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 - November 23, 2014

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

Iran
November 24 is the self-imposed deadline for Iran and the P5+1 (the permanent security council members (US, Russia, China, France, UK) plus Germany) to come to a permanent agreement on Iran's nuclear program.  The main remaining issues are the timing of the removal of the sanctions against Iran and what degree of nuclear enrichment for peaceful purposes will satisfy both sides.  “Iran has made its utmost efforts and made the necessary adjustments to its demands and we hope that all the P5+1 countries, particularly the US, which occasionally seeks excessive demands in the nuclear talks, will understand the circumstances,” [Iran President Rouhani] said, according to the state-run Press TV....Iran has been adamant that it would not allow any agreement to prevent it obtaining nuclear technology permitted by the non-proliferation treaty (NPT). But Iran and the west have different interpretations of what type of advances are permitted under the NPT, especially over enrichment capacity." [The Guardian, Nov. 12]  Opposition to a historic permanent agreement comes from three sources and Carlyn Meyer, writing at Informed Comment, warns that the critics are in danger of throwing the baby out with the bath water.  The right-wing in Iran does not believe their country should even be talking to the West. Critics in the American Congress have tried to impose new sanction, after Iran...started negotiating in good faith, that would derail the deal. And Israel, which is not a signer of the NPT, believes Iran should be barred from even civilian enrichment....If a negotiated Permanent Agreement doesn’t replace the Interim accord or if the talks are not extended, Iran will resume producing highly enriched uranium. The new inspectors would leave and tighter inspector regimens would die. A historic achievement for nuclear nonproliferation would be nullified.  [Informed Comment, Nov. 20]  On Thursday, officials hinted at a possible extension. A deadline to resolve a 12-year-old dispute over Iran's nuclear program may be extended from Monday to March because of sharp disagreements between Tehran and Western powers, officials close to the talks said Thursday. U.S. Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken said this week a comprehensive deal would be difficult, but not impossible, to achieve by Monday. British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said he was not optimistic, but that there may be a way of extending the deadline.  A senior Iranian official had similar expectations. "We need more time to resolve technical issues, and don’t forget that the time frame for lifting sanctions is still a huge dispute," the Iranian official said, adding that an extension until March was a possibility. Western officials also suggested March was an option, with a resumption of talks in January....Domestic constituencies hostile to compromise remain strong on both the Iranian and U.S. sides, and a delay in concluding an agreement increases the opportunities for spoilers to win the day.  [Al Jazeera, Nov. 20]
  
