UN Arms Treaty Blocked

US SENATORS LEAD
BLOCKING MOVE ON
UN ARMS TREATY:

WASHINGTON, 26.07.12 — A bipartisan group of 51 senators threatened to oppose a global treaty regulating international weapons trade if it falls short in protecting the constitutional right to bear arms.

In a letter to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, the Senators expressed serious concerns with the draft treaty that has circulated at the United Nations, saying that it signals an expansion of gun control that would be unacceptable to them.

The world’s nations are pressing to complete the first legally binding treaty dealing with arms trade and preventing the transfer of weapons to armed groups and terrorists. The 193-member U.N. General Assembly is expected to approve the treaty this month.

The senators said as the negotiations continue, “we strongly encourage your administration not only to uphold our country’s constitutional protections of civilian firearms ownership, but to ensure — if necessary, by breaking consensus at the July conference — that the treaty will explicitly recognize the legitimacy of lawful activities associated with firearms, including but not limited to the right of self-defense.

“As members of the United States Senate, we will oppose the ratification of any Arms Trade Treaty that falls short of this standard,” they wrote.The Senators insisted that the treaty should explicitly recognize the legitimacy of hunting, sport shooting and other lawful activities.They also raised concerns that the draft defines international arms transfers as including transport across national territory while requiring the monitor and control of arms in transit.The National Rifle Association opposes the treaty, saying its members will never surrender the right to bear arms to the United Nations.

The treaty has been in the works since 2006. Abandoning the Bush administration opposition, the Obama administration supported an assembly resolution to hold this year’s four-week conference on the treaty.In April, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for international security and nonproliferation, Thomas Countryman, reiterated U.S. support for a treaty:

“We want any treaty to make it more difficult and expensive to conduct illicit, illegal and destabilizing transfers of arms,” he said. “But we do not want something that would make legitimate international arms trade more cumbersome than the hurdles United States exporters already face.”

Last week, the delegates who attended the Arms Trade Treaty Conference (ATT) did not come to a consensus to ratify the ATT, but, rather will come back to the issue later this year.
Further talks will likely take place at a UN General Assembly (UNGA) meeting wherein 192 nations could achieve the 2/3rd majority vote for ratification of the ATT. According to a British delegation member: “We feel that we could have agreed (a treaty). It is disappointing that more time is needed. But an arms-trade treaty is coming – not today – but soon. We’ve taken a big step forward.”

Although activists in support of a convention for global gun control advocated the need to prevent illicit trade of guns into conflicted zones, such as in Syria, those same activists blamed the US and Russia for causing a stalemate during the negotiations process.Victoria Nuland, US Ambassador to the UN released a statement on the US State Department website wherein it was admitted that “the illicit trafficking of conventional arms is an important national security concern for the United States.”

The US has committed to an ATT that works towards a contribution “to international security, protect the sovereign right of states to conduct legitimate arms trade, and meet the objectives and concerns that we have been articulating throughout the negotiation” and the US government believes that the ATT “will make a valuable contribution to global security by helping to stem illicit arms transfers, and we will continue to look for ways for the international community to work together to improve the international arms transfer regime so that weapons aren’t transferred to people who would abuse them.”

The stance of the US government, in rejecting signature of the ATT over the trafficking of illicit arms directs the purpose of the CIA and Obama administration’s involvement in arming terrorist groups in order to facilitate foreign policy objectives in the Middle East with regard to the current situation in Syria and ultimately Iran. In the background, the massive US arms industry with its funding of Senators and Congressmen/women, whose constituencies host arms manufacture, continues to frustrate UN efforts to clamp down on the illegal arms trade which causes killing and oppression in countries with political instability and weak law enforcement. Aided and abetted by the political lobbyists of the NRA who fund opposition to US lawmakers who favour stricter gun control.

FearFeasaMacLéinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin

Iúil/July 30 2012

Left gains in Greece and France Elections

Greece boosts Left Party status:

France gives Hollande majority
in Parliament!

