Anti-Blair demonstration, Monday, London

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Blair, Murdoch and the war

Sunday 27 May 2012

by Paddy McGuffin

Peace campaigners will confront Tony Blair outside the Leveson inquiry tomorrow where he faces questioning over his links to the pro-war Murdoch empire.

The protest takes place the day after the Ministry of Defence confirmed that a British soldier was killed in Helmand province this weekend bringing the total British death toll to 415.

The former prime minister will will be quizzed over whether he allowed his relationship with Murdoch and News International to become too close.

Mr Blair flew to Hayman Island in Australia to address News Corp executives in 1995 – shortly after becoming Labour leader – as part of a plan to attempt to win over the Murdoch press which had been rabidly hostile to his predecessors Michael Foot and Neil Kinnock.

In 1997 the previously staunchly Tory Sun threw its weight behind Labour.

Last year it emerged that he had been named as godfather to one of the media tycoon’s children and attended the christening on the banks of the river Jordan in 2010.

Giving evidence to the Leveson inquiry last week former Labour spin doctor Lord Mandelson said it was “arguably the case… that personal relationships between Mr Blair, Gordon Brown and Rupert Murdoch became closer than was wise.”

…

Stop the War Coalition said the correct venue for Mr Blair’s testimony was the Hague war crimes tribunal.

It said: “The court Blair should be in is the International Criminal Tribunal at the Hague to account for the culture, practice and ethics of his lies that took Britain into the illegal war with Iraq, on the coat tails of George Bush and which has left one million Iraq civilians dead and the country devastated.

“These days – and quite rightly – Blair can’t go anywhere without being confronted with his war crimes, as happened in the United States just last week.”

The group point out that all 127 of Murdoch’s papers backed the war in Iraq and that Murdoch has confirmed that he was frequently in direct contact with the then PM.

They also highlighted the fact that all the Mudoch papers ran with the infamous “dodgy dossier” and the erroneous claim that Iraq could launch weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in 45 minutes.

Stop The War questioned whether there was a “pact” between Labour and News International to ratchet up pro-war sentiment and “be relentless in promoting the war, even if this meant using lies and distortion.”

The demonstration will take place [Monday] morning between 9am and 10am outside the Royal Courts of Justice on the Strand.

Update: demonstration report: Tony Blair was met by protesters brandishing “Troops home,” “Bliar” and “Afghanistan out” banners as he arrived at the Leveson inquiry on Monday: here.

Update: report on Blair at the inquiry: here.

Related articles

• British Labour politician admits Blair, Brown were too close to Big Business
• Tony Blair should be prosecuted for war crimes not just judged by history
• Relations between Tony Blair and Rupert Murdoch ‘collapse’ after claims of meetings with ex-wife Wendi Deng
• The Busting Of Tony Blair
• Tony Blair to face Leveson inquiry grilling over relationship with Murdoch

‘Ireland, vote against EU austerity’

This video from Ireland is called Vote NO to Austerity Treaty on May 31.

From daily The Morning Star in Britain:

Adams asks voters to reject austerity

Sunday 27 May 2012

by Our Foreign Desk

Sinn Fein leader Gerry Adams called on Irish voters on Saturday to reject the EU fiscal pact in next week’s referendum to “break the cycle of austerity and inequality.”

In a televised speech at the party’s conference he said that while Sinn Fein ministers in Belfast were demanding more powers from London the Fine Gael-Labour coalition in Dublin was backing a treaty that would give away power to “unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in Frankfurt and Brussels.”

He also rubbished claims that a No vote on May 31 would shut Ireland out of future EU funds.

“It is a good and patriotic and positive action to say No to a treaty that is bad for you, bad for your family and community, bad for society and entirely without any social or economic merit,” he said.

Mr Adams pointed to the country’s 450,000 unemployed and the 70,000 emigrating each year.

Citizens “need to ask themselves if the austerity of recent budgets led to jobs and growth.

