Iraqi Kids Dream of Artificial Limbs
Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
While children elsewhere dream of a bright future and a good career, Mohammad Mukhaled, 10, has a far simpler dream. “More than three years I have been without a leg. I’m forced to go to school by my parents. I don’t like it. I’m ashamed.” The Iraqi kid lost his leg after being caught in a cross fire between resistance fighters and US forces in Fallujah in November 2004…Coming from a poor family, Mukhaled has been unable to get an artificial leg since then. His parents have been frantically looking for some form of assistance for their son, like physiotherapy treatment and an artificial leg, but no aid agency is able to find him one in view of the high demand nationwide. Mukhaled’s case is not peculiar…

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Report: Family members used to pressure Palestinians in Israeli detention
Report, PCATI
“They said that if I confessed to everything they wanted, they would release my wife, and that she was in the isolation cell because of me.” “The interrogator told me that my father was in detention (afterwards I discovered that he had lied), and threatened that they would also arrest my grandmother if I didn’t confess.” These and similar testimonies of detainees interrogated by the Israel Security Agency (GSS, also known as the Shin Bet or Shabak) during the past year indicate a phenomenon whose gravity must not be minimized: the use of a detainee’s family to “break” him. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) is determined to combat and eliminate this immoral practice of “psychological torture.” Psychological torture does not usually receive the same degree of public attention as physical torture….

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U.S.-Iraqi troops raid hospital in Baghdad
Voices of Iraq
Iraqi-U.S. forces raided al-Rashad psychological hospital in eastern Baghdad and detained all its staffs and patients, the media director of the Baghdad health department said on Thursday. “An Iraqi army force, backed by U.S. troops, raided al-Rashad psychological hospital and arrested all its staffs,” Qassem Abdul Hadi told Aswat al-Iraq …

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Hamas calls for popular revolt at Rafah on Friday
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement called for a popular revolt at the Rafah border crossing at noon Friday in protest at the Israeli siege which prevents the entry of minimum basics of life to Gaza. Ashraf Abu Daya, the spokesman for the popular action of Hamas, said the Palestinian masses will be marching at noon towards the crossings of Beit Hanoun and Rafah, pointing out that these angry marches will be a message to everyone to move urgently to put an end to this unjust siege which became intolerable…

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CIA has 7,000 documents relating to rendition, detention, torture programs, filing shows
RAW STORY
The Central Intelligence Agency has acknowledged having 7,000 pages of documents pertaining to President George W. Bush’s secret rendition and detention programs, according to three international human rights groups. Amnesty International USA, the Center for Constitutional Rights and the International Human Rights Clinic at NYU School of Law made the claim following a summary judgment motion by the agency this week to avoid a lawsuit that seeks to force the nation’s top spy outfit to make the documents public under a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit….

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Danish, Dutch evacuate Afghanistan embassies
Reuters
Denmark and The Netherlands have moved all the staff from their embassies in Afghanistan to secret safe locations because of concern about security, Foreign Ministry officials said on Wednesday. Denmark moved the staff out of its embassy in Algeria a few days ago for the same reason. “There was a change in the security situation and we decided that it was necessary…” said Danish Foreign Ministry spokesman Erik Laursen, saying the decision was based on new intelligence…

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700 rockets, mortar rounds fired in Baghdad in a month: US
AFP
Almost 700 rockets and mortar rounds were fired in Baghdad in the past month, US commanders said on Wednesday, insisting however that overall violence levels in the capital are falling. Colonel Allen Batschelet told reporters that a total of 697 rockets and mortar bombs were fired from various locations in the Iraqi capital between March 23 and April 20. Of these 114, hit the highly fortified Green Zone, also known as the International Zone (IZ), where the Iraqi government and US embassy are based, he said…

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Inauguration of Rantissi Pediatric Hospital for Children – During Siege and Blockade on Gaza Strip
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
On Wednesday the Rantissi Pediatric Hospital for Children opened during a ceremony in Gaza City,in attendance of many Palestinian Legislative Council members and in supervision of Premier Minister Ismael Hanya.Many were the speeches by members of the Gaza Strip society, including a speech by the wife of Abdel Aziz al-Rantissi,Um Mohammed….

