Poland passes law on media control, ignores EU again - 31/12/2015 09:29:19
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Polish MPs have passed a law on reform of public media despite growing EU
and wider international criticism over democratic standards.
https://euobserver.com/justice/131694
Thursday, December 31, 2015
US State Makes It Illegal To Collect Evidence Of Pollution On Public Property
US State Makes It Illegal To Collect Evidence Of Pollution On Public Property
By John Vibes on Dec 31, 2015 05:41 pmThe state of Wyoming recently passed Senate Bill 12, the Data Trespass Bill, which will prevent people from collecting evidence of pollution, even on public lands. The bill prohibits the...
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This is how Google searches portray LGBT people
This is how Google searches portray LGBT people
Often, it’s the very first place people go to research something.
Countless young LGBT people take their first steps out the closet using the search engine – typing ‘gay’ before they’d dare tell a real person, or looking for transition tips online.
However, the search engine is not perfect – and the algorithm-based images search seems to have learnt a few lessons from humanity in terms of negative stereotyping.
Here’s what comes up if you search for some common LGBT terms… and how Google portrays you.
Gay
(Suggestions: Are you sure you didn’t want to laugh at some homophobic ‘gay’ jokes? Here’s some homophobic ‘gay’ jokes.)
All gay people have muscles and six packs, never wear clothes, and look promiscuous in public places. Being gay also means you dress up as women for fun, obviously.
Also, Nigel Farage doesn’t like you. Take it up with him.
Lesbians
‘Lesbians’? Oh, you’re probably a man looking to get off. Here’s some porn. Lesbians only exist to get men off.
Lesbian
(Suggestions: Did you mean ‘butch lesbian’? We keep those separately, and you won’t find any unless you specifically ask.)
You’re an actual lesbian? Oh right, okay then… you’re white, have long hair and wear make-up.
You also like having lots of sex in public places. Being a lesbian’s a bit trendy, so we’ve put everything in black-and-white, just like your Instagram filters.
Cara Delenvinge is also one of you. She might claim to be ‘bi-sexual’ or something, but we know better. Here she is.
Bisexual
Nice try, but we’ve rumbled you. You are a flag. You only exist in flag form.
People might claim that ‘bisexuals’ exist, but really they’re just big ol’ flags.
(Suggestions: Did you mean bisexual PEOPLE? I mean, I guess we have some stock images…)
Trans
(Suggestions: What?! Did you mean Trains? Transformers? You should be more careful when you type.)
Ooh, ooh, we know this one! You’re that cool Austrian diva who won Eurovision. She was trans, right?
She had a dress and beard and everything, so she must be. Here you go. Sorted.
We also have a few posh white dudes playing you in films. And Michelle Obama… Joan Rivers said it so it must be true!
Kim Davis: ‘I am just the first of what’s going to be very many.’ [of loosers yes]
| Kim Davis: ‘I am just the first of what’s going to be very many.’ |
An ominous year-end prediction from the seer/soothsayer of Rowan County, Kentucky.
Bill Cosby arrested, charged with sexually assaulting a woman
Bill Cosby arrested, charged with sexually assaulting a woman
Andrea
Constand's lawyer has said her client is a lesbian, and was dating a
woman around the time she met Cosby in the early 2000s.
Wednesday, December 30, 2015
Muslim woman sets up 'Ask A Muslim' stand in Massachusetts & what happens may surprise you
Muslim woman sets up 'Ask A Muslim' stand in Massachusetts & what happens may surprise you
Leslie Salzillo
Monday Dec 28, 2015
In a beautiful act of courage and hope, Mona Haydar, a Muslim, set up an “Ask a Muslim” stand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoping to bring more understanding of the Muslim community. She also offered people who passed by the stand in front of a local library a free cup of coffee and doughnut to further beckon a Q&A chat.
The idea came to Haydar during dinner with her husband. In efforts to create positive change, they decided to do something “kind of crazy.”
"He had seen this segment on This American Life, where a young Iraqi man had done 'Ask an Iraqi,'" Haydar tells NPR's Carrie Kahn. "And so [Sebastian] was like, 'Why haven't we thought of this before? Why don't we get out and talk to people?'
"So, we did it," Haydar says.
After the day was done, she posted a summary to Facebook — a post which has now garnered more than 11,000 likes and the attention of several different media organizations.
"We weren't out there that long today but the take away was clear: Keep your heads held high, dear Muslim family," she wrote in that post. "There is an overwhelming amount of love and so remember this post when you are faced with bigotry and hatred towards you or your faith.
Mona Haydar says she initially thought the experience would be negative. As it turns out, the experience and interaction with many folks was very positive—so much, in fact, that she and her husband look forward to doing it again soon. Haydar mentioned that rather than asking questions, most people approached her to say they liked what she was doing. Some passersby even felt compelled to apologize for the worldwide discrimination against Muslims. Pretty cool.
You can read more of the Carrie Kahn/NPR interview with Mona Haydar via NPR.org. There is so much good in this world, and many of us want to believe that the good ultimately, and always, out-trumps the bad. (And yes, that pun was intended—for goodness sake.)
Thank you Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins.
You can visit Mona Haydar on her Facebook Page.
http://www.dailykos.com/
Leslie Salzillo
Monday Dec 28, 2015
In a beautiful act of courage and hope, Mona Haydar, a Muslim, set up an “Ask a Muslim” stand in Cambridge, Massachusetts, hoping to bring more understanding of the Muslim community. She also offered people who passed by the stand in front of a local library a free cup of coffee and doughnut to further beckon a Q&A chat.
The idea came to Haydar during dinner with her husband. In efforts to create positive change, they decided to do something “kind of crazy.”
"He had seen this segment on This American Life, where a young Iraqi man had done 'Ask an Iraqi,'" Haydar tells NPR's Carrie Kahn. "And so [Sebastian] was like, 'Why haven't we thought of this before? Why don't we get out and talk to people?'
"So, we did it," Haydar says.
After the day was done, she posted a summary to Facebook — a post which has now garnered more than 11,000 likes and the attention of several different media organizations.
"We weren't out there that long today but the take away was clear: Keep your heads held high, dear Muslim family," she wrote in that post. "There is an overwhelming amount of love and so remember this post when you are faced with bigotry and hatred towards you or your faith.
Mona Haydar says she initially thought the experience would be negative. As it turns out, the experience and interaction with many folks was very positive—so much, in fact, that she and her husband look forward to doing it again soon. Haydar mentioned that rather than asking questions, most people approached her to say they liked what she was doing. Some passersby even felt compelled to apologize for the worldwide discrimination against Muslims. Pretty cool.
You can read more of the Carrie Kahn/NPR interview with Mona Haydar via NPR.org. There is so much good in this world, and many of us want to believe that the good ultimately, and always, out-trumps the bad. (And yes, that pun was intended—for goodness sake.)
Thank you Mona Haydar and Sebastian Robins.
