Stephen Lendman

Even America's major media can't duck a crime this grave - attacking and slaughtering up to 20 Gaza Freedom Flotilla activists and injuring dozens more.

New York Times writer Isabel Kershner headlined "At Least 10 Killed as Israel Intercepts Aid Flotilla, saying:

"The Israeli Navy raided a flotilla carrying thousands of tons of supplies for Gaza in international waters on Monday morning....The incident drew widespread international condemnation, with Israeli envoys summoned to explain their country's actions in several European countries....The killings also coincided with preparations for a planned visit to Washington on Tuesday (June 1) by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu."

Late word is it's postponed.

The Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, and Los Angeles Times carried similar reports, trying, but hardly able to downplay a major crime.

The UK-based Stop the War Coalition called it "Yet another act of Israeli barbarism" in announcing an "emergency demonstration" at 2:00PM near the prime minister's Downing Street residence, saying spread the word and come.

In Gaza, thousands protested, expressing anger, outrage and sympathy, carrying banners condemning willful crimes, and calling for Arab solidarity. Similar demonstrations turned out in Amman, Cairo, Damascus, Tehran, Ankara, Istanbul, Beirut and other regional cities.

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Gilad Atzmon

"The massacre that took place yesterday was a premeditated Israeli operation. Israel wanted blood because it believes that its ‘power of deterrence’ expands with the more dead it leaves behind."

As I write this piece the scale of the Israeli lethal slaughter at sea is yet to be clear. However we already know that at around 4am Gaza time, hundreds of IDF commandos stormed the Free Gaza international humanitarian fleet. We learn from the Arab press that at least 16 peace activists have been murdered and more than 50 were injured. Once again it is devastatingly obvious that Israel is not trying to hide its true nature: an inhuman murderous collective fuelled by a psychosis and driven by paranoia.

For days the Israeli government prepared the Israeli society for the massacre at sea. It said that the Flotilla carried weapons, it had ‘terrorists’ on board. Only yesterday evening it occurred to me that this Israeli malicious media spin was there to prepare the Israeli public for a full scale Israeli deadly military operation in international waters. Make no mistake. If I knew exactly where Israel was heading and the possible consequences, the Israeli cabinet and military elite were fully aware of it all the way along. What happened yesterday wasn’t just a pirate terrorist attack. It was actually murder in broad day light even though it happened in the dark.

Yesterday at 10 pm I contacted Free Gaza and shared with them everything I knew. I obviously grasped that hundreds of peace activists most of them elders, had very little chance against the Israeli killing machine. I was praying all night for our brothers and sisters. At 5am GMT the news broke to the world. In international waters Israel raided an innocent international convoy of boats carrying cement, paper and medical aid to the besieged Gazans. The Israelis were using live ammunition murdering and injuring everything around them.

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Seyyed Mohieddin Sajedi

Israel cannot live without creating crises. Tel Aviv's strategy is to respond to a crisis by creating another one. This policy helps the Zionist regime to buy time by cashing in on the new crisis, and forget the previous one or seek to tackle it with the help of its allies.

Attacking the aid flotilla for Gaza is part of the same strategy. Israel knows well that if the boats make it into Gaza, the next convoys will be on the way, shattering Israel's hope of maintaining a full blockade on 1.5 million Palestinians in Gaza. Killing is the first option considered by the Israeli regime and army to settle an issue. Israel is no stranger to murder, even before it was founded. Over 60 years on since the Zionist regime proclaimed its establishment, not even one day has passed without news of an individual or individuals being killed by Israeli forces.

The Israeli raid on the Gaza peace convoy is not justifiable, whatsoever. To justify the brutal attack, however, certain Western media and governments announced, as usual, that Israeli troops had opened fire in self-defense. This comes as the authority in charge of Israeli prisons had already said it was preparing to take peace activists into custody, just in case. Israeli official circles had even announced earlier that the Israeli regime itself would take charge of delivering the international aid supplies to Gaza, and that the boats crewed by peace activists had no right to enter Gaza port. To avoid any operational problems, Israel once again bombarded Gaza's already-demolished airport. Everything had been pre-planned for killing.

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Stephen Lendman

This writer's earlier article exposed how Israel restricted free expression protests to suppress opposition to its Gaza war. It covered efforts by the police, State Prosecutor's Office, General Security Services (GSS), the courts, and academic institutions to support arrests and imprisonments of Israeli Arabs and Jewish protestors, to keep nonviolent resistance from spreading.

See the complete article HERE.

A mid-April article stayed on the theme in discussing state persecution of Israeli journalists, Anat Kam and Uri Blau.

For the complete article, go HERE.

On April 28, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) covered more recent abuses by Israel's West Bank proxy, Fatah's General Intelligence Service (GIS) against Muhannad Salahat, a writer and human rights activist. Also, writer Walid al-Hodali's Preventive Security Service (PSS) arrest, confiscation of his personal computer, and refusal to return it after his release. These actions violate international human rights standards, the Palestinian Basic Law, and other relevant PA ones.

Salahat was arrested, prevented from traveling, and summoned to appear before GIS interrogators. He explained what happened as follows:

On March 28 at 10PM, he was arrested at the Jericho Palestinian Crossing and Search Center, interrogated several times, and not at first given reasons. He was then asked about his writings and documentary films for Al-Jazeera television - "crimes and grave errors that he committed against the Palestinian national project, represented by the Palestinian Authority."

During detention and interrogation, he was mistreated and forced to let GIS read his incoming emails. After release on April 12, GIS kept his laptop, camera, and external hard drive containing documentary film footage. They also required him to call "all his friends and ask them to end the media campaign that they had launched against the Palestinian Authority."

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Jeff Gates

The U.S.-Israeli relationship has long been America’s Achilles heel. Our first president warned against “entangled alliances” particularly when, as here, there’s a “passionate attachment.”

Our “special relationship” with this rogue state has placed the U.S. outside the same system of international law that we now seek to impose on others, including Iran.

Our handling of the current crisis on the Korean peninsula could restore our tattered reputation.

What’s the first issue that needs to be addressed?

Here’s where you the reader may well ask: “Do you mean the issue concerning the collapse of Building 7 of the World Trade Center?” No, but nor is that question irrelevant to this latest crisis.

Here’s the second issue that must be addressed: to which nations has Israel transferred nuclear weapons or nuclear weapons technology? Is North Korea on the list?

That issue became relevant with the release of The Unspoken Alliance: Israel’s Secret Relationship with Apartheid South Africa. Archival research by author Sasha Polakowsky-Suransky uncovered “top secret” minutes of a military agreement signed in April 1975 between Shimon Peres, now president of Israel, and South Africa’s defense minister P.W. Botha.

Though Israel denies the conclusions reached by reporters for The Guardian (U.K.), the agreement suggests an offer of nuclear weapons while its Apartheid regime was under international sanctions.

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Khalid Amayreh

As I write these words, around Sunday’s midnight, 30 May, 2010, some of the most noble men and women under the sun are sailing toward Gaza in rough seas in a gesture of hope and selfless love that is meant to say to the people of Gaza “You are not alone.”

Needless to say, these brave men and women, these known and unknown soldiers deserve our utmost admiration and appreciation. They are acting on behalf of humanity, a humanity that has nearly succumbed to callous apathy and criminal indifference toward its weak and its poor.

After all, Gaza today is very much like Ghetto Warsaw of 1943. The comparison might raise some eyebrows here and there, but the truth, in case people still care about it, is that Gazans are completely dependent on the good will of the peoples of the world for their very survival.

