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|  | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #210 on Jul 2, 2012, 10:18am » | |
Syrian regime TV reporter defects
Ghatan Sleiba, from the pro-Assad al-Dunya channel, says he has been providing intelligence to the rebels for months
Martin Chulov in Antakya, Turkey
guardian.co.uk, Monday 2 July 2012 11.14 BST
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img100/5668/syrianrefugees008.jpg "[image]")
Syrian refugees prepare to cross into Turkey. Ghatan Sleiba arrived in Turkey last Wednesday after a long journey from Hassaka in eastern Syria. Photograph: Bulent Kilic/AFP/Getty Images
A presenter from the Syrian regime's main television channel has defected to the opposition and revealed he has secretly provided intelligence to rebels for the past seven months.
Ghatan Sleiba, a long-time anchor and reporter for the al-Dunya channel, is believed to be the first high-profile defector from Damascus's powerful propaganda arm. "I am the first and I will probably be the last," he said in an interview with the Guardian in southern Turkey.
"There are some others who also want to run, but there are more who love the regime from the depths of their hearts," he said.
Sleiba, 33, arrived in Turkey last Wednesday after a long journey from Hassaka in eastern Syria, where he had been responsible for coverage of the east of the country. He is now being hosted by rebel groups.
He claimed opposition guerillas were now in quasi-control of much of the east, especially the countryside surrounding major towns and cities.
"This is one of the things that they never wanted us to talk about. What we were doing was not reporting. It was simply acting as the tongue of the regime. I stayed as long as I could to help the revolutionaries, but I couldn't take it any more.
Al-Dunya is part-owned and supervised by Bashar al-Assad's maternal cousin Rami Makhlouf, a key member of the inner sanctum. It has pushed the official narrative that the Syrian uprising is a plot by the west and key Sunni Arab powers to use al-Qaida-linked insurgents to overthrow the regime.
Sleiba said that before interviews he regularly gave people answers to questions he was about to ask them. "Those answers and the subjects of things to talk about were given to us by the head of the Ba'ath party in the area, or by the political security division."
He said he first developed doubts about the official version of events about two months into the uprising, which started in March last year. "Many of us knew then that it wasn't terrorists they were fighting. It was people wanting their rights. But it was very difficult to do anything about it. We have families and we need to protect them."
Last November he made contact with the Free Syria Army, first near Hassaka and then in Turkey, telling both groups that he wanted to flee. "They told me that I was more use to them if I stayed in my job. And so from then on we talked on Skype and I told them what I could about regime and military movements."
Sleiba accused regime intelligence units in the east of sending a gang to maim him with a knife and rob him of more than $2,000 (£1,300), then blame the attack on the rebels. "I know who did this to me," he said pointing to a deep gouge on his forehead. "The Free Syria Army needs to win people's confidence in our area and they have done that. We know who their members and their commanders are and they did not do this, no way. It was the regime."
Sleiba said he was now looking for a job with an opposition television channel, something he concedes will be difficult, if first contact with suspicious reporters is anything to go by.
"When I got here, I met a guy from al-Jazeera and he said I was a government spy with a psychological problem. But people will soon learn that the truth is a powerful thing and that is why I am here."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/02/syrian-regime-tv-reporter-defects
AND:
Syria crisis: Geneva talks sound death knell for Assad regime
UK and French foreign ministers confirm there is no place for President Bashar al-Assad in transitional Syrian government
Peter Beaumont and Shiv Malik
guardian.co.uk, Sunday 1 July 2012 14.54 BST
The UK and French foreign ministers have said a UN communique drawn up in Geneva on Saturday night to address the escalating conflict in Syria will mean President Bashar al-Assad is "finished" and will have to step down.
The communique, which agreed terms for a transitional authority to oversee the end of violence in the country, was hammered out with the inclusion of Russia and China and called for "clear and irreversible steps" after a fixed time frame.
In a sign of rising hostility, Turkey's military has said it scrambled fighter jets to its border on Saturday after Syrian helicopters flew close to the frontier.
Tensions between the two countries have continued to rise since Turkey said two of its fighter jets were downed by Syria and a rescue plane was shot at during the subsequent search for the pilots.
A military statement on Sunday said F-16 jets were scrambled and sent to the border after the helicopters flew in the area on at least three occasions.
The military said the helicopters flew as close as four miles (6.5km) from Turkey.
Saturday's agreement stated that members of the present Syrian government could be included in the new body and it was initially unclear whether Assad could be part of that transitional government.
However, speaking on Sunday morning, the foreign secretary, William Hague, said Assad would be excluded from any unity government under the terms of the agreement.
The Foreign Office said under the terms of the communique, members of any future Syrian unity government would be agreed only by "mutual consent" from opposition and current regime members. A spokesperson said there was no chance of opposition members agreeing to Assad or his closest allies joining a unity government and that the insertion of the phrase had been an important win for pro-opposition government.
Speaking on the BBC's Andrew Marr show after his return from Geneva, Hague said the international community was some way from resolving the crisis, but added: "We are putting great energy into it."
He added: "Is it deeply frustrating that hundreds of people are dying every week while we talk? Of course it is. I spent 10 hours yesterday talking to the foreign ministers of Russia and China about what we can do.
"We made one step forward that's worth having, which is that we agreed with Russia and China what a transitional government should look like. And that there should be a transitional unity government in Syria, and that should be made up of people from the present government and opposition groups on the basis of mutual consent, which would of course exclude President Assad from that."
The French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, speaking on Sunday backed Hague's approach. "Even if they say the opposite, the fact that the text says specifically that there will be a transitional government with all powers means it won't be Bashar al-Assad … because it will be people that are agreed to by mutual consent. The opposition will never agree to him, so it signals implicitly that Assad must go and that he is finished," he told TF1 TV station.
The agreement has met with negative reaction from opposition groups fighting the Assad regime, who described it as ambiguous and a waste of time.
"Every day I ask myself, do they not see how the Syrian people are being slaughtered?" a veteran Syrian opposition figure, Haitham Maleh, asked. "It is a catastrophe, the country has been destroyed, and they want us then to sit with the killer?"
Maleh said the Geneva agreement would have "no value on the ground".
The UN special envoy, Kofi Annan, said he hoped to see concrete results towards a settlement within a year and insisted "it is for the people of Syria to come to a political agreement".
Addressing the meeting earlier, the US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, said Assad and his allies had no place in the transitional process.
The Geneva meeting ended amid reports of fresh violence in Syria, including claims that government forces had overrun Douma city, which has been under siege for several weeks.
Clinton said the conditions set out in the statement offered the best chance of a transition to a democratic post-Assad period, including free elections. She added that the US would meet next week with Syria's divided opposition to try to forge unity between them in line with the Kofi Annan principles.
Russia had previously refused to back a provision that would call for Assad to step down to pave the way for a unity government. The final UN communique, which followed a day of difficult negotiations, appeared to preserve the Moscow "red line" – that the Syrian people should have ownership of the transition process and it should not be imposed from outside.
Opposition from Russia, with the backing of China, has been seen by western powers as one of the main obstacles in the efforts to end the conflict, which has claimed more than 15,000 lives. According to western diplomatic sources, the sticking point during talks has been a paragraph in the text interpreted by the US and the UK as suggesting that Assad would need to step down before the transition.
The emergency meeting was attended by the foreign ministers of the UN security council's permanent five members, as well as representatives of the EU and Arab states, including Syria's neighbour Iraq.
Addressing delegates, Annan warned that the war in Syria risked spilling over into a wider regional conflict of "grave severity". However, at times during the day that seemed a moot point as US officials accused Russia of "stonewalling" and raised the prospect that the talks might fail.
Admonishing the foreign powers present, Annan said the crisis should never have reached this point. "Either unite to secure your common interests or divide and surely fail in your own individual way," he said. "Without your unity, your common resolve and your action now … nobody can win and everyone will lose in some way."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/01/syria-crisis-geneva-talks-assad
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #211 on Jul 4, 2012, 6:08am » | |
Fears diplomacy is dead as reports of torture grow
Ruth Pollard
July 4, 2012
AFTER a damning report on Syria's extensive network of underground detention centres that have been used to torture thousands during its 16-month-long uprising, there are renewed fears the conflict has slipped beyond diplomacy into a protracted ground war.
The United Nations high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, renewed her call for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court as the serious abuses committed by both sides continued unabated.
''In my view, both government forces and armed opponents have been involved in actions harming civilians … and the evidence points to the commission of crimes against humanity,'' Ms Pillay said.
In its report released yesterday, Human Rights Watch also described what is happening in Syria as crimes against humanity, saying evidence from more than 200 interviews showed ''systematic patterns that … clearly point to a state policy of torture and ill-treatment''.
The group called on the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the international court and to adopt targeted sanctions against officials credibly implicated in the abuses.
In a detailed set of maps and command structures, the group has documented the exact location, agency, commander and type of torture used, using testimony corroborated by multiple witnesses, both victims and defectors who worked in the facilities.
Based on the evidence, the number of torture and detention centres is likely much higher than the 27 documented in the report, said the deputy director of its Middle East and North Africa division, Nadim Houry.
''We believe there is strong evidence that there is a state policy of torture and that it is widespread,'' Mr Houry said. ''These security services represent a shadow parallel state that must be held to account.''
