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Förre vänsterledaren Gudrun Schyman presenterade på onsdagen en feministisk appell som är tänkt att skilja agnarna från vetet i EU-valet. Tanken är att kandidaterna i EU-valet ska ställa till svars med uppropet som utgångspunkt, samtidigt ska kandidater som vill ändra “Europas patriarkala maktpolitik” stödjas. Uppropet har tagits fram av en arbetsgrupp kallad “Kvinnor och makt”, inom organisationen Socialt Forum. Organisationen samlar internationellt olika nätverk och organisationer, kritiska till globaliseringen. Appellen ska presenteras i flera europeiska länder och vid onsdagens presskonferens i riksdagshuset deltog förutom Schyman också arbetsgruppens ordförande Lilian Hals, Frankrike. Syftet är att utmana vad arbetsgruppen kallar den patriarkala makten i Europa. Kraven är att arbetet med att ta fram den nya konstitutionen avbryts, att konkurrensutsättning och privatiseringar som högsta mål tas bort, att vård, omsorg och social välfärd utvecklas i ett balanserat system och att kvotering tillämpas vid val till alla beslutsfattande poster. Schyman kritiserar det gammaldags patriarkala...

May 24, 2004 – This is the Prime Minister’s first interview since taking office. NEW DELHI – Has the Indian Congress party, in electing Manmohan Singh as the man to lead the nation, in a stroke won for India a leader attuned to the voices of the rural poor as well as those that “shine” in the information technology sector, a leader who happily and uncomplicatedly embraces Hindus, Moslems, Sikhs, Christians and non-believers, one who will exert all its strength to make peace with Pakistan, and one who is determined to put India’s economy on course to overtake China’s within a couple of decades (and maybe before if China’s precarious system of economic and political governance breaks down)? For now these unanswered questions are just hopes, although widely touted ones. The biggest question mark over his head is will his communist allies give him the room for maneuver he needs on...

An integrated project with 11 Burundian NGOsin the TFF Amahoro (Peace) Coalition This outline has been produced on the basis of the comprehensive proposals developed by each of our 11 coalition partners and submitted to TFF during spring 2004. It forms the basis on which TFF approaches potential donors in Sweden, Denmark and elsewhere. What is important is that each of the projects have been identified by the Burundian NGOs themselves and reflect the needs of the country as it goes through the peace process. The role of TFF has been only to identify connecting points and integrate them with each other and produce this short outline from the much larger project proposals. Thus, we have secured a genuinely Burundian character and stake in all we do in the future in the Amahoro Coalition together. 1. General background Burundi is moving from a thirty years old ethnic conflict towards peace....

[1]  When somebody declares “War on Terrorism” any counter-war should come as no surprise.  War is a two-way street as Anglo-Americans and Israelis with their punishment expeditions and military intervention against peoples unable to hit back are now learning. Today they hit back, military and civilians against military and civilians; USA-UK killing by far most. Terrorists possess less destructive force than the state terrorists, but their societies are more vulnerable.  Thus, a nonviolent Muslim strike in some of them will have a major impact. [2]  This also applies to members of the “US-led coalition” with military deployment in Afghanistan and Iraq like Spain. The 11-M Madrid-Atocha atrocity is in this category although other issues handled badly by Spain like Ceuta-Melilla may play a role.  US stupidity has generalized a simple 9/11 attack to a real clash, including with Australian sex, also pedophile, tourism in Bali. [3]  Spain is now making...

Belligerent occupation is governed by The Hague Regulations of 1907, as well as by the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949, and the customary laws of belligerent occupation. Security Council Resolution 1322 (2000), paragraph 3 continued: “Calls upon Israel, the occupying Power, to abide scrupulously by its legal obligations and its responsibilities under the Fourth Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in a Time of War of 12 August 1949;…” Again, the Security Council vote was 14 to 0, becoming obligatory international law. The Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the West Bank, to the Gaza Strip, and to the entire City of Jerusalem, in order to protect the Palestinians living there. The Palestinian People living in this Palestinian Land are “protected persons” within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention. All of their rights are sacred under international law. There are 149 substantive articles of the Fourth Geneva...

Krigsmæssig besættelse er reguleret i Haag Konventionerne af 1907, 4. Geneve Konvention af 1949 og af sædvaneret om krigerisk besættelse. Sikkerhedsrådets resolution 1322 (2000), paragraf 3, fortsat: “Opfordrer Israel, besættelsesmagten, til nøje at overholde sine lovmæssige forpligtelser og sit ansvar i henhold til den 4. Geneve Konvention om Beskyttelse af Civile Personer i Krigstid af 12. august 1949…” Her var Sikkerhedsrådets stemmeafgivning 14 mod 0, hvorved beslutningen blev bindende international ret. Den 4. Geneve konvention finder anvendelse på Vestbredden, Gazastriben og på hele byen Jerusalem for at beskytte de palæstinensere, der lever der. De palæstinensiske mennesker, der lever i dette palæstinensiske områder er “beskyttede personer” i den 4. Geneve Konventions betydning [af ordet]. Der er 149 væsentlige artikler i den 4. Geneve Konvention, der beskytter hver enkelt af disse palæstinensere som lever i det besatte Palæstina [og deres] rettigheder. Den israelske regering overtræder og har siden 1967 overtrådt næsten hver...

