+

I dont see what that has to do with catchin birds.
The freedom of birds is an insult to me. Id have them all in
zoos.

Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy

ROBIN CARMODY-STYLE INTERLUDE *

a recent issue of The Week (UK edition) - that weekly news anthology magazine - had a cover story and inside editorialising on the British inequality report hoo-hah. the editorial did its usual of rounding up and excerpting a few leader columns and so on discussing same, before an excerpt from the final leader column and conclusion, which is always where the anonymous leader writer of The Week appears to finally display their true sympathies.
(it's a bit shitbag, in a way. at least any other anonymous leader column in a proper newspaper is from the start clearly marked out, preferences wise, not this undergraduate essay style and/or **.)

David Goodhart from Prospect magazine was the person garlanded for his pointing out that set beside some other European relations, Britain doesn't do too badly, and historical trends about social mobility have to be viewed wrt the 40s-70s being a period of great change (de-industrialisation, the rise of the welfare state, the rise of the managerial and clerical classes), and that - finally - it is nonsense to claim we are doing that badly. (i would take issue with a lot of what Goodhart said in terms of, for instance, a higher proportion of British pensioners live below their national poverty line than seniors in many other EU countries).

but, hang on.

isn't Britain one of the most unequal societies in the developed world?
hasn't Britain been getting more unequal in the last decade and a half?

these two incredibly important objections were not mentioned in The Week's cosy and indefensibly complacent editorial.

since at least the US-led invasion of Iraq - when The Week editorialised in its favour, which was unremarkable, but then went on to claim, and this was remarkable, that opponents of the war were less nice people than supporters, they suspected (for balderdash, bizarre and incredibly offensive reasons that might have held water if George Galloway was a model anti-war opponent ***) - i have been a bit suspicious of this rag.

the careless and robust language here wrt the central implications of some recent notable research about British inequality continue to not endear it to me.

---

* with all due respect to Robin Carmody who i have not read for some time although the last time i did i gather there had been something of a change of direction at his gaff, so fair play, if that course is still being held to- and with the usual 'what do i know?' disclaimers

** i realise this sounds absolutist, which is funny given the one time David Goodhart has been praised around here it was when he was rightly criticising Hitchens for being too absolutist, not interested in incremental progressive gains etc. (whether that portrait of Hitchens is always fair and accurate, i take the fifth.)

*** well, perhaps George is a very nice bloke (i'm sure he is), but you know, not a total political thicko anyway, etc etc

pint-sized vegan New Yorker beat maker and tea brewer Moby once reassuringly sang "we are all made of stars" and this is right, after the Fall, and then for those exceptional individuals at their summit, before that climb down and sinking into, nameless things and named things.

Then about the meridian of that day we come upon the judge on his rock there in that wilderness by his single self. Aye and there was no rock, just the one. Irving said he'd brung it with him. I said that it was a merestone for to mark him out of nothing at all. He had with him that selfsame rifle you see with him now, all mounted in german silver and the name that he'd give it set with silver wire under the checkpiece in latin: Et In Arcadia Ego. A reference to the lethal in it. Common enough for a man to name his gun. ...When he had done and while there yet was light he returned to a certain stone ledge and sat a while and studied again the work there. Then he rose and with a piece of broken chert he scappled away one of the designs, leaving no trace of it only a raw place on the stone where it had been.

- Blood Meridian Cormac McCarthy

THE IRISH CATHOLIC CHURCH, VIOLENCE ABUSE POWER, VIOLENCE ABUSE POWER LIES, VIOLENCE ABUSE POWER LIES VIOLENCE

the sight of Quentin Letts on the BBC news trying to argue all equality quangos should be closed down: good grief. what a, relatively speaking, compromised individual this Tory partisan is.

in other - self-indulgent and personally speaking - news, i am haunted by a profound sadness.

it will not leave.

alcohol and one night stands are clearly called for.

Anti-Semitic attacks in the UK doubled in the first half of this year compared with the same period in 2008, according to new figures.

The Jewish Community Security Trust, which monitors anti-Semitism, says it recorded 609 incidents between January and June - up from 276 last year.

Most incidents were abusive behaviour, but there were also 77 violent acts.

The trust said the rise had been driven by anger over Israel's military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.

this man is a war criminal

copyright Mark Dingemanse

"Abu 'Omar Al-Baghdadi: The U.S. Withdrawal From the Cities Does Not Change the Nature of the Occupation

In a 43-minute audio recording, produced by Al-Furqan, ISI commander Abu 'Omar Al-Baghdadi condemns the Iraqi authorities and those who cooperate with them, says that the American retreat from the cities changes nothing, and calls to wage jihad against the West."

"Page last updated at 14:33 GMT, Saturday, 11 July 2009 15:33 UK
Bomb rips through market in Iraq
A car bomb has killed four people and injured 40 at a market on the outskirts of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, police sources told the BBC."