If they approach the wall of death on the Israeli side, they are summarily killed by indifferent bullets fired by an Israeli soldier who is likely to have been taught in his neighborhood synagogue or local yeshiva (Talmudic School) that non-Jews are virtual animals whose lives have no sanctity whatsoever.

And if they seek life westward, e.g. through the tunnels, they are gassed or killed by the criminal hands of a depraved regime that has demonstrated more skills in groveling, like a meek dog, before Zionism than in providing bread to its own citizens.

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Stephen Lendman

Barack Obama is a liar, warlord, and corporate shill. -It shouldn't surprise because no one gets the top job or any government position of power unless they're safe, yet, naively, most people thought Obama was different. Many still do.

As a candidate, he promised change, a new course, sweeping government reforms, addressing people needs, and "ensur(ing) that the hopes and concerns of average Americans speak louder in Washington than the hallway whispers of high-priced lobbyists" - the same ones who bought and now own him.

He promised peace and delivered war; real health and financial reform, not same old, same old; help for millions losing jobs, homes, hope and futures, not handouts to Wall Street and other industry favorites; regulatory oversight, not the usual incestuous government-industry ties, making disasters like in the Gulf possible, and when they happen conspiring with offenders in coverup, distortion, lies, and a total disregard for the environment, wildlife, and way of life for thousands - let alone permanent damage to a vital ecosystem.

At the same time, Big Oil gets billions in subsidies, special tax breaks and other financial benefits, besides operating in a regulatory-free environment.

The 1995 Outer Continental Shelf Deep Water Royalty Relief Act (DWRRA - courtesy of Bill Clinton) exempted royalties on defined amounts of deep water production. After its 2000 expiration, the law was redefined and extended to promote further deep water drilling.

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Khalid Amayreh

There are as many as half a million Jewish settlers enjoying constant army protection in the West Bank. The vast majority of these are indoctrinated in an extreme right-wing ideology that views non-Jews living in Israel and the occupied territories as "lesser human beings".

Some of the religious mentors of these settlers openly teach that non-Jews living under Jewish rule -- i.e. Palestinians -- should be enslaved, expelled or annihilated. When challenged, these rabbis and mentors readily quote from the Old Testament and Talmud to corroborate their oft-genocidal viewpoints.

The settlers are vehemently against the concept of peace with the Palestinians. They claim that retaining "the land of Israel" is far more important than making peace with the Arabs. Their most common slogan is "Arabs to the desert". The more fanatical settlers, such as those of Hebron, have been heard to say "Arabs to the gas chambers". Signs bearing such slogans are prominently featured in the small Jewish enclave in the occupied Palestinian town.

This week, the Palestinian Authority (PA) began implementing a widespread campaign to boycott products manufactured in Jewish settlements and agricultural produce grown in as many as 100 Jewish colonies in the West Bank, many established on land seized by force from Palestinian landowners.

The boycott, backed by all Palestinian factions, including Hamas, is viewed as a rare and effective Palestinian initiative to show Israel that the occupation doesn't pay off and that the Palestinian people will not allow themselves to finance Israeli oppression and repression.

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Michael Rectenwald & Lori Price

In our encounters on various social networking sites and political blogs, we consistently encounter the faithful remnants of the “hope-and-change” believers. To combat the onslaught of evidence and opinion that leads one to the conclusion that Obama is a fraud at best and represents a hoax at worst, they point to lists of his accomplishments and the ways he has delivered on his campaign promises. Such lists, we believe, are generally misrepresentations and fail to rise to the level of credibility. They are misleading because they represent minor deeds that might very well have been accomplished otherwise. We have characterized them as delivering on promises to “sharpen the pencils in the White House --mission accomplished.” There are some notable changes, but are they commensurate with Obama’s euphuistic campaign rhetoric? We think not. We believe that Obama’s rhetoric was a complete fabrication aimed at diverting real energy for change into a cul de sac of Democratic apologetics. It was, in short, a hoax.

By “hoax” we mean that it represents a corporate takeover the dissent that bubbled up in the country against the Bush administration, including his economic but mostly his imperialist agenda in Iraq and Afghanistan. Presenting Obama as a candidate of amorphous “hope-and-change,” the corporate sponsors of Obama intended to divert this dissent into acceptable (Democratic) channels. Some if not most of it had, indeed, arisen from Democratic channels, but the meaning of this dissent far exceeded anything that the Democratic Party represented either in its stated platform, or its actual practices, especially the consistent and over-riding support of the wars. The corporate and military backers of Obama bet on Obama’s oratorical skill and civil-rights-sounding rhetoric to effect a prestidigitation of incredible proportions. The intention of the magic was to fool tens of millions of voters, small-scale individual contributors, and campaigners into believing that Obama was the genuine article, that he represented change from the very policies and practices that had made Bush so virulently despised and vehemently opposed. These policies include first and foremost the war.

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Matt Taibbi

It's early May in Washington, and something very weird is in the air. As Chris Dodd, Harry Reid and the rest of the compulsive dealmakers in the Senate barrel toward the finish line of the Restoring American Financial Stability Act – the massive, year-in-the-making effort to clean up the Wall Street crime swamp – word starts to spread on Capitol Hill that somebody forgot to kill the important reforms in the bill. As of the first week in May, the legislation still contains aggressive measures that could cost once-indomitable behemoths like Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase tens of billions of dollars. Somehow, the bill has escaped the usual Senate-whorehouse orgy of mutual back-scratching, fine-print compromises and freeway-wide loopholes that screw any chance of meaningful change.

The real shocker is a thing known among Senate insiders as "716." This section of an amendment would force America's banking giants to either forgo their access to the public teat they receive through the Federal Reserve's discount window, or give up the insanely risky, casino-style bets they've been making on derivatives. That means no more pawning off predatory interest-rate swaps on suckers in Greece, no more gathering balls of subprime shit into incomprehensible debt deals, no more getting idiot bookies like AIG to wrap the crappy mortgages in phony insurance. In short, 716 would take a chain saw to one of Wall Street's most lucrative profit centers: Five of America's biggest banks (Goldman, JP Morgan, Bank of America, Morgan Stanley and Citigroup) raked in some $30 billion in over-the-counter derivatives last year. By some estimates, more than half of JP Morgan's trading revenue between 2006 and 2008 came from such derivatives. If 716 goes through, it would be a veritable Hiroshima to the era of greed.

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Stephen Lendman

This photo is from LA VOZ DE AZTLAN. More photos HERE.

Professor Jeremy Salt teaches political science at Ankara, Turkey's Bilkent University. He's also the author of "The Unmaking of the Middle East: A History of Western Disorder in Arab Lands." On January 9, 2009, during Israel's war on Gaza, he wrote "A Message to the brave Israeli Airmen," asking:

● "What's it like, firing missiles at people you can't see?
● Does that help, that you cannot see who you are killing?
● Does it ease your conscience that you are not deliberately targeting civilians," when, in fact, you are under Israel's Dahiya Doctrine to use enough "disproportionate force (to inflict) damage and met(e) out punishment" against civilian infrastructure, "economic interests and the centers of civilian power," willfully slaughtering noncombatant men, women and children;
● "How does this sit on your conscience?
● Do you sleep well at night or do you have nightmares of the women and children you killed in their homes, in their beds, in their kitchens and living rooms, in their schools and mosques?"
●Do you really believe they threaten your security - farmers in their fields, mothers with their children, teachers in classrooms, imams in mosques, children at play, the elderly, frail or disabled?
● Do you ever question what you've done and why? Have you no shame, no sense of decency, no idea of the difference between right and wrong? Will you follow orders blindly and do it again and again, mindless about crimes of war and against humanity you, your superiors, and government officials are accountable for under fundamental international law?

