Thousands of Mali Youth and Women Demonstrate Against French Intervention
nsnbc international
June 4, 2013
France utilizes divisive tactics to maintain control over West African Mali
Abayomi Azikiwe (PAP),- France is continuing its occupation of northern Mali to the growing displeasure of youth who have staged a sit-in in the city of Gao. The young people, many of them women, believe that Paris is seeking to maintain its control over the region by pitting the Tuareg people against other nationalities inside the country.
On May 30 the youth of Gao accused France of favoring the Tuareg rebel movement, the National Movement for the Liberation of Azawad (MNLA), over other groups by not consulting broadly in regard to plans related to the future of the state. National elections are scheduled to be held in July and talks have already been held in neighboring Burkina Faso between various political parties.
The civilian government of President Amadou Toumani Toure was overthrown in a military coup on March 20, 2012. The engineer of the seizure of power was Capt. Amadou Sanogo who was trained in several military academies in the United States.
Photo via The 4th Media
During the protest in Gao people carried signs saying “No elections without trust,” and “Our thoughts are with the victims, not the killers.”
Much attention was focused on the northern city of Kidal where France appears to be operating in alliance with the MNLA in the occupation. Reports indicate that the Malian army has not been able to enter the city through an agreement between France and the MNLA.
One youth activist at the demonstration in Gao told Middle East online that”The banners, which were addressed to Francois Hollande, were saying ‘you liberated Mali from terrorists, now free Kidal, otherwise Mali is going to brutally divorce you’”. (May 30)
Despite this widespread notion that France played a positive role in driving out several Islamist organizations from several northern cities, criticism against Paris has escalated in recent months. Attacks on the French occupation have taken place within the press and among some Malian politicians who are accusing the occupation forces of working to extend their presence inside the country.
Gao was the first city that was attacked by the French military in January. Consequently, it is significant that the first mass demonstration was held there.
One of the organizers of the Gao demonstration, Moussa Boureima Yoro, said that ”We want to give France a heads-up and to tell them that they are allowing a situation to take place in Kidal that we do not understand. We want France to tell us what they are up to — because we are confused when they say on the one hand that Kidal is part of Mali, and at the same time, they act as if it doesn’t belong to Mali.”(Associated Press, May 30)
Humanitarian Crisis Worsens in Gao and Other Areas
Since the rebel campaign of the MNLA and other armed groups in the north of Mali, there have been hundreds of thousands of people who are internally displaced and forced into exile. Gao, which has a population of 70,000, has been severely impacted as well.
In the aftermath of the military coup, and the seizure of power by the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA) and Ansar Dine in several northern cities and towns, France utilized this internal political crisis as a rationale for intervention. Nonetheless, the social situation of the civilian population has deteriorated with the French invasion.
A recent United Nations report documents that there are serious issues that need addressing in Gao. For example, the access to clean drinking water is in serious decline.
An Inter-agency mission to Gao led by Aurelien Agbemonci, who is the coordinator for Malian humanitarian assistance from the United Nations, noted that it was imperative that the availability of drinking water be addressed. Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the UN Office for the Coordination for Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told the international press that available drinking water had fallen by 60 percent over the last few weeks. (United Nations News Service, May 28)
“Water is a main issue: some neighborhoods in Gao did not have water at all due to dysfunctional pumps and lack of electricity,” said Mr. Laerke. “Outside of the city, the situation is even worse because the Niger River was the only source of water and there were concerns about cholera outbreaks.”
In addition to problems involving access to clean drinking water, food is also in short supply. The UN says that only one-third of the population of Gao is being serviced with food distribution.
At present there are approximately 100 humanitarian organizations operating in Mali. According to the UN, the proposed budget of $410 million needed for humanitarian relief is only 29 percent funded.
Most of the schools in the cities of Gao, Timbuctu and Kidal are still not functioning. The conditions in areas outside the cities and towns are even more precarious due to the lack of security despite the presence of nearly 4,000 French troops as well as thousands of soldiers from Chad and other regional states.
