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Scores detained as police take over Istanbul’s Gezi Park

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ISTANBUL – Hürriyet Daily News

Scores of people have been detained as result of a police intervention against a small group on Istanbul’s İstiklal Avenue as forces attempted to disperse crowds until the morning hours of Aug. 4.

n_51966_4-1The number of those detained amounted to around 40, according to daily Radikal, and an unidentified number of protesters were injured due to tear gas canisters and plastic bullets.

Police had closed access to Gezi Park on the night before, following a call on social media for a demonstration at the spot, which became the symbol of nationwide demonstrations last month. Twitter users have been mobilizing to spread word about a gathering at the park in order to commemorate the protesters killed during the Gezi protests.

However, police cordoned off the park’s entrance from the Taksim Square Aug. 3 in the afternoon. A water cannon truck (TOMA) was deployed near the juncture between the pedestrian İstiklal Avenue and Taksim Square, where most of the demonstrations had been concentrated in the last few weeks.

The group was told to disperse in order not to inflict “further damages to the shopkeepers” on İstiklal. A group of demonstrators began a small fire on the street before fleeing down İstiklal.

Police subsequently intervened, pushing protesters down the street and into the side alleys, with Mis Sokak becoming a target for officers. The restaurants and local businesses located on the street were heavily affected by the gas, and were subjected to police searches when protesters took refuge in the street’s shops and cafes.

Many bystanders were soaked from the pressurized water fired by the police and some were severely affected by its chemicals. Police units also detained a person who started a solo sit-in in front of Gezi Park’s entrance.

The intervention lasted into the morning hours as some protesters responded by throwing rocks and bottles at the officers. The group was frequently warned to disperse, but refused to do so for hours.

The park was reopened at 1 a.m., after an eight-hour shutdown.

The intervention prompted a quick response from the opposition benches, as Republican People’s Party (CHP) deputy Erdoğan Toprak described the police action as “illegal.”

“No one should see themselves as above the law. No one can trample over the freedom and rights of people. People can be attacked and detained for no reason while sitting at a cafe,” Toprak said.

USA: BA Protest To Close Turkish Imam Fethullah Gulen Charter Schools-Stop The Theft Of Public Funds By Gulen Movement

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BA Protest To Close Gulen Charter Schools-Stop The Theft Of Public Funds By Gulen Movement
by United Public Workers For Action UPWA
Sunday Jul 14th, 2013 12:01 AM
Trade unionists and activisgulen__fethulah_with_korants joined together in a national protest against the Imam Fethullah Gulen’s chain of schools in the US. According to Oakland researcher Sharon Higgins over $400 million a year of public funds is being directed into the Gulen cult movement in the US. The action was held at the Gulen run school in Oakland called the Bay Area Technology School.
July 13 Oakland Protest of Turkish Government Connection In Oakland At Charter School Run By Turkish Government Supporter Fethullah GulenBay Area Technology School at 8251 Fountaine St. Oakland CaliforniaA Press Conference With
Gulen Researcher and Oakland Resident Sharon Higgins
Lawyer and Commission On Teacher Credentialing Kathleen Carroll
Trade unionists
Members of Northern California Turkish CommunityStop The Theft Of Our Public Schools And Privatization-National Action Against Gulen Movement And Their Publicly Funded School System In US
Stop The Gulen Movement
Contact
Called By United Public Workers For Action http://www.upwa.info
800_gulen_stop_stealing_public_fundsFor information call (415)867-0628 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting (415)867-0628 FREE  end_of_the_skype_highlighting or (510) 510-910-4930In Conjunction with picket of Fethullah Gulen’s Home In Pennsylvania
National Protests Against Gulen Movement in US Schools and
Gulen Movement’s organizations in California.
Get Your Bloody Hands Of US Public Education

Are Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden champions of democracy or enemies of the state? (VIDEO)

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CrossTalking
The enemies of the US: who are they? Are Bradley Manning and Edward Snowden champions of democracy or enemies of the state? Has the war on terror accomplished anything besides violating civil liberties? And, if terrorism is the ultimate threat, how do we know when the war is over? CrossTalking with Steven Leser and Tighe Barry.

In the Caucasian mountains Blood & Honor (RT Documentary) (VIDEO)

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In the Caucasian mountains people like tradition, no matter how violent it may be. In the 1990s public executions were common in Chechnya and Blood & HonorIngushetia. They have their own concept of justice and their own methods to carry it out. But times are changing, as people seek forgiveness rather than revenge. But it’s not always easy to forgive a murderer, as the echo of one shot reverberates through the centuries.

War against Iran, Iraq AND Syria?