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Kurt Nimmo
InfoWars

In an amazing propaganda segment, Fox News’ Gerald Rivera talks with an occupation soldier about U.S. support of the opium trade in Afghanistan. The soldier tells Rivera he does not like supporting Afghan opium production. The U.S., he insists, has turned a blind eye to the cultivation because it is a cultural thing. He’d rather the Afghans grow watermelons.

Is it possible the U.S. will tell the brother of Afghanistan’s U.S.-installed ruler he should get in the watermelon business?

It was reported a few months ago that Ahmed Wali Karzai was on the CIA payroll and intimately involved in the opium trade Fox News and the rest of the corporate media tell us is run by the evil Taliban.

Fox News did not report that before everything changed on September 11, 2001, and before the U.S. invaded Afghanistan, the Taliban had imposed a ban on opium production. This resulted in opium production collapsing by more than 90 per cent. It was the U.S. supported Northern Alliance that came to the rescue and began protecting the production of raw opium.

“CIA-supported Mujahedeen rebels [who in 2001 were part of the Northern Alliance] engaged heavily in drug trafficking while fighting against the Soviet-supported government and its plans to reform the very backward Afghan society,” William Blum writes in The Real Drug Lords.

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David Lindorff

Even as BP’s blown well a mile beneath the surface in the Gulf of Mexico continues to gush forth an estimated 70,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea, and the fragile wetlands along the Gulf begin to get coated with crude, which is also headed into the Gulf Stream for a trip past the Everglades and on up the East Coast, the company is demanding that Canada lift its tight rules for drilling in the icy Beaufort Sea portion of the Arctic Ocean.

In an incredible display of corporate arrogance, BP is claiming that a current safety requirement that undersea wells drilled during the newly ice-free summer must also include a side relief well, so as to have a preventive measure in place that could shut down a blown well, is “too expensive” and should be eliminated.

Yet clearly, if the US had had such a provision in place, the Deepwater Horizon blowout could have been shut down right almost immediately after it blew out, just by turning of a valve or two, and then sealing off the blown wellhead.

A relief well is ”too expensive”?

The current Gulf blowout has already cost BP over half a billion dollars, according to the company’s own information. That doesn’t count the cost of mobilizing the Coast Guard, the Navy, and untold state and county resources, and it sure doesn’t count the cost of the damage to the Gulf Coast economy, or the cost of restoration of damaged wetlands. We’re talking at least $10s of billions, and maybe eventually $100s of billions. Weigh that against the cost of drilling a relief well, which BP claims will run about $100 million. The cost of such a well in the Arctic, where the sea is much shallower, would likely be a good deal less.

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Kenneth J. Theisen

On Friday, May 21, 2010 the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia ruled in favor of the Obama administration, holding that three prisoners who are being held by the U. S. at Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan cannot challenge their detention in U.S. courts.[Emphasis added]

This is a victory for reaction, essentially denying prisoners of the U.S. war of terror held at Bagram the right to habeas corpus.

The denial of this basic right means that these prisoners have no right to a hearing in which a judge would review the evidence against them and could potentially order their release. This is “justice” in Obama’s America. The Obama administration has once again advanced the political and legal agenda begun by the Bush regime. If this ruling is not overturned, many prisoners of the U.S. war of terror could be held indefinitely.

The cases decided on Friday were brought by the International Justice Network, the organization coordinating Bagram habeas litigation. The cases involve a Tunisian man captured in Pakistan, a Yemeni man captured in Thailand, and another Yemeni man who says he was captured somewhere else outside of Afghanistan that has not been disclosed. They have been held at this hellhole U.S.-run prison for more than seven years without access to a court or counsel. [Emphasis added]

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Khalid Amayreh

Israeli Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu has been making impossible conditions he says Palestinians must meet in order for peace to be possible.

In a press interview released Thursday, 27 May, the characteristically arrogant and self-absorbed Zionist prime minister said the two most important conditions for peace in the Middle East were a Palestinian recognition of Israel’s Jewish identity and Palestinian acceptance of the 1948 ethnic cleansing as an irreversible historical fact.

In other words, for peace to take place, Palestinians must be prepared to come to terms with Israel’s Judeo-Nazi nature, a nature that precludes all human rights and civil liberties for non-Jews living in the hateful entity known as Israel.

“Jewish state,” for those who still don’t understand, means one thing: It means that the estimated 1.7 million Palestinians, whose forefathers and foremothers were not expelled when the evil state of Israel was misbegotten more than 62 years ago, would have to be expelled sooner or later on the ground that Israel is a Jewish state and they are not Jewish.

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Stephen Lendman

A 2007 UNESCO/Save the Children UK report titled, "Fragmented foundations: education and chronic crisis in the Occupied Palestinian Territory" addressed issues "in emergency and reconstruction situations, as well as in chronic conflict." It explained that in 1994, the Palestinian Authority established the Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MoEHE) with formal responsibility for the system, including planning, budgeting and coordination throughout the Territories.

Through at least 2007, it administered about three fourths of OPT schools, handled two-thirds of its students, and, as able, requires 10 years of basic education, two additional non-compulsory ones, then higher education for those qualified. See below.

UNWRA runs 13% of schools for 24% of the students, the private sector another 11% of schools and 6% of students as of 2006, according to World Bank figures. Israel maintains authority in East Jerusalem although MoEHE supports a number of its schools.

In the 1990s, school enrollment increased substantially. A priority was placed on new construction and rehabilitation, and efforts toward greater inclusiveness was stressed, especially for girls and children with disabilities. Technical, vocational, and early childhood education were also addressed, as well as a curriculum reflecting Palestinian history and heritage, culminating the the final year Tawjihi (university entrance) exam that assesses student readiness for higher education as well as their qualifications in certain fields.

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Finian Cunningham

The Gulf of Mexico oil spill disaster threatening to wipe out tourism and fishing industries and countless numbers of marine wildlife habitats along the entire US southeast coast could be just the prelude to a much greater transatlantic pollution catastrophe.

The furthest eastern state of Florida – 600 miles from the Deepwater Horizon spill site off Louisiana – is next at risk to devastating pollution as a result of giant undersea oil plumes being swept up by fast-moving Caribbean currents known as the Gulf Loop. But US government officials are now warning neigbouring countries to also prepare for contamination. Indeed, the US state department has taken the highly unusual step of contacting the Cuban government to warn it of the pollution risk.

With efforts to curtail the flow of oil gushing from the seabed well by British Petroleum proving ineffective a month after the explosion on an exploratory rig, it is feared by several marine scientists and engineers based in the region that the spill could reach up to a total of six million barrels of crude oil equivalent – 25 times greater than the 1989 Exxon Valdez incident off Alaska, which up to this was considered one of the worst human-made environmental disasters.

With up to 70,000 barrels of oil spewing into the Caribbean every day, there are well-founded fears that the Gulf Loop will pass on its contamination load to the Gulf Stream which, in turn, pours into the North Atlantic. If this happens then the countries of Western Europe that are bathed by this giant oceanic current will also suffer the hydrocarbon toxic fallout from the Deepwater Horizon, scientists say. The multibillion-dollar damage to communities, industries and the incalculable ecological cost might then be multiplied to trillions.

