Iraq – Grandeur & Destruction. Part II
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…As I tried to demonstrate with facts – that none can dispute – Iraq from 1958 onwards, right up to the 80’s, and despite the Iran-Iraq war, managed to build itself into a Nation State. As I said, the bulk of this nation building was done under the rule of Saddam Hussein. Again, like it or not. In order to understand what was later to unfold, I ask you to keep that concept of “nation state” at the back of your minds. Only then will you understand the dismemberment of Iraq as it insidiously, gradually took place and culminated in a full blown occupation in 2003. Before tackling the sanctions years which I believe I have already covered in past writings – I would like to cover briefly the Iran-Iraq war. This can be considered a separate chapter by itself, independently from the rest, but as I will try to demonstrate, this is not the case. The Iran war saw its continuation- by other means in today’s Iraq….

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A Revealing Incident Where U.S/NATO Militaries Have Killed Afghan Civilians in the Ongoing Afghan Conflict
Prof. Marc W. Herold, The Afghan Victim Memorial Project
… at 2 A.M. on Sunday, November 17/18, 2007, in the hamlet of Lakari, 2 kms from the village of Toube (Tebbi?) in the Garmsir district of southern Helmand along the Helmand River. The Taliban have long had a strong presence in Garmsir. Foreign troops (probably U.S. or British Special Forces) with Afghan soldiers arrived by air in the village at 2 A.M. in the night (as is usual with such air borne attacks). What ensued was a gruesome massacre successfully kept out of sight of the world for almost a month by military “news management” and mainstream western media neglect. The story was broken by two Afghan journalists of the Institute for War & Peace Reporting (IWPR) in the Afghan Recovery Report dated December 10, 2007. The reporters interviewed dozens of local villagers who all confirmed what had transpired. Their story was picked by the Zurich-based Center for Security Studies’ ISN and brief mention was made in The Telegraph. No mention by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, etc…

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Did Bush Eat Popcorn While Watching the Torture Tapes?
Larry C. Johnson, Atlantic Free Press
So let me explain why I am certain that George W. Bush, and probably Dick Cheney, watched the interrogation of Abu Zubaydah and maybe that of Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri. Let’s begin with the White House smoke screen on this issue. When spokeswoman Dana Perino was asked the other day: QUESTION: . . . On these CIA videotapes, did either the President or Vice President or Condoleezza Rice, when she was National Security Advisor, or Steve Hadley, see them before they were destroyed? Perino offered this artful phrasing: PERINO: I spoke to the President, and so I will have to defer on the others. But I spoke to the President this morning about this. He has no recollection of being made aware of the tapes or their destruction before yesterday. He was briefed by General Hayden yesterday morning. No recollection of being made aware? Sorry, if he did not know anything about the tapes then the answer is very simple–Never heard of them, never saw them, and this is the first we have heard of this matter. No room for doubt with that answer….

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How the Anglo-American elite shares its ‘values’
John Pilger
When Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke recently about his government’s devotion to the United States, “founded on the values we share”, he was echoing his Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, who was preparing to welcome the Saudi dictator to Britain with effusions of “shared values”. The meaning was the same in both cases. The values shared are those of rapacious power and wealth, with democracy and human rights irrelevant, as the bloodbath in Iraq and the suffering of the Palestinians attest, to name only two examples….

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Iraq sees need for foreign troops for 10 years
Reuters
Iraq will need foreign troops to help defend it for another 10 years, but will not accept U.S. bases indefinitely, government spokesman Ali al-Dabbagh said. “Of course we need international support. We have security problems. For 10 years our army will not be able to defend Iraq,” Dabbagh told the state-run al-Iraqiya television in an interview broadcast late on Sunday. “I do not think that there is a threat of an invasion of Iraq, or getting involved in a war. (But) to protect Iraqi sovereignty there must be an army to defend Iraq for the next 10 years,” he said….

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Olmert gov’t gives green light for targeting Hamas leaders, institutions
Palestinian Information Center
The Israeli government of premier Ehud Olmert has decided to escalate aggression on the Gaza Strip and gave its army the green light to target Hamas political leaders and institutions in particular and other resistance factions in general. Hebrew media reported on Monday that Olmert and his war minister Ehud Barak gave orders to their army following the cabinet meeting on Sunday to toughen retaliatory strikes to the Palestinian crude missiles fired from Gaza. Yedioth Ahronoth quoted political and military sources as saying that the IOF air force would bomb any Hamas command or institution in the Strip in return for each missile hitting an Israeli house….

