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Friday, March 19, 2010

Chemistry of Unprecedented Violence in the Country of Non Violence!Chidambaram to visit Britain to discuss anti-terror cooperation! India to induct smart 'suicide bomber' drone! India wants to question Headley on Mumbai attack!CBI chief for friendly

Chemistry of Unprecedented Violence in the Country of Non Violence!Chidambaram to visit Britain to discuss anti-terror cooperation! India to induct smart 'suicide bomber' drone! India wants to question Headley on Mumbai attack!CBI chief for friendly association with foreign investigating officers!


Indian Holocaust My Father`s Life and Time - THREE HUNDRED FIFTEEN

Palash Biswas


http://indianholocaustmyfatherslifeandtime.blogspot.com/

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 Results 1 - 10 of about 450,000 for sikh genocide 1984. (0.16 seconds) 

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  1. Sikh Genocide Project

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  5. Remembering the Sikh genocide of 1984 « sikh.p.u.l.s.e.

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  1. Buddha Smiles - Peace Education Development

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  1. Arya-Brahmin Vengeance on Bengali-Tamil Dalits & Chakma Adivasi ...

     - 3 visits - 11 Feb
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  1. PDF]

    Draft DEMOCRACY, FREE MARKETS AND ETHNIC CONFLICT IN EAST ASIA ...

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Raj Narayan, 19/03/2010

Defence Preparedness: Top-10 Challenges

India shares borders with as many as seven countries - Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, Myanmar and Sri Lanka. Two of these countries have long-standing border disputes with India while three others have had a love-hate relationship going with New Delhi.


Defence Preparedness: Top-10 Challenges

While Myanmar shared a frozen relationship with India between 1962-1988 due to drug trafficking and the rule of the Military Junta, it is only with Bhutan that India has consistently had close ties ever since Independence more than 60 years ago.

Given the security situation in the peninsula, it is but natural that India's defence preparedness levels will keep haunting both policy makers and the man on the street. After all, we have fought as many as five wars with our neighbors since 1947, four of them being against Pakistan.

Though non-proliferation experts believe that future wars would be fought without weapons and on the strength of economic muscle, India has enough on its plate by way of fidgety neighbours and internal trouble makers, for us to constantly monitor our military might.

In the subsequent pages, we have attempted to list out the top-10 challenges we believe is adversely impacting India's defence...

By Raj Narayan, 22/02/2010

Terror and beyond: Are we expecting peace amidst turmoil?

Violence, both externally driven and internal, has become a way of life in India. So much so, that each morning our eyes scan the newspaper for acts of terror. We let out an involuntary sigh of relief if the papers are bereft of pictures of shattered skulls, broken limbs and blood-stained roads.

India's Security Environment: An Overview

Rescue workers carry the body of a policeman at a police camp attacked by Maoist rebels in Silda village, Midnapore district of West Bengal. On Monday, about 24 jawans were killed in the biggest-ever Maoist assault when the rebels caught the troops unaware. Photo Courtesy: Reuters

But such days are getting as rare as snow in the desert for Indians. The violent terror attacks in Mumbai on 26/11 2008 had barely receded into the recesses of our collective minds when the bakery blast at Pune returned to remind us of the external threats. And just as we were reeling from that blow to the solar plexus came the upper-cut straight to the jaw in the form of a daring Naxal attack on a police camp in Sildah, West Bengal.

And our country continues to bleed from a thousand cuts inflicted on us by envious neighbors and militant desperados.

In fact, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh surprised many by his recent statement that naxalism and not terrorism was the bigger threat to India's internal security. He sought to know the reasons for this sense of alienation amongst people in central India and suggested that the new age policeman must train to be more professional, motivated, empowered and above all trained to use technology for investigation.

Be that as it may, the question that springs to mind is the ease with which terror actors get access to weapons of war and funds in the region. While external help is easy to understand, where do the Maoists find the money and the guns to raise a stink?

The answer is not too difficult to fathom. Fly three hours in any direction from New Delhi and what do you get...? A conflict zone or one where a conflict has recently resolved. There is Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Bangladesh and Nepal - each a hotbed of conflict and each providing a haven for desperados with a veritable departmental store for arms purchase.

In effect, we are expecting a peaceful home in a noisy neighborhood!



In Focus: Defence & Internal Security
  • Move over Al-Qaedam , Laskhar is here to stay
Issues At Stake
  • Defence Preparedness: Top-10 ChallengesDefence Preparedness: Top-10 Challenges

    Though experts believe that future wars would be fought on the strength of economic muscle, rather than with weapons, India has enough on its plate by way of fidgety neighbours and internal trouble makers. Here is a list of the top-10 challenges we believe is adversely impacting India's defence.

  • Maoists regrouping in southMaoists regrouping in south

    Cornered by the security forces in the many parts of Central India, the CPI (Maoist) is trying to kickstart its movement in the southern parts of India.

  • IM planning major terror strikeIM planning major terror strike

    Recently arrested IM activists gave an important intelligence input confirming the worst fears of the Indian security agencies. It is planning to activate its sleeper cells.

  • India's security environmentIndia's security environment

    In this special coverage on Defence and Internal security we bring to you latest news, features and the measures taken by the government to evolve a strong anti-terrorism agenda.

  • The real-life mogambosThe real-life mogambos

    Here is a look at some of the names that have sent a chill up our collective spines and whose whereabouts are not as big a mystery some of us like to believe.

News
  • Mumbai attack: LeT commander to file plea for acquittal

    Lahore: Buoyed by a Pakistani court's order that said the trial of Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab cannot be separated from that of seven Pakistani suspects, Let commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi plans to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking acquittal.

  • Headley can be put on trial in Pakistan: Nikam

    Mumbai/New Delhi/Chicago: David Headley, who pleaded guilty before a US court, cannot be impleaded in the 26/11 trial here as it is nearing completion, but he can very well be put on trial in Pakistan, public prosecutor in the case Ujjwal Nikam said today.

  • Terror clouding region, spy chiefs flock to India

    New Delhi: Spy chiefs of three countries have dropped in within a month of each other in New Delhi, amid concerns among the international community of the impact a major terror strike in India could have on regional stability.

  • How Headley picked up landing sites for 26/11 terror strike

    Chicago: LeT operative David Coleman Headley had taken boat trips around the Mumbai harbour in April 2008 and stored information of possible landing sites in a GPS device later used by the LeT to carry out the 26/11 terror attacks, court documents have revealed.

More.

19/03/2010

Terror clouding region, spy chiefs flock to India

New Delhi: Spy chiefs of three countries have dropped in within a month of each other in New Delhi, amid concerns among the international community of the impact a major terror strike in India could have on regional stability.

Terror clouding region, spy chiefs flock to India

Director of National Intelligence, US, Dennis C Blair

On Thursday, US Director for National Intelligence Dennis C Blair met Home Minister P Chidambaram, with the two discussing the security scenario in the region, particularly Afghanistan. Barely a week ago John Sawers, the chief of the British secret service MI6, had visited India to acquaint himself with the new intelligence set-up in the country and to take forward cooperation in combating terror.

Before that, in February, the head of Russia's foreign intelligence service (SVR), Mikhail Fradkov, an old India hand, had met top intelligence officials and National Security Advisor Shivshankar Menon in New Delhi on his first visit after taking command.

http://news.in.msn.com/internalsecurity/news/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3723435

Neighbours' tiff turns bloody, 2 dead

Mumbai, March 18 -- A 14-year-old girl died when a retired customs superintendent went on a shooting spree and had a gun battle with the police in a middle-class locality in Andheri. Harish Maroliya (57), who had taken premature retirement from service, also died later.

Hemani Mehta was a class IX student of A H Wadia High School, Andheri. Additional Commissioner of Police (West Region) Amitabh Gupta said, " It's only after the medical test can we ascertain whether the girl was killed by the accused or during the exchange of fire with the police.

" Maroliya had a tiff with a neighbour about the renovation work the latter was doing in his flat. According to eyewitness accounts, Maroliya first threatened the building's watchman against letting in any workers on the premises.

When his neighbour and other building residents objected, he fired two rounds in the air with his .32 licensed revolver.

"I saw my father being threatened by Maroliya near the building gate," said Romil Patni (20), son of Deepak Patni, secretary of the housing society. Witnesses said that after firing the shots, he was rushing to his flat when he saw Hemani returning home from school.

"Without provocation he picked her up. When we appealed to him to release her, he fired one more shot at the wall," said a resident, refusing to divulge his name.

Maroliya took Hemani to his flat and locked the main door while the residents called the police. An armed combat team, deployed at each police station in the city post-26/11, went to the spot and appealed to Maroliya to surrender and release Hemani.

Maroliya, instead, opened fire, forcing the police to break open the door and retaliate, the police said. He died in the shootout.

"The girl was lying on the ground. There was not a drop of blood oozing out of her," said K.M.M. Prasanna, the deputy commissioner of police.

"Initially, we thought that she must have lost consciousness. At the hospital, she was declared dead.

".
Hindustan Times

Victim Hemani Mehta is the Symbol of the World on fire that we created in the Market that Failed! The Bullet hit in her body may account for the Deviation from our Tradition of Non Violence, coexistence and Patience which we sacrificed for Luxurious Neo Liberal Global Urban Semi Urban Suhuman Life style in Post Modern Sensex shining India. What was the Fault of the Innocent girlie who had to die untimely just for the violence in a Housing Colony seemed to be Posh and Civilised which are quite in vogue in Metro Urban Semi Urban life today. It is not an incident of Violence but it exposes the Psyche which has created the Bastardised Inhuman Affluent life based on Purchasing capacity devoid of Fraternity, Equality, Justice and even Human SENSITIVENESS. Never expect Human values, Ideals, Folk, Culture, Roots, Mother Tongue , Tradition anything for which , we the Indian People are best known worldwide.

Look! A 14-year-old girl died when a retired customs superintendent went on a shooting spree and had a gun battle with the police in a middle-class locality in Andheri. Harish Maroliya (57), who had taken premature retirement from service, also died later.Is it not as ALARMING as any Terror Strike , state sponsored Corporate war or Maoist Menace? Just, tell me! But it is the most set Trend nowadays which we notice only when it happens around us and we have to bear the BURN!


Chidambaram to visit Britain to discuss anti-terror cooperation! On the other hand,Pointing to the Headley case as illustrative of the 'real threats from home-grown and international terrorists,' US says it will continue working to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorism at home and abroad.

India to induct smart 'suicide bomber' drone!On the other hand,ndia is seeking access to interrogate Chicago man David Headley who pleaded guilty to scouting targets for the 2008 Mumbai attacks in a U.S. court this week, Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said on Friday. Meanwhile, Unwilling to accept the government's position that David Headley's bargain plea with US prosecutors was not a setback to India, the opposition Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) Friday said it would accept 'nothing short of extradition' of the Pakistani-born terrorist who is believed to have played a key role in the 2008 Mumbai terror attack.

It's an aircraft described by experts as a "flying suicide bomber", except there is no pilot involved. It carries no weapons - instead, the aircraft itself is the weapon. It is built to creep into enemy airspace, " loiter" for as long as necessary hunting for targets, and then dive to decimate the chosen one. It is widely considered as one of the smartest airborne strike systems yet built.

This year, the Indian Air Force will begin receiving a batch of 10 such systems, built by Israel and called the HAROP. At a little over $ 10- million (about Rs 45 crore) apiece, HAROPs are essentially drones with one- way tickets.

The story began while Gautam Buddha Smiled on an Atomic Explosion! It was the Turning Point as Indian Hindu Zionist State Power first time flexed its Nuclear Muscles and now, it is all rownd the US Sponsored Free Market Democracy ruled by the Market Dominated Zionist Brahaminical Corporate Fascist Imperialist War Monger Ruling Hegemony. The Alchemist of Unprecedented Violence are those who puts everything on stake to sustain Manusmriti Apartheid Rule in this bleeding Divided Geopolitics.Ironically the Genetically Modified Seeds of this Unprecedented violence were Activated by the Man who is known worldwide for his Politics and Philosophy of NON Violence who finalised the survival strategy of the Vedic rule with Pune Pact!

 Home Minister P. Chidambaram is visiting Britain on a three-day trip starting Saturday with cooperation in anti-terror and security measures topping his agenda.

Chidambaram 'will discuss issues relating to security with Home Secretary Alan Johnson, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and British Prime Minister's Foreign Policy Adviser Simon Mcdonald', a statement from the home ministry said.He will 'familiarise himself with the functioning of some key British institutions relating to security and intelligence matters. These include the Metropolitan Police Service, the Detica Operations Centre, the Secret Intelligence Service and the GCHQ which is one of the three intelligence agencies of the UK'.

The home minister will also meet Director General of the Security Service Jonathan Evans, Director General of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr and Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Alex Allan.

My father late Pulin Babu was Marxist while he led the first Peasants` Uprising in Nainital terai after the Telengana Insurrections right way back in 1958. He was a marxst and Never believed in Violence as he also believed in Ambdekar, Gandhi and Gautam Buddha. he was deeply rooted in Indigenous Aboriginal Culture underlining Buddhist Tradition which our Ancestors had to part with during First Brahaminical Rule in Bengal during Sen Dynasty, sometime around 12th Century BC.

Chaudhari Nepal Singh, the Punjabi Jat Communist leader and my fathers Comrade believed had the peasants opted for Military Tactic in accordance with the Naxal Movement or Maoist Movement unfolded much later since sixties, the Repression of Dhimri Block would not have been so easy and he used to blame my father for ideological deviation. But My father led Non Violent Refugee Movement way back in 1952 in Siliguri Tea gardens while the East Bengal Partition victim refugees were dumped in Bengal Tea gardens to be converted COOLIE in Tea gardens. My father and his Comrades rejected this predestined Destiny and he was ejected out of Bengal and shifted to Charbetia Transit Camp in Orrissa near Cuttack thereafter. He led Refugee movement yet Non Violent in Orissa also and finally dumped in the Forests of Nainital Terai Forest Zone famous for Jim Corbett Experience. Pulin Babu led first Movement in the Terai in 1956 and it was a Refugee Movement which demanded rehabilitation for the SC OBC Bengali Refugees and it was pursued with Non Violence. He was a Marxist even during 1960 Assam Riots named BANGAL KHEDA where he visited violating Party dictation for its leaders NOT to Visit Assam.

CBI chief for friendly association with foreign investigating officers! We have been writing and speaking that Internal security affairs have been handed over to CIA and Mossad. Now see what the CBI Chief says without shame!Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) Director Ashwani Kumar on Friday said that association of teams of investigating and law officers from the requesting countries should be encouraged.

Addressing the Conference of Police Liaison Officers (PLO) of Foreign Countries, Kumar said: "We should encourage association of teams of investigating and Law Officers from the requesting countries while execution of such requests by the requested countries."

"These teams will be available on the spot to explain the requirements of requesting agencies to the execution agencies of the requested country. This will also mitigate the necessity of seeking further clarifications by the requested countries and that of sending supplementary Letter of Requests by the requesting countries," he added.

Kumar also said the institutions of Interpol and Police Liaison Officers posted all over the globe have become a very important platform to facilitate International Cooperation amongst the law enforcement agencies of the world.

"I have no hesitation in saying that it is because of timely assistance provided by PLOs that many requests of Indian agencies for assistance in investigation and extradition of fugitives have been executed in a record time," Kumar said.

In his address Kumar recalled the assistance extended by PLOs of various countries while investigating Mumbai Bomb Blast Case.

"The extradition of Abu Salem, a terrorist and gangster is still afresh in our memory, similarly the extradition of Maninder Pal Singh Kohli to U.K. on the charges of rape and murder, Dharmendra Debi to Netherlands on the charge of murder and Kala Abdul Gafoor to South Africa on the drug charges could be possible because of effective and smooth coordination amongst the Police Liaison Officers, NCB-India and the law-enforcement agencies of the various Indian States', he said.

The conference aims at bringing missions of more than 25 countries in India, External Affairs Ministry, Home Ministry and the International Police Cooperation Unit, CBI at one platform and to share the experiences and discuss issues relating to bilateral and multilateral cooperation in common fight against crime.

Union Home Minister P Chidambaram will leave on a three day official visit to United Kingdom on Saturday and will hold talks with top intelligence officials there. During the visit, Chidambaram will discuss issues relating to security with the Home Secretary Alan Johnson, Foreign Secretary David Miliband and the British Prime Ministers Foreign Policy Adviser Simon Mcdonald.

The Home Minister will also meet some key British officials responsible for security and intelligence matters, a statement here said. Other officials whom Chidambaram will meet include the Director General of Security Service Jonathan Evans, Director General of the Office for Security and Counter-Terrorism Charles Farr and the Chairman of the Joint Intelligence Committee Alex Allan.

Chidambaram will also familiarise himself with the functioning of some key British institutions relating to security and intelligence matters. These include the Metropolitan Police Service, the Detica Operations Centre, the Secret Intelligence Service and the GCHQ which is one of the three intelligence agencies of the UK. The Union Home Minister will return to Delhi on Wednesday.

The Indian Army - which has followed the air force's example and initiated procedures to acquire its own loitering munitions - has a classified scenario that is likely to be war- gamed jointly with the air force once the HAROPs are inducted.

The scenario ties in with the post- 26/ 11 rhetoric of surgical strikes across enemy lines, and with home minister P. Chidambaram's recent assertion that India's response to another Pakistan- supported attack would be "swift and decisive". Military analyst Lt- Gen. Shankar Prasad says, " These systems have a great deterrent value, whether there is war or not. Pakistan must not be allowed to think India is a weak nation."

The air force has decided to rotate HAROP drone operations from sites in Rajasthan, Punjab and Kashmir, and may choose to buy 10 more later.

Meanwhile, Indicting the Maharashtra government for its failure to take "timely action" to protect people during anti-north Indian agitation by the MNS, the National Human Rights Commission (NHRC) has asked it to pay a compensation of Rs 5 lakh each to the families of two men killed in 2008.

Reminding the Congress-NCP government of its constitutional duty to safeguard the lives of the migrant people, the NHRC said: "It is unfortunate that the state government did not muster the political will to rein in the divisive forces and failed to take timely action for the protection of citizens."

It rejected the government's plea of monetary constraint, saying, "The persons who lost their lives were poor labourers. Their families have lost bread earners and the government can't evade its liability to give appropriate relief on the ground of financial constraints."

On the state government's submission that it has already given a compensation of Rs 1 lakh each to the family of the deceased, the NHRC said the amount "was grossly inadequate for the loss of human life". The rights body asked the state to make the payments as desired by it to the victims' families by April 26.

Vinod Singh, a migrant from Bihar and a security guard in Jindal Company, lost his life in violence at Nasik on February 13, 2008. The same day, Amba Das died after being injured during stone pelting by a mob.

Taking cognisance of media reports about the killing of migrants in Maharashtra, the NHRC had issued notice to the state. Later, former Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh, Uttar Bhartiya Shramik Elgar and Jai Hind Jhuggi Jhopadi Sangh of Mumbai too had approached the commission on the issue.

RBI ups repo, reverse repo rate by 25 bps
Reuters

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday increased the repo and reverse repo rate by 25 basis points each to 5 percent and 3.50 percent respectively, with immediate effect.

The RBI said this step will anchor inflationary expectations and contain inflation going forward.

"The Reserve Bank will continue to monitor macroeconomic conditions, particularly the price situation, and take further action as warranted," the RBI said in a statement.

(Reporting by Suvashree Dey Choudhury)

Govt to empower rural farmers through info drive

 The government today approved modifications in an existing agriculture programme to empower rural farmers through dissemination of information with central assistance. The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved the modifications in the existing scheme ''Support to State Extension program for Extension Reform'', which was launched in 2005-06 to empower the farming community and achieve desired growth in sector.

The total outlay for the modified scheme will be Rs 2,866.02 crore with a central assistance of Rs 2,382.2 crore, Home Minister P Chidambaram told reporters here after a Cabinet meeting here. The modified scheme would be implemented in all the rural districts except 12 in Assam, which are presently covered under the World Bank assistance, he added.

Under the modified scheme, agriculture extension -- empowering farmers through information-- would now be provided to farming community at village level, which earlier was limited to block level. Apart from state agriculture officers, organizations like Krishi Vigyan Kendra (KVK) and Agriculture Technology Management Agency (ATMA) provide extension services with 100 per cent central assistance.

The scheme was modified as it was lacking in areas such such as extension service at village level, lack of qualified manpower and inadequate infrastructure.

Headmaster sacked on rape charge

The government today dismissed a headmaster, accused of raping tribal inmates of a girls hostel in Nabarangpur district of Orissa, after the matter triggered public outcry and rocked the state assembly. Official sources said District Collector Roopa Mishra signed the dismissal order against Pradipta Kumar Sahu, headmaster of a Sevashram at Badaamda under Kosagumuda block, after a case was lodged against the teacher.

This is said to be the first instance of dismissal of a government servant under such charge. Sahu was one of the four accused persons of the Sevashram who allegedly raped four girls of the hostel by taking advantage of his official position.

The accused headmaster was dismissed under Article 311 (2) second provision (b) of the constitution read with sub rule (ii) of Rule-18 of Orissa Civil Service (Classification, Control & Appeal) Rules, 1962. The incident, which came to light on March 2, was now being probed by the crime branch of police.

The issue rocked the state assembly with members cutting across party lines demanding dismissal of the headmaster. The attention of Congress president Sonia Gandhi was also drawn to the incident.

Keeping in view the public sentiments, the collector dismissed Sahu, sources said.

Recession left 'walking wounded' workers - study
Reuters
Many workers around the world have given up hopes of advancing in their jobs, but the bad economy is keeping them from finding new ones.

Such "walking wounded" workers are increasingly exchanging ambition for job stability, which now even trumps pay as a consideration, according to a biennial survey by the human resources consultancy Towers Watson Co.

