Iraq is still the issue – Part 1: Waiting for the partition
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
The brave boys and girls in Amerikan uniform did it again. This time, flying their fat asses on helicopters and fighter jets, they bombed the suburb east of Baghdad Madinat al-Thawra (City of the Revolution), now known as Madinat al-Sadr (Sadr City) (…)A few weeks ago Scott Ritter wrote an interesting analysis on the priorities of the US anti-war movement, Iraq Will Have to Wait (…) Of the two problems (the reality of Iraq, the potential of Iran), Iran is by far the more important. (…) The antiwar movement in America must make a strategic decision, and soon: Contain the war in Iraq, and stop a war from breaking out in Iran. (…) Of course Iraq has been “waiting for” since 1991, when the first Anglo-American war of aggression against that country violated the Geneva Conventions and other international covenants all around (that means massive war crimes and crimes against humanity against the people of Iraq). Ritter certainly knows all this very well: at the time he was a Marine Corps intelligence officer and served as a ballistic missile advisor to Stormin’ Norman, General Norman Schwarzkopf, the commander of the so-called Coalition Forces in that war. In Iraq Will Have to Wait, Scott Ritter writes, “The war in Iraq can be contained simply by letting war be war.” I don’t have any qualifications to write about war containments and other war strategies, let alone the Ritter’s qualifications above. But I wonder the mean! ing of t he word “containment” for a war of aggression (the supreme international crime) that’s already resulted in the deaths of 1.2 million of human beings, 4.2 million refugees and the complete annihilation of that country….

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Action Alert: e-mail to Sweeden’s Government on Stockholm’s migration court’s ruling about Iraqi asylum seeker
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
Dear friends, Stockholm’s migration court has ruled authorities are legally entitled to return an asylum seeker to Baghdad, arguing the situation there does not constitue armed conflict. The 51 year-old man is to appeal the ruling to Sweden’s highest migration court. Please, find below an email I sent to the Prime Minister of Sweeden and the Sweeden’s Minister for Justice, Minister for Migration and Asylum Policy, Minister for EU Affairs and Minister for Foreign Affairs….

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* * * NOT SATIRE * * *
Baghdad not under armed conflict: court
Sveriges Radio
The court’s ruling in the test case upholds an earlier decision by Sweden’s Migration Board. Explaining the court’s line, officials said while militias, terrorist groups and criminality were common, there was no organised resistance movement, and as such, there was no legally defined war in the Iraqi capital. The court said people would have to show they were at risk from specific personal attack in Baghdad to avoid being sent there. In its ruling the court referred to a recent report by US General Petreus, which states the number of fatalities in Baghdad has fallen in the past six months….

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Hamas: Palestinian people victim of genocide, world should move to save them
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement on Monday called on the world community to step in and save the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip from a systematic Israeli genocide that started with the tight blockade imposed on it more than 16 months ago. Sami Abu Zuhri, a spokesman for the Movement in Gaza, warned that the humanitarian conditions in the Strip were rapidly deteriorating due to the tight siege. He said that goods started to disappear from shelves in the markets and medical supplies were running out of stock to the extent that some urgent surgeries were delayed due to the lack of anesthetics…

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Israeli soldiers carry out “Nazi repression” against Prisoners at Kitziot
From Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
Crack Israeli soldiers on Monday ganged up on hundreds of helpless Palestinian detainees, beating them with plastic clubs and rifle butts, and showering them with rubber-coated bullets and tear-gas grenades, causing several critical injuries among the detainees. The “Gestapo-like assault,” using the words of one of the detainees, occurred early Monday at the notorious Kitziot detention camp in the heart of the Negev desert where 2300 Palestinian political prisoners are detained in extremely harsh conditions….

