Barack Obama 182 days in office

In the course of electioneering, Barack Obama massively exaggerated his intentions. He played on hope, built expectations, and was destined to disappoint. As a president he presents himself as mindful that his predecessors have left him a considerable agenda. He is faced with formidable opposition to almost everything that he sets out to do, he needs to act tough and make enemies for the sake of the principles he claims to uphold. He needs to carry his public goodwill to shore up his reforms, push through a second stimulus package if needed, ensure that healthcare reform is anything like the plans he speaks of, leave Iraq and stand-up to Israel.

His actions belie his rhetoric. For all the plentiful ‘tough talk’ there have been few strong actions. He fudges issues and fails to deliver his promises. For those that think that his policy half-measures are better than nothing, please bear in mind that an insufficient stimulus package and half-baked heathcare reform could well prove counter productive. Critics of the plans will be able to say, “we tried them once and they didn’t work. Now you want more money? Why throw good money after bad?”

The highlights of his presidency have been the reversal of Bush’s restrictions on federal funding for embryonic stem cell research, his easing of restrictions on Cuba, and the change of rhetoric on many issues. With the exception of providing government funding for stem cell research, his achievements are easily exaggerated. His presidency has been characterised by morally deplorable foreign policy, compromises that please nobody and competent public relations management in the face of a largely servile media. (When Obama is criticised by the media, it tends to be on insignificant or spurious grounds).

In regards to the change in rhetoric, little else has changed. During his presidential inauguration speech Barack Obama said, “America is a friend of each nation and every man, woman and child who seeks a future of peace and dignity, and we are ready to lead once more.” This is nonsense. America is a friend to its client states and an enemy to those that get in the way.

Obama has proclaimed his commitment “to governments that reflect the will of the people” and of ‘democracy promotion’. Indeed, Obama called for increased investment in ‘democracy promotion’ in Latin America. As it turns out, those investments were to do the opposite of what he claimed they were to do. Democracy promotion funding has been used to support a military coup d'état in Honduras, which overthrew a democratically elected president with a progressive agenda.

The money for democracy promotion funds the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) and United States Agency for International Development (USAID). These agencies heavily funded the various organisations that formed Democratic Civil Union of Honduras.

Its [Democratic Civil Union of Honduras] only objective was to oust President Zelaya from power in order to impede the future possibility of a constitutional convention to reform the constitution, which would allow the people a voice and a role in their political process.

Despite apparent ‘condemnation’ through careful description of the coup as “not legal”, Obama has tacitly supported the coup d'état and the coup government financially and militarily. When Obama talks about ‘difficult’ issues his speech is laden with considerable obfuscation. All too often it is what he deliberately omits the objectionable truths. Obama has not acknowledged the coup d'état as a coup d'état for fear of forcing his own hand.

Obama has portrayed himself as being tough on Israel. He told Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, “settlements have to be stopped”. Yet Obama has done nothing about the continued expansion of settlements. America continues to fund the Israeli government. The U.S. has plenty of leverage over the Israel and there is historical precedence in using it. For example, during his presidency George H. W. Bush (by no means the most progressive president) suspended loan guarantees to Israel because of settlement expansion. Obama chooses to do nothing.

When discussing America's 'new' approach to counterterrorism Obama said, “America's moral example must be the bedrock and the beacon of our global leadership”. Yet extraordinary rendition continues unabated. The “historic consensus” on significantly cutting carbon is a cynical exercise in greenwashing. It is full of loopholes and too long term to really effect Obama’s presidency. The planned departure of US troops from Iraq is a weak line of action that comes up short. It is an unquestionable fudge.

Obama has eased restrictions on Cuba and said that he seeks “an equal partnership”. These changes are, as Fidel Castro rightly considered them, "positive although minimal". The U.S. trade embargo against Cuba is still in place. The U.S. continues to punish Cuba by keeping in place this hangover from the Cold War whilst continuing to support dictators and aggressive regimes that it views favourably. A global superpower continuing to undermine small island is not grounds for an equal partnership.

The actions of the Obama administration expose Obama for the largely unprincipled and wilfully deceptive man he is. In the light of the military coup d'état in Honduras Hugo Chavez addressed Obama via Venezuelan state television. He said, "don't deceive the world with a discourse that contradicts your actions". Fat chance

Update

I should have included the reckless killing of civilians in Afghanistan and the failure to reform the financial sector too.

Military Coup in Honduras & the role of the U.S.

