Israel Depletes Gaza of Fuel, Blackout Looming Monday
Crisis Brings Traffic to Standstill, Water Supply Threatened
Palestine Media Center
Available quantity of fuel will allow Gaza’s sole power plant to operate only Sunday, threatening to plunge the Gaza Strip into darkness Monday, unless Israeli deliveries of fuel are resumed to avert an imminent blackout as well as the exacerbation of the humanitarian crisis, which brought traffic to a standstill in the Israeli-besieged Gaza Strip. Jamal al-Dadrasawi, a spokesman for Gaza’s power distribution company, told AFP that if the “if the fuel does not enter, there is going to be a real crisis.” He added that the loss of the plant would deprive Gaza of 55 megawatts of electricity, resulting in territory-wide power cuts of up to 10 hours a day. Dr. Rafiq Maliha, Director of Contracts at Gaza’s main power plant, said in a phone interview from Gaza on Thursday morning that “the situation is terrible, and we don’t know what will happen.”..

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Israeli Shin Bet admits interrogating relatives of Palestinian detainees to extract confession
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC & Agencies
The Israeli Shin Bet Security Services admitted on Sunday that the Israeli army is arresting relatives of Palestinian political prisoners and interrogating them in order to “extract confessions from the detainees”, Israeli online daily, Haaretz reported. Haaretz also said that the head of the Interrogation Department at the Shin Bet told the Israeli Knesset’s Law and Justice Committee that this method was used only once. The Israeli Public Committee Against Torture submitted a report to the Knesset committee on Sunday, stating the Shin Bet justifies arrests of family members of Palestinian detainees in order to practice pressure on them….

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Obama and Clinton call for war criminal to champion human rights
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama have now called for war criminal George Bush to boycott the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in order to demonstrate concern for human rights. George Bush! The man whose administration tortures, who has has imprisoned tens of thousands of people in the U.S., Guantanamo, Afghanistan, and Iraq without trial or any rights whatsoever (and even continues to imprison people who have been found innocent!), the man who launches unprovoked wars that send more than a million people to their graves, the man who has steadily eroded the human rights of the people of his own country, this is the man who Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama thinks is in a position to send a message about human rights to the world?…

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Our Forgotten Shame in the Green Zone
Reggie, TV News LIES
I’ll admit it, I did not remember either. Even though we reported the story last year, so much has happened in Iraq that somehow I, too, had forgotten. The story, like so many others, had been swept under the proverbial rug by the corporate media, and within a day or so the world forgot about the Filipino workers in Iraq. But a few days ago, I received a personal email from an officer serving in Iraq and housed in the Green Zone, and the story came back to me, full blast. Just a few words in the message reminded me of the forgotten horror that must be added to the countless crimes this administration is committing in Iraq…

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AMSI: The Killing of Civilians is the Systematic Policy of the Occupation
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
…At the issued press statement number 549 AMSI General Secretariat told that there is no solution to exodus from the current catastrophic situation except solidarity to work as one hand to defeat the occupation, to liberate Iraq from its evils and sins. The press statement published on occassion of the targeting of innocent civilians in Sadr City by the American occupation war planes AMSI said: “The satellite channels broadcasted painful scenes after the bombardment of the American Air Forces alleging to target armed groups. The incident has been broadcasting documented and was shown the targetted area was residential areas which led civilian results, filling of women and children in the hospitals. This method of killing civilians under the pretext of targeting armed groups is systematic policy of the occupation over the past five years not only in this attack but also in others carried out in all parts of Iraq.”…

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US and Iran holding ‘secret’ talks on nuclear programme
Anne Penketh, Independent
Iran and the United States have been engaged in secret “back channel” discussions for the past five years on Iran’s nuclear programme and the broader relationship between the two sworn enemies, The Independent can reveal. One of the participants, former senior US diplomat Thomas Pickering, explained that a group of former American diplomats and experts had been meeting with Iranian academics and policy advisers “in a lot of different places, although not in the US or Iran”…

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“THOSE FUCKING IRANIANS”
Malcom Lagauche
Last year, I received a call from a friend who used to live in San Diego. Currently, he is a professor at a Minnesota university. He left the San Diego area eight years ago and I had not seen him since, although we always kept in touch by phone and e-mail. We made an appointment to meet the following day. My friend is a Shi’ite Muslim who grew up in Basra and gained his university education in Baghdad. Naturally, our conversation was mostly about current Iraq. Within a minute of our sitting down to chat, he said, “Those fucking Iranians. I never thought they would do this.” Then, he told me how he has not made contact with his sister in Baghdad for eight months. He added that his uncle, an Iraqi Air Force pilot during the Iran-Iraq War, was murdered by Shi’ite militia people who were aligned with Iran. For eight years, the Iran-Iraq War raged until a cease-fire agreement was signed in 1988. For the next 15 years, Iraq was destroyed and strangled by U.S. actions, but Iran was no longer in the forefront…For several years, I have said that Iran and Iraq fought a bloody eight-year war to a stalemate. Then, 15 years later, Iran won without firing a shot….