People are becoming "nesters," who prefer to stay in one career or with one employer for their entire career.

The report highlights a disconnect between what such "nesters" want and the growing trends that are shaping the global workforce: an increasing emphasis on flexible staff and short-term employment, more offshoring and part-time work.

"People are increasingly wanting things that are harder to get," said Max Caldwell, a leader of Towers Watson's talent and reward business. "They'd like to settle into one or two companies for life. What people want is security, stability and a long-term employment relationship, (which are) increasingly out of reach."

Globally, a third of workers prefer to work for one organization their whole life, according to the study, while another third want to work for just two or three employers.

That preference for "nesting" reflects anxiety about jobs prospects and about factors like healthcare costs and retirement planning, expenses that are increasingly being shifted onto workers rather than carried by employers.

In the United States, almost twice as many workers expect continued deterioration in the jobs picture as those who expect improvement. A majority -- 51 percent -- say there are no career advancement opportunities at their jobs, but nonetheless 81 percent are not actively looking for a new position.

Among the study's other findings:

* 30 percent of U.S. workers plan to work past age 70.

* About half of U.S. workers feel unprepared for planning or managing their retirement.

* 56 percent of U.S. workers expect little change in the job market this year.

* Workers in developing economies like India and China are far more willing to jump from job to job than their counterparts in countries like Germany and the United States.


The study adds to recent data that indicates a high level of uncertainty about the shape and duration of the economic recovery. Global staffing services firm Manpower Inc said last week its quarterly measure of hiring intentions dipped slightly, suggesting U.S. employees are less willing to hire in the second quarter than in the first.

'WALKING WOUNDED'

Workers are more risk-averse because the recession has shown them how quickly jobs can disappear, and have become discouraged since a tentative economic recovery has not yet produced significant jobs gains.

"This notion of a jobless recovery is a very relevant trend, creating an environment with greater risk of disengagement. In some organizations, you have a walking wounded syndrome," Caldwell said.

Employers are still focused on managing compensation costs and they are cautious about staffing back up as demand increases, he said.

That may leave more room for companies to hold down compensation costs. The study, based on a survey of 20,000 workers in 22 countries, hints wage growth for the next few years may be flat or at least less robust than in previous recoveries.

For employers, the key challenges of managing through the next year or two include motivating workers, by creating an appealing work environment with room to advance or develop new skills, according to the study. Employees, meanwhile, may need to reset expectations lower.

Still, the recession's effect on workers was not as profound as that of the Great Depression in the 1930s, Caldwell said. But it was the first deep downturn for an entire generation and is likely to leave a lasting impression, likely making people take on less risk and become less ambitious about their careers.

(Reporting by Nick Zieminksi, editing by Dave Zimmerman)
Nick Zieminski


Russian woman found dead in Goa hotel

A 33-year-old Russian lady was found dead in her hotel room at Arapora area in North Goa tonight, police said.

The deceased identified as Elena was found dead in her room, where she was staying alone, at around 10 pm.Police inspector Manjunath Desai said the lady had arrived in the state on tourist visa six days back and was supposed to return back to Russia on March 24. She had travelled alone to India.

Anjuna police were informed about the incident by hotel staff who had opened her room with a master key when she did not respond to their calls this evening. "The door was locked from inside," Desai said. Police have sent the body for postmortem. According to official data, about 40,000 Russians visit Goa annually and the count is increasing. The state has recently witnessed a spate of crime against foreigners, including a rape of nine-year-old Russian girl reported in January.

Heroin worth Rs 5 crore seized

 Heroin worth Rs five crore in the international market was today seized and an alleged smuggler arrested in this connection, police said. Following a tip off, state special operation cell of Punjab Police recovered one kg of the contraband and arrested Tehal Singh from Amritsar bypass when allegedly he was on his way to deliver the consignment.

Police said two persons -- Gumit Singh and Charnjit Singh -- were arrested a few days back with 2 kgs of heroin. However, Tehal managed to escape from there.

Tehal is alleged to have contacts with some smugglers across the border. He was earlier convicted in a drug smuggling case and had undergone 10 years sentence before his release in 2008, police said.

India wants to question Headley on Mumbai attack

David Headley, 49, admitted involvement in preparations for the attack on India's financial hub, which killed 166 people and prompted India to break off a formal peace dialogue with neighbouring Pakistan.

Chidambaram said though authorities in United States had shared "a significant amount of information" about Headley, New Delhi had "many more questions" and was gearing up to charge him "at the appropriate time".

India wants to interrogate Headley or be able to ask him questions in a court testimony, Chidambaram said.

"There are many more questions that we want to ask, much more information which we wish to get," he told reporters. "I will continue to press for access to Headley in the sense that he will testify in a proceeding or subject himself to interrogation."

"We have not given up our plea for extradition," he added.

Headley has been cooperating with U.S. investigators since his arrest in October and faces up to life in prison. He has pleaded to 12 counts, including conspiring to bomb and murder U.S. and Indian citizens.

In an agreement with prosecutors, Headley promised to help investigators and give testimony against others in exchange for a pledge he would not be extradited to India, Pakistan or Denmark.

U.S. Assistant Secretary Robert Blake, on a two-day trip to India, said Headley will not be extradited as part of a plea bargain, but assured Indian authorities of more cooperation.

"I think you will have full access to all the information and whether or not an Indian team can itself go, I just can't answer the question," Blake, who met senior Indian government officials on Friday, told reporters in New Delhi.

Headley, who spent his childhood in Pakistan and whose father is Pakistani, is also charged with plotting a revenge attack on a Danish newspaper that published controversial cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed in 2005.

India has signalled it is open to a new round of talks with Pakistan after the nuclear-armed rivals held their first official talks since the Mumbai strike last month.

Improved ties between the two are seen as key to regional stability.

Cabinet gives nod to set up six AIIMS-like institutions

The Union Cabinet on Friday approved the revised cost estimates (RCE) for setting up of six new All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) like institutions in different parts of the country.

The cabinet approved cost estimates also includes upgradation of 13 existing Government Medical Colleges under The Pradhan Mantri Swasthya Suraksha Yojana (PMSSY) -Phase I for an outlay of Rs.9307.62 crore.

The allocation made for the PMSSY-Phase I projects for the XI Plan was Rs.3955 crore, additional expenditure involved would be Rs.5535.62 crore.

The PMSSY was initially started in March, 2006 with the object of correcting regional imbalances in the availability of affordable and reliable tertiary healthcare services and also to augment facilities for quality medical education in the country.

The PMSSY has two components in its first phase-setting up of six AIIMS-like institutions and upgradation of thirteen existing Government medical college institutions.

The Cabinet Committee of Economic affairs (CCE) approved the proposal for setting up AIIMS-like institutions in March 2006 and upgrdation proposal in June 2006.

However, the allocation of XI Plan is sufficient to meet the expenditure in the remaining two years of the plan period.

The new institutions and upgraded facilities in the existing medical colleges would provide tertiary health care facilities in and around the location and adjoining districts and States in the country.

The projects under Phase-I of PMSSY are spread over 19 locations in the 16 States of the country.

The new AIIMS-like institutions are located at Bhopal, Bhubaneswar, Jodhpur, Patna, Raipur and Rishikesh.

The AIIMS-like institutions will be completed by the end of 2012.

The upgradation components in Phase-I involves upgradation of Government Medical Colleges at Trivandrum, Salem, Bangalore, Kolkata, Jammu and Srinagar; NIMS, Hyderabad; SGPGIMS, Lucknow; B.J. Medical College, Ahmedabad; RIMS, Ranchi; IMS, BHU, Varanasi; SVIMS, Tirupati; and Grants Medical College, Mumbai. (ANI)

Criminal slur on Assam Rajya Sabha candidate

 Media baron Jayanta Baruah, the opposition combine's candidate for next week's Rajya Sabha election, has been accused of concealing in his affidavit information relating to his conviction in a criminal case. Baruah has dismissed the allegation.

Congress candidate Silvius Condpan Friday lodged a complaint with the returning officer at the Assam assembly, saying the opposition candidate and proprietor of the Asomiya Pratidin group of newspapers made false submissions in his affidavit and demanded cancellation of his candidature.

'Jayanta Baruah was convicted in a criminal case and was sentenced to one month imprisonment and fine of Rs.10,000 in case No 604/2001 at the court of the additional sessions judge (Fast Track Court) in Mangaldoi. But he concealed facts and said there was no criminal cases against him in his affidavit,' Condpan said in his complaint.

Another allegation against Baruah is about his age.

'Baruah in his affidavit said he was aged about 47 and said he passed his matriculation exams in 1975. Questions are asked - did Jayanta Baruah pass his matriculation at the age of 12 if he is now 47 years old,' the Congress candidate said in his complaint.

Baruah dismissed the charges as 'Congress propaganda'.

'The Congress candidate should have raised this objection before the scrutiny of nomination papers and now after my papers are declared valid, I don't think this is an issue at all. This is nothing but Congress propaganda and I am not at all perturbed,' he said.

Election for the two Rajya Sabha seats is scheduled March 26. Both the seats are now held by the ruling Congress party.

The Congress fielded two candidates - Condpan being the second preference candidate, while Nazneen Farooq is their first choice.

The main opposition Asom Gana Parishad (AGP), the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and the Asom United Democratic Front (AUDF) fielded just one candidate - Jayanta Baruah.

While the Congress's first preference candidate is sure to win, their second candidate would scrap through only if there is cross voting in the opposition camp.

'Anything could happen in elections and let us keep our fingers crossed,' Assam Health Minister and senior Congress leader Himanta Biswa Sarma said.
Indo Asian News Service

Threats from home-grown terrorists?

Pointing to the David Headley case as illustrative of the 'real threats from home-grown and international terrorists,' the US says it will continue working to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorism at home and abroad.

Commending various US agencies in getting a guilty plea from Pakistani American terror suspect David Headley for his role in planning the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano said:

'As we have seen, we face real threats from home-grown and international terrorists.'

'And we will continue working to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorism at home and abroad to ensure the safety and security of the American people,' she said in a statement Thursday.

'I applaud the Department of Justice and the FBI for leading the effort culminating in today's guilty plea, and I commend the men and women of US Customs and Border Protection, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the DHS Office of Intelligence & Analysis who played critical roles as part of a true interagency investigation.'

Meanwhile, at the State Department spokesman Gordon Duguid discounted suggestions about India's disgruntlement over a feeling that Headley is getting off too lightly by pleading guilty.

'I wouldn't react to reports of their disgruntlement. It's a very large country, and I'm sure that there are a number of opinion centres in India on this issue,' he said.

Noting that it is an ongoing trial, Duguid said: 'What has been clear is that he has undergone a transparent and fair judicial process. And the United States Government will support the decision of our courts.'

The official said he was also not aware whether the State Department has received a request for access to David Headley's wife.

Pointing to the Headley case as illustrative of the 'real threats from home-grown and international terrorists,' US says it will continue working to disrupt, dismantle and defeat terrorism at home and abroad.

Women village leaders want quota within quota

Around 60 women village leaders Friday hailed the passing of the women's reservation bill in the Rajya Sabha but demanded a quota for Dalits and other backward classes (OBCs) for their proper representation.

At a conclave organised here by international NGO ActionAid, the women, representing village councils in Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Orissa, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka, urged political parties to take note of the discrimination against women within the backward classes.

They held that the 50 percent reservation of seats in panchayati raj institutions for women and the quotas for Dalit women from lower castes had proved beneficial.

Speaking about her experience as the head of the Jamlapur village in Uttar Pradesh, Sarvati Devi said: 'Being a woman from a Dalit community proved a great challenge for me. Finding support in the panchayat was very tough. But I did not give up and now they respect me and my community.'

Sunita Devi, who was elected the Phulwari Sharif village head in Bihar in 2006 on an OBC reserved seat agreed.

'I got elected from an OBC reserved seat for women. Now, women in my village don't look at the caste barrier before discussing their problems, all thanks to the reservation that will also help on the national platform,' she said.

The women's reservation bill, in the form of an amendment to the constitution, would secure 33 percent reservation for women in the Lok Sabha as well as the state legislatures. It was passed in the Rajya Sabha last week amid angry protests from a few political parties that also want a sub-quota for Dalits and OBCs.

Jail for demanding capitation fee, says Sibal

 Educational institutes found fleecing students in the guise of hidden costs while giving admission will face prosecution and the management could also face jail, Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal said Friday.

'The union cabinet today (Friday) cleared the Prohibition of Unfair Practices Bill, 2010. This means capitation fee charged by educational institutions will be a cognizable offence. Those who are indulging in it will be prosecuted - some will get monetary penalty and others fine and imprisonment,' Sibal told reporters.

He said the thousands of educational institutes in the country will have to disclose all their fees and charges in the prospectus and nothing can be charged beyond that.

'This is a historic step that we are going to take through an appropriate law,' he added.
Indo Asian News Service

Cabinet clears project on restoring polluted sites

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) Friday approved a proposal for a $75.39 million World Bank-assisted project to develop a national programme for the rehabilitation of polluted industrial sites.

'The objective of the project is to develop a national programme for the remediation and rehabilitation of polluted sites by taking up four polluted sites in Andra Pradesh and West Bengal on a pilot basis,' Home Minister P. Chidambaram told reporters after a CCEA meeting chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The project will implemented for a period of five years.

'The project will support the development of an institutional and methodological framework for rehabilitation of highly polluted abandoned sites and build human and technical capacity in state agencies for taking projects for reducing the risk of contamination nearby,' Chidambaram said.

On completion, the project will result in environmental benefits like improvement in water and air quality, improved hygienic conditions, health benefits such as reduction in water-borne, vector-borne diseases and economic benefits like employment generation during rehabilitation and remediation of contaminated sites.

It would also facilitate developing a National Plan for Rehabilitation of Pollution Sites (NPRPS), sustaining the process beyond the project period, Chidambaram said.

The Wounding Glory: The historical analysis of the state, society, religion, active forces, scientific developments, and the people in the world

 

In a comparison of Indian civilization prior and during the rig Vedic period, with the civilizations of Egypt, Sumerian, Akkadian, Mesopotamian and Urr, the origin and complete form of the "state" in India there was no strong form of the state at the time. The complete form and shape of the state it was not yet taken while the Greeks king Dario us, and Alexander who took expedition of winning the territories of India under any Indian kings materially except in the form of Indian mythology which claims that the state was in origin and has taken its expansion from India to all parks of the world particularly in the gulf areas too, by keeping in mind the Vikramaditya the great king of that time  whose period also stated to be corrupted with a contention to keep him above all the kings and their dynasties in the world. "God the invisible King" as the presumption has the relation with the kingship and the god whose role and act to save the people as a protector, savior and benevolent towards the poor in the world could be the factor behind the origin of the state in all the civilizations in materialistic way and in India the first god who has been well known in the Rig-Veda which is the first source of the history in India and its location of rig Vedic civilization is identified with the river Saraswati which was dried up. In rig Vedic kings list there were so many kings and whose actual physical proof not yet established in the sense and true meaning of material facts other than spiritual or mythological beliefs in India. Archaeological evidences in absence of which all these would never be treated as the kings in the history of the kings. However if it is established that all the kings were existed on the banks of five rivers by any authority either through the department of archaeology or by any credible research work it will become the believable facts and the facts in the space of mythology as the history of India with the list of kings. Hence the history of India in relation to the origin, evolution and  taking complete shape of powerful state, foreign kings were took opportunity to rule the country for so many years and left their foot prints on the soils of India and it has its influence and affect on the common ideology of the people and has been played a part in molding the nature of the people of India since the period came to know to the history of the things and existence of the kings with the relation of the spirituality and mythology to the present form of the state in India. As Hegel claimed that the Egyptian and Indian gods has nearest relation in natural gods and the people of these two countries. After Dario us and Alexander the great, the first in terms of power and strength of its military might, the Chandragupta Mourya, basing on the capital city, Patna he has taken complete form of the state in India, before whom no one was come into being like him in India and much less in his power in small groups like a war lords were there in the tribal belts of the country and could not raised to his level in the might. The period of Rig Vedic civilization is stated to be existed around 1000-1500 BC. There is no unanimous opinion of the exact date of Vedic civilization in India. The period of Chandragupta Mourya is claimed to be 321-297 BC. As the first historical book, bible, in its Old Testament genesis, the king claimed the first king in the world is Enlil from Sumerian civilization which was around 3rd millennium. The Sumarian records also confirmed the kings list in which Enlil was the first king in the kings list. The names of the first kings and their kingships in comparison with the bible and Rig-Veda in the both mythological and archaeological accounts, whatever the evidences of the Rig-Veda and bible confirmed and convinced with the available findings it is here the facts in identifying the origin and transformation of the state to notify the developments and factors behind the state in different regions in the world. Language in which the bible is written first is Hebrew and the Rig-Veda is written in Sanskrit. It is the fact that the bible is the first book known for the subjects of origin of state, religion, and other issues in the history and it has been proving in so many subjects through the archaeological evidences since last two hundred years. Hence it is fact that the origin and its leading factors behind the origin of the state are very different from each other particularly in India from its early periods of the origin of the state in the Sumarian now modern Iraq, civilization. At the same time the form, need, leading factors, and the materialistic support behind the powerful state in iraq and in India is very different and do not have any direct link and same factors in all such origins of each state in all ancient civilizations in the world. At the same time, when the need and factors in leading the people to feel the need of the state and the social conditions of these societies are different there is no unanimity in the features of all states in its early periods of its transformation from the nominal force to the powerful force in the shape of state particularly in India in caparison with other states' origin and transformation. There is the gap of at least 1000 years to 1500 years between the periods of states origin in these two civilizations in the world we can till now because there are no such archaeological supports in reversing the periods on the timeline of the world civilizations. For those in India whose mother tongue is other than Sanskrit language, the British who translated the four Vedas, including Rig-Veda, from to English are max Muller, and Griffith and they would be grateful to them for all time.

 

In the Indian history the most striking and positive feature is that the state has not been worked under any influence of the religion, particularly Hinduism, at the same time the Buddhism also did not allow the religion in the states affairs from the formation of the religion and the as identified in the Vedas, Upanishads and other historical books including Ramayana and Mahabharata. The Europeans, Romans and British who were during the middle ages allowed the church to dominate the state and decide the state affairs through the church in the society. The church-state relations were in the legalized form under the domination of the church over the state and its affairs whereas the temple in India to which few acres lands were allotted to run the affairs of the state in the mostly recognized form independence from each other. The Brahmans were only allowed in the occasions of the royal ceremonies and allowed them only to confine themselves in the service of the temple and people with some little gifts offered by the people on the name of god here in India. So the history and origin of the state in India is very different one from the other civilizations from which the state and religion took birth. So the history of India and the other states history is not same one and Indian history have a special attention to dig out and apply it to the present conditions of Indian society in order to find the exact phase of passage of society towards further advancement through identifying the pace and its pulse to confirm what stage we all Indians have to move towards progress and development including understanding the exact conditions of moving the other developed states to where exactly these have to reach through the progress and development in true sense and understanding of the stages of capitalism in the world.                                                                        Ayub Mohammed

http://groups.yahoo.com/group/political_analysts/

Why foreign institutes dig Indian market
India Today
For foreign universities, which haven't yet recovered fully from the aftershocks of the worldwide recession, India presents, to quote a word re-introduced into the English vocabulary by Tim Burton's Alice in Wonderland , a 'frabjous' opportunity.

More than 100,000 students leave Indian shores annually to study at universities abroad. Their presence has made foreign universities wake up to the incontrovertible fact that there's another 'creamy layer' below these students abroad whose families are prepared to pay upwards of Rs 2.5 lakh a year for quality education.

Profs debate Foreign Univ Bill

What foreign universities Bill can't do

International students are the economic mainstay of foreign universities, but these institutions are not in a position to meet the demand for the education they provide on their own campuses back home. This untapped market makes the business of overseas campuses that much more lucrative.

For over a decade, foreign universities have been lobbying hard for the passage of the Foreign Education Providers Bill, which has been a pet project of HRD minister Kapil Sibal. The most recent of these exploratory visits was that of Robert A. Brown, president of Boston University, who was in the Capital in January to plan collaborations with leading universities here.

He said there was an insatiable appetite for quality education in India and collaborations would mutually benefit both countries. US's Georgia Institute of Technology announced its plan to set up campuses in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam as soon as the Bill gets Parliament nod.

Central Michigan University, meanwhile, has taken another route to plant its flag in India. It has been offering a collaborative MBA programme with the Jawaharlal Nehru Institute of Technology, Hyderabad, for the past five years.

Experts associated with these universities explain the economic logic of their plans for India: the proliferation of private institutions in the country-especially in engineering, medicine, management and law - that charged fees upwards of Rs 2.5 lakh a year was evidence of the vast market waiting to be tapped.

These institutions attract the second layer of the country's higher education market. These are students whose families can't afford foreign education (upwards of Rs 15 lakh a year), but want to be in the top four favourite streams.

India, according the now-defunct National Knowledge Commission, needs 1,500 universities, compared with about 350 now, to raise the enrollment numbers from 7 per cent of the population aged 18-25 to developed country averages.

But even before the Bill got the cabinet's nod, Indian universities had initiated the process of collaborating with their international peers to offer degrees or diplomas. A National University of Educational Planning and Administration (NEPA) report in 2008 pegged the number of these institutions at more than 130.

For Bangalore University vice- chancellor A. N. Prabhu Deva, collaboration is the way forward.

"It will help a higher education institution rise to the standards of its foreign partner," he says. But for this collaboration to become meaningful, says R. Govinda, NEPA V-C, teaching must go hand in hand with research. "Only then will quality education and foreign collaborations be meaningful," he says.

