Sunday Roundup - November 30, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ferguson, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, Iran, Iraq, and, in brief, Ebola and Ukraine.

Ferguson

Photo appeared in BBC News post
Demonstrators gathered in Parliament Square after walking down Oxford Street

The grand jury investigating the shooting death of an unarmed eighteen-year-old African-American by a white police officer in Ferguson, Missouri decided not to indict the officer. Protests against the decision flared in Ferguson and across the United States.  We may never know the exact timeline of events that led to this shooting death.  The shooter says he acted in self-defense and that he would or could have changed nothing.  Eyewitnesses and law enforcement experts both support and repudiate these statements. What we do know is that the grand jury did not return an indictment, that the proceedings of that grand jury were deeply flawed, and that there is an underlying assumption about the actions of young black men that leads to tragic and unnecessary deaths.  

In a Mother Jones article posted days after the shooting, Jaeah Lee writes: The killing of Michael Brown by police in Ferguson, Missouri, was no anomaly....But quantifying that pattern is difficult....No agency appears to track the number of police shootings or killings of unarmed victims in a systematic, comprehensive way.  We do know some of the data and Lee presents them:

• Previous attempts to analyze racial bias in police shootings have ...found that there were a disproportionately high number of African Americans among police shooting victims.
• Often, the police officers do not get convicted or sentenced. 
• Between 2003 and 2009, the DOJ reported that 4,813 people died while in the process of arrest or in the custody of law enforcement. 
• Black people are more likely than whites or Hispanics to experience a police officer's threat or use of force.  
• The Justice Department has investigated possible systemic abuse of power by police in at least 15 cities. 
• Police shootings of unarmed black people aren't limited to poor or predominantly black communities.   

People protesting the grand jury decision to not indict Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown took to the streets in cities across the country, from Los Angeles to New York City, for a second night on Tuesday.  Protests were held in Los Angeles, New York, Oakland, San Francisco, Philadelphia, Seattle, Washington, Albuquerque, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland and other cities. Rallies were [also] held in Michigan, Maine, Georgia, Wisconsin and other states. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 25]  London saw thousands of protesters march on Wednesday.  Thousands protested in London on Wednesday in sympathy with demonstrations across the US over the killing of a black teenager by a white police officer.  The roughly five thousand London protesters held signs reading "Black lives matter" and chanted "Hands up, don't shoot", the slogan adopted by protesters in the US. [AFP, mirrored by Yahoo News, Nov. 26]

The Left Bank Cafe post of December 3 will have more on the eyewitness testimony and the grand jury proceedings.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
For obvious reasons, Palestinians are particularly sympathetic to the Ferguson protests - some even tweeted advice to the US protesters on dealing with tear gas.  
In Gaza on November 23, a Palestinian man was shot dead by Israeli forces as he ventured into one of the "no-go" zones near the Israeli border.  Israeli forces shot dead a Palestinian in the northern Gaza Strip on Sunday, the first such fatality since the 50-day Gaza war ended in August....The ministry identified the man as Fadel Mohammed Halawa, 32, and said he was shot by soldiers east of Jabaliya refugee camp.  One of Halawa’s relatives said he had been searching for songbirds, which nest in trees near the Israeli border and command high prices in Gaza markets.  [The Guardian, Nov. 23] 
The United Nations has declared a state of emergency in the Gaza Strip after two days of heavy rains and flooding in the war-battered enclave.  The UN Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) declared the state of emergency in Gaza City on Thursday, after torrential rain overwhelmed some areas and caused flooding. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 28]
With demolition orders already issued for the family homes of the two men responsible for the attack on the Jerusalem synagogue, Israel announced draft legislation for a new regime of collective punishment against the families of attackers and "violent" protesters.  These steps include revoking the residency rights of attackers and their families. Those who are accused of "inciting" against Israel will no longer receive state benefits. Also among the provisions is jail time for those who wave Palestinian flags at what are deemed "violent protests" and deportation to the Gaza Strip if certain conditions are met....The Association for Civil Rights in Israel has condemned the Netanyahu-proposed bill..."The absurd proposals raised involve serious human rights violations and acts of collective punishment – which bear no relation to an actual war on terror," the group said. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 27]

Iran
Although a final agreement in the Iran nuclear talks was not reached by the November 24, the talks are being extended.  Negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programme have been extended until the end of June next year in the hope that the broad outlines of a deal can be agreed within three months.  The extension was announced on Monday after nine months of negotiations culminated in a week of talks in Vienna that failed to close gaps between Iran and a six-nation negotiating group over the scale of a future Iranian nuclear programme and the speed with which international sanctions would be lifted. [The Guardian, Nov. 24]  Both sides were optimistic when they emerged from Monday's discussions, but they understand that the longer the international standoff over Iran’s suspect nuclear programme continues, the more dangerous and volatile the situation becomes....By extending the talks again they have avoided a total collapse, but they have also raised the stakes, ensuring that failure, if that is what eventually transpires, will be all the more cataclysmic.   There is a growing sense that a the window of opportunity may be closing.  Those opposing a deal can now be expected to intensify their efforts to kill the extended talks.  This can come about in any number of ways - for example, by increased US sanctions passed by a Republican-controlled Congress, by Iranian hardliners replacing West-friendly negotiators to undermine Rouhani, or by Israeli military action against Iran.  [The Guardian, Nov. 24]

Iraq
Tom Englehardt writes of the recent US escalation in the Middle East in an excellent article at TomDispatch.com.  The article is well worth reading in its entirety and begins with a thought experiment asking what would be the reaction if Russia or China were the power re-entering the region militarily after the failure of its earlier interventions.  Here are a few selections:

...after 13 years of doing its damnedest, on one side of the Greater Middle East this power has somehow overseen the rise of the dominant narco-state on the planet with monopoly control over 80%-90% of the global opium supply and 75% of the heroin. On the other side of the region, it’s been complicit in the creation of the first terrorist mini-oil state in history, a post-al-Qaeda triumph of extreme jihadism....If this had been the work of any other power we thought less well of than we do of ourselves, imagine the blazing headlines right now

When it comes to a path “forward” in Iraq, it’s been ever deeper into Iraq War 3.0.  Since a limited, “humanitarian” bombing campaign began in August, the Obama administration and the Pentagon have been on the up escalator: more air strikes, more advisers, more weaponry, more money.  Two and a half weeks ago, the president doubled the corps of American advisers (plus assorted other U.S. personnel) there to 3,000-plus.  Last week, the news came in that they were being hustled into the country faster than expected...For those of a certain age, the escalatory path the Obama administration has set us on in Iraq has a certain resonance and so, not surprisingly, at the edges of our world, familiar words like “quagmire” are again rising.

General Dempsey can’t know how long (or short) its lifespan in the region may be.  One thing we do know, however: as long as the global giant, the United States, continues to escalate its fight against the Islamic State, it gains a credibility and increasing popularity in the world of jihadism that it would never otherwise garner.

