viernes, 30 de septiembre de 2016
jueves, 29 de septiembre de 2016
The Butcher of Qana: Shimon Peres Was No Peacemaker
When the world heard that Shimon Peres had died, it shouted “Peacemaker!” But when I heard that Peres was dead, I thought of blood and fire and slaughter.
I saw the results: babies torn apart, shrieking refugees, smouldering bodies. It was a place called Qana and most of the 106 bodies – half of them children – now lie beneath the UN camp where they were torn to pieces by Israeli shells in 1996. I had been on a UN aid convoy just outside the south Lebanese village. Those shells swished right over our heads and into the refugees packed below us. It lasted for 17 minutes.
Shimon Peres, standing for election as Israel’s prime minister – a post he inherited when his predecessor Yitzhak Rabin was assassinated – decided to increase his military credentials before polling day by assaulting Lebanon. The joint Nobel Peace Prize holder used as an excuse the firing of Katyusha rockets over the Lebanese border by the Hezbollah. In fact, their rockets were retaliation for the killing of a small Lebanese boy by a booby-trap bomb they suspected had been left by an Israeli patrol. It mattered not.
No fracking, drilling or digging: it’s the only way to save life on Earth
The Paris climate change agreement is worthless. Politicians can’t possibly honour it unless we stop developing all new fossil fuel reserves
Do they understand what they have signed? Plainly they do not. Governments such as ours, now ratifying the Paris agreement on climate change, haven’t the faintest idea what it means – either that or they have no intention of honouring it.
For the first time we can see the numbers on which the agreement depends, and their logic is inescapable. Governments can either meet their international commitments or allow the prospecting and development of new fossil fuel reserves. They cannot do both.
The Paris agreement, struck by 200 nations in December, pledged to hold “the increase in the global average temperature to well below 2C above pre-industrial levels”, and aspired to limit it to 1.5C. So what does this mean? Thanks to a report by Oil Change International, we can now answer this question with a degree of precision.
Using the industry’s own figures, it shows that burning the oil, gas and coal in the fields and mines that is already either in production or being developed, is likely to take the global temperature rise beyond 2C. And even if all coal mining were to be shut down today, the oil and gas lined up so far would take it past 1.5C. The notion that we can open any new reserves, whether by fracking for gas, drilling for oil or digging for coal, without scuppering the Paris commitments is simply untenable.
Even so, to prevent the odds from becoming any worse, a 2C target means that we can use only around 85% of the fossil fuel that’s currently good to go, while a 1.5C target means we can extract little more than a third (the figures are explained by the US environmentalist Bill McKibben in an article in New Republic). So what’s the point of developing new reserves if the Paris agreement precludes the full extraction of those already in production?
Read more: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/sep/27/fracking-digging-drilling-paris-agreement-fossil-fuels
domingo, 25 de septiembre de 2016
The process
The process by which
banks create money
is so simple that
the mind is repelled
John Keneth Galbraith
Economist
Permit me to issue
Permit me to issue
and control the money of a nation,
and I care not
who makes its laws.
Mayer Anselm Rothschild Banker
In Greece, the Refugee Crisis Worsens While the World’s Attention Turns Elsewhere
EU’s resettlement plan has failed—tens of thousands are now stranded in dangerous, unsanitary camps.
Nea Kavala, Greece— “We weren’t expecting to be here very long,” Ayhan, a 28-year-old from Afrin, Syria, says, as she sits with her husband, Hozan, on a porch made of wood pallets outside their modest tent in the Nea Kavala refugee camp in northern Greece.
“I only have two changes of clothes,” she continues, pouring coffee into a row of baby-food tins that have been repurposed as coffee cups for impromptu guests. “What I’m wearing right now, and what I wore when I crossed the sea in February.”
Everything was going smoothly until the recently married couple reached the Macedonian border in March, and were told to wait in the Greek town of Idomeni—at the time, a sprawling refugee camp full of people trying to cross the border. Eventually, they were told that the border was closed and were evacuated to Nea Kavala—a former Greek military base outside the small northern town of Polykastro. Now, they are sharing a modest tent with Ayhan’s uncle, Mohammed; his wife, Alaa; and their two daughters. Occasionally they receive visits from a local red-haired stray cat, which they have jokingly named Angela Merkel.
