The threat level of Imperialist attack on Syria rises as the US and Turkey threaten to impose unilateral no-fly zones. Full text at link.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu are considering implementing no-fly zones for Syria after holding Saturday talks in Istanbul.. According to Reuters, Clinton said that Ankara and Washington need to plan ways to assist the rebels fighting to topple President Bashar al-Assad – including possibly implementing a no-fly zone. read full story / add a comment

The conditions under which Bradley Manning was held in didn't just originate with low level guards, the orders came from the top. But from Private to General they all collaborated in the maltreatment of Bradley Manning. Full text at link.

An order to submit WikiLeaks suspect Bradley Manning to harsh and allegedly illegal treatment in prison apparently came from the upper echelons of the Marine Corps. According to military e-mails released to Manning’s defense, a three-star general was the force behind the marching orders to hold Manning as a maximum-custody detainee under prevention-of-injury watch, or POI — orders that resulted in severe conditions at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Virginia, that left Manning isolated and repeatedly mistreated by his guards. read full story / add a comment

Despite Western hypocritical attacks on Political Islam, the true enemies of Zionism and the Israeli state have always been secular and radical Palestinian and Arab nationalism. The Muslim Brotherhood have often provided a cover for imperialism, as in Egypt. In Gaza, where the PFLP is strong, Israel prefers Hamas to a secular regime (unless of the quisling Abbas type).

Ahmad Sa’adat was kidnapped from Jericho Prison, where he was held under guard by British and foreign forces and effectively handed over to Israel. He was imprisoned for being leader of a group which assassinated the leader of the Moledet-Transfer Party, General Rehavam Zvi. Targeted assassinations are regular Israeli activities but the oppressed are not supposed to indulge in similar actions. Ahmad Sa’dat’s statement below on how negotiations only serve as a camouflage for occupation and conquest are a message for all Palestinian groups and those in the West who choose, despite the evidence, to foster such illusions. read full story / add a comment

Turkey is massacring Kurdish resistance fighters yet at the same time it is shedding crocodile tears over potential massacres in Aleppo. Its threat to invade Syria to deal with Kurds is a cover for a NATO invasion of Syria. Full text at link.

On the eve of an expected major offensive in Aleppo by the Syrian regime, Turkey has threatened to invade Syria, using the pretext of Kurdish groups seizing control of northern border areas. Such a move could pitch Ankara directly into war against Syria, after it has long sought to dictate events through control of the opposition Syrian National Congress and Free Syrian Army. This would be done with the full support of the United States. read full story / add a comment

Reminds me of how Andreas Baader committed suicide in his prison cell by shooting himself in the back of the head. Full text at link.

A 21-year old man was fatally shot in the head while handcuffed in the back of a police car in Arkansas. The police claim it was a suicide but victim's family has a hard time believing it.

Chavis Carter was arrested by two officers for carrying marijuana, after being detained at a traffic stop last Saturday. The officers say they searched him twice before placing him in the back of a police car wearing “double locked” handcuffs.
Carter allegedly called his girlfriend while at the traffic stop, telling her he’d call later from jail.

But shortly thereafter, the young man was found slumped over in the back of the police car with a fatal gunshot wound to the head. The officers claim they were nowhere near the car when the gun was fired. read full story / add a comment

The UN General Assembly has denounced Syria and blamed Assad for the fighting: “the first step in the cessation of violence has to be made by the Syrian authorities.” It denounced “the increasing use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons, including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters, and the failure to withdraw its troops and the heavy weapons to their barracks.” Thus they demand that the Syrian Government commit political suicide, by unilaterally disarming in the face of an international Islamist insurgency armed, financed, and organized by the US and its allies. Full text at link. read full story / add a comment

IF THEY'D BEEN IN a more respectable line of work, Norwin Meneses, Danilo Blandon and ''Freeway Rick'' Ross would have been hailed as geniuses of marketing. read full story / add a comment

Romney and Obama attempt to surpass each other in their threats against Iran and their obsequious support for Israel. Yassamine Mather looks at this, the effect of sanctions and how to respond to the CIA-funded Iran Tribunal. Full text at link.

