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Archives for October 2014

With $550M in agricultural losses, Gazans going hungry

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Palestinians wait to receive food supplies from a United Nations food distribution center in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Aug. 19, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa).

Palestinians wait to receive food supplies from a United Nations food distribution center in Khan Yunis, in the southern Gaza Strip, Aug. 19, 2014. (photo by REUTERS/Ibraheem Abu Mustafa).

by Rasha Abou Jalal, Al Monitor

Gaza City: Souad Motlaq joins a long queue in Gaza City to get aid from one of the charities that provides food to thousands of Gazan families suffering from food insecurity as a result of the recent Israeli war.

Motlaq was covering her head with a piece of cardboard to try escape the hot sun, sighing as she saw the queue was moving at a snail’s pace. She told Al-Monitor indignantly, “This is the first time I have stood in a queue to get food aid. War alone forced me to do this.”

Her seven-member family can no longer obtain food due to its scarcity and skyrocketing prices, which have forced her to resort to relief organizations for food.

The Ministry of Agriculture’s undersecretary, Abdullah Lahlouh, warned in an interview with the Palestinian news agency Wafa about the increase in the number of households experiencing food insecurity in the Gaza Strip as a result of the Israeli aggression. Lahlouh said the rate of food insecurity was 58% before the Israeli aggression and was likely to rise.

The Israeli war on Gaza, which lasted 51 days, inflicted extremely significant losses on the production, agricultural and livestock sectors, affecting the food supply to the markets.

The agricultural sector losses reached an estimated $550 million, including $350 million in direct losses, according to the Ministry of Agriculture’s Policy and Planning Director Nabil Abu Shamala.

Abu Shamala said during a news conference attended by Al-Monitor on Sept. 6, “Israel directly targeted more than half of the agricultural areas in the sector, which are estimated at 140,000 dunums, while the remaining areas were more or less damaged as a result of the inability of the farmers to reach their crops, which caused the lands to suffer from drought.”

He said that the losses in livestock production amounted to $70.8 million, while the loss in the water and soil sector totaled $68.2 million. The losses inflicted on the fishing sector reached $10 million, while the losses in stored agricultural crops amounted to $1.16 million.

According to economy expert Moeen Rajab, Israel targeted agricultural land out of fear of the presence of underground tunnels or rocket launchers underneath without taking into account the economic effects of such devastating acts.

Rajab told Al-Monitor, “Targeting agricultural production has led to food insecurity in the Gaza Strip and has pushed up the unemployment rate after workers in this sector lost their jobs.”

After the cease-fire deal was reached, farmer Abdul Hamid Audi went to inspect his agricultural land located in the Shujaiya neighborhood east of Gaza City. All he found were ruins.

“The Israeli tanks have completely ruined my 8-acre [0.01-mile] land that was planted with cucumbers and tomatoes and equipped with an irrigation system, water pumps and modern agricultural tents,” Audi told Al-Monitor, saying his losses amounted to $12,000.

The terms of the agreement, which was reached during negotiations in Cairo, provided for the termination of the Israeli buffer zone along the border security fence, but Audi believes that these areas are in dire need of enormous amounts of work to restore water lines and electricity pylons and clean the soil of shrapnel from Israeli missiles.

Abu Shamala believes the agriculture sector will face great difficulty in recovering due to the destruction of more than 70 water wells and the bulldozing of about 34,500 acres [54 square miles] of agricultural land on the eastern border of the Gaza Strip.

The Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) warned in a statement on Aug. 14 that the end of local food production strongly affects livelihoods, noting that the agriculture sector recovery will require concrete foreign and long-term support.

According to the FAO, “Gaza has lost half of its total poultry [chicken for food as well as those kept for eggs]. … The locally produced food represents an important source of food,” noting that 28,600 people depend on agriculture for their livelihood.

Moataz Thabet, a vegetable seller in the Sheikh Radwan market in Gaza City, explained that the high prices made people resort to buying vegetables that were going bad to get cheaper prices.

Thabet told Al-Monitor, “There is seldom fresh produce in the market and it is only the rich that buy this produce. Meanwhile, the old frozen goods are for the middle and poor classes — if they are lucky enough to be able to afford such goods.”

The director-general of the Ministry of Agriculture’s General Directorate of Marketing and Crossings, Tahsin Sakka, told Al-Monitor that the lack of supply in the markets and the growing demand for significant agricultural crops has doubled prices.

Sakka gave examples of rising food prices and said, “The price of a kilo [2.2 pounds] of tomatoes rose from 2 shekels [$0.55] per kilo to 6 shekels [$1.64] and the same applies to cucumbers. The price of peppers rose from 1 shekel [$0.27] an ounce to 4 shekels [$1.10], while the price of a kilo of chicken increased from 10 shekels [$2.70] to 22 shekels [$6.03].”

He emphasized that the acute shortage in crops, poultry and livestock made people primarily depend on canned food provided by international institutions providing aid relief for Gazans.

The FAO reported in its statement that most of Gaza’s 1.8 million inhabitants are now dependent on food aid, noting that the World Food Program is helping about 1.1 million people on a regular basis together with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

“In addition, about 700,000 people are now dependent on special food distribution through the Palestinian Ministry of Social Affairs, UNRWA and the World Food Programme,” the statement read.

Number of Iraqi orphans, widows rising with conflict

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Orphan boys share earphones as they listen to music in their room in the Safe House orphanage in Baghdad's Sadr City, Feb. 11, 2009. (photo by REUTERS/May Naji)

Orphan boys share earphones as they listen to music in their room in the Safe House orphanage in Baghdad’s Sadr City, Feb. 11, 2009. (photo by REUTERS/May Naji)

by Omar al-Jaffal, Al Monitor

Naima Ibrahim, 36, lost her husband during the government’s bombing of Fallujah in May. She had intended to flee the city with her husband and children after the city fell to militants belonging to the Islamic State (IS) and some tribal groups, but her husband died in the shelling while out buying food. His death forced her to remain in Fallujah. She and her children now live on the money provided by her brothers and neighbors in addition to aid from humanitarian organizations in Anbar province.

