Stress hooding noise nudity dogs
Philippe Sands, Guardian
It was the young officials at Guantánamo who dreamed up a list of new aggressive interrogation techniques, inspired by Jack Bauer from the TV series, 24. But it was the politicians and lawyers in Washington who set the ball rolling. Philippe Sands follows the torture trail right to the top…

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Born to Demolish
Jeff Halper, Israel Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD)
It was another of those routine tragedies that are never publicized. At eight in the morning we at ICAHD (the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions) received a call that the Border Police, Israeli police and Jerusalem Municipality bulldozers were massing below the Palestinian village of Anata, poised to begin another day of home demolitions. We never know of demolitions ahead of time. The Israeli authorities responsible for demolishing Palestinian homes – the municipality and the Ministry of Interior in Jerusalem, the “Civil” Administration in the West Bank and the army – do not provide advanced warning to us or, indeed, to the families themselves. Tens of thousands of Palestinian families live with demolition orders on their homes, some 22,000 in East Jerusalem alone, where fully a third of Palestinian homes face demolition at any time…

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Jewish settlers flood Palestinian neighbours with sewage
Redress Information & Analysis
A picture is worth a thousand word. The video below is both instructive and appalling. It sums up the character of the Jewish settlers – the misfits, thieves and squatters from the United States, Europe, the former Soviet Union and elsewhere who are stealing and blighting Palestinian lands in increasing number – and it exposes the deep-seated racism that underlies their contempt for Arabs in general and Palestinians in particular. At least twice a month, starting on Friday afternoons and continuing for a large part of the following day, the authorities in the illegal Jewish settlement of Beitar Illit, which is built on land stolen from the neighbouring Palestinian village of Wadi Fuqeen, near Bethlehem, open their sewage tanks on to the farmlands of the vilage. As the video shows, the sewage, which runs through specially-built pipelines that open on to the slopes leading to Wadi Fuqeen, accumulates on the Palestinian farmlands, poisoning crops, contaminating the water table and posing a serious health threat to villagers…

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Prisoner club appeals for Palestinian prisoner who lost sight in both eyes
Palestinian Information Center
The Palestinian prisoner club in Jenin appealed to all human rights organizations to raise the issue of a Palestinian prisoner called Allam Attari in the Israeli Galboua prison who lost vision in both eyes due to medical neglect, pointing out that he needs a medical follow-up immediately. The club had already warned in January that prisoner Attari might lose vision in both eyes if immediate treatment was not accorded to him and appealed to human rights organizations to intervene, but to no avail. The Israeli prison authority had refused to accord proper treatment to Attari, who is serving a 16-year-sentence, despite his repeated appeals….

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McCain, the Retired Military “Analysts” and the Myth of al-Qaeda in Iraq
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
I am quoted in this NYT piece today on John McCain’s allegations that the US is fighting “al-Qaeda” in Iraq and that there is a danger of “al-Qaeda” taking over the country if the US leaves. Those allegations don’t make any sense. McCain contradicts himself because he sometimes warns that the Shiites or Iran will take over Iraq. He doesn’t seem to realize that the US presided over the ascension to power in Iraq of pro-Iranian Shiite parties like Nuri al-Maliki’s Islamic Mission Party and Abdul Aziz al-Hakim’s Islamic Supreme Council of Iraq. So which is it? There is a danger that pro-Iranian Shiites will take over (which is anyway what we have engineered) or that al-Qaeda will? It is not as if they can coexist…At the moment no guerrilla group in Iraq even calls itself al-Qaeda…Opinion polling shows that a majority of Iraqi Sunnis says that a separation of religion and state is desirable, which is what you would expect from a population ruled by the secular Arab nationalist Baath Party for 25 years…

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The Torture Agenda
Tom Burghardt, Antifascist Calling…
On April 9, ABC News correspondent Jan Crawford Greenburgh broke an exclusive story on World News Tonight that provided new details surrounding how top Bush administration officials signed off on the use of harsh interrogation tactics in the “war on terror.” Indeed, vice president Dick Cheney, secretary of state Colin Powell, attorney general John Ashcroft, CIA director George Tenet, and national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, grouped in the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, gave the U.S. military and the CIA a green light to torture suspected al-Qaeda operatives and other “enemy combatants.”…