Human Rights Watch estimates that since the uprising began, Syrian authorities have subjected tens of thousands of people to arbitrary arrests, unlawful detentions, enforced disappearances, ill-treatment and torture using this extensive network of detention facilities and torture centres.
It is this ''legacy of systematised brutality'' that makes the possibility of a diplomatic outcome to this crisis so remote, said Richard Gowan, the associate director of the centre on international co-operation at New York University and a fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations.
''The Syrian rebels have come to the conclusion that the only way they are going to finish this conflict favourably is through force rather than through diplomacy,'' Mr Gowan said.
It was clear, even early on in the uprising, that the regime of the President, Bashar al-Assad, was using torture as a central part of its response to the rebellion, he said.
''It is almost impossible to see where you can rebuild trust when this level of violence has been so deep and, in some ways, more toxic than the military campaigns.
''My increasing sense is that, tragically, this is a conflict that has to be fought out on the ground for some time before either side will really be prepared to listen to diplomacy.''
Meanwhile, the violence on the ground in Syria continued unabated, with at least 104 deaths reported on Monday alone, according to the Syrian Network for Human Rights and local activists.
''All the evidence is that the support that the Saudis and Qataris and others have given to the rebels is paying off, and this is allowing the rebels to escalate their attacks, and it is inevitable that the army will counter escalate,'' Mr Gowan said.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/fears-diplom....l#ixzz1zePruJ4L
AND:
Turkish plane attack was a mistake - Assad
July 4, 2012
ANKARA: The Syrian President, Bashar al-Assad, regretted that his country's defence forces shot down a Turkish fighter jet on June 22, he said in an interview with the Turkish newspaper Cumhuriyet which was published yesterday.
''The plane was flying in an air corridor used three times in the past by the Israeli air force,'' he said, but added he ''100 per cent'' regretted the incident, which has increased tensions between the two former allies.
Mr Assad rejected Turkey's accusations that the Syrian defence forces intentionally shot down the Turkish F-4 jet, which was on a training mission over the Mediterranean.
''A country at war always acts like this. This plane was flying at a very low altitude and was shot down by anti-aircraft defences which mistook it for an Israeli plane, which attacked Syria in 2007.''
He said the soldier who shot down the plane had no radar and could not know to which country the plane belonged.
Mr Assad sent his condolences to the families of the two pilots of the downed plane, who have not been found.
''If this plane had been shot down in international airspace [as maintained by Ankara] we would not have hesitated to apologise,'' he said.
Meanwhile, the Syrian military has been shaken by further defections. Turkish media reported that at least 85 Syrian troops, including a general and six other officers, defected to Turkey late on Monday and brought 300 family members with them in a bid for asylum.
In its report on what would be the largest single-day exodus from the regime's army, the Turkish Anatolia news agency said 14 generals have abandoned their battle-torn homeland since an uprising began in March 2011.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/turkish-plan....l#ixzz1zeQHqdOW
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #212 on Jul 4, 2012, 6:10am » | |
Yassar Arafat poisoned by polonium, Al-Jazeera report says
AFP
July 04, 2012 4:39AM
YASSER Arafat, who died in 2004, was poisoned by polonium, according to the findings of Swiss laboratory research.
The analysis focused on biological samples taken from the late Palestinian leader's belongings given to his wife Suha by the military hospital in Paris where he died, according to Francois Bochud, head of the Institute of Radiation Physics at the University of Lausanne, Al-Jazeera reported today.
"The conclusion was that we did find some significant polonium that was present in these samples," Mr Bochud told Al-Jazeera.
Polonium was used to kill Russian former spy-turned-Kremlin critic Alexander Litvinenko, who died in 2006 after drinking tea laced with the radioactive substance at a London hotel.
Arafat, a Nobel Peace Prize winner who led the struggle for Palestinian statehood for nearly four decades, died on November 11, 2004, following several weeks of treatment.
He had been airlifted to France from his besieged headquarters in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
French officials, citing privacy laws, refused to reveal the precise cause of death or the nature of his condition, fuelling a host of rumours and theories as to the cause of his illness.
At the time of his death at the age of 75, Palestinian officials charged he had been poisoned by longtime foe Israel, but an inconclusive Palestinian investigation in 2005 ruled out cancer, AIDS or poisoning.
To confirm the theory that he was poisoned by polonium it would be necessary to exhume and analyse Arafat's remains, Mr Bochud said.
"If (Suha Arafat) really wants to know what happened to her husband (we need) to find a sample - I mean, an exhumation... should provide us with a sample that should have a very high quantity of polonium if he was poisoned," he said.
http://www.news.com.au/world/araft-was-p....v-1226416287438
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #213 on Jul 4, 2012, 7:43am » | |
4 July 2012 Last updated at 12:34 GMT
Bodies of Turkish jet pilots shot down by Syria found
The bodies of the pilots of a Turkish jet shot down by Syria last month have been found.
Turkey's TRT television said the two pilots were found on the Eastern Mediterranean seabed by a US deep-sea exploration vessel, according to AP.
The F-4 Phantom jet was shot down on 22 June, after Syrian authorities claimed it had violated their airspace, a claim disputed by Turkey.
Syrian President Bashar al-Assad said he regretted the move "100%".
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18707069
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #214 on Jul 4, 2012, 7:53am » | |
3 July 2012 Last updated at 10:59 GMT
Syria torture accounts reinforce human rights concerns
By James Reynolds BBC News, Antakya, southern Turkey
"They kicked us in the head," says Ahmed, a former Arabic teacher from the Idlib province of northern Syria.
"They took their boots and forced them into our mouths. They did this to make us say 'There is no God but Bashar [al Assad.]' I refused, so the soldier broke my nose.
"I started bleeding and my blood was on the soldier's shirt. He told me that I had dirtied his shirt with my bad blood."
Ahmed does not hesitate as he recounts what happened to him at the end of last year in Syria.
Along with many others, he took part in opposition demonstrations. For this, he was arrested by Syria's security forces.
"They tied our legs together so we couldn't escape," he recalls.
"They tied our hands behind our backs with metal and tightened it so we couldn't move. They covered our eyes and we were bleeding from injuries."
At one point Ahmed says that the beatings were so bad that he offered to pay his guards to kill him to end his pain.
Ahmed has now escaped to southern Turkey, where he joins more than 30,000 Syrian refugees.
The headmaster at Ahmed's government school also came into exile.
Dalal was a history teacher before he took over as the school principal, and he too was detained for protesting.
'Psychological pressure'
"Our cell was no more than 50 square metres with at least 120 people inside and no difference between educated and uneducated - everyone was together," Dalal recalls at length.
"There was only one toilet inside the room for everyone. While you are in the room you hear some sounds of people being tortured in the next room.
"At that point you pray to God that what is happening to the others will not happen to you.
"In order to sleep half of the people stand up and the others sleep for six hours. When they wake, we swap over. We have to sleep just on the stone floor.
"And the room has only small windows near the roof - all we can see is whether it is day or night.
"The questioning begins with psychological pressure. The soldier opens the door by kicking it and takes your shirt off.
"He insults you, he swears at you. And then the questioning starts and the soldier makes you lay down and starts to kick you.
"If you deny their accusations then you are whipped until you admit to things you haven't done. If you deny again and again then the torture gets worse.
"They threaten you with electric shocks and they threaten your wife, your children, " Dalal says.
'Living dead'
The accounts given by the two men reinforce many of the findings of the new Human Rights Watch report into torture in Syria: http://www.hrw.org/reports/2012/07/03/torture-archipelago-0
The organisation accuses the Syrian state of using 27 detention centres and pursuing what amounts to a state policy of torture.
It calls for the UN Security Council to refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court. But this is a move that can be blocked by Syria's most powerful ally, Russia.
For now, at least, the refugees from torture do not believe that they can go back home.
"No no never," Dalal says.
"The name for us is the living dead. In case we are arrested they will kill us either by a rocket or by arresting us and torturing us."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18687422
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #215 on Jul 5, 2012, 10:34am » | |
5 July 2012 Last updated at 04:20 GMT
The view from inside Syria's propaganda machine
By James Reynolds BBC Iran correspondent
Many journalists who cover Syria struggle to convey the complexities of the country's conflict. But Syria's prominent al-Akhbariya network has no such problem.
It portrays a reasonably straightforward world: a brave Syrian government leads the fight against foreign-led terrorists.
Akhbariya is privately owned, but it obeys the instructions of the ruling Baath Party. Every day it broadcasts the same message - the Syrian people are united in support of President Bashar al-Assad.
Now, one of the channel's former reporters reveals how the channel does it. Ghatan Sleiba, 33, escaped to Turkey at the end of June.
Managing messages
Mr Sleiba doesn't have any footage of himself reporting for the channel, but he is keen to pass around a photo showing him holding an Akhbariya microphone.
"We talk to people before we interview them," Mr Sleiba says, continuing to use the present tense about his work as a reporter for the channel.
"Syrian citizens don't know anything - they don't know what to say - so we tell them what to say on TV in order to get the best report that we can. As a journalist my success is in getting my report to the channel. I do the reporting and I present it to the citizens - to the nation.
"For example, we tell the interviewees to tell us that they support Bashar al-Assad and they will always support him. And they accept this and say whatever I tell them. We do this to please the authorities who watch us."