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Maliki: Status of Kurdish peshmerga remains unchanged despite crackdown on militias
The Associated Press
Iraq’s Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and the head of the Kurdish regional authority agreed Saturday to retain the current semiautonomous status of the peshmerga — the military force responsible for security in Iraqi Kurdistan — despite a government crackdown on militias elsewhere in Iraq. “The guards of the province have the cover of legitimacy inside Kurdistan because they form organized forces,” al-Maliki said after a meeting with Nechervan Barzani, prime minister of the Kurdish government in northern Iraq. The decision on the peshmerga comes after al-Maliki demanded that anti-American cleric Muqtada al-Sadr disband his Mahdi Army or quit politics.---

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Israeli soldier assaults an 80-year old woman at Huwwara roadblock
IMEMC
Palestinian sources reported on Sunday that an Israeli soldier attacked an 80-year old Palestinian woman as she was trying to cross the Huwwara Israeli military roadblock near Nablus, in the northern part of the West Bank. Reporter Romel Al Sweity, of the Ikhbariyyat news agency, stated that as he was waiting at the roadblock, he saw an Israeli soldier arguing with the old woman who became tired and unable to stand at the checkpoint any longer, and insisted to cross instead of waiting behind the long line of residents who were also forced to stand there for an extended period…

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Hamas: Israel wants to cover its crimes when alleging we create human crisis
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement stated Sunday that the allegations issued by head of foreign affairs and war Knesset committee Tzahi Hanegbi and minister of settlements Zeev Boim that the Movement is creating unnecessarily a phony humanitarian crisis is an attempt to cover up the crimes resulting from the unjust Israeli siege on the Gaza Strip. In a press statement received by the PIC, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, added that one of Israel’s siege crimes is its decision to stop supplying Gaza with Fuel supplies….

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Robert Fisk’s mail bag
Gabriele Zamparini, The Cat’s Dream
After making several good points, toward the end Fisk writes about the most important one: Now for much more blood, the civilian variety. According to George, “About 1,600,000 were killed in the Korean war, 365,000 (according to American authorities) and four million (according to the Vietnamese government) during the American phase of the Vietnam war, and who knows how many in Iraq. No fewer than 250,000, certainly.” Not that long ago, Bush claimed that civilian fatalities in Iraq were “30,000 more or less” – again, note the “more or less” – but I can see why these statistics matter even less for him. (…) While it’s important to remember that Bush’s “30,000 more or less” came from Iraq Body Count, it’s ironic that Robert Fisk reproduces a letter of his “old American military analyst friend, George W Appenzeller” to correct “some recent comparative figures”, when Fisk’s old friend seems to wander in the dark as he writes “and who knows how many in Iraq. No fewer than 250,000, certainly”. Being that excellent reporter we all rightly respect, Robert Fisk surely knows about the scientific studies on this topic published on the British medical journal The Lancet as well as the polls published by the British ORB, that estimated that over 1,000,000 Iraqi citizens have died as a result of the conflict which started in 2003…

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U.S., Iraqi officials cite ‘gangs,’ not Mahdi Army, as enemy
James Warden, Stars and Stripes
American forces and the Iraqi government are officially resisting any attempts to connect recent fighting to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army. Rear Adm. Patrick Driscoll, a Multi-National Force–Iraq spokesman, described a brightening security picture in Basra and Baghdad to a group of reporters in the capital Sunday — initially without any mention of the militant group. Instead, he said the Americans and Iraqi security forces have been battling “armed criminals” and “gangs” who possess illegal weapons. Driscoll noted that Iraqi Security Forces arrested more than 400 criminals during the fighting, including several death-row convicts at large in Basra….