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Maidhc Ó Cathail

The Prime Minister of India, Manmohan Singh, is part of the
plot to frame Pakistan for the Zionist entity Israel and the
Zionist-controlled US.

In its bitter rivalry with India, Pakistan is at a fatal disadvantage. Unlike its South Asian neighbour, Islamabad lacks an ally with considerable influence over American mainstream media.

The latest example of US media complicity with the Indo-Israeli alliance came in the aftermath of the much-hyped Times Square “car-bomb” incident. Typical of the media orgy of Pakistan-bashing that followed the discovery of an SUV packed with 250 pounds of non-explosive fertilizer was a piece written by Newsweek’s Indian-born editor, Fareed Zakaria, in which he brands Pakistan as “a terrorist hothouse.”

“For a wannabe terrorist shopping for help, Pakistan is a supermarket,” writes Zakaria. “There are dozens of jihadi organizations: Jaish-e-Muhammad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Qaeda, Jalaluddin and Siraj Haqqani’s network, Tehrik-e-Taliban, and the list goes on. Some of the major ones, like the Kashmiri separatist group Lashkar-e-Taiba, operate openly via front groups throughout the country. But none seem to have any difficulty getting money and weapons.” Zakaria is in no doubt about who’s to blame.

“From its founding, the Pakistani government has supported and encouraged jihadi groups, creating an atmosphere that has allowed them to flourish,” claims the CNN pundit.

To back up his assertions, Zakaria cites no less an authority that Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States. In Pakistan: Between Mosque and Military, which Zakaria considers a “brilliant history,” Husain Haqqani claims that support for jihad has been “a consistent policy of the state.” Case closed for the prosecution? Perhaps not.

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Gilad Atzmon

"[T]he Israeli Government and the Israeli people better start to come to terms with the fact that the game is soon to be over. The Zionist project and the Israeli state is in a state of moral bankruptcy. From that perspective the flotilla is not just a humanitarian mission, it is actually a reminder for all of us of the true meaning of humanism."

Haaretz reported on 26.05.10 that Israel will attempt to block the humanitarian Freedom Flotilla heading toward Gaza. However, according to the Israeli paper, the humanitarian cargo would then be unloaded, inspected and sent to Gaza overland via the United Nations.

Typical for Israel, it tries to win a lost battle. On the one hand, by stopping the flotilla Israel attempts to maintain its regional status as an omnipotent super power that controls the land, the air and the sea. On the other hand, the Jewish state pathetically also wants to evoke sympathy for being ‘sensitive’ to humanitarian issues and the Palestinian plight.

The Israeli government fails to gather that the tide has changed. We see through them. We all know what the Jewish state stands for. We all know about the devastation in Gaza, we know about the siege, the destruction and the crimes against humanity. We all watch the Israeli separation wall cutting through Palestinian family's houses and olive orchards. We also follow the racist ethnic cleansing in East Jerusalem. The Israelis better save us from their spins and manipulations.

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Stephen Lendman

On May 24, Mary L. Kendall, Acting Interior Department Inspector General's memo to her boss, Secretary Ken Salazar, discussed an "Investigative Report," titled "Island Operating Company, et al," addressing allegations that Lake Charles, Louisiana District Office Minerals Management Service (MMS) employees (in charge of inspections and oversight) "accepted gifts from oil and gas production companies."

Occurring prior to 2007, it provides evidence that "a much-needed (MMS ethics) change is required." Ordinarily, public release would have followed a formal MMS response, 90 days after getting it. But today's events forced Kendall "to release it now," saying her greatest concern is the "environment in which these inspectors operate - particularly the ease with which they move between industry and government."

She found evidence that MMS and industry personnel fraternized and exchanged gifts, and have known each other since childhood. MMS staff used illegal drugs, viewed pornography on their government computers, and sent emails with racist comments, citing one manager saying:

"Obviously, we're all oil industry. We're all from the same part of the country. Almost all of our inspectors have worked for oil companies out on these same platforms. They grew up in the same towns." They've been friends all their lives. "They've hunted together. They fish together. They skeet shoot together....They do this all the time."

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Maidhc Ó Cathail

This week, newspapers around the world received reports and signed documents from South Africa. The reports said that, in 1975, Israel agreed to sell South Africa nuclear weapons. South Africa then released an arms agreement signed by current Israeli President Shimon Peres. This is the document “heard round the world.”

Meetings are being held in New York to set up a conference for 2012 to guarantee that the Middle East is nuclear free. Israel has been informed that it will not be able to hide behind denials and that the nuclear arsenal put on the sale block by Israel in 1975, and nobody knows how many times since, has to go. When Israel was finally caught, it changed at least one part of a game, but the game will go on.

What does it mean? Neither South Africa nor Israel is admitting that the nukes were delivered. General beliefs are that they were, a real shock to Nelson Mandela when he took office, from prisoner of apartheid to commander of a nuclear power. What is proven by this is that Israel was, even 35 years ago, a nuclear state, in direct violation of numerous international treaties. It also proves that Israel offered nukes to South Africa, a rogue nation under sanctions that covered not only any weapons but trade as well. This made Israel a criminal state and Mr. Peres a war criminal.

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Robert Parry

State terrorism to foment local terror: US special Forces are being
deployed in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.

Hawks in the United States and Israel appear set on “regime change” in Iran, pursuing a game plan similar to the run-up to war in Iraq, ratcheting up tensions while frustrating opportunities for a peaceful settlement.

In the latest example, the New York Times on Tuesday published a leaked account of an order signed by U.S. Central Command chief, Gen. David Petraeus, expanding “clandestine military activity in an effort to disrupt militant groups to counter threats in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Somalia and other countries in the region.”

In most of those countries, the secret U.S. military operations would be intended to help U.S. allies combat anti-government militants. However, in Iran, the goal would be to make contact with opposition forces, according to the Times article by Mark Mazzetti.

“Officials said the order also permits reconnaissance that could pave the way for possible military strikes in Iran if tensions over its nuclear ambitions escalate,” the article said.

The leaking of Petraeus’s order -- which was signed almost eight months ago on Sept. 30, 2009 -- follows a May 17 tripartite agreement among Iran, Brazil and Turkey that called for Iran exporting 2,640 pounds of low-enriched uranium (LEU) – about half its supply – to Turkey in exchange for higher-enriched uranium that could only be used for peaceful purposes.

Though the new accord paralleled a tentative agreement that the Obama administration brokered last fall with Iran, hawks inside the U.S. government and the American news media quickly went to work ripping the deal apart.

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Kourosh Ziabari

Black propaganda against Iran

A hawkish and moronic former leader has repeatedly categorized Iran as a part of the so-called "Axis of Evil".[*] The relentless and incessant attacks of mainstream media, their psychological warfare, may over the years have had an effect -Iran now is seen by many as an insecure and potentially dangerous region.

In spite of this, each year thousands of Western tourists take their chances and travel to Iran to see for themselves what the realities are. What they find is a peaceful and magnificent Iran.

Many of the American, French, German, British and Australian citizens who travel to Iran to discover the veiled face of this ancient land admit that Iran had not been what they had thought. They, and especially the western journalists and artists, usually are surprised by and astonished at the splendor of Iran, its cultural heritage, industrial advancements and natural beauties. As a consequence, they obviously are in a better position to form an opinion, to see through the media generated distortions and to find out what the country really is like.

