World Prout Assembly

There is no scientific consensus at the UN

The year 2000 hoax made it possible for Wahington to impose software harmonization worldwide and to create a global communications network among States. According to the States themselves, the efforts that went into the IY2KCC also made it easier to coordinate efforts in the context of the war against terrorrism after September 11. Moreover, such harmonization paved the way for the United States to impose its own software equipment and, inter alia, to allow Bill Gates to amass a fortune. All software systems have been endorsed by the National Security Agency, signifying that they are permeable to intrusions by the US intelligence services. For the gullible who let themselves be manipulated, the cost of this operation ranged between 300 and 600 billion dollars, depending on the sources, of which less than 40 were shouldered by the United States. Quite a swindle! - Thierry Meyssan

Catastrophic Fall in 2009 Global Food Production

The droughts plaguing the world's biggest agricultural regions should end the debate about deflation in 2009. The demand for agricultural commodities is relatively immune to developments in the business cycles (at least compared to that of energy or base metals), and, with a 20 to 40 percent decline in world production, already rising food prices are headed significantly higher. In fact, agricultural commodities NEED to head higher and soon, to prevent even greater food shortages and famine. The price of wheat, corn, soybeans, etc must rise to a level which encourages the planting of every available acre with the best possible fertilizers. Otherwise, if food prices stay at their current levels, production will continue to fall, sentencing millions more to starvation. - Eric deCarbonnel

U.S. LOAN EFFORT IS SEEN AS ADDING TO HOUSING WOES

Jan 3, 2010 - The Obama administration's $75 billion program to protect home owners from foreclosure is now being seen as having done more harm than good. More than two million homes were lost to foreclosure in 2009, and that number is expected to swell in 2010. Since President Obama announced the program in February, it has lowered mortgage payments on a trial basis for hundreds of thousands of people but has largely failed to provide permanent relief. Critics increasingly argue that the program, Making Home Affordable, has raised false hopes among people who simply cannot afford their homes.

Masters of War

"Masters Of War"

by Bob Dylan

Come you masters of war
You that build all the guns
You. that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks.

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly.

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain.

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
When the death count gets higher
You hide in your mansion'
As young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud.

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins.

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
That even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do.

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul.

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand over your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead.

The Biopsychology of Cooperation - Part 3

A healthy human society can only be founded on a social theory that recognises humans as multidimensional beings, that is, as having metaphysical and spiritual aspirations in addition to their physical aspirations. Given the history of utopian visions gone wrong, it is important to guard against naivety - a cooperative society will not be established without struggle and without a commitment to cardinal human values and Neo-ethics. Human beings are both selfish and cooperative - our struggle is to encourage the latter in as many ways as possible and to control the former in as many ways as possible. Cooperation must not be allowed to become another dogma. Coordinated cooperation will require a good scientific understanding of the physiological, psychological and environmental factors which encourage cooperation and those which do not. The research to date offers good grounds for optimism. Human beings have a strong genetic and physiological foundation on which to build a better society and there is every reason to suppose that a cooperative society can be built given any reasonable effort in that direction. - Michael Towsey

The Biopsychology of Cooperation - Part 2

Numerous experiments have revealed that human economic decision making is far more complex than accepted by the simple theory of maximising gain. This turns out to be true even for animals. For example, if two monkeys perform the same task side by side, and one is rewarded a grape (big money) and the other a cucumber (small money), the latter will throw a tantrum and toss the cucumber out of its cubicle. Yet if both receive a cucumber, both eat happily. Conclusion: monkeys show an aversion to inequality. The reward does not even have to be physical - it can be the affectionate attention of laboratory staff. - Michael Towsey

