Thank you for saving so many lives, Bingham !!

Lord Bingham! He waited until after retirement to condemn ‘serious violation of international law’ by US and UK

You can’t begin to imagine how grateful the 1.5 million slaughtered victims are for your 5-year stammer!

The Law Lord from Hell: Thomas Henry Bingham, Baron Bingham of Cornhill, KG, PC, FBA (born 13 October 1933), was the senior law lord in the United Kingdom. The Times called him “the pre-eminent lawyer of his generation with a brilliant, incisive mind.” Photo: Balliol College . Image may be subject to copyright.

Lord Bingham, the famed British judge who recently retired as the senior law lord, described the 2003 invasion of Iraq as a serious violation of international law, and accused Britain and the US of acting like a “world vigilante.”

Some five years and nearly 1.5 million corpses later, Bingham finally rejected [the then attorney general] Lord Goldsmith’s defense of the 2003 invasion as fundamentally flawed.  Bingham said: “It was not plain that Iraq had failed to comply in a manner justifying resort to force and there were no strong factual grounds or hard evidence to show that it had.” Bingham added that the fact Britain and the US had unilaterally decided that Iraq had broken UN resolutions “passes belief.” Read the rest of this article …

Lord GoldSmith:  Peter Henry Goldsmith, Baron Goldsmith, PC, QC (born 5 January 1950), is a former Attorney General of England and Wales. On 22 June 2007, Goldsmith announced his resignation which took effect on 27 June 2007, the same day that prime minister, Tony Blair, stepped down. Photo: Source. Image may be subject to copyright.

[In his final advice to the Government, written on 17 March 2003, the war criminal Lord Goldsmith stated that the use of force in Iraq was lawful.]

The Moderators say:

Thank you, Lord Bingham, for waiting 5 years and 1.5 million slaughtered victims later to finally say your piece!

We won’t spoil things by calling you a hypocrite and a coward of Royal Order!

Images of the Day: The Right to …

The Right to Protest

Paraguayan police disperse a group of peasants who marched in protest against the Attorney General in Asuncion, November 5, 2008. REUTERS/Diario ULTIMA HORA. Image may be subject to copyright.

The Right to Build a Home on Your Own Land

Israeli border police officers detain a Palestinian man during a house demolition in Silwan November 5, 2008. According to local media reports, clashes broke out on Wednesday in the Arab neighbourhood of Silwan in Israeli occupied East Jerusalem after the Jerusalem municipality demolished illegally-constructed Palestinian homes. Palestinians say Israel denies them building permits in East Jerusalem. REUTERS/Baz Ratner. Image may be subject to copyright.

The Right to Be Raped Without Being Mutilated (!)

Rape has become a defining characteristic of the war in the DRC, according to Anneke Van Woudenberg, the Congo specialist for Human Rights Watch. So, too, has mutilation of the victims.

“Last year, I was stunned when a 30-year-old woman in North Kivu had her lips and ears cut off and eyes gouged out after she was raped, so she couldn’t identify or testify against her attackers. Now, we are seeing more and more such cases,” she says. Source: http://www.congopanorama.info/

More info and photos at: CongoPanorama. WARNING: You may find the images  disturbing.

Image of the Day: Human Wrongs in Bosnia!

Remembering Ethnic Cleansing in Bosnia

Forensic experts of the International Commission for Missing Persons (ICMP) search for human remains in a mass grave containing bodies of killed Muslims in the village of Kamenica, in the Serb controlled part of the country, November 4, 2008. The European Union must act more robustly to prevent ever greater instability in Bosnia, a country still badly divided 13 years after its war, the international peace envoy overseeing Bosnia Miroslav Lajcak said on Monday. REUTERS/Damir Sagolj . Image may be subject to copyright.

Quotes of the week: Britain, Nigeria, Egypt

Execution of Jean Charles de Menezes by British Secret Police

“I would like to say that on whether I heard anything from police officers, I am very, very clear. I had absolutely no idea who they were and had they shouted I would have latched on to that … I felt they [UK’s Special Branch] were a bit out of control, that’s what it felt like.” Anna Dunwoodie, a commuter who witnessed how the British secret police executed Jean Charles de Menezes in London on 22 July 2005.

Nigeria’s Share Fever

“They were all talking money money money … It was the thought of losing the whole thing and owing all that money that made me get out” ~ A Nigerian investor, on how the stock market doubled in value in a matter of weeks, before it crashed in March 2008.

