Category: Uncategorized

by Eva Golinger
15 July 2009
• The Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup.
• The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organizations in Honduras that participated in the coup.
• The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded, and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress the people of Honduras by force.
• The US military presence in Honduras, which occupies the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, authorized the coup d’etat through its tacit complicity and refusal to withdraw its support of the Honduran military involved in the coup.
• The US Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, coordinated the removal from power of President Manuel Zelaya, together with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and John Negroponte, who presently works as an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
• From the first day the coup occurred, Washington has referred to “both parties” involved and the necessity for “dialogue” to restore constitutional order, legitimizing the coup leaders by regarding them as equal players instead of criminal violators of human rights and democratic principles.
• The Department of State has refused to legally classify the events in Honduras as a “coup d’etat,” nor has it suspended or frozen its economic aid or commerce to Honduras, and has taken no measures to effectively pressure the de facto regime.
• Washington manipulated the Organization of American States (OAS) in order to buy time, therefore allowing the coup regime to consolidate and weaken the possibility of President Zelaya’s immediate return to power, as part of a strategy still in place that simply seeks to legitimate the de facto regime and wear down the Honduran people that still resist the coup.
• Secretary of State Clinton and her spokesmen stopped speaking of President Zelaya’s return to power after they designated Costa Rican president Oscar Arias as the “mediator” between the coup regime and the constitutional government; and now the State Department refers to the dictator that illegally took power during the coup, Roberto Micheletti, as the “interim caretaker president.”
• The strategy of “negotiating” with the coup regime was imposed by the Obama administration as a way of discrediting President Zelaya — blaming him for provoking the coup — and legitimizing the coup leaders.
• Members of the US Congress — Democrats and Republicans — organized a visit of representatives from the coup regime in Honduras to Washington, receiving them with honors in different arenas in the US capital.
• Despite the fact that originally it was Republican Senator John McCain who coordinated the visit of the coup regime representatives to Washington through a lobby firm connected to his office, The Cormac Group, now, the illegal regime is being represented by top-notch lobbyist and Clinton attorney Lanny Davis, who is using his pull and influence in Washington to achieve overall acceptance — across party lines — of the coup regime in Honduras.
Mrzine for more

Written by Isaura Daniel
A group of ten countries formed by the World Health Organization (WHO) to serve as a reference in mental health services include Brazil. The WHO selected countries that were able to increase psychiatric services to become part of a discussion group and offer their strategies as models for other regions to follow.
The action is part of a program launched by the WHO in 2008 to ensure treatment, within ten years, of the prevailing mental health conditions among populations, such as depression, schizophrenia, drug-related disorders, epilepsy, Alzheimer’s, and mental health disorder among children.
These types of problems, according to the Mental Health coordinator of the Brazilian Ministry of Health, Pedro Gabriel, affect 12% to 15% of the world population. In Brazil, as of 2002, 21% of the population had access to treatment for those diseases, whereas the current rate is 57%.
What the government did was create Psychosocial Attention Centers (Caps) in municipalities located in the interior of the states. Caps units operate in tandem with the Family Health Program of the federal government and monitor the health of patients, but do not offer inpatient treatment. The number of beds in psychiatric hospitals, however, decreased from 59,000 in 2001 to 36,000 last year.

Brazzill for more

By Ofri Ilani

Of all the national heroes who have arisen from among the Jewish people over the generations, fate has not been kind to Dahia al-Kahina, a leader of the Berbers in the Aures Mountains. Although she was a proud Jewess, few Israelis have ever heard the name of this warrior-queen who, in the seventh century C.E., united a number of Berber tribes and pushed back the Muslim army that invaded North Africa. It is possible that the reason for this is that al-Kahina was the daughter of a Berber tribe that had converted to Judaism, apparently several generations before she was born, sometime around the 6th century C.E.

According to the Tel Aviv University historian, Prof. Shlomo Sand, author of “Matai ve’ech humtza ha’am hayehudi?” (“When and How the Jewish People Was Invented?”; Resling, in Hebrew), the queen’s tribe and other local tribes that converted to Judaism are the main sources from which Spanish Jewry sprang. This claim that the Jews of North Africa originated in indigenous tribes that became Jewish – and not in communities exiled from Jerusalem – is just one element of the far- reaching argument set forth in Sand’s new book.