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Allies losing Afghanistan war, Australian minister warns: report
AFP
Australia’s new government has warned NATO and its allies they will lose the war against hardline Taliban forces in Afghanistan unless they urgently change tactics, a report said Monday. The country’s new Defence Minister Joel Fitzgibbon issued the stark warning at a meeting in Edinburgh last week of eight nations engaged in the conflict, including the United States, The Australian newspaper said…

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Blackwater in Baghdad: “It was a horror movie”
New testimony from witnesses and victims provides the most in-depth, harrowing account to date of the U.S. security firm’s deadly rampage in Iraq.
Jennifer Daskal, Salon
For Khalaf, a 38-year-old Iraqi, Sept. 16 started like many other sunny summer workdays. He donned his police uniform — a white shirt, navy trousers and hat — and headed to Baghdad’s busy Nissour Square. By 7 a.m. he was out in the street, directing the flow of traffic coming from the multi-laned Yarmouk access road into the square. When he spotted four large all-terrain vehicles with guns mounted on top, he did what he always did. He stopped traffic and cleared the area for what he knew, from the tell-tale sign of the two accompanying helicopters, to be a security firm’s convoy. At first, this seemed completely normal for the totally abnormal world of Baghdad in September 2007. “Convoys are common,” explained Khalaf. But this convoy made an unexpected U-turn, drove the wrong way around the one-way square, stopped in the middle of it and started shooting. Fifteen minutes later, 17 Iraqi civilians were dead, dozens more wounded, and a white sedan that had been engulfed in flames contained two bodies charred beyond recognition. “It was a horror movie,” said Khalaf, describing the aftermath of the now notorious Blackwater shootings….

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Foreign Troops Accused in Helmand Raid Massacre
Residents of a southern village tell of a night of violence at the hands of foreign and Afghan soldiers.
By Matiullah Minapal and Aziz Ahmad Tassal in Lashkar Gah (ARR No. 276, 11-Dec-07)
…Residents of Helmand province have grown used to aerial strikes over the past several months. As the Taleban and foreign forces battle for control of the province, civilians are often caught in the middle (…9 But what reportedly happened in Toube was quite different from the more detached, if horrific, bombing that has destroyed homes and families. Abdul Manaan’s story is echoed by dozens of villagers from Toube whom IWPR interviewed as they underwent treatment in Lashkar Gah or accompanied injured relatives there. All spoke consistently of soldiers breaking down doors, shooting children and cutting throats. They agreed that the raid began at two in the morning with the sound of helicopters bringing in dozens of armed men, both Afghan and foreign. One man called Nabi Jan told IWPR, “At two in the morning on Sunday, foreign troops entered my house and shot my children in their cradles. I collected their scattered brains with my own hands and placed them near the bodies. “They killed 18 people that night. I swear none of them were Taleban fighters,” he said, his anger making his voice rise in tone. “They killed civilians – people like me – with rough farmers’ hands. If you don’t believe me, then come with me to the cemetery. I will dig up the bodies to show you.”….

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Nahr al-Bared treated outside of the law
Sari Hanafi, The Electronic Lebanon
Many actors play a role in alleviating the plight of the Nahr al-Bared displaced Palestinian refugees. The most important actor has been the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. In spite of its slowness, as some interviewees complain, it has done a great job. Donors and international and local nongovernmental organizations have provided financial support and have assisted the population and ensured the basic needs of the displaced population and the returnees. In addition to these institutions, the Saudi Arabia paid seed money ($1200) to each family through the Lebanese government, and some Lebanese political parties, especially the Future Movement, provided food for the families….

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Israeli soldiers confess to committing acts of violence against Palestinians
Palestinian Information Center
An opinion poll conducted by the IOF command revealed that one of every four Israeli soldiers had participated in committing acts of violence against Palestinians at the checkpoint barriers deployed in the West Bank or was witness to such acts. The poll which was conducted on 1,000 Israeli soldiers revealed that 25 percent of the soldiers confessed to committing acts of violence against the Palestinians or were witnesses to physical or verbal harassment and abuse. A report published by Israeli newspaper Yediot Ahronot said that the opinion poll was conducted by the IOF leadership of the central region in the wake of an incident that had happened in the Daheria area to the south of Al-Khalil city several months ago and caused a state of rage amongst Palestinians….