The Biopsychology of Cooperation - Part 1

Four factors have helped to breathe new life into the cooperative movement:First, the collapse of communism10 has discredited the Marxist brand of 'scientific' socialism and those looking for serious social change are once again evaluating the cooperative movement. Second, the economic woes besetting western capitalist democracies have starkly exposed the defects of the dominant social order to emerge out of the titanic struggles of the 20th century. Third, the British Labour government from 1997 gave much support to what they heralded as the third sector and social enterprise. In many respects it was cooperation rebadged11 but it did help to broaden our appreciation of cooperation by encompassing not-for-profits and self-help organisations and it also made alternative economic models more visible in the English speaking world.12 Fourth, much economic and scientific evidence is emerging, some of it from surprising quarters, to suggest that cooperation is not a utopian concept but entirely achievable given any reasonable effort to put it into practice. The rejection of the cooperative business model by 19th century British capitalists was motivated by a desire to preserve class privilege. And of course the British government was obliged to maintain an increasingly expensive and restless empire - cooperatives are not a good business model for empire builders. - Michael Towsey

Shooting Handcuffed Children

Also this week in Afghanistan, eight CIA assassins (see if you can find a more appropriate name for them) were murdered by a suicide bombing that one of them apparently executed against the other seven. The Taliban in Pakistan claims credit and describes the mass-murder as revenge for the CIA's drone killings. And we thought unmanned drones were War Perfected because none of the right people would have to risk their lives. Oops. Perhaps Detroit-bound passengers risked theirs unwittingly. The CIA has declared its intention to seek revenge for the suicide strike. Who knows what the assassination of sleeping students was revenge for. Perhaps the next lunatic to try blowing up something in the United States will be seeking revenge for whatever Obama does to avenge the victims (television viewers?) of the Crotch Crusader. Certainly there will be numerous more acts of violence driven by longings for revenge against the drone pilots and the shooters of students. - David Swanson

Tremble with indignation

"If you tremble with indignation at every injustice, then you are a comrade of mine."

Che

Please listen to this man

Download Hangover, The Movie

Dear readers, just listen to him. Watch the video. See his tormented, suffering soul at his own actions against the sweet people of Iraq. He says that all we need to go to war is to turn soldiers into racists. Imbibing racism towards another community or nation, soldiers will march into war against them. But without racism, soldiers will not kill other people. So why don't we start a movement in this country and in the whole world to stop racism! Who needs racism! It eats away at people's hearts. It destroys hearts. It fills bodies with hatred, vengeance and thoughts of torture, rape, and slaughter. Is this the reason we took birth on this earth? No. We were born for a higher purpose, dear readers. We were born to do noble work for suffering humanity. We we born to serve the weak and helpless and make them strong. We were born to teach the masses to fight the exploiters of this world and to unite all in the common sentiment of anti-exploitation. We were born to feed the hungry, because without food in their stomachs, people cannot listen to anything, they cannot even think about God. Please educate your friends and neighbours. Explain to them that if we all refuse to take part in racism, then no government can compel us to rape, torture and slaughter our brothers and sisters in other countries or here in our own country. Educate your friends and neighbours about the glorious new Zeitgeist called Neohumanism, which talks about one world, one humanity and one family. This is the Zeitgeist for the 21st century. No more fissiparous tendencies. No more balkanization of nations due to racisms born of fascist fundamentalist mindset. We want only Neohumanism. We want only universalism. We want only the unbounded love in each and every one of us for the entire rest of humanity. - Garda Ghista

Freedom of Black people

"Any kind of movement for freedom of Black people based solely within the confines of America is absolutely doomed to fail."

MALCOLM X

1st January, 1818: 'The Battle Of Bhima Koregaon'

his Battle was commemorated by an obelisk, known as the Koregaon Pillar (Vijay Stambh), which featured on the 'Mahar Regiment' crest until Indian Independence. The 'Vijay Stambh' reminds us 'together we can achieve anything'. The monument has names inscribed of twenty two untouchables (Mahars) killed there, erected at the site of the battle and by a medal issued in 1851. Today, the monument still "serves as focal point of Untouchable (Mahar) heroism". Dr. Babasaheb Ambedkar used to visit Bhima Koregaon (Shaurya Bhomi) every year on 1st January to pay homage to great Mahar soldiers of The Bhima Koregaon Battle. On New Year eve, rather than visiting pubs, dancing and enjoying over beer bottles, pay rich tribute to the heroes of 'Battle'. This all will show respect, our commitment, courage and awareness towards our rich history. One step ahead we can suggest or request all of you that in remembrance of untouchable soldier who fought and died for self respect and esteem in 'Bhima Koregaon Battle' over the haughty, superior and arrogant 'Savarnas'. - Pardeep Singh Attri

