International Women’s Day

Some food for the eye & the mind from half the world’s population-

Lillie Langtry, Memory in Latin America– 1325 mujeres tejiendo la paz is a project presenting biographical sketches of women peace activists from all over the world with images by graphic designers. The ‘1325’ refers to UN Security Council Resolution 1325 on women, peace and security.

A sampling below, see more here.

Demands that really should not seem radical at all-

INVEST IN CARING NOT KILLING! Women & girls do 2/3 of the world’s work, most of it unwaged. $1 trillion/year is spent on the military worldwide, more than half by the US. 10% of this would provide the essentials of life for all: water, sanitation, basic health, nutrition, literacy, and a minimum income.

The Global Women’s Strike network, with national co-ordinations in 13 countries and participating organisations in over 60 countries, is demanding the return of military budgets to the community, beginning with women the main carers of people and the planet. Women, and men who support our goals, take action together on 8 March, International Women’s Day, and throughout the year. In this way each grassroots struggle is backed by our collective power.

Women from different sectors are involved: Women of colour, Indigenous & rural women, mothers, women in waged work, lesbian & bisexual women, sex workers, religious activists, women with disabilities, older & younger women…

Our Demands:

Payment for all caring work – in wages, pensions, land & other resources. What is more valuable than raising children & caring for others? Invest in life & welfare, not military budgets or prisons

Pay equity for all, women & men, in the global market.

Food security for breastfeeding mothers, paid maternity leave and maternity breaks. Stop penalizing us for being women.

Don’t pay ‘Third World debt’. We owe nothing, they owe us.

Accessible clean water, healthcare, housing, transport, literacy.

Non-polluting energy & technology which shortens the hours we work. We all need cookers, fridges, washing machines, computers, & time off!

Protection & asylum from all violence & persecution, including by family members & people in positions of authority.

Freedom of movement. Capital travels freely, why not people?

And we could implement this right away-

(Via LC) The UK Gender and Development Network’s Manifesto for the UK General Election

Realising the potential of women and girls is critical to reducing global poverty and achieving the Millennium Development Goals. Promoting equality between women and men is also a matter of justice.

The UK Gender and Development Network (GADN) calls on the next UK Government to put gender equality and women’s empowerment at the heart of its international development agenda, and ensure the UK’s existing commitments on gender equality become a reality for women and girls across the world.

In particular, we ask that all political parties and candidates commit to:

1. End violence against women and girls worldwide by making it a foreign and development policy priority and appointing a Minister on violence against women and girls whose brief covers FCO, DfID and MoD.

2. Increase women’s political participation and leadership by making this a key component of FCO, DfID and MoD governance policies and programmes, supported by robust funding, implementation, and monitoring and evaluation
mechanisms.

3. Champion gender-sensitive responses to climate change by mainstreaming gender across all climate change policies, programmes and budgets, and calling for the participation of women in decisions related to climate change locally, nationally and internationally.

4. Empower women and girls to take full control of their sexual and reproductive lives by scaling up FCO and DfID investment in affordable services and comprehensive sexuality education and information, and reducing barriers that
prevent women and girls from accessing these.

5. Implement the UK’s international commitments on gender equality by continuing to invest in DfID’s capacity to deliver – building on the current Gender Equality Action Plan – focusing on strong leadership, systems of accountability and monitoring, and staff knowledge and skills.

Govt. Can’t Stop Covering Up Torture

It’s interesting this case also involves Moazzam Begg the focus of the recent campaign against Amnesty by Decent types.

The government will attempt today to have a case about torture heard entirely behind closed doors in a move that some lawyers say would extend secrecy to a new area of hearings, overriding ancient principles of English law. This morning a case will come before three appeal judges in London in which seven men are seeking damages against the government for mistreatment during what they say was their “extraordinary rendition” and torture facilitated by the British security services. The men include former Guantánamo Bay detainees Binyam Mohamed and Moazzam Begg. But the government is seeking to have the case held in secret, less than two weeks after the court of appeal ruled that seven paragraphs of secret evidence in the case of Mohamed should be made public.

Lawyers for the men say that if successful, the government’s application would extend closed proceedings into findings of fact in the civil courts for the first time.

