G8 Action Plan Means Further Enslavement for the African Continent

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G8 Action Plan Means Further Enslavement for the African Continent

Protests as Sharon Meets Blair in London

UN Secretary-General and Tony Blair Discuss Regional Hotspots

US Views Iraq as Test Field for Its Warmongering Policies

Greetings from Reoccupied Ramallah

World Day against Child Labour

Firefighters March for £30,000

German Unemployment Surges to Two-And-A-Half Year High in May

At the end of this month, from June 26-27, the annual G8 summit meeting of the political leaders of the most powerful countries in the world will be held in Kananaskis, Canada. A meeting of the foreign ministers of the G8 countries – Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Canada, the US and Russia – will be held in Canada from June 12-13.

The 2002 Kananaskis G8 Summit is scheduled to focus on three main issues: strengthening global economic growth; continuing the so-called "war against terrorism" and "building a new partnership for Africa’s development", as well as on other issues. However it is widely expected that the summit will focus much of its attention on a G8 Action Plan for Africa as announced at last year’s summit in Genoa, which at the time Tony Blair referred to as a "Marshall Plan" for Africa.

Britain and the other big powers have been attempting to present the G8 Action Plan as a response to the plans developed by African leaders, now known as the New Partnership for African Development (NePAD). NePAD emerged from the final session of the Organisation of African Unity (OAU) held last July. African leaders took measure to establish an African Union (to be launched this summer), specifically formed to combat the consequences of globalisation and Africa’s marginalisation in world affairs, and adopted an economic recovery plan, originally called the "New African Initiative". However following discussions between some African leaders and those of Britain and the other big powers at the Genoa summit, the New African Initiative was renamed NePAD. Rather than being in any way a means to combat the adverse effects of globalisation, NePAD has become the means whereby the big powers will be able to increase their exploitation of the African continent and intervene in its affairs, through a so-called "partnership" with African countries.

The nature of this partnership was outlined by the Prime Minister’s Special Representative to the G8 on Africa, Baroness Amos, when, in a speech at the end of April, she spoke of the need to "enhance the pro-poor impact of globalisation", and the need to encourage more private investment in order to realise "sustainable development" in Africa. Amongst other things NePAD, which is firmly based on all the Eurocentric values of the Paris Charter, is designed to further encourage capital investment in Africa by agreeing "codes and standards" for "good governance" and a "peer review mechanism" for ensuring compliance with them. By these means the big powers seek to establish the economic and political conditions that are most favourable for finance capital and establish a system of policing by proxy throughout Africa.

In the period since the Genoa summit, Baroness Amos and other "personal representatives" of the leaders of the big powers have met regularly with members of the NePAD Steering and Implementation committees, so as to coordinate the "partnership" and prepare the Action Plan. At the same time every encouragement has been given to finance capital to "fund Africa’s growth through NePAD". The British government has played a leading role in developing the Action Plan for Africa, which will be launched at the forthcoming G8 summit. But this Plan will do nothing to aid development, nor to combat the effects of globalisation; rather it will lead to a strengthening of the hold of finance capital throughout the African continent.

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign called on people to join their picket at 10 Downing Street today, Wednesday, from 12 noon onwards to protest against the visit to Tony Blair by Anglo-US backed war criminal Ariel Sharon.

Sharon is meeting Tony Blair en route home once again from the United States, which is providing the backing for the Israeli Prime Minister in its fascist attacks against the Palestinian people. Sharon has visited Washington six times in 15 months. A senior Israeli official quoted Sharon as having cautioned Bush not to "force a peace deal" on Israel.

Tony Blair has also been backing Sharon, under the guise of being "even handed", while recognising the so-called right of Israel for "secure borders" and condemning the suicide bombers as "terrorists" while disgustingly calling Sharon a "man of peace". The call by Blair for an end to all violence and a "political solution" is not a call for peace with justice but for a continuation of the cowardly occupation of Palestinian lands and for wiping out the Palestinians as a people.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan held talks in London on Tuesday on the issue of "regional hotspots" with Tony Blair, according to a UN spokeswoman.

