Diatribes and Curious Silences – Democrats and U.S. Labor Delusional About Latin America
By ALBERTO C. RUIZ – 04 September, 2012 – Counterpunch

The Democrats just put out their platform on Latin America, and it demonstrates only the loosest connection to reality. Thus, while praising the “vibrant democracies in countries from Mexico to Brazil and Costa Rica to Chile,” as well as “historic peaceful transfers of power in places like El Salvador and Uruguay,” the Democrats continue to point to Cuba and Venezuela as outliers in the region in which the Democrats plan “to press for more transparent and accountable governance” and for “greater freedom.” Of course, it is their Platform’s deafening silence on critical developments in the region which says the most about their position vis a vis the Region.

Not surprising, the Democrats say nothing about the recent coups in Honduras and Paraguay (both taking place during Obama’s first term) which unseated popular and progressive governments. They also say nothing about the fact that President Obama, against the tide of the other democratic countries in Latin America, quickly recognized the coup governments in both of these countries. Also omitted from the platform is any discussion of the horrendous human rights situation in post-coup Honduras where journalists, human rights advocates and labor leaders have been threatened, harassed and even killed at alarming rates.

As Reporters Without Borders (RWR) explained on August 16, 25 journalists have been murdered in Honduras since the 2009 coup, making Honduras the journalist murder capital of the world. In this same story, RWR mentions Honduras in the same breath as Mexico (a country the Democrats hold out as one of the “vibrant democracies” in the region) when speaking of the oppression of journalists and social activists, as well as the general climate of violence which plagues both countries. As RWR stated, “Like their Mexican colleagues, Honduran journalists – along with human rights workers, civil society representatives, lawyers and academics who provide information – will not break free of the spiral of violent crime and censorship until the way the police and judicial apparatus functions is completely overhauled.” And indeed, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, 38 journalists have been killed in Mexico since 1992, and it has been confirmed in 27 of these cases that the journalists were killed precisely because they were journalists. Meanwhile, in Mexico, over 40,000 individuals have been killed due to the U.S.-sponsored drug war – hardly a laudable figure. …more

In case no one was watching in the US, the FBI has contracted your privacy rights away to the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance. The fascists cometh and they are for hire. While both parties are holding their ‘twilight-zone-esque’ conventions, they are both pissing all over your privacy rights. Phlipn.

With What Databases Has NCTC Cross-Referenced with FBI’s 12 Million iDevice User IDs?
4 September, 2012 by emptywheel

As you may have heard, Anonymous and AntiSec hacked into a database of 12 million Apple Universal Device IDs that were in an FBI officer’s laptop and released 1 million of them, ostensibly so some people could identify if their device was one of those FBI was tracking.

They claimed to have tapped into a Dell laptop owned by Special Agent Christopher K. Stangl, an FBI cyber security expert. They downloaded several files, including one that contained “12,367,232 Apple iOS devices including Unique Device Identifiers (UDID)” and other personal information, they wrote in a text file published online. “[The] personal details fields referring to people appears many times empty leaving the whole list incompleted [sic] on many parts. no other file on the same folder makes mention about this list or its purpose.”

While it’s not immediately clear what the FBI is doing with the Apple UDIDs and detailed information on device owners, Gizmodo pointed out that the acronym “NCFTA” could stand for the National Cyber-Forensics & Training Alliance, a nonprofit that acts as an information-sharing gateway between private industry and law enforcement.

These are unique identifiers for things like iPhones and iPads that have long presented the risk of tying someone’s identity to an individual device.

There are multiple ways FBI could have collected this information–either using an NSL or Section 215 request or an insecure transmissions to an ad or game server. And no one knows how the FBI was using it. Whatever you think about Anonymous, we may finally learn more about how the government is tracking geolocation.

But here’s one other concern. Assuming that’s an official FBI database, not only the FBI has it, but also the National Counterterrorism Center. And they’ve got access to whatever federal databases they want to cross-check with existing counterterrorism databases. And one of the few checks we have on the use of our data in this way is a Privacy Act SCOTUS just watered down.

