Kidney for Bread in oil-rich Iraq
Afif Sarhan, IOL Correspondent
Iraq, which has the world’s third-biggest oil reserves, is making billions of dollars in oil exerts thanks to record-setting prices. Still, many of its citizens sell parts of their own bodies just to survive. “I couldn’t see my children crying for food and I can not get them at even bread,” Ali Hassnawi, a 34-year-old Baghdad resident, told IslamOnline.net. “One day a friend of mine told me he had sold his kidney and I decided to do the same,” he recalled. “I got $1,500 dollars for it, two months later my wife got a better payment for hers. She got $3,000 because the man who bought it was nearly dying.” Abject poverty in oil-rich Iraq has driven many like Hassnawi and his wife to a growing organs black market, where kidney is the most sought-after…

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350 Palestinian children are suffering inside Israeli prisons
Please sign this petition
Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank
The Palestinian Prisoners’ Support and Human Rights Centre ADDAMEER, declared that the Israeli Zionist forces have arrested almost 6200 Palestinians since the last Intifada started in September of 2000. 350 of those languishing in prison are children who, against international conventions, are still imprisoned in Israeli jails and detention centers. Those youngsters undergo severe punishment and mental stress, living an extremely horrifying health and mental situation. Being subjected to torture, interrogation, beatings, humiliation, insults, degradation, and regular terrorizing, “such conditions will affect their mental well being forever, and will accompany them through their adult life,” the report said…

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IRAQ: Food Crisis Hits Fallujah
Ali al-Fadhily and Dahr Jamail*
Sharp increases in food prices have generated a new wave of anti-occupation and anti-U.S. sentiment in Fallujah. “This is a country that was damned by the Americans the moment they stepped on our soil,” Burhan Jassim, a farmer from Sichir village just outside Fallujah told IPS. “This is Iraqi land that has always been blessed by Allah with the best production in quality and quantity, but now see how it has been turned into a wasteland.” Fallujah faces this new crisis after much of the city was destroyed by U.S. military operations in 2004…

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ONE SENTENCE
Malcom Lagauche
Shortly after the “fall of Baghdad” in April 2003, my friend Wameeth called me and said, “I just found out that one of Iraq’s most famous singers was murdered.” He was referring to Dauod Alkaisy, a well-known entertainer who had performed in Iraq for decades. His murderers were members of a Shia militia. At the time, most people did not consider his death to be the beginning of a pogrom. With the ever-present chaos, they had more important things on their minds. Since then, various Iraqi groups have had their experiences in annihilation. More than a thousand pilots who flew for the Iraqi Air Force during the Iran-Iraq War have been hunted and killed by sectarian militias. Then, gay and lesbian Iraqis had their turn. Soon after, Christian Iraqis were targeted. And, probably the largest group of ethnic cleansing was the Sunni population of Baghdad and surrounding cities. Let’s not forget the female population of Iraq of all religious affiliations. The fanatic mobs killed them for acting “un-Islamic.” If they were not killed or beaten, they were forced into exile in their own homes. Before the invasion, about 55% of the Iraqi workforce consisted of females. Today, the number is about 3%…

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Health ministry: Entire health services doomed to collapse due to siege
Palestinian Information Center
The health ministry in the PA caretaker government on Monday warned that the entire health services in the Gaza Strip are doomed to collapse due to the repeated power outages and lack of fuel to operate generators. The ministry said in a press release that the health conditions in the Strip are heading towards a downward slope in the light of the endless Israeli aggressions and the strict blockade on the Strip that finished off the modest capabilities of the ministry….

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Save the Children? Not if they’re Palestinian
The Heathlander
In an interview today about the cyclone in Burma, Foreign Secretary David Miliband assured viewers that British aid would be channeled through “organisations like Save the Children, who rightly have a very high reputation.” Save the Children is indeed a reputable organisation, but Miliband’s respect for it seems to be rather selective. Earlier this year Save the Children UK co-authored a report describing a “humanitarian implosion” in the Gaza Strip…So how did Miliband respond to this grave analysis from an organisation which he recognises has “a very high reputation”? Did he, as with Burma, listen to the “humanitarian experts…who make all the difference on the ground” and change policy accordingly? Not quite. Instead the British government, which along with the U.S. has been unswerving in its support for the devastating collective punishment of Gaza since Hamas took office in February 2006, continues to facilitate the Israeli siege and oppose political engagement with Hamas. Where Miliband criticised the “malign neglect” of the Burmese junta in preventing aid agencies from functioning properly, he failed to condemn the Israeli government for doing – as he himself acknowledges – exactly the same thing. As a result the people of Gaza continue to suffer and die…

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U.S. looks set to offer Israel powerful new radar
Jim Wolf
The Bush administration appears set to offer Israel a powerful radar system that could greatly boost Israeli defenses against enemy ballistic missiles while tying them directly into a growing U.S. missile shield. President George W. Bush is expected to discuss the matter during a visit to Israel starting on Wednesday to mark the 60th anniversary of the Jewish state amid mounting U.S. concern over perceived threats from Iran, people familiar with the matter said. This is “probably the No. 2 issue” on Bush’s agenda for the visit, second only to the Middle East peace process, said Rep. Mark Kirk, an Illinois Republican who has spearheaded calls in Congress for tighter U.S. missile-defense ties with Israel….

