With so many experts working in so many different fields, with so much collective academic weight and expertise, it seems strange that the United Nations Organization speaks about the ways and means to build "The future we want" - you would have thought they would already have done it, rather than be still speaking about it.
Let us examine what Ban Ki-Moon suggests that the global community does over the next five years to build what he sees as a collective future. His vision is based upon five imperatives: sustainable development; preventing and mitigating conflicts, human rights abuses and the impacts of natural disasters; building a safer and more secure world; supporting countries in transition; and working to engage the talents of women and young people.
For the Secretary-General of the UNO, tackling these five areas will "help create a safer, more secure, more sustainable, more equitable future. A plan to build the future we want." The action agenda includes a campaign to eradicate the world's most deadly diseases and medical conditions: malaria, polio, paediatric HIV infections, maternal and neonatal tetanus, and measles and a plan to make Antarctica a World Nature Preserve.
On the table is a World Humanitarian Summit to establish common best practices and the creation of a New UN Partnerships Facility "to harness the full power of transformative partnerships across the world body".
Sexy soundbites
Sexy soundbites, the key words are all there, namely sustainable development, empowerment, Nature, combating diseases, mitigation of conflicts and (violins) making the world a better place. In fact, sexy soundbites is what Ban Ki-Moon and the United Nations Organization is all about, in other words, pith and wind, flights of fantasy, verbosity, a load of hot air and in plain English, a pretentious verborrea followed by chronic constipation of action.
Despite the very considerably great work being carried out by some UNO departments, among these being Michelle Bachelet's UN Women and António Guterres' UNHCR (the High Commission for Refugees), how long and after spending how many trillions of dollars has it taken the United Nations Organization to ask itself the question how we can build the future we want?
Five alternative points for a better world
And the future does not pass by verbosity, pie-in-the-sky ideals and wasting billions of panels of experts and meetings, it has to do with drawing up simple and concrete plans and it has to do with their effective implementation.
While a Nature Reserve for sea birds, narwhals, seals and microscopic bacteria in Antarctica may be a very noble ideal and wonderful as it sounds to say "just because you can't see something, doesn't mean that it does not exist", there are more pressing areas that need attention.
1. First and foremost, the world community needs a law-making body with the powers to implement international law. The situation today is that international law exists but is disrespected, breached and insulted by NATO, by the FUKUS-Axis (France, UK; US and Israel), countries which do as they please when they please with impunity. It would not be difficult for a fresh law book to be drawn up with clear rules and procedures for crisis management, signatory states being bound to adhere to them under penalty of exclusion from the UNO and the consequent total international isolation.
2. An international court which uses the same sets of weights and measures for all under equal conditions, with legal powers over all citizens. How can we have an international penal system from which some states declare their citizens immune from prosecution while these same countries prosecute those from others?
3. A universal charter of human rights, expressing clearly universal values which include the integrity of the person at least until adult age, which would exclude practices such as female genital mutilation; a charter which would be all-inclusive and which would outlaw racism, sexism, bride killings, honour killings, homophobia and which would be implemented worldwide into the current legal systems, ensuring swift punishment for infraction.
How can you speak about empowerment for women when women are being killed for not wearing a veil in some countries, when they can be stoned to death for being raped in others or when they have their clitoris cut out when they are girls so they "will not feel like fooling around" when they are women? A part of this would also include dismantling networks of human trafficking, child abuse, sexual abuse and slavery and forced prostitution, the implementation of laws in legal codes worldwide and the means to police and follow-up.
4. A worldwide crackdown on illegal trafficking and production of harmful substances, policed by a UN body which acts as if it meant to do something, instead of running round in circles while Institutions close to the authorities in certain countries in fact control the drugs trade and use it as a financial and social weapon. Included in this should be a far-reaching study into transgenic production and genetically modified foodstuffs, a labelling campaign where all substances are clearly marked on the container on the shelf and a policy which goes back to the implementation of healthy food production and healthy food on the table, instead of a pile of chemicals which if used over a period of time is downright dangerous.
5. The fifth and final point has to do with the dismantling of the idiotic financial and economic system which has been imposed upon the population of the world in a top-down and arrogant approach, favouring the haves and keeping the have-nots down, creating conditions for those who control production to spiral upwards and for the growing number of poor to spiral downwards.
There has to be an alternative to a system in which tendentious ratings agencies dictate a country's debt rating, which in turn has concrete and tangible effects upon the present and future welfare of citizens who have nothing to do with the implementation of policies which made them vulnerable. The capitalist market-oriented system simply does not work and there are numerous models, past and present, of alternative systems where a social umbrella is provided and works, where wealth is distributed more evenly, where the use and ownership of resources is universal and where basic rights to education, to healthcare, to work, to housing, to transportation, to public utilities are guaranteed and are not the subject of a business exercise.
Five simple points, easy to draw up and to implement. If the United Nations cannot do this with the resources at its disposal, if the community of nations cannot do it after all these years, then let others try. I for one would do it for free with a minimum of resources in a very short space of time.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
What happens in the international community is not by chance, what is happening in Syria and Iran is not by chance. And what is happening in Syria and Iran? Who is behind the acts of terrorism? What is behind the assassinations and murder of high-ranking officials in both countries? We are building up to what, exactly? And where is the truth in the international press?
As usual, the international "bought" press has managed to come up with the same goods time and time again and so long as a gullible public, obediently swayed to where it is supposed to be by swallowing the tidy controlled media package daily, it is going to work: public opinion will acquiesce to the schemes of the arms and energy and banking lobbies which control Washington, and by proxy, NATO and the USA's allies.
For people to know what is really going on, let us take a look at what happens when you go shopping. OK, we all know by now that your costermonger, your greengrocer, your fishmonger, your butcher, your hardware store, your haberdashery and your baker belong in the deepest recesses of the reader's grandparents' memories and that these days if you want to buy something, you drive to a "Big Space", park your car, walk inside, put a coin in the trolley and push it around the store.
What you do not know is that you are controlled from the second you walk in, to the moment you leave. Not only are the goods placed strategically to make you more likely to buy them, the target products for your average two-year-old are higher up than those of the average five-year-old because the two-year-old will be seated on mummy's trolley and the five-year-old will be trailing behind looking at things at his/her eye level. The Big Space then relies on what it calls Pester Power for the buy.
The smells are controlled (coffee to make you feel like buying, bread to make you feel relaxed and at home), the music is controlled to make you move faster or slower and the impulse buys are placed at the check-out where you will spend your three to ten minutes waiting and you or your kids will eventually succumb.
What you also do not know is that the squeaky-clean media package placed before you daily in your nice crisp newspaper or your TV News programme is the result of a similar process of sinister manipulation. How many people were informed of Colonel Gaddafi's positive humanitarian record - for which he was to receive an award from the UNO? How many people knew he was spending his time trying to reduce casualties among the terrorists attacking his country to the minimum, negotiating with them before an attack took place?
Who informed the readers that NATO broke the rules, broke international law, supported terrorists on their own proscribed lists and committed acts of murder and war crimes?
Now let us move on to Syria and Iran. Where are the stories about the mass acts of murder inside both countries, taking out Generals, strategists and high-ranking politicians and scientists? Who is perpetrating these evil deeds, who are these terrorists? Why are these acts being committed?
The answer is perfectly simple. Syria is the last frontier between sanity and a balanced international community, a world ruled by the forces of right and reason and good, and the Satanic desires of the evil and invisible lobbies which are currently in power in Washington, and which in turn control the foreign policy of its allies. We are speaking here of those responsible for torture, for maintaining concentration camps such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, those who urinate in food, commit acts of sodomy on prisoners, those responsible for torture, for maintaining concentration camps such as Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, who detain persons without due process, without the right to a lawyer, to an accusation or a trial, who commit rape and murder, who break international law, who breach the UN Charter and Geneva Conventions and commit war crimes.
And this same evil clique is now swinging into action in the Middle East. First objective: Lebanon and Syria; second objective: The Islamic republic of Iran; third objective: the resources of Central Asia, leading to direct confrontation with Russia and the People's Republic of China, which passes by installing Washington-friendly regimes in all these countries so that guess who can siphon off the resources?
This is why Syria is the final frontier, this is why Syria must resist the intrusion of the Satanic Arab League and this is why Syria must destroy the demonic elements running amok inside the country committing acts of arson, butchery, terrorism, vandalism, murder and torture.
It is not difficult to stir up trouble, take advantage of internal divisions, divide and rule and reap the consequences from the chaos that is sown. That is exactly what the west has been doing for hundreds of years and continues to do today. It has to do not with freedom and democracy - why did NATO not allow the Libyan Jamahiriya government to hold an election? It has to do with control of resources and guaranteeing that the USD is used as the international currency in major deals, and that includes oil.
