Month: October 2009

By Shen Jingting (China Daily)

Customers choose a scarf at Meters/bonwe clothes shop in Qianmen yesterday. [China Daily]

Clothing is more expensive in Beijing than most other cities in the world, including London and Los Angeles, new data shows.

According to a survey by finance group UBS AG, Beijing ranks as the 11th most expensive city in the world for clothing, with Tokyo ranked number one.

A woman’s outfit, consisting of suit blazer, summer dress, pantyhose and a pair of shoes, cost an average of $650 in Beijing, the survey found.

A men’s outfit, comprising a suit blazer, shirt, jeans, socks and shoes cost Beijingers about $1,090.

The price of UBS’s sample outfit was $500 for women and $680 for men.

The survey found people in London need $420 to buy a woman’s outfit, and $580 per outfit for men.

Despite high prices, many department stores are preparing for an influx of shoppers during the National Day holiday.

The Swedish brand H&M will open another Beijing outlet on September 29, in the Zhongguancun area, which is close to the new subway Line 4.

“I plan to buy some clothes during the holiday, as I have no time to go shopping on work days,” said Zhang Jiao, an anchor for a local TV station.

The 25-year-old woman said she usually spends 5,000 yuan ($732)on a complete outfit.

CD

Written by José Wilson Miranda

Brazil’s acting president, José Alencar, told Brazilian reporters that’s he in favor that Brazil build its own atomic bomb. For him nuclear weapons are an important dissuasion factor and would give Brazil more respectability.

“A nuclear weapon used as dissuasive instrument is of great significance for a country that has 15,000 kilometers (9,300 miles) of borders in the west and has a territorial sea and, now, there’s this pre-salt sea with an area of 4 million square kilometers (1.4 million square miles),” said Alencar.

All the recent oil findings by Brazil should be reason for caution, he argues: “This stirs international greed. Now everything is all right, but we don’t know what tomorrow will bring. It costs a lot, but readiness is costly.”

Alencar, who is the acting president while president Lula is in the United States for several commitments, including taking part in the Pittsburgh G20 summit, reminded the case of Pakistan, which is part of several international organisms not because is a big country, but because it has the A bomb.

For Alencar, India and Pakistan, although living in conflict, don’t go to war against each other and prefer to sit down and negotiate because both possess nuclear weapons .

“We, Brazilian, sometimes are too laid-back,” said the Brazilian vice-president. “We master the nuclear energy technology, but nobody here has the drive to advance in this field. We have to go forward in this matter”.

According to Alencar, Brazil would use its nukes only for peaceful purposes, only to protect the country from international attacks. “We have to waken up to the idea that Brazil needs to advance in this field to become a really strong country.”

During his talk to reporters in his cabinet in Brazilian capital Brasília, Alencar, who once was Defense minister, also defended the allocation of more resources to the Armed Forces. He wants the defense budget to be linked to the country’s GDP. “We need a GDP percentage between 3% and 5%, which would give much might to the defense’s system that needs care and has been abandoned for ages.”

The acting president stressed that he is a pacifist and that his opinion about the need for the A-bomb is given as a common citizen and not as the second in line of succession.

BM

President Kibaki accused the American Government of breaching protocol and expressed “displeasure and concern” about the action

By MURITHI MUTIGA

Relations between Kenya and America appeared to take a dramatic twist on Saturday night after President Kibaki wrote a protest note to President Obama over recent warnings issued to Kenyan officials whom the US accuses of blocking reforms.

President Kibaki accused the American Government of breaching protocol and expressed “displeasure and concern” about the action. US authorities remained tight lipped over the letter with Ambassador Michael Ranneberger telling the Sunday Nation he would not respond and that a reply would come from Washington.

President Kibaki’s unexpected decision to publicly take on Mr Obama could reopen fresh divisions within the grand coalition government because the letter appeared to contradict Prime Minister Raila Odinga’s position on the matter.

Mr Odinga told an audience at Harvard University on Thursday that the US was “totally entitled” to take action it deems appropriate against Kenyan officials. Mr Ranneberger had earlier announced that the State Department had written letters to 15 Kenyan government officials who it accused of blocking reforms or propagating the use of violence to achieve political goals.