"Friday July 10 2009
Bombs killed nearly 60 people in Iraq yesterday in the worst violence since US combat troops withdrew from urban areas last week" (Irish Independent)

"Posted on Wed, Jul. 08, 2009 04:26 PM

A week after U.S. departure, multiple bombings hit Mosul

By MIKE THARP
McClatchy Newspapers
Just as Americans and Iraqis began to congratulate themselves on a relatively quiet week since U.S. combat troops withdrew from Iraq's major cities, insurgents Wednesday set off six bombs in Mosul, the biggest city in northern Iraq, killing 14 and wounding 44.

Two of the bombs exploded in adjoining neighborhoods, killing 12 and injuring 28 in one blast and wounding seven in the second. Two others, possibly the bomb-makers, died when a homemade bomb exploded in their car."

"Death toll from Iraq's Kirkuk blast rises to 73
Sun Jun 21, 2009 3:35pm EDT
By Mustafa Mahmoud

KIRKUK, Iraq (Reuters) - The death toll from Iraq's deadliest bombing in more than a year rose to 73, police said on Sunday, a day after a suicide bomber detonated a truck packed with explosives outside a mosque in the north of the country.

More than half of the victims were pulled from the rubble and dust of around 70 clay brick homes that were flattened in the explosion near the northern city of Kirkuk, said Brigadier General Najeh Mohammed, the local head of civil defense.

"We expect that there are still some dead bodies under the rubble. But the chances are less than before," said Mohammed.

A survivor of the powerful explosion, Askar Zaman, said 10 of his relatives were killed, including sons and grandsons. Another, Hussein Azab, said he lost eight members of his family.

Black flags and banners of mourning fluttered from poles all over the Shi'ite Muslim village of Taza and the victims were swiftly buried in the same part of the local cemetery."

"UPDATED ON:
THURSDAY, JUNE 25, 2009
08:12 MECCA TIME, 05:12 GMT

Baghdad blast leaves scores dead

Scores of people have been killed by a bomb in Baghdad's Sadr City just days before US combat troops are due to leave Iraq's major cities.

Police said that 72 people were killed and more than 100 people were injured in the blast at the popular Mraidi market on Wednesday.

The explosion, caused by a motorcycle rickshaw loaded with explosives and covered with fruit and vegetables, happened in the north Baghdad district at around 7.30pm (16:30GMT), according to one official.

The attacker got off his vehicle and managed to escape before the bomb went off, the official said, adding that women and children were among the casualties and dozens of market stalls were damaged" (Aljazeera.net)

"FDLR and LRA combatants are responsible for the great majority of killings of civilians documented by Human Rights Watch. Both armed groups are deliberately terrorizing and punishing civilians and attacking their property as a military tactic in retaliation for Congolese government military operations. Those who committed or ordered such attacks are responsible for war crimes.

On May 10, for example, FDLR combatants brutally massacred at least 86 civilians, including 25 children, 23 women, and seven elderly men at Busurungi, in the Waloaloanda area of Walikale territory, North Kivu. Twenty-four others were seriously wounded. Some of the victims were tied up and executed; others were shot or their throats were slit by knives or machetes as they tried to flee. A number of people were burned to death when FDLR combatants deliberately locked them in their homes and torched the village."

Given the track record of the Sri Lankan government, there are very significant grounds to question whether these statements were voluntary

one thing that i would like is for Paul Rogers (the Bradford uni peace studies professor, not any other Paul Rogers one could infer i am referring to) to tell us what he really thinks.

his staff homepage emphasises his radical assessment and uniquely cogent analysis.

i would like somebody to come along and tell me in a nutshell what he thinks, and the implications of these thoughts. in fact i would like this very much.

i would also like it if Matthew Elliott of the TaxPayers' Alliance would say less.

i would dearly like that.

what are we doing?

"Navy chiefs say each carrier must have 36 aircraft to run continuous operations"

"A spate of deadly bombings has prompted the United Nations to suspend food distribution to hundreds of thousands of people displaced by fighting in the southern Philippines, a UN official said Wednesday."

"Chinese officials did not give a breakdown of the deaths, and it was unclear how many of them were protesters and how many were other civilians or police officers."

thank you

thank you

thank you

truth and sanity in an often ugly, hijacked debate

"The vast majority of people who live in social housing in Britain were born in the UK according to a research study published by the Equality and Human Rights Commission today. The study found that less than two per cent of all social housing residents are people who have moved to Britain in the last five years and that nine out of ten people who live in social housing were born in the UK."
yo

Epoch Times: "According to Xinhua, China's mouthpiece, 156 Uighurs have been killed in the massacre—although no independent source has been able to verify this number.

