Mahmoud Abbas says he will go ahead with request to UN security council to recognise independence despite US warnings The Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, has said he will go ahead with a request to the United Nations security council to recognise what amounts to a unilateral declaration of independence despite warnings from the US that it will raise “dangerous” false hopes and set back real self-determination. Abbas said in a televised address the Palestinians will see recognition next week of an independent Palestinian state on the basis of the borders of 4 June 1967 with East Jerusalem as the capital. He noted that the US president, Barack Obama, said a year ago he hoped to see an independent Palestine join the UN at this time. “Obama himself said he wanted to see a Palestinian state by September,” said Abbas. He said he would not bow to foreign pressure and what he called attempts to “buy off” the Palestinians. “We are going to the security council,” he said. “The world is sympathising with the aspirations of the Palestinian people.” Abbas’s defiant speech came amid a flurry of diplomatic activity by the US, EU and Tony Blair in Jerusalem and Ramallah aimed at trying to avoid a showdown next week at the UN security council, where the Americans say they will veto a Palestinian request for recognition of statehood. The US ambassador to the UN, Susan Rice, said the Palestinians had “miscalculated” if they believed the move will bring them closer to independence. Rice warned that even if the Palestinians were to win a vote in favour of statehood it will not change the situation on the ground. “There’s no shortcut, there’s no magic wand that can be waved in New York and make everything right. In fact, there’s a risk in that because if you’re an average person in the Palestinian territories and your hopes have been raised that by some action here in New York something will be different, the reality is that nothing is going to change. “There won’t be any more sovereignty, there won’t be any more food on the table. And this gap between expectation and reality is in itself quite dangerous,” Rice told the BBC. “The miscalculation here on the part of the Palestinians is that by coming to the United Nations they will be in a better position to negotiate … As tough as it is today to bring the parties to the table, it will be much much tougher after action here in New York. If the aim is to isolate and confront Israel, which is the effect of this action potentially in New York, then that is not going to encourage Israel to come back to the negotiating table any sooner.” Abbas rejected the assertion that the UN vote will jeopardise talks. “We will come back to negotiations on other issues. But we need full membership of the UN,” he said. “Over the past year we have expressed our readiness to take part in serious negotiations. Israel has wasted time and imposed facts on the ground [by expanding Jewish settlements].” Israel, he said, had nothing to fear from the move. “Israel is there, no one can deprive it of its legal status, it is a recognised country.” But, he added, Palestinian statehood would mean Israel could no longer claim it was colonising “disputed territory. This is occupied territory.” On Thursday, Rice met Jewish American leaders in New York to assure them the Obama administration will do it all it can to derail the Palestinian move at the UN. But she conceded that Washington was unlikely to be able to prevent the Palestinians from taking a request for recognition of full statehood to the security council, or alternatively turn to the general assembly, which can offer only enhanced observer status. Washington is instead concentrating on garnering support against the move. It is targeting non-permanent members of the security council, such as Colombia, Germany and Bosnia and Herzegovina, in the hope of ensuring they at least abstain if they are not prepared to vote against a Palestinian state, and so lessen the impact of a US veto. The US is also pressing Britain to back its position. The UK, which has one eye on its standing in the Middle East particularly as it is heavily involved in Libya, says it is undecided and is waiting to see the wording of the Palestinian request. However, Britain has suggested it is prepared to consider supporting a watered down request in the general assembly where the Palestinians can in any case expected to win with a comfortable margin. In the Middle East, the Europeans and Tony Blair – envoy of the quartet of the US, UN, EU and Russia – were attempting to engineer a compromise to head off the need for a US veto in the security council. One effort is to divert the whole issue to the general assembly. Another is for Abbas to submit his request for statehood but for it then to be put on hold while peace talks are revived. The request would then be activated if negotiations fail to reach an agreement within a year. The Palestinians are resistant to the idea in part because they do not believe the Israelis are serious about talks but also because it would not require a freeze on construction of Jewish settlements in the West Bank – an issue that has become a major obstacle to fresh negotiations. There were reports in Israel that the prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu, is prepared to consider an upgrade in the Palestinian status at the UN through a vote in the general assembly so long as it falls short of full membership. An Israeli official refused to confirm the reports but he did say that intensive efforts were continuing to find a compromise. “The goal is to avoid a diplomatic train wreck,” he said. “There are various ideas on the table to find a formula to allow us back to talks.” According to the Israeli official, there was a “greater understanding on the Palestinian side that the train wreck needs to be avoided”. But there was no certainty a deal could be reached. “The Palestinians climb up a tree, kick the ladder away, and then say help me get down the tree. It’s not always possible,” he said. However, there is no public indication the Palestinians are looking for a way to backtrack. Their team continues to insist they will demand full membership of the UN at the security council and will only seek a lesser status at the general assembly following a US veto. Netanyahu will address the general assembly next Friday hours after Abbas delivers his speech. Mahmoud Abbas Palestinian territories United Nations Israel Obama administration Tony Blair Binyamin Netanyahu Chris McGreal Harriet Sherwood guardian.co.uk
