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TODAY’S THE DAY!
NO Work! NO School!
MARCH with US in DEFENSE of Liberty and Human Dignity for ALL!
The Truth Will Set You Free
Your government HAS NOW CODIFED torture. The new law does not prohibit the government from using “alternative interrogation techniques” that include sleep deprivation, extreme cold, personal degradation, waterboarding (simulated drowning), “temporary” disablement, and psychological disorientation. The new law grants George Bush the sole authority to decide what torture is. Abu G! hraib and the secret renditions were horrible. But to take the next step and write such practices into law is even worse — qualitatively worse. Your government has officially shredded constitutional promises of basic and fundamental rights to due process — taking a huge step towards replacing the rule of law with the arbitrary rule of men…
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GI Special 4J4: “ Most Soldiers Want To Withdraw” – October 4, 2
Thomas F. Barton
Army reservist Sergeant Marshall Thompson spent a year in Iraq working as a military journalist. He reported from across Iraq, interviewing thousands of US soldiers. Now back home in his native Utah, he is planning a 500-mile walk across the state to protest the war and call for a withdrawal of US troops (…) I got an email yesterday from a soldier in Iraq who said, “I know what you’re saying. I can’t publicly support you, be! cause I’m afraid of what might happen to me, but thank you for what you’re doing. And I’ll be walking with you in spirit.”…
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Removing Hamas: Brinkmanship Tactics or Coup D’etat
Nicola Nasser
Within the context of a U.S.-Israeli determined campaign to remove the elected Islamic Resistance Movement from power, the best of the Palestinian mainstream anti-occupation activists of Fatah and Hamas are being polarized into a deadlocked divide that is already threatening an historic national unity with a looming civil war as a result of either risky brinkmanship tactics or what Hamas says a coup d’état…
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Video
Video: Iraq death squads use hospitals for torture, executions
David Edwards
Lara Logan interviewed one hospital worker, who said, “A man was bringing his murdered brother to the morgue. They asked him if he knew who the killers were and he said ‘yes.’ They shot him right there.” The hospital worker says that spies are everywhere. Militia member have replaced more than eighty percent of the original staff where she works. Sunnis are too terrified to retrieve the bodies of their relatives from the! morgues. As the violence worsens, more nameless bodies fill anonymous graves in Iraq…
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Education in Baghdad 2006-2007
Nabil’s Blog
The Iraqi minsiter of education announced that the schools (primary and secondary) starts on 20th sep. 2006 for the studying year of 2006-2007, well here’s what I’ve heard… In a school called Omar bin Abd Alaziz for boys (17th of july revolution before), in the day of the openning of schools, just one student went to school from about 600 students in that school, this guy said..
“I woke up in the morning, had my breakfast, and went to school for the new studying year, but I found myself alone in the school”, he said that he was surprised to see the school was empty, at first he didn’t know what to do, because there was no one in the school, no teachers.. no students.. he found only the guards, he spoke with the guards of his school, they told him to go back home, and to droop by in 1st of Oct. or maybe after Ramdan ends in nearly 22th Oct…
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Video
Abu Ghraib Detainee Tells His Story – 10.03.2006
Alive in Baghdad
Mhyar Abdullah is one of the tens of thousands of men living in Iraq who have been detained and released without charge over the last 4 years of the war in Iraq. Mhyar, or Merky, has an especially interesting case, because he is a Palestinian who has lived his entire life in Baghdad, since birth. It seems the Coalition Forces weren’t properly prepared for the circumstances of Iraq’s Palestinian residents. Because Merky is Palestinia! n, he does not have Iraqi citizenship, and was initially treated as a “foreign fighter” by the Coalition…
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Outrage as Misdirection: The Real Scandal Isn’t Foley
Dave Lindorff
…How are we to compare seeking to screw a 16-year old with totally screwing the Constitution? How are we to compare secret email solicitations with a secret plot to attack a nation of 62 million that poses no immediate threat to the U.S.? How are we to compare the Republican Party’s cover-up of a member’s efforts to corrupt young pages with the same party’s conspiracy to cover up the Bush administration’s ineptness and possible foreknowledge of! the 9-11 attacks, and of the campaign of lies and misinformation it used to drum up hysteria for an illegal and totally unwarranted invasion of Iraq? How are we to compare the media feeding frenzy over the Foley scandal with the profound silence about Bush’s Iran invasion planning, and with the deliberate brownout about information regarding a growing popular movement to impeach the president for his crimes?…
