Markus Salzmann

The silence on the part of other EU states on this development speaks volumes. All European governments are in the process of shifting the burden of the international economic crisis onto the broad mass of the population via drastic austerity measures. This cannot be carried out by democratic methods.

Hungary’s right-wing government led by Victor Orban has used its 15 months in office to systematically establish an authoritarian regime. It has curtailed the powers of the judiciary, imposed limits on press freedom, purged the media and state apparatus of critical voices and introduced a constitution reminiscent of the dictatorship of Regent Miklos Horthy.

At the same time, it has undertaken broad measures against the social and democratic rights of working people. The regime has introduced compulsory labour for the unemployed, slashed pensions, reduced social spending and laid off thousands of public service employees.

In particular, the Orban government has tightened up its authoritarian measures following the end of the Hungarian presidency of the European Union in June. Initially, some sporadic criticism of Orban’s measures was raised inside the European Union; now there is little to be heard. There has also been no protest from the ranks of the European People’s Party, which includes alongside members of Orban’s Civic Union (Fidesz), the German conservative CDU and CSU, and the French ruling UMP party.

Together with its small coalition partner, the national conservative Christian Democrats, Fidesz has a two-thirds majority in the Hungarian Parliament. Fidesz has used its majority to change the constitution and adopt measures that can only be reversed by a two-thirds majority. Having announced his intention to “reconstruct the whole country” at the beginning of his term, Orban has considerably expanded the powers of his government with such laws.

The Constitutional Court, for example, has suffered an extensive reduction of its powers. The country’s highest judges are no longer able to rule on whether new budget, tax and welfare laws are consistent with current law.

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William Bowles

The media’s mantras of ‘lawlessness’, ‘copycat crime’ and ‘Twitter coordinated riots’, designed to mask the desperate conditions of millions of young people who languish, ignored and forgotten in impoverished communities across the UK.

It’s fashionable to call them the ‘underclass’ that the state has buried away, out of sight–out of mind on ‘sink estates’ or trapped and invisible in the poorest neighborhoods of our cities. Demonized and/or sentimentalized by the state/corporate media (‘Shameless’ and ‘East Enders’ come to mind), exactly as in Victorian times, an entire section of the working class have been reduced to some inferior, sub-human species by the political class and its media partners-in-crime.

“Were there a serious political opposition party in this country it would be arguing for dismantling the shaky scaffolding of the neoliberal system before it crumbles and hurts even more people.” — Tariq Ali

I suspect the figure is probably as high as 30%, that is to say, nearly a third of the population and a great many of them under the age of twenty-five. To put it another way, the youngsters we are seeing out on the street are for the most part, the children of this 30% of the population ‘surplus to capitalist requirement’. Unemployment is especially high amongst the young and (deliberately) under-educated, especially at a time when big chunks of the ‘middle class’ are being forced back whence they came from, the working class, just like most of us.

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Robert Stevens

Prime Minister David Cameron chaired a meeting of the governmental emergency COBRA committee yesterday and called a special sitting in parliament for Thursday, in response to continuing rioting in London that has spread to other towns and cities in England.

Cameron was forced to cut short his holiday in Tuscany to oversee plans for a major police operation across the capital. Some 16,000 police were on duty last night—treble the usual number—with back-up being brought in from across the country.

The measures came in response to rioting that had spread across London as well as Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool and Nottingham. On Tuesday evening reports emerged of additional disturbances in Manchester, adjacent Salford and West Bromwich and Wolverhampton in the Midlands.

The riots were triggered by the police killing of 29-year-old Tottenham resident Mark Duggan by an officer of the Specialist Firearm Command (CO19) last Thursday evening. A peaceful protest of Duggan’s family and supporters on Saturday evening was brutally attacked by riot police, sparking a wave of unrest.

Late Monday, the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC), acknowledged that Duggan had not opened fire on police, as had originally been claimed. It said ballistic tests presented “no evidence” that a handgun, found at the scene where Duggan was killed, had been fired at officers.

The IPCC found that a CO19 firearms officer fired two bullets, one of which lodged in a police radio after possibly passing through Duggan’s body. Duggan had also been hit in the arm.

The statement confirms accounts that Duggan was the victim of police, who acted as judge, jury and executioner. Yet no one has been held to account for his killing. The officer involved has simply been removed from duty. The inquest into Duggan’s death was adjourned on Tuesday pending an IPCC investigation that could take six months.

Moreover, long-simmering discontent over worsening social conditions and police brutality is being completely passed over by the official political parties and the media. Manifestly, police killings are acceptable to these layers, but any response to it is to be met with the full force of the state.

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Spiegel Online staff

After the fourth night of riots in England, observers are asking what is behind the wave of violence. German commentators argue that the unrest reflects a deep-seated malaise at the heart of British society.

Britain is searching for answers after four consecutive nights of riots that have shocked the country and led to hundreds of arrests.

Prime Minister David Cameron, who cut short his vacation in Italy in reaction to this week's violence, was due to chair a meeting of Cobra, the British government's emergency council, on Wednesday to discuss how to proceed. He has recalled the British parliament, which will meet on Thursday to discuss the rioting , the worst violence of its kind in Britain since race riots in the 1980s.

London was relatively quiet on Tuesday night, following the deployment of around 16,000 police in trouble spots around the city. Many businesses closed early on Tuesday amid fears of unrest.