"Sources at Xinjiang University estimate the number of dead at "nearly 400," including many outside Xinjiang University, Kadeer said, but she cautioned that "we can't confirm" that number," said Rebiya Kadeer, World Uyghur Congress and Uyghur American Association leader, according to Radio Free Asia."

one thing i must clear up is my dislike for the Tory party.

this covers both the British Tories and the Canadian Tories.

thank you.

and, yes, i have said to myself 'why we're the same age'. sad ain't it.

water

hops

barley

grids


networks

truth and power and events and interlocking things and words and a cup of coffee that is not good for the body but is for 'the soul'

systems

capitalism, in the raw, fucking with you, and all your community

the fact that this is not an epic fail, in domestic opinion terms and so on, is, of course, an epic FAIL

on the left is independent Pinay-cockney-Englishwoman mechanic baby momma Rosa Isabel Mutya Buena. on the right, the completely adorable Shola Ama






big big love

i should probably add i have long wanted to go to bed with Elastica bassist Annie Holland.

i could have said something more subtle than the previous sentence, couldn't i? something that anybody reading would have instantly understood as meaning the above, but just phrased more lightly, yunno? a bit classier, give the place a bit of a sophisticated vibe.

but, frankly, i thought, sod that.

i should probably add the likes of bits of Suede and much of the Divine Comedy are esteemed greatly by loads of folk, and fair enough that is too

as anyone knows Simon has it right with calling Britpop how he sees it, especially wrt the mainstream journalism coverage at the time ignoring (at least relatively speaking) other then-fabulous currents in British popular song. but given how Blur played apparently corking shows last week (my brother and a mutual mate were raving about their Hyde Park set-up), this got me nostalgic. (and i personally know about nine million people who enjoyed Oasis gigs in Sunderland or Manchester earlier in the year.)

so, search and destroy Britpop? keeping it to the first list here.

the Elastica debut and Elastica gigs: saw them once and live they are as sweaty and sexy and hot as their best tunes suggested. (oh also quite a fun Fall-inspired 6 track EP was a laugh.) though heck! this is a bit random.

lots of Pulp.

lots of Blur.

the Oasis song 'Cigarettes & Alcohol'. (tbf to Oasis, they are sort of a classic rock band now, almost, growing into the songwriter thing. Noel Gallagher has got a bit of a brain too.)

oh Supergrass were lively.

there, that's not a bad line-up.

the person who has put the below YouTube up on their channel writes "Elastica perform Waking Up on Top Of The Pops in 1995, accompanied by Damon Albarn on keyboards and some rather scantily clad men".
indeed.

"The contemporary liberal-left is much more drawn towards some of these than to others for its condemnation and protest - the actions of Israel, the US and other Western democracies come to mind -"

Geras.

very true

the final sentence from Geras there that i link to, is such good sense. it is outrageous how Benn is a national treasure these days given the amount of gratuitous, absurdly woeful and idiotic drivel he spouts. i know people correctly appreciate his diaries and adore him for his general grand-fatherly qualities but when he opens his mouth it is very often, sadly, an opportunity for people to take him less seriously.

and they would be right to do so.

Norman Geras rightly critiques an exquisitely brainless statement from Tony Benn

"It is with great sadness that the Ministry of Defence must confirm that a soldier from 2nd Battalion The Mercian Regiment and a soldier from The Light Dragoons were killed in separate incidents in Afghanistan yesterday, Saturday 4 July 2009.


The first soldier was killed by a rocket propelled grenade attack and the second soldier by a contact explosion. Both incidents took place whilst the soldiers on a deliberate operation near Gereshk, central Helmand Province yesterday evening."

STUPID HORRIBLE LAUGHABLE HOMOPHOBIC BUFFOON NEWSFLASH

Scientists have announced that well known stupid horrible laughable homophobic buffoon Dr Michael Nazir-Ali remains a "stupid horrible laughable homophobic buffoon of the worst order and should probably be sacked for being a bit of a wally".

Nazir-Ali was unavailable for comment, though supporters pointed out that regrettable homophobes crowd the Church and that, oddly enough, nobody at the Guardian courts them (although Muslim anti-gay bigots are fair play, one wag piped up as he sank into his next gin).

Terry Glavin makes an incredibly, incredibly wise and important point about an extremely malign Iranian influence in Afghanistan

But while everybody's chasing down ludicrous "it's all about oil" conspiracies, all the real plotting and sedition goes largely unreported.

Joyeux anniversaire!

¡Feliz cumpleaños!

At Long's Bar, it's a crush of short skirts and spaghetti straps - alcohol is illegal if you're a local, and practically a social obligation if you're not. ...It's four days before I hear any actual Arabic. Most remarkably of all the remarkable things about Dubai is that it's occupied almost entirely by foreigners: native Emiratis make up barely 20 per cent of the population. They're a minority in their own country. When I meet Sultan Al-Qassemi, a businessman and journalist, he points out that the Emiratis are handling this rather better than the British would. 'Can you imagine? It's the equivalent of there being 55m foreigners in Britain, and just 5m of you. It's a unique case, and I think we deserve extra credit for the way we are handling it. The country is completely open. It is a utopia! Anyone can come here! We are one of the most tolerant countries in the world. And all this has happened in a single generation. Thirty years ago, it was desert.' ...It's quite a story. He's only been out two weeks, but he's still managing just about to smile. But not even the judges are Emiratis: they're on short-stay visas like everyone else, and the only thing he had going in his favour, he says, is that he wasn't Asian. 'Tons of them are in for practically nothing: jaywalking or owing £10.'

from an Observer article by Carole Cadwalladr on 'Dubai's dark side'

Joan Didion

take me up

take me up

c'mon take me up

Dear V V Brown,

Yours,
etc

How to smell manure from a mile away

Press TV is a Tehran-based English language news service.