Mr Sleiba explains how instructions are issued to reporters.
"The Ba'ath party sometimes appoints a representative to give orders on its behalf. They generally contact us through an information office. The committee tells us to go and take pictures of this particular event, to take pictures of the martyrs, and so on."
'Simple nation'
I asked if he had ever have to broadcast something that he knew to be untrue.
"We produce the news according to what the channel's managers want. If I produce a report that echoes their opinion, I get a bonus. But if it's based on my opinion without representing their view it won't get on air.
"For example Syria's energy minister says there is plenty of petrol available. But in reality there aren't enough supplies in the country. We journalists are liars to the nation. The people can't trust us. This is very frustrating."
On every subject, Mr Sleiba speaks with a high level of certainty. He is sure that the Syrian people believe what they see on the state-controlled media.
"The Syrian nation is a simple nation. They believe whoever smiles at them on TV and they believe whoever cries. God help the Syrian nation."
On the same day that Ghatan Sleiba arrived in Turkey, gunmen raided one of his former channel's offices near Damascus. They destroyed its studios and killed seven staff members. Akhbariya repeatedly airs graphic footage of this attack.
In the last 15 months, the conflict in Syria has meant extreme risk for opposition and foreign journalists. Now, broadcasting in support of the government has its cost.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-18717647
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #216 on Jul 7, 2012, 11:02pm » | |
Burma's ethnic hatred
July 8, 2012
Hanna Hindstrom
The recent brutal religious violence in Burma's western Arakan state has cast a shadow on the country's democratic progress. Dozens of people have been killed and hundreds of homes destroyed as Buddhists and Rohingya Muslims clash near the Bangladeshi border in the country's worst sectarian violence in decades.
Even more shocking than the violence has been the public outpouring of vitriol aimed at the Rohingya, the stateless minority group at the centre of the conflict.
Considered ''illegal Bengali immigrants'' by the government, they are denied citizenship and are widely despised within Burmese society. Anti-Rohingya views have swept both social and mainstream media, seemingly uniting politicians, human rights activists, journalists, and civil society across Burma's myriad ethnic groups.
''The so-called Rohingya are liars,'' one pro-democracy group said on Twitter. ''We must kill all the kalar,'' another social media user said. Kalar is a racial slur applied to dark-skinned people from the Indian subcontinent.
Burmese refugees, who themselves have fled persecution, gathered at embassies around the world to protest against the ''terrorist'' Rohingya invading their homeland. Even the prominent student leader Ko Ko Gyi, who played a key role in the 1988 democratic uprising, lambasted them as impostors and frauds.
No doubt Burma's nascent media freedom has played a key role in stirring up religious tensions. Vast swaths of inflammatory misinformation are circulating inside Burma, with mainstream media largely accusing al-Qaeda and ''illegal Bengali terrorists'' of staging the violence in a bid to spread Islam in Asia. Many allege that the Rohingya are burning their own houses to attract attention.
One newspaper published a graphic photograph of the corpse of Thida Htwe, a Buddhist woman whose rape and murder - allegedly by three Muslim men - instigated the violence, prompting the President, Thein Sein, to suspend the publication using censorship laws.
These are the same papers that in recent months have openly criticised the government for the first time since a nominally civilian administration took over last year.
Ironically, this freedom has also led to a virulent backlash against foreign and exiled media, who have reported on the plight of the Rohingya, described by the United Nations as one of the world's most persecuted groups.
Following the latest violence, a number of online campaigns have been set up to co-ordinate attacks against news outlets that dare to report on the Rohingya's plight. Angry protesters rallied in Rangoon this week, brandishing signs reading ''Bengali Broadcast Corporation'' and ''Desperate Voice of Bengali''.
The latter was a reference to this reporter's employer, the Democratic Voice of Burma, the Norwegian broadcaster that has made a name for itself among many Burmese as one of the most reliable sources of information about their country.
Recently the broadcaster faced the biggest attack on its website in its history, and its Facebook page is still under constant assault from people issuing threats and posting racist material.
As the International Crisis Group explains, the violence is both a consequence of, and a threat to, Burma's political transition.
The ongoing crisis illustrates the need for Burma to embrace not only independent, but also responsible and inclusive, journalism. To facilitate this transition, the government must take concrete steps to address the underlying dispute about the Rohingya. The sheer level of racism against them in Burmese society, enforced by a government policy of discrimination and abuse, lies at the core of the matter.
A politician from the military-backed Union Solidarity and Development Party has called for a ''king dragon operation'', the name for a 1978 military operation run by the dictator General Ne Win to stamp out the Rohingya population from Northern Arakan state.
Meanwhile, reports of army complicity in attacks on Muslim homes are growing after a state of emergency was declared last month. The immigration minister, Khin Yi, has again reiterated that ''there are no Rohingya in Burma,'' while Aung San Suu Kyi's National League for Democracy continues to carefully sidestep the hot-button issue.
State media has also fanned tensions by using the racial slur kalar in their official appeal for calm after 10 Muslim pilgrims were murdered to avenge Htwe's death.
While the government has taken ostensible steps to calm the violence, including publishing a retraction for the racial slur, it is far from sufficient. Neither is invoking draconian censorship laws a viable solution.
There must be a rational public debate on the future of the Rohingya minority in Burma.
The issue is sensitive and complex, but it cannot be ignored. Political leaders, especially Thein Sein and Aung San Suu Kyi, along with the international community, have an obligation to drive this process. A failure to do so threatens to unravel Burma's democratic reform at a time when it cannot afford to regress.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/burmas-ethni....l#ixzz2004z2hkw
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
|
Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #217 on Jul 10, 2012, 9:15am » | |
Libya breaks with post-Arab Spring trend by leaning towards moderate
July 10, 2012
David Kirkpatrick
BENGHAZI: A coalition led by a Western-educated political scientist appeared overnight to be beating Islamist parties in Libya's first election after Muammar Gaddafi, breaking an Islamist wave that swept across neighbouring Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco in the aftermath of the Arab Spring uprisings.
The preliminary results, supported by independent monitors and party representatives, reflect in part the well-known name and tribal connections of the coalition's founder, Mahmoud Jibril.
He is the former interim prime minister who helped lead the de facto rebel government in Benghazi, and a member of Libya's most populous tribe, the Warfalla. The apparent success of Mr Jibril's party over the Muslim Brotherhood's bloc makes him perhaps the most important voice in the next stage of Libya's transition.
In a campaign that took place over just two weeks, after a 40-year stretch in which Gaddafi crushed any dissent or political organising, the ideological lines for Libyan voters remained fuzzy.
Many voters acknowledged plans to let tribal, family or community ties guide their vote.
The Islamists, in contrast, sought to portray Mr Jibril's coalition as ''liberal'' or ''secular'' - and some who stood with him acknowledged privately that for them those terms were apt.
Unlike opponents of Islamists in other Arab countries, Mr Jibril never hurled accusations of extremism against those who called for the application of Islamic law. He pledged to make sharia a main source of legislation, though not the only one.
He and his allies publicly echoed a frequent refrain of Libyan voters who were unsure what to make of re-emergent groups like the Muslim Brotherhood: ''Do they think they are more Muslim than we are?''
A political scientist who earned his doctorate at the University of Pittsburgh and taught there as well, Mr Jibril recently said his neighbours in the US and Libya would describe him as someone who ''goes to the mosque for Friday prayers, and we see that he prays''.
Ali Tarhouni, the leader of a fledgling party in Mr Jibril's coalition and another former minister in the transitional government, called the results evidence of Libyans' ''moderate'' character. But he also attributed their success to familiarity.
''People trust us,'' he said. ''Coming out of a war, with a political vacuum and a security vacuum, people were looking for those they knew were tested in the tough times.''
Official results will not be released for several days. The votes were counted on Saturday night in the presence of party and candidate representatives as well as independent observers. On Sunday, Hisham Kreskshi, a leader of the party founded by Libya's Muslim Brotherhood, said it now expected to win less than a quarter of the 200 seats.
Mr Jibril's tribe, the Warfalla, includes perhaps a million of Libya's roughly 6 million citizens. The tribe's homeland is in the western city of Bani Walid but there are many members in Tripoli and Benghazi.
His victory would complete a comeback for a leader who was pushed from office under pressure from rebels after the capture of Gaddafi.
They said Mr Jibril spent too much time in Western capitals and neglected domestic needs in rebel-controlled territory.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/libya-breaks....# ixzz20EGHTXrR
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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« Reply #218 on Jul 12, 2012, 10:24pm » | |
12 July 2012 Last updated at 22:06 GMT
DR Congo: UN helicopter gunship fires on M23 rebels
UN and government helicopter gunships have opened fire on suspected rebel positions in eastern DR Congo.
The attack against the M23 rebels took place north of the town of Goma, close to the border with Rwanda, the UN said.
Correspondents say that it is rare for the UN to go on the offensive, and appears to be a sign they are running out of patience with the rebels.
Last week, the rebels overran a UN base on the Ugandan border, killing one peacekeeper and forcing an evacuation.
The Tutsi-led rebels, who took up arms in April as part of a mutiny led by Bosco "Terminator" Ntaganda, began taking positions north of Goma approximately a week ago.
They have withdrawn from several towns they took over the weekend, but have threatened to retake them should civilians perceived to be aligned to them continue to be attacked.