Ukraine

Map of rebel-held areas is from BBC News

The ceasefire in the Ukraine has seen numerous violations since it went into effect in September.  An average of 13 people have been killed daily in eastern Ukraine since a 5 September ceasefire came into place, the UN human rights office says.  In the eight weeks since the truce came into force, the UN says 957 people have been killed, amid continuing violations on both sides.  A new report by the office describes a total breakdown of law and order in rebel-held Donetsk and Luhansk.  It also highlights credible allegations of abuses by government forces.  [BBC News, Nov. 20] With rhetoric escalating on both sides, Ukrainian servicemen continuing to be deployed in eastern Ukraine, and Russian military support allegedly coming into the rebel-held areas, the Ukraine Civil War is on the verge of restarting at full throttle.  As of the end of October, more than 4,000 have been killed during the conflict and more than 900,000 persons have become refugees or internally displaced.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
As Gaza struggles to recover from this summer's onslaught, tensions in Jerusalem and the West Bank have risen over the past several weeks and the cycle of oppression, protests, and violence continues. Palestinians protests have been sparked by Israel's continued settlement building - particularly the recent decision to build in East Jerusalem - and concerns regarding the Al-Aqsa mosque.  A partial listing of events of the last month is given below.  Researching the history of Jerusalem's status, Ehab Zariyeh writes, The status of Jerusalem remains one of the most vexed – and volatile – sticking points in efforts to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. After occupying the eastern part of the city in the war of June 1967, Israel annexed the territory, and its political leaders proclaimed the city Israel's "eternal, undivided capital." But the international community, including the United States, continues to regard East Jerusalem as occupied territory, and to reject Israel’s decision to settle its citizens there.  The article traces the history of the struggle for control of the Holy City since the UN partition plan of 1947.  [Al Jazeera, Oct. 30]  Amos Harel writes of an operation in which Israeli police acted with restraint in a village north of Jerusalem in "How to avert an Intifada". During yesterday’s operation, an undercover Jerusalem district police force surprised two suspects while they were meeting. One suspect tried to flee, but the cops were able to seize him. The other pulled out a pistol, but the police didn’t lose their cool. They pointed their weapons at him and in the end he dropped the gun and surrendered.  This incident in Anata, coming less than 48 hours after the police shooting in Kafr Kana, proves that the results of such confrontations are very dependent on the conduct of the policemen and soldiers involved....Whether the wave of violence that began in Jerusalem and is expanding to Arab communities in Israel following Hamdan’s death will spread further will be decided by how each such incident is handled....It seems that the police and army are making efforts to control and monitor their forces to prevent additional funerals. They aren’t getting much help from Israeli ministers and MKs. [Haaretz, Nov. 10]  Without a political solution, Netanyahu appears to be facing the limits of his security-based approach.  Netanyahu has built his career on opposing the creation of a Palestinian state, standing up to U.S. pressure for territorial compromise and sounding the alarm about Iran’s nuclear work. While he may be more pragmatic than some of his coalition partners, his coupling of low-key settlement expansion with fiery rhetoric has pushed Israel’s mainstream political median steadily to the right...The problem, of course, is that absent any political process to end the occupation, Netanyahu has precious few incentives to offer the increasingly disillusioned Palestinians for cooperation to restore security....Netanyahu now confronts a domestic security crisis for which he very deliberately offers no political solution. He has taken ending the occupation and Palestinian statehood off the agenda, but having seen off U.S. efforts to complete the peace process, he offers no alternative beyond the status quo. [Al Jazeera, Nov. 18]

Palestinian-Israeli Conflict October 19 - November 18 

Oct. 19 - Einas Khalil, a 5-year-old Palestinian kindergarten student, was killed in the West Bank by an Israeli settler who ran her over with his car. [1]
Oct. 22 - A Palestinian drove his car into a Jerusalem train station, killing a three-month-old Israeli-American baby girl, Chaya Zissel Brauna, and wounding several other people. A 22-year-old Ecuadorean woman, Karen Yemima Mosquera, died later of  wounds sustained in that attack. The Palestinian driver was shot and killed shortly after the incident. [1]
Oct. 24 - A Palestinian-American teenager was shot and killed by Israeli soldiers, and 12 Palestinians were wounded during protests.  Among other demands, Palestinian protesters want Israel to cease settlement activity in East Jerusalem and honor residents’ rights. [1]
Oct. 27 - Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged to continue building Jewish settlements in occupied East Jerusalem, despite stiff international criticism and rising tensions between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians in the contested city.  Earlier in the day, Netanyahu's government announced that it would advance plans to build about 1,000 Jewish-only housing units in east Jerusalem — an attempt, Palestinians said, to further cement Israel’s control over the city, creating “facts on the ground” that would keep Jerusalem under Israeli authority in a future peace deal. [1]
Oct. 29 - An extremist rabbi was seriously wounded in a drive-by attack.  The attack [followed] a conference, at the center, which focused on the reconstruction of a Jewish temple on top of al-Aqsa Mosque, with top right-wing Jewish officials and activists in attendance. [2]
Oct. 30 - His suspected attacker was shot dead by Israeli security forces.  The suspect attempted to evade arrest by climbing onto the roof of his house and hiding there behind solar panels.  According to Israeli sources, the Police Special Anti-Terror Unit closed in on him [and] he began shooting. The unit fired back, killing him. [3]  Palestinian sources have a different version:  The Fatah movement of Jerusalem said [the suspect's] killing amounted to an extrajudicial assassination by Israeli security forces....Hejazi was alive when Israeli forces arrived on the scene, [Palestinian news agency] Maan said, adding Hejazi died after a water tank was dropped on him. [4]
Oct. 31 - East Jerusalem’s Al-Aqsa mosque reopened to some Muslim worshippers after Israel had earlier ordered its closure, and following calls from the United States government and Arab countries to reverse the decision that sparked outrage. [4]
Nov. 6 - Seven Palestinians were injured...after being targeted with rubber-coated metal bullets and teargas grenades by Israeli forces, as citizens and Birzeit University scholars headed to Ofer military camp, to protest in solidarity with Jerusalem and the rising number of dead throughout Palestine. [5]
Nov. 14 - Thousands of Arab Israelis took to the streets of Israel...to protest at what they call Israeli assaults on al-Aqsa Mosque.  They were also demanding the prosecution of Israeli police who killed a 20-year old Palestinian man in northern Israel on 7 November....Hundreds of Palestinians also protested across the occupied West Bank on Friday in a campaign calling for free passage to Jerusalem and an end to the occupation. [6]
Nov. 18 - An attack by two Palestinian men on a synagogue in West Jerusalem has claimed the lives of five Israelis and injured eight others.  The Palestinian attackers, who police said were armed with a gun and axes, were shot dead by police...Following the incident, tens of Palestinians were injured in confrontations with Israeli settlers and security forces in both Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank. [7]
Sources
[1] "Netanyahu vows to continue building Jewish settlements in East Jerusalem" Al Jazeera, Oct. 27 
[2] "Extremist Israeli Rabbi Shot at Jerusalem Rally" International Middle East Media Center. Oct. 30
[3] "Israeli police kill Palestinian suspect in Jerusalem assassination attempt" Haaretz, Oct. 30
[4] "Israel to reopen Al-Aqsa mosque after Palestinian outrage over closure" Al Jazeera, Oct. 30
[5] "7 Palestinians Wounded During Protest near Ofer" International Middle East Media Center, Nov, 6 
[6] "Thousands of Palestinians protest in Israel and West Bank" Middle East Eye, Nov. 14
[7] "Five dead in attack on Jerusalem synagogue" Al Jazeera, Nov. 18


