World Analysis Newswire Archive

Does Evgeny Lebedev support EVENING STANDARD suppressing the truth?

As the UN General Assembly meeting unfolded on Monday, several delegations provided explanations of the customary procedures that had been violated, suggesting that the President of the General Assembly, Ambassador Nassir Abdulaziz al-Nasser of Qatar, was using his office to manipulate a procedure at the UN to further the political goals of his nation.

The impact of these abuses of UN General Assembly precedents and procedures is that not only the people and government of Syria, but also the very integrity of the UN system itself, are being undermined and jeopardized. The actions of the subsequent meeting that followed on Thursday demonstrated this abuse ever more clearly.

On February 4, Russia and China vetoed the Arab League's one-sided Syria resolution (SC/10536). It illegitimately called for Assad to step down.

Under international law, no nation or combination thereof, may interfere in the internal affairs of others, except in self-defense if attacked.

Western pressure often gets nations to violate international law and their own non-intervention pledges. When they don't, Washington, rogue NATO partners, and complicit allies wage aggressive war on their own.

In 1999, without Security Council authorization, nonbelligerent Yugoslavia was lawlessly attacked and ravaged. Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya followed. Perhaps Syria's next, then Iran, no matter the threat to humanity.

30 January 2012 (Brazil-Rio de Janeiro) Pedro Rios Leão´s Hunger strike

Translated from the original Portuguese by Kevin Lynch

— There is a brilliant commentary from Paulo Halm (brazilian movie maker) below. Because, if it was Yoani Sánchez handcuffed to a post in Havana and on hunger strike in front of the ´Palace of the Revolution´ asking from the world justice and democracy, Globo (and all of the mainstream press), in the face of any embargo, would send a correspondent to Cuba sending live feeds from the locale or going even further still without and loosing the realism, would make, let us see... a reality TV show! But no, my friends, Pedro is only a Brazilian asking for justice and democracy in the most democratic country in South America, the location of Rio +20, the Olympic Games as well as being the 5th largest economy in the world.

PLM Calls for an Independent Foreign Policy and a Non-Aligned ASEAN

4 Months ago, after years of resisting, I finally joined Facebook for the first time. Half social experiment, half wanting to know what I was missing I concluded that in fact I was right and Facebook is bad news.

1. We'll have "crisis" at all times, which always end in unemployment and misery for ordinary people and in awards of thousands of thousands of millions in cash to speculators and bankers, who are invariably the meticulous builders of those "crises". Governments, led by politicians always financed by these gentlemen, dutifully will pass them the hard-earned money from the taxpayer crowd.

Part one can be found here, part two follows.

Constat de propagation de fausses nouvelles ...

In January, Michel Chossudovsky reported British media confirming UK/CIA/MI6 operatives in Syria training anti-Assad Western-backed insurgents. They're also supplying them with arms, ammunition, and equipment. The Libyan model's being replicated in Syria, so far short of bombing.

It has been said that compassion is 'the only beauty that truly pleases' (Aryasura, The Marvelous Companion, Dharma Publishing, 1983, p.305). While beauty ordinarily provokes the fiery itch of desire or the sullen shadow of envy, compassion is cooling, blissful, inspiring awe and wonder. It implies an ability to stand outside our own needs as observers, to perceive the suffering of others as of equal or greater importance. But like all forms of beauty, compassion can be faked, exploited.

The 'Free Syrian Army' - the so-called 'rebel' group armed and funded by Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar - is involved in a violent insurgency against the Syrian government. That is not just my opinion, it is the view of the Arab League observer mission sent into the country to gather evidence against the ruling Assad regime. But when reports didn't fit the political agenda, the League pulled the plug on the mission, and the Syrian government was subtlely blamed.

Friday Drivetime - BCfm’s weekly politics show
At five: discussing the big stories in Bristol, Britain and around the world
After six: straight talking and investigative reports with Martin Summers and Marina Morris

Chris Hedges has written some of the most insightful analysis of the U.S. war machine in recent years. His 2009 book The Empire of Illusion was an exploration of how exhibition has eclipsed truth and meaningful connection in American society. His acknowledgment of the ease in which one can buy into such spectacles is a small part of why it was so odd to read his article on Truthdig attacking both anarchists and black bloc tactics entitled “The Cancer in Occupy.”

For anyone in two minds about what is really going on in Syria, and whether President Assad, hailed a decade ago as “A Modern Day Ataturk”, has become the latest megalomaniacal despot, to whose people a US-led posse of nations, must deliver “freedom”, with weapons of mass, home, people, nation and livelihood destruction, here is a salutary tale from modern history.

Even as the US and its European allies intensify punitive economic sanctions against Iran, there are growing signs that Israel is threatening military strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities in the coming months. While the Obama administration has cautioned Israel against military action at this stage, there is no indication that Washington has vetoed such an attack.

Russia and China have vetoed the UN Security Council draft resolution on Syria pointing to the existence of armed groups involved in terrorist acts including the killing of civilians.

Seven squatters arrested, at least six evictions, four court hearings, at least three assaults, two charged, one IPO... an update from some Brighton squatters

Greedy landlords are pushing tenants out of their homes in time for the London 2012 Olympics in favour of highly profitable short term rentals.

The February-March 2012 issue of this voice for anarchist action and thought is out, as always committed to liberty and equality in solidarity since 1995. This issue includes the following: