Dear Kitty. Some blog

These two videos are about workers in Dubai.

I’ll do now what I do not do often on this blog.

I’ll quote the Wall Street Journal, aka the War Street Journal (if you do a Google search on War Street Joournal, it brings you to the Wall Street Journal site), owned by arch warmonger Rupert Murdoch:

DUBAI — Dubai on Thursday started to untangle the $60 billion financial mess of its once prized Dubai World conglomerate by ring-fencing its profitable ports unit.

DP World will be excluded from the debt standstill and restructuring of Dubai World and its subsidiaries, the ports operator said in a statement posted on the Nasdaq Dubai Web site.

The decline of the capitalist “paradise” Dubai, noted earlier at this blog, continues.

Construction on Dubai’s world-shaped or palm-shaped islands, a Dubai World project, has stopped. Maybe they should become a nature reserve now?

Fears of double-dip recession grow as Dubai crashes. Debt crisis in millionaires’ playground could herald new phase in global financial meltdown: here. See also here.

This video says about itself:

Afghanistan’s President has ordered an investigation into an alleged 30 civilians killed by US air raids in the west of the country. Meanwhile, the latest reports claim that the raid left124 people dead.

This is a translation from the Dutch original in daily De Pers of 23 November 2009:

Afghan commission knows nothing about civilian deaths

By: Arnold Karskens

The United Nations are worried about civilians being killed in Uruzgan province. A committee, subsidized by the Dutch government, is not.

When one at the headquarters of the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kabul AIHRC asks about the number of civilian casualties caused by foreign troops in 2009 in “our province” [Uruzgan], one hears of just two incidents. These are not deaths. “In January, three civilians, and five civilians wounded in March,” says director Mohammad Farid Hamidi of the commission, subsidized by the Netherlands.

Shafiq, who is responsible for the AIHRC office in Tarin Kowt [in Uruzgan], also has no fatal incidents recorded. “We cannot say anything about the deaths this year.” According to him, because the incidents occur in a hazardous area and therefore cannot be investigated.

Strange, isn’t it? As Dr. Sher Ahmed, leader of the UN Mission in Afghanistan UNAMA in Tarin Kowt, happens to be “concerned” about the civilian victims of the fighting in Uruzgan. He cites two recent cases. About August 9 a U.S. helicopter opened fire on civilians, who had climbed a hilltop in the Chora district in order to have a better mobile phone connection. At least three people were killed in the bombardment.

About June 11, two cars were fired at by Dutch helicopters in the Chenartu district, 25 kilometer outside Tarin Kowt. Of the fourteen occupants [in the cars] eight died: one child, one woman and six men. Sher Ahmed: “From one family, four people: wife, son, daughter and grandchild.” Four were injured: one child, a woman and two men. “I get no explanation. ISAF does not always share specific information.”

The large discrepancy, eleven civilian deaths to zero, was no reason for the Dutch Ministry of Foreign Affairs to check with the AIHRC. Spokesperson Annelou van Egmond is ’satisfied’ with the work of the committee. The ministry is even considering to prolong the grant “with a limited 25 percent increase until the end of 2009″. Between December 15, 2007 and December 31, 2009 the organization receives over 1.25 million euros. Ms Van Egmond rejects any suggestion of a conflict of interest. “There is no preferential treatment at all.”

Also AIHRC board member Mohammed Farid Hamidi denies that his commission in exchange for Dutch aid keeps silent about civilian deaths in the province. “There is no pressure to minimize cassualty figures. However, The Netherlands are our major donors.”

Limiting official “collateral damage” figures in the Afghan war has two major political advantages. First, it enhances the image of the Netherlands as the lead nation in Uruzgan which respects human rights. Secondly, it is advantageous for President Hamid Karzai, as excessive force by foreign troops undermines his influence.

A poll by The Asia Foundation shows that residents of Uruzgan attribute the responsibility for violence in Uruzgan four times more often to foreign troops than the average Afghan does.

