Wednesday, May 16, 2012

AP is reporting: “Government troops and warplanes pounded al-Qaida positions in southern Yemen on Wednesday, killing at least 29 militants as part of a ramped up campaign against the group, military officials said.”

IZZA-DEEN EL ASBAHI, via Ryme Katkhouda,  http://www.annd.org, http://hritc.info/en
El Asbahi is founder and director of the Human Rights Information and Training Center in Yemen. He said today: “The U.S. military and the Yemeni government frequently launch these attacks and claim they are killing al-Qaida fighters. But the fact is quite often they are killing regular people, or political opponents of the regime who are not al-Qaida. This ends up having the effect of causing more resentment and gives al-Qaida more recruits. After the start of the uprising a year ago, the U.S. declared they would get rid of al-Qaida in a matter of three weeks. Today al-Qaida controls a region ten times the size of Bahrain with sea port access.”

This week El Asbahi is in Washington, D.C. with a delegation of the Arab NGO Network for Development, which also includes representatives from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia and other Arab countries.

He added: “Military intervention and use of violence has left a negative impact and does not achieve the stated goal of eliminating terrorism. The elimination of terrorism starts with the support of local development. Airplane and drone bombings nurture terrorism as they enroll more people struggling with poverty, anger and fear with al-Qaida which gives them a salary and a Kalashnikov to empty their anger. While in city of Taiz, a stronghold of the left and revolution in Yemen, they still talk fondly of U.S. aid and the ‘Kennedy project’ of drinking water distribution.”

The Arab NGO delegation just released a paper, “Overview and Suggestions for Improving Key Areas in U.S. Foreign Policy Towards the Arab Region.” For a copy and profiles of the delegates, see: http://husseini.posterous.com/arab-ngo-network-for-development-statement-on

While most of the members of the delegation can speak English, El Asbahi would require Arabic translation, which can be provided.

The Washington Post is reporting: “President Obama issued an executive order Wednesday giving the Treasury Department authority to freeze the U.S.-based assets of anyone who ‘obstructs’ implementation of the administration-backed political transition in Yemen.

“The unusual order, which administration officials said also targets U.S. citizens who engage in activity deemed to threaten Yemen’s security or political stability, is the first issued for Yemen that does not directly relate to counterterrorism.” http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/president-obama-executive-order-will-give-treasury-authority-to-freeze-us-based-assets-in-yemen/2012/05/15/gIQALWPUSU_story.html

IBRAHAM QATABI
Qatabi is a Yemeni American human rights activist and a legal worker with Center for Constitutional Rights specializing in Yemen. He said today: “The USG isn’t naming groups or people who it’s illegal to work with, so any sensible person would be very cautious about working with anyone they aren’t 100 percent sure the USG approves of. In fact, the USG’s officials have flat out told the press that the sanctions are a ‘deterrent’ to ‘make clear to those who are even thinking of spoiling the transition’ to think again — in other words, think again before you work with any democracy activists who we think are ’spoiling the transition’ to the U.S. government’s favored candidate for leadership. It reminds me of something the government said in the 9th Circuit in HLP v. Holder — that the aim of these broadly-worded sanctions regimes, capable of criminalizing speech, is to make groups the U.S. government disfavors so ‘radioactive’ that American citizens won’t even want to go near them. That’s not democracy – either here or in Yemen.”

See on the White House website: “Executive Order — Blocking Property of Persons Threatening the Peace, Security, or Stability of Yemen.” http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2012/05/16/executive-order-blocking-property-persons-threatening-peace-security-or-

Background: Obama urged the Yemeni dictator Saheh to keep the journalist Abdulelah Haider Shaye in prison. This was apparently because Shaye was exposing that U.S. strikes were killing civilians. See “Why Is President Obama Keeping a Journalist in Prison in Yemen?” by Jeremy Scahill. http://www.thenation.com/article/166757/why-president-obama-keeping-journalist-prison-yemen

Marcy Wheeler today notes that the new executive order could be used to target Scahill: “The Jeremy Scahill Yemen Executive Order” http://www.emptywheel.net/2012/05/16/the-jeremy-scahill-yemen-executive-order

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Tuesday, May 15, 2012

STEVEN KULL,  http://www.public-consultation.org
Kull is director of the Program for Public Consultation, a joint program of the Center on Policy Attitudes and the School of Public Policy at the University of Maryland and lead author of the recently released study “Consulting the American People on National Defense Spending.”

