Syrian troops and militias 'abducting injured dissidents' from hospitals

Medical staff claim security forces are using ambulances to mask abductions in Homs and Lattakia

Martin Chulov
guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011

"State-backed Syrian militias and security forces are roaming hospitals looking for demonstrators and commandeering ambulances to abduct them, medical workers inside the country say.

The workers – including doctors, ambulance drivers, medical students and Red Crescent volunteers – claim they face intimidation from regime officials who are trying to prevent them from treating wounded dissidents.

The allegations centre on the battle-torn city of Homs, where security forces and defectors were involved in heavy clashes . At least 19 people are believed to have been killed in the fighting, which was among the most intensive of the past two months.

"They are chasing defectors," a Homs resident who called himself Fadi told the Guardian by Skype. "And the regime is also trying to force people to join a pro-Assad demonstration tomorrow. They went to all the schools today and told teachers and parents that their sons and daughters must turn up tomorrow, because they want to take them to this demonstration against their will. That is one reason for the fighting. Another is that this is the people's reply to the Arab League, which was not good for us.".....

In Homs, residents are bracing for an intensification of a military campaign, which has seen Syrian forces fighting defectors most days and nights for the past fortnight.

"We know we are facing a bad destiny," said Fadi. "They are planning for something, we know that and we can feel it, but we don't know what it is.""

Al-Jazeera Video: For some Palestinians return means deportation

"Of the 1,027 prisoners being released as part of swap deal between Israel and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas, over 160 of them will face deportation to the Gaza Strip. Another 40 will be sent to Turkey, Qatar or Syria.

For the families of those deported to Gaza, Hamas has promised jobs, life-long salaries, housing and a car -- which they will need if they are to relocate from the West Bank to be with them. Calling the soon-to-be-released prisoners "sons of the nation", Hamas has also planned massive celebrations for their return.

Al Jazeera's Nicole Johnston reports from the Gaza Strip."

Yemen needs more than a UN resolution to oust Saleh

As his country faces economic and humanitarian disaster, Yemen's president seems concerned only with retaining power

Brian Whitaker
guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011

"....The proposed security council resolution – drafted by Britain and leaked last week – could win approval from Russia and China because, unlike the earlier resolution Syria which they vetoed, it doesn't talk of sanctions or other punitive measures. The draft "strongly condemns the continued human rights violations by the Yemeni authorities" and "demands an immediate end to all violence by all sides".

It adds that "all those responsible for human rights violations and abuses should be held accountable" – which sounds like a threat to prosecute Saleh and other offenders – while also calling on Saleh to "immediately sign and implement a political transition on the basis of the Gulf co-operation council initiative". This is where the resolution gets into a muddle. The GCC initiative includes immunity from prosecution for Saleh, so the security council cannot hold him to account for his crimes while at the same time urging him to sign the initiative.
Apart from that, there is little reason to put much faith in the GCC initiative since its "transition" timetable allows plenty of scope for Saleh to backpedal and prevaricate. He was originally supposed to sign it in April but then refused at the last minute.

Since then he has alternately blown hot and cold on the initiative – usually depending on how much pressure he happens to be under at the time – but there is not much reason to suppose that a security council resolution will make him sign it now, let alone implement it."

Yemen uprising: Sana'a rocked by night of fierce fighting

Protesters are writing their names across their chests for identification in case they are killed in anti-Saleh marches

Tom Finn in Sana'a
guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011

"Yemen's capital has been rocked by a night of deafening explosions and gunfire as troops loyal to the president, Ali Abdullah Saleh, battled with rebel tribesmen and defected soldiers for control of the city.

The violence was some of the fiercest in months and has prompted fears that the fate of the country's nine-month civilian uprising may be sliding into the hands of Yemen's fractious armed forces.....

A brutal crackdown by security forces on a pair of mass rallies over the weekend has turned into a full-blown military confrontation between the Republican Guard – an elite force headed by Saleh's son Ahmed – and the 1st armoured division, headed by General Ali Mohsin al-Ahmar who defected to the opposition in March. On Sunday night the two sides started firing mortars and anti-aircraft missiles at each other's military bases, sending plumes of black smoke rising above the city....."