Civilians have reported to De Pers several lethal cases this year. A headmaster in the Khas Uruzgan district said last summer that in the village of Nawa Shalee a Taliban prison had been bombed. Three prisoners died. In June, two Kuchi nomads were killed and a woman died in an early November night on her way to Tarin Kowt. In particular the deployment of aircraft and military helicopters are causing civilian casualties.

The Dutch Socialist Party wants the integrity of the AIHRC to be examined.

NATO has called on allied nations to send more troops to Afghanistan in the run-up to President Barack Obama’s decision on whether to boost the US occupying forces: here.

Afghans say 20 died in NATO airstrike: here.

Fifteen per cent of Afghan army ‘are drug addicts’: here.

USA: Barbara Lee Sponsors Bill to End War in Afghanistan: here.

MoJo Interview: Malalai Joya: here.

Stealing Money, Selling Heroin and Raping Boys — The Very Dark Side of the Afghan Occupation: here.

It is used to wrap kebabs, chips and glistening jalebi sweets, but rarely is Nato’s flagship propaganda newspaper read in Afghanistan. Bundles of Sada-e Azadi — The Voice of Freedom — are sold by the kilogram as scrap in Kabul’s black market bazaars: here.

Afghan Army Turnover Rate Threatens US War Plans: here.

Americans Are Deeply Involved In Afghan Drug Trade: here.

This video from the USA is called Washington Blade’s 40th Anniversary Video.

From Pink News in Britain:

America’s biggest gay media company forced to close

By PinkNews.co.uk Staff Writer • November 16, 2009 - 17:15

Window Media LCC, the largest publisher of LGBT newspapers and websites in America, has closed down.

The company owns the Washington Blade, Southern Voice, Dallas Voice, David magazine and the South Florida Blade.

It is thought that a major shareholder had been forced into liquidation and faced federal receivership.

The Washington Blade recently celebrated its 40th anniversary, while Southern Voice was founded 21 years ago.

Southern Voice editor Laura Douglas-Brown arrived at her Atlanta office today to find the locks changed and a note on the door saying the parent company had ceased business.

Douglas-Brown told Creative Loafing: “It’s not just a loss for the employees, but the gay community as well.”

She added: “[This] didn’t happen because of a lack of need for our publications. It didn’t happen because of a lack of hard dedicated work by local staff. And that’s the shame of it. . .It’s a sad tale, how it all came crashing down.”

A 10-year-old Arkansas boy name Will Phillips has decided that he cannot in good conscience pledge allegiance to the flag as long as the country for which it stands refuses legal equality to its GLBT citizens: here.

Gay people in Nazi Germany: how hate triumphs: here.

A Philippines gay rights group is waging a legal battle to be allowed to run in next year’s polls: here.

This video from the USA says about itself:

PALIN: “Iraq War IS over OIL” !!? SHOCK - Sarah Questions McCain Rationale On Iraq War

By Alex Lantier:

Former US diplomat Peter Galbraith grabs hundreds of millions in Iraqi oil money

13 November 2009

Yesterday the New York Times reported the Norwegian financial newspaper Dagens Naeringsliv’s revelations that Peter Galbraith, a former US diplomat and advisor to the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, stands to make hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from Iraqi oil revenues.

Galbraith’s profits would result from his cashing in on his links to the Kurdish regional leadership, and his role in drafting Iraq’s Constitution, shortly after the 2003 US invasion of Iraq. In 2004, Galbraith helped the Kurds arrange deals with Norwegian oil firm DNO and prepare for negotiations on the Iraqi Constitution, including controversial provisions on how to divide Iraq’s oil revenues. During the 2005 negotiations, the Times noted, Galbraith worked to ensure the draft included “clauses that he maintains will give the Kurds virtually complete control over all new oil finds on their territory.”

Galbraith stood to benefit enormously from these clauses, Dagens Naeringsliv revealed last month. On June 30, 2004—the day after the successful conclusion of the Kurd-DNO negotiations—the Kurdish regional leadership had given Galbraith a major stake in undiscovered oil fields on its territory. Oil analysts quoted by the Times estimate his five-percent stake in the newly-discovered Tawke oilfield alone would be worth at least $115 million.