Links/In Brief
Ebola 
The United Nations World Health Organization (WHO) reported today that the number of Ebola cases is “no longer increasing nationally in Guinea and Liberia, but is still increasing in Sierra Leone”, and that preparedness teams have been sent this week to Benin, Burkina Faso, Gambia and Senegal....The WHO report issued late today in Geneva said 15,145 cases of Ebola virus disease had been reported in six affected countries (Guinea, Liberia, Mali, Sierra Leone, Spain and the United States of America) and two previously affected countries (Nigeria and Senegal) with 5,420 reported deaths. [UN News Centre, Nov. 19]

"Ebola: Mapping the outbreak" [BBC News, Nov. 21]

Mexico
"Mexico on the brink: thousands to protest over widespread corruption and student massacre" [The Guardian, Nov. 20]

"Molotov cocktails, clashes as thousands of Mexicans protest over massacre" [Reuters, Nov. 21]

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 - August 24, 2014

"I wonder how foreign policies would look if we ...thought of all children everywhere as our own. Then we could never...wage war anywhere, because wars, especially in our time, are always wars against children, indeed our children."

- Howard Zinn, A People's History of the United States

This is the weekly selection of news from sources outside the mainstream US corporate media.  Today we look at Syria, the Iran nuclear talks, Iraq, Gaza, Ukraine, and, in brief, the right-wing criticism of Obama's foreign policy.

Syria
More than 191,000 people have been killed in the Syrian conflict up to April, the UN human rights chief says.  Navi Pillay said the figure was "probably an underestimate" and criticised what she called "international paralysis" on the issue.  [BBC, Aug 22] Approximately one-third of the casualties are civilians.  Nine million Syrians have been displaced by the fighting.

On August 19, OPCW director Ahmet Üzümcü announced the completion of the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons.  The U.S. Maritime Vessel Cape Ray has completed destruction of its entire consignment of 600 metric tonnes of Category 1 chemicals from the Syrian Arab Republic. This ends a crucial stage in the complex international maritime operation to remove and destroy Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile...The Cape Ray’s consignment included the most dangerous chemicals in Syria’s arsenal: 581 metric tonnes of DF, a binary precursor for sarin gas, and 19.8 metric tonnes of ready-to-use sulfur mustard (HD).  The operation was completed weeks ahead of schedule and Üzümcü thanked and congratulated the United States, the crew aboard the Cape Ray, and our OPCW inspectors and demilitarisation experts for this remarkable achievement.