Either way, for foreign universities, this is a winwin situation. Narayanan Ramaswamy, executive director of the management consultancy KPMG, points to the "massive demand supply gap" driving the international higher education market.

Reproduced From Mail Today. Copyright 2010. MTNPL. All rights reserved.

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By Sangeeth Sebastian in New Delhi

Who is greater friend? India or China? Dhaka debates

Dhaka, March 19 (IANS) As Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina tours China, a debate is brewing in Bangladesh. Who is a greater friend? India or China? The answers vary.

While Hasina is seeking regional connectivity involving Bangladesh, India, China and Myanmar, many Bangladeshis think differently.

'The key to Bangladesh's global vision is connectivity. This means opening up Bangladesh to India and China, and frankly anyone else who wants,' The Daily Star newspaper said Friday.

That being the case, senior journalist Zafar Sobhan deprecated attempts to draw China in but keep India out.

'There is a profoundly foolish school of thought among certain circles in Bangladesh that suggests that Bangladesh should seek to play China off against India and looks to China to provide a counter-weight to what they see as the regional hegemon.

'This kind of thinking, which governments in the past have dabbled in with notable lack of success, is the worst kind of amateurish realpolitik that would only antagonise both neighbours,' said Sobhan.

Leaders of the main opposition Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP) have advocated using China as a counterweight to India.

Haider Akbar Rono, leader of the Communist Party of Bangladesh (CPB), has called for Dhaka-Beijing proximity to 'counter imperialist attacks' from India that he sees is in stratetic alliance with the US.

Lt Gen (retired) M. Mahbubur Rahman, a former Bangladesh Army chief, laments the 'tyranny of geography' under which Bangladesh is surrounded by India.

'Although Dhaka's relation with New Delhi is friendly, India's military intervention may not be all together discounted in the event of any development in Bangladesh that might be considered prejudicial to the regional giant's perceived security threat,' he wrote in the New Age.

'Against the backdrop of perceived threat from India, Bangladesh pursues a defence policy of no aggression but defending every inch of her land. To strengthen its position, Bangladesh can seek help from China,' he wrote.

Retired diplomat Mohammed Amjad Hossain wrote in New Age: 'Although Bangladesh considers developing relations with China from political and economic point of views, India sees it from a different perspective.'
Indo Asian News Service

Israel, US seek to defuse settlement dispute
Reuter

Israel tried to defuse a dispute with the United States on Friday over plans to expand settlements, saying it would propose "confidence-building" steps to the Palestinians to encourage a renewal of peace talks.

Relations between Israel and its the United States, its main backer, have been frayed by Israel unveiling plans to build 1,600 housing units near occupied East Jerusalem during a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden last week.

The construction announcement, which U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has called "insulting," has jeopardized indirect peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that the United States announced last week after months of effort.

Those talks may be further undermined by more violence in the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip, where Israeli aircraft bombed a target on Friday after a rocket fired from the Palestinian enclave killed a Thai worker in Israel.

In separate statements, Israel and the United States said Clinton and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke by telephone and they signaled they were trying to lay the dispute to rest.

"The prime minister proposed to Secretary Clinton mutual confidence-building steps by Israel and the Palestinian Authority in the (West Bank)," Netanyahu's spokesman Nir Chefetz said in a statement.

State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley told reporters in Moscow, where Clinton will attend a meeting of Middle East peace mediators on Friday, they discussed specific actions that might improve the atmosphere for progress toward peace.

"We are going to review the prime minister's response and continue our discussions with both sides to keep proximity talks moving forward," he said.

U.S. Middle East peace envoy George Mitchell will visit the region this weekend to meet Netanyahu and Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, he said.

NETANYAHU ON PROBATION?

U.S. officials declined all comment on precisely what steps Netanyahu had proposed.

In an unsourced report on its website, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz said the measures were likely to include the release of Palestinian prisoners, the removal of West Bank checkpoints and the possible transfer of West Bank land to Palestinian control.

Chefetz said Netanyahu had "clarified" Israeli policies, presumably about settlements and Jerusalem, a city Israel sees as its capital although this is not recognized internationally.

The Palestinians want East Jerusalem, captured by Israel in the Six-Day War in 1967, to be capital of a future state that they seek for the occupied West Bank.

"I think they do want to defuse but also they are aware that Netanyahu is not agreeing to anything of real consequence and is staying deep within his own comfort zone," said Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation think tank in Washington.

"(The) U.S. will want to see what he actually implements and in a way to keep him on probation," Levy said. "The Palestinians will probably reluctantly find themselves in indirect talks, unless Gaza escalates dramatically."

A U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity said Netanyahu was likely to meet senior U.S. officials, including Clinton, when he visits Washington early next week to speak at an annual conference run by the America Israel Public Affairs Committee, an influential pro-Israel lobby group.

The U.S.-Israeli dispute and the efforts to calm it were sure to come up at a meeting in Moscow on Friday of the Quartet of Middle East peace mediators, which includes the European Union, Russia, the United Nations and the United States.

In the Gaza strike, Israeli war planes hit at least four targets, Hamas security officials and witnesses said.

There were no immediate reports of injuries in any of the strikes, whose targets included a smuggling tunnel along the border with Egypt, two open areas in Khan Younis and a metal foundry near Gaza City.

Palestinian militants in Gaza have carried out sporadic rocket and mortar bomb attacks on Israel since the end of a three-week Gaza war in January 2009.

(Additional reporting by Andrew Quinn in Washington, Mohammed Assadi in Ramallah and Dan Williams in Jerusalem; Editing by Angus MacSwan)

Allyn Fisher-Ilan and Arshad Mohammed

NRI couple in London end life in suicide pact

An Indian-origin couple has died as part of a suicide pact in the wake of a court case involving the woman stealing £120,000 pounds from HSBC customers.

Senior HSBC clerk Bindi Dhanji, 31, disappeared from Southwark Crown Court on Tuesday after meeting with her lawyers. She was found dead with her husband Kishore. Their bodies were found hanging from a footbridge near their London home.

Bindi and Kishore met legal team before sentencing on Tuesday morning, but the pair fled before her case was heard.

Explaining her disappearance to the court on Tuesday her lawyer, Richard Parry, said: "She clearly seems to have panicked. She seemed to be, I thought, fairly stoical about the outcome. Her husband took a different view, he seemed to place too much reliance on the pre-sentence report."

Judge Anthony Pitts then issued a bench warrant for Bindi's arrest, saying: "It does seem like she has taken flight at first glance, I must confess, from what you have told me. It's not unknown, but it is a slightly unusual situation given that she was here this morning."

In May 2009, she confessed to stealing from the customers but claimed a man she was not prepared to name had threatened her with violence unless she handed him cash.

Bindi said she targeted pensioners because she thought their bank accounts would not be properly checked. HSBC later reimbursed the accounts of victims.

Appealing for her return before discovering she was dead, Detective Constable Malcolm Jolly, of City of London Police, said Bindi abused a position of trust to steal from two elderly and vulnerable women.

A post-mortem into the deaths is due to take place on Friday.

A Scotland Yard spokesman said: "The bodies were hanging from a footbridge. Officers believe they know the identity of the deceased and next of kin have been informed, but await formal identification. This has now been referred to the Coroner."
Press Trust of India

Five Americans charged with terrorism in Pakistan
Reuter

A Pakistani court formally charged on Wednesday five young Americans of plotting terrorism in the country, their lawyer said, in a case that has raised alarm over the danger posed by militants using the Internet.

The students, in their 20s and from the U.S. state of Virginia, were detained in December in the town of Sargodha, 190 km (120 miles) southeast of Islamabad, and accused of contacting militants over the Internet and plotting attacks.

A defence lawyer for the men, Hassan Dastagir, said the charges brought against his clients, included fund raising for terrorist acts.

"The court brought charges of terrorism against my clients and fixed March 31 for the next hearing in which the prosecution would produce evidence and witnesses," he told Reuters by telephone from Sargodha.

He said the men pleaded not guilty and described the charges as "lies".

The five men, who had told the court they only wanted to provide fellow Muslims in Afghanistan with medical and financial help, face life imprisonment if convicted, Dastagir said.

Police said the men -- two of them of Pakistani origin, one of Egyptian, one of Yemeni and one of Eritrean origin -- wanted to go to Afghanistan to join the Taliban to fight Afghan and Western forces.

Police have said emails showed they contacted Pakistani militants who had planned to use them for attacks in Pakistan, a front-line state in the U.S.-led war against militancy.

The five have accused the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation and Pakistani police of torturing and trying to frame them. Pakistani authorities deny the accusations.

Pakistan is fighting al Qaeda-linked militants and is under pressure from Washington to help stabilise Afghanistan by cracking down on militants' cross-border attacks on U.S.-led troops.

(Editing by Michael Georgy and Sanjeev Miglani)
Kamran Haider

19/03/2010

No decline in Pak support to terrorists: Army chief

New Delhi: There has been "no decline" in support from Pakistan to terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir and top militant leaders including Hafiz Saeed are operating with impunity from its territory despite international pressure after Mumbai terror attacks,Army Chief Deepak Kapoor has said.

No decline in Pak support to terrorists: Army chief

Indian Army chief Deepak Kapoor briefs Defence Minister A K Antony near the Line of Control between India and Pakistan at Balbir Post, north of Srinagar. REUTERS

Pointing to ISI and Pakistan army officials aiding terrorist camps and the functioning of top militant leaders including Lashkar-e-Taiba chief Hafiz Saeed and Hizbul Mujahideen's Syed Salahuddin from Pakistani soil, General Kapoor said the terrorists "are probably more emboldened".

"The comparison of pre and post 26/11 period reveals that there is no decline or change in the quantum of Pak support to terrorists' operations in J&K. To the contrary, the terrorists are probably more emboldened by the sustained support enjoyed by them despite international pressure on Pak, post 26/11," he said.

"The support to terrorism from across the border continues even today. The terrorist infrastructure and training camps do exist. These trained terrorists thereafter infiltrate into Indian borders to perpetrate violence."

The assistance is provided for infiltration, incursions, recce, coordination and logistics or intelligence support through establishing launch pads existing along the LoC, Kapoor said in an interview to recently published Manas Defence Yearbook.

"In recent times, Syed Salahuddin accompanied by Pak Army and ISI officials visits launch pads all along the LoC. At the behest of Pak, he is also exhorting his cadres to step up violence in J&K," Kapoor said.


9/03/2010

Mumbai attack: LeT commander to file plea for acquittal

Lahore: Buoyed by a Pakistani court's order that said the trial of Mumbai attacker Ajmal Amir Kasab cannot be separated from that of seven Pakistani suspects, Let commander Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi plans to file a petition in the Supreme Court seeking acquittal.

Mumbai attack: LeT commander to file plea for acquittal

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi speaks during a rally in this picture taken April 21, 2008.

"We will approach the Supreme Court in a few days following the Lahore High Court's order and we are quite hopeful that it will change the entire complexion of the case in the anti-terrorism court," Khwaja Sultan, the lawyer for Lakhvi, told PTI.

A petition seeking Lakhvi's acquittal is likely to be filed in the apex court on Monday, he said.

The Lahore High Court, in its order issued on March 9 in response to a petition filed by Lakhvi, said: "Procedure adopted by (the anti-terrorism) court while applying section 540-A (2) Criminal Procedure Code for separation of trial of alleged accused Ajmal Kasab and Faheem Arshad Ansari is totally illegal".

"Resultantly, to that extent order dated 25.11.2009 passed by the trial court is declared without lawful authority and is hereby set aside," the court ruled.

The High Court's 14-page order, a copy of which was accessed by PTI, also said Lakhvi could file an "application under section 265 K of CrPC (for acquittal) at proper stage after recording of necessary/relevant evidence".

19/03/2010

Death penalty to be included in anti-hijacking law

New Delhi: With rising terror threat in the skies, the government today cleared proposals to make the anti-hijacking law more stringent by including death sentence as a punishment.

"The Union Cabinet today approved a proposal of the Civil Aviation Ministry to amend the Anti-Hijacking Act of 1982," Information and Broadcasting Minister Ambika Soni told reporters after the cabinet meeting.

She said the UPA-I had constituted a Group of Minister (GoM) on the issue. After UPA-II took over, a new GoM, headed by Home Minister P Chidambaram, was constituted which gave a final shape to the proposals. The GoM also included Law Minister M Veerappa Moily, HRD Minister Kapil Sibal and Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel.

Later, Chidambaram told reporters that the earlier "draft bill was clumsy. So the GoM decided to set it right".

Sections 3 and 4 of the Act, which deal with the definition of hijack and punishment for hijacking are proposed to be amended to include death penalty. Currently, the law provides for life imprisonment and a fine as punishments for hijacking.

The GoM earlier examined the proposals to amend the existing law to include these aspects as well as the conspiracy to hijack an aircraft.

Government has worked out a new policy to provide for extraordinary move like shooting down an aircraft whose hijack has been established and the hijackers intend to target a vital installation by using it as a missile like the New York attack of September 11, 2001.

The policy, which was cleared by the Cabinet Committee on Security during the last UPA government, also provides for immobilisation of the plane and disallowing it to take off if the hijack occurs on the Indian soil.

It opposes any negotiation with the hijackers on their demands and also scrambling of IAF fighters if the hijacked plane remained in the Indian airspace.

These provisions are aimed at countering situations like the Kandahar hijack of December 1999, when 178 passengers and 11 crew members were exchanged for four dreaded terrorists.

One of the passengers was killed by the hijackers. At that time, security forces had failed to immobilise the plane when it had landed at Amritsar airport.

Among the four terrorists freed was Maulana Masood Azhar, who later floated terror outfit Jaish-e-Mohammad in Pakistan, and Ahmed Omar Saeed Sheikh, who was held for the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl and allegedly played a significant role in planning the 9/11 terror strikes.

The draft proposal was prepared by the Civil Aviation Ministry and cleared by a Committee of Secretaries last year and then referred to the GoM for approval.

Source: PTI

19/03/2010

Cash mala saga: Expensive PIL for Mayawati

Allahabad: A public interest litigation (PIL) has been filed before the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court asking a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) inquiry into the expenses by the ruling Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) on March 15 to mark the 25th anniversary of the party.

Expensive PIL for Mayawati

The PIL has been filed by three lawyers, who alleged that about Rs 175 crore was spent in the rally and around Rs 25 crore on the garland that was presented to Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister and BSP supreme Mayawati.

The PIL is expected to come up for hearing on Monday. Bahujan Samaj Party rival Samajwadi Party (SP) meanwhile, has demanded registration of an FIR against Mayawati for publicly accepting the garland made of currency notes.

Mujahid Kidwai, the secretary of Samajwadi Party has said the currency garland has made a mockery of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI)''s mandatory guidelines on the country''s currency.

Despite being criticised over the currency garland controversy, Mayawati had on Wednesday defied the authorities by appearing again with a second currency garland.

She was severely criticized both inside and outside Parliament as the currency garland controversy sparked demands for a Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) probe into the source of money used to make the garland reportedly worth Rs 5 crore.

Income tax officials have reportedly been ordered to investigate the source from which the cash garland that was presented to Mayawati on Monday materialized.

By Raj Narayan, India Syndicate, 03/03/2010

Lords of Terror: The real-life Mogambos

When Mr. India (Anil Kapoor) did the vanishing act and destroyed adversary Mogambo in the 1980s blockbuster of the same name, the whole country sat up and shouted "India Khush Hua"! Twenty years down that road, India continues to fight a bunch of real life Mogambos who have inflicted a thousand cuts on our social fabric. Unfortunately, real life has not imitated reel life as we continue our wait for a Mr. India who can defeat these Lords of Terror.

Lords of Terror

What is even more embarrassing is that unlike Mogambo and his faceless bunch of villains, these modern day terror masterminds have a face that keeps popping up into our living rooms, courtesy the television screens. They are seen in cricket matches, political rallies, and via video tapes gleefully passed on to TV stations. Simply put, they are cooking a snook at India and sieve-like security system.

Here is a look at some of the names that have sent a chill up our collective spines and whose whereabouts are not as big a mystery some of us like to believe. We start off with a list that the government of India shared with Pakistan in 2002 and again in 2008 after the 26/11 carnage. We also proffer a gentle reminder to our readers that the two countries are engaging in a fresh round of talks in the near future. Will this list get shared again?

By Ashida Vasudevan, 18/03/2010

Exclusive: Facing heat in the north, Maoists regrouping in south

Cornered by the security forces in the many parts of Central India, the CPI (Maoist) is trying to kickstart its movement in the southern parts of India. The arrests of a number of senior leaders such as politburo member Kobad Ghandy and the busting of their camps at Malkangiri in Orissa have forced the ultras to redraw their strategies.

Exclusive: Facing heat in the north, Maoists regrouping in south

It is expected that the Maoists may step up their activities in certain areas in south India in order to distract the attention of the security forces who are now focusing on the Naxal-affected areas in Jharkand, Chhattisgarh and Maharashtra.

A meeting of the CPI (Maoist) at Sringeri in Karnataka a few months ago decided to carve out a new guerilla zone in the tri-junction areas of Kerala, Karnataka and Tamil Nadu. The party's central committee ratified the idea mooted by the South West Regional Bureau (SWRB) of the CPI (Maoist).

The plan is to bring Kannur and Wayanad districts in Kerala, Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kodagu districts in Karnataka and areas such as Gudalur in Tamil Nadu under a special zonal committee.

Nonviolence

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Nonviolence is a philosophy and strategy for social change that rejects the use of violence. As such, nonviolence is an alternative to passive acceptance of oppression and armed struggle against it. Practitioners of nonviolence may use diverse methods in their campaigns for social change, including critical forms of education and persuasion, civil disobedience and nonviolent direct action, and targeted communication via mass media.

In modern times, nonviolence has been a powerful tool for social protest.[1][2][3] There are many examples of its being used in nonviolent resistance and nonviolent revolution. Well known examples are Mahatma Gandhi leading a decades-long nonviolent struggle against British rule in India, which eventually helped India win its independence in 1947. Martin Luther King's adoption of Gandhi's nonviolent methods in the struggle to win civil rights for African Americans. César Chávez campaigns of nonviolence in the 1960s to protest the treatment of farm workers in California.[4] The 1989 "Velvet Revolution" in Czechoslovakia that saw the overthrow of the Communist government[5] is considered one of the most important of the largely nonviolent Revolutions of 1989.[6] Most recently the nonviolent campaigns of Leymah Gbowee and the women of Liberia were able to achieve peace after a 14-year civil war.[7] This story is captured in a 2008 documentary film Pray the Devil Back to Hell.

The 14th and current Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso. Dalai Lama said nonviolence is the only way progress can be made with China.[8][9]

The term "nonviolence" is often linked with or even used as a synonym for pacifism; however, the two concepts are fundamentally different. Pacifism denotes the rejection of the use of violence as a personal decision on moral or spiritual grounds, but does not inherently imply any inclination toward change on a sociopolitical level. Nonviolence on the other hand, presupposes the intent of (but does not limit it to) social or political change as a reason for the rejection of violence. Also, a person may advocate nonviolence in a specific context while advocating violence in other contexts.[citation needed]

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Forms

Advocates of nonviolence believe cooperation and consent are the roots of political power: all regimes, including bureaucratic institutions, financial institutions, and the armed segments of society (such as the military and police); depend on compliance from citizens.[10] On a national level, the strategy of nonviolence seeks to undermine the power of rulers by encouraging people to withdraw their consent and cooperation. The forms of nonviolence draw inspiration from both religious or ethical beliefs and political analysis. Religious or ethically based nonviolence is sometimes referred to as principled, philosophical, or ethical nonviolence, while nonviolence based on political analysis is often referred to as tactical, strategic, or pragmatic nonviolence. Commonly, both of these dimensions may be present within the thinking of particular movements or individuals.[11]

[edit] Philosophical

Buddha, known for his theory of nonviolence
Mahavira,To liberate one's self, Mahavira taught the necessity of right faith, right knowledge and right conduct. Right conduct includes five great vows out of which first is Nonviolence (Ahimsa) - to cause no harm to any living being in any manner

Love of the enemy, or the realization of the humanity of all people, is a fundamental concept of philosophical nonviolence. The goal of this type of nonviolence is not to defeat the enemy, but to win them over and create love and understanding between all.[12] According to Mark Kurlansky "All religions discuss the power of nonviolence and the evil of violence." Such principles or tenets can be found in each of the major Abrahamic religious traditions (Judaism, Christianity and Islam) as well as in the major Dharmic religious traditions (Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism and Sikhism). Examples of nonviolence found in religion and spirituality include the Sermon on the Mount when Jesus urges his followers to "love thine enemy," in the Taoist concept of wu-wei, or effortless action, in the philosophy of the martial art Aikido, in the Buddhist principle of metta, or loving-kindness towards all beings; and in the principle of ahimsa, or nonviolence toward any being, shared by Buddhism, Jainism and some forms of Hinduism.[13] Additionally, focus on both nonviolence and forgiveness of sin can be found in the story of Abel in the Qur'an; Liberal movements within Islam have consequently used this story to promote Jewish ideals of nonviolence.[citation needed] Nonviolence is also part of modern pagan traditions.[14]

[edit] Pragmatic

The fundamental concept of pragmatic (or tactical or strategic) nonviolence is to create a social dynamic or political movement that can effect social change without necessarily winning over those who wish to maintain the status quo.[12]

In modern industrial democracies, nonviolence has been used extensively by political sectors without mainstream political power such as labor, peace, environment and women's movements. Lesser known is the role that nonviolence has played and continues to play in undermining the power of repressive political regimes in the developing world and the former eastern bloc. Susan Ives emphasized this point with a quote from Walter Wink, "In 1989, thirteen nations comprising 1,695,000,000 people experienced nonviolent revolutions that succeeded beyond anyone's wildest expectations... If we add all the countries touched by major nonviolent actions in our century (Korea, the Philippines, South Africa... the independence movement in India...) the figure reaches 3,337,400,000, a staggering 65% of humanity! All this in the teeth of the assertion, endlessly repeated, that nonviolence doesn't work in the 'real' world."[6]

As a technique for social struggle, nonviolence has been described as "the politics of ordinary people", reflecting its historically mass-based use by populations throughout the world and history. Maybe the first of its kind which had huge political impact on history started from March 1 movement in Korea and later it influenced Gandhi's campaign as well. The March 1 Movement was a catalyst for the establishment of the Provisional Government of the Republic of Korea in Shanghai in April 1919 and also gave influence on nonviolent resistance in India and many other countries[15] . Struggles most often associated with nonviolence are the non co-operation campaign for Indian independence led by Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, the movement to attain civil rights for African Americans, led by Martin Luther King and James Bevel, and People Power in the Philippines.

