After 50 years of Independence - Politics & Conflicts in Malaya Part 1.

A Short History of the making of Malaya.

Malaya was unique in many aspects, not just in terms of its ethnic composition but more so in terms of its history. For the purpose of this discussion we are going to limit ourselves to the period of just prior to her independence from a political perspective. During the WW2 the (CPM) Communist Party of Malaya were fighting the (Japs) Japanese with arms supplied by the British. The Chinese, formed the bulk of the CPM, they had to fight the Japs, they had no choice, the Japs was their sworn nemesis and mortal enemy for many generations.

The CPM fought the Japs under the banner of MPAJA, Malayan People Anti Japanese Army. It was through this war probably the Chinese developed the sense of feeling that Malaya was theirs and they took the credit for defeating the Japs, though that was not the whole truth. After the WW2 ended the CPM managed to rule Malaya for some 10 days, it was a nightmare to many. There was a power vacuum, due to the time required by the British Army and Bureaucrats to return to Malaya. By the time the British arrived, the CPM already turned Maoist and heavily influenced by the successes of Mao in China, were asking for independence. So were the Islamists and the Nationalists whom the Japanese had promised Independence just within days after their surrender, after without the slightest mercy and devoid of any humanist values, the American, nuked Hiroshima and Nagasaki casing considerable civilian death and sufferings, obliterated probably all kind of living things there. History recorded that the Americans were the first and only Nation to ever used a nuclear bomb.

The British had no choice, due to the popularity of the Independence movement. The British had to pick out their own choice of leaders and Malaya was given independence by her colonial masters on 31st August 1957, ironically when the war with the CPM was still on, known in our history as the period of "emergency". With the participation and assistance of the British and soldiers from other Commonwealth countries, the CPM was then losing ground and they were fighting according to the classic Mao Tze Tung guerrilla theory, "from the jungles we circled the cities and take it one by one." Thus, even though it was an internal security matters, more Malaysian soldiers, especially from the Malay ethnic group answered the call for the defense of the motherland, were recruited and beef up those from the Commonwealth countries to fight a guerrilla war. Our soldiers and the army from many Commonwealth countries were used against an internal threat and not an external aggression.

Malaya and Education.

Some 50 years earlier, prior to the Japs occupation, the British together with the lower ranking expatriates were running Malaya. These expatriates were mostly make up of Ceylonese and those from the Indian subcontinent. They were known as the "Government Servant". It seems that the British had encounter difficulties in getting the Malays to fill up their offices. So too were, in their industries and businesses. While the laborers for their estates mainly came from the lower caste in India, the mining industry and the industrialist and merchants classes were hugely from China. Ironically though these countries do have sizable numbers of Muslims, more than Malaya itself. The Muslims were not included in these imported laborers, industrialists and merchants. Thus, these action created some problems in assimilations. Education, the problem of a National language and a common identity too become a sore point and is still an ongoing debate.

During this period, the British had opened many schools, both missionary and government funded schools in major towns, these schools were flooded by the children of these new immigrants who settled in the major towns by large numbers. The Sultans of 4 states, out of concerned, do not wish to leave the reins of this country, being managed by these imported "government servants". Thus the Sultans had a Royal Conference - and come up with the establishment of the well known school The Malay College, in 1905, located in the Royal Town of Perak, Kuala Kangsar. Initially it was meant for the upper echelon of the society and was design or suppose to produce Civil or Public servants. As a twist in history, with the emphasis in Science since the late 60's, this school ends up producing more Scientists, Doctors, Engineers and Technologists.

Defeating Communism in Malaya.

During the "emergency" the Malayans rallied around the forces promoting Nationalism. Tengku Abdul Rahman (Tengku), who later became the first Prime Minister, a western educated liberal and archenemy of communism, managed to turn the table against the CPM. When the CPM refused to lay down their rifles and did not wish work for independence through peaceful means. The CPM as a stated goal wanted independence by the used of force and to oust the British out of Malaya through the barrel of the gun. Using this attitude of the CPM the Government propagandist then, Mr. C.C. Too, had managed to turn the 'winner take all' conflict' in favor of Tengku. He garnered huge gains and tremendous support for Tengku, by making the CPM as the bad guy in the Baling talks. There were no further talks after that and the CPM was banned as an political and social organization.

In his efforts to pursue independence, Tengku flew to London. In London then, their house of common make two interesting points. Firstly, the British is the first Imperial Power to defeat Communism and they did it in Malaya. Secondly, the British had two enemies in Malaya - one from the jungles (reads CPM) and two from the Gunung (read Gunung Semanggol, PMIP(PAS) started there). PAS was resilient, PAS stayed on participating in every election until today. Later in Sept 1963, Sabah, Sarawak joined Malaya. Singapore did too but only to leave later.

Tengku bring back wealth, money that were taken out of Malaya by the British Colonial masters were utilized for infrastructure and social development. Tun Razak further opened new agriculture land, Oil was then found, an the general theme of economic development became an election promise – time and again. Until the citizens started to question the obvious poor delivery system which lead to poor distribution.

Siege Mentality

Until today those who offer their services to the government prefer to refer themselves as "government servants". I am of the opinion that that this term was cooked up by our colonial masters. It is a sort of a psychology to give the "under siege" mentality. To add salt to the wound, we are also a Commonwealth countries and as an individual we are a British Subject. It is sort of a polite way of saying that we belong to the same body politic and are under the power and authority of the British. Do we have to choose a government to the British liking or approval?

Is Idris Jusoh of Trengganu the Victim or the Culprit?

If DAP in Perak was initially adamant to have a DAP candidate as the Menteri Besar (MB) or at least a candidate from PKR. But Raja Dr. Nazrin appointed Ir. Nizar from PAS to be the MB. After all the hoo-haa, YB Lim Kit Siang relented and apologized publicly to Raja Dr. Nazrin. The issue was settled and the new MB, Ir. Nizar and after some seemingly public debate on the make up of his exco. was finalized.

The history of Modern Malaysia is quite unique. The Federation of Malaysia was formed by states of different backgrounds. The Straits Settlements, The Federated Malay States, The Unfederated Malay States and States in North Borneo which were not homogeneous. Many may not realized and took for granted that each states possesses the same constitution in letter spirit, well it is not. The Constitution of Penang under a Governor is very different from that of Kelantan under the Sultan. The Sultans in the Malay States are not as powerless as the British Queen, the system was created after the defeat of the British initiative - "The Malayan Union". The Malay Sultanate come the from two different systems, the Federated and the Unfederated Malay States. On this score it is very relevant that all Malaysians are thought in high schools and places of higher learning, the proper perspective of Malaysian historical developments and the spirit of the constitutions of every Malay States and Regions under the governors.

Other than the Sultan of Perak, the Raja of Perlis also created history by rejecting the MB (former MB) proposed by the PM, Shahidan. Though the PM had issued a "Watikah" for the former MB to be appointed as the MB. The Watikah actually can only to be issued by the Raja or Sultan with his seal on it. Anyway due to the fact that the Raja's newly appointed MB, YB Md Isa Sabu, enjoys more popular support from UMNO/BN ADUN than the former MB, thus that rendered the Raja of Perlis proposal as very wise and His Highness Watikah appropriate indeed.

Another ruler, the Regent of Trengganu also rejected the PM or head of Government nomination of another ex-MB, Idris Jusoh. The Sultan of Trengganu is the Supreme Head of State of Malaysia. Through The Regent Advisory Council of Trengganu (MPPR), the Watikah had been issued to YB Datok Mohd Said , whom by now had occupy his place, in the office of the MB, despite the pressure from the PM on the Trengganu Royalty, the UMNO Secretary General warnings to sack the newly appointed MB and the Attorney General joining the fray arguing from the perspective of the Federal Constitution, though the State of Trengganu has their own legal adviser (MPPR).

Below are the points to summarize the position of the Trengganu Royalty.