“It was all so chaotic,” Hozan chimes in animatedly, recalling how, immediately after marrying, the couple made a snap decision to try their luck moving to Europe, due to the worsening political climate for Kurds in Turkey—where they had originally sought refugee after fleeing from Afrin, a Kurdish-majority Syrian town. Hozan thought that it was only a matter of time before the escalating violence in Turkey affected them, as Syrian Kurds.
sábado, 24 de septiembre de 2016
viernes, 23 de septiembre de 2016
miércoles, 21 de septiembre de 2016
What’s the Greatest Threat to Action on Climate Change? Nationalism.
It’s going to take global solidarity to avoid a climate-change doomsday.
In a year of record-setting heat on a blistered globe, with fast-warming oceans, fast-melting ice caps, and fast-rising sea levels, ratification of the December 2015 Paris climate-summit agreement—already endorsed by most nations—should be a complete no-brainer. That it isn’t tells you a great deal about our world. Global geopolitics and the possible rightward lurch of many countries (including a potential deal-breaking election in the United States that could put a climate denier in the White House) spell bad news for the fate of the Earth. It’s worth exploring how this might come to be.
The delegates to that 2015 climate summit were in general accord about the science of climate change and the need to cap global warming at 1.5 to 2.0 degrees Celsius (or 2.6 to 3.5 degrees Fahrenheit) before a planetary catastrophe ensues. They disagreed, however, about much else. Some key countries were in outright conflict with other states (Russia with Ukraine, for example) or deeply hostile to each other (as with India and Pakistan or the United States and Iran). In recognition of such tensions and schisms, the assembled countries crafted a final document that replaced legally binding commitments with the obligation of each signatory state to adopt its own unique plan, or “nationally determined contribution” (NDC), for curbing climate-altering greenhouse-gas emissions.
As a result, the fate of the planet rests on the questionable willingness of each of those countries to abide by that obligation, however sour or bellicose its relations with other signatories may be. As it happens, that part of the agreement has already been buffeted by geopolitical headwinds and is likely to face increasing turbulence in the years to come.
That geopolitics will play a decisive role in determining the success or failure of the Paris Agreement has become self-evident in the short time since its promulgation. While some progress has been made toward its formal adoption—the agreement will enter into force only after no fewer than 55 countries, accounting for at least 55 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, have ratified it—it has also encountered unexpected political hurdles, signaling trouble to come.
lunes, 19 de septiembre de 2016
El roído cielo de la pólvora que brama.
Hay una telaraña que desgarra mi alma. Grita entre castigos de soledad y me abraso entre cristales. Mi corazón, rebelde, vuela tullido otra vez. Se repite el frío y la carne negra paralizada por colmillos, se funde en destierro. Es tiempo nocturno éste. ¿Son mis oídos, mis ojos brasas?. Desconozco la llama delicada, tendida entre sabanas ya olvidadas. Ni siquiera tengo violenta ira. Ni agonía. Simplemente las caricias dan paso a la fuerza. Canta mi corazón pleno pero no crece mi paraíso. Mis fugitivos pensamientos se detienen como estatuas ¡pesada rueda!. La desalentadora alerta, desamparada escondía tormentas:
Esta noche, la hierba vuelve a ser espesa. Lo comprendo. Sucede. Reflexiono. Pienso.
Es extraño comenzar sin respuestas. El humilde veneno me habló una vez más.
Acumulo más frío que se hunde, profundo en mi cama.
Hoy mi mar esta triste. No amo la soledad. La vivo.
La noche se convierte en un nudo. No soy prisionero de mis huellas y no me derrumbo en la senda pero las marchas alcanzan mi aire, y las espinas de frío pasean entre muros y distancias.
No espero a mañana ni celebro rosas de vida. Solo, sentado, hilando, exclamando “otra vez”. Cruel desdén.