On Sunday, June 28, approximately 200 members of the Honduran military surrounded the presidential palace and forced the democratically elected president, Manuel Zelaya, into custody and then flew him to Costa Rica. In the days following, the role of the U.S. has become clearer - this coup was U.S. supported.

School of Americas Watch reported at the time:

The Honduran state television was taken off the air. The electricity supply to the capital Tegucigalpa, as well telephone and cellphone lines were cut. [… T]he people of Honduras are going into the streets, in spite of the fact that the streets are militarized. From Costa Rica, President Zelaya has called for a non-violent response from the people of Honduras, and for international solidarity for the Honduran democracy.

Richard Gott explains that:

Manuel Zelaya, president since 2006, is an improbable revolutionary. A wealthy landowner with timber and cattle interests, he was the candidate of the Liberal party, one of the two traditional parties of the Honduras oligarchy that have controlled the country's political system for most of the past century, with a sizeable input from the armed forces. Foreign journalists of a certain generation have a vivid memory of Honduras in the 1980s when the country was a military base, organised and funded by the United States, for the operations of the "contras", the paramilitary forces that invented a civil war against the Sandinista government in neighbouring Nicaragua. … [ F]ew of those who voted at the elections in November 2005 imagined that Zelaya would embark on a programme of radical change. He won with only a slim majority over his rivals.

The official tenuous justification for the military coup d'état is that Zelaya was to hold a referendum to extend presidential terms beyond a single four-year term. This, it is argued, would be unconstitutional. Yet constitutional amendments are not uncommon, between the year of its approval, 1982, and 2005, the only years that it was not amended were 1983 and 1992. The constitution itself was approved during a period of heavy U.S. interference.

The genuine motivation for the coup d'état is that Zelaya allied Honduras with the Bolivarian Alliance for the People of Our America (ALBA) - an alternative to Free Trade Area of the Americas. The U.S. feared that Honduras could turn into a 'pacifist state', at the cost of a U.S. miltary base, as happened in Ecuador.

Zelaya, always dark-suited, cuts a strange figure alongside such fiery radicals as Evo Morales of Bolivia and Rafael Correa of Ecuador, not to mention Raúl Castro. Yet in his small country of 7 million people, he has sought to introduce a range of social programmes, including a minimum wage, and to mobilise the poor majority. His success has been sufficient to summon up a violent challenge from the traditional elite before it is too late.

The subsequent period has been characterised by protests, military suppression, the interim president Roberto Micheletti forming a new cabinet, former cabinet misters going into hiding, and the poor fearing sanctions and greater economic hardship.

On July 6th the Honduran military blocked Zelaya’s planned return to Honduras and fired tear gas and live ammunition on protesters, who had initially intended to welcome the Zelaya’s. Estimates regarding injuries and deaths vary slightly.

This event was also captured by photojournalist James Rodriguez.

Despite ‘tough talk’ from Barack Obama, some have questioned whether the Obama administration is as opposed to the coup against Zelaya as it should be.

While the Obama administration have said that the coup is illegal and that Zelaya remains the only legitimate President of Honduras there has also been some vagueness. Unlike the ALBA governments the US has not recalled its ambassador from Honduras or refused to recognise the new government. US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton, when asked at a press conference if the US commitment to a return to democratic and constitutional practices in Honduras meant the restoration of Zelaya to office, gave no clear answer. It’s possible that the Obama administration’s attitude to Zelaya is ambiguous, or alternatively that it’s attempting to avoid handing ammunition to right wingers (including some Democrats) in the US congress who consider Chavez and Zelaya to be ‘dictators’ and enemies of the US or who want to revive the Free Trade Area of the Americas. It may even be, as Hugo Chavez has suggested, that Obama opposed the coup but other elements in the US government, military and intelligence agencies backed it

However Honduras’ military remains heavily US armed, funded and trained (there are even 300 US troops permanently based in the country) and it seems likely that if the Obama administration really wanted to restore democracy in Honduras it would only need to suspend all military aid and arms sales until Zelaya was restored to power. Many of the officers involved in the coup were trained at the notorious US School of the Americas in the 1980s and 1990s, including the main leader of the coup, General Romeo Vásquez Velasquez. Latin American History professor Greg Grandin says that “The Honduran military is effectively a subsidiary of the United States government. Honduras, as a whole, if any Latin American country is fully owned by the United States, it’s Honduras....Its economy is wholly based on trade, foreign aid and remittances. So if the US is opposed to this coup going forward, it won’t go forward. Zelaya will return.”

