Kurdish convoy heads to Syria to take on Islamic State BY DASHA AFANASIEVA AND ALEXANDER DZIADOSZ

(Reuters) - A convoy of peshmerga fighters from northern Iraqheaded across southeastern Turkey on Wednesday towards the Syrian town of Kobani to try to help fellow Kurds break an Islamic State siege which has defied U.S.-led air strikes.

Kobani, on the border with Turkey, has been under assault for more than a month and its fate has become a test of the U.S.-led coalition's ability to combat the Sunni Muslim insurgents.

Weeks of air strikes on Islamic State positions around Kobani and the deaths of hundreds of their fighters have failed to break the siege. The Kurds and their international allies hope the arrival of the peshmerga, along with heavier weapons, can turn the tide.

The Kurdish fighters were given a heroes' welcome as their convoy of jeeps and flatbed trucks, some bearing heavy machineguns, snaked its way for around 400 km (250 miles) through Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast after crossing the border from northern Iraq.

The presence of Kurdish forces passing with government permission through a part of Turkey which has seen a three-decade insurgency by local Kurdish PKK militants was an extraordinary sight for many residents.

Villagers set bonfires, let off fireworks and chanted by the side of the road as the convoy passed. Thousands took to the streets of the border town of Suruc, descending on its tree-lined main square and spilling into side streets, some with faces painted in the colors of the Kurdish flag.

"All the Kurds are together. We want them to go and fight in Kobani and liberate it," said Issa Ahamd, an 18-year-old high school student among the almost 200,000 Syrian Kurds who have fled to Turkey since the assault on Kobani began.

An initial group of between 90 and 100 peshmerga fighters arrived by plane amid tight security in the nearby city of Sanliurfa early on Wednesday, according to Adham Basho, a member of the Syrian Kurdish National Council from Kobani.

Saleh Moslem, co-chair of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said the peshmerga were expected to bring heavy arms to Kobani - known as Ayn al-Arab in Arabic.

"It's mainly artillery, or anti-armor, anti-tank weapons," he said. The lightly armed Syrian Kurds have said such weaponry is crucial to driving back Islamic State insurgents, who have used armored vehicles and tanks in their assault.

Kurdistan's Minister of Peshmerga, Mustafa Sayyid Qader, told local media on Tuesday that no limits had been set to how long the forces would remain in Kobani. The Kurdistan Regional Government has said the fighters would not engage in direct combat in Kobani but rather provide artillery support.

RADICAL ISLAM

Islamic State has caused international alarm by capturing large expanses of Iraq and Syria, declaring an Islamic "caliphate" that erases borders between the two. Its fighters have slaughtered or driven away Shi'ite Muslims, Christians and other communities who do not share their ultra-radical brand of Sunni Islam.

Fighters from the Nusra Front, al Qaeda's official affiliate in the Syrian civil war, have meanwhile seized territory from moderate rebels in recent days, expanding their control into one of the few areas of northern Syria not already held by hardline Islamists.

Nearly 10 million people have been displaced by Syria's war and close to 200,000 killed, according to the United Nations. A Syrian army helicopter dropped two barrel bombs on a displaced persons camp in the northern province of Idlib on Wednesday, killing many, camp residents said.

In Iraq, security forces said they had advanced to within 2 km (1.2 miles) of the city of Baiji on Wednesday in a new offensive to retake the country's biggest oil refinery that has been besieged since June by Islamic State.

Islamic State has threatened to massacre Kobani's defenders, triggering a call to arms from Kurds across the region.

The U.S. military conducted 14 air strikes on Tuesday and Wednesday against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, according to a statement from U.S. Central Command. Eight of the raids destroyed Islamic State targets near Kobani, it said.

At least a dozen shells fired by Islamic State fighters fell on the town overnight as clashes with the main Syrian Kurdish armed group, the YPG, continued, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

It said preparations were being made at a border gate which Islamic State fighters have repeatedly tried to capture before the arrival of the peshmerga, while YPG and Islamic State forces exchanged fire in gun battles on the southern edge of the town.