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Bloggers Without Borders…
Riverbend, Baghdad Burning
…Within a month of our being here, we began hearing talk about Syria requiring visas from Iraqis, like most other countries. Apparently, our esteemed puppets in power met with Syrian and Jordanian authorities and decided they wanted to take away the last two safe havens remaining for Iraqis- Damascus and Amman. The talk began in late August and was only talk until recently- early October. Iraqis entering Syria now need a visa from the Syrian consulate or embassy in the country they are currently in. In the case of Iraqis still in Iraq, it is said that an approval from the Ministry of Interior is also required (which kind of makes it difficult for people running away from militias OF the Ministry of Interior…). Today, there’s talk of a possible fifty dollar visa at the border…

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Caretaker govt warns of medical disaster in Gaza
Palestinian Information Center
The caretaker government headed by Ismail Haneyya has warned of a medical catastrophe that could endanger the lives of Palestinian patients after the closure of all operating rooms at the Shifa hospital in Gaza because of the depletion of nitrose gas used in anesthetizing patients before undergoing surgeries. The warning came after the Palestinian health ministry announced on Sunday the closure of operating rooms in the Shifa hospital as well as medical centers in the Gaza Strip after the nitrose gas depleted and the IOA deliberately stopped to supply Gaza with this gas….

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Confusion reigns over Turkey truce
Aljazeera.net
Kurdish fighters based in northern Iraq have denied reports of offering a ceasefire if Turkey abandons plans to launch cross-border raids against them.
A statement on a PKK website had said earlier that the fighters were “ready for a ceasefire if the Turkish army stops attacking our positions, drops plans for an incursion and resorts to peace”. But Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel Hamid reporting from northern Iraq said PKK fighters based in the region were not confirming the ceasefire offer….

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US secretary of state seeks to impose Israeli diktats on Palestinians
Chris Marsden, WSWS
United States Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was busy “lowering expectations” after her five-day tour of the Middle East. In truth, Israel had its expectations fully realised, and, amongst the Palestinians, only the Abbas regime would have entertained any other outcome. Last week’s tour was to promote and prepare for President Bush’s planned Middle East summit in Maryland late November. By the end of the week, Rice was denying that the summit had been postponed until December, because no invitations had been sent yet….

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Mission Accomplished: A New Look at Bush’s Victory in Iraq
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
In the latest London Review of Books, Jim Holt provides a cogent, powerful account of a theme we have been sounding here for years; i.e., that the Iraq War has actually been a resounding success for the Bush Faction (and the various elites it represents and embodies). The Bushists have achieved almost all of their initial war aims and are now set to reap a windfall of up to $30 trillion that will maintain the American elite’s whip-hand over the world for generations to come. And all it cost was a measly $1 trillion in taxpayer money, a few thousand pieces of lower-class cannon fodder from the U.S. military – and the lives of hundreds of thousands of innocent people in Iraq: an excellent return on investment for Bush-Cheney Inc. and their cronies….

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It’s Time to Build Hope!
Hussein Al-alak, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign
It is with enthusiasm that the Iraq Solidarity Campaign welcomes the initiative by An-Najah University in Palestine, with the announcement of their 2008 international summer camp “Hope for Tomorrow”. The aim of the international summer camp, will be to bring 25 young people together from around the world, who are interested in helping to build a better environment by involving themselves in life within Palestine. An-Najah University is inviting young people from various backgrounds to get involved and feel that “Hope for Tomorrow” would be of particular benefit to university students, youth organizations and campaigns, which address issues of concern for global humanity and social justice….

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Junblatt role in dividing the Middle East and the Iraqi Kurdish mercenaries in Lebanon
Roads to Iraq
No wonder that Junblatt was invited to the US [his name is JuNblatt and not JuMblatt, you idiots], since he is just like American politicians; a professional crook (…) Criticizing Junblatt by the Egyptian newspaper al-araby it says: Junblatt role in dividing Lebanon In his visits to Washington, Junblatt knows that there are manoeuvres in the American establishments, both Republicans and Democrats believe that dividing the region [Middle East] into sectarian cantons is is the best way to emerge from the Middle east and Iraq quagmire. Whatever the outcome from these divisions, Junblatt knows that in all scenarios he will be a winner….

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Purported new bin Laden audio airs
CNN
Al-Jazeera broadcast Monday an audio message purportedly from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden calling on al Qaeda and other groups in Iraq to unify their forces and speak with one voice, that of the Islamic nation. The Arabic-language broadcaster said the tape was titled “Letter to the People of Iraq.” The message includes no dated references, making it impossible to determine when it was taped based on its contents. In the message, bin Laden calls on his followers to be loyal to the Islamic nation, not to individual leaders, groups, tribes or countries….

