SONS OF MALCOLM

ETHIOPIAN SISTER WRITES ABOUT AFRICAN UNION SUMMIT WITHOUT GADAFI

2012-02-02T21:46:00.000Z

Addis Ababa, January 31, 2012 (Ezega.com) - The former Libyan leader Colonel Muammar Gaddafi probably had several stories related to many other matters. However, his role in the African Union (AU) is unforgettable. In fact, Gadaffi is one of the founding fathers of the Organization of African Unity, which preceded the AU.

AU is on its first summit after the disgraceful end of Gadaffi.

For the first time in a period that seemed eternity, in the collective pictures of African leaders, there was no tall traditionally dressed smiling face. That face, for a very long time was the permanent symbol of the organization and the summits.

This time, as the annual Summit kicks off in Addis Ababa, the leaders gathered in the glamorous new AU headquarters for a collective picture. Gadaffi was not able to see this day. The man who fought to move the headquarters to Tripoli and be on the pictures until the end of time, missed the historical event of the inauguration of the new luxurious AU building in Addis Ababa. It is natural to wonder what he would have said if he made it today. Whether he will stand by his argument saying Addis Ababa is not good enough to host AU or change his mind after witnessing the Chinese built 200 million dollars Plaza, we will never know.

However, the transitional leader of Libya, Abdurrahim Abdulhafiz El-Keib, who made an appearance discretely compared to the colorful presence of his predecessor did not miss the opportunity to mark a new history by making an opening speech to the summit, calling the former leader dictator who imprisoned his own people in their own country.

His speech, blaming Gadaffi and explaining the painful process of independence and freedom from the regime sounded heartfelt and genuine. “We had a long and difficult fight with the regime. We used every breath we had for the respect and dignity of our people. Today our country is free. We hope African countries will assist us in reconstructing our country and becoming a stronger member of the AU,” he said.

Leaders of Africa, who had a long personal and diplomatic relationship with Gadaffi, did not seem to be pleased by the speech. Considering the AU chose to stick to the deceased leader until the final moment, their gloom is understandable. Gadaffi who made a name for himself for thrilling African leaders with the most expensive gifts he could provide, is replaced by a man who wants assistance from African countries. Just a couple of summits back, African leaders would not have dreamt a day like this would come.

In the annual Summit of AU in 2009, when the new AU building started its construction, African leaders elected Gadaffi to be the chair person of the Union. At the time, the leaders were discussing the formation of a Union Government of Africa. Gadaffi was a front rider of this idea, even opposing progression approach to the matter saying it is too slow. In deed, the approach for continental unity was slow for Gadaffi, who couldn’t even make it to the inauguration of the new building.

The new leader of Libya, however, expressed his hope on getting the support of other nations in the struggle his country is facing to stand in its own feet.

The desperate need for assistance was also noted by UN Secretary General Ban ki-Moon. In his opening speech just before the Libyan leader, he noted that UN is helping Libya to organize elections and improve public security, rule of law, and transitional justice. “We are also working closely with African Union to monitor the after effects of the Libyan conflict and curb the spread of weapon in the Shale,” he said.

Whatever the direction is, the AUseems to have moved on from the era of Gadaffi. At least publicly, no body seemed to miss him. Even if there was some good Gadaffi did in his 42 years engagement with the organization, no one dares to mention it. Instead, in the AU Summit, the former symbol was highlighted as dictator who did more wrong to the continent.

Of course, this is the African way. Those who lost the game are responsible for every crisis the continent had to face. Whatever good they contributed will be intentionally forgotten to give the new comer a hero status.

SYRIAN GOVT REP SPEAKS WELL AT THE UN: 'things have moved on since the times of colonialism'

2012-02-02T20:31:00.000Z

SCOTLAND's NATIONALIST LEADER COMPARES ENGLISH OPPRESSION OF IRELAND WITH THAT OF SCOTLAND

2012-02-02T19:24:00.001Z

People should keep in mind Salmond was part of the left-Scottish Nationalist faction - the 79 Group - Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm

[source]

ALEX Salmond has sparked a furious row by comparing his bid for Scottish independence with Ireland’s violent struggle against British rule.

On a visit to Dublin, he drew a parallel between the Irish situation prior to its independence in 1921 and the “bullying” he claimed his government was experiencing at the hands of Westminster politicians.

In Ireland, politicians from both sides of the religious divide criticised his remarks, which were made before he met Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg at the yesterday’s British-Irish Council summit.

The political storm crossed the Irish Sea, where the First Minister’s opponents described his remarks as “incredible”.

In an Irish radio interview, Mr Salmond used colourful language to condemn David Cameron’s Westminster coalition for what he said was an attempt to “bully” the Scottish Government into holding a referendum earlier than his preferred date of autumn 2014.

But it was his apparent comparison of the SNP’s political battles over the referendum with the bloody conflicts that have characterised Ireland’s relationship with Britain that caused fury.

Mr Salmond told the Morning Show on Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE: “I am sure, as many people in Ireland will remember, that sometimes people in leadership positions in big countries find it very difficult not to bully small countries.

“Of course, what we have seen – as everybody knows – over the last week is the most extraordinary attempt to intimidate Scotland by Westminster politicians.”

Later in the interview, he made a similar remark, saying: “As again the people of Ireland will know, bullying and hectoring the Scottish people from London ain’t going to work.”

Mr Salmond’s comments were criticised by Lord Trimble, the former Ulster Unionist leader who was awarded a Nobel Prize for his role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland.

Lord Trimble said Mr Salmond had been “playing to the gallery in spades”. He went on: “It is grandstanding on stilts. It is totally divorced from the reality. My understanding is that the government have been trying to get into a conversation with Mr Salmond for the past year, but he has been declining to talk to them.”

As one of the main architects of the Good Friday Agreement – the template for the settlement that has brought today’s peace to Northern Ireland – Lord Trimble took issue with Mr Salmond’s comparison of Scotland with Ireland.

He suggested that instead of the Good Friday deal being based on bullying, peace had resulted from the agreement of those on opposite sides. Lord Trimble said: “If he is talking to people here, thinking back to recent events… [and] the run-up to the Good Friday Agreement – that whole thing was based on the principle of consent.

“And we took great care to get everybody inside the tent and not to do anything without agreement. He is a little bit out of date in that respect.”

The First Minister also angered politicians on the other side of the political divide.

Seamus Mallon, a former leader of the moderate, mainly nationalist SDLP, suggested Mr Salmond should brush up on his history, saying many Scots were members of the Black and Tans, the notorious British militia that gained a reputation for violence in Ireland after the Great War.

Mr Mallon said: “Scotland was part of the bullying that took place in Ireland. People from Scotland were the cornerstone of the plantation of Ulster. I think Alex is a very able performer, but his knowledge of history is a little weak.

“As recently as 15 years ago, you had Scottish regiments here, enforcing the writ of Britain so, I think I could recommend a good history of Ireland for him.”

In his radio interview, Mr Salmond responded to suggestions by Chancellor George Osborne that an independent Scotland would have to leave the pound and join the euro.

“This is quite an interesting point,” he said. “George Osborne has been Chancellor for 18 or 20 months or so, but he seems to think that he now owns sterling.

“Actually, the Bank of England was founded by a Scot. There were Scottish bank notes before the Bank of England was founded, incidentally, before the Union of the Parliaments. But many countries as they become independent from London over the years have used sterling. Australia, for example, after it became independent used sterling. Westminster politicians are trying to make things as difficult and belligerent as possible.”

A few hours later, Mr Salmond presented a more conciliatory tone when he met Mr Clegg and Irish and Northern Irish political leaders at Dublin Castle.

The First Minister said he would be prepared to meet Mr Cameron in Edinburgh or London to try to make progress on holding a referendum.

At the end of a week that has seen the First Minister at loggerheads with Westminster after Mr Cameron’s attempt to bring forward the referendum, Mr Salmond said: “Once we’ve published the Scottish Government’s consultation document, I am very happy to meet the Prime Minister or the Deputy Prime Minister in Edinburgh, in London or wherever to talk through these things in a positive way.

“Far better, whatever our views on events of recent days, that we can come to a constructive dialogue. I think that’s what the people would expect and I think that can take us forward.

“Once we publish our proposals, perhaps some of the fears that people have will dissolve.”

Despite his change of tone, there was disquiet in Scotland about the impression he had made in his radio interview.

A Scottish Labour spokesman said: “This will raise a lot of eyebrows. There are very significant differences between the Ireland of 100 years ago and the devolved Scotland of today. Few people will see easy parallels.”

Conservative MSP Alex Johnstone said: “This is not a valid comparison. Mr Salmond’s tendency towards hyperbole is getting out of hand. His attempts to portray a genuine and honest offer of assistance [on] the referendum as some sort of unjustified intervention is intemperate and it is dangerous. If anyone is becoming a bully, it is Alex Salmond himself.

“The attempts to make the situation comparable with Ireland is an example of the incredible levels to which he will go.”

Mr Clegg rejected Mr Salmond’s bullying claim, insisting the UK government respected Holyrood’s mandate to hold a referendum but was obliged to ensure it was done legally.

A spokesperson for the First Minister said: “Everyone knows that the Prime Minister and Chancellor were trying to bully Scotland into the terms of our own referendum, and the First Minister’s point is that they need to remember that the days of Westminster laying down the law to Scotland are over.

“The reality is the Prime Minister has been reluctant to engage with the Scottish Government, and he would be wise to accept the First Minister’s offer of getting round the table to resolve our differences.”

GHANA HAILS SINO-AFRICAN STRATEGIC ALLIANCE

2012-02-01T19:33:00.000Z

[Ghanaian and African revolutionary leader Kwame Nkrumah with Chinese revolutionary, Mao]

Interview: Ghanaian official hail Africa-China relations

ACCRA, Jan. 30 (Xinhua) -- A senior Ghanaian official has hailed the friendship between African countries and China, saying that the relations had brought benefit to the whole African continent.

In an interview with Xinhua here on Monday, Martha Pobee, Director for Information and Public Affairs at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Regional Integration, said that the huge headquarters of the African Union (AU), donated by the Chinese government, showed that the ties between Ghana and China since the west African nation attained independence in 1957 had inured to the benefit of, not only Ghana, but the whole continent.

"China's role in African development today is not coincidental, nor is it coincidental that they have built the AU building with the bust of Kwame Nkrumah (the first president of independent Ghana) in the foreground, but a relationship that has been nurtured over a long time," Pobee explained.

Pobee and many other high profile Ghanaians have expressed joy for the AU to honor Ghana's founding father, Kwame Nkrumah, with a bust at the AU headquarters in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia.

African leaders, including Ghanaian President John Evans Atta Mills and the chairman of the AU Commission Jean Ping, unveiled a huge bronze bust of Nkrumah at the courtyard of the magnificent AU headquarters in the Ethiopian capital last Saturday.

It was extremely welcome news for the country, Pobee said, adding that "Ghana, and for that matter Nkrumah, championed the decolonization of Africa and also fought hard for continental unity, and our first president linked Ghana's independence to the total liberation of Africa and so the honor being done to him today is well in place".

MUGABE UNDERSTANDS LIBYA FULLY, AND ASKS WHO IS NEXT FOR eMPIRE WAR IN AFRICA?

2012-02-01T13:25:00.000Z

[source]

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday said the African continent faces fear of re-colonization as evidenced by happenings in Libya which went unchallenged.

Mugabe said this at the Harare International Airport when he was from Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, where he attended the 18th African Union Summit.

Speaking to journalists on arrival, the president said Africa has the capacity to raise an army or the Libyans should have made enough noise locally and internationally so that their voice could have been heard.

Mugabe said the recognition of the National Transitional Council (NTC) of Libya by the Peace and Security Council of the European Union (EU) was un-procedural.

He said the African Union Summit is the one which should have made a decision either to accept or reject the admission of the NTC as the legitimate government of Libya.

[source]

Zimbabwe's president has condemned the continentwide Africa Union for recognizing Libya's National Transitional Council at a recent summit, state radio reported Wednesday.

President Robert Mugabe returned to Harare late Tuesday from the gathering of African nations in Ethiopia.

At the airport, he accused unnamed African countries of being "fronts" for Western powers whose "criminal" NATO bombardment of Libya helped lead to the killing of Col. Moammar Gadhafi, a former Mugabe ally, state radio said.

The continental body didn't even protest the NATO action, Mugabe said. He also said it was "unprocedural" for the AU's Peace and Security Council to make the decision to recognize the NTC instead of the whole summit of leaders.

Zimbabwe itself has not officially recognized Libya's NTC and expelled the Libyan ambassador when he defected to the rebel cause during the uprising against Gadhafi.

State media said Wednesday that Mugabe complained the African Union should have taken more action to protest NATO bombings: "We said absolutely nothing. Even if we could not raise a force, at least we could have protested. How did we fail to say even no" to killings that included civilians in the NATO bombings?

Gadhafi became the first chairman of the African Union when it was founded in 1999 at a summit in the Libyan city of Sirte to succeed the Organization of African Unity that campaigned against colonialism for nearly four decades.

Mugabe said the continent had long fought oppression but the AU council appeared to have "felt intimidated" to recognize Libya's transitional authority, the state broadcaster reported.

Other independent accounts from the Ethiopian capital, Addis Ababa, said Mugabe told fellow African leaders there Western countries now saw their organization as "a toothless bulldog."

He said Gadhafi was killed "in broad daylight" and his children were hunted like animals, the independent NewZimbabwe media agency reported.

"Then we rush to recognize the NTC" without demanding an investigation in Gadhafi's murder, Mugabe said

He cautioned that Western powers suffering the effects of recession could target other African countries for their mineral wealth and resources.

"Who is next?" he said, repeating warnings he gave his to own party at its national convention in Zimbabwe in December that Western powers were not to be trusted.

'bRITAIN HAD MORE DEATHS BY POLICE IN ONE MONTH THAN GADAFI's LIBYA IN 3 YEARS'

2012-01-27T16:34:00.002Z

MLK, OBAMA, & THE LIES ON LIBYA AND THE PERSECUTION OF BLACK PEOPLE

2012-01-27T09:16:00.001Z

AUS PM LEGS IT FROM NATIVE ACTIVISTS

2012-01-26T14:20:00.001Z

"What is losing a shoe compared to losing an entire continent?"

[source]

Security officers dragged Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard out of a Canberra restaurant Thursday after an angry mob of protesters surrounded the building during a luncheon ceremony, police said.

Gillard and federal opposition leader Tony Abbott were taken out of the building after a group of between 50 and 100 protesters from a nearby ceremony gathered around the building, bashing windows and brandishing sticks and rocks, according to federal police.

The prime minister was presenting medals to emergency service workers during an Australia Day celebration. In a nearby venue, a spontaneous protest erupted with an Aboriginal rights group. The group was commemorating the 40th anniversary of an Aboriginal "tent embassy."

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) reported the protesters were chanting "shame" and "racist" as they banged on the restaurant's three glass sides.

Gillard and Abbott were taken out a side door, the ABC said. At least 50 police were called to help escort them from the restaurant.

Local media reported Gillard was visibly shaken, and stumbled during the encounter.

Photographs showed her being dragged to a waiting vehicle by a group of at least seven security officers, losing a shoe in the process.

Video showed her being hustled into the vehicle, surrounded by security officers, some carrying shields, as protesters shouted, "Shame on you."

The shoe was collected by protesters, who proclaimed it a trophy. On the tent embassy's Facebook page, according to the ABC, there was a picture of Gillard losing her shoe with the caption: "What is losing a shoe compared to losing an entire continent?"

Australia's Nine Network captured the conversation inside the restaurant as the two were being escorted out.

"OK, what about Mr. Abbott? Have you got him? We'd better help him through too, hadn't we?" Gillard asks her security guard after he told her it was not safe to stay much longer.

There were no injuries, and no arrests were made, Australian Federal Police said. Video from the ABC showed some minor struggles breaking out between authorities and protesters.

As Gillard and Abbott left, the protesters chased her vehicle down the street, banging on its roof, the broadcasting corporation reported.

