Tailored for Sharks

Tailored for sharks (pdf, 560KB)

How rules are tailored and public interest surrendered to suit corporate interests in the WTO, FTAs and BITs trade and investment regime

The discourse of rules and fairness usually brings up ideas of equality, justice and upholding of rights. Therefore, when the World Trade Organization (WTO) describes itself as a “rules-based” system that treats all member countries fairly based on the principle of “non-discrimination”, it could be concluded that the WTO multilateral trading system is just and equitable.But if the WTO system were indeed equitable, then why has global trade become concentrated in the hands of a few corporations, indicating that only a few big corporate players benefit from the global trading system.Why is it that 80% of US exports are handled by only 1% of the largest exporters and 85% of EU exports are in the hands of only 10% of the big exporters? If the WTO rules based system were really non- discriminatory, equitable and just, then shouldn’t there be an equal distribution of economic benefits to all 159 Members countries?This Report contests some key assumptions about the rules based global trade and investment system. It addresses such questions as: Who are the real beneficiaries of the legally binding and enforceable agreements and rules of the WTO that ensures the smooth, predictable and free movement of trade flows?Who are the key players in global trade that would benefit from the breaking down of all trade barriers? And ultimately, whose trade organization is the WTO really and how is it related to the regime of Free Trade Agreements (FTAs) and International Investment Agreements (IIAs)?How is this elaboration of rules designed to privilege the unilateral operations of transnational corporations (TNCs) which maintains a sea of sharks and sardines?How does the Dispute Settlement Mechanism (DSM) work?Are all these rules designed as part of the neoliberal architecture of impunity protecting the privileges of these corporations?And in this environment, how is the public interest and national sovereignty surrendered?

Defense Industry Ties to Media Commentators and Think Tanks That Participated in Syria Debate
 The following report documents the industry ties of 22 media commentators, and seven think tanks that participated in the media debate around Syria. These individuals and organizations have strong ties to defense contractors and other defense- and foreign policy-focused firms with a vested interest in the Syria debate, but they were presented to their audiences with a veneer of expertise and independence, as former military officials, retired diplomats, and independent think tanks.This report details these ties, in addition to documenting the industry backing of think tanks that played a prominent role in the Syria debate. It reveals the extent to which the public discourse around Syria was corrupted by the pervasive influence of the defense industry, to the point where many of the so-called experts appearing on American television screens were actually representatives of companies that profit from heightened US military activity abroad. The threat of war with Syria may or may not have passed, but the threat that these conflicts of interest pose to our public discourse – and our democracy – is still very real.

  

Lavrov: Syrian terrorist CW smuggled into Iraq
Polina Chernitsa, Voice of Russia, Oct 2 2013
Russia has evidence that CW used by terrorists in Syria are being smuggled into Iraq for possible provocations, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Wednesday. Lavrov said at a news conference following talks with Indian Foreign Minister Salman Khurshid:

We read reports and hear from various sources, semi-official and trustworthy, that some official representatives of a number of the countries of the region surrounding Syria allegedly established contacts and meet regularly with leaders of Jabhat al-Nusra and other terrorist groups, and also that those radicals have some components of CW maybe found in Syria or maybe brought from somewhere, and not just on the Syrian territory, but also that CW components have been brought to Iraq and that provocations are being prepared there. All that has intensified since the UNSCR. Sponsors of the Syrian opposition should stop attempts to disrupt the Geneva-2 international conference on Syria. There are enough provocateurs, and there will probably be more provocations. What’s important now is that it shouldn’t be them who calls the tune but Russia and the US, as the initiators of Geneva-2, along with the UN Sec-Gen, to whom a request to that effect was submitted in New York. We urge all the Syrian forces to agree to attend Geneva-2 without preliminary conditions, in keeping with the Geneva communique signed last June. Those who sponsor and finance the Syrian opposition should realize their responsibility and stop attempts to disrupt preparations for the conference in a bid to reanimate a military scenario. We hope that the Syrians will be able to find common ground on the implementation of the Jun 30 2012 Geneva Communique. We hope that consultations that are now being conducted by the UN Sec and his representative, Lakhdar Brahimi, will produce positive results enabling us to organize initial events needed to launch this conference. It’s important that all the Syrian factions be fully represented at the talks for the future agreements to be really stable and lasting.

The American journalist Jeremy Bigwood reveals important data
News organizations linked to Miami entities form part of a coup against Latin American countries http://www.albatv.org/Organizaciones-de-prensa.html
Research by the American journalist, Jeremy Bigwood, reveals that the United States Government intervened in several of the coups d'etat perpetrated in Chile, Venezuela, Honduras, Peru and, probably, could intervene in the attempt of the coup in Ecuador on September 30, 2010. Bigwood, who was present, this Wednesday, the conversatorio destabilization and coups of State in Latin America, organized by the National Institute of high studies (IAEN), showed documents from The Church Committee Report to prove that "the CIA supported the most famous newspaper in Chile (mercury), so drop a democratically elected President (Salvador Allende)", explained the reporter during his speech. About Peru, Bigwood found documents, of the Department of Justice of the United States, about Wladimiro Montesinos, Adviser of former President Alberto Fujimori, "which shows that it is a corrupt officer". In the case of Venezuela against President Hugo Chávez in 2002, it was difficult to find information, but be declassified documents significant showing "that the CIA had full knowledge of the maturation of the coup". It also obtained documents of political opposition parties and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive funding from the Government of the United States. The journalist also investigated the case of Honduras, against former President Manuel Zelaya, in 2009, when there was also support and influence of various actors based in the United States. In these cases, according to Bigwood, certain categories of interference can be identified such as: news organizations with connections to entities based in Miami, very strong relationships in the United States of several entities of the U.S. Government, which have gotten into the internal affairs of other countries and the Agency of national security (NSA), the Central Intelligence Agency CIA of the United States Agency for international cooperation (Usaid)which are agencies of the Department of the State itself. In addition, several NGO's that have been influenced by means of scholarships. With this background, Bigwood mentioned that most of these organizations have worked in Ecuador, such as the NSA, the Agency which deals with all information as possible from all over the world, since they can do it by means of a satellite. On the attempt of coup d'etat in Ecuador, the journalist stressed "there is still much to investigate and discover the participation that may have had the United States in Ecuador, in 2010". Bigwood ended his speech with a fact that suggests the close relationship that has United States with press agencies and NGOs in Latin America and mentioned the question that Ricardo Restrepo made Jaime Mantilla, current President of the society interamericana de Prensa (SIP), "whether it should be legal that press is funded by the CIA, to make purchases of the State in Latin America"Mantilla did not deny it.

