“The bombing of Mali highlights all the lessons of western intervention” by Glenn Greenwald [The Guardian]

* The west African nation becomes the eighth country in the last four years alone where Muslims are killed by the west *

14 January 2013

[Excerpted]

As French war planes bomb Mali, there is one simple statistic that provides the key context: this west African nation of 15 million people is the eighth country in which western powers – over the last four years alone – have bombed and killed Muslims – after Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen, Libya, Somalia and the Philippines (that does not count the numerous lethal tyrannies propped up by the west in that region). For obvious reasons, the rhetoric that the west is not at war with the Islamic world grows increasingly hollow with each new expansion of this militarism. But within this new massive bombing campaign, one finds most of the vital lessons about western intervention that, typically, are steadfastly ignored.

First, as the New York Times’ background account from this morning makes clear, much of the instability in Mali is the direct result of Nato’s intervention in Libya. Specifically, “heavily armed, battle-hardened Islamist fighters returned from combat in Libya” and “the big weaponry coming out of Libya and the different, more Islamic fighters who came back” played the precipitating role in the collapse of the US-supported central government…

…Second, the overthrow of the Malian government was enabled by US-trained-and-armed soldiers who defected…he west is once again at war with the very forces that it trained, funded and armed. Nobody is better at creating its own enemies, and thus ensuring a posture of endless war, than the US and its allies. Where the US cannot find enemies to fight against it, it simply empowers them…

…Third, western bombing of Muslims in yet another country will obviously provoke even more anti-western sentiment, the fuel of terrorism. Already, as the Guardian reports, French fighter jets in Mali have killed “at least 11 civilians including three children”. France’s long history of colonialization in Mali only exacerbates the inevitable anger…

…Fourth, for all the self-flattering rhetoric that western democracies love to apply to themselves, it is extraordinary how these wars are waged without any pretense of democratic process…

…Finally, the propaganda used to justify all of this is depressingly common yet wildly effective. Any western government that wants to bomb Muslims simply slaps the label of “terrorists” on them, and any real debate or critical assessment instantly ends before it can even begin. “The president is totally determined that we must eradicate these terrorists who threaten the security of Mali, our own country and Europe,” proclaimed French defense minister Jean-Yves Le Drian.

As usual, this simplistic cartoon script distorts reality more than it describes it. As [‘The Independent”s columnist Owen] Jones aptly warns: “don’t fall for a narrative so often pushed by the Western media: a perverse oversimplification of good fighting evil, just as we have seen imposed on Syria’s brutal civil war.”

The French bombing of Mali, perhaps to include some form of US participation, illustrates every lesson of western intervention. The “war on terror” is a self-perpetuating war precisely because it endlessly engenders its own enemies and provides the fuel to ensure that the fire rages without end. But the sloganeering propaganda used to justify this is so cheap and easy – we must kill the Terrorists! – that it’s hard to see what will finally cause this to end. The blinding fear – not just of violence, but of Otherness – that has been successfully implanted in the minds of many western citizens is such that this single, empty word (Terrorists), standing alone, is sufficient to generate unquestioning support for whatever their governments do in its name, no matter how secret or unaccompanied by evidence it may be.

Full article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/mali-france-bombing-intervention-libya?INTCMP=SRCH

Foreigners allowed to bring cellphones to DPRK [Xinhua]

PYONGYANG, Jan. 20 (Xinhua) — Foreigners who come to the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) are allowed to bring their cellphones with them starting on Jan. 7, a technician with the Korean-Egyptian joint venture company Koryolink told Xinhua on Sunday.

“Just fill a registration form at the Customs with your phone’ s IMEI number, you can bring your own phones to DPRK,” said a unnamed Egyptian technician.

“If you want to make international calls, the WCDMA 3G mobile phone owners can purchase our Koryolink SIM card, which costs 50 euro,” the technician said.

For decades before, foreigners visiting the DPRK must leave their cellphones at the Customs and can pick them up on departure.

“We have tried hard to negotiate with the Korean security side, and got the approval recently,” said the Egyptian, noting that “it has nothing to do with the Google trip.”

In fact, foreigners still can not really use the Koryolink 3G network, with no internet access allowed yet. The Koryolink staff said that the mobile internet service for foreigners will be opened soon. “It is not a technical problem, we just wait [sic] for the DPRK authority’ s approval.”

There are 1.8 million Koreans using 3G cellphones across the country since 2008, which supports MMS and video call. But their mobile phones can neither make international calls nor connect to the Internet. Furthermore, Koreans and Foreigners can not make calls between each other due to their SIM cards set [sic] by different segments.

Article link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/world/2013-01/20/c_132115086.htm

Edited by Zuo Shou

Wind power now China’s No.3 energy resource [People’s Daily]

It’s not clear to me if the article is saying that wind power is ranked #3 of all of China’s energy sources, or #3 of the renewable types. — Zuo Shou

by Chen Yang (Global Times)
January 28, 2013

Wind power has surpassed nuclear power to become China’s third largest energy resource, but the growth of the wind power industry has slowed, experts said at a seminar held over the weekend.

Wind-generated electricity in China amounted to 100.4 billion kilowatt-hours in 2012, accounting for 2 percent of the country’s total electricity output last year, up from 1.5 percent in 2011, data from the China Wind Energy Association (CWEA) showed Saturday.

