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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 12, 2016 5:02:51 GMT -7
I learn something new every day. This is new to me. Viewpoint: How British let one million Indians die in famineBy Dinyar Patel Historian 11 June 2016 Antique print of Indian famine victims, 1885 It has been a difficult summer for India. Drought and a searing heat wave have affected an astonishing 330 million people across the country. But this summer also marks the 150th anniversary of a far more terrible and catastrophic climatic event: the Orissa famine of 1866. Hardly anyone today knows about this famine. It elicits little mention in even the densest tomes on Indian history. There will be few, if any, solemn commemorations. Yet the Orissa famine killed over a million people in eastern India. Famine in India, 1900
In modern-day Orissa state, the worst hit region, one out of every three people perished, a mortality rate far more staggering than that caused by the Irish Potato Famine. The Orissa famine also became an important turning point in India's political development, stimulating nationalist discussions on Indian poverty. Faint echoes of these debates still resonate today amid drought-relief efforts. 'No relief was the best relief' Famine, while no stranger to the subcontinent, increased in frequency and deadliness with the advent of British colonial rule. The East India Company helped kill off India's once-robust textile industries, pushing more and more people into agriculture. This, in turn, made the Indian economy much more dependent on the whims of seasonal monsoons. One hundred and fifty years ago, as is the case with today's drought, a weak monsoon appeared as the first ill omen. "It can, we fear, no longer be concealed that we are on the eve of a period of general scarcity," announced the Englishman, a Calcutta newspaper, in late 1865. The Indian and British press carried reports of rising prices, dwindling grain reserves, and the desperation of peasants no longer able to afford rice. All of this did little to stir the colonial administration into action. In the mid-19th Century, it was common economic wisdom that government intervention in famines was unnecessary and even harmful. The market would restore a proper balance. Any excess deaths, according to Malthusian principles, were nature's way of responding to overpopulation. This logic had been used with devastating effect two decades beforehand in Ireland, where the government in Britain had, for the most part, decided that no relief was the best relief. On a flying visit to Orissa in February 1866, Cecil Beadon, the colonial governor of Bengal (which then included Orissa), staked out a similar position. "Such visitations of providence as these no government can do much either to prevent or alleviate," he pronounced. 'Too late, too rotten' Regulating the skyrocketing grain prices would risk tampering with the natural laws of economics. "If I were to attempt to do this," the governor said, "I should consider myself no better than a dacoit or thief." With that, Mr Beadon deserted his emaciated subjects in Orissa and returned to Kolkata (Calcutta) and busied himself with quashing privately funded relief efforts. In May 1866, it was no longer easy to ignore the mounting catastrophe in Orissa. British administrators in Cuttack found their troops and police officers starving. The remaining inhabitants of Puri were carving out trenches in which to pile the dead. "For miles round you heard their yell for food," commented one observer. As more chilling accounts trickled into Calcutta and London, Mr Beadon made a belated attempt to import rice into Orissa. It was, with cruel irony, hindered by an overabundant monsoon and flooding. Relief was too little, too late, too rotten. Orissans paid with their lives for bureaucratic foot-dragging. For years, a rising generation of western-educated Indians had alleged that British rule was grossly impoverishing India. The Orissa famine served as eye-popping proof of this thesis. It prompted one early nationalist, Dadabhai Naoroji, to begin his lifelong investigations into Indian poverty. As the famine abated in early 1867, Mr Naoroji sketched out the earliest version of his "drain theory"—the idea that Britain was enriching itself by literally sucking the lifeblood out of India. "Security of life and property we have better in these times, no doubt," he conceded. "But the destruction of a million and a half lives in one famine is a strange illustration of the worth of the life and property thus secured." Indifferent response His point was simple. India had enough food supplies to feed the starving - why had the government instead let them die? While Orissans perished in droves in 1866, Mr Naoroji noted that India had actually exported over 200m pounds of rice to Britain. He discovered a similar pattern of mass exportation during other famine years. "Good God," Mr Naoroji declared, "when will this end?" It did not end anytime soon. Famines recurred in 1869 and 1874. Between 1876 and 1878, during the Madras famine, anywhere from four to five million people perished after the viceroy, Lord Lytton, adopted a hands-off approach similar to that employed in Ireland and Orissa. By 1901, Romesh Chunder Dutt, another leading nationalist, enumerated 10 mass famines since the 1860s, setting the total death toll at a whopping 15 million. Indians were now so poor - and the government so indifferent in its response - that, he stated, "every year of drought was a year of famine." A wealthier, less agriculturally dependent India is now able to ensure that this does not happen. Significant problems remain: the Indian Supreme Court recently upbraided some state governments for their "ostrich-like attitude" towards the current drought. For such reasons, it is all the more important to remember the Orissa Famine today. This humanitarian disaster, and the others that followed, galvanized Indians into fighting against British colonial rule. Framing and implementing a robust national drought policy, as the Supreme Court has ordered, will be a fitting way to commemorate the million Indians who perished 150 years ago.