Since Duncan McFarlane’s post (quoted above), more evidence has come to light of U.S. interference. Eva Golinger reports that

Things are getting worse each day inside Honduras. Over the weekend, two well-known social leaders were assassinated by the coup forces. Roger Bados leader of the Bloque Popular & the National Resistance Front against the coup d'etat, was killed in the northern city of San Pedro Sula. Approximately at 8pm on Saturday evening, Bados was assassinated, killed immediately by three gun shots. Bados was also a member of the leftist party, Democratic Unity (Unificación Democrática) and was president of a union representing workers in a cement factory. His death was denounced as part of the ambience and repressive actions taken by the coup government to silence all dissent.

Ramon Garcia, another social leader in Honduras, was also killed on Saturday evening by military forces who boarded a bus he was riding in Santa Barbara and forced him off, subsequently shooting him and wounding his sister. […]

Meanwhile, the coup government has hired top-notch Democrat lobbyists in Washington to make their case before Congress and the White House and convince the US people to recognize them as a legitimate government. The New York Times has confirmed that Clinton lobbyist Lanny Davis, former Special Counsel for President Bill Clinton from 1996-1998, and close advisor to Hillary's campaign for president last year, has been hired by the Latin American Business Council - an ultraconservative group of Latin American businesses - to represent the coup leaders in the U.S.

In a more recent report several key facts have been established

• The Department of State had prior knowledge of the coup.
• The Department of State and the US Congress funded and advised the actors and organizations in Honduras that participated in the coup.
• The Pentagon trained, schooled, commanded, funded, and armed the Honduran armed forces that perpetrated the coup and that continue to repress the people of Honduras by force.
• The US military presence in Honduras, which occupies the Soto Cano (Palmerola) military base, authorized the coup d'etat through its tacit complicity and refusal to withdraw its support of the Honduran military involved in the coup.
• The US Ambassador in Tegucigalpa, Hugo Llorens, coordinated the removal from power of President Manuel Zelaya, together with Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Shannon and John Negroponte, who presently works as an advisor to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
• The Department of State has refused to legally classify the events in Honduras as a "coup d'etat," nor has it suspended or frozen its economic aid or commerce to Honduras, and has taken no measures to effectively pressure the de facto regime.
• Washington manipulated the Organization of American States (OAS) in order to buy time, therefore allowing the coup regime to consolidate and weaken the possibility of President Zelaya's immediate return to power, as part of a strategy still in place that simply seeks to legitimate the de facto regime and wear down the Honduran people that still resist the coup.
• The strategy of "negotiating" with the coup regime was imposed by the Obama administration as a way of discrediting President Zelaya - blaming him for provoking the coup - and legitimizing the coup leaders.

Dr George Tiller shot dead at church

Feministe

“He put the health of women above his own life. And now he is dead.”

Al Jazeera

George Tiller, 67, long a focus of national anti-abortion groups, was killed while serving as an usher at the Reformation Lutheran Church in Wichita.

Tiller had been attacked several times in the past, and protests had been held outside his Wichita clinic.

In 1985, his practice was bombed, and in 1993 he was shot in the arms.

The Guardian

A man, identified after his arrest as Scott Roeder, 51, allegedly walked up to Tiller as he stood alongside three or four others and aimed a gun at his head. He shot once.

Jill Filipovic - The Guardian

[Tiller] was also a major lightening-rod in the abortion wars. Anti-choicers harassed his patients, day in and day out. They bombed his clinic. They shot him once before. They filed lawsuit after lawsuit and even convinced local prosecutors to launch criminal investigations and trials (none were successful). They published his home address and the full names of his family members on their websites. They posted information about anyone who did business with him, from where he got his coffee to where he did his dry cleaning.

They had him and his staff wearing bullet-proof vests to work every day. Tiller drove an armoured car and protected his home with a state-of-the-art security system. And, to better enable stalking and harassment, they posted his daily comings and goings – including the fact that he attended services every Sunday at Reformation Lutheran Church, the place where he was ultimately shot and killed.

All because he was a licensed physician who performed legal medical procedures.

In life, Dr. Tiller was one of three doctors in the US who, under certain circumstances, provided abortions to women after 20 weeks of pregnancy. His death means that women have fewer options in such cases – if any at all. This will most greatly affect those in the central United States, particularly the poor.