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Pepe EscobarBy Pepe Escobar

Amidst the incessant rumble in the (Washington) jungle about a possible Obama administration military adventure in Syria, new information has come to light. And what a piece of Pipelineistan information that is.

Picture Iraqi Oil Minister Abdelkarim al-Luaybi, Syrian Oil Minister Sufian Allaw, and the current Iranian caretaker Oil Minister Mohammad Aliabadi getting together in the port of Assalouyeh, southern Iran, to sign a memorandum of understanding for the construction of the Iran-Iraq-Syria gas pipeline, no less.

At Asia Times Online and also elsewhere I have been arguing that this prospective Pipelinestan node is one of the fundamental reasons for the proxy war in Syria. Against the interests of Washington, for whom integrating Iran is anathema, the pipeline bypasses two crucial foreign actors in Syria – prime “rebel” weaponizer Qatar (as a gas producer) and logistical “rebel” supporter Turkey (as the self-described privileged energy crossroads between East and West).

The US$10 billion, 6,000 kilometer pipeline is set to start in Iran’s South Pars gas field (the largest in the world, shared with Qatar), and run via Iraq, Syria and ultimately to Lebanon. Then it could go under the Mediterranean to Greece and beyond; be linked to the Arab gas pipeline; or both.

Before the end of August, three working groups will be discussing the complex technical, financial and legal aspects involved. Once finance is secured – and that’s far from certain, considering the proxy war in Syria – the pipeline could be online by 2018. Tehran hopes that the final agreement will be signed before the end of the year.

Tehran’s working assumption is that it will be able to export 250 million cubic meters of gas a day by 2016. When finished, the pipeline will be able to pump 100 million cubic meters a day. For the moment, Iraq needs up to 15 million cubic meters a day. By 2020, Syria will need up to 20 million cubic meters, and Lebanon up to 7 million cubic meters. That still leaves a lot of gas to be exported to European customers.

Europeans – who endlessly carp about being hostages of Gazprom – should be rejoicing. Instead, once again they shot themselves in their Bally-clad feet.

Want war? Here’s the bill

Before we get to the latest European fiasco, let’s mix this Pipelineistan development with the new Pentagon “discovery” – via the deputy director of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), David Shedd, according to whom the proxy war in Syria may last for “multiple years”. If that happens, bye-bye pipeline.

One wonders what those Pentagon intel wizards have really been doing since early 2011, considering they had been predicting Bashar al-Assad’s fall every other week. Now they have also “discovered” that jihadis in the Syrian theater of the Jabhat al-Nusra and al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) mould are actually running the (ghastly) show. Shedd admitted there are “at least 1,200” disparate “rebel” factions/gangs in Syria, most of them irrelevant.

Attesting to the appalling average IQ involved in foreign policy debate in the Beltway, still this information had to be spun to justify yet another military adventure on the horizon – especially after President Barack “Assad must go” Obama declared he would authorize the “light” weaponizing of “good” rebels only. As if the harsh rules of war obeyed some Weapon Fairy Godmother high up in the sky.

Into the ring steps General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. On the same day that Tehran, Baghdad and Damascus were talking seriously about the business of energy, Dempsey wrote to US senators of the John McCain warmongering variety that the US getting into yet another war would lead to “unintended consequences”.

Dempsey wrote that weaponizing and training the “good” rebels (assuming the CIA has a clue who they are) would cost “$500 million per year initially”, require “several hundred to several thousand troops” and risk weaponizing al-Qaeda-style jihadis, as well as plunging Washington, according to Dempsey’s Pentagonese, into “inadvertent association with war crimes due to vetting difficulties.”

In case the Obama administration caved in to the warmongers’ favorite option – a no-fly zone – Dempsey also said “limited” air strikes would require “hundreds of aircraft, ships, submarines, and other enablers”, to a cost “in the billions”, and all that to achieve little else than a “significant degradation of regime capabilities and an increase in regime desertions”.

Dempsey at least was frank; unlike Gaddafi in Libya, Bashar al-Assad’s forces would not fold because of a no-fly zone. And nothing substantially would change because the Syrian government “relies overwhelmingly on surface fires – mortars, artillery, and missiles”. And even a limited no-fly zone – what former State Department star Anne-Marie Slaughter euphemistically defined as a “no-kill zone” – would cost “over $1 billion a month”. And who will be paying for all this? China?

Even with Dempsey playing god cop and sporting the voice of reason – something quite astonishing in itself; but anyway he’s been to Iraq, and saw first hand the ass-kicking by a bunch of towelheads with second-hand Kalashnikovs – US pundits are still relishing the internal debate in the Obama administration over the “wisdom” of yet another war.

