The war against Iraqi women
Zeina Zaatari
…Ironically, the forces leading this assault on women had little or no power under Saddam Hussein. But, following the US-led invasion in 2003, southern Iraq was opened to forces known as Propagation of Virtue and Prevention of Vice (PVPV) — militant gangs and individuals committed to archaic Islamic rule and suppression of women’s rights. Some members of these groups now serve in government, others in militias or as self-appointed vigilantes or hired guns. The goal of the PVPV is to confine women to the domestic realm and end all female participation in public and political life…

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Mosul under Attack.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
From 8 months ago, I’ve been saying it over and over, watch out for Mosul, something is being planned there. Not only that, when I listened to some of the testimonies of American war vets, one of them said that his platoon was charged of “forcibly removing and displacing Sunnis from the Nineveh province and bring in Shia families instead.” You can still hear these testimonies, they are available on the Web. And if you insist, I will have to dig out the link for you. But I much rather you do your own research as I really have no time to keep giving you proof after proof, to no avail… And here come the latest news from Mosul, stuff you will not read in your mainstream media, nor in the Iraqi government media concerning operation “Lion’s roars.”…

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Iraqi officials implicated in smuggling of antiquities, British Museum expert says
Nidhal al-Laithi, Azzaman, May 13, 2008
Senior Iraqi officials are involved in the smuggling of archaeological items during their trips abroad, according to a British Museum expert specialized in Mesopotamian antiquities. Farouq al-Rawi, Professor of ancient Mesopotamian languages, said most of the antiquities these officials carry with them abroad end up in the private collections of royals and wealthy families particularly in the oil-rich Gulf states. He said one member of the Kuwaiti ruling family, who he declined to name, keeps nearly 6,000 Mesopotamian artifacts in his private collection…

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Latest news (with an update)
Arablinks
…On the third day of the operation being undertaken by the joint forces of the occupation and the government and the militias of the parties that belong to the government, along with the forces of the Kurdish Peshmerga and what are called the Awakening Councils, these forces arrested over 120 officers of the former Iraqi army, including those who were in military manufacturing in the former government, most of them living in the Arab section of Mosul. And likewise these forces arrested a number of university professors and students in an arbitrary fashion in various areas of Mosul. The arrest of this elite group, with the participation of militias and forces answering to political trends and sects, in the second-biggest city in Iraq, constitutes a clear demonstration showing that this military campaign has a dimension beyond what has been announced and that its objective is to wipe out those citizens of the governate who reject what the occupation has brought with it, and its backers, and it targets military and civilian expertise…

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Gertler’s Bling Bang Torah Gang
Israel and the Ongoing Holocaust in Congo (Part 1)
Keith Harmon Snow
Maurice Templesman is one of the top funders of Barrack Obama and Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party. Templesman was the unofficial ambassador to the Congo (Zaire) for years, but a new Israeli-American tycoon has replaced him. In the world of bling bling and bling bang, some things change, some stay the same. The CIA, the MOSSAD, the big mining companies, the offshore accounts and weapons deals—all hidden by the Western media. The holocaust in Central Africa has claimed some six to ten million people in Congo since 1996, with 1500 people dying daily.1 But while the Africans are the victims of perpetual Holocaust, the persecutors hide behind history, complaining that they are the persecuted, or pretending they are the saviors. Who is responsible?…

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Life inside Iraq: ‘We have become accustomed to the fear’
International Orthodox Christian Charities (IOCC)
…Most Iraqis are dependent on the government’s food rationing program, but the availability of food in Iraq today is worse than under Saddam Hussein’s regime, says Samuel. Iraqis also face other shortages. The government provides only two hours of electricity per day. Those who can afford it pay private companies for electricity. Water—when it is available—is undrinkable. Local public hospitals lack vaccines, beds, instruments, and perform only the simplest procedures. Private hospitals are in better condition but most Iraqis cannot afford them…

