15/09/2012
By Fyodor Lukyanov, Gazeta.ru, RT*, 15 Sept. 2012 – The situation in the Middle East is so muddled that it is no longer clear who is fighting with whom or on whose side – a city where the NATO bombing of Libya was greeted with jubilation by the population just a year ago – only affirms the extent of confusion in the region.
Drawing by Niyaz Karim. Source: Russia Today
Neoconservatives approached the issue from two angles.
First, since the U.S. was a global superpower, steps to ensure its security would to be similarly global in character.
Secondly, the guarantee of stable global development was a tenet of democracy – the more countries embraced democracy, the more secure the United States would become.
The moves that followed – wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, elections in Palestine, and support for various “color revolutions” – were realizations of these goals.
The Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld doctrines were perceived as faulty, and Barack Obama’s presidential agenda sought to rid America of the legacy of his predecessors.
Ironically, it was exactly this series of neoconservative goals that became realized under the Obama administration.
When the Middle East awakened, the masses of its people began to demand real democracy, sweeping aside – sometimes independently, and sometimes with outside assistance – the rule of dictatorships.
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14/09/2012
By Wilbert van der Zeijden, Pax Christi IKV, Pressenza* – Scottish independence has been pending for many years, or centuries if you take to that perspective, and now it’s closer than ever. It’s only a referendum away.
**Trident Boat | JohnED76| Wikimedia Commons
There’s two issues tied to the discussion on Scottish independence that trigger my professional interest. First, is the Trident nuclear missiles – the UK weapons of mass destruction deployed and stored in Faslane, Scotland. What happens to those after independence? Second is the question whether independent Scotland will be – should be – part of NATO?
For a long time, the ruling Scottish Nationalist Party (SNP) held it that Scotland would neither become part of NATO nor allow England’s nuclear weapons to stay. But lately…..
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13/09/2012
By Uri Avnery*, TRANSCEND – Avigdor Lieberman has a restless nature. From time to time he has to do something, anything.
**Avigdor Lieberman | Photo: Michael Thaidigsmann | Wikimedia Commons.
As Minister of Foreign Affairs he should be doing something about, well, foreign affairs. Trouble is, Israel’s foreign affairs are managed by others.
The most important sector of our foreign affairs concerns the relationship with the United States. Indeed, this is so important that Binyamin Netanyahu keeps it entirely to himself. Our ambassador in Washington reports to him personally, after being handpicked by Sheldon Adelson, the casino billionaire.
Relations with the Palestinians are mostly (mis)managed by Ehud Barak, who, as Minister of Defense, is formally in charge of the occupied territories. The main actor there is the Shin Bet, which is under the authority of the Prime Minister.
The relations with the Arab world, such as they are, are maintained by the Mossad, also under the authority of the Prime Minister. In practice, Netanyahu and Barak together make all the decisions, including, of course, The Decision concerning Iran.
So what’s left for Lieberman? He can deal as much as he wants with Zambia and the Fiji islands. He can appoint ambassadors to Guatemala and Uganda. And that’s it.
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12/09/2012
By RT* – Over 200 UK state schools have installed cameras in bathrooms and changing rooms to monitor students, a recent surveillance survey reported. British parents will likely be shocked by the study’s findings.
***An integrated systems unit |By: Kingrattus at en.wikipedia
The survey is based on a freedom of information request conducted by Big Brother Watch, an anti-surveillance activist group. The group said they were shaken by the results, which was much higher and more extensive than expected.
The report “will come as a shock to many parents”, Nick Pickles, Director of Big Brother Watch said. “Schools need to come clean about why they are using these cameras and what is happening to the footage”.
– 47,806 cameras used in 2,107 schools
– 207 schools have 825 cameras in changing rooms and bathrooms
– 90% of schools use CCTV[1] cameras
– 54 UK schools have 1 camera or more per 15 pupils
– 106,710 CCTV cameras estimated in high schools and academies in England, Scotland and Wales.
[1] CCTV: Closed-Circuit Television
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12/09/2012
By Lawrence Wittner*, IPPNW – About a third of the way through The Path to Zero, David Krieger, one of the authors, suggests a Zen koan — a mind-bending riddle designed to foster enlightenment — that runs as follows: “What casts a dark shadow when dormant and a fiery cloud of death when brought to life?” The answer is nuclear weapons, the subject of this book.
It is certainly a crucial subject.
The contradiction between the potential of nuclear weapons to destroy the world and the determination of nations to possess them is a central dilemma of modern times.
More than sixty-seven years after U.S. atomic bombs killed much of the population of two Japanese cities, some 20,000 nuclear weapons — thousands of them on alert — remain housed in the arsenals of nine countries.
The United States and Russia possess about 95 percent of them.
Moreover, despite a rhetorical commitment to building a nuclear weapons-free world, some nations are undertaking multi-billion dollar programs to modernize their nuclear weapons production facilities, while others appear to be en route to becoming nuclear powers.