1) UMNO (BN) won the majority of the seats (DUN) for the Trengganu recent State
Elections and has every right to form the next State Government;

2) The previous MB ( Idris Jusoh ) assumed that he would continue to be sworn in as
the next MB;

3) The UMNO President cum Head of BN cum PM consented to his appointment and
endorsed the desires of Idris Jusoh;

4) But the Sultan of Trengganu rejected his nomination ( Idris Jusoh ) to be the MB;

5) At no time has the Sultan of Trengganu objected to BN/UMNO forming the State
Government;

6) The Trengganu State Constitution is very clear that the appointment of the MB
should be from within the ranks of the winning party, and that the choice of MB must have the consent of and appointment from the Sultan.

7) The Sultan now is not consenting to the appointment of the ex-MB ( Idrus Jusoh ), and has
decided that another candidate from the ranks of UMNO (the winning party) who also won
the State Elections will be appointed as the MB;

8) The Head of the Federal Government, who is also the BN Head says that is unconstitutional
and wants to go ahead, pushing for the previous MB to be appointed;

The result at present is still an impasse! The main issue. is that the Sultan has no quarrel with UMNO. He is not stopping UMNO from forming the Trengganu State Government, but his prime objection is, to the previous MB being re-appointed.

Other than Allah, probably the two person involved knew the reasons. Tuanku Duli Yang Maha Mulia, His Majesty the Agong reasons for not wanting Idris Jusoh to be the next MB.

In democratic practice, the popular voice of the rakyat and the majority of the ADUN elected has to be given due respect, irrespective of whom or which party has the support of the majority. The Royalty should not stop, unless there are solid, valid and strong reasons that render the nominated candidate for the MB post by the PM or majority of ADUN, unacceptable to the Royalty or the Palace.

The reasons that are considered solid, valid and sound includes the personality of the candidate like issues of low morality and corruption which may later cause or bring about badness and calamity to the State, the Country and the rakyat because of his appointment.

The solution and the way to resolve this impasse is to take out - the palace bureaucracy, (stop harassingnew ) the MB, Datuk Ahmad Said, ( stop media probing on ) the previous MB, Idris Jusoh, the UMNO Secretary General and Attorney General - 0ut the equation. Let the Head of the Government, the PM to settle the issue privately behind closed doors with the Agong. After all, the Sultan is our Head of State, and our PM took the oath of office in front of him! If the PM has an audience with the Tuanku, hopefully the real reasons as to why the previous MB is not to Tuanku`s liking could be divulged to the PM, but definitely not for public airing!

Why do the top echelons of UMNO deemed it fit to allow, without stopping UNMO's ADUNs in Terengganu to plan a swearing in boycott just like the DAP LKS once did and also other demonstrations? Is it because political parties outside the government (like DAP/PKR/PAS) cannot do what the ruling coalition (UMNO/BN) can do with all the pomp like an unstoppable monarch? It is high time that UMNO stop this double standard practices. UMNO / BN must remember that their are no longer the absolute ruler in the Parliament - UMNO/BN loss their two-majority.

The PM will be seeing His Majesty, Tuanku within these few days. In this way, both sides preserve their dignity and the issue can be discuss, handle and resolve amicably. If it is the crisis of the government - meaning the Sultan has loss faith in the ex-MB due to some misdemeanor such as corruption, crony-ism or misused and abused of power, then it is only logical for the PM to withdraw the MB's Idris Jusoh nomination. This will allow Trengganu to move ahead with grace on a clean sheet. Rather than to allow Datuk Idris Jusoh to proceed with the shit and the evil he had created for another term to only make it only more messy, rotten, worst and difficult to repair and make good.

This audience will give the opportunity for Tuanku on behalf of the Trengganu Palace to clear the air as to why, His Majesty make a decision which is very different from the norm, to ease or cool down the present situation or impasse. At least privately to Datuk Seri Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, whom His Majesty had appointed as the PM ealier.


a collection of ideas from various contributors.

Undang-undang dari Litar F1 – Tafsiran Abdullah dangkal

Ditulis oleh SM Noor

Monday, 24 March 2008

Kuala Terengganu, 23 Mac – Abdullah Ahmad Badawi, Perdana Menteri Malaysia menjadi pakar undang-undang terhebat apabila membuat tafsiran undang-undang dari Litar ‘Formula One’ Sepang. Beliau berkata pelantikan Anggota Dewan Undangan Negeri (Adun) kawasan Kijal, Datuk Ahmad Said sebagai Menteri Besar Terengganu dilihat sebagai tidak mengikut Perlembagaan sebagaimana yang dilaporkan oleh Bernama "Semua Adun yang bilangannya agak besar itu tetap menyokong Dato’ Seri Idris Jusoh. Itu satu perkara yang tidak ada perubahan daripada segi sokongan. "Dengan itu, maka sebarang lantikan yang dibuat terhadap orang lain itu, tidak kena dengan Perlembagaan," kata Abdullah ketika diminta mengulas mengenai tindakan 22 Adun daripada Barisan Nasional (BN) Terengganu yang membantah pelantikan Ahmad, Ahad. Ahmad, 51, menerima watikah perisytiharan pelantikan sebagai Menteri Besar Terengganu yang baru daripada Majlis Penasihat Pemangku Raja (MPPR) yang disampaikan oleh Yang Dipertuanya, Tengku Sri Panglima Raja Tengku Baderulzaman dalam satu upacara tertutup di Istana Tetamu di Kuala Terengganu, pagi kelmarin. Pentafsiran Perdana Menteri agak dangkal jika dibandingkan dengan perlantikan Menteri Besar Perlis yang dibuat oleh Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim Ketika mengulas kemelut pelantikan Menteri Besar di Perlis dan Terengganu minggu lalu Datuk Seri Dr. Rais Yatim menyatakan bahawa ‘Kuasa Raja’ di negara ini sebenarnya besar. Menurut beliau, ia dicernakan menerusi kuasa Yang di-Pertuan Agong dalam pelantikan Perdana Menteri, membubarkan Parlimen serta untuk mengisi tuntutan-tuntutan hak diraja serta hak keislaman yang dijamin oleh Perlembagaan. Merujuk kepada kes Perlis, Md. Isa telah menerima sokongan majoriti, iaitu lapan Ahli Dewan Undangan Negeri (ADUN) mengatasi Shahidan yang hanya disokong oleh lima ADUN. ‘‘Kedudukan di Perlis agak istimewa. Rajanya boleh ketepikan perlembagaan negeri malah pelantikan seseorang Menteri Besar itu adalah penilaian subjektif baginda,” kata Rais. Kuasa Sultan juga mengatasi dakwaan DAP di Perak yang mencanangkan wakil daripada parti itulah yang sepatutnya dilantik Menteri Besar berdasarkan majoriti 18 kerusi DUN yang diraihnya pada Pilihan Raya Umum ke-12. DAP mulanya membantah penyandang jawatan daripada Pas, Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin, 51, yang partinya hanya memperoleh enam kerusi. Realitinya, peranan Raja dan Sultan memberi perimbangan yang baik apabila wujud situasi kuasa politik ‘berleluasa’ dalam diri seseorang. Pada tahap ini, Raja menggunakan segala budi bicaranya. Dalam kes Terengganu, perkara ini jelas dinyatakan didalam undang-undang tubuh kerajaan negeri Terengganu. Ia dinyatakan seperti yang tertera di bawah: Kaedah perlantikan Menteri Besar Terengganu hendaklah mengikut Undang-undang Bagi Diri Kerajaan Negeri Terengganu 1911, Dengan Pindaan Pada Tahun 1948.01.21 Masehi Bersamaan 1367.3.10. Perlantikan Menteri Besar tertakluk kepada Undang Undang Bagi Diri Negeri Terengganu 1911 (11.11.1911) Dengan Pindaan (Ditambah Kepada Undang-undang Diri 1911 Pada 21.01.1948 Dikuatkuasa Pada Pada Tarikh Yang Sama ( Fasal 1 (2) ) Yang Dizin. Fasal 5 Undang-undang Bagi Negeri Terengganu( Yang Ditambah Pada 1948) Fasal 5 Memperuntuk Raja Memerintah Mengikut Undang-undang. Raja Berkuasa Melantik Menteri Besar Dan Jua Pada Undang-undang Diri Negeri Terengganu Tambahan 1948 Dibawah Fasal10(I) Dan Fasal 14(1)(2) . Peruntukan Dibawah Undang-undang Diri Negeri Terengganu 1911 Fasal 29 Memileh Dan Menjadikan Menteri Besar Dan Naibnya Adalah Semata-mata Hak Bagi Sultan (Tidak Dipinda) Didalam Tambahan Pada Tahun 1948 Diperuntukan Dibawah Fasal 10 Perlantikan Menteri Besar Duli Yang Maha Mulia Hendaklah Melantik Dengan Surat Lantikan Yang Ditanda Tangani Oleh Baginda Dengan Memakai Mohor Negeri Seorang Menteri Besar Mengikut Syarat2 Perenggan (1) Dibawah Syarat (2) Fasal 14 (2)(1) Dan (4) Duli Yang Maha Mulia Hendaklah Mula-mula Melantikan Dahulu Menteri Besar Untuk Mengetuai Majlis Mesyuarat Kerajaan Seorang Ahli Dun... Fasal 14(4) Takala Melantik Seorang Menteri Besar Maka Bolehlah Duli Yang Maha Mulia Mengikut Timbangan Baginda Sendiri, Meninggalkan Mana-mana Syarat Dalam Fasal 10 Yang Menghadkan Pilihan Baginda Akan Menteri Besar Itu Jika Sekiranya Pada Fikiran Baginda Mustahak Meninggalkanya Kerana Hendak Menunaikan Kehendak2 Fasal 10 Ini.

