The Petition
3 PALESTINIAN FARMERS DENIED VISAS BY THE UK GOVERNMENT FOR FAIRTRADE FORTNIGHT These farmers, whose olive oil is the only one in the world to carry the Fairtrade mark, have been invited by a UK social enterprise, Zaytoun, and were to be accompanied by a leading British NGO.
The shocking refusal to allow those producers from newly certified Fairtrade Cooperatives into the UK to attend events across England, Wales and Scotland, comes exactly one year after this:
Frank Barat, The Electronic Intifada, 1 March 2010
Today, the first session of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (RTP) will be held in Barcelona. The RTP is a peoples’ tribunal focusing not on Israel’s obligations under international humanitarian law (IHL) such as the Fourth Geneva Convention, but on the obligations of the international community of signatory states which sustain and enable Israel’s continuous violations of international law.
Frank Barat is coordinator of the Russell Tribunal on Palestine (http://www.russelltribunalonpalestine.com). A live streaming of the session can be viewed here: http://www.bcnsolidaria.tv/tv/ and a list of jury members as well as experts and witnesses participating in the tribunal is available for download (PDF)
ZCommunications.org
March 1, 2010 By Saul Landau
Saul Landau’s ZSpace Page / ZSpace
History quiz: Name the greatest robbery committed in the last 100 years.
A: Bernard Madoff’s Ponzi scheme
B: Nazi theft of art treasures from conquered nations
C. Diamonds stolen from Africa by Belgians
D. The Pentagon budget.
This is not a tricky multiple choice question where all the answers could be correct. Only one stands out as the criminal conspiracy of the century, an ongoing fraud perpetrated by tens of thousands of beneficiaries.
Did you get it? Yes, the most fraudulent corrupt scheme ever foisted on humankind is the Pentagon budget. Since 2001, under the guise of defending the country – which the Defense Department has never done – the DOD has scammed from US taxpayers $5.1 trillion. Since its inception, it has never passed an audit and thus not accounted for the money that pours into its coffers.
Weighing In: A Simple Solution to a Simple Problem
By: Felix de Rosen
On February 3, Martin Kramer, visiting scholar at Harvard’s Weatherhead Center, gave a six-minute speech at the annual Herzliya Conference in Herzliya, Israel (discussed by Jeremy below). In that short amount he time, he provided a clear call for the West to curb Gaza’s exploding population by ending pro-natal subsidies for Gazans:
“Aging populations reject radical agendas, and the Middle East is no different. Now eventually, this will happen among the Palestinians too, but it will happen faster if the West stops providing pro-natal subsidies for Palestinians with refugee status.”
The World’s Nastiest Genocide Scholar
Daniel Luban
However, as Kramer admits, the idea of slashing the Palestinian birthrate by ending UNRWA aid does not originate with him, and he “credit[s] Gunnar Heinsohn for making a much more detailed case for it,” as well as for coining the term “superfluous young men.” Heinsohn, a German academic at the University of Bremen, made the case in more depth in a Wall Street Journal op-ed published in January 2009, at the height of the Gaza war. I meant to write about Heinsohn’s article at the time, but the Kramer controversy is as good a time as any to revisit it. (The New Left Review has more background on Heinsohn and his politics.)
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