Also of primary significance is the notion that just means are the most likely to lead to just ends. When Gandhi said that "the means may be likened to the seed, the end to a tree," he expressed the philosophical kernel of what some refer to as prefigurative politics. Martin Luther King, a student of Gandhian nonviolent resistance, concurred with this tenet of the method, concluding that "...nonviolence demands that the means we use must be as pure as the ends we seek." Proponents of nonviolence reason that the actions taken in the present inevitably re-shape the social order in like form. They would argue, for instance, that it is fundamentally irrational to use violence to achieve a peaceful society. People have come to use nonviolent methods of struggle from a wide range of perspectives and traditions. A landless peasant in Brazil may nonviolently occupy a parcel of land for purely practical motivations. If they don't, the family will starve. A Buddhist monk in Thailand may "ordain" trees in a threatened forest, drawing on the teachings of Buddha to resist its destruction. A waterside worker in England may go on strike in socialist and union political traditions. All the above are using nonviolent methods but from different standpoints. Likewise, secular political movements have utilized nonviolence, either as a tactical tool or as a strategic program on purely pragmatic and strategic levels, relying on its political effectiveness rather than a claim to any religious, moral, or ethical worthiness.

Gandhi used the weapon of nonviolence against British Raj

Respect or love for opponents also has a pragmatic justification, in that the technique of separating the deeds from the doers allows for the possibility of the doers changing their behavior, and perhaps their beliefs. Martin Luther King said, "Nonviolence means avoiding not only external physical violence but also internal violence of spirit. You not only refuse to shoot a man, but you refuse to hate him."[citation needed]

Finally, the notion of Satya, or truth, is central to the Gandhian conception of nonviolence. Gandhi saw truth as something that is multifaceted and unable to be grasped in its entirety by any one individual. All carry pieces of the truth, he believed, but all need the pieces of others' truths in order to pursue the greater truth. This led him to believe in the inherent worth of dialogue with opponents, in order to understand motivations. On a practical level, the willingness to listen to another's point of view is largely dependent on reciprocity. In order to be heard by one's opponents, one must also be prepared to listen.[citation needed]

Nonviolence has even obtained a level of institutional recognition and endorsement at the global level. On November 10, 1998, the United Nations General Assembly proclaimed the first decade of the 21st century and the third millennium, the years 2001 to 2010, as the International Decade for the Promotion of a Culture of Peace and Non-Violence for the Children of the World.

[edit] Living

Causes many to consider it an inherent part of human nature, but others (Riane Eisler, Walter Wink, Daniel Quinn) have suggested that violence - or at least the arsenal of violent strategies we take for granted - is a phenomenon of the last five to ten thousand years, and was not present in pre-domestication and early post-domestication human societies. This view shares several characteristics with the Victorian ideal of the Noble savage.

For many, practicing nonviolence goes deeper than withholding from violent behavior or words. It means caring in one's heart for everyone, even those one strongly disagrees with, that is who are antithetical or opposed. For some, this principle entails a commitment to restorative or transformative justice and prison abolition. By extrapolation comes the necessity of caring for those who are not practicing nonviolence, who are violent. Of course no one can simply will themselves to have such care, and this is one of the great personal challenges posed by nonviolence - once one believes in nonviolence in theory, how can the person live it? It requires an opening of the heart and mind to all of existence, and a deep love for all that is. Because we are all interconnected, to love oneself is to love everyone; to hate another is to hate oneself. Because we learn violence, it is necessary to unlearn that violence through practicing love and compassion at every possible opportunity.

[edit] Animal rights

Nonviolence, for many, involves extending it to other animals. This would include the practice of not eating animal flesh (vegetarianism or veganism), religious practices of non-harm to all beings (Jainism, for example), and caring for the welfare of all beings. Mohandas Gandhi, James Bevel, and many other major nonviolent activists practiced and advocated vegetarianism as part of their nonviolent philosophy.

[edit] Methods

Martin Luther King

Nonviolent action generally comprises three categories: Acts of Protest and Persuasion, Noncooperation, and Nonviolent Intervention.[16]

[edit] Acts of protest

Nonviolent acts of protest and persuasion are symbolic actions performed by a group of people to show their support or disapproval of something. The goal of this kind of action is to bring public awareness to an issue, persuade or influence a particular group of people, or to facilitate future nonviolent action. The message can be directed toward the public, opponents, or people affected by the issue. Methods of protest and persuasion include speeches, public communications, petitions, symbolic acts, art, processions (marches), and other public assemblies.[17]

[edit] Noncooperation

Noncooperation involves the purposeful withholding of cooperation or the unwillingness to initiate in cooperation with an opponent. The goal of noncooperation is to halt or hinder an industry, political system, or economic process. Methods of noncooperation include labor strikes, economic boycotts, civil disobedience, tax refusal, and general disobedience.[17]

[edit] Nonviolent intervention

Nonviolent intervention, compared to protest and noncooperation, is a more direct method of nonviolent action. Nonviolent intervention can be used defensively—for example to maintain an institution or independent initiative—or offensively- for example to drastically forward a nonviolent struggle into the opponent's territory. Intervention is often more immediate and effective than the other two methods, but is also harder to maintain and more taxing to the participants involved. Methods of intervention includes occupations (sit-ins), blockades, fasting (hunger strikes), truck cavalcades, and dual sovereignty/parallel government.[17]

Tactics must be carefully chosen, taking into account political and cultural circumstances, and form part of a larger plan or strategy. Gene Sharp, a political scientist and nonviolence activist, has written extensively about methods of nonviolence. In his book "Waging Nonviolent Struggle" he describes 198 methods of nonviolent action.[18] In early Greece, Aristophanes' Lysistrata gives the fictional example of women withholding sexual favors from their husbands until war was abandoned. The deterrence of violent attack and promotion peaceful resolution of conflicts, as a method of intervention across borders, has occurred throughout history with some failures (at least on the level of deterring attack) such as the Human Shields in Iraq because it failed to ascertain the value of the goal compared with the value of human life in its context of war; but also many successes, such as the work of the Guatemala Accompaniment Project[19]. Several non-governmental organizations, including Peace Brigades International and Christian Peacemaker Teams, are working in this area. Their primary tactics are unarmed accompaniment, human rights observation, and reporting.[20][21]

Einstein was a strong supporter of nonviolence

Another powerful tactic of nonviolent intervention invokes public scrutiny of the oppressors as a result of the resisters remaining nonviolent in the face of violent repression. If the military or police attempt to violently repress nonviolent resisters, the power to act shifts from the hands of the oppressors to those of the resisters. If the resisters are persistent, the military or police will be forced to accept the fact that they no longer have any power over the resisters. Often, the willingness of the resisters to suffer has a profound effect on the mind and emotions of the oppressor, leaving them unable to commit such a violent act again.[22][23].

There are also many other leaders and theorists of nonviolence who have thought deeply about the spiritual and practical aspects of nonviolence, including: Leo Tolstoy, Lech Wałęsa, Petra Kelly, Nhat Hanh, Dorothy Day, Ammon Hennacy, Albert Einstein, John Howard Yoder, Stanley Hauerwas, David McReynolds, Johan Galtung, Martin Luther King, Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Percy Shelley, James Bevel, Daniel Berrigan, Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan, Mario Rodríguez Cobos (pen name Silo) and César Chávez.

" We will wear you down by our capacity to suffer."
 

[edit] Green politics

Nonviolence has been a central concept in green political philosophy. It is included in the Global Greens Charter. Greens believe that society should reject the current patterns of violence and embrace nonviolence. Green Philosophy draws heavily on both Gandhi and the Quaker traditions, which advocate measures by which the escalation of violence can be avoided, while not cooperating with those who commit violence. These greens believe that the current patterns of violence are incompatible with a sustainable society because it uses up limited resources and many forms of violence, especially nuclear weapons, are damaging for the environment. Violence also diminishes one and the group.

Some green political parties, like the Dutch GroenLinks, evolved out of the cooperation of the peace movement with the environmental movement in their resistance to nuclear weapons and nuclear energy.

As Green Parties have moved from the fringes of society towards becoming more and more influential in government circles, this commitment to nonviolence has had to be more clearly defined. In many cases, this has meant that the party has had to articulate a position on nonviolence that differentiates itself from classic pacifism. The leader of the German Greens, for example, was instrumental in the NATO intervention in Serbia, arguing that being in favor of nonviolence should never lead to passive acceptance of genocide. Similarly, Elizabeth May of the Green Party of Canada has stated that the Canadian intervention in Afghanistan is justified as a means of supporting women's rights.

This support for military action by Green Party leaders has led to criticism from within its membership in Canada and Germany, because the bombing of Serbia and military movements against the Afghan Taliban are viewed as clear violations of nonviolent principles.

[edit] Revolution

Certain individuals (Barbara Deming, Danilo Dolci, Devere Allen etc.) and party groups (e.g. Committees of Correspondence for Democracy and Socialism, Democratic Socialists of America, Socialist Party USA, Socialist Resistance, Pacifist Socialist Party or War Resisters League) have advocated nonviolent revolution as an alternative to violence as well as elitist reformism. This perspective is usually connected to militant anti-capitalism.[citation needed]

Many leftist and socialist movements have hoped to mount a "peaceful revolution" by organizing enough strikers to completely paralyze it. With the state and corporate apparatus thus crippled, the workers would be able to re-organize society along radically different lines.[citation needed] Some have argued that a relatively nonviolent revolution would require fraternisation with military forces.[25]

[edit] Criticism

Malcolm X criticised nonviolence

Leon Trotsky, Frantz Fanon, Reinhold Niebuhr, Subhash Chandra Bose, George Orwell, Ward Churchill[26] and Malcolm X were fervent critics of nonviolence, arguing variously that nonviolence and pacifism are an attempt to impose the morals of the bourgeoisie upon the proletariat, that violence is a necessary accompaniment to revolutionary change, or that the right to self-defense is fundamental.

In the midst of violent repression of radical African Americans in the United States during the 1960s, Black Panther member George Jackson said of the nonviolent tactics of Martin Luther King, Jr.:

"The concept of nonviolence is a false ideal. It presupposes the existence of compassion and a sense of justice on the part of one's adversary. When this adversary has everything to lose and nothing to gain by exercising justice and compassion, his reaction can only be negative."[27][28]

Malcolm X also clashed with civil rights leaders over the issue of nonviolence, arguing that violence should not be ruled out where no option remained:

"I believe it's a crime for anyone being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself."[29]

Lance Hill criticizes nonviolence as a failed strategy and argues that black armed self-defense and civil violence motivated civil rights reforms more than peaceful appeals to morality and reason (see Lance Hill's "Deacons for Defense")[30].

In his book How Nonviolence Protects the State, anarchist Peter Gelderloos criticizes nonviolence as being ineffective, racist, statist, patriarchal, tactically and strategical inferior to militant activism, and deluded.[31] Gelderloos claims that traditional histories whitewash the impact of nonviolence, ignoring the involvement of militants in such movements as the Indian independence movement and the Civil Rights movement and falsely showing Gandhi and King as being their respective movements' most successful activists.[32] He further argues that nonviolence is generally advocated by privileged white people who expect "oppressed people, many of whom are people of color, to suffer patiently under an inconceivably greater violence, until such time as the Great White Father is swayed by the movement's demands or the pacifists achieve that legendary 'critical mass.'"[33]

Pro-nonviolence protesters at an anti-globalization protest.

The efficacy of nonviolence was also challenged by some anti-capitalist protesters advocating a "diversity of tactics" during street demonstrations across Europe and the US following the anti-World Trade Organization protests in Seattle, Washington in 1999. American feminist writer D. A. Clarke, in her essay "A Woman With A Sword," suggests that for nonviolence to be effective, it must be "practiced by those who could easily resort to force if they chose." This argument reasons that nonviolent tactics will be of little or no use to groups that are traditionally considered incapable of violence, since nonviolence will be in keeping with people's expectations for them and thus go unnoticed. Such is the principle of dunamis (from the Greek: δύνάμις or, restrained power).[citation needed]

[edit] Differing views

The term nonviolence is sometimes used to define different sets of limitations or features, as different actions are considered violent or not violent. In an interview with Radio France International Dawa Tsering, an Additional Secretary in the Department of Information and International Relations of the Tibetan government-in-exile claims that actions of beating people and setting fire to a building with people holed up inside who end up being burnt to death are both scenarios of nonviolence.[34]:

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Ronald Brian Adler, Neil Towne, Looking Out/Looking In: Interpersonal Communication, 9th ed. Harcourt Brace College Publishers, p. 416, 1999. "In the twentieth century, nonviolence proved to be a powerful tool for political change."
  2. ^ Lester R. Kurtz, Jennifer E. Turpin, Encyclopedia of Violence, Peace, and Conflict, p.557, 1999. "In the West, nonviolence is well recognized for its tactical, strategic, or political aspects. It is seen as a powerful tool for redressing social inequality."
  3. ^ Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea, Foreward by Dalai Lama, p. 5-6, Modern Library (April 8, 2008), ISBN-10: 0812974476 "Advocates of nonviolence — dangerous people — have been there throughout history, questioning the greatness of Caesar and Napoleon and the Founding Fathers and Roosevelt and Churchill."
  4. ^ Stanley M. Burstein and Richard Shek: "World History Ancient Civilizations ", page 154. Holt, Rinhart and Winston, 2005. As Chavez once explained, "Nonviolence is not inaction. It is not for the timid or the weak. It is hard work, it is the patience to win."
  5. ^ RP's History Online - Velvet Revolution
  6. ^ a b Ives, Susan (19 October 2001), No Fear, Palo Alto College, http://salsa.net/peace/article38.html, retrieved 2009-05-17 
  7. ^ Chris Graham, Peacebuilding alum talks practical app of nonviolence, Augusta Free Press, October 26, 2009.
  8. ^ Dalai Lama brings message of nonviolence on campus visit
  9. ^ Exiles question Dalai Lama's non-violence, BBC News, March 18, 2008
  10. ^ Sharp, Gene (1973). The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Porter Sargen. p. 12. ISBN 9780875580685. 
  11. ^ Two Kinds of Nonviolent Resistance ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans
  12. ^ a b Nonviolent Resistance & Political Power ~ Civil Rights Movement Veterans (U.S.)
  13. ^ Mark Kurlansky, Nonviolence: The History of a Dangerous Idea‎, p. 7-13, p. 33.
  14. ^ Kristen Madden, Raven Grimassi, Starhawk, Exploring the Pagan Path: Wisdom from the Elders, p. 259, Career Press, 2005 ISBN 1564147886
  15. ^ http://www.koreafocus.or.kr/design2/layout/content_print.asp?group_id=102423
  16. ^ United Nations International Day of Non-Violence,United Nations, 2008. see International Day of Non-Violence.
  17. ^ a b c Sharp, Gene (2005). Waging Nonviolent Struggle. Extending Horizon Books. pp. 50–65. ISBN 0875581625. 
  18. ^ Sharp, Gene (1973), The Methods of Nonviolent Action, Peace magazine, http://peacemagazine.org/198.htm, retrieved 2008-11-07 
  19. ^ Network in Solidarity with the People of Guatemala
  20. ^ "PBI's principles". Peace Brigades International. PBI General Assembly. 1992, 2001. http://www.peacebrigades.org/about-pbi/how-we-work/. Retrieved 2009-05-17. 
  21. ^ "Christian Peace Maker Teams Mission Statement". Christian Peacemaker Team. CPT founding conference. 1986. http://www.cpt.org/about/mission. Retrieved 2009-05-17. 
  22. ^ Sharp, Gene (1973). The Politics of Nonviolent Action. P. Sargent Publisher. p. 657. ISBN 9780875580685. 
  23. ^ Sharp, Gene (2005). Waging Nonviolent Struggle. Extending Horizon Books. p. 381. ISBN 0875581625. 
  24. ^ Life Magazine: Remembering Martin Luther King Jr. 40 Years Later. Time Inc, 2008. Pg 65
  25. ^ Dan Jakopovich: Revolution and the Party in Gramsci's Thought: A Modern Application.
  26. ^ Churchill, Ward et al. Pacifism as Pathology. Arbeiter Ring, 1998.
  27. ^ Jackson, George. Soledad Brother: The Prison Letters of George Jackson. Lawrence Hill Books, 1994. ISBN 1556522304
  28. ^ Walters, Wendy W. At Home in Diaspora. U of Minnesota Press, 2005. ISBN 0816644918
  29. ^ X, Malcolm and Alex Haley:"The Autobiography of Malcolm X", page 366. Grove Press, 1964
  30. ^ The Deacons for Defense:Armed Resistance and the Civil Rights MovementBy Lance Hill, The University of North Carolina Press
  31. ^ Gelderloos, Peter. How Nonviolence Protects the State. Boston: South End Press, 2007.
  32. ^ Ibid., p.7-12.
  33. ^ Ibid., p.23.
  34. ^ "西藏流亡政府回应北京的指控 (Tibetan Government-in-Exile respond to Beijing accusations)" (in Chinese). Radio France International. 2008-04-02. http://www.rfi.fr/actucn/articles/100/article_6734.asp. 

[edit] Further reading

  • ISBN 0-87558-162-5 Waging Nonviolent Struggle: 20th Century Practice And 21st Century Potential by Gene Sharp with collaboration of Joshua Paulson and the assistance of Christopher A. Miller and Hardy Merriman
  • ISBN 0-8166-4193-5 Unarmed Insurrections: People Power Movements in Non-Democracies by Kurt Schock
  • OCLC 03859761 The Kingdom of God is within You by Leo Tolstoy
  • ISBN 1-9307-2235-4 Is There No Other Way? The Search for a Nonviolent Future by Michael Nagler
  • ISBN 1-57766-349-7 Nonviolence in Theory and Practice, 2nd edition, edited by Robert L. Holmes and Barry L. Gan
  • ISBN 0-85283-262-1 People Power and Protest since 1945: A Bibliography of Nonviolent Action, compiled by [April Carter], Howard Clark, and [Michael Randle], online at [1] with updates.
  • ISBN 978-0-903517-21-8 Handbook for Nonviolent Campaigns, War Resisters' International

[edit] External links

Free market

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A free market is a market without economic intervention and regulation by government except to regulate against force or fraud. This is the contemporary use of the terminology used by economists and in popular culture; the term has had other uses historically. A free market economy is an economy where all markets within in it are free. This requires protection of property rights, but no regulation, no subsidization, no government-imposed monopolistic monetary system, and no governmental monopolies. It is the opposite of a controlled market, where the government regulates how the means of production, goods, and services are used, priced, or distributed.

The theory holds that within the ideal free market, property rights are voluntarily exchanged at a price arranged solely by the mutual consent of sellers and buyers. By definition, buyers and sellers do not coerce each other, in the sense that they obtain each other's property rights without the use of physical force, threat of physical force, or fraud, nor are they coerced by a third party (such as by government via transfer payments) [1] and they engage in trade simply because they both consent and believe that what they are getting is worth more than or as much as what they give up. Price is the result of buying and selling decisions en masse as described by the theory of supply and demand.

Free markets contrast sharply with controlled markets or regulated markets, in which governments directly or indirectly regulate prices or supplies, which according to free market theory causes markets to be less efficient.[2] Where government intervention exists, the market is a mixed economy.

In the marketplace the price of a good or service helps communicate consumer demand to producers and thus directs the allocation of resources toward consumer, as well as investor, satisfaction. In a free market, price is a result of a plethora of voluntary transactions, rather than political decree as in a controlled market. Through free competition between vendors for the provision of products and services, prices tend to decrease, and quality tends to increase. A free market is not to be confused with a perfect market where individuals have perfect information and there is perfect competition.

Free market economics is closely associated with laissez-faire economic philosophy, which advocates approximating this condition in the real world by mostly confining government intervention in economic matters to regulating against force and fraud among market participants. Some free market advocates oppose taxation as well, claiming that the market is more efficient at providing all valuable services of which defense and law are no exception, that such services can be provided without direct taxation and that consent would be the basis of political legitimacy making it a morally consistent system. Anarcho-capitalists, for example, would substitute arbitration agencies and private defense agencies.

In social philosophy, a free market economy is a system for allocating goods within a society: purchasing power mediated by supply and demand within the market determines who gets what and what is produced, rather than the state. A free market may refer narrowly to national economies, or internationally; specific reference to international markets is referred to as free trade (for goods) or lack of capital controls (for money). Early proponents of a free-market economy in 18th century Europe contrasted it with the medieval, early modern, and mercantilist economies which preceded it.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Supply and demand

Supply and demand are always equal as they are the two sides of the same set of transactions, and discussions of "imbalances" are a muddled and indirect way of referring to price.[3] However, in an unmeasurable qualitative sense, demand for an item (such as goods or services) refers to the market pressure from people trying to buy it. They will "bid" money for the item, while sellers offer the item for money. When the bid matches the offer, a transaction can easily occur (even automatically, as in a typical stock market). In reality, most shops and markets do not resemble the stock market, and there are significant costs and barriers to "shopping around" (comparison shopping).

