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 - February 23, 2014

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


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



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



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


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


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


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

In Brief/Other Links 

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


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


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

Football - International Style

Back in 2004, Franklin Foer's How Soccer Explains the World examined the soccer culture in various countries and the soccer culture's relationship to the era of globalization.  Soccer has been a globalized sport for decades with many of the greatest players playing in, primarily, European professional leagues.  The anecdotes Foer shares are fascinating but the title is hype.  The anecdotes certainly don't explain the world but they do provide memorable and colorful examples of his basic premise - that there's an innate tendency towards tribalism and local culture that resists globalization.  Foer, at one point, seems to imply that maybe the furthest we can go as a species is an enlightened nationalism, at least at this stage in our evolution.

International competitions such as the FIFA World Cup and the upcoming Winter Olympics give us all a chance to exhibit our national pride in a non-belligerent manner.   The Olympics of  ancient Greece were a period of peace. Whatever city-states were fighting at the time put down their weapons and made a truce so that the athletes could travel safely to the games.  Of course, there were no Winter Olympics back in sunny Greece.  There were far fewer events (track and field, boxing, wrestling, and chariot racing), and the Olympics were as much a religious event as an athletic competition.  After all, the Greek gods resided on Mt. Olympus.


The World Cup was the dream and brain-child of Frenchman Jules Rimet, who was "of the generation that had gone through World War I, a conflict that left a monument in every French town with a list of the young men who died in the trenches....For his part, Jules Rimet came home with a dream: that rather than sending their young to gun each other down with machine guns and stabbing each other with bayonets, nations might instead compete on the pitch. They could celebrate their pride and difference while also sharing a set of rules and what he considered to be the most universal language on the planet: soccer." [SI/CNN/The Far Post]

So exhibiting a bit of my national pride, I must point out that the American team has one of the toughest draws in the tournament.  Of the field of 32, only Australia, Ghana and Costa Rica appear to face a more difficult challenge.  If the US advances out of the group stage, it will be a tribute to how far soccer has come in this country.  Not only are the highly ranked sides from Portugal and Germany in the group, the fourth member is the well regarded Ghana team.  Ghana matches up well against the US - they eliminated the US in the 2010 World Cup.  Here's the final draw for the group stage:

(Image is from the FIFA website.)

Foer wrote How Soccer Explains the World in 2004.  For an up-to-date look at the world's soccer scene, I'd recommend the Roads and Kingdoms series "The Far Post".  Every two weeks until the World Cup, they are posting an article on the teams and culture of "the beautiful game".

Sunday Round-Up - November 24, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside the US mainstream media.  Today we look at the European Space Agency's SWARM project, cleanup at the Fukushima nuclear plant, Scandinavian countries' offer to help in the removal of Syrian chemical weapons, China's efforts to reduce its air pollution, and the final draw of the 2014 World Cup. 



"The European Space Agency on Friday launched three satellites it hopes will help understand why the magnetic field that makes human life possible on Earth appears to be weakening." [New Straits Times]  The ESA's Swarm project will collect data to "improve scientists' relatively blurry understanding of the magnetic field that shields life on Earth from deadly solar radiation and helps some animals migrate. Scientists say the magnetosphere is weakening and could all but disappear in as little as 500 years as a precursor to flipping upside down."  The last time the magnetic poles flipped was 800,000 years ago.  We are apparently long overdue for another flip - previous flips occurred about once every 250,000 years.

Reuters reported Thursday on a "rare success in the often fraught battle to control the [Fukushima nuclear reactor] site."  The first batch of fuel rods were successfully removed after a four-day operation - a difficult key step in the decommissioning of the nuclear facility destroyed by the earthquake/tsunami in March 2011.  "The batch of 22 unused fuel assemblies, which each contain 50-70 of the fuel rods, was transferred by a trailer to a safer storage pool, the last day of a four-day operation, Tokyo Electric Power Co, or Tepco, said in a statement.  The company must carefully pluck more than 1,500 brittle and potentially damaged assemblies from the unstable reactor No.4....Tepco estimates removing the damaged assemblies from reactor No.4 alone will take a year."

