Iraq, Depleted Uranium and a Song for Sanity
Felicity Arbuthnot
Dr Chris Busby is an internationally renowned scientist and founder of the Low Level Radiation Campaign ( www.llrc.org ) His scientific studies and Reports on the dangers of radiation, proving it unsafe at any level, wrong foot the nuclear and arms industry on an ongoing basis. His meticulous research includes the effects on the health of the veterans of the British nuclear testing in the Pacific in the 1950's and subseqent detriment to their children and granchildren, to excess cancers in those living in the vicinity of nuclear power plants and the health impact from depleted uranium weapons use in the Balkans, Afghanistan and Iraq and the devastating effects of the Chernobyl disaster both medically and on the environment. His work gives lie for all time to the assurances of pro-nuclear scientists and government Ministers of the safety of ‘clean’ nuclear energy, above natural sources…

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collective punishment; Mosul without water
Roads to Iraq
Browsing through at least 50 newspapers and website, not many reports about the “real” situation in Mosul right now except repeating or translation news agencies report which totally “unreliable”, take this report for example on al-Hayat: Mosul governor Duraid Kashmoula told al-Hayat that the tribal chiefs [in Mosul] asked the government to arm them to participate in the military operation and defend their areas. While the reality is and according to Jordanian newspaper al-Ghad, the tribal chiefs probably were asking for water..

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Video and Photos: Israeli Army Raid and Loot Hebron Orphanage home to 110 girls
Sabbah’s blog
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. Witnesses said that approximately 40 Israeli soldiers raided the sewing workshop, which is located on the first floor of a girls’ orphanage operated by the Islamic Society, at 1am on Wednesday. In the course of a two hour raid, the Israeli troops ransacked the workshop after breaking down its main gates and doors…

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Al-Akhbar: US gives Israel green light for large-scale Gaza op
Jerusalem Post
The US has given Israel the green light for a large-scale Israeli operation in the Gaza Strip, Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar claimed Saturday. The paper quoted unnamed diplomats who said Washington had authorized the move after Defense Minister Ehud Barak presented US officials with documents attesting to the increased arming of Hamas and Islamic Jihad operatives in the Strip…

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Hezbollah Launches Offensive Outside Beirut
Chicago Tribune
Fighters of the Shiite Hezbollah movement launched a new offensive Sunday against the Chouf mountains southeast of Beirut, driving out pro-government Druze supporters from a key stronghold and further expanding their territorial control over Lebanon. Hezbollah gunmen overran offices of the political party of Druze leader Walid Jumblatt in the strategic mountain town of Aley and several surrounding villages, then handed them over to the Lebanese Army, a pattern witnessed over the previous two days in West Beirut in fierce fighting between Sunni supporters of the US backed government and the Iranian- and Syrian-allied opposition…

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Iraqi official thanks Iran for brokering accord between Iraqi govt., Mahdi Army
Tehran Times
Mohsen Hakim, the political advisor to the leader of the Supreme Islamic Iraqi Council, has thanked Iran for the “sensitive and vital role” it played in brokering the accord between Moqtada al-Sadr’s Mahdi Army and the Iraqi government. “We hope that the implementation of these agreements will bring an end to Iraq’s problems in the near future,” he said here on Sunday. The agreements take the two parties stances into consideration, and thus any future misunderstandings or disputes should be resolved within the framework of these agreements, he added…

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Sectarian solidarity
Asad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service
You can’t analyze the situation in the Middle East only in pure sectarian terms. For example: NBN TV (Nabih Birri TV) yesterday reported that `Adil `Abdul-Mahdi (a leader of the pro-US, pro-Iranian Badr sectarian militia which, among other crimes, largely orchestrated the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians in Iraq) called Nabih Birri (the leader of the Amal sectarian militia which led the war on the Palestinian refugee camps in Lebanon, when Palestinian brothers and sisters were forced to eat rats to survive). So the leader of a militia that is implementing the US plan in Iraq, called and congratulated (?) the leader of the militia that is fighting the US plan in Lebanon?…

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Gaza plunged into darkness for the second night
Palestinian Information Center
For the second night running the Gaza Strip is plunged into darkness as the sole power station supplying electricity had to stop because the Israeli occupation has stopped supplying fuel necessary to run the station. The disruption of the electricity supplies threatens the lives of new-born babies who need to be put in incubators, patients on ventilators or those dependent on dialysis machines as hospitals have very limited amounts of fuel to run their emergency generators…