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Sinn Féin to announce deputy first minister of Northern Ireland and former IRA chief of staff Martin McGuinness’ bid to become head of state in Irish Republic Martin McGuinness, the former IRA chief-of-staff who is now deputy First Minister of Northern Ireland, is to run for the Irish presidency. Sinn Féin will announce his bid to succeed fellow northerner Mary McAleese as head of state in the Irish Republic later tonight. The Sinn Féin MP who admitted he was the Provisional IRA’s second-in-command in Derry during Bloody Sunday will hold a press conference on Sunday explaining why he is standing for president. But senior sources in Belfast were stressing that McGuinness’ decision to stand in the presidential race south of the border would not destabilise the power-sharing executive back at Stormont. McGuinness has built up a close personal relationship with Peter Robinson, the Democratic Unionist first minister in the five-party coalition in Northern Ireland. Although McGuinness will have to step down temporarily from the post as deputy first minister during the three-week long presidential campaign sources said that would be “mess but not a crisis” for the power-sharing government in Belfast. Whilst he is likely to increase Sinn Féin’s national share of the vote in the Republic above the 9% it gained in this year’s general election McGuinness is not expected to win the presidential contest. In the intervening three weeks before polling day in the Republic McGuinness may well be temporarily replaced as deputy first minister by another Sinn Féin figure possibly the Newry and Armagh MP, and former IRA prisoner Conor Murphy. The Derry-born former IRA commander’s entry into the presidential election will inevitably raise questions about his past inside the Provisionals. The Guardian revealed earlier this week in documents it had obtained containing evidence from a former military intelligence officer Ian Hurst alleging that McGuinness was aware of the murder plot against two top police officers in 1989. Hurt’s testimony to the Smithwick Inquiry into alleged Garda-IRA collusion includes claims that British state agent Freddie Scappaticci was centrally involved in the plot and reported directly to McGuinness who was then on the IRA’s council. If McGuinness were to be elected as head of state it would mark a career during which he had been chief of staff of AN organisation outlawed in both Northern Ireland and the Republic and ends up being chief of staff of the officially recognised Irish Defence Forces. Martin McGuinness Ireland Northern Ireland Henry McDonald guardian.co.uk
Continue reading …11th-hour Supreme Court execution stay for Texas inmate whose race was a factor in trial
September 16, 2011 No CommentThe U.S. Supreme Court has issued a rare motion to stay the execution of a Texas Death Row inmate who had already ate his last meal and was prepared to be lethally injected Wednesday night. What makes the highest court’s 11th-hour intervention even more unusual is that convicted murderer Duane Buck’s lawyers aren’t arguing that
Continue reading …Lawmakers in Congress are preparing for battle on several fronts as they weigh President Obama’s jobs plan–and one of the likely sticking points will be the administration’s request to further extend unemployment benefits, which are scheduled to expire at the end of the year. The White House argues that with economic growth faltering and unemployment
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Tourists at the River Thames in London got a rather unusual view for their holiday photographs on Friday. An army of 20 life-sized, individually decorated model gorillas were unveiled as part of a gorilla conservation fundraiser. (Sept. 16)
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The body of a 19-year-old woman who was abducted from her job at a southwest Arkansas convenience store was found in the trunk of her car, and a man walking near the area has been arrested. (Sept. 16)
Continue reading …Leaked Documents Name Names: Hedge Funds, Wall St., Koch Brothers, Big Banks And Oil Companies Were Behind 2008 Oil Price Shock
September 16, 2011 No CommentLee Fang at ThinkProgress follows up on the Sen. Bernie Sanders’ leak of oil speculator names. Major players include the Koch brothers and the Wall Street banks: Last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) leaked confidential data about oil speculation to a number of media outlets, including the Wall Street Journal. Ordinarily, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the regulatory body that oversees futures trading, does not provide identities of speculators to the public. However, the data leaked by Sanders provides a rare snapshot into the trading volumes by major speculators right before the oil price spike in the summer of 2008. As experts from Stanford University , Rice University , the University of Massachusetts , and authorities have concluded, rampant oil speculation was the prime driver of the record high prices for crude oil three years ago. To view a copy of the data, click here for documents leaked by Sanders. To view an organized spreadsheet, click here . Notably, the top speculators are noncommercial players, meaning they are companies that simply and buy and sell crude contracts with no interest in actually refining and selling the product. Each contract in the list represents 1,000 barrels of oil. The documents show the total volume of trades made on one specific day shortly before the record high price of $148 per barrel. The data, though revealing, still does not give a complete picture of trading strategies. Speculators invest in multiple private exchanges, and trading tactics can shift from day to day. Moreover physical plays, such as buying up large quantities of actual oil and storing it on tankers or in large containers, are still largely hidden from public view. Tyson Slocum, an oil speculation expert at Public Citizen, reviewed the documents and spoke with ThinkProgress . He said that this data is important because it shows who the “big players are” and underscores the need for transparency and regulation in these so-called dark markets: SLOCUM: What this tells us is who the big players are, because volume equates market share in a way, if you are driving volume, and if your volume is at a significant enough amount you become a price setter or at least a price trender where you’re going to have the effect of unilaterally influencing prices and that’s very significant. And you’ve got sort of a cascading effect, and the smaller traders are going to follow Goldman Sach and others will chase the leader, which is why Dodd Frank said Congress shall set position limits in these markets. Position limits would limit the market share, limit the positions banks could take. Dodd Frank recognizes the danger that one or two traders can have when they dominate the positions in a given market. Professor Michael Greenberger, a former CFTC official, told ThinkProgress that the “short” positions outlined by the document might cause confusion because in many cases banks act simply as intermediaries for their clients. Critics will note the net short positions and assume incorrectly that many of these players were simply betting on prices to go down, not up. Greenberger explained that if you look closer at the data, the trading shows banks and other speculators were actually pushing the price up: GREENBERGER: When you look at it carefully, the speculative money has all been heavily weighted in the favor of buying in the direction of the price going up. […] They go in and buy long in the regular futures market, which sends a long signal to the market, that there’s a supply problem that really doesn’t exist. To keep their long bets in place, they have to do something called the “Goldman Roll,” which is these contracts don’t go on forever. They expire. So what they have to do is sell short to get out of the contract when the expiration takes place, then roll around and buy long again to keep the long bet on the books. So the long bets are predicated on intermediate short bets, that are canceled out within three or four days of each other . Lots more, go read.