Colombia-Piedad Córdoba: "The true unity of the Colombian people is beginning here"

 The Peasant Summit that was held Thursday, Sept. 12 in Bogotá meant on the one hand the defeat of the false agrarian pact of the Santos government and on the other an opportunity to unite the Colombian popular movement. Thousands of peasants from all over the country attended the conference at which Piedad Córdoba, spokeswoman for the Patriotic March of the Social and Political Movement, offered revealing commentary on the popular movement in Colombia. The following statements are taken from Córdoba's address in which she referred to the Agrarian Summit as a space for the defense of the land and for the defense of a great popular, social and political movement that today is a key step towards the great convocation of the Popular and Agrarian Summit that planned for October 20.

"This country is rising up against ignominy, against oppression;  it has raised the flag of the Peasant Farmers' Reserve (Zona de Reserva Campesina) because the ZRCs represent the defense of life against the Free Trade Agreements.

In her discourse Córdoba emphasized the role of the Popular and Farming Board of Interlocution and Agreement known as MIA.  As is widely known, [Colombia's] national government tried by various means to ignore this board, first by negotiating with one sector on strike and leaving out the sectors mobilized and represented by the national MIA that represents more than 80 percent of the mobilized sectors of peasants on strike.  Córdoba responded to President Juan Manuel Santos' recognition of the MIA on Sept. 8 in Popayán by stressing the Spanish adjective "mía" meaning "my" and which corresponds to the initials for the board, MIA:

"MIA sounds so beautiful, MIA seems to say my Colombia, MIA says my struggle, the struggle of the people, the struggle of the peasants, MIA says the defense of my life, the defense of life itself, MIA means the defense of men and women that get up when the roosters crow, that get up to the barks of the faithful dog that will never abandon them, to work my land, that search for my peace, that search for my Colombia, for inclusion, for solidarity, long live the peasants' MIA that means peace in Colombia."

 

Piedad Córdoba highlighted the magnificent support given to the peasants on strike by the inhabitants of cities across all Colombia:  "I think that the true unity of the Colombian people is beginning, the unity of a people that from the fields, from the Afro-Colombian communities, from the unity of the Indigenous, of the peasants, of the mestizos and mestizas, the unity of a people that stretches its hand out to the urban centers and cities in order to say loudly while we beat on pots and pans, that today the people of the cities understand clearly that we must defend the Colombian countryside."She affirmed that the popular movement will not allow itself to be divided and called on the national government to not try to divide, threaten, terrorize or silence the mobilized people.  She remembered Huber Ballesteros, the outstanding popular Colombian leader, arrested in Bogotá during the first days of the strike and sent a message to the Minister of Defense Pinzón: "I say to the minister of war, that you will not be able to put all of us in jail, that you will not be able to kill all of us, that if you manage to jail us, the jail will become a front line, the jail will be a place of struggle and from the jail our cries for justice will be heard;  don't think that the laws of sepoys imposed by congress are going to mean anything to millions of peasants that walk through the streets of this country telling the world and Colombia that the Free Trade Agreements are a death trap for the people of this country, that the FTAs rob us of our historic destiny, that the FTAs that were signed on the backs of the people kill hope and rob the lives of peasants."

She also added, in relation to the Patriotic March of the Social and Political Movement and referring to new laws against the right to protest that the national government was signing into law in congress:  "Don't think that the criminalization of social protest is going to tear the cry of struggle and liberty from our throats, from the Patriotic March, what many of us represent with pride and many others may disavow, in the March we are the patriots, we are the ones who want to construct a different country." Right then she issued a call for the unity of the Colombian popular movement: "We are the patriots, those who embrace the Congress of the Peoples and say to them that together we must construct unity because together we are strong and divided we are alone." She also reaffirmed the call for a National Constitutional Assembly, and ratified opposition to the proposed referendum by the national government, declaring that the formula for peace was in the six points of the document of petitions of the National Strike.

In a clear message to President Juan Manuel Santos, Córdoba announced that the next Agrarian and Popular Summit will be held in October of this year: "We are telling you that we are preparing the greatest Agrarian Summit that has ever been seen in Colombia in the last 50 years because the Agrarian Summit is going to be magnificent."
With respect to the National Agrarian and Popular Strike she declared that the people are not tired nor are they going to bed: "Mr. President, we are not saying it in a threatening tone, nor Mr. President de we say it fearfully, . . . Mr. President we demand it with the dignity of the people, with the dignity of our country, with the dignity of Colombians that are fighting for peace." Córdoba demonstrated the support of the social and popular movement at the round table discussions in Havana: ". . . We are not going to allow him to undermine discussions in Havana . . . we are also telling him not to modify the constitution in order to defeat us with the referendum." Córdoba ended with a call to the peoples of the world: "From here we say to the world that we are giving birth to a new democracy, that we are giving birth to a just democracy, that we are giving birth to a new Colombia that is born of men and women that love their country, that defend her, that defend their land, but above all think of the possibility of a future and a better tomorrow and that is formed from the hand of this great popular movement."

AL NUSRA RATS AND SUICIDE BOMBINGS IN SYRIA... 
 Amateur video appears to show Syrian rebel carrying out suicide attacks https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u383nEBd9EE