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Egyptian paper: Dahalan conspires to overthrow Abbas, take control of Fatah
Palestinian Information Center
The Cairo-based Al-Mesreyyoon (the Egyptians) newspaper has unveiled serious information received by the Egyptian leadership revealing that Fatah MP Mohammed Dahalan was instigating Fatah leaders in the West Bank to oust PA chief and Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas. Dahalan is believed to be the leader and financier of the mutiny trend within Fatah Movement that sabotaged stability and security in the PA-controlled lands, particularly in Gaza Strip, before fighters of Hamas Movement defeated them and forced leaders of that trend to flee Gaza last June….

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Study: Arabs excluded from Israeli media
ynetnews.com
New study finds Israeli-Arabs, who make up 20% of the Israeli population, are practically absent from TV screens, airwaves. Furthermore, media outlets very rarely employ Arabs workers. While Israeli-Arabs make up 19% of the population, their representation in the media stands at only 1%, a report published by Agenda, The Israeli Center for Strategic Communication, revealed Sunday….

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Palestinian child dies of wounds sustained during Israeli invasion of Tulkarem
Nisreen Qumsieh – IMEMC News
Zein Mare’y, aged eight-years-old, on Monday morning died of wounds sustained during an Israeli army invasion of the northern West Bank city of Tulkarem on Friday night. The girl was injured when invading forces apparently randomly opened fire, shooting the child in the head as she stood by a park in the south of the city. In the aftermath of the attack, the girl was transferred to a hospital in Jerusalem for urgent medical treatment. Her death was announced in the early hours of Monday morning….

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Kelly disinformation
Xymphora
Be careful of a clever disinformation campaign being created around the murder of David Kelly. From The Independent, on Norman Baker’s recent revelations: “The MP alleges that opponents of Saddam Hussein feared Dr Kelly would ‘discredit’ them by revealing ‘misinformation’ they had planted to bolster the case for British and American intervention in Iraq.”(…) This makes no sense, as Kelly was murdered after the American attack on Iraq. Iraqi opponents of Saddam had no reason to fear discrediting, as they were not the ones identified with the lying campaign of the British and American governments (and why would they care about discrediting anyway, especially after they got their war?). The only people who would be directly affected by anything that Kelly might have said would be the parties who crafted the lies used to justify the attack, those two governments…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 21 October 2007.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
…In a dispatch posted at 12:41pm Baghdad time Sunday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that the American military admitted belatedly that one more of its soldiers had been killed and eight more of them wounded when a bomb exploded by a US patrol on Thursday, 18 October. The AMSI reported the US statement as saying that the bomb targeted a US patrol in eastern Baghdad and added that six of the wounded soldiers were treated and later returned to duty….

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Turkish troops, weapons head toward Iraq
VOLKAN SARISAKAL, Associated Press Writer
Dozens of Turkish military vehicles loaded with soldiers and heavy weapons rumbled toward the Iraq border on Monday after an ambush by guerrilla Kurds that left eight soldiers missing and killed 12. Iraq’s president said the rebels would announce a cease-fire, his office confirmed. Turkey’s military said it had had no contact with the eight soldiers after Sunday’s clash and said 34 guerrillas had been killed so far in a counteroffensive. A pro-Kurdish news agency said the eight were captured — a claim that would make it the largest seizure since 1995, when guerrillas grabbed eight soldiers and took them to northern Iraq….

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War News for Monday, October 22, 2007
Iraq today
The DoD is announcing a new death, not previously reported by CENTCOM. U.S. Marine Corporal Erik T. Garoutte, 22, of Santee, California, died in Baghdad on Friday, October 19th. The DoD release did not give a cause of death, saying only that he was assigned to 1st Fleet Anti-terrorism Security Team Company based out of Norfolk, VA. The first explosion on Monday occurred about 8:45 a.m. when a bomb exploded in a square frequented by municipal workers from a nearby building in the mainly Shiite neighborhood of Zafaraniyah in southeastern Baghdad. Within minutes, another blast struck police arriving at the scene to help with rescue efforts. In all, three civilians were killed and 11 people wounded, including four policemen, in the blasts, police said….