There are indications, moreover, that Galbraith may make even larger sums from the affair. After a falling-out with Galbraith in 2008, DNO sold a stake in the oil fields to the Kurdish regional government, apparently trying to cut Galbraith and a Yemeni business partner out of the deal. Galbraith and his partner sued DNO for compensation, which Dagens Naeringsliv estimates at $525 million. A ruling is expected early next year. …

Galbraith’s attempt to extort hundreds of millions of dollars from Iraq is unanswerable evidence of the neocolonial character of the US occupation of that unfortunate country. Far from being a war against al-Qaeda terrorists or Iraqi weapons of mass destruction—which were crude inventions of a US government determined to justify a war to a skeptical and hostile public—the 2003 invasion was an imperialist adventure offering well-connected operators the chance to make fortunes.

Moreover, it is ever clearer that a central element of the occupation was the theft of Iraq’s oil resources. The Times’ article on Galbraith comes only one week after the revelation that southern Iraq’s huge West Qurna oil field has been divided between Exxon-Mobil and Royal Dutch Shell.

The New York Times itself described the Galbraith story’s potential to “inflame” Iraqi public opinion. In a comment that demonstrates its own political complicity with the theft of Iraq’s oil, it crudely described Iraqi sentiment that “the true reason for the American invasion of the country was to take its oil” as “a conspiracy theory.” This is in the middle of a story describing the looting of hundreds of millions of dollars in Iraqi oil revenue! …

Peter Galbraith, the son of prominent liberal economist John Kenneth Galbraith, was a professional staffer for the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations from 1979 to 1993. In the late 1980s, during the Iran-Iraq war, he documented the massacre of Iraqi Kurds by Saddam Hussein, then a US ally.

From 1993 to 1995, during the dissolution of the former Yugoslavia, he served as US envoy to Croatia. He communicated to Croatian leader Franjo Tudjman the Clinton administration’s approval for Operation Storm, Croatia’s 1995 ethnic cleansing campaign that drove 200,000 Serbs from the Krajina area.

Appearing last year before the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia (ICTY), Galbraith stated that the US had an “understanding attitude” towards the operation. He claimed that he would not have asked Washington “to give it the green light” if he had believed Tudjman intended to remove Serbs. However, he had previously admitted that Tudjman and his associates were known to want an “ethnically clean country.”

Before and after the invasion of Iraq, the war’s goal of privatising Iraq’s oil to the benefit of Western oil corporations was highlighted not just by the war’s opponents, but also by many of its supporters: here.

Talking about oil; from Mother Jones in the USA:

During the final days of the Bush administration, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) scheduled a controversial auction of oil and gas leases on federal lands, including areas bordering national parks and monuments in Utah. While environmental organizations launched a round of protests and lawsuits, Tim DeChristopher, a 27-year-old econ major at the University of Utah, decided he had to try to stop the sale by himself. Not knowing exactly how he’d do it, DeChristopher walked into the auction in Salt Lake City on December 19, 2008, and had a sneaky idea handed to him in the form of a bidder’s paddle. Simply by raising it again and again and pretending to bid on the leases, he proceeded to drive up their prices and outbid the real speculators on 13 parcels covering more than 22,000 acres and worth $1.7 million dollars.

When it became clear that bidder No. 70 was an impostor with no intention of paying for his purchases, federal agents removed him from the auction. But the damage was done. DeChristopher’s monkey-wrenching tainted the sale, forcing BLM to offer the other buyers the option of withdrawing their bids. That effectively postponed any final decision on the leases until February 2009, when the Obama administration would be in office. Soon after taking office, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar canceled the results of the chaotic auction and criticized the previous administration for allowing it in the first place.

Hawks in Congress Willing to Shell Out Trillions for War, but Won’t Help Americans Get Decent Health-Care: here.

Tom ‘Dr. No’ Coburn Wins Our GOP Hypocrite Award for Authorizing War Spending, While At the Same Time Denying Veterans Care: here.