With these problems continuing, it will be very difficult to organize credible national elections by the end of July. The UN reports that 174,000 Malians are living outside the country in neighboring states.
The UN is attempting to ensure that refugees will have an opportunity to participate in the upcoming elections. ”While details of the out-of-country electoral process are still being worked out, UNHCR is ready to facilitate the exercise by refugees of their right to vote,” said UNHCR spokesperson Adrian Edwards.
The bulk of Malian refugees are to be found in Mauritania with some 74,000 people being harbored. In Burkina Faso, it is reported that at least 50,000 have taken residence there and in Niger, another 50,000 have fled from the fighting and dislocation in northern Mali.
France Deepens Involvement in West Africa
Although France publicized its withdrawal of what it said was 2,000 troops from Mali during May, the occupation of the country will continue even into 2014. French defense ministry officials have said that at least 1,000 troops will remain after the conclusion of 2013 to serve as trainers for the Malian army and to work in conjunction with a UN peacekeeping force, numbering nearly 13,000 scheduled to take control of the country beginning on July 1.
The French National Assembly and Senate voted on April 22 to extend its occupation of Mali. There was no opposition to the plan by any political party within the legislative body. (Center for Research on Globalization, May 7)
When members of the Movement for Oneness and Jihad in West Africa(MUJWA) and the Signatories in Blood staged a joint attack in two locations within neighboring Niger against the French-owned Areva uranium mining facilities and the local military on May 23, France took the lead in so-called counter-insurgency operations. Over two dozen Niger troops were killed in the attacks which the government claims was organized from southern Libya.
Since the attacks on French interests in Niger, France has called for military operations in southern Libya to ostensibly prevent further attacks. The United States has also dispatched at least 100 Special Forces in Niger where it is establishing a drone station in the uranium-rich nation.
Despite the presence of French and U.S. forces in Niger, on June 1, an attack on a prison in the capital of Niamey resulted in the deaths of two guards and the wounding of 10 others. Reports indicate that inmates held in the facility are from the Boko Haram group that is operating in northern Nigeria as well as others designated as “terrorists” from throughout West Africa. (Daily News & Analysis, June 1)
Abayomi Azikiwe via Pan African Newswire and The 4th Media
Related articles:
12.500 UN Troops Deployed to Mali. France Offloads Its Neo-Imperialism to UN
UN-Reports indicate French Plot against Mali´s Military and Commander Sanogo
EU Stability Fund releases 20 Million to Mali for Joint European-African Economic Suicide
In depth background articles:
Neo-Colonialism, Subversion in Africa and Global Conflict
French Africa Policy Damages African and European Economies. Bleeding Africa and Feeding France. The Face of French Modo-Colonialism
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About the Author
Passwords to Surveillance
by Catherine J. Frompovich
Activist Post
June 6, 2013
Finally, some members of the U.S. Congress are waking up to what’s been going on right under their noses. Members of Congress are initiating oversight proceedings—why so late?—and the Senate Intelligence Committee is planning an investigation of the National Security Agency (NSA)[1] regarding the collection of individuals’ personal phone data.
Doesn’t that sound like something that would have taken place in the former Soviet Union or definitely in Nazi Germany, that is, if old Adolph would have had current technology? Instead of making Germany’s Jewish citizens wear their traditional six-pointed-star—actually interlocking triangles depicting “as above, so below”—Hitler would have targeted their every conversation, just like what’s going on now in the United States of America. Who would believe that really is going on in the USA?
Congress is to blame, in this writer’s opinion, because it has gone along with all the changes to the 2001 Patriot Act and certainly is not bridling all those Presidential Executive Orders (PEOs) citizens don’t know about—or care about—until they take effect. Please study all Mr. Obama’s PEOs.
Warning: Take a calming sedative before reading. Mr. Obama has issued over 150 PEOs since his very first PEO (#13489) dealing with Presidential Records secrecy the day after he was first inaugurated in 2009 to his most recent PEO Authorizing the Implementation of Certain Sanctions… issued June 3, 2013. In essence, what PEOs do is legally establish one-man-authoritarian-rule! A dictatorship, if and when a sitting president wants to invoke his ‘special’ privileges that he gave himself by issuing PEOs, while voters, the Congress, and the U.S. Supreme Court can’t do a damn thing about it. Did you know that?