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Post by Jaga on Jun 12, 2016 12:14:17 GMT -7
John, I am glad you posted it. Google wants us to be aware. I learned about it just recently when I watched so called Crash World History course, they had a lesson about India. We really do not know enough about atrocities which happened outside America/Europe region.
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 3:16:07 GMT -7
Dear John and Jaga, Hindu's in Suriname during a ceremony in a Hindu templeI know Hindu's and Indian people very well, because after the abolition of slavery in the Dutch colony of Sruiname in Juli 1, 1863, the Dutch important Hindu and Muslim contract workers from India and Javanese people from Indonesia. As a plantation colony, Suriname was still heavily dependent on manual labour in the late 19th century, and to make up for the shortfall, the Dutch brought in contract labourers from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and India (through an arrangement with the British). In addition, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, small numbers of labourers, mostly men, were brought in from China and the Middle East. The largest ethnic group in Suriname today are the East Indians, who form 27 percent of the population. They are descendants of 19th-century contract workers from India, hailing mostly from the modern Indian states of Bihar and Eastern Uttar Pradesh along the Nepali border. Dutch Suriname Hindu's during the fest of lights Divali, November 11, 2012 in The Hague (Den Haag).Hindu's in Suriname during the Hindu spring Festival of Colour Holi in Suriname
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 3:29:07 GMT -7
Hindu people are handsome and smart people, and often are quite succesful in Suriname and the Netherlands. Education is important for Hindu parents who want their children to succeed in life as doctors, engineers, business people, lawjers, judges, politicians or educators. There were and are Hindu politicians in Suriname and the Netherlands. Hindu party of SurinameThe Vooruitstrevende Hervormingspartij ( Progressive Reform Party / VHP), formerly known as the " Verenigde Hindoestaanse Partij" ( United Hindustani Party), is a political party in Suriname. At the last legislative elections ( May 25, 2010), the party was part of the Nieuw Front (New Front) political combination that won 31.6% of the popular votes and fourteen out of fifty-one seats in the National Assembly. With eight seats, the VHP is currently the biggest opposition party in the Surinamese parliament. Chan Santokhi is since July 3, 2011 the chairman of the party. Previous chairman Ram Sardjoe is the honorary chairman. According to current statistics, the Progressive Reform Party is the second biggest political party of Suriname (with Dési Bouterse's National Democratic Party being no. 1).
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 3:39:55 GMT -7
Hindu wedding in the Nehterlands, a very beautiful ceremony in a Hindu temple with sweet Hindu music
You see the swastica in the womens dress. It is not Nazi, but an old Hindu symbol.
Hindu's during the Holi festival of colours in the Hague, the Netherlands
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 3:43:06 GMT -7
Protest of Dutch Hindu's with a Surinamese background at the Pakistani Embassy in The Hague
Hinduism is the oldest religion and spiritual tradition of this world and is all about liberty and freedom to carve one's own path to divine.It has no concept of apostasy or blasphemy or even conversion! But even without any push towards conversion it is winning hearts and minds of people all over the world by it's teachings,love and philosophy alone.
