October 2013
Vol 13, No.10
ISRAEL’S HISTORY OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS USE
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he UN chemical weapons inspectors, who went to Syria to investigate the use of chemical weapons, should have stopped on their way at Occupied Palestine (Israel), where Israeli government has the largest stockpile of chemical and other WMD in the entire Middle East. They would have found a lot of evidence and witness accounts of Israeli use of chemical, as well as biological and nuclear, weapons against the Palestinians and their Arab neighbors. The attacks started in May 1948 and are still going on in one form or another. The Zionist gangs under the directive and leadership of David Ben-Gurion, who became the first Israeli Prime Minister, had adopted a military policy of genocide, extermination and total destruction of the indigenous Palestinian inhabitants and their towns in order to evacuate the land for outsider Zionist Jewish occupiers. The first WMD they used was biological weapons as documented by the
By Elias Akleh
International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC).
In May 1948 the Zionist gangs besieged the well-fortified Palestinian city of Acre, which could stand the siege for a long time. The city water supply came from a nearby village name Kabri through an aqueduct. To shorten the siege and to enter the city, the Zionist gangs injected typhoid in the aqueduct. Many Palestinians and some 55 British soldiers, who were in the city, got infected. This crime was called operation “Shlach Lachmecha” as described by the Israeli military historian Urin Milstein [Wendy
Barnaby’s “ The Plague Makers: The Secret World of Biological Warfare” , London, Vision Paperbacks, 1997, pp 114116] The ICRC delegate Mr. De Meuron, sent a series of reports under the reference of G59/1/GC, G3/82, from 6 th to about 19 th of May 1948 describing the conditions of the city population as struck by a sudden typhoid epidemic and requested efforts to combat it. The minutes of an emergency meeting between Mr. De Meuron and the British Medical Services officers stated that the infection was “water borne”. Burdened by the epidemic the city fell easy prey to the Zionist gangs, who went into a killing spree and a systematic looting campaign as reported by Lieutenant Petite, a French UN observer. He reported the cold-blooded murder of at least 100 Arab civilians, who refused to evacuate the city as ordered by the Zionists. Some of them were captured by the Zionist terrorists and were forced at gun point to Turn to next page
STATEMENTS
.NAIROBI AND PESHAWAR: THE FUTILITY OF TERROR TACTICS BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR........................P4
BY CHANDRA MUZAFFAR......................P5
.THE SYRIA DEAL: DANGERS AND OPPORTUNITIES
ARTICLES . ‘SHUTDOWN’: CHINA’S XI UPSTAGES OBAMA’S ASIA PIVOT
. ‘FATWA ACTIVISM’ VERSUS ‘EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM’
. “THE OIL IS OURS”- BUT ITS SECRETS ARE THE NSA’S
.THE CHARITABLE- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX
BY NILE BOWIE...................................................P 6
BY FABIANA FRAYSSINET......................................P 7
BY MAULANA WAHIDUDDIN KHAN........................P 9
BY PETER BUFFETT.................................................P 10
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continued from page 1 drink cyanide; the case of Mohamed Fayez Soufi is one example as documented in “The Palestinian Catastrophe” by Michael Palumbo. This crime of poisoning Acre’s water supply leading to the fall of the city, the forceful evacuation of its inhabitants, and the looting of its treasures, whetted the appetite of the Zionists to repeat the crime. They tried it again in Gaza against the Egyptian forces, but failed. The two Zionist infiltrators, who were sent on this mission, were captured by the Egyptians. The following cable was sent from the commander of the Egyptian Forces in Palestine to the General Headquarters in Cairo: “15.20 hrs, 24 May [1948]. Our Intelligence forces captured two Jews, David Horeen and David Mizrahi, loitering around army positions. They were interrogated and confessed they had been sent by officer Moshe to poison the army [and the peoples’] water supply. They carried with them water bottles divided in the middle. The top part has potable water and the bottom part has a liquid contaminated with typhoid and dysentery, equipped with a rear opening from which the liquid can be released. They confessed they were members of the 20-strong team sent from Rehovot for the same purpose. Both have written their confession in Hebrew and signed it. We have taken the necessary medical precautions.” In his book “War Diary” Ben Gurion confirmed the attack in an entry found on 27 th of May 1948 where he stated: “[Chief of Staff Yigal Yadin] picked up a cable from Gaza saying they captured Jews carrying malaria gems and gave instructions not to drink water.” The Israeli author Yeruham Cohen wrote more about this cable in his book “ In Daylight and Night Darkness” ; Tel Aviv, 1969, pp66-68 (in Hebrew). The two Zionist agents; Horeen and Mizrahi, broke out
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of prison but were captured again and executed.
January 1948 about 10,262 people had died.
The Zionist crimes did not stop then, but targeted Egypt and Syria. On 22 nd of July 1948 the [Palestinian] Higher Arab Committee (AHC) submitted a 13-page report to the UN accusing the Jews (the term Israelis was not used then) of using “inhumane” weapons and waging a genocidal war against the Arabs through the use of bacteria and germs. The report accused the Jews of spreading Cholera in Egypt and Syria in 1947/48. The awardwinning journalist, Thomas J. Hamilton of the New York Times picked up the story and published it on 24 th of July 1948.
The cholera outbreak in Syria was first reported by the New York Times on 22 nd of December 1947 p. 5, but was limited to only two towns, Carus stated. The Syrian army formed a cordon sanitaire and the casualties were limited to 44 including 18 deaths. Soon after, the Orient, a Lebanese French-language newspaper reported that several Zionist agents, who employed the cholera germs to disrupt the mobilization of the volunteers army were arrested.
