position:assistant

The Peninsula - 11 July, 2014

Bahrain has charged the country’s most senior opposition leader and one of his aides with holding an illegal meeting with a US diplomat, the public prosecutor’s office said yesterday.

It said Al Wefaq party leader Sheikh Ali Salman and his political assistant, Khalil Al Marzouq, should have obtained permission before meeting Tom Malinowski, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour.

Bahrain expelled Malinowski earlier this week, saying he had “intervened flagrantly” in the country’s internal affairs by holding the meeting. The United States has said it is “deeply concerned” about his treatment and is considering a response.

The incident has opened a rift between Washington and one of its main regional allies. Bahrain hosts the headquarters of the US Fifth Fleet but has bristled at American criticism over its human rights record since suppressing a popular uprising in 2011.

In Washington, the US State Department yesterday said it had summoned a senior envoy from Bahrain — the chargé d’affaires of its embassy in Washington — on Tuesday to formally protest Malinowski’s expulsion.

“We look to the Government of Bahrain to take actions consistent with our strong bilateral relationship. We also look to all sides to recommit themselves to the reconciliation process, which remains the focus of our diplomatic engagement,” State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki said in a statement.

Psaki previously has said the United States is considering what steps to take in response to the expulsion but offered no details.

The public prosecutor said Salman and Marzouq were questioned and then charged with “contacting a representative of a foreign government in violation of the political associations law and related ministerial decisions”.

They were freed after guaranteeing their places of residence, it added, without giving any further details.

Al Wefaq confirmed the charges and called them unfair, saying such regulations had never been implemented before and no one had been prosecuted for them.

Malinowski attended a Ramadan evening meeting of Al Wefaq on Sunday and met Salman and an aide again at the US embassy on Monday. He said he was asked whether they had made specific requests of the Americans, and replied that they had not.

Salman and Marzouq were interrogated at the Criminal Investigations Department on Wednesday before they were summoned to appear at the public prosecutor’s office yesterday. Salman said he was questioned for about half an hour, without his lawyer, “about the content of the (embassy) meeting and what was discussed at it.”

A court in Bahrain last month cleared Marzouq of terrorism charges.

The Gulf island kingdom is ruled by a Sunni Muslim royal family, but the majority of its population are Shias, whose political leaders have demanded democratic reforms.

Bahrain News Agency - 09 July, 2014

The Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)’s Secretary-General Dr. Abdullatif bin Rashid Al-Zayani expressed astonishment following the acts of US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Affairs who was visiting the Kingdom of Bahrain two days ago.

Dr. Al-Zayani told Bahrain News Agency (BNA) that the US diplomat’s holding meeting(s) with representatives of a certain political society excluding other components of the Bahraini community who have a significant political role in the community is deemed as an interference in the Kingdom of Bahrain’s internal affairs and it is absolutely incompliant with international diplomatic norms.

He said that such astonishing acts do not reflect the historic bilateral relations which have existed over the eons between the Kingdom of Bahrain and the United States of America.

The GCC Secretary-General concluded that this does not help in confidence-building amongst the components of the Bahraini community, stressing that such acts do not support the positive trend of Bahrain’s ambitious reform programme.

Antihubrisines

▻http://mark.reid.name/blog/antihubrisines.html

To statisticians, hubris should mean the kind of pride that fosters and inflated idea of one’s powers and thereby keeps one from being more than marginally helpful to others. … The feeling of “Give me (or more likely even, give my assistant) the data, and I will tell you what the real answer is!” is one we must all fight against again and again, and yet again.

see also ▻http://www-stat.wharton.upenn.edu/~steele/HoldingPen/SunsetSalvo.pdf

The data may not contain the answer. The combination of some data and an aching desire for an answer does not ensure that a reasonable answer can be extracted from a given body of data.

Salman and Almarzooq summoned for interrogation

Sheikh Ali Salman, Al Wefaq Secretary General, and his Political Assistant Khalil Almarzooq, have today received an official summons by the Bahraini Ministry of Interior, following a meeting with an US Official. The interrogation will take place tomorrow morning (9th July) at 9am (Bahrain time).

Tom Malinowski, US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, was yesterday ordered to leave <mailto:▻http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-28204511> Bahrain by the authorities, after meeting with members of Al Wefaq. Despite international condemnation, Bahrain is now escalating this issue further by targeting leading members of Al Wefaq, who took part in the meeting.