Round up all the Prada jihadis
And while the “wisdom” debate is slated to go on, the European Union decided to act; meekly bowing to US and Israel pressure, the EU – itself pressured by the UK and the Netherlands – blacklisted the armed wing of Hezbollah as a terrorist organization.

The pretext was the bombing of a bus carrying Israelis in Bulgaria in 2012. Hezbollah said it had nothing to do with it. Bulgarian investigators said positively yes; then maybe; and now they admit even circumstantial evidence is shaky.

So the pretext is bogus. This is the EU – after the despicable denying of overflying rights to the Bolivian presidential plane – once again meekly playing poodle, with the Brits and the Dutch trying to weaken Hezbollah just as it has staked its ground in the Syrian/Lebanese border and has actually fought those jihadis of the Jabhat al-Nusra and AQI kind.

As a graphic illustration of utter EU cluelessness – some might say stupidity – Britain, the Netherlands and France, especially, followed by the others, have just branded the organization that is fighting jihadis on the ground in Syria/Lebanon “terrorists”, while the jihadis themselves get away with it. So much for European ignorance/arrogance.

So what’s next? It’s not far-fetched to imagine the EU totally forgetting about a pipeline that will ultimately benefit its citizens and issuing – under US pressure – a directive branding Iran-Iraq-Syria as a terrorist axis; lobbying for a no-fly zone applying to all; and recruiting jihadis all over for a Holy War against the axis, supported by a fatwa issued by Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi. But first they would need Washington’s approval. As a matter of fact, they might even get it.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007), Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge (Nimble Books, 2007), and Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009). He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

 

A Brief Message for Canadians: Get Over It!

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It’s Time to Stop Listening to ‘Rebels against Rationality’

By: Andrew Gavin Marshall, BFP Partner Producer, Contributing Author & Analyst;

CANADIANS: Be ashamed that this newspaper column is what passes for the “public discourse” in this country: a raving, ignorant, arrogant, idiotic and racist rant telling Indigenous people to “get over it” – referring to the state-sanctioned racism, genocide, and imperialism

0801_msgNaomi Lakritz wrote a syndicated column for the Calgary Herald on July 31, that First Nations people “need to quit blaming the past” for the circumstances in which they live, because they “have nobody to blame but themselves.” First Nations people, suggested Lakritz, need to drop “the victimization mantle” and instead, start “with the concept of individual responsibility..” In other words: get over it!

No, instead of Canadians acknowledging our history as a nation – the violent destruction, exploitation, domination, murder and discrimination exerted against the indigenous peoples of the land we invaded and occupied – this “journalist” thinks that Indigenous people should “stop blaming their history.”

They are not blaming their history: they are pointing to their history so that we may learn our own. We have a ‘shared’ history, and it has led us to the present. If we – as Canadians – actually looked at our history, and traced its evolution up to the present, we would realize that our ‘colonial’ history has now evolved into a modern state-capitalist imperial present. Our historical injustices imposed upon Indigenous peoples have modern incarnations: the system of domination, exploitation, segregation, discrimination and – yes(!) – genocide, continues today.

If we learned about all that, we might want to change it. We might develop something called ‘empathy’ which can lead to something called ‘solidarity.’ These are very human characteristics, so I understand that they seem challenging to relate to in a deeply dehumanizing society; but remember, we have a shared history and we share the present. Our histories are intertwined and interdependent, and so too is our future.

We might look out at the fact that Indigenous people, not only in Canada but around the world, are rising up in rebellion against the rampant and accelerating destruction of the environment, which will lead the species to extinction. Indigenous people are on the front lines of the global struggle against human extinction and the preservation of the environment and earth we live on. If we looked at all that… we might join them.

Instead, we read articles like this gutter trash, intellectual abortion, which has been published in the Calgary Herald, The Province, Victoria Times-Colonist, and the Edmonton Journal. Interesting how in the two provinces of BC and Alberta where the Indigenous struggle against environmental destruction is currently very active, are the same provinces where this ‘article’ is published in the main newspapers for the four largest population centres… just in case you might get the ‘right’ idea.

Canada’s corporate-owned media wouldn’t want that, would it? Not when the corporation that owns all these newspapers – the largest newspaper company in Canada, Postmedia Network – has a board of directors who are reaping profits and power off of the destruction of the environment, sitting on multiple other corporate boards for banks, energy and oil companies.