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10 things Tony Blair didn’t say in Manchester
Stop the War Coalition
On 27 September 2006, a war criminal responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands in Iraq and Afghanistan, and whose refusal to call for an immediate ceasefire in Lebanon and Gaza sanctioned Israel’s barbaric attacks, addressed the Labour Party Conference in Manchester. His speech was acclaimed by nearly all the mainstream media as “brilliant” (BBC), “electrifying” (The Telegraph), “majestic” (the Guardian). Here are 10 things that Tony Blair! didn’t say in “the speech of the century” (The Independent) . [1] The majority of Iraqis want the immediate withdrawal of US troops from their country, saying the departure “would make them feel safer and decrease violence.”[2] The majority of Iraqis approve of attacks on US forces. [3] On average, one attack on US forces in Iraq takes place every 15 minutes…
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Hamdan: Abbas fully responsible for Sunday’s unfortunate incidents
palestine-info.co.uk
Representative of Hamas in Lebanon Osama Hamdan has categorically blamed PA chief Mahmoud Abbas for the unfortunate bloody incidents in Gaza and the West Bank on Sunday, adding that Abbas’ responsibility was based on field and political reasons. He explained that the PA security apparatuses were practically under Abbas’ command, and under the PA bylaw, elements of the security apparatuses were banned from participating in any ! violent acts. “If he (Abbas) was the one who issued orders for the elements to demonstrate and riot, then that is a violation of his mandate and a breach of the law. If he wasn’t the one spurring them to do so, then it would mean that he has no power over them, and therefore, the matter must be dealt with accordingly, and perpetrators must be held accountable”, Hamdan elaborated in an interview with the PIC…
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Rice NOT Wellcome to Palestine
Shaking Hands With the Enemy
PalestineFreeVoice
Why is ms. Rice visiting the occupied Palestine Territories after that the US – Israeli/Zionist Lobby imposed an economical siege that has paralyzed the Palestininan society – caused death, destruction and enternal tentions among the Palestinian people and its democratic elected Palestinian government! A prominent leader of Hamas political organisation,dr Ismail Radwan,said that Hamas does not welcome a visit of US Secretary! of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.”This visit is part of an attempt to support the Zionist entity not to find a solution to the conflict in the Middle East” the planned visit will fail in the face of Palestinian steadfastness and the Palestinian’s strong stand in calling for their rights…
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Iraq, Up Close: Bodies And Terror
Blood Of Innocents, Says Lara Logan, Writes New Chapter In History
Lara Logan, CBS News
There is a moment when you realize that no matter what the consequences, you have stumbled across a story that must be told. That is how it was when I first heard that Sunni people were too terrified to go to hospitals in Baghdad because they might be targeted and killed by Shiite death squads. This is the most cynical example I’ve encountered of how sectarian violence is destroying! Iraq’s people. Not just because patients have been murdered and their family members followed and executed, but because people in need are being denied their most basic human right: to seek medical care. Ironically, the people who risked their lives to help me tell this story of how medical institutions have been turned into instruments of sectarian slaughter against Sunnis, are all Shiites. Because, as decent human beings, they do not want such acts committed in their name. They do not want the blood of their neighbors and friends on their hands. And they want the killing to stop…
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Kangaroo Selected as New Hussein Judge
Andy Borowitz
Two weeks after the judge in Saddam Hussein’s trial for crimes against humanity was dismissed for displaying leniency toward the former Iraqi dictator, the proceedings became embroiled in controversy once again as legal experts questioned the selection of a kangaroo as the judge’s replacement. While the dismissal of the previous judge, Abdullah al Amiri, raised eyebrows in legal circles because it suggested to some that the Iraqi government was trying to predet! ermine the results of the trial, the selection of a kangaroo from the Sydney Zoo in Australia did little to allay those concerns. “The new Iraqi government is already facing an uphill struggle to gain any kind of credibility for the trial of Saddam Hussein,” said Hassan El-Medfaai, president of the Iraqi Bar Association. “It is hard to see how putting a kangaroo in charge helps achieve that goal.” The kangaroo, known as Annette during her tenure at the Sydney Zoo, received mixed reviews on her first day in the Baghdad courtroom where Mr. Hussein is being tried…
