UN Sanctions No Fly Zone In Libya, Experts Debate Nuke Disaster In Japan, House Votes to Defund NPR

March 18th, 2011 - by: danny

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Listen today at 1 PM: The News Dissector Radio on the ProgressiveRadioNetwork.com. Topic? The Nuclear crisis with guests: Arjun Makhijani is President of the Institute for Energy and Environmental Research in Takoma Park, Maryland. He earned his Ph.D. in engineering at the University of California, Berkeley in 1972, specializing in nuclear fusion and Harvey Wasserman, a world renown expert on utility deregulation, atomic power and the renewable alternatives. Since 1973, when Harvey coined the phrase “No Nukes,” he has helped lead the charge against nuclear power for such groups as Greenpeace, Musicians United for Safe Energy and the Clamshell Alliance. In the second half hour, we will discuss how the media covers and miscovers nuclear energy issues with Rory O’Connor and Richard Bell, authors of Nukespeak: Nuclear Language, Myths, and Mindset.

The Left Forum: My Bit Part

On Sunday, I will be speaking on two panels at the Left Forum at Pace University. At Noon, I will be discussing film and social change, At l:30, I will be joining World Can’t Wait to discuss the impact of WikiLeaks.

And, now, the news we need to dissect:

The Latest, This AM: WP, Foreign Minister Moussa Koussa says Libya is declaring an immediate cease-fire and stopping all military operations.

Friday’s decision comes after the United Nations voted to authorize a no-fly zone and “all necessary measures” to protect the Libyan people, including airstrikes.

Foreign Intervention In Libya Drawing Closer: Air Strikes Expected In Hours

Washington Post: News Alert: U.N. approves ‘all necessary measures’ to protect Libya’s civilians

On a 10 to 0 vote with five abstentions, the U.N. Security Council passed a resolution authorizing the international community to take “all necessary measures” to protect civilians in Libya.

The resolution demands an “immediate cease-fire in Libya, the complete end of violence and all attacks against and abuse of civilians,” and unspecified action to protect “civilians and civilian population areas under threat of attack.” It also establishes a ban on all flights in the airspace of Libya except for humanitarian and evacuation flights. =

NYTimes: U.N. Security Council Approves No-Flight Zone in Libya

The United Nations Security Council approved a measure on Thursday authorizing “all necessary measures” to protect Libyan civilians from harm at the hands of forces loyal to Colonel Muammar el-Qaddafi.

The measure allows not only a no-flight zone but effectively any measures short of a ground invasion to halt attacks that might result in civilian fatalities. It comes as Colonel Qaddafi warned residents of Benghazi, Libya, the rebel capital, that an attack was imminent and promised lenient treatment for those who offered no resistance.

Michael Williams, ICH: The Fatally Flawed Logic Of A No Fly Zone

Our supposed moral superiority in intervening to “save” human rights is a mask for years of supporting dictators who have oppressed the very human rights politicians claim we must now defend.

Financial Times: US and Allies To Late To Help Libya

Eric Margolies, Toronto Sun, On Col.G

I recently wrote that Libya’s “Leader,” Muammar Gadaffi, had used up all of his nine lives. After being written off by great powers and world media, Gadaffi, the dictator we love to hate, is still in power and making rude gestures at his assorted foes.
We should call Gadaffi Mr. Lucky. As the western powers were edging ever closer to a war to “liberate” Libya’s high-grade oil, along came Japan’s awful tsunami which washed Libya off the front pages of the news.

Chances of a nuclear and financial meltdown in Japan gripped world capitals, overshadowing Libya’s civil strife.

Meanwhile, the normally do-nothing Arab League had bestirred itself to pass a resolution calling for the United Nations Security Council to impose a no-fly zone over Libya — a euphemism for war. Most of the Arab states hate Gadaffi and would love to see him strung up. For decades, Libya’s “Leader” has been calling them American and Israeli stooges, cowards, and thieves.

Gadaffi’s choicest barbs were reserved for the Saudi royal family, whom he scathingly described as “old women in robes.” Ouch! This from a zany despot who loves to wear comic opera military uniforms made by Italian tailors.

Foreign Policy: Keeping Up With The Gadaffis (Photos)

Bahrain Movement Under Attack: Bahrain moves to quash opposition

FT: Bahrain’s security forces have continued their attempts to break the back of the island kingdom’s mainly Shia opposition movement with a series of arrests and more attacks on Shia villages outside the capital.

Japanapocalypse

The Latest:

CNN Reports: Threat level at Japan nuclear plant now at 5, same threshold as 1979 Three Mile Island incident, safety agency says.

NY T: Radiation Spread Seen; Frantic Repairs Go On

The first readings from American data-collection flights over the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant in Japan show that the worst contamination has not spread beyond the 19-mile range of highest concern established by Japanese authorities.