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2 US sailors shot to death in Bahrain
ANNA JOHNSON, Associated Press Writer
A U.S. Navy sailor allegedly shot and killed two female sailors early Monday in the barracks of a American military base in Bahrain, a Navy official said. The alleged shooter, a male, was critically wounded in the shooting at the U.S. Naval Support Activity Bahrain base, said the Navy official, who was not authorized to release the information to the media and spoke on condition of anonymity. The official did not say if the alleged shooter shot himself or if anyone else was involved, but the Navy said the shooting was not terror related and only involved U.S. military personnel….

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Photo Gallery
Scores killed in US Iraq raid: Women and children among victims of air strike targeting “criminals” in Sadr City.
Aljazeera.net
A raid in Baghdad has killed 49 people, according to the US military. The deaths took place in an early morning operation in Sadr City on Sunday, “targeting criminals believed to be responsible for the kidnapping of coalition soldiers in November 2006 and May 2007", a US military statement said (…) James Bays, Al Jazeera’s correspondent in Baghdad said that although the US claimed all the victims were “criminals”, some of those killed were clearly civilians. A television cameraman has filmed bodies of dead children, he said. Iraqi police and hospital officials said US helicopters and fighter jets bombed buildings during the 5am raid in the district. Several houses and stores were damaged. Clouds of black smoke rose from the area early on Sunday as sirens wailed, heavy gunfire echoed and US helicopters circled overhead, Reuters television footage showed…

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A perfect Baby formula
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
… A series of pictures, or should I call them your trophies, or maybe the remains of your today’s meal, have appeared following your aerial bombardment of Madinat Al Thawra now baptized Sadr city. Many toddlers in these pictures, blown to pieces…and a few youngsters, blown to pieces too and a few adults blown to pieces, as well… Charred and barbequed, just the way you like ‘em. So what was it, rare to medium rare or well done ? I also could not help but notice, how very thin, wasted and washed out these bodies both alive and dead are…How emaciated they are…Rags dolls for your brave, healthy children. I honestly have no more words. All the insults, slurs in the world are not enough for you…Nothing is enough for you. Nothing at all. Everyday, under the pretext of either Al Qaeda, insurgents, militants, or whatever imaginary name you coined, you have not ceased, not even for one day, slaughtering our innocents. For 4 years, you have not ceased for one single day. Not during holiday periods, not during religious celebrations, not even during the day your so called God was born…if you have a God that is. I think Jesus is weeping blood. Our blood. Shameless, primitive, repugnant, monstruous, abject things that you are. These pictures were made available because the so called “Iraqi” sectarian government that you put into power found it necessary to make them available precisely because of its sectarianism. However, many other air raids of yours have gone unreported with no pictu! res, bec ause they fell in non shia areas. I can give you the names of Sayediya, Amel, Fadil, Adhamiya, Almeriya….where the air raids were not even mentioned…and where the dead were silently buried without even a sound…

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David Horowitz Can’t Handle the Truth
Sunsara Taylor
“Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” Must Be Exposed! David Horowitz has a long and scurrilous track record of blatant racism, politically driven witch-hunts in academia, and constantly spewing out bald-faced lies. All of this is being ratcheted up to new levels in his upcoming “Islamo-Fascism Awareness” (IFAW). To let the lies of “IFAW” stand unexposed and unopposed would be a grave mistake with lasting consequences (…) Let’s look at what Horowitz claims is his major objective of the week: to oppose the oppression of women under “Islamo-Fascism.” In fact, everything Horowitz is doing will contribute to strengthening the oppression of women here and all over the world. A look at the line up of speakers he is dispatching for his “Islamo-Fascism Awareness Week” is the first sign of the level of Horowitz’s hypocrisy (…) Further, Horowitz’s claim that U.S. aggression in the Middle East is good for women is a LIE. By attempting to force people to align with or at least be cowed into going along with the “War on Terror,” Horowitz will not only be green-lighting further war crimes and crimes against humanity being commit in these wars, he will be strengthening the forces oppressing women in the Middle East. This has been well-documented in Iraq where the U.S.-installed puppet government wrote a Constitution that established Islam as the official religion, moved marriages and divorces from civil courts to the domain of the clerics, and removed women’s right to child custody after divorces….!