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Annals of Liberation: Bush-Induced Distaster in Somalia Grows
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
Our text for today: Somalia descends into Africa’s worst crisis. This is an excellent summary of the deteriorating situation in Somalia, where Bush’s “Terror War” unleashed yet another “regime change” operation last year, using American bombers, special ops, death squads and security forces to aid an invasion of Somalia by undemocractic Ethiopia. Writing for McClatchy Newspapers – one of the very few mainstream American news organizations that still practices actual journalism – Shashank Bengali does what almost no corporate media story on Somalia I’ve seen has ever done: he notes the U.S. involvement in the very first line. In our degraded times, Bengali’s straightforward, factual account – the kind of thing which should of course be as common as muck – stands as a bold act of truth-telling….

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No State Has the Right to Exist as a Racist State
Omar Barghouti interviewed by Voltairenet
Omar Barghouti belongs to a new generation of Palestinians who never adhered to the solution of “ Two States, Two peoples “. They are advocating, instead, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) of Israel as well as a “secular, democratic state” solution, where Palestinians and Israelis would share equal rights, after historic injustices are redressed and the refugees are allowed to return…

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Iraqi Refugees Are Arrested in Lebanon
BASSEM MROUE, AP
Mohammed, an illegal Iraqi refugee, counts himself lucky. He has managed to find a carpentry job in Lebanon. And even better, his workplace is near his home — meaning he doesn’t have to drive to work and risk arrest at one of Beirut’s security checkpoints. Iraqi refugees in Lebanon live in fear of arrest, which could mean a long spell in prison until they agree to go back home to their country. “I work for little money but at least it is near where I live,” said Muhammad, who was an assistant accounting professor back home in Iraq. “I am worried that if they detain me, then authorities will detain my wife and children,” the 34-year-old said, refusing — like many Iraqis here — to give his full name for fear of reprisals from police. Unlike other Arab countries, Lebanon has adopted a policy of arresting Iraqis who are in the country illegally….

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Iraq picks Russia firm to fix Syria pipeline
Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters
Iraq has invited Russia’s Stroytransgaz to submit an offer to re-activate an oil export pipeline to Syria’s Mediterranean terminal of Banias, Iraq’s Deputy Prime Minister Barham Saleh said on Monday. The company, which has contracts in Syria and Saudi Arabia, will make the offer to the Iraqi government in Baghdad no later than Jan. 10, he told Reuters. “We will discuss with Stroytransgaz what they come up with. We are clear and serious about this project,” Saleh said in an interview in the Syrian capital. Saleh made it clear that progress on the pipeline, as well as developing a gas field near the Syrian border and exporting the product through Syria, was linked to security cooperation from the Damascus government….

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The No-State Solution
Issa Khalaf, Special to PalestineChronicle.com
…If this were not bad enough, the Abbas leadership and its supporters are morally bankrupt, mesmerized by the fantasy that the promise of money and territorial fiefdom will come their way to maintain their power and privileges, as long as they dance the dance. Not that I care for Islamist government, confused ideology, and social agenda for Palestinian society, but it’s unbelievably, stunningly clear that the “nationalists” under Abbas have put their interests above those of national unity and their own people. There is no difference between them and any Arab state. They are an accomplice to Palestine’s disintegration, overseeing its potential disappearance, as well as to the medieval Israeli siege and attacks on the long-suffering people of Gaza, designed as they are to bolster Abbas et al. Abbas knows—what Palestinian doesn’t?—Zionist motives and goals, but he persists with the game, under threat of being turned into an instant international pariah, and of Zionist logic: “We stole your house and offer to return a room. If you don’t accept, don’t blame us if you get nothing.”…

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PFLP, DFLP and Islamic Jihad call on Hamas and Fatah to reconcile
Maan News
Three prominent Palestinian political factions issued a joint statement to the rival groups Hamas and Fatah on Sunday, calling on them to halt attacks against one another and to release political prisoners before the upcoming Muslim holiday of Eid Al-Adha. The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP), and Islamic Jihad expressed their concerns over the political and military escalation between the two rivals, saying that the fighting impedes Palestinian and Arab efforts to end the state of division in the Palestinian territories. The statement also condemned the groups’ mutual accusatory language, claiming that it has contributed to deteriorating conditions in the Palestinian community…

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The CIA tortures and destroys evidence, what is new?
Roads to Iraq
With apologies from Abu-Jamal’s excellent podcast for modifying his headline, [recommended, must listen] ……president Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, as the Intelligence Authorization Act. Under the law, the CIA could violate international law and treaties, as long as they were following orders. For some political reasons, American media started to talk about torture, stories such as (Inside the CIA’s notorious “black sites”), are just recently reported while we reported this long time ago….

