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Can there be free elections under Fatah?
By Khalid Amayreh
The American-backed Fatah group has been demanding the organization of general elections in the West Bank and Gaza Strip as soon as possible. However, the demands don’t seem to reflect genuine concern about democracy as one might take it at face value.
Fatah officials and apologists argue that elections represent the only exit out of the present political deadlock at the Palestinian arena, including the enduring rift between Fatah and the Islamic movement, Hamas.
However, in the absence of real guarantees for holding truly free elections, the raucous blather about elections by the Fatah organization, or any other Palestinian group, remains an expression of deception and hypocrisy.
Thank You Mr. LeMunyon for Constitutional Truth
Joel S. Hirschhorn
For those of us advocating the first-time use of the Article V convention option in the US Constitution it seemed like heaven-sent blessing that the Wall Street Journal the other day published an oped article by Virginia state legislator James M. LeMunyon, a Republican. The headline conveyed the key message: A Constitutional Convention Can Rein in Washington.
Okay, it would have been much preferred to avoid using the term constitutional convention and, instead, use Article V convention, because the language in Article V clearly limits a convention to amendments and prevents a wholesale rewriting of the constitution. Still, the article focused repeatedly on a most important theme that the public urgently needs to fully understand: There really is no remotely possible scenario of a runaway convention that would do terrible damage to the Constitution, either from the left or right. Thank You Mr. LeMunyon.
Updating Lynne Stewart's "Love Struggle"
by Stephen Lendman
For millions worldwide, Lynne needs no introduction. For others: She worked selflessly, tirelessly, and heroically for 30 years as a human rights champion, defending America's poor, underprivileged, and unwanted - people never afforded due process and judicial fairness without an advocate like her. She knew the risks, yet took them until bogusly indicted on April 9, 2002 for:
-- "conspiring to defraud the United States;
-- conspiring to provide and conceal material support to terrorist activity;
-- providing and concealing material support to terrorist activity; and
-- two counts of making false statements."
The So Called 'Only Democracy in the Middle East’
by Gilad Atzmon
In Israel, the so called ‘only democracy in the Middle East’, a journalist has been held under house arrest since December for leaking a story of Israeli barbarism. In the Jewish Democracy another prominent Journalist had to run for his life for telling the truth about Israel’s murderous policies and its chief war criminals.
The Guardian reported today that Anat Kam, 23, an Israeli journalist “has been under secret house arrest since December on charges that she leaked highly sensitive classified military documents that suggest the Israeli military breached a court order on assassinations in the occupied West Bank.”
China's Documentation of US Human Rights Abuses
by Stephen Lendman
On March 11, the US State Department issued its "2009 Human Rights Report: China (includes Tibet, Hong Kong, and Macau)," calling the People's Republic of China (PRC) "an authoritarian state in which the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) constitutionally is the paramount source of power," practicing:
-- "cultural and religious repression;"
-- harassment of human rights activists;
-- harassment and disbarment of lawyers who defend them;
-- control of free expression, the Internet, and access to it;
-- extrajudicial killings;
-- torture and coerced confessions of prisoners;
-- use of forced labor, including prison labor;
Pro-GMO chemical polluter becomes Obama's ag trade negotiator
By Rady Ananda
Islam Siddiqui
Despite declining bee and butterfly populations from agricultural chemicals, on Saturday the US Senate approved President Barack Obama's nomination for chief agricultural negotiator in the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative, Monsanto lobbyist Islam Siddiqui.
“Dr. Siddiqui’s confirmation is a step backward,” said Tierra Curry, a scientist at the Center for Biological Diversity (the "Center"). “His appointment ensures the perpetuation of pesticide- and fossil-fuel-intensive policies, which undermine global food security and imperil public health and wildlife.”
As undersecretary for marketing and regulatory programs at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Siddiqui oversaw the development of the first national organic labeling standards, which allowed sewage sludge-fertilized, genetically modified, and irradiated food to be labeled as organic, reports the Center. After a nationwide campaign spearheaded by the Organic Consumers Association (OCA) in which the USDA was deluged with 280,000 irate letters and emails, Siddiqui, Monsanto, and the USDA backed off.
Targeting Academic and Speech Freedoms: The Case of Canadian Professor Denis Rancourt
by Stephen Lendman
Section 2(b) of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, a constitutional bill of rights, states:
"Everyone has the following fundamental freedoms:
(a) freedom of conscience and religion;
(b) freedom of thought, belief, opinion and expression, including freedom of the press and other media of communication;
(c) freedom of peaceful assembly; and
(d) freedom of association."
Article 7 assures "Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person and the right not to be deprived thereof in accordance with the principles of fundamental justice."
How Christian is the pope, really?
Mary Shaw
The independent and foreign press have written much in the past about the current pope's ongoing cover-ups of clergy sex abuse in the Catholic Church. Now the American mainstream media are finally catching on. But it's long overdue. So here is a history:
Back in 2001, when we still knew him as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the British press leaked a confidential letter from Ratzinger to all Catholic bishops ordering that "the church's investigations into child sex abuse claims be carried out in secret," and asserting "the church's right to hold its inquiries behind closed doors and keep the evidence confidential for up to 10 years after the victims reached adulthood." In other words, keep it all under wraps until the statutes of limitations expire. Clearly he was not on the side of the victims. How Christian is that, really?
Defacto state
Jim Miles
Part of the dilemma in Palestine is that the more the “peace” process is delayed, moving nowhere, the more Israel gains in the way of confiscated and settled land. There are two basic solutions: either a one state solution (whether bi-national or otherwise); or a two state solution with Palestine existing on some remnant of land left over from Israeli settlement. A recent combination of events/ideas has left me wondering if the one state solution is perhaps the only remaining solution if not the de facto situation now.
Iran has the right to possess nuclear weapons
By Khalid Amayreh
One of the most scandalous manifestations of the present international order is the so-called “nuclear hypocrisy.” The United States, the only country to have committed a nuclear holocaust, is insisting that Iran has no right to possess a nuclear capability.
This nearly pornographic hypocrisy which the U.S. displays vis-à-vis the issue of nuclear proliferation is provocative and indefensible.
The US thinks it is fine to have Israel possess several hundred nuclear bombs and warheads, along with their American-supplied or Israeli-manufactured delivery systems. However, the same America vehemently rejects the very suggestion that Iran, or any other Middle Eastern country, should possess a nuclear capability.
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