The Leap Forward

The EU and Diversity: Stop the second rate treatment of LGBTT people! by Maite Morren

2009-03-27T22:32:00.001+01:00

All people are equal. But some are more equal than others. Take for instance the situation of LGBTT people in the EU.

In the early 1990s gay rights activist Peter Tatchell remarked that there were 'tensions and contradictions within the Commission over how to respond to demands for lesbian and gay equality’. Although it would be possible to counter discrimination against LGBTTs on the grounds of contradicting the EC’s goal of creating an obstacle –free internal market the Commission chose to emphasize that it has no legal power to outlaw anti-homosexual discrimination, as this would be in conflict with the laws and values contained in the cultural traditions of the different member states. Imagine the same argument being used to defend long-standing ‘traditions’ of banning women from public life (including the right to vote), violence against women (honour killings), racism and anti-Semitism.

If the Employment Directive protects the rights of LGBTT people in the workplace, the question arises why protection from discrimination should be limited to the workplace for LGBTT people if the scope of the Race Directive^¹ , protecting ethnic minorities, is much wider.

In the EU homosexual couples are inferior to heterosexual couples. The EU is hereby lagging behind on the UN, as the judgments made by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) offer less protection to homosexual couples as those made by the UN Human Rights Committee (UN HCR). Compare the judgment of the HCR in Young v Australia (2000) with the ECJ decision in D v Council (1999). In Young v Australia, the UN HCR judged that the partner of an Australian veteran, was entitled to a government pension, as there was no reason to deny same-sex partners the government benefits offered to heterosexual couples. By contrast, the ECJ found in D v Council that a Swedish man in a civil partnership was not entitled to family benefits by his employer in Brussels, whereas he would have been entitled to those in Sweden. The underlying reasoning was that the Court did indeed find a legitimate reason to discriminate, which is that partnerships between persons of the same sex registered in one of the EU member states cannot be comparable to marriage between a woman and a man. In other words, LGBTT-partnerships are second-rate compared to heterosexual marriage.

It is utterly meaningless to talk about human rights and the right not to be discriminated against if these rights are not universal and indivisible. In the spirit of the idea and the fact that all people are truly equal we support the 6^th deliverable of the Ecosy – Change for Europe manifesto.

Nationalized Banks Are 'Only Answer,' Economist Stiglitz Says

2009-02-09T22:07:00.000+01:00

Joseph Stiglitz was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 2001. Under US President Bill Clinton he served as chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers from 1995- 1997. He was chief economist of the World Bank from 1997-2000 and was a lead author of the 1995 Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which shared the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize. He is currently a professor at Columbia University in New York.

DW-WORLD: Many experts fear that while things are bad now, we haven't seen the worst of the crisis yet. Do you share the belief that we are facing a long decline that could rival the great depression?

Joseph Stiglitz: We live in a very different world than during the Great Depression. Then, we had a manufacturing economy. Now we have a service-sector economy. Many people in the in the United States are already working part time because they can't get full-time jobs. People are talking more about the 'comprehensive' measures of unemployment, and these show unemployment at very high levels, around 15 percent. So it clearly is a serious downturn.

Another big difference between now and the Great Depression is then we didn't have a safety net. Now we have unemployment insurance.

Economists Nouriel Roubini and Nassim Taleb, who predicted the global economic downturn, have called for a nationalization of banks in order to stop the financial meltdown. Do you agree?

The fact of the matter is, the banks are in very bad shape. The U.S. government has poured in hundreds of billions of dollars to very little effect. It is very clear that the banks have failed. American citizens have become majority owners in a very large number of the major banks. But they have no control. Any system where there is a separation of ownership and control is a recipe for disaster.

Nationalization is the only answer. These banks are effectively bankrupt.

The Institute of International Finance estimates that the private flow of capital to developing countries will shrink by about two-thirds. Are we facing a situation where we could see a total collapse of many developing countries?

I think many governments of emerging nations actually have a much better central banking system than the United States. They realized the risks of excessive leverage, excessive dependance on real estate lending and so they took much more prudent actions. Many developing countries also built up large reserves and are in a better position to meet this crisis than they were a decade ago.

But some will face very difficult times, potentially defaults. Some of these countries are suffering from having paid too much attention to what has gone on in the United States.

Should steps be taken to help these developing countries?

Very definitely. I think it is absolutely imperative not just for the interest of these countries, not just from a humanitarian perspective, but from the perspective of global stability. It is not possible to have a strong global economy when there are large pockets of economic turmoil.

The World Bank has called for advanced industrial countries as they are bailing out their own industries and provide subsidies, to set aside some amounts for the developing countries, who can't compete on this uneven playing field.

US President Obama blasted banks for paying out billions in bonuses to executives while still on brink of collapse. Do you agree with him that their behavior is "shameful" and "irresponsible"?

Yes, it is shameful and irresponsible. But it is not a surprise ... for years the executives of American firms have defended their outrageous compensation, saying it's important as an incentive scheme. How in the world can you give bonuses of billions of dollars when your firm has had record losses of billions of dollars? Unless you're rewarding people for failure you shouldn't be getting bonuses, you should be getting penalties.

In her speech at the World Economic Forum, German Chancellor Merkel warned the U.S. of protectionism and criticized subsidies for American auto companies. Is she correct? Do you see a danger that the U.S. will resort to protectionist measures?

Yes, very clearly. We have always been aware that protectionism takes two forms: Tariffs and subsidies. Subsidies distort the playing field just like tariffs do. Subsidies are even more unfair and even more distorting, because while developed countries can give subsidies, poor countries can't afford to do so. Rich countries are distorting the level playing field by giving huge subsidies, not necessarily in the intention of protection, but with the consequence of protection.

Merkel recently called for an international financial oversight body, and concensus on the issue is growing. How realistic do you think it is that governments and companies would give up sovereignty to an international entity?

Merkel's idea is a very important one, which I have long supported. You need to have coordination of global economic policy that goes beyond the IMF, which has failed, and the World Bank. You cannot say that we have open borders without global regulation. It is inconceiveable as we go forward that we would allow financial products that are risky, manufactured in countries with inadequate regulation, to come without regulation into the United States and vice versa. International companies that are committed to gobalization should be at the forefront of calling for international regulation.

Michael Knigge interviewed Joseph Stiglitz

Animo in het nieuwe jaar

2009-02-08T14:32:00.002+01:00

Het decadente internationale, maar individualistische kapitalisme waarin we ons bevonden na de oorlog was geen succes. Het is niet intelligent. Het is niet schoon. Het is niet rechtvaardig. And it doesn't deliver the goods. Dit citaat is niet van nu en werd niet uitgesproken met de huidige crisis op het oog. Jean Maynard Keynes had het 70 jaar geleden over de eerste wereldoorlog en de Grote Depressie. Maar de analogie is logischerwijs snel getrokken. Beurzen die crashen en banken die het laten afweten. Massale ontslagen en nog maar eens de meerderheid van de mensen die moet betalen voor de hebzucht van enkelen. En net zoals het aan de toenmalige leiders was om met de ideologische vuist van Keynes de crisis te lijf te gaan, zo is het nu aan onze leiders om onze crisis van antwoord te dienen.

Wij als jonge socialisten van animo beseffen dat onze beweging vandaag, nog nooit zo hard sterke leiders nodig heeft gehad . Nochtans, onze grote roergangers, zoals ze dat dan wel eens zeggen, moeten beseffen dat de New Deals en de plannen De Man van gisteren, niet het antwoord zijn voor de financiele en economische crisis van vandaag.

We verwachten van onze leiders dat ze hun verantwoordelijkheid nemen door ons een visie te tonen van de gelijkheid waar we naar streven en de zekerheid die we nodig hebben. In een wereld waar oude ideeën gefaald hebben en nieuwe ideeën nodig zijn, is de toekomst nog steeds aan ons en daarbij... ook de verantwoordelijkheid. En ik denk dat we die (verantwoordelijkheid) ook genomen hebben. Zo hebben we op de gevaren van interimarbeid gewezen en op de idiotie van het communautaire gebral. We hebben onze partij op haar verantwoordelijkheid en haar plicht gewezen wanneer het nodig was. Op partijbesturen, op congressen en indien het niet anders kon, ook in de pers. Wij zullen dat ook blijven doen. De ideeën van onze ouders hebben ons hier geleid en het is aan onzelf, aan onze ideeën en aan onze visie om ons terug vooruit te dragen.

We hebben met animo op ons congres niet gewoon het programma van het bestuur vooruitgeschoven. Dat zou in de gegeven omstandigheden gewoonweg dom zijn. Neen, we wilden in samenwerking met onze leden een programma schrijven dat gedragen werd door niet alleen Bram en de 8 bestuursleden. Daarom ook, eindigt onze tour niet bij het congres, maar begint ze daar pas. We gaan vanaf vandaag de boer op bij afdelingen en steden om, opnieuw, er voor te zorgen dat het programma niet alleen gedragen wordt door het bestuur en niet alleen binnen deze muren, maar ook buiten deze muren.