Ali al-Hayali, a member of the Al-Khair Foundation, which operates out of Anbar, took it upon himself to help cases similar to Ibrahim’s. He estimates that about 400 children have been orphaned in the province since the start of the government’s military operations against the armed groups in December of last year. Hayali’s association, along with a group of other civil and humanitarian organizations, is trying to assess the extent of the destruction that befell Fallujah. The incessant shelling and blocking of roads between the province’s cities has made it difficult to compile accurate statistics on the number of orphans.

The local government in Anbar does not have specific statistics on these orphans, given its poor government services. The lack of clear information has worsened the orphan’s situation and prevented any future aid.

Hayali has, however, been able to reach some widows and give them food packages. “The local government in Anbar merely registers the orphans and widows in their records. It does not help them,” he told Al-Monitor by phone. Hayali acknowledged the difficulty facing the provincial government in taking heed of the orphans and widows, due to the worsening crisis, poor security situation and ongoing military operations. “Most of the employees of the concerned departments have been displaced,” he said.

Sabah Karhout, head of the Anbar Provincial Council, told Al-Monitor by phone, “The military operations and random shelling by the army and the militants have left many people dead, meaning an increase in the [number] of orphans.” He stressed, “The indiscriminate shelling operations must stop. …​ Anbar has requested the Baghdad government to stop the indiscriminate shelling and military operations in the province multiple times, but it did not respond.”

According to Karhout, his council has “repeatedly tried to find peaceful, rather than military, solutions to get out of the crisis.” He added, “Our demands are not heeded.” Karhout called on the new government to “stop the fighting and military operations, and find ways to communicate with the tribes to get out of the crisis as soon as possible.”

On Sept. 13, Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi issued orders to stop the bombardment of all cities where civilians are still present, even if members of IS are present. Abadi stressed that his government does not want more innocent victims. However, two days after Abadi’s decision, Fallujah’s hospital said it was hit by mortar rockets again.

Since the US-led invasion of Iraq in April 2003, local and international organizations have recorded a rise in the number of orphans and widows due to the worsening security situation. Iraq has not seen stability in more than 10 years, and this has begun to cast its shadows on society.

In 2011, UNICEF estimated that 800,000 children in Iraq had lost either one or both parents. This figure must have increased due to the severe attacks suffered by Iraq during the past couple of years, especially 2013, which the United Nations Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) considered one of the bloodiest years Iraq has ever seen.

According to Ikhlas Dulaimi, a sociology researcher, “The rise in orphans in Anbar is caused by the wars.” She told Al-Monitor, “The worsening cases of orphans will reflect negatively on the province in the long term. They will be forced to work to support their families after they leave school.” Dulaimi also stated, “In the future, we will have thousands of uneducated youth who suffer from unemployment. They will be [recruited] by the armed groups that seek to destabilize the state — something that will be very easy.”

The Iraqi government does not have a clear strategy to deal with this issue, which will only worsen with time. Civil organizations have pointed to flaws in legislation that guarantees orphans’ rights and fail to oversee negligent orphanages. Iraq’s Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs pointed to 23 such orphanages that were not providing ample care and education to orphans. These orphans were unable to integrate into society after reaching working age. This situation, if it continues, will push these orphans toward unemployment or their recruitment by militias.

Youths displaying ISIS flags not involved in militancy: Omar Abdullah

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omar-abdullah

Srinagar: Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Omar Abdullah said here on Tuesday that all the local boys who displayed ISIS flags in recent days in Srinagar have been identified, but none of them has been found to be involved in militancy.

Speaking to media on the sidelines of the Police Commemoration Day, Mr. Abdullah said: “All the boys who displayed the ISIS flags in the city have been identified and cases have been registered against them.”

“None of them has been found involved in militancy so far. Now what are the reasons for them to display such flags would be established by the inquiry going on in these cases.”

A media flutter was created here during the last few months because some masked youths displayed the flags of the outfit ISIS that is active in Iraq and Syria.

It should be noted that a similar alert in reference to Goa was rubbished by the state’s Chief Minister last week. Goa CM Manohar Parrikar said that there was no specific terror alert for the state and media reports quoting a top NSG official indicating the same were “incorrect”.

Audio recording: Real story of the Meerut 'Love Jihad' – In the words of the 'victim'

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love-jihad-meerut

This audio recording is a conversation with the girl, who was called a ‘victim’ of Love Jihad by right wing Hindutva forces. The interview took place on August 30, 2014 at her house, in Hapur with journalist Neha Dixit. It took place in the presence of her mother, T, who can be heard in the course of the interview. S, the girl, talks about how she and Kaleem were in love and wanted to get married but her parents were opposed to the match on religious grounds. Kaleem is an accused in this case and has been in jail for the last two months. She also says that she fears for her life.

This interview was not publish earlier for the fear of the girl’s safety, who has now been provided with police protection by the court. The name of the girl has been beeped in this clip to protect her identity.

History of key document in IAEA probe suggests Israeli forgery

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IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 18 February 2014 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between the E3+3 and Iran. IAEA Vienna, Austria (Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA)

IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano met with Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javed Zarif at IAEA headquarters in Vienna on 18 February 2014 on the margins of the nuclear-related talks between the E3+3 and Iran. IAEA Vienna, Austria (Photo: Dean Calma / IAEA)

by Gareth Porter, Inter Press Service

Western diplomats have reportedly faulted Iran in recent weeks for failing to provide the International Atomic Energy Agency with information on experiments on high explosives intended to produce a nuclear weapon, according to an intelligence document the IAEA is investigating.

But the document not only remains unverified but can only be linked to Iran by a far-fetched official account marked by a series of coincidences related to a foreign scientist that that are highly suspicious.