This video from the USA is about the Kunduz massacre of Afghan civilians.

From the Asia Times:

Nov 13, 2009

US air supply drop turns deadly

By Mustafa Saber

HERAT - Contradictory accounts of dead and injured from Afghan and Western forces and eyewitnesses have left a confused picture of an American military supply drop that appears to have gone disastrously wrong.

Up to 25 United States and Afghan military personnel, and perhaps as many as 14 civilians, were reportedly killed or injured in the incident in Bala Murghab district, an insurgent-riddled area in the northwestern corner of Badghis province on the border with Turkmenistan, this month.

A supply drop by the US military on November 4 intended for troops in the field landed in the Murghab River, a fast-moving and treacherous body of water, and the soldiers tried to retrieve it. According to the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, two paratroopers from the 82nd Airborne Division were missing after the airdrop and a search was launched for them.

Local eyewitnesses said that five men went into the water and only one came out alive. They said the bodies of two were retrieved, but two went missing.

“I don’t have confirmation of others involved,” said Lieutenant-Colonel Todd Vician of the ISAF Joint Command media office.

Initially, the Taliban claimed to be holding two bodies, but later reports quoted the insurgents’ spokesman, Zabiullah Mujahed, as denying that this was the case.

According to locals, things went badly wrong in the course of the search for the bodies.

Residents of Takht-e-Bazaar in Bala Murghab district say a helicopter containing US commandos along with Afghan soldiers landed in their area on November 6. According to eyewitnesses, the commandos began shooting indiscriminately as soon as they left the aircraft.

“They did not stop to see who is civilian, who is Talib, who is armed, who is a government employee,” said Haji Mohammad Ismail, a tribal elder in Takht-e-Bazaar. “They were so angry, so wild that they even shot at Afghan military forces.”

The civilians caught in the crossfire included an old man and his son, said Abdul Satar, 42, a shopkeeper who said the two men were his uncle and cousin.

“My uncle was a sick man, he could hardly move,” said Abdul Satar, shaking with anger. “Those tyrant Americans shot him and his son. I am not going to forget this crime as long as I live. They were just shopkeepers, they were not Taliban. They had no connections with any group.”

According to General Jalandarshah Behnam, commander of the 207th Zafar Corps in western Afghanistan, the search operation was conducted jointly by US special forces and one of his commando battalions, who subsequently fell victim to friendly fire.

“A number of Afghan and foreign troops were looking for the missing soldiers that were drowned some days ago in the Murghab River,” he said. “They mistakenly came under air attack by US forces.”

According to General Behnam, seven US soldiers died in the air strike, along with two Afghan National Army soldiers and three Afghan National Police. An Afghan translator was also killed, he added. In addition, 12 ANA soldiers and one policeman were injured, and the condition of several of them was critical.

Residents of Takht-e-Bazaar say the air strike also killed up to 14 civilians while destroying eight residential compounds.

“I can tell you the exact neighborhoods where the bombs landed,” said Haji Ismail. “Post-e-Dahana, Khasa, Rood-e-Poyin and Taraaz. At least 10 civilians died, and more may still die of their injuries. I have attended funerals.” …

General Stanley McChrystal, the top US commander in Afghanistan and the head of ISAF troops, has called for a revamped strategy that will emphasize the protection of civilians.

“The greatest risk we can accept is to lose the support of the people here,” McChrystal told CBS’s 60 Minutes program in September. “If the people view us as occupiers and the enemy, we can’t be successful.”

But even in the few months since this new strategy was articulated, several incidents have provoked Afghan anger against the foreign military. An air strike called in by German forces in Kunduz in September killed up to 70 civilians; residents in Helmand say that nine insurgents targeted by an ISAF rocket on November 4 were, in fact, a family of farmers. …

Much remains unclear about the Bala Murghab incident - the exact numbers of casualties, whether insurgents were involved and what provoked the air strike.

But for the residents who have lost family members and homes, the reality is stark enough.