The rebels are accused by the UN and Congo of being backed by Rwanda, although Rwanda denies this.
The BBC's International Development Correspondent Mark Doyle says that, according to an eyewitness, three UN gunships and two Congolese helicopters attacked a position about 35km (25 miles) north east of Goma.
The witness said they attacked near Bukima village, firing rockets in three separate approaches.
Our correspondent says it is not clear if there is a rebel position at Bukima, but there are civilians in the area. There are reports, he says, that one farmer has been badly injured, possibly losing both his hands.
The decisive action could lead to an escalation of the war, he says.
Earlier, African foreign ministers, including from Congo and Rwanda, agreed that a regional force should be created to help fight the rebels.
The deal was made at an African Union meeting where the ministers noted there was little trust in the 19,000-strong UN force.
But it is unclear how the unit might operate.
Eastern DR Congo has been plagued by fighting since 1994 when more than a million Rwandan ethnic Hutus crossed the border following the genocide in which some 800,000 people - mostly Tutsis - died.
Troublesome neighbours
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img15/5099/61514192congokivusrwand.gif "[image]")
April-June 1994: Genocide of Tutsis in Rwanda
June 1994: Paul Kagame's Tutsi rebels take power in Rwanda, Hutu fighters flee into Zaire (DR Congo)
Rwanda's army enters eastern Zaire to pursue Hutu fighters
1997: Laurent Kabila's AFDL, backed by Rwanda, takes power in Kinshasa
1998: Rwanda accuses Kabila of not acting against Hutu rebels and tries to topple him, sparking five years of conflict
2003: War officially ends but Hutu and Tutsi militias continue to clash in eastern DR Congo
2008: Tutsi-led CNDP rebels march on North Kivu capital, Goma - 250,000 people flee
2009: Rwanda and DR Congo agree peace deal and CNDP integrated into Congolese army
2012: Mutiny led by former CNDP leader Bosco "Terminator" Ntaganda
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-18823325
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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« Reply #219 on Jul 17, 2012, 11:51am » | |
Young minister's burqa ban silence upsets Muslims
July 18, 2012
Nabila Ramdani
France's star Socialist MP has stumbled in her women's policy forays.
EXPECTATIONS were high when a Muslim woman from a North African background was made an instant star in France's new Socialist cabinet in May.
Not only was Najat Vallaud-Belkacem, 34, made Minister for Women's Rights - a hugely important position in an administration committed to equality - but President Francois Hollande also appointed her official government spokeswoman.
Ms Vallaud-Belkacem's most publicised policy announcement to date has been a pledge to ''see prostitution disappear''.
Sex workers in Paris have already accused her of trying to drive a relatively well-regulated industry underground, with demonstrators at a protest march in the Pigalle red light district carrying banners that read: ''Criminalised clients means murdered prostitutes.'' Interior Minister Manuel Valls has also reined Ms Vallaud-Belkacem in, diplomatically suggesting that a ban would be ''complicated''.
Muslims who envisaged a leftist government quashing the diktats of the Nicolas Sarkozy era are particularly interested in one piece of discredited legislation: the ''burqa ban''.
It was introduced by Mr Sarkozy for ''reasons'' such as the fear that face coverings could be used by terrorists planting bombs. In reality, only a handful of women wear full veils, and there is absolutely no evidence that they are doing any harm to anyone.
Socialists abstained from the 2010 vote that brought in the ban, with many agreeing it was a cloak for prejudice. But Mr Hollande has refused to overturn it, instead pledging to ''apply it in the best way''.
Salima Kader, a 38-year-old mother of three who lives in the Paris suburb of Evry, and who continues to wear a full veil, says: ''Since the ban came in we have experienced unpleasant attention from the police, but it is the hatred which comes from other people that makes it worse. They think the ban is official authorisation to insult, spit at and even physically assault. The ban has become a symbol of hate against all Muslim communities.''
Mr Sarkozy regularly highlighted the ''burqa ban'' in a bid to lure far-right National Front supporters to vote for him.
French Muslims provided massive support to Mr Hollande in May, with a Le Figaro poll suggesting that 93 per cent of the estimated 2 million followers of the religion who voted backed him.
Those votes were vital to his victory, and some came from traditional Muslim women who wanted an end to the state vindictiveness that the ''burqa ban'' encapsulates.
They are disappointed with the behaviour of Morocco-born Ms Vallaud-Belkacem, one of seven children of an immigrant builder and housewife.
As recently as January, France's Senate adopted a bill that prevents any woman looking after children from wearing a simple headscarf. This applies to schools, leisure centres, nurseries and numerous other private institutions where ordinary, headscarf-wearing Muslim women work, including their own homes.
Sonia Choukri, a 23-year-old student from Marseille, said: ''The Socialists could get rid of the burqa ban with the stroke of a pen. They have a huge majority in parliament.''
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/young-minist....l#ixzz20tpEfnMf
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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« Reply #220 on Jul 19, 2012, 12:48am » | |
Jordan warns of chemical threat in Syria
AAP
July 19, 2012 2:57PM
SYRIA is spinning out of control and in a worst case scenario the Al-Qaeda militant group could get its hands on some of the regime's chemical weapons, Jordan's King Abdullah says.
"Our information is that there is a presence of Al-Qaeda in certain regions inside Syria, and has been there for a while," he told CNN on Wednesday.
"And, again, one of the worst-case scenarios ... would be if some of those chemical stockpiles were to fall into unfriendly hands," he said.
King Abdullah opposes international military action in Syria, but he said that if President Bashar al-Assad were to make the "tremendous miscalculation" of turning chemical weapons on his own population there could be a response.
And he said that if such weapons were to fall into the hands of rebel forces - some of which he said are unknown quantities - then even reluctant UN members like Russia might support some kind of international action.
He, however, remained reluctant to arm the Syrian opposition.
"As it comes to chemical weapons falling into rebel hands, I think at the end of the day all of us would suffer from that. I'm sure they would be very accepting of international actions," he said of Russia.
"But we want to make sure if you're going to send weapons ... it goes into the right hands and doesn't end up as I alluded to earlier on in the hands of groups like Al-Qaeda."
Read more: http://www.news.com.au/breaking-news/wor....#ixz z212pWIYJV
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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« Reply #221 on Jul 19, 2012, 12:52am » | |
Assad losing control of Syria, says White House
Elizabeth Kennedy and Zeina Karama
AP
July 19, 2012 12:06PM
REBELS have penetrated the heart of Syria's power elite, detonating a bomb inside a high-level crisis meeting in Damascus that killed three leaders of the regime, including President Bashar Assad's brother-in-law and the defence minister.
The unprecedented blow to the ruling dynasty could mark a turning point in the civil war, suggesting that those once close to Assad are turning against him.
The bombing follows some of the worst bloodshed in Damascus of the 16-month uprising, a growing list of high-ranking defections and mounting frustration by world leaders over their inability to find a diplomatic solution.
The White House said the bombing showed Assad was "losing control" of Syria.
Rebels claimed responsibility for the attack, saying they had been planning it for two months and finally decided to plant the bomb in the room where the top government security officials in charge of crushing the revolt were holding a crisis meeting.
"God willing, this is the beginning of the end of the regime," said Riad al-Asaad, a commander of the disparate rebel forces who operate across the country.
Al-Asaad, who is not related to the president, spoke to The Associated Press by telephone from Turkey, where he is based.
"Hopefully Bashar will be next," Al-Asaad said in a chilling warning to the 46-year-old Syrian president, a tall, lanky leader who once felt so confident in his security that he was known to hate being surrounded by bodyguards.
The whereabouts of Assad, his wife and his three young children were not immediately clear. He gave no immediate statements on the attack, which state-run TV initially blamed on a suicide bomber but later called simply a bomb.
As news of the assassinations broke, Syrians opposed to Assad celebrated in several locations across the country.
Internet video showed people in convoys of cars and motorbikes honking their horns and firing weapons in the air in the northeastern Idlib province, along with Aleppo in the north, Daraa in the south and Homs in central Syria.
In the village of Hass, residents distributed sweets as they gleefully shouted: "You are going to hell, shabihas" - a reference to the pro-regime militia that has been blamed for mass killings.
The AP could not immediately verify the authenticity of the video.
Syrian TV confirmed the deaths of Defence Minister Dawoud Rajha, 65, a former army general and the most senior government official to be killed in the rebels' battle to oust Assad; Gen. Assef Shawkat, 62, the deputy defence minister who is married to Assad's elder sister, Bushra, and is one of the most feared figures in the inner circle; and Hassan Turkmani, 77, a former defense minister who died of his wounds in the hospital.
Also wounded were Interior Minister Mohammed Shaar and Maj. Gen. Hisham Ikhtiar, who heads the National Security Department. State TV said both were in stable condition.
Rajha was the most senior Christian government official in Syria, appointed to the post by Assad last year. His death will resonate with Syria's Christians, who make up about 10 percent of the population of 22 million and have mostly stood by the regime.
Christians say they are particularly vulnerable and they fear that Syria will become another Iraq, with Christians caught in the crossfire between rival Muslim groups.
The attack came at a time of great momentum for the forces trying to oust Assad, whose family has ruled Syria for four decades. Although the uprising began in March 2011, recent weeks have seen a spike in potentially transformative events, including high-level defections from the regime.