If that’s the case, so why do we need Congress? Or even the U.S. Supreme Court? We certainly could save a lot of taxpayers’ money—and get closer to a balanced budget—by not having to pay those not-so-cheap-salaries plus pensions. Or, is that the ultimate plan for future change?
In view of how the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) was ramrodded down Congress’s collective throats, and how we now learn that it is not affordable at all, with healthcare insurance premiums for a family of five probably costing between $20,000 to $25,000 a year, shouldn’t everyone who breathes air be demanding change that Mr. Obama promised, e.g., like no more ‘sneaky Pete’ surprises from Congress, SCOTUS, or the Executive branch, i.e., the president. U.S. citizens deserve better, I think. How about you?
But wait! You haven’t heard how bad it gets. Thanks to WND’s columnist Andrea Shea King’s enlightening article “DHS Flags Tweets About ‘Militia’ But Not ‘Jihad’” we learn about what this writer terms “Passwords to Surveillance”[2]—certain words in Internet postings that are guaranteed to put the writer on the Department of Homeland Security’s surveillance list(s) as possible homeland terrorists.
According to the listing in King’s article, which I encourage you to read, this is how those selected ‘passwords’ or phrases break out:
Domestic Security includes 54 with such mundane words as recovery and drill. So, if you are writing an email telling your friend about your recovery from the drill bit accident you suffered, you have used two passwords to surveillance, i.e., recovery and drill.
Hazmat & Nuclear includes 35 words or phrases with such pedestrian words as cloud and burn.
Again, if you send an email to your sister telling her about your fantastic day spent at the beach being a cloudless day and that you suffered a nasty sun burn, you are now under DHS’s surveillance.
Health Concern & H1N1 has 38 words or phrases that will put everyone on DHS’s surveillance, in this writer’s opinion, because that list includes such words as pork, virus, flu, food poisoning, etc. Just imagine sharing this with your BFF: Boy, did I get a bad case of food poisoning from eating that pork barbecue sandwich we had for lunch today. At first I thought I was coming down with a virus or the flu until I went to the emergency room. Can you imagine being put on a watch list for those two sentences using 4 passwords to surveillance?
Even though we need terrorist-proof security, we also need common sense, something that seems to be lacking with the current administration and Congress, I think. If we are supposed to be protected from foreign terrorists, most of whom have been identified as Al-Qaeda associated, wouldn’t you think there would be some foreign language, Arabic-like, Farsi, or even Israeli words on that DHS “passwords to surveillance” lists? It’s not too hard to figure out what’s going on, but what do we do about it?
Sources:
[1] http://thehill.com/homenews/news/304075-congress-to-review-surveillance-laws
[2] http://www.wnd.com/2013/06/dhs-flags-tweets-about-militia-but-not-jihad/
Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies.
Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.
Catherine’s latest book, A Cancer Answer, Holistic BREAST Cancer Management, A Guide to Effective & Non-Toxic Treatments, is available on Amazon.com and as a Kindle eBook.
Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).
Why Does America Media Continue to Honour Henry Kissinger? [video included]
21st Century Wire says… It’s no surprise in 2013 to see the government media complex try it’s very best to preserve the delicate legacies of lauded members of the political establishment.
Look how much effort was poured into the media eulogies for Margaret Thatcher recently, only to see the whole facade come crashing down against the real weight of public opinion and negative feelings towards the iconic Iron Lady. In the end, even the all-powerful media could not hide her affinity with international friends like General Pinochet and Pol Pot.
In the American political theater, media treatment of men or women who are considered ‘political institutions’ tends to be much more vain and sycophantic, where junior anchors and talk show hosts will generally fall over backwards to secure 15 minutes with any such veteran, even a war criminal like Henry Kissinger.
PHOTO: Kindred spirits, always on the same page when it came to feeding the global war machine.
