Afghanistan: Never Mind The Taliban

Unreported World travels to northern Afghanistan where there is no threat from insurgents and where the post-2001 democratic state is supposed to be safe and flourishing. Yet Clark has to wear a burqa to get through areas where it is too dangerous to travel openly as a foreigner. The team finds a recently burned down school. The culprits, claim local people, aren’t Taliban but local commanders angry with the NATO forces stationed in the province.

The father of a child killed in an attack on NATO Peace-keeping forces says civilians have no-one to turn to – commanders are powerful in the local administration and foreign peace-keepers are seen to be working with them.

The team accompanies a police raid to an area which aid agencies deem too dangerous to visit. Two hundred police loyal to police chiefs who have been accused publicly of serious abuses by the UN have been sent to arrest two rogue commanders. They have started to fight each other in a local vendetta. Later, Clark and Porter manage to interview one of the commanders in custody. He says he was arrested because he’s just a bit player in the drugs’ market. Those controlling the trade, he claims, are senior members of the police force with links going up to the heart of the Kabul government.

Allegations of corruption are rife- a farmer growing opium poppy claims he has to pay 10-20% of the sale price to the local commander – who’s also the district governor. An arms dealer says commanders from the old Northern Alliance are importing weapons, re-arming themselves and selling weapons to their old enemies, the Taliban. The market, he says, is buoyant because of the insurgency in the south and there is serious money to be made.

The team returns to Kabul to try to find answers about the parlous state of the provinces, but the rot appears to be at the heart of the new state. A disgruntled policeman and former foot soldier with the Northern Alliance shows the palaces which commanders and cabinet ministers have built on government land. Another man, who survived a massacre carried out by factional forces during the civil war, warns us not to broadcast his interview on Afghan television. “I’d be killed for talking to you,” he says. The team meets a woman MP in her 20s who almost alone has publicly criticised the warlords. Her bravery has made her a magnet for those wanting to complain about abuses, but has meant she is subject to constant death threats.

To Afghan civilians it looks like the Northern Alliance did well out of the 2001 US invasion. However, one of the old factional leaders said they were unhappy with the level of foreign aid and the way they had been disarmed. He warned they could re-mobilise swiftly and were fully capable of kicking out the foreign forces, as they had kicked out the British and the Soviets.

Obama continues Bush's Iran policy

Also under President Obama Iran continues to dominate the world agenda. Iran is being presented as a crucial problem that must be solved. The Iran Problem is one with several layers. The uppermost layer is that Iran is a potential threat to world peace. What are the facts and the fiction that make up this first layer?

read more

WHO plays dubious role in Swine flu pandemic

On June 11, 2009 Margaret Chan, the Director-General of the WHO, declared the Swine Flu a pandemic. The declaration of phase six means that emergency procedures are put into motion which bypass established systems designed to safeguard the public health. The result of this is described in part six of this DeepJournal series on the Swine Flu. Conclusion: the vaccine is being tested while being administered to the public. The definition of what a pandemic is, is therefore of great import.

read more

Government flu advisors not independent

Ab Osterhaus is playing an important role in the affair surrounding the Swine Flu. Through his influence and conflicts of interest, he personifies a system that is now being subjected to investigation from all directions. Soon the investigators will undoubtedly stumble upon SAGE, the strategic advisory group of vaccine and immunity experts for the World Health Organization, or WHO. Osterhaus turns up here as well - he is an expert with SAGE.

read more

Influence of industry on 'fake pandemic' investigated

Also beyond The Netherlands the question is being raised over whether the large-scale acquisition of vaccines made sense. The Council of Europe began an investigation into this question last Tuesday. 'A number of members of the Council of Europe have expressed exceptionally harsh criticism of the World Health Organization and are asking themselves out loud whether drug manufacturers had too much influence in this decision'.

read more

How Dutch Minister Klink decided on vaccines with additives - 2

The Netherlands has an ongoing contract with Solvay Pharmaceuticals for the making of vaccines without additives. Then Dutch Health Minister Klink severs - with all of its accompanying financial consequences - the contract with Solvay. He signs new, secretive contracts with GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis, companies that make vaccines with additives - the so-called adjuvants. In The Netherlands everyone is receiving the same vaccine containing adjuvants - whether they are young or old, pregnant or not. What happened that caused Klink to make this decision?

read more