statism watch

The alliance between Israel and Turkey has been shattered and the middle east pushed dangerously towards further destabilization.

Update (2010/06/01): Flash updates – the UN has called for an independent inquiry after a 10-hour session. The Globe and Mail has provided a breakdown of international response by country – Egypt has opened a temporary border crossing. Israel has released a few activists while hundreds more are detained and subject to a communications blackout.

Related: Israeli troops attack ship carrying aid to Gaza killing 16 | Israeli navy prepares for action as activists’ flotilla nears Gaza | George Galloway, on aid mission to Gaza, is deported from Egypt | Cynthia McKinney Demands Immediate Release After Her Gaza-Bound Boat is Seized by Israeli Navy | Israeli troops kill apartheid wall protester | Gaza relief boat carrying former Congresswoman rammed by Israelis | Former US congresswoman, presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney barred from boarding plane to human rights conference

The Associated Press
May 31, 2010

Demonstrators hold Palestinian flags during a protest against Israel at Taksim Square in Istanbul Monday (Leonhard Foeger/Reuters)

The UN Security Council was holding an emergency meeting Monday afternoon on Israel’s deadly commando raid on ships taking humanitarian aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip, with the Palestinians and Arab nations calling for condemnation and an independent investigation.

Assistant Secretary-General Oscar Fernandez-Taranco said in his briefing to the UN’s most powerful body that Monday’s bloodshed would have been avoided “if repeated calls on Israel to end the counterproductive and unacceptable blockade of Gaza had been heeded.”

Turkey’s Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu called the raid “murder conducted by a state” and demanded an immediate Israeli apology, an urgent inquiry, international legal action against the authorities and perpetrators responsible, and an end to the Gaza blockade.”

Meanwhile, condemnation and protests spread across Europe and the Arab world Monday in reaction to the raid, in which at least nine pro-Palestinian activists, most of them Turks, were killed.

Reaction to the attack was a new blow to Israel’s international standing at a time when the West, including the United States, has grown frustrated with its stance in the peace process.

Israel said the activists attacked its commandos as they boarded one of six ships taking tons of supplies to Gaza while the flotilla’s organizers said the Israeli forces opened fire first.

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Related: Protests against Putin sweep Russia as factories go broke | Thousands protest in Russia over financial crisis | Russian police beat auto tariff protesters

Aydar Buribayev, Denis Pinchuk, Reuters
May 31, 2010

MOSCOW/ST PETERSBURG – Police violently dispersed anti-Kremlin rallies in Russia’s largest cities and detained dozens of protesters on Monday, as President Dmitry Medvedev was set to welcome European Union leaders at a summit.

The crackdown on protesters came two days after Russia’s widely popular and powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said that he did not oppose peaceful protests.

Clashes between riot police and protesters occurred shortly after at least 1,000 opposition activists — several times more than usual — gathered in Triumfalnaya Square in central Moscow, chanting “Freedom” and “Russia without Putin”.

The crowd shouted “fascists” at police and booed as they grabbed protesters — often knocking then down and dragging them along the pavement to nearby buses.

One riot policeman was seen beating young women. A man in his early 20s had a beaten face, with blood dripping from his nose onto the pavement. One elderly woman had her arms twisted and was thrown into a police bus for chanting “Freedom”.

A police official told Reuters police had to use force after protesters tried to disrupt a concert given nearby to a crowd of pro-Kremlin youths and attempted to block traffic in a busy central thoroughfare.

Russian opposition groups last year began to hold rallies on the last day of each month to defend article 31 of the constitution, which guarantees the right of assembly.

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Make that as many as 19, according to CanWest. In international waters. Looks like Netanyahu won’t be making that meeting with Obama to talk about his nation’s nuclear arsenal. The National Post reports, “Some Israeli commentators asked why commanders put troops in a position where they felt they had to open fire.” An Israeli spokesman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Mark Regev, said on the CBC’s As It Happens that the military boarded in the middle of the night in order to use the element of surprise in a ‘police operation’ (with stun grenades and tear gas) to take control of the ships and take them to port for searches. He also claimed one of the NGOs involved in organizing the convoy, IHH, an Islamic humanitarian group based in Istanbul, to be a ‘terrorist’ organization due to its ties to Hamas.