Ruling Bloc Urged Israel to Kill Sayyed Nasrallah

The February 14 bloc insisted on exposing its role in the 2006 Israeli aggression against Lebanon, after some of its figures denied what the head of the Winograd commission said about the existence of a "classified part of the war report which was not revealed so as not to "endanger Israel's security and foreign relations." However, does Eliyahu Winograd need to fabricate these words as some February 14 figures have claimed?

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert had made an extraordinary effort to ban the publication of his full statement to the Winograd Committee, because of the "sensitive information" it contains pertaining to the war.

"For obvious reasons, the unclassified Report does not include the many facts that cannot be revealed for reasons of protecting the state's security and foreign affairs," the Winograd report said. Israeli leaks have uncovered the context of what is being concealed within the papers of the Winograd report. These leaks confirm that some members of the February 14 bloc had contacted the Israelis during the 2006 war not only to demand they crush Hezbollah, but to liquidate its Secretary General Sayyed Hasan Nasrallah as well.

On the 19th of July 2007, Israeli political analyst Emanuel Rosen said that a "well informed political source" informed him that Olmert and members of his government "received a letter from the Lebanese government in the last 24 hours of the war asking them not to stop the war before Hezbollah was crushed adding that it is extremely preferable to liquidate Nasrallah." "For the first time, we reveal in this book that moderate Arab states and people close to the Lebanese government have conveyed messages to the Israeli government via different sides demanding Israel continues the war until Hezbollah was completely crushed," said Avi Issacharoff in his book "Spider Webs, The Story of the Second Lebanon War." For his part, Israel's Ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman was even clearer about these contacts. He said: "I was at the United Nations Headquarters during the war and you cannot imagine how many Arab foreign ministers and ambassadors came to me and told me to complete the mission and eliminate Hezbollah."

Facing attempts by the February 14 bloc to acquit Israel from a premeditated war in 2006, Israeli political and military officials confirmed Israel had prepared for the war and that it initiated it not to gain back two captured soldiers, but to crush Hezbollah.

"Israel initiated a long war, which ended without its clear military victory," article 11 of the Winograd report said. Amir Peretz, who was Defense Minister during the war said: "Is there really someone who believes that the kidnapping of those two soldiers is what led to the war, of course not. If we had not waged this war, we would have found ourselves a few years from now in front of more dangerous threats than we had discovered."

"Yes, there had been plans. One of these plans was dubbed (Uppermost Waters). It was based on a plan which I personally made years before the war. We trained on it and just before the war were in the process of renovating it," said Eyal Ben-Reuven who was the second in command in the northern region during the war.

Anyway, this is a small part of what was uncovered in Israel. Perhaps what the coming days would reveal about the collusion of the February 14 bloc in the 2006 war could be momentous.

courtesy almanartv

Army Officers Charged over 'Black Sunday' Incidents

12/02/2008 The Lebanese government commissioner at the Military Tribunal, Judge Jean Fahd, charged 79 people, including three army officers, 16 soldiers and 60 civilians, for their role in the 'Black Sunday' incidents that took place on January 27 leaving seven martyrs and 50 injured civilians. The charges included murder, violation of military instructions, possession of unlicensed arms and causing unrest, setting rubber tires and tossing hand grenades. Two officers (Majors) and 11 soldiers were accused of "involuntary manslaughter" for shooting into the crowd during demonstrations against blackout. One officer (Colonel) and five soldiers were charged with violating military orders. 60 civilians were also charged with causing unrest as well as attacking soldiers, 53 of them in absentia. According to the charge sheet, six of the martyrs were killed by army bullets. However, a probe is still underway to determine who killed Ahmad Hamza, the Amal movement officer of coordination with the Lebanese Army, who was shot in the back while trying to pacify the situation. Hence, the first phase of the investigation into the Black Sunday crime is over. If convicted, those charged could be sentenced from 5 years in prison to capital punishment. The file would now pass from the Government Commissioner to the Examining Magistrate to issue an indictment. The case would be submitted to the permanent military court. The sheet of charges did not mention the snipers who were caught on camera during the demonstrations, yet the families of seven martyrs and the injured will not have their wounds closed before the final results and the verdict. ( It is interesting to note how far the various parties in Lebanon willing to go and commit themselves to other external elements for the sake of power and at the expense of their Arab unity.)

The French Government's hypocrisy, Islam and Holocaust revisionism (2)

Mon, 11 Feb 2008 15:44:29
A Second Open Letter to France's Ambassador to the US by Paul Grubach

Faurisson was severely injured in a nearly fatal attack on Sept. 16, 1989.

This is a Second Open Letter to France's Ambassador to the United States by Paul Grubach February 8, 2008

Ambassador Pierre Vimont Embassy of France in the United States 4101 Reservoir Road, NW Washington, D. C. 20007

Dear Ambassador Vimont

As you are undoubtedly aware by now, Holocaust revisionist scholar Dr. Robert Faurisson will probably stand trial for comments he made at the Iran Holocaust Conference of December 2006. Allegedly, he violated France's Gayssot Act, a statute passed in 1990 that prohibits any public doubt about the alleged Jewish Holocaust.

There is a new development to this ongoing story that I would like to bring to your attention.

On January 24, Dr. Faurisson was taken into police custody for questioning and a search of his house was carried out. In my last open letter to you of January 15, I brought attention to the hypocritical double standard of the French government.

In September 2006, high school teacher Robert Redeker made a scathing attack upon the Prophet Mohammed and the Islamic religion in the center-right daily Le Figaro. Because of threats to his life, he was forced to go into hiding.

The French government immediately came to his defense, offering him police protection and a public statement on his behalf. In reference to Redeker's case, former Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin called the threats to his life "unacceptable," and added: "We are in a democracy. Everyone has the right to express his views freely, while respecting others, of course." (See The New York Times, 30 September 2006, p. A 3)

That this is an outrageous lie is demonstrated by the ongoing plight of Dr. Faurisson. In 1991, French "democracy" demanded that Dr. Faurisson be removed from his university chair. In July 2006, French "democracy" again violated his inalienable right to freedom of speech and research. He was convicted of "Holocaust denial" by a Paris court over remarks he made on Iranian television, and was given a three-month suspended prison term and he has to pay 18 000 euros.

