Hostages
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Auntie Sameera said “ Layla, I beg of you, tell the world…” I don’t understand why she said that to me, she knows nothing of my blog. She continued “tell them we can’t take it anymore, we can’t. Let someone have Mercy on us. Have Mercy on us.” And the line got cut off. Hostages of violence, of greed, of brutality, of dual occupations. Hostages of poverty, disease, unemployment, closed borders and exile…Hostages of sectarianism, chauvinism, corruption…Hostages to embezzlers, gangs, robbers, murderers, sadists, rapists, perverts and killers… All are guilty. The charlatan anti-Christ-the Mahdi, the Shiite puppet government, the corrupt Sunni politicians, the Zionist Kurds, the psychopathic dirty Americans, the insane filthy Iranians, the lowly debased Brits, the sold-out sleeping Arabs, the Security firms, the Oil cartels, the West, the East, the International Community, the NGO’s, the Media, the left shits and their shit parties…All are guilty. All are trying to make a profit one way or another. Either through fame, interest, money, resources, influence or power and the list is endless. Hostages of a failed state, of a “creative chaos”…Hostages of Silence, of Destruction, of a philosophy of Annihilation…

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Urgent Press Release from Gaza
Gaza Community Mental Health Programme
Palestinian and Israeli human rights groups today issued an urgent call to cease restrictions on Gaza’s fuel supply and stop the unprecedented harm to Gaza’s humanitarian needs. The above-listed rights groups warned: “We express concern and outrage at the systematic dismantling of the Gaza Strip’s vital systems by preventing the residents of Gaza, a territory under Israel’s occupation, from obtaining the fuel they need to generate electricity, power hospitals, run transportation, pump water and sewage, and provide for basic social and economic needs. We call upon Israel, the occupying power in Gaza, immediately to end the six-month long restrictions on fuel supply that have paralyzed Gaza’s infrastructure and endangered the health and well-being of Gaza’s 1.5 million residents…

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Video: Iraqi Security Militias Abuse Detainees
healingiraqblog
Iraqi Badr/Da’wa security militias abuse detainees and wounded at Suq al-Shiyukh near Nasiriya following clashes with Mahdi Army militiamen….

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Pentagon plays down report of new Iran war planning
AFP
Despite a loud rattling of sabers over Iran in Iraq, the US military has not embarked on new planning for war, its chief spokesman said. “I just want to be abundantly clear that there are no new directives, there are no new plans in the works, there is no new effort to prepare for a possible war with Iran,” Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said Wednesday. Speaking to reporters traveling with US Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Morrell acknowledged that the Pentagon has contingency plans and “we update them for every possibility.” “But to characterize what is going on now as a new war planning effort against Iran would be wrong,” he said. His comments came in response to a CBS News report on Tuesday that said the Pentagon had ordered new options to be drawn up for attacking Iran. The report also said the State Department had begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell Iran to stop meddling in Iraq or else, if an upcoming visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not succeed in ending it. His comments came in response to a CBS News report on Tuesday that said the Pentagon had ordered new options to be drawn up for attacking Iran. The report also said the State Department had begun drafting an ultimatum that would tell Iran to stop meddling in Iraq or else, if an upcoming visit to Iran by Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki did not succeed in ending it…

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Survey shows most Iraqis in Syria still unwilling to return home
UNHCR
A survey of nearly 1,000 Iraqis currently staying in Syria has shown that 95 percent fled their homeland because of direct threats or general insecurity and that only 4 percent currently had plans to return to Iraq. The latest Assessment on Returns to Iraq was carried out for the UN refugee agency by the IPSOS market research agency in Syria from March 2-18. A total of 994 interviews were undertaken in Damascus at UNHCR’s registration and food distribution sites, in community centres or during home visits….