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Iraqi woman and child killed by US fire
AFP
American troops killed a woman and a child along with two gunmen near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul during a new assault against Al Qaeda militants, the military said. It said Saturday’s shooting occurred when soldiers fired on a car that failed to stop despite warnings to do so. “Coalition forces fired three warning shots, but the driver refused to stop and one man made threatening movements from inside the vehicle,” a military statement said…

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Gaza bakeries stop working due to lack of fuel, electricity
Palestinian Information Center
Owners of bakeries in Gaza Strip on Sunday announced that their bakeries had closed down due to the lack of fuel, gas and electricity that were blocked by Israeli occupation authority. They told a press conference that their 50 bakeries in the Strip would stop functioning completely. They called on all parties concerned to secure the necessary mechanism to ensure regular supplies of fuel to bakeries to guarantee continued service to the public…

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We have a winner – Iran
Ron Beasley
…So the US toppled Iran’s chief nemesis in the area, Saddam, and then placed in power and continue to prop up an Iranian friendly junta. It would appear the Bush administration is a pretty good enemy to have. As I noted below nearly 40 percent of active and retired military officer see Iran as the winner….

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Report: Ethnic cleansing continues in Jaffa
Arab Associatoin for Human Rights
On 19 March 2007, Amidar Israel National Housing Company (Amidar) published a document entitled “A Review of the Stock of Squatted Properties in Jaffa — Interior Committee, Israel Knesset.” The document reviewed properties managed by the company in the Jaffa-Tel Aviv area. Section 5 noted that “the project includes a total of 497 squatters, constituting 16.8 percent of the total properties managed by Amidar.”. Section 5 of the document relates, in fact, to 497 orders received over the past 18 months by Palestinian families living in the Ajami and Jabaliya neighborhoods in Jaffa to vacate their homes or businesses. These homes are owned by the state and managed by Amidar in its name…

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CONTROVERSIAL DEATH MY EYE!
Desertpeace
Does a man who adores his wife and children plan a suicide so as to never see them again? I THINK NOT. Does a man who is so involved in causes to help Palestinian children plan a suicide at a time when his services are needed more than ever? I THINK NOT…

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Our Cultural Heritage
Reham Alhelsi, Palestine Think Tank
As Palestinians all over the world commemorate the Nakba and 60 years of on-going zionist ethnic cleansing, murder and apartheid, there is one aspect of our Palestinian identity that survived despite all zionist attempts of elimination: our cultural heritage. The Palestinian cultural heritage is full of popular songs, poetry, sayings, stories handicrafts and other forms of folklore. They are the bridges that connect generations and unite Palestinians all over the world, binding us together and forming our cultural identity…

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The realpolitiks of Dual-Occupations.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
These two parts of the Al-Jazeerah video on Iraq provides a very good background information on the DYNAMICS of DUAL-OCCUPATION / US – IRAN. Three guests – an American, an Iranian and an Egyptian. I am aware that this video is dated March 08, month that Ahmadinejad visited U.S OCCUPIED Baghdad’s GREEN ZONE and met with the Iraqi puppets. This video also sheds light on the current events in Iraq, and what and who triggered and wishes to maintain the blood spilling…And do remember that we are talking about IRAQ here, and again as you will notice ARAB IRAQ is ABSENT too…

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Al-Sadr Wins Another Round
MARK KUKIS
For the first time in weeks Sadr City saw no fighting Sunday, day one of yet another hastily brokered cease-fire between U.S.-backed Iraqi forces and the Shi’ite Mahdi Army militia. Word of the pact emerged Saturday night, when an aide to Mahdi Army leader Muqtada al-Sadr said a deal had been reached to end roughly two months of street fighting in eastern Baghdad. Soon afterward, U.S. and Iraqi officials endorsed the agreement, which came as Iraqi forces working with U.S. troops were signaling plans for a new push to break from areas where they had remained stuck for weeks….Al-Obeidi, who issued a statement from the southern Iraqi city of Najaf, added: “This document does not call for disbanding al-Mahdi Army or laying down their arms.”…

