THE LIE AGAINST ISLAM

Sheik Dr Omar Nuhu Shaributu

By Ekow Mensah

The falsehood is that Al-Qaeda, the Taliban, ISIS and other such demented organizations are creations of a brand of militant Islam.

Connected with this falsehood is also the claim that “Jihad” senseless adventurist’s war unleashed by Moslems to convert the whole of the world to Islam.

The truth however is that all of these organizations were established by Western intelligence as instruments of foreign policy and their methods were designed by agencies such as the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America and the MI5 of the United Kingdom.

There is now irrefutable evidence that several of the terrorist organizations which emerged before the Taliban and Al Qaeda were fabricated in  Africa to subvert the national liberation movements and undermine the efforts of nationalist leaders like Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah and Patrice Lumumba.

In his book “J.F.K Ordeal In Africa” Jack Mahoney reveals how the CIA collaborated with the opponents of Nkrumah and cold bloodedly murdered as many as 300 innocent Ghanaians through such activities as bomb explosions and plain faced assassination attempts.

In the Congo, Ludo Martins, a researcher has provided irrefutable evidence of the conspiracy of the Western intelligence agencies to assassinate the democratically elected Prime Minister, Patrice Lumumba.

Western intelligence agencies also keenly supported the apartheid regime in South Africa and employed torture and assassinations, against the African National Congress and its leaders and members.

They did the same things in Guinea, Mali, Mozambique, Angola, Egypt and many other countries in Africa.

In the case of Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, they were for all practical purposes formed, directed and armed by the CIA to topple a Soviet backed government in Afghanistan and to expel Soviet troops from there.

The United States of America and its allies had decided that the Soviet presence in Afghanistan was detrimental to their interest in controlling the oil resources of the Middle East, the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean and they established these Trans national groups to harass the Soviets.

They were applauded by the Western media as the bombed civilians and soldiers alike and cut throats to make their sickening point.

The ISIS was also created by the Western intelligence with the full collaboration of the Israeli intelligence machinery MOSSAD for the sole purpose of weakening the resistance to the Zionist occupation of Palestine and Arab lands.

ISIS main objective was to assist in the overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria which the West sees as a key part of the resistance against Zionism.

Western intelligence believed that the overthrow of Assad would weaken Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestine and the Islamic Revolution in Iran and thereby provide respite for Israel.

The extremism spreading across the globe is not a creation of Islam but an extension of Western intelligence operations aimed at deepening the domination of the world by the forces of imperialism.

In Islam “Jihad” is nothing more or less than the perseverance in the pursuit of goals and the goals may be excellence in education, social and political life.

The lie against Islam stands exposed and we are reproducing excerpts of Jack Mahoney’s book “JFK Ordeal In Africa” for the information of our readers.

Please read on;

Conspiracy and Subversion Directed Against Nkrumah by the CIA and its Local Collaborators

Despite the Kennedy administration's diplomatic gains in Ghana, a sudden outbreak of political violence in the summer and fall of 1962 left Nkrumah more fearful than ever of Western intentions. On August 1,1962, he was nearly killed when a would-be assassin threw grenade at him as he was greeting a group of school children in the small town of Kulungugu. Washington professed outrage at subsequent accusations in the Ghanaian press that the West was involved in the attempt. But the record reveals that Nkrumah had reasons for suspecting the worst.

Ghana's neighbor to the east, Togo, had long been a meeting and staging ground for Ghanaian opponents of the Nkrumah regime. From that point forward, Togo served as a dissident and, at times, terrorist sanctuary for Nkrumah's adversaries.

Washington's ambivalence about protecting Olympia stemmed in good part from its desire to conceal CIA association with Nkrumah's Ghanaian opponents in Lome. The CIA's "leadership alternative" in Togo, in short, was not to be exposed. A chance for reconciliation and
stability in both Ghana and Togo was thereby tragically lost.

Kennedy's meeting with President Olympio added a further twist to U.S. involvement in the Ghana-Togo feud. Kennedy was greatly taken with Olympio's sophistication and strongly pro- Western views and, undoubtedly, took his side in the dispute with Nkrumah. By late September 1962, the toll of dead and wounded exceeded 300. There was little doubt that Lome was serving as the base of terrorist operations and, at least in Nkrumah's mind, the reports of meetings between American officials and Gbedemah and Busia revived a fearful specter.

