Saturday, June 22, 2019

FOR SOME THE COLD WAR WAS A REAL WAR
South Korea Jeju Massacre haunts the memories of survivors
Ko Wan-soon was only 9 when an anti-communist South Korean "soldier" smashed the skull of her 3-year-old brother with a club.

UNITED NATIONS, June 20 (UPI) -- Ko Wan-soon was only 9 when an anti-communist South Korean "soldier" smashed the skull of her 3-year-old brother with a club, as anti-communist forces terrorized their village and executed civilians.
Ko, an "80-year-old grandmother," is a witness and survivor of one of the most brutal massacres in South Korean history. At the U.N. Symposium on Human Rights and Jeju 4.3 on Thursday, she called for awareness of the Jeju Massacre, or Jeju Uprising, when tens of thousands of victims may have been killed in the South while detained or tortured at the hands of anti-communist police from 1948 to 1954.
Bruce Cumings, the influential U.S. historian of Korea at the University of Chicago, said at the symposium the killings were undertaken by young men who had been kicked out of northern Korea by communists. Some of them formed the Northwest Youth League in the South and began to embark "on a campaign of terror in order to defeat communism" on Jeju Island, Cumings said.
Cumings, who once dubbed the massacre "our Srebrenica" in a book on the 1950-53 Korean War, said the U.S. military, which maintained operational control of the South's military and national police after Japan's surrender, had a role in the suppression during the massacre.
"The United States ruled Korea, even experts seem unaware," Cumings said.
"But the United States is seen as a kind of innocent bystander" to what took place, the historian said.
Cumings also said in classified U.S. documents that U.S. intelligence appeared aware, but documents show "very little mention of outrage about the slaughter."
U.S. officials instead praised first South Korean President Syngman Rhee's "vigorous" anti-communism in the documents, favoring his hard-line policies over those of Chiang Kai-shek, the leader of the Republic of China.
"It made me ashamed," he said.
The 4.3 Peace Park on Jeju Island, South Korea includes exhibits of how victims were tortured or killed during a massacre that has been kept hushed-up for decades in the country.


UPI.COM


Wednesday, June 19, 2019

CARBON TAX MEMES



APOCALYPSE WHEN



ACTUAL FRESH LAKE MONSTER



FRASER RIVER BC Cryptozoology Part 2: plawiuk https://plawiuk.livejournal.com/21403.html LAKE MONSTERS
Continued from Part 1
CRYPTID #LAKEMONSTER #CRYPTOZOOLOGY #FOSSILFISH #PREHISTORICFISH #STURGEON #ENDANGEREDSPECIES

Is the Royal Canadian Navy Missing a Great Opportunity?