This is a massive amount of data the government likely has no good excuse for having collected, much less used. But it’s likely just one tip of a very big iceberg. …more

Sandhurst took £3m Bahrain gift after regime’s crackdown
2 September, 2012 – by Simon Murphy and Martin Williams – The Bureau of Investigate Reporting

Britain’s world-famous officer training school, Sandhurst, has accepted a £3m donation from the King of Bahrain, despite global criticism of the regime following a brutal crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last year.

Documents obtained by the Bureau reveal the top military training establishment was in negotiations with the regime about the donation throughout 2011. It received the money in January 2012 and sent a gushing letter thanking the King of Bahrain for his generosity at the beginning of summer.

The academy, which is responsible for training British Army officers, is using the donation to build a sports hall which is due to open early next year. It will be named in the country’s honour.

The donation is part of a long-standing relationship between the Bahraini royal family and Sandhurst. The King, Hamad bin Essa Al Khalifa, was trained at the Surrey-based academy, as are a select group of Bahraini military personnel each year.

The King has also been a patron of the Sandhurst Foundation, the academy’s alumni charity, since 2007. He twice donated a fee of £69,975 to the Foundation in 2011 and 2012.

The Sunni regime, which rules over the Shia majority, was criticised after the Saudi National Guard were deployed to crush pro-democracy protests that started in February 2011, sparked by the Arab Spring movement. Hospital staff were arrested for helping protestors and many are still on trial.

Jeremy Corbyn MP condemned the decision to accept the donations.

‘Bahrain has an appalling human rights record and even now medical practitioners are on trial for helping victims,’ he said.

‘It is disgraceful that the British government should allow the King of Bahrain to fund Sandhurst and it seems there is a completely different set of standards on human rights relating to Bahrain, compared to many other states in the Gulf and Middle East region.’

The MoD has provided training for 77 Bahraini military personnel at Sandhurst since 1992, including three last year, and 39 in the past decade, according to a response to a Freedom of Information request.

An MoD spokesman told the Bureau that although the training costs the government £78,000 per recruit, Bahrain only pays £48,400, meaning the government subsidises training costs to the tune of £29,600 in each case. Figures suggest this will have cost the MoD £384,800 in the past three years alone.

An MoD spokesman argued that the subsidies were beneficial to Britain as they ‘help them [Bahraini military personnel] see how we do things,’ – a practice dating back to 1947.

The recruits undergo a 48-week Army Commissioning Course, which the MoD says gives ‘a grounding in British Military doctrine’ and teaches ‘to think and communicate as commanders and to foster a deep interest and care for the individual’. …more

The US and Israel, Not Iran, Threaten Peace
by Noam Chomsky – 4 September, 2012 – commondreams.org

It is not easy to escape from one’s skin, to see the world differently from the way it is presented to us day after day. But it is useful to try. Let’s take a few examples.

The war drums are beating ever more loudly over Iran. Imagine the situation to be reversed.

Iran is carrying out a murderous and destructive low-level war against Israel with great-power participation. Its leaders announce that negotiations are going nowhere. Israel refuses to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and allow inspections, as Iran has done. Israel continues to defy the overwhelming international call for a nuclear-weapons-free zone in the region. Throughout, Iran enjoys the support of its superpower patron.

Iranian leaders are therefore announcing their intention to bomb Israel, and prominent Iranian military analysts report that the attack may happen before the U.S. elections.

Iran can use its powerful air force and new submarines sent by Germany, armed with nuclear missiles and stationed off the coast of Israel. Whatever the timetable, Iran is counting on its superpower backer to join if not lead the assault. U.S. defense secretary Leon Panetta says that while we do not favor such an attack, as a sovereign country Iran will act in its best interests.

All unimaginable, of course, though it is actually happening, with the cast of characters reversed. True, analogies are never exact, and this one is unfair – to Iran.

Like its patron, Israel resorts to violence at will. It persists in illegal settlement in occupied territory, some annexed, all in brazen defiance of international law and the U.N. Security Council. It has repeatedly carried out brutal attacks against Lebanon and the imprisoned people of Gaza, killing tens of thousands without credible pretext.