Given the history of this last period, even if the Islamic State were to collapse tomorrow under American pressure, there would likely be worse to come.  It might not look like that movement or anything else we’ve experienced thus far, but it will predictably shock American officials yet again.  Whatever it may be, rest assured that there’s a solution for it brewing in Washington and you already know what it is.  Call it Iraq War 4.0.

Whatever the bloody horror, fragmentation, and chaos in the Middle East today, 40 years from now the fears and fantasies that led Washington into such repetitively destructive behavior will look no less foolish than the domino theory does today.   

In Brief
Ebola
"How world’s worst Ebola outbreak began with one boy’s death" [BBC News, Nov. 26]

"Number of Ebola cases nears 16,000 as Sierra Leone loses ground: WHO" [Reuters/Yahoo News, Nov. 26]  The death toll in the world's worst Ebola epidemic has risen to 5,689 out of 15,935 cases reported in eight countries by the end of Nov. 23...Almost all cases and all but 15 deaths have been in Guinea, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

"Ebola vaccine 'promising' say scientists after human trial" [BBC News, Nov. 26]


Ukraine
"Why Ukraine Must Bargain for Peace with Russia"  [Foreign Policy, Nov.26]
The "let's make a deal" moment has arrived for Kiev and Moscow. But by pushing a hard-line agenda against Putin, the United States and Europe are only making things worse for Ukraine....The contours of the compromise would likely include: reaffirmation of the reality of Ukraine's nonalignment; mutually satisfactory trade arrangements among Russia, Ukraine, and the EU; implementation of a decentralization plan somewhat more ambitious than Poroshenko's June proposals, but significantly less far-reaching than Russia's March proposals; a return of full Ukrainian control over its border with Russia, perhaps with an international peacekeeping force on the ground in the Donbas... 

Sunday Roundup - October 26, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Iran, climate change, voter suppression, and the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Iran 
Progress was made in Iran's dilution of its uranium.  Reuters reported on October 20:   Iran is taking further action to comply with an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a monthly U.N. atomic agency report showed, a finding the West may see as positive ahead of a November deadline for clinching a long-term deal.  The report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA)...made clear that Iran is meeting its commitments under the temporary deal, as it and major powers seek to negotiate a final settlement of a decade-old nuclear dispute. It said Iran had diluted more than 4,100 kg of uranium enriched to a fissile concentration of up to 2 percent down to the level of natural uranium. 

From BBC News website

Gareth Porter, in an October 22 Truthout article, lays out the story of the deception behind the Western claim that Iran was "stonewalling" investigations into alleged past nuclear weapons research. The accusation...has been a familiar theme in mainstream media coverage of Iran's relations with the IAEA for years.  What remains virtually unknown, however, is how a brazen deception by the George W. Bush administration and a key official within the IAEA created the false narrative of Iranian refusal to cooperate with the IAEA and was used to justify harsh international sanctions.  Based on conversations with former IAEA officials, Wikileaks documents, and the public record, Porter describes the background.  His article includes the smear campaign against the agency's director Mohamed ElBaredei - who had cleared Iran of six issues of concern in spite of the West's pressure -and the misleading report of meetings between the IAEA's Olli Heinonen and Iranian officials.  In one of those meetings, Heinonen asked Iran's Permanent Representative to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, whether various names of people, organizations and addresses found in the documents were correct. Soltanieh confirmed that the people, organizations and addresses did exist, but added, "So what?"....The language in the [IAEA May 2008 report from those meetings] was carefully chosen to mislead the reader without technically telling an outright lie. The report said Iran "did not dispute that some of the information contained in the documents was factually accurate, but said the events and activities concerned involved civil or conventional military applications." ...Iran, in a letter to the IAEA secretariat a few months later, denied that [they] had ever acknowledged the accuracy of anything in the intelligence documents except for those incidental details.  The misleading report formed the basis of the allegations that continue to this day.

The window of opportunity that would bring the Iran "in from the cold" may be closing.  The US Congressional elections are in a couple of weeks and pressure from the hardliners in the Israel lobby to keep Iran isolated will probably ratchet up.  Netanyahu has already started the rumblings with his anti-Iran comments at the UN in September.  Writing in The Guardian. Christopher de Ballaigue notes that Netanyahu's comments may reflect a fear that a rehabilitated Islamic Republic could dislodge Israel from western affections – a process already well advanced by the widespread killing of Palestinian civilians during the recent violence in Gaza.  De Ballaigue stresses the importance of closing the nuclear deal - perhaps the best hope of restoring stability to the Middle East.  A deal that offers Iran a nuclear power industry not exceeding its needs and ambitions, and the rest of the world reassurance through intrusive inspections, would do more than bring Iran in from the cold. It would inaugurate a new relationship between the Islamic Republic and the west that could keep together a region that is, in every other particular, coming apart.  [The Guardian, October 2]

Climate Change
With an eye on the global climate conference in Paris in 2015, the EU agreed on goals for greenhouse gas emissions, energy efficiency and renewable energy.  The Guardian reported on October 23: European leaders have struck a broad climate change pact obliging the EU as a whole to cut greenhouse gases by at least 40% by 2030.  But key aspects of the deal that will form a bargaining position for global climate talks in Paris next year were left vague or voluntary, raising questions as to how the aims would be realised.  As well as the greenhouse gas, two 27% targets were agreed – for renewable energy market share and increase in energy efficiency improvement.  Informed Comment carried a post on solar energy good news stories.  Morocco, India, Tanzania, and Mexico all have programs to increase the use of solar energy.  Solar will likely be the world’s largest source of electricity by 2050, when some 26% of world energy will come from solar panels. 
Related Link
Spotlight on Green News and Views [Daily Kos, Oct. 23]

Voter Suppression

With Republicans on the verge of taking over the US Senate in November, every vote that might prevent that disaster is important.  Here's some of the past week's news on the status of  voter suppression in two "solid red" states in the midst of a demographic shift.