Kennedy considered the situation serious enough to warrant a full-scale review of U. S. -Ghana relations and, in particular, reconsideration of the phased disbursements of aid for the Volta project. He asked the State Department and the CIA to take "a long hard look" at Ghana and ordered Mahoney home for consultations.

The CIA, in its fashion, had difficulty in leaving well enough alone. "The United Party of Ghana," one CIA cable from Accra wishfully pronounced, "is organizationally and mentally prepared to assume the reins of government in Ghana should a turn of events make this possible. Agents in London and Lome continued to consort with exiled Gbedemah, who told then what they wanted to hear: that Nkrumah had murdered several of his ministers (this was simply
erroneous) and was on the brink of "popular collapse." The State Department was ultimately obliged to instruct the embassy in Lome to pass the word that contacts with Gbedemah and the rest remain covert. for this marginal vindication of common sense, officials at Langley scorned their counterparts at foggy Bottom as "pro-Nkrumah."

The embassy in Accra saw no basis for operational activity and recommended that "we maintain our presence on a business as usual basis." Ambassador Mahoney was soon to find out, however, what careerists normally prefer to ignore by instinct and what political appointees usually fail to grasp through innocence- that an ambassador is seldom the master of his own house.

The matter concerned Dr. J.B. Danquah, Nkrumah's opponent in the presidential elections of 1960, who had been released from prison a few months after Mahoney's arrival as ambassador. Danquah paid a visit one November day to the embassy to ask Mahoney why the funds
his family had been receiving during his imprisonment had been cut off after his release.

This was the first time that Mahoney had heard of the arrangement. After Danquah left, he summoned the CIA chief of station to ask why he had not been advised of the agency's association with Danquah. Dissatisfied with the explanation, Mahoney flew to Washington two days later and personally informed Kennedy about the matter.

The President reacted sharply to the news and told Mahoney that he had sent a letter to all ambassadors in May 1961 making it clear that their authority extended to all phases of embassy decision making.

Kennedy then telephoned CIA Director John McCone and-told him that he was sending Mahoney over to CIA headquarters and wanted the matter resolved immediately. The understanding that emerged from the meeting at Langley was that "no undertakings of any kind, even remotely involving our situation in Ghana, would either be continued or launched without the ambassador's knowledge and approval.

Editorial

VICTORY

The release of the last three of the Cuban Five from prisons in the United States of America is a victory for all progressive forces around the world.

It is perhaps one of the clearest indications that imperialism can be defeated if we keep our focus and intensify our struggle.

It teaches us that imperialism is not that strong after all.

The Insight joins the millions of people around the world   who campaigned for the Freedom of the Cuban Five in celeb rating this historic victory.

No force on earth can compel the Cuban people to surrender their independence.

The Insight salutes the heroic people of Cuba under the leadership of the communist party for their steadfastness.

There are more victories ahead for progressive forces all over the world.

CELEBRATION

The Cuban Five

The Freedom Centre in Accra exploded in spontaneous jubilation when it was announced last Wednesday that the last three of the Cuban Five have been released from prisons in the United States of America.

The Freedom Centre has been the base of the struggle for the freedom of the Cuban Five.

It has been the venue for many activities including press conferences, film shows and fora organized by the Socialist Forum of Ghana in solidarity with the “Cuban Five”.

Along with the Freedom Centre, The Insight has been at the forefront of the campaign for the release of the Cuban Five in Ghana for more than 10 years.

Two years ago, President John Dramani Mahama joined 2000 other Ghanaians from all walks of life to demand the release of the “Cuban Five.”

The late President J.E.A Mills also demanded the release of the Cuban Five in a letter to President Barack Obama of the United States of America.

Those who joined the campaign around the world included US film star, Danny Glover and Nigerian writer, Wole Soyinka.

The announcement of the release of the Cuban Five was greeted with jubilation in several capitals around the world including London, Bonn, Paris, Johannesburg and Accra.

In a brief interview, Mr Kwesi Pratt, Jnr, a member of the Cuban Solidarity Campaign and Editor of The Insight said “this is the clearest indication that the forces of imperialism can be defeated.”