We kunnen in een zucht naar het verleden niet teruggrijpen naar oude oplossingen. Wij zijn met animo nooit bang geweest om 'out of the box' te denken. Dat zijn we ook nu niet, nu het meer dan ooit nodig is. Want, de globalisering is ondertussen onverzetbaar gebetonneerd in onze samenleving. Dit betekent dat in België alleen, in Vlaanderen alleen er geen echte oplossing kan gevonden worden voor deze crisis; De verschrikkelijke effecten (massale ontslagen onder jongeren en ouderen, gezinnen die hun spaargeld kwijt zijn, mensen die zich terugplooien op het bekende en daarbij zich afkeren van het vreemde, zoals bleek, toen 1 op 2 Vlamingen zei de islam te vrezen) Dé verschrikkelijke effecten van de malaise waarin we ons bevinden, kunnen we niet alleen omkeren op het nationale of regionale niveau. We kunnen bij een orkaan het ons niet permitteren alleen te vegen voor onze stoep als het hele dorp ook alleen zijn stoep veegt. Oude oplossingen kwamen voort uit oude problemen, Met animo beseffen we dat nieuwe oplossingen uit de nieuwe problemen dienen voort te komen. De huidige financiele crisis vraagt een nieuw Keynesianisme en een nieuw socialisme. We willen en we kunnen en we zúllen nieuwe socialisten zijn en dat begint vanavond!

Commercialization of the pharmaceutical industry – health for sale

2009-01-26T22:47:00.001+01:00

animo – young flemish socialists - is deeply concerned with the recent developments in the pharmaceutical sector, where the European commission strives towards a minimal ruling in the sector. Gunter Verheugen, the European commissioner for Enterprise & Industry announced a couple of weeks ago that the pharmaceutical industry should be allowed to inform patients directly about their products, even for prescription drugs. The difference between informing and advertising, however, is paper thin and very easy to circumvent.

Directly informing the patients has disastrous consequences. Costs for marketing will take a bigger amount of the total revenue that in many drug companies has already risen up to 30%. This leads to more expensive drugs and valuable research&development money being lost. In the end this will lead to a struggle of the most commercial and not of the best fit of medicine. In addition, the knowledge and expertise of the doctors will be undermined , when a patient is confused through industrial “information” . The partially informed consumer will of course be held blind for possible adverse effects, all with the purpose of maximizing profit. Lastly, this is a perverse method to encourage the overall use of medicine. For example, advertising for foot mould medicine in Belgium has led to a multiplication of revenues (and nausea reactions) by five.
This commercialization of the pharmaceutical industry under the liberal impulse of this commissioner is once more a step in the wrong direction. animo stands up to turn the tide.
animo makes the following demands:

Marketing directly from industry to patients must be forbidden, be they medicines with or without prescription

Maximum expenditure of 7% of total revenue of a pharmaceutical company for sharing objective information towards healthcare personnel. Needed pharmaceutical funds need to be invested in research&development of new medicines and not in advertising

Gaza film shows white phosphorus from alleged Israeli attack by Robert Booth in the Guardian

2009-01-20T21:10:00.002+01:00

The Guardian has obtained vivid footage of the effect of white phosphorus allegedly used by Israel during a bomb attack on Gaza last week.

The film was made by Fida Qishta, a camerawoman working for the International Solidarity Movement, a non-governmental organisation operating in Gaza. It was shot on Wednesday 14 January in Khoza'a, east of Khan Younis in the south of the Gaza Strip.

It shows clumps of the burning chemical on the ground as locals try to put it out by covering it with dust, mud and grass. The chemical, which locals describe as phosphorus, fails to go out and continues to burn through the debris piled upon it. As they kick it about, it subdivides into smaller lumps and continues to burn.

The use of white phosphorus as a weapon – as opposed to its use as an obscurant and infrared blocking smoke screen – is banned by the United Nation's third convention on conventional weapons, which covers the use of incendiary devices. Though Israel is not a signatory to the convention, its military manuals reflect the restrictions on its use in that convention.

A second film reveals the impact of the white phosphorus on the human body. A 15-year-old boy is shown in a Gaza hospital receiving treatment for burns to his back and right arm which a doctor explains were caused by the chemical, which appears to have eaten into his flesh in several places.

Lying on his hospital bed, the boy tells how he was sitting with his family in their four-storey house when an Israeli bomb hit, killing his sister with shrapnel.

His testimony follows an earlier film by Qishta which contains graphic descriptions of attacks by Israeli forces in the same area.

Amnesty International said today that Israel has committed a war crime by using phosphorous over Gaza's densely populated residential neighbourhoods. The human rights organisation also said they had fresh evidence of its use.

"Yesterday, we saw streets and alleyways littered with evidence of the use of white phosphorus, including still burning wedges and the remnants of the shells and canisters fired by the Israeli army," said Christopher Cobb-Smith, a weapons expert who is in Gaza as part of a four-person Amnesty International fact-finding team. "White phosphorus is a weapon intended to provide a smokescreen for troop movements on the battlefield. It is highly incendiary, air burst and its spread effect is such that it that should never be used on civilian areas."

What is white phosphorus?

White phosphorus weapons are 155mm artillery shells containing 116 white phosphorus wedges. When the shell explodes it spreads the wedges over several hundred square metres. They ignite on contact with the air and burn at more than 800C. When they touch human skin they burn to the bone, causing terrible injuries and forcing doctors to excise large areas of flesh to prevent the burn spreading.

Using white phosphorous is not illegal. It can be used as an incendiary weapon, to set fire to military targets, to mark military targets, or to spread smoke. However, its use is strictly limited under UN conventions and international humanitarian law.

Fundamental rules stipulate civilians must be protected, and that attacks must not cause "disproportionate" damage to civilians and civilian objects. Particular care must be taken when using white phosphorus weapons and they cannot be used as an incendiary weapon against a military target that is not clearly separated from civilian areas.

Never mind the Role of the State by David Marquand

2009-01-19T15:24:00.001+01:00

One thing is certain. The current crisis cannot be overcome without a substantial increase in the role and scope of public power. The crisis stems, above all, from lax and incompetent public regulation of private economic power. That in turn stems from a profoundly dangerous economic philosophy, which holds that government failure is more prevalent and more damaging than market failure, that markets are always wiser and more rational than governments, and that if private market actors are allowed to pursue their private interests without interference from public authorities, the invisible hand of the market will necessarily deliver the best possible outcome for society as a whole.

After the fall of Communism, that philosophy became part of the conventional wisdom in the United States, in Britain, in the institutions of global economic governance like the IMF and the World Bank and to a lesser extent in most member states of the European Union. We have now been reminded that it was fatally flawed: that as Keynes pointed out more than seventy years ago, financial markets, left to themselves, are governed less by reason than by a quintessentially irrational herd instinct and therefore have an inherent propensity to generate bubbles which are bound to burst sooner or later. When they burst, they are likely, in the absence of countervailing public action, to drag the whole economy down with them.

So public power has to be deployed; and, as Keynes also showed, it has to be deployed in good times as well as in bad. The notion of the ‘managed economy’ has fallen so far out of favour in the last twenty years that it has become little more than a memory. It must now return to the centre of the public policy stage: not just during the current crisis, but after it as well. But who is to do the managing? What form should public power take? In Keynes’s day, the answers were not in doubt. The state would manage the economy, for it was in the state that public power took visible shape.

In Europe, at least, I believe that the answer is grossly over-simplified, and may turn out to be almost as dangerous as the market fundamentalism that has got us into the current mess. The small and medium-sized states of Europe are too small and vulnerable – and also too divergent – to do the job. As I write, the British Government has just launched a massive fiscal stimulus to avert the danger that the current down-turn will turn into a real depression on the scale of the depression of the 1930s. It was right to do so. But there are formidable risks – chief among them, the risk of a confidence crisis, and a precipitate fall in the value of the pound that would make it impossible for the government to borrow enough to finance the stimulus it seeks. The obvious answer is for Britain to join the euro; and although this is highly unlikely in the medium term, I don’t rule it out.

But irrespective of what may or may not happen to Britain, the crisis has shone a harsh light on a fatal flaw in the Eurozone itself. Monetary policy has been Europeanised, but fiscal policy has been left to national governments. That was always a risky thing to do, but as long as the boom proceeded on its merry way all seemed to go well. Now the flaw has become obvious. In short, the Eurozone, as presently constituted, is not enough. We need a smaller role for public power on the national level, and a bigger role for it on the European level. In that perspective, the whole language of ’state’ and ‘non-state’ obscures more than it illuminates.

Professor David Marquand is a former Labour MP and Principal of Mansfield College (Oxford University). He also served as Chief Advisor to former President of the European Commission Roy Jenkins.