Poll tax sign- Mineola Texas, 1939 -  Russell Lee/Library of Congress
Appeared in Mother Jones article

Overturning a Federal trial court's earlier decision, the Supreme Court upheld without comment the Texas Voter ID Law, one of the worst in the nation.  The majority decision was unsigned but Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg  along with Justices Kagan and Sotomayor authored a blistering dissent. Salon.com carried an Alternet article on Ginsburg's dissent. “Texas did not begin to demonstrate that the Bill’s discriminatory features were necessary to prevent fraud or to increase public confidence in the electoral process,” Ginsburg wrote in her dissent. The article summarizes the key points of Ginsburg's dissent, among them: hundreds of thousands of Texans will have a hard time getting the required ID and  "On an extensive factual record developed in the course of a nine-day trial, the District Court found Senate Bill 14 [the voter ID law] irreconcilable with Section 2 of the [federal] Voting Rights Act of 1965 because it was enacted with a racially discriminatory purpose and would yield a prohibited discriminatory result.” The law could potentially disenfranchise 600,000 Texas voters. [Salon.com, Oct. 21]  The law falls in line with Texas' long history of discriminatory voting practices.  Mother Jones presents a look at that history, based on expert testimony by Orville Vernon Burton, a professor of history at Clemson University, and Barry Burden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in an October 21 article. [Mother Jones, Oct. 21]

In Georgia, the Republican Secretary of State is delaying approval of tens of thousands of minority applications secured by by the New Georgia Project on the grounds that fraud was involved.  There is little evidence of any such thing.  Republican candidates are hyping voter fraud fears and the reason is fairly obvious.  Republican concerns about large numbers of black voters turning out this year have already roiled politics in the Peachtree State. One GOP state lawmaker said he opposed opening a new early voting location because it was in a heavily minority area. Georgia, which has seen big demographic shifts over the last decade, has nearly 900,000 unregistered minority voters. Mitt Romney’s 2012 margin of victory over President Obama in the state was just 305,000 votes. Michelle Nunn, the Democratic candidate in the U.S. Senate race, is counting on a big minority turnout to propel her to an upset victory. [MSNBC, Oct. 21]  NGP has introduced a lawsuit against 5 counties and has settled with one of them (De Kalb),  The lawsuit is proceeding against the other 4 counties.  Daily Kos reports:  Earlier this month, NGP complained that the registrations in five counties—all of them surrounding large Democratic strongholds in Atlanta, Columbus and Savannah—had not processed some 40,000 of these registrations. Republican Secretary of State Brian Kemp said the claim is wrong....Since most of those 40,000 people are likely to be Democrats, the consequences could have a major impact on the election, including the outcome in the tight open-seat Senate contest between Democrat Michelle Nunn and Republican David Perdue. Given the potential for disenfranchisement, the NGP, together with the NAACP, filed suit against Kemp and the county election boards.  [Daily Kos, Oct. 24]

Related Links

Running Scared : Georgia’s Democrats have registered more than 85,000 minority voters (and counting).Republicans never saw it coming. [Slate.com, Sept. 11]

Georgia's Battle for the Ballot Box [New York Magazine, Oct.21] tells the story of Stacey Abrams, the Georgia House minority leader and the woman behind the voter registration drive.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Palestinian Territory of the West Bank and Gaza has been under Israeli military occupation for more than 47 years.  The Gaza Strip has been crippled by a land, sea, and air blockade for 7 years. This summer Gaza endured an Israeli assault that left the enclave devastated and more than 2,100 Palestinians, mostly civilians, dead.  Even before the brutal Israeli siege, Gaza was deemed to become unlivable by 2020, and 80% of its people were receiving humanitarian aid of some type.  The Palestinian Authority laid out its plans to achieve statehood in an address to the United Nations in September - going to the Security Council for a resolution to end the Israeli Occupation by a definitive date and, failing that (for example, because of a US veto), to join the International Criminal Court.  Here are links to some stories relevant to Palestinian statehood and the Gaza War of 2014 that have developed since Abbas' speech at the UN.

October 3:  Sweden announces its intention to recognise state of Palestine [Reuters, Oct. 3]

October 12: Donor conference co-hosted by Egypt and Norway raises 5.4 billion US dollars for rebuilding Gaza.[Al Jazeera, Oct. 12]

October 14: British parliament votes 274-12 in favor of recognizing Palestine [YNetNews, Oct. 14]

October 21: U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon announced he was setting up an investigation into the attacks on United Nations facilities [Daily Mail, Oct. 21]

October 22: Democracy Now! interview with Noam Chomsky after his speech at the UN [Democracy Now!, Oct. 22]

October 23: Complicated mechanisms and restrictive measures risk prolonging the Gaza rebuilding effort [Al Jazeera, Oct. 23]

October 24: Irish upper house backs Palestinian state [Haaretz, Oct. 24]

October 24: Croatian Foreign Minister: "Croatia is likely to recognize Palestine as an independent state" [Daily Sabah, Oct. 24]

Sunday Roundup - May 11

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media. Today we look at Obamacare, Republicans' economic myths, Iran's nuclear program, Pope Francis' comments on inequality to UN officials, Obama's last chance on the environment, and Ukraine.

Obamacare
The first open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act is complete and the numbers are in. Total enrollments came to at least 17.8 million, once you add together numbers from Medicaid [expansion], marketplace enrollments and the lowest estimates of how many people bought new ACA-compliant policies outside the exchanges. [NPR Shots blog, May 2]  That didn't stop Republicans from holding yet another hearing to convince people that the program is a failure.  House Republicans brought in insurance executives on Wednesday and tried to get them to say that only 2/3 of the enrollees had paid their premiums.  The executives were having  none of it.  As Salon.com reported: A slate of health insurance industry executives sat down in front of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee for oversight and gave their estimates for how many people who signed up for health coverage through the Affordable Care Act actually paid their first month’s premium....Across the board, the health insurance executives testified that the payment rate for premiums was somewhere between 80 and 90 percent, while stressing that these data are preliminary and that outstanding payments are still coming in.  After this latest rebuke to their fact-free view of reality, Republicans are apparently now turning to Plan B - using the Benghazi tragedy as something to stir up their base and raise money.

Economic Myths
Health care is just one of the many issues where Republicans refuse to face reality.  Sean McElwee in an April 28 article in Rolling Stone enumerates the extensive studies that show just about everything the Republicans believe about the economy to be wrong.  After quoting economist John Maynard Keynes famous line "When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, sir?", McElwee writes: Sadly, in their quest to concentrate economic and political power in the hands of the wealthiest members of society, today's Republicans have held the opposite position – as the evidence has piled up against them, they continue spreading the same myths.  McElwee proceeds to demolish right-wing myths about the minimum wage, the stimulus, taxing the rich, global warming and the Affordable Care Act.  It's a great, quick read and a good antidote to the nonsense that will be spewing in ever greater quantities from Republican mouths and right-wing media as the election season approaches.

Iran's Nuclear Program
John Glaser relates the comments of the former head of Israel's Atomic Energy Commission in a May 8 post at antiwar.org: The former head of Israel’s Atomic Energy Commission believes Iran is more than a decade away from a nuclear weapon and that the Islamic Republic may not even want “the bomb,” according to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronoth (Ynet news)....Brigadier General (res.) Uzi Eilam, who for a decade headed the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, does not believe that Tehran is even close to having a bomb, if that is even what it really aspires to.  Glaser points out that this is consistent with US intelligence estimates and that Eilam is not the first Israeli insider to counter the political rhetoric of the Israeli right and Prime Minister Netanyahu, who have opposed the Iran nuclear negotiations.  Glaser wonders why despite Iran’s cooperation and compliance in unprecedented negotiations with world powers that aim to partially retard and comprehensively limit their civilian nuclear program, Western commentators of all stripes continue to refer to Iran's "nuclear weapons program".