America Fights; China Prospers

Of course, the Chinese have one advantage we don't--they aren't saddled with a voracious corporate-military parasite that needs a steady diet of wars and threats to survive. We destroy; they build. Our military drags us into bankruptcy; they prosper. As one Afghani put it, "The Chinese are much wiser. When [they] went to talk to the local people they wore civilian clothing, and they were friendly. The Americans--not as good. When they come there, they have their uniforms, their rifles and such, and they are not as friendly." - Case Wagenwood

The Australian Ombudsman

The student told me: "It was an outrageous and misleading allegation by the Ombudsman. How the Ombudsman, sitting in his nice Sydney CBD Office, knows that there was an independent and fair Appeals Committee? The administrative process by the University was a farce and a case of miscarriage of procedural fairness. The Hearing was unfair and the Appeal Committee lacks impartiality and professionalism. Its members were all white Anglo-Saxons and showed clear practical injustice and prejudice towards students from non-Anglo-Saxon background. They were aggressive, provocative and racist during the entire Hearing". The student was denied the right to have a legal representative during the Hearing, but the University allowed him to be accompanied by a "silent" University staff. - Ghali Hassan

Buy An African Baby, Bomb Some African Villages

The saying goes here in this part of Africa "all roads to peace in the Horn of Africa run through Asmara [Eritrea]..." and there is one thing the USA and especially Hollywood is dead set against and that is peace breaking out in Africa. With the UN there to enforce the Law of the Jungle, only the strong survive. And survivors, especially those that wont kneel down at the masters feet, have to be made examples of. Or at least it has to look that way, and sanctions against Eritrea it must be.. So buy a baby in Ethiopia and support genocide. And dont forget to declare war and start bombing Sudan. In the mean time, get busy and start enforcing the sanctions against Eritrea. Either that or better yet, make sure no one even hears about all of this, business as usual, you know, with none the wiser?

Welcome To Orwell's World

The most telling forerunners of the Obama Plan, which the Nobel Peace Prize-winner and his general and his PR men prefer we forget, are those that failed in Afghanistan itself. The British in the 19th century and the Soviets in the 20th century attempted to conquer that wild country by ethnic cleansing and were seen off, though after terrible bloodshed. Imperial cemeteries are their memorials. People power, sometimes baffling, often heroic, remains the seed beneath the snow, and invaders fear it. "It was curious," wrote Orwell in Nineteen Eighty-Four, "to think that the sky was the same for everybody, in Eurasia or Eastasia as well as here. And the people under the sky were also very much the same - everywhere, all over the world . . . people ignorant of one another's existence, held apart by walls of hatred and lies, and yet almost exactly the same - people who . . . were storing up in their hearts and bellies and muscles the power that would one day overturn the world." - John Pilger

BLACKWATER GETS AWAY WITH MURDER

Jan 1, 2010 - On Thursday, Judge Ricardo Urbina dropped charges against five Blackwater security guards accused of fatally shooting fourteen unarmed Iraqi civilians and wounding eighteen others in Baghdad in September 2007. According to court documents, one of the guards had bragged to another that he wanted to kill Iraqis as "payback for 9/11". Ali al-Dabagh, the Iraqi government spokesman, said in a statement Friday that the government was dismayed by the court's dismissal of the case. "The Iraqi government regrets the decision," he said. "Investigations conducted by specialized Iraqi authorities confirmed unequivocally that the guards of Blackwater committed the crime of murder and broke the rules by using arms without the existence of any threat obliging them to use force". Dr. Haitham Ahmed, whose wife and son were killed in the shooting, said the decision casts doubt on the integrity of the entire U.S. justice system. "If a judge ... dismissed the trial, that is ridiculous and the whole thing has been but a farce," Ahmed said. "The rights of our victims and the rights of the innocent people should not be wasted."

