03/22/12

Permalink US reveals Iran petro penalty hit list after exempting allies

The US State Department has revealed the list of 12 countries which may be subjected to American financial sanctions for failing to cut oil imports from Iran. - The number of countries was mentioned earlier on Tuesday, as Washington announced a penalty waiver for Japan and 10 EU counties which complied with American demands and reduced their purchases. However, the names of the countries were not given. Four of the countries on America’s anger list are among top 100 buyers of Iranian crude. They are China, India, South Korea and South Africa, with the first two being the two largest buyers. Also targeted by possible financial sanctions are Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Taiwan and Turkey. US President Barack Obama may order banks based in those countries and involved in oil trade with Iran to be cut off America’s financial system. On the other hand, he may exempt some of them from sanctions, if US national security demands it. So America’s allies like South Korea or Pakistan may dodge repercussions.


Permalink Syria Violence Spills Over Into Lebanon

Russia and China today joined the rest of the United Nations Security Council in endorsing former UN chief Kofi Annan’s plan for a negotiated settlement in Syria. The statement was agreed upon after Russia managed to get a number of ultimatums from the initial French proposal removed. - Since he became the special UN envoy to Syria, Annan has managed to put considerable momentum behind negotiation, a major shift from a number of Western nations who were demanding military intervention. So far, however, the Assad regime has offered only tepid support for the deal and several rebel factions have rejected the notion of negotiation on general principle. In a sign that’s probably not going to change, a number of Islamist factions are seen to have gained considerable influence within the Free Syrian Army (FSA), with an eye toward turning it from a straight-forward rebel army for a civil war into an open-ended insurgency.

Chris Marsden: Syrian opposition accused of human rights abuses


Permalink NYT Misrepresents UNSC Statement On Syria

NYT writer Rick Gladstone commits serious journalistic malpractice in his piece about the UNSC Presidential Statement on Syria. He writes as if the statement was a climbdown of Russia from its position and as if the statement is what the U.S. tried to achieve for month. The opposite is the case. The U.S. was forced to change its position while the Russians won on each of their points.


Permalink Police deploy explosives in French gunman siege


Some of the mourners after seven people, including
three children, were gunned down at a Jewish school
in Toulouse, France.

French police fired shots and set off explosives roughly every hour outside an apartment block in southern France on Thursday to try to force out a 24-year-old gunman suspected of killing seven people in the name of al Qaeda [CIA]. Some 27 hours after 300 police first surrounded the five-storey building in a suburb of the prosperous industrial city of Toulouse, Mohamed Merah, a French citizen of Algerian origin, was refusing to give himself up. Instead Merah boasted to police negotiators that he had brought France to its knees and said his only regret was not having been able to carry out plans for more killings. [...] He has told negotiators that he killed the seven to avenge the deaths of Palestinian children and because of French army involvement in Afghanistan. He filmed the shootings of the children and the rabbi on Monday using a camera strapped to him.

New York Times: French Slaying Suspect Dead After Police Raid Hideout
USA Today: Official: Suspect in French killing spree is dead
Russia Today: Toulouse gunman dead, jumps to his death in hail of bullets - VIDEO, PHOTOS
Le Monde: La situation à Toulouse
20Minutes.fr: TOULOUSE: le tueur présumé ne donne plus signe de vie, la police s'interroge
Washington Post: Mohammed Merah, shooting suspect, ‘wants to die’ fighting
MSNBC: No sign of life for 10 hours from Jewish school shooting suspect's home
Wall Street Journal: French Interior Minister: Toulouse Suspect May Be Dead
Alex Lantier: French police in armed standoff with alleged Toulouse gunman
AWIP: French 'arrest Toulouse suspect'


Permalink Israeli army unit storms school, arrests 11-year-old child

OCCUPIED JERUSALEM, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) stormed a school in Ras Al-Amud suburb in occupied Jerusalem on Wednesday morning and arrested an 11-year-old child. - Hebrew newspaper Ha’aretz said on its website that the IOF unit took the child from his classroom along with the school’s secretary after the child confessed after beating that the secretary hid him inside the school after throwing stones at an IOF patrol. The paper pointed out that the incident was the fifth of its kind in 2012, recalling that the IOF soldiers detained another child in the same suburb ten days ago. The headmaster said that he tried to convince the soldiers not to storm the school and detain the child in front of all other children but they refused. The paper said that it recorded many similar incidents in which IOF harassment of Palestinian schoolchildren was registered in occupied Jerusalem.

IMEMC: Soldiers Kidnap 11 year old Child From His Classroom


Permalink Egypt supports international commission on Israeli crimes against Palestinians

Ambassador Hisham Badr, Egypt's permanent representative to the European headquarters of the United Nations in Geneva, has confirmed Cairo's full support for the establishment of an international fact-finding committee to investigate the impact of Israeli settlements on Palestinian human rights. A proposal for the committee was submitted by the two Arabic and Islamic groups on the UN Human Rights Council. Badr's announcement came in a speech to the latest session of the Council to discuss the developments of the human rights situation in the occupied Palestinian and Arab territories. The Egyptian representative said that any talk about the latest developments in the Middle East should not ignore the increasing suffering of the Palestinian people and the population in the occupied Arab territories due to the ongoing Israeli occupation.


