The Quickening
Showing posts with label Our World in Conflict. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Our World in Conflict. Show all posts
The End of the World as We Know It? An Internal or External Shift?
(Click link if embedded url does not work: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=kHHZkUiRP30)
The Quickening
The Quickening
Occupy Wall Street: 20,000 To Gather On September 17th
Huffington Post
September 15, 2011
On Saturday, September 17th, organizers for the event Occupy Wall Street are calling for 20,000 individuals to join their cause for government and corporate change by way of peaceful, non-violent protests.
September 15, 2011
On Saturday, September 17th, organizers for the event Occupy Wall Street are calling for 20,000 individuals to join their cause for government and corporate change by way of peaceful, non-violent protests.
The large-scale event, originally published back in July by Adbusters, a not-for-profit magazine aimed to "topple existing power structures," was inspired by the revolutionary events that swept through the Middle East earlier this year. The group's site reveals their hopes to transform Lower Manhattan into an "American Tahrir Square."
How exactly will the group invoke such radical change? Details have yet to be revealed but Occupy Wall Street organizer, Will Russell, a grad student at Hunter College, explains to the Village Voice, that yoga, pitched tents, and dancing to 'Thriller' will be sure to take place.
The hacker group, Anonymous, also announced their participation in a video released below.
Saturday's events have garnered traction through various social media outlets, including Twitter, which has seen the use of the hasthtag, #OccupyWallStreet. The group's Facebook event directs protestors to meet at Bowling Green Park at noon and then at 3pm to move to One Chase Manhattan Plaza for a people's assembly.
How exactly will the group invoke such radical change? Details have yet to be revealed but Occupy Wall Street organizer, Will Russell, a grad student at Hunter College, explains to the Village Voice, that yoga, pitched tents, and dancing to 'Thriller' will be sure to take place.
The hacker group, Anonymous, also announced their participation in a video released below.
Saturday's events have garnered traction through various social media outlets, including Twitter, which has seen the use of the hasthtag, #OccupyWallStreet. The group's Facebook event directs protestors to meet at Bowling Green Park at noon and then at 3pm to move to One Chase Manhattan Plaza for a people's assembly.
Unrest in Syria and Jordan Poses New Test for U.S. Policy
March 27, 2011
WASHINGTON — Even as the Obama administration defends the NATO-led air war in Libya, the latest violent clashes in Syria and Jordan are raising new alarm among senior officials who view those countries, in the heartland of the Arab world, as far more vital to American interests.
Deepening chaos in Syria, in particular, could dash any remaining hopes for a Middle East peace agreement, several analysts said. It could also alter the American rivalry with Iran for influence in the region and pose challenges to the United States’ greatest ally in the region, Israel.
In interviews, administration officials said the uprising appeared to be widespread, involving different religious groups in southern and coastal regions of Syria, including Sunni Muslims usually loyal to President Bashar al-Assad. The new American ambassador in Damascus, Robert Ford, has been quietly reaching out to Mr. Assad to urge him to stop firing on his people.
As American officials confront the upheaval in Syria, a country with which the United States has icy relations, they say they are pulled between fears that its problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that it could weaken one of Iran’s key allies.
The Syrian unrest continued on Saturday, with government troops reported to have killed more protesters.
With 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country’s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost.
For two years, the United States has tried to coax Damascus into negotiating a peace deal with Israel and to moving away from Iran — a fruitless effort that has left President Obama open to criticism on Capitol Hill that he is bolstering one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world.
Officials fear the unrest there and in Jordan could leave Israel further isolated. The Israeli government was already rattled by the overthrow of Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, worrying that a new government might not be as committed to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
While Israel has largely managed to avoid being drawn into the region’s turmoil, last week’s bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, which killed one person and wounded 30, and a rain of rocket attacks from Gaza, have fanned fears that the militant group Hamas is trying to exploit the uncertainty.
The unrest in Jordan, which has its own peace treaty with Israel, is also extremely worrying, a senior administration official said. The United States does not believe Jordan is close to a tipping point, this official said. But the clashes, which left one person dead and more than a hundred wounded, pose the gravest challenge yet to King Abdullah II, a close American ally.
Syria, however, is the more urgent crisis — one that could pose a thorny dilemma for the administration if Mr. Assad carries out a crackdown like that of his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, who ordered a bombardment in 1982 that killed at least 10,000 people in the northern city of Hama. Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria?
Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Some analysts predicted the administration would be cautious in pressing Mr. Assad, not because of any allegiance to him but out of a fear of what could follow him — a Sunni-led government potentially more radical and Islamist than his Alawite minority regime.
Still, after the violence, administration officials said Mr. Assad’s future was unclear. “Whatever credibility the government had, they shot it today — literally,” said a senior official about Syria, speaking on the condition that he not be named.
In the process, he said, Mr. Assad had also probably disqualified himself as a peace partner for Israel. Such a prospect had seemed a long shot in any event — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no inclination to talk to Mr. Assad — but the administration kept working at it, sending its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, on several visits to Damascus.
Mr. Assad has said that he wants to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel. But with his population up in arms, analysts said, he might actually have an incentive to pick a fight with its neighbor, if only to deflect attention from the festering problems at home.
“You can’t have a comprehensive peace without Syria,” the administration official said. “It’s definitely in our interest to pursue an agreement, but you can’t do it with a government that has no credibility with its population.”
Indeed, the crackdown calls into question the entire American engagement with Syria. Last June, the State Department organized a delegation from Microsoft, Dell and Cisco Systems to visit Mr. Assad with the message that he could attract more investment if he stopped censoring Facebook and Twitter. While the administration renewed economic sanctions against Syria, it approved export licenses for some civilian aircraft parts.
The Bush administration, by contrast, largely shunned Damascus, recalling its ambassador in February 2005 after the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese accuse Syria of involvement in the assassination, a charge it denies.
When Mr. Obama named Mr. Ford as his envoy last year, Republicans in the Senate held up the appointment for months, arguing that the United States should not reward Syria with closer ties. The administration said it would have more influence by restoring an ambassador.
But officials also concede that Mr. Assad has been an endless source of frustration — deepening ties with Iran and the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah; undermining the government of Saad Hariri in Lebanon; pursuing a nuclear program; and failing to deliver on promises of reform.
Some analysts said that the United States was so eager to use Syria to break the deadlock on Middle East peace negotiations that it had failed to push Mr. Assad harder on political reforms.
“He’s given us nothing, even though we’ve engaged him on the peace process,” said Andrew J. Tabler, who lived in Syria for a decade and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I’m not saying we should give up on peace talks with Israel, but we cannot base our strategy on that.”
The United States does not have the leverage with Syria it had with Egypt. But Mr. Tabler said the administration could stiffen sanctions to press Mr. Assad to make reforms.
Other analysts, however, point to a positive effect of the unrest: it could deprive Iran of a reliable ally in extending its influence over Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
That is not a small thing, they said, given that Iran is likely to benefit from the fall of Mr. Mubarak in Egypt, the upheaval in Bahrain, and the resulting chill between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“There’s much more upside than downside for the U.S.,” said Martin S. Indyk, the vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “We have an interest in counterbalancing the advantages Iran has gained in the rest of the region. That makes it an unusual confluence of our values and interests.”
As American officials confront the upheaval in Syria, a country with which the United States has icy relations, they say they are pulled between fears that its problems could destabilize neighbors like Lebanon and Israel, and the hope that it could weaken one of Iran’s key allies.
The Syrian unrest continued on Saturday, with government troops reported to have killed more protesters.
With 61 people confirmed killed by security forces, the country’s status as an island of stability amid the Middle East storm seemed irretrievably lost.
For two years, the United States has tried to coax Damascus into negotiating a peace deal with Israel and to moving away from Iran — a fruitless effort that has left President Obama open to criticism on Capitol Hill that he is bolstering one of the most repressive regimes in the Arab world.
Officials fear the unrest there and in Jordan could leave Israel further isolated. The Israeli government was already rattled by the overthrow of Egypt’s leader, Hosni Mubarak, worrying that a new government might not be as committed to Egypt’s 1979 peace treaty with Israel.
While Israel has largely managed to avoid being drawn into the region’s turmoil, last week’s bombing of a bus in Jerusalem, which killed one person and wounded 30, and a rain of rocket attacks from Gaza, have fanned fears that the militant group Hamas is trying to exploit the uncertainty.
The unrest in Jordan, which has its own peace treaty with Israel, is also extremely worrying, a senior administration official said. The United States does not believe Jordan is close to a tipping point, this official said. But the clashes, which left one person dead and more than a hundred wounded, pose the gravest challenge yet to King Abdullah II, a close American ally.
Syria, however, is the more urgent crisis — one that could pose a thorny dilemma for the administration if Mr. Assad carries out a crackdown like that of his father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, who ordered a bombardment in 1982 that killed at least 10,000 people in the northern city of Hama. Having intervened in Libya to prevent a wholesale slaughter in Benghazi, some analysts asked, how could the administration not do the same in Syria?