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From 24/7 Wall St.: The U.S. Census Bureau released two pieces of widely followed data Tuesday — one on poverty and the other on median income for 2010. The most interesting findings in this release were the state-by-state figures, especially when compared to national averages. A closer look at the statistics shows that a relatively small number of states suffer such widespread levels of low income and poverty that they skew the national numbers downward. The national poverty rate last year was 15.1%. That is up from 11.3% in 2000 and is the highest it has been since 1993. Over 46 million people lived below the poverty line in 2010. The cut-off for that line is households of four people who made under $22,314. The other troubling news was that median income per household nationwide was an inflation-adjusted $49,445. This is about the same as in 1989 and down 2.3% from 2009. Economists fear that Americans are not consumers. It is easy to tell why when their real income has been frozen in place for more than two decades. The problems of poverty and low income are as much local as national. The poverty rate is 21% in Mississippi. The state also has the lowest median income at $36,850. Mississippi is among the states with the worst education systems, highest obesity levels, highest unemployment, and lowest rates of health insurance coverage. The state is an economic black hole, and it shows in the way people suffer there. And, as is true with black holes, it is nearly impossible for the residents of Mississippi to escape their difficult financial situations. There is a dearth of federal programs that target specific states and cities based on local economic need. 24/7 Wall St. reviewed census data from all 50 states on median income, poverty rates, unemployment, and lack of health insurance. We then identified the ten states that have the lowest median income. We also looked at why low-income households are concentrated in these states and what, in some cases, has been done to reverse the difficult situations. These are the poorest states in America, according to 24/7 Wall St.:
Continue reading …Va. Passes Abortion Regs Favored by 55% of Voters, WaPo Notes NARAL Activist ‘Teared Up’ After Vote
September 16, 2011 No Comment
The Washington Post is no opponent of economic regulation. But dare to touch the largely unregulated abortion industry and it's quite a different story . In a 23-paragraph Metro section front-pager entitled “Stricter Va. rules on abortion gain,” * Post staffer Anita Kumar –see our archive on her bias here — noted in her lead paragraph that “the Virginia Board of Health overwhelmingly approved far-reaching regulations for abortion clinics” yesterday that “some operators say could shut down many of the state's 22 facilities” when they go into effect at the end of the year. Kumar (pictured at left) presented the new regulations as the cause of sadness and righteous indignation among opponents. In her third paragraph the Post reporter noted NARAL Pro-Choice Virginia official Tarina Keene had “teared up after the vote” and in paragraph seven Kumar quoted an unidentified man railing against the “government dogs” who “should know better.” Although Kumar noted a recent poll shows 55 percent of Virginia voters support “requiring clinics to meet hospital-type regulations” and observed the hearing was marked by “passionate public testimony from residents split over the regulations,” Kumar only quoted two supporters ** of the regulations compared to five opponents. It wasn't until paragraph 16 that Kumar noted the bipartisan support for the new regulations as the state Board of Health is comprised of nine members appointed by Republican Gov. Bob McDonnell and six by his Democratic predecessor, former DNC chairman Tim Kaine. Three of Kaine's appointees joined McDonnell's appointees, one voted against the regs and two “were absent from the meeting.” *The online headline is different: “Va. Board of Health approves stricter rules for abortion clinics” **Kumar also quoted a spokesman for Gov. McDonnell, Jeff Caldwell, but his was a neutral quote: “We will review the regulations as approved by the board in the weeks ahead.”
Continue reading …The Solandra saga has provided an early Christmas present for Obama foes hoping for a scandal, says Jon Stewart. The Daily Show host—showing clips of Obama hailing green energy investment and touring the now-shuttered solar panel plant which received $535 million in stimulus cash—says that while the scandal…
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