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Fighting rages between rival parties in northern Lebanon
AFP
Fierce fighting raged today between supporters of Lebanon’s Western-backed government and the Hezbollah-led opposition in the northern city of Tripoli. A security official said the fighting, which erupted overnight, was concentrated in the Bab al-Tebbaneh, Kobbeh and Jabal Mohsen neighbourhoods located on the northern edge of the coastal city and that thousands of civilians were fleeing. “About 7,000 people have fled from Bab al-Tebbaneh, which marks the frontlines, because of the battles,” he said. Residents of Tripoli could hear heavy machine gun firing and the thump of exploding rocket-propelled grenades, some of which fell inside the city, an AFP correspondent said…

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The Nakba, Voices for Palestine event with Gilad Atzmon
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
Friends of Palestine Society Presents: The Nakba – Voices for Palestine
Featuring: His Excellency Dr. Manuel Hassassian the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Gilad Atzmon and band, Nizar Al Issa and More… University of Exeter, Monday May 12th, 2008: On commemoration of the 60th anniversary of The Nakbah, meaning: “The Catastrophe”: The expulsion and dispossession of hundreds of thousands Palestinians from their homes and land in 1948. More than 60 percent of the total Palestinian population was expelled. Over 530 Palestinian villages were depopulated and completely destroyed…

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Video: Five million orphans in Iraq
Alive in Baghdad
The number of Iraqi orphans increased in the last few years due to the war. According to official Iraqi government statistics released in December 2007, the number of Iraqi orphans had reached at least five million over the last three years. Many due to the Sunni-Shia conflict. There are several social organizations caring for a small number of these Iraqi orphans, such as Child Aid International. There are approximately 26 orphanages that Alive in Baghdad has been able to locate around Iraq. Eight orphanages are in Baghdad and another 18 are distributed all over Iraq and generally they accept kids between the age of 6 and 18 years old…

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Calm returns to Beirut’s streets
Aljazeera.net
…even though the government had tried to save face by deferring to the army, it had in reality still bowed to Hezbollah’s demands. “The truth is Hezbollah won and it got what it wanted – the government had been adamant that it won’t revoke its decisions but now they will,” she said. “It’s embarrassing to the government and to the March 14 coalition not only because they had to back off on these decisions, but also because they lost to Hezbollah so quickly.”…

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May 10, 2008: 2 US Soldiers, 50 Iraqis Killed; 147 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
The Iraqi government and Mahdi army sources have apparently reached an agreement to suspend fighting in Baghdad’s Sadr City suburb; however, the U.S. military continued air strikes. At least 50 Iraqis were killed and 147 were injured in the latest attacks. Also, one American soldier died of non-combat injuries yesterday and a second soldier died in a vehicular accident in Anbar..

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Strings of Sadness
Layla Anwar, Uncensored Arabwomanblues
…For the past two days, Gaza has been without electricity, fuel or bread.
Palestinian infants have already died in the only Pediatric hospital in Gaza. Infants relying on machines to breathe…to live. Today across the Rafah border, a little Palestinian girl, not more than 6 years old, was waiting to receive treatment in an Egyptian hospital, for kidney dialysis. She spoke on TV. She looked 60 years old. Her eyes were puffed and she had huge brown bags underneath her lovely eyes. She explained to the spectator which is you, that she’s been without dialysis for over 3 days, due to the embargo imposed on Gaza by the criminal called Israel. She said, it was important for any patient to have treatment otherwise he/she would die. She is only 6. Another woman had a retina detached, and she was hoping to get some treatment as she was going blind… A third had severe burns and wounds from Israeli jet explosives… And so it went… This reminded me of the sanction years, this reminded me of today’s Iraq. This reminded me of the half a million Iraqi babies in mass graves from 13 years of sanctions. A huge cemetery…little white tombs placed next to one another, thousands of them…and the Silence whistled…

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Iraqi artists and singers flee amid crackdown on forbidden culture
Afif Sarhan in Baghdad and Caroline Davies, The Observer
This article appeared in the Observer on Sunday May 11 2008 on p41 of the World news section. It was last updated at 00:03 on May 11 2008. Iraqi singers, actors and artists are fleeing the country after dozens have been killed by Islamic radicals determined to eradicate all culture associated with the West. Cinemas, art galleries, theatres, and concert halls are being destroyed in grenade and mortar attacks in Basra and Baghdad…Singer Muthana al-Jaffar, 37, from Baghdad, said: ‘The government is not giving us any protection. I witnessed two of my friends being killed for singing western songs at weddings. The Shia extremists who killed them shouted that that was the price they had to pay for singing “the devil’s words”. ‘There is no life for artists in Iraq anymore. We are unable to work. Our families are starving because we cannot feed them.’ He said he had sold his house, his car and his wife’s jewellery to raise enough money to get to Syria. The Shia demanded 20 per cent of his house proceeds to allow him to leave safely, he added. Culture was encouraged during Saddam Hussein’s regime, but no longer….