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 4:03:21 GMT -7
Dear John,
I know about the bad heritage of the British empire and it's colonialism. Not only in India, but also in Africa, Asia, the America's and the Middle-east. There is some reason why Adolf Hitler liked the white Anglo-Saxon colonialists, he fancied the British English people as true aryans and Germanic people. The white blue eyed, blond and red hair brits. The white Wasps in the USA, English speaking Canadians, Australians, New Zealanders, and Anglo-Africans from Rhodesia (Zimbabwe) and South-Africa are from the same tribe. The contradictio in terminis is the fact that I like all the Enlgish speaking people from these countries, or better said I am fond of them. It is easier to connect with them than with other peoples due to our Western-European British English education (at highschool and the last years of primary school) and the influence of the BBC, which is stronger over here than the American influence. We are inlfuenced by two streams of English culture, the British English one and the Second American English one, which has more German, Dutch, Scandinavian, Yiddish and other European influences and therefor has become less pure Anglo-Saxon English.
Back to the British colonizers. I remember their black African slave trade to Southern-America and the USA, their starvation policy of millions of Irish (the first reason why there are so many Irish Americans today), their brutal regime in their African colonies, and their colonial wars with other colonial empires. Ofcourse we Dutch are not a penny less bad. We did excactly the same in our colonies, and like the Brits we owe a lof our wealth to our colonies. And the Portuges, Spanish, Belgian and German colonies were very bad too, for the local people who were enslaved, humiliated, tortured, executed, killed, maimed for life or traumatized for their whole lives. Ofcourse the pactice of Slavery continued to affect the decendants of the slaves in the sense of discrimination, racism and being made feel inferior to white people. Ghandi showed the errors of the British colonial regime and the racism Indians also faced in South-Africa, where there are a lot of Hindu Indians in Cape Town and Durban.
Cheers, Pieter
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Post by pieter on Jun 13, 2016 4:04:59 GMT -7
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Post by Jaga on Jun 13, 2016 17:45:05 GMT -7
John, Pieter,
I should probably not reply that "I am glad that John posted it", since after I read the information again sounded harsh. It was terrible that something like that really happened due to the inaction millions of people died, not only because of inaction but because of bureacratic change in infrastructure and a complete lack of help, since these people did not have any value in British eyes.
I am just glad that google and popular mass media started talking about other tragedies than Jewish holocaust etc....
Pieter, beautiful pictures from Suriname and Indians/Indonesians from there. I met Indians from Guyana in New York, they welcomed me and other foreign students in America during Christmas. I never before knew how many Indians live around the world because of a need to populate British colonies.
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Post by pieter on Jun 14, 2016 11:55:05 GMT -7
John, Pieter, I should probably not reply that "I am glad that John posted it", since after I read the information again sounded harsh. It was terrible that something like that really happened due to the inaction millions of people died, not only because of inaction but because of bureacratic change in infrastructure and a complete lack of help, since these people did not have any value in British eyes. I am just glad that google and popular mass media started talking about other tragedies than Jewish holocaust etc.... Pieter, beautiful pictures from Suriname and Indians/Indonesians from there. I met Indians from Guyana in New York, they welcomed me and other foreign students in America during Christmas. I never before knew how many Indians live around the world because of a need to populate British colonies. And Dutch colonies, Suriname was a Dutch colony. So the Dutch took in contract workers from a territory of another Colonial empire. The Dutch and British were competitors. I wonder if it was wise to trade New York (New Amsterdam) with the British for Suriname. Beginning in the 16th century, French, Spanish, and English explorers visited the area. A century later, plantation colonies were established by the Dutch and English along the many rivers in the fertile Guiana plains. The earliest documented colony in Guiana was an English settlement named Marshall's Creek along the Suriname River. Disputes