Four straight days of clashes between rebels and government troops this week in Damascus showed the rebels can now infiltrate the tightly controlled capital. On Tuesday, Israel's military intelligence chief said Assad had diverted his troops away from the Israeli border area toward the center of Syria, reflecting the regime's worsening position.
The state-run news agency, SANA, reported the bombing was aimed at the National Security building, a headquarters for one of Syria's intelligence branches and less than 500 meters (yards) from the U.S. Embassy. The embassy has been closed since Washington withdrew its ambassador months ago.
Although there were no statements from Assad, Syrian TV said after the attack that a decree from him named Gen. Fahd Jassem al-Freij as the new defense minister. Al-Freij used to be the army chief of staff.
Wednesday's attack was the most brazen by the rebels. The last major attacks on regime figures and government buildings date back to the early 1980s, when the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood waged a guerrilla war to topple the regime of Assad's father and predecessor, President Hafez Assad.
Hafez Assad himself survived an assassination attempt in 1980 when members of the Muslim Brotherhood threw grenades at him, wounding him in the leg.
Paul Salem, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, said the bombing could usher in the end of the Assad regime.
"I think this type of event has massive impact," he said. "A few weeks ago, we were counting the life span of this regime in months. Now after the last week and today, I think you'd have to say weeks. This is a very fast moving conflict."
Salem said the key signs that the regime is losing its grip are that the fighting has reached Damascus and that a bomb has been planted inside a top-level meeting.
"This is not something that can go on for months," Salem said. "It changes the timetable."
But there were no signs the regime was willing to back down.
Shortly after Wednesday's attack, the Syrian army said its forces will continue to fight.
"Whoever thinks that by targeting the country's leaders they will be able to twist Syria's arm is disillusioned because Syria's people, army and leadership are now more determined than ever to fight terrorism ... and cleanse the nation from the armed gangs," the army said.
Eager to show the government is still in control of Damascus, the Interior Ministry took journalists on a tour of its quiet neighborhoods. But even there, traffic on the streets was thin and almost all shops were closed.
Damascus-based activist Omar al-Dimashki said large numbers of troops and plainclothes police were deployed in the streets after the explosion. Snipers took positions on high buildings in different neighborhoods, he added.
"It's so empty, it reminds me of when Hafez Assad died in 2000," said a resident of Damascus, who declined to be identified for fear of retribution. "Everyone is really scared of the coming days, especially tonight, with the possibility that the regime will take revenge."
The attack came two days before the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, when observant Muslims abstain from eating, drinking and sex from dawn to dusk. Last year, anti-government protests sharply increased during Ramadan.
The government characterizes the revolt as the work of terrorists and foreign extremists, and denies the conflict even began as a popular uprising, inspired by the movements sweeping the Arab World starting with Tunisia and Egypt.
Although the uprising began with mostly peaceful protests, a fierce government crackdown led many in the opposition to take up arms. Soon, an armed insurgency began to boil - and on Sunday the Red Cross formally declared the conflict to be a full-blown civil war. Activists say more than 17,000 people have died.
The violence has metastasized over the months. Besides a government crackdown, rebel fighters are launching increasingly deadly attacks on regime targets, and several big suicide attacks this year suggest that al-Qaida or other extremists are joining the fight.
A member of the Syrian National Council opposition group, Omar Shawaf, said Wednesday's assassinations sent a clear message to the regime that no one is safe - including Assad himself.
"The hands of the Syrian people and the Free Syrian Army can reach anyone inside Damascus," he said from Turkey, where he is based.
Wednesday's attack raised alarm across the region. Syria is intertwined in alliances with Iran, Hezbollah and Palestinian militant groups, and borders Israel - making the fallout from the crisis unpredictable.
"The incident today makes clear that Assad is losing control, that violence is increasing rather than decreasing and that all of our partners internationally need to come together to support a transition," said White House spokesman Jay Carney.
The Obama administration also slapped new financial sanctions on Assad's government.
In a sign of Hezbollah's close ties to Syria, the group's leader, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, said the bombing victims were "comrades" in the struggle against Israel. He said "the most important rockets" that Hezbollah fired on Israel in the 2006 war came from Syria.
"Israel has every right to be happy," Nasrallah said, saying the opposition to Assad serves Israel's interests. "Israel can be happy because pillars in the Syrian army today were targeted and killed."
Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak summoned his top security and intelligence advisers to discuss the situation. Israel fears that militant groups said to be operating in Syria, including al-Qaida, might try to take advantage of any power vacuum to stage attacks on Israel.
At the United Nations, the Security Council delayed a vote scheduled for later in the day on a new resolution on Syria in a last-minute effort to get Western nations and Russia - a close Damascus ally - to reach agreement on measures to end the violence. The vote was rescheduled for Thursday at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT).
The key stumbling block to an agreement is the Western demand for a resolution threatening non-military sanctions. It is tied to Chapter 7 of the U.N. Charter, which could eventually allow the use of force to end the conflict. Russia, a close ally of Syria, is adamantly opposed to sanctions and any mention of Chapter 7.
Although Western nations appear to have little appetite for force, Russia fears a repeat of the NATO campaign in Libya and adamantly opposes any intervention.
Reacting to the bombing, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov accused the West of inciting Syria's opposition.
"Instead of calming the opposition down, some of our partners are inciting it to go on," he was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency. Supporting the opposition is a "dead-end policy," Lavrov said, "because Assad is not leaving voluntarily."
Even if Assad did leave, the opposition is widely perceived to be far too disorganized to take over.
But in a dust-filled refugee processing center in Jordan, crowds of refugees said they hoped the attack would spell the end of the regime. Women wearing the black Muslim veil and head-to-toe robes ululated as men danced under a scorching sun.
"It's great news," said a 43-year-old refugee from the restive southern town of Daraa, who identified himself only by his first name, Ahmad, for fear of retribution. "God willing, the criminal Bashar is next."
___
AP writers Bassem Mroue in Beirut, Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, Jamal Halaby in Amman, Jordan, National Security Writer Robert Burns in Washington, Edith M. Lederer at the United Nations, Josef Federman in Jerusalem and Mansur Mirovalev in Moscow contributed to this report.
http://www.news.com.au/world/assad-losin....v-1226429887725
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #222 on Jul 20, 2012, 12:49pm » | |
Food banks: a life on handouts
Food banks are springing up across Britain to help struggling families. But is charity really the answer for people being let down by the state?
Amelia Gentleman
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 18 July 2012 20.00 BST
An hour after the Hope Centre food bank opens up for the Tuesday afternoon distribution session, a volunteer apologetically tapes an A4 sheet to the glass doors, announcing "Sorry No Food". Plastic bags full of tinned food and supermarket donations of produce approaching its sell-by date are being distributed to feed 79 people and there is very little left on the shelves in a storeroom of this church in central Coventry.
"We've been back to the warehouse, but we're still struggling," says Karen Sumner, one of the food bank volunteers. "We should be open for two hours but we usually run out of food after an hour."
A man arrives in the rain, very distressed to see the No Food sign. This afternoon he has walked three miles from his home to collect a food parcel, arriving just after the session began, but because he had no ID on him, he then had to walk a mile into the centre of town to get a letter from a charity certifying that he is who he claims to be, and then walk a mile back to be issued with some food. His benefits have been stopped for reasons that are not clear to him, and he faces the prospect of a three-mile walk home again, with no food and no money, until volunteers agree to let him join the crowd of 30 people still waiting in the church's cafe, and promise to find him something to take away.
"There's nothing at home. If I don't get this food I'll end up shoplifting," he says. A sign on the wall, written in chalk on a menu blackboard, advises him: "Psalm 25 vs 8: the Lord is good and does what is right."
Until 18 months ago there were no food banks in Coventry; now there are 11 across the city. There has been a similarly dramatic rise in the food bank phenomenon nationwide. The largest network of food banks in the UK, the Trussell Trust, a Christian charity, has doubled the number of people it feeds over the past year and reports that three new food banks are opening every week.
A large crowd in the Hope Centre are from Romania, and say they are waiting for food because collecting scrap metal and washing cars isn't enough to make ends meet. A bigger number is there because of benefit delays and cuts, or simply because they are no longer able to make their low wages stretch.
A local supermarket has delivered a load of stock just about to reach its sell-by date (it doesn't want to be named, to avoid getting caught up in discussion of the merits of giving food that is about to go off to the hungry) and today it is offloading industrial quantities of iced buns, which several families take home by the dozen.
The boom in Britain's food banks reflects a number of worrying and complicated trends. As well as rising unemployment, more people are seeing their hours cut at work. For the past couple of years, charities have been warning that a shift to a less generous way of uprating benefits in line with inflation, combined with rising food and fuel prices, would make life more difficult for people claiming benefits. Then there is the start of a new, harsher benefits regime, as a result of which it seems that more claimants are having their payments sanctioned – cut or stopped entirely – if they miss appointments. At the same time, the state system of a social fund and crisis loans is being wound down, so emergency cash payments from the welfare system for those deemed to be in extreme need are now exceptionally difficult to procure. Around 43% of visitors to Trussell Trust distribution centres nationwide come because of changes to their benefits or a crisis loan being refused.