The Observatory also said 50 Syrian fighters had entered Kobani from Turkey with their weapons, though it was unclear which group they belonged to. Turkey has pushed for moderate Syrian rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad to join the battle against Islamic State in Kobani.

Rebel commander Abdul Jabbar al-Oqaidi said he had led 200 Free Syrian Army fighters into Kobani but there was no independent confirmation of this. The FSA describes dozens of armed groups fighting Assad but with little or no central command. It is widely outgunned by Islamist insurgents.

DELICATE PARTNERSHIP

The Iraqi Kurdish region's parliament voted last week to deploy some peshmerga forces to Syria and, under pressure from Western allies, Turkey agreed to let then cross its territory.

The United States and its allies in the coalition have made clear they do not plan to send troops to fight Islamic State in Syria or Iraq, but they need fighters on the ground to capitalize on their air strikes.

Syrian Kurds have called for the international community to provide them with heavier weapons and munitions and they have received an air drop from the United States.

But Turkey accuses Kurdish groups in Kobani of links to the militant PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party), which has fought the insurgency against the Turkish state and is regarded as a terrorist group by Ankara, Washington and the European Union.

That has complicated efforts to provide aid.

A Syrian Kurdish official said in Paris on Wednesday that France, which has taken part in air strikes in Iraq and given Iraqi peshmerga fighters weapons and training, had yet to fulfill a promise to give support to Kurds in Syria.

"France has said it was ready to help the Kurds, but we haven't been received by the French authorities. There has been no direct or indirect contact," Khaled Eissa, representative in France of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), said.

French officials confirmed there had been no meetings in large part due to concern about historic links to the PKK.

Ankara fears Syria's Kurds will exploit the chaos by following their brethren in Iraq and seeking to carve out an independent state in northern Syria, emboldening PKK militants in Turkey and derailing a fragile peace process.

The stance has enraged Turkey’s own Kurdish minority, about a fifth of the population and half of all Kurds across the region. Kurds suspect Ankara, which has refused to send in its forces to relieve Kobani, would rather see Islamic State jihadists extend their territorial gains than allow Kurdish insurgents to consolidate local power.

(Additional reporting by Isabel Coles in Arbil, Omer Berberoglu and Sasa Kavic in Sanliurfa,Tom Perry in Beirut, John Irish in Paris; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Giles Elgoodand David Stamp)

Europe’s sea of death for migrants is a result of war and escalating inequality -The Guardian

• • Seumas Milne
  • The Guardian, Thursday 9 October 2014

The carnage on our borders will only grow without a radical shift from an iniquitous and failed system

The International Organisation for Migration has recorded the deaths of 3.072 migrants trying to reach Europe so far in 2014. Illustration: Matt Kenyon

The Mediterranean has become Europe’s sea of death. More than 3,000 refugees and migrants have already been killed this year trying to escape war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East and break into the continental fortress to the north. That is more than four times 2013’s grim tally and makes up three quarters of a new annual global death toll of migrants. By any reckoning, this is a humanitarian disaster on Europe’s borders: the direct result of a system that favours the free movement of cheap European labour over providing refuge for victims of conflagration and destitution on our periphery.

These are the Syrians, Palestinians, Eritreans and Libyans, many of them children, driven into the hands of people traffickers to be drowned in overcrowded fishing boats, or sold to corrupt officials as European coastguards patrol off the sun-soaked beaches. Since the beginning of the century, more than 22,000 are estimated to have lost their lives trying to reach Europe. The annual cull reached a climax last month when a boat carrying refugees and migrants from Egypt to Malta was rammed and sunk by traffickers after those on board refused to transfer to a smaller vessel. Five hundred people died.