Though no one is yet talking about a no-fly zone over Syria, Obama administration officials acknowledge the parallels to Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi. Some analysts predicted the administration would be cautious in pressing Mr. Assad, not because of any allegiance to him but out of a fear of what could follow him — a Sunni-led government potentially more radical and Islamist than his Alawite minority regime.
Still, after the violence, administration officials said Mr. Assad’s future was unclear. “Whatever credibility the government had, they shot it today — literally,” said a senior official about Syria, speaking on the condition that he not be named.
In the process, he said, Mr. Assad had also probably disqualified himself as a peace partner for Israel. Such a prospect had seemed a long shot in any event — Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has shown no inclination to talk to Mr. Assad — but the administration kept working at it, sending its special envoy, George J. Mitchell, on several visits to Damascus.
Mr. Assad has said that he wants to negotiate a peace agreement with Israel. But with his population up in arms, analysts said, he might actually have an incentive to pick a fight with its neighbor, if only to deflect attention from the festering problems at home.
“You can’t have a comprehensive peace without Syria,” the administration official said. “It’s definitely in our interest to pursue an agreement, but you can’t do it with a government that has no credibility with its population.”
Indeed, the crackdown calls into question the entire American engagement with Syria. Last June, the State Department organized a delegation from Microsoft, Dell and Cisco Systems to visit Mr. Assad with the message that he could attract more investment if he stopped censoring Facebook and Twitter. While the administration renewed economic sanctions against Syria, it approved export licenses for some civilian aircraft parts.
The Bush administration, by contrast, largely shunned Damascus, recalling its ambassador in February 2005 after the assassination of a former Lebanese prime minister, Rafik Hariri. Many Lebanese accuse Syria of involvement in the assassination, a charge it denies.
When Mr. Obama named Mr. Ford as his envoy last year, Republicans in the Senate held up the appointment for months, arguing that the United States should not reward Syria with closer ties. The administration said it would have more influence by restoring an ambassador.
But officials also concede that Mr. Assad has been an endless source of frustration — deepening ties with Iran and the Islamic militant group, Hezbollah; undermining the government of Saad Hariri in Lebanon; pursuing a nuclear program; and failing to deliver on promises of reform.
Some analysts said that the United States was so eager to use Syria to break the deadlock on Middle East peace negotiations that it had failed to push Mr. Assad harder on political reforms.
“He’s given us nothing, even though we’ve engaged him on the peace process,” said Andrew J. Tabler, who lived in Syria for a decade and is now at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. “I’m not saying we should give up on peace talks with Israel, but we cannot base our strategy on that.”
The United States does not have the leverage with Syria it had with Egypt. But Mr. Tabler said the administration could stiffen sanctions to press Mr. Assad to make reforms.
Other analysts, however, point to a positive effect of the unrest: it could deprive Iran of a reliable ally in extending its influence over Lebanon, Hezbollah and the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza.
That is not a small thing, they said, given that Iran is likely to benefit from the fall of Mr. Mubarak in Egypt, the upheaval in Bahrain, and the resulting chill between the United States and Saudi Arabia.
“There’s much more upside than downside for the U.S.,” said Martin S. Indyk, the vice president for foreign policy at the Brookings Institution. “We have an interest in counterbalancing the advantages Iran has gained in the rest of the region. That makes it an unusual confluence of our values and interests.”
South Sudan Says North Bombs its Territory
23 March 2011
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - South Sudan's army (SPLA) on Wednesday accused the north of bombing its territory, violating a 2005 peace deal ahead of the oil-producing region's independence.
Sudan's north-south conflict raged for all but a few years since 1955 and claimed 2 million lives in Africa's longest running civil war.
The south voted this year to secede and will become the world's newest nation on July 9.
SPLA spokesman Philip Aguer said the north dropped bombs on March 21 between a village and an SPLA base causing no casualties in Raja County in Western Bahr al-Ghazal, which borders the north's war-torn Darfur region.
Sudan's northern army denied it had carried out any bombing raids near the area.
"Strategically it does not make military sense for us to bomb an empty area," spokesman al-Sawarmi Khaled said.
The north-south U.N. peacekeeping mission (UNMIS) said it had reports from the SPLA of bombing raids and had sent a patrol to investigate.
Last year the north bombed the south while chasing Darfur rebels they said were being supported by the semi-autonomous southern government.
The south accused the north of arming rebels in its territory with clashes killing hundreds of people this year alone.
While both sides cannot afford a return to all-out war, arming proxy militias was a tactic used during the conflict, fought over religion, ethnicity, oil and ideology.
On Wednesday, the Satellite Sentinel Project, set up by actor George Clooney and other activists to monitor troop movements, released satellite images of Abyei -- a central region claimed by both north and south -- which they said showed the north had sent further troops into the flashpoint region.
Sudan's Interior Ministry denied reports by the south that it had sent 1,500 extra police to Abyei but the group said it had images confirming otherwise.
"Satellite imagery confirms reports of the deployment of large numbers of northern forces as well as newly fortified encampments," Charlie Clements, director of human rights documentation of the project, said in a statement.
China Urges Quick End to Airstrikes in Libya
March 23, 2011
BEIJING - China escalated its opposition to American-led airstrikes on Libya on Tuesday, joining Russia and India in calls for an immediate cease-fire and suggesting that coalition forces were imperiling civilians by exceeding the United Nations-mandated no-fly zone.
The rising criticism among the so-called BRIC group - Brazil, Russia, India and China - came amid allegations by the Libyan government that allied bombings had killed or wounded scores of civilians, a claim rejected by American military officials.
On Monday, hours after the departure of President Obama, Brazil issued a statement condemning the attacks and urging “the start of dialogue.”
China’s response to the campaign has been the most forceful, warning that the assault could bring about a “humanitarian disaster.” In a news briefing Tuesday, Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called for an end to hostilities. “We’ve seen reports that the use of armed force is causing civilian casualties, and we oppose the wanton use of armed force leading to more civilian casualties,” she said.
China was one of five countries to abstain from the United Nations resolution that authorized the allied airstrikes against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, which have been seeking to crush a rebellion against his four-decade rule. Russia, Brazil, India and Germany also abstained, while South Africa joined nine other Security Council members in supporting the resolution approved last week.
In its decision to abstain rather than block the resolution through its veto power, China said it was heeding the wishes of the Arab League and the African Union.
During a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday, Russia’s defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, added his voice to those calling for a cease-fire, saying it was the best way to avoid civilian casualties, according to The Associated Press. On Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin was unsparing in his criticism, comparing the allied campaign against Libya to the invasion of Iraq and likening it to a “medieval call for a crusade.” In a rare expression of dissent between the country’s two leaders, President Dmitri A. Medvedev later criticized the remarks as unacceptable.
On Tuesday, Indian officials joined those calling for a cease-fire. Pranab Mukherjee, the country’s finance minister and a leader of the lower house of Parliament, told lawmakers that the coalition had no right to oust the ruler of a sovereign nation.
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Tuesday that Turkey supported providing humanitarian aid to Libya but that it would “never be the party that points weapons at the Libyan people.” Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, had opposed an alliance plan for the no-fly zone.
The Chinese news media, meanwhile, have been vociferous in expressing opposition to the military campaign against the Libyan government, with articles and commentaries depicting the assault as an attempt to grab that country’s oil resources and expand American influence in the region.
A front-page article in People’s Daily on Tuesday said the United Nations resolution characterizing the Libyan army’s attack on civilians as a possible “crime against humanity” was simply cover for what it called the West’s hegemonic intentions.
“Historical experience has shown that humanitarian intervention is only an excuse for military intervention into other countries’ domestic affairs,” wrote the author, Tang Zhichao, a scholar at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. “They claim to be motivated by morality but in fact they are driven by narrow political and economic interests.”
An editorial in Global Times, owned by People’s Daily, went further, saying that Western nations should be penalized for “abusing” the Security Council resolution that paved the way for the attack. “Just let them agonize there in Libya,” the paper said, referring to the United States and its partners. “No matter what happens to Qaddafi, a chaotic Libya will become an unshakable burden for the West forever.”
China’s response to the campaign has been the most forceful, warning that the assault could bring about a “humanitarian disaster.” In a news briefing Tuesday, Jiang Yu, a Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, called for an end to hostilities. “We’ve seen reports that the use of armed force is causing civilian casualties, and we oppose the wanton use of armed force leading to more civilian casualties,” she said.
China was one of five countries to abstain from the United Nations resolution that authorized the allied airstrikes against the forces of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, which have been seeking to crush a rebellion against his four-decade rule. Russia, Brazil, India and Germany also abstained, while South Africa joined nine other Security Council members in supporting the resolution approved last week.
