04/20/12

Permalink Iraq Carnage: 69 Killed, 176 Wounded

Iraq suffered significant bomb attacks in multiple cities today, leaving at least 69 dead and 176 more wounded. The multiple large-scale attacks were apparently coordinated, took place mostly during a 75-minute span, and focused on security personnel. In stark contrast, recent violence has largely resulted in only one or two deaths at a time. - Hamid Mutlaq, a Sunni member of parliament, blamed Baghdad for the slaughter, noting that Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki’s office has been stoking political tensions in recent weeks and causing several groups to call for an end to Maliki’s budding "dictatorship." Among the most aggrieved parties is Vice President Tareq al-Hashemi who fled to Iraqi Kurdistan. He fears that Maliki’s machinations are tearing the country apart. The carnage cut short a relatively quiet period for Iraq. According to the Interior Ministry, March saw the lowest death toll since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003. Their figures came up to 112 killed. The deadliest day last month left 63 dead and 257 wounded.


Permalink US Congress wants all cars to be equipped with recording devices

The federal government is about to become the country’s worst backseat driver. Congress wants to put tracking devices in the car of every American, and that’s not even the scariest provision in a new bill being passed around Washington. - The US Senate has already signed off on a new legislation that, if cleared by the rest of Congress, will see to it that the government gets its eyes and ears inside every automobile in the country. Senate Bill 1813 calls for the installation of mandatory recorders and communication devices in Americans’ cars that could connect the whereabouts and actions of the country’s drivers with whomever the government wants to grant access to. It doesn’t stop there, though — another provision in the proposed bill will give the government the power to revoke passports from Americans behind on their taxes, essentially making it impossible for the indebted to escape the country. [...] If you’re not scared yet, then here is another eye opener: the US Senate has already approved the bill by an overwhelming vote of 74-22, leaving only the House of Representatives to vote in favor before government-sanctioned blackboxes become as common as carburetors and calibrated friction brakes. At this rate, it won’t be long before every Beetle and Buick in the country is being tracked by Big Brother.


Permalink CIA seeks to widen assassination campaign in Yemen

The US Central Intelligence Agency is seeking to expand its authority to carry out remote-control assassinations in Yemen, according to a report Thursday in the Washington Post. CIA Director David Petraeus has made the request to the White House and the National Security Council is now discussing it, the newspaper said.

Petraeus is seeking permission to engage in “signature strikes,” using drone-fired missiles to attack targets identified “solely on intelligence indicating patterns of suspicious behavior,” the Post reported, without knowing exactly who was being targeted for extermination. For all practical purposes, this means turning large parts of Yemen, a sovereign country whose government has a military alliance with the United States, into a free-fire zone, in which US missiles could be fired at virtually any gathering of men thought to be armed. The country is awash in weapons, particularly in the rural areas where tribal sheiks, rather than the central government, hold sway.

Whether or not the White House approves the current CIA request, the United States is moving inexorably towards greater military involvement in Yemen and its surrounding region, including the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, key waterways for international trade, and particularly for the supply of oil from the Persian Gulf to Europe, with tankers traveling for hundreds of miles along the Yemeni coast on their way to the Suez Canal. [Photo: WaPo]


Permalink Black fireman says he was abused and Tasered by Met

Scotland Yard is facing a new case of alleged police racism after a black firefighter who tried to assist officers while off duty claimed he was targeted because of his skin colour, abused, assaulted and shot with a stun gun. - The complaint lodged by Edric Kennedy-Macfoy, 28, from north London, is the 10th case involving alleged racism known to have been referred to the official police watchdog in the last three weeks. Kennedy-Macfoy was driving through Harrow around 3.30am on 4 September when he saw a young man hurl a rock at a police van. After noting a description of the young man, Kennedy-Macfoy, who also trained as a police constable, flagged down the van driver and approached a line of officers to pass the information on. He said he was horrified at their response, which he alleges included officers behaving like "wild animals": swearing at him, dragging him from his car, subjecting him to a "violent" attack and eventually shooting him with a stun gun.


Permalink Queen Beatrix’s Brother-In-Law Calls For Mandatory Birth Control For The “Unfit”

The Netherlands needs legal provisions to allow compulsory contraception for serious drug addicts, psychiatric patients and the mentally handicapped. That’s the controversial argument being made by Queen Beatrix’s brother-in-law Pieter van Vollenhoven, former head of the Dutch Safety Board. - The subject of compulsory contraception is taboo in the Netherlands. But Mr Van Vollenhoven believes that situations regularly occur in which such a far-reaching measure should nevertheless be possible. In an interview with current affairs TV programme Zembla he says:

“People will accuse me of going too far. But to be honest, that’s an easy thing to say if you do not know the facts. My eyes have been opened by seeing these problems. They came as a shock. You can see that these parents need help, since they’ve no control over their own lives. When it’s clear that’s the case, perhaps contraception would be the best step.”


