Sunday Roundup - December 7, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Eric Garner's death, US deportations, Israeli politics, Senator Harkin on Obamacare, Ukraine, and in brief, South Sudan and Gaza.

Correction to December 3 post, "The Death of Michael Brown": The original post gave the distance from the shooter, Darren Wilson, to Michael Brown as 148 feet as estimated by an independent source.  148 feet was the distance from Darren Wilson's SUV to the point where Michael Brown had run as estimated by the independent source.

Eric Garner

Midtown New York, Dec. 5, Credit: REUTERS/Adrees Latif

A grand jury once again failed to indict after the death of an unarmed African-American at the hands of a white police officer.  The victim this time was Eric Garner and the place was New York City.  The case of New York Police Department officer David Pantaleo wasn’t supposed to be like Ferguson. There was a video showing how a simple stop for selling untaxed cigarettes turned into a chokehold — a move prohibited by the NYPD. The medical examiner ruled the incident a homicide. Eric Garner repeatedly shouted “I can’t breathe” just before he died.  Yet, as in Ferguson, the Staten Island grand jury voted not to indict Pantaleo for anything, leaving the nation — even legal experts – exasperated, frustrated, and grasping to understand why. [Think Progress, Dec. 3]  The White House announced a civil rights investigation as protesters took to the streets.  The US attorney general, Eric Holder, has announced a federal investigation into “potential civil rights violations” around the death of Eric Garner after a grand jury decided not to indict Daniel Pantaleo, the New York police officer who placed the unarmed black man in a chokehold.  Thousands of demonstrators disrupted New York City traffic into the early hours of Thursday after the grand jury verdict. Mostly peaceful protests had sprung up on Wednesday evening at locations throughout Manhattan, including Grand Central Terminal, Times Square and near Rockefeller Center, after the panel returned no indictment. [The Guardian, Dec. 4]  Protests in New York have continued into the weekend.  Protests over U.S. police violence against minorities, sparked by grand-jury decisions not to charge officers in two high-profile cases, were peaceful on their third night in New York although 20 arrests took place, authorities said on Saturday.  Protesters were arrested for disorderly conduct and blocking traffic on the city's FDR Drive, a major artery that runs along the eastern side of Manhattan....The wave of angry protests began on Wednesday when a New York grand jury declined to bring charges against white officer Daniel Pantaleo in the chokehold death of Eric Garner, a black 43-year-old father of six. [Reuters, Dec. 6]

Related
‘I can’t breathe’: Why Eric Garner protests are gaining momentum [Reuters, Dec. 5]  “Black Lives Matter” has become, like an earlier generation’s use of the terms “Freedom Now” and “We Shall Overcome,” an anthem for contemporary civil and human rights activism. The struggle for black equality historically and now, offers us all a chance to transform and save American democracy.

US Deportations
The American Civil Liberties Union released a report on Dec. 4 that underscores a troublesome pattern that has received far less attention [than Obama's immigration plan]: Of the 438,421 people deported in 2013, 83 percent received a summary removal, meaning that they were sent to their country of origin by US officials without a hearing. And according to the ACLU's research, many of these removals were illegal: Asylum seekers, unaccompanied kids, and others who may have qualified for relief routinely have been turned away.  There has been a backlog in the immigration court for many years and the deportations are being made using a 1996 law that, in theory, prevents immigration courts from being completely inundated while also providing safeguards...But according to the ACLU's findings, these protocols aren't often followed...No one, the ACLU included, seems to be able to provide a realistic solution to the immigration court backlog; it's undeniable that if all those requesting asylum were given a trial, the system would be further clogged.  [Mother Jones, Dec.4]

Israel
Benjamin Netanyahu's government collapsed after the ouster of two cabinet ministers who opposed the so-called "Jewish state" bill.  Three days after the Peace Now demonstration outside the Prime Minister’s home in Jerusalem, which featured a call for toppling and replacing Benjamin Netanyahu’s government, the government did in fact collapse. The Knesset is in the process of dissolving itself and its members have already agreed on a date for early elections.  Israelis will go to the polls on March 17, almost two full years before the end of the term of this government. [Americans for Peace Now, Dec. 3]  I'd like to share APN's optimism that the elections will bring to power an Israeli government committed to a two-state solution, but Israeli politics and public opinion continue to move to the right.  A new poll published Sunday in the Haaretz newspaper showed that while Netanyahu’s popularity is currently down, Israelis continue to support him over other prime ministerial candidates. Asked which politician is most suited to be prime minister, 35% answered Netanyahu....The same poll showed shrinking support for Lapid’s [the fired  finance minister's] centrist party and for the centrist-left-wing parties Hatnuah and Labor. The only parties to show gains are the right-wing Jewish Home and Israel Beiteinu Parties. [BuzzFeed, Dec. 3]
The UN overwhelmingly passed a non-binding resolution urging Israel to renounce possession of nuclear weapons and put its nuclear facilities under UN supervision and criticizing the country for not being part of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.  Israel possesses an estimated 80 nuclear weapons.  The resolution calls on Israel to "accede to that treaty without further delay, not to develop, produce, test or otherwise acquire nuclear weapons, to renounce possession of nuclear weapons," and put its nuclear facilities under the safeguard of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency...Israel, which is believed to have nuclear arms but has never admitted to it, has long been under fire from Arab countries in the region for not putting its alleged stockpile under international supervision.  The resolution, initiated by Egypt, was approved by 161 nations with only five voting against it and 18 abstentions.  [Russia Times, Dec. 3]