Matthew Richardson - who is described by the British Broadcasting Corporation World Service as the legal advisor for Press TV's UK operations - says that Iran is "a young democracy" and "a rising democracy" (further to these gems, you can also hear in his same awful World Service interview the judgment that the recent protests in Iran were “started irresponsibly"*; the interviewer sounds like Nick Higham, although i am not sure).

the man himself, in this BBC television interview, says he is someone from Press TV Ltd, an independent UK-based company.

if you are unable to watch the above BBC TV Newsnight conversation between Richardson, another guest, and anchorman Jeremy Paxman for technical reasons, suffice to say Richardson gives a real car-crash of an interview, not least when confronted with basic facts from Paxman about Press TV's website being a bit, shall we say, lacking in coverage of recent events from Iran. (when it is not lacking - and that is a kind word - it is downright dishonest, of course. consider what the other guest, journalist Martin Bright, notes about Press TV's take on the death of Neda Agha-Soltan, for example.)

Bright also raises some good points, correctly criticising Richardson's absurd, pathetic, and wholly redundant bluster about the separateness of the Press TV website, and Press TV Ltd's television channel (which happens to broadcast unhindered on a major British independent commercial station).

incidentally, someone should tell Richardson of the basic fact - given he is so insufferably pompous about facts in the above Newsnight television interview - that the BBC is paid for by the British public, thanks to a tax referred to as the licence fee. (note that the somewhat different BBC World Service is state-funded, through a Parliamentary Grant-in-Aid administered by the British Foreign Office. The BBC, like Press TV, claims to be impartial from its national government, by the way.)

it is not the case that the BBC is directly funded by the British state, as Richardson casually - and unforgivably - remarks on the telly: although Press TV is directly funded by the Iranian state.

hmm.
cough.

would an Iranian parliamentarian be allowed - by the theocracy, that is - to have a regular gig with the BBC, as a correspondent?
Press TV pundit George Galloway is, after all, the current representative for an east London constituency.

this should not need stating, but i will: one must have a pretty awry moral compass if you're willing to do the job Matthew Richardson does for Press TV Ltd, in the first place.

oh.

P.S.

LONDON (Reuters) - Iran should release an ailing reformist detained during last month's protests or move him to specialist care as harsh prison conditions are putting his life at risk, a U.S. human rights group said Wednesday.

Human Rights Watch said prominent reformist journalist and politician Saeed Hajjarian, who was detained on June 15, was severely disabled and required constant medical care.

"It's bad enough that the authorities would detain a man as ill as Saeed Hajjarian in their crackdown in the protests," HRW Middle East director Sarah Leah Whitson said in a statement.

"But the conditions, harsh treatment, and intense pressure to make a false confession are putting his life at risk."

---

*he's got a great - not at all politically illiterate, totally worthless and ethically bankrupt, oh no - line about all countries having their own media rules and regulations.

why, i bet he's got loads of reports from RSF in his loo.

It should be pointed out that while there is de jure discrimination against non-nationals and non-Arabs in the UAE’s 1980 Federal Law on the Regulation of Labour Relations, it is the more serious issue of the de facto discrimination suffered by unskilled south Asian migrants which is the primary area of concern. ...There is strong evidence to suggest that debt bondage is widespread in the United Arab Emirates and that the government is failing to meet its obligations...It is important to stress that the line between the private and public sector is so muddied as to render it non-existent. ...It is shameful in a state of untold wealth that the most basic rights are not granted to migrant workers.

Mafiwasta .pdf

the reluctant greengrocer

you can tell Rubin's a shady sort: any analyst prepared to give a presentation to the Turkish general staff is clearly at home with fluid accounting, and this also explains his occasionally getting fisked by Kurdish writers.

---

In a written statement provided to the BBC, Shell hit back at Amnesty saying the group had made no attempt at open dialogue.
The firm dismissed the report, saying: "There is little of value in it. No new insights. No findings that might help change the way things are."

what a shower of cunts.

'Hunger: tie your stomach tightly and wait, it will leave you'. Ishag Mohammedin, from Furawiya, was stoical about the pains of hunger. There is little to say about hunger per se. Hunger was something that people had just to put up with.

de Waal, 1989, p. 112

FUCK THIS FOR A GAME OF SOLDIERS

for at least the second time a major BBC anchor (Matt Frei earlier today in this case, Bill Turnbull once on the breakfast sofa) has characterised the nationality of ISAF troops under fire as American and British.

no mention of troops from, say, the Netherlands, Canada and Denmark.