In its decision to abstain rather than block the resolution through its veto power, China said it was heeding the wishes of the Arab League and the African Union.
During a meeting with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates on Tuesday, Russia’s defense minister, Anatoly Serdyukov, added his voice to those calling for a cease-fire, saying it was the best way to avoid civilian casualties, according to The Associated Press. On Monday, Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin was unsparing in his criticism, comparing the allied campaign against Libya to the invasion of Iraq and likening it to a “medieval call for a crusade.” In a rare expression of dissent between the country’s two leaders, President Dmitri A. Medvedev later criticized the remarks as unacceptable.
On Tuesday, Indian officials joined those calling for a cease-fire. Pranab Mukherjee, the country’s finance minister and a leader of the lower house of Parliament, told lawmakers that the coalition had no right to oust the ruler of a sovereign nation.
The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said Tuesday that Turkey supported providing humanitarian aid to Libya but that it would “never be the party that points weapons at the Libyan people.” Turkey, the only Muslim member of NATO, had opposed an alliance plan for the no-fly zone.
The Chinese news media, meanwhile, have been vociferous in expressing opposition to the military campaign against the Libyan government, with articles and commentaries depicting the assault as an attempt to grab that country’s oil resources and expand American influence in the region.
A front-page article in People’s Daily on Tuesday said the United Nations resolution characterizing the Libyan army’s attack on civilians as a possible “crime against humanity” was simply cover for what it called the West’s hegemonic intentions.
“Historical experience has shown that humanitarian intervention is only an excuse for military intervention into other countries’ domestic affairs,” wrote the author, Tang Zhichao, a scholar at the China Institute of Contemporary International Relations. “They claim to be motivated by morality but in fact they are driven by narrow political and economic interests.”
An editorial in Global Times, owned by People’s Daily, went further, saying that Western nations should be penalized for “abusing” the Security Council resolution that paved the way for the attack. “Just let them agonize there in Libya,” the paper said, referring to the United States and its partners. “No matter what happens to Qaddafi, a chaotic Libya will become an unshakable burden for the West forever.”
Six Protesters Killed in Syria
March 23, 2011
DAMASCUS, Syria - At least six people were killed early Wednesday when Syrian security forces attacked protesters who had taken refuge in a mosque in the center of the southern city of Dara’a, Reuters reported.
On Tuesday, antigovernment protests had continued for a fifth day in Dara’a, before hundreds of demonstrators sought protection from the army in the Omari mosque. The protesters were calling for political freedoms and an end to corruption, and they had said they would remain in the mosque until their demands were met, Reuters reported.
“They are shooting,” a person at the mosque said by telephone, referring to the soldiers and other security forces. “Killing and killing and more killing.”
A doctor at the city’s main hospital, Ali Nassab al-Mahameed, was shot and killed as he was trying to rescue others, the witness said. It was not known how many people were wounded in the attack.
“It seems that security forces may be trying to storm the complex,” a resident told Reuters. “It is not clear because electricity has been cut off. Tear gas is also being used.”
The mosque’s preacher, Ahmad Siasneh, told Al Arabiya television on Tuesday that Syrian forces were close to the building’s grounds, where protesters had erected tents.
A doctor at the city’s main hospital, Ali Nassab al-Mahameed, was shot and killed as he was trying to rescue others, the witness said. It was not known how many people were wounded in the attack.
“It seems that security forces may be trying to storm the complex,” a resident told Reuters. “It is not clear because electricity has been cut off. Tear gas is also being used.”
The mosque’s preacher, Ahmad Siasneh, told Al Arabiya television on Tuesday that Syrian forces were close to the building’s grounds, where protesters had erected tents.
UN Civilian Protection Officials Voice Alarm over Violence in Abyei
March 18, 2011
Displaced people fleeing fighting in Abyei, in Agok, Sudan. Two United Nations civilian protection officials today voiced grave concern over rising tension in the disputed Sudanese territory of Abyei, where recent clashes between rival communities have claimed the lives of more than 100 people and caused the displacement of at least 20,000 others.
The Secretary-General's Special Advisers on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect, Francis Deng and Edward Luck, said in a joint statement that there are reports that the Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and allied fighters of the Popular Defense Forces, as well as the Sudan People's Liberation Army of the southern Government, have deployed forces in Abyei.
The Missireya Arabs, a nomadic herder community, are pitted against members of the Ngok-Dinka ethnic group in a conflict exacerbated by the controversy over a referendum that would give residents of Abyei a chance to decide whether to remain part of the north or join the south, which voted in January to secede.
The inhabitants of Abyei were due to hold a separate referendum simultaneously with the rest of Southern Sudan in January, but attempts to create a referendum commission remain deadlocked, amid feuds between communities in the area over the right to vote.
"Given the perception that the SAF supports the Missireya Arabs and the SPLA supports the Ngok-Dinka, a standoff between the two armies is very dangerous," said Mr. Deng and Mr. Luck, adding that the animosity "could easily trigger further ethnic-based violence in Abyei."
"We urge both parties to refrain from any actions that could put the lives of civilians in danger and risk a return to full scale hostilities," they said.
According to the Abyei Protocol of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) that ended the war between the North and the South in 2005, the Ngok-Dinka are dual citizens of the North and the South during the interim period before the referendum in the area.
Mr. Deng and Mr. Luck reminded the Government of Sudan and the Government of Southern Sudan of their responsibility to protect all people in Abyei, irrespective of their ethnicity or religion.
"The parties have a shared responsibility towards these populations and must protect them. We call on both parties to initiate a thorough and impartial investigation into the recent incidents of violence in Abyei and to hold those responsible accountable in order to discourage further acts of violence, including forced displacement, which is a crime against humanity," they said.
They urged both parties to ensure the free, unhindered and expeditious movement of the peacekeepers and staff of the UN Mission in Sudan (UNMIS) in Abyei to carry out its mandate, which include protecting civilians, internally displaced persons and other vulnerable groups.
Meanwhile, the joint UN-African Union peacekeeping mission in Darfur (UNAMID) today dispatched a human rights team to the South Darfur village of Amar Jadeed to investigate recent allegations of widespread rape.
UNAMID also announced that its gender advisors will on Friday begin a series of workshops for community leaders and police officers in South and West Darfur on the impact of sexual and gender-based violence.
Participants will also learn the proper procedures for reporting cases of rape and for caring for victims of the crime.
Bahrain's King Declares 3-month State of Emergency
March 16, 2011
Bahrain's king imposed a three-month state of emergency today and gave the country's military chief wide authority to battle a pro-democracy uprising that has threatened the ruling monarchy and drawn in forces from around the Gulf.
The martial law-style order — read on Bahrain state TV — comes a day after more than 1,000 Saudi-led troops arrived to help prop up the U.S.-backed regime in the first major cross-border action against the revolts that have erupted across the Arab world.
A security official in Saudi Arabia said a Saudi sergeant was shot and killed by a protester today in Bahrain's capital, Manama. No other details were immediately given on the death of the soldier, identified as Sgt. Ahmed al-Raddadi.
But, if true, it would mark a dramatic shift in the tactics by the opposition, which has displayed no weapons and has adopted the chant of “peaceful” as a main slogan. The Saudi official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.
The dispatch of troops from Gulf allies on Monday highlighted the regional worries about possible spillover from Bahrain, where members of a majority Shiite population have led a month of relentless protests against the Western-backed Sunni dynasty to try to break its monopoly on power.
Other Gulf leaders fear that concessions by Bahrain's rulers could embolden more protests against their own regimes, which have already confronted pro-reform cries in Oman, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. There are also fears that gains by Bahrain's Shiite Muslims could offer a window for Shiite power Iran to expand its influence on the Arab side of the Gulf.
The emergency law statement said the head of Bahrain's armed forces has been authorized “to take necessary steps to restore national security.”
Hours before the announcement, Bahrain's capital was in lockdown mode with stores and schools shuttered and main highways blocked by police.
In Tehran, Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman, Ramin Mehmanparast, denounced the presence of foreign troops in Bahrain as “unacceptable” and predicted it would complicate the kingdom's political crisis. Iran holds no deep political ties to Bahrain's Shiite groups, but some Iranian hard-liners in the past have hailed their efforts for greater rights.
Bahraini opposition groups also have strongly condemned the military move, calling it an occupation that pushes Bahrain dangerously close to a state of “undeclared war.”
The United States — which relies on Bahrain as a pillar of its military framework in the Gulf — has urged Americans to avoid travel to the island nation due to “the potential for ongoing political and civil unrest.” The State Department statement also advised Americans currently to consider leaving Bahrain, which hosts the U.S. Navy's 5th Fleet.
Thousands of protesters held their ground in Manama's Pearl Square, the symbolic center of their revolt. But opposition leaders have not yet announced their next move.
