Democracy

Celebrated Israeli historian, Ilan Pappe whose landmark publication, "The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine" documented the planned removal of  700,000 Palestinians from their lands in 1948, has written a new book "The Forgotten Palestinians".

Tamil Nation in Sri Lanka By Ron Ridenour New Century Book House Chennai, India Available in Australia via www.resistancebooks.com Ron Ridenour's Tamil nation in Sri Lanka is a history of the struggle of Tamils on the island of Sri Lanka for self-determination. Ridenour explains the reasons why many Tamils took up arms to fight for an independent Tamil state. He shows the history of racism in Sri Lanka and the violent repression carried out by successive governments against peaceful Tamil protests.

“Why do they hate us?” That was the question asked by many baffled Americans after the September 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Eleven years later, Americans are asking the question again after the US ambassador, another US diplomat, two US marines and 10 Libyan guards were killed in attacks on the US consulate in Benghazi. The hate film, Innocence of Muslims, was virtually unheard of until its producers dubbed its most offensive scenes into Egyptian vernacular Arabic and promoted it in the Middle East on social media.

Pressure is mounting for police officers involved in the Hillsborough disaster to face prosecution. In 1989, 96 football fans were killed in a human crush in a game between Liverpool and Nottingham Forest at Hillsborough Stadium in Sheffield. The calls for prosecution follow the publication of a damning report by the Hillsborough Independent Panel that exposed the extent of the cover-up by South Yorkshire Police, which attempted to shift the blame onto the 96 innocent victims.

Angered by the non-stop, one-sided propaganda on CNN and BBC World, usually a prelude to NATO bombing campaigns (including the six-month onslaught on Libya, the casualties of which are still hidden from the public) or direct occupations, I was asked to explain my views on RTV. I did so, denouncing the promotion of the Syrian National Council by Western media networks and pointing out that some of the armed-struggle opposition were perfectly capable of carrying out their own massacres and blaming them on the regime.

I was attending a small but engaging rally against internet spying on September 15, organised by the Pirate Party and others at Hyde Park North, when seven police cars and four-wheel-drives drove into the park and about 20 police officers got out. Protesting members of the Muslim community shouting “Allahu Akbar!”, marched into the park and police told us to hurry and pack up. More police ran, in phalanx formation towards the Muslim rally.

“One of the things you learn as an anthropologist, you don’t come in and change the culture,” Dartmouth College president Jim Yong Kim told wealthy alumni when contemplating the institution’s notorious hazing practices, prior to US President Barack Obama’s request in February that he move to the World Bank. Kim’s Harvard doctorate and medical degree, his founding of the heroic NGO Partners in Health and his directorship of the World Health Organization’s AIDS division make him the best-educated, most humane World Bank president yet.

For the Financial Post, the recent actions of the Bolivian government in nationalising a Canadian mine confirmed the country’s status as an “outlaw nation”, according to an August 3 article. But for less biased observers, the reality was a little different. Responding to pressure from local indigenous communities the Bolivian government confirmed on August 2 that it would expropriate the operations of a Canadian-owned mining project.

The governments of Saudi Arabia and Bahrain have gone to great lengths to control information about the ongoing uprisings in their countries. This is part of their efforts to crush the democracy movements that have sought to overthrow the ruling monarchies. The protests are part of the Arab Spring uprisings that began in Tunisia in late 2010 and spread across the Middle East and north Africa.

The Indigenous Social Justice Association released the statement below on September 14. *** Several sovereign Aboriginal nations are considering giving Julian Assange refuge and sanctuary in their nations. It was argued that as Julian is an Australian citizen he should be allowed to seek sanctuary in one of the sovereign Aboriginal nations in the lands known as Australia.

Australian lawyer and human rights activist Kellie Tranter spoke at a September 12 forum at NSW parliament house titled "Assange, WikiLeaks & the Law in a Post 9/11 World". The forum was hosted by Greens MLC David Shoebridge with the Support Assange and WikiLeaks Coalition and the Sydney Stop the War Coalition.