The original appearance of the document in early 2008, moreover, was not only conveniently timed to support Israel’s attack on a U.S. National Intelligence Estimate on Iran in December that was damaging to Israeli interests, but was leaked to the news media with a message that coincided with the current Israeli argument.

The IAEA has long touted the document, which came from an unidentified member state, as key evidence justifying suspicion that Iran has covered up past nuclear weapons work.

In its September 2008 report the IAEA said the document describes “experimentation in connection with symmetrical initiation of a hemispherical high explosive charge suitable for an implosion type nuclear device.”

But an official Iranian communication to the IAEA Secretariat challenged its authenticity, declaring, “There is no evidence or indication in this document regarding its linkage to Iran or its preparation by Iran.”

The IAEA has never responded to the Iranian communication.

The story of the high explosives document and related intelligence published in the November 2011 IAEA report raises more questions about the document than it answers.

The report said the document describes the experiments as being monitored with “large numbers of optical fiber cables” and cited intelligence that the experiments had been assisted by a foreign expert said to have worked in his home country’s nuclear weapons programme.

The individual to whom the report referred, Ukrainian scientist Vyacheslav Danilenko, was not a nuclear weapons expert, however, but a specialist on nanodiamond synthesis. Danilenko had lectured on that subject in Iran from 2000 to 2005 and had co-authored a professional paper on the use of fiber optic cables to monitor explosive shock waves in 1992, which was available online.

Those facts presented the opportunity for a foreign intelligence service to create a report on high explosives experiments that would suggest a link to nuclear weapons as well as to Danilenko. Danilenko’s open-source publication could help convince the IAEA Safeguards Department of the authenticity of the document, which would otherwise have been missing.

Even more suspicious, soon after the appearance of the high explosives document, the same state that had turned it over to the IAEA claimed to have intelligence on a large cylinder at Parchin suitable for carrying out the high explosives experiments described in the document, according to the 2011 IAEA report.

And it identified Danilenko as the designer of the cylinder, again basing the claim on an open-source publication that included a sketch of a cylinder he had designed in 1999-2000.

The whole story thus depended on two very convenient intelligence finds within a very short time, both of which were linked to a single individual and his open source publications.

Furthermore, the cylinder Danilenko sketched and discussed in the publication was explicitly designed for nanodiamonds production, not for bomb-making experiments.

Robert Kelley, who was the chief of IAEA teams in Iraq, has observed that the IAEA account of the installation of the cylinder at a site in Parchin by March 2000 is implausible, since Danilenko was on record as saying he was still in the process of designing it in 2000.

And Kelley, an expert on nuclear weapons, has pointed out that the cylinder would have been unnecessary for “multipoint initiation” experiments. “We’ve been taken for a ride on this whole thing,” Kelley told IPS.

The document surfaced in early 2008, under circumstances pointing to an Israeli role. An article in the May 2008 issue of Jane’s International Defence Review, dated Mar. 14, 2008, referred to, “[d]ocuments shown exclusively to Jane’s” by a “source connected to a Western intelligence service”.

It said the documents showed that Iran had “actively pursued the development of a nuclear weapon system based on relatively advanced multipoint initiation (MPI) nuclear implosion detonation technology for some years….”

The article revealed the political agenda behind the leaking of the high explosives document. “The picture the papers paints,” he wrote, “starkly contradicts the US National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) released in December 2007, which said Tehran had frozen its military nuclear programme in 2003.”

That was the argument that Israeli officials and supporters in the United States had been making in the wake of the National Intelligence Estimate, which Israel was eager to discredit.

The IAEA first mentioned the high explosives document in an annex to its May 2008 report, shortly after the document had been leaked to Janes.

David Albright, the director of the Institute for Science and International Security, who enjoyed a close relationship with the IAEA Deputy Director Olli Heinonen, revealed in an interview with this writer in September 2008 that Heinonen had told him one document that he had obtained earlier that year had confirmed his trust in the earlier collection of intelligence documents. Albright said that document had “probably” come from Israel.

Former IAEA Director General Mohamed ElBaradei was very sceptical about all the purported Iranian documents shared with the IAEA by the United States. Referring to those documents, he writes in his 2011 memoirs, “No one knew if any of this was real.”

ElBaradei recalls that the IAEA received still more purported Iranian documents directly from Israel in summer 2009. The new documents included a two-page document in Farsi describing a four-year programme to produce a neutron initiator for a fission chain reaction.

Kelley has said that ElBaradei found the document lacking credibility, because it had no chain of custody, no identifiable source, and no official markings or anything else that could establish its authenticity—the same objections Iran has raised about the high explosives document.

Meanwhile, ElBaradei resisted pressure from the United States and its European allies in 2009 to publish a report on that and other documents – including the high explosive document — as an annex to an IAEA report. ElBaradei’s successor as director general, Yukia Amano, published the annex the anti-Iran coalition had wanted earlier in the November 2011 report.

Amano later told colleagues at the agency that he had no choice, because he promised the United States to do so as part of the agreement by Washington to support his bid for the job within the Board of Governors, according to a former IAEA official who asked not to be identified.

U.S. and allies threaten sanctions in Libya

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Libya has been in a state of upheaval since its former leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed three years ago. (AFP/File)

Libya has been in a state of upheaval since its former leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed three years ago. (AFP/File)

– by Al Bawaba

In a joint statement issued late Saturday by the governments of the US, UK, Germany, France and Italy, the group threatened sanctions against violent parties in Libya if a ceasefire and negotiation process is not implemented.

“We stand ready to use individual sanctions in accordance with UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2174 against those who threaten the peace, stability or security of Libya or obstruct or undermine the political process,” the statement said.

The resolution was unanimously adopted by the five permanent members of the Security Council, and all 10 rotating members on August 27. It calls for an end to the fighting between the government and multiple rebel groups, an inclusive dialogue, and prior notice regarding weapons transfers.

In Saturday’s statement, the group said they “strongly condemn the ongoing violence in Libya and call for an immediate cessation of hostilities.

