A successful case against a big corporation for its doing business with a country whose regime has carried out severe injustice in this case torture, rape and murder to facilitate the activites of the corporation:
"Unocal had agreed to pay to settle a long-running lawsuit charging the oil company with assisting and encouraging the torture, murder and rape of Burmese villagers by government soldiers so that Unocal could build a gas pipeline."
Take a read.

It's good to see students take solid action against a corporation doing business with a country where substantial human-rights abuses take place. This is actually good for two reasons,one: it highlights abuses and injustice commited by the country's regime.
two: it creates resistance to a large corporation by indicating that they cannot expect to go untarnished for profiting from and exploiting developing countries where people are suffering and dying and holds the corporations accountable for this.

Various student committees at Harvard University in the US working together caused their school to divest (sell its shares) from Chinese oil giant PetroChina which by investing and operating in Sudan so funding its regime and helping it stay in power and continue its alleged war crimes.
Not satisfied with this small victory, the student activists want their school to divulge all its Sudan-related investments and divest from those, as well as convince states to divest their Sudan-related shares in their pension funds.

The editorial director of The Nation, America's oldest weekly opinion journal or political newsmagazine gives his take on why The Nation has managed to survive so long and consequently, on the relevance of opinion journals in today's world- that they're not for profit but to make points and promote ideas and opinions, whether supporting the left or the right.
As the writer states of The Nation,near the end:
"You need to run one of these magazines like a business or else you will be out of business. But if a business is all you are, you will be out of business, too."

Besides all the above,the article also includes a small but true description of the difference between the left and right(conservative) political views including: "That helps explain why the right is always so well-funded. Because it is validating the world view of people who have a ton of money."

A high-ranking officer albeit Australian says it mostly like it is on the "global war on terrorism".
The "war part is all about politics and terrorism is merely a tactic".

It is so sad that deep inequalities exist among nations and regions in the world. It is also sad that this exists in developed countries as described here in Canada. The old cliche "Life ain't fair" certainly rings true in this case as it shows that intelligence, education and experience don't replace the drawback of being a different ethnicity than caucasian (white).
I have to point out though that Canada is still a good place for immigrants in terms of physical safety and cultural tolerance and diversity, especially its main city of Toronto.

Worse events have happened such as England where "race riots" broke out in 2001 in several cities between Asians and whites. And the Netherlands, supposedly one of the most liberal and tolerant European nations, where anti-muslim resentments continue to grow and attacks on muslim institutions have occured after the murder of a Dutch film-maker.

All this is not it's just to show that even amidst the wealth and prosperity of "Western" nations serious racial and economical divisions and tensions exist.

Haven't been posting much this weekend because of distractions. Nevertheless events in the world keep on going and things get crazier and worse. This article touches up on some really interesting things about America's recent military policies.

God bless this brave young woman as well as the many innocents dead in Iraq.
Another story about her. How I wish I could possess only some of her courage, drive and compassion.

Further bloodshed in Iraq including the shooting down of a commercial helicopter last week which ended in the deaths of all its passengers who were most likely "mercenaries".

There's this female Iraqi blogger in Baghdad called riverbend, and she's gaining a lot of attention for her brave and bold writing or blogging while in her city.
Alternet has an interview with her as well an excerpt of her blog entries which are being published as a book soon. just from this excerpt you will get a sense of how poor the citizens of Baghdad have become since the occupation with water and electricity being scarce and treasured and random raids by American forces occuring at all times of the night.

Riverbend's blog
Excerpt from Alternet of her blog from a collection of blog entries which is being published into a book. These entries talk about the events of one particularly bad day for Riverbend, a raid on one of her neighbors, the hatred and shame by Iraqis following the disturbing controversy of Abu Ghraid and the Iraqi Council.

A small taste of her blog:
"Prominent, popular politicians and public figures don’t want to be tied to American apron strings -- this includes lawyers, political scientists, writers, and other well-known people. Not because they are American apron-strings per se, but because this is an occupation (by American admission, no less). No matter how much CNN and the rest try to dress it up as a liberation, the tanks, the troops, the raids, the shootings (accidental or otherwise), and the Puppet Council all scream occupation."

