Gambian Capital Locked Down After Apparent Coup Attempt

Gambian President Yahya Jammeh returns after coup attempt.

VOA News
December 30, 2014 6:08 PM

The president of Gambia, Yahya Jammeh, is heading home just hours after speculation began about a possible attempted coup in the West African nation, something the government denies.

Residents and diplomats in the Gambian capital of Banjul say that early Tuesday they awoke to armed attackers shooting near the presidential palace.

Initial reports claim soldiers linked to the presidential guard were involved in the fighting.

The French News Agency quotes an unnamed military officer as saying three suspects were killed in the violence, including the alleged ringleader, whom the officer described as an army deserter.

U.S. State Department spokesman Jeff Rathke said the United States is aware of reports of a coup attempt in Gambia.

"We strongly condemn any attempt to seize power through extra constitutional means. And we call for calm, and for all parties to refrain from further violence. We are of course in touch with our embassy in Banjul. The embassy remains open," said Rathke.

The Gambian government said there was no coup attempt.

Area residents said radio and television stations were airing only traditional music, which they said was unusual, as soldiers restricted movement in and out of the capital city.

Gambia is a former British colony surrounded by Senegal.

Human rights organizations have long criticized Jammeh's government as repressive, saying it targets political opponents, journalists and homosexuals.


Soldiers Lock Down Gambia Capital After Overnight Shooting

TVC Satellite News

Gunfire rang out in Gambia's capital Banjul overnight and soldiers blocked the bridge leading to the centre of the seaside city amid media reports of an attempted coup.

A diplomat said unknown gunmen had attacked State House during the night but shooting died down later. Local media and diplomats said Gambia's President Yahya Jammeh was in France when the violence broke out.

Jammeh, who himself came to power in a coup 20 years ago, has stifled dissent in the tiny West African nation and faced increased criticism from abroad over his human rights record.

In recent years, Jammeh has frequently reshuffled senior military and civilian officials, a move that prevented individuals from becoming too powerful but stoked instability.

Banks and other offices remained closed on Tuesday, residents said. State radio played traditional kora music and did not refer to the incident.

There was no official confirmation of the reports on Twitter and media of an attempted coup.

- See more at: http://www.tvcnews.tv/?q=article/soldiers-lock-down-gambia-capital-after-overnight-shooting#sthash.AamDZHAJ.dpuf

United Nations Security Council Rejects Palestine State Resolution

Palestine Ambassador to the United Nations Riyad Mansour.

Tue Dec 30, 2014 10:33PM GMT
presstv.ir

The United Nations Security Council (UNSC) has rejected a draft resolution demanding the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

On Tuesday, the Security Council did not adopt the draft resolution, which called for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state and the termination of the Israeli occupation.

The resolution needed to secure at least nine votes to be adopted by the 15-member Security Council. However, it managed to garner only eight positive votes, as the US and Australia voted against the resolution and the UK, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Korea and Lithuania abstained.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, referred to the resolution, which was submitted by Jordan and backed by the Arab League, as “deeply imbalanced".

The draft resolution designated occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of a future Palestinian state, addressed the issue of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and demanded the end of Israeli occupation by 2017.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had earlier warned that his administration would no longer deal with Israel if the bid failed.

In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state" despite strong opposition from Israel and the US.


Palestine raps UNSC rejection of Palestine state resolution

Wed Dec 31, 2014 2:14AM GMT

Palestine has lashed out at the United Nations Security Council’s failure to approve a draft resolution demanding the recognition of an independent Palestinian state.

“They had ample opportunity to engage and be part of this effort,” said Riyad Mansour, the Palestinian ambassador to the UN, on Tuesday, adding, “How long do we have to wait?”

Earlier in the day, the Security Council did not adopt the draft resolution, which called for the recognition of an independent Palestinian state and the termination of the Israeli occupation.

The resolution needed to secure at least nine votes to be adopted by the 15-member Security Council. However, it managed to garner only eight positive votes, as the US and Australia voted against the resolution and the UK, Rwanda, Nigeria, South Korea and Lithuania abstained.

Samantha Power, the US ambassador to the UN, referred to the resolution, which was submitted by Jordan and backed by the Arab League, as “deeply imbalanced".

The draft resolution designated occupied East al-Quds (Jerusalem) as the capital of a future Palestinian state, addressed the issue of Palestinians in Israeli prisons and demanded the end of Israeli occupation by 2017.

Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas had earlier warned that his administration would no longer deal with Israel if the bid failed.

In November 2012, the United Nations General Assembly voted to upgrade Palestine’s status at the UN from "non-member observer entity" to "non-member observer state" despite strong opposition from Israel and the US.

Police Reportedly Say They Aren't Making Arrests After Cop Killings

The Huffington Post
By Simon McCormack
12/30/2014 5:07 pm EST

Cops anonymously told the New York Post that they aren't making arrests for minor crimes because they fear for their safety following the murders of two NYPD officers.

"I’m not writing any summonses. Do you think I’m going to stand there so someone can shoot me or hit me in the head with an ax?” a cop, who was granted anonymity by the Post, said. "I’m concerned about my safety. I want to go to home to my wife and kids.”

To back up these assertions, the Post reports in a separate story that arrests have nose-dived by 66 percent over the last week, fueled by huge drops in arrests for minor offenses. That percentage is based on a comparison between last week starting Dec. 22 and the same week in 2013.

It's unclear if that comparison is valid or if low-level arrests have been down for much of the year. The Post doesn't say and the NYPD didn't immediately respond to a request for comment from The Huffington Post.

But if the Post's numbers are to be believed, they represent a huge dip in arrests.

Citations for traffic violations fell by 94 percent, from 10,069 to 587. Summonses for low-level offenses "like public drinking and urination" dropped by 94 percent as well, the Post reports.

The Post's sources say the "work stoppage" as the Post describes it is driven primarily by safety, but also fueled by feeling betrayed by New York Mayor Bill de Blasio.

But the drop in arrests could be worse news for NYPD Chief Bill Bratton than it is for those protesting police misconduct.

Bratton helped pioneer the "broken windows" approach of policing. Proponents of the broken windows theory believe that law enforcement cracking down on low-level offenses leads to a drop in more serious crimes.

The theory is controversial and its effectiveness has been repeatedly cast into doubt.

Even criminologist James Q. Wilson, one of the originators of the broken windows theory, describes it as "a speculation.”

“I still to this day do not know if improving order will or will not reduce crime,” Wilson said in 2004.

Those who have protested the recent deaths of Eric Garner and other African-Americans at the hands of police have explicitly criticized broken windows policing.

It was an attempt to arrest Eric Garner for the low-level offense of allegedly selling untaxed cigarettes that, a coroner's report said, led to his death.

At a rally earlier this month, the chant, "Broken windows, broken lives," could be heard echoing in the streets.

Bombing Outside Rebel Libyan Parliament in Tobruk Wounds 11

Hotel in Tobruk where one rebel regime is hold up.

11:47am EST

BENGHAZI, Libya-- A suicide bomber detonated a car laden with explosives in front of a hotel where Libya's western-installed parliament was in session in the eastern city of Tobruk on Tuesday, wounding three deputies and eight others, the assembly's spokesman said.

The bombing is the biggest attack on the rebel parliament since it set up in Tobruk, near the Egyptian border. The assembly, which was elected in June, shifted its seat to Tobruk for security reasons after violence in its planned location, the eastern port city of Benghazi, worsened.

The car exploded in a parking lot near the entrance gate to the hotel as lawmakers sat in a nearby hall, parliamentary spokesman Farraj Hashem told Reuters by phone. Three deputies and eight hotel staff were wounded, he said.

Until now, Tobruk has been relatively secure compared to the rest of Libya, which has been in violent turmoil since Muammar Gaddafi was toppled nearly four years ago in a Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), Pentagon and NATO war of regime-change. A car bomb in November targeted the city, but not parliament itself.

Libya's conflict involves internecine conflicts between counter-revolutionary brigades which served as ground troops in the massive air campaign by the Pentagon and NATO that ousted and brutally assassinated Gaddafi in 2011. Now the counter-revolutionaries are fighting each other for power and a share of Africa's biggest oil reserves.

