Law & Paneir

Trends in political violence Rawson has argued that physical injury for a political purpose has been the most common form of political violence in this country; much more than arson, sabotage and other forms of destruction of property (Rawson 1968a, p. 19). Trends in Australian protests have generally been similar to those in other western industrial societies, although the actual amount of violence has been lower. Throughout the late nineteenth and first half of the twentieth century the participants have generally focused on issues relating to economic well-being. Rioting has tended to occur during periods of economic distress and has been of brief duration and low magnitude. Regardless of the participants' motives, and with few exceptions, the events in question have been limited to periods of war, economic decline, or labour-management tensions. Reactions on the part of organised workers to what they viewed as threats to economic well-being constituted the bulk of such act...

Officially, 5 government officials assassinated in one week, including two top military leaders, many more according to sources in Bujumbura, opposition leaders terrorized, tens of civilians being killed across the county daily, mostly in the populous city quarters of Cibitoke and Buterere. Burundi is up in flames.  However, beyond the assassinations, the most damaging factor appears to be the non lethal weapon: rumor, intoxication, and intimidation. Many are labelling the non-lethal weapon as psychological warfare. Hence, Burundi is squeezed between the lethal conflict and the toxic psychological warfare. And  fingers are being pointed to the obvious culprit: the Rwandan government. According to sources within the Burundian Government, there is no doubt that Rwandan military and intelligence services are behind the chaos, slowly morphing into civil war, in Burundi.   Sources in Rwanda have been quick to confirm and even have given names to AfroAm...

Whereas the financial crisis in Mexico in 1982 had to do with external debt and took a long time for recovery the peso crisis of 1994 had little to do with external but instead was due to a short-term foreign exchange problem that was handled relatively quickly. In part, this quick recovery was due to the quick response of the U.S. government and the IMF in providing loans or loan guarantees. Some of the financial aid packages were prepared even before the peso crisis occurred as part of the structure associated with the North American Free Trade Alliance (NAFTA). At the time NAFTA was approved in 1993 the economic future of Mexico looked bright. As a result of the recovery program from the 1982 financial crisis the Government of Mexico had reduced its deficit even though it had also undertaken many program to alleviate problems of public health and education. Although conditions looked good for Mexico in 1993, 1994 was a very bad year for Mexico in many ways. On New Year'...

LS: Do you think the hegemony of the US in the world declined because of the action that followed 9/11? For example it seems as if the true beneficiaries of the War on Terror are China and Russia. PDS: Well, let us go through that bit by bit. One of the major consequences of 9/11 was the invasion of Iraq and I think there is almost no one who … everyone would agree that American power in the world and particularly in the Middle East has been eroded because of the invasion of Iraq. It has resulted in first of all in the election, if you want democracy in Iraq then the majority are going to rule and the majority are Shi’a, so you now have a Shi’a government in Iraq. And it is much more friendly to Iran than it is to the United States. Many people could have – and did – predict this. It is not rocket science, it is pretty obvious. That also has led to major tensions between the US and Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia historically — whether they should be or not can be debated – but histori...

It is clear, as everyone who has studied these matters closely and impartially concurs, that there have been cover-ups of the CIA’s relationships to first Oswald and later al-Mihdar – cover-ups which in both cases have not yet been adequately resolved. A reasonable conclusion from the available evidence is that the cover-ups were in order to conceal prior CIA operational interest in the designated subjects, just as in the case of Ali Mohamed in the early 1990s. It could of course be a coincidence that people of operational interest to the CIA became designated subjects in the deep events of JFK and 9/11. Another, more disturbing possibility is that those responsible for these events knew of the CIA’s operational interest, and exploited it in such a way as to ensure that the government would be embarrassed into covering up what really happened on those days. A lot of books about 9/11, including my own, have focused on the roles played by Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld on that day. But ...