The protesters apparently were angry about remarks made by Abbott earlier Thursday, in which he suggested it may be time to reconsider the tent embassy's relevance.

The establishment of the embassy was a symbolic protest against then-Prime Minister Billy McMahon's refusal to acknowledge land rights for indigenous Australians, the ABC said. Over the years, it has been a controversial site and the scene of clashes, the broadcasting corporation said.

"I think the indigenous people of Australia can be very proud of the respect in which they are held by every Australian," Abbott said earlier Thursday, according to the ABC. "But I think a lot has changed since then and I think it probably is time to move on from that."

Activist Sean Gordon told the ABC, "We have no economic base for who we are as Aboriginal people. We have title to land we aren't able to do anything with. How have we moved on?'

Following the incident, Gillard put on a "brave face" as she held a function for international ambassadors, the ABC said.

"Oh, I'm fine, I'm fine," the prime minister told the network. "The only thing that really kind of angers me about it is that it disrupted such a wonderful event for great people, emergency services medals, just amazing people."

"I am made of pretty tough stuff and the police did a great job," she said.

Last week, an Australian panel suggested changes to the nation's constitution to give better recognition to indigenous Australians, often referred to as Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples.

The groups have suffered at the hands of later settlers and the government they established. Australian politicians have since apologized for the past mistreatment, but Aborigines remain disadvantaged socially and economically compared with the overall population.

Explicit references to Aborigines in the original Constitution, drafted in the late 19th century, were subsequently deemed to be negative. Australians voted overwhelmingly to remove those points in a 1967 referendum, but many people say the document can be further improved to acknowledge the role of the country's indigenous population.

The panel -- which included Aboriginal leaders, business executives, legal experts and members of the main political parties -- handed over its report to Gillard, whose government has promised to hold a referendum on the matter by the next general election.

SIS ALYONA FROM RUSSIA TODAY HITS BACK AT THE FOOLS AT AL-JAZEERA

2012-01-25T20:29:00.000Z

Alyona replies:

eMPIRE MEDIA ADMIT BANI WALID TAKEN BACK BY PATRIOTIC ANTI-IMPERIALIST GREEN FORCES

2012-01-23T19:27:00.002Z

[source]

Fighters loyal to Muammar Gaddafi have seized back the town of Bani Walid and raised the late dictator's green flag, in a blow to Libya's struggling provisional government.

Reports said at least four people were killed during clashes between besieged forces loyal to the ruling National Transitional Council (NTC) and armed and well-organised supporters of Gaddafi. "They control the town now. They are roaming the town," one militia member was quoted as saying of the pro-Gaddafi fighters, according to Reuters.

Bani Walid, a former regime stronghold 110 miles south-east of Tripoli, was one of the last to succumb to pro-government forces after the capital fell in August. The latest clashes mark the most significant loyalist attack since Libya was officially "liberated" on 23 October. It appears further evidence of the NTC's weakness, incapacity and internal divisions ahead of supposed national elections later this year.

About 30 pro-government were reported to have been injured in exchanges of fire. Mahmud Warfelli, spokesman of Bani Walid local council, said 100-150 men armed with heavy weapons launched a carefully planned attack, swiftly overwhelming the town. Soldiers from the May 28 Brigade were pinned down in a compound and the attackers took up sniper positions in a mosque and a school, preventing the pro-government fighters from helping their wounded to safety.

Warfelli said the defenders' ammunition supplies had almost run out and he had had appealed to Tripoli and the defence ministry to send reinforcements. No help had come, he said. "We're out of the frying pan into the fire. We've been warning about this for the past two months," he said, according to AFP.

Units from the coastal city of Misrata, home to the most powerful of the government militias, scrambled armoured units towards Bani Walid with orders to block routes out of the town. Libya's defence minister, Osama Jweli, said he would not order army units to enter until he had established whether the fighting was indeed a pro-Gaddafi uprising or a battle between rival clans. "There is conflict at Bani Walid," Jweli told the Guardian. "For the moment we are waiting to assess the situation."

Bani Walid was the scene of prolonged fighting last November when pro-government forces entered the town searching for war crimes suspects and battled with local militias, leaving twelve fighters dead. Skirmishes between competing militias have been common in western Libya since the Gaddafi regime was toppled last October. But the recapture of Bani Walid is something new – not least because with Gaddafi dead and his son Saif al-Islam in custody, anti-government forces have no leadership figure around whom they can unite.

The green flag of Libya's ousted regime was reportedly flying again over many parts of the city. There were reports that the attackers were shouting the old regime slogan: "Allah, Muammar, Libya, that's it!" They were also carrying green flags.

The NTC is supposed to be paving the way for a new constitution and democratic elections, but it has been struggling to assert its political authority. On Sunday it was due to announce a new electoral law and the composition of an election commission. The announcement was delayed after protesters ransacked the NTC's offices in the eastern city of Benghazi, where Libya's revolution began almost year ago.

The protesters, made up of former rebels, had been demonstrating outside the building for weeks, unhappy at the lack of transparency within the NTC and the apparent appointment of ex-Gaddafi loyalists to the ruling body. They believe that opportunists have been allowed to join the government, with some saying the NTC represents western rather than Libyan interests.

Interim officials counter that it is impossible to sack all of the officials who worked for the Gaddafi regime, and say those involved in human rights abuses and other crimes will be prosecuted.

On Sunday the NTC's deputy leader, Abdul Hafez Ghoga, resigned after being manhandled at the protest.

Meanwhile, the international criminal court denied a claim by the Libyan justice minister, Ali Humaida Ashour, that it had agreed that the war crimes trial of Saif Al Islam would take place in Libya. The court said no decision had yet been taken.

'HANDS OFF AFRICA' MUSIC VID BY BROs MARCEL CARTIER, AKALA, NANA D & AGENT OF CHANGE

2012-01-23T14:47:00.000Z

SUKANT CHANDAN ON RUSSIA TODAY ON THE LIBYAN COUNTER-REVOLUTION OF SODOMISERS AND LYNCHERS OF BLACKS

2012-01-23T11:12:00.001Z

[source]

The deputy head of Libya’s National Transitional Council is resigning in light of continuing protests. Sukant Chandan, a spokesman for British Civilians for Peace in Libya, says the Council’s head may resign as well – if he doesn’t get killed first.

“The Gaddafi regime could control all of Libya, could find peace amongst all the tribes. The new regime cannot even control something in one town or one area," Chandan told RT. "They’ve been selling their oil and natural resources and sovereignty to NATO. And now the thieves – that is, the rebels – are all falling out with each other, they can’t even be paid by their own masters." He continues, "they've performed regime change on behalf of the former colonialists of Libya.”

Chandan says those who wish not to believe what Gaddafi said of life in Libya after the fall of his regime should listen to Jalil, who he says “probably is about to resign – if he’s not assassinated, like NTC military head Abdel Fatah Yunis.”

The analyst says Jalil has warned that Libya is “in danger of descending into a bottomless pit.”
“So really, this is the achievement of ‘freedom and democracy’ by NATO,” Chandan concluded.
And Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, the NTC's deputy head, has been accused of opportunism after dropping his allegiance to Gaddafi as the uprising kicked off. On Saturday, crowds of protesters stormed the NTC headquarters in Benghazi, angered by how the council has been handling the country's assets. Demonstrators threw rocks and metal bars at the building, breaking windows and damaging Jalil's car.

Mass rallies have been raging for weeks in the city of Benghazi, which is considered the cradle of the revolution that toppled the Gaddafi regime.

SIS MALAIKA ON BRO MALEMA's LEADERSHIP

2012-01-13T19:51:00.003Z

Sons of Malcolm has carried many posts as to how Brother Julius Malema, former leader of the young wing of the ANC, is an important new generation leader of Africa and the Global South. Please search the tag 'Julius Malema' for other posts on the brother.

Bro Malema represents nothing but the basic interests of the masses of South Africa, and for this the imperialist media have conducted a dirty and racist campaign against this brother, and the pressure of empire seems to have done its job with the ANC leadership suspending Bro Malema and other ANCYL leaders a little while ago. Sons of Malcolm is not interested in bashing the ANC and in so doing echoing imperialist pressure, rather the ANC is respected as the majority rank and file of the ANC and its youth league are committed to African unity, independence and socialism.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

The 5 most powerful statements Julius Malema has ever made

by Malaika Wa Azania on Friday, April 8, 2011

President of the ANCYL,Julius Malema,has been dismissed by many of us as a clown,and correctly so.His fondness for senseless radicalism that contradicts his reality is undebatable.Since his appointment as ANCYL president in 2007,the man has made many a ludicrous political statement devoid of substance.But say what we may, Malema is powerful.

He has proven on many occasions that the power he yields surpasses even that of the president of the Republic of SA.When Malema speaks,the disgruntled youth listen-and the ANC can do nothing about it.

Malema is a populist,and an excellent one at that.He might not be the brightest crayon in the box,but he understands what even intellectuals fail to understand: the politics of space and time.

Substance or not,we live in an age of "rule by noise politics",where the louder you are,the more impact you make.

Below,are 5 statements which according to me,are the most intelligent to have ever been uttered by Malema:

1."WHEN IMPERIALISTS AND COLONISERS WANT TO COLLAPSE YOUR GOVERNMENT,THEY USE NGOs"

I agree.NGOs are responsible for the perpetuation of dependence on our oppressors.Most NGO funding comes from European and AmeriKKKan donors.Do we honestly believe that the very countries that survive on our exploitation could ever emancipate us from economic bondage?

2."THESE POPCORN AND MUSHROOMING POLITICAL PARTIES IN ZIMBABWE WILL NEVER FIND FRIENDSHIP IN US."

This speaks to us pan Afrikanists.We cannot allow a situation where we are supporting factions in our bloc.Pan Afrikanism is a philosophy that advocates for unity among Afrikans.We can never have a United States of Afrika if,whenever we don't see eye-to-eye with each other,we break away to form new movements.We need to learn to solve our differences instead of taking the easy way out by walking away.

3."I AM AN ACTIVIST.I MUST BREAK NEW GROUNDS ON TOPICS AND SAY THINGS THAT PEOPLE ARE SCARED TO SAY."

There is a serious threat to revolution in Azania: the inability to think independently.Many activists and politicians are slogan chanters.The following of popular view and blind-loyalism has engulfed our country.We are creating cowards who parrot the views of others instead of taking their own positions.For example,many Azanians hate former state president,Thabo Mbeki due to the alleged AIDS denialism issue.When you ask them why,they say "He let people die".Granted.But WHAT did he deny? Does asking legitimate questions equate to denialism? Most don't even know what Mbeki said,but they hate him...because everyone else does too! And those individuals who dare to ask,are labeled as "sell-outs" by people in their bloc.You are a comrade when you are a blind-loyalist and a sell-out when you are a thinker.

4."IF YOU DEFINE RICHNESS ON THE BASIS OF MATERIAL LIKE CLOTHES AND CARS,THAT'S NARROW.WHO MUST WEAR THESE CLOTHES? MUST I LEAVE THEM FOR CHILDREN OF WHITE CAPITALISTS?"

Undoubtedly the most interesting point Malema has ever raised.

The misconception that material wealth equates to richness is flawed.In Soweto where i live,Black people wear R1300 Carvela shoes,R2000 True Religion jeans etc.My peers are Blackberry totters.Women put on R1000 weaves and people drive Mini Coopers and Golf 5s.Does it make Soweto any less of a concentration camp? No.

Until Black people have ownership and access to the means of production,particularly natural resources like land,then the Black condition will never change.

Furthermore,Azania in its entirety belongs to Black people.If we are not going to live in Sandton, Rondebosch or Umhlanga Rocks, then who must? White foreigners?

5."THE RACIST SA MEDIA,IN ITS MAJORITY FOREIGN OWNED,IS A MOUTHPIECE OF CAPITAL."

This holds true for all media,not just SA media.

The propaganda that we see on the news,and the bias reporting that is widespread serves as nothing but a tool of mass indoctrination.The media reports what serves the interests of the West.Look at the Côte d'Ivoire situation.All media is painting Laurent Gbagbo as this ruthless dictator and Alassane Ouattara as an angel with a shining halo when both have blood in their hands.The media understands the power of perception,and uses that to its advantage and to further the interests of capitalists.

It is unfortunate that Malema doesn't mean these powerful things,but says them to stir up controversy and deepen the soporification of the masses and particularly our vulnerable and apolitical youth.

If Malema was genuine,he wouldn't be part of the problem,because the reality of the situation is that the party that he belongs to is the one nurturing these problems.

Some will argue that he's progressive.I have even heard people say that he is a pan Afrikanist.I disagree completely.

My view?
Julius is a conniving politician,a ruthless capitalist and an uneducated yet brilliant populist.But he is NOT stupid.Stupid people don't get this far in the game of politics.And sometimes (not too often, though) Malema does make a lot of sense...

WHY eMPIRE WANTS REGIME CHANGE IN RUSSIA

2012-01-13T19:29:00.001Z

Introduction

The following article is an good contribution in the understanding of why the Russian state under the leadership of Putin is such a target for attack, containment and ideally (for imperialism, that is) for regime change.

The old Soviet Union was probably the most important state for the movements for independence against imperialism, along with the People's Republic of China. The USSR funded, trained, educated many leading cadres of the anti-colonial and socialist movements across the world right until the last years of its existence in 1991.

The collapse of the Socialist Bloc and the related historic defeat of the world anti-imperialist revolution saw the west lose its head in celebrations, and we saw the rest of the 1990s as a victory march of the empire, with it expressing its world dominance with the concept of the 'New Word Order', and Iraq being crucified with the deaths of millions of Iraqi people and especially children, which in the words of yankee sec of state Albright said the deaths of millions of Iraqis was "worth it".

However, although the Socialist Bloc was smashed, in Russia the army and the intel services from the Soviet era maintained their control of the state, but the progressive socialist policies were lost with the defeat of the Communist Party. However, the CP of the Russian Federation led by Zyuganov remains the second biggest political party in Russia, and pushed for socialist policies and a more assertive anti-imperialist position that even Putin.

After the years under Russian president Yeltsin, the state assets of the old Soviet Union were all sold off with the resultant catastrophe in social conditions of the Russian masses.

Putin represents the more patriotic elements of the Russian elite, who believe in standing up against western hegemony, and in this position it has sucessfully fought off many aggressive moves of imperialism, most clearly illustrated in ostensibly defeating nato over the Georgian conflict in 2008, and turning off the gas to europe in Jan 2009, showing that it has the political will to confront and defeat empire in these battles.

The situation in Syria is also indicative of why imperialism wants the current Russian leadership smashed, it is well know throughout Syria and the wider world, that without Russian diplomatic and ultimately military support, Syria would now be subject to the war and trauma that befell Libya. All commentators state that Russia and China will not fall for the massive media and diplomatic swindle which was the lead up to the implementation of the "no fly zone" on Libya in early 2011.

Anti-imperialists call for the Russian leadership to increase its current support for the struggle of the Global South against western hegemony, and although one would like to see the leadership of Russia going to a political movement such as the CPRF with its more militant anti-imperialist position and progressive socialist policies, we must at the same time support anti-imperialist unity within Russia. In this regard relations between Putin and Zyuganov and the CPRF look quite cordial despite their differences. Finally, it is fundamentally important for anti-imperialists that in the interests of our peoples and countries of the Global South that Russia and China continue to develop its assertiveness in relation to empire.

Without Russia and China, imperialism would be ravaging a lot more countries across the world that it is currently doing.

Without Russia and China Syria would be destroyed.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm/Friends of China

Regime Change in the Russian Federation?
Why Washington Wants ‘Finito’ with Vladimir Putin

By F. William Engdahl

[source]

Washington clearly wants ‘finito’ with Russia’s Putin as in basta! or as they said in Egypt last spring, Kefaya--enough!. Hillary Clinton and friends have apparently decided Russia’s prospective next president, Vladimir Putin, is a major obstacle to their plans. Few however understand why. Russia today, in tandem with China and to a significant degree Iran, form the spine, however shaky, of the only effective global axis of resistance to a world dominated by one sole superpower.

