Afghan President Hamid Karzai’s younger half-brother, Ahmad Wali Karzai, was killed in Kandahar on 12 July during a gathering in his house, according to Kandahar’s Canadian Governor Tooryali Wesa. He was shot in the head and chest with a AK-47 fired by Sardar Mohammad, a former bodyguard to another Karzai brother, Qayyoum. Continue reading
It is no secret that Egypt has put all its faith in the US and Western international institutions since the days of Egyptian president Anwar Sadat, contracting a huge foreign debt, a process that was increasingly corrupt, despite being careful watched over by those very agencies. This debt is financed by foreign banks, and must be repaid in dollars—with interest. If much of the money they create and then “lend” is siphoned off into Swiss bank accounts, that is Egypt’s problem. No one is trying to charge the people who gave Mubarak or his henchmen their money and then let them redeposit it with them, but it takes two to tango. Continue reading
In Baltimore, the nation’s mayors debated and passed a War Dollars Home Resolution at their annual meeting, the first time they have taken a stand on war since they passed a similar resolution in 1971, during the Vietnam war. The antiwar resolution even made the TV news, which has downplayed the fact that the majority of Americans have wanted an end to their illegal wars for years. Continue reading
Earlier this month, 100 activists from nine countries gathered in Montpellier, France, for the first European Forum Against Agrexco to strengthen the boycott campaign against Israel’s largest fresh produce exporter, which exports under the brand Carmel primarily to European markets. Up to 70 percent of the fruit and vegetables grown in the illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank are marketed by Agrexco, making it a prime strategic target for BDS. Continue reading
The 10th Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) summit, held June 15, in the Kazakh capital Astana highlighted how the major rivals to empire, led by Russia and China—themselves rivals—are trying to fashion an alternative to US hegemony. Continue reading
Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) renewed mandate puts the electoral seal of approval on its shift towards the Middle East, even as its importance to Europe increases. Now Turkey itself is being courted by both NATO countries and, increasingly, the Arab world. Continue reading
Ratko Mladic, the most wanted fugitive of the International Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), was arrested on May 26, after 16 years on the run. Continue reading
The Kremlin limited itself to a brief statement congratulating the United States for its success in killing Osama Bin Laden, noting Russia’s own firsthand experience with terrorism. The most recent attack was the 24 January bombing at Moscow’s Domodedovo airport by a Chechen suicide bomber that killed 35. Continue reading
The upcoming flotilla to break the Gaza siege is gathering steam from a flood of innovative Boycott, Divest and Sanctions activities around the world. Continue reading
The Supreme Administrative Court order to disband the National Democratic Party and confiscate its properties last week was based on the NDP’s violation of the constitution; namely, monopolising power, preventing legitimate competition from other parties, and allowing corruption by the marriage of business and politics. As the only political force in control of the administration of the country, the NDP allowed powerful businessmen to rise through its ranks and then enact laws and run the country in their personal and corporate interests. Continue reading
Just as during the Cold War the communists were reviled by liberals (not to mention conservatives), so the Islamists are popularly reviled in our post-Cold War world as some kind of dour, terroristic bogeyman. And, just as in the Cold War liberals and conservatives alike used the communists to pull their irons out of the fire (Who won WWII?), so Western politicians left and right have manipulated Islamists to further their own ends (Who defeated the communists in Afghanistan?). Continue reading
Russian politics is in turmoil as a result of the uprisings in the Arab world, in particular the Egyptian revolution. Those fed up with an increasingly autocratic political system hope that Russian citizens will be energised, while those who came out on top following the collapse of the Soviet Union are quick to dismiss any implications for the Russian political scene. Continue reading
Few around the world watching the drama unfolding in Ivory Coast root for the incumbent president, Laurent Gbagbo, who to his credit held reasonably fair elections last year, but then promptly ignored the results, suddenly claiming that those who voted for his rival Alassane Ouattara were not really citizens of Ivory Coast at all. With even the cautious African Union against him, his demise looks inevitable. Continue reading
Turkey continues its struggle to rein in the trigger-happy Franco-Anglo-American coalition intent on invading Libya. From the start, Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed the idea of a no-fly zone as “such nonsense. What does NATO have to do with Libya?” But his NATO colleagues pushed ahead and achieved UN Security Council Resolution 1973 on 17 March, authorising “all necessary measures” against Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and the establishment of a no-fly zone. Continue reading
As Turkey gears up to parliamentary elections in June, recent pronouncements by Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu confirmed the importance that the Turkish leadership places in defining a more dynamic role for Turkey in the Middle East as a bridge between East and West. Continue reading
Japan’s trauma following the partial meltdown of nuclear reactors in Fukushima has once again brought to the world’s attention the dangers of nuclear power. From the start, it was clear that a broad advocacy of nuclear energy is bad ecology. Splitting the atom (or worse, fusing atoms) unleashes intense heat and radiation and produces poisonous waste that lasts for up to 10,000 years or more. Continue reading
Egypt’s revolution is considered to be a startling new development, the result of the Internet age. But it is actually more like the traditional revolutionary scenario predicted by Karl Marx in the mid-19th century, a desperate protest against mass poverty resulting from rampant capitalism. Its association with the overthrow of authoritarian regimes in Eastern Europe and Russia in the 1990s, as epitomised by the adoption of the Serbian Otpor’s clenched fist masthead, is thus superficial. A more apt comparison in economic terms is with the Philippines, also a poor country with a large peasant population. Continue reading
Central to Egypt’s revolution was a tiny group of Serbian activists Otpor (resistance), who adapted nonviolent tactics of in the late 1990s and successfully forced Serbian president Slobodan Milosevic to resign in 2000. Egyptian youth in the 6 April Youth Movement even adopted their clenched fist symbol, bringing Otpor once again into world headlines and TV screens. Continue reading
While Egypt’s revolution was very much about domestic matters—bread and butter, corruption, repression—its most immediate effects have been international. Not for a long time has Egypt loomed so large in the region, to both friend and foe. At least 13 of the 22 Arab League countries are now affected: Algeria, Bahrain, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Sudan, Syria, Tunisia and Yemen. Continue reading
Western media always welcomes the overthrow of a dictator—great headline news—but this instance was greeted with less than euphoria by Western—especially American—leaders, who tried to soft-peddle it much as did official Egyptian media until the leader fled the palace. Continue reading
Quiet tourist backwater Tunisia under its only rulers since independence — Habib Bourghiba (1956-1987) and then Zein Al-Abidine bin Ali (1987-2011) — was a much appreciated ally of the United States. However, as bin Ali fled to Saudi Arabia last month, US leaders suddenly were hailing those who defied his US-trained police with their US-made tear gas and guns, including the 100 they killed. Continue reading
RSS
Israel and the flotillas: Clever madman
Posted on July 18, 2011 by Eric Walberg
The efforts by Israel to prevent Freedom Flotilla II from leaving Greece have been largely successful. Of the original 10 ships, only the French ship Al-Karama (dignity) with 10 activists including French politicians, which sailed from the French Corsica two weeks ago, and the sabotaged-and-repaired Juliano (named after Juliano Meir Khamis, the murdered Israeli director of Jenin’s Freedom Theatre), were able to elude the Greek coastguard as of early last week. Continue reading →