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Message Machine
Behind Analysts, the Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
DAVID BARSTOW, NYTimes
In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded “the gulag of our times” by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure. The administration’s communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo…

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The mystery of ‘peace process’
Adel Safty, Special to Gulf News
A few months after the Annapolis conference, which re-launched the “peace process”, Israel announced plans for building of new colonies in the occupied West Bank. UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon criticised Israel and stated that the decision to build more settlements [colonies] conflicted with “Israel’s obligation under the road map” for Middle East peace. The Bush administration refused to condemn the Israeli decision. The US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice simply said: “It’s important to do everything possible to advance peace.” President George W. Bush refused to criticise Israel saying the obligations of both sides under the road map “are clear”. The Israeli organisation Peace Now documented that “since the Annapolis summit there was a leap in the number of tenders and construction plans in East Jerusalem. Tenders for the construction of at least 750 housing units in East Jerusalem were issued between December 2007 and March 2008, while throughout all 2007 until the summit, only two tenders for 46 housing units were issued.”…

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Iran ready to resume talks with US on Iraq: Official
ISNA
Iran is ready to resume talks with the US on Iraq security, but the exact time for negotiations has not been set yet, said an Iranian official. The delay in Iran-US talks has occurred due to Iraq’s neighboring countries meeting in Kuwait.Iran and the US have met three times in Iraq to discuss security condition in the country and find ways to restore stability and peace to the state. Iraq’s neighboring countries meeting will be a follow-up from meetings in Turkey and Egypt which took place last year…

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European campaign appeals for saving Gaza patients from impending mass death
Palestinian Information Center
The European campaign to lift the siege on Gaza issued an urgent appeal to save the lives of hundreds of patients and wounded in the Gaza Strip from impending mass death which may happen during the coming few days as a result of the Israeli siege on all life essentials especially medicines and fuel supplies. In a statement received by the PIC, the campaign warned that Israel’s reluctance to provide the Strip with its fuel and medical needs such as nitrous gas used in surgical operations and to allow its patients to travel for treatment is portending a humanitarian disaster which will claim the lives of hundreds of Palestinian citizens during the coming days especially patients….

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Leader of Tharallah militia died under torture
Roads to Iraq
According to al-Badeel al-Iraqi website the leader of “Tha’ar Allah” or “Tharallah” extremists militia Yusuf Musawi captured in Basra among other 21 persons executed later in Baghdad with unfair [or without] trial [condemned by Amnesty] and accused of killing dozens of women, men, especially scientists and the Baathists had died under torture. The source said that one of the Maliki’s advisors Abu Mujahid supervised the torture of the detainee, the website suggests that it is a political assassination aimed to silence the opponent and hide the evidence because al-Musawi was not working alone in smuggling oil and committing crimes in Basra, the arrest of al-Musawi is an embarrassment to the Iraqi government and some parties, especially the Supreme Council and Ammar Al-Hakim in case al-Musawi decided to reveal his partners in court….

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Al-Sadr’s followers refuse to disband militia in Iraq
ROBERT H. REID, Associated Press Writer
Followers of hardline cleric Muqtada al-Sadr raised the stakes Sunday in the showdown with Iraq’s government, refusing to disband their militia. The U.S. military said 40 Shiite militants were killed in fierce fighting in southern Iraq. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, meanwhile, assured visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice that he will not back down in his confrontation with Shiite militias, even as mortar shells fired from Shiite areas struck the U.S.-protected Green Zone…

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3 Israeli airstrikes kill six Palestinians in Gaza and injure six, including 12-year old girl
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
In apparent retaliation for a Palestinian resistance attack on Karm Abu Salem crossing earlier Saturday, Israeli forces fired a missile on the Jabalia refugee camp in the northern Gaza Strip at 10:55 pm Saturday night, killing four. An earlier air strike in Rafah, in southern Gaza, killed one Palestinian police officer and injured four civilians; and another in Al-Shuja’eyya camp east of Gaza City killed one….

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US military threatens to hit back if Sadr launches war
AFP
A top US general has warned that the military would strike back after hardline Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to launch a new uprising by his militia. A top US general on Sunday warned that the military would strike back after hardline Iraqi Shiite leader Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to launch a new uprising by his militia. “I hope Moqtada al-Sadr continues to depress violence and not encourage it,” said Major General Rick Lynch, commander of US forces in central Iraq….

