World Analysis Newswire Archive

The dismaying gift of the Nobel prize puts Barack Obama on the list of its winners who promised peace but prosecuted war.

Viewed from the Middle East, the United States, which had signed agreements with more than seventy nations worldwide to ensure that American military are immune against national and international persecution in cases of human law violations, was perceived as providing a similar shield that would ensure that the Israeli military are similarly immune and above the international law, and has embroiled the Palestinian Authority in this network of political protection of Israeli suspects of human rights violations against its own people in the Gaza Strip.

Pardon me if I am not tripping all over myself congratulating the “peace prize” winners!

EON confirmed to us that they are shelving any investment in Kingsnorth for 2-3 years, reasoning that a reduction in electricity demand in the UK due to global recession meant that new coal isn’t necessary right now, and that the marginal economics of coal now when compared to alternatives like gas mean they cannot justify an investment case. They are keen to stress this is suspension rather than a cancellation, that they remain committed to coal and CCS, and that they intend to remain part of the Government’s plans. What is significant is that we have turned the process of building plants like Kingsnorth in to such a drawn-out, expensive and unpopular mission that it is no longer worth the effort. Kingsnorth was originally expected to gain approval 2 years ago, with construction starting about now. Instead, there is still no decision on Kingsnorth, the Government still doesn’t have a coherent coal policy and the lifeline for new coal of money for CCS still hasn’t materialized. Worse for them, it is now not possible to build completely unabated coal plants at all in the UK, which means they have to take a risk on trialing an untried, untested additional technology. So it’s a very hard place to do business if you want to build coal.

Blogs, twitter and the MSM are buzzing with last nights news that Eon has shelved plans to replace it's aging Kingsnorth power plant with another coal burning dinosaur but are these reports telling the whole story?

Never before have we experienced a noborder camp on the outer borders of the EU at which political protests and social struggles for the freedom of movement were as intertwined as they were in Lesvos. International press coverage about the detention centre at Pagani was considerable and we return with many new impulses for transnational networking. Even if meetings were characterised by strong disagreements, our evaluation of Lesvos is overwhelmingly positive.(1)

"In reality, the Cold War did not start because of Soviet aggression, but because of a long-standing historic impulse by Anglo-American elites to encircle and control Eurasia. The Soviet Union honoured its agreement with Britain and the U.S. not to intervene in Greece, which even came at the expense of Yugoslav-Soviet relations as Marshal Tito broke with Stalin over the issue. This, however, did not stop the U.S. and Britain from falsely accusing the Soviets of supporting the Greek Communists and declaring war on the Soviets through the Truman Doctrine. This move was a part of the Anglo-American bid to encircle the Soviet Union and to control Eurasia. Today this policy, which existed before the First World War and helped spark the Second World War, has not changed and Anglo-American elites, such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, still talk about partitioning Russia, the successor state of the Soviet Union."

What is really inside Communist China since 1949? What is really behind China's politics, business, economy and international relations? Is China's communist corruption going to ruin the nation in light of global financial crisis? Get powerful reviews from a new posting by provocative Chinese thinker George Zhibin Gu of World Association of International Studies at Stanford University.

The occasion of Tehran's report to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on September 21, 2009 that it is in the process of building a low-capacity second uranium enrichment plant near the holy city of Qom provided President Barack Obama with a new opportunity to backtrack on one of his outstanding presidential campaign promises of engagement and normalization of diplomatic relations with Iran.

On September 19, the Irish Times reported:

“Israel has rejected the call by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to join the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) and open up its atomic sites to international inspection.” (Mark Weiss, ‘Israel spurns nuclear watchdog's call to open atomic sites to inspection,’ Irish Times, September 19, 2009;  http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2009/0919/1224254860406.html)

"Facusse’s proposal is in effect on behalf of The Third Coup, or at least a trial balloon toward its attempt. But beyond its whacky proposals above, The Third Coup has an even more fatal flaw: It was developed in a back room by rich and powerful magnates, without so much a consulting, much less dialoging with, a single worker, or farmer, or student, much less their organizations that represent the great mass of the mobilized Honduran people. For it is their power from below that has prevented both malicious coups this year from triumphing. No regime - not any more - can hold on to power in Honduras unless it sufficiently satisfies the amalgam of social movements that are now popularly referred to as The Resistance.
Furthermore, to attempt to reward Micheletti just two days after he bared his despotic teeth – in effect, betraying his other coup plotters in their lust for portraying this pustch as “not a coup” - with a lifetime unelected post in Congress, as Facusse’s proposal does, indicates a mindset so far removed from the realities demonstrated over the past summer, so profoundly out of touch with the overwhelming sentiment of the majority of his countrymen and women, that it offers a glass window into the mysterious mind of the oligarch, trying one more time to extract advantage over everybody else, even as his best made plans come crashing down all around him."

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Representatives of Iran and six of the world's most powerful countries are scheduled to meet this week in Geneva, one of a series of events that increasingly looks like a rerun of the build-up to the 2003 U.S. invasion of Iraq.

Now is the time to reaffirm a simple principle that ought to be the bedrock of our anti-war movement: every country that has been oppressed by U.S imperialism has the right to determine its own destiny.

Iran is insisting that the US government abide by the non-proliferation treaty that the US originated and pushed and that Iran signed. But the US government, which is currently engaged in three wars of aggression and has occupying troops in a number of other countries, insists that Iran, which is invading and occupying no country, cannot be trusted with nuclear energy capability.

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

On the second anniversary of Blackwater’s massacre of Iraqis in Baghdad’s Al-Nusur Square, CBS on this September 17 asked in a detailed report: “Why Is Obama Still Using Blackwater?” The answer could obviously be found in exhausting the U.S. “volunteer” military manpower stretched out to the maximum to sustain the two U.S. – led wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.

Copyleft artwork by Brazilian cartoonist Latuff.

Over the past week U.S. newspapers and television networks have been abuzz with reports that Washington and its NATO allies are planning an unprecedented increase of troops for the war in Afghanistan, even in addition to the 17,000 new American and several thousand NATO forces that have been committed to the war so far this year.

America's obedient media is preparing domestic audiences for the possibility of the largest escalation of foreign armed forces in Afghanistan's history.

Honduran coup leaders are popularly known as "gorillas" and Roberto Micheletti as "Goriletti".

States are due to sign a UN protocol which by its exclusion of core obligations will allow States to discriminate against the poor. This will give more credibility to those terrorists who claim to be fighting on behalf of the poor. The protocol by also excluding the empowerment rights to development et al will allow States to create a more dependent population unable to help themselves. Many States are already following such policies.