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MP Halaika: 1.5 million Palestinians facing death due to siege
Palestinian Information Center
MP Samira Al-Halaika has appreciated the Algerian and Iranian governments’ decision to supply Gaza with fuel free of charge, describing it as “wise and courageous”. She said in a press statement that the decision reflected the sacred ties linking the Arab and Islamic countries and their positions in support of the just Palestine cause. Halaika asked the Egyptian government to facilitate entry of those fuel supplies through the Rafah crossing, underlining that the Gaza Strip was dying daily due to the closure and siege….

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IOF Murders and Collective Punishment in Gaza Continue; Al Mezan Calls for Urgent Intentional Intervention
Al Mezan
The Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) has continued to perpetrate more crimes in the Gaza Strip. IOF’s attacks have claimed the lives of fourteen Palestinians since the beginning of May. IOF has killed 330 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip alone since the start of 2008. Moreover, the IOF has toughened its brutal blockade on Gaza, which denies the entry of fuel supplies necessary to operate the power plant, thus interrupting electricity supply all over the Strip, and severely disturbing agriculture, health and transportation sectors…

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Indymedia Censors attacks on Iraqi Artists
Hussein Al-alak, The Iraq Solidarity Campaign
Would someone be so kind and please explain why the Indymedia UK website has taken down the following article: “Iraqi artists and singers flee amid crackdown on forbidden culture” by Afif Sarhan in Baghdad and Caroline Davies. The article is about the persecution of artists in Iraq and the cultural cleansing by sectarian death squads, with death threats and killings being directed against actors, singers and painters and even includes a paragraph about how one person was even beheaded for his trade. The article was first published by the national Observer newspaper on May 11th 2008 and has also been carried by highly respected online Middle Eastern sites…What is worrying, is that Indymedia claims to be an “independent” media outlet and is allegedly run by radicals, leftists and members of the British anti-war movement but quite possibly, anti-Arab (anti-Semitic) sentiments maybe prevalent if the person who removed the article cannot cope with statements such as “Culture was encouraged under Saddam, but not anymore”…

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Hamas condemns the Holocaust
We are not engaged in a religious conflict with Jews; this is a political struggle to free ourselves from occupation and oppression
Bassem Naeem
…But it should be made clear that neither Hamas nor the Palestinian government in Gaza denies the Nazi Holocaust. The Holocaust was not only a crime against humanity but one of the most abhorrent crimes in modern history. We condemn it as we condemn every abuse of humanity and all forms of discrimination on the basis of religion, race, gender or nationality. And at the same time as we unreservedly condemn the crimes perpetrated by the Nazis against the Jews of Europe, we categorically reject the exploitation of the Holocaust by the Zionists to justify their crimes and harness international acceptance of the campaign of ethnic cleansing and subjection they have been waging against us – to the point where in February the Israeli deputy defence minister Matan Vilnai threatened the people of Gaza with a “holocaust”…

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Mosul Offensive Catches Residents Off Guard; Turks Bomb N. Iraq; New Bloc in Parliament?
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
The Mosul operation came so unexpectedly for residents of the major northern city that they did not have time to stock up on food. Alexandra Zavis interviews Mosulis who say that they have been living in fear. What is odd is that we weren’t having these stories of living in fear in Mosul 2 months ago….

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Just a word of caution on Lebanon
As’ad AbuKhalil, The Angry Arab News Service
These are historic times in Lebanon. I have been thinking about the significance of them as I am trying to finish my article for Al-Akhbar, and I have been experiencing my first writer’s bloc. I am not pleased with the exuberance that is exhibited by some leftists toward the developments in Lebanon. I believe that the radical left, or the revolutionary left, should be careful in evaluating the situation…

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Nakba at 60 and my blogger suspension
Laila El-Haddad
I just want to start by saying that the reason for my absence of the past few days (besides the obvious preoccupation of motherhood!) is that Blogger suspended my blog and I had to request a review to get it unlocked! I received an email telling me that “Your blog, at a-mother-from-gaza.blogspot.com/, has been identified as a potential spam blog” and that though this was likely an error I had to request a review. Eventually, it was unlocked. However I was curious and obviously upset, and upon further investigation, I found that several Palestinian and Pro-Palestinian blogs have suffered a similar fate-they blogs being targeted as “potential spam blogs”. Some took months to get unlocked. According to Haitham Sabbah, “Zionists are sending claims about pro-Palestine blogs and signaling them as spam blogs so that Google closes them. Some of these blogs got reviewed and cleared in few days, other stayed blocked for few months. there is no guarantee that Google will review the blog within certain period.” Cyber-terrorism, perhaps, to mark the 60th anniversary of the Nakba? If so, shame on Google, shame on blogger….