NOT FUCKING GOOD ENOUGH.

at the periphery or at the vortex?
Bourgeois

summer 2007

sat in a Belgian bar, drinking beer alone, noting the famous actor with two thrilled ladies at his table nearby, reading this

"The Strategic Corporal: Leadership in the Three Block War"

It is likewise my opinion that colours and other sensible qualities are on the objects
	- Bishop Berkeley

"God will help us to overcome all enemies and we believe we shall defeat them. We are not worried about their quantity and whatever weapons they have"

30 seconds lads

Roskilde, Friday December 26th, 2008.

three mates done for by a bomb in Helmand.

the three Danish soldiers killed by an IED on Wednesday were due to end their tour in August.

"In other violence, four private Afghan security guards were killed on Tuesday when they were attacked while escorting trucks that supply foreign forces bases in southern Afghanistan, police said.
"The guards returned fire. The fighting between them lasted for one-and-a-half hours. Four guards were martyred," deputy provincial police chief Abdul Rahman Shaheedani told AFP."

BobFromBrockley, we salute you:

'For a spectacular example of the left getting it wrong, we turn to our old friend George Galloway, defending the Ahmadinejad theocracy. (H/t Ent/JohnnyG.) A slightly softer version comes from John Wight at Socialist Unity, wondering (in an article which, I have to say, is pretty good in places) if what we are seeing is a "counter-revolution" because it is middle class people doing the protesting. (Odd that when Palestine Solidarity action, university occupations and throwing eggs at BNP leaders is done by middle class people in the UK that doesn't make it counter-revolutionary.) He also uses the uprising as an opportunity for facile anti-Americanism'

British American Tobacco has beefed up its stake in the massive Indonesian smokes market (250 billion tabs produced annually).

Kretek cigarettes, a blend of clove and other flavouring ingredients directly mixed with the tobacco, are incredibly popular there, and make up about nine tenths of all cigs smoked in Indonesia.
(it's also an industry responsible for an awful lot of jobs.)

Indonesia is the only country in Asia that has not signed up to the WHO’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.

CAR: 'Who's who with guns'

SOAS cleaners - "5.Amnesty for all those involved." - brilliant campaigners win through occupation

Noreen Jong-Il explains Juche

in the Korengal Valley with the American Battle Company last October

"Transitional government officials have confirmed Wednesday that the police commander of the TFG was killed in in Hadan district in Mogadishu where heavy fighting between Islamist forces and government soldiers was continuing...The residents expressed concern about the fighting that is going on in Hodan district in Mogadishu as more heavy weapons could be heard in and around the Somali capital."

50. On or about 30 October 2002, in Boy-Rabé, Bangui, MLC soldiers arrived at REDACTED’s residence. They immediately demanded money, stating “donner argent, pas tuer”. Thereafter, the MLC soldiers immediately entered the house, vaginally raped her, stole money, and looted the residence. The MLC soldiers shot and killed REDACTED when he tried to prevent the theft of his REDACTED.

51. On or about 8 November 2002 at or near PK 12, MLC soldiers arrived at the REDACTED family compound and fired their guns. REDACTED was sodomized by multiple MLC soldiers on the ground outside, in front of his family. The soldiers then vaginally raped REDACTED’s wife, REDACTED. Several MLC soldiers also took REDACTED, and threw him to the ground. REDACTED died. MLC soldiers also vaginally raped REDACTED’s three daughters (REDACTED, REDACTED and REDACTED). At the same time, the REDACTED’s compound was looted by MLC soldiers. When MLC soldiers came to REDACTED’s home in the same compound, MLC soldiers vaginally raped her. When REDACTED, tried to intervene in the rape, he was tied up and beaten.

39. In the locations identified in paragraph 38, the MLC troops looted, raped, and killed CAR civilians. Civilian properties were systematically looted, and civilians were forced to cook and clean for the MLC troops against their will and with no payment. Men, women and children were raped by multiple MLC perpetrators in their homes, raped in front of family members, forced to watch rapes of family members, and raped in public locations including streets, fields and farms. Many of the women victims of rapes and gang-rapes contracted HIV, and became pregnant as a result of these rapes. Civilians that were killed included those who tried to prevent or resist rapes, attacks or lootings.

32. Between the 11 to the 29 of October 2002, MLC troops attacked the city of Mambasa located in the Ituri province, DRC. BEMBA directed the Mambasa operation by communicating through the Chief of Staff, or giving orders directly to commanders.

33. During the Mambasa operation, MLC troops committed the crimes of looting, rape and murder. Promises of looting and rape were given to the combatants prior to the attack, and they were subsequently permitted to rape and loot for a few days.

16. The MLC troops entered the CAR from the DRC. On or about 26 October 2002, MLC troops crossed the Oubangui River and entered Bangui where they were deployed to the battlefront. Upon their arrival, MLC troops participated in five days of intense fighting in and around Bangui. As the rebel forces withdrew from Bangui, the MLC troops advanced into former rebel-held areas including Point Kilomètre (hereinafter referred to as “PK”) 12, on the outskirts of Bangui. PK 12 is the cross point for two roads; one that leads to Bossembélé (axis north-west), and the second that leads to Damara (axis north-east).