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Sami Al Haj in Guantanamo
Dr. Marwan Asmar, Online Journal Contributing Writer
It was freedom at last! The release of Sami Al Haj after six-and-a-half years, languishing in prison on Guantanamo Bay in Cuba, is a surreal reality going to the heart of international political intrigue, media manipulation and human rights violations. Despite what is regarded as a botched up theatrical play by the US government, Sami Al Haj, a Sudanese cameraman who worked for world-famous Al Jazeera, was viewed as an “enemy combatant” who in the end was released without any charges, despite the fact he had to endure 130 sessions of interrogations in which he claimed the authorities offered to set him free if he would spy on his own employer Al Jazeera, and the journalists working there as he says 35 of these sessions were solely related to his work at the satellite station that has an audience of 40 million…

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Israeli forces destroy fruit trees and greenhouses in southern Gaza Strip
Palestine News Network
Israeli forces destroyed green houses, farms, fruit trees and land in the southern Gaza Strip’s Khan Younis area throughout the night. The Mayor of the eastern town of Khoza’, Sheikh Kamal Najjar, reported that “the bulldozers and tanks of the Israeli occupation penetrated the eastern side of town which exploded with destruction on Tuesday. They washed away more than 500 dunams of land belonging to our citizens.”…

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Canada’s Ignorant Prime Minister
Comment by Khalid Amayreh
Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper recently made outrageously ignorant comments on the plight of the Palestinian people. He claimed that criticism of and opposition to the Israeli policies of ethnic cleansing and apartheid against the Palestinian people amounted to “anti-Semitism.” “Unfortunately, Israel at 60 remains a country under threat – threatened by those groups and regimes who deny to this day its right to exist,” Harper said in a Toronto celebration marking the inauspicious anniversary of Israel’s birth. “And why? Look beyond the thinly veiled rationalizations; because they hate Israel, just as they hate the Jewish people.” Obviously, Harper was trying to curry favor with Jews by appearing more Israeli and more Zionist than many Israelis themselves are. But in truth, he is harming Jews, because it is not a sign of true friendship to encourage one’s friends to walk along the path of evil as Israel has manifestly been doing for decades….

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Sheikh Dari: the Occupation Failed to Win what it Expected to do so
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
His Eminence Sheikh Hareth al Dhari the Secretary General of the Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) gave a speech at the Arab National Congress meeting held in Sanaa, the capital city of Yemen focusing on the importance of Palestinian cause for the Iraqi people despite what is going on through the difficulties…

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Occupied Iraq has the Largest Number of Prisons in the World- part II
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
In December 2005, despite objections from the Bush administration, Congress enacted “law of the treatment of detainees”. This contains the “McCain Amendment” which prohibits the use of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by any American official working anywhere in the world. In June 2006, the Supreme Court ruled in the case of Hamdan to Rumsfeld the need for the American government treatment of al-Qaeda detainees to be treated humanely and in accordance with the provisions of Common Article III among the Geneva Conventions…

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Al Nakba Commemoration – 60 Years of Great Courage, Suffering, Struggle and Survival…
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
Sitting in the courtyard to his home one gloomy day in Gaza Beach Camp, surrounded by members of his family, Mostafa Abed Al Monem Ghwazy,is holding the legacy of his life in his hands,reading for us the handwritten official documents.Worth more then gold and diamonds, is the contract of the Ghwazy family property in Jaffa, and the invoice which the family received from the British government.A testament of ownership and a prove of that the land and property his parents bought long time ago, is orderly and fully payed for. Mr.Ghwazy is 87 years old now,he was born 1925, a young man of 23, when he 1948 together with his family was forced to leave the Arab Palestinian city of Jaffa, now a suburb to Tel Aviv…

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Newly born infant, two elderly men die due to Gaza siege
Palestinian Information Center
Three Palestinian patients including a two-day-old infant and two men in their sixties died in Gaza on Monday due to lack of proper medication and Israeli refusal to allow them treatment outside the Strip. Medical sources reported that the two-day-old infant Yousef Zakout died due to the lack of proper medication bringing the number of victims of Gaza siege to 150. Earlier on Monday two old patients died in central and southern Gaza Strip, the sources said, adding that Mohammed Abu Hweishel, a cancer patient, had repeatedly asked for permit to leave the Strip for treatment but the Israeli occupation authority turned down his requests…