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‘The Shia militias in Basra are better armed than Iraqi forces’
Kim Sengupta, The Independent
…How safe is Basra now? Gordon Brown told the House of Commons that violence has fallen in Basra by 90 per cent. What has actually happened is that it is violence against British troops which has fallen. That is mainly because, with the withdrawal from Basra Palace, the UK presence is little more than incidental in Basra for the Shia militias who are concentrating on getting hold of the spoils of war, especially the region’s oil wealth. What about women and minority communities? In Basra, Sunnis and Christians have been subjected to sectarian cleansing by the Shia militias. Women said to have behaved in an “irreligious” way were targeted in recent months, and, according to General Jalil Khalaf, more than 40 women have been murdered…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Sunday, 16 December 2007
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
In a dispatch posted at 9:31pm Baghdad time Sunday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that the Iraqi Resistance fired four mortar rounds into the US base at al-Habbaniyah, 70km west of Baghdad, at 6pm local time Sunday evening. Yaqen reported eyewitnesses in al-Habbaniyah as saying that the barrage set fires inside the base and that American aircraft could be seen flying into the area, but no information on the nature or extent of casualties was available. After the attack, American forces deployed in the environs of their base in an effort to find out who had mounted the attack upon them….

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Ahmadinejad says U.S. report a “declaration of surrender”
Reuters
Iran’s president said on Sunday the publication of a U.S. intelligence report saying Iran had halted a nuclear weapons program in 2003 amounted to a “declaration of surrender” by Washington in its row with Tehran. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad also dismissed in an interview with state television the prospect of new U.N. sanctions against Iran over its refusal to halt sensitive atomic work. “It is too far-fetched,” he said when asked whether he expected the U.N. Security Council to impose fresh sanctions on Iran following two such resolutions since last December…

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THIS IS WHAT THE SURGE’S SUCCESS LOOKS LIKE.
Matthew Duss
This article in yesterday’s Washington Post on Iraqi refugees returning to Baghdad was accompanied by this graphic of the new sectarian make-up of the city. Comparing Baghdad’s sectarian distribution in April 2006 to November 2007, we see a city completely transformed, with a majority of the formerly mixed neighborhoods now taken over by Shi’is, most of them supported by the guns of Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. What the graphic does not show, and the article does not mention, are the concrete walls which have been erected between new Sunni and Shia neighborhoods throughout Baghdad….

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UK has left behind murder and chaos, says Basra police chief
Mona Mahmoud, Maggie O’Kane and Ian Black, The Guardian
The full scale of the chaos left behind by British forces in Basra was revealed yesterday as the city’s police chief described a province in the grip of well-armed militias strong enough to overpower security forces and brutal enough to behead women considered not sufficiently Islamic. As British forces finally handed over security in Basra province, marking the end of 4? years of control in southern Iraq, Major General Jalil Khalaf, the new police commander, said the occupation had left him with a situation close to mayhem. “They left me militia, they left me gangsters, and they left me all the troubles in the world,” he said in an interview for Guardian Films and ITV. Khalaf painted a very different picture from that of British officials who, while acknowledging problems in southern Iraq, said yesterday’s handover at Basra airbase was timely and appropriate….