Global Day of Rage: Hundreds of Thousands March Against Inequity, Big Banks As Occupy Movement Grows

Democracy Now!
With Amy Goodman



"From Buenos Aires to Toronto, Kuala Lumpur to London, hundreds of thousands of people rallied on Saturday in a global day of action against corporate greed and budget cutbacks, demanding better living conditions and a more equitable distribution of wealth and resources. Protests reportedly took place in 1,500 cities, including 100 cities in the United States — all in solidarity with the Occupy Wall Street movement that launched one month ago in New York City. We go to Athens for a report from a protest at Syntagma Square against austerity measures and corporate greed, speak to an activist in Rome where 200,000 rallied, and go to Japan for a report on the Occupy Tokyo demonstration. We also air excerpts of a speech by Julian Assange of WikiLeaks at Occupy London Stock Exchange...."

Al-Jazeera Video: Inside Story - Demanding 'economic justice'

Al-Jazeera Video: What does Gaza think of prisoner swap deal?

A Movement Too Big to Fail

By Chris Hedges
Posted on Oct 17, 2011
TruthDig

"There is no danger that the protesters who have occupied squares, parks and plazas across the nation in defiance of the corporate state will be co-opted by the Democratic Party or groups like MoveOn. The faux liberal reformers, whose abject failure to stand up for the rights of the poor and the working class, have signed on to this movement because they fear becoming irrelevant. Union leaders, who pull down salaries five times that of the rank and file as they bargain away rights and benefits, know the foundations are shaking. So do Democratic politicians from Barack Obama to Nancy Pelosi. So do the array of “liberal” groups and institutions, including the press, that have worked to funnel discontented voters back into the swamp of electoral politics and mocked those who called for profound structural reform.

Resistance, real resistance, to the corporate state was displayed when a couple of thousand protesters, clutching mops and brooms, early Friday morning forced the owners of Zuccotti Park and the New York City police to back down from a proposed attempt to expel them in order to “clean” the premises. These protesters in that one glorious moment did what the traditional “liberal” establishment has steadily refused to do—fight back. And it was deeply moving to watch the corporate rats scamper back to their holes on Wall Street. It lent a whole new meaning to the phrase “too big to fail.”...."

War and the Return of Populism

Why Obama is targeting Iran

by Justin Raimondo, October 17, 2011

"What’s behind the recent upsurge in anti-Iranian war propaganda coming out of the Obama administration? This is the question Stephen Walt posed on his blog at ForeignPolicy.com....

The big question in everyone’s mind is: why now? Why choose this particular moment to concoct trumped-up charges of “terrorism” against Iran based on a probable case of FBI entrapment? The reason may be because the Iranians are finally coming to heel on the nuclear question....

The American elites are on trial in the court of public opinion and the verdict is just about to come in. The world economic system based on central banking [.pdf] and floating fiat currencies is crumbling beneath their feet, and the return of populism on both sides of the political spectrum has them in fear of losing their grip on power for the first time since the 1930s. While American troops are occupying Afghanistan, the folks back home are occupying Wall Street. For the plutocrats and kleptocrats – otherwise known as the Republicans and the Democrats – the jig is up, and the day of judgement looms. The political class is close to panic: those peasants with pitchforks are getting awfully close to the castle. Worse, the Frankenstein monster they created is on the loose. Europe is a set of economic dominoes getting ready to fall, and it’s only a matter of time before the American domino goes down.

When that happens, the crash you hear will be the shaky edifice of governmental legitimacy collapsing in on itself, just as it did in the former Soviet Union. Remember that they, too, were embarked – just before their fall – on a campaign of imperial expansion. They were going to “liberate” Afghanistan, free Afghan women from the bride price and the veil, and build a socialist “republic” in Central Asia....

War with Iran would solve many of the present administration’s problems, in the short term: the rise in the price of oil could then be blamed on the Iranians, along with the entire economic mess. That such a conflict would trigger a new and far more dangerous financial crisis would be obfuscated in a cloud of war propaganda. War would divert attention away from the real cause our domestic economic problems by creating a new scapegoat – besides Bank of America and their fellow crony capitalists at Solyndra – for the peasants to impale on their pitchforks.

