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Al Jazeera reports: Mexico has become the top provider of sex slaves to the Americas, according to the United Nations.
Is this report really surprising? I mean with NAFTA and all the globalization free trade nonsense aka the Race to the Bottom how can this be an unexpected result? Mexico is at the bottom of the North American socio-economic heap we should look to this country as laboratory as to the results of unregulated capitalism and what it does to people, especially women who inevitably are on the lowest tier of society.
The report is chilling.
Man, what do I do after denial stops working?
The Canadian occupation of Afghanistan is an international shame. We are killing innocent people and torturing people. The Geneva Convention needs to be dusted off and read 100 times by our military leaders and political drones so they get the idea of human rights are not just for “us” but extend to everyone in the world.
“A parliamentary committee has heard stunning allegations from a former translator who claims the Canadian military tried to cover up the fatal shooting of an Afghan man in October 2007.
Ahmadshah Malgarai also alleged to MPs in Ottawa that the Canadian military “panicked” and rounded up a half a dozen Afghans between the age of 10 and 90 after the shooting of a man sleeping on the roof of a compound in southern Afghanistan.”
Fantastic, murder someone and then round up possible witnesses for intimidation interrogation.
Apparently though Mr.Malgarai did not actually witness the execution.
“Malgarai testified he was not at the compound during the alleged incident, although he was allowed to see the intelligence report and took part in the interrogation of the detained men. He alleged a member of the military personally described it to him as “murder.”
Of course Conservative MP Laurie Hawn was there sowing confusion. Best to muddy the waters in defence of aberrant government policy.
“When Hawn then asked if Malgarai was calling Hillier a liar, Ahmadshad became agitated and accused the Tory MP of trying to put words in his mouth.”
What did happen that night? Something significant, the ripples are to big just to be a false allegation in my opinion.
Alfred Mccoy was right in his book A Question about Torture: using torture as official policy has serious corrosive effects on both the victims and the abusers. The effect is evident already in Afghanistan as the Canadian Armed Forces torture scandal continues to unfold.
Workers in Greece Rally against the looming privatization of their society.
Greece is a mess. The IMF and EU are certainly not helping. It seems that this is the pattern as of late. Greece now Hungary stretched on the debt rack until they privatize their country, not for the benefit of the people, but for the business class and multi-national interests.
“Schaeffler told Al Jazeera: “I think Greece has to save money – and if you need to save money then you must sell your jewellery so to speak.
That’s what Greece should do. They must privatise to raise money, that’s what I said to Bild newspaper.”
I wonder when the IMF will get involved. Disaster Capitalism is lovely in the spring.
You see this sequence of events happen repeatedly. Government tries to help people, investor class loses favoured status, takes toys and goes home, economy retracts and ideologues decry high taxes. Government lowers taxes on business, cuts social spending and the people are unhappy and elect someone to enhance their disenfranchisement.
It is happening in Hungary right now.
“A far-right party in Hungary is on the verge of winning second place in Sunday’s parliamentary elections, appealing to those hard hit by the economic crisis and angry about the presence of Gypsies in the country.”
Black shirts? How original.
Huh, hard economic times and the scapegoating of a section of the population coupled with the rise of a far-right political party? Nothing could go wrong there.
Must be those hard economic times and you know those damn Socialists simply cannot manage money.
“The Socialist government led by technocrat Gordon Bajnai had to make painful budget cuts to rein in the deficit under a financing deal led by the International Monetary Fund, which rescued Hungary from financial collapse in 2008.”
Ohhh, hello IMF. (Where was the mention of the meddling by the IMP in the CBC article? The quote in green is from Al Jazeera.) The IMF would certainly not impose conditions that make it hard on the government to actually run the country would they?
“In Hungary, under IMF tutelage, liberalized trade, tightened money supply and rapid and ill-considered privatization have led to greatly increased unemployment and a redirection of resources away from education and social services and to wealthy bond holders.
Carol Welch, International Policy Analyst at Friends of the Earth, said “The IMF has a consistent record of environmental and economic destruction and poverty exacerbation. We
have to expose this and stop the Fund’s attempt to establish a permanent austerity program for the poor countries.”
Ah yes, the old “We get Free Trade, you get Financial Austerity” ploy in action, it is nice to see the naked pillage of an economy and abuse of a sovereign nation all in the name of capitalism.
Shorter version: Hungary has hard times, IMF fraks things up even worse, people coerced into electing a proto-fascist capitalist dictatorship. Good Times!
News from Iraq is coming in fits and spurts. It requires something of this magnitude to break into the press services headlines. This from the CBC:
“Gunmen wearing Iraqi military uniforms raided homes in a Sunni village south of Baghdad, killing at least 24 people in execution-style attacks, officials said Saturday.
An army official said many of the victims, who included five women, were brutalized “beyond recognition.”
At least seven people were found alive, bound with handcuffs, said Baghdad’s security spokesman, Maj.-Gen. Qassim al-Moussawi.”
