Sunday Roundup - November 9, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at the US midterm elections, Brussels austerity protests, Ukraine, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and, in brief, China's slowdown, Ebola, and Syria.

US Midterm Elections
Republicans made gains across the board in Tuesday's midterm elections.  Most importantly, with their gains in the Senate, they now control both houses of Congress.  The Democrats' get-out-the-vote effort failed to overcome the dark money, the voter suppression laws, and their own inadequate and defensive explanations of their policies.

Democrats failed to motivate their base, particularly the young.
Voter turnout was 36.6% - 4 points lower than in the 2010 midterms and 21 points lower than in the 2012 Presidential elections.  In exit polls from Tuesday's midterms, only 13 percent of voters were under 30.  Nonvoters are also more racially diverse than the voting population....More than 40 percent of likely nonvoters in the 2014 elections identified as Hispanic, black or other racial/ethnic minorities, compared with 22 percent of likely voters...On average, the populations who are likely to avoid the polls are also the populations likely to vote for a Democrat. [US News & World Report Data Mine, Nov. 5]

Voter suppression played a key role in close races.
The voter restrictions passed in Republican-controlled states were aimed to reduce the minority and youth vote.  For the most part, the restrictions worked.  The Brennan Center for Justice examined the results from North Carolina, Kansas, Virginia and Florida and concluded The Republican electoral sweep in yesterday’s elections has put an end to speculation over whether new laws making it harder to vote in 21 states would help determine control of the Senate this year. ...A quick look at the numbers shows that in several key races, the margin of victory came very close to the likely margin of disenfranchisement.  [Brennan Center for Justice, Nov. 5]

Republicans controlled the political conversation and framed the terms of the election.
Stirring up their base with a vigorous anti-Obama campaign, Republicans motivated them to come out and vote.  Democrats did nothing to counteract it and, for the most part, "ran away" from the President.  Jeff Schweitzer, blogging at the Huffington Post, has one of the best analyses of the election . Speaking of Senate Minority leader Mitch McConnell's absurd statement that the way to end gridlock was to put Republicans in control of the Senate, Schweitzer writes: This story highlights the major failure of the left. Democrats have not defined the agenda or narrated the story. This capitulation creates a void of reason such that absurdities like McConnell's claim can take hold without everybody doubling over in laughter. Like frightened children Democrats run from Obama's record, as defined by the right, rather than championing his amazing successes as defined by fact. 
Although the rampant, fact-free antagonism to the Affordable Care Act was a major factor, the economy was the issue most on people's minds.  In spite of a recovering economy (unemployment down to 5.8% in October), exit polls indicated that 45% of the voters chose this as the #1 issue.  What's the deal, then? As President Obama alluded to in Wednesday's press conference and the Washington Post's Matt O'Brien explained Tuesday on Wonkblog, the recovery of the economy as a whole has not created wage or income gains for most people. In fact, those gains have gone almost exclusively to the "1 percent" folks you might have heard about.  The beauty of the Republican campaign was that they somehow convinced the American public that this uneven recovery was Obama's fault!  Voting for a party whose representatives in Congress are proud of opposing every Obama proposal to increase public-service spending or raise taxes on high-income individuals isn't necessarily the obvious way to address this issue.  [Slate, Nov. 6]  But then, as H. L. Mencken said many years ago, "Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American public."

Money wins elections.  
SCOTUS's Citizens United and McCutcheon decisions unleashed virtually unlimited money to be spent on the elections - much of it in the form of dark money (i.e., money from undisclosed sources) . The combined totals for both parties for the most expensive midterms in history was nearly $3.7 billion.   Even in some places where Democrats had an advantage in donations, they lost - although in some states voter suppression may have played a part.  Counting all forms of spending — by candidates, parties and outside groups — Team Red is projected to have spent $1.75 billion, while Team Blue’s spending is projected to ring in at $1.64 billion. CRP’s analysis of last night’s results finds that in House races, the candidate who spent the most prevailed 94.2 percent of the time; the Senate figure is slightly lower, 81.8 percent. [OpenSecrets.org, Nov. 5]

In Brief / Related Links - What will Republican control of the Senate look like?

