Day: February 13, 2009

By Albert, Michael

The economy is a shambles. True, from the perspective of the poor, it was also a shambles before the current crisis, but things are now so discombobulated that even stratospheric penthouses are leaking cash. Collapse beckons. Urgency dictates policy. Contending constituencies will request, demand, and even battle for changes. Policies will ensue. The question is not will they happen, but will they be good or bad?

One approach to deciding is to look at each proposal entirely on its own but it turns out that examining proposals and actions this way tends to push us into a narrow frame of thinking that assesses merit on very narrow terms defined by the proposers of proposals themselves, which is often elites at the top of society. More, this case by case approach focuses on what on aspects highlighted in general discussions, in turn dictated by media, in turn owned by the proposals proposers. To the forefront gallops the goal of getting the economy “back in shape.” Avoid meltdown. Good is reducing or preventing economic travail while getting the economy back to an even keel. Bad is not doing enough to reduce or even better prevent economic travail, while getting the economy back to an even keel. Worse, economic travail is defined by diverse pundits to mean continued decline of profit making prospects. And “an even keel”? What does that mean? Well, that is the real problem, because what the media call an “even keel” is really a lopsided mess that imposes a constant calamity on those who don’t inhabit penthouses, and getting back to that isn’t really all that much of a gain.
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A Sworn Foe of Single-Payer

By VICENTE NAVARRO

President Obama has put forward the name of Dr. Sanjay Gupta, the well-known chief medical correspondent for CNN, for the position of surgeon general of the U.S. Public Health Service – the chief public health officer of the federal government. Dr. Gupta has received wide acclaim as the most important voice on medical matters in the U.S. broadcasting industry. And CNN has played an important role in developing and promulgating the U.S. establishment’s conventional wisdom on what is happening in the country’s medical care. Dr. Gupta has been a major force in the promotion of that wisdom.

It is important that before discussing the appropriateness of President Obama’s choice for surgeon general, I make a few points about the role of the mainstream media, including CNN, in the country’s affairs, in particular, in its major international and domestic conflicts – that is, conflicts not only in, for example, Iraq and Vietnam, but also at home.
As we know, in the buildup to and conduct of the Iraq war, the mainstream media played a crucial role – supporting the invasion and occupation, and uncritically reproducing the Bush administration’s justification for this intervention. The mainstream media considered it their primary role to promote the conventional wisdom on this war, and not to challenge or question it. Not until 4,226 Americans and 654,965 Iraqis had been killed did CNN and the other mainstream media start questioning President Bush’s and the establishment’s justifications for the Iraq War. And it is important to remember that, before reaching this point, CNN and the other mainstream media had consistently ignored, marginalized, or ridiculed those voices that were explaining how the justifications for war had no credibility.

This series of events was nothing new. The same thing had happened with the Vietnam War. This reality on the role of the mainstream media is well known both in the U.S. and abroad. A primary function of the U.S. broadcasting industry is to reproduce the establishment’s position on whatever conflict the country is involved in at the time.

But not so well known is the mainstream media’s (including CNN’s) role in the wars at home.
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Submitted by reader

Trailer for Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece, Battle of Algiers.

Battle of Algiers – Click here to see Part 1 of 13

When resentment of French rule in Algeria grew amongst the part of the population who felt they were treated like a colonized people in comparisson to the settlers of European origin (pieds-noirs) a vicious cycle of violence started between French forces and the pro-independence FLN (National Liberation Front) hitting civilians too. More and more people would join the resistance, be it in the form of physical force or civil disobedience …

Despite 99% DNA similarity between humans and our nearest relative, chimpanzees, the locations of DNA swapping between chromosomes, known as recombination hotspots, are almost entirely different. The surprising finding is reported in a paper just published online in Science by Oxford University statisticians and US and Dutch geneticists.

This difference is intriguing because one of the central tenets of modern biology is that specific DNA sequences determine biological function. In most cases, when DNA sequence is highly similar between two species, the biological function of that DNA is predictably similar as well.