Details of Tuesday's bombing were not clear. Another lawmaker at the scene said the attack was a car bomb, not a suicide attack. Officials often contradict themselves in Libya, which has no efficient state institutions or police.

The House of Representatives in Tobruk is allied to the imperialist recognized regime of Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni, who was also forced to relocate after Libya Dawn took control of the capital.

Thinni is based in the city of Bayda, while the parliament set up in the Tobruk hotel. An initial plan to relocate to the port city of Benghazi was called off as it was judged too dangerous.

Libya Dawn has established its own parliament in Tripoli, though this has not been recognized by the imperialist powers who waged the 2011 war to destroy the Gaddafi government and the oil-rich country.

The conflict has been complicated by a separate battle in Benghazi where Thinni's rebel forces have merged with militias of a CIA asset turned-general who is fighting other rebels labelled as Islamists.

Tobruk is located east of the coastal town of Derna, a hotspot for Al Qaeda sympathizers and other elements.

Rebels Burn Nearly Two Million Barrels of Oil in Libya

BENGHAZI, Libya-- A fire raging for almost a week at Libya's biggest oil port of Es Sider has destroyed up to 1.8 million barrels of crude and damaged seven storage tanks, causing total damage of $213 million, a top oil official said on Tuesday.

The Es Sider terminal and nearby Ras Lanuf stopped working three weeks ago when forces loyal to a rival regime in Tripoli tried seizing them from forces allied to the imperialist-recognized rebel Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni.

The terminals are still under control of Thinni's forces but the area has become a battlefield against former rebels who helped oust longtime Pan-Africanist leader Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 on behalf of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Pentagon and NATO, but now fight each other for control of the North African country.

A huge fire at a tank farm outside the terminal was reported on Thursday after a rocket hit, with both sides blaming the other.

Thinni's top oil official, al-Mabrook al-Buseif, told the press that the fire had damaged seven tanks and destroyed up to 1.8 million barrels of crude - roughly four times Libya's daily production.

Two tanks have collapsed and two others are still on fire, said Mohamed El Harari, a spokesman for state National Oil Corp (NOC). Two tank fires had been extinguished.

Thinni has been forced to work out of the east since a rival group called Libya Dawn seized Tripoli in August, setting up its own government and parliament that is not recognized by world powers.

Es Sider is fed from fields run by Waha Oil Co, a joint-venture between Libya's National Oil Corp. with U.S. companies Hess, Marathon and ConocoPhillips.

Without the two ports, which accounted for around 300,000 bpd of exports, Libya's total output was in the range of the 380,000 bpd reported on Sunday, Harari said.

The ports of Zawiya and Mellitah in the west of the country have also halted oil exports as the conflict has shut down the connecting fields of El Sharara and El Feel.

Only the ports of Hariga and Brega in the east and two offshore fields are still working but part of the output is needed to feed the 120,000 bpd Zawiya and 20,000 bpd Tobruk refineries.

Why Cuba Will Never Send Assata Shakur to the U.S.

By Achy Obejas Cuba

She's on the FBI Most Wanted Terrorists list. Why Cuba protects her.

In May 2013, on the 40th anniversary of her arrest, Assata Shakur was suddenly and inexplicably named to the FBI's Most Wanted Terrorists list, with an award of up to $2 million for her capture. She was the first woman ever put on that list, but she gained that notorious promotion at a time when she was doing little that could be conceived of as criminal. Shakur, also known as Joanne Deborah Chesimard, was serving a life sentence for murder when she escaped from prison in 1979. For the last 30 years, she has been quietly living in Havana, occasionally entertaining visitors in her modest apartment, writing and rarely drawing attention to herself.

At the time Shakur made the Most Wanted Terrorists list, Aaron Ford, special agent in charge of the FBI's Newark office, said, "While living openly and freely in Cuba, she continues to maintain and promote her terrorist ideology. She provides anti-U.S.-government speeches, espousing the Black Liberation Army's message of revolution and terrorism."

In other words, even by FBI standards, Shakur was raised to terrorist level on pretty shaky grounds: for speaking and writing, usually protected activities. At the time, I speculated in an essay for WBEZ that Shakur's addition to the FBI list might have been a way to pressure Cuba to release U.S. Agency for International Development worker Alan Gross. That was 19 months ago. Just this month, when President Barack Obama announced that the U.S. and Cuba were working to normalize relations and that Gross would be released, he said the two countries had been in secret talks for 18 months.

Not surprisingly, Shakur is back in the news. Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, where Shakur was convicted of killing one state trooper and grievously wounding another, has called for her extradition.

But Shakur will never go back to New Jersey or anywhere on American soil, and it's not just because Cuba and the U.S. have no extradition treaty. Both countries have inherent interests, ethical and not so ethical, in allowing Shakur to die of natural causes in Havana.

The first is practical: If the U.S. makes a serious request for Shakur, Cuba will undoubtedly counter with a request of its own for Luis Posada Carriles. The 86-year-old, who has long ties to the CIA and its covert activities in Latin America, is now living out his old age in Miami. Among his crimes: He was convicted in Panama of the 1976 bombing of a Cuban airliner that killed 73 civilians. He has been suspected of planting bombs in Havana in 1997 (including one that killed an Italian tourist). He was arrested in Panama for an attempt on Fidel Castro's life but pardoned by the U.S.-supported president of that country in 2004.

Bringing Shakur to the U.S. may satisfy a whole lot of folks who are outraged because a convicted cop killer is free, but she has little intelligence value to the American government. Releasing Posada Carriles to the Cubans, however, is a whole different story: The guy has had his hands in everything from the Bay of Pigs to the Contra wars.

Though neither the U.S. nor Cuba — this would be a pre-Castro Cuba — is a signatory to the United Nations' 1951 Convention on the Status of Refugees, which covers political asylum, both have built curious reputations for routinely offering asylum. (The U.S. is a signatory to the update known as the 1967 Protocol, while Cuba has signed only the Mexico Declaration and Plan of Action to Strengthen the International Protection of Refugees in Latin America in 2004.)

Cuba has long been a haven for African-Americans who've committed what might be interpreted as political crimes. Black Panthers such as Eldridge Cleaver, Huey Newton and Raymond Johnson all spent time in Cuba in the 1960s (not always happily). At one time it was speculated that as many as 90 African-Americans were living in Cuba under asylum. Indeed, Shakur is not even the only one who's been on an FBI wanted list; Victor Manuel Gerena has been on the Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list since 1984.

For Cuba, turning Shakur in to U.S. authorities would constitute a betrayal of its long, very carefully cultivated relationship with the African-American community, with the African diaspora and Africa itself. Castro didn't just do photo ops with Malcolm X; under his leadership, Cuba articulated a vision for the elimination of institutional racism and attempted to dismantle it (though even he admitted this was not as successful as he'd hoped), put men and women on the ground in several wars of liberation in Africa, trained doctors from Africa for free through its Latin American School of Medicine and, in recent years, extended scholarships to the school through the Congressional Black Caucus to U.S. students from underserved communities. (Of course, all this has also resulted in tremendous tolerance by African and other Third World countries of Cuba's human rights abuses.)

Returning Shakur to the U.S. would be an inconceivable 180 on the principles that governed all that. And whatever Cuba's actual record on more general ethical behavior, this is one issue on which it has never wavered.

Achy Obejas, born in Havana, Cuba, is a columnist for In These Times and the author of five books.

Africa 2014 in Review: Challenges for Genuine Independence and Development

Events illustrate the actual character of the present world situation

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

During the course of 2014 there was much discussion about the phenomenal economic growth of various African nation-states. The Federal Republic of Nigeria was proclaimed by western financial publications to have attained the status of the largest economy on the continent.

Inside the Republic of South Africa, where two decades earlier the masses of workers, farmers and youth had overthrown the dreaded apartheid system instituting a parliamentary structure with the African National Congress (ANC) being the dominant political force, the voters granted the ruling party another five years of governmental control. South Africa, according to these same financial pundits, is no longer the number one economic powerhouse in the region.