"Republicans Just Took Over the Senate—Here’s Why That Sucks" From staffing the executive branch through keeping the government open, The Nation describes eight reasons why this new alignment is going to be hugely problematic for progressive governance—perhaps for governance, period. [The Nation, Nov. 4]

"The Pressure to Escalate: The Phantasmagoric World of Washington"  Tom Englehardt asks us to think of this otherwise drab midterm campaign as the escalation election.  Republican candidates will arrive in Washington having beaten the war and disease drums particularly energetically, and they’re not likely to stop. [TomDispatch, Nov. 4]

"A Red Tide Swamps the US Political Landscape"  What do we have to look forward to from this extremist Congress and a ham-strung moderate President in the next two years? [The Left Bank Cafe, Nov. 5]

"How a Republican Congress could Entangle the US further in the Middle East" [Informed Comment, Nov. 5]

Brussels Austerity Protests
Europe's recovery from the Great Recession of 2008 has been much slower than that in the US. Unemployment remains above 10% for the region as a whole, ranging from a low of  5% in Germany to a high of 26% in Greece.  One of the reasons for the slower recovery has been the austerity (deficit reduction) measures demanded by the European Central Bank.  The Guardian reported on Thursday's labor protests in Brussels:  About 100,000 workers marched across Brussels on Thursday to protest against government free-market reforms and austerity measures, and the demonstration ended in violence when people set fire to cars and threw cobblestones and police responded with tear gas and water cannons.  About 50 people were injured and 30 detained, police said, in one of biggest postwar labour demonstrations in Belgium, a country long vaunted as a shining example of an efficient welfare state.  The violence overshadowed a raucous but largely peaceful march for better protection of workers during the economic crisis. The workers were angry at government policies that will raise the pension age, freeze wages and cut into public services.

Ukraine
Elections were held in the separatist Donbass region in eastern Ukraine on Sunday November 2 - two weeks after the general election in the rest of Ukraine.  Kiev refuses to recognize the elections in eastern Urkaine – but has not provoked any hostilities either.  The Donbass elections resulted in a predictable outcome, bringing victory to Alexander Zakharchenko, head of the Oplot battalion, who scooped more than 70 percent of the votes. Turnout varied from 65 percent to 100 percent at 350 polling stations, where 1,148,000 people had registered to vote...Not a single shot has been fired in Donbass since November 2 – a situation unseen since spring, including the ceasefire declared in early September after the Minsk talks.  [Russia Times, Nov. 3]  Russia has backed the vote and called on the elected representatives "to hold negotiations with central Ukrainian authorities."  Russia has given cautious backing to a vote in separatist regions of east Ukraine, which local rebels said proved they would never again be ruled by Kiev. Russia has not recognised the Donetsk and Luhansk “people’s republics” as independent, but said the vote should be respected.  Kiev said it would open criminal cases against the organisers. Most other countries have dismissed the vote as illegitimate and there were no recognised international observers present. Nevertheless, the poll was one more step in the de facto separation of the region from the rest of Ukraine.  Moscow’s talk of negotiations between the separatists and Kiev, however, was at odds with comments from the separatists' electoral committee. [The Guardian, Nov. 3]

Occupied Palestinian Territory
East Jerusalem remains tense, and the International Criminal Court ruled on the Gaza Flotilla incident.

