Bible Burning in Zionistan
Zahir Ebrahim
The following is an update to Project Humanbeingsfirst’s public service announcement of May 15, 2008 made on the occasion of Celebrating Israel’s 60th Birthday bash, when the President of the United States along with the First Lady had just arrived in Israel. [May 20, 2008] It is known to be customary to celebrate independence day with much mirth, joyous merry-making, firecrackers, and bonfires. The “New Israel” which excitedly welcomed the fervent Evangelical Christian American President, George W. Bush Jr., and his fair lady, to its holy lands for three days of love-fest and merriment, the moment their guests departed, lit the brightest bonfires to continue on with its “Three thousand years old, and going on sixty” traditional celebrations of “protect[ing] the freedoms given to us by an Almighty God”, as reported today by the Tel Aviv based Hebrew language Daily, Maariv, the second largest in Israel. AP translated it for the rest of the world who haven’t yet learned Hebrew: “Orthodox Jews set fire to hundreds of copies of the New Testament in the latest act of violence against Christian missionaries in the Holy Land. The books were dumped into a pile and set afire in a lot near a synagogue. The Israeli Maariv daily reported Tuesday that hundreds of Jewish religious school students took part in the book-burning. Israeli authorities and Orthodox Jews frown on missionary activity aimed at Jews”… There were no BBC television news cameras on hand to record the bonfires as there usually are when s! ome DVDs featuring scantily clad women are put to the torch by “islamofascists”…

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UN delegation to visit Beit Hanoun this week to investigate Israeli carnage
The UN announced that it will send this week a delegation headed by South African priest Desmond Tutu, a Nobel peace prize laureate, to the Beit Hanoun town, northern Gaza Strip, to investigate a heinous massacre committed by the IOF troops in November 2006 and claimed the lives of 19 Palestinian citizens most of them were members of one family. The UN council for human rights had decided in the same month of 2006 to form an investigation commission headed by Tutu to visit Beit Hanoun, but Israel refused to allow that UN delegation to visit Gaza ever since…

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Sayyed Nasrallah: Qintar, Brothers to Return Very Soon
Mohamad Shmaysani, Al-Manar
His eminence thanked Arabs, especially Qatar, the Arab Ministerial Committee, Syria and Iran, and everyone who contributed in making the Doha Agreement that ended the Lebanese crisis a concrete reality….Nasrallah also said that the election of General Michel Suleiman as President renews hope among the Lebanese for a new stage. The presidential oath we heard Sunday reflects the spirit of agreement President Suleiman had promised. What Lebanon needs is agreement, participation and cooperation. “When I addressed you in the Riyad el-Soloh Square and promise you victory again, I did not mean the victory of one group on the other, I meant the formation of a national unity government…Sayyed Nasrallah called on “party of former Prime Minister Martyr Rafiq Hariri” to benefit from “the experience of this great man (Rafiq Hariri). “ Whoever is loyal to the martyred Premier must preserve his loyalty. We do not want monopoly or alliance; what we want is cooperation and participation as widely as possible…

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163 patients die due to the 11 months Israeli siege on Gaza
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News
Palestinian sources reported on Monday that a Palestinian patient died in the Gaza Strip on Sunday evening due to Israeli siege imposed on the Palestinian coastal region. Hind Al Ashkar, from Al Nuserat refugee camp located in central Gaza, had kidney failure, doctors said that she applied several times for the Israeli army to grant her permission to leave Gaza for life saving medical care but the army refused. With the death of Al Ashkar, the number of Palestinian patients who died due to the 11 month Israeli siege on Gaza now stands at 163….

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US-Iraq Deals Overshadowed by Rising Concerns
Mohammed A. Salih
Iraqi parliamentarians are increasingly concerned that they are being left out of talks between Iraqi and U.S. officials over a strategic deal to determine the future relationship between the two countries, at a time when the U.S. Congress failed to include a provision in a bill to fund the Iraq and Afghan wars last week to restrict President George W. Bush’s authority to sign such deals…

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Al-Tanf camp: Trauma continues for Palestinians fleeing Iraq
Amnesty International (AI)
At least 729 Palestinian refugees who have fled Iraq are stranded in appalling conditions in al-Tanf camp in the no-man’s land on the Iraq-Syria border, as of 2 April 2008. The narrow strip of land, wedged between a concrete wall and the main transit road from Baghdad to Damascus, is dry and dusty. Temperatures soar to 50 degrees C in summer and plunge to below freezing in winter. Overcrowded tents are the only protection from the heat, the snow and the blinding sandstorms. Danger is everywhere, especially for the children. The land is infested with scorpions and snakes…

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Iran, U.S. leaning toward talks?
Recent events suggest both Tehran and Washington may be willing to engage in dialogue.
Howard Lafranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The United States and Iran may be sworn enemies, but both Washington and Tehran have recently put out feelers suggesting that talks rather than confrontation may top each side’s agenda. Last week, Gen. David Petraeus told Congress that as commander of US forces in the Middle East and Central Asia, he would recommend a comprehensive approach to Iran that would “engage by use of the whole of government” the regime in Tehran. General Petraeus, who is President Bush’s nominee to head US Central Command – a strategically crucial swath stretching from the Middle East and across Iraq, Iran, and Afghanistan to Pakistan – aired his preference for diplomacy at the same time that Iran proposed a wide-ranging dialogue with the international community….

