Speakers at the Stop The War march, ended in Downing Street, marched from Bahraini to Libyan embassy then together to Downing Street.
Amazing march, united and through central London chanting Free Libya Free Algeria Free Bahrain Free Algeria Free Yemen Free Palestine Free Afghanistan Free Iraq …
To a Free Middle East and Africa.
Libya: ‘mission creep’ claims as UK sends in military advisers: here. See also here. And here.
British military commander sent to Libya to organize troops. Mission creep, anyone? Here.
Hey, that reminds me of something.
The Vietnam war started for the USA with ‘military advisers’ as well. It continued with decades of war, over half a million United States ground troops, and fifty thousand US soldiers and three million Vietnamese dead.
France and Italy joined Britain’s increased interference in Libya’s civil war today by announcing that they would also send military advisers to aid the rebels: here.
As the bombing of Libya enters its fourth week, Italy is looking for ways to participate more actively in the war. As the former colonial power in Libya, Italy has substantial oil and gas interests that it seeks to defend against the predatory actions of rival powers: here.
Britain: It could be the onset of Easter, the good weather or just self-denial that prevents Parliament from being recalled to discuss Libya and the British role in yet another “Nato-led mission”: here.
This video from Ireland is called Clare Daly TD opposes imperialist intervention in Libya (24-03-11).
Cary Fraser, Truthout: “The recent decision by the Obama administration to spearhead the NATO effort to oust Muammar Qaddafi from power in Libya reflects the oft-evident American penchant for war as a substitute for intelligent diplomacy. It was this mindset during the George W. Bush administration which led the US into pursuing two expensive and indecisive wars in Afghanistan and Iraq”: here.
Ray McGovern, Consortium News: “Afghanistan may be the graveyard of empires, but Iraq is home to a graveyard sense of humor. Iraqis wonder aloud whether the U.S. and Britain would have invaded Iraq if its main export had been cabbages instead of oil. However obvious the answer, a remarkable array of American pundits and pseudo-savants have resisted giving the oil factor any pride of place among the motives behind the U.S./U.K. decision to invade Iraq in 2003. To this day, the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM) continues to play its accustomed role as government accomplice suppressing unwelcome news”: here.
A new Amnesty International report details the killings, injuries, torture and other ill-treatment of protesters who, inspired by the democracy uprisings in the Middle East and north Africa, have demonstrated in their tens of thousands across Iraq: here.
Army investigators examining claims that British troops committed abuses in Iraq have begun interviewing the alleged victims, it was confirmed today: here.
Christians remain besieged and fearful in Iraq at Easter: here.
Revolutionary wave is still rising across Middle East and Africa: here.
When someone dared to say “No blood for oil”, neo-conservative or “liberal hawk” apologists for the Iraq war went hysterical. Their lovely baby, their lovely Iraq war, could never ever be about something as prosaic as oil corporations’ profits (or arms dealers’ profits … oil was and is a major factor in a complex of causes, not the sole 100% cause).
Secret memos expose link between oil firms and invasion of Iraq
By Paul Bignell
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
Plans to exploit Iraq’s oil reserves were discussed by government ministers and the world’s largest oil companies the year before Britain took a leading role in invading Iraq, government documents show.
The papers, revealed here for the first time, raise new questions over Britain’s involvement in the war, which had divided Tony Blair’s cabinet and was voted through only after his claims that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction.
The minutes of a series of meetings between ministers and senior oil executives are at odds with the public denials of self-interest from oil companies and Western governments at the time.
The documents were not offered as evidence in the ongoing Chilcot Inquiry into the UK’s involvement in the Iraq war. In March 2003, just before Britain went to war, Shell denounced reports that it had held talks with Downing Street about Iraqi oil as “highly inaccurate”. BP denied that it had any “strategic interest” in Iraq, while Tony Blair described “the oil conspiracy theory” as “the most absurd”.
But documents from October and November the previous year paint a very different picture.
Five months before the March 2003 invasion, Baroness Symons, then the Trade Minister, told BP that the Government believed British energy firms should be given a share of Iraq’s enormous oil and gas reserves as a reward for Tony Blair’s military commitment to US plans for regime change.
The papers show that Lady Symons agreed to lobby the Bush administration on BP‘s behalf because the oil giant feared it was being “locked out” of deals that Washington was quietly striking with US, French and Russian governments and their energy firms.