It is mid-summer in an election year, so we should not be surprised by the hawkish statements regarding Iran coming from the US - not just from the Republican contender, Mitt Romney, but also the current US president. However, even when we take into account the timing, some of the statements Romney has just made in Jerusalem are more than worrying - and they have been matched by Barack Obama’s promises to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on the despatch of bunker-buster bombs to the Gulf region.1

According to the Financial Times, in a keynote speech delivered in Jerusalem, Mitt Romney stated that the US has a “moral imperative” to stop Iran - the “most destabilising country in the world” - from developing nuclear weapons.2 Earlier in the day one of Romney’s advisors, Dan Senor, had said: “If Israel has to take action on its own, in order to stop Iran from developing that capability, the governor would respect that decision”.3 ... read full story / add a comment

Generally in the West individuals, in a quailfied way, are free to express their views independently of how subversive those views may be. They are even, in a sense, free to organise themselves against the government. Marxists even become professors in bourgeois universities. Given that capitalist society is defined by Marx as inherently oppressive it appears as an inexplicable contradiction that it should have this free and just character in the West while still retaining its inherently exploitative and oppressive character read full story / add a comment

Even US media groups like CNN are admitting that foreign jihadists, particularly Libyans, are flocking to Syria. Writing in the New York Times, Vali Nasr, Dean of the Johns Hopkins School of International Studies, warns that if Assad should fall from power, over 100 different opposition groups inside Syria would continue to fight for power with each other and with members of the Alawite, Shiite, Christian, and Druze religious minorities, threatening to turn Syria into “a larger version of Lebanon in the 1970s … There would be ethnic cleansing, refugee floods, humanitarian disasters and opportunities for Al Qaeda.” Full text at link.

The Gulf sheikhdoms, especially Saudi Arabia and Qatar, have supplied millions of dollars’ worth of weapons to the Syrian opposition and pledged to pay salaries to “rebel” fighters. While Washington has claimed that it is providing “non-lethal” supplies to the opposition, such as night vision glasses and communications equipment, teams of CIA operatives are acknowledged to be working inside Turkey to coordinate the distribution of money and arms to the various militant groups. read full story / add a comment

Jeff Immelt, the chief executive of General Electric was interviewed by the Financial Times at the weekend . He told the paper that « nuclear power is so expensive compared with other forms of energy that it has become “really hard” to justify « . On the face of it ,Immelt's comments would seem to be at odds with General Electric being one of the world’s largest suppliers of atomic equipment. So what is going on ?

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Two expert witnesses, Dr. Stephen Hwang of the Department of Medicine at the University of Toronto, and Brooks Hogya, a survivalist and wilderness guide, testified that the prohibition of rudimentary forms of shelter, such as tents, has an adverse effect on the health and well-being of homeless people. Prohibition of quality sleep was, thus, a denial of Section 7 rights since sleep is an essential life-sustaining act. The judge presiding over the case agreed with the opinions of the expert witnesses.

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Yassamine Mather writes on the Sunni Islamist fundamentalist onslaught in Syria. An attack funded and backed by Imperialism. She analyses what has brought Syria to this situation and exposes the massacres carried out by the fundamentalists. Full text at link.

It may only be a matter of time before the Assad regime in Syria collapses and Sunni Islamist fundamentalists backed by the US/UK, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and others are in power in Damascus. If that happens, the Shia states of Iran and occupied Iraq, which have backed Bashar al-Assad, would have lost a close ally. ...