In an Al Jazeera op-ed, Daoud Kuttab, an award-winning Palestinian journalist and former Ferris professor of journalism at Princeton University, describes how "a silent intifada" is taking place in Jerusalem due to Israel's policy of denying Palestinians their natural rights.  After forty seven years of occupation, physical isolation, and weakening of leadership structures, the Palestinians of Jerusalem are totally stateless. The few Palestinians holding any sort of symbolic leadership position, such as members of the Palestinian Legislative Council, or religious leaders are regularly hauled to the Israeli police station for questions, short-term arrests and are sometimes forbidden to enter Islam's third holiest mosque, Al-Aqsa Mosque....Palestinians seeking housing permits are routinely denied because the requests are not based on an approved zoning plan. Arab East Jerusalem neighbourhoods have purposely not been planned, leaving the local communities to build illegally and then to suffer regular house demolitions for violating city laws. At the same time, Israel builds settlements in East Jerusalem in violation of international law.This has led to the rise of groups trying to fill the political void.  In several locations around Jerusalem,  local groups have sprouted attempting to organise their own community in defence of the Israeli onslaught that attempts to move them out of their homes and city with the goal of making Jerusalem an even more Jewish city.  While Israel regularly denies it, these Judaisation attempts are synchronised by the Israeli government, police, courts, Jewish settlers, radical groups and Knesset members, with each group doing its part.

The Guardian reported on November 6 of the International Criminal Court's decision on the Gaza Flotilla incident of 2010.  The international criminal court (ICC) will not prosecute over Israel’s raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla in 2010, in which 10 Turkish activists died, despite a “reasonable basis to believe that war crimes were committed”.  The chief prosecutor, Fatou Bensouda, said there would be no investigation leading to a potential prosecution because the alleged crimes, including the killing of 10 activists by Israeli commandos, were not of “sufficient gravity”....Nine Turkish nationals died when Israeli commandos staged a botched raid on a six-ship flotilla seeking to break Israel’s naval blockade of the Gaza Strip on 31 May 2010. A 10th activist later died of his wounds.  The air-land-sea blockade, now more than seven years old, has devastated the economy of Gaza, and combined with Israeli sieges since 2007 have commentators warning that Gaza will be "unlivable" by 2020.

Gaza photo appeared in Al Jazeera/photo credit AFP

Let's just hope the ICC takes a much closer look at the war crimes committed in Gaza during this summer's Israeli siege.  More than 2000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians, were killed during the 50 day assault.  Inger Andersen is responsible for World Bank strategy and operations throughout the Middle East and North Africa region.  In an op-ed piece, Andersen reports on her recent visit to Gaza: Throughout my career at the World Bank, and at the United Nations or even before, I have come across many war zones but none compare to what I have just seen in Gaza: no scene of destruction, desolation and despair I have witnessed is equal to the tragic stage of Gaza.  Today, I feel obliged to add my voice for the voiceless and to plead that none of us forget the Palestinian people. It is our collective and historic responsibility to step up support and mobilise a response commensurate to the needs of the Palestinian people....For the Palestinians struggling daily, the access to water, electricity and municipal services [is critical]. I saw the destroyed water reservoir in Al Monttar area (Shujayea) which would have serviced 250,000 people. I walked into the shell-struck electricity storage facility that now resembled a lunar landscape. While visiting al-Shifa hospital, I discussed with doctors the dire need for medical equipment and supplies, staff and fuel, all severely strained by shortages and outages.  Numbers fail to capture the human realities of the daunting scenes I witnessed at the hospital. As winter sets in, the partial or total destruction of 60,000 housing units has led to 100,000 people without shelter. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 6]

In Brief/Links
China
China's gross domestic product grew 7.3 percent in the third quarter from a year earlier, the weakest rate since the first quarter of 2009, adding to concerns the world's second-largest economy is becoming a drag on global growth.  [Reuters, Oct. 21]

Ebola
WHO released its data for the period up to Nov. 2 saying that Ebola has now been blamed for 4,818 reported deaths.  The group said that the weekly incidence of Ebola seems to be stable in Guinea, rising in Sierra Leone, and declining in Liberia   [NPR, Nov. 5]