The latest figure showed that China’s use of wind power has surpassed its use of nuclear power, but still lags behind thermal [solar?] power and hydropower, He Dexin, chairman of the association, said at the seminar held Saturday.

“This change is in accordance with the government’s efforts to increase its use of renewable energy as a means to reduce carbon emissions and cut reliance on fossil fuels,” Li Linghuan, an energy industry analyst at Shandong-based consultancy Sublime China Information, told the Global Times Sunday.

However, the country’s development of wind power has slowed down, with 14 gigawatts of newly installed capacity from wind turbines in 2012, down from 20.66 gigawatts in 2011, according to He.

He noted that the industry is facing bottlenecks such as overcapacity of wind turbines, increasing trade protectionism, grid connection barriers and the wastage in wind power.

The CWEA estimates that the country’s newly installed wind power capacity will rise to 18 gigawatts in 2013. Local governments have sped up approving wind power generation projects since the beginning of this year…

Full article link: http://english.people.com.cn/90778/8109836.html

Journalists rebel in Guangzhou as right wing in China raises its voice [Workers World]

I am posting this article as an alternative to the capitalist press regarding the recent censorship kerfluffle at ‘Southern Weekend’ in China. I am totally grossed out by pork sausage/dandruff shampoo/toothpaste-shill Yao Chen quoting Solzhenitsyn on her blog in response to that as reported here. I am obligated to reprint the article entire, and at this time will restate my blog’s caveat that posting does not constitute full endorsement of the opinions expressed by the writer. – Zuo Shou

by Fred Goldstein

Jan. 14, 2013

Those in China who advocate bourgeois democracy, deepening capitalist reforms and opening up further to imperialism staged a journalists’ rebellion the first week of January at the nationally circulated magazine Southern Weekend, based in Guangzhou. Guangzhou, which is across the bay from Hong Kong, is the capital of Guangdong province, the stronghold of capitalism in China.

The mini-rebellion took the form of a near strike and protest when the Propaganda Department of the Guangdong branch of the Chinese Communist Party intervened at the last minute to prevent a New Year’s editorial from going to press.

The editorial, which was severely modified by the authorities, was entitled “My Dream, the Dream of Constitutionalism.” While the English translation has not been published in any of the Western media, numerous sources reported it stressed “political reform.”

In the context of the present-day political struggle in China, “political reform” is code for creating openings for the bourgeoisie and the petty bourgeois intelligentsia to organize politically, either through the governmental electoral process, within the party, or both.

In fact, one of the few practical applications of “political reform” took place in Guangdong on an experimental basis under the guidance of its previous “reform” leader, Wang Yan. Wang preached democracy — but the class orientation of his democracy was illustrated by an experimental local election he authorized in the city of Dudan in September 2011. Fewer than 7,000 local inhabitants were reportedly allowed to vote, while 60,000 sweatshop workers who had immigrated from other Chinese provinces were disenfranchised. (The Economist, Nov. 26, 2011)

The Southern Weekend, with a circulation of 1.6 million, has been a leading voice for bourgeois liberalism in China. The confrontation of the editors and sections of the staff with the CCP became a cause célèbre of the right. Demonstrations were organized for “democracy,” “freedom of the press” and political reform.

* Protesters hail Tiananmen Square *

This incident served as a message and a challenge from the right to the incoming leader of the CCP, Xi Jingping, who will become China’s president in March.

The capitalist media swung immediately behind the protest. The Financial Times of Jan. 11 reported: “‘This feels exactly like the beginning of [the Tiananmen student movement in] 1989,’ said Yu Gang, a 44-year-old democracy campaigner who took part in the Tiananmen protests. He made pro-democracy speeches outside the Southern Weekend headquarters until police broke up the protest on Thursday.” A pro-Mao counter-demonstration also took place.

The right-wing blogosphere went into gear as well. A nationally known movie actor went one step beyond raising the 1989 counter-revolutionary uprising at Tiananman Square. Yao Chen, who has the the country’s most-followed Twitter-like microblog, quoted Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s saying that “One word of truth outweighs the whole world.”

The Financial Times continued, “Ms Yao sent the former Soviet dissident’s words with the logo of Southern Weekend, the paper respected as the vanguard of Chinese investigative journalism and for its probing stories but now involved in a rare open fight with censors. Her post marks a warning to China’s new leadership under Xi Jinping, the new Communist party chief who took over from Hu Jintao in November..” (Financial Times, Jan. 11, 2013)

Solzhenitsyn was a counter-revolutionary novelist in the USSR who depicted the tsar’s family in a sympathetic light in his book “1914.” Even war criminal Henry Kissinger once described him as “to the right of the czar.” He was jailed by Soviet authorities and eventually given a Nobel Prize in Literature in 1970. He is identified with the overthrow of socialism in the USSR.

* Xi’s trip to Shenzen heartens the right *

Following the protest, an open letter in defense of Southern Weekend and signed by 16 reactionary professors, authors and journalists from mainland China, Hong Kong and Taiwan was addressed to the Guangdong Provincial Party Committee. It demanded the dismissal of the official they claimed was responsible for censorship.