Recombination shapes the patterns of genetic variation in a species.It is the process by which genetic information inherited from a person’s two parents is mixed up to make one chromosome to pass on to their offspring. Chromosomes exist in pairs, with one chromosome of the pair inherited from the father, the other from the mother. At the point when sperm or eggs are made, the paired chromosomes line up and exchange pieces of DNA, recombining into a totally new, single chromosome, which is passed on to offspring.

In a previous study in Science, the Oxford team had identified many ‘hotspots’ along the human genome where this swapping of DNA is more likely to occur. Why these hotspots occur, and what triggers the swapping of DNA at those particular points, is a mystery. One theory was that the DNA code either side of hotspots controlled the activity. However, when the researchers compared chimps and humans for the new study, they were startled to find that despite being so genetically similar, the species have totally different recombination hotspots.

Professor Peter Donnelly at Oxford said: ‘If chimps and humans do not share these recombination hotspots, then it means something other than the surrounding DNA code must be controlling the process of recombination – because the surrounding DNA code in chimps and humans is pretty much identical. This means that recombination is even more mysterious than we already thought: what is controlling it, and why does it occur so often at these particular places?
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By Saree Makdisi

In three weeks of incessant bombardment, Israel killed or injured more than 6,000 Palestinians in Gaza, most of them civilians, and a third of them children.

It pushed the territory it has militarily controlled for four decades (and for the welfare of whose population international law holds it legally accountable) even deeper into deliberately engineered, even fine-tuned, misery.

It wrecked much of what was left of Gaza’s civilian infrastructure after months of siege and years of isolation from the outside world; it smashed thousands of family homes, schools, offices and mosques; it obliterated the personal property of tens of thousands of refugees — many of whom have now lost two or three homes in succession to Israeli bombs.

Israel’s primary justification for the bombardment of Gaza was that it was intended to stop Palestinian rockets fired into Israeli territory.
But Israel failed to accomplish a single one of its declared objectives. It failed to stop the firing of rockets from Gaza. It failed to stop smuggling across the Egypt-Gaza border. And it failed, even in the short run, to bring security to Israel’s own population.

If anything, the bombardment of Gaza left Hamas stronger than ever, for having stood up to three weeks of bombardment and preventing the Israeli army from translating its overwhelming firepower superiority into actual accomplishments on the battlefield — of which there were none, other than crude destruction.
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(Submitted by Ingrid B. Mork)

By A.G. Noorani

A Month and a half after the Mumbai blasts on November 26, 2008, India-Pakistan diplomacy on the subject is dangerously deadlocked. Initial promise of accord on amends dissipated within three days, setting a pattern that has congealed with time. How far the dialogue has moved can be gauged with two statements by Pakistan’s leaders.
On November 29, President Asif Ali Zardari was asked by an Indian television channel: “Can you assure the Indian people that Pakistan will do everything it can to investigate and to inquire into this connection so that we get to the bottom of this matter?” That connection was “to people in Pakistan”. He replied: “Most definitely, this is a world incident. Today, every terrorist act is a world incident and [there are] multinational casualties. I am sure that the world intelligence agencies will be called. But at the same time, as the President of Pakistan, let me assure [that] if any evidence points to any individual or group in my country, I shall take the strictest of actions in the light of the evidence and in front of the world” (emphasis added, throughout).

Three points must be noted. There was an unqualified pledge “most definitely” to investigate “so that we can get to the bottom of this matter”. That could be done only in Pakistan, as the entire world knew and said. Secondly, he did not belittle the blasts as “one incident”. He called it “a world incident”, which is why world leaders spoke up as they did and the international media descended on Mumbai. Thirdly, he said that “if any evidence points to any individual or group in my country I shall take the strictest of actions in the light of the evidence and in front of the world”.