arose between the Dutch and the English. In 1667, during negotiations leading to the Treaty of Breda, the Dutch decided to keep the nascent plantation colony of Suriname they had conquered from the English. The English got to keep New Amsterdam, the main city of the former colony of New Netherland. Already a cultural and economic hub in those days, they renamed it after the Duke of York: New York. In 1683, the Society of Suriname was founded by the city of Amsterdam, the Van Aerssen van Sommelsdijck family, and the Dutch West India Company. The society was chartered to manage and defend the colony. The planters of the colony relied heavily on African slaves to cultivate the coffee, cocoa, sugar cane and cotton plantations along the rivers. Planters' treatment of the slaves was notoriously bad, and many slaves escaped the plantations. With the help of the native South Americans living in the adjoining rain forests, these runaway slaves established a new and unique culture that was highly successful in its own right. They were known collectively in English as the Maroons, in French as Nèg'Marrons (literally meaning " brown negroes", that is " pale-skinned negroes"), and in Dutch as Bosnegers (literally meaning " forest negroes"). The Maroons gradually developed several independent tribes through a process of ethnogenesis, as they were made up of slaves from different African ethnicities. Among them are the Saramaka, the Paramaka, the Ndyuka or Aukan, the Kwinti, the Aluku or Boni, and the Matawai. The Maroons often raided the plantations to recruit new members from the slaves and capture women, as well as acquire weapons, food and supplies. The planters and their families were sometimes killed in the raids; colonists built defenses, which were so important they were shown on 18th-century maps, but these were not sufficient. The colonists also mounted armed campaigns against the Maroons, who generally escaped through the rainforest which they knew much better than did the colonists. To end hostilities, in the 19th century the European colonial authorities signed several peace treaties with different tribes. They granted the Maroons sovereign status and trade rights in their inland territories. Maroon-warriors-surinameAbolition of slaveryMaroon village, Suriname River, 1955In 1861-63 the Lincoln administration looked abroad for places to relocate freed slaves who wanted to leave the United States. It opened U.S. negotiations with the Dutch government regarding African American migration and colonization of the Dutch colony of Suriname in South America. Nothing came of the idea, and after 1864 the idea was dropped. Slavery in Suriname was abolished by the Netherlands in 1863, but the slaves were not fully released until 1873, after a mandatory ten-year transition period during which time they were required to work on the plantations for minimal pay. As soon as they became truly free, the slaves largely abandoned the plantations where they had worked for several generations in favour of the city, Paramaribo. Waterfront houses in Paramaribo, 1955As a plantation colony, Suriname was still heavily dependent on manual labour, and to make up for the shortfall, the Dutch brought in contract labourers from the Dutch East Indies (modern Indonesia) and India (through an arrangement with the British). In addition, during the late 19th and early 20th centuries, small numbers of labourers, mostly men, were brought in from China and the Middle East. Although Suriname's population remains relatively small, because of this history it is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse countries in the world. Javanese immigrants brought as contract workers from the Dutch East Indies. Picture taken between 1880 and 1900.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jun 22, 2016 11:57:46 GMT -7
That time World War II vets violently overthrew corrupt politicians in Tennessee
Still from the 1992 Hallmark movie, “An American Story,” based on the real Battle of Athens. Photo: Youtube
When veterans of World War II returned home to McMinn County, Tennessee, they probably weren’t surprised to find that many of the same politicians from before the war were still running the place. A local political machine run by Paul Cantrell had been suspected of running the county and committing election fraud since 1936. However, when the sheriff’s deputies began targeting the veterans with fines for minor arrests, the vets suspected they were being taken advantage of. One veteran, Bill White, later told American Heritage magazine: “There were several beer joints and honky-tonks around Athens; we were pretty wild; we started having trouble with the law enforcement at that time because they started making a habit of picking up GIs and fining them heavily for