Update: The FreeGaza organization has issued a press release saying the Israelis began shooting the moment their feet hit the deck. Watch the disturbing raw footage from onboard news teams here. Note that it appears to run for some time, with shots being fired in the background, before we see the footage of those onboard trying to beat off more soldiers rappelling onto the deck. It’s this footage which has been talked up by Israel as supposed justification for firing in ‘self defence’. Commentary from Russia Today on the timeline here. IDF military video here – including an image of a pipe as well as a slingshot and marbles. Irony?

Related: Israeli navy prepares for action as activists’ flotilla nears Gaza | George Galloway, on aid mission to Gaza, is deported from Egypt | Cynthia McKinney Demands Immediate Release After Her Gaza-Bound Boat is Seized by Israeli Navy | Israeli troops kill apartheid wall protester | Gaza relief boat carrying former Congresswoman rammed by Israelis | Former US congresswoman, presidential candidate Cynthia McKinney barred from boarding plane to human rights conference

Richard Spencer, Matthew Kalman, The Telegraph
May 31, 2010

Israeli commandos have stormed a flotilla of ships carrying activists and aid supplies to the blockaded Palestinian enclave of Gaza, killing as many as 16 of those on board.

That consumer spending, you can be assured, is debt-driven. But, hey, consumers may just as well be scooping up real commodities now (and big-screen TVs don’t count), because there’s going to be one hell of a write-down when this one pops.

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The Financial Post
May 31, 2010

OTTAWA – Canada’s economy grew at a faster pace than expected in the first quarter of this year, led by consumer spending, increasing the possibility of an interest rate hike Tuesday by the country’s central bank.

Gross domestic product rose at an annualized pace of 6.1 per cent between January and March, the biggest jump since the last quarter of 1999, Statistics Canada reported Monday. Growth in the fourth quarter of last year was revised to 4.9 per cent from five per cent.

Most economists had expected GDP growth of 5.8 per cent in the first three months of 2010.

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Even so, this is a complete whitewash. The terms of the inquiry were severely restricted from looking into the real questions of criminality around Airbus kickbacks, and Mulroney gets of with a stern talking to. Nice. Read the full report at the source (scroll down to the bottom of the article). Then, into the memory hole with the whole ‘unfortunate incident’ (as Mulroney calls it).

Related: Schreiber gets 8 years for tax evasion in Germany | Schreiber charged with bribery, fraud in German court | Mulroney story full of ‘half-truths,’ Schreiber’s lawyer says in final argument | Former aide challenges Mulroney claim he cancelled arms plant | Claim of Swiss account ‘preposterous,’ Mulroney says | Airbus funds likely source of Schreiber’s ‘Britan’ account: witness | Former Mulroney aide says he can’t recall writing letters about Airbus | Mulroney wanted Schreiber deal kept quiet, inquiry told | Mulroney, Kohl may have discussed Airbus: inquiry document | Schreiber says he paid Mulroney because he’d need him ‘sooner or later’ | Moores linked to Airbus before Mulroney came to power, memo reveals | Schreiber Inquiry: Premier’s wife testifies bank account was to be hers, not Mulroney’s | Mulroney-Schreiber inquiry steers clear of ‘Airbus affair’ on first day | Mulroney-Schreiber probe has no jurisdiction to find liability | Mulroney confidant knew about Airbus commissions: CBC News investigation | The Mulroney Affair: Why politicians seek out the rich | Twenty years ago today, the clock clicked down on free trade | The Fifth Estate: Money, Truth, and Spin

CBC News
May 31, 2010

Former prime minister Brian Mulroney’s business dealings with German-Canadian businessman Karlheinz Schreiber were “inappropriate,” Justice Jeffrey Oliphant says in a report released Monday.

Oliphant also concluded that Mulroney failed to live up to the ethics code he himself introduced in 1985 for holders of public office.

Oliphant was appointed by the Harper government two years ago to look into revelations that Mulroney accepted at least $225,000 in cash-stuffed envelopes from Schreiber in the early 1990s.

Mulroney admitted taking $225,000 in cash from Schreiber but said he broke no laws or ethical guidelines.

The former prime minister argued that he had been hired by Schreiber merely to try to line up support from political leaders in Russia, China and France for a proposed United Nations purchase of armoured vehicles made by the Thyssen firm of Germany. Schreiber was a lobbyist for Thyssen.

Mulroney testified he made an error in judgment in accepting the money.

Schreiber said the payments totalled $300,000, not the $225,000 Mulroney later declared for tax purposes. He also maintained the former prime minister was supposed to lobby Canadian officials, not foreign leaders.