Israel may face UN court ruling on legality of Gaza conflict by Afua Hirsch in the Guardian

2009-01-15T15:37:00.006+01:00

Israel faces the prospect of intervention by international courts amid growing calls that its actions in Gaza are a violation of world humanitarian and criminal law.
The UN general assembly, which is meeting this week to discuss the issue, will consider requesting an advisory opinion from the international court of justice, the Guardian has learned.

"There is a well-grounded view that both the initial attacks on Gaza and the tactics being used by Israel are serious violations of the UN charter, the Geneva conventions, international law and international humanitarian law," said Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on the Palestinian territories and professor emeritus of international law at Princeton University.
"There is a consensus among independent legal experts that Israel is an occupying power and is therefore bound by the duties set out in the fourth Geneva convention," Falk added. "The arguments that Israel's blockade is a form of prohibited collective punishment, and that it is in breach of its duty to ensure the population has sufficient food and healthcare as the occupying power, are very strong."
A Foreign Office source confirmed the UK would consider backing calls for a reference to the ICJ. "It's definitely on the table," the source said. "We have already called for an investigation and are looking at all evidence and allegations."

An open letter to the prime minister signed by prominent international lawyers and published in today's Guardian states: "The United Kingdom government ... has a duty under international law to exert its influence to stop violations of international humanitarian law in the current conflict between Israel and Hamas."
The letter argues that Israel has violated principles of humanitarian law, including launching attacks directly aimed at civilians and failing to discriminate between civilians and combatants.
The letter follows condemnation earlier this week from leading QCs of Israel's action as a violation of international law, and a vote by the UN's human rights council on Monday on a resolution condemning the ongoing Israeli military operation in the Gaza Strip.
"The blockade of humanitarian relief, the destruction of civilian infrastructure, and preventing access to basic necessities such as food and fuel are prima facie war crimes," a group of leading QCs and academics, including Michael Mansfield QC and Sir Geoffrey Bindman, wrote in a letter to the Sunday Times.

Israel has already been found to have violated its obligations in international law by a previous advisory opinion of the ICJ, and is likely to vigorously contest arguments that it is an occupying power. It previously stated that occupation ceased after disengagement from Gaza in 2005.
Its stance raises questions as to the utility of an advisory opinion by the ICJ after Israel rejected its finding in a previous case, which found the wall being constructed in the Palestinian territories to be a violation of Israel's obligations under international humanitarian law.
Questions are also being raised as to whether the international criminal court, which deals with war crimes and crimes against humanity, would have any jurisdiction to hear cases against perpetrators of the alleged crimes on both sides of the conflict. Neither Israel nor the Palestinian territories are signatories to the Rome statute, which brings states within the jurisdiction of the ICC.

More likely, experts say, is the establishment of ad-hoc tribunals of the kind created to deal with the war in the former Yugoslavia and the genocide in Rwanda.
"If there were the political will there could be an ad-hoc tribunal established to hear allegations of war crimes," Falk said. "This could be done by the general assembly acting under article 22 of the UN charter which gives them the authority to establish subsidiary bodies."

Barack Obama to issue order to close Guantánamo Bay detention centre in first week as president by Ewan MacAskill in the Guardian

2009-01-14T09:35:00.002+01:00

President-elect Barack Obama is to issue an order to close the Guantánamo detention centre in his first week in office, according to his advisers.
Obama, who takes over the presidency next Tuesday, will make closure one of his first decisions, two of his advisers told the AP news agency.
The pledge comes only the day after Obama appeared to row back from campaign promises by saying closure was more complicated than he had realised and it would be a challenge to do so in his first 100 days in office.
Guantánamo has become a touchstone for the new administration. Democrats and liberal lawyers, as well as European governments, have repeatedly called for its closure, seeing it as an affront to human rights. Some of the detainees have been tortured.
There were about 700 detainees after a sweep of countries throughout the world as part of George Bush's "war on terror". While most have been released, more than 200 are still held.
There is no consensus yet on what to do with them. Some will be released, and some could be transferred to other countries, while the remainder could face trial on the US mainland.
Five human rights groups today urged Obama to stop a war crimes trial at Guantanamo of a Canadian, Omar Khadr, now 22, who is accused of killing a US soldier in Afghanistan when he was 15.

Gaza: The death and life of my father by Fares Akram in the Independent

2009-01-06T13:53:00.002+01:00

For Fares Akram, The Independent's reporter in Gaza, the Israeli invasion became a personal tragedy when he discovered his father was one of the first casualties of the ground war

By Fares Akram in GazaMonday, 5 January 2009

The phone call came at around 4.20pm on Saturday. A bomb had been dropped on the house at our small farm in northern Gaza. My father was walking from the gate to the farmhouse at the time. It was our beloved place, that farm and its two-storey white house with a red roof. Nestled in a flat fertile agricultural plain north-west of Beit Lahiya, it had lemon groves, orange and apricot trees and we had recently acquired 60 dairy cows.

It was the closest farm to the northern border with Israel. Ironically, we always thought the biggest danger there was not from Israeli troops, who usually went straight past if they were mounting an incursion, but from stray Hamas rockets aimed at the Israeli towns north of us.
But shortly before sunset on Saturday, as Israeli ground troops and tanks invaded Gaza in the name of shutting down Hamas rocket sites, the peace of that place was shattered and my father's life extinguished at the age of 48. Warplanes and helicopters had swept in, bombing and firing to open up the space for the tanks and ground forces that would follow in the darkness. It was one of those F16 airstrikes that killed my father.
The house was reduced to little more than powder, and of Dad there was nothing much left either. "Just a pile of flesh," my uncle, who found him in the rubble, said later with brutal honesty.

Like most Gazans, my mother, my sisters and my wife – who is nine months' pregnant – and I have spent the past week of the Israeli onslaught trapped inside our flat in the city. But my father had decided to stay up at the farm; he knew it would be impossible to get back to tend the livestock if the expected troop invasion began. But he called us every day.
The last time I saw him was on Thursday when he brought cash and a bag of flour. We talked about the imminent birth of my first child and how we would get my wife, Alaa, to hospital amid the bombing and chaos. Of course, on Saturday evening there was no hope of getting an ambulance up to the farm because the roads were cut off by the Israelis. So my uncle and brother drove the 8km and the rest of us sat, in shock, shivering in the dark apartment, bed covers over us to keep warm, the sound of non-stop tank shelling around us. Deep down we all knew Dad was dead. He would have been in or near the house, and if an F16 strikes directly at your house you know what it means.

They arrived to find a smoking pile of rubble. Most of the cows lay dead; others had run off injured. Mahmoud, a teenage relative, was with my father when the Israeli bomb smashed into the house. The force of the airstrike threw him 300 metres. They found Mahmoud's body in a neighbour's field.

We buried my father and Mahmoud yesterday morning in a very quick funeral, knowing Israeli tanks were just 3km away, on the outskirts of the city. We could hear the rattle of the machine-gun fire accompanying the tanks. The Israelis may say there were militants in the area of our farm, but I'll never believe it. The most advanced point for rocket-launchers is 6km south. Up at the border, it is just open farmland with nowhere to hide.
My father, Akrem al-Ghoul, was no militant. Born in Gaza and educated in Egypt, he was a lawyer and a judge who worked for the Palestinian Authority. After Hamas took over, he quit and turned to agriculture. Dad's father, Fares, who had been driven out of his home in what is now Israeli Ashkelon in 1948, had bought the land in the 1960s.

During the second intifada and until the Israelis withdrew from Gaza in 2005, the farm was taken over by Israeli settlers, but after 2005 we went there every holiday. In Gaza, the only escape is the beach or, if you are lucky enough, the farmland. My father hated what Hamas was doing to Gaza's legal system, introducing Islamist justice, and he completely opposed violence. He would have worked hard for a just settlement with Israel and a better future for Palestinians. When the PA gained control over the West Bank, he moved to Ramallah to help establish the courts there.

My grief carries no desire for revenge, which I know to be always in vain. But, in truth, as a grieving son, I am finding it hard to distinguish between what the Israelis call terrorists and the Israeli pilots and tank crews who are invading Gaza. What is the difference between the pilot who blew my father to pieces and the militant who fires a small rocket? I have no answers but, just as I am to become a father, I have lost my father.

Land, sea, sky: all will kill you by Karma Nabulsi in The Guardian

2009-01-03T02:34:00.002+01:00

Last Saturday, the first day of massive air strikes on Gaza, I finally get through to my old friend Mohammed. We speak for a few moments, he reassures me he is OK, he asks about my now-delayed trip to Gaza, and suddenly I ask: "What is that noise?" It is a sort of distant keening, like the roar of approaching traffic, or a series of waves hitting a rocky shore. "I am at the cemetery, Karma", he says, "I am burying my family." He now sounds exhausted. He repeats, over and over again in his steady, tired voice as if it were a prayer: "This is our life. This is our life. This is our life."