Clearly, as the cases of Redeker and Faurisson show, one has the right to attack and violate the sacred beliefs of Muslims, but one has no right whatsoever to question and repudiate the Holocaust doctrine, one of the most sacred beliefs of Jewish-Zionism. The sacred belief and taboo of the Jewish people is enshrined in law in France. If you contest the Holocaust, you are prosecuted and persecuted.

However, the sacred beliefs of Muslims are not enshrined in law. If you attack Muslim beliefs, this is depicted as an expression of "freedom of speech." Once again, this is evidence of a hypocritical double standard. I have come across another case which further bolsters my point.

Do you recognize the name of the French Jewish writer, Marek Halter? He co-founded the so-called "anti-racist" group, SOS-Racisme. There is an interview of him in the February 11, 2005 issue of the English edition of The International Jerusalem Post, (pp. 9-11).

Halter claims that France's rapidly growing Islamic population is too frequently incompatible with democracy. Let me give you two of his direct quotes. Halter stated: "All of a sudden we realize that they [Muslims] are not a small minority anymore and that the way most of them practice their religion is not compatible with French democratic principles." He also stated: "Muslims threaten to weaken a French democracy that no longer knows how to impose its rules without seeming oppressive."

In April 2007 the European Union made inciting racism and xenophobia crimes throughout its 27 member states in a landmark decision. Even before April 2007, when Halter made these statements, inciting racism and xenophobia in France were outlawed.

That is to say, Halter made these statements when these "racism and xenophobia" laws were on the books. A French prosecutor could cogently argue that Halter's statements incite hatred and xenophobia against Muslims, and thus, the man should be prosecuted. After all, he is stating that Muslims as a group threaten to weaken and even destroy French "democracy."

This will cause people to hate Muslims. Your so-called French "democracy" allows him to make anti-Muslim statements. Yet, Robert Faurisson is put on trial by this same French "democracy" for making statements that contest and debunk Holocaust orthodoxy.

Do you see my point, Ambassador Vimont? France grants "freedom of speech" to Jewish people like Marek Halter who criticize and attack Muslims. Yet, "democratic" France denies freedom of speech to non-Jews like Faurisson who question and debunk the orthodox view of the Holocaust.

If France was truly a democracy as former Prime Minister de Villepin claims, it would defend Dr. Faurisson's right to freedom of research on the Holocaust. That is to say, there would be no "limits in advance" or "prewritten conclusions" about his Holocaust research.

After all, France grants freedom of research for atheists and others who deny the existence of God or attack the Islamic and Christian religions.

If the French government does prosecute and imprison Dr. Faurisson for his Holocaust revisionist views, this will only demonstrate to the world the truth of his arguments. The French government cannot disprove his Holocaust revisionism with reason and science, but must resort to oppressive laws and prison sentences in its attempt to silence truth.

Sincerely, Paul Grubach

A copy of this letter has been sent to Press TV

Arab FMs back initiative on Lebanon

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 09:47:47
Arab FMs have voiced their consensus on abiding by an Arab initiative and continuing efforts to resolve the Lebanese political crisis.

In a statement issued after an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers at the headquarters of the Cairo-based Arab League (AL), Arab top diplomats lauded the efforts made by AL Secretary General Amr Moussa, urging all Lebanese parties to respond to Moussa's efforts.

The AL Council held the meeting on Sunday at the foreign ministerial level to discuss the outcome of efforts made to implement the Arab plan on the Lebanese issue which was endorsed by Arab foreign ministers earlier this month.

The council reviewed Moussa's report, his assessment of the outcome of his efforts to get rival Lebanese leaders to agree to details of an Arab initiative to end the political deadlock as well as his recommendations to continue Arab efforts to implement the initiative.

In addition, the council voiced its extreme concern over the continuation of the Lebanese crisis and its dangerous consequences on Lebanon's stability and security, Xinhua reported.

It also called for continuing meetings that had been started between all Lebanese sides upon an invitation from Moussa.

The Arab ministers urged all sides in the dispute to vote for Michel Suleiman in a new parliamentary session to be held on Feb. 11.

Lebanese presidential seat has been vacant since former president Emile Lahoud ended his term on Nov. 24, 2007, and the Lebanese parliament has postponed a parliamentary session to elect a new president for a 13th time.

MSH/BGH

Chomsky: Gazan democracy intolerable

Sat, 26 Jan 2008 02:25:43

American political analyst, Noam Chomsky

Renowned American political analyst, Noam Chomsky, says the Palestinians are being punished for standing up to the US and Israel.

In an interview with Mehr news agency Chomsky said the major crisis in Gaza started when Hamas won in 'a free and fair election.'

"The West, which despises democracy unless it comes out "the right way", immediately turned to punishment of the people for the crime of not following the orders of the US and Israel, " he said.

He also criticized what he called the "US-Israeli takeover of whatever is of value in the West Bank with considerable violence".

Referring to the Annapolis conference as "a joke in poor taste", Chomsky maintained it has nothing to do with Israel-Palestine.

'It was an effort by Bush and Rice to line up the "moderate" Arab states -- that is, the extreme fundamentalist tyrannies that are expected to follow orders -- in an anti-Iran alliance,' he said

Chomsky also called on Islamic states, and everyone else, to put an end to the savage punishment of Palestinians by the U.S.-Israeli alliance.

MT/HAR

Bush's Middle East legacy

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 13:35:23
An interview with Scott Lucas by Afsaneh Ostovar,
Press TV, Tehran

Scott Lucas has been on the staff of the University of Birmingham since 1989 and has been Professor of American Studies since 1997. He is the Executive Director of Libertas: The Center for the Study of US Foreign Policy, Adjunct Professor of the Institute for North American and European Studies at Tehran University and a member of the Advisory Board of the Center for American Studies and Research at American University of Beirut. He is also the Associate Editor of the Journal of American Studies.

He began his academic career as a diplomatic historian but, believing the approach was now narrow, began considering the role of "propaganda", "culture" and "ideology" in the history of US and British foreign policy.

Here is an interview with him about The US President George W. Bush's tour to the Middle East.

Q. What were the goals of US President, George W. Bush's Middle East tour?

A. I think Bush's trip should be seen in three contexts: 1) the public priority --- a settlement between Israel and Palestine; 2) the priority of the past --- remaking the Middle East through regime change in Iraq; 3) the priority of the present --- remaking the Middle East through "containment" of Iran.

Anyone with "a lick of common sense," as my grandfather would say, can see that there is no realistic prospect of an Israeli-Palestinian settlement. President Clinton spent almost eight years pursuing this without success; President Bush is proposing to achieve this within 12 months. Still, the pretence has to be maintained. It has to be maintained for US domestic opinion, which needs to see a Presidential commitment to "peace" rather than further military operations/occupation in the region, and for Arab governments who cannot maintain support for American policy without the appearance that there is some movement on Israel/Palestine.

Beyond this public appearance, the Bush Administration is trying to hold up the idea that --- after almost five years --- they are on the brink of success in Iraq. This is an illusion, of course. However, having spent so much money and ended so many lives (American and Iraqi) in the quest to replace Saddam Hussein with a suitable pro-American government and to demonstrate American power to all in the Middle East, there cannot be an admission of failure.

This brings us to the current Bush Administration goal. Having failed to remake the Middle East through a suitable, stable post-Saddam Iraq, the US Government needs another core issue to hold together its political, economic, and military strategy. This strategy continues to rest upon Israel as a "pillar" in the Middle East but also has to safeguard the American position with Arab states. The answer to this, diverting attention from Palestine and indeed Iraq, is to portray the necessity of an anti-Iranian coalition.