One of them was an Egyptian 14-year-old who wanted to earn money to pay for his sick father’s treatment. Others had survived Israel’s summer onslaught on Gaza and used money given to rebuild their homes to escape the siege for good. Imagine the resources that would have been poured into the investigation if 500 white Europeans had been deliberately killed in the Mediterranean — far more, clearly, than the 298 who died in the Malaysian airliner shot down over Ukraine two months earlier.

But when it comes to the Arab and African victims of Europe’s watery killing fields, the rich world establishment shrugs and moves on. At least the Argentinian Pope Francis visited Italy’s frontline island of Lampedusa off the north African coast soon after his election to call for a “reawakening of conscience” over the scandal.

This is, after all, only the most visible sharp end of the global north-south divide of wealth and poverty, the brutality of which puts migrants battling to stow away on ferries at Calais into perspective. In reality, the 3,072 migrants recorded by the International Organisation for Migration as killed trying to reach Europe is certainly an underestimate, as elsewhere in the world. Who records migrants’ deaths in the desert?

Across the world, perhaps 120,000 migrants have been killed since 2000. In Europe, the number of irregular migrants detected by the Italian authorities this year has been 112,000 — up threefold on 2013 — as the wars Europe has fought or fuelled on its doorstep, from Libya to the Levant, come home to roost.

But it’s not so different on the US-Mexican border or in sea-lanes between Indonesia and Australia, those two other frontlines between what used to be called the first and third worlds. In the past 15 years, at least 6,000 migrants have died trying to cross into the US, and 1,500 have perished on their journey to Australia.

The Australian government boasts that it has cut the death toll by interning or dumping migrants on impoverished states and turning back boats by force. That is the grim face of 21st-century global privilege up against the consequences of its actions in the rest of the world.

Given the escalating scale of global inequality, the only surprise is that migration pressures are not greater still. In the late 19th century average income in the richest countries was around five times that of the poorest. By the early years of this century, it was more than 18 times higher – in the US it is now around 25 times that of the poorest.

The champions of capitalist globalisation insisted that the power of global markets would change all that. But, if you strip out China – which has delivered the fastest growth and poverty reduction in history, albeit at high environmental and social cost, by ignoring the neoliberal Washington consensus – poverty and inequality has continued to grow between as well as within countries.

As the catechism of “free market” deregulation has been imposed across the world under “free trade” and “partnership” agreements and the destructive discipline of the IMF, World Bank and WTO, capital and resources have been sucked out of the developing world and tens of millions of people have been driven into urban poverty by corporate land grabs.

That is why the number living on less than $2 a day in sub-Saharan Africa has doubled since 1981 under the sway of rich world globalisation. Africa’s boom has been in resource exploitation, not in most people’s living standards. So it is hardly surprising that migration from the global south to high and middle-income countries has more or less tripled over the past half century.

Add the impact of multiple wars over the past two decades, sponsored or fuelled by rich world countries – from Iraq and Afghanistan to Yemen, Pakistan, Somalia, Mali and Libya – and the pressures on Europe’s borders and off its coasts are not hard to understand.

Those wars have generated tens of millions of refugees, the large majority of whom end up in the developing world itself. Libya, which turned into a failed state courtesy of Nato intervention, is now the country of departure for many of the doomed migrant boats to Europe.

And the refugees from Gaza are escaping decades of Israeli war, occupation and siege, which has been armed and funded by the US and EU. Factor in the growing impact of climate change across the African Sahel region and already precarious populations on Europe’s borders, and today’s level of migration north could end up looking like a trickle.

The reality is that the economic model forced down our throats for a generation is not delivering for most of the world’s population, north or south.

If we are to avoid the crises it has already fostered from turning into something worse, there will need to be a break with it, a respite from western war-making and radical action to slash global carbon emissions. Any one of those changes would, of course, represent a seismic shift. But without them, the bloodletting on our borders can only grow.

The EU as a borrower

The European Commission is empowered by the EU Treaty to borrow from the international capital markets, on behalf of the European Union.