multi-beam echo sounder
Photograph courtesy of Wikimedia Commons/Canadian Hydrographic Service
BY PIERRE LEBLANC 2019-06-11 18:02:59
Hydrographic surveys are required to produce nautical charts, and updated surveys allow for safer and more efficient marine transportation in Canada’s northern waters.
At a recent Canadian Maritime Advisory Council meeting in Ottawa, I was disappointed to learn again that the Royal Canadian Navy still had no plan to install multi-beam echo sounders (MBES) on the Arctic offshore patrol ships (AOPS) which are under construction now.
I was also concerned with the fact that only approximately eight percent of the Canadian Arctic has been surveyed to modern standards and only a total of about 14 percent is done to a modern or adequate standard. Hydrographic surveys are required to produce nautical charts, and updated surveys allow for safer and more efficient marine transportation in Canada’s northern waters.
To assist the Canadian Hydrographic Service increase the percentage of Arctic oceans done to modern or adequate standards, the Canadian Coast Guard has already equipped four of its icebreakers with MBES; with two more planned and funded for the CCGS Henry Larson and CCGS Pierre Radisson to take place in the next two years.
Retrofitting AOPS with MBES will obviously be more expensive than if the systems were installed while under construction. That would naturally require minor modifications to the existing plans, but it would be more cost effective in the long-run. The funding could potentially come in part from the important and successful Ocean Protection Plan.
Traffic is rapidly increasing with the fast disappearing Arctic ice. The summer of 2018 saw a total of 167 ships entering the Arctic and completing more than 400 voyages. More traffic will naturally lead to more marine accidents in poorly surveyed areas of the Arctic. On August 17, 2018, the cruise ship Akademik Ioffe ran aground in a poorly charted area of the western Gulf of Boothia near Kugaaruk, Nunavut. Two of the five Canadian Coast Guard icebreakers in the Arctic were dispatched to provide assistance. Fortunately, there were no casualties and only minor environmental damage.
One could argue that the best way to do search and rescue is to prevent accidents in the first place. Modern marine charts will certainly contribute to reduce the possibility of more grounding. The Akademik Ioffe was the third cruise ship to run aground in the Canadian Arctic after the MV Clipper Adventurer in 2010 and Hanseatic in 1996. With increasing activity in poorly-charted areas, our luck may soon run out.
When Coast Guard vessels are dispatched for a search and rescue mission they may not be available to support the essential annual sealift to the Arctic communities. A delay in delivering the annual sealift for a lack of icebreaking support will cost the shipping companies. If the sealift cannot take place there will be significant impacts. Last summer, when a multi-year ice plug blocked some of the resupply of a few western communities, some construction projects had to be delayed by one year and the cost of airlifting the essential goods was in the millions of dollars.
The AOPS will be patrolling the Arctic. Would it not be great if they could carry out both opportunistic and targeted hydrographic surveys while patrolling in Arctic waters? When operating in poorly surveyed areas, those ships could be proceeding forward at slow speed. It seems to be one of the tailor-made tasks for those ships.
Accurate charts will bring significant benefits. More efficient routing for the resupply of communities will reduce the cost for operators and reduce the environmental impact by reducing ship emissions. It would allow those ships to circumvent ice blockages safely using alternative routes surveyed and charted. Search and rescue could be done faster by allowing ships to take more direct routes and to proceed safely at the best speed. Accurate charts would contribute to the commitments made by Canada to improve its search and rescue capacity under the Arctic Council’s Arctic Search and Rescue Agreement.
The Royal Canadian Navy has helped in the past with temporary MBES systems on the Kingston-class Marine Coastal Defence Vessels. That could be an option for the AOPS except that towed systems have limitations especially in ice-infested waters. They would similarly require modifications to the brand new vessels to mount the required hardware. Inboard systems, designed and installed during ship building, are by far the preferred solution.
The patrolling and mapping of the waters in the Arctic Archipelago will also have an important sovereignty dimension.
Pierre Leblanc is a retired colonel and former commander of the Joint Task Force North and program manager of the North Warning System. He is also with Arctic Security Consultants.
This article was originally published in The Hill Times.



Tuesday, June 18, 2019

Will there be a counter-revolution this time? by Gilbert Achcar
The seasons after the Arab Spring
Revolt if not revolution in Sudan and Algeria: is this the next phase of a profound change in the Arab world? The uprisings haven’t repeated the mistakes of 2011.
LONG READ FEATURE ARTICLE
BACKGROUNDER AND UPDATER
THIS IS AN EXCERPT