Disaster Capitalism

Naomi Klein writes in the Nation about the financial dealings that go on for relief and development projects in developing countries. Things like reconstruction, foreign aid development and disaster relief are described here. Taking place in countries like Iraq, Haiti and Thailand these projects often end up being for the benefit of those other than the ones who need it the most.
To address problems of poverty and underdevelopement in poor countries, international developement is often cited as the best solution. However as laudable and grand as its aims may be, international developement often fails to make much of an impact in these countries, despite following the policies set forth by international bodies such as the WorldBank and WorldTrade Organisation. The above linked story goes a long way in showing why. Tragically politics is always involved in any aspect of world events, even for something as supposedly magnanimous as foreign developement.

This is about the negative effect of the World Bank's policies in Bolivia.

Walmart-more compassionate about society OR just trying to fool the public?

You should know which of the above I believe in about Walmart's recent push to improve its public image by newspaper and tv ads, donating to journalism schools and sponsoring an ABC news segment.
One thing that can't be denied is that giant chain stores like Walmart are only increasing in popularity and presence. Whether that's such a good thing is one that I'm very uncertain about.
And I am aware that poor people can afford much more at Walmart at most other stores.

Major demonstrations occured yesterday including attacks on the Japanese consulate in Shanghai which caused the Japanese government to make an official complaint today as thousands of Chinese voiced their strong anger at perceived Japanese arrogance and insensitivity towards their country's war crimes during World War 2. On Saturday and in the last few weeks, major cities saw large street protests against Japanese actions specifically the recent approval of school textbooks by the Japanese government which "glossed over" or downplayed atrocities that happened in World War 2 such as the "Rape of Nanking" which devastated the city and saw hundreds of thousands of its populations killed by the Japanese army.

Violence as protests grow and emotions flare and their roots

This article talks about the situation of Haiti and its coup last year which led to President Jean-Bertrand Aristide being overthrown and forced out. On why Aristide was perceived widely as a corrupt and brutal leader:
"The North American liberal elite feels it can sit in judgment on the leaders of movements in Latin America who dare to challenge U.S. hegemony. Never mind that these leaders had the overwhelming support of the poor in their countries."

From an article in the Guardian of England speaking out on circumstances behind recent coups in former Soviet republics like Kyrgzstan:
"This myth of the masses spontaneously rising up against an authoritarian regime now exerts such a grip over the collective imagination that it persists despite being obviously false: try to imagine the American police allowing demonstrators to ransack the White House, and you will immediately understand that these "dictatorships" in the former USSR are in reality among the most fragile, indulgent and weak regimes in the world."

From the same site, on the situation in Iraq and the US occupation.
Things are going bad for the US and the poor US soldiers as hatred and rage against them grows and mounts with each passing month.

As the losses keep mounting for the US as well as Iraqis, the US army is desperate to gain new recruits as told in this Counterpunch article.

From alternet.org, a news log/blog on the war in Iraq .

Here's a small taste of the posts from it: Reservists and guardsmen now comprise almost half of the 150,000 troops currently in Iraq

The reconstruction of Iraq could become the "biggest corruption scandal in history.
Both are among the lesser-known but most troubling aspects of the situation in Iraq.

A personal account from a BBC correspondent in Congo, actually written a few years ago. It seems things have not changed one bit in terms of the suffering going on there and the mass indifference from the west especially media. A brief description of the situation in Eastern Congo.
Though many newsources refer to the country as Congo, its full name is the Democratic Republic of Congo. It was formely called Zaire and a colony of Belgium who exploited its vast natural resources while oppressing the native peoples.

4 million dead-Dec. 2004
The Congo war/conflicts/tragedy continues to extract a grim toll from Congolese civilians with hunger and disease causing most of the deaths.

Poll shows Congo war is world's top forgotten (and ignored) crisis
Describing the results of a recent Reuters poll of experts on which "forgotten" crises should be focused on by the media, Africa featured in the results with Congo, Uganda and Sudan topping.

The Western media is accused by experts "of routinely ignoring emergencies in countries of little geopolitical significance for big powers despite the enormous scale of suffering." A great point presented in this one sentence.