This is fair. The adequacy of evidence on any matter depends on the purpose. Facts that create a reasonable suspicion of the commission of an offence justify the initiation of a police investigation and arrest of the suspect. To justify an order committing the case to the Sessions Court or framing of charges, proof of the commission of the offence is not required. Only a prima facie case needs to be made out. It is defined as evidence which, if unrebutted, leads to inference of guilt. Proof beyond reasonable doubt is only required for conviction in a court of law.

The International Court of Justice has ruled that in fixing a state’s responsibility for the actions of its own “non-state actors”, a lesser degree of proof is required (see “Pakistan’s Burden”; Frontline, January 16). Zardari’s use of the expression “points to”, rather than “proves”, is therefore sound. He repeated it – “points to any camps”. He knew, of course, what was afoot. “We need to look at it as [an] action of non-state actors,” he said, in the context of the nationality of the perpetrators, of course.

Contrast this with Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani’s remarks on January 10 and you get a fair idea of the gravity of the impasse and the depths to which the dialogue has been brought. It was adversarial in tone and contradicted Zardari flatly. The Mumbai attack was not a “world incident” but India’s “internal matter” arising out of an “intelligence failure in India”. If this be Pakistan’s stand after six weeks – contrary to that of the United States, the United Kingdom, and very many others, let alone the aggrieved country, India – how sincere is its promise of joint investigation or even of its own internal investigation? He said also, “We are now defending two countries, not one. We are defending them and ourselves.”
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BERLIN (AFP) – An Iranian drama about an emigre who returns home looking for love joined the hunt for the Golden Bear for best picture at the 59th Berlin Film Festival Saturday.
“About Elly” by 36-year-old Asghar Farhadi tells the story of Ahmad, who has divorced his German wife after years living in Europe and takes a trip to the Caspian Sea to make a fresh start.
His friends, a group of fellow 30-somethings, invite the beautiful kindergarten teacher Elly along on the trip in a thinly veiled attempt at matchmaking.
But the getaway takes a tragic turn when Elly vanishes from the beach, exposing hidden tension within the group and a unique kind of love triangle.
Farhadi’s last film, the drama “Fireworks Wednesday”, was a hit on the international festival circuit. “About Elly” was to premiere in Berlin and Tehran Saturday tonight.
He told reporters in Berlin that while the film sheds light on the dynamic between the sexes in today’s Iran, the emotions it stirs could appeal to viewers outside.
“I wanted to make a story that was universal — one that everyone could connect with, not just contemporary Iranians,” he said.
“To my mind, these kinds of problems can be found everywhere. I’ve tried to go below the tip of the iceberg, beneath the surface of the water to see where they are coming from.”
Farhadi said he had based the story on a friend living in the northern German city of Hamburg who was trapped in an unhappy marriage.
The strong cast features Golshifteh Farahani who was last seen in the spy thriller “Body of Lies” with Leonardo DiCaprio.
“Our work with Mr Fahradi was a sort of a workshop,” Farahani said, adding that the picture was based on significant improvisation.
“It was a sort of a collaboration and a partnership.”
Also in competition Saturday are the German drama “Storm” about the international war crimes tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague, and a supernatural murder mystery by France’s Bertrand Tavernier set in Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina and starring Tommy Lee Jones and John Goodman, “In the Electric Mist”.
Two European contenders entered the race Friday: “Ricky” by French director Francois Ozon about a baby with an extraordinary ability, and “Little Soldier” by Denmark’s Annette K. Oleson on a woman returning from a mission in a war zone who tries to save a Nigerian prostitute.
Both pictures received mixed reviews from film industry bible Variety.
It said “Ricky” was “an uneasy mix of comedy and the grotesque”. While Variety’s reviewer Alissa Simon was intrigued by the explosive subject matter in “Little Soldier”, she was disappointed by its execution.
“Despite the film’s considerable technical craft and involvement of powerhouse thesps (actors), the earnest, overly schematic script fails to connect emotionally,” she said.
The Golden Bear will be awarded February 14 by a jury led by Scottish actress Tilda Swinton. The 11-day festival wraps up the next day.
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