6

A RESPONSE TO THE BRITISH HIGH COMMISSIONER

Jon Benjamin, British High Commissioner

By Dr. Adam Gamel Nasser, University of Ghana

On Tuesday December 11, 2014 His Excellency the British High Commissioner to Ghana, Mr. Jon Benjamin was interviewed on Radio Gold on a wide range of issues regarding the attention-grabbing media headlines he has had of late. First of all I would like to congratulate the host of the programme, Alhaj Alhassan Suhuyini, for his brilliant and insightful line of questioning. My purpose here is to react to a number of issues the High Commissioner raised in that interview.

One moment which struck me was when H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin said he was not ready to comment on the role the man who occupied the High Commissioner’s seat from 1959 to 1961 played in the events leading to the overthrow of the government of the Convention People’s Party under Kwame Nkrumah in 1966.

It is understandable why the High Commissioner declined to delve into the past because much of British history is replete with ignominies, one of which has been its relations with colonial and post-colonial Ghana especially during the Nkrumah era. Thanks to declassified intelligence files, the roles the British and American intelligence services played in the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah are now part of the public record. Even though the High Commissioner declined to comment on this, he was quick to praise the democratic credentials of the West arguing that it is a mark of democratic and open societies that previously secret files are eventually declassified and put in the public domain. But why should the truth be deliberately withheld for thirty years before it is let out?

Osagyefo Dr Kwame Nkrumah

The answer is simple. Democracy, as preached by the political establishment which H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin and his ilk represent, is a charade. In this regard the leaderships of that establishment are not very different from those represented by emperors, kings or dictators in their eagerness to control the masses of the people and to regulate their behavior. And one infamous method of doing this is to hide the truth or disclose some aspects of it and not others. Even then the interpretation of what is disclosed is usually heavily skewed in support of the status quo. Another method is to hold back the truth until a time it would not make any real difference, or when it would have lost its capacity to galvanize the people into action in a manner that would disturb the status quo. This was the case regarding imperialism’s role in the overthrow of Kwame Nkrumah. The cumulative effect of such manipulation is that it robs the masses of a chance to understand the real forces behind this cynical world order and what they can do to change it. For such change to happen, it is important that the masses have a clear understanding of the relationship between cause and effect.

Our view and understanding of the world around us are shaped very gradually through a daily accumulation of happenings we experience and events we learn or hear about. When these events are relayed in the sequence in which they occur, they help us make sense of the present moment. But when there is a hidden hand which manipulates the process of relaying these events, or when some critical fragments of these events are sieved out or delayed indefinitely, then the connection between cause and effect is fundamentally impaired. The victims become transfixed and bewildered or remain resigned to their fate. Either way, the moribund status quo is sustained. With specific reference to the victims of the imperialist presence in Africa, our inability to discern the cause and effect relationship relative to our historical development has led to a situation where we are just drifting like a rudderless dreadnought. Quite apart from this, it has also continued to play a painful role in retarding the cultivation of the requisite consciousness that would enable us to have a correct understanding of the forces that have created and sustained our underdevelopment. 

We are ignorant of the history of slavery, ignorant of the history of colonialism and ignorant of the workings of contemporary neocolonialism, and the role Britain played in creating and sustaining our present crisis of underdevelopment. Such conditions of ignorance or collective amnesia then allow Mr. Jon Benjamin and the system he represents to have the confidence to assume the moral high ground from where they pontificate condescendingly to us about democracy, political culture and corruption. One of his predecessors even had the effrontery to impose his presence in the Strong Room at the Electoral Commission during the tallying of polling results in the 2000 elections. It was a classic example of neocolonial impudence, a flouting of international diplomacy, all in an effort to ensure regime change in Ghana. The current British High Commissioner will not necessarily have to repeat what happened in 2000. He has other options.