Senator Harkin:  We Should Have Passed Single-Payer
The coauthor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act regrets that the filibuster-proof Senate of 2009 did not pass a single payer healthcare system instead.  Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the co-authors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.  The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.  He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress....Harkin, who is retiring at the end of this Congress, says in retrospect the Democratic-controlled Senate and House should have enacted a single-payer healthcare system or a public option to give the uninsured access to government-run health plans that compete with private insurance companies.  “We had the votes in ’09. We had a huge majority in the House, we had 60 votes in the Senate,” he said.  He believes Congress should have enacted “single-payer right from the get-go or at least put a public option would have simplified a lot....  We had the votes to do that and we blew it,” he said....Harkin...believes Obama and Democratic leaders could have enacted better policy had they stood up to three centrists who balked at the public option: Sens. Joe Lieberman (Conn.), a Democrat turned independent, Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.) and Ben Nelson (D-Neb.). [The Hill, Dec. 3]  

Ukraine
In spite of recent fighting near the Donetsk airport, there is hope for the shaky ceasefire in eastern Ukraine.  Ukraine and the pro-Russian rebels said Thursday they had agreed to halt fire on December 9 under the terms of a truce aimed at ending one of Europe's bloodiest conflicts in decades.  The unexpected announcement provides the latest glimmer of hope that fighting across the eastern rustbelt of the ex-Soviet nation was nearing to a close after eight months that saw 4,300 people killed and shattered Moscow's ties with the West....A source in [Ukrainian President] Poroshenko's office said the president's statement meant Ukraine would begin withdrawing heavy weapons from the eastern frontline on December 10 -- as long as the separatists also observed the truce....Several truce deals announced in the course of the war were broken within days by both rebels and Ukrainian soldiers who refused to listen to their political leaders. The head of the neighbouring self-proclaimed Lugansk People's Republic said a ceasefire that would begin in mid-December was discussed at the [September] Minsk negotiations. [AFP/ via Yahoo News, Dec. 4]

Related
"How can the West solve its Ukraine problem?" [BBC News, Dec. 3] Russia badly overplayed its hand last year ...The European Union is now risking the same thing by trying to bring Ukraine into the West without reference to economic reality or the willingness of European publics to bear the enormous costs involved.  The author lays out the economic and political reality in the Ukraine and the compromises needed by both sides for a lasting peace.

In Brief
South Sudan
The civil war in South Sudan claimed at least 50 000 lives so far [enca.com, Nov. 15]

"South Sudan: the impact of war and the importance of peace"  [The Guardian, Nov. 26] 
While South Sudan peace talks continue in Ethiopia and Tanzania, bitterly divided communities look for solutions closer to home.  The civil war in South Sudan has so far claimed at least 50,000 lives.

Gaza
U.N. begins inquiry into attacks and weapons in Gaza [Reuters, Dec. 3]

Project launched to clear Gaza rubble: UN begins clearing some 2.5 million tons of rubble from Strip, courtesy of $3.2 million donation from Sweden. [YNet/AP, Dec. 3]

Palestinian engineer has developed a replacement for cement to help the Gaza Strip deal with its housing crisis after the Israeli war [World Bulletin, Dec. 5] 
Since the July-August war, in which more than 2,100 Palestinians and 70 Israelis were killed, barely any progress has been made rebuilding the shattered territory, despite donors pledging $5 billion.  Israel tightly monitors the import of construction materials and equipment into Gaza, arguing that otherwise it could be used to rebuild tunnels used by Hamas who control the strip.  Palestinian officials and critics of Israeli policy say that has made it impossible to rebuild, leaving 40,000 of the strip's 1.8 million residents in temporary shelter and thousands more facing winter in barely habitable ruins. 

Sunday Roundup - September 28, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media. Today we look at the US airstrikes in Syria, the UN climate change summit, Ukraine, South Sudan, the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and Derek Jeter.