On December 8 several days after election results for Russia’s parliamentary elections were announced, showing a sharp drop in popularity for Prime Minister Putin’s United Russia party, Putin accused the United States and specifically Secretary of State Hillary Clinton of fuelling the Russian opposition protesters and their election protests. Putin stated, “The (US) Secretary of State was quick to evaluate the elections, saying that they are unfair and unjust even before she received materials from the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (the OSCE international election monitors-w.e.) observers.”[1]

Putin went on to claim that Clinton’s premature comments were the necessary signal to the waiting opposition groups that the US Government would back their protests. Clinton’s comments, the seasoned Russian intelligence pro stated, became a “signal for our activists who began active work with the US Department of State.” [2]

Major western media chose either to downplay the Putin statement or to focus almost entirely on the claims of an emerging Russian opposition movement. A little research shows that, if anything, Putin was downplaying the degree of brazen US Government interference into the political processes of his country. In this case the country is not Tunisia or Yemen or even Egypt. It is the world’s second nuclear superpower, even if it might still be an economic lesser power. Hillary is playing with thermonuclear fire.
Democracy or something else?

No mistake, Putin is not a world champion practitioner of what most consider democracy. His announcement some months back that he and current President Medvedev had agreed to switch jobs after Russia’s March 4 Presidential vote struck even many Russians as crass power politics and backroom deal-making. That being said, what Washington is doing to interfere with that regime change is more than brazen and interventionist. The same Obama Administration which just signed into law measures effectively ripping to shreds the Bill of Rights of the US Constitution for American citizens[3] is posing as world supreme judge of others’ adherence to what they define as democracy.

Let’s examine closely Putin’s charge of US interference in the election process. If we look, we find openly stated in their August 2011 Annual Report that a Washington-based NGO with the innocuous name, National Endowment for Democracy (NED), is all over the place inside Russia.

The National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is financing an International Press Center in Moscow where some 80 international NGOs can hold press briefings on whatever they choose. They fund numerous “youth advocacy” and leadership workshops to “help youth engage in political activism.” In fact, officially they spent more than $2,783,000 in 2010 on dozens of such programs across Russia. Spending for 2011 won’t be published until later in 2012. [4]

The NED is also financing key parts of the Russian “independent” polling and election monitoring, a crucial part of being able to claim election fraud. They finance in part the Regional Civic Organization in Defense of Democratic Rights and Liberties “GOLOS.” According to the NED Annual Report the funds went “to carry out a detailed analysis of the autumn 2010 and spring 2011 election cycles in Russia, which will include press monitoring, monitoring of political agitation, activity of electoral commissions, and other aspects of the application of electoral legislation in the long-term run-up to the elections.”[5]

In September, 2011, a few weeks before the December elections the NED financed a Washington invitation-only conference featuring the Russian “independent” polling organization, the Levada Center. According to NED’s own website Levada, another recipient of NED money, [6] had done a series of opinion polls, a standard method used in the West to analyze the feelings of citizens. The polls profiled “the mood of the electorate in the run up to the Duma and presidential elections, perceptions of candidates and parties, and voter confidence in the system of ‘managed democracy’ that has been established over the last decade.”

One of the featured speakers at that Washington conference was Vladimir Kara-Murza, member of the federal council of Solidarnost (“Solidarity”), Russia’s democratic opposition movement. He is also “advisor to Duma opposition leader Boris Nemtsov” according to NED. Another speaker came from the right-wing neo-conservative Hudson Institute. [7]

Nemtsov, one of the most prominent figures of the Putin opposition today is also co-chairman of Solidarnost, a name curiously enough imitated from the Cold War days when the CIA financed the Polish Solidarnosc workers’ opposition of Lech Walesa. More on Nemtsov later.

And on December 15, 2011, again in Washington, just as the series of US-supported protests were being launched against Putin, led by Solidarnost and other organizations, the NED held another conference titled, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference? The featured speaker was Tamirlan Kurbanov, who according to the NED, “most recently served as a program officer at the Moscow office of the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, where he was involved in developing and expanding the capacities of political and civic organizations; promoting citizen participation in public life, youth engagement in particular.” [8] The National Democratic Institute is an arm of the NED.

The Shady History of The National Endowment for Democracy (NED)

Helping youth engage in political activism is precisely what the same NED did in Egypt over the past several years in the lead up to the toppling of Mubarak. The same NED was instrumental by informed accounts in the US-backed “Color Revolutions” in 2003-2004 in Ukraine and Georgia that brought US-backed pro-NATO surrogates to power. The same NED has been active in promoting “human rights” in Myanmar, in Tibet, and China’s oil-rich Xinjiang province. [9]

As careful analysts of the 2004 Ukraine “Orange revolution” and the numerous other US-financed color revolutions discovered, control of polling and ability to dominate international media perceptions, especially major TV such as CNN or BBC is an essential component of the Washington destabilization agenda. The Levada Center would likely be in a crucial position in this regard to issue polls showing discontent with the regime.

By their description, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) is a “private, nonprofit foundation dedicated to the growth and strengthening of democratic institutions around the world. Each year, with funding from the US Congress, NED supports more than 1,000 projects of non-governmental groups abroad who are working for democratic goals in more than 90 countries.”[10]

It couldn’t sound more noble or high-minded. However, they prefer to leave out their own true history. In the early 1980’s CIA director Bill Casey convinced President Ronald Reagan to create a plausibly private NGO, the NED, to advance Washington’s global agenda via other means than direct CIA action. It was a part of the process of “privatizing” US intelligence to make their work more “effective.” Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, said in a Washington Post interview in 1991, “A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA.”[11] Interesting. The majority of funds for NED come from US taxpayers through Congress. It is in every way, shape and form a US Government intelligence community asset.

The NED was created during the Reagan Administration to function as a de facto CIA, privatized so as to allow it more freedom of action. NED board members are typically drawn from the Pentagon and US intelligence community. It has included retired NATO General Wesley Clark, the man who led the US bombing of Serbia in 1999. Key figures linked to clandestine CIA actions who served on NED’s board have included Otto Reich, John Negroponte, Henry Cisneros and Elliot Abrams. The Chairman of the NED Board of Directors in 2008 was Vin Weber, founder of the ultraconservative organization, Empower America, and campaign fundraiser for George W. Bush. Current NED chairman is John Bohn, former CEO of the controversial Moody’s rating agency which played a nefarious role in the still-unraveling US mortgage securities collapse. As well today’s NED board includes neo-conservative Bush-era ambassador to Iraq and to Afghanistan, Afghan-American Zalmay Khalilzad.[12]
Putin’s well-rehearsed opposition

It’s also instructive to look at the leading opposition figures who seem to have stepped forward in Russia in recent days. The current opposition “poster boy” favorite of Russian youth and especially western media is Russian blogger Alexei Navalny whose blog is titled LiveJournal. Navalny has featured prominently as a quasi-martyr of the protest movement after spending 15 days in Putin’s jail for partaking in a banned protest. At a large protest rally on Christmas Day December 25 in Moscow, Navalny, perhaps intoxicated by seeing too many romantic Sergei Eisenstein films of the 1917 Russian Revolution, told the crowd, “I see enough people here to take the Kremlin and the White House (Russia’s Presidential home-w.e.) right now...”[13]

Western establishment media is infatuated with Navalny. England’s BBC described Navalny as "arguably the only major opposition figure to emerge in Russia in the past five years," and US Time magazine called him "Russia's Erin Brockovich," a curious reference to the Hollywood film starring Julie Roberts as a researcher and legal activist. However, more relevant is the fact that Navalny went to the elite American East Coast Yale University, also home to the Bush family, where he was a “Yale World Fellow.” [14]

The charismatic Navalny however is also or has been on the payroll of Washington’s regime-destabilizing National Endowment for Democracy (NED). According to a posting on Navalny’s own blog, LiveJournal, he was supported in 2007-2008 by the NED. [15] [16]

Along with Navalny, key actors in the anti-Putin protest movement are centered around Solidarnost which was created in December 2008 by Boris Nemtsov, Vladimir Ryzhkov and others. Nemtsov is hardly one to protest corruption. According to Business Week Russia of September 23, 2007, Nemtsov introduced Russian banker Boris Brevnov to Gretchen Wilson, a US citizen and an employee of the International Finance Corporation, a financing arm of the World Bank. Wilson and Brevnov married. With the help of Nemtsov Wilson managed to privatize Balakhna Pulp and Paper mill at the giveaway price of just $7 million. The enterprise was sucked dry and then sold to the Wall Street-Swiss investment bank, CS First Boston bank. The annual turnover of the mill was reportedly $250 million. [17]

CS First Boston bank also paid for Nemtsov's trips to the very expensive Davos World Economic Forum. When Nemtsov became a member of the cabinet, his protégé Brevnov was appointed the chairman of the Unified Energy System of Russia JSC. Two years later in 2009 Boris Nemtsov, today’s “Mr anti-corruption,” used his influence reportedly to get Brevnov off the hook for charges of embezzling billions from assets of Unified Energy System. [18]

Nemtsov also took money from jailed Russian oligarch Mikhail Khodorkovsky in 1999 when the latter was using his billions to try to buy the Russian parliament or Duma. In 2004 Nemtsov met with exiled billionaire oligarch Boris Berezovsky in a secret gathering with other exiled Russian tycoons. When Nemtsov was detailed by Russian authorities for allegations of foreign funding of his new political party, “For Russia without Lawlessness and Corruption,” US Senators John McCain and Joe Liberman and Mike Hammer of the Obama National Security Council came to support of Nemtsov. [19]

Nemtsov’s close crony, Vladimir Ryzhkov of Solidarnost is also closely tied to the Swiss Davos circles, even founding a Siberian Davos. According to Russian press accounts from April 2005, Ryzhkov formed a Committee 2008 in 2003 to “draw” funds of the imprisoned Khodorkovsky along with soliciting funds from fugitive oligarchs such as Boris Berezovsky and western foundations such as the Soros Foundation. The stated aim of the effort was to rally “democratic” forces against Putin. On May 23, 2011 Ryzhkov, Nemtzov and several others filed to register a new Party of Peoples’ Freedom to ostensibly field a presidential candidate against Putin in 2012.[20]

Another prominent face in the recent anti-Putin rallies is former world chess champion turned right-wing politician, Garry Kasparov, another founder of Solidarnost. Kasparov was identified several years ago as being a board member of a Washington neo-conservative military think-tank. In April 2007, Kasparov admitted he was a board member of the National Security Advisory Council of Center for Security Policy, a "non-profit, non-partisan national security organization that specializes in identifying policies, actions, and resource needs that are vital to American security." Inside Russia Kasparov is more infamous for his earlier financial ties to Leonid Nevzlin, former Yukos vice-president and partner of Michael Khodorokvsky. Nevzlin fled to Israel on being charged in Russia on charges of murder and hiring contract killers to eliminate “objectionable people” while Yukos vice-president. [21]

In 2009 Kasparov and Boris Nemtsov met with no less than Barack Obama to discuss Russia’s opposition to Putin at the US President’s personal invitation at Washington’s Ritz Carlton Hotel. Nemtsov had called for Obama to meet with opposition forces in Russia: “If the White House agrees to Putin’s suggestion to speak only with pro-Putin organizations... this will mean that Putin has won, but not only that: Putin will become be assured that Obama is weak,” he said. During the same 2009 US trip Nemtsov was invited to speak at the New York Council on Foreign Relations, perhaps the most influential US foreign policy think-tank. Significantly, not only has the US State Department and US-backed political NGOs such as NED poured millions into building an anti-Putin coalition inside Russia. The President personally has intervened into the process.[22]

Ryzhkov, Nemtzov, Navalty and Putin’s former Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin were all involved in organizing the December 25th Moscow Christmas anti-Putin rally which drew an estimated 120,000.[23]
Why Putin?

The salient question is why Putin at this point? We need not look far for the answer.

Washington and especially Barack Obama’s Administration don’t give a hoot about whether Russia is democratic or not. Their concern is the obstacle to Washington’s plans for Full Spectrum Dominance of the planet that a Putin Presidency will represent. According to the Russian Constitution, the President of the Russian Federation head of state, supreme commander-in-chief and holder of the highest office in the Russian Federation. He will take direct control of defense and foreign policy.

We must ask what policy? Clearly strong countermeasures against the blatant NATO encirclement of Russia with Washington’s dangerous ballistic missile installations around Russia will be high on Putin’s agenda. Hillary Clinton’s “reset” will be in the dustbin if it is not already. We can also expect a more aggressive use of Russia’s energy card with pipeline diplomacy to deepen economic ties between European NATO members such as Germany, France and Italy, ultimately weakening the EU support for aggressive NATO measures against Russia. We can expect a deepening of Russia’s turn towards Eurasia, especially with China, Iran and perhaps India to firm up the shaky spine of resistance to Washington’s New World Order plans.

It will take more than a few demonstrations in sub-freezing weather in Moscow and St. Petersburg by a gaggle of corrupt or shady opposition figures such as Nemtsov or Kasparov to derail Russia. What is clear is that Washington is pushing on all fronts—Iran and Syria, where Russia has a vital naval port, on China, now on Russia, and on the Eurozone countries led by Germany. It has the smell of an end-game attempt by a declining superpower.

The United States today is a de facto bankrupt nuclear superpower. The reserve currency role of the dollar is being challenged as never since Bretton Woods in 1944. That role along with maintaining the United States as the world’s unchallenged military power have been the basis of the American Century hegemony since 1945.

Weakening the role of the dollar in international trade and ultimately as reserve currency, China is now settling trade with Japan in bilateral currencies, side-stepping the dollar. Russia is implementing similar steps with her major trade partners. The primary reason Washington launched a full-scale currency war against the Euro in late 2009 was to preempt a growing threat that China and others would turn away from the dollar to the Euro as reserve currency. That is no small matter. In effect Washington finances its foreign wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya and elsewhere through the fact that China and other trade surplus nations invest their surplus trade dollars in US government Treasury debt. Were that to shift significantly, US interest rates would rise substantially and the financial pressures on Washington would become immense.

Faced with growing erosion of her unchallenged global status as sole superpower, Washington appears now to be turning increasingly to raw military force to hold that. For that to succeed Russia must be neutralized along with China and Iran. This will be the prime agenda of whoever is next US President.

F. William Engdahl is the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order, He may be reached via his website at www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net

Notes

[1] Alexei Druzhinin, Putin says US encouraging Russian opposition, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 8, 2011
[2] Ibid.
[3] Jonathan Turley, The NDAA's historic assault on American liberty, guardian.co.uk, 2 January 2012, accessed in http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/02/ndaa-historic-assault-american-liberty.
[4] National Endowment for Democracy, Russia, from NED Annual Report 2010, Washington, DC, published in August 2011, accessed in http://www.ned.org/where-we-work/eurasia/russia.
[5] Ibid.
[6] Ibid.
[7] NED, Elections in Russia: Polling and Perspectives, September 14, 2011, accessed in http://ned.org/events/elections-in-russia-polling-and-perspectives.
[8] NED, Youth Activism in Russia: Can a New Generation Make a Difference?, December 15, 2011, accessed in http://ned.org/events/youth-activism-in-russia-can-a-new-generation-make-a-difference.
[9] F. William Engdahl, Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order, 2010, edition. Engdahl press. The book describes in detail the origins of the NED and various US-sponsored “human rights” NGOs and how they have been used to topple regimes not friendly to a larger USA geopolitical agenda.
[10] National Endowment for Democracy, About Us, accessed in www.ned.org.
[11] David Ignatius, Openness is the Secret to Democracy, Washington Post National Weekly Edition, 30 September-6 October,1991, 24-25.
[12] F. William Engdahl, Op. Cit., p.50.
[13] Yulia Ponomareva, Navalny and Kudrin boost giant opposition rally, RIA Novosti, Moscow, December 25, 2011.
[14] Yale University, Yale World Fellows: Alexey Navalny, 2010, accessed in http://www.yale.edu/worldfellows/fellows/navalny.html.
[15] Alexey Navalny, emails between Navalny and Conatser, accessed in Russian (English summary provided to the author by www.warandpeace.ru) on http://alansalbiev.livejournal.com/28124.html.
[16] Ibid.
[17] Business Week Russia, Boris Nemtsov: Co-chairman of Solidarnost political movement, Business Week Russia, September 23, 2007, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1648.
[18] Ibid.
[19] Ibid.
[20] Russian Mafia.ru, Vladimir Ryzhkov: Co-chairman of the Party of People's Freedom, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1713.
[21] Russian Mafia.ru, Garry Kasparov: The leader of United Civil Front, accessed in http://www.rumafia.com/person.php?id=1518.
[22] The OtherRussia, Obama Will Meet With Russian Opposition, July 3, 2009, accessed in http://www.theotherrussia.org/2009/07/03/obama-will-meet-with-russian-opposition/.
[23] Yulia Ponomareva, op. Cit.