Mansoor al-Jamri, editor of the main opposition newspaper, Al-Wasat, said pro-government mobs stormed the paper's printing facilities early Tuesday and smashed equipment with metal pipes, clubs and axes. The paper is now using presses from other papers to publish.
Shiites account for 70 percent of Bahrain's population of some 525,000, but are widely excluded from high-level political or security posts. The protesters also demand the repeal of a government policy to offset the Shiite demographic advantage by giving citizenship and jobs to Sunnis from other Arab nations and South Asia.
The protests began last month with calls for the monarchy to give up most of its powers to the elected parliament. But as violence has deepened, many protesters now say they want to topple the entire royal family.
A statement Monday on the state-run Bahrain News Agency said troops from the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council's Peninsula Shield Force have been deployed “in line with the principle of common destiny bonding.” The bloc is made up of Saudi Arabia, Oman, Kuwait, Bahrain, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.
Saudi Arabia and the UAE have announced roles in the Bahrain force, but the contributions from the other countries were not immediately clear.
The reason for the mission was “the common responsibility of the GCC countries in maintaining security and stability,” the statement said.
The Peninsula Shield Force was created in the 1980s. Military units under a GCC command have been sent to Kuwait, including during the 1991 U.S.-led campaign to oust Saddam Hussein's force and in 2003 before the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. The current action marks a significant shift to help a government quell internal unrest.
Jane Kinninmont, a senior research fellow and Bahrain expert at the London-based think tank Chatham House, said Monday's operation “changes the role of the GCC,” which has always had collective defense pacts.
“The idea of gathering together to protect a government against its own people seems to be quite another thing,” Kinninmont said.
Gaddafi Tells West to Stay Out of Libya
March 16, 2011
Muammar Gaddafi has denounced backers of plans for a no-fly zone over his country and urged Libyans to take up arms and prepare to confront a possible invasion by Western powers.
Addressing selected supporters late on Tuesday, Gaddafi called the rebels "rats" and denounced Western nations. "They want Libyan oil," he said.
"France now raises its head and says that it will strike Libya," Gaddafi told the gathering at his Bab al-Azizia fortified compound in central Tripoli.
"Strike Libya?" he asked. "We'll be the one who strikes you! We struck you in Algeria, in Vietnam. You want to strike us? Come and give it a try."
His speech came as world powers wrangled over a draft resolution on imposing a no-fly zone over Libya to prevent Gaddafi's advancing forces from using their air superiority to take the rebel capital, Benghazi, in the east.
The draft was distributed by Britain and Lebanon at a closed-door UN security Council meeting, on Tuesday, after the Arab League called on Saturday for the Council to set up the no-fly zone.
Nawaf Salam, Lebanese ambassador and Arab League representative, said a no-fly zone would not qualify as foreign intervention in Libya.
However, the military action faced resistance from other nations, including Russia and China.
"Some members have questions and they need clarifications before a decision is made," Li Baodong, China's ambassador, told reporters. But he added: "We are very concerned about the deteriorating situation in Libya".
Concerns Raised
The United States was also being cautious about implementing the no-fly zone. However, Mansour El Kikhia, a political analyst from the University of Texas, told Al Jazeera that the US and president Barack Obama needed to assume more responsibility as a world power.
"[Obama] heightened expectations and didn't follow through ... [this situation] requires an American leader who can actually follow up his words with actions," El Kikhia said.
Opponents of the no-fly zone want to know who will take part in it and how it will be patrolled. Hardeep Singh Puri, India's envoy, raised questions about the ban on "all flights".
Portugal, Germany and South Africa have also raised doubts about the idea of a no-fly zone for Libya.
New "paragraph by paragraph" talks on the draft resolution are to be held on Wednesday, Mark Lyall Grant, Britain's envoy, said. But diplomats said no vote was likely before Thursday.
In his short, emotional speech on Tuesday, Gaddafi attacked Britain for calling for a no-fly zone. "What right do you have? Do we share borders? Are you our tutor?" he said.
Libyans would fight to the death to defend their country, he said.
He criticised the Arab League, which has backed a no-fly zone, saying it was "finished", and the Gulf Co-operation Council, which he said had lost its legitimacy.
"The Arab League is finished. There is no such thing as the Arab League," Gaddafi said.
"The Gulf Co-operation Council is finished. It's actually the 'Gulf Unco-operative Council' ... The Arab people [however] remain."
Regaining Control
During his appearance, a crowd watching on a TV projection on a wall in Benghazi shouted curses and threw shoes at the image.
As before, Gaddafi played down the scope of the conflict in his country. "They said thousands have died, but only 150 have died," he said.
Libyan state television aired calls for the opposition to stop fighting, apparently hoping to sway populations in the east away from support of the rebels.
"Those who are asking you to put down your arms want peace for you, so please help them and stop shedding blood," the broadcaster said.
"Libya is for everyone and by everyone. So let God's word be the highest and the word of evil be the lowest."
Meanwhile, a Libyan official said the government hoped to regain control over all rebel-held territories soon.
"We hope [it will be done] as soon as possible. I hope it will be in a matter of days," Khaled Kaim, the deputy foreign minister, told Reuters in Tripoli.
Police in Azerbaijan Arrest Antigovernment Protesters
12 March, 2011
MOSCOW — The police in Azerbaijan arrested 50 protesters on Saturday, the second day of demonstrations in Baku, the capital, calling for the resignation of President Ilham Aliyev, whose family has been ruling the oil-rich state since the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Police officers cordoned off the site of an antigovernment protest that drew hundreds Saturday in Baku, Azerbaijan's capital.
Several hundred protesters gathered Saturday for a rally organized by an opposition party, Musavat, which intended to ride the wave of revolts in the Middle East and North Africa. On Friday, about 60 people showed up to protest, following instructions on a Facebook page to wear red and find one another on the streets.
On both days, the police were waiting for the demonstrators, arresting them as soon as they began to gather.
They had a harder time controlling the fluid crowd on Saturday, filling a series of vans with detainees and calling in reinforcements.
“It is impossible to live under an authoritarian regime,” said one protester, Elkhan Alnagiyev, who was promptly arrested by undercover police officers who had seen him speaking to a journalist.
Another protester, Rashad Aliyev, said he had come because he was unemployed.
“It’s not that there are no jobs; it’s that I don’t know anyone who will put me in a job,” Mr. Aliyev said.
“They are oppressing us.”
Azerbaijan, a major producer of oil and natural gas with a population of nine million, was ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world last year by Transparency International.
The authorities have begun a campaign to crack down on graft, with high-profile firings of university administrators and other officials.
Mr. Aliyev has also been criticized for restricting the press and for failing to create meaningful democratic institutions.
Over the past week, the authorities warned university students that they could be expelled if they missed classes during the protests. Mubariz Qurbanli, a member of the governing New Azerbaijan Party, said the low turnout on Friday proved that the people of Azerbaijan did not support the opposition.
“Everyone understands that confrontation and chaos harm each member of society,” Mr. Qurbanli said in comments that were carried by the Interfax news service on Friday. “All such attempts will meet the same fate because there is no support for more radical politics in Azerbaijan.”
The Interior Ministry reported that 43 people had been detained on Friday and 50 on Saturday, and said that about 40 of those were likely to be prosecuted, according to Interfax.
Among those detained before the protest were Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, the only organizer of the Friday protests who is living inside the country; he was taken into custody on March 4.
The United States Embassy said in a statement that it was following reports of Mr. Hajiyev’s detention “and, in particular, allegations that he may have suffered abuse and been denied legal counsel.”
The police also detained Etibar Salmanli, who was shown on a YouTube video distributing pink leaflets about the protests. On Thursday, the Justice Ministry closed the Azerbaijan Human Rights House, which that assists activists and defenders of human rights.
The protest on Friday was among the first to be organized online in Azerbaijan, where the number of Facebook users has jumped in recent months.
According to Socialbakers.com, a Facebook traffic-tracking Web site, Azerbaijan’s Facebook use grew by about 5 percent in February to reach 324,880 people, more than three-quarters of whom are 18 to 34 years old.
“Facebook is a huge asset for us,” said Turgut Gambar, who was arrested and released Friday after the police spotted him with a group of young people dressed in red.
“I hear people talking about the 11th of March without us making a huge, huge effort.”
On both days, the police were waiting for the demonstrators, arresting them as soon as they began to gather.
They had a harder time controlling the fluid crowd on Saturday, filling a series of vans with detainees and calling in reinforcements.
“It is impossible to live under an authoritarian regime,” said one protester, Elkhan Alnagiyev, who was promptly arrested by undercover police officers who had seen him speaking to a journalist.
Another protester, Rashad Aliyev, said he had come because he was unemployed.
“It’s not that there are no jobs; it’s that I don’t know anyone who will put me in a job,” Mr. Aliyev said.
“They are oppressing us.”
Azerbaijan, a major producer of oil and natural gas with a population of nine million, was ranked as one of the most corrupt countries in the world last year by Transparency International.