In September 2013 a law was passed that prohibited meetings between opposition societies and international diplomats, without the presence of a representative of the Ministry of Interior. Although no reason for the summons was given, it comes less than 24 hours after the demand for Mr. Malinowski to leave Bahrain.

Commenting on the orders for Mr. Malinowski to leave Bahrain, the State Department said it is “deeply concerned”, <mailto:▻http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2014/07/228839.htm> whilst Mr. Malinowski himself said the decision was about “undermining dialogue”. <mailto:▻https://twitter.com/Malinowski/status/486495418583629825> The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement share this analysis, with the summons received by Salman and Almarzooq serving as proof.

The dropping of charges against Almarzooq last month was a potentially positive step towards rebuilding a political process, but this latest attack is yet another example of the “one step forward, two steps back approach” adopted by Bahrain. Once again hardliners within the Authorities are taking control to scupper any plans towards reform.

Given the chance to take full control, Bahrain’s hardliners will turn Bahrain into a closed society, barring international observers and unleashing heavy repression and human rights abuses.

The Bahrain Justice and Development Movement condemn the summons received by Salman and Almarzooq, as well as the decision to demand that a stop State Department official leave Bahrain. We call on the Bahrain authorities to rescind the summons, or at least to make sure no false charges are attributed to Salman and Almarzooq. Furthermore, we call on the authorities to end the stalling and to immediately begin a new political process that takes the country towards serious democratic reform.

Ali Alaswad, a resigned Bahraini MP from Al Wefaq, said:

/“After the State Department rejected the removal of Mr. Malinowski, the authorities in Bahrain are turning their attention to Al Wefaq instead. In any country, anywhere in the world, international observers and diplomats have a right to meet with political leaders. This shows just the lengths Bahrain will go to in order to protect its image, and that clearly they have something to hide.”/

#Bahrain orders US diplomat out for meeting with the opposition
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/bahrain-orders-us-diplomat-out-meeting-opposition

Bahrain on Monday ordered a visiting senior US official to leave the kingdom immediately because he had “intervened flagrantly” in the country’s internal affairs, the state news agency BNA said. BNA said the foreign ministry had declared US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labor, #Tom_Malinowski, persona non grata after he “held meetings with a particular party to the detriment of other interlocutors, thus discriminating between one people, contravening diplomatic norms and flouting normal interstate relations.” read more

#united_states

Home Page - Gulf in the Media
▻http://www.gulfinthemedia.com/index.php?id=708380&news_type=Top&lang=en

The ministry said in a statement that US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski was ordered to leave after meeting Bahrain’s opposition group, Al Wifaq.

Bahrain ordered a top US diplomat to leave the country on Monday, the Foreign Ministry said, after he met a leading opposition group.

The ministry said in a statement that US Assistant Secretary of State for Democracy, Human Rights and Labour Tom Malinowski is not welcome in Bahrain.

It said he intervened in the country’s domestic affairs by holding meetings with some groups at the expense of others.

The statement said that such meetings “segregate” the people of the nation. His actions, added the statement, “run counter to conventional diplomatic norms”.

Despite the diplomatic spat, the Foreign Ministry statement said relations between Bahrain and the US remain strong and important. “The government of Bahrain asserts that this should not in any way affect the two countries’ relationship of mutual interests,” the statement said.

Malinowski was ordered to leave after meeting Bahrain’s opposition group, Al Wifaq. He arrived in the country on Sunday and was scheduled to stay for three days, but his visit was cut short by the abrupt order to depart a day early. He also had meetings scheduled with government officials.

Two US officials in Washington confirmed that Malinowski has been ordered to leave but is still there while the logistics of his departure are worked out. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.

