Sim-O

Donald Rumsfeld could still face war crimes charges. But probably won’t.
As the USA are not signed up to the International Criminal Court. Although Rumsfeld could be arrested on a visit to a country that has signed to it, I imagine that it is ever going to happen, what with who he knows and the grief for the arresting parties.

Anway, only two more years…

The Date: Friday 8th December 2006
The Time: 10pm-2am
The Place: ScuBar, Manchester
Who: Damon, Kev, & Mark
What: Breaks & Techno
How Much: £3

www.cloudedjudgement.co.uk

Labels: Music

Looks like the Israeli army only pulled out of Beit Hanoun in northern Gaza so it wouldn’t hurt any of it’s own.
You see, the Israelis do care about (some) people in Gaza.

Labels: Israel, Palestine

The Democrats in the US mid-term elections have got their wish and gained enough seat to wrestle control of the House of Representatives from the Republicans, and could get the Senate too.
This will mean, in theory, that the President cannot just sweep in legislation.
It could even have a (positive) effect on the USs’ foreign policy.
But, the Democrats and the Republicans are hardly chalk and cheese so don’t expect too much.

Democrats swept Republicans from power in the House of Representatives and moved to the brink of capturing the Senate, where their final victory could be delayed by a possible recount in Virginia.

Democrats rolled up gains of about 30 seats in the House in Tuesday’s elections, riding to a huge victory on a wave of public discontent with the Iraq war, corruption and Republican President George W. Bush’s leadership.

In a setback to Bush and Republicans, Democrats picked up four of the six Senate seats they needed for a majority and led in races for the other two, in Montana and Virginia, threatening to take control of both chambers of Congress for the first time in 12 years.

link

Labels: Politix, USA

Former South African president, P.W. Botha, has died at his home in Wilderness on the country’s southern coast. He was 90. VOA’s Delia Robertson has this profile on the man who introduced some reforms in apartheid South Africa, but who also established a shadowy parallel government that ruthlessly oppressed opposition, assassinated opponents and was involved in widespread state-sponsored violence.

Immediately after being elected Prime Minister of South Africa in 1978, P.W. Botha stood on the steps of parliament in Cape Town and promised the country a streamlined government that would administer openly, honestly and fairly.

When pushed from power by his cabinet colleagues in 1989 he had established himself as an executive president presiding over a bankrupt administration that spent 20 percent of the national budget on defense; and included nine so-called homelands for black South Africans operating at varying degrees of nominal independence.

Most importantly he had put in place the so-called State Security Council, a shadowy parallel government whose tentacles reached into every aspect and level of South African society. The Council, in which he had the final say, was drawn primarily from defense and intelligence structures and included some members of cabinet, but by-passed parliament altogether.

One isn’t supposed to speak ill of the dead.
Dunno why not, if someones a tosser when they’re alive, dying just makes them a dead tosser.

P.W. Botha. Unrepentant Racist.
Tosser.

Link

Labels: Dead Tossers

Gotta practice before I take on the world for real…

Labels: Odds and Sods, Politix

Starbucks, the giant US coffee chain, has used its muscle to block an attempt by Ethiopia’s farmers to copyright their most famous coffee bean types, denying them potential earnings of up to £47m a year, said Oxfam.

The development agency said the Ethiopian government last year filed copyright applications to trademark its most famous coffee names – Sidamo, Harar and Yirgacheffe. Securing the rights to these names would enable the impoverished African country to control their use in the market and allow farmers to receive a greater share of the retail price.

The move would have increased its annual export earnings from coffee by 25%.

But Oxfam said Starbucks, which enjoyed a 22% rise in annual global turnover to £7.8bn in the year to October, has acted to block Ethiopia’s application to the US patent and trademark office. The USPTO has denied Ethiopia’s applications for Sidamo and Harar, creating serious obstacles for its project.

