KARL MARX & FREDERICK ENGELS - THE COMMUNIST MANIFESTO - PDF
United Nations peacekeepers in Ivory Coast enticed underage girls in a poor part of the West African nation to exchange sex for food, according to a United States Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks.
The cable written in January 2010 focuses on the behavior of Beninese peacekeepers stationed in the western town of Toulepleu, an area that has been at the crosshairs of the nation's 10-year-long conflict.
A random poll of 10 underage girls in Toulepleu by aid group Save The Children U.K. in 2009 found that eight performed sexual acts for Benin peacekeepers on a regular basis in order to secure their most basic needs. "Eight of the 10 said they had ongoing sexual relationships with Beninese soldiers in exchange for food or lodging," the diplomat wrote in the cable, citing information shared with the embassy by a protection officer.
On Tuesday, United Nations spokesman Michel Bonnardeaux confirmed that in April, 16 Beninese peacekeepers were repatriated to Benin and are barred from serving in the U.N. following a yearlong investigation. FULL STORY
An unclassified U.S. diplomatic cable released by Wikileaks contains claims that U.S. forces executed ten Iraqi civilians, half of whom were children aged five or younger, in 2006 and then tried to cover it up.
McClatchy reports that questions from a local U.N. investigator in Iraq, and from Philip Alston, the organization's special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions to U.S. military were ignored and have still not been addressed, five years later.
Alston's memo noted that the bodies of the dead civilians, who had all been shot in the head, were handcuffed.
Digital Journal notes that at the time the executions took place:
"U.S. military officials in Iraq said eyewitness accounts of the incident were likely false, and later said the matter warranted no further investigation. The officials refused to reveal unit identities which might have taken part in the killings."
The Pentagon has not commented on the allegations raised by the new cable. FULL STORY
Commenting on how the German working class movement could have stopped his debased regime from gaining power, Hitler once exclaimed, “Only one thing could have stopped our movement - if our adversaries had understood its principle and from the first day smashed with the utmost brutality the nucleus of our new movement.” Today, as capitalism breaks apart, the working class is left with the historical task of organizing itself as a force. Not only against capitalism, but against a radical right-wing that will also attempt to constitute itself as an alternative to the current state of affairs.
Today a new movement in the U.S., commonly known as the “Tea Party,” is finding its place in the back rooms of community centers, in the pews during Sunday church service, and the offices of corporate elites and business owners. And, it is time for its adversaries to respond in kind. Fascist movements, however skewed and modernized, are alive and well in present times. It is foolhardy not to take note of their mobilizing, however juvenile it may look to people aware of the issues. The Tea Party Movement is a neo-fascist movement. FULL STORY