David Cameron recently said he "welcomed" the work done by food banks and, for many in his party, their growing presence is a happy embodiment of the concept of the "big society". In a debate on food poverty earlier this year, Caroline Spelman, secretary of state for environment and food, described them as an "excellent example" of this in action.
For others, the growth is a reflection of a new approach to providing assistance to people in real need. Whereas previously this was a service that the state would have provided, now feeding large numbers of people who are not able to feed themselves is being subcontracted out to charities. Those who have scrutinised the progress of the Welfare Reform Act, say this move from state to charity reflects the general direction of travel.
Once these services move beyond the realms of state provision, there are potential problems – they lose neutrality, some uncertainty comes with initiatives that are volunteer-run, the food on offer is (despite the best efforts of the Trussell Trust) idiosyncratic, the religious environment in which food is provided raises questions for some recipients. It becomes charity rather than basic state support, and for many this brings a degree of unease.
Stephen Timms, shadow work and pensions secretary, says it is a "pretty worrying reflection of what's going on in the country, when people are dependent on these charitable handouts. My worry is that we are really just at the start of cutting back the benefits system and already a large number of people are not able to buy food for their families. This shouldn't be happening on the scale that it is now happening."
Manchester Labour MP, and former head of the Child Poverty Action Group, Kate Green describes the growth of food banks as a disgrace. "I feel a real burning anger about them," she says. "People are very distressed at having to ask for food; it's humiliating and distressing."
At an earlier distribution session at the Queen's Road Baptist Church, on the ring road near Coventry Station, Paul and Sarah (not their real names) arrive to see if they can get help feeding their family, and look very worried when the volunteer at the church's reception scans a printed list, kept updated by a team of volunteers across the city, which indicates that they have already had three food parcels this year and that they can't have another. Trussell Trust food banks only help people in acute situations, and the organisation doesn't want to encourage people to rely on them, so staff are vigilant about the number of packages they hand out to individuals.
Paul, 33, hasn't had a job since a car accident three years ago damaged his knee and made it hard for him to stand for long stretches; he has now mostly recovered and is looking to return to warehouse work, although he hasn't managed to find any, partly, he thinks, because of the recession and partly because his experience is now a bit out of date. Late last year, he was put on the government's new Work Programme, allocated a slot with the provider Sencia.
"They are supposed to be helping me find work; all they are doing is having me come in and look for jobs on the internet. I could be doing that at home myself. They weren't sending me on any courses," he says. He became rather jaundiced with the system and when his grandmother died in January, he failed to go back. "I missed a few appointments, so my benefits have been sanctioned until December. I wouldn't have done it if I'd known." He has two consecutive six-month sanction periods; most of that time the family gets a hardship payment of £160 a week (a cut of £120 from the £280 they received previously). But for complicated bureaucratic reasons this payment hasn't been made for the past couple of weeks and they have nothing to feed their twin six-year-old sons and their eight-year-old daughter. Sarah is five months pregnant.
Paul doesn't say much, but comments as they wait for the food bank officials to decide whether they are eligible for a fourth, discretionary package that the sanctions system has been very hard for the family. "It cripples you. If it wasn't for the food banks, I don't know how I'd get it, other than steal it. They don't understand what it's going to be like when they take your money away from you, when you've got kids. It's impossible."
"You feel embarrassed coming here," he adds, as a volunteer comes out of the stock room with two plastic bags and a box of food. They say thank you and hurry away, visibly uncomfortable.
Mary Creagh, shadow environment minister, who has responsibility for food and was brought up in Coventry, is ambivalent about the rise in food banks. "There's something about feeling that you are asking for charity rather than getting something from the state … it's humiliating; it involves swallowing your dignity, travelling distances to the centres and walking home with plastic bags," she says.
Volunteers have a much more straightforward attitude. They say they are simply responding to a rise in demand. Graham Carpenter runs the food bank services at the Queens Road Baptist Church. Since the recession began, "we were seeing more people knocking on the door, asking for help", he says. "The jobs that are going around now are half the salary that they were before, or part-time. Coventry used to be a factory town, full of skilled workers, a car factory, a machine town. Now it's a Tesco town. It's just a different city."
In contrast to a soup kitchen, individuals can't just turn up at a food bank and hope to be given supplies. They have to be formally referred and GPs, Jobcentre staff, charities and schools in Coventry issue those they think are in acute need a voucher (printed on red paper so that it can't be easily photocopied) for food that should provide everyone in the recipient's family enough to live on for three days.
In the church hall, food has been divided into categories in big green plastic crates, with labels written in black felt tip on chopped up squares of cardboard – SOUP, BEANS, TOMS, VEG, CUSTARD, RICE PUD, RICE, SUGAR, TEA, JAM, CHOC, SAUCES. All the food comes from donations. When stocks are running low, volunteers stand outside supermarkets and ask shoppers to buy specific items – anything from longlife milk to tins of tuna.
Volunteers have realised it's not a good idea to let recipients into the stockroom. "Then they say: 'Can I have this or that?' It isn't fair to someone who has got nothing to show them £1,000 worth of food, with their eyes lighting up," says Colin Bunting, a volunteer. He and a colleague fill up bags, adhering to a list compiled by the Trussell Trust that is meant to ensure that the handouts are nutritionally sensible.
There's an eclectic mix of food, some of it of fairly low quality and cheap. Today among the array of goods on offer there is Asda Smart Price chicken-flavour noodles; Tesco Everyday Value chilli con carne; green mung beans in a bag; Sainsbury's Basics chocolate desert mix; a butterscotch supreme desert powder, packed with diglycerides of fatty acids and tetrasodium diphosphate. Staff have a rule that they won't distribute food they wouldn't eat themselves.
"It is a bit annoying when people are clearing out the cupboards and we get rusty tins, something that went out of date in 2011." Bunting says. "We try to be sensitive. We get donations of Weetabix, but the problem with that is that it soaks up a lot of milk. If people give us cream crackers, we wouldn't give them out, because it's insulting if [the recipients] can't afford to buy cheese to eat with it."
The Trussell Trust volunteers check what dietary restrictions people have, and then choose meals for each applicant. "We could give them curry and rice?" Bunting suggests, examining a red voucher.
"Or we could give them pasta with meatballs?" his colleague wonders.
Volunteers say they try not to be critical of the people who come in, but incidental comments show they clearly struggle not to categorise recipients into deserving and undeserving; there is a hint of moralising that might be less pronounced in a state service. There's some uncharitable speculation about why the food bank is less busy in the morning, which goes along the lines of "these people don't get up early". At the Hope Centre there is discussion about how deserving the Romanian families are.
"We try not to be judgmental but if you can't stand close because of the alcohol fumes, you think if you had a couple of bottles less of whisky then maybe you'd be able to buy some food," one of the volunteers says, before catching himself, and adding: "But alcoholism is an addiction. Some people are very grateful and others think it is their right to get food."
There's clearly profound need among the people who arrive to request food. Samantha, who is 22 and living alone with a seven-month-old baby, was made redundant from her job as a nursery nurse when she was 12 weeks pregnant; her maternity payments have ended and she is stuck without money until an application for income support is processed, which could take more than a month.
There's an unemployed chef, 19, who's homeless and living in a Salvation Army hostel, who has tattoos across the side of his head, and is very polite and grateful. "Everyone greets you nicely. Everyone is nice here," he says. "I have never experienced recession before. There are no jobs at the moment."
A 57-year-old who gave up his work to become a carer for his father-in-law who has since died is here because he is finding it hard to get new work. He has been discouraged by recent attempts to apply for jobs. "There was a column to put your date of birth in and it only went back to 1976; with me being born in 1955, I couldn't put my age in so I couldn't apply."
Adrian, 43, who is unemployed, arrives in a wheelchair, unable to walk anywhere because of a blood clot on his leg and back problems, with his girlfriend and carer, Catherine, 28, who used to work as a classroom assistant, but gave it up to be a full-time carer. They are using more public transport to get about, because he is so immobile, which they find soaks up a lot of their money.
"The long and the short of it is, we haven't got any food," he says. "We are both on benefits. We are struggling to keep up with the bills."
Catherine says she had a sandwich with a slice of cheap chicken from Asda, no butter, for her main meal yesterday, and reflects that being hungry "makes you feel sick … tired."
"Dizzy," Adrian adds.
"It can be quite draining," she agrees.
There is no active proselytising, but the food bank recipients sit in the lobby of the church for around 20 minutes waiting for their bags and church staff say that bringing them into the building gets them "curious" and may indirectly encourage attendance.
Gavin Kibble, who runs all the food banks across the city, says that the act of setting up food banks has given a purpose to the church that has been lacking in recent years. The remarkable speed with which food banks have been proliferating across the country is a reflection of need but also of how quickly congregations have recognised that this is something they can do quite easily. "The franchise model of the Trussell Trust is very easy to implement," he says. "The church has lost its relevance and maybe this is a way to find it again."
He used to work as a managing director of a multinational forklift truck company earning a six-figure salary, but wouldn't give up his new role to return to his previous existence because of the "wow factor" of his current job. This appears, in part, to be a sense that divine assistance is being given to ensure that the warehouse is fully stocked.