"Legitimate Redistribution of Wealth to the Poor"

The Pope and Un Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon
(Vatican Network website)

Pope Francis spoke to UN officials in Rome May 9, urging world leaders to resist the economy of exclusion and serve the poor.  As reported at the Common Dreams website: Pope Francis on Friday issued another indictment of inequality, saying that equitable economic and social progress are only possible through solidarity and generosity, and require the legitimate redistribution of wealth..."A contribution to this equitable development will also be made both by international activity aimed at the integral human development of all the world's peoples and by the legitimate redistribution of economic benefits by the State, as well as indispensable cooperation between the private sector and civil society," he continued.  HoundDog's May 9 blog at the DailyKos added:  Pope Francis' authentic Christianity comes as such an unfamiliar shock to many, that Pope Francis has had to deny he was a Marxist. He had a similar message to the World Economic Forum in January...Pope Francis' passion to improve the conditions of the world's poor, support for social justice inspires me....What will right-wing conservatives have to say about this? I can not wait to see how Representative Paul Ryan revises his draconian budget proposal which contains harsh cut backs in programs for the poor. Ryan has proclaimed his budgets are consistent with Catholic teachings, a claim I assert is simply impossible to support now.

Obama and the Environment
Calling it Obama's "last shot" to do something on the environment, Jeff Goodell wrote in an April 23 post in Rolling Stone magazine: In the next few months, [Obama] will take one of the biggest gambles of his presidency by testing the radical proposition that even SUV-loving Americans believe that global warming is real and are ready to do something about it....It's a gamble that could have a profound impact on energy politics, our economy and our ability to stabilize the climate. But if the president is wrong, it could not only cost his party control of the Senate this fall but also blow the last opportunity we have to save ourselves from life on a superheated planet.  Obama will take action in three key areas.

• In June, the EPA is expected to announce new rules for power plants, setting limits on carbon pollution.  Obama will be using his presidential powers to effectively hasten the phase-out of dirty coal from America's energy system. Right now, coal-fired power plants generate about 40 percent of the electricity in the U.S. and are by far the largest single source of heat-trapping gases.  
• A decision on the Keystone XL pipeline has been delayed while lawsuits on the pipeline's route go through the courts.  These are not expected to be resolved until after the November elections.  Goodell writes:  Although no final decision has been made, two high-level sources in the Obama administration told me recently that the president has all but decided to deny the permit for the pipeline.
• The next global climate summit will be in Paris in December 2015.  The objective is an international treaty to reduce carbon pollution.  Climate change, of course, is a global problem, and ultimately what matters is the degree to which Obama's actions in the U.S. inspire the world.  Regarding the international summit, Goodell quotes John Podesta, Obama's point man on climate policy: "Are we going to be on track to come to an agreement that will limit warming to 2 degrees Celsius, which is the threshold scientists have set for dangerous climate change?  Our goal is to give leadership and credibility to that effort."

Map is from infoplease.com

Ukraine

Ukraine is moving towards civil war as the government in Kiev cracks down on pro-separatists and as Donetsk, defying both Kiev and Putin, goes ahead with a referendum Sunday to create a quasi-independent statelet there.  [The Guardian, May 10]

Links
Complete text of Pope Francis' comments to UN

Sunday Roundup - April 20, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Iran nuclear talks, the Ukraine  agreement, the passing of Gabriel García Márquez, and Pope Francis' Easter Urbi et Orbi blessing.  

Iran Nuclear Talks
Hardliners on all sides of the Iran nuclear talks have put pressure on the negotiators trying to hammer out an historic agreement.  On Wednesday April 16, Reuters reported on Iranian hardliners' stepped up criticism of the nuclear talks:  The hardliners, unsettled by the shift to a more moderate foreign policy since President Hassan Rouhani took office in August, have repeatedly criticized the talks in recent months but Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei backs them....In their latest charge, critics of the negotiations leaked an audio recording purporting to show Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi criticizing Rouhani's view of the nuclear program, the official IRNA news agency reported.  Araghchi,[ a key negotiator in the talks that produced the November interim deal,] lashed out at his critics on Wednesday, saying the audio filed was "selected and distorted" and urging them not to play politics with what he called Iran's nuclear rights...Foreign Minister Javad Zarif told Reuters he did not fear opposition from hardliners and was optimistic about reaching a comprehensive agreement with world powers by the July 20 deadline.

Hardliners aside, Iran continues to reduce its nuclear enrichment capabilities as demanded by the West.  Reuters/The Star Online (Malaysia) reported on Thursday's release of the IAEA's monthly update: The monthly update by the International Atomic Energy Agency , which has a pivotal role in verifying that Iran is living up to its part of the accord, made clear that Iran so far is undertaking the agreed steps to curb its nuclear programme.  The IAEA update noted that Iran has cut its most sensitive nuclear stockpile by nearly 75 percent and diluted half of its higher-grade enriched uranium reserve to a fissile content less prone to bomb proliferation. A planned facility needed to convert low-enriched uranium gas (LEU) to a non-weaponizable oxide has been delayed, likely due to technical issues.  Western diplomats said earlier that this matter was of no immediate consequence as Iran's commitment concerns the size of the reserve towards the end of the deal, in late July, meaning it has time both to complete the site and convert enough LEU.

Ukraine
Some progress was made on resolving the crisis in the Ukraine.  The Guardian reported Thursday: The US, Russia, Ukraine and the European Union have reached agreement on a series of immediate steps aimed at pulling eastern Ukraine back from the brink of war.  The deal, clinched after a dramatic extended meeting in Geneva, calls for the disarming of all illegal groups. In the next few days they would have to vacate all the government buildings and public spaces they have occupied over the course of the crisis.  In return, the protesters in eastern Ukraine would be offered amnesty for all but capital crimes and the government in Kiev would immediately start a process of public consultation aimed at devolving constitutional powers to the provinces.  However, pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine are staying put for the time being.  The Guardian reported Friday: Pro-Russian groups in eastern Ukraine have accused the authorities in Kiev of violating an agreement to defuse tensions across the country, adding that they have no intention of leaving buildings they have occupied...At a press conference on Friday..., Denis Pushilin, the self-styled leader of the Donetsk People's Republic, said his supporters would stay put until a referendum on the region's future status took place. The current pro-western government in Kiev was illegitimate, he said...Pushilin – speaking from the occupied regional administration building in central Donetsk – said that Kiev had already violated the Geneva deal by refusing to withdraw its military units from eastern Ukraine. 


