BRICS to Use Their Own Currencies in Transactions. - New Delhi, Mar 28 (Prensa Latina) The development and export/import banks of member countries of BRICS are about to agree on the use of their own currencies in commercial and credit operations within the group., said Trade Minister of India Anand Sharma. Sharma is expected to discuss this and other related issues on Wednesday with his counterparts of Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa as a preliminary to their 4th summit. He said that initiatives of this kind will contribute to broaden trade and investments among BRICS, which have potentials still untapped, and facilitate our economic development as world economy remains plunged into uncertainty. Sharma commented that the weakened global demand of goods and services, above all from Western markets, is affecting export prospects and growth possibilities of member countries of the group.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has blasted US Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney for saying Russia is the United States' "number one geopolitical foe," advising him to "use his head.”

"Regarding ideological clichés, every time this or that side uses phrases like “enemy number one,” this always alarms me, this smells of Hollywood and certain times (of the past)," Reuters quoted Medvedev as saying at the end of a nuclear security summit in South Korea on Tuesday. "I would recommend all US presidential candidates ... do two things. First, when phrasing their position one needs to use one's head, one's good reason, which would not do harm to a presidential candidate,” the Russian president added. "Also, (one needs to) look at his watch: we are in 2012 and not the mid-1970s," he went on to say.

Ivan Eland: Russia Is Not Public Enemy Number One

On Thursday, U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder signed expansive new guidelines for terrorism analysts, allowing the National Counter Terrorism Center (NCTC) to mirror entire federal databases containing personal information and hold onto the information for an extended period of time—even if the person is not suspected of any involvement in terrorism. (Read the guidelines here). Despite the “terrorism” justification, the new rules affect every single American. The agency now has free rein to, as the New York Times’ Charlie Savage put it, “retrieve, store and search information about Americans gathered by government agencies for purposes other than national security threats ” and expands the amount of time the government can keep private information on innocent individuals by a factor of ten.

John W. Whitehead: Everybody’s a Target in the American Surveillance State

The lead homicide investigator in the shooting of unarmed teenager Trayvon Martin recommended that neighborhood watch captain George Zimmerman be charged with manslaughter the night of the shooting, multiple sources told ABC News. - But Sanford, Fla., Investigator Chris Serino was instructed to not press charges against Zimmerman because the state attorney's office headed by Norman Wolfinger determined there wasn't enough evidence to lead to a conviction, the sources told ABC News. Police brought Zimmerman into the station for questioning for a few hours on the night of the shooting, said Zimmerman's attorney, despite his request for medical attention first. Ultimately they had to accept Zimmerman's claim of self defense. He was never charged with a crime.

Stephen Lendman: Stand Your Ground Laws Legalize Murder

It has been more than forty days since Hana Shalabi began her courageous fast - and her protest is still being ignored. A group of students from universities across the US and Europe have banded together to highlight her struggle and that of the Palestinians more broadly. Those students issued the following call to action today:

HANA SHALABI: UNIVERSITY CAMPUSES STAND WITH YOU - As students from American and European universities, we stand in solidarity with Hana Shalabi and her pursuit of justice and human rights as her voice is silenced by arbitrary administrative detention. We call on you to stand this Thursday March 29, 2012 with Hana Shalabi on her hunger strike. On March 25th, 2012 Hana al-Shalabi's appeal in Israeli Military courts against her re-arrest and placement under illegal administrative detention was rejected after 40 days in custody without charge or trial. Her re-arrest comes only four months after her release from over two years of administrative detention and was released in a prisoner exchange negotiated for the release of Gilad Shalit. Since her detention beginning February 16, 2012, Hana has been on an open-ended hunger strike in protest of Israel’s disregard to international law and basic human rights.

This Thursday March 29th, at least one student from each of our participating campuses across the Americas and Europe will go on a 24-hour hunger strike in solidarity with Hana Shalabi, her family, and other Palestinian detainees held in Israeli administrative detention without charge or trial. Students are encouraged to hold a small solidarity action with Hana and other prisoners on their campuses, even one as short as 15 minutes, and send pictures or videos of their action to solidarity.actions@gmail.com.

The year-long effort to overthrow President Bashar al-Assad and his government has failed. Two or three months ago, it seemed to come close to succeeding, as insurgents took over enclaves in cities such as Homs and Deir el-Zour. There was talk of no-fly zones and foreign military intervention. - Severe economic sanctions were slapped on Syria's already faltering economy. Every day brought news of fresh pressure on Assad and the momentum seemed to build inexorably for a change of rule in Damascus. It has not happened. Syria will not be like Libya.

The latest international action has been an EU ban on Assad's wife, Asma, and his mother travelling to EU countries (though, as a UK citizen, Asma can still travel to Britain). As damp squibs go, this is of the dampest. The Foreign Secretary, William Hague, claims this increases the pressure on the Syrian government but, on the contrary, it relieves it. Curtailing Asma's shopping trips to Paris or Rome, supposing she ever intended to go there, shows the extent to which the US, EU and their allies in the Middle East are running out of options when it comes to dealing with Damascus.