Images of popular protests that recall the revolutionary movement of 2011 have dominated news fromI the Arabic-speaking world for months. Uprisings began in Sudan on 19 December and in Algeria with the marches of Friday 22 February. They revived memories of the huge, peaceful demonstrations early in the Arab Spring that shook Tunisia, Egypt, Bahrain, Yemen, Libya and Syria.
Commentators have been more cautious this time, asking questions rather than commenting directly, mindful of the bitter disappointment that followed their initial euphoria over the Arab Spring. The repression of the 2011 uprising in Bahrain, crushed after only a few weeks with the help of the other oil monarchies of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), could have been the exception, given the unique characteristics of that club of states. But two years later the region entered a counter-revolutionary phase, with a new chain reaction going the other way. Bashar al-Assad launched a new offensive in Syria in spring 2013 with the help of Iran and its regional allies. Then came the army-backed establishment of a repressive regime in Egypt, and the return to power of members of Tunisia’s ousted government; in Cairo and Tunis, forces linked to the Muslim Brotherhood hijacked the initial revolutionary impetus. Emboldened by 2013’s developments, remnants of the former regimes in Libya and Yemen formed opportunistic alliances with groups that had jumped on the bandwagon of the revolution and shared their hostility to the Muslim Brotherhood. Their attempts to take power by force ended in civil war. Enthusiasm gave way to melancholy in the ‘Arab Winter’ as the totalitarian terrorist enterprise ISIS gained a foothold. Though this latest avatar of Al-Qaida was eventually crushed in Iraq and Syria (groups operating under the same franchise remain active in Libya, the Sinai peninsula and outside the Arab-speaking world), other counter-revolutionary forces remain on the offensive. The Assad clan continues its reconquest of most of Syria’s territory with the help of Russia and Iran. In Egypt, President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi’s despotic regime, careless of the potential impact of rebellions in Sudan and Algeria, has adopted a constitutional amendment that allows him to remain in power until 2030 (1). READ ON https://mondediplo.com/2019/06/05sudan ALSO SEE SUDAN CRISIS Gilbert Achcar is professor of development studies and international relations at SOAS, University of London. His publications include Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising, Stanford University Press/Saqi Books, 2016
BOOK LAUNCH: Morbid Symptoms by Gilbert Achcar | Saqi Books www.saqibooks.com/2016/09/book-launch-morbid-symptoms-gilbert-achcar/ 4 October 2016. Event to mark the publication of Gilbert Achcar's Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising. Since the first wave of uprisings in 2011, the euphoria of the “Arab Spring” has given way to ... Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at SOAS, University of London.
Professor Gilbert Achcar | Staff | SOAS University of London https://www.soas.ac.uk/staff/staff30529.php Professor of Development Studies and International Relations ... of the Arab Uprising (2013); and Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016).
By Gilbert Achcar جلبير الأشقر - Jadaliyya www.jadaliyya.com/Author/4707 Gilbert Achcar is Professor of Development Studies and International ... His recent books include The Clash of Barbarisms: The Making of the New World ... New Texts Out Now: Gilbert Achcar, Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising ... the Arab Uprising (Stanford: Stanford University Press and London: Saqi, 2016).
Gilbert Achcar | The Nation https://www.thenation.com/authors/gilbert-achcar/ Gilbert Achcar is a professor at SOAS, University of London. His many books include The Clash of Barbarisms (2002, 2006); Perilous Power: The Middle East. ... and US Foreign Policy, co-authored with Noam Chomsky (2007); The Arabs ... recently, Morbid Symptoms: Relapse in the Arab Uprising (2016).

SUDAN CRISIS


Wed, Jun 5, 1:44 AM (13 days ago)

Dear Friends of the Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists:

On June 3, the Sudanese military and militia forces attacked the peaceful sit-in outside the Army Command in Khartoum, where thousands of protesters have gathered since 6 April to demand a peaceful transition to civilian rule after mass protests brought down the 30-year despotic rule of Omar al-Bashir. 

Over 35 have been killed, hundreds injured, and the encampment set on fire. Counter-revolution has reared its bloody head in Sudan carried out by General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan and the Transitional Military Council. This past weekend al-Burhan coordinated with US-ally Saudi Arabia and other regional powers who undoubtedly green-lit this escalation of violence. It comes after a successful two day general strike last week where over 80% of the country shut down demanding civilian rule.

The Sudanese people have responded by calling for an indefinite political general strike and mass civil disobedience around the country to bring down the regime and bring about democracy and immediate civilian rule. We stand with the Sudanese people fighting for freedom and democracy and call for an end to massacre, repression, and counter-revolution in Sudan. 

Below is the link to an online panel on the state of the Sudanese and Algerian uprisings which will help you learn more about the critical importance of these struggles and the need for immediate solidarity with them.

The Alliance of Middle Eastern Socialists is reaching out to all our friends and subscribers and inviting you to share ideas for solidarity work. 

Looking forward to hearing from you.

Attachments areaPreview YouTube video The State of the Sudanese and Algerian Uprisings

Sunday, June 16, 2019

HONG KONG POLICE'S IT'S PEOPLE


Jessica Care Moore "Black Statue of Liberty" + Charlie Haden “The People...