 

Elections this Sunday in France and Greece produced substantial gains for left parties in both countries:

The result of the Greek General Election gave the Greek New Left group Syriza 27.1% of the vote, the largest vote for the left since WW2. The conservative New Democracy, representing the elite middle class, bankers and pro-EU, pro-NATO forces gained a slight lead with 29.59%

Speaking before thousands of cheering supporters waving red and white flags (some emblazoned with the hammer and sickle) outside Athens'  University building, Syriza leader Lexi Tsipras told the crowd: "Some may think that they won the elections tonight but they did not. The people won. The policies of austerity have been defeated. They will not be able to push forward with them either in Greece or Europe." Tsipras announced that Syriza would not join any Government which agreed to implement the hated IMF/EU austerity plan but would become the Opposition in parliament.

Tsipras was joined on the stage by the World War 2 hero Manolis Glezos who in a first act of resistance against Nazi occupation of Greece tore down the swastika from the Acropolis. The 92-year-old hailed the left's capture of 27.1 % of the vote as "the beginning of the end."

    "Who would have thought, or calculated, that we would go from 4.6 percent to this?" he enthused punching the air with his fist. "We must raise the flag, the flag of victory."

Right-wing and conservative press outlets have been trying to spin the Greek result as “victory for Europe” but, if it was such, it’s a distinctly hollow one. The Greek ND doesn’t have a majority in parliament and will have to bargain for a coalition with mainly hostile parties in no mood to gain opprobrium from the population for implementing the cruel IMF/EU austerity regime imposed on the previous Greek government of ND and PASOK. With a much enlarged Syriza breathing down their neck and an increasingly angry population taking to the streets, an ND led government would have a short life and another election would be called in a few months. It is glossed over that the austerity regime was never voted on by the Greek people but, was effected by an unelected Gauleiter imposed by the IMF/EU.

A new ND-PASOK coalition would hold on to power with difficulty in the next year. Its majority would be slim and so is the trust of the electorate. Although it is likely that the upcoming EU Council in June 27-28 will reward a new government with an extension on its debt payments and may even grant new loans quickly, the terms of the Memorandum will not be substantially renegotiated and the state of Greece’s bankruptcy will continue, as will the general economic decline of the entire Eurozone. Impoverishment will get worse and social unrest will increase. Since the previous ND-PASOK coalition showed itself capable  only of capitulation to external forces, its internal political legitimacy, now bolstered by insecurity and fear, would be bound to collapse and SYRIZA must remain the primary vehicle for the transformation of the old political system.

Whatever new government is formed, the structural defects of the Euro still remain and will continue to hold down growth opportunities as long as Germany, led by conservative Merkel, fails to agree to reducing debt accumulated by financial gambling in virtual reality not related to any real production values. This unjustified credit boom of the last ten years is now a millstone around the neck of the millions of ordinary people who are suffering for the criminal delinquency of the financial elite and their political cronies.

FRANCE SWINGS LEFT:

In France, newly elected President Francois Hollande’s Socialist Party swept to majority power in the French parliament. The Socialist bloc secured between 296 and 320 seats in the parliamentary election runoff, comfortably more than the 289 needed for a majority in the 577-seat National Assembly. The centre-left already controls the upper house of parliament, the Senate.

The far-right anti-immigration National Front achieved a breakthrough, winning its first parliamentary seats (2) since the late-1980s. Its charismatic leader, Marine Le Pen, narrowly lost her race in the working-class northern town of Hénin-Beaumont by a mere 118 votes (out of a total of more than 55,000 ballots) but, Marion Marechal Le Pen, 22, granddaughter of party founder Jean-Marie Le Pen, was elected in the southern town of Carpentras.

The left-wing victory gives the Socialists more power than they have ever held as Hollande pushes for new tools to stimulate growth in the euro zone and a European banking reform that would protect depositors and states if banks fail. The Socialist leader flies to Mexico on Monday for a G20 summit that will be dominated by the euro zone's financial crisis as a rift with the bloc's paymaster, Germany, over how to resolve the crisis has sparked a sharp public squabble. Hollande, a european social democrat, has broken with a Franco-German power duopoly established under his predecessor Nicolas Sarkozy and is siding with southern euro zone states, calling for more flexibility on deficit targets and stimulus programs to promote growth in the euro-zone economies. With the right now severely weakened, Hollande's strong hand will be a boon as he prepares a mass of legislation for the weeks ahead to raise taxes and start economic expansion again.The Socialists, will use the comfortable majority won in Sunday's parliamentary elections in a special session of parliament next month to cancel tax breaks and increase taxes for large corporations, particularly banks and energy companies.