Comprendo que las bonanzas se marchitan y las noches transidas acarician mi pecho. Quedaran huellas que encontraran albas yertas o puede que mi sueño muera, ahogándome en este camino homicida y logre zozobrar mi alma.
Aún no estoy preso de cenizas reposadas, pero ya tengo más memoria que sangre.
La razón no es mi puerta, pero mi alma no languidece arrepentida:
Estaré herido, se acumulará el agua en mí, retirare la boca; abatido, aceptaré la soledad, devolveré huérfano, los recuerdos que despiertan mis horizontes, madurará mi carne, se fulminará mi corazón, estremeceré, lento con mi nunca, desierto suspiraré, confundido perderé mi imperceptible mirada, tal vez, atravesara mi cabeza las espuelas de la niebla flamígera, mi aliento reverberante, se aplastará entre acantilados, mis manos llenas de vino viejo ahora, engastaran el abrigo que no canta, mis pulmones helados yacerán en un gélido y profundo mar, las fiebres, sombrías propagaran el luto en mi alma, pero altivo exilio el dolor.
Ignoro, si este silencio acompañara mi tierra, venceré, paso a paso, verso a verso, el roído cielo de la pólvora que brama.Rafael Suárez
domingo, 18 de septiembre de 2016
Assad’s Death Warrant
Secret cables and reports by the U.S., Saudi and Israeli intelligence agencies indicate that the moment Assad rejected the Qatari pipeline, military and intelligence planners quickly arrived at the consensus that fomenting a Sunni uprising in Syria to overthrow the uncooperative Bashar Assad was a feasible path to achieving the shared objective of completing the Qatar/Turkey gas link. In 2009, according to WikiLeaks, soon after Bashar Assad rejected the Qatar pipeline, the CIA began funding opposition groups in Syria.”
— Robert F. Kennedy Jr., Why the Arabs don’t want us in Syria, Politico
The conflict in Syria is not a war in the conventional sense of the word. It is a regime change operation, just like Libya and Iraq were regime change operations.
The main driver of the conflict is the country that’s toppled more than 50 sovereign governments since the end of World War 2. (See: Bill Blum here.) We’re talking about the United States of course.
Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/assads-death-warrant/
Read more: http://www.counterpunch.org/2016/09/15/assads-death-warrant/
Getting Fooled on Iraq, Libya, Now Russia
Exclusive: After the British report exposing falsehoods to justify invading Iraq in 2003, a new U.K. inquiry found similar misconduct in the 2011 attack on Libya, but no lessons are learned for the West’s new propaganda about Russia, writes Robert Parry.
By Robert Parry
A British parliamentary inquiry into the Libyan fiasco has reported what should have been apparent from the start in 2011 – and was to some of us – that the West’s military intervention to “protect” civilians in Benghazi was a cover for what became another disastrous “regime change” operation.
The report from the U.K.’s Foreign Affairs Committee confirms that the U.S. and other Western governments exaggerated the human rights threat posed by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and then quickly morphed the “humanitarian” mission into a military invasion that overthrew and killed Gaddafi, leaving behind political and social chaos.
sábado, 17 de septiembre de 2016
Marquent ma route et je les pleure
J'ai eu le courage de regarder en arrière
Les cadavres de mes jours
Marquent ma route et je les pleure
Les uns pourrissent dans les églises italiennes
Ou bien dans de petits bois de citronniers
Qui fleurissent et fructifient
En même temps et en toute saison
D'autres jours ont pleuré avant de mourir dans des tavernes
Où d'ardents bouquets rouaient
Aux yeux d'une mulâtresse qui inventait la poésie
Et les roses de l'électricité s'ouvrent encore
Dans le jardin de ma mémoire
Les cadavres de mes jours
Marquent ma route et je les pleure
Les uns pourrissent dans les églises italiennes
Ou bien dans de petits bois de citronniers
Qui fleurissent et fructifient
En même temps et en toute saison
D'autres jours ont pleuré avant de mourir dans des tavernes
Où d'ardents bouquets rouaient
Aux yeux d'une mulâtresse qui inventait la poésie
Et les roses de l'électricité s'ouvrent encore
Dans le jardin de ma mémoire
Guillaume Apollinaire
jueves, 15 de septiembre de 2016
What Should Happen to Edward Snowden? A Q&A With His Lawyer
Ben Wizner speaks on what would happen in an espionage trial and why Obama should issue a pardon.