07 Arundhati Roy (Earth At Risk DVD) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yeXGGuziPNE

EU’s Everything But Arms initiative is impoverishing Cambodian farmers
http://www.bilaterals.org/spip.php?article23867
EU’s Everything But Arms initiative is impoverishing Cambodian farmers: Trade scheme must be reformed to safeguard human rights .A European Union (EU) trade initiative intended to reduce poverty in the world’s poorest countries has driven thousands of Cambodian farming families into destitution and led to serious human rights violations, Inclusive Development International (IDI) and Equitable Cambodia and said in a report released Monday. The report, Bittersweet Harvest, assesses the human rights impacts of the EU’s ‘Everything But Arms’ (EBA) trade scheme in Cambodia. The European Commission adopted the EBA initiative in March 2001, granting preferential access to the European market for all products except arms and ammunitions from all countries classified by the United Nations as ‘least developed’. While the EBA scheme is intended to benefit the poor through job creation from export-led growth, the case of Cambodia’s rapidly expanding sugar industry tells a different story. In recent years, there has been a surge in forced displacement of rural and indigenous communities resulting from large-scale land concessions for agro-industrial development. Sugar companies, which invested in Cambodia to take advantage of the lucrative European trade preferences, have been among the worst offenders. Against this backdrop, Equitable Cambodia and Inclusive Development International, in conjunction with the Hands off the Land Alliance, conducted an independent human rights impact assessment of the EBA initiative in Cambodia, focusing on the sugar sector. The assessment is based on interviews with over 275 people, including local officials, human rights workers, community leaders, and smallholder farmers from Koh Kong, Kampong Speu and Oddar Meanchey provinces who have been impacted by EBA-driven industrial sugar development. The assessment finds that, in the absence of effective human rights safeguards, Cambodia’s policy of granting large-scale land concessions to private investors for agro-industrial development and the EU’s policy of granting preferential tariffs to spur such investment in least developed countries both carry risks of devastating human rights impacts. These risks have materialized in forced evictions and land seizures that have been part and parcel of the development of Cambodia’s sugar industry. Police and state security forces have carried out arbitrary arrests and detentions and used physical violence at the behest of sugar companies against local communities attempting to defend their land. One community activist was found axe murdered in Koh Kong after documenting and actively protesting the evictions. At least two villages were totally destroyed and more than 11,500 hectares of rice fields and orchards belonging to over 2000 families was seized. Thousands more hectares of community forest and environmentally protected areas were also destroyed to make way for the sugar plantations. Many families suffered the destruction of their crops, livestock and personal possessions. More than 1000 men, women and children were left homeless. As a result, after the forced evictions, affected people suffered a severe rollback in their enjoyment of basic human rights, including the rights to adequate food, water and housing, as well as the right to work, the right to education and the right to health. In some cases, the evictions led to extreme hunger and possibly starvation. Many of the families who lost their land have had no choice but to work on the sugar plantations, where work is irregular, conditions are poor and pay is generally insufficient to enable most households to make ends meet. Dispossessed of their means of subsistence, many families have been forced to send their children to work for the sugar companies. The assessment found that child labor was rife on all the plantations. It documented 85 children, some as young as 8 years old, doing often hard and dangerous work on the plantation in Koh Kong province that supplies UK refiner Tate & Lyle Sugars. “The impacts that we have documented in Cambodia betray the fundamental purpose of Everything But Arms and the commitments that the EU has made to uphold human rights in its trade policy,” said Eang Vuthy, executive director of Equitable Cambodia. [[[[“I am sure that this is not what European policy-makers intended when they adopted the EBA agreement over a decade ago. They pledged to make poverty history, but they have made it much worse for many families in my country with the type of investment that EBA promotes. The EU should be doing these sorts of assessments so they can see the real impact of their policy,” he added.]]]]] “Decades of experience around the world have shown that increased investment and trade can bring about greater prosperity for people but they can also wreak havoc on local communities and the environment unless adequate safeguards are put into place to prevent abuses and promote economic justice,” said David Pred, managing associate of IDI. “The EBA initiative has no such safeguards. It just cuts a blank check to any company that sets up shop in a poor country and ships their goods to Europe. This means that the EU is very likely subsidising a lot of bad behaviour, and not just in Cambodia but in other EBA beneficiary countries as well,” he added. The report concludes that preferential market access for producers in the world’s poorest countries could be a positive force for development with human rights if some basic reforms to EBA were enacted. In particular, IDI and Equitable Cambodia recommend that the EU conduct due diligence on all exporters seeking to benefit from the trade preferences to ensure that they uphold core human rights standards. The EBA arrangement should be modified to enable the EU to blacklist any company that violates these international norms. “It should be a no-brainer that firms that grab people’s land, destroy their homes and forests and employ their children should not be rewarded with special trade privileges,” said Pred. “We call upon EU policy makers to put these common sense reforms into place.”  
Download the full report
Watch the video

[Updated] Right-Wing agrobusiness plays down pesticide-Kidney disease link in face of massive health crisis
 Update: On September 6, deputies in the Legislative Assembly from all parties except ARENA banned 53 active pesticide ingredients. The ingredients must be taken off the market in a year or two, and importers must now ensure that their clients understand how to use permitted pesticides safely. While CAMAGRO and COENA, an ARENA body, maintain that the ruling will negatively affect crop production, those most directly affected by kidney disease celebrate this positive step taken towards addressing El Salvador’s massive health crisis. For the past three weeks, La Prensa Gráfica, one of the country’s largest news sources, has been reporting on El Salvador’s catastrophically high levels of kidney disease. The news stories in La Prensa have primarily centered on the municipality of San Luis Talpa, located an hour east of El Salvador’s Bajo Lempa region, which since the beginning of this year reports nearly 60 deaths as a result of kidney failure. El Salvador’s high levels of kidney disease began making daily headlines on Augsut 14th, when the soil and water-quality testing process undertaken by the regional Institute of Legal Medicine (the national forensics institute) confirmed the presence of contaminants in San Luis Talpa. Much less mention is made in the media, however, of the connection with dangerous pesticides imported by right-wing political figures and a proposed pesticide regulation bill introduced by the Ministry of Health as an effort to fight this major health crisis.San Luis Talpa Mayor Salvador Menéndez states that an average of eight out of every ten families has a member suffering from kidney disease. “I’m not asking for anything drastic,” said Menéndez, “I’m just asking for help for my constituents.” A 2009 study indicates that 18% of workers in the nearby Bajo Lempa region suffer from chronic kidney disease. Kidney failure is also currently the number one cause of admissions at Rosales National Hospital, and is the number one cause of death among men nationwide.
The nearby Bajo Lempa region has historically been an area of high agricultural production, particularly of cotton, and more recently, of sugar cane. Cotton cultivation requires use of heavy pesticides, and many that have been used in El Salvador are highly toxic and heavily regulated or banned internationally. In addition to pesticide contamination in the soil due to agricultural production in neighboring regions, Menéndez also sites the presence of 19 tons of an improperly-stored pesticide, Toxafeno, at a former chemical plant as a major contributing factor to his population’s ill health.Though eager to sensationalize the deaths, major news outlets have paid much less attention to a renewed effort to introduce a pesticide regulation bill at the National Assembly by the Ministry of Health within the next few weeks. Lourdes Palacios, a legislator from the Frente Farabundo Martí National Liberation Front (FMLN), warns that although the UN Food and Agriculture Organization has offered its support, such a bill is unlikely to pass, stating, “The economic interests at play are too strong.” Alfredo Cristiani, president of the right-wing National Republican Alliance (ARENA), is one of El Salvador’s main pesticide importers.  Both ARENA and CAMAGRO, the Farming and Agribusiness Chamber of El Salvador, insist that there is no conclusive evidence linking pesticide usage with kidney disease.