Oliphant said the lack of a paper trail made it impossible to believe either Mulroney or Schreiber on the sum of how much money was paid to the former prime minister.

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Here we go again. It’s for the earth, taxes will save you – really. What a load. Perhaps this isn’t the most incisive commentary, but come on. These people will try anything, and they think we’re complete idiots. And maybe they’re right, we let the HST just slide by in this province. Get ready to see this implemented as some sort of per-km ‘carbon tax’.

Related: Montreal flirting with road tolls | GTA road tolls are inevitable, professor says | GPS Tracked Road Tolls Back On Agenda for Toronto Metrolinx | Report suggests road tolls, parking and fuel taxes for GTA | UK: Rothschild bank pitches motorway privatisation plan | Vancouver kicks off quest for ways to fund transportation system | Province assumes control of transit board, pays Toronto $9 billion for projects | Metrolinx’s draft report called for supporters to infiltrate public meetings | GTA Transit plan needs taxation, ‘governance’ powers | Is road-tolls fix running out of gas? | Federal government stages another retreat on road tolls | Federal Road Toll Meeting Sponsorship Kept Quiet Until After Election | Metrolinx considering road tolls after all | GTA Transport Plan Defers Road Tolls, Focuses on Centralization, Intensification | Federal road-toll study announced, immediately cancelled on eve of election call | Regional transit requires ‘good governance’ | Get set — the future starts now | Today’s suburbs, tomorrow’s slums? | Road tolls, a bitter pill that works | Is it time for toll roads? | Metrolinx Proposes Satellite Vehicle Tracking for Road Tolls | Vancouver to import road tolls from UK | UK proposes national road tolls to cut congestion | Motorists to pay London toll

The Canadian Press
May 31, 2010

Ontario’s environmental commissioner is recommending road tolls and other charges to help the province cut the greenhouse gases it produces.

In his annual progress report on greenhouse gas reductions, Gord Miller calls for a comprehensive assessment of how road pricing can help in the battle against climate change.

Miller says the transportation sector is the single largest producer of greenhouse gas emissions in Ontario, and steps must be taken to make public transit a more attractive option.

He says many jurisdictions around the world have realized significant environmental, social and economic benefits by putting a price on road use.

Miller’s report says the Liberal government will need to expand its climate-change policy agenda if it hopes to have any chance of reaching its short- and medium-term reduction targets.

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Haven’t seen a Canadian media outlet point out the fact yet today that it was Iran also recently moved for disarmament. On reflection, it’s an odd step for a diabolical nation intent on building such a fiendish deadly arsenal. While this may very well be hyperbole on Iran’s part, there is certainly no shortage of hyperbole from Netanyahu’s corner. (This UN measure was sponsored by Egypt, as Raw Story reports.) It’s a surprising and welcome move on Washington’s part to support this measure.

Related: MIddle East arms treaty a go despite US ‘deep regret’ over focus on Israeli nuclear arsenal | Disclosure of apartheid-era warhead negotiations with South Africa tip Israel’s nuclear hand | Obama starts massive US Air-Sea-Marine build-up opposite Iran | US claims Security Council backing for Iran sanctions | Iran brokers deal with Turkey for uranium enrichment | Dublin Trilateral attendees let slip need for world govt, war with Iran, Bilderberg oversight | UN-led uranium deal still on table: Iran | Robert Gates says White House lacks plan to deal with Iran nuclear threat | China sells petrol to Iran while talking at UN about sanctions | Nuclear summit urges anti-terror treaty | Enriched uranium going back to U.S.: PM | Iran unveils new uranium centrifuges | Barack Obama to limit use of US nuclear weapons | Russia claims breakthrough in historic nuclear reduction agreement with US | Israeli preparations for war with Iran troubling | Russia to push ahead on Iran missile deal | US media omission: Iran calls for global nuclear disarmament | Obama threatens actions against Iran over nuclear program | UN sanctions urged over Iran’s uranium plans | Western powers voice scepticism over Iran uranium offer | U.S. deploys land and sea-based missile shield in the Gulf to deter attack from Iran | UK: Tony Blair attempts to shift focus to Iran as ‘global threat’ at Iraq war inquiry | Chomsky says Israel, ‘US military base’ | Russia has no evidence of Iran nuclear bomb-Putin | IAEA members question Iran nuclear intel authenticity | US military could strike Iran, but at what cost? | Another War in the Works | Iran to allow nuclear site inspection | Iran plays into Obama’s hands with disclosure of nuclear facility | UN approves nuclear ‘disarmament’ resolution | Obama scales back missile defence shield in Europe | Israel ‘will attack Iran this year’ if West does not cripple Tehran with sanctions | Brookings Publication mentions possibility of ‘Horrific Provocation’ to Trigger Iran Invasion | Blast at Iranian mosque raises tensions in run-up to presidential election | Netanyahu: We may be forced to attack Iran | Proposed Missile Shield seen as Provocation by Russia | Neo-cons still preparing for Iran attack | Russia threatens to ’strike’ Poland in wake of U.S. missile plan | Cheney Considered False Flag Operation to Justify War with Iran | US scales up covert destabilization efforts in Iran, continues funding ‘al-Qaeda’ | Israelis ‘rehearse Iran attack’ | Israeli official says attack on Iran ‘unavoidable’ | Bush ‘plans Iran air strike by August’ | U.S. Navy starts exercises in Gulf waters | U.S. National Intelligence Estimate: Iran stopped nuclear weapons work in 2003 | Cheney Orders Media To Sell Attack On Iran | U.S. sending third aircraft carrier to the Middle East | US aircraft carriers in Persian Gulf | Investigative Reporter Seymour Hersh: US Indirectly Funding Al-Qaeda Linked Sunni Groups in Move to Counter Iran | How the USA Gave North Korea The Bomb | Former CIA Officer — US Plans Nuclear Attack On Iran