CHINA DEVELOP GAME WHEREBY LIBERATION ARMY CAN BATTLE YANKS

2012-01-11T19:50:00.001Z

About time our side developed their gaming to counter the neo-colonial violence in games like C.O.D - Sons of Malcolm

[source]

Recently, an office from China's Nanjing Military Region has finished developing a military game named Glorious Mission, which has China-owned property rights, jointly with Giant Interactive Group, Inc. (Wuxi).

Military games have been developed for years. They have formed a system and been put into use in education as well as training in some foreign armies. However, China's own development of military games is still in the primary steps.

Although some foreign military games have been used in some Chinese armies' daily training, they may not suit Chinese soldiers and even mislead them due to the different concepts of values and military thoughts.

The finished Glorious Mission with completely-independent China-owned property rights is not only full of Chinese characteristics but also brings China up to speed on military game development.

The Glorious Mission is set from a soldier's perspective and his barrack life. The game follows along as the soldier keeps promoting himself in training and finally qualifies to join a large-scale military exercise codenamed "Glorious Mission" and how he does in the military exercise.

The departments that invented the game are promoting the current game and looking forward to integrating more informationized and systematic concepts into it. And the promoted game software will be tried in some chosen armies.

By Wang Hanlu, People's Daily Online

FULL SPEECH OF SYRIAN PRESIDENT, ASSAD

2012-01-11T19:14:00.001Z

Full Speech of President Assad of Syria 10 Jan 2012

[source]

I know that I have been away from the media for a long time, and I have missed having direct contact with the citizens, but I have always been following up with the daily occurrences and gathering the information so that my speech can be built on what is said by the street.

I would like to salute you in the name of pan-Arabism which will continue to be a symbol of our identity and our haven in difficult times, as we will continue to be its heart beating with love and affection. I would also like to greet you in the name of our home country which will always be the source of our pride and dignity, as we will remain faithful to its genuine values for which our fathers and grandfathers sacrificed dearly to keep the country glorified and independent. And I am proud of your steadfastness which will keep Syria an invincible fortress in the face of all forms of penetration, and free in resisting submission to foreign forces.

Today, I am addressing you ten months after the outbreak of the unfortunate events which befell the country imposing new circumstances on the Syrian arena. For all of us, these conditions represent a serious test of our national commitment, and we cannot pass this test except by our continuous work and honest intents based on our faith in God, the genuine character of our people, and its solid nature which has been polished over the ages and made brighter and more robust. Although those events have made us pay, until now, heavy prices which made my heart bleed, as it made the heart of every Syrian bleed, yet they require the sons of Syria, regardless of their beliefs and doctrines, to be wise and sensible, and to be guided by their deep national feelings. Only then our entire country can achieve victory with our unity, our fraternity, and our will to go beyond narrow horizons and momentary interests and reach where our noble national issues lie. For this is our destination and there lies the strength of our country and the glory of our history.

External Conspiring Is No Longer a Secret

External conspiring is no longer a secret because what is being plotted in the pal talk rooms has started to be clearly revealed before the eyes of the people. It is not possible anymore to deceive others except for those who do not want to listen or see; as the tears shed by the dealers of freedom and democracy for our own victims can no longer conceal the role they played in the bloodshed which they tried to use for their own purposes. At the beginning of the crisis, it was not easy to explain what happened. Emotional reactions and the absence of rationality were surpassing the facts. But now, the fog has lifted, and it is no longer possible for the regional and international parties which wanted to destabilize Syria to forge the facts and the events. Now the masks have fallen off the faces of those parties, and we have become more capable of deconstructing the virtual environment which they have created to push Syrians towards illusion and then make them fall. That virtual environment was created to lead to a psychological and moral defeat which would eventually lead to the actual defeat. That unprecedented media attack was meant to lead us to a state of fear, and this fear, which could paralyze the will, would lead to defeat.

Over Sixty T.V. Channels in the World Are Devoted to Work against Syria

Over sixty T.V. channels in the world are devoted to work against Syria. Some of them are devoted to working against the Syrian domestic situation, and some others are working to distort the image of Syria abroad. There are tens of internet websites, and tens of newspapers and different media channels, which means that we are talking about hundreds of media networks.

Their aim was to push us to a state of self-collapse in order to save their efforts in waging many battles; and they failed in doing so, yet they did not give in.

One of their attempts which you are aware of is what they did with me personally in my interview with the American news channel. Usually I do not watch myself on T.V whether in an interview or a speech. That time I watched the interview and I was about to believe what I myself was presented to have said. If they were capable of convincing me of the lie, how can they not convince others! Fortunately, we had an original version of the interview, and they did what they did because they thought that we did not have an original version which we can present to the citizens to compare with their version. Had that not been the case, no one would have ever believed the professional fabrication which they did even if I talk now for hours and try to tell you I did not say what was misrepresented on that news channel.

Of course, they had one aim in mind. When they failed in causing a state of collapse on the popular and institutional levels in Syria, they wanted to target the top of the pyramid of the state in order to say to the citizens, on the one hand, and, of course, to the West, on the other hand, that this person lives in a cocoon and does not know what has been going on. They also wanted to say to the citizens, especially those in the state, that if the top figure in the pyramid is evading responsibility and feeling that things are falling apart, then it is normal for things to go out of control.

There were continuous rumors like saying that the president has left the country, as to say that the president has given up on his responsibilities. They did their best to circulate those rumors but we say to them, ‘in your dreams, for I am not a person who surrenders his responsibilities.’

When I sipped some water in my previous speech, they said the president is nervous, but we never fish in troubled waters, neither in crises nor in normal situations. Now they will use the previous statement to say that the Syrian president is announcing that he will not relinquish his post. In fact, they do not distinguish between the two notions of ‘office' and ‘responsibility’, and I did say in the year 2000 that I am not after office and I do not run away from responsibility. An office does not have any value. It is a sheer device and whoever seeks to office does not get respect.

We are talking now about responsibility, and this responsibility derives its importance from public support. This means that I acquire a position with the support of the people; and when I leave it, it will be with the will of this people. This is final, and regardless of what you heard, I always based my external policy in all our positions on public support and public will. What do we make of the interview with the American channel in the media framework? There was repeated talk about the good intention of many from within Syria and the outside world. Why did we not allow the media to enter Syria? In fact, during the first month or month and a half of the crisis, Arab and foreign media networks were completely free to move inside Syria. However, all the media fabrications, and the whole political and media campaign against Syria, were built on that phase of forging and distortion; and there is a difference between distorting the truth then giving it credibility as being presented from the inside of Syria, on the one hand, and distorting the truth from the outside of Syria where less credibility tends to be given to such misrepresentation. That is why we took a decision not to close the door to all media networks, but to be selective in the access given to them in order to control the quality of the information or the falsification which goes beyond the borders.

Victory Is Very Close As Long As We Are Able to Survive and Invest in Our Points of Strength

We were patient in an unprecedented battle in Syria's modern history; a battle that made us stronger. If this battle carries significant risks and decisive challenges, the victory is very close as long as we are able to survive and invest in our points of strength which are many, and to know weaknesses of opponents which are even more. Your public awareness which is based on facts, not on hype, underestimation, exaggerations or simplifications, had the most important role in uncovering the scheme and restricting it in preparation for thwarting it entirely. In our quest to dismantle that virtual environment and to ensure the importance of the internal situation in confronting any external interference, we took the initiative to talk transparently on having a default here and a defect or delay there in some areas. I mean in previous speeches when I was talking about mistakes, but we did not mean at all to underestimate the importance of such external schemes. I do not think that a reasonable person can deny today those schemes that shifted acts of sabotage and terrorism to another level of crime which targeted minds, highly qualified people and institutions. The aim of which is to generalize the state of panic, to destroy morale and to make you reach the state of despair which would open the way for what was planned in the outside to become a reality, but this time with local hands.

At the beginning, they searched for their desired revolution, but their revolution was against them and against their vandals and their tools. Since the early days, however, the people revolted against them, thus precluding them and their henchmen. When they were shocked by your unity, they tried to dismantle and fragment this unity through using the hideous sectarian weapon after masking it with the cover of holy religion. When they lost hope to achieve their goals, they shifted into acts of sabotage and murder under different headings and covers such as the utilization of some peaceful demonstrations and the exploitation of wrong practices done by persons in the state. Thus, they started the process of assassinations and attempted to isolate cities and dividing the various parts of the country. They stole, looted and destroyed public and private facilities and after experimenting with all possible ways and means in today's world with all the regional and international media and political support, they did not find a foothold for their hoped-for revolution.

Arab Countries Are Not the Same in Their Policies towards Syria

Here comes the foreign role after they failed in all attempts; there was no choice but the foreign intervention. When we say foreign, it usually comes to our minds that it is the foreign outside. Unfortunately, this foreign outside has become a mix of Arab and foreign, and sometimes, in many cases, this Arab part is more hostile and worse than the foreign one. I do not want to generalize; the image is not that bleak because Arab countries are not the same in their policies. There are countries which tried during this stage to play a morally objective role towards what is happening in Syria. In contrast, there are countries that basically do not care about what is happening in general. I mean they stand on the fence in most cases, and there are countries that carry out what they are asked to do. What is strange is that some Arab officials are with us in heart and against us in politics. When we ask for clarifications, it is said or the official says I am with you, but there are external pressures. I mean this is a semi-official declaration of losing sovereignty. It is not a surprise that the countries will one day link their policies to the policies of foreign countries just like linking local currency to foreign currencies, and thus giving away sovereignty becomes a sovereign matter.

The truth is that this is the peak of deterioration for the Arab situation, but any deterioration always precedes a renaissance; when we move from the first independence which is the first liberation of land from occupation to the second independence which is the independence of the will. We will reach this independence when Arab peoples take the lead in the Arab world in general. This is because the official policies we see do not utterly reflect what we see on the public arenas in the Arab world.

We do not see this Arab role, which we have suddenly seen now, when there is a crisis or a dilemma in an Arab country. In contrast, we see it in its best forms when there is trouble in a foreign country or a superpower. Saving that state from its crisis is often at the expense of another state or at the expense of Arab states, and often through the destruction of an Arab country. This is what happened in Iraq and this is what happened in Libya, and this is what we see now in the Arab role towards Syria. After they failed in the Security Council when they could not convince the world of their lies, there was a need for an Arab cover and a need for having an Arab platform. Here comes this initiative. The truth of this initiative and the monitors' issue is that I am the one who proposed this issue in my meeting with the Arab League delegation a few months ago. We said since the international organizations came to Syria, reviewed the facts and they got a positive reaction at least through reviewing things - we do not say things are all positive; they see positive and negative things and we do not want more than knowing the truth as it is – it is more worthy of the Arabs to send a delegation to see what is happening in Syria. Of course, there was not any interest in this proposal put forward by Syria, but suddenly after several months, we see that this topic became the focus of global attention. It was not sudden attention towards what we put forward at all, but because the scheme has started from the outside under this title.

In all cases we continued dialogue with various parties and the Foreign Minister spoke in his press conferences on details I will not repeat here. We were focusing on one thing only which is the sovereignty of Syria. We were considering that the Arab citizen, the Arab official or the Arab observer has feelings towards us; I mean we remain Arabs who sympathize with each other no matter how bad the Arab situation is. Why they started the Arab initiative? The same countries that claim concern for the Syrian people were initially advising us to reform. Of course, these countries do not have the least knowledge of democracy and have no heritage in this area, but they were thinking that we will not be moving towards reform and there will be a title for these countries to use internationally that there is a conflict inside Syria between a state that does not want reform and the people who want reform, freedom or the like.

When we started reform, this thing was confusing for them, thus they shifted to the issue of the Arab League or the Arab initiative. The truth is that if we are to follow these countries, which give us advice, we have to go backward at least a century and a half. What happened a century and a half ago? We were part of the Ottoman Empire and we had the first parliament which we are concerned with in one way or another. The first parliament was opened in the year / 1877 / and if we put this aside, the first parliament in Syria was in 1919; this means less than a century ago. Therefore, imagine these countries that want to advise us about democracy! Where were these countries at that time? Their status is like the status of a smoking doctor who advises the patient to quit smoking while putting a cigarette in his mouth.

Eventually, outrage of the Arab or public reaction in Syria towards the issue of the Arab League was the result. In fact, I was not angry; why to get angry with someone who does not know his decision. If someone attacks us with a knife, we defend ourselves not by struggling with the knife but with the person. The knife is just a tool. Our struggle is not with these people but against those who stand behind them. The public reaction was outrage, indignation and surprise; why did not the Arabs stand with Syria rather than standing against Syria? I ask a question: when did they stand with Syria?! I will not go back far in the past, but let us just talk about the past few years. Let us start by the war on Iraq, after the invasion, when Syria was threatened with bombing and invasion. Who stood with Syria in 2005 when they exploited the assassination of Hariri? Who stood alongside Syria in 2006? Who supported our positions against the Israeli aggression on Lebanon in 2008? Who supported us in the IAEA in relation to the alleged nuclear file? Arab states vote against us. These facts may be unknown to many citizens. That is why we need to explain everything in these junctures and situations.

Recently, Arab states voted against Syria with regard to the Human Rights issue. In contrast, some non-Arab countries stand with Syria. That is why we should not be surprised. I mean we should not be surprised with the Arab League status because it is just a reflection of the Arab situation. The Arab League is a mirror of our situation.

The Arab League mirrors our current miserable situation. If it has failed in over six decades in taking a position in the Arab interest, why are we surprised today if the general context is the same and hasn’t changed except in the sense that it is pushing the Arab condition from bad to worse and in that what was happening in secret is now happening in public under the slogan of the nation’s interest.

Has the Arab league actually gained independence for its states, and consequently for itself? Has it ever implemented its decisions and removed the dust off its files and achieved only a fragment of the aspirations of the Arab peoples? Or has it contributed directly to sowing the seeds of sedition and disunity? Has it respected its charter and defended its member states whose land, or the rights of whose peoples, have been violated? Has it returned one olive tree uprooted by Israel or prevented the demolition of one Palestinian house in occupied Arab Palestine? Has it been able to prevent the partition of Sudan or prevent the killing of over a million Iraqis or feed a single starved Somali?

Today, we are not in the process of attacking the Arab League because we are part of it, although we are in the age of decadence. Nor am I talking about the Arab league because it or the Arab states have taken a decision to suspend Syria’s membership in it. This does not concern us in the least. I am talking about it because I have noticed the extent of popular frustration which we need to put in its natural context. The Arab League has been doomed for a long time. When we used to sit in Arab summits listening to criticism and denunciation whose echo reverberated in conference halls, we used to talk about this candidly, as Arab officials; some felt ashamed and some behaved as if it was no concern of theirs. So, being out of the Arab League, or suspending Syria’s membership, and all this talk is not the issue. The issue is who wins and who loses. Does Syria or the Arab League lose? For us, we and the Arab states are losing as long as the Arab condition is bad. This is a chronic situation, nothing new in it, and there are no winners. We have been working for years to minimize the losses because it is not possible to win. But suspending Syria’s membership raises a question: can the body live without a heart? Who said that Syria is the throbbing heart of Arabism? It wasn’t a Syrian, it was President Abdul Naser, and this is still true.