You can visit Mona Haydar on her Facebook Page.
http://www.dailykos.com/
How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death?
How Can No One Be to Blame for Tamir Rice’s Death?
Dani McClain
December 29, 2015
The Nation
On Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.
First, police killed the 12-year-old black boy at a park, barely bringing the car to a halt before jumping out to open fire. Then, minutes later, they pinned his 14-year-old sister to the ground after she ran up to see about her wounded sibling. Next, a media outlet dragged his parents’ names through the mud, implying that their unrelated brushes with the law made them at least somewhat culpable for their child’s death. And on Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.
It is the end to—or at least a turning point in—a story that is both heartbreaking and stomach-turning: An onlooker calls 911 to report that he sees someone pointing a gun at people in a park. Two critical caveats the caller passes on to 911—that the gun is probably a fake and that the person holding it is probably a juvenile—never make it from the 911 call center to the police who rush onto the scene. (It was and he was.) A New York Times report from early this year explains what happened next:
"Within two seconds of the car’s arrival, Officer Loehmann shot Tamir in the abdomen from point-blank range, raising doubts that he could have warned the boy three times to raise his hands, as the police later claimed. And when Tamir’s 14-year-old sister came running up minutes later, the officers, who are white, tackled her to the ground and put her in handcuffs, intensifying later public outrage about the boy’s death. When his distraught mother arrived, the officers also threatened to arrest her unless she calmed down, the mother, Samaria Rice, said."
The grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem.
As we know from media reports out of Cleveland, there was no reason to expect that Loemann would or could take appropriate action in that moment. In 2012, the police department that he worked for in Independence, Ohio, noted that he was “distracted” and “weepy” during firearms training. The deputy chief of police there reported that Loehmann “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” That same supervisor wrote, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.” Loehmann resigned after six months on that force, but went on in March of 2014 to join the Cleveland Police Department, which did not review his file from Independence. He scored the new position after failing to secure a job with police departments in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights or with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.
Loehmann’s shortcomings bring to mind the Barney Fife fumblings of the McKinney, Texas, officer whom video showed to be clearly out of his depths—somersaulting needlessly outside a pool party and waving his gun at teenagers before sitting on a bikini-clad girl’s back. They bring to mind the cowardice of Officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina, who took aim at the back of a running Walter Scott.
Loehmann wasn’t the only officer present at the scene. He opened fire after stepping out of a car driven by Officer Frank Garmback, who was accused of using excessive force against a 39-year-old black woman in 2010. Cleveland eventually paid the woman $100,000 to settle. According to The New York Times, after shooting Tamir Rice, the officers stood around for approximately four minutes. Neither of them checked his vital signs or gave him first aid.
They shot the boy within two seconds of arriving. What could they have possibly surmised in those two seconds?
How do people such as these get and keep their jobs? And what is to be done when, after the deaths of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Rice, evidence suggests that prosecutors can’t be trusted to hold police accountable? In Cleveland, concerns about Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty surfaced early and often. As of mid-October, nearly a year after Rice’s death, McGinty still had not begun presenting a case to the grand jury. In October, attorneys representing the Rice family sent a letter to McGinty asking that he recuse himself so that a special prosecutor who might actually try to secure an indictment could be appointed. More than 200,000 people then signed a petition circulated by the civil-rights organization ColorOfChange.org echoing the call for McGinty to step down.
Pressure came from within the establishment as well. Last summer, a municipal judge in Cleveland decided that there was probable cause to charge Loehmann and Garmback on multiple counts. The judge, responding to affidavits filed by members of the Cleveland community who sought charges against the officers, wrote an administrative order, advising that Loehmann be charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless homicide and that Garmback be charged with negligent homicide. The order was purely advisory and apparently did little to inform McGinty’s actions.
But the issue at hand is bigger than one Ohio prosecutor’s failing to aggressively seek an indictment. LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, a retired judge and independent police auditor, has consistently made the bold call for an abolition of the grand-jury system altogether. In these proceedings, which are closed to the public, the prosecutor runs the show, presenting evidence to jurors and instructing them on the law. With their outdated reasons for existing and the inordinate power given to prosecutors, the grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem in a case like Rice’s (and Bland’s and Garner’s and so many other deaths at or alleged to be at the hands of police). Writing late last year after it was determined that the officers who killed Brown and Garner would face no charges, Cordell explained:
In high-profile, controversial cases, where officers use lethal force, prosecutors face a dilemma. If they don’t file charges against officers, they risk the wrath of the community; if they do file charges, they risk the wrath of the police and their powerful unions. By opting for secret grand jury proceedings, prosecutors pass the buck, using grand jurors as pawns for political cover. The Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases are examples of how prosecutors manipulate the grand jury process.…
We will never know why there was no indictment because what the prosecutors said, how they said it, what evidence they presented, and what they asked the witnesses will forever remain secret, unless the transcript is opened to the public by court order.
By convening grand juries, the prosecutors in Missouri and New York ensured that there would be no justice for Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Sadly, these two men are gone. But if we abolish criminal grand juries, at least their deaths will not have been in vain.
It’s difficult to imagine that any reform could make the family of 12-year-old Rice feel as though he did not die in vain. But perhaps a serious effort to abolish grand juries is an appropriate step toward ending this pattern of watching police walk free after needlessly killing those who are black and unarmed. One such effort is underway in California, where lawmakers this summer banned the use of secret grand juries in police shootings.
Copyright c 2015 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. Distributed by Agence Global.
http://portside.org/2015-12-
Dani McClain
December 29, 2015
The Nation
On Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.
First, police killed the 12-year-old black boy at a park, barely bringing the car to a halt before jumping out to open fire. Then, minutes later, they pinned his 14-year-old sister to the ground after she ran up to see about her wounded sibling. Next, a media outlet dragged his parents’ names through the mud, implying that their unrelated brushes with the law made them at least somewhat culpable for their child’s death. And on Monday, the Cuyahoga County prosecutor’s office announced that Timothy Loehmann, the Cleveland police officer who killed Tamir Rice last year, would face no state criminal charges.
It is the end to—or at least a turning point in—a story that is both heartbreaking and stomach-turning: An onlooker calls 911 to report that he sees someone pointing a gun at people in a park. Two critical caveats the caller passes on to 911—that the gun is probably a fake and that the person holding it is probably a juvenile—never make it from the 911 call center to the police who rush onto the scene. (It was and he was.) A New York Times report from early this year explains what happened next:
"Within two seconds of the car’s arrival, Officer Loehmann shot Tamir in the abdomen from point-blank range, raising doubts that he could have warned the boy three times to raise his hands, as the police later claimed. And when Tamir’s 14-year-old sister came running up minutes later, the officers, who are white, tackled her to the ground and put her in handcuffs, intensifying later public outrage about the boy’s death. When his distraught mother arrived, the officers also threatened to arrest her unless she calmed down, the mother, Samaria Rice, said."
The grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem.