It would be easier to insult anti-choice/pro-lifers by calling them ‘backwards’ and ‘stupid’, which many will, rather than to face the real culprits. Bigotry is often born of ignorance and misinformation. The spread of bigotry through misinformation lies at the feet of those in power, the media, politicians, religious leaders, & the masses. We each played a role in what lead to Dr Tiller, a brave and admirable man committed to women in need, being shot at his church in front of his family and friends.

The media spread misinformation. Bill O'Reilly might well be a ‘straw-man’ but he is popular with great influence, his making Tiller a cause célèbre and the crass deceitful manner in which he did so means that Bill O'Reilly has Dr. George Tiller's blood on his well-stained hands. Fox news is a dangerous propaganda tool for far-right authoritarian extremists.

Politicians that use carefully selected expressions help little. Abortion is all too often described as a 'difficult' issue when in many cases it is not. Incest provides an example that few can argue against. Situations in which the life and health of the mother or potential child are at severe risk provides another. Yet there are many who see no merit in abortion in even these circumstances.

Lest we forget that the 'South Dakota Women’s Health and Human Life Protection Act (HB 1215)' was signed into Law by South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds on March 6, 2006. Although it did not manage to come into effect, it sought to establish that "life begins at the time of conception" and to ban all abortions with the only exemption being physicians who perform the procedure when "designed or intended to prevent the death of a pregnant mother". Doctors who performed abortions on the basis of rape, incest, ill-health (but not likely death), terrible birth defects or a woman's right to chose, would be liable for murder charges.

Below is just one example of Bill O’Rielly’s criticism of Dr George Tiller.

He conflates aborting foetuses with killing babies, and he accuses Tiller of, ‘killing babies’ ‘for just about any reason’, performing ‘thousands of late term abortions’, of being ‘a doctor who will terminate a pregnancy at anytime’.

He accuses abortion clinics of protecting child rapists. He asks his interviewee whether she is ‘okay with rapists walking around the street?’ He accuses her of tacitly supporting ‘babies to be killed and rapists of 10 year olds to get away with it’.

The media’s misinformation, misrepresentation and emotive rhetoric fuels anti-choice/pro-life pressure groups. As Jill Filipovic wrote in The Guardian:

[I]f you yell "Murderer!" "Baby-Killer!" and "Holocaust!" long enough, it's reasonably foreseeable that someone will take it upon themselves to make sure that vigilante justice is done (especially if you provide the name and address of the person who you claim is committing "genocide").

Netanyahu says that West Bank settlements are to expand.

News that manages to be both unsurprising and almost unbelievable. The West Bank settlements, which are considered illegal under international law, are to expand.

"I have no intention to construct new settlements," Binyamin Netanyahu was quoted by officials as telling his cabinet on Sunday.

"... but it makes no sense to ask us not to answer to the needs of natural growth and to stop all construction," he added.

Whereas Obama said to Netanyahu just days earlier …



As for Netanyahu vowing to remove makeshift outposts in the West Bank that the Israeli government itself considers illegal …

In defence of Stephen Fry

I would like to defend Stephen Fry for dismissing MPs' expenses row.

The major issues are what elections should be decided on. Perhaps he overstated the case, but he is neither a politician nor a journalist. He did not seek a platform to express his views. He was interrupted and responded off the top of his head.

I have no complaints with investigating sleaze – what does bother me is that the story eclipses all others. The intense focus on expenses is particularly myopic parochialism. Other stories are overlooked – but who cares about oppression in Burma, or that innocent people were killed in Afghanistan, or that the people protested about it.

UPDATE
For an interesting “let’s get MPs’ expenses in perspective” post see Between the Hammer and the Anvil.

United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza

* If you were directed to this post by CNN, please read 'CNN & United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza'.

A UN investigation, which looked only at deaths, injuries and damage at UN sites in Gaza during the three-week conflict, found that Israel was responsible for at least seven attacks on UN operations. The UN report comes in the wake of an Israeli internal investigation that concluded that the during the Gaza offensive the army ‘maintained a high professional and moral level’.The full 184-page investigation report by the UN board of inquiry has not been made public, press reports are based on a 23-page summary. 

