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:: ONU - XX Assemblea Generale (1965):
La XX Assemblea Generale dell’ONU (1965) dichiara "la legittimità della lotta da parte dei popoli sotto oppressione coloniale, per esercitare il loro diritto all' autodeter-
minazione e all'indipendenza".
Inoltre, l'Assemblea invita "tutti gli Stati a fornire assistenza morale e materiale ai movimenti di liberazione nazionale nei territori coloniali".

:: ONU - Risoluzione 1514
"L'Assemblea Generale dichiara che: la soggezione dei popoli a dominio straniero, conquista e asservimento costituisce una negazione dei diritti umani fondamentali, è contraria alla Carta delle Nazioni Unite ed è un impedimento alla promozione della pace e della cooperazione mondiali.
Tutti i popoli hanno diritto all' autodeter-
minazione; in virtù di tale diritto essi devono liberamente determinare il loro status politico e liberamente perseguire il loro sviluppo economico, sociale e culturale".

:: Convenzione di Ginevra, Protocollo Addizionale I (1977):
La lotta armata può essere usata, come ultima risorsa, come mezzo per esercitare il diritto all' autodeter-
minazione.

:: Tribunale penale internazionale
In base allo Statuto del Tribunale penale internazionale, sono definiti “crimini di guerra”:
(1) attacchi lanciati intenzionalmente contro popolazione civili in quanto tali o contro civili che non prendano direttamente parte alle ostilità;
(4) attacchi lanciati intenzionalmente nella consapevolezza che gli stessi avranno come conseguenza la perdita di vite umane tra la popolazione civile, e lesioni a civili o danni a proprietà civili ovvero danni diffusi duraturi e gravi all’ambiente naturale che siano manifestamente eccessivi rispetto all’insieme dei concreti e diretti i vantaggi militari previsti.

:: Iraq anthem
(click to listen)






Obama’s Forgotten Victims
By MIRZA SHAHZAD AKBAR

May 23, 2013 - WHEN Barack Obama ran for president of the United States in 2008, his message of hope and change gave us, the citizens of lesser republics, hope that he would close Guantánamo and shut down programs where extrajudicial killing or bribing foreign heads of state with American taxpayer dollars had become standard practice. Instead, a few days after his inaugural address, a C.I.A.-operated drone dropped Hellfire missiles on Fahim Qureishi’s home in North Waziristan, killing seven of his family members and severely injuring Fahim. He was just 13 years old and left with only one eye, and shrapnel in his stomach. There was no militant present.--
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97845] [ 25-may-2013 05:48 ECT ]

Iraq snapshot - May 23, 2013
Thomas F Barton

May 23, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, Sahwa and snakes threaten the Iraqi people, US President Barack Obama wishes he could close Guantanamo (he says), Medea Benjamin heckles him, he offers a major speech about how The Drone War and the so-called war on terrorism will continue, IRS official Lois Lerner gets placed on administrative leave, the War on the First Amendment continues, and more.With US President Barack Obama making statements about the press today, we're again starting with The War on the First Amendment. Last week, The War on the First Amendment's big revelations were that the Justice Dept had secretly seized the phone records of a 167-year-old news institution, the Associated Press. This week's revelation is that the Justice Dept targeted Fox News reporter James Rosen...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97844] [ 25-may-2013 05:43 ECT ]

America Not Shifting Away from Treating World as a Battlefield
By: Kevin Gosztola
23obamandu.jpg

May 23, 2013 - The speech by President Barack Obama, which touched upon perpetual war, his authority to carry out drone strikes, the efficacy of drones, closing Guantanamo Bay prison, adhering to the rule of law when fighting terrorism and even national security leaks was wide-ranging and bewildering. It was longer than the "State of the Union" address he gave this year. A speech like this on his counterterrorism policies and civil liberties had not been given since his May 21, 2009, at the National Archives. In many ways, this was a repurposing of that speech with the inclusion of content intended to stifle criticism of the expansions of executive power he has embraced. Not responding to that criticism earlier and maintaining an excessive level of secrecy made it inevitable that his administration would have to cram all manner of talking points into a speech that would seemingly go on and on forever...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97843] [ 25-may-2013 05:40 ECT ]

Obama’s War on Terror By Some Other Name
Ed Krayewski

May 23, 2014 - After he first took office, President Obama jettisoned the use of the phrase "global war on terror," preferring 'overseas contingency operation.’ In remarks on his counterterrorism policy (or what he’d like it to be?) to the National Defense University this afternoon, Obama insisted America was "still threatened by terrorists," but warned that America "must define the nature and scope of this struggle," otherwise "it will define us." ...Nevertheless, even while warning America to define the nature and scope of the struggle against terrorism, Obama managed to expand the definition of the terrorism he believes government must protect Americans from....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97842] [ 25-may-2013 05:20 ECT ]

Israeli Army Kidnaps 12 Children In Jerusalem
IMEMC

May 23 2013 - The Palestinian News & Info Agency (WAFA) has reported that Israeli soldiers kidnapped twelve children, students of the Orphanage School in occupied East Jerusalem. Bassam Khalil, vice-principal of the school, stated that the army kidnapped the children as they left school in the Old City, and took them to a local Police station in the Chain Gate area. He added that, so far, three of the kidnapped children have been identified as Mohammad Abu Sneina, Obaida Es’eed, and Marwan Dweik...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97841] [ 25-may-2013 05:17 ECT ]

The Militaristic Trajectory
Drones = Assassinations = War Crimes

by NORMAN POLLACK
13drone_victims_400.jpg

May 23, 2013 - ...Obama is expected to reveal the justification for wholesale acts of political murder (now including that of four Americans—but who’s counting?) and the extreme terrorization of whole populations, through never knowing when the sustained buzzing overhead will strike without warning, this last a trick that the Nazis learned about psychological warfare during the London bombings, especially the unmanned aerial vehicles. If the US is skating on the thin edge of fascism in its creation of an hierarchical social order based on monopolization, the unrestrained growth of the military, and, through the political culture of militarism ensuring mass passivity and acquiescence (hardly a peep from organized labor, civil rights and civil liberties organizations, religious groups, students—all of whom played an important part in the civil rights struggle—on assassination as official US policy from the top), the use of armed drones is taking America over the edge...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97840] [ 25-may-2013 05:14 ECT ]

Impunity, denial and requests for independent investigations in al Durrah's killing
Ramona Wadi

May 23, 2013 -Rewriting history in the Israeli narrative is as simple as refusing calls for independent inquiries into the countless crimes of the occupation. Years after Muhammad al-Durrah's death in 2000, claims that the child is 'still alive' have resurfaced, despite Israel admitting responsibility for the child's death in the past. Footage aired by France 2 depicts Muhammad al-Durrah and his father cowering behind a barrel, as they find themselves trapped in crossfire and unarmed. The film as now been denounced as staged and forming part of Palestinian propaganda - according to Netanyahu, who set up a committee to investigate the circumstances 'in the light of continued damage it has caused to Israel'. Israel has also requested that France 2 relinquishes its 'fabricated footage'...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97839] [ 25-may-2013 05:05 ECT ]

Dramatic escalation in settler activities
Ali Jaradat

May 23, 2013 -It is not surprising, or even unexpected, to see settlers in the West Bank and Jerusalem attacking and threatening the lives of Palestinians, destroying their properties, ruining their farms and targeting their holy sites. These attacks have not stopped since the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem and since settlements and judaisation in the region began. To list examples, it would be enough to mention the attempts of these settlers to assassinate three elected Palestinian Mayors: Basam Al shakaa from Nablus, Karim Khalaf from Ramallah, and Ibrahim Altawil from Albira in 1980. Yet they also attacked students of Hebron University in 1984, attempted to poison water tanks at the schools of Jenin municipality in 1984, and stationed Rabbi Kiryat Arba in front of Dheisheh refugee camp for two years. In addition, settler Baruch Goldstein committed the massacre of the Tomb of the Patriarchs in Hebron in 1993...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97838] [ 25-may-2013 05:00 ECT ]

Envisioning an international treaty banning drones
Ken Butigan
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May 23, 2013 - Two decades from now, social commentators may very well decide, with hindsight, that 2013 was an historic turning point. Humanity has an urgent choice to make about many monumental crises — including climate change, economic inequality, democracy for sale and resource wars — and opportunities. One of the great decisions we face is about drones. This train is rapidly leaving the station, and it doesn’t take a crystal ball to see where it’s headed. In two decades it will likely be moot, but now we can still get in front of this locomotive. There is still time to imagine — and create — another future...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97837] [ 25-may-2013 04:25 ECT ]

Video: Israel prohibits Gazan children from visiting imprisoned fathers
B'Tselem

May 23, 2013 - ...B’Tselem has gathered testimonies from Gazan children over the age of eight who have not seen their imprisoned fathers since 2007. In their testimonies, the children describe their longing to be reunited with their fathers as well as the difficulties they face because of the separation. The children’s only mode of communication with their fathers is written correspondence and sending pictures. Visits are permitted very infrequently, only once a week on Mondays, and then only at one prison facility at a time: Nafha, Ramon and Eshel (Dekel). As a result, each eligible inmate receives a visit once every three or four months. In contrast, inmates from Israel or from the West Bank who are held on criminal or security grounds may receive visits once every two weeks....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97836] [ 25-may-2013 04:20 ECT ]