Q. What is your speculation on the seriousness of the United States' commitment to peace in Palestine?

A. Any serious attempt at an Israeli-Palestinian settlement would have to offer possibilities --- to each side --- on the issues of Jerusalem [al-Quds], right of return, Israeli occupation, and borders. The current Bush initiative offers little to the Palestinian side on any of these issues.

1) Bush avoided the question of Jerusalem [al-Quds] on his trip. He did not, for example, confront the issue of the extension of Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem [al-Quds], even though the Israeli Government had offered a token "pullback" of some (but not all) of the illegal settlements.

2) Bush announced the need for compensation of displaced Palestinians without any consideration of who would provide that amount (estimated at $100 to $150 billion). At most, this is an indication that the right of return is off the American (and, of course, Israeli) agenda.

3) On borders and occupation, some in the US and British press highlighted Bush's call for an end to occupation. Significantly, however, he did not specify that Israel would have to withdraw from all of the territory it seized in 1967 nor did he address the issue of a contiguous Palestinian state without the interruption of Israeli fences, settlements, and checkpoints.

And, of course, Bush did not refer to a settlement that included Gaza, which I suggest is a pretty significant omission.

Q. What do you think Bush will offer in his Middle East trip?

Publicly he will offer rhetoric about an American commitment to stability based on Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Privately, he will be offering a lot of economic and military aid to those Arab governments who continue to back an approach ensuring an American presence through the isolation of Iran.

Q. Why is Bush taking his first trip in the twilight of his presidency?

A. Because, having failed to succeed in his primary goal of establishing US power through a post-Saddam Iraq, he has to be seen to be doing something. Otherwise, he is just a "lame duck."

Q. Why does Israel continue its offensive against Palestinians after the Annapolis conference?

Because Israel will seek to negotiate with Abbas from a position of strength and will continue to try to isolate and, indeed, break Hamas. My belief is that a "Palestinian state" for Israel and the US means a compliant state based on a relatively weak leadership. Hamas is a challenge to that approach.

Q. How do you see the future of Israel's plans for occupying more regions of the West Bank? What prompts this regime to continue its expansionist policies?

A. My belief is that the Israeli notion of security rests upon a need for a permanent "superiority" over any Palestinian entity. Thus occupation is not an end in itself to expand the borders of Israel but to ensure that there is never sufficient Palestinian strength to challenge Israel's political/economic/military position.

Q. How has the United States contributed to the realization of Israeli ambitions?

A. At this point, US and Israeli interests are largely convergent. That is, the maintenance and projection of American power rests upon support for Israeli power --- political, economic, and military.

Q. Can the US be a peace broker to the Palestine-Israel conflict while it is the main supporter of the Israeli regime?

A.The issue is whether, given the US relationship with Israel, others (Arab governments, the European Union, Russia, the United Nations) continue to defer to Washington as the primary broker of discussions.

Q. What is the Bush's legacy for the Middle East?

A.In light of what has happened in Iraq, Israel/Palestine, Syria, and Lebanon, the legacy of the American attempt to remake the region has been destruction and instability.

The more important question for me is how those in the region try to pursue political, economic, and cultural development --- including the pursuit of "freedom" and "democracy" --- which is not dependent upon being either "with" or "against" the United States.

Further thoughts on this can be found in the talk "Shifting the Gorilla: De-Centring America in the Middle East"(
http://www.libertas.bham.ac.uk/analysis/index.htm at http://www.libertas.bham.ac.uk/analysis and http://www.libertas.bham.ac.uk/analysis/index.htm.)

Q. Do you believe Bush has been successful in rallying the regional countries against Iran?

A. I doubt that the United States will succeed in forging an anti-Iranian coalition, at least to the extent of enforcing economic sanctions and political isolation. In my opinion, Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf States are not convinced that attention to Iran should come before, for example, stability in Iraq and a meaningful resolution of the Israel/Palestine question. At a practical level, Persian Gulf States are far too dependent upon trade with Iran to bear the economic cost of supporting American sanctions.

If I was being cynical, I would suspect that some Arab states such as Saudi Arabia are happy to listen to the American song of isolating Iran as long as the outcome is more military assistance and arms sales.

AO/RE

Root to peace - stop denying the majority

Hezbollah sets resolution terms

The government accuses Hezbollah of being loyal to Syria and Iran

The Lebanese opposition group Hezbollah has said openly that it will not allow a president to be elected unless it gets a third of the cabinet seats.

This would give Hezbollah and its allies a veto over key decisions.

The Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, blamed the US for obstructing a solution to Lebanon's political crisis by opposing such a move.

The western-backed Lebanese government has repeatedly rejected the opposition's demand for powers of veto.

The government has proposed reforming the cabinet to give the president a casting vote.

Hezbollah and its allies have been demanding a third of the cabinet seats since the 2006 war with Israel - which Hezbollah regards as a victory - but until now they had not publicly linked the issue to a presidential vote.

Druze leader Walid Jumblatt, who is aligned with the government, said Hezbollah was making impossible demands and was more loyal to Syria and Iran than to Lebanon.

Political paralysis

The dispute between the government and opposition has left Lebanon without a president for more than five weeks.

A parliamentary session to elect a president was postponed for the 11th time on 28 December, and is now due to begin on 12 January.

solution lies in a partnership through a constitutional guarantee (and) through a veto power for the opposition, which represents more than half of the Lebanese people Hassan Nasrallah

Government and opposition agree on that the next president, traditionally a Maronite Christian and elected by parliament, should be the head of the army, Gen Michel Suleiman.

But they disagree over the shape of a future government.

The wider political crisis has paralysed the government and parliament for more than a year, and spilled over into armed clashes and political assassinations.

Long interview

Sheikh Nasrallah's comments came in an interview with a private Lebanese TV station, and were aired simultaneously by Hezbollah's al-Manar TV.

"A solution lies in a partnership through a constitutional guarantee (and) through a veto power for the opposition, which represents more than half of the Lebanese people," he said.

"As long as there is a US decision not to give the opposition a veto power, this means there won't a presidential election," he said.

"[The government] wants to fully control authority and rejects partnership with the other party," Sheikh Nasrallah said.

A dictator created then destroyed by America

Tue, 01 Jan 2008 17:34:09

By Robert Fisk, The Independent UK

Saddam to the gallows. It was an easy equation. Who could be more deserving of that last walk to the scaffold - that crack of the neck at the end of a rope - than the Beast of Baghdad, the Hitler of the Tigris, the man who murdered untold hundreds of thousands of innocent Iraqis while spraying chemical weapons over his enemies?

Our masters will tell us in a few hours that it is a "great day" for Iraqis and will hope that the Muslim world will forget that his death sentence was signed - by the Iraqi "government", but on behalf of the Americans - on the very eve of the Eid al-Adha, the Feast of the Sacrifice, the moment of greatest forgiveness in the Arab world.

But history will record that the Arabs and other Muslims and, indeed, many millions in the West, will ask another question this weekend, a question that will not be posed in other Western newspapers because it is not the narrative laid down for us by our presidents and prime ministers - what about the other guilty men?

No, Tony Blair is not Saddam. We don't gas our enemies. George W Bush is not Saddam. He didn't invade Iran or Kuwait. He only invaded Iraq. But hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians are dead - and thousands of Western troops are dead - because Messrs Bush and Blair and the Spanish Prime Minister and the Italian Prime Minister and the Australian Prime Minister went to war in 2003 on a potage of lies and mendacity and, given the weapons we used, with great brutality.

In the aftermath of the international crimes against humanity of 2001 we have tortured, we have murdered, we have brutalized and killed the innocent - we have even added our shame at Abu Ghraib to Saddam's shame at Abu Ghraib - and yet we are supposed to forget these terrible crimes as we applaud the swinging corpse of the dictator we created.

Who encouraged Saddam to invade Iran in 1980, which was the greatest war crime he has committed for it led to the deaths of a million and a half souls? And who sold him the components for the chemical weapons with which he drenched Iran and the Kurds?

