CounterCurrents: On Burning Ground: The Human Cost Of India’s Push to Produce More Coal, The Mass Rape Of The Bosnian Women Was Genocide!, Why BDS Cannot Lose: A Moral Threshold To Combat Racism In Israel

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Binu Mathew
Editor
www.countercurrents.org

I Live In A Nation That's More Father (Land) Than Mother (Land).. So Where's Bharat Mata? 
By Surabhi Singh

http://www.countercurrents.org/surabhi170316.htm

I live in a nation that is much less a mother (land) and more of a father (land). A German feminist scholar has correctly said that women are the last colony. Their bodies, sexuality, reproductive capacity, labour capacity are still colonised. So, if I may ask, where do I find my position as a daughter or mother of the nation? In fact, where do I begin to question this colonial master and a national father? Unless I get the answer I refuse to say “Bharat Mata ki Jai.”


The Mass Rape Of The Bosnian Women Was Genocide! 
By Professor Francis A. Boyle

http://www.countercurrents.org/boyle170316.htm

Even the Nazis during World War II did not engage in the mass and systematic rape of women as a technique of warfare, though the Japanese came very close to it against Chinese women during the Second World War. Bosnia was appalling! It seemed to me that what was going on there was not just rape – which in times of war is a war crime -- but that what was going on there was genocide. Outright genocide! So I decided to argue that the mass rape of the Bosnian women was genocide to the World Court


On Burning Ground: The Human Cost Of India’s Push to Produce More Coal 
By Fred Pearce

http://www.countercurrents.org/pearce170316.htm

Many fear the climatic consequences of India’s drive for coal-powered growth. Other major coal mining nations like the United States and China are cutting back on burning the dirtiest of the fossil fuels. But India, the world’s third largest coal producer and fourth largest greenhouse-gas emitter, stood out as a climate bad guy at the United Nations’ climate talks in Paris in December. It has set itself on an energy growth path that will increase emissions by an estimated 60 percent by 2030

Edward W. Said On Orientalism 
By Gaither Stewart

http://www.countercurrents.org/stewart170316.htm

Edward Said wrote a new preface for the twenty-fifth anniversary edition of his classic book, ORIENTALISM, originally published in the USA by Random House in 1978. In the following pages I have quoted some of the author’s major thoughts and added my own ideas about Said’s preface written in 2003 for the last Vintage Books edition of his magnificent work


Why BDS Cannot Lose: A Moral Threshold To Combat Racism In Israel 
By Ramzy Baroud

http://www.countercurrents.org/baroud170316.htm

A foray of condemnations of the boycott of Israel seems to have fallen on deaf ears. Calls from Western governments, originating from the UK, the US, Canada and others, to criminalize the boycott of Israel have hardly slowed down the momentum of the pro-Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). On the contrary, it has accelerated


Tribal Rights, Mining And Gram Sabha: 
Tribals Have Power To Reject Vedanta Bauxite Mining
By Zubair Nazeer & Rahul Chimurkar

http://www.countercurrents.org/chimurkar170316.htm

The recent attack on tribal rights is in the form of a new interlocutory application filed by the Odisha government before the apex court on 25th February, 2016. The application has been moved by the state run miner OMC (Odisha Mining Corporation) to challenge the landmark Vedanta bauxite mine judgement of the Supreme Court. The application claims that Forest Rights Act and its rules do not require any consent from the Gram Sabha for use of forestlands if government decides that the rights of people have been settled. The OMC has made this claim on the basis of several arguments


There Is No Honour In Killing 
By Maanvender Singh

http://www.countercurrents.org/singh170316.htm

On 13 March, 2016, a similar crime was committed in Tirupur, Tamil Nadu, where a young couple was attacked publicly by group of hired men; resulting in the death of 22 year old V. Shankar and causing serious head injuries to his wife Kausalya. This brutal action was carried out on the direction of Shankar’s father-in law who was unhappy with the marriage, as Shankar was a dalit and the family belonged to a much forward Thevar community. The fact finding team that visited the crime scene, pointed out that the murder was pre- planned and Shankar was under the constant threat from his in -laws, highlighting to yet another case of honor killing


Rains Become A Nightmare! 
By Mohammad Ashraf

http://www.countercurrents.org/ashraf170316.htm

Once welcome as a boon from the Gods, the rains these days give nightmares to the people!

Criticism of Israel OUTLAWED!

The rest of the world has condemned the actions of Israel, bombing  and killing civilians, using US-Made Cluster Bombs, grabbing their land, destroying their crops and much else. Yet unless you read international media, you might not know because Corporate US Media is censored. 