US Airstrikes
This past week, the United States expanded its role in the Middle East war by conducting airstrikes inside Syria - targeting Khorasan, a previously obscure group, as well as Islamic State. Democracy Now! spoke with Patrick Cockburn, the Middle East correspondent for The Independent, on September 24.  Asked to explain why we are suddenly hearing about Khorasan, who have been painted as an offshoot of al-Qaeda with designs on US targets, Cockburn replied, "One’s a little suspicious that the administration, those who are carrying out the bombing, may want to say to its audience in America that here are people we’re attacking who are about to attack you in the homeland, which ISIS didn’t show much sign of doing. So that might be one reason why this obscure group is suddenly given such publicity."  The situation is chaotic - groups on both sides of the ongoing Syrian Civil War are now fighting ISIS - and the risk of civilian casualties is rising as the airstrikes hit targets near the Turkish border, close to an area where tens of thousands of Kurds have fled to escape from militants tied to the Islamic State group.  Without a truce in Syrian Civil War, U.S.-led strikes threaten more chaos for the world’s worst crisis.  Meanwhile Dan Roberts, writing in The Guardian on September 23, notes that US lawyers are tying themselves up in legal knots justifying the airstrikes in Syria.  The US...argued [to the UN] that there was legal right to pursue Isis inside Syria due to the weakness of that country’s government – a regime the US has been actively urging be undermined by rebel groups for much of the past two years....The legal circumlocutions to avoid requesting a UN security council resolution match similar efforts to avoid requesting specific legal authority from Congress.  Fearing that US politicians up for re-election in November may balk at voting for a third military attack on Iraq and being sucked into a Syrian quagmire, the White House has avoided seeking a fresh authorisation of the use of military force, preferring to rely on early authorisations against al-Qaida granted after the 11 September 2001 attacks.  

UN Climate Change Summit
In advance of the UN Climate Change Summit, marches were held worldwide to demand action on global warming.  ecowatch.com reported on September 21: Today in New York City more than 300,000 people attended what is now known as the largest climate action in world history.  The march in New York City was by far the largest of the 2,808 People’s Climate rallies that took place today in 166 countries from around the world. From the crowded streets of New Delhi to Melbourne to Johannesburg, hundreds of thousands of people took part in the weekend’s global events.  

From RTCC website
Note: COP20 is held in December, 2014

The Summit itself featured speeches and commitments to action.  Perhaps the most encouraging announcement was that of China's Vice Premier Zhang Gaoli  who went a step further than China has ever gone before in announcing that the country's emissions of manmade greenhouse gases would peak "as early as possible."  China, with its 1.3 billion people and heavy reliance on coal is the world's top emitter of carbon dioxide.  Xie Zhenhua, vice-chairman of China's National Development and Reform Commission, told reporters that "weather extremes have greatly affected the Chinese people." Xie said weather extremes have cost China more than 200 billion Renminbi [about $32 billion] per year. “The losses are extensive in China," Xie said, noting that climate impacts extend to "water, land and people." These impacts, along with China's staggering air pollution problem, are forcing China to take action both on climate mitigation...and adaptation. Perhaps the most disappointing item was the sorry state of the Green Climate Fund. The Green Climate Fund came out of the December 2009 Copenhagen Conference. Industrialized nations promised to provide financial assistance to developing countries to ease their transition off fossil fuels, and combat climate change impacts....On Tuesday, a total of about $1.3 billion in new pledges were announced from Denmark, France, South Korea, Norway, Mexico and three smaller nations. The lack of a U.S. financial commitment on Tuesday was noteworthy....“The pledges announced here still leave the fund with less than a sixth of the total developed countries should commit,” Tim Gore, head of climate policy for aid group Oxfam, said in a statement. "All eyes are now on those yet to stump up, including the U.S., UK, Australia, Canada, Japan and New Zealand, and on the devil in the detail of those pledges made today."  [Mashable, September 24]

Ukraine
The ceasefire in the Ukraine is holding but The Moscow Times reminded us of the human costs of the war.  After fleeing to Russia from Ukraine's conflict-torn east, nearly 390,000 people have formally registered as refugees, Russian children's ombudsman Pavel Astakhov said late Wednesday.  More than a quarter of the refugees — about 100,000 of them — are children...In total, some 870,000 residents of eastern Ukraine are currently in Russia,...However, the majority of those have not formally sought refugee status...The total casualty count, including civilians and combatants, stood at 3,500 in eastern Ukraine's rebel-held Donbass region. [The Moscow Times, September 25]

Earlier this month, the Ukrainian Parliament voted to grant additional autonomy to provinces of eastern Ukraine ("the Donbass").  On September 16, The Guardian reported on the legislation, which include, among other provisions:
• The rebel-held Luhansk and Donetsk regions will be granted a "special status" giving them broader autonomy for a three-year period...
• Use of the Russian language to be allowed in state institutions....
• The legislation also promises to help restore damaged infrastructure and to provide social and economic assistance to particularly hard-hit areas....
• Another bill on amnesty protects from criminal prosecution "participants of events in the Donetsk and Luhansk regions" 