Iran Nuclear Talks
The IAEA's monthly update notes that Iran is moving to meet the terms of the extended nuclear talks.  The talks were extended last month to resolve differences in the permissible future scope of Iran's uranium enrichment.   Iran has started taking action to comply with the terms of an extended agreement with six world powers over its disputed atomic activities, a U.N. nuclear watchdog report obtained by Reuters on Wednesday showed. The findings in a monthly update by the International Atomic Energy Agency - though no major surprise - may be seen as positive by the West ahead of the expected resumption next month of negotiations on ending the decade-old nuclear dispute.  The IAEA document made clear that Iran is continuing to meet its commitments under the interim accord that it reached with the United States, France, Germany, Britain, China and Russia late last year and that took effect in January. [Reuters, August 20]

Iraq
The truth is violence never ceased in Iraq. The cracks never filled. The wounds never healed. Our continued support has been catastrophic, costing thousands of innocent lives and delivering the final blow to a divided society. ‘We need a comprehensive plan for the Middle East that correctly learns the lessons of the past decade,’ [wrote former Prime Minister Blair in a June 14 essay]. Sadly, he still appears to need to include himself in that ‘we’.  [Iraq Body Count website: "The Casualties of Support" by Lily Hamourtziadou, June 16]

In response to international criticism, Iraq's president Nuri al-Maliki agreed to resign on August 14. Maliki's critics, from Washington to Riyadh, say he has systematically alienated Sunnis from the political process, thus fuelling support for the Sunni militants of the Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS or ISIL) who have now seized towns and cities across northern Iraq and have threatened to march on Baghdad. The Islamist group, which now calls itself the Islamic State, poses the biggest threat to Iraqi stability since the fall of Saddam Hussein in 2003.  Sectarian and inter-religious violence has again become widespread, reaching levels not seen since unrest peaked in 2006-2007 in the era following the US-led invasion. [France24 website, Aug 15]

In a grim reminder of the civilian toll caused by 21st century wars, The Guardian website has re-posted a link to a 2010 video revealing the extent of violent civilian deaths following the US-led invasion.  As of YE 2009, 65% of the 109,000 violent Iraqi deaths were civilians.  The leaked documents led the UK-based organization Iraq Body Count to increase the civilian death toll by 15,000.  Iraq Body Count has continued to update its tally as sectarian fighting engulfs the country.  The figures as of August 22 are:

Documented civilian deaths from violence:  127,685 – 142,924  

Total violent deaths including combatants: 195,000

Gaza

The Egyptian-brokered talks and the ceasefire aimed at stopping the violence in Gaza collapsed on Tuesday and hostilities resumed.  The primary sticking point is the end of the seven-year blockade against Gaza, which would include the reopening of the air and seaports.  The blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt after Hamas came to power in 2006 has done much to destroy the Gaza economy and prevent the repair of buildings destroyed in the Israeli sieges of the enclave since then.  The violence since the end of the cease-fire has so far claimed 65 Palestinian and one Israeli life, bringing the total death toll for Palestinians in this latest siege to 2,090 - 70 to 80% are civilians - and for Israelis to 68,  four are civilians.

An offer from the EU was apparently on the table and receiving positive consideration by Hamas.  The European Union...offered to take charge of Gaza's border crossings and work to prevent illegal arms flows, insisting on a durable truce with Israel and saying a return to the status quo for the region "is not an option." ...Hamas negotiators met in Qatar with the group's leadership to discuss a proposal for a long-term truce with Israel. An official said the group was inclined to accept the Egyptian-mediated offer.  The Gaza blockade remains the main stumbling block to negotiating a truce. The blockade has greatly limited Palestinians’ movements in and out of the territory of 1.8 million people, restricted the flow of goods into Gaza and blocked virtually all exports...[The EU foreign ministers said,] "The situation in the Gaza Strip has been unsustainable for many years and a return to the status quo prior to the latest conflict is not an option." [Al Jazeera, August 15] 