most anything—they were kind of making a racket out of it. “After long hard years of service—most of us were hard-core veterans of World War II—we were used to drinking our liquor and our beer without being molested. When these things happened, the GIs got madder—the more GIs they arrested, the more they beat up, the madder we got …” By early 1946, the vets and the townspeople were tired of what they saw as corrupt practices by Paul Cantrell and his lackeys. The vets started their own political party with candidates for five offices. The focus of the contest was the race for sheriff between Paul Cantrell and Henry Knox, a veteran of North Africa. Everyone knew that the election could turn violent. Veterans in nearby Blount County promised 450 men who could assist in any need that McMinn County had on election day. In response, Cantrell hired two hundred “deputies” from outside the county to guard polling places. What happened next would go down as the “Battle of Athens,” or the “McMinn County War.” Tensions built on election day as the veterans faced off with the special deputies. By 3 p.m., an hour before the polls closed, violence broke out. Deputies beat and shot a black farmer who tried to vote and arrested two veterans who were then held hostage in the Athens Water Works. Other veterans responded by taking hostage deputies who were sent to arrest them. Still, Cantrell was able to fill most of the ballot boxes with purchased votes and get them to the jail, ensuring he would win the election. While the sheriff and his lackeys counted the votes in the jail, White and the other veterans were getting angry. Finally, sometime after 6 p.m., White led a raid on the National Guard armory to get guns. White said in a 1969 interview that they “broke down the armory doors and took all the rifles, two Thompson sub-machine guns, and all the ammunition we could carry, loaded it up in the two-ton truck and went back to GI headquarters and passed out seventy high-powered rifles and two bandoleers of ammunition with each one.” The veterans set siege to the jail, firing on deputies that were outside the jail when they arrived. One deputy fell wounded into the building while another crawled under a car after he was hit in his leg. But, Cantrell and others were safely locked behind the brick walls of the jail. The veterans needed to get through before other police or the National Guard arrived. Molotov cocktails proved ineffective but at 2:30 in the morning, someone arrived with dynamite. At about the same time, an ambulance arrived and the veterans let it through, assuming it was there for the wounded. Instead, Paul Cantrell and one of his men escaped in it. A few minutes later, the vets started throwing dynamite. The first bundle was used to blow up a deputy’s cruiser, flipping it over. Then, three more bundles were thrown. One landed on the porch roof, one under another car, and one against the jail wall. The nearly simultaneous explosions destroyed the wall and car and threw the jail porch off of its foundation. The deputies in the jail, as well as some hiding out in the courthouse, surrendered immediately. The veterans were then forced to protect the deputies as local townspeople attempted to kill them. At least one deputy had his throat slit and another of Cantrell’s men was shot in the jaw. The veterans established a patrol to keep the peace. To prevent a counterattack by Cantrell, the vets placed machine guns at all the approaches to Athens, where the jail and courthouse were located. The rest of the incident played out without violence. Henry Knox took over as sheriff Aug. 4, 1946 and future elections dismantled what was left of Cantrell’s machine.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jul 20, 2016 4:46:49 GMT -7
OFF THE RECORD
Mainstream FINALLY Admits Hitler Never Killed Himself, Was Allowed to Escape — Died an Old Man
Long considered the purely fictitious musings of conspiracy theorists, rumors Adolf Hitler did not die in a murder-suicide pact with his newlywed, Eva Braun — but instead escaped to live under the radar in South America — might actually hold weight, after all.
Officially, whatever worth that could offer, Hitler met his fate with a gunshot to the head, while Braun ingested cyanide in a subterranean bunker on April 30, 1945, as the Allies finally quashed the Nazis. Forces then burned their bodies and the pair was subsequently buried in a shallow grave nearby.
But what if this narrative had merely been a comfortable cover spoon fed the public to mask the Führer actually being whisked away in a shadowy plot to ensure he wouldn’t fall into the clutches of advancing Soviets?
If the thought perhaps seems a bit ‘tin-foily’ for your taste, first consider the United States’ morals-thwarting Operation Paperclip.