Franklin Cudjoe, IMANI Ghana

The strategy adopted by the West these days, as happened in Ukraine, is to fund some selected Think Tanks or NGOs, provide them with splash offices, good salaries, training and visibility often far above their actual weight. For example, the British High Commissioner in Accra speaking at a function organized by a Think Tank will certainly attract considerable national and international attention. With money and spin the preferred Think Thanks or NGOs are then positioned to hijack the subject and agenda of the national discourse and with much cacophony, crowd out genuine Think Tanks. The stage is then set for a colour revolution. In Ukraine these Western-sponsored Think Tanks and NGOs were those that were used to ensure a regime change after forcibly removing the democratically elected government from power.

 

In the radio interview under discussion here I suspect Alhaj Suhuyini was preparing to refer H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin to the dispatch Sir Arthur Snelling, one time British High Commissioner to Ghana, sent to the Commonwealth Relations Office in London on 5 September, 1961. In the said dispatch Sir Arthur Snelling expressed exasperation at the rising tide of political consciousness among the masses of the African people and the need to get rid of Nkrumah whom he held responsible for that. To refresh the memory of readers I would like to quote excerpts of the dispatch. “… To us, it is particularly galling to have this egotist [Nkrumah] shouting at us to take off the brakes in the Rhodesias, Nyasaland [now Malawi] and Kenya, and drive faster down the road to independence, which we know much better than he does. And his knack of giving expression to the feelings of so many Africans, who are all the time rapidly becoming more and more politically conscious, is exasperating. I can well understand the fury he arouses in London, and often share it myself… He wants to kick us out of Africa. He opposes us over the Common Market, and has the impertinence to start to talk about a Commonwealth without Britain... We shall be better off without him.”

This hysterical imperialist mindset explains why the Britain and the United States governments ran amok upon the publication in October 1965 of Nkrumah’s book Neo-Colonialism – The Last Stage of Imperialism. The only crime of the book was that it sought to expose some of the mechanisms by which Africa’s resources continue to be mercilessly siphoned out of the continent in order to ensure the prosperity of the imperialist countries, and how political independence is meaningless without economic independence.

Queen Elizabeth

This brings us to those portions of the interview where Mr. Benjamin, with subliminal swagger, made reference to Britain as a donor country tacitly insinuating that we should not bite the hand which feeds us. But for the fact that this was a case of taking hypocrisy to new heights, those who have read Walter Rodney’s book How Europe Underdeveloped Africa would have burst out laughing upon hearing such a comment. At the superficial level, Africa seems to be a basket case perpetually condemned to be a receiver of so-called aid. The reality however is that Africa is indeed subsidizing global capitalism. Having been reduced to an extraction zone of raw materials for the advanced economies and pinned down to primary production as a result of the legacy of colonialism and contemporary neocolonialism, Africa has been cultivated as a buffer zone to absorb the shocks of the intermittent crises of world capitalism.

The mechanisms imperialism uses to pass over the costs of such shocks are lower prices for our exports, higher prices for our imports from the imperialist countries, super exploitation of African workers, high interest rates on our debts. Added to these is the fact that an average of between 70 to 80 percent of assistance funds the so-called donor countries such as Britain give to Africa returns immediately to those same countries through exports tied to that assistance. These routinely involve the supply of equipment, vehicles, as well as management contracts for technical skills and training.

In fact a United Nations 2004 report on Africa concluded that “the continuation of exploitative interest payments constituted “a reverse transfer of resources” from poor to wealthy countries. It has been estimated that each year, developing countries pay a whopping amount of $340 billion to the advanced capitalist countries to service the colossal $2.2 trillion debt they are said to owe. This is more than five times the G7’s development aid budget. As Brussels-based debt campaigner Eric Toussaint concludes, ‘Since 1980, over 50 Marshall Plans worth over $4.6 trillion have been sent by people of the periphery to their creditors in the Centre’. So the question Mr. Jon Benjamin should be answering is: who is the donor and who is the recipient? 

Ghana would most probably not have descended to the status of a beggar nation with severely diminished national dignity if Nkrumah’s vision had not been subverted by British and American imperialism and their Ghanaian fifth column. The government of Kwame Nkrumah had embarked on a development programme to restructure the Ghanaian economy away from neocolonial dependency, and by the time of the coup Ghana was on the threshold of laying the foundations for a transition from an agrarian to an industrial country that would ensure our economic independence.  