Syria
"Syria: Mapping the conflict" According to the Syria Needs Analysis Project (Snap), IS jihadists are now in full control of the eastern region of Raqqa and hold significant swathes of territory in Aleppo to the north and Hassakeh and Deir al-Zour in the east. [BBC News, Nov. 7]
"US plan for proxy army to fight Isis in Syria suffers attack": Syrian opposition leader blames Washington for rout as air strikes on Isis seen as aiding Assad crackdown [The Guardian, Nov. 2]
"US Dilemma in Syria: Moderate Stronghold Falls to al-Qaeda, Fighters desert to Extremists" - Juan Cole analyzes the chaotic situation in Syria and potential consequences of arming and training so-called moderate rebels: a present Syrian moderate is all too often a future al-Qaeda member; many of these affiliations are not particularly ideological, but have to do with who is winning and who has more money. [Informed Comment, Nov. 3]

BBC News map of areas of control:

Map sources: areas of control and border crossings from the Syria Needs Analysis Project; all other geographical detail from humanitarian organisations and Google

Sunday Roundup - August 10, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the mainstream US corporate media.  Today we look at Iraq, the nuclear weapons era, and Gaza.


Iraq

Map is from The Guardian

The destabilization of the Middle East caused by the US invasion and occupation of Iraq continues the legacy of the neocons who misled our country into this unjustifiable war.  Iraq is on the verge of unraveling as ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) forces advance throughout the northwestern section of the country and into Syria.   Isis forces advanced across north-western Iraq almost unchecked since a small band of hardliners stormed Iraq's second city, Mosul, on 10 June, sending the Iraqi army fleeing and shattering the central government's control. Flush with weapons looted from Iraqi arsenals, Isis sacked Tikrit and advanced on Kirkuk. With new recruits lured or pressganged along the way, it has captured five oilfields and three cities, an 800-mile stretch of border with Syria. It has menaced Baghdad and is now within striking distance of Iraq's two largest dams.  

The latest ISIS campaign is against Kurdish minority Yazidis.  UN groups say at least 40,000 members of the Yazidi sect, many of them women and children, have taken refuge in nine locations on Mount Sinjar, a craggy, mile-high ridge identified in local legend as the final resting place of Noah's ark.   At least 130,000 more people, many from the Yazidi stronghold of Sinjar, have fled to Dohuk, in the Kurdish north, or to Irbil, where regional authorities have been struggling since June to deal with one of the biggest and most rapid refugee movements in decades. [The Guardian, August 6]

On Friday, US began airstrikes against the militant forces.  U.S. warplanes bombed Islamist fighters marching on Iraq's Kurdish capital on Friday after President Barack Obama said Washington must act to prevent "genocide".  Islamic State fighters...have advanced to within a half hour's drive of Arbil, capital of Iraq's Kurdish region and a hub for U.S. oil companies. [Reuters, August 8]

Related
Stephen Walt, "Do No (More) Harm" (Foreign Policy, August 7) - the case against bombing the Islamic State..."Every time the U.S. touches the Middle East, it makes things worse. It's time to walk away and not look back...This argument would not preclude limited U.S. action for purely humanitarian purposes -- such as humanitarian airdrops for the beleaguered religious minorities now threatened with starvation in Iraq."


The Nuclear Weapons Era
On August 6, 1945, the first atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.  It was the beginning of the nuclear weapons era.  In his  introduction to a Noam Chomsky article, Tom Englehardt at TomDispatch writes that the way for the bombing of Hiroshima had been paved by an evolution in warfare: the increasing targeting of civilian populations from the air (something that can be seen again today in the carnage of Gaza)....Targeted by the planet’s major nuclear arsenals would be the civilian inhabitants not just of single cities but of scores and scores of cities, even of the planet itself.  On August 6th, 70 years ago, the possibility of the apocalypse passed out of the hands of God or the gods and into human hands, which meant a new kind of history had begun whose endpoint is unknowable.  Noam Chomsky's article reviews the insane strategies of the nuclear weapons era (NWE) and the squandered opportunities to reduce the threat.  He quotes General Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), which controls nuclear weapons and strategy.  Twenty years ago, he wrote that we had so far survived the NWE “by some combination of skill, luck, and divine intervention, and I suspect the latter in greatest proportion.”  Chomsky concludes As General Butler observed, it is a near miracle that we have escaped destruction so far, and the longer we tempt fate, the less likely it is that we can hope for divine intervention to perpetuate the miracle.  Nine countries currently possess at least 16,300 nuclear weapons - a significant drop from the 60-70,000 present at the peak but a long way from zero.

