The invasion of Iraq was illegal, a senior government lawyer told the Chilcot inquiry into the war today. (full article…)

One-fifth of Britain would vote for ‘racist’ Nick Griffin (full article…)

I watched the BBC appearance – it was quite boring and silly. Besides the ridiculous posturing over who Winston Churchill “belongs to”, the mainstream politicians were unable to convincingly reject a moron like Griffin. Jack Straw especially bumbled his part… dodging criticism of the government by repeatedly directing the conversation back to Griffin’s bigotry.

So are British troops in Afghanistan there to defend the UK from al-Qa’ida attack, as Gordon Brown says?

No, we are there because the priority of British foreign policy is to stick close to the Americans. The Americans are still trying to work out why they are there, but President Obama is also citing the need to deny al-Qa’ida a base. Undermining this argument is the fact that al-Qa’ida and similar groups are primarily located in Pakistan these days and there they can tap into support from fundamentalist groups not just in the borderlands, but far to the east and south in Lahore and Karachi. (full article…)

The British military’s chain of command has instructed the country’s top investigators not to examine hundreds of incidents involving Iraqi deaths and serious injury, a former British military police officer told the BBC Sunday. (full article…)

“No arrest warrant has been issued, and in any event, he has immunity due to his being a minister in the government,” the bureau said in a statement. “Therefore, his program will continue without disturbance.” (full article…)

The two were immediately taken into custody and for four days whisked from hideout to hideout, in an effort to avoid detection. However, coalition forces were monitoring their cell-phone conversations and a helicopter-borne rescue operation was soon mounted by British commandos.

The commandos stormed the hideout and Munadi, dressed in Afghan clothes, came out shouting “Journalist, Journalist.” He was immediately shot. (full article…)

In a landmark decision, Britain’s trade unions have voted overwhelmingly to commit to build a mass boycott movement, disinvestment and sanctions on Israel for a negotiated settlement based on justice for Palestinians. (full article…)

My Lords, I think it is important and is a reflection of the fact that there are people of good will on all sides of this who, whatever their views about the conflict and its origins or long-term peace, recognise that in today%u2019s world these kinds of crimes, whether they occur in Gaza, northern Sri Lanka, or Darfur, must be subject to international accountability. (full article…)

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, personally intervened to suppress evidence of CIA collusion in the torture of a British resident, the high court heard today. (more…)

Ls services secrets britaniques sont une nouvelle fois secoués par une affaire de torture. Un citoyen britannique, condamné pour terrorisme, assure qu’un agent des services secrets lui a offert d’abandonner ses accusations pour torture en échange d’une somme d’argent ou d’une réduction de peine. (more…)

Worldwide spending on weapons has reached record levels amounting to well over $1tn last year, a leading research organisation reported today.

Global military expenditure has risen by 45% over the past decade to $1.46tn, according to the latest annual Yearbook on Armaments, Disarmament, and International Security published by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (Sipri). (more…)

An Israeli tourism poster is being pulled from the London subway after the Syrian Embassy complained that the map on it appeared to show the Golan Heights and Palestinian territories within Israel’s boundaries, officials said Friday. (more…)

The Obama administration says it may curtail Anglo-American intelligence sharing if the British High Court discloses new details of the treatment of a former Guantanamo detainee. (more…)

I stood at arrivals with my suitcase and bags, waiting for Gerry to pick me up, and realized my life in Gaza was suddenly over. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry, or both. (more…)

In short, Obama’s forceful reiteration of Israel’s right to defend itself is another exercise of cynical deceit … The deceit is particularly striking in this case because the occasion was the appointment of Mitchell as special envoy. Mitchell’s primary achievement was his leading role in the peaceful settlement in northern Ireland. It called for an end to IRA terror and British violence. Implicit is the recognition that while Britain had the right to defend itself from terror, it had no right to do so by force, because there was a peaceful alternative: recognition of the legitimate grievances of the Irish Catholic community that were the roots of IRA terror. When Britain adopted that sensible course, the terror ended. The implications for Mitchell’s mission with regard to Israel-Palestine are so obvious that they need not be spelled out. And omission of them is, again, a striking indication of the commitment of the Obama administration to traditional US rejectionism and opposition to peace, except on its extremist terms. (more…)

London will not push through changes in legislation that permits the arrest of Israel Defense Forces officers visiting Britain on war crimes, as previously promised, Jerusalem has learned. (more…)

In Gaza, Palestinians have once again been blamed for their own deaths. The British made a similar argument 151 years ago when they killed thousands of Indian civilians — 1,200 in a single village — in response to the largest anti-colonial uprising of the 19th century. If Israel truly desires peace with the Palestinians and safety for its citizens, it should look back to one of the greatest, and misunderstood, independence movements in history. (more…)

Even in Darwin’s native Britain, a majority of citizens no longer adheres to the theory of evolution, as a 2006 survey showed. Only 48 percent of Britons claimed to believe in it. More than 40 percent would like to see the Biblical story of creation taught in government-run schools — and not just in religious studies, but also in biology class. One in four teachers on the government’s payroll agree. (more…)

However, we believe that only negotiations can secure long-term security for Israel and the region. (more…)

International Human Rights Day is observed on 10 December, and it’s time we turned the rhetoric of human rights into reality. Together with the Free Gaza Movement, I am commemorating Human Rights Day this year in Gaza, a tiny strip of land wedged between Israel and Egypt, home to 1.5 million human beings, and subject to an increasingly brutal war being waged against its civilian population by the state of Israel.