Denmark announced that it would provide major support in the removal of Syria's chemical weapons.  Denmark told the United Nations that "it is prepared to provide maritime help and bodyguards in connection with the removal of chemical weapons from Syria.  Following a meeting of the Foreign Policy Committee [on November 8], Defence Minister Nicolai Wammen said Denmark would agree to a request from the United Nations to provide shipping and warship support to remove Syrian chemical weapons. At the same time Denmark would provide a military bodyguard unit to protect the UN’s weapons inspector in Syria." [Politiken website]  Sweden and Norway have also offered to help in the removal.


In a week with some frustrating news on the UN Climate Change talks in Warsaw, there has been at least one glimmer of hope.  "The latest Climate Change Performance Index published by Germanwatch and Climate Action Network Europe suggests that China is taking action to clean up its act as it tries to deal with its hazardously high levels of air pollution."  This is good news since rapidly developing China was responsible for 27% of the world's carbon dioxide emissions last year.  The report indicates both a slower growth rate in the emissions and a decoupling of emissions growth from GDP growth.  China's slower growth of emissions is linked to its attempts to combat its air pollution.  The report notes that China's "heavy investments in renewable energies and a very critical debate on coal in the highest political circles, resulting from the heavy smog situation in many towns, give hope for a slower emission growth in the future."   [The Guardian, Nov 21]

Finally, in the world of sports, the final draw has been completed for the FIFA 2014 World Cup to be held in Brazil.  Of the 32 qualified teams, Bosnia-Herzegovina is represented for the first time and Colombia returns for the first time since 1998.  I can't say how soccer crazy Bosnia-Herzegovina is, but I am sure people in Colombia are very, very happy.  I was in Colombia at the time of the 1998 World Cup and saw my colleagues suffer as the Colombian team was eliminated at the group stage - managing just a single win against two losses.  Other 2014 qualifying sides that were not in the field of 32 in 2010 are Ecuador, Costa Rica, Belgium, Croatia, Iran, and Russia.  Here's the complete field from the FIFA website.  Congratulations, all!

 

  

Images
The Russian Rokot lifting the three SWARM satellites into orbit is from the ESA website.
Tepco provided the handout image of the fuel rod removal operation at Fukushima.
The photo of Chinese wind turbines is by Yi Lu/Corbis and is taken from The Guardian article.

A World Cup Update & Waiting for Default

As we wait for the United States to default on its debt for the first time in its history in an incredible display of arrogance, extremism, and dysfunction, here's an update on an area of international interest to keep our mind off the coming debacle.  I'm talking, of course, about the 2014 World Cup qualifiers.  The first rounds in all regions are now complete and twenty one sides have qualified.  The remaining eleven slots will be filled in a series of home-and-home playoffs. 

Here are the teams that have already qualified for the 2014 World Cup Tournament:

- Graphic is from FIFA website

The remaining tournament teams will be selected by November 19 after a series of home and home playoffs. This is what it looks like:

Intercontinental playoff (SA-Asia): Uruguay vs. Jordan

Intercontinental playoff (NA,CA, Caribbean - Oceania): Mexico vs. New Zealand

Africa has completed Round 1 of its qualifiers.  The following 10 African teams are vying for the 5 slots allotted to the continent: Ghana, Ivory Coast, Nigeria, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Tunisia, Algeria, Ethiopia, Senegal and Egypt.

Europe has completed Round 1 of its qualifiers. Nine teams have qualified. The eight best second-place teams from Round 1 will compete for the remaining 4 tournament slots: Greece, Portugal, Ukraine, Sweden, Romania, Iceland, Croatia, and France.