Thirty years ago Israel destroyed an Iraqi nuclear reactor, an act that has recently been praised, avoiding the strong evidence, even from U.S. intelligence, that the bombing did not end Saddam Hussein’s nuclear weapons program but rather initiated it. Bombing of Iran might have the same effect.

Iran too has carried out aggression – but during the past several hundred years, only under the U.S.-backed regime of the shah, when it conquered Arab islands in the Persian Gulf.

Iran engaged in nuclear development programs under the shah, with the strong support of official Washington. The Iranian government is brutal and repressive, as are Washington’s allies in the region. The most important ally, Saudi Arabia, is the most extreme Islamic fundamentalist regime, and spends enormous funds spreading its radical Wahhabist doctrines elsewhere. The gulf dictatorships, also favored U.S. allies, have harshly repressed any popular effort to join the Arab Spring.

The Nonaligned Movement – the governments of most of the world’s population – is now meeting in Teheran. The group has vigorously endorsed Iran’s right to enrich uranium, and some members – India, for example – adhere to the harsh U.S. sanctions program only partially and reluctantly.

The NAM delegates doubtless recognize the threat that dominates discussion in the West, lucidly articulated by Gen. Lee Butler, former head of the U.S. Strategic Command: “It is dangerous in the extreme that in the cauldron of animosities that we call the Middle East,” one nation should arm itself with nuclear weapons, which “inspires other nations to do so.”

Butler is not referring to Iran, but to Israel, which is regarded in the Arab countries and in Europe as posing the greatest threat to peace In the Arab world, the United States is ranked second as a threat, while Iran, though disliked, is far less feared. Indeed in many polls majorities hold that the region would be more secure if Iran had nuclear weapons to balance the threats they perceive.

If Iran is indeed moving toward nuclear-weapons capability – this is still unknown to U.S. intelligence – that may be because it is “inspired to do so” by the U.S.-Israeli threats, regularly issued in explicit violation of the U.N. Charter.

Why then is Iran the greatest threat to world peace, as seen in official Western discourse? The primary reason is acknowledged by U.S. military and intelligence and their Israeli counterparts: Iran might deter the resort to force by the United States and Israel.

Furthermore Iran must be punished for its “successful defiance,” which was Washington’s charge against Cuba half a century ago, and still the driving force for the U.S. assault against Cuba that continues despite international condemnation.

Other events featured on the front pages might also benefit from a different perspective. Suppose that Julian Assange had leaked Russian documents revealing important information that Moscow wanted to conceal from the public, and that circumstances were otherwise identical.

Sweden would not hesitate to pursue its sole announced concern, accepting the offer to interrogate Assange in London. It would declare that if Assange returned to Sweden (as he has agreed to do), he would not be extradited to Russia, where chances of a fair trial would be slight.

Sweden would be honored for this principled stand. Assange would be praised for performing a public service – which, of course, would not obviate the need to take the accusations against him as seriously as in all such cases. …more

The network is seriously compromising its journalism in the Gulf states by blurring the line between advertising and editorial

CNN and the business of state-sponsored TV news
Glenn Greenwald – guardian.co.uk – 4 September, 2012

Report: why didn’t CNNi air its own ‘iRevolution’ documentary?

Today I reported on the refusal of CNN International (CNNi) to broadcast an award-winning documentary, “iRevolution”, that was produced in early 2011 as the Arab Spring engulfed the region and which was highly critical of the regime in Bahrain. The documentary, featuring CNN’s on-air correspondent Amber Lyon, viscerally documented the brutality and violence the regime was using against its own citizens who were peacefully protesting for democracy. Commenting on why the documentary did not air on CNNi, CNN’s spokesman cited “purely editorial reasons”.

Even so, the network’s relationships with governments must bear closer examination. CNNi has aggressively pursued a business strategy of extensive, multifaceted financial arrangements between the network and several of the most repressive regimes around the world which the network purports to cover. Its financial dealings with Bahrain are deep and longstanding.
CNNi’s pursuit of sponsorship revenue from the world’s regimes

CNNi’s pursuit of and reliance on revenue from Middle East regimes increased significantly after the 2008 financial crisis, which caused the network to suffer significant losses in corporate sponsorships. It thus pursued all-new, journalistically dubious ways to earn revenue from governments around the world. Bahrain has been one of the most aggressive government exploiters of the opportunities presented by CNNi.

