Source URL = http://www.torontosun.com/comment/columnists/eric_margolis/2009/08/30/10672306-sun.html

Originally published on August 30, 2009
"Toronto Sun"

Libya's Moammar Khadaffy, once branded "the mad dog of the Middle East" by Ronald Reagan, is celebrating 40 years in power in spite of a score of attempts by western powers and his Arab "brothers" to kill him.

In 1987, I was invited to interview Khadaffy. We spent an evening together in his Bedouin tent. He led me by the hand through the ruins of his personal quarters, bombed a year earlier by the U.S. in an attempt to assassinate him. Khadaffy showed me where his two-year old daughter had been killed by a 1,000-pound bomb.

"Why are the Americans trying to kill me, Mister Eric?" he asked, genuinely puzzled.

I told him because Libya was harbouring all sorts of anti-western revolutionary groups, from Palestinian firebrands to IRA bombers and Nelson Mandela's ANC. To the naive Libyans, they were all legitimate "freedom fighters."

Last week, a furor erupted over the release of a dying Libyan agent, Abdel Basset al-Megrahi, convicted of the destruction of an American airliner over Scotland in 1988.

Hypocrisy on all sides abounded. Washington and London blasted Libya and Scotland's justice minister while denying claims al-Megrahi was released in exchange new oil...

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Source URL = http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24684208-2702,00.html

AUSTRALIAN Holocaust denier Fredrik Toben has won his legal battle with the German Government after it ended its attempt to extradite him from Britain.

German prosecutors have withdrawn their appeal against a British court's refusal last month to extradite the controversial historian, who was
detained at Heathrow airport on a European arrest warrant for denying the extent of Adolf Hitler's crimes against the Jews. Dr Toben's solicitor Kevin Lowry-Mullins said early today that he had signed a consent order with the German Government to end the action against his
client.

Dr Toben had been expected to face a tough legal fight over his extradition early next year in the High Court in London.

He was arrested while in transit atLondon's Heathrow airport on October1 under a warrant accusing him ofracism and publishing anti-Semitic views. But Westminster Magistrates Court district judge Daphne Wickham ruled the extradition could not go ahead because the warrant contained only "sparse" details about Dr Toben's alleged offences, including exactly what they were, as well as where and when they took place.

"This judgment makes no determination as to whether the (alleged) conduct (of Toben) ... amounts to an extradition offence," Judge Wickham said. "But I do find the particulars in the warrant are vague and imprecise. Therefore I don't find it to be a valid warrant and I can discharge the defendant."

Granting Dr Toben bail, the judge laid down a set of strict conditions including that he come up with pound stg. 100,000 ($247,465) in cash as security. He had to reside at a specific address approved by British authorities and report daily to police but not use the internet, speak to the media or attend public meetings.

Dr Toben's lawyers had argued that the arrest warrant was fatally flawed because it did not detail the time and place of the alleged offences, nor the 64-year-old's exact involvement.

Lawyers acting on Germany's behalf had said Dr Toben should be extradited so he could be put on trial for posting anti-Semitic and revisionist material on the internet between 2000 and 2004 in Australia, Germany and in other countries.

The case caused alarm in Britain about freedom of speech because, unlike in Australia and Britain, Holocaust denial is a crime in Germany and offenders can face up to five years in jail. Dr Toben, who founded the Adelaide Institute, was supported during his hearing by supporters including British Holocaust denier David Irving and former Australian beauty queen Michele Renouf.

When Dr Toben was released, Mr Irving said: "We defeated Germany again; we've defeated Europe in fact. We've always believed in freedom of speech in this country, no matter how crazy people's views are."

German prosecutor Andreas Grossmann, the Mannheim district prosecutor handling Dr Toben's case, had told The Australian that he expected Dr Toben to be on trial in Germany early next year.

Mr Grossmann also warned that, although most prisoners in Germany served a third to a half of their sentences, the stubborn refusal of long-term Holocaust revisionists to recant their views meant they usually failed to win parole.

"These people have little chance of getting out before the end of their full sentence," Mr Grossman said.

As a foreign citizen, Dr Toben would normally be sent back to Australia halfway through any sentence to serve the remainder of his term, but that move, too, would be threatened by a refusal to recant.
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I blame Georgia's leaders.

Source URL = http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1008/p09s02-coop.html

08/10/08 "
CSM
" -- -Tskhinvali, South Ossetia - In a speech before the United Nations last month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South Ossetia.