The letters are said to have warned the officials that they could be banned from travelling to the US if they persisted in standing in the way of institutional changes recommended under the National Accord brokered by former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan.

Among those said to have received the letters are Cabinet ministers Mutula Kilonzo, Uhuru Kenyatta, William Ruto, Franklin Bett, George Saitoti and John Michuki. On Saturday evening, a State House official said President Kibaki took the unusual step to write a “polite and candid note” to President Obama because he felt that the warning letters to government officials “personalised the issue of reforms yet it is a question of changing institutions rather than individuals”.

NCK

By Amy Goodman

On Sept. 14, 2001, the U.S. House of Representatives considered House Joint Resolution 64, “To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against those responsible for the recent attacks launched against the United States.” The wounds of 9/11 were raw, and the lust for vengeance seemed universal. The House vote was remarkable, relative to the extreme partisanship now in evidence in Congress, since 420 House members voted in favor of the resolution. More remarkable, though, was the one lone vote in opposition, cast by Barbara Lee of San Francisco. Lee opened her statement on the resolution, “I rise today with a heavy heart, one that is filled with sorrow for the families and loved ones who were killed and injured in New York, Virginia and Pennsylvania.” Her emotions were palpable as she spoke from the House floor.

“September 11 changed the world. Our deepest fears now haunt us. Yet I am convinced that military action will not prevent further acts of international terrorism against the United States. … We must not rush to judgment. Far too many innocent people have already died. Our country is in mourning. If we rush to launch a counterattack, we run too great a risk that women, children and other noncombatants will be caught in the crossfire.”

The Senate also passed the resolution, 98-0, and sent it on to President George W. Bush. What he did with the authorization, and the Iraq War authorization a year later, has become, arguably, the greatest foreign policy catastrophe in United States history. What President Barack Obama will do with Afghanistan is the question now.

On Oct. 7, the U.S. enters its ninth year of occupation of Afghanistan—equal to the time the United States was involved in World War I, World War II and the Korean War combined. Obama campaigned on his opposition to the war in Iraq, but pledged at the same time to escalate the war in Afghanistan. On his first Friday in office, Commander in Chief Obama’s military fired three Hellfire missiles from an unmanned drone into Pakistan, reportedly killing 22 people, mostly civilians, including women and children. He has increased U.S. troops in Afghanistan by more than 20,000, to a total numbering 61,000. This does not count the private contractors in Afghanistan, who now outnumber the troops. The new U.S. military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is expected to ask for even more troops.

TD

Ertugrul Osman, who has died aged 97, should, technically speaking, have been addressed as His Imperial Highness Prince Ertugrul Osman Efendi.

Had events been otherwise his title would have been grander still: His Imperial Majesty Grand Sultan Osman V, Emperor of the Ottomans, Caliph of Islam. As it was, the man who would have been the 45th head of the continent-spanning Ottoman dynasty, founded by Osman I in 1299, lived on the third floor of a rent-controlled flat in New York and was content to be known as plain old Osman.

As a descendant of Abdul Hamid II (who reigned between 1876 and 1909) he was the last-surviving grandson of any serving Ottoman Emperor, and the only remaining scion of the dynasty to have been born in the imperial homeland.

His death marks the end of a story that reached its zenith at the gates of Vienna in 1683. Shortly after that failed siege, Ottoman power began to decline, culminating in its collapse and the establishment of the Turkish Republic under Kemal Ataturk in 1923. The royal family was subsequently expelled, and Osman, who was abroad at the time, did not return to Turkey until 1992.

During the intervening time he refused to take up a Turkish passport, claiming instead to be a citizen of the Ottoman Empire. With the help of a document drawn up by his lawyer he somehow managed to have this official limbo accepted by passport authorities until September 11 2001, when more stringent regulations came into force.

None the less, he was by no means a firebrand exile, never calling for the return of the Sultanate or the overthrow of the democratically elected government in Turkey. On the contrary, he seemed studiously determined to be as uncontroversial as possible, always replying to the question of whether he was in favour of a future Restoration with the simple answer “No”.

Ertugrul Osman was born in Istanbul on August 18 1912, the youngest son of Prince Mehmed Burhaneddin and his first wife Aliye Melek Nazliar Hanim, and spent his toddler years roaming the mahogany parquet corridors of the 285-room Dolmabahce Palace, which clings to the banks of the European side of the Bosporus.

