A sinister plan for the region
Xymphora
…Of course, a Shi’ite empire is part of the Zionist Plan, as the combined Iraqi-Iranian Shi’ites are supposed to eventually grab the oil fields in Saudi Arabia, which happen to be in areas with a majority Shi’ite population. When the Saudis think they are being so clever in following the Zionist lead, they are just playing into the long-term plan for the break-up of Saudi Arabia into a Shi’ite oil state, and a mini Sunni rump containing the religious cities…

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War on Christmas? What About the Genocide on Christmas?
Wisco, Griper Blade
I’ve written about the right’s valiant fight in the “War on Christmas” recently. If your city puts out white lights, instead of colored lights, or the checkout clerk at Sears says, “Happy Holidays,” instead of, “Merry Christmas,” you’re the victim of oppression. The public voice of this defense of Christmas against the oppressive forces of “secular progressives” is FOX News blowhard Bill O’Reilly (…) Meanwhile, there’s an actual war on Christians going on and Bill’s a big fan. “It may be the end of Christianity in Iraq,” Bishop Antoine Audo of Aleppo, Syria told Catholic News Service. “This is very sad and very dangerous for the church, for Iraq and even for Muslim people, because it means the end of an old experience of living together.” There have been Christians in Mesopotamia literally since year one — more than two thousand years. And White tells us this is the worst it’s ever been for them. Saddam Hussein seemed to have little interest in religion and his state may have had the most religious freedom in the Middle East — Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz, Iraq’s number two man, was Christian. That’s all changed now…

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Israeli military considering system of underground sensors around Gaza
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
While the Palestinian civilian population in the Gaza Strip is reeling under the effects of a months long closure of all borders by the Israeli occupying force, that occupying force has announced their intent to install underground sensors to further cement that closure. The Palestinian economy, particularly in Gaza, which has been prevented by the Israeli occupation from developing its own economy, has long been dependent on employment inside Israel. An estimate 80% of Gazans were employed inside Israel prior to the current open conflict, which began in 2000. Since ‘disengagement’ in 2005, no Palestinians have been allowed to enter Israel to work from the Gaza Strip….

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Prostitution ordeal of Iraqi girls
Lina Sinjab, BBC News
With their bright neon signs and glitzy decor, dozens of nightclubs line the streets of the Maraba district in the Syrian capital Damascus. It’s here that men come from far and wide – car number plates are not just from Syria but Iraq and Saudi Arabia – to watch young women dancing. Most of the dancers are teenagers and many of them are Iraqi refugees. They dance for the cash which gets tossed onto the stage. The dancers are surrounded by bodyguards, to stop them being touched by the men. But the guards also arrange for their charges to be paid for sex with members of the audience….

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Wolfowitz Returns To Bush Administration As WMD Adviser
Think Progress
Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff reports that Iraq war architect Paul Wolfowitz has been rewarded with a new position in the Bush administration which will allow him to oversee classified intelligence and inform policies on WMD issues: Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has offered Wolfowitz, a prime architect of the Iraq War, a position as chairman of the International Security Advisory Board, a prestigious State Department panel, according to two department sources who declined to be identified discussing personnel matters. The 18-member panel, which has access to highly classified intelligence, advises Rice on disarmament, nuclear proliferation, WMD issues and other matters. “We think he is well suited and will do an excellent job,” said one senior official….

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Henry Thoreau and the Patrons of Virtue
Charles Sullivan
The form of government we have is anything but the democratic republic it purports to be. The more access to wealth a person has the more responsive to his or her needs the government is. Justice and equality cannot follow where access is denied or restricted. Far from a government of the people, for the people and by the people, we now have a government that is the exclusive domain of the rich and powerful and has the same level of exclusivity as an expensive country club or resort. The poor and disenfranchised are barred from entry and are thus marginalized….