Minutes of a meeting with BP, Shell and BG (formerly British Gas) on 31 October 2002 read: “Baroness Symons agreed that it would be difficult to justify British companies losing out in Iraq in that way if the UK had itself been a conspicuous supporter of the US government throughout the crisis.”
The minister then promised to “report back to the companies before Christmas” on her lobbying efforts.
The Foreign Office invited BP in on 6 November 2002 to talk about opportunities in Iraq “post regime change”. Its minutes state: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP is desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity.”
After another meeting, this one in October 2002, the Foreign Office’s Middle East director at the time, Edward Chaplin, noted: “Shell and BP could not afford not to have a stake in [Iraq] for the sake of their long-term future… We were determined to get a fair slice of the action for UK companies in a post-Saddam Iraq.”
Whereas BP was insisting in public that it had “no strategic interest” in Iraq, in private it told the Foreign Office that Iraq was “more important than anything we’ve seen for a long time”.
BP was concerned that if Washington allowed TotalFinaElf’s existing contact with Saddam Hussein to stand after the invasion it would make the French conglomerate the world’s leading oil company. BP told the Government it was willing to take “big risks” to get a share of the Iraqi reserves, the second largest in the world.
Over 1,000 documents were obtained under Freedom of Information over five years by the oil campaigner Greg Muttitt. They reveal that at least five meetings were held between civil servants, ministers and BP and Shell in late 2002.
The 20-year contracts signed in the wake of the invasion were the largest in the history of the oil industry. They covered half of Iraq’s reserves – 60 billion barrels of oil, bought up by companies such as BP and CNPC (China National Petroleum Company), whose joint consortium alone stands to make £403m ($658m) profit per year from the Rumaila field in southern Iraq.
Last week, Iraq raised its oil output to the highest level for almost decade, 2.7 million barrels a day – seen as especially important at the moment given the regional volatility and loss of Libyan output. Many opponents of the war suspected that one of Washington’s main ambitions in invading Iraq was to secure a cheap and plentiful source of oil.
Mr Muttitt, whose book Fuel on Fire is published next week, said: “Before the war, the Government went to great lengths to insist it had no interest in Iraq’s oil. These documents provide the evidence that give the lie to those claims.
“We see that oil was in fact one of the Government’s most important strategic considerations, and it secretly colluded with oil companies to give them access to that huge prize.”
* Foreign Office memorandum, 13 November 2002, following meeting with BP: “Iraq is the big oil prospect. BP are desperate to get in there and anxious that political deals should not deny them the opportunity to compete. The long-term potential is enormous…”
* Tony Blair, 6 February 2003: “Let me just deal with the oil thing because… the oil conspiracy theory is honestly one of the most absurd when you analyse it. The fact is that, if the oil that Iraq has were our concern, I mean we could probably cut a deal with Saddam tomorrow in relation to the oil. It’s not the oil that is the issue, it is the weapons…”
* BP, 12 March 2003: “We have no strategic interest in Iraq. If whoever comes to power wants Western involvement post the war, if there is a war, all we have ever said is that it should be on a level playing field. We are certainly not pushing for involvement.”
* Lord Browne, the then-BP chief executive, 12 March 2003: “It is not in my or BP’s opinion, a war about oil. Iraq is an important producer, but it must decide what to do with its patrimony and oil.”
* Shell, 12 March 2003, said reports that it had discussed oil opportunities with Downing Street were ‘highly inaccurate’, adding: “We have neither sought nor attended meetings with officials in the UK Government on the subject of Iraq. The subject has only come up during conversations during normal meetings we attend from time to time with officials… We have never asked for ‘contracts’.”
Alistair Dawber: Black gold rush was fuelled by enormous untapped potential
Tuesday, 19 April 2011
The Foreign Office was not wrong in its November 2002 memo: “Iraq is the big oil prospect.” But it should have come as no surprise to those in Whitehall that BP, and other oil companies, were “desperate” to get a slice of the pie that was seemingly already being carved up five months before the invasion.
Conservative estimates put about 115 billion barrels of oil beneath the Iraqi desert, ranking the country fourth in the global league table behind Saudi Arabia, Canada and Iran. But even that staggering number does little to explain just how much oil Iraq might be sitting on.
When will we read similar discoveries about the present war in oil-rich Libya in the mainstream media?
The French war planes currently used against Libya were on sale there two years ago: here.