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Iraqi government seeks dialogue with al-Sadr to stem violence
DPA
The Iraqi government is not targeting followers of radical cleric Moqtada al-Sadr and is seeking to open a dialogue with his political group, a cabinet spokesman said Sunday. The statement comes a day after al-Sadr threatened to launch an “open war until liberation” unless the government halted its offensive against his followers. “There is a need for opening a dialogue as the al-Sadr Bloc is an effective part in parliament and government,” government spokesman Ali al-Dabagh told reporters…

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Iraq president says Sunnis ready to return to cabinet
AFP
Iraq’s main Sunni political bloc which quit Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki’s cabinet last year is ready to return and has put forward a list of candidates, President Jalal Talabani said on Sunday. “The main obstacles have been removed,” Talabani said after holding talks with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. “The National Concord Front has submitted to the prime minister the names of its candidates for the ministries,” he added. “Two names for each ministry.”…

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Thousands attend funeral of slain Gaza journalist
Mohammed Omer, The Electronic Intifada
Fadel Shana’a just had to go to the scene of the Israeli bombing. As a Reuters cameraman, that was his job. He wasn’t the only one killed, but through his pursuit of attacks as they happen, he was always more at risk than most others. Fadel Shana’a was killed Wednesday because he was in the firing line, but also because, eyewitnesses said, he had begun to film the tanks that were firing. A barrage of metal shrapnel pierced his body as a tank missile landed close to him….

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Rice, In Iraq, Mocks Al-Sadr’s Threats
Newsroom America, New Zealand
Radical Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Sunday threatened to declare war on U.S. and Iraqi forces if they persisted in trying to destroy his Mahdi Army, but the threat was mocked by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who is in Baghdad to tout security gains. She said al-Sadr was content to issue his threats from the safety of Iran, where he is studying. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go too their deaths and he’s in Iran.” A full-blown rebellion led by al-Sadr and his followers could severely disrupt security gains made by U.S. and Iraqi forces in the past year….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Saturday, 19 April 2008.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
…In a dispatch posted at 7:08pm Baghdad time Saturday afternoon, the Association of Muslim Scholars of Iraq (AMSI) reported that 12 members of the Iraqi regime delegation accompanying US-backed Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki to Brussels, Belgium, refused to return to Iraq at the end of their official visit. The AMSI reported an informed source as saying that Iraqi regime spokesman ‘Ali ad-Dabbagh had informed the authorities in Brussels of the decision of the 12 Iraqi officials. The source said that among those who were refusing to return to Iraq were one of al-Maliki’s advisers, some information officers and a number of officials at the ministries of petroleum, trade, and finance…

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April 19, 2008: 2 US Soldiers, 95 Iraqis Killed; 185 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 95 Iraqis were killed and 183 were wounded in the latest attacks. Many were killed or injured in Sadr City where fighting between the Mahdi army and security forces continues. Two American soldiers were killed in separate incidents. Meahwhile, the Australians are delaying their withdrawal, while civil war is breaking out between Sunni factions. One American soldier was killed when an IED exploded yesterday in Salah ad Din province. The DOD reported the death of an American soldier the day before in Sama village during a small arms attack…

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The George Seldes Award and Superclass
karlmarxwasright
There is no such thing as the George Seldes Award. I made it up. Also, in previous blogs, I made up the Bertolt Brecht Award for Layla Anwar’s outstanding, and, fortunate for us/me, arabwomanblues blogspot in ENGLISH! This time, I decided Layla Anwar should get the George Seldes Award, if such existed, which it should. It would be a real distinction. George Seldes name might not be a household word, familiar to the entire world, but, he is and was well known by anyone studying WWII and US history. I think, in the following links, one will easily agree why the subject matter of both George Seldes and Layla Anwar and, my own blog, as well, coincides and why George Seldes would most certainly, if he were alive today, give Layla a distinctive acknowledgement…