Gabriel García Márquez
Colombian author Gabriel García Márquez, the greatest Latin American writer of the 20th century, passed away Thursday at the age of 87.   His "magical realism" works are his best known.  In 1982, he was awarded the Nobel Prize in literature "for his novels and short stories, in which the fantastic and the realistic are combined in a richly composed world of imagination, reflecting a continent's life and conflicts". Tributes poured in from around the world for the beloved author.  And beloved he was.  In the late 1990's, I was in Cartagena, where he maintained a home even during his many travels abroad. Painted on a rock wall not far from the Caribbean Sea were the words "Te amo Gabo".  Originally a law student, "Gabo" turned to journalism and eventually to fiction.  His breakout novel was "One Hundred Years of Solitude", published in 1967.  He counted Bill Clinton and Fidel Castro among his many admirers.  Because of his outspoken anti-imperialist views, García Márquez was denied travel visas to the US for many years.  The ban was lifted by Bill Clinton after he became President.

The City Paper (Bogotá) writes: García Márquez was among the vanguard of the ‘Latin American Boom,’ a literary movement to which Julio Cortázar, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa also belonged.  García Márquez’s use of magical realism, a style in which events are so extraordinary and unbelievable they seem fantastical, inspired a generation of writers and drew readers into an unforgettable world filled with poetry and imagination...“Gabo,” as he was affectionately known in Colombia, will be sorely missed in Colombia and abroad. Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has declared 3 days of mourning for the passing of this native son of letters. 

The Scotsman writes of One Hundred Years of Solitude: García Márquez combines miraculous and supernatural events with the details of everyday life and the political realities of Latin America. The characters are visited by ghosts, a plague of insomnia envelops Macondo, a child is born with a pig’s tail and a priest levitates above the ground....García Márquez, a stocky man with a quick smile, thick moustache and curly hair, said he found inspiration for the novel by drawing on childhood memories of his grandmother’s stories - laced with folklore and superstition but delivered with the straightest of faces.  The Scotsman article concludes with this tribute from Colombian pop star Shakira: “Your life, dear Gabo, will be remembered by all of us as a unique and singular gift, and as the most original story of all,” Colombian pop star Shakira wrote on her website alongside a photograph of her hugging Garcia Marquez.


Urbi et Orbi (to the city and to the world)
Happy Easter!  Pope Francis delivered the traditional Urbi et Orbi blessing after celebrating the Easter liturgy. Under clear blue skies in Rome, Pope Francis gave his Urbi et Orbi ("to the city and to the world") blessing.  At the heart of his message was a call to live the Good News of the Gospels in our treatment of the most vulnerable:  "In every human situation, marked by frailty, sin and death, the Good News is no mere matter of words, but a testimony to unconditional and faithful love: it is about leaving ourselves behind and encountering others, being close to those crushed by life's troubles, sharing with the needy, standing at the side of the sick, elderly and the outcast."  He prayed for the vulnerable and for peace throughout the world. As reported in Deutsche Welle:     The holiest day in the Christian calendar attracted more than 100,000 people to the square to hear the Pope speak on Sunday at mid day.  Easter celebrations in Rome again sent out the message of social solidarity which has characterised Pope Francis' papacy since it began last year.  He made reference to killings and violence around the world, including in Nigeria, Ukraine and Jerusalem and urged warring sides in Syria to negotiate "boldly."


Images
Gabriel Garcia Marquez is from El Espectador.
Pope Francis giving the "Urbi et Orbi" blessing is from La Corriere della Sera/L'Osservatore Romano

In Brief
"The Guardian and the Washington Post have been awarded the highest accolade in US journalism, winning the Pulitzer prize for public service for their groundbreaking articles on the National Security Agency’s surveillance activities based on the leaks of Edward Snowden." [The Guardian, April 14]

El Espectador, a Colombian newspaper for which Gabriel García Márquez wrote, has an extensive appreciation of his life, including a time line, slide shows and images.

Complete English text of Pope Francis' Urbi et Orbi Blessing [Huffington Post/AP, April 20]

Sunday Roundup - April 13

“I believe the only way to live and to be truly successful is by collective effort, with everyone working for each other, everyone helping each other, and everyone having a share of the rewards at the end of the day.”

- Bill Shankly, Liverpool FC Manager from 1959-74

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Russia-US relations, Syria, and the World Cup.

Russia-US Relations
The overthrow of Russia-leaning Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, the Crimean referendum to rejoin Russia, and Russia's subsequent annexation of Crimea have placed US-Russia relations in about as bad a place as they have been since the end of the Cold War.  Congressional Republicans have ratcheted up their rhetoric and seem to have lost their senses on the issue of nuclear safety.  As The Nation's editor Katrina vanden Heuvel writes on April 10: Representatives Michael Turner (R-OH) and Chairman of the House Armed Services Committee Buck McKeon (R-CA) introduced a bill that, among other things, prohibits "the contact, cooperation or transfer of technology between the National Nuclear Security Administration [NNSA] and the Russian Federation until the Secretary of Energy certifies the Russian military is no longer illegally occupying Crimea, no longer violating the INF treaty, and in compliance with the CFE treaty." Engendering nuclear instability by using safety as a stick is an incredibly reckless way to approach global security.  The bill has little chance of prevailing and, even if it does, it will be vetoed by President Obama.

NASA/AFP/Getty Images (appears in Al Jazeera article)

Thankfully, the crisis in the Ukraine has not affected operations at the International Space Station.  Al Jazeera reported on April 9: While relations between American and Russian space officials have frayed because of the crisis in Ukraine, work together on the station remains the same, officials say....The Russian cargo shuttle launched Wednesday morning from Baikonur, Kazakhstan, and after about four spins around the Earth it docked with the ISS, delivering food, fuel and cosmic knickknacks to one Japanese astronaut, two American astronauts and three Russian cosmonauts on board.

The Japan Times offers this take on the deterioration of relations between the two superpowers: Underlying the ferociously strong sense of grievance that prevails among the Russian people against the West is one simple, overpowering emotion: “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it anymore” (to use the classic line from Howard Beale, the Mad Prophet of the Airwaves from the classic 1976 movie “Network”).  Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia has not just seen its historic standing and interests in its ancient zone of influence, going back hundreds of years, shrink; worse, Russia’s reach has been systematically dismantled by the United States. One solemn promise after another, made to the Russians, has been forgotten, ignored or scrapped.  It is one thing to talk about other nations’ freedom and independence (and rejoice when they receive it). It is quite another matter if those powers then move deliberately to put those freed countries fully into their orbit.

Syria
In a bleak account of the possibilities for peace in Syria, Yezid Sayigh, writing for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, writes in an April 8 article: The grim truth is that for those determined to extract a diplomatic exit from the crisis under present conditions, Iran’s latest four-point peace plan is the only potentially feasible bid on the table. It calls for a general ceasefire, a national unity government composed of the regime and Syria’s “internal” opposition, the successive transfer of a wide but unspecified range of presidential powers to the government over several years, and general and presidential elections.