Power and Poverty in Egypt

“Go anywhere in Egypt and you’ll discover the kind of poverty that the majority are suffering. We have serious problems meeting even the basic needs for survival.” ~ Abdul Galil Mustafa, a member of Egypt’s Kefaya opposition party

Elementary Wedgwood, it’s the exponential growth economy!

submitted by a reader

Red Alert: What went wrong in the capitalist casino

Stating the obvious, Tony Benn argues the banking disaster is the result of too much economic power being exercised by too few individuals. He prefers the socialist version of the exponential growth economy.

In his capacity as a prominnet member of the establishment [it would be too unkind and unnecessary to call him a “gatekeeper,”] he neither criticizes nor highlights root cause of the banking problems, the exponential growth economy. He never mentions the need for a ‘radical’ change to the system of political economy that is driving humanity and most other species toward oblivion.

The following excerpts are from Benn’s article Red Alert: What went wrong in the capitalist casino, which first appeared in the Tribune Magazine:

“THE great inter-war slumps were not acts of God or of blind forces. They were the sure and certain result of the concentration of too much economic power in the hands of too few men. These men had only learned how to act in the interest of their own bureaucratically-run private monopolies which may be likened to totalitarian oligarchies within our democratic state, They had and they felt no responsibility to the nation.”

These words are from the 1945 Labor manifesto Let Us Face The Future which brilliantly identified the very same crisis which is now described as a “credit crunch” as if it were a mere hiccup in an otherwise wonderful neo-liberal globalized world which could be corrected with a vast subsidy from the taxpayers to put the Wall Street casino and its partners worldwide back into profit. It reminded me of the fact that when slavery was abolished it was the slave owners, and not the slaves, who received compensation from the government of the day.  Read more …

Related Links:

• 10 Biggest Threats to the US National Security

• 13 things you should know!
• [Surprise, Surprise!] The Public Has NO faith in U.S. Institutions
• The Billionaires’ contribution to CO2 pollution

Did ‘Canada’ pay …?

The following excerpts are from

GrannyRantsON:
My Canada includes rights of Indigenous Peoples. Love it or leave it eh? Peace.

Did Canada pay …?

I sold my land, we signed all the papers, but the buyer never paid me! Now he’s building on my land saying he has the ‘papers’ and claiming he owns it!

Ridiculous! you say? Not in Canada! you say? Wait …

The settlement of any land claim involves establishing the validity of historical documents – proclamations, treaties, surrenders, sales, leases, etc. Sometimes, wandering around in these discussions and the fancy words in the documents, people lose sight of the big picture:

What if the documents are all in order but Canada simply did not pay the costs associated with the agreements?

Read the rest of this interesting post at: http://grannyrantson.blogspot.com/2008/09/did-canada-pay.html

Blame it on the Chicken!

Image of the Day: Jerusalem Chicken Ala Sinful

An ultra-Orthodox Jewish woman in Jerusalem performs a ceremony with a chicken – a way of casting off one’s sins – as the Jewish Day of Atonement, Yom Kippur, approaches. Photo: AFP. Caption: BBC. Image may be subject to copyright.

Related Links:

• Apocalypse: A “Biblical” self-fulfilling prophecy?

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Do Chinese Babies Have Any Rights?

Do the Chinese Infants (and their parents) have any right, at least, in China?

Up to five percent of infants in Shanghai could have kidney stones after drinking tainted milk formula

See

Demand Answers From Chinese Govt

Related Links:

• Fonterra File (Index page)
  

Image of the Day: Anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) Activists

Malaysia Needs to Reflect Hard

Anti-Internal Security Act (ISA) activists show their bald heads after shaving to show their support for those detained under ISA in Kuala Lumpur September 21, 2008. The government came under intense pressure after the police arrested a blogger, a journalist and an opposition MP under the draconian Internal Security Act (ISA) that allows indefinite detention without trial.  REUTERS/Zainal Abd Halim. Image may be subject to copyright!

Gangster Resigns Japan Govt. over Tainted Chinese Rice

Japan minister quits in rice row

(BBC-UK) 04:08 GMT, Friday, 19 September 2008

Mr Ota only took over his portfolio in August this year

Japan’s farm minister, Seiichi Ota, has tendered his resignation because of a food scandal involving tainted rice.

Mr Ota’s ministry has admitted it was told in January 2007 that a food company was distributing rice tainted with pesticide.