National Journal: How Prepared Is the U.S. for a Japan-Style Disaster?, Obama’s Fuzzy Oil Production Math, and More

Five Ways We’re Better Prepared Than Japan…

If a magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck at the New Madrid fault line along the Mississippi River, causing massive flooding and emergencies at nuclear plants in Illinois, would the United States be better prepared to respond than Japan?

…And Three Ways We’re Not.

But before you get too comfortable, Marc Ambinder also runs down the three ways we’re at a disadvantage to Japan when it comes to disaster response.
Obama: No U.S. Radiation Risk

In a Rose Garden statement today, President Obama sought to reassure Americans, including those on the West Coast, and in Hawaii, Alaska, and U.S. territories in the Pacific, saying “I want to be very clear we do not expect harmful levels of radiation to reach the United States.” Matthew Cooper reports.

Institute of Southern Studies:

http://www.southernstudies.org/2011/03/problematic-design-of-japans-imperiled-nuclear-reactors-common-in-us.html

PROBLEMATIC DESIGN OF JAPAN’S IMPERILED NUCLEAR REACTORS COMMON IN U.S.: The U.S. has 23 nuclear reactors like the ones that have failed at Japan’s Fukushima plant — including several along the East Coast. Their design has long been criticized as susceptible to explosions and containment problems. (3/14/2011)

CONGRESSMAN: U.S. MAY NOT BE PREPARED TO RESPOND TO NUCLEAR DISASTER: A disaster preparedness expert compares the nation’s readiness to respond to a major nuclear incident to what happened in the Gulf after Hurricane Katrina. (3/17/2011)

NY Times: With Quest to Cool Fuel Rods Stumbling, U.S. Sees ‘Weeks’ of Struggle

Amid growing alarm about Japan’s nuclear crisis, the authorities reached for ever more desperate methods on Thursday.

Crisis Prompts Exodus of Executives From Tokyo

Japan’s nuclear crisis has prompted a steady departure of business executives from Tokyo, with many heading to Osaka, Fukuoka or other cities farther from the damaged reactors.’

Bailout Underway: Group of 7 Plans Intervention in Currency Markets to Stabilize Yen

The United States and other major economies will join Japan in a highly unusual effort to stabilize the value of the yen
by intervening in currency markets, the Group of 7 nations announced Thursday night in a joint statement.

ANTI NUKE PROTESTS IN EUROPE: Crisis in Japan Sparks Global Protests

Berlin, March 14 (RHC)– The nuclear crisis in Japan touched off mass

anti-nuclear protests across Europe this weekend.

In Germany, some 50,000 protesters formed a 27-mile human chain from

Germany’s Neckarwestheim nuclear power plant to the city of Stuttgart.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel recently announced plans to extend

the life of 17 German nuclear plants for an average 12 extra years.

A large anti-nuclear protest was also held in France. A French member

of the European Parliament, Eva Joly, said: “We know how to get out of

nuclear plants: we need renewable energy, we need windmills, and we

need solar energy.”

Economic Consequences of Global Systemic Crisis Feared By LEAP, European Research Group:

Beyond its tragic human consequences (1), the terrible disaster that has just hit Japan weakens the shaky US Treasury Bond market a little more. In the GEAB No. 52, our team had already explained how the sequence of Arab revolutions, this fall of the “petro-dollar” wall (2), would translate during 2011 into the cessation of the massive purchases of US Treasury Bonds by the Gulf States. In this issue, we anticipate that the sudden shock experienced by the Japanese economy will lead not only to the halt in US T-Bond purchases by Japan, but it will force the authorities in Tokyo to make substantial sales of a significant portion of their US Treasury Bond reserves to finance the enormous cost of stabilization, reconstruction and revival of the Japanese economy (3).

With Japan and the Gulf States alone accounting for 25% of the total 4.4 trillion USD of US federal debt (December 2010), LEAP/E2020 believes that this new situation which is asserting itself during the first quarter of 2011, against a background of China’s increasing reluctance (holding 20% of US Treasury Bonds) to continue to invest in US government debt (4), carries the seeds for the collapse of the US Treasury Bond market in the second half of 2011, a market that now has only a single buyer: the US Federal Reserve (5).

Yves Smith, Naked Capitalism, Behind the US Pressure on Japan

Having worked with the Japanese (I was the first gaijin hired into the Japanese hierarchy at Sumitomo Bank when it was a leading player), let me hazard some informed guesses:

1. Japan is military protectorate of the US, so we are used to throwing our weight around when conditions warrant. But why is this unseemly display warranted?

2. Japan is not a high disclosure society. Being explicit is considered rude (it’s seen as self absorbed, talking for the sake of hearing your own voice). So not telling the public very much, sadly, is pretty normal.

