“We Are Living Through Another Hiroshima,” Iraq Doctor Says
Sherwood Ross , Op Ed
…Scherrer writes, “In 1991 the DU ammunition was mainly used against Iraqi tanks in the desert near Basra, while in the present war DU is being used all over Iraq, even in densely populated areas including the heart of Baghdad, Mosul, Tikrit and other cities.” He adds that, based on IAEA estimates and his previous research, “the death toll may surpass a million deaths over the next few years, with more to follow!” Scherrer notes, incidentally, the UN’s Human Rights Commission back in 1996 declared DU a weapon of mass destruction(WMD) and that those who use it are guilty of a crime against humanity. Among its users: the first President Bush, President Bill Clinton, who irradiated the Balkans, and the current occupant of the White House (….) Al-Ali, who is also a member of England’s Royal Society of Physicians, is quoted in Feb. 5, 2001, “CounterPunch” as stating, “The desert dust carries death. Our studies indicate that more than 40% of the population around Basra will get cancer. We are living through another Hiroshima.”…Dr. Zenad Mohammed, employed in the maternity department of the Basra teaching hospital, said in the three-months beginning in August, 1998, 10 babies were born with no heads, eight with abnormally large heads and six with deformed limbs…

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Iraqis go home
Money in return for death. What a great deal.
Syria newswire
…Meanwhile, it’s also reported Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki is offering Iraqi refugees in Syria $1200 to return home. Who can refuse that kind of money. And more importantly, can they turn that money down when their families need it so badly. Many are living in a poverty they never knew they would face. Many spent their entire life savings to save up for the journey to Syria. Many risked their lives to make that journey. But if their children are starving in Syria, how about saying – I’ll take the money, travel to Iraq and get the first bus back. I’ll be back soon. Shame on Iraq, and on Syria for allowing this to happen….

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Occupying Justice
Kris Petersen
Writing about the serious flaws in American justice a la the “war on terror” is not especially easy. Where does one begin? From Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib to the secret CIA detention facilities scattered across Eastern Europe – there is surely an abundance of outraging cases of Orwellian malfeasance. One case in particular has been on my mind recently… In Iraq, an Associated Press (AP) photographer name Bilal Hussein has been in U.S. custody for the last 19 months. During this time, no charges were issued and only now has the United States even raised the issue of his possible prosecution for alleged links to terrorism. The evidence for these links, of course, is secret… and even the possible charges have yet to be clearly defined…

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ISRAEL ~~ PEACE OR ZIONISM
Desert Peace
As a Palestinian who has been living under the yoke of Israeli military occupation for over 39 years and who lost three innocent uncles to the occupation’s bullets, I should have no problems comparing Israel with Nazi Germany. It is true that Israel has not introduced gas chambers into Palestinian towns and villages. However, Israel has been killing and tormenting Palestinians non-stop in a variety of ways which, in their brutality and sheer evil, don’t really differ in substance from Nazi behaviour….

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Video: Palestinian children cut off from their homes
Sabbah’s blog
Video Transcript:
Cameraman: What are you doing here?
Girl: Going back home from school!
Cameraman: Where are you going now?
Girl: Home!
Cameraman: Where is your home?
Girl: Behind the Wall!
Boy: My home is behind this wall. We study at Bet Nabal!
Cameraman: What happened here today?
Boy: They closed the passage, we are not able to go through…

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Iraq: Children with serious illnesses abandoned
IRIN News
Nine-year-old Faleh Muhammad was abandoned by his family in April 2006. He was left to fend for himself in the streets of Baghdad, and later he was diagnosed with leukaemia. “I miss my mother. in the last days before they left me, she was very sad. One day I woke up in the morning to find my father and mother had disappeared,” Faleh said. “We were living in an abandoned building near Hay Jamia’a District with three other families. I asked them about my parents and they told me they had left. So I had to work to be able to eat because those families couldn’t feed me,” he said (…) The Iraqi Red Crescent (IRC) told IRIN the rise in the number of abandoned children was alarming, the result of sectarian violence and drastic socio-economic problems…