Palestinians walk through rubble during a ceasefire
in the Shujai'iya residential neighbourhood of Gaza City.
Photograph: Mahmud Hams/AFP/Getty Images
(The Guardian, July 26)

It will be a long time before we know the actual reason the truce negotiations failed.  Mouin Rabini, in an opinion piece for Al Jazeera, writes:  Available reports coming out of the Cairo talks indicate that the Palestinian delegation showed flexibility on the implementation of any agreement, provided it entailed the removal rather than simply relaxation of the siege of the Gaza Strip. But any such truce, even if it conformed with the international consensus on ending the blockade of Gaza, would pose a major domestic political risk to the Israeli leader. Palestinian analyst Khalil Shaheen of the Palestinian think tank Masarat said, “It would be very difficult for Netanyahu to sign an agreement whose main element is the end of the siege and makes no mention of Palestinian disarmament and continue to declare victory.”  Meanwhile the blockade, death and destruction in Gaza continue as Israel attempts to destroy Hamas and end the Palestinian unity government. The international community makes the right noises but, in the end, stands by impotently.

Links
 [Haaretz, August 22] The Israeli newspaper Haaretz pointedly asks "How many Palestinian civilians is a single militant worth?" As of Thursday, 76.8 percent of the 2,090 fatalities documented by the Gazan human rights organization Mizan have been civilians.

[Al Jazeera, July 31] "Gaza’s kids affected psychologically, physically by lifetime of violence" - Beyond the immediate loss in Gaza... Israel’s onslaught will have long-term mental and physical effects on the Palestinian children who survived weeks of airstrikes and naval and tank shelling. 

[The Nation, July 16 post; Aug 4-11 print edition] "The War on Gaza and the Cycle of Impunity" - If Israel is not brought to justice, it will commit the same crimes again and again.

Ukraine
A controversial Russian aid convoy to eastern Ukraine has been completed. After being delayed at the Ukrainian border for a week, the convoy proceeded without permission from the government in Kiev.  Russia’s Foreign Ministry has confirmed humanitarian aid has been delivered to the besieged city of Lugansk in eastern Ukraine. Meanwhile all trucks that delivered aid had returned to Russia....All trucks have returned empty, Ukrainian and Russian border guards confirmed, Russian Deputy Emergency Minister Eduard Chizhikov said....The Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) also confirmed that all 227 vehicles that entered Ukraine as part of a Russian aid convoy have now returned home....The convoy approached the Russian-Ukrainian border on August 14, and only entered Ukraine a week later, as Kiev had been postponing its final approval for the trucks to go ahead. [Russia Times, Aug 23]  Getting to the aid is being complicated by the continuing hostilities in the area.  Rebel leaders in Luhansk said the aid had been delivered and that distribution would begin, but pro-Russia media said that shelling was preventing people from getting to the aid...Meanwhile, [German Chancellor Angela] Merkel arrived in Kiev on Saturday for talks with Ukraine's president Petro Poroshenko... She later said that the standoff over Ukraine could be solved but only if control was tightened over the Ukraine-Russia border. "There must be two sides to be successful. You cannot achieve peace on your own. I hope the talks with Russia will lead to success," Merkel said, looking ahead to the meeting on Tuesday involving Putin and Poroshenko. [The Guardian, August 23]

In Brief - The Attacks on Obama's Foreign Policy

[Daily Kos, August 12, "Obama slams reporter's right-wing adopted talking point as bogus" ] It is a continuum of doing stupid stuff and being presumptuous internationally that has cost us thousands of lives, cost hundreds of thousands of lives overseas, and depleted our treasury. Those who criticize President Obama for being overcautious should check history for America’s continuous blunders internationally that have kept us at war for decades with little marginal increase in security (Iraq twice, Iran, Panama, Grenada, Vietnam, Dominican Republic, etc.) 