Aged 10 he was sent to Vienna to study, and it was there that he heard, in March 1924, of the abolition of the caliphate, which gave the Sultan authority over the world’s Sunni Muslims and was the last significant imperial role to be scrapped by Ataturk. The Sultan and his family were sent into exile. “The men had one day to leave,” Osman recalled in a recent interview. “The women were given a week.”

Osman stayed in Vienna until the outbreak of war in 1939 and then moved to New York. By war’s end he was ensconced in a “walk-up” apartment above a restaurant on Lexington Avenue in Manhattan, the only residence in what was otherwise a commercial block.

He lived there with his first wife, Gulda Twerskoy, whom he married in 1947. It was, he admitted, a far cry from the opulent imperial residences in which he had grown up. But instead of growing embittered by his dramatic reversal of fortune, those who met him said Osman assessed his unique situation in understated, often comic tones.

He made his career in the mining business, with the company Wells Overseas, for whom he did indeed frequently travel abroad, particularly to South America. He was on a business trip there in 1974 when the imperial family’s exile was repealed and he was told he could apply for Turkish citizenship. “I was in Venezuela when we were granted amnesty,” he said later. “We had a mine there. A Turkish ambassador sent me the news: ‘Apply to us if you want to be a citizen. We can give you a passport or visa if you want.'”

Osman said he refused the offer, replying: “We do not need amnesty since we have not done anything wrong.”

TCO

By Jennifer Moore

Two months to the day after President Manuel Zelaya was ousted from power by the Honduran military and shipped off to Costa Rica in his pyjamas, the resilience and vitality of popular opposition to the coup is making history in this Central American society of economic extremes.

Since June 28th when Hondurans were denied the opportunity to participate in a mere opinion poll that had nothing to do with extending Zelaya’s term, thousands have been arbitrarily detained, dozens beaten and at least ten people killed by repressive state forces while press freedoms continue to be seriously curtailed.

Despite this – or rather as a direct outcome – day after day people keep turning out to marches, caravans, concerts, religious masses and meetings in order to demand an immediate return to constitutional order, the restitution of their democratically-elected president and renewed efforts toward greater equality and inclusion beginning with constitutional reforms.

During the 61st march yesterday, sandwiched between competing speaker systems belting out songs calling for Zelaya’s return, Bertha Cáceres from the Civic Council of Popular and Indigenous Organizations of Honduras (COPINH) and a leader in the National Front Against the Coup emphasized that the current pro-democracy struggle is an unprecedented achievement that has both surprised and impressed her.

Cáceres highlighted the strong and creative participation of women, youth, artists, indigenous and Afro-Hondurans which she indicates has been central to the momentum they have generated. She also comments on the extent of activity taking place around the country, observing “people of faith meeting for mass who are challenging the hierarchy of the Catholic and Evangelical churches [that have come out in support of the coup],” as well as residents of marginal neighbourhoods who are meeting to analyze the coup in community centres or within their water services committees.

Whatever the outcome, she says, “It’s important to believe in this force, in this capacity and desire for liberation from the yoke of dictatorship.”

Perceiving that Hondurans have taken a step forward toward greater political maturity and awareness, she says, “This is not about a dispute between leaders, it is a struggle between poor and rich. With or without the President, we see the potential and capacity to keep moving forward according our rights as Hondurans to create a society that is more just and more human.”

She reiterated their determination to start with constitutional reforms that would recognize women and the rights of indigenous peoples that are currently left out of the country’s foundational document. She adds that they would like to see the armed forces abolished, water rights included, and the right to free health care and education. “We dream of a constitution that will contribute to the dismantling of these forms of domination. This is really what [the coup leaders] were afraid of and why the idea of a popular consultation struck terror into them.”

Hondurans don’t owe obedience to usurpers

Hondurans already have the right to rise up against public officials who have taken control by force. Inscribed in Article 3 of their current 1982 political constitution, last week it was my turn to be surprised when a nine-year old boy recited this clause to me by heart.

We were both attending a gathering called by a delegation from the Inter American Human Rights Commission which was hearing testimonies from recent victims of violent repression at a motel in the city of Comayagua, northwest of the capital.