“We are particularly dismayed that after meetings in Ghadames and Tripoli, parties have not respected calls for a ceasefire,” they noted.

“We condemn the crimes of Ansar al-Sharia entities, and the ongoing violence in communities across Libya, including Tripoli and its environs. Libya’s hard fought freedom is at risk if Libyan and international terrorist groups are allowed to use Libya as a safe haven,” the statement said.

“We are also concerned by (ex-military general) Khalifa Hifter’s attacks in Benghazi. We consider that Libya’s security challenges and the fight against terrorist organizations can only be sustainably addressed by regular armed forces under the control of a central authority, which is accountable to a democratic and inclusive parliament,” the group affirmed.

The five nations said they “fully support” the work of the UN’s Special Representative of the Secretary-General (SRSG), Bernardino Leon, “and urge all parties to cooperate with his efforts.” Leon is the head of the United Nations Support Mission in Libya (UNSMIL), which was established in 2011 “at the request of the Libyan authorities following six months of armed conflict to support the country’s new transitional authorities in their post-conflict efforts.

“After the Ghadames and Tripoli meetings, negotiations should be pursued with goodwill and adopting inclusive policies, with the aim of finding an agreement on the location of the House of Representatives elected last June 25th and laying the foundations for a Government of National Unity,” the group said.

“We agree that there is no military solution to the Libyan crisis,” they added. “We stress the importance that the international community acts in a united manner on Libya on the basis of the principles and understandings agreed at recent meetings, namely in New York and Madrid.”

The statement also warned against interference from outside parties, and urged “all partners to refrain from actions which might exacerbate current divisions in order to let Libyans address the current crisis within the framework of UN-facilitated talks.” According to UN figures, some 287,000 people have had to flee due to the fighting in and around the cities of Benghazi and Tripoli, leading to a “critical” humanitarian situation.

Libya has been in a state of upheaval since its former leader Muammar Gaddafi was overthrown and killed three years ago.

What ‘democracy’ really means in U.S. and New York Times jargon

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Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

Photo: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

– by Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept

One of the most accidentally revealing media accounts highlighting the real meaning of “democracy” in U.S. discourse is a still-remarkable 2002 New York Times Editorial on the U.S.-backed military coup in Venezuela, which temporarily removed that country’s democratically elected (and very popular) president, Hugo Chávez. Rather than describe that coup as what it was by definition – a direct attack on democracy by a foreign power and domestic military which disliked the popularly elected president – the Times, in the most Orwellian fashion imaginable, literally celebrated the coup as a victory for democracy:

With yesterday’s resignation of President Hugo Chávez, Venezuelan democracy is no longer threatened by a would-be dictator. Mr. Chávez, a ruinous demagogue, stepped down after the military intervened and handed power to a respected business leader, Pedro Carmona.

Thankfully, said the NYT, democracy in Venezuela was no longer in danger . . . because the democratically-elected leader was forcibly removed by the military and replaced by an unelected, pro-U.S. “business leader.” The Champions of Democracy at the NYT then demanded a ruler more to their liking: “Venezuela urgently needs a leader with a strong democratic mandate to clean up the mess, encourage entrepreneurial freedom and slim down and professionalize the bureaucracy.”

More amazingly still, the Times editors told their readers that Chávez’s “removal was a purely Venezuelan affair,” even though it was quickly and predictably revealed that neocon officials in the Bush administration played a central role. Eleven years later, upon Chávez’s death, the Times editors admitted that “the Bush administration badly damaged Washington’s reputation throughout Latin America when it unwisely blessed a failed 2002 military coup attempt against Mr. Chávez” [the paper forgot to mention that it, too, blessed (and misled its readers about) that coup]. The editors then also acknowledged the rather significant facts that Chávez’s “redistributionist policies brought better living conditions to millions of poor Venezuelans” and “there is no denying his popularity among Venezuela’s impoverished majority.”

If you think The New York Times editorial page has learned any lessons from that debacle, you’d be mistaken. Today they published an editorial expressing grave concern about the state of democracy in Latin America generally and Bolivia specifically. The proximate cause of this concern? The overwhelming election victory of Bolivian President Evo Morales (pictured above), who, as The Guardian put it, “is widely popular at home for a pragmatic economic stewardship that spread Bolivia’s natural gas and mineral wealth among the masses.”

The Times editors nonetheless see Morales’ election to a third term not as a vindication of democracy but as a threat to it, linking his election victory to the way in which “the strength of democratic values in the region has been undermined in past years by coups and electoral irregularities.” Even as they admit that “it is easy to see why many Bolivians would want to see Mr. Morales, the country’s first president with indigenous roots, remain at the helm” – because “during his tenure, the economy of the country, one of the least developed in the hemisphere, grew at a healthy rate, the level of inequality shrank and the number of people living in poverty dropped significantly” – they nonetheless chide Bolivia’s neighbors for endorsing his ongoing rule: “it is troubling that the stronger democracies in Latin America seem happy to condone it.”

The Editors depict their concern as grounded in the lengthy tenure of Morales as well as the democratically elected leaders of Ecuador and Venezuela: “perhaps the most disquieting trend is that protégés of Mr. Chávez seem inclined to emulate his reluctance to cede power.” But the real reason the NYT so vehemently dislikes these elected leaders and ironically views them as threats to “democracy” becomes crystal clear toward the end of the editorial (emphasis added):

This regional dynamic has been dismal for Washington’s influence in the region. In Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, the new generation of caudillos [sic] have staked out anti-American policies and limited the scope of engagement on development, military cooperation and drug enforcement efforts. This has damaged the prospects for trade and security cooperation.

You can’t get much more blatant than that. The democratically elected leaders of these sovereign countries fail to submit to U.S. dictates, impede American imperialism, and subvert U.S. industry’s neoliberal designs on the region’s resources. Therefore, despite how popular they are with their own citizens and how much they’ve improved the lives of millions of their nations’ long-oppressed and impoverished minorities, they are depicted as grave threats to “democracy.”