During the summer of 1947 the United Nations Special Committee on Palestine (UNSCOP) was sent to Palestine and its neighboring Arab states proposing the partition of Palestine giving about 54% of the land to new Jewish immigrants who controlled only 6% of Palestine. Their proposition was met with fierce opposition from the only two strong Arab countries; Egypt and Syria, recently freed from the French Mandate. Syria was the center of Arab resistance to foreign occupation of any Arab country. Syria had established training centers in Qatana to prepare Arab volunteers to join the Arab Rescue Army in Palestine. Egypt and Syria, thus, became the main targets of Zionist gangs. In his 220-page continually updated report under the title “Bioterrorism and Biocrimes: The Illicit Use of Biological Agents since 1900” Dr. W. Seth Carus of the Center for Counterproliferation Research, National Defense University, Washington, DC, lists the following subtitle p. 87: “Case 1947-01: Zionist Terrorists 1947-1948.” He mentioned that the cholera outbreaks in Egypt and Syria had received extensive attention in the press. The first report about the cholera in Egypt was published in the Times of London on 26 th September 1947 p.4. By the time the final cases appeared in
Assi, the son of Israeli General Moshe Dayan, wrote in his memoir published in Yediot that during the war his father brought home tubes containing typhus . He explained that the intent was to drop these tubes into the water supply of the Jordanian Legion. Before the plan was implemented one of the tubes broke and Assi got infected. Naeim Giladi is an Iraqi Jew, who was lured to Israel by Mossad agents in early 1950s. He was a zealot Zionist, who later on left Israel after discovering its barbarism and immigrated to the US. He told the editor of The Link in New York that he discovered that within the Israeli Ashkenazi establishment “there was not much opportunity for those of us who were second class citizens. I began to find out about the barbaric methods to rid the fledgling state of as many Palestinians as possible. The world recoils today at the thought of bacteriological warfare, but Israel was probably the first to actually use it in the Middle East. Jewish forces would empty Arab villages of their population often by threats, sometimes by gunning down a half-dozen young men so that the Arabs could not return. The Israelis put typhus and dysentery bacteria in the water wells to prevent the refugees from returning.” [The Link, Vol. 31 Issue 2, April-May 1998] continued next page
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continued from page 2 Avner Cohen, a senior member at the Center for International and Security Studies, and the Program on Security and Disarmaments at the University of Maryland, wrote a comprehensive paper on Israel’s chemical and biological weapons. His paper titled “Israel and Chemical/Biological Weapons: History, Deterrence, and Arms Control” was published in the Non-Proliferation Review in autumn of 2001.
worst air disaster in Dutch history killing at least 47 and destroying the health of 3000 Dutch residents. Cases of mysterious illnesses, rashes, difficulty in breathing, nervous disorders and cancer began to sprout in that neighborhood. After several years of deep investigation Karel Knip, the science editor in the Dutch daily NRC Handelsbland, published in November 1999 the most detailed and factual report about the workings of the IIBR.
Cohen stated that Israel’s chemical weapon started with David Ben Gurion’s doctrine: “the destruction of the Palestinian society in Palestine is a necessary condition for the establishment of the state of Israel on its ruins. If Palestinians cannot be removed by massacres and expulsion, they shall be removed by extermination.” To accomplish this extermination Ben Gurion wrote a letter to Ehud Avriel, a member in the Jewish Agency in Europe, ordering him to recruit East European Jewish scientists, who could “either increase capacity to kill masses or to cure masses; both are important.” Experts in microbiology such as Ernst David Bergmann, Avraham Marcus Klingberg and the brothers Aharon and Ephraim Katachalsky, were recruited to form the Sceince Corps in the Haganah which later was named HEMED. Later a new branch within HEMED, devoted to biological weapons was formed and called HEMED BEIT. This branch is publically known as Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR) and it expropriated the mansion of Shukri Al Taji; a Palestinian, near the settlement of Nes Ziona as its research center.
Knip revealed that the plane was carrying a shipment from Sokatronic Chemicals of Morrisville, Pennsylvania to IIBR, under the US Department of Commerce license, in violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC). Among the shipment there were 50 gallons of DMMP; a substance used to make a quarter ton of the deadly nerve gas Sarin, 20 times as lethal as cyanide. He discovered that at least 140 biological weapon scientists from the IIBR have strong links with Walter Reed Army Institute, the Uniformed Services University, the American Chemical and Biological Weapons Center in Edgewood and the University of Utah. He also discovered close cooperation between IIBR and the British-American biological weapons programme, as well as extensive collaboration on biological weapon research with Germany and Holland, which explains the reason for the Dutch officials keeping silence over the crash over Amsterdam.
