarters of the population earn less than two dollars a day, 70 per cent do not have stable jobs, more than half of children do not go to school, and the great majority –70 to 80 per cent– had no access to electricity.
Credit: UN
This was the scenario before and even after the January 2010 earthquake, as depicted by Nigel Fisher, Deputy Special Representative of the UN Secretary-General for Haiti, who recently emphasised that to be able to provide an integral picture of the situation in Haiti, pre-earthquake conditions need to be considered.
Before the earthquake, Haiti was already the poorest country in the Southern Hemisphere, he said.
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Posted in Latin America & Caribbean, Mother Earth, The Peoples |
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21/12/2011
By Lirim Azemi* – Think Africa Press
2011 has seen a number of long-standing North African leaders fall in quick succession. In this new political landscape, Algerian president Abdelaziz Bouteflika, now in his third term, has become something of an oddity.
Algiers. Photo: Lastal | Wikimedia Commons
And after parliamentary elections in Morocco, Tunisia and Egypt saw breakthrough results for Islamist parties, Bouteflika is now reassessing his relationship with Islamist elements in his own political alliance before legislative elections in 2012.
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21/12/2011
Rome – A new book including comprehensive information on Amazon fruits and plants, to provide people in developing world with accessible knowledge of Amazon plants and foods they can use to improve their livelihoods, has been published by the UN.
Amazon Rainforest | Credit: UN
The book, Fruit Trees and Useful Plants in Amazonian Life, is written in easy-to-grasp language and incorporates the folklore and customs of rural villagers so they can easily put the book’s recommendations into practice.
“Some 80 per cent of people living in the developing world rely on non-wood forest products such as fruits and medicinal plants for their nutritional and health needs,” said Eduardo Rojas-Briales, assistant director-general for Forestry at the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO).
“This new book provides comprehensive information on Amazon fruits and plants, and is a perfect example of how to make our knowledge accessible for poor people to help them maximize the benefits from forest products and services and improve their livelihoods.”
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17/12/2011
By Mairead Maguire*, Nobel Peace laureate – TRANSCEND
Ten years after the US led NATO invasion and war against Afghanistan, the Afghan people are trapped in a downward spiral of violence.
**Photo credit: Source | Wikimedia Commons
The US and British generals for war are upbeat and optimistic but the facts of suffering, injury, displacements and deaths of Afghan civilians, including many women and children, reminds us of the ongoing daily and unacceptable cost of war.
Add to this the injury and death of soldiers from NATO countries–particularly UK and USA. Surely, the question has to be asked: ‘At what point is enough killing enough? And when will people everywhere unite and act to ‘stop this military madness and insanity?’.
Precisely because the war in Afghanistan is going so badly, and is in truth unwinnable, NATO and the US military are using even more illegal and cruel forms of violence in their increasingly desperate attempts to stop the dissidents and build-up their own power base in Afghanistan.
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16/12/2011
Rome – Damaged crops combined with conflict and insecurity are threatening to leave some 2.5 million people in South Sudan – the world’s newest country – in critical conditions unless food assistance is provided immediately, the UN warns.
Credit: UN
“A gathering storm of hunger is approaching South Sudan, caused by crop failure and market disruption,” said the UN World Food Programme (WFP) Director in South Sudan, Chris Nikoi.
“Food prices have already doubled or tripled in some areas, leaving hundreds of thousands of children vulnerable to malnutrition at a key developmental stage of their young lives.”
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Posted in Africa, Market Lords, Mother Earth, The Peoples, War Lords |
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15/12/2011
“Democracy is a contract with the voters: “if elected I will try to enact my program.” That traitor to democracy, Obama, with a rhetoric of change, attracted the underprivileged–blacks, reds, Hispanics, women, youth, workers, and betrayed them all; but not his benefactor Goldman Sachs, favoring bailing them out way above stimulus.”
President Bush and President-elect Obama in the Oval Office November 10, 2008 | White House photo by Eric Draper**
By Johan Galtung* – TRANSCEND – The Occupy Movement is a sign of US sanity. Leaderless makes it less vulnerable, immensely consciousness-raising, not insisting on any one single analysis or remedy–for the time being. People so concerned that they sacrifice some personal comfort–gaining togetherness and a sense of meaning, a gift for a democracy.
And what a sign of US insanity their touch with authority was: no leading politicians eager to preach or learn or both, but tear gas, pepper spray, evictions. In the 1960’s Vietnam era, Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ultimately left his office to talk sense into demonstrators. It worked-the other way around. That the social worker from Chicago, Obama, did not, is a shame.
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15/12/2011
By James Maxwell* –Think Africa Press
Despite predictions that liberal, leftist and secular forces would be the main rivals to the FJP (Freedom and Justice Party), a combination of factors led to a disappointing performance.
Egyptians voting | Thinkafricapress.com
In Egypt, the first elections of the post-Mubarak era have delivered a conclusive victory for the two main Islamist groupings. The Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) – the electoral vehicle of the Muslim Brotherhood – secured 36.6% of the 9.7m votes cast, while the Nour Party (NP) – which advocates a hard-line Salafism – claimed 24.4%.
Although the success of the FJP was broadly expected, the high turnout for the ultra-conservative NP was a surprise to many. Before last week’s vote, it was generally assumed that the FJP’s main opponents would be the array of liberal, secular and left-wing parties whose leaders and activists were instrumental in the January 25 Revolution.
Why is it then that Egypt’s progressive forces performed so poorly at the ballot box, with the left-leaning Egyptian Block and Wafd parties managing just 13.4 & and 7.1% respectively of the vote?
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14/12/2011
Geneva – The UN and its partners called for $7.7 billion to provide humanitarian assistance to 51 million people in 16 countries over the course of next year.
Credit: UN
Just for comparative purposes, it is estimated that the U.S. has spent some $4 trillion spent on its war on Iraq, while the world spends well over 1,6 trillion dollars a year on weapons.
At the same time, the nine nuclear-armed nations will spend in 2011 an estimated US$105 billion maintaining and modernizing their nuclear weapons, according to Tim Wright, from the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.
“Millions of people will be affected by emergencies caused or worsened by the impact of climate change, insecurity over food and water, economic and political crises, migration, urbanization and rapid population growth,” UN under-secretary-general for Humanitarian Affairs Valerie Amos said at the launch of the appeal on December 14.
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14/12/2011
Paris – The Palestinian flag was raised for the first time at the Paris headquarters of the UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) as the agency marked Palestine’s admission as a full member.
Credit: UN
Senior UNESCO officials and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas attended the ceremony on December 13, which follows the decision of the agency’s General Conference on 31 October to admit Palestine as UNESCO 195th member.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 