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Stephen Lendman

This writer's September 21, 2009 article titled "Goldstone Commission Gaza Conflict Findings and Reactions" explained the following:

On April 3, 2009, a UN press release stated:

"The Human Rights Council (HRC) today announced the appointment of Richard J. Goldstone....to lead an independent (four-person) fact-finding mission to investigate international human rights and humanitarian law violations related to the recent conflict in the Gaza Strip....The team will be supported by staff of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights....Today's appointment comes following the adoption of a resolution by the Human Rights Council....to address 'the grave violations of human rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, particularly due to the recent Israeli military attacks against the occupied Gaza Strip."

Established by the UN General Assembly on March 15, 2006, the HRC's 47 member states are "responsible for strengthening the promotion and protection of human rights around the globe."

As a former South African Constitutional Court justice, Goldstone is a respected jurist. He also served as chief prosecutor for the Yugoslavia and Rwanda tribunals and is a Hebrew University board member. As a Jew, he promised to be fair and even-handed, and "hope(s) that the findings....will make a meaningful contribution to the peace process....and will provide justice for the victims."

At the time, Israel refused to cooperate, Foreign Ministry spokesman, Yigal Palmor, saying: "This committee is instructed not to seek out the truth but to single out Israel for alleged crimes." He then accused the Council of having "practically (no) credibility at all."

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Bob Carter

The Chicago Heartland-4 International Conference on Climate Change

"The four Heartland conferences have had a number of features in common, of which perhaps the most surprising has been the general failure of the mainstream press to attend and report on the matters discussed, and this despite the pedigree academic credentials of many of the persons presenting papers."

The 4th Heartland International Conference on Climate Change was held between May 16-18 last week in the Heartland Institute’s home city of Chicago. Previous meetings have been held in New York and Washington, and all have been highly successful. But as conference participant and Euro-MP Roger Helmer pointed out, the Heartland-4 conference marks a turning point, because of the emergence at the meeting of a rapidly maturing counter-consensus on the still topical (if increasingly tiresome to voters) issue of alarmist global warming.

More than 700 scientists, social scientists, policy advisers and others attended the conference. Following the path blazed by independent Australian senator Steve Fielding in 2009, which resulted in his exercising a decisive vote against the ETS in the Senate, this year two serving politicians attended from the antipodes; they were Liberal Senator Cory Bernardi from South Australia and ACT climate change spokesman from New Zealand, John Boscawen, who were joined by a number of US politicians and ex-politicians. Also in attendance was former New Zealand Minister for Science, Barry Brill, the author of a devastating recent exposé of the unreliability of the claimed NZ historical temperature record.

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John Pilger

Police fire tear gas at protesters who smashed bank and hotel windows
and attacked military guards outside parliament.

As Britain’s political class pretends that its arranged marriage of Tweedledee to Tweedledum is democracy, the inspiration for the rest of us is Greece. It is hardly surprising that Greece is presented not as a beacon but as a “junk country” getting its comeuppance for its “bloated public sector” and “culture of cutting corners” (the Observer). The heresy of Greece is that the uprising of its ordinary people provides an authentic hope unlike that lavished upon the warlord in the White House.

The crisis that has led to the “rescue” of Greece by the European banks and the International Monetary Fund is the product of a grotesque financial system which itself is in crisis. Greece is a microcosm of a modern class war that is rarely reported as such and is waged with all the urgency of panic among the imperial rich.

What makes Greece different is that within its living memory is invasion, foreign occupation, betrayal by the West, military dictatorship and popular resistance. Ordinary people are not cowed by the corrupt corporatism that dominates the European Union. The right-wing government of Kostas Karamanlis, which preceded the present Pasok (Labour) government of George Papandreou, was described by the French sociologist Jean Ziegler as “a machine for systematic pillaging the country’s resources”.

The machine had infamous friends. The US Federal reserve Board is investigating the role of Goldman Sachs and other American hedge fund operators which gambled on the bankruptcy of Greece as public assets were sold off and its tax-evading rich deposited 360 billion euros in Swiss banks. The largest Greek ship-owners transferred their companies abroad. This haemorrhage of capital continues with the approval of the European central banks and governments.

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Chuck Baldwin

People all over America are discussing freedom's future. In short, they are worried. In fact, many are actually talking about State secession. In coffee shops and cafes, and around dining room tables, millions of people are speaking favorably of states breaking away from the union.

Not since the turn of the twentieth century have this many people thought (and spoken) this favorably about the prospect of a State (or group of states) exiting the union. In my mind, this is a good thing.

Even many of those who oppose the prospect of secession understand the increasing tyrannical nature of the current central government in Washington, D.C., and that something must be done about it.

The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines tyranny as "1: oppressive power . . . 2: a government in which absolute power is vested in a single ruler . . . 3: a rigorous condition imposed by some outside agency or force . . . 4: a tyrannical act."

Even a casual observer would have to conclude that most of the actions proceeding forth from DC today match at least Webster's 1st and 3rd definitions of tyranny. Besides, who would argue the advantage of the tyranny of an oligarchy over the tyranny of a monarchy? A tyranny of many cannot be distinguished from a tyranny of one in most cases—especially not by those poor souls who are at the point of the spear of Government's cruelties.

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Stephen Lendman

The Deepwater Horizon site is a crime scene. But instead of demanding prosecutions for culpable industry and Interior Department officials, Obama announced a commission to assuage public concern and anger, suppress vital truths, and obstruct justice, America's customary response to major government and corporate crimes - to wit, the notorious Warren, 9/11, and Space Shuttle Challenger Commissions. More about them below.

Crime Scene in the Gulf

On May 19, a National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Media Center release headlined, "BP Can't Be Left in Charge of Gulf Coast Crime Scene," saying:

On May 19, its President and CEO, Larry Schweiger, told the House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee that "The federal government should immediately take over all environmental monitoring, testing, and public safety protection from BP. Too much information is now in the hands of BP's many lawyers and too little is being disclosed to the public....The Gulf of Mexico is a crime scene and the perpetrator cannot be left in charge of assessing the damage."

He also urged lawmakers hold oil companies and other corporations accountable and "to create a path that takes us truly beyond petroleum." Along with local agencies and residents, NWF is monitoring the damage and cleanup efforts in partnership with Louisiana's Wildlife Federation, its state affiliate and Coastal Louisiana office.

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William N. Grigg

Irish Mobster Kevin Weeks

"Kill Them All, Let God Sort Them Out!"

Kevin Weeks was a career criminal employed as a Mob hitman, but even he possessed sufficient good judgment and self-restraint to avoid risking the life of a seven-year-old girl.

In Brutal, his aptly titled memoir of the years he spent working for Boston Mob boss – and protected FBI asset – James "Whitey" Bulger, Weeks describes how he was given an order to assassinate Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, who relentlessly tormented Bulger in print. Weeks set up a sniper nest near Carr's home. He had the target set up for the kill, but didn't pull the trigger because Carr's daughter, "a little girl, like seven-years-old or so," was walking hand-in-hand with her father.

"I couldn't take a chance of the bullet fragmenting and ricocheting or hitting her or just killing her father in front of her," recounts Weeks.

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David Walsh

The New York Times reported May 15 that the US military was continuing “to rely on a secret network” of spies and paramilitary assassins in Afghanistan and Pakistan, two months after the newspaper first brought the unit to public attention.