War, in short, is the ultimate government bailout, which our political class hopes and prays will save their political asses. I can hear the Dear Leader now, as he explains how war must “unite” all Americans, and this new “unity” will be echoed on both sides of the political spectrum, as media outlets from Fox News to MSNBC urge us to “become one” and smite the Iranian foe. With the ever-present Israel lobby out in force to maintain the party line, and rein in any dissenters, politicians of the left as well as the right will march to war in lockstep.....

....Which means: war with Iran is a near certainty. The only question is when. "

Obama, the king of Africa

By Pepe Escobar
Asia Times

"The mineral rush in Africa is already one of the great resource wars of the 21st century. China is ahead, followed by companies from India, Australia, South Africa and Russia. The West is lagging. The name of the game for the United States and the Europeans is to pull no punches to undermine China. That's why Uganda is the perfect cover story for Barack Obama, the king of Africa, to plunge a dagger inside Islamic Africa....

Africa has been fighting like forever against multiple strands of the great white genocidal slave master, aided and abetted by multiple strands of the subservient black dictator/kleptocrat - just to be presented in the early 21st century with an American president of direct African descent who has nothing better to offer than special forces, drones, a militarization surge and hypocrisy-laced "humanitarian" intervention."

'You're between sky and Earth': the plight of biduns in Kuwait

Bidun people are born in Kuwait but remain stateless, denied education, healthcare and employment

Mark Tran
guardian.co.uk, Monday 17 October 2011

"....Kuwait considers the estimated 106,000 stateless biduns (Arabic for "without"), out of a total population of 2.8 million people, as "illegal residents". Biduns are deprived of essential papers, including birth, marriage and death certificates. They are also denied access to free government schools and legal work opportunities. Alenezi, who heads the Kuwaiti bidun movement in London, describes statelessness as akin to limbo.

"Without ID or passport, you are not at home in the world," he said. "The future is not yours, you don't know the future of your children, you lose all your rights; if you die, no one cares for you. You are between the sky and the Earth, you are not going to fly and you are not going to fall down."...

Women are particularly affected. Kuwaiti women who marry bidun men cannot pass on Kuwaiti nationality to their children as nationality is passed on by the men, so their children could grow up to be stateless. Their work prospects are also bleak, according to a report by Refugees International, released on Monday.

"Bidun women have few prospects for employment. Largely restricted to low-paying jobs with no security, those who do find employment typically work in nurseries, daycare or as secretaries, and earn a fraction of what Kuwaiti women in the same position earn," the report said....."

Arab League calls for dialogue in Syria

[The appearance of impotence by the AL and UN in dealing with Syria, and the shielding it is getting like Israel gets, to me proves there is NO CONSPIRACY by anyone  against Syria. In fact there is a conspiracy to shield Assad and keep him in power by everyone in the world because Assad has been Israel's best protector for 40 years, and anyone who claims otherwise is blind to the facts on the ground.]


The Arab League has announced that it plans to bring together Syria's government and opposition groups to seek ways to end the violence in the country, Qatar's Prime Minister Hamad bin Jassim al-Thani said.
Defying calls for Syria's suspension from the regional body over a worsening army crackdown on political unrest, the League decided on Sunday to form a committee to forge dialogue between the government and opposition.
"We will call all of the parties of the opposition and government to hold a dialogue within 15 days," the League's Secretary General Nabil Elaraby said after an emergency meeting of Arab foreign ministers in Cairo.

Income inequality in America

A huge share of the nation's economic growth over the past 30 years has gone to the top one-hundredth of one percent, who now make an average of $27 million per household. The average income for the bottom 90 percent of us? $31,244.

The Rise of the Regressive Right and the Reawakening of America

A fundamental war has been waged in this nation since its founding, between progressive forces pushing us forward and regressive forces pulling us backward.

We are going to battle once again.

Progressives believe in openness, equal opportunity, and tolerance. Progressives assume we’re all in it together: We all benefit from public investments in schools and health care and infrastructure. And we all do better with strong safety nets, reasonable constraints on Wall Street and big business, and a truly progressive tax system. Progressives worry when the rich and privileged become powerful enough to undermine democracy.