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‘Our Dreams Are Dead’
Violence in Gaza gets the headlines. But the slow suffocation of the West Bank should get more attention too, writes a Middle East traveler.
Linda Bird Francke
The walls stand 30 feet high, huge slabs of gray cement, snaking their way through the West Bank for almost 500 miles. They block roads, bisect villages, cut off kids from their schools, farmers from their fields, families from relatives. “Welcome to the Ghetto, Walls of Tears” reads one of the many graffiti. “The Dumb Wall Is Screaming,” “Make Love, Not Walls,” read others. And my favorite, in huge orange letters on the road to Ramallah: “Control*Alt*Delete.” Around Bethlehem the walls have become a protest art gallery—an oversize white donkey with tears running down its cheeks, a dove wearing a flak vest with a bull’s-eye painted on its breast, a young girl frisking a soldier. The Israelis call them separation walls. The Palestinians call them apartheid walls. They are a nightmare….

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Are these Syrian nuclear pictures faked?
Ewen MacAskill, The Guardian
The CIA published three aerial photographs last week purporting to show a Syrian nuclear reactor, bombed by Israel last September. But are the pictures all that they seem? Doubts about their authenticity have been raised by Professor William Beeman, head of anthropology at the University of Minnesota, who has had a long involvement with the Middle East. He posted on a Los Angeles Times website a note received from a “colleague with US security clearance” pointing out “irregularities”…

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To Her…(original acoustic song)
everreadyyy
The other day i was reading a blog from an iraqi woman named Layla Anwar and i stumbled along a piece of writing entitled ‘to her’.A very angry piece about the tragedy and suffering that is iraq today.The original piece can be found here. uncensoredarabwomanblues.blogs… I was so affected by this piece that i instictively picked up my guitar and arranged some music to it.The words have been slightly modified for ballad purposes.I hope i did it justice….All comments welcome…

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The Persecution and Assassination of Jean-Paul Marat the Reverend Jeremiah A. Wright, Jr.
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
…As Performed by the Inmates of the Asylum of Charenton American political and media establishment Under the Direction with the assistance of The Marquis de Sade Senator Barack Obama…If Obama doesn’t think that “equat[ing] the United States’ wartime efforts with terrorism” is a valid exercise, I suggest he walk past Ground Zero in Manhattan, and then take a walk through downtown Baghdad, or perhaps visit a mass grave in Fallujah. He could try taking in the sites of Sadr City…

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CNN graphic video: Aftermath of US rockets in Sadr City
RAW STORY
Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat. U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia…

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Israeli Army raids Hebron Orphanage home to 110 girls
Pennie Quinton, IMEMC
At 1.00 in the morning on the 30th of April, the Israeli Army raids orphanage in Hebron, home to 110 girls, seizing all equipment from community sewing workshop. The Hebron Orphanage for girls is run by the Charitable Islamic Society,(I.C.S) and houses 110 children. The ICS is accused by Israel of funding the Hamas movement under the table, and in recent years, the ICS has been raided several times by the Israeli Army who seized computers and paper work from their offices. Now the Israeli government wants to take property owned by the ICS and has issued a court order to this effect…

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The Tibet Question: Is Self-Determination, as a Principle, Absolute?
Kim Petersen
…If Tibetan aspirations for self-determination are still valid after many centuries, one wonders about other regions where self-determination has, much more recently, been suppressed and rejected. Quickly, the Zionist annexation and occupation of historical Palestine springs to mind. Zionist Jews point to “their” Israelite ancestors, Yahweh’s promise, and a 3,000-year history to mask and excuse the undeniable racism toward the indigenous Palestinian people…Given the hypocrisy that many world states face on the principle of self-determination, one might criticize the Dalai Lama. How can the Dalai Lama court colonialist entities to support greater autonomy for Tibet? Does this undermine the legitimacy of a movement for Tibetan autonomy/independence? Since the US is an undeniable proponent of colonialism, militarism, torture, genocide, and economic plunder abroad, and since, as already argued, the US stands guilty of far worse crimes against its Original Peoples (including stealing their territories), its imperialistic machinations in Asia must be seriously evaluated when critically contemplating China’s incorporation of Tibet. Human rights advocates and supporters of Tibetan self-determination stand on moral quicksand if they fail to accord equivalent rights to all marginalized, expelled, and/or genocided peoples…