Colombia: ASOQUIMBO Continues Land Liberations and Resistance to the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project
  It has already been four months since the Association of Affected Peoples of the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project (ASOQUIMBO) began liberating the lands which are not destined to be inundated by the impending reservoir, but that are nonetheless properties of the company responsible for the mega-project, Emgesa-Endesa-Enel. These liberations started with farms in the Municipality of Altamira and spread quickly to include other farms in Garzón - such as the Santiago and Palacios farms. There are peasant families affected by the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project who are working and cultivating these lands, growing crops such as corn, plantains, yuca, beans, squash, and herding cattle. “Even though we have had our challenges, we the people affected by the Quimbo Dam have liberated these lands belonging to the transnational company as part of the struggle for the Agro-Nutritional Peasant Reserve that we need for our territory,” explained Mauricio Cabrera, a member of ASOQUIMBO from La Jagua in the Department of Huila. The company and the National Authority of Environmental Licenses (ANLA) have done everything possible not to comply with the environmental license and have chosen to not respect the decrees released by the Ombudsman’s Office in favor of the communities impacted by this mega-project, such as reopening the census of the impacted population. Regardless, the liberation of land by the impacted population is only an initial attempt to meet the obligations that the company itself has to “re-establish and legally and legitimately restore all productive activities, food security, and the right to a dignified life and work” for all the area's population. The land liberations are not land invasions; they are needed actions taken to guarantee a dignified life for the impacted population and to protect the region’s food sovereignty, a requisite clearly delineated in the environmental license. In June, the Colombian Institute of Anthropology and History (ICANH), that previously had sanctioned Emgesa-Endesa-Enel for the destruction of archeological remains, has now decided that the company is the responsible entity for the creation of a museum in the impacted area of the Quimbo Dam, subsequently taking control and possession of the remains of the region’s ancestors. In the meantime, the company contracted archeologists from the National University in Bogota to perform an archeological survey of the region impacted by the Quimbo Dam. ASOQUIMBO rejected this immediately. Members of Jaguos por el Territorio documented the archeologists during their survey in La Jagua as they were plundering human bones and ceramics from tombs that they found. In a meeting with the community, the archeologists and a representative from the company referred to the remains as “trash” and confirmed the planned destruction of the sacred petroglyphs in the area of the trenches and are insultingly proposing the creation of a replica. On August 14 the Municipal Council of Garzón organized a debate between the company Emgesa and ASOQUIMBO. After a presentation from council members, during which the Quimbo Hydroelectric Project’s environmental license and the company’s obligations were reviewed point by point, ASOQUIMBO and the company were able to state their case. What was shown, as has been said for some time now, is that the company has not met with any of their requirements and that the Ministry of Environment has not obligated the company to do so. Accordingly, the council members rejected the Plan of Territorial Order (POT) and have formally requested that the Ministry of Environment immediately suspend the hydroelectric project until the company complies with the environmental license in its entirety.
[ed notes:click link for whole article..

Honduras- Decolonization, rivers and emancipation versus racism, arrogance and capitalism http://quotha.net/node/2576

1. a translation from Stephen Bartlett of Ag Missions of the COPINH communique with the above title
2. the original communique in Spanish

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Speech by Aureliano:
Speech by Tomasito:

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Consejo Cívico de Organizaciones Populares e Indígenas de Honduras COPINH.
Bo. Las Delicias, Int., Int.; copinh@copinh.org; copinhonduras.blogspot.com Tel. (504) 2783-0817; http://copinh.org; FB: Copinh Intibucá; twitter: @copinhhonduras
Decolonization, rivers and emancipation versus racism, arrogance and capitalism. Communique on the Initial Hearing (of Sept 12)Yesterday, after an intense campaign of struggle from the court houses of Intibuca against the criminalization of COPINH, we communicate the following:

1. Once again it was clearly demonstrated that the intent of the DESA corporation and the Public Ministry of Intibucá, in obedience to this corporation with its empty and manipulative accusations, is a posture of economic power that seeks to criminalize the historical cause of COPINH and the Lenca People. The demonstration of racism and belittlement of the Lenca People was a false witness of accusations full of lies, contradictions and even absurdity. What was even more clear was the aggression, interventionism and abuse on the part of the institutions of the State against the Lenca People in general.
2. The witnesses and defense lawyers, headed by the compañero Víctor Fernández, played a fundamental role, making a declaration of defense that was conscious, bold, firm and demonstrated that the indigenous people of Río Blanco are in struggle, with their conviction of their legitimacy as a First People, defending their collective and individual Rights, and that there is no basis for the accusations against our compañeros for their deeds.
3. The Public Ministry and the private accusers, at the moment of presenting their petitions to the First Court of Letters, asked for a sentence of prison with substitute measures for Aureliano Molina and Tomas Gómez, which would consist of a prohibition of being present in the “scene of the crime”, to present themselves to the Justice every 15 days, and that the defense lawyer would be responsible for the behavior of both compañeros; in the case of Berta Cáceres, General Coordinator of COPINH, the accusers asked for prison.
4. The female Judge in the case, the lawyer Lissien Lisseth Knight Reyes, DID NOT make a judgment yesterday, putting the date for a subsequent hearing to take place next Friday September 20, 2013 at 3:00 p.m. with the First Court of Letters of Intibucá.
5. The company threatens to present more accusations against the three defendants, and also against Other members of the Indigenous Council, the Council of Elders, and the Neighborhood Council (Patronato) of Tejera in Río Blanco.
6. In the meanwhile, more police forces have been deployed and more militarization and harassment in the communities to the north of Intibucá, including in Rio Blanco. All this is a result of the signature of an Act of Government, the company, and indigenous and council imposters, with the participation of SEDINAFROH, and President Porfirio Lobo Sosa.
7. We alert the communities organized by COPINH, to the social movements, to the Honduran resistance, to the progressive political and social forces, to those we call you to the cause of the defense of the goods of nature; to international solidarity and human rights organizations, that what the accusers are proposing and pushing for is the violent eviction (of the blockade) in Rio Blanco, using the repressive forces of the State, an unacceptable and shameful threat, to evict the Lenca People who cannot be removed from their own territory, occupied for thousands of years, and thereby criminalizing their just and noble struggle even more.
8. We call for struggle and acts of strong solidarity among all those who undertake actions in the face of the Honduran government. We ratify that COPINH, despite all the circumstances of attack and criminalization, will continue the development of this process of defense of the territories, the culture, the spirituality and the common goods of nature, of the Lenca People and for dignity.