War poverty forces locals into sex trade with UN troops
This in itself is a major tragedy of the Congo war, however delving into the article one finds even more disturbing examples of how depraved the situation there is. Apparently many "Congolese tolerate the sex trade with the UN soldiers" because unlike the local militias the UN troops actually pay for their sex. War causes many horrible actions and the mass rape and kidnapping of women and girls is one of them.
Not content with having cheap sex with young girls, some UN soldiers have also been accused of rape. These poor women have suffered double tragedies, that of having to live in extreme poverty and turmoil because of the fighting and instability and then being forced by poverty to have sex with soldiers who are supposed to protect them, but who exploit them by paying them a dollar.

If you want to get a better understanding of why Iraqi "insurgents" or resistance battle against American forces in spite of overwhelming odds, read this brief post of an American soldier's sad experience in Iraq during his tour of duty.

A village protest turns into violent riot of thousands
Thousands of protestors and thousands of riot police that is. This happened in a coastal province in China where apparently violent and mass rural demonstrations have become increasingly common because of growing economic developments which have led to mounting corruption, mass layoffs and increasing construction which cause high pollution or displace many people from their homes. Beside rural villages and displaced persons, protests have even broken out over frustrations over unemployment as happened in Shenzhen at a job fair.
The government actually said over 58,000 protests occured last year with more than 3 million people taking part (from the guardian article described above).
This is a natural escalation from the widening urban-rural income gap that has been going on in China while it undergoes its economic boom. Note: this article was written in 2004.

The elections held in Iraq and Palestine don't mean a great new flourishing of democracy and freedom in the Middle East. As maintained in this article, manipulations were involved in the elections to ensure favorable results for candidates and parties that had American support and backing.
The UK's Independent paper has this commentary on methods America is utilising in Iraq to ensure ongoing political and military control over that country.

People please realise that elections by themselves do NOT mean successful democracy regardless of huge voter turnout. While democratic elections have led to significant improvements in some countries, South Africa and Malysia for example, many times elections have been tampered or manipulated or even overturned by major powers (see Chilean coup of 1973 and Augusto Pinochet) to bring on candidates who then proceed to loot or oppress their own countries.

An interesting piece, with more than a little truth in it, about illusions of civil society regarding political changes. It describes the funding of foreign political groups as well as the growing use of manipulative acts in American politics such as having "fake" reporters and think-tanks whose main purpose is more creating propaganda rather than ideas. This can already clearly be seen in the town-hall meetings with GWBush where the partisan audience is pre-selected and their questions are pre-approved before actually being asked to the President.

Tens of thousands of Shiite Iraqis marched in the streets of Baghdad yesterday to protest the US occupation yesterday, the anniversary of the fall of Baghdad to US forces 2 years ago. Sunni Iraqis also plan to protest the US occupation but at at another date and place.

An insightful and revealing article on the event of last Saturday's major attack on the notorious Abu Ghraid prison which wounded 44 American troops and dozens of Iraqi militants.


Even if they were really smuggling, was it right to kill them? Latest violence concerning Israeli soldiers in the Gaza Strip in Palestine.

In southern Iraq, a zealous young cleric rallies support against US occupation with his militia, which after suffering heavy losses in hard fighting with US forces last year, is regrouping and on the rise again. Clearly the US army does not have full control over a large part of the country though it's also accurate to say the US does not have much support in most of the country either.

The injustice of Bush's sale of fighter jets to Pakistan and offer of military arms supply to India. Escalation of tensions, increased chance of war, higher destructiveness of war if it does break out and the use of large sums of valuable money to buy these high-tech weapons of destruction which instead could have been used for building schools, housing and improving infrastructure- there's a wide choice of reasons. Indian academic and peace activist Mr. P. Bidwai explains all this in further detail.

I've come across another interesting independent mediasite online. INTHEFRAY is an online magazine that looks at social issues such as race,belief and class in countries all over the world both rich and developing. It is primarily concerned with social justice and activism. I've only started visiting it last week so I haven't read much yet. It's definitely worth a look.

Fighting rages on in Chechnya.
Then again, fighting has been raging on for over 5 years. Currently we are in the second Chechnya war, the first which lasted between 1994 and 1996.