"There are a lot of wow moments. Food comes just out of the blue when we are stuck. It comes when we need it most and most of the time it is the right stuff." Just as he was worried about the dwindling supplies of sweet treats, manna from heaven arrived in the form of a donation of 999 tins of rice pudding from the Coventry Leofric Lions. He is less enthusiastic about the surplus of baked beans and he mutters: "So many tins of soup and beans. I could sink Coventry with beans."
He has been struck by the number of times when food has arrived just when it is needed. "We believe that there is a provider God who looks after the needs of the food bank. We believe that is the case. The wow moments are spiritual. We can't explain them, so we have to look to something bigger. There are times where coincidence couldn't be coincidence any more."
Not everyone shares this confidence that food will be provided by divine forces. Green says she had noticed that many shoppers were unable to take part in a recent campaign by Sainsbury's to get customers to buy food bank donations with their shopping, saying they couldn't afford to help. Isn't "the idea that we can rely on charity to meet the need bound to be too limited?" she asked during the food bank debate.
Most of the recipients of aid barely notice the religious backdrop to the distribution sessions. Joseph Anderson, 44, is phlegmatic about the whole process. "The reason I am here? The dole decided I missed an appointment so they suspended my money."
He missed the appointment because he didn't have the £3.60 for the bus fare and didn't feel up to the nine-mile walk to the Jobcentre. He hasn't worked since 2010 when he lost his job with ParcelForce, and is anxious to advertise his willingness to do so through the Guardian, hoping there may be readers ready to employ him. He highlights his skills with computer software, but also stresses that he is happy to take any kind of work. "I don't want to be on jobseeker's [allowance]. I'll mend computers or do cleaning – anything. It isn't easy to find work. I'm supposed to turn up smart [to interviews], but that costs money."
He ran out of food six days ago and thinks at home he is down to four tins of baked beans, one tin of ravioli and four potatoes. (Later he reveals the contents of his cupboard, and laughs: "I overestimated – I only had two tins of baked beans.") It is the first time his benefits have been sanctioned and the first time he has received a food voucher. "It's a good service, but we aren't exactly a third-world country. We shouldn't need places like this," he says.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2012/jul/18/food-banks-on-hand-outs
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #223 on Jul 20, 2012, 3:47pm » | |
Syria: Assad regime starts to unravel
Damascus sees fierce fighting as Free Syrian Army fighters take control of key suburbs and crossings into Turkey and Iraq
Luke Harding in Beirut and Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 July 2012 19.38 BST
President Bashar al-Assad's forces were fighting to regain control of key suburbs of Damascus after Syrian rebels seized border crossings and refugees streamed into neighbouring countries to escape the escalating crisis.
The UN security council agreed a 30-day extension to the UN's monitoring mission but fighting continued across the country. There were bodies on the streets of the capital amid signs the army had succeeded in subduing the central district of Midan – for now at least. Opposition sources described aircraft and helicopters attacking targets on the ground.
The Free Syrian Army confirmed it had withdrawn from the area under heavy bombardment. But rebel commanders said their forces remained active, with opposition fighters setting fire to a barracks used by the regime's Shabiha militia.
"Our heroic forces have completely cleansed the Midan area of the terrorist mercenaries," Syrian state TV announced.
With the situation changing by the hour, the government's control over large parts of the country continued to unravel. The FSA said it had captured two border crossings between Syria and Turkey as well as one in Iraq. The regime still holds key cities, at least during the day, but it appears increasingly vulnerable to guerilla raids.
Diplomats revealed that Assad had phoned the head of the UN monitoring mission, General Robert Mood, pledging to implement Kofi Annan's peace plan shortly after Wednesday's devastating bomb attack in Damascus, which killed four senior members of his military-security command. The UN says Assad and the rebels have failed to observe a ceasefire.
The foreign secretary, William Hague, warned the regime to end its "brutal assaults". But in the face of international divisions there is no obvious sanction if it does not. Damascus also flatly denied a suggestion from the Russian ambassador to France that the president was prepared to step down. It was "completely devoid of truth" said the information ministry.
Assad, said to be still in Damascus, did not attend the state funeral of three of Wednesday's victims including his brother-in-law Asef Shawkat. State TV announced that a fourth general had died of his injuries.
Reporters taken to Midan described massive destruction: shattered windows, dozens of damaged or charred cars, and the bodies of at least six young men lying in the street. One of them appeared to have been shot in the chest, the Associated Press reported. Others were bearded and dressed in black, with axes next to them. Activists said at least 300 people had been killed in the battle for Damascus.
The UN refugee agency said record numbers were now trying to escape the country with some 30,000 Syrians said to have fled into neighbouring Lebanon over the past 48 hours. Residents have reported that some banks were running out of cash, with queues for bread and other foodstuffs seen as Ramadan gets underway.
Yesterday rebels said they had recaptured the Bab al-Hawa border on the frontier with Turkey – which they seized on Thursday, only to surrender it again to government forces. They also said they held another border point at Jarablus.
In a further sign of regime erosion a Syrian general was reported to have fled to Turkey, bringing the number of fugitive generals there to 22. The rebels also now control a key Kamal/Qaim border crossing with Iraq, after slaughtering the 22 government soldiers tasked with guarding it. Iraqi troops have now sealed the crossing.
The capture of Syria's borders by the opposition was an important moment, analysts said, and showed Syria's 16-month conflict was now a fast-moving guerilla war. Fawwaz Traboulsi, a Beirut-based historian and columnist, said the tactics and strategy of the Free Syrian Army had improved, in contrast to the early days of the uprising.
"It's conducting a war that is very close to a guerrilla war. The FSA can move very easily. It can withdraw. It is taking whole regions and holding them," he said.
With Assad's options narrowing, and a diplomatic solution elusive, Traboulsi was sceptical that Assad would abandon Damascus and go abroad – even if he wished to.
He noted: "Bashar doesn't rule himself. He leads a family in power and a circle of army and security leaders. He can't simply whisk himself out of the country without their knowledge. If he flees the whole thing will collapse."
Others predicted the end was near. "The regime is going through its last days," Abdel Basset Sayda, the leader of the main Syrian opposition umbrella group, the Syrian National Council, said in Rome. Michael Young, a columnist with Beirut's Daily Star newspaper, agreed that the regime was disintegrating around the edges. "If you lose the borders you are allowing the creation of safe zones for weapons to come through. The Syrian regime holds the cities. But it doesn't control rural areas. And at night its control over the cities is very iffy. This is a new phenomenon," he observed.
Young added that it was still unclear who was behind Wednesday's bombing. He said there was no evidence for the widespread "conspiracy theory" that the blast may have been an "inside job", adding: "I would say all the versions are in some way decisively wrong."
Majid Arar, who lives closer to the scene of the attack, told the Guardian. "After hearing the news of the generals being killed there was some excitement and some joy, because people are furious [with the regime]. But when the government started bombarding people started to feel very scared. It's joy and at the same time fear for the future. People are now more open to talk about what's going on in the city, even on the telephone. People usually fear that the government is listening but are now more open to talking. Some barriers have been broken."
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/20/syria-assad-regime-unravel-damascus
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Bashar al-Assad: fight or flight?
After high-profile defections and the loss of four key advisers, the Syrian president's options are shrinking, writes Ian Black
Ian Black, Middle East editor
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 July 2012 18.27 BST
Bashar al-Assad has neither been seen nor heard in public since the bomb attack that killed four of his top security advisers, despite appearing a day later on TV appointing a new defence minister. The Syrian president's state of mind and plans are not known. But his inner circle is shrinking – along with his options.
Diplomats reported on Friday that Assad was still in Damascus, scotching rumours he had fled to organise a last stand in the coastal heartland of his Alawite sect.
On Wednesday he telephoned the United Nations observer chief, General Robert Mood, and took a condolence call from Lebanese supporters at the discreetly guarded Malki residence he shares with his wife, Asma, and their children in the heart of the capital.
The death of Asef Shawkat, Assad's brother-in-law and deputy defence minister, was the most damaging, according to observers struggling to make assessments out of scraps of information and a chorus of propaganda – a task some compare to the Kremlinology of the cold war days.
The elimination of the four generals leaves significant gaps in the uppermost ranks of Syria's defence establishment. "Bashar has suffered a great loss in Shawkat," said a former government official. "It's a deadly blow."
The president's younger brother, Maher, the commander of the fourth armoured division and an unreconstructed hardliner, is now his closest adviser. But veteran security chiefs Ali Mamluk and Hafez Makhlouf are influential too.
"These three are the hardcore of the regime," says Fabrice Balanche, a French expert on the Alawites.
Senior military commanders also matter at a time when the regime is lavishing praise on "heroic" armed forces fighting foreign-backed "terrorists".
Outsiders admit that they struggle to characterise the relationships within the secretive inner circle. "The Assad regime itself is not so cohesive," argued Nadim Shehadi of the Chatham House thinktank in London. "What binds them together is negative tension. They will only trust someone because they know they have some kind of hold over them."
Assad, say presidential observers, is now likely to be drawn closer to his family — his mother, Anisa, the powerful matriarch of the clan (and widow of former president Hafez) and his sister Bushra, Shawkat's widow. Both women were seen at the funeral of Shawkat and two other bomb victims at the martyrs cemetery on Jebel Qassioun overlooking Damascus. Assad was not there but was represented by the vice-president, Farouk al-Sharaa.