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The Faceless And The Dead – The Guardian And Iraq’s Refugees
MEDIA LENS, David Edwards
…Like the Guardian’s animation, columnist and Guardian assistant editor Madeleine Bunting gives the impression that her newspaper is a compassionate voice against violence. Bunting recently lamented how the slaughter in Iraq had been “normalised into the background of our lives”. A “public revulsion” at the violence remains, but “the horror gives way to exhaustion”. Part of the problem, Bunting continued, was that the war has become almost impossible to report, taking “either terrifying courage or extraordinary ingenuity” to bring images to our screens of those caught up in the disaster. But something doesn’t add up. As Bunting noted in her own article, fully one in six Iraqis has been displaced from the country, many escaping to Syria (1.4 million) and Jordan (750,000). Are we really to believe that it takes “terrifying courage” for journalists to fly to Damascus and Amman to cover their plight? And yet coverage of the suffering of Iraqi refugees is almost completely absent from the British media. In fact, there has been so little in-depth reporting we may struggle to imagine what it looks like….In the last six months, the Guardian has focused in less than a dozen articles specifically on the plight of Iraqi refugees. Mostly, these have been short, dry news pieces documenting the latest statistics of suffering from the latest aid agency reports…

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You are either a “Concerned Citizen” or a “Terrorist”
Zeyad Kasim , Healing Iraq
The video posted below provides a rare, behind-the-scenes look at U.S. military dealings with some of the Sunni “Awakening” movements. It is purported to be a recording of a meeting between an Iraqi tribal leader, identified as “Sheikh Mahi,” and Col. Stephen Lanza, commander of the 1st Cavalry’s 5th Brigade Combat Team, responsible for the Rashid sector of southern Baghdad (…) It is hard to blame the sheikh in the video, despite the humiliating treatment he received, both from the U.S. commander and the Iraqi translator—who by the look and sound of him seems to be one those Chalabi-style exiles who have lived most of their life out of Iraq and then return and revel in treating their countrymen like dirt in order to please their newfound masters. The sheikh has the choice of accepting insurgents, or worse Al-Qaeda, to operate in his territory, risking that Americans come after him and his family, destroy his property, or kill them all in a strike against “suspected insurgents.” Or, he could join forces with Americans to form an “awakening” group, and then risk that insurgents come after him for collaboration. Or, he could simply pack up and flee the country, like millions of Iraqis facing this dilemma decided to do rather than choose one or the other….

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Gaza blockade worsens health care
Motasem A Dalloul, Aljzeera.net
In the halls of al-Shifa hospital, the largest medical facility in the Gaza Strip, patients queue outside the dialysis centre for treatment and medication. However, they know there is a good chance they may get neither. An Israeli economic blockade of the Gaza Strip has meant that medical supplies are scarce. Umm Ahmed, 35, sits and waits next to her 10-year-old son who suffers from kidney failure. “I have to wait several hours with my son for his dialysis, putting his life in constant danger,” she says. Sami Abu Ali, the physician treating Umm Ahmed’s son, tries to comfort her, but acknowledges that the risk becomes considerable if they wait too long for dialysis. “Patients who suffer from kidney failure must follow a certain schedule for dialysis, otherwise, the toxins in the blood rise to a life-threatening level,” he said….

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Iraqi Children – Fuck Freedom!
Iraqi Democrat
On Saturday, it was announced by the anti-corruption committee in Iraq, that there is an estimated 5 million orphaned children in Iraq, a number which has been ignored by do-gooding anti-war campaigners in the West, whose idea for a “free” Iraq, is abstract concepts such as Freedom and Democracy. How abstract Freedom and Democracy seems, when you compare the facts of five million orphaned children, whose lives are being blighted with malnutrition, illiteracy, poverty, homelessness and the sight of family and friends being killed before your very eyes….

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Where Dignity is Denied
An Inside-Out Crisis in Gaza
LARAY POLK, CounterPunch
Prior to 1948, there were approximately 80,000 people living in the Gaza Strip. In places like the town of Deir el-Balah, families have continuously lived in ancestral homes. The extravagant height of the palm and date trees in backyards and city streets is a testament to the continuity and lineage of native Gazans. The old families of Gaza have a sense of place that is somewhat different than other Palestinians; they were not forced out of their homes and villages as the majority of Palestinians had been in 1948. And the Gazans have had the benefit of the sea on the western side; the tradition of fishing has been passed on from generation to generation. Presently, all access to the sea for fishermen is denied. The fishing boats remain grounded while the people in Gaza Strip slowly starve…

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BBC’s Jeremy Paxman and the British-American Project
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
Dear Jeremy Paxman, I was delighted to read your endorsement of the British-American Project, “A marvellous way of meeting a varied cross-section of transatlantic friends.” Among those “friends”, there are Paul Wolfowitz and Diana Negroponte (John Negroponte’s wife) and among the “friends’ supporters” there are Citigroup, BP, Vodafone, US Embassy, JP Morgan and many others…