Global Research: When Mrs Assad’s "Shopping" Becomes a "Crime Against Humanity"
PressTV: Syria rebels form death squad, behead army soldiers: Report
Stephen Lendman: No Letup in Western-Backed Syrian Violence

50 have been killed and dozens injured in Libya as tribal groups are fighting in the country’s south. After the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya is left in a condition which some residents call a ‘non state’.

The fighting between rival armed militias, ongoing since Sunday, has spilled into the center of Libya’s third largest city of Sabha on Tuesday. The country’s National Transitional Council initially sent out 300 of its troops to calm the situation but the contingent had to be reinforced two-fold, Reuters said. However, there are reports that the national army may have retreated from the city. "We know that they are here to try to solve the problem and not fight," Sabha fighter Oweidat al-Hifnawi told the agency. "There are unconfirmed reports that they have retreated out of the city." The fighting resulted in the resignation of an NTC representative to Sabha, Abdulmajid Saif al-Nasser. He said that he was leaving his post as the council proved unable, or unwilling, to curb the violence.

Panetta Dismisses Polls, Insists Afghan War Strategy Won’t Change. - Speaking today following a meeting with his Canadian and Mexican counterparts, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta dismissed the recent polls showing a supermajority of Americans opposed to continuing the occupation of Afghanistan, saying that the US already has the “best strategy” for the war and will continue on with it despite what the polls say. “I think the American people understand why we’re engaged in Afghanistan. 9/11 represented an attack on our country,” Panetta said. The poll actually touched on this, with a majority of respondents saying that since the death of Osama bin Laden [probably in late 2001] [his death irrelevant for the “mission” anyway] they aren’t really clear what the “mission” of the occupation is anymore.

Certain top French intelligence officials have suggested that Mohamed Merah, the alleged gunman in Toulouse, worked for French intelligence.

Merah has been linked to the Central Directorate of Internal Intelligence (DCRI), run by Bernard Squarcini, who is very close to President Nicolas Sarkozy. Squarcini has admitted that Merah repeatedly visited DCRI offices. Yves Bonnet, a former intelligence chief, says of Merah: "He was known to the DCRI... because he had a handler in domestic intelligence." According to intelligence sources that spoke to Il Foglio, France's General Directorate of External Security obtained entry into Israel for Merah in 2010, presenting him as an informant.

Il Foglio/Courrier International: Merah was an informer for the intelligence services? (Google Translate)
Alex Lantier: Reports indicate Toulouse gunman was French intelligence asset
Le Nouvel Obs: Une vidéo des tueries de Mohamed Merah envoyée à Al Jazeera
Le Parisien: Al-Jazira renonce à diffuser les vidéos des tueries

The aftermaths of the Great Recession and the Great Depression produced sharply different changes in U.S. incomes that tell us a lot about tax and economic policy. - The 1934 economic rebound was widely shared, with strong income gains for the vast majority, the bottom 90 percent. In 2010, we saw the opposite as the vast majority lost ground. National income gained overall in 2010, but all of the gains were among the top 10 percent. Even within those 15.6 million households, the gains were extraordinarily concentrated among the super-rich, the top one percent of the top one percent. Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain. The different results in 1934 and 2010 show how a major shift in federal policy hurts the vast majority and benefits the super-rich.

Barry Grey: The Obama recovery - The Reuters article published March 15 [above] provides statistical proof that when it comes to helping the top 1 percent at the expense of everyone else, Obama takes a back seat to no one. The article notes that the movement of US incomes during the Obama “recovery” contrasts sharply with that which occurred in 1934, during the Great Depression. National income rose overall in 2010, but all of the gains went to the top 10 percent. Just 15,600 super-rich households pocketed an astonishing 37 percent of the entire national gain. The article further reports that the top 1 percent’s share of real income growth has increased with each economic expansion, regardless of whether a Democrat or Republican was in the White House. The top 1 percent captured 45 percent of Clinton-era income growth, 65 percent of Bush-era growth, and 93 percent of Obama-era growth, through 2010. These facts demonstrate the existence in the US of a plutocracy that controls the Democrats and Republicans and the entire political system.

On the eve of the President’s last State of the Union speech the White House let it be known that a recent essay by Robert Kagan in The New Republic, which excerpted his book, The World America Made, had been sent to his national security staff for their perusal. As the President told reporters beforehand, Kagan’s thesis – that America is not in decline and must maintain its hegemonic stature in the world, or all is lost – was a major theme of his peroration. [...] That President Barack Obama, ostensibly a Democrat of the liberal variety, was touting the views of a neoconservative foreign policy maven whose work has been published in The Weekly Standard, should come as a surprise to exactly no one. The overarching bipartisan consensus in Washington in favor of global intervention ensures that foreign policy disputes are limited to “debates” over means rather than ends. In short, it isn’t a question of whether we ought to have an empire, but of how to best to maintain and expand it.