The Monster in the Mirror
Arthur Silber

Ah, my friends. I never thought I would live to see it: the day when most of humanity agrees that needless, brutal, non-defensive murder is monstrously evil and utterly unforgivable. But I was directed to a post offering the front pages of U.K. newspapers today -- and I feel entirely justified in heralding the glorious beginning of a new era for civilization. We finally may be able to use the word "civilization" with accuracy, and even with pride. One front page carries the words: You will never be safe, we will not stop fighting Another states: An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. We won't stop fighting until you leave us alone . Be sure to understand: these declarations from murderers who are proud of their killing and who refuse to apologize for it are universally condemned. Accompanying these headlines are photos of George W. Bush, Barack Obama and other key figures who had led and continue to lead the West's, and more particularly the U.S.'s, wars of annihilation and murder on a monumental scale. But most people now recognize the evil of these men and all who had supported them.The newspapers point to the genocide in Iraq, a campaign of murder on a world-historical scale. They also mention the ongoing campaigns of slaughter in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Somalia, Yemen and numerous other countries ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97835] [ 25-may-2013 04:17 ECT ]

Was the London killing of a British soldier 'terrorism'?
Glenn Greenwald
23woolwich-attack-suspect-o-010.jpg

May 23, 2013 - Two men yesterday engaged in a horrific act of violence on the streets of London by using what appeared to be a meat cleaver to hack to death a British soldier. In the wake of claims that the assailants shouted "Allahu Akbar" during the killing, and a video showing one of the assailants citing Islam as well as a desire to avenge and stop continuous UK violence against Muslims, media outlets (including the Guardian) and British politicians instantly characterized the attack as "terrorism". That this was a barbaric and horrendous act goes without saying, but given the legal, military, cultural and political significance of the term "terrorism", it is vital to ask: is that term really applicable to this act of violence? To begin with, in order for an act of violence to be "terrorism", many argue that it must deliberately target civilians. That's the most common means used by those who try to distinguish the violence engaged in by western nations from that used by the "terrorists": sure, we kill civilians sometimes, but we don't deliberately target them the way the "terrorists" do...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97834] [ 25-may-2013 04:12 ECT ]

Iraq: Motahedoon accuses the government of supporting armed militias
NINA

May 23, 2013 - Motahedoon coalition, headed by Osama Nujaifi accused the government of supporting armed militias. The coalition said in a press statement today 23, May: "The past few days have seen a militia set up fake checkpoints and enter areas under the eyes and ears of the security forces, if not with their support and cooperation with them." The statement denounced: "The recent criminal incidents, which affected a number of innocent Iraqis in specific areas in Baghdad by terrorist militias, which apparently resumed their activities and given the green light to kidnap and kill and throw corpses as they used previously by killing according to identity," according to the statement...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97833] [ 25-may-2013 04:01 ECT ]

Pakistan’s Military, Incoming PM Agree to Stop US Drones
by Jason Ditz

May 23, 2013 - New reports suggest that among the topics of a recent meeting between Army Chief of Staff Gen. Parvez Kayani and Pakistan’s incoming Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif included a discussion of US drone strikes, and an agreement by the two to more forcefully "counter" the ongoing attacks. The promise comes in the context of Sharif running on a platform that included ending the strikes, which have proven hugely unpopular inside Pakistan and have sparked several major anti-US protests over the past few years...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97832] [ 25-may-2013 03:59 ECT ]

Gazans Dying to Enter Israel
By Mel Frykberg
23gt8038627487_3083517a8e_z.jpg

May 23 2013 - Israel’s crippling blockade of the coastal territory of Gaza is pushing desperate young Palestinians to ever more extreme measures in the search for livelihoods, despite an agreement granting Gazans greater access to their agricultural land.In search of work, some Gazans try to enter Israel by jumping the fence that separates it from Gaza. Others continue to be shot dead or are seriously injured by Israeli soldiers as they try to farm land bordering the fence, and still others who choose an underground path die when tunnels linking Gaza with Egypt collapse. Yet an agreement between Hamas and Israel’s COGAT (Coordination of Government Activities in the Territories) following a ceasefire in November stated that Gazans would be able to access most of their agricultural land in Israel’s self-declared 300-metre buffer zone, which runs along the border, by reducing the zone to 100 metres...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97831] [ 25-may-2013 03:55 ECT ]

Palestinian hospitalized after IDF handcuffs, abandons him at checkpoint
By Yesh Din, written by Yossi Gurvitz

May 23, 2013 -About two weeks ago, A. was on his way from Hebron to Jerusalem. A is a resident of Abu Dis, and married to a resident of East Jerusalem; as such, he enjoys Israeli residency. But as he was about to find out, that didn’t help him all that much. On his way home, A. passed through a checkpoint charmingly named "the humanitarian checkpoint," where he ran into a surprise roadblock, manned by a mixed force of soldiers and border policemen. The soldiers asked A. to turn off his engine, leave the car, and hand them his papers. A. noted they spoke "poor Arabic."...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97826] [ 25-may-2013 02:45 ECT ]

Close Guantánamo: Hundreds of Thousands of People Sign Avaaz Petition Calling for Action from President Obama
Andy Worthington

May 23, 2013 - Please sign the Avaaz petition calling for the closure of Guantánamo! Just hours before President Obama delivers a major speech on national security at the National Defense University, in which he will discuss the drone program and will also lay out his plans for Guantánamo, an international petition calling for the prison’s closure, launched by Avaaz, has secured over 400,000 signatures in just one day. The petition calls on President Obama "to appoint a White House official whose responsibility it is to close down the prison, and to use the authority granted to you by the US Congress to immediately transfer the 86 men who have been cleared," which is exactly the message that is required, so please, if you haven’t already signed it, do so now, and then circulate it to everyone you know...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97829] [ 25-may-2013 03:42 ECT ]

Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (16 - 22 May 2013)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
23hr-gw21.jpg

May 23, 2013 - Summary: Israeli violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the oPt continued during the reporting period 16 – 22 May 2013. Shooting: During the reporting period, Israeli forces wounded 17 Palestinian civilians, including 12 children. 3 civilians were wounded during incursions in the Palestinian communities, while 14 others, including 12 children, were wounded in peaceful protests in al-Jalazoun refugee camp, north of Ramallah. On 17 May 2012, 3 Palestinian civilians were wounded. The first one was wounded when Israeli forces moved into Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, while the other two ones were wounded by the newly-employed Tutu bullets when Israeli forces moved into al-Aroub refugee camp, north of Hebron, as Israeli forces have recently resumed using snipers to disperse Palestinian demonstrations using Tutu rifles, which are sniper rifles with a small barrel....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97828] [ 25-may-2013 03:32 ECT ]

Why does the IDF hold Gazan fishermen responsible for rocket launching?
By Noam Sheizaf

May 23, 2013 -... The IDF Spokesperson’s announcement on Tuesday basically confirmed that the army collectively punishes Gazan fishermen for rockets launched from the Strip. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Minister of Defense Moshe (Bogie) Ya’alon, approved the expansion of the Gaza Strip’s designated fishing zone from three to six nautical miles. The designated fishing zone was limited due to rocket fire from the Gaza Strip toward southern Israel on March 21, 2013. Recent attempts to launch rockets from the Strip have been carried out by tiny radical organizations that even Hamas has trouble to controlling. So why are Gaza’s fishermen being punished for it? ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97827] [ 25-may-2013 03:28 ECT ]

Israeli Pillar of Cloud War Crimes
by Stephen Lendman

May 23, 2013 - On May 8, B'Tselem published a report titled "Human Rights Violations During Operation Pillar of Defense: 14 - 21 November 2012." Israel's Operation Pillar of Cloud (aka Cloud Column/Pillar of Defense) was naked, premeditated aggression... Naked aggression is called self-defense. Palestinian self-defense is called terrorism. Claiming either doesn't wash. Israel does it repeatedly. Slaughtered civilians bear testimony to imperial crimes. On November 14, Israel murdered Hamas military commander Ahmed Jabari. A missile struck his car. He was well-known and respected. Many considered him Hamas' most important military and political leader. Hours before his assassination, he concluded a truce agreement draft...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97830] [ 25-may-2013 03:46 ECT ]

Syria News - May 22, 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
22maggio5486467_911910810_n.jpg

May 22, 2013 - By the end of Wednesday, the coordination committees were able to document 125 martyrs, among 11 women, 13 children, and 5 martyrs under torture: 37 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 29 martyrs in Homs; 21 martyrs in Hama; 17 martyrs in Idlib; 9 martyrs in Daraa; 7 martyrs in Aleppo; 2 martyrs in Raqqa; 2 martyrs in Lattakia; and 1 martyr in Deir Ezzor.The committees have documented 342 points of shelling, fiercest of which was in Sbineh in Damascus suburbs and Qusair in Homs: Warplane shelling was recorded in 24 points, fiercest of which was in Hamidieh and Qusair neighborhoods in Homs, shelling with surface-to-surface missiles was recorded in Sbineh in Damascus suburbs and shelling with cluster bombs was recorded in Hamidieh in Homs. Mortar shelling was documented in 95 points, rocket shelling in 103 points, and artillery shelling in 115 points in different areas across Syria...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97825] [ 25-may-2013 02:30 ECT ]

