blog of the post capitalist transition.. Read or download the novel here + latest relevant posts
I didn’t plan to take my child to the ghost city. We went there spontaneously, on our way to the beach. We were in Greece, on the island of Kythira, and we’d been driving along a road when I saw the sign for Paleochora and I hit the brakes. I knew the legend of place […]
Maternal Vertigo: Molly Lynch on Chaos, Childcare, and Civilizational Collapse
Human Wrongs Watch By Helle Abelvik-Lawson | Greenpeace* The Rana Plaza factory collapse in 2013 sparked a call for change in the global fashion industry. But 10 years on, more than 100 billion clothes a year are made – mostly from oil turned into polyester – by people working in dangerous conditions. This is fast […]
How Fast Fashion Fuels Climate Change, Plastic Pollution, and Violence
If the country hadn’t been destroyed in the bombings of 2011, the dams would by now have been completely rebuilt.
//from thefreeonline on 25th Sept 2024 by @evakbartlett at RTAfrica. illustrations, links added.
Just over a decade ago, Libya was in the news, with Western leadership celebrating the murder of Muammar Gaddafi, following a months-long NATO bombing campaign, all in the name of protecting the Libyan people.
Now, the destroyed North-African country is back in the news after a devastating hurricane and flooding.
Hurricane Daniel hit northeastern Libya on September 10. Subsequent extreme flooding has caused the deaths of a reported 3,252 people, according to Libya’s health ministry as of September 17, with the UN reporting that almost three times more may have died.
Following the collapse of two dams, the city of Derna bore the brunt of the disaster. Another 40,000 people are reportedly displaced.
The rich Libyan welfare State was a world renowned master builder of giant water installations. We can be certain that Derna would not have been left below 2 small earthenware dams. Indeed after the NATO “humanitarian” bombing campaign contracts to rebuild the dams were cancelled due to chaos under rival NATO instigated terrorist gangs
People walk past the body of a flash flood victim in Derna, eastern Libya, on September 11, 2023 AP
Many of the same Western leaders who brought about Libya’s demise are now feigning concern for the people of the country they destroyed in 2011, and where they set the stage for an ensuing decade of chaos. Most notable is Barack Obama, whose foundation is raising money for Libya relief efforts.
That’s very benevolent of him – might not have been necessary if NATO hadn’t destroyed its infrastructure. It was, after all, Obama’s then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who cackled gleefully, “We came, we saw, he died,” of the sodomizing and killing of Gaddafi.
Only Western leadership and corporate media would have the audacity to not only pretend the 2011 bombing campaign never happened, but to blame Libya for the rupture of the dams near Derna.
see also.. Map: NATO attacks on Libyan cities | Infographic News | Al Jazeera.
The Washington Post did just that, stating, “The volatility of recent years meant the country’s separate regimes and their feckless officials have left critical infrastructure in a state of neglect.” This included the dams, which, it wrote, experts warned could soon fail.
While it did briefly mention the extended NATO bombing of Libya, the thrust of its article was to absolve NATO nations of responsibility.
Derna street scene 2023
More honest reporting in Media Lens pointed out that those dams in 2007 began undergoing maintenance—which was interrupted precisely due to the West’s so-called humanitarian intervention.
“These dams were built in the 1970s to protect the local population. A Turkish firm had been contracted in 2007 to maintain the dams. This work stopped after NATO’s 2011 bombing campaign. The Turkish firm left the country, their machinery was stolen and all work on the dams ended.”
The same article highlighted what nearly all Western corporate media obfuscated: That, prior to NATO’s war against Libya, it had been “one of Africa’s most advanced countries for health care and education,” which it ceased to be when NATO destroyed it.
Sputnik – 24.09.2023 France is recalling French Ambassador to Niger Sylvain Itte, all staff of the French Embassy, and all French troops in the West African country, President Emmanuel Macron said on Sunday. «The Ambassador in Niamey, as well as all staff of the embassy, will return to France in the coming weeks or months,» […]
Macron Recalling Ambassador to Niger, French Embassy’s Staff, Troops
Israeli occupation forces shot, on Sunday, a number of Palestinians, including children, with live rounds and tear gas canisters, and caused dozens more to suffer the toxic effects of tear gas inhalation, along the separation fence, on the eastern border of Gaza, according to local sources. Hundreds of Palestinian young men and teens, gathered near […]
Israeli Army Shoots Six Palestinians, Including Two Children, in the Gaza Strip
The court’s decision will weigh heavily as Brazil’s Senate considers Rightwing legislation to limit new Indigenous reservations.
from thefreeonline on 24th Sept 2023 by Al Jazeera
Brazil’s Supreme Court has ruled in favour of Indigenous rights in a landmark case that weighed the constitutionality of establishing a time limit for making claims to ancestral territory.
Nine of the court’s 11 justices voted to strike down what is called the “marco temporal” or “time frame” argument, a legal policy supported by businesses and farmers seeking to use Indigenous land.
The “marco temporal” would have forced Indigenous groups to prove they were on the land in question in 1988, when Brazil’s current constitution was ratified, in order to assert a right to the territory.
But that argument faced widespread criticism from Indigenous peoples, human rights organisations and even experts at the United Nations, who argued it could “legalise theft of Indigenous lands”.
Thursday’s Supreme Court decision was heralded as a victory for those groups, some of which took to social media to celebrate.
Continue reading “Brazil’s top court rules in favour of Indigenous rights in land claim case”
The Free 