South Sudan

The civil war in South Sudan continues.  The country has teetered for months on the brink of a man-made famine.  The Guardian's Andrew Greene reports on the agencies battling to stave off starvation in South Sudan’s civil war sanctuaries.  Jean-Louis de Brouwer, a senior European commission official, says that while the worst appears to have been averted for the time being, 3.5 million people still face severe food shortages.  Delivering aid to the stricken region is difficult - especially during the rainy season (April-November).  Over the past six months, the World Food Programme and UN Children’s Fund (Unicef) has turned to a rapid response mechanism (RRM). When the combatants allow, the agencies fly teams of experts by helicopter into remote areas to gauge food and health needs. Local leaders rally communities to come and register. While people sign up for food rations, health workers are on standby to put measuring tapes around children’s arms and quickly assess whether they are malnourished.  At the end of the registration, after health workers have started underweight children on a course of treatment and injected vaccines, there is a massive distribution of sorghum, lentils, salt and oil. Children who are under five years old also receive a heavily fortified porridge.  There have been 23 completed RRMs so far, reaching more than 460,000 people, according to Unicef.

Occupied Palestinian Territory
The Guardian reported on Thursday of the breakthrough agreement between Hamas and the Palestinian Authority that would turn over the civil administration of Gaza immediately to officials of a Palestinian unity government led by President Mahmoud Abbas.  The agreement, negotiated in Cairo, is designed to ease the long blockade of Gaza by Israel and Egypt and open the way to reconstruction of the war-ravaged coastal entity. A recent Palestinian Authority study estimated the cost of reconstruction in Gaza following this summer’s 50-day conflict with Israel at $7.8bn (£4.8bn). Palestinian officials said the agreement would allow the Palestinian Authority to take control over the border crossings of the Gaza Strip, including the crucial Rafah crossing into Egypt.

From the antiwar.com website

Palestinians have been under Israeli military occupation since 1967. The occupation is currently the longest anywhere in the world and the only one in which the occupying power controls the entire homeland of another people.  The Guardian reported Friday on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' UN speech calling on the Security Council to support a resolution setting a clear deadline for Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories....Abbas declared the American-backed Israel-Palestinian peace process which has dragged on for two decades dead, saying it was “impossible to return to negotiations...that failed to deal with the substance of the matter and the fundamental question. There is neither credibility nor seriousness in negotiations in which Israel predetermines the results via its settlement activities and the occupation’s brutality.  There is no meaning or value in negotiations for which the agreed objective is not ending the Israeli occupation and achieving the independence of the state of Palestine with East Jerusalem as its capital on the entire Palestinian territory occupied in the 1967 war.  And, there is no value in negotiations which are not linked to a firm timetable for the implementation of this goal.”...[Abbas] also accused Israel of “war crimes carried out before the eyes of the world” during the recent 50-day Gaza war that ended in a ceasefire on 26 August...“We will not forget and we will not forgive, and we will not allow war criminals to escape punishment,” Abbas declared. Palestinian officials were expected to start working with members of the security council to seek backing for a resolution setting a time frame for the ending of what he called the “racist and colonial” occupation – a resolution certain to be opposed by the US....[ If he is faced with a veto of the resolution by the United States,] Palestinian sources say Abbas will accelerate moves to join UN and international bodies, including accession to the international criminal court.  

Derek Jeter

Derek Jeter after his game-winning hit
Photo by Corey Sipkin/Daily News/Published 9/26/14

Had one presented Hollywood with the story of Derek Jeter's final game at Yankee Stadium, the script would have been rejected.  Too implausible for today's movie audiences...no one would believe it.   The all-time baseball great said goodbye to his hometown fans with a flourish that those present will remember for the rest of their lives.  To start with, the game was in danger of being cancelled because of the rain showers soaking the metropolitan area all day.  The skies cleared a bit and, fifteen minutes before game time, a rainbow appeared over the stadium,  The game began.  Jeter knocked in 3 runs for the Yankees - one with a double in the first inning, one on a misplayed fielder's choice that put the Yankees ahead in the 7th, and then the game winner in the bottom of the ninth.  His appearance at the plate in the ninth was totally unexpected.  After all, the Yankees were up by 3 runs going into the top of the ninth and their ace closer was set to mow down the Oriole batters to preserve the victory, right?  Not. Baltimore scored 3 runs on two homers to tie the game.  In the bottom of the ninth with the Yankees at bat...a single, a pinch runner, a sacrifice bunt and there was a man in scoring position with Derek Jeter coming to the plate. On the first pitch, Jeter, as he had so often, lined a single to right.  The runner raced around third and beat the throw to the plate.  From the ESPN New York's blog: The walk-off single...caused Yankee Stadium to explode the way it had when Jeter and Yankees teams from a previous era were winning championships seemingly every year. Jeter was mobbed on the field after the game by current teammates as well as former ones, including Jorge Posada, Mariano Rivera, Bernie Williams, Tino Martinez and former manager Joe Torre.  The only place where Jeter lost tonight was in a battle with his emotions. As the crowd chanted his name and gave him a thunderous, spontaneous standing ovation in the eighth inning -- prompting him to tip his cap around the ballpark -- the normally stoic Jeter was clearly struggling to maintain his composure. 

