Uponnothing.co.uk

Jacques Chirac has called for the:

strengthening of global governance by reforming the UN and providing more support to the developing world. He said his government would introduce an international tax on airline tickets next year to provide permanent funding for the fight against Aids, tuberculosis and malaria. France would hold a ministerial meeting next February to discuss ways of implementing this idea, which has already been backed by Germany, Spain, Brazil, Chile and Algeria.

As usual the idea to help Africa relies on putting the cost of the project at the feet of the taxpayer, a solution that requires no real thought or realistic assessment of how the problems are caused in the first place. For France to be proposing an international tax on airline fees as a workable solution to create more aid for ‘developing’ countries is laughable. Why doesn’t Chirac dip into his own pockets to help increase aid? Or better still, rather than spending billions of Euros a year subsidising French farmers (far more than is spent by France on aid) - effectively killing any chance of developing countries having far trade in relation to foodstuffs - why doesn’t he use this money to develop fair trade?

Because of course, Chirac, and fellow European statesman, are far more interested in pointless grand gestures than actually addressing the real issues and causes of poverty. No doubt the project will eventually be shelved in favour of a series of free concerts, where obscenely rich artists can pretend they give a fuck for an hour - whilst plugging a new album for free - and politicians can pretend that they are in touch with the ‘people’.

Courtesy of The Devil’s Kitchen comes some great lines from this year’s fringe, including:

There were some fat kids at my school. One girl had to get cut out of a hula hoop.
Alan Carr

Growing up it was difficult for me to chat up teenage girls. Now I’m 35, it’s a little uncomfortable.
Will Smith

They say the Meek shall inherit the Earth but don’t worry, we’ll just beat the hell out of them and get it back again.
Howard Read

If a child dies every time Bono clicks his fingers then maybe he should stop clicking.
Colin & Fergus

All of the call centres in Scotland are being outsourced to India. Bloody foreigners - staying over there, taking our jobs…
Bruce Morton

Read the full list here…

Nothing, absolutely nothing.

A link has duly been added to Stumbling and Mumbling.

If you are lucky enough to employed in job that slows down on a Friday, and you have some spare time for reading, then why not try some of these articles. Each article has been handpicked from bloggers all across the globe for your enjoyment and/or education.

Musings from Middle England: Blood On Our Hands - Remembering Hussein and Israfil

Hussein, 26 years old, was a gay man who fled Iran and came to Britain. He had already spent three months in prison in Iran for being gay and feared execution if he was sent back.
In June 2004 the Home Office refused to grant him asylum and was going to send him back to Iran.
So he killed himself.
A private death in an Eastbourne car park was preferable to a public hanging in an Iranian square.
The Coroner said the asylum refusal was the ‘obvious motive’ for his death.

The year before, Israfil Shiri, another gay Iranian, died six days after setting himself alight in the offices of a refugee charity in Manchester. His asylum application had also been rejected. Unlike the mythical asylum seekers described in the tabloids, living the high life on state handouts, Israfil was both homeless and penniless, often sleeping in a wheelie bin. He was also in constant pain because, following his asylum refusal, he was unable to get medical treatment for a bowel complaint.

A must read article aiming much anger at Tony Blair’s supposed dedication to human rights.

Adventures of Mr Behi: Blogrolling filtered!

Iranian Telecom is famous for the filters it imposes over websites/weblogs that are containing what the government considers as “against morals of the society” or “against national security”. This costly activity has already cost Iranian government many million dollars to become reality and there is a little care about the legitimacy of the reasoning that should be there behind the filtering of each URL that is swept away from the sight of Iranian web surfers.

A little look at how filtering of blog sites seemed to have been stepped up after the election of the new president, in case anything negative was posted…

Iran Hopes: This Regime is Getting Bolder and Bolder

Yesterday, they hired a number of bullies to march in front of European embassies in Tehran “in protest against Europeans policies towards Iran’s nuclear program”. The mob burned the flags of France, Germany, and Britain. State News agencies, and newspapers (Kayhan, Jomhuri, etc.) claim that the protesters were ’students’. BUT THEY WERE NOT! They might have been pupils at regime’s schools of violence and hatred, but they certainly were not students in the proper use of the term. They were Basijis from Ashura squad (Gordan-e Ashura). They get money to do these things. One day they are ’students’, another day they are ‘volunteer suicide bombers’, the next day they are ‘law enforcers’, enforcing their law upon women who do not observe rules of their version of Islam.