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“Please Return My Smile”: The Ngo Campaign to Save the Schools and Orphanages of Hebron
Ahmad Jaradat, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Representatives from the Alternative Information Center (AIC), Christian Peacemakers Team (CPT), UNICEF, OCHA, Save the Children UK, Defence of Children International (DCI), YMCA, Relief International, the Ecumenical Accompanying Program in Palestine and Israel (EAPPI), Terre des Homme-Switzerland, the Michigan Peace Team and other international human rights organizations met in Hebron on 8 May to help Hebron’s orphanages and schools from the Islamic Charitable Society to survive their Israeli military ordered closure…

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Iraqi Shebeks snub Kurdish move to annex their areas
Azzaman
Iraqi Shebeks, a secretive and forgotten Iraqi minority, are against Kurdish moves to annex their areas, their Parliamentary representative said. Haneen Qaddo, the community’s only Member of Parliament, accused the Kurds of forcibly changing the ethnicity of his group and deploying their Peshmerga or militias in their areas. Many Shebeks see themselves as an independent ethnic minority and resist attempts have them included as Kurds in Iraqi counts….

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Sadr vows to honour deal to end Baghdad bloodshed
AFP
Anti-American Shiite cleric Moqtada al-Sadr gave his personal backing on Monday to a deal between his militia and the Iraqi government to halt bloodshed in his Baghdad stronghold, even as sporadic fighting there claimed three lives. Sadr’s spokesman Sheikh Salah al-Obeidi quoted the firebrand clergyman as saying his Mahdi Army will honour the deal reached on Saturday to end weeks of deadly fighting in the impoverished Baghdad district of Sadr City. “He welcomed the agreement,” Obeidi said. “Sadr himself authorised the delegation to negotiate and to reach an agreement which stopped the flow of Iraqi blood.”…

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60 years on, refugees visit lost Jerusalem homes
Wafa Amr, via Desertpeace
Eighty-year-old Beatrice Habesch sobbed when she caught sight of her father’s house in Jerusalem on Sunday and remembered how it was taken over by Jews in 1948. “This is our house! This is my house!” she shouted as fellow Palestinians held her back from running towards the building. Some 300 Palestinians marked 60 years since Israel’s founding in May 1948 with a protest walk through affluent Jewish parts of west Jerusalem that were once home to many Arabs. They wore black T-shirts with “This is my House” printed on the back…

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Mosul Offensive Catches Residents Off Guard; Turks Bomb N. Iraq; New Bloc in Parliament?
Juan Cole, Informed Comment
The Mosul operation came so unexpectedly for residents of the major northern city that they did not have time to stock up on food. Alexandra Zavis interviews Mosulis who say that they have been living in fear. What is odd is that we weren’t having these stories of living in fear in Mosul 2 months ago….

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UIC, Sadrist blocs announce agreement’s details to end Sadr City crisis
Voices of Iraq
Leaders from the Unified Iraqi Coalition and the Sadrist bloc on Monday announced the details of the agreement inked between the two sides to end the security tension in the Shiite Sadr City after one day on entering into force. This came during a press conference held by the UIC and the Sadrist bloc on Monday afternoon in Baghdad. Deputy Speaker and member of parliament Khaled al-Attiya read the agreement’s articles which includes “the comprehensive agreement over the principles and basis the two sides agreed on and mapping out a roadmap for normalizing conditions for the stability in Sadr City.” “The aim of the agreement is to achieve the rule of law throughout Sadr City,” he explained. For his part, Salah al-Ubaidi, the spokesperson for the Sadrist bloc, said at the press conference “the agreement represent working mechanisms to end the crisis,” noting that the main goal of the agreement is to work hard for putting an end to the crisis throughout Iraq… “There are talks between a UIC delegation and the brothers from the Sadrist bloc, and a 14-point agreement was reached,” Ali al-Dabbagh told VOI on Saturday…

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Health ministry: Entire health services doomed to collapse due to siege
Palestinian Information Center
The health ministry in the PA caretaker government on Monday warned that the entire health services in the Gaza Strip are doomed to collapse due to the repeated power outages and lack of fuel to operate generators. The ministry said in a press release that the health conditions in the Strip are heading towards a downward slope in the light of the endless Israeli aggressions and the strict blockade on the Strip that finished off the modest capabilities of the ministry….

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