US: Respect Rights of Child Detainees in Iraq
Children in US Custody Held Without Due Process
Human Rights Watch
…Since 2003, the US has detained some 2,400 children in Iraq, including children as young as 10. Detention rates rose drastically in 2007 to an average of 100 new children a month from 25 a month in 2006. The US holds most children at US Camp Cropper in Baghdad, but has also held children at the main US military detention facility, Camp Bucca near Basra…

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A sordid Realization…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
After everything has been said and done…We find ourselves here, alone…picking up the pieces. I really believe the “average” Iraqi, frankly no longer gives a damn as to what is whom and who is what…In other words, we’ve paid our dues in advance…Truth be told, issues like Lebanon, Palestine or Syria and its honeymoon with Iran is the least of our problems…We are survivors, hanging on… Hanging on by threads, by thin ropes, to the utter indifference of the world…Look at the pictures that depict us – a miserable bunch, a forgotten bunch, amidst ruins and dead corpses… Everyone else is celebrating “divine victories”, and we, we are still in the background, dusting off pictures of our dead…keeping the memories alive in all of this obscurity…

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Who’s to pay for Iraq’s reconstruction, Iraqi or U.S. taxpayer?
Fatih Abdulsalam, Azzaman
There have been calls in the U.S. Congress demanding Iraq to pay for the post-war reconstruction from its oil revenues rather than American taxpayers’ money. Such calls were never made before. U.S. legislators started mulling them when expenditures on the twin wars of Iraq and Afghanistan skyrocketed to unreasonable levels. Demands like these are not only unacceptable but are in a sense meant to punish Iraqis for the destruction and devastation U.S.-waged invasion and occupation of their country has caused. Does it mean that the U.S. Congress wants us to pay billions of dollars for the reconstruction of bridges, hospitals, schools as well as cities, towns and villages U.S. warplanes and military might have destroyed?…

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Palestinian prisoner Mahmoud Azzam: 10 years captive in Israeli prisons without trial
Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank
Nafha Society for the Defence of Human Rights in Palestine sent an appeal to help the Palestinian prisoner “Mahmoud Saeed Azzam” from the town of Seelet Al Harthiya in Jenin district. This appeal came after a visit to Shatta prison where he is detained. The Palestinian prisoner “Azzam” has been arrested from his home by Israeli authorities, after being raided and searched, and then he was transferred to the Centre prison of Jalamah…

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Hunger…Afghanistan’s New Plight
IslamOnline.net
Abdul Karim stood ashamed, looking at the bakers in central Kabul shaping globs of dough, slapping them into a hot clay oven and flipping them out the right second. Being noticed by the bakery’s owner, he was tossed a piece of bread he no longer affords buying. “I used to be able to buy a sack of flour, and my wife could bake for us, but now it is far too expensive,” Abdul Karim, a handcart hauler, told the Washington Post on Sunday, May 25. “I have to rely on this baker’s kindness so my children can eat. I do my best for them and work hard all day, but it is not enough anymore.” For generations, Afghans have depended on cheap, plentiful bread as their main staple. But a combination of local drought and regional shortages sent the price of flour skyrocketing, leaving many Afghans unable to buy bread…

“In my whole life, even in the civil war, we did not see prices this high,” said Zabiullah, the window man at Kabul Sang Tarashi bakery and the owner’s son.

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Former British Prime Minister almost shot down by Israeli airforce
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News
Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of Great Britain and the Envoy for the Quartet for Mideast Peace had a ‘near-miss’ on Friday when Israeli fighter jets mistook his plane for an ‘enemy aircraft’, and were within seconds of shooting him down. Two fighter jets were sent in hot pursuit of Blair’s aircraft after they monitored the plane taking off from the Sinai (Israeli-occupied Syrian territory) en route to Israel. Since no Syrian planes ever fly to Israel, and Israel is control of the airspace, the Israeli airforce assumed it was an attack plane, and sent fighter jets to intercept it…