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IRAQ: UNHCR concerned about funding for refugees, IDPs
IRIN News
The UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) has said it is concerned about funding levels for its programmes for Iraqi refugees and internally displaced persons (IDPs) in Iraq. On 29 April UNHCR said it had received just under half of the US$261 million it had requested in January to be able to assist Iraqi IDPs and refugees abroad. The UNHCR said the amount received was not enough to sustain its programmes in the second half of 2008. As of 22 April, Iraq programme donors included the USA ($95.4 million), Canada ($1.5 million), the UK ($6.2 million), Germany ($3.9 million), Sweden ($2.3 million), Finland ($1.5 million), the European Commission ($6.3 million), Kuwait ($1 million), France ($740,000), Switzerland ($702,000), Italy ($292,000), and private donors ($109,000)…

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We’re not celebrating Israel’s anniversary
The Guardian
In May, Jewish organisations will be celebrating the 60th anniversary of the founding of the state of Israel. This is understandable in the context of centuries of persecution culminating in the Holocaust. Nevertheless, we are Jews who will not be celebrating. Surely it is now time to acknowledge the narrative of the other, the price paid by another people for European anti-semitism and Hitler’s genocidal policies. As Edward Said emphasised, what the Holocaust is to the Jews, the Naqba is to the Palestinians. In April 1948, the same month as the infamous massacre at Deir Yassin and the mortar attack on Palestinian civilians in Haifa’s market square, Plan Dalet was put into operation….

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The creation of a Committee for the defense of Tarek Aziz and the other Iraqi political prisoners.
AMITIÉS FRANCO – IRAKIENNES / Al Moharer
Tarek Aziz trial has been adjourned to Tuesday 20th May following a short audience held on the 28th April 2008, during which the Deputy Vice Prime minister has denied any implication in the charges set against him and requested a new Iraqi lawyer. His Lawyer Barrister Badie Aref – having taken refuge in Amman for “ security’ reasons “ : the US refusing to ensure any longer his safety following the death threats he received while a mandate of arrest was launched against him.
Lawyer Jacques Vergès told us that he will ensure the international defense of Tarek Aziz as requested by the Vice-Premier two years ago, a request confirmed on the 29th April 2008, through a fax sent by Zyad Aziz – the son of the Iraqi leader and by the Lawyer – Barrister Badie….

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Aziz trial revenge tactic, backers say
UPI
The Iraqi High Tribunal convened Tuesday in the prosecution of Tariq Aziz, the only Christian to serve in the cabinet of Saddam Hussein. He stands accused, along with Ali Hassan al-Majid, of executing 42 businessmen who protested rising food prices under U.N. sanctions. Sabbar al-Douri, who served in the Ministry of Information under Saddam Hussein, accused the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council of Abdul Aziz al-Hakim of harboring a policy of revenge against former Saddam officials, Gulf News said Wednesday. “I believe that (SIIC) wants revenge from Aziz because most of the merchants were Shiites,” he said. Others told the newspaper they viewed the prosecution of Aziz as retaliation for his refusal to testify against Saddam Hussein…Gulf News said the head of the tribunal will likely be Rauof Abdul Rahman, a Kurdish judge who sentenced Saddam to death. Judges Wednesday postponed the Aziz trial until May 20..