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UNRWA warns of Israeli measures limiting its humanitarian work in Palestine
Palestinian Information Center
UNRWA warned that the Israeli occupation authority intends to take new “security measures” in occupied Palestinian lands that will threaten its humanitarian work. In a report prepared by UNRWA on its work in Palestine, it stated that the agency has reached a stage where it cannot carry out its humanitarian tasks for Palestinian refugees, warning of the consequences of the Israeli intentions to establish six crossing points in the West Bank further obstructing the already complicated traffic movement of personnel and humanitarian cargo. The report underlined that continuing to build the apartheid wall and imposing further restrictions on the movement of personnel and humanitarian aid limit access of UNRWA assistance to the affected communities, adding that increasing the number of barriers and checkpoints leads to extra huge expenses; besides, it is a waste of time and affects the safety and quality of goods and food supplies provided to Palestinian refugees….

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DISASTRUS HUMANTRIAN CASE IN GAZA STRIP
Popular Committee Against Siege
In view of the fact that 5 months passed since the start of the harsh siege imposed on Gaza strip, all life aspects are being exposed to humanitarian crisis. This siege affects the lives of tens of thousands of innocent civilians. It also destroyed the fragile economy of Gaza and afflicted humanitarian, environmental and health facets for more than 1.5 million peoples in Gaza Strip. The disastrous outcomes of this siege are obvious violations of international charts, human rights conventions, the 4 Geneva protocols and the international declaration of human rights. Additionally, its flagrant actions of human being freedom that adopted by the free civilized world!….

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Police State America – A Look Back and Ahead
Stephen Lendman
Year end is a good time to look back and reflect on what’s ahead. If past is prologue, however, the outlook isn’t good, and nothing on the horizon suggests otherwise. Voters last November wanted change but got betrayal from the bipartisan criminal class in Washington. Their attitude shows in an October Reuters/Zogby (RZ) opinion poll with George Bush at 24% that tops Richard Nixon’s worst showing of 25% at his lowest 1974 Watergate point. And if that looks bad, consider Congress with “The Hill” reporting from the same RZ Index that our legislators scored a “staggering 11%, the lowest (congressional) rating in history,” but there’s room yet to hit bottom and a year left to do it. Why not with lawmakers’ consistent voter sellout and failure record that keeps getting worse….

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Russia starts delivering nuclear fuel to Iran – 2
RIA Novosti
The first shipment of nuclear fuel has been delivered to Iran’s Bushehr nuclear power plant, Russia’s state nuclear agency said on Monday. The $1 billion plant in southern Iran is being built by Russia under a contract signed in 1995. “Containers with fuel sealed by IAEA [International Atomic Energy Agency] inspectors have been delivered to the site and placed in a special storage facility subject to international safety monitoring,” Rosatom said. A spokesperson for Russia’s nuclear power equipment and service export monopoly, Atomstroyexport, said the first stage of deliveries had started on Sunday and would see 163 main and 17 reserve arrays of uranium, enriched to 3.62% of U-235, delivered to the plant….

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Bush supports Russia sending enriched uranium to Iran
Reuters
U.S. President George W. Bush said on Monday he supports Russia sending enriched uranium to Iran for civilian power use because it meant that Tehran did not need to pursue their own enrichment capabilities. “If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich,” Bush said. “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.” Russia has delivered the first shipment of nuclear fuel to Iran’s Bushehr atomic power station, which Moscow and Washington say should convince Tehran to shut down its disputed uranium enrichment program….

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A call from Gaza: BREAK THE SIEGE!
Stop The Siege On Gaza
A shocking first-hand report about living conditions in the Gaza Strip was delivered Thursday (Dec. 13, 2007) to a group of Israeli peace activists. They met in the Gush Shalom office in Tel-Aviv to listen to the testimony of Dr. Eyad Sarraj, one of the few people who still succeed in getting out of the ‘largest prison on earth”. Dr. Sarraj, well-known psychiatrist and human rights activist, lives in the Strip. He has come to Tel-Aviv to discuss with Israeli peace activists protest and people-to-people actions. This is what he reported: Local water is undrinkable. Israel does not let in bottled water. Nor does Israel allow the importation of water pumps. The price of water filters has gone up from 150 NIS to 1000 NIS, there are no spare parts at all for filters. Only the well-to-do can still afford them. However, chlorine is let in…