I had just come off the phone with Jamal, who at that moment was in another cemetery in Jabaliya camp, burying three members of his own family. They included two of his nieces, one married to a police cadet. All were at the graduating ceremony in the crowded police station when F16s targeted them that Saturday morning, massacring more than 45 citizens in an instant, mortally wounding dozens more. Police stations across Gaza were similarly struck. Under the laws of war (or international humanitarian law as it is more commonly known), policemen, traffic cops, security guards: all are non-combatants, and classified as civilians under the Geneva conventions. But more to the point, Palestinian non-combatants are not mere civilians, but possess something more real, more alive, more sovereign than a distancing legal classification: the people in Gaza are citizens. Some work in the various civic institutions across the Strip, but most simply use them on a daily basis: their schools, police stations, hospitals, their ministries.

Later on that first day I finally reach Khalil, who runs a prisoners' human rights association in Gaza. He was trying to organise a press conference. It was chaotic: he was shouting, he couldn't finish his sentences or form words. When I told him what I had just heard, he told me that he too had just come from the cemetery. His cousin, Sharif Abu Shammala, 26 years old, had recently got a job as a guard at the university. He had been asked to go in that morning to sign his worksheet at the local police station; he had felt lucky to find the work.

For the one and a half million Palestinian citizens living in Gaza, ways to absorb and describe their daily predicament - these collective and individual experiences of extreme violence - had already been used up by the two years of siege that preceded this week's carnage. Hanging out with Mohammed at his office in Gaza City six months ago, mostly just watching him smoke one cigarette after another, he abruptly leant over his desk and said to me: "Everyone is dead. There is no life in Gaza. Capital has left. Ask someone passing by: where are you going? They will answer: I don't know. What are you doing? I don't know. Gaza today is a place of aimless roaming."

And so on, and so on, and so on... Brilliant article. The rest of the article at this link .

Katyusha, Katyusha by Sean O'Brien

2009-01-02T16:15:00.001+01:00

Katyusha, Katyusha,
Arrow of fire:
Kingdom Come, is it
Below or above?
Choked in a tunnel
With morphine and bread,
Or charred in the wreck
Of an olive grove?
Katyusha, Katyusha,
Spear of desire,
Are there green pastures,
A brave desert rose,
Or must it be prison
With pillars of flame?
Katyusha, Katyusha,
A grave, or a rose?
Katyusha, Katyusha,
God only knows.

Leaders lie, civilians die, and lessons of history are ignored by Robert Fisk in the Independent

2008-12-31T13:56:00.003+01:00

We've got so used to the carnage of the Middle East that we don't care any more – providing we don't offend the Israelis. It's not clear how many of the Gaza dead are civilians, but the response of the Bush administration, not to mention the pusillanimous reaction of Gordon Brown, reaffirm for Arabs what they have known for decades: however they struggle against their antagonists, the West will take Israel's side. As usual, the bloodbath was the fault of the Arabs – who, as we all know, only understand force.

Ever since 1948, we've been hearing this balderdash from the Israelis – just as Arab nationalists and then Arab Islamists have been peddling their own lies: that the Zionist "death wagon" will be overthrown, that all Jerusalem will be "liberated". And always Mr Bush Snr or Mr Clinton or Mr Bush Jnr or Mr Blair or Mr Brown have called upon both sides to exercise "restraint" – as if the Palestinians and the Israelis both have F-18s and Merkava tanks and field artillery. Hamas's home-made rockets have killed just 20 Israelis in eight years, but a day-long blitz by Israeli aircraft that kills almost 300 Palestinians is just par for the course.

The blood-splattering has its own routine. Yes, Hamas provoked Israel's anger, just as Israel provoked Hamas's anger, which was provoked by Israel, which was provoked by Hamas, which ... See what I mean? Hamas fires rockets at Israel, Israel bombs Hamas, Hamas fires more rockets and Israel bombs again and ... Got it? And we demand security for Israel – rightly – but overlook this massive and utterly disproportionate slaughter by Israel. It was Madeleine Albright who once said that Israel was "under siege" – as if Palestinian tanks were in the streets of Tel Aviv.

By last night, the exchange rate stood at 296 Palestinians dead for one dead Israeli. Back in 2006, it was 10 Lebanese dead for one Israeli dead. This weekend was the most inflationary exchange rate in a single day since – the 1973 Middle East War? The 1967 Six Day War? The 1956 Suez War? The 1948 Independence/Nakba War? It's obscene, a gruesome game – which Ehud Barak, the Israeli Defence Minister, unconsciously admitted when he spoke this weekend to Fox TV. "Our intention is to totally change the rules of the game," Barak said.

Exactly. Only the "rules" of the game don't change. This is a further slippage on the Arab-Israeli exchanges, a percentage slide more awesome than Wall Street's crashing shares, though of not much interest in the US which – let us remember – made the F-18s and the Hellfire missiles which the Bush administration pleads with Israel to use sparingly.

Quite a lot of the dead this weekend appear to have been Hamas members, but what is it supposed to solve? Is Hamas going to say: "Wow, this blitz is awesome – we'd better recognise the state of Israel, fall in line with the Palestinian Authority, lay down our weapons and pray we are taken prisoner and locked up indefinitely and support a new American 'peace process' in the Middle East!" Is that what the Israelis and the Americans and Gordon Brown think Hamas is going to do?

Yes, let's remember Hamas's cynicism, the cynicism of all armed Islamist groups. Their need for Muslim martyrs is as crucial to them as Israel's need to create them. The lesson Israel thinks it is teaching – come to heel or we will crush you – is not the lesson Hamas is learning. Hamas needs violence to emphasise the oppression of the Palestinians – and relies on Israel to provide it. A few rockets into Israel and Israel obliges.

Not a whimper from Tony Blair, the peace envoy to the Middle East who's never been to Gaza in his current incarnation. Not a bloody word.

We hear the usual Israeli line. General Yaakov Amidror, the former head of the Israeli army's "research and assessment division" announced that "no country in the world would allow its citizens to be made the target of rocket attacks without taking vigorous steps to defend them". Quite so. But when the IRA were firing mortars over the border into Northern Ireland, when their guerrillas were crossing from the Republic to attack police stations and Protestants, did Britain unleash the RAF on the Irish Republic? Did the RAF bomb churches and tankers and police stations and zap 300 civilians to teach the Irish a lesson? No, it did not. Because the world would have seen it as criminal behaviour. We didn't want to lower ourselves to the IRA's level.

Yes, Israel deserves security. But these bloodbaths will not bring it. Not since 1948 have air raids protected Israel. Israel has bombed Lebanon thousands of times since 1975 and not one has eliminated "terrorism". So what was the reaction last night? The Israelis threaten ground attacks. Hamas waits for another battle. Our Western politicians crouch in their funk holes. And somewhere to the east – in a cave? a basement? on a mountainside? – a well-known man in a turban smiles.

On financial reform, Europe should speak loudly and carry a big stick

2008-12-31T12:36:00.001+01:00

'The European spirit was far away'. This was the headline of a Belgian newspaper, early in october. The occasion was the measures undertaken to save Fortis, Belgium's biggest bank. Now, a couple of months later, we see that Fortis is in Dutch and French hands. Elsewhere in Europe we see that the UK has put Iceland on it's terrorist list to freeze all bank assets. The past months, the European spirit was indeed far far away.

However, in the global play of social bloodbaths and financial disasters, there are no weak, no strong, only in more or lesser extent, victims. It is of the utmost importance that member states realise this to prevent this financial crisis from ever happening again. The member states have proven that a Europe where the only aim is to protect the free market, instead of the people, doesn't suffice. The member states have proven that European governance, instead of national governance, is the only policy level to tackle these issues sufficiently.

Therefore Ecosy – the young european socialists has made a plea against the deregulatory fetish and in favor of a fair globalisation, based on the ILO standards and regulations. Fair globalisation of course is a standard that is not only to be followed in Europe as it is to be followed by Europe as well. All bilateral and regional trade agreements must include enforceable commitments to implement core labour standards, decent work, sustainable development and human rights.

“Let go!”, the liberals say, “laissez faire that market!”. But in the same manner we as socialists refuse to let go of the market, we refuse to let go of the people. To parafrase Martin Schulz: “When the global financial market is on fire, we can not let the liberal pyromaniacs be in charge of our fire department.” We must seize this historic opening in the liberal Washington consensus to put forth a socialist and social-democratic consensus based on core values such as solidarity, freedom and equality. Finally, we as members of Ecosy – the young european socialists believe in a Europe that speaks loudly and carries it's (legislative and judicial) big stick for both companies like Microsoft and financial institutions with equal force.