Why is it that when a country threatens to swap the USD for another currency in its dealings, it is invaded? As for what we can do, the bottom line is keep informed and hold the politicians responsible for their actions. Democracy does have a fatal fault for those who try to manipulate it, and that is the fact that the power lies ultimately in the hands of the voters.
Bring international policy onto the political agenda and don't let them lie to you and fool you about what is really going on. If you really feel your vote makes a difference, then create the conditions for this to be the case. Let us use citizen power to avoid world war three. After all those who push for it, will their sons be on the front line?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Prisoners held for years without rights, without contacting their families, without the right to a lawyer, to due process, being tortured, deprived of sleep, being insulted, held in arbitrary detention without formal accusation or right to defence. Is this some tinpot dictatorship? Why no, it is Guantanamo Bay, run by who else? The US of A.
United Nations Human Rights Commissioner Navi Pillay has hit out at the United States of America today over the Guantanamo Bay detention facility (or concentration camp), calling it a "clear breach of international law", calling for "accountability for serious violations - including torture and calling on the US Government to charge and prosecute, or else release, the detainees.
"It is 10 years since the US Government opened the prison at Guantanamo, and now three years since 22 January 2009, when the President ordered its closure within 12 months," said Navi Pillay in a news release today, adding "Yet the facility continues to exist and individuals remain arbitrarily detained - indefinitely - in clear breach of international law."
Worse still, the National Defense Authorization Act was signed into US law last month, codifying military detention without the right to due process, a piece of legislation which Navi Pillay describes as follows: "This piece of legislation contravenes some of the most fundamental tenets of justice and human rights, namely the right to a fair trial and the right not to be arbitrarily detained. Nobody should ever be held for years on end without being tried and convicted, or released."
Rather than admitting its fault and adhering to international legal norms, the United States of America is entrenched in its ways, entrenched in its arrogance and entrenched in its determination to act as the pariah of the international community. So much for Barack Obama's change and promises to close Guantanamo. Rather than that, he has tried to legalise it.
The UN Human Rights Commissioner recognised the right of the Government of the United States of America to take measures to protect its citizens against terrorism and violence, however she pointed out to Washington that international human rights law exists to be followed, and reminded the USA that it has the obligation to guarantee the right of individuals deprived of their liberty to have the lawfulness of their condition reviewed before a court of law.
She went on to state that those who have perpetrated, ordered, tolerated or condoned torture and ill-treatment should be brought to justice and she urged the USA to permit independent human rights monitoring at the detention facility.
Once again, Washington is caught behaving as the pariah state of the international community.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Romney vs. Obama: Elections and responsibility
The citizens of the United States of America do not have the right to say mind your own business to the international community, simply because the USA adopts an aggressive foreign policy which has consequences for everyone. Therefore the members of the international community have every right to an opinion on the Presidential elections in the USA.
Unfortunately, the election system in the United States of America is everything but democratic. It is a two-horse hole, a cynical preparation by those who rule the roost to dupe the gullible people of the USA into accepting which candidate looks smarter on TV, the one who lies better than the other and whose squeaky clean family life convinces the Satanic Christians to give him their vote. Satanic Christians, yes, because these are the ones who support murderous policies abroad; and "him" because the USA has yet to elect a woman: Hillary Clinton was appointed, not elected.
And behind the chosen candidate, closes the machinery of Government, endemically tied up with AIPAC (The American Israel Public Affairs Committee), and the business this clique engages in, from arms to telecommunications to banking to movies, and all the favours which will be called up over the forthcoming years. At the end of the day, the entire process is a sham, because as we see with Obama, the one who calls the shots is not the President, but rather, the faceless cowards surrounding him.
Enter the international community. Why? Say the citizens of the USA, what has it to do with anyone else? If the governments of the United States of America concentrated on internal policy, concentrated on bridging the gap between rich and poor within the USA and followed a foreign policy which concentrated on humanitarian aid, helping other countries to reach the position of excellence which the American Universities have reached and providing food and knowledge to regions affected by endemic drought, nobody could raise a finger.
But this is not the external policy of the United States of America. It never has been, not for the last two hundred years. The USA is a proxy British Empire, where the Sun never sets. Therefore since the choice by the citizens of the United States of America has a direct effect upon those of the international community, we have the right to call the shots. Basically you cannot have it both ways.
You elect a crypto-Fascist who panders to the whims of the arms and banking and energy and drugs lobbies who control the external policy of the USA, you are directly responsible for electing a pariah and for turning the USA into a pariah state.
Let us examine, for example, the case of Barack Obama. Commendable it was that the people of America did not use the race card, neither was the election taken to a racial stage: Obama won because he was the better candidate. He also won the Nobel Peace Prize. He then insulted it, he insulted the international community, he insulted the Nobel Institution and he insulted the Prize, rendering it insignificant for the rest of eternity with his sinister, demonic and inhumane foreign policy, wasting billions of dollars in launching an imperialistic campaign against Libya to steal its resources.
Where was Nobel Peace Prize Obama in the run-up to the escalating violence in Syria? Where is Nobel Peace Prize Obama in the escalating tension surrounding the Islamic Republic of Iran? Answer: Sabre rattling. So he is not a worth winner of the peace prize, is he?
So, the choices made by the people of the USA in electing the next President have to do not only with the citizens of America but also with those of the international community, since the consequences of the former affect the latter in tangible terms.
Certainly, the private life of Gingrich has nothing to do with anyone other than the candidate himself and his family (what is it anyway with US politicians and sex, are they all depraved, or what?); as regards Mitt Romney, his policies do not appear to differ that much from those of Gingrich, given that both of them would destroy what gains Obama has made in healthcare.
If we wish to introduce a democratic element into the US elections and actually cater for the wishes and desires of the people of the United States of America, then let us entertain the notion that a Ron Paul could have a go for the GOP and that Cynthia McKinney could ride on a Green ticket.
Can the USA and its citizens break the yoke forged by Washington, of a two-party, two-horse hole? I doubt it because to reach that stage of enlightenment, it takes some five hundred years and the USA is just over two centuries old.
So, international community: get ready for more screaming tantrums from the pariah-brat of international relations; citizens of America, remember to claim you are Canadians when travelling overseas. The international community is growing tired of you...
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
From time to time the international media needs to wake up and remember that there is a deadly virus lurking out there with a mortality rate far superior to the Black Death and between twenty and thirty times higher than Spanish Flu, which killed around 50 million people from 1918-1919. This is such a time.
The Indonesian health Ministry has confirmed another case of death occasioned by Influenza A H5N1 in a human - a five-year-old girl from the Province of Jakarta. She was hospitalised on January 7, developed severe breathing difficulties on January 13 and died on January 16. This is the latest of 184 Bird Flu cases in Indonesia, of which 152 have been fatal - a fatality rate of 82 per cent. She had close family contact with case 183 and was exposed to the same pigeons that caused that case.
In Egypt, the Ministry of Health and Population has confirmed two more human cases of A H5N1 - a two-year-old girl from Cairo Governorate, hospitalised, with a family history of contact with backyard poultry and a 31-year-old male from Fayium Governorate, who is also hospitalised and in a critical care unit. In Egypt, 55 of the 159 cases of A H5N1 have been fatal.
In Cambodia, 17 patients of the 19 cases with A H5N1 have died, the latest fatality occurring on January 18.
WHO: The importance of monitoring Influenza variants
The World Health Organization this week reported "several human infections with variant influenza viruses currently thought to be circulating in swine populations" which have so far been contained to small clusters. The WHO also refers to the incidence of bird-to-human transmission of Bird Flu, or A H5N1, which is also contained inside clusters.
However, claims the WHO, "because influenza viruses are unpredictable, they have the possibility to change and become more transmissible among humans as shown by the emergence of the influenza pandemic H1N1 virus in 2009". The WHO therefore urges all health authorities to be vigilant and reminds them it is compulsory to report all new strains of flu observed.
Scientists create H5N1: Bird Flu - Twice as deadly as the Black Death
If A H1N1 (Swine Flu) had a high incidence rate and a mortality rate at the higher end of the normal parameters, then A H5N1 (Bird Flu) is entirely different, having a global mortality rate of around 60%. That is why scientists, for purposes of studying this strain further, have performed genetic alterations on the H5N1 virus in a laboratory environment (5 alterations) and have managed to create an airborne strain which would provide human-to-human transmission. In plain language, it would be twice as virulent and deadly as the Black Death.
The new strain produced eventually proved to be highly transmissible among laboratory ferrets, generally considered to be a good indication as to what would happen among humans, something that has the biosecurity community hearing alarm bells ringing because of a potential leak or the threat of the secret falling into the wrong hands.
The researchers made five changes to the genetic composition of the virus and observed how it interacted with the respiratory tract, so as to better understand the mechanisms which might be involved in a human-to-human transmissible H5N1 outbreak. The alterations allowed the virus to attack to nasal and tracheal cells, however it was still initially difficult to spread through close contact. Therefore, the research team decided to make it easier.