For years the IIBR center was developing chemical and biological weapons in secret until 4 th October of 1992 when El Al Flight 1862 crashed into a high-rise apartment complex in Bijlmer, Amsterdam while on its way to Tel Aviv carrying three crewmen, one passenger and 114 tons of freight. The crash was considered the
The numbers and details of the Israeli chemical and biological attacks against Palestinians are many and require large volumes to document. During the Palestinian Intifada the Palestinian youths were used as test subjects for new chemical weapons; toxins and incapacitants. James Brooks of “Just Peace in Palestine/Israel” gave detailed accounts of these attacks on civilians day by day as they happened; describing the severe convulsions, the burning sensation, the difficulty to breathe, the
L E A D A R T I C L E vomiting and pain the victims of these attacks had suffered. The documentary “Gaza Strip” , shot by the American filmmaker James Longley, documents Israel’s use of chemical weapons on Gaza residents. Such attacks were repeated in the West Bank cities of Al-Bireh and Nablus. Dr. Khamis Al-Najjar, the director of Cancer Research Center of the Ministry of Health in Ramallah, Palestine, highlighted in his February 3rd . 2003 report an alarming increase in cancer cases, especially among women and children. The report covers the period between 1995-2000 and shows 3,646 cases, mostly women. Israel’s continuous use of chemical/ biological weapons against Palestinians was most prominent in March 2001, October 2003, and June 2004 as investigated by these reports. Israel also used poison gas attacks against unarmed Palestinian civilians in Gaza in February 2001 as documented here . Israeli Mossad agents had also used chemical weapons in their assassination attacks against Palestinian leaders such as Hamas Leader Khaled Mesh’al , and Mahmoud alMabhouh, and are highly suspected of using nuclear poison in assassinating Yasser Arafat. The whole world knows very well that Israel has been manufacturing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, and has the largest stockpile of these WMD in the Middle Eastern region. In March 2003 the BBC television presented the documentary “Israel’s Secret Weapon” investigating Israel’s development of chemical/biological/nuclear (CBN) weapons. The successive American administrations are very well familiar with Israel’s CBN weapons. The US Congress Office of Technology Assessment titled “Proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction: Assessing the Risk” , pages 63-65, records Israel as a country continued next page
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continued from page 3 possessing an offensive biological warfare capability and a long-term, undeclared biological warfare program. In 1983 the CIA produced a special report on Israel’s weapons program, but deleted this page dealing with the chemical weapons. With Syria giving up its chemical weapons, now is the perfect opportunity to enforce the chemical weapons
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convention on all the countries in the region, including Israel, to free it from this WMD. Contrary to what Obama said, the convention does not specifically refer to just the use of chemical weapons, but also to its production and storage.
L E A D A R T I C L E Americans are really “exceptional” as he boosted, or will he turn a blind eye to the Israeli criminal chemical attacks and the largest stockpile of WMD, like his many predecessors??? 17 September, 2013
Will Obama, the peace-prize winner, prove that “the United States has been the anchor of global security … for nearly seven decades” as he claimed in his speech and demonstrate that the
Dr. Elias Akleh is an Arab writer from a Palestinian descent, born in the town of BeitJala. His family. He is living now in exile in the US and publish articles on the web. Source: Countercurrents.org
STATEMENTS NAIROBI AND PESHAWAR: THE FUTILITY OF TERROR TACTICS
The dastardly carnage in Nairobi and Peshawar proves yet again the utter futility of resorting to terror tactics in order to secure one’s political goals. In Nairobi, the brazen attack on a shopping mall by Al-Shabaab, a group based in Somalia, purportedly linked to Al-Qaeda, on 21 September 2013, has left at least 62 people dead and around 175 injured. This cruel slaughter of innocent men and women has elicited worldwide condemnation. It has heightened the anger of the Kenyan people against Al-Shabaab. Kenyan authorities are now more determined than ever to intensify their role in the African Union Mission in Somalia (AMISOM) under whose auspices the Kenyan army had invaded Somalia in October 2011 with the aim of defeating Al-Shabaab. If Al-Shabaab’s terrorism on 21 September was to force Kenya to withdraw from
Somalia, it has failed badly. Neither has it succeeded in making the people of Somalia more antagonistic towards the government in Mogadishu which Al-Shabaab alleges serves the interests of the US, other Western powers and Israel who are seeking to tighten their grip over Somalia and the Horn of Africa. If anything, through its barbaric conduct, Al-Shabaab has, ironically, brought Israel closer to the Kenyan government since Israeli commandos are helping Kenyan troops to eliminate terrorists from the shopping-mall. Al-Shabaab has often denounced Kenya’s ties with Israel. In other words, AlShabaab’s wanton terrorist assault has undermined its own position. The massacre outside the All Saints Anglican Church in Peshawar on 22 September as Christian worshippers were coming out of the Church perpetrated by two suicide bombers from a group known as Jandullah, linked to the Pakistani Taliban, resulted in 80 deaths, including 37 women and 7 children. This heinous crime against the innocent has incensed the people of Pakistan. Thousands have participated in protests in all major cities in the country. They are demanding firm action from the State against terrorist groups of whatever hue. If the terrorist attack in the precincts of
the Peshawar Church was intended as a protest against US drone assaults along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, it is unlikely that it will compel the US to change its policy. On the contrary, this brutal act has diverted attention from drones and other pressing national issues to the vulnerability of the miniscule Christian minority in Peshawar and Pakistan as a whole. It has brought to the fore the depravity and the viciousness of terrorist groups such as the Jandullah. The Nairobi and Peshawar episodes demonstrate vividly that terror tactics do not help to advance the struggle against hegemony or foreign intervention or external aggression. On the contrary, they weaken the quest to protect a people’s sovereignty and independence. Terrorism should be rejected by people everywhere. The struggle against injustice should be through peaceful, non-violent means, however difficult it may be.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, President, International Movement for a Just World (JUST) 24 September, 2013