Kissinger is widely regarded by most well-read people worldwide as the mascot for carpet bombing in Southeast Asia, regime change and last but not least – US domestic policy manipulation. You could say was the forerunner to the GW Bush era of making the illegal seem legal, and making the immoral seem moral. Although he regards himself as an American, it is rather disturbing to know that a US Administration – Nikon’s in this case, would allow someone with dual nationalist loyalties and who was not born in the US, to sit in one of the most important seats in Washington DC. There was a reason why he was inserted into that role at that specific time in history. America is still living with the repercussions of that oversight today.
Whether it’s the Bilderberg Group, Bohemian Grove, the Trilateral Commission, or the Council on Foreign Relations, Henry Kissinger has always been placed in the key steering positions in order to exact certain outcomes for those whom he really works for. Still, hopeless career media pundits will continue to paint him as an foreign policy guru, but the reality is that he was simply better at manipulating and politically blackmailing those around him than the next man.
VIDEO: Here, BBC career talking head Jeremy Paxman’s idea of a tough interview
Again, and like with his good friend Lady Thatcher, Henry Kissinger’s legacy will not be easy to contain within a few clever memes like, ‘foreign policy genius’ or ‘skilled diplomat’, and no matter what agit prop the media try to erect, there will be celebrations after the fact…
…
America Keeps Honoring One of Its Worst Mass Murderers: Henry Kissinger
Alternet
Henry Kissinger’s quote recently released by Wikileaks,”the illegal we do immediately; the unconstitutional takes a little longer”, likely brought a smile to his legions of elite media, government, corporate and high society admirers. Oh that Henry! That rapier wit! That trademark insouciance! That naughtiness! It is unlikely, however, that the descendants of his more than 6 million victims in Indochina, and Americans of conscience appalled by his murder of non-Americans, will share in the amusement. For his illegal and unconstitutional actions had real-world consequences: the ruined lives of millions of Indochinese innocents in a new form of secret, automated, amoral U.S. Executive warfare which haunts the world until today.
And his conduct raises even more fundamental questions: to what extent can leaders who act secretly ,illegally and unconstitutionally, lying to their citizenry and legislature as a matter of course, legitimately claim to represent their people? How much allegiance do citizens owe such leaders? And what does it say about America’s elites that they have honored a man with so much innocent blood on his hands for the past 40 years?
Mr. Kissinger’s most significant historical act was executing Richard Nixon’s orders to conduct the most massive bombing campaign, largely of civilian targets, in world history. He dropped 3.7 million tons of bombs** between January 1969 and January 1973 – nearly twice the two million dropped on all of Europe and the Pacific in World War II. He secretly and illegally devastated villages throughout areas of Cambodia inhabited by a U.S. Embassy-estimated two million people; quadrupled the bombing of Laos and laid waste to the 700-year old civilization on the Plain of Jars; and struck civilian targets throughout North Vietnam – Haiphong harbor, dikes, cities, Bach Mai Hospital – which even Lyndon Johnson had avoided. His aerial slaughter helped kill, wound or make homeless an officially-estimated six million human beings**, mostly civilians who posed no threat whatsoever to U.S. national security and had committed no offense against it.
There is a word for the aerial mass murder that Henry Kissinger committed in Indochina, and that word is “evil”. The figure most identified with this word today is Adolph Hitler, and his evil was so unspeakable that the term is by now identified with him. But that is precisely why it is important to understand the new face of evil and moral depravity that Henry Kissinger represents. For evil not only comes in the form of madmen dreaming of 1000 year Reichs. In fact, in our day, it is more likely to be committed by sane, genial and ordinary careerists waging invisible automated war in far-off lands against people whose screams we never hear, whose faces we never see, and whose deaths go unrecorded and unnoticed. It is critical to understand this new face of evil, for it threatens not only countless foreigners but Americans in coming years. And no one has embodied it more than Henry Kissinger.