The violence, of course, is sectarian in nature.
“Many of the dead were members of local Sahwa, or Awakening Councils — one of several names for the Sunni fighters who changed the course of the war when they revolted against al-Qaeda in Iraq and joined the Americans in late 2006 and 2007, officials said. The fighters are also known as Sons of Iraq.”
So we have people who are the American’s allies being slaughtered. More interestingly the article goes and says:
“But the question of what to do with these nearly 100,000 people in the long term remains. The U.S. handed over control last year of the Awakening Councils to Iraq, which pays their roughly $300 monthly salaries.
The violence comes as Iraq’s major political blocs scramble to get enough parliamentary support to form a government after results from the March 7 election gave no single group enough seats to govern alone.”
No Laws, No Morals, No Accountability, NO PROBLEM!
The Iraqi government is paying people some $300 dollars a month to serve as an armed paramilitary presence in Iraq. What are they thinking exactly? Let us take the worst ideas from the US, yes I’m looking at you Blackwater and other mercenary groups, and implement them as civil policy. Nothing can go wrong there, especially when, as the article says, there is extra political turmoil because of the recent elections.
Fighting a fire with gasoline comes to mind.
I never write posts during the week, but I saw this and had to get it up it is Robert Fowler’s speech to the Canada 150 conference. What he says is what most people want to have happen in the middle east; at least until politics happens
Robert Fowler’s speech to the Canada 150 conference.
MediaLens is keeping an eye on the bias of Western newspapers reporting in the Middle East. Shorter version: Israeli dead are much more important than Palestinian dead.
MEDIA ALERT: WHEN FACTS AND PROPAGANDA COLLIDE – THE BBC BENDS OVER BACKWARDS TO ACCOMMODATE ISRAELI CLAIMS
When a Thai kibbutz worker was killed in Israel by a rocket launched from Gaza last week, BBC News online gave the incident headline coverage flagged up on its home page. (BBC news online, ‘Rocket fire from Gaza kills man in southern Israel’, 23:42 GMT, Thursday, 18 March 2010 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8574138.stm)
By contrast, the killing of two Palestinian teenagers, Mohammad Qadus and Osaid Qadus, by Israeli soldiers on Saturday was buried at the end of a short news report on UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon’s Middle East visit. Even worse, the BBC’s footnote simply echoed Israeli propaganda that “no live bullets were fired, only tear gas and rubber bullets”, despite ample evidence to the contrary. (BBC news online, ‘UN chief says Gaza suffering under Israeli blockade’, 11:26 GMT, Sunday, 21 March 2010, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8578611.stm)
Yesterday morning, we joined with a number of media activists in sending complaints to the BBC. We emailed Middle East editor, Jeremy Bowen. We asked Bowen why BBC News so often channels the Israeli version of events without proper scrutiny. We pointed out that, in contrast to the BBC, other news media had given the tragic killings of Mohammad Qadus and Osaid Qadus significant prominence, while also providing strong evidence that directly contradicted Israeli claims. For example, the Palestinian Ma’an news agency reported that the Israeli human rights group B’Tselem had obtained an X-ray of Osaid Qadus’s body that refuted the Israeli army’s assertion that “no live bullets were fired”. B‘Tselem commented:
“Rubber-coated steel bullets will not enter and exit the body in that way. It’s very clear these injuries would not have been caused by any kind of crowd-control measure. The army’s explanation is simply impossible and not consistent with the evidence.” (Ma’an news agency, ‘Army explanation “simply impossible”’, 22 March, 2010; http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=270326)
Likewise, the Guardian challenged Israeli claims on the use of live ammunition, reporting that “a hospital x-ray of Osaid Qadus, seen by the Guardian, showed a bullet lodged in his brain.” The Guardian added:
“Ahmed Hamad, a doctor at the hospital who treated the two, said the x-ray showed a ‘classic, pure metallic bullet’. He said both boys had injuries with small entry wounds.” (Rory McCarthy, ‘Palestinians shot dead by Israeli troops near Nablus. Two teenagers killed day after boys, 15 and 17, shot in village’, guardian.co.uk, Sunday 21 March 2010 14.22 GMT; http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/mar/21/palestinians-shot-dead-isreal-nablus)
The Independent was also able to verify that a conventional bullet was “lodged in the brain of Osaid Qadus”. (Donald Macintyre, ‘Two more Palestinian youths shot dead by Israelis in bloody weekend. X-rays show deaths were caused by conventional bullets but military claim only rubber rounds were fired’, Independent, 22 March 2010; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/two-more-palestinian-youths-shot-dead-by-israelis-in-bloody-weekend-1925044.html)
We concluded our challenge to Bowen:
“Why, by contrast, has the BBC provided an echo chamber for Israeli propaganda on the army killings of these two Palestinian boys? Why were their deaths buried at the end of a report on Ban Ki-Moon’s visit? Why not give headline coverage, as you did when rocket fire from Gaza killed a man in Israel?”
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