PDF-Version: selected 24.01.2020
Selected articles (January 24, 2020)
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1a)
American Ideals at Heart of Assange Extradition Case
By Nozomi Hayase
January 19, 2020
„On Monday, Jan. 13, WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange appeared at Westminster Magistrates Court in his fight against extradition to the U.S. The administrative hearing concerned Assange’s lack of access to legal counsel, making it difficult for him to adequately prepare for his case. His lawyer, Gareth Peirce, told the judge that U.K. prison is blocking her client from reviewing key evidence. She has only had two hours with him since his last hearing in December. […]“
„[…] After Monday’s hearing, while being transported from Westminster Magistrates Court, Assange looked out into a crowd from inside a police van and acknowledged their support. A man shouted loudly, “Stay strong, you will be free.” Assange sacrificed his liberty so that we could all be free. By releasing documents, WikiLeaks set a frozen history in motion. History is now happening, and Assange’s plight is our story, in which each person has a significant role to play. […]“
1b)
Empire War on Oppositional Journalism Escalates
By Caitlin Johnstone
January 23, 2020
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/23/empire-war-on-oppositional-journalism-escalates/
“Journalist Glenn Greenwald has been charged by the Bolsonaro government in Brazil with the same prosecutorial angle used by the U.S. to target WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. […]”
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2a)
UN Security Council Hears OPCW Inspector Testimony About The Manipulation Of ‚Chemical Attack‘ Reports
Moon of Alabama
January 21, 2020
„We have long maintained that the alleged chemical attack in Douma, Syria, on April 7 2018 was faked by Jihadists shortly before they were evicted from that Damascus suburb.
By the end of last year leaked documents and a whistle blower from the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) had proven that the OPCW managers had manipulated the report their staff had written about the incident. […]“
„[…] Using the Arria-formula, a procedure to have witnesses testify to the UN Security Council, Russia and China invited other UN members to listen to the testimony of OPCW inspector Ian Henderson. He denounced the false final report the OPCW management had published. Henderson, a South African engineer, was a team leader at the OPCW where he had worked for more than twelve years.
Henderson’s testimony can be watched here. Philip Watson transcribed Henderson’s speech:[…]“
2b)
China’s Syria Policy to increase Beijing’s Middle East Footprint
By Adham Sahloul
January 24, 2020
„[…] If there is no change in the political and diplomatic status quo, Syria’s massive reconstruction financing needs can only be met by China. Deeper and broadened U.S. sanctions on Syria advanced by the Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act (2019) serve as a deterrent to doing business with Damascus.
Stabilising Syria critical to protecting & advancing China’s Investments in Region
But China has built leverage against U.S. sanctions and is developing its own, parallel multilateral financial and development institutions that can use Chinese public-private partnerships to produce the lion’s share of the estimated $400 billion reconstruction costs.
More than 200 Chinese companies attended the 2018 Damascus International Fair, and Chinese telecommunications, oil and gas, and transportation sectors have begun exploring investments in Syria’s fledgling infrastructure.