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THE U.S. POWER STRUCTURE
Who Really Runs the World
Malcom Lagauche
A few weeks ago, a reader corresponded with me and told me that it was great that I pointed out all the shenanigans that the U.S. government has perpetrated over the years in controlling foreign countries. But, he asked, “Who benefits?” Good point. For the answer, I went to my good friend Frank Morrow. I have published a couple of interviews with him over the past several years. From 1978 to 1998, Frank produced the finest political TV show in history, Alternative Views. In the 20-year span, almost 600 segments were broadcast. Frank Morrow is my political mentor….

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April 23, 2008: 2 US Soldiers, 1 US Contractor, 59 Iraqis Killed; 114 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 59 Iraqis were killed and 114 more were wounded in the latest violence, much of it involving continued fighting between the Mahdi army and Iraqi security forces. Exact figures are difficult to obtain due to the nature of the clashes. One American soldier was killed during combat operations in Baghdad, while the DOD reported the death of a U.S. soldier from non-combat injuries. The remains of an American contractor who was kidnapped in 2006 were positively identified….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 23 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 6:10pm Makkah time Wednesday afternoon (7:10pm in Baghdad), Mafkarat al-Islam reported that 19 people had been killed and 37 more wounded in battles and US bombardments in the Madinat as-Sadr area of Baghdad in the previous 24 hours. Mafkarat al-Islam reported source in the security forces and hospitals as saying that fighting raged in Madinat as-Sadr and the Ur neighborhood to the north of Madinat as-Sadr in the previous 24 hours…

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A Fox Trot in the Dark…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…In Iraq on the other hand, I have a few juicy stories to report following Rice’s éclair visit. First the hot news then the not so hot news… Again saw it on Al-Arabiya but was not reported on Al-Jazeera. The American forces said they captured in Hamrain in the Salaheddin province “someone who looks like Izzat al-Durri, has the same age as Izzat al-Durri, but they are not sure if it is indeed Izzat al-Durri.” (typical American stupidity.) So this man who looks like Izzat al-Durri has been detained and they are “running some DNA tests to confirm if this is Izzat al-Durri or not Izzat Al-Durri”. Two hours later, a report came out stating that this is not Izzat al-Durri. But two minutes later after this report, the Iranian/Iraqi “Doctor” Muwafak Al-Rubaie (also known as Karim Shahpour) from the Dawa party, advisor to Al-Maliki said that “the Iraqi forces from the 4th and 5th division caught two terrorists groups in Hamrain –Salaheddin province, and that they were running NUCLEAR tests on them” Of course the alleged Doctor in Neurology, M.Al-Rubaie, meant to say DNA tests. Just proves to you what I stated before, Al-Rubaie is no doctor but was a waiter in his dad’s restaurant, then became an accountant…then a “doctor advisor.” But in the Western press he is portrayed as a Neurologist! Meanwhile a trailer from an interview with “Dr.” Al-Maliki on Al-Arabiya (to be aired on Friday at 11 pm Saudi time) shows him saying “I proved over and over that I am not a sec! tarian, that I care deeply about the Iraqi people…”(Yeah sure and am Nefertiti) Rumors circulating in Baghdad, say that Al-Sadr and Maliki might be reaching an agreement soon, but they are keeping the loud barks going…