We mounted this mission to give our solidarity to the people of Palestine and to highlight the strangulating conditions Israel causes in besieged Gaza. The inhumane effects of this siege threaten to stunt an entire generation — both in terms of physical and mental growth due to malnutrition, terrorization by bomb attacks, incursions and the use of sonic booms — but also in terms of the generation of students who have won places at academic institutions around the world but cannot fulfill them, and those undermined on the ground in Gaza by a lack of food, medicine, electricity, materials and the peace and space to make good use of them in.

The Free Gaza Movement is a grassroots movement of teachers, doctors, activists, union workers and other “ordinary” people who understand that we cannot wait for governments and other international organizations to present us with top-down solutions to the tribulations of the world, solutions which never quite seem to materialize. Since August, the Free Gaza Movement has been sailing ships from Cyprus to the Gaza Strip in acts of nonviolent resistance and civil opposition to the Israeli occupation and siege of Gaza.
(more…)

The participants were a group of anti-Israel activists, most of them Palestinians and some Jews, who are urging a boycott of products made in the Jewish state.

One of the Jewish activists even volunteered to change the songs’ words. The Times newspaper reported that the carol “Once in Royal David’s City” was altered to say “Once in royal David’s city stood a big apartheid wall. . .”

The “Twelve Days of Christmas” was sung as “Twelve assassinations/11 homes demolished/10 wells obstructed/Nine sniper towers/Eight gunships firing/Seven checkpoints blocking/Six tanks a-rolling/Five settlement rings. Four falling bombs/Three trench guns/Two trampled doves/And an uprooted olive tree.” (more…)

Britain will withdraw nearly all of its troops from Iraq beginning in March and U.S. troops will take over their positions in Basra, according to several British newspapers citing military sources. (more…)

U.S. policy is not about one individual, and no matter how much faith people place in President-elect Barack Obama, the policies he enacts will be fruit of a tree with many roots. Among them: his personal politics and views, the disastrous realities his administration will inherit, and, of course, unpredictable future crises. But the best immediate indicator of what an Obama administration might look like can be found in the people he surrounds himself with and who he appoints to his Cabinet. And, frankly, when it comes to foreign policy, it is not looking good.

Obama has a momentous opportunity to do what he repeatedly promised over the course of his campaign: bring actual change. But the more we learn about who Obama is considering for top positions in his administration, the more his inner circle resembles a staff reunion of President Bill Clinton’s White House. Although Obama brought some progressives on board early in his campaign, his foreign policy team is now dominated by the hawkish, old-guard Democrats of the 1990s. This has been particularly true since Hillary Clinton conceded defeat in the Democratic primary, freeing many of her top advisors to join Obama’s team.

"What happened to all this talk about change?" a member of the Clinton foreign policy team recently asked the Washington Post. "This isn’t lightly flavored with Clintons. This is all Clintons, all the time."
(more…)

Aghast at the atrocities committed by US forces invading the Philippines, and the rhetorical flights about liberation and noble intent that routinely accompany crimes of state, Mark Twain threw up his hands at his inability to wield his formidable weapon of satire. The immediate object of his frustration was the renowned General Funston. “No satire of Funston could reach perfection,” Twain lamented, “because Funston occupies that summit himself… [he is] satire incarnated.”

It is a thought that often comes to mind, again in August 2008 during the Russia-Georgia-Ossetia war. George Bush, Condoleezza Rica and other dignitaries solemnly invoked the sanctity of the United Nations, warning that Russia could be excluded from international institutions “by taking actions in Georgia that are inconsistent with” their principles. The sovereignty and territorial integrity of all nations must be rigorously honored, they intoned – “all nations,” that is, apart from those that the US chooses to attack: Iraq, Serbia, perhaps Iran, and a list of others too long and familiar to mention. (more…)

Yesterday, I formally began my internship at the UNHCR in London. Overall it was a decent experience – albeit a very busy and immediate introduction to their work. Essentially, I am required to come in around 9.30 each morning to read every major British newspaper and newsmagazine… Yes, that’s right… I’ll be sitting down with a cup of coffee each morning, flipping my way through the Guardian, the Times, the Telegraph, the Independent, the New Statesmen, the Economist, Prospect, etc. etc. Of course, there is a reason for this – I am meant to find any articles relevant to UNHCR’s work, i.e. about refugees, displaced peoples, and any UN officials or immediate references to UNHCR.