The EU has some EUR 57 billion in outstanding bonds. It has a liquid yield curve consisting of 19 benchmark issues of over EUR 1 billion maturing until 2042.

The EU currently has three loan programmes which are funded through bonds issued on the capital markets:

• The European Financial Stabilisation Mechanism (EFSM) exists to providesupport to any EU Member State, up to EUR 60 billion. It has been activated for Ireland for up to EUR 22.5 billion and for Portugal for up to EUR 26 billion.
• The Balance-of-payments programme (BOP) provides assistance  to non-euro area Member States up to EUR 50 billion (EUR 10.4 billion outstanding)
• Macro-Financial Assistance (MFA) is a form of financial aid extended by the EU to partner countries. So far there is EUR 1.1 billion in bonds outstanding.

In addition, the European Commission manages the

• Package of pooled bilateral loans from euro area Member States to Greece; the package initially comprised a total of EUR 80 billion, which was finally lowered to EUR 52.9 billion.

A summary of CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE (H.D.Thoreau) -Sparks Notes

Thoreau's Civil Disobedience espouses the need to prioritize one's conscience over the dictates of laws. It criticizes American social institutions and policies, most prominently slavery and the Mexican-American War.

 Thoreau begins his essay by arguing that government rarely proves itself useful and that it derives its power from the majority because they are the strongest group, not because they hold the most legitimate viewpoint. He contends that people's first obligation is to do what they believe is right and not to follow the law dictated by the majority. When a government is unjust, people should refuse to follow the law and distance themselves from the government in general. A person is not obligated to devote his life to eliminating evils from the world, but he is obligated not to participate in such evils. This includes not being a member of an unjust institution (like the government). Thoreau further argues that the United States fits his criteria for an unjust government, given its support of slavery and its practice of aggressive war.

Thoreau doubts the effectiveness of reform within the government, and he argues that voting and petitioning for change achieves little. He presents his own experiences as a model for how to relate to an unjust government: In protest of slavery, Thoreau refused to pay taxes and spent a night in jail. But, more generally, he ideologically dissociated himself from the government, "washing his hands" of it and refusing to participate in his institutions. According to Thoreau, this form of protest was preferable to advocating for reform from within government; he asserts that one cannot see government for what it is when one is working within it.

Civil Disobedience covers several topics, and Thoreau intersperses poetry and social commentary throughout. For purposes of clarity and readability, the essay has been divided into three sections here, though Thoreau himself made no such divisions.

Remembering Howard Zinn (by Noam Chomsky)

