01/11/10

Permalink ISRAEL WAR CRIMES GAZA 1//5. Zeitoun Village killings

EVIDENCE 1; ZEITOUN VILLAGE, GAZA. Dec 08-Jan 09 war. A well known ITN reporter is one of the first journalists to arrive at a village in Gaza where he discoveres possible war crimes when the local children tell a story of wanton killing by Isreali troops. Goldstone Report: Israel's Gaza offensive criticized by Goldstone report: A culture of impunity in the region has existed for too long," the report's author Richard Goldstone told the UN Human Rights Council in Geneva. "The lack of accountability for war crimes and possible war crimes against humanity has reached a crisis point; the ongoing lack of justice is undermining any hope for a successful peace process and reinforcing an environment that fosters violence," Goldstone added.


Permalink Charges of Palestinian Child torture in Israeli prisons

The cases relate to the ill-treatment, and in some cases torture, of Palestinian children being held at the notorious Al Jalame Interrogation and Detention Centre near Haifa, in Israel, between February 2008 and March 2009. In each case, boys between the ages of 16 and 17, report being held in 'Cell No. 36' at the Interrogation Centre. 'Cell No. 36' is described as measuring approximately 2x3 metres in which the child is forced to sleep on a concrete bed or a thin mattress on the floor. Meals are passed to the child through a flap in the door depriving him of all human contact. One child reports being held in solitary confinement in 'Cell No 36' for 65 days.


Permalink Israeli general Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam denies Iran is nuclear threat

A general who was once in charge of Israel’s nuclear weapons has claimed that Iran is a “very, very, very long way from building a nuclear capability”. Brigadier-General Uzi Eilam, 75, a war hero and pillar of the defence establishment, believes it will probably take Iran seven years to make nuclear weapons.


Permalink Israeli firm blasted for letting would-be plane bomber slip through

The Israeli firm ICTS International (not to be confused with ICTS Europe, which is a different company), and two of its subsidiaries are at the crux of an international investigation in recent days, as experts try to pinpoint the reasons for the security failure that enabled Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to board Northwest flight 253 and attempt to set alight explosives hidden in his underwear. A Haaretz investigation has learned that the security officers and their supervisor should have suspected the passenger, even without having early intelligence available to them. CLG: Northwest Bomb Plot 'Oddities'.


Permalink No secret as U.S. Marines plan for Afghan assault

Haji Zair, 45, has just been appointed the new district governor of Marjah, a Taliban stronghold in the center of Afghanistan's Helmand province. His first goal is just to be able to live there. The area is still controlled by the Taliban, the last major bastion of the fighters in the southern part of Afghanistan's most violent province, and for now, Zair only enters the district by day, retreating to his home outside by nightfall. He is counting on a huge extra force of U.S. Marines that President Barack Obama has dispatched to southern Afghanistan to change that, in what is likely to be the first big military push of Obama's new "surge" strategy.


Permalink U.S Soldiers Are Waking Up!

Our real enemies are not those living in a distant land whose names or policies we don't understand; The real enemy is a system that wages war when it's profitable, the CEOs who lay us off our jobs when it's profitable, the Insurance Companies who deny us Health care when it's profitable, the Banks who take away our homes when it's profitable. Our enemies are not several hundred thousands away. They are right here in front of us- Mike Prysner


Permalink FBI smashes cybercrime network in Texas, 19 charged with major crimes

Each of the following 19 defendants are charged with one count of conspiracy to commit wire and mail fraud. Defendants (3) through (7), who were charged in the original indictment, have made their initial appearances in federal court and, with the exception of defendant (6), are on pretrial release.


Permalink December 2009: Second Snowiest on Record in the Northern Hemisphere

According to the Rutgers University Global Snow Lab, last month had the second greatest December Northern Hemisphere snow cover since records were started in 1966. Snow extent was measured at 45.86 million sq. km, topped only by 1985 at 45.99 million sq. km. North America set a record December extent at 15.98 million sq. km, and the US also set a December record at 4.16 million sq. km.


Permalink Another Israeli wall to protect 'Jewish character'

Israel has approved plans for construction of a barrier along the border with Egypt, a move that clearly indicates that it wants to remain a religious apartheid regime. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has declared that the decision was taken to secure Israel's “Jewish character”, BBC reported on Monday. Palestine Telegraph: Israel to build barrier with Egypt. Marco Villa: Israel To Build $1.5billion Fence on Egypt Border. Al Jazeera: Announcing his decision to include advanced surveillance equipment on the new barrier, Netanyahu said in a statement on Sunday it would keep "infiltrators and terrorists" out. We would rather think it would keep them in...


Permalink Pakistan: unlawful US drone war kills 140 innocent civilians for 1 CIA-alleged terrorist

Pakistan’s government reported US drones killed only civilians in 39 of 44 attacks on their country in 2009; with over 700 innocent civilians killed, according to Pakistan's most widely-read English newspaper. Pakistan has repeatedly publicly denounced the US attacks, making the US guilty of War Crimes as they do not have explicit permission from Pakistan’s government.


Permalink In Afghanistan, 3 more US soldiers killed

Three more American soldiers hired killers have been killed in southern Afghanistan, International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) says in a statement. Palestine Telegraph: NATO: 3 US Troops Killed in Afghanistan. Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan: Seven foreign soldiers killed in Zabul. BBC: Six international soldiers die in Afghanistan.