By Jon Wiener
President Obama will grant his last pardons by January 20, 2017, his final day in office. With that in mind, and with Oliver Stone’s Edward Snowden biopic slated for release this fall, I sat down with Ben Wizner in July to ask about the NSA whistle-blower’s chances of coming home soon. Wizner is Snowden’s attorney; he also directs the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy, and Technology Project.
Edward Snowden’s Twitter page reads: “I used to work for the government. Now I work for the public.” It’s been three years since his revelations about NSA spying were first published. Remind us: How many documents did Snowden release to the public?
The number he released to the public is zero. Every document that’s been published from what we now call the “Snowden archive” was published after a news organization made a determination that publishing that document, or portions of it, was in the public interest and would not cause harm to national security. Snowden’s instructions to the journalists he entrusted with the archive were that they were to use their judgment, not his. And that they were in all instances to consult with government officials, give them an opportunity to raise specific objections, but then make their own determination about what should be published—or not.
There was a lot of talk about the extensive harm to our national security done by Snowden’s revelations—“grave and irreparable” harm, we were told by government officials. What do we know about the extent of that harm?
We don’t know ything. We don’t know anything because no government official has come forward with any remotely specific or credible evidence that there has been harm.
For the thing one no longer has to say
Trying to use words, and every attempt
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
Is a wholly new start, and a different kind of failure
Because one has only learnt to get the better of words
For the thing one no longer has to say, or the way in which
One is no longer disposed to say it. And so each venture
Is a new beginning, a raid on the inarticulate
With shabby equipment always deteriorating
In the general mess of imprecision of feeling,
T.S. Eliot
Quotable Quote
lunes, 12 de septiembre de 2016
For Clinton v. Trump: Blame Corporate Media
Labor Day has come and gone; the campaign season is now in high gear. Getting to this point was hard for anyone paying attention. It will soon be worse a hundred-fold.
The collective intelligence of the American people is about to be insulted even more shamelessly than it has already been — as the sales campaigns for Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump rev up, seemingly without budget constraints.
Now would therefore be a good time to lay in a supply of anti-emetics, before the stores run out.
Ahead lies a barrage of news, impossible to avoid, of an electoral contest that makes a mockery of American “democracy.” That, unfortunately, is the least of it. The more portentous problem is what it is all leading to – a Clinton presidency.
Both Clinton and Trump are dangerous people.
Most people whose heads are screwed on right believe that Trump is the more dangerous of the two. Perhaps he is – in theory. But this hardly matters because the danger he poses is only theoretical.
domingo, 11 de septiembre de 2016
sábado, 10 de septiembre de 2016
America and the Plague of ‘Moral Idiocy’
When it comes to applying rules of international law and ethics, the U.S. government and its mainstream media operate with stunning hypocrisy, what might be called “moral idiocy,” says Lawrence Davidson.
By Lawrence Davidson
It was on Aug. 12, 1949, that the nations of the world, with Nazi atrocities still in mind, updated what are known as the Geneva Accords. This constituted an effort to once again set limits on the wartime behavior of states and their agents.
Among other things, the accords set the range of acceptable behavior toward prisoners of war, established protections for the wounded and the sick, and the necessary protections to be afforded civilian populations within and approximate to any war-zone. Some 193 countries, including the United States, have ratified these agreements. Now, as of August 2016, they are 67-years-old. Have they worked? The answer is, in all too many cases, no.
miércoles, 7 de septiembre de 2016
Chris Hedges vs. Robert Reich on Clinton, Third Parties, Capitalism & Next Steps for Sanders Backers
During the Democratic National Convention, Juan González and I hosted a fiery debate between the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich about the presidential race. Hedges has endorsed Dr. Jill Stein. Reich is backing Hillary Clinton, after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Reich served in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet as labor secretary from ’93 to 1997. He now teaches at University of California, Berkeley.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a holiday special looking at the 2016 presidential election.