Once I am finished with the news every morning, we send out a condensed “update” to everyone on the mailing list and then get to any other business. I must say that I am pleased with this internship, especially considering all of the negative things I have heard about interning with the UN (apparently most interns master the art of making coffee and folding origami swans). All of the people in the office have very interesting (and international) backgrounds – a common feature of IO/NGO workers – and I am quite excited to get to know some of them better.

Of course, at the same time, I am supposed to be working both on my book chapter and on my Master’s thesis. The British Library seems to be my best bet for unhindered library access, so I will be going there on Monday to register as a researcher.

As some of you may already know, I was invited for an interview with the United Nations High Commission For Human Rights (UNHCR) last Monday at their London office – and I was recently pleased to accept their offer for an internship with their media relations division. This means that I will be scanning the British press for any updates on refugee situations or the UNHCR’s work in general for the next six months. Unfortunately, I will not be receiving any financial reimbursement whatsoever (not even travel expenses) and I was a bit disappointed with such a one-sided deal… but if I am still willing to work as a slave, I suppose I’m not too upset.

Anyway, we just moved into our new flat in Canary Wharf in London and are now located right on Southern shore of the Thames (about 3 miles east of Tower Bridge). It seems to be a very nice area – London suburbs renovated from an old industrial area… Maybe we’ll post some pictures in the coming days. Unfortunately, we are living in a small room while the landlords renovate our large room (as well as the rest of the house). The banging of Polish workmen goes on all day – so much for working at home!

Anyone who needs my new address, please let me know…

I must excuse myself, yet again, for the recent lack of content on this site – but I am in Athens with Ilektra. As we know, Greece has only recently ben introduced to the internet and they haven’t yet graduated to broadband, so I am stuck with a crappy dial-up connection for now. Believe me, it’s driving me insane… but I have more time to enjoy the sun anyway. This means, however, that you cannot count on me posting very often for the next few weeks.

But while I have the chance, I should update you all to recent events… It seems I will be returning to Gaza in the New Year. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights has hired me from mid-January 2009 and I will spend at least six months there. Since I left Gaza last January, it has not left my thoughts… so the prospect of returning excites me very much!

Also, I have been selected to write a chapter for an upcoming book on peace philosophy. My contribution is tentatively entitled, “Israel’s Philosophy of Separation: The Flawed Vision of Unilaterally Enforced Peace”, and will discuss the notion of separation from the occupied territories as a “solution” for peace. Naturally, I am quite skeptical. The book will be out some time in 2009 (when they find a publisher) and I will keep you all updated.

…and from September until I leave for Gaza, Ilektra and I will be living in London. This will give me time to finish my thesis, get a short internship, and to continue studying to retake the GRE.

When Majid Ezzati thinks about declining life expectancy, he says, “I think of an epidemic like HIV, or I think of the collapse of a social system, like in the former Soviet Union.” But such a decline is happening right now in some parts of the United States. Between 1983 and 1999, men’s life expectancy decreased in more than 50 U.S. counties, according to a recent study by Ezzati, associate professor of international health at the Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH), and colleagues. For women, the news was even worse: life expectancy decreased in more than 900 counties—more than a quarter of the total. This means 4 percent of American men and 19 percent of American women can expect their lives to be shorter than or, at best, the same length as those of people in their home counties two decades ago.

The United States no longer boasts anywhere near the world’s longest life expectancy. It doesn’t even make the top 40. In this and many other ways, the richest nation on earth is not the healthiest. Ezzati’s finding is unsettling on its face, but scholars find further cause for concern in the pattern of health disparities. Poor health is not distributed evenly across the population, but concentrated among the disadvantaged.

Disparities in health tend to fall along income lines everywhere: the poor generally get sicker and die sooner than the rich. But in the United States, the gap between the rich and the poor is far wider than in most other developed democracies, and it is getting wider. That is true both before and after taxes: the United States also does less than most other rich democracies to redistribute income from the rich to the poor. (more…)

There are times when one tragedy, one crime tells us how a whole system works behind its democratic facade and helps us to understand how much of the world is run for the benefit of the powerful and how governments lie. To understand the catastrophe of Iraq, and all the other Iraqs along imperial history’s trail of blood and tears, one need look no further than Diego Garcia.

The story of Diego Garcia is shocking, almost incredible. A British colony lying midway between Africa and Asia in the Indian Ocean, the island is one of 64 unique coral islands that form the Chagos Archipelago, a phenomenon of natural beauty, and once of peace. Newsreaders refer to it in passing: “American B-52 and Stealth bombers last night took off from the uninhabited British island of Diego Garcia to bomb Iraq (or Afghanistan).” It is the word “uninhabited” that turns the key on the horror of what was done there. In the 1970s, the Ministry of Defence in London produced this epic lie: “There is nothing in our files about a population and an evacuation.” (more…)