15. At all times relevant to this Amended DCC, BEMBA was the Commander-in-Chief and President of the MLC. REDACTED REDACTED. REDACTED. REDACTED.

13. On 25 October 2002, François Bozizé (hereinafter referred to as “Bozizé”), the former Army Chief of Staff of the CAR armed forces, Forces Armées Centrafricaines (hereinafter referred to as “FACA”), led forces towards Bangui in an effort to unseat Patassé. In response to Bozizé’s attack, Patassé mobilized the CAR national armed forces, including the remaining FACA, as well as the Unité de Sécurité Présidentielle (hereinafter referred to as “USP”) and Abdoulayé Miskine’s (born Martin Koumtamaji, hereinafter referred to as “Miskine”) mercenaries to launch a counter-offensive.

The International Criminal Court (ICC) has committed for trial the former vice-president of the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Jean-Pierre Bemba, on charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity including murder, rape and pillaging.

The alleged offences were committed by Bemba when he commanded militia of his Mouvement de Libération du Congo (MLC) during fighting in the Central African Republic (CAR) between October 2002 and March 2003.

Bemba was arrested by Belgium in May last year and transferred to the International Criminal Court in July. The warrant on which he was arrested said that the MLC acted in concert with CAR forces to engage in rape, torture and looting.

The ICC declined to prosecute Bemba on the torture charges.

At the time of Bemba's arrest, the ICC said that a particular feature of his case was "the number of rapes carried out with shocking brutality." The prosecutor, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, alleged: "He had done it before in CAR, he had done it before in the DRC. He had to be stopped."

The ICC's Pre-Trial Chamber II has referred Bemba's case to a trial chamber. No date for the trial was announced.

press release here.

re the post where i write "severe consequences" yesterday; clearly, that part was certainly a tad overheated..

Breaking news

EXTRA EXTRA! READ ALL ABOUT IT!

Thick Tory in 'uselessly conflates imprecise analogies to attack straw men partly for partisan domestic reasons' shock!

Edwina Currie pens "Fearless women of Iran show up our feminist whingers" piece in London Daily Express!

(This announcement brought to you by recognition of the fact that silliness from Caroline Flint etc does not necessarily negate prior aspects of Harriet Harman's legislative agenda etc)

Gaia and the FSC also here stating the obvious

good to see Peter Ryley in agreement with John Vidal about land grabs, the war against aboriginal peoples resources, and so on.

where ever resources, be they a mineral, or oil, or precious metals, or timber, are extracted from the earth at the unjust expense of someone, somewhere (certainly those communities that have been treated badly, or not been paid off to a decent tune, at the very least, and of course, that in itself is incredibly problematic, often viciously so: the many sad, broken tales you can encounter in the Canadian north are just one heart-breaking example), and you can include the land itself, territory, in this formulation, you can guarantee more powerful, wealthier people are making a dime.

scouring the earth - akin to defiling a church for observant Christians i imagine (except of course this analogy is quite offensive in its simplistic stupidity, as scouring the earth is not only many, many times more worse, it is far worse in questions of degrees, not just times worse, to something as relatively insignificant as my analogy, the magnitude far more monstrous, obviously*), in the case of some indigenous populations that, historically, viewed the planet in some awesomely sacred manner, some holy being in itself - has severe consequences environmentally, politically, and morally, for every single person there is.

* with respect to all the Christians out there..

ICE Case Studies
Number 193, November, 2006
Christina Kaiser. Plagues in Niger

wrt tonight's show - "As the US apologises for the recent killing of civilians in air strikes on the Farah province of Afghanistan, Dispatches examines the effect these military operations are having on US-Afghan relations" - Joshua Foust, as is so often the case, gets to the heart of the matter from the American pov.

One of the more confusing aspects of the air strike at Azizabad...is the snippets of evidence that the compound hit, and the men killed inside, despite being written off as Taliban militants, had badges to work at the nearby U.S. base. Locals had even complained of this, saying that the tragedy was not just that innocent people died but that the U.S. killed one of its own collaborators.

Now Hamid Karzai’s spokesman is claiming that is exactly what happened, and that not a single Taliban fighter was killed in the strike. ...An hourlong, in-depth documentary, previewed by the Associated Press and to be broadcast by Channel 4, includes scenes from a Herat provincial court trial in which a leader from the rival village was sentenced to death for murder for having given false information leading to the deaths of 91 innocent Azizabad civilians. Despite that court ruling, the U.S. Central Command maintains its position that the Americans killed 22 Taliban fighters, along with 33 civilians.