Spokeswoman Marie Okabe told reporters in New York that Africa was high on the agenda, as the leaders discussed the continent's New Partnership for Development (NePAD) and the development of an African conflict resolution and peacekeeping capacity. At the meeting, Secretary-General Annan also repeated his goal to resolve the conflicts in Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo within the next 18 months.

The Secretary-General and Tony Blair also spoke about the forthcoming Johannesburg Summit on Sustainable Development, the UN reports. They mapped a strategy for the Johannesburg meeting focusing on "deliverables" – specific goals that can be achieved. In addition their talks also touched India/Pakistan and the Middle East.

In Italy on Monday, Kofi. Annan briefed Italian President, Carlo Azeglio Ciampi, on efforts by the Quartet – the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations – to convene a Middle East peace conference. "They also spoke of the lingering danger as the Indian and Pakistani armies continued to face each other in disputed Kashmir," Marie Okabe said.

The Secretary-General also met on Monday with the President of Ghana, John Kufuor, and with South African President Thabo Mbeki. With President Mbeki, he discussed the situations in Angola, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sierra Leone and Zimbabwe, as well as preparations for the Johannesburg Summit and NePAD.

His final meeting in Rome before heading to London en route to New York was with Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi. According to the spokeswoman, their discussions initially focused on US-Russian arms reductions and plans for reconstruction assistance for the Palestinian Authority.

The external service of Iranian radio carried a commentary in English on Tuesday. It referred to US Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld’s comment in Kuwait on June 10 that Iraq's denial of having access to weapons of mass destruction is only a big lie. Rumsfeld alleged that Iraq is the cause of instability in the region.

The commentary points out that the Iraqi foreign minister had announced on June 9 that in 1991 Iraq gave up the plan for manufacturing weapons of mass destruction and that it is no longer interested in joining the group of the countries that have access to such arms, contrary to the US claims that after expelling the UN arms inspectors in December 1998, Iraq has resumed a plan of renovating weapons of mass destruction. Iran radio said that US officials seem to view Iraq as a test field for continuing their warmongering policies. Extensive propaganda concerning the danger of the dissemination of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and the inability of the UN arms inspectors in identifying the hideouts of these weapons in Iraq is preparing the ground for Washington’s present policies for military aggression against Iraq.

Iraq is prepared to provide the United States with proof it no longer harbours any secret programme to build nuclear weapons or possesses biological or chemical weapons, a foreign ministry statement said on Sunday. "If the United States has any doubts on the fact that Iraq is exempt from any such activity, installation or program related to weapons of mass destruction, they can show (Iraq) their suspicions, questions or information, " the ministry said.

The Bush administration has been drawing up a document laying out a strategy of striking first to "prevent" nuclear, chemical or biological attacks, officials said on Monday. The doctrine, to be included in a broad US strategy document this autumn, was first laid out by President George W Bush on June 1 when he said the US military must be prepared to launch pre-emptive strikes. The Bush administration's National Security Strategy is a document that broadly outlines US foreign policy, including military strategy, diplomacy, foreign aid, and is produced annually except in the first year of an administration.

On June 6, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld had addressed a meeting of defence ministers from the 19 NATO countries in Belgium, saying that the United States and allied nations must not wait for "absolute proof" of an impending terrorist attack before acting to stop it. "Rumsfeld said the world has consistently underestimated the threat of terrorist attacks," Associated Press reported. The only surprise, he said, is that "we are still surprised when this happens," according to an outline of the main points he made. The outline was provided to reporters; his speech was not open to coverage. Among the key points in the outline of his remarks were: "Real situation worse than what facts show" and "Absolute proof cannot be precondition for action."