Mr Ota had earlier said he saw no need to make “too much of a fuss over it”.

It has since emerged that the rice, destined for industrial uses, was resold as a food product and served to the elderly.

The rice has been found to be tainted with pesticides and mould, and was known to be unfit for human consumption.

No-one has been reported as ill as a result of eating the rice; a government official said this was because the density of contaminants was low.

“I met Prime Minister [Yasuo] Fukuda and told him my decision to resign, considering the seriousness of the tainted rice problem for the society,” Mr Ota said.

Japanese broadcaster NHK said his resignation had been accepted.

Japan faces general elections soon, possibly as early as next month.

Contamination spreads

As information trickled out, it became clear that the bad rice was sold to more than 300 firms, including brewers, food ingredient wholesalers and sweet makers.

Mr Ota had played down the effects of the rice in the food chain

A government report released this week showed that the rice was imported from China, Vietnam and elsewhere, and intended for use in the making of glue and other industrial products.

Instead, the Osaka-based Mikasa Foods company sold the rice on to firms which used it for making foods that have been distributed to hospitals and care homes.

Young people have also been affected as the bad rice was used in making some snacks sold in convenience stores, and in school lunches.

Japanese media reported that police said on Wednesday that the president of one of the small companies that had bought the rice from Mikasa Foods, had committed suicide by hanging himself.

When Mr Ota’s ministry first heard of the tainted rice entering the food chain, he said it was unable to uncover any wrongdoing.

Mr Ota only took over the portfolio in August this year.

The BBC’s Chris Hogg in Tokyo says the minister has come under fire after admitting his ministry “overlooked” the illegal distribution of rice unfit for human consumption.

Our correspondent says Mr Ota is known for his slips of the tongue, such as his expressed confidence that no-one would die from eating tainted rice and that no fuss was necessary.

The senior bureaucrat at the agriculture ministry had already resigned.

Copyright BBC. See Fair Use Notice!

[Submitted by a reader]

CPC Big Guns: The Root of All Evil in China

Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of China dairy giant Sanlu Group, is fired. Now it’s time to claim substantial damages from Fonterra.

The sacking of Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of China dairy giant Sanlu Group, is of course a good move. But both she and the directors from Fonterra should be prosecuted and punished to the maximum extent of the law. The Chinese parents owe this to their babies.

“She was also removed from her post as the secretary of the corporation committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), according to Party authorities of Hebei Province an Shijiazhuang City.” Xianhu reported.

This move is of course a damage control measure, aimed to make the rest of the CPC look good.

What are the roles of Hu Jin-tao, Wen Jia-bao and Jiang Mianheng in the milk powder scandal?

Here’s the rest of this story by Xinhua:

SHIJIAZHUANG, Sept. 16 (Xinhua) — Four local officials in north China’s Hebei Province were fired on Tuesday following the baby milk powder scandal across the country.

Two babies with kidney stones at a hospital in Lanzhou, capital of northwest China’s Gansu Province, Sept. 11, 2008.  (Xinhua Photo)

Zhang Fawang, vice mayor in charge of agricultural production of Hebei provincial capital Shijiazhuang, and Sun Renhu, the city’s animal husbandry administration chief, were fired late Tuesday following legal procedures, according to a decision made by the city’s legislative body.

Shijiazhuang Food and Drug Administration Bureau director ZhangYi and the city’s Quality and Technical Inspection Bureau chief LiZhiguo were also dismissed from their posts for loose supervision on the milk suppliers.

Tian Wenhua, the board chairwoman and general manager of Shijiazhuang-based dairy giant Sanlu Group, was also fired from her posts. She was also removed from her post as the secretary of the corporation committee of the Communist Party of China (CPC), according to Party authorities of Hebei Province an Shijiazhuang City.

An estimated 1,253 infants, including two fatally, across the country developed kidney stones after drinking Sanlu’s baby formula tainted by melamine, a chemical believed to help increase the protein content in the milk.

However, the contamination has spread to other dairy companies as the country’s top quality watchdog said Tuesday they found the chemical melamine in 69 batches of baby milk powder produced by 22companies nationwide.

The authorities ordered a halt to the sale of the tainted products which included such well-known brands as Mengniu, Yili and Yashili, among others.

Gao Qiang, the Communist Party chief of the Ministry of Health, visited baby patients in Hebei on Tuesday. The province alone has reported a total of 861 infants suffering urinary system stones, with 61 of them hospitalized.