3. Japanese are also not very good in organizing on the fly group responses. When working with foreigners or independently, Japanese are just as adaptable as any other people. But their group/power dynamics impede taking prompt corrective measures when circumstances move outside anticipated scenarios.

So far, this may seem like tired cultural cliches. But now consider the role of TEPCO. Even allowing for the sluggishness of Japanese decision making in crisis settings, TEPCO looks to be over its head. And the Japanese government is stuck. It doesn’t have a ready source of independent expertise; the plants are TEPCO’s, after all. The authorities really need staff who know the facilities to handle most of the disaster containment measures.

So why the ugly American noisemaking? It called gaijin pressure, and it has a proud tradition in Japan. Gaijin pressure has often served as the excuse for Japan to push through politically contentious measures that were clearly necessary but opposed by a well placed minority.

So in this case, the unusually public US expression of doubts were likely necessary to allow the US to monitor the plant and prod TEPCO to consider other plans of action. It would have been problematic in Japan for the government to do so; it might have been seen as undermining TEPCO (and now the self defense forces working with TEPCO). But foreigners, particularly Americans, can act like bulls in the china shop and get away with it. See Naked Capitalism.com for more.

SHORTAGES HIT PRODUCTION COMMUNITY

Broadcasting & Cable reports: Japan Quake Leaves U.S. Production Community Facing Shortages, Price Hikes

The tragic 9.0 earthquake and subsequent tsunami and nuclear crisis in Japan are beginning to have an impact on professional products for the TV and production industries, with some distributors telling clients they may face shortages in tapes widely used in TV production and other analysts predicting both shortages in electronic components and price hikes in equipment in upcoming months.

Gareth Porter and Shah Noor, IPS: U.N. Reported Only a Fraction of Civilian Deaths from U.S. Raids

WASHINGTON/KABUL, Mar 17, 2011 (IPS) – The number of civilians killed in U.S. Special Operations Forces (SOF) raids last year was probably several times higher than the figure of 80 people cited in the U.N. report on civilian casualties in Afghanistan published last week, an IPS investigation has revealed.

The report also failed to apply the same humanitarian law standard for defining a civilian to its reporting on SOF raids that it applied to its accounting for Taliban assassinations.

The Mar. 9 report, produced by the Human Rights unit of the United Nations Assistance Mission in Afghanistan (UNAMA) jointly with the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission (AIHRC), said a total of 80 civilians were killed in “search and seizure operations” by “Pro-Government Forces” in 2010.

But AIHRC Commissioner Nader Nadery told IPS the figure represented only the number of civilian deaths in night raids in the 13 incidents involving SOF units that the Commission had been able to investigate thoroughly.

Afghan Women’s Leader Denied Access to the US

The United States has denied a travel visa to Malalai Joya, an acclaimed women’s rights activist and former member of Afghanistan’s parliament. Ms. Joya, who was named one of TIME magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world in 2010, was set to begin a three-week US tour to promote an updated edition of her memoir, A Woman Among Warlords, published by Scribner, an imprint of Simon & Schuster.

Colleagues of Ms. Joya’s report that when she presented herself as scheduled at the U.S. embassy, she was told she was being denied because she was “unemployed” and “lives underground.” Then 27, Joya was the youngest woman elected to Afghanistan’s parliament in 2005. Because of her harsh criticism of warlords and fundamentalists in Afghanistan, she has been the target of at least five assassination attempts. “The reason Joya lives underground is because she faces the constant threat of death for having had the courage to speak up for women’s rights — it’s obscene that the U.S. government would deny her entry,” said Sonali Kolhatkar of the Afghan Women’s Mission, a U.S. based organization that has hosted Joya for speaking tours in the past and is a sponsor of this year’s national tour.

Simon Johnson Baseline Scenario.com, Right Targets Elizabeth Warren and Consumer Protection

The next big political battle in Washington — after the budget debate is declared “over” — will likely feature the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in particular the fight to determine whether Elizabeth Warren can become as the agency’s first official head.

But will this fight feature a classic left vs. right set-piece confirmation showdown in the Senate? Or it will it be resolved with cloaks and daggers closer to the White House — with Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner managing to prevent Professor Warren’s nomination?

There is much to commend the left vs. right scenario. The Republicans, after all, want to argue that regulation is excessive in general and regulation of financial products is somewhere between unnecessary and dangerous for economic growth in particular. This theme came up during the Dodd-Frank legislative debate on financial reform last year but it was largely lost in the larger conversation.

Now Spencer Bachus, Republican chair of the House Financial Services Committee, has Elizabeth Warren firmly in his sights — with the mortgage settlement negotiations as the flashpoint.

In a recent letter to Secretary Geithner, Mr. Bachus says,

“”In addition, reports about the role played by political appointees in the Treasury department – including those affiliated with the [CFPB], an agency that does not yet have any regulatory or enforcement authority – raise further questions about the [mortgage settlement] process.”