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Why Americans Are Tuning out the Disaster in Iraq
Frank Rich, The New York Time
The prevailing verdict on the Petraeus-Crocker show is that it accomplished little beyond certifying President Bush’s intention to kick the can to January 2009 so that the helicopters will vacate the Green Zone on the next president’s watch. That’s true, but by week’s end, I became more convinced than ever that in January we’ll have a new policy that includes serious withdrawals and serious conversations with Mr. Maliki’s pals in Iran, even if John McCain becomes president. General Petraeus and Mr. Crocker define victory as “sustainable security” in Iraq. But both Colin Powell and Gen. Richard Cody, the Army’s vice chief of staff, said last week that current troop levels in Iraq and Afghanistan are unsustainable and are damaging America’s readiness to meet other security threats. And that’s not all that’s unsustainable…

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Jordanian Islamist warns of an unprecedented reaction if Gaza siege persisted
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Ruhayyel Al-Gharayba, the deputy secretary-general of the influential Islamic Action Front party in Jordan, has slammed the stand of the Arab regimes vis-à-vis the suffering of the Palestinian people in Gaza. Gharayba also warned of “strong” popular reaction that could break all expectations and could turn political scales in the region up-side-down. When asked about the US and Israeli role in blockade, Gharayba asserted that the USA doesn’t care the catastrophe that could come to the region if she and the Israeli occupation government implemented their “destructive and horrifying” agenda in the region, highlighting that the USA and Israel don’t mind about the fate of their local agents in the region…

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April 13, 2008: 46 Iraqis Killed, 29 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 46 Iraqis were killed and 29 were wounded in the latest violence. Sadr City finally quieted down after a couple weeks of intense fighting, but light clashing was still reported. No Coalition deaths were reported, but at least two Coalition soldiers were injured during a friendly fire incident in Baghdad. In Baghdad, four men were seen planting a roadside bomb in New Baghdad. A U.S. air strike killed two of the suspects. A second missile was shot at the remaining men but missed them and instead hit a Coalition vehicle and residential housing. Three Iraqis and two Coalition soldiers were wounded in the incident, while the two gunmen fled….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 12 April 2008.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.
In a dispatch posted at 4:20pm Baghdad time Saturday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that Salman al-Furayji, Director of the Office of Muqtada as-Sadr in Madintat as-Sadr, threatened to cancel the cease fire imposed by Muqtada as-Sadr if the US-run offensive against the Sadr Movement continues. Yaqen reported al-Furayji said that they obey orders of Muqtada as-Sadr, but that if military operations against them continues, the cease-fire will be cancelled for sure….

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An Open Letter to the Leader of the Liberal Democrats
Five Years on : Your Rightful Concern for Dharfur : What About Iraq and Palestine?
Felicity Arbuthnot
In your appeal for Dharfur (attached below) you write: ‘In Sudan, every one of those 1800 days that has passed has been the same: fear, hunger, and suffering. There are children, now of school age, who have known nothing but the life of a refugee.’ You request that Gordon Brown pressure China, in this Olympic year, over its role in Dharfur. Strange that no such request is made that he pressure the United States, murderously backing the Ethiopian troops and as ever, providing lethal weaponry where ever possibility of a lucrative contract floats past. Odd that you are not pressurising Mr Brown for children who have been enduring: ‘fear, hunger and suffering’, with the UK being co-partner in crime with the United States for seventeen years. The children of Iraq. They were dying at an average of six thousand children a month for many years before the invasion, of ‘embargo related causes’. Not Saddam related, EMBARGO related, the United Nation’s own words in their Reports. They are now terrified, traumatised and dying for ‘liberation’ (actually, a war of agression, Nuremberg’s ‘supreme international crime’) in orders of magnitude more. It is five years since the beginning of Dharfur’s suffering you rightly point out. It is five years since the further ceaseless, dementia-inducing terror has been unleashed on the people, the children, of Iraq. What of the children of Palestine? Si! xty year s of their ‘fear, hunger and suffering’. The 132nd victim of the current illegal siege of Gaza has just died for want of medicine. A victim too young to even to know he was dying because he was Palestinian – or that he was a Palestinian…

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New report by PCATI (Public Committee Against Torture in Israel)
– “Family Matters, Using Family Members to Pressure Detainees
Public Committee Against Torture in Israel
The illegal exploitation of family members, who, in most instances, are not suspects themselves, has on many occasions caused severe psychological suffering to interrogees and to their innocent relatives. In more extreme cases, this method takes the form of psychological torture of a detainee rendering him a victim of a cruel psychological manipulation via the illegal exploitation of a close relative. In one such case, detailed in the report, the pressure caused by this form of abuse led the detainee to attempt suicide on several occasions. The report “Family Matters, Using Family Members to Pressure Detainees Under GSS Interrogation”, written by Attorney Aviel Liner, details a sampling of six cases involving the exploitation of family members…