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FBI Evidence that Indicts George W. Bush for Mass Murder, War Crimes and Torture
Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy
A 370-page report by the Justice Department Inspector General references an FBI investigation of US torture that accuses the Bush White House, the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the Justice Department with ‘ordering and planning’ torture, including ‘procedures’ that resulted in death to ‘detainees’. In other words —murder! The report details how the US began torturing captives in 2002. ‘Attempts to stop it … were systematically suppressed’, evidence of criminal activity by the Bush administration covered up. Bush’s cover up of torture is itself a crime for which he should be impeached, tried and prosecuted…

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Party Time!
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…Again, I reiterate firmly and loudly what I said in my post “Celebrate.” This “party” would have not been possible, if Iraq was not destroyed and handed over to Iran by America. As it turns out, the only “evil” on this axis was Iraq. And it was considered “evil” by Israel, the U.S and Iran because and I repeat — Saddam Hussein was the only true anti-Imperialist, anti-Zionist, Arab leader around….

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Olmert’s Peace Spin
Gilad Atzmon, Palestine Think Tank
Yesterday Olmert assured Haaretz that the negotiation with Syria is nothing less than an ‘historic breakthrough’. He is absolutely correct. It’s the first time in Israel’s history that a PM initiates a peace negotiation just to escape a police probe into his own unlawful doings. Apparently, Olmert is seeking a quick escape route that would bring the investigation of his corruption to an immediate halt….

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Talabani, Crocker discuss long-term strategic Iraq-U.S. ties
Voices of Iraq
Iraqi President Jalal Talabani and U.S. ambassador in Baghdad Ryan Crocker discussed on Sunday the means of ensuring the success of negotiations to establish long-term strategic ties between Iraq and the United States to serve both sides’ interests, according to a presidential statement. “The two sides also deliberated the means to enhance cooperation and coordination between the two friendly countries,” read the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI)…

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The Demographic Fear Factor in Israel… Keep Them Babies Coming!
Mary Rizzo, Palestine Think Tank
Most observers of the Israel-Palestine conflict have heard a phrase without even really reflecting upon what it might mean or any implications behind it. The phrase is that Israel risks the detonation of a demographic bomb. The Israelis have been convinced up until very recently that they are unbeatable in any military milieu. That belief has allowed them to continue with the Occupation of Palestine and the inhumane treatment of the Arabs. All Arabs, even those who have held political office in Israel, are treated as foreign bodies that need to be extirpated. But, with the curtain of “permanent victory” being slashed from the rod to the ground, the illusion of force is dying, and rather than entrust security to the young men and women aged 18 to 35 in combat fatigues, they are now pinning their hopes on Jewish lives still in the womb…

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Barghouthi: Israel lies when it talks about easing movement in WB
Palestinian Information Center
Dr. Mustafa Al-Barghouthi, a Palestinian lawmaker, stated Saturday that the IOA is persisting in its policy of deception through its allegation that it eased the movement of Palestinian citizens in the West Bank. He affirmed that Israel is stalling to gain time and use negotiations to cover up its crimes against the Palestinians and to impose the status quo. Commenting on the UN report on the 7% increase in Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank, Dr. Barghouthi said that the number of Israeli military checkpoints had increased from 521 to 607 roadblocks since the Annapolis conference…

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Bush’s ‘War Crimes’ and Misdemeanors
Robert Parry
Facing a tough reelection fight in 2004, George W. Bush expressed outrage over leaked photos showing U.S. military police at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib prison abusing detainees, who were paraded naked before female guards, threatened by attack dogs, chained in “stress positions” and forced to wear ladies underpants on their heads. President Bush assured the American people that he “shared a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated.” Other administration officials pinned the blame on a “few bad apples” and dismissed the prison guards’ claim that they were told to “soften up” the detainees for interrogation. Now, a report by the Justice Department’s Inspector General reveals that months before those abuses at Abu Ghraib, nearly identical tactics were used against “war on terror” detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and at CIA prisons – and that FBI complaints about the tactics went up the chain of command back to Washington…