Many Arabs have the same conviction. For Syria Arabism is not a slogan, it is a practice. Who offered, more than Syria, and is still offering and paying the price? Who, more than Syria, has offered to the Palestinian cause in particular? Who, more than Syria, has given to the process of Arabizing culture and education everywhere, in the mass media? Syria is quite strict about Arabization, particularly in school curricula. Who has offered more to Arabism and to Arabization and insisted on Arab culture in their school curricula more than Syria does in its schools and universities. The issue for us is not a slogan. If some countries seek to suspend our Arabism in the League, we say to them that they are suspending the Arab identity of the League itself. They cannot suspend Syria’s Arab identity. On the contrary, the League without Syria suspends its own Arab identity.

If some believe they can get us out of the League, they cannot get us out of our Arab identity, because the Arab identity is not a political decision. It is heritage and history. Those countries, which you know, have not acquired, and will not acquire, the Arab identity. If they believe that with money they can buy some geography and rent and import some history, we tell them that money does not make nations or create civilizations. Consequently, and as I heard from many Syrians, and I agree with them on this point, maybe in our present condition we are freer in exercising our real and pure Arabism which Syrians have been the best to express throughout history. That is why we say that with this attempt they don’t focus on getting Syria out of the League, but rather on suspending Arabism itself so that it becomes an Arab League only in name. It will no longer be a league – bringing people together – or Arab. It will be a mock-Arab body in order to be in line with their policies and the role they are playing on the Arab arena. Otherwise, how can we explain this unprecedented and unreasonable tact with the Zionist enemy in everything it does and this decisiveness and toughness with Syria?

We have been trying for years to activate the Israel-boycott office; and we have been receiving excuses of the type that this is no longer acceptable; but, within a few weeks, they activate a boycott against Syria. This means that their objective is replacing Syria with Israel. This is only a pattern; and we are not naïve. We have known this Arab condition for a very long time. We have not clung to illusions. By showing our patience regarding these practices, before and during this crisis, we wanted to prove to all those who have their doubts about the bad intentions, wrapped in beautiful and ornamented language, that their intentions are bad and their objectives are vile. I think now this has become abundantly clear to most people.

We realize all that. But based on our genuine Arab character, and our desire to restore the original idea of the Arab League, in which we are supported by some sisterly countries keen on making the Arab League a truly collective and Arab body, we haven’t closed the doors to any solution or proposal; and we shall never close the door to any Arab endeavor as long as it respects our sovereignty, the independence of our decision and the unity of our people.

All these negative accumulations on the Arab arena, throughout decades, in addition to the current situation, led some of our citizens to take their anger out on Arabism which has been wrongly confused with the Arab League or the performance of some pseudo-Arabs to the extent that they denounced it.

Brothers and sisters,

The social structure of the Arab world, with its large diversity, is based on two strong and integrated pillars: Arabism and Islam. Both of them are great, rich and vital. Consequently, we cannot blame them for the wrong human practices. Furthermore, the Muslim and Christian diversity in our country is a major pillar of our Arabism and a foundation of our strength. When we get angry with Arabism or abandon it because of what some have done on this wide Arab arena we commit a gross injustice. As we have refused to generalize the mistakes done by some officials to the whole country, we shouldn’t generalize the mistakes of some pseudo-Arabs to Arabism. What we are doing now is similar to what the west did against Islam in the wake of 9/11.

We say that there is a great religion – Islam, and there are terrorists taking cover under Islam. Who should we banish: religion or terrorism? Do we denounce religion or terrorists? Do we fight those who trade in Islam or fight terrorism? The answer is clear: It is not the fault of Islam when there are terrorists who take cover under the mantle of Islam.

Christianity is a religion of love and peace. What is the fault of Christianity in the wars waged under its name and in the crimes committed in the heart of America or in European countries by people who claim to be committed to Christian values? The same applies to Arabism. We should not link it to what some pseudo-Arabs are doing; otherwise we head towards the greatest sin. There are things which have existed through a historical process and we cannot respond to them by an act or a decision. These things didn’t take place through a decision. There is a historical context and there is a divine will behind religions and nationality which we cannot face through reaction.

The first reaction was proposing the “Syria first” concept. It is natural to put Syria first. Every person belongs to his country first and foremost. One’s homeland cannot be in the second, third or fourth place; but the context in which this concept was made was isolationist – only Syria.

Every person belongs first to his city more than to other cities. He is naturally connected to it. Everyone likes the village he grew up in more than other villages, but this doesn’t prevent one from being patriotic and like the whole of the homeland. Being Syrian doesn’t prevent us from being Arabs; and being Arab doesn’t create any contradiction between our Arab and Syrian identities.

That is why we should stress that point, that the relationship between Arabism and patriotism is a close and vital one for the future, for our interests and for everything. It is not about romanticism or principles. It is about interests too. If we separate this fact from reaction, we should always know that Arabism is an identity not a membership. Arabism is an identity given by history not a certificate given by an organization. Arabism is an honor that characterizes Arab peoples not a stigma carried by some pseudo-Arabs on the Arab or world political stage.

Some might wonder about all this talk about Arabism and Arabs while in Syria there are only Arabs. My response is: who said that we are talking about an Arab race? Had Arabism been only the Arab race, we wouldn’t have had much to be proud of. The last thing in Arabism is race. Arabism is a question of civilization, a question of common interests, common will and common religions. It is about the things which bring about all the different nationalities which live in this place. The strength of this Arabism lies in its diversity not in its isolation and not in its one colordness. Arabism hasn’t been built by the Arabs. Arabism has been built by all those non-Arabs who contributed to building it and those who belong to this rich society in which we live. Its strength lies in its diversity. Had there been a group of non-Arabs who wanted to change their traditions and customs and abandon them, we would oppose them on the grounds that they weaken Arabism. The strength of our Arabism lies in openness, diversity and in showing this diversity not integrating it to look like one component. Arabism has been accused for decades of chauvinism. This is not true. If there are chauvinistic individuals, this doesn’t mean that Arabism is chauvinistic. It is a condition of civilization.

All the above will not affect our vision of the internal situation in Syria and how we deal with it. There is no doubt that the current events and their repercussions have posed a huge number of questions and ideas which aim at finding different solutions for the current situation Syria is going through. If it is natural and self evident, but it cannot be positive and effective except when it is based on the importance of facing the problem not running away from it, or when it is based on courage not panic and escaping forward.

If we want to talk about the internal situation – and I think it is the issue over which all Syrians’ concerns are focused - we should identify issues clearly. There are numerous ideas, which might be good. But unless they are put in the appropriate framework they remain useless and sometimes harmful. Instead of having ideas moving in one strain contradicting and fighting with each other, let’s draw some definitions before we get into the details. First, we cannot carry out internal reform without dealing with facts as they are on the ground, whether we like them or not. We cannot just hang on to a straw in the air. Neither the straw nor the air will carry us. This means falling. Under the pressure of the crisis, some talk about any solution and call for any solution. We shall not give ‘any’ solution. We shall only give ‘solutions’. Solutions mean that the results are known beforehand. ‘Any solution’ will lead to the abyss. It might lead to deepening the crisis. It might get us into an impasse. The pressure of the crisis will not push us to adopt just ‘any’ plan. Even though time is very important, but it is not more important than the quality of the solution which we shall provide.

Today, we are dealing with two aspects of internal reform: the first is political reform and the second is fighting terrorism which has spread recently to different parts of Syria. In the reform process, there are those who believe that what we are doing now is the way to get out of the crisis or is the whole solution to the crisis. This is not true. We are not doing it for this reason. The relationship between reform and the crisis is limited. In the beginning, it had a larger role, when we decided to separate those who claim reform for terrorist objectives and those who genuinely want reform. This has happened. My vision from the very beginning was that there is no relation between the two, but it wasn’t easy to talk about it then because, as I said, things were not clear for many Syrians as they have become clear now.

What is the relationship between the reform process and the outside plot? Will the outside plots against Syria stop if we introduce the reforms today? I’ll tell you something. We know a great deal about discussions taking place outside Syria, particularly in the West about the situation in Syria. None of those involved cares about neither the number of the victims nor about reforms, neither about what has been achieved nor what will be achieved. Everyone is talking about Syria’s policies and whether Syria’s behavior has changed from the beginning of the crisis till now.

On the other hand, there were those who came to bargain, saying if you do 1, 2, 3, 4, at least the outside part of the crisis and its internal tentacles will stop immediately. So, there is no relation between reform and the outside part of the crisis, because this part is against reform and because reform will make Syria stronger. If Syria is stronger, this means strengthening Syrian policies, and we all know that Syrian policies are not well liked in foreign circles. On the contrary, such policies are loathed by many countries which want us to be mere lackeys.

The second point: what is the relationship between reform and terrorism? If we carry out the reforms, will terrorists stop? Does this mean that the terrorists who are killing and destroying are keen on the political parties law, the local administration elections or things of that kind? They are not. Terrorists don’t care. Reform will not prevent terrorists from being terrorists. So, what is the component which concerns us?

The greatest part of the Syrian people want reform, and they have not come out, haven’t broken the law, haven’t killed. This is the largest part of the Syrian people, it is the part which wants reform. For us, reform is the natural context. That is why we announced a phased reform in the year 2000. In my swear-in speech I talked about modernization and development. At that time, I was focused on state institutions. In 2005, we talked about political reform. Part of what we are doing now was proposed in 2005 in the Bath party conference. At that time there were no pressures in this regard. Pressure was different, in a different direction. No one was talking about internal reform. We proposed it because we thought of it as a natural context not a forced one. It cannot be forced. It is a natural requirement for development. We cannot develop without reform. Whether we were late or not is a different question. Why we were late is a different question. But it remained a natural need. Had reform been part of the crisis, it would fail; and if reform were forced, it would fail. That’s why, in our discussion of reform, let’s separate natural needs from the crisis.

If we start from the current crisis, reform will be abrupt and tied to its current circumstances which are temporary. What about future decades? Things will be different. We have to connect what is before the crisis with what is after it regardless of it and then base our work on the reform process. Of course this is not in the absolute. Sometimes, we take into account what we are going through now in our reform efforts. We don’t separate it completely from the timetable. Sometimes we move quickly. Sometimes we assume that people’s reaction needs a move in a certain direction. There are some impacts of the crisis; but we don’t build our reforms on the crisis. If we do so, we justify foreign powers’ intervention in our crisis under the title of reform. So, let’s agree on separating the two and deal with the details on these grounds.

Now that we talked about the details, I proposed in my speech in this auditorium last June about an action plan; and I talked mainly about the legislative component in relation to laws and the constitution. At that time, I offered a timeframe for the laws which have all been passed within the timeframe identified at the time. Now, we hear many people saying “we haven’t seen any tangible results”. I always like to talk transparently, and I’ll address every subject separately.

The first law we passed was lifting the state of emergency. In such circumstances that Syria is going through, can any state lift the state of emergency. On the contrary, any state would have imposed the state of emergency. Nevertheless, we didn’t do that. We insisted on lifting the state of emergency. Some Syrians accused us of abandoning part of the security of Syria because we lifted the state of emergency. Of course this is inaccurate, because lifting the state of emergency or the state of emergency itself doesn’t provide security. It is rather an organizational issue. When there is a state of emergency, there are certain measures and when it is lifted there is a different set of measures. We haven’t abandoned security. No state could accept to abandon security. The laws and the measures now in place give us full authority to control security regardless of the state of emergency law. But lifting the state of emergency needs training for the relevant services, including the security and police forces which deal with citizens. We all know that they are all over Syria now; and some of them haven’t taken leave for months. So, it is logical, reasonable or practical to train them now? This is impossible. There will be no training in the current circumstances. Nevertheless, we insist that the services stress some basic regulations in relation to lifting the state of emergency. When there is an environment of terrorism, destruction and law breaking, if there are errors they will multiply tens of folds. That is why we are not dealing only with the results but with the causes too. The results are the mistakes we see being committed by some, but the causes are related to the state of chaos in itself. We need to control the chaos in order to feel the results. In other words, we cannot feel the true effects of lifting the state of emergency while chaos prevails. And here I distinguish, of course, between different levels of mistakes, on the one hand, and killing, on the other.

There is no cover for anyone; but the issue of killing needs evidence. Some people believe that none of those who committed acts of killing have been arrested. That’s not true in relation to those working for the state. A limited number of people have been arrested in relation to murder and other crimes. I say limited because the evidence was limited and connected with those people. The existence of evidence or searching for evidence needs institutions; and institutions need appropriate conditions; and the current conditions hamper the work of such institutions. But I would like to stress that there is no cover for anyone; and there is no order, I stress, no order at any level of the state to shoot at any citizen. Shooting, under the law, is allowed only in the case of self defence and in defence of citizens and in cases of engaging an armed person. So, there is a specific case in the law. In this regard, I stress the need to deal with causes and effects.

Concerning the political parties, the political parties law has been issued. Some parties have applied and have been given licenses. The first license was given to the first party a few weeks ago; and I believe that yesterday or today there is a second party on the way which met all the conditions. There are many other parties which are still trying to meet the conditions and submit the necessary documents to be licensed. Of course we didn’t feel the existence of these parties, because political parties need time. But, in any case, after the political parties law has been passed, we haven’t only given licenses, but encouraged many groups to form parties. I don’t think that the state is responsible in this regard. We will not form any parties, will not appear in the media or conduct activities on behalf of anyone. So, there are no obstacles in this regard and it is only a question of time.

The local administration law has been passed and elections have been held. Of course they have been held in difficult circumstances; and it is natural that they will not give the desired results because participation, neither on the part of the candidates or the voters, was not as they were supposed to be with a new law because of the security conditions. There was a point of view saying that we should postpone local administration elections to a later stage. But there was a different opinion, which we adopted, saying that there should be change because every change is positive, particularly that most citizens’ complaints were about the performance of local administration. We embarked on that effort. But in any case, anything related to elections will not give results if there is no broad participation on the part of candidates and also on the part of voters, so that there is competition. That is why you will not feel the results. In general, with anything related to elections, part of the responsibility lies on the citizens and not only on the state.

As for the media law, I think the government has completed last week the preparation of executive instructions and have become ready for implementation. There are requests ready for television, press and others. The election law was issued and the aim of which is to frame all these ideas that we hear on the political scene, and anyone who has an idea should go to the ballot box which is the voice of law for everything in this country; this is the core of the issue.

The important law is the law of fighting corruption. It is the only law which has been delayed for several months. The first reason is related to the fact that this law is very important and has many aspects. Therefore, I asked the government to extensively consider it in collaboration with various bodies and parties. It was put on the internet and there were many posts and useful ideas. The government finished this and sent it to the Syrian Presidency which sent it back recently to the government. It is a good law which includes very important points and a point related to the inspecting authority.

In the current law, the anti-corruption law, the inspection commission was abolished, and the Anti-Corruption Commission replaced the inspection commission, but the anti-corruption law is specialized in corruption cases. This means that it deals only with small issue which is often not does not list all cases of corruption. This commission deals with corruption after its appearance, while the inspection commission was in charge of broader functions, including organization of management, raising proposals in the field of management and control of state action in terms of administration as well as combating corruption. Thus, the abolition of all these tasks and linking them only to one title which is corruption is not good, especially that fighting corruption cannot be done in isolation from the organization of the administration.

We cannot fight corruption alone because this is a great imbalance apart from other points that are present. There are proposals on the integration of the inspection commission with the Financial Control Commission, but this issue is not important. The most important thing is to know the relationship between inspection and Anti-Corruption Commissions. If there is a cancellation of the inspection commission, will the Anti-Corruption Commission include all the tasks of the two bodies or should we leave the two commissions and specify different tasks for each one of them, or should we coordinate between both of them in respect of the issue of corruption? That is why this law was resent to the government to resolve this point. After that, the law of fighting corruption will be issued.

Anyway, if the law was passed in the best of conditions, it will be easy for the state to fight corruption at the intermediate level and above, but it is difficult to fight it from the intermediate level and below without the contribution of the citizens and the media. This means that prosecution will not be done even by this commission because it will only receive information. Thus, we need to look for the information and report them to this commission. This means that the success of this law needs significant popular awareness.