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Pentagon launches foreign news websites
Peter Eisler, USA TODAY
The Pentagon is setting up a global network of foreign-language news websites, including an Arabic site for Iraqis, and hiring local journalists to write current events stories and other content that promote U.S. interests and counter insurgent messages. The news sites are part of a Pentagon initiative to expand “Information Operations” on the Internet. Neither the initiative nor the Iraqi site, Mawtani.com, has been disclosed publicly. At first glance, Mawtani.com looks like a conventional news website. Only the “about” link at the bottom of the site takes readers to a page that discloses the Pentagon sponsorship. The site, which has operated since October, is modeled on two long-established Pentagon-sponsored sites that offer native-language news for people in the Balkans and North Africa…

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An evil state that will disappear one day
Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Occupied East Jerusalem
Just as Israel inaugurated its misbegotten birth with genocidal ethnic cleansing sixty years ago, the evil brat of Zionism is marking its 60th anniversary with yet another spate of bloodletting. On Sunday, 27 April, the Israeli “Defense” Forces (a more appropriate appellation would be the Jewish Wehrmacht) murdered a mother and her four children in Beit Hanoun, a northern Gaza suburb. The mother and her kids reportedly were having breakfast when an artillery shell fired from an Israeli Merkava battle-tank hit their home, killing them instantly and mutilating their bodies…

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Former U.S. Commander at Baghdad Airport Dies from ‘Depression’
Greg Mitchell
Even after covering the tragic final chapters in the lives of so many U.S. military personnel in Iraq or veterans back home, I found the brutally frank opening line in an obituary from four days ago particularly haunting: “Donald P. Christy, Lt. Col, USAF, passed away April 21, 2008 in Colorado Springs after an extended bout of anxiety and depression.” …

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PALESTINIAN PHOTO ALBUM ~~ LIFE IN EAST JERUSALEM
Desertpeace
Annexed land– After its victory in the Six Day War in 1967, Israel annexed 70 sq km of the West Bank adjacent to West Jerusalem. This land, East Jerusalem and outlying areas, contained 28 Palestinian towns and villages. Today 250,000 Palestinians live within the municipality of Jerusalem as defined by Israel. They pay city and state taxes and are considered residents, though not citizens, of Israel. In this picture a Muslim Palestinian prays in the street near to the al-Zayyem checkpoint….

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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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Arutz Sheva: “ Special Unit Reached Syria Reactor From Iraq, U.S. Knew “
Arutz Sheva
According to new information leaked by western intelligence sources, a special ground forces unit reached the Syrian reactor from Iraq. In the weeks that preceded the bombing of the site, the force stayed in Iraqi territory with the knowledge of the U.S. military, and with its assistance. The details are reported by www.sigint.co.il, which does not name the unit because of censorship but says it is “an operational unit which works alongside a well-known intelligence organization.”…The unit reportedly received assistance from “local elements” who are hostile to the Syrian regime. The report notes that Kurdish fighters maintain a permanent presence in the area and have been known to assist western intelligence operations…

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Infant dies after being denied medical treatment outside of the Gaza Strip
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The ongoing Israeli siege over the Gaza Strip led to the death of a sick four-month old Palestinian infant after the Israeli authorities barred his transfer to a specialized hospital outside the Gaza Strip. The ongoing siege led to the death of 140 patients in the Gaza Strip. The Palestinian News Agency, WAFA, reported that Naseem Al Biok, 4 months old, died on Wednesday at a local hospital in Gaza. Physicians attempted to transfer him abroad for medical treatment as the ongoing siege emptied Gaza hospitals from the needed medical equipment and medications…

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War Profiteers: The Bush Baghdad Bubble
Charlie Cray, The Huffington Post
Just as the blind devotion to deregulation of the financial markets can be blamed for much of the current meltdown on Wall Street, the war profiteers have enjoyed a Baghdad Bubble as a result of the Bush administration’s refusal to hold them accountable.Not far from Wall Street, a little-known company called L-3 held their annual meeting today. It was sparsely attended, according to proxy-holding activists who called me to say that the company used a technicality to keep them out….

