How things have changed. The People Power colour revolutions have spluttered and now faded away as reality starts to bite, as it becomes increasingly apparent that people are not easily duped by pie-in-the-sky promises and crucially, as it becomes blatantly obvious that each nation occupies a cultural space that has to be respected.  It therefore comes as no surprise that Viktor Yanukovych has won the Ukrainian Presidential election against Yulia Tymoshenko. And even less of a surprise that the darling of the West, the pock-marked face of the Orange Revolution, outgoing President Viktor Yushchenko is a political nobody in no-man's land. The Ukrainians did not want to join NATO, the Ukrainians did not want to be colonised by the European Union. They want jobs, they want schools, they want hospitals, they want to eat.

The first results from exit polls would indicate a clear victory for Viktor Yanukovych with around 49.42% of the vote, with Yulia Timoshenko garnering around 44.46%, a lead of five points.  Will we once again witness a sea of protesters in Independence Square, Kiev, chanting "Razom nas bahato! Nas ne podolaty!" (Together we are many! We cannot be defeated!), as was the case in November 2004? In a word, no. Independence Square is empty, the Orange revolution has run out of steam; in fact it never came to the boil.  

Western Museums are brimming with cultural heritage...from other countries. The Elgin Marbles are just one set of tens of thousands of artefacts looted from distant lands during colonial or imperialist times. However, the same desecration of cultural heritage continues. How many of the 13,000 artefacts stolen from Baghdad National Museum are today in the United States of America?

The list was drawn up and given to Vice-President Richard (Dick) Cheney before the first US or British soldier set foot in Iraq. It was a shopping list of archaeological treasures which the White House cronies wanted to see on their shelves in Rhode Island, in Maryland, in Virginia. UNESCO claims that when the Baghdad National Museum was looted in April 2003, 13,000 objects disappeared. How many of these are sitting in private homes in the USA?   

The meeting on Thursday between the new President of the Russian Football Union Sergei Fursenko and the Manager of Russia's national soccer team Guus Hiddink ended with a decision for the Dutchman to stay in charge of the team he led to the bronze medal in EURO 2008 for a further two years.

The speculation is over. Guus Hiddink stays as Chief Coach of the Russian national soccer team for a further two years after his contract runs out in June, giving him the chance to lead Russia to the UEFA finals in 2012 in Poland-Ukraine. Guss Hiddink arrived in charge of Russia in 2006 and led the team through a brilliant qualifying phase to the finals of the UEFA Euro 2008 in Austria-Switzerland, finishing in equal third place with Turkey.    

To state that International Terrorism does not exist, is dangerous because it is untrue. To state that International Islamist Terrorism exists as a structured organism with a command and control apparatus that poses a serious danger seems unrealistic. To state that the Islamist Terrorist threat will be easily destroyed in a question of a few years is simplistic.

What is the difference between a terrorist and a common murderer? The first has a cause and claims to fight for an ideal, and murders. The second murders. The first murders indiscriminately, not caring whether his/her victims are men, women or children. The second is more likely to target fellow criminals, people associated with him/herself, and most likely, adult males.    

Spain must not waver in its position on Kosovo. A colossus among the snivelling bunch of cowards surrounding it, Spain is a champion of international law in refusing to recognise as an independent country what has always been, what is and what always will be a Province of the Republic of Serbia. Kosovo is not an independent State and has no right whatsoever to claim statehood.

Spain has showed a great deal of courage in not allowing its hand to be forced over Kosovo, recognising that under international law, this Serbian province has no claim to independence at all. The fundamental principles of international law are set forth under the UN Charter which guarantees the inviolability of frontiers and guarantees the right of State sovereignty over a territory. UN Security Council Resolution 1244 serves to "reaffirm the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" recognising further that Serbia is the recognised successor state.  

The United Nations Organization recognizes that in post-disaster scenarios, the most effective way to protect human rights and the most vulnerable members of society is to involve women in the relief process, due to their natural capacities and capabilities - despite recognizing that they are also most in need at such times.  The United Nations Organization recognizes that in post-disaster scenarios, the most effective way to protect human rights and the most vulnerable members of society is to involve women in the relief process, due to their natural capacities and capabilities - despite recognizing that they are also most in need at such times.

CEDAW, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women, recognizes that after disasters occur, the natural capacities of women as caretakers of children, the elderly, injured and disabled affords them a critical role in early recovery and in implementation of long-term sustainability mechanisms.   