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US: Number of improvised explosive devices in Iraq is at an ‘all-time high’
RAW STORY
The United States spokesman for the multi-national forces in Iraq said that the number of improvised explosive devices in Iraq is at an “all-time high,” RAW STORY has found. “In September we did see a rise in sensational attacks,” Major General William Caldwell said at a briefing on Wednesday. “Last week we also saw the highest number of vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices this year that were both found and cleared, and t! hose that were detonated,” Caldwell said. “The number of IEDs, or improvised explosive devices, is also at an all-time high.”…
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Shiite Militias: Palestinians in Baghdad must leave in 72 hour
Roads to Iraq
Quds Press reported that Shiite militias threat Palestinian families living in Baghdad, a 72 hour to leave “ or to be subjected to burning and killing.” Residents in the “Siha” neighborhood said that leaflets were distributed on the Palestinians homes, threaten them with death and burning unless they leave Baghdad within 72 hours. Sources confirmed that these leaflets distributed in curfew time, which was imposed on Baghdad since Friday ! evening until Sunday morning…
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Report: Baghdad Hospitals Are Killing Zones
Intelligence Seen By CBS News Says Hospitals Are Command Centers For Shiite Militia
CBS News
…But a hospital worker says Mahdi Army spies are everywhere, and would only talk with both face and voice masked. “A man was bringing his murdered brother to the morgue. They asked him if he knew who the killers were and he said ‘yes.’ They shot him right there,” she says. More than 80 percent of the original doctors and staff where she works are gone, replaced by S! hia supporters of the Mahdi Army. “It’s going to get worse because there is no control and no accountability,” the hospital worker adds. “No one can stop them. They are terrified… No one will be safe. There will be destruction. Complete destruction is what we are watching with our own eyes and it’s getting worse.” In burial, the victims of Iraq’s sectarian slaughter still have no names, only a number on an anonymous grave marker. And with neither the Iraqi government nor the U.S. willing to act, the numbers keep climbing…
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U.S. Building Sunni Militias?
Robert Dreyfuss
Dahr Jamail, an independent journalist in Iraq writing for Antiwar.com, reports on a new development in Iraq, namely, that the U.S. armed forces are arming and training Sunni militias. If true, it’s a stunning new error, compounding past ones (disbanding the army, banning the Baath, empowering the religious Shiites, etc.).e. It’s a signal, and a dangerous one, that wittingly or unwittingly the United States is prepping Iraq for a much more violent civil war than the o! ne that already exists…
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Iraqi resistance leaves Bush isolated
Yet Congress votes 100-0 to fund war— Only the people united can bring the troops home
Fred Goldstein
Federal budgets are among the most political of documents. The recent passage by the U.S. Senate of a record U.S. military budget of $447 billion, including a $70 billion “bridge” fund for the next six months of bloody occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, is a profound political statement about the underlying politics of both parties of big business in the U.S. The! vote was 100 to 0. This is not just about the politics of the Republicans and the Democrats. The Senate is a millionaires’ club. Its members are well connected to the corporate and financial establishment. As such it is as good a representation of ruling-class political sentiment in this country as you can get—particularly when there is complete unanimity…
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Israelis Crank Up Volume on Total War Mantra
Kurt Nimmo
According to the doddering ruin of a Labor (now Kadima) Zionist, Shimon Peres, speaking from Berlin, “the international community must adopt an aggressive stance against Iran,” as the neocon-infested Jerusalem Post reports. In other words, the international community, not suffering a threat by Iran, or likely to face one in the foreseeable future, must do the war crime bidding of the perfidious neocons and the Jabotinskyite Zionists in Israel. “Iran seeks an! nuclear bomb, although it already has a human bomb in the image of Ahmadinejad,” declared the senile statesman.