The letter was a virtual manifesto which referred to the trip made by Xi to Shenzen in Guangdong province in December of last year — his first trip after being elected the new head of the CCP. The trip was a replica of one made by Deng Xiaoping in 1992 on his “southern tour” to promote the further opening up to capitalism and imperialism, under the slogan “opening up and reform.” That trip led to the rapid development of Guangdong province as an export/sweatshop center of China. On his recent trip, Xi laid a wreath dedicated to Deng and promised to pursue “reform” and “opening up.”

This trip undoubtedly strengthened the right and was probably partly responsible for the brazen challenge by the Southern Weekend group.

The China Media Project, based in Hong Kong, wrote on Jan. 7: “In China today, the lingering sense of rise and regeneration relies to a great extent on Guangdong. For Xi as for Deng before him, southern tours marked great events that began in Guangdong. The entire nation, and people both here at home and overseas, regards Guangdong as the most crucial touchstone of reform and opening. The power of this one province ripples across our whole country, and the contributions of Southern Weekly are an undeniable part of that.”

The manifesto ended with praise for the magazine as “one of the country’s top groups … closely connected with the current of reform and the spirit of opening up” and condemned the propaganda official, asking if he “did not harbor such hostility for reform and opening, would things have come to this point.”

But these mouthpieces for the bourgeoisie have things completely backwards. If the reactionaries of Southern Weekend were not so fervently dedicated to the deepening of capitalism, widening imperialist penetration and promoting political openings for the bourgeoisie, if they had not made such a brazen move to test the Xi leadership, then would things ever “have come to this point”?

* Challenge to Xi *

Until now the magazine has harassed the government with exposures of abuses of workers, damage to the environment and official corruption. Thus, it has curried favor with the populace, using progressive exposures to foster its reactionary program of undermining the CCP from the right.

Because of the CCP’s policy of so-called “market socialism,” permitting capitalist development, violation of workers’ rights, corruption and the growth of the very capitalist class championed by Southern Weekend, the party is vulnerable to justifiable criticism. The right wing collects the grievances of the masses and uses them as a battering ram against the party.

But with the New Year’s message, the right wing went over the line. Southern Weekend has been under heavy censorship from party propaganda authorities because of its openly bourgeois liberalism. The magazine, according to most accounts, has been adept at pushing a right-wing line without making any major confrontational challenges to the party. But this time they upped the ante.

The right surfaced for the moment. The dispute spread to Beijing News. A web publication run by a party official was shut down for backing the right wing. A Confucian grouping issued a reactionary manifesto.

* Bo Xilai and defeat of the Chongqing model *

At this point it is necessary to put this struggle in the context of the suppression of Bo Xilai. Bo was the head of Chongqing province. The struggle against him was popularly regarded, on one level, as one between the Chongqing model and the Guangdong model.

Bo had promoted state economic development as the instrument for achieving the welfare of the masses. He built quality, low-cost housing for the workers. He increased social benefits. He made it easier for the rural population to obtain urban status and the benefits that come with that. He waged a campaign against the axis between corrupt party officials and capitalists with criminal elements.

Bo also promoted Maoist culture, songs and sayings, and shifted Chongqing television from a commercial station to a public station. This station was nationally broadcast and allowed an egalitarian message to get wide exposure, such as the message of “Red GDP” — development through state investment, rather than private investment, that gives greater priority to the welfare of the masses.

The Guangdong model, by contrast, emphasized economic development, mainly by capitalist means and relying on exports. The social rights of millions of immigrant workers from the interior of the country took a back seat. In general, the bourgeois spirit is dominant in the Guangdong model.

The detention of Bo last spring and vilification of the Chongqing model represented a defeat for the left within the framework of the party leadership. It represented a victory for the Guangdong model, the model promoted by Southern Weekend and its bourgeois allies. The victory was achieved by a bloc of the center and the right. Now that the challenge from the left has been temporarily suppressed, the right wing has gained confidence and courage.

This is not to say that the Southern Weekend incident represents any serious immediate threat to the party. But it represents a future danger and has brought to the surface a thoroughly reactionary current that, despite its limited numbers, occupies strategic positions in the media, the universities, communications and, of course, business.

It should be noted that when Bo was detained and his spouse, Gu Kailai, put through a show trial, these forces made no defense of the democratic rights of these leaders.

* Political contradictions of ‘market socialism’ *

There are many contradictions to so-called “market socialism” or “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” as it is euphemistically referred to by the leadership. The principal one, which is developing irresistibly, is the contradiction between economics and politics.

The mainstream of the top party leadership is trying to hold on to the socialist side of the economy: the state-owned enterprises, economic planning through “guidance,” and development and control of the commanding heights and strategic sectors of the economy. This is what has enabled the Chinese economy to weather the world capitalist crisis so far and continue its forward development. This is presumably the “socialist” side of the “socialist market economy.”

On the “market” side, the party has promoted the private sector, allowed private money to penetrate the public sector, and let the imperialists have a significant presence in the economy. It has let the rights of the working class that should be guaranteed under socialism go by the boards in the interest of economic development through capitalism, and has made many other economic concessions.

This has led to the growth of a capitalist class and the equally dangerous growth of a capitalist-minded petty bourgeois elite that is spread throughout the professions. This stratum provides mouthpieces for the bourgeoisie, promoting its ideology and its political interests.