These assessments and efforts by the imperialist-based financial institutions are not only designed to signal to Wall Street and the Pentagon what the new avenues of interests should be but to also cause divisions within the African Union (AU) member-states. Europe and the United States held conferences during 2014 where they decided who the invited guests would be as opposed to the successor of the continental organization that was formed in 1963, the Organization of African Unity (OAU).

The April 2-4 European Union (EU)-Africa Summit excluded key leaders within Africa from Western Sahara, Eritrea, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Egypt and others. As a result of these actions other heads-of-state, such as President Jacob Zuma of the Republic of South Africa, refused to attend. Zuma noted that the time was over for Europeans deciding who should attend a conference and those that will not be invited.

Although the uprisings in Burkina Faso and the industrial strikes that impacted Ghana, Nigeria, Sierra Leone, Liberia and other West African states provided clear indicators that the African working class is challenging the contemporary neo-liberal approach to development and foreign policy, which we will examine in a later report, the impact of the challenges to Africa in 2014 provides ideas that can lead to programs aimed at the eradication of the post-colonial socio-economic quagmires plaguing the region in the 21st century.

Ebola: Its Continental and Global Impact

Overshadowing all other crises and triumphs, the Ebola Virus Disease (EVD) pandemic has dominated the news about Africa. The disease is one of the lethal Viral Hemorrhagic Fevers (VHF) that has infected humans for centuries. Nonetheless, in this period such outbreaks have immediate international implications.

EVD has been present through various strains since 1976 in the former Zaire, now known as the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Named after a river in the DRC, the disease has become a profound illustration of the challenges facing the continent during the current period.

The lack of medical, educational, transportation and communications infrastructures can be attributed to the rapid spread of EVD in three West African states: Liberia, Sierra Leone and Guinea. In the three most affected states there is the legacy of neo-colonialism, militarism and civil war.

Liberia as a nation-state has origins in the repatriation of Africans in the U.S. during the antebellum slave period of the 19th century. Sierra Leone was founded as a similar home for Africans who fought alongside the British during the so-called American Revolutionary War since London promised freedom to the enslaved Africans for their cooperation during the late 18th century.

Guinea, of course, is a former French colony whose people resisted colonialism and slavery during the 19th century. The Democratic Party of Guinea (PDG) was one of the liberation movements that demanded immediate independence from foreign rule and struck out as a sovereign state in 1958 under President Ahmed Sekou Toure.

After President Toure’s death in March 1984 and a subsequent military coup, Guinea has suffered periodic rebellions and unconstitutional changes of government. Over the last thirty years, Conakry has seen instability and deepening underdevelopment.

The western imperialist approach to the EVD pandemic has been highly militarized. The Pentagon through the U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) has deployed several thousand more troops to Liberia. AFRICOM already has projects in Sierra Leone as well.

Despite the sluggish response by the U.S., Britain and France, the Republic of Cuba has stepped up to the task sending physicians and other healthcare workers to assist in eradicating the outbreak. Cuba views the intervention in West Africa around the EVD crisis as a continuation of their decades-long solidarity with the peoples of the continent, who share a common bond with the region through heritage, politics and national culture.

There has been much criticism surrounding the response by the Western imperialist states to the EVD outbreak. The tabulation and projections related to the spread of the disease have been a source of disagreement but it is clear that this outbreak poses a monumental challenge to not only West Africa but the entire continent.

A report published by Time.com on Dec. 29 says “Cases of Ebola in Sierra Leone, Liberia and Guinea have reached over 20,000. New numbers released from the World Health Organization (WHO) on Monday show Ebola has infected 20,081 people and killed 7,842. That’s nearly 400 new cases of the disease in just four days.

This same article goes on to note that “Despite missions launched by countries and international groups like the United States and United Nations in the last few months, the disease continues to spread. Sierra Leone has passed Liberia in number of cases. Many are anxiously awaiting a vaccine that’s been estimated to become available in the early part of the new year and researchers are also working on developing drugs to treat Ebola.”

Although other infectious diseases such as measles, polio, malaria, HIV-AIDs account for far more cases of sickness and death than EVD, the rapidity with which this form of VHF has struck the West Africa region is a cause for grave concern. In addition, the way in which the discussion around Ebola entered into the U.S. political framework is also instructive in regard to how the outbreak is perceived.

Due to the infection and eventual death of Liberian national Thomas Eric Duncan in Dallas, Texas during October and the spreading of the disease to two nurses, Nina Pham and Amber Vinson, EVD became a major news story leading up to the 2014 mid-term elections. Calls by politicians and news commentators for the banning of people from the most severely impacted West African states served as a mechanism to stigmatize not only those countries and their people but the continent as a whole.

However, the successful treatment of Pham and Vinson, along with other healthcare workers brought into the U.S. for specialized care after spending time in West Africa, resulted in the near disappearance of the issue from the corporate media radar. Nevertheless, the plight of the people of the affected West Africa states remains and must be addressed by both people on the continent and the international community.

Internal Strife and Militarism: The Republic of South Sudan and the Central African Republic

Even though the EVD pandemic became a cause for concern in the western industrialized and imperialist states, the situations in both the Republic of South Sudan and the Central African Republic (CAR) also stems from the crises of post-colonial Africa. South Sudan came into being after decades of civil unrest and war within the Republic of Sudan based in Khartoum in the north.

In 2011, the U.S., Britain and other states hailed the partition of Sudan, once the largest geographic nation-state in Africa. Today, the government led by the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement-Army (SPLM/A) in Juba is split between one faction aligned with President Salva Kiir against another headed by ousted Vice-President Riek Machar.

There have been hundreds of thousands of South Sudanese displaced since the fighting began in Dec. 2013. The presence of Ugandan troops in South Sudan has been a major factor in the regional Inter-Governmental Authority on Development (IGAD) negotiations aimed at a viable ceasefire needed to halt the fighting.

The now SPLM-In Opposition headed by Machar wants the withdrawal of Ugandan People’s Defense Forces (UPDF) from the country. Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni says that the military presence in South Sudan is designed to ensure that the instability will not worsen.

Since 2013, the Central African Republic government has changed regimes three times. Ousted President Francois Bozize was forced to resign in April 2013 paving the way for the rebel Muslim-dominated Seleka Coalition headed by Michel Djotodia, who assumed the presidency.

Violence continued under the Seleka Coalition prompting the rise of the Anti-Balaka group consisting of Christian-based militias carrying out reprisals for the brutality inflicted on the population by the Djotodia regime. The minority Muslim population was targeted through the destruction of their businesses and the forcing of thousands of families from homes in the capital of Bangui and other areas of the country.

Up to 20,000 foreign troops from Africa, the EU and former colonial France were slated to occupy the CAR during 2014. The fighting has shifted to border areas near Chad where Muslim fighting groups are seeking to regroup for both self-defense and survival under such dire circumstances.

Both the Republic of South Sudan and the CAR are examples of the challenges facing the continent wracked by neo-colonialism and imperialist intrigue. Both South Sudan and the CAR contain natural resources such as oil, diamonds, gold and uranium among other strategic minerals making these countries a cause of concern for transnational corporations and banks which are still profiting from the world capitalist system and its overall international division of labor and economic power.

African Sovereignty and Genuine Independence Must Take Priority in the Coming Year

The AU and other regional alliances combined with the popular organizations and labor unions should seriously address the implications of developments during 2014. With the inability of present-day African states to effectively address the internal conflicts inside these countries will only provide a rationale for the former colonial powers and the U.S. to militarily intervene to ostensibly resolve these security crises.

This same scenario is clearly related to the response to the EVD pandemic. Infrastructural development has to be a major agenda item for all governments and mass organizations throughout the continent.

AFRICOM has already spread and deepened its involvement throughout the region. This also holds true for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department based in Washington. The U.S. response to the EVD outbreak has been largely militaristic and has lacked effectiveness in regard to building field hospitals, clinics, fostering technology transfers, research capacity and access to protective gear as well as medicines.

These same shortcomings apply to both Britain and France as it relates to the response to the EVD crisis. The imperialist states have their own economic and political interests which guides western foreign policy imperatives in regard to Africa.

Consequently, Africa and its people must rise to the occasion and break its dependency on the West. Only when the eradication of neo-colonial relations take center stage will the prospects for real growth and development be realized on the continent.

Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW Editor, Speaks to Press TV: US is ‘Extremely Violent’ Society

The United States is an “extremely violent” society with a crime rate that spikes during Christmas season, says Abayomi Azikiwe

To listen to this statement by Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire, just click on the website below:
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2014/12/26/391918/us-is-extremely-violent-society/

Fri Dec 26, 2014 3:10PM GMT

The United States is an “extremely violent” society with a crime rate that spikes during Christmas season due to the commercialization of the holiday and excess consumerism, an African American journalist in Detroit says.

“This time of year in the United States is always a time of interpersonal violence and social violence as well,” said Abayomi Azikiwe, editor of the Pan-African News Wire.

US retail companies employ various mechanisms to entice Americans to spend over their budget during Christmas shopping season, which can cause severe depression in people who lack enough resources, Azikiwe told Press TV on Thursday.

The weak economic recovery and tense relationship between the police and communities across the US contributes to the high rate of crime and violence in the country, he maintained.

“People around the world need to know that despite the rhetoric of the US government and the corporate media, the United States is a very violent society, extremely violent,” he said.

“It was born in violence, it substantiates its power systems through violence and this trickles down to the majority of people in society,” Azikiwe added.

The United States witnessed a violent Christmas Eve as several people were shot dead in separate incidents and a dozen others suffered wounds in shootings across the country.

In Washington, DC, six shootings took place on Christmas Eve, including two police-involved incidents. Five of those shot died.

The five deaths in the nation’s capital came while Chicago had the most violent Christmas Eve in the country. Shootings throughout the city left one person dead and ten others wounded.

National Defense Campaign Building for Rev. Edward Pinkney

Abayomi Azikiwe, PANW editor, Rev. Edward Pinkney of
BANCO and Ralph Poynter of New York City outside the Berrien
County Courthouse just prior to the sentencing of Rev. Piinkney to
30-120 months in prison on trumped-up forgery felony charges.
(Photo: Marcina Cole)

Activists around the United States are angered over racial injustice in southwest Michigan

By Abayomi Azikiwe
Editor, Pan-African News Wire

Michigan political prisoner Rev. Edward Pinkney is now being held in Jackson state prison. He remains in good spirits despite the racist injustice that has landed him in detention over manufactured claims that he changed the dates on five signature entries on a recall petition designed to remove Benton Harbor Mayor James Hightower.

During the course of the trial there was no material or circumstantial evidence presented that would implicate Pinkney in the purported five felonies. Many believe that the Berrien County activist and leader of the Black Autonomy Network Community Organization (BANCO) is being punished by the local authorities for opposing the corporate program of Whirlpool Corp. which is headquarters in Benton Harbor.

In 2012, Pinkney and BANCO led an “Occupy the PGA” demonstration against the world-renown golf tournament that was held at the newly-created Jack Nicklaus Signature Golf Course on Lake Michigan. The course was carved out of Jean Klock Park which had been donated to the City of Benton Harbor decades ago.

Berrien County officials were determined to defeat a recall campaign against Mayor Hightower of Benton Harbor who opposed a program to tax local corporations in an effort to create jobs and improve conditions in the majority African American municipality. Benton Harbor, like other Michigan cities, has been devastated by widespread poverty and unemployment.

Statements of Support Pour In

This is not the first time that Pinkney has been imprisoned for his political activities. In 2007 he was convicted in a second trial, with the first ending in a hung jury, for “mishandling” absentee ballots during a recall election involving two Benton Harbor City Commissioners. The results of the elections removing the officials were overturned after criminal charges were filed against the BANCO leader.

Pinkney was sentenced to one year under house arrest and four more years of probation. Later in 2007, he was charged with violating his terms of the sentence for allegedly threatening a judge in Berrien County.

The threat charge stemmed from an article he wrote in the People’s Tribune newspaper based in Chicago where he quoted scriptures from the Old Testament. He was ordered imprisoned for three to ten years.

The charges were overturned in late 2008 by the Michigan Appeals Court after the activist received widespread support from the civil liberties, ecumenical and academic communities across the country. He was released at the end of 2008 and successfully completed his probation returning to full-time activism in Berrien County.

Pinkney in 2008 from his prison cell ran for United States Congress on the Green Party ticket in Michigan. He received 3,500 votes in a challenge to Fred Upton, a Republican congressman and heir to the Whirpool corporate dynasty.

In a statement issued by Green Party Watch it says that “The overt targeting of an African-American activist for a politically-motivated prosecution is reminiscent of recent episodes involving Chuck Turner and Elston McCowan, both Greens who challenged the power structures in their communities. In a system where police officers regularly kill unarmed African-American men without facing trial, it is especially galling that the same system sentences an African-American activist to up to 10 years imprisonment on trumped-up, politically-motivated charges.” (Dec. 17)

Black Agenda Report, a well-known media outlet opposing the corporate influence over African American politics in the U.S., wrote in an editorial that “This may seem like an Old Jim Crow story, about a preacher from a small, mostly Black town who wanted only to help his people through the voting process, but is set upon by backward whites determined to maintain their monopoly on political power. And, it is true; Old Man Jim Crow is alive and well on the banks of Lake Michigan.” (Dec. 17)

This same editorial goes saying “But it is the New Jim Crow, the Mass Black Incarceration State, that has snatched 66 year-old Rev. Pinkney away to what could become life in prison. The judge and prosecutor said that Pinkney’s 12 past and present felony convictions make him a career criminal, even though each count stems from an elections process. The Old Jim Crow would have unapologetically sent Pinkney to the chain gang for being an uppity Black man, but the New Jim Crow simply piled on a bunch of felonies to put him away as a serial criminal, allowing the system to claim that race had nothing to do with it.”

A national conference call was held on Thurs. Dec. 18 designed to build a defense campaign. Former Vermont State Senator Ben-Zion Ptashnik initiated the call through the People Demanding Action (PDA) organization.

The conference call included activist members of the clergy, electoral reform organizers, former Green Party candidates, progressive Democrats, the People’s Tribune newspaper, Moratorium NOW! Coalition, and others. The call provided an update on the case, plans to publicize the plight of Rev. Pinkney and the people of Berrien County, recruiting a legal team and a fundraising drive to proceed with an appeal.

Ptashnik and Victorial Collier wrote in Truth-out.org on Dec. 16 that “Concerned activists and clergy associated with People Demanding Action, a national social justice organization, are circulating a petition to ministers and various organizations. The petition is to be forwarded to the U.S. Justice Department and Attorney General Eric Holder, asking for an investigation into the circumstances of Pinkney's trial and sentencing.

To sign the petition in support of Rev. Edward Pinkney log on to:
http://salsa.wiredforchange.com/o/6405/c/10113/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=10735

Contributions for the defense of Rev. Pinkney can be sent to BANCO at 1940 Union Street, Benton Harbor, Michigan 49022.

Nigerian Workers Groan Over Unpaid December Salaries

Nigerian Finance Minister Dr. Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala.

Written by Mathias Okwe and Collins Olayinka, Abuja
Nigerian Guardian

Otunla• It’s system challenge, not funds’ shortage, says AGF

IT was bleak Christmas for most federal government and states workers across the country as they spent the Yuletide without their salaries despite promises by employers.

   Specifically, at the Federal level, not even the assurances  and promise by the Coordinating Minister for the Economy and Minister of Finance, Dr  Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala that all Federal Government workers would be paid before December 25 came to pass as several agencies of the Federal Government could not pay their staff, some for more than two months, according to The Guardian’s finding at the weekend.

  Okonjo-Iweala had on December 17 while at the 2015 Federal Government budget briefing in Abuja allayed fears that the crude oil price slump was  going to affect workers’ salaries and boasted that every single worker on Federal Government’s pay roll would be paid before the Christmas.

  But The Guardian’s finding in Abuja Monday revealed that some workers in the following federal agencies did not receive their pay before last Christmas: Police, some cadre in the military; Science and Technology; Education; and Information.

   However, while reacting to the development, the Accountant General of the Federation ( AGF), Mr. Jonah Otunla Monday attributed the inability to meet up with the payment schedule to the malfunctioning of the IT platform and maintained that it has nothing to do with funds shortage.