After another violent day yesterday (17th) in Sulaymaniyah, Kurdish Iraq) the protestors again showed their determination today. They are protesting for 60 days already, mostly non-violently, but often confronted by harsh repression.The authorities have tried to stop the protest since day one, but day after day the demonstrators come back to the square which has been named Freedom square. Today, some streets of the city changed into a battlefield between activists and security forces. Sounds of bullets, the smell of teargas and smoke filled the streets: here.
Greg Palast, Truthout/Buzzflash: “Only 17 months before BP’s Deepwater Horizon rig suffered a deadly blowout in the Gulf of Mexico, another BP deepwater oil platform also blew out. You’ve heard and seen much about the Gulf disaster that killed 11 BP workers. If you have not heard about the earlier blowout, it’s because BP has kept the full story under wraps. Nor did BP inform Congress or US safety regulators, and BP, along with its oil industry partners, have preferred to keep it that way”: here.
Australia: Shell to close Sydney refinery at the cost of almost 500 jobs: here.
This video, made 18 April 2011 in the coastal dunes in the Netherlands, is about the natterjack toad mating season.
A few people know that there is a “heaven” for frogs in Hanoi, Vietnam, where hundreds of amphibians of nearly 20 species are growing. That place is the amphibian research center in Co Nhue commune, Tu Liem district: here.
In forests, ponds, swamps, and other ecosystems around the world, amphibians are dying at rates never before observed. The reasons are many: habitat destruction, pollution from pesticides, climate change, invasive species, and the emergence of a deadly and infectious fungal disease. More than 200 species have gone silent, while scientists estimate one third of the more than 6,500 known species are at risk of extinction: here.
Lions in East and Southern Africa are larger, stronger and have bigger manes than their West African cousins.
Lions from west and central Africa have more in common with Asiatic lion
April 2011: There is a remarkable difference between the lions of west and central Africa compared to those in the east and south of the continent, according to new research.
The study suggests that lions from west and central Africa are genetically different from lions in east and southern Africa. The researchers analysed a region on the mitochondrial DNA of lions from across Africa and India, including sequences from extinct lions such as the Atlas lions in Morocco.
Surprisingly, lions from west and central Africa seemed to be more related to lions from the Asiatic subspecies than to their counterparts in east and southern Africa. Previous research has already suggested that lions in West and Central Africa are smaller in size and weight, have smaller manes, live in smaller groups, eat smaller prey and may also differ in the shape of their skull, compared to their counterparts in east and southern Africa. However, this research was not backed by conclusive scientific evidence. The present research findings show that the difference is also reflected in the genetic makeup of the lions.
The distinction between lions from the two areas of Africa can partially be explained by the location of natural structures that may form barriers for lion dispersal. These structures include the Central African rainforest and the Rift Valley, which stretches from Ethiopia to Tanzania and from the Democratic Republic of Congo to Mozambique.
Another aspect explaining the unique genetic position of the West and Central African lion is the climatological history of this part of the continent.
It is hypothesised that a local extinction occurred, following periods of severe drought 18,000-40,000 years ago. During this period, lions continuously ranged deep into Asia and it is likely that conditions in the Middle East were still sufficiently favourable to sustain lion populations. The data suggests that West and Central Africa was recolonised by lions from areas close to India, which explains the close genetic relationship between lions from these two areas.
West African lions highly endangered
There are thought to be about 1,700 lions left in West and Central Africa, which is less than ten per cent of the total estimated lion population in Africa. Numbers are still declining. They are under severe threat due to the fragmentation or even destruction of their natural savannah habitat, the depletion of prey and retaliatory killing by livestock owners.
African lions under threat from a growing predator: the American hunter: here.
May 2011. Conservationists have warned that Kenya’s lion population is in danger of becoming extinct within a few years if nothing is done to stem a wave of poisonings that have already left at least eight lions dead in recent weeks: here.
Kenya’s lions have been under threat, but a new scheme is saving lions and rewarding the Maasai: here.
Although lions are always filmed killing and eating antelope, zebra, warthog and buffalo, they are highly opportunistic and will kill and eat a wide range of species, especially when food is short, including rodents and any birds that they are able to catch. These young lions have managed to catch an unfortunate Maribou stork and they make very short work of the bird, squabbling between themselves over the ‘prize’: here.
Photographer Adri De Visser captured photos of the amazing sight when a lioness befriended a baby Uganda Kob after killing its mother. In the photo series, the lioness seemingly adopts the baby antelope, nuzzling it and picking it up by the scruff of its neck: here.