As long as the CCP leadership promotes the capitalist market, which is diametrically opposed to socialism, the spirit of capitalism will continue to pervade society. It is in the very nature of the bourgeoisie, of capital, to expand. This not only manifests itself on the enterprise level as a desire to expand profits and accumulation. It also expresses itself on a class level, as a desire to expand its political influence commensurate with its economic development.

Both the state and the private sectors have grown in the last decade. Which has grown the stronger is a matter of dispute. But what is indisputable is the growth of the corporate and financial bourgeoisie.

In this latest dispute, one publication loyal to the party line warned the authorities at Southern Weekly that there is “no special political zone.” This refers to the special capitalist economic zones in Guangdong.

Here is where the problem lies. You cannot give the bourgeoisie more and more special economic zones without them demanding commensurate political influence. Marxists know that politics is concentrated economics. The economics of the bourgeoisie leads inevitably in the direction of trying to transform China’s political structure into a bourgeois political democracy.

Only a thoroughgoing return to proletarian democracy and the political, economic and social empowerment of the workers, as envisaged by Mao and his collaborators, can put an end to the political grasping by the bourgeoisie.
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Articles copyright 1995-2013 Workers World. Verbatim copying and distribution is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.

Article link: http://www.workers.org/2013/01/14/journalists-rebellion-in-guangzhou-as-right-wing-in-china-raises-its-voice/

“Dreams in Infrared: The Woes of an American Drone Operator” – US’ remote-control killers suffer psychic damage just like those on battlefield [Spiegel Online / Sweet & Sour Socialism Essential Archives]

One of my favorite progressive articles of 2012, kills the myth of the antiseptic-ness of drone strikes – Zuo Shou

By Nicola Abé

December 14, 2012

— A soldier sets out to graduate at the top of his class. He succeeds, and he becomes a drone pilot working with a special unit of the United States Air Force in New Mexico. He kills dozens of people. But then, one day, he realizes that he can’t do it anymore. —

For more than five years, Brandon Bryant worked in an oblong, windowless container about the size of a trailer, where the air-conditioning was kept at 17 degrees Celsius (63 degrees Fahrenheit) and, for security reasons, the door couldn’t be opened. Bryant and his coworkers sat in front of 14 computer monitors and four keyboards. When Bryant pressed a button in New Mexico, someone died on the other side of the world.

The container is filled with the humming of computers. It’s the brain of a drone, known as a cockpit in Air Force parlance. But the pilots in the container aren’t flying through the air. They’re just sitting at the controls.

Bryant was one of them, and he remembers one incident very clearly when a Predator drone was circling in a figure-eight pattern in the sky above Afghanistan, more than 10,000 kilometers (6,250 miles) away. There was a flat-roofed house made of mud, with a shed used to hold goats in the crosshairs, as Bryant recalls. When he received the order to fire, he pressed a button with his left hand and marked the roof with a laser. The pilot sitting next to him pressed the trigger on a joystick, causing the drone to launch a Hellfire missile. There were 16 seconds left until impact.

“These moments are like in slow motion,” he says today. Images taken with an infrared camera attached to the drone appeared on his monitor, transmitted by satellite, with a two-to-five-second time delay.

With seven seconds left to go, there was no one to be seen on the ground . Bryant could still have diverted the missile at that point. Then it was down to three seconds. Bryant felt as if he had to count each individual pixel on the monitor. Suddenly a child walked around the corner, he says.

Second zero was the moment in which Bryant’s digital world collided with the real one in a village between Baghlan and Mazar-e-Sharif.

Bryant saw a flash on the screen: the explosion. Parts of the building collapsed. The child had disappeared. Bryant had a sick feeling in his stomach.

“Did we just kill a kid?” he asked the man sitting next to him.

“Yeah, I guess that was a kid,” the pilot replied.

“Was that a kid?” they wrote into a chat window on the monitor.

Then, someone they didn’t know answered, someone sitting in a military command center somewhere in the world who had observed their attack. “No. That was a dog,” the person wrote.

They reviewed the scene on video. A dog on two legs?

* Invisible Warfare *

When Bryant left the container that day, he stepped directly into America: dry grasslands stretching to the horizon, fields and the smell of liquid manure. Every few seconds, a light on the radar tower at the Cannon Air Force Base flashed in the twilight. There was no war going on there.

Modern warfare is as invisible as a thought, deprived of its meaning by distance. It is no unfettered war, but one that is controlled from small high-tech centers in various places in the world. The new (way of conducting) war is supposed to be more precise than the old one, which is why some call it “more humane.” It’s the war of an intellectual, a war United States President Barack Obama has promoted more than any of his predecessors.

In a corridor at the Pentagon where the planning for this war takes place, the walls are covered with dark wood paneling. T he men from the Air Force have their offices here. A painting of a Predator, a drone on canvas, hangs next to portraits of military leaders. From the military’s perspective, no other invention has been as successful in the “war on terror” in recent years as the Predator.

The US military guides its drones from seven air bases in the United States, as well as locations abroad, including one in the East African nation of Djibouti. From its headquarters in Langley, Virginia, the CIA controls operations in Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen…

…At some point, Brandon Bryant just wanted to get out and do something else. He spent a few more months overseas, this time in Afghanistan. But then, when he returned to New Mexico, he found that he suddenly hated the cockpit, which smelled of sweat. He began spraying air freshener to get rid of the stench. He also found he wanted to do something that saved lives rather than took them away…

…On uneventful days in the cockpit, he would write in his diary, jotting down lines like: “On the battlefield there are no sides, just bloodshed. Total war. Every horror witnessed. I wish my eyes would rot.”