Take Jane Peverett, on the board of Postmedia. Jane also sits on the boards of CIBC, the Northwest Natural Gas Company, and Encana, a major energy company. As recently as November, an Indigenous group in BC was taking action against the construction of a major pipeline project partly owned by Encana

I’m not blaming Jane for this article; I think the author deserves the blame. But Jane – and her compatriots who sit on the boards of Canada’s highly concentrated media system – maintain and wield significant influence over a media institution which promotes articles like this as contributing to the ‘public discourse,’ when all it does is promote ignorance, propaganda, passivity, and protects the interests of the powerful who own it. It’s an institutional function. Jane is merely a cog in a much larger wheel, while Naomi Lakritz can barely be said to be cognizant.

It’s institutional propaganda. Just as the discrimination, exploitation, domination and destruction of Indigenous people is institutional to our society. For a population currently struggling against the rapacious ravaging of the environment, let alone for survival, being told to “get over it,” is another way of saying: “just die, already.” And because the struggle is against the extinction of our species if we continue along our current path, saying, “get over it,” is also like saying, “we’re all going to die, but I don’t want to do anything about it… and neither should you.

So for those Canadians who think the article above presented a ‘reasonable’ argument (and I KNOW you exist), and for those Canadians who think Indigenous people should stop “blaming history,” take a piece of your own advice: get over it. Learn your history, know your world, find your brothers and sisters and join them in the struggle to save the species and the planet we live on.

When it comes to having people like Naomi Lakritz of the Calgary Herald lower the public discourse – or rather, maintain the public discourse at painful lows – it’s really time that we get beyond this. Naomi Lakritz also thinks pot is a “dangerous drug” and legalization a “bad idea” (because once again, “get over” history, don’t learn, just delude!), and who (shockingly) has problems with immigrants, and it’s too perfect: she wants them to “leave [their] history at home” when they come to Canada… the nation with no history, apparently.

The deranged attempts by Lakritz to support the status quo when it comes to matters of injustice cannot be left as the level of discourse in a country which boasts the title of “the most educated country in the world.” It’s time to start acting like it. So it’s time to stop listening to Lakritz and other ‘rebels against rationality’, and START listening to Indigenous people, who have a great deal that they are trying to teach us about our country, and are showing us ways that we can help change it for the better. It’s only our fate as a people, species, and planet that is at stake… Get over it

It’s only our fate as a people, species, and planet that is at stake… Get over it.

# # # #

Andrew Gavin Marshall, BFP Partner Producer, Contributing Author & Analyst

Andrew Gavin Marshall is an independent researcher and writer based in Montreal, Canada, with a focus on studying the ideas, institutions, and individuals of power and resistance across a wide spectrum of social, political, economic, and historical spheres. He has been published in AlterNet, CounterPunch, Occupy.com, Truth-Out, RoarMag, and a number of other alternative media groups, and regularly does radio, Internet, and television interviews with both alternative and mainstream news outlets. He is Project Manager of The People’s Book Project and has a weekly podcast show with BoilingFrogsPost

 

 

Bradley Manning Verdict Convicts Washington

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BY: Paul Craig Roberts, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author,

“Willingness to corrupt the law has become the highest qualification for appointment to a judgeship or as a US Attorney.

Bradley Manning’s conviction is more conclusive evidence that the US government is illegitimate. Manning’s “trial” was equivalent to Joseph Stalin’s “trial” of Nikolai 0801_ManningBukharin. It did not take place in a real court with a real jury. The military officer who served as a “judge” was not impartial. Manning was convicted for obeying the US Military Code and doing his sworn duty to report war crimes. There is no difference between Manning’s “conviction” and the “conviction” of Bukharin as a capitalist spy. Both trials were political trials.

The absurdity and injustice of these two convictions tells you all you need to know about the governments behind the convictions. The governments are tyrannical. Imagine the US government accusing Manning of aiding the enemy when the US government itself is supporting al Qaeda’s attempt to overthrow the Syrian government! And Bloomberg reports that al Qaeda backers in Afghanistan are receiving US military contracts!

Americans are a gullible people. They do not understand that the “justice system” is corrupted. Prosecutors and judges have no interest in innocence or guilt. For them conviction alone is the mark of career success. The more people a prosecutor can put in prison, the more successful his career. The more judges bend justice to serve the success of the government’s case, the greater the probability of promotion to higher judicial office. American “justice” has degenerated. Willingness to corrupt the law has become the highest qualification for appointment to a judgeship or as a US Attorney.

If Manning had been permitted a real trial, possibly jurors might have weighed the evidence. Did Manning obey the Military Code or disobey it? Did Manning serve the public interest or harm it? But, of course, nothing relevant was part of the trial. In American courts today, exculpatory evidence is not allowed into the courtroom. If a poor person steals a loaf of bread, the government can turn the case into an act of terrorist sabotage. That’s more or less what the government did to Bradley Manning.