“The answer is obvious. The answer is No — if you accept that, you should vote No.”

Three new opinion polls suggest that voters will back the neoliberal treaty by three to two, but also that the Yes vote is slipping away.

Government ministers have expressed fears that voters would vent their anger over punishing budgets, brought in since the country’s economy collapsed and was bailed out by Brussels.

In last year’s general election Sinn Fein went from five MPs to 14 and polls suggest growing support for its anti-cuts position.

Ireland is the only country that needs voters to back the treaty.

See also here.

UPDATE: Irish referendum results here. And here.

Related articles

• Young, hopeless Europeans flock to ex-colonies (msnbc.msn.com)
• Gerry Adams calls on Irish Americans to support referendum on a United Ireland (irishcentral.com)

Good Pakistani crane news

This video is called Sarus Cranes – Giant Bird.

From Big News Network:

Sarus cranes seen in Pakistan after a decade

Sunday 27th May, 2012

Sarus cranes, the world’s tallest flying bird, is back in Pakistan after more than a decade, wildlife experts have said.

A pair sighted in Nagarparkar in Sindh province this year has given hope to wildlife enthusiasts that the rare bird may become part of Pakistan’s landscape once again.

At a meeting held by Pakistan’s Save Wildlife and Nature (SWAN) group, wildlife experts and government officials formed a group for the conservation of sarus cranes, Dawn News reported.

The meeting discussed the present status of the cranes’ population, the threats they were facing and the measures needed to address those problems.

Currently, there are about 15 species of cranes in the world and, of them, four species visited Pakistan during the winter — in the end of September — and left in early March, officials said.

The Siberian crane has not been seen in Pakistan for many years and the population of demoiselle cranes and common cranes is also dwindling.

And though sarus cranes are still found in large numbers in India, not a single bird had been sighted in Pakistan till this year, they said.

“Khyber Pakhtunkhwa tops the list where these birds are hunted on a large-scale followed by Balochistan and Punjab,” said wildlife conservationist Ashiq Ahmed Khan.

He said Nagarparkar used to be the breeding ground of sarus cranes which they were forced to leave when a flock was shot down in 1999. Since then there had been no report of the birds’ sighting.

Groups comprising wildlife enthusiasts have been formed in Punjab and Balochistan for the cranes’ conservation, he added.

Efforts to protect the cranes’ breeding habitats in Pakistan would include identification of sites for each species, mobilisation of communities for the birds’ protection and cooperating with private companies operating in areas visited by the birds.

Though the number of sarus cranes visiting Pakistan has not been calculated, between 13,500 and 15,500 have been seen in India and a species of the Eastern Sarus Crane estimated at between 500 and 1,500 survives in Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos. A species called the Australian Sarus Crane is limited to northeastern Australia, and probably numbers less than 5,000.

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• Rare whooping crane appears near Lake Okeechobee
• Crane Trust asks for help spotting whoopers
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• BIRDS OF A FEATHER: 40 years later, the International Crane Foundation is saving more than birds – they are saving environments
• Whooping cranes begin arriving at Aransas Wildlife Refuge

Shell pollutes Nigeria again

This video is called UN slams Shell over Nigeria oil pollution.

Translated from Vroege Vogels radio in the Netherlands:

Shell in Nigeria leaking again

May 27, 2012 9:02

Shell appears to be responsible for a leaking oil pipeline in the Nigerian village of K-Dere three weeks ago. There, according to Shell over 10,000 liter of oil leaked into the ground. This is apparent from an internal, handwritten report by the oil company obtained by VARA’s Vroege Vogels. Shell suggested in recent weeks in news media that this would supposedly a case of sabotage and oil theft by local people. However, the document makes clear that the pipeline is leaking because of rust (corrosion).