Within the framework of the corruption topic, many people whom I meet say we want the President to hold corrupt people accountable. Here, I want to clarify that the President does not replace institutions; I handle one or two issues when I see an error, but the institution holds thousands of people accountable or address thousands of cases. When the President replaces the institutions, this will not be reassuring even if he is doing the right thing. Therefore, we have to work in order to activate institutions.

I told them that I will take care of this law and the activation of these institutions, and I want to see fighting corruption through normal legal channels. At that time, we solved the problems of thousands, tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands and millions of Syrians. I always focus on institutional work. If I solved a problem, it is an individual problem; I solve the problem of someone but not the problem of thousands of people.

The other pillar in reform is the Constitution. The decree that provides for establishing a committee to draft the constitution was issued. This committee was given a deadline of four months and I think that it has become in its final stages. This constitution will focus on a fundamental and essential point which is the multi-party system and political pluralism. They were talking only about article eight, but we said that the entire Constitution should be amended because there is a correlation among articles. The Constitution will focus on the fact that the people is the source of authority, especially during elections, the dedication of the institutions' role, the freedoms of the citizens and other things and basic principles.

There was a question: why we had legal reform before changing the Constitution? Logically, we must begin with the Constitution and then laws come after that. This is true in terms of logic, but people's pressure and questioning the credibility of the state that it wishes to carry out real reform, have led us to work in parallel. Moreover, issuing laws is faster in terms of time; it takes a few months and this is less than needed by the Constitution. If logic contradicts reality, we go with reality and in any case this is not an important issue. What is really important is that when laws are passed and the Constitution is drafted, we will be in a new phase which is not a transition. This is related to the legislation aspect.

As for things that we can do as initiative, we heard a lot about a national unity government. I always like to check terminology because we should not take the term without knowing its content. We hear about the national unity government in the states that have complete division on the national level between parties, a civil war, war-lords communities or princes of nationalities who are directly gathered at the table or through representatives to form a government of national unity. We do not have a national division. We have problems, we have a split in certain cases, but we do not have a national division in the sense that could be asked. I know they do not mean this, but I do not use such an expression as 'national unity government'. For this reason we do not have a government of national division. At any rate, governments in Syria are always diversified governments which include independents and various parties. But now we have a new political map for the crisis and the new Constitution. With the new parties' law, new political forces have emerged and must be taken into consideration. Some may propose the participation of all these political forces in the government. Some others focus on the opposition. I say all political parties from the center to the opposition to the pro-government forces and everyone should contribute because the government is the homeland's government not a government of a party or a state. The more we extend participation, the more benefits we achieve in all aspects and generally for the sake of the national feeling. Thus, expanding the government is a good idea. I do not know what label we may use here because some call it a national consensus and some others call it expansion participation; this does not matter. What is important is that we welcome the participation of all political forces. In fact, we started dialogue recently even in general headlines with some political forces to take their views in this participation and the answer was positive.

I want to go back to a point in the Constitution which is related to the dates. When the Committee finishes the draft constitution within the time limit, there will be several propositions either to be issued by the President as a decree, or to be referred to parliament in order to be issued by a law. I refused the first and the second and I stressed the fact that there should be a referendum because the Constitution is not the state's Constitution; it is an issue related to every Syrian citizen. Therefore, we will resort to a referendum after the committee finishes its work and presents the Constitution which will be put through constitutional channels to reach a referendum. The referendum on the Constitution could be done at the beginning of March.

THE FILM THE pOLICE DONT WANT YOU TO SEE - 'INJUSTICE', BEST DOC-FILM ON POLICE BRUTALITY IN ENGLAND

2012-01-11T18:40:00.002Z

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CHINA MILITARY GENERAL COMMENTS ON RISING WAR MOVES FROM uSA

2012-01-10T13:56:00.002Z

Major General Luo Yuan

This is an interesting commentary from Major Gernal Luo Yuan of China's Peoples Liberation Army in the Liberation Army Daily. China clearly understands the military plans and strategies of imperialism, it has known ever since the revolution that led to the establishment of Communist China in 1949.

Especially interesting is the comments regarding the u.s imperialist strategy in the Asia Pacific region to develop its military presence, and develop relations with countries on the basis of militarily containing and aggressing China. The usa and uk's rapproachment with Myanmar is indeed in line with their regional strategy of trying to bring certain nations closer to their hegemony in order to isolate China. Major Luo Yuan states in the article below:

""We must be adept at maneuvering and use smart diplomacy, and the more friends we can make the better," he wrote.

"Some countries have been swindled by America, and now are walking alongside the United States out of their own interests, but in essence they don't fit together," said Luo. "They share the same bed but have different dreams.""

This is classic Chinese diplomatic strategy, the Chines realise that there is no real long term sense in any country building relations with imperialism due to imperialism economic and military decline historically, however the Chinese also realise that while imperialism is in historic decline, it is at the same time prepared to take humanity into war and trauma in a desperate attempt to maintain its domination.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

China top military paper warns U.S. aims to contain rise

[source]

The United States' new defense strategy focused on the Asia-Pacific region is directed at containing China's rise, the People's Liberation Army's newspaper said on Tuesday in Beijing's strongest warning yet against the new Pentagon stance.

The commentary in the Liberation Army Daily, however, also said China's sensible response to the U.S. military re-focus on Asia should be "vigilance" and smart diplomacy, not panic.

The United States is "laying out forces across the Asia-Pacific region in advance to contain the rise of China," said the commentary in the paper by Major General Luo Yuan.

Washington's assertions that the military re-focus announced last week is not directed at China are "simply making their real intent all the more obvious."

"Casting our eyes around we can see that the United States has been bolstering its five major military alliances in the Asia-Pacific region, and is adjusting the positioning of its five major military base clusters, while also seeking more entry rights for military bases around China," wrote Luo.

"Who can believe that you are not directing this at China? Isn't this the return of a Cold War mentality?"

Luo is well-known for his hawkish views, often published in popular Chinese newspapers and online. But the appearance of his commentary in the Liberation Army Daily, which is heavily vetted as the chief paper of the military, suggests that his latest comments enjoy some level of official endorsement.

On Monday, China's Ministry of Defense warned the United States to be "careful in its words and actions" after last week announcing the defense rethink that stresses responding to China's rise by shoring up U.S. alliances and bases across Asia.

The new U.S. strategy promises to boost strength in Asia in an attempt to counter China's growing ability to check U.S. power in the region, even as U.S. forces draw back elsewhere across the globe.

Under the new strategy, the United States will maintain large bases in Japan and South Korea and deploy U.S. Marines, navy ships and aircraft to Australia's Northern Territory.

The strategy also calls for countering potential attempts by China and Iran to block U.S. capabilities in areas like the South China Sea and the Strait of Hormuz.

China has sought to balance voicing its wariness about the U.S. moves with its desire for steady relations with Washington, especially as both sides grapple with domestic politics this year, when President Barack Obama faces a re-election fight and China's ruling Communist Party undergoes a leadership handover.

Luo warned against panic.

Instead, Beijing must do a better job at courting friends in the region, charming countries away from the United States' orbit, he wrote.

"In the face of this adjustment in the U.S. strategic focus, we must possess a sense of peril and maintain a high degree of vigilance, but there is no need to be alarmed about the expected," wrote Luo.

"We must be adept at maneuvering and use smart diplomacy, and the more friends we can make the better," he wrote.

"Some countries have been swindled by America, and now are walking alongside the United States out of their own interests, but in essence they don't fit together," said Luo. "They share the same bed but have different dreams."

WHY IS COMMON BEEFING DRAKE?

2012-01-09T23:25:00.002Z

Common vs Drake? Hip-Hop beef needs a funeral and a proper burial

[source]

“Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to pay our last respects to a 'friend' that has been dear to many musical artists, fans and readers....that 'friend' is HIP-HOP BEEF.”

What forward-moving purpose does Hip-Hop beef serve? Can someone please educate me? I was a little thrown aback by the recent beef that spread quickly throughout the Internet and radio shows involving Common and Drake. Frankly, I found it pretty weak for Common, an artist I respect, to engage in such nonsense.

He supposedly took shots at Drake in his song “Sweet” from his newly released album The Dreamer, The Believer. I wasn’t impressed with the song; too much cursing. I wasn’t that impressed with the album either (I’m still listening to it though to see if my opinion will change).

No, I’m not siding with Drake. I don’t even listen to him much at all. I got his album along with Nikki Minaj’s just to see what all the hype was about. They didn’t move me. I just think they are doing an excellent job of mastering their moment.

Getting back to the eulogy for Hip-Hop Beef: I love Hip-Hop culture and trust me I've enjoyed true lyrical battles in our history but this mudslinging, name-calling, backbiting, buffoonery and randomly picking out other artists just for the heck of it has outlived its usefulness and has become a destructive force. The new trend now is grown men and women using Twitter to take shots instead of sitting down in person to solve our problems. I even read where Young Jeezy said one of his friends was killed due to an exchange of words on Twitter.

When it comes to Hip-Hop, I always sit and wonder who calculates when a beef should start? Who should be targeted? How long it should last? What dirt should be unveiled? Do some artists start beef to make up for poor record sales? Are they thirsting that bad for publicity? Is their marketing and lyrical engine that weak that they need to start a beef to save their careers? If an artist has millions already, why waste time attacking people? Is it out of greed? Is there really a winner in a beef?

Nobody in Hip-Hop can deny that The Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan has been the most critical in putting an end to a lot of the beef in the genre. Back in 1997, Min. Farrakhan gathered a group of Hip-Hop artists at his home in Chicago to call a truce between East Coast and West Coast rappers. In attendance included Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Common (his name was Common Sense then), Tha Dogg Pound, Willie D, Fat Joe and more.

In 2001, Min. Farrakhan was the keynote speaker at the Hip-Hop Summit in New York hosted by Russell Simmons."Every time you use your rap song against another rapper and the magazines publish your words, the people that love you then turn on the people that you have spoken against. Then, the one you spoke against speaks back against you and his group becomes inflamed against you. When you are a rapper and you understand your leadership role, you must understand that, with leadership comes responsibility. You did not ask for it. It is imposed on you, but you now have to accept responsibility that you have never accepted," Min. Farrakhan said to the packed room.

He added, "Your potential to change reality is so great that, if you learned the skill of words and how to use words; if you learned how to say what it is you want to say, but say it in a way that gains universal respect, then the rap would evolve to an art form that will never be replaced. It will evolve to be that form that will set the stage for the next phase of its evolution."

In 2003, Min. Farrakhan sat down with Ja Rule in the midst of his heated feud with 50 Cent. In his conversation with Ja Rule, that aired on MTV and BET, Min. Farrakhan told Ja Rule not to give in to the pressure of his listeners who wanted him to keep dissing 50 Cent but rather "teach them that there's more to life than beef.

"A war is about to come down on the rap community. When you and 50 throw down, it goes all the way down into the streets. The media takes the beef between you and 50 and they play it, they jam it, they keep it going. Why would they keep something going that could produce bloodshed? There is a bigger plot here, Ja, and this is what I want you and 50 and our hip-hop brothers and sisters to see," said Min. Farrakhan.

Where would Hip-Hop be if they had fully implemented the guidance of this wise man? As for the beef, let's throw some dirt on the coffin and pay our last respects.

(If you want to be bored to death, follow Brother Jesse Muhammad on Twitter @BrotherJesse)

CHINA TELLS USA WAR MACHINE TO "BE CAREFUL IN WORDS & ACTIONS" OVER WAR MOVES AGAINST IT

2012-01-09T22:55:00.000Z

China warns US to be careful after Obama's defence strategy rethink

[source]

China's ministry of defence has warned the United States tobe "careful in its words and actions" after it announced a defencerethink that stressed responding to China's rise by shoring up alliances andbases across Asia.

The statement from the ministry spokesman Geng Yansheng wasBeijing's fullest reaction so far to the new US strategy unveiled last week. Itechoed the mixture of wariness and outward restraint that has marked China'sresponse to the Obama administration's "pivot" to Asia since latelast year.

"We have noted that the United States issued this guideto its defence strategy, and we will closely observe the impact that USmilitary strategic adjustment has on the Asia-Pacific region and on globalsecurity developments," Geng said in a statement issued on the ministry'swebsite.

"The accusations levelled at China by the US side inthis document are totally baseless.

"We hope that the United States will flow with the tideof the era, and deal with China and the Chinese military in an objective andrational way, will be careful in its words and actions, and do more that isbeneficial to the development of relations between the two countries and theirmilitaries."

The new US strategy promises to boost strength in Asia in anattempt to counter China's growing ability to check US power in the region,even as US forces draw back elsewhere across the globe.

Under the new strategy the US will maintain large bases inJapan and South Korea and deploy marines, navy ships and aircraft toAustralia's Northern Territory.

The strategy calls for countering potential attempts byChina and Iran to block US capabilities in areas such as the South China Seaand the Strait of Hormuz.

MAINSTREAM PRESS IN OVERDRIVE IN PUSHING WAR PROPAGANDA AGAINST CHINA & IRAN

2012-01-09T22:47:00.001Z

There are now countless western mainstream media reports talking up war with China, and this one is just one example of that.

Isnt it time serious anti-imperialists in the west, people who will assertively believe in eace and respect with the nations of the Global South to now put the defence of China, and building positive relations with the Chinese people and leadership as some of the foremost anti-war strategies, along with the defence of Syria and Iran?

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

U.S. Defense Strategy Plan Focuses on Thwarting China, Iran

[source]

The U.S. Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines must combine resources to thwart any efforts by countries such as China and Iran to block America’s access to the South China Sea, the Persian Gulf and other strategic regions, according to a draft of a Pentagon review.

...

The U.S. should be able to deter any emerging anti-access capabilities such as the diesel attack submarines being developed by China and the anti-ship ballistic missiles deployed by China and Iran, and if necessary, defeat them, said the administration official.

...

The review is expected to conclude that the U.S. no longer will engage in protracted large-scale stabilization operations, as it has in Iraq and Afghanistan, and it won’t have sufficient forces to fight two major conflicts at the same time, according to the official.

Rather, the U.S. will be able to fight in one major conflict and have the ability to deploy forces to deter another potential adversary from pursuing another major conflict, said the official.

...

“China sticks to the path of peaceful development and is always a force in maintaining regional and world peace,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Hong Lei said at a regular briefing in Beijing today in response to a question about the U.S. strategy. He said he had not seen the draft and that China and the U.S. must work together. “Cooperation is the only way,” he said.

While Chinese officials generally downplay offensive intentions, Iranians have threatened to use military force to block oil shipments through the Strait of Hormuz in the event of an oil embargo or full conflict with the U.S. over its nuclear program.

...

The state-run Fars news agency yesterday cited the head of Iran’s army, Ataollah Salehi, as “warning” the U.S. not to return an aircraft carrier to the Persian Gulf. Pentagon spokesman George Little said the deployment of ships in the region “will continue as it has for decades.”

[end]

NEW VIDEO OF NORTH KOREAN LEADER KIM JONG UN INSPECTING THINGS

2012-01-09T22:16:00.001Z

Good to see our new brother, leader of the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea (the real name for north Korea) in this footage, he looks quite happy inspecting and learning more about the military etc.

Wishing him and the people of the DPRK for developing relations with the world, wishing them well in national defence against imperialism and their socialist development of their country.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

BEYONCE AND JAY-Z's JOINT STATEMENT ON BIRTH OF THEIR BABY DAUGHTER

2012-01-09T21:32:00.001Z

Beyonce and Jay-Z are often seen by people in the 'concious' scene as somehow a major obstacle for liberation of working class and black and oppressed peoples. While there is a definite case for arguing that some of their depictions of beauty and women etc are problematic, they are at the same time important figures for the positive confidence of our peoples, and often show, especially with Jay-Z (and also with Beyonce's 'Girls' video and track for eg) nuanced political-cultural insight and reflections. I have posted before Jay-Z's comment in Dyson's book on Hip-Hop, which is interesting. Also, I posted before about another sister of Sons of Malcolm's who wrote a good response to some of the oversimplified hatred that Sis Beyonce receives. Not to mention that they are both examples of the development of Black-owned cultural empires, which again is an important example for our communities that alongside socialistic economic development, we also need our business-peoples to be onside in our struggle.