Nearly 500 Nazi scientists — particularly those specializing in aerodynamics, rocketry, chemical weapons and reaction technology, and medicine — were secreted to White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico; Huntsville, Alabama; and Texas’ Fort Bliss without even the knowledge of the State Department. As obvious security threats and war criminals, those scientists wouldn’t have qualified for visas through official channels — but the government, foregoing ethical implications in pursuit of their knowledge, indeed facilitated safe passage to the U.S.
Though much information about what has alternately been called Project Paperclip remains classified, that Nazi scientists did receive paychecks courtesy of the U.S. government to advance national goals is admitted fact. In that context, would Hitler being given a similar VIP escape plan be that outside the realm of possibility?
Historian Abel Basti extensively details this hypothesis in a new edition of his book published in Argentina, “El Exilio de Hitler,” or “Hitler in Exile” — an account now making headlines, even in media as mainstream as the Huffington Post.
“There was an agreement with the US that Hitler would run away and that he shouldn’t fall into the hands of the Soviet Union,” Basti said. “This also applies to many scientists, the military and spies who later took part in the struggle against the Soviet regime.”
Basti posits Hitler slipped to safety via a tunnel beneath the Chancellery connected to Tempelhof Airport, where a helicopter then whisked the former Führer to Spain. Traveling first to the Canary Islands, Hitler made his way to Argentina on a U-boat, where he lived for ten years before settling in Paraguay under the protection of dictator Alfredo Stroessner, himself with German roots.
As the historian tells it, the former brutal fascist died there on February 3, 1971.
“Wealthy families who helped him over the years were responsible for the organization of his funeral,” Basti explained. “Hitler was buried in an underground bunker, which is now an elegant hotel in the city of Asuncion. In 1973, the entrance to the bunker was sealed, and 40 people came to say goodbye to Hitler. One of those who attended [the funeral], Brazilian serviceman Fernando Nogueira de Araujo, then told a newspaper about the ceremony.”
But Basti isn’t alone in this hypothesis.
Bob Baer, a CIA operative with 21 years’ experience and “one of America’s most elite intelligence case officers,” described a similarly covert, government-facilitated escape plan in a documentary series for the History Channel called Hunting Hitler, which aired in early 2015.
Baer and his team, including war crimes investigator Dr. John Cencich, claimed they discovered proof of Hitler’s escape, using 700 pages of declassified FBI documents and on-scene sleuthing in South America. As one investigator noted,
“American Army officials in Germany have not located Hitler’s body nor is there any reliable source that Hitler is dead.”
Further discrediting the official story — and backing up doubts raised by Basti and the Baer team — a report in the Guardian in 2009 shattered previously-‘irrefutable’ physical evidence of Hitler’s suicide: the former Führer’s bullet-pierced skull.
American researchers performed a DNA analysis of that skull — once preserved in secret by Soviet intelligence, now held by Russian State Archive in Moscow — to determine the legitimacy of claims the bones were indeed Hitler’s.
But in the genetics lab at the University of Connecticut, archeologist and bone specialist Nick Bellantoni made a startling discovery. From the outset, Bellantoni noticed telling discrepancies:
“The bone seemed very thin; male bone tends to be more robust. And the sutures where the skull plates came together seemed to correspond to someone under 40” — but Hitler turned 56 in April 1945.
Bellantoni’s suspicions from physical examination of that skull fragment — which the team diligently confirmed authentic — were backed up by the molecular, genetic analysis. That skull, which the Soviets had proffered as proof of Hitler’s self-inflicted gunshot for decades, belonged to an as-yet unidentified female.
Though possible the skull fragment, found to be of a “woman between the ages of 20 and 40,” according to Bellantoni, could belong to Eva Braun, no narrative of events ever claimed Hitler’s former bride was shot. And though many died near the Chancellery, the Soviets and then Russians verified the area from which the fragment was retrieved as the exact spot the couple’s bodies had been doused in fuel and burned.
Further, Basti claims Braun not only also fled Germany unscathed, but far outlived Hitler — though he hasn’t been able to track her past the age of 90, where she last resided in Buenos Aires.