It’s that time of year again — turkey with sweet cranberry sauce, mouth-watering chocolate truffles, and a sprinkling of nutmeg on warming eggnog… and it’s all thanks to bugs. To celebrate the sheer wealth and variety of bug wildlife, Buglife has teamed up with the children from St Augustine’s School, Peterborough to produce a new version of the traditional Christmas song – welcome to the Twelve Bugs of Christmas!
April 2011. Buglife – The Invertebrate Conservation Trust is fighting to protect a wildlife haven on the Isle of Grain in Kent from a huge National Grid warehouse development. This bug paradise is home to a variety of beautiful, rare and endangered insects including a large population of threatened bumblebee species.
The Isle of Grain supports an exceptional area of Open Mosaic Habitat providing lots of pollen and nectar rich flowers, bare ground ideal for burrowing and basking insects and pools for aquatic beetles and bugs – a similar habitat to West Thurrock Marshes, a key wildlife site that Buglife fought to save in 2008.
Isle of Grain
The Isle of Grain is home to an array of special plants, reptiles, bumblebees, hoverflies and beetles. Important bumblebees present include the Brown banded carder-bee (Bombus humilis) and Shrill carder-bee (Bombus sylvarum). Also living on the Open Mosaic Habitat are the White eye-stripe hoverfly (Paragus albifrons), which until recently was believed to be extinct, and Mellet’s downy-back beetle (Ophonus melletii), which is so rare that it has only been seen five times in the UK in the last 20 years.
Matt Shardlow, Buglife Chief Executive said ‘The Isle of Grain is likely to be one of the most important sites in Britain for rare and endangered invertebrates. This is a bug paradise and National Grid’s current plans to develop it into a huge business park and lorry depot would destroy it.’
National Grid spraying pesticides
National Grid has already sprayed large areas of the site with pesticides, justifying this as an attempt to eliminate Brown-tail moths. This has resulted in the loss of flowering plants and bushes used by pollinating insects such as bumblebees.
Judge orders a halt to pesticide use
Buglife have started a legal battle on behalf of the invertebrates inhabiting the site. In the first round of legal proceedings the judge agreed with Buglife that National Grid and Medway Council had failed to properly assess the impact on the wildlife of the site. The Judge concluded that National Grid must stop spraying the site with pesticides and allow the ecology to recover before undertaking further surveys to find out exactly how important the wildlife is. Despite the judge’s support of Buglife’s arguments he refused to allow Buglife to judicially review the planning permission.
Appeal
Matt Shardlow responded ‘We are pleased that the judge recognised the ecological importance of National Grid’s land, and highlighted that the planning process has not properly considered its importance, but we are not convinced that the proposal to just do more ecological assessments will save the animals. Buglife is appealing this decision; that is the right thing to do for the bumblebees and to ensure that future generations of people will benefit from the bee’s diligent work pollinating flowers and crops’.
Dr. Ben Darvill, Director of the Bumblebee Conservation Trust said “The Thames Gateway is of national importance for rare bumblebees with populations hanging on in flower-rich pockets of habitat. The Isle of Grain is a very important site and if it is destroyed or degraded the whole population structure could collapse.”
Important site for rare invertebrates
The site is 164 hectares in total; over 100 hectares of important habitat for rare and endangered invertebrates will be destroyed or degraded by the development. The development has not been designed to avoid the most valuable areas open mosaic habitat.
The East Thames Corridor region currently supports one of the most important remaining metapopulations of the Brown banded carder-bee (Bombus humilis) and Shrill carder-bee (Bombus sylvarum) in the UK, but many sites are already lost or under direct threat of development. Bumblebee populations appear to operate at a landscape scale and it is probable that viable individual populations require minimum ranges of between ten to twenty km2 of good matrix habitat, including several large patches of flowers within these range areas. A thriving population of bumblebees will require dozens of active nests and tens of hectares of suitable habitat.
Mellet’s Downy-back beetle (Ophonus melletii) is a UKBAP priority species. This beetle has declined more than 50% over the last 25 years, and there have only been five records in the last 20 years, one of which was from Rochester (N Kent), finding this beetle on site is very significant.
White eye-stripe hoverfly (Paragus albifrons) is a very rare species. Hoverfly experts were poised to declare this species as extinct, but it is now known to survive on two brownfield sites in the Thames Gateway. The ecological requirements of this species are not fully understood.
If there is something banging into your window, making a loud whirring noise and generally blustering about like it has too much cider, it is probably a May bug, or Cockchafer beetle (or a teenager): here.