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A Message From PCAS in Gaza.
Popular Committee Against Siege
A message from PCAS in Gaza regarding what they would like us to do: As for Popular Committee Against Siege, PCAS, We are trying hard to involve all people who aspire to help Palestinians. As for the abroad volunteers we suggest the following: 1- Raising the world’s awareness by Web pages: We need you to spread our website. www.freegaza.ps in all blogs and websites you know. This due to the daily momentous news we publish about siege. 2- Coordinating activities, actions and holding workshops in your country and to let us know of and advertise such activities as much as possible. Thus you bring more people towards our just cause….

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Quarter of Israeli troops in West Bank witness to abuse: report
AFP
One in four Israeli troops serving at the hundreds of checkpoints across the occupied West Bank has engaged in or witnessed abuse of Palestinians, an army-commissioned survey said on Sunday. Twenty-five percent of respondents said they had either taken part in, seen or heard about from colleagues about acts that included either physical or verbal abuse at the more than 500 roadblocks dotting the territory, said the report quoted by army officials and media….

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How the Anglo-American elite shares its ‘values’
John Pilger
When Prime Minister Gordon Brown spoke recently about his government’s devotion to the United States, “founded on the values we share”, he was echoing his Foreign Office minister Kim Howells, who was preparing to welcome the Saudi dictator to Britain with effusions of “shared values”. The meaning was the same in both cases. The values shared are those of rapacious power and wealth, with democracy and human rights irrelevant, as the bloodbath in Iraq and the suffering of the Palestinians attest, to name only two examples….

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Nahr al-Bared treated outside of the law
Sari Hanafi, The Electronic Lebanon
Many actors play a role in alleviating the plight of the Nahr al-Bared displaced Palestinian refugees. The most important actor has been the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA. In spite of its slowness, as some interviewees complain, it has done a great job. Donors and international and local nongovernmental organizations have provided financial support and have assisted the population and ensured the basic needs of the displaced population and the returnees. In addition to these institutions, the Saudi Arabia paid seed money ($1200) to each family through the Lebanese government, and some Lebanese political parties, especially the Future Movement, provided food for the families….

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Continued Violence, Settlements, Mar Peace Prospects
MIFTAH
As the Palestinian leadership headed by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad prepare for Monday’s donor conference in Paris, the Palestinians on the ground are reeling from the continuing violence that is wracking the West Bank and Gaza. On Friday, four people were killed, reportedly by a hand grenade thrown into a crowd of mourners during the funeral procession of Khalil Masariyi in Gaza City. Another 34 people were wounded in the incident. The leadership, Fateh in particular, is pointing the finger at Hamas, claiming its armed members carried out the attack. Deposed Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh begged to differ, angrily accusing Fateh, saying the bloody attack was part of its conspiracy to destabilize Hamas and spread chaos….

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Sunday: 1 US Soldier, 90 Iraqis Killed; 30 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Although analysts argue that a major Turkish invasion is not imminent, Turkish warplanes crossed deep into Iraq and bombed several purported rebel locations. In other news, Britain formally handed over control of security in Basra to the Iraqis. Overall, 90 Iraqis were killed and 30 more were wounded throughout Iraq. Also, the DOD reported that one American soldier died of non-combat-related wounds in Baghdad on Thursday….

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Settler Violence Report for October-November 2007
Ahmad Jaradat and Anahi Ayala Iacucci, Alternative Information Center
On 7 October, the Central Command of the Israeli military in the occupied West Bank issued a new Military Order to confiscate 1,130 dunam to build the Separation Wall around the settlements of Ma’ale Adumim, Kefar Adumim and Mishor Adumim, to the east of Jerusalem. The land that will be confiscated, according to military order number 70/19/T, belongs to tens of families from Abu Dis and as-Sawahira ash-Sharqiya towns. All the land that will be confiscated, in the areas called Marej Sultan, She’eb Mousa, Ratq, Jabal Dahda, Wadi Hakber, Jabal Badawi and Janjas, is located to the east of the villages. Hassan Abed Rabbo, General Director of the Local Government in Jerusalem (Palestinian Authority) said that this action is part of the called “Great Jerusalem Project.”….

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