Al Jazeera - 'UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks'

The UN report, commissioned by Ban Ki-Moon, the UN secretary-general, said the Israeli military intentionally fired at UN facilities and civilians hiding in them during the war and used disproportionate force. […]

A total of 53 installations used by the United Nations Relief and Works agency (UNRWA) were damaged or destroyed during Israel's Gaza campaign, including 37 schools - six of which were being used as emergency shelters - six health centres, and two warehouses, the UN agency said. […]

Israel's 22-day war on Gaza left more than 1,400 Palestinians dead, including around 400 children, Gaza health officials said, along with 13 Israelis. […]

It also said one of the incidents, when a World Food Programme warehouse in the Karni industrial zone in Gaza was damaged, was largely caused by a rocket "most likely" fired by Hamas or another Palestinian faction and condemned those responsible for using such "indiscriminate weapons" to cause deaths and injuries.

The Guardian - 'UN report accuses Israeli military of negligence in Gaza war'

[The report summary] said: "The board concluded that IDF [Israeli Defence Force] actions involved varying degrees of negligence or recklessness with regard to United Nations premises and to the safety of United Nations staff and other civilians within those premises, with consequent deaths, injuries, and extensive physical damage and loss of property." […]

Israel's foreign ministry attempted to pre-empt the report today, saying the Israeli military had already investigated its own conduct during the war and "proved beyond doubt" that it did not fire intentionally at UN buildings. It dismissed the UN inquiry.

"The state of Israel rejects the criticism in the committee's summary report, and determines that in both spirit and language the report is tendentious, patently biased, and ignores the facts presented to the committee," the foreign ministry said in a statement.

It said the inquiry had "preferred the claims of Hamas, a murderous terror organisation, and by doing so has misled the world".

Unfortunately, secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, refuses to act on the 11th recommendation of the report, which calls for an “impartial inquiry mandated, and adequately resourced, to investigate allegations of violations of international humanitarian law". This would require Israeli cooperation and would be harder for Israel to dismiss. However, such an enquiry into human rights abuses is seemingly deemed impolitic by Ban Ki-moon.

The UN inquiry into the Israeli war in Gaza comes in the wake of another recent UN report that is critical of Israel’s actions in Palestine; it calls for Israel to “end Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem”. UN Radio – ‘End Palestinian demolitions in Jerusalem, UN tells Israel’

Of the 70 square kilometers of east Jerusalem and the West Bank annexed by Israel, the report says, only 13 per cent is zoned for Palestinian construction and this was mostly already built up. […]

The UN said it was particularly concerned about areas facing mass demolition, including an area south of the old city, where the threatened destruction of 90 houses would lead to the displacement of a thousand Palestinians.

More posts relating to the United Nations and Israel from The Polemical Report.

Israeli internal investigation concludes that the during the Gaza offensive the army ‘maintained a high professional and moral level’.

Al Jazeera reports that ‘Israel defends army's Gaza conduct’.

An internal Israeli investigation has concluded that the country's military acted in accordance with international law during the recent war in Gaza.  […]

The army "maintained a high professional and moral level while facing an enemy that aimed to terrorise Israeli civilians", the Israel Defence Forces (IDF), as the military in Israel is called, said in a statement.

It said it conducted five separate investigations into some of its actions during the war, including attacks on and near UN and international facilities and the use in densely populated areas of white phosphorous, a chemical agent that causes severe burns. […]

Al Jazeera's Jacky Rowland, reporting from Jerusalem, said both Israeli and international human rights groups have criticised the internal investigation.

"They said a couple of weeks ago that it was completely inappropriate that an army should be investigating itself," she said.

 

"The other question is how these findings will be received by the Israeli public ... and they as a whole have been lulled into this narrative according to which the Israeli army is the most moral army in the world.

 

"So in a way, this report will be falling on very willing ears - it will be telling the Israeli public a version of events that they want to hear."

Up to 1,300 Palestinians, mostly women and children, were killed during the 22-day assault on the Gaza Strip.

Thirteen Israelis, 10 of them soldiers, were killed during the same period.

Meanwhile, in the US, Hilary Clinton has been in discussion with the House Foreign Affairs Committee.  

Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has reiterated the US position that it will not deal with or fund a Palestinian government that includes Hamas until certain conditions are met.

 

Clinton told the House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday that Hamas must renounce violence, recognise Israel and agreed to "previous obligations" of the Palestinian Authority.

She said it appeared that Hamas had "no intention" that this would happen but said the US wanted to "leave open the door". […] 

Clinton also had heavy criticism for the Pakistani government, saying it was "basically abdicating to the Taliban" in agreeing to the imposition of sharia law in parts of the country.The comments on Pakistan come in the wake of suspected US military attacks in Pakistan.  