The authorities have begun a campaign to crack down on graft, with high-profile firings of university administrators and other officials.
Mr. Aliyev has also been criticized for restricting the press and for failing to create meaningful democratic institutions.
Over the past week, the authorities warned university students that they could be expelled if they missed classes during the protests. Mubariz Qurbanli, a member of the governing New Azerbaijan Party, said the low turnout on Friday proved that the people of Azerbaijan did not support the opposition.
“Everyone understands that confrontation and chaos harm each member of society,” Mr. Qurbanli said in comments that were carried by the Interfax news service on Friday. “All such attempts will meet the same fate because there is no support for more radical politics in Azerbaijan.”
The Interior Ministry reported that 43 people had been detained on Friday and 50 on Saturday, and said that about 40 of those were likely to be prosecuted, according to Interfax.
Among those detained before the protest were Bakhtiyar Hajiyev, the only organizer of the Friday protests who is living inside the country; he was taken into custody on March 4.
The United States Embassy said in a statement that it was following reports of Mr. Hajiyev’s detention “and, in particular, allegations that he may have suffered abuse and been denied legal counsel.”
The police also detained Etibar Salmanli, who was shown on a YouTube video distributing pink leaflets about the protests. On Thursday, the Justice Ministry closed the Azerbaijan Human Rights House, which that assists activists and defenders of human rights.
The protest on Friday was among the first to be organized online in Azerbaijan, where the number of Facebook users has jumped in recent months.
According to Socialbakers.com, a Facebook traffic-tracking Web site, Azerbaijan’s Facebook use grew by about 5 percent in February to reach 324,880 people, more than three-quarters of whom are 18 to 34 years old.
“Facebook is a huge asset for us,” said Turgut Gambar, who was arrested and released Friday after the police spotted him with a group of young people dressed in red.
“I hear people talking about the 11th of March without us making a huge, huge effort.”
Police Block Protest in Central Square
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
More than 1,000 demonstrators called for broad political changes in Kuwait City, the capital, The Associated Press reported. The police blocked the protesters from gathering in a central square, forcing them into a parking lot next to a government building where Kuwait’s emir and prime minister have their offices.
Kuwait is a tiny, oil-rich nation of 2.6 million people, an exception to autocratic rule in the Persian Gulf region, with an elected Parliament that sets the emir's salary and is the nation's sole source of legislation. In some ways, Kuwait is the most democratic country in the Arab world, aside from Lebanon.
For most of its history, Kuwait has mattered in international terms only for the oil it produces. But on Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein sent his army into Kuwait, after weeks of accusing the emirate of undermining Iraq's economy by pumping too much oil, and at the same time renewing long standing claims to Kuwaiti territory.
Discussions between the countries to resolve the disputes broke up less than 24 hours before Iraqi troops rolled into Kuwait.
International coalition members, led by President George H.W. Bush, warned Mr. Hussein that if he chose to stay in Kuwait and fight he risked the destruction of his military, his political future and his country. In late November, the allies gave Mr. Hussein a final ultimatum: Get out of Kuwait by Jan. 15 or face war.
On Jan. 17 the allies opened an air campaign against Iraq. On Feb. 21, 1991, allied troops drove deep into Kuwait in order to evict Iraqi troops from the country. It was the biggest American-led assault since World War II, and it touched off one of the largest battles in decades, spread across a front 300 miles wide and involving more than a million combatants and support troops.
Declaring that "Kuwait is liberated" and Iraq's army defeated, President Bush ordered allied forces to suspend offensive military operations against President Saddam Hussein's isolated and battered army on Feb. 28.
Although parts of Kuwait City were rebuilt after 1990, much of it still looks faded and neglected, a striking contrast with the gleaming hyper-modernity of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
Despite having the world's fifth largest oil reserves, many Kuwaitis are upset with the absence of business and investment opportunity, at least as compared with its dynamic neighbors. Efforts to overhaul Kuwait's sclerotic welfare state have stalled in its fractious and divided Parliament.
Kuwaitis have also become frustrated by the failure to reform the state-controlled economy. After the 2006 elections, many Kuwaitis were hoping for changes to cumbersome government rules that allow land to be allocated for business projects. Instead, the effort was blocked in Parliament. The slow pace of efforts to privatize the national airline and parts of the oil sector has also caused disappointment.
In May 2009 women won four seats in parliamentary elections, a historic first and one of several electoral surprises that appeared to reflect a deep popular frustration with the political deadlock in the country.
Women gained the right to vote and run for office in 2005, but none had been elected until 2009. Many conservatives resisted the idea, and Islamists urged voters not to elect women to the 50-seat assembly.
The winners were Rola Dashti, an American-educated economist; Salwa al-Jassar and Aseel al-Awadi, who are both professors; and Massouma al-Mubarak, who in 2005 became the country's first female cabinet minister.
The 2009 elections were forced when Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, dissolved Parliament to end its latest standoff with the cabinet. It was the third time in three years that there had been such a standoff. Each time, lawmakers accused cabinet members of misconduct or corruption, creating a noisy spectacle and cabinet resignations. Sheik Sabah has consistently reappointed as prime minister his nephew, Sheik Nasser al-Muhammad al-Sabah.
The tensions have slowed economic reforms in Kuwait that many analysts view as essential.
Such tensions seem likely to continue, despite some noteworthy electoral shifts, political analysts said. Sunni Islamist candidates, who gained ground in 2008, lost some seats. Liberals and independent candidates slightly increased their representation. But many incumbents retained seats, including some who are widely considered to be responsible for the confrontations with the executive branch.
For most of its history, Kuwait has mattered in international terms only for the oil it produces. But on Aug. 2, 1990, Saddam Hussein sent his army into Kuwait, after weeks of accusing the emirate of undermining Iraq's economy by pumping too much oil, and at the same time renewing long standing claims to Kuwaiti territory.
Discussions between the countries to resolve the disputes broke up less than 24 hours before Iraqi troops rolled into Kuwait.
International coalition members, led by President George H.W. Bush, warned Mr. Hussein that if he chose to stay in Kuwait and fight he risked the destruction of his military, his political future and his country. In late November, the allies gave Mr. Hussein a final ultimatum: Get out of Kuwait by Jan. 15 or face war.
On Jan. 17 the allies opened an air campaign against Iraq. On Feb. 21, 1991, allied troops drove deep into Kuwait in order to evict Iraqi troops from the country. It was the biggest American-led assault since World War II, and it touched off one of the largest battles in decades, spread across a front 300 miles wide and involving more than a million combatants and support troops.
Declaring that "Kuwait is liberated" and Iraq's army defeated, President Bush ordered allied forces to suspend offensive military operations against President Saddam Hussein's isolated and battered army on Feb. 28.
Although parts of Kuwait City were rebuilt after 1990, much of it still looks faded and neglected, a striking contrast with the gleaming hyper-modernity of Dubai, Abu Dhabi and Qatar.
Despite having the world's fifth largest oil reserves, many Kuwaitis are upset with the absence of business and investment opportunity, at least as compared with its dynamic neighbors. Efforts to overhaul Kuwait's sclerotic welfare state have stalled in its fractious and divided Parliament.
Kuwaitis have also become frustrated by the failure to reform the state-controlled economy. After the 2006 elections, many Kuwaitis were hoping for changes to cumbersome government rules that allow land to be allocated for business projects. Instead, the effort was blocked in Parliament. The slow pace of efforts to privatize the national airline and parts of the oil sector has also caused disappointment.
In May 2009 women won four seats in parliamentary elections, a historic first and one of several electoral surprises that appeared to reflect a deep popular frustration with the political deadlock in the country.
Women gained the right to vote and run for office in 2005, but none had been elected until 2009. Many conservatives resisted the idea, and Islamists urged voters not to elect women to the 50-seat assembly.
The winners were Rola Dashti, an American-educated economist; Salwa al-Jassar and Aseel al-Awadi, who are both professors; and Massouma al-Mubarak, who in 2005 became the country's first female cabinet minister.
The 2009 elections were forced when Kuwait's ruler, Sheik Sabah al-Ahmed al-Sabah, dissolved Parliament to end its latest standoff with the cabinet. It was the third time in three years that there had been such a standoff. Each time, lawmakers accused cabinet members of misconduct or corruption, creating a noisy spectacle and cabinet resignations. Sheik Sabah has consistently reappointed as prime minister his nephew, Sheik Nasser al-Muhammad al-Sabah.
The tensions have slowed economic reforms in Kuwait that many analysts view as essential.
Such tensions seem likely to continue, despite some noteworthy electoral shifts, political analysts said. Sunni Islamist candidates, who gained ground in 2008, lost some seats. Liberals and independent candidates slightly increased their representation. But many incumbents retained seats, including some who are widely considered to be responsible for the confrontations with the executive branch.