Fifty eight Chinese Companies attended in 2019, undeterred by sanctions warnings by the U.S. Department of State. Helping rehabilitate the Syrian Arab Army could also boost Chinese arms exports. Stabilising Syria will be critical to protecting and advancing China’s investments in the region. […]“
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3a)
Pompeo to Iraq: If You Kick Us Out, We Will Bury You
By Mike Whitney
January 20, 2020
https://www.unz.com/mwhitney/pompeo-to-iraq-if-you-kick-us-out-we-will-bury-you/
„[…] So while the oil giants continue to rake in burgeoning profits on record oil extraction, millions of Iraqis are living hand-to-mouth in an increasingly hardscrabble and dystopian environment. The media typically scapegoats the government for Iraq’s problems, (“mismanagement, bureaucratic inefficiency, and corruption”) but the real source of the troubles is the US invasion. Before the invasion, Iraq was a relatively-secure, moderately-prosperous country. Now it is a broken, dysfunctional failed state that remains helplessly pinned beneath Washington’s boot-heel. That is unlikely to change under the present administration which has already expressed its intention to extend the occupation into perpetuity. The Iraq war is the greatest catastrophe of our time. Aside from a handful of fanatical Likudniks and behemoth oil companies, no one has benefited at all. A 5,000 year-old civilization was sadistically bombed into oblivion so Washington and its ally, Israel, could redraw the map of the Middle East and establish their hegemony over a strategically-critical region of the world. Author Nir Rosen summed it up like this in an interview on Democracy Now 10 years ago. He said, “We’ve destroyed Iraq and we’ve destroyed the region, and Americans need to know this.”“
3b)
How a Hidden Parliamentary Session Revealed Trump’s True Motives in Iraq
By Whitney Webb
January 17, 2020
„The U.S. is adamant that its assassination of Qassem Soleimani and refusal to leave Iraq is about protecting Americans, but a little known Iraqi parliamentary session reveals how China increasingly strong ties to Baghdad may be shaping America’s new Mideast strategy.[…]“
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4a)
Richest 1% own more than twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people, says report
By Countercurrents Collective
January 20, 2020
„A super-rich one percent of the world’s population has accumulated twice as much wealth as the remaining 90 percent, said a new report by Oxfam, a global charity. The report has been released on January 20, 2020 on the eve of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.[…]“
4b)
Time to care
Unpaid and underpaid care work and the global inequality crisis
By Max Lawson, Anam Parvez Butt, Rowan Harvey, Diana Sarosi, Clare Coffey, Kim Piaget, Julie Thekkudan
OXFAM International
January 20, 2020
https://www.oxfam.org/en/research/time-care
„Economic inequality is out of control. In 2019, the world’s billionaires, only 2,153 people, had more wealth than 4.6 billion people. This great divide is based on a flawed and sexist economic system that values the wealth of the privileged few, mostly men, more than the billions of hours of the most essential work – the unpaid and underpaid care work done primarily by women and girls around the world.[…]“
Full report:
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5a)
In the Name of “Israel’s Security”: Retreating US Gives Israel Billions More in Military Funding
By Ramzy Baroud
January 21, 2020
„Billions of US tax-payers’ money will continue to be funneled into Israel in the next fiscal year, and for many years in the foreseeable future. Republican and Democratic Senators have recently achieved just that, passing a bill aimed at providing Israel with $3.3 billion in annual aid. […]“
„[…] According to the public policy research institute of the United States Congress, Congressional Research Center (CRS), between 1946 and 2019 (including the requested funds for 2020) US aid to Israel has exceeded $142 billion.
The vast majority of this funding – over $101 billion – went directly to the Israeli military budget, while over $34 billion and $7 billion were given to Israel in terms of economic aid and missile defense funding, respectively. […]“
5b)
Israeli forces’ transfer of Palestinian child detainees amounts to war crime
By Defense for Children International Palestine (DCIP)
January 20, 2020
„[…] At the end of December 2019, at least 186 Palestinian children aged between 14 and 17 years old were detained in the Israeli military detention system, according to the most recent data released by the IPS. The overwhelming majority of Palestinian children detained by Israeli authorities are held in Ofer prison in the occupied West Bank or unlawfully transfered to Megiddo prison located inside Israel, according to IPS figures. […]“
„[…] Israel’s practice of unlawfully transferring Palestinian prisoners out of occupied territory has been challenged twice before the Israeli Supreme Court. In both instances, the court held that when in conflict, primary Israeli legislation overrides the provisions of international law. […]“
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6a)
The United States: a Record-Holder in Political Assassinations