The comments on Pakistan come in the wake of suspected US military attacks in Pakistan.  

UPDATE

Al Jazeera is now giving greater prominence to the comments on Pakistan.

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Israel's deputy PM better?

If Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s comments made during his speech were part of a ‘vitriolic’ ‘rambling polemic’, are the words of Silvan Shalom, Israel's deputy prime minister, any more conducive to building an international consensus on racism?

"What Iran is trying to do right now is not far away at all from what Hitler did to the Jewish people just 65 years ago," Shalom said at the site of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi death camp, hours before a Holocaust memorial ceremony.

Iran "is trying to do everything they can in order to wipe Israel off the map and at the same time to undermine the moderate Arab Muslim regimes in the Middle East." [...]

Robert Gibbs, a White House spokesman, said that Barack Obama, the US president, was strongly opposed to Ahmadinejad's comments.

"This is hateful rhetoric. It is, I think, one of the reasons why you saw the administration and the president determined that its participation in this conference was not a wise thing to do."

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union.

Walkout at Iran leader's criticism of Israel

See footage of the walkout at Iran leader's speech on racism at UN conference - BBC news - 'Walkout at Iran leader's speech'.

Mr Ahmadinejad, the only major leader to attend the conference, said Jewish migrants from Europe and the United States had been sent to the Middle East after World War II "in order to establish a racist government in the occupied Palestine".

He continued, through an interpreter: "And in fact, in compensation for the dire consequences of racism in Europe, they helped bring to power the most cruel and repressive racist regime in Palestine." […]

Two protesters, wearing coloured wigs, disrupted the start of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech - followed by a mass walkout of Western delegates.

Al Jazeera - 'Israel criticism sparks UN walkout'

[Mahmoud Ahmadinejad continued,] "The UN security council has stabilised this occupation regime and supported it in the last 60 years giving them a free hand to continue their crimes," he told delegates at the Durban Review Conference hall in Geneva. [...]

"The Iraqi people have suffered enormous losses ... wasn't the military action against Iraq planned by the Zionists ... in the US administration, in complicity with the arms manufacturing companies?". Many delegates who remained in the hall applauded Ahmadinejad's comments. […]

Alan Fisher, Al Jazeera's correspondent at the conference, said Ahmadinejad had reiterated his views on Israel, especially over its 22-day war on Gaza. He said: "At the time [of the offensive] he said what was going on in Gaza was a genocide ... this was an opportunity for him to say that at a world forum. "There are people in the hall who believe that what Ahmadinejad was saying is correct - that is why there is such a split here." […]

Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, condemned Ahmadinejad's "speech of hate" and called for a "firm and united" reaction from the European Union. Jonas Gahr Store, Norway's foreign minister, said the Iranian leader's comments had "run counter to the very spirit of dignity of the conference ... he made Iran the odd man out".

The speech by Ahmadinejad, who is a frequent critic of Israel and has cast doubt on the extent of the killing of Jews during the Second World War, coincided with Holocaust Remembrance Day in Israel, which begins at sundown on Monday.

The United States, Canada, Israel, Australia, New Zealand, Germany, Poland and the Netherlands, had earlier said they would not attend the conference amid fears Ahmadinejad would use the summit to propagate anti-Semitic views. […]

The UN organised the summit to help heal the wounds left by its last racism conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2001, when the US and Israel walked out after Arab states sought to define Zionism as being racist.

The Guardian - 'Britain walks out of conference as Ahmadinejad calls Israel 'racist''.

France's foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, speaking before Ahmadinejad's speech, said "we will not tolerate any blunder or provocation" from Ahmadinejad, who has referred to the Holocaust as a myth and called for Israel to be "wiped off the pages of history". […]

The Foreign Office said in a statement, also released before the speech: "The United Kingdom has argued strongly for the concluding document to contain adequate language on Holocaust remembrance and combating antisemitism. We will find unacceptable any attempt to use the Durban process to trivialise or deny the Holocaust, or to renegotiate agreements on the fight against antisemitism." […]

Ahmadinejad's speech and press conference will be carefully scrutinised for his tone towards the US after Barack Obama's recent overtures to Tehran. The Iranian president has ruled out compromise on Iran's nuclear programme, but has occasionally raised hopes of a thaw in US-Iranian relations, as he did yesterday when he insisted that an Iranian-American journalist, sentenced by an Iranian court to eight years in prison on espionage charges, should be guaranteed the full right to defend herself in her appeal. The Iranian government today urged Obama not to comment on the case.