As we know from media reports out of Cleveland, there was no reason to expect that Loemann would or could take appropriate action in that moment. In 2012, the police department that he worked for in Independence, Ohio, noted that he was “distracted” and “weepy” during firearms training. The deputy chief of police there reported that Loehmann “could not follow simple directions, could not communicate clear thoughts nor recollections, and his handgun performance was dismal.” That same supervisor wrote, “I do not believe time, nor training, will be able to change or correct the deficiencies.” Loehmann resigned after six months on that force, but went on in March of 2014 to join the Cleveland Police Department, which did not review his file from Independence. He scored the new position after failing to secure a job with police departments in Akron, Euclid, and Parma Heights or with the Cuyahoga County Sheriff’s Department.
Loehmann’s shortcomings bring to mind the Barney Fife fumblings of the McKinney, Texas, officer whom video showed to be clearly out of his depths—somersaulting needlessly outside a pool party and waving his gun at teenagers before sitting on a bikini-clad girl’s back. They bring to mind the cowardice of Officer Michael Slager in North Charleston, South Carolina, who took aim at the back of a running Walter Scott.
Loehmann wasn’t the only officer present at the scene. He opened fire after stepping out of a car driven by Officer Frank Garmback, who was accused of using excessive force against a 39-year-old black woman in 2010. Cleveland eventually paid the woman $100,000 to settle. According to The New York Times, after shooting Tamir Rice, the officers stood around for approximately four minutes. Neither of them checked his vital signs or gave him first aid.
They shot the boy within two seconds of arriving. What could they have possibly surmised in those two seconds?
How do people such as these get and keep their jobs? And what is to be done when, after the deaths of Michael Brown, Sandra Bland, Eric Garner, and Rice, evidence suggests that prosecutors can’t be trusted to hold police accountable? In Cleveland, concerns about Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Tim McGinty surfaced early and often. As of mid-October, nearly a year after Rice’s death, McGinty still had not begun presenting a case to the grand jury. In October, attorneys representing the Rice family sent a letter to McGinty asking that he recuse himself so that a special prosecutor who might actually try to secure an indictment could be appointed. More than 200,000 people then signed a petition circulated by the civil-rights organization ColorOfChange.org echoing the call for McGinty to step down.
Pressure came from within the establishment as well. Last summer, a municipal judge in Cleveland decided that there was probable cause to charge Loehmann and Garmback on multiple counts. The judge, responding to affidavits filed by members of the Cleveland community who sought charges against the officers, wrote an administrative order, advising that Loehmann be charged with murder, involuntary manslaughter, and reckless homicide and that Garmback be charged with negligent homicide. The order was purely advisory and apparently did little to inform McGinty’s actions.
But the issue at hand is bigger than one Ohio prosecutor’s failing to aggressively seek an indictment. LaDoris Hazzard Cordell, a retired judge and independent police auditor, has consistently made the bold call for an abolition of the grand-jury system altogether. In these proceedings, which are closed to the public, the prosecutor runs the show, presenting evidence to jurors and instructing them on the law. With their outdated reasons for existing and the inordinate power given to prosecutors, the grand jury system itself appears to be part of the problem in a case like Rice’s (and Bland’s and Garner’s and so many other deaths at or alleged to be at the hands of police). Writing late last year after it was determined that the officers who killed Brown and Garner would face no charges, Cordell explained:
In high-profile, controversial cases, where officers use lethal force, prosecutors face a dilemma. If they don’t file charges against officers, they risk the wrath of the community; if they do file charges, they risk the wrath of the police and their powerful unions. By opting for secret grand jury proceedings, prosecutors pass the buck, using grand jurors as pawns for political cover. The Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases are examples of how prosecutors manipulate the grand jury process.…
We will never know why there was no indictment because what the prosecutors said, how they said it, what evidence they presented, and what they asked the witnesses will forever remain secret, unless the transcript is opened to the public by court order.
By convening grand juries, the prosecutors in Missouri and New York ensured that there would be no justice for Michael Brown and Eric Garner. Sadly, these two men are gone. But if we abolish criminal grand juries, at least their deaths will not have been in vain.
It’s difficult to imagine that any reform could make the family of 12-year-old Rice feel as though he did not die in vain. But perhaps a serious effort to abolish grand juries is an appropriate step toward ending this pattern of watching police walk free after needlessly killing those who are black and unarmed. One such effort is underway in California, where lawmakers this summer banned the use of secret grand juries in police shootings.
Copyright c 2015 The Nation. Reprinted with permission. Distributed by Agence Global.
http://portside.org/2015-12-
Polish government takes on public media
Polish government takes on public media
Polish public TV headquarters. The ruling PiS party wants to "bring back public media to the Poles".
By Eric Maurice
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:30
A day after enforcing controversial constitutional reforms, the polish government launched a new parliamentary operation Tuesday (29 December), this time to put public media under its control.
According to a bill presented to MPs, the head of the Polish public radio and television will be dismissed and replaced by three-member boards "appointed and dismissed by the minister of the treasury".
The new board will be under the control of the treasury "until the introduction of new national media organisations", the bill specifies.
The draft law "represents the first stage of the reform of the Polish public media, aiming to establish a national media system", the bill says.
The aim of the government is openly to replace the current public media with a national broadcaster that would promote "national interests" under closer government control.
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) wants to "bring back public media to the Poles," said PiS MP Elzbieta Kruk during the debate at the Sejm, Poland's lower house.
'Ideologies and political orientations'
Kruk, herself a former chair of the National Broadcasting Council, said that public media "falsely presented as public opinion" ideologies and political orientations that were not supported by the majority of voters.
"The ethos rooted in Christianity and Polish traditions of freedom and independence is marginalised or discredited, while ideological and moral fashion unacceptable to the majority of the population is ennobled," she said.
The leader of PiS's parliamentary group, Ryszard Terlecki, said the bill should be examined "quickly" because public media are "unreliable".
Another PiS MP, Izabela Kloc, went further, saying that "in a parliamentary democracy, it is unacceptable that [public] media only criticise the work of the government".
The reform of the public media has been part of PiS' plans to re-orientate Polish society towards traditional values since the party came back to power after elections in October.
It comes just after president Andrej Duda signed a law changing the rules of the Constitutional Tribunal.
The constitutional reform prompted street demonstrations and a warning from the European Commission that it would "undermine the constitutional order".
In a country where public media was a tool of the communist dictatorship until 1989, media and constitutional reforms raise fears for civil liberties.
The media bill is "a negation of the principles of a functioning public media in a democratic society," the current head of the National Broadcasting Council, Jan Dworak, wrote in a letter to the speaker of the Sejm.
It "represents a return to the model we know from the past where state media is completely subordinated to the government," Dworak wrote.
Principles not upheld
In a letter to the culture minister and his deputy, the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) said "impartiality, objectivity and fairness" of public media "will not be upheld" by the media bill.