When demand exceeds supply, suppliers can raise the price, but when supply exceeds demand, suppliers will have to decrease the price in order to make sales. Consumers who can afford the higher prices may still buy, but others may forgo the purchase altogether, demand a better price, buy a similar item, or shop elsewhere. As the price rises, suppliers may also choose to increase production. Or more suppliers may enter the business.

[edit] Gourmet coffee and electronics as examples of market forces in economics

For example, the gourmet coffee business, pioneered in the US by Starbucks, revealed a demand for high quality fresh coffee. Further, the Starbucks sales growth showed that consumers would pay significantly more for this type of coffee. Other food service retailers, such as McDonald's, Sonic, and Burger King, began offering similar coffee to help satisfy the demand.

Increased supply can indirectly result in lower prices, particularly with computers and other electronic devices. Mass production techniques have been steadily reducing prices 20 to 30% per year since the 1960s.[citation needed] The functions of a multi-million dollar mainframe computer in the 1960s could be performed by a $100 computer in the 2000s.

[edit] Spontaneous order or "Invisible hand"

Friedrich Hayek argues for the classical liberal view that market economies allow spontaneous order; that is, "a more efficient allocation of societal resources than any design could achieve."[4] According to this view, in market economies sophisticated business networks are formed which produce and distribute goods and services throughout the economy. This network was not designed, but emerged as a result of decentralized individual economic decisions. Supporters of the idea of spontaneous order trace their views to the concept of the invisible hand proposed by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations who said that the individual who:

"intends only his own gain is led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of it. By pursuing his own interest [an individual] frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the [common] good." (Wealth of Nations)

Smith pointed out that one does not get one's dinner by appealing to the brother-love of the butcher, the farmer or the baker. Rather one appeals to their self interest, and pays them for their labour.

{{cquote|It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer or the baker, that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own self interest. We address ourselves, not to their humanity but to their self-love, and never talk to them of our own necessities but of their advantages."[5] Supporters of this view claim that spontaneous order is superior to any order that does not allow individuals to make their own choices of what to produce, what to buy, what to sell, and at what prices, due to the number and complexity of the factors involved. They further believe that any attempt to implement central planning will result in more disorder, or a less efficient production and distribution of goods and services.

[edit] Economic equilibrium

General equilibrium theory has demonstrated, with varying degrees of mathematical rigor over time, that under certain conditions of competition, the law of Supply and Demand predominates in this ideal free and competitive market, influencing prices toward an equilibrium that balances the demands for the products against the supplies.[6][7] At these equilibrium prices, the market distributes the products to the purchasers according to each purchaser's preference (or utility) for each product and within the relative limits of each buyer's purchasing power. This result is described as market efficiency, or more specifically a Pareto optimum.

This equilibrating behavior of free markets requires certain assumptions about their agents, collectively known as Perfect Competition, which therefore cannot be results of the market that they create. Among these assumptions are complete information, interchangeable goods and services, and lack of market power, that obviously cannot be fully achieved. The question then is what approximations of these conditions guarantee approximations of market efficiency, and which failures in competition generate overall market failures. Several Nobel Prizes in Economics have been awarded for analyses of market failures due to asymmetric information.

Some models in econophysics[8] have shown that when agents are allowed to interact locally in a free market (ie. their decisions depend not only on utility and purchasing power, but also on their peers' decisions), prices can become unstable and diverge from the equilibrium, often in an abrupt manner.The behavior of the free market is thus said to be non-linear (a pair of agents bargaining for a purchase will agree on a different price than 100 identical pairs of agents doing the identical purchase). Speculation bubbles and the type of herd behavior often observed in stock markets are quoted as real life examples of non-equilibrium price trends. Laissez-faire free-market advocates, especially Austrian school followers, often dismiss this endogenous theory, and blame external influences, such as weather, commodity prices, technological developments, and government meddling for non-equilibrium prices.

[edit] Distribution of wealth

The distribution of purchasing power in an economy depends to a large extent on the nature of government intervention, social class, labor and financial markets, but also on other, lesser factors such as family relationships, inheritance, gifts and so on. Many theories describing the operation of a free market focus primarily on the markets for consumer products, and their description of the labor market or financial markets tends to be more complicated and controversial. The free market can be seen as facilitating a form of decision-making through what is known as dollar voting, where a purchase of a product is tantamount to casting a vote for a producer to continue producing that product.

The effect of economic freedom on society's and individuals' wealth remains a subject of controversy. Kenneth Arrow and Gerard Debreu have shown that under certain idealized conditions, a system of free trade leads to Pareto efficiency, but the traditional Arrow-Debreu paradigm within economics is now being challenged by the new Greenwald-Stiglitz paradigm (1986)[9]. Many advocates of free markets, most notably Milton Friedman, have also argued that there is a direct relationship between economic growth and economic freedom, though this assertion is much harder to prove empirically, as the continuous debates among scholars on methodological issues in empirical studies of the connection between economic freedom and economic growth clearly indicate:[10][11][12]. "there were a few attempts to study relationship between growth and economic freedom prior to the very recent availability of the Fraser data. These were useful but had to use incomplete and subjective variables"[13]. Joshua Epstein and Robert Axtell have attempted to predict the properties of free markets empirically in the agent-based computer simulation "Sugarscape". They came to the conclusion that, again under idealized conditions, free markets lead to a Pareto distribution of wealth[8] .

On the other hand more recent research, especially the one led by Joseph Stiglitz seems to contradict Friedman's conclusions. According to Boettke:

Once incomplete and imperfect information are introduced, Chicago-school defenders of the market system cannot sustain descriptive claims of the Pareto efficiency of the real world. Thus, Stiglitz's use of rational-expectations equilibrium assumptions to achieve a more realistic understanding of capitalism than is usual among rational-expectations theorists leads, paradoxically, to the conclusion that capitalism deviates from the model in a way that justifies state action--socialism--as a remedy.[14]

[edit] Laissez-faire economics

The necessary components for the functioning of an idealized free market include the complete absence of artificial price pressures from taxes, subsidies, tariffs, or government regulation (other than protection from coercion and theft, and no government-granted monopolies (usually classified as coercive monopoly by free market advocates) like the United States Post Office, Amtrak, arguably patents, etc.

[edit] Deregulation

In an absolutely free-market economy, all capital, goods, services, and money flow transfers are unregulated by the government except to stop collusion or fraud that may take place among market participants.[citation needed] As this protection must be funded, such a government taxes only to the extent necessary to perform this function, if at all. This state of affairs is also known as laissez-faire. Internationally, free markets are advocated by proponents of economic liberalism; in Europe this is usually simply called liberalism. In the United States, support for free market is associated most with libertarianism. Since the 1970s, promotion of a global free-market economy, deregulation and privatization, is often described as neoliberalism. The term free market economy is sometimes used to describe some economies that exist today (such as Hong Kong), but pro-market groups would only accept that description if the government practices laissez-faire policies, rather than state intervention in the economy.[specify] An economy that contains significant economic interventionism by government, while still retaining some characteristics found in a free market is often called a mixed economy.

[edit] Low barriers to entry

A free market does not require the existence of competition, however it does require that there are no barriers to new market entrants. Hence, in the lack of coercive barriers it is generally understood that competition flourishes in a free market environment. It often suggests the presence of the profit motive, although neither a profit motive or profit itself are necessary for a free market. All modern free markets are understood to include entrepreneurs, both individuals and businesses. Typically, a modern free market economy would include other features, such as a stock exchange and a financial services sector, but they do not define it.

[edit] Legal tender and taxes

In a truly free market economy, money would not be monopolized by legal tender laws or by a central bank, in order to receive taxes from the transactions or to be able to issue loans.[citation needed] Minarchists (advocates of minimal government) contend that the so called "coercion" of taxes is essential for the market's survival, and a market free from taxes may lead to no market at all. By definition, there is no market without private property, and private property can only exist while there is an entity that defines and defends it. Traditionally, the State defends private property and defines it by issuing ownership titles, and also nominates the central authority to print or mint currency. "Free market anarchists" disagree with the above assessment – they maintain that private property and free markets can be protected by voluntarily-funded services under the concept of individualist anarchism and anarcho-capitalism[15][16]. A free market could be defined alternatively as a tax-free market, independent of any central authority, which uses as medium of exchange such as money, even in the absence of the State. It is disputed, however, whether this hypothetical stateless market could function.

[edit] Ethical justification

The ethical justification of free markets takes two forms. One appeals to the intrinsic moral superiority of autonomy and freedom (in the market), see deontology. The other is a form of consequentialism—a belief that decentralised planning by a multitude of individuals making free economic decisions produces better results in regard to a more organized, efficient, and productive economy, than does a centrally-planned economy where a central agency decides what is produced, and allocates goods by non-price mechanisms. An older version of this argument is the metaphor of the Invisible Hand, familiar from the work of Adam Smith.

Modern theories of self-organization say the internal organization of a system can increase automatically without being guided or managed by an outside source. When applied to the market, as an ethical justification, these theories appeal to its intrinsic value as a self-organising entity. Other philosophies such as some forms of Individualist anarchism (especially that of that 19th century) and Mutualism (economic theory) anarchism believe that in a free market competition would cause prices of goods and services to align with the labor embodied in those things. This goes against the contemporary mainstream view, which is held by most contemporary individualist anarchists, that prices would accord to the marginal utility of these things irrespective of the labor embodied in them.

[edit] Index of economic freedom

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, tried to identify the key factors which allow to measure the degree of freedom of economy of a particular country. In 1986 they introduced Index of Economic Freedom, which is based on some fifty variables. This and other similar indices do not define a free market, but measure the degree to which a modern economy is free, meaning in most cases free of state intervention. The variables are divided into the following major groups:

  • Trade policy,
  • Fiscal burden of government,
  • Government intervention in the economy,
  • Monetary policy,
  • Capital flows and foreign investment,
  • Banking and finance,
  • Wages and prices,
  • Property rights,
  • Regulation, and
  • Informal market activity.

Each group is assigned a numerical value between 1 and 5; IEF is the arithmetical mean of the values, rounded to the hundredth. Initially, countries which were traditionally considered capitalistic received high ratings, but the method improved over time. Some economists, like Milton Friedman and other Laissez-faire economists have argued that there is a direct relationship between economic growth and economic freedom, but this assertion has not been proven yet, both theoretically and empirically. Continuous debates among scholars on methodological issues in empirical studies of the connection between economic freedom and economic growth still try to find out what is the relationship, if any.[10][11][12].[13].

"In recent years a significant amount of work has been devoted to the investigation of a possible connection between the political system and economic growth. For a variety of reasons there is no consensus about that relationship, especially not about the direction of causality, if any." (AYAL & KARRAS, 1998, p.2)[13]

[edit] History and ideology

The meaning of "free" market has varied over time and between economists, the ambiguous term "free" facilitating reuse. To illustrate the ambiguity: classical economists such as Adam Smith believed that an economy should be free of monopoly rents, while proponents of laissez faire believe that people should be free to form monopolies. In this article "free market" is largely identified with laissez faire, though alternative senses are discussed in this section and in criticism. The identification of the "free market" with "laissez faire" was notably used in the 1962 Capitalism and Freedom, by economist Milton Friedman, which is credited with popularizing this usage.[17]

Some theorists might argue that a free market is a natural form of social organization, and that a free market will arise in any society where it is not obstructed (ie Ludwig von Mises, Hayek). The consensus among economic historians is that the free market economy is a specific historic phenomenon, and that it emerged in late medieval and early-modern Europe.[citation needed] Other economic historians see elements of the free market in the economic systems of Classical Antiquity,[citation needed] and in some non-western societies.[citation needed] By the 19th century the market certainly had organized political support, in the form of laissez-faire liberalism. However, it is not clear if the support preceded the emergence of the market or followed it. Some historians see it as the result of the success of early liberal ideology, combined with the specific interests of the entrepreneur.

Support for the free market as an ordering principle of society is above all associated with liberalism, especially during the 19th century. (In Europe, the term 'liberalism' retains its connotation as the ideology of the free market, but in American and Canadian usage it came to be associated with government intervention, and acquired a pejorative meaning for supporters of the free market.) Later ideological developments, such as minarchism, libertarianism and Objectivism also support the free market, and insist on its pure form. Although the Western world shares a generally similar form of economy, usage in the United States and Canada is to refer to this as capitalism, while in Europe 'free market' is the preferred neutral term. Modern liberalism (American and Canadian usage), and in Europe social democracy, seek only to mitigate the problems of an unrestrained free market, and accept its existence as such.

[edit] Classical economics

In the classical economics of such figures as Adam Smith and David Ricardo, "free markets" meant "free of unnecessary charges"[18] and a "market free from monopoly power, business fraud, political insider dealing and special privileges for vested interests".[19] A "free market" particularly meant one free of foreign debt;[20] as discussed in The Wealth of Nations.[21] Alternatively, stated, it was a market freed from Feudalism and serfdom, or more formally, one free of economic rent, in the formulation by David Ricardo of the Law of Rent.

[edit] Marxism

In Marxist theory, the idea of the free market simply expresses the underlying long-term transition from feudalism to capitalism. Note that the views on this issue - emergence or implementation - do not necessarily correspond to pro-market and anti-market positions. Libertarians would dispute that the market was enforced through government policy, since they believe it is a spontaneous order and Marxists agree with them because they as well believe it is evolutionary, although with a different end.

[edit] Liberalism

Support for the free market as an ordering principle of society is above all associated with liberalism, especially during the 19th century. (In Europe, the term 'liberalism' retains its connotation as the ideology of the free market, but in American and Canadian usage it came to be associated with government intervention, and acquired a pejorative meaning for supporters of the free market.) Later ideological developments, such as minarchism, libertarianism and Objectivism also support the free market, and insist on its pure form. Although the Western world shares a generally similar form of economy, usage in the United States and Canada is to refer to this as capitalism, while in Europe 'free market' is the preferred neutral term. Modern liberalism (American and Canadian usage), and in Europe social democracy, seek only to mitigate what they see as the problems of an unrestrained free market, and accept its existence as such.

To most libertarians, there is simply no free market yet, given the degree of state intervention in even the most 'capitalist' of countries. From their perspective, those who say they favor a "free market" are speaking in a relative, rather than an absolute, sense—meaning (in libertarian terms) they wish that coercion be kept to the minimum that is necessary to maximize economic freedom (such necessary coercion would be taxation, for example) and to maximize market efficiency by lowering trade barriers, making the tax system neutral in its influence on important decisions such as how to raise capital, e.g., eliminating the double tax on dividends so that equity financing is not at a disadvantage vis-a-vis debt financing. However, there are some such as anarcho-capitalists who would not even allow for taxation and governments, instead preferring protectors of economic freedom in the form of private contractors.

[edit] Criticism

Critics dispute the claim that in practice free markets create perfect competition, or even increase market competition over the long run. Whether the marketplace should be or is free is disputed; many assert that government intervention is necessary to remedy market failure that is held to be an inevitable result of absolute adherence to free market principles. These failures range from military services to roads, and some would argue, to health care. This is the central argument of those who argue for a mixed market, free at the base, but with government oversight to control social problems.

Another criticism is definitional, in that far-ranging governmental actions such as the creation of corporate personhood or more broadly, the governmental actions behind the very creation of artificial legal entities called corporations, are not considered "intervention" within mainstream economic schools. This inherent definitional bias allows many to advocate strong governmental actions that promote corporate power, while advocating against government actions limiting it, while putting these dual positions under the umbrella of "pro free markets" or "anti-intervention."

Critics of laissez-faire since Adam Smith[22] variously see the unregulated market as an impractical ideal or as a rhetorical device that puts the concepts of freedom and anti-protectionism at the service of vested wealthy interests, allowing them to attack labor laws and other protections of the working classes.[23]

Because no national economy in existence fully manifests the ideal of a free market as theorized by economists, some critics of the concept consider it to be a fantasy - outside of the bounds of reality in a complex system with opposing interests and different distributions of wealth.

These critics range from those who reject markets entirely, in favour of a planned economy or a communal economy, such as that advocated by Marxism, to those who merely wish to see market failures regulated to various degrees or supplemented by certain government interventions. For example, Keynesians recognize a role for government in providing corrective measures, such as use of fiscal policy for economy stimulus, when decisions in the private sector lead to suboptimal economic outcomes, such as depression or recession, which manifest in widespread hardship. Business cycle theory is used by Keynes to explain 'liquidity traps' by which underconsumption occurs, in order to argue for government intervention with central banking. Free market economists consider this credit-expansion as the cause of the business cycle in refutation of this Keynesian criticism.

[edit] Externalities

One practical objection is the claim that markets do not take into account externalities (effects of transactions that affect third parties), such as the negative effects of pollution or the positive effects of education. What exactly constitutes an externality may be up for debate, including the extent to which it changes based upon the political climate.

Some proponents of market economies believe that governments should not diminish market freedom because they disagree on what is a market externality and what are government-created externalities, and disagree over what the appropriate level of intervention is necessary to solve market-created externalities. Others believe that government should intervene to prevent market failure while preserving the general character of a market economy. In the model of a social market economy the state intervenes where the market does not meet political demands. John Rawls was a prominent proponent of this idea.

[edit] Differing Ideas of the Free Market

Some advocates of free market ideologies have criticized mainstream conceptions of the free market, arguing that a truly free market would not resemble the modern-day capitalist economy. For example, contemporary mutualist Kevin Carson argues in favor of "free market anti-capitalism." Carson has stated that "From Smith to Ricardo and Mill, classical liberalism was a revolutionary doctrine that attacked the privileges of the great landlords and the mercantile interests. Today, we see vulgar libertarians perverting "free market" rhetoric to defend the contemporary institution that most closely resembles, in terms of power and privilege, the landed oligarchies and mercantilists of the Old Regime: the giant corporation." [24]

Carson believes that a true free market society would be "[a] world in which... land and property [is] widely distributed, capital [is] freely available to laborers through mutual banks, productive technology [is] freely available in every country without patents, and every people [is] free to develop locally without colonial robbery..."[25]

[edit] Martin J. Whitman

Not all advocates of capitalism consider free markets to be practical. For example, Martin J. Whitman has written, in a discussion of Keynes, Friedman and Hayek, that these "…great economists…missed a lot of details that are part and parcel of every value investor's daily life." While calling Hayek "100% right" in his critique of the pure command economy, he writes "However, in no way does it follow, as many Hayek disciples seem to believe, that government is per se bad and unproductive while the private sector is, per se good and productive. In well-run industrial economies, there is a marriage between government and the private sector, each benefiting from the other." As illustrations of this, he points at "Japan after World War II, Singapore and the other Asian Tigers, Sweden and China. The notable exception is Hong Kong which found prosperity on an extremely austere free market concept.

He argues, in particular, for the value of government-provided credit and of carefully crafted tax laws.[26] Further, Whitman argues (explicitly against Hayek) that "a free market situation is probably also doomed to failure if there exist control persons who are not subject to external disciplines imposed by various forces over and above competition." The lack of these disciplines, says Whitman, lead to "1. Very exorbitant levels of executive compensation… 2. Poorly financed businesses with strong prospects for money defaults on credit instruments… 3. Speculative bubbles… 4. Tendency for industry competition to evolve into monopolies and oligopolies… 5. Corruption." For all of these he provides recent examples from the U.S. economy, which he considers to be in some respects under-regulated,[26] although in other respects over-regulated (he is generally opposed to Sarbanes-Oxley).[27]

He believes that an apparently "free" relationship—that between a corporation and its investors and creditors—is actually a blend of "voluntary exchanges" and "coercion". For example, there are "voluntary activities, where each individual makes his or her own decision whether to buy, sell, or hold" but there are also what he defines as "[c]oercive activities, where each individual security holder is forced to go along…provided that a requisite majority of other security holders so vote…" His examples of the latter include proxy voting, most merger and acquisition transactions, certain cash tender offers, and reorganization or liquidation in bankruptcy.[28] Whitman also states that "Corporate America would not work at all unless many activities continued to be coercive."[29]

"I am one with Professor Friedman that, other things being equal, it is far preferable to conduct economic activities through voluntary exchange relying on free markets rather than through coercion. But Corporate America would not work at all unless many activities continued to be coercive."[30]

[edit] See also

[edit] Contrast

[edit] Notes

  1. ^ "Free Market." Rothbard, Murray. The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics
  2. ^ Dictionary of Finance and Investment Terms. Barrons, 1995
  3. ^ http://www.donsheelen.org/page14.aspx
  4. ^ Hayek cited. Petsoulas, Christian. Hayek's Liberalism and Its Origins: His Idea of Spontaneous Order and the Scottish Enlightenment. Routledge. 2001. p. 2
  5. ^ Smith, Adam, "2", Wealth of Nations, 1, London: W. Strahan and T. Cadell, http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Smith/smWN1.html#B.I%2C%20Ch.2%2C%20Of%20the%20Principle%20which%20gives%20Occasion%20to%20the%20Division%20of%20Labour%2C%20benevolence 
  6. ^ , by Eugene Walras
  7. ^ Theory of Value, by Gerard Debreu
  8. ^ a b Critical Mass - Ball, Philip, ISBN 0-09-945786-5
  9. ^ GREENWALD, Bruce and STIGLITZ, Joseph E. 1986 Externalities in Economies with Imperfect Information and Incomplete Markets, Quarterly Journal of Economics, no. 90.
  10. ^ a b COLE, Julio H. and LAWSON, Robert A. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions: Suggestions for Clarification. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp 71–78.
  11. ^ a b DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan-Egbert. How to Handle Economic Freedom: Reply to Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 3, Number 3, September 2006, pp 407–411.
  12. ^ a b DE HAAN, Jacob and STURM, Jan-Egbert. Handling Economic Freedom in Growth Regressions: A Reply to Cole and Lawson. Econ Journal Watch, Volume 4, Number 1, January 2007, pp 79–82.
  13. ^ a b c AYAL, Eliezer B. and KARRAS, Georgios. Components of Economic Freedom and Growth. Journal of Developing Areas, Vol.32, No.3, Spring 1998, 327-338. Publisher: Western Illinois University.
  14. ^ BOETTKE, Peter J. What Went Wrong with Economics?, Critical Review Vol. 11, No. 1, P. 35. p. 58
  15. ^ Biography of Murray N. Rothbard (1926–1995)
  16. ^ The Machinery of Freedom
  17. ^ Who Broke America's Jobs Machine? by Barry C. Lynn and Phillip Longman, the Washington Monthly
  18. ^ The Fictitious Economy, Part 1, An Interview With Dr. Michael Hudson, by Bonnie Faulkner with Michael Hudson, 07/15/2008
  19. ^ This interpretation is advanced in The Language of Looting, Michael Hudson
  20. ^ The Financial War Against Iceland, Michael Hudson
  21. ^ The Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith, Book V, Chapter 3: of Public Debts
  22. ^ "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices."--Wealth of Nations, I.x.c.27 (Part II)
  23. ^ "Masters are always and everywhere in a sort of tacit, but constant and uniform combination, not to raise the wages of labour above their actual rate… [When workers combine,] masters… never cease to call aloud for the assistance of the civil magistrate, and the rigorous execution of those laws which have been enacted with so much severity against the combinations of servants, labourers, and journeymen."--Adam Smith, Wealth of Nations, I.viii.13
  24. ^ Kevin Carson, Naomi Klein: The Shock Doctrine November 7, 2007
  25. ^ Kevin Carson, The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism as a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege
  26. ^ a b Kevin Carson, The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand: Corporate Capitalism as a State-Guaranteed System of Privilege, p. 4
  27. ^ Martin J. Whitman, Third Avenue Value Fund Letters to our Shareholders July 31, 2004 (PDF), page 2.
  28. ^ Martin J. Whitman, Third Avenue Value Fund Letters to our Shareholders July 31, 2004 (PDF), page 5.
  29. ^ Martin J. Whitman, Third Avenue Value Fund letter to shareholders October 31, 2005. p.6.
  30. ^ Martin J. Whitman, Third Avenue Value Fund letter to shareholders October 31, 2005. p.5-6.