If he could just get into good enough shape, he thought to himself, they would let him do something different. The problem was that he was pretty good at his job.

At some point he no longer enjoyed seeing his friends. He met a girl, but she complained about his bad moods. “I can’t just switch and go back to normal life,” he told her. When he came home and couldn’t sleep, he would exercise instead. He began talking back to his superior officers.

One day he collapsed at work, doubling over and spitting blood. The doctor told him to stay home, and ordered him not to return to work until he could sleep more than four hours a night for two weeks in a row.

“Half a year later, I was back in the cockpit, flying drones,” says Bryant, sitting in his mother’s living room in Missoula…

…Bryant posted a drawing on Facebook the night before our interview. It depicts a couple standing, hand-in-hand, in a green meadow, looking up at the sky. A child and a dog are sitting on the ground next to them. But the meadow is just a part of the world. Beneath it is a sea of dying soldiers, propping themselves up with their last bit of strength, a sea of bodies, blood and limbs.

Doctors at the Veterans’ Administration diagnosed Bryant with post-traumatic stress disorder. General hopes for a comfortable war — one that could be completed without emotional wounds — haven’t been fulfilled. Indeed, Bryan’s world has melded with that of the child in Afghanistan. It’s like a short circuit in the brain of the drones.

Why isn’t he with the Air Force anymore? There was one day, he says, when he knew that he wouldn’t sign the next contract. It was the day Bryant walked into the cockpit and heard himself saying to his coworkers: “Hey, what motherf*cker is going to die today?”

Translated from the German by Christopher Sultan

Excerpted by Zuo Shou

Article link: http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/pain-continues-after-war-for-american-drone-pilot-a-872726.html

S. Korean Authorities Accused of Fabricating UN “Resolution” with Foreign Forces – DPR Korea considers South’s direct involvement in sanctions as warmongering [KCNA]

This blog agrees that implementation of international sanctions in the last decades has become a kind of surreptitious warfare, as the DPRK correctly surmises in the current case – Zuo Shou

Pyongyang, January 25 (KCNA) — The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea released the following statement on Friday:

There took place another astonishing case. The U.S. and its followers cooked up a “resolution on tightening sanctions” at the UN Security Council by terming the DPRK’s satellite launch for peaceful purposes an inter-continental ballistic missile launch.

The fabrication of “the resolution” this time represents the height of the hostile policy toward the DPRK and moves to escalate the confrontation with the DPRK as it is the last-ditch efforts of the hostile forces displeased with the ever-increasing authority and national power of the DPRK.

What should not be overlooked is that the south Korean puppet group of traitors took the lead in fabricating the “resolution”.

When satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 of the DPRK lifted off in December last year, the group desperately took issue with it, talking about “provocation” and “blatant challenge” against the international community. It worked hard to see the UN apply additional “sanctions” against the DPRK, vociferating about “strong counteraction” and “tightened sanctions”.

The minister of Foreign Affairs and Trade and other mandarins of the south Korean regime visited the U.S., Japan and other neighboring countries to discuss “close cooperation at the UN” and asked them for their active participation in the moves for tightening “sanctions against the north”. Not content with this, the south Korean group unhesitatingly submitted a “proposal for additional sanctions against the north” to the UN.

It is the group which clamored for “independent additional sanctions” together with the U.S. and it is again the group which was the first to utter “welcome” and “implementation of the resolution” right after its fabrication at the UNSC.

The world knows no such hordes of traitors who worked with bloodshot eyes to escalate the confrontation with fellow countrymen in league with foreign forces as the south Korean group.

The row kicked up by the group against the DPRK over its satellite launch is aimed to tarnish its image, save the face of the group that fell to the ground and deliver the anti-DPRK policy from its total bankruptcy.

The group salvaged wreckages of the DPRK’s carrier rocket Unha-3 from waters of the West Sea and was stunned by the high level of its technology.

As fellow countrymen the group should have been pleased with the great event to be recorded specially in the national history spanning five thousand years, the event which fully demonstrated the dignity and might of the nation. Nevertheless, it behaved so foolishly. This shows it is betenoire [sic] bereft of an iota of reason as human beings.

The army and people of the DPRK are greatly infuriated by the fabrication of the UN “resolution” by the U.S. and its allies and the group’s desperate efforts.

The Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea vehemently rejects the UN “resolution” in the name of all the fellow countrymen, branding it as an unpardonable grave challenge to the dignity and sovereignty of the DPRK and the Korean people.

It, at the same time, strongly condemns the reckless behavior of the group taking the lead in faking up the UN “resolution” in league with foreign forces as the most despicable act of treachery and an unbearable provocation against the DPRK.

In view of the prevailing grave situation the Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea solemnly declares the following counter-measures against the south Korean puppet group, representing the towering anger and unanimous will of the army and the people of the DPRK and all other Koreans.

Now that the south Korean puppet conservative group is more desperately kicking up a racket against the DPRK over its nuclear and missile issues with the U.S., there will be no more discussion on denuclearization between the north and the south in the future.