Faced with this disastrous indifference by national governments to the fate of the earth, the people of the world would do well to study The Path to Zero, an extended conversation on the nuclear dilemma by two of its most brilliant, knowledgeable, and profound analysts.
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12/09/2012
By Justin McKeating, Greenpeace* – Despite the dire warnings from the nuclear industry and its backers, Japan’s hot summer has passed with no power blackouts or shortages even though just two out of its 50 nuclear reactors were in operation.
Photograph © Greenpeace
The Japanese government’s announcement last week of the end of its summer power-saving initiative proved the country’s new energy strategy can and should include an immediate phase-out of nuclear power.
With its support for nuclear power, the government has been putting its people unnecessarily at risk, given the ongoing threats from earthquakes, but it underestimated the public.
The Japanese people have shown in recent months that they can achieve the power savings needed to achieve the nuclear-free future almost 90% of them are calling for.
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12/09/2012
By Roberto Savio*
Much has been written, and will be written, about the differences between the United States and Europe. One of Romney’s arguments against Obama is the President’s goal of making the US “similar” to Europe. The fact that this argument is very popular among the American electorate demonstrates how Europe is understood not only as different, but also as negative.
Roberto Savio | Photo: sidint.net
In any case, I want to tell a personal experience that might be useful if you ever find yourself in a similarly situation as I describe below.
Before starting, it is useful to remember that there are basically two types of Law:
First, the one implemented by the Romans and re-instituted by Napoleon, which is based on codes within which a judge operates and within which the judge cannot act beyond the established rules.
The second system is called Common Law, born in England in the Middle Ages, which delegates responsibility to the judge for making a judgment based on sentences that have been given in previous cases.
The US uses Common Law with some local adaptations such as electing the position of prosecutor rather than being the result of a judicial career, similar to a chief of police, who is also elected.
The truth is that the proliferation of lawyers and their high-level income has no comparison with any other country in the world.
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12/09/2012
By Ernest Corea*, IDN-InDepthNews, Washington – They are done. Democrats and Republicans have completed their conventions, and President Barack Obama has secured the anticipated post-convention bounce.
**Photo credit: flickr user chad davis and Jeff G. | Source | Wikimedia Commons
The latest Gallup poll puts Obama at 49 percent among registered voters, compared with 45 percent for former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney.
The Reuters/Ipsos poll also gives Obama a four-percentage-point lead over Romney, 47:43. Obama’s personal favourability rating has increased as well and his favourability:unfavourability score is up to 52:43. That’s a seven percentage point bounce.
Also part of the current reality is the news on the jobs front that was announced just a day after the Democrats’ convention ended.
The number of jobs created rose to 96,000 in August from 86,000 in July. Undoubtedly, this is an improvement on the massive monthly job losses that President George W, Bush bequeathed to Obama, but nowhere near adequate to turn the employment situation around.
Comparing the effervescence of the Democrats’ convention to the sobering reality of weak job creation, Romney in a rare resort to humour said: “Yesterday was the party, today is the hangover.”
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12/09/2012
Three months ago, the United Nations named 52 parties on its annual ‘list of shame’ of those who recruit and use children, kill and maim, commit sexual violence or attack schools and hospitals, including four new parties in Sudan, Yemen and Syria.
Photo: United Nations
In fact, secretary general Ban Ki-moon’s annual report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict, released on 23 June 2012, gives an overview of the grave violations committed against girls and boys in conflict zones, the main perpetrators as well as measures taken for the protection of children.
Now a top United Nations envoy stressed the need for more action to prevent violations from being committed against children affected by conflict and for greater accountability for such violations.
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10/09/2012
‘It is not credible that not only the CIA and FBI failed to detect the plot, but also all 16 US intelligence agencies, including the National Security Agency, which spies on everyone on the planet, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, Israel’s Mossad, and the intelligence agencies of Washington’s NATO allies. There are simply too many watchmen and too much infiltration of terrorist groups for such a complex attack to be prepared undetected and carried out undeterred.’
**A diagram showing the areas where debris from American Airlines Flight 11 and United Airlines Flight 175 fell upon Lower Manhattan during the course of the September 11 terror attacks. Author: cflm (talk) | Wikimedia Commons.
By Paul Craig Roberts, Journal of 9/11 Studies – TRANSCEND – On September 11, 2001, a neighbor telephoned and said, “Turn on the TV.” I assumed that a hurricane, possibly a bad one from the sound of the neighbor’s voice, was headed our way, and turned on the TV to determine whether we needed to shutter the house and leave.
What I saw was black smoke from upper floors of one of the World Trade Center towers. It didn’t seem to be much of a fire, and the reports were that the fire was under control.
While I was trying to figure out why every TV network had its main news anchor covering an office fire, TV cameras showed an airplane hitting the other tower. It was then that I learned that both towers had been hit by airliners.
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HUMAN WRONGS WATCH 