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Legal center: 360 children imprisoned in Israeli jails
Palestinian Information Center
The prisoners’ studies center has confirmed that the IOA is detaining 360 Palestinian children below 18 years of age in its jails, pointing out that most of them are imprisoned in the juvenile section at the Israeli Hasharon prison. “The policy pursued by Israel against the Palestinian children detained in its jails is completely incompatible with the international law which stipulates the protection of juveniles deprived of their liberty, as the Israeli laws in the occupied Palestinian lands deny the Palestinian children any special treatment,” the prisoners’ center stated in a report received by the PIC….

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Gaza hospital to stop surgery as runs out of gas
Reuters
A Palestinian health official said on Sunday Gaza’s main hospital would be forced to stop surgery because Israel had banned imports of anaesthetic gas, but Israel said it had not blocked medical supplies. Khaled Radi, spokesman of the Hamas-run ministry of health in the Gaza Strip, said Israel had told the company that imports hospital supplies into Gaza it would not supply the gas, which is needed to conduct surgery. He said the hospital had barely two canisters of gas left and would have to halt surgery soon. “This is a crime against humanity. Israel is killing patients, including women and children,” Radi said…

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Enough is enough
Khalid Amayreh
As Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abbas continues to bask in his eternal “optimism,” about the nearness of peace with Israel , Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has stressed that the putative Annapolis “Peace” conference will not lead to any breakthrough toward ending decades of the Nazi-like Israeli occupation of the Palestinian homeland. Olmert reportedly assured a number of his fascist-minded ministers, who call for expulsion or enslavement of non-Jews in Israel and the occupied territories, that he wouldn’t allow the conference to discuss the “core issues” of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict. The core issues include the right of return, Jerusalem and Jewish colonies built on stolen Arab land….

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A catalogue of abuse
Political leaders as much as military bosses need to face up to our brutal detention policy in Iraq
Phil Shiner, The Guardian
What will it take for our government to face the awful facts of British detention policy in Iraq? Evidence now publicly available proves that UK forces had a systematic policy that led to the execution of scores of Iraqis in detention, and the torture of countless more. But most people remain blissfully unaware of the truth, while the government chooses to ignore it (…) Our current detention policy includes the reintroduction of the five techniques banned by the Heath government in 1972: hooding, stressing, sleep and food deprivation, and noise. These techniques are a direct breach of the Geneva conventions and the UN convention against torture. But worse still, the evidence suggests a catalogue of abuse: first, that soldiers had earlier executed Iraqis in front of a number of witnesses; second, some of them were executed by shooting at close range or strangulation; third, many of the bodies show clear evidence of torture; fourth, bodies had been mutilated with eyes gouged out, and multiple stab wounds and body parts severed (including a penis); and fifth, trained Iraqi medical operatives attest that many of the wounds were fresh and that deaths had occurred just before the bodies were returned…

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Israeli National Bank to PA, “Your money’s no good here”
Peacepalestine
Just when they can’t seem to dream up more abuse for Palestinians, the Israelis outdo themselves. As reported (in Hebrew only) on Ynet, starting 1 November, the Central Bank will stop honouring payments in New Israeli Shekels from the Palestinian Authority. This means that all non-Jewish residents of the West Bank will not be able to honour their payments for goods and services. In other words, economic strangulation that cuts them off from any kind of normal existence. According to Gilad Atzmon, who told me about it: “this is the most radical form of oppression, it means Palestinians cannot even use money, they are denied civilisation.”….

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Letting slip the drugs of war
Is the CIA helping itself to the Afghan heroin harvest?
Nick Possum
No names, no pack drill, like we used to say in the army, but I had a client who wanted me to look into some aspects of the world heroin trade. I googled a bit, and made a few phone calls and began to have disturbing suspicions. Since the fall of the Taliban regime, which had seriously honoured an agreement to close down the trade, heroin production in Afghanistan has surged. In 2006 there was a 50 per cent increase in the poppy harvest and it created a new record for world production, my contact in the UN Office on Drugs and Crime told me. Afghanistan now accounts for 92 per cent of the world’s illicit production. She expected it would take another leap upwards this year. So where is the stuff ending up? So far, not in Australia, but that’s only a matter of time. Once again, the streets of Western Europe and Russia are awash with the stuff and that fact got me thinking about the CIA….

