"Life is too short to thank you for your goodness." --Slobodan Milosevic to his family after addressing the charges of his persecutors in Belgrade (2003)

[This repost from 2005 is meant to remind us History Wonks (HW) of the creul and mendacious manipulations our craven journalistic chiens gardiens, our window-washers on the world (like the NYTs, CNN or the BBC), have gotten up to in the recent past.  And how tightly this mis- and dis-information hangs on to us, sticks to our skin like a flaming petroleum slime, like napalm, as if its corrosive corruption, in which our souls have been encrusted, is our only medal of good faith and purity of purpose.  And how the number of those leaders who have been subjected to this kind of slow, agonizing death in life, including Bashar al Assad and our own President Obama, continues to mount.  Even after Slobodan Milosevic's tragic martyrdom, there is still no Justice in International Justice.--mc]

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 2005

Slobodan Milosevic's public response to charges fabricated by the Belgrade regime

[I recently complained in this space about, among a lot of other things, how the Defense of Slobodan Milosevic, a cause with which CM/P is inextricably involved, seems to have become so lost in its Islamophobic concerns over Muslim expansionism being at the heart of the destruction of Yugoslavia that they've failed even to take note of the judicial pogrom going down in Belgrade these days. 

As usual, I was just a scoche off my mark--and I neglected to include the President's son Marko among those driven rudely and unjustly from their families, homes and country. O'erweening zeal to do the right thing is no excuse for my reckless disregard of facts and details.

Je m'excuse.

So as an amends, here's a vintage 2003 statement from President Milosevic on the very issues that are now being raised in his hometown, in complete disregard of legal niceties like statutes of limitations or double jeopardy, so that the comprador class now house-sitting Serbia for NATO can do some weapons-grade sucking up to their Imperialist masters.

The President's statement is forewarded by a neat synopsis of the recent events in Belgrade by British CDSM chairman--and my favorite pommey--, Ian Johnson. 

{NB--It should not be forgotten that the head of RTS during the 1999 Nato terror bombings of Serbia over Kosovo, Mr Dragoljub Milanovic, is currently locked down doing a ten year bit for endangering his employees by not warning them that Nato was about to blow them away, just at the moment they were all awaiting a live feed of the Larry King Show from CNN--part of a trap set for a high Serbian government official King was supposed to interview, but who was saved by not being able to make this very early morning call--his make-up girl and 15 others were not so lucky. And Mr Milanovic was in the RTS building at the time, too.}

Remember, at CM/P we're still all about

FREE SLOBO (and All the Prisoners of the Globalization Wars @ Sheviningen & Xray Arusha)!!!

OFF THE TRIBS!!!

POWER TO THE PEOPLES OF THE TARGETED NATIONS!!!

HANG ON!
--mc]

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Dear Friends,

On18th July 2005 a Belgrade court convicted eight policeman for the murder of Ivan Stambolic and the attempted murder of the pro-Nato politician Vuk Draskovic. The court also imposed a 15 year sentence on former head of state security Radimir Markovic for 'assisting'.  Mr Markovic was brought to The Hague tribunal in 2003 as a prosecution witness but in court he revealed that he was being coerced to lie against Mr Milosevic. The prosecution and Hague Judges were furious at being exposed so blatantly. The false charges now laid against Mr Markovic and his 15 year sentence are his punishment for standing up to The Hague court and to those who destroyed Yugoslavia.

In August 2003 Slobodan Milosevic spoke from The Hague about the persecution of his family and the charges against him relating to Ivan Stambolic and Vuk Draskovic.

Part of his statement we print below. IJ
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
(Part of Statement)

The original link for this article is:
www.sloboda.org.yu/engleski/indexeng1.html

- Slobodan Milosevic's public response to charges fabricated by the Belgrade
regime -

In March 2001, I was accused of imaginary crimes, so I could be arrested and delivered to The Hague.

These new accusations in 2003 have the same purpose: The Hague.  Only this time, their goal is to try to prevent, or at least minimize, the obvious fiasco of the false Tribunal, which is serving as the weapon of war against our country and our people. This time, unlike 2001, they have also begun to terrorize my family, fiendishly persecuting my wife and my son. The criminal campaign against my wife and my son is being mounted solely because of my struggle here. Their only crime is being my family.