Chechnya war is largely ignored which is not surprising since the war takes place in a small obscure, mountainous Central Asian region. Terrible atrocities have been commited against the locals who fight back with fierce guerilla tactics and extreme measures like suicide bombings.
Also similarities have been made to the Afghan war in that though controlling the cities, vastly numerically and technologically-superior Russian military forces are being tied down in a brutal war and suffering heavy losses by local resistance hiding out in the countryside who doggedly refuse to allow occupiers (Soviets in Afghanistan-1980s) total control of their nation.

As fighting rages on in Iraq whilst GWBush keeps on coming up with new reasons to justify the invasion and the US Army desperately tries to boost enrollment of recruits, the American casualty rate climbs upwards steadily and daily. Countless Iraqi civilians suffer from the effects of occupation, seeing their country afflicted with crime and destruction when not being victims of fighting or arrests by US forces. Widespread opinion maintains that this suffering and instability is the fault of the "terrorists" or "extremists" who are evil and don't want their country to prosper. People don't seem to realise that maybe these "extremists" represent the majority of Iraqis who want American forces out. The resistance is indeed putting up good resistance against American forces and show no signs of defeat.
Immense damage and death has been caused by both Americans and insurgents/resistance forces. One of them is the invader but is generally perceived as the "good" side.
Look at this site to see some graphic and horrendous images from the Iraqi occupation. Some of them are disturbing. There's a lot of debate over the righteousness of the invasion of Iraq and most of it centers around GWBush and his administration and whether they were right or wrong. It's easy to forget or overlook the suffering of the Iraqi people themselves. It seems that everytime the injustice of the invasion and occupation comes up, Saddam keeps coming up as an convenient excuse for justifying the actions of the Americans.

There's some parallels with the Vietnam war. While much was made of the Communist threat and the role of Americans in defending the South from the North, a lot of suffering was inflicted by the Americans on the North Vietnamese and South Vietnamese peasants.
This is an excerpt from Jane Fonda's book on her visit to North Vietnam and how she broadcast messages from Hanoi appealing to US pilots of the damage done to dykes which when destroyed could drown civilians. The sadness should be for your country, your soldiers. They don't know why they are fighting us

Brief insight into sheer plight of Zimbabwe from CSM

You can't argue with this- more billionaires and millionaires, more poor people.

While the situation in Iraq receives lots of media attention regularly, though ironically the more violence and instability that happens the less the coverage (whereas the more optimistic or supposedly positive, the coverage picks up again like in the recent elections)
Afghanistan features little in the media 2 years after the invasion.
There was some publicity with US First Lady Laura Bush's visit last week. But regarding everything else such as the aftermath of the elections and the conflict and poverty afflicting much of that country, nothing.

Suspected Darfur perpetrators to be tried in ICC (International Criminal Court)

Time to wake up to the truth. Modern America's decline?

Very incredible to believe, blame it on the drunkard. If this was really so, this means the most powerful nation on Earth based their whole invasion of Iraq on the lies of some crazy lying scam-artist.

Hezbullah accused of offering money to fundamentalist fighters to launch (suicide) attacks in Israel. It is known that Iran is the main supporter/ sponsor of Hezbullah but it seems the article's headline is a bit too presumptive. The article itself offers scant evidence that Iran directly offered cash for bombs to break Palestinian truce.

People who think Iraq has undergone so much benefits since the US invasion and question why Iraqis aren't grateful enough to the US and why there are so many anti-US critics and advocates regarding Iraq should read this thoroughly.

Update on Lebanon

Syrian troops continue to pull out to meet UN and US demands for total withdrawal before the upcoming elections. Fears and suspicions abound of civil unrest as Lebanon gets ready for its parliamentary elections in May. Still members of the different factions have been making efforts to unite and find common ground to prevent unnecessary bloodshed and agree on issues they can work on to improve their nation.

Mugabe wins elections in Zimbabwe after securing a majority with his ZANU-PF party. This isn't unexpected given Mugabe's rule over his country and the conditions under which the election was held, with alleged fraud, voter intimidation and threats to withhold food for rural citizens if they voted for the opposition.