He said today: “Three quarters of respondents favored cutting defense as a way to reduce the deficit, including two thirds of Republicans as well as nine in ten Democrats. …

“Other polls on defense spending have mostly asked simply whether respondents favor or oppose defense cuts, and generally found smaller numbers favoring cuts. This suggests that Americans generally underestimate the size of the defense budget and that when they receive balanced information about its size they are more likely to cut it to reduce the deficit. …

“The area cut by the greatest percentage was nuclear weapons, which respondents reduced an average of 27 percent (Republicans 18 percent, Democrats 35 percent). The area that was cut the most in dollar terms was for existing ground force capabilities which was cut an average of $36.2 billion (Republicans $23.8 billion, Democrats $44.5 billion) or 23 percent.

“What is striking is that it appears that the American people, unlike Congress, are able to thoughtfully recognize the validity of arguments both for and against cutting defense spending and still come to hard and even bold decisions.

“Eight in ten favored cutting the Obama administration’s proposed budget of $88 billion for 2013 war spending in Afghanistan. Overall, on average it was cut 40 percent or $35 billion.”

Note: Respondents were queried about “defense” spending, not “military” spending, which likely would have drawn even less support.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Friday, May 11, 2012

The Financial Times reports today: “JPMorgan Chase announced a surprise $2 billion trading loss on credit derivatives trading, which chief executive Jamie Dimon blamed on ‘errors, sloppiness and bad judgement’ and warned ‘could get worse.’

“The shock disclosure, made after the market closed on Thursday in a regulatory filing, prompted renewed calls for tougher regulation. Investors reacted by sending the bank’s shares down by more than 9 percent when Wall Street opened on Friday. Other U.S. banking stocks also suffered sharp falls.” http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/828376bc-9ae4-11e1-94d7-00144feabdc0.html#axzz1uZcfWAK4

STEPHANY GRIFFITH JONES,  http://www.stephanygj.net
Stephany Griffith-Jones is Financial Markets Program Director at the Initiative for Policy Dialogue at Columbia University.

WILLIAM K. BLACK
Black is now an associate professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and the author of “The Best Way to Rob a Bank is to Own One.” He was the deputy staff director of the national commission that investigated the cause of the savings and loan debacle. He said today: “JPMorgan has announced that it has suffered large losses, and remains exposed to far greater losses, because purported ‘economic hedges’ did not perform as ‘expected’ because they were poorly designed. These purported hedges are not real. JPMorgan was speculating wildly and its panicky releases reveal that it is afraid that the positions it took exposed it to grave risks. The experience demonstrates the importance of the Volcker rule, the largest banks’ efforts to gut and evade the rule, and the continuing refusal of bank regulators to say ‘no’ to practices of the systemically dangerous institutions or SDIs (the roughly 20 ‘too big to fail’ banks) that are unsafe and unsound. As long as we permit the SDIs to remain so large that regulators fear that their failure will produce a global crisis we are rolling the dice 20 times a day wondering when (not ‘if’) the next SDI failure will occur and blow up the economy. JPMorgan’s losses on its faux hedges are the wake-up call we dare not ignore.”

Also see: “‘JOBS Act’ a ‘Recipe for Fraud’ Creating a ‘Race to the Bottom’.” http://www.accuracy.org/release/jobs-act-a-recipe-for-fraud-creating-a-race-to-the-bottom

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Monday, May 14, 2012

Human Rights Watch today released a report “Unacknowledged Deaths: Civilian Casualties in NATO’s Air Campaign in Libya.” NATO will be holding its summit in Chicago beginning May 20. http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2012/05/14-0

VIJAY PRASHAD
Author of “Arab Spring, Libyan Winter” and “The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World,” Prashad is chair of South Asian history and director of international studies at Trinity College, in Hartford, Connecticut.

He said today: “A United Nations report released in early March 2012 asked for an investigation of NATO’s potential war crimes, but was snubbed by the military alliance, whose lawyer, Peter Olsen, wrote in February of this year to the UN Commission that, ‘in the event the Commission elects to include a discussion of NATO actions in Libya, its report clearly states that NATO did not deliberately target civilians and did not commit war crimes in Libya.’ In other words, it is impossible for NATO to commit war crimes. NATO, unlike the Libyans, is too civilized to be guilty of any such violations. It is, therefore, above investigation. The scandal here is that NATO, a military alliance, refuses any civilian oversight of its actions. It operated under a UN mandate (Security Council Resolution 1973) and yet refuses to allow a UN evaluation of its actions. NATO, in other words, operates as a rogue military entity, outside the bounds of the prejudices of democratic society. It is precisely because NATO refuses an evaluation that the UN Security Council will not allow another NATO-like military intervention. The new HRW report reinforces what was raised in the UN report from March. It simply underlines the necessity of a formal and independent evaluation of NATO’s actions in Libya.”

