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: Colombo, Genocide, Imperialism, LTTE, Mullaitivu, Racism, Sinhala, Sinhala Majoritarianism, Sinhalese, Sri Lanka, Tamil Civilians, Tamil National Alliance, Tamil Tigers, Trincomalee
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( Dated Piece | 26 May 2009 )
Source: The Daily Telegraph
The Sri Lankan government has been accused of launching a campaign of “ethnic cleansing” following its victory over the Tamil Tigers in the country’s 26 year civil war.
Aid officials, human rights campaigners and politicians claim Tamils have been driven out of areas in the north-east of the country by killings and kidnappings carried out by pro-government militias.
They say the government has simultaneously encouraged members of the Sinhalese majority in the south to relocate to the vacated villages.
One foreign charity worker told the Daily Telegraph the number of Tamils disappearing in and around Trincomalee, 50 miles south of the final conflict zone in Mullaitivu, had been increasing in the last three months.
He claimed to have known 15 of the disappeared, three of whom had been found dead. He said all three bodies showed signs of torture, while two were found with their hands tied behind their backs and single bullet wounds in their heads.
Another aid worker said the killings were part of a strategy to (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: Asia, Middle East, North America | Tags: Ali Khamenei, Arab, Baloch, Barak Obama, Basiji, CIA, Election Fraud, Green Revolution, Hossein Mousavi, Imperialism, Iran, Iran Elections 2009, Iran Protests, Islamic Republic of Iran, Kurds, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Mass Protests, Mossad, Pakistan, Protests, State Repression, Tehran, Zionism
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18 June 2009
Source: The Hindu
The paranoia about interference from the West is worrying — but it may also be justified.
Long-term instability in Iran is an alarming prospect for western countries keen to resolve disputes over the country’s nuclear programme and other contentious issues. But continuing political weakness in Tehran is also likely to produce the opposite effect — increased regime concern about external attempts to interfere, destabilise, and exploit its vulnerabilities. This paranoid trend threatens unpredictable, even dangerous consequences – but may be justified.
Pinning blame for Iran’s post-election turmoil on (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, Middle East, North America | Tags: Afghanistan, AfPak, Al-Qaeda, Baitullah Mehsud, CIA, Imperialism, Israeli, Mossad, Pakistan, Qari Zainuddin, Racism, Taliban, Terrorism, US Invasion, War, Zionism
Qari Zainuddin (centre), surrounded by his armed guard in northwestern Pakistan
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23 June 2009
Source: Press TV
A tribal leader who earlier defected from Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud and revealed the militants group’s ties with the US and Israel has been shot dead.
The assassination of Qari Zainuddin comes days after he revealed that their comrade was pursuing a US-Israeli agenda across the violence-wracked country.
Zainuddin, a 26-year-old rising tribesman who had called Mehsud “an American agent” was killed by a gunman in northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday.
Zainuddin, who broke away from Mehsud, was also increasingly critical of Mehsud’s use of suicide bombings targeting civilians.
In an interview with local media the defector said that Mehsud had (more…)
Filed under: Indian Subcontinent | Tags: Chauvanism, Colombo, Colonial, Colonizer, Dictatorship, Fascism, Fascist, Genocide, Imperialism, Imperialist, Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, LTTE, Mahinda Rajapakse, Militarism, Military, Nationalism, Racist, Sri Lanka, Tamils, United National Party, United Peoples Freedom Alliance
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23 June 2009
Source: World Socialist Website
In an extraordinary, anti-democratic move, the ruling coalition in Sri Lanka—the United Peoples Freedom Alliance (UPFA)—has begun to sound out amending the constitution to allow President Mahinda Rajapakse to remain in office beyond his six-year term without facing a new election.
For weeks, the government has been whipping up a climate of communal triumphalism following the army’s victory over the separatist Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Now it is seeking to exploit the atmosphere to entrench Rajapakse in the powerful post of executive president.
Under the present constitution, presidents can serve (more…)