Major study sheds new light on CIA secret prisons
Reprieve

May 22, 2013 - Today sees the launch of the "Global Rendition System" database and interactive map – the most comprehensive resource so far created illustrating the CIA’s programme of renditions and secret prisons as part of the 'war on terror’... The database – a collaboration between Reprieve and the Rendition Project based at Kingston and Kent Universities – uses data from freedom of information requests, legal cases, published first-hand accounts, investigations by NGOs and authoritative news reporting to detail dozens of prisoner transfers between secret "black sites". Through analysis of more than 11,000 flights by over 120 aircraft, linked to more than 50 private companies, the site reveals the roles of different countries and shows how companies tried to cover their routes by filing false flight plans or by switching aircraft halfway...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97824] [ 24-may-2013 23:02 ECT ]

Former Hunger Striker Contracts Hepatitis C in Israeli Prison
Palestine Monitor


  continua / continued avanti - next    [97823] [ 24-may-2013 23:00 ECT ]

On Eve of Obama National Security Speech, Writers, Performers, Academics Call for Closure of Guantanamo, End of Indefinite Detention & War Crimes
World Can't Wait
20close-guantanamo-protest-large.jpg

May 22 , 2013 - nspired by the hunger strike of most remaining Guantanamo prisoners, hundreds of people in the arts, law, public life and academia have made an urgent call to Obama to close the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, where 166 men are still held, and "the release of the cleared Guantanamo prisoners now, and an end to indefinite detention without charge for the others, before they lose their lives." President Obama will speak Thursday, May 23 on national security, and is expected to make a case for expansion of the U.S. drone war and discuss his failure to close Guantanamo after his 2009 promise to do so within a year. Thursday morning, the European Parliament will debate a resolution on the U.S. prison at Guantanamo and U.S. "breaches of human rights, democracy and the rule of law."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97822] [ 24-may-2013 22:56 ECT ]

Guantánamo:The nation’s and Obama’s shame
by LAMAR W. HANKINS

May 22, 2013 -There should be no question that George W. Bush is the first to charge for the shame of Guantánamo. But now President Obama, the Congress, and the nation share that shame. Just as the nation bought the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld-Rice-Powell lies that took us to war in Iraq, so the nation bought their claims that every person imprisoned at Guantánamo was the worst of the worst. We now know that was a lie, too. Of the 166 men now being held at Guantánamo, 86 have been cleared of wrong-doing. There is no reason to hold them except for Congressional action to make their releases difficult and the recalcitrance of a president whose moral convictions have evaporated like steam from boiling water...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97821] [ 24-may-2013 22:42 ECT ]

Israel constructed 16,000 settlement units over the past 3 years
Middle East Monitor

May 22, 2013 -Saeb Erekat, member of the Palestinian Liberation Organisation (PLO) Executive Committee, stated that the Israeli government "Continues to exercise the settlement policy on the occupied Palestinian territories." During a meeting with the UN Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People, Erekat said: "The total number of Israeli settlements built on occupied Palestinian land after Benjamin Netanyahu came into office from 2009 to 2012 has reached over 16,000 settlement units. On average, this is 11 new settlement units a day."...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97820] [ 24-may-2013 22:37 ECT ]

Six Nautical Miles Not Enough For Gaza Fishermen
By: Abeer Ayyoub
22gf.rtr3fbui.jpg

May 22, 2013 - Too little, too late. This is what Gaza’s fishermen thought of Israel's decision to re-extend the fishing zone to 6 nautical miles after more than two months of tight restrictions. Israel’s restriction on fishing for Gazans to 3 nautical miles, imposed in March this year, violated an Egyptian-brokered cease-fire agreement signed in November 2012 that granted Palestinian fishermen in Gaza access to six nautical miles out from shore. Israel had restricted the zone to three nautical miles for the previous seven years.The current six miles also falls drastically short of the 20 nautical miles allocated to Gaza’s fishermen in the 1993 Oslo Accords between the Palestinian Authority and Israel. The allowed area also will not do much to improve the fishermen’s intake as according to them, a decent amount of fish is not accessible until ten nautical miles...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97819] [ 24-may-2013 22:33 ECT ]

Israel army challenged by young objector
Associated Press

May 22, 2013- The Israeli military has jailed a young man for six months for refusing to serve because of his opposition to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, focusing attention on the longstanding conflict between the country’s universal military service and divided political beliefs. The refusal by 20-year-old Natan Blanc to serve has put the military in a delicate position as it tries to resolve the case. Releasing him could set an unwanted precedent, but keeping him jailed could turn into a public relations debacle. Last week more than 30 Israeli legal experts, including the dean of Hebrew University’s law school, signed an open letter urging the army to release Blanc and saying the detention violated his freedom of conscience. On Tuesday, several dozen of his supporters demonstrated outside Israel’s military headquarters...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97818] [ 24-may-2013 22:29 ECT ]

Iraq : Violence continues, WSWS continues to cover for Nouri
The Common Ills

May 22, 2013 - ...Iraq Body Count counts 619 violent deaths in Iraq through yesterday. WSWS continues to support Nouri al-Maliki, a despot and a thug. In today's article -- I'm not linking to that trash -- we learn why. They tongue the crotch of Nouri over his 'refusal' on the issue of war with Syria. Well, he's given US forces the greenlight to operate out of Iraq. Or did you miss that, WSWS? His only reason for saying 'no' to more than that is because of concerns of the ethnic make up in the region. It really amazes me that WSWS embraces Nouri -- the thug who declares war on unions, the thug who goes after Basra oil workers. I've learned more and more to ignore WSWS but this nonsense, that went up this morning, was e-mailed to the public account. We're not interested in highlighting it and the continued propping up by WSWS of Nouri al-Maliki is outrageous and shameful. It's really getting into some strange territory as it rushes to defend Nouri (a US puppet kept in place by US Special Ops -- which remain in Iraq -- and by the CIA)...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97817] [ 24-may-2013 22:05 ECT ]

Empire is the cancer on our civil liberties
Joe Allen

May 22, 2013 -"IT'S NIXON week at the White House," declared the Boston Globe's Derrick Jackson in a very perceptive column on the Obama's cascading scandals. Is this really "Obama's Watergate"? Is that analogy too harsh to comtemplate? Liberals will instinctively reject the comparison, but I think there's a lot more in common here than they would admit. I understand why people might find the Republican outrage over the IRS auditing of its Tea Party wing hard to take seriously. After all, the Republicans are the party of Watergate, and their hypocrisy has only grown more shrill with the hard-line right running the show. But the left should never minimize any form of political repression or harassment carried out by the U.S. government...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97816] [ 24-may-2013 22:02 ECT ]

Hezbollah's Fallen Soldiers
BY PHILLIP SMYTH
22hezb_1.jpg

May 22, 2013 - Hezbollah is throwing its men into battle in the Syrian city of Qusayr, and many are returning to Lebanon in coffins. Through their funerals and commemorations posted on pro-Hezbollah Facebook pages, we are now getting a sense of the casualties that the self-proclaimed "Party of God" is suffering as it joins the Syrian conflict on the side of President Bashar al-Assad...Hezbollah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah has explained his party's involvement in Syria by saying that it is an ad hoc effort by fighters from areas bordering the conflict zone to protect Shia villages within Syria. But the information coming to light about the dead belie that claim: Hezbollah's slain fighters come from a diverse set of locations within Lebanon, from towns in the central Beqaa to southern Lebanese towns on the Israel-Lebanon border. While burials of the Hezbollah fighters occur in these villages and towns, it is still hard to gauge where exactly they were living in Lebanon prior to the fighting in Syria, as funerals are generally held in those areas from where their families originated....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97815] [ 24-may-2013 21:56 ECT ]

Iraq snapshot - May 22, 2013
The Common Ills

May 22, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, the western press loves to label dead Iraqi women "prostitutes," the Russian arms deal resurfaces, as does ExxonMobil's partnership with the KRG, more outcry in the US over the War on the First Amendment, CCR claps like a trained seal when the US Justice Dept announces 4 American have been killed by drones in The Drone War, things get testy (for the witnesses) at the US House Oversight Committee hearing, and more....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97814] [ 24-may-2013 21:52 ECT ]

Wikileaks Cables Reveal State Dept. Promoting GMOs Abroad
The Real News

May 22, 2013 - JAY: So you issued a report where you went through--I guess it is thousands of State Department cables and looking at the role of the U.S. State Department in promoting GMO. And I guess the--Monsanto's obviously the biggest player or one of the biggest players in all of that. What did you find? O'CALLAGHAN: Right. So we spent the last year combing through 926 diplomatic cables between U.S. embassies abroad and the State Department in D.C. looking for any incidents of the use [snip] biotechnology or genetically modified organisms. And what we found was a pretty systematic move for promoting biotechnology abroad. You know, we had anecdotal evidence in the past, but using the WikiLeaks database, the Cablegate database, gave us a unique opportunity to really pore through a massive amount and to really see the trends that were laid out there...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97813] [ 24-may-2013 21:27 ECT ]

State of the Gaza Strip’s Border Crossings (1 April 2013 to 30 April 2013)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