Economic Warfare Against Iran Intensifies

FT.com:- The world’s largest oil traders have quietly stopped supplying petrol to Iran in a clear sign that the threat of sanctions and Washington’s behind-the-scenes efforts to convince companies not to sell to Tehran are paying off. However, the decision by Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura is unlikely to cut Tehran off completely from the global petrol market as traders said Iran’s long-standing suppliers were being replaced by small Dubai-based and Chinese companies. Although Iran is one of the world’s biggest oil producers, its refineries are dilapidated and it suffers from runaway petrol demand because of generous subsidies.

Energy executives said Vitol, Glencore and Trafigura, which have hitherto sold Iran half of its petrol imports of 130,000 barrels a day, stopped supplying Tehran because of mounting political risk. “The political and public relations problems more than outweigh the business rewards,” said one executive. The sale of petrol to Iran by non-US companies is legal as fuel imports have yet to be included in sanctions against the country. The companies declined to comment.

Vitol’s decision is particularly important as the company is by far the world’s largest oil trader. One executive familiar with Iran’s trade said “Vitol consciously decided not to participate in Iran’s tenders” at the start of the year. Trafigura, the Switzerland-based oil and metals trader, stopped selling to Iran about three months ago, an industry executive said. “They have concluded that there’s too much political and financial risk,” the executive said. Glencore stopped supply in late 2009, breaking a relationship with Iran of more than three decades.

Oil groups such as Total of France, Lukoil of Russia, Petronas of Malaysia and Royal Dutch Shell also sold petrol to Iran last year. Chinese oil traders, including the secretive ZhenHua Oil, began supplying fuel to Iran in 2009 and now provide up to a third of its imports.

This happened even as media trumpeted that over the last decade not every corporation on Earth had done what war pimps in Washington & the Knesset wanted and may even be interested in profit, shock horror!!! It is also worrying that the propaganda has worked- 71 percent of Americans believe that Iran currently has nuclear weapons. Shirin Ebadi a Nobel Laureate like Mr. Obama has said-

FT.com:- The United Nations should focus on pressing the Tehran regime to restore democracy and human rights rather than imposing economic sanctions on Iran for its nuclear programme, says Shirin Ebadi, the Iranian opposition activist.“A military attack or economic sanctions would be to the detriment of the people of Iran,” she said, adding that the government of President Mahmoud Ahmadi-Nejad had ways to circumvent further economic measures and their unintended impact might be to rally people behind the regime.

She called, however, for action against western companies that she said were supporting actively the censorship and repression of the opposition movement…{she} named Nokia-Siemens and France’s Eutelsat as among a number of companies she said were helping the regime.

But instead they stop fuel, used for transport, energy and heat, it will increase prices for all goods, create a greater need for independent nuclear power (which is their right and the weapons issue is the means to deny this civil program), while continuing to create the conditions (poverty, anger) that will provoke reactionary repression which can be reported by media and spun by governments into the need for military action on humanitarian grounds to conflate with the nuclear issue ie. WMD panic!!!!!™ Power wearing the humane mask that people fall for still. Trita Parsi-

Under these circumstances, the embattled Iranian government is unable to set a new course for its foreign policy. In a state of paralysis, Iran’s behavior is primarily driven by two forces: bureaucratic inertia and a willingness to take only those decisions that are deemed low-risk within Iran’s internal political context. That does not include compromise with Washington and the International Atomic Energy Agency on the nuclear issue. From the Iran-Contra scandal onwards, Iran’s history is ripe with examples of Iranian politicians losing their careers after trying to create an opening to the U.S. Iran’s opposing political factions fear that rivals would reap the political benefits of an end to the U.S.-Iran enmity. From the standpoint of those in the regime, the low-risk course is to respond to pressure by opting for confrontation and escalation. Iran’s hard-liners are more comfortable and astute at handling an easily defined threat such as a combative Bush than they are an elusive and indefinable Obama.

None of this bodes well for the U.S. Ratcheting up indiscriminate sanctions will likely close the window for diplomacy, leaving Obama in the same position as Bush placed himself. But Tehran’s tendency toward confrontation might lead to the situation spiraling out of control. Military confrontation, which no one in the Obama Administration favors, may become unavoidable.

I’d quibble that no one in the Obama administration wants to attack, but as he concludes, resistance, the ‘Green movement’ and progressives in Iran would be worst served by the course currently pursued by belligerents.