So war pimps go on holiday, an Israeli delegation travels to the US in a bid to persuade the country that Iran still seeks nuclear weapons. Russia delivers the first shipment of atomic fuel for Iran’s Bushehr power station, that’s POWER STATION. While back home IDF snatch squads are intruding into besieged Gaza and kidnapping politicians and intellectuals looking like a coordinated action with the aid talks that will reward Abbas over Hamas and there is Blair and some very free market reforms while Oxfam hits the zionist nail on the head-
The PA pledges both to cut government spending and reform Palestinian institutions. Some 70% of the aid is for budget support (including the salaries of more than 150,000 state employees) and 30% for development.
Scepticism about the benefits of aid is deep-rooted: despite receiving $10bn in international funds since the formation of the PA after the Oslo agreement in 1993, Palestinians are getting poorer; 65% now live below the poverty line. Per capita GDP in 2006 was 40% less than in 1999, on the eve of the second intifada. Eighty percent of Palestinians are dependent on aid. Oxfam points out that millions of dollars of aid is already being lost due to Israeli policies. The economics won’t work, critics chorus, unless the politics change.
Turkey says the US opened air space for their bombing raid on Kurdish Northern Iraq, the US denies it, clearly ‘keep it schtum’ didn’t translate to Turkish. While a nightmare authoritarian state Judge Dredd would be proud of emerges-
U.S. forces in Iraq soon will be equipped with high-tech equipment that will let them process an Iraqi’s biometric data in minutes and help American soldiers decide whether they should execute the person or not, according to its inventor…The labs – collapsible, 20-by-20-foot units each with a generator and a satellite link to a biometric data base in West Virginia – will let U.S. forces cross-check data in the field against information collected previously that can be used to identify insurgents. These labs are expected to be deployed across Iraq in early 2008.
Yeah read that again, ‘papiere bitte?’ Oh look you’re on the hit list, blam. Heart and minds people, hearts and minds. At least we turned tail and skedaddled. In the ‘Homeland’ strong words for the torturers-
“We want to hold the community accountable for what’s happened with these tapes. I think we will issue subpoenas…You’ve got a community that’s incompetent. They are arrogant. And they are political. And I think that we’re going to hold [CIA director] Mike Hayden accountable.”
Except that came from a Republican, bang up job you ‘opposition’ dems, at least there is some resistance to the secret police and Cindy Sheehan: Impeach Pelosi for collaboration with Bush administration on torture.
Shock Doctrine: Gazprom in Russia, corporatocracy accomplished-
Gazprom has almost everything – its own cities, its own airline, and even its own private army. It has nearly half a million employees, and the chairman of the board seems set to become the next president of Russia. Now, the biggest subsidiary of Kremlin Inc wants new headquarters to reflect its importance in the new Russia, and wants to build it in St Petersburg, home town of President Vladimir Putin, the chairman of the board, Dmitry Medvedev, Russia’s probable next president, and Alexei Miller, Gazprom’s CEO.
And is it the 12th century again?
The pursuit of profit produced inequality and contemporaries bewailed the breakdown of community and family. Finally, there was a crisis of authority in 12th-century Europe, with the church and nobility riddled with corruption and a revolution in government as it sought to expand its power into its subjects’ lives.
How did our 12th-century forebears deal with all this insecurity and dramatic change? They invented a persecution society, one that systematically identified whole categories of people and then set about exterminating, subjugating or segregating them. Just as the origins of modern Europe and its global expansion can be tracked back to the momentous political and economic changes of the 12th century, so can its corollary, a state built to persecute minorities, which has intermittently characterised Europe’s history ever since.
Persecution? Riot and now hunger strike at immigration detention center, Google news count? 8 stories, so a quiet persecution-
This morning there were claims the disturbance was started when staff went in to remove a man from his cell. Inmates became angry at his treatment and Bob Hughes, of the group Campaign to Close Campsfield, said CCTV cameras and lights had been broken. Inmates were now on hunger strike, he added.
Police have only said so far there was an “ongoing incident”. At the centre there are several fire engines, a heavy police presence, what appear to be prison-style riot officers in black uniforms and shields and paramedics. Some staff from the centre are reportedly being turned away from work this morning.
And John Pilger on…the shared values of …consensus building?
..the British-American Project for the Successor Generation (BAP), set up in 1985 with money from a Philadelphia trust with a long history of supporting right-wing causes. Although the BAP does not publicly acknowledge this origin, the source of its inspiration was a call by President Reagan in 1983 for “successor generations” on both sides of the Atlantic to “work together in the future on defense and security matters.”
The BAP rarely gets publicity, which may have something to do with the high proportion of journalists who are alumni. Prominent BAP journalists are David Lipsey, Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, and assorted Murdochites. The BBC is well represented. On the popular Today program, James Naughtie, whose broadcasting has long reflected his own transatlantic interests, has been an alumnus since 1989. Today’s newest voice, Evan Davis, formerly the BBC’s zealous economics editor, is a member. And at the top of the BAP Web site home page is a photograph of the famous BBC broadcaster Jeremy Paxman and his endorsement. “A marvelous way of meeting a varied cross-section of transatlantic friends,” says he.
The BAP’s British “alumni” are drawn largely from new Labor and its court. No fewer than four BAP “fellows” and one advisory board member became ministers in the first Blair government. The new Labor names include Peter Mandelson, George Robertson, Baroness Symons, Jonathan Powell (Blair’s chief of staff), Baroness Scotland, Douglas Alexander, Geoff Mulgan, Matthew Taylor, and David Miliband. Some are Fabian Society members and describe themselves as being “on the left.” Trevor Phillips, chair of the Equality and Human Rights Commission, is another member.
On the U.S. board is Diana Negroponte, the wife of John Negroponte, Bush’s former national security chief notorious for his associations with death-squad politics in central America. He follows another leading neocon, Paul Wolfowitz, architect of the invasion of Iraq and discredited head of the World Bank. Since 1985, BAP “alumni” and “fellows” have been brought together courtesy of Coca-Cola, Monsanto, Saatchi & Saatchi, Philip Morris, and British Airways, among other multinationals. Nick Butler, formerly a top dog at BP, has been a leading light.