  In the same vein, the National President of the Nigeria Civil Service Union (NCSU), Kiri Mohammed told The Guardian on phone Monday that state governments are copying a bad script from the Federal Government, which has failed to pay some of its workers December salaries as at Monday.

   Mohammed revealed that 13 states of the federation were yet to pay December salaries as at Monday.

  He explained: “I can confirm to you that 13 state governments are yet to pay December salaries to their workers. As if this is not bad enough, the Federal Government is even worst than the state governments. As I speak to you, workers in the Federal Ministries of Education and that of Labour and Productivity are yet to collect their December salaries. Why should workers go and obtain loan to celebrate Christmas and New Year? I don’t think anybody can justify this in any form.”

  Mohammed added that the Rivers State government started paying its staffers December salaries only yesterday and that though Ekiti State has paid December salaries, September salaries are still outstanding as Governor Ayodele Fayose has ruled out paying September salaries at least not immediately.

   He listed Plateau, Benue and Bauchi as states that derived pleasure in not paying their workers. Mohammed also said that the Ondo State Government was yet to pay its workers December salaries.
   Also, a member of  staff of the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), an agency of the Federal Ministry of Information who confirmed the development but asked not to be named,  said his agency and the Federal Radio Corporation of Nigeria ( FRCN) didn’t pay their workers before Christmas.

   However, our source confirmed that the FRCN staffers were paid after the Christmas while staffers of NAN as at Monday were yet to receive their salaries.    The source said that they could be paid Tuesday or a day after.

   His words: “He haven’t been paid in spite of the Finance minister’s strong assurance that everybody will be paid before Christmas. But our colleagues at the Voice of Nigeria (VOA) were paid before Christmas while those at the FRCN, I understand were paid after Christmas. But here in NAN and I think one or two other parastatals  and even some in the main ministry were  yet to receive alerts. But I am very optimistic that we could be paid before the end of today or tomorrow.”

   Again, it was learnt that it was only yesterday that Officers and Men of the Nigeria Police Force began to receive alerts for their salaries while we were not able to ascertain if the salaries for the other cadre of the military who had not been paid have started receiving alerts for their pay.

   Otunla said in spite of the challenge, his office has managed to clear as much as 80 per cent of the affected workers’ pay  and reassured that the remaining 20 per cent will be cleared between today and tomorrow.

  His words: “The inability to pay every worker of the Federal Government has nothing to do with revenue. It arose as a result of system failure. The system is configured in such a way that when a  budget for particular Ministries, Departments Agencies (MDAs) is exhausted as planned from the beginning, it automatically shuts down. You know that after planning for MDAs from January, some of them without recourse to the planning, could go ahead to recruit additional staff who were not captured in the plan and this would now affect the budget for the agency from the system.

  “But our consultant is on it. We didn’t rest even on Christmas: We worked all through to ensure that we sort this out and effect payment of salaries to the people affected.    And as I speak to you, we have cleared more than 80 per cent of the affected staff. The remaining ones will surely be cleared between now and tomorrow to ensure that they celebrate the New Year well. I assure you every one is going to be paid. We are all concerned here, including my minister whom I am going  to brief now on the progress so far,” the AFG further stated.

Cameroon Says Fights Off Boko Haram Attacks, Kills 41 Militants

Mon, Dec 29 2014
By Tansa Musa

YAOUNDE (Reuters) - Cameroon's army killed at least 41 Islamist militants as it fought off a wave of attacks along its border with Nigeria over the weekend in an escalation in the conflict, the government said.

The coordinated assaults on five towns and villages showed a change in tactics by Nigerian Boko Haram fighters, who have focused on hit-and-run raids on individual settlements in the past, Information Minister Issa Tchiroma added.

Boko Haram's campaign to carve out an Islamist caliphate has spread from its stronghold in northeast Nigeria to neighboring Cameroon, raising fears for an already unstable region also threatened by Islamist militants in the Sahel.

Cameroon has sent thousands of soldiers to its Far North region to fight off the militants and said it launched air attacks on the movement for the first time on Sunday.

"Units of the (Boko Haram) group attacked Makari, Amchide, Limani and Achigachia in a change of strategy which consists of distracting Cameroonian troops on different fronts, making them more vulnerable in the face of the mobility and unpredictability of their attacks" Tchiroma said late on Sunday.

At least 34 militants were killed after the army laid siege to a base used by the militants in Chogori, and seven others and one soldier were killed near the town of Waza, he said.

The Islamists briefly occupied an army camp in Achigachia after a fierce fight, but withdrew after air attacks, army spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Didier Badjeck told Reuters by phone.

All the militants had now pulled back into Nigeria, Badjeck said.

Both Tchiroma and Badjeck said it was too early to give full details of casualties.

Boko Haram has killed more than 40 soldiers and recruited hundreds of youths during raids in Cameroon's Far North region this year.

(Additional reporting and Writing by Bate Felix; Editing by Andrew Heavens)

U.S. Air Strike in Somalia Targets Al-Shabaab Leader

By Jamie Crawford and Dana Ford, CNN
6:04 PM EST, Mon December 29, 2014

STORY HIGHLIGHTS
An unmanned aircraft carried out the strike, says a U.S. official
Another U.S. official says the results of the operation are being assessed

(CNN) -- The United States conducted an airstrike Monday in Somalia against Al-Shabaab, said Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby, Pentagon press secretary.

The strike, which took place in the area of Saakow, was targeting a senior leader of the Islamist militant group.

"At this time, we do not assess there to be any civilian or bystander casualties. We are assessing the results of the operation and will provide additional information, when appropriate, as details become available," Kirby said in a statement.

The strike was carried out by an unmanned aircraft, and was an operation of the U.S. Defense Department, according to a U.S. defense official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

On Saturday, Somalia government forces captured a top Al-Shabaab commander, said two of the country's military officials.

Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi, Al-Shabaab's intelligence chief, was captured in a house near the town of El Wak, Somali military commander Isack Hussein Mursal told state-run radio.

He was a close associate of former Al-Shabaab leader Ahmed Abdi Godane, who was killed in a U.S. airstrike near Barawe city in September.

The capture came after militants with the group, which is linked to al Qaeda, attacked a large African Union base in Mogadishu last week, killing three Ugandan soldiers and a civilian.

Al-Shabaab has said that attack was revenge for the U.S. airstrike that killed Godane. The State Department had offered a $7 million reward for information on Godane's location.


Wanted Al-Shabab Leader Surrenders In Somalia: Official

 By ABDI GULED
12/27/2014 8:44 am EST

NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — A leader with the Islamic extremist group al-Shabab, who had a $3 million bounty on his head, surrendered in Somalia, a Somali intelligence official said Saturday.

Zakariya Ismail Ahmed Hersi surrendered to Somali police in the Gedo region, said the intelligence officer, who insisted on anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the press.

Hersi may have surrendered because he fell out with those loyal to Ahmed Abdi Godane, al-Shabab's top leader who was killed in a U.S. airstrike earlier this year, the officer said.

Hersi was one of seven top al-Shabab officials whom the Obama administration offered a total $33 million in rewards for information leading to their capture in 2012. It is not clear if the reward will be paid out for Hersi because he surrendered.

Despite major setbacks in 2014, al-Shabab remains a threat in Somalia and the East African region. The group has carried out many terror attacks in Somalia and some in neighboring countries including Kenya, whose armies are part of the African Union troops bolstering Somalia's weak U.N.- backed government.

On Christmas day al-Shabab launched an attack at the African Union base in Mogadishu. Nine people died, including three African Union soldiers, in the attack on the complex, which also houses U.N. offices and western embassies. Al-Shabab said the attack was aimed at a Christmas party and was in retaliation for the killing of the group's leader Godane.

Al-Shabab also claimed that 14 soldiers were killed but the group often exaggerates the number of people it kills.

Al-Shabab is waging an Islamic insurgency against Somalia's government that is attempting to rebuild the country after decades of conflict.

Al-Shabab controlled much of Mogadishu during the years 2007 to 2011, but was pushed out of Somalia's capital and other major cities by African Union forces. The United States and the U.N. warn that political infighting in Somalia is putting at risk the security gains. The federal government remains weak and wields little power outside the capital Mogadishu.