We did. No wonder the Americans, who controlled Saddam's weird trial, forbad any mention of this, his most obscene atrocity, in the charges against him. Could he not have been handed over to the Iranians for sentencing for this massive war crime? Of course not. Because that would also expose our culpability.

And the mass killings we perpetrated in 2003 with our depleted uranium shells and our "bunker buster" bombs and our phosphorous, the murderous post-invasion sieges of Fallujah and Najaf, the hell-disaster of anarchy we unleashed on the Iraqi population in the aftermath of our "victory" - our "mission accomplished" - who will be found guilty of this? Such expiation as we might expect will come, no doubt, in the self-serving memoirs of Blair and Bush, written in comfortable and wealthy retirement.

Hours before Saddam's death sentence, his family - his first wife, Sajida, and Saddam's daughter and their other relatives - had given up hope.

"Whatever could be done has been done - we can only wait for time to take its course," one of them said last night. But Saddam knew, and had already announced his own "martyrdom": he was still the president of Iraq and he would die for Iraq. All condemned men face a decision: to die with a last, groveling plea for mercy or to die with whatever dignity they can wrap around themselves in their last hours on earth.

His last trial appearance - that wan smile that spread over the mass-murderer's face - showed us which path Saddam intended to walk to the noose.

I have catalogued his monstrous crimes over the years. I have talked to the Kurdish survivors of Halabja and the Shia who rose up against the dictator at our request in 1991 and who were betrayed by us - and whose comrades, in their tens of thousands, along with their wives, were hanged like thrushes by Saddam's executioners.

I have walked round the execution chamber of Abu Ghraib - only months, it later transpired, after we had been using the same prison for a few tortures and killings of our own - and I have watched Iraqis pull thousands of their dead relatives from the mass graves of Hilla.

One of them has a newly-inserted artificial hip and a medical identification number on his arm. He had been taken directly from hospital to his place of execution. Like Donald Rumsfeld, I have even shaken the dictator's soft, damp hand. Yet the old war criminal finished his days in power writing romantic novels.

It was my colleague, Tom Friedman - now a messianic columnist for The New York Times - who perfectly caught Saddam's character just before the 2003 invasion: Saddam was, he wrote, "part Don Corleone, part Donald Duck". And, in this unique definition, Friedman caught the horror of all dictators; their sadistic attraction and the grotesque, unbelievable nature of their barbarity.

But that is not how the Arab world will see him. At first, those who suffered from Saddam's cruelty will welcome his execution. Hundreds wanted to pull the hangman's lever. So will many other Kurds and Shia outside Iraq welcome his end. But they - and millions of other Muslims - will remember how he was informed of his death sentence at the dawn of the Eid al-Adha feast, which recalls the would-be sacrifice by Abraham, of his son, a commemoration which even the ghastly Saddam cynically used to celebrate by releasing prisoners from his jails.

"Handed over to the Iraqi authorities," he may have been before his death. But his execution will go down - correctly - as an American affair and time will add its false but lasting gloss to all this - that the West destroyed an Arab leader who no longer obeyed his orders from Washington, that, for all his wrongdoing (and this will be the terrible get-out for Arab historians, this shaving away of his crimes) Saddam died a "martyr" to the will of the new "Crusaders".

When he was captured in November of 2003, the insurgency against American troops increased in ferocity. After his death, it will redouble in intensity again. Freed from the remotest possibility of Saddam's return by his execution, the West's enemies in Iraq have no reason to fear the return of his Ba'athist regime. Osama bin Laden will certainly rejoice, along with Bush and Blair. And there's a thought. So many crimes avenged.

But we will have got away with it.

MD/MG

Jumblatt lies to Syrians for 25 years

Mon, 31 Dec 2007 22:50:10

Walid Jumblatt

Lebanon's head of progressive socialist Party, Walid Jumbalat, admits that he has deceived the Syrians for almost twenty five years.

I am not a real ally to Syrians and I am lying to them, said Jumblatt in an interview with Press TV.

The Lebanon's Druze leader claimed that his father was killed by the Syrians.

'I decided to fix a pact with the devil and to shake hand the one who killed my father,' said Jumbalat, denouncing the fact that he had not the courage to declare the claim 25 years ago.

Jumblatt implicitly admitted that he is ready to cooperate with Americans rather than his fellow citizens, accusing Hezbollah of facilitating or ignoring Syrian killings.

"I will not give the veto power for the sake of Hezbollah and their allies and the Syrian regime," he said.

"They can take it by force over our dead bodies" but "I am not going to give up the veto power for the sake of Hezbollah," he added.

He rejected the fact that he has ignored Hezbollah stance on abandoning a national unity government for the sake of electing a president.

"We didn't ignore them but we will not give the blocking minority which means to topple the Taif [Agreement] and to topple all the power of the government," said Jumbalat.

Jumblatt denied that he is not going to give Hezbollah the veto power they want because he is scared that he might lose his popularity.

He emphasized that his party's candidate is Michel Suleiman and they will stick to him.

MHE/RA

Ethiopia leaves key Somali town

Ethiopian troops in Mogadishu

The Ethiopians are not popular in Somalia
Ethiopian troops have withdrawn from a key town in central Somalia.

Islamist insurgents say they now control Guriel, where Ethiopia had a big military base to secure the road linking the two countries.

A BBC correspondent in Somalia says it is not clear why the Ethiopian troops withdrew without any fighting.

Guriel was a stronghold of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC), which lost power to Ethiopian-backed government troops a year ago this week.

The BBC's Ayanleh Hussein in Guriel says residents have been cheering the Ethiopians' departure.

During the occupation the local hospital was out of use as it was used as the Ethiopians' military base, he says.

Meanwhile, unrest continues in the capital, Mogadishu, where most Ethiopian forces in the country have been based since last year's invasion, which ended the UIC's six-month rule.

The bodies of four civilians were discovered after battles between insurgents and Ethiopian troops on Thursday around the animal market in the north of the city.

Somalia has been politically fragmented since 1991 and the country's transitional government, faced with an insurgency, is dependent on international aid and Ethiopian military support.

The Top 10 New Organisms of 2007

FROM OTHER BLOGGERS.

By Alexis Madrigal 12.26.07 | 12:00 AM

Above: A special filter in a dark room shows a cat (left) with a red fluorescent protein that makes it glow when exposed to ultraviolet rays, next to a normal cloned cat (right) at Gyeongsang National University in Jinju, South Korea.
Below: In normal light, a normal cloned cat (left) stands next to two cats which have been cloned to glow red, but only in ultraviolet.
Photo: AP / Yonhap, Choi Byung-kil

Genetic engineering isn't just for scientists in ivory towers or corporate R&D labs anymore. Researchers are still creating new mice and crops every week, but the tools and knowledge necessary to create organisms never before seen on Earth have pushed out to pet breeders, artists and college kids.

A Wired News first, here we count down the top 10 organisms that didn't exist on Dec. 31, 2006.

1. Ashera GD hypoallergenic cat

Lifestyle Pets has created a cat it calls the Ashera GD, which has been genetically engineered to be hypoallergenic. The high-tech blend of exotic cat varieties doesn't come cheap: This kitty in the window retails for $27,000 -- nothing to sneeze at. The ultra-rich around the world, however, don't mind the price tag. Six of the cats sold in December, three of them in the company's best market: Russia. Next year, expect a transgenic cat, which will remain kitten-size throughout its life.

2. Butanol-producing E. coli

Genetic engineering is getting so easy, even a kid can do it. A team of students from the University of Alberta, "the Butanerds," competed in the International Genetically Engineered Machines competition, creating an E. coli strain that produces butanol fuel (albeit rather inefficiently). The Butanerds have competition from a host of well-funded startups, like Synthetic Genomics and LS9, which are trying to genetically modify single-celled organisms to create the fuels of the future.