At the time, in March 2010, the network, under the supervision of Michael Furlong, a longtime Pentagon dirty tricks operator, was routinely described by the media and military US officials as “off-the-books” or “unauthorized.” Much ado was made about a Defense Department criminal investigation into Furlong’s activities and the millions of dollars spent on the program he allegedly directed.

The Washington Post asserted March 19 that the operation was shut down “late last year” and an investigation begun, and cited the comments of a US military official who primly claimed that Furlong “had stepped outside the boundaries of his contract and ‘didn’t want to operate within the constraints of how we do business.’”

This was simply so much dust thrown in the public’s eyes. In the first place, every indication suggests that Furlong’s intelligence and murder outfit was authorized at the highest levels of the Defense Department.

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Stephen Lendman

This writer's April 2008 article addressed the topic, accessed through the following link: http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/04/destroying-public-education-in-america.html.

It covered the sordid scheme to destroy what Diogenes called "the foundation of every state," and what Horace Mann (the "father of American education") said was mankind's "greatest discovery, (the) great equalizer, common" to all.

Established in 1635, the first Massachusetts school began a 375 year tradition, today being incrementally destroyed to commodity education, end government's responsibility for it, make it another business profit center, benefit the well-off, revive a separate and unequal nation, consign underprivileged kids to low-wage, no benefit service jobs with no future so why educate them, thus putting the American dream out of reach for millions.

The Obama administration is spearheading the effort to do it, led by its infamous Education Secretary Arne Duncan, who wrecked Chicago schools so well he was chosen to go nationwide. More on his scheme below.

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Norman G. Finkelstein

Amitav Ghosh

Dear Amitav Ghosh

05.21.2010
Dear Dr Finkelstein,
As you know, Amitav Ghosh and Margaret Atwood are recipients of this year’s Dan David Prize. A groups of scholars, writers and activists of South Asian origin wrote a letter to Ghosh urging him not to accept the prize. Ghosh’s response, to say the least, was quite disingenuous. Our rejoinder which, as you can see, is heavily inspired by your tireless scholarship and your dictum ‘Truth and Justice are powerful weapons if we only learn how to wield them‘, is included below. We would be much obliged if you could post it on your website.

Regards,
Sanjeev Mahajan

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Ellen Brown

For over a decade, accountant Walter Burien has been trying to rouse the public over what he contends is a massive conspiracy and cover-up, involving trillions of dollars squirreled away in funds maintained at every level of government. His numbers may be disputed, but these funds definitely exist, as evidenced by the Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs) required of every government agency. If they don’t represent a concerted government conspiracy, what are they for? And how can they be harnessed more efficiently to help allay the financial crises of state and local governments?

The Elusive CAFR Money

Burien is a former commodity trading adviser who has spent many years peering into government books. He notes that the government is composed of 54,000 different state, county, and local government entities, including school districts, public authorities, and the like; and that these entities all keep their financial assets in liquid investment funds, bond financing accounts and corporate stock portfolios. The only income that must be reported in government budgets is that from taxes, fines and fees; but the investments of government entities can be found in official annual reports (CAFRs), which must be filed with the federal government by local, county and state governments. These annual reports show that virtually every U.S. city, county, and state has vast amounts of money stashed away in surplus funds. Burien maintains that these slush funds have been kept concealed from taxpayers, even as taxes are being raised and citizens are being told to expect fewer government services.

It is hard to envision how all the municipal governments hording their excess money in separate funds could be complicit in a massive government conspiracy, but if that is not what is going on, why such an inefficient use of public monies?

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Stephen Soldz

Bagram airbase & torture center

A recent pair of articles by Marc Ambinder of the Atlantic has shed new light upon activities in the secret so-called “black jail” on the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Among other aspects, these new revelations suggest that psychologists may be playing a major role inside the facility, raising questions about the reasons for American Psychological Association (APA) lobbying activities in support of the agency that Ambinder reports is running the detention center.

In recent months the Washington Post, New York Times, and BBC reported on a secret prison on fringes of the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan. Referred to by former prisoners as the “black jail,” this institution is reportedly a site where prisoner abuse is regular and systematic. The BBC reported that all nine former prisoners they interviewed:

told consistent stories of being held in isolation in cold cells where a light is on all day and night.

The men said they had been deprived of sleep by US military personnel there.

Thus, we can assume that psychological torture techniques of isolation, sleep deprivation, and hypothermia are routine aspects of treatment inside the facility.

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Stephen Lendman

The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) provides weekly snapshots of Israeli killings, targeted assassinations, arrests, home demolitions, destroyed farmland, assaults on peaceful protesters, community incursions, home invasions, and more besides full-scale attacks at its discretion - a decades-long onslaught against 1.5 million Gazans and over 2.5 million West Bank and East Jerusalem Palestinians.

On May 11, a recent assault occurred in the West Bank's Lubban Al-Sharqiya village when settlers attacked a local mosque, set it ablaze and gutted it. Israeli fire-fighters blamed it on an electrical short-circuit, later investigations showing arson was responsible, what Palestinians knew all along.

A village spokesperson said the mosque was undergoing renovations, its electricity turned off in the section where the fire broke out. Other villagers heard cars arrive around 3AM and saw settlers entering the mosque. They tore down curtains to start the blaze, stacked Qurans next to a bathroom, and arranged shoes on the pile in the shape of a Star of David to desecrate them and the mosque.

Besides security force assaults, attacks like this happen often against Palestinian homes, businesses, vehicles, farmland, and livestock - even children on their way to school. Rarely are charges ever brought, giving settlers license to commit crimes with impunity, including cold blooded murder.

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Stephen Lendman

From the start, Obama administration and BP officials lied and deceived the public about the Gulf spill's severity, BP CEO Tony Hayward saying (on May 18) its environmental effect will be "very modest," when, in fact, it's already catastrophic, spreading, causing long-term or permanent ecological destruction over a vast area, will likely persist for months, and, according to some experts perhaps years if nothing tried to stop it works.

Initially, BP reported a 1,000 barrels per day leak, then 5,000 after the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) estimate, while independent analysis of company supplied video and satellite imagery suggest somewhere between 50 - 100,000 barrels, the consensus settling on 70,000 or an Exxon Valdez equivalent every 3.5 days - by far, America's greatest ever environmental disaster, worsening daily.

On May 19, McClatchy Newspapers Marisa Taylor and Renee Schoof headlined, "BP Withholds Oil Spill Facts - and Government Lets It," saying:

It "hasn't publicly divulged the results of tests on the extent of workers' exposure to evaporating oil or from the burning of crude....even though researchers say that data is crucial in determining whether the conditions are safe."

Further, BP isn't monitoring conditions or releasing videos, and the Obama administration isn't pressing it despite experts, like University of Miami's fisheries biologist Peter Ortner saying "We have been screaming from day one for" it.

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Eric Peters

You never who you are dealing with during a traffic stop. That goes for the person being pulled as much as it does for the cop doing the pulling-over.

Motorcyclist Michael McCloskey, Jr. found that out earlier this month when he was shot in the back by Ottawa Hills, Ohio police officer Thomas White after a not-so-routine traffic stop.

White claims McCloskey (and his riding buddy) committed several moving violations, which prompted him to turn on his flashing lights and attempt a traffic stop. The bikes pull over (video here) and so far, all seems straightforward. McCloskey can be seen rotating his torso while seated on his bike to face the cop, apparently trying (reasonably) to find out what he wants. McCloskey then reaches into his jacket—another normal, reasonable thing to do—probably for his wallet and paperwork. At this precise moment, White suddenly opens fire, striking McCloskey at least once—severing his spine. In the video you see the biker toppling to the pavement with White rushing over, weapon still aimed directly at him.