The AEJ added that the reform "will undoubtedly dismay those in Eastern Partnership countries such as Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova who are striving to achieve free and fair public media, as well as those in Russia who are struggling for free expression and independent public service media as important elements of democratic politics".
The government and PiS MPs expected the bill to be voted in on Tuesday on a first reading by the Sejm. But no vote took place after opposition parties tried to request its rejection.
The draft law was due to be presented to parliamentary committees on Wednesday.
Polish public TV headquarters. The ruling PiS party wants to "bring back public media to the Poles".
By Eric Maurice
BRUSSELS, Today, 09:30
A day after enforcing controversial constitutional reforms, the polish government launched a new parliamentary operation Tuesday (29 December), this time to put public media under its control.
According to a bill presented to MPs, the head of the Polish public radio and television will be dismissed and replaced by three-member boards "appointed and dismissed by the minister of the treasury".
The new board will be under the control of the treasury "until the introduction of new national media organisations", the bill specifies.
The draft law "represents the first stage of the reform of the Polish public media, aiming to establish a national media system", the bill says.
The aim of the government is openly to replace the current public media with a national broadcaster that would promote "national interests" under closer government control.
The ruling Law and Justice party (PiS) wants to "bring back public media to the Poles," said PiS MP Elzbieta Kruk during the debate at the Sejm, Poland's lower house.
'Ideologies and political orientations'
Kruk, herself a former chair of the National Broadcasting Council, said that public media "falsely presented as public opinion" ideologies and political orientations that were not supported by the majority of voters.
"The ethos rooted in Christianity and Polish traditions of freedom and independence is marginalised or discredited, while ideological and moral fashion unacceptable to the majority of the population is ennobled," she said.
The leader of PiS's parliamentary group, Ryszard Terlecki, said the bill should be examined "quickly" because public media are "unreliable".
Another PiS MP, Izabela Kloc, went further, saying that "in a parliamentary democracy, it is unacceptable that [public] media only criticise the work of the government".
The reform of the public media has been part of PiS' plans to re-orientate Polish society towards traditional values since the party came back to power after elections in October.
It comes just after president Andrej Duda signed a law changing the rules of the Constitutional Tribunal.
The constitutional reform prompted street demonstrations and a warning from the European Commission that it would "undermine the constitutional order".
In a country where public media was a tool of the communist dictatorship until 1989, media and constitutional reforms raise fears for civil liberties.
The media bill is "a negation of the principles of a functioning public media in a democratic society," the current head of the National Broadcasting Council, Jan Dworak, wrote in a letter to the speaker of the Sejm.
It "represents a return to the model we know from the past where state media is completely subordinated to the government," Dworak wrote.
Principles not upheld
In a letter to the culture minister and his deputy, the Association of European Journalists (AEJ) said "impartiality, objectivity and fairness" of public media "will not be upheld" by the media bill.
The AEJ added that the reform "will undoubtedly dismay those in Eastern Partnership countries such as Ukraine, Armenia and Moldova who are striving to achieve free and fair public media, as well as those in Russia who are struggling for free expression and independent public service media as important elements of democratic politics".
The government and PiS MPs expected the bill to be voted in on Tuesday on a first reading by the Sejm. But no vote took place after opposition parties tried to request its rejection.
The draft law was due to be presented to parliamentary committees on Wednesday.
Israeli Army Admits To Using Pesticides As A Weapon Of War In The Middle East
Israeli Army Admits To Using Pesticides As A Weapon Of War In The Middle East
By Amanda Froelich on Dec 30, 2015 01:00 pmIt wasn’t too long ago that Agent Orange, a devastating chemical produced by Monsanto, was used in the Vietnam War to strip the jungle environment of its foliage and give the U.S. military an...
Read in browser »
Police Say It’s Unconstitutional To Mandate Drug Testing On Officers
Police Say It’s Unconstitutional To Mandate Drug Testing On Officers
By True Activist on Dec 30, 2015 09:36 pmBy Lisa Rough / Leafly In an incredibly backwards display of irony, the union representing the Pittsburgh police has filed a most unusual lawsuit. A civil rights grievance has been filed against the...
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Syria Accuses Turkey of ‘Taking Part in Military Operations’ Backing Daesh
Syria Accuses Turkey of ‘Taking Part in Military Operations’ Backing Daesh
Turkish forces directly assisted terrorist groups fighting in Syria, Bashar Jaafari, Syria’s envoy to the UN, wrote in a letter to the UN Secretary General and the Security Council.Sputnik – 30.12.2015
Jaafari noted that armed groups have been waging an “unprecedented terrorist war” against Syria since 2011, adding that rebels receive backing from regional powers, including “the Erdogan regime,” and other countries.
Turkey’s engagement in Syria’s domestic affairs, according to Jaafari, has been multifaceted, “including the direct participation of the Erdogan regime’s armed forces in offensive military operations in support of terrorists.”
Ankara, according to the letter, has essentially helped terrorists enter Syria. Turkish troops provided “fire cover” to rebels crossing to the war-torn Arab country.
Bashar Jaafari also noted that the Turkish president wants to “revive the Ottoman colonial legacy” as evidenced by Erdogan’s explicit desire to protect ethnic Turks, even if they live in other countries.
The Syrian envoy accused Ankara of committing crimes against Syrian refugees, who fled Daesh, al-Nusra Front and other terrorist organizations fighting in the Arab country. Human trafficking, according to Jaafari, is conducted “with knowledge and direct participation” of organizations controlled by the Erdogan regime.
Jaafari has called on the international community to put an end to “violations and crimes” committed by the Turkish leadership with regard to Syria and Syrian refugees.
The Syrian envoy to the UN also mentioned the Russian bomber, which was shot out of Syrian skies by a Turkish fighter jet while on a counterterrorism mission. “No additional explanations are needed since this crime speaks for itself,” he noted.
ISIS Issues Fatwa On How To Properly Rape Enslaved Women And Girls
Far from trying to conceal the practice, ISIS has boasted about it and
established a department of "war spoils" to manage slavery. Read more.
freedetainees.org
freedetainees.org |
- Israel arrested almost 7,000 Palestinians during 2015
- Spy agencies resist push for expanded scrutiny of top employees
- Gitmo Kuwaiti to be freed
- From Britain First To Donald Trump – Why 2015 Was The Year Islamophobia And The Far-Right Went Mainstream
- FREE SLAHI & CLOSE GUANTANAMO – Larry Siems Interview on KPFA 94.1
- First of 17 detainees to be transferred from Gitmo next week
- Pre-emptive arrest campaign of MB members in Egypt
- Behind The Scenes: Pentagon Officials Mock The Idea Of Transferring Detainees From Gitmo
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 01:38 PM PST
The PLO’s Palestinian Prisoners’ Committee (PPC) issued a report on Monday which revealed that the Israeli occupation authorities arrested 6,830 Palestinians during 2015, Al-Resalah newspaper [...]
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 01:30 PM PST
By
Greg Miller U. S. intelligence agencies recently fought off a move by
Congress to require the CIA and other spy services to disclose more
[...]