Remembering Howard Zinn Noam Chomsky Resist Newsletter, March/April 2010

It is not easy for me to write a few words about Howard Zinn, the great American activist and historian who passed away a few days ago. He was a very close friend for 45 years. The families were very close too. His wife Roz, who died of cancer not long before, was also a marvelous person and close friend. Also somber is the realization that a whole generation seems to be disappearing, including several other old friends: Edward Said, Eqbal Ahmed, and others, who were not only astute and productive scholars but also dedicated and courageous militants, always on call when needed -- which was constant. A combination that is essential if there is to be hope of decent survival.Howard's remarkable life and work are summarized best in his own words. His primary concern, he explained, was "the countless small actions of unknown people" that lie at the roots of "those great moments" that enter the historical record -- a record that will be profoundly misleading, and seriously disempowering, if it is torn from these roots as it passes through the filters of doctrine and dogma. His life was always closely intertwined with his writings and innumerable talks and interviews. It was devoted, selflessly, to empowerment of the unknown people who brought about great moments. That was true when he was an industrial worker and labor activist, and from the days, 50 years ago, when he was teaching at Spellman college in Atlanta Georgia, a black college that was open mostly to the small black elite. While teaching at Spellman, Howard supported the students who were at the cutting edge of the civil rights movement in its early and most dangerous days, many of whom became quite well-known in later years -- Alice Walker, Julian Bond, and others -- and who loved and revered him, as did everyone who knew him well. And as always, he did not just support them, which was rare enough, but also participated directly with them in their most hazardous efforts -- no easy undertaking at that time, before there was any organized popular movement and in the face of government hostility that lasted for some years. Finally, popular support was ignited, in large part by the courageous actions of the young people who were sitting in at lunch counters, riding freedom buses, organizing demonstrations, facing bitter racism and brutality, sometimes death. By the early 1960s a mass popular movement was taking shape, by then with Martin Luther King in a leadership role, and the government had to respond. As a reward for his courage and honesty, Howard was soon expelled from the college where he taught. A few years later he wrote the standard work on SNCC (the Student non-violent Coordinating Committee), the major organization of those "unknown people" whose "countless small actions" played such an important part in creating the groundswell that enabled King to gain significant influence, as I am sure he would have been the first to say, and to bring the country to honor the constitutional amendments of a century earlier that had theoretically granted elementary civil rights to former slaves -- at least to do so partially; no need to stress that there remains a long way to go. On a personal note, I came to know Howard well when we went together to a civil rights demonstration in Jackson Mississippi in (I think) 1964, even at that late date a scene of violent public antagonism, police brutality, and indifference or even cooperation with state security forces on the part of federal authorities, sometimes in ways that were quite shocking. After being expelled from the Atlanta college where he taught, Howard came to Boston, and spent the rest of his academic career at Boston University, where he was, I am sure, the most admired and loved faculty member on campus, and the target of bitter antagonism and petty cruelty on the part of the administration -- though in later years, after his retirement, he gained the public honor and respect that was always overwhelming among students, staff, much of the faculty, and the general community. While there, Howard wrote the books that brought him well-deserved fame. His book Logic of Withdrawal, in 1967, was the first to express clearly and powerfully what many were then beginning barely to contemplate: that the US had no right even to call for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam, leaving Washington with power and substantial control in the country it had invaded and by then already largely destroyed. Rather, the US should do what any aggressor should: withdraw, allow the population to somehow reconstruct as they could from the wreckage, and if minimal honesty could be attained, pay massive reparations for the crimes that the invading armies had committed, vast crimes in this case. The book had wide influence among the public, although to this day its message can barely even be comprehended in elite educated circles, an indication of how much necessary work lies ahead. Significantly, among the general public by the war's end, 70% regarded the war as "fundamentally wrong and immoral," not "a mistake," a remarkable figure considering the fact that scarcely a hint of such a thought was expressible in mainstream opinion. Howard's writings -- and, as always, his prominent presence in protest and direct resistance -- were a major factor in civilizing much of the country. In those same years, Howard also became one of the most prominent supporters of the resistance movement that was then developing. He was one of the early signers of the Call to Resist Illegitimate Authority and was so close to the activities of Resist that he was practically one of the organizers. He also took part at once in the sanctuary actions that had a remarkable impact in galvanizing antiwar protest. Whatever was needed -- talks, participation in civil disobedience, support for resisters, testimony at trials -- Howard was always there. Even more influential in the long run than Howard's anti-war writings and actions was his enduring masterpiece, A People's History of the United States, a book that literally changed the consciousness of a generation. Here he developed with care, lucidity, and comprehensive sweep his fundamental message about the crucial role of the people who remain unknown in carrying forward the endless struggle for peace and justice, and about the victims of the systems of power that create their own versions of history and seek to impose it. Later, his "Voices" from the People's History, now an acclaimed theatrical and television production, has brought to many the actual words of those forgotten or ignored people who have played such a valuable role in creating a better world. Howard's unique success in drawing the actions and voices of unknown people from the depths to which they had largely been consigned has spawned extensive historical research following a similar path, focusing on critical periods of American history, and turning to the record in other countries as well, a very welcome development. It is not entirely novel -- there had been scholarly inquiries of particular topics before -- but nothing to compare with Howard's broad and incisive evocation of "history from below," compensating for critical omissions in how American history had been interpreted and conveyed. Howard's dedicated activism continued, literally without a break, until the very end, even in his last years, when he was suffering from severe infirmity and personal loss, though one would hardly know it when meeting him or watching him speaking tirelessly to captivated audiences all over the country. Whenever there was a struggle for peace and justice, Howard was there, on the front lines, unflagging in his enthusiasm, and inspiring in his integrity, engagement, eloquence and insight, light touch of humor in the face of adversity, dedication to non-violence, and sheer decency. It is hard even to imagine how many young people's lives were touched, and how deeply, by his achievements, both in his work and his life. There are places where Howard's life and work should have particular resonance. One, which should be much better known, is Turkey. I know of no other country where leading writers, artists, journalists, academics and other intellectuals have compiled such an impressive record of bravery and integrity in condemning crimes of state, and going beyond to engage in civil disobedience to try to bring oppression and violence to an end, facing and sometimes enduring severe repression, and then returning to the task. It is an honorable record, unique to my knowledge, a record of which the country should be proud. And one that should be a model for others, just as Howard Zinn's life and work are an unforgettable model, sure to leave a permanent stamp on how history is understood and how a decent and honorable life should be lived.