Officer White was subsequently charged with felonious assault with a gun; he was found guilty and faces the possibility of up to 11 years in prison. [Jury: Ottawa Hills Officer White guilty, May 14 2010.]

McCloskey is recovering in the hospital. He is reportedly paralyzed from the waist down. His sentence will last much longer than 11 years.

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Kirk Myers

In the following interview, Dr. Willie Soon, a solar and climate scientist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, questions the prevailing dogma of man-made global warming and challenges his peers to “take back climate science.” His remarks are his personal opinion based upon 19 years of scientific research.

Examiner.com: What drives climate change on Earth?

Dr. Soon: Most of the weather and climate variations we observed are essentially related to the sun and the changing seasons – not by CO2 radiative forcing and feedback. The climate system is constantly readjusting naturally in a large way – more than we would ever see from CO2. The CO2 kick [impact of CO2 emissions] is extremely small compared to what is happening in a natural way. Within the framework of a proper study of the sun-climate connection, you don’t need CO2 to explain anything.

Examiner.com: What is your opinion of the anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming theory?

Dr. Soon: It’s never been about the science – even from the very beginning. It’s based on confusion and a mixture of ideology. We should deal only in the facts that we do know.

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Stephen Lendman

In the world's richest country, the trend is shocking, disturbing and appalling. In its 2009 report on "Hunger and Homelessness in US Cities," the US Conference of Mayors stated:

"Hunger and homelessness (are) at record levels in US cities," citing an overall 26% demand increase over the past year and 19% more homelessness. Yet worsening conditions leave millions on their own and out of luck because Washington has other priorities excluding them.

"At a time of historic economic crisis, the issues of hunger and homelessness in America are more prevalent than ever." Cities are hard-pressed to handle them, and planned budget cuts and revenue shortfalls will strap them well into the future.

Definitions

According to the Department of Housing and Urban Development, a homeless person:

● "lacks a fixed, regular, and adequate nighttime residence."

Others having them are in:

● "a supervised publicly or privately operated shelter designed to provide temporary living accommodations (including welfare hotels, congregate shelters, and transitional housing for the mentally ill);

● an institution that provides a temporary residence for individuals intended to be institutionalized; or

● a public or private place not designed for, or ordinarily used as, a regular sleeping accommodation for human beings."

The last category includes people sleeping in vehicles, garages, bus stations, store fronts, campgrounds, on streets, or other suboptimal places not fit for human habitation.

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Kourosh Ziabari

A short introduction to the heritage of Khayyam

Khayyam was born on May 18th in 1048 in the Neyshapur city of the Greater Iran. Now May 18th is dedicated to the commemoration of Omar Khayyam in the Iranian solar calendar; the calendar which Khayyam has invented himself. To the Western world which has always been enchanted by the magnificence and glory of oriental culture, Omar Khayyam is a venerable and honored figure who brings to mind the delicacy and gracefulness of ancient Persian civilization. The Iranian polymath, astronomer, philosopher and poet is internationally known for his insightful rubaiyyat (quatrains) which the influential British poet Edward FitzGerald translated from Persian into English 150 years ago.

Omar Khayyam is considered to be an inseparable part of Iran's impressive history of literature and science. He is associated with the development of the most accurate solar calendar of the world, namely the Jalali calendar, which, according to the astronomers and mathematicians is far more exact and precise than the Gregorian calendar. It's said that the solar calendar which Omar Khayyam devised shows an error in the calculation of days and months only once in each 10,000 years.

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Ethan A. Huff / George F. Will

Psychiatrists have been working on the fourth revision of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) and, in it, they hope to add a whole slew of new psychiatric disorders. Unfortunately, many of these disorders are merely differences in personality and behavior among people.

The new edition may include "disorders" like "oppositional defiant disorder", which includes people who have a pattern of "negativistic, defiant, disobedient and hostile behavior toward authority figures." Some of the "symptoms" of this disorder including losing one's temper, annoying people and being "touchy".

Other "disorders" being considered include personality flaws like antisocial behavior, arrogance, cynicism or narcissism. There are even categories for people who binge eat and children who have temper tantrums.

Children are already over-diagnosed for allegedly being bipolar or having attention-deficit disorder (ADD), which results in their being prescribed dangerous antipsychotic drugs. To categorize even more childhood behaviors as psychiatric disorders will only further increase the number of children who will be needlessly prescribed antipsychotic drugs.

Each new revision of DSM has included controversial new additions, and this newest version is no exception. In fact, the manual has increased considerably in size over the years. What is most disturbing about the current proposed revisions is the blatantly brave, new way in which so-called medical professionals are viewing individual characteristics.

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Stephen Lendman

Writing on May 12 in Alternet.org, Mariam Abu Ali headlined, "My Brother Faces a Lifetime of Solitary Confinement on a Spurious Terror Conviction," saying:

He "spent the past five years in solitary confinement, under 23-hour lockdown, in a 7 x 12 cell," and overall has been treated horrifically "in a dungeon, over 20 meters beneath the ground."

An April article by this writer explained what they're like. Material from it is repeated below.

Abu Ali wasn't charged or convicted for violence. He's not at Guantanamo or secret detainment abroad. He's in Florence, CO Supermax hell, like state-run facilities the only federal one evolving from a "get tough on crime" philosophy to keep hardened offenders separate from others, the greater prison population safer, and the public secure knowing these prisons are escape-proof. Over the last two decades, nearly 60 were built in over 40 states, currently for over 20,000 inmates.

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) National Institute of Corrections calls the term "supermax" the most common one to describe "special housing unit(s), maxi-maxi, maximum control facilit(ies), secured housing unit(s), intensive management unit(s), and administrative maximum penitentiar(ies.)." It describes them as:

"a highly restrictive, high-custody housing unit within a secure facility....that isolates inmates from the general prison population and from each other due to grievous crimes, repetitive assaultive or violent institutional behavior, the threat of escape or actual escape from high-custody facility(s), or inciting or threatening to incite disturbances in a correctional institution."

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Gilad Atzmon

On the eve of the Gaza Flotilla Mission. A talk given in Kyttaro Athens 19.5.10
 
There is often a noticeable discrepancy between what one claims to be and what one actually is.

Hegel taught us that our self-perception is a fragile and evolving amalgam of the way we like to see ourselves  and the way we are mirrored by others.

I, for instance, tend to regard myself as a Jazz saxophonist.  My self-image is inherently dependent on the willingness of others to listen to me and to buy my music. My vision of myself as a writer is again subject to other people’s reactions to my thoughts and ideas. It seems that man is not exactly an island. We live amongst others and are shaped by a process of mirroring.

In terms of Jewish history, we can detect a real dilemma here concerning this mirroring.  As much as Jews tend to regard themselves (traditionally) as a chosen people, they have been largely confused by other people’s dismissal of their ‘greatness’.

Zionism intended to amend this dilemma. It promised to reinvent the Jew as a proud authentic, ethical, universal, productive, organic, humble and civilised human being.

If Athens stands for universalism and inclusive ideologies and Jerusalem stands for tribal and exclusive thinking, Zionism was a promise to introduce Athens to the Jerusalemite. The Zionist Jew was supposed to eventually look into the mirror with pride. Zionism may have been, at one stage, a genuine attempt to bring this about. However, it was doomed to fail.