This was destined to upset the imperialist applecart, and the neocolonial powers vowed not to let this happen. If Nkrumah’s Ghana, the trailblazer of the African liberation movement, had succeeded somehow in extricating itself from the neocolonialist orbit and establishing the foundations of an independent national self-reliant economy, what would have prevented others in similar circumstances from following that example? It is this same argument which was at the heart of America’s ferocious military assault against Vietnam as well as its bellicose hostility towards Cuba including a CIA-sponsored invasion of the Island in 1961 and the continuous fanatic American embargo against that country. It also explains the jingoistic belligerency of the West towards the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Finally, I would like to turn my attention to a couple of random issues H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin raised in the interview. The first was the point about the need for NGOs or Think Tanks and especially the media to be impartial. I agree with him on that, but the best sermon is a good example. And H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin should be preaching to the British media and especially to the BBC because of its global influence and overarching capacity to shape world opinion.

Unfortunately the BBC, just like the other major international networks in that category, is not impartial. The distortions of reality it disseminates are systematic and even systemic and reflective of the ideological and economic dispositions of the hidden dark forces that control global wealth and global power. For example the BBC deliberately did not ask the relevant questions regarding the contrived intelligence reports about Iraq’s nonexistent weapons of mass destruction, and provided the propaganda cover for the British and American financial power houses and the military industrial complex to wage the disastrous war on that country. Thus the BBC contributed in sowing the storm which subsequently produced the whirlwind whose bloody ripples the world and especially the people of Iraq are experiencing today. The BBC routinely reminds the world of Iran’s nuclear programme but maintains a noisy silence over Israel’s nuclear arsenal. 

Victor Yanukovych

On the Ukrainian crisis, the BBC shifts the blame onto Russia while ignoring the role America and NATO played using front Think Tanks and NGOs to instigate a coup against the democratically elected government of Viktor Yanukovych and effecting a regime change, triggering the current turmoil. The BBC is also silent over NATO’s strategy of inching ever closer to the borders of Russia with the sole purpose of enhancing the Alliance’s capacity to blackmail Russia with a nuclear first-strike capability. The BBC reported and continues to report on the global financial crisis not as a fundamental and systemic deficiency of the capitalist system but as the result of recklessness of bankers. The BBC joins in the Western political chorus on the indictments of African leaders by the International Criminal court while protecting notorious war criminals such as George W. Bush and Tony Blaire both of whom should have been languishing in jail by now for the rest of their lives if international law were to be working.  

I would end on a rather peripheral issue. When at the early stage of the interview Alhaj Suhuyini pointed out an ambiguity in a statement H.E. Mr. Jon Benjamin had earlier released to the Ghanaian media, which was a subject matter of the interview, the High Commissioner was quick to remind Suhuyini that English is his mother tongue, and that he was so conversant with it that he couldn’t have been ambiguous in what he wanted to say.

This reference to his mother-tongue makes a lot of sense, but it cannot stand up as an argument. I am saying this because I can provide H.E. Mr. Benjamin with examples of instances where William Shakespeare, widely acknowledged as the greatest writer in the English Language, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, and Jonathan Swift have all made errors which many non-native speakers of English have left behind in primary school.

On the whole I congratulate the High Commissioner for making his views public and giving us some idea about the thinking of the British establishment.

Obama seeks to resume full diplomatic ties with Cuba

US President Barack Obama makes history

By Olivier Knox, BBC News

In a move to wipe away one of the Cold War’s last vestiges, President Barack Obama on Wednesday announced that the United States and Cuba will start talks on restoring full diplomatic relations for the first time in a half-century since the revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power.

 “Today America chooses to cut loose the shackles of thepast, so as to reach for a better future for the Cuban people, for theAmerican people, for our entire hemisphere and for the world,” Obama declared at the White House.

The stunning shift came directly after Cuba released imprisoned US aid contractor Alan Gross and a U.S. intelligence asset, while the United States freed three convicted Cuban spies in a tit-for-tat that U.S. officials insisted was not a “swap.”

Some Republicans and Democrats vowed to oppose Obama’s new policy, which will also include making it easier for Americans to travel to the Socialist-run island 90 miles from Florida beaches and return with consumer goods – including Cuba’s fabled rum and iconic cigars.