May 22, 2013 - This report documents the impact of the ongoing Israel-imposed siege on Palestinian civilians in the Gaza Strip, which affects their economic and social conditions. The report addresses the state of commercial border crossings and the border crossings designated for the movement of people. It refutes Israel’s claims that it has eased the closure on the Gaza Strip, which it has imposed consecutively for almost six years now. The following are the most significant developments relevant to Gaza's border crossings during the reporting period 1 April 2013 to 30 April 2013...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97812] [ 24-may-2013 21:18 ECT ]

PCHR refutes findings of Israeli committee concerning killing of Mohammed al-Durrah
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
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May 22, 2013 - The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) refutes the findings of the recently-published report from the Israeli Government Review Committee, titled 'The France 2 Al-Durrah Report, its Consequences and Implications’, released on 19 May 2013. The report examines the incident involving the killing of a 12-year-old Palestinian boy, Mohammed al-Durrah, which occurred on 30 September 2000 at the Netzarim junction in the Gaza Strip.The Government Review Committee was set up in September 2012 upon the instruction of the Israeli prime minister, twelve years after the incident took place. The committee claims to have extensively reviewed material related to the incident...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97811] [ 24-may-2013 21:10 ECT ]

The Enervation of American Politics
Umbrellas and Drones

by ROBERT FANTINA

May 22, 2013 -... U.S. drones, unmanned aircraft, have for some time been bombing targets in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Yemen and other countries , all in the sacred name of the U.S. war on terror (whatever that is). In the last couple of years, over 5,000 people have been killed in U.S.– initiated drone strikes, and the frequency of these bombing is escalating rapidly. Their purpose, ostensibly, is to rid areas of Al-Qaeda operatives, a strategically important goal (we’ll not consider the morality of it quite yet), as the U.S. prepares to withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, after twelve years of U.S.-sponsored terrorism against the Afghani people. But what of the human debris left in the wake of these bombings? Ibrahim Mothana, a young Yemeni writer, said this in a New York Times op-ed last year: "Drone strikes are causing more and more Yemenis to hate America and join radical militants; they are not driven by ideology, but rather by a sense of revenge and despair."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97810] [ 24-may-2013 21:00 ECT ]

Unsupported accusations against French TV correspondent over coverage of Palestinian teenager’s shooting
Reporters Without Borders

May 22, 2013 - The Israeli government has just published a report of its investigation into French TV station France 2’s controversial coverage of 12-year-old Palestinian Muhammad al-Durrah’s death during rioting in the Gaza Strip on 30 September 2000 and the disputed claim that he was killed by a shot fired from Israeli positions. The report’s release came three days ahead today’s announcement by a Paris appeal court that it will finally issue its ruling on 26 June in the defamation case between France 2’s Jerusalem correspondent, Charles Enderlin, and Media Rating founder Philippe Karsenty, who suggested that the teenager’s death was staged... "This report is absurd," Enderlin said. "How can the report’s authors omit the fact that Jamal Al-Durrah was hospitalized the next day in the Jordanian capital of Amman? How can they claim that the Israel Defence Forces did not open fire?" A journalist’s friend, Guillaume Weill-Raynal, added: "No ballistic report has ever been produced to support these claims, which were already being made prior to this report."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97809] [ 24-may-2013 20:48 ECT ]

Obama Admits 4 US Citizens Killed by Drones, Deaths of Those Not Targeted Left Unexplained
By: Kevin Gosztola
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May 22, 2013 - Ahead of a major speech on counterterrorism policies tomorrow, the administration of President Barack Obama has officially declassified information related to drone strikes against four American citizens and also acknowledged for the first time that they were killed by the United States. A letter sent to members of the Senate Judiciary Committee by Attorney General Eric Holder reads, "The President has directed me to disclose certain information that until now has been properly classified. You and other members of your Committee have on numerous occasions expressed a particular interest in the Administration’s use of lethal force against US citizens. In light of this fact, I am writing to disclose to you certain information about the number of US citizens who have been killed by US counterterrorism operations outside of areas of active hostilities."..

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97808] [ 24-may-2013 17:03 ECT ]

In Qusayr, the Gloves are Off
Alison Tahmizian Meuse

May 22, 2013 - ...Hezbollah built up its reputation as a resistance movement against Israel for the past two decades, earning praise across the Arab world for its successes on the battlefield. But the use of its fighters in the Syrian conflict has exacerbated sectarian rifts, already at a fever pitch in the wake of massacres against Sunni civilians in the coastal area of Banias. "There was no sectarianism in this area before Hezbollah entered," says Ismail, speaking of the border region between Lebanon and Syria. "In 2006, the civilians in Qusayr gave their homes to Hezbollah families who were escaping the war in Lebanon," he says, speaking of the war between the Shiite movement and Israel. "Now Hezbollah is killing those civilians and destroying the same homes they lived in in 2006," he says...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97807] [ 24-may-2013 16:55 ECT ]

'Wars on Gaza have become part of Israel's system of governance': An interview with filmmaker Yotam Feldman
By Ofri Ilani

May 22, 2013 - In his new documentary, 'The Lab,’ Yotam Feldman explores how Israel’s weapons industries interact with the country’s politics, economy and military decision-making. Israeli weapons, military technology and know-how become more valuable because they have been field-tested in its wars and combat against Palestinians and neighboring countries. A conversation with Yotam Feldman about his film, arms dealers and Israel’s war economy...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97806] [ 24-may-2013 16:49 ECT ]

Israel youth movement shirts display anti-Arab racism
Ma'an news
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May 22, 2013 – Picnickers in northern Israel were surprised Thursday when they saw anti-Arab racist slogans printed on T-shirts of a guide affiliated to a religious youth movement Ezra. "Torching Arabs for education," was written on the guide’s shirt, families who were picnicking in the north told the Israeli daily Maariv. Maariv reported that it was not the first time such slogans were seen on T-shirts. A witness told the newspaper that he saw "death to Arabs" written on T-shirts wore by guides affiliated to the same movement...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97805] [ 24-may-2013 14:21 ECT ]

European Parliament to Debate Motion Calling for Closure of Guantánamo
Andy Worthington

May 22, 2013 - Tomorrow, just before President Obama delivers a major speech on national security issues — including his policy on Guantánamo, still gripped by a prison-wide hunger strike by men in despair at ever being released or receiving justice — the European Parliament will be discussing and voting on a resolution reiterating previous calls for President Obama to close Guantánamo as he promised when he took office in January 2009. Delayed from last month, this arrives at a perfect time, reminding President Obama that his obligations towards the men abandoned at Guantánamo — by all three branches of the US government over the last three years — are not just a domestic matter, but an international one, and that further delays in addressing the complaints of the hunger strikers are unconscionable...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97804] [ 24-may-2013 14:16 ECT ]

J Street’s pipe dreams of peace
Miko Peled

May 22, 2013 - May and June are once again upon us, which means Palestinians are commemorating the Nakba (the catastrophe of their 1948 dispossession) and Naksa (the disaster of the 1967 War and subsequent occupation). Meanwhile Israelis celebrate the establishment of their state and the conquest of the West Bank, Gaza Strip, the Syrian Golan Heights and the Sinai. This inevitably leaves one to ask the banal question: "Will there be peace in our lifetime?"In a mass email sent on 5 May, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of the pro-Israel lobby group J Street, wrote to his supporters: "I’ve just arrived in Israel with a delegation of J Street leaders on our annual fact-finding mission to the region." He added: "It’s an energizing time to be here. After years of frustrating deadlock, talk of peace is in the air again."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97803] [ 24-may-2013 14:11 ECT ]

Syria News - May 21, 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
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May 21, 2013 - By the end of Tuesday, the coordination committees were able to document 89 martyrs, among them 6 women, 9 children, and 2 martyrs under torture: 31 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 27 in Homs; 14 in Aleppo; 6 in Daraa; 6 in Idlib; 3 in Raqqa; and 2 in Deir Ezzor.The committees have documented 365 points of shelling, fiercest of which was in Qusair in Homs for the third day in a row, air strikes by warplanes were recorded in 39 points, fiercest of which was in Qusair and Daraya, shelling with surface-to-surface missiles was recorded in Tal Refaat in Aleppo, and shelling with explosive barrels was recorded in 6 points: Qusair in Homs, Eastern Ghouta cities in Damascus suburbs, Salma in Lattakia, and Tabqa in Raqqa. While mortar shelling was documented in 95 points, rocket shelling in 110 points, and artillery shelling was recorded in 114 points in different areas across Syria...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97802] [ 24-may-2013 14:01 ECT ]

Reinventing Guatemalan History
by Stephen Lendman

May 21, 2013 - History reinventors support despots. Social democrats are vilified. Crimes of war, against humanity and genocide are sanitized. They're whitewashed. They disappear in plain sight. Wall Street Journal columnist Mary O'Grady tried reinventing Guatemalan history. She failed. Washington tolerates no independent governments. Left of center democratic ones are most vulnerable.... In 1954, Washington ousted Guatemala's Jacobo Arbenz Guzman. In 1952, Truman authorized CIA action. Eisenhower followed through. Paramilitary subversion and psychological warfare forced him out. Carlos Castillo Armas replaced him. Death squad justice followed. So did decades of genocide...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97801] [ 23-may-2013 23:28 ECT ]