Israel has REPEATEDLY walked away from PEACE! 


A Bloated Military Budget looking for ENDLESS WAR to BUILD EMPIRE!
We didn't get it right the last time, don't count on it being right this time! 

Daily Kos

This says it all.

Thanks to The Middle Class is Drowning for the graphic.

FROM: 

US Empire, Your Tax Dollars and Why WIkileaks was important...

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FOCUS: Glenn Greenwald | The Greatest Threat to Campus Free Speech Is Coming From Dianne Feinstein and Her Military-Contractor Husband

Glenn Greenwald, The Intercept
Greenwald writes: "There is no shortage of American pundits who love to denounce 'PC' speech codes which restrict and punish the expression of certain ideas on college campuses. What these self-styled campus-free-speech crusaders typically - and quite tellingly - fail to mention is that the most potent such campaigns are often devoted to outlawing or otherwise punishing criticisms of Israel."
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There is no shortage of American pundits who love to denounce “PC” speech codes which restrict and punish the expression of certain ideas on college campuses. What these self-styled campus-free-speech crusaders typically – and quite tellingly – fail to mention is that the most potent such campaigns are often devoted to outlawing or otherwise punishing criticisms of Israel. The firing by the University of Illinois of Professor Steven Salatia for his “uncivil” denunciations of the Israeli war on Gaza – a termination that was privately condoned by Illinois’ Democratic Senator Dick Durbin – is merely illustrative of this long–growing trend.

One of the most dangerous threats to campus free speech has been emerging at the highest levels of the University of California system, the sprawling collection of 10 campuses which includes UCLA and UC Berkeley. The University’s governing Board of Regents, with the support of University President Janet Napolitano and egged on by the State’s legislature, has been attempting to adopt new speech codes that – in the name of combating “anti-Semitism” – would formally ban various forms of Israel criticism and anti-Israel activism.

Under the most stringent such regulations, students found to be in violation of these codes would face suspension or expulsion. In July, it appeared that the Regents were poised to enact the most extreme version, but decided instead to push the decision off until September, when they instead would adopt non-binding guidelines to define “hate speech” and “intolerance.”

One of the Regents most vocally advocating for the most stringent version of the speech code is Richard Blum, the multi-millionaire defense contractor who is married to Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California. At a Regents meeting last week, reported The Los Angeles Times, Blum expressly threatened that Feinstein would publicly denounce the University if it failed to adopt far more stringent standards than the ones it appeared to be considering, and specifically demanded they be binding and contain punishments for students found to be in violation.

The San Francisco Chronicle put it this way: “Regent Dick Blum said his wife, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., ‘is prepared to be critical of this university’ unless UC not only tackles anti-Jewish bigotry but also makes clear that perpetrators will be punished.” The lawyer Ken White wrote that “Blum threatened that his wife . . .would interfere and make trouble if the Regents didn’t commit to punish people for prohibited speech.” As campus First Amendment lawyer Ari Cohn put it the following day, “Feinstein and her husband think college students should be expelled for protected free speech.”

Blum’s verbatim comments at the Regents meeting are even creepier than that reporting suggests:

I should add that over the weekend my wife, your senior Senator, and I talked about this issue at length. She wants to stay out of the conversation publicly but if we do not do the right thing she will engage publicly and is prepared to be critical of this university if we don’t have the kind of not only statement but penalties for those who commit what you can call them crimes, call them whatever you want. Students that do the things that have been cited here today probably ought to have a dismissal or a suspension from school. I don’t know how many of you feel strongly that way but my wife does and so do I.

Sarah McLaughlin of the campus-free-speech group FIRE wrote: “Yes, a UC Regent flatly threatened the university with political consequences if it failed to craft a ‘tolerance’ policy that would punish—and even expel—its violators.”

In response to inquiries from The Intercept, Feinstein refused to say whether her husband was authorized to make such threats on her behalf, but she refused to distance herself from them. “This is a matter before the University of California and Senator Feinstein has no comment at this time,” her Press Secretary said.

The specific UC controversy is two-fold: whether, in combating “anti-semitism,” the University should adopt the State Department’s controversial 2010 definition of that term, and separately, whether students who express ideas that fall within that definition should be formally punished up to and including permanent expulsion. What makes the State Department definition so controversial – particularly for an academic setting – is that alongside uncontroversial and obvious examples of classic bigotry (e.g. expressing hateful or derogatory sentiments toward Jews generally), that definition includes a discussion of what it calls “Anti-Semitism Relative to Israel.”