“To those who oppose the steps I'm announcing today, let me saythat I respect your passion and share your commitment to liberty anddemocracy,” Obama said. “The question is how we uphold that commitment. I do notbelieve we can keep doing the same thing for over five decades andexpect a different result.”

The dramatic announcement capped 18 months of secret negotiations – early diplomatic flirtations in the Spring of 2013, a first meeting of top officials hosted by Canada, a series of furtive exchanges there and at the Vatican, a rare letter from Pope Francis urging Obama and Cuban President Raúl Castro to find common ground, a final meeting at the Holy See this fall, and ultimately a phone call between Castro and Obama on Tuesday. Fidel Castro was not a part of the negotiations, top U.S. officials told reporters.

“I want to thank His Holiness,Pope Francis, whose moral example shows us the importance of pursuingthe world as it should be, rather than simply settling for the worldas it is,” Obama said.

That conversation, which U.S. officials said ran between 45 minutes and an hour, was the first such contact since the 1959 Cuban revolution that swept Fidel Castro to power, quickly aligned Havana with Moscow, led to a punishing U.S. economic embargo. The collapse of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War did not lead Washington to end its punitive sanctions, ultimately driving a wedge between the United States and much of Latin America, as well as allies like Canada and most nations of Europe.

“I look forwardto engaging Congress in an honest and serious debate about lifting theembargo,” Obama said. But that was sure to be an uphill fight in the Republican-controlled Congress that convenes in January. Both parties include members who support the embargo or lifting it, while business and agricultural interests in the United States have increasingly lined up behind removing the economic restrictions.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee, who will take the reins of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in the new Congress, vowed to scrutinize the new policy but stopped well short of opposing it.

“The new U.S. policy announced by the administration is no doubt sweeping, and as of now there is no real understanding as to what changes the Cuban government is prepared to make,” Corker said in a statement. “We will be closely examining the implications of these major policy changes in the next Congress.”

But the outgoing Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, Democratic Bob Menendez of New Jersey, was expected to deliver a full-throated denunciation of the policy.

And Republican House Speaker John Boehner blasted the decision as "another in a long line of mindless concessions to a dictatorship that brutalizes its people and schemes with our enemies."

The White House cannot completely lift the U.S. economic embargo on Cuba -- that will require action by Congress. But Obama unveiled executive actions to ease restrictions on trips by U.S. citizens to Cuba. Those travelers will also be able to buy Cuban goods for personal use, including up to $100 in alcohol or tobacco products, meaning that at least some Americans will be able to bring home some of the island's famous rum and iconic cigars.

“We cannot completely lift the travel ban" without Congress, one official said on a conference call organized by the White House. "We are authorizing as much travel as we possibly can within the constraints of the legislation.”

In practice, that will mean granting travel licenses to all travelers in categories that Congress has already designated as permitted to go to Cuba. Those include family visits, official U.S. government travel, journalism, professional research or meetings, educational exchanges, religious activities, public performances (including sporting events), humanitarian work, and others.

Obama will also expand financial connections between the United States and Cuba, notably raising the amount of "remittances" -- essentially, tranfers of cash from Cuban-Americans to relatives in Cuba -- allowed from $500 every three months to $2,000.

The scope of the policy shift was a surprise, but the Obama Administration had previewed the potential change when longtime Obama foreign policy aide Antony Blinken testified in a Senate hearing in November on his confirmation to the number-two job at the State Department. Blinken was confirmed Tuesday.

It was not clear whether Obama's much-discussed December 2013 handshake wtih Raúl Castro at a memorial service for the late South African leader Nelson Mandela was part of the warming relations.

Gross had been sentenced in 2011 to 15 years in prison in connection with an effort to create a communications network outside Cuban government control. Cuba freed him on humanitarian grounds as part of a broader deal that saw each side free intelligence assets.

The United States and Cuba have had no embassies -- or ambassadors -- since 1961. Each side has an "interests section" housed in another country's embassy.

US will establish embassy in Cuba, lift sanctions-Obama

Obama meets Raul Castro in South Africa

United States President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the US is initiating plans to rebuild its relationship with Cuba following decades of disputes between the two nations.