Table is from Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and appeared in Business Insider

Note: A Ploughshares Fund estimate puts the nuclear weapons total at 17,300.


Gaza
A three-day ceasefire ended Friday.  Al Jazeera  reports: Israel has hit the Gaza Strip with missiles and artillery for the first time in three days, while Palestinian fighters launched a barrage of rockets at Israel, just hours after a ceasefire between the two sides expired....The ceasefire expired as no progress was made in the Egyptian-mediated talks aimed at finding a durable solution to the month-long fighting.  The Egyptian-brokered talks had not resumed as of Saturday night.

Preliminary UN estimates of the destruction to date in six areas of the Gaza Strip based on satellite images show a total of 3246 structures damaged or destroyed (1525 destroyed, 700 severely damaged, 1021 moderately damaged), 4900 acres of farmland destroyed, and 1288 road or rural area craters.  A UN report on casualties (August 6) estimated that 1,843 Palestinians had been killed and 66 Israelis and one Thai national since Israel launched Operation Protective Edge on 8 July.  Of those Palestinians, the status of 279 could not be identified, at least 1,354 were civilians, including 415 children and 214 women.  Israel's 67 deaths include 3 civilians.

Meanwhile, pressure is mounting for an investigation into possible war crimes.  The UN could launch an independent investigation into the conduct of the war: The U.S. has cast the sole vote against establishing an investigation by the United Nations into war crimes committed in Gaza.  Yesterday [July 23], the United Nations Human Rights Council voted 29-1, with 17 abstentions, to establish an inquiry. The United States was the only no vote. The European nations on the council all abstained. [Mondo Weiss, July 24]  Also, The Guardian reported on August 5: Palestinian political leaders are poised to join the International Criminal Court (ICC) with the aim of putting Israel in the dock on war crimes charges, officials said today.  "Israel has left us with no other option," Riad Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, told reporters after meeting ICC officials in The Hague to discuss the implications of signing the Rome Statute. It would make the Palestinian state a member of the court with the authority to call for an investigation into possible war crimes and crimes against humanity.

The destruction of property and the death toll in Occupied Gaza now exceed those of the Israeli siege of Dec 2008-Jan 2009.  Without accountability for the massive civilian casualties and damage inflicted by the IDF, what The Nation has called "the cycle of impunity" will continue.  Impunity is what happens when an aggressor fractures the norms of international law and basic human rights yet is never held to account, and so is free to commit the same crimes again and again. That is what we’re seeing now, and that is exactly what the Goldstone Report—the findings of the UN investigation of Operation Cast Lead in 2008–09—so presciently warned against. It said then that bringing to justice those who committed war crimes—Israel as well as Hamas—was perhaps the only effective way to prevent another round of violence. [The Nation, posted July 16]

Related
"What the Gaza War Means for the Middle East" (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, July 27) - "Despite the horrifying human toll of the latest Israel offensive against Gaza, Palestinians are rallying in even greater numbers around Hamas. They have rejected any ceasefire proposal that does not end the crippling seven-year blockade of Gaza; a blockade that has been described as a form of collective punishment that keeps Palestinians trapped in the largest 'open-air prison camp' in the world."