In this connection, we declare complete nullification of the “Joint Declaration on Denuclearization on the Korean Peninsula” adopted in 1992 and its total invalidity.

The joint declaration already proved a dead paper long ago due to the moves of the U.S. and the puppet group for a nuclear war against the north and their nuclear rackets against it. It is needless to say that there is no need for us to be bound to the declaration.

As long as the south Korean puppet group of traitors persistently pursues a hostile policy toward the DPRK, we will never negotiate with anyone.

The historical lesson shows that there is nothing to be solved when meeting with those who pursue confrontation with the DPRK and this will only bedevil the inter-Korean relations.

The group should not think about any dialogue with us as long as it sticks to the policy of confrontation with fellow countrymen.

If the puppet group of traitors takes a direct part in the UN “sanctions,” the DPRK will take strong physical counter-measures against it.

“Sanctions” mean a war and a declaration of war against us.

We have already declared that “we would react to provocation with immediate retaliatory blows and a war of aggression with a great war of justice for national reunification.”

The group would be well advised to stop acting rashly, bearing in mind this warning served by us.

All our service personnel and people will never allow the reckless confrontation moves of the group.

Those who dare stand in the way of our just cause will never be able to escape deadly retaliatory blows. -0-

KCNA English page: http://www.kcna.kp

DPRK NDC Issues Statement Refuting UNSC Resolution [KCNA]

Pyongyang, January 24 (KCNA) — The National Defence Commission (NDC) of the DPRK issued a statement on Thursday.

It said:

Our successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 was a great jubilee in the history of the nation as it placed the nation’s dignity and honor on the highest plane and a spectacular success made in the efforts to develop space for peaceful purposes recognized by the world.

The world people who love justice and value conscience unanimously rejoice as their own over the signal success made by our country, not a big one, by its own efforts.

Even space institutions of a hostile country accustomed to have repugnancy towards others could not but recognize the DPRK’s successful satellite launch for peaceful purposes, from a low-profile stance.

This being a hard reality, the U.S. at the outset of the year termed our satellite launch “long-range missile launch,” “wanton violation” of the UN resolutions and “blatant challenge” to world peace and security in a bid to build up public opinion on this. Finally, it prodded the UNSC into cooking up a new resolution on tightening sanctions against the DPRK.

The keynote of the resolution was worked out through backstage dealing with the U.S. as a main player and it was adopted at the UNSC with blind hand-raising by its member nations. This goes to clearly prove that the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK has entered a new dangerous phase.

This shows, at the same time, that those big countries, which are obliged to take the lead in building a fair world order, are abandoning without hesitation even elementary principle, under the influence of the U.S. arbitrary and high-handed practices, failing to come to their senses.

Moreover, this also indicates that the UNSC, which should regard it as its mission to guarantee sovereign rights and security of its member nations, has turned into a defunct marionette international body on which no hope can be pinned.

The DPRK National Defence Commission solemnly declares as follows as regards the adoption of the entirely unreasonable resolution on the DPRK:

We totally reject all the illegal resolutions on the DPRK adopted by the UNSC.

We have never recognized all forms of base resolutions tightening sanctions cooked up by the hostile forces to encroach upon the DPRK’s sovereignty.

Sovereignty is what keeps a country and nation alive.

The country and the nation without sovereignty are more dead than alive.

The satellite launch was the exercise of an independent right pertaining to the DPRK as well as its legitimate sovereignty recognized by international law.

Therefore, the U.S. and those countries which launched satellites before have neither justification nor reason to find fault with the DPRK’s satellite launch.

They are making a brigandish assertion that what they launched were satellites but what other country launched was a long-range missile. They are seriously mistaken if they think this assertion can work in the bright world today.

The U.S. should clearly know that the times have changed and so have the army and the people of the DPRK.

Along with the nationwide efforts to defend the sovereignty, the DPRK will continue launching peaceful satellites to outer space one after another.

2. As the U.S. hostile policy toward the DPRK has entered more dangerous phase, overall efforts should be directed to denuclearizing big powers including the U.S. rather than the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.

The biggest threat to the peace and security on the Korean Peninsula is the hostile policy toward the DPRK being pursued by all kinds of dishonest forces including the U.S. as well as the U.S. huge nuclear armed forces that back the policy.

The army and people of the DPRK drew a final conclusion that only when the denuclearization of the world is realized on a perfect and preferential basis including the denuclearization of the U.S., will it be possible to denuclearize the Korean Peninsula and ensure peace and security of the DPRK.

The U.S. is taking the lead in encroaching upon the sovereignty of the DPRK, its allies are siding with it and the UN Security Council has been reduced into an organization bereft of impartiality and balance. Under this situation the DPRK can not but declare that there will no longer exist the six-party talks and the September 19 joint statement.

No dialogue on the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula will be possible in the future even though there may be dialogues and negotiations on ensuring peace and security in the region including the Korean Peninsula.

3. We will launch an all-out action to foil the hostile policy toward the DPRK being pursued by the U.S. and those dishonest forces following the U.S., and safeguard the sovereignty of the country and the nation.

The UN Security Council resolution on expanding sanctions against the DPRK, which was adopted on the initiative of the U.S., represents the most dangerous phase of the hostile policy toward the DPRK.