The Rivers are Not for Sale: They are to Protect and Defend!
With the ancestral strength of Icelaca, Lempira, Mota and Etempica we raise our voices full of life, freedom, dignity and peace! NO MORE CRIMINALIZATION OF COPINH’S STRUGGLE!
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In Honduras, military takes over with US blessing
It’s widely known that the Honduran police are corrupt, thoroughly enmeshed in organized crime, drug trafficking, and extrajudicial killings. But rather than clean them up, the current government of President Porfirio Lobo — itself the product of an illegitimate election after the military coup that deposed President Manuel Zelaya in June 2009 — has now, ominously, sent in the military to take over policing on a massive scale. The United States, meanwhile, is pouring funds into both Honduran security forces, countenancing a militarization of the Honduran police that has long been illegal here at home, while dismissing Congressional pushback about human rights issues in Honduras. The Honduran police are, indeed, corrupt almost beyond belief. According to a top Honduran government commission, only 30 percent of the police are currently “rescuable.” In Octber 2011, police killed the son of the rector of the nation’s largest university, and one of his friends. The national director of police, Juan Carlos “El Tigre” Bonilla, is an alleged death squad leader from 1998-2002, and the Associated Press has recently documented ongoing death squad-style killings. President Lobo and the Honduran Congress clearly lack the political will to clean up the police, in large part because top political figures, including judges, prosecutors, and congressmembers, are themselves allegedly interlaced with organized crime, drug traffickers, and those accused of extrajudicial killings. Now the government’s answer is to send in the military. In direct violation of the Honduran constitution, which explicitly forbids military participation in policing, over the past three years Lobo has gradually extended “temporary” militarization of law enforcement. Military personnel now routinely and randomly patrol neighborhoods in the large cities, much to residents’ alarm, and control the country’s prisons. Most alarmingly, on August 22, the Congress created a new “hybrid” military police force which will immediately contract 5,000 new officers that it promises to have on the streets by early October. The dangers of this militarization are clear. Soldiers are trained to track and kill a hostile enemy. Successful policing, by contrast, depends on,respect for local communities and citizens’ legal rights, careful handling of evidence, and the use of minimal force. In the United States, military involvement in policing has been banned since 1878. In Honduras, military involvement in law enforcement has already proven deadly. On May 26, 2012, soldiers chased down, shot and killed a 15-year old boy who had passed through a checkpoint, and their officer ordered a high-level coverup. On July 15, the military shot and killed Tomás García, a nonviolent indigenous activist at a peaceful protest. A driving force behind this militarization is Juan Orlando Hernández, the ruling party candidate for president in Honduras’ upcoming presidential election on November 24, who has promised to protect Hondurans with “a soldier on every corner.” Yet he himself voted for the military coup that deposed President Zelaya, and this past December, while he was president of Congress, led the so-called “technical coup,” in which the Congress illegally deposed four members of the Supreme Court and named their replacements the very next day.


 

Colombia: 60% of indigenous face 'extinction' 
The National Indigenous Organization of Colombia (ONIC) released findings Sept. 13 that 62.7% of Colombia's indigenous population—a total of some 890,00 people—is at risk of extinction. Of the 102 indigenous communities in Colombia, 66 are found to be under grave threat, from forces such as large-scale mining development and the country's ongoing armed conflict. The findings follow a ruling issued by Colombia's Constitutional Court three days earlier that the government has not done enough to protect its indigenous population, after a 2004 decision by the same body ordered that additional measures be taken. The court held that efforts made over the previous decade to improve security for indigenous peoples have been ineffective and insufficient. The ruling found that indigenous communities are continuously victimized by armed groups forcing them off of their land, and endemic health problems caused by resource exploitation on their traditional territories. However, in contrast to ONIC, the court identified 36 indigenous groups at risk of extinciton.In Colombia, much of the indigenous population lives in autonomous territories set aside by the national Consitution. But these nominally autonomous  communities have historically borne the brunt of the Colombia's long-standing armed conflict, as well as its aggressive mining policy, which has led to mass deforestation and poisoned lands and waters with sulfur, cyanide, heavy metals and other toxins.In August, a report by independent broadcaster Noticias Uno affirmed fears about the health impacts of the Cerro Matoso open-pit nickel mine, run by PHP Billiton in Córdoba department, on the local Senú indigenous people. Televised footage documented a rash of degenerative maladies in local communities, with symptoms such as nail and hair loss, seeming to confirm residents' fears that the mine—the fourth largest nickel operation on the planet—poses grave health risks to the Senú.Severe nickel contamination in local waters has been documented, and researchers at the University of the Andes in Bogotá are attempting to develop a "super-bacteria" to decontaminate effluent from the mine.The Santos administration claims it has invested nearly $546 million in initiatives aimed at supporting Colombia's indigenous population, but the Constitutional Court ruling asserts that government action has been slow and inefficient. ONIC has organized the first-ever Indigenous Copa America, an international soccer match featuring indigenous players from throughout the hemisphere, set to take place in Colombia next year, to draw attention to the destruction of traditional cultures and populations. (Colombia Reports, El Tiempo, Notimex, Sept. 13; Colombia Reports, Sept. 10; Colombia Reports, Aug. 6; CAOI, March 14)

  Yaqui maintain highway blockade, call for international support
 VICAM PUEBLO, Sonora, Mexico -- Yoeme (Yaqui) in Vicam Pueblo maintained their highway barricade in defense of their water in the Rio Yaqui, as representatives of the National Indigenous Congress met over the weekend with directives from the Zapatistas Little School.Ofelia Rivas, O'odham representative of the National Indigenous Congress, attended the gathering in Vicam on Saturday, Sept. 14, 2013."Vicam Yoeme are calling for international support for a meeting on October 18 in the defense of water in Vicam," Rivas said. The Northwest regional meeting of the National Indigenous Congress included the states of Sonora, Sinoloa, Chihuahua and Baja."Yaqui are sending a special invitation to the Mohawks to attend this important meeting on water rights on October 18," Rivas said. 
Earlier, Mohawks joined Subcomandante Marcos and Zapatistas commandantes in Vicam Pueblo for a gathering in 2007. It is located about seven hours southwest of Tucson on the coast of Mexico. "Water is essential to our survival," said Mario Luna, spokesman for the Yoeme Traditional Authority of Vicam."Generations paid with their blood to maintain our homeland for future generations," Luna told the gathering this weekend.Luna said the illegal construction is already underway on the Independence Aqueduct. It is a diversion project of Yaqui water from the Rio Yaqui to the city of Hermosillo. Luna said neither the diversion project, nor Mexico's government officials have consulted with Vicam Yaquis as required for the impact statement.Yaquis said their around the clock, 24-hour a day, highway barricade of federal highway 15, manned by Yoeme warriors, has lasted more than 100 days and has had a major impact on produce flowing into the US. The barricade blocks traffic on the major highway between the Pacific Coast and the city of Hermosillo, a major route from the coast to the US. Yoeme lift the blockade for short periods, allowing trucks to pass after halting the trucks for hours, causing extensive delays, around the clock. Rivas said, "They have cars blocking the highway now. It is causing delays in produce like tomatoes getting to the US on time."Traditional Authorities of Yaqui Vicam Pueblo issued a summons for this weekend's gathering, in accordance with the Zapatistas Little School.