Iranian regime enforces a very strict version of Islam upon the populace, something that is now happening in Iraq as well.

The Minority Report: Yesterday and Today: Nazis and the Righteous Right

If we take a look at pre-WWII Germany, we notice it has some things in common with the United States now. Start with the concept of exceptionality. Nazi ideology grew out of Germans’ belief that their country was uniquely privileged because it was uniquely valuable. This made them an exception to rules and norms. The average “Proud to Be an American” bumper-sticker-buyer believes the same thing. (I’m still waiting for some churchgoing patriot to notice that being born American is a gift of grace and to begin marketing “Humble to be an American” decals.) A belief in your country’s exceptionality takes you way out beyond the warm self-appreciation of patriotism; in naming your heritage “exceptional,” you cut your ties to the family of nations and set yourself above the rules. Our belief in our own exceptionality erodes the walls that hold back human greed, fear of otherness, and violence. Exceptionality makes the unthinkable possible, even reasonable.

An interesting look at how America is flirting with a racial ideology similar to that of Nazi Germany.

Raed in the Middle: Deadline: The Iraqi Constitution

Another two weeks!
Another two hours!
Another two minutes!

The Iraqi constitution committee is begging for another last minute, as if the world is ending tomorrow. With all the internal pressure (i.e. the daily insurgent attacks) and the external pressure (the US administration’s imposed deadlines), the committee finds itself between a rock and a hard place. The US ambassador to Iraq attends all the constitution meetings and gives the Iraqi stakeholders some printed “suggestions” to break the deadlock, while the Iraqi resistance’s assassinations and attacks are getting stronger and more effective.

The Iraqi “governments”, established and supported by the occupation, has spent the last couple of years collapsing. Every new day is a worse day; every yesterday is brighter than any tomorrow.

An Iraqi’s opinion on the stuttering formation of the Iraqi Constitution, and the general situation in Iraq, and the picture painted is very different to the brave new Iraq being touted by George Bush and Tony Blair.

Hell is other people: Menezes Exclusive: Police issue false statement against the de Menezes family and Menezes: Blair still spinning to save his job

Met officers placed ‘bulky jacket’ story in the press

Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair is continuing an aggressive PR campaign in the face of his growing isolation and calls for his resignation over his officers’ killing of Jean Charles de Menezes. Interviews with Sir Ian appeared yesterday on BBC radio, and today in the News of the World, while Charles Clarke, the Home Secretary, and the Deputy Leader of the Greater London Assembly publicly smeared the campaign by the dead man’s family and supporters.

Some general news on one of the biggest stories of the week.

Don’t Shoot: May I recommend

I have a confession to make. I am a book addict, I love books. Here are some of my favorite books that I would like to share with the rest of you.

Some books recommendations.

Tell Me a Secret: I found myself…

Sleeping in a grave-size space, defined by two walls touching both my head my and feet, and surrounded with human bodies touching me from both sides, in a way that hardly leaves any chance to move at all during the long… long night, in a 12 square meters room stuffed with 35 people trying to sleep, and to hold themselves together in order not to fight…
The whole thing started when I went to the university to pay my tuition fees…

The true story of an innocent person being arrested in occupied Iraq, he happens to be a blogger.

Iran seem to be raising the stakes in the war of words regarding their pursuit of nuclear power:

“The Americans are trying to undermine the Islamic Republic of Iran and transform its identity by using political and cultural instruments and their puppets, but they will suffer their biggest defeat from the voluntary Basij youth,’’ Khamenei said without elaborating. He did not elaborate in his address made during a visit to a Tehran base of the Basij, a corps of civilian vigilantes who enforce the Iranian regime’s Islamic strictures.