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Iran Brokers Truce Between Sadr, Iraqi Forces
GINA CHON
The showdown between Shiite cleric Muqtada al Sadr and the Iraqi government came to a halt this weekend after Mr. Sadr agreed to a truce brokered by Iran, a sign of Tehran’s growing influence in Iraqi politics. In the past five years, as Shiite political parties have dominated the Iraqi government, Iran’s scope of influence has widened. This puts the Iraqi government at a precarious position between two important friends, the U.S. and Iran. The U.S. military said it welcomes the news of the truce but would continue to pursue and defend itself against armed “criminal elements” that continue to fight U.S. and Iraqi security forces…

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Palestinian identity before and after Israel’s creation
Sherri Muzher
“People are tired of hearing about it,” a friend once told me matter-of-factly about the Middle East conflict. Tell me about it. As a first-generation American of Palestinian descent, I can vouch that nobody is more tired of this conflict than the Palestinians. But many of us don’t have the luxury of flipping the channel or ignoring what is happening to our relatives and friends. Palestinians with serious illnesses in Gaza are denied access to medical care (more than 150 died and children are being stoned on their way to school by Jewish settlers). We do what we can but it never feels sufficient. And though we’re 100 per cent Semitic, the usual tiring label of “anti-Semite” is thrown at us for speaking out against the injustices. This month marks the 60th anniversary of Israel’s creation and the dispossession of the Palestinians…

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One hour before it’s dark
D.Eyad El Sarraj, Gaza Community Mental Health Programme (GCMHP)
Israeli military establishment decided to stop power supply and fuel to Gaza. Since Thursday, food and huminitarian aid are not allowed in. Very soon life will come to a standstill. Water will not be pumped for a even drink. My step son is on ventilator for asthma every night. What will happen to him when our generator is not running any more? What will happen to hospitals, vaccines and blood banks? What will happen to patients on dialysis machines, and to babies in incubators? Before it is dark and when there is no communication with the world, I want to tell you that current Israeli policy of squeezing on has the aim of pushing Egypt to open its borders with Gaza and bring the situation to prior 1967. Israel will then close its borders with Gaza, separates the Strip from the West bank and destroys the peace proposals of one state or two states…

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Sadr City residents fear a cease-fire means more violence
Leila Fadel | McClatchy Newspapers
…Before the battle began in late March, the area was peaceful, save for the sectarian killings that often happened. Bresam could go to the market, and her husband could drive to and from work easily. But they lived in an atmosphere of intimidation. When women were beaten by the Mahdi Army in her neighborhood or Sunnis killed, they objected quietly and never challenged the militia. Just three days earlier three men were killed, spy was written on their forehead and they were left in the street. “We can’t say anything,” she said. “They’ll accuse us of being with the Americans.” But they also fear the Iraqi Army. Videos captured on cell phones are being sent as messages from person to person. Abdul Hassan pulled out his phone to show a public hanging of three men. They stood on police trucks with nooses around their necks as a crowd of people looked on and then the trucks were driven away and the men were hung. Another showed men shot by the Iraqi Security Forces and then burned. In the background Iraqi soldiers spoke. “Don’t say in the name of God the most compassionate the most merciful. They are animals,” one soldier said. It was unclear where the videos came from or when they were shot. Abdul Hassan said the videos were shot in the southern cities of Karbala and Nassiriyah, and he worried that the same would happen in Sadr City if the Iraqi Army had free reign…

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Advisors to President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad interrogated by Israeli police in Jerusalem
IMEMC News
Palestinian sources reported on Sunday that the Israeli police in Jerusalem interrogated Adnan Al Husseini, the advisor of president Mahmoud Abbas for Jerusalem Affairs, and Hatim Abdul-Qader, the advisors of Prime Minister, Dr. Salaam Fayyad, for six hours. The Israeli police demanded the two Palestinian officials to halt their activities in Jerusalem, and threatened to prosecute them if they fail to do so. Al Husseini and Abdul-Qader stated that these threats and violations will not be successful in stopping their activates in the city. Al Husseini said that Palestinians in Jerusalem are holding seminars and talks regarding their conditions in the city, as they are facing harsh social, political, and economical conditions. They stated that Israeli police are not allowing them to publicly talk about the violations carried by the Israeli government and the Jerusalem municipality on the Palestinian residents…