In this work, the author attempts to prove that the Jews now living in Israel and other places in the world are not at all descendants of the ancient people who inhabited the Kingdom of Judea during the First and Second Temple period. Their origins, according to him, are in varied peoples that converted to Judaism during the course of history, in different corners of the Mediterranean Basin and the adjacent regions. Not only are the North African Jews for the most part descendants of pagans who converted to Judaism, but so are the Jews of Yemen (remnants of the Himyar Kingdom in the Arab Peninsula, who converted to Judaism in the fourth century) and the Ashkenazi Jews of Eastern Europe (refugees from the Kingdom of the Khazars, who converted in the eighth century).

Unlike other “new historians” who have tried to undermine the assumptions of Zionist historiography, Sand does not content himself with going back to 1948 or to the beginnings of Zionism, but rather goes back thousands of years. He tries to prove that the Jewish people never existed as a “nation-race” with a common origin, but rather is a colorful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion. He argues that for a number of Zionist ideologues, the mythical perception of the Jews as an ancient people led to truly racist thinking: “There were times when if anyone argued that the Jews belong to a people that has gentile origins, he would be classified as an anti-Semite on the spot. Today, if anyone dares to suggest that those who are considered Jews in the world … have never constituted and still do not constitute a people or a nation – he is immediately condemned as a hater of Israel.”

According to Sand, the description of the Jews as a wandering and self-isolating nation of exiles, “who wandered across seas and continents, reached the ends of the earth and finally, with the advent of Zionism, made a U-turn and returned en masse to their orphaned homeland,” is nothing but “national mythology.” Like other national movements in Europe, which sought out a splendid Golden Age, through which they invented a heroic past – for example, classical Greece or the Teutonic tribes – to prove they have existed since the beginnings of history, “so, too, the first buds of Jewish nationalism blossomed in the direction of the strong light that has its source in the mythical Kingdom of David.”

So when, in fact, was the Jewish people invented, in Sand’s view? At a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people “retrospectively,” out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people. From historian Heinrich Graetz on, Jewish historians began to draw the history of Judaism as the history of a nation that had been a kingdom, became a wandering people and ultimately turned around and went back to its birthplace.

Haarestz for more
(Submitted by reader)

There she is again: the cute girl at the mall. Big eyes. Long legs. She smiles at you. You’re about to make your move… but wait! What’s she wearing? It’s a letterman jacket, one clearly belonging to a hulking football player named “Steve.” This girl is taken. Wisely, you move on.
Countless teen movies have told the same tale, but behind the fiction is an essential, biological reality: Humans base their behavioral decisions, such as whom to court, on cues gleaned from their environment. The same holds true for all of the animal world, as a paper due to be published this week in Current Biology reminds us. In it, Harvard Medical School (HMS) researchers, along with German colleagues, report on a newly discovered pheromone produced by male fruit flies. They found that the pheromone, which they named CH503 for its molecular mass, acts as the chemical equivalent of the “letterman jacket” when transferred to females during the mating process. CH503 remains on the female’s outer body, warding off male suitors for at least a week. This anti-aphrodisiac effect helps to account for previously noted mating behaviors in fruit flies that have until now gone unexplained.
Biology News for more

By AFSHIN RATTANSI

It’s too early to tell the reason for the midday plane crash on 15 July in Janat-Abad near the former capital of the Persian Empire, northwest of Tehran. All 168 people on board were killed in Qazvin province and there is an inquiry underway. One thing is sure, though. It wasn’t fired on by the U.S .military which, some twenty-one years ago, shot down flight IR655, killing 290 people, including 66 children. It was the same year as Lockerbie but the captain of the USS Vincennes which fired a missile at the plane was awarded the U.S. Legion of Merit and his crew given Combat Action Ribbons. But, even so, the relatives of the 168 that have died today may yet blame the U.S. and Britain for their dead.

U.S. foreign policy is being felt in Iran’s aircraft hangars, just as it is in the hearts of the millions of Iraqi refugees a few hundred miles from the crash site. They are fleeing the chaos unleashed by what was called Operation Iraqi Liberation, before the State Department realized the resulting acronym spelled “OIL”. Iran may have been the deciding factor when it came to deposing the U.S.-created Taliban from Afghanistan but as British soldiers die in Helmand, Iran is not the ally. Iran is the eternal irritant, refusing to budge in its support for anti-colonial struggle, fighting Anglo-American desires for apartheid in Palestine, fighting for sovereignty over its energy resources.