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Violence

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U.N. rates of physical violence resulting in death, per 100,000 inhabitants by country in 2004.[1]
     no data      less than 200      200-400      400-600      600-800      800-1000      1000-1200      1200-1400      1400-1600      1600-1800      1800-2000      2000-3000      more than 3000

Violence is the expression of physical or verbal force against self or other, compelling action against one's will on pain of being hurt.[2][3][4] Worldwide, violence is used as a tool of manipulation and also is an area of concern for law and culture which take attempts to suppress and stop it. The word violence covers a broad spectrum. It can vary from between a physical altercation between two beings where a slight injury may be the outcome to war and genocide where millions may die as a result.

Contents

[hide]

[edit] Psychology and sociology

The causes of violent behavior in humans are often topics of research in psychology and sociology. Neurobiologist Jan Volavka emphasizes that for those purposes, "violent behavior is defined as overt and intentional physically aggressive behavior against another person."[5]

or agree on whether violence is inherent in humans. Among prehistoric humans, there is archaeological evidence for both contentions of violence and peacefulness as primary characteristics.[6]

Since violence is a matter of perception as well as a measurable phenomenon, psychologists have found variability in whether people perceive certain physical acts as 'violent'. For example, in a state where execution is a legalised punishment we do not typically perceive the executioner as 'violent', though we may talk, in a more metaphorical way, of the state acting violently. Likewise understandings of violence are linked to a perceived aggressor-victim relationship: hence psychologists have shown that people may not recognise defensive use of force as aggressive or violent at all, even in cases where the amount of force used is significantly greater than in the original aggression.[7]

Riane Eisler, who describes early cooperative, egalitarian societies (she coins the term "gylanic", as it is widely agreed that the term matriarchal is inaccurate), and Walter Wink, who coined the phrase "the myth of redemptive violence," suggest that human violence, especially as organized in groups, is a phenomenon of the last five to ten thousand years.[citation needed]

The "violent male ape" image is often brought up in discussions of human violence. Dale Peterson and Richard Wrangham in "Demonic Males: Apes and the Origins of Human Violence" write that violence is inherent in humans. However, William L. Ury, editor of a book called "Must We Fight? From the Battlefield to the Schoolyard—A New Perspective on Violent Conflict and Its Prevention" debunks the "killer ape" myth in his book which brings together discussions from two Harvard Law School symposiums. The conclusion is that "we also have lots of natural mechanisms for cooperation, to keep conflict in check, to channel aggression, and to overcome conflict. These are just as natural to us as the aggressive tendencies."[8]

James Gilligan writes violence is often pursued as an antidote to shame or humiliation.[9] The use of violence often is a source of pride and a defence of honor, especially among males who often believe violence defines manhood.[10]

Stephen Pinker in a New Republic article "The History of Violence" offers evidence that on the average the amount and cruelty of violence to humans and animals has decreased over the last few centuries.[11]

[edit] Gender and Crime

"Criminological studies have traditionally ignored half the population: Women are largely invisible in both theoretical considerations and empirical studies. Since the 1970's, important feminist works have noted the way in which criminal transgressions by women occur in different contexts from those by men and how women experiences with the criminal justice system are influenced by gendered assumptions about appropriate male and female roles. Feminists have also highlighted the prevalence of violence against women, both at home and in public."[12]

Of all crimes reported in 2006, 76.2 percent of arestees were men and also there was a huge imbalance in the ratio of men to women in prison. In 2004, women only made up 7.1 percent of the prison population.[13]

Crimes against women Men are overwhelmingly the aggressors in certain categories of crime such as domestic violence, sexual harassment, sexual assault, and rape. Women are mostly the victims in these categories. Although they have been practiced by women against men, they remain almost exclusively crimes against women. It is estimated that women are one quarter of the victims of violence at some point.[14]



[edit] Youth and Crime

Official crime statistics reveal high rates of offense among young people. These offenses include rape, assault, and theft. About 34 percent of all offenders arrested for criminal offenses in 2006 were under the age of twenty-one (Federal Bureau of Investigations 2007b). Rising crime rates are often directly related to the moral breakdown among young people and vandalism, school truancy, and drug use, which illustrates societies increasing permissiveness. The mass murder at Columbine High School is an example of how moral outrage can deflect attention from larger issues. [15]


A case was recently closed regarding a youth crime that happened last June in Iowa. Mark Becker walked into a gym class and shot his teacher six times, leaving him dead. Becker was charged with first degree murder, and pleaded not guilty with reasoning being insanity. He was found guilty, and that charge carries a life sentence in jail. Insanity is one reason for youth crime, but other sociological reasons could be bullying by other students or parental neglect at home.

According to the book, The Effects of Race and Family Attachment on Self Esteem, Self Control, and Delinquency, children who are raised by both parents and receive proper affection are more than likely to grow into a non-violent individual. It is believed that a child needs to bond with their parents during the early ages of childhood. As a result, the child has a higher chance of not growing into a violent person. Many children who do not receive the affection they need from their parents often turn to other sources to fill that void with a common source being a gang.

Gang violence is something that has been around for decades. Many different individuals are apart of gangs, some with similar needs. The need to feel wanted or needed is common. 94% of the individuals who occupy gangs are male with 37% of those who are affiliated are under the age of 18. Of the 94% of those males who are affiliated with a gang, 47% are Hispanic and 31% are African-American. If you pay careful attention you will understand why this is. African American men occupy 10.4% of the prison system. These fathers locked away are unable to care for their children, leading them to continue the cycle. In 2000 there were 791,600 African American men in prison and 603,032 enrolled in college. In 1980, there were 143,000 black men in prison and 463,700 enrolled in college. These statistics have swayed the other way however. According to 2005 Census Bureau statistics, the male African-American population of the United States aged between 18 and 24 numbered 1,896,000. According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, 106,000 African-Americans in this age group were in federal or state prisons at the end of 2005. If you add the numbers in local jail (measured in mid-2006), you arrive at a grand total of 193,000 incarcerated young Black males, or slightly over 10 percent. According to the same census data, 530,000 of these African-American males, or twenty eight percent, were enrolled in colleges or universities (including two-year-colleges) in 2005. That is five times the number of young black men in federal and state prisons and two and a half times the total number incarcerated. If you expanded the age group to include African-American males up to thirty or thirty five, the college attendees would still outnumber the prisoners.

[edit] Diagnosis of psychiatric disorder

The American Psychiatric Association planning and research committees for the forthcoming DSM-V (2012) have canvassed a series of new Relational disorders which include Marital Conflict Disorder Without Violence or Marital Abuse Disorder (Marital Conflict Disorder With Violence).[16] Couples with marital disorders sometimes come to clinical attention because the couple recognize long-standing dissatisfaction with their marriage and come to the clinician on their own initiative or are referred by an astute health care professional. Secondly, there is serious violence in the marriage which is -"usually the husband battering the wife" .[17] In these cases the emergency room or a legal authority often is the first to notify the clinician. Most importantly, marital violence "is a major risk factor for serious injury and even death and women in violent marriages are at much greater risk of being seriously injured or killed (National Advisory Council on Violence Against Women 2000)."[18] The authors of this study add that "There is current considerable controversy over whether male-to-female marital violence is best regarded as a reflection of male psychopathology and control or whether there is an empirical base and clinical utility for conceptualizing these patterns as relational."[18]

Recommendations for clinicians making a diagnosis of Marital Relational Disorder should include the assessment of actual or "potential" male violence as regularly as they assess the potential for suicide in depressed patients. Further, "clinicians should not relax their vigilance after a battered wife leaves her husband, because some data suggest that the period immediately following a marital separation is the period of greatest risk for the women. Many men will stalk and batter their wives in an effort to get them to return or punish them for leaving. Initial assessments of the potential for violence in a marriage can be supplemented by standardized interviews and questionnaires, which have been reliable and valid aids in exploring marital violence more systematically."[18]

The authors can conclude with what they call "very recent information"[19] on the course of violent marriages which suggests that "over time a husband's battering may abate somewhat, but perhaps because he has successfully intimidated his wife. The risk of violence remains strong in a marriage in which it has been a feature in the past. Thus, treatment is essential here; the clinician cannot just wait and watch."[19] The most urgent clinical priority is the protection of the wife because she is the one most frequently at risk, and clinicians must be aware that supporting assertiveness by a battered wife may lead to more beatings or even death.[19]

It is also important to this topic to understand the paradoxical effects of some sedative drugs.[20] Serious complications can occur in conjunction with the use of sedatives creating the opposite effect as to that intended. Malcolm Lader at the Institute of Psychiatry in London estimates the incidence of these adverse reactions at about 5%, even in short-term use of the drugs.[21] The paradoxical reactions may consist of depression, with or without suicidal tendencies, phobias, aggressiveness, violent behavior and symptoms sometimes misdiagnosed as psychosis.[22][23]

[edit] Law

One of the main functions of law is to regulate violence.[24]

Sociologist Max Weber stated that the state claims, for better or worse, a monopoly on legitimate violence practiced within the confines of a specific territory. Law enforcement is the main means of regulating nonmilitary violence in society. Governments regulate the use of violence through legal systems governing individuals and political authorities, including the police and military. Civil societies authorize some amount violence, exercised through the police power, to maintain the status quo and enforce laws.

However, German political theorist Hannah Arendt noted: "Violence can be justifiable, but it never will be legitimate ... Its justification loses in plausibility the farther its intended end recedes into the future. No one questions the use of violence in self-defence, because the danger is not only clear but also present, and the end justifying the means is immediate".[25] In the 20th century in acts of democide governments may have killed more than 260 million of their own people through police brutality, execution, massacre, slave labor camps, and through sometimes intentional famine.[26]

Violent acts that are not carried out by the military or police and that are not in self-defence are usually classified as crimes, although not all crimes are violent crimes. Damage to property is classified as violent crime in some jurisdictions but not in others. It is usually considered a less serious offense unless the damage injures, or potentially could injure, others. Unpremeditated or small-scale acts of random violence or coordinated violence by unsanctioned private groups usually are prosecuted. While most societies condone the killing of animals for food and sport, increasingly they have adopted more laws against animal cruelty.[citation needed]

The Federal Bureau of Investigation classifies violence resulting in homicide into criminal homicide and justifiable homicide (e.g. self defense).[27]

[edit] War

War is a state of prolonged violence, large-scale conflict involving two or more groups of people, usually under the auspices of government. War is fought as a means of resolving territorial and other conflicts, as war of aggression to conquer territory or loot resources, in national self-defense, or to suppress attempts of part of the nation to secede from it.[citation needed]

Since the Industrial Revolution, the lethality of modern warfare has steadily grown. World War I casualties were over 40 million and World War II casualties were over 70 million.

Nevertheless, some hold the actual deaths from war have decreased compared to past centuries. In War Before Civilization, Lawrence H. Keeley, a professor at the University of Illinois, calculates that 87% of tribal societies were at war more than once per year, and some 65% of them were fighting continuously. The attrition rate of numerous close-quarter clashes, which characterize endemic warfare, produces casualty rates of up to 60%, compared to 1% of the combatants as is typical in modern warfare.[28] Stephen Pinker agrees, writing that "in tribal violence, the clashes are more frequent, the percentage of men in the population who fight is greater, and the rates of death per battle are higher."[29]

Jared Diamond in his award-winning books, Guns, Germs and Steel and The Third Chimpanzee provides sociological and anthropological evidence for the rise of large scale warfare as a result of advances in technology and city-states. The rise of agriculture provided a significant increase in the number of individuals that a region could sustain over hunter-gatherer societies, allowing for development of specialized classes such as soldiers, or weapons manufacturers. On the other hand, tribal conflicts in hunter-gatherer societies tend to result in wholesale slaughter of the opposition (other than perhaps females of child-bearing years) instead of territorial conquest or slavery, presumably as hunter-gatherer numbers could not sustain empire-building.[citation needed]

[edit] Religious and political ideology

1819 anti-Semitic riots in Frankfurt. On the left, two peasant women are assaulting a Jew with pitchfork and broom. On the right, a man wearing spectacles, tails, and a six-button waistcoat, "perhaps a pharmacist or a schoolteacher,"[30] holds another Jew by the throat and is about to club him with a truncheon. A contemporary engraving by Johann Michael Voltz.

Religious and political ideologies have been the cause of interpersonal violence throughout history.[31] Ideologues often falsely accuse others of violence, such as the ancient blood libel against Jews, the medieval accusations of casting witchcraft spells against women, caricatures of black men as "violent brutes" that helped excuse the late nineteenth century Jim Crow laws in the United States,[32] and modern accusations of satanic ritual abuse against day care center owners and others.[33]

Both supporters and opponents of the twenty-first century War on Terrorism regard it largely as an ideological and religious war.[34]

Vittorio Bufacchi describes two different modern concepts of violence, one the "minimalist conception" of violence as an intentional act of excessive or destructive force, the other the "comprehensive conception" which includes violations of rights, including a long list of human needs.[35]

Anti-capitalists assert that capitalism is violent. They believe private property, trade, interest and profit survive only because police violence defends them and that capitalist economies need war to expand.[36] They may use the term "structural violence" to describe the systematic ways in which a given social structure or institution kills people slowly by preventing them from meeting their basic needs, for example the deaths caused by diseases because of lack of medicine.[37] Free market supporters argue that it is violently enforced state laws intervening in markets - state capitalism - which cause many of the problems anti-capitalists attribute to structural violence.[38]

Frantz Fanon critiqued the violence of colonialism and wrote about the counter violence of the "colonized victims."[39][40][41]

Throughout history, most religions and individuals like Mahatma Gandhi have preached that humans are capable of eliminating individual violence and organizing societies through purely nonviolent means. Gandhi himself once wrote: "A society organized and run on the basis of complete non-violence would be the purest anarchy."[42] Modern political ideologies which espouse similar views include pacifist varieties of voluntarism, mutualism, anarchism and libertarianism.

[edit] Health and prevention

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines violence as "Injury inflicted by deliberate means", which includes assault, as well as "legal intervention, and self-harm".[43] The World Health Organization ( "WHO") in its first World Report on Violence and Health defined violence as "the intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment or deprivation."[44]

WHO estimates that each year around 1.6 million lives are lost worldwide due to violence. It is among the leading causes of death for people ages 15–44, especially of males.[45]

Recent estimates for murders per year in various countries include: 55,000 murders in Brazil,[46] 25,000 murders in Colombia,[47] 20,000 murders in South Africa, 15,000 murders in Mexico, 14,000 murders in the United States,[48] 11,000 murders in Venezuela, 8,000 murders in Russia, 6,000 murders in El Salvador, 1,600 murders in Jamaica,[49] 1000 murders in France, 500 murders in Canada, and 200 murders in Chile.[50]

[edit] Sports violence

Sports violence is defined as a behavior which causes harm, occurs outside the rules of the sport, and is unrelated to the competitive objectives of the sport. Violence is most prevalent in team contact sports such as, ice hockey hockey football, and rugby.Violence in sports are very dangerous at times Both in fabrication and reality, violence is integrated into sporting events. This was very prevalent in Greece during the Olympic games where Wrestling and Boxing was an entertaining sport, many people would fight to the death in these spectacles. An even more well known and notorious example is in Rome where Gladiators would fight animals and other Gladiators until someone was killed in the process, also in theatre a scene that called for a person to be killed in a violent manner, they would indeed kill an actor or a step-in. In Asia, martial arts became both a sport and a way of life for followers. Currently, Boxing, Professional Wrestling, Various Martial Arts and Mixed Martial Arts are a set of violent sports that have become forms of entertainment worldwide.

Criminal violence includes acts of violence that are extreme, severe and clearly not acceptable. This type of violence is seen as violating social norms of particular sports.

[edit] Violence in the media

[edit] Historical examples of violence

Acts of violence are commonly found in historical record. The following is an incomplete list of some of the more large-scale examples of violence in history.

- Caesar's campaigns. As many as 1 million people (probably 1 in 4 of the Gauls) died, another million were enslaved, 300 tribes were subjugated and 800 cities were destroyed during the Gallic Wars (present-day France). The entire population of city of Avaricum (Bourges) (40,000 in all) was slaughtered.[51] During Julius Caesar's campaign against the Helvetii (modern-day Switzerland) approximately 60% of the tribe was destroyed, and another 20% was taken into slavery.[52]

- Boudica's uprising. Boudica (d. 60/61AD) was a queen of the Celtic Iceni people of Norfolk in Roman-occupied Britain who led a major uprising of the tribes against the occupying forces of the Roman Empire. They destroyed Camulodunum (Colchester, a settlement for discharged Roman soldiers), Londinium (London) and Verulamium (St Albans). In the three cities destroyed, between 70,000 and 80,000 people are said to have been killed. Tacitus says the Britons had no interest in taking or selling prisoners, only in slaughter by gibbet, fire or cross. Cassius Dio's account gives more prurient detail: that the noblest women were impaled on spikes and had their breasts cut off and sewn to their mouths, "to the accompaniment of sacrifices, banquets, and wanton behaviour" in sacred places, particularly the groves of Andraste.[53][54]

- Albigensian Crusade. The Albigensian Crusade or Cathar Crusade (1209–1229) was a 20-year military campaign initiated by the Pope Innocent III of the Roman Catholic Church to eliminate the heresy of the Cathars of Languedoc. Béziers was a Languedoc stronghold of Catharism and the first city to be sacked, on July 22, 1209. In the bloody massacre which followed, no one was spared, not even those who took refuge in the churches. The commander of the Crusade was the Papal Legate Arnaud-Amaury (or Arnald Amalaricus, Abbot of Citeaux). When asked by a Crusader how to distinguish between the Catholics and Cathars once they'd taken the city, the abbot famously replied, "Kill them all, God will know His own" - "Neca eos omnes. Deus suos agnoscet".[55] According to "Caesarius of Heisterbach: Medieval Heresies," after the city was taken, at a cost in life of thousands of defenders, about 450 heretics were "examined" by the inquisitors and many of them claimed to be good Catholics rather than being heretics. Fearing the possibility that these were lying, must have caused the infamous phrase to first be uttered.[56] In the end, the Albigensian Crusade killed an estimated 1,000,000 people, not only Cathars but much of the population of southern France.[57]

- Mongol Empire. Quoting Eric Margolis, Adam Jones observes, in his book Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, that in the 13th century the Mongol horsemen of Genghis Khan were genocidal killers (génocidaires) who were known to kill whole nations leaving nothing but empty ruins and bones.[58] Many ancient sources described Genghis Khan's conquests as wholesale destruction on an unprecedented scale in their certain geographical regions, and therefore probably causing great changes in the demographics of Asia. For example, over much of Central Asia speakers of Iranian languages were replaced by speakers of Turkic languages. The eastern part of the Islamic world experienced the terrifying holocaust of the Mongol invasions, which turned northern and eastern Iran into a desert. Between 1220 and 1260, the total population of Persia may have had dropped from 2,500,000 to 250,000 as a result of mass extermination and famine.[59]

Before the Mongol invasion, Chinese dynasties reportedly had approximately 120 million inhabitants; after the conquest was completed in 1279, the 1300 census reported roughly 60 million people.[60] About half of the Russian population died during the Mongol invasion of Rus.[61] Historians estimate that up to half of Hungary's two million population at that time were victims of the Mongol invasion of Europe.[62]

The Pope Innocent IV's envoy to the Mongol Khan, who passed through Kiev in February 1246, wrote:

"They [the Mongols] attacked Russia, where they made great havoc, destroying cities and fortresses and slaughtering men; and they laid siege to Kiev, the capital of Russia; after they had besieged the city for a long time, they took it and put the inhabitants to death. When we were journeying through that land we came across countless skulls and bones of dead men lying about on the ground. Kiev had been a very large and thickly populated town, but now it has been reduced almost to nothing, for there are at the present time scarce two hundred houses there and the inhabitants are kept in complete slavery."[63]

- Timur's conquests. Timur Lenk was a 14th century conqueror of much of Middle East and Central Asia, and founder of the Timurid dynasty. He thought of himself as a ghazi, but his biggest wars were against Muslim states. In 1383, Timur started the military conquest of Persia. He captured Herat, Khorasan and all eastern Persia to 1385 and massacred almost all inhabitants of Neishapur and other Iranian cities. When revolts broke out in Persia, he ruthlessly suppressed them, massacring the populations of whole cities. When Timur entered Delhi (India), the city was sacked, destroyed, and left in ruins. When Timur conquered Persia, Iraq and Syria, the civilian population was decimated. In the city of Isfahan he ordered the building of a pyramid of 70,000 human skulls, from those that his army had beheaded,[64] and a pyramid of some 20,000 skulls was erected outside the Aleppo.[65] Timur herded thousands of citizens of Damascus into the Cathedral Mosque before setting it aflame,[66] and had 70,000 people beheaded in Tikrit, and another 90,000 more in Baghdad.[67] After the capture of Bagdad, Timur ordered that every soldier should return with at least two severed human heads to show him (many warriors were so scared they killed prisoners captured earlier in the campaign just to ensure they had heads to present to Timur). Nestorian Christians east of Iraq were almost entirely eliminated by Timur.[68] As many as 17 million people may have died from his conquests.[69]

- Aztec human sacrifice. The Aztecs sacrificed thousands of victims (often slaves or prisoners of war) annually to the sun god Huitzilopochtli; an offering to Huitzilopochtli would be made to restore the blood he lost, as the sun was engaged in a daily battle. Human sacrifices would prevent the end of the world that could happen on each cycle of 52 years. For the re-consecration of Great Pyramid of Tenochtitlan in 1487, the Aztecs reported that they sacrificed about 80,400 people over the course of four days. According to Ross Hassing, author of Aztec Warfare, "between 10,000 and 80,400 persons" were sacrificed in the ceremony.[70][71]

- Vlad the Impaler. Vlad the Impaler, also known as Vlad Dracula, the 15th century ruler of Wallachia in present-day Romania, has been characterized as exceedingly cruel. Impalement was his preferred method of torture and execution. As expected, death by impalement was slow and painful. Victims sometimes endured for hours or days. Impalement was Vlad's favourite method of torture but was by no means his only one. The list of tortures he is alleged to have employed is extensive: nails in heads, cutting off of limbs, blinding, strangulation, burning, cutting off of noses and ears, mutilation of sexual organs (especially in the case of women), scalping, skinning, exposure to the elements or to animals, and boiling alive. No one was immune to Vlad the Impaler's attentions. His victims included women and children, peasants and great lords, ambassadors from foreign powers and merchants.[72] In 1459, he had 30,000 of the Saxon merchants and officials of the Transylvanian city of Kronstadt who were transgressing his authority impaled.[73][74] In 1462 Sultan Mehmed the Conqueror, during his campaign against Wallachia, was "greeted" by the sight of veritable forest of stakes on which Vlad the Impaler had impaled 20,000 Turkish prisoners.[75] Dracula was probably killed in battle against the Ottoman Empire near Bucharest in December of 1476.

- Thirty Years' War. The Thirty Years' War was fought between 1618 and 1648, primarily on the territory of Holy Roman Empire. Virtually all of the major European powers were involved. The Thirty Years' War was the most destructive conflict in Europe prior to World War I. Atrocities and massacres, such as Sack of Magdeburg, became standard methods of warfare. During the war, Germany's population was reduced by 30% on average; in the territory of Brandenburg, the losses had amounted to half, while in some areas an estimated two thirds of the population died. Germany's male population was reduced by almost half.[76] The population of the Czech lands declined by a third.[77] The historian Lange claims Swedish armies alone destroyed 2,000 castles, 18,000 villages and 1,500 towns in Germany, one-third of all German towns.[78]

- Reconquest of Ireland. It is estimated that as much as a third of the entire population of Ireland perished during the civil wars and subsequent Cromwellian conquest in the mid-17th century. Since the Irish Rebellion of 1641, Ireland had been mainly under the control of the Irish Confederate Catholics. The Cromwellian reconquest of Ireland was extremely brutal, and it has been alleged that many of the army's actions during the reconquest would today be called war crimes or even genocide. William Petty who conducted the first scientific land and demographic survey of Ireland in the 1650s (the Down Survey), concluded that at least 400,000 people and maybe as many as 620,000 had died in Ireland between 1641 and 1653, many as a result of famine and plague. At the time, Ireland had around 1.5 million inhabitants.[79]

- The Deluge. During the 1640s and 1650s the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth was devastated by several conflicts, in which the Commonwealth lost over a third of its populations (over 3 million people).[80] First, the Chmielnicki Uprising when Bohdan Khmelnytsky's Cossacks massacred tens of thousands of Jews and Poles in the eastern and southern areas he controlled (today's Ukraine). It is recorded that Khmelnytsky told the people that the Poles had sold them as slaves "into the hands of the accursed Jews". It is estimated that 100,000 Jews were massacred and 300 of their communities destroyed. The decrease of the Jewish population during that period (referred to in Polish history as The Deluge) is estimated at 100,000 to 200,000, which also includes emigration, deaths from diseases and jasyr (captivity in the Ottoman Empire).[81]

- Revolt in the Vendée. Vendée is remembered as the place where the peasants revolted against the French Revolutionary government in 1793. They resented the changes imposed on the Roman Catholic Church by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (1790) and broke into open revolt in defiance of the Revolutionary government's military conscription. This guerrilla war became known as the Revolt in the Vendée, led at the outset by an underground faction called the Chouans.

Initially the Vendée rebels gained the upper hand, so on August 1, 1793 the Committee of Public Safety ordered General Jean-Baptiste Carrier to carry out a pacification of the region. The Republican army was reinforced and the Vendéan army was eventually defeated. The Reign of Terror, seen elsewhere in France, was extraordinarily brutal in the Vendée. There was a massacre of 6,000 Vendée prisoners, many of them women, after the battle of Savenay. Subsequently, there was the drowning of 3,000 Vendée women at Pont-au-Baux. This was followed by 5,000 Vendée priests, old men, women, and children killed by drowning at the Loire River at Nantes in what was called the "national bath" - tied in groups in barges and then sunk into the Loire. Under orders from Committee of Public Safety in February 1794 the Republican forces launched their final "pacification" (the Vendée-Vengé or "'Vendée Avenged") - twelve columns, the colonnes infernales ("infernal columns") under Louis-Marie Turreau, were marched through the Vendée, indiscriminately targeting not only the remaining rebels and the people who had given them support, but the innocent as well.[82][83]

Beyond these massacres there were formal orders for forced evacuation and 'scorched earth' - farms were destroyed, crops and forests burned, and villages razed. There were many reported atrocities and a campaign of mass killing universally targeted at residents of the Vendée regardless of combatant status, political affiliation, age or gender. Some consider these acts to be the first modern genocide.[84][85] The campaign was ordered as such by the Comité de Salut public:

"The committee has prepared measures that tend to exterminate this rebellious race of Vendéeans, to make their abodes disappear, to torch their forests, to cut their crops."

The orders to Turreau were:

"Exterminate the brigands to the last man instead of burning the farms, punish the fleeing ones and the cowards, and crush that horrible Vendée. Combine the most assured means to exterminate all of this race of brigands."

When the campaign dragged to an end in March 1796 the estimated dead numbered between 117,000 and 500,000, of a population of around 800,000.[86][87][88]

- Wahhabist conquests. The Saudi Wahabbist sheiks were convinced that it was their religious mission to wage holy war (jihad) against all other forms of Islam. In 1801 and 1802, the Saudi Wahhabists under Abdul Aziz ibn Muhammad ibn Saud attacked and captured the holy Shia cities of Karbala and Najaf in Iraq, massacred the Shiites and destroyed the tombs of the Shiite Imam Husayn and Ali bin Abu Talib. In 1802 they occupied Taif where they massacred the population. In 1803 and 1804 the Wahhabis captured Mecca and Medina. In Mecca and Medina they destroyed monuments and various holy Muslim sites and shrines, such as the shrine built over the tomb of Fatima Zahra, the daughter of Muhammad, and even intended to destroy the grave of the Prophet Muhammad.[89][90][91][92][93]

- Taiping Rebellion. During the Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) that followed the secession of the Tàipíng Tiānguó (太平天國, Heavenly Kingdom of Perfect Peace) from the Qing empire both sides tried to deprive each other of the resources to continue the war and it became standard practice to destroy agricultural areas, butcher the population of cities and in general exact a brutal price from captured enemy lands in order to drastically weaken the opposition's war effort.[94] This war truly was total in that civilians on both sides participated to a significant extent in the war effort and in that armies on both sides waged war on the civilian population as well as military forces.[95] In total between 20 and 30 million died in the conflict making it bloodier than the World War I or Russian Civil War.[96][97]

- American Civil War. The American Civil War, the deadliest in American history, caused 620,000 soldier deaths[98] and an undetermined number of civilian casualties. Based on 1860 census figures, 8% of all white males aged 13 to 43 died in the war, including 6% in the North and an extraordinary 18% in the South. [99]

General Phillip Sheridan's stripping of the Shenandoah Valley starting from September 21, 1864 and continuing for two weeks was considered "total war" in that its purpose was to eliminate foodstuffs and supplies vital to the South's war plans. Sheridan took the opportunity when he realized opposing forces had become too weak to resist his army. In another event in that conflict, Union General Order No. 11 (1863) ordered the near-total evacuation of three and a half counties in Missouri, which were subsequently looted and burned. U.S. Army General William Tecumseh Sherman's 'March to the Sea' in November/December 1864 destroyed the resources required for the South to make war. Sherman is considered one of the first military commanders to deliberately and consciously use total war as a military strategy. General Ulysses S. Grant and President Abraham Lincoln initially opposed the plan until Sherman convinced them of its necessity.[100]

- War of the Triple Alliance. War of the Triple Alliance (1864-1870) was the bloodiest conflict in the history of South America, fought between Paraguay and the allied countries of Argentina, Brazil, and Uruguay. Paraguay's prewar population of between one and one-half million was reduced to about 221,000 in 1871, of which only about 28,000 were men.[101] Paraguay's dictator, Francisco Solano López, is widely regarded as being responsible for the war, which led to his death. "Conquer or die" became the order of the day. Lopez ordered thousands of executions in the military. In 1868, when the allies were pressing him hard, he convinced himself that his Paraguayan supporters had actually formed a conspiracy against his life. Thereupon several hundred prominent Paraguayan citizens were seized and executed by his order, including his brothers and brothers-in-law, cabinet ministers, judges, prefects, military officers, bishops and priests, and nine-tenths of the civil officers, together with 500 foreigners, among them several members of the diplomatic legations (the San Fernando massacres). The bodies were dumped into mass graves.[102][103]

- Indian Wars. In his book The Wild Frontier: Atrocities during the American-Indian War from Jamestown Colony to Wounded Knee, amateur historian William M. Osborn sought to tally every recorded atrocity in the area that would eventually become the continental United States, from first contact (1511) to the closing of the frontier (1890), and determined that 9,156 people died from atrocities perpetrated by Native Americans, and 7,193 people died from those perpetrated by settlers. Osborn defines an atrocity as the murder, torture, or mutilation of civilians, the wounded, and prisoners.[104]

The most reliable figures are derived from collated records of strictly military engagements such as by Gregory Michno which reveal 21,586 dead, wounded, and captured civilians and soldiers for the period of 1850–90 alone.[105] Other figures are derived from extrapolations of rather cursory and unrelated government accounts such as that by Russell Thornton who calculated that some 45,000 Indians and 19,000 whites were killed. This later rough estimate includes women and children on both sides, since noncombatants were often killed in frontier massacres.[106]

- Second Boer War. The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during the Second Boer War (1899–1902).

These had originally been set up as "refugee camps" by the Army for families whose farms had been destroyed by the British under their "Scorched Earth" policy (sweeping the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children, and including destroying crops, burning down homesteads and farms, poisoning wells, and salting fields) and thousands of Boers had already been brought into them.

Kitchener succeeded Roberts as commander-in-chief in South Africa in November 29, 1900 and in an attempt to break the guerrilla campaign, initiated plans to "flush out guerrillas in a series of systematic drives, organized like a sporting shoot, with success defined in a weekly 'bag' of killed, captured and wounded, and to sweep the country bare of everything that could give sustenance to the guerrillas, including women and children... It was the clearance of civilians – uprooting a whole nation – that would come to dominate the last phase of the war."[107] Following Kitchener's new policy, more camps were built and converted to prisons and many tens of thousands more women and children were forcibly moved to prevent the Boers from resupplying at their homes.

By August 1901, 93,940 Boers were reported to be in "camps of refuge". A report after the war concluded that 27,927 Boers (of whom 24,074 [50% of the Boer child population] were children under 16) had died of starvation, disease and exposure in the concentration camps. In all, about one in four (25%) of the Boer inmates, mostly children, died.[108][109]

- Don Cossacks.

Following the defeat of the White Army in Russian Civil War, a policy of decossackization (Raskazachivaniye) took place on the surviving Cossacks and their homelands since they were viewed as potential threat to the new Soviet regime.[110] That was the first example when Soviet leaders decided to "eliminate, exterminate, and deport the population of a whole territory".[111][112] The Cossack homelands were often very fertile, and during the collectivisation campaign many Cossacks shared the fate of kulaks. The man-made Holodomor famine of 1932-1933 hit the Don and Kuban territory the hardest. According to historian Michael Kort, "During 1919 and 1920, out of a population of approximately 1.5 million Don Cossacks, the Bolshevik regime killed or deported an estimated 300,000 to 500,000".[113]

- Spanish Civil War. The number of casualties is disputed; estimates generally suggest that between 500,000 and 1 million people were killed in the Spanish Civil War. Over the years, historians kept lowering the death figures and modern research concludes that 500,000 deaths is the correct figure.[114] Atrocities during the war were committed on both sides.[115][116] At least 50,000 were executed during the civil war.[117] Franco's victory was followed by tens of thousands of summary executions.[118][119]

In his recent, updated history of the Spanish Civil War, Antony Beevor "reckons Franco's ensuing 'white terror' claimed 200,000 lives.[120] The 'red terror' had already killed 38,000."[121] Julius Ruiz concludes that "although the figures remain disputed, a minimum of 37,843 executions were carried out in the Republican zone with a maximum of 150,000 executions (including 50,000 after the war) in Nationalist Spain."[122] In Checas de Madrid, César Vidal comes to a nationwide total of 110,965 victims of Republican repression; 11,705 people being killed in Madrid alone.[123]

- During World War II. – Germany.

During World War II, the holocaust initiated by the German National Socialist party killed millions of people: Slavs, Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Serbs, and especially Jews. After the end of World War II, this genocide came to be known as the Holocaust. Poles, Jehovah's Witnesses, Roma and homosexuals and anybody considered a threat to the Nazi party were rounded up and sent to labour camps, death camps, or just killed in their homes.

The Nazi occupation of Poland resulted in the death of one-fifth of the population, some 6 million people, half of them Jewish. The Soviet Union lost an estimated 27 million people during the war, about half of all World War II casualties.[124][125] Of the 5.7 million Soviet POWs captured by the Germans, 3.5 million had died while in German captivity by the end of the war.[126]

Japan.

Japanese soldiers rounded up and killed millions[127] of civilians and prisoners of wars from surrounding nations, especially from Korea, China, Philippines and United States during World War II. At least 20 million Chinese died during the Sino-Japanese War (1937-1945).[128][129]

Unit 731 was one example of wartime atrocities committed on a civilian population during World War II, where experiments were performed on thousands of Chinese civilians and Allied prisoners of war. The Rape of Nanking is another example of atrocity committed by Japanese soldiers on a civilian population. Many men were killed, while women of were raped and/or killed. [130]

The Three Alls Policy (Sankō Sakusen) was a Japanese scorched earth policy adopted in China during World War II, the three alls being: "Kill All, Burn All and Loot All". Initiated in 1940 by Ryūkichi Tanaka, the Sankō Sakusen was implemented in full scale in 1942 in north China by Yasuji Okamura who divided the territory into pacified, semi-pacified and unpacified areas. The approval of the policy was given by Imperial Headquarters Army Order Number 575 on 3 December 1941.

Much of the controversy regarding Japan's role in World War II revolves around the death rates of prisoners of war and civilians under Japanese occupation. The historian Chalmers Johnson has written that:

It may be pointless to try to establish which World War Two Axis aggressor, Germany or Japan, was the more brutal to the peoples it victimised. The Germans killed six million Jews and 20 million Russians [i.e. Soviet citizens]; the Japanese slaughtered as many as 30 million Filipinos, Malays, Vietnamese, Cambodians, Indonesians and Burmese, at least 23 million of them ethnic Chinese. Both nations looted the countries they conquered on a monumental scale, though Japan plundered more, over a longer period, than the Nazis. Both conquerors enslaved millions and exploited them as forced labourers — and, in the case of the Japanese, as [forced] prostitutes for front-line troops. If you were a Nazi prisoner of war from Britain, America, Australia, New Zealand or Canada (but not Russia) you faced a 4% chance of not surviving the war; [by comparison] the death rate for Allied POWs held by the Japanese was nearly 30%.[131]

Soviet Union.

According to the historian Norman Naimark, the propaganda of Soviet troop newspapers and the orders of Soviet high command were jointly responsible for excesses by members of the Red Army. The general tenor in the writings was that the Red Army had come to Germany as an avenger and judge to punish the Germans.[132] On January 12, 1945 army General Cherniakhovsky turned to his troops with the words: There shall be no mercy — for nobody, as there had also been no mercy for us... The land of the fascists must become a desert ...[133]

On the German side, any organized evacuation of civilians was forbidden by the Nazi government to boost morale of the troops, now for the first time defending the "Fatherland", even when the Red Army entered German territory in the last months of 1944. It is estimated that Soviet soldiers raped at least 2,000,000 German women and girls, an estimated 200,000 of whom later died from injuries sustained, committed suicide, or were murdered outright.[134][135][136]

- Mao Zedong. Mao's first political campaigns after founding the People's Republic were Land reform and the suppression of counter-revolutionaries, which centered on mass executions, often before organized crowds. These campaigns of mass repression targeted former KMT officials, businessmen, former employees of Western companies, intellectuals whose loyalty was suspect, and significant numbers of rural gentry.[137] The U.S. State department in 1976 estimated that there may have been a million killed in the land reform, 800,000 killed in the counterrevolutionary campaign.[138] Mao himself claimed a total of 700,000 killed during these early years (1949–53).[139] However, because there was a policy to select "at least one landlord, and usually several, in virtually every village for public execution",[140] 1 million deaths seems to be an absolute minimum, and many authors agree on a figure of between 2 million and 5 million dead.[141][142] In addition, at least 1.5 million people were sent to "reform through labour" camps (laogai).[143] Mao's personal role in ordering mass executions is undeniable.[144][145] He defended these killings as necessary for the securing of power.[146]

It is estimated that hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, perished in the violence of the Cultural Revolution.[147] When Mao was informed of such losses, particularly that people had been driven to suicide, he responded: "People who try to commit suicide — don't attempt to save them! ... China is such a populous nation, it is not as if we cannot do without a few people."[148]

- Vietnam War. According to the Vietnamese government, 1,100,000 North Vietnamese Army and Viet Cong military personnel and 2,000,000 Vietnamese civilians on both sides died in the conflict.[149] Estimates of civilian deaths caused by American bombing in Operation Rolling Thunder range from 52,000[150] to 182,000.[151]

347 to 504 Vietnam civilians were killed by US soldiers on 16 March, 1968, in the My Lai area of South Vietnam. See My Lai Massacre.

2,800 to 6,000 civilians were executed by the Viet Cong in the city of Hue during the Tet Offensive. See Hue Massacre.

- Equatorial Guinea. In September 1968, Francisco Macías Nguema was elected first president of Equatorial Guinea, and independence was granted in October.[152] In July 1970, Nguema created a single-party state. In 1972 Nguema took complete control of the government and assumed the title of President for Life. Nguema's regime was characterized by abandonment of all government functions except internal security, which was accomplished by terror; he acted as chief judge who sentenced thousands to death. This led to the death or exile of up to 1/3 of the country's population. Out of a population of 300,000, an estimated 80,000 had been killed.[153][154] Uneasy around educated people, he had killed everyone who wore spectacles. All schools were ordered closed in 1975. The economy collapsed, and skilled citizens and foreigners left.[155]

- Idi Amin Dada. Idi Amin, dictator of Uganda from 1971 to 1979, is notorious for being one of the bloodiest dictators of the 20th century.[156] The exact number of people killed is unknown. The International Commission of Jurists estimated the death toll at no fewer than 80,000 and more likely around 300,000.[157] An estimate compiled by exile organizations with the help of Amnesty International puts the number killed at 500,000. The victims soon came to include members of other ethnic groups, religious leaders, journalists, senior bureaucrats, judges, lawyers, students and intellectuals, criminal suspects, and foreign nationals. In some cases entire villages were wiped out.[158] Bodies were dumped into the River Nile, on at least one occasion in quantities sufficient to clog the Owen Falls Hydro-Electric Dam in Jinja.[159]

- Ethiopia. During Mengistu's 17-year reign it was not uncommon to see students, suspected government critics or rebel sympathisers hanging from lampposts each morning. Mengistu himself is alleged to have murdered opponents by garroting or shooting them, saying that he was leading by example.[160] Some experts have estimated that 150,000 university students, intellectuals and politicians were killed during Mengistu's rule.[161] Amnesty International estimates that up to 500,000 people were killed during the Red Terror of 1977 and 1978.[162] On 12 December 2006 Mengistu Haile Mariam was found guilty of genocide and other offences. He was sentenced to life in prison in January 2007.[163]

- Western New Guinea. Amnesty International has estimated that more than 100,000 Papuans, one-sixth of the population, have died as a result of government-sponsored violence against West Papuans,[164] while others had previously specified much higher death tolls.[165] In 2004 the Yale University Law School published "Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control",[166] a 75 page report detailing the applicability of Indonesian control to each of the genocide conventions.