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* * * NOT SATIRE * * *
Baghdad not under armed conflict: court
Sveriges Radio
The court’s ruling in the test case upholds an earlier decision by Sweden’s Migration Board. Explaining the court’s line, officials said while militias, terrorist groups and criminality were common, there was no organised resistance movement, and as such, there was no legally defined war in the Iraqi capital. The court said people would have to show they were at risk from specific personal attack in Baghdad to avoid being sent there. In its ruling the court referred to a recent report by US General Petreus, which states the number of fatalities in Baghdad has fallen in the past six months….

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Another top Iraqi scientist killed
Zuhair al-Laithi, Azzaman
Unidentified gunmen have silenced another top Iraqi scientist, the Ministry of Higher Education and Scientific Research has said. In a statement, the ministry said Dr. Mohammed al-Attabi was first kidnapped and taken to an undisclosed location. “His bullet-ridden body was found two days later dumped on a street in the Ur District of Baghdad,” the statement said. Attabi, the police say, was abducted from his house in Baghdad. Attabi’s murder comes amid an intensified campaign to liquidate Iraqi university professors and other scientists….

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Robot Warriors In Iraq
CBS
The sniper nests and IED-laced roads of Iraq have posed deadly challenges for the U.S. military. The result has been speedy development of soldiers that know nothing about fear or danger: the combat robot. “It’s a tremendous capability to put a robot where you do not want to put a man,” said Jim Braden, of the Army’s Joint Robotics Program. Never before have robots played such a wide role in a ground war, reports CBS News correspondent Russ Mitchell. Five thousand robots are working alongside U.S. forces, finding booby traps or searching for the enemy…

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Comcast blocks some Internet traffic
Tests confirm data discrimination by number 2 U.S. service provider
Peter Svensson, The Associated Press
Comcast Corp. actively interferes with attempts by some of its high-speed Internet subscribers to share files online, a move that runs counter to the tradition of treating all types of Net traffic equally. The interference, which The Associated Press confirmed through nationwide tests, is the most drastic example yet of data discrimination by a U.S. Internet service provider. It involves company computers masquerading as those of its users (…) Free Press, a Washington-based public interest group that advocates Net Neutrality, opposes the kind of filtering applied by Comcast. “We don’t believe that any Internet provider should be able to discriminate, block or impair their consumers ability to send or receive legal content over the Internet,” said Free Press spokeswoman Jen Howard….

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SELF-CENSORSHIP OR LOBBY INTIMIDATION?
Peter Chamberlin
When I submitted my last article for publication, I discovered a censorship problem that I had never encountered before. The article that I submitted to a site that used AOL email, kept bouncing back, citing a reference within it for a “permanent failure” message. The cited URL www.geocities.com/Athens/Cyprus/8815/Khazars.html was for a document that debunked anti-Semitic disinformation. The bounced mail notice claimed that the censoring was for: “generating substantial complaints from AOL members. AOL blocks emails that contain domains that may have been previously used to send unsolicited email or inappropriate content…These blocks mainly target clickable links, but may also block non-clickable domains.” I could not understand why this material was banned. As I began to research the site, I came across this information on “GeoCities” on the Anti-Defamation League site: “GeoCities…refuses to host hate sites…GeoCities, a subsidiary of Yahoo! Inc., prohibits providing material that is grossly offensive to the online community, including blatant expressions of bigotry, prejudice, racism, hatred or excessive profanity.” So, it was not the site, it was the content, even though it was anti-anti-Semitic. I also learned that the ADL is at the forefront of the movement to regulate information on the Internet which they deem offensive. They have developed a “hate filter,” which they market to Internet ! provider s, originally under the guise of censoring content for children. “The ADL filter bans sites that preach anti-Semitism, racism, homophobia and other forms of bigotry.” Since the ADL is one of the primary lobbyists for Israeli causes, I was left with the probability that the information was banned because of complaints that the material offended the pro-Israel lobby, because it did not reflect their position on this topic…

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Turkey bombards northern Iraq after ambush
Michael Howard, Guadian
The prospect of a Turkish invasion of northern Iraq in pursuit of fighters of the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) drew closer today after another round of clashes in the mountainous frontier region that left at least 12 Turkish soldiers and 23 PKK guerillas dead, and saw a number of Turkish troops captured by the rebel group. The Turkish army stepped up its bombardment of the Iraqi side of the border after the rebels ambushed a military unit inside Turkey, hitting 11 different areas close to towns and villages, Kurdish officials said. In a separate incident in south-eastern Turkey, one person died and 17 were injured when their minibus was hit by a roadside bomb allegedly placed by the PKK….