No matter that the CFPB only became involved when state law enforcement officials, in the form of attorney generals, asked for provide advice. Mr. Bachus is taking the opportunity to follow up on what he is reported to have said recently,

“In Washington, the view is that the banks are to be regulated, and my view is that Washington and the regulators are there to serve the banks.”

The industry is unhappy because the proposed settlement — or, you could say, their transgressions with regard to foreclosures – could cost them up to $20 billion.

Mr. Bachus would not have a direct voice in any nomination hearing, of course, but there are plenty of Republican Senators who are inclined to share his views — including Senator Richard Shelby, the ranking minority member of the Senate Banking Committee (and, like Mr. Bachus, from Alabama).

Ms. Warren actually represents a much more nuanced view — arguing that transparency and simplicity, from the perspective of customers, creates a more even playing field and is good for the industry. At least some community bankers seem to be on her side. She is also good at explaining this view and a confirmation hearing would be the perfect place for the country to witness and hopefully participate in this discussion. (Read her recent speech to the Credit Union National Association and make up your own mind.)

As Senator Sherrod Brown (D, OH), also a member of the Senate Banking Committee, pointedly framed the issues for the foreclosure debacle,

“No person or company is above the law. And that’s good for capitalism, it’s not anti-business, and it’s not a minor inconvenience that can be ignored in pursuit of bigger profits.”

But before you set aside time in the early summer for potentially gripping television from Capitol Hill, Ms. Warren has to get past Secretary Geithner.

If anything, Mr. Geithner at this stage is more pro-banking lobby than even Mr. Bachus.

HP: Ex-Goldman Banker Behind WSJ Attack On Elizabeth Warren

People for The American Way: Congress Votes To Defund NPR

First ACORN. Then Shirley Sherrod. Then Planned Parenthood. Now NPR? After a supposed “sting operation” targeting NPR executives was debunked last week, right-wing members of Congress have once again proven their willingness to overlook the truth in their ruthless pursuit of a destructive ideological agenda. House Republicans voted today to completely defund NPR. It’s now up to the Senate to save public broadcasting.

Federal funding is a small part of NPR’s budget, but it’s what keeps hundreds of stations in rural and low-income areas up and runningÃ¢â‚¬Â¦ensuring that all Americans have access to the high quality, reliable news NPR provides. Like many of the Republicans’ planned budget cuts, cuts to NPR would hit low-income Americans hardestÃ¢â‚¬Â¦while weakening a critical American institution.

Aristide Returning:

Guardian news Danny Glover to escort Aristide back to Haiti

Amy Goodman Reports From The Plane Carrying Aristide Home

Democracy Now! host Amy Goodman filed this report minutes before taking off in a plane with the Aristide family from South Africa on Thursday. In defiance of the Obama administration, former Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was headed back to Haiti for the first time since being ousted in a 2004 U.S.-backed coup. Joining them on the flight was his wife, Mildred Aristide, attorney Ira Kurzban and actor Danny Glover. Listen to anMP3 of the report

Julian Assange Grills Julia Gillard on Live Television

Video

Julia Gillard appears on live Australian television and is surprised with a question from Julian Assange.

Will Youmans writes about Al Jazeera:

It was nice seeing you again at the forum last weekend.

I wanted to share with you a new paper I did about American viewers’ prejudice against AJE

We find that Americans on average do not watch with an open mind. Also, their views on AJE are linked to political ideology and views towards Arabs. Given how resistant to risk cable companies are, this does not bode well.

NY Times To Charge For Online Content

EJC: The New York Times has started charging its most loyal readers for access to the website, the latest attempt by a newspaper to encourage people to pay for online content and raise money to offset circulation declines of their print editions. The paper said that it would limit readers to 20 articles per month, after which they would have to pay a subscription fee of at least USD 15. The model, announced by the publisher Arthur Sulzberger Thursday, stops far short of the hardline paywall adopted by Rupert Murdoch for The Times and The Sunday Times in the UK. Articles reached via links from other sites, including Facebook, Twitter or search engines such as Google, will always remain free, Mr Sulzberger said. An estimated 85 per cent of visitors to The New York Times will not be asked to pay.

“The change will primarily affect those who are heavy consumers of the content on our website and on mobile applications,” Mr Sulzberger said. The New York Times has immediately started charging for web access in Canada, and the system will launch worldwide on 28 March. The paper has been deliberating on different payment models since announcing last year it would end unlimited free access to its site. The new scheme is the second attempt by the Times at raising subscription revenues from online readers. In the middle of the last decade, it put its most popular columnists behind a paywall, but abandoned the experiment after only a few readers signed up. (The Independent)

That’s it for now: Your comments and stories welcome. Write Dissector@mediachannel.org

The News Dissector