People of Serbia and freedom-loving people throughout the world send me messages of support and wish me victory. It seems that only the Belgrade regime cheers on the Hague Tribunal, so much so that it does not balk from terrorizing women and children.


Ivan Stambolic

I have been a friend of Ivan Stambolic for many years. We parted ways at the 8th Session of the Serbian League of Communists' Central Committee, in 1987. We never quarreled personally.

After he was relieved, he came to me and asked for one of the best jobs (in both our opinions) in the SFRY: President of the Yugoslav bank for international economic relations. And he received it, staying in that position for over 10 years despite the practice of rotating the management, until his retirement - for which he was eligible long before, on grounds of both work experience and age.

He had been completely forgotten as a politician for many years.  Thus the story of how he represented a potential challenge in the elections is a blatant lie, since he was never in the running. He was not even a candidate. Besides, in those ten years, has any harm befallen any other candidates?

It is absurd to claim that I rushed to kill him as a threat, after I'd enabled him to hold a position of his choice for 10 years and he retired!

Especially puzzling for me is that his family has readily accepted this shallow lie. It seems they care more to blame me than find out the truth about the fate of their father and husband.

Ivan Stambolic was a forgotten politician, and at the time of his disappearance, a forgotten banker as well. No one in the state or the political apparatus had mentioned him for years. He belonged to the era of the former-SFRY, and things have unfortunately changed since 1990.

No offense, but no one cared about Ivan Stambolic any more. There was no persecution of those who supported his position at the 8th Session. Desimir Jeftic, the chairman of the Serbian government who was also relieved, was for many years the Ambassador to Romania. Ivan's best friend and neighbor Dragan Tomic, the CEO of "Simpo" furniture company, remained a member of the Party and state leadership. I am certain he would confirm that I had told him, after Ivan was relieved, that I would think of him the worst if he'd renounced his friend and turned his back on him. So, the truth is quite the opposite from the story fabricated by several pathetic creatures.

I was informed of Ivan's disappearance over the telephone, by interior minister Vlajko Stojiljkovic. I told him to use all the available resources to find him. He told me that Ivan's wife and son reported his disappearance in the afternoon, though he went jogging that morning, which would make the investigation more difficult.

All border posts were notified, and Vlajko Stojiljkovic told me later that evening that several hundred police were engaged in the investigation. I insisted that all resources be used to find him [Stambolic] as soon as possible. Certainly most of these officers are still employed by the interior ministry, and can testify to that.

From what Stojiljkovic told me, everything that could have been done was done.


Draskovic.

Since the investigator, during the introductions, mentioned my alleged connection to the "attempted murder of Vuk Draskovic", I wish to say a few words about that as well.

I never believed that what happened in Budva was a real murder attempt, because it seems improbable that someone could shoot up all those bullets in a small room like that and miss with every one of them. Even Vuk Draskovic, with his flare for the dramatic, could not have turned into a fly or a mosquito. I believed that either someone tried to scare him, or that he made the entire incident up to gain attention and promote his role as the "victim of the regime." It is not hard to see who could have benefited from such an incident, but it is abundantly clear that it did not serve the government.

Quite to the contrary, in fact.

Are you not ashamed?

I demanded of both the investigator and the prosecutor that my interrogation be public, and that they even set up an open telephone line, so anyone could ask me whatever they wanted. They explained that this was not allowed by law, as long as the investigation was ongoing. I accepted that, but requested that the recordings be made public at the end of the investigation - since there would be no danger of potential interference at that time. They rejected that as well, even though they had the full legal authority to approve it. Neither I, nor they, nor my legal representatives disputed that.

Today's government uses the law as an excuse for lawlessness and tyranny.

Nothing new!

Montestquieu wrote as early as 1742 that "There is no crueler tyranny than one perpetrated under the shield of law, and in the name of justice."

In this entire dirty operation of trying to save this illegitimate Hague court from a fiasco, the most shameful element is surely the persecution of my wife and son. I told the investigating judge that his investigation should include the phantom gold bars, foreign currency reserves, villas in Switzerland and whatnot, because they were all mentioned in various statements and extensive newspaper stories, only to be "forgotten" later.