"Rumsfeld said it is inevitable that terrorists will gain access to nuclear, chemical or biological weapons and that governments as well as the general public need to better understand the threat," AP reports. "Although the outline of his remarks made no mention of Iraq, the point about acting in a timely way fits with Rumsfeld's expressed view that in some cases the United States must take pre-emptive action to protect America. European nations have been sceptical of pre-emptive military action," it said.

According to Reuters, the US Defence Secretary also said on Tuesday that there were more US troops in the Gulf now than when the US "war against terrorism" in Afghanistan began. "It (US troop presence) is larger now than when the Afghan action began. We go on increasing and reducing the level of the force fairly quickly. But it is not right to disclose the size," Rumsfeld told reporters in the Qatar capital of Doha.

The Defence Secretary is on a tour of the Gulf during which defence sources have noted a recent increase in US military cargo traffic in the region, further boosting speculation that a military operation against Iraq was nearing.

The United States has some 10,000 troops in Kuwait, more than 4,000 in Bahrain and more than 3,000 in Qatar. Donald Rumsfeld has visited the US troops in Kuwait, Bahrain and Qatar. He was later heading for India and Pakistan.

Despatch of British youth in Palestine, Monday, June 10, 2002

On Saturday a 6 strong group of the Che-Leila delegation went to Nablus. We were taken to Qalandiya checkpoint to leave Ramallah, and the soldiers would not allow our GIPP guide to take us to meet the bus waiting for us on the other side. No Palestinians were to be allowed out of Ramallah today. "Maybe Palestinians would be allowed to move tomorrow," the soldiers said apologetically.

The group went through the checkpoint and managed to contact our driver on the other side. He drove us through the beautiful hilly countryside of Palestine, which reminded the two Icelanders with us of their home country. Except, this place was pockmarked with illegal Israeli settlements, some large some small. Some literally just five or six houses fenced off in the middle of nowhere – settlers coming to live here for no other reason than to claim the land, and having to have all their supplies constantly brought in for them by truck.

We reached Nablus, which sits in an amazing valley in Northern Palestine. We arrived at the UPMRC building where we met our hosts, a Dr. Ghassan and an ambulance relief worker called Firaz. They welcomed us and told us about the invasion three days previously.

After being fed we were taken to the site of an exploded building. It had been a reasonably new seven-story, multi-purpose building with shops at the front, stores in the basement and residential flats above. It was hard to imagine the original condition from what we saw.

The whole place was rubble, personal effects, and layers of concrete sandwiched together. 400 square feet of devastation. There were three orange tents outside the exploded building, housing families who had nowhere else to go. More refugees, 54 years after the Nakba (1948 catastrophe).

We then went into Balata refugee camp where we saw the real handiwork of the IDF. They had systematically destroyed the family home of a martyr. Everything was crushed or burned. Bullet holes raked the area. The house was right next to a cemetery, and the tanks had come through the cemetery desecrating graves and headstones with their relentless caterpillar tracks. I’m sure they could have gone around, but the effect would not have been the same. More of the martyr’s family lived in a house across the way, which had been raked with gunfire, and two cousins of the martyr had been murdered. In the ruins of the house I noticed an English Language textbook printed by Oxford University Press, singed at the edges. A youngster came by and showed me a locket around his neck, inside was a picture of his cousin, the martyr whose family lived in the house.

We visited another house in Balata camp which was specifically targeted. The father of the family told us that when he saw the tanks coming he took his family into the back room and waited for the attack to cease. They huddled together for two hours while the army was shooting at the front of the house. A bomb had come through the front window and exploded in the bedroom, completely twisting the metal bars on the window on the way in and destroying part of the floor and wardrobes. The father, Mr Tawfiq, told that America and Britain were to blame. He said, "Forgive me for saying so, but America and Britain are causing the problems here. The next generation [gesturing towards his young boy and girl] will not feel accepting of western capitalism." I think he was toning down his comments to be polite, since he always apologised before criticising the British government, but the message was clear – "we know who our enemies are".