World Cup

Bill Shankly turned Second Division Liverpool into an English Premier League "bastion of invincibility"
Photo by Bob Thomas appears in The Far Post article

Roads and Kingdoms continues its excellent "The Far Post" series on the global soccer culture in the run-up to the 2014 World Cup.  One of the most interesting and thought-provoking in the series is philosopher Simon Critchley's March 11 piece, "Working Class Ballet", on the "spectacle, poetry and importance of professional football."  It's a personal telling of his life-long love of the sport.  Along the way, he speaks of the great Liverpool coach Bill Shankly, his memories of previous World Cups, of his relationship through the sport to his father and to his son, and the film Zidane: A Portrait of the 21st Century.  Here are a few quotes from the article, reflecting on the World Cup:
The World Cup is a spectacle in the strictly Situationist sense. It is a shiny display of teams, tribes and nations in symbolic, indeed rather atavistic, national combat adorned with multiple layers of commodification, sponsorship and the seemingly infinite commercialization...

The World Cup is an image of our age at its worst and most gaudy. But it is also something more, something bound up with difficult and recalcitrant questions of conflict, memory, history, place, social class, masculinity, violence, national identity, tribe and group....

The World Cup, then, is about ever-shifting floors of memory and the complexity of personal and national identity. But at its best it is about grace...an unforced bodily containment and elegance of movement, a kind of discipline where long periods of inactivity can suddenly accelerate and time takes on a different dimension in bursts of controlled power. 

Sunday Roundup - February 23, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Iran nuclear talks, Arctic ice, Gaza, soccer in Brazil, video games as treatment for learning disabilities, the Syrian Civil War and the chaos in the Ukraine.


Iran
With the breakdown in the Syrian Civil War talks and with the apparent stalemate in Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, it's encouraging to find at least one ray of hope for the troubled Middle East.  As reported in The Guardian Thursday: "Three days of talks between Iran and six world powers in Vienna have ended to 'a good start' as diplomats negotiating for a final nuclear deal, agreed on a mutual framework before they could discuss details in future sessions."  EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton, who acts as "the convenor of talks on behalf of Britain, France, Germany, China, Russia and the US – the group known as P5+1 – is negotiating directly with Mohammad Javad Zarif, Iran's foreign minister."   Ashton said both sides had "agreed to start the technical work and further political discussions as early as March. They would set a timetable over four months to discuss the differences that have so far prevented settlement of the decades-long dispute over Tehran's nuclear programme."



Climate Change
It's been a wild winter in the Northern Hemisphere - drought in California, avalanches in the Rockies, winter storms in the Midwest, Northeast, and Southeast, massive flooding in the UK.  Anyone out there still unconcerned about global climate change or humankind's role in causing it?  Ryan Koronowski reported Thursday on the ClimateProgress website of a new "record".  In February, Arctic sea ice dipped to "record low levels in February. On the 18th, sea ice covered 5.544 million square miles of the Arctic, while the previous low on that date was in 2006, at 5.548 million square miles."   The sea ice is dwindling even in the almost perpetual darkness of winter "because there is less of its bright whiteness to reflect back sunlight into space. As the ice melts, more of the surface area changes to darker ocean water, which absorbs the sun’s energy, warming the ocean and allowing more ice to melt."  Some researchers are blaming the frequent strong winter storms in the UK on this phenomenon.
(Image of flooding near Tewksbury is from the Daily Mail; copyright by Adam Gray/SWNS.com)



Gaza
Bad as the Palestinian situation is in the West Bank, it's much worse in the Gaza Strip, where Israel, with assistance from Egypt, has maintained a blockade on Gaza's 1.7 million inhabitants since 2007.  Gaza is back in the news in recent weeks.  After the Arab Spring there was some easing of restrictions on the Egyptian side.  Unfortunately,  Egypt closed supply tunnels on its border with Gaza after the Muslim Brotherhood was removed from power.  Earlier this month, far-right members of the Israeli Knesset walked out on a speech by European Parliament President Martin Schulz when he criticized Israel for its blockade of the Gaza Strip and for the Israeli water policy in the Occupied Territories.  On February 12, a dozen human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, called upon the European Union to urge Israel to "immediately, unconditionally and completely...lift the unlawful closure of the Gaza Strip, and demand that all parties comply with their obligations under international law."  Calling Israel’s closure of the Gaza Strip a collective punishment of 1.7 million Palestinians and a "breach of international humanitarian law", the rights organizations noted that the "impact of the closure and the violence on the population’s right to life, health, education, food, water and an adequate standard of living has never been clearer."
(Photo of two Gaza children looking through rubble after an Israeli airstrike is by EPA/Mohammed Saber and appeared in The Telegraph in Nov 2012)


Brazil and Soccer - The Beautiful Language
As we all know, the World Cup is being played in Brazil this year.  In a brilliant article for Roads & Kingdoms' "Far Post" series, sportswriter Jack Lang writes about the unique Brazilian "language" for the sport.  As the World Cup approaches "amid the FIFA-approved images of soccer stars in sun-drenched stadiums, much of what truly defines Brazilian football will be concealed, lost in translation. For while Neymar, Thiago Silva et al represent one aspect of this nation’s continuing clout in the sport, there is another sphere in which it excels. No other nation can match the verve with which Brazil talks and writes about o jogo bonito."  From players' nicknames to sportscasters' commentary to their creative shorthand descriptions of play, the article is a great romp through the language and character of Brazil's soccer culture. 


Your Brain and Video Games
On Tuesday, the Utne Reader reported on an Oxford University study that "indicates that video games may be able to help the 5 to 10 percent of the world’s population who are affected by dyslexia.  UR notes that this is not the first study to point out the benefits of video games. "Past research has shown that playing video games can improve mental reasoning and decision-making skills as well as precision and self-esteem."


Ukraine
The violence in the Ukraine, which has resulted in as  many as 100 deaths over the past week, seems to have ended thanks to a deal to cut the President's powers, revise the Constitution and release an opposition leader.  Mother Jones tries to describe "why Kiev is burning":  "The EuroMaidan protests, which started on November 21 in response to President Viktor Yanukovych's rejection of a European Union trade deal, have been going on for nearly three months....the conflict is fueled by sharp political and ethnic divides. A significant portion of the population wants closer ties to Europe, but Putin has been pressuring Yanukovych's government toward closer economic integration with Russia."

In Brief/Other Links 

For more on the second reason for the Israeli far-right-wing walkout during Martin Schultz' address to the Knesset, see  Haaretz, February 16 "The Israeli 'watergate' scandal: The facts about Palestinian water"


For other soccer culture articles, here's a link to the home page of "The Far Post" series.