Washington, D.C.—“For the third year in a row, the Maryland State House has failed consumers and their vital resources by undermining groundbreaking legislation that would have banned the use of arsenic in the state’s poultry industry. - “At the last minute the poultry and pharmaceutical industries made changes to the bill to ban arsenic, effectively nullifying the bill’s intent. They then used their political clout to pass the gutted bill through the House of Delegates. “The Democratic leadership of the Maryland General Assembly will need to fix this bill in order to demonstrate that their loyalties lie with their constituents, not the powerful poultry and pharmaceutical industries.

The People's Voice: Scientists Warn of Low-Dose Risks of Chemical Exposure - A new study finds that even low doses of hormone-disrupting chemicals — used in everything from plastics to pesticides – can have serious effects on human health. These findings, the researchers say, point to the need for basic changes in how chemical safety testing is conducted.

Israeli-born Gilad Atzmon, one of Europe’s finest jazz musicians, was in Washington, DC for the first time at the end of a multi-city North American grassroots tour to discuss his recently published and highly controversial book, The Wandering Who? - A Study of Jewish Identity Politics. On March 14, Atzmon was interviewed by Prof. Norton Mezvinsky, Connecticut State University Professor of History Emeritus, at Washington’s Mount Vernon Place United Methodist Church. The previous day a letter signed by 23 Palestinian activists called for “the disavowal of the racism and anti-Semitism of Gilad Atzmon.” Watch the VIDEO of the Atzmon addressing the charges frequently levied against him. Decide for yourself—should Atzmon continue his frank discussion of Jewish identity or should his voice be silenced? The Washington Report believes that no writer or thinker should be shunned in the United States—or anywhere—and we stand by our decision to host his DC events.

[Editor's Comment:] Gilad has good arguments and acquits himself very well, but it seems to us that this so-called interview still essentially is a modern-day inquisition. We find it nauseating and very embarrassing. Quoting Wikipedia, let us remind ourselves why these medieval tribunals were set up, viz. to instill fear by combating so-called heresies: "...quoniam punitio non refertur primo & per se in correctionem & bonum eius qui punitur, sed in bonum publicum ut alij terreantur, & a malis committendis avocentur. [Translation from the Latin:]...for punishment does not take place primarily and per se for the correction and good of the person punished, but for the public good in order that others may become terrified and weaned away from the evils they would commit." - Both the medieval and the modern-day tribunals should be considered to be a kind of religious/political terrorism. They also are demonstrations of power. Their message now is: You question the Muslims and you're ok. You question the Jews and you're in trouble. Gilad has committed the heresy of questioning what "Jewishness" is all about. He's been in trouble ever since. (Gilad's articles @ AWIP)

[Part I + Part II + Part III + Part IV]

Wife of imprisoned Hamas leader, Abbas al-Sayyed, said that her husband was exposed to an assassination attempt when a special force attacked and assaulted him severely beating him on the head and the chest with the aim of killing him. - Ikhlas al-Sweis, Sayyed’s wife, said that lawyers who visited him over the past three days informed her of the news and told her that he is in a serious condition after the assassination attempt which took place last Wednesday. He told his wife through his lawyers that was it not for God's mercy he would be dead now considering the extent of barbaric beating he suffered and that he is still suffering severe pains but the prison authority would not provide him with medical treatment. She added that prison guards told him that they were taking him out of his cell for a medical examination, they took him to a room with about 15 soldiers, as soon as he entered the room the door was closed and the took turns in beating him until he lost consciousness.

PIC: Violent Israeli criminals transferred to section of Palestinian female detainees - Muhjat Al-Quds society for prisoners' rights said the Israeli jailers of Sharon prison transferred last Monday Israeli female criminals to section 2 where all Palestinian female prisoners are detained. In a press release on Tuesday, the society highlighted that the presence of violent Israeli criminals in the same section would expose the Palestinian female detainees to constant harassment and attacks.

My Palestine: Palestinian Prisoners on a General Hunger Strike in Israeli Dungeons

When I interviewed Dr. Khalaf a week ago, as Israel was bombing the Strip yet again, he stressed the prolonged and always worsening health care crisis, including the effect of the power cuts:

It is very critical, 180 of 450 of patients’ drug items are at zero stock; 200 of 900 of essential medical items are at zero stock. We lack many essential drugs, including those needed for anaesthesia, antibiotics, specialized milk for infants, treatments for neurological conditions like epilepsy, and cancer medications. No electricity means no medical service. Electricity is the life of medical service, for all machines; the ICU is completely dependent on electricity, as is the operating theatre, kidney dialysis…Over a month ago, when the situation was already grave after weeks without power, I wrote:

an 80% of patients in the Gaza Strip are threatened to terrible health status and possibility of death due to lack of electricity. …some 404 of dialysis patients are at risk of death for their treatment is totally based on electricity, …100 children exist in special care are threatened to death . …72% of the diesel storage has just run out from Gaza hospitals, …Gaza hospitals will be in a complete paralysis in case of not provided with more fuel.”