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The Door…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…I pulled that handle, and caressed the Door, one final caress. I stepped out in the blinding, glaring sun. I straddled towards the gate. I did not look back. I could not. But I could not help but see the little palm tree that I had planted some time ago, wave my way and call my name out, as I walked out. As I walked out and away, towards the Unknown…

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J’lem sources: U.S. losing sense of urgency on Iran
Aluf Benn, Shmuel Rosner and Yossi Melman, Haaretz Correspondents
Government sources in Jerusalem told Haaretz Monday night that the Bush administration appears to have lost its sense of urgency regarding Iran’s nuclear program, making a military strike in 2008 increasingly unlikely. The change in policy comes on the heels of the release Monday of the National Intelligence Estimate in Washington. The report, which discounted the likelihood that Iran is on a path to develop nuclear weapons soon, did not catch the Israeli leadership by surprise. During their visit to Washington last week, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni and Defense Minister Ehud Barak were briefed on the report….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 3 December 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted early Monday, the Yaqen News Agency reported that Iraqi Resistance forces fired three rockets at the ath-Tharthar military base located east of ar-Ramadi, 110km west of Baghdad, on Monday morning. Yaqen reported eyewitnesses as saying that fighters in three cars fired three rockets at the ath-Tharthar base, which is occupied by US and puppet regime forces. The rockets set off explosions inside the base, the witnesses said, adding that dense plumes of smoke rose over the facility and then swarms of US aircraft were observed flying in over the facility….

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Joyful Tidings From Iraqi Tribes
Ahmed Al- Dulaimi , Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
Again a loud voice reaches from the Southern of Iraq which is known by the whole world about its struggle against imperialism… the South of Shalaan Abul Joon… the South that the victorious revolution of twentieth against the British occupation. The same thing is happening today with courageous and eternity faith to the motherland devoted of being Arab….

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Shi’ite leader sees an Iraq with no foreign troops
David Morgan, Reuters
The leader of Iraq’s biggest Shi’ite party on Monday said he hoped an expected security agreement with the United States would ultimately leave the country free of foreign troops. Abdul Aziz al-Hakim, who leads the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, or SIIC, described the proposed agreement as part of a larger effort to return the country to “complete sovereignty.” (…) He said Saudi Arabia had used its influence to help bring about the “Awakening” movement among Iraqi Sunni leaders who have rebelled against al Qaeda militants and formed tribal police to patrol their own neighborhoods. Hakim also reiterated SIIC’s call for the creation of a federal region spanning nine southern Iraqi governates that are predominantly Shiite….

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Allawi says: A new Iranian plot to assassinate me
Roads to Iraq
In an interview with Kuwaiti newspaper Awan, Iyad Allawi is still complaining and repeating the same story again and again. Playing the victim of Iranian influence in Iraq, is not enough for the Americans to make him the next PM candidate. Allwai says that there is a new Iranian attempt to assassinate him. He said that he had information indicating that the Iranians blocked the area nearby his house, and controlled his movement to attend meetings or invitations. He said that the only solutions to get out of the current Iraqi crisis is to hold early elections, with the change of the electoral law, with an international supervision to ensure elections fairness and integrity….

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U.S. Says Iran Ended Atomic Arms Work
MARK MAZZETTI, NYTimes
A new assessment by American intelligence agencies concludes that Iran halted its nuclear weapons program in 2003 and that the program remains on hold, contradicting an assessment two years ago that Tehran was working inexorably toward building a bomb. The conclusions of the new assessment are likely to be major factor in the tense international negotiations aimed at getting Iran to halt its nuclear energy program….

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950 juveniles in US prisons in Iraq — general
Agence France-Presse
US troops are holding nearly 950 children and teenagers in a military prison at a Baghdad base, some as young as 10, a top commander said Monday. Brigadier General Michael Nevin of US military police said many of these youngsters, mainly 15, 16 or 17 years of age are illiterate and have been detained for planting bombs and even for “picking up a gun and firefighting.” The juveniles are being held in Camp Cropper near Baghdad airport and are part of the nearly 26,000 detainees held by the US military across Iraq….