We moved on later to the old city, where we were taken to the most devastating site I have seen yet. A group of houses had been totally destroyed by rockets and artillery shells. Firaz told us that the complex had been destroyed during the invasion a month ago, and that Nablus was under curfew for a week, even for ambulances. When he was allowed to move he went to this place in the old city and spent eight hours clearing the rubble with local people, to find two old folks still alive a week after the destruction. But, they also found a family of eight, all huddled together under a blanket in a back room. All were dead.

The brother of the main members of the family came along and showed us a poster with all their pictures. His parents were in their 70s, his brother, his sister-in-law who was seven months pregnant, and the kids aged 9, 5 and 4. All destroyed by the Israelis. As he told us his tragic story, nearby a young lad was sitting in a chair flying a black kite way up in the sky.

We then toured the old city in the centre of Nablus. It is the most beautiful place, reminiscent of an old Italian town with underground lanes and arches. Except this one was destroyed in part by tanks and bulldozers. Some 500-year-old buildings were destroyed. Children played in the ruins as though it were perfectly normal.

The old city was built with houses on top of each other, and we went up to one which was damaged by Israeli weaponry. This family had built a summerhouse on the roof, which was raked with large bullets from the guns on the apache helicopters used by the IDF in the killing spree. The ceiling had partly caved in. Another building on the same was roof was totally burned out by rocket fire and incendiary bombs. The surrounding stone had been blackened by the burning caused by the incendiary chemicals in the bombs. There was a minaret from a mosque popping up only a few yards away, also damaged by gunfire.

We visited a church whose front had been destroyed, and a school which had no front anymore, since the Israelis had destroyed it. Inside the school we saw gunfire on the walls and pupils collages strewn all over the floor. There we met a delightful French woman called Claude who had been teaching in Nablus for the past nine months. She told us that she wanted the next Che-Leila group to meet her class and help with English lessons.

We continued to walk around and film various bits of damage to shops and houses. We saw where the Israeli troops had spray-painted Stars of David on the walls in some futile attempt to make themselves feel at home. We saw the main school where all men between the ages of 14 and 45 were rounded up and interrogated during the last invasion.

The thing that really stuck in my mind were the posters. Everywhere we went, as in Ramallah, there were a multitude of faces looking at us from the walls. Faces of martyrs, heroes and victims. All Palestinians whose lives had been taken by the Israelis, or given for Palestine, or both. There posters from Fateh's al-Asifa, Tanzim and al-Aqsa brigades; from Islamic Jihad; Hamas; and from PFLP. Many posters from the latter group, showing the faces of the four heroes imprisoned for the killing of the ultra-racist minister from the Moledet party, Rehavam Ze'evi. The latter four are currently in a PA jail in Jericho, being supervised by British and American representatives.

The posters, not to mention many lockets with martyrs' pictures worn by people, were in stark contrast to our western advertising that is everywhere. In Palestine the message on the billboards and streets is not "drink Coke" or "smoke Marlboro", but "Resistance is the only way Palestine will be free", and "Our brothers and sisters have given their lives for our freedom". It’s a different world out here.

We went on a tour up the valley and watched the sun set on Nablus, and after dinner we went back to the UPMRC centre. Before sleeping we heard from one of the relief workers at the centre that a Fateh freedom fighter had climbed up the valley side and injured six armed settlers in an armed engagement. We were all amazed since the settlement at the top of the valley was in a prime strategic position, from where the militarised settlers could survey the whole city. We were told that there was a nuclear weapons silo up there and anyone within two miles of the perimeter fence was routinely shot.

We awoke at 2.30am to the scream of American-made F16 jets overhead, and went outside to see flares gently floating down in the sky. The settlers had fired these to light up the area to make their shooting easier. We heard that Nablus may be invaded again.