As early as 2000, the BBC reported Hitler biographer Werner Maser cast doubt on the authenticity of the skull — despite steadfast public affirmation from Russian officials.
South America did indeed play host to many fleeing Nazis — including sadistic doctor Josef Mengele, whose torturous experimentation of Nazi concentration camp prisoners eventually branched into the study of twins. Later, in a small town in Brazil, one in five pregnancies resulted in births of twins — something Argentine historian Jorge Camarasa claimed in 2009 evidenced Mengele’s handiwork following his escape from Germany.
Whether or not you make a habit of doubting official stories, evidence of Hitler’s deft departure from Germany — rather than a death by his own hand alongside his bride of just a few hours — appears more solid by the year.
As biographers, researchers, scientists, historians, and others carefully piece together a credible counter-narrative, perhaps Hitler’s suicide stands as one more falsely-constructed story designed to comfort an atrocity-weary public — as well as veil the ethical avulsion of an awkward truth.
Originally written by Claire Bernish and published on The Free Thought Project
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jul 23, 2016 5:42:24 GMT -7
…Meanwhile, All Hell Has Broken Loose in the South China SeaTOPICS: China July 21, 2016 By James Corbett The failed Turkish coup. The Nice attack. The RNC and DNC. There is no shortage of headline-grabbing news stories to keep you occupied during this summer of rage. But while your attention is elsewhere, huge moves are afoot in the Asia-Pacific. Specifically, those moves are afoot in the South China Sea, where the Permanent Court of Arbitration handed down a long-awaited ruling last week in favor of the Philippines in their long-running dispute over territorial waters with China. The court, operating under the arbitration provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, ruled that China does not have “historical rights” to the waters in question and that their reclamation activity in the area has already caused irreparable environmental damage and should stop immediately. China promptly rejected the ruling exactly as they said they would. This might sound like dry, legalistic stuff, but it’s not. This dispute is a window into the simmering tensions that are ready to boil over in the region if and when the US makes its long-awaited, much-ballyhooed “Asia-Pacific pivot” (i.e. when Clinton is inaugurated by the voting machines this November). To get an idea where this is all headed, just ask Dennis Blair. He’s the former Director of National Intelligence and retired Navy admiral who just told a Congressional committee that the US needs to be ready for a military confrontation with China over this dispute. That’s bold talk in the realm of diplomacy, where people like Hillary campaign advisor Kurt Campbell usually opine mealy-mouthed political doublespeak like “I think over time China will start to adjust its position, because they will realize it’s not in their best strategic interests.” The real question here is what, precisely, will trigger the US-Philippines Mutual Defense Treaty, which calls for a military response to any armed attack “on the island territories under [each member’s] jurisdiction in the Pacific or on its armed forces, public vessels or aircraft in the Pacific.” Will the Philippines invoke the treaty if China continues its development of the Spratly islands? And would the US respond? The answer so far is a resounding…silence. No one wants to say, because no one wants to draw that big red line when China shows no signs of abiding by it. If there is a point of moderation in this potential conflict, it’s that Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte is interested in reviving flagging Sino-Filippino relations, but even there he’s hamstrung by his own population. A 2014 Pew poll found fully 93% of Filippinos are worried about China’s encroachment on the South China Sea and the possibility of military conflict. Meanwhile China, for its part, is mulling the creation of an Air Defense Identification Zone in the South China Sea requiring any air traffic to first notify China before entering the air space over the waters. Oh, and Chinese citizens are smashing their iPhones and protesting outside KFC locations as a backlash against perceived American interference in China’s territorial disputes. To make matters worse, tensions are still high in the East China Sea, where Chinese and Japanese fighter jets are coming perilously close to actual dogfights. Indeed, each year there seems to be a fresh pronouncement that Japan has scrambled a record number of fighters to intercept Chinese jets over their airspace. And now that Prime Minister Abe’s coalition has just achieved the super majority it needs to amend the constitution, many are worried that Japan is about to remove the mask of pacifism and convert its “Self-Defense Force” into the military threat it really is. Such a move would only add more fuel to the fire of military tension between Japan and its regional rival. So just in case you’ve forgotten about the Asia-Pacific in the 24/7 news cycle of trauma we’ve been experiencing lately, don’t fret; it’s still there, and it’s still a tinderbox. Let’s just hope no one lights the match.