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THE SYRIA DEAL: DANGERS AND OPPORTUNITIES Commentators tell us that there is a palpable sense of relief in Damascus and in other parts of Syria in the wake of the Russia-US deal over Syria’s chemical weapons. The citizens of Damascus ¯ the world’s oldest, continuously inhabited city ¯ know that they will not be bombed for the time being. The deal in brief will lead to the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons by mid-2014 to be supervised by the UN. Syria will become a party to the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons which outlaws their production and use. If the deal is breached, the violation would be brought to the notice of the UN Security Council for action. The Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, and the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, hope that the deal will culminate in a conference that will bring together all the main actors in the Syrian conflict. An amicable solution will be sought guided to a large extent by the principles adopted at an earlier Geneva meeting. For now, let us find out why a deal was struck, the dangers facing its implementation and the larger opportunities it presents. Deal For each of the actors involved in the conflict, the deal offers something. For the Bashar government, apart from staving off a powerful US led bombardment of Syria’s chemical weapons and military assets, the deal has in a sense temporarily preserved his position. For Iran, even a limited military strike against Bashar could unleash forces that would weaken his grip upon power and lead to the ouster of Iran’s closest ally in the Arab world. Equally important, eliminating chemical weapons is very much in consonance with Iran’s
policy since it was a victim of chemical gas attacks 25 years ago. For Russia, the deal also helps to protect a longstanding ally with whom it has forged enduring military and security ties for decades. How has the deal benefitted the Obama Administration? It saved Obama from ignominy since the majority of Americans are opposed to military action against Syria. His request for authorisation to strike Syria, according to analysts, would have been defeated in the House of Representatives. The Senate also appears to be divided on the issue. If there is opposition to military action among legislators and the people, it is mainly because of the mess the US and its allies have created in Iraq and the grave uncertainty that prevails in Afghanistan. Simply put, they do not want another military adventure. Add to this, the gloom generated by an economy that is still in dire straits. After all, it is partly because of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq that US debts have shot through the roof, making it the world’s biggest debtor nation. It is not just the American people who are reluctant to embark upon a military adventure. Parliament in Britain ¯ the US’s closest ally in Europe ¯ has voted against military action reflecting popular sentiment. The vast majority of French people are also opposed to war. So are the people in almost every other European state. Prominent personalities have also spoken out against war. The most notable among them is Pope Francis, the Head of the Catholic Church, who has held a mass prayer meeting to urge world leaders to refrain from military action. His clarion call has had some impact upon US legislators and the general public. The UN Secretary-General, Ban Ki-moon, who is almost always supportive of
Washington, has on this occasion cautioned against the use of force. It is also possible that given the monumental weaknesses in the range of opposition groups pitted against Bashar Al-Assad, the Obama Administration may have come to the conclusion that the military option could precipitate consequences that would eventually undermine US ¯ and Israeli ¯ interests. Not only are the armed rebels hopelessly fractured; the most potent among them is intimately linked to Al-Qaeda. The Jahbat Al- Nusra through its brutal, often barbaric acts of violence has instilled fear among the Syrian population and generated a great deal of uneasiness among the opposition’s foreign backers in Washington, London and Paris. This is why all said and done the deal between the US and Russia on Syria’s chemical weapons may be a way out for the US and certain Western governments. Dangers The implementation of the deal is however fraught with dangers. It is quite conceivable that the opposition which rejects the deal will try to sabotage it. Some factions among the armed rebels could employ chemical gases against the populace and then put the blame upon the Bashar government. It is believed that having failed to draw the US into a bombing spree against Bashar through the 21 August episode these rebels are now preparing another false flag operation ¯ this time against Israel ¯ in order to change the balance on the battleground in their favour. In this regard, it should be emphasised that there is increasing empirical evidence to show that 21 August was contrived and manipulated to suit the rebels’ diabolical agenda. Elements within the Israeli establishment may be willing to collude with the rebels on this. For while Prime Minister Netanyahu continued next page
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continued from page 5 has cautiously welcomed the move to eliminate Syria’s chemical weapons, he and others are still as determined as ever to break the Bashar- Hezbollah-Iran bond which they view as the greatest obstacle to Israel’s regional dominance. There are well-placed individuals in Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Qatar, among other states in West Asia, who for different reasons are also disappointed that that there has been no US-led military action to bring down Bashar. Pressure from these and other individuals and groups, especially if it is expressed through some dastardly incident, directed at Washington and other Western capitals could torpedo the Syria deal. There are after all influential lobbies in the US, linked to Zionist and Christian Zionist interests who may also want to push for the military option. Peace activists in the West and elsewhere
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should be ever vigilant to their machinations. Opportunities If attempts to subvert the deal fail, and the deal holds, it may open up opportunities for peace that go far beyond the deal itself. One, it may be possible to strengthen the people’s movement against war. If a war is averted over Syria, it would mean that the people of the world had played a major role in stopping a war. Seen in context, if in 2003, millions of people managed to de-legitimise the Iraq War ¯ it took place without UN authorisation ¯ then in 2013, “we the people” succeeded in preventing a war. Two, the Syria deal also provides us with the opportunity to give meaning and substance to international law and international institutions. All nations without exception should act within the
S T A T E M E N T S ambit of the law and through bodies like the UN. “Exceptionalism” has no legitimacy and should be rejected totally. Three, chemical weapons and all other weapons of mass destruction (WMD) should be eliminated completely from West Asia and North Africa (WANA) and the rest of the world. No nation in WANA should be exempted from observing this prohibition. Israel which has huge stocks of WMD, including nuclear weapons, should take the lead. Peace activists should make this ¯ the elimination of WMD from every nook and cranny of the earth ¯ their topmost agenda. If all this begins to happen, the Syria deal may well emerge as a turning-point in history.