3. Artful fluorescent tadpoles

At an Ohio State art show earlier this year, Russian artist Dmitry Bulatov presented his genetically engineered tadpoles, which glow red and green. Bulatov, the curator of the Kaliningrad Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Art in Russia, is one of a handful of artists around the world using biotechnology to create art. The field is controversial, because it involves experimenting with living things without a medical or therapeutic purpose. Bulatov edited a collection of essays on these issues called Biomediale: Contemporary Society and Genomic Culture.

4. Insulin-producing lettuce

In July, a University of Central Florida researcher announced he had genetically modified lettuce heads that produce insulin. They could be transformed into time-release capsules for people with diabetes, to help them maintain blood-sugar levels without regular injections.

5. Super CO2-absorbing trees

With global warming all over the news in 2007, many schemes have been proposed for taking greenhouse gases out of the atmosphere. Trees already do the world an admirable service sequestering carbon dioxide, but scientists at the Oak Ridge National Laboratory in Tennessee are also genetically modifying poplar trees to increase the amount of carbon that the trees can store.

6. Rapid vaccine-making button mushrooms

In November, Darpa-funded Pennsylvania State University researchers unveiled a new method for rapidly producing vaccines: genetically engineered button mushrooms. Pharming, using plants as chemical factories, is beginning to catch on as a cheap way to synthesize drugs. Within a few years, the Penn State scientists say their 'shrooms will be able to make 3 million doses of vaccine in 12 weeks. Rapid-response vaccine-making could come in handy in case of a bioterror attack or bird-flu outbreak.

7. Glow-in-the-dark cats

Photographs of cats genetically engineered by South Korean scientists to glow red when exposed to UV light made headlines around the world. What most news stories didn't mention was the scientific potential for fluorescent creatures: The animals' glow acts as a "green light" that lets scientists know that their genetic transformations of other, non-glowing genes have worked.

8. Cancer-fighting Clostridium bacteria

Surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatment mean that a cancer diagnosis is no longer always a death sentence. But certain oxygen-starved parts of tumors are still difficult to reach with the old methods. Enter the Clostridium family of bacteria. Injected into the body, they grow and multiply only in the oxygen-poor parts of cancer tumors. In September, scientists in the Netherlands showed they could arm Clostridium bacteria with therapeutic protein genes, essentially creating search-and-destroy tumor missiles.

9. Schizophrenic mice

July's news that Johns Hopkins researchers had created schizophrenic mice was a surprise, even to scientists who regularly create genetically altered mice to model human diseases. In recent years, we've seen very big mice, fearless mice, Rain Man mice and a host of others. But the schizophrenic experience of hallucinations, delusions of grandeur and paranoia seemed somehow distinctly human. However, scientists recently identified a single gene called DISC1 as a major schizophrenia risk factor, leading to the creation of these mice, which lack the gene. Anatomical examinations revealed similarities between the mice's brains and those of human patients. The mice also revealed behaviors -- trouble finding food, agitation in open fields -- that researchers say parallel human schizophrenic activities.

10. Yeast with poison-sensing rat genes

Temple University doctors announced in May that they'd genetically modified a strain of yeast to glow green in the presence of DNT, an ingredient in dynamite. The scientists used rat olfactory genes to sense the chemical and switch on fluorescent-protein producing genes. Biosensors might be better than man-made sensors for applications like detecting nerve gas, because they are cheap to produce.

THE CULPRIT & THE VICTIM

The Somalia syndrome
Tue, 25 Dec 2007 21:55:12
BY Noam Chomsky

THIS poor country keeps taking one blow after another," Peter Goossens observed two months ago in an interview with The New York Times' Jeffrey Gettleman. "Ultimately, it will break."

The country is Somalia, and Goossens directs the World Food Programme, which is now feeding some 1.2 million people there, 15 per cent of the population.

This tragic and tortured land is "marching right up to the edge of a crisis", Goossens said. "Any additional little thing, any little flood or drought, will push them over."

Somalia, war- and famine-torn, is beset from within and without. With a vigilance especially stepped up since September 11, the United States has reformulated its long-standing efforts to control the Horn of Africa (Djibouti, Ethiopia, Eritrea and Somalia) as a front line in the "war on terror", and Somalia is at its very tip. The crisis in Somalia may be regarded partly as collateral damage from that "war on terror" and the geopolitical concerns reframed in these terms.

As Somalia sinks deeper into chaos, members of the African Union have sent small peacekeeping forces there, and pledged to send more if funding is made available. But they are unlikely to do so, "because there is no peace to keep (in Somalia) in the first place," Richard Cornwell, of the Institute for Security Studies in South Africa, told Scott Baldauf and Alexis Okeowo of The Christian Science Monitor in May.

By November, the United Nations noted that Somalia had "higher malnutrition rates, more current bloodshed and fewer aid workers than Darfur," Gettleman reported. Indeed, Ahmedou Ould-Abdallah, the top UN official for Somalia, described its plight as "the worst on the continent".

The United Nations, however, lacks the capacity to reach the people who are hungry, exposed, sick and dying in Somalia, according to Eric Laroche, head of UN humanitarian operations there.

"If this were happening in Darfur, there would be a big fuss," Laroche said. "But Somalia has been a forgotten emergency for years."

One distinction, hard to miss, is that the tragedy of Darfur can be blamed on someone else, in fact an official enemy — the government of Sudan and its Arab militias — while responsibility for the current disaster in Somalia, like others there that preceded it, lies substantially in our own hands.

In 1992, after the overthrow of the Somali dictatorship by clan-based militias and the ensuing famine, the United States sent thousands of soldiers on a dubious "rescue mission" to assist with humanitarian operations. But in October 1993, during the "Battle of Mogadishu", two Black Hawk helicopters were shot down by Somali militiamen, leaving 18 US Army Rangers dead, along with perhaps 1,000 Somalis.

US forces were immediately withdrawn in a manner that continued the murderous ratio. "In the final stages of the troops' retreat, every bullet fired against them was answered, it seemed, by 100," Los Angeles Times correspondent John Balzar reported. As for the Somali casualties, Marine Lt. Gen. Anthony Zinni, who commanded the operation, informed the Press that "I'm not counting bodies ... I'm not interested."

CIA officials privately conceded that during the US operations in Somalia, in which 34 US soldiers were lost, Somali casualties — militiamen and civilians — may have been 7,000 to 10,000, Charles William Maynes reported in Foreign Policy.

The "rescue mission", which may have killed about as many Somalis as it saved, left the country in the hands of brutal warlords.

"After that, the United States — and much of the rest of the world — basically turned its back on Somalia," Gettleman reports. "But in the summer of 2006, the world started paying attention again after a grass-roots Islamist movement emerged from the clan chaos and seized control of much of the country", leaving only an enclave adjoining Ethiopia in the hands of the Western-recognised Transitional Federal Government.

During their brief tenure, the Islamists "didn't cause us any problems", Laroche reports. Ould-Abdallah called the six months of their rule Somalia's "golden era", the only period of peace in Somalia for years. Other UN officials concur, observing that "the country was in better shape during the brief reign of Somalia's Islamist movement last year" than it has been since Ethiopia invaded in December 2006 to impose the rule of the TFG.

The Ethiopian invasion, with US backing and direct participation, took place immediately after the U.N. Security Council, at U.S. initiative, passed Resolution 1725 for Somalia, which called upon all states "to refrain from action that could provoke or perpetuate violence and violations of human rights, contribute to unnecessary tension and mistrust, endanger the ceasefire and political process, or further damage the humanitarian situation."

The invasion by Somalia's historical enemy, Christian Ethiopia, soon elicited a bitter resistance, leading to the present crisis.

The official reason for US participation in Ethiopia's overthrow of the Islamist regime is the "war on terror" — which itself has engendered terror, quite apart from its own atrocities. Furthermore, the roots of the Islamic fundamentalist regime trace back to earlier stages of the "war on terror".

