Filed under: Europe, Middle East | Tags: British Petroleum, Colonialism, Genocide, Imperialism, Iraq, Iraqi Oil, Iraqi Oil Fields, Racism, White Supremacy
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1 July 2009
Source: Global Research
Iraq’s government today approved a BP-led consortium’s offer to develop a giant oil field in the south, moving forward with the only deal struck during a much-hyped but ultimately disappointing international oil auction.
Iraq, which is desperate for cash to fund its reconstruction efforts, had put six oil and two gas fields on offer to foreign firms yesterday in the country’s first international oil licensing round in over three decades. But the auction — opposed from the start by many of the country’s lawmakers — failed to elicit the kind of excitement or commitments Iraqi oil officials had anticipated.
BP and its Chinese consortium partner CNPC walked away from the auction with development rights for the 17.8 billion barrel Rumaila field. But their win came only after they agreed to take less money for the oil they produced.
Under the service contracts, the companies are paid a per barrel price for production over a minimum target level. BP and CNPC had bid $3.99 per barrel, but slashed their price to the $2 per barrel payment sought by the oil ministry. Their only rivals for the fields, a consortium led by US giant Exxon Mobil, refused to amend its offer of $4.80 per barrel on target production of 3.1 million barrels per day.
The Cabinet of ministers signed off on the (more…)
Filed under: Middle East, North America | Tags: Colonialism, Genocide, Imperialism, Iraq, Iraqi Oil, Oil, Oil Fields, Racism, US Imperialism
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30 June 2009
Source: World Socialist Website
It is fitting that today’s deadline for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq’s cities coincides with a meeting in Baghdad to auction off some of the country’s largest oil fields to companies such as ExxonMobil, Chevron and British Petroleum. It is a reminder of the real motives for the 2003 invasion and in whose interests over one million Iraqis and 4,634 American and other Western troops have been killed. The Iraq war was, and continues to be, an imperialist war waged by the American ruling elite for control of oil and geo-strategic advantage.
The contracts will facilitate the first large-scale exploitation of Iraq’s energy resources by US and other transnationals since the country’s oil industry was nationalised in 1972. On offer are 20-year rights over (more…)
Filed under: Middle East | Tags: Apartheid, Colonialism, Imperialism, incarceration, Israel, Israeli Apartheid, Militarism, Occupied Palestine, Palestine, Palestinian, Political Prisoners, Prison, Racist, Settler-Colonialism, State Terror, Terror, White Supremacy, Zionist
26 June 2009
Source: Electronic Intifada
RAMALLAH, occupied West Bank (IPS) – The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has accused the Israeli security forces of deliberately shackling Palestinian prisoners in a painful and dangerous manner, amounting to a form of torture.
The report, “Shackling as a Form of Torture and Abuse,” based on the evidence of over 500 prisoners, was released in advance of the UN International Day in Support of Torture Victims Friday, 26 June.
It follows a report published in May by the UN Committee Against Torture that had criticized the continued mistreatment of Palestinian prisoners by Israel.
The UN report also condemned Israel’s refusal to allow access to a secret detention centre known only as Facility 1391.
The report by the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) states that Israel’s various security agencies, chiefly the (more…)
Filed under: Global, Middle East, North America | Tags: America, Apartheid, Barack Obama, Colonialism, Ethnic Cleansing, Gaza, Gaza City, gaza Strip, Hamas, Historic Paliestine, Imperialism, Ismail Haniyeh, Israel, Israeli Apartheid, Likud, Militarism, Occupied Palestine, One State, Oslo Accords, Palestine, Palestinian, Palestinian Authority, Racism, State Terror, Two-State, US-Israel, West Bank, White Suprmeacy, Zionism, Zionist, Zionist Entity
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25 June 2009
Soruce: Electronic Intifada
When Hamas, unexpectedly, won the 2006 parliamentary elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, the message from the one-third of the Palestinian people living in those territories was clear: no more of the “peace process” facade — with its untiring “two-state solution” slogan that never materialized, and no more of the bread crumbs offered to the new inauthentic NGOized, Osloized leadership classes. (In the years since the 1993 Oslo accords, funding NGOs — nongovernmental organizations — has been a major means for foreign governments to influence, co-opt and neutralize Palestinian politics. This process of “Osloization” made some Palestinian organizations more loyal to their funders than to their principles.)
Many of those who voted Hamas into power were not, in fact, supporters of the organization, but rather disgruntled Palestinians looking for change and reform after 13 years of futile, meaningless negotiations that did huge damage to the Palestinian cause and transformed it from a liberation struggle supported by millions all over the world into a (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Colonialism, Genocide, IDP, IDPS, Imperialism, Internally Displaced Persons, Nation-State, Racism, Sinhala, Sinhala Chauvinism, Sri Lanka, State Terror, Tamil, Tamil Civilians, Tamil Diaspora, War
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( Dated Piece |03 June 2009 )
Source: Tamil Guardian
Desperation is rife among the 280,000 Tamil civilians imprisoned in internment camps in northern Sri Lanka with countless civilians unable to locate or contact relatives missing or separated during the bloody chaos that ensued during the final weeks of the Sri Lankan military onslaught.
Many clutched a razor wire fence, desperately searching the crowds on the other side for a familiar face as they tried to discover whether their loved ones were still alive and at liberty, or in another of the camps, a British newspaper reporter describing the plight of the civilians in one of the camps wrote.
Some are still hoping to find relatives amid the rows of tents that provide a temporary home.
But others say relatives were separated out by the military, suspected of being Tamil Tigers.