Wai-Hoi Tsang
International Secretary animo

The nationalisation of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac

2008-09-10T13:02:00.001+02:00

Larry Elliot writes a good article on what is effectively the nationalisation of Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae. He points out that, by doing so, the US government has added about £3 trillion to its national debt - which is more than twice Britain's GDP.

The events do show that the Bush administration is not as laissez-faire as it makes out. It does not want to wash its hands of the crisis in the way that people feel Hoover did in the early 1930s. It goes to show that, for all its talk of free markets, when it comes to economic crisis for which they are accountable for - the US Right have been willing to undertake the biggest nationalisation in world history to stop things getting worse. The US seems to preach free market policies to the Third World but, when it comes to the crunch, democratically-accountable politicians ignore their own preaching and go for what could practically help the American housing market.

Larry Elliot rightly points out that this whole episode is a blow to the neo-liberal idea that private financial markets are perfectly functioning and that there is no need for much regulation. There is thus an opening for more social democratic policies. With the right degree of boldness, both Gordon Brown and Barack Obama could seize this opportunity. Unfortunately, as Elliot sadly notes, both seem to be missing the chance of an open goal.

Random thoughts on Twitter

2008-08-18T20:21:00.003+02:00

I hear the Russian President has just phoned his Georgian counterpart. Conversation went like this: " YOU HAVE BEEN OFFICIALLY PWNED" 05:50 AM August 13, 2008 from web

"I was thrown out of college for cheating on the metaphysics exam; I looked into the soul of the boy sitting next to me." -- Woody Allen 12:01 PM August 15, 2008 from web

I collect stars, but I keep them in the sky because I just don't have the space at home. 07:17 PM August 16, 2008 from web

"Guerrillas from the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) raided several towns in Lanao del Norte province" Well, who's going to tell them?

200 Words by Paul Dini - Janice Syndrome

2008-08-15T16:54:00.000+02:00

Paul Dini just nailed it.

At lunch the other day my friend TR brought up the case of an attractive well-known actress, who had opted to undergo rather severe plastic surgery in an effort to look younger. As he described the woman’s now-permanently half-lidded eyes, outrageously enhanced collagen lips, and radically diminished nose, I recognized all the telltale signs of another tragic victim of Janice Syndrome. That’s what I call the questionable decision by aging actresses to remake their faces into what amounts to an almost perfect likeness of the hippy chick guitarist from the Muppet’s Electric Mayhem band. The resemblance is so striking I suspect desperate women who grew up watching the Muppet Show are bringing Janice dolls to their plastic surgeon and demanding: “Make me look like her!”

I wonder what another famous puppet, Pinocchio, might have thought about this trend. Desperate as he was to become a real boy, I can see Pinoke shaking his woodenhead in dismay at the paradox of people trying to become puppets, or at least look like them. Then again, puppets don’t age, and in today’s narcissistic society, only a dummy would not jump at the chance for eternal youth. As Janice herself might say: “Fer sure!”

http://tinyurl.com/6cxhul

Operation Betancourt - animo responds to the Belgian crisis

2008-08-12T13:11:00.006+02:00

You can express your displeasure about the current political crisis with throwing puddles of mud like small children in the sandbox. Eventually everyone gets sand in the eyes and nobody sees clear. animo refuses to fall to this flat populist trap.

People have no use for empty accusations such as 'French-speakers have done it. " Accusations as such do not help the negotiation, but only strengthen the controversy in the country. It shows political courage not to join these positions for electoral gain and work towards compromises that are utmost realistic and in service of the country. An ode to the failure of Leterme is in this matter not an helpful act. If there's one thing on which everyone could agree it is that the past year has produced no winners.

The economy is stretched under the burdeons of this political inefficiency. The man and woman in the street see after months of aimless and goalless policy a decline in consumentary power and rising energy prices. These negotiations aren't in their best interest. The government waves one promise after the other, turns the other cheek and does nothing once more.

Elections will not change this substantially. The real problems are put on hold, unrealistic and futile promises are renewed. animo considers a fundamental debate necessary. A debate about the perverse effects of the ongoing election fever which led to endless electoral auction. Therefor animo first of all makes a plea for coinciding elections. Secondly for a reflection on the necessity of maintaining certain structures such as the provincial council and Senate. Thirdly, our electoral system should be complemented with a federal electoral district in order to advance the representativeness and the negation of 'the other citizens' in our country.

To animo it is not so much the model but the people in charge within the current political system, who have failed. Moreover, the dictatorship of the minority, and animo does not only refer to the south, has created an immense apathy in a majority of the electorate. Cartels have an overwhelming responsability to this crisis. Parties that merely represent 6% of the voters paralyze an entire country. animo makes a plea for an operation Betancourt to set the CD&V and others free of their hostage takers. Only if this condition is fulfilled there can be a possibilty for reasonable and mature talks about state reform.

A first step in the de-radicalisation of the country should be in function of our capital. There needs to be conversation about Brussels in a pragmatic manner, free of demagoguery and lingual fetishism. Brussels-Halle-Vilvoorde needs to be split on short term. This division can operate in the framework of an expansion of the Brussels Region. Which can only go ahead if in the Region firstly sorting out is made of among others the reduction of the powers of the municipalities and the guaranteed bilingualism.

animo does not shy away from the debate on a further going state reform. A state reform can contribute to a better functioning of the state .. However, the idea of solidarity needs to remains central. Solidarity together with efficiency are the two terms by which a social state reform should be formed. An efficiency not simply used as an excuse for the separation of the country, but an efficiency seeking a state that provides the best possible social services for everyone and ensures that the economic engine keeps running.

Female Orgasm..I care!

2008-08-06T14:27:00.003+02:00

The 'Female orgasm...I care!' buttons are spotted all over Belgium. On people's t-shirt's, trousers and caps. But what does this slogan mean exactly, besides raising people's attention?
The 'Female orgasm...I care!' campaign is the latest campaign on youth and sexuality brought to you by animo, young Belgian socialists. They have a long tradition on campaigning on the theme of sexuality, from safe sex actions to 'cut VAT on condoms' revendications. With the 'Female orgasm...I care!' campaign they raise attention on sexual pleasure among young people and provokes a positive discussion on sex. This campaign focuses on the female sexuality and the female orgasm in particular. Because it's still very neccesary today.
Recent research shows that more than fifty percent of young women often fake orgasms. The media shows them how to be tempting and willing, not how to stand up for their own sexual pleasure. Furthermore the female orgasm is surrounded by harsh clichés and myths such as 'women perceive their pleasure as less important' or 'the female orgasm is so hard to achieve'. Complete nonsens says animo, these sterotypes need to be tackled. Women too often lower their expectations due to this stereotypical thinking on women's sexuality. And they absolutely shouldn't.
With this campaign, animo seeks some debate among young people on sex and sexuale pleasure of both men and women. The female orgasm is the teaser to do so. animo calls upon young women to dare enjoy their pleasure, young men to care for it. Let's face it, everyone is fan of the female orgasm. Female orgasm...I dare! Female orgasm...I care!
So if you haven't got the catchy button yet, ask the Belgian comrades to join the campaign, they will provide it with pleasure, same as for all extra information. Let's take this campaign to an European level through Ecosy-Young European Socialists!
www.animoweb.be
Join us at the facebook community group www.facebook.com > Female orgasm...I care!

Guarantee security for young people in flexicurity concept by Nils Hindersmann, Ecosy Vice-President

2008-01-21T13:12:00.000+01:00

The EU Commission has recently published a communication called "Towards common principals on Flexicurity - more and better jobs through flexibility and security." With this document the EU Commission has started a debate about the mostly in the Scandinavian countries adopted combination of evitable necessary labour market flexibilisation and additional social security. Only by using the term flexicurity a lot of political reflexes have been generated already, although it is not clear yet which concrete political measures will be undertaken.
Thus, we as ECOSY - Young European Socialist clearly state that further flexibilisation of European labour markets alone will lead to more precarious working conditions in many European countries. It is not a secret that young, female and migrant workers are those who are mainly affected by precarious working conditions. The amount of limited working contracts in the EU has risen from 63 million to 104 million in the time period 2002-2006. This is an increase of 10 million limited contracts per year. A new generation of working poor has been created in Europe. In many European countries many young people in certain branches of the service sector work for less than the guaranteed social benefits. Although an economic downturn has hit many European economies in the recent years, the employment rate has risen. But the jobs, which have been created, are paid low, are part-time and are on a limited contract basis. In addition the productivity of the labour force has recently not increased as much as in other economies. That shows that the flexibilisation of working time and working contracts has neither led to better jobs nor led to higher productivity rates compared to other economies. But still the EU Commission is claiming in their recent communication that "a more flexible labour market" is needed for the "employers and employees".