The planes he dispatched came by day. They came by night. Remorseless. Pitiless. Relentless. Day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year. Most of the people below had no idea where the bombers came from, why their lives had been turned into a living hell. The movie “War of the Worlds”, in which Americans are incomprehensibly slaughtered by machines is the closest depiction of what the innocent rice-farmers of Indochina experienced.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent human beings in Laos, Cambodia and Vietnam were forced to live in holes and caves, like animals. Many tens of thousands were burned alive by the bombs, slowly dying in agony. Others were buried alive, as they gradually suffocated to death when a 500 pound bomb exploded nearby. Most were victims of antipersonnel bombs designed primarily to maim not kill, many of the survivors carrying the metal, jagged or plastic pellets in their bodies for the rest of their lives.
Fathers like 38-year old Thao Vong were suddenly blinded or crippled for life as they lost an arm or leg, made helpless, unable to support their families, becoming dependent on others just to stay alive. Children were struck, lying out in the open, screaming, villagers unable to come to their aid for fear of being killed themselves. No one was spared – neither sweet, loving grandmothers nor lovely young women, neither laughing, innocent children nor nursing or pregnant mothers, not water buffalo needed to farm not the shrines where people had for centuries honored their ancestors and hoped one day to be honored themselves.
A farmer on the Plain of Jars in northern Laos wrote of being bombed by the U.S. in 1969 that “every day and every night the planes came to drop bombs on us. We lived in holes to protect our lives. I saw my cousin die in the field of death. My heart was most disturbed and my voice called out loudly as I ran to the houses. Thus, I saw life and death for the people on account of the war of many airplanes in the region of the Plain of Jars. Until there were no houses at all. And the cows and buffalo were dead. Until everything was leveled and you could see only the red, red ground.”
A 30-year old mother wrote that “at that time, our lives became like those of animals desperately trying to escape their hunters. Our lives were confided to the Lord Buddha. No matter when, all we did was to pray to the Lord to save our lives.”
A 39 year old rice-farmer wrote of the aftermath of a bombing raid: “The other villagers and I got together to consider this thing. We hadn’t done anything, nor harmed anyone. We had raised our crops, celebrated the festivals and maintained our homes for many years. Why did the planes drop bombs on us, impoverishing us this way?”
Mr. Kissinger exulted to President Nixon over this bombing, telling him that “it’s wave after wave of planes. You see, they can’t see the B-52 and they dropped a million pounds of bombs … I bet you we will have had more planes over there in one day than Johnson had in a month … each plane can carry about 10 times the load of World War II plane could carry.”
Although Mr. Kissinger claimed he was only bombing enemy troops, guerrilla soldiers were largely undetectable from the air. Investigating the bombing of northern Laos, the U.S. Senate Refugee Subcommittee concluded that “the United States has undertaken a large-scale air war over Laos to destroy the physical and social infrastructure in Pathet Lao (i.e., guerrilla) areas. Throughout all this there has been a policy of secrecy. The bombing has taken and is taking a heavy toll among civilians.” These words apply to Mr. Kissinger’s bombing throughout Indochina. The villagers of Indochina were not “collateral damage”. They were the target.
Those who praise Mr. Kissinger for the opening to China but ignore his mass murder in Indochina shame human decency itself. By honoring Mr. Kissinger they dishonor themselves. And they are also blind to the careerist “Executive Branch mentality” he embodied, which poses a clear and present a danger to foreigners and Americans alike today. Adolph Hitler dreamed of conquering and Stalin of communizing the world. Mr. Kissinger destroyed millions of lives primarily to further his career by preventing a communist takeover while he held office. And it is this kind of institutional, bureaucratic mentality, combined with new machines of secret war, which threatens the humanity today far more than the crazed ideologies of the past.
In the end Mr. Kissinger failed, as the communists took over Indochina in the spring of 1975…
Iron-Rich Diet Found to Reduce PMS Symptoms by up to 40%
by Elizabeth Renter
Natural Society
June 2, 2013
Pre-menstrual syndrome (PMS) is a monthly occurrence for many women. The cramping, migraines, lethargy, and moodiness can range from an inconvenience to incapacitating for some. For many women, prescription medications are their only solution – or so they think. However, scientists with the University of Massachusetts Amherst School of Public Health and Health Services and Harvard have recently found that women with a diet rich in iron are far less likely to suffer from the symptoms of PMS.