Gao, also head of the emergency team for handling Sanlu tainted milk, ordered timely and effective diagnosis and treatment for infants sickened by the contaminated milk.

Experts should be organized to go to remote rural areas to check the sick infants and urge them to be sent to hospitals for diagnosis and treatment, he said while visiting sick babies and medical staff in Hebei People’s Hospital and Hebei Children’s Hospital.

According to the ministry, the two deaths occurred both in the northwest Gansu Province. They were a five-month-old boy who died on May 1 after his family refused further treatment and an eight-month-old girl whose family also refused an operation and removed her from hospital on July 22 on which day she died. Both of the two were bred with the Sanlu formula and suffered kidney failure.

Zhang Zhenling, Sanlu’s vice president, apologized to the public on Monday.
“The serious safety accident of the Sanlu formula milk powder for infants has caused severe harm to many sickened babies and their families. We feel really sad about this,” he said while reading a letter of apology to reporters.

Sanlu, which is 43 percent owned by New Zealand dairy company Fonterra, has been ordered to halt production. The Hebei provincial government decided on Tuesday to dispatch four working teams to Sanlu Group for a thorough investigation.

So far, four milk dealers have been arrested and 22 others detained for questioning by Hebei police.

Among the arrested were two brothers surnamed Geng in Zhengding County, Hebei. They told police that they had been selling three tons of contaminated milk per day since the end of last year.

The elder Geng said they added the chemical into the milk to make it appear to contain more protein as they had suffered losses after their milk had been rejected several times by Sanlu Group for failing to meet quality standards.  Editor: Mu Xuequan

COPYRIGHT the author or Xinhua News Agency.

Related Links:

• To NZ PM Clark: Confirm or Deny!
• Chinese, New Zealand contaminated milk powder kills two
• Global Food Alert: Deadly Baby Milk From China, New Zealand
• Consumers being deceived of origin of powdered-milk: New Zealand Dairy Products Bangladesh marketing products with fake information
• New Zealand Health Warnings

Fonterra had Foreknowledge

• Dozens of Chinese babies die ‘from fake milk’ [2004]
• China ‘fake milk’ scandal deepens [2004]

Truth About New Zealand

• The Truth About ‘100% Pure New Zealand’
• The poisoning of New Zealand

Future of China

• Corruption Threatens China’s Future

Image of the Day: Police liability insurance

Freedom of What?

Mick Kelly shows off a bruise at a news conference, Friday, in St. Paul, that he said he received after getting hit by a projectile fired by riot police on anti-war protesters Thursday night. Photo: Jim Mone, AP. Image may be subject to copyright.

Police made about 152 arrests in association with the GOP convention in Denver… In St. Paul, police arrested about 660 … [Source]

US human rights violations exposed
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-03/13/content_6533121.htm

Full Text of Human Rights Record of United States in 2007
http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/china/2008-03/13/content_6533800.htm

Haiti: An Unending Nightmare of Humanitarian Crisis

The Haiti Nightmare

“I have never seen anything so painful,” as what he has just seen in Haiti. — Paul Farmer

Paul Farmer is a professor of medical anthropology at Harvard Medical School and co-founder of Partners in Health.  http://pih.org. He is the author of The Uses of Haiti,  Infections and Inequalities: The Modern Plagues, Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor and From Outrage to Courage: Women Taking Action for Health and Justice. 

Recent interview: Haiti Struggles with Humanitarian Disaster in Aftermath of Deadly Storms

The catastrophe in Haiti

“The catastrophe in Haiti is only a partly natural disaster. It is not natural that Haiti will once again suffer more deaths in the storms than all the other countries in the storm paths, combined. The deadly combination of poverty, weak governance and foreign interference has left the country unable to enforce laws on cutting down trees, install adequate drainage systems or effectively execute disaster planning and response. Haiti has never recovered the governmental capacity it lost in the U.S.-supported coup d’état in 2004, and we are now seeing the consequences.

“Although the international community’s emergency help is needed now, it is even more important in the long term for the donor countries to let Haiti develop its governmental capacity, so it can respond to the next, inevitable natural disaster. This means no more undermining of Haitian governments, even if we do not like their policies; canceling Haiti’s unfair debt to the International Financial Institutions like the World Bank; and implementing trade policies that allow Haiti to develop a broad-based, sustainable national economy.” —BRIAN CONCANNON

Brian Concannon,  is the Director of the Institute for Justice & Democracy in Haiti. http://www.ijdh.org.