I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims.

I know this because I was in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Aug. 7 when Georgian troops marched into the city and killed my friends and neighbors. I huddled with my family in terror for three nights while Saakashvili's tanks and rockets destroyed hundreds of our homes, desecrated cemeteries, gutted
schools and hospitals.

I also have good reason not to trust what Saakashvili says. For three days before the attack I had been getting calls from many Georgian friends warning me to get out. They said Saakashvili was planning an attack. Most of the Georgians living in South Ossetia left because they knew what was coming.

On the night of Aug. 7, Saakashvili went on television and assured the frightened civilian population of South Ossetia that he would not attack us. This was long after the time Saakashvili now claims Russians had begun "invading" Georgia.

Ossetians went to bed relieved and thankful for a peaceful night.

Less than two hours later, according to credible international accounts, his artillery, bombers, and three brigades of ground troops unleashed what I can only describe as a fierce hell on our city. In the moment, we knew only our fear as we hid. Afterward I spoke with hundreds of Ossetians to find out what
was done to us.

My friend's elderly father tried to douse the flames set by Georgian fire on the home he had built with his hands. His leg was severed by shrapnel from Georgian weapons. He bled to death while his disabled wife crawled from their burning home.

Ossetians saw Georgian tanks firing into basements where women and children hid for safety They saw fleeing families shot down by Georgian snipers. We learned that the Georgian military had used Grad rocket systems and cluster bombs against Tskhinvali.

Yes, I would very much like to see an international commission investigate the truth of what happened.

When I came out from hiding, thanking God that the Russians had saved our lives, I was dismayed by the reaction of the international media to what had happened. There was nothing about Ossetian deaths and the unprovoked horrors inflicted by Saakashvili's military. It made my heart sick.

The truth has been crushed by Georgia's powerful public relations machine as mercilessly as Georgian tanks rolled over the defenseless civilians of Tskhinvali.

I know that Americans are a generous and fair people. But Americans haven't been told the truth about what happened to us. Americans don't understand that Ossetians are an independent, Christian Orthodox people with a deep history in our land. The world talks only about Georgian freedom. What of freedom for my people? Does our suffering, do our voices, mean nothing?

I don't blame the Georgian people for what happened to us. The vast number of Ossetians and Georgians want to live in peace. I blame Georgia's leaders.

Saakashvili has persuaded the world that he is a "beacon" of democracy and openness. But he won't even tell his own people the truth. My Georgian friends weren't allowed to see any Russian news sites during the conflict because all of those sites were blocked by Saakashvili's government.

I know we are a small people, and I make no claim to understanding the experts in geopolitics with their theories and pronouncements about the great powers. But I have fought for women's rights in Ossetia for 12 years and I believe in the truth.

In a recent article, Saakashvili cynically dismissed Ossetian suffering and deaths because, he said, Russia had "lied" about how many of my people were killed by the Georgian military.

It breaks my heart to even engage in this discussion. No one – including Saakashvili – knows how many Ossetians were killed by his Army. I have friends who buried loved ones in their backyards because there were no alternatives. Many people are still missing.

Does Saakashvili believe his vicious attack on a civilian city was justified if he only killed a few hundred rather than a few thousand? Do Americans realize that a military trained and equipped by the US government attacked a civilian population as they slept in their beds? Can they justify sending another billion dollars to Georgia and nothing for those Georgia attacked?

I have made an urgent appeal to the world for humanitarian relief for our people at the website http://helpossetianow.org/ . I beg the United States and the world to find out the truth. Please hear our voices.

Lira Tskhovrebova is the founder of the Association of South Ossetian Women for Democracy and Human Rights and has worked for more than a decade to improve relations between people of Georgian and Ossetian descent in the Caucasus.

Copyright © 2008 The Christian Science Monitor No Trackbacks

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source URL: = http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/jun2008/suic-j05.shtml

5 June 2008

The death of 23-year-old Christopher Jones from Nantymoel on May 5 is the latest in a series of tragic suicides of young people in and around the South
Wales town of Bridgend. In the last 12 months, 19 young people under the age of 27, many of them in their teens, have committed suicide in the area. The latest death is the 34th since 2006.

The deaths have generated a media furore, with astonishment and confusion being expressed by the political establishment as to the cause.

Officially, however, an inquest into five of the deaths, held on March 19, said that the deaths were not related.