Permalink US combat plane stationed at the military base in Curaçao violated Venezuelan airspace

[The] violation of Venezuelan airspace by a P-3 US military combat plane is another example of the escalation in provocations against Venezuela and evidence of the danger US military presence in the region represents. During a live television broadcast on the evening of January 8, President Hugo Chávez revealed that at approximately 12:55pm earlier that day, a US P3 combat plane took off from the air base in neighboring Curaçao and entered Venezuelan airspace during a 15-minute period. Two Venezuelan F-16 planes intercepted the foreign military aircraft, prepared to escort it outside Venezuelan territory. “When the F-16 planes attempted communication with the US aircraft, it immediately took off towards the north, but later it returned”, announced President Chávez. He said that at 1:37pm Venezuelan time, the combat plane returned and flew for about 19 minutes inside Venezuelan territory. “It was escorted out and pressured by our F-16s, we didn’t have to bring in the Sukhois”, added Chávez.


Permalink Learning From Europe

Europe is an economic success, and that success shows that social democracy works. As health care reform nears the finish line, there is much wailing and rending of garments among conservatives. And I’m not just talking about the tea partiers. Even calmer conservatives have been issuing dire warnings that Obamacare will turn America into a European-style social democracy. And everyone knows that Europe has lost all its economic dynamism. Actually, Europe’s economic success should be obvious even without statistics. For those Americans who have visited Paris: did it look poor and backward? What about Frankfurt or London? You should always bear in mind that when the question is which to believe — official economic statistics or your own lying eyes — the eyes have it. Not so fast, Krugman. Social democracy does work and much better than the US system too...But Europe is moving away from it now. The European elites are in the process of introducing a neo-fascist system of federated pauper states under the guise of being a "modern" and "dynamic" Europe. Needless to say, this new Europe in reality no longer honors the idea of social democracy, much less the general principles of democracy.


Permalink British soldiers 'tortured and executed Iraqi grandmother'

The Army's involvement in the death and abuse of Sabiha Khudur Talib, three years ago, is one of the most serious charges to be made against Britain during its six-year occupation of southern Iraq. UK government ministers are to be given previously unseen police reports from a Basra crime unit which conclude that Mrs Talib's body was dumped on a roadside in a British body bag in November 2006. There was a bullet hole in her abdomen and her face had injuries consistent with torture, police reported. The soldiers had flashlights with them and at this point I saw my brother Karim sitting against the wall. He was still and I saw his blood all around. It was obvious he was dead." Says Mr Al-Maliki: "My mother began shouting and pleading with the soldiers and she was calling out mine and Karim's names. Although the calls pained me at least I knew that she was alive." Later he describes the soldiers leading his mother out of the house: "As I was kneeling on the ground I heard my mother shouting for me and Karim. I looked up and saw my mother being led roughly a couple of metres in front of me by four or five soldiers. I shouted to her. I could see my mother was trying to hold a blanket around her legs. I could see her body and I could see no signs of injury. I could not believe they were treating my old mother in this way." ABC News: Body Dumped by Roadside in a British-issue Body Bag.


Permalink Inside the insular and secretive Eritrea

On the sun-bleached heights of the Asmara plateau, July is beles season, a few weeks of wild cactus fruit and ostentatious metropolitan chic. It is when the fig cacti, the beles, yield their knobbly pellets of fruit to sure-handed children, who pick them to earn their families some cash. July is also when Eritrea’s diaspora engine goes into reverse and expat families hustle through Asmara’s tiny airport and out on to the tiled streets of the capital, where they parade in the Gucci glamour and hip-hop bling of London and New York. Because their arrival coincides with the ripening of the cactus fruit – and because they have disappeared by the time the fruit is gone – they, too, are dubbed beles by the compatriots they leave behind.

The two cross paths on street corners in Asmara, where plastic buckets filled with the pickings from the cactus fields sit at the knees of female traders, swathed like mummies in the white cotton shawls of the Christian highlands. Some diaspora families sweep past, Dad speaking to the kids in Tigrinya, the local language, the kids replying in English or Swedish or Dutch. Others pause to buy handfuls of the fruit, whose yellow skin conceals a fleshy orange core that tastes of mango.

At 2,300m above sea level, this is one of Africa’s cleanest, calmest, most crime-free cities, a home above the clouds for 400,000 people and the capital of the continent’s newest nation-state. It’s a cauldron of cultural influences – domestic and foreign, old and new, beles and beles – but ranks as an outlier in Africa. It’s a sliver of rock that clings to the continental shelf like it’s afraid of slipping into the Red Sea, but its four million people refer to their neighbours as “Africans” with a cool detachment. [Barney Jopson is the FT’s East Africa correspondent. To read the full interview with Isaias Afewerki, go to www.ft.com/isaias] Please take a good look at this map. -If we consider the geographical positions of both Yemen and Eritrea + the fact that the Suez Canal further to the north is extremely important for international shipping & many of the world's navies...Doesn't it spring to mind then that the strategic position of Eritrea is bound to land this tiny country in trouble with the US? Would it be too much to expect to hear shortly of "terrorism" in Eritrea and of the "need" for the US to do something with this "problem"?


Permalink Laura Flanders GRITtv Interview with Dr Dahlia Wasfi

CONGRESSIONAL PROGRESSIVE CAUCUS: Dahlia Wasfi at Iraq Forum: "I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my mother’s side—Ashkenazi Jews who fled their homeland of Austria during Hitler’s Anschluss. It is for them that we say 'Never again.' I speak to you today on behalf of relatives on my father’s side, who are not living, but dying, under the occupation of this administration’s deadly foray in Iraq. From the lack of security to the lack of basic supplies to the lack of electricity to the lack of potable water to the lack of jobs to the lack of recon-struction to the lack of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they are much worse off now than before we invaded. 'Never again' should apply to them, too..." [Dahlia's website is here: http://www.liberatethis.com/index.html]


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