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Why AIPAC Took Over Brookings
Grant F. Smith, Dissident Voice
…WINEP’s role within the AIPAC power constellation is clear. While AIPAC lobbies with brute force for yearly aid allocations and enforces adherence to Israeli doctrine in Congress, WINEP polishes and shines Israeli policy objectives as pure expressions of US foreign policy interests. AIPAC is secretive about its internal deliberations and activities, but the highly sociable WINEP cultivates the image of a serious group of objective “scholars and wonks” deliberating Middle East policies in a rigorously academic fashion. WINEP not only hosts symposiums and conferences, but also conducts closed-door meetings with US politicians and distributes books and other publications rich in toned-down AIPAC ideology. While AIPAC officials are loath to do live media events, especially with call-in or other potentially interactive audience segments, WINEP analysts and authors are omnipresent across major news- and policy-oriented programs….

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Jerusalem’s Israeli mayor announces plan for annexation of East Jerusalem
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The Israeli mayor of Jerusalem (the city has two mayors: one Israeli, one Palestinian) Uri Lupolianski announced Wednesday that his municipal government would engage in a ‘development plan’ for East Jerusalem, a plan which Palestinian residents of Jerusalem claim is actually annexation of Palestinian land for Israel. Lupolianski presented the plan at a City Hall news conference Wednesday, stating that it is a ‘way to keep Jerusalem united’. His statement conveniently left out the fact that Jerusalem is, in fact, a city under Israeli military occupation since 1967…

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Barghouthi: Israel kidnaps more than it intends to release
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, a lawmaker and the secretary-general of the Palestinian national initiative, on Wednesday said that the IOA is exercising the policy of “revolving doors”, explaining that the number of Palestinian people kidnapped by its troops during the last two months was more than the number of prisoners it promised the PA to release. In a written statement, Barghouthi confirmed in another context that the Israeli occupation is distorting the truth and deceiving the world and the Palestinian people when talking about dismantling some settlement outposts, explaining that Israel is attempting to reintroduce the principle of “settlement freeze” through its speech about freezing all settlement construction while it had already established 200 settlement outposts in the Palestinian lands…

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PALESTINE ~~ PEACE OR STATEHOOD
A DesertPeace Editorial
Since the ‘creation’ of the State of Israel, there has been an ongoing debate in many circles, including the Knesset itself as to ‘Who Is A Jew’. To date, the disagreements outweigh the agreements on this issue. This debate has recently turned ugly as a former Chief Rabbi of Israel virtually called for a civil war against non orthodox factions of Judaism….

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Is the Ba’ath Party connected to the Islamic Army?
Roads to Iraq
…this year another “Islamic Army” representative “Al-Shimri” said in many interviews and statements: Islamic Army is not connected to Ba’ath Party, we have a different ideology To confirm what he said, Ba’ath Party criticized Al-Shimri saying: Ba’ath Party doesn’t need to use the Mujahdeen operations and claim them for himself, on the contrary Ba’ath Party with its experience can support the non-Ba’athist resistance faction…

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New Zionist plan to intensify judaization efforts of occupied Jerusalem
Palestinian Information Center
Israeli mayor of occupied Jerusalem Uri Lupolianski announced on Wednesday a plan to develop eastern Jerusalem, which was occupied in 1967, at a cost of 200 million dollars. The mayor told a press conference that the plan envisages preparing new development maps for the Old City of Jerusalem and a number of Arab suburbs. Implementing those development plans would enhance “unity of the city”, according to Lupolianski….

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A How-To Manual for Psychological Torture
Isolation Torture Routine at Guatánamo
STEPHEN SOLDZ
On November 7th of this year, a major 2003 Guantanamo Standard Operating Procedures [SOP] manual was posted on the wikileaks web site. Ignored by most major sources for nearly a week, Wired and the Miami Herald picked it up the following Wednesday [the Herald amplified their reporting the next day. Reuters, has picked up on the leak Thursday and the New York Times on Friday….