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What’s next, Abbas?
Khaled Amayreh, Al-Ahram Weekly
The obvious failure of Palestinian Authority (PA) President Mahmoud Abbas’s latest visit to Washington has been reverberating through Palestinian society, with many intellectuals and pundits advising Abbas to “quit” or at least stop acting at the US administration’s beck and call. Some critics have even called for dismantling the PA and abandoning the two-state solution strategy in favour of the one-state solution of a democratic state for all its citizens. Abbas, in a frank and daring admission, told reporters following his meeting with President Bush at the White House last week that he failed to obtain a commitment from the US administration to pressure Israel into halting its wave of Jewish-only settlement building in East Jerusalem and the West Bank….

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U.S. Military Casualties Reported in Iraq, Afghanistan and Kuwait
The deaths of seven U.S. servicemen are announced by the Department of Defense
Tim King Salem-News.com
The Department of Defense has announced several deaths over the past two days in Iraq, servicemembers were also lost in Afghanistan and in Kuwait in one non combat related incident. The death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom was announced today. Sergeant 1st Class David L. McDowell, 30 years old, of Ramona, California, died April 29th in Bastion, Afghanistan, of wounds suffered when enemy forces attacked using small arms fire. He was assigned to the 2nd Battalion, 75th Ranger Regiment, Fort Lewis, Washington….

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Video: O’Reilly: ‘We Didn’t Invade Iraq’
Think Progress
Yesterday, Fox News host Bill O’Reilly made the incredible claim that the United States never invaded Iraq: “We didn’t invade Iraq.” He added, “It was a declaration of war, it was a declaration to enforce the first Gulf War Treaty.” Watch it…

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U.S. Military Forces Have Damaged Babylon, Iraq Official Says
Farah Nayeri
U.S. military forces and their allies in Iraq have damaged archeological sites including Babylon by setting up bases, using heavy equipment, filling sandbags and digging trenches, said an adviser to the Iraqi Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities. At an impromptu press briefing organized by the British Museum in London today, the adviser, Bahaa Mayah, showed slides of the military presence at about a dozen sites. While the Babylon site has now been vacated by U.S. and Polish forces, he said, ``we cannot reverse’’ the damage done….

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April 30, 2008: 5 US Soldiers, 71 Iraqis Killed; 155 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
… At least 71 Iraqis were killed and another 155 were wounded in the latest round of violence. Five American soldiers were killed in separate events. Two U.S. servicemembers were killed when they came across an IED in Baghdad. Also, one American soldier was killed in an IED attack in Baghdad this morning. Also, the DOD reported that one U.S. soldier died of injuries unrelated to combat. An exlosion in Ninewah province left another American soldier dead. April was the deadliest month for U.S. troops since September….

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Sadrists negotiate the disband of Mahdi Army
Roads to Iraq
…al-Rafedain said that Muqtada al-Sadr to disband Mahdi Army soon, the website said that that the Sadrists delegation met with recently with Talabani and the speaker of the parliament al-mashhadani was fully authorized to negotiate all the conditions, but also some information about pressure faced al-sadr inside his own circle, especially from supreme cleric al-Ha’ari in Qom – Iran…

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The overcast of the Quds Force over Iraq … ???? ???? ????? ??????? ??? ??????
Imad Khadduri, Free Iraq
… Instead of generating a liberal, secular democracy whose reverberations would drive out Iran’s clerical oligarchs, the disastrous Bush policies fostered a sectarian Iraq that has helped empower Iranian hardliners. Rather than serving as an anchor for a new era of stability and American preeminence in the Persian Gulf, the new Iraq represents a strategic black hole, bleeding Washington of military resources and political influence while extending Iran’s primacy among its neighbors….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Wednesday, 30 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 11:03am Baghdad time Wednesday morning, the Yaqen News Agency reported that the Iraqi resistance group known as the Iraqi Army General Command announced that its fighters had blown up a US Humvee in the al-Jawlan district of al-Fallujah. In a dispatch posted at 11:02pm Baghdad time Wednesday night, the Yaqen News Agency reported that a bomb explosion in southern Baghdad had killed two American troops Wednesday afternoon…