The Northwest Flight 253 Intelligence Failure: Negligence Or Conspiracy?

Even the failed attempt has touched off a firestorm of criticism by the Republican right of the Obama administration's supposed laxity in the face of terrorism. This found its distilled expression in a statement released Wednesday by former Vice President Dick Cheney. "We are at war, and when President Obama pretends we aren't, it makes us less safe," said Cheney. The former vice president and de facto leader of the "war on terror" in the Bush administration condemned Obama for proposing to close down the Guantánamo prison camp and try some of those held there in normal federal courts. He also denounced the US president for jettisoning the words "war on terror" in describing Washington's continuing wars abroad and attacks on democratic rights at home. The statements from Cheney--who was at the center of a secret government for eight years, has the closest ties to the military-intelligence apparatus, and is a ruthless advocate of torture, assassinations and a sweeping curtailment of democratic rights--shed light on the political calculations that may have encouraged elements within the CIA and related agencies to keep the "dots" separated and, thereby, facilitate a terrorist action. - Patrick Martin

Taking the bread out of the mouths of others

We should not forget even for a moment that this whole animate world is a large family in which nature has not assigned any property to any particular individual. Individual ownership has been created by selfish opportunists so that they might take advantage of the defects of this system in order to grow fatter in a parasitic way. When the whole property of this universe has been inherited by all creatures, how then can there be any justification for a system in which someone receives a flow of huge excess, while others die for lack of a handful of grain? ...The aspiration to become rich by exploiting others is a sort of mental malady. In fact, if the eternal hunger of the human soul does not find the real path leading to mental and spiritual wealth, it becomes engaged in the work of depriving other of their rights; it robs them of their material resources. If any member of a family seizes food from a store by application of mental or physical force, he certainly becomes the cause of misery to others. Similar is the case when a capitalist says, "We have seized wealth by intelligence and labour. If others have mental and physical potentialities they may also do it. Who objects to it?" They do not want to realize that the volume of commodities is limited whereas requirements are common to all. In most spheres, abundance for one individual takes the bread out of the mouths of others. It is a mental ailment not to understand this common necessity.
-
Shrii Prabhat R. Sarkar

Uncivilized Practices of the Civil Society

Before civil society organizations organize the next consultation, convention or conference on Adivasi, Dalit or Women's Rights, all marginalized people should stand up and say strongly that enough is enough, let the Adivasis, Dalits and women of D-section speak for themselves. The time has come to tell them (non-Adivasis heads) that we are grateful to you for advocating on behalf of us for the last six decades, but no more manipulation please. We are tired of hearing about our grievances through your holy tongues; therefore, we want the world to listen to our grievances through our mouths. We want to speak for ourselves and we are capable enough to save our culture. But the question that may remain unanswered is, will you, the Messiahs of the Adivasis, Dalits and women listen to us? - Gladson Dungdung

Developing Nations Must Urgently Defend Themselves

Island Nations, African Nations and indeed all Developing Nations must respond immediately to the Australia- and US-engineered failure of the crucial Copenhagen Summit by immediately targeting Australia and, in general, climate criminal, climate racist, climate terrorist and climate genocidal people, politicians, corporations and countries, with Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands through the International Court of Justice, Climate Genocide prosecutions before the International Criminal Court and exclusion of climate criminal nations from international bodies such as the Commonwealth and the South Pacific Forum - failure to act will make Developing Nations complicit in their own destruction. - Gideon Polya