Commenting on the report by Shell, campaigner Geert Ritsema of Friends of the Aearth in the Netherlands responded angrily this morning in Vroege Vogels:

“Shell suggests constantly that the oil spills in the Niger Delta are caused by sabotage and oil theft by locals. This report shows once again that in many cases, that is not true. Shell are always the first ones to suggest that leakages are caused by the Nigerians. But you never hear Shell about their own faults. And we believe that in about half of all oil spills, that is the case.”

K-Dere has been repeatedly polluted by Shell leaks. A report by UNEP’s environmental agency of the United Nations from August 2011 shows that Shell oil leaked earlier in the village has never been properly cleaned. As a result, among other things, the groundwater is still polluted.

UNEP recommends in its report that Shell should take measures to reduce risks for K-Dere and surrounding villages. But Vroege Vogels reporter Elena Lindeman herself noted in April in K-Dere that so far little or nothing had been done with this recommendation.

Read Shell’s own report here.

Alberta Hit by Another Oil Pipeline Spill: here.

Dutch singer Carola Smit and her husband break links with Shell in protest: here.

Moroccan workers fight for their rights

This video is about Morocco’s youth-based February 20 Movement.

By AL ARABIYA WITH AFP:

Tens of thousands protest against Islamist-led Moroccan government

Sunday, 27 May 2012

Tens of thousands of Moroccans took to the streets of Casablanca on Sunday in the largest opposition protest since an Islamist-led government took office in January, according to AFP news agency.

The protest was organized by trade unions which accuse Prime Minister Abdelilah Benkirane of failing to deliver on the pledges of social justice that brought his party to power in the wake of the Arab Spring.

“The trade unions are united and the message to the Benkirane government is clear: he needs to change his strategy,” opposition Socialist MP Hassan Tariq told AFP.

“More than 50,000 people who are demonstrating to call on the government to start a genuine dialogue addressing our country’s social ills,” Tariq added.

But police sources estimated the crowd at around half that figure, according to AFP.

Hundreds of youths from the February 20 Movement — known as M20 — also turned out in Casablanca, Morocco’s largest city and the country’s economic capital.

Their movement was born of the wave of protests which took hold in the kingdom last year after pro-democracy revolts in Tunisia and Egypt toppled long-standing regimes.

Egyptian workers fight for their rights: here. And here.

Günter Grass poem on Greece, austerity, translation

This video is about poverty in Greece.

A video which used to be on YouTube was called Families Crumble In Greece’s Economic Crisis. It used to say about itself:

Seventy-year-old Eletharias cannot afford to go the supermarket any more, so for the past few months he has started rummaging for food in dustbins.

He goes out in Athens at night so that no one sees. When Sky News met him, he was collecting onions from some wheelie bins.

“Since my pension was cut, I can’t buy food so I look through the garbage,” he said, “I can only pray that things get better.”

He is among an increasing number of pensioners who have slipped into desperate poverty and rely on waste food to survive.

From The Local in Germany:

Grass attacks austerity forced on Greece

Published: 26 May 2012 12:01 CET

German Nobel literature laureate Günter Grass has followed his Israel-critical poem from last month with one tearing into European policy on Greece.

His latest poem, “Europe’s Shame”, published in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, talks of the chaos in Greece and the suffering there, yet warns that Europe would be soulless if Greece were to leave as it had dreamed up the European idea.

He describes Greece as a country condemned to poverty, and as a “country without rights, whose belt is pulled tighter and tighter by the powers with rights.”

See also here. And here. And here.

The original German text of the poem is here. It has much imagery from Greek mythology, Greek history and history of Greek and German literature.

The “you” to whom Grass addresses his poem, is Europe; more precisely, politicians like Angela Merkel.

Here is my translation:

Europe’s shame

Close to chaos, because the market is not just, you’re far away from the country which was your cradle.

What was searched and found with one’s soul, is now considered to be as worthless as scrap metal.

As a debtor put naked on the pillory, a country about which you used to say you were grateful, suffers.