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 01:20 PM PST
…Meanwhile,
MP Ahmad Al-Azemi yesterday congratulated HH the Amir, HH the crown
prince and the government in addition to the family of Fayez Al-Kandari,
the [...]
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 09:17 AM PST
By
Steven Hopkins Fuelled by what is now commonly referred to as the
“worst refugee crisis since the Second World War”, and a series of [...]
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 09:07 AM PST
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 09:05 AM PST
WASHINGTON
– The first of 17 detainees scheduled to be released from the
Guantanamo Bay prison in January will be transferred next week, as the
[...]
 |
|
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 08:56 AM PST
Egyptian
security services carried out pre-emptive arrest campaigns against
Muslim Brotherhood members across Egypt, security and human rights
sources told Anadolu on Monday. Before the [...]
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Posted: 29 Dec 2015 08:49 AM PST
The
White House and Pentagon have publicly put up a front of cooperation
over the transfer of detainees out of Guantanamo Bay, but behind the
[...]
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Bakers Who Refused to Make Wedding Cake for Gay Couple Pay Fine
Posted: 29 Dec 2015 10:24 AM PST
Justice is finally served.
Israeli Lawmakers Boycott Swearing-In of First Openly Gay Member of the Knesset
Israeli Lawmakers Boycott Swearing-In of First Openly Gay Member of the Knesset – VIDEO
On Monday, ultra conservative Israeli lawmakers boycotted the swearing-in of the first openly gay legislator elected to the country’s parliament, the Knesset.
Amir Ohana, a member of the Likud...
On Monday, ultra conservative Israeli lawmakers boycotted the swearing-in of the first openly gay legislator elected to the country’s parliament, the Knesset.
Amir Ohana, a member of the Likud...
Malawian Musician and Member of Parliament Cancels Concert After Seeing Two Men Kissing
Malawian Musician and Member of Parliament Cancels Concert After Seeing Two Men Kissing
A so-called “legendary” Malawian musician and member of parliament cancelled a concert on Christmas Day because he saw two men kissing in the crowd, making him feel “dirty” ...
A so-called “legendary” Malawian musician and member of parliament cancelled a concert on Christmas Day because he saw two men kissing in the crowd, making him feel “dirty” ...
Arizona Woman Shoots And Kills Atheist For Not Believing In God
Arizona Woman Shoots And Kills Atheist For Not Believing In God
by Michael Stone
A woman in Phoenix is under arrest after telling police she shot and killed an atheist for not believing in God. The Phoenix Police Department reports that 39-year-old Anitra Braxton has been charged with murder after police found the body of a woman on her couch inside her apartment on December 26...
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/
by Michael Stone
A woman in Phoenix is under arrest after telling police she shot and killed an atheist for not believing in God. The Phoenix Police Department reports that 39-year-old Anitra Braxton has been charged with murder after police found the body of a woman on her couch inside her apartment on December 26...
http://www.patheos.com/blogs/
Monday, December 28, 2015
Congress Passes Bill Repealing Country-Of-Origin Meat Labeling Rule
Congress Passes Bill Repealing Country-Of-Origin Meat Labeling Rule
The
spending bill Congress passed last Friday repealed the
country-of-origin labeling (COOL) regulation that lets consumers know
where their meat comes from.
NetNebraska.org
It’s every consumer for him/herself, apparently. On Friday, Congress passed a spending bill repealing the country-of-origin (COOL) regulation which lets consumers know where the meat they’re purchasing is sourced from.
The decision follows a ruling from the World Trade Organization (WTO) that determines labels to “discriminate against meat raised and slaughtered outside of United States,” reports Take Part.
The Wall Street Journal reveals that the WTO permitted Mexico and Canada to impose more than $1 billion in tariffs on U.S. goods in retaliation if the labels were not pulled from packages of beef and pork. The two countries are the U.S.’s top agriculture partners.
Lawmakers were concerned, therefore, buckled under the pressure and repealed COOL. President Barack Obama added his signature to the bill as well.
For years, meat packers and members of Congress have fought to repeal the law – even though country-of-origin labels appear on many foods, such as peanuts, fish, and apples.
“Our attitude was we were going to use every available mechanism to get a bad idea, and a bad law, repealed. While we couldn’t initiate WTO litigation, we were glad that the Mexican and Canadian governments did.”With COOL repealed, meat lovers will soon be hard-pressed to figure out whether the animals on their dinner plates were shipped halfway around the world or were raised and slaughtered in the United States.
Roger Johnson, presidents of the National Farmers Union, a Washington, D.C.-based organization, likely summarized it for most when he said:
“This is a rotten way to do legislation, by attaching these barnacles on the omnibus bills in the dark of the night.”The U.S. Department of Agriculture (SDA) will continue to inspect all meat before it reaches grocery store shelves, but food labeling advocates compare eliminating nation-of-origin labeling with removing ingredient labels – and American consumers want that information.
If you don’t know where your meat is being sourced from, you’re likely better off nixing it from you diet completely – or, at least, seeking out a local, grass-fed butcher.
What are your thoughts? Comment below and share this news!
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Israel rejects attempt to restart talks with Palestinians
Israel rejects attempt to restart talks with Palestinians: report
2015-12-27Donia Al-Watan
Israel rejected a Palestinian proposal in July to hold secret peace talks in which the issue of the Palestinian state borders would be established first, Israel Radio reported on Sunday.
The report stated that the former Israeli chief negotiator, Silvan Shalom, who resigned from his post as Interior Minister last week amid sexual harassment allegations, met with Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat in several locations in Europe and the Middle East in July.
The Palestinian Authority proposed holding the talks secret and announcing them only once a treaty is in order, the public radio station reported, while deciding on the issue of the borders of a future Palestinian state at the beginning of the talks.
However, the report cited Shalom as charging that Israel opposes this proposal, fearing the Palestinians would not be willing to compromise on other issues at hand once they get assurances on the borders of the Palestinian state.
In response to this report, an Israeli official, who wished to remain anonymous as he was not at liberty to discuss the issue with reporters, denied the report.
"Israel is willing to resume to the negotiations table without preconditions," the official said, reiterating a sentiment made public several times recently by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
He added that Shalom and Erekat did meet but denied the allegations that Israel refused to restart negotiations.
Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition in the Israeli parliament and chairman of the Zionist Union, responded to the report and said Netanyahu is preoccupied with "creating fear and preserving his rule," according to a status posted on his Facebook page.
"He's tired and desperate and automatically shuts the door to any new initiative or hope for peace," Herzog wrote.
Israel occupied the West Bank, east Jerusalem and Gaza Strip territories, home to over 5 million Palestinians, in the 1967 Mideast War. The Palestinian Authority wishes to establish a Palestinian state in these territories in accordance with the two-state solution.
The last round of peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians took place between July 2013 and April 2014, but ended without results.