It is, of course, true that democratically elected leaders are capable of authoritarian measures. It is, for instance, democratically elected U.S. leaders who imprison people without charges for years, build secret domestic spying systems, and even assert the power to assassinate their own citizens without due process. Elections are no guarantee against tyranny. There are legitimate criticisms to be made of each of these leaders with regard to domestic measures and civic freedoms, as there is for virtually every government on the planet.

But the very idea that the U.S. government and its media allies are motivated by those flaws is nothing short of laughable. Many of the U.S. government’s closest allies are the world’s worst regimes, beginning with the uniquely oppressive Saudi kingdom (which just yesterday sentenced a popular Shiite dissident to death) and the brutal military coup regime in Egypt, which, as my colleague Murtaza Hussain reports today, gets more popular in Washington as it becomes even more oppressive. And, of course, the U.S. supports Israel in every way imaginable even as its Secretary of State expressly recognizes the “apartheid” nature of its policy path.

Just as the NYT did with the Venezuelan coup regime of 2002, the U.S. government hails the Egyptian coup regime as saviors of democracy. That’s because “democracy” in U.S. discourse means: “serving U.S. interests” and “obeying U.S. dictates,” regardless how how the leaders gain and maintain power. Conversely, “tyranny” means “opposing the U.S. agenda” and “refusing U.S. commands,” no matter how fair and free the elections are that empower the government. The most tyrannical regimes are celebrated as long as they remain subservient, while the most popular and democratic governments are condemned as despots to the extent that they exercise independence.

To see how true that is, just imagine the orgies of denunciation that would rain down if a U.S. adversary (say, Iran, or Venezuela) rather than a key U.S. ally like Saudi Arabia had just sentenced a popular dissident to death. Instead, the NYT just weeks ago uncritically quotes an Emirates ambassador lauding Saudi Arabia as one of the region’s “moderate” allies because of its service to the U.S. bombing campaign in Syria. Meanwhile, the very popular, democratically elected leader of Bolivia is a grave menace to democratic values – because he’s “dismal for Washington’s influence in the region.”

"We are better off without U.S government": Bolivian President Evo Morales

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Bolivia’s president talks about the country’s ongoing socio-economic transformation and his third term in office.

– by Al Jazeera

In 2009, under the country’s first indigenous president a new constitution declared Bolivia a plurinational state – ending centuries of undeclared apartheid.

Opponents in the oil-rich eastern region launched a civil disobedience movement, confronting the east against the poorer, indigenous majority who support President Evo Morales. Critics denounced the president’s fiery socialist rhetoric and the nationalisation of Bolivia’s oil and gas industry in the poorest and most undeveloped nation in South America.

Five years later, from the World Bank to the IMF, Evo Morales is getting full marks for overseeing an unprecedented transformation of Bolivia. Spurred by high commodity prices, economic growth is now the highest in the region.

And while the president’s anti-capitalist discourse is as strong as ever, a mix of mainstream economics and social programmes has dramatically reduced poverty and unemployment, while allowing the private sector to flourish.

“We have taken flight towards development. What others could not do in 180 years we have done in some nine years of profound changes …. We are going to make Bolivia the energy hub for South America,” says Morales.

In a region where personality cults are too common, millions of Bolivians have come to worship Morales.

He has just been re-elected after a disputed court decision allowing him to run for a third consecutive term as president.

“I believe that some revolutions, some transformations, are driven by a person. I don’t like it, but I am happy that there is now an Evo generation, a new generation of young men and women with a great deal of knowledge, principles, and values, who are assuming leadership. I am very pleased with the way young people are getting involved. Obviously, much depends on the process, on the steps we take to ensure good economic stability with social benefits,” Morales says.

Morales not only opposes the eradication and abolition of the coca leaf, the raw material for cocaine. He is also waging an international campaign to legalise and industrialise its use for traditional and medicinal purposes. He made headlines when he demonstrated how the plant is chewed at the United Nations, the same body that declared the plant an illegal narcotic in 1961.

He says: “It [drug trafficking] must be fought – we are convinced of that – and we are doing so more effectively and more wisely. When the United States was in control of counternarcotics, the US governments used drug trafficking for purely geopolitical purposes …. The US uses drug trafficking and terrorism for political control …. We have nationalised the fight against drug trafficking. ”

“The best way to fight drug trafficking is to engage the people. Then there will not be zero coca, but neither can there be unfettered coca cultivation, because a problem does exist. As long as there is market demand for cocaine, the sacred, natural leaf, the medicinal coca leaf will always be associated with this illegal problem. The root cause of drug trafficking is demand, because the developed countries are not stopping the demand for cocaine.”

On Talk to Al Jazeera, President Evo Morales gives an insight into his personal life and discusses his controversial decision to legalise child labour, his expulsion of the US ambassador, the issue of drug trafficking – and whether he plans to step down when this term is over.

"US Bio-Warfare laboratories in West Africa are the origins of the Ebola epidemic"

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Could Ebola Have Escaped From US Bio-warfare Labs? American law professor Francis A. Boyle, answers questions for tvxs.gr and reveals that USA have been using West Africa as an offshore to circumvent the Convention on Biological Weapons and do bio-warfare work.

Prof. Francis Boyle

Prof. Francis Boyle

– by Aggeliki Dimopoulou

Is Ebola just a result of health crisis in Africa – because of the large gaps in personnel, equipment and medicines – as some experts suggest?

That isn’t true at all. This is just propaganda being put out by everyone. It seems to me, that what we are dealing with here is a biological warfare work that was conducted at the bio-warfare laboratories set up by the USA on the west coast of Africa. And if you look at a map produced by the Center of Disease Control you can see where these laboratories are located. And they are across the heart of Ebola epidemic, at the west coast of Africa. So, I think these laboratories, one or more of them, are the origins of the Ebola epidemic.