The British broadcaster will also report that U.S. special forces are not cooperating with local police seeking three men from Kalask, the rival village, in the torture death of an Azizabad man. The suspects are guards at the U.S. base in nearby Shindand.

among the young girls crying as they recount tales of friends blown up - one little girl saying even their names have now been lost to the ground - and the patient woman from HRW explaining about a child being buried in the arms of its mother (a rejoinder to one aspect of the third American investigation into the above tragedy which counted only 30 or so new graves around the village after the attack), the incident referenced in Foust's last sentence above concerns a man being taken by Special Forces - in perfect health, according to a local police officer who was present - and then his body being released from the care of the U.S. Special Forces facility four hours later.

he had been beaten to death, and tortured.

his chest was caved in, metal knuckle dusters had apparently been used to hit his skull, and both his hands were broken. there were allegations of electric shocks.

Foust's piece does reference this article about the Americans moving to change detention practices in Afghanistan, and certainly the changes discussed are a step in the right direction.

1999, Columbia Records




























2009, Columbia Records

run.

now.

run.

are you carrying?

why do you carry it like that?

that will be of no use.

no, no good.

no good at all.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki led mourners on Saturday at the funeral of lawmaker Harith al-Obaidi, who was shot dead a day earlier in a Baghdad mosque

'After dabbling in the fashionable abstract expressionist style of the late 1980's that celebrated individualism, Scott formulated a reactionary position designed to question the basic concept of originality. Inspired by the black paintings of Ad Reinhardt and the date paintings of On Kawara, Scott created a series of "target" paintings consisting of black and white concentric circles that appear identical with only slight variations, intending to remove the aspect of qualitative judgment from the viewing experience. After Scott felt he had reached an endpoint with this body of work, he moved on to a series of black and white line paintings driven by the concept of making works so intensely optical that in theory they would be impossible for the human eye to view, a complete inversion of the traditional function of painting. Scott differentiated these works from the Op Art movement of the 1960's because their focus was on content rather than aesthetics. Once he felt he had exhausted this critique of opticality, Scott moved into a series of color line paintings that embrace their own viewing rather than deny it. These new works display a heightened emphasis on humanism, showcasing the presence of the artist's hand as well as a more automatic painting method. The works rely less on mechanical perfection and more on the inherent imperfections that occur in the intuitive process of creation. These brightly colored works on aluminum and wood that compose the current exhibition constitute the most ambitious series of Scott's work today. Accordingly, he has titled the exhibition "and then he tried to swallow the world."'

One count of genocide.

Three counts of crimes against humanity, including persecution on political, racial and religious grounds and the sniping campaign against the civilian population of Sarajevo.

Five counts of grave breaches of the Geneva Conventions, including the unlawful confinement of civilians in detention facilities, the extensive destruction of property, the appropriation and plunder of property and the unlawful taking of United Nations peacekeepers as hostages and using them as human shields.

Seven counts of violations of the laws and customs of war, including the unlawful confinement of civilians, shelling civilian gatherings, destruction of sacred sites, appropriation and plunder of property, sniping at civilians in Sarajevo and the unlawful taking of United Nations peacekeepers as hostages and using them as human shields.


The second Indictment was originally filed on 14 November 1995 and was confirmed by Judge Riad on 16 November 1995. This twenty-count Indictment charged the Accused with:


One count of genocide.

Ten counts of crimes against humanity, including extermination and murder.

Nine counts of violations of the laws and customs of war, namely murder.


The Prosecutor’s Amended Indictment, filed on 11 October 2002, consolidated the first and second Indictments and reduced the total number of charges, leaving only the most serious counts. In the Prosecutor’s view, these amendments were more in keeping with the current charging practices of the Office of the Prosecutor and reflected the evolving jurisprudence of the Tribunal. The Prosecutor also submitted that the Amended Indictment would provide an appropriate basis for a motion of joinder with the Amended Indictment against Radovan Karadzic.


The Amended Indictment charges Ratko Mladic under Articles 7(1) and 7(3) with:


One count of genocide. One count of complicity in genocide.

Seven counts of crimes against humanity, including persecution on political, racial and religious grounds, extermination, murder, deportation and other inhumane acts.

Six counts of violations of the laws or customs of war, including murder, unlawfully inflicting terror upon civilians, taking of hostages and other inhumane acts.

Fouad Ajami on the Syrian dictatorship

"Though Mr Deeb, 40, is not the self-pitying type, the reaction of his colleagues was understandable. For among the many thousands of Gazans bereaved by the war, few lives can have been as shattered as his. Alerted by phone, he had rushed back from work on the afternoon of 6 January to find the family home in Jabalya hit by two Israeli 120mm mortar shells in the same series of attacks that killed up to another 30 civilians outside the UN Al Fakhoura school a mere 100 metres away. The 11 dead included five of his six children, aged between four and 22, his wife, his mother, one of his brothers, two of his nephews, and a niece.
...
Mrs Samouni, whose husband Tawfiq was killed and whose one-year-old daughter Jumana lost three fingers, gave precise – and often inevitably gruesome – testimony by telephone to the Israeli human rights organisation Btselem the next day: testimony which has held up in every subsequent inquiry by reporters and human rights organisations.