U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry attempted to revive negotiations recently, amid an ongoing wave of violence, which started in October, claiming the lives of 21 Israelis, 1 U.S. citizen and more than 120 Palestinians.
Netanyahu claims the Palestinians are inciting to violence and publicly calls on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to resume negotiations.
The Palestinians charge Israel has been foot-dragging and making impossible security demands in the last round of negotiations, while continuing to build Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem, on territories slated to be part of a future Palestinian state.
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Bosnia ready to apply for EU membership
Bosnia ready to apply for EU membership
If its application is accepted, years of tough negotiations lie ahead and many observers believe Bosnia, politically decentralized along ethnic lines and economically impoverished, is unlikely to join before 2025. Bosnia has struggled hard to overcome ethnic divisions that linger 20 years after the end of a war in which some 100,000 people died.
Although the Dayton Peace accord, signed 20 years ago this month, succeeded in ending the 1992-95 Bosnia war, it divided the former Yugoslav republic into two autonomous regions along ethnic lines – the Serb Republic and Bosniak-Croat Federation.
This complex political system, based on ethnic and regional quotas, has hampered the formation of a stable national government and left Bosnia bottom of the pack of Western Balkan states seeking EU membership.
In June this years, Bosnian Serb leaders refused to sign a reform agenda demanded by the European Union as part of a drive to speed up Bosnia’s joining the bloc.
A big chunk of the reforms demanded by the EU relate to economic and financial issues.
Of the other Western Balkan countries, Slovenia and Croatia are already EU members. Serbia and Albania have been given candidate status but they have yet to start accession talks.
Anti-Russian Sanctions Cost West Influence, Credibility, and $100 Billion
Anti-Russian Sanctions Cost West Influence, Credibility, and $100 Billion
For nearly two years, independent journalists and analysts in the US and Europe have been saying that sanctions against Russia should be repealed. Now, surprisingly, even the hawkishly anti-Russian foreign policy journal Foreign Affairs has joined the chorus, a recent article suggesting that sanctions have been nothing but a costly mistake.Sputnik – 26.12.2015
The comprehensive analysis, written by CATO Institute Visiting Fellow Emma Ashford, offers few kind words for Russia or its leaders, using phrases like ‘Kremlin cronies’, and alluding to Russia’s ‘behavior’, as if the country was a child that needed to be taught a lesson. Nonetheless, as far as Western sanctions against Russia are concerned, Ashford laid down the truth. And the truth stings.
At first glance, the analyst suggested, “considering the dire state of Russia’s economy, [Western] sanctions might appear to be working. The value of the ruble has fallen by 76 percent against the dollar since the restrictions were imposed, and inflation for consumer goods hit 16 percent in 2015. That same year, the International Monetary Fund estimated, Russia’s GDP was to shrink by more than three percent.”
“In fact, however,” she notes, “Western policymakers got lucky: the sanctions coincided with the collapse of global oil prices, worsening, but not causing, Russia’s economic decline. The ruble’s exchange rate has tracked global oil prices more closely than any new sanctions, and many of the actions taken by the Russian government, including the slashing of the state budget, are similar to those it took when oil prices fell during the 2008 financial crisis.”
“The sanctions have inhibited access to Western financing, forcing Russian banks to turn to the government for help. This has run down the Kremlin’s foreign reserves and led the government to engage in various unorthodox financial maneuvers, such as allowing the state-owned oil company Rosneft to recapitalize itself from state coffers. Yet the Russian government has been able to weather the crisis by providing emergency capital to wobbling banks, allowing the ruble to float freely, and making targeted cuts to the state budget while providing financial stimulus through increased spending on pensions.”Therefore, Ashford points out, “even with continued low oil prices, the [IMF] expects that growth will return to the Russian economy in 2016, albeit at a sluggish 1.5 percent.”
“Nor are the sanctions inflicting much pain on Russia’s elites,” the analyst wistfully continues. “Although Prada and Tiffany are doing less business in Moscow, the luxury housing market is anemic, and travel bans rule out weekend jaunts to Manhattan, these restrictions are hardly unbearable. One target, the close Putin adviser Vladislav Surkov, has dismissed them as harmless. “The Only things that interest me in the US are Tupac Shakur, Allen Ginsberg, and Jackson Pollock,” he said. “I don’t need a visa to access their work.””
Most importantly, Ashford notes, “when the sanctions are judged by the most relevant metric –whether they are producing a policy change – they have been an outright failure.”
“Whatever punishment the sanctions have inflicted on Russia,” Ashford writes, “it has not translated into coercion,” despite the Obama administration’s expectations “that it would have by now.”
Furthermore, “the Kremlin has also managed to circumvent the sanctions, partly by turning to China. In May 2014, Putin visited the country to seal a 30-year, $400 billion gas deal with it, demonstrating that Russia has alternatives to European gas markets. That October, Moscow and Beijing also agreed to a 150 billion yuan currency swap, allowing companies such as Gazprom to trade commodities in rubles and yuan – and thus steer clear of US financial regulations.””Even in Europe,” the analyst points out, “Russia has been able to find loopholes to avoid sanctions: in order to obtain access to Artic drilling equipment and expertise, Rosneft acquired 30 percent of the North Atlantic drilling projects belonging to the Norwegian company Statoil.”
Paradoxically, Sanctions Boost Putin’s Popularity
As for the sanctions’ impact on Russia’s political leadership, Ashford suggests that this may be the area where they are “most counterproductive. The sanctions have had a ‘rally round the flag’ effect as the Russian people blame their ills on the West. According to the Levada Center, a Russian research organization, Putin’s approval rating increased from 63 percent” before Crimea’s accession to Russia “to 88 percent by October 2015. In another poll, more than two-thirds of respondents said they thought the primary goal of the sanctions was to weaken and humiliate Russia.”
… And Weaken Western Influence Worldwide
Moreover, Ashford argues, sanctions “have also encouraged Russia to create its own financial institutions, which, in the long run, will chip away at the United States’ economic influence. After US senators and some European governments suggested that the United States might cut off Russia’s access to the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT) payment system, the Russian Central Bank announced that it was going to start negotiations with the other BRICS states – Brazil, India, China, and South Africa – to create an alternative.”
“To lessen its dependence on Visa and MasterCard, Russia has made moves toward setting up its own credit-card clearing-house. And it has moved ahead with the proposed BRICs development bank, which is designed to replicate the functions of the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.”
These measures add up, Ashford suggests, raising “the worrying possibility that the United States will someday have a harder time employing economic statecraft,” (i.e. applying economic pressure), not just against Russia, but against other, smaller nations as well. “In a world where more institutions fall outside the reach of the United States and its allies, [potential] targets can more easily circumvent US sanctions.”
A $100 Billion Mistake
“It is true,” the analyst notes, “that the sanctions have allowed the Obama administration to claim that it is doing something about Russian aggression. From the White House’s perspective, that might be an acceptable rationale for the policy, so long as there were no downsides. In fact, however, the sanctions carry major economic and political costs for the United States and its European allies.”
