Suzanne Baroud, IOL
…Al-Alak deemed it necessary to consider the status of women before the US invasion and declared, “When the US/UK arrived in Iraq, the policies including the disbanding of Iraq’s infrastructure, such as the army, police force, civil service, etc, all carried through under the banner of de-Baathification, which rendered both men and women out of work, in a country where, until the invasion, the role of women was legally and socially equal to that of men.” He continued, saying, “It was also recognized by the international community as having one of the best developed health care services in the region and the UNESCO credited Saddam’s Iraq as being one of the few countries where children with illiterate parents could go to school, college and university and come out the other end as brain surgeons.” While no one should be surprised at the ruin this stricken nation has endured, I couldn’t help but feel profoundly astonished as she went on and on, citing stories of ordinary families, completely and utterly shattered due to war and sanctions…Kelly stated that she has frequently met “single mothers” who simply don’t know where their husbands are. A man might go out seeking day labor and never returns or perhaps attempts to enter a neighboring country to find work to support his family and mysteriously disappears…

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Medic says Army sergeant ordered him to suffocate Iraqi
ANGELA K. BROWN Associated Press Writer
After an Army medic reported that a bullet-riddled insurgent was going to die, his sergeant ordered him to suffocate the Iraqi before fatally shooting the man himself, the medic testified during the sergeant’s court-martial Tuesday. Sgt. Leonardo Trevino had asked how to speed up the Iraqi’s death following a gun battle in Muqdadiyah, Iraq, Spc. John Torres testified. The medic said he was kidding when he suggested suffocating the wounded man, but when ordered to do so, he pretended by lightly holding his hand over the man’s mouth….

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Gaza streets to be flooded with wastewater if fuel crisis continues
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege warned that the Gaza streets are threatened to be flooded with wastewater after drainage wells stopped working as a result of the fuel crisis and the Israeli persistence in preventing the entry of any kind of petroleum derivatives. The popular committee underlined that the situation in Gaza as a result of the fuel crisis is worsening every day and new negative impacts surface, where this crisis already led to the collapse of many crucial services such as ambulance service and garbage collection service…

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Iraqis want to revise constitution and U.S. warplanes bomb Baghdad
Fatih Abdulsalam, Azzaman
Bombing by warplanes, helicopter gun ships and rockets is going on unabated in Baghdad and other parts of Iraq while our politicians mull revising the ‘constitution’. Ferocious fighting from street to street currently takes place in several parts of the country which makes ludicrous any talk about the constitution and its revision. Iraqis now sarcastically remember the referendum on a constitution whose creators and sponsors themselves have not taken with a grain of salt. That constitution, of which U.S. and British occupiers bragged about, is the product of a dirty and vicious sectarian war that is being fed from several quarters whether domestic or foreign. Since the U.S. invasion and the acrobatic move to write a democratic institution, Iraqis’ blood has been flowing like the rivers Tigris and Euphrates. This is not an exaggeration given the mass killing that has taken place since then…

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Sunni parliamentarian: “Sadr City attacks are killing mostly unarmed civilians” (UPDATED)
badger, Arablinks
A member of the Iraqi Accord Front (biggest Sunni bloc in parliament) Ahmed Radhi, who was in Sadr City on Sunday as part of the multi-party sit-in, repeated yesterday the call to implement the group’s demands for an end to the crisis, and he said: “The majority of those who are being killed are civilians, and not armed persons.” And another Sunni deputy, Mustafa al-Heeti, from the Iraqi Dialogue Front, said at a press conference with other members of that group: “I urge an end to the military operations, an adoption of the language of dialogue, and an prompt meeting of the council (government executive committee, the so-called three plus one) in order to end the military operations.”…

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IOF shelling knock out Beit Hanun electricity transformer
Palestinian Information Center
IOF shelling of the Beit Hanun electricity transformer station during its incursion into the town in northern Gaza on Monday knocked out power in the area and paralyzed water supplies. A Hamas statement on Tuesday charged the Israeli occupation forces with deliberately targeting the transformer station in line with the policy of tightening the siege on Gaza. It said that around 200,000 citizens in northern Gaza spent Monday night in complete darkness and are still suffering from electricity outage and lack of water for 24 hours, which also affected work in hospitals and clinics…

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IS BIG BROTHER HACKING INTO THE INTERNET?
Desertpeace
As more people become ‘Netsavvy’, the powers that be have become ‘Netcensors’. We see this happening on a daily basis as we watch Websites get shut down, Websites blacklisted, and now the newest ‘game’ of hacking Websites.
The latter has become a favourite game of the zionists in recent weeks, hacking into the Websites that speak the truth. Two recent examples of this mischievous activity are What Really Happened and Tikkun Magazine. Both had their mailing lists hacked and subscribers received most annoying emails from them. In both cases mentioned, it was most likely people connected to the extreme right elements in the pro Lobby movements for Israel. They have also been involved in successfully shutting down private Blog Sites for their pro Palestinian positions. PeacePalestine and my own Blog, DesertPeace were two recent victims. In both cases the sites were moved over to different Hosts…. you can shut us down but you can’t shut us up!…