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IRAQI AND NON-IRAQI INTELLECTUALS’ STATEMENT ON THE AMERICAN SENATE’S NON BINDING BILL CONCERNING IRAQ’S PARTITION CONSPIRACY
Al-moharer.net

Keeping watch over the continuing muddled American planning in Iraq and the abysmal failure of The Occupation’s policies which are aimed at braking the Iraqi People, and the imposition of a de facto state of affairs on them, and in the process of searching for methods to save face, The American Senate has come out with a Bill which calls for the partition of Iraq on sectarian and racial bases, with a weak central government. The Bill, in reality, has been produced from many old Zionist plans in America and The West. The partition document whose maps were prepared 40 years ago… has been waved under Iraq’s nose on every occasion this country chose its independent and free policies; policies which express and reflect its national interests, and Baghdad’s firm stance in the face of the Zionist expansionist plan in the area, and its refusal of the oil companies’ monopolistic hegemony….

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Blind Dates…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Ok, let me try again. How many motherfuckers, Americans and various other nationalities did it take to turn our women into forced “ prostitutes” ? Are you shocked by the words “motherfucker” ? Everytime you “fuck” with one of us, you are a motherfucker… You are indeed fucking your own mother. Does not matter if she is 16 or 60. We are holders of that “essential knowledge” being the first and most likely the last around… And no, you know nothing about civilizations. You are too busy with “it”. But our women do…They know everything about it. They saw it. They saw civilization in pieces, reflected in your eyes, whilst you were doing your thing… and whilst they thought of their kids and the bare, empty, rotting, dining tables… Despite their heavy make-up. Despite their dancing around some cigar smoker, horizontally mustached Antar. Despite waiting for those 5 dollars bills falling in their lap after some “motherfucker” like yourself, has thrown it their way. WE hold that knowledge….

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Annexation Wall threatens olive harvest of A’neen village
Ali Samoudi – IMEMC News
Residents of the village of A’neen, located near the Green Line border between Israel and the West Bank, have expressed fear that their olive harvest will be lost after the annexation wall has prevented them from reaching their olive groves. A’neen is a small village located near the city of Jenin, in the northern part of the West Bank. The Israeli army has recently constructed the Annexation Wall on village-owned land, effectively annexing the villagers’ olive groves to Israeli territory. The villagers of A’neen, like many Palestinians, depend on the olive harvest as their sole or primary source of income. The olive trees have been passed through generations of Palestinian families for hundreds and even thousands of years in some cases….

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Occupation forces claim they killed terrorists ….and toddlers
Roads to Iraq
Actually this post is not about what the news reported today that US occupation forces killed two toddlers (as you can see in the image). Ansar Al-Sunna released a video about the occupation crimes in Diyala, interview with people who were killed by the occupiers. In the video a man says : Is this the democracy and freedom they promised? Other man: I want to warn all the Iraqis, if the Americans say they will search the houses for weapons and terrorists, then make sure that you take women and children away from the neighborhood, they are deliberately targeting them….

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News of the Day for Sunday, October 21, 2007
Iraq today
In three raids in Sadr City, U.S. claims to have killed 49 “criminals,” assisted by Polish helicopters. As usual, Iraqis say otherwise. Police and hospital sources say the dead include numerous non-combatants, including women and children. The U.S. military says it is “unaware of any civilian casualties.” This is getting extremely tiresome. Aswat al-Iraq has so far reported on only one of the raids. According to the Iraqi news service, while the U.S. claims that six “criminals” were killed in the raid, in fact 13 people were killed and more than 52 wounded, including, again, women and children. UK’s ITN says that two toddlers were among the dead…

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Hamas: Group of unruly elements trying to instigate riots in Gaza
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement on Sunday warned that a group of unruly elements were trying to re-instigate security chaos in the Gaza Strip through spurring disputes among various clans and factions. Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman in the Strip, said in a press release that Hamas welcomes the agreement signed last night between Hamas and Islamic Jihad following a family problem in Rafah.He said that a group of masked, armed young men fired at a Hamas cadre at dawn Sunday and when the Movement asked Islamic Jihad about the incident it denied any knowledge or involvement in the act….

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