Dr. Chandra Muzaffar, 16 September, 2013
ARTICLES ‘SHUTDOWN’: CHINA’S XI UPSTAGES OBAMA’S ASIA PIVOT By Nile Bowie
When the clock stroke midnight on October 1st, one would find plenty more optimism in Beijing than in Washington. In China, people gathered in Tiananmen Square to celebrate the anniversary of the country’s founding. In the US, the situation was fairly grimmer. A kabuki theatre of incompetence brought about a federal government shutdown which has failed hundreds of thousands of government employees while cutting billions in spending on social programs, and now Washington faces the very real scenario of a default. The problems posed by the US domestic situation are so dire that Obama was forced to cancel highprofile trips to Asia-Pacific countries in fear of the debt ceiling crashing down on his presidency. Obama was supposed to visit the APEC Summit in Bali, the ASEAN meeting in Brunei, as well as visits to Malaysia and the Philippines – two
countries that feature prominently in the “Pivot to Asia” policy unveiled in 2011. Instead, he sent the court jester, John Kerry, in his place. With Obama’s wings clipped and Air Force One grounded, China’s President Xi Jinping swooped in and stole the show, cutting billion-dollar deals on landmark visits to Indonesia and Malaysia, and securing the spotlight for the APEC and ASEAN conferences. While Xi came armin-arm with his classy wife for a massive charm offensive that topped headlines in Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur, Obama twiddled his thumbs in the Oval Office and played the blame game with Republicans like warring adolescents. Given the extreme value placed on the concept of saving or losing face in Chinese culture, this can only be a “paper tiger” moment for Obama when viewed
through the lens of Beijing. Obama’s noshow is yet another symbolic indication of the winds of global power blowing eastward, as the two largest economies vie for influence in military affairs and markets throughout the Asia-Pacific, this century’s global locomotive for economic development. Sorry, we’re closed Obama’s foreign policy has been one ‘epic fail’ after the next, and the shutdown debt-drama unfolding in Washington doesn’t exactly reflect the self-professed ‘exceptionalism’ of a power trying to pass itself off as a model for leadership in the Asia-Pacific. The structure of the muchlauded Asia pivot rests on a dualpronged approach; the muscle angle calls for increasing rotational US military presence in the region; the market angle continued next page
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continued from page 6 calls for roping emerging Southeast Asian economies into Washington’s sphere through the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), a secretive free trade agreement written to give US multinationals a major leg up. How can “America’s Pacific Century” be taken seriously when the commander-in-chief himself is too occupied with preventing his ceiling from collapsing to even visit the region for a few days? To use the Chinese proverb, Obama’s predicament is a case of “lifting a rock only to drop it on one’s own feet.” No one can deny the push for a more multipolar world emerging, and for developing countries, a giant ‘CLOSED’ sign over the mantle of American leadership may hasten a more equitable multilateral global economic order. In a recent speech during the UN General Assembly, Foreign Minister Wang Yi laid out the basis of Chinese diplomacy as being focused on multilateral participation between developing countries based on equal footing, and forging new international systems around the principle of non-interference and win-win partnerships. In other words, countries like Malaysia and Indonesia have more incentive doing business with Beijing – which invests billions in infrastructure deals to promote transportation, health services and education – rather than being locked into to the over-financialized sovereigntyeviscerating terms and conditions of the Washington consensus and the TPP. As the geopolitical landscape develops in Southeast Asia, it will soon be clear whether countries will play along with Obama’s China-containment doctrine or reject it – much of that equation depends on how
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Beijing can maneuver its hairy territorial disputes in the South China Sea. Obama’s Asia Pivot vs. Xi’s Maritime Silk Road Chinese President Xi Jinping became the first foreign leader to address the Indonesian Parliament on his trip to Jakarta, where he proposed a common destiny for the China-ASEAN community by constructing a new Maritime Silk Road of the 21st century. In his address, Xi made clear that territorial disputes in the oil-and-gas rich South China Sea should be handled through dialogue and trustbuilding, invoking the Indonesian proverb, “Money can be easily earned but not friendship.” The thrust of Xi’s message is that mutually beneficially exchange trumps military disputes, and that comprise is possible. Xi also pledged to boost trade with ASEAN to a mammoth US$1 trillion by 2020 and partake in megaprojects such as the construction of the ambitious 90,000-hectare dam in West Java; he also cut US$30 billion deals in mining and port construction with Indonesian President Susilo Yudhoyono, and secured contracts for Chinese companies to build the long-overdue Jakarta monorail project. Malaysia has long been China’s biggest trading partner in the ASEAN bloc, and upon landing in Kuala Lumpur, Xi announced that bilateral ties would be elevated to a comprehensive strategic partnership aimed at tripling trade to $160 billion by 2017, including new militaryto-military ties and cooperation. Malaysia’s PM Najib Razak – the country’s most pro-US leader to date – is engaging in a delicate balancing act and remains faithfully pro-China. Najib has green-lighted greater cooperation with
A R T I C L E S the US military, and has taken part in the negotiations for the TPP, but asserts that Malaysia may pullout of the deal over concerns of protecting national sovereignty. The forecast for implementing the TPP looks all the more bleak after Obama has blown his chance to create a domino effect that threatens the neoliberal centerpiece of Obama’s Asia-Pacific economic strategy. The subject of Washington versus Beijing in the Asia-Pacific will be the geopolitical question of the next two decades – it can be encapsulated as unipolarity versus multipolarity. Beijing professes that it is not aiming for hegemony, but for a political framework centered on mutual respect, win-win cooperation, and the absence of conflict. China’s long-term relations with AsiaPacific countries will measure the success of this multilateral strategy. As China gears toward more dramatic financial reform and economic structural transformation, Beijing is readying itself for the responsibilities of global economic leadership as the world’s largest economy through a philosophy of “crossing the river by feeling the stones” – an enduring pragmatism. As confidence dwindles in the USD & Euro as the two legs of a wobbly global economy, China is positioning itself as a third leg that can hopefully offer greater stabilization and prudency. To borrow the Chinese folk saying, “Either the east wind prevails over the west wind or the west wind prevails over the east wind.” Only fools will deny the way the wind is blowing. 5 October, 2013 Nile Bowie is a Kuala Lumpur- based political analyst and columinst with Russia Today.