Default

Hopefully, the USA will come off looking better in the tournament than we do in the coming default.  The Party of Tea is an embarrassment to this nation and the effects of their actions, should the default occur, will affect other countries as well as our own.  A New York Times article from today describes the consternation of the rest of the world well: A common question crossing continents remains quite simple: The Americans aren’t really that unreasonable and self-destructive, are they?   'It just goes to show that it’s not only Greece that has irresponsible and shortsighted politicians,” said Ioanna Kalavryti, 34, a teacher in Athens. 'We’ve been held hostage by our reckless politicians, and the interests they serve, for more than three years now. I guess our American friends are getting a taste of the same medicine.'

Sunday Round-Up: October 13, 2013

This is the weekly selection of news and opinion from sources outside US mainstream media.  Today we look at the Nobel Peace Prize, Syria, the West's inadvertent role in the spread of terrorist groups, the German elections, World Cup European qualifiers and the death penalty.  Sources include The Guardian, Le Monde Diplomatique, Al Jazeera and the Death Penalty Information Center.

The Guardian reported on Friday's selection by the Nobel Committee of the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) as the winner of the 2013 Peace Prize.  "The international chemical weapons watchdog, a relatively new global body, set up in 1997 in The Hague, with a relatively tiny annual budget of around £60m, trumped the established bookmakers' favourites of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani schoolgirl turned advocate for female education, and Denis Mukwege, the Congolese gynecologist who has helped huge numbers of rape victims."  The announcement was made by Nobel Committee chair Thorbjørn Jagland.  The prize was awarded for OPCW's " 'extensive efforts to eliminate chemical weapons'and nudge the few remaining nations that had not yet signed up to the organization."  Angola, Egypt, North Korea, South Sudan, and Syria (which have not yet signed the Chemicals Weapons Convention) plus Israel and Myanmar (which have signed but not yet ratified the convention) are considered non-member states. "Addressing reporters, Jagland said the award was a reminder to nations with remaining chemical weapons, such as the US and Russia, to get rid of them, "especially because they are demanding that others do the same, like Syria". He added: "We now have the opportunity to get rid of an entire category of weapons of mass destruction … That would be a great event in history if we could achieve that."

In the October issue of Le Monde Diplomatique, Serge Hamili takes on Obama detractors, who claim America's credibility was lost when Obama did not bomb Syria.  "The warmongers urged him to take a strong line in Syria: to violate international law by resorting to force without Security Council authorisation; to take no notice of anything Congress had to say; to disregard what it did say if that contradicted his expressed wishes; and to launch a military operation with far fewer allies than Bush’s “coalition of the willing” in 2003."  As for credibility, he notes America lost much of its credibility in pursuing unjustifiable, misguided wars such as "domino-theory" Vietnam ("Three million Indochinese perished. In 1979, four years after the US defeat, China and Vietnam were [engaged in a border] war") and "axis-of-evil" Iraq ("Today, Iraq is in ruins and the Baghdad government established by US soldiers is closer than ever to Iran.")  In October 2002, a young Senator Obama, in defining his opposition to the coming invasion of Iraq declared his opposition to what he called "dumb wars."  By pursuing a diplomatic solution to Syria, Obama "seems to have concluded that his credibility would easily survive a refusal to enter another dumb war in the Middle East."

In the same issue of Le Monde Diplomatique, Philippe Rekacewicz writes of the West's inadvertent role in the spread of the influence of jihadist terrorists: "Since 9/11 there have been four major western interventions in the Middle East and North Africa (not counting Israel’s wars in Lebanon and Gaza), which have contributed to the weakening of states and spread of jihadist groups."  He cites Afghanistan ("...the Taliban are stronger than ever [since their expulsion]. The conflict has spread to Pakistan, mainly through the use of drones."), Iraq ("Al-Qaida, not previously present, forms, drawing thousands of volunteers, mainly from the Caucasus and the Gulf, and mujahedin who first took up arms in Afghanistan. The state is struggling to rebuild itself."), Libya ("Thousands of fighters, largely African, who were enrolled in the Libyan army, swarm across the region, abandoning their arsenals, which are plundered. No one controls the border areas."), and Mali ("Although UN troops take over, France remains the central pivot of security in a phantom state. Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) fighters are scattered across the region.") 