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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 4 October 2006
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice
…In a dispatch posted at 11:10pm Makkah time Wednesday night, Mafkarat al-Islam reported that residents of al-Miqdadiyah, about 85km northeast of Baghdad denied a report issued by the puppet police that 11 Arab volunteer Resistance fighters had been arrested in the city. The correspondent for Mafkarat al-Islam reported that the puppet regime’s official “al! -’Iraqiyah” TV station broadcast the claim in a “bulletin” on Wednesday afternoon, saying that the puppet police and tribes had arrested 11 “Arab gunmen,” nine of them supposedly Syrian, one of them Saudi, and one other Yemeni. The arrest supposedly took place in the at-Tayih wa-az-Zawr district of al-Miqdadiyah. But the Mafkarat al-Islam correspondent in al-Miqdadiyah reported eyewitnesses as denying the claim and saying that 34 people were in fact arrested in that area, but all of them were Iraqis…
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Toxic water pollutes Tigris river north of Baghdad
Xinhua
Toxic water in the Tigris river killed thousands of fish and birds in Iraq’s Salahudin province, local police told Xinhua on Wednesday. Residents of Beiji town, 200 km north of Baghdad, said they saw a large number of dead fish floating on the Tigris and hundreds of birds dead for unknown reason since early in the morning, the source said. “Police stations all over the province reported that an unknown toxic water could be the reason behind the death of th! e fish and the birds,” he said, adding that police vehicles called on the people of Beiji by loudspeakers to stop using the water until further notice…
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Child abuse
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
George Bush says about Rep. Mark Foley, “I was dismayed and shocked to learn about Congressman Foley’s unacceptable behavior. I was disgusted by the revelations.” In Iraq and Afghanistan, George Bush & Co. have committed the ultimate in child abuse, committing the outright murder of thousands of them and being directly responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands more. Is George Bush “dismayed, shocked, and digusted” by that behavior? No, he’s proud of it. Has he ev! er even mentioned the brutal, shocking (if one can be shocked by anything U.S. troops do in Iraq) rape and murder of 14-year-old Abir al-Janabi and the simultanous murder of several of her family members? A search of the White House website says the answer is no…
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Awaiting the Rebellion
Fred Reed
When, one wonders, will mutiny begin among the troops in Iraq? Recently I talked by email about the war with Jim Coyne, an airborne-infantry friend who served two tours as a gunship door-gunner in Viet Nam and then made a career in journalism. I asked, “Do they [I meant the officer corps, the official military] actually believe the optimistic twaddle this time around? Do they really not know what is happening?” Jim’s response: “In my opinion, they really don’t know; they may not e! ven want to know on some level. You know as well as I, these are mission-oriented folks; can do folks; failure and its introspective handmaidens are not options to them. And in a tactical mission-oriented world our military doesn’t really fail very often; in a strategic military/political world such as the Mideast and Iraq, however, we simply cannot win…
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Iraq’s universities and schools near collapse as teachers and pupils flee
Peter Beaumont, The Guardian
Iraq’s school and university system is in danger of collapse in large areas of the country as pupils and teachers take flight in the face of threats of violence. Professors and parents have told the Guardian they no longer feel safe to attend their educational institutions. In some schools and colleges, up to half the staff have fled abroad, resigned or applied to go on prolonged vacation, and class sizes have a! lso dropped by up to half in the areas that are the worst affected. Professionals in higher education, particularly those teaching the sciences and in health, have been targeted for assassination. Universities from Basra in the south to Kirkuk and Mosul in the north have been infiltrated by militia organisations, while the same militias from Islamic organisations regularly intimidate female students at the school and university gates for failing to wear the hijab. Women teachers have been ordered by their ministry to adopt Islamic codes of clothing and behaviour…
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Britain: Observer claims threats by Washington prompted Heathrow terror raids
Julie Hyland, GlobalResearch.ca
On Sunday, October 1, the Observer newspaper revealed that the August 10 terror scare at Heathrow airport was triggered by the decision of US intelligence “to seize the key suspect in the UK’s biggest ever anti-terrorism operation and fly him to a secret detention centre for interrogation by American agents.” The newspaper, which states that the information came from a “senior intelligence source,” explai! ns: “American intelligence agents told their British counterparts they were ready to ‘render’ Rashid Rauf, a British citizen allegedly linked to Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and who was under surveillance in Pakistan, unless he was picked up immediately.”…
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Why does Thailand have all the Luck?