The EU Commission claims also that the dynamic, successful knowledge based European economy needs to adapt more rapidly to change in a globalised world. For us as ECOSY - Young European Socialists this objective can only be achieved with a well educated, highly skilled and socially secured workforce. In order to achieve this social minimum standards are necessary. Although the Commission admits that more social security is an important factor for highly productive workforce, concrete political measures which should be undertaken are missing. Thus, we as ECOSY - Young European Socialists call for a European minimum wage and a maximum working time of 32hours. It seems also necessary to develop further instruments to combat chains of limited working contracts and a better protection of interns who are mostly highly skilled young workers without being paid or any social security.

In addition to this, a review of the Integrated Policy Guidelines of the Lisbon Strategy is necessary. For the next three-year-cycle of the Lisbon Agenda stronger guidelines linked to employment and social policy are needed. Thus ECOSY - Young European Socialists call for:

· more support for new skills, lifelong learning and modern education/training systems which is granted for free,
· more vocational training
· a youth guarantee (job offer or training activity),
· and promotion of an active migration policy,
· a parental leaf systems, which allows parents better re461
entering of the labor market,
· more investments in childcare.

Additionally, the broad macro-economic guidelines of the next three year-cycle have to be readjusted. Thus ECOSY - Young European Socialists call for:

· more investments in research and development as well as in innovations,
· integrative policy-led approach between the reformed Stability and Growth Pact and the new generation of IPGs
· more high-quality public spending for more sustainable development,
· strengthening and broadening coordination within the Euro-area.

Cheers for Obama!

2008-01-05T00:24:00.000+01:00

Three Cheers to Obama for leading the vote in Iowa against Edwards and Clinton. The first steps towards the first african american presidency are there.

Here you have both the moment and the reason me and thousands of other people started wondering: "Hey, why isn't thát guy running for president?". And now he is! Obama for president!

A little late, but that doesn't make it less of a... Happy New Year!

2008-01-05T00:18:00.001+01:00

Had a great time at New Year's Eve.

I hope you did too. I wish you the very best for 2008!

Time for a New American Soft Power by Dexter Thillien

2008-01-03T13:35:00.000+01:00

In a recent special edition of Newsweek dealing with America’s future role in the world, a few contributors argued for the need of the USA to renew its soft power and the power of its ideas, especially in the Middle East; and to prove their point, they took the examples of the role of the USA in Eastern Europe during the Cold War, such as the role of Radio Free Europe for instance.
However, I believe that this is an erroneous analogy to make, as the Middle East is nowhere like Eastern Europe under communism, but is actually much more like Latin America during that period.
Let’s first see why I believe the Middle East is a totally different proposition than Eastern Europe was during the Cold War.
Firstly, as opposed to the Soviet Union, the Middle East does not offer a monolithic enemy bloc. At moment only Syria and Iran are considered to be rogue states by the American administration, the rest being allies on different levels; furthermore some of these allies, such as Saudi Arabia or Egypt, heavily backed by the USA, don’t exactly fit the model of promoting democracy that has been the rhetoric of American diplomacy.
Secondly, the hatred that existed towards communism and the Soviet Union during the Cold War is not matched by a hatred of Islamism in the Middle East; we can take Hamas in Palestine as an example.
Thirdly, I do not believe that the Islamic terrorist threat comes from states as such (with perhaps the exception of Iran), but from transnational organisations.
With these main differences, I believe that the Middle East is much more similar to what Latin America was during the Cold War and this is why:
Firstly, the USA prepped up authoritarian regimes to safeguard its interests, akin to what is happening in the Middle East in relation to oil; however, at the same time, it continued to have a rhetoric about promoting democracy in the world, there is an hypocrisy there.
Secondly the USA has not been shy about intervention to enforce their interests as they did in Irak, with differing success; examples are Guatemala in 1953, Cuba in the early 1960’s, Chile in 1973 and the Central American nations of Nicaragua, Grenada or El Salvador in the 1980’s.
The USA can learn 2 lessons from this; firstly that the way Latin America democratised itself in the 1980’s and 1990’s during the 3rd wave was much more an internal process than an external one, and that in some nations that process allied itself with anti-americanism which we can still see the remnants of the Bolivarian alternative of Hugo Chavez; and secondly that using the methods that may have worked in Eastern Europe will not work in the Middle East as the USA is seen more as an hypocritical power than a beacon of liberty.
It is time for the USA to have a new soft power, not reuse obsolete ways from a past that’s gone.
Dexter Thillien is a French freelance writer and journalist. His main interests are the European Union and general political questions, especially in France, the UK and Spain.

Middle East Bog - editorial Washington Post december 27th

2007-12-29T18:38:00.000+01:00

One month after the Annapolis conference, Israeli-Palestinian talks are stalled

IT'S BEEN one month since Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met in Annapolis to launch the first Middle East peace negotiations in seven years. When they meet again today, they will have cause to reflect on how much can go wrong when the world's most notoriously difficult "peace process" is taken over by official negotiators, government bureaucrats and military commanders. Far from beginning to hammer out the two-state settlement that Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas committed themselves to, Israeli and Palestinian officials have managed to create a somewhat artificial "crisis" that the two leaders must try to untangle.
The trouble began within days of the Annapolis meeting, when Israel's Housing Ministry made the first of a series of gratuitous and provocative announcements about construction in Jewish settlements beyond Israel's internationally recognized border. The most tangible of these was a tender for the construction of 307 homes in Har Homa, a controversial Jerusalem neighborhood that is wedged between Palestinian areas of Jerusalem and the West Bank town of Bethlehem. Palestinian negotiators -- several of whom were closer to former president Yasser Arafat than they are to Mr. Abbas -- seized on the action as a violation of Mr. Olmert's commitment to "immediately" implement the first phase of a 2003 U.S.-sponsored "road map" that calls for a freeze on all settlement construction.
Israeli ministers, including a couple who oppose the peace talks, rushed to tour Har Homa and to make the point that, in Israel's view, it is part of Jerusalem and thus not subject to the building restriction. The European Union, the United Nations and, somewhat surprisingly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice criticized the Housing Ministry action. When Egypt joined the chorus, Israel's defense minister said the real problem was not settlement-building but Cairo's allowance of massive weapons-smuggling to the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip. A low-grade war between the Israeli army and Palestinian militants in Gaza has escalated in the past month, putting further pressure on the talks.

The most hopeful aspect of the new peace process has been the recognition by Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas in their private meetings, and occasionally in their public statements, that issues such as the construction in Har Homa are marginal to a two-state settlement. Both recognize that Israel will annex small parts of Jerusalem and the West Bank that are heavily populated by Jews, probably as part of territorial swaps. The "crisis" they are facing is not one of Israeli settlement expansion but of their own failure to impose their priorities on the bureaucracies and competing politicians around them. If the Annapolis process is to survive, Mr. Olmert and Mr. Abbas -- perhaps with an assist from President Bush, when he visits the Middle East next month -- will need to begin asserting themselves.

Benazir Bhutto shot down

2007-12-29T00:54:00.000+01:00

On 27 December 2007, Bhutto was killed while leaving a political rally for the PPP at Liaquat National Bagh. She had just given a campaign address to party supporters in the run-up to the January 2008 parliamentary elections. After getting into her bulletproof vehicle, Bhutto stood up through the sunroof of the vehicle to wave to the crowds. A Lashkar i Jhangvi assassin on a motorcycle took this opportunity to shoot at her with a pistol. The assassin then detonated explosives on his body, killing about 20 others.

Yesterday shall be remembered as the day where the symbol of democracy in Pakistan was murdered. I pay my respects to Bhutto and her fearless striving for true democracy in Pakistan.
I truly hope that Pakistan finds a response to this atrocity that is as adequate as it is democratic.

Demonstration against higher education reform plan

2007-12-27T21:57:00.000+01:00

Some pictures of the 6 december demonstration against the plan VDB in Brussels. It's taken me a while, but I've finally found a fairly easy way (Photobucket, thank you!) to link pictures to my blog.

Holiday nostalgia

2007-12-24T22:55:00.000+01:00

I love these songs at the moment:

Tim Vanhamel - Until I find you

Beirut - Nantes

Nostalgia, loss and yet hope; reflecting my sentiments these days...

Amnesty Film Shows Agony of US Detention Techniques by Terri Judd

2007-09-14T23:56:00.000+02:00

This post has been somewhat delayed, sorry guys but it has been such a hectic week.

Forced on to the balls of his feet, bent double with his hands handcuffed behind his back, the near-naked man shook violently. From beneath the hood, muted moans were audible. It seemed obscene to stare at this apparently frail, vulnerable man, caught in a stress position reminiscent of the images of Iraqi prisoners being interrogated by US soldiers at Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison. Yet this was not torture. It was art.

In an attempt to draw attention to human rights abuses, Amnesty International has filmed a dancer in the positions captives have been forced to adopt by US troops. The resulting film makes shocking viewing. During a break in filming, Jiva Parthipan, a Sri Lankan performance artist, appeared relieved as he rubbed his limbs, which were aching after just a couple of minutes in a position that suspects in President George Bush’s “war on terror” are expected to endure for hours.