US government agencies are supposed to do defensive biological warfare research in these labs. Is there any information about what are they working on?

Well, that’s what they tell you. But if you study what the CDC and the Pentagon do… They say it is defensive, but this is just for public relation purposes than anything. It’s a trick. What it means is what they decide at these bio-warfare labs. They say, “well we have to develop a vaccine”, so that’s their defensive argument. Then what they do is to develop the bio-warfare agent itself. Usually by means of DNA genetic engineering. And then they say, “well to get the vaccine we have to develop the bio-warfare agent” – usually by DNA genetic engineering – and then they try to work on the vaccine. So it’s two uses type of work. I haven’t read all these bio-warfare contracts but that’s typical of the way the Pentagon CDC has been doing this since at least the 1980’s. I have absolute proof from a Pentagon document that the Center of Disease Control was doing bio-warfare work for the Pentagon in Sierra Leone, the heart of the outbreak, as early as 1988. And indeed it was probably before then because they would have had to construct the lab and that would have taken some time. So we know that Fort Detrick and the Center for Disease Control are over there, Tulane University, which is a well-known bio-warfare center here in USA – I would say notorious for it – is there. They all have been over there.

In addition, USA government made sure that Liberia, a former colony of the USA, never became a party to the Biological Weapons Convention, so they were able to do bio – warfare work over there – going back to 1980’s – the USA government, in order to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention. Likewise, Guinea the third state affected here – and there is an increase now – didn’t even sign the Biological Weapons Convention. So, it seems to me, that the different agencies of the US government have been always there try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention and engage bio-warfare work. Indeed, we had one of these two lab bio-warriors admit in the NY Times that they were not over there for the purpose of either screening or treating people. That’s not what these labs are about. These labs are there in my opinion to do bio-warfare work for different agencies of the US government. Indeed, many of them were set up by USAID. And everyone knows that USAID is penetrated all up and down by the CIA and CIA has been involved in bio-warfare work as well.

Are we being told the truth about Ebola? Is that big outbreak began all of a sudden? How does it spread so quickly?

The whole outbreak that we see in the west coast of Africa, this is Zaire/Ebola. The most dangerous of five subtypes of Ebola. Zaire/Ebola originated 3500 km from the west coast of Africa. There is absolutely no way that it could have been transmitted 3500 km. And if you read the recently published Harvard study on the DNA analysis of the west Africas’ Zaire/Ebola there is no explanation about how the virus moved there. And indeed, it’s been reported in the NY Times that the Zaire/Ebola was found there in 1976, and then WHO ordered to be set to Porton Down in Britain, which is the British equivalent to Fort Detrick, where they manufacture all the biological weapons for Britain. And then Britain sent it to the US Center for Disease Control. And we know for a fact that the Center for Disease Control has been involved in biological warfare work. And then it appears, at least from whatever I’ve been able to put together in a public record, that the CDC and several others US bio-warriors exported Zaire/Ebola to west Africa, to their labs there, where they were doing bio-warfare work on it. So, I believe this is the origins of the Zaire/Ebola pandemic we are seeing now in west Africa.

Why would they do that?

Why would they do that? As I suggested to try to circumvent the Biological Weapons Convention to which the US government is a party. So, always bio-warriors do use offensive and defensive bio-warfare work, violating the Biological Weapons Convention. So effectively they try to offshore it into west Africa where Liberia is not a party and Guinea is not a party. Sierra Leone is a party. But in Sierra Leone and Liberia there were disturbances which kept the world from really paying attention of what was going on in these labs.

USA sent troops to «fight» Ebola. What do you think about that move?

The US military just invaded Liberia. They send in the 101st Airborne Division to Liberia. That’s an elite division of combat and they have no training to provide medical treatment to anyone. They are there to establish a military base in Liberia. And the British are doing the same in Sierra Leone. The French are already in Mali and Senegal. So, they’re not sending military people there to treat these people. No, I’m sorry.

Weren’t they afraid Ebola’s going to go out of control even in the USA or EU in a massive way?

It’s already gone in the USA and the European Union. So, there it is. Which raises the question: Was this Zaire/Ebola weaponized at any of these labs? I don’t have an answer to that question. I am trying to get an answer. And therefore it is much more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are telling everyone. The WHO and the CDC are up to their eyeballs in this. They know all about what ‘s going on. It was the WHO that ordered the original Zaire/Ebola in 1976 to be sent to Porton Down for biological warfare purposes. So this could be more dangerous than the WHO and the CDC are saying.

And you can’t believe anything they telling you because they are involved in that. But certainly I can’t say it has been weaponized. I don’t know that yet for sure. I have the Harvard genetic analysis of it. When I was in college I had very good courses in genetics, and biochemistry and population biology but I am not a professor of genetics. I have a friend who is a professor of genetics and he is going to take a look at this and try to figure out if there’s been DNA genetic engineering perpetrated or performed on the Zaire/Ebola. Is there a genetically modified organism at work, a GMO? I don’t know. But if a GMO is at work that’s a pretty good sign it’s been weaponized. But in anyway, it is far more dangerous than the CDC and the WHO are telling anyone, because it’s clearly transmitted for a certain distance – we don’t know how far – by air. Breathing and coughing and sneezing. So, anyone treating people, seems to me, are going to need not only a protective suit but probably a breathing apparatus, at minimum. And you saw what happened to that Spanish nurse and that Spanish priest that were brought in, infected with Ebola. So right now the WHO and the CDC are telling healthcare workers that in addition to suits they need breathing apparatuses. So, again, I don’t believe you can trust anything the WHO or the CDC are telling you. And I really don’t know about the European Health Agency… If they‘re believing the WHO and the CDC then, in my opinion, they ‘re not properly protecting the health of the European people. And it’s simply bizarre that the CDC and WHO are relegating the screenings to the people in west Africa. It’s just bizarre. They need to be protecting health of their own people and they aren’t doing that. I read some of the European press but I’m not sure precisely what the European Health Agency is recommending but they certainly can’t rely upon the WHO and the CDC. As for Greece, I know you have your own Health Ministry there and they cannot rely upon them at all, as well.