I asked him "Are you not ashamed?" He did not answer.

To my wife and son, Mira and Marko, who have been separated from me in this heinous way, I wish to say: "Life is too short to thank you for your goodness."

Slobodan Milosevic
The Hague, 17 August 2003.
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IT'S A BI-POLAR WORLD AFTER ALL - repost from 2006

WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 27, 2006

In the Spirit of Bandung -- by Faiza Rady -- from Al-Ahram Weekly - online

In the Spirit of Bandung -- by Faiza Rady -- from Al-Ahram Weekly - online


[Here’s an article from Al-Arham that was sent to us, like so many others on this blog, by our strong North American comrade, Le Requin canadien. He notes that of the few weaknesses the article has, perhaps the most obvious is its positing of a bipolar Super Power world that brought forth the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM). From where I’m posting this, in Poland, it is blindingly clear that the US Empire and the Empire of the USSR were as empirically different as two ‘empires’ can get. The reality of Western Imperialism was—and still is—about converting the natural riches and resources of the world into weapons (incl financial instruments) by which to destroy its enemies—first among whom are the former possessors of these same riches and resources; the reality of the USSR was about using its own vast natural, and especially human, resources to free the world from the curse of Capitalist and Imperialist destruction. The West ripped off resources and destroyed their origins; the Communists developed resources to rationalize, liberate and sustain the peoples who lived with them. That the East’s means of production were trumped by the West’s means of destruction—that militarism continues to waste the world—is just another bitter axiom in the modern geopolitics of grotesque immiseration.

If you look at the list of members of the NAM below, you will recognize many of the countries recently targeted by the West for destruction: Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Palestine, Lebanon, North Korea, Rwanda, Burundi, Congo, Zimbabwe. All these nations have had some form of favored trade relations, especially in the energy fields, with the USSR then and with Russia now. But I’ve been here in Poland for some time now (more’n a month) and perhaps my notion weakens or my discernings are lethargied, but things just don’t seem to be getting any brighter in the world.

CM/P (in its current, or re-current, Polish manifestation, the P is for 'PollyLodz' {pron: Polly-Woodge} this time out) continues to flounder, flat-fish-like, in the fetid, brackish backwaters of Poland's historico-political wishbone culture—still pulled between the covert and convenient seemings of Western Consumer Catholicism (read: Waste Capitalism) and those friendly folks at the Russian Gas and Electric Company (read: once and future Communists). Yet Poland never sought to ‘non-align’ itself from the bipolar world of the two-headed hyper-hydra that once haunted the febrile imaginings of Christian anti-Communist Crusader Rabbits, and which the article we’re posting gives some undue significance.

In case you haven't heard—which is very, very fucking likely—or couldn't guess from the demented drivel above, we're in Lodz, the second city of Poland after Warsaw, doing a bilingual version of one of Shakespeare's fattest (second in girth only to Hamlet) and bleakest tragedies, King Lear. We're playing the King (i.e., me, I’m playing Lear) in the original Shakespearean English (which bears almost no resemblance to any English anyone, anywhere has spoken in the last, say, 350 years—though I've always wanted a good excuse to use this royal 'we'—makes it seem like there're more of me than there actually are—it's less lonely that way, too), while the Polophones will be treated to the King's Polish by one of their legendary actors, Marian Opania.

Oh, yeah, and lest that be not weird and incomprehensible enough for your dazed and dangling conceits, the actresses playing Lear’s daughters, Goneril (from whom the venereal disease takes its name) and Regan (who served as the role model for the US President known as The Great Somnambulant Drooler) are delightful Norwegian kids and have been directed to do their roles in their native tongue-tying tongue. So, what will be on display next weekend in Lodz, at the National Film School’s Student Theatre for FOUR PERFORMANCES ONLY (Thur-Sun, 28 Sept-1 Oct), is something like two Lears, in three languages, through uncountable and intricately treacherous translations. But NO BUDGET. And since philological theatre has seldom attracted philanthropy, subversion hardly ever brings subvention, I think we can expect some manner of catastrophic feduciary fall-out from this production, too. Too, because last year's Warsaw Rebuilds!, done in Krakow in October/November with several of the principals involved here and subject of some critical reportage elsewhere on this blog, led to myriad drastic, even calamitous fiscal and domestic recontortions.

