Africa lagging behind in development of ‘green’ energy economy - UN

Africa is lagging behind the rest of the world in developing renewable energy projects with initiatives aimed at producing clean and ‘green’ energy remaining largely under-exploited, warned a new report released today by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP).

Mossad Gangsters in Dubai

EDITORIAL

Mossad gangsters in Dubai

Published Feb 28, 2010 8:38 PM

Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, credited with organizing the fighting force of the Palestinian liberation group Hamas, was assassinated in Dubai by Israeli Mossad agents, perhaps working together with other professional killers. That, at least, is what everyone believes and is the most reasonable explanation of his murder.

A myth has grown about the Mossad — a Hebrew word meaning Institute, short for Institute for Intelligence and Special Operations. Its professional killers are supposed to work flawlessly, expertly, with dedication and ruthlessness. The ruthless part is true and obvious. The rest is a myth useful to the Israeli rulers. The Israeli army created this myth before its 2006 defeat in Lebanon and last year’s failure in Gaza.

Like its counterparts in the “dirty-tricks” departments of imperialist spy agencies like the CIA, Britain’s MI6 and France’s General Directorate, the Mossad carries out murders. It operates much like killers trained or hired by organized crime gangs to rub out someone refusing to pay protection money.

The Mossad operates under the Israeli flag, a flag tied up completely with the brutal suppression of an entire people. Thus these gangsters have become specialists in suppression and repression of popular rebellion. Mossad agents are sent all over the globe, providing advice and training to repressive states, for example, to Colombia and other pro-U.S. countries in Latin America where a large U.S. presence in this role might awaken mass anger.

The Israelis offer this training as part of their contribution to maintaining imperialist domination over the world and in return for other support. The imperialists and their Israeli clients stick together in jointly suppressing liberation struggles.

While carrying out the murder of Al-Mabhouh, the Mossad agents were recorded on closed-circuit videos that abound in Dubai. The local police publicized this on YouTube. They also revealed that the suspect Mossad agents used passports from Britain, Canada and Ireland. These countries, also part of the imperialist world, lodged diplomatic complaints, which the Israelis discount as public relations.

But for the Israelis it is bad public relations. With each blatant murder and war crime the Israeli state commits, the propaganda attempting to support its legitimacy loses the little force it retains. Israeli war crimes in Gaza a year ago propelled a movement demanding boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Zionist state. The Dubai assassination, which once more exposes Israel’s criminal character, is sure to push that BDS movement another step forward.
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Students can play vital role in mobilizing action on global issues - Ban

Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon highlighted the vital role played by young people in tackling the many global challenges of the day, as he sought to enlist students at the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) to support the goals and mission of the United Nations.

Concern Mounts Over Fresh Fighting in Darfur Region of Sudan

Wednesday, March 03, 2010
06:23 Mecca time, 03:23 GMT

Concern over fresh Darfur fighting

The reported fighting comes a week after Khartoum signed a peace deal with main rebel group Jem

The United States has expressed concern over reports that the Sudanese army launched offensives against rebels in Darfur after signing a peace deal with the main rebel group there last week.

PJ Crowley, a spokesman for the US state department, said on Tuesday that Washington was “extremely concerned” over reports of fighting that “have reportedly caused significant civilian casualties, displacement, and the evacuation of humanitarian organisations”.

He urged Sudan’s government and the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) Abdel Wahid faction “to refrain from further violence and to allow the Joint African Union-United Nations Mission in Darfur access to Jebel Marra to assess the humanitarian situation and restore stability”.

Abdel Wahid Mohamed al-Nur is the leader of an SLA faction which has a stronghold in the area.

‘Civilians killed’

Hundreds of civilians are feared dead in the fighting, a UN source told the Reuters news agency on Monday.

“We think that we have a mounting number of casualties … The lower estimate is around 140, the higher estimate is closer to 400,” said the source of civilian deaths.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the source said as many as 40,000 civilians had fled the fighting, most recently around the market town of Deribat.

“For us the important thing now is to get access to the area,” said the source, who said aid workers and UN agencies had been blocked from entering Jabel Marra by the ongoing fighting and the threat of bandit attacks on their staff.

SLA field commander Suleiman Marajan told Reuters that government bombing raids had killed at least 170 civilians around Deribat over the past 10 days and more had died in other areas.

But a Sudan army spokesman denied any fighting in the mountainous Jabel Marra region and accused rebels of attacking local residents.

“There are no clashes between the Sudanese army and the forces of Abdel Wahid’s movement,” he told Reuters.