Allyn Price, a 24-year-old man from Maesteg whose death was investigated at the inquest, was described as “happy go lucky,” with no overt signs of depression. Similar accounts were given of cousins Nathaniel Pritchard, 15, and Kelly Stephenson, 20. A relative told the press, “We just don’t know what is going on in Bridgend. Kelly and Nathaniel were both brilliant kids with good futures ahead of them. We would never have thought in a million years that they were capable of anything like this. None of this makes sense.”

In 2007 Dale Crole, 18, was found hanged in an abandoned warehouse. His friend David Dilling, 19, took police to the scene. Dilling was also found hanged little more than a month later.

It also emerged that Kelly Stephenson knew two other young men who died last year, prompting media speculation of “copycat suicides.” Some of the other suicides were friends, some distant acquaintances; many knew each other through social networking sites. It is reported that seven of the dead are believed to have frequently used the social networking site Bebo, for example. Angelina Fuller, the 14th suicide, had her memorial site posted by her partner on MySpace.

Consequently, the media have blamed such sites for the suicides, claiming that online memorials, which supposedly gave the victims some “prestige,” were triggering the tragedies. With each new suicide inspiring more memorial pages, the louder become the calls for these sites to be controlled and censored.

Madeleine Moon, Labour MP for Bridgend, said, “If you are a young and vulnerable person who sees nothing in life ahead of you, if you are feeling in despair
and you can see no way you are ever going to make anything of yourself, having your photograph and your way of dying splashed all over the national media
is perhaps one way of gaining fame; a very sad way of getting it but one that certainly some of this coverage is exploring and exploiting.”

The Ministry of Justice, with the departments of Health, Culture, and Children, is currently reviewing laws to censor or shut down sites that give information regarding suicide as an acceptable option. Many users of such sites are not in fact youth, but older people suffering from illnesses for which no palliative care is available.

The police have set up a task force investigating the computers of the youth, as well as the social networking sites.

In fact social networking sites have become hugely popular, particularly among youth, precisely because they offer a limited possibility of expressing both feelings and broader social concerns that have no other outlet—particularly under conditions where young people are deeply alienated from existing forms
of political expression.

The calls for censorship of social networking both shift attention from the more fundamental issues giving rise to suicides amongst young people, and prevent discussion at the point when it is vitally necessary to talk to young people about how they feel and what they think. Equally it is not enough to blame media coverage for the suicides, even when it is as shallow and sensationalist as is suggested by lurid headlines about “Death Town” and “Suicide Valley.”

After all, figures from the Office of National Statistics show a death rate from suicides of 19.4 per 100,000 of the population for Welsh men, and 6.3 per 100,000 for women. This is the highest in Britain, which overall has a disturbing rate of 17.4 per 100,000 men, and 5.3 per 100,000 women. Most of these tragic cases never make the pages of the media and the victims do not regularly use social networking sites.

In any case, what is necessary is to ask just why it might be, if Madeleine Moon’s suggestion is true, that some young people are so vulnerable, and see “nothing in life” ahead of them and no way of ever “making anything of themselves,” that suicide could be seen as a way of “gaining fame.” And even if one rejects such a claim, the issue remains of why some young people are so filled with despair.

As a letter to the Times from a writer in Pontypool in South Wales pointed out, would young people stop being depressed if the sites were censored?

The writer went on to call for an examination of the reasons for “such a depressive state of mind,” and suggested it had more to do with “the fact that they are priced out of higher education, have little or no chance of affording a house of their own. And that their only option is to work in a poorly paid job simply to continue their existence ... Even when things were bleak in the 70s and 80s, young people had a voice, and often protested passionately against their circumstances. Sadly, those in authority seem to have silenced today’s youngsters, and here we see the logical reaction.”

The fact that the cluster of suicides centres on the former industrial town of Bridgend underscores the necessity to probe these questions more fully. Tens of thousands in the area were employed in mining, or in the steel industry in nearby Port Talbot. Today this has all but disappeared. The major employers now are call centres.

The betrayal of the miners strike of 1984-85 by the trade unions and the Labour Party began the devastation of the area. The closure of pits led not just to a loss of jobs and declining wages, but the break-up of entire communities.

Accompanying this, vast amounts of wealth have been transferred from the poor to the very rich, who have demanded ever greater attacks on the social conditions of working people by the very party that once claimed to represent labour against capital.