Human Rights Watch publishes report on Gaza Strip

Human Rights Watch publishes report based on witness reports, testimony from victims and case reports from Palestinian human rights groups. Al Jazeera's assessment below.

Human Rights Watch has accused Hamas of killing at least 32 members of rival political factions and people accused of collaborating with Israel during the Israel's war in the Gaza Strip earlier this year. […] "Hamas should end its attacks on political opponents and suspected collaborators in Gaza, which have killed at least 32 Palestinians and maimed several dozen more during and since the recent Israeli military offensive," it said.

Hamas criticised the report as unfair. Fawzi Barhoum, a spokesman for the Palestinian political faction, said the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report neglected to mention the reasons behind the disorder in Gaza that allowed the abuses to occur, namely Israel's bombing of police stations and prisons. "This report, with all its details, is inaccurate and hastily-released, it lacks information and harms the policies of Hamas movement in Gaza Strip," Barhoum told Al Jazeera. "We always aim at enforcing the law and respecting freedoms."

The Human Rights Watch report said fighters believed to be affiliated with Hamas tracked down and executed 18 Palestinians, apparently suspected of being Israeli collaborators, who escaped from Gaza's main prison after it was bombed on December 28. […]

"The [Hamas] government has opened an investigation into these killings, but it is not yet completed," al-Nunu said. He said 11 police officers had been dismissed after the Israeli war, and could face criminal charges for alleged involvement in the mistreatment of a detainee. […]

"The widespread practice of maiming people by shooting them in the legs is of particular concern," the report said. It said that 49 people had been shot in the legs, while 73 Palestinian men had their legs and arms broken during the course of the 22-day conflict. Ayman Mohyeldin, Al Jazeera's correspondent in Gaza, said he had heard numerous accounts of human rights abuses by a number of Palestinian groups during, and immediately after, the war. […]

The international rights watchdog also said "repressive measures" have increased against Hamas members in the occupied West Bank, which is controlled by Mahmoud Abbas, the Fatah-aligned Palestinian president. "Western governments that support and finance the Fatah authorities in the West Bank have remained publicly silent about the arbitrary arrests and torture against Hamas members and others," Joe Stork, HRW's deputy director for the Middle East, said. The HRW report said Palestinian rights groups in the West Bank recorded 31 complaints of torture by police, as well as the death of at least one person in custody, and the arbitrary detention of two journalists considered to be pro-Hamas.

Something that is being overlooked.

Here is a story that few major news corporations are reporting, or at least not giving prominence to, yet.

At least three people have been killed after a suspected US missile attack in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, security officials have said. […] About 350 people are thought to have died in an estimated 35 suspected US drone attacks, according reports from Pakistani officials and witnesses. The US does not confirm the drone attacks, but its forces in neighbouring Afghanistan and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) are known to use the unmanned aircraft. Pakistan has repeatedly voiced its objections to the attacks, saying they violate the country's sovereignty and fuel anti-government sentiment.

Perspecives of the changing relationship of the U.S. and Cuba

The Guardian Editorial focuses on the U.S politics. US-Cuba: a little less lonely

The United States boycott of Cuba is so out of step with the attitude of the rest of the world that it sometimes seems as though it is Washington - not Havana - that has been isolated by the policy. When the United Nations general assembly debated the long-standing US embargo last year, the disjunction between the US and the rest over Cuba was almost total: fully 185 countries voted against the US policy, while just three - the US, Israel and the Pacific island of Palau - voted in favour. As a definition of a policy failure, this takes some beating.

President Barack Obama's decision to relax the sanctions that prevent the 1.6 million Cuban-Americans from visiting the island when they wish and from sending as much money to relatives as they choose therefore marks a significant shift in approach. Do not, though, exaggerate it. The new policy is not a complete volte-face. As Fidel Castro himself said in a statement on Monday, the trade embargo, the most significant of all the US measures, remains in place. Americans of non-Cuban descent are still barred from visiting. Further normalisation leading to diplomatic relations between the US and Cuba is still some way off. Mr Obama might have more trouble than it is worth persuading Congress to lift some of these restrictions.