Debt is the necessary devil that keeps capitalism going (from http://betonmarkets.info/)

Debt is the necessary devil that keeps capitalism going

Debt is the necessary devil that keeps capitalism going < News < Bet On Markets

While it’s not wrong to pile advice upon advice on to consumers to avoid debt, sometimes the advice is chokingly too routine and unnecessary.

Economic literacy is key in this instance, and individuals are well aware at all times of the consequences of debt servicing.

In fact, it’s debt that drives the economies of most countries. Individual or private spending accounts for over 60 percent of total spending in our economy.

Most spending no doubt comes in the form of debt. Take it further. Each borrowed rand is used in the production process, which ultimately maintains a job or two. And to retire that debt also maintains a job or two. Responsible borrowing to a very large extent is what drives the economy.

Countries borrow for various purposes, mostly to provide goods and services to the people. Companies borrow for various reasons, and basic economic theory attests to the fact that companies prefer a regime of low borrowing costs so that they can expand productive capacity.

Debt is the main form of finance used worldwide. In a capitalist society debt has been greatly normalised, with financial institutions being in the business of marketing debt.

Goods and services provided by various industries are also produced at the back of inventories that have to be at a certain level. And it is this attraction that indirectly coerces individuals to have an appetite for debt.

It is therefore not wrong to have an appetite for debt.

The contention that buying food on credit is a worse form of debt appetite, while correct, almost invariably apportions the blame to individuals, as though the institutions that are encouraging the debt are not to blame.

Banks are in the business of lending money and without an appetite for debt they might as well close down. And if that’s the case, then we might as well have no interest rates because there won’t be any opportunity costs.

Such a scenario would defeat the existence of economic theory, and even more so monetary economics. How will we calculate inflation in an environment that has no need to borrow money?

While this is an extreme position, it becomes clear that nations have developed an affinity for debt as the necessary lubricant to oil their economies.

Financial institutions have in-built risk management programmes to monitor defaulting clients. These early-warning signs continue to be used to balance the borrowing environment.

Yes, it is correct to warn individuals that debt and the accumulation thereof is the determinant, significantly so, of the interest rate environment. And therefore any irresponsible debt accumulation has the potential to fuel prices and consequentially force interest rates up.

But what is not coming out in the wash is the importance of responsible borrowing, which to a very large extent drives the economy.

So when we encourage individuals to retire their debt, we should also inform them of the intricate but important aspect of debt in the economy. Some of us have studied, using debt as the only form of finance. And thereafter debt was and is still used effectively to accumulate assets.

So while debt may sound like an evil thing, we are a capitalist society which has bestowed some sanity on the appetite for debt.

By Mandla Maleka

Mandla Maleka is the chief economist at Eskom Treasury. The views expressed are solely those of the author and not necessarily those of Eskom Treasury.