Damn, this Shakespeare can really work your nerves! More bitching and carping anon. For now let the following piece from Al-Ahram Weekly, which springs from an instance of world class emoting on the part of Venezuela’s president before the UN,—let it serve as a slim crack in dread's lead-lined door through which a few faint and fluttering rays of hope might pierce the gloom of our Autumn's despair.

Can Hugo Chavez and Fidel Castro, wielding their superior intellects and unimpeachable decency (not to mention Venezuela's oil reserves and Cuba’s doctors), put the fear of scientific socialism's god into the likes of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Pelosi, Wrangle, Clinton, Biden, . . . phew! feck!—actually, the entire US government organ-grinder with all its busy bourgeois media monkeys? Those vile knaves, those craven fools, those scabrous side-show freaks, those Nightmare Alley geeks, who huddle in their plush but lushed-out destitution atop the great and growing heap of carrion they've made of our tiny planet; with their brazen criminality unwhipped of justice, their perjured and dissimulating righteousness torturing false confessions from their already crippled and wasted victims; while their bloody hands wring what pathetic little sustenance remains in the shriveled entrails of our dying earth: can Hugo and Fidel revive the NAM enough to create a counterforce to the material and spiritual rapists fronting late stage waste capitalism? Or will they, too, like Lear’s poor fool, be hanged? –Hanged as trophies in the Bush family’s rumpus room, to serve as sound-proofing against the shrieks and howls of a world being murdered in misery. –mc]

{{PS: I see in Oulala where Mike Ruppert has 'fled' the US for Venezuela. Peak Oil Mike a Hugotista? Yeah, maybe. But can these apostate secret agents be trusted? It seems that no sooner had he fled the fatherland than the Agency, or some strain or other of his old spook colleagues, using their usual enticement, another Mata Hari, got Mike to let down his guard—and his pitcher of beer—just long enough to beat him for his laptop. Mike’s no dummy, he saw through Ms Hari’s mariachi disguise straight away and made her as an agent from the FBI badge she had stuffed cozily between her bounteous tits. Mike the ladys man a Hugotista? Uh, sure. When he realized, instantaneously, of course, because of his years in the field as an agent of imperialist death and destruction, that Mata and the Gypsy Kings had made off with his computer, he did what all half-in-the-bag geezers would do: he gave chase. I don’t know, but he might have gotten as far as the door of the cantina before he had another geezer flash: a pitcher in the hand is better’n hooking it up on foot after a bunch of Bush flunkies. But, wow, when he got back to his beer, there was his computer on the table. The Agency kids had managed to download his whole HD in less time that it took to tell this bullshit fable. What’s Mike’s message? The FBI used the data they stole to open his FTW website so anyone can get into it for free—therefore he needs money, donations, to keep the info—and Venezuelan beer—flowing.

Now, dispite the fact I don’t trust guy’s like Mike, Philip Agee and even Stan Goff—guy’s who spend their early adulthood in the well-paid service of the forces of darkness, only to retire to a cozy leftish byline, with plenty of book deals and speaking gigs. None of this seems like sufficient penance for taking active and willful part in the genocides in SE Asia, Africa, and the ME. But everybody’s got a right to his fiddle, I guess. And quick-style repentance and overnight redemption have always been big public favorites.

Now, we here at CM/P have our own financial woes—as always. But, sad to say, they don’t involve beer and big-titted mariachis. We’re stuck off here in Lodz, a dry town (in the sense of a waterless, where all the commie-era industries sucked up all the ground water) whose symbol is a boat. We’re doing a piece of Shakespeare in three languages—none of which is really understood by any of us. And the only hope for funding, some Polish cement baron who’s now deeply into supporting the arts, turns out be on the same kind of weird moral wavelength as Peak Oil Mike: His latest gallery installation is an all-white room with empty frames on the wall—actually the frames contain the photos of the AIR above various concentration camp sites—and an all-black room into which is piped a sort of non-descript ambient sound—tape recordings of the AIR around various concentration camp sites. Consequently, no funding, no photos, no poster, and, vilest of all, NO PER DIEM! It's the old triple play: Absurd to ridiculous to grotesque--to destitute.