Pentagon Discloses Airstrike Against Senior Somalia Al-Shabaab Leader

Damage from al-Shabaab attack during 2014.

CAROL J. WILLIAMS

The United States launched an airstrike against a senior al Shabab militia leader in southwestern Somalia on Monday, a Pentagon spokesman disclosed.

Rear Admiral John Kirby did not name the target of the strike near the town of Saakow, northeast of the militants' stronghold of Kismayo, saying only that security officials were "assessing the results of the operation" that would be made public when appropriate and as details become available.

No civilian casualties were known to have resulted from the airstrike, Kirby said.

A US airstrike in early September killed al-Shabab's top commander, Ahmed Abdi Godane, as he travelled in a convoy south of the government-controlled capital, Mogadishu.

In October, Navy SEALs raided the home of another al Shabab leader, Abdulkadir Mohamed Abdulkadir, in Baraawe, south of Mogadishu, in a failed attempt to capture the militant also known as Ikrima.

Godane, 37, was considered responsible for steering al Shabab into closer alignment with al Qaeda and its more global, anti-Western direction after taking over the militia in 2008. The group had previously focused its insurgent operations on Somali government forces.

Under Godane's leadership, al Shabab gunmen conducted summary executions, amputations and other extremist acts against those who didn't share their harsh interpretation of Islam, alienating more moderate Somali Muslims and accelerating the flight of refugees and asylum-seekers. Internal resistance to the militia intensified after al Shabab gunmen blocked Western humanitarian aid to the country during Somalia's 2011 famine.

Al Shabab in recent months has claimed responsibility for attacks on neighbouring Kenya's coastal tourist resort areas, as well as a December 3 suicide bombing of a UN convoy near Mogadishu's airport.

The militia was also behind the 2013 siege of the upscale Westgate mall in the Kenyan capital, Nairobi, killing at least 67 people.

The airstrike that killed Godane and the attempt on the unnamed militia leader on Monday demonstrated intensified US resolve to contain the violent insurgency that threatens the US-allied government in Mogadishu.

Libyan Oil Output Shrinks More As Oil Tanks Burn From Rebel Fighting

BENGHAZI, Libya, Dec 29-- Libya's oil output has shrunk further after blazing oil tanks at a major terminal helped push world oil prices higher and put a strain on the country's dollar currency reserves.

Libya is surviving on a mere 128,000 barrels per day from fields connected to the eastern port of Hariga, an oil official said on Monday, while fighting halted the major ports Es Sider and Ras Lanuf.

Total oil output, adding offshore fields and Brega output, is about 350,000 bpd - a fraction of the 1.6 million bpd it produced before the 2011 imperialist war of regime-change. Some oil is keeping two refineries going, and the official was unable to say how much, if any, was available for export.

Oil tanks at Es Sider have been on fire for days after a rocket hit one of them, destroying more than two days of Libyan production, officials said on Sunday. The neo-colonial Libya regime has appealed to Italy, Germany and the United States to send firefighters.

A spokesperson for ConocoPhillips, which along with Marathon Oil and Hess Corp owns the Waha Oil Co. that operates the Es Sider tanks, said they had yet to determine the extent of the damage to the oil storage facilities.

Libya's imperialist-recognized regime has contracted an unnamed U.S. firefighter firm to help extinguish the fires for $6 million, it said. Work is due to start within five days.

'GROWING FINANCIAL CRISIS'

The central bank warned that Libya faced a "growing financial crisis...due to the sharp fall in oil production and prices, the widening fiscal deficit, the continued depletion of the country's foreign reserves," according to a statement.

Libya's two largest ports, Es Sider and Ras Lanuf, have stopped operating since a force loyal to a rival rebel regime in Tripoli tried seizing them from forces allied to the other rebel junta of  Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thinni.

Thinni has been forced to work out of the eastern end of the country since a rival group called Libya Dawn seized Tripoli in August, setting up its own regime and parliament unrecognized by imperialist powers.

A spokesman of an oil guard force allied to Thinni said there would be more air strikes on the city of Misrata unless the rival force pulled out of the vicinity of Es Sider. War planes had struck the western city linked to the rival government on Sunday.

"We have given them a 72-hour deadline to withdraw which started yesterday," the spokesman said.

The western ports of Zawiya and Mellitah have also halted oil exports as the conflict has shut down the connecting fields of El Sharara and El Feel. 

Greece Crisis: Europe On Edge Over Snap Election

Greek Prime Minister Antonis Samaras.

BBC World Service

News that Greece faces a snap election on 25 January has been met with international concern, with the radical left scenting victory.

Alexis Tsipras, leader of Syriza, has vowed "austerity will be history" if his left-wing party wins on 25 January.

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble warned there was "no alternative" to Greece's reforms.

Greece's economy has begun to recover after six years of recession but many Greeks want an end to austerity.

On Monday, Greek MPs rejected the presidential candidate nominated by Prime Minister Antonis Samaras, triggering the snap election.

Stavrov Dimas, a former European commissioner, secured the votes of only 168 MPs, the same number he had won during the second vote last week.

Setback

The defeat is regarded as a major setback for eurozone countries that helped bring Greece back from the brink in 2010.

Since then €240bn (£188bn; $290bn) has been spent helping Greece pay off its debts. In return for two major bailouts, the European Union and the International Monetary Fund demanded stringent austerity measures.

Mr Tsipras, whose party has a narrow but steady lead in opinion polls, said the rejection of Mr Dimas was a "historic day for Greek democracy".

Meanwhile, Prime Minister Samaras, whose centre-right New Democracy party dominates the current ruling coalition, said the public risked finding out "how easy it is to relapse into the deepest and most dramatic crisis" after the new election, the fourth in six years of financial crisis.

Investors fear Mr Tsipras' left-wing opposition party might act on popular resentment at six years of government austerity by seeking to overhaul the international bailout deal.

In response to the vote, the IMF said talks on completing a review of the bailout, which Greece would need if it were to leave the the EU-IMF programme, would take place only when a new government was in place.

The Athens stock market fell 7% on Monday as news of the vote sank in, with bank shares among the worst affected.

Investors sold off Greek government bonds, pushing bond yields above 9%. The government's borrowing costs on 10-year bonds rose to 9.7%, in a reminder of the 2010 crisis when 10-year bonds soared above 11%.

The European Central Bank made clear its preference for Greece to continue reforming its finances rather than ending austerity measures, praising its "impressive progress" in stabilising its public finances.

Mr Schaeuble warned that things could become difficult if Greece took a "different path".

"New elections change nothing about the agreements that the Greek government has entered into," the eurozone's most powerful finance minister added. "Any new government must stick to the contractual agreements of its predecessors."

Message to the Cuban Five From the A-APRP (GC)

Republic of Cuba President Raul Castro with the Cuban Five.

Salutations to Our Five Brothers/Comrades/Heroes …

You Are A Bright and Shining Star of Today!

Comrades Gerardo, Ramon, Rene, Fernando and Antonio:

Your unyielding display of principles with conviction, determination, dignity, resistance, steadfastness and devotion toward the struggle for truth, justice, peace and the elimination of terror & terrorism has been an exemplary lesson, a heroic model of service, sacrifice and suffering.  As a result of your conviction and dedication to the Cuban Revolution, the revolutionary steadfastness and determination of the Cuban People and Government, and the solidarity of the peace and justice seeking peoples of the world, you have returned to your homeland, “Cuba.”

It was you, the “5,” who served as the nucleus and the driving force of your own return “home” to revolutionary Cuba.  Your spirit of no-compromise, no-sell-out and your will to sacrifice for the truth and the just cause of your people and country and, indeed, for world humanity made your release possible.  Your attitude and behavior are a reflection of the Cuban people’s unyielding love for peace, justice and socialism combined with tireless struggle in securing and defending the aforementioned. Demands for your return never wavered as both the Communist Party of Cuba, the Cuban people, the government and your families maintained a posture of strength and resolve in the face of the U.S.’s unjust and criminal behavior.  Clearly, your understanding of the importance of unity in the face of adversity is a lesson all humanity should embrace as it pushes against the forces of reaction and injustice.