# # # #

Paul Craig Roberts, Boiling Frogs Post contributing author, is a former Assistant Secretary of the US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He has been reporting on executive branch and cases of prosecutorial abuse for two decades. He has written or co-written eight books, contributed chapters to numerous books, and has published many articles in journals of scholarship. Mr. Roberts has testified before congressional committees on 30 occasions on issues of economic policy, and has been a critic of both Democratic and Republican administrations. You can visit his website here. ©

PaulCraigRoberts.org

Greece: Construction firms stay away from city mosque

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A fourth attempt to find a construction company to build Athens’s first mosque will be made next month after three failed tenders have led to some firms claiming they withdrew because of fears of intimidation.

mosque_390The Infrastructure Ministry’s general secretary, Stratos Simopoulos, told Kathimerini that the new tender for the 946,000-euro project in the Votanikos area would only be aimed at big companies.

Kathimerini spoke to representatives of several smaller companies that had expressed an interest in the scheme in the past, who admitted to concerns about the popular opposition to the construction of a mosque in Athens. One person spoke of fears of “being targeted by extremist groups,” while another said that he had been unable to physically submit the bid due to a protest against the mosque by residents and other groups.

Far-right Golden Dawn is opposed to the mosque’s construction but the project is also being fought by Bishop of Piraeus Seraphim and a residents’ group in Votanikos.

Government sources speculated that the lack of interest from construction firms might be an attempt to force the government to offer more money. Athens is one of the few European Union capitals without a mosque, so Muslims use some 100 makeshift praying areas in the basements of apartment blocks

Souce ekathimerini.com

Iran grants Syria a $3.6 billion line of credit for oil

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NICOSIA — Iran has approved a plan to supply billions of dollars
worth of oil to Syria

geraphian20130621120800630-300x168Syria’s official state news agency said Teheran agreed to deliver $3.6 billion in oil over the next year.

In exchange, the regime of President Bashar Assad, which is fighting a more than two-year civil war, has allowed Iran to invest in Syria.

“An agreement was signed in Teheran by the Iranian and Syrian central banks, granting Syria a credit line worth $3.6 billion,” Sana said on July 30.

Sana said the agreement, signed on July 29, would help relieve the fuel shortage in Syria. The news agency did not identify the targets of Iranian investment.

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Erdogan Seeks Informers

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By:  Tulin Daloglu for Al-Monitor Turkey Pulse

Let me draw your attention to two recent developments in an attempt to question the understanding of what democracy means for Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s government, since both cases are nothing but an encouragement for people to be informers.

Turkey's Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan addresses members of parliament from his ruling AK Party during a meeting at the Turkish parliament in AnkaraAs to the first development, Erdogan said on July 19, referring to Gezi Park protesters, “It’s a crime to disturb neighbors. I’m telling you that such acts require punishment. It’s a crime. And I am not the one to tell it, but the laws. Therefore, you will sue those people who clanged pans and pots without any hesitation. Because no one has the right to disturb the peace of this nation.”

As to the second development, the daily Zaman reported on July 28 that the National Police Department has launched a new project where boxes will be installed in various neighborhoods so that people can secretly inform the police about suspicious or potential illegal activities without revealing their identities. “With this system, people will be able to inform [the police] in writing or in audio,” the daily reported. “The tips will certainly be kept confidential. It’s expected that this project will start soon.”

No doubt that the police cannot solve any crimes without the help of the public, and it is wrong to consider the security officials and the people as adversaries. But, it’s impossible to guarantee that authorities won’t ever abuse the power. Therefore, such neighborhood reporting boxes could take away any trust for the security system.

It may be wrong to prejudge as to how this tip box-style secret informant system will work in Turkey, but the concern is real. And it’s simply this: The rule of law in this country has never been the strength of its democracy. There are fewer and fewer checks and balances while Erdogan rules as a one-man show, and it’s becoming difficult to define what could trigger people to inform the police against their neighbors.

Since Erdogan called people to sue their neighbors, no one has yet gone to court. But with these tip boxes, people will be used as informants by the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) to determine who opposes their policies. This act will likely peel away the trust bond among people, and people will share fewer and fewer conversations about politics or important subjects.

Such informants have been used in Arab countries, making people distrust each other and pushing others into silence. Why is it that Turkey has to adopt this practice?

Tulin Daloglu is a contributor to Al-Monitor’s Turkey Pulse. She has also written extensively for various Turkish and American publications, including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, The Middle East Times, Foreign Policy, The Daily Star (Lebanon) and the SAIS Turkey Analyst Report.