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Call for action against murderers of women in Baghdad
IRIN News
Residents of a western Baghdad neighbourhood have said militant groups in the area are hunting down women and killing them, and have appealed to parliament to do something, a member of parliament (MP) said on 22 April. “Over the past six months 15 women were killed in al-Salam neighbourhood for religious reasons or because they had criticised the militants, or because of their previous affiliation to the Baath Party [disbanded party of ousted President Saddam Hussein],” MP Safia al-Suhail told IRIN. Al-Suhail, who is also a woman activist, said the latest incident occurred in the past 10 days when gunmen shot dead a woman in front of her house because she had criticised the militants…Residents of the Shia neighbourhood of al-Salam who spoke on condition of anonymity as they fear reprisals, said Shia militiamen in the Mahdi Army loyal to radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr were behind the killings. “They accuse them [the women victims] of different things such as prostitution, or of being informants for Iraqi and US forces, or of not wearing a headscarf or wearing Western clothes,” a resident told IRIN. The Iraqi Interior Ministry refused to comment on the murders in al-Salam neighbourhood…

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Kuwait conference another American failure
Roads to Iraq
The media tries to convince us that Iraq’s neighboring Countries conference was very successful, including al-jazeera who runs a title similar to the western media saying: “Iraq’s neighboring countries show their support to Maliki’s government”, but the reality is totally different because as the the Qatari newspaper al-Rai puts it: “Difficult to implement”: The conference failed to reach any agreement. This is why al-Sharq al-Awst reported this title: “Kuwait conference: Iraq is unhappy”: [Iraq] failed to obtain concrete promises of political support and appointing Arab ambassadors, because of the Arab fears from the Iranian [influence]….There is no single editorial today supports the idea of sending Arab ambassadors to Iraq…

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* * * NOT SATIRE * * *
‘Disneyland In Iraq’: Multi-Million Dollar Entertainment Park Coming To Baghdad
Huffington Post
Some would say the last thing that war-torn Iraq needs is an entertainment park. California businessman Llewellyn Werner says different (from Times Online):
Mr Werner, chairman of C3, a Los Angeles-based holding company for private equity firms, is pouring millions of dollars into developing The Baghdad Zoo and Entertainment Experience, a massive American-style amusement park that will feature a skateboard park, rides, a concert theatre and a museum. It is being designed by the same firm that developed Disneyland….An Iraq ‘government’ spokesman is equally excited about the entertainment park…

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Former prosecutor says new spy case shows that Pollard case was bigger than thought
Associated Press
A former US attorney says the arrest of a US Army veteran on charges he spied for Israel confirms that the 1985 case of Jonathan Pollard was bigger than suspected. Joseph DiGenova oversaw the Pollard case. He says 84-year-old Ben-Ami Kadish is alleged to have had the same Israeli handler as Pollard, a former US Navy analyst serving a life sentence for espionage. DiGenova says the similarities are eerie. He says it clearly indicates the case is bigger than these two…

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Iraq and Slavery
Sande
Reuters: Bangladesh evacuates stranded workers from Iraq: Bangladesh has begun evacuating thousands of stranded workers who were trafficked into war-ravaged Iraq by illegal manpower traders, officials said on Wednesday. Those evacuated on Wednesday estimated that about 10,000 more Bangladeshis were still in Iraq, facing a hard time without jobs and proper documents. One very obvious question comes to mind, why are immigrants being herded into Iraq to work, when the unemployment rate as a result of shock and awe is unbelievably high and the Iraqi people are impoverished even further as a result of unemployment? Somebody should trace the money on this latest scandal…

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A Crisis for the Health Professions
The Involuntary Drugging of U.S. Detainees
STEPHEN SOLDZ
A major article in the Washington Post today collects the accounts of US detainees who, in large numbers, report that they were the recipients of unknown psychotropic drugs. Earlier this month Jeff Stein’s CQ article discussed this topic. The Post now goes further in collecting the evidence and making the case that involuntary psychotropic drug use on detainees, including as an interrogation aid, was a common practice. Further, the Post, by placing this on page A1 is making a statement about their belief in these claims which automatically catapults the issue of detainee drugging to a major place in the list of Bush administration abuses….

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US military says not holding Saddam’s deputy
AFP
The US military on Wednesday denied reports it is holding Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri, the number two under Saddam Hussein. “We are aware of media reports that Izzat Ibrahim al-Duri has been captured,” the military told AFP in an email. “At this point, we can say that he is not in coalition custody and we have no reports that he was captured by Iraqi security forces either.” Al-Arabiya television channel reported that a man suspected to be Duri, who tops the Iraqi government’s list of most-wanted fugitives, has been captured in Iraq….