The reported clashes throughout last week have marred Khartoum’s announcement of an end to war in the region and comes just over a month before national elections.

Omar Hassan al-Bashir, Sudan’s president, declared the seven-year war in Darfur over last Wednesday after signing an initial deal with the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), Darfur’s main rebel force.

The deal signed in Qatari capital Doha on February 23 commits Khartoum to reaching a final peace deal with Jem by March 15.

State department spokesman Crowley said the peace deal offered a chance to reduce violence in Darfur but needed to be broadened to include other rebel groups, but Abdel Wahid’s SLA and other rebels have rejected the deal, demanding security on the ground before talks.

Source: Agencies

New text could propel Security Council reform negotiations, says UN chair

The official overseeing negotiations on reforming the United Nations Security Council says that Member States will contribute by Friday to a text that will focus the next round of discussions and could help wrap up a process that has been ongoing for 17 years.

Kenya: ICC official names 20 people most responsible for post-election clashes

Following a request for additional information from the International Criminal Court (ICC) earlier this month, its Prosecutor today named the 20 people he says are most responsible for the deadly post-election ethnic violence which swept Kenya in December 2007 and January 2008.

At least 80 dead in Ugandan mudslide - UN

Landslides triggered by torrential rainfall in eastern Uganda have claimed at least 80 lives, with over 300 others listed as missing, the United Nations humanitarian arm reported today.

U.S. Occupation Behind Iraq’s Turmoil

Wednesday, March 03, 2010
18:53 Mecca time, 15:53 GMT

Suicide bombers target Iraq city

The blasts follow a threat by al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq that he will disrupt the upcoming elections

At least 29 people have been killed and 42 more wounded in three powerful co-ordinated suicide attacks in the central Iraqi city of Baquba.

Just days before parliamentary elections are due to be held, attackers targeted a government building, a nearby traffic intersection and, later, the hospital where the wounded were being treated.

Reporting that the toll is likely to rise, Al Jazeera’s Anita MacNaught said the explosions on Wednesday were a “carefully co-ordinated series of attacks”.

“This is far from unprecedented. If what we’re hearing is true, the local police chief was the target of the third suicide bomb,” she said.

“The bomber followed crowds of the wounded into the hospital and detonated himself in an effort to get the police chief as well,” our correspondent said.

Major General Abdul Hussein al-Shimmari, the police chief, escaped unharmed but a number of his personal security team were wounded.

The attacks, coming despite heightened security across the country ahead of Sunday’s vote, were the deadliest to hit Iraq in nearly a month.

Al-Qaeda threat

“Diyala [Baquba is the capital of the Diyala province] has been quiet in the lead up to the election. It was, of course, one of the most violence-stricken provinces back in 2007, but this is a dramatic escalation of violence there,” MacNaught added.

The bombings follow a threat by Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, al-Qaeda’s leader in Iraq, that he would disrupt elections by “military means”.

Before hitting Baquba’s main hospital, bombers in explosives-laden vehicles targeted the city’s provincial housing department’s offices and a nearby intersection at around 9:30am (06:30 GMT).

The first vehicle crashed through the entrance to the provincial housing department’s compound, which sits next to a police station, before exploding.

Moments later, at a nearby traffic intersection, a suicide bomber detonated explosives packed into his vehicle, triggering a powerful blast.

The hospital bombing occurred a short time later.

Election security

Iraqis go to the polls on March 7, the second such vote since Saddam Hussein, the former president, was ousted in 2003.

Al Jazeera’s Mike Hanna, reporting from Baghdad, said there had been a spike in violence across the country in the lead-up to the election.

He said a number of measures have been taken to ensure security.

“There will be 48-hour period of calm before the voting takes place during which no campaigning can happen. There are also indications that there will be a curfew in major areas throughout the country.

“The safeguards are in place but there have been security safeguards in place for a period of time … Bombings such as [in Baquba] today and bombings in Baghdad in recent weeks indicate that no matter how tight the security, bombers seeking to disrupt the election process could find a way.”

Last Sunday, Iraq’s national security adviser told the AFP news agency that security forces had found and prevented at least 10 vehicle bombs in the past month as al-Qaeda and other rebel groups sought to target the election.

Safa Hussein said most of those bombs, which would have caused “very major damage”, would have targeted Baghdad.

The parliamentary elections are seen by Washington as a crucial precursor to a complete US military withdrawal from Iraq by the end of 2011.

The UN’s envoy to Iraq has said that while he was concerned by the level of violence, it had not affected preparations for the elections.