Exposing ferrets to infected material from other ferrets injected with the virus, and repeating the process ten times, they managed to develop a strain of H5N1 as transmissible as seasonal flu. This latest research has horrified some sections of the medical community, which consider that is is not a good idea to turn a deadly virus into a highly contagious one, much less publish the results. For this reason the details of the research are as yet unavailable.
1918 Spanish Flu
This would not be the first time a deadly Influenza virus has been created, however. In 2005, scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reconstructed the H1N1 1918 Pandemic Influenza virus (Spanish Flu), which killed between 50 and 100million people worldwide. The entire gene sequence of this virus was deciphered and the scientists were able to recreate viruses with similar characteristics.
The H1N1 Pandemic Influenza virus was the worst outbreak in history and genetically, it was different from any other flu viruses that had hitherto attack humans. The US-based researcher and scientist Jeffery Taubenberger has described the 1918 virus as "the most bird-like of all mammalian flu viruses".
Food for thought. It is evident that with the constant mutations occurring to the Influenza virus, sooner or later a species leap may occur. Until it does, let us all remember a few basic steps we can take to avoid contagion.
* If you are sick, stay at home;
* Cough or sneeze into a tissue or the bend of your arm. Dispose of the tissue down a flush toilet;
* Wash the hands frequently;
* Use a sanitising hand gel regularly;
* Wipe all surfaces you touch upon arriving home with a tissue soaked in an alcohol-based substance or sanitising hand gel, namely door handles, keys, light switches and taps;
* When outside, avoid touching surfaces where the flu virus can collect, such as door handles, elevator buttons, etc. Wear gloves, use sanitizing hand gel upon arrival in a building. Avoid touching the mouth or eyes.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Economists the world over are running around like headless chickens in the wake of the global financial and banking crises and in the run-up to what promises to be a spectacular economic collapse. The epicentre of stupidity continues to be the EU where the answer to any question is: We don't know!
How can you create an economic system and not know the consequences of the different vectors which will necessarily interplay with it as it grows, or thrives or even dies? If you are involved at any level of government in the European Union, the answer to this question is perfectly simple: you just go ahead, allow yourself to become caught up in a wave of euphoria where everyone is living in cliché-land in the amazing and astonishing alliteration of the European Economic Expanse which Promises Progress for the People, you impose it top-down on 500 million people and thousands of years of history, without asking anyone of course and if anyone asks you what the hell you think you are doing, you say "I don't know, je ne sais pas or Es weiss ich nicht".
Welcome to the Merkozy Space, in which modern Germany has managed to succeed where Hitler failed, in which Germany financed the other countries to destroy their industries and agriculture so that Deutschland could rule über alles and in which France has, as usual, adopted a position crawling around Germany's feet, whimpering and simpering on demand at the crack of the whip.
The industries are gone, agriculture and fisheries have been destroyed, there are no more jobs, except for a minimum salary for a Brazilian or Ukrainian cleaning lady, or a Surinamese bricklayer, all willing to live in a room with a shared toilet with other like-minded and hard-working immigrants so as to be able to send some money home.
That apart, the scenario is rising unemployment, closure and bankruptcy of record numbers of businesses, no job prospects for students, no money for subsidies or pensions, increasing insecurity in the Eurozone, speculative attacks from the ratings agencies chipping away at confidence and strategically undermining any hopes of recovery, all attacking countries standing on the quicksands of the EU's own impositions, such as the Convergence Rate, forcing countries and economies into shapes and forms that they had never previously assumed. Never mind, the more pressure the system laid on (in an absence of democratic process), the more companies went bust, leaving more clients for the Merkozy space, ruled more by Merko than Sarko in fact.
So no wonder the EU is in a mess and no wonder the Eurozone is about to implode, with the ensuing drama for homeowners and consumers in Euroland (mortgages will shoot up way ahead of salaries and so will consumer prices; home ownership will plummet, foreclosure will soar, social strife is guaranteed. Welcome to the capitalist model).
The policymakers over the last two to three decades have displayed an economic myopia bordering on blindness, have failed to display a modicum of emotional intelligence and have limited themselves to obediently implementing market economy laboratory policies which have taken money out of the economy, stifling the drivers of growth, jobs and sustainability. Instead of spending their way into an upturn or at least stability, which the Latin American economies managed to do, the EU and North America faced the intruder by mining their own household.
And these are households built on sand - the ratings agencies have been given the power to dictate a country's credit rating, and in heavily indebted economies with massive levels of sovereign debt (because the policymakers, in their utter wisdom, mismanaged their economies spending not only what they had but gambling away the future for immediate and paltry returns), the power these agencies wield dictates all - pensions, cash flow, financing of projects.
When the policymakers learn that in a controlled economy where commodities belong to the State, these commodities do not have to be paid for as such, neither do services rendered by State employees demand outward expenditure, because it all remains within the system, when the policymakers learn that countries took thousands of years to settle down and show what they did best and that this is not supposed to be destroyed in two decades; when the policymakers learn that government works best when it has a bottom-up approach and caters for the people, not a handful of failed academics, then maybe western Europe and North America can crawl out of the hole they dug for themselves.
The question is, have they already fallen so far in that the next decades are already heavily compromised?
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
The Taleban government in Afghanistan was fighting against the production of opium and had greatly reduced it. With the collective resources, armies and wisdom of NATO's 40 nations firmly entrenched in the country for over a decade, the findings of the latest UN Report are a disgrace.
What NATO wanted in Afghanistan we all know and this was very clear to all before the Mujaheddin were launched by the FUKUS-Axis (France, UK, US and Israel) in the 1970s to destabilise the only socially progressive government Afghanistan has had, providing good governance for all citizens, including women and children, in an inclusive society devoid of gender-based exclusion.
The FUKUS-Axis, as usual, could not have cared less about human rights, women's rights or children's rights, as it launched the Mujaheddin through the Pakistani Madrassah, armed, aided and abetted them and threw them into battle against the Soviet Armed Forces. When the Mujaheddin morphed into the Taleban movement, women's rights were suppressed but so was the production of opium.
Under NATO, the drugs barons apparently have a free hand to engage in what they know best - how to produce as much heroin as possible to flood the streets of our cities, enriching the handful who control this evil trade. The basic and fundamental question is, what is NATO doing to stop it? If we take the latest UN report as a guideline, the answer is precious little.
In fact, reading the 2011 Afghan Opium Survey, it is hard to believe NATO's military and political leaders are cringing and bowing their heads in shame, rather that they must be rubbing their hands in glee. The results are utterly unacceptable and wholly scandalous: the joint survey made by the UNO and the Afghan Government reveals that the farm-gate receipts for opium in Afghanistan are around 1.4 billion USD, 9% of the GDP of the country and a 133 per cent increase over the previous year. Total export earnings from opiates for Afghanistan are worth 2.4 billion USD, or 15% of GDP. In the words of the UNODC (United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) Executive Director Yury Fedotov, "Opium is therefore a significant part of the Afghan economy and provides considerable funding to the insurgency and fuels corruption."
Afghanistan produces 90% of the world's opium, covering 131,000 hectares. For those who will cry foul and claim that the income revealed in this document is not due to higher production, but rather to higher prices, the fact remains that according to the same UN report, the area under cultivation increased by 7% in 2011 compared with 2010 and the quantity produced rose by 61%, from 3,600 tons to 5,800 tons.
Yury Fedotov concludes: "The Afghan Opium Survey 2011 sends a strong message that we cannot afford to be lethargic in the face of this problem. We thank the Government of Afghanistan for the leadership and dedication already shown, but a stronger commitment from a broad range of national and international partners is needed to turn this worrying trend around".
If opium production is increasing by so much under NATO's watchful eye and if NATO has been there for over a decade, then we can only draw our own conclusions.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
William Hague's letter is a study in pig-faced arrogance, sheer shit-headedness and downright priggish insolence. As for the Nobel Prize, Hague's friend across the pond rendered that useless by accepting the peace prize and then becoming Obomber. As for science and technology, the UK's one main contribution is the Crapper.
William Hague has begun a public awareness campaign in the international press declaring that 2012 is Britain's year, with London hosting the Olympic Games and the Queen celebrating her Jubilee sixtieth year on the throne. While Her Majesty has done an excellent job, her Governments have not - the last six have been involved in no less than 9 wars.
The circular letter posted by the Foreign and Commonwealth Secretary in the international press this Sunday is a nice attempt to whitewash the wall which he himself and his colleagues and friends among the FUKUS-Axis (France, UK, US and Israel) fouled with graffiti. The letter opens with the message New Year, let's look to the future, then launches into a orgy of introspection and an orgasm of self-congratulatory diatribes, beginning with the Queen's sixtieth jubilee, continuing with London's hosting of the Olympic Games for the third time and then following on with how the Great British public will welcome visitors.
