France: remembering anti-colonialist Frantz Fanon, and the World Social Forum in Kenya

This video from the USA is called Frantz Fanon Eulogy.

From French daily l’Humanité:

Figuring out the Mechanisms of Domination

Translated Tuesday 26 September 2006, by Henry Crapo

The thinking of Frantz Fanon, Carribean psychiatrist, will be highlighted at the World Social Forum in Nairobi.

It was to show the topicality of Frantz Fanon’s thinking on the mechanisms of colonial domination that the Espaces Marx organized a debate on this subject on Saturday, 17 September, at the Rhone regional stand at the Fête de l’Humanité.

It was to discover this man, who was born in Fort-de-France in 1925, died in 1961, and buried in Algeria – a psychiatrist, writer, and thinker, of whom Aimé Césaire said “He is a paraclet, one whose life has become a call to us to live.”

Alice Cherki, psychiatrist and author of the biography Frantz Fanon, a Portrait, described with emotion the man with whom she had worked, first in the psychiatric service in Blida, then in Tunisia, where that militant awakener of consciousness, fighting for the independence of Algeria, had to find refuge, having been expelled by the French government.

Related articles

• Frantz Fanon: A Biography (morningstaronline.co.uk)
• On the Thoughts of Frantz Fanon (dogmaandgeopolitics.wordpress.com)
• Little Known Black History Fact: Dr. Frantz Fanon (blackamericaweb.com)
• What Frantz Fanon Meant To African Liberation (thebulletpen.wordpress.com)
• Fanon: Black Skin, White Masks (mixedamericanlife.wordpress.com)
• Frantz Fanon-final draft (socialtheoryencyclopedia.wordpress.com)

Belgium: Bush’s international financial spying against the law

From the Washington Post in the USA:

Secret US program broke law, Belgium says

By John Ward Anderson

September 29, 2006

PARIS — A secret US program to monitor millions of international financial transactions for terrorist links violated Belgian and European law and will have to be changed, the Belgian government said yesterday.

The decision, announced by Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, came as the country’s Data Privacy Commission released a 20-page report finding that the Belgium-based Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, or SWIFT, had improperly turned over data from millions of global financial transactions to US antiterror investigators.

“It has to be seen as a gross miscalculation by SWIFT that it has, for years, secretly and systematically transferred massive amounts of personal data for surveillance without effective and clear legal basis and independent controls in line with Belgian and European law,” the report says.

Spying on anti Iraq war demonstrators: here.

Bush’s domestic spying and Al Gore speech: here.

Bush’s spying: here.

And here.

And here.

And here.

Spying in Germany: here.

Britain: after Colin Powell, Jack Straw admits regrets on Iraq war

The BBC reports:

Mistakes made in Iraq, says Straw

Former Foreign Secretary Jack Straw has described the current situation in Iraq as “dire”.

Mr Straw, who held the job at the time the UK decided to take part in the 2003 war, said there were things he regretted about the campaign.

Speaking on BBC One’s Question Time, he said “mistakes” were made by the US following the invasion.

State department efforts to ensure a “proper civilian administration” were not followed through, he said.

“The current situation is dire,” he said.

“I think many mistakes were made after the military action – there is no question about it – by the United States administration.

Why? Because they failed to follow the lead of Secretary (of State, Colin) Powell.

Colin Powell has admitted his infamous speech in the United Nations on so called Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, the official pretext for the war, were lies.

That he, and Jack Straw, now have second thoughts on the war, makes them at least somewhat better than Bush and Blair who are “staying the course” of bloodshed.

However, it is still regrettable that many politicians wait with coming back to their senses till after leaving office.

How much better would it have been if Colin Powell, when in the United Nations building the copy of Pablo Picasso’s famous anti war painting Guernica was covered, as the reality of war would contrast too much with his “WMD” speech, would have personally torn the cloth away to make Picasso’s truth visible again.

And would have ripped to little shreds his untruthful speech, and thrown his photoshopped “WMD” slides into the wastepaper basket.

Somewhat like the body double of the dictator, played by Charlie Chaplin, in the closing scene of Chaplin’s film, The Great Dictator.

Jack Straw against Muslim women: here.

And here.

Britain: Blair’s cash for peerages scandal: aide interrogated by police

This video is called Demise of Blair.

The BBC reports:

Donor police quiz top Blair aide

A senior adviser to the prime minister has been questioned by police in the investigation into cash for honours, allegedly involving Labour donors.

Ruth Turner is the director of government relations at Number 10 and was interviewed in London last week.

About a dozen people are believed to have been questioned so far.

Three arrests have been made, although all have denied suggestions of wrong-doing.

The inquiry is looking into claims that wealthy backers received peerages.

And its scope has since been widened to cover similar allegations involving the Conservatives.

Related articles

• Buckraking Around the World With Tony Blair (azerbaijanfree.com)
• Against Tony Blair, London 13 November (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• Did PM Tony Blair Cover Up Paedophile Scandal? List of Child Sex Offenders in British Government (sott.net)
• IoS exclusive: Cameron in crony row over Brazil factory (independent.co.uk)
• Lord Mandelson: Tony Blair was wrong to invade Iraq (express.co.uk)

Vietnam: archaeologists find burial urns

This is a music video of a Vietnamese lithiphone.

From Thanh Nien in Vietnam:

Ancient burial urns found in central Vietnam

Archaeologists have discovered 30 burial jars belonging to the 2,500-year-old Sa Huynh civilization in central Vietnam.

The graves together with many artifacts were unearthed at the Con Dai archaeological site in Thua Thua-Hue province’s Huong Tra district.

Of the jars, 25 contained ritual offerings like small trays, agate balls, and earrings, all of them still intact.

They will be displayed at the Museum of Vietnamese History and the province’s museum.

The archaeologists said the excavation provided further evidence that an early Metal Age culture had once existed in central Vietnam.

The Sa Huynh culture has been dated to roughly the same time as the Dong Son culture (circa 1000 BC-200 AD) but it had a distinctive decorative style of bronze axes, daggers, and ornaments.

In a unique practice, it cremated its dead and buried their ashes in urns covered with lids together with ritually broken offerings.