Ibrahim Maalouf - Obsession (live in istanbul)

Ibrahim Maalouf - Beirut (LIVE)

Ibrahim Maalouf - 14.12.16 Live in Paris - Album Release Livestream from...

Ibrahim Maalouf - Red & Black Light (Live au Zénith Nantes Métropole, 2016)

Ibrahim Maalouf - Obsession (live in istanbul)

CLASS WAR IN  ALBERTA

Keith Gerein: Kenney, union leaders heading for collision course on wage rollbacks

Alberta Union of Provincial Employees president Guy Smith. SHAUGHN BUTTS / POSTMEDIA, FILE
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The reaction, as expected, was swift and ferocious.
“Unfair, inappropriate and illegal,” said Alberta Federation of Labour president Gil McGowan.
“An egregious attack,” blasted Guy Smith, president of the Alberta Union of Provincial Employees.
“The biggest betrayal by a government I have ever seen,” United Nurses of Alberta boss Heather Smith charged.
Alberta’s labour leaders haven’t been this fired up in years, perhaps since the slash and burn days of the Ralph Klein government in the mid-1990s, or the teachers’ strike of 2002.
Ostensibly, the object of their fury is a surprise UCP bill, introduced Thursday, that would void previously negotiated dates for wage talks, and instead delay arbitration until after Halloween.
The government’s stance is that it needs the extra time to better understand Alberta’s fiscal landscape, and to hear back from a blue ribbon panel looking into the province’s spending.
While there is a sliver of merit in that argument, union leaders are right to raise a red flag anytime a government tries to unilaterally torch contracts negotiated through collective bargaining.
Yet the extreme level of outrage on display for what is ultimately a four-month delay implies that something bigger is at stake and that both unions and the government are preparing for a much uglier fight that now seems increasingly inevitable.
As worked up as the labour leaders are today, they may want to save some of their best rhetoric for a future showdown on what I expect to be government demands for wage rollbacks.
I’ll admit this is a bit of speculation on my part. And it’s important to note that Finance Minister Travis Toews insists the government has made no decisions in regard to pay rates.
Nonetheless, there is good circumstantial evidence about where this is likely heading.
Without revealing any figures, Premier Jason Kenney has spoken cryptically in recent weeks about how the NDP left the province’s finances in worse shape than they publicly reported — the kind of messaging that comes in handy when a new government needs to justify surprise spending cuts.
It also serves as a useful distraction from the fact that the UCP has itself been causing grief to the government’s books through a corporate tax cut estimated to reduce provincial revenue by up to $200 million this year alone.
At the same time, the government has committed to cover student enrolment growth for at least the coming school year, without saying how that will be funded.
That money has to be made up from somewhere.
Remember also that the UCP has vowed to have MLA salaries lowered by five per cent and the premier’s salary cut by 10 per cent, which will save virtually nothing but affords the party some political capital to trim the wages of others.
And perhaps the most telling move is in the structure of that blue ribbon panel, chaired by Janice MacKinnon, who co-authored a paper in 2017 recommending restraint in workers’ wages.
Given all those moves from a government laying the groundwork to claim poverty, you can’t blame union leaders for being suspicious of a play to reduce workers’ compensation.
As for the NDP, Rachel Notley’s crew also seems to be gearing up for an extended fight.
It was just over a week ago when the NDP staged an all-night, all-day and into-the–next-evening filibuster that went on just shy of 24 hours. The marathon debate was not on protections for LGBTQ students or the carbon tax, but on a handful of changes to labour laws, including a reduced minimum wage for students and a reduced rate for banking overtime.
Exactly what was achieved by that exercise in sleep deprivation is questionable — the incessant oratory tended to veer off topic at times.
But if nothing else, the NDP did serve notice it would meet any financial attacks on workers with a full-throated opposition designed to raise public outrage.
The problem for the NDP and the union leaders is that the Kenney government also seems quite prepared to have this fight.
As much as the NDP claimed victory for orchestrating last week’s filibuster, the UCP was equally boastful about its MLAs’ efforts to go to the wall for reforms designed to help employers.'
(FALSE THEY ARE NOT TO HELP EMPLOYERS THATS THE EXCUSE THEY ARE ATTACKING PUBLIC SECTOR WORKERS RIGHTS, GOVERNMENT WORKERS, EP)
And remember, Kenney is often at his political best when he has someone to brawl with, and Alberta unions could fill the role nicely.
Yes, union leaders will howl, correctly, that the UCP made no promises about going after wages in its election platform and will pull out all the stops to put public pressure on Kenney.
(HOWL REALLY POSTMEDIA NOW YOU REDUCE WORKERS AND THEIR UNIONS TO A PACK OF WOLVES, EP)
Strikes, walkouts and a pointed advertising campaign are sure to be on the agenda.
But given the results of the last election when Albertans voted for more fiscal restraint, I strongly suspect Kenney feels this is a battle he can ultimately win.
If you think the rhetoric is vicious now, imagine what it could sound like in a few months.