Government Accepts Bradley Manning’s Plea to Lesser Offense Related to Disclosure of Diplomatic Cable
By: Kevin Gosztola

May 21, 2013 - The government had previously indicated it would present all evidence related to all charges, regardless of the fact that Pfc. Bradley Manning pled guilty to some of the offenses he faced. But, in military court today, a military prosecutor informed the judge that the government would not be making a case that Manning committed the greater offense alleged in relation to the disclosure of a diplomatic cable from the US embassy in Reykjavik, Iceland. This is the count or specification under one of the charges that the government alleged Manning had committed ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97800] [ 23-may-2013 23:10 ECT ]

When the Justice Department Pursues Reporters as Spies
By: Kevin Gosztola
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May 21, 2013 - It has become increasingly well-known that President Barack Obama considers whistleblowers or alleged leakers to be individuals who deserve no protections whatsoever. Recently, with the seizure of the Associated Press’ records and the affidavit showing the Justice Department cast Fox News reporter James Rosen as a "co-conspirator" in a leak investigation into State Department contractor Stephen Kim, it has become clear that the administration is willing to criminalize journalists in order to bolster their own investigations. Kim is believed by the government to have disclosed classified information to Rosen about North Korea. The FBI claims to have evidence that Rosen "solicited" information from Kim...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97799] [ 23-may-2013 23:07 ECT ]

Widely denounced as ‘propaganda,’ Israel’s report on al-Dura calls attention to 950 other child killings
by Philip Weiss

May 21,2013 - Israel's release of a report [full text here] asserting that 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura was not killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in 2000, and may not even have been injured by Israelis, has had the opposite effect to that which the government intended: The report is being widely mocked, and several commentators have turned attention to the staggering numbers of Palestinians children killed by Israel inside the occupation. And as we indicated yesterday, The New York Times seems to have been hurt by its credulous coverage of the report. In fact, Robert Mackey at the Times today offers a far more balanced account of the report than the original story...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97798] [ 23-may-2013 23:02 ECT ]

Neoliberalism and the Genocide of 6 Million in Congo
Heads of UN and World Bank Visit Congo - Fail to Hold Rwanda and Uganda Accountable

The Real News

May 21, 2013 - Since 1996, more than 6 million people have been killed in civil war in the Congo. In February of this year, a groundbreaking agreement was signed called Peace, Security, and Cooperation Framework for the Democratic Republic of the Congo and the Region. The agreement was signed in February by 11 African countries, including Angola, Burundi, Central African Republic, Republic of Congo, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, South Africa, South Sudan, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia. On Wednesday, May 22, World Bank Group president Dr. Jim Yong Kim and United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will make a visit to the African Great Lakes region to show their support for this peace agreement and to push for economic development...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97797] [ 23-may-2013 22:55 ECT ]

How America's National Security Apparatus -- in Partnership With Big Corporations -- Cracked Down on Dissent
by Alex Kane
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May 21, 2013 - Counter-terror police officers collaborated with corporate entities to combat protests. Undercover police officers monitored and tracked the Occupy movement. A right-wing corporate-backed group hired a police officer to help protect a conference. These are some of the details revealed in a new report published by the Center for Media and Democracy’s Beau Hodai, along with DBA Press. The revelations are based on government documents the group obtained. The report, titled " Dissent or Terror: How the Nation's Counter Terrorism Apparatus, In Partnership With Corporate America, Turned on Occupy Wall Street," is an eye-opening look into how the U.S. counter-terror apparatus was used to track the Occupy movement in 2011 and 2012 and also help protect the business entities targeted by the movement...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97796] [ 23-may-2013 22:37 ECT ]

The Reason for Hunger Strikes-from Northern Ireland to Guantanamo
By Ann Wright

May 21, 2013 -I'm in Northern Ireland and yesterday on May 20, 2013, I spoke with several members of the Northern Ireland Parliament. With over 100 prisoners in Guantanamo on a 100 day hunger strike, the Obama administration would be wise to talk to some of them too--about the importance and legacy of hungerstrikes. In 1981, Pat Sheehan was one of the Maze Prison hunger strikers-a hunger strike that brought huge international attention to the Northern Ireland "Troubles," with the goal of forcing the British government to treat those imprisoned as political prisoners, not criminals. Hunger strikers demanded the right to wear civilian clothes, the right to education and recreational opportunities, freedom from work obligations, and a set of other benefits not afforded to other inmates.Pat was on the hunger strike for 55 days and still alive when the hunger strike was called off by the prisoners...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97795] [ 23-may-2013 22:11 ECT ]

Drones Are the Napalm of Our Crazy Time
by Ethan Casey

May 21, 2013 - I was born in 1965, the year the first U.S. combat troops went to Vietnam. Growing up in middle-class America in the late 1970s and early 1980s, I distinctly remember that "Vietnam" – the place name stood in for a great many things left unsaid – was not discussed, almost taboo, among my parents’ generation. I didn’t realize this at the time, of course. I could only smell it, like the residue of something the dog left on the carpet, through the layers of deodorant and disinfectant. Americans who had lived through "Vietnam" were emotionally and politically exhausted and had declared a tacit truce among themselves. That suited them – all of them, on all sides – but it left my generation poorly served. How can young people learn the lessons of history, if no one is willing to teach them? I had to assemble the puzzle for myself later, through self-directed reading and actually going to live in Southeast Asia ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97794] [ 23-may-2013 22:05 ECT ]

Video: Chris Hedges - Rise Up or Die!
TheBigPictureRT
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May 21, 2013- Chris Hedges, Truthdig, joins Thom Hartmann. The AP scandal is just the latest example of an ongoing - and often corporate backed - assault on our most basic democratic rights...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97793] [ 23-may-2013 21:52 ECT ]

Sheikh Jarrah: The struggle continues
By Sam Gilbert

May 21, 2013 - Hundreds of demonstrators marched in Sheikh Jarrah this Friday, 17 May 2013, in opposition to the ongoing settlement campaign in East Jerusalem. Weekly protests have been taking place here for years as Israelis, Palestinians and international activist alike have joined together against the eviction of Palestinian residents and the intrusion of Jewish-Israeli settlers into the area. This Friday marked the largest demonstration in almost a year as many gathered in solidarity with the Shamasneh family and their upcoming court appeal....

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97792] [ 23-may-2013 20:07 ECT ]

Cancer and birth defects in Iraq: The nuclear legacy
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May 21, 2013 — Ten years after the Iraq war of 2003 a team of scientists based in Mosul, northern Iraq, have detected high levels of uranium contamination in soil samples at three sites in the province of Nineveh which, coupled with dramatically increasing rates of childhood cancers and birth defects at local hospitals, highlight the ongoing legacy of modern warfare to civilians in conflict zones. The radioactive element uranium is widely dispersed throughout Earth's crust and is much sought after as a fuel for nuclear power plants and for use in weapons. Depleted uranium (DU), commonly used in modern munitions such as defensive armour plating and armour-piercing projectiles, is 40 per cent less radioactive than natural uranium, but remains a significant and controversial danger to human health...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97791] [ 23-may-2013 12:31 ECT ]

Two Fishermen Arrested and Fishing Equipment Confiscated; PCHR Condemns the Israeli Forces' Assaults on Palestinian Fishermen in Gaza Waters
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)

May 21, 2013 - The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR) condemns the Israeli forces’ attacks against Palestinian fishermen in the Gaza Strip and expresses deep concern over the rise in such attacks. In the past two days, the Israeli forces arrested 2 fishermen and held their boat while they were fishing nearly 70 meters off the seashore. The Israeli forces also fired at other fishermen in the central Gaza Strip and confiscated their fishing equipment. According to investigations conducted by PCHR, at approximately 21:30 on Sunday, 19 May 2013, an Israeli gunboat approached a Palestinian fishing boat boarding 2 fishermen, sailing nearly 70 meters of al-Waha Resort shore in the north of the Gaza Strip. Israeli soldiers fired around the boat and then forced the two fishermen to take their clothes off, jump into the water and swim towards the gunboat. They arrested the two fishermen and held their boat. The two fishermen were identified as Mahmoud Mohammed Zayed, 25, and his brother Khaled, 20. They were released at 11:30 on Monday, 20 May 2013...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97790] [ 23-may-2013 04:54 ECT ]

CIA to Continue Waging Drone War in Pakistan
by John Glaser

May 21, 2013- Despite rumors that the Obama administration was planning to shift the drone program from the CIA to the Pentagon for the sake of accountability, U.S. officials say the CIA will continue to run to targeted killing program in Pakistan. According to the officials, who remained anonymous, the decision to keep the CIA in charge of the program for the time being is so that it can remain secret and so that the Obama administration can maintain deniability...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97789] [ 23-may-2013 04:52 ECT ]

