World History Newswire Archive

"I'm not a traitor. I'm a man with a conscience who did what he did out of a deep belief after much thought and many doubts. But I knew that I had to do it, that I had no choice…somebody had to do it…I contributed my share by making public what the public ought to know and they shut my mouth behind the prison walls."

-- Israeli nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu

I tried to contact Mark Higson the other day only to learn he had died nine years ago. He was just 40, an honourable man. We met soon after he had resigned from the Foreign Office in 1991 and I asked him if the government knew that Hawk fighter-bombers sold to Indonesia were being used against civilians in East Timor.

“Everyone knows,” he said, “except parliament and the public.”

“And the media?”

“The media – the big names – have been invited to King Charles Street (the Foreign Office) and flattered and briefed with lies. They are no trouble.”

As Iraq desk officer at the Foreign Office, he had drafted letters for ministers reassuring MPs and the public that the British Government was not arming Saddam Hussein. “This was a downright lie”, he said. “I couldn’t bear it”.

... Investigations into connivance with the three Mafia organizations, Cosa Nostra, ’Ndrangheta and the Camorra, involve people in top positions in the state, local authorities and public bodies ...

From Donegal and Clare, and Connaught and the Munster hills...... Your plea is remembered and we battle on, energised by your passion

Brian Anson (1934-2009) passed away over the weekend after being inflicted with a sudden illness, he was a Liverpudlian, who came to Ireland to do what he could to help..

When the Iranian Revolution exploded on the world scene three decades ago, John Limbert was a greenhorn diplomat assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Tehran. After that station was taken over by revolutionary students, he spent 14 months as a political hostage in the building that came to be known as the “Nest of Spies.”

Today Limbert is the newly appointed Deputy Assistant Secretary for Iran in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs. That makes him Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's point person on Iran, just as pressure is building in Congress to impose more sanctions on the Islamic Republic.

While Limbert's preferred methods may differ from those of his predecessor Dennis Ross, it would be naive to think that his political goals are any less ambitious: undermining Iran's growing ability to oppose U.S. policy in the Middle East by restricting its access to alternative energy sources while promoting a change to a government friendlier to Western corporate interests.

Following is an extended and footnoted version of an article previously published at  http://www.indymedia.org.uk/en/2009/11/441115.html the updated version has been described by Nafeez as "a bit meatier, and murkier".

What has gone wrong with China's Communist revolution? Puzzle 1: why does China have a totally corrupt government? Puzze 2: Is China's bureaucratic corruption going to ruin the nation and economy in light of global financial crisis? How should one understand the Chinese Communist bureaucracy and its wild corruptive practice? Get realistic analysis and knowledge on Chinese economy, politics, and society from provocative Chinese thinker George Zhibin Gu of World Association of International Studies at Stanford University (5 parts)

Influence Peddling: Defending Democracy With Dictators and Dosh

It turns out that Benito Mussolini, inventor of fascism and promulgator of vast atrocities in Ethiopia and elsewhere, had his sinister career kick-started with dollops of secret cash from -- where else? -- the intelligence service of one of the great and good world-leading democracies of his day.

The Kate Sharpley Library are pleased to announce our new pamphlet containing two essays on Makhnovist opposition in the Ukraine after the triumph of Bolshevism.

Here are 20 photos from the `GUDE CAUSE` march in Edinburgh which commemmorated the 100th anniversary of the Women’s Suffrage Movement Procession along Princes Street in 1909.

What is really inside Communist China since 1949? What is really behind China's politics, business, economy and international relations? Is China's communist corruption going to ruin the nation in light of global financial crisis? Get powerful reviews from a new posting by provocative Chinese thinker George Zhibin Gu of World Association of International Studies at Stanford University.

* Different organizations and individuals from Venezuela with tradition in the social struggles linked to different anti-authoritarian and critical leftist approaches, with whom we have converged at the space called INSURGENTES, set position before the exhumations of the Caracazo.

As I have previously stated, I can affirm that the FCO and MI6 knew that al-Megrahi was not the Lockerbie bomber.

I strongly recommend that you read this devastating article by the great lawyer Gareth Peirce, in the London Review of Books. Virtually every paragraph provides information which in itself demolishes the conviction. The totality of the information Peirce gives is a quite stunning picture of not accidental but deliberate miscarriage of justice.

Honduran coup leaders are popularly known as "gorillas" and Roberto Micheletti as "Goriletti".

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

In a dramatic move that seemed like something out of a Hollywood movie, ousted Honduran President Manuel Zelaya sneaked back into his country and turned up Monday at the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa, the capital. (Source: Pakistan News)

Cartoon originally produced for Atilim newspaper (Turkey):  http://www.atilim.org/haberler/2009/09/10/Taniklar__magdurlar_12_Eylul_u_anlatiyor.html

an invitation to all....
...radicals, strugglers, freethinkers, anarchists, workers, fighters, unemployed, dreamers, peace-lovers and planet-savers. Come along and join in the fun!

The Bristol anarchist bookfair 2009 sweeps into the city centre on 12 September. Bringing together local and national groups, networks, individuals and distros, the bookfair provides absolutely anything you have ever wanted to know about anarchism, and much more. It is also, this year, the opening event for the Bristol CoMutiny Convergence – details at  http://comutiny.wordpress.com/

Friday Drivetime - Bristol’s weekly current affairs roundup. Discussing the big stories in Bristol and around the world with Martin Summers & Maryna Morris

Here is a lively description of how jail feels like, borrowed from a book by semiotext(e) titled Autonomia: post-political politics, edited by Sylvere Lotringer and Christian Marazzi, ISBN 1-58435-053-9, distributed by MIT Press.