Poverty doomed country whose maintained wealth adorns museums of the loot you kept.

Those [World War II German nazi occupation soldiers] who hit the country, blessed with islands, with the force of arms wore both uniforms and [books of German poet, inspired by ancient Greek poetry] Hölderlin in their knapsacks.

Barely tolerated country whose colonels were once tolerated by you as an alliance partner.

Country which lost its rights, whose belt is tightened and tightened again by the cocksurely powerful.

Antigone defying you wearing black and all over the country, the people whose guest you have been wear mourning clothes.

However, outside the country, the Croesus resembling followers have hoarded all what glitters like gold in your vaults.

Booze at last, drink! [European] Commissioners’ cheerleaders shout. However, Socrates gives you back the [hemlock poison] cup full to the brim.

Curse you as a chorus, which is characteristic of you, will the gods, whose Mount Olympus you want to steal.

You’ll waste away mindlessly without the country, whose mind invented you, Europe.

Christine Lagarde’s “tough love” is an insult to Greece. By urging Greeks to pay up without whingeing the IMF chief has revealed her deep historical and cultural ignorance: here.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, IMF Managing Director Christine Lagarde vented her class hatred for the workers of Greece, denouncing them as tax scofflaws and ruling out any respite from the austerity measures that have devastated the country: here.

Related articles

• IMF Lagarde heckled in Amsterdam (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
• IMF ‘to admit mistakes’ in handling Greek debt crisis and bailout (guardian.co.uk)
• IMF Admits: We Failed To Realise the Damage Austerity Would Do to Greece (transcend.org)
• IMF and Greece: Institutional Monstrous Failure | Editorial (guardian.co.uk)
• IMF leaders admit they got sums wrong over Greece (independent.co.uk)
• IMF Admits It Is An Idiot And A Liar (zerohedge.com)
• Lagarde Says Greece Has A Surplus (eu.greekreporter.com)
• Greece Considering Confiscation Of Private Assets (zerohedge.com)
• Guardian: Greece doesn’t need another rescue package – it needs a way out (keeptalkinggreece.com)

NATO kills Afghan children again

This video, from a few months ago, says about itself:

10 February 2012

Afghanistan‘s President Hamid Karzai has accused NATO of killing eight children in an air strike on the country’s territory. The incident adds to the already strained relationship between Afghanistan and its Western allies.

…

Gareth Porter, investigative journalist and historian talks to RT, claiming the UN is not doing a responsible job tracking the civilian casualties that are the result of night raids by US special operations forces.

And from AFP news agency today:

NATO air strike kills six children: officials

By Sardar Ahmad – 2 hours ago

KABUL, Afghanistan — A NATO air strike killed a family of eight, including six children, when it ploughed into their home in eastern Afghanistan, local officials said on Sunday.

Saturday night’s incident in Paktia province threatens to further sour already shaky ties between President Hamid Karzai and his Western backers and will likely enrage Afghan civilians weary of years of bloodshed.

“Eight people, a man, his wife and six of their children, are dead,” local government spokesman Rohullah Samoon told AFP.

“It was an air strike conducted by NATO. This man had no connection to the Taliban or any other terrorist group.”

A senior security official in Kabul confirmed the strike and deaths.

“It’s true. A house was bombed by NATO. A man named Mohammad Sahfee, his wife and six of their innocent children were brutally killed,” the official said.

A spokesman for NATO’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), Lt-Col Jimmie Cummings, said it was investigating the claim.

Civilian casualties are a highly sensitive issue in Afghanistan and have often roiled relations between Karzai and the United States, which leads NATO forces in the fight against Taliban insurgents.

Karzai, who signed a long-term strategic pact with President Barack Obama this month, argues that civilian deaths caused by allied troops turn common Afghans against his Western-backed government.

Karzai summoned ISAF commander General John Allen and US ambassador Ryan Crocker to the presidential palace just over two weeks ago after a number of civilians were killed in NATO airstrikes.