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Post by JustJohn or JJ on Jul 23, 2016 5:52:26 GMT -7
www.indiapost.com/chinese-military-unveils-new-weapons-after-scs-verdict/July 22, 2016 BEIJING: Chinese military has unveiled a range of new weapons, including long-range missiles, amid calls by its top officials to be combat-ready following a landmark verdict by an UN-backed tribunal that struck down China’s “historical rights” in the South China Sea. The Southern Theatre Command of the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) which looks after the South China Sea front has unveiled a series of new weapons for sea and air combat during a visit by top military officers. The weapons were shown on state television in the wake of a landmark international tribunal rejecting Beijing’s claims to almost all of the South China Sea and upheld the claim of the Philippines. Military experts said the rare public display was intended to show that the newly formed Southern Theatre Command, was well- prepared for any potential military confrontation with the US, Hong Kong-based South China Morning Post reported today. The display conceded with the visit to the centre by General Fan Changlong, vice chairman of the Central Military Commission (CMC), China’s highest military official after President Xi Jinping. Xi heads the CMC and the overall high command of the PLA. Fan has called on troops to be ready for combat and for improvements in equipment and logistical preparation. Officers and soldiers need to be aware of current threats to China’s sovereignty, security and interests, state-run Xinhua news agency quoted him as saying in an official statement. He asked the military to research combat methods and strategies pertinent to different situations and foster Special Forces reserved for key missions and scenarios. “Air and sea patrols should be tightly organized to handle all kinds of emergencies and safeguard air and sea security in border areas,” Fan said. Fan was accompanied by Gen Ma Xiaotian, commander of the PLA Air Force and General Wei Fenghe, chief of the army’s Rocket Force, which operates the country’s missile arsenal. Beijing-based naval expert Li Jie said Fan’s visit indicated that the southern command could carry out joint combat operations of land, rocket, naval and air forces as well as other strategic support forces. “All the weapons showed on state media are defensive arms of short to medium range within 1,500 km, meaning China so far is using restrained deterrence to warn the US not to challenge Beijing’s bottom line in the South China Sea,” Li said. State broadcaster CCTV showed footage of troops in the southern theatre handling the DF-16 missile, which has a range up to 1,000 km, the report said. The missile, which was first displayed on September 3 last year in a military parade to mark the 70th anniversary of the end of the Second World War, could strike US military bases in Okinawa. Earlier reports said the southern theatre was equipped with DF-21Ds, or “carrier-killer” anti-ship ballistic missiles, which have a range of 1,450 km. The CCTV footage also showed new H-6K bombers. A division of the jets has been deployed to the southern theatre to patrol Scarborough Shoal, the report said. Chinese air force has carried out air patrols in over the South China Sea after the tribunal appointed by Permanent Court of Arbitration, (PCA) struck down China s claims over all most of the area based on historic rights. China which has boycotted the tribunal proceedings has rejected US calls to implement the verdict. Beijing has asserted that it would not back down from its claims. China’s claims over the South China Sea were fiercely contested by Vietnam, Philippines, Malaysia, Brunei and Taiwan.–PTI ---
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Post by karl on Jul 23, 2016 8:19:10 GMT -7
China has indeed so, made very great strides in the world of Industry and with this, has not forgotten to upgrade its military with some very formable new designs in weapons. Commensurately supported by a very well established industrial base and in international trade.
As a indication of the Chinese market standing, whilst shopping, check the labels of products and many will indicated: Made in China.
In as far as international affairs with China,it would so appear of the old adage: Might makes right...
Karl
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