Prisoners who starved for art honored by Gaza show
Joe Catron
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May 21, 2013 - For former Palestinian detainee Abdelfattah Abu Jahil, prison art is a victory."At the beginning, it was really hard," he said of painting, embroidery and sculpture during his first detention by Israeli forces in 1983. "It wasn’t allowed. We had to keep it hidden from the guards. And we had to smuggle the tools, like beads and threads, to make the art."That changed, he said, when a mass hunger strike forced the Israeli Prison Service to let Palestinian detainees keep and use art supplies."The greatest achievements of the prisoners’ movement were in 1985," Abu Jahil said. "We went on hunger strike to force the Israelis to allow us to make art, among other things. I myself went on hunger strike for 79 days."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97788] [ 23-may-2013 04:47 ECT ]

Over 400 Killed in a Week of Iraqi Violence
Jason Ditz

May 21, 2013 - After a massive series of sectarian bombings killed 133 people on Monday, more bombings hit Tuesday, killing scores of additional people. They cap a solid week of fighting that has seen more than 400 people killed and many hundreds more wounded. The month of April had sparked major concerns about the rise of sectarian violence in Iraq, with a death toll the highest it had been since Summer 2008. The overall toll was 460, for the entire month, meaning May is set to blow past it dramatically...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97787] [ 23-may-2013 04:41 ECT ]

Iraq snapshot - May 21, 2013
The Common Ills

May 21, 2013. Chaos and violence continue, one of the protest organizers in Anbar is assassinated, Nouri has a 'big shake up' (AFP) that amounts to nothing, Zebari puts on brave face for American TV, a public servant announces (through her attorney) she will plead the Fifth in a Congressional hearing tomorrow (IRS scandal), Congress discusses pending veterans legislation and if the White House is being fully honest about Benghazi why have they not released the State Dept's September 14th communications with NSS?..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97786] [ 23-may-2013 04:38 ECT ]

Israeli Bulldozers Demolish House in Jerusalem
Palestine News Network
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May 21, 2013 -On Tuesday 21st May, Israeli bulldozers demolished a house in Jerusalem belongs to Abu Sha'lan in Khelit al-Ain area in al-Tur neighborhood in Jerusalem. Israeli forces, escorted by bulldozers, closed the area and started demolishing the house under the pretext of "being built without a permit". Eyewitnesses said that Israeli bulldozers demolished the house that resides nine family members...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97785] [ 23-may-2013 04:36 ECT ]

Iraq: Organizer of Anbar protest killed
NINA

May 21, 2013– Sheikh Malik al-Dulaimi, one of the Anbar protest organizers, killed when an improvised explosive device, attached to his car, went off on Tuesday evening, May 21. Security source told NINA that an improvised explosive device attached to Sheik al-Dulaimi's car went off in downtown Ramadi, killing him instantly. Sheikh al-Dulaimi, along with other capable tribal chiefs of Anbar, took care of supplying tents, food and other requirements to the protestors in Ramadi...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97784] [ 23-may-2013 04:33 ECT ]

Torture Victim’s Body Is Found Near U.S. Base, Afghans Say
By ROD NORDLAND

May 21, 2013 - KABUL, Afghanistan — The footless corpse of an Afghan man missing since November was found on Tuesday near the former American Special Forces base to which he was last seen being taken, according to Afghan officials and victims’ representatives. Afghan investigators said that after his disappearance, the man, Sayid Mohammad, was seen in a video being tortured by an Afghan-American named Zakaria Kandahari, whom the officials identified as the chief interpreter for an American Army Special Forces A Team stationed at the base. The American military denies that Mr. Kandahari is an American citizen and said he was no longer working for the A Team when the video was made..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97783] [ 23-may-2013 04:31 ECT ]

Video: Sons of Lifta – BADIL Production
BADIL
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May 21, 2013 - Sons of Lifta' follows refugees from the village as they return to Lifta on Land Day 2013, more than 65 years after their original forced displacement. Through the eyes and actions of Lifta's new generations, following in the footsteps of their ancestors, it becomes clear that the Zionist belief that 'the old will die out and the young will forget' never accounted for the strength of Palestinian sumoud (steadfastness) or the deep-rooted connection to home...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97782] [ 23-may-2013 04:26 ECT ]

Guantánamo Hunger Strike: Obama Administration Hints at Progress on Releasing Yemenis
Andy Worthington

May 21, 2013- 100 days after the majority of the remaining 166 prisoners in Guantánamo embarked on a hunger strike, and after a weekend of actions in the US, the UK and elsewhere to highlight the continuing injustice of the prison, the world is waiting — again — to hear from President Obama.As news of the hunger strike filtered out of the prison in late February, and, throughout March, spread like wildfire throughout the world’s media, attracting criticism of the administration from the International Committee of the Red Cross and the United Nations, as well as critical coverage in the US, President Obama remained silent...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97780] [ 23-may-2013 04:21 ECT ]

The State Explodes Itself
Arthur Silber

May 21, 2013- ...Top Obama aides, including Obama's chief of staff, all knew of the specific nature of the IRS abuses. They all "intentionally kept Obama in the dark." We are informed that systematically depriving the president of critical information is their job.This is your government at work. "Serious" has been banished to another world. I ache for the moment when a single person, finally rebelling against the ludicrous pretense of treating muttered blurps and smuffles as language that signifies meaning, stands up at a press briefing, and cries in despair: "When you lie in bed in the middle of the night unable to sleep, do you ever weep for your shattered soul, that you find it so easy to be such a goddamned liar? And are we any better, that we refuse to acknowledge that you are a goddamned liar, and that we are all liars too?"...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97779] [ 23-may-2013 04:16 ECT ]

Tales in a Kabul Restaurant
by Kathy Kelly
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May 21, 2013 - ...It’s one thing to chronicle sparse details about these U.S. led NATO attacks. It’s quite another to sit across from Afghan men as they try, having broken down in tears, to regain sufficient composure to finish telling us their stories. Last night, at a restaurant in Kabul, I and two friends from the Afghan Peace Volunteers met with five Pashtun men from Afghanistan’s northern and eastern provinces. The men had agreed to tell us about their experiences living in areas affected by regular drone attacks, aerial bombings and night raids...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97781] [ 23-may-2013 04:11 ECT ]

Israel desecrates 2350 holy sites in Palestinian territories occupied in 1948
Middle East Monitor

May 21, 2013 -A Palestinian organisation located in the territories occupied in 1948 that maintains Islamic sanctities and monitors violations against them by the Zionist occupation authorities has said that, "Zionist gangs have been using malicious methods and means of destruction and Judaisation of Islamic and Christian sanctities in order to alter real Palestinian landmarks over past 65 years in what is known as the "Nakba" or [Palestinian Catastrophe]." It also noted that this "still goes on today at the hands of the Israeli establishment and its various branches."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97777] [ 23-may-2013 04:05 ECT ]

Settlers severely beat handicapped boy near Hebron
Ma'an news

May 21, 2013 -- Settlers assaulted a 16-year-old handicapped boy in Yatta on Tuesday, leaving him with bruising all over his body, official news agency Wafa reported.Mohammad Shawaheen, 16, was attacked east of Yatta by settlers from Maon. He was taken to hospital for treatment. Last week, settlers from Maon torched two dunams of wheat fields in the south Hebron hills, which villagers managed to prevent from spreading to nearby land and homes...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97776] [ 23-may-2013 03:57 ECT ]

Syria News - May 20 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
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May 20 2013- By the end of Monday, the Local coordination committees were able to document 115 martyrs including 6 women, 12 children and 3 martyrs under torture:30 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 24 in Homs; 22 in Aleppo; 10 in Idlib; 10 in Raqqa; 8 in Deir Ezzor; 6 in Daraa; and 3 in Hama.The Local Coordination committee documented 371 points of Shelling where the fiercest was reported in Qusseir for the second day: Aerial shelling was reported in 30 aerial strikes ( fiercest in Qusseir); shelling with surface-to-surface missiles in 3 points of sieged neighborhoods of Homs, Jouret Shayah in Aleppo; Shelling with Explosive barrels in 4 points in Salma in Latakia, Raqqa, Ghota Sharqieh in Damascus Suburbs and in Wadi Seyah in Homs; as for Mortar shelling was reported in 98 points, Rocket shelling in 106 points and artillery shelling in 130 points across Syria...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97775] [ 23-may-2013 03:44 ECT ]

Military Resistance 11E13: Now and Forever
Thomas F Barton

May 20, 2013 - The United States may keep a force of 6,000 to 12,000 troops in Afghanistan after 2014, when Afghan forces will be responsible for security across the country, a top American Senator has said. "We are planning to keep a force of perhaps 6,000 to 12,000 after 2014 when all combat forces are to be out of Afghanistan," Senator Carl Levin, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said during a Congressional hearing...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97774] [ 22-may-2013 22:44 ECT ]

Deep in Enemy Territory – Fast Times in Palestine
By Pamela Olson
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May 20, 2013 - A friend from college named Cameron was in Israel visiting family for Passover. He was an adventurous soul, a world traveler and entrepreneur, with curly brown hair, blue eyes, and a slim athletic build. When his family learned I was in the Holy Land, they invited me to their Passover seder — until they realized I lived in Ramallah, at which point they promptly rescinded the invitation.Cameron was a strong supporter of Israel and hawkish on security issues, but he was embarrassed by his family’s behavior. I told him he could make it up to me by visiting the West Bank for a week and seeing the occupation for himself. To my pleasant surprise he agreed. In order not to upset his family, he told them he was heading to the Sinai for a week. He arrived in Ramallah just as the Dancing Traffic Cop was beginning his shift in Al Manara. Tall, lanky, and graceful, wearing reflective silver aviator sunglasses, the man didn’t just direct traffic. He made a show of it. Cameron and I watched in amazement as his long arms moved in quick, precise, exaggerated arcs and twirls to match his intricate, impeccable footwork....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97773] [ 22-may-2013 22:27 ECT ]