Bush issued his veiled threat after Iran resumed uranium conversion at its nuclear facility in Isfahan, a move that also prompted a warning from the UN nuclear watchdog agency. Bush has called for continued diplomacy to halt Iran’s nuclear programme, with resort to UN Security Council sanctions only if diplomatic efforts fail.

This response serves to add to the already tense situation, with diplomats uncertain as how to proceed following the revelations that traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program. Iran has stated that they still wish to continue negotiations with the European three, but the Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad still maintains that:

“Our policy is transparent and clear: we are after the nation’s lawful rights within the framework of international law and we will defend these rights seriously”

After Europe initially called off talks after Iran began enrichment activities, but now French Foreign Minister Philippe Douste-Blazy has stated:

“We are suspending the negotiations,” he told France Inter radio. “But at the same time, we think it is still possible to talk to them … There is no reason to close the door on Iran.”

So hope remains that talked can be reopened, but it still seems unlikely that Europe would accept the legal right of Iran to pursue the nuclear activity that they wish, whilst America remain isolated from discussions, but clear that they would be prepared to assess all options available if the talks do break down. With Iran holding firm, and Europe and America equally unbending in their opposition to the Iranian stance, even if talks are reopened their failure seems simply a matter of time.

So the home office have today published a list of ‘unacceptable behaviours’ relating to terrorism. The non-exhaustive list so far:

Terrorist violence

Cannot foment, justify, glorify terrorist violence in furtherance of particular beliefs

Terrorist acts

Cannot seek to provoke others to terrorist acts

Criminal acts

Cannot foment other serious criminal activity or seek to provoke others to serious criminal acts

Inter-community violence

Cannot foster hatred which might lead to inter-community violence in the UK.

Method

Individuals who do the above by any means or medium are caught by the legislation, including:

- writing, producing, publishing or distributing material;

- public speaking including preaching

- running a website

- using a position of responsibility such as teacher, community or youth leader

So writing material and running a website I wonder if many blog sites will be looked into, as the government - in particular Herr Blair- seem to think that attempting to understand terrorism is akin to justifying it, and logic dictates then that you must be a supporter of terrorism. The subjects of the United Kingdom have never had true free speech - legally - which makes it easier for the New Labour media machine to enforce repression of what is in many cases dissent, labelled as terrorism.

Is it an offence to write that I understand why 4 men decided to detonate themselves in London, taking the lives of innocent people? They wanted to express their anger and disgust at a world that condones the state terror perpertrated by many ‘civilised’ nations, a world in which a few powerful nuclear states can terrorise nations at will, and any peaceful protest will never make any difference to this state of affairs. This is not condoning the act of killing innocent people in London, this is simply saying that violence breeds violence, they wanted to do to London what we did to Baghdad.

However, this is the real crux of the matter, Tony Blair and George Bush cannot understand that the acts of the London bombers are no different to the act of illegally invading Iraq. Both acts were carried out by a small group of people pursuing an agenda through violence, Blair and Bush mobilised a massive military force, whilst the suicide bombers turned themselves into human bombs.

Both acts resulted in the deaths of innocent people, except Blair and Bush managed a far higher body count (although of course America ‘Don’t do body counts’), however, whilst the London bombers have been rightly condemned worldwide, the invasion of Iraq has not been(and when Blair repeats his claims that terrorism can ‘never be justified’, he seems to forget how frequently he justifies this terrorism).

I was sickened by the London bombings, and cannot have any idea what it is like to lose a loved-one to a random act of terror, but likewise, I am equally sickened by the actions of Tony Blair and George Bush, for although they may not have strapped the explosives to themselves, they are no less guilty. Nor can I hope to understand what it must be like to be an Iraqi who has lost a loved one due to the terrorism of the UK and US.

It is about time we started condemning all terror, and the next time Tony Blair makes a speech defending the war in Iraq, and America’s role in the world, perhaps he will be arrested for breaching these new rules - because he has done more to further the cause of terrorism than any other person in the UK.