For most young people, good job prospects are a thing of the past, and buying a house is impossible. And in the areas of health, social work and mental health, that would once have identified and helped treat those in most need financially and emotionally, cut after cut has been made based on the claim that overcrowded, understaffed and under-funded schools can provide an adequate “joined-up” substitute—using the services of unqualified support staff.

The government’s own official education body, OFSTED, describes 10 percent of state schools as “inadequate.” Class sizes are among the highest in Europe. Meanwhile there are diminishing welfare facilities, long waiting list for counsellors, social workers with dozens of “clients” and a system in breakdown.

The victims of this onslaught on social provision are in turn vilified, demonised and criminalised. Today young people are often regarded as a problem, not as society’s greatest asset and its future. Figures on British youth crime, drunkenness, pregnancy and violence are at their highest and dominate the press. Time magazine led a recent issue with the cover story, “Unhappy, Unloved and out of Control: An epidemic of violence, crime and drunkenness has made Britain scared of its young.” Britain has the highest population of children behind bars in Europe, with almost 3,000 children now in custody, an 8 percent rise since 2005, compared to Germany with 1,422 and France with 646.

This situation must inevitably produce a deep social malaise that affects significant layers of young people. But it also creates opposing sentiments: a sense of anger, a critical attitude to the existing social set-up and an often profound desire for change. This response is far more widespread than is ever acknowledged by the media. Those within the establishment who have plunged Britain’s youth into such dire straits have no answer to the social despair this generates and are bitterly hostile to and threatened by the inevitable growth of a more forward looking and universalist desire for a better society. No Trackbacks

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Argentina and Brazil, South America's two largest economies, will drop the U.S. dollar in favor of a regional currency in their bilateral trade starting
in October 2007, Argentine Economics Minister Felisa Miceli said.
Source URL = http://en.rian.ru/world/20070523/65966459.html

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Some things interest the media, others don't. Since the fall of the USSR, the United States has sought another menace to designate as the ultimate evil,
a world threat the Americans desperately need to take on. The 9/11 attacks gave them that enemy. And when the White House speaks, the media listens obediently.

Over the last number of years the "Islamic threat" has become one of the favourite issues for media coverage. It's all over the news--Muslims leaders pronouncing
threats against the countries participating in occupying Muslim land.

While America is the Western country most succumbed to the fear of Islamism, things aren't much better in Europe. Its media is highly Americanised and thus
eager to reiterate U.S. governmental positions towards the non-Western world. Islamic terrorism is subsequently a theme close to the hearts of European
journalists as well.

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BBC News

Canada's Supreme Court has struck down a controversial system that allowed the government to detain and deport foreign-born terror suspects. The nine judges ruled that the security certificate system – in place since 1978 – violated Canada's Charter of Rights and Freedoms. The system allowed a suspect to be held indefinitely or deported on the basis of evidence presented in secret.

[Note: On the basis of this system, Ernst Zundel was held for two years in
solitary confinement as a threat to Canada’s “national security,” and then, in March 2005, deported to Germany, where he was put on trial for having violated Germany’s “Holocaust denial” law. On Feb. 15 a court in Mannheim sentenced him to five years imprisonment.]

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Wednesday, January 31, 2007
FRANKFURT
In the most serious legal challenge yet to the Central Intelligence Agency's secret transfer of terrorism suspects, a German court has issued an arrest
warrant for 13 people in the mistaken kidnapping and jailing of a German citizen of Lebanese descent.

Prosecutors in Munich said the suspects, whom they did not identify, were part of a CIA "abduction team," which seized the man, Khaled el-Masri, in Macedonia
in late 2003 and flew him to Afghanistan. He was imprisoned there for five months and has said he was shackled, beaten and interrogated about his alleged
ties to Al Qaeda before being released without charges.

His ordeal is the best-documented case of the CIA's practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which terrorism suspects were seized and sent for interrogation
to countries where torture is practiced.

"This is a very consequential step," August Stern, the deputy prosecutor in Munich, said by telephone. "It is a necessary step before bringing a criminal
case against these people."

The CIA has never acknowledged any role in Masri's detention, and an agency spokesman declined to comment Wednesday. The German government said it would
not comment on the case, except to affirm the independence of the public prosecutor.