One shell killed the three men, and as Tawfiq, a former bulldozer driver who was trying to make ends meet by running a grocery business from his home, ran to help, another missile hit the roof, killing another 26 people. Even today she swiftly corrects a reporter's reference to 30 being killed in one of the worst events of the war. "It was 29," she says, adding of her testimony, "details are important."
...
Equally resilient in his own way is Khalil al Jadili 16, whose two legs were amputated after what the family insist was a "random" shelling attack which at 3.10pm on 16 January killed his younger bother Mohanad, 8, and destroyed with shrapnel the left eye of another brother Abdel Hadi, 15, as they all sat in their grandmother's house across from their own home in the crowded Bureij refugee camp in central Gaza. Before leaving through Egypt for the Czech Republic where he hopes to have artificial legs fitted, Khalil, who had been a keen footballer and basketball player before the attack which changed his life, said: "I hope to come back walking." Although his mother Nabila, 39, says Khalil, has been "very angry" a lot of the time since then, all the family, including Khalil, smile cheerfully in the presence of visitors and joke about Khalil's recent decision to take a photograph of himself having cardboard "legs" fixed to his stumps and clothed them in jeans. "I wanted to see what I would look like with artificial legs," he explains."

+

“I believe the title of pirates should be given to those who come to our waters illegally,” he told The Times after shuffling into a room at the British colonial-era Mandheera prison, 40 miles south of Berbera, wearing plastic sandals, a T-shirt and a length of printed material wrapped around his skinny waist.

-

As debris from the blasts sprayed over us in a ditch it seemed implausible that anyone could survive. But, the Talibs were heard on the radio reporting "they have dropped a big bomb on us" as they resumed their firing.

_

tells us of this slipping of the senses as young men knew, simply knew, that they were going to die. (And other young men knew they were going to kill them. So very easily.)

x

"in a typically wacky recent comment he said the immigrants sent back to Libya were fortunate, because the immigrant reception centres within Italy were "very similar to concentration camps".

Gaddafi is equally unmoved by their plight. At a news conference in Rome this week, he declared: "The Africans do not have problems of political asylum. People who live in the bush [or] the desert don't have political problems... [They] don't have a political identity; they don't even have a personal identity."

The views of both men can be summarised succinctly: who cares what happens to these blacks?"

+

Jawad Tawfiq, a 52-year-old Gazan actor and director, was dubious at first, but his nephew insisted. If they could scrape together enough money, the nephew said, large profits could be made from investing in the tunnels that snake beneath the Egyptian border.

"They were liars," Tawfiq said bitterly last week. "They took my money to put in their own pockets. And we are being offered a fraction of what we gave them."
...
The operators also speak of corrupt Hamas security officials who have become wealthy by turning a blind eye to some of the more questionable goods coming under the border, not least Tramadol, a highly addictive prescription drug currently wreaking havoc in Gazan society.

---

RIP Ra’ed Sawalha

Space is curved, the earth is curved, everything on earth is curved.

the BBC have a 38 second video here of street scenes following the car bomb explosion in Bathaa, southern Iraq, that killed at least twenty eight people earlier.

humans are crying.

percentage of British voters who voted for a neo-nazi party last week, by region (source: the BBC NEWS website)

Yorkshire and the Humber in northern England - 9.8%

north east England - 8.9

east midlands of England - 8.7

west midlands of England - 8.6

north west England - 8

east of England - 6.1

Wales - 5.4

London - 4.9

south east England - 4.4

south west England - 3.9

Scotland - 2.5

though of course less dismal, the stupid and bigoted shower the Tories wish to align themselves with in the European parliament and hypocritical Ukip's self-congratulatory press conferences were two other dispiriting British troughs (granted, the Tory issue is far more serious than what bits of paper Nigel Farage waves around)

"President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo may boast of sustained economic growth since she assumed office nearly a decade ago but she failed her most important challenge: lifting hungry and jobless Filipinos out of poverty.

President Arroyo, the country’s second-longest serving president since Ferdinand Marcos, “clearly failed" her mandate of ensuring that more Filipinos live decent lives, economist Solita Collas-Monsod of the University of the Philippines (UP) said.

“Although the GDP (gross domestic product) improved at a faster pace but this did not get reflected on incomes. It seems that the increase in income went to everybody else but the poor," said Monsod during the launch of the Philippine Human Development Report (PHDR) 2008/2009."

here. (via.)

(both worth reading in full.)

just when you thought Colombo had already stooped to all the possible new lows

'Nowhere to Turn is a report documenting the scope and long-term impact of rape and other sexual violence experienced by women who fled attacks on their villages in Darfur and are now refugees in neighboring Chad.'

singing The Internationale

the fucking nerve of the Daily Express telling its readers not to vote BNP (fair play for that, as if this needs stating here), when the Express - for years - with its distortions and disingenuousness regarding asylum seekers and immigrants to the UK, has been acting as a recruiting sergeant for the cunts, an albeit unwitting outrider, and unwitting only in the fact that people like Macer Hall and Patrick O'Flynn are fucking dozy bastards, filled with stupidity and rank political values

what a shower of bastards, fucking arseholes the lot of them