President Obama has repeatedly cited economic sanctions as the stick with which to beat Iran as the Islamic Republic continues to pursue its uranium-enrichment programme. But, again, showing more skill than his G8 colleagues, Obama backed off from making sanctions a leading issue at the L’Aquila summit. Britain’s beleaguered leader, Gordon Brown was caught out again. He has form on this. Last year, with President George W. Bush by his side, he announced “We will take action today that will freeze the overseas assets of the biggest bank in Iran, the Bank Melli.” It turned out to be yet another Brown-blunder – the FT quoted diplomats at the time looking askance. Brown had said he wanted more sanctions when standing next to the then Israeli PM, Ehud Olmert, a year earlier. And in L’Aquila, Brown said he sought changes to the Non-Proliferation Treaty so that proof of a nuclear arms programme is no longer required for sanctions to be imposed on a state he didn’t like. The stakes have certainly been raised since the elections which saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad retain the presidency and which corporate media was quick to characterise as the stolen election that will presage a green revolution to rival the colour revolutions of the former USSR.

Counterpunch for more

The death of Subhash Bose was only the first among a series of mysterious deaths of national leaders that created dramatic change in politics. Inconvenient questions raised about the deaths are rubbished as conspiracy theories. In truth, there is only one monstrous conspiracy. Rajinder Puri

Recently a query to the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) availing the Right to Information (RTI) Act by Mr Anuj Dhar about a secret document related to the unexplained death of the late Lal Bahadur Shastri drew a blank. Mr Dhar, an author, along with a group, runs the endtosecrecy.com website. The PMO did not deny the existence of the secret document. It refused to release it on the plea that it could harm foreign relations, provoke disruption in the country and cause breach of parliamentary privilege. In other words it could expose the government’s lies spoken in parliament relating to Shastri’s death. The Soviet Union has ceased to exist. Which foreign relations could be harmed?

The circumstances surrounding Shastri’s death in Tashkent created national controversy. Shastri was a heart patient. His widow, Lalita Shastri, had alleged that he was poisoned. After sipping some water at midnight brought by a staffer he became unconscious and died.

There already was a flask of water kept by his table. The Soviet government arrested the Russian butler attending him on suspicion of poisoning but later absolved him. Shastri’s meals were prepared by Indian Ambassador TN Kaul’s personal cook. No post-mortem of the death was conducted in the Soviet Union. Questions were raised in parliament by several opposition leaders including Ram Manohar Lohia, but the government continued to stonewall. After Shastri’s death there was widespread expectation that Defence Minister YB Chavan would succeed him. Surprisingly, Indira Gandhi, a fledgling Information and Broadcasting Minister, became the PM.

Outlook India for more

China is challenging the US in the Middle East. Rowenna Davis talks with prominent Egyptian economist, Gouda Abdel-Khalek, about its next moves.

Think of the Middle East as a giant chessboard stretching from Turkey’s European border in the West to Iran’s border with Afghanistan in the East. On this surface, two global powers – China and the United States – are playing out a strategic power game. Theirs is not a traditional military battle over territory but a tactical struggle for control of international capital and natural resources.
Of course the Middle East is not neutral in this game. The region’s 22 countries – and their competing interests – don’t always provide a stable base on which to play. However, the region is united on one point: the need to reduce the international domination of the United States. In China, the Middle East sees an opportunity to do just that.
To understand the two contenders more clearly we need to take a step back from the board. Some 30 years after opening its economy to the outside world, China has just overtaken Germany as the world’s third largest economy after the US and Japan. It is the only country that continues to expand in the wake of the current financial crisis.
Manufacturing has been the engine of China’s continuing growth. Over the last two decades a substantial proportion of China’s goods have been bound for the US. What has been less clear until recently is that this process has locked the two countries into an uncomfortable mutual dependency, with the balance tipping China’s way. With high exports to the US and relatively few imports, China has amassed over $1.9 trillion worth of international reserves; 70 per cent of these are thought to be in US dollars.

Currency countdown
The traditional analysis is that these massive holdings give China a stranglehold over the US. With so much US currency on hand, China’s Central Bank, the People’s Bank of China, could effectively make or break the dollar depending on its decision to buy or sell greenbacks. Add to that the United States’ phenomenal debts and massive balance of trade deficit and you see why many economists still believe that the only thing stopping the dollar from a Latin American-style collapse is China’s continuing demand for it.
But Gouda Abdel-Khalek, an economics professor at Cairo University who has published widely on this issue, does not believe China has the US in checkmate. After all, if China is so powerful, why hasn’t it just pulled out the stops and wiped out its opponent? ‘The fact is that China has a stake in the stability of the dollar. China has been looking for an alternative international currency. But if they push too hard they’ll not only destabilize the dollar; they’ll also erode the value of their own reserves.’