Syrian army displays an old Israeli-made Jeep as "proof of aid to rebels" (Video)
By Amos Harel

May 20, 2013 -The Syrian army on Monday displayed an Israeli-made Jeep it said was captured from a rebel organization during recent battles for control of Qusayr, a Syrian city near the Lebanese border. Damascus claimed the vehicle was proof of Israeli and U.S. aid to the Syrian opposition...The vehicle is identifiable as a relatively old, armored model of the Sufa Jeep, which is manufactured in Israel under license from Chrysler.Such vehicles have been used by the IDF for decades in the territories and were used by Israeli forces in the South Lebanon buffer zone until Israel's withdrawal from Lebanon in 2000. The IDF license number, 669491, is clearly visible in the clip, as are the maximum speed limits and other markings typical of IDF vehicles.A preliminary IDF investigation conducted after the vehicle's capture was reported showed the Jeep was taken out of IDF service at least 10 years ago. It is thought that the Jeep may have been left behind in Lebanon in 2000, or sold as army surplus. The IDF Spokesman's Office confirmed that the model in the video has not been used by the IDF for more than 10 years ..

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97772] [ 22-may-2013 22:16 ECT ]

Guantanamo Force-Feeding Constitutes Torture
by Stephen Lendman

May 20, 2013 - Guantanamo detention constitutes torture, abuse and ill-treatment. Long-term detention compounds it. Force-feeding increases unconscionable pain and suffering. Doing so violates core rule of law principles. Around 130 of 166 Guantanamo detainees refuse food. They're hunger striking for justice. They began in February. They passed 100 days. They'd rather die than endure injustice. Their only escape route is death. Pentagon officials at first maintained silence. Belatedly they admitted what's well-known. They consistently downplayed it. Now they admit 102 detainees refuse food. At least 130 are involved. Obama dismissively said nothing. His belated acknowledgement reflected disdain for their pain and suffering...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97771] [ 22-may-2013 20:54 ECT ]

Is France to Start Killing People 'the American Way'?
By François Sergent
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May 20, 2013 -War without a battlefield, without direct confrontation and without any risk to the attackers. Drones change not only the art of war, but also blur the laws of war. And American monopoly currently only shared by Israel, drones have become the weapon of choice of the "war against terror" - a phrase coined by George W. Bush after the September 11 - then continued and expanded by Obama. From Somalia to the frontiers of Pakistan, Yemen and Afghanistan, dozens of suspected terrorists, including senior al-Qaeda leaders, have been killed by missiles launched by drones operated from the comfort of sanitized bases in Virginia. These men were killed secretly and without trial, in the manner of extrajudicial executions. As sophisticated as these unmanned aircraft have become, however, hundreds of civilian men, women and children, have fallen - collateral victims of this shadowy war...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97770] [ 22-may-2013 20:49 ECT ]

Palestinian Refugees From Syria Especially Vulnerable
By: Samar El Yassir

May 20, 2013 - ... More than 50,000 Palestinians already have sought refuge in Lebanon. Thousands more arrive each month. They arrive with the clothes they are wearing and few or no resources to survive on their own. So they seek shelter with other Palestinian families who have been living for decades in Lebanon’s already overcrowded refugee camps. UNRWA, understandably, has been overwhelmed by the sudden influx and the challenge it presents to care for them.
In a survey we conducted in January to determine their needs, we discovered more than 90% of refugee families have no income, making it impossible for them to afford the cost of living in Lebanon, which is considerably higher than in Syria. Most exhausted much of their savings during the conflict and flight to Lebanon.Nearly all the Palestinian refugees interviewed in the survey cite food as their biggest expense. Families struggle to provide three meals a day ...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97769] [ 22-may-2013 20:41 ECT ]

New Sleaze Allegations Tarnish JPMorgan Chase's 'Teflon Don'
By Tom Burghardt

May 20, 2013 - While Barack Obama's "favorite banker" continues to receive the royal treatment in Washington, new sleaze allegations threaten to further tarnish the golden boy image of "teflon don" Jamie Dimon, the CEO and Chairman of JPMorgan Chase. Wearing multiple hats, Dimon is the Chairman of The Business Council, a long-time member of the Council on Foreign Relations, The Trilateral Commission, a "Class A" Director of the New York Federal Reserve and Advisory Board member of the President's Council on Jobs and Competitiveness, that is, until the Council was foreclosed on earlier this year. It doesn't hurt that JPM's embattled capo di tutti capi is also a leading light and Executive Committee member of The Business Roundtable, a corporatist "association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies with more than $7.3 trillion in annual revenues and nearly 16 million employees."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97768] [ 22-may-2013 20:20 ECT ]

Israeli report on al-Dura case is vengeful and ‘surreal,’ says Haaretz — but ‘NYT’ treats it as gospel
by Philip Weiss
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May 20, 2013 - Famously, 12-year-old Muhammad al-Dura was killed in the second intifada, during a shootout in Gaza in September 2000; haunting footage of the boy's cowering with his father, first broadcast on French public television, became a symbol of the brutality of the occupation. But this weekend the Israeli government produced a report asserting that the boy and his father may well have escaped the shootout unscathed...Barak Ravid in Haaretz says the report is "surreal" because it comes out 13 years after the event, then he goes on to describe it as vengeful and : The report also appears to be a campaign of revenge launched by the State of Israel against a single French journalist, Charles Enderlin, who first reported Mohammed al-Dura's death. ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97766] [ 22-may-2013 20:06 ECT ]

Walking Tours Connect Palestinians to Their Past
By Jillian Kestler-D'Amours

May 20 , 2013 - A reddish-brown dome sits atop an ancient stone house, used hundreds of years ago for prayer. It peeks out from the surrounding trees as the rolling green valleys and hills of the central West Bank stretch out into the distance. This shrine, known as the Al-Khawass shrine, sits 540 metres above sea level in the Palestinian village of Deir Ghassaneh. It is one of several stops along the Sufi trail, which begins in the valley below and takes visitors and locals alike back in time to when Sufism, a mystical form of Islam, was widespread in the area."I want foreigners to know Palestinian culture, our culture. And I want Palestinians to take [steadfastness] from it. This is your home. Be proud of the land, of the homeland," explained Rafat Jamil, director of tours and a guide at the Rozana Association...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97765] [ 22-may-2013 19:47 ECT ]

U.K.: Where reading can send you to jail
By: Corinne Purtill

May 20, 2013 - In the deepening investigation of the Boston Marathon bombings, federal officials have reportedly found copies of the Al Qaeda magazine Inspire and other extremist materials on a computer belonging to Katherine Russell, the widow of suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev. If these reports are true, and if this case took place in the U.K., no other evidence would be needed to arrest and prosecute Russell, 24. Simply having a copy of Inspire — or any other material deemed "likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism" — is a crime here....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97764] [ 22-may-2013 19:43 ECT ]

The Prisoners' Diaries - Palestinian voices from the Israeli Gulag
Review by Ramona Wadi

May 20, 2013 - Edited and published during the Palestinian prisoners' hunger strike, The Prisoners' Diaries is a distressing fragment of testimonies from Palestinians whose deterioration in Israeli jails has become a fact of life, rather than a blatant violation of human rights. The resilience against the occupation and a lack of global outrage against torture and apartheid practices resonated with irregular frequencies within the international community, as leaders relegate human rights to the vestiges of redundant diplomacy. As the epitomes of the hunger strike, Samer Issawi and Ayman Sharawna, seem to have faded from public scrutiny, this book serves as a reminder of the reality experienced by hundreds of prisoners who have, at some point, been incarcerated and subjected to torture in Israeli prisons. The brief narrations manage to dissolve the facade of statistics and portray the humanitarian aspect - estranged families, poverty, illness, death and the metaphor of time experienced as a perpetual waiting and loathed dependence on an entity responsible for the deterioration of life as envisaged by the occupying power...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97763] [ 22-may-2013 19:35 ECT ]

"I’m afraid of dying" without returning home, says Nakba survivor
Rami Almeghari
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May 20, 2013- It was the hardest trip that Zeidan Mahmoud Abu Naser has taken in his life. In May 1948, his village of Beit Jirja was attacked by Zionist gangs. Their vehicles and weapons "were more sophisticated than anything we had," he recalled. He was forced to leave and to seek refuge in Gaza. "We left behind our crops of wheat. We even left food right in the middle of our home," he said, recalling how he traveled in a donkey-drawn carriage, along with his parents, six brothers and two sisters. The trip took half a day but it was "psychologically devastating," he added...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97762] [ 22-may-2013 19:28 ECT ]

Israel resumes use of sniper units to disperse Palestinian demonstrations
Middle East Monitor

