Month: September 2010

[Obama] said that the US has paid a high price, a huge price. Not as huge as the Iraqis have paid. Hundreds of thousands of Iraqis killed. Tens of thousands of Iraqis who were rendered in American detention, their lives ruined for years, children who didn’t know where their fathers were. A couple of million displaced internally and abroad. Iraq is a shattered country. He said we persevered because we share a vision with the Iraqi people. Most of the Iraqi people, their vision has been, for the last seven years, that the Americans would withdraw. Full article.

Kashmir has changed since 1947, even since 1989. In the 90’s it was militant and the Indians used that to build up their own military here. They’re still using it. But things have changed here – a turning point came in 2008 – in August 2008, we had a couple of million people turning out for a single march.The boys now don’t want to join the militants. Education has helped. Kashmiri boys on the street are reading Foucault, Martin Luther, about the Palestinian intifada, about Northern Ireland. They’re trying to equip themselves with knowledge whereas in 1989 they wanted to equip themselves with guns. The mood on the street here is changing but India has not changed its attitude towards Kashmiris – India refuses to see that the earlier militancy has died down and been replaced by a peaceful movement. Full article.

US-brokered talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority begin today in Washington. Both sides agreed to sit down last month after the US successfully pressured Palestinian leaders to drop their precondition of an Israeli settlement freeze. On the eve of the summit, Palestinian militants killed four Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank. We speak with Ali Abunimah, co-founder of The Electronic Intifada. Full article.

As Pakistan struggles to rescue families from flood waters and fend off disease and starvation before winter sets in, it is scrambling to pay out a shocking 30% of its annual budget revenues to foreign creditors on debt incurred by previous dictatorships. If Pakistan is obliged to make these debt payments, rescue efforts for tens of millions of people whose lives have been devastated could be crippled. Earlier this year, we persuaded creditor governments to drop Haiti’s debt after it was devastated by an earthquake — and now we could do the same for Pakistan. Pls sign petition here.

Pakistan’s staggering $55 billion debt burden comes from decades of reckless spending by its autocratic ruling elites, matched by irresponsible lending on the part of Western creditors and banks.

But 60% of Pakistanis still live below the poverty line. It is a tragic irony that these tens of millions of Pakistanis whose lives have been destroyed in these floods and who have received little or no benefit from these massive loans, are the ones now footing the bill of such unjust debt.

In the aftermath of Haiti’s earthquake, Hurricane Mitch in Central America, and the Asian tsunami, the world responded by suspending and cancelling debt payments from affected countries. Pakistan’s debt is too vast to cancel in one swoop, but a two year moratorium with accountability mechanisms to ensure that the released funds are spent on relief is a first step and now is the moment to push for it.

If we win this debt campaign, we can make billions available for relief and reconstruction. Let’s make sure the international community does the right thing. Sign the urgent petition above and share this message with all your friends and family.

This video from the American Civil Liberties Union condemns the U.S. government practice of issuing death sentences without due process as part of its targeted killing policy. “Targeted Killing” is being released to coincide with the filing today of an unprecedented lawsuit by the ACLU and the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) challenging the government’s asserted authority to use lethal force against U.S. citizens located far from any battlefield without judicial process, and without disclosing the standards it uses to target individuals for death.

[drone attacks on “other” people r well accepted for the most part. i found it interesting that even in this video, the aclu is supporting targeted killing as long as it’s in a war zone. well, if u wanna get really legal about it, both iraq and afghanistan r illegal wars and we r not at war with pakistan. so drone attacks on iraqis, afghans and pakistanis r as reprehensible, illegal and immoral as on u.s. citizens. the whole idea of murder w/o judicial process (much like the dubai assassination of a hamas man by mossad) is unacceptable. what people don’t understand is that as we lower the legal stds of justice (and human decency), at some point it will affect all of us.]

Firas Maraghy, a Jerusalem native and current Berlin resident, has been on hunger strike in front of the Israeli Embassy in Berlin since 26 July, demanding Jerusalem residency rights for his baby daughter and the right to keep his own residency: “My father was born before the establishment of the State of Israel. My grandfather was born before the Balfour Declaration. And I am going to lose my right to be in Jerusalem just because I have stayed in Germany for a few years?” The German section of the Jewish Voice for a Just Peace in the Middle East has sponsored a petition on Firas Maraghy’s behalf. Sign petition here.

hope.

Boycott from Within is a group of Israeli citizens that supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). The AIC sat down with Israeli activist Ofer Neiman to discuss the Boycott from Within movement, its goals and what impact he thinks it will have on ending the Israeli occupation. Full article.

Haunting” – In the din of the infamous war on the people of Iraq, the killing and maiming is haunting; the dead and disabled children … the empty chairs at the dinner table … the empty or destroyed houses where whole families once lived … the suffering of those left behind … all of it haunts us; the destruction of a modern infrastructure, power plants, bridges, highways, sewage systems, water supply, public schools, universities, hospitals, clinics, dental labs, irrigation systems, farms, orchards, research facilities are haunting – under Saddam, Iraq had it all, … the destruction of this ancient culture is haunting. Full article.

do we have to invade them in order to protect singers’ rights?

A singer who performed in front of a “mixed audience” of men and women was lashed 39 times to make him “repent,” after a ruling by a self-described rabbinic court on Wednesday. Full article.