“THE OIL IS OURS”- BUT ITS SECRETS ARE THE NSA’S By Fabiana Frayssinet
Rio de Janeiro , Sept. 16, 2013 : Reported US spying on Brazil’s Petrobras oil firm revived the controversy over opening up the company, a symbol of Brazilian
sovereignty since the 1950s, to foreign investment.
with the discovery of oil and gas during the government of Getulio Vargas (19301945) and that became the slogan of the
“The oil is ours” was the cry that arose
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continued from page 7 founding of Petrobras in 1953. It took on new force in 1997, when then president Fernando Henrique Cardoso (1995-2003) declared the end of the state monopoly and opened the company up to local and foreign private investment. It began to be heard again in 2007, when Petrobras discovered massive offshore oil reserves 180 km from the coast and 7,000 km below sea level, under a thick layer of salt. And then again in 2010, when then president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (20032011) replaced the current concessions system, under which companies bid for the rights to explore new oil blocks, with a production-sharing regime between the state and private companies. The Brazilian government is the largest shareholder in Petrobras, a publicly traded company whose closely guarded secrets – such as the volume of reserves or the deep water exploration technology it has developed – may already be in the hands of the US government and its allies. Rio-based US journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed earlier this month that leaked National Security Agency (NSA) documents indicated that it had spied on Petrobras – Brazil ‘s largest company and the world’s fourth largest oil company. Secret documents from 2012 that were given to Greenwald by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden reportedly show that Petrobras was at the top of a list of targets for intelligence gathering.
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to earlier reports that it had intercepted the private communications of Brazilian citizens and of President Dilma Rousseff herself. “Without a doubt, Petrobras does not represent a threat to the security of any country,” Rousseff said. “What it does represent is one of the world’s largest oil assets, a heritage of the Brazilian people.” “It is clear that the motive was not security or fighting terrorism, but economic and strategic interests,” the president added. The vulnerability of the company’s secrets has once again fanned the sentiment that “the oil is ours”, as well as arguments in favor of and against a greater opening to private investment in Petrobras. One of the focuses of the controversy is the Libra oil field in the Santos Basin, one of Brazil’s richest offshore sub-salt deposits, set to be opened up to bidding in October. The Brazilian government denied that the bidding would be suspended due to fears that leaked information could favor US or British companies, as newspaper reports claimed. The president of the association of Petrobras engineers, Silvio Sinedino, told IPS that “We are opposed to any bidding. We have long demanded that our oil should not be handed over the way it is here, and especially not in a fabulous oilfield where there is no risk because it has already been explored and has a confirmed capacity of 12 to 15 billion barrels of oil.”
The documents, part of a presentation used to train new agents on how to breach private computer networks, do not show to what extent NSA deciphered secret information from Petrobras’ computers.
Brazil ‘s sub-salt reserves are estimated at 80 to 100 billion barrels – enough to supply the country for 40 to 50 years, he noted.
But they do undermine the explanation presented by the US agency with respect
Sinedino said the Cardoso administration’s “privatization” of
A R T I C L E S Petrobras and telecommunications left Brazil more exposed to espionage. “Even our military communications go through US satellites, which are obviously controlled by agents from that country,” he added. Adriano Pires, a consultant with the Brazilian Infrastructure Centre, said Petrobras was targeted by spying because “after 50 years of monopoly…no one knows the technological secrets of deep water oil drilling like Petrobras does.” Describing the company as “number one” in that area, Pires told IPS that “no one knows more about the probability of finding oil.” That knowledge, he said, is coveted at a time when possible sub-salt reserves off the coast of West Africa are being disputed. But using the revelations of espionage to once again discuss the merits of opening up Petrobras to private investment is “foolishness” characteristic of “extreme nationalist” rhetoric, he argued. “There is a great deal of noise and speculation about the espionage, fuelled even by people inside the government, to once again allege that the United States is trying to seize Brazil ‘s wealth,” he said. “The sub-salt reserves are huge, and Petrobras cannot exploit them by itself, with its liquidity issues. We need U.S. , Swedish, British, Norwegian or Australian companies to tap the reserves,” Pires said. Tullo Vigevani, a political science professor at the São Paulo State University , said he was not surprised by the news of the alleged industrial continued next page
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continued from page 8 espionage because “the energy question is a central focus of U.S. policy.” “It is one of the key issues of politics at a global level,” he told IPS. “And information is an essential element. The new discoveries in Brazil , especially in the sub-salt area, require tight surveillance.” Vigevani said that above and beyond the
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Brazilian government’s demand for explanations, any solution to defend the country’s strategic interests must be long-term in nature.
A R T I C L E S 23 September, 2013 Fabiana
Frayssinet
has
been
a
correspondent for Inter Press Service since 1989 in Central America, and since 1996 in
In view of what appears to be inevitable, he said, Brazil should invest more in developing science and technology “autonomously, in developing skills, and in developing systems that are more immune to intrusions.”