Marjorie Cohn, "Israel Inflicts Illegal Collective Punishment on Gaza" (Huffington Post, July 14) - "Israel's overwhelming use of military force constitutes collective punishment, which is a war crime... Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, to which Israel is a party, specifically forbids collective punishment. It says, 'No protected person [civilian] may be punished for an offense he or she has not personally committed ... Reprisals against protected persons and their property are prohibited'  "

Article 33 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, 12 August 1949

Update Last Sunday's round-up noted that the kidnapping of an Israeli soldier was used as the Israeli justification for the increased violence on Friday August 1 that left around 100 Palestinians dead.  Consistent with the Hamas' statement at the time, the kidnapping did not actually occur and  Israel confirmed on Saturday August 2 that the soldier presumed captured had been killed in action. 

Sunday Roundup - March 23, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Ukraine and Crimea, the new Cosmos series, the Israeli-Palestinian peace process, and the  collapse of industrial civilization.

Ukraine
The US and Russia traded sanctions on Thursday and the EU is mulling additional sanctions against Russia. The new sanctions have been prompted by the Crimean vote to leave Ukraine and Russia's subsequent annexation of it.   Le Monde Diplomatique gives some background on the protests that led to the ouster of the Moscow-leaning President Viktor Yanukovych and discusses the aftermath.  "Who were the protesters and what were their goals?...The protest movement emerged in November last year, after Yanukovych suspended negotiations on a free trade agreement with the European Union."  The pro-Western protesters were soon joined by "several nationalist groups... and... ultra-radical, non-democratic movements without European sympathies...Dormant during the Soviet era, the nationalist movement reappeared after independence in 1991, when the Social-National Party of Ukraine (SNPU) was formed. Until the early 2000s, the SNPU was a marginal, xenophobic and ultra-nationalist organization."  Then the SNPU changed significantly. "It shed its fascist trappings ...in 2004, renaming itself Svoboda (freedom) and abandoning its neo-Nazi badge, the Wolfsangel (wolf hook), in favour of a more neutral symbol."  Svoboda's nationalist and anti-system stance won it 10% of the vote in 2012.  Svoboda wants to end Russian influence in the Ukraine.  Its strong nationalist stance translates into a foreign policy that wishes "to see Ukraine join NATO, rearm with nuclear weapons and leave all post-Soviet cooperative organisations."  Another opposition group gaining in popularity after the street clashes is Pravy Sektor, which supports "none of the opposition parties, especially not Svoboda, disappointed by its 'appeals for calm and negotiation with the authorities.' ... Svoboda’s success over the past few years and the presence of neo-fascist groups such as Pravy Sektor in Independence Square are signs of a crisis in Ukrainian society...Though Independence Square will go down in history as an extraordinary example of collective and popular action, the political outcome is as yet unclear. Ukraine is in need of a new force that truly serves the people and transcends its many social and political divides."

Map of Ukraine with Crimean Peninsula highlighted (adapted from ESL-in-Canada's website)

Crimea
Crimea has a Russian-ethnic population and they voted overwhelmingly to join Russia in a referendum last Sunday.  Western nations have declared the referendum and annexation illegal.  Juan Cole at Informed Comment agrees but notes that "Crimea had been Russian territory since the late 18th century and was only attached to Ukraine by Khrushchev in the 1950s, at a time when Russia and Ukraine were part of the same country. Whatever the status of Sunday’s referendum, it seems likely that if Crimeans could vote fairly and freely, a majority would probably accede to Russia."  Cole notes that "Russia’s annexation of Crimea is among the few significant territorial acquisitions since the end of World War II by one country from another, more or less by force. The only clear parallel... is the Israeli annexation of the Palestinian territories in 1967."  Cole concludes that Israel's steps in occupying the Palestinian territories "are more egregious than Russia’s incorporation of Crimea. No local populations in any of those areas would vote to accede to Israel....Unlike with Mr. Putin, the US has not imposed sanctions on Israel for its territorial aggrandizement, and instead has de facto supported it."

Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey
If you enjoy good science, you need to watch the new Cosmos series on Fox and National Geographic TV. Cosmos: A Spacetime Odyssey is an updated re-imagining of Carl Sagan's 1980 series, Cosmos: A Personal Voyage.  Hard to believe that the original Cosmos aired more than 30 years ago.  Neil deGrasse Tyson hosts the new series, which began Sunday, March 9. "According to National Geographic, it was the largest global rollout of a TV series ever, appearing on 220 channels in 181 countries and 45 languages."  Mother Jones discusses Tyson's Inquiring Minds podcast and notes the contrast between him and Carl Sagan in debating the anti-science (or bad science) forces.  "Carl Sagan himself often took strong stands on science-based political issues of the day. He clashed with the Reagan administration over arms control and the 'Star Wars' program, and the debate over his ideas about 'nuclear winter' served as a kind of preview of the current battle over global warming. 'Carl Sagan would debate people on all manner of issues,' said Tyson.'And I don't have the time or the energy or the interest in doing so. As an educator, I'd rather just get people thinking straight in the first place, so I don't have to then debate them later on.'...In other words, Tyson's view appears to be that in an age rife with science denial, Cosmos rises above that fray by instilling in us wonder about the nature of the cosmos and our quest to understand it. And given the breathtaking quality and stunningly wide distribution of the show, there's much to say for that approach. " 

Image is from NatGeoTV.com

Israeli-Palestinian Peace Talks
"Right wing Israeli officials ....expressed rage [last weekend] at US Secretary of State John Kerry for saying that Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu should “drop” his demand that the Palestinians recognize Israel as a Jewish state."  Both the Arab League and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas have "rejected Netanyahu’s diction. It is a red line for them. Insisting on it will mean no agreement."  To agree to Netanyahu's statement would jeopardize the Palestinian right of return.  In a March 12 speech, Abbas explained that "his commitment to the negotiations was time-bound, for a nine-month period, while Kerry tried to hammer out an agreement, especially on security and borders."  Abbas laid out the Palestinian position in the negotiations - East Jerusalem as the capital of Palestine, complete Israeli withdrawal from "the West Bank or from territories equivalent to the extent of the West Bank as it existed in 1967", and compensation and a right of return for Palestinians displaced in 1948 and 1967.  "This speech may help explain why President Obama told PM Netanyahu that the US can’t protect Israel if there is no agreement. Mahmoud Abbas has not put going to the International Criminal Court off the agenda, he just postponed it for nine months. The nine months is expiring. If the Kerry negotiations crash and burn, pressure will build on Abbas and other Palestine officials to go to the ICC." [Informed Comment, March 16]

Industrial Civilization's Collapse?
The Guardian's Earth Insight blog on March 14 had this ominous lead: "A new study sponsored by Nasa's Goddard Space Flight Center has highlighted the prospect that global industrial civilisation could collapse in coming decades due to unsustainable resource exploitation and increasingly unequal wealth distribution."  Examining the collapse of civilizations through history, the project identified "the most salient interrelated factors which explain civilisational decline, and which may help determine the risk of collapse today: namely, Population, Climate, Water, Agriculture, and Energy." These factors can result in civilizational collapse when they result in the aforementioned resource exploitation and wealth maldistribution.  "Modelling a range of different scenarios, [lead researcher Safa] Motesharri and his colleagues conclude that under conditions 'closely reflecting the reality of the world today... we find that collapse is difficult to avoid.'... However, the scientists point out that the worst-case scenarios are by no means inevitable, and suggest that appropriate policy and structural changes could avoid collapse, if not pave the way toward a more stable civilisation."  They write: "Collapse can be avoided and population can reach equilibrium if the per capita rate of depletion of nature is reduced to a sustainable level, and if resources are distributed in a reasonably equitable fashion."




Links
You can watch full episodes of Cosmos here.

Saturday Round-Up August 31, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today's subject is the potential US military intervention in Syria.  Sources are The Guardian, Oxfam America, and The Nation.

The Obama Administration is scrambling to define a position justifying a potential strike on Syria for the alleged use of chemical weapons by that country's security forces.  There is no such justification for any unilateral, "a deux" or "coalition of the willing" military action. Two bodies are already established to try and punish perpetrators of international crimes - the International Court of Justice (United Nations) and the International Criminal Court established by the Rome Statute of 2002.