The dark history of President Alvaro Uribe is well known for its seedy connections to narco-traffickers, terrorists and murderers. When Mayor of the City of Medellin, narco-terrorist death squads sent thousands of civilians to the most horrific deaths. Now, mass graves with thousands of bodies have been uncovered.

Columbia is covered in a fine white powder. It is called cocaine. The leaves of the coca plant are crushed and pounded with a solvent. Wax is then removed from the solution and hydrochloric acid is added to the remainder to separate out the cocaine alkaloids. The crystals that are left are dissolved with methyl alcohol, are recrystallized and dissolved in sulphuric acid. 

Let us spell a message to the Davos World Economic Forum before it gathers next week: Jobs are families. As unemployment rates reach record levels there can be no doubt that the current monetarist-market-oriented economic model contains vectors which create endemic instability, engender extreme instability in the labour market and send families lurching from one crisis to the next in a boom-and-bust climate. Perhaps the economists at Davos can do what they are paid for: produce an alternative that works.

The controlled economies of the COMECON block were derided in the west as being unviable. Yet they created continuous growth rates, development rates, financed excellent universal free education, excellent and free universal healthcare, free utilities, free public transports, free and guaranteed housing, communications, zero unemployment, leisure time activities, social mobility and indexed pensions. And policed the streets and provided security.  

Yesterday (January 27) was designated as the Day to Remember the Victims of the Nazi Holocaust, the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau concentration camp by Soviet troops. What those Soviet soldiers found there, the largest of the many concentration camps spread throughout Europe from Germany to the three Baltic States, stunned the world into silence as images of the most shocking cruelty leaked out.

The Holocaust (from the Greek holos - whole and kaustos - burnt) is a word normally associated with the extermination of Jewish people by the Right-wing Nazi Fascist regime at whose apex sat Hitler and whose tentacles spread throughout all of non-neutral Europe with the exception of Britain in the west and the Soviet Union in the East, implementing practices of sheer evil.

Yet this evil was not directed only against Jews. The Holocaust victims included homosexuals, gypsies (Romani), the disabled, Jehovah's Witnesses, other religious opponents, political prisoners, Poles, Soviet p.o.w.s and Soviet citizens. While the exact number of people who died during this process is open to debate (official figures may include those who died of natural causes and diseases) and if the preliminary result is not exactly the six million Jews the history books claim, then the final result must be far more if one extrapolates the known records of deaths from certain camps and makes a calculation for the whole.

Just in the three Baltic States for example, the figures are staggering: in Latvia, between 70,000 and 85,000 Jews were exterminated in the camps of Mezaparks at Kaiserwald near Riga, Daugavpils, Lenta, Liepaja, Strazdu Manor, Dundaga, Jelgava, Valmiera, Salaspils and Jumpravmuita. In Estonia, up to 30% of the country's Jewish population was murdered in the camps of Auvere, Aseri, Dorpat, Ereda, Goldfields, Idu-Virumaa, Illinurme, Jagala, Johvi, Kalevi-Liiva, Kivioli, Klooga, Kukruse, Kunda, Kuremae, Lagedi, Narva, Narva-Joesuu, Petschur, Putki, Saka, Stara Gradiska, Sonda, Soski, Tartu, Vaivara, Viivikonna and Wesenburg. Estonia's Romany population was practically wiped out: unlike the Jews, most of whom managed to escape, they had nowhere else to go. And in Lithuania, between 135,000 and 220,000 people were slaughtered at the camps of Kovno (Kaunas), Kauen, Slobodka, HKP at Vilna and Prawienischken.

So if in this tiny corner of Europe, some 300,000 people (documented cases) lost their lives, the claims that the "real" Holocaust figures were far lower than six million would tend to pale into the absurd, while it is far more probable that the "real" figure would reveal that the six million estimate is if anything conservative, especially since so many different ethnic groups were the victims.

Holocaust deniers

Those who deny that the holocaust ever happened can be prosecuted under the laws of several states yet instead of lending these people any degree of credence through prosecution, it would seem more befitting to classify them in the same set as those who claim the Earth is flat, that the Moon doesn't exist or that there are fairies at the end of the garden.