The Indian GM industry In Panic

Someone from the panel asked sarcastically: "what use is bio-diversity to Kerala?" In response, another professor stood up and talked about bio-diversity conservation particularly the Silent Valley (curiously he was not given the microphone to speak and therefore many could not hear him clearly). By then the audience was pretty incensed and it was clear that the organizers had lost control over their own invited and hand-picked audience and abruptly a tea break was announced. Then mysteriously a person stood up and was given the microphone. He identified himself as Jayapal Reddy, a farmer from Andhra Pradesh, and said that he is a cotton farmer who moved over to Bt cotton. He has observed that in his pre-Bt cotton days, he had no birds on his farm and now he finds many birds appearing. He then turned to Dr Shantaram and dis-ingenuously asked him to explain this phenomenon. - Devinder Sharma

Better To Have No Deal Than One That Spells Catastrophe

Stilwell says that the wrong kind of deal would "lock in the wrong approach all the way to 2020" - well past the deadline for peak emissions. But he insists that it's not too late to avert this worst-case scenario. "I'd rather wait six months or a year and get it right because the science is growing, the political will is growing, the understanding of civil society and affected communities is growing, and they'll be ready to hold their leaders to account to the right kind of a deal." At the start of these negotiations the mere notion of delay was environmental heresy. But now many are seeing the value of slowing down and getting it right. Most significant, after describing what 2C would mean for Africa, Archbishop Tutu pronounced that it is "better to have no deal than to have a bad deal". That may well be the best we can hope for in Copenhagen. It would be a political disaster for some heads of state - but it could be one last chance to avert the real disaster for everyone else. - Naomi Klein

Yemen: Pentagon's War On The Arabian Peninsula

Currently the U.S. is arming Somalia and Djibouti for war against independent Eritrea. The Pentagon has its first permanent military base in Africa in Djibouti, where it stations 2,000 troops and from where it conducts drone surveillance over Somalia. And Yemen. In the words of Balzac's character Vautrin, "There are no such things as principles, there are only events; there are no laws, there are only circumstances...." Yemenis are the latest to learn the Pentagon's and the White House's law of the jungle. Along with Iraq and Afghanistan which counterinsurgency specialist Stanley McChrystal used to perfect his techniques, Yemen is joining the ranks of other nations where the U.S. military is engaged in that variety of warfare, fraught with civilian massacres and other forms of so-called collateral damage: Colombia, Mali, Pakistan, the Philippines, Somalia and Uganda. -Rick Rozoff

Plight Of The Stranded Pakistanis In Bangladesh

In due course most of the people of Pakistan also forgot about these stranded Pakistanis who were being projected as patriots during the 1971 war and its immediate aftermath. These "patriots" of 1971 are now considered as "pariahs" by Pakistan that has stopped owning them as it fears that, on migration, they would settle in Sindh province and join the ethnic political ranks of Mohajirs (the Urdu speaking people who migrated from India to Pakistan after independence in 1947.) The stranded Pakistanis or Biharis are trapped between the conflicting histories and ideologies of the South Asian sub-continent. - Abdus Sattar Ghazali

Sea Level Rise May Exceed Worst Expectations

Some scientists think that we may already be committed to a future with higher seas than had been expected. "There could be a global warming tipping point beyond which many metres of sea level rise is inevitable unless global greenhouse-gas emissions are cut dramatically, and soon," warns Overpeck. "I have spent a lot of time talking with national security decision-makers in this country and abroad about the security implications of climate change," says Marc Levy, deputy director of the Center for International Earth Science Information Network at Columbia University's Earth Institute in New York. "I've consistently witnessed an inability on their part to take sea-level risks seriously. This study helps frame the risks in ways that decision-makers can better understand."

Corruption a way of life in Afghanistan

"We will support Afghan ministries, governors, and local leaders that combat corruption and deliver for the people," said President Obama earlier this month in a speech that laid out the future of U.S. military engagement in Afghanistan. "We expect those who are ineffective or corrupt to be held accountable," he said. Until we can provide the people the peace of mind that we will defend them against corruption, we will not succeed --Hamid Karzai - At a recent anti-corruption conference, Karzai called the situation in his homeland embarrassing. "Until we can provide the people the peace of mind that we will defend them against corruption, we will not succeed," he said.