The army and people of the DPRK will never remain an on-looker to such happenings in which the sovereignty of the nation is encroached upon and the supreme interests of the country are violated.

Under the prevailing situation, the army and people of the DPRK will turn out in an all-out action to defend its sovereignty which is more precious than their own lives and frustrate the moves of the U.S. and its allies to isolate and stifle the DPRK.

The drive for building an economic power being pushed forward by the army and people of the DPRK, the effort to conquer space that has entered a new phase and the endeavors to bolster the deterrence for safeguarding the country and defending its security will all orientate toward the purpose of winning in the all-out action for foiling the U.S. and all other hostile forces’ maneuvers.

We do not hide that a variety of satellites and long-range rockets which will be launched by the DPRK one after another and a nuclear test of higher level which will be carried out by it in the upcoming all-out action, a new phase of the anti-U.S. struggle that has lasted century after century, will target against the U.S., the sworn enemy of the Korean people.

Settling accounts with the U.S. needs to be done with force, not with words as it regards jungle law as the rule of its survival.

The world will clearly see how the army and people of the DPRK punish all kinds of hostile forces and emerge as a final victor while following the just road of defending its sovereignty, convinced of the justice of its cause. -0-

KCNA English link: http://www.kcna.kp

DPRK Refutes UNSC’s “Resolution” Pulling Up DPRK over Its Satellite Launch [KCNA]

“…The UNSC is a marionette of the U.S…”

Pyongyang, January 23 (KCNA) — The DPRK Foreign Ministry Wednesday issued the following statement:

The DPRK’s successful launch of satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2 in December last year fully demonstrated its space science and technology and its overall national power. This is a stark fact favored by the world and recognized even by hostile forces, including the United States.

In the wake of desperate efforts on the part of the U.S. and its followers to block the victorious advance of the DPRK, they cooked up a “resolution” of the UN Security Council on Tuesday in wanton violation of the inviolable sovereignty of the DPRK.

The U.S.-sponsored “resolution” is run through with hostile steps aiming at banning the DPRK’s satellite launch for peaceful purposes and tightening “sanctions” against it to block its economic development and hamstring its effort for developing the economy and bolstering up defence capability.

The above-said countries insist that the DPRK’s satellite launch is problematic, asserting that “it uses ballistic missile technology” though they know better than any others about the fact that ballistic missile technology is the only means for launching satellite and they launch satellites more than any others. This is self-deception and the height of double-standards.

The essence of the matter is the U.S. brigandish logic that a satellite launch for peaceful purposes by a country which the U.S. antagonizes should not be allowed because any carrier rocket launched by it can be converted into long-range ballistic missile threatening the U.S.

The UNSC is a marionette of the U.S.

The UNSC “resolutions” adopted under the pretext of the DPRK’s satellite launches are products of its blind pursuance of the hostile policy of the U.S. seeking disarmament of the DPRK and collapse of its social system in violation of the universally accepted international law.

Repeating wrongdoings without courage or responsibility to rectify them are despicable behaviors of cowards deceiving themselves and others. They are putting the peace and stability on the Korean Peninsula and in the region at greater peril.

The present situation clearly proves that the DPRK should counter the U.S. hostile policy with strength, not with words and that the road of independence and Songun chosen by the DPRK is entirely just.

To cope with the prevailing situation, the DPRK Foreign Ministry declares as follows:

First, the DPRK flatly rejects the unjust acts of the UNSC aimed at wantonly violating the sovereignty of the DPRK and depriving it of the right to launch satellites for peaceful purposes.

The hostile forces are seriously mistaken if they think they can bring down the DPRK with sanctions and pressure, and such an attempt will always bring them a disgraceful defeat.

The UNSC should apologize for its crime of seriously encroaching upon the independence of a sovereign state, following the U.S. policy hostile to the DPRK in disregard of the universally recognized international law, and repeal all the unreasonable “resolutions” at once.

Second, the DPRK will continue to exercise its independent and legitimate right to launch satellites for peaceful purposes while abiding by the universally recognized international law on the use of space for peaceful purposes.

Scientists and technicians of the DPRK will develop and launch many more application satellites, including communications satellite, and more powerful carrier rockets essential for building an economic giant in the same spirit and mettle as were displayed in successfully launching satellite Kwangmyongsong 3-2.

The DPRK will continuously launch satellites for peaceful purposes to conquer space and become a world-level space power.

Third, the DPRK drew a final conclusion that the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula is impossible unless the denuclearization of the world is realized as it has become clear now that the U.S. policy hostile to the DPRK remains unchanged.

The September 19 joint statement adopted at the six-party talks on the principle of respect for sovereignty and equality has now become defunct and the prospect for the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula has become gloomier, due to the U.S. hostile policy to the DPRK that has become evermore pronounced.

There may be talks for peace and stability of the Korean Peninsula and the region in the future, but no talks for the denuclearization of the peninsula.

Fourth, the DPRK will take steps for physical counteraction to bolster the military capabilities for self defence, including the nuclear deterrence, both qualitatively and quantitatively to cope with the evermore undisguised moves of the U.S. to apply sanctions and pressure against the DPRK.

The revolutionary armed forces of the DPRK will reliably defend the security and sovereignty of the country and safeguard the regional peace and stability with the might of Songun. They are full of the steadfast will to take a bold step to root out the source of provocations the hostile forces seek to continue against the DPRK.