DONALD TRUMP: When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. ... They’re bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.
HILLARY CLINTON: I have said repeatedly, I want those emails out. Nobody has a bigger interest in getting them released than I do.
DONALD TRUMP: We are going to have a wall, I can tell you. We are going to have a wall.
AMY GOODMAN: Today, a fiery debate between the Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges and former Labor Secretary Robert Reich. Chris Hedges is the author of many books, including Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt. He’s endorsed Dr. Jill Stein for president. Robert Reich is backing Hillary Clinton, after endorsing Bernie Sanders during the primaries. Reich served in Bill Clinton’s Cabinet as labor secretary from 1993 to ’97. He now teaches at the University of California, Berkeley. His most recent book, Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few.
Juan González and I spoke to Chris Hedges and Robert Reich during the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia. We began with Robert Reich.
ROBERT REICH: This is a very agonizing time for many Bernie Sanders supporters. I, with a great deal of reluctance initially, because I’ve known Hillary Clinton for 50 years—50 years—endorsed Bernie Sanders and worked my heart out for him, as many, many people did. And so, at this particular juncture, you know, there’s a great deal of sadness and a great deal of feeling of regret. But having worked so long and so many years for basically the progressive ideals that Bernie Sanders stands for, I can tell you that the movement is going to continue. In fact, it’s going to grow.
And right now, at this particular point in time, I just don’t see any alternative but to support Hillary. I know Hillary, I know her faults, I know her strengths. I think she will make a great president. I supported Bernie Sanders because I thought he would make a better president for the system we need. But nonetheless, Hillary Clinton is going to be the nominee. I support her. And I support her not only because she will be a good president, if not a great president, but also, frankly, because I am tremendously worried about the alternative. And the alternative, really, as a practical matter, is somebody who is a megalomaniac and a bigot, somebody who will set back the progressive movement decades, if not more.
AMY GOODMAN: Chris Hedges?
CHRIS HEDGES: Well, reducing the election to personalities is kind of infantile at this point. The fact is, we live in a system that Sheldon Wolin calls inverted totalitarianism. It’s a system where corporate power has seized all of the levers of control. There is no way to vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs or ExxonMobil or Raytheon. We’ve lost our privacy. We’ve seen, under Obama, an assault against civil liberties that has outstripped what George W. Bush carried out. We’ve seen the executive branch misinterpret the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force Act as giving itself the right to assassinate American citizens, including children. I speak of Anwar al-Awlaki’s 16-year-old son. We have bailed out the banks, pushed through programs of austerity. This has been a bipartisan effort, because they’ve both been captured by corporate power. We have undergone what John Ralston Saul correctly calls a corporate coup d’état in slow motion, and it’s over.
I just came back from Poland, which is a kind of case study of how neoliberal poison destroys a society and creates figures like Trump. Poland has gone, I think we can argue, into a neofascism. First, it dislocated the working class, deindustrialized the country. Then, in the name of austerity, it destroyed public institutions, education, public broadcasting. And then it poisoned the political system. And we are now watching, in Poland, them create a 30,000 to 40,000 armed militia. You know, they have an army. The Parliament, nothing works. And I think that this political system in the United States has seized up in exactly the same form.
So, is Trump a repugnant personality? Yes. Although I would argue that in terms of megalomania and narcissism, Hillary Clinton is not far behind. But the point is, we’ve got to break away from—which is exactly the narrative they want us to focus on. We’ve got to break away from political personalities and understand and examine and critique the structures of power. And, in fact, the Democratic Party, especially beginning under Bill Clinton, has carried water for corporate entities as assiduously as the Republican Party. This is something that Ralph Nader understood long before the rest of us, and stepped out very courageously in 2000. And I think we will look back on that period and find Ralph to be an amazingly prophetic figure. Nobody understands corporate power better than Ralph. And I think now people have caught up with Ralph.