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HOW THE ‘NEW WORLD’ IS IN FACT BEING ‘ORDERED’
International Justice and Impunity: The Case of the United States
THE TRIAL OF SADDAM HUSSEIN BY Dr. Abdul-Haq Al-Ani
The trial of Saddam Hussein marks the first time since the UN was created that a head of state has been put on trial by an invading, occupying power. This book seeks to draw public attention to the threat this precedent poses to developing nations worldwide, and to its distortive influence on the further evolution of international law. Al-Ani documents the trail of illegalities marking the destruction of Iraq at the hands of the US and UK, from the genocidal sanctions of the 1990s, the US State Department pre-invasion planning that commenced in 2001, and the 2003 invasion, to the setting up and proceedings of the tribunal that swiftly dispatched Saddam Hussein. While the Tribunal was intended to promote the image of a triumphant Iraqi democracy, the US was actually in control of all stages of the trial. It drafted the Tribunal’s Statute; determined the trial venue and what charges would be brought; researched, compiled, stored, and prevented access to evidence and documentation; selected and trained the judges, and micro-managed the proceedings. The trial itself was so farcical as to provoke international condemnation….

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Hay Ride: Jimmy Carter Crosses the Line
Chris Floyd , Empire Burlesque
…Carter’s unprecedented explicitness regarding Israel’s nuclear weapons somehow escaped the notice of the Guardian — which sponsored the festival and conducted the interview — but The Times picked it up: Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions. His remark…is startling because Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, let alone how many, although the world assumes their existence. Nor do US officials deviate in public from that Israeli line. But Carter, who as president had full access to America’s secret knowledge about Israel’s arsenal, steamrolled right over the long-held public line…

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War disabled the most marginalised in Iraq
AsiaNews
More than a million civilians have been disabled by the war in Iraq, and represent the most marginalised sector of society. The psychological traumas they bear create serious imbalances inside their families, and the central government is not paying enough attention to the problem. The denunciation comes from Faris al-Ubeidi, an Iraqi researcher, interviewed by the news agency “Voice of Iraq”. Al-Ubeidi explains that the state has the duty of guaranteeing that those who have been disabled by the war, but have professional skills, can still participate productively in the labour force. The problem is that fathers who have been handicapped and are unable to work feel that they are a burden on their families, and this generates psychological problems and tensions…

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Jimmy Carter says Israel had 150 nuclear weapons
Bronwen Maddox, Times
Israel has 150 nuclear weapons in its arsenal, former President Jimmy Carter said yesterday, while arguing that the US should talk directly to Iran to persuade it to drop its nuclear ambitions. His remark, made at the Hay-on-Wye festival which promotes current affairs books and literature, is startling because Israel has never admitted having nuclear weapons, let alone how many, although the world assumes their existence. Nor do US officials deviate in public from that Israeli line. Carter, who has immersed himself since his presidency in Israeli-Palestinian relations, was highly critical of Israeli settlers on the West Bank, and of Israel’s refusal to talk to elected officials of the Islamic party Hamas, although he said that Israel’s security was his prime concern.

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Al-Tanf camp: Trauma continues for Palestinians fleeing Iraq
Amnesty International (AI)
At least 729 Palestinian refugees who have fled Iraq are stranded in appalling conditions in al-Tanf camp in the no-man’s land on the Iraq-Syria border, as of 2 April 2008. The narrow strip of land, wedged between a concrete wall and the main transit road from Baghdad to Damascus, is dry and dusty. Temperatures soar to 50 degrees C in summer and plunge to below freezing in winter. Overcrowded tents are the only protection from the heat, the snow and the blinding sandstorms. Danger is everywhere, especially for the children. The land is infested with scorpions and snakes…

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U.S., Iran and Arab neighbors to meet on Iraq
Anna Ringstrom and Susan Cornwell
The United States will prod Sunni Arab states to offer more support to the Iraqi government at a conference in Sweden this week as a way of countering the growing influence of non-Arab Iran in Iraq. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki will chair the conference on Thursday, aimed at assessing progress in implementing a plan adopted at a meeting in Egypt last year to help Iraq rebuild after five years of war. Analysts are watching for any contacts between Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her Iranian counterpart, Manouchehr Mottaki, who will be attending the meeting, though U.S. officials say none are scheduled in Stockholm….