Speaking from the White House in Washington, DC, Pres. Obama said Wednesday that the US is seeking to establish diplomatic relations with Cuba and soon plans to open an embassy in Havana, authorize sales and exports between nations and make changes to current travel laws that for decades have restricted traffic between the two countries.

“Today, the United States of America is changing its relationship with the people of Cuba,” Obama said as he offered to “extend a hand of friendship” while unveiling what he called “the most significant changes in our policy in more than 50 years.”

“We will end an outdated approach that for decades has failed to advance our interest,” Obama said.

Raúl Castro, the president of Cuba, announced in a statement televised concurrently with Obama’s that his nation will “reestablish diplomatic relations” with the US.

Since the administration of Pres. John F. Kennedy in the 1960s, restrictions and sanctions have kept the American and Cuban ways of life from all but converging policies put in place at the dawn of the Cold War in an attempt to curb the spread of Communism.

Yet Obama said Wednesday that, while rooted in the best of intentions, this “rigid policy” has “had little effect” a half-century later. Indeed, Obama acknowledged, a Castro still sits atop the Cuban government as during the Kennedy administration, and that similar restraints concerning how the US dealt with China and Vietnam, “once controversial,” have long been lifted following decades of disagreements.

“This is fundamentally about freedom and openness, and also expresses my belied in the power of people-to-people engagement,” Obama said of the policy change, adding that he intends such “contact will ultimately do more to empower the Cuban people.”

John Kerry, the US secretary of state, will soon begin discussions with Cuban representatives, the White House said; in April an official from Havana will be welcomed to attend the annual Summit of Americas.

The announcements on Wednesday occurred only hours after it was revealed that Alan Gross, an American citizen imprisoned in Cuba for the last five years, had been released on humanitarian grounds, along with a US intelligence official who has similarly been detained for 20 years. On its part, the US has released three individuals from the so-called “Cuban Five” who had until now been imprisoned.

Announcements from the Obama and Castro offices came only hours after the head of the US Agency for International Development, or USAID, announced plans to resign following a five-year term marred in recent months by scandals surrounding American efforts to influence Cuban youths.

EU court removes Hamas from terror blacklist

Members of the al-Qassam Brigade

The EU General Court has ordered that the Palestinian militant group Hamas be removed from the bloc’s terror blacklist. The move comes over four years after Hamas appealed its terror designation before the EU.

The European Union first banned Hamas’ military wing, the Izz a-Din al-Qassam Brigades, in 2002, though the organization’s social and political divisions were not put on the terror list. Following a series of Hamas suicide bombings during the second intifada or uprising in September 2003, the EU extended the ban to include the organization as a whole.

On September 12, 2010, Hamas appealed the ban, largely on procedural grounds. In its complaint, the group cited a lack of due process, specifically, that it had not been properly informed the act was being implemented. It further asserted that as a “legitimately-elected government,” it cannot be labeled as a terrorist organization, saying such a designation flies in the face of “the principle of non-interference in the internal matters of a State.”

The court accepted the organization’s argument, saying that the decision to remove Hamas from the list was not based on an examination of Hamas’ activities, but rather on an examination of the procedures used to institute the 2003 ban in the first place. Unless an appeal brings closure, however, a funding freeze against the group and sanctions against its members will remain in place for three more months.

The lawyer for Hamas, Liliane Glock, told AFP she was “satisfied with the decision.”

Hamas official Izzat al-Rishq lauded the decision, saying the court had righted an injustice done to the organization, which he said is a “national freedom movement,” and not a terrorist organization, the Jerusalem Post reports.

But a deputy from Israel’s major right-wing Likud party, Danny Danon, said, "The Europeans must believe that there blood is more sacred than the blood of the Jews which they see as unimportant. That is the only way to explain the EU court's decision to remove Hamas from the terror blacklist."
"In Europe they must have forgotten that Hamas kidnapped three boys and fired thousands of rockets last summer at Israeli citizens," he added.

Shortly after the ruling, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on the EU to keep Hamas on its list of terrorist organizations.

"We expect them to immediately put Hamas back on the list," Reuters cites Netanyahu as saying in a statement. "Hamas is a murderous terrorist organization which in its charter states its goal is to destroy Israel."