Read more: http://www.democracynow.org/2016/9/5/chris_hedges_vs_robert_reich_on
Cuatro de las seis especies de grandes simios ya están al borde de la extinción
Todos los gorilas y orangutanes se encuentran en peligro crítico, según la nueva Lista Roja de Especies Amenazadas
La humanidad está exterminando a los seres más parecidos a ella: los grandes simios. Cuatro de los seis grandes simios están ya a un paso de la extinción, según la última actualización de la Lista Roja de Especies Amenazadas de la Unión Internacional para la Conservación de la Naturaleza (UICN), publicada hoy. Son el gorila oriental, el gorila occidental, el orangután de Borneo y el orangután de Sumatra, clasificados en peligro crítico. El chimpancé y el bonobo, los otros dos grandes simios, se encuentran tan solo un peldaño mejor, en la categoría de en peligro.
La novedad es el empeoramiento del primate más grande del mundo, el gorila oriental, “a raíz de una devastadora reducción de su población”, según la UICN. Su número ha caído un 70% en 20 años. Se calcula que solo quedan 4.680 individuos. “Es realmente preocupante ver al gorila oriental, una de las especies más cercanas al hombre, encaminarse a la extinción”, ha lamentado Inger Andersen, directora general de la UICN.
El grueso de los supervivientes son de la subespecie de los gorilas de llanura, que viven en las selvas orientales de la República Democrática del Congo. La caza ilegal ha hecho que su población caiga un 77% desde 1994, pasando de 16.900 ejemplares a solo 3.800. La otra subespecie de gorila oriental, los gorilas de montaña, popularizados por la película Gorilas en la niebla, se recuperan ligeramente. Su último reducto, de 880 individuos, se reparte por los bosques de Ruanda, Uganda y la República Democrática del Congo.
Conceptualización de belleza (II)
El segundo ensayo dice así:
Es respuesta en lo cotidiano y pregunta en lo perpetuo. Es el resbaladizo puente entre la flor y el campo. Es pureza que se respira y felicidad que ha de venir.
Es el –salvaje- misterio herido que cobra y pierde, sutil, la esencia del perfume que embriaga y desgarra. Es profundo sueño de los sentidos.
Es alma.
Es libertad fundamentada en la pasión, que cruza entre la razón alimentada de amor y el mundo agitado que se equilibra cuando la luz surge en el tímido camino. Es lluvia. A veces cae lenta. A veces rápida.
Es ambrosía del corazón cansado que encienden las sombras libertinas que regresan a la mirada indolente.
Es un venablo que trepa plácido, entre el talento roto y la frágil maestría. Es un triunfo enamorado que comprende los laberintos hechos de sueños. Es un recién nacido.
Es un seno en cuya bruma muda un relámpago dormido. Es un espacio blanco, angosto con zapatos yambos. Es un grito estremecido que engendra –proscrito- la larga fuerza vencida.
Es ayuno suficiente. Es decir “te amo”. Es creer en el alba en una prisión umbría. Es agua en la piedra y en ésta, tiempo que brota de la carne. Es destierro voluntario. Es conquista trémula.
Es armadura contra la voz enmudecida. Es fuente venerada que esconde y enseña la verdadera patria.
Es encaje de un claro de la luna. Es la sombra de la Trinidad. Es un fuego mal extinguido en los abismos que recortan la mirada de unos ojos profundos.
Es solitario turbación que cubre un viento inmóvil. Es el látigo que tortura la sed no saciada.
Es secreto que corre sin tregua. Es un alfiler en una isla. Es, en fin, esa puerta coronada, en la orilla del destino.
Rafael Suárez
Conceptualización de la belleza. Segundo intento.
Es respuesta en lo cotidiano y pregunta en lo perpetuo. Es el resbaladizo puente entre la flor y el campo. Es pureza que se respira y felicidad que ha de venir.
Es el –salvaje- misterio herido que cobra y pierde, sutil, la esencia del perfume que embriaga y desgarra. Es profundo sueño de los sentidos.
Es alma.
Es libertad fundamentada en la pasión, que cruza entre la razón alimentada de amor y el mundo agitado que se equilibra cuando la luz surge en el tímido camino. Es lluvia. A veces cae lenta. A veces rápida.