There are quite a few "most memorable moments" slideshows and videos out there.  Here's a link to one of the best: The Top 10 most iconic GIFs of Derek Jeter's brilliant career [SB Nation, Sep 25]

Sunday Roundup - August 17, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US corporate mainstream media.  Today we look at Republican economic myths, Ukraine, Gaza, South Sudan, and Robin Williams.

US Economy
298,000 jobs were added in June and another 209,000 in July as the US economy continues its long, slow recovery from the Great Recession.  A few months after Obama's election, I was in an auto collision repair shop and spied a cartoon with Obama dressed like Steve Urkel complete with the goofy eyeglass frames. Obama/Urkel was looking at a downward sloping line and quipping "Did I do that?"  Conservatives and the more ill-informed loved to blame the recession on Obama, regardless of the facts.  Combined with similar misinformation on the Affordable Care Act,  it was enough to give them the House in the 2010 midterms.  Dave Johnson, blogging at Daily Kos has updated "Three Charts to Email to Your Right-Wing Brother-in-Law" based on the latest government data on the economy.  The facts and conclusions easily drawn from the three charts:

• Government spending increased dramatically under President Bush (88%).  It has not increased much under President Obama (3.78%).
• People who claim that Obama "tripled the deficit" or increased it or anything of the sort are either misled or are trying to mislead. President Obama inherited a budget deficit of $1.4 trillion from President Bush's last budget year and annual budget deficits have gone down dramatically since
• The stimulus reversed what was going on before the stimulus. We have gone from losing around 850,000 jobs a month to gaining over 200,000 jobs a month.  Conclusion: THE STIMULUS WORKED BUT WAS NOT ENOUGH

There is plenty more good information in the article that puts the lie to other Republican myths about the economy and Obama's handling of it.  Johnson concludes: These things really matter.  We all want to fix the terrible problems the country has.  But it is so important to know just what the problems are before you decide how to fix them.  Otherwise the things you do to try to solve those problems might just make them worse – just as laying off government workers in a recession makes unemployment worse.

Ukraine

The death toll from conflict in eastern Ukraine has doubled in the past fortnight, the UN's human rights office said on Wednesday, as international wrangling continued over a controversial Russian aid convoy to the region.The UN office said its "very conservative estimates" suggested the death toll has risen to 2,086 by the beginning of this week, up from 1129 on 26 July. ...The huge convoy set off from the Moscow region on Tuesday. The Kremlin says its 260 military trucks – hastily repainted white by Russian soldiers – contain humanitarian supplies for residents in the east trapped by fighting. [The Guardian, August 13]

Gaza
Negotiations
A temporary cease-fire has been extended until Monday August 18.  Negotiators are struggling to come up with a more permanent solution before the new five-day ceasefire expires.  Khalil al-Haya, the Palestinian group’s negotiator at the talks in Egypt seeking to stop fighting in Gaza, said on Thursday they were negotiating with a difficult side "versed in procrastination".  "We are keen on having an agreement concluded. It must satisfy the demands of our people," said al-Haya during public address in which he briefed the people of Gaza on the progress of the talks.  Haya said Hamas would continue to demand the end of what he called "unjust incursions" and a permanent lifting of the siege imposed by Israel on Gaza in 2006. [Al Jazeera, Aug 14]

Humanitarian Crisis
According to a UN report of August 8:
- Rescue teams have retrieved additional bodies, bringing the cumulative death toll of Palestinians to 1,922, of whom 1,407 are believed to be civilians, including 448 children; the status of 297 fatalities remains to be determined.  The Israeli death toll remained at 67, including 3 civilians.

- UNRWA was sheltering 166,527 people in 90 schools
- An estimated 10,800 homes have been destroyed or damaged beyond repair over the course of hostilities, leaving some 65,000 people homeless, in addition to 33,100 others whose homes will require major repairs, and another 185,700 individuals whose homes sustained minor damage. 

The UN report also notes the devastating impact of the strike on the Gaza Power Plant on water and sanitation facilities throughout Gaza, the existence of thousands of explosive remnants of war in civilian areas, and the critical state of reproductive and maternal health in Occupied Gaza (10,000 of 46,000 pregnant women have been displaced).