CLASS WAR IN ALBERTA
THE YEAR THAT THE NDP WAS ELECTED GOVERNMENT IN ALBERTA 
THE SUPREME COURT RULED ON THE RIGHT TO STRIKE WHICH KENNEY HAS VIOLATED 
January 30, 2015 9:02 am
Updated: January 30, 2015 10:58 pm

Supreme Court strikes down Sask. law that prevents the right to strike


OTTAWA – The Supreme Court of Canada ruled on Friday a Saskatchewan law that prevents public sector employees from striking is unconstitutional.

In a 5-2 decision, the high court has granted an appeal by the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour of the province’s controversial Public Service Essential Services Act, which limits the ability of employees designated as “essential services” from striWriting for the majority, Justice Rosalie Abella said that the legislation violates a section of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms guaranteeing freedom of association, including the right to access collective bargaining.
The Court called the ability to strike the “powerhouse” of collective bargaining.
“The ability to engage in the collective withdrawal of services in the process of the negotiation of a collective agreement is therefore, and has historically been, the ‘irreducible minimum’ of the freedom to associate in Canadian labour relations,” Abella wrote.
The court gives Saskatchewan one year to amend the legislation or enact a new one.
The ruling is important to how public service unions operate in provinces across the country and may change how governments go about creating labour legislation.
The two dissenting justices, Richard Wagner and Marshall Rothstein, said protecting the right to strike impedes the government’s flexibility in labour disputes and favours the interest of employees over employers and the public.
Hassan Yussuff, president of the Canadian Labour Congress, said the ruling will force government’s to craft much more careful legislation to stop essential workers from striking, compared to the “much more cavalier” approach it has taken in the past.
“The government needs to take a great deal of care if they’re going to intervene to interrupt that right of workers,” said Yussuff.
Lori Johb, of the Saskatchewan Federation of Labour, said workers aren’t generally keen to strike.
“Without that right, we really had no power, we had no ability to achieve fair, collective bargaining for all the members,” she said.
“For workers, it levels the playing field.”
The Saskatchewan government enacted the PSESA in 2007, which says employers and unions must agree on which workers are essential and cannot legally strike. If the two sides disagree, the government gets the final say on who is an essential worker.
The law came as a result of a few high-profile labour strikes in Saskatchewan, including a strike by highway workers and correctional officers in late 2006 and early 2007.
Labour groups challenged this in 2008, and theRegina Court of Queen’s Bench ruled in favour of labour groups.
The PSESA was struck down as unconstitutional in 2012, with the court saying it impeded employees’ right to strike, which was protected under the Charter. The ruling was suspended and the government was given one year to amend the legislation.
The Saskatchewan Court of Appeal overturned the original ruling,so it was appealed to the Supreme Court, which has now reversed that appeal.
This ruling comes just two weeks after the Supreme Court’s landmark labour relations ruling in a case involving rank-and-file officers of the RCMP.
The Court overturned its own ruling from a case in the 1990s that barred Mounties from forming unions like federal public servants.
While the ruling did not explicitly state the RCMP members have the right to form a union, it essentially cleared the way for that possibility.
– with files from The Canadian Press