Violence spread to an increasingly number of towns and cities around England, however, including Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool, where groups of young men in hooded tops looted shops and set fire to cars and buildings. In one of the most serious incidents, a police station in Nottingham was firebombed. Violence was also reported in Wolverhampton, Leicester, Bristol and Gloucester.

Youth have reportedly been using mobile phones and social media to organize the disturbances. In some places they reportedly played cat-and-mouse games with police, who appeared overwhelmed at times. So far police have not used heavy-duty, anti-riot tactics such as tear gas or water cannon, but some conservative and right-wing politicians have called for a harder crackdown on the unrest.

There were reports of residents in some cities organizing to protect their businesses and neighborhoods. In Southall, west London, local Sikhs insisted they would protect their temple against rioters. Meanwhile the leader of the far-right English Defense League, Stephen Lennon, has said his group would "stop the riots," claiming the police were unable to cope with the situation.

A murder inquiry has been launched in Birmingham after a car ran over and killed three Muslim men. The men were reported to have been part of a group that was trying to protect their neighborhood. A 26-year-old man who was found shot in a car in the London suburb of Croydon on Monday has since died in hospital. He is believed to have been shot during unrest there.

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Paul Craig Roberts

It seems clear to me that under intense pressure and serious threats from the US government, the Pakistani government fell in line with the US government’s claim that a commando raid had killed bin Laden, and that the TV news organization got the message to get in line also. I am confident that no news organization believes that it could confront such an important US national myth.

In my recent article, "Creating Evidence Where There Is None," about the alleged killing of Osama bin Laden by a commando team of US Seals in Abbottabad, Pakistan, I provided a link to a Pakistani National TV interview with Muhammad Bashir, who lives next door to the alleged "compound" of Osama bin Laden. I described the story that Bashir gave of the "attack" and its enormous difference from the one told by the US government. In Bashir’s account, every member of the landing party and anyone brought from the house died when the helicopter exploded on lift-off. I wrote that a qualified person could easily provide a translation of the interview, but that no American print or TV news organization had investigated Bashir’s account.

An attorney with a British Master of Laws degree in international law and diplomacy, who was born in Pakistan, provided the translation below. He writes: "I have no problem with being identified as the translator, but would prefer to remain anonymous." The translator provides these definitions and clarifications:

● "Gulley" is generally referred (in Urdu) to a sidewalk or pavement. Also for the space between two houses.
● "Kanal" is a traditional unit of land area, so that one kanal equals exactly 605 square yards or 1/8 Acre; this is equivalent to about 505. 857 square meters.

Muhammad Bashir refers to himself as "We". This is common respectable language for the self; to use the plural term instead of singular. The English language equivalent would be the "Royal, We".

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Stephen Lendman

[This article was first published on May 27, 2008. Unfortunately, it is still relevant today. Very much so. - Ed.]

It's called "Plan Mexico," or more formally the "Merida Initiative," and here's the scheme. It's to do for Mexicans what Plan Colombia has done to that nation since 1999, and, in fact, much earlier. Since then, billions have gone for the following:

● to establish a US military foothold in the country;
● mostly to fund US weapons, chemical and other corporate profiteers; it's a long-standing practice; in fact, a 1997 Pentagon document affirms that America's military will "protect US interests and investments;" in Colombia, it's to control its valuable resources; most importantly oil and natural gas but also coal, iron ore, nickel, gold, silver, emeralds, copper and more; it's also to crush worker resistance, eliminate unions, target human rights and peasant opposition groups, and make the country a "free market" paradise inhospitable to people;
● it funds a brutish military as well; already, over 10,000 of its soldiers have been trained at the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC) - aka the School of the Americas (SOA) at Fort Benning, Georgia; its graduates are infamous as human rights abusers, drugs traffickers, and death squad practitioners; they were well schooled in their "arts" by the nation most skilled in them;
● it lets Colombia arm and support paramilitary death squads; they're known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC); for more than a decade, they've terrorized Colombians and are responsible for most killings and massacres in support of powerful western and local business interests;
● it funds drug eradication efforts, but only in FARC-EP and ELN areas; government-controlled ones are exempt; trafficking is big business; laundering drugs money reaps huge profits for major US and regional banks; the CIA has also been linked to the trade for decades, especially since the 1980s; after Afghanistan's invasion and occupation, opium harvests set records - mostly from areas controlled by US-allied "warlords;" the Taliban's drug eradication program was one reason it was targeted; Colombia's drug eradication is horrific; it causes ecological devastation; crop and forest destruction; lives and livelihoods lost; large areas chemically contaminated; bottom line of the program - record amounts of Colombian cocaine reach US and world markets; trafficking is more profitable than ever; so is big business thanks to paramilitary terror;
● it's to topple the FARC-EP and ELN resistance groups; Latin American expert James Petras calls the former the "longest standing (since 1964), largest peasant-based guerrilla (resistance) movement in the world;" it's also to weaken Hugo Chavez, other regional populist leaders and groups, and destabilize their countries; and
● it supports the "Uribe doctrine;" it's in lockstep with Washington; its policies are hard right, corporate-friendly and militarized for enforcement.

Plan Colombia turned the country into a dependable, profitable narco-state. Business is better than ever. Violence is out of control and human rights abuses are appalling. It gets worse.

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