Number Of Iraqis Slaughtered Since The U.S. Invaded Iraq “1,199,782"
www.justforeignpolicy.org/iraq/iraqdeaths.html
 
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Number of U.S. Military Personnel Sacrificed (Officially acknowledged) In America’sWar On Iraq 4,037
icasualties.org/oif/
 
The War in Iraq Costs
$512,025,791,797
 
See the cost in your community
nationalpriorities.org/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=182
 
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Documents Describe Murder And Torture Of Prisoners In U.S. Custody
 
By ACLU
 
The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents today from the Department of Defense confirming the military’s use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19766.htm
 
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The End of the World as You Know It
 
…and the Rise of the New Energy World Order
 
By Michael T. Klare
 
Oil at $110 a barrel. Gasoline at $3.35 (or more) per gallon. Diesel fuel at $4 per gallon. Independent truckers forced off the road. Home heating oil rising to unconscionable price levels. Jet fuel so expensive that three low-cost airlines stopped flying in the past few weeks. This is just a taste of the latest energy news, signaling a profound change in how all of us, in this country and around the world, are going to live.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19764.htm
 
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A Divided Baghdad
 
Al Jazeera 3 Minute Video Report
 
This is the reality of life in Baghdad now!. Click to view
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19765.htm
 
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Iran Should Be “Set Up For An Attack”
 
The Anti-Sadr Agenda
 
By Muriel Mirak-Weissbach
 
One consideration in the minds of the U.S. strategists of the anti-Sadr war, is that they must wipe his organization off the Iraqi political map well before elections take place next October, elections in which his followers could make significant gains, expanding their current 30-seat presence in parliament to a considerable power.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19763.htm
 
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Venezuela: Democracy, Socialism and Imperialism
 
By James Petras
 
Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez remains the world’s leading secular, democratically elected political leader who has consistently and publicly opposed imperialist wars in the Middle East, attacked extra-territorial intervention and US and European Union complicity in kidnapping and torture.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19762.htm
 
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Color of Law
 
Why Clinton’s Jeremiah Wright Strategy Failed:
 
By David A. Love
 
The race card has been an accepted part of politics for years, primarily because that’s the way people liked it. The politics of division worked because of the willingness of bitter and frustrated working-class Whites to act against their own self interests, placing racial solidarity with White elites above economic solidarity with struggling Americans of all backgrounds.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article19761.htm
 
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Suicide bomber kills 52 :
 
A suicide bomber blew himself up in a crowd of mourners north of Baghdad on Thursday, killing at least 51 people in one of the biggest insurgent attacks in Iraq this year.
www.channelnewsasia.com/stories/afp_world/view/342069/1/.html
 
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At least 13 killed in another bloody day of US occupation
 
U.S. forces said they killed five militants in gunbattles and airstrikes overnight in the east Baghdad Shi’ite slum Sadr City. Two Sadr City hospitals said they received the bodies of nine people killed in clashes there.
www.reuters.com/article/middleeastCrisis/idUSL17473055
 
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Petraeus Hid Maliki Resistance to US Troops in Basra:
 
Petraeus referred to a plan for an operation to be carried out in Basra that he and his staff had developed with the head of the Basra Operational Command, Gen. Mohan al-Furayji. But Petraeus carefully dodged a question from Sen. Hillary Clinton about what resources he was planning to deploy to Basra and over what length of time.
www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/32806
 
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Believe It Or Not!
 
US Lawmakers want Iraq to start paying the bills :
 
Iraq should start paying the costs of its own rebuilding, fuel costs for U.S. military vehicles conducting security operations there and other expenses now being borne by American taxpayers, a group of Democratic and Republican senators said on Thursday.
tinyurl.com/3wuggv
 
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Iraq’s biggest aid agency? Muqtada al-Sadr & co:
 
“They are giving them money to pay rent. They are giving them oil and food. They are providing them with generators for electricity. They are really meeting all the needs that the government and the U.N. should be meeting at this stage,” Younes said.
tinyurl.com/4rpk7d
 
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Democrats seek to avoid Iraq funding vote this fall:
 
Democrats in Congress, seeking to avoid a vote on funding the Iraq war during the fall campaign season, are likely to combine President Bush’s two pending requests into a single bill to be voted on this spring.
news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080417/ap_on_go_co/congress_iraq_funding
 
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Bush and Brown Share Impatience With Iran :
 
While Tehran argues that its nuclear program is purely for civilian purposes, Mr. Bush told reporters that it “is, in my judgment, naïve” to think that the know-how that Iranians are developing could not be transferred to military efforts to produce an atomic weapon.
tinyurl.com/4kftfd
 
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IAEA head calls for more dialogue on Iran nuclear issue :
 
“I think they had 3,000 centrifuges in the past and now they have 3,300 or 3,400 so they are not moving very fast,” ElBaradei said to a briefing after the meeting.
news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-04/18/content_7999171.htm
 
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Clinton vows ‘massive’ U.S. retaliation if Iran attacks Israel :
 
Speaking at the Democratic Presidential debate Wednesday, U.S. Senator Hillary Clinton threatened to launch a “massive retaliation” if Iran decided to attack Israel.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976033.html
 
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Syria President Says Nation Ready For War :
 
 Syrian President Bashar Assad says his country is ready to go to war in the event of an attack on Lebanon or Iran by Israel and the United States.
www.postchronicle.com/news/breakingnews/article_212142680.shtml
 
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Israelis kill three Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza:
 
Israeli troops killed two Palestinian militants and a teenager in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip on Thursday, Palestinian medical and security officials said.
tinyurl.com/3u4dex
 
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Hamas vows to avenge Gaza deaths :
 