NATO and US forces in Afghanistan admitted in a joint statement after the meeting that civilians had died in two separate hits.

The statement gave no details of how many civilians died in each of those incidents but local officials put the total at more than 20, including women and children.

Yet another Afghan family (and a bakery in Pakistan) is extinguished by an airstrike: unleash the justifications: here.

USA: Iraq, Afghanistan Veterans Filing For Disability Benefits At Historic Rate: here. And here.

In March, the United States and Afghanistan announced that the U.S.-run Bagram prison near Kabul will soon be handed over to Afghan control. It was a major diplomatic breakthrough that paved the way for the signing of a Strategic Partnership Agreement by President Obama and President Karzai on May 2. But the agreement to handover Bagram is leading to a dramatic and dangerous expansion of detention power in Afghanistan-and a potentially disastrous legacy for the United States: here.

In Kabul, No One Hears the Poor. Kathy Kelly, War Is a Crime: “In Afghanistan, ‘women have a bad situation,’ said Fatima. ‘We are illiterate, and we can’t find work that will help us meet expenses.’ They pay one- to two-thousand Afghanis a month for rent. Their homes are compounds where several families share one kitchen. Bread, potatoes, and tea without sugar constitute their normal daily meals”: here.

Bowe Bergdahl told his parents he was “ashamed to even be American” and was disgusted with the U.S. mission in Afghanistan and with the Army, according to emails quoted in Rolling Stone magazine. Bergdahl, a 26-year-old Army sergeant from Hailey, Idaho, was taken prisoner on June 30, 2009, in Afghanistan: here.

Bagram detainees want to use U.S. Constitution to argue for release: here.

Yemen, Bahrain revolutions on Dutch TV

This video is called Bahrain: royal family orders army to shoot unarmed civilians.

As the last part of a TV series on revolutions in Arab countries, tonight at 20:30 Central European Time on Dutch Nederland 2 TV, there will be reports from Yemen and Bahrain.

After the reports will have been broadcast, there will be a video of them, here.

Translated from Dutch TV on tonight’s report:

[Last] part: The invisible insurrection

In Yemen, [reporter] Rosenmöller visits Tawakkul Karman, the Nobel laureate who, despite the resignation of President Saleh, is still protesting in a tent camp. Karman accuses Saleh of still pulling the strings behind the scenes, and says that the army secretly supports Al Qaeda. But the cousin of Saleh, still at the head of the security services, smears the winner of the Nobel Prize for supposedly being a liar. “You will hear many lies in Yemen!”

…

Finally, Bahrain, the political football between Sunni Saudi Arabia and Shiite Iran, a small country of great geopolitical importance. The country where the protests seem to have no end, and where many a journalist is arrested or expelled. At the border, all equipment is seized. Despite the fact that the film crew must give up all equipment, they manage to talk with opposition members, to visit a family of one of the killed protesters, and to interview Bahraini doctor Ali Ekri. Ekri is out on bail. In anticipation of a prison sentence of fifteen years for helping the wounded and the disclosure of the practices of the police and the army. A unique insight into the uprising which the Bahraini royal family is anxiously trying to keep secret.

Bahrain: After UPR Geneva session, Alkhalifa lost legitimacy to remain: here.

Bahrain Live Coverage: Regime on Human Rights “You Are Biased. P.S. We’ll Sue You”: here.

US State Department: Bahrain Report on Human Rights Practices for 2011: here.

Bahrain human rights defenders who were in Geneva earlier this week for the United Nations Universal Periodic Review (UPR) process are to be questioned by Bahrain’s Ministry of the Interior on their return to Bahrain, Jalila al Salman told Human Rights First: here.

Bahrain-Update: Human rights defender Mr Nabeel Rajab released on bail: here.

Ending the US War in Yemen, Tom Hayden, June 1, 2012: here.