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After and during the
Iraq war, there have been reports of how the Coalition army tortures
POW's with the method of sleep deprivation by playing music for several
days at extremely high volume. Songs used are, for instance, Metallica's
Enter Sandman and the theme song from Sesame Street. (Despite the muppets in the background, everyone thinks this is illustrating a Metallica song ...) Netzine, August 2003. |
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In the rainforests of
Central Africa, several species are on the brink of extinction, as the
meat of chimpanzees, elephants, gorillas, giant forest hogs and other
threatened species is considered a delicacy. The logging industry
provides the roads into the forests, the rich city dwellers provide the
market, and the poor and desperate provide the hunters. Read more about the ecological threat of "bushmeat" on Karl Ammann's site. Paper version, #3/2003. |
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Something very bizarre
is being done in South Africa. Outside Cape Town, a gigantic statue of
Nelson Mandela is built, along with a vast complex of museums,
restaurants, five star hotels, etc. It's supposed to be a memorial of
the fight against and victory over the apartheid regime. Critics say that this is just a ploy to get more tourism, that the enormous amounts of money are a total waste, that there are considerably more urging needs for that money in other fields, such as the fight against AIDS, that it's just an embarrassing copy of New York's Lady Liberty, that it will ruin the seafront, that it's a mockery of everything the fight against apartheid stands for, that it's bizarre, offensive and laughable. But it's still being built. Netzine, October 2003. |
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NEPAD,
The New Economic Partnership for African Development, is hailed by some
as the 'new chance' for Africa. It is, however, ardently criticised for
being an elitistic 'top down document' where the common people have no
say, and for having a clearly Neo-Liberal agenda. A South African innovation, it has many similarities with the South African government's strategy for growth and economical restructuring, GEAR, which has caused great losses of jobs, and has favoured the already established transnational companies, not the local population. The financing of the project is also very unclear, and so far, South African tax payers have carried the bulk of the expenses. Paper version, #3/2003. |
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Javier
Solana has lately published the document
"A Secure Europe in a better World". The contents are pretty
much a carbon copy of US security policy. The main threats are labelled
as "terrorism, the spread of WMD, and 'failed states'" (the EU
word for 'rogue states'). The EU military should adopt the US
interventionistic Llapgoch strategy: "the first line of defence
will often be abroad" ... "Conflict prevention and threat
prevention cannot start too early." Did anyone really think
that the EU could be a healthy counterweight to the USA? Netzine, November 2003. |