Syrian and American diplomats "blamed each other for a lack of progress at peace talks in Geneva aimed at opening a dialogue between Damascus and opposition representatives from the Syrian National Coalition, who are fighting a civil war that activists say has claimed 140,000 lives. The peace talks broke off Saturday (Feb 13), and it’s not clear when, or if, they’ll resume." [Al Jazeera, February 16]

Sunday Round-Up January 19, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at Syria, Iran and the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks.

Syria


Peace talks to end the Syrian civil war are (hopefully) about to get underway in Geneva on January 22.  The UN, US and Russia have been trying to bring both sides to the table for months.  "The Syrian government announced on 27 November that it would participate in the talks, but added that its official delegation would not be going 'to hand over power to anyone'...The National Coalition [the coalition of rebel groups fighting the Assad government] is split over whether to attend, and is due to vote on the issue.  The opposition alliance long resisted calls to commit, but after intense pressure from its Western and Arab backers it voted on 11 November to participate if a number of conditions were met."  Whether anything will be accomplished is anybody's guess.  The two sides appear to have "irreconcilable objectives: Syria has repeatedly said President Assad's departure is out of the question, while the National Coalition has made it clear that President Assad must have no role in the transitional governing body called for in the Geneva Communique." [BBC News, January 17]

In a January 17 article, James Robbins, Diplomatic Correspondent for BBC News, examines how peaceful protests in March 2011 erupted into this all out civil war that has been going on for nearly 3 years and has left more than 100,000 people dead and has made 2.5 million people flee their homes.  The two side are intractably deadlocked with neither side strong enough to win nor weak enough to lose.  What many on the rebels side thought would be over in months has now stretched into years.  "Fighting between jihadists and more moderate opposition forces have added another layer to the conflict....Former US ambassador Ryan Crocker is among those urging the West to reconsider the unthinkable - a future Syria still controlled by President Assad.  He believes the alternative is that an al-Qaeda affiliate could seize power in Damascus. 'We rather blithely took the position that Assad must go,' he told [James Robbins].  'But if he goes because the radical Sunni opposition pushes him out we face the prospect of a country in the hands of al-Qaeda.  As bad as Assad is, I think from a Western perspective that is far, far worse.' "

(Image is by Reuters)

Iran

World powers and Iran are "likely to start talks on a final settlement to the long dispute over its nuclear ambitions in February, shortly after a six-month deal curbing its atomic activity takes effect, a diplomatic source said on Monday...Iran and the six powers said ... the deal would go into effect on January 20, pending verification by the International Atomic Energy Agency that Tehran is meeting its end of the bargain.  The preliminary accord appeared to arrest a drift towards regional war ..." [Reuters, January 13]

Meanwhile nuclear talks between Iran and International Atomic Energy Agency have been postponed to February 8.  "The UN nuclear watchdog has said a planned meeting with Iran next week to discuss how to allay concerns over its nuclear programme had been postponed to 8 February, without giving a reason.  The talks between Iran and the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) are separate from – though still closely linked with – broader diplomacy between Tehran and six world powers over Iran's disputed nuclear activity....The IAEA already regularly inspects Iranian nuclear sites to make sure there is no diversion of sensitive material for military purposes.  It will increase the frequency of such visits and see some additional facilities, including plants where Iran manufactures equipment for refining uranium. Enriched uranium can have both civilian and military purposes." [The Guardian, January 14]

Israel-Palestine

Reuters reported on Thursday of the hardening settlement demands of Benjamin Netanyahu and on his trip to Jordan. "Israel's prime minister has increased the amount of occupied territory he wants to keep after any peace deal with the Palestinians, Israeli radio reported on Thursday, a move that could complicate U.S.-backed efforts to reach an accord.  Benjamin Netanyahu's spokesman declined to comment on the report that he had added a bloc of Israeli-settled land near the Palestinian governmental seat in the occupied West Bank to a list of enclaves Israel intends to retain.That would leave 13 percent of the West Bank in Israeli hands, Israel's Army Radio said, a prospect likely to dismay Palestinians who want the area for a future state."  An unidentified Palestinian official, while rejecting the notion of Israel keeping large clusters of settlements is quoted as saying "once we agree on the withdrawal to 1967 borders, we can accept minor exchanges of land on a case-by-case basis."  Jordan has had a peace treaty with Israel since 1994.  Netanyahu visited King Abdullah in Amman and an Israeli statement said "Netanyahu 'emphasized that Israel places a premium on security arrangements, including Jordan's interest in any future agreement' with the Palestinians."


Haaretz expanded on Netanyahu's discussions in Jordan.  This was at least the fourth such trip since the negotiations restarted last year.  "The Americans and Palestinians have updated the Jordanians on the negotiations at every step of the way, prompting some disagreement when it comes to Jordan's stake in the core issues....Among the issues pertaining to Jordan are the western border of the Jordan Valley, the status of Jerusalem, Palestinian refugees and water supplies."  Haaretz has learned "that the Americans have suggested the force placed in the Jordan Valley contain Palestinian and Israeli soldiers or police along with American or international boots on the ground."

Sunday Round-Up - December 22,2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.

Iran Sanctions Bill
The Jewish-American group Americans for Peace Now has condemned the proposed Iran sanctions bill circulated Thursday by 26 US Senators.  "The mere act of introducing such a bill at this delicate juncture represents a reckless, provocative and wholly gratuitous step. The Geneva interim agreement with Iran demonstrates that sincere, determined diplomacy can deliver results....If the timing of its introduction weren't bad enough, the substance of the bill appears designed to undermine the initiative launched last month in Geneva and, bafflingly, to undermine international cooperation on Iran....Anyone who is truly concerned about curbing Iran's nuclear program should be outraged by this latest sanctions effort. For the first time in decades, there is an historic and promising diplomatic engagement with Iran, and the entire world is focused on the importance of resolving concerns about Iran's nuclear program and nuclear ambitions. Now is the time for members of the House and Senate to stand up to outside pressure, foreswear partisan and political grandstanding, and get behind the efforts of the Obama Administration and the international community to achieve a negotiated final agreement that does just that."

Here's a link to APN's petition to the US Senate. 

Juan Cole headlines his Informed Comment post of December 21:"Obama will Veto new Iran Sanctions, Israel War Mandate pushed by AIPAC Senators". 
He then takes it to the 13 Democrats who are cosponsoring the bill. "This behavior is no surprise coming from the GOP, but the thirteen Democratic senators involved are traitors to the party. They are acting at the behest of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and other American supporters of Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, who actively wants to torpedo Obama’s Iran talks."  Cole provides a transcript of Obama's comments on the matter from the Friday press conference, concluding that "Obama in his gentlemanly way excused the senators on the grounds that they might have tough reelection fights coming up in which hawkish posturing on Iran might be useful for fundraising and vote-getting. Nevertheless, the White House had earlier made clear that Obama would veto any such sanctions bill." But then Cole adds:  "In fact, the vast majority of Americans approve of Obama’s Iran negotiations in polling and only a minority is opposed. So the rebel senators aren’t playing to the voters, but rather to determined and very wealthy special interests in the Northeast." 
(See December 20 Left Bank Café post for further discussion.)

