Libya in Flames!

While Libya lies in flames, with thousands of men, women and children, driven by desperation, trying every day to cross the Mediterranean — and many of them will lose their lives – Italy’s President Giorgio Napolitano issues this warning: "Beware of the outbreaks all around us," starting with the "persistent instability and fragility of the situation in Libya.” (aletheiaonline.it, July 12)

He forgets, and with him almost all the government officials and politicians, that Italy itself played a key role in 2011 in the “outbreak” of the war against Libya, of which the massacre of migrants is one of the consequences.

On the southern shores of the Mediterranean, across from Italy, there was a state — documented by the World Bank itself in 2010 — which maintained "high levels of economic growth,” with an average increase in GDP of 7.5 percent per annum, which recorded "high indicators of human development," including universal access to primary and secondary education, and for 46 percent of the population, also at the university level. Despite income disparities among individuals, the standard of living of the Libyan population was significantly higher than that of other African countries. Bearing witness to this fact was that nearly two million immigrants, mostly Africans, were working in Libya.

This state, in addition to being a factor of stability and development in North Africa, had used its investments to facilitate the emergence of organizations that one day might have made the financial autonomy of Africa possible: the African Investment Bank, based in Tripoli; the African Central Bank, with headquarters in Abuja, Nigeria; the African Monetary Fund, based in Yaoundé, Cameroon.

After having funded and armed hostile tribal areas in Tripoli, which caused the "Arab Spring" in Libya to assume from the outset the form of armed insurrection, and thus provoking the government’s response, they waged a war that destroyed the Libyan state in 2011: in seven months the U.S./NATO Air Force carried out 10,000 attack missions, unleashing more than 40,000 bombs and missiles.

Italy participated in this war, using its bases and military forces, tearing up the Treaty of Friendship, Partnership and Cooperation between Italy and Libya. "In the memory of the liberation struggles and April 25” - President Napolitano declared on April 26, 2011, “we could not remain indifferent to the bloody reaction of Colonel Gadhafi in Libya: That’s why Italy adhered to the plan of action of the coalition under the aegis of NATO." (Wall Street Italia, April 26, 2011)

During the war in Libya, its enemies infiltrated special forces, including thousands of Qatari commandos, and at the same time funded and armed Islamist groups, which up until a few months before had been called terrorists. It is significant that the Islamic militias of Misrata, which lynched Gadhafi, now occupy the airport in Tripoli.

In this framework, the first nuclei of ISIS formed, and moved to Syria, where they built the bulk of their strength before launching the offensive in Iraq. They acted as a de facto instrument of the U.S./NATO strategy to demolish these states through covert war.

"It is now clear,” said President Napolitano, “that every failed state inevitably becomes a center of accumulation and global spread of extremism and lawlessness." (quirinale.it, June 18)

It only remains to be seen what the "failed states" really are. They are not nation-states such as Libya, Syria and Iraq, states located in areas rich in oil or with an important geo-strategic position, which are wholly or partly outside the control of the West, and which were then demolished by war. They are in fact the major states of the West, which, betraying their own constitutions, have failed as democracies and returned to nineteenth-century imperialism.

by Manlio Dinucci

Translation
by John Catalinotto

Source
Il Manifesto (Italy)

The Syrian War What You're Not Being Told

Published on Sep 3, 2013 | What's really going on in Syria?

...the real motives behind the wars of the past two decades.

Published on 11 Sep 2012 | We are on a road that leads straight to the World War 3, but in order to see that and to fully understand what is at stake you have to look at the big picture and connect the dots. This video examines the history of the dollar, its relation to oil, and the real motives behind the wars of the past two decades.

Growing wealth gap are building in communist Cuba as well.

Not spring in Cuba yet -  Published on Feb 6, 2013 : Complaints about a growing wealth gap similar to those in many of the world's struggling economies are building in communist Cuba as well.This is in spite of reforms by the Raul Castro government, trying to tweak the one-party island's socialist model, to raise living standards.Economic growth last year was a nominal 3.1 percent, falling slightly short of the goal, which this year is 3.7 percent.

Castro has pried up the lid slightly on private initiative. The government still controls four-fifths of the economy, but it has given some 400,000 Cubans a small business licence; More restaurants are popping up around Havana, for instance. The government has promised to expand the range of activities people can try their hand at.

But it is not spring in Cuba yet.

It is hoped a new cornucopia measure to allow unused land to be cultivated will bear fruit, since the revolutionary island cannot grow enough to feed itself.Cuba still has to import 80 percent of what it eats, and that consumes 30 percent of its hard currency, valued at 1.3 billion euros per year.

In a country where the government has controlled wages and prices, and rationed commodities since 1959, some income gaps have narrowed.But even while recent social reforms have improved housing availability for instance, Odlanieris Cordero, a theatre wardrobe manager in the capital cannot get by on the monthly 20 euros she earns. Her husband working in Europe sends money home.

Cordero said: "I can't imagine what life would be without his help."

Cuba did distribute wealth more evenly, though old money and people in politics and the army enjoyed more of it. But there is a fear that the egalitarian ideal is dying.The editor of Temas magazine, Raphael Hernández, warned: "A growing income differential is a concern for everybody. It's a concern for the majority of Cubans. It's a concern for the government. But the question of different salaries, different incomes is part of what is accepted today in Cuba. This is not a classless society. This is not a uniform society anymore."

The most daring reform, some say, is liberalising property. If you owned a place, it used to be illegal to sell it. You could only trade it for another one. Not any more. But today it is almost impossible to buy unless a Cuban has some kind of income advantage over others. As market practices creep in and prices rise, those who can keep up are in a small minority.

Syrian refugees : Exodus to Nowhere?

1] suffer in squalid camps

Published on Nov 24, 2012 by AlJazeeraEnglish The number of Syrian refugees registered in neighbouring countries has nearly doubled since the beginning of September to more than 440,000, the UN refugee agency said on Friday.

Many of those displaced by the government's bombardments of cities and towns have also fled to a squalid camp in the Syrian village of Atmeh near the Turkish border. Reports from Atmeh, refugees suffering from a severe lack of basic needs.

2] Refugees 'treated like criminals' in Germany

Published on Nov 23, 2012 by RussiaToday : Germany is welcoming refugees displaced by the conflict in Syria. This after openly supporting the country's rebel coalition. And, - the migrants may find out that German hospitality isn't all they hoped for.

'People able to make difference end up dead'

Published on Nov 11, 2012 by RussiaToday : It's four more years in the White House for US president Barack Obama but the tight race and an expensive election has left some voters less than satisfied. RT's Lori Harfenist takes a political pulse check in the Big Apple.

Occupy Wall Street: The Future And History, So Far

February 9, 2012 : On September 17, 2011, hundreds of people gathered in Lower Manhattan to protest the growing wealth gap and Wall Street's involvement in the economic crisis. Five months later, most of the Occupy encampments across the country have been disbanded and the future of the movement remains uncertain.