Regressives take the opposite positions.

Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, Rick Perry, Michele Bachmann and the other tribunes of today’s Republican right aren’t really conservatives. Their goal isn’t to conserve what we have. It’s to take us backwards.

They’d like to return to the 1920s — before Social Security, unemployment insurance, labor laws, the minimum wage, Medicare and Medicaid, worker safety laws, the Environmental Protection Act, the Glass-Steagall Act, the Securities and Exchange Act, and the Voting Rights Act.

In the 1920s Wall Street was unfettered, the rich grew far richer and everyone else went deep into debt, and the nation closed its doors to immigrants.

Rather than conserve the economy, these regressives want to resurrect the classical economics of the 1920s — the view that economic downturns are best addressed by doing nothing until the “rot” is purged out of the system (as Andrew Mellon, Herbert Hoover’s Treasury Secretary, so decorously put it).

15 Mind-Blowing Facts About Wealth And Inequality In America

(Click on chart to enlarge)

There are 15 other, mind-blowing, charts!

Carlos Latuff: Syria body count

Video Interview With Michael Scheuer: 'Israelis, Saudis' behind Iran terror plot

You Have to See This Interview With
Former CIA Operative and Chief of the Bin Laden Unit, Michael Scheuer

Iran had better watch its step now Obama's chasing votes

A fumbling Tehran-backed plot to kill the Saudi ambassador was dismissed as bizarre by the rest of the world. But the White House is taking it very seriously

By Patrick Cockburn

Sunday, 16 October 2011

"....The supposed conspiracy is bizarre even by the mendacious standards of stories pumped out by the Bush administration before 2003, purporting to show that Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction....

The most likely motive for the Obama administration's vigorously expressed belief in the plot is that it is preparing the ground for the 2012 presidential election. Mr Obama's economic and social policies are failing and his only undiluted successes have been the killing of Osama bin Laden in Pakistan and Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen. By dramatising how he frustrated the fiendish plots of the Iranians, Mr Obama can present himself as the president who kept America safe, or at least protect his national security political flank from criticism by the Republicans.

Many of the mysteries of American foreign policy make perfect sense when related to the overriding need of those in power in Washington to get re-elected....

The White House may want to promote confrontation with Iran at this moment for domestic political reasons, but does it actually want war? It seems unlikely, given that the US position in the Middle East is weakening because of the loss of Egypt as an ever-loyal supporter and the rise of Turkey.

Iran at first gained from the revolutions in North Africa overthrowing old enemies but then lost ground when uprisings spread to its ally Syria. As the whole region becomes more unstable, would the US really consider it in its interests to provoke new convulsions by attacking Iran?"

Real News Video: Alleged Iran Assassination Plot Court Documents Suggest a Set Up

Pt2 Gareth Porter​: Critical two weeks missing from FBI account

IBSA: Push Syria to End Bloodshed

India, Brazil, and South Africa Need to Lead at UN
October 16, 2011

"(Johannesburg) – India, Brazil, and South Africa are not leveraging their rising global influence to help stop the bloodshed in Syria, Human Rights Watch said today. Leaders of the three countries should use their two-day Heads of State and Government Dialogue Forum, hosted by President Jacob Zuma on October 17, 2011, to categorically demand that the Syrian government end its widespread and systematic attacks on antigovernment protesters and activists. Syria should also grant access to UN investigators and human rights monitors, Human Rights Watch said.

The “IBSA” forum in Pretoria brings together India, Brazil and South Africa, all of whom currently hold non-permanent seats on the United Nations Security Council. In August, an IBSA delegation went to Syria and met with the president and foreign minister.

“IBSA leaders shouldn’t sit by and watch as Syria implodes,” said Nadim Houry, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Their efforts at private dialogue have achieved nothing, and hundreds more Syrians have died in the meantime.”

According to the UN, since March, Syrian security forces have killed more than 3,000 people, including at least 187 children, while arresting, detaining, forcibly disappearing, and torturing thousands more. Human Rights Watch has documented systematic, widespread, and gross violations of human rights by the Syrian government, amounting to crimes against humanity....."