Here comes some maths…

“We (Oromia coffee farmers cooperative union in Ethiopia) sell organic coffee for less than £1 a pound but that pound can make 52 specials in coffee shops selling for £2 each, meaning the retailer is selling it for £104. The people who are producing this in Ethiopia don’t have enough food, clean water or health centres.

“Farmers are losing out while others in the chain are making huge amounts of money. That is hugely unfair.”

Full article

Labels: Capitalism

In a frightening but long expected move, Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert has brought the Yisrael Beitenu party into his coalition government. The party’s leader, Avigdor Lieberman, is to be vice prime minister and, as “Minister for Strategic Threats,” a key member of Israel’s “security cabinet” in charge of the Iran portfolio.

Yisrael Beitenu is a dangerous extremist party with fascist tendencies that has openly advocated the “transfer” of Palestinians, including the transfer of Arab towns within Israel to a Bantustan-like future Palestinian entity. It has made clear that a Jewish supremacist state is more important than a democratic one. The party, whose strongest base is among Russian immigrants brought to Israel in the 1990s, surged at the Israeli election earlier this year, taking eleven seats in Israel’s 120 seat Knesset.

Last summer, Israel launched a disastrous war of destruction against Lebanon, and continues its siege and onslaught against Palestinians in the occupied territories which has killed nearly three hundred people in three months and left hundreds of thousands without sufficient food, water and electricity. Lieberman has advocated even more harsh and criminal measures against the Palestinians and Israel’s neighbors.

It is dismaying that the European Union, a key international actor, seems set to maintain warm, normal relations with this extremist government, thus giving it encouragement and legitimacy.

This bit, it’s a good ‘un:

“You will understand that we cannot interfere with the setting up of a foreign government. This is a matter for which the concerned State alone is responsible,” wrote Cristina Gallach, the official spokesperson for Javier Solana, the EU High Representative for foreign policy, in an email responding to a query about whether the EU would impose sanctions on Israel if Yisrael Beitenu joined the government.

Nearly laughed my nuts off, I did.
Link

Labels: Israel, Palestine

I thought the Israel would be interested in the Silent Guardian, but it looks like they have something even more effective:

Doctors in Gaza have reported previously unseen injuries from Israeli weapons that cause severe burning and leave deep internal wounds, often resulting in amputations or death.
The injuries were first seen in July, when Israel launched operations in Gaza following the capture of an Israeli soldier by Palestinian militants.

Doctors said that, unlike traditional combat injuries, there was no large shrapnel found in the bodies and there appeared to be a “dusting” on damaged internal organs.

“Bodies arrived severely fragmented, melted and disfigured,” said Jumaa Saqa’a, a doctor at the Shifa hospital, in Gaza City. “We found internal burning of organs, while externally there were minute pieces of shrapnel. When we opened many of the injured people we found dusting on their internal organs.”
It is not clear whether the injuries come from a new weapon. The Israeli military declined to detail the weapons in its arsenal, but denied reports that the injuries came from a Dense Inert Metal Explosive (Dime), an experimental weapon.

In Gaza, Dr Saqa’a said the small pieces of shrapnel found in patients’ bodies did not show up under x-ray. “We are used to seeing shrapnel penetrate the body making localised damage. Now we didn’t see shrapnel, but we found the destruction,” he said.

Most of the injuries were around the abdomen, he said. The doctors also found that patients who were stabilised after one or two days suddenly died. “The patient dies without any apparent scientific cause,” he said.

In the interests of being unbiased, here’s the other side (my emphasis):

Isaac Ben-Israel, a professor at Tel Aviv University and a retired Israel air force general who was involved in weapons development, had seen some of the photographs of the dead and injured and said he believed that the wounds came from ordinary explosives. “I can tell you surely that no one in Israel ever developed such a Dime weapon. It doesn’t exist at all,” he said.

…not developed, but used…?

Full article here.

Labels: Crowd Control, Israel, Palestine, Weapons

Labels: Israel, Palestine