To claim that the concentration camps and gas chambers and ovens were all a fake is taking the conspiracy theory to the realms of the absurd and is a callous statement of disrespect for the men, women and children who died in the most horrific and appalling circumstances. The very fact that people were held at all, against their will, is an outrage against human rights and whether or not people died in these camps as a result of disease or through systematic extermination does not exonerate those who held them from responsibility.

Remembering the past to teach for the future

The UNO stresses the importance of holocaust survivors sharing their stories, as a means to encourage respect for diversity and for human rights. As Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon stated, "Holocaust survivors will not be with us forever but the legacy of their survival must live on".

The legacy of their survival is firstly, that the holocaust indeed took place, that mankind can easily sink to the most horrific and barbaric levels of depravity within a very short space of time, that unthinkable cruelty and wholesale disrespect for the human condition based upon racist hatred is wholly possible and happened within living memory. The legacy is also one of victory over evil, a message that however hopeless the plight of a human being may seem, there is hope of survival and that if people stand together, the notion of strength through human solidarity is real and valid.

As we remember the victims of the Holocaustt, not only but also the Jews, thhe gypsies, disabled, homosexuals, Soviets, Poles and religious groups, among others, we should also remember the Negro Holocaust, which was the holistic burning and desecration of the cultures of hundreds of peoples through the practice of slavery and indeed other acts of barbarity and cruelty perpetrated throughout history.

Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY

PRAVDA.Ru

The Conference held by Afghan women activists ahead of the Afghanistan Conference on Thursday served as a launching point for their recommendations on good governance and a lasting solution which will bring stability to all members of society, paving the way towards reconstruction. The key? In a word, inclusion.  The Afghan women activists' recommendations on security, development and governance are the only input from Afghan women concerning the key decisions being taken about their country...by men.

Three quotes, to highlight the plight of Afghanistan's women and to underline why the London Conference gets it right:  "As the global community knows, nowhere are women's rights more at stake than in Afghanistan. Therefore it is of grave concern that women's voices and perspectives are largely missing from this London conference on Afghanistan's future. The international community should stand behind the women of Afghanistan, and elevate their voices, not barter away their rights in the name of short-term peace and stabilization". (Wazma Frogh, Afghan Gender and Development Specialist).   

As the London Conference on Afghanistan gets under way, it is imperative that the international community gets it right after nearly ten years of mistakes which have cost thousands of lives, hundreds of billions of dollars and have done nothing whatsoever to improve the daily lives of the majority of the Afghan population.

Having sided with the war lords against the Pashtun-based Taliban, the international community took a short-term option which has turned into a nightmare, turning the historic ethnic mix of the country upside-down. The appearance of foreign troops has only exacerbated the Afghan population who do not see them as freedom fighters but invaders and vast quantities of the rivers of taxpayers' money being spent in Afghanistan are squandered.    

We all know what the West thought about the 5-day Georgian War in the Summer of 2008  because reputable media outlets suddenly transformed themselves into peddlers of cheap propaganda without an iota of truth. We present a series of views in essays issued by the Russian Center of Analysis of Strategies and Technologies in Moscow. What really happened in the Caucasus?

In these essays, three things are clear: Firstly, the discrepancy between the USA's training Georgian elements for counter-insurgency actions in the war against terror and the Saakashvili regime's policy of rearmament for a military assault to retake South Ossetia and Abkhazia. To what extent was the Bush regime aware of this?  

On the eve of the Afghanistan Conference in London, a male dominated affair hosted and chaired by six men, where decisions will be taken by men and for men, a handful of Afghan women activists, backed by UNIFEM and the Institute for Inclusive Security, are meeting in London to release their recommendations - the only input from consultation with Afghan women on key issues affecting their country and society.

On the eve of the Afghanistan Conference in London, a male dominated affair hosted and chaired by six men, where decisions will be taken by men and for men, a handful of Afghan women activists*, backed by UNIFEM and the Institute for Inclusive Security, are meeting in London to release their recommendations - the only input from consultation with Afghan women on key issues affecting their country and society.    

Disaster strikes some poor, forgotten corner of the world which most people had never heard of. The media circus descends, outlets vying with one another to show the most shocking pictures. The international aid circus follows this, promises of aid by Governments follow that and finally, in-depth stories and profiles flow on the Net and in newspapers. A week later the story starts to slide. Two weeks later it's behind the Oscars and after the third week, it's forgotten.

Then what happens?   