War Porn is Back
The Roving Eye
March 3, 2011
Forget "democracy"; Libya, unlike Egypt and Tunisia, is an oil power. Many a plush office of United States and European elites will be salivating at the prospect of taking advantage of a small window of opportunity afforded by the anti-Muammar Gaddafi revolution to establish - or expand - a beachhead. There's all that oil, of course. There's also the allure, close by, of the US$10 billion, 4,128 kilometer long Trans-Saharan gas pipeline from Nigeria to Algeria, expected to be online in 2015.
Thus the world, once again, is reintroduced to war porn, history as farce, a bad rerun of "shock and awe". Everyone - the United Nations, the US, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) - is up in arms about a no-fly zone. Special forces are on the move, as are US warships.
Breathless US senators compare Libya with Yugoslavia. Tony "The Return of the Living Dead" Blair is back in missionary zeal form, its mirror image played by British Prime Minister David Cameron, duly mocked by Gaddafi's son, the "modernizer" Saif al-Islam. There's fear of "chemical weapons". Welcome back to humanitarian imperialism - on crack.
And like a character straight out of Scary Movie, even war-on-Iraq-architect Paul Wolfowitz wants a NATO-enforced no-fly zone, as the Foreign Policy Initiative - the son of the Project for the New American Century - publishes an open letter to US President Barack Obama demanding military boots to turn Libya into a protectorate ruled by NATO in the name of the "international community".
The mere fact that all these people are supporting the Libya protesters makes it all stink to - over the rainbow - high heavens. Sending His Awesomeness Charlie Sheen to whack Gaddafi would seem more believable.
It was up to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov to introduce a note of sanity, describing the notion of a no-fly zone over Libya as "superfluous". This means in practice a Russian veto at the UN Security Council. Earlier, China had already changed the conversation.
In their Sheen-style hysteria - with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton desperately offering "any kind of assistance" - Western politicians did not bother to consult with the people who are risking their lives to overthrow Gaddafi. At a press conference in Benghazi, the spokesman for the brand new Libyan National Transitional Council, human-rights lawyer Abdel-Hafidh Ghoga, was blunt, "We are against any foreign intervention or military intervention in our internal affairs ... This revolution will be completed by our people."
The people in question, by the way, are protecting Libya's oil industry, and even loading supertankers destined to Europe and China. The people in question do not have much to do with opportunists such as former Gaddafi-appointed justice minister Mustafa Abdel-Jalil, who wants a provisional government to prepare for elections in three months. Moreover, the people in question, as al-Jazeera has reported, have been saying they don't want foreign intervention for a week now.
The Benghazi council prefers to describe itself as the "political face for the revolution", organizing civic affairs, and not established as an interim government. Meanwhile, a military committee of officer defectors is trying to set up a skeleton army to be sent to Tripoli; through tribal contacts, they seem to have already infiltrated small cells into the vicinity of Tripoli.
Whether this self-appointed revolutionary leadership - splinter elements of the established elite, the tribes and the army - will be the face of a new regime, or whether they will be overtaken by younger, more radical activists, remains to be seen.
Shower me with hypocrisy
None of this anyway has placated the hysterical Western narrative, according to which there are only two options for Libya; to become a failed state or the next al-Qaeda haven. How ironic. Up to 2008, Libya was dismissed by Washington as a rogue state and an unofficial member of the "axis of evil" that originally included Iraq, Iran and North Korea.
As former NATO supreme commander Wesley Clark confirmed years ago, Libya was on the Pentagon/neo-conservative official list to be taken out after Iraq, along with Somalia, Sudan, Lebanon, Syria and the holy grail, Iran. But as soon as wily Gaddafi became an official partner in the "war on terror", Libya was instantly upgraded by the George W Bush administration to civilized status.
As for the UN Security Council unanimously deciding to refer the Gaddafi regime to the International Criminal Court (ICC), it's useful to remember that the ICC was created in mid-1998 by 148 countries meeting in Rome. The final vote was 120 to seven. The seven that voted against the ICC were China, Iraq, Israel, Qatar and Yemen, plus Libya and ... the United States. Incidentally, Israel killed more Palestinian civilians in two weeks around new year 2008 than Gaddafi these past two weeks.
This tsunami of hypocrisy inevitably raises the question; what does the West know about the Arab world anyway? Recently the executive board of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) praised a certain northern African country for its "ambitious reform agenda" and its "strong macroeconomic performance and the progress on enhancing the role of the private sector". The country was Libya. The IMF had only forgotten to talk to the main actors: the Libyan people.
And what to make of Anthony Giddens - the guru behind Blair's "Third Way" - who in March 2007 penned an article to The Guardian saying "Libya is not especially repressive" and "Gaddafi seems genuinely popular"? Giddens bet that Libya "in two or three decades' time would be a Norway of North Africa: prosperous, egalitarian and forward-looking". Tripoli may well be on its way to Oslo - but without the Gaddafi clan.
The US, Britain and France are so awkwardly maneuvering for best post-Gaddafi positioning it's almost comical to watch. Beijing, even against its will, waited until extra time to condemn Gaddafi at the UN, but made sure it was following the lead of African and Asian countries (smart move, as in "we listen to the voices of the South"). Beijing is extremely worried that its complex economic relationship with oil source Libya does not unravel (amid all the hoopla about fleeing expats, China quietly evacuated no less than 30,000 Chinese workers in the oil and construction business).
Once again; it's the oil, stupid. A crucial strategic factor for Washington is that post-Gaddafi Libya may represent a bonanza for US Big Oil - which for the moment has been kept away from Libya. Under this perspective, Libya may be considered as yet one more battleground between the US and China. But while China goes for energy and business deals in Africa, the US bets on its forces in AFRICOM as well as NATO advancing "military cooperation" with the African Union.
The anti-Gaddafi movement must remain on maximum alert. It's fair to argue the absolute majority of Libyans are using all their resourcefulness and are wiling to undergo any sacrifice to build a united, transparent and democratic country. And they will do it on their own. They may accept humanitarian help. As for war porn, throw it in the dustbin of history.
Migrant Workers Pile Up at Libya’s Borders
The New York Times Africa
March 2, 2011
RAS AJDIR BORDER CROSSING, Tunisia — Tens of thousands of migrant workers fleeing Libya found themselves in a desperate crush of refugees trying to cross the border into Tunisia on Wednesday.
March 2, 2011
As they wait — some as long as four days — many are sleeping on dusty concrete and hard-packed dirt, shielded against the cold in blankets handed out by the Tunisian government and aid groups; others have hung the blankets from trees to create makeshift tents.
More than half of the estimated 180,000 people fleeing Libya in the past 10 days have sought refuge in Tunisia. Appealing for international help on Wednesday, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, said: “We need concrete action on the ground to provide humanitarian and medical assistance. Time is of the essence. Thousands of lives are at risk.”
Several aid groups were operating on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders, handing out food and supplies to the refugees and assessing the situation for providing more help.
But it was the Tunisian border that worried aid groups the most.
“There is an absolutely mammoth task that is absolutely imperative” to ease pressure on the border area, Sybella Wilkes, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency in Geneva, said Wednesday. “The capacity of the border area is bursting.”
Britain and France said Wednesday that they would send planes to airlift stranded Egyptians — a majority of the refugees, along with Bangladeshis, sub-Saharan Africans and others — from the Tunisian border. (Many Egyptians have headed to the Tunisian border because it is closer to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, where most had worked.)
Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, told lawmakers in London, “I think it is vital to do this; these people shouldn’t be kept in transit camps if it is possible to take them back to their home, and I am glad that Britain can play such an important part in doing that.”
The French government said it would send several planes and a ship to take up to 5,000 Egyptians, and Italy said it would help set up a camp on the Tunisian border offering food and medical assistance.
Tunisian officials sought to maintain order on Wednesday, picking smaller groups to cross from among the crowds waiting at the crossing.
At one point, officials seemed to single out a small group of people from Guinea-Bissau, who held signs announcing their country of origin, and invited them to cross. The move appeared to upset a much larger group of migrant workers from Bangladesh, who surged around the main gate, forcing the authorities to escort the Guinea-Bissau group through a side door.
Once across, refugees board buses to a nearby airport — though many have limited means to buy tickets.
On Libya’s border with Egypt, the flow of new arrivals has decreased over the past several days. But there, too, thousands of migrants remain, sleeping on floors and outdoor pavement as they wait for their embassies to approve visas and arrange for flights.
In the Egyptian town of Salum, international assistance began trickling in, with medical supplies and assessment teams gathering at the border checkpoint.
Two Red Cross trucks filled with medical supplies idled on the Egyptian side of the border, and the authorities requested that the equipment be moved from an Egyptian truck to a Libyan one before it could cross, according to Samir Hadzimustafic, a Red Cross representative there.