Word for word, in a steady voice he quoted as I recorded, “No one owes obedience to a government which usurps power nor those who assume public functions or employment through the use of arms or through means or processes that break or fail to recognize what the constitution and laws establish. The verified acts of such authorities are null. The people [of this country] have the right to recur to insurrection in defence of constitutional order.” (1)

“Compañera,” the boy continued, “We’ve been called to acts of resistance across the area and we are loyal witnesses to the abuses that this civilian-military dictatorship financed by the ten putrefied families of the country has submitted the people to. The coup leader Micheletti is no more than a political ranger who does not care if he kills in order to get his own way.”

“Sirs,” he urged looking into the windsock of my microphone beyond which he envisioned an international audience, “we need the immediate return of constitutional order through the restitution of our President José Manuel Zelaya to the Presidency of the Republic. Please, representatives of other countries, help us. We want a different Honduras. Thank you.”

AN

By MARC W. HEROLD

How many dead non-white civilians does it take for the U.S. to notice?
1

In the past few years, U.S. officialdom and the mainstream press have been barely taking note of dead Afghans unless the number exceeds 30. On the other hand, when an improved explosive device of the Taliban kills innocent bystanders, metres of newsprint spews forth accompanied by the victims’ photos. For the U.S. press, Human Rights Watch, and U.S. citizenry, some bodies are worthy of mention whereas others are not. As I wrote sometime ago,
“For the Pentagon and its many media boosters, there are good bodies (civilians killed by ‘our enemy’) and bad bodies (civilians killed by ‘our’ militaries), respectively in the Western mainstream labelled accidental collateral damage and (Afghan civilians transformed by the click on a keyboard into) ‘militants’ or ‘insurgents’. During the Yugoslav conflict, Human Rights Watch highlighted civilians killed by Serbs while neglecting civilians killed by non-Serbs. Today in Afghanistan, the U.S. mainstream media led by the Associated Press describe in detail the civilian victims of ‘Taliban’ suicide attacks, often even providing photographs, while remaining far more circumspect about the victims of U.S./NATO air strikes and never printing photographs.” 2

The slaughter in Kunduz on the night of September 3/4 of many Afghan civilians by a United States Air Force F-15E Strike Eagle dropping two 500-pound “precision” bombs upon a large group of people reveals (at least) two things: we know about this deadly attack because it took place in an area where the carnage could not be concealed (anymore); and we know about it because of the scale of the slaughter (too big to hide). But does anyone know about the young girl killed by a NATO missile and about her wounded sister when the “precision” missile struck their home on the night of September 1 in the village of Narizi in Tani district south-west of Khost city? Does anyone remember hearing about a massacre similar in its deadliness to that in Kunduz which occurred in Panjwayi district on October 24, 2006? Or the massacre in Haydarabad, Helmand, in June 2007?3

The context to understanding what took place in Kunduz is a long succession of such deadly U.S. attacks, many of which simply go unreported by the mainstream media but which I have reconstructed in the Afghan Victim Memorial Project (AVMP) website. Such callous killing is related to the very low value attached to an Afghan life.4

The AVMP website describes the attack upon Panjwayi, which involved similar numbers of civilian casualties to that in Kunduz

FL

By editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley

President Obama has the uncanny ability to achieve Bush-like ends by much smoother means. He announces a compromise on missile defense systems in Eastern Europe, then moves the weapons elsewhere on the continent. He initially tones down the rhetoric on Iran, then escalates the pressure on that country. “A smooth, intelligent president can be more dangerous than a blustering, boorish one.”

“Where Bush would be vilified, Obama will be lionized for committing the same acts of aggression.”

Citizens of the Islamic Republic of Iran have the right to live without fear of sanctions, military attack, and destruction at the hands of the United States. The Iranian government has the right to enrich uranium, launch satellites, build missiles or even to develop nuclear weapons. It has these rights of self-determination freely exercised by other nations, regardless of American, European or Israeli opinion.

The United States does not have the right to wage or even to threaten war against Iran, or to tell bald-faced lies about nonexistent threats. These lies are particularly egregious given the United States’ long history of invading, destabilizing or occupying many foreign countries, including Iran, all over the world.