Stern said investigators would seek to establish the true identities of the 13 people, most of whom are believed to use aliases. They include the four-
member crew of the Boeing 737 that picked up Masri, as well as a mechanic and several CIA operatives, people familiar with the case said.

The issuing of an arrest warrant represents a major expansion of the legal assault on the CIA's rendition program in Europe. Italian prosecutors are seeking
indictments against 25 CIA operatives and Italy's former intelligence chief for the kidnapping of a militant Egyptian cleric in 2003.

But the German case carries more weight, according to legal experts, because of the reputation of courts here for painstaking deliberation, as well as the
diplomatic ties between Germany and the United States.

It comes at a delicate time for both countries. The Bush administration has faced a drumbeat of criticism because of its anti-terrorism policies since the
attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, while the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, has been eager to heal rifts in the trans-Atlantic alliance over the Iraq war.

"It is unique that a German court would issue warrants against 13 CIA agents," said Hans-Christian Ströbele, a Green Party member of a German parliamentary
committee that is investigating the flights.

The case also has political implications within Germany, where the role of the German government in tolerating — or even facilitating — CIA flights has
come under increased scrutiny. Frankfurt Airport was used for many of the flights, as was the Ramstein American air base.

In Germany, unlike in Italy, defendants cannot be tried in absentia. As a practical matter, it is unlikely that the Bush administration would acquiesce
in the extradition to Germany of the 13 people covered by the arrest warrant. But it could hinder their ability to move around Europe.

On Wednesday, a German radio station, NDR, revealed what it said were the names of the 13 people — 11 men and two women. Stern declined to discuss the names,
which have been picked up in other German news media.

The whereabouts of all 13 people are not known, though a German television program, "Panorama," tracked down three of them in North Carolina last September.
They declined to comment on their activities.

For Masri, who has had to overcome a tide of public skepticism about his account since it was first reported in The New York Times in early 2005, the court's
action is a significant step in bolstering the credibility of his claims, according to his lawyer, Manfred Gnjidic.

"This is unbelievably important for our case," Gnjidic said in an interview. "It's the first direct sign of the German government against the CIA that they
did the wrong thing."

Masri, who is unemployed, lives in the southern German city of Neu-Ulm. Gnjidic said he had been buoyed by a statement of support from the former German
interior minister Otto Schily.

Masri is petitioning a U.S. appeals court in Richmond, Virginia, to reinstate a lawsuit against the agency. Last May, a federal judge threw out a suit brought
by Masri, accepting the U.S. government's contention that it would be impossible to open a trial without disclosing state secrets.

The U.S. Justice Department has declined to help the German prosecutors in their investigation, citing pending legal cases in the United States. This has
made the Germans dependent on information from other sources, including journalists investigating the CIA rendition program.

A major break, Stern said, came from a Spanish reporter who compiled a list of the names of people involved in Masri's abduction from sources in the Civil
Guard, a Spanish paramilitary unit. The CIA used the Spanish island of Majorca as a logistics center for its flights, Gnjidic said, and the authorities
found the names of members of the rendition team on hotel logs there.

Stern also credited tips from prosecutors in Milan, as well as from Dick Marty, a Swiss senator who conducted an inquiry into the rendition program on behalf
of the Council of Europe.

The nature of Germany's role in Masri's case, and in other CIA flights, remains murky. Masri has claimed he was interrogated three times inside his prison
in Kabul by a German, who identified himself as "Sam."

Germany's foreign minister, Frank- Walter Steinmeier, has said he was told of Masri's abduction only in June 2004, after he had been released in Albania.
As chief of staff to the former chancellor, Gerhard Schröder, Steinmeier oversaw all German intelligence services.

Stephen Grey contributed reporting from Toronto, and Mark Mazzetti from Washington.

Source = http://www.revereradio.net/e107/news.php?item.73.3 No Trackbacks

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Late Tuesday night, the Thai military deployed troops backed by armoured vehicles to seize control of the capital Bangkok, surrounding the parliament building,
the prime minister’s office and taking over all television stations. The coup against Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra followed months of political intrigue
fuelled by deep rifts in the ruling elites and a constitutional crisis that saw the April 2 national elections annulled by the courts.

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Increasingly desperate over the deteriorating situation in Iraq, the Bush administration is demanding that the US-installed government in Baghdad support
a savage intensification of repression or give way to a dictatorial regime that will.

This is the significance of a series of reports—based largely on comments made by unnamed US officials—that have appeared in the press in recent days.

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