Permalink Racially-Approved American Murder: They Kill Because They Can

The Kandahar, Afghanistan and Sanford, Florida killers are anything but freaks. Both acted on racist impulses shared by huge numbers of their fellow citizens, and encouraged by the policies of national and local governments. U.S. policy conveys immunity from other nations' laws on U.S. soldiers, while state laws are rewritten to do the same for murderous-minded whites. “Evocation of white fear now provides the same justification for summary murder as claims of rape of white women did for mob lynchings, back in the day.”


Permalink Military coup in Mali ousts democratically-elected president

Mutinying soldiers in Mali took over the state television and announced that they had seized control of the government, saying the action was necessary because of the mishandling of an insurgency in the north. - The spokesman for the soldiers, Lt. Amadou Konare, said in a communique that they had taken the country's security in their own hands "due to the inability of the government to give the armed forces the necessary means to defend the integrity of our national territory." A soldier at the presidential palace who asked not to be named because he feared reprisal said that the presidential guard had failed to defend the palace against the renegade soldiers. They have seized control of the seat of government, but could not find democratically elected leader President Amadou Toumani Toure, who is in hiding.

Jason Ditz: Mali Soldiers Seize State Media, Attack Palace in Coup Bid
Global Research News: JOSEPH KONY, AMERICA'S PRETEXT TO INVADE AFRICA: US Marines Dispatched to Five African Countries


Permalink Australia's most-wanted man caught after seven years hiding in bushland

Australia's most-wanted fugitive, Malcolm Naden, has been captured after spending seven years surviving in rugged bushland by killing and eating animals such as kangaroos. - The 38-year-old outlaw, whose evasion of a massive police dragnet has made him a figure of legend, was finally snared in a raid in the early hours of Friday local time, the BBC reported. The former abattoir worker was wanted for the murder of 24-year-old Kristy Scholes, who was found strangled in his locked bedroom in the New South Wales town of Dubbo in 2005. He also faced two counts of sexual assault against a 15-year-old-girl and the shooting of a police officer who closed in on one of his makeshift camps in December 2011.


Permalink Infamous Abu Ghraib torture guard has no regrets

One of the guards involved in the 2004 Abu Ghraib abuse scandal says she does not regret her actions. The revelation comes in the wake of the massacre of 16 Afghan civilians by a US soldier, further tarnishing the image of the American military.

“Their lives are better. They got the better end of the deal,” England said in an interview with The Daily referring to the Iraqi prisoners who were sexually and physically abused in the infamous prison near Baghdad. “They weren’t innocent. They were trying to kill us and you want me to apologize to them? It’s like saying sorry to the enemy.”

Lynndie England, 29, became one of the symbols of the controversial 2003 US invasion of Iraq after photographs of her smiling while giving a thumbs-up in front of a pile of naked Iraqi detainees and pulling a man by a leash went public. The pictures sparked international outrage and shone a spotlight on the abuse and misconduct committed by US soldiers, fueling anti-American sentiments across the world.

“All the prisoners that were there were on the tier of high-priority. They were there for a reason. They had killed coalition forces or they were planning to,” England told The Daily on Monday. “They had information about where insurgents were hiding.”

Instead of feeling remorse, the former prison guard Lynndie England is more worried about the lives of fellow US soldiers who could have been endangered by the scandal. “I think about it all the time – indirect deaths that were my fault, losing people on our side because of me coming out on a picture.” England was among eleven military personnel convicted in 2005 in connection with the torture and abuse at Abu Ghraib. She was sentenced to three years in prison and dishonorably discharged from the military.

The Daily: Abu Ghraib’s grasp: England admits she was “naïve” - but won’t apologize to ‘enemy’


Permalink Germany to sell Israel new nuke-capable submarine

Germany has announced that it will sell Israel a sixth Dolphin-class submarine capable of carrying nuclear warheads with an operating range of 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles). - German Defense Minister Thomas de Maiziere announced the decision on Tuesday in a joint press conference with his Israeli counterpart Ehud Barak in Berlin. "A further boat will be delivered to Israel and there will be financial help," said Maiziere, confirming that Germany would shoulder part of the cost of the submarine. In November, a German government source had said that the country would pay a contribution of 135 million Euros ($178 million), a third of the cost. Three earlier-model Dolphin submarines had been delivered to Israel between 1998 and 2000. In 2006, Israel placed its fourth and fifth orders for two more advanced subs.


Health topic page on womens health Womens health our team of physicians Womens health breast cancer lumps heart disease Womens health information covers breast Cancer heart pregnancy womens cosmetic concerns Sexual health and mature women related conditions Facts on womens health female anatomy Womens general health and wellness The female reproductive system female hormones Diseases more common in women The mature woman post menopause Womens health dedicated to the best healthcare
buy viagra online