The star of the Amnesty International film, which is being released online next month to highlight the agony of such interrogation techniques, said he found the experience painful, both physically and psychologically. In secret jails across the world, Amnesty insists, captives in the fight against terrorism are expected to maintain these poses. They are not considered torture, simply “enhanced interrogation techniques”. Alfred McCoy, a professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, argued recently that the photographs from Abu Ghraib reflected standard CIA torture techniques of ” stress positions, sensory deprivation, and sexual humiliation”.

In August, President Bush issued an order decreeing that Article 3 of the Third Geneva Convention - which prohibits the humiliating or degrading treatment of prisoners of war - should apply to the CIA’s detention and interrogation programme. But Amnesty believes the order does not go far enough in specifying what constitutes degrading treatment.
It is calling for an end to all secret detentions, as well as for detainees to be given access to lawyers, medical care and monitors. It wants all allegations of enforced disappearance, torture and ill treatment levelled at the CIA to be investigated independently.

Barack Obama, Drawing the Big Crowds by Anne E. Kornblut

2007-09-09T02:55:00.000+02:00

MILFORD, N.H., Sept. 3 -- As Sen. Barack Obama led a rowdy mob down the street here during a Labor Day parade, an organizer wearing a Mitt Romney pin stood on the sidewalk and stared in astonishment.
"It's going to be tough to beat that guy," he said, shaking his head, to another man with a Romney sign.
Or will it?

Obama (D-Ill.) has not picked up measurable steam in the national polls since he announced his candidacy more than six months ago. His most obvious strength has been seen in the money he has raised and in the jaw-dropping sizes of the crowds he draws -- a sign of what his campaign says is its solid ground organization.

With the unofficial start of the primary season this weekend, Obama sought to sharpen the distinctions between his campaign and that of

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (N.Y.), the Democratic front-runner, taking swipes at the Washington establishment and the "cynical math" that he implied other candidates are using to calculate a narrow victory rather than a broad consensus.

"There are those who tout their experience working the system in Washington -- but the problem is that the system in Washington isn't working for us, and hasn't for a long time," Obama said in a speech in Manchester before marching in the parade here and attending an ice cream social. "Think about it. We've been talking about the health-care crisis in this country for decades. Yet through Democratic and Republican administrations we've failed to act. And you know why -- because the drug and insurance industries have spent over a billion dollars on lobbying in the past 10 years alone to block reform."

If the Milford parade several hours later was a snapshot of how Obama is faring, it bodes well. He drew by far the loudest and most boisterous group of supporters, who became so enthusiastic about marching that they started down the road ahead of schedule -- and were then banished by organizers to the back of the parade line. (The second-largest group was an orderly bunch of Romney backers, followed by a loud cadre carrying signs for Sen. Christopher J. Dodd -- though Dodd's group included many members of his family.)
The Obama crowd, with drums and brass instruments, yelled out: "Obama-oh-eight. Be a part of something great!"

A Rich Man's World by Jeremy Seabrook

2007-09-07T13:26:00.000+02:00

The most puzzling aspect of the official response to social evils in rich societies is its superficiality. “Remedies” proposed for under-age drinking are a characteristic expression of this: raise the drinking age, make drinking more expensive, prevent the sale of cheap drink in supermarkets and petrol stations. Similarly, in reaction to knife crime, gun crime and to teenagers terrorising the streets (a war on terror at home might be a useful initiative), government ministers say: “parents must take responsibility” or “stringent laws are already in place” to deal with these things. David Cameron, with rival vacuity, speaks of “making families and communities feel safe.”
There is, of course, a good reason for the silence over a more searching analysis of what is wrong with “our” society. For all social ills are supposed to be remedied by economic success. And the economy has “performed” extremely well for the past 15 years. It is inconceivable that consistent growth, continuous expansion, and an uninterrupted rise in disposable income are compatible with the levels of violence, addiction, fear and social ill-being that we see all around us.

The government is bound to deny any connection with the health of the economy and the sickness of society. That these may be intimately linked, not only at times of insufficiency and misery, but at times of prodigious wealth-creation and excess, is the taboo which prevents a more rigorous examination of that most lasting of relationships, the one between economy and society.
This is why the Thatcher legacy, largely unmolested by her New Labour successors, has been so malignant. The proponents of economic liberalisation speak as though deregulation brought with it no social or moral consequences. Deregulation, they claim, is a good in itself. Removing obstacles to growth and expansion must deliver the desired outcomes of affluence, contentment and social peace. Government intervention, red tape, rules and directives that inhibit enterprise are equated with a denial of freedom. These stern defenders of the real world actually live in a hermetic world of fantasy, in which “pure” economics of a kind unknown on the planet will magically waft whole populations into a realm of peace and plenty.

John Redwood’s even more maniacal vision of an ultra-competitive Britain is part of this effort by true liberals to unfetter the creativity of the people by turning us all into entrepreneurs in a world of universal business. This utopia is as bizarre and unreachable as anything ever devised by the vain dreamings of the left; but while the illusions of the left have long been discredited, the experiments of the social alchemists of the right are regarded with benign indulgence. Their most exaggerated thinking of the unthinkable is destined to become the orthodoxy of tomorrow.

The society of abundance requires a different kind of sensibility from that which served the old machinery of production: the deregulation of human wants, needs, demand and desire have been a necessary accompaniment of the profound economic changes we have experienced. Economic “success” in this context takes on another complexion. The removal of industrial disciplines also does away with restraint, self-control, limits on what we may and may not have in this world. It also uncovers some distinctly undesirable desires - instant rage and jealousy, an inability to tolerate being thwarted, a morbid desire for the unattainable.The economy does not exist in a separate sphere from society, morality, the wellbeing of the spirit and heart. But it has been allowed to encroach upon areas of human experience that should be shielded form its violent incursions. Only when we are prepared to acknowledge that, and to act upon our knowledge, will lives cease to be forfeited to its savage hunger for human sacrifice.

If you're interested in the complete article follow this link.

The German Terrorist Plot by Left I on the News

2007-09-06T14:51:00.000+02:00

Today Left I on the News analysed the German Terrorist Plot.

Don't get me wrong - there are terrorists, and the people just arrested in Germany quite likely are the real thing, with real murder of innocent civilians in mind. But that doesn't justify false reporting and hyping, starting with this incredibly misleading headline: "Germany foils 'massive' attack on US citizens."

First of all, the headline implies at attack was practically in progress. The facts (as I'll come to in a minute) are hardly that. And the alleged targets were Frankfurt airport, hardly a place where an attack would be focussed on "U.S. citizens," and the US military base in Ramstein, which seems highly unlikely to be penetrated by people using a suicide car bomb.

But about those targets? German Defence Minister Franz Josef Jung asserted that the threat had been "imminent". But the same article informs us that Deputy Interior Minister August Hanning told journalists that "there were no concrete targets," without which it seems rather unlikely that any attack was "imminent." And that business about Frankfurt airport? That's pure speculation by the German police, according to Hanning.

Unlike other recent terrorist scares, this group actually had amassed explosives, and was clearly hoping to do something, somewhere. But a "massive," "imminent" attack on "US citizens"? Hardly.

Update: An AP article sheds further light on that "imminent" attack:
As a token of the intense surveillance by German police, prosecutors said that during the investigation they were able to replace the dangerous peroxide in the containers with a harmless solution without the knowledge of the suspects.So that "attack" was not only not imminent, it would also have been a complete dud.

What I Bought

2007-09-04T01:43:00.000+02:00

Yesterday I decided to make a little trip to Antwerp and sell some old crap books from when I was young and get myself some more interesting reading material.

Let's start my story from the beginning. I got to Antwerp after I discovered between my books, some really really embarrassing stuff. Anyone remember those Goosebumps novels? Well, apparently I had like about 15 of them.. They used to be cool, you know? Who am I kidding?! They NEVER were cool! Anyway, I sold them and they got me about €8,5. So I was in the shop and decided to "just take a look around". I ended up buying these books:

Pro Justitia by Renaat Landuyt €5

The Belgian Social-democratic law specialist/minister has some interesting views on the Belgian legal system.

10 Years of Political Campaigns by Wim Schamp €5

A Belgian political spin doctor describes his methods.

No Logo by Naomi Klein €7

Famous anti-globalist Naomi Klein's magnum opus. A must have if you're

interested in a progressive view/manifest on globalisation.

Multitude by Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri €16

Although I don't expect to agree with Hardt and Negri's semi-Marxist views, it should provide an unknown view on a global state by two of today's most reknown political theorists

Because I was in town and the comics store was on my way I figured: "What the hell, let's get me some must have paperbacks." And what is bigger a gap in your comics collection or what is more Must Have than everything Alan Moore? The best thing for me to describe Alan Moore is to quote another site to do him justice.