So, anything you can do, any sum you can spare (PayPal to cirqueminime@club-internet.fr or other financial instruments to Mick Collins at 66, rue Marcelle, 93500, Pantin, France) would keep this theatre of Babel from turning into the real Biblical punishment it was probably always intended to be. –-mc}}

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Al-Ahram Weekly -- online
21 - 27 September 2006 - Issue No. 813

In the spirit of Bandung

Southern leaders in Havana pledge to get their act together and fight for justice against hegemony, writes Faiza Rady

The 14th summit of the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), convening from 11-16 September in the Cuban capital Havana revived the spirit of southern defiance, long lost since the early days of national liberation struggles.

The Havana s ummit was opened by outgoing NAM leader Malaysian Prime Minister Ahmed Badawi, who nominated Cuban President Fidel Castro as the new head. Attending delegates approved Badawi's move with a standing ovation of thunderous applause.

This is the second time that Castro has been elected to lead NAM. Cuba chaired the movement from 1979-1983. "We are confident in Cuba's leadership of the movement. Its history tells us NAM is in good hands and will reach new heights," said Badawi.

Still convalescing from surgery, President Castro didn't attend the summit that was led by his younger brother and acting Cuban president, Raul Castro. Still, Fidel met privately with UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, Bolivian President Evo Morales, Algerian President Abdelaziz Bouteflika, and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, among other heads of state.

"Fidel is walking, singing. I saw him well enough to play baseball again, almost," a smiling Chavez told reporters after meeting with Castro.

Present at the summit were several leaders who embody a spirit of defiance to "worldwide dictatorship by the United States", to use the words of Cuban Vice President Carlos Lage. "The ideas of limited sovereignty, humanitarian intervention, preventive war and regime change are fascist; they are not modern theories to defend freedoms and fight terrorism," said Lage.

"US dictatorship", Lage explained, has turned back the clock to an earlier period of imperialism and foreign domination, with Britain, the world's former colonial master, in tow behind the world's lone superpower. Thus there is an urgent need to return to the Bandung principles of national independence and self-determination, Lage added.

At the Afro-Asian Conference in Bandung, Indonesia, nationalist liberation leaders of the stature of Gamal Abdel-Nasser of Egypt, Kwame Nkrumah of Ghana, Shri Jawaharlal Nehru of India, Ahmed Sukarno of Indonesia and Josip Broz Tito of Yugoslavia declared their neutrality and independence from the camp of the two superpowers. Included in the 10- point Bandung proclamation was a commitment to national sovereignty and territorial integrity, non-adherence to multilateral military pacts, non-interference in the internal affairs of states, struggle against imperialism and foreign occupation, and the rejection of the use of force in international relations.

"The current international situation, characterised by the one superpower's attempts to control the world, shows that we need to unite in defence of the principles upon which the Non-Aligned Movement was established," said Raul Castro, blasting the Bush administration as a threat to global peace and security, in his opening address to leaders and delegates from 118 nations representing two-thirds of the world's countries.

Many southern leaders agreed, citing US wars of aggression in Afghanistan and Iraq waged under the cover of "democracy" and "freedom". US complicity with and support of Israel's war against Lebanon, and US blessings for Israel's continued occupation of Palestine also featured prominently on the summit's agenda. "We denounce the aggression against Lebanon, to whose people and government we offer our full support," said Raul, "and we must repeat our condemnation of the intensified aggression against the Palestinian people."

Victims of the Bush administration's penchant for intervention in sovereign internal affairs voiced their defiance at the summit: Ahmadinejad is currently facing a threat of sanctions following his refusal to suspend Iran's uranium enrichment programme for energy production; Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was slapped with severe sanctions because of his land redistribution programme to the poor; and Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus is threatened with "regime change" for the crime of being a socialist, an ideology the Bush administration considers hard-line and passé.