These arrangements extend far beyond standard sponsorship agreements for advertising of the type most major media outlets feature. CNNi produces those programs in an arrangement it describes as “in association with” the government of a country, and offers regimes the ability to pay for specific programs about their country. These programs are then featured as part of CNNi’s so-called “Eye on” series (“Eye on Georgia”, “Eye on the Phillipines”, “Eye on Poland”), or “Marketplace Middle East”, all of which is designed to tout the positive economic, social and political features of that country.

The disclosure for such arrangements is often barely visible. This year, for instance, CNNi produced an “Eye on Lebanon” series, which that nation’s tourist minister boasted was intended “to market Lebanon as a tourism destination”. He said “his ministry was planning a large promotional campaign dubbed ‘Eye on Lebanon’ to feature on CNN network.”

Yet one strains to find the faded, small disclosure print on this “Eye on Lebanon” page, even if one is specifically searching for it. To the average viewer unaware of these government sponsorships, it appears to be standard “reporting” from the network. …source

Bahrain pins high hopes on GCC summit at home
By Habib Toumi – 4 September – 2012 – Gulf News

Manama: Bahrain is getting ready to host the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) summit in December, the country’s foreign minister has said.

“We are working around the clock to be ready for the summit in Manama,” Shaikh Khalid Bin Ahmad Al Khalifa said. “The leaders’ meeting will build on the achievements accomplished at each of the past summits. The Manama summit will continue the trend of achievements. When you look at the larger picture, you see that the GCC has never regressed and that it has always moved forward. Today’s GCC is different from what it was 10 or 20 years ago,” he said, quoted by local Arabic daily Al Ayam on Tuesday.

However, a proposed union between the GCC countries will not likely be on the main agenda of the leaders’ summit, Shaikh Khalid said although he did recall that the GCC leaders at their summit in Riyadh in May had “agreed that a special summit would be held to discuss the latest developments on the union”. …more

In December, Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz sought to rally fellow GCC states, Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE saying it was time for the alliance to move from the phase of cooperation to a Gulf union within a single entity.

The six member states of the Council founded in 1981 in Abu Dhabi have reportedly agreed on the move, but hold different views on the pace at which such a transition should come about.

An ad-hoc commission, made up of 12 members, two from each member country, was set up to look into ways to implement the proposal and its report was submitted to the Council.

Bahrain and Saudi Arabia were openly enthusiastic about it, while other members said that more time was needed to achieve the transition. Enthusiasm for the move was so high in Manama and Riyadh that it gave rise to the thinking that the two countries should jointly work to speed up the initiative, possibly with Doha being part of it, with the other capitals joining in at a later stage.

However, the GCC leaders at their annual advisory summit in Riyadh in May said that more time was needed and that the initiative would be taken up by the council of foreign ministers.

In remarks made at the opening of the Korean embassy in Manama, Shaikh Khalid also reiterated Bahrain’s commitment to the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM).

“We have been committed to the Movement since 1971 — Bahrain’s year of independence — and we have taken part in each of its summits regardless of where it is held,” he said. …more

Is Amnesty International abandoning human rights?
2 September, 2012 – By Bev Cotton – Uprooted Palestinians

The internationally renowned journalist, Greg Palast offers the following advice in his 1999 book “The Best Democracy Money Can Buy” – “if you are a member of Amnesty International, quit”. Mr. Palast’s brush with Amnesty was in a court case in which he was sued after quoting Amnesty research containing allegations against the multinational mining company, Barrick. Amnesty refused to verify their own research in court. As Palast says, “Amnesty wants journalists to report their material. I would say to any journalist that they would be completely, utterly and absolutely insane to ever cite Amnesty again.”