May 20, 2013 -The online edition of the Israeli newspaper Maariv revealed on Sunday that the Israeli army has recently resumed using snipers units to disperse Palestinian demonstrations; a practice it had abandoned for a short period.The newspaper reported that this technique was used at the end of last week near the settlement of Beit El in eastern Ramallah. Tutu rifles (0.22 inch calibre bullets) were used injuring five Palestinian youths. The newspaper added that the soldiers carried out their commanders direct orders to open fire on the demonstrators after the army had exhausted the normal methods of crowd dispersal - tear gas, rubber bullets and live ammunition ..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97761] [ 22-may-2013 19:19 ECT ]

Obama DOJ formally accuses journalist in leak case of committing crimes
Glenn Greenwald

May 20, 2013 -It is now well known that the Obama justice department has prosecuted more government leakers under the 1917 Espionage Act than all prior administrations combined - in fact, double the number of all such prior prosecutions. But as last week's controversy over the DOJ's pursuit of the phone records of AP reporters illustrated, this obsessive fixation in defense of secrecy also targets, and severely damages, journalists specifically and the newsgathering process in general. New revelations emerged yesterday in the Washington Post that are perhaps the most extreme yet when it comes to the DOJ's attacks on press freedoms. It involves the prosecution of State Department adviser Stephen Kim, a naturalized citizen from South Korea who was indicted in 2009 for allegedly telling Fox News' chief Washington correspondent, James Rosen, that US intelligence believed North Korea would respond to additional UN sanctions with more nuclear tests - something Rosen then reported. ...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [97760] [ 22-may-2013 19:09 ECT ]

Investigate Israel’s killing of US teen, rights group tells Obama
Maureen Clare Murphy
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May 20, 2013 - The Center for Constitutional Rights called on US President Barack Obama last week to break his three-year silence over Israel’s 2009 killing of 18-year-old US citizen Furkan Doğan during its siege on the Gaza-bound Mavi Marmara ship in international waters. The CCR states in its 16 May letter : Recently, the Israeli government apologized to Turkey, acknowledging "a number of operational mistakes" that might have led to the loss of life or injury. Despite these admissions, the US still has not publicly called upon Israel to provide any detailed information on Furkan’s death or made any public call for accountability regarding his killing. The silence from the US in relation to the killing of its citizen and eight other civilians effectively results in impunity. Furthermore, it sends a message that the government will tolerate the killing of US human rights defenders by Israel....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97759] [ 22-may-2013 19:03 ECT ]

Pentagon Seeks Another $79 Billion for Afghan War
Jason Ditz

May 20, 2013- Pentagon officials have submitted a new request for another $79.4 billion for "overseas contingency operations," essentially to pay for the 2014 fighting of the Afghan War. The request is above and beyond the $526 billion the Pentagon is already seeking for 2014, which was supposed to include the war’s costs. Requests for supplemental war funds are nothing new for the Pentagon, but the latest request comes in the context of a growing budget crisis in Afghanistan, with the 2013 "contingency funds" already burned through as costs continue to soar....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97758] [ 22-may-2013 18:49 ECT ]

Qusayr resisting all-out attack
ALEX ROWELL

May 20, 2013 - The streets of the western Syrian town of Al-Qusayr were enveloped in clouds of grey cement powder on Sunday as President Bashar al-Assad's air and ground forces, backed by Lebanese Hezbollah militiamen, commenced a long-awaited major assault on the lynchpin rebel-held town and its surrounding villages. Humanitarian observers including the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Navi Pillay, have warned that this may lead to massacres reminiscent of those in the coastal towns of al-Bayda and Banias earlier in the month. At least 58 Qusayr residents were killed Sunday – many of them civilians – and over 600 wounded in continuous air and artillery strikes, according to local opposition spokesman Hadi al-Abdallah. He also claimed some 30 Hezbollah fighters had been killed by rebel forces. Syrian state TV reported 100 opposition militants dead, with no mention of regime casualties. NOW was unable to reach the Hezbollah press office for confirmation of the Party's losses...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97757] [ 22-may-2013 18:40 ECT ]

More Alleged Abu Ghraib Torturers Slipping Through Fingers of Justice?
Kelley Beaucar Vlahos
11ab-abughraib01g.jpg

May 20, 2013 - This may ultimately come as no surprise, but yet another party connected to the torture and abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib circa 2004 may get off with little more than a slight taint on their reputation. At this point it is part of the record in at least two official investigations including the Taguba Report and the commonly known "Fay Report," that that the Arlington, Va.-based private contractor CACI had fielded interrogators who helped to intimidate, harass and physically assault prisoners at Abu Ghraib. That much was detailed in the official military investigations, no matter what CACI says, and everyone can access them easily enough...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97755] [ 22-may-2013 18:37 ECT ]

Fox News Journalist Pursued by Obama Justice Department as ‘Co-Conspirator’ in Leak
By: Kevin Gosztola

May 20, 2013 - The extent of the administration of President Barack Obama’s attacks on the First Amendment has been confirmed to include having the Justice Department pursue a Fox News journalist as a "co-conspirator" in a leak investigation.The investigation involves Stephen Jin-Woo Kim, a State Department employee, who has been under investigation for possibly leaking classified information on North Korea to Fox News reporter James Rosen. The Washington Post characterizes the case as one that "bears striking similarities to a sweeping leaks investigation disclosed last week in which federal investigators obtained records over two months of more than 20 telephone lines assigned to the Associated Press." Except, it is worse...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97754] [ 22-may-2013 18:32 ECT ]

Israeli Army Kidnaps Two Palestinian Fishermen In Northern Gaza
Saed Bannoura

May 20, 2013 - The Palestinian Center for Human Rights (PCHR), based in Gaza, has reported that the Israeli Navy kidnapped, on Sunday at night, two Palestinian fishermen near the coast of Beit Lahia city, in the northern part of the Gaza Strip. The PCHR said that the soldiers kidnapped Mahmoud Zayed, 27, and his brother Khaled, as they were fishing in Palestinian territorial waters, and took them to an unknown destination before confiscating their boat. The soldiers also prevented Palestinian fishermen in the area from fishing and forced them back to the shore...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97753] [ 22-may-2013 18:30 ECT ]

Israel is world's largest drone exporter
Harriet Sherwood
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May 20, 2013 - Israel is the world's largest exporter of drones, mainly to Europe, Asia and Latin America, in a trade worth more than $4.6bn (£3bn) over the past eight years. A study by the business consultancy Frost and Sullivan found that unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) account for almost 10% of Israel's military exports. Sales have declined from a peak in 2010, but Israel has recently signed a $100m deal, not included in the figures, with India to upgrade its drones. Just over half of Israel's drone exports were to Europe, including a substantial number to the UK. Less than 4% of UAV sales were to America...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97752] [ 22-may-2013 18:27 ECT ]

Living in Hell, Iraqi Christians Dream of Paradise
By Karlos Zurutuza

May 20, 2013 - ... After Iraqi Mandaeans were quite literally decimated – nine out of 10 have either died or fled since 2003 – the local Christian community has suffered significantly over the last decade. The United Nations High Commission for Refugees reports that about half of that population has left the country since 2003. The Assyrian Council of Europe, an independent non-governmental organisation, goes further, pointing to the Iraqi Constitution as one of the culprits of marginalisation faced by minorities in Iraq...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97751] [ 22-may-2013 18:22 ECT ]

Four Palestinian Prisoners and Five Jordanian Prisoners on Open Hunger Strike; Military Court to Consider Request from PLC member Ahmed Sa‪‘adat‪ for a Visit from his Granddaughter‪
Addameer

May 20, 2013 - Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association’s Research and Documentation Unit has learned that 4 Palestinian prisoners are on open hunger strike. They are making several demands from the Occupation authorities and the Israeli Prison Service (IPS). Addameer can also confirm that 5 Jordanian prisoners are on hunger strike in order to shed light on their cause and are demanding family visits. Addameer has gathered the following information concerning the hunger strikers: 1‪. Detainee Ayman Abu Daoud ‪(30 years old‪) from Al‪-Khalil ‪(Hebron‪). He has been on hunger strike since 14 April 2013 in protest of his re‪-arrest after his release as part of the most recent prisoner exchange deal on 18 October 2011. Abu Daoud was released ‪as part of the deal after having spent 7 years of his 36-year sentence in prison‪. Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) want him to serve the rest of his previous sentence ‪(a remaining 29 years‪) on the basis of Article 186 of Military Order 1651‪, as amended in September 2011‪...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97750] [ 22-may-2013 18:19 ECT ]

Israel Approves Nearly 300 New Homes in Beit El Settlement
By Tadas Blinda
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May 20, 2013 - On Wednesday, May 8 2013, Israel approved the construction of 296 new homes in the Beit El settlement near Ramallah. This move is likely to increase tensions as US Secretary of State John Kerry is seeking to revive peace talks between Israel and the Palestinians that have stalled since 2010.The plan was announced two days after Israel’s Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu ordered a freeze on tenders for new settler houses in the West Bank to avoid harming US efforts in bringing Israel and the Palestinians back to the negotiations. This approval comes as part of a compensation plan for settlers evicted from the unauthorized Ulpana outpost, built on the outskirts of Beit El settlement, in return for their cooperation in evacuating the 5 homes orded to be demolished by the Supreme Court on July 1 2012...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [97749] [ 22-may-2013 18:14 ECT ]

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