International relations theory is just killing me nowadays. That and school in general.
I'm sure from that, you can figure out why my long absence.

Here're 2 good articles from online magazine Slate. The first by Christopher Hitchens is on North Korea. It's blunt, direct and tells it as it is, describing North Korea. Ironically GW Bush has to be given some small credit for his stance on that country and its leader. Everytime I think about this country it makes me feel disgusted and scared how anybody can so openly and blatantly wield absolute power and dominance over a country. At the same time, I do understand why this is allowed to happen, because all the neighboring countries stand to lose something if the regime and leader are brought down or attempted against.

The second, is on the recent Hamas victory in the Palestinian elections. I think the real test will be to see if the results will be accepted and peace maintained in the upcoming elections. It's good that a new party other than Fatah won, it gives the Palestinian state a solid chance to start over
and curb the corruption and inefficiency characterised by the previous administration. Let's just hope violence doesn't break out soon or in the near future, whether between the different Palestinian factions or with Israel.

Naomi Klein writes a powerful article on the issue of torture and America's history of it. She contrasts America's disgust and shame of the current Iraq, Guantanamo and secret prison torture scandals with the fact that America has been conducting and "teaching" torture ever since Vietnam. Of course most American civilians won't be aware of their country's role in training Latin American officers in vicious counterinsurgency programs like forceful interrogation or the Phoenix program which resulted in thousands of deaths of suspected Vietcong members under custody, but it is much worse when members of government like Senators or Congressmen profess ignorance of this.

See here for Our Amnesiac Torture Debate

I haven't posted on this for a long time because of school and work. During this time away, I thought about what's the real purpose of this blog, what is the main goal or theme, because I know I've covered many with the articles and sites I linked to. For now, I have to give a simple explanation and say the things I post here are about injustice in this world, in different forms and places but always about injustices.

This article from Counterpunch talks about the media's role during the Katrina aftermath.
It especially blasts the misrepresentation of looting and disorder by the media and describes the real circumstances behind the poverty in New Orleans.

A little-known yet brutal occupation exists quite close to North America, the situation in Haiti. Two websites that focus on the ongoing situation there and try to shed light on the atrocities happening include "Canada out of Haiti" and Zmag's Haiti watch.

Canada has been helping a UN force establish control and security in this Caribbean country. In 2004 former President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile after an opposition-led uprising spead rapidly whilst America and other leading nations urged Aristide to step down. However under the supervision of the UN and Canada, leading political and media activists have been jailed without trial, and even worse, Canadian-trained police have been alleged to have committed massacres in slum areas in Port-au-Prince and fire on unarmed protestors in demonstrations against the government.
This piece in the McGill daily explains a lot about the events and immediat history of the Haiti situation.

2005 seems to be the year of the disasters. The Tsunami, Katrina, now the Pakistan earthquake with tens of thousands dead. In addition there was Hurricanes Rita, Stan and the ensuing flooding which killed over a thousand in Central America.

Now that New Orleans has been destroyed and its population dispersed all over the country, it's time for the wealthy, the developers and corporate using federal and private-charity relief funds to rebuild and remake the city completely to benefit the rich and big business without having to deal with the poor who will be strongly discouraged from returning.
A horrendous idea? Yes, but is it true? Naomi Klein says it is.

The damage and suffering caused by Hurricane Katrina has been terrible, even more so as it seems that the city of New Orleans will be lost or completely evacuated for at least 2 months in order for authorities to clear it up and drain waters away.
The suffering of the people who were still in the city when Katrina struck has been prolonged and increased by slow, uncoordinated and insufficient relief efforts.
With all the coverage of the hurricane's aftermath by American media, one of the worst things has been the villification of people trapped in the city as criminals and gangsters as coverage has fixated at times on reports of snipers, rapes, gangs, etc.
This Zmag article talks about the unfair coverage by US media on Katrina and about some of the factors that has led to the weak relief efforts.
One damning factor is the occupation in Iraq because not only were budgets for emergency services weakened/ reduced to allow for funding for the Iraq war/occupation, but also manpower in the form of the state's (Louisiana) National Guardsmen were reduced because many of these Guardsman are fighting in Iraq where they were sent by their President.

Death, disorder and chaos

Well, the damage wrought by Hurricane Katrina on New Orleans and surrounding areas is turning out to be catastrophe. Not just the immense physical damage done to the city but the fates of the people still in the city, with all the chaos and disorder not to mention the suffering.

What is striking besides the suffering of people, is how seemingly slow and inefficient relief services are in reaching those in need. Of course there's numberous reports of disorder including looting, shootings and even rapes which is extremely sad.
The conclusion so far is that the events in New Orleans are resembling those of poor 3rd world countries, and nothing like the world's richest and supposedly most developed country.

To have a better understanding and empathy for those Palestinians, this Zmag article talks about the situation around a few small former Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Around the former settlements of Ganim and Kadim (population: 300) lie the Palestinian city of Jenin and many smaller satellite villages.
As the article says: "According to a map made by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, there are currently five major trenches, three fixed checkpoints, two earthen mounds, and three roadblocks in the area – all barring Palestinian freedom of movement between villages as well as the city of Jenin, all purportedly to protect of the tiny settlements of Ganim and Kadim. "

What this means essentially is that tiny Israeli settlements exist at the expense of larger Palestinian towns around them as everything is geared towards the luxury and protection of the Israeli settlers while larger numbers of neighboring Palestinians are made to suffer from isolation and poverty due to lack of access to surrounding areas including fertile land, long waits through checkpoints for travel, poor infrastructure, barren land and general poor economic and physical conditions.

This is a long, extensive article on the Darfur crisis in Sudan and the sinister role of oil.