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On Myths, Sectarianism and Mass Graves.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Simply put, the sectarian/ethnic agenda the US came with consisted of the following myths. – Iraq is majority Shiite. And the lie adds —this latter group has been repressed by the previous government, hence this group did not have any adequate political and social representation in Iraqi society. So any liberation must take into account this “sect’s struggle and aspirations” – The Kurds are a separate ethnicity from the Arabs. They too have been repressed by the previous government, hence any “liberation” must take into account their “ethnic struggle and aspirations.” The above two myths were the principal premises on which America has operated until now. Anyone with a modicum of insight can already spot the sectarian and ethnic division that America had in mind in the above claims. In order to understand the conspiracy one first has to debunk these myths. And this is what I am intent on doing. So : 1) Under the previous regime, there was NO NOTION of SECT or ETHNICITY embedded in the prevailing political and social culture. Us as Iraqis never and I repeat NEVER thought or acted on that basis. It was simply NOT part of our culture. 2) The proof is that the rate of intermarriage between let’s say Shia, Sunnis and Kurds was the highest in the Arab World. Education can be used as another sociological barometer where ALL IRAQIS had access to education regardless of their sect and ethnicity. The same applies to Health services, Employment, etc…

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MORE BULLSHIT
Malcom Lagauche
Just when you think you have seen the worst of propaganda and rewriting the history of Iraq, something happens to prove you wrong. In this case, it is the publishing of a report called “Choosing War: The Decision to Invade Iraq and Its Aftermath,” published by the National Defense University in April 2008 and written by Joseph J. Collins, a retired U.S. Army colonel. The overall theme of the publication is that the U.S. has lost many soldiers and spent billions of dollars on rebuilding Iraq, yet the Iraqis do not seem to be thankful. Collins treats the myriad lies told to the world by the U.S. government as a few honest mistakes. Let’s take a look at a few of Collins’ assessments and the contrasting reality…

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Battle to retake Basra was ‘complete disaster’
Sean Rayment, Telegraph
The British-trained Iraqi Army’s attempt to retake Basra from militiamen was an “unmitigated disaster at every level”, British commanders have disclosed. Senior sources have said that the mission was undermined by incompetent officers and untrained troops who were sent into battle with inadequate supplies of food, water and ammunition. They said the failure had delayed the British withdrawal by “many months”…

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Top Bush aides pushed for Guantánamo torture
Senior officials bypassed army chief to introduce interrogation methods
Richard Norton-Taylor, The Guardian
America’s most senior general was “hoodwinked” by top Bush administration officials determined to push through aggressive interrogation techniques of terror suspects held at Guantánamo Bay, leading to the US military abandoning its age-old ban on the cruel and inhumane treatment of prisoners, the Guardian reveals today. General Richard Myers, chairman of the US joint chiefs of staff from 2001 to 2005, wrongly believed that inmates at Guantánamo and other prisons were protected by the Geneva conventions and from abuse tantamount to torture….

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Pope Benedict, the man of “peace”
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Everyone knows Pope Benedict opposed the invasion of Iraq, although actually backing up his opinion with actions was beyond the limits of that opposition, evidently (…) Not that the Pope is really opposed to violence; he just wants it approved by the U.N. Security Council, where countries are free to sell their souls to the devil United States (or perhaps even NATO, where the U.S. carries almost total sway, would suffice for “his holiness”)…

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Nasseriya city’’s clashes results in 25 deaths in S. Iraq
KUNA
Twenty-five people were killed Saturday in the Nasseriya city’s clashes south of Baghdad, said a security source on Saturday.
Major Majid Al-Fadeli told KUNA that Iraqi security forces raided Al-Sadr office in a local market at Nasseriya city, indicated that first reports indicated that 20 gunmen were killed while four policemen and one civilian met their fates.
Forty gunmen were arrested with their weapons and guns confiscated, stated Al-Fadeli, adding that Iraqi forces were just focusing operations on the northern part of the city…

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Iraqi Forces Take Last Basra Areas From Sadr Force
JAMES GLANZ and ALISSA J. RUBIN, NYTimes
Iraqi soldiers took control of the last bastions of the cleric Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in Basra on Saturday, and Iran’s ambassador to Baghdad strongly endorsed the Iraqi government’s monthlong military operation against the fighters. By Saturday evening, Basra was calm, but only after air and artillery strikes by American and British forces cleared the way for Iraqi troops to move into the Hayaniya district and other remaining Mahdi Army militia strongholds and begin house-to house searches, Iraqi officials said. Iraqi troops were meeting little resistance, said Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf, the spokesman for the Iraqi Interior Ministry in Baghdad. Despite the apparent concession of Basra, Mr. Sadr issued defiant words on Saturday night…

