If the Century is no longer America’s, it wasn’t China that took it | DQ-en.
Category Archives: Global Politics
▶ Nina Simone – Revolution – YouTube
Pssst! Everyone can see what you are doing… Grin – Erdogan targets Turkish press, takes on the Times, too | News | DW.DE | 05.06.2015
“It is obvious that anyone who disagrees with the government is declared an enemy of the state, and the government has used all its power and resources to make this happen,” said Ekrem Dumanli, editor-in-chief of Zaman newspaper, who was detained in December and who is now prohibited from leaving Turkey while his case remains pending in court.
via Erdogan targets Turkish press, takes on the Times, too | News | DW.DE | 05.06.2015.
Now the truth emerges: how the US fuelled the rise of Isis in Syria and Iraq | Seumas Milne | Comment is free | The Guardian
On Monday the trial in London of a Swedish man, Bherlin Gildo, accused of terrorism in Syria, collapsed after it became clear British intelligence had been arming the same rebel groups the defendant was charged with supporting.
The prosecution abandoned the case, apparently to avoid embarrassing the intelligence services. The defence argued that going ahead withthe trial would have been an “affront to justice” when there was plenty of evidence the British state was itself providing “extensive support” to the armed Syrian opposition.
That didn’t only include the “non-lethal assistance” boasted of by the government (including body armour and military vehicles), but training, logistical support and the secret supply of “arms on a massive scale”. Reports were cited that MI6 had cooperated with the CIA on a “rat line” of arms transfers from Libyan stockpiles to the Syrian rebels in 2012 after the fall of the Gaddafi regime.
Clearly, the absurdity of sending someone to prison for doing what ministers and their security officials were up to themselves became too much. But it’s only the latest of a string of such cases. Less fortunate was a London cab driver Anis Sardar, who was given a life sentence a fortnight earlier for taking part in 2007 in resistance to the occupation of Iraq by US and British forces. Armed opposition to illegal invasion and occupation clearly doesn’t constitute terrorism or murder on most definitions, including the Geneva convention.
▶ Pray For Peace – YouTube
Orange’s decision to withdraw irks Israel

French telecom giant Orange’s move to withdraw its brand from Israel has drawn sharp rebuke from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called on Paris to distance itself from the firm’s “miserable” decision.
Barbara Myers: The Other Conspirator
The secret origins of the CIA’s torture program and the forgotten man who tried to expose it.
No oil hunt in South China Sea without nod: Beijing to Delhi – The Times of India
“Any oil and gas exploration work should get approval first from China,” said a top official of China’s ministry of foreign affairs (MFA). The official added that pending the final settlement of territorial disputes in South China Sea, China would encourage “joint development” in the region.
The official made the remark in reply to a query from TOI in a recent meeting – facilitated by the US-based East-West Center – with a group of international journalists. The meeting took at a time of fresh acrimony between the US and China over Beijing’s reclamation and island building in South China Sea. According to US authorities, China has reclaimed 1,500 acres in the Spratly island chain in the past 5 months alone by dredging sand.
via No oil hunt in South China Sea without nod: Beijing to Delhi – The Times of India.
Behind the Niqab: The (Male) Photographer’s Perspective of Life Through the Veil – Part 1 — BagNews
It’s true that in many countries women wear niqabs without threats of legal punishment or death; however, to assert, as does Ammar, that “for most, the niqab is a choice,” glosses over the ways in which women are compelled by religious tradition, family expectation, or societal convention to adopt a religious practice that is so confining and restrictive, it would never have survived as a requisite sign of religious piety had men been required to participate. The Quran instructs both women and men to “lower their gaze and guard their modesty.” If the goal is reducing the likelihood that men will lust after women, doesn’t it make as much sense for them to use a veil to curtail their own gaze as it does to enshroud women in perpetual darkness?
via Behind the Niqab: The (Male) Photographer’s Perspective of Life Through the Veil – Part 1 — BagNews.
Evicted under the World Bank’s Watch

Forcible demolition of 34 Watta homes when court case was ongoing, September 2014. Photograph by Selvaraj Rajasegar.
“We were removed from our homes by force. The Army officers told us that they will bulldoze our houses whether we move out or not. They told us that we can either take these apartments or live on the street”.

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