Brazil, where she served as a contributor for various international media outlets in radio, print and television, including CNN en Español, IPS, UNIVISION, Telefé de Argentina, Radio Suecia and Radio Nederland. Source: Inter Press Service
‘FATWA ACTIVISM’ VERSUS ‘EDUCATIONAL ACTIVISM’ By Maulana Wahiduddin Khan
There is much talk these days about
is the right one. This instance concerns a
wider society, regarding which an
different kinds of activism. One hears of
noted Indian Islamic scholar, Maulana
individual approaches a Mufti for a fatwa
political activism, social activism,
Abdul Haq Haqqani, who died in 1831.
on his own. It is not proper for the Mufti
community activism, media activism,
He was the author of a commentary on
to give a fatwa in response to this sort of
judicial activism, and so on. A section of
the Quran. In his period, the British had
question. If he does so, the fatwa is
Muslim religious leaders have launched
replaced gold and silver coins with paper
unlikely to have any positive role or
a new form of activism of their own—
money. This new form of money appeared
influence in correcting the social ill that
what can be called ‘fatwa activism’. They
to be unacceptable according to the rules
it seeks to address. Instead, it can turn
think that by issuing a flurry of Fatwas
of
Muslim
out to be a cause for giving Islam a bad
they can reform Muslim society. So, one
jurisprudence. The Maulana was asked
name. This has happened in numerous
hears of scores of Fatwas against un-
to issue a fatwa on the matter to judge
cases. To paraphrase the words of
Islamic dress, Fatwas against women
whether this was Islamically-acceptable
Maulana Abdul Haq Haqqani whom I
being present at certain religious places,
or not. However, he declined to give the
referred to earlier, such Fatwas did not
Fatwas calling for the killing of people
fatwa, and simply said, ‘My fatwa [in this
work and the social ills they sought to
accused of traducing the Prophet, Fatwas
regard] won’t work. Instead, the paper
combat remained as before. Thus, scores
demanding the banning of books by
money will.’ In such matters, this is the
of Fatwas have been delivered on a
controversial authors, Fatwas declaring
correct Islamic approach to take.
variety of social ills, against bida’t or
traditional
Fiqh
or
wrongful innovations in religion, against
some persons as apostates and insisting on their social boycott, Fatwas
The literal meaning of the word fatwa is
polytheistic customs, against dowry,
announcing television or other things to
‘opinion’. A fatwa can take two forms. The
against television and cinema, against
be Haram or forbidden, Fatwas declaring
first is in the form of a question asked to
loudspeakers in mosques, against
banking to be un-Islamic and so on.
a Mufti by a person with a regard to a
interest on bank deposits, against men
Fatwas of these sorts have been issued
matter directly concerning himself or
shaving their beards, against wearing
in their thousands in recent years, but
herself with the intention of gaining
Western clothes, against English
almost all of them have proved to be
guidance thereby. For instance, a
education and so on. But, needless to
practically without any impact. They
sportswoman asks a Mufti what he feels
say, all these Fatwas proved to be of little
have not been able to produce the
is an islamically- legitimate sports-dress
or no effect.
changes that they intended to.
for her. It is proper and appropriate for
In the modern period I know of just
the Mufti to give a fatwa in response to
According to what I have studied so far,
this form of request.
only a person who has a question relating directly to himself or herself should
one instance where a Mufti refused to give a fatwa despite being asked to do
The second way of eliciting a fatwa
approach a mufti for a fatwa. A Mufti
so. I am of the opinion that this approach
relates to a particular social evil in the
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and hell so that in this way people’s
capacity and willingness to abide by the
should issue Fatwas only in such cases. A
hearts would be softened enough to
teachings of the faith. Only after this
fatwa must not be asked or issued when
receive the Islamic message. Then,
work has been sufficiently done should
the matter does not directly concern the
gradually, after people had developed
issues be explained to people using the
person who requests it. For instance, if a
adequate capacity to accept Divine laws,
language of the religious law. Without
person approaches a mufti, asking him if it
the Quranic commandments prohibiting
developing this inner spirit among
is permissible to say prayers behind the
adultery and the consumption of alcohol
people, seeking to cure social ills by
imam of a particular mosque whose beard
were revealed. Had these commandments
issuing Fatwas from without would be of
is short, it is not right for the mufti to issue
been revealed in the initial stages of Islam,
no use. This is putting the cart before
a fatwa in this regard. To do so might well
people may not have accepted them, and,
the horse.
cause strife and chaos (Fitna).
instead, might have refused to give up adultery and consuming alcohol.
The only criterion for judging ‘fatwa activism’, or, for that matter, any other
The question then arises of what the proper Islamic method of social reform
From this instance one can understand
form of activism, is its efficacy in
is. This proper method is one of
that general social reform cannot happen
producing the hoped-for results. Only
persuasion and guidance, through
through delivering Fatwas against social
those methods of activism are
writings and lectures, and not through
ills. Rather, for this sort of work, people’s
worthwhile that actually succeed in
delivering condemnatory Fatwas. People
capacity and willingness to accept and
achieving their goals. Action must
should be addressed in such a way that
act on divine guidance must first be
always be result-oriented. The present-
the advice given to them impresses itself
developed. Only after this can religious
form of ‘fatwa activism’ must be seen and
in their hearts and they then recognize
laws be enforced. To issue orders, in the
evaluated in the light of this basic
and act on that advice on their own. In
form of Fatwas, in the absence of
principle.
today’s terms, this could be termed as
developing people’s capacity to accept
‘educational activism’. Islam’s approach
religious guidance is no solution at all.