How does speech about Israel become “anti-Semitic”? According to the State Department, “anti-Semitism” includes those who (1) “Demonize Israel” by “drawing comparisons of contemporary Israeli policy to that of the Nazis” or “blaming Israel for all inter-religious or political tensions”; (2) espouse a “Double standard for Israel” by “requiring of it a behavior not expected or demanded of any other democratic nation” or “multilateral organizations focusing on Israel only for peace or human rights investigations”; or (3) “Delegitimize Israel” by “denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, and denying Israel the right to exist.” The State Department generously adds this caveat at the end: “criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.”

Data on Israel. (photo: The Intercept)

The ironies of this definition are overwhelming. First, it warns against advocating a “double standard for Israel” – at exactly the same time that it promulgates a standard that applies only to Israel. Would the State Department ever formally condemn what it regards as excessive or one-sided criticism of any other government, such as Russia or Iran? Why isn’t the State Department also accusing people of bigotry who create “double standards” for Iran by obsessing over the anti-gay behavior of Iran while ignoring the same or worse abuses in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Uganda? The State Department is purporting to regulate the discourse surrounding just one country – Israel – while at the same time condemning “double standards.”

Worse, this State Department definition explicitly equates certain forms of criticism of Israel or activism against Israeli government policies with “anti-Semitism.” In other words, the State Department embraces the twisted premise that a defining attribute of “Jews” everywhere is the actions of the Israeli government, which is itself a long-standing anti-Semitic trope.

But most important of all, whatever you think of this State Department definition, it has no place whatsoever regulating which ideas can and cannot be expressed in an academic institution, particularly one that is run by the state (such as the University of California is). Adoption of this “anti-Semitism” definition clearly would function to prohibit the advocacy of, say, a one-state solution for the Israel-Palestine conflict, or even the questioning of a state’s right to exist as a non-secular entity. How can anyone think it’s appropriate to declare such ideas off-limits in academic classrooms or outlaw them as part of campus activism?

To ban the expression of any political ideas in such a setting would not only be wildly anti-intellectual but also patently unconstitutional. As UC Irvine School of Law Dean Erwin Chemerinsky put it today inan LA Times Op-Ed: “There unquestionably is a 1st Amendment right to argue against (or for) the existence of Israel or to contend that it should meet (or not have to meet) higher standards of human rights than other nations.” Even the now-retired Executive Director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman – while arguing that “the effort to support boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, is sinister and malicious and is having a negative effect on Jewish students on some campuses and on the wider Jewish community” – acknowledged in May that such bans would be clearly unconstitutional:

Legislation that bars BDS activity by private groups, whether corporations or universities, strikes at the heart of First Amendment-protected free speech, will be challenged in the courts and is likely to be struck down. A decision by a private body to boycott Israel, as despicable as it may be, is protected by our Constitution. Perhaps in Europe, where hate speech laws exist and are acceptable within their own legal frameworks, such bills could be sustained. But not here in America.

But none of that seems to matter to Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband, Richard Blum. Not only is Blum demanding adoption of the State Department definition, despite the fact that (more accurately: because) it would encompass some forms of BDS activism and even criticisms of Israel. But, worse, he’s also insisting that it be binding and that students who express the ideas that fall within the State Department definition be suspended from school or expelled. And he’s overtly threatening that if he does not get his way, then his wife – “Your Senior Senator” – will get very upset and start publicly attacking the university, a threat that public school administrators who rely on the government for their budgets take very seriously.

This behavior is as adolescent as it is despotic. Does anyone believe that college and post-graduate students should be able to express only those ideas about Israel which Dianne Feinstein and her war-profiteering husband deem acceptable?

It’s no mystery what this is really about. The Israeli Government and its most devoted advocates around the world are petrified at the growing strength of the movement to boycott Israeli goods in protest of the almost five-decade occupation. As Foxman conceded, the boycott idea “seems to be picking up steam, particularly on college campuses across the United States. While no universities have yet adopted or implemented BDS, there are a growing number of campuses — now up to 29 — where student organizations have held votes to determine whether they support BDS.” Just this week, the City Council of Reykjavik, the largest city in Iceland, voted to boycott all Israeli goods as long as the occupation persists (days later, the City quickly retracted the vote, citing the unexpectedly intense “backlash” from Israel).

After the horrific massacre they committed in Gaza last summer, followed by its devastating defeat on the Iran Deal, the Israeli Government is rapidly losing the PR battle around the world, and they know it. The boycott movement scares them above all else because it is predicated on the truth that they are most eager to suppress: the similarities between what Israel is doing to the Palestinians and the apartheid policies of South Africa (which were undermined by a global boycott movement and which the world now universally regards as evil).