Es ambrosía del corazón cansado que encienden las sombras libertinas que regresan a la mirada indolente.
Es un venablo que trepa plácido, entre el talento roto y la frágil maestría. Es un triunfo enamorado que comprende los laberintos hechos de sueños. Es un recién nacido.
Es un seno en cuya bruma muda un relámpago dormido. Es un espacio blanco, angosto con zapatos yambos. Es un grito estremecido que engendra –proscrito- la larga fuerza vencida.
Es ayuno suficiente. Es decir “te amo”. Es creer en el alba en una prisión umbría. Es agua en la piedra y en ésta, tiempo que brota de la carne. Es destierro voluntario. Es conquista trémula.
Es armadura contra la voz enmudecida. Es fuente venerada que esconde y enseña la verdadera patria.
Es encaje de un claro de la luna. Es la sombra de la Trinidad. Es un fuego mal extinguido en los abismos que recortan la mirada de unos ojos profundos.
Es solitario turbación que cubre un viento inmóvil. Es el látigo que tortura la sed no saciada.
Es secreto que corre sin tregua. Es un alfiler en una isla. Es, en fin, esa puerta coronada, en la orilla del destino.
Rafael Suárez
martes, 6 de septiembre de 2016
lunes, 5 de septiembre de 2016
sábado, 3 de septiembre de 2016
Frail the white rose
Frail the white rose and frail are. Her hands that gave. Whose soul is sere and paler. Than time's wan wave.
James Joyce
James Joyce
jueves, 1 de septiembre de 2016
Central Mediterranean: MSF Condemns Attack on Rescue Vessel
On August 17, while conducting search and rescue operations off the Libyan coast, the Doctors Without Borders/Médecins Sans Frontières(MSF) rescue vessel the Bourbon Argos was approached and attacked by a group of armed men onboard an unidentified speedboat, MSF said today, strongly condemning the attack.
The predictions have come to pass: Turkey is now in Syria and this is what it means for the Middle East
The Turks don’t want a Kurdish mini-state on their frontier any more than the Syrians want to lose territory to the Kurds
How the West would love to believe that Turkey’s army in Syria – all 10 tanks of it – are striking at last at everyone’s enemy, the blood-soaked cult of the “Islamic State”. But few in Syria or Turkey will be fooled. Isis have been sitting in Jerablus for many months; it is the advance of the American-armed Kurdish YPG militia along the Turkish border towards Jerablus that worries Sultan Erdogan.
And yet again as Turkish troops advanced, he bundled up the YPG (People’s Protection Units) – who the Turks believe have connections with the PKK or Kurdistan Workers Party, whom they view as much more dangerous – as “terrorists”, along with Isis. In other words, he’s calling both the anti-Assad Isis and the anti-Isis Kurds the enemies of Turkey (as he did after the suicide bombing of a wedding in Gazientep last weekend), lumping his pet hates together. Only his obsession with Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for July’s failed coup, has been omitted from his latest “battle” objectives in Syria.
Erdogan’s latest ally, Tsar Vladimir, will have no objections. At one blow, Turkey strikes – however feebly – at both Isis and the pro-American Kurdish militia with whose apparatchiks Moscow has remained studiously aloof. The Syrians will know – and surely will have been told – that Putin supports Turkey’s little incursion. They will be in no mood to protest since their own government army was fighting the same Kurdish group in the city of Hassakeh until a ceasefire two days ago. Here, too, the YPG was trying to seize Syrian sovereign territory.
Put simply, the YPG is getting too big for its boots. It is using the anti-Isis war to carve out a little homeland inside Syria along the Turkish border and gobbling up as much of Syria as it can before the civil war ends. The Turks don’t want a Kurdish mini-state on their frontier any more than the Syrians want to lose territory to the Kurds. The anti-Assad “Free Syrian Army” is supposed to be among Turkey’s little squadron of armour heading for Jerablus but this is likely to be of little interest to Damascus: Syrian troops have long since ceased to regard the FSA as a serious military force and will not worry if its men wish to “martyr” themselves in this Turkish-run operation.
Suscribirse a:
Entradas (Atom)