Saif al Islam

 
New Orleans rapper E.D.Nix leaks a controversial new song titled "Ghadaffi" from the highly anticipated Soze album. The locals are stirred up about it in light of the city's recent tragedy. He's th

The United Nations General Assembly has adopted a highly politicized, non-binding draft  resolution on Syria. The resolution contradicts the reality on the ground and the political reality pertaining Syria, contradicts the purpose and Charter of the United Nations, endorses international, state-sponsored terrorism, and obstructs a political solution to end the war on Syria.

The success of the resolution lies in the fact that it is one of the clearest yet demonstrations of the depth of the systemic crisis of the United Nations, for the fact that the United Nations has turned into an instrument of neo-colonialism and imperialism, and that human rights advocates, peace advocates, advocates for international law and justice and progressives, such as the International Progress Organization and Dr. Hans Köchler are seriously mistaken when they suggest, that it would be safe to salvage and reform the United Nations.

The UNGA resolution on Syria ought to become the basis for discussing a new approach to a global community of sovereign nations.

Until government and revolutionary forces attacked the Libyan town of Bani Walid, about 170km southeast of the capital Tripoli in October last year, Abdullah Warfella had been determined never to leave.

Khalid al Hamad, also known as Abu Sakkar, explains why he chose to mutilate the body of a dead Syrian regime fighter and put the heart in his mouth. The opp...

The Syrian president says in an exclusive interview that the opposition could not uphold any peace deal, and blames the west for supporting them, writes Martin Chulov in Beirut

THE WOMEN OF LIBYA ARE NOT ALLOWED TO WEAR ANY UNDERWEAR BY ORDER FROM MUFTI GHARIANI The Gaddafi International News Agency Sadiq Gharyani's "Mufti of Libya" documents  prohibits the import of wome...

LONDON—A tiny tip of the vast subterranean network of governmental and intelligence agencies from around the world dedicated to destroying WikiLeaks and arresting its founder, Julian Assange, appears outside the red-brick building on Hans Crescent Street that houses the Ecuadorean Embassy. Assange, the world’s best-known political refugee, has been in the embassy since he was offered sanctuary there last June. British police in black Kevlar vests are perched night and day on the steps leading up to the building, and others wait in the lobby directly in front of the embassy door. An officer stands on the corner of a side street facing the iconic department store Harrods, half a block away on Brompton Road. Another officer peers out the window of a neighboring building a few feet from Assange’s bedroom at the back of the embassy. Police sit round-the-clock in a communications van topped with an array of antennas that presumably captures all electronic forms of communication from Assange’s ground-floor suite.

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS), or Scotland Yard, said the estimated cost of surrounding the Ecuadorean Embassy from June 19, 2012, when Assange entered the building, until Jan. 31, 2013, is the equivalent of $4.5 million. 

Audio clip one: Chris Hedges talks with Julian Assange about his opponents’ legal strategies.
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Audio clip two: Julian Assange shares his thoughts on the Bradley Manning Case.
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Britain has rejected an Ecuador

It's no surprise. He exceeds the worst of George Bush. He abhors democratic values. He defiles rule of law principles. He governs by diktat authority.

A recent interview given by, yes, you guessed it: an 'anonymous' Qatari security official, has shed further light on CIA-led covert arms shipments to militants fighting in Syria. In this Reuters ar...

Question: I would like to start our conversation from your last international contacts and, first of all, from your meeting with US Secretary of State in Moscow on 7 May. The day after he left Moscow, John Kerry made a statement in Rome that there is no place for President Bashar al-Assad in the new transitional government. There were also statements that the White House had not made its final decision about armament of the opposition and is waiting for the results of the investigation of the use of chemical weapons in SAR to make this decision. We know about the agreements reached between Russia and the USA in Moscow, however, we would still like to understand why we have heard other statements, which do not fit within the framework of the agreements reached the day before, as soon as the US Secretary of State left Moscow.

Sergey Lavrov: I will start from stating that we had very good negotiations, when John Kerry was in Moscow. He had a long conversation with the President of Russia Vladimir Putin, during which they touched upon the topic of Syria and several other international problems along with a detailed discussion of a number of bilateral issues. As to Syria, John Kerry provided the analysis that is very close to what we talk about, when spotting threats as a result of preservation of status quo and stimulation of the inexorable opposition to grab power, solve the problem in a military way. We talk (and John Kerry supported it) about the need to stop bloodshed, start political negotiations according to the logic established in the Geneva Communiqué of 30 June 2012, which was signed by almost all key external players affecting the situation in Syria one way or another. John Kerry opted in favour of convention of the next international meeting with participation of the parties to stimulate them to move in the political direction of formation of a transitional governing body based on unanimous consent of SAR Government and all the opposition groups, to make them prepare stable agreements ensuring safety and rights of all the ethnic, religious and other groups in Syria.