The Darfurian genocide has resulted in deaths of hundreds of thousands and the forced migration of millions to refugee camps across the border in Chad.
The author states that oil is the main reason for inactivity by the US who do not want to risk losing access to precious oil in Sudan, which they would if they imposed sanctions on it.
As well, the long-running civil war between the government and the oppressed South has only recently been ended with a tense peace agreement so the US is now eager to move in as have oil companies from other countries.

Millions in slavery today

Forced labour - a global problem as this BBC newsreport says.
Actually forced labour is too restrained and vague a term to describe what is essentially modern-day slavery and human trafficking.
From kidnapped teen prostitutes to sex slaves to child soldiers and labourers, the range of "forced labourers" is wide and happens all over the world, especially in South Asia, Latin America and West Africa.
12.3 million indeed.

The BBC has this in-depth section on modern-day slavery here. News reports, photos, videos, and statistics on this disturbing issue are presented.

Terrorism experts? Hardly.

A fine article on American media coverage and hyping up of "terrorists" and the terrorist threat. Many times, so-called terrorism experts never get into the real reasons why terorrists happen, such as political tensions and general rage against American foreign policies etc.

The Nation's Daily Outrage todayfeatures 5 ideas
on solutions addressing major issues. Regarding the world, eliminating poverty and curbing America's militarism sure look like good ideas, you can only wish that those in power get it, if ever.

The Gaza withdrawal has been seen in diferent lights by different people on different sides in the Middle East. Some see it as a cover for the Israelis to hold on to their settlements in the more precious land of the West Bank whilst seeming cooperative towards the Palestinians getting their own state but really just throwing a bone to the Palestinians in the form of barren Gaza, others see it as a great victory for the Palestinians. So one opinion is an Israeli victory while the other is a Palestinian victory. This spiked-online.com article says, it is neither.

From the troubles the Israeli army has been enduring in forcing out the settlers and dealing with anti-withdrawal protestors plus the heat that Israeli prime minister Ariel Sharon has been receiving from politicians and some of his people, it's clear this is not an easy or desirable measure in pulling out from Gaza.
At the same time, the Palestinians seem to be unclear in who exactly will be running things, whether it's the PA, the official authority, or those other organisations like Hamas for instance.

Gwynne Dyer writes of how
basically the Israelis had to withdraw for their own safety.

Certainly when looking at scenes of the Israeli withdrawal, one sees and hears so much of the pain and anguish of many of the settlers and yes, one understands that they are losing their homes, yet compared to the suffering their Palestinian neighbors endure, the settlers' sadness seem like nothing. I mean, those settlers did get compensated by their government, plus they will move into new homes, they will not be homeless.
Here's a good article from the Guardian. The writer contrasts the circumstances of the settlers withdrawal with that of the Palestinians in Rafah when their homes were demolished by Israelis for "security reasons".

Ariel Sharon's speech on the Gaza pullout, something honest and surprising from a politican for a change.
He seemed to have compassion in acknowledging the Palestinians' sad plight:
"They are crowded into especially densely populated refugee camps, in poverty and suffering, in hothouses of increasingly rising hatred, without any horizon of hope."

He understood that life "without any horizon of hope" is a proven prescription for turning human beings into walking bombs.
That anger caused by this disparity would build up into rage and terror which would erupt into more fighting between Israeli military and Palestinian militants.

And the majority of Israelis seem to support Sharon's withdrawal plan from Gaza as this article says, and the withdrawal is going ahead of schedule.

Remember that shooting of some Brazilian illegal immigrant who was acting suspiciously in the London subway? And he was dressed suspiciously too. The police shot him dead then realised it was a big mistake.
Well the thing is, it turns out he was neither running through the subway or dressed in a bulky jacket. Footage shows his death was practically, done in cold blood.

The question must be, why did the police kill that man?? All their excuses have been proven dead wrong and false.

Here's a look at Afghanistan via a roundup of the state of affairs there by Reuter's Alertnet.
It has become Asia's poorest nation, and while the devastating conflicts and wars are well-known, it's also suffered terrible natural disasters including famine and flooding.

Lawlessness in rural areas, the presence of millions of mines and unexploded ordnance strewn throughout the countryside, and health crises including tuberculosis and cholera all blight the country though things seem to be improving in the main cities.

This article describes how hypocritical the cosy relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia is, especially given the US reasons to invade Iraq such as alleged involvement in 911 which we all know were fraudulent and for which the Saudis were more at fault. Yet, all is good for the Saudis given they're the number one supplier of oil in the world. In spite of their harsh, authoritarian, not to mention bigoted, regime, where the state religion happens to be the most fundamental extremist version (Wahhabism) of their faith, executions are carried out publicly and women are not allowed to drive, Saudi Arabia receives far less condemnation from the US and other western nations than Iraq, Iran and Cuba for instance.

In Gaza,an update on the exit of the settlers to make way for the Palestinians to their own land. Not surprisingly lots of violence, drama and threats from those settlers.

A short excerpt: "One policeman had burning acid thrown into his face and several people had bloody faces. Four officers were injured, police said. "

Sri Lanka peace at risk
following the assassination of Foreign Minister Kadirgama last Friday which has led to increased tension and fears of heavy violence to erupt in the country.

This island nation is currently under a state of an ongoing ceasefire to a long, brutal civil war between the Sinhalese and minority Tamils, many of which live in Toronto. The Tamils have long fought for a separate homeland on the island because of blatant discrimination by Sinhalese though their organisation, the LTTE, popularly called the Tamil Tigers is considered a terrorist group by many. The Tigers are suspected in the death of the Foreign Minister because of his outspokenness against them, though there's no real evidence.