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Surrendering to Hizballah
Andrew Lee Butters, Times
There are no longer any Hizballah fighters surrounding the grand red sandstone Beirut town house belonging to Walid Jumblatt, a member of Parliament and one of the leaders of Lebanon’s governing coalition. Still, Jumblatt, a top American ally, is under virtual house arrest. After the lightning speed with which opposition Hizballah fighters defeated government supporters in a six hour battle on Thursday — only to vanish a few hours later — it became clear that it is pointless to resist the Iranian and Syrian-backed militia, which could return at any time. “I am a hostage now in my home in Beirut,” he said over the telephone to his rival Nabih Berri, the speaker of parliament and a top opposition leader, while TIME waited nearby for an interview. “Tell [Hizballah leader] Sayeed Hassan Nasrallah I lost the battle and he wins”… “The U.S. has failed in Lebanon and they have to admit it,” he said….

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Real Clear Numbers: 101,000 U.S. Casualties a Year
ALEXANDER COCKBURN
…Just under one in three—31 percent—of those who’ve been deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan suffer from a brain injury or stress disorder or a mix of both these conditions. On April 17 the RAND Corporation released a study of service members and veterans back home from Iraq and Afghanistan. The 500-page study was titled Invisible Wounds of War: Psychological and Cognitive Injuries, Their Consequences, and Services to Assist Recovery. It was sponsored by a grant from the California Community Foundation and done by twenty-five researchers from RAND Health and the RAND National Security Research Division. From last August to January, the team conducted a phone survey with 1,965 service members, reservists and veterans in twenty-four areas across the country with high concentrations of those people. Some had done more than one tour…

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LEBANON: Opposition continues military takeover, enforces siege
IRIN News
Lebanon’s worst sectarian violence since its 15-year civil war ended in 1990 has spread from Beirut to the Druze heartlands of Mount Lebanon and on to the second city of Tripoli in the north as Hezbollah and its opposition allies continued their military takeover of the country… The mountain conflict began late 9 May after Hezbollah and its opposition allies’ took over Sunni-majority west Beirut. According to witnesses, Hezbollah militants operating in Mount Lebanon set up checkpoints between the villages of Qmatiye and Souk el-Gharb, two kilometres southwest of Aley…

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In Sadr City, a Cease-Fire Is Put to the Test, and Fails
MICHAEL R. GORDON and STEPHEN FARRELL, NYTimes
A column of Iraqi armor set out on Sunday to test a new truce in the Sadr City area of Baghdad between the militias and the Iraqi government by venturing north on a major thoroughfare that borders the Shiite enclave. But the Iraqi forces had barely started to move when they were struck by three roadside bombs, known as improvised explosive devices, or I.E.D.’s, as the military calls them. As Sadr City and Iraqi government negotiators struggled to complete the cease-fire agreement, the scene was a vivid demonstration that a durable accord in the densely populated neighborhood, where intense fighting has been going on for more than a month, had yet to be achieved…

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Her blood remains to tell a story of another Israeli military crime
WAFA – Translated by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News
Blood, destruction, tears and children crying is what the Israeli occupation soldiers left behind after they withdrew from Abasan Al Jadeeda town, east of Khan Younis, in the southern part of the Gaza Strip. The blood of Wafa’ Al Daghma, 37, who was killed when the army shelled her home, remains a testimony which tells a story of the atrocities of the Israeli army. Soldiers shelled her home and killed the mother while she was among her children, and now, her 12-year old daughter Sameera, became not only the older sister but also a mother for her five younger brothers and sisters….

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May 11, 2008: 37 Iraqis Killed, 38 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
Casualties in Sadr City have tapered off as the truce between the Iraqi government and Shi’ite militiamen appears to be holding. Still, at least 37 Iraqis were killed and 38 more were wounded in violence across Iraq. Meanwhile, Turkey launched air and artillery attacks into northern Iraq. No Coalition deaths were reported…

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