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Several believed dead in US air raids in Baghdad
AFP
Several people were believed killed on Tuesday in two US air strikes in the Baghdad bastion of Shiite radical leader Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army militia, an AFP photographer and witnesses said. “Four houses have been heavily damaged,” a resident of the Sadr City district said on condition of anonymity. Pictures taken by an AFP photographer showed completely destroyed houses and a number of bodies buried in the debris. Another witness said US forces launched the first air strike at around 1:30 pm (1030 GMT) in the southern section of Sadr City. “As a group of people came to rescue those buried in the collapsed houses, another air strike hit them,” the witness said…

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Palestinian patient dies as a result of Israeli siege imposed on Gaza
Ghassan Banoura, IMEMC
Palestinian medical sources reported that a Palestinian patient from Beit Hanoun, located in the northern Gaza Strip, died on Tuesday because she was prevented by the Israeli army from leaving Gaza for medical treatment. Sou’ad Qushita, 54, had cancer and needed life-saving medical treatment outside of the GazS strip. Her family said that she applied twice last week to leave the gaza strip for medical care, but was refused by the Israeli army because they claim that Israel is celebrating holidays….

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Fuel Crisis in Gaza: MSF is forced to scale back its medical activities
Palestine News Network
This comes from Médecins Sans Frontières: “Doctors without Borders” in English. Not only is the UNRWA stopping its food aid to the destitute population of the Gaza Strip due to the Israeli ban on fuel imports, so is MSF decreasing its medical services. The Israeli government issued a statement late last week claiming, “There is no fuel crisis in Gaza.”…

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Barbaric ‘honour killings’ become the weapon to subjugate women in Iraq
Murder of a girl who became infatuated with a British soldier highlights a disturbing new trend
Terri Judd, Independent
At first glance Shawbo Ali Rauf appears to be slumbering on the grass, her pale brown curls framing her face, her summer skirt spread about her. But the awkward position of her limbs and the splattered blood reveal the true horror of the scene. The 19-year-old Iraqi was, according to her father, murdered by her own in-laws, who took her to a picnic area in Dokan and shot her seven times. Her crime was to have an unknown number on her mobile phone. Her “honour killing” is just one in a grotesque series emerging from Iraq, where activists speak of a “genocide” against women in the name of religion. In the latest such case, it was reported yesterday that a 17-year-old girl, Rand Abdel-Qader, was stabbed to death last month by her father for becoming infatuated with a British soldier serving in southern Iraq…The new Iraqi constitution, according to Mrs Mahmoud, is a mass of confusing contradictions. While it states that men and women are equal under law it also decrees that sharia law – which considers one male witness worth two females – must be observed. The days when women could hold down key jobs or enjoy any freedom of movement are long gone..

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Life in the sealed Gaza
Najwa Sheikh in Gaza, thepeoplesvoice.org
….However, these demands changed according to the current situation in Gaza, the siege, and the changes that stricken the soul of the Palestinian society and broke it makes the ordinary Palestinian look for self demands. The more the siege is well reinforced by the Israelis the less people priorities become in Gaza, and the more we are divided, the more we are losing our power. From fighting for an honorable cause, we have started to fight for a job, for a ration card, or even for a place in the long cue in front of the bakery or a fuel station our aims varied…

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Journalists’ Syndicate in Basra suspends activities to protest assault on president
Voices of Iraq
The administrative body of the Journalists’ Syndicate in Basra decided on Tuesday to close its doors and suspend its activities as of Wednesday until further notice, protesting Iraqi security’s aggression against its president and one of its members, an official source said. “The Syndicate issued the decision to protest the attack on head of the Syndicate’s subsidiary Haydar al-Mansoori and member of the administrative body of the syndicate Ahmad Abdul Samad ny Iraqi security forces,” Kazem al-Zahri, member of the administrative body, told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI). He had said that the head of the Journalists Syndicate in Basra and a member of its administrative body were attacked yesterday by security forces in al-Jazaer region in central Basra….