NSA Surveillance
As President Obama spoke Friday on possible reforms in the NSA spying program (specifically the NSA's holding of telephone records of Americans), new revelations from the documents leaked by whistle blower Edward Snowden were discussed in The Guardian.  "British and American intelligence agencies had a comprehensive list of surveillance targets that included the EU's competition commissioner, German government buildings in Berlin and overseas, and the heads of institutions that provide humanitarian and financial help to Africa, top-secret documents reveal.  The papers show GCHQ, in collaboration with America's National Security Agency (NSA), was targeting organisations such as the United Nations development programme, the UN's children's charity Unicef and Médecins du Monde, a French organisation that provides doctors and medical volunteers to conflict zones. The head of the Economic Community of West African States (Ecowas) also appears in the documents, along with text messages he sent to colleagues."  [The Guardian, December 20]

Selections from recent TomDispatch.com posts
Here are brief selections from and links to several recent posts. 

Former Harper's Magazine Editor Lewis Lapham wonders why we have no equivalent of Mark Twain in today's "second Gilded Age" in an essay about that great American writer, laughter and comedy. (To be published in Lapham's Quarterly's Winter 2014 issue.)
Laughter follows from the misalignment of a reality and a virtual reality, and the getting of the joke is the recognition of which is which. The notions of what is true or beautiful or proper held sacred by the other people in the caucus or the clubhouse set up the punch line -- the sight of something where it’s not supposed to be, the story going where it’s not supposed to go, Groucho Marx saying, “Gentlemen, Chicolini here may talk like an idiot and look like an idiot, but don’t let that fool you. He really is an idiot.”

Commentator Bill Moyers, speaking at The Brennan Center, discusses the impact of money on politics and our democracy, the danger of shredding the social contract to privilege the donor class, and the unfinished work of America in "The Great American Class War, Plutocracy vs. Democracy".
We don’t have emperors yet, but one of our two major parties is now dominated by radicals engaged in a crusade of voter suppression aimed at the elderly, the young, minorities, and the poor; while the other party, once the champion of everyday working people, has been so enfeebled by its own collaboration with the donor class that it offers only token resistance to the forces that have demoralized everyday Americans.

Climate change journalist Dahr Jamail explores "what climate scientists just beyond the mainstream are thinking about how climate change will affect life on this planet."  After discussing how the continuing rise in global temperatures will lead to an ice-free Arctic, which in turn may lead to a release of methane currently trapped in the ice, Jamail writes:
How serious is the potential global methane build-up? Not all scientists think it’s an immediate threat or even the major threat we face, but Ira Leifer, an atmospheric and marine scientist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and one of the authors of the recent Arctic Methane study pointed out to me that “the Permian mass extinction that occurred 250 million years ago is related to methane and thought to be the key to what caused the extinction of most species on the planet.” In that extinction episode, it is estimated that 95% of all species were wiped out.

(See The $60 Trillion Climate Time Bomb Left Bank Café post for further discussion of the methane release threat.)

Sabotaging diplomacy? What are they thinking?

Yesterday, thirteen Senate Democrats joined thirteen Republicans and began circulating a new Iran sanctions bill with the potential to derail the Iran nuclear talks.  This action came in spite of requests from the White House that Senators hold off on any new Iran legislation while the nuclear talks are in progress.  I'm ashamed to say that New Jersey's own senior senator. Robert Menendez, is one of the leading supporters of the proposal and introduced it with Republican Mark Kirk.

These thirteen Democrats should know better.  They have put themselves in the camp of conservative hardliners in Iran and the Netanyahu government in Israel -  about the only other people on the planet against the historic interim agreement achieved by the G3+3 with Iran just last month. 

The influence of the lobbying group AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee), strong supporters of the right-wing Netanyahu, is all over this.   Many, if not most, of the Senators pushing the legislation have received significant contributions from pro-Israel groups, who are heavily influenced by AIPAC.  Menendez  received more than $340,000 in campaign contributions in the six-year period ending December 31, 2012.  Mark Kirk, the leading Republican proponent of the current legislation, received more than $925,000.  All told, the 26 Senators received nearly $5,000,000 from pro- Israel groups. [maplight.org]

The proposed bill sets strong, and, likely illegal, conditions for a final agreement.  "Among those conditions is a provision that only allows Obama to waive new sanctions, even after a final deal has been struck, if that deal bars Iran from enriching any new uranium whatsoever."  [Daily Kos quoting Foreignpolicy.com, Dec.19]  As a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty, Iran has the right to enrich uranium for peaceful purposes such as energy and medicine.  Denying them this right to the peaceful use of nuclear power is a clear violation of the meaning of the treaty.  This is especially specious when we consider that Israel is a non-signatory to the NNPT and has 80 nuclear weapons sitting 1000 km or so from Iran's borders.  This condition all but guarantees that no lasting détente will ever be reached with Iran.

But that isn't the worst part of this bill.  The bill includes a non-binding provision that states that if Israel takes "military action in legitimate self-defense against Iran's nuclear weapons program", the United States should support it.  Since when does the United States outsource its military and foreign policy to a foreign power? 

As Andrew Sullivan writes on The Dish website:

As usual, English is the first casualty in propaganda. Any act of “self-defense” against a mere “program” is not an act of legitimate self-defense. In international law, you are allowed to defend yourself if attacked; you do not have a right to attack another country just because you don’t like one of their military programs (which the Iranian regime has, in any case, sworn it would never use). That would be a license to shred international law and any concept of just warfare. For the US Senate to proactively bless future aggressive military action by a foreign government when it is not justified by self-defense is an appalling new low in the Israeli government’s grip on the US Congress.

If the Senate goes ahead and approves the bill when it comes to the floor next year, President Obama will have no choice but to veto it.  If he does not, he should hand back his Nobel Peace Prize.  And the Senate should congratulate themselves for caving in to AIPAC and taking us all a step closer to war.

Other Notes
Being pro-Israel does not mean being anti-Iran diplomacy.  Americans for Peace Now is a Jewish-American organization that supports the two-state solution and works for peace between Palestinians and Israelis.  They recently circulated a petition asking Congress to allow time for the nuclear talks with Iran to succeed.  It's a shame that this group of peace activists doesn't have the influence of AIPAC on potential donors.

Update
This afternoon, Americans for Peace Now updated its petition.  You can sign the petition here and send it to your Senators. 

Links
Link to Wikipedia entry on Americans for Peace Now

Link to Wikipedia entry on AIPAC


Correction
An earlier version of this post indicated that Charles Schumer of New York introduced the bill with Mark Kirk of Illinois.  While Schumer was one of the 26 co-sponsors, it was Sen. Menendez, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair, that led the Democrats supporting the bill.