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Thoughts in Red…
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
…Which God is it that demands so much blood? But most importantly why Arab (muslim) Blood ? What kind of vampire lives off Muslim Blood ? And does blood have a race or an ethnicity or even a religion ? It’s all Red to me… OK take that as FACT – All Blood is RED. Yellow, Black, White, Colored…it’s all RED.
Muslim, Christian, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhists, Pagan, Animist, Atheist, Agnostic…It’s all RED. So what makes one blood cheaper than another ? What makes one life cheaper than another ? Yesterday I saw a scene, let me share it with you – A Palestinian boy was hit by an Israeli explosive, he was dying in front of the camera…A man next to him was yelling “ Say the Testimony of Faith, say there is No God but God, say it…” Blood, red blood was pouring profusely, covering this boy’s shirt, his trousers, and finally the white sheet that covered him. Say it --- There is no God but God…Say it, there is no blood but Red blood… God manifests Itself in what unites us, Red Blood. So why is mine cheaper than yours ? Excuse me but why are your kids so precious and ours not ? Why are you families so important and ours not ? Why are your lives so sacred and ours not ? Let’s go back to Blood. If I mix mine with yours, will you know which is which and whose is whose ? You would not, it’s all RED. I saw an Iraqi kid bombed out, with blood pouring out, gushing out, he was not even crying…he just stared. Stared at You……

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Badr Brigade militia hides their arms, leaders flee to Iran
Roads to Iraq
Reported by Akhbar al-Khaleej [confirmed by al-Ghad], source from the Iraqi interior Ministry said that instruction issued from the Iraqi Islamic Council [Revolution] led by al-Hakim to the all Badr Brigades head quarters to hide all their heavy weapons such as mortars and R,B.G in secret places for the fair of sudden raids from the American occupation forces in a plan aimed to disarm the militias namely Mahdi Army, leaders of the Badr Brigades working as high rank officers in the Interior Ministry are cooperating to find proper places to hide these weapons, also from the same source, leaders of the BB are fled the country to Iran temporarily waiting after the end of the disarmament campaign…

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INTERVIEW-Iraq frustrated at delays to Iran/US talks- Zebari
Dean Yates, Reuters
Iraq expects to host more talks between U.S. and Iranian officials on improving Iraq’s security but is frustrated by repeated delays, Foreign Minister Hoshiyar Zebari said on Sunday. Zebari said his government had been trying since November to get a fourth round of talks held in Baghdad. Both Tehran and Washington had committed to fresh dialogue although Zebari said he did not have a date for a meeting. The U.S.-Iranian security talks are one of the few forums in which officials from the two bitter foes have direct contact. Diplomatic ties between Washington and Tehran have been frozen for almost three decades. “We need a commitment by the parties to stick to the agreed date. This is not happening,” Zebari said in an interview….

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Egyptian government cuts supplies to areas near Gaza
Saed Bannoura – IMEM
In a bid to help the Israeli government in their siege of the Gaza Strip, Egyptian officials have agreed to cut off supplies to towns in the Egyptian Sinai peninsula that border the Gaza Strip. Israel has cut off the Gaza Strip from the outside world for nearly two years, which has caused severe suffering for the civilian population of Gaza. International and Israeli humanitarian organizations, including the United Nations, have condemned the siege as a form of collective punishment of the Palestinian people, which is banned under international law and treaties signed by Israel…

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Iraqi marriages are a casualty of war
The number of divorces has doubled since the conflict began. Sectarian tensions and joblessness are among the reasons.
Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
For years, most of the solemn young couples who sought out Sayid Rafid Husseini were looking for a marriage certificate. Now, the robed cleric says, many who make their way to his office near a revered Shiite Muslim shrine want a divorce. “I try to convince them not to do it,” Husseini says. But times are hard. Waves of killing and displacement, not to mention sectarian pressures, have ripped families apart. And soaring unemployment is adding unbearable strain, turning what was once an almost unthinkable taboo into an increasingly common reality of Iraqi life. The number of divorces granted annually by Iraqi courts has doubled since U.S.-led forces invaded in 2003, from 20,649 that year to 41,536 in 2007, according to figures provided by the Supreme Judicial Council, which oversees the nation’s courts. But the real number is probably higher…