“Many people have been displaced,” said Abdul Shukur, the mayor of Bala Murghab. “Their homes have been destroyed and they are camping out up in the mountains.”

Mustafa Saber is an IWPR-trained journalist based in Herat.

On both sides of the Atlantic, the media has been enlisted in a cynical campaign to transform tragedies that are the product of the war in Afghanistan into justifications for the war’s escalation: here.

Gordon Brown was labelled the “recruiting sergeant” of US imperialism on Friday following his call on NATO allies to commit 5,000 extra troops for the war in Afghanistan: here.

This video from the USA is called Rethinking Afghanistan With Robert Greenwald.

Shortly after taking office, the new German defence minister, Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, has justified the Kunduz massacre carried out at the beginning of September in Afghanistan: here.

Sections of the British armed forces and the pro-Conservative Party press are waging a concerted campaign for the drastic escalation of the war in Afghanistan: here.

This video is about an Australian artist’s protest against the war in Afghanistan.

Even in the London Times, owned by warmonger Rupert Murdoch, of today:

US ambassador [in Kabul] warns against Afghanistan troop surge

See also the BBC on this.

This video from the USA is called Rethink Afghanistan: Join the Movement to Stop this War.

After the many times that NATO soldiers have killed police of the pro NATO Afghan government in Kabul, today it is the other way round, according to Associated Press:

5 British soldiers killed in south Afghanistan

By ELENA BECATOROS (AP) – 10 minutes ago

KABUL — An Afghan policeman opened fire on British soldiers in the volatile southern province of Helmand, killing five, British and Afghan authorities said Wednesday, raising concerns about discipline within the Afghan forces and possible infiltration by insurgents.

The incident came almost exactly a month after an Afghan policeman on patrol with U.S. soldiers opened fire on the Americans, killing two before fleeing. …

The five British soldiers were killed in Helmand’s Nad-e-Ali district on Tuesday afternoon, Britain’s defense ministry said, bringing the total number British forces personnel who have died in Afghanistan to 229. Britain has 9,000 troops in the country.

BreakingNews: NATO says 6 British soldiers and two Afghan soldiers were also injured in shooting that killed 5 British soldiers.

See also here.

Afghanistan: Teenagers Enlist in Army, Police: here.

A former Labour foreign office minister has called for the phased withdrawal of the “great majority” of British troops from Afghanistan: here.

The killing of five British soldiers in Afghanistan, apparently at the hands of a member of the Afghan Police Service, has raised further questions about Britain’s continuing role in the war-torn country: here.

Why Can’t the Corporate Media Just Tell the Truth About Iraq & Afghanistan? Here.

Britain: Six peace activists are in court facing charges of “serious disruption to the community” for staging a die-in protest against NATO’s bloody war in Afghanistan: here.

Abdullah Abdullah, the Afghan presidential candidate who quit the runoff vote, has described as “illegal” his rival Hamid Karzai’s re-election as the country’s president: here.

USA: Kucinich: Why Is It We Have Finite Resources for Health Care but Unlimited Money for War? Here.

From Al Jazeera:

Bangladesh workers riot over pay

At least two people have been killed and scores injured in clashes between textile workers and police in Bangladesh, police have said.

The violence broke out as workers protested over unpaid salaries in the outskirts of the capital, Dhaka, on Saturday.

“Law-enforcers had to fire rubber bullets from shot guns to disperse the workers who hurled stones and bricks at our officers,” Shafiqul Alam, a police inspector, said.

Why did Inspector Shafiqul Alam not just say, factually, that police “fired rubber bullets”? Why did he say that they “had to fire rubber bullets”? Granted, this police spokesperson is hardly alone in using this ideological euphemism. Police spokespeople in many countries do so. Even worse, theoretically “fair and balanced media” use this euphemism as well, whenever police kill people.

“So far two people have died.”

Workers coming to work at the Nippon Garments factory north of Dhaka found a notice at the gate saying authorities were closing the factory for a month, citing losses and falling orders.

Angry protest

They then took to the streets to protest, and police said as many as 15,000 people were involved in the protests.