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FAQ on Palestinian prisoners
IMEU
…The issue of child detainees and prisoners is perhaps the most striking example of Israel’s policy of arbitrary imprisonment. Approximately 2,000 Palestinian children were arrested and detained from September 2000 to the end of June 2003. Children as young as 13 are held in Israeli prisons and are housed with the adult prisoner population. Children aged 13 and 14 constitute approximately ten percent of all child detainees. Almost all child detainees have reported some form of torture or mistreatment, whether physical (beatings or placed in painful positions) or psychological (abuse, threats or intimidation). Children are routinely held in detention centers under inhumane conditions. For example, in some centers, up to eleven children have been packed into cells as small as five square meters….

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Annapolis Hypocrisy Hides Occupied Palestine Reality
Stephen Lendman
Against the sham backdrop of Annapolis, life in occupied Palestine is a daily struggle to endure and survive what Edward Said once referred to as Israel’s “refined viciousness.” This article addresses one week of it no different than most others. It shows the road to peace isn’t through Annapolis nor can it be achieved without a willing partner or with the legitimate Palestinian government excluded. Talks are futile as long Israel spurns peace, violates international law, attacks Palestinian civilians, seizes their land, destroys their homes, restricts their movements, conducts targeted assassinations, denies them essential services, and holds Gaza under a medieval siege in the world’s largest open-air prison while blaming the victims….

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Steampunk hospitals
Xymphora
From The Independent: “Israel’s Supreme Court has intervened to stop the military from beginning phased cuts in electricity supply to Gaza from tomorrow, while allowing reductions in fuel to continue. The court ordered the military yesterday to prove its claim – strongly contested by Israeli and Palestinian human rights groups – that the electricity cuts could be implemented without harming vital systems such as hospitals, water and sewerage. You have to admit that the idea that hospitals could operate without electricity – an idea that the Israeli Supreme Court considers to be in the realm of the provable – is amusing, and fits into the new genre of steampunk. Can’t you just see those steam-powered operating rooms? Of course, I don’t know how they’d generate the steam. The role of the Israeli Supreme Court is to provide window dressing for Zionism by purporting to supervise its worst excesses….

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Warlords replace Army in Basra
Ben Russell, Independent
Warlords and criminal gangs dominate Basra amid growing concern that British forces have failed to create the conditions needed for political and economic reconstruction, warns an influential committee of MPs. Gordon Brown’s decision to cut troop numbers to just 2,500 next Spring could leave the Army unable to do more than defend itself, putting the value of its presence in Iraq “open to question”, the MPs will say today…

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Our great Palestinian negotiators
Analysis by Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
Defending the farcical Annapolis conference, Palestinian negotiator Sa’eb Ureikat has been indulging in a lot of verbal theatrics lately. In a succession of interviews with the indisputably pliant Palestinian media, the “devil of Jericho ,” as the late Yasser Arafat used to refer to him, has argued that the Palestinian negotiators are actually fighting a real battle with Israel for the purpose of restoring Palestinian rights. Other Palestinian negotiators, mostly veterans of the ill-reputed Oslo era, have been making similar statements, aimed at duping the Palestinian masses into giving the Annapolis malarkey the benefit of the doubt….

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An old woman the 28th victim of IOF siege of Gaza
Palestinian Information Center
A 55-year-old Palestinian woman has died on Sunday evening of a chronic disease after being unable to leave the Gaza Strip for treatment abroad due to the IOF closure of all crossings. Medical sources said that Ruwaida Shakshak was unable to obtain permit from the IOF to allow her travel for treatment abroad. Ruwaida thus became the 28th victim in the course of one month of the IOF tight siege on the Strip. Earlier Sunday, a 33-year-old man was pronounced dead after a long suffering of a heart disease…

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ARAB RACISM MUST GO! ZIONIST RACISM CAN STAY!!
Desert Peace
The gall of a country such as Israel to have an attitude such as this one…’Arab racism must go’… Israel, the very country that for over four decades has been the most brutal occupier of an Arab country, has denied these Arabs the basic human rights guaranteed to all human beings by the United Nations, specifically the rights of movement within their own land, the right to return from exile to their own land and the right to their own land period! The very country that has practiced policies of genocide against these same Arabs, has fenced them in like animals behind walls of apartheid…

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