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The Jordanian regime prevents Salah Al Mukhtar from entering its territories!
Al Moharer.net
Reliable sources in the Yemeni capital city Sana’a, confirmed that the Jordanian authorities have refused entry visa for the Iraqi well known writer, militant and former diplomat Salah al Mukhtar. These sources speaking from the Yemeni capital city San’a ascertained that the Jordanian authorities rejected an entry visa for the militant Iraqi writer al Mukhtar to enter Jordan on 11 April 2008…

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Iran Ordered Muqtada al-Sadr to Return to Al-Najaf – Iraqi Sources
Ma’ad Fayad, Asharq Alawsat
The Iraqi sources in Qom and Al-Najaf asserted that the Iranian authorities informed Al-Sadr of the need to leave their territories because of the security problems he had caused in Iraq following the armed clashes between the pro-Al-Sadr “Al-Mahdi Army” militia and Iraqi forces in Basra, Baghdad, Al-Diwaniyah, Karbala, and Al-Kut. They added that moderate officials in Iran denounced Al-Sadr’s presence in their territories saying that this was causing problems with the Iraqi Government and that “affects the course of relations between Tehran and Baghdad.” Iraqi sources in Al-Najaf said Al-Sadr “arrived from Qom the night before yesterday and stayed at the house of one of his aides, where his supporters were banned from reaching him, after being forced to stay for six months in an isolated house on the outskirts of the Iranian city of Qom.” An Iranian official last week denied that Al-Sadr was in Iran but Ali al-Adib, a leading member of Al-Da’wah Party told Asharq Al-Awsat that he met him in Qom less than a week ago…

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U.S. May Not Release Guantanamo Prisoners: Even If Found Innocent of Charges Against Them
Sherwood Ross, Global Research
Even if a Guantanamo prisoner is acquitted on all counts at his trial, the Pentagon may still not release him on grounds he might return to the battlefield, according to an article in the April 14th issue of The New Yorker. The magazine’s Jeffrey Toobin quotes Brig. General Thomas Hartmann, legal adviser to the Pentagon’s Office of Military Commissions, as saying, “What’s unusual about what we’re doing is that we’re having the commissions before the end of the war. The Nuremberg trials (of accused Nazi war criminals) were after World War Two, so there was no possibility of the defendants going back to the battlefield.”…

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Iran Reiterates Support for Iraq’s Political Process
Fars News Agency
Iran on Sunday dismissed US allegations about Tehran’s negative role in Iraq, with its foreign ministry spokesman saying that Tehran fully supports the political process in Iraq. “As admitted by Iraqi officials, and as demonstrated by Iran in practice, Tehran always supports the political process in Iraq,” Iranian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Seyed Mohammad Ali Hosseini said during a weekly press briefing here in Tehran today. Hosseini recalled that Iran was the first country in the region to reopen its embassy in Baghdad after the overthrow of the Saddam regime…

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Iraq dismisses 1,300 security members after clashes in the south
Xinhua
The Iraqi government decided to dismiss more than 1,300 soldiers and policemen because they refused to fight Shiite militiamen during recent clashes in southern Iraqi cities, a security source said on Sunday. Up to 921 soldiers and policemen, including 37 senior officers, have been fired from their jobs in the Iraqi police and army units in the southern city of Basra, where the U.S.-backed Iraqi security forces fought Mahdi Army militia, loyal to radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Interior Ministry spokesman Major Gen. Abdul Kareem Khalaf said….

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US strike kills own soldiers in Baghdad
Associated Press
The US military says an Apache helicopter has accidentally destroyed one of its own armoured vehicles in eastern Baghdad. The military says the incident occurred yesterday afternoon, when the chopper spotted a group of four militants placing roadside bombs. It says a Hellfire missile hit the group, killing two gunmen. Sunday’s statement says that a second Hellfire was then launched. But it missed its target and struck a US armoured vehicle instead….

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Gaza health ministry issues urgent appeals to humanitarian organizations
Palestinian Information Center
The health ministry in Gaza issued Sunday an urgent appeal to all humanitarian organizations to move rapidly to stop what it termed as a “criminal series” in Gaza, holding the international community fully responsible after it preferred to step aside and remain silent watching the Israeli crimes committed everyday against the Palestinian people. In a press statement received by the PIC, the ministry stated that ambulance service stopped transferring injuries and patients after fuel supplies were depleted and Palestinian doctors are unable to reach their work places because of lack of sufficient transport means, while patients in hospitals are surrounded by the specter of death…

