Day: September 21, 2014

Watching the Shadows

Podcast: Charlie Kirk = Calvo Sotelo?

Some are drawing an ominous analogy between Charlie Kirk and Horst Wessel, the early martyr of the Nazi cause. In Episode 296 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg offers a more ominous analogy still: to José Calvo Sotelo, the Spanish fascist leader whose assassination in 1936 provided the expedience for Generalissimo Franco’s coup d’etat that initiated the Spanish Civil War—and ultimately brought a decades-long dictatorship to Spain. Trump’s declaration of antifa as a “terrorist organization” since Kirk’s assassination is an open acknowledgement of his fascist intent. Fortunately, anti-fascist protesters are repudiating Kirk, and the wave of racist terror and anti-left reaction now being unleashed coast to coast. (Image mash-up: CounterVortex)

Iraq

Yazidis call Middle East indigenous alliance

In a meeting hosted by the Yazidi autonomous territory of Ezidikhan in northern Iraq, representatives of tribal peoples and ethnic minorities from across the Middle East and North Africa agreed on a framework for a region-wide alliance of stateless nations struggling for self-determination and autonomy. The meeting at the Ezidikhan seat of Shingal was attended by representatives of the Mandaeans and Zoroastrians as well as Yazidis. Messages of support were also sent by the Shabaks of Iraq, Ahwazi Arabs of Iran, Berbers of Libya, and Palestinian Bedouins residing in the state of Israel. Delegates announced formation of a Confederation of Indigenous Nations of the Middle East open to all stateless peoples of the region. The Confederation pledges to seek greater recognition for stateless peoples of the Middle East at the UN Permanent Forum on Indigenous Issues, and to seek redress for persecution, exclusion and genocide. (Photo of Yazidi delegates: Ezidikhan.net)

Greater Middle East

Kurds punished for success against ISIS —again

With the Rojava Kurds mounting an offensive on the last ISIS-held border town in northern Syria, Turkey has launched a new propaganda push to brand them as "terrorists."

Greater Middle East

FAIR serves up more lies on Syria

The poorly named Fairness & Accuracy in Reporting (sic) continues to propagate the bogus conspiracy theory of a CIA effort to overthrow the Bashar Assad dictatorship.

CLEAN WATER VERSUS CORPORATE PROFITS

Multinational Mineral Company Strikes Back at El Salvador

by Pete Dolack, Systemic Disorder

An Australian mining company insists its “right” to a guaranteed profit is superior to the right of El Salvador to clean drinking water—and an unappealable World Bank secret tribunal will decide if that is so.

Drinking water is the underdog here. It might be thought that Salvadorans ought to have the right to decide on a question as fundamental as their source of water, but that is not so. It will be up to a secret tribunal controlled by corporate lawyers. And as an added bit of irony, the hearing began on El Salvador’s Independence Day, September 15. Formal independence, and actual independence, alas, are not the same thing.

The case, officially known as Pac Rim Cayman LLC v. Republic of El Salvador, pits the Australian gold-mining company OceanaGold Corporation against the government of El Salvador. OceanaGold is asking for an award of $301 million because the Salvadoran government won’t give it a permit to open a gold mine that would poison a critical source of drinking water on which millions depend.

Iraq

Syria: ISIS-besieged Kurds appeal for aid

The Kurdish town of Kobani is holding out against a dramatic ISIS advance into Syrian territory, and local leaders are calling for a pan-Kurdish mobilization for the town's defense.

Greater Middle East

Assad to The Hague? Don’t bet on it…

Syria does not recognize the International Criminal Court, so an ICC case against Bashar Assad can only be launched by the Security Council—where Russia holds a veto.

Inner Asia

New deadly Xinjiang raid comes to light

Security forces in China’s far western Xinjiang region shot and killed at least 12 men and wounded 20 others during a raid on what authorities described as a “terrorist facility.”

South Asia

India: strange bedfellows in Bharat Bandh

A Bharat Bandh—all-India general strike—called to protest neoliberal economic measures shut down much of the country, supported by Hindu nationalist and Marxist parties alike.

East Asia

Japan retreats from nuclear power phase-out

Japan’s cabinet turned down recommendations of a special panel to phase out nuclear power by 2040—a move openly portrayed as a capitulation to the nuclear lobby.

Oceania

US, New Zealand restore military cooperation

Leon Panetta in Auckland announced that US naval cooperation with New Zealand will be resumed—cut off in 1985, when the Pacific nation declared itself a nuclear-free zone.

WHY WE FIGHT

From AP, Sept. 15: Cops: Driver using GPS when bus hit NY bridge SALINA, N.Y. — A double-decker bus driver may have been distracted by his own GPS device when he drove the vehicle into a railroad bridge in central… Read moreWHY WE FIGHT