One refugee said that thousands of fleeing civilians were (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: armed Forces Speical Powers Act, Colonialism, Imperialism, Indian Occupation, Kashmir, Militarism, Military, Patriarchy, Self-Determination, Shopian
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Source: South Asia Citizens Web
The news of the rape and murder of two young women in Shopian in Kashmir is deeply shocking. We condemn this violence in the strongest possible terms.
We are also deeply disturbed by the reaction of the State. Instead of speaking out against this flagrant violation of human rights, and particularly the right of women to live safely and with dignity, instead of taking speedy and firm steps to bring the perpetrators to book, the State and the new administration first denied the rape of women and then attempted to justify it by (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: 9/11, Afghanistan, AfPak, Air Strikes, Al Jazeera, Al-Qaeda, American Imperialism, Asif Ali Zardari, Baitullah Mehsud, Barak Obama, Bill Clinton, bin Ladern, Central Asia, CIA, Colonialism, Congress Government, Drone Attacks, Fata, Federally Administered Tribal Areas, Hillary Clinton, Humeira Iqtidar, India, ISI, Malakand, Manmohan Singh, Militants, Mujahedeen, Mullah Omar, New Delhi, NWFP, Obama Administration, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Pakistani Government, Pakistanis, Partition, Pashtun, Pervez Musharraf, Racism, Ruling Class, South Asia, Soviet Union, Swat Valley, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US interests, US military, US occupation, War on Terror, White Supremacy
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June 2009
Source: Liberation
Even as the US military offensive intensifies in Afghanistan, a parallel offensive by the Pakistani Army, clearly under US pressure, in the country’s autonomous region of Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and North West Frontier Province (NWFP), is underway. Estimates suggest that over 10 lakh civilians are being forced to flee the Swat Valley, one of the major theatres of the war, in what is being called the biggest displacement of people since the Partition (1947). While US air strikes recently massacred 150 civilians, mostly women and children, in Afghanistan, Pakistan’s military strikes are said to have killed hundreds of (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Afghan Taliban, AfPak, Benazir Bhutto, Buner, Chand Bibi, Colonialism, Fata, Feminism, Flogging, Honour Killing, Imperialism, Iran, ISI, Madrassa, Malakand, Maulana Fazlullah, Militarism, Mujahideen, Mullah Omar, Nizam-e-Adl, Pakistan, Pakistani Army, Paternalism, President Asif Ali Zardari, Protests, Punjab, Racism, Saba Mahmood, Sharia, Shirin Ebadi, Sindh, Sufi Mohammed, Swat, Swat Flogging, Swat Taliban, Taliban, Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi, US bombing, US Drone Attacks, US Invasion, War, Women's Rights, Yusuf Raza Gilani
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( Dated Piece | 30 April 2009 )
Source: Open Democracy
The distorting glare of the mainstream media obscures a more complex reality in restive Pakistan
Who are the ” Taliban” in Pakistan? Islamist militants in the country have won significant international attention after wrestling control over the Swat Valley, the restive region in northern Pakistan where elements of sharia law are now in place. Yet these militants do not self-identify as “Taliban”, unlike the Afghan Taliban who chose the name for themselves, and preferred it to the then generic term “mujahideen”. The term “Taliban” means students; the original Taliban were educated in madrassas, religious schools. Groups and individuals that are being labelled the “Taliban in Pakistan” (TIP) are very different from their Afghan counterparts in important respects. It is pertinent not just to think through the implications of these differences but also to raise questions about why distinguishing details are being lost in the media frenzy of recent months.
In Swat, the group that has gained the most notoriety in recent months calls itself Tehreek Nifaz e Sharia Mohammadi (TNSM). This can be roughly translated as the “Movement for the (more…)
Filed under: "canada", Indigenous, North America | Tags: Barriere Lake, Barriere Lake First Nation, Colonialism, Imperialism, incarceration, Prison Population, Racism, Settler-Colonialism, Settler-Colony, White Supremacy
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29 March 2009
Source: The Dominion
TRADITIONAL TERRITORY OF SNUNEYMUXW FIRST NATION (NANAIMO, BC)– “It is a scandal that Chief Nottaway spent Christmas in jail for peaceful civil disobedience to demand governments live up to their responsibilities,” said Federal Green Party leader Elizabeth May at a rally in Ottawa on January 7 in support of the jailed Customary Chief.
Chief Benjamin Nottaway of the Barriere Lake First Nation was sentenced to two months imprisonment for peacefully proclaiming rights to traditional territories in Western Quebec.
In 2001, the government of Canada reneged on the binding 1991 Trilateral Agreement, a sustainable development and resource co-management agreement between Canada and the Barriere Lake First Nation.
The Algonquins of Barrière Lake First Nation are demanding (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Abducted Women, Africa, Ashis Nandy, Babri Masjid, Bengal, Bengal Famine, Calcutta, Colonialism, Concentration Camps, Cyprus, Development, Dispossession, Empire, Gandhi, Gandhian, Genocdie, Gujarat, Gurkhas, Hindu, Hindu Militants, Hindu Nationailsm, Hinduism, Holocaust, Hybridity, Imperialism, India, Ireland, Islam, Lahore, Middle Class, Migration, Modernity, Muslim, Nazi, Oppression, Pakistan, Palestine, Partition of Bengal, Patriarchy, Postcolonial, Punjab, Racism, Rajputs, Saadat Hassan Manto, Sikhs, South Asia, Victims, White Supremacy
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Source: Manas
Outside South Asia, the partition of India evokes little recognition. As the British left India, the largest single migration in history took place: well over ten million, and perhaps as many as fifteen million, people crossed borders, and a million or more became the victims of murderous assaults. Both the Governments of India and Pakistan established commissions for the “recovery” of abducted women who numbered in several tens of thousands. Numbing as these figures are, they barely register in world histories: perhaps that indifference to the calamity that afflicted India and Pakistan betokens the view that (more…)