TEAM WILD - Ô my broken heart - version 2012 ( Keep It Simple Stupid EP ) on Vimeo
▻https://vimeo.com/98085610

Director : Mathieu Drouet
Video Editor : Matthieu Clement
Stylism : Xavier Brisoux
Assistant Director : Virginie Lefèvre
Make up & Band Logo : Cerise Heurteur
Band Management : Maxime Ternois - Ah Bon ? Productions
Guitar Strap: House of Vice

Production by Takeasip (takeasip.net) & Ah Bon ? Productions
listen Team Wild here: teamwild.bandcamp.com

© 2014 Mathieu Drouet - mathieu-drouet.com

Kuwait offers plan to buy foreign citizenship for Bedoon - Al-Monitor: the Pulse of the Middle East
▻http://www.al-monitor.com/pulse/originals/2014/05/kuwait-bedoon-comoros-stateless-citizenship.html

On May 15, Sheikh Mazen Al-Jarrah Al-Sabah, the assistant undersecretary for citizenship and passports affairs in Kuwait’s Interior Ministry, announced in a TV interview that his country is negotiating with a fellow “Arab country” to naturalize Kuwait’s stateless community in exchange for economic benefits. Jarrah added that the Central Agency for Illegal Residents, headed by former parliament member Salih al-Fidala, is managing the negotiations after having studied the UAE-Comoros deal to naturalize stateless Emiratis. Although Jarrah did not disclose details of the negotiations, it was clear for the Bedoon that the Arab country in negotiation is the Comoros, as it was previously approached with a similar proposal in 2008. Following Jarrah’s interview, Kuwaiti and Bedoon activists expressed their outrage over social media, denouncing the authorities’ continuous attempts to deny naturalization rights to the stateless.

Kuwait looking to legalise status of 80,000 expats | GulfNews.com
▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/kuwait/kuwait-looking-to-legalise-status-of-80-000-expats-1.1325190

Kuwait is looking into a study that would help formalise the situation of 80,000 foreigners staying illegally in the country, a senior interior ministry official has said.
“The study has been prepared to help with the effort by the ministry to put an end to the phenomenon of non-Kuwaitis living without proper documentation,” Shaikh Ahmad Al Nawaf, the assistant undersecretary for nationality and passports, has said.

Between Fascists and Neoliberals, #Ukraine Seeks Stable Leadership
▻http://www.lobelog.com/between-fascists-and-neoliberals-ukraine-seeks-stable-leadership

While it’s too soon to speculate what Poroshenko’s economic policy would be, his past as a close Yushchenko ally hints at his neoliberal sympathies. The current interim government is dominated by figures from Tymoshenko’s Batkivshchyna Party, including Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk, a favorite of Victoria Nuland, the US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs, who has ties to prominent neoconservatives. Nuland favors the kind of shock capitalism that is practiced by the IMF and that guided the economic policy of the Kuchma and Yushchenko administrations. Yatsenyuk has referred to the cabinet he heads as a “kamikaze” government because of the “extremely unpopular” financial policies it plans to implement, and has promised to follow IMF-dictated austerity measures. Considering the impact of these policies on Greece, it’s remarkable that Yatsenyuk has embraced them so whole-heartedly and unquestioningly.

Ukraine faces immense challenges. The threat of pro-Russian separatism in the east is the most immediate concern, closely followed by the related risk of hostile Russian action, be it military in nature, economic (e.g., shutting off natural gas exports), or both. But the economic crisis that brought down Yushchenko and helped to bring down Yanukovych has not been abated, and it will be impossible to stabilize potential breakaway regions if the Ukrainian economy continues to struggle. Ukraine desperately needs competent, stable governance right now, but based on its recent political history and on the choices it now faces between destructive ultra-nationalism and failed neoliberalism, there’s little reason for optimism on this front.

Blasts near #Cairo university kill police general
▻http://english.al-akhbar.com/content/two-large-blasts-heard-cairo

Updated 1:37 pm: An Egyptian police general was killed and an assistant interior minister wounded in twin bombings targeting security posts near Cairo University on Wednesday, police said. The attack was the latest by militants targeting security forces following Islamist president Mohammed Mursi’s overthrow in July. The rudimentary bombs also wounded five policemen, the interior ministry said, identifying the slain officer as Brigadier General Tarek al-Mergawi. A police general at the scene told AFP that the bombs were concealed in a tree between two small police posts. read more

#Egypt #explosions #Top_News

I always thought that the Yoko Tsuno-esque Carreidas 160 looked alien to the Hergé universe. Now I know why - it was designed by Roger Leloup, at the time an assistant at Studios Hergé: ▻https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flight_714#Carreidas_160 - same with the airplanes in l’Ile Noire.

http://voyager.blogs.com/images/secondlife/carreidas160.jpg

Guilt by Association
▻http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2014/03/debo_adegbile_senate_blocks_obama_s_pick_to_head_the_justice_department.html

Debo Adegbile was selected by President Obama to be assistant attorney general for the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division. The Senate, aided and abetted by seven Democratic senators, just killed his nomination. Why? Adegbile worked at the NAACP’s Legal Defense Fund and in that capacity, he helped out on a brief seeking to overturn the 1982 death sentence for Mumia Abu-Jamal, convicted in the killing of Philadelphia police officer Daniel Faulkner.