On May 18, Prashad will be speaking at the the NATO Counter-Summit, http://www.natofreefuture.org/2012/01/conference-info

See Prashad’s pieces:

“NATO’S Craven Coverup of Its Libyan Bombing”
http://www.counterpunch.org/2012/03/15/natos-craven-coverup-of-it-libyan-bombing

“Straining NATO on Short Syrian Leash”
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/ND03Ak01.html

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Friday, May 11, 2012

ELLEN BRAVO,  http://www.ellenbravo.com
Bravo is director of Family Values @ Work Consortium, a network of state coalitions working for paid sick days and paid family leave. She just wrote the piece “The Gifts Mothers Really Want,” which states: “My favorite Mother’s day gifts from my sons were their original stories, songs and poems. But what I needed when they were infants and toddlers was something children can’t deliver: affordable time off when they were born and when they were sick.

“So for all those candidates and elected officials interested in the women’s vote and eager to prove their support for motherhood and families, here’s a sampling of what mothers want and need, not just one day a year but every day:

“The right to care for a sick child or personal illness without losing our paychecks or our jobs. Moms need leaders to actively support the right for workers to earn paid sick days and champion local, state and federal policies that would guarantee this protection. Make sure no one has to choose between being a good parent and being a good employee — and that no one has to serve you flu with your soup. …” http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-bravo/the-gifts-mothers-really-_b_1506416.html

TERRY O’NEILL, http://www.now.org
O’Neill is president of the National Organization for Women Foundation. The group today released the report “Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling: A Proposal to Modernize Women’s Benefits” with the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare Foundation and the Institute for Women’s Policy Research. She said today: “If implemented, the recommendations we make in ‘Breaking the Social Security Glass Ceiling’ will go a long way toward creating a retirement and disability insurance program that recognizes the new reality of working women and men, and values women’s role in society as both breadwinners and primary caregivers. Crediting women’s years out of the paid labor force is a long overdue feature that NOW strongly supports and urges lawmakers to support as well.” http://now.org/press/05-12/05-11.html

LAURA KACERE
Kacere is a feminist activist working with Occupy D.C. who recently wrote the piece “The Radical History of Mother’s Day,” which states: “There’s a good number of us who question holidays like Mother’s Day in which you spend more time feeding money into a system that exploits our love for our mothers than actually celebrating them. It’s not unlike any other holiday in America in that its complete commercialization has stripped away so much of its genuine meaning, as well its history. Mother’s Day is unique in its completely radical and feminist history, as much as it has been forgotten.

“Mother’s Day began in America in 1870 when Julia Ward Howe wrote the Mother’s Day Proclamation. Written in response to the American Civil War and the Franco-Prussian War, her proclamation called on women to use their position as mothers to influence society in fighting for an end to all wars. She called for women to stand up against the unjust violence of war through their roles as wife and mother, to protest the futility of their sons killing other mothers’ sons.”

Howe wrote:

“Arise, then, women of this day! Arise, all women who have hearts, Whether our baptism be of water or of tears!

“Say firmly: ‘We will not have great questions decided by irrelevant agencies, our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage, for caresses and applause. Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn all that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience. We, the women of one country, will be too tender of those of another country to allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs.’

“From the bosom of the devastated Earth a voice goes up with our own. It says: ‘Disarm! Disarm! The sword of murder is not the balance of justice.’ Blood does not wipe out dishonor, nor violence indicate possession.

“In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask that a general congress of women without limit of nationality may be appointed …to promote the alliance of the different nationalities, the amicable settlement of international questions, the great and general interests of peace.” http://codepink.org/blog/2012/05/the-radical-history-of-mother%E2%80%99s-day

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Thursday, May 10, 2012

Interviews Available

The Obama administration is hosting Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad al-Khalifa in Washington just as the Bahraini regime is vowing a harsher crackdown on anti-government protesters. Democracy Now reported this morning, “Appearing with al-Khalifa at the State Department, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton failed to directly mention the repression of protests, referring only to Bahrain’s ‘internal issues.’”