The Hamas movement has said that “all options are open” to avenge the killing of 17 Palestinians, including five children, during Israeli raids.
tinyurl.com/6ksek8
 
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Video: final footage of Reuters journalist killed in Gaza :
 
Footage of Fadel Shana, 23, being killed by a tank shell in the Gaza Strip has been released by the news agency, which said that the cameraman was hit despite clear markings that showed him to be a journalist.
www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article3764160.ece
 
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Zahar: Gazans can do ‘no less’ than rise up like Warsaw Ghetto Jews :
 
“Sixty-five years ago, the courageous Jews of the Warsaw ghetto rose in defense of their people. We Gazans, living in the world’s largest open-air prison, can do no less,” Zahar wrote in the newspaper.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/975997.html
 
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Netanyahu: Won’t honor peace deal if elected:
 
Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu has said if he is elected prime minister, he won’t carry out any peace deal with the Palestinians reached by current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a newspaper reported Thursday.
www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=12083569736
83&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
 
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Carter calls Gaza blockade a ‘crime and atrocity’ :
 
Former U.S. President Jimmy Carter called the blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip a “crime and an atrocity” on Thursday, and said U.S. attempts to undermine the Islamist movement Hamas had been counterproductive.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976086.html
 
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Israel Doesn’t Want to Know Carter Any More:
 
Three decades after he brokered the first-ever peace treaty between Israel and an Arab country, former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has become persona non grata in the Jewish state.
www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=42025
 
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Deputy FM Whbee: Israel racially discriminates against its citizens :
 
“It turns out that in the state of Israel it is permissible to shoot citizens, provided that they are the right citizens,” Whbee said, referring to the fact that those injured were not Jewish, but Druze.
www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/976028.html
 
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Afghan suicide blast kills 24:
 
A suicide bomb exploded outside a mosque in occupied Afghanistan overnight, killing 24 people as worshippers were leaving after prayers
www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/04/18/2220407.htm?section=justin
 
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13 Taliban insurgents killed, 15 held in occupied Afghanistan :
 
Afghan police, intelligence and US-led occupation forces killed ten Taliban militants on the Kabul-Kandahar highway Thursday morning, the interior ministry said in a statement.
tinyurl.com/53n49k
 
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Pentagon admits Afghan jail abuses :
 
US military interrogators assaulted Afghan detainees using techniques they learned during self-defence training, according to documents released by the Pentagon.
tinyurl.com/65el5d
 
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Tribesmen clash with Islamic militants in Pakistan; 20 killed:
 
At least 20 people were killed and dozens injured in overnight clashes between tribesmen and followers of a radical cleric in a Pakistani tribal area bordering Afghanistan, media reports said.
tinyurl.com/4t2few
 
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Al Qaeda still in Pakistan tribal areas, report says:
 
Al Qaeda is still operating within Pakistan’s mountainous tribal region bordering Afghanistan, and the United States lacks a “comprehensive” plan for meetings its national security goals there, a U.S. government study released Thursday said.
edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/04/17/gao.pakistan/index.html
 
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No US plan to fight terror in Pakistan tribal belt:: –
 
More than six years after the September 11 attacks, the United States still does not have a coherent plan to destroy a key staging area for terrorist attacks into the country, according to an independent government watchdog.
news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20080417/wl_sthasia_afp/usattackspakistan
 
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US offers Pakistan government $7bn in non-military aid to fight terrorism·:
 
The package would triple the amount of American non-military aid to Pakistan, and is aimed at “redefining” the bilateral relationship, US officials say.
tinyurl.com/6232yz
 
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Musharraf ‘planning to stand down’:
 
Munir Khan Orakzai – the parliamentary leader for the Federally Administered Tribal Area (FATA) – revealed Musharraf had told close aides he will bow out of Pakistani politics in the near future because he feels “powerless”. Orakzai said: “If Musharraf survives this month, he won’t continue for more than a year.
tinyurl.com/46a49v
 
===
 
Seumas Milne : How come Zimbabwe and Tibet get all the attention?:
 
If a government wants to abuse human rights and rig elections, it needs to have the support of – or be – the western powers
www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/17/zimbabwe.tibet
 
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Six found guilty in Britain in terrorism trial:
 
Six British Muslim men were found guilty on Thursday of collecting money for the purposes of terrorism or inciting people to fight British and U.S. forces in Iraq.
news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080417/wl_nm/security_britain_dc
 
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Study says 300,000 U.S. troops suffer mental problems:
 
About 300,000 U.S. troops returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder or depression, but about half receive no care, an independent study said on Thursday.
abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=4674865
 
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Worst. Debate. Ever:
 
 ”ABC News hosts Charles Gibson and George Stephanopolous focused mainly on trivial issues as Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama faced off in Philadelphia. They, and their network, should hang their collective heads in shame.”
blogs.guardian.co.uk/usa/2008/04/worst_debate_ever.html
 
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The dumbest debate in America?:
 
The hosts on last night’s ABC Democratic debate were shameful: don’t they realise America is sick of their junk food?
tinyurl.com/6dw88t
 
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US mortgage clock ticking, Dodd warns:
 
Mr Dodd, the Connecticut Democrat who chairs the Senate banking committee, last month made an aggressive proposal to use public funds to guarantee the refinancing of up to $400bn (€250bn, £200bn) in mortgages at lower values through the Federal Housing Administration, the government-owned mortgage insurer.
us.ft.com/ftgateway/superpage.ft?news_id=fto041620081713149197
 
===
 
Retailers Get Stingy With Data:
 
In American retailing, less is suddenly more – at least when it comes to giving investors the sort of financial information they have long expected from companies.
dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/17/retailers-get-stingy-with-data/