The mind boggles.
His letter finishes with a mention of the Cultural Olympics at the London Festival 2012, during which the richness and diversity of Britain's culture will be celebrated, calling for the world community to "join us" and (here starts another self-congratulatory rant) discover the UK's heritage and the reasons why it has four of the top ten Universities, why the UK is the easiest country in the EU to open a business and why the UK has 80 Nobel Prize-winners in the area of science and technology.
In short, hey look at us everyone, we're hosting the Games, come and cheer the Queen and be enthralled at how freakin' superior we are to everyone, that's why we think we can go around the globe spreading freedom and democracy from 30,000 feet bombing schools and Downs Syndrome centers and targeting civilian structures with military hardware so that our economy can grow through the rebuilding contracts, murdering children and then not so much as issuing a word of apology, supporting groups that are classified as terrorists on our own lists of proscribed movements and destabilising States for no other reason that our own misplaced imperialistic whims and greedy caprices.
In fact, William Hague's letter comes across as an insulting, shallow and very narcissistic pile of bilge. Nobody outside the UK gives a twopenny hoot about the Queen, however professional she has been in her sixty years on the throne and however much she has provided an excellent figurehead for the country - far better than her governments, the last six of which have involved the nation in no less than nine wars.
As for the Olympic Games and Cultural Olympics, perhaps if William Hague and his colleagues at the Ministry of Defence had respected Libya's culture instead of bombing it to steal Libya's sovereign fund, to steal Libya's oil, to destroy the work and plans of Colonel Gaddafi whose African plans and projects horrified the greedy imperialistic FUKIS-Axis because they would give Africa for once the control over its own resources and would cost the western banks billions, then one would have more respect for what Britain is doing this year.
If William Hague had been honest about Libya and explained that these days the Foreign Office is basically a bully, cajoling and goading countries into doing business, using lies and skulduggery and total dishonesty as its modus operandi, if William Hague had told the truth and instead of claiming Gaddafi was an evil dictator, admitted that the FUKUS-Axis did not want him to hold an election because he would have won, if he had admitted that the UNO was about to award him with a humanitarian prize - Gaddafi, not Hague or his FUKUS friends - if William Hague had admitted that the war in Libya was planned a decade ago or more, if he had said that the French were in Benghazi from last November, he might have retained an iota of credibility.
But instead William Hague backed terrorists, he unleashed the worst scourge from Libya's society against the authorities - the dregs who wanted freedom not of the democratic type but to drink and take drugs - why are so many bottles of Johnny Walker Scotch being distributed to them for free? - he destabilised Libyan society, his unwanted and unnecessary attack (together with his friends in the FUKUS-Axis) has been responsible for acts of rape, murder, looting, arson, theft, wanton destruction of property, racist attacks, ethnic cleansing - all perpetrated by the evil and demonic hordes supported by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office and by the British Ministry of Defence.
You do not saunter into a country after preparing gangs of terrorists to destabilise it, demonise its leader and government, steal its money and resources, let loose gangs of murderers and torturers and rapists and then pretend nothing has happened, become suddenly fascinated with the game of cricket and England's village greens and ask people to come to the UK to find out how (rude word) superior it is.
William Hague's letter is a study in pig-faced arrogance, shit-headedness and downright insolence to the thinking and decent law-abiding members of the world community. As for the Nobel Prize, Hague's friend across the pond rendered that useless by accepting the peace prize and then becoming Obomber. As for science and technology, the one piece of equipment the UK is famous for and its main contribution in these fields is the Crapper.
The indictment against NATO (*) includes the name of William Hague, the man who has done more harm to the reputation and international standing of the United Kingdom than anyone else in the recent history of the country.
(*)http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/06-11-2011/119534-indictment_nato-0/
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
2012. Two thousand and twelve years after the birth of Christ, at the beginning of the Third Millennium, our international community is divided between those who uphold the international law and speak about it - and the FUKUS-Axis which flouts it at will, perpetrating acts of murder and terrorism.
Iraq provided a telling preview of what was to come - the wanton breach of international treaties, charters, covenants, resolutions and promises, the targeting of civilian structures with military hardware to then dole out rebuilding contracts, the purposeful theft of resources and historical artefacts, the opening of the concentration camps and the holding of detainees without due legal process, the torture, the sodomy, the urinating in food, the urinating on prisoners... these demonic acts - not one-off breaches by rogue elements but rather, an integral part of policy (water boarding, for instance) - alerted some of us as to the true nature of the FUKUS-Axis (France, UK, US and Israel) and showed us quite how low they can stoop.
These are the rogue states, these are the pariah nations of the international community, these are the terrorists, these are the countries that have Weapons of Mass Destruction and these are the countries that deploy Weapons of Mass Destruction against civilians. The 4 acts of murder against Iranian nuclear scientists show the true mettle of these states and show how desperate they are getting. An act of terrorism is an act of terrorism; terrorism justifies terrorism as violence begets violence.
They justify these murderous terrorist acts claiming that Iran is making a nuclear bomb, even though Mohammed el-Baradei, of the IAEA, refutes this claim saying the accusations against Iran are exaggerated. The ones who have the bombs are the FUKUS-Axis, including Israel.
Apart from bringing the world ever closer to the brink of a nuclear holocaust, the FUKUS-Axis has also caused hundreds of thousands of murders across the globe with its intrusive policies of greed, using NATO as the bulldozer as the Axis steals the resources of sovereign nations and destabilises societies to breaking point.
What, for example, was Libya doing to its neighbours? What threat was Libya posing anyone? If Colonel Gaddafi was such a tyrant then why was the UNO planning to award him a humanitarian prize in 2011? Why did NATO (the armed wing of the FUKUS-Axis) not allow the Libyan Jamahiriya government to hold a free and fair democratic vote? Because Colonel Gaddafi would have won with a vast majority over the terrorist hordes of rapists, racists, murderers, torturers, looters, arsonists and thieves that the FUKUS-Axis unleashed.
The FUKUS-Axis stands for murder, breach of the law, torture, terrorist acts and the support of terrorists against the forces of law. The result of this criminal intervention in Libya has been documented here and will be documented further in recent days. The situation is chaotic, the situation is dire, the country is in turmoil, the RAT/NATO terrorists are hated and the FUKUS-Axis has dug a deep hole into which it will have to pour billions upon billions of its taxpayers' money or else retreat in humiliating defeat.
This is the two-tier international community in which we live - a bunch of criminals and those who look on and mutter things about respect for the law. How sickened I feel to belong to the human species at this moment in time.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Want to keep your New Year Resolution? StickK to your promises...
How many of us have firmly declared that we are going to cut out smoking, give up drinking, cut down on fattening foods, lose weight, pay more attention to the kids, turn over a new leaf and go on a health drive, put money aside every month or start a new life in the new year, only to see the drive fizzle out by the second week of January?
Well, now a website has been created to help people stick to their guns. It is called StickK.com. Launched by 27-year-old Jordan Goldberg, the aim is to get people more committed to the promises they made by linking them with others through Commitment Contracts - one that binds the Resolution Maker into achieving her/his personal goal.
Before the site was launched, StickK carried out fieldwork to test the effectiveness of commitment contracts and found that those placing stakes - whether this be putting their money where their mouth is, or simply making a promise to others - generally fulfil their commitment better than others whose Resolution is a personal secret.
StickK establishes four goals: The Goal (objective); the Stakes (does the person want to place money on the line? If so, how much? What will happen if the commitment is broken?); the Referee (a referee or monitor is designated to confirm the truth of the commitment; the Supporters - a peer group to help out in times of stress.
In the Commitment Contract, the Resolution Maker sets the time period to start and finish the commitment and must report during the time of the commitment on progress made (weekly weight loss, for instance). The Resolution Maker can voluntarily, or not, place some money at stake and should the commitment fail, can decide where it should go to. The Referee is named and finally, other StickK members are chosen as supporters - they give advice and support online and/or place encouraging messages in the Commitment Journal.
And...the service is free!
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Iran, Hormuz and the law
The FUKUS Three (France, UK and US) are getting worried. Certain sectors of the Iranian authorities have hinted that the Islamic Republic could decide to close the Straight of Hormuz. The reaction? Sabre rattling and cries that such an act would be "illegal". Interesting word, from these three...
Illegal? How interesting. What was the war in Iraq if not illegal? Did Saddam Hussein have Weapons of Mass Destruction, which posed a "direct and immediate threat" to the USA and its allies? OK then, where are they?
Yet the war was launched outside the auspices of the UNSC, and hundreds of thousands of people were murdered as a result of NATO's action. Was it then "legal" to open the concentration camp in Abu Ghraib, Baghdad? Was it "legal" to urinate in food? Was it "legal" to illegally detain civilians? Was it "legal" to rape female detainees? Was it "legal" to sodomise male detainees?