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Waiting for MayDay
karlmarxwasright
Against the backdrop of Iraq’s dismemberment and genocide comes the height of Fascist absurdity, obscenity and hypocrisy. Iraq’s former PM, Tariq Aziz, is placed on trial in a Kangaroo Court for a few “alleged” crimes. Shouldn’t the trials be reversed? And, on April 28, 2008, hearings were held by the “Senate Democratic Policy Committee on Abuses in Iraq Contracting.” You can view/hear all the sordid details, which abound, on the C-Span.org website…. So, who is it that should be put on trial, executed and exappropriated?…

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Senior Iraqi government official assassinated in Baghdad
Associated Press
An Iraqi official says a roadside bomb has killed a senior government official in northern Baghdad. A spokesman says Tuesday’s roadside bomb hit Dhia Jodi Jaber as he left his home in his car. The spokesman Abdullah al-Lami says Jaber was a director general at the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs. He was in charge of the ministry’s projects and reconstruction department. His son also has been lightly injured in the blast…

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The World must Step in
MIFTAH
This morning, seven residents of the northern Gaza Strip town of Beit Hanoun were killed in Israeli shelling. The tank shell directly hit a home in the Azbat Abed Rabbo quarter of the town, taking the lives of an entire family. Khadra Abu Muteq was killed along with her four children: one year old Musaab Abu Muteq, Hana’ Abu Muteq, 3, Saleh Abu Muteq 4, and Rudeineh Abu Muteq, 6. One teen, 17-year old Ayoub Atallah was also killed by the shelling and his friend Mutassem Sweilem injured as they were walking to school. Nine others were injured in the attack, several of them in serious condition…day’s events and by Israel’s apparent disregard for the sanctity of human life. MIFTAH not only strongly condemns the attack, which is a flagrant violation of humanitarian law and human rights, but demands that the international community intervene to halt the killing of innocent Palestinian civilians. The silence of the international community and the United Nations has allowed Israel to believe it can act with impunity in the name of its security even when this means the killing of innocent women and children…

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Tareq Aziz trial begins at Iraqi High Tribunal
AFP
…According to his son, Tareq Aziz is innocent of the charges against him. Ziad Aziz also described the charges against his father as “weak” and aimed at “preventing him from taking advantage of the amnesty law which states that anyone held for a year without being referred to court must be released.” “My father has been in prison for five years… without being charged, tried or investigated,” he said….At one of last year’s hearings during the Anfal trial, Aziz praised Saddam defiantly when he was called as a witness. “I had the honour to work with the former regime and with the hero Saddam Hussein,” he said from the stand. “He is the hero behind the unity of Iraq and its sovereignty. This is an honour to me,” Aziz added…

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Muqtada al-Sadr’s Free Ride is Over: It’s About Time
Fateh Abdusalam,Azzaman – Translated By Nicolas Dagher
…One of the many questions that are forbidden or that can only be asked with great difficulty – like something that’s so hard to swallow that one needs a drink afterwards – is this one: Why was the Mahdi Army permitted to operate day and night for three years – and especially the last two years – since the eruption of sectarian strife and the failure of the notorious government of al-Jaafari, which showed leniency toward all parties involved and failed to control the strife, all of which only served to pour oil on the fire? Why was the Mahdi Army allowed to parade in front of the public and guard areas of central Baghdad, flouting what passes for democracy, the rule of law and the fiction of a “just constitution?” The public airwaves reported on these “authorities” as though they comprised part of the new Iraqi state – until three-quarters of Baghdad’s original population comprised of various sects and groups were forced to flee because they weren’t “loyal” to those who prevailed in the street … or to those who prevailed in the secret/or open headquarters of public authorities or armed parties…Why is a person [Muqtar al-Sadr] who was above the law three years ago, now wanted by the law? What has changed: the person or the law or the ones in charge of overseeing that law?…

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Monday, 28 April 2008.
Translated and/or compiled by Muhammad Abu Nasr, member, editorial board, the Free Arab Voice. www.freearabvoice.org
… In a dispatch posted on its Arabic website at 7:03pm Monday afternoon Beijing time (3:03pm in Baghdad, the Xinhua News Agency reported that a mortar shell blasted into the top-security US headquarters district known as the “Green Zone.” Xinhua reported a source in the government police as saying that since the “Green Zone” is closed to unauthorized persons, no information on the nature or extent of casualties in the attack was available…

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April 28, 2008: 4 US Soldiers, 43 Iraqis Killed; 112 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 43 Iraqis were killed and another 112 were wounded in the latest attacks, most of them in Baghdad and Sadr City. No Coalition deaths were reported. Also four U.S. servicemembers were killed. Three American soldiers were killed during a mortar or rocket attack in Baghdad. Another soldier was killed in a separate mortar attack. In Baghdad, six bodies were found….

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Action Alert!
URUKNET CUT OFF FROM GOOGLE NEWS AGAIN!
Uruknet
Google is at it again! On April 24, 2008 Google has stopped indexing Uruknet.info as a news source. (The latest Uruknet article included in the Google News index is THE US POWER STRUCTURE Who Really Runs the World (April 24, 2008). We wrote to Google News but we didn’t get any reply. We therefore kindly request our readers to write to Google asking Uruknet.info to be reinstated as a news source. Please, send your complaints to google.news! Click here to fill a speedy form….

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