Some experts told recently the Forbes magazine that even ISIS could use Ebola as a biological weapon. I would like to have your comment on that.

This is total propaganda. These people are trying to distract public opinion from the fact. My opinion is that the origins of the current pandemic came out of the USA bio-warfare labs in west Africa. That’s what is going on here. ISIS has nothing to do with this. That’s just propaganda which is trying to scare and distract public attention away of what really is going on here. They doing the same thing here in USA. That’s what we need to concentrate on. Number one. And number two? We have to find out: was this Zaire/Ebola GMOed by either Porton Down or CDC or these US bio-warfare labs? It is far more dangerous than it currently appears. That’s the real issue. And I don’t have an answer to that question. It was the US government labs that research here. I’m not saying that Ebola was released deliberately by these labs. I have no evidence to that. It could have escaped. But this is really what we need to be focusing on. Not ISIS. It’s ridiculous, it’s preposterous.

What do you think should be done?

I would encourage the Greek government to convene an emergency meeting of your top health science people and to look into this on comprehensive bases and figure out what to do under these circumstances to protect the health of people of Greece. In particular they must not believe anything they are being told by the WHO and CDC. There is a need of open objective minds here about what is really going on. I think this needs to be done.

Back in 1985, I was down in Nicaragua investigating atrocities of the Contras there and all of a sudden the country was hit with an outbreak of a hemorrhaging Dengue Fever which is similar to Ebola. And it seemed pretty suspicious to me. So I met with some of the highest level officials of the Nicaraguan government and said: “you know, this very well could be US bio-warfare against Nicaragua. They did the same thing to Cuba. And my advice is you convene health care medical experts, not politicians, to look into this. And if you agree with me and that’s the result, file a complaint with the UN Security Council for violation of the Biological Weapons Convention against the USA”. And eventually that is what they did. Here I am not recommending the Greek authorities to file a complaint against the USA. What I am recommending is the same thing I did to the Nicaraguans. That you need to convene some of your top experts geneticists, doctors, etc.

And don’t get anyone in this group who has ever done any type of research for any agency of the US government. They are completely unreliable. Get Greeks experts completely independent of the US government or the British government. It’s funny here in the USA when the media want to get experts on this, all the experts they talk to are people who have done biological warfare work for the USA. And they are up to their eyeballs on this Ebola. And doing research on this Ebola. Of course they’re not going to give you proper advice. So, find this experts and make sure they never done any research for USA or Britain on any of this stuff but are qualified and can give you a qualified opinion of what is really going on and how dangerous this stuff is. And then aim to protect the health of Greek people. You definitely don’t have to wait for the European Union in Brussels to do it for you. I’m not telling Greece what to do. I’m just telling you how to do it. And this should be done immediately. It should have been done already. But ok, better late than ever.

Francis A. Boyle is a leading American professor, practitioner and advocate of international law. He was responsible for drafting the Biological Weapons Anti-Terrorism Act of 1989, the American implementing legislation for the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention. He served on the Board of Directors of Amnesty International (1988-1992), and represented Bosnia – Herzegovina at the World Court. Professor Boyle teaches international law at the University of Illinois, Champaign. He holds a Doctor of Law Magna Cum Laude as well as a Ph.D. in Political Science, both from Harvard University.

He is also the author of “Biowarfare and Terrorism”. The book outlines how and why the United States government initiated, sustained and then dramatically expanded an illegal biological arms buildup.

Read the Greek version of the interview here.

Hype over the Mars mission: India neglects real Science and Technology priorities

by

Launch of PSLV C25

– by Praful Bidwai

The contrast between India’s two recent science and technology (S&T) projects couldn’t have been starker. One, by delivering accurate early warnings about Cyclone Hudhud, saved thousands of human lives, and prevented destruction of property on a monstrous scale. The other put India’s Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) Mangalyaan spacecraft successfully into a distant orbit around the planet-a technological achievement, but without much scientific, leave alone social, consequence.

Yet, the Indian media exulted over the second event, a monopoly venture of the Department of Space-Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), as if it was a world-historical feat that put India in the top league of the globe’s science powers. It was like a spectacular laser show, but only visible in graphics and artists’ drawings, besides pictures of a rocket blast-off from last November. The rest was left to imagination and nationalist hype.

But the media ignored the first project although it was the result of unglamorous, low-key, painstaking cooperation between different agencies including the India Metereological Department, National Institute of Ocean Technology, National Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasting, Disaster Management Institute, the Indian Air Force and the Navy, and two Indian Institutes of Technology, besides the Orissa and Andhra Pradesh governments.

The effort involved creation of new infrastructure with more cyclone shelters, coastal roads, bridges and embankments, better weather observation stations including buoys, advanced computers, faster communication lines, and better preparations for rescue and relief operations. It meant raising the country’s disaster preparedness budget fivefold to $1.6 billion since 2006.

All this brought about a huge improvement in cyclone warning time. This was only 24 hours in 1999, when the Orissa “super-cyclone” resulted in 3,958 deaths (officially, and 10,000 deaths by unofficial estimates). But it improved to five days, and reduced the annual death-toll from cyclones to under 100 over the past five years. In Hudhud, it enabled the evacuation of more than 2 lakh people, stockpiling of food and other aid in shelters, and a relatively well-coordinated relief effort.

Seen in perspective, the cyclone warning-and-preparedness project is a feat of greater social relevance, as well as more innovative use of technology, than MOM, which has not had any civilian spin-offs. Of course, this is not to deny that ever since ISRO launched the indigenous satellite “Aryabhata” in 1975, it has developed a range of technologies, including rocketry, engine design, electronic fabrication, remote tracking and control, and data processing.