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U.S. demands Israel crack down on illegal Iranian pistachio imports
Associated Press
American officials are urging Israel to crack down on Iranian pistachio nut imports which are reaching Israel via Turkey despite a ban on Iranian imports into Israel. U.S. Undersecretary of Agriculture Mark Keenum said in a meeting with Israeli officials in Rome on Monday that the pistachio imports must stop, a U.S. official confirmed Wednesday (…) “As a proud native of the golden state (California), I think Israelis should eat American pistachios, not Iranian ones,” said Stewart Tuttle, spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv…

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Award-winning Photojournalist Held Incommunicado in Iraqi Torture Dungeon
Kurt Nimmo, TruthNews
According to the Pentagon, Bilal Hussein, an award-winning photographer, is “a terrorist operative who infiltrated the AP.” That’s why he is being held in an Iraqi prison without due process. And that’s why the supposed “new evidence” that “has come to light” about Hussein is secret. “The military has not yet defined the specific charges against Hussein. Previously, the military has pointed to a range of suspicions that attempt to link him to insurgent activity,” reports the Associated Press….

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AMSI: Al-Qaeda is an American creation
Roads to Iraq
AMSI spokesman Dr. Mohammed Bashar Faidhi was interviewed by Aljazeera, and he said that the emergence of the “Awakening” militias in Sunni areas is to eliminate the resistance against the American occupation and not Al Qaeda. He criticized the accusations that the AMSI being behind the sectarian violence in Iraq and there is a war against the AMSI because its position against the American occupation and its refusal to engage in the political process under the occupation, some very interesting answers….

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Resurgent Taliban closing in on Kabul: report
Luke Baker, Reuters
The conflict in Afghanistan has reached “crisis proportions,” with the resurgent Taliban present in more than half the country and closing in on Kabul, a report said on Wednesday. If NATO, the lead force operating in Afghanistan, is to have any impact against the insurgency, troop numbers will have to be doubled to at least 80,000, the report said. “The Taliban has shown itself to be a truly resurgent force,” the Senlis Council, an independent think-tank with a permanent presence in Afghanistan, wrote in a study entitled “Stumbling into Chaos: Afghanistan on the brink.” “Its ability to establish a presence throughout the country is now proven beyond doubt,” it said. “The insurgency now controls vast swaths of unchallenged territory including rural areas, some district centers, and important road arteries.”….

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Haneyya government urges world intervention to save Gaza from imminent disaster
Palestinian Information Center
The Palestinian caretaker government has urged the world community to step in to halt the human disaster that is befalling the Gaza Strip due to the oppressive IOF siege. The government in a statement after its weekly meeting on Tuesday warned that some Israeli parties were planning to launch a large-scale incursion into the Strip, which would bear dire consequences. It affirmed that any such invasion was meant to be used to achieve political ends, but certainly would not be an excursion for the IOF troops….

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Taliban controlling much of Afghanistan, warn experts
ndependent Television News
The Taliban is back in control of large parts of Afghanistan, according to a research group based in the state. The Senlis Council claims insurgents have established a permanent presence in more than half of the country and they predict the Taliban will emerge in the capital Kabul. “The Taliban are the de facto governing authority in significant portions of territory in the south and east” – Senlis Council report. Despite the huge international and military effort against the Taliban, the Senlis Council claims there is a “serious” danger they will regain control of the state.

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Two British soldiers killed in helicopter crash near Baghdad
Xinhua
Two British soldiers were killed when their helicopter crashed southeast of Baghdad on Tuesday, the British military said on Wednesday. The British Ministry of Defense confirmed in a statement on its website the death of “two military personnel near Baghdad, Iraq, last night, Tuesday, Nov. 20, 2007.” “The two personnel were killed when the RAF Puma helicopter they were travelling in crashed. Their next of kin have been informed,” the statement said. Two other personnel were also seriously wounded by the crash and were taken to a hospital for treatment, it added….

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Southern Provinces “Awakening”
Roads to Iraq
It says: “The Iraqi Ministry of Transport is operating secured journeys to Iraq – in modern air-conditioned vehicles, accompanied by ‘protection’ – for the Iraqi refugees to return to their country, free of charge.” According Syria News Iraqis are getting $1200 from Maliki’s government to leave Syria but I am not sure about this, I just called relatives in Syria and they don’t know anything about the $1200..they said if its true they go back themselves. True or not, Iraqis in Syria are going back because they are not allowed to stay in Syria without visa….

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