15 June - Late Links on Hypocrisy

Anti-trafficking measures 'not fit for purpose' - BBC

The Anti-Trafficking Monitoring Group is a coalition including Anti-Slavery International, Amnesty International UK and ECPAT UK (End Child Prostitution, Child Pornography and the Trafficking of Children).

In its report, "Wrong kind of victim?", it accuses the government of breaching its obligations under the European Convention Against Trafficking.

Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said the emphasis must be "switched to victim protection, so that it's not all about hounding people for immigration offences".

"We pushed hard for the government to sign up to the anti-trafficking convention, but the government has botched its attempt to deal with this most despicable of crimes," she said.

"In particular, the identification system is clearly not fit for purpose, with under-trained staff displaying ignorance over what trafficking actually is."

Iran was rebuked at the U.N. Human Rights Council on Tuesday for its violent crackdown on unrest after the 2009 presidential election, in what the United States called a victory for the Iranian people.

Drawing attention to the human rights situation in Iran is a priority of U.S. President Barack Obama, whose administration has also been focused on the nuclear programme, Donahoe said.

"U.S. leadership at the Human Rights Council matters. Without U.S. engagement here, we leave a vacuum of leadership which will get filled by the priorities of others," she said.

"Today's success in the Human Rights Council is a testament to the multiple dimensions of U.S. leadership*, as well as the very strong partnerships we have with other leaders throughout the world."

Pakistan, speaking for the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), as well as African and non-aligned countries, backed Iran in the debate. The objection was to Iran's record, a "country-specific situation," being addressed under an agenda item on a landmark human rights meeting held in Vienna in 1993.

"Allowing this to happen ... is leading to a repeat of the practice of the Human Rights Commission where 'naming and shaming' was the name of the game and led eventually to the demise of the Commission," Pakistan's envoy Zamir Akram said, referring to the Council's largely discredited predecessor body.

U.S. sanctions against Iran

billions in Iranian deposits 'frozen' after Shah deposed - 1979 - still held

US Trade Bans Across the Globe*

David Icke Exposes Saudi America – Torture and Terror Are Ignored in The Name of Oil Cartels*

Mercenaries and Assassins: The Real Face of Obama’s “Good War”*

Ex-U.S. Hostage Named Senior Iran Policy Official *

Plans for Redrawing the Middle East: The Project for a “New Middle East”*

- by Mahdi Darius

Making the World Safe for Hypocrisy : the History of the United States You're Not Supposed to Know

Russia: Networks of Paid Bloggers Exposed

Generally speaking, paid bloggers are a global phenomenon. In the United States in 2009, approximately8.5 percent of all the bloggers were paid for what they wrote [EN]. As the line between blogging and journalism becomes blurred, the former stops being just a hobby and turns into a profession.

"I Love the US Republic, and I Hate the US Empire": Johan Galtung on the War in Afghanistan and How to Get Out

1.56 billion Muslims are dedicated to the idea of defending Islam when trampled upon. Some of them are traveling to Afghanistan. Some of them are doing it somewhere else in other ways. Those ways can become quite disagreeable, as you know. 
Point two, there is no capitulation in Islam to infidels. It doesn’t exist. To fight against Christians and Jews—you take the mini-empire of Israel, the regional empire—is not an invitation to a violent confrontation that will end with a capitulation. In other words, the time perspective of the Muslim community is unlimited.
 Let us just look for a second into what happened on 9/11. I’ll give you in one sentence what about 100 dialogues around the world have led me to believe, including of course in countries very central to this. It was an extrajudicial execution of two buildings, probably heading for a third one—Langley, Virginia, CIA. Probably. Why? For having insulted Saudi Arabia, insulted economically by a pattern totally contrary to Wahhab visions of what is a valid economy, by having insulted the country militarily by the presence of nationals of totally different religions, infidels, and in the same time using the country for attacking another country, also Arab, also Muslim, a country that one can critique and criticize, but still a part of the ummah, the Muslim community. 
Now, if you look at this, look at it that way, then you suddenly start understanding why Osama bin Laden said in one of his famous speeches in October, after 9/11, said, "You are now suffering the humiliation we suffered more than eighty years ago." You take 2001, you subtract eighty, you come to 1921. But he said "more than," so let us subtract five more, as a maximum—1916, '17, ’18. Sykes-Picot; 1917, Balfour Declaration; 1918, the occupation of Istanbul.