Adegbile’s cardinal sin? He worked on a Legal Defense Fund appeal (that the NAACP had already been involved in before he took the position) contending that there was racial discrimination in Abu-Jamal’s trial and then, later, on a brief arguing that the jury instructions in Abu-Jamal’s trial were constitutionally improper. This was a contention that prevailed in a federal appeals court. Later the LDF represented Abu-Jamal in a Supreme Court case when prosecutors sought to reinstate his death sentence.

Former interior minister sentenced to 3 years - Daily News Egypt

▻http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2014/02/04/former-interior-minister-sentenced-3-years

Al-Adly, as well as his assistant for security forces Hassan Abdel Hamid, and head of the interior ministry guards Brigadier Mohamed Bassem, were convicted of using Central Security Forces conscripts to work at Al-Adly’s farmhouse in the Giza suburb of 6 October and serve the former interior minister and his family. Al-Adly and Abdel Hamid were both sentenced to three years, while Bassem was sentenced to one year. In addition, Abdel Hamid and Bassem were both ordered to pay EGP 2.5m in fines.

New Memo: #Kissinger Gave the “Green Light” for Argentina’s Dirty War
▻http://m.motherjones.com/mojo/2014/01/new-memo-kissinger-gave-green-light-argentina-dirty-war

Only a few months ago, Henry Kissinger was dancing with Stephen Colbert in a funny bit on the latter’s Comedy Central show. But for years, the former secretary of state has sidestepped judgment for his complicity in horrific human rights abuses abroad, and a new memo has emerged that provides clear evidence that in 1976 Kissinger gave Argentina’s neo-fascist military junta the “green light” for the dirty war it was conducting against civilian and militant leftists that resulted in the disappearance—that is, deaths—of an estimated 30,000 people.

In April 1977, Patt Derian, a onetime civil rights activist whom President Jimmy Carter had recently appointed assistant secretary of state for human rights, met with the US ambassador in Buenos Aires, Robert Hill. A memo recording that conversation has been unearthed by Martin Edwin Andersen, who in 1987 first reported that Kissinger had told the Argentine generals to proceed with their terror campaign against leftists (whom the junta routinely referred to as “terrorists”). The memo notes that Hill told Derian about a meeting Kissinger held with Argentine Foreign Minister Cesar Augusto Guzzetti the previous June. What the two men discussed was revealed in 2004 when the National Security Archive obtained and released the secret memorandum of conversation for that get-together. Guzzetti, according to that document, told Kissinger, “our main problem in Argentina is terrorism.” Kissinger replied, “If there are things that have to be done, you should do them quickly. But you must get back quickly to normal procedures.” In other words, go ahead with your killing crusade against the leftists.

The new document shows that Kissinger was even more explicit in encouraging the Argentine junta. The memo recounts Hill describing the Kissinger-Guzzetti discussion this way:

The Argentines were very worried that Kissinger would lecture to them on human rights. Guzzetti and Kissinger had a very long breakfast but the Secretary did not raise the subject. Finally Guzzetti did. Kissinger asked how long will it take you (the Argentines) to clean up the problem. Guzzetti replied that it would be done by the end of the year. Kissinger approved.

In other words, Ambassador Hill explained, Kissinger gave the Argentines the green light.

That’s a damning statement: a US ambassador saying a secretary of state had egged on a repressive regime that was engaged in a killing spree.

#Criminel #Argentine #dictature_militaire #États-Unis “#nos_valeurs”

Black Power Challenges a White Christmas in the Netherlands

▻http://dissidentvoice.org/2013/12/black-power-challenges-a-white-christmas-in-the-netherlands

Yesterday marked the closure of the annual celebration of Sinterklaas, the Dutch equivalent of Santa Claus. Traditionally, the children’s festivity is an occasion for family fun and pleasure that unites a nation, but this year it has become a highly charged political battleground that is exposing a society increasingly more conservative and hostile towards people of color, while unleashing an unprecedented anti-racism movement that is empowering minorities and posing fundamental challenges to the Dutch establishment.