Anyway, I send heartfelt congratulations to them both on the birth of their new baby daughter, Blue, and wish them all the very best.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

===============================

Hello Hello Baby Blue!

[source]

We are happy to announce the arrival of our beautiful daughter, Blue Ivy Carter, born on Saturday, January 7, 2012.

Her birth was emotional and extremely peaceful, we are in heaven.

She was delivered naturally at a healthy 7 lbs and it was the best experience of both of our lives.

We are thankful to everyone for all your prayers, well wishes, love and support.

- Beyoncé & JAY Z

ONE OF THE BEST ANTI-IMPERIALIST TV DEBATES ON SYRIA

2012-01-08T17:09:00.003Z

HONEST bBC ARTICLE PLAYING UP WAR PROPAGANDA AGAINST CHINA

2012-01-07T15:44:00.002Z

China in US gunsights

Interesting piece from the bbc website talking up what is quite widely known now, that the strategic aim of the western armies, especially the usa and uk, is to focus on a war with China.

One only needs to look at the books by senior us army personnel on China (books which are quite expensive, and out of reach for the masses) and the us army strategy itself to see how obviously the final showdown is seen as China.

Former british administration foreign sec David Miliband had already said back in 2008 "After the end of the cold war it was tempting to believe in the 'end of history' - the inevitable process of liberal democracy and capitalist economics. Now with the economic success of China, we can no longer take the forward march of democracy for granted."

This quote points to the fact that the west are not sitting quietly while they lost their domination of the world to an anti-imperialist bloc led by China and Russia. Clinton and now Obama have made it very clear publicly that they are focusing on containing China.

Why these very public pronouncements? Clearly it is to put into the minds of the masses that we will be at war with China in the not too distant future; this is all intended to soften us up, to make us accept this eventuality.

On the other hand, it is up to peace-loving and anti-imperialist peoples to oppose these war moves from the outset, anti-war movements and organisations should raising awareness amongst their circles about China, they should be countering the demonisation of China, making links with the Chinese people, communist party and leadership in an effort to oppose the war drive of imperialism.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

[source]

Is China's rise going to lead to conflict with America? Is Beijing destined to go to war with today's undisputed global superpower?

The question is not posed directly in the new US defence strategic review. But, unspoken, it is there, running through the document that seeks to shape America's new military thinking for the 21st Century.

The US review has prompted some to ask whether a clash between the US and China is inevitable

Read the review and it is clear that the challenge posed by a rising China is at the very heart of America's new defence strategy.

The document is careful to say China is not destined to be an adversary. But it makes clear America is, nevertheless, about to retool its military to deter China, and, if necessary, to confront it.

Released by President Barack Obama at the Pentagon, the aim of the new strategy is there in black and white: to reshape the US military in a way that "preserves American global leadership, maintains our military superiority".

The Pentagon and the White House are certainly not ready to accept the notion that America is inevitably facing long-term decline while China is on an equally inevitable rise. America wants to remain number one, and this new defence policy is designed to achieve that.

Lack of trust

In the very first sentence of his preamble, President Obama says "our nation is at a moment of transition," and the review states: "We face an inflection point." It identifies two basic forces shaping the transition, one inside America, one outside.

At home growing budget pressures mean there have to be cuts in military spending. At the same time there is the awareness that, abroad, China's growing economic strength is changing the dynamic of power in Asia.

The new defence posture, says the US, encourages "the peaceful rise of new powers". That is code for welcoming China's ascent, and has been said many times before.

As to what China's rise means, the new strategy is open-minded. "Over the long term," it says, noncommittally, "China's emergence as a regional power will have the potential to affect the US economy and our security in a variety of ways."

US President Barack Obama insists his country welcomes the "peaceful" rise of China

Note the way that China is described as an emerging "regional power". The Pentagon is not ready to accord China the status of a global power or superpower, or even an emerging superpower, a reflection of the fact that China's military reach is still far from global.

However China's economic influence does now span the world. America and China are bound by mutual self-interest. But the review is clear there is a real lack of trust.

"Our two countries have a strong stake in peace and stability in East Asia and an interest in building a co-operative bilateral relationship. However, the growth of China's military power must be accompanied by a greater clarity of its strategic intentions in order to avoid causing friction in the region."

Arms race

So the US is still hedging its bets. Already last year, the Obama administration unveiled its "pivot", turning America's gaze towards the Pacific. That shift is clear in this new doctrine. "We will of necessity rebalance toward the Asia-Pacific region", it says several times.

Now America is stating that it will work on several fronts to counter China's emerging power.

There is a clear concern about China's efforts to develop weapons that would make it hard for US forces to operate in parts of East Asia. China is investing in "anti-access" and "area denial" weapons like so-called "carrier killer" missiles that could sink US aircraft carriers at sea. It has also invested heavily in submarines and is building stealth fighter jets.

All of those could push US aircraft carrier fleets further from China's shores, limiting their ability to influence vital trade routes in the South China Sea, or to defend Taiwan if it is attacked by China.

The review says "states such as China and Iran will continue to pursue asymmetric means to counter our power projection capabilities." But it promises "the United States must maintain its ability to project power in areas in which our access and freedom to operate are challenged".

The US and China may send up in a tug-of-war over the Pacific region - and perhaps globally

"The maintenance of peace, stability, the free flow of commerce, and of US influence in this dynamic region will depend in part on an underlying balance of military capability and presence," it says.

So the US wants to keep its military superiority over China intact. What that leads to is an escalating arms race as America moves to counter China's own advances.

In a way the Pentagon may be copying China's own strategy, investing in similar types of weapons. There will be a focus on developing increasing air and naval power, and on advanced weapons such as even more sophisticated stealth jets, missiles and drones, along with cyberwarfare and space capabilities too.

Making friends

Strengthening a network of alliances around China is the other pillar of the strategy. "We will emphasise our existing alliances, which provide a vital foundation for Asia-Pacific security. We will also expand our networks of co-operation with emerging partners throughout the Asia-Pacific region."

Already the US has close defence relationships with South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, the Philippines and Australia. It is working to build ties with Vietnam, Indonesia and is "investing in a long-term strategic partnership with India".

What all this amounts to is a very robust message of deterrence to China. The US will contest any challenge to its dominance. It will cement core alliances with China's neighbours and protect its interest in East Asia.

To return to the question we began with. Will there be conflict between the US and China one day?

The answer may well depend on how China responds to this new policy. Will it seek to assert its own power in East Asia? Will that cause growing friction?

One early response to the new US policy has come from the state-controlled Global Times newspaper, often nationalist in its opinions.

It says "China needs to enhance its long-distance military attack ability and develop more ways to threaten US territory in order to gradually push outward the front line of its 'game' with America".

"China," the paper says, "must make the US realise that its rise can't be stopped and that it is best for the US to show friendliness towards China."

MEDIA LIES ABOUT DEATHS IN SYRIA

2012-01-06T16:03:00.003Z

SCOTLAND's INDEPENDENCE MOVEMENT BUILDS CLOSER LINKS TO CHINA

2012-01-06T12:58:00.001Z

Vice-Premier Li Keqiang meets visiting Scottish First Minister Alex Salmond in Beijing on Dec 5

Scottish Nationalists growing close relationship to Communist China is unsurprising for a political movement in Scotland which has control of the Scottish national Assembly, and one which seeks independence from the oldest colonial entity on the planet - the 'United Kingdom'.

For any progressive nationalist movement in the world, developing good relations with the powerful nations of the Global South, especially China, is a necessity in a post-western-hegemonic world, as the west sees its finance-capitalist system descend into growing crises in the coming period.

The Nepalese Maoists, who are now politically leading Nepal, are another example of a small nation that cannot do without good relations with China, this is especially interesting as the Nepalese Maoists had until in recent years a hostile and dogmatic attitude to China.

Due to China's socialist state, China will continue to see development for its nation and people in a smoother trajectory than many other countries in the world, although there are definitely challenges that confront it, but like the recent Wukan case, China is able to traverse these challenges in the interest of people-centred development.

China will continue to be the most important component part of the rising Global South economically, politically and gradually militarily, and as a developing anti-imperialist country China is a sure partner for other nations wanting mutually beneficial relationship in economic development in a growing multi-polar world.

Sons of Malcolm wishes the Scottish people the very best in their struggle for independence from English colonialism, and for developing South-South relations in the world, Scottish moves for closer ties with China again shows that the national struggles of the Scots, Welsh and Irish are part of the struggle of the Global South for independence and social justice.

Sukant Chanda - Sons of Malcolm

Leader sees China links key to Scotland's future

[source]

"My third visit to China as first minister was an important one," says Salmond, Scotland's first minister since 2007.

Salmond's Scottish National Party's landslide victory at the Scottish elections in May has made the prospect of a referendum on full independence a very real possibility. It is of little surprise that he should be looking to strengthen Scottish ties elsewhere at this time.

"While our relations with China have strengthened in recent years I realize that, like any friendship, we must show continuing commitment," Salmond says.

Salmond also spoke at the Party School of the CPC Central Committee in Beijing, a rare privilege for foreign politicians.

By laying the groundwork now, Salmond is ensuring that should Scotland split from the UK, the country will have established independent relations with global superpowers such as China upon which to build.

These benefits were just one of several areas Salmond discussed with Vice-Premier Li Keqiang, in hope that Scotland and China can forge closer ties. It is hoped that the meeting will pave the way not only for major Chinese investment in Scotland, but also for an expansion of Scottish technical expertise into China.

"I was very pleased to meet Vice-Premier Li Keqiang again, to discuss areas for further Sino-Scot collaboration in areas such as healthcare and infrastructure. I also had a very positive discussion about major infrastructure projects in Scotland with the China Investment Corporation, which we will welcome to Scotland next year."

Infrastructure was central to the discussions, with hopes of developing a direct air link between Scotland and China in the coming years as a way of increasing bilateral exchanges.

"I am looking forward to the arrival of a senior Chinese aviation industry delegation in 2012 to explore a direct air link," Salmond says. "Our entire delegation - 'Team Scotland' - was warmly welcomed by all of our hosts and I can promise our visitors from China a very warm Scottish welcome in the coming months and years."

Of course it is not inconceivable that Salmond might be welcoming these Chinese visitors not only as head of the Scottish government, but as head of an independent Scotland a few years down the line.

By laying the groundwork now, Salmond is ensuring that should Scotland split from the UK, the country will have established independent relations with global superpowers such as China upon which to build.

"As Vice-Premier Li Keqiang remarked when I welcomed him to Edinburgh Castle in January, Scotland is a land of invention. Of course, so too is the great nation of China and it is by working together in areas of common advantage, experience and innovation that our two nations can most effectively provide solutions to wider global challenges.

"Of course, with such challenges, come opportunities and I am determined that Scotland, working with China, seizes those opportunities."

[source]

Edinburgh's engagement with Beijing, spanning educational and economic links, pays off.

Back in 2006, the Scottish government released a paper setting out a plan of action to ensure that Scotland responded to China's emergence on the global stage by strengthening ties to the mutual benefit of both nations.

Entitled "Scotland's strategy for stronger engagement with China", the blueprint highlighted key areas, including educational, economic and cultural links, to build bilateral relationships.

"The rise of China is changing the world," wrote Tom McCabe, then a member of the Scottish parliament, in the foreword to the document. "How we, in Scotland, respond to the opportunities and challenges that flow from this will be critical for our country's future."

FULL RESPECT: COMMENTS FROM THE LAWRENCE FAMILY

2012-01-04T20:47:00.001Z

Respect and love to the Lawrence family for the outcome. 18 years for some sort of justice. Malcolm X said justice is when the knife is out of your back and reparations for the injury, not putting the knife a few inches out. We will keep our black fists up, as the picture of Stephen shows. But Stephen was the acceptable face of the anti-racist struggle, others were never given the same exposure like Satpal Ram, cos he fought his attackers back, and was jailed for many years as a result. And finally, some Black brothers have told me direct rough justice should have been served, esp when Stephen's murderers were spitting and throwing punches at us at that court hearing, remember that?

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

Full statements from Doreen and Neville Lawrence here

Extracts (source):

Doreen Lawrence, whose 18-year campaign for justice finally saw two men jailed for the murder of her son Stephen on Tuesday, has warned that Britain is still blighted by racism.

Lawrence said in an interview with the Guardian that "thousands of families" were being denied justice by the police, 18 years after they failed to catch the killers of her son, because of "the colour of my skin".

...

She said the plaque in south London placed in memory of her son was still subject to attack. "It is very worrying. When my name or Stephen's name is mentioned in the press the plaque gets attacked … it is incredibly painful; what have we done?"

...

Lawrence said the government needed to play its part to meet a promise to tackle prejudice and discrimination: "I do feel occasionally that things are rolling back. After the inquiry there was a sense that all the institutions wanted to do the right thing, they wanted to change. But I don't hear people talking like that anymore.

"I don't know whether they believe that it's been accomplished, that racism has been eradicated, but the reality is that it hasn't. What's happened is that racism still exists but it is not so overt, that doesn't mean it is not still there and in some ways it is worse having it underground."

...

"After 18 years we are still struggling and we shouldn't have to."

CHINA STEPS UP THE THE CULTURAL BATTLE WITH EMPIRE

2012-01-02T22:45:00.000Z

Good to see the Pres Hu Jintao addressing this issue, perhaps the most important issue in the war of liberation against imperialism and empire's machinations to conquer the minds of especially our young people. The only way the Global South, including China, can win our youth to our side is by developing a more effective cultural front of struggle than the empire's.

Imperialism is using the internet and satellite channels such as Al-Jazeera as their vanguard in the attempt to colonise the minds of our youth, and they have been relatively successful doing this. We in the Global South will continue to lose this cultural battle if we do not develop effective cultural struggle to beat the empire, and go on the cultural offensive.

People should also remember, that historically Communist China has had a profound revolutionary cultural impact on the struggle of oppressed peoples in the 'west', especially the Black Liberation Movement, see HERE for more information on this.

Sukant Chandan - Sons of Malcolm

Chinese President Hu Jintao warns of cultural warfare from

[source]

Chinese President Hu Jintao said the Party must meet the 'growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people'

The West is using cultural warfare to divide China, Chinese President Hu Jintao warned the Communist Party on Monday.

Mr Hu called on the 80 million-plus Party members to fight "hostile international powers" and meet the "cultural demands" of the people.

"Hostile international powers are strengthening their efforts to Westernise and divide us," Mr Hu wrote in the latest edition of Communist Party's magazine, Seeking the Truth.

"We must be aware of the seriousness and complexity of the struggles and take powerful measures to prevent and deal with them," he warned in his article.

Mr Hu was writing in the revolutionary magazine used by Chairman Mao to spread his ideology after it was launched in 1958.

"The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak," Mr Hu's article said. "Ideological and cultural fields are their [western forces'] main targets," Mr Hu wrote.

He also said the Party must meet the "growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people".

The call to arms against the West's perceived collective cultural genocidal policy follows recent Government orders to propaganda officials to push harder China's expensive global "soft power" drive.

The Communist Party is splashing out 45 billion yuan (£4 billion) to expand its overseas media, including a United States and UK edition of the state-run and heavily censored China Daily, the state news agency Xinhua, and China Central Television's (CCTV) multilingual news and culture programming.

Overseas Confucius Institutes have also sprung up to try and win over a sceptical international audience impressed by Beijing's economic success but wary of its harsh authoritarian governance.

Mr Hu's article is also part of general Party rhetoric aimed at countering the growing influence of the internet and increasing commercialism in China – all of which is leading to a more confident and louder public criticism of the government.

Spooked since the start of the Arab Spring uprisings a year ago, Beijing has been further tightening internet and media control in an attempt to "improve positive publicity" and guide public opinion.

Western-style TV programmes such as talent shows – which have proved a huge hit in China – have also been targeted in the crackdown.

In November, the country's media watchdog banned advertisements during television dramas.