International arrest warrants have been requested for George W. Bush, Richard (Dick) Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, George Tenet, Condoleeza Rice and Alberto Gonzales at the International Criminal Court, The Hague, Netherlands  Professor of Law Francis A. Boyle of the University of Illinois College of Law in Champain, United States of America, has issued a Complaint with the Prosecutor for the International Criminal Court against the above-mentioned for their practice of "extraordinary rendition" (forced disappearance of persons and subsequent torture) in Iraq and for criminal policy which constitutes Crimes against Humanity in violation of the Rome Statute which set up the ICC.

As such, the Accused (mentioned above) are deemed responsible for the commission of crimes within the territories of many States signatories of the Rome Statute, in violation of Rome Stature Articles 5 (1)(b), 7 (1)(a), 7 (1)(e), 7 (1)(g), 7(1)(h), 7(1)8i) and 7(1)(k). Despite the fact that the USA is not a signatory State, the ICC has the jurisdiction to prosecute under Article 12 (2)(a) of the Rome Statute.   

The Polish Defense Ministry announced that a base with up to eight launch pads manned by some 100 U.S. troops will be installed in Warminsko-Mazurskie Province close to Morag, 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the Poland-Kaliningrad border.  This is a worse option than when first announced, the claim then was that it would be placed 100 kilometers from the border with Russia. 

"In Morag we could offer the best conditions for American soldiers and the best technical base for the equipment," said Polish Radio. 

Poland says the missiles, to be installed in April, will be used to "train" the military.  Train the military to do what remains unclear.  According to the SOFA, U.S. troops will service Patriot missiles that are to be integrated into Poland's national security system.    

The international community is trying to prevent an urban disaster becoming a rural catastrophe, planning to help the new influx of city-dwellers to the countryside establish themselves. Ban Ki-Moon praises the resilience of the Haitian population.  After all, in how many countries would people be singing in the streets and playing musical instruments after what they have been through?

The international community is trying to prevent an urban disaster becoming a rural catastrophe, planning to help the new influx of city-dwellers to the countryside establish themselves. Ban Ki-Moon praises the resilience of the Haitian population.  After all, in how many countries would people be singing in the streets and playing musical instruments after what they have been through?      

President Barack Obama does not have a magic wand. Yet he is expected to be some kind of magician. President Barack Obama inherited one of the worst economic scenarios in the history of the planet. Yet he is expected to be some kind of guru. Do any of those attacking him with such venom in reputable international media outlets realise that an ideal political cycle (for implementation of policy) takes seven years, and not just one?

President Barack Obama inherited a hot potato. Not only was the United States of America's image ruined abroad after war crimes in Serbia, the imperialistic Kosovo debacle, war crimes in the illegal war in Iraq and the decision to back the murderous war criminal Saakashvili in Georgia after 2,000 Russian civilians were murdered in the most blatant cowardly act of treachery...its economic infrastructure was at breaking point after eight years of the Bush regime and the banking and economic sectors were in free-fall.    

Damaged graves, racist graffiti. Arson against a mosque. Settlements continue to be built in East Jerusalem, against international law. IDF forces seen violating the border. Inhumane blockade on Gaza putting the lives of 1.4 million people at risk. While flouting international law, does Israel realise how disastrous its PR campaign is?

Israel is in breach of every fiber of international law

Is Israel above international law? Is there one law for the international community and another for Israel? Let us examine some rulings by international legal organisms, namely the International Court of Justice, The Hague Convention, the Geneva Convention and the UN Security Council:   

Why should the international community be spending two hundred and fifty billion dollars of its taxpayers' hard-earned money to perform state-building in Afghanistan when this country now produces 40 times more heroin than ten years ago and when corruption accounts for 2.5 billion dollars a year for NATO-trained officials to get rich?  A recent UN report, "Corruption in Afghanistan: Bribery as Reported by Victims" issued by the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) reveals that for the vast majority of the citizens of Afghanistan, the worst problem is corruption and not insecurity, despite the fact that this is becoming worse by the day. The report was based upon a survey involving 7,600 people in 12 provincial capitals and 1,600 villages.

In the last year, Afghanistan's citizens paid 2.5 billion dollars in bribes to the authorities to secure basic services which were supposed to be a right. Antonio Maria Costa, Executive Director of UNODC, states in the report "The Afghans say that it is impossible to obtain a public service without paying a bribe". It revealed that 50% of Afghans had to pay some sort of bribe in the period in question.