Failure to prioritise human rights

Why do increasing numbers of people believe that Amnesty has abandoned the cause of human rights? As Francis Boyle, ex board member of Amnesty International USA – and renowned expert in international law puts it:

“Amnesty International is primarily motivated not by human rights but by publicity. Second comes money… To be sure, if you are dealing with a human rights situation in a country that is at odds with the United States or Britain, it gets an awful lot of attention… But if it’s dealing with violations of human rights by the United States, Britain, Israel, then it’s like pulling teeth to get them to really do something on the situation”.

Moral flatulence

That was in 2001. A neater solution to this problem has been found by Amnesty since – to issue very little meaningful data at all. Issues from the entire region of the Middle East and North Africa are now channeled through a single Amnesty office, MENA. As its UK director describes it “I should say a little about the campaign I manage here – Crisis & Transition in the Middle East & North Africa (MENA). It’s fair to say it is an ambitious, labyrinthine and long term campaign but when I am asked what it is really about I say “Solidarity with people peacefully demanding change”.

All of which means, well, nothing really. When asked recently why Amnesty International Ireland (AII) had failed to issue any briefings over the past year about a supposedly priority campaign for Zimbabwe, the answer was that the whole organisation was ‘still in transition’. In transition to what, exactly? And from what? Meanwhile MENA, originally a military campaign term, serves to bury the vast scale of human rights abuses in Palestine by losing them in a stream of information about a region that includes 523 million people and 6% of the world’s population.

As ex Amnesty supporter Paul De Rooij writes in CounterPunch:

“Reading AI’s reports doesn’t reveal why there is a conflict in the area in the first place…. The portrayal of violence is stripped of its context, and historical references are minimal…. The fact that Palestinians have endured occupation, expulsion, and dispossession for many decades, the explanation of why the conflict persists, is nowhere highlighted in its reports”.

He concludes, “today, most AI pronouncements range between moral flatulence and moral fraudulence”.

Lack of transparency

You would think that transparency would be a cornerstone of a human rights campaign group. However, Amnesty International Ireland has still failed, even after a resolution calling for openness at its 2011 AGM, to publish its staff salaries. The approximately 20 local groups are sending no more than a few thousand euro each to AII annually, and membership subscription internationally is falling after the scandal over the expensive and unexplained sacking of two of Amnesty’s senior staff in 2009. When asked by members of the Clonakilty group recently a representative of AII was unable to explain what its sources of funding are, how much they receive and on what it is spent.

Meanwhile AII is running a Mental Health Campaign part funded by Atlantic Philanthropies that bears an uncanny resemblance to the government’s rationale for its attempts to reduce services and cut funding. AII threw itself behind government closures of allegedly failing residential centres in the claimed expectation that “care in the community” was a more humane policy. Investing in improving the much needed centres was off the agenda. As was expected by many who depend on them, closures of residential services have gone ahead speedily and efficiently while the corresponding funds for care in the community have not only failed to materialise but existing funding has now been drastically cut. …more

Bahrain hits back at child detention claims on ‘CNN’
4 September, 2012 – Gulf News

BAHRAIN has hit back at claims made in a CNN interview that an 11-year-old alleged tyre burner was detained in prison, branding the allegations as baseless.

The Information Affairs Authority (IAA) yesterday issued a statement in which it said the boy, Ali Hassan, had actually been held at the Bahrain Juvenile Care Centre from May 14 to June 11.

It was responding to comments by opposition activist Lamees Dhaif in an article that appeared on CNN’s website on August 15.

“We reiterate that he was not in jail and was not detained for months; nor was he charged with participating in an illegal gathering,” the IAA said.

“Hassan participated in burning tyres in a roadblock and after several warnings to clear the street he was held in the Bahrain Juvenile Care Centre from May 14 to June 11.”

The IAA said the child had received “academic tutoring, social services and healthcare from a centre that is acknowledged by many, including international experts, for its high standard of care and state-of-the-art facilities”.

“Contrary to (Ms) Dhaif’s claim, this case was not an attempt to send a warning to protesters,” it added.

“Unfortunately juvenile delinquency is common around the world and it is Bahrain’s obligation to not only maintain the well-being of the boy, but that of the community as well.”