June 2011: The second phase of a reintroduction programme, aimed at increasing the population of one of the UK’s rarest insects, is now underway at a leading RSPB nature reserve. Since 2005, conservationists have been working towards extending the range of the pine hoverfly, the country’s most endangered hoverfly species: here.
Captain Thomas Isidore Noël Sankara (December 21, 1949 October 15, 1987) was the leader of Burkina Faso (formerly known as Upper Volta) from 1983 to 1987. While noted for his personal charisma and praised for promoting health and women’s rights, he also antagonised many vested interests in the country. He was overthrown and assassinated in a coup d’état led by Blaise Compaoré on October 15, 1987, sometimes believed to have been at the instruction of France.
Ambassador to France to lead new government following a mutiny by soldiers and days of riots in West African country.
Last Modified: 19 Apr 2011 00:49
Burkina Faso‘s president has appointed a new prime minister following days of riots and protests involving soldiers, police and students in the West African country.
Luc-Adolphe Tiao, Burkina Faso’s ambassdor to France, was named as prime minister late on Monday, three days after his predecessor, Tertius Zongo, was dismissed by president Blaise Compaore.
Earlier, Burkina Faso’s state TV said students had burned down the ruling party headquarters and the prime minister’s house in the central city of Koudougou, according to the Associated Press.
In the northern town of Kaya, soldiers and paramilitary police fired shots in the air, torched the home of an army regiment chief and ransacked that of a regional officer, residents told the AFP news agency by telephone.
The incidents follow a mutiny by soldiers that started last week in the capital, Ouagadougou, and has spread north and east.
Compaore, who came to power in a 1987 military coup, has faced a series of protests since February, staged first by students and then by soldiers.
That the new prime minister is ex-ambassador to Sarkozy’s France, involved now in neo-colonial war in another ex-French colony, Ivory Coast, does not look like a good omen in this perspective.
The anti-dictatorship movement in Burkina Faso has managed to remove one important prop of the Compaore tyranny. However, the whole regime, especially dictator Compaore himself, will have to go.
He won a new five-year term in office after taking 80 per cent of the votes in November elections.
Compaore’s government warned on Sunday that it would take action against anyone using illegal arms with “the full force of the law”.
“For several days, soldiers and civilians … have been using firearms in violation of regulations,” the security ministry said in a statement.
“This state of affairs will not be tolerated in a state with the rule of law.”
The security ministry said it was demanding “strict respect for rules on the use of military and civilian arms and munitions” and warned that “all offenders will face the full force of the law”.
Soldiers in Ouagadougou began shooting at the presidential compound late on Thursday, sparking two nights of looting by soldiers.
Hundreds of traders rioted and set fire to the headquarters of the ruling party on Saturday, in protest against the soldiers looting their shops.
Burkina Faso ranks 161 out of 169 countries on the UN Human Development Index, a composite measure of the quality of life.
On 8th Day of Hunger Strike, Bahraini Activist Zainab Alkhawaja Urges U.S. to Press for Family’s Release
As the brutal crackdown on pro-democracy protesters continues in the Gulf state of Bahrain, we speak with Zainab Alkhawaja, whose father, husband and brother-in-law were detained last Saturday following a late night raid at their home. Zainab is on the eighth day of a hunger strike that she vows to continue until her family members are released. We also speak with Human Rights Watch researcher, Faraz Sanei, who just spent six weeks in Bahrain. “What we’re seeing in Bahrain today is a full-scale crackdown on any sort of dissent in the country,” Sanei says. “We are now seeing an absolute slide into a police state and dictatorship in Bahrain.” [includes rush transcript]
Bahrain 1st-Hand: When Security Forces Clamp Down: here.
Bahrain: Stop the attack on the trade union movement: here.
Security forces attacked tens of thousands of peaceful demonstrators in Hudaida in south-central Yemen on Monday, reportedly wounding at least 88. Over the weekend, as many as a million Yemenis rallied against the government: here.
This video is called from Britain is called Stop the War hands off Libya protest | London 18th March | John Rees.
The British Conservative-Liberal government of Prime Minister David Cameron and the French administration of President Nicolas Sarkozy are moving closer to deploying ground forces in Libya, escalating the neocolonial war being waged against the regime of Muammar Gaddafi: here.
Spain: Catalan Greens vote for war with Libya: here.
Libyan war accelerates Chinese debate over “non-intervention”: here.