Permalink NATO's Slow Genocide in Libya: Syria is Next

What the world has to look forward to if NATO and the UN gets its way in Syria. - While Qatari government propaganda outlet Al Jazeera is busy whitewashing the NATO-led terrorist take-over of Libya with "documentaries" like "Gaddafi: The Endgame - State of Denial," depicting the evisceration of one of Africa's most developed nation-states as a pro-democracy revolution yielding a promising tomorrow - Libya in reality has been plunged into perpetual violence, destabilization, and division. And as militants battle each other while carving the once unified Libya into a myriad of fiefdoms, genocidal death squads continue a campaign of extermination nationwide.


Permalink Israeli officer assaults protesters, Jordan Valley, 14.4.2012, Raw footage by Palestinian TV 2

WATCH: New video shows IDF officer struck several left-wing activists. In clip taken by Palestinian TV, and released by left-wing NGO B’Tselem, Lt. Col. Shalom Eisner seen beating protesters without clear provocation.

Mondoweiss: Israeli celebrity says she enjoyed video of IDF attacking Danish activist because he looked like a Nazi


Permalink Does one holocaust justify another one? ~ by Khalid Amayreh

[Palestinian Information Center] - I wrote this article a few years ago to protest Israel’s pornographic exploitation of the holocaust memory in order to to blur, or divert attention from, or extenuate her equally evil crimes in the eyes of humanity. Needless to say, such crimes are tantamount to a slow-combustion holocaust. On this somber, annual holocaust anniversary, Israel continues to exploit the German holocaust in order to liquidate Palestinian national existence and arrogate more and more lebensraum at the expense of a thoroughly tormented people that had absolutely nothing to do with the original holocaust. Hence, the republication of the article. KA


Permalink Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in Occupied Palestine

Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law in the OPT continued during the reporting period (12 – 18 April 2012):

Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF wounded 19 civilians, including two children and two Israeli human rights defenders, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the West Bank, IOF wounded 17 civilians, including two children and two Israeli human rights defenders, during the dispersion of peaceful demonstrations organized in protest to the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. Dozens of civilians also suffered from tear gas inhalation. In the Gaza Strip, on 17 and 18 April 2012, two Palestinian civilians, including a woman, were wounded when IOF positioned at the border between the Gaza Strip and Israel opened fire at Palestinian houses and agricultural land in Khuza’a village, east of Khan Yunis. On 13 April 2012, Israeli naval troops arrested 3 Palestinian fishermen and confiscated their boat in the northern Gaza Strip. The fishermen were released later, but the boat remained in custody. Incursions: During the reporting period, IOF conducted at least 56 military incursions into Palestinian communities in the West Bank. In the Gaza Strip, IOF conducted one limited incursion into the central Gaza Strip. [...]


Permalink Israeli Occupation Forces arrest two Palestinians, rob money

AL-KHALIL, (PIC)-- Israeli occupation forces (IOF) arrested two Palestinians in Beit Ummar village, to the north of Al-Khalil, on Thursday and robbed money from one of the houses. - IOF soldiers searched the home of Jihad Alqam at dawn Thursday before taking him away to Etzion detention center, his son Mohammed said. The soldiers also stormed the home of Ahmed Abu Mariya in the same village and threatened him for not finding his son Qassam, who is wanted for interrogation. The soldiers stole 160 Jordanian dinars that were kept in one of the closets in Abu Mariya’s house and when he complained to the commanding officer, he told him he would open an investigation into the incident after he delivers his son to Etzion detention center.


Permalink Israeli Media Tries to Justify Israeli Commander’s Assault on Danish Activist

In an attempt to justify the brutal attack on the peace activist by a high ranking officer, Lieutenant Colonel Shalom Eisner, the deputy commander of the Jordan Valley Bridge. Lt. Col. Eisner, that was documented in a video by a Palestinian photographer who works for Nablus television, the Israeli media published reports describing the officer's personality and in other reports show suspicion about the incident and attempts to show that the Eizner and other officers were going through difficult periods in their lives at the time of the attack.

Mondoweiss: Israeli celebrity says she enjoyed video of IDF attacking Danish activist because he looked like a Nazi
Khalid Amayreh: An epitome of Israeli barbarism


Permalink Thomas Berry. Healing a Savaged Earth

"Restoring a Ruined Earth. The Heroic Mission of Thomas Berry," by Vincent Di Stefano

Despite the fact that we have clearly entered uncharted territory in relation to the effects of industrial civilisation on the fate of the earth and her creatures, big government of all persuasions seems intent on relentlessly pursuing economic growth, environmental plunder and social and political control at every level.

In view of our gathering predicament reflected in such intangibles as steadily rising carbon dioxide levels, deepening ocean acidification and accelerating methane exhalations from formerly locked under-sea and tundra deposits - to say nothing of the numerous social, political and environmental pathologies that continue to assail humanity - it may be instructive to revisit the thoughtful offerings of Thomas Berry, a wise elder who sought to awaken us all to the changes that have already occurred and those that will inevitably follow.