War Crimes Inquiry

Photo appeared in Al Jazeera

The United Nations has named experts to an international commission of inquiry into possible human rights violations and war crimes committed by both sides during Israel's military offensive in the Gaza Strip...The UN statement said the independent team will investigate "all violations of international humanitarian law and international human rights law ... in the context of the military operations conducted since 13 June 2014...Navi Pillay, the top UN human rights official, said on July 31 she believed Israel was deliberately defying international law in its military offensive in Gaza and that world powers should hold it accountable for possible war crimes. Israel has attacked homes, schools, hospitals, Gaza's only power plant and UN premises in apparent violation of the Geneva Conventions, said Pillay, a former UN war crimes judge. Hamas fighters in Gaza have violated international humanitarian law by firing rockets indiscriminately into Israel, Pillay said.  [Al Jazeera, Aug 14]  Reaction to the announcement was as expected.  Hamas welcomed the decision. Israel dismissed the inquiry as a "kangaroo court."  This independent investigation must take place and those responsible for war crimes must be held accountable.  Otherwise, there will be no escape from the "cycle of impunity" and the continuing oppression of the people of Gaza.

Related
"Need for Tough Love: Defending the Gaza Assault Hurts Israeli, American Interests" (Gregory Harms, Informed Comment, August 13) - how a knowledge deficit and ideology lead to the media's and people's misperceptions on the conflict

"The Only Explanation for America's Morally Bankrupt Israel Policy" (Stephen M. Walt, The World Post /Huffington Post, July 22) - the role of money and lobbies in influencing political leaders


South Sudan
As many as four million South Sudanese are facing starvation following the civil war that broke out there last year.   America is sending $180m (£107m) in aid to help people in South Sudan, where four million people are at risk of starvation.  More than a third of South Sudan's population has been hit, says the United Nations, calling it "the worst food crisis in the world"...Violence erupted last December when the president accused his deputy leader of trying to take power. [BBC News, Aug 14] The UN Security Council is threatening sanctions.  UN Security Council envoys have warned South Sudan's warring leaders they would face sanctions if a civil war that has pushed the young nation to the brink of famine does not stop."The council has made it very clear: that it is prepared to impose consequences if there continue to be spoilers, if there continue to be people carrying out gross violations of human rights," US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power said after meeting with President Salva Kiir.  EU Special Representative to the Horn of Africa, Alex Rondos, also expressed concern "that both sides in South Sudan continue spending their money on arms and fighting for power while South Sudanese citizens are beginning to starve to death". [Al Jazeera, August 14]

Robin Williams
I found a moving news item on Robin Williams after publishing the August 12 post, which mentioned his passing at its conclusion.  It's just one more reminder of what we lost with his untimely death: "Robin Williams Once Secretly Fulfilled A Dying Girl's Wish"  (Eleanor Goldberg, Huffington Post, August 13)

Sunday Roundup - May 4, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from outside the US mainstream corporate media.  Today we look at Ukraine, Syria, global May Day celebrations, South Sudan and income disparity on 21st century America.

Ukraine

Outside the burned out trade union building in Odessa(Reuters)

With military operations by Ukrainian government forces underway against a rebel-held city, the crisis in the Ukraine has taken another step towards civil war.  The Guardian reported the Russian reaction to the Ukrainian offensive on Friday: A spokesman for Vladimir Putin said the Geneva agreement to defuse the situation in eastern Ukraine was no longer viable after Kiev launched a military operation against the rebel-held city of Slavyansk on Friday.  The Ukrainian military launched its first serious offensive to retake the city, which is being held by pro-Russia militia, early on Friday morning....Russia's foreign ministry accused the Ukrainian military of launching rocket strikes at protesters and claimed it had used ultranationalists from the group Right Sector..."As we have warned many times before, the use of the army against its own people is a crime and is leading Ukraine to catastrophe," the statement said.  The situation worsened later Friday when skirmishes broke out in Odessa between pro-Russian and anti-separatist groups.  As reported by the BBC: Pro-Russia supporters in the Ukrainian city of Odessa have voiced their anger a day after 42 people were killed.  Friday's clashes culminated in a major fire at a trade union building where most of the deaths occurred. Hundreds of people gathered there on Saturday.  The protest comes as Ukraine says it has seized a security building from rebels in the east of the country. Most of the deaths occurred when petrol bombs were thrown at the trade union building where pro-Russian protesters had sought refuge in the trade union building after their encampment was burned down.