Earth to Hillary: We don't need an ignorant hawk in the White House

Updates and Briefs

"It's About Humanity. Pray for Gaza."
- Selena Gomez' Instagram

Gaza
The Palestinian death toll from the Israeli attacks now exceeds 650.  An estimated two-thirds of the Palestinian dead, more than 400, are civilians.  The civilian dead include at least 147 children and 74 women.  The Israeli civilian death toll stands at 2.  In an article published today, The Irish Times reported on the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights statement that "that Israel may be committing war crimes in Gaza, where its punitive house demolitions and killing of children raise the 'strong possibility' that it is violating international law."  The comments came at an emergency debate at the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva.  Ms. Pillay also condemned the indiscriminate firing of rockets and mortars by Hamas into Israel.  The Irish Times reported on John Kerry's diplomatic efforts: "In a sign of the intensity of the US diplomacy, Mr Kerry spoke to Qatari and Turkish foreign ministers after meeting [Egyptian President] Sisi for two hours, a senior US official said."  So far there is no sign of a letup in the fighting.  The article quotes a 17 year old Palestinian on the desperation of the Gazans fleeing their homes in the face of the Israeli onslaught: “Columns of people are heading west of Beit Hanoun, looking for a safe shelter. This is not war, this is annihilation."

In a companion article, Ambassador Patricia O'Brien, Ireland's representative to the meeting of the Human Rights Council, is quoted: “Irish people have been appalled by the upsurge of violence in Gaza, and especially the very high and unacceptable level of civilian casualties.  It is clear to us that neither side is paying adequate regard to the cost of their actions on innocent civilians.”   Ms O’ Brien said no ceasefire would last without a serious political effort to 'address the causes of the disastrous situation in Gaza'...The continued absence for people in Gaza of any political or economic perspective for the future is a breeding ground for extremist action.”  Would that some US politicians had the courage and moral clarity of the 57 year old UN Ambassador O'Brien and the 21 year old entertainer Selena Gomez.

Obamacare Rulings
"Two federal appeals court panels issued conflicting rulings Tuesday on whether the government could subsidize health insurance premiums for [4.5 million] Americans...By a vote of 2 to 1, a panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down a regulation issued by the Internal Revenue Service that authorizes the payment of premium subsidies in states that rely on the federal insurance exchange...Within hours, a unanimous three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit, in Richmond, Va., issued a ruling that came to the opposite conclusion."  [NYTimes, July 22] The rulings will not affect consumers immediately as the Obama Administration will continue to provide subsidies until the appeals process takes place.  Despite the Obama Administration's optimism that the D.C. panel will be overruled, this has the potential to reach the Supreme Court.  The Supreme Court has already weakened the Affordable Care Act considerably in its ruling that states were not required to expand Medicaid.  Just because Chief Justice Roberts voted once to uphold the law - so his court would not look like a total political shill - doesn't mean he will do it again.  Just a brief review of the rulings of this court will show that he's apparently no longer concerned about the court's credibility.

Constitutional Amendment to Overturn Citizens United and McCutcheon vs. FEC
One way to amend the constitution is for 2/3 of the states (34) to call for a Constitutional Convention to consider the amendment.  Two states (California and Vermont) have passed such resolutions to overturn the Supreme Court rulings that have removed campaign finance limits.  A third state, Illinois, is considering a similar resolution.  A total of 16 states have passed resolutions or ballot initiatives to overturn Citizens United.   The other way to amend the Constitution is for Congress, by a 2/3 vote, to send the amendment to the states for ratification.  The amendment is enacted once 3/4 of the states (38) approve it.  On July 10, in a straight party line vote, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted to approve an amendment that would restore to Congress and the States the power to regulate the financing of political campaigns.  The party line vote means that it is unlikely that the amendment will be referred to the states.  So, for now, it is up to individual states to call for a Constitutional Convention. [TPM, July 10]

Iran Completes Conversion of 20% Uranium
The BBC reported on July 20: "Iran has turned all of its enriched uranium closest to the level needed to make nuclear arms into more harmless forms, the UN nuclear agency says...A new report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) says Iran is observing all of its other commitments as well."  This was a major diplomatic victory for Obama's Iran policy and nary a peep was heard in the US corporate media.