Since they are losing the debate about this movement, the Israeli government and its loyalists are instead seeking to suppress it altogether, to literally outlaw it. Recall that in May, the right-wing Canadian government threatened hate speech charges against those who advocate a boycott of Israel; the country’s Liberal Leader, Justin Trudeau, decreed via Twitter that “the BDS movement, like Israeli Apartheid Week, has no place on Canadian campuses.” Back in 2013, the ADL took out a full-page ad in The New York Times announcing that “the movement to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel — known as BDS — is anti-Semitic hate speech.”

The effort to formally re-define “anti-Semitism” to include certain criticisms of and activism against the Israeli government has been coordinated and deliberate. That history is laid out with ample evidence here by the non-profit group Palestine Legal; here by Ali Abunimah’s book, The Battle for Justice in Palestine, the relevant portion of which was published by The Intercept; and here by the writer and activist Ben White. In essence, this re-definition was first promulgated by Israeli lobbyists and academics, imposed with varying degrees of success on the EU, and then successfully imported into the Clinton-led State Department.

It’s one thing to apply political pressure to induce governments to adopt speech-repressive definitions of “anti-Semitism” that are non-binding. It’s another thing entirely to try to import them onto state-run college campuses where they are used to outlaw the expression of certain forms of criticisms of the Israeli government. And it’s another thing entirely for a prominent public official like Dianne Feinstein to have her husband throw their ample financial and political weight around in order to threaten and bully school administrators to ban ideas which this power couple dislike and punish the students who express them.

The obvious goal with this UC battle is to institutionalize the notion on American college campuses that activism against the Israeli Government is not merely wrong but is actually “hate speech” that should subject its student-advocates (or professors) to severe punishment. If this menacing censorship is allowed to take hold in an academic system as large and influential as the University of California, then it’s much easier for the censors to point to it in the future as a model, in order to infect other academic institutions in the U.S. and around the world. That’s all the more reason to vehemently oppose it in this instance. If defenders of Israel are determined to defeat the boycott movement, they’ll have to find other ways to do it besides rendering its advocacy illegal and, in the process, destroying the long-cherished precept of free speech in academia.

http://readersupportednews.org/opinion2/277-75/32611-focus-the-greatest-threat-to-campus-free-speech-is-coming-from-dianne-feinstein-and-her-military-contractor-husband

RSN: Enough. It's Time for a Boycott of Israel

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A PAINFUL DECISION: It's always painful when we have to press for donations. We have supporters, many. We have many more who could be. The organization cannot function without support. It's a painful decision. / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Naomi Klein | Enough. It's Time for a Boycott of Israel

Naomi Klein, Guardian UK
"Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign ambassadors in Israel."
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Officer in Fatal NY Arrest Stripped of Gun, Badge
Verena Dobnik and Jake Pearson, Associated Press
Excerpt: "A New York City police officer involved in the arrest of a man who died in custody after being placed in an apparent chokehold has been stripped of his gun and badge and placed on desk duty, police said Saturday."
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Largest US Sentence Reduction in History Approved for Drug Offenders
Evan Hill, Al Jazeera America
Hill writes: "The federal agency that sets criminal sentencing policies for judges voted on Friday to allow tens of thousands of inmates serving time for drug crimes to apply for reduced sentences, the largest such sentencing reduction in modern U.S. history."
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Federal Court: No Execution Unless Arizona Reveals Drug Source
Michael Kiefer, Arizona Republic
Kiefer writes: "The 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled Saturday that Arizona must divulge information about the drugs and executioners it will use to put a man to death Wednesday or the execution will not go forward."
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Bolivia Legalizes Child Labor for Kids From Age 10
Associated Press
Excerpt: "While most of the world is trying to diminish child labor, Bolivia has become the first nation to legalize it from age 10. Congress approved the legislation early this month, and Vice President Alvaro Garcia signed it into law Thursday in the absence of President Evo Morales, who was traveling."
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Deploying Drones to Get an Overview of Factory Farms
Peggy Lowe, National Public Radio
Lowe writes: "An independent journalist says he's found a way around the so-called 'ag-gag' laws by flying drones over large livestock operations to document animal welfare problems and pollution."
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Plastic 'Trash Islands' Forming in Ocean Garbage Patch
Tia Ghose, Yahoo News
Ghose writes: "After returning from the Transpacific Yacht Race — an annual sailboat race from Los Angeles to Honolulu — in 1997, Capt. Charles Moore was guiding his boat through the doldrums when he noticed some plastic debris floating in the water."
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