To the Cuban Government and the Communist Party, we salute your effort as architect and guide, leading a sustained battle of political will; keeping your people united, organized, educated and focused against an egregious injustice rendered against a people/nation who, as a matter of principle, seek to elevate humanity in theory and practice.  Additionally, we salute the International Support to Free the Cuban Five, its various committees and groups world-wide for being a vehicle of political education and resistance, doing the “right thing” and calling out the unjust.

The All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC) extends our gratitude to our “5” revolutionary brothers and comrades: Gerardo, Ramon, Rene, Fernando and Antonio, on your return home.  History has recorded Comrade Fidel’s statement, “They Will Return Home” and now they have.  We join the Communist Party of Cuba, the Government of Cuba and the Cuban people in the joyous occasion of welcoming home the remaining members of “the Cuban 5.”


Viva la Cuba!

Viva los Cubanos!

Viva el Revolucionario Cubano 5!

In Revolutionary Solidarity,

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)

A Message to Sister Comrade Assata Shakur

Sister/Comrade Assata,

On the occasion of the December 2014 US government release of the last three of the “5” Cuban heroes and the accompanying escalation in the demand for your return to the persecution and torture of the racist, criminal US “injustice” system, the All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC), reaffirms our support of your heroic contributions to the revolutionary struggle for freedom, justice, equality, peace, Pan-Africanism, and socialism. Your courageous, consistent and historic work with the Black Panther Party, the Black Liberation Army and the Cuban Revolution, and your proven ability to inspire, motivate and activate a new generation of youth and women of all ages, as evidenced by the pervasive usage of your image and words and the uplifting of your name in current protests against police and government repression sweeping the US, are testament of the enduring value of your work and life-long service, sacrifice and suffering.

In your honor, we salute the Revolutionary Government of Cuba and defend its right and position articulated through Dr. Josefina Vidal Ferreiro, Director, North American Division, Cuban Ministry of Foreign Relations, to “grant political asylum to people it considers to have been persecuted“ and for exercising its right by reaffirming its Revolutionary commitment to protect you. Cuba has legitimately granted your asylum from the racist, criminal US “injustice” system despite contrary demands from fascists New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, the New Jersey State Fraternal Police Association and Acting New Jersey Attorney General John Hoffman.

History will record your place among the numerous women of the world who have made tremendous contributions to the struggle to achieve liberation, peace, Pan-Africanism and scientific socialism such as Yaa Asantewaa, M’balia Camara, Nanny of the Maroons, Anna J. Cooper, Lolita Lebron, Anna Mae Aquash, Leila Khaled, Dalal Mughrabi, Mariana Grajales Coello, Dolores Ibarruri, Rosa Luxemburg, Constance de Markievicz, Vilma Espin, et al. Your courage and tenacity have exalted your status to one of the eternal warriors who sacrificed their own comfort and security to fight for the liberation of all oppressed peoples.

In Revolutionary Solidarity,

All-African People’s Revolutionary Party (GC)

Free All Prisoners of Conscience, Political Prisoners and Prisoners of Wars!

Smash the Repression-Industrial Complex!

Smash the International Police-Military-Prison-Industrial Complex!

Smash the Illegal, Immoral and Racist Embargoes and Blockades on Cuba and other Countries!

Hands off Assata, or the “Sky if the Limit!”

December 29, 2014

“The Interview” Plot Crafted by RAND, State Dept. Over Sony Objections

DPRK leader Kim Jong Un leading a funeral procession for his
father Kim Jong Il in late 2011. The DPRK has been subjected to
repeated attacks by the United States.

December 28, 2014
by Jakob Pettersson

The haze of political chaos in America surrounding the Ferguson protests, the Torture Report, and the “relaxing” of US-Cuba relations has been broken by a media spectacle almost too ridiculous to comprehend.  A hacker group called the “Guardians of Peace” conducted a “cyber attack“ on Sony Pictures Entertainment, leaking emails, documents, presentations, and information about the company.  The US government, and the vast majority of media, all agree that the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) is behind the attack, as a direct retaliation to the production of the movie The Interview, a goofball comedy depicting Seth Rogen and James Franco attempting to assassinate Kim Jong Un.  And given the general media narrative about the easily offended egos of the Kim family, such a story is perhaps not unbelievable to mainstream audiences.  However, the evidence seems to be flimsy at best — as a Wired article points out.  Yet the media circus continues.  The narrative is just too powerful: a ruthless, eccentric, and egomaniacal dictator out to silence any criticism of his good name, regardless of how silly and “innocent” that criticism is.

But The Interview is not an innocent movie.  Originally, the movie didn’t feature the DPRK, and was meant to portray a fake dictator and country, as in Sasha Baron Cohen’s The Dictator.  A leaked confidential email from the hack, however, revealed that Sony had been in contact with the US-funded RAND Corporation, a key think-tank of the US “national security” establishment.  The movie was also, according to the leaked conversations, discussed with a “very senior [official] in [the] State.”  Apparently, Bruce Bennett, a senior analyst at the RAND Corporation, reviewed the script as well.  The Sony executives expressed anxiety over North Korea’s reaction to the movie’s depiction of the brutal assassination of Kim Jong Un, but Bennett insisted that the assassination scene be left in:

“I also thought a bunch more about the ending.  I have to admit that the only resolution I can see to the North Korean nuclear and other threats is for the North Korean regime to eventually go away. . . .  In fact, when I have briefed my book on ‘preparing for the possibility of a North Korean collapse’ [Sept 2013], I have been clear that the assassination of Kim Jong-Un is the most likely path to a collapse of the North Korean government.  Thus while toning down the ending may reduce the North Korean response, I believe that a story that talks about the removal of the Kim family regime and the creation of a new government by the North Korean people (well, at least the elites) will start some real thinking in South Korea and, I believe, in the North once the DVD leaks into the North (which it almost certainly will).  So from a personal perspective, I would personally prefer to leave the ending alone.”  (emphasis added)

This looks less like an innocent, if offensive, stoner comedy, and more like a propaganda movie.  Its purpose is to legitimize and normalize the idea of the illegal assassination of the leader of a sovereign state — it’s no surprise South Korean activist groups wanted to drop copies of it in North Korea with balloons.  Imagine if Putin’s buddies at the Kremlin sat down with the Russian film company Mosfilm to discuss the crucial plot details of a movie depicting staggering human rights abuses in America and the brutal killing of Obama to stop US imperialism.  Imagine, too, that the stated purpose of the movie should be to inspire such an action in the real world.  We would be absolutely shocked!

US involvement with Hollywood is an old story — as early as 1991, Michael Parenti’s book Make-believe Media detailed the Pentagon’s involvement in producing a positive image of US military practices.  It’s not something we’d like to think about, because to think of the (often not-so-well) hidden agendas of the entertainment we consume might compromise our enjoyment of it.  But history shows us that the effects of “innocent” entertainment can be deadly.  The racist depictions of Japanese people during WWII undoubtedly made it easier for FDR to send up to 120,000 Japanese-Americans to internment camps.  Even today, some Americans defend the atrocious nuclear bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki through that (albeit now toned-down) racist lens.  US media and entertainment depictions of Saddam Hussein normalized and legitimized the brutal invasions and genocidal sanctions that were inflicted upon Iraqi civilians.

We are sometimes misled to believe that the media and entertainment depictions of North Korea are somehow about its human rights abuses.  And to be sure, according to most international conceptions of liberal democratic human rights, North Korea doesn’t exactly have a very impressive scorecard.  But more often than not, what media and entertainment provide is not a serious discussion on the human rights situation in the DPRK and the possible ways of solving it.  No one can be foolish enough to assume that The Interview, for example, will attempt anything remotely like that.  The DPRK’s status as a dictatorship that violates human rights is but a footnote in the media image surrounding the country.  The DPRK we are exposed to through the media is an orientalist spectacle, in which its human rights record merely serves as a backdrop to a racist, dehumanizing ideological narrative.