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Two US soldiers killed in Iraq, casualties reach 4,082
Agence France-Presse
Two American soldiers were killed and four wounded in two separate roadside bombings in Iraq on Monday, the US military said. “A coalition force soldier was killed as a result of injuries sustained from an improvised explosive device in Salaheddin province (north of Baghdad) on Monday,” a military statement said. “Two soldiers were wounded.” In the second bombing, one soldier died and two were wounded in the central province of Qadisiyah, the statement said….

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Finkelstein and me
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
Seeking to punish critics for communicating the truth about Israel to the world, Israel has barred an American scholar from entering the country and a Palestinian journalist from leaving the occupied territories for a brief trip to Germany. Israel’s chief domestic intelligence agency, or Shin Beth, as it is known by its Hebrew acronym, has detained and deported Professor Norman Finkelstein, a prominent American Jewish historian and intellectual. Finkelstein is a well-known critic of the apartheid Israeli state, especially its 41-year-old Nazi-like occupation of East Jerusalem, West Bank, and the Gaza Strip….

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Israeli press: Israel presented new map of West Bank during negotiations
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
In a report that is unsubstantiated by official sources, the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, has reported that Israel has presented a map of the West Bank in which Israel will control 8.5 percent of the land (including the most fertile land and the water sources). This is while negotiations are still ongoing between the Fateh-led portion of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli authorities in Egypt. According to the Jerusalem Post report, they received this information from Palestinian sources close to the negotiations. According to their sources, this new map presented by Israel is not acceptable to the Palestinian side, as the Palestinians want Israel to withdraw to the 1967 borders, as they are compelled to do under international law and numerous UN resolutions…

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Iraq’s inflation rate soars to 16 percent in April, blamed on rising worldwide prices
International Herald Tribune
Rising prices of food, energy and other commodities worldwide pushed up Iraq’s inflation rate to 16 percent in April, compared to 11 percent at the beginning of this year, the country’s central bank said Sunday. Central Bank of Iraq governor Sinan al-Shibibi said the bank would continue its monetary policy focused on absorbing the inflation by strengthening the Iraqi dinar against the U.S. dollar and keeping interest rates at 17 percent…

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Israeli press: Israel presented new map of West Bank during negotiations
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Israeli press: Israel presented new map of West Bank during negotiations
author Monday May 26, 2008 00:04author by Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News Report this post to the editors. In a report that is unsubstantiated by official sources, the Israeli newspaper, the Jerusalem Post, has reported that Israel has presented a map of the West Bank in which Israel will control 8.5 percent of the land (including the most fertile land and the water sources). This is while negotiations are still ongoing between the Fateh-led portion of the Palestinian Authority and Israeli authorities in Egypt….

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Carter urges ‘supine’ Europe to break with US over Gaza blockade
Ex-president says EU is colluding in a human rights crime
# Jonathan Steele and Jonathan Freedland , The Guardian
Britain and other European governments should break from the US over the international embargo on Gaza, former US president Jimmy Carter told the Guardian yesterday. Carter, visiting the Welsh border town of Hay for the Guardian literary festival, described the EU’s position on the Israeli-Palestinian dispute as “supine” and its failure to criticise the Israeli blockade of Gaza as “embarrassing”…

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As soldiers fill Sadr City, militia fighters wait
Alexandra Zavis, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
Iraqi Col. Qassim Abdul-Wahab appeared relaxed as he cruised down rutted streets in an unarmored pickup truck, Arabic pop tunes pouring from the speakers and the air conditioner cranked up as high as it would go. For the first time since U.S.-led forces invaded the country in March 2003, Iraqi soldiers blanket Sadr City, the heavily populated Baghdad district that is the bastion of firebrand Shiite Muslim cleric Muqtada Sadr and his Mahdi Army militia…

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Now playing
badger, Arablinks
…I think it is obviously speculative to say what Sistani has in mind with respect to image or strategy in Iraq. What is not at all speculative is to understand that if American opinion (which is in favor of withdrawal) were to turn against Maliki/Hakim and their Najaf support-team, the result could be to threaten the continuation of US military support for them in the coming administration. Maliki/Hakim and their Najaf support-team need to be presented to the American people as closet supporters of the “withdraw-the-troops” movement, in order to keep the ball in motion. It is of course a tough sell. But when it comes to info-ops, experience should have told us by now that no job is too tough. The result is that we are being treated to a double-feature: First, investment-promotion and the touting of Iraq as the biggest developing-country market in the world, secure and politically stable to boot. And secondly, the best part about it is that the ruling bloc with their support-team can’t wait to join up with the “American-troop-withdrawal” movement. You couldn’t fool Iraqis with this kind of thing, but the Americans?…

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