However, Western tastes and themes, including festivals such as Christmas and Valentines' Day, are growing in popularity among the middle classes and young, And it's not just western ideology that threatens the Party's desire for strong red culture at home and abroad.

A walk down any main street in a first or second tier Chinese city reveals how China's internet-savvy youth are fast-becoming fashion conscious and are adopting the hairstyle, clothes and musical tastes of their cutting-edge peers – in neighbouring South Korea, Taiwan and Japan.

China's President Pushes Back Against Western Culture

[source]

BEIJING - President Hu Jintao of China has said that the West is trying to dominate China by spreading its culture and ideology and that China must strengthen its cultural production to defend against the assault, according to an essay in a Communist Party policy magazine published this week.

Mr. Hu's words signaled that a major policy initiative announced last October would continue well into 2012.

The essay, which was signed by Mr. Hu and based on a speech he gave in October, drew a sharp line between the cultures of the West and China and effectively said the two sides were engaged in an escalating culture war. It was published in Seeking Truth, a magazine founded by Mao Zedong as a platform for establishing Communist Party principles.

"We must clearly see that international hostile forces are intensifying the strategic plot of westernizing and dividing China, and ideological and cultural fields are the focal areas of their long-term infiltration," Mr. Hu said, according to a translation by Reuters.

"We should deeply understand the seriousness and complexity of the ideological struggle, always sound the alarms and remain vigilant and take forceful measures to be on guard and respond," he added.

Those measures, Mr. Hu said, should be centered on developing cultural products that can draw the interest of the Chinese and meet the "growing spiritual and cultural demands of the people."

Chinese leaders have long lamented the fact that Western expressions of popular culture and art seem to overshadow those from China. The top grossing films in China have been "Avatar" and "Transformers 3," and the music of Lady Gaga is as popular here as that of any that of any Chinese pop singer. In October, at the annual plenum of the party's Central Committee, where Mr. Hu gave his speech, officials discussed the need for bolstering the "cultural security" of China.

"The overall strength of Chinese culture and its international influence is not commensurate with China's international status," Mr. Hu said in his essay, according to another translation.

"The international culture of the West is strong while we are weak," he said.

Mr. Hu did not address the widespread assertion by Chinese artists and intellectuals that state censorship is what prevents artists and their works from reaching their full potential. Last week, Han Han, a novelist and China's most popular blogger, discussed the issue in an online essay called "On Freedom."

"The restriction on cultural activities makes it impossible for China to influence literature and cinema on a global basis or for us culturati to raise our heads up proud," Han Han wrote.

The publication of Mr. Hu's essay and other articles in Seeking Truth on bolstering China's cultural power signaled that this would be a central initiative in 2012, which is a transition year for the Chinese leadership as seven of the top nine party members step down from the Standing Committee of the Politburo. Mr. Hu appeared keen to enshrine the culture drive as a final defining moment of his decade-long tenure at China's helm.

The Central Committee meeting in October established the ideological foundation for a tightening of a cultural sphere that is only now beginning to unfold. Right after the meeting, officials announced a sweeping new policy to wipe scores of so-called entertainment shows off the air. That took effect on Sunday. Television stations have been racing to come up with new programs that will be deemed "socially responsible" by the censors.

Last month, officials in Beijing and other cities ordered Internet companies to ensure that people posting on microblogs, called Sina Weibo in Chinese, had registered their accounts using their real names, though they could still post under an alias. Officials have been putting pressure on executives and editors running the microblog platforms to self-censor, and many microblog users say the microblogs have been getting less interesting.

At the same time, China has been making a push to increase its cultural influence abroad, or its "soft power." The government has opened up Confucius Institutes around the world to aid foreigners in learning Chinese. The state is also lavishing financing on opening operations of large state-run news organizations, including Xinhua, the state news agency, and China Central Television in cities around the world. Officials from those organizations say they hope their version of the world events becomes as common as those from Western news organizations.

COMMUNIST CHINA SAYS VILLAGERS WERE RIGHT TO REBEL

2012-01-02T19:23:00.000Z

How many times has one heard that there is no democracy in China, and the Chinese authorities clamp down on their people? These types of comments show that those making them either know nothing about China, or have a pro-empire regime-change agenda. Fact is that the Chinese masses are a very confident people, who are militant and ready to protest for their rights, but these protests, of which there are many in China, are not anti-Communist Party or anti-state, rather these protests contain people who are loyal to their ruling party and system, are in support of the Chinese revolution of 1948 which continues today, but are against localised corruption as in the case of this Wukan situation. Full respect goes to the Chinese authorities who have essentially endorsed the protests of the people of Wukan. China has many social contradictions as a result of the economic reforms of recent decades, reforms which have been historic in many achievements such as lifting over 300 million out of abject poverty, nevertheless the Chinese nation will continue to meet the challenges of socialist construction in the typically wise and successful Chinese way.

Finally, if the Chinese state and ruling party has essentially said the villagers of Wukan were right to rebel in this instance, one can imagine that this has given many millions of others in China the empowered status that they too can develop movements and protests against other corrupt officials and seek the support of the leadership of the Communist Party in so doing.

- Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm

[source]

Residents of a south China village who tested the ruling Communist Party's control with more than a week of protests had "legitimate complaints" over a land grab that sparked the rebellion, state news agency Xinhua has said.

Ten days of protests over confiscated farmland and the death of a protest organizer in Wukan in booming Guangdong province earlier this month drew widespread attention as a rebuff to the stability-obsessed government.

The standoff ended after authorities offered concessions in a rare example of the government backing down to mobilised citizens.

The residents had "legitimate complaints against officials over wrongdoing concerning land use and financial management," Xinhua said in a report released late on Friday, citing a provincial investigation team.

"In terms of land use, the provincial investigators ... found that Lufeng Fengtian livestock company used more land than was officially approved," it cited investigator Yang Junbo, deputy head of Guangdong's Land and Resources Department, as saying.

Another company, Guangdong Yidazhou Group, "was in arrears with its land compensation to village residents," Yang added.

The village's former Communist Party boss, Xue Chang, also "embezzled money to buy a vehicle for personal use," Xinhua said.

The investigation continues, the report added, without providing further details.

This week, the government also annulled the result of an election for Wukan village head held in February "after finding several violations," and another vote would be organised soon, Xinhua said.

Villagers had denounced local officials as corrupt and heartless throughout their months-long wrangle, which erupted in rioting in September, but they ended up welcoming provincial party officials as brokers who finally stepped in to compromise.

Protests in China have become relatively common over corruption, pollution, wages, and land grabs that local-level officials justify in the name of development.

Chinese experts put the number of "mass incidents," as such protests are known, at about 90,000 a year in recent years.

The grip of Communist Party rule is not directly threatened by such bursts of unrest, but officials fear they could coalesce into broader, more organised challenges to their power.

BROTHERS ON POINT ON THIS TRACK: HANDS OFF AFRICA

2011-12-29T16:10:00.002Z

FREE DOWNLOAD: Marcel Cartier ft Akala and Nana D - Get Your Hands Off Africa (prod Agent of Change) by agentofchange

[Marcel verse 1]

Those who do not move do not feel their chains
But the African people are aware of the pain
Aware of the game, invader deception
Black presidents who are White Man extensions
People from Cape to Cairo rebel
Cos fake independence and ongoing hell
Colonial ties still keep ‘em chained
The richest continent’s getting robbed again
The IMF and World Bank criminal schemes
What about reparations? To me it seems
That every metropole from Amsterdam
To Paris and Brussels was built with the hands
Of African labour, a slave relation
Developing Europe at the expense of their nation
But Africans rebelled from the first conquest
Took back independence at last accomplished

[Nana D chorus]

You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!
You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!

[Marcel verse 2]

Look at Africom, the African Command
That’s the US and her puppets shaking each others’ hands
They went in for Libya, going for Uganda
When will we learn we can’t be sleeping any longer?
Still salivating over claiming Zimbabwe
The worst man alive to them is Robert Mugabe
But land should belong to the African masses
Not a small group of white settler bastards
My fellow Europeans wanna whine and groan
About losing what we stole, that is not our home
That is not our land, need to choose the side
Of the future of humanity, the old has expired
If you ever want peace then you better want justice
Most of the continent is far from accustomed
Sarkozy, Cameron and Africa’s son
Better know that their war can never ever be won

[Nana D chorus]

You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!
You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!

[Akala verse]

The mother continent where we all originate
Eugenics ain’t dead so it’s cool to eliminate humanity’s darker shade
Genocidal AIDS, ancient civilisations
Not a continent of slaves
In every step of the way the elites have helped pave the way
For all the madness that we’re seeing today
But that in no way excuses the centuries of rape
But if we’re gonna solve it it’s an issue we have to face
Because every brother ain’t a brother just because of their colour
Look at the hand that killed Patrice and Thomas and others
While millions murdered in the Congo it don’t make the news
But if a footballer’s wife should buy a pair of shoes
I’m supposed to give a fuck, apparently
I do not! The world’s a reflection of your block
And if you think a world that can profit from African death
And be totally cool
Thinks that you’re better cos you live here
You’re a fucking fool

[Nana D chorus]

You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!
You’d better get your hands off… AFRICA!

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SONS OF MALCOLM SENDS RESPECTS TO KIM JONG IL, AND WISHES KIM JONG UN AND THE KOREAN PEOPLE BEST WISHES FOR SOCIALISM & THE CONTINUED SUCCESSFUL STRUGGLE AGAINST IMPERIALISM

2011-12-29T15:19:00.000Z

QUICK NOTES ON THE nORTH KOREA (real name DPRK) LEADERSHIP HANDOVER ETC

By Sukant Chandan, Sons of Malcolm

Congrats to the Democratic Peoples Republic of Korea of succesfully conducting a peaceful and smooth leadership handover, despite empire's salivating at some kind of counterrevolution in this process.

- FACT: DPRK had a *higher* standard of living than South Korea until the collapse of the USSR and the sanctions imposed by empire.

- DPRK has shown militant anti-imperialist internationalism, coming close to the support given by Gadafi's Libya in the world struggle. These struggles and countries include Zimbabwe, Libya, Tanzania, Pakistan ;) , Black Panthers, Cuba and Ireland.

- DPRK is *the* country which shows how to succesfully defend itself against war moves by empire, ie., keep China close and develop WMDs asap (this is thanks to KIM JONG IL's leadership).

- Mass grief amongst the DPRK mases comes from Asian culture which is *very* emotional and sentimental (anyone seen a Bollywood movie will know), compounded by a deep respect and unity with their leadership since the revolutionary struggle and resistance leading to independence which saw 4 million Koreans killed in 3 years in the Korean war1950-1953

- I look fwd to the leadership of Kim Jong Un of the nation, its great having a very young leader in the world anti-imperialist leadership and in the leadership of DPRK, and love his hairstyle too :)

Finally, would just like to say full respect to Socialist China for staying solidly united with the DPRK, and it was a beautiful send off for Kim Jong Il, one we come to expect from our highly organised and disciplined DPRK family.

THE BEST DOC-FILM ON THE IRAQI RESISTANCE: 'MEETING RESISTANCE' (2007)

2011-12-25T23:58:00.000Z

LIL HUEY FROM BOONDOCKS ON CHRISTMAS

2011-12-25T23:45:00.001Z

ONE OF THE BEST GRIME RAPPERS - BRO GHETTS - STORY OF A PAUPER

2011-12-25T23:26:00.002Z

“Switch your brain on, you can’t even read between the lines,
where’s your brain gone?
What can I say dog?
The truth lays beneath the lies,
but it’s like I’m leading the blind
...and they’d rather remain lost.
Forever in the rat’s race,
but life ain’t getting no better and its facts mate,
so I’m lighting up the Lemon on a bad day,
and as I let the zoot settle in the ash tray,
I think of all the terrible things man made,
things that caused this inevitable rampage.
I’m hoping I ain’t got vegetables for a fan base”

FAMOUS DOC-FILM ON NATION OF ISLAM - 'THE HATE THAT HATE PRODUCED' (1959)

2011-12-25T23:17:00.002Z

video: CHAVEZ PRESENTS GADAFI WITH BOLIVAR SWORD, HIGHEST HONOUR OF VENEZUELA

2011-12-25T22:44:00.000Z

'WHITE GIRL': VERY GOOD FILM ABOUT RACE & CLASS IN eNGLAND

2011-12-25T19:39:00.003Z

bRIT EMPIRE GROWING INTERVENTION IN SOMALIA

2011-12-24T18:00:00.003Z

[source]

David Cameron describes Somalia as "a failed state that directly threatens British interests" and will convene a summit in London in February to bring together the countries currently active in the Horn of Africa state. A number of key decisions are expected to be made there, ranging from humanitarian aid to military missions.

The Prime Minister's decision to tackle the Somalia quagmire is seen by some as being fuelled by the success of the Libyan venture.

Mr Cameron is concerned about tourists and aid workers from the UK being attacked and kidnapped, the rise of piracy and the potential for the East African country to become a place of extremist indoctrination for increasing numbers of young Muslims from the UK.

The last point, in particular, is an acute security concern, with MI5 head Jonathan Evans warning that Somalia has become the next destination after Pakistan for terrorist training due to the presence of al-Shabaab, an extremist group with links to al-Qa'ida. The would-be jihadists are not just of Somali background, but include those from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Yemen and north Africa, resident in Britain. There is a real risk, Mr Evans has stressed, that returnees from Somalia could carry out bomb attacks in British cities.

The UK has also been linked to the piracy in the Indian Ocean, with claims that members of the Somali diaspora are involved, with financial connections through Gulf states like the United Arab Emirates with the highly lucrative hijacking of vessels bringing in an estimated $12bn (£7.6bn) a year.

Critics claim that rather than looking at Britain's recent involvement in Libya for inspiration, a closer analogy is provided by Helmand. The Afghan province was described by Tony Blair's government as "ungoverned space which is a source of threats to Britain" through terrorism and narcotics.

Helmand provided 25 per cent of Afghanistan's total opium crop and around 80 per cent of heroin on British streets came from Helmand. Three years after UK military deployment, the province was producing 49 per cent of the national opium. The military mission, scheduled to last two years, will continue until 2014.

Robert Emerson, a security analyst specialising in African conflict zones, said: "David Cameron has acquired a taste for foreign adventures. It is true that what goes on in Somalia is of interest and we must be wary of the terrorist threat. But how far does one get involved?

"Of course there are no British boots on the ground, but the British and the Americans are funding Amisom [the African Union force in Somalia] and are thus seen by some Somalis as the enemy.

"People are going to be wary of any form of mission creep."

Whitehall officials point out that African Union forces, augmented by troops from Kenya and Ethiopia, have recaptured 95 per cent of Mogadishu from al-Shabaab, which also suffered a significant blow when Fazul Abdullah Mohammed – said to be their contact man with al-Qa'ida and the organiser of the 1998 bombings of US embassies in East Africa – was killed last summer.

British officials maintain that with the militants on the back foot, this is the time to help Somalia's Transitional Federal Government (TFG).

A number of other countries are already active in Somalia, led by Turkey, whose Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan recently visited Mogadishu, Qatar and the UAE. Mr Erdogan's visit is seen in diplomatic circles as another example of his mission to recreate the influence of the Ottoman Empire following trips to north Africa and the Middle East. The Qatari intervention is the latest in a series into states in conflict after supplying arms to the rebellion against Muammar Gaddafi in Libya and backing the Syrian uprising.

The London conference will be attended by the TFG, countries in the region and neighbouring states including Kenya and Uganda as well as aid agencies. However Eritrea, which has been accused of supplying arms to al-Shabaab, has not been invited and it is unclear at what level Somaliland would be represented.

The US is a major contributor to the AU force in Somalia. A senior US diplomat said: "We are fully behind the London conference. Yes, you could say that everyone will have their agenda, including the British. Our own Somali diaspora have links with both the good and bad guys in Somalia, the British much more so, so it's natural they want to be involved.

"Where does it all lead to after London? We'll see."

'ALL I REALLY WANT FOR CHRISTMAS IS TO BE A LITTLE MORE CONSCIOUS'

2011-12-23T18:07:00.000Z