The IAA said that Bahrain’s government was “firmly committed” to punishing all human rights violators and did not resort to arbitrary arrests as claimed, highlighting that one Bahrain Independent Commission of Inquiry (BICI) recommendation was to oblige police officers to show warrants upon arrest and grant suspects access to a lawyer.

It also defended the impartiality of the judiciary.

“It should also be noted that the National Security Agency’s mandate to gather intelligence has been restricted and they are no longer authorised to arrest or detain individuals on their own authority,” it added.

“Despite (Ms) Dhaif’s false allegation, the judiciary system is an independent body that holds those who break the law to account, whether they are vandals or members of security forces.”

Prosecution

The IAA pointed to the prosecution of 15 policemen following an investigation by the Public Prosecution.

“Bahrain is firmly committed to punish all human rights violators and provide citizens the opportunity to express themselves freely,” it said.

It revealed the government had permitted 88 rallies and gatherings since the beginning of the year, at which participants had been able to express their views.

“It is also important to highlight that Bahrain currently has 20 political groups, including opposition groups such as Al Wefaq National Islamic Society, who vividly voice their complaints and concerns,” it said.

“So to claim that Bahrain is intentionally targeting activists is outrageous when the government has facilitated the platform to voice their concerns.”

The IAA also defended Bahrain’s close ties to the UK and US.

“The US provided security assistance to protect the country from foreign threats and not for crowd control as (Ms) Dhaif suggests,” it said.

It also pledged that reforms initiated by His Majesty King Hamad in 2001 would continue and “will not be hijacked by any special interest group from the opposition, especially one that does not represent the vast majority in Bahrain and protect the rights of all”.
…more

Bahrain says uprising leaders had contact with Iran, Hezbollah
4 September, 2012 – Reuters – The Daily Star

DUBAI: Leaders of a Bahraini uprising last year, whose prison sentences were upheld by a court on Tuesday, were in “intelligence contact” with Iran and its Lebanese ally Hezbollah, a public prosecution official said on Tuesday.

“It is established clearly to us from this verdict that some of the accused had relations and strived to have relations and intelligence contacts with a foreign organisation, which is Hezbollah, which works in the interests of Iran,” Wael Boualai told a news conference, in comments carried by state media.

Six of the 20 men whose sentences were upheld were found guilty of “intelligence contacts with foreign bodies”. They were also jailed for offences including trying to overturn the system of government and violating the constitution. The 20 deny all charges against them, saying they wanted only democratic reform.
…source

Bahrain: Iranian translators swopped us for Syria in ‘oppressive regime’ speech
By Associated Press- 1 September – 2012 – PDMI

MANAMA, Bahrain — Bahrain says it has filed a formal protest with Iran over a broadcast translation that wrongly substituted Bahrain for Syria in a speech by Egypt’s president.

A statement by Bahrain’s government says Egypt’s President Mohammed Morsi referred to the Syrian rebels fighting an “oppressive” regime during a speech at a Tehran conference Thursday.

Instead, Bahrain claims Iranian state TV replaced the word “Syria” with “Bahrain” in its Farsi translation.

Morsi’s speech was an embarrassment for Iran, which is a close ally of the Syrian regime.

But Shiite power Iran has frequently criticized Bahrain’s authorities for crackdowns against mostly Shiite protesters seeking greater political rights.

Bahrain says the formal complaint was filed Saturday with an Iranian diplomat.

…source

Bahrain: Appeals Court Upholds Life Imprisonment for Opposition Leaders
4 September, 2012 – by Amira Al Hussaini – Global Voices

Bahrain’s High Court of Appeals upheld jail sentences against 20 opposition figures accused of plotting to overthrow the regime today [September 4, 2012]. While international human rights organisations describes them as “prisoners of conscience,” Bahraini authorities and the local Press call them “terrorists” for their role in anti-government protests, which started in Bahrain on February 14, 2011.

Eight of them have been slapped with life in prison; the rest have been given jail sentences ranging from five to 15 years.

Supporters called the trial a sham, rejecting its ruling and pledging to continue with anti-government demonstrations. …more