MIKE WHITNEY
About 2 weeks ago, 10 Soviet-era tanks clanked-along the main thoroughfare in downtown Bangkok and stopped in front of the Presidential Palace. Once the palace had been completely surrounded it was stormed by a contingent of fully-armed Thai regulars who secured the grounds while the Thai generals looked on impassively. General Sonthi Tinsulanond took control of the country, with the tacit approval of the King, and quickly repealed the constitution, dismissed the ! parliament, and forbid any public demonstrations of support for the former regime. In less than an hour, the government of Prime Minister Thanskin Shinawatra was toppled in a perfectly executed, bloodless coup. Are we there yet? Would it really be that dreadful if a similar drama unfolded in Washington DC? Imagine the Abrams tanks and Humvees trundling down Pennsylvania Ave; knocking down the flimsy roadblocks and wrought-iron fencing, and plopping down on the White House lawn waiting for a white flag to emerge from a window in the Oval Office…
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Four US soldiers killed in Iraq
BBC
Four US soldiers have been killed in an attack in north-west Baghdad, the US military said. It said gunmen used “indirect and small arms fire” to attack the patrol early on Wednesday. The violence comes a day after two other US soldiers died in Iraq – one in Baghdad and another in the northern city of Kirkuk. The latest deaths bring to 21 the number of Americans killed in combat since Saturday…
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IRAQ DESCENDING INTO ABYSS
Friendship Across Frontiers (FAF)
It has become evidently clear from the emergence of various credible reports and studies that the occupation of Iraq has failed to establish a democracy: A secure, fair and just country. Indeed the present level of lawlessness is a true reflection of the occupier and the failure of the Iraqis who are in Government to provide at the minimum basic Human Rights. The Iraqi people have endured tremendous economical, social and environmental hardship. Thei! r children are traumatised, confined and lacking in basic education and care. Professionals and the achiever sector are desperate to seek refuge. In fact, if the occupation is to continue then the future is bleak. The fallacy of dissension into “Civil War” is a creation by those in the Green Zone, foreign mercenaries and the armed militia. For ethnic/sectarian division is a phenomena introduced and indeed encouraged by the occupation…
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WAR NEWS FOR WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 04, 2006
Today in Iraq
Four mortars hit homes in an unidentified Sunni district in Baghdad, killing seven people and wounding 25. Two bombs exploded in front of industry minister Fawzi Al Hariri’s convoy killing three bodyguards, followed by a massive car bomb at a nearby automotive parts market that killed nine people and wounded 75. The minister was not in the convoy at the time of the attack. Iraqi security forces recovered 30 bodies in various Baghdad neighborhoods during a 24-! hour period that ended Tuesday morning. Some of the bodies showed signs of torture…
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America’s Collective Delusion Must Endure:
Domestic Genocide of an Economic Nature
Jason Miller
Accomplishing a logic-defying feat, the wealthiest nation in the world has “attained” the highest rate of homelessness amongst developed countries. 3.5 million human beings experience homelessness each year in the United States. Almost a million are homeless every night. In the most heavily militarized nation in the history of the human race, 30% of its homeless men are military veterans (2). What happened ! to “support the troops”? Obviously once military personnel return home, the slogan changes to “good riddance to bad rubbish”…
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Iran: The Unthinkable War
Part Two: Iraq, Iran, and “Weapons of Mass Destruction”
Juan Santos, www.dissidentvoice.org
Democrats and Republicans alike claim that Iran is a “terrorist state,” one that can’t be allowed to possess nuclear weapons. But there is no evidence that Iran is developing a nuclear weapon, any more than there was any proof that Iraq was developing one. Military sources told journalist Seymour Hersh that the U.S. has no proof at all that Iran is developing nuclear arms. Hersh has sa! id that, “The intelligence services of the United States, Great Britain, France, Germany, and even Israel, have been unable to come up with any specific evidence of what’s known as a parallel or secret weapons program inside Iran.”…
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Iraq police brigade linked to death squads
Middle East Online
Iraq has demobilised an entire Baghdad police brigade accused of complicity with sectarian death squads and moved it to a US military base for retraining, a spokesman for US forces said Wednesday. “There was clear evidence that there was some complicity in allowing death squad elements to move freely, when in fact they were supposed to be impeding their movement,” Major General William Caldwell told reporters. “It was realised that removing them from B! aghdad would, in fact, enhance security,” he said about the 8th Brigade of the 2nd Division of the Iraqi National Police, which numbers between 800 and 1,200 officers…
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Saddam verdict will not be delivered on Oct 16
AFP
The verdict in the first trial of Saddam Hussein for crimes against humanity will not be issued as expected on October 16, the chief prosecutor said on Tuesday. The session on that date will instead see the presentation of more defence arguments, prosecutor Jaafar al-Mussawi said (…) “In fact, when the Dujail trial was adjourned to this date it was to study the file and the proceedings, it was never meant to be the date for issuing the verdict,” Mussawi said..! .
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New definition of terrorism
Joseph Cannon, Cannonfire
Now, members of the ASPCA — I’m not kidding: The ASPCA — may stand accused of terrorism. H.R. 4239, the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act (AETA), is a bill that could make it a crime punishable by imprisonment to cause any business classified as an “animal enterprise” to suffer a loss of profit—even if the company’s financial decline is the result of legal activities, such as peaceful protests, consumer boycotts or media campaigns. The term “animal enterprise! “ would include manufacturers, distributors and sellers of animals or animal products, research facilities, pet stores, breeders, zoos, rodeos, circuses, and animal shelters and the like…
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