Was it not illegal to deprive detainees of sleep, was it not illegal to water-board people, was it not illegal to imprison and torture people on the CIA flights? How legal is the concentration camp at Guantanamo Bay? How legal is it to torture people, hold them without accusation or due process or access to lawyer or family or telephone?
When the FUKUS Three, the two ex-colonial powers the UK and France and their former colony(ies), the USA, decided to attack Libya, how legal was that? Did they not flout the law by invading without a separate UN Resolution, as per the UN Charter, did they not break the law by invading without convening the UNSC Military Committee, did they not flout the terms of UNSC Resolutions 1970 and 1973 (2011)?
Was it legal to breach the Geneva Conventions by strafing civilian structures in Libya with military hardware? Was it legal to target the water supply, depriving babies of water "to break their backs"? Was it legal to attack the electricity grid?
How legal was it to murder the grandchildren of Colonel Gaddafi, did they pose any sort of threat or were they a part of the command chain, and if not why was there not even the decency of an apology? Was it not illegal to place boots on the ground in Libya, was it not illegal to arm terrorists and take sides in an internal conflict, was it not illegal to support terrorist elements on NATO's own terrorist watch lists?
So isn't the word "illegal" a bit much coming from the three pariah states of the international community, two former imperial powers specialists in massacres and one monster, the product of the former two? Suppose instead of threatening Iran, they sat down in a civilised fashion and suppose they addressed the point that if Israel has nukes, then...
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
Apocalypse in America
Rain of dead birds: Is Beebe Arkansas haunted or bewitched? Now this cannot be a coincidence. Almost a year to the day after we reported in this column a rain of thousands of dead birds in Beebe Arkansas, there are reports of a repeat of the event in 2012. The birds seemed to be crazed, as if they were driven by super-natural forces. What is happening in Beebe?
Remember the story "What is going on?" on January 5, 2011? (*) Almost a year ago to the day, we reported several strange incidents in the United States of America - 5,000 red-winged blackbirds plummeting to the ground in Beebe, Arkansas, 100,000 drum fish 160 km. away also in Arkansas and a further group of 500 birds just south of Arkansas.
Then there were other incidents in Chesapeake Bay, between Virginia and Maryland (a mass of two million fish floating belly up), Volusia County, Florida (thousands of fish) and a further mass kill of thousands of fish in Lake Azuei, Haiti. Then there was a reported incident in Canada, in which the authorities tried to cover up a bird incident and others in Brazil, the UK, Japan, Sweden and Thailand.
This year, back to Arkansas again and another mass bird kill incident and again, precisely in Beebe, and yet another rain of dead birds falling indiscriminately over the city. The first rain of dead birds occurred at around 19.00 on December 31, according to the local authorities.
Ah right, it was the fireworks. And the fish? Or was it a weather balloon?
Just what is going on in Beebe?
(*) http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/05-01-2011/116435-what_on-0/
Timofei Belov
Pravda.Ru
The year 2011 provided us with a telling insight into where our planet is going, into how our community of nations is developing and to what extent hypocritical international relations compromise the western regimes which have spent decades bawling obscenities about human rights but which then present study cases into the worst type of crisis management possible.
The year 2011 also provided us with the most noble example of human bravery, namely the controlled and courageous response of the Japanese people after the tsunami and nuclear crisis yet also the most vile example of human hypocrisy as western powers attacked Libya, trying to destroy the Jamahiriya system of government, targeting civilian structures with military hardware, supporting terrorists and breaking every law in the book in terms of international relations.
The year 2011 provided us with proof, once and for all, that NATO is a terrorist organization, that NATO cavorts with terrorists, that NATO strafes water supplies with military hardware, that NATO aids and abets and finances forces led by people (?) such as Bel Hadj, himself on NATO terrorist lists. It provides us with proof that NATO does not respect international law, it provides us with proof that NATO does not respect the UN Charter, it provides us with proof that NATO does not respect the terms of the United Nations Security Council Resolutions it signs, it provides us with proof that NATO is a criminal organization which panders to the whims of the lobbies which surround Washington's foreign policy.
In 2011, the most horrendous and disgusting flouting of international law, breach of international conventions and the most clear violation and insult of diplomatic norms took place in the rape of Libya by the United States of America, by the United Kingdom and by the Republic of France, and their poodle states.
The indictment served against this act was received by the International Criminal Court and was received by the European Court of Human Rights. It is annexed to this article (*). It did not receive even the courtesy of a reply from either institution, meaning that these two legal institutions and more in legion with flouting the law than defending it, because for those who read the terms of the indictment, the truth is clear for all to see.
Shame on those who perpetrated these crimes against humanity, shame on those who derided Muammar al-Qathafi in the international media without referring to his immense good deeds, his Green Book and his humanitarian record which was going to see him honoured by the UNO.
International law exists and despite the fact that there are pariah states in the world which wish to flout it, it exists to be respected and implemented. On one side we have the ascendant BRIC block, Brazil, Russia, India and China. On the other, we have the descendant ex-colonial powers, Britain, France and Italy, whose places in the G7 will be taken by the BRIC countries within the next decade.
Guess who respects international law, and guess who flouts it? And let us wonder why...
For every New Year that comes and goes, the ascendance of the BRIC block and the demise of the former imperial powers will be more and more marked. Happy New Year. Maybe it will be happier for the world if the BRIC group takes more control over the former imperialist powers.
(*) http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/06-11-2011/119534-indictment_nato-0/
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
view more >>It is called Murray Valley encephalitis, it is very rare, it can infect humans, it is deadly and it has been found among chickens in Australia's New South Wales State, in the first appearance since the 1970s. The population in the areas infected in this State and the State of Victoria is being warned to protect itself.
Murray Valley encephalitis is more commonly found in north-western Australia but has been seen before in the south-east after rainfall. It is a mosquito-borne disease and has been found in birds which were placed in high-risk areas - part of Australia's early warning system. High-risk areas for humans are wetlands and areas near rivers. The insect in question is the common banded mosquito, Culux annulirostris.
The symptoms of the disease are similar to meningitis and include a temperature and severe headache, stiffness of the neck, confusion and sleepiness, photophobia, nausea and vomiting. Symptoms last for a few days usually and the patient makes a full recovery. Only one per cent of those infected feel the symptoms, and a small percentage of these die. There is no specific treatment - patients with severe symptoms are treated in hospital, sometimes in Intensive Care Units.
Local sources point towards the outbreak among flocks of chickens in the southern and western regions of the Australian State of New South Wales. The "sentinel" chicken flocks had been strategically placed as part of an early warning system within easy reach of the NSW border town of Moama and the town of Echuca in the State of Victoria.
The last time a serious outbreak of the virus appeared was in the 1970s, when there were around 70 cases reported. Since then there have been very sporadic cases among humans. Mainly a virus that attacks birds, humans can also be infected if a mosquito carrying it bites, and can infect other humans from the blood of a person infected. 99% of victims do not feel any symptoms at all - one per cent can feel poorly and a small percentage of these can die. Last Summer one person in NSW was infected without symptoms, the other had very mild symptoms and recovered.
The conditions in which Murray Valley encephalitis, or MVE, appears are also propitious for other fatal diseases carried by mosquitoes such as Barmah Forest virus or Ross River fever. In times of global warming, such unheard-of viruses could become endemic in heavily populated areas of countries where such diseases have not yet been seen.
Timofei Belov
Pravda.Ru
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The United Nations Security Council is supposed to exist to uphold international law, not to rubber-stamp imperialist ventures by NATO or to turn a blind eye when NATO decides that the UNSC is an impediment to such ventures. Enter the Russian Federation, current President of the UNSC. Time for international law to be respected.
NATO - sit down and shut up!
The Representative of the Russian Federation at the United Nations Security Council is Vitaly Churkin, whose voice will no doubt be heard more and more as western imperialist forces eye up Syria after reports they are once again instigating violence through subversive activities, aiding and abetting terrorist agents, using terrorists as insurgents as they have done in Libya. He has stated that the Russian Federation wants the UNSC to use its weight to end violence in Syria, however not acting as an auxiliary of regime change policy.
Indeed, the Russian Federation stands for the rule of law, not inventing or flouting the law by breaching the UN Charter, breaching the conditions of UNSC Resolutions, breaching the conditions of the Geneva Conventions, invading sovereign nations, murdering civilians, supporting terrorists, opening concentration camps, committing torture, committing rape, committing sodomy, urinating in food, causing sleep deprivation, stealing, looting, committing arson, destruction of public and private property and strafing civilian structures with military hardware to then dole out lucrative rebuilding contracts, which is synonymous with the foreign policy of western nations today.