This week president Obama announced changes to the Bush era missile defense plan for Europe. Media reports gave the impression that missile defense plans were being scrapped, when instead the number of proposed missile sites will actually expand from central Europe to include southern and northern Europe as well. In typically Obamaesque fashion, the president spoke as though a great positive change was taking place when the threat posed by the American military industrial complex has only increased.

“The premise of an Iranian threat is made up out of whole cloth.”
Obama, sounding like a Bush administration appointee instead of a Democratic president, claimed that Europe was in grave danger from Iranian missiles. He even quoted George W. Bush for good measure.
“As I said during the campaign, President Bush was right that Iran’s ballistic missile program poses a significant threat. And that’s why I’m committed to deploying strong missile defense systems which are adaptable to the threats of the 21st century.”

BAR

By Tom Eley , WSWS

On Tuesday, government leaders representing about 100 nations gathered at the United Nations in New York to discuss global warming. The meeting was billed as an attempt to jump-start negotiations in advance of a December summit in Copenhagen at which a global treaty governing greenhouse gas emissions is to be produced.

Instead, the New York conference only served to highlight the impossibility of realizing even the most limited environmental reforms in a world order dominated by rival capitalist nation states.

Global warming is caused by carbon dioxide emissions created in the burning of fossil fuels. Carbon and other “greenhouse gases” trap heat in the atmosphere, increasing the earth’s temperature beyond normal climatological fluctuations. Among global warming’s observed effects are the melting of the polar ice caps, which threatens coastal populations due to rising sea levels, and an increase in the severity of weather patterns. Its impact on the earth’s species, food production, water supply and human disease will be dramatic.

In light of the gathering threat of environmental catastrophe, the inability of the world heads of state to agree on even modest measures to meet it is all the more glaring. The conference revealed sharp divisions among the world’s three largest greenhouse gas producers, the US, China, and Europe.

China and the US by themselves produce 40 percent of all carbon emissions. The two nations, whose economies are also tightly bound together, have refused to agree to mandates on emission reductions. The speeches of presidents Barack Obama and Hu Jintao, both of whom addressed the UN gathering, were therefore watched with particular interest.

Obama’s remarks were typical of the president. Replete with saccharine rhetorical flourishes like “we are determined to act,” “difficulty is no excuse for complacency,” “seize the opportunity,” “the journey is long,” and so on, the speech had nothing to say about what the US might do to reduce its emissions.

“Yes, the developed nations that caused much of the damage to our climate over the last century still have a responsibility to lead,” Obama said. “And we will continue to do so by investing in renewable energy, promoting greater efficiency, and slashing our emissions to reach the targets we set for 2020 and our long-term goal for 2050.”

In fact, the US has taken no significant measures to reduce its carbon emissions. The US is not a signatory to the Kyoto Protocol of 1997, after Congress, on cue from major corporate polluters, refused to ratify the treaty. The US is the only major country not to pass Kyoto.

WS

Editorial:
Nairobi — The American government has made good its threat to deal firmly with Kenyan leaders slowing down the reform process. It handed, or is handing, letters threatening travel bans on the supposed recalcitrant leaders, signalling the Obama administration’s distaste for poor governance.

By all counts, Kenya’s reform process has been disappointingly slow. Two years after signing the National Accord, most items listed under Agenda Four are yet to be acted upon. But this is not to say that nothing has been done.

The electoral process is undergoing changes, the police force is under new leadership and land policies are being reviewed.

However, the Judiciary, under Chief Justice Evan Gicheru, the State Law Office under Attorney-General Amos Wako and the civil service under Mr Francis Muthaura are untouched. Thousands of internally displaced people are still languishing in camps.

The appointment of kenya anti-corruption Commission director Aaron Ringera, which has consumed national energies in the past three weeks add to the disappointment about structural reforms. Even so, carrying out reforms is a long, tedious and arduous affair. It is not a one-person affair either; it is a collective undertaking.

So, whereas we welcome the push from friends like the US government to expedite the constitutional, institutional and political changes, we recognise the fact that the approach with which to deal with a leadership at a crossroads like Kenya’s matters most.
There is the danger of being seen to be too intrusive, patronising and antagonistic and, in the process, creating a backlash. Anti-reformists may seize this opportunity to whip up nationalistic emotions and turning the tide against the reform agenda.

It is questionable, for example, how in a situation in which several variables are at play, one can pin down 15 people as the obstacle to change.

AA