Officially, the tone is brashly defiant. On Friday the foreign ministry furiously denied the suggestion by the Russian ambassador to France that Assad was ready to step down "in a civilised manner".
"Syrian TV does not tell the truth but it does display a lot of energy and determination," observed Assad's biograher, the Israeli academic Eyal Zisser. "You see a regime that is determined to fight. You don't see any panic. They carry on as if nothing has happened."
Opinions are divided as to the significance of two recent high-profile defections — the Republican Guard commander Manaf Tlas and Syria's ambassador to Iraq, Nawaf Fares. Tlas's uncle, for example, remains the deputy minister of defence and thus, like many Sunnis, still loyal to the regime.
Speculation is rife about what Assad will do next. One scenario has him holding on for now but fleeing in the end with Asma and the children. "He saw what happened to Gaddafi," said Zisser. "I would argue that he will try to escape."
Whether the so-called "Dacha option" is still viable depends on whether the ever-loyal Russians will continue to help him if he is forced to step down.
Another possibility is more dramatic. "I think Bashar might fight to the end," said the former government official. "He seems to be more defiant and that makes it less likely he will be able to find an escape route. I don't think he will. Earlier on in the crisis he could have gone to the UAE. But now I doubt whether any Arab country will take him in. He's too toxic."
Joseph Bahout, a Lebanese-French political analyst, said: "It's dangerous to over-psychologise but having said that, Bashar's character is important. If Maher had been killed too he probably would have collapsed. My guess is that he is much shaken but that as long as Maher is still there he may go for a suicidal solution involving massacres and ethnic cleansing. I just don't see these guys negotiating."≠
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/20/bashar-al-assad-fight-flight-syria
AND:
Syria crisis: deaths recorded by UN and Syrian Revolution Martyr Database
How many people have died in the Syrian crisis so far?
![[image]](http://imageshack.us/a/img824/2914/syriacrisisgraphic008.jpg "[image]")
Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/....east-protests#_
AND:
The battle for Syria is a battle for the entire Middle East
If Assad falls, the area will lose a brutal dictator and Iran a pivotal ally. It could mark the end of an entire political culture
Jonathan Freedland
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 July 2012 20.15 BST
It looks a lot like the end. Just as viewers of a movie franchise know the formula so well, they can tell when the final reel is under way, so we're getting used to the way Arab revolutions unfold – and sense that the signs point to a denouement in Syria. The key moment came this week with the assassination of four members of the Assad ruling clique by a still-mysterious bomb. The rumour mill promptly generated two storylines whose equivalents had been heard in the final days of the ancien régimes in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya: the president's wife had fled abroad (to Russia) and the president himself was nowhere to be seen. Assad surfaced eventually, but when the dictator has to appear on TV just to prove he's alive, the end seems imminent.
Of course, there could be a twist to this sorry tale. Bashar Assad's more pessimistic opponents recall the Desert Storm momentum that meant Saddam Hussein's days were surely numbered in 1991 – only for those days to number another 12 years. The Damascus regime still has a mighty arsenal and, in Russia and Iran, two powerful allies. It could cling on, fighting a sectarian civil war that could last months or even, as in Lebanon in the 1970s, years.
But let's assume that the House of Assad is crumbling. Its fall will obviously transform Syria, a country that has lived under the boot-heel of that clan for four decades. But it will also radically affect the wider region. Syria, which borders Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Turkey and Israel, does not keep itself to itself. As one former Obama official says: "Syria won't implode; it will explode." Put simply, the battle for Syria is a battle for the entire Middle East.
Take the most probable consequence of Assad's removal, a round of revenge killings perpetrated by Syria's Sunni majority on Assad's Alawite community and their Christian allies. They will be seeking vengeance, not only for the thousands slain in the current uprising, but for a history of brutality that includes the slaughter of up to 20,000 in Hama in 1982, the last time an Assad faced popular protest.
If that kind of sectarian violence erupts, don't expect it to stay confined to Syria. Even if the killing does not spill over the borders, then Syrians themselves will, joining the 125,000 who have already fled as refugees. And that's without Syria becoming the site of an all-out proxy war, with Saudi Arabia backing the rebels and Iran lining up behind the pro-Assad forces.
The west will not stay aloof for long. (Some say it is already involved, tacitly backing Saudi and Qatari arms shipments to the rebels.) Strikingly, the talk in the last 48 hours has shifted from direct intervention – for which there were few takers – to an international peacekeeping force to be dispatched after Assad's exit. Former CIA official Bruce Reidel, who led President Obama's 2010 review of US policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, today proposed just such a force, noting the paradox that one of its first tasks would "be to protect the Alawite community and its allies from vengeance". Both the US and Israel are also anxiously eyeing Syria's supply of chemical and biological weapons, now said to be unlocked and on the move, fearing Assad may choose to go down in a lethal blaze glory.
So this is no domestic matter affecting Syria alone. The most immediate impact will be felt by Iran, which stands to lose not only its pivotal Arab ally but also the gateway Syria has long provided to Iran's proxy force in Lebanon, enabling Tehran to put upwards of 40,000 rockets in the hands of Hezbollah. Without Syria, Iran will lose that vital strategic bridgehead into the Arab world (even if, thanks to the US-led invasion in 2003, it can now count Iraq as friendly). But it goes deeper than that.
Iran's previous claim to lead an "axis of resistance", inspiring Syria, Hezbollah and Hamas to stand firm against the US and Israel, will be silenced. "It was losing that already," says Middle East analyst Daniel Levy, noting both Hamas's defiance of Tehran to side with the Syrian rebels and an Arab spring that is rendering obsolete Iran's previous claim that the Arab nations were uniformly led by autocrat-puppets of the US. Just six years ago, during Israel's Lebanon war, the leaders of Iran and Hezbollah, although they are Shia, were popular heroes on the Sunni Arab street. That, says Levy, wouldn't happen in the sectarian climate of today.
The fall of Assad will do more than diminish Iran. It will mark the passing of an entire political culture in the region. For Assad is the last representative of a form that dominated the Middle East for half a century: that of the secular strongman, the dictator backed by a merciless intelligence apparatus, what Chatham House's Nadim Shehadi calls "a Stasi state, where everyone is watching everyone else".
What began with Nasser in Egypt – or even Attaturk in Turkey – will end with Assad: the regime that represses local and ethnic difference in the name of a nationalism centred cultishly on the leader. In its place, Shehadi says, will come at first the chaos of hundreds of new parties and an even greater number of "mediocre politicians". But eventually, he hopes, it will pave the way for a post-dictatorship Middle East, a place where rulers stand or fall not on their ability to exploit problems as moves in a geopolitical power game, but to solve them instead.
It's an optimistic prognosis for a region that could be about to explode in bloody violence. But the fate of Syria will be decisive either way. If Assad holds on, then the Arab awakenings of 2011-12 will only ever have been a partial success. But if the Syrian rebels succeed, they will have achieved a sweeping victory. They will have effected a revolution without the full-blown foreign intervention required in Libya and more completely than in Egypt, where the security apparatus remains in place. That the revolt will have taken so long may even be a sign of strength, proving a depth and resilience that overnight insurrections elsewhere could not match.
Syria is on the brink. What will follow is not clear, given the mixed and divided nature of the opposition. This much we know: on the fate of Syria hangs the fate of the earth's most combustible region.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/....ire-middle-east
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"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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Big Bunny
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Posts: 50,825
Location: Sydney, Australia
| | Re: Gulag World XII
« Reply #224 on Jul 21, 2012, 6:07am » | |
Pussy Riot jailed for six more months
Putin crackdown on Russian dissent highlighted by case of feminist band arrested in March for performing 'punk prayer' in church
Miriam Elder in Moscow
guardian.co.uk, Friday 20 July 2012 16.45 BST
A Moscow judge has ordered three members of the feminist punk band Pussy Riot to spend the next six months in jail, prolonging a case that has highlighted the crackdown on freedom of expression in Vladimir Putin's Russia.
The three women – Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Yekaterina Samutsevich and Maria Alekhina – were remanded in custody until January 2013. They have been in jail since their arrest in March after performing an anti-Putin "punk prayer" in Moscow's most important church, the Cathedral of Christ the Saviour.
Their supporters say the powerful Orthodox church, which has close links with Putin, is behind the drive to keep the women in jail. Top church officials have come out in favour of their incarceration. They face up to seven years in prison on charges of hooliganism.
Pussy Riot erupted on the scene amid a wave of protest over Putin's re-election as president. With bright balaclavas, rabid punk anthems and explicitly anti-government lyrics, they helped enliven Russia's growing urban protest movement.
Friday's pre-trial court hearing marked the formal start to the group's trial. Pre-trial hearings are due to continue next week.
Many religious Russians who initially took offence at Pussy Riot's church stunt have since called for their release. A poll released on Friday by the Levada Centre, an independent pollster, showed that 50% of Muscovites surveyed were against pursuing the criminal case against the three women, while 36% supported it.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jul/20/pussy-riot-jailed-six-months
|
"All truth passes through three stages. First, it is ridiculed, second it is violently opposed, and third, it is accepted as self-evident."
Arthur Schopenhauer, Philosopher, 1788-1860
"In the final analysis, our most basic common link is that we all inhabit this small planet, breathe the same air, and we all cherish our children’s future."
John F. Kennedy |
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