But it is the "new socialists of the 21st century" -- Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez and Bolivian President Evo Morales -- who, perhaps, best represent the new spirit of defiance to US hegemony. True to form, Chavez pledged he would defend Iran, a country that is widely slated to be next on Washington's list for a US-led invasion. "We are with you," Chavez told Ahmadinejad, "like we are with Cuba. And if the US invades Cuba, blood will flow."

As usual, Chavez made good on his promise. After the summit, Chavez clinched a $3 billion trade deal with Iran and vowed to further strengthen economic and political ties with the Islamic Republic -- one among the many "rogue" states blacklisted by the US.

As for Cuba, it has been on the US hit list for the past 45 years. Short of invading the island, the Bush administration assiduously plods on to effect "regime change" in the "post- Castro" era. To that effect, the administration's self-styled Commission for Assistance to a Free Cuba launched a 95-page report outlining its "transition to democracy" strategy under the auspices of transition coordinator, Caleb McCarry on 10 July. In addition to listing a host of destabilising mechanisms, the report includes a "secret annex", ostensibly outlining an invasion package.

The latest US scheme against Cuba includes the creation of five new interagency working groups, reported The Miami Herald. A highly secretive operation, it was set up shortly after 31 July, following news of Fidel's surgery. According to the Herald, three of the working groups are directed by the US State Department and sponsor orchestrated diplomatic action against the island in addition to broadcasting inflammatory anti-Cuban propaganda. The idea is to expand and improve current radio and TV broadcasts, which suffer from low viewer ratings as a result of mediocre programming and a crude capitalist sales pitch.

Another group championing "humanitarian aid" is operating under the umbrella of the US Commerce Department, while a fifth group deals with immigration issues under the Department of Homeland Security. The idea is to restrict immigration out of the island in order to create an explosive internal situation that will facilitate civil strife.

Notwithstanding destabilisation schemes, old or new, the Cubans remain defiant. They have been at the receiving end of US aggression for more than half a century. Notwithstanding the US onslaught against countries of the global south, what is important is to turn things around and revamp NAM in the spirit of Bandung, says Raul.

"Non-Alignment nowadays", said Raul, "means supporting the right of the countries of the south to take the measures needed to ensure that they have control over their natural resources for the benefit of their peoples." As representatives of two-thirds of the world's people, the Havana NAM summit therefore agreed to struggle for the right to national sovereignty, including the right to development, in the face of neo-liberal economic hegemony.

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Member Nations of the Non-Aligned Movement

Afghanistan
Algeria
Angola
Antigua and Barbuda
Bahamas
Bahrain
Bangladesh
Barbados
Belarus
Belize
Benin
Bhutan
Bolivia
Botswana
Brunei
Burkina Faso
Burundi
Cambodia
Cameroon
Cape Verde
Central African Republic
Chad
Chile
Colombia
Comoros
Congo
Côte d'Ivoire
Cuba
Democratic Republic of Congo
Djibouti
Dominica
Dominican Republic
Ecuador
Egypt
Equatorial Guinea
Eritrea
Ethiopia
Gabon
Gambia
Ghana
Grenada
Guatemala
Guinea
Guinea-Bissau
Guyana
Haiti
Honduras
India
Indonesia
Iran
Iraq
Jamaica
Jordan
Kenya
Kuwait
Laos
Lebanon
Lesotho
Liberia
Libya
Madagascar
Malawi
Malaysia
Maldives
Mali
Mauritania
Mauritius
Mongolia
Morocco
Mozambique
Myanmar
Namibia
Nepal
Nicaragua
Niger
Nigeria
North Korea
Oman
Pakistan
Palestine
Panama
Papua New Guinea
Peru
Philippines
Qatar
Rwanda
Saint Lucia
Saint Kitts and Nevis
Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
São Tomé and Príncipe
Saudi Arabia
Senegal
Seychelles
Sierra Leone
Singapore
Somalia
South Africa
Sri Lanka
Sudan
Suriname
Swaziland
Syria
Tanzania
Thailand
Timor Leste
Togo
Trinidad and Tobago
Tunisia
Turkmenistan
Uganda
United Arab Emirates
Uzbekistan
Vanuatu
Venezuela
Vietnam
Yemen
Zambia
Zimbabwe