A group of United Nations officials arriving at the crossing said they were headed to Benghazi, the emerging capital of rebel-controlled eastern Libya, partly to see if the port there could be turned into a full-fledged corridor for humanitarian relief.
The opposition’s control of eastern Libya creates complications for assistance organizations because they are not being invited in by the official government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, said Abdul Haq Amiri, the head of the regional United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.
“It is a first mission, intended to determine whether there is a need for help,” Mr. Amiri said.
With him were representatives of the World Food Program, Unicef, the World Health Organization and the United Nations refugee organization.
Other groups heading to the area include the International Medical Corps, Mercy Corps and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
On Wednesday afternoon in Salum, a medical tent set up by the Egyptian Health Ministry was empty except for Nasr Abit Abdu el-Wadid, 32, an Egyptian laborer who had fled from Misurata, a city 130 miles from Tripoli that had seen heavy fighting. Soldiers, he said, had kicked him in the head, and doctors said his severely bloodshot eyes and swollen nose were evidence of head trauma.
He had fled with two friends from Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown. “The soldiers asked for my passport, and took my passport,” he said. “They took my mobile phone. They took all of our mobile phones. They took our money.”
Six professional basketball players from sub-Saharan Africa who were playing for teams in Benghazi arrived at the border on Wednesday, saying they feared being killed by Libyans who were assuming that any black Africans they encountered were mercenaries.
“All Africans are in trouble now, they will arrest you,” said Sunny Daykins, 19, a Liberian who played for a team called Al Hillal. “They don’t even give you time to speak.”
The United Nations said Wednesday that thousands of sub-Saharan Africans might cross into poverty-stricken Niger from Libya in the coming weeks because of those fears, Reuters reported.
In Salum, several women waited among the crowds of men. “There are more women inside Libya, but they are afraid to come out,” said Laura Seulu, 29, from Cameroon, who had been a maid for a family in Benghazi. Rebels, she said, had broken into her house, and she had left as soon as she felt there was a sufficient lull in the violence.
Several aid groups were operating on the Tunisian and Egyptian borders, handing out food and supplies to the refugees and assessing the situation for providing more help.
But it was the Tunisian border that worried aid groups the most.
“There is an absolutely mammoth task that is absolutely imperative” to ease pressure on the border area, Sybella Wilkes, a spokeswoman for the United Nations refugee agency in Geneva, said Wednesday. “The capacity of the border area is bursting.”
Britain and France said Wednesday that they would send planes to airlift stranded Egyptians — a majority of the refugees, along with Bangladeshis, sub-Saharan Africans and others — from the Tunisian border. (Many Egyptians have headed to the Tunisian border because it is closer to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, where most had worked.)
Britain’s prime minister, David Cameron, told lawmakers in London, “I think it is vital to do this; these people shouldn’t be kept in transit camps if it is possible to take them back to their home, and I am glad that Britain can play such an important part in doing that.”
The French government said it would send several planes and a ship to take up to 5,000 Egyptians, and Italy said it would help set up a camp on the Tunisian border offering food and medical assistance.
Tunisian officials sought to maintain order on Wednesday, picking smaller groups to cross from among the crowds waiting at the crossing.
At one point, officials seemed to single out a small group of people from Guinea-Bissau, who held signs announcing their country of origin, and invited them to cross. The move appeared to upset a much larger group of migrant workers from Bangladesh, who surged around the main gate, forcing the authorities to escort the Guinea-Bissau group through a side door.
Once across, refugees board buses to a nearby airport — though many have limited means to buy tickets.
On Libya’s border with Egypt, the flow of new arrivals has decreased over the past several days. But there, too, thousands of migrants remain, sleeping on floors and outdoor pavement as they wait for their embassies to approve visas and arrange for flights.
In the Egyptian town of Salum, international assistance began trickling in, with medical supplies and assessment teams gathering at the border checkpoint.
Two Red Cross trucks filled with medical supplies idled on the Egyptian side of the border, and the authorities requested that the equipment be moved from an Egyptian truck to a Libyan one before it could cross, according to Samir Hadzimustafic, a Red Cross representative there.
A group of United Nations officials arriving at the crossing said they were headed to Benghazi, the emerging capital of rebel-controlled eastern Libya, partly to see if the port there could be turned into a full-fledged corridor for humanitarian relief.
The opposition’s control of eastern Libya creates complications for assistance organizations because they are not being invited in by the official government of Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi, said Abdul Haq Amiri, the head of the regional United Nations office for the coordination of humanitarian affairs.
“It is a first mission, intended to determine whether there is a need for help,” Mr. Amiri said.
With him were representatives of the World Food Program, Unicef, the World Health Organization and the United Nations refugee organization.
Other groups heading to the area include the International Medical Corps, Mercy Corps and the Organization of the Islamic Conference.
On Wednesday afternoon in Salum, a medical tent set up by the Egyptian Health Ministry was empty except for Nasr Abit Abdu el-Wadid, 32, an Egyptian laborer who had fled from Misurata, a city 130 miles from Tripoli that had seen heavy fighting. Soldiers, he said, had kicked him in the head, and doctors said his severely bloodshot eyes and swollen nose were evidence of head trauma.
He had fled with two friends from Surt, Colonel Qaddafi’s hometown. “The soldiers asked for my passport, and took my passport,” he said. “They took my mobile phone. They took all of our mobile phones. They took our money.”
Six professional basketball players from sub-Saharan Africa who were playing for teams in Benghazi arrived at the border on Wednesday, saying they feared being killed by Libyans who were assuming that any black Africans they encountered were mercenaries.
“All Africans are in trouble now, they will arrest you,” said Sunny Daykins, 19, a Liberian who played for a team called Al Hillal. “They don’t even give you time to speak.”
The United Nations said Wednesday that thousands of sub-Saharan Africans might cross into poverty-stricken Niger from Libya in the coming weeks because of those fears, Reuters reported.
In Salum, several women waited among the crowds of men. “There are more women inside Libya, but they are afraid to come out,” said Laura Seulu, 29, from Cameroon, who had been a maid for a family in Benghazi. Rebels, she said, had broken into her house, and she had left as soon as she felt there was a sufficient lull in the violence.
Iran Warns West Against Military Action in Libya
2 March 2011
TEHRAN — Hardline Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad on Wednesday warned the United States against military intervention in Libya, saying such action would create a graveyard for its soldiers.
Ahmadinejad, under whose presidency animosity between Tehran and Washington has heightened, said the current situation was completely different to what it was during the tenure of former US president George W. Bush.
Ahmadinejad, under whose presidency animosity between Tehran and Washington has heightened, said the current situation was completely different to what it was during the tenure of former US president George W. Bush.
“(Bush) used a deception named September 11 to prepare the ground to invade Iraq and Afghanistan,” Ahmadinejad said at a public speech in the western province of Lorestan.
“Be warned that if you intervene militarily one more time, in any of the countries in North Africa or the Middle East, the regional nations will rise and dig the graves of your soldiers,” he said, referring to reports that the West was weighing up military option to oust Libyan strongman Muammar Gaddafi.
Ahmadinejad, in his speech broadcast live on state television, reiterated all the regional “dictators” were backed by Washington.
“Today, they (the US and its allies) claim they are confronting dictators... (But) everywhere in the world, in all of the Muslim world, in all of the Middle East, wherever there is a dictator, he is backed by them,” he said.
“And now they come and say they want to support the people... but your plans have been derailed... today no one recognises your claim of supporting the people.”
Ahmadinejad said on Monday that US weapons were “killing” the protesters in the uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa.
On Tuesday, Iran’s foreign ministry also warned against military action in Libya.
Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast said the “inhumane violence” unleashed by Gaddafi loyalists against Libya’s “popular movement... should not provide an excuse for military interference by other countries.
“They (Western countries) should not try to turn countries into military bases,” Mehmanparast was quoted as saying on the website of Iran’s English-language Press TV channel.
The Iranian statements came in response to reports that the West, including the United States, was considering the military option against Gaddafi’s embattled regime.
However, such intervention was looking less likely on Wednesday after US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said “there is no unanimity within NATO for the use of armed force” against Gaddafi.
“We also have to think about frankly the use of the US military in another country in the Middle East,” Gates added.
Although Gaddafi’s military is badly outgunned by US and NATO aircraft, the regime has dozens of surface-to-air missiles that could target invading warplanes.
More than 100,000 people have already left Libya to escape a vicious crackdown by Gaddafi loyalists which has left at least 1,000 dead, according to conservative UN estimates.
The revolt against Gaddafi’s 41-year rule is part of anger at authoritarian Arab regimes sweeping the Middle East and North Africa and even the Gulf states of Kuwait and Oman.
The Arab uprisings were triggered by revolts in Tunisia and Egypt which led to ouster of their respective presidents.