Record June Temperatures
"The combined average temperature over global land and ocean surfaces for June 2014 was the highest on record for the month, at 0.72°C (1.30°F) above the 20th century average of 15.5°C (59.9°F)." [NOAA, Global Analysis - June 2014]

Sunday Roundup - July 20, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at the war against Gaza, the downing of Malaysian Airlines flight MH17, the Iran nuclear talks, the World Cup, and Nelson Mandela.

“We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians.”

- Nelson Mandela

Gaza

Nelson Mandela would have been 96 on Friday.  His quote on the Palestinians came after South Africa had shaken off the shackles of apartheid.  The Palestinians remain oppressed 66 years after they were driven from their homes during the civil war for Palestine and the first Arab-Israeli War.  Their situation parallels that of black South Africans in many ways.  As was the case with South Africa, the US is late in denouncing oppression in the Occupied Territories.

Bad as the general situation of the Palestinians is, the conditions in Gaza border on the horrific.  The UN estimates that Gaza will become unlivable by 2020.  Both the EU and the US are complicit in the situation.  When Palestinian elections brought Hamas to power in the Occupied Territories in 2006, the West decided to ignore the results and isolate the elected government, Abbas took power in the West Bank, and Israel instituted a devastating blockade on Gaza that continues to this day.

The current war against Gaza marks the third time in the last 5 years that Israel has bombed and invaded Gaza.  After sabotaging the "Kerry" peace talks and after Hamas and the Palestinian Authority formed a unity government, Israel waited for an excuse to bring down the unity government and destroy Hamas.  The weakening of the unity government was aided and abetted greatly by the West's actions.  As Nathan Thrall writes in a July 17 Op-Ed for the New York Times: ...the most immediate cause of this latest war has been ignored: Israel and much of the international community placed a prohibitive set of obstacles in the way of the Palestinian “national consensus” government that was formed in early June....Israel immediately sought to undermine the reconciliation agreement by preventing Hamas leaders and Gaza residents from obtaining the two most essential benefits of the deal: the payment of salaries to 43,000 civil servants who worked for the Hamas government and continue to administer Gaza under the new one, and the easing of the suffocating border closures imposed by Israel and Egypt that bar most Gazans’ passage to the outside world.

The Israelis found their excuse for resuming hostilities against Hamas by wrongly blaming the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers on Hamas and then whipping up resentment and hatred of Palestinians to a fever pitch and assassinating seven members of Hamas.  The IDF's killing of Palestinian civilians has not yet reached the level of 2008-9 invasion ("Operation Cast Lead") but the current ground invasion was proceeded by a particularly tragic incident in which four Palestinian children were killed by Israelis warplanes.  How a nine year old playing hide and seek on a coastal road looks like a militant to one of the world's most powerful and sophisticated armed forces is incomprehensible.

And so the violence continues.  As the editors of The Nation write:  Achieving a cease-fire will be difficult, given the regional upheavals... But unless the deeper issues are addressed, 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.  It was the United States that prevented Goldstone’s recommendations from getting a fair hearing in the UN—and it’s the United States, the world’s sole superpower, the key bankroller of Israel’s military, and the unconditional defender of Israel in international forums, that bears deep responsibility for the continuation of the decades-long occupation. 

It is time for Hamas to accept the terms brokered by the international community if only to prevent additional Israeli war crimes.  Hamas' refusal to accept an unconditional cease-fire - they want the release of the 400 political prisoners recently jailed by Israel and an end to the seven-year blockade - is apparently isolating them in the eyes of the international community.  Unfortunately, much of the world is turning a blind eye to the Israeli atrocities and there is little hope that Israel will end the violence unless Hamas agrees to the unconditional cease fire.  Of course, little mention is made in the Western press of the disproportionate Israeli response to the Hamas rocket firings: As Israel pressed ahead with a ground offensive in Gaza on Saturday morning, the death toll of Palestinians rose above 300, many of them children. An early morning air strike outside a mosque in the southern city of Khan Yunis killed seven people on Saturday, including a woman, emergency services spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said. Other raids shortly afterwards killed another four, bringing the total death toll to 307 Palestinians and two Israelis. [The Guardian, July 19]  Most of the deaths have been civilians - estimated before the ground invasion to be on the order of 80%.