This is a translation of Maulana
to solving social ills is through this sort
Often, it is not ignorance of religious
Wahiduddin Khan’s essay titled Fatwa
of educational activism, rather than
rulings that causes social ills. Rather, the
Activism Ya Educational Activism? in his
‘fatwa activism’.
basic cause is the lack of the appropriate
book Islam Aur Intihapasandi (‘Islam and
spirit among people.
Extremism’) (Positive Thinkers Forum, Bangalore, n.d., pp. 14-17)
A guiding principle in this matter is to be found in a narration which is contained
This is why social reform cannot begin
in the Sahih al-Bukhari. According to this
with the issuing of Fatwas. Rather, it has
report, Hazrat Ayesha (r.a.) said that the
to begin with seeking to inculcate and
14 August, 2013
Quranic verses that were revealed in the
promote the right spirit among people and
Maulana Wahiduddin Khan is a well
initial stages of Islam dealt with heaven
to ignite their consciousness and their
known Islamic scholar from New Delhi, India.
THE CHARITABLE- INDUSTRIAL COMPLEX By Peter Buffett
I HAD spent much of my life writing
addition to making several large
I noticed that a donor had the urge to
music for commercials, film and television
donations, he added generously to the
“save the day” in some fashion. People
and knew little about the world of
three foundations that my parents had
(including me) who had very little
philanthropy as practiced by the very
created years earlier, one for each of their
knowledge of a particular place would
wealthy until what I call the big bang
children to run.
think that they could solve a local
happened in 2006. That year, my father,
problem. Whether it involved farming
Warren Buffett, made good on his
Early on in our philanthropic journey, my
methods, education practices, job
commitment to give nearly all of his
wife and I became aware of something I
training or business development, over
accumulated wealth back to society. In
started to call Philanthropic Colonialism.
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destroyed by the system that creates
health products and free markets, better
and over I would hear people discuss
vast amounts of wealth for the few, the
education, safer living conditions). Yes,
transplanting what worked in one setting
more heroic it sounds to “give back.” It’s
these are all important. But no
directly into another with little regard for
what I would call “conscience
“charitable” (I hate that word)
culture, geography or societal norms.
laundering” — feeling better about
intervention can solve any of these
accumulating more than any one person
issues. It can only kick the can down the
Often the results of our decisions had
could possibly need to live on by
road.
unintended consequences; distributing
sprinkling a little around as an act of
condoms to stop the spread of AIDS in a
charity.
brothel area ended up creating a higher
My wife and I know we don’t have the answers, but we do know how to listen.
But this just keeps the existing structure
As we learn, we will continue to support
of inequality in place. The rich sleep
conditions for systemic change.
But now I think something even more
better at night, while others get just
It’s time for a new operating system. Not
damaging is going on.
enough to keep the pot from boiling over.
a 2.0 or a 3.0, but something built from
Nearly every time someone feels better
the ground up. New code.
price for unprotected sex.
Because of who my father is, I’ve been
by doing good, on the other side of the
able to occupy some seats I never
world (or street), someone else is further
What we have is a crisis of imagination.
expected to sit in. Inside any important
locked into a system that will not allow
Albert Einstein said that you cannot
philanthropy meeting, you witness heads
the true flourishing of his or her nature
solve a problem with the same mind-set
of state meeting with investment
or the opportunity to live a joyful and
that created it. Foundation dollars should
managers and corporate leaders. All are
fulfilled life.
be the best “risk capital” out there.
hand to problems that others in the room
And with more business-minded folks
There are people working hard at
have created with their left. There are
getting into the act, business principles
showing examples of other ways to live
plenty of statistics that tell us that
are trumpeted as an important element to
in a functioning society that truly creates
inequality is continually rising. At the
add to the philanthropic sector. I now hear
greater prosperity for all (and I don’t mean
same time, according to the Urban
people ask, “what’s the R.O.I.?” when it
more people getting to have more stuff).
Institute, the nonprofit sector has been
comes to alleviating human suffering, as
steadily growing. Between 2001 and 2011,
if return on investment were the only
Money should be spent trying out
the number of nonprofits increased 25
measure of success. Microlending and
concepts that shatter current structures
percent. Their growth rate now exceeds
financial literacy (now I’m going to upset
and systems that have turned much of
that of both the business and
people who are wonderful folks and a few
the world into one vast market. Is
government sectors. It’s a massive
dear friends) — what is this really about?
progress really Wi-Fi on every street
business, with approximately $316 billion
People will certainly learn how to
corner? No. It’s when no 13-year-old girl
given away in 2012 in the United States
integrate into our system of debt and
on the planet gets sold for sex. But as
alone and more than 9.4 million
repayment with interest. People will rise
long as most folks are patting themselves
employed.
above making $2 a day to enter our world
on the back for charitable acts, we’ve got
of goods and services so they can buy
a perpetual poverty machine.
Philanthropy has become the “it” vehicle
more. But doesn’t all this just feed the
It’s an old story; we really need a new
to level the playing field and has
beast?
one.
searching for answers with their right
generated a growing number of gatherings, workshops and affinity
I’m really not calling for an end to
groups.
capitalism; I’m calling for humanism.
Peter Buffett is a composer and a chairman
Often I hear people say, “if only they had
of the NoVo Foundation.
what we have” (clean water, access to
Source: The New York Times
As more lives and communities are
26 July, 2013
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