Here is a paradox. The more dollars China piles up, the more wealth it has to lose if the dollar crashes in value. Not only that, but a fall in the dollar would wipe out the competitiveness of China’s currency (the renminbi, whose principal unit is the yuan) in the US, something that even China cannot afford. On a chessboard this is the equivalent of being able to take out an opponent’s key player only by sacrificing one of your own.

A similar bind prevents the Middle East from exploiting its control over the dollar. Since the end of World War Two, oil prices have been pegged to the US dollar and most oil trade is conducted in that currency. If the oil-producing Middle Eastern countries were to de-peg from the US – perhaps by seeking an alternative with China – then the dollar would lose much of its standing as the dominant international currency.

New Int for more

By Ayaz Amir

Ayaz Amir is a distinguished Pakistani commentator and member of parliament
17 July 2009

This nation suffered Field Marshal (self-appointed) Ayub Khan as its ruler for eleven years, and General Ziaul Haq for another eleven years, and Pervez Musharraf for eight and a half years. There was opposition to their rule at the popular level but it was to little avail when pitted against the army’s divisions. Power slipped away from Ayub and Musharraf when they could no longer count on the army’s unquestioning support.

Zia went because of other causes. But it is a strange characteristic of our chattering classes—whose supreme vocation in life, after the worship of Mammon, is the nurturing of conspiracy theories—that while they resign themselves all too readily to military rule, their impatience starts bursting at the seams as soon as there is a democratic government in place.

For the folly and ultimate futility of military rule their patience is unbounded. But surveying the imperfections and shortcomings of democracy — which are many — it is their anger which is limitless. Thus we see the strange spectacle of those who not only saw nothing wrong with Musharraf, but indeed served him loyally throughout his years in power, transformed suddenly into merciless critics of the present order.

This is no argument against criticism. If those who hold democracy’s cup in their hands play out their shenanigans, they must be taken to task. But we must remember at the same time that while the alternative in Britain to Gordon Brown is David Cameron, and the alternative in the US to the wild fantasies of neo-con Republicanism is someone like Barack Obama, what usually comes after the wholesale trashing of democracy in Pakistan is the march of the Triple One Brigade.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani are easy targets, not least because of their various shortcomings. It is perfectly legitimate to target them as both could do with extended lessons in vital aspects of adult education. But given our past and the ambitions of the Bonapartist class, we must beware of the distinction between those thrown up by democracy and democracy itself.
No calamity could be greater than George Bush. But America waited for an election to rubbish his legacy. Our chattering classes show not the same forbearance. And it’s not as if Zardari alone is the problem. If Nawaz Sharif had been in power I can bet anything the chattering classes would have ganged up against him.
…
Zardari has his failings and who can deny them? Both he and Gillani are accidents of destiny, gifts from the heavens at their most sardonic. But they are also products of a democratic process and therefore to be tolerated until the next turn of the political wheel.
And while we may have much to lament as far as our present heroes on deck are concerned, we must learn from our past and apply some rein to our collective impatience, restraining some of the nihilism that we often demonstrate towards our institutions and democratic processes.

Khaleej Times for more

Manduca sexta and its silicone rubber analog.

By JOHN SCHWARTZ

MEDFORD, Mass. — The robot lies dissected on the black slab of a lab table, its silicone rubber exterior spread and flattened like a trophy snakeskin. Hair-thin wires run in a zigzag line along the inner length of its pale artificial flesh.

Barry Trimmer flicks a small switch and the wires contract, causing the silicone to bunch up; the skin crawls, so to speak.
So does mine.

“It’s very organic,” Dr. Trimmer says with a smile. Apparently, “organic” is a technical euphemism for “creepy.” But it is eerily lifelike, and that is the point.

Robots, once the stuff of science fiction, are everywhere. Robotic geologists are puttering around on Mars, little Roombas suck up dirt in the breakfast nook. But most robots are made up of hard components and don’t much resemble the creatures that walk, crawl and squirm all around us.

NY Times for more