http://enlacezapatista.ezln.org.mx/
The Traditional Authorities said the water theft of the Yaqui River Basin will destroy the natural resources of this Indian territory."Considering that we have inhabited this territory for 2,500 years, a place where we were born and we have developed our existence, where mother earth provides us with everything for our life and like all the world's indigenous peoples live as brothers, with plants, trees, animals, birds, insects, the air, the heat, the cold, the sun, moon, stars, earth and water, of which is our home, food and healing, and the source of our power.""Whereas in the territory of the Yaqui tribe, our people are made of earth and water and all that comes from them. While building our culture and creating and consolidating our own institutions, in the vicinity of the river today known as Rio Yaqui, the current government perpetrated one of the most colossal robberies of living memory, stealing the waters of the basin and trying to spoil our people more.""Whereas for more than 520 years we have suffered, in our lives and in our hearts, the war of extermination, one of the longest and bloodiest wars of living memory, brought on by the political and economic power that is in power today," Yaqui said of the current authoritarian misrule.Yaqui said today the resistance and civil disobedience is for Yoeme Autonomy and Self-determination."Whereas the existence of Mother Earth and humanity is threatened by the hegemonic capitalist system for their insatiable greed and excessive economic and natural resource exploitation and death of ecosystems, carried out by large multinational corporations seeking to divest from our territories and to be strongholds of natural resources, in collusion with corrupt government institutions and the collusion of free market policies, such as NAFTA Puebla-Panama Plan, and its project northwest of the Sea of Cortez known as the Coastal Highway, along with that project, the current state government is stealing water from the Yaqui River basin through the illegal construction of the Independence Aqueduct, with the aim of more plunder, and giving an existential hit to our people.""Today through unfair and illegal, bidding, construction and operation of the Independence Aqueduct, they steal Yaqui river water and divert it to the city of Hermosillo, with the evil purpose of feeding large transnational businesses, real estate developments, and to encourage the speculation of businesses, with the rampant corrupt government complicity of Guillermo Padres Elias and consent of the current Federal Government.""The Yaqui Tribe, like most indigenous peoples and the more than 50 million poor who inhabit the country are on the border of extermination, as a result of economic policies that favor the success of the market," Yaqui said.
The Traditional Authority said Mexico wants to "turn water into a commodity, by privatizing and commodifying," water while neglecting the development, autonomy and the right to self-determination of Indigenous peoples.The Zapatistas, in conjunction with the Mexican Indigenous National Congress, issued a statement of solidarity and support for Yaqui.
“We believe that the earth is our mother and that the water that runs through her veins is not for sale. The life it gives us is a right, not something that the bad government or the business owners have granted us."“We demand the immediate cancellation of the arrest warrants and false accusations against members of the Yaqui Tribe, and we condemn the criminalization of their struggle. To the political party-based bad governments we say that the Yaqui River is the historical carrier of the ancestral continuity of Yaqui culture and territory, and that a slight against any of us is a slight against all of us. We will respond accordingly to any attempt to repress this dignified struggle or any other. We make a call to the international community and to our brothers and sisters of the International Sixth to be alert to the events in Yaqui territory and to join in solidarity with the Yaqui Tribe and its demands.”
[ED NOTES;CLICK LINK FOR WHOLE PIECE...

Canada: Hypocrites ‘R Us by Yves Engler / September 16th, 2013 Somewhere in the Lester B. Pearson Building, Canada’s foreign affairs headquarters, must be a meeting room with the inscription “The World Should Do as We Say, Not As We Do” or perhaps “Hypocrites ‘R Us.” With the Obama administration beating the war drums, Canadian officials are demanding a response to the Syrian regime’s alleged use of the chemical weapon sarin. Last week Prime Minister Stephen Harper claimed “if it is not countered, it will constitute a precedent that we think is very dangerous for humanity in the long term” while for his part Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird declared: “If it doesn’t …
get a response it’s an open invitation for people, for Assad in Syria, or elsewhere to use these types of weapons that they’ve by and large refrained from doing since the First World War.” The Conservatives also signed Canada onto a White House statement claiming: “The international norm against the use of chemical weapons is longstanding and universal.” While one may wish this were the case, it’s not. In fact, Canada has repeatedly been complicit with the use of chemical weapons. During the war in Afghanistan, Canadian troops used white phosphorus, which is a chemical agent that can cause deep tissue burning and death when inhaled or ingested in significant amounts. In an October 2008 letter to the Toronto Star, Corporal Paul Demetrick, a Canadian reservist, claimed Canadian forces used white phosphorus as a weapon against “enemy-occupied” vineyards. General Rick Hillier, former chief of the Canadian defence staff, confirmed the use of this defoliant. Discussing the difficulties of fighting the Taliban in areas with 10-foot tall marijuana plants, the general said: “We tried burning them with white phosphorous — it didn’t work.” After accusations surfaced of western forces (and the Taliban) harming civilians with white phosphorus munitions the Afghan government launched an investigation. In a much more aggressive use of this chemical, Israeli forces fired white phosphorus shells during its January 2009 Operation Cast Lead that left some 1,400 Palestinians dead. Ottawa cheered on this 22-day onslaught against Gaza and the Conservatives have failed to criticize Israel for refusing to ratify the Chemical Weapons Convention and Biological Weapons Convention. For decades the massive Suffield Base in Alberta was one of the largest chemical and biological weapons research centres in the world. A 1989 Peace Magazine article explained, “For almost 50 years, scientists from the Department of National Defence have been as busy as beavers expanding their knowledge of, and testing agents for, chemical and biological warfare (CBW) in southern Alberta.” Initially led by Canadian and British scientists/soldiers, gradually the US military played a bigger role in the chemical weapons research at Suffield. A chemical warfare school began there in 1942 and it came to light that in 1966 US Air Force jets sprayed biological weapons simulants over Suffield to figure out how best to spray potentially fatal diseases on people. Until at least 1989 there were significant quantities of toxins, including sarin, stockpiled at the Alberta base. In 2006 former Canadian soldiers who claim to have been poisoned at Suffield launched a class action lawsuit against the Department of National Defense. During the war in Vietnam, the US tested agents orange, blue, and purple at CFB Gagetown. A 1968 U.S. Army memorandum titled “defoliation tests in 1966 at base Gagetown, New Brunswick, Canada” explained: “The department of the army, Fort Detrick, Maryland, has been charged with finding effective chemical agents that will cause rapid defoliation of woody and Herbaceous vegetation. To further develop these objectives, large areas similar in density to those of interest in South East Asia were needed. In March 1965, the Canadian ministry of defense offered Crops Division large areas of densely forested land for experimental tests of defoliant chemicals. This land, located at Canadian forces base Gagetown, Oromocto, New Brunswick, was suitable in size and density and was free from hazards and adjacent cropland. The test site selected contained a mixture of conifers and deciduous broad leaf species in a dense undisturbed forest cover that would provide similar vegetation densities to those of temperate and tropical areas such as South East Asia.” (Full article …)