If Israelis are not held accountable for their crimes this time and if the West does not give strong support to the Palestinian unity government, there is little hope that the blockade on Gaza will ever be lifted or that Palestinians will ever have a viable homeland.  With the death tolls being what they are and with the widespread destruction of civilian facilities and homes wreaked by Israeli bombings, it seems the IDF is a more effective terror organization than Hamas.  It also seems incredible that the international community is not pressuring Israel to stop the onslaught against Gaza given that there is no effective resistance and no damage being done by Hamas rockets.  Yes, Hamas is being obstinate but all the killing is being done by Israelis.

Malaysian Airlines MH17

Tragedies continue for Malaysian Airlines.  Flight MH17 was apparently shot down by a missile in the Ukraine war zone.  Both sides in the civil war deny responsibility.  This is the kind of disaster that might have occurred over Syria had the US armed the rebels fighting the Assad regime with missile launchers as some of our stupider Congressional hawks were advising several months ago.  Deutsche Welle lists five previous incidents of civilian air craft being shot down by missiles: the 1973 downing of a Libyan passenger plane by Israeli fighter jets, the 1980 Italian airliner brought down near Sicily (no admission of responsibility), the 1983 South Korean airliner shot down by Soviet fighter jets, the 1988 Iranian Airbus shot down by missiles from a US warship in the Strait of Hormuz, and the 2003 Russian airliner shot down by an accidentally fired Ukrainian missile during a military exercise in Crimea.

Iran
Iran and six world powers have agreed to a four-month extension of negotiations on a nuclear deal with Tehran after failing to meet a July 20 deadline due to "significant gaps" between the two sides, the European Union and Iran said on Saturday....It has been clear for days that Iran and the six powers would miss the Sunday deadline to reach an accord on curbing Iran's nuclear programme in exchange for the gradual lifting of sanctions due to disagreements on a number of key issues. 

Among the issues dividing them are the permissible scope of Iran's nuclear fuel production capacity and how to address the country's suspected past atomic bomb research. [Al Jazeera, July 19]  I hope I'm wrong. but I expect the next step for Congressional hawks and AIPAC-supported Senators will be to try to sabotage the talks by passing additional sanctions against Iran.

Brazil and the World Cup
After all the talk about Neymar and Brazil and about Messi and Argentina, it was methodical, "boring" Germany that came away with the 2014 World Cup.  I watched, stunned with most of the world, as Germany dismantled Brazil in the semi-final with five goals over a span of 18 minutes in the first half. Germany went on to beat Argentina in overtime in the final and earned a #1 rating along with the World Cup. On July 14, Mother Jones ran an interview with Brazilian journalist Juliana Barbassa who discussed the soccer protests, the potential political fallout for president Dilma Roussef, and the rise of the Brazilian middle class.  Now that the World Cup is over, will the protests return?  It's very unpredictable...I do think people are more awake and aware about their rights and what's owed to them. I don't know if they're unhappy enough to change it...We haven't grown since 2010. Jobs are still plentiful. Inflation is rising, but it's not out of control. If those numbers start to change and people start to feel like they're going to the supermarket and they can't get as much as they used to—if it starts hitting people in the areas where it matters—I think that we might see more unrest.

Nelson Mandela

Nelson Mandela's 96th birthday was celebrated Friday.  The Nobel Peace Prize winner was instrumental in ending apartheid in South Africa.  The Common Dreams website published a list of Mandela quotes you were not likely to see in the mainstream press remembrances of the man.  Besides the quote above on the oppression of the Palestinians, here's another one of the dozen quotes in the article: “Overcoming poverty is not a task of charity, it is an act of justice. Like Slavery and Apartheid, poverty is not natural. It is man-made and it can be overcome and eradicated by the actions of human beings. Sometimes it falls on a generation to be great. YOU can be that great generation. Let your greatness blossom.”  

Links

Where is the outrage?  (July 16)

History of the Israeli Palestinian Conflict -  World War I - 1949, 1950-2000, 2000-2012

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]