We have been advocating for such forum for a sufficiently long time. We proposed to convene Geneva-2 last August. That time our Western partners, Arab participants of the Geneva process and Turkey told that they were not ready yet. Our American, French and British colleagues, Europeans in general, talked in favour of the unity of the opposition on a constructive platform of readiness to negotiations. The National Coalition was created; however,unfortunately, it was formed on an absolutely opposite platform – overthrow of the regime and dismantling of all institutes. The decision of the League of Arab States that the National Coalition is the only representative of the Syrian people and should occupy the place of Syria in LAS did not help either. To that end,the question arises: what about the rest of opposition groups, because the National Coalition is not the only group? There is an external opposition that is not represented in the coalition, there is an internal opposition as well, which has never left Syria and opts for the internal reform of the country.

On this background, we welcome the consent of Americans represented by John Kerry to the concept of holding the conference without preconditions (no preconditions were formulated in things we have coordinated with our US colleague). The President of Russia Vladimir Putin supported the idea expressed by the US Secretary of State, and placed me in charge of formulating ideas on paper together with my US colleague, as we did by voicing them at the jointpress-conference. I have agreed with John Kerry that we will secure consent of the governments to the formulated propositions. The President Vladimir Putin is also working with a number of countries, which have to be involved into such conference, but the American party will continue its efforts in uniting the opposition on a platform of support of such approach.

These efforts are continuing. I heard about the statements made by John Kerry in Rome, and about statements of other colleagues of ours. I presume that it is difficult to persuade the opposition. Unlike the Government of Syria, that made a sufficiently positive statement in response to the Russian-American initiative, it has not done it, but was ambiguous by saying that, in fact, it would welcome any initiative, which could stop violence, but Bashar al-Assad should “disappear” first – that is, they expressed again the approaches that have been causes of the deadlock in the Syrian crisis for many months. Therefore, we continue our actions and contacts with many partners. The President Vladimir Putin had a meeting with the UK Prime Minister David Cameron in Sochi some days ago, where they also supported the Russian-American initiative. I know that another meeting of opposition forces attracted to the National Coalition is scheduled in Istanbul in a few days, presumably on 19-20 May. Immediately after that, the National Coordination Committee will hold a meeting of the internal constructive patriotic opposition in Madrid, I think. We will see what approaches will be expressed as a result of these events.

We think that we need to refuse from preconditions, because we need to be realistic rather than because we like or dislike somebody. While realism and taking care of interests of the Syrian people require stopping violence as soon as possible without any preconditions. Any preconditions will only drag on this vicious circle of bloodshed.

The Citizens Investigation into War Crimes in Libya (CIWCL) is an informal collective researching the Libyan Civil War of 2011-present .

The Syrian army has completely destroyed al-Nusra Front’s command room in al-Qusayr town, killing everyone inside, al-Alam reports.

Five decades since the formation of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) while the Pentagon and NATO escalates its war drive on the continent

The following lecture was delivered at the Africa & U.S. Imperialism Conference held in Detroit on May 18, 2013. The event was sponsored by the Michigan Emergency Committee Against War & Injustice (MECAWI)

May 25, 2013 represents the 50th anniversary of the founding of the Organization of African Unity (OAU), the forerunner of the present African Union which formed in 2002. This conference today is taking place at a critical time within the history of Africa and the Diaspora.

Dans un entretien à l'agence de presse officielle argentine Telam et au grand quotidien Clarin, le président Assad estime que les informations de sources occ...

The U.S. military base in Kosovo was constructed in 1999 without consulting with the government of Serbia and the largest U.S. military base built outside of the U.S. since the Vietnam War. The site

By Ahmed Elumami. Tripoli, 16 may 2013: Exhumed bodies found in a mass grave discovered earlier this week are not civilians from Misrata but are people from Tawergha, the town’s local council in exile has said, demanding that a neutral committee be...

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether the statutory basis for this "war" - the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) - should be revised (meaning: expanded). This is how Wired's Spencer Ackerman (soon to be the Guardian US's national security editor) described the most significant exchange:

"Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, 'At least 10 to 20 years.' . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today - atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America's Thirty Years War."

That the Obama administration is now repeatedly declaring that the "war on terror" will last at least another decade (or two) is vastly more significant than all three of this week's big media controversies (Benghazi, IRS, and AP/DOJ) combined. The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of "endless war". Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.

Famed journalist Bob Woodward on Friday said he would not dismiss the investigation into last year's attack in Benghazi, Libya, comparing the emails released by the White House earlier this week to the political scandal he helped break.