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GAZA: No Ambulance, Call the Radio
Mohammed Omer
“I am bleeding uncontrollably, I need an ambulance.” That was not a call to emergency services, it was an appeal broadcast live on radio in Gaza City. Who knows whether there will ever be an ambulance or not. But this way the ambulance services still hear the appeal broadcast on Al-Iman FM Radio Station, one of few independent radio stations in Gaza. And if the emergency services cannot help, someone else who hears the appeal might. The ambulance dispatcher announces he cannot get the ambulance to the man. An Israeli bulldozer is blocking the road, and an Israeli tank on a hilltop has been firing at the ambulance, he says. Nobody can say if anyone else got to help the man. But at least his SOS could have been heard…

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Shiraz explosion not sabotage act
PRESS TV – IRAN
Governor of Fars province has said primary investigations show the explosion at a religious center in Shiraz was not an act of sabotage. Ali Moayyeri told IRNA that negligence may have been the cause of the explosion, considering that an exhibition of the Sacred Defense (the 1980-88 Iraq-imposed war) achievements had recently been held at the site. “The explosives left over from the exhibition may have led to the occurrence of the blast,” he said. The official rejected speculations that the incident was an act of subversion….

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Iraqis, U.S. Intensify Actions in Sadr City
Sholnn Freeman, Washington Post Foreign Service
Iraqi and U.S. military forces on Saturday pushed deeper into the Sadr City neighborhood of Baghdad, an area largely controlled by Shiite militiamen loyal to anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr. A curfew imposed on Sadr City more than a week ago was lifted, and residents appeared on the streets as shops reopened, despite the large presence of U.S. and Iraqi security forces. Leaders of Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia reported that U.S. and Iraqi forces had split the area into at least two sections and were placing concrete barriers at a major intersection…

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IAI Leader: Trillions war and paper tiger
Islamic Army in Iraq (IAI)
…All the American political solutions failed because it based on oppression and aggression, single-benefit tyranny, accumulated scandals and progression wars with no excuses. The era lie of mass destruction weapons became non valuable and the linking between the former Iraqi president Saddam and Al-Qaeda organization went away with winds. The pentagon proved the false of that propaganda by its repeatedly failures (…) The trust in the American economy goes down while it experiences an unexampled depression and more than 70% of economy American experts prove that. The wisp of trillions they pump will not survive their economy and will have no real effect or positive results because the war in Iraq and Afghanistan devours hundreds trillion dollars. The historic drop down of Dollar against the other currencies continues. The green currency became no more trustful. Oil price exceeded110 dollar and gold knocks 1000 dollar door. The American economy will soon declare bankrupt after they failed politically and their military losses went up….

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Sunnis form militias to counter those of Shiites
Charles Levinson, USA TODAY
As Shiite militias continue battling with U.S. and Iraqi forces in Baghdad, worried Sunnis are pushing back by forming their own neighborhood militias for protection, several Sunni leaders said Thursday. The rising tension in mixed neighborhoods of Sunnis and Shiites could lead to a wave of sectarian violence like the one that plunged Iraq into near civil war in 2006, they said. Nearly a dozen Sunni groups that Iraqis call the Sahwa, or “Awakening,” have formed in the past two weeks, said Osama Abu Mohammad, an Awakening leader in Baghdad’s Risala neighborhood…These new groups appear to be forming without American help, said Col. Steve Stover, a U.S. military spokesman in Baghdad. Most Awakening Council fighters battling al-Qaeda receive $300 a month, which gives the U.S. military some control over them…

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April 12, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 65 Iraqis Killed; 48 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 65 Iraqis were killed and 48 more were injured in the latest violence. More fighting took place overnight in Sadr City, and a news mass grave was found in Mahmudiya. Also, an IED killed an American soldier northwest of Baghdad today. In Sadr City, the U.S. military reported killed 13 gunmen in overnight clashes. Police and hospital officials added seven civilians, who were killed in a Hellfire missile attack, to that tally. As many as 33 people were treated for injuries at local hospitals as well. Meanwhile, officials from the al-Sadr organization told Mahdi army members in Sadr City to avoid fighting U.S or Iraqi forces as the conflict is turning into a war…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 12 April 2008
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice.
In a dispatch posted at 7:30pm Baghdad time Saturday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that the US military had admitted that a bomb had exploded in northwestern Baghdad on Saturday. In a dispatch posted at 4:20pm Baghdad time Saturday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that Salman al-Furayji, Director of the Office of Muqtada as-Sadr in Madintat as-Sadr, threatened to cancel the cease fire imposed by Muqtada as-Sadr if the US-run offensive against the Sadr Movement continues…

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