"Healing a Savaged Earth" is a tribute to the prophetic insight, vision and integrity of cultural historian Thomas Berry. Though others viewed him as a depth theologian and cultural guardian, he chose in his later years to call himself a "geologian" as an acknowledgement of his earth-centred philosophy which drew strongly from the insights of Taoism, Confucianism and the mysticism of Teilhard de Chardin and Henri Bergson.


Permalink Assange lawyer delayed while flying to Australia

An Australian lawyer who previously acted on behalf of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange arrived in Sydney this morning after being delayed while boarding her flight in London, apparently because she had been placed on an “inhibited” travel list. The incident raises fresh questions about the Gillard Labor government’s close involvement in the Obama administration’s global operation to railroad Assange to jail. Jennifer Robinson, who helped represent Assange in his British legal challenge against extradition to Sweden on concocted sexual assault accusations, was stopped at Heathrow airport on Thursday. Robinson was told by her airline, Virgin, she could not board a plane to Australia until she was cleared by the Australian High Commission in London. Interviewed by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation on her arrival at Sydney airport, Robinson said airline staff had taken her passport and told her they could not check her in for the flight. An immigration security guard said to her: “You must have done something controversial because we have to phone the embassy.” Virgin staff told her that there had been a similar problem previously with an American journalist. Robinson told the ABC that many questions were posed, including “in what circumstances does an Australian citizen require [government] approval to fly back home?” She expressed concerns that the Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) may be conducting surveillance of lawyers, as well as political activists. Far from protecting the legal rights of Assange, also an Australian citizen, Gillard and her ministers have backed the Obama administration’s vendetta against him from the outset. Just as the US grand jury was being secretly convened 16 months ago, Gillard branded the WikiLeaks publication of US cables as “illegal”—an unsubstantiated and highly prejudicial allegation. The Labor government is completely at one with Washington and Canberra in seeking to lock Assange away and crush WikiLeaks. That is because the thousands of documents that WikiLeaks has published have helped expose the US-led war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq, as well as other abuses, conspiracies, war preparations and repression organised around the world by the imperialist powers, including Australia.

The Guardian: Julian Assange's lawyer 'prevented from boarding flight at Heathrow'


Permalink VatiLeaks: Fake Catholic literature … Part 3

The extent of papal forgeries reveals the true nature and motives of the men in charge of Christianity, and the truth of their actions is a cold challenge to Vatican ethics and its pretensions. Simply put, the ‘Acta Sanctorum’ of the Bollandists and the ‘official ‘Liber Pontificalis’, like the ‘Apostles’ Creed’, the ‘Apostolic Constitutions’ and the ‘Liberian Catalogue’ (of Parts 1 and 2 of this series), are all capital forgeries, created by popes to give the Vatican and its Gospel story a pretended existence back to the First Century. [Part 1] [Part 2]

Daily Beast: Italian Police Probe Vatican, Mafia Links in Teen’s Disappearance 30 Years Ago


Permalink Breivik wanted to behead former Norway prime minister

OSLO // Confessed mass killer Anders Behring Breivik testified yesterday that he had planned to capture and decapitate a former Norwegian prime minister during his shooting massacre on Utoya island. - Breivik, 33, said his plan was to film the beheading and post the video online. Gro Harlem Brundtland, the former premier, had already left the Labour Party's youth camp on Utoya when Breivik arrived on July 22, after setting off a bomb in Oslo that killed eight people. Sixty-nine people, mostly teenagers, were killed on Utoya, where nearly 600 members of the Labour Party's youth wing had gathered for their annual summer retreat. "The plan was to behead Gro Harlem Brundtland while it was being filmed," Breivik told the court. He said he was inspired by Al Qaeda's use of decapitation but noted that "beheading is a traditional European death penalty".

Reuters: Norway killer says he was a nice person
Google/AP: Breivik studied al-Qaida attacks before rampage
Russia Today: 'Kill them all': Cold-blooded Breivik reveals massacre details as court weeps
AWIP: Anders Breivik: I would have done it again
AWIP: Norway puts Anders Behring Breivik on trial for murder


Permalink Obama Snr in Britain's colonial files

BRITAIN has released thousands of classified colonial-era files, including one that names Barack Obama's father and another that warns of "anti-white" Kenyans studying in the United States. - The papers - the existence of which was only revealed last year - cover controversial periods in Britain's post-imperial history including the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya and the Malayan emergency in the 1950s and 1960s. British authorities brought the documents back to London at the time of those countries' independence due to their sensitivity, and the papers show they even planned to burn some of the other classified files. The Foreign Office only admitted that it held the archives in January 2011 when four elderly Kenyans sued the British government over alleged abuses they suffered in British internment camps. The cache of 8800 files is being released in six batches starting today by Britain's National Archive and ending in November 2013.


Permalink SOPA and PIPA: What SOPA and PIPA are at face value and what they could end up enabling

What SOPA and PIPA are at face value and what they could end up enabling.


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