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Palestinian boy found mutilated in Israeli settlement
Palestine News Network
At 3pm on Wednesday, 16th April, the mutilated body of 15 year old Hammad Nidar Khadatbh was found in lands of the illegal Israeli settlement of Al-Hamra by his father, who was out searching for his missing son. Hammad had left the house at 9am on Tuesday, 15th April to work on the family’s land, located near the stolen agricultural lands of the settlement…Hammadi’s body was naked, bloated, and tortured. His neck was broken, and his face had been smashed in with rocks. One finger had been cut off and there were multiple holes in his torso, seemingly made by a sharp, round implement – something like a pen, his family explained. An Israeli police officer who arrived on the scene to investigate the incident confirmed that Hammad had been murdered, but made no comment as to by whom…Given the location of the body – on settlement lands and near an Israeli-only apartheid road – the family are convinced that Hammad was killed by settlers from the Al-Hamra settlement….

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UNRWA: We’ll halt relief operations in Gaza as of Thursday
Palestinian Information Center
The UNRWA announced that it may be forced to halt all its relief operations in the Gaza Strip as of Thursday because of lack of fuel supplies necessary to operate its trucks and centers deployed all over the Strip, appealing to the international community to intervene urgently to save the dignity and humanity of the Gaza people. In a press conference, John Ging, the UNRWA’s director of operations in Gaza, stated Wednesday that the magnitude of death, destruction and despair in the Strip is considerable and disgraceful, noting that more than 53 Palestinian children had been killed and 177 others had been wounded since last January…

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Israel ‘ready for peace’ with Syria
Aljazeera.net
Ehud Olmert, Israel’s prime minister, has reportedly offered to withdraw from Syria’s Golan Heights in exchange for a peace deal with Damascus. Buthaina Shaaban, Syria’s minister for expatriate affairs, told Al Jazeera on Wednesday that the offer was put forward through Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s prime minister. She said: “The Turkish prime minister has conveyed to Syrian president Bashar al-Assad that Ehud Olmert is ready for peace with Syria on the basis of international resolutions and the return of the whole Golan Heights to Syria.” Erdogan is expected to visit Syria on Saturday to discuss the offer….

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Petraeus picked to lead Mideast command
ANNE FLAHERTY, AP
Army Gen. David Petraeus, the four-star general who led troops in Iraq for the past year, will be nominated by President Bush to be the next commander of U.S. Central Command, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Wednesday. Gates said he expected Petraeus to make the shift in late summer or early fall. The Pentagon chief also announced that Bush will nominate Army Lt. Gen. Ray Odierno to replace Petraeus in Baghdad. Central Command oversees the wars in Iraq and in Afghanistan….

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Israel braces for fallout from U.S. spy case
Jeffrey Heller, Reuters
Israel was tightlipped on Wednesday over the arrest in the United States of an 84-year-old American suspected of providing it with U.S. military secrets in the 1980s, a new case that has opened old wounds. “We received an official update from the Americans. We are following the developments,” Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Arye Mekel said, a day after suspect Ben-Ami Kadish made an initial appearance in a federal court in New York. The case, linked to the Jonathan Pollard spy scandal that has been an irritant in the U.S.-Israel alliance, raised fears in Israel it would cast a pall over President George W. Bush’s visit next month to celebrate the Jewish state’s 60th birthday….