Somehow I missed this:

Students of the Basrah and Shatt Al-Arab universities in Basrah city have been on strike for the last three days as a reaction to the attack last week by Sadrists and Mahdi Army militiamen on tens of students organising a field trip or a picnic at Al-Andalus park, downtown Basrah.

Hooded men assaulted the students with rubber cables and truncheons which resulted in the death of a Christian girl, Zahra Ashour, and another student who came to her rescue after militiamen had tore off her clothes and were beating her to death. He was shot in the head.

Students say that their belongings, such as mobile phones, cameras, stereo players and loudspeakers, were stolen or smashed to pieces by the militiamen. Girl students not wearing headscarves, most of them Christian, were severely beaten and at least 20 students were kidnapped and taken to Sadr’s office in Al-Tuwaisa for ‘interrogation’ and were only released late at night.

Students also say the police and British soldiers were nearby but did not intervene.

A Sheikh As’ad Al-Basri, one of Sadr’s aides in Basrah, stated that the ‘believers’ of the Mahdi Army did what they did in an act of ‘divine intervention’ in order to punish the students for their ‘immoral and outrageous behaviour’ during the ‘holy month of Muharram, while the blood of Imam Hussein is yet to dry.’ He added that he had sent the ‘group of believers’ to observe and photograph the students, and on witnessing them playing loud music, ‘the kind they play in bars and discos’, and openly talking to female students, the ‘believers had to straighten things out’.

Read the whole post here, with good updates from the author.

The talks that were planned for the 31st of August have been cancelled after Iran made the decision to resume nuclear fuel activities - which could eventually lead (in theory) to the production of nuclear weapons.

“We can’t continue with formal negotiations as if nothing happened,” said Jean-Baptiste Mattei, chief spokesman for the French Foreign Ministry. “The suspension of their fuel activities was the basis for our negotiations. By resuming some of those activities the Iranians have effectively suspended the agreement these talks were based on.”

Now that talks have finally broken down, something that was inevitable given that Europe was essentially trying to deny Iran basic rights over nuclear development, calls have once again been made to report Iran to the UN security council. However, the UN have again supported Iranian claims that Uranium was brought to, not made in Iraq, and that the report due to be issued soon by the IAEA would also support Iranian claims that a weapons program simply does not exist, as they have yet to find any evidence of it.

Now that that talking has ceased, is the next step action? Will Bush use the breakdown in talks to fuel his pre-emptive strikes? We’ll have to wait for word from the White House.

As demonstrated by Tim Ireland, who tangles with a prospective Tory MP, who may or may not be an idiot, who may or may not be pandering to racism, and who may or may not take legal action against any smears to his good name.

Traces of bomb-grade uranium found two years ago in Iran came from contaminated Pakistani equipment and are not evidence of a clandestine nuclear weapons program, a group of U.S. government experts and other international scientists has determined.

“The biggest smoking gun that everyone was waving is now eliminated with these conclusions,” said a senior official who discussed the still-confidential findings on the condition of anonymity.

Scientists from the United States, France, Japan, Britain and Russia met in secret during the past nine months to pore over data collected by inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency, according to U.S. and foreign officials. Recently, the group, whose existence had not been previously reported, definitively matched samples of the highly enriched uranium — a key ingredient for a nuclear weapon — with centrifuge equipment turned over by the government of Pakistan.

Iran has long contended that the uranium traces were the result of contaminated equipment bought years ago from Pakistan. But the Bush administration had pointed to the material as evidence that Iran was making bomb-grade ingredients.

So, some of the mud slung at Iran has proved to be bullshit, but will this report get as much press as the original allegations? It would be interesting to see if Bush will in time comment on the report once it becomes official, I suspect he will disregard it, perhaps with something along the lines of: ‘Well, the report is irrelevant really, it does not deter us from completing our mission “Operation Iranian Freedom”‘.