"without a doubt, the name that would reside at the top many readers' and professionals' short list of THE BEST WRITERS IN COMICS, would be that of ALAN MOORE. Quite simply, Alan was the first modern writer to approach the medium of comics with the same intent and thoughtfulness that is expected of any successful novel, screenplay or theatrical production."

I'm planning to (eventually some day in time) get myself his entire bibliography. But for now I satisfied myself with the following:

V for Vendetta €21

The movie brought me into this whole Alan Moore frenzy I got going on. Apparently Moore disapprove's the movie (which to me was probably the best non-indie movie of last year) and I can't wait to find out why!

Watchmen €20

The only graphic novel that made it in Time Magazine's top 100 novels of all time. Enough said, isn't it?

I hope to provide you with a more in depth review of some books soon

Total Damage: €68,5

Call to Halt EU Trade with Israel by David Cronin

2007-09-03T01:13:00.000+02:00

BRUSSELS - Trade between the European Union and Israel should be halted in protest at human rights violations in the Palestinian territories, a United Nations conference has heard.
Under a so-called association agreement, Israel currently enjoys free trade in industrial goods, and preferential treatment of farm produce entering the European Union. Luisa Morgantini, a vice-president of the European Parliament, said that her institution has called for this agreement to be suspended. So far, however, these calls have been rejected by EU governments and by the Union’s executive, the European Commission.
This is despite how article 2 of the agreement, which entered into force in 2000, commits both sides to respect human rights.
Morgantini was speaking at a UN conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in Brussels (Aug. 30-31).
She argued that the EU has made “a lot of mistakes” in its handling of relations with the Middle East, particularly over the last year.
It was wrong, she said, for the Union to suspend direct aid to the Palestinian Authority in 2006, when the Islamist party Hamas swept to victory in parliamentary elections that the Union officially considered as fair and democratic.

Murray called on the Union to rethink the willingness it has shown to repair civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals, destroyed by Israel.
The European Commission has estimated that 44 million euros (60 million dollars) worth of damage has been done by Israel to EU-funded projects in the Palestinian territories.
“The EU has picked up the tab for Israel,” he said. “The EU has paid for reconstruction and never asked for a penny back. It has allowed Israel to ignore its responsibilities under international law.”
Richard Kuper, London-based spokesman for European Jews for a Just Peace, alleged that Israel has carried out “grave breaches” of the Fourth Geneva Convention; agreed in 1949, it sets out the rights of people under foreign occupation.
He contended that Israel has been singled out for ’special treatment’ by both the EU and the U.S. Unlike other countries in the surrounding region, Israel has been allowed to develop nuclear weapons and has not been held to account for ignoring UN Security Council resolutions.

This was just an excerpt of the press release, if you’re interested in the whole article follow this link.

Iran says IAEA Atom Report Shows Us Charges Wrong

2007-08-31T12:50:00.000+02:00

VIENNA - Iran’s uranium enrichment program is operating well below capacity and is far from producing nuclear fuel in significant amounts, according to a confidential U.N. nuclear watchdog report obtained by Reuters.

A senior Iranian nuclear official said the International Atomic Energy Agency’s (IAEA) report showed U.S. suspicions about Tehran’s nuclear intentions were baseless. Officials familiar with the report said the IAEA could open future inquiries into Iran’s atomic activity if new suspicions arose, even after Tehran answers questions about the program under a transparency deal reached this month.

Western leaders suspect Iran wants to build atom bombs, not generate electricity, and were alarmed when Tehran said in April it had reached “industrial capacity” to enrich uranium. But the IAEA report said Tehran remained far short of that threshold. Iran had just under 2,000 centrifuges divided into 12 cascades, or interlinked units, of 164 machines each refining uranium at its underground Natanz plant as of August 19, it said. A 13th cascade was being run test-run empty, another was stationary undergoing tests under vacuum and two more cascades were being assembled, said the report, sent to the IAEA’s 35-nation board of governors and U.N. Security Council members. “Iran made a fast start but then there was a leveling off,” said a senior U.N. official versed in the IAEA’s findings. “We don’t know the reasons, but the slow pace continues.” The report’s detail on new Iranian cooperation with inspectors and Tehran’s lack of significant enrichment progress are likely to blunt Washington’s push for painful sanctions.

The rest of the press release by Reuters at the following link.

On Poverty, Maybe We're All Wrong by Steven Pearlstein

2007-08-30T00:39:00.000+02:00

This week in the Washington Post, Steven Pearlstein had a very interesting view on poverty.

"It is more than a bit disingenuous for liberals to push for worthwhile programs like food stamps, housing vouchers, child tax credits and the earned income tax credit -- and then to constantly cite official income and poverty statistics that do not include the impact of food stamps, housing vouchers, child tax credits and the earned income tax credit. At the same time, these revisions help put the lie to the right-wing conceit that government tax and transfer policies only make poverty worse.
Conservatives are left to fall back on the argument that government handouts and social insurance programs, while appearing to lift some out of poverty, have created a permanent underclass by discouraging work and thrift and fostering a culture of dependence. Much better, conservatives say, to do away with all those patronizing and inefficient social welfare schemes that create perverse incentives and "empower" the poor to act in their own best interest using the same traditional market mechanisms as everyone else.

The best refutation of this argument that I've seen in a long time is contained in a new book, "The Persistence of Poverty," by a friend of mine, Charles "Buddy" Karelis, a professor at George Washington University. Karelis isn't an economist or social welfare expert but a philosopher by profession with wide-ranging curiosity, a dry wit and a weakness for unconventional wisdom. And after doing lots of reading and giving it extensive thought, Karelis concluded that the reason some people are perpetually poor is that they don't have enough money.
Let me say that this isn't as self-evident, or tautological, a truth as it might appear. Rather, the argument goes something like this: The reason the poor are poor is that they are more likely to not finish school, not work, not save, and get hooked on drugs and alcohol and run afoul of the law.

Liberals tend to blame it on history (slavery) or lack of opportunity (poor schools, discrimination), while conservatives blame government (welfare) and personal failings (lack of discipline), but both sides agree that these behaviors are so contrary to self-interest that they must be irrational. After all, the reason we study, work, save and generally behave ourselves is that these behaviors allow us to earn more money, and more money will improve our lives.
And, by logic, that must be particularly true of the poor, for whom each extra dollar to be earned or saved for a rainy day is surely more valuable than it is for, say, Bill Gates. In economics, this insight -- that the fifth ice cream sundae is less valuable than the first one -- is enshrined in the law of diminishing marginal utility.

But what if this iron law of economics is wrong? What if it doesn't apply at every point along the income scale? If you and everyone around you are desperately poor, maybe it's perfectly rational to think that an extra dollar or two won't make much of a difference in reducing your misery. Or that you won't be able to "study" your way out of the ghetto. Or that if you find a $100 bill on the street, maybe it's logical to blow it on one great night on the town rather than portion it out a dollar a day for 100 days."

This is only a partial citing of Pearlstein's article. For the rest of the article follow this link.

Book review: Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

2007-08-28T13:39:00.000+02:00

Card is an author that has worked in many genres. Card started in the science fiction genre (Capitol and the Ender saga) and moved on later to the fantasy genre. He remains best known for the seminal “Ender’s game”, which has been among the most popular sci-fi novels ever since its publication in 1986. “Ender’s Game” and its sequel “Speaker for the dead” were awarded both the Hugo Award and the Nebula Award, making Card the only author ever to win both of sci-fi's top prizes in consecutive years.

Ender is the youngest in a family of two boys and one girl. This is strange in a world where the government allows most people to have only one. The reason this family was allowed to have 3 children was that Peter (the older brother) was far too cruel, while Valentine (the older sister) was the sum mum of altruism. Ender is in the middle of this carrying the best elements of both of them. He has both Peter's ability to lack mercy when forced to as well as Valentine's ability to feel empathy with every other living being. The government was established in order to withhold a possible third invasion of the 'buggers' (an alien race that almost succeeded in annihilating the human race in earlier invasions). This government selects the most appropriate children in order to create a commander that could live up to Mazor Rackham, the most capable and ruthless commander in human history. As they believe that with Ender they achieved their goal, Ender is taken to the battle school when he’s seven.

The rest of the novel follows Ender’s stay in the battle school, each and every time his capabilities stretched to the maximum and then some. It’s a novel from the point of view of a little child that is suddenly forced to use his capabilities in order to stay up in a miniature ‘survival of the fittest’ society, brought to perspective by the need for ruthlessness in a real life ‘survival of the fittest’ race against the buggers.

As you probably have already figured out by now, I'm a big fan of 'Ender's game'. What attracted me in this book is that the reader feels so related to Ender. You read about his struggle, his doubt and his despair. This and terrific yet disturbing inventions like the war game, creating analogies with ‘Lord of the Flies’, make Orson Scott Card’s Ender’s Game a classic in the Science fiction genre! This novel to me definitely deserves a 10 out of 10.