Month: July 2010

by KEVIN EDMONDS

Many Jamaicans are hoping that Coke will reveal the long history of connections between the country’s political leaders, its business elite, and its gunmen in the street. Such revelations are likely to illuminate the connections among the Jamaican Labour Party (JLP, the country’s conservative political party), the government, gangsters, and the past actions of the CIA, which helped create one of Jamaica’s most powerful organized crime organizations, the Shower Posse. These links are ever more important as the United States is poised to invest millions of dollars to make the Caribbean its newest front in the drug war, ostensibly fighting some of the same personalities and groups they helped create.

North American Congress on Latin America for more

UNESCO

Social science from Western countries continues to have the greatest global influence, but the field is expanding rapidly in Asia and Latin America, particularly in China and Brazil. In sub-Saharan Africa, social scientists from South Africa, Nigeria and Kenya produce 75% of academic publications. In South Asia, barring some centres of excellence in India, social sciences as a whole have low priority. These are a few of the findings from World Social Science Report, 2010: “Knowledge divides”.

United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization for more

via Chapati Mystery

Such women run extra risks in the slum neighbourhoods because many criminals believe in the myth that they won’t be arrested so quickly if they have raped a woman the age of their grandmother. The oldest victim, reports a hospital that takes in the victims, is 105.

Many such slum dwellers live in fear, and karate lessons will help them to overcome that – not to mention dole out a few telling blows if necessary.

Radio Netherlands Worldwide

THE HINDU

After a two-year lull, India has proposed to resume talks with Iran on importing gas through a pipeline passing through Pakistan, but the Persian Gulf state wants the meeting to happen in Tehran.

India in April proposed a meeting of the India-Iran Joint Working Group (JWG) between May 23 and 28 in New Delhi to discuss the Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project, but Tehran has not yet confirmed the dates.

Now Iran has told India that the meeting of JWG should happen in Tehran, a source close to the development said.

The Hindu for more

(Submitted by Pritam Rohila)

SANSAD (News Release July 15, 2010)

In 1940 The Film Advisory Board was set up by the British colonial regime to censor films that might promote the independence movement in India. In keeping with its colonial inheritance the Indian Censor Board, which has an inglorious history of suppressing information and views inconvenient for the state has refused to certify ‘Flames of the Snow’, a historical feature film on Nepal, for public screening on the ground that the film ‘tells about Maoist movement in Nepal and justifies its ideology.’ As this appears to this repressive apparatus of the Indian state to be dangerous in view of ‘the recent Maoist violence in some parts of the country,’ it refuses permission for the public screening of the film. As such, this repressive act becomes a part of the current assault, code named “Operation Green Hunt” undertaken by the Government of India against the adivasis/tribals led by the Communist Party of India (Maoist0 who are engaged in a battle to defend their land, livelihood and lives against the impact of neo-liberal globalization. Produced under the joint banner of ‘GRINSO’ and ‘Third World Media,’ the film has been produced and scripted by Anand Swaroop Verma, a senior journalist with expertise on Nepalese affairs, and is directed by Ashish Srivastava.

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD), an organization of South Asian diaspora in British Columbia, Canada, dedicated to promoting democracy, secularism and social justice, finds this repressive act of the instrument of the Government of India utterly reprehensible. Such suppression of information?the film deals with the history of the Nepalese monarchy and the popular struggle against it culminating in the Maoist insurgency that led to its abolition?is alien to democracy and an open society, which India claims to be. It is our understanding that Mr. Verma is submitting the film for reconsideration and we strongly urge the Censor Board to revise its decision and grant the film permission for public screening without any demand that it engage in self-censorship to make itself acceptable to the Indian state.

Board of Directors
South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD)

South Asian Network for Secularism and Democracy (SANSAD)
# 435-552A Clark Road, Coquitlam, BC; sansad@sansad.org

by FAIZA S. KHAN

The censor board, to be fair, is known to be a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma, merrily releasing graphically violent local films whose vulgar depictions of sexuality would shame the Marquis of Sade, while banning ‘The Da Vinci Code’ (due to Pakistan’s profound respect for its Christian minority, often expressed by denuding them of all their rights and massacring them in their homes). As such, TBL’s falling foul of Pakistan’s censors is imminently un-newsworthy in itself; it is the unprecedented reasoning for the ban, however, which sets alarm bells ringing. TBL isn’t being banned for the usual reasons — that it’s injurious to the national image or because it might encourage young people to have sex or an independent thought, nor because it’s an Indian film and the rallying cry of the post-Partition subcontinent has long been ‘loathe thy neighbour’; it’s being banned for fear of reprisal from those whose sentiments will be wounded by a frivolous film referencing bin Laden.

The Times of India for more

(Submitted by Robin Khundkar)

by JONATHAN FENBY

The war in Algeria played the key role in enabling de Gaulle to return to power in May 1958, at the age of 67. Though his memoirs paint a characteristic portrait of a leader who knew what he was doing, research for my new biography shows that his policy toward the crisis across the Mediterranean combined hope and frustration. He hoped that France could dominate the National Liberation Front (FLN) militarily, and was frustrated at the extremely messy political situation on the ground and the difficulty of persuading the settlers that maintaining the status quo was untenable.

The Japan Times for more

by PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

It is possible to clear away the confusion. First, understand that a free market is one in which prices are free to respond to supply and demand. Economists of all persuasions understand that to fix a price below the price at which supply and demand equate results in shortages. Economists have learned this from rent control. Fixing a price above the price at which supply and demand equate results in surpluses. Economists have learned this from agricultural subsidies. A free market does not mean a market in which human behavior is not regulated. A free market is one in which supply and demand are permitted to equate.

Counterpunch for more

“At Ada Barak’s spa in northern Israel, snakes don’t give people the creeps. They give deep-tissue massages. Photo: xinhuanet forum.” PHOTO/Xinhua/Global Times

(Notice the difference. There is a different message for the white color crayon: “Welcome to Arizona. Have a nice day.” In other words: All you colored people, go back. Ed.)

“I’m kind of expecting crayon makers to come out with a “Whiter Shades of Pale” series any day now.” Julian Real of A Radical Profeminist