The story goes that on the evening of December 5, Saint Nicholas, a white elderly man wearing a red robe and riding a white horse rewards children with presents and sweets if they have behaved well during the past year. Unlike Santa Claus, however, his minions are not elves, but Zwarte Pieten, or Black Petes — black clown-like figures that appear in colonial dress with afro wigs, as well as big red lips and golden earrings. Yearly, white Dutch people paint their faces black and dress up to enact Zwarte Piet for the spectacle and entertainment of the country’s white majority.

Unsurprisingly, in a country with a bloody and controversial — but often neglected — history of colonialism and slavery, the figure that epitomizes this legacy in its most blatant expression has been the subject of criticism for years. Active attempts to ban Black Pete date back as early as 2003 when African, Surinamese and Antillean communities joined forces to demand that the House of Representatives to take action against this racist characterization of black people. At the time, Celestine Robles from the Dutch Global African Congress denounced the festivity for actively shaping negative perceptions of black Dutch people through the celebration of a “superior race” as embodied by Saint Nicholas in opposition to an “inferior race” as performed by the “silly slave/assistant Black Pete.” (...)

Nevertheless, a large majority of the country still sees Black Pete as a central and vital component of Dutch tradition and collective identity. This became most apparent when 20 opponents of the figure, among them Quinsy Gario and Patricia Schor, recently demanded the municipality of Amsterdam officially ban Black Pete from the annual, state-funded procession in the city. Unlike previous efforts, this step made media headlines and provoked debate on both national television and social media. The accusation of racism was initially received with disdain and mockery, which then turned into an occasion to unleash racist attacks and general fury after an independent U.N. investigator issued a letter urging the Dutch government to take positive action to change its tradition, further confirming that Black Pete is indeed “a living trace of past slavery and oppression, tracing back to the country’s past involvement in the trade of African slaves in the previous centuries.”

#Pays-Bas #racisme #Sinterklaas

Monsanto’s Friends in High Places
▻http://mises.org/daily/6580/Monsantos-Friends-in-High-Places

A look at some #Monsanto representatives and their positions in government:

Suzanne Sechen, worked on Monsanto-funded academic research/A primary reviewer for bovine growth hormone in #FDA

Linda J. Fisher, VP, lobbyist for Monsanto/Assistant Administrator at #EPA

Michael Friedman, MD, Sr. VP, GD Searle, subsidiary of Monsanto/Acting Commissioner of FDA

Marcia Hale, international lobbyist, Monsanto/Assistant to President under President Clinton

Michael (Mickey) Kantor, director/Secretary of Commerce and US Trade Representative under President Clinton

William D. Ruckelshaus, director/Head of EPA under both Presidents Nixon and Reagan

#porte_tournante

Al Wefaq leader to face trial on October 24 | GulfNews.com
▻http://gulfnews.com/news/gulf/bahrain/al-wefaq-leader-to-face-trial-on-october-24-1.1239614

Manama: Bahrain’s First Attorney General on Saturday said that Khalil Marzouq, the Assistant Secretary-General of Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, would be put on trial on October 24 on charges of “inciting terrorism and promoting acts that constitute crimes of terrorism.”

Abdul Rahman Al Syed said that the charges levelled after the Public Prosecution completed its investigations of the case also included “using a position and management within a legally formed political association to call for committing crimes that constitute acts of terrorism punishable under the Community Protection Law.”
[...]
charged with “advocating support for perpetrators of criminal activities and justifying their crimes, calling for the continued planting of explosives and for acts of violence, supporting the criminal activities by persons accused of committing terrorist acts, advocating their crimes as well as pushing for disobeying laws.”

Border Militarization

Comme toujours passionnant, mais on peut pas être partout...