The US Comply w/ Int’l Bioweapons Ban?
While the issue of Syrian chemical weapons stockpile is hitting the world media headlines, little attention is paid on the problem of US compliance with its international obligations related to weapons of mass destruction.The Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) is a legally binding treaty that outlaws biological arms. In force since 1975, it currently has 165 states-parties and 12 signatory states. The BWC reaffirms the 1925 Geneva Protocol which prohibits the biological weapons use. The seventh BWC review conference was held in December 2011.The Final Declaration document concluded that«under all circumstances the use of bacteriological (biological) and toxin weapons is effectively prohibited by the Convention and affirms the determination of States parties to condemn any use of biological agents or toxins other than for peaceful purposes, by anyone at any time».In 1969, US President Richard Nixon ended all offensive aspects of the U.S. bio-weapons program. In 1975 the U.S. ratified both the 1925 Geneva Protocol and the 1972 Biological Weapons Convention (BWC) — the international treaties outlawing biological warfare.Recent U.S. biodefense programs, however, have raised concerns that the U.S. may be pursuing research that is outlawed by the BWC.In February, 2008, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) released report GAO-08-366 titled, «Chemical and Biological Defense, DOD and VA Need to Improve Efforts to Identify and Notify Individuals Potentially Exposed during Chemical and Biological Tests».
The report stated that tens of thousands of military personnel and civilians may have been exposed to biological and chemical substances through DOD tests. In 2003, the DOD reported it had identified 5,842 military personnel and estimated 350 civilians as being potentially exposed during the testing known as Project 112.At present many reports from different sources keep on saying the US is developing a new generation of weapons that undermine and possibly violate international treaties on biological and chemical warfare…According to journalist Jeffrey Silverman «A number of labs, strewn across Eastern Europe, are umbilically linked to the Biological Weapon Proliferation Prevention (BWPP) program and various projects within it, which is a cover for what is most likely an offensive program.  If the strains turn out to be antibiotic resistant, ongoing research into viruses that eat bacteria, and attack infections that are antibiotic resistant can be quickly accessed. Whoever has such information controls the bioweapons battleground».
He says, «One of the secret weapons labs inside the Republic of Georgia supplied weaponized Sarin gas to forces fighting the Assad regime. The purpose was simple. This was the only way to put «blood enemies» like Senator’s Graham and McCain in concert with the Obama administration».This July the Russian Foreign Ministry expressed its concern in connection with the publication of the U.S. Department of State’s report «On observance of international agreements in the field of arms control, nonproliferation and disarmament in 2012» that questions Russia’s compliance with obligations of the Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention (BTWC).
The Ministry’s response statement says, «The evidence is not given, as always. Meanwhile, the U.S. concerns could be long and completely eliminated, if the U.S. had not blocked the creation of a verification mechanism in the framework of the BTWC. Such a mechanism would also remove many questions to the United States in connection with the involvement of a number of American organizations in a large-scale biological activity of double application. As is known, the results of such activities may be used for purposes contrary to Article I of the BTWC».
The Ministry also notes, «There is no documentary evidence that all the objects under the jurisdiction or control of the United States that had earlier participated in military biological programs, were destroyed or converted to peaceful purposes in accordance with Article II of the BTWC.And biological activity of the Ministry of Defense of the United States near Russia’s borders causes our serious concern».
The apprehensions expressed have a solid ground. Some of the Pentagon’s labs are situated (and even more are built) in the vicinity of Russian borders. The former Soviet space is actively involved into the orbit of US biological efforts, which also encompass the Muslim world, China and actually acquire global dimension. The US has been involved in building microbiological laboratories in Ukraine. Ukrainian newspaper «2000» reported some people who live in Kharkov came to it office to express concern over the plans to build a US biological laboratory in the vicinity of suburban town of Shelkostantsia near Merefa.
The newspaper reports the Pentagon is in the process of building a network of biological laboratories across Ukraine and the program is in full swing up to the borders of Russia, Belarus, Poland, and Moldova.In Ukraine the US has already built laboratories in Odessa, Dnepropetrovsk, Lugansk, Lviv, Vinnitsa, Ternopol, Uzhhorod, Kiev, Simferopol and Kherson. Local people express anxiety over the possible collateral damage in case there is a leak of deadly substances.All the research activities in the country are conducted under an August 2005 Cooperative Threat Reduction agreement.The Pentagon (please note – not a civil agency, but the Defense Department) is responsible for the program. Similar agreements are concluded with Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. The agreement on cooperation in the field of microbiology between the US and Ukraine expired in May, but the program continues to be implemented. The US insists it should be prolonged till September 2017.
 In May 2013 a sensational statement was made by the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s former American advisor, journalist Jeffrey Silverman. According to him, a laboratory on the outskirts of Tbilisi is developing health hazardous being tested on local residents.Jeffrey Silverman’s interview was published in the local «Kvela Siakhle» newspaper and was subsequently aired by all main Georgian TV stations. Before that many concerns about this lab were raised in a 2011 article by Joni Simonishvili, entitled «Bio Weapons or Bio Health Reference Lab in Tbilisi Georgia?»The facility is located in a place called Alexeyevka, an abandoned Soviet military base, today a suburb with a few thousand people living within a mile of the new building. Mr. Silverman believes that residents of Georgia have become a target of dangerous experiments - one of the most discussed topics in Georgia now.According to him, experiments with viruses have led to the spread of such dangerous illnesses as pig flu and measles. The Georgian government denies the allegation. Silverman is ready to go further. He promised to tell Georgians the whole truth about it shortly.The journalist further claims that effort is being made to expand the program and have weaponized agents that can be used in bio warfare, «If there is a case of emergency, Georgia will be wiped off the face of the earth. In the Tbilisi laboratory they are preparing anthrax, measles, black plague and H1N1. It is possible that an artificial spread of these viruses takes place, such as measles, which today is a serious problem for this country».
On June 4, 2013 Gennady Onishchenko, Russia’s sanitary service Russia’s chief sanitary inspector, accused the U.S. of producing biological weapons in Georgia at a U.S. Navy facility that is run in concert with the Georgian government, «The existence of a US-run military lab that studied hazardous germs in a country adjacent to Russia raised concerns and was a stumbling block in the Russian-Georgian cooperation to stave off any sanitary or epidemic threats», the sanitary service, also known as Rospotrebnadzor, said in a statement.According to the sanitary watchdog, the recent epidemic of African swine fever was a planned act of economic sabotage. The virus, he said, jumped over from neigbouring Georgia, causing a severe outbreak in Russia’s south.Mr. Onishchenko also said the decommissioned US lab was to be run by Georgia’s National Center for Disease Control and Prevention.«Rospotrebnadzor expects that, as soon as the Georgian government fulfills its plan, our [Georgian and Russian] sanitary services will be able to join their forces to curb epidemic threats».
Kazakhstan-home to new US lab
By the end of this August media outlets reported that the U.S. was building a high-tech bubonic plague lab in Kazakhstan. The Central Reference Laboratory in Almaty, Kazakhstan is due for completion in 2015. The $102-million project laboratory is meant to serve as a Central Asian way station for a global war on dangerous disease.There is another smaller US-controlled lab at a military base in the town of Otar in western Kazakhstan on the Caspian Sea. Is it possible, as some Russian experts have alleged, that labs like this could serve as brain trusts and storehouses for weapons research, for either the US or their home countries? «Russia sees this as… a powerful offensive potential», Gennady Onishchenko told reporters in July.
China affected by US biological effort
In April, 2013 a Chinese Air Force officer accused the U.S. government of creating the new strain of bird flu now afflicting parts of China as a biological warfare attack. People’s Liberation Army Sr. Col. Dai Xu said the United States released the H7N9 bird flu virus into China in an act of biological warfare, according to a posting on his blog.The charge was first reported in the state-run Guangzhou newspaper Southern Metropolis Daily and then picked up by several news outlets in Asia. Dai is a military strategist who in the past has been outspoken in seeking to foment conflict between China and the United States.Writing on Sina Weibo, a Chinese micro blogging site akin to Twitter, Dai stated that the new bird flu strain was designed as a biological weapon similar to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), which he also claimed was developed as a U.S. bio-weapon, that affected the country in 2003, «At that time, America was fighting in Iraq and feared that China would take advantage of the opportunity to take other actions», he said. «This is why they used bio-psychological weapons against China. All of China fell into turmoil and that was exactly what the United States wanted. Now, the United States is using the same old trick. China should have learned its lesson and should calmly deal with the problem».
 [ed notes;click link for whole article..