Katrina vanden Heuvel and Stephen Cohen,writing in The Nation , in an article to be published in the May 19 issue, wonder about Obama's indirect declaration of a new Cold War against Russia - a declaration made with little discussion or public debate and with bipartisan and media support or indifference.  No modern precedent exists for the shameful complicity of the American political-media elite at this fateful turning point. Considerable congressional and mainstream media debate, even protest, were voiced, for example, during the run-up to the US wars in Vietnam and Iraq and, more recently, proposed wars against Iran and Syria. This Cold War—its epicenter on Russia’s borders; undertaken amid inflammatory American, Russian and Ukrainian media misinformation; and unfolding without the stabilizing practices that prevented disasters during the preceding Cold War—may be even more perilous....Both sides in the confrontation, the West and Russia, have legitimate grievances. Does this mean, however, that the American establishment’s account of recent events should not be questioned?  Vanden Heuvel and Cohen point to twenty years of NATO's eastward expansion, the triggering of the Ukraine crisis by the West’s attempt, last November, to "smuggle the former Soviet republic into NATO", and the "jettisoning in February of the West's own agreement with then-President Viktor Yanukovych" which brought to power in Kiev an extremely anti-Russian and unelected regime.  Most recently, Kiev’s sending of military units to suppress protests in pro-Russian eastern Ukraine is itself a violation of the April 17 agreement to de-escalate the crisis.

Syria
Syria's government and rebels have agreed to a ceasefire in Homs to allow hundreds of fighters holed up in the old quarters of the city to leave – a deal that will bring the country's third-largest city under the control of forces loyal to Bashar al-Assad. [The Guardian, May 2]  The fighters were the remnants of the rebel forces that had controlled Homs until the Syrian government began its offensive.  This is a face-saving measure for the small hardcore group of rebels that had remained fighting, dispatching explosive-rigged cars into government-controlled areas, killing dozens of people, mostly civilians. Most recently, two car bombs on Tuesday killed more than 50 people in a government-controlled area of Homs.  

May Day (International Labor Day)

From Common Dreams post: Union leaders during May Day celebrations in Bilbao, Spain
 The banner in front reads, "Without Quality Employment, There is no Recovery'
(Photograph: VINCENT WEST/Reuters)

Except in the United States and Canada, May 1 is a public holiday that celebrates the contributions of workers around the world.  This year was no exception. From the Common Dreams post of May 1: In marches and street demonstrations, people across the world on Thursday were marking May Day, or International Labor Day, by demanding better treatment of working people and union members as they also called  for respect of democratic freedoms and equal rights.  Most marches went off peacefully but there was a confrontation with police in Turkey where the government had banned demonstrations.

South Sudan
There's a small spark of hope emerging in South Sudan.  John Kerry appears to be on the verge of getting two rival factions to agree to sit down for ceasefire discussions.  As reported in The Guardian on Friday: The peace talks could mark a turning point in nearly six months of horrific fighting largely along ethnic lines between Dinka and Nuer tribes. It began after Kiir [the country's President], a Dinka, accused Machar, a Nuer, of plotting a coup to seize power last December. A ceasefire agreement reached in January was abandoned within days.

Rise of the Oligarchs
State Department whistle-blower Peter van Buren takes a look at life on the other side of the tracks in 21st century America in a May 1 TomDispatch.com post.  As part of his journey through the country, he visits Atlantic City, New Jersey, Weirton, West Virginia, and Spanish Harlem in New York City.  What he sees and reports is not pretty - a damning reflection on the living conditions of the working class in the richest nation on earth.  Van Buren observes the cumulative effects of years of deindustrialization, declining salaries, absent benefits, and weakened unions, along with a rise in meth and alcohol abuse, a broad-based loss of good jobs, and soaring inequality...What I found in my travels was place after place being hollowed out as wealth went elsewhere and people came to realize that, odds on, life was likely to get worse, not better. For most people, what passed for hope for the future meant clinging to the same flat-lined life they now had...What’s happening is both easy enough for a traveler to see and for an economist to measure. Median household income in 2012 was no higher than it had been a quarter-century earlier. Meanwhile, expenses had outpaced inflation. U.S. Census Bureau figures show that the income gap between rich and poor had widened to a more than four-decade record since the 1970s. The 46.2 million people in poverty remained the highest number since the Census Bureau began collecting that data 53 years ago. The gap between how much total wealth America's 1% of earners control and what the rest of us have is even wider than even in the years preceding the Great Depression of 1929.  With the Supreme Court decisions allowing an ever-increasing role for money in shaping our politics and, let's face it, money wins elections, I'm afraid the interests of the 99% will not come to the forefront anytime soon.

Sunday Round-Up - January 5, 2014

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the expiration of long-term unemployment benefits, the Tea Party-controlled states of North Carolina and Florida, the Israeli-Palestinian peace talks, the violence in South Sudan, and Australia's record heat wave.