Non-Arab Iran remains Assad’s main ally, but Assad’s downfall would create an upheaval that would shift the balance of power in the region in favour of Iran’s enemies: the Sunni Gulf states (the main supporters of the Syrian opposition). Tehran’s Lebanese ally, Hezbollah, now the most powerful military and political force in Lebanon, would also be weakened. ... read full story / add a comment

Here are two very interesting videos with a view of what is happening in Syria and elsewhere in the region at the moment read full story / add a comment

A new idea, an ethical approach to human rights, development and globalization to replace neoliberalism, gives people a choice.
The ethical human rights approach is being supported on the social networking sites by the US government, the UN while the NZ government maybe sympathetic. Also promotes inclusion of children's rights in the New Zealand Bill of Rights Act 1990. read full story / add a comment

A comment on the latest indigenous revolt in Colombia, where the indigenous have expelled troops from their areas. read full story / add a comment

As reported by the financial blog The Automatic Earth written by Nicole Foss, she has reported that the German magazine Der Spiegel dropped a bombshell this morning in an article that the IMF plans to dump Greece in September. So far the Der Spiegel article is in German. Normally they will eventually publish articles in English.

"Griechenland könnte schon im September pleitegehen. Der Internationale Währungsfonds hat nach Informationen des SPIEGEL der Brüsseler EU-Spitze signalisiert, dass er sich nicht an weiteren Hilfen für das Land beteiligen werde."

Greece could go bankrupt as early as September. Spiegel has obtained information that the IMF told the Brussels leadership it would not make more money available for help to Greece.

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Yassamine Mather examines the excuses used by ‘leftwing’ supporters of the Iran Tribunal and finds them wanting. In particular she finds their comparison the Lenin and the Bolsheviks agreeing to board a German sealed train for Petrograd in 1917 to be risible. Lenin got on that train to Finland station in order to help lead a working class revolution, not to further German war aims. Full text at link.

Debates about the Iran Tribunal - convened to put the Islamic regime in the dock for its massacre of 5,000-10,000 political prisoners in 1988 - continues to occupy a prominent place in the publications and websites of the Iranian left, both in exile and to a lesser extent inside Iran itself.

In a sense it is true that, given the current situation in Iran - not least the disastrous consequences of what the US calls “comprehensive sanctions” - this is a small, irrelevant issue. After all, this week alone another 400 workers lost their jobs in Iran’s main car manufacturer, Iran Khodro, as a direct consequence of sanctions: Malaysia, under pressure from the US, pulled out of a contract. It is also true that sanctions are not the same as cluster bombs, but their effect on the Iranian working class can be devastating nevertheless. read full story / add a comment

The Israelis were quick to assert that Iran and Hezbollah were responsible for the Bulgarian bombing.But now it emerges that Mehdi Ghezali, a jihadist who spent two years in Guantanamo was the likely culprit. But things are murky. Who was he really working for? CIA? MOSSAD? Don't rule out a false flag operation with Mehdi thinking he was working for a Jihad group when in fact his masters were really CIA/MOSSAD. Fulltext at link.

Bulgarian media have reportedly identified the man responsible for blowing up the bus with Israeli tourists on Wednesday as Mehdi Ghezali, a jihadist who spent two years in Guantanamo. US officials responded there is “no evidence” that it was him. Ghezali’s name was revealed by Times of Israel newspaper, who cited local Bulgarian media sources.

But later the story grew murkier, with ABC reporting that Bulgarian officials denied that Ghezali was behind the attack. Swedish agency TT says it has received similar refutals from security services in Stockholm. NBC later said that US officials also had no information linking Ghezali with the terrorist act. None of the countries have issued an independently verified statement. read full story / add a comment

Clinton does a duet on the drums of war with Netanyahu as they plot a strike against Iran.The US have introduced new sanctions against 11 Iranian companies allegedly involved in defence projects. Sanctions are war by another means. Full text at link.

During her visit to Israel yesterday, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton renewed the threat of a US attack on Iran. After meeting with top Israeli leaders, she declared: “We will use all elements of American power to prevent Iran developing a nuclear weapon.” That obviously includes America’s massive military firepower. read full story / add a comment