Writer and historian Richard Gott offers a celebratory account. A triumph of common sense over ancient prejudice

The poetry of revolution has been exchanged for the prosaic reality of everyday life in an isolated and beleaguered island. Yet now at last there is a fresh chance that this magical society, whose revolutionary­ process aroused so much hope and excitement­ half a century ago, can pursue the unique, independent role it once created for itself, without brutal pressures from outside. [...] For the Americans, this is a triumph of common sense over ancient prejudice. It is clearly designed to pave the way to a rapprochement that will lead eventually to a complete normalisation of relations – a decision that will ease the path of the Obama administration towards a new ­friendship with the left-inclined countries of Latin America who have long since made their peace with Cuba.

Rory Carroll offers a less romanticised assessment. Open for business.

No one starves, but for most Cubans life is a daily grind. Absurdly low monthly wages of $22 have spawned a nation of hustlers and micro-capitalists. Many have a sideline, a scam, to make ends meet. This thin strip in the Caribbean is not quite the "museum of socialism" that some depict. But there is no doubting it is Fidel's living, breathing creation. It is unique. A tropical communist state carved by one's man vision, charisma and ruthlessness. Now Cubans hope an apertura will blow some ­ vitality into its moribund economy.

The Havana beloved by European and ­Canadian tourists is a time-warp stereotype: colonial-era architecture, 1950s Chevys and Buicks cruising the streets, not a Starbucks in sight, and a population ready to fiesta at the mention of rum. Crime is near nonexistent, the health service and education system are fantastic, and salsa rules the night.[...]

Much of that image is romanticised. Up close, the handsome buildings stink from bad plumbing. Chinese buses and Skodas are replacing the tail-fins. A diet of starch and grease has widened waistlines and roughened skin. Pregnant women and infants receive stellar medical care but many hospitals and schools are foul, victims of degradation since the economic crisis in the 90s. [...]

More tourist dollars would narrow a massive trade deficit and bring desperately needed ­foreign currency, which is why the government is building and extending resorts and marinas. The boom would also aggravate ­inequalities: white, better-educated Cubans in ­cities and the west of the island would benefit more than darker-skinned compatriots in slums and villages.

Cuba seems already poised for change. Free elections, consumer culture, internet cafes, porn­ography, well-stocked supermarkets, obesity: it may come in a rush, or bit by bit, but transformation will come. The result will be an island that looks more like everywhere else. For some outsiders that may be cause for regret. So be it. Cuba is not their island and they do not live there. If Cubans want to be more like the rest of the world, warts and all, who has the right to stop them?

Aljazeera report on Castro’s response to the measures, which he describes as "positive although minimal" - Castro welcomes US Cuba moves.

Castro, 82, also criticised the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, for leaving the 47-year US trade embargo against Cuba in place. [...] "The measure of easing the restrictions on trips is positive although minimal. Many others are needed," Castro had written in the first of two online columns that the US had announced the repeal of "several hateful restrictions," but had stopped short of real change. "Of the blockade, which is the cruellest of measures, not a word was uttered," the former president wrote. "In effect, it's a form of genocide. Harm cannot only be measured by its economic effects. It has a constant cost in human lives and it causes our citizens painful suffering," Castro said.

The Telegraph's Alex Spillius argues Change is slow in Cuba – and that suits just about everyone.

A good rule of thumb in predicting Barack Obama's foreign policy in a given area has been to reverse the course taken by George W Bush. This week has seen a sterling example, in the shape of relations with Cuba. [...]But, tellingly, the President did not present these changes himself. That was left to his press secretary Robert Gibbs, who made the announcement on the afternoon of Easter Monday, a piece of stagecraft designed to bury the news as far down the evening bulletins as possible.

For all his pretensions to be a herald of change, Mr Obama can still see the risks in sticking his neck out on Cuba. Already concerned about reaching out too far to countries that really matter, such as Iran and Russia, the White House is satisfied with slow progress in dealing with a strategically extraneous – and electorally sensitive – island of 11 million people. [...]

If the Castros lost the embargo, an estimated 500,000 extra Americans would make the short flight south in just the first year, generating approximately $1.5 billion worth of business. But would Cuba suddenly become a thriving tourist paradise?

Even travel agents gagging to fill charter flights from New York wonder if a country where foreigners have long complained about bad food, sluggish service and iffy infrastructure is ready for an onslaught of Americans unseen since the days of Al Capone and his cronies. Cuba has a limited number of hotel rooms and most are already full of Canadians and Europeans. Droves of Americans could be more than Cuba can handle. [...] In other words, everyone says they want change in Cuba, but no one is confident about how it will turn out – hence why the slow approach seems to suit everyone just fine.