The UNSC stands for, or is supposed to stand as, the proper forum for crisis management and is supposed to be the temple of diplomacy. Under the Chairmanship of the Russian Federation, it has every chance to remain so, despite the fact that in recent history the US Secretaries of State (and those who run the Foreign Department in their poodle states in NATO) have proven to be anything but diplomatic, in fact the last three have insulted every fibre of diplomatic norms and have disgraced the history of their country - first the feeble liar Colin Powell whose "wonderful evidence" to the UNSC on Iraq is not risible, then the Rice/Clinton duet, in which it is difficult to see which one is worse that the other.
The UNSC is not supposed to rubber-stamp separatist or terrorist movements led by those who have been branded as terrorists by NATO itself, it is not supposed to sanction war crimes, such as those committed by NATO in Libya and for which NATO now stands indicted (indictment as yet unanswered by the Hague Tribunal or ECHR). The UNSC is supposed to be the forum in which parties sit down together and manage crises.
Although several members of the UNSC, including permanent members with the right to veto, cynically sit in this organization while outside it their agencies spread terror and side with terrorists who commit acts of rape, torture, murder, sodomy, theft... with the Russian Federation as Chairperson, it will be far more difficult for these members, namely the USA and the poodle states UK and France, to continue to behave as they have been doing.
As for the UNSC, with Moscow at the helm, we are set for a period of peace and stability in international relations. Moscow, for one, respects and obeys the rules.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
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So, there are a few people demonstrating on Russia's streets, shouting Russia without Putin (Rossiya bez Putina), among other things, a soundbite picked up on by a western press hungry for catch-phrases against the Kremlin. Interesting. Maybe the USA and their allies would like to see the second most voted party, the Communist Party, in power? Now that would be a turn-up for the books wouldn't it?
It would, because the party of Vladimir Putin, United Russia, or Edinaya Rossiya, won 52% of the seats in the recent elections for the Parliament Lower House (DUMA) while the Communist Party won just over 20%. The ones on the streets are not the "population of Russia", but a handful of the members of the opposition parties. This is not a united movement, but rather representatives from all the parties which lost the elections, from the right wing, to the Russian nationalists, from the liberals, to the far left.
In statistical terms one in every one thousand four hundred people turned up in Saturday's demonstration, the largest to date, if we admit that there were 100,000 people on the streets. Let us compare that with the show of support for Muammar al-Qathafi's Jamahiriya Government in Libya against NATO and the terrorists it supported, namely one in every 5 people in the country, and we see the difference. One in 1,400 against one in 5.
The first point is that under Russian law, people are allowed to demonstrate peacefully, as long as they follow the rules. Following the rules means registering the demonstration in advance so that it can be properly policed, like any other country; it does not mean provoking the authorities by holding demonstrations illegally and stirring up trouble.
The second point is that one has not seen in Russia the barbaric repression shown by police in Western countries against the Occupy movements.
The third point is that the election results speak for themselves:
United Russia won 238 of the 450 seats in the DUMA (Parliament), giving it a majority over the opposition parties (Communists, 92; Just Russia, 64 and Liberal Democratic Party, 56. Yabloko, Patriots of Russia and Right Cause did not elect any members). United Russia got 52.88% of the seat composition in the Duma, against 20.46% for the Communists, 14.21% for Just Russia, 12.45% for the Liberal Democratic Party and zero per cent for the other contenders. United Russia received 32,331,244 votes, against 12,594,232 for the Communists, 8,689,147 for Just Russia, 7,659,657 for the Liberal Democrats, 2,249,990 for Yabloko, 638,735 for the Patriots of Russia and 392,507 for the Right Cause. United Russia garnered just under 50% of the vote, the second most voted party, the Communists, less than 20%.
The fourth point is the western media hype around the figure of Mikhail Gorbachev, the man who stood back and watched the Soviet Union voluntarily dissolve around his ears, and who is now calling for the man who put Russia back on the map to resign.
True, Mikhail Gorbachev is free to say what he likes and it is not the place of others to opine on what he can say or not in his own country, it is a Russian question defined by Russians for Russians.
But let us move on to the fifth and last point, what about Russia without Putin? Vladimir Putin is the right man in the right place at the right time, he stands for a strong united Russia, meaning Russian resources for Russian citizens, not Americans; he stands for the integration of Russia's Republics inside Russia and not a myriad of separatist states held under by cliques of elitists who give away their resources to foreigners. It is not a case of Russia without Putin, it is a case of Russia for Russians, and however tempting it may be for the vast majority of those who support Putin to remain silent (in a comfort-induced slumber), the point is that the sound of the vast majority is not heard...because it is not necessary.
Let us be honest here...if Russians did not like Putin, then why did they vote for him? As for the opposition...learn how to lose with dignity. One thing is to come on the streets cavorting with western journalists, but these are the representatives of those who seek to destroy Russia through subversion and agents provocateurs. Supporting those who seek to destroy the State is an act of treachery.
On the note of Freedom, let those who went crying to the funeral of Vaclav Havel remember that the Soviet Union gave 26 million souls defending freedom in defeating Fascism in Europe and how many of those countries that spoke out against the USSR had a horrendous set of skeletons in their cupboards during the Nazi Fascist period, either cavorting with Fascists as allies, or else hosting concentration camps on their territory? One thing is freedom, another is criminal activity and subversion.
One closing remark: for those western media outlets which like to quote those claiming for freedom of the press, freedom of the media and freedom perhaps to commit crimes, who knows what else... my personal vinculum to Pravda.Ru is well documented on the Net and has been for many years. Never once have I had one single directive imposed upon me from above, other than that I am free to write what I choose.
So, the conclusion is...
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
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It would be no exaggeration at all to say that Cesária Évora was, is and shall always be the voice of Africa for millions of people. It is a fact that Cesária Évora is world heritage for the CPLP/Portuguese-speaking countries and shall always be. Because Cesária Évora is more than a voice, more than a heart and more than a soul.
At 70 years of age, Cesária Évora's body left us in the Hospital Baptista de Sousa, São Vicente Island, Cape Verde this Saturday December 17. What will live on is far more than her voice, for her voice was simply a vehicle to convey her heart, her soul and the heart and soul of Africa. What will live on is the melancholy, the nostalgia, the unrequited love, the burning hope and desire, the love, the humanity... of Africa and Africans, in Cesária Évora's voice.
And that, nobody can destroy or take away from this angel of world culture, born in Mindelo, Capital of the Isle of São Vicente, Cape Verde on August 27, 1941, who spent the first years of her life singing and enchanting and bewitching with her talent, and only in 1988, at 47 years of age, did she record her first album, in Paris.
Cesária Évora sprang onto the world stage in 1992, at 50 years of age, after presenting her fourth album, Miss Perfumado, in Paris and after the subsequent shows in the City of Paris Theatre. Six albums had Grammy references, a prize she won in 2004 (World Music, Voz d'Amor). Eleven albums are only part of her legacy, the last one being Nha Sentimento (2009).
Cesária Évora, or "Cizé" to her friends, had been born into a musical family - her father Justiniano da Cruz played the banjo, viola and violin, her brother played the saxophone and among the family friends, was the Cape Verdean composer, B. Leza. Her instrument however was her soul, through her voice, and from an early age she sang in the streets, in the market places "to forget sad things" in her words. Later, bars, hotels and a general acclamation as the Queen of Morna (Cape Verde's national genre of melancholic song).
Her rendition of the song Sôdade (Nostalgia/homesickness) truly gives wings to any heart or soul from any generation from any age anywhere on Earth. Now that is world patrimony and Cesária Évora is its champion. Whoever listens to the voice of Cesária Évora hears a soul flying, hears the unlocking of thousands of years of Africa's secrets, hears the spirit of Cape Verde, witnesses first-hand the heart of Africa.
How hurt the hearts of Africa, of Cape Verde, of the CPLP space are today; how noble, how honoured they shall be tomorrow with the legacy of Cesária Évora smiling upon them.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
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With nuclear missile technology what it is today, the next war could very well be the world's last. As it becomes clear that the Pentagon/NATO is intrinsically linked to the AIPAC/State Department axis, as it becomes clear that the USA and its allies have long since ceased to follow the law, it would appear that we are sliding towards disaster.
The tell-tale signs are all there. The former status quo which was achieved by a Soviet Bloc able and willing to counteract the more aggressive and belligerent tendencies of those who had been imperialist powers and their allies, gaining riches as they held populations down under the yoke of colonialism, stealing their riches and committing massacres as they civilised the planet with the Bible and the Bullet approach to international relations, disappeared at the beginning of the 1990s.
For once and for all, let us get the story straight. The Soviet Union did not "collapse", it dissolved voluntarily, as catered for in its constitution because a new political, economic and social cycle had begun with different players and vectors and those in Government considered that the old model had succeeded in achieving what it set out to do, namely bring medieval societies into the front line of social, industrial and economic development, providing excellent public services free of charge.