The Guardian reported on Thursday on the UK Parliament's vote against support for a United States airstrike on Syria.  The vote was 285-272 with many of PM Cameron's coalition joining Labour in opposition.  Asked by Labour leader Ed Miliband for an assurance that he would not use the royal prerogative to sanction British involvement in the military action, the prime minister told MPs: "I can give that assurance. ...it is clear to me that the British parliament, reflecting the views of the British people, does not want to see British military action. I get that and the government will act accordingly."

On Wednesday, prior to the vote, Guardian columnist Martin Kettle wrote:  After two years in which, tragically, the world has been unable to prevent Syria's catastrophe deepening ever further, the Cameron government is suddenly in a hurry to act. Partly this is because of the outrageous use of chemical weapons in Syria. But it is also because the US administration, having boxed itself in about responding to such horrors, now summons Britain to give support. But would the Obama administration, elected to end the war in Iraq and anxious to end the one in Afghanistan, really want to engage in Syria, even to the extent of an arm's-length bombing campaign, without either UN support or major international allies? ...It is arguable that a vote in the UK parliament could stay Washington's hand from a politically controversial, premature strike that would raise massive issues of legitimacy.

On Friday, a Guardian editorial praised the action of the MP's, noting:  There is no evidence that British public opinion has turned isolationist. There is plenty of evidence that it is fed up with the debilitating post 9/11 years of national sacrifice, with the humiliating excesses of US national security policy (not least its abuses of human rights and surveillance), with the unequal burden-sharing among allies and, above all, with the failures of policy. Iraq casts a very long, very dark shadow. As a result, right from the start of its spiralling civil war, Syria has felt like a sacrifice too far. When the latest call to arms came, though it came from a respected American president and was provoked by clearly intolerable war crimes, the answer was a clear one. Enough.

Addressing the plight of Syrians caught in middle of this civil war, Oxfam America condemns the attacks but makes a powerful case against military intervention:  Over more than two years of fighting, more than 100,000 lives have been lost and millions of people are in need of immediate humanitarian aid. It has been especially devastating for children: just last week, the UN announced that one million Syrian children are now refugees. Many have seen their homes bombed, their schools reduced to rubble, their communities destroyed.  The military intervention currently being debated will not – and is not aimed at – stopping the violence or helping these families start to rebuild. Instead of focusing on military options and arming the parties involved, President Obama, President Putin and other world leaders should intensify peaceful efforts to end the conflict, before Syria is destroyed and the region made even more unstable.

Finally, The Nation makes another powerful case against military intervention in an editorial.  After pointing out the illegitimacy of a US military attack without UN Security Council approval and the Administration's obligation to seek congressional authorization for such action, the editorial lists practical and humanitarian reasons to be opposed to military action:  On the practical level, there is little chance that limited airstrikes will have much deterrent effect on a ruthless regime that sees itself as engaged in an existential struggle for survival...It would make the United States a direct participant in what has become a regional sectarian conflict, further destabilizing Jordan, Lebanon, Iraq and Turkey...On the humanitarian level, there is a strong chance that US airstrikes, no matter how “surgical,” will kill innocent civilians...[and] could worsen what is already a disastrous refugee crisis.  Instead of military action, The Nation editorial calls for the United States to vastly increase aid to the 1.9 million refugees who have flooded across the country’s borders and join Russia in its effort to renew the Geneva negotiations.  The editorial concludes that Moscow and Washington share an interest in not widening the war and strengthening jihadi extremists. It’s long past time for the two powers to concede that neither Assad nor the rebels are going to be defeated anytime soon....if the United States and Russia work together, they could use their combined influence to choke off the flow of arms from the outside and contain the conflict as they work toward a cease-fire. If they don’t, Syria’s disintegration will spread throughout the region.