Immediately after September 11, the United States spearheaded an international effort to close down Al-Barakaat — a Dubai-based Somali remittance network that also runs major businesses in Somalia — on grounds that it was financing terror. This move was hailed by government and media as one of the great successes of the "war on terror". In contrast, Washington's withdrawal of its charges as without merit a year later aroused little interest.

The greatest impact of the closing of Al-Barakaat was in Somalia. According to the United Nations, in 2001 the enterprise was responsible for about half the $500 million remittances to Somalia, "more than it earns from any other economic sector and 10 times the amount of foreign aid (Somalia) receives".

Al-Barakat also played a major role in the economy, Ibrahim Warde observes in "The Price of Fear", his devastating study of Bush's "financial war on terror". The frivolous attack on a very fragile society "may have played a role in the rise ... of Islamic fundamentalists," Warde concludes — another familiar consequence of the "war on terror".

The renewed torture of Somalia falls within the context of US efforts to gain firm control over the Horn of Africa, where the United States is launching a new Africa command and extending naval operations in crucial shipping lanes, part of the broader campaign to ensure its domination of the world's primary energy resources in the Persian Gulf region and in Africa as well.

Just after World War II, when State Department planners were assigning each part of the world its "function" within the overall system of US domination, Africa was considered unimportant. George Kennan, head of the State Department's Policy Planning Staff, advised that Africa should be handed over to Europe to "exploit" for its reconstruction. No longer. The resources of Africa are too valuable to be left to others, particularly with China extending its commercial reach.

If poor Somalia collapses in starvation and misery, that is merely a sideshow of grand geopolitical designs, and of little moment.

Nightmare in Afghanistan

Sun, 02 Dec 2007 16:14:02
By Ismail Salami, Press TV, Tehran

'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is the second novel by the Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini who presently lives in the United States.

Set against the backdrop of thirty years of tumultuous Afghan history, Hosseini seeks to lay bare the innermost repressed human aspirations and a lingering desire for justice in a land crushed to the very bone by internal and external elements.

'A Thousand Splendid Suns' is the story of Mariam and Laila, the two wives of the savage Rasheed. Mariam is only fifteen when she is forced into marriage with Rasheed, who is dozens of years her senior. Two decades later when she cannot produce an heir to Rasheed, he marries fourteen-year-old Laila.

Mariam and Laila join hands to fight the tyrannical rule of a selfish husband. They share their joys and sorrows and brook the tyranny in the deep bond which takes shape between them. With the coming of Taliban to power misery comes after misery: starvation, brutality and fear beyond human imagination. In the end through love the characters triumph over misery and plight.

With inconceivable skill the writer wrings from the readers the utmost strain of pity and sympathy for the characters.

Like in his previous novel 'The Kite Runner', the characters are desperate creatures raped, beaten and stripped of happiness. Yet, they persevere in the path of life looking for a ray of hope in a brutal world created not only by the social conventions and traditions but by the blind ignorance and prejudice of the tyrants as well.

The interplay of love and hate constitutes the core theme of the novel. People fall into two categories, those who are capable of love and those who are incapable of it. Mariam the protagonist looks for love in a society where love is the privilege of a few. Even paternal love is denied her because she is the illegitimate child of a rich man who brought her to life in a moment of carnal whim. In other words, happiness is far beyond the reach of the protagonist.

Apart from the political overtones in the novel, the writer does not lend a political hue to the novel but views human life from a social viewpoint. He depicts Afghanistan in different historical junctures.

Laila is the alter ego of Mariam who suffers a similar destiny although she comes from an intellectual family. In fact, Hosseini shows the predicament of women in a traditional society who have no other duties than wifely ones. It does not matter who you are in the Afghan society but what sex you are. To be a woman is to be a misfortunate creature. To be a woman is a sin.

Under the Taliban the situation becomes even worse for women. The Taliban in fact symbolize the most deteriorated form of existence for women.

As a matter of fact, the regime change does not bring about any reform in the lifestyle of women. Something is rotten in the very beliefs and traditions of the society which bind women to a wheel of woes: hunger, drought, civil war and the cruelty of well-armed zealots.

Hosseini is a great story teller. He has a great power of description and profound insight into human conditions. The characters are described in an unforgettable way. Some provoke anger and the others tenderness and affection. The agony of the Afghan people is painted so vividly that one finds oneself part of their suffering.

Putin Signs Law Suspending Participation in CFE Treaty

source almanar

01/12/2007 Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday signed a law suspending Russia's participation in the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty, the Kremlin announced.

The suspension takes effect Dec. 12. Under the moratorium, Russia will halt inspections and verifications of its military sites by NATO countries and will no longer be obligated to limit the number of conventional weapons deployed west of the Urals.

The 1990 arms control treaty set limits on the deployment of heavy conventional weapons by NATO and Warsaw Pact countries, to ease tensions along the border between the old Eastern bloc and Western Europe. The treaty was revised in 1999 after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Russia ratified the updated treaty in 2004, but the United States and other NATO members have refused to follow suit, saying Moscow first must fulfill obligations to withdraw forces from Georgia and from Moldova's separatist region of Trans-Dniester.

Both houses of parliament passed the law on the moratorium at Putin's initiative.

Putin called for Russia's temporary withdrawal from the treaty amid mounting anger in the Kremlin over US plans to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe.

What will US do to Chavez Part 2?

Venezuela to Expel US Diplomat

source almanartv

9/11/2007 Venezuela threatened to expel a US Embassy official for allegedly conspiring to defeat a referendum championed by President Hugo Chavez. The allegation, that the diplomat was plotting to sway public opinion, comes ahead of a fiercely contested referendum on reforms that would allow Chavez indefinite re-election and help him establish a socialist state in Venezuela. Sunday's vote has generated large pro- and anti-Chavez rallies and Chavez kept the rhetoric high on Wednesday by repeating his charge that Washington is plotting to kill him. In Caracas, Foreign Minister Nicolas Maduro showed state television a document that was written by the unnamed embassy official and was to have been sent to the CIA as part of a plan to help ensure that Venezuelans vote against the proposed constitutional overhaul. "It's a script from the CIA to try to generate a block of opinion among Venezuelans that would give a sure victory to the 'No' vote," said Maduro. "We will investigate and if it's that way, we'll remove this person from here as a persona non grata." He did not provide more details of the alleged plot. A spokesman for the US embassy, who declined to be named because he was not authorized to speak on the matter, said he was unaware of the document. In Washington, State Department spokesman Rob McInturff said officials there were looking into the reports. Chavez, an ally of Cuban leader Fidel Castro, has had a friction-filled relationship with Washington. The Venezuelan leader accuses the US of supporting a 2002 coup that ousted him from office for two days. In February 2006, Venezuela expelled naval attaché John Correa for allegedly passing secret information from Venezuelan military officers to the Pentagon. On Tuesday, Chavez accused the CNN news network of "inciting" an assassination attempt against him. On Wednesday, Chavez said Washington is also seeking to kill him. In Sunday's referendum, Venezuelans will vote on proposed changes to 69 amendments of the nation's 1999 constitution. Castro: US could assassinate Chavez Fri, 30 Nov 2007 21:03:45 Castro and Chavez have very close ties. The Cuban President warns his Venezuelan counterpart, Hugo Chavez, that the US could assassinate him or wage a civil war in Venezuela. "The irresponsible US government does not stop for one minute to think that killing the head of state in Venezuela, or a civil war there, given its huge oil reserves," Fidel Castro wrote in an editorial in Granma, the Cuban Communist Party's newspaper. Castro wrote he had cautioned his Venezuelan ally "very seriously" when they met on November 21. He had highlighted "the risks of assassination he was exposing himself to by constantly traveling in open-top vehicles," at the meeting. Chavez is a vocal critic of US president George W. Bush's warmongering policies.He earlier said that Bush must be taken to a madhouse. NM/DT - source presstv