Amy Teibel, The Globe and Mail
May 30, 2010

Israel, thought to be the Middle East’s only nuclear power, has rejected a new UN demand to come clean about its secretive nuclear program, calling it a “deeply flawed and hypocritical” act that ignores the threat posed by its sworn enemy Iran.

Israel declared late Saturday that it would not take part in a 2012 conference on establishing a nuclear-free Middle East – an Arab-led initiative backed by top ally United States and the 188 other signatories to the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty.

Although a series of U.S. conditions put the conference in doubt, the resolution, and the surprising U.S. support it received, added new pressure on Israel to give up what is almost universally believed to be a sizable nuclear arsenal. Israel refuses to confirm or deny the suspicions.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu intends to discuss the resolution with President Barack Obama when the two meet in Washington Tuesday, the Israeli leader’s office said.

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Related: Bee population feels sting of cold, parasites as N.B. population drops | Bee expert takes issue with dated UN data minimizing honeybee deaths | Bayer on defensive in bee deaths

Dean Nelson, The Telegraph
May 29, 2010

The growing use of mobile telephones is behind the disappearance of honey bees and the collapse of their hives, scientists have claimed.

Their disappearance has caused alarm throughout Europe and North America where campaigners have blamed agricultural pesticides, climate change and the advent of genetically modified crops for what is now known as ‘colony collapse disorder.’ Britain has seen a 15 per cent decline in its bee population in the last two years and shrinking numbers has led to a rise in thefts of hives.

Now researchers from Chandigarh’s Punjab University claim they have found the cause which could be the first step in reversing the decline: They have established that radiation from mobile telephones is a key factor in the phenomenon and say that it probably interfering with the bee’s navigation senses.

They set up a controlled experiment in Punjab earlier this year comparing the behaviour and productivity of bees in two hives — one fitted with two mobile telephones which were powered on for two fifteen minute sessions per day for three months. The other had dummy models installed.

After three months the researchers recorded a dramatic decline in the size of the hive fitted with the mobile phon, a significant reduction in the number of eggs laid by the queen bee. The bees also stopped producing honey.

The queen bee in the “mobile” hive produced fewer than half of those created by her counterpart in the normal hive.

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Conrad Black’s somewhat questionable transformation into urbane prisoner-rights advocate has been an interesting one to watch, and not merely for those creating drinking games based around his noted polysyllabism (sighted: Sisyphean, licitly, palookas, garrote – you know who you are). His continued access to the editorial pages of the National Post, though initially puzzling, has made for a unique platform to inform Canadians about the internals of the penal system – and this window is a critical one as the Harper administration continues to remake our prisons in the image of the gulags of the American prison archipelago. (Back to you, Conrad).