Source: Al Jazeera and agencies

U.S. occupation behind Iraq’s turmoil

By John Catalinotto
Published Feb 28, 2010 9:01 PM

As the March 7 national election approaches in Iraq, the number of U.S. troops occupying the country has slipped below 100,000 for the first time since the U.S.-led invasion seven years ago. The Pentagon plans to change the name of its Iraq effort on Sept. 1, from “Operation Iraqi Freedom” to “Operation New Dawn” when 50,000 troops remain.

The play with words and numbers hasn’t changed the basic reality in Iraq. There are still 98,000 U.S. troops there. They still have the leverage on power. A sovereign election can’t be held in an occupied country.

If and when the last U.S. troops are ushered out, the best name for that effort would be “Operation End the Nightmare.” Seven years of invasion and occupation have brought neither freedom nor the promise of a fresh start, but have brought Iraq to the brink of destruction as a country.

A report from the BRussells Tribunal, resulting from an attempt last October to raise a legal case against U.S./U.K. aggression and occupation, gives a bleak picture of where life is at today in Iraq:

“From the start of the implementation of a U.S.-instigated and dominantly administered sanctions regime [August 1990] up to the present day, an approximate total of 2.7 million Iraqis have died as a direct result of sanctions followed by the U.S.-U.K. led war of aggression on, and occupation of, Iraq beginning in 2003. Among those killed during the sanctions period were 560,000 children.

“From 2003 onwards, having weakened Iraq’s civil and military infrastructure to the degree that its people were rendered near totally defenseless, Iraq was subject to a level of aggression of near unprecedented scale and nature in international history.”

This took place along with “funding of sectarian groups and militias that would play a key role in fragmenting the country under occupation, … the collapse of all public services and state protection for the Iraqi people, the further destruction of the health and education systems of Iraq, and the creation of waves of internal and external displacement totaling nearly 5 million Iraqis;” overall there are “5 million orphans” and “3 million widows.” (brusselstribunal.org)

Those are the numbers that should be kept in mind when the Pentagon and war criminals like former Vice President Dick Cheney and former British Prime Minister Tony Blair boast of the achievements of the Iraq occupation. What the U.S. and Britain have achieved is fomenting an internecine battle among different groupings inside Iraq. This has prevented the Iraqis from waging a united struggle to liberate their country from the occupation.

The imperialists have left Iraq in shambles. And they have not yet left Iraq.

An electoral sham

The March 7 election — should it take place as scheduled — will be as much a farce as the one held in Afghanistan last summer. A complete client state, which was only able to take power with the force of the occupation behind it, is organizing the elections. It is organizing them in order to consolidate power for the groupings that support Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki.

These are parties that opposed the Ba’athist government led by Saddam Hussein. Al-Maliki signed the papers hurrying the execution of the Iraqi leader on Dec. 30, 2006. At that time Saddam Hussein was a symbol of struggle for a significant section of the Iraqi resistance to the U.S.-led occupation.

During the electoral campaign, al-Maliki’s government outlawed the candidacy of 454 people who were running for national office, claiming that these individuals were too close to the Ba’ath Party. Some 171 of these candidates appealed the decision disqualifying them. In February a panel of judges appointed for the purpose rejected the appeals of all but 26 candidates.

Following this decision barring the most secular of the candidates, the Iraqi National Movement coalition led by former Prime Minister Iyad Allawi announced it would temporarily suspend its campaign and demanded that the bans be reversed. On Feb 21, one of the parties in this coalition, the mostly Sunni National Dialog Front, announced that it would boycott the election.

There is still a chance the election will fall apart. Even if the vote takes place, as in Afghanistan, it will be a fraud having nothing to do with democracy. U.S. troops — even if they are not engaged in daily battles in Iraq — still remain the final arbiters of Iraqi politics.

Washington may prefer a stable puppet regime in Iraq so it can move most of its troops to Afghanistan. But the U.S. forces will continue to try to play off one sector of Iraqi society against another — whatever the consequences for the Iraqis — if the U.S. dominates the region.

E-mail: jcat@workers.org
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Articles copyright 1995-2010 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Workers World, 55 W. 17 St., NY, NY 10011
Email: ww@workers.org
Page printed from:
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Food, electricity, water top priorities for post-quake Chile, UN relief wing reports

The situation in the main areas of Chile affected by the recent earthquake is still critical, the United Nations relief wing reported today, noting that access to food and the restoration of electricity and drinking water are still the top priorities.

Security sector reform vital to stability in Guinea-Bissau, says UN report

Security sector reform remains the most crucial element to ensuring stability in Guinea-Bissau, according to a new United Nations report released today, which calls on the international community to support the country’s efforts towards this goal.