–—

AAG 2014 Tampa CFP – Border Militarization
Organizers: Reece Jones, Associate Professor, Department of Geography, University of Hawai‘i

Corey Johnson, Assistant Professor, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina-Greensboro

Over the past two decades many borders were transformed from sites primarily characterized by law enforcement and policing activities designed to intercept people who violate immigration laws to sites for militarized security activities supposedly focused on preventing violent threats from entering the state’s territory. The stigma associated with fortifying political borders has disappeared and at least twenty-eight security barriers were initiated or expanded worldwide, or almost triple the number that were built during the entire Cold War. However, the construction of new physical barriers is only part of the story and an even more widespread and far-reaching trend has been the deployment of new unmanned aerial vehicles (drones), sophisticated surveillance systems, high tech sensors, and military hardware including attack helicopters and armored vehicles. Contrary to expectations at the end of the Cold War, the current era of globalization has resulted in the most intensive and extensive period of bordering in the history of the world.

This session will analyze the emergence of a new border security paradigm of hardened and militarized borderlines and an interrelated global exchange of security practices, technologies, and information. We are looking for papers that consider militarization of borders on the ground and the circuits of knowledge that allow these technologies to be deployed at borders. Both theoretical papers that consider the significance of border hardening and empirical papers that describe the history and impact of new technologies at specific borders are welcome.

Please contact Reece Jones (reecej@hawaii.edu) or Corey Johnson (corey_johnson@uncg.edu)

Border Walls: Security and the War on Terror in the US, India, and Israel (Zed Books)
▻https://www.facebook.com/BorderWalls

#frontières #murs #surveillenace #contrôle #sécurité

La visite du conseiller états-unien est reportée à plus tard.

Thomas Melia est « assistant secrétaire d’État adjoint » ( Deputy Assistant Secretary of State )
U.S. Delegation’s Azeri Visit Canceled At Baku’s Request
▻http://www.rferl.org/content/azerbaijan-us-visit-cancellation/25099969.html

A visit by a U.S. delegation to Azerbaijan has been postponed until after the country’s October 9 presidential election.
 
A spokesperson for the U.S. Embassy in Baku said the visit, which was to have been led by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Melia, was postponed at the request of the Azerbaijani government. No reason was given.
 
The delegation had been expected in Baku from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, on September 9 to observe preparations for the presidential poll.
 
In Tbilisi, Melia’s delegation met with officials to discuss preparations for Georgia’s October 27 presidential election. The U.S. Embassy in Baku expressed regret and added that the embassy continues to monitor the preelection environment in Azerbaijan and to encourage a free and fair electoral process.

Peut-être y a-t-il un lien avec ses déclarations répétées sur l’amélioration souhaitable du climat démocratique en Azerbaïdjan ; la dernière (?) datant d’il y a 2 mois.

U.S. Urges Baku To Take ’Bold Steps’ Ahead Of Election (17/07/13)
►http://www.rferl.org/content/melia-azerbaijan-vote-us-helsinki/25048446.html

The United States has urged Azerbaijan to take “bold steps to improve the political environment” ahead of the country’s presidential election in October.

Thomas Melia, the deputy assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights, and labor, said facilitating free and fair elections “doesn’t take place on election day, but throughout these next several months.”

Melia was speaking at a U.S. Helsinki Commission hearing on Azerbaijan on July 16 alongside Azerbaijani opposition figures and government officials.

He said things Azerbaijan “could do tomorrow” include releasing detained opposition politician Ilgar Mammadov, registering the EMDS election monitoring organization, and keeping promises to invite election observers from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe

Sa notice WP ▻http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thomas_O._Melia

Asia Times Online :: Obama dips toe in Syrian Rubicon
▻http://www.atimes.com/atimes/World/WOR-01-040913.html
By M K Bhadrakumar , 4 septembre 2013

A leading international authority on the subject, Professor Jack Goldsmith at the Harvard Law School (who previously served as US Assistant Attorney General in the Office of Legal Counsel and also as Special Counsel to the Department of Defense, apart from being a member of the Hoover Institution Task Force on National Security and Law) warned on Sunday, “There is much more here [in the proposed AUMF] than at first meets the eye.”

In a detailed commentary for the Lawfare journal, the professor wrote:

It [AUMF] authorizes the President to use any element of the US Armed Forces and any method of force. It does not contain specific limits on targets - either in terms of the identity of the targets (eg the Syrian government, Syrian rebels, Hezbollah, Iran) or the geography of the targets.

Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to take sides in the Syrian Civil War, or to attack Syrian rebels associated with al Qaeda, or to remove Assad from power? Yes, as long as the President determines that any of these entities has a (mere) connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and that the use of force against one of them would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the US or its allies (eg Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons. It is very easy to imagine the President making such determinations with regard to Assad or one or more of the rebel groups.

Does the proposed AUMF authorize the President to use force against Iran or Hezbollah, in Iran or Lebanon ? Again, yes, as long as the President determines that Iran or Hezbollah has a (mere) connection to the use of WMD in the Syrian civil war, and the use of force against Iran or Hezbollah would prevent or deter the use or proliferation of WMD within, or to and from, Syria, or protect the US or its allies (eg Israel) against the (mere) threat posed by those weapons.

The proposed Syrian AUMF is worth a lot, for it would (in sum) permit the President to use military force against any target anywhere in the world (including Iran or Lebanon) as long as the President, in his discretion, determines the target has a connection to WMD in the Syrian civil war and the use of force has the purpose of preventing or deterring (broad concepts) the use or proliferation of WMDs in, to, or from Syria, or of protecting the US and its allies from the mere threat (again, a broad concept) of use or proliferation of WMDs connected to the Syrian conflict.

Congress needs to be careful about what it authorizes. [Italics as in original text.]

Will the UK ever give up on its racist immigration policy?
▻http://africasacountry.com/will-the-uk-ever-give-up-on-its-racist-immigration-policy

There have been lots of stories in the British press recently related to immigration, and these have made it clear that a sentiment still exists that is opposed to the familiar xenophobia with which the topic is usually discussed in the UK. For a moment it has seemed that perhaps not everyone around us is […]

#OPINION #POLITICS #Ambalavaner_Sivanandan #G4S #Jimmy_Mubenga #Mark_Duggan #Paul_Gilroy #Racist_Van #Stuart_Hall #UKBA

The Ugly Revolution
Michael Rogin
▻http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n09/michael-rogin/the-ugly-revolution

A falsification that held more universal sway among whites than did any Stalinist rewriting of history in the Soviet Union transformed black Americans in the post-bellum South from victims of re-subjugation into political and sexual predators.

It is now a commonplace that, instead of protecting Southern civil rights workers, the FBI (with the collusion of the Kennedy brothers) conducted a campaign to discredit King. The organisation’s assistant director, William Sullivan, compiled from the Bureau’s wiretaps and bugs a tape of the noises of the civil rights leader’s extramarital activities. He sent it to King with a letter threatening to expose him; purporting to be a ‘Negro’, the letter-writer proposed suicide as King’s only way out.

Elevating King to the pantheon of founding fathers, however, has served as a ritual of national self-congratulation that obliterates the radical movement in which King lived, breathed and died.

(...)

Ronald Reagan, who had opposed not only the civil rights movement but also the national legislation ending legal discrimination and guaranteeing the black right to vote, was the President who signed the Bill declaring King’s birthday a national holiday. There were two reasons for this historical irony. First, King was being celebrated as ‘poster boy’ (Dyson’s term) for the achievement of formal legal equality by those claiming that the struggle for racial justice had been won. Second, Reagan was paying back the debt he owed King, since the entry of racial conflict into national politics overthrew the FDR/Johnson New Deal coalition and put the former actor in the White House.

Gmailers Beware: Google Says You Have No “Reasonable Expectation” of Privacy | Alternet
▻http://www.alternet.org/civil-liberties/gmailers-beware-google-says-you-have-no-reasonable-expectation-privacy?aki

In its motion to dismiss the case, Google said the plaintiffs were making “an attempt to criminalize ordinary business practices” that have been part of Gmail’s service since its introduction. Google said “all users of email must necessarily expect that their emails will be subject to automated processing.”

According to Google: “Just as a sender of a letter to a business colleague cannot be surprised that the recipient’s assistant opens the letter, people who use web-based email today cannot be surprised if their communications are processed by the recipient’s ECS [electronic communications service] provider in the course of delivery.”

Google: Gmail Users Have No Reason to Expect Privacy
▻http://gizmodo.com/google-gmail-users-have-no-reason-to-expect-privacy-1126390598

Here’s some more bad news to add to the pile of concern over email vulnerability, a brief filed by Google’s attorneys has just surfaced and revealed that Gmail users should have “no legitimate expectation of privacy”—ever.