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Robert Parry

"What's the Arabic word for 'terrorism'? -Iran

If you read the major American newspapers or watch the propaganda on cable TV, it’s pretty clear that the U.S. foreign policy Establishment is again spoiling for a fight, this time in Iran.

Just as Iraq’s Saddam Hussein was the designated target of American hate in 2002 and 2003, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is playing that role now. Back then, any event in Iraq was cast in the harshest possible light; today, the same is done with Iran.

Anyone who dares suggest that the situation on the ground might not be as black and white as the Washington Post's editors claim it is must be an “apologist” for the enemy regime. It’s also not very smart for one’s reputation to question the certainty of the reporting in the New York Times, whether about Iraq’s “aluminum tubes” for nuclear centrifuges in 2002 or regarding Iran’s “rigged” election in 2009.

It’s much better for one’s career to clamber onto the confrontation bandwagon. Nobody in the major U.S. media or in politics will ever be hurt by talking tough and flexing muscles regarding some Muslim “enemy.” And, if the posturing leads to war, it will fall mostly to working-class kids to do the fighting and dying while the bills can be passed along to future generations.

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Rami G. Khouri

"Iran and Turkey represent something novel and historically significant in the Middle East: Muslim-majority countries that are politically self-confident and dare to stand up to the US, Israel or anyone else who encroaches on what they see as their strategic national interests. Washington and Tel Aviv remain confused on how to deal with such new phenomena."

The agreement on Iran’s nuclear fuel announced Monday after mediation by the Turkish and Brazilian governments should be good news for those who seek to use the rule of law to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. From both the American and Iranian perspectives the political dimension of the current dynamics is more important than the technical one. The accord should remind us that the style and tone in diplomatic processes is as important as substance.

Iran and its international negotiating partners have not reached agreement on Iran’s nuclear programs in the past half-decade, to a large extent because American- and Israeli-led concerns have been translated into an aggressive, accusatory, sanctions-and-threats-based style of diplomacy that Iran in turn has responded to with defiance.

Iran’s crime, in the eyes of its main critics in Washington and Tel Aviv (they are the two that matter most, as other Western powers play only supporting roles), is not primarily that it enriches uranium, but that it defies American-Israeli orders to stop doing so. (The Iranian response, rather reasonable in my view, is that it suspended uranium enrichment half a decade ago and did not receive the promises it expected from the United States and its allies on continuing with its plans for the peaceful use of nuclear technology. So why suspend enrichment again?)

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Stephen Lendman

After Hamas was overwhelmingly elected in January 2006, Israel, Washington and the West ended all outside aid, imposed an economic embargo and sanctions, and politically isolated the new government.

Stepped up repression followed, including regular IDF incursions, bombings, killings, targeted assassinations, arrests, property destruction, and Israeli-instigated internal conflict that left Fatah usurping authority in the West Bank, leaving Gaza alone under Hamas.

In June 2007, conditions worsened after Israel imposed its siege, medieval-like, according to some, for its harshness. Now, nearing its third anniversary, it's still in place, slowly suffocating and strangling 1.5 million people, trapped by closed borders, regular incursions and attacks, and shortages of everything needed to function and survive. A humanitarian crisis resulted and continues. The West and most regional states are culpable, complicit or indifferent to a real time catastrophe.

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Marc Morano / Don J. Easterbrook

A prominent U.S. geologist is urging the world to forget about global warming because global cooling has already begun.

Geologist Dr. Don Easterbrook's warning came in the form of a new scientific paper he presented to the 4th International Conference on Climate Change in Chicago on May 16, 2010. Dr. Easterbrook is an Emeritus Professor at Western Washington University who has authored eight books and 150 journal publications. Easterbrook's full resume is here.

Dr. Easterbrook joins many other scientists, peer-reviewed research and scientific societies warning of a coming global cooling. Easterbrook is presenting his findings alongside other man-made global warming skeptics at the three day conference in Chicago.

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Mike Adams

Over a week ago, I published an article here on NaturalNews questioning the media spin on the massive oil spill in the Gulf. That story, entitled Is Gulf oil rig disaster far worse than we're being told?, stated the following:

"It's hard to say exactly what's going on in the Gulf right now, especially because there are so many conflicting reports and unanswered questions. But one thing's for sure: if the situation is actually much worse than we're being led to believe, there could be worldwide catastrophic consequences. If it's true that millions upon millions of gallons of crude oil are flooding the Gulf with no end in sight, the massive oil slicks being created could make their way into the Gulf Stream currents, which would carry them not only up the East Coast but around the world where they could absolutely destroy the global fishing industries."

Now, barely one week later, it turns out that the oil slick is FAR worse than what we were being told.

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Chris Floyd

The American way of war is a marvelously ingenious thing. And thoroughly modern too. No more of that "don't shoot until you see the whites of their eyes" jazz; your modern "warfighter" (they aren't called "soldiers" anymore, you know) prefers to view his targets through, say, a computer screen safely ensconced back in the Homeland or thousands of feet in the sky, or else through the unearthly greenish glow of night-vision scopes. And open combat? Forget it. The new American way is the sneak attack on civilian homes in the dead of night. You creep up, you break in, you cap a few ragheads, then you run away. What glory! What magnificent valor!

The Washington Post reports on yet another glorious page in the annals of the exceptional nation "intended by God to be a light set on a hill to serve as a beacon of hope and Christian charity to a lost and dying world." It's the usual story. Secret "warfighters" suddenly attack a civilian compound in the middle of the night. This, not surprisingly, provokes a few shots from some of the inhabitants, who have no idea who is attacking their home. The superior firepower of the beacons of hope and Christian charity quickly overcome the piddling arms of the demonic heathens, however, and in a trice, there are dead gook – sorry, raghead – bodies all around. Including children – you've got to have children in your body count these days, if you want to be a thoroughly modern Christian beacon warfighter. Then you and your brave band of secret warriors run away and prepare for the next bold raid.

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Stephen Lendman

BP America Chairman Robert Malone, left, and Shell Oil Presi-
dent John Hofmeister (in 2008). (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

It's common practice in America. A government-Wall Street cabal caused the financial crisis and subsequent fallout. Now debated financial reform is a stealth scheme to let bankers self-regulate. Rogue Democrats rammed through health reform to ration care and enrich corporate providers. Defense, technology, and related firms profit hugely from permanent wars, and a regulatory-free Washington - energy industry alliance lies at the root of the Gulf disaster, by far America's greatest ever environmental calamity, worsening daily with no fail-safe, or perhaps any, way to stop it.

It's too big even for the major media to ignore - to wit, on May 15, New York Times writer Justin Gillis headlined, "Giant Plumes of Oil Found Forming Under the Gulf of Mexico," saying:

Alarming reports show "Scientists are finding enormous oil plumes in the deep waters of the Gulf of Mexico, including one as large as 10 miles long, 3 miles wide and 300 feet thick in spots. The discovery" shows that BP and the Obama administration lied about the incident's severity, and they're still lying.

According to University of Georgia researcher Samantha Joye,

"There's a shocking amount of oil in the deep water, relative to" what's visible on the surface, the tip of a big and growing iceberg, this one containing oil. "There's a tremendous amount of oil in multiple layers, three or four or five layers deep in the water column."

Worse still, it's depleting Gulf oxygen, prompting fears about killing sea life in the effected areas and permanently destroying the livelihood of area fisherman who supply 20% of the nation's supply.

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