The negotiations between the European three (UK, Germany, France) and Iran seem to be at a critical point, and Iran should view this vindication as another reason why they should be allowed to pursue nuclear power, as is there legal right. This is further backed-up by the IAEA board, which in its third year of an investigation in Iran, has still not found any proof of a weapons program. Let us not forget that:

The IAEA had put together the group of experts in an effort to foster cooperation but also to eliminate the possibility that its findings would be challenged by the White House, officials said. In the run-up to the Iraq invasion in March 2003, the White House rejected IAEA findings that cast doubt on U.S. assertions about then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein’s arsenal. The IAEA findings turned out to be correct, and no weapons of mass destruction have been found in Iraq.

Read the full article from the Washington Post here…

As Shi’ite party militias roam the ruins of Iraq’s cities killing and beating political dissidents, and whipping women who fail to wear the requisite head-to-toe chador, our “democracy”-crazed neocons cite the country as a “model” – and look forward to the “liberation” of the rest of the Middle East along similar lines. The world seen through the prism of neoconservatism is truly a Bizarro World, where everything is stood on its head, not just physical laws but also traditional moral precepts as well as the rules of logic.

Americans are naturally repulsed by the sight of what the Busheviks have wrought in Iraq, but the alternative is not to turn around and make war on the Shi’ite-Kurdish tyranny we made possible in the first place. A war along those lines would be an act of such incredible hubris that it would make our prior mistakes – beginning with the invasion of Iraq – seem almost benign.

It’s time to face up to the horrific reality: there are places on this earth that in no way resemble the cultural and political landscape of the U.S., and nothing we do will turn Iraq into a suburb of the American metropolis. Short of wiping out a good portion of the population and imprisoning most of the rest in “reeducation” camps where they’ll be forced to memorize Robert’s Rules of Order and the aphorisms of Emily Post, it simply cannot be done.

Read the full article here, and reclaim the reality of what has happened, and is happening in Iraq.

It was shortly before the London bombings that I scribbled a few lines on the lowering of security levels in the UK, so I’ll scribble a few lines now. The last time I focused on the falsity of the terror-levels, post-9/11, when the UK was not high on the terrorist agenda. And how lowering them after the UK had invaded Iraq, and was now involved in an illegal and bloody occupation, proved how little sense is behind the terror-levels, as the UK was surely in far more danger now.

Now of course, the inevitable attack has sadly happened, and is of course now just another part of history, and the terror-levels are back to the fore.

Now, it strikes me that the terror-level indicators are a bit silly, and don’t really mean a thing. For example, the terror-levels have now been reduced from ‘”critical” or Level 1 — its highest state — to “severe general” or Level 2G’ because ‘intelligence sources do not have any specific information relating to imminent attacks.’ Well, at no stage since 9/11 has there been any evidence that the government has gained any reliable intelligence on the likelyhood of a terrorist attack - as was demonstrated by lowering the security level prior to the London bombings. So why have security levels based on intelligence, as the government is extremely unlikely to gain any real intelligence on bomb attacks?

Now the actual terror-level seems to be a pointless indicator that the government uses to maintain the illusion that we are under attack, that a threat is always very close to being imminent; whereas in reality real threat is determined by ‘”alert” level, which runs in parallel and is also decided by JTAC, remains at its highest rating.’ It is the alert level that determines police resourcing and public security, so why have the terror-level indicator, if not to stir-up fear in the general public?

The terror-level is nothing but a New labour media device, designed to convince the doubting public that we are under attack; you can almost picture Blair dealing with people who do not believe the constant threat of terror: ‘Look, of course we are in danger, the terror-alert says “severe-general” for god’s sake’.

From the Independent

Should you be tempted to dismiss all this as esoteric or merely mad, travel to any Muslim community in Britain, especially in the northwest, and sense the state of siege and fear. On July 15, Blair’s Britain of the future was glimpsed when the police raided the Iqra Learning Center and bookstore near Leeds. The Iqra Trust is a well-known charity that promotes Islam worldwide as “a peaceful religion which covers every walk of life.” The police smashed down the door, wrecked the shop and took away antiwar literature which they described as “anti-Western.”

Once again this is a must read article.

The Rise of the Democratic Police State - by John Pilger

The Daily Star - Opinion Articles - Israel’s withdrawal is both historic and deceptive