Women: Increase Iron Intake, Reduce Symptoms of Pre-Menstrual Syndrome
For the study, which was published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, researchers studied 3,000 women between the ages of 25 and 42, assessing their mineral intake through food questionnaires for 10 years. Less than half were diagnosed with PMS at the study’s completion, and 1,968 were free from the syndrome.
After accounting for calcium intake and other factors that could influence their symptoms, scientists found that those who ate a diet rich in iron were 30 to 40% less likely to develop PMS. Even more exciting is which foods that iron came from.
According to senior author of the study Elizabeth Bertone-Johnson:
“We found that women who consumed the most non-heme iron, the form found primarily in plant foods and supplements, had a 30 to 40 percent lower risk of developing PMS than women who consumed the lowest amount of non-heme iron.”
This is significant because most individuals immediately think of animal products when iron comes to mind.
Related Read: 6 Home Remedies for Menstrual Cramps
Additionally, the researchers found that those with a higher intake of zinc were also at a reduced risk of PMS. Zinc is another mineral that can easily be obtained from plant-based sources.
“Our findings need to be replicated in other studies. However, women at risk for PMS should make sure they are meeting the RDA for non-heme iron and zinc,” concluded Bertone-Johnson.
Plant based iron sources include foods like lentils, spinach, quinoa, non-GMO soybeans, swiss chard, and black beans. Zinc can be found in pumpkin seeds, rolled oats, chia seeds, and cocoa powder.
Because the research was done on women before and following the onset of menstruation, it also serves as a good reminder to parents: feed your daughters well and ensure you are including healthy sources of iron and zinc.
Additional Sources:
VIDEO — The AP Spying Story: What You Aren’t Being Told
The Eyeopener
May 28, 2013
In recent weeks we have been told to focus on a series of scandals which, we are told, are rocking the Obama Administration. Has the media finally found outrage over the Obama regime’s use of drone strikes to kill scores of innocent women and children in countries that are not even at war with the United States? Or the DOJ’s recent admission that the strikes had indeed killed American citizens? Or John Kerry’s recent attempts to once again lead the American public into supporting military intervention in the Middle East based on provably false claims of WMD?
Of course not. No, the media’s sudden discovery of outrage is directed at an entirely different scandal: the fact that reporters have now allegedly found themselves in the government’s crosshairs.
Find out more about the real scandal behind the AP spying story in this weeks edition of The Eyeopener from BoilingFrogsPost.com
TRANSCRIPT AND SOURCES: http://www.corbettreport.com/?p=7416
Modeled After a Trough: Burger King Reveals Hands-Free Way to Eat
by Susanne Posel
Occupy Corporatism
May 31, 2013
In Puerto Rico, Burger King customers have been given the opportunity to be the first to wear the Burger King hand-free Whopper holders. The plastic holder fits around the neck and places the Whopper close to the mouth, allowing the wearer to eat while continuing about their day.
In a promotional video produced by Burger King, a myriad of people from all walks of life are wearing the “trough” around the neck and eating while riding a bike, playing guitar, typing on a keyboard, massaging a topless woman on a beach and a young girl painting her nails.
Conflicting reports state that although the Whopper holders were scheduled to be distributed in Puerto Rico it is not clearly stated that this is a new product offered by the fast food chain.
Fifty of the troughs were handed out in Puerto Rico to members of the loyalty program.
This is copyrighted original work published by Susanne Posel and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License. Original work can be viewed at www.occupycorporatism.com. Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available upon direct email or written request Click Here for more information on extended permissions and contact information of original author.
VIDEO — “The Final American Revolution”.. Adam Kokesh on the End of America
YouTube — Anthony Antonello
May 27, 2013
Adam Kokesh does his first interview since being released from Federal custody with Anthony Antonello. Adam and Anthony talk extensively about the future of the America, the ‘freedom movement”, the open carry march he has called for and what he thinks about the U.S. Constitution and his thoughts on the American experiment.
PN 