Nigerians to royal dutch shell - No deal
Reuters reports that thousands of Nigerian plaintiffs have rejected a “totally derisory and insulting” compensation offer by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell over pollution caused by spills in the Niger Delta:“Their lawyers said they will now go back to a British court to request a trial timetable.The legal action is being closely watched by the oil industry and by environmentalists for precedents that could have an impact on other big pollution claims against majors.…A source close to Shell and another source involved in the negotiations told Reuters the company offered total compensation of 7.5 billion naira ($46.3 million).Leigh Day, the British law firm representing the villagers, said the compensation offer amounted to approximately 1,100 pounds ($1,700) per individual impacted, without giving the number of people it says were affected.”

VIDEO: Columbian Farmers Win Back Control Of Their Seeds After Prolonged Strike http://www.popularresistance.org/video-colombian-farmers-win-back-control-of-their-seeds-after-prolonged-strike/

via Liliana Ximena

 VIDEO: Columbian Farmers Win Back Control Of Their Seeds After Prolonged Strike National Farmers and Social Strike gets seeds control law 970 suspended

 WW3 : Tahrir Square Preacher: Al-Assad Deserves Support. FSA Members Are Terrorists, Must Be Killed" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeFFTkBCOD4

Syrias CW report by EU demolishes Israhelli arguments!!!
 By Barry M. Lando (excerpts chosen by IsraelSpy.com)
 Below are excerpts from a new blog post by a former producer for CBS News’ “60 Minutes”, the Paris-based Barry Lando.  Titled “Why Did Syria Want CW Anyway?”, at BarryMLando.com
[[[[[ a study published by the European Union’s non-proliferation consortium in July 2012, concluded,]]]]] [[[[[[“Syria’s CWs are not tactical or battlefield weapons, but rather a strategic deterrence against Israel’s conventional superiority and its nuclear weapons arsenal.”]]]]]][[[[[While Israeli leaders have always portrayed their country as an embattled David, confronting an existential threat from an Arab – and now, Iranian— Goliath, Syria’s perspective has been totally different.As the rulers in Damascus have seen it, Israel, thanks to its sophisticated industrial base,  and unwavering financial and political support from the United States, has been able to develop by far the most powerful military forces in the region—with its own nuclear trump card.]]]]]The Syrians, on the other hand, have suffered one humiliating setback after another, from the failure to defeat Israel in 1948, to Israel’s on-going occupation of the Golan Heights, which they took in 1967, to Israel’s repeated forays into South Lebanon.The Syrians, however, came to realize they could never equal Israel’s military might.  They opted instead for a practical alternative: chemical weapons. If not strategic parity, CW would at least give Syria, if the chips were down, a fearful enough weapon to brandish against Israel’s nuclear capabilities.Syria’s determination to maintain its chemical arsenal could only have increased after 2007 when Israeli planes bombed what was apparently a Syrian attempt to construct a nuclear reactor. …Syria has not signed the 1993 Chemical Weapons Convention. Whenever the issue comes up, Syria’s leaders have invariably cited Israel’s nuclear weapons program, and the fact that Israel refused to sign the 1968 Non-Proliferation Treaty.In other words, Syria is not going to unilaterally lay down its most potent weapon.Think what you will of the men governing Syria, but how can Israel or its American backers, answer that argument? Particularly if they still refuse to admit officially that Israel even has nukes?

Colombia-Humanitarian camp attacked AGAIN...

 Urgente!! Policía y Ejército Masacran Campesinos en Mojarras Cauca!! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Upz9DdB21co
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Again Mojarras-Cauca humanitarian camp receives treatment for war http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article12004

 This morning, at around 2:00 am, two national army planes overflew humanitarian camp in the village of Mojarras-Cauca which preserves more than seven thousand peasants and farmers who are protesting in search of real social policies in order to improve the quality of life of the inhabitants of the Department. At 7:00 AM platforms of the national army with the ESMAD arrived to the point of concentration by firing shotgun blasts, tear gas and stun grenades reinforced with Staples and pieces of metal,plus the actions of this operation is accompanied by shooting  the peasants with guns; at the same time a helicopter of the army flew over the refuge camp by launching tear gas indiscriminately, keeping farmers in a State of maximum emergency.At this hour they continue fighting, the armed forces used non-conventional weapons and are also shooting lead bullets. Known that there are wounded but we don't have the exact number, however confirmed that thanks to the clashes which led to, and which still maintain, the armed forces against the peasants, ambulances from surrounding townships,are prevented and  not made presence in place to respond immediately to the injured.The municipal government, nor the departmental, or the national have opted for an output agreed to the problems which today maintains fight the peasantry of the Cauca, on the other hand, the Government has maintained a treatment of war on the peasantry which in days gone by was also violated by armed forces that left 7 peasants injured by bullets and dozens more by splinters of the recalzadas and tear gas.It calls on the Government and asked that you not opt for violence against the peasantry but sit to negotiate with real and clear proposals to solve the problems that today afflicts the country's rural sector.

Update 4 peasants dead and 28 wounded during violent eviction from Government forces at Mojarras, Cauca
http://prensarural.org/spip/spip.php?article12005
According to data provided by the Office of the Attorney-General, the number of injured at Mojarras-Cauca would increase to 35 of these 4 in critical condition;  4 dead, one of them a child of 6 years old who died of tear gas inhalation. One of the injured is a defender of human rights is very serious, DEIVID DE JESUS HURTADO who belongs to the network of Francisco Isaías Cifuentes human rights and the Commission on human rights of the political movement and Social March patriotic Cauca, is a student of law and history at the University of Cauca and student activist belonging to the Tuto Gonzalez student Coordinator. He was wounded by shrapnel from explosive device launched by the Army (presumably machine gun grenade or mortar), at this time are coming to the city of Popayan, the Hospital San José, where is is concentrating people mostly students of the Unicauca.