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ISRAEL ~~ SIXTY YEARS OF DECEIT
Desert Peace Editorial
The latest incident regarding, at least, the second Israeli nuclear spy has literally opened a Pandora’s Box. One can’t help but ask ‘what else Israel has been lying to the world about? The entire case regarding the espionage is truly the ultimate in Chutzpah. America has literally been the lifeline of the zionist paradise for the past 60 years, at the tune of three billion dollars a year (over three TRILLION dollars to date of U.S. taxpayers money). Yet, Israel seems to think it’s OK to spy on their best (possibly only) friend. Well, it isn’t! As an Israeli I am disgusted by this, as a former American I feel betrayed. But back to the question raised above, ‘what else has Israel been lying to the world about?’…

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Report: Israeli army killed 59 Palestinians and injured 105 in Gaza during the month of April
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News
The Gaza-based Al-Mizan center for Human Rights issued its monthly report on Wednesday. According to the report, the Israeli army has killed 59 Palestinians including 15 children in addition to injuring another 105 in the Gaza strip during the month of April 2008. With the 59 killed this month, the number of Palestinians in Gaza killed by the Israeli army since the beginning of 2008 now stands at 340, the Al Mizan center reported…

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Baghdad militia clashes kill 19
AFP
Another 19 people were killed in fighting between militiamen and security forces in Shiite areas of Baghdad, officials said on Wednesday, as the death toll from weeks of street battles passed 360. The US military said troops had killed 15 people in overnight clashes in areas of east Baghdad controlled by Mahdi Army militiamen loyal to radical anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr…

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Glorious Fruits of the War for Civilization
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
Annals of Liberation I: “Angry Arab” As’ad AbuKhalil notes the curious Bush-Clinton notions of liberation and freedom in Iraq: Today Hillary said that the US gave Iraq “the precious gift” of freedom. Here is an example [from the Washington Post]: “Iraq is resisting U.S. proposals for a pair of new bilateral security agreements, saying it expects Washington to compromise on “sensitive issues,” including the right to imprison Iraqi citizens unilaterally, Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari said Monday. Other problematic areas now being negotiated, Zebari said in an interview, are provisions in U.S. drafts to give American contractors immunity from Iraqi law and allow the United States to conduct military operations without Iraqi government coordination. “These are the main ones, but there could be others,” he said, among them “issues of sites, of locations, of access” by U.S. troops.”…

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VA tried to conceal extent of attempted veteran suicides, email shows
Jason Leopold, Online Journal Contributing Writer
Top officials at the Veterans Administration tried to conceal information from the public about the sudden increase of attempted suicides among veterans that were treated or sought help at VA hospitals around the country, a previously undisclosed internal VA email indicates. The email was disclosed Tuesday in a federal trial at a courthouse in Northern California, where two veterans advocacy groups filed a class-action lawsuit against the VA alleging that a systematic breakdown at the VA has led to an epidemic of suicides among war veterans…

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Obaid: IOA allowed fuel into Gaza to operate electricity station for 3 days
Palestinian Information Center
Kanan Obaid, the deputy director of the Gaza energy authority, has said that the Israeli occupation authority on Wednesday allowed entry of fuel into the Gaza Strip to operate the Gaza electricity generation station. Obaid, in a press release, said that the IOA allowed entry of around one million liters of fuel to operate the station, which, he said, would be enough to run the facility for no more than three days…

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Auntie Ziona – Here comes trouble…
Peacepalestine
Anti-Zionist Jews or Jewish Auntie Ziona? We’re starting to see double! Just when you thought the days of being the loudest, proudest Jewish Anti Zionist fighting like mad against any other anti-Zionists and calling them Anti-Semites without any real reason to do so (especially if they were Jews) were long gone, a new blog pops up, and its name is hauntingly familiar…

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ANALYSIS-How urgent are US “emergency” Iraq funds?
Reuters
An “emergency” request to Congress for funds to pay for the Iraq and Afghanistan wars is strewn with money to buy military goods that cannot yet be used in either country. Buried in President Bush’s 159-page request for additional war funding are plans to give the Pentagon $230 million for an F-35 Joint Strike Fighter aircraft purchase. That’s a small portion of the more than $100 billion in war funds the Bush administration wants Congress to pass. White House Budget Director Jim Nussle told lawmakers last week that failure to do so by late May would harm Pentagon operations. But it is part of a Pentagon strategy to help modernize a war-sapped military with money outside its regular budget….

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