However, a major consequence of this dissolution was the vacuum in international relations caused by the absence of the counterweight against the sinister plans of Washington and her NATO allies, which are only too plain to see. Before the decade was up, in 1998, we had Afghanistan's Mullah Omar being approached with a bribe to set up a pipeline across his country from Central Asia to Pakistan and the game was then on.
The flashpoint was 9/11 and with the Bush regime in place, the game swung into action. Afghanistan was invaded in retaliation, although the link between Kabul and Kandahar and the Twin Towers has yet to be proven, and we now discover that Afghanistan itself is rich in mineral resources, apart from presenting a strategic bridge deep into Central Asia together with a billionaire drugs trade in heroin production and smuggling.
World War Three is not about containing hegemonic ideals, it is not about defeating ideology. This time around, it is based upon greed, the desire to control the world's resources and it therefore comes as no surprise that all the pieces of the puzzle are centred around the epicentre of these resources - the Middle East and Central Asia, removing those powers who would constitute a block. It began after Kosovo, a test of forces, an arm-wrestling contest to see which side would blink first while under the table empty promises were traded, as they have been all along.
It continued with Iraq, invaded illegally and virtually destroyed in the most blatant disregard for international law the world had seen, before Libya confirmed what is going on. It has nothing to do with freedom and democracy, if so then why did NATO refuse to allow the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya to hold a democratic election for the people to choose between the NATO/NTC Terrorists and the Jamahiriya Government?
It has already begun in Iran, with cyber terrorist attacks against Iran's nuclear power capacity, with violations of Iran's airspace and with terrorist attacks inside the country aimed at Revolutionary Guard Officers, military centres and equipment. And for those who doubt who lies at the end of the railway line, the deployment of a part of the Missile Defence System in Turkey will cover a large swathe of the Russian Federation. Remember Washington's hysteria during the Cuban Missile Crisis?
What the West (USA/NATO) is capable of, we have seen very clearly. What we have not seen yet is what exists to counter this Axis of Evil.
Washington's position, smiling to the face yet wielding a knife behind the back, runs counter to the goodwill demonstrated by the Russian Federation when the Cold War ended and when political discourse centred on what the two former foes had in common, rather than differences. How is it possible to have anything in common with a back-stabbing, warmongering murderous group of criminals whose intention is to control the world's resources and whose modus operandi is closer to skulduggery through Colour Revolutions than it is to the norms of diplomacy?
The recent intrusion into the internal affairs of the Russian Federation, funding activists to create problems after the recent Parliamentary election (DUMA) and the insolence and arrogance demonstrated by Washington's Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, leave it perfectly clear as to the measure of the monster we are facing.
There are, nevertheless, two powerful vectors working against Washington, vectors it has not yet begun to understand. One is the military might of the CSTO and SCO Organizations, covering the Russian Federation, the PR China and Central Asia, essentially defensive organizations, the former of which Iran could join as the first non-(ex) Soviet member.
The other is the collective willpower of humankind which is very much more in tandem with Moscow these days than with Washington, more and more exposed and isolated as a hypocrite and a pariah of the international community, associated more with torture and sodomy than with freedom and democracy, synonymous with massacres and intrusion, arrogance, belligerence, blackmail and bullying rather than with diplomacy, discussion and dialogue.
Moscow stands for the rule of law, Washington stands for breaching it. Moscow stands for world peace and brotherly relations, Washington stands for hegemony at any cost. It is imperative that the members of the world community stand together, close ranks and appeal to those inside the United States of America who stand for collective human values to make sure their leadership, apparently as near to a sinister clique of Satanists and Devil worshippers as it gets, do not manage to bring Armageddon down to Earth.
In the forthcoming election in the USA, the people have a choice to vet out those who pose a direct threat to the future of humankind by bringing foreign policy and clear commitments towards this, into the political agenda. One thing is certain: Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton are not fit to serve. They are a danger to their country, they are a danger to humankind.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
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Love. Youth. Marriage. Burning, suicide, death. Welcome to India's dowry killings. Yes, still in the twenty-first century Indian girls can be, and are, set on fire or forced to suicide because the husband or his family consider that the dowry she brings with her into marriage is not large enough.
Yes, still in the twenty-first century Indian girls can be, and are, set on fire or forced to suicide because the husband or his family consider that the dowry she brings with her into marriage is not large enough. Pravda.Ru interviewed Sheba Rakesh, Executive Director of Pankh, a Women's Empowerment Organization operating in India, and part of the Safe World for Women Campaign.
How important is the dowry in India in social and economic terms? And how come brides can be killed because of it?
A: In the Indian social set up, dowry or 'dahej' holds a rather important place. Simply stated it refers to the goods, wealth(moveable and immoveable) that a girl takes with her to the groom's household when she gets married.
The entire idea originated in the fact that earlier, women did not enjoy any inheritance rights in the paternal property. It was the male heir that stood to gain in the event of the parents' transferral of property/ death or any other such event. Since the rights were not equal the Indian culture (as well as that of other civilisations in the world) made it mandatory that the girl get a part of the father's legacy through what she carried with her at the time of marriage.
Gradually it came to signify the "Love" that parents had for their daughter and eventually the system succumbed to the growing greed in a consumerist society where instead of the emotional bonding between the families involved in the marital alliance, what came to matter is the amount of wealth she could bring with her. Since, these business negotiations like everything else have a shelf life, the exhaustion of dowry rings the trouble bell for the woman in question.
Sometimes, the problems can assume uncontrollable proportions, where the opposite party is not satisfied with the dowry that the girl has brought with her, it makes sure that the new member of the family is not accepted. The most miserable of all these situations is the collusion of the husband where because of the lack of personal interest or adhering to false notions of honour and ego, the relationship is not given the due importance and the woman continues to pay the price in terms of her poor existence and sometimes even her life.
You see, this is an extremely complex issue....and the human psychology and brains are at work....insecurities can wreck havoc with human relationships...we have cases where the brides have been driven to suicide or have been brutally killed. Apart from the fact that the groom and his family are to be blatantly blamed, it also has to do with the rigid social mentality where a woman's life is considered to be a waste in case the marriage fails to work. The social stigmas, the failure to respect individual identities and more importantly, the women's failure to appreciate their self-worth are reasons as to why lives come to desperate ends. Pseudo notions of honour, sexuality and the neat "dos and donts" wreck havoc...society wins..lives lose...
In a nutshell the entire issue is about a radical shift in priorities-Money over love and emotional well-being!
Do the groom's families have to contribute anything to the dowry?
A: No, nothing in material terms...just huge amounts of greedJ
How is it possible that such a barbaric practice is carried out?
A: As I said earlier, there isn't any fixed set of rules to perpetuate tortures. In most cases the brides are burnt alive, in yet some of the others the emotional, financial and psychological torture is so intense that the girl, finding herself emotionally alone is driven to despair and ultimately suicide. Apart from the social and psychological behaviour of close ones that encourages such behaviour it is the legal problems that force women to see nothing but a dead end...and this despite the fact that the law has quite some options to help the women in dire times. Also, with the increase in greed these crimes and associated criminal mindsets and activities (considering the girl child a burden and female foeticide) are increasing by the hour.
In some places in India, the bride is injected with poison so that she dies a silent death and the relatives escape scot free in the absence of sufficient evidence. In some cases Silence is the biggest killer. Also, as long as the social mentality associates the existence of a woman as that of a commodity the exploitation will continue. Sometimes, it is the parents themselves who pride themselves at being able to conduct these negotiations aptly, failing to understand that it is a big folly to assume that the girl will be "happy" if sent across to live taking huge money with her....when they should realise what is the big deal in buying a man for their daughter when like everything else, commodities do not last long....and that she can be better off without such selfish relationships in her life....
Could you explain what sort of legal loopholes facilitate this horrific behaviour? What other factors are involved in creating a scenario whereby dowry killings can take place?
A: The legal loopholes are not as many in terms of provision as they are on the level of implementation. Although, here I would like to state that in terms of the provisions also where there is the Anti-Dowry Act of the Indian Penal Code (section 498 A), Dowry Prohibition Act, 1961( Sections 3, 4,4A) and Section 304 B of the IPC regarding dowry deaths, there are within these sections some good areas which provide a lot of breathing space to the accused party.
Besides, not very many such victimised parties have the courage and the resources to pursue their cases persistently. Odd as it may sound, sometimes a lot has to be faced before the crime can finally be registered. Oftentimes, it is the legal system that comes to the rescue and helps the victim fight the corruption of the system before actually the case becomes a legal reality. In case of interstate crimes and breaches of marital trust, the parties may end up losing too much time because of the factors influencing the dispensing of justice. Oftentimes, this becomes a tussle of power between the parties involved rather than being straightforward cases demanding justice...and this precisely can be one of the factors that encourages such crimes to be perpetuated time and again.