“The brunt is being borne by Europe, where the European Commission has estimated that the sanctions cut growth by 0.3 percent of GDP in 2015. According to the Austrian Institute of Economic Research, continuing the sanctions on Russia could cost over 90 billion euros [$98.75 billion US] in export revenue and more than two million jobs over the next few years.”
The sanctions, Ashford writes, “are proving especially painful for countries with strong trade ties to Russia. Germany, Russia’s largest European partner, stands to lose almost 400,000 jobs. Meanwhile, a number of European banks, including Societe Generale in France and Raiffesen Zentralbank in Austria, have made large loans to Russian companies, raising the worrying possibility that the banks may become unstable, or even require bailouts if the borrowers default.”US companies, further away and less heavily involved in trade with Russia, are nonetheless also taking a big hit, according to the analyst.
“US energy companies, for their part, have had to abandon various joint ventures with Russia, losing access to billions of dollars of investments. Thanks to prohibitions on the provision of technology and services to Russian companies, Western firms have been kept out of unconventional drilling projects in the Artic and elsewhere. ExxonMobil, for example, has been forced to withdraw from all ten of its joint ventures with Rosneft, including a $3.2 billion project in the Kara Sea.”
This, Ashford says, will cost the company “access to upstream development projects” in Russia, while “putting the company’s future profits and stock valuation at risk and raising the possibility that the money they’ve already invested will be permanently lost.”
“A similar dynamic may harm European energy security, too,” threatening shortfalls in the supply of Russian energy. “The energy consultancy IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associates has predicted that if the sanctions persist, Russian oil production could decrease from 10.5 million barrels per day now to 7.6 million barrels per day by 2025 – bad news for European states, which receive one-third of their oil from Russia. They are even more dependent on Russian gas, which, since it relies more on fixed pipelines, is harder to replace.”
Ultimately, Ashford notes, “it is tempting to believe that the sanctions will eventually work – say, after a few more years –but that is wishful thinking.”
“If the United States continues to insist that the sanctions against Russia need more time to work, then the costs will continue to add up, while the likelihood of changing the Kremlin’s behavior will get even slimmer.”In the final analysis, the expert calls for the winnowing of sanctions, and for an increased effort by US diplomats “to work with their Russian counterparts on issues unrelated to the Ukraine crisis. The United States and Russia collaborated on the Iran nuclear deal,” Ashford recalls, and can cooperate on ending the civil war in Syria, too.
“Engaging Russia on this and other non-Ukrainian issues would avoid isolating it diplomatically and thus discourage it from creating or joining alternative international institutions,” the analyst slyly concludes.
See also: Anti-Russia Sanctions ‘Humiliating’ for Europe
Tennessee Republican Wants State to Stop Issuing All Marriage Licenses
Posted: 27 Dec 2015 11:39 AM PST
Tennessee Rep. Rick Womick thinks his state should respond to the
Supreme Court’s marriage equality ruling by getting ‘out of the marriage
business altogether.’
How Bibi`s wife may be his downfall
How Bibi`s wife may be his downfall
Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor "At the moment, the police want to question Sara Netanyahu under caution on suspicion of violation of integrity. It is altogether possible that her husband will be subjected to a similar probe later on. If that stage arrives, then the question will be asked: Did Benjamin Netanyahu know about or was he aware of his spouse’s activities?" ca
Ben Caspit - Al-Monitor "At the moment, the police want to question Sara Netanyahu under caution on suspicion of violation of integrity. It is altogether possible that her husband will be subjected to a similar probe later on. If that stage arrives, then the question will be asked: Did Benjamin Netanyahu know about or was he aware of his spouse’s activities?" ca
Father of Jewish Arson Suspect Claims Son Only Confessed Due to Israeli Torture
Father of Jewish Arson Suspect Claims Son Only Confessed Due to Israeli Torture
Ben Sales - The Forward "The father of Elisha Odess, the American-Israeli Jewish teen held by Israel’s internal security service, says his son is innocent and that he confessed to terrorism under torture. “We are sure he didn’t commit this crime,” Rabbi Moshe Odess told JTA in a telephone interview. “When they put him through the most aggressive interrogation of Jews in the history of Israel, when we heard that they were blaming him for Duma, we were in shock.” ca
Ben Sales - The Forward "The father of Elisha Odess, the American-Israeli Jewish teen held by Israel’s internal security service, says his son is innocent and that he confessed to terrorism under torture. “We are sure he didn’t commit this crime,” Rabbi Moshe Odess told JTA in a telephone interview. “When they put him through the most aggressive interrogation of Jews in the history of Israel, when we heard that they were blaming him for Duma, we were in shock.” ca
Sunday, December 27, 2015
100-Year-Old Woman Is a Secret Spy Hero
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| She worked behind enemy lines—and was captured by the Soviets. But the U.S. never properly gave her full credit for her heroism. After seven decades, that may be about to change. |
The Germans Welcoming Refugees Into Their Homes
| The Germans Welcoming Refugees Into Their Homes | ||
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Russian Man Criminally Charged for Website Stating Gay People are Brave, Dignified, and Confident
Russian Man Criminally Charged for Website Stating Gay People are Brave, Dignified, and Confident
Sergey Alekseenko, the former director of Maximum, an NGO providing legal advice, psychological services or support for any pro-LGBT persons in Murmansk, has been criminally charged for a sentence...
Sergey Alekseenko, the former director of Maximum, an NGO providing legal advice, psychological services or support for any pro-LGBT persons in Murmansk, has been criminally charged for a sentence...
Zac Efron’s Mom Gave Him a Box of Edible Dicks for Christmas
Zac Efron’s Mom Gave Him a Box of Edible Dicks for Christmas: PHOTO
Zac Efron has been showing a lot more of himself off lately in the trailer for Bad Grandpa and received a Christmas gift from his mom which seemed to acknowledge that.
Efron shared it to ...
Zac Efron has been showing a lot more of himself off lately in the trailer for Bad Grandpa and received a Christmas gift from his mom which seemed to acknowledge that.
Efron shared it to ...
10 Songs For Each Month Of The Year From 1950 to 1990...
10 Songs For Each Month Of The Year From 1950 to 1990...
Click on the link below, pick a year and month and click in the
middle of the record and it plays the entire song. Click on the title
of the song to see the singer.
You now have 40 years of the Top 10 songs for each month of the year
from 1950 to 1990.
This is beyond incredible ... for the listener who can relive those
wonderful music days of yesteryear... and for the artists and record
companies ... that won't get a dime of royalties!
And we ask, "What happened to the music business that once was?" This
may very well be part of the answer!
http :// www.45rpmdb.com/Top10.html
Incidentally, you not only hear the music, but you get to see the
original label, in addition to getting a photo of the artist,
biography and discography. All this with a nudge of your mouse!