Maleka Begum, a police official, said at least 100 workers and a number of police officers were injured in the clashes.

The protesters were demanding three months’ back pay, she said.

See also here. And here.

Bangladesh have ordered an independent probe into clashes between riot police and protesting garment factory staff on Saturday that left two workers dead and around 100 injured: here.

A gay Bangladeshi couple have been battling to gain citizenship in Australia for 10 years. The Refugee Review Tribunal knocked back their claims three times, and three times a higher court has overturned the rulings: here.

From the Georgian International Media Centre:

Horrifying situation for Georgian political prisoners

October 30, 2009 by georgiamedia

To mark ‘Political Prisoners Day’ which is commemorated on 30th October, two leading human rights NGOs in Georgia will hold a vigil outside Gldani prison, Tbilisi under the banner “Freedom for political prisoners, Truth for society”.

According to the Human Rights Centre, one of the NGOS taking part, families of the detainees, along with their legal representatives and politicians will take part in the protest to call for the release of political prisoners in Georgia.

The conditions in the notorious Gldani prison are said to be horrific. Filthy conditions in cells, poor nutrition, and inadequate medical treatement has resulted in terrible health problems for the prisoners, including the spread of tuberculosis, HIV/AIDs and Hepatitis C.

Today, tuberculosis and pneumonia are some of the most common diseases in Georgian prisons. Despite the fact that both are very treatable they are the primary reason for the high levels of prisoner mortality.

Being imprisoned in Georgia is a virtual death sentence. According to statistics, nearly 4 out of every 10 inmates die but mortality is highest among young prisoners – those from the age from 21 to 31. “Infections spread because of poor hygiene in the cells and poor nutrition,” said medical expert Levan Labauri.

Despite the denials of the Saakashvili regime, the International Federation of Human Rights has confirmed there are political prisoners in Georgia, based on a study of a number of cases.

But Saakashvili’s government did not allow the Federation fact-finding mission to meet with several alleged political prisoners despite their formal request.

Picture: A prison cell in Tbilisi, (source Interpressnews)

Many ordinary Georgians feel their personal economic situarion has got worse, not better, despite the strong economic growth of the early years of Mikheil Saakashvili’s presidency: here.

One consequence of the Georgian state’s direction of the national broadcasters and the political complicity of the judicial system is that day after day they report the guilt of the arrested and suspected before any trial: here.

In the second of his occassional columns for the Georgian International Media Centre, leading Georgian writer, former editor in chief of “Peace Times” magazine and Peace Studies Professor at Cornell University, Irakli Kakabadze examines the real reasons why Mikheil Saakashvili and his allies have fallen out with the Catholicos Patriarch, Ilia II: here.

Obama’s team to turn up the heat on Saakashvili over human rights? Here.

This video says about itself:

Obviously drunk. This video was recorded during a press conference held by recently elected French president Nicolas Sarkozy during the G8 summit on june 2007. …

French TV did not release this video (this recording comes from a Belgian TV show). Sarkozy said many times during the campaign drinking goes “against (his) lifestyle” and that he never drinks alcohol.

From British daily The Guardian:

Sarkozy spends £250,000 of EU budget on shower he did not use

Audit slams ‘opaque’ accounting as French EU presidency found to have spent £160m on events and refurbishment

Wednesday 28 October 2009

French financial watchdogs slammed Nicolas Sarkozy for spending £160m during his country’s six-month stint in charge of the EU – including £250,000 on a personal presidential shower that he never used.

The vast expense is set out in a report blaming poor management and a lack of transparency by the president’s staff.

Costs soared because so many of the EU-related events were organised at the last minute, said the report.

On one occasion Sarkozy triggered the cancellation of an entire EU event he was due to host in Evian, because he wanted to sleep in his own bed at the Élysée palace. By then, hundreds of journalists, EU officials and national delegations had either already arrived in Evian or were on their way. …

Figures show that previous French EU presidencies were much cheaper – £12m in 1995, and £54m in 2000.