One of the 'other' major factors that help in creating a scenario for facilitating these horrific killings is the continual silence that tends to creep into relationships when crime is just about knocking at your doorstep. Pankh had been following this case sub judice at the court of law where the dead victim's parents have been fighting a case under section 304 B of the IPC; where they still refuse to come out in the open and comment about whatever went wrong with their daughter for fears that are absolutely individual in nature. It is to be noted that the victim had called her father before the gruesome incident and asked him to take her back, something which he failed to do and the sorry incident happened; personally I would not blame this party, because they have a younger daughter to be married off and they are blatantly scared that the "talk" would ruin her prospects of her marriage, so much for the desire for justice in the current social situations - despite the crime being non-bailable and cognisable under law the accused has been granted bail against an appeal in the higher court....and then there are debates in the country on the misuse of the dowry laws - these examples and incidents only tend to make the situation more serious.
How widespread is dowry killing?
A: Throughout the world these negotiations exist in some form or the other, yet according to a UN report it is just South Asia where dowry leads to deaths. Dowry being a business negotiation, woven around an emotional alliance....the breach of trust is assuming alarming proportions with every passing day...Dowry is safely touted as the biggest killer of women in India...and this within a relationship that is supposed to guarantee her social security and protection! Where such killings are not huge, dowry still remains a huge motivating factor for other crimes such as female foeticide, human trafficking, prostitution and most of all, loss of human dignity. The social cost of allowing such systems to exist is huge.
Could we conclude that if dowry killings are rife in India and that brides are driven to suicide or are murdered often with impunity, then women's rights per se do not exist in India?
A: This question again has a not so simple explanation to it. As I said, rights do exist but the implementation is at fault. The eradication of any social evil requires an active inbuilt participation from within the society, something that is still not forthcoming from the average Indian household. Thinking about women's rights and the way they are handled at personal, social, organisational and administrative levels needs even today to undergo a drastic change before something worthwhile can be achieved. I do believe that sorority cannot always spell magic if vested interests continue to rule the roost at the organisational level. This stands true to Women's issues also...however the times are transitional and women are gradually learning to face these issues but we still have miles to go....
....Women are raped and turned out in the name of marriage..or bonds are severed after years of marriage with the woman without any financial resources unto herself....yes Timothy, we have miles to go....
The Indian Government passed the Dowry Prohibition Act fifty years ago in 1961, which made the demands for dowries in wedding arrangements illegal. However, half a century on, there are reports that there are still thousands of such incidents every year. Is that figure realistic?
A: Unfortunately yes! As I said we are still waiting for the generation of true awareness in the masses. Like everything this needs a huge effort on our part.... we need women to appreciate the value of independence as much they appreciate the value of relationships in life and most importantly we need more men to be aware of this delicate issue....again a huge effort.
Pravda.Ru interview conducted by
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
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Not long ago, I thought that calling the United States of America "Public Enemy Number One" would be an unacceptable way to being an opinion article. Today, that is a fact after it becomes apparent that the USA has been directly involved in the opposition protests inside Russia after United Russia won a free and fair democratic process. Let us see.
Here are some soundbites spread across western media outlets: "It is scandalous and vulgar". "We have done our own calculations, and....I won". "We are really disappointed, we voted for the other candidate but this one won". Interesting. In fact these comments do not come from Russia, but from Africa, more precisely from the Democratic Republic of the Congo, where Etienne Tshisekedi disputed the election victory of Joseph Kabila, a continent where increasingly, election results are disputed and manipulated by outside powers, as we saw recently in the case of Laurent Gbagbo and the Ivory Coast.
However nebulous the election results from these two countries may have been (or not), Russia's are crystal clear, in an election process whose administration was, according to observers, efficient:
United Russia won 238 of the 450 seats in the DUMA (Parliament), giving it a majority over the opposition parties (Communists, 92; Just Russia, 64 and Liberal Democratic Party, 56. Yabloko, Patriots of Russia and Right Cause did not elect any members). United Russia got 52.88% of the seat composition in the Duma, against 20.46% for the Communists, 14.21% for Just Russia, 12.45% for the Liberal Democratic Party and zero per cent for the other contenders. United Russia received 32,331,244 votes, against 12,594,232 for the Communists, 8,689,147 for Just Russia, 7,659,657 for the Liberal Democrats, 2,249,990 for Yabloko, 638,735 for the Patriots of Russia and 392,507 for the Right Cause. United Russia garnered just under 50% of the vote, the second most voted party, the Communists, less than 20%.
So where exactly is the problem? Do the USA and its poodles in Europe want the Communist Party to win? I thought they spent half a century deriding Communism as evil, and now they take the side of the opposition, whose main party is the CPRF? How interesting.
However easy it is to make a quick video, claiming "FRAUD!" and downloading it onto youtube, backed up by belligerent and intrusive arrogant remarks from the likes of Hillary "War Zone" Clinton who classifies a welcome with a band and a red carpet as stepping off an aircraft into the middle of a war zone, one thing is the accusation, another is an investigation into irregularities.
In a country as vast as the Russian Federation, however well organised the process is, it is perfectly natural that there will be issues, isolated incidents which may or may not alter a few details but certainly not a result in which the winner garners 50% and the second-placed party, 20%.
Regarding the protests, the Russian police have been congratulated this weekend on their management of the demonstrations fuelled mainly by the Communist Party and also the representatives of those who lost, three of these parties not managing to elect one single member of parliament. What does the USA then think, that these parties won?
If United Russia elects 238 members of the Duma and Yabloko none, then does Hillary Clinton claim that Yabloko won the election? If United Russia garners 32 million votes and the Communist Party 8 million, does Hillary Clinton think that the Communist Party should win? If United Russia got nearly 53% of the seats in the DUMA, then does Hillary Clinton think that Zhirinovsky's Liberal Democrats should have won when they got less than 13%?
Obviously, as in any country, protests and demonstrations have to be properly registered and policed and this was the case in Russia this weekend. Compared to the mass rallies in the 1990s, when hundreds of thousands of people turned out, this Saturday the largest peaceful and legalised demonstration had around 30,000 people, at most. In a population of 140,000,000...
Let us remember in July one million people (one fifth of the population of the country) turned out in the streets of Tripoli to march against NATO and its criminal murderous attack against Libya, and NATO then refused to allow the Libyan Government to hold a free and fair democratic election. So much for democracy, eh what?
Now for intrusion and I reiterate my claim that the USA is public enemy number one. There are claims in Moscow that the USA has been financing groups of people inside Russia to stir up problems. The figure of 500 Roubles per person has been quoted. Should this be the case, then how does the US taxpayer feel, how does the US citizen feel, (s)he who worked hard all his/her life to buy a house and has lost it in foreclosure, to know that thousands upon thousands of dollars are being wasted funding unrest on the streets of Russia?
Is the USA public enemy number one, or what?
And for those media outlets and hysterical politicians deriding the elections, has anyone bothered to check out the role of the USA's National Endowment for Democracy organization? It is funded by the US Government and among those involved in claiming that there was electoral fraud in Russia are those belonging to the NED's World Democracy Movement. One of these is Vladimir Ryzhkov, who appears on the Internet with a Washington DC address. Others were, according to reports, polling station monitors, paid to stir up problems.
In fact, many of these weird and wonderful creatures springing up inside or outside Russia's borders claiming how unfair the election process was, have direct links to the NED or other US-based or US-financed organisms, such as Neo-Con, Fortune 500, Henry Jackson Foundation, Moscow Helsinki Group, Strategy 31 and so on.
Let us take a look at GOLOS, a Russian election monitoring organization. Interesting, because on the US National Endowment for Democracy website, we read:
"Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties "GOLOS"
$65,000
To carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections. GOLOS will hold local and national press conferences and publish reports on its findings, as well as provide detailed methodological advice to its monitors and other monitoring agencies."
65,000 USD (sixty-five thousand USD). Ah yeah and here's the website:
http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/eurasia/russia
So, it seems that the allegations that the USA is intrinsically involved in the Russian Opposition's claims are true, to the tune of countless thousands of dollars. Oh well, as the US taxpayer struggles to meet the bills this Christmas, it's nice to know where your government spends your hard-earned tax dollars.
So yes, the United States of America is Public Enemy Number One. This is a country controlled by a clique of lobbies fuelled by the corporate greed of the arms, drugs and banking sectors, it is a country whose Vice-President and AIPAC wield more power than the President, neutered before he took office and a country which simply cannot mind its own business and sort out its own problems. Obama is a fraud, Hillary is the snake in the woodpile.
Fitting it is that the colour these Satanic disciples chose for the colour revolution in Russia was white, the colour of cowardice, the colour of those who surrender. Maybe it is time for a colour revolution to begin inside the USA. From five minutes' research on the Net, there is a Pandora's box of movements ready and waiting.
See Hillary, spit in the wind and...and Obama, you should be ashamed of yourself.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Pravda.Ru
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