The EU and Israel have attempted to downplay the ruling, saying that groups standing within Europe as terror organizations will not change. Israeli and European officials say the court will be given a few months to rebuild its file against Hamas with evidence of the group’s activities, which will enable it to be placed back on the list of terror organizations, the Israeli news portal Ynet reports.

According to RT's Paula Slier, Israeli politicians "across the political spectrum" have unanimously condemned what they call a "temporary" removal.

According to Slier, EU officials have given Israel assurances that Brussels’ position has not changed, saying Wednesday’s ruling was a “technical” mistake. Officials from the 28-member bloc further said the court did not have sufficient authority to affect the entire EU’s position.

In the interim, however, EU member states will be empowered to establish diplomatic ties with Hamas.

The EU ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, will meet with Israel’s Foreign Minister, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit, on Wednesday to discuss the matter, Israeli daily Haaretz reports. Faaborg-Andersen is expected to reiterate that the EU’s position on Hamas remains unchanged, and that a future decision to reclassify Hamas as a terror organization is forthcoming.

During the January 2006 Palestinian parliamentary elections, Hamas defeated the PLO-affiliated Fatah party and has governed the Gaza Strip for the past seven years. Some countries have treated Hamas as a terrorist organization, while others have not. While Australia, Canada, Egypt, Israel, Japan, Jordan, Qatar, the US and the UK all treat Hamas or its military wing as a terrorist organization, other states, including China, Iran, Russia and Turkey, do not.

Hamas leaders have made several diplomatic trips to Russia to discuss a range of issues, from Palestinian reconciliation to economic relations.

Source:rt.com

USAID head resigns as US & Cuba plan 'normalizing' relations

Rajiv Shah, USAID administrator

The head of the United States Agency for International Development, or USAID, announced early Wednesday that he will resign from his role in two months’ time.

“It was with mixed emotions that I informed President Obama and Secretary Kerry that I will step down as administrator in mid-February 2015,” Rajiv Shah said in a statement released by the USAID press office Wednesday morning.

Shah’s announcement came unexpectedly, and in the midst of news from earlier that morning suggesting the US and Cuba could soon “normalize” relations following decades of disputes. Pres. Obama is expected to formally weigh in on the matter later in the day.

Founded in 1961 by then president John F. Kennedy to promote economic prosperity, strengthen democracy, protect human rights, improve global health and achieve other aims between nations, according to the agency’s website, USAID has twice come under attack in recent months, including as recently as last week, for revelations about internally administered programs that involved questionable tactics concerning Cuba.

In April, it was reported that USAID secretly created a social media program with the intent of stirring unrest in Cuba; lastweek, the Associated Press reported that the agency hijacked the Cuban hip-hop movement with hopes of achieving a similar result.

Earlier this year, the AP unveiled details about “ZunZuneo,” a USAID-engineered text messaging network launched in Cuba to influence opinions about tech-savvy social media youths; Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) said at the time that several aspects about the program disclosed through the media were “troubling.”

Then, just last week, the AP again was the first to report that USAID plotted to infiltrate Cuba’s underground hip-hop scene to form a movement of “socially-conscious youth” opposing the Communist authorities from 2009-2011.

USAID has slammed allegations that either the so-called “Cuban Twitter” or the hip-hop effort were done in secret and have defended the programs.

Now within hours of it being revealed that US and Cuba could begin to overhaul tense bilateral ties, Shah said on Wednesday that he’d be leaving USAID after nearly a half-decade stint, without mentioning a reason for stepping down.

“I have been privileged to work with a talented team of extraordinary colleagues over the last five years. Every day on the front lines of poverty and conflict, they demonstrate through their actions and sacrifices that we are an exceptional nation. I am grateful to each and every one of them. As we ensure a smooth transition in leadership, I am more confident than ever in the lasting effect of our work to enrich lives and change our world for the better,” Shah said in a statement on Wednesday.

Shah has so far provided few details about his unexpectedly announced plans to depart from the agency.“I’m not prepared now to talk about my next steps,” he said in a phone call late Tuesday with Foreign Policy, where his rumored plans to exit USAID were first reported just shy of midnight that evening. “I will continue to stay focused during the transition in ensuring that USAID remains a results-oriented, evidence-based humanitarian enterprise.”

Source:rt.com