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New strategy: Creating doubts in Sistani’s credibility
Roads to Iraq
As I said before, the report of the false Fatwa issued by Sistani meant to embarrass the high Shiites institution Al-Hawza, without any details the Al-Arab Al-Youm reported that there is kind of unrest among Shiites about Sistani’s denial of issuing such Fatwa, but it seems the pressure continues with another false report that Sistani rejects the U.S. – Iraq long presence deal…

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The Return of Iraq’s Ayatollah
MARK KUKIS, Time
High-profile visits by political figures are relatively rare in Najaf, the quiet holy city in southern Iraq where Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani lives. Sistani, the most venerated Shi’ite religious leader in the country, shuns the limelight. But it fell his way last week nonetheless when Iraqi Prime Ministry Nouri al-Maliki and U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker appeared in Najaf separately within days of each other. It raised questions whether Sistani is making a comeback as a voice in political decision-making in Iraq….

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When Free Speech Doesn’t Come Free
Remi Kanazi
Free speech is not without consequence. In the United States, for example, criticism of Israel is tantamount to heresy. Former US President Jimmy Carter felt a societal backlash last year after the release of his book, Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid, which condemned Israel’s apartheid-style policies in the occupied Palestinian territories. Consequently, and without foundation, Carter was branded by many in the American press as a one-sided, anti-Semitic propagandist. Similarly, Harvard professor Stephen Walt and University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer were lambasted for a paper the two co-authored that discussed the power of the Israel lobby and its adverse effect on American policy…

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May 24, 2008: 27 Iraqis Killed, 29 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 27 Iraqis were killed and 29 more were wounded in the latest violence. Sadrist officials warn that the cease fire between the Mahdi Army and the al-Maliki government is in danger if Iraqi security forces do not stop violating it and harassing Sadr followers. No Coalition deaths were reported. Iraqi soldiers killed as many as one person and wounded three others when they fired at religious worshippers in Basra yesterday…

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THE BABY MARKET
Desert Peace
Now this is SICK!!!!! Unbelievably SICK! eBay is a known online marketplace for merchandise…. but not for buying and selling children. Even if the following was meant to be a joke, it’s not a very funny one :( Perhaps Google should be shifting their energies to monitor the likes of eBay and leave the rest of us alone……

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More on the real reason behind high oil prices, Part II
F. William Engdahl, Global Research
As detailed in an earlier article, a conservative calculation is that at least 60% of today’s $128 per barrel price of crude oil comes from unregulated futures speculation by hedge funds, banks and financial groups using the London ICE Futures and New York NYMEX futures exchanges and uncontrolled inter-bank or Over-The-Counter trading to avoid scrutiny. US margin rules of the government’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission allow speculators to buy a crude oil futures contract on the Nymex, by having to pay only 6% of the value of the contract. At today’s price of $128 per barrel, that means a futures trader only has to put up about $8 for every barrel. He borrows the other $120. This extreme “leverage” of 16 to 1 helps drive prices to wildly unrealistic levels and offset bank losses in sub-prime and other disasters at the expense of the overall population…

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When it comes to Israel , Europe is hypocritical, submissive and obsequious
Comment by Khalid Amayreh in Ramallah
In comparison to the madman in the White House, Europe may look less bellicose, less confrontational and less unreasonable in its overall approach to contentious international issues. However, when the issue is the Palestinian plight, the US and Europe look very much like tweedledee and tweedledum. In recent months and years, European leaders from Germany’s Merkel, to France’s Sarkozy, to Britain’s Brown and Italy’s Berlusconi were shamelessly pandering to Israeli savagery to the extent of embracing relentless Israeli criminality against the Palestinian people , including the ongoing genocidal ethnic cleansing in the occupied Palestinian territories, particularly in the Gaza Strip…

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May 25, 2008: 14 Iraqis Killed, 41 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 14 Iraqis were killed and 41 more were wounded in the latest round of violence. Several assassination attempts only managed to kill one target but left many wounded in their wakes. No Coalition deaths were reported. In Baghdad, 11 people, mostly bodyguards, were wounded in Yarmouk when an IED blasted a convoy carrying the governor of Babel province…

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