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500 suspected insurgents detained in N Iraq
Xinhua
Iraqi security forces detained some 500 suspected insurgents during a major offensive in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh, Iraqi interior minister said on Tuesday. “Our troops have detained up to 500 suspects for their involvement in violence in Nineveh province during the past three days of Operation Lion’s Roar,” said Jawad al-Bolani who arrived in Mosul earlier to oversee the offensive launched on Saturday against “al-Qaida militants” in the province…

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BLOOD DRENCHED RED CARPET ROLLED OUT IN JERUSALEM
Desert Peace
A carpet red with the blood of the Palestinian people is being rolled out to welcome the visiting dignitaries coming to ‘celebrate’ 60 years of ethnic cleansing in the Holy Land. Leader of the pact is the President of the United States. At his side will be the first lady Laura Bush. She has intentions of visiting children’s facilities in the Jerusalem area. If she drives about 20 minutes due south to Hebron she can witness the orphanage recently closed by Israeli troops…. but needless to say she won’t…

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Time is Running Out for Israel, Atzmon’s report of the Nakba commemoration event
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
Something positive is happening, I would even call it a shift of awareness, a realisation that the Palestinian struggle is leading somewhere after all. Yesterday, at Exeter University, to a very crowded theatre, in an event of that was a commemoration of 60 years of the Nakba, I had a chance to listen to Dr Manuel Hassassian (at the left), the Palestinian Ambassador to Britain. I may as well say it, Palestinian eloquence cheers me up and fills me with hope and pride and Dr Hassassian has plenty of it…

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Clashes erupt in Sadr City despite truce
UPI
U.S. officials Tuesday said they killed several militants in Baghdad’s Sadr City during clashes following a truce by the Mehdi Army of cleric Moqtada Sadr. Forces loyal to Shiite cleric Moqtada Sadr signed a truce Monday with lawmakers in Baghdad to halt attacks on Iraqi and U.S.-led forces in Sadr City. U.S. and Iraqi military forces erected checkpoints throughout the city and at its main entrance points, now partially cordoned off by a concrete wall. Baghdad said Iraqi security forces would engage anyone with a weapon in the area, Voice of America said Tuesday…

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Sadr truce amended
UPI
A ruling member of the Shiite coalition United Iraq Alliance and the Sadrist bloc added two additional points to a formal truce. Haider al-Abbadi said the truce included an additional point regarding the prohibition of inflammatory or incendiary media statements against the government. Another amendment concerned the establishment of an ad hoc committee to vet complaints against security forces, Voices of Iraq reported Monday. Abbadi said Iraqi military units would patrol Sadr City as the official security force four days after the signing of the truce Monday…

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A REALISTIC REPORT ON THE MOSSAD/FBI MURDER VICTIM
Desertpeace
The press has been harping at suicide in the MURDER of Riad Hamad. Some of his own so called supporters are even swallowing the lies put out by the local police. The reasons for this could be to simply put an end to the speculations and an opportunistic way to ’save their own asses’ while trying to make it look like there were wrongdoings in the way Riad operated. That is pure nonsense and those that do not stand with Riad’s family in this hour of pain are suspect of those very wrongdoings that Riad is being accused of, in my mind anyway…

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Iraqi MP Praises Iran’s Role in Sadr City Truce
Fars News Agency
Iran played a prominent role in a deal struck by Iraqi Shiite factions to end seven weeks of fighting in the Baghdad stronghold of cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, a senior Shiite Iraqi legislator said on Monday. Ali al-Adeeb, a member of the ruling Shiite alliance who is close to Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki, said an Iraqi delegation that went to Tehran almost two weeks ago asked for Iranian help because of Tehran’s influence over Sadr’s movement. Adeeb’s comments illustrated the growing sway Shiite Iran has in Iraq and could unsettle Washington….

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Mosul curfew: Residents speak out their fears
Voices of Iraq
With the five-day-old curfew continuing in the northern Iraqi province of Ninewa, local residents have expressed their fears that they may soon run out of provisions. Abu Ali, an owner of a marble factory in Mosul, the capital city of the province, said that he was shocked by the curfew and did not take due caution for it. “I am sick of staying home. I closed down my factory over a year ago because of the bad security conditions in this hot area,” Ali told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI), expressing his concerns that the curfew may continue until they run out of provisions…

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