End the war in Iraq, invest in our future!

Please forward widely. 1 million doors. 1 million conversations. 1 million voters. Be one of the 25,000 peace activists to knock on a Million Doors for Peace on Saturday, September 20. United For Peace and Justice is joining with other major national organizations and scores of local groups across the country to send a message to Congress: End the war in Iraq, bring all our troops home, and start investing in our country’s future! We have marched in massive numbers, but now we are using a new model for organizing a movement with long-term staying power at the grassroots level. On Saturday, September 20, in all fifty states, we will knock on a million doors to: Talk to our neighbors about the war and its costs to our communities Ask that they sign a petition to Congress that calls for an end to the war Discuss what we can do in this important election year to build up the antiwar movement in our own neighborhoods When you sign-up here, you will get: 40 names of registered voters in your zip code Hand-outs and petitions Talking points and tips for effective door-knocking In some areas, peace and justice groups will be hosting a gathering of volunteers for a brief training and to pair up volunteers who prefer to canvass in a team. If this is being organized in your direct or nearby area, you will receive a Million Doors for Peace email with the meet-up information. Help us take the next step in building the antiwar movement! September 20 is the day to engage one-on-one with our neighbors to strengthen the movement to end the war. Sign-up right now at the Million Doors for Peace website here.

UNITED FOR PEACE AND JUSTICE www.unitedforpeace.org | 212-868-5545 PO Box 607; Times Square Station; New York, NY 10108

Kucinich renews impeachment call

	Rep. Kucinich, ImpeachBush press conference renews impeachment call Rep. Dennis Kucinich and Radhika Miller of ImpeachBush.org Yesterday, representative Dennis Kucinich submitted 50,000 more names to the clerk of the House demanding impeachment. On Tuesday, Rep. Jim McDermott (D.-WA) spoke on the House floor in favor of impeachment. As Rep. Kucinich said yesterday, more than 2 million Americans have signed petitions demanding impeachment, making it one of the greatest exercises in grassroots democracy in recent times. Impeachment has become an unavoidable issue on the floor of the House of Representatives, despite the efforts to take impeachment “off the table.” This amazing development is the result of the work of ImpeachBush.org and others who are petitioning, and joining rallies in cities and towns across the country to demand impeachment. Please make a donation right now to keep up this momentum. Excerpts from Rep. Dennis Kucinich’s remarks from yesterday’s press conference: “Standing with me here today are representatives of organizations who have been part of a national grassroots impeachment movement which has collected over a million signatures.  Nationally over two million people have signed impeachment petitions.  I want to thank the leaders for their efforts and work with them to continue to build a movement for truth. “9/11 is the day the world changed.  We want today, September 10, 2008 to be a new beginning in our efforts to change the world.  For my part, I am going to ask those grassroots leaders who have channeled their energies into defending the Constitution and the rule of law to join me in this new endeavor.” Radhika Miller of ImpeachBush: Good afternoon, my name is Radhika Miller. I am here representing ImpeachBush.org that was formed by former US Attorney General Ramsey Clark on January 18, 2003 from the stage of a rally of 500,000 people who were demonstrating on the National Mall just across the street to demand no war of aggression against Iraq. Today, hundreds of thousands of Iraqi have died and tens of thousands of US service members have been killed or badly wounded. These horrific casualties took place because George W. Bush was allowed and not punished for initiating a war of unprovoked aggression. Since that time, more than one million people have voted at ImpeachBush.org in favor of impeachment. Volunteers from around the country collect these ImpeachBush petitions. We want to thank Dennis Kucinich for having the courage and honesty to introduce 35 articles of impeachment in June of this year. Representative Kuncinch speaks for tens of millions of people who insist that George W. Bush and Dick Cheney and all officials be held accountable for criminal misconduct, breaking the peace in an unprovoked war of aggression and for shredding the Constitution. The fact that Bush has four months left in office does not matter one bit when it comes to violating the Constitution. As one speaker after another made clear in the July 25 hearing of the House Judiciary Committee hearing: impeachment is a constitutionally mandated duty and not a matter of partisan politics. If Congress refuses to carry out its obligations it sends a message to all future presidents, from either Party, that the Constitution has been stripped of all meaning. We have a duty to act and we will. Please make a donation Please make a donation right now to keep up this momentum.