One shouldn’t also underrate ISRO’s first-attempt success in putting MOM in a Martian orbit, built on past experience, both its own and others’. But in contrast to these technological achievements stands MOM’s very modest scientific agenda: not landing on Mars, but of observing it from a design distance of 366 km (since increased to 423 km) at the nearest point and 80,000 km from the farthest point. This cannot deliver even a fraction of the information recently generated by the US and European “Mars Global Surveyor” and “Mars Express” missions.

Mangalyaan weighs 1,350 kg, but only carries a small scientific payload weighing 13 kg, compared to the “Mars Express’s” 116 kg. This paucity of instrumentation severely limits the extent and quality of Mangalyaan’s observations. It’s cannot add significantly to what’s already known about Martian topography or atmosphere, including the presence of methane. The “Global Surveyor” took over 600 million readings of surface elevations. MOM can at best take a minuscule number of readings.

According to former ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair, a critic of the present project, MOM was originally meant to carry 12 instruments, weighing 24 kg. But only five of these could be tested in time for the launch. The rest couldn’t be carried, making the mission a “useless”, “showpiece event”-“spending money on nothing”.

Mangalyaan’s limitations basically arise from ISRO’s failure to complete the development of a Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV), which can place heavy (2,000 kg-plus) satellites into high orbit. Despite working on the GSLV for 15 years, ISRO hasn’t succeeded in operationalising it. Its test-flights have repeatedly failed. The last one was aborted in August 2013.

Instead of completing the GSLV’s development, ISRO hurriedly used the much less powerful Polar SLV to launch Mangalyaan. But the PSLV is only designed to put (small) satellites into a low-earth orbit. This greatly limited the speed Mangalyaan could acquire and constricted its abilities.

The MOM mission may have served as a steroid shot for ISRO. But it will do little to advance the cause of S&T in India. For decades, India was the Third World’s unquestioned “science superpower”. In 1980, it globally held the 8th position in the number of papers published in peer-reviewed journals, while China was a distant No 15. By 2010, China moved up to No 2, but India moved down to No 9.

India not only lags behind the developed countries in the number and quality of R&D (research and development) personnel, and in scientific output and its impact (measured in the number of citations of papers by other researchers). Other emerging economies are also catching up with India. Not just China, but even Russia and South Korea, now have more people engaged in R&D than does India. Even Brazil isn’t far behind.

Although India accounts for 3.5 percent of all scientific papers published worldwide, its share in the top one percent of impact-making global journals is a low 0.54 percent. As many as 52 percent and 45 percent of Indian publications remained uncited in 2001-2005 and 20006-2010. (For details, see http://dst.gov.in/whats_new/whats_new12/report.pdf)

Put simply, India’s S&T establishment is in crisis. Its priorities are warped: two-thirds of its R&D expenditure is consumed by just three “security”-related organisations: Department of Atomic Energy, Defence R&D Organisation (DRDO) and Department of Space, the first two of which have performed appallingly. The rest of the S&T establishment including the four big chains of laboratories under the Councils of Agricultural Research, Scientific and Industrial Research, Medical Research, and Department of Biotechnology, have to make do with the remaining one-third share.

Their funds were cut by 25 to 30 percent in last United Progressive Alliance budget. The Modi government has not yet restored them despite rhetoric about promoting S&T vigorously. Worse, even the allotted funds are not disbursed on time, starving projects of equipment and staff. All manner of cuts are imposed arbitrarily. Important institutions like the Department of Science and Technology and Council of Scientific and Industrial Research remain headless, further delaying decision-making and funds allocation.

India committed a great blunder early on in severing the link between research and teaching at the undergraduate/postgraduate level which exists in the university system, and instead set up specialised laboratories with no connection with teaching or infusion of student talent. Most of these laboratories are extremely bureaucratised and run as fiefdoms, with no peer review, leave alone public accountability. Promotions to high positions are often decided on the basis of years in service, or nepotism, not on quality of work, talent or performance.

I interviewed four active researchers from disciplines like biology, theoretical physics, chemistry and astronomy, who corroborate this view. They all complain that the bureaucratisation of S&T institutions has created in them “a pervasive culture of mediocrity”, in which people with outstanding talent cannot function optimally. Financial instability, and irregular releases of funds, compound the problem further, demoralising good-quality researchers.

There is very little collaborative research across Indian institutions, although many scientists do joint work with foreign, especially Western, institutions. There is a proliferation of me-too projects, many of them fragmented, sub-critically funded, and unproductive. The result is growing aridity, low performance and lack of enterprise. The whole experience of adventure or discovery is lost.

India’s ambitious S&T enterprise, inaugurated at Independence, has proved flawed in other, basic, ways too. It was to promote the “scientific temper” (in the words of the Constitution) in society and inculcate the spirit of critical enquiry, especially among the youth. It has manifestly failed to do that, as evidenced by the rampant growth of blind faith, politicised religion and superstition in society.

India has more temples than schools! Why, leave alone the lay public, even ISRO chairman K Radhakrishnan worshipped a metal replica of MOM at Tirupati before the launch, and performed other rituals that would embarrass any sensible person.

India’s talented youth is no longer attracted to science, as distinct from commerce, management and professional disciplines which don’t remotely inculcate scientific values. India’s science education is in a mess, with a drain of talented teachers into other institutions and remunerative jobs.

On a larger compass, the S&T establishment has betrayed the promise of delivering useful inventions and innovations to the people, with a few notable (partial) exceptions such as agricultural research (which soon plateaued and wasn’t extended to dryland farming) and information technology. It has failed to provide reliable power and clean drinking water to the public.

Unless India’s S&T establishment redeems its promise, it will continue to go downhill, MOM notwithstanding.

Praful Bidwai is a journalist, social science researcher and activist on issues of human rights, the environment, global justice and peace. He received the Sean MacBride International Peace Prize, 2000 of International Peace Bureau, Geneva and London, one of the world’s oldest peace organisations.

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