Secretary Clinton stated: “Bahrain is a valued ally of the United States. We partner on many important issues of mutual concern to each of our nations and to the regional and global concerns as well. I’m looking forward to a chance to talk over with His Royal Highness a number of the issues both internally and externally that Bahrain is dealing with and have some better understanding of the ongoing efforts that the government of Bahrain is undertaking. So again, His Royal Highness, welcome to the United States.” See video: http://www.democracynow.org/2012/5/10/headlines#5103

Clinton’s comments came one day after the Bahraini government vowed to escalate its crackdown on anti-government demonstrators. Speaking to Reuters, a Bahraini government spokesman said: “We are looking into the perpetrators and people who use print, broadcast and social media to encourage illegal protest and violence around the country. If applying the law means tougher action, then so be it.” The warning came days after the arrest of the prominent Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab, who has been featured on IPA news releases. In a statement, Amnesty International declared Rajab a “prisoner of conscience” and called for his immediate release. Another prominent activist, Abdulhadi Alkhawaja, has been on a hunger strike for three months protesting his life imprisonment.

NADA ALWADI, [in D.C.]  https://twitter.com/#!/bentalwadi
Alwadi is a Bahrani journalist based in D.C.

Note: Alwadi is being joined next week in Washington, D.C. by representatives of the Arab NGO Network for Development, including nonprofits and civil society groups from Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia, Yemen and other Arab countries. For more information including arranging interviews, contact Ryme Katkhouda, (202) 538-1331, rymepmc@gmail.com.

For more information, contact at the Institute for Public Accuracy:
Sam Husseini, (202) 347-0020, (202) 421-6858; or David Zupan, (541) 484-9167

Published on Wednesday, May 9, 2012 by Creators.com

Thanks to the blessings of nature and good farmers, you and I can enjoy such scrumptious delights as fresh corn-on-the-cob, popcorn and many other variations of this truly great grain. And now, thanks to Dow Chemical and federal regulators, we can look forward to “Agent Orange Corn.” The chemical giant is in line to gain approval for putting a genetically altered corn seed on the market that will produce corn plants that won’t die when doused with high levels of 2,4-D.

This potent pesticide was an ingredient in Dow’s notorious Agent Orange defoliant, which did such extensive and horrific damage to soldiers and civilians in the Vietnam War. However, the corporation and the feds claim that 2,4-D was not the deadliest ingredient of the killer defoliant and has not yet been proven to cause cancer in humans, so they’re pressing ahead to let this corporate-constructed seed be planted across America.

Dow now sells 2,4-D to help kill various weeds, but the herbicide is so strong that it also kills nature’s own version of corn plants. Thus, Dow’s genetic engineers went into the corporate lab and manufactured a new corn that’s immune to the weed-killer. This would let the chemical maker profit from selling the patented seed, plus enjoying a huge increase in sales of its 2,4-D herbicide. How happy for Dow! Not so happy, though, for consumers worried about the untested long-term health consequences of the altered corn and the carcinogenic possibilities of ingesting more 2,4- D. Also, when sprayed, this herbicide can vaporize and spread for miles, killing crops that are not immune, poisoning the surrounding environment, and endangering the health of farmers and townspeople throughout the area.

Dow is hardly alone in pursuing its happiness at the expense of others. Indeed, rather than finding ways to cooperate with the natural world, America’s agribusiness giants generally reach for the quick, high-tech fix in a futile effort to overpower nature.

Their attitude is that if brute force isn’t working, they’re probably not using enough of it.

Monsanto, for example, has banked a fortune by selling a corn seed that it genetically manipulated to produce corn plants that won’t die when sprayed with a toxic weed-killer called “Roundup.” Not coincidentally, Monsanto also happens to be the maker of Roundup, so it has profited from the seed and from the surge in Roundup sales that the seed generated.

But Mother Nature, damn her, has rebelled. So much of Monsanto’s poison was spread across America in the past decade that weeds naturally and rather rapidly developed a resistance to it. As a Dow Chemical agronomist put it, “The real need here is to diversify our weed management systems.” Exactly right! We need non-chemical, non-GMO, sustainable systems that work with nature.

But, no, the Dow man didn’t mean that at all. He was calling for more brute force in the form of his corporation’s altered corn seed — the one that can withstand being doused with Dow’s super-potent 2,4-D weedkiller. Use this, he promises, and this time nature will surely be defeated.

Wrong. Nature doesn’t quit. The weeds will keep evolving and will adapt to Dow’s high-tech fix, too. By pushing the same old thing relentlessly, says an independent crop scientist, agribusiness interests “ratchet up (America’s) dependence on the use of herbicides, which is very much a treadmill.” So much unhappiness for so many just to make one corporation happy by getting much richer at our expense.

It’s time to start listening to the weeds — and cooperating with Mother Nature. To advance this common sense approach, a national coalition is backing a California “Right to Know” initiative requiring GMO-altered foods to be labeled. To help, visit the Organic Consumers Association and get involved in the coalition’s Money Bomb Monsanto Campaign.