There are many dictatorships and gross violations of human rights in countries all over the world — to many of which the US leaders are giving plentiful aid and support.  But North Korea is given a special status among these dictatorships.  Unlike US-friendly dictatorships, the DPRK represents an “Other,” whose crime is a combination of its indigenous culture and anti-imperialist, socialist political ideology.  The media portrayal of North Korea racializes it as “Oriental” or even “Confucian.”  It is almost as if Edward Said’s work had been read as an instruction manual instead of a criticism.  It’s not, strictly speaking, the “Kim Dynasty” that is the problem for imperialist propagandists — it’s North Korea’s civilian population.  The “brainwashed” Asians with an “unquestioning” respect for authority are the real issue at stake.  Thus, the images of North Korean citizens weeping over their deceased leader Kim Jong Il are weaponized against them.  This deliberate targeting of the civilian population’s complicity in the DPRK’s rule serves to dehumanize them — it’s easier to kill, subjugate, and exploit a population that you believe to be unreasonable, child-like cult members with an inability to accept the self-evident truths of human rights through imperial dominance.  Perhaps that is why the revelation that the US had considered using nuclear weapons against North Korea in 2013 didn’t receive the widespread attentions of millions, but a flimsy allegation of hacking a corporation does.

The entertainment media does its share to promote these notions — Matt Stone and Trey Parker’s Team America: World Police, with its unapologetic racism, is a prime example.  One can only guess the level of racial and cultural sensitivity to which comedians like Seth Rogen would adhere in The Interview.  The news media, for their part, abandon all journalistic integrity when reporting on the DPRK.  On a regular basis, respected and widely read publications publish baseless, sensationalist, and racist stories about the country.  Many of these stories are easily sourced to satirical sites — others to right-wing Fox News-esque South Korean newspapers.  Stories that hundreds of thousands of people read include Kim Jong-Un feeding his uncle to 120 starving dogs, forcing all North Korean men to get his haircut, and sending the DPRK soccer team to work in the coal mines after failing in the World Cup — stories which were all fake.  The things we are ready to believe about North Korea prove more about the brainwashing of us than of the North Koreans themselves.  These stories are often corrected by the media sources themselves after they have already been published, but they are rarely as much of a fun read as the original stories.  In the “free market of ideas,” baseless and racist propaganda yields a higher rate of profit than principled journalistic inquiry.

Let me be clear: The Interview looks like a horribly bad movie that is very unlikely to inspire the overthrow of any government anytime soon.  With a cast-list featuring Guy Fieri and Eminem, and an end product that seems to be universally despised by the Sony execs themselves, the hacking was hardly the only thing working against it.  But the massive spectacle that has arisen around this movie serves a purpose — the US government will use North Korea’s alleged involvement in censoring “criticism of the regime” to rationalize continued US militarization of the South Korean borders, authorize illegal attempts at subversion, and rally support for sanctions that will keep the civilians of the DPRK poor, hungry, and isolated.

Jakob Pettersson is a Swedish activist affiliated with RKU (Revolutionary Communist Youth).  He has contributed articles to Swedish India-solidarity organization Indiensolidaritet‘s monthly magazine.  Read his blog Interrogation of the Good at <interrogationofthegood.blogspot.com>.  Follow him on Twitter@YakovPettersson.

U.S. Initiated War In Afghanistan to Continue Despite Formal Announcement

United States trained Afghan troops will still be bolstered.

By LYNNE O'DONNELL
12/28/2014 7:54 am EST

KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The war in Afghanistan, fought for 13 bloody years and still raging, came to a formal end Sunday with a quiet flag-lowering ceremony in Kabul that marked the transition of the fighting from U.S.-led combat troops to the country's own security forces.

In front of a small, hand-picked audience at the headquarters of the NATO mission, the green-and-white flag of the International Security Assistance Force was ceremonially rolled up and sheathed, and the flag of the new international mission called Resolute Support was hoisted.

U.S. Gen. John Campbell, commander of ISAF, commemorated the 3,500 international soldiers killed on Afghan battlefields and praised the country's army for giving him confidence that they are able to take on the fight alone.

"Resolute Support will serve as the bedrock of an enduring partnership" between NATO and Afghanistan, Campbell told an audience of Afghan and international military officers and officials, as well as diplomats and journalists.

"The road before us remains challenging, but we will triumph," he added.

Beginning Jan. 1, the new mission will provide training and support for Afghanistan's military, with the U.S. accounting for almost 11,000 of the 13,500 members of the residual force.

"Thanks to the extraordinary sacrifices of our men and women in uniform, our combat mission in Afghanistan is ending, and the longest war in American history is coming to a responsible conclusion," U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement issued in Hawaii, where he is on vacation with his family.

Afghan President Ashraf Ghani, who took office in September, signed bilateral security agreements with Washington and NATO allowing the ongoing military presence. The move has led to a spike in violence, with the Taliban claiming it as an excuse to step up operations aimed at destabilizing his government.

ISAF was set up after the U.S.-led invasion as an umbrella for the coalition of around 50 nations that provided troops and took responsibility for security across the country. It ends with 2,224 American soldiers killed, according to an Associated Press tally.

The mission, which was initially aimed at toppling the Taliban and rooting out al-Qaida following the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, peaked at 140,000 troops in 2010. Obama ordered a surge to drive the insurgents out of strategically important regions, notably in the southern provinces of Helmand and Kandahar, where the Taliban had its capital from 1996 to 2001.

Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid called Sunday's event a "defeat ceremony" and said the insurgents' fight would continue.

"Since the invasion in 2001 until now, these events have been aimed at changing public opinion, but we will fight until there is not one foreign soldier on Afghan soil and we have established an Islamic state," he said.

Obama recently expanded the role of U.S. forces remaining in the country, allowing them to extend their counter-terrorism operations to the Taliban, as well as al-Qaida, and to provide ground and air support for Afghan forces when necessary for at least the next two years.

In a tacit recognition that international military support is still essential for Afghan forces, national security adviser Mohammad Hanif Atmar told the gathered ISAF leaders: "We need your help to build the systems necessary to ensure the long-term sustainability of the critical capabilities of our forces."

Afghans have mixed feelings about the drawdown of foreign troops. With the deteriorating security situation, many believe the troops are needed to back up the Afghan effort to bring peace after more than three decades of continual war.

"At least in the past 13 years we have seen improvements in our way of life — freedom of speech, democracy, the people generally better off financially," said 42-year-old shop keeper Gul Mohammad.

But the soldiers are still needed "at least until our own forces are strong enough, while our economy strengthens, while our leaders try to form a government," he said.

NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg has said that Afghanistan's 350,000-member security forces are ready to take on the insurgency alone, despite complaints by officials that they lack the necessary assets, such as air support, medical evacuation systems and intelligence.

On Sunday, he said that ISAF's mandate was "carried out at great cost but with great success."

"We have made our own nations safer by denying safe haven to international terrorists. We have made Afghanistan stronger by building up from scratch strong security forces. Together we have created the conditions for a better future for millions of Afghan men, women and children," he said.

As Afghan forces assume sovereignty, the country is without a Cabinet three months after Ghani's inauguration, and economic growth is near zero due to the reduction of the international military presence and other aid. The United States spent more than $100 million on reconstruction in Afghanistan, on top of the $1 trillion war.

This year is set to be the deadliest of the war, according to the United Nations, which expects civilian casualties to hit 10,000 for the first time since the agency began keeping records in 2008. Most of the deaths and injuries were caused by Taliban attacks, the U.N. said.

Two teenage boys were killed late Saturday in the eastern Wardak province when a rocket was fired near a children's volleyball match, an official said. Another five children, ages 11 to 14, were wounded by shrapnel, said the governor's spokesman Attaullah Khogyani. He blamed the Taliban.

In Kapisa, also in the east, Gov. Abdul Saboor Wafa's office said eight insurgents were killed Saturday night in an army counter-insurgency operation.

This has also been a deadly year for Afghanistan's security forces — army, paramilitary and police — with around 5,000 deaths recorded so far. Most of those deaths, or around 3,200, have been police officers, according to Karl Ake Roghe, the outgoing head of EUPOL, the European Union Police Mission in Afghanistan, which funds and trains a police force of 157,000.
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Associated Press writers Amir Shah in Kabul and Josh Lederman in Honolulu, Hawaii contributed to this story.
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Follow Lynne O'Donnell on Twitter at https://twitter.com/lynnekodonnell .