No force on earth can block the progress of the great people proud of independence, powerful thanks to Songun politics and united closely on the basis of truth. -0-

KCNA English link: http://www.kcna.kp

Obama’s 2nd inauguration – On Dr. MLK Jr.’s Observed B-day, Obama is the anti-MLK [Sweet & Sour Socialism Compilation]

“…Obama has not ignored King’s anti-war legacy. On the contrary, the president has gone out of his way to distort and belittle it…” – Norman Solomon

“King: I Have a Dream. Obama: I Have a Drone.” by Norman Solomon, January 16, 2013 [www.normansolomon.com]
Article link: http://www.normansolomon.com/norman_solomon/2013/01/king-i-have-a-dream-obama-i-have-a-drone.html

“MLK’s vehement condemnations of US militarism are more relevant than ever” by Glenn Greenwald, 21 January 2013 [Guardian]
Article link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jan/21/king-obama-drones-militarism-sanctions-iran?INTCMP=SRCH

“Obama’s 2nd inauguration” (Obama as Jeckyll & Hyde) by Barry Grey and David North, 21 January 2013 [World Socialist Website]
Article link: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/21/pers-j21.html

“Barack Obama versus Martin Luther King Jr.” by Tony Cartalucci, 21 January 2013 [Land Destroyer / Globalresearch.ca]
Article link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/barack-obama-versus-martin-luther-king-jr/5319808

“Obama Inauguration Day: Ho Hum. Who is Celebrating?” by Danny Schecter, 21 January 2013 [Globalresearch.ca]
Article link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-inauguration-day-ho-hum-who-is-celebrating/5319823

“Obama Inauguration Day: Two Nobel Peace Laureates, “Drones Apart”. Martin Luther King: “From Every Mountainside, Let Freedom Ring.”” by Felicity Arbuthnot, 21 January 2013 [Globalresearch.ca]
Article link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/obama-inauguration-day-two-nobel-peace-laureates-drones-apart-martin-luther-king-from-every-mountainside-let-freedom-ring/5319926

“Lupe Fiasco kicked off US inaugural stage while performing anti-war song ” by Andre Damon, 22 January 2013 [World Socialist Website]
Article link: http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2013/01/22/fias-j22.html

“Betraying the Legacy of Dr. Martin Luther King” by Andrew Hughes, 18 January 2009 (Reprinted 22 January 2013) [Globalresearch.ca]
Article link: http://www.globalresearch.ca/betraying-the-legacy-of-dr-martin-luther-king/11867

Compiled by Zuo Shou

Unwise foreign policy turns Japan into its own enemy [Xinhua]

Calling Japan “Patient of Asia” in the first paragraph is an allusion to the old appellation of “Sick Man of Asia” which used to be applied the humiliated China of pre-PRC days – Zuo Shou

by Ming Jinwei

BEIJING, Jan. 11 (Xinhua) — The Japanese economy, under the burden of years of deflation and an aging population, has been the “Patient of Asia” for the last two decades.

The Japanese people can cite many reasons for their economic malaise, from bad government policies that led to the forming and bursting of a giant economic bubble in late 1980s and early 1990s to cumbersome mega companies that have been losing money and shedding jobs due to increasing global competition.

More recently, the Japanese economy has suffered another blow due to a bitter row with China, a crucial trade and investment partner, ignited by Tokyo’s repeated provocations over the Diaoyu Islands, an integral part of Chinese territory.

Yet new Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe turned the facts upside down when he claimed Friday that China has deliberately targeted Japanese companies as part of a strategy to confront Japan over the territorial dispute.

It is true that economic ties between China and Japan have chilled considerably since former Prime Minister Yoshihiko Noda’s cabinet decided to “buy” part of the Diaoyu Islands in September despite strong Chinese opposition.

The outcome is nothing but natural, as good economic relations are always based on sound political ties. It is naive to believe that Japan can maintain strong trade and investment ties with China while repeatedly provoking China on critical issues.

In addition, the pinch felt by Japanese companies results largely from an across-the-board boycott of Japanese goods spontaneously staged by Chinese consumers who felt betrayed by the bellicose Japanese government. The Chinese government has nothing to do with this.

Japanese politicians, including Abe, have only themselves to blame, because their brinkmanship is the root cause of the deterioration of China-Japan economic ties.

They have also been stoking fears about the so-called “China threat” in the broader Asia-Pacific region and trying to build a coalition of countries against China.

For many in China, Abe’s latest remarks are just part of an attempt by the Japanese government to depict China as the villain and gain an upper hand in the territorial dispute.

But Tokyo is doomed to lose the gamble, as more and more countries have come to realize that China acts responsibly in the international arena and its development is a real blessing for the whole world.

Meanwhile, Japan has raised concerns in capitals worldwide that its increasingly hawkish policy toward China will further escalate the situation and pose a serious risk to regional peace and stability.

For Japan, its fragile economy is in urgent need of the opportunities a sound China-Japan relationship brings, but Japan’s unwise foreign policy has made these opportunities harder to come by.

Thus it is of pressing importance that Abe immediately arrest his country’s self-destructive tendency and put its foreign relations and economic recovery back on track so as not to waste his second chance at the top.

Article link: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/indepth/2013-01/11/c_132096137.htm