‘Expel Israel from the United Nations’
UK activists’ clarion call to civil societies around the world: ‘Expel Israel from the United Nations’
At least some people are determined to kick off the New Year on a positive note. A motion to expel Israel from the United Nations is to be put to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s AGM. It reads as follows:By Stuart Littlewood | Intifada – Palestine | December 26, 2015
Motion, PSC AGM 23 January 2016 to expel Israel from the United Nations
Considering that Israel’s admission to the UN on 11 May 1949 by General Assembly Resolution 273 was conditional upon its (1) honouring the UN Charter and (2) implementing UNGA Resolutions 181 of 29 November 1947 and 194 of 11 December 1948;
Noting that Israel has:
(1) repeatedly acted inconsistently with the Purposes of the UN expressed in Article 1.2 of the UN Charter and thus also with Article 2 (introduction);
(2) repeatedly violated the provisions and Principles of the Charter as expressed in Articles 2.3, 2.4, 4, 55 and 56;
(3) failed to implement GA Resolutions 181 and 194;
(4) violated numerous other resolutions of the Security Council and GA; and (5) beginning in 1948 killed many Palestinian civilians and forcibly expelled many others from their homes and land;
Noting further that all attempts to ensure through negotiation Israel’s adherence to the Purposes and Principles contained in the Charter and to general principles of international law have failed;
Considering that effective measures should be taken to resolve the present situation arising out of Israel’s unlawful policies that violate the Charter and UNGA Res 273;
Recalling that Article 6 of the Charter states,
“A Member of the United Nations which has persistently violated the Principles contained in the present Charter may be expelled from the Organization by the General Assembly upon the recommendation of the Security Council.”;
This AGM resolves that the PSC Executive Committee shall
request the government of the United Kingdom, enforced by a petition and lobbying, to submit a motion to the Security Council recommending that the General Assembly expel Israel from the UN in compliance with the Charter, Article 6.
And many will be saying, “About time too.” Israel has enjoyed impunity for its criminal acts for 67 years. And each year the international community’s failure to take disciplinary action has made the Israeli regime more aggressive, more arrogant, more brutal and more loathsome.
Israel’s endless defiance of civilised rules of behavior
When drafting the motion it would have done no harm, I think, to mention the important ruling by the International Court of Justice that Israel’s separation wall is illegal and must come down, and the Palestinians affected properly compensated. The 400-miles long barrier known to all as the Apartheid Wall bites deep into the Palestinian West Bank dividing and isolating communities and stealing their lands and water.
If the Wall was simply for security, as Israel claims, it would have been built along the 1949 Armistice ‘Green Line’. But the Wall’s purpose is plainly to annex plum Palestinian land and water sources for illegal Israeli settlements and to that end closely follows the line of the Western Aquifer. It is a crude attempt to change the ‘facts on the ground’ in order to expand Israeli territory and greatly reduce the viability of a future Palestinian state. In 2004 the International Court of Justice at The Hague ruled that construction of the Wall was “contrary to international law” and Israel must dismantle it and make reparation. The ICJ also ruled that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize the illegal situation resulting from the construction of the wall and not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by such construction”.
Eleven years later Israel, contemptuous of international law, continues to build its hideous Wall with American tax dollars and protected by America’s veto. While Israelis fill their swimming pools, wash their cars and sprinkle their golf courses the Palestinians, who would normally be self-sufficient, now have to pay Israel’s grossly inflated price for a mere trickle of their own water, or go without.
Perhaps the motion should also note how Israel continues to defy the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, an important set of undertakings to which Israel itself and 136 other States are signed up.
Article 1 states that “all peoples have the right of self-determination…. In no case may a people be deprived of its own means of subsistence.” Israel should not be interfering, for example, with fishing in Gaza’s territorial waters, Gaza’s off-shore gas resources or the West Bank’s water. Furthermore “the States that are party to the Covenant… shall promote the realization of the right of self-determination, and shall respect that right, in conformity with the provisions of the Charter of the United Nations”.
Article 2 requires all States to guarantee that the rights enshrined in the Covenant will be exercised without discrimination of any kind.
Article 6 says that States recognize the right of everyone to gain a living from work of their own choosing and will take appropriate steps to safeguard this right. But for Palestinians it is impossible until the siege on Gaza is lifted and free, unfettered access to the outside world restored. The same goes for the West Bank and East Jerusalem which are also blockaded by Israel’s military and strangulated by Israel’s Matrix of Control.
What about the threat Israel poses not just to the region but the rest of the world? According to the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission Israel has a nuclear arsenal numbering in the hundreds and is the only state in the region not to have signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Nor has it signed the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention. It has signed but not ratified the Comprehensive Nuclear Test-Ban Treaty, similarly the Chemical Weapons Convention. Perhaps the facts about Israel being a lethal misfit ought to be noted in the PSC motion.
Also worth adding, as justification for launching the motion, is how the Israeli regime enjoys preferential treatment under the EU-Israel Association Agreement of 1995 but fails to observe its terms. These require adherence to the principles of the United Nations Charter, and Article 2 says that “respect for human rights and democratic principle constitute an essential element of this agreement”. Israel has never complied but continues to enjoy association benefits. Despite many calls to suspend the Agreement the EU has instead upgraded the relationship and enhanced the benefits. In Israel’s case breaches of legal and human rights obligations are rewarded not punished.
Will the whole world take up the call to expel?
The PSC motion’s originator, Blake Alcott, provides a useful ‘Long Dossier’ on the need for Israel’s expulsion on his blogsite. He writes: “I’m anticipating that, like last January, the PSC Executive Committee will oppose it – not its substance, but because the time isn’t yet ripe for it. Ben-Gurion always said that time is on Israel’s side, and I fear he was right. So I say, let’s throw the book at them….”
The time not ripe after more than six decades of Palestinian suffering during which the situation has gone from disgraceful to intolerable? Baroness Morris, president of Medical Aid for Palestinians, reminds us in her Christmas message,
“In Gaza, 95,000 Palestinians remain homeless following the last conflict [the 2014 Israeli blitzkrieg ‘Protective Edge’ and ongoing 8-year blockade], forcing many to face the winter cold in tents, shipping containers, or among the ruins of their former houses.”Such inhumanity defies all understanding and reason. And still the international community turns a blind eye to the evil of a small Zionist gang who have somehow managed to grab the Western political élite by the balls.
The patience of decent folk is finally exhausted. Civil society now must set the pace, make the running and oust their compromised leaders. In the coming weeks the PSC has an opportunity to strike a spark that starts a worldwide civil society eruption, with the aim of amplifying the expulsion message, overriding current political inertia and speaking firmly from the grass roots to governments across the globe.
It would help too if the churches in the West found the backbone to take an orchestrated stand against Israel’s seizure of the Holy Land and the threat posed to the very wellspring of the Christian faith. They should be outraged by the regime’s persecution of Christian communities — as well as their Muslim brothers and sisters — residing in the place where Christianity was born.
Perhaps then the UN will sit up, take notice and make amends for its lamentable record.
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