 



Al Jazeera reports on the start of the regimen to destroy the Syrian weapons.  "On Sunday [Oct 6], the U.N. began the long process of securing and destroying Syria's estimated 1,000-ton stockpile of chemical weapons. Syrian personnel, under the supervision of international disarmament inspectors, are working under a Nov. 1 deadline set by the U.N. to destroy the Assad government's capability to produce and use the weapons."  But Al Jazeera also reminds us that the Syrian civil war continues "Syrian government warplanes bombed rebel positions near a strategic northern town Tuesday...The warfare is a reminder that the agreement to destroy the Assad regime's unconventional weapons doesn't address an ongoing civil war that has seen more than 100,000 killed with conventional arms."

"Angela Merkel and her Christian Democrat party (CDU/CSU) have won a resounding victory in Germany’s general election," writes Chris Bickerton in October's Le Monde Diplomatique.  This is not surprising since Germany has uniquely survived the Eurozone crisis.  German industry "reformed itself in the early 2000's and rode an export-led boom that continues today....Germany’s current account surplus, at $246bn over the last year (6.6% of GDP), is greater than China’s."  Another factor in the victory was Merkel's steady drift leftwards.  Her adopting  "policies that first came from the left...had the effect of emptying much of the campaign of any traditional ideological conflict.... Instead, the campaign was fought around the language of risk and of personality. Germans preferred Merkel’s low-key, homely aspect to Steinbrück’s debonair image and, seeking reassurance in the widespread depoliticisation, voted for Merkel’s motherly, risk-averse approach."   As for the meaning of Merkel's victory for the rest of Europe: "It is possible that Merkel will soften her stance to some extent now the election is over... [She also] may compromise...on measures to boost domestic demand. If Germans were to consume a little more rather than save so much, that would help pull other Eurozone economies out of their deep depression."

An October 10 article in The Guardian shows once again the divergence between the United States and other advanced industrialized nations on executions.  "A German manufacturer confirmed on Thursday it had taken the extraordinary step of suspending shipments of a widely used drug to a US distributor this year after 20 vials were mistakenly sent to the state of Missouri to be used in executions."  The death penalty is banned in the European Union, and it bans the export of drugs for use in executions.  Missouri had been expected to "become the first US state to use the drug in an execution scheduled for 23 October...The German company's confirmation it had suspended the shipments came a day after Missouri announced that it would return the drugs to the distributor. Missouri is taking the unusual step some 11 months after the distributor frantically pleaded for the return of the vials, according to emails recently made public."  The Death Penalty Information Center reported on October 11 that "Missouri Governor Jay Nixon has stayed the execution of Allen Nicklasson, which was scheduled for October 23, due to concerns surrounding the use of propofol in executions. Gov. Nixon has directed the Department of Corrections to modify the execution protocol to include a different form of lethal injection."

The qualifying rounds for the 2014 World Cup move towards completion over the next few weeks, with many important games occurring through October 15.  The Guardian lists "10 things to look out for" in these qualifiers in an entertaining October 11 post.  Some European teams that haven't been to the World Cup tournament for a while (e.g., Belgium) are in a position to qualify for the slate of 32.

Photos
Map of the multiplying jihadist paths is from Le Monde Diplomatique
Photo of chemical weapons inspectors by Mohamed Abdullah/Reuters was published in Al Jazeera.

Are You in a Death Penalty State?
32 states in the US still have a death penalty. 18 states plus the District of Columbia have abolished it.  Link to DPIC fact sheet on the death penalty.  Want to do something about it?  Click on the link for your state at the DPIC's State Information page then scroll down to "Resources".  Information there will include organizations that work for the abolishment of the death penalty in your state.