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ZIOSTERIA
Desertpeace
The zionists are in a frenzy. Their crimes are being exposed and that has them running in circles. Their cries of anti-Semitism have been falling on deaf ears so new tactics had to be developed… These include; CENSORSHIP This includes getting videos banned, getting Blogs locked, hacking into Websites. All of these tactics have been used recently, as well as; Closures: Foreign press correspondents are stopped at the ‘border’ and not allowed entrance to the sites where the crimes are committed…

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CNN graphic video: Aftermath of US rockets in Sadr City
RAW STORY
Dozens of fighters ambushed a U.S. patrol in Baghdad’s main Shiite militia stronghold Tuesday, firing rocket-propelled grenades and machine gun bursts as the American push into Sadr City increasingly faces pockets of close urban combat. U.S. forces struck back with 200-pound guided rockets that devastated at least three buildings in the densely packed district that serves as the Baghdad base for the powerful Mahdi Army militia…

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UN: Tell US to end illegal detention practices in Iraq
US-Led Force Holds Thousands Without Due Process
Human Rights Watch (HRW)
The United Nations Security Council should address serious concerns about the detention practices of the US-led Multi-National Force-Iraq (MNF) in its debate on Iraq, Human Rights Watch said in a letter to council members. The United States invokes Security Council resolutions to justify holding thousands of Iraqis for indefinite periods, without judicial review, and under military processes that do not meet international standards. In the letter, Human Rights Watch said that according to the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq (UNAMI), the MNF was holding 24,514 detainees at the end of 2007. Since the declared end of the US occupation of Iraq in June 2004, detained persons should be provided due process under international human rights law. Security Council Resolutions 1546, 1637, and 1723 allow for internment of Iraqis ‘for imperative reasons of security,’ but the US improperly uses this language to justify holding the detainees without judicial review, as if the operative law were the Fourth Geneva Convention, which governs the treatment of civilians during international armed conflicts…

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Popular committee: Our warning of wastewater flooding in Gaza started to happen
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege stated that its repeated warnings of impending wastewater flooding in Gaza streets started to happen, warning that 60 percent of wastewater pump stations are going to stop within 24 hours due to the lack of fuel supplies. This came during a press conference held by the committee in front of the wastewater pump facility no. B7 in the Zeitoun area in Gaza, where this station stopped working leading to the inundation of the whole surrounding area with sewage and wastewater….

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U.S. soldier’s death pushes monthly toll to 7-month high in Iraq
Voices of Iraq
The killing of a U.S. soldier in a roadside bombing in Baghdad pushed the death toll for U.S. troops in April up to 47, making it the deadliest month since September 2007, the military said Wednesday. “A Multi-National Division – Baghdad soldier was killed from wounds sustained from an improvised explosive device during a dismounted patrol in northern Baghdad on April 30,” said a U.S. military statement received by Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI)….

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Bush – Hakim are up to something
Roads to Iraq
In one day al-Hakim met the American ambassador in Iraq Ryan Crocker, no details about the reason of this meeting, only some general information like they discussed the current situation in Iraq, few minutes after this meeting al-Hakim answered a phone call from G. Bush, which I guess it was so important that later at the same day al-Hakim met with the leaders of United Iraqi Alliance, again no information about these intensive meetings….

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Top Syrian emissary: We won’t sever ties with Iran for peace with Israel
Yoav Stern and Barak Ravid, Haaretz Correspondents
Syria will not sever ties with Iran and Hezbollah even as part of a possible peace agreement with Israel, a senior Syrian analyst who is handling the government’s contacts as it relates to the peace process said on Tuesday. “It would be naive to think Syria will neglect or abandon its strategic alliances that do not stem from the Arab-Israeli conflict,” the analyst, Dr. Samir Taqi, said in an interview with Al-Manar television….