Related: The prison spending boom | Planned random DUI checkpoints a violation of rights | An American Detention Bill You Ought to Read More Carefully | You Commit Three Felonies a Day | Tory plans for U.S.-style prisons slammed in report | US Supreme Court rules police can initiate suspect’s questioning if right to counsel waived | Tories propose law allowing fingerprinting before charges are laid | Serious offences declined before Tories: study | Entrapment becoming standard procedure for police | Ontario to place prosecutors in police stations | ‘Mens rea’ intention test questioned prior to Toronto 18 terror verdict | Federal parolees to wear tracking anklets in pilot project | Tory ‘Guilty before proven innocent’ law to make debut in court | U.K. Develops Plan to Begin Microchipping Prisoners | CBC Radio Broadcasts Expose of North American Police State | Prisoners ‘to be chipped like dogs’ | You Are a Suspect

Conrad Black, The National Post
May 29, 2010

In the past two years, as regular readers in this space would know, thanks to my gracious hosts in the U.S. government, I have had what could be called extensive hands-on experience of the American correctional system. I have been tutoring and teaching fellow prisoners in English, and in U.S. history. And some of them have taught me how to read music, play the piano, keep fit, diet sensibly and assimilate some local folkways, while I have been fighting my way through the courts toward a just disposition of the few remaining (unfounded) charges that bedevil me. The fact that all my life any definition of Canada’s virtue and distinctiveness has prominently included references to civility and decency explains my alarm and outrage at finally reading the three-year-old report on the Correctional Service of Canada, misleadingly titled “A Roadmap to Strengthening Public Safety.”

As so often in other fields, this document seeks to import to Canada much of the worst of American practice, and none of the best, unless Canada now idealizes gratuitous official severity.

I have not succumbed to an inverse Stockholm Syndrome, and become an apologist for the convicted community. But I disbelieve even more fervently than I did before my sojourn among them, in the Manichaean process of baiting, dehumanization and stigmatization promoted by the Roadmap, and similarly inspired correctional nostrums.

In my present abode, I have met many rather dodgy people, but none whose ethics I consider inferior to some prosecutors and judges I have encountered in the last few years. And I have met many fine, as well as some mediocre and poor correctional officers, but few who rise above the level of benign non-skilled labour, profoundly under qualified to practise untrammeled social engineering on those entrusted to them.

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Considering the Taliban and Pakistani military intelligence are integrated in a number of vaguely defined ways, it should be interesting to see how this plays out. And US bases in Pakistan are not new, the CIA has reportedly had a bricks and mortar presence in the field for some time now. We won’t even get into the highly questionable aspects of the Times Square ‘bombing’ here, you can read about that by perusing the links below.

Related: Taliban behind Times Square plot, says US AG Holder | CIA Drones No Longer Need a Name to Kill | Times Square Bomber Linked With CIA-Controlled Terror Group | Faisal Shahzad on Homeland Security List Since 1999 | Times Square Eyewitness: Bomb Scare Looked Like Drill | New York terror suspect received calls from Pakistan before buying SUV, charged with using ‘Weapon of Mass Destruction’ | Officials seize on Times Square incident to push precrime surveillance network expansion | Frenzied manhunt ends with airplane arrest of New York terror suspect | Potential suspect identified in Times Square bomb plot | Times Square bomb police focus on video of man watching smoking car | ‘Amateurish’ Explosive Found in Parked SUV in Times Square, Suspect Reportedly Recorded

Greg Miller, Washington Post
May 29, 2010

The U.S. military is reviewing options for a unilateral strike in Pakistan in the event that a successful attack on American soil is traced to the country’s tribal areas, according to senior military officials.

Ties between the alleged Times Square bomber, Faisal Shahzad, and elements of the Pakistani Taliban have sharpened the Obama administration’s need for retaliatory options, the officials said. They stressed that a U.S. reprisal would be contemplated only under extreme circumstances, such as a catastrophic attack that leaves President Obama convinced that the ongoing campaign of CIA drone strikes is insufficient.

“Planning has been reinvigorated in the wake of Times Square,” one of the officials said.

At the same time, the administration is trying to deepen ties to Pakistan’s intelligence officials in a bid to head off any attack by militant groups. The United States and Pakistan have recently established a joint military intelligence center on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar, and are in negotiations to set up another one near Quetta, the Pakistani city where the Afghan Taliban is based, according to the U.S. military officials. They and other officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity surrounding U.S. military and intelligence activities in Pakistan.

The “fusion centers” are meant to bolster Pakistani military operations by providing direct access to U.S. intelligence, including real-time video surveillance from drones controlled by the U.S. Special Operations Command, the officials said. But in an acknowledgment of the continuing mistrust between the two governments, the officials added that both sides also see the centers as a way to keep a closer eye on one another, as well as to monitor military operations and intelligence activities in insurgent areas.

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