Mumbai suspect is US double agent, India claims

An American man charged with plotting the attacks on Mumbai was a double agent for both the United States and al-Qaeda terror group Lashkar e Taiba, Indian officials have claimed. By Dean Nelson in New Delhi, 16 Dec 2009 - David Headley, a Pakistan-born American national arrested in Chicago in October, is alleged to have carried out reconnaissance missions in the run-up to the Mumbai attacks, in which 166 people were killed. He is also believed to have been present in the terrorists' "control room" in Pakistan where their handlers directed the killing spree over an open telephone line.

US Drones Kill 12 in North Waziristan: Third Strike in 24 Hours in Tribal Area

A pair of drone attacks yesterday killed at least 17 people and wounded numerous others in roughly the same region. The US has yet to comment on any of the attacks, which is in keeping with their usual strategy with the CIA drone strikes. US officials have been trying to cajole Pakistani forces into invading North Wazirsitan, a difficult proposition for a government already fighting myriad wars across its northern border at America's behest. If the US attacks continue, however, it could provoke a reaction from the militants in the region, sparking a broader war that forces Pakistan to get involved, ready or not.

The Ongoing Repression of Palestinian Protesters

The Israeli army also recently resumed the use of 22 caliber sniper fire for dispersing demonstrations, though use of the weapon for crowd control purposes was specifically forbidden in 2001 by the Israeli army's legal arm. Following the killing of unarmed demonstrator Aqel Srour in Ni'ilin last June, Brigadier General Avichai Mandelblit, the Israeli army's Judge Advocate General, reiterated the ban on the use of .22 caliber bullets against demonstrators, to no effect. In addition to Srour, since the beginning of 2009, 28 unarmed demonstrators were injured by live ammunition sniper fire in Ni'ilin alone. Unlike the battlefield, in the realm of public opinion, where political struggles are decided, gun-toting soldiers cannot defeat a civilian uprising. Israel is clearly aware of this fact. The night raids on the villages, detention of leadership and shear brutality on the ground are all a desperate and failing attempt to nip the renewed wave of popular resistance in the bud.

Child Labor Booms Among Iraqi Refugees in Syria

"One of the indicators that child labor is on the rise is if you look at the school dropout rate," she explained. "There were fewer Iraqi children enrolled in 2008-2009 than in previous years. This could be attributed to a number of factors, such as resettlements or returns, but we also think that child labor, as a result of economic hardship, is a primary factor for these dropout rates." Most children in the child labor market are engaged in low-wage jobs such as working in eateries or cleaning toilets. Dakhlallah said that while child labor is not restricted to the refugee population, and Syrian children are also sent to work, the refugee population tends to be the most vulnerable and susceptible to economic difficulties.

93 percent in US think economy in bad shape: Polls reveal disappointment, dissatisfaction with Obama

A Pew Research poll, issued in early December, reported that only 32 percent of those surveyed favored increasing the number of troops in Afghanistan. A plurality of Americans think the US should "mind its own business internationally," a result the pollsters chose to dub "isolationist." (Intriguingly, the Pew poll found-by a margin of 41 percent to 25-that Americans think the US plays a less important role in world affairs than it did a decade ago, and that only 27 percent of Americans think the US is the world's top economic power, as compared to 44 percent who believe China has taken over that spot.) It should be noted that the type of question asked is not an insignificant matter. Generally, the establishment pollsters give respondents a choice between the administration's position and an even more right-wing alternative. Or, the questions treat official claims as though they were unchallengeable facts. For example, this question in the ABC News/Washington Post poll: "Do you think the United States must win the war in Afghanistan in order for the broader war on terrorism to be a success, or do you think the war on terrorism can be a success without the United States winning the war in Afghanistan?"! - David Walsh