In the morning we had to leave early, and our hosts arranged a 7-seater with Israeli plates to take us via the bypass roads [forbidden to Palestinian people] to Ramallah, avoiding Qalandiya checkpoint. On the way we saw more settlements, with their red terracotta roofs, and even a few settlers hanging around, M16s hanging from their shoulders. We had been very sad to leave Nablus after such an emotional and eventful visit, and we promised that we would send more people to come and see for themselves what kind of "peace" the Israeli Zionist government is interested in.

It is clear that the Israelis do not want peace, for they know that peace requires justice. What they want is security. Security for themselves, and injustice for the Palestinians. "Peace" and "security", based on checkpoints and curfews, F16s and Apache attack helicopters, provocative illegal settlements and bypass roads. They want to have a state for Jews only – since all non-Jews, or Goyim, are clearly not the chosen people of God. Well, just as the Aryan race theory combined with the expansionist idea of Lebensraum worked for the Nazis up till their defeat at the hands of the Soviet Union, so the "chosen people" theory and "Eretz" Israel will fall eventually to the hands of the Palestinian freedom struggle, united with progressive people the world over.

Fahim Ahmed, Che-Leila Youth Brigades

The World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) has issued the following on the occasion of the first World Day against Child Labour.

On the occasion of the first World Day Against Child Labour on 12 June 2002, the World Federation of Trade Unions expresses its solidarity with the struggles of trade unions and social organisations in all countries to secure an end to all forms of shameful exploitation of child labour and to assure the implementation of the internationally recognised rights of children to education, adequate social protection as well as fair living standards.

As the ILO has pointed out, one in every eight children in the world – some 179 million children in the 5-17 age group – are now exposed to the worst forms of child labour. While the national and international actions stimulated by the sustained campaigns of the trade unions and their allies have raised global awareness to promote serious efforts to find solutions to this immense social problem, it is utterly deplorable that the international labour standards which were unanimously adopted to end the gross exploitation of child labour are being virtually ignored by the employers.

The situation therefore demands more effective steps by the international community, firstly, to seriously implement what has already been agreed and to allocate necessary resources for education, healthcare, housing and other social services for children.

It is equally necessary to assure the children of a future of peace and security and, to this end, put an end to the nuclear weapons and eliminate all weapons of mass destruction, eliminating all wars, war preparations and military occupations. Arms budgets must be sharply reduced and the savings reallocated to programmes of social development for children.

Thousands of firefighters marched to Trafalgar Square on Tuesday in order in support of their pay claim. The firefighters and emergency fire control workers assembled at noon from all over Britain.

A fully qualified professional firefighter is currently paid £21,531 per year. The Fire Brigades Union is demanding that this wage be increased to £30,000 per year, with full pay parity for Emergency Fire Control staff and an increase for Professional Firefighters working the retained duty system to £13.74 per hour.

Andy Gilchrist, General Secretary of the FBU, said: "Every time there is a major disaster in this country firefighters are praised for the excellent work they carry out on behalf of the public. Unfortunately this praise does not pay the bills. FBU members are clearly saying to the Government and our employers: don’t praise us – pay us."

Mike Fordham, FBU Assistant General Secretary, said: "Our pay is linked to an outdated formula, which was agreed in the 1970s. The professional firefighter’s role has changed dramatically since this time. All we are saying is that we do a professional job and therefore we should be paid a professional rate of pay."

The number of people out of work in Germany surged in May, data released on June 8 show.

According to the Bundesbank's calculations, the German seasonally-adjusted jobless total shot up to 4.043 million in May, an increase of 60,000 from the figure for April, bringing the adjusted jobless total up to its highest level since November 1999.

Meanwhile the seasonally-adjusted jobless rate – which measures the number of people on the dole as a proportion of the working population as a whole – rose to 9.7 percent in May from 9.6 percent in April.

The last time the jobless rate stood at 9.7 percent was in April 2000.