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Palestinian detainees demand proper medical attention, direct treatment to urgent cases
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News
One of lawyers of the Palestinian Prisoners Society visited Galboa’ Israeli prison and met with a number of Palestinian detainees who informed him of ongoing violations and of urgent cases of detainees who need immediate medical treatment. This report includes number of detainees imprisoned by Israel, including detainees who died in prison, female and child detainees. The Lawyer met with detainee Mohammad Sabbagh, a spokesperson of the detainees, and also met with detainee Ahmad Abdul-Qadir Salim. Both detainees demanded more attention to the detainees’ case especially since there are dozens of detainees who are seriously ill and need medical treatment….

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Sheikh Dhari: the American Occupation is the Cover of the Iranian Interference in Iraq
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The occupation deeply detriments Iraq by many ways, it will enough to mention that the occupation was the main cause of killing more than one million Iraqis, more than five million orphans and more than million Iraqi widows most of them less than thirties. Because of the occupation’s intrigues and seditions some Iraqis turned against each other. There are more than seven millions homeless Iraqis inside and outside Iraq. Beside this there are about 60% of unemployed Iraqi people. Above all, there are shortages of food, medicine and social services that most of the Iraqi people suffering of which caused diseases outbreaks like cancer and cholera. Much more disease was because of the criminal behaviors and the use of the internationally prohibited weapons like uranium, white phosphorus and many of Iraqi freedom gifts…

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Thieves in uniform
Gideon Levy
At about midnight, the house was surrounded by soldiers. Mohammed Abu Arkub, a barber, woke up frightened at the sound of loud knocking on the door and the shouts demanding it be opened. Abu Arkub rushed to open the door and the soldiers pulled him outside and ordered him to take all the members of the household outside immediately. His wife Lubna and his two young daughters were sleeping, along with Lubna’s two younger sisters, who live with them. He woke them up and ordered them to go outside. His brother, Rami, who lives alone in the adjacent hut, was also called to go outside. The night of March 19, the village of Wadi al-Shajneh in the South Hebron Hills, south of the town of Dura. The family stood outside for about 10 minutes, half asleep in the cold night air, and then the soldiers ordered them to all go inside Rami’s hut…

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The US Palestine-Israel Fairytale
Ramzy Baroud
A memorable quote in Mark Twain’s Tom Sawyer Abroad (1894) still carries a wealth of relevance. He writes, “They own the [holy] land, just the mere land, and that’s all they do own; but it was our folks, our Jews and Christians, that made it holy, and so they haven’t any business to be there defiling it. It’s a shame and we ought not to stand it a minute. We ought to march against them and take it away from them.” Recently an influential pastor, John Hagee of the Dallas’s Cornerstone mega-church, followed his endorsement of Republican presidential candidate John McCain with some telling remarks….

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Sudden Death In Gaza: Report Says Israeli Tank Fired On Journalists And Onlookers, Not Militants
Winter Patriot
…Did you ever notice? Israeli soldiers are always on the defensive, even in foreign countries. Large numbers of Palestinian civilians are always killed “after” or “in retaliation for” the deaths of a few Israeli soldiers. And Israeli troops never enforce a brutal occupation; they’re just always getting involved in “clashes” in areas controlled by nasty Islamists. It’s almost as if they think we’re stupid. But then again, maybe we actually are!…

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Bad days – April 18
Mohammed, Last of Iraqis
…It seems that the era of targeting Awakening movement have begun and I’m afraid that the invisible hands will accuse some Sunni party or AlQaeda or some Sunni part and that will ignite the Sunni-Sunni confrontations so the party will be awesome and we will have a terrific chaos and mess, Sunnis fights Sunnis and Shiites fight Shiites and Sunnis fight Shiites and the army fights them all and all fights the army!!! Wow, that would be just great people dying and the invisible hands will be clapping!!! I’m really afraid from that but that’s what I see in the horizon. Today Adhamiya was closed too, no one goes out or gets in….the sand storm continued for the second day, it seems that even the nature has joined a militia because we are trapped in our houses and it’s getting really hot at the same time we are forced to tightly close all the windows to be sure no air comes from outside the house at the same time there is almost no electricity in the last 4 days in all Baghdad…it’s just great, it’s so hot and we can’t open a window and there is no electricity and mortars fall randomly on us! Could it be better?…