SKorea, US Begin Annual Drills Amid NKorean Threat
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South Korean activists and former North Korean defectors release balloons with Korean words reading, "Overthrow Kim Jong Il Dictatorship," and carrying leaflets condemning the North Korean leader during a rally at the Imjingak pavilion nearthe border village of Panmunjom, South Korea. The North's military warned on Sunday Feb. 27, 2011, that it would shoot directly at South Korean border towns and destroy them if Seoul continued to allow activists to launch propaganda leaflets toward the communist country, Pyongyang's official Korean Central News Agency said. |
28 February, 2011
SEOUL, South Korea—South Korean and U.S. troops began annual military drills Monday that North Korea slammed as a rehearsal for an invasion that could trigger a nuclear war on the divided peninsula.
Despite North Korea's threat to retaliate, South Korea and the United States went ahead with the drills, which are the allies' first major combined military exercises since the North shelled a front-line South Korean island in November, killing four people.
That barrage came eight months after 46 sailors were killed when a South Korean warship was sunk, an attack that an international investigation blamed on a North Korean torpedo, though Pyongyang denies it was involved.
Animosity over the bloodshed drove ties between the Koreas to one of their lowest levels in decades.
Animosity over the bloodshed drove ties between the Koreas to one of their lowest levels in decades.
About 12,800 U.S. troops and some 200,000 South Korean soldiers and reservists are to participate in the drills, which are aimed at defending South Korea and responding to any attack.
The main part of the drills, which will involve computer war games and live-firing exercises, will last 11 days, while some field training will continue until late April, according to the South Korea-U.S. joint forces command in Seoul.
The drills "are planned months in advance, and they are not connected to any current world events," the joint command said in a statement.
Hours after the exercises started, North Korea warned of a nuclear war on the peninsula.
"It's an anti-national scheme aimed at prolonging the stage of confrontation and tension to realize a plot to start a northward invasion," the North's main Rodong Sinmun newspaper said in a commentary carried by the official Korean Central News Agency. "The danger of a nuclear war on the Korean peninsula is deepening."
On Sunday, the North said that if provoked, its military would turn Seoul into a "sea of flames" and start a full-scale war with "merciless" counterattacks.
South Korean and U.S. officials have repeatedly said the drills are purely defensive.
"Denouncing these kinds of drills as an aggression and provocation won't be a help to South-North Korea relations at all," South Korean Unification Ministry spokesman Chun Hae-sung told reporters Monday.
A South Korean military official said there have been no suspicious activities by the North's military. The official spoke on condition of anonymity, citing office rules.
After weeks of high tension following its November bombardment of the island, North Korea recently pushed for dialogue with South Korea and expressed a desire to return to stalled international talks on its nuclear program.
Military officers from the two Koreas met earlier this month but failed to make progress.
The two Koreas are still technically at war because the 1950-53 Korean War ended with an armistice, not a peace treaty
Calls for Protest Across the Middle East
The New York Times
February 25, 2011
February 25, 2011
CAIRO — Opposition movements across the Middle East called for huge demonstrations on Friday to protest corruption and unaccountability in the governments that rule them and to express solidarity with the uprising in Libya that Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi is trying to suppress with force.
In Baghdad, defying attempts by Iraq’s government to curtail a day of nationwide protests, thousands of Iraqis took to the streets on Friday. Most of the gatherings around the country appeared to proceed peacefully, though were reports of sporadic violence in the Sunni Muslim areas north of Baghdad, where Iraqi Army troops opened fire, wounding five protesters. It was unclear what provoked the shooting.
In a nationally televised address on Thursday night, Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki had tried to convince Iraqis to call off the protests, saying that loyalists of Saddam Hussein were behind them, and that insurgents would try to exploit them to sow unrest. He banned vehicles from Baghdad streets as a security precaution.
“They are attempting to crack down on everything you have achieved, all the democratic gains, the free elections, the peaceful exchanges of power and freedom,” he said. “So I call on you, from a place of compassion, to thwart the enemy plans by not participating in the demonstrations tomorrow, because it’s suspicious and it will give rise to the voice of those who destroyed Iraq.”
In Egypt, tens of thousands of people were expected to turn out in Tahrir Square in central Cairo to mark the one-month anniversary of the start of the popular revolution. On Feb. 11, Hosni Mubarak resigned as president , leading to the imposition of military rule and an interim cabinet.
Calling it the “Friday of Cleansing,” the coalition of youth groups that spearheaded the uprising said that they would call for resignation of the prime minister and other cabinet members who remain in place from Mr. Mubarak’s government, and underscore the need to move quickly toward a new Constitution, the dismantling of the state’s repressive security apparatus, and true multiparty elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that was banned for decades but is playing an active role in politics here, also pledged to hold protests in Cairo and across the country with similar demands.
Large protests were also planned in Yemen. After an escalation in violence between supporters and opponents of the Yemeni government in Sana, the capital, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose hold on power has grown increasingly fragile, instructed security forces on Wednesday to protect demonstrators and thwart clashes between the two sides.
In Sana, tens of thousands of people were pouring into a square near the main gates of Sana University to call for the resignation of the president amid a tight security presence, The Associated Press reported.
In the morning, tens of thousands of people gathered to listen to Islamic preaching on the subject of freedom in the city of Taiz, 130 miles south of the capital, where antigovernment protesters and supporters of the regime clashed last week. On Tuesday night, two protesters were shot dead by government supporters during a sit-in in front of Sana University. At least 10 others were injured.
In Bahrain, religious leaders have for the first time called for people to take to the streets, which could change the dynamic. More than 100,000 demonstrators packed central Pearl Square on Tuesday in what organizers called the largest pro-democracy demonstration this tiny Persian Gulf nation had ever seen, as the monarchy struggled to hold on to power.
Yet the eyes of the region were on Libya, where the government has been waging a brutal crackdown against protesters, whose efforts over the past week have developed into a full-scale rebellion. Much of the east of the country is now in the hands of antigovernment rebels and clashes continue in the west. In Tripoli, which is under the control of mercenaries and militias as Col. Qaddafi’s attempts to preserve the capital, protesters pledged to brave threats of violence to take to the streets.
Opposition leaders had also pledged to march to Tripoli from other cities, though the roads were reported to be thick with checkpoints and heavily armed forces that remain loyal to Col. Qaddafi’s 40-year rule.
“They are attempting to crack down on everything you have achieved, all the democratic gains, the free elections, the peaceful exchanges of power and freedom,” he said. “So I call on you, from a place of compassion, to thwart the enemy plans by not participating in the demonstrations tomorrow, because it’s suspicious and it will give rise to the voice of those who destroyed Iraq.”
In Egypt, tens of thousands of people were expected to turn out in Tahrir Square in central Cairo to mark the one-month anniversary of the start of the popular revolution. On Feb. 11, Hosni Mubarak resigned as president , leading to the imposition of military rule and an interim cabinet.
Calling it the “Friday of Cleansing,” the coalition of youth groups that spearheaded the uprising said that they would call for resignation of the prime minister and other cabinet members who remain in place from Mr. Mubarak’s government, and underscore the need to move quickly toward a new Constitution, the dismantling of the state’s repressive security apparatus, and true multiparty elections.
The Muslim Brotherhood, the Islamist movement that was banned for decades but is playing an active role in politics here, also pledged to hold protests in Cairo and across the country with similar demands.
Large protests were also planned in Yemen. After an escalation in violence between supporters and opponents of the Yemeni government in Sana, the capital, President Ali Abdullah Saleh, whose hold on power has grown increasingly fragile, instructed security forces on Wednesday to protect demonstrators and thwart clashes between the two sides.
In Sana, tens of thousands of people were pouring into a square near the main gates of Sana University to call for the resignation of the president amid a tight security presence, The Associated Press reported.
In the morning, tens of thousands of people gathered to listen to Islamic preaching on the subject of freedom in the city of Taiz, 130 miles south of the capital, where antigovernment protesters and supporters of the regime clashed last week. On Tuesday night, two protesters were shot dead by government supporters during a sit-in in front of Sana University. At least 10 others were injured.
In Bahrain, religious leaders have for the first time called for people to take to the streets, which could change the dynamic. More than 100,000 demonstrators packed central Pearl Square on Tuesday in what organizers called the largest pro-democracy demonstration this tiny Persian Gulf nation had ever seen, as the monarchy struggled to hold on to power.
Yet the eyes of the region were on Libya, where the government has been waging a brutal crackdown against protesters, whose efforts over the past week have developed into a full-scale rebellion. Much of the east of the country is now in the hands of antigovernment rebels and clashes continue in the west. In Tripoli, which is under the control of mercenaries and militias as Col. Qaddafi’s attempts to preserve the capital, protesters pledged to brave threats of violence to take to the streets.
Opposition leaders had also pledged to march to Tripoli from other cities, though the roads were reported to be thick with checkpoints and heavily armed forces that remain loyal to Col. Qaddafi’s 40-year rule.
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