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At least 925 killed in Iraq’s Sadr City clashes
AFP
More than 900 people have been killed in clashes between militiamen and security forces in Baghdad’s Sadr City that broke out last month, a senior Iraqi official told reporters on Wednesday. “There were 925 martyrs in Sadr City and 2,605 others have been wounded,” in the firefights that began on March 25 and are still continuing, said Tehseen Sheikhly, a spokesman for the government’s Baghdad security plan. Fierce clashes between US and Iraqi forces and Shiite fighters, mostly from the Mahdi Army militia of anti-American cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, erupted after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki ordered a crackdown on militiamen in the southern city of Basra….

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Afghan ‘health link’ to uranium
Dawood Azami, One Planet, BBC World Service
Doctors in Afghanistan say rates of some health problems affecting children have doubled in the last two years. Some scientists say the rise is linked to use of weapons containing depleted uranium (DU) by the US-led coalition that invaded the country in 2001. A Canadian research group found very high levels of uranium in Afghans during tests just after the invasion….

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US military criticizes Iran but says no strike plan
Kristin Roberts, Reuters
The U.S. military on Wednesday dismissed speculation that it was drafting new plans to attack Iran but again charged Tehran with supporting Iraqi militias and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Lt. Gen. John Sattler, the military’s director of strategic plans, said that while the Pentagon had plans on the shelf for numerous potential conflicts around the world, there had been no order for officers to advance new plans for an Iran strike. “There has been no order, specific order to plan in any particular area of the world,” Sattler told reporters at the Pentagon. Asked specifically if the military was ordered to plan an Iran strike, he said, “No.”…

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Behind Israel’s Independence, a Great Injustice
Joharah Baker for MIFTAH
Every year, Israel’s independence celebrations are a sore reminder to the Palestinians of the price they were made to pay for this state to be created. This year, on the 60th occasion of Israel’s independence, nothing has been remedied or rectified for those Palestinians who lost their homes over half a century ago. The Palestinians hardly spend this time of year, May 15 to be exact, in celebration…

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Iraq threatens assault on militias
Aljazeera.net
Iraq’s prime minister has threatened to disarm Shia militias and Sunni fighters by force if they refuse to lay down their weapons. The tough talk from Nuri al-Maliki, who launched a crackdown on Shia groups last month, came as at least 13 people died on Wednesday in the latest clashes in Baghdad’s Sadr City. Al-Maliki said that the al-Mahdi army of Muqtada al-Sadr, a Shia leader, along with groups such as al-Qaeda in Iraq must be dissolved. He demanded that they hand over their weapons, stop interfering in state affairs, give upwanted men and stop running their own courts…

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UN facing increased delays at Israeli checkpoints
The Electronic Intifada
Increased Israeli restrictions on the checkpoints around East Jerusalem have caused more delays and more lost man hours for UN staff in March 2008 than in all of 2007, the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) has reported. In the Humanitarian Monitor for March, released on 24 April, OCHA said “operations were significantly affected” and almost daily UN vehicles were delayed and even turned back by Israeli soldiers at checkpoints south of Jerusalem. Israeli soldiers have increasingly insisted on searching UN vehicles at the checkpoints as a condition for being allowed through, despite the fact that Israel signed the 1946 Convention on the Privileges and Immunities of the UN which normally prohibits such searches….

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INDEX ON AFGHANISTAN APRIL 2008: FAMINE
Sarah Meyer, Index Research
There was a terrible winter disaster in Afghanistan. NATO paid little heed. The lives of Afghan people are untenable. Afghanistan is one of the 11 hunger-prone countries heading towards a “food emergency.” The world food crisis has been caused by the World Bank, the IMF, the WTO, The Pentagon, PNACers and corporate sharks. Free Trade” is a misnomer and ‘globalisation’ does not work. Wheat and rice are becoming as precious and sought-after as oil…..