Thanks to Congressional inaction, long-term unemployment benefits expired the weekend after Christmas.  To see what might happen nationally if this remains the case, take a look at what's happened in North Carolina, which is in the process of becoming one of the most regressive states in the nation. A December 17 piece on the Bloomsberg website by Evan Soltas does just that.  North Carolina Republicans cut long-term unemployment benefits earlier this year. The result: "The state is experiencing the largest labor-force contraction it's ever seen -- 77,000 fewer people were working or searching for work this October than a year ago. This should, but won’t, settle a partisan debate. Cutting unemployment insurance apparently hasn’t encouraged the unemployed to look harder for work: It has caused them to drop out of the labor force altogether."  When there are no jobs to be had, cutting unemployment benefits does nothing but add to the burdens of those on the lower rungs of the economic ladder. 

Mother Jones' Kevin Drum in a December 23 article gives 10 reasons why the long-term unemployment constitutes a national catastrophe.  Besides the widespread human effects, "it turns cyclical unemployment into structural unemployment."  Cutting off long-term unemployment benefits makes the situation worse by causing people to drop out of the job market as they did in North Carolina.  Drum concludes with a faint hope for the restoration of long-term unemployment benefits. "Republicans in Congress have declined to extend unemployment benefits further, and they show no sign of changing their minds when Congress reconvenes in January. Democrats have a plan to fight for further benefits by linking them to a farm bill that Republicans want to pass, and right now that's pretty much the best hope we have to offer the workers who have been most brutally savaged by the Great Recession."

(Image from the Mother Jones article)

 

 

As the country prepares for the 2014 elections, things are looking up (believe it or not) for Republicans.  Some polls show them taking control of the Senate for the last two years of Obama's Presidency.  With the huge number of gerrymandered, safe Republican Congressional districts brought about in red states since the 2010 census and with the voter suppression laws about to take full effect, I expect Democrats to pick up very few, if any, seats in the House without a major Republican meltdown. 

 

So let's imagine what a Tea Party country would look like.  In an article appearing earlier this year, Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer asked "What's It Like to Wake Up From a Tea Party Binge? Just Ask Florida!"  She writes: "In just one year, Scott and his conservative allies slashed state spending by $4 billion even as they cut corporate taxes. They've rejected billions in federal funds in one of the states hardest hit by the recession. They've axed everything from health care and public transportation initiatives to mosquito control and water supply programs."  Mencimer provides the following sidebar in her article:

"From high-speed trains to care for terminally ill kids: a few of the federal grants Florida has turned down:
$2.4 billion: High-speed rail

$37.5 million: Support for people moving out of nursing homes

$31.5 million: Home visits for new mothers
$11.1 million: Teen pregnancy and STD prevention
$8.3 million: Three county health centers
$2.1 million: Helping Floridians navigate the health insurance industry
$2 million: Hospice care for children
$2 million: Aid for seniors to pay for Medicare premiums and buy prescription drugs
$1 million: Strengthening state review of insurance premium increases
$1 million: Insurance exchange to help consumers compare plans and buy subsidized coverage
$875,000: Cancer prevention"

Florida, the state with the second highest number of medically uninsured, has been in the lead in the fight against the Affordable Care Act.  The demon has been let out of the proverbial box.  Even though Governor Scott reversed his initial position and supported expansion of Medicaid, the Republicans in the legislature turned him down.  The Kaiser Foundation has estimated that about 4.8 million low-income people in states choosing not to expand Medicaid would have been covered had they lived in another state.  For Florida this number is over 750,000. 

The MJ article was written at a time when Scott was down by high double digits to a generic Democrat in the 2014 election.  Scott made his way back to as close as 4 points during the healthcare.gov rollout debacle and a November Quinnipiac poll has him trailing by just 7 points.  And that's before the big money starts to flow in. 

In Brief - Links to Other Stories of Interest

From The Guardian, Dec. 31
Rightwing Israeli government ministers have stepped up their opposition to a peace deal with the Palestinians before US secretary of state John Kerry's visit to the region this week by backing a parliamentary bill to annex a strategically significant swath of the West Bank.

From The Guardian, Jan. 3
South Sudan's government and rebels finally began talks to end weeks of bloodletting on Friday after days of delay as the United States ordered out more of its embassy staff.  However, there was no face-to-face meeting, and fighting was reported near the key town of Bor, suggesting that a halt to fighting between President Salva Kiir's SPLA government forces and rebels loyal to former vice president Riek Machar is still a long way off. At least 1000 people have died in the fighting that began last month.

From Informed Comment website, Jan. 3
Australia experienced its hottest year on record in 2013, the Bureau of Meteorology said Friday, enduring the longest heat wave ever recorded Down Under as well as destructive bushfires.

From The Guardian, Jan. 4
John Kerry, the US secretary of state, is engaged in intense efforts to coax reluctant Israeli and Palestinian leaders towards an agreement to end their decades-old conflict, against the unhelpful backdrop of mounting political pressure on both sides to reject concessions.