By Wayne Madsen
January 22, 2020
„[…] U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has indicated that the Trump administration has not only restored the Cheney policy of targeted assassinations but reserves the right to carry out assassinations of other “challengers” to U.S. interests. In a speech at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, which was titled “The Restoration of Deterrence: The Iranian Example,” Pompeo stressed that additional leaders of Iran, presumably including Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, as well as leaders of Russia and China, could be targeted for assassination as part of America’s “bigger strategy.” Pompeo stressed that the new U.S. deterrence through assassination policy “isn’t confined to Iran.” In addition to Iran, Russia, and China, Pompeo indicated that political and religious leaders in Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, and elsewhere were subject to U.S. assassination. That has been taken by many in the Middle East to include the leadership of Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthis in Yemen, and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. […]“
6b)
Ten Best Messages for Waging Peace
By Richard Moser
January 23, 2020
„The rapid response to US war moves against Iran has been an exciting start toward rebuilding the anti-war movement we so desperately need. Thousands took to the streets in more than 80 cities. It’s a great beginning. But, if we want a movement of millions we are going to have to reach everyday people outside of the existing movement, outside of partisan politics and outside of strictly moral appeals.[… ]“
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7a)
What Trump Didn’t Know About Cultural Locations in Iran
By Ann Wright
January 22, 2020
https://consortiumnews.com/2020/01/22/what-trump-didnt-know-about-cultural-locations-in-iran/
„[…] President Donald Trump’s comment about bombing 52 cultural sights of Iran if the Iranians retaliated against the U.S. assassination by killer drone of a top Iranian military officer was walked back the Secretary of Defense Mark Esper. “The U.S. will comply with the Law of Armed conflict” which forbids the destruction of cultural sites, Esper said. […]“
7b)
Why Iran Should Ditch the Hopeless Nuclear Deal
By Finian Cunningham
January 19,2020
https://www.strategic-culture.org/contributors/finian-cunningham/
„[…] The Europeans are turning reality on its head. Condemning Iran for violating the deal is the cowardly wheeze of “blaming the victim” while whitewashing the very real and much greater violations by the US and the Europeans themselves. Telling Iran that it must “take steps to de-escalate” is an absurd distortion of the relentless build up of military force by the US in the Middle East aimed at Iran. The Europeans make the risible claim that they are not joining the US “maximum pressure” campaign when that is exactly what they are doing.[…]“
7c)
Iran Counters EU Threat Of Snapback Sanctions
Moon of Alabama
January 20, 2020
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2020/01/iran-counters-eu-threat-of-snapback-sanctions.html#more
„U.S. President Donald Trump wants to destroy the nuclear agreement with Iran. He has threatened the EU-3 poodles in Germany, Britain and France with a 25% tariff on their car exports to the U.S. unless they end their role in the JCPOA deal. […] Iran is now countering the European move. Its Foreign Minister Javad Zarif announced that Iran may leave the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) if any of the European countries escalates the issue to the UNSC. […]“
7d)
2020 Marked by a Tumultuous Start for Human Rights in Iran
By National Iranian American Council
January 20, 2020
„On January 14, Human Rights Watch released its annual summary of the state of human rights in Iran, reviewing Iran’s from brutal crackdowns on protests, arbitrary arrests, and execution; Iran’s continued discrimination based on religion, gender, and orientation; and the humanitarian impact of U.S. sanctions.[…]“
7e)
China investments in Iran near $27b
January 22, 2020
„China invested $26.92 billion in Iran from 2005 to 2019. The American Enterprise Institute added that of the total investment volume, 1.53 billion were made in chemical industries, $11.1 billion in energy, $4.96 billion in metals, $160 million in real estate, $6.92 billion in transport and $2.25 billion in utilities. Among Iran’s neighboring countries, China invested $56.33 billion in Pakistan, $3.48 billion in Afghanistan, $6.8 billion in Turkmenistan, $1.92 billion in Azerbaijan, $15.96 billion in Turkey, $23.95 in Iraq, $41.16 billion in Saudi Arabia and $34.7 billion in the UAE over the period.“
7f)
Investigation opens into ‚detention‘ of Iranian-Americans at US border
By Sheren Khalel
January 8, 2020
https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/DHS-opens-investigation-detention-Iranian-Americans-US-border
„The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has opened an investigation into reports that scores of Iranian-Americans were stopped and questioned at US points of entry, possibly in violation of their constitutional rights.[…]“
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Amir Mortasawi (alias Afsane Bahar) (امیر مرتضوی (افسانه بهار 