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Nine-year old child assaulted by Israeli Troops
IMEMC Staff
Israeli army troops assualted nine-year old Palestinian Saqer al-’Aramen from the town of al-’Ezariah in Jerusalem on Friday evening. Muqith Abu Roomy, director of the Media office of Asrana center in Jerusalem reported that an Israeli force comprised of 8 soldiers heavily beat the child while he was on his way home. Soldiers claimed they were confused by a toy-gun the child was playing with…

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Iraq cleric Sadr warns government of “open war”
Reuters
Iraqi Shi’ite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr on Saturday threatened “open war” with the government unless it chose what he called the “path of peace”. The statement from the populist Sadr ratchets up the tension between the cleric and Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki. Maliki has launched a crackdown on Sadr’s Mehdi Army militia and threatened to bar his mass movement from political life. “I’m giving the last warning and the last word to the Iraqi government — either it comes to its senses and takes the path of peace … or it will be the same as the previous government,” Sadr said, referring to Saddam Hussein’s fallen regime but without elaborating….

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Can the U.S. and Iran Share the Middle East?
Analysis by Trita Parsi*
By negotiating a Shiite truce, Tehran embarrassed Washington last week and arguably proved itself to be a more potent stabiliser of southern Iraq. Iran’s role in Iraq came as a sharp reminder that the George W. Bush administration’s accusations of Iranian mischief notwithstanding, Iranian influence in Iraq is both undeniable and multifaceted. As Washington starts to come to terms with this reality, the Middle East inches closer to its moment of truth: Is the United States ready to share the region with Iran? As the risk of a U.S.-Iran war is deemed to have dropped in the past few months, in spite of the resignation of Admiral William Fallon and President Bush’s designation of Iran as the United States’ number one threat, a modicum of optimism for U.S.-Iran relations in 2009 has emerged….

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Iraq troops take control of Basra militia bastion
AFP
Iraqi forces took control on Saturday of a district of the southern city of Basra which has seen intense firefights between troops and Shiite militiamen, the interior ministry said. Iraqi troops entered the northern Hayaniyah district of the city and took control of the area in an operation lasting several hours, ministry spokesman Major General Abdel Karim Khalaf said. “We launched an operation in the morning. There was some exchange of fire. The operation is now over in Hayaniyah without any strong resistance,” Khalaf told AFP…

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Ambulance cars in Gaza no longer operational due to lack of fuel
Palestinian Information Center
The department of ambulance and emergency in the Gaza Strip announced that all ambulance vehicles in the Strip would come to a complete standstill by 0600 pm local time Saturday due to the lack of fuel. Dr. Mu’awiya Hassanain, the director of the department, said in a press release that all petrol stations in the Strip said that they were out of fuel and thus the ambulance vehicles would stop moving and would not be able to extend assistance to the wounded and patients. He pointed out that the continued Israeli shelling and incursions would necessitate availability of ambulance cars to evacuate the casualties…

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Iranian ambassador in Baghdad criticizes US military operation in Sadr City
The Associated Press
The Iranian ambassador to Iraq has criticized the U.S. military’s operation in Baghdad’s main Shiite district of Sadr City. Iranian Ambassador Hassan Kazemi Qomi says “the insistence of the Americans to lay siege” on the district has led to the killing of several innocent people and “is a mistake.” Qomi says the Iranians support the Iraqi government’s offensive against Shiite militias in the southern city of Basra…

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Report: Iran’s president says oil at $115 a barrel is too low, calls for higher prices
Ali Akbar Dareini, Associated Press Writer
Iran’s hard-line president declared that crude oil prices, now above $115 a barrel, are too low, state media reported Saturday. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told an oil and gas exhibition in Tehran on Friday that he thought the commodity still had to “discover its real value,” according to the Web site of Iran’s state-run television…Ahmadinejad called the U.S. currency “a handful of paper” without any global support….

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Heavy Metal in Baghdad…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
I guess I’ve said it before — I HATE Heavy Metal , Metallica, whatever the shit you call it. BUT— For those of you out there who are into that kind of “music”, you may want to check out this trailer about a heavy metal band in Baghdad – Accrasicauda. And the interview with Soroosh Alvin (producer of this documentary) with English Al-Jazeera. I liked both videos…

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