Interior Minister, Manuel Valls, said the Government would waste no time in pressing ahead with promised reforms."We need to sort out this country's finances, to ensure we achieve a balanced budget by 2017, and at the same time pursue our priorities in terms of growth, employment, education and security," said Valls, promising tax reforms to ensure that the richest French pay their share."We need to mobilise our European partners because piling more austerity on top of austerity will lead to tragedy and a deep rift between the peoples of Europe and their politicians."

With unemployment at a 13-year high of 10 percent and economic growth stagnating, Hollande faces a delicate balancing act in reducing the government deficit and keeping the euro zone's second largest economy beyond the perceptions of financial market speculators attacking Spain and Italy.

FearFeasaMacLéinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin 18 Meitheamh/June 2012.

No Justification for 2nd

Albanian State in Europe!

The precipitate and illegal secession of the province of Kosovo from Serbia is a tyrannical act which can only lead to instability and conflict in an area of Europe that has seen too much of such events in recent years.

The situation is worsened because of the way it has been connived at by the US and its NATO followers, contrary to all international law and practice and solemn agreements these countries have entered into themselves. The hypocritical US, NATO, and EU leaders have breached the UN Charter, the Helsinki Agreement on European Security and Cooperation and in the case of EU countries, the EU Treaties and Common foreign Policy Agreements, in recognising this illegal entity.

Despite the presence of thousands of NATO troops (and a small contingent of Irish Defence Forces personnel), the Kosovo enclave, forcibly separated from Serbia in 1999 after the barbaric bombing of the Serbian capital, Belgrade, other cities and towns, schools, hospitals, and public transport by the USA and its NATO allies, has increased in lawlessness and criminality ever since. Denounced by Interpol, the International Police Organisation, as the headquarters of the worst human traffickers, drug cartels( 5000 tonnes of heroin per month now passing through), financial fraudsters and identity fraudsters, political power in the enclave has been handed over by NATO/EU to the leader of the terrorist KLA militia, Hasim Thaci.

This monstrous crime against the Serbian people shows the contempt for law and solemn agreements of the current EU/NATO leadership and opens to question whether these lying hypocrites can be believed on any issue of international importance in the future. It also shows the Irish people, soon to vote in a referendum later this year on the disguised EU “Constitution” now posing as the “Lisbon Treaty”, the falseness and hypocrisy of the promises now being made in support of this dishonest Treaty by the same mendacious political fraudsters.

Leading the charge in promoting the recognition of the illegal entity is Javier Solana, EU “Security” chief and former Secretary General of NATO whose entire career has been devoted to seeing how low he can get in bootlicking his Washington masters in the NATO alliance. Solana was also in the forefront of organising the barbaric bombing of Yugoslavia in1999 and the bullying and intimidation of Macedonia into accepting NATO occupation in the same year, using the KLA terrorist militia as part of this nefarious scheme. This is the same muck-maggot who is now telling us to vote yes in the coming referendum in order to get even more power into his own hands and the hands of the Brussels Bureaucrats Club of which he is a leading member.

True to form, the toadying Irish Government, which has allowed the USA to transport its troops and material through Shannon Airport to aid its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan plus the scandalous use of the airport for illegal transport of prisoners, kidnapped by US agents, to torture camps in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other countries in league with the USA in these criminal activities, has announced, through Foreign Minister, Dermot Ahern, their intention to recognise the illegal Kosovo enclave. Luckily for us, this disgraceful decision is challengeable in the Irish courts as it cannot be legal for any Irish Government to spend taxpayers money in support of a criminal enterprise, contrary to the UN Charter and international law. The sooner the better this challenge is mounted to show that the Irish people themselves are not intimidated by EU/NATO political bullies and vicious warmongers, whatever about the spinelessness of our so-called “leaders”.

Fear Feasa Mac Léinn

Áth Cliath/Dublin Feabhra/February 19 2008.