- Algerian Civil War. During the Algerian Civil War of the 1990s, a variety of massacres occurred. The massacres peaked in 1997 (with a smaller peak in 1994), and were particularly concentrated in the areas between Algiers and Oran, with very few occurring in the east or in the Sahara. An estimated 150,000 to 200,000 people lost their lives during the conflict.[167][168]

Starting around April 1997 (the Thalit massacre), Algeria was wracked by massacres of intense brutality and unprecedented size; previous massacres had occurred in the conflict, but always on a substantially smaller scale. Typically targeting entire villages or neighborhoods and disregarding the age and sex of victims, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA) guerrillas killed tens, and sometimes hundreds, of civilians at a time. These massacres continued through the end of 1998, changing the nature of the political situation considerably. The areas south and east of Algiers were hit particularly hard; the Rais and Bentalha massacres in particular shocked worldwide observers. Pregnant women were sliced open, children were hacked to pieces or dashed against walls, men's limbs were hacked off one by one, and, as the attackers retreated, they would kidnap young women to keep as sex slaves. This quotation by Nesroullah Yous, a survivor of Bentalha, expresses the apparent mood of the attackers:

"We have the whole night to rape your women and children, drink your blood. Even if you escape today, we'll come back tomorrow to finish you off! We're here to send you to your God!"[169]

The GIA's responsibility for these massacres is undisputed; it claimed credit for both Rais and Bentalha (calling the killings an "offering to God" and the victims "impious" supporters of tyrants in a press release), and its policy of massacring civilians was cited by the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat as one of the main reasons it split off from the GIA. At this stage, it had apparently adopted a takfirist ideology, believing that practically all Algerians not actively fighting the government were corrupt to the point of being kafirs, and could be killed righteously with impunity; an unconfirmed communiqué by Zouabri had stated that "except for those who are with us, all others are apostates and deserving of death."[170]

- Second Congo War. The Second Congo War, also known as Africa's World War, began in 1998.[171] The largest war in modern African history, one of the deadliest conflicts since World War II, it directly involved eight African nations, as well as about 25 armed groups. Nearly 5 million people have died.[172][173] A U.N. human rights expert reported in July 2007 that sexual atrocities against Congolese women go 'far beyond rape' and include sexual slavery, forced incest, and cannibalism.[174]

In 2003, Sinafasi Makelo, a representative of Mbuti Pygmies, told the UN's Indigenous People's Forum that during the Congo Civil War, his people were hunted down and eaten as though they were game animals. Both sides of the war regarded them as "subhuman." Makelo asked the UN Security Council to recognise cannibalism as a crime against humanity and an act of genocide.[175][176]

[edit] Classification & nomenclature

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ "Mortality and Burden of Disease Estimates for WHO Member States in 2002" (xls). World Health Organization. 2002. http://www.who.int/entity/healthinfo/statistics/bodgbddeathdalyestimates.xls. 
  2. ^ [1], Merriam-Webster Dictionary Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  3. ^ [2], Oxford English Dictionary Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  4. ^ [3], American Heritage Dictionary, Violence, Retrieved January 8, 2009.
  5. ^ The Neurobiology of Violence, An Update, Journal of Neuropsychiatry Clin Neurosci 11:3, Summer 1999. As Mexican Biologist and Scientologist Adri Rodriguez says, Violence is a recurring motif in today's society.
  6. ^ Heather Whipps, Peace or War? How early humans behaved, LiveScience.Com, March 16, 2006.
  7. ^ Rowan, John (1978). The Structured Crowd. Davis-Poynter.. 
  8. ^ Cindy Fazzi, Debunking the "killer ape" myth, Dispute Resolution Journal, May-July 2002.
  9. ^ Gilligan, James (1996). Violence: Our Deadly Epidemic and Its Causes. Putnam Adult.  ISBN 0-399-13979-6 .
  10. ^ Emotional Competency; Dr. Michael Obsatz,From Shame-Based Masculinity to Holistic Manhood, Robin Morgan, The Demon Lover On the Sexuality of Terrorism, W.W. Norton, 1989, Chapter 5.
  11. ^ Stephen Pinker, The History of Violence, The New Republic, March 19, 2007.
  12. ^ Introduction to sociology. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2009. Page 187. Print.
  13. ^ Introduction to sociology. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2009. Page 187. Print.
  14. ^ Introduction to sociology. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2009. Page 187. Print.
  15. ^ Introduction to sociology. 7th ed. New York: W.W. Norton & Company Inc, 2009. pages 189-190. Print.
  16. ^ First, M.B., Bell, C.C., Cuthbert, B., Krystal, J.H., Malison, R., Offord, D.R., Riess, D., Shea, T., Widiger, T., Wisner, K.L., Personality Disorders and Relational Disorders, pp.164,166 Chapter 4 of Kupfer, D.J., First, M.B., & Regier, D.A. A Research Agenda For DSM-V. Published by American Psychiatric Association (2002)
  17. ^ First, M.B., Bell, C.C., Cuthbert, B., Krystal, J.H., Malison, R., Offord, D.R., Riess, D., Shea, T., Widiger, T., Wisner, K.L., Personality Disorders and Relational Disorders, p.163, Chapter 4 of Kupfer, D.J., First, M.B., & Regier, D.A. A Research Agenda For DSM-V. Published by American Psychiatric Association (2002)
  18. ^ a b c First, M.B., Bell, C.C., Cuthbert, B., Krystal, J.H., Malison, R., Offord, D.R., Riess, D., Shea, T., Widiger, T., Wisner, K.L., Personality Disorders and Relational Disorders, p.166, Chapter 4 of Kupfer, D.J., First, M.B., & Regier, D.A. A Research Agenda For DSM-V. Published by American Psychiatric Association (2002)
  19. ^ a b c First, M.B., Bell, C.C., Cuthbert, B., Krystal, J.H., Malison, R., Offord, D.R., Riess, D., Shea, T., Widiger, T., Wisner, K.L., Personality Disorders and Relational Disorders, p.167,168 Chapter 4 of Kupfer, D.J., First, M.B., & Regier, D.A. A Research Agenda For DSM-V. Published by American Psychiatric Association (2002)
  20. ^ [Hall RCW, Zisook S. Paradoxical Reactions to Benzodiazepines. Br J Clin Pharmacol 1981; 11: 99S-104S}
  21. ^ Lader M, Morton S. Benzodiazepine Problems. British Journal of Addiction 1991; 86: 823-828}
  22. ^ Benzodiazepines: Paradoxical Reactions & Long-Term Side-Effects
  23. ^ Hansson O, Tonnby B. [Serious Psychological Symptoms Caused by Clonazepam.] Läkartidningen 1976; 73: 1210-1211.
  24. ^ see: Joseph (Yossi) E. David, The One who is More Violent Prevails - Law and Violence from a Talmudic Legal Perspective, Canadian Journal of Law and Jurisprudence, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2006
  25. ^ Arendt, Hannah sfdhxvczgrsdfcxzrfergSDS n Violence. Harvest Book. p. 52. .
  26. ^ Twentieth Century Democide; [http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-1900.htm Atlas - Wars and Democide of the Twentieth Century.
  27. ^ "Uniform Crime Reporting Handbook" (PDF). Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2004. http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/handbook/ucrhandbook04.pdf. .
  28. ^ Review of book "War Before Civilization" by Lawrence H. Keeley, July, 2004.
  29. ^ Stephen Pinker.
  30. ^ Amos Elon (2002), The Pity of It All: A History of the Jews in Germany, 1743-1933. Metropolitan Books. ISBN 0805059644. p.103
  31. ^ "Doctrinal War: Religion and Ideology in International Conflict," in Bruce Kuklick (advisory ed.), The Monist: The Foundations of International Order, Vol. 89, No. 2 (April 2006), p. 46.
  32. ^ The Brute Caricature, Ferris State University Museum of Racist Memorabilia.
  33. ^ 42 M.V.M.O. Court Cases with Allegations of Multiple Sexual And Physical Abuse of Children.
  34. ^ John Edwards' 'Bumper Sticker' Complaint Not So Off the Mark, New Memo Shows; Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies: Inside America's War on Terror, Free Press; 2004; Michael Scheuer, Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror, Potomac Books Inc., June, 2004; Robert Fisk, The Great War for Civilisation - The Conquest of the Middle East, Fourth Estate, London, October 2005; Leon Hadar, The Green Peril: Creating the Islamic Fundamentalist Threat, August 27, 1992; Michelle Malkin, Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week kicks off, October 22, 2007; John L. Esposito, Unholy War: Terror in the Name of Islam, Oxford University Press, USA, September 2003.
  35. ^ Vittoriio Bufacchi, Two Concepts of Violence, Political Studies Review, April 2005, Volume 3, Issue 2, Page 193-204.
  36. ^ Michael Albert Life After Capitalism - And Now Too. Zmag.org, December 10, 2004; Capitalism explained.
  37. ^ Bruce Bawer, The Peace Racket, September 7, 2007.
  38. ^ Hans-Hermann Hoppe, From the Economics of Laissez Faire to The Ethics of Libertarianism.
  39. ^ Charles E. Butterworth and Irene Gendzier. "Frantz Fanon and the Justice of Violence. "Middle East Journal, Vol. 28, No. 4 (Autumn, 1974), pp. 451-458
  40. ^ (pg 44)[4]
  41. ^ Adele Jinadu. "Fanon: The Revolutionary as Social Philosopher." The Review of Politics, Vol. 34, No. 3 (Jul., 1972), pp. 433-436
  42. ^ Bharatan Kumarappa, Editor, "For Pacifists," by M.K. Gandhi, Navajivan Publishing House, Ahmedabad, India, 1949.
  43. ^ CDC Definition of Violence.
  44. ^ World Report on Violence and Health, October 3, 2002.
  45. ^ WHO: 1.6 million die in violence annually.
  46. ^ Brazil murder rate similar to war zone, data shows.
  47. ^ Colombia's Uribe wins second term.
  48. ^ Twentieth Century Atlas - Homicide.
  49. ^ Jamaica 'murder capital of the world'.
  50. ^ Crime Statistics.
  51. ^ Julius Caesar The Conquest of Gaul
  52. ^ Helvetti
  53. ^ Boudica
  54. ^ Jason Burke, "Dig uncovers Boudicca's brutal streak", The Observer , 3 December 2000
  55. ^ Jewish History 1200 - 1299
  56. ^ Church History - "Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out!"
  57. ^ Massacre of the Pure
  58. ^ Jones References, p.4 note 12 Eric s. Margolis War at the top of the World, the struggle for Afghanistan, Kashmir and Tibet (New York, Routledge, 2001) p.155
  59. ^ Battuta's Travels: Part Three - Persia and Iraq
  60. ^ Ping-ti Ho, "An Estimate of the Total Population of Sung-Chin China", in Études Song, Series 1, No 1, (1970) pp. 33-53.
  61. ^ History of Russia, Early Slavs history, Kievan Rus, Mongol invasion
  62. ^ Welcome to Encyclopædia Britannica's Guide to History
  63. ^ The Destruction of Kiev
  64. ^ Timur's history
  65. ^ The Seven Years Campaign
  66. ^ Battle of Damascus
  67. ^ New Book Looks at Old-Style Central Asian Despotism
  68. ^ Nestorian Church
  69. ^ Timur Lenk (1369-1405)
  70. ^ Hassig, Ross (2003). "El sacrificio y las guerras floridas". Arqueología mexicana, p. 46-51.
  71. ^ The Enigma of Aztec Sacrifice
  72. ^ The Historical Dracula
  73. ^ History of Central Europe
  74. ^ Vlad the Impaler
  75. ^ The Real Prince Dracula
  76. ^ Germany - The Thirty Years' War - The Peace of Westphalia
  77. ^ The Thirty Years' War
  78. ^ Population and the Thirty Years War
  79. ^ The curse of Cromwell - BBC
  80. ^ About Poland
  81. ^ Judaism Timeline 1618-1770
  82. ^ The Heart of Darkness: How Visceral Hatred of Catholicism Turns Into Genocide
  83. ^ Wars Of The Vendee
  84. ^ Jones, Adam Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction p.7 (Routledge/Taylor & Francis Publishers Forthcoming 2006)
  85. ^ [5] Masson, Sophie Remembering the Vendee (Godspy 2004. First published in "Quadrant" magazine Australia, 1996)
  86. ^ Three State and Counterrevolution in France by Charles Tilly
  87. ^ Vive la Contre-Revolution!
  88. ^ McPhee, Peter Review of Reynald Secher, A French Genocide: The Vendée H-France Review Vol. 4 (March 2004), No. 26
  89. ^ The Destruction of Holy Sites in Mecca and Medina
  90. ^ Saudi Arabia - THE SAUD FAMILY AND WAHHABI ISLAM
  91. ^ Nibras Kazimi, A Paladin Gears Up for War, The New York Sun, November 1, 2007
  92. ^ John R Bradley, Saudi's Shi'ites walk tightrope, Asia Times, March 17, 2005
  93. ^ Amir Taheri, Death is big business in Najaf, but Iraq's future depends on who controls it, The Times, August 28, 2004
  94. ^ Ch'ing China: The Taiping Rebellion
  95. ^ Taiping Rebellion: The destruction of the Chinese culture
  96. ^ Chinese Cultural Studies: Concise Political History of China
  97. ^ The Great War: A Review of the Explanations
  98. ^ American Civil War, Encyclopædia Britannica
  99. ^ Lambert, Craig (May-June 2001). "The Deadliest War". Harvard Magazine. http://www.harvardmagazine.com/on-line/050155.html. Retrieved 2007-10-14. 
  100. ^ Sherman's March to the Sea
  101. ^ Nineteenth Century Death Tolls
  102. ^ War of the Triple Alliance
  103. ^ Paraguay - The War of the Triple Alliance
  104. ^ The Wild Frontier: Atrocities During The American-Indian War
  105. ^ Michno, "Encyclopedia of Indian Wars" Index.
  106. ^ Thornton, American Indian Holocaust, 48–49.
  107. ^ Thomas Pakenham, The Boer War
  108. ^ Niall Ferguson, Empire: The Rise and Demise of the British World Order, p. 250
  109. ^ Australian War Memorial
  110. ^ Cossacks history
  111. ^ Nicolas Werth, Karel Bartošek, Jean-Louis Panné, Jean-Louis Margolin, Andrzej Paczkowski, Stéphane Courtois, The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression, Harvard University Press, 1999, hardcover, 858 pages, ISBN 0-674-07608-7
  112. ^ Soviet order to exterminate Cossacks is unearthed
  113. ^ Kort, Michael (2001). The Soviet Colosus: History and Aftermath, p. 133. Armonk, NY: M.E. Sharpe. ISBN 0-7656-0396-9.
  114. ^ Hugh Thomas, The Spanish Civil War (2001), pp. xviii & 899–901, inclusive.
  115. ^ Spain: Repression under Franco after the Civil War
  116. ^ Spain poised to seek the graves of Franco's disappeared
  117. ^ Spain torn on tribute to victims of Franco
  118. ^ A revelatory account of the Spanish civil war
  119. ^ Spanish Civil War: Casualties
  120. ^ "Men of La Mancha". Rev. of Antony Beevor, The Battle for Spain. The Economist (June 22, 2006).
  121. ^ A Week in Books
  122. ^ Julius Ruiz, "Defending the Republic: The García Atadell Brigade in Madrid, 1936". Journal of Contemporary History 42.1 (2007):97.
  123. ^ International justice begins at home by Carlos Alberto Montaner, Miami Herald, August 4, 2003
  124. ^ Leaders mourn Soviet wartime dead
  125. ^ Massacres and Atrocities of WWII in Eastern Europe
  126. ^ Soviet Prisoners of War: Forgotten Nazi Victims of World War II
  127. ^ Rummel, R.J. Statistics of Democide: Genocide and Mass Murder since 1900 Chapter 3. LIT Verlag Münster-Hamburg-Berlin-Wien-London-Zürich (1999)
  128. ^ Nuclear Power: The End of the War Against Japan
  129. ^ Remember role in ending fascist war
  130. ^ Chinese city remembers Japanese 'Rape of Nanjing'
  131. ^ Johnson, Looting of Asia, [6]
  132. ^ Norman M. Naimark Cambridge: Belknap, 1995 ISBN 0-674-78405-7
  133. ^ Antony Beevor, Berlin: The Downfall 1945, Penguin Books, 2002, ISBN 0-670-88695-5
  134. ^ Richard Overy, Russia's War: Blood upon the Snow (1997), ISBN 1-57500-051-2
  135. ^ 'They raped every German female from eight to 80'
  136. ^ Red Army troops raped even Russian women as they freed them from camps
  137. ^ China Misperceived: American Illusions and Chinese Reality by Steven W. Mosher, pp 72, 73
  138. ^ Deaths in China Due to Communism by Stephen Rosskamm Shalom, pg 24
  139. ^ Mao: The Unknown Story by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday, pg 337: "Mao claimed that the total number executed was 700,000, but this did not include those beaten or tortured to death in the post-1949 land reform, which would at the very least be as many again. Then there were suicides, which, based on several local inquiries, were very probably about equal to the number of those killed." Also cited in Mao Zedong, by Jonathan Spence, as cited here.
  140. ^ Twitchett, Denis; John K. Fairbank. The Cambridge history of China. Cambridge University Press. ISBN 052124336X. http://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN052124336X. Retrieved 2007-03-25. 
  141. ^ The Black Book of Communism: Crimes, Terror, Repression by Stephane Courtois, et al; China: A Long March into Night by Jean-Louis Margolin, pg 479
  142. ^ Estimates, sources and calculations from R.J. Rummel's China's Bloody Century: Genocide and Mass Murder Since 1900 (See lines 1 through 90)
  143. ^ Short, Philip (2001). Mao: A Life. Owl Books. pp. 436. ISBN 0805066381. http://books.google.com/books?visbn=0805066381. "At least a million-and-a-half more disappeared into the newly established 'reform through labour' camps, purpose-built to accommodate them." 
  144. ^ Commentary transferred to Huang Jing regarding the supplementary plan to suppress counterrevolutionaries in Tianjin
  145. ^ Mao's "Killing Quotas" by Li Changyu. Human Rights in China (HRIC). September 26, 2005, at Shandong University
  146. ^ Terrible Honeymoon: Struggling with the Problem of Terror in Early 1950s China by Jeremy Brown
  147. ^ "Source List and Detailed Death Tolls for the Twentieth Century Hemoclysm". Historical Atlas of the Twentieth Century. http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/warstat1.htm#Mao. Retrieved 2007-02-27. 
  148. ^ MacFarquhar, Roderick and Schoenhals, Michael. Mao's Last Revolution. Harvard University Press, 2006. p. 110 ISBN 0674023323
  149. ^ 20 Years After Victory, April 1995, Folder 14, Box 24, Douglas Pike Collection: Unit 06 - Democratic Republic of Vietnam, The Vietnam Archive, Texas Tech University.[7]
  150. ^ http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.TAB6.1A.GIF
  151. ^ Battlefield:Vietnam | Timeline
  152. ^ Francisco Macias Nguema
  153. ^ Coup plotter faces life in Africa's most notorious jail
  154. ^ True hell on earth: Simon Mann faces imprisonment in the cruellest jail on the planet
  155. ^ If you think this one's bad you should have seen his uncle
  156. ^ 2003: 'War criminal' Idi Amin dies
  157. ^ Idi Amin
  158. ^ Idi Amin killer file
  159. ^ Idi Amin: 'Butcher of Uganda', CNN, August 16, 2003
  160. ^ Guilty of genocide: the leader who unleashed a 'Red Terror' on Africa by Jonathan Clayton, The Times Online, December 13, 2006
  161. ^ 'Butcher of Addis Ababa' is guilty of genocide with torture regime
  162. ^ Zimbabwe won't extradite former Ethiopian dictator
  163. ^ Ethiopian Dictator Sentenced to Prison by Les Neuhaus, The Associated Press, January 11, 2007
  164. ^ Report claims secret genocide in Indonesia - University of Sydney
  165. ^ West Papua Support
  166. ^ Indonesian Human Rights Abuses in West Papua: Application of the Law of Genocide to the History of Indonesian Control (PDF)
  167. ^ Attacks raise spectre of civil war
  168. ^ Journalists in Algeria are caught in middle
  169. ^ Nesroullah Yous & Salima Mellah (2000). Qui a tué à Bentalha?. La Découverte, Paris. ISBN 2-7071-3332-9. 
  170. ^ El Watan, 21 January (quoted in Willis 1996)
  171. ^ Inside Congo, An Unspeakable Toll
  172. ^ Conflict in Congo has killed 4.7m, charity says
  173. ^ Congo crisis is deadliest since Second World War
  174. ^ Congo's Sexual Violence Goes 'Far Beyond Rape', July 31, 2007. The Washington Post.
  175. ^ DR Congo pygmies 'exterminated'
  176. ^ DR Congo Pygmies appeal to UN

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