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IOA decides to wipe out Palestinian village
Palestinian Information Center
Apparently bowing to pressures from the Israeli military institution, the Israeli high court issued a ruling entitling the Israeli occupation authority to confiscate most of the land in the Palestinian village of Al-Aqaba that overlooks the Jordanian valley. Palestinian villagers dwelling in the city accused the Israeli court of prejudice, affirming that the Israeli occupation army wants their land to use it for military purposes…

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Anti siege committee warns of spread of epidemics in Gaza due to fuel crisis
Palestinian Information Center
The popular committee against the siege warned of serious epidemic outbreaks among the Palestinian citizens in the besieged Gaza Strip due to the Israeli persistence in not allowing fuel supplies into Gaza which are used to operate drainage systems and garbage collection vehicles in addition to chlorine used to disinfect drinking water. The committee warned of possible wastewater flooding in Gaza streets after drainage wells stopped working because of the fuel crisis….

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Each Palestinian is an Avenger – Holding a Strong Grip on Survival
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
Mean while the Zionist Entity’s serial massacres continued on Gaza Strip, the former US president Jimmy Carter attended a CNN “tribunal, aired on best show time.Jimmy Carter was pushed in defending his trip and meetings with prominent leaders of Hamas last week in Damaskus. Carter was questioned thourougly,about his long standing support of the Palestinian people, if he concidered also the Israelis ( the Jews ) to be his friends.Words were forced in to his mouth, demanding him to denounce an accomplice in this “awful crime”, an indiscetion, a “betrayal” against the American people,(the meetings with Hamas), and didn’t he know, or even worse didn’t he care about that the Hamas movement,are classified a terrorists organization, by the neo cons in Washington and the Israelis.? ! Jimmy Carter a man with a big heart and brilliant intellect, a man of peace, avoided gracefully some of the traps,would not speak his mind out on CNN, but bravely well enough he took the stand in the light of millions of viewers for the Palestinian cause…

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Orwell Meets Nazi Israel: Robots Built to Kill
Under The Holly Tree
If there was ever any doubt in your mind concerning the inhumanity of the Israeli “defense” forces, rest assured, your dilemma has been solved by none other than the Israeli military itself. They are now planning to play video games with real life robots built to kill Palestinians….

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Iraqi Resistance Report for events of Tuesday, 29 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 7:55pm Baghdad time Tuesday afternoon, the Yaqen News Agency reported that as-Sadr Hospital in the impoverished Madinat as-Sadr district of Baghdad on Tuesday received 85 dead and wounded victims of American air bombardments….

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The Head of the Arab Diplomatic Corps confronts the US’ occupation and its stooges in Iraq!
Ghalib Fraijat. Ph.D – Al Moharer
…Tarek Aziz – Abu Ziad, behind the bars in the US’ occupied Iraq and confronting the Occupation and its stooges, and the one who is capable to confront Baker the US diplomatic chief, is not scared from confronting the stooges, the traitors and the Occupation servile dogs. Sure! Tarek Aziz has already taken his decision concerning Iraq, the Nation and his loyalty for the patriotic political government, from the very day his eyes saw the light on the eternal mission principles…

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April 29, 2008: 2 US Soldiers, 90 Iraqis Killed; 135 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
As heavy street fighting continues in Sadr City, Kirkuk suffered a spate of roadside bombings. Also, female suicide bombers staged attacks in Diyala province. At least 90 Iraqis were killed and another 135 were wounded across the country. Two American soldiers were also killed. An American soldier was killed this evening during an armed attack in Baghdad. Later in the evening, another American soldier was killed in an IED explosion in Baghdad…

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UNRWA: Israeli siege on Gaza must be immediately lifted
Palestinian Information Center
UNRWA belittled the Israeli step of supplying it with small quantities of fuel to resume operations in the Gaza Strip, asserting that the Israeli blockade inflicted serious and tragic repercussions on the Strip’s inhabitants. In a statement he issued on Tuesday, John Ging, the director of the UNRWA operations in Gaza city, affirmed that receiving small quantities of fuel from Israel doesn’t mean the end of Israeli economic siege, describing it as a “small thing” that would not solve the humanitrian crisis in the Strip, especially that all ambulances in the Strip were grounded due to lack of fuel…

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