The case of two Swedish journalists imprisoned in Ethiopia sheds light on a harsh campaign of repression.

Martin Schibbye, 31, and Johan Persson, 29, share a narrow bed, one man’s head beside the other’s feet. Schibbye once woke up to find a rat mussing his hair. In a filthy Ethiopian prison that is overridden with lice, fleas and huge rats, two Swedes are serving an 11-year prison sentence for committing journalism.

Libya, who lost and who gained?

The civil war in Libya went on longer than expected, but the fall of Tripoli came faster than was forecast. As in Kabul in 2001 and Baghdad in 2003, there was no last-ditch stand by the defeated regime, whose supporters appear to have melted away once they saw that defeat was inevitable.

While it is clear Colonel Muammar Gaddafi has lost power, it is not certain who has gained it. The anti-regime militiamen that are now streaming into the capital were united by a common enemy, but not much else. The Transitional National Council (TNC) in Benghazi, already recognised by so many foreign states as the legitimate government of Libya, is of dubious legitimacy and authority.

Karl Marx was right ?

Karl Marx was right, it seems, in arguing that globalization, financial intermediation run amok, and redistribution of income and wealth from labor to capital could lead capitalism to self-destruct. So what can be done to prevent that outcome?.The massive volatility and sharp equity-price correction now hitting global financial markets signal that most advanced economies are on the brink of a double-dip recession. A financial and economic crisis caused by too much private-sector debt and leverage led to a massive re-leveraging of the public sector in order to prevent Great Depression 2.0. But the subsequent recovery has been anemic and sub-par in most advanced economies given painful deleveraging.

European Central Bank and the “Sovereign Raiders”

 

Coward politicians and irrational market behind the crisis

Psychology and not the news behind the sudden price declines…The ghost of Lehman’s back. Frightened by coward politicians, citizens vote for the one who promises the most and the market acts as  an irrational monster. As long as fear and greed  dominates over the economy, the economy will continue to decline.I call the market a monster because it is as unpredictable as ruthless. Nothing fundamental has really happened to justify the last days of sharp stock market collapse and turmoil in the global economy. To 90 percent, it is about psychology.

Is there life after democracy?

While we’re still arguing about whether there’s life after death, can we add another question to the cart? Is there life after democracy? What sort of life will it be? By “democracy” I don’t mean democracy as an ideal or an aspiration. I mean the working model: Western liberal democracy, and its variants, such as they are. So, is there life after democracy? Attempts to answer this question often turn into a comparison of different systems of governance, and end with a somewhat prickly, combative defense of democracy. It’s flawed, we say. It isn’t perfect, but it’s better than everything else that’s on offer. Inevitably, someone in the room will say: “Afghanistan, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Somalia… is that what you would prefer?”

Norway PM: No One Shall Bomb Us Into Silence

Transcript:

“Today Norway was hit by two shocking and bloody and cowardly attacks. We still do not know who attacked us; much is still uncertain. But we know that many are dead and injured.

we can eradicate starvation.

Of the world’s almost seven billion people, about one billion are starving, owing to a long list of unfortunate local events and circumstances, together with steadily increasing demand, unpredictable weather patterns, and poor financial management. And food shortages could grow much worse, as world population is expected to reach nine billion by 2050 or earlier.

But, with the right programs, we can produce enough food for everyone. Indeed, by taking the right actions now, we can eradicate starvation.

Foundations of Social Engineering

Organs for sale

The great organ bazaar : By Susanne Lundin who is Professor of Ethnology at Lund University, Sweden.

The Web site 88DB.com Philippines is an active online portal that allows service providers and consumers to find and interact with each other. Naoval, an Indonesian man with “AB blood type, no drugs and no alcohol,” wants to sell his kidney. Another man says, “I am a Filipino. I am willing to sell my kidney for my wife. She has breast cancer and I can’t afford her medications.” Then there is Enrique, who is “willing to donate my kidney for an exchange. 21 years old and healthy.”

Is a World War III scenario unfolding?

“Towards a World War III Scenario: The Dangers of Nuclear War” by Michel Chossudovsky

The World is at a critical crossroads. The Fukushima disaster in Japan has brought to the forefront the dangers of Worldwide nuclear radiation.Coinciding with the onset of the nuclear crisis in Japan, a new regional war theater has opened up in North Africa, under the disguise of a UN sponsored “humanitarian operation” with the mandate to “protect civilian lives”.

Sweatshop Manufacturing: Engine of Poverty

On a global scale, the reign of free market ideology has wrought deep changes. Manufacturing jobs in the developed nations are rapidly shrinking while abroad there has been a rise in sweatshop manufacturing, with conditions reminiscent of the worst of the 19th century. The effect has been to widen the gulf between the living conditions of the wealthy and those who labor for them.

Inequality has reached such an astounding level that it requires an act of willful blindness on the part of Western media not to notice it. Over half of the world’s population subsists on less than $2 a day, while the 200 richest individuals own more wealth than 41 percent of the world’s population, or in other words, more than 2.6 billion people.

The Great Chinese Takeout.

An unfathomably vast terrain comprising 49 nations, the sub-Sahara represents nearly one-fifth of the earth’s landmass. Yet its total economy is tinier than Florida’s. Here, 300 million people get by on less than $1 a day. Until they don’t: It is the planet’s biggest tomb, where compared to the 1960s, twice as many children under the age of 5 are now dying each day from disease; a bottomless badland where $500 billion of Western aid since World War II (more than four Marshall Plans) has barely made a dent in the poverty; a region whose market share of world trade is shrinking by the hour as it gets left behind, perhaps permanently, in the dust of globalization; a place so desperate for everything — cash, trade, investment, infrastructure — and so powerless to negotiate strategically, that it’s pretty much up for sale to the highest bidder.

George Ayittey on Cheetahs vs. Hippos

Economist George Ayittey sees Africa’s future as a fight between Hippos — complacent, greedy bureaucrats wallowing in the muck — and Cheetahs, the fast-moving, entrepreneurial leaders and citizens who will rebuild Africa.

African useless elite

In his book ¨Capitalist nigger-the Road to Success¨, pp. 97-119, Chika Onyeani concludes that the African educated elite is a failure, an individual who is not useful to the society, either in Africa or even as migrants. “The African elite has been a total failure; they cannot raise their heads in the community of scholars or the intelligentsia.  They want to continue to sit at the head of the totem pole, being spoon-fed, rather than at the head of the battle line leading the masses of Black people throughout the world.  That they have not been able to understand that the total Black race is under economic slavery is a testament to their half-education and illiteracy.

A community cannot survive when its so-called educated citizens are morally and intellectually bankrupt and decrepit.  You cannot have a community whose intelligentsia are mere parasites of other cultures.”