PULSE
The Zanj Revolt
Working in intolerably humid conditions clearing the salt marshes of southern Mesopotamia, fed on a poor diet of dates and semolina, frequently racially abused, the ‘Zanj’ - east African slaves in 9th Century Iraq - rose in their hundreds of thousands in a revolt which lasted for 15 years. They conquered large parts of Iraq, Iran and Bahrain, held the city of Basra for a decade, established their own capital, and even minted their own currency.
As labour intensive activities such as mining and plantation agriculture had expanded in the Muslim empires, so the slave trade had developed, especially the commerce in African slaves. Simultaneously, cultural justifications for the enslavement of Africans multiplied, with many classical writers depicting blacks as slow-witted and bestial.
Cubans attempt to resolve Venezuelan electricity shortage despite living in constant blackout
The latest complaint among the Venezuelan opposition to President Hugo Chávez revolves around his decision to bring Cuban Minister of Information Technology and Communications Ramiro Valdés to Venezuela to help rectify the current electrical crisis, intensified by diminishing water levels at the country’s primary hydroelectric dam. According to a front-page warning in a recent edition of Venezuelan opposition daily El Nacional, “electrical experts and Cubans in exile” have come to the conclusion that Valdés does not possess the requisite skills to evaluate electrical crises and that his expertise is instead in internet censorship; no conclusion is offered as to how Cubans in exile spontaneously acquire expertise in whatever subject is currently being used to discredit the Castro regime.
In addition to explaining that Ramiro Valdés is not the only person being imported to assess the Venezuelan electrical situation and that there are Argentine and Brazilian contingents, as well—plus offers of help from U.S., among a handful of other countries—Venezuelan Energy Minister Alí Rodríguez has argued that the Cubans’ history of electrical difficulties is precisely what has endowed them with expertise in the area of energy efficiency.
Graphic History of the Honduran Coup, final part
America’s new right: Racist and proud of it
America’s nightly news: Watching us watching you
When the journalist David Barsamian asked Indian writer and political activist Arundhati Roy about her travels in the United States, she admitted that she was amazed how insular a nation America really was. “When you live outside it, and you come here, it’s almost shocking how insular it is. And how puzzled people are — and how curious, now I realize, about what other people think, because its just been blocked out.”
As insular as America may be, the paradox of an increasingly connected world and an increasingly narrow-minded news media is an obvious one.
New York Times: No conflict of interest — with the conventional wisdom
The problems with the coverage of the Israel-Palestine conflict in the Times, and virtually every other corporate-commercial news outlet in the United States, are not the result of biases of specific reporters, though individual reporters may indeed have allegiances to one side of an issue. The mainstream media have a conflict of interest at a deeper level — they are unwilling to break with the conventional wisdom about the conflict that dominates in the United States, especially among U.S. policymakers. U.S. news coverage of the conflict relentlessly presents the news within this Israeli narrative, primarily because powerful forces in this country find that narrative useful for U.S. strategic interests in the region, and U.S. journalists tend to fall in line with that view.
As one well-known mainstream reporter once grudgingly admitted to students at my university, American journalism tends to “follow the flag.” In this case the U.S. flag is planted firmly on the Israeli side of the conflict.
n January, Canada stopped contributing to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA). It is the latest in a series of decisions that have seen Ottawa ‘out-Israeling’ Washington. It had previously stopped funding KAIROS (Canadian Ecumenical Justice Initiatives), an NGO that had been supporting human rights groups in Israel and the Occupied Territories. In each case, the government of Stephen Harper seemed to be responding to, or rather pandering to, rabidly pro-Israeli Jewish groups in Canada. Israel itself has certainly never encouraged an end to the funding of UNRWA, an institution that for decades has, in effect, been paying some of the bills for the occupation.
Although camouflaged internationally by a similar drift in British and Australian policy, Ottawa has moved far from its own earlier positions, and possibly farther than either London or Canberra. Indeed, the Obama administration’s muted criticisms of Israeli policy sound relatively ferocious compared with Canada’s gestures towards the administration of Binyamin Netanyahu.
Once upon a time, Canada was a paragon of international virtue: supportive of the UN and happily putting distance between itself and its southern neighbour on the Middle East. Then came Stephen Harper. Ottawa did not join the Iraq war, but that was more a function of strong Canadian public opinion and Harper’s parlous electoral position than any considered choice.
Canada led the walk-out at the Durban conference on racism and was the first to cut aid to the Palestinian Authority when Hamas won the Palestinian parliamentary elections in 2006. It applauded Israel’s right to “defend itself” against Hizbullah (a “measured response”, according to Harper), and against Hamas in Operation Cast Lead.
The move in the Conservative Party has also pulled the Liberal Party a significant distance from the principles of Pierre Trudeau, leaving only the New Democrats and the Bloc Québécois to uphold international law. Indeed, the first turns in policy came under the previous Liberal government, ironically with human rights stalwarts in its ranks like Irwin Cotler and Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff, who, in 2006, suggested correctly that Israel’s shelling of the UN post at Qana in southern Lebanon (in which a Canadian officer was killed) was a war crime.
CSIS goes to mat to block release of spying file on Tommy Douglas
"Secrecy is intrinsic to security intelligence matters," Nicole Jalbert, the agency's access to information and privacy co-ordinator, says in the affidavit filed late last month.
"The requirement for secrecy with respect to past and current activities of a security intelligence agency is essential; the origin of information, its extent and the methods by which it was obtained must remain a secret."
In an apparent reference to the precedent CSIS fears might be set if the Douglas files were released, Jalbert adds: "The routine, full disclosure of security intelligence information would, in certain circumstances, prevent or severely hamper the service's ability to discharge its statutory mandate."
The lawyer for The Canadian Press reporter who initiated the battle over disclosure of the Douglas dossier said CSIS's argument would essentially mean all intelligence files must remain secret in perpetuity.
"The suggestion that anything that intelligence agencies do must be secret for all time I think is contrary to basic democratic principles," Paul Champ said in an interview.
He said it's ironic that former Soviet Bloc countries have opened up their old intelligence files to public scrutiny while "the security intelligence file on Tommy Douglas, one of Canada's most loved political icons, remains closed."
"It's pretty unbelievable."
Russia on Wednesday said sanctions against Iran were more "relevant" after Tehran made moves towards enriching higher-grade nuclear fuel, a deputy foreign minister told Interfax news agency.
Ryabkov also said sanctions were not the answer to the problem and complained that Western powers were trying to press Russia into supporting them.
( Iran announced a higher enrichment level for fuel - still not a weaponry application )
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