LONDON – If the Iraq imbroglio has one blessing it is that it demonstrates that there are no actual or realistically imaginable military scenarios where nuclear weapons would be of any practical use for a major power attempting to subdue a smaller one. Yet the macho culture of nuclear weapons remains unassailed except by a brave few. General George Lee Butler, the commander of American nuclear forces in president George Bush senior’s time, has argued that nuclear weapons are “inherently dangerous, hugely expensive, militarily inefficient and morally indefensible.” Even back in the days of the U.S. nuclear monopoly, the moral sanction against use was such as to render them diplomatically useless, often counterproductive. This is why Stalin knew he could act with impunity when seizing control of Eastern Europe. Likewise Beijing and Hanoi went to war with American armies in Korea and Vietnam without fear of being halted by nuclear weapons....

Nu ved vi det: der anvendesrutinemæssigt tortur af USApå basen i Guantanamo Bay Trykt i The Guardian, 13 marts 2004 Vi lever virkelig i mørke tider. Et sikkert tegn påat nætterne bliver længere – selvom foråret nærmer sig – kommer fra intensiteten i angsten for tortur. Hele tiden er der rapporter om nye grusomheder – i Sudan, blandt britiske ofre i Saudi Arabien og om angsten for tortur. Senere i denne måned vil i Geneve Verdensorganisationen mod Tortur fortælle FNs menneskerettighedskommission, at “siden angrebene den 11. september har talrige stater vedtaget eller annonceret foranstaltninger, der er uforenelige med deres forpligtelser i forhold til international ret”. Samtidig som vi står over for nye grusomheder i Madrid, hører vi stemmerne af de første briter løsladt fra Guantanamo Bay, hvor de var udsat for et system af aldrig svigtende grusomhed, som beskrevet af den forhenværende fange, Jamal al-Harith. Han beskriver systematisk ydmygelse som...

LONDON – Who in extremis could put his hand on his heart and say he would not sanction torture if he knew the detainee possessed information that could save thousand of lives? This has been the central conundrum of the long debate on the morality of torture. In 1979, nearly two decades after the revelations of torture during the war of Algerian independence against colonial France, the commanding general of the French forces during the Battle of Algiers, Jacques Massu, published his memoirs defending its policy. The man who in his family life tried to make amends by adopting two Algerian orphans made the argument that torturers may be responsible servants of the state in times of extreme crisis. Three years ago another top French general, Paul Aussaresses, went public with his memoirs. “The first time I tortured someone”, he wrote, “it was useless: the fellow died without saying a thing....

Traces lead from Abu-Ghraib back to the death row of SCI Greene, Pennsylvania, USA  “Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That’s not the way we do things in America,” President George W. Bush commented on May 8 concerning the soldiers who are accused of torturing inmates of the prison Abu-Ghraib in Iraq. In the course of the last days it has become obvious that the USA doesn’t constrain itself to deploying military troops to the so-called crisis regions of the world. It also sends staff of private security corporations as well as state and federal security guards. Sargent Charles A. Graner, one of the main defendants in the Abu-Ghraib torture scandal, is one of the 16,000 employees of the Pennsylvania National Security Guards, who are serving as guards in the 26 prisons of the State of Pennsylvania. 4,000 of them have been deployed to Bosnia,...

LONDON – India is now in the middle of what many Chinese would give their right arm for- a general election. Yet China is the power that gets all the attention. When president Richard Nixon first went to China it was widely assumed at the time that the reason he ignored India and courted China was that China had nuclear weapons and could help balance the Soviet Union. Since 1998 India has possessed nuclear weapons and can balance China. Slowly Washington is waking up to the fact that the tortoise soon might overtake the hare. Still the investors and the press continue in their old ways. Last year the inflow of foreign capital into China was two and a half times that into India. The press barely covers the Indian election whilst every day there is a story out of Beijing. This skewed appreciation has been going on since the...

People called me, mostly the press both Thai and international, asking how to make sense of the incident. For some of my friends who might not have followed what happened in Southern Thailand on April 28, 2004, let me offer a brief reflection. The government killed 108 men who attacked 10 official sites (police stations among others) in three provinces (Pattani, Yala and Songkhla). The attackers were mostly young (some below 20, at least one around 60), most used knives (official figures were more than a hundred with only 4 M16, 2 HK and a few guns). It was reported that in some cases these people charged the police stations with knives in their hands and engaged in brutal hand-to-hand combat with the police. But in an incident which took place in Songkhla, it seems the attackers were young soccer players from a local school. A good team with good winning record:...