Video: Oil rich Iraq’s health system is in disarray
TV3 Latest News Video
As security improves in Iraq, billions of dollars worth of oil is now being produced and exported. But that money is not getting to where it is needed most…

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AlHayat source: US not opposed to a memo of understanding setting out a withdrawal schedule
Arablinks
Elaborating on Prime Minister Maliki’s remarks yesterday to the effect his government is negotiating what will be either an “evacuation of the American forces” or a “withdrawal schedule”, and not a “strategic agreement”, AlHayat cites a “prominent political source” who says the scheduled-withdrawal concept (via a “Memorandum of Understanding”) in fact has met with the approval of the American side, for two reasons: (1) They don’t like the risk of an abrupt change of policy under a putative Democratic administration, so this will be a smoothing mechanism; and (2) They aren’t keen on the idea of a battle between Bush and Congress in the final months of his administration…

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Israel Throws Hundreds of Palestinian Students onto the Streets: The Tragedy of Hebron Schools and Orphanages Affiliated with the Islamic Charitable Society
Ahmad Jaradat and Sara Venturini, Alternative Information Center (AIC)
The international campaign to save the schools and orphanages in the city of Hebron which are affiliated with the Islamic Charitable Society (ICS) has had a strong impact, forcing Israeli embassies around the world to respond to requests for information and answers. Relying on information obtained from the Israeli military, embassies are working to create a climate of terror against the ICS, thereby justifying Israel’s actions…

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Tehran looks beyond Bush
Trita Parsi
…But with Bush out of the picture by January 2009, the utility and risk of the Ahmadinejad line can change dramatically. Whether it is Democratic Senator Barack Obama or McCain, the next commander in chief will begin his presidency with a significantly higher cachet with the Europeans. The hunger for strengthening trans-Atlantic ties and putting the past eight years of bickering behind them is palpable in Europe. One European diplomat indicated to Inter Press Service that Europe would even willingly go along with all the measures Bush has called for – as long as they are consulted by the next president. In addition, Washington could enjoy much greater pull with non-aligned countries, including Asian nations whose unwillingness to go along with sanctions have provided Tehran with an economic escape route. Consequently, greater interest in the freeze-for-freeze formula may have less to do with recent Israeli bluster and more to do with the greater political pull enjoyed by the next US administration…

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Sistani Rejects US-Iraq Security Deal
Alalam News Network, Iran
The Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani on Tuesday rejected any security agreement with US, stressing such deal will affect the country’s sovereignty. In a meeting with Iraqi national security adviser Muwaffaq Al-Rubaie who was briefing al-Sistani in Najaf on the progress of the government’s security efforts, and the talks on US security deal, Ayatollah said his country will not accept such a security deal…

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Palestinian Village Takes On Israeli Military
Mel Frykberg
Ambulances were again prevented Monday from entering the central West Bank village of Ni’ilin, near Ramallah, to evacuate the ill and the wounded. Supplies of medicines were running low, as confrontations continued with youths defying a four-day-old curfew imposed by the Israeli military. The Israeli army had surrounded the village and ordered residents to remain indoors and was also preventing the media from entering Ni’ilin, said Salah al-Khawaja, spokesman for the Ni’lin Committee for Resisting the Separation Barrier…

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More Air Power for Afghanistan
Noah Shachtman
America may not have any extra ground forces to send to Afghanistan. But it can still call in more air power. Unnamed “defense officials” tell CNN that the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln “has moved from the Persian Gulf into the Gulf of Oman so its warplanes can fly missions over Afghanistan.” The nuclear-powered, 97,500-ton ship carries more than 90 aircraft, including the latest models of the F/A-18 E/F Super Hornet. It’s the ship where President Bush made his now-infamous “Mission Accomplished” landing in 2003…

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Taliban denies role in Kabul blast
AFP
Taliban insurgents on Tuesday again denied involvement in a suicide attack on India’s embassy in Kabul that killed 41 people, blaming rivalry among regional powers including Pakistan. After Monday’s blast, blame were immediately pinned on the Taliban, who have claimed almost all of a wave of suicide attacks carried out as part of an insurgency launched after the hardline movement’s 2001 removal from government…

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Iran Test Fires Longer Range Shahab-3
Alalam News Network, Iran
The Islamic Revolution Guards Corps (IRGC) successfully test-launched upgraded, longer range Shahab-3 missile in a navy military maneuvers dubbed ‘the Great Prophet 3' in the Persian Gulf, Alalam reported Wednesday. The armed forces test fired the developed 2000-kilometer missile at 4:30 am GMT (8:00 am local time) with a conventional warhead weighing one ton in the maneuvers aimed at improving combat readiness and capability of the missile and naval units. The IRGC has made breakthrough in Iran’s most significant ballistic missiles, including the Shahab-3 longer range missile, whose range has the Israeli regime and US bases in the Persian Gulf within reach…

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Pentagon chief downplays Iraqi calls for withdrawal
Reuters
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday he expected to pull more U.S. troops from Iraq as local security forces improve, playing down calls from Baghdad for a firm withdrawal deadline. “As the Iraqi security forces get stronger and get better then we would be able to continue drawing down our troops in the future,” Gates told reporters during a visit to the Fort Lewis Army base in Washington state. The Pentagon chief stressed any decision to withdraw would be based on the ability of Iraqi troops to take responsibility for security and combat…

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Lost Identity
By Maiko Sato for MIFTAH
Every time I come through the border to enter Israel, my stress levels reach their highest. Even though I have done nothing to harm anyone nor have I committed any crimes, because I am a returning Palestinian, I fear the possibility of being refused entry into my own country and hence I am plagued with a feeling of guilt. This guilty feeling is triggered by the experience I had at the border in 2004. I was issued an entrance visa valid for only one week even though I claimed that I needed a decent amount of time to visit my family. Of course, the Israelis don’t need to give me any means of justification for their actions. They just make you feel as if you have done something wrong…

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Occupation Force Kill Former Iraqi Army Officer in al-Shergat
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
A U.S. occupation force killed an officer of the former Iraqi army after raiding his house, in a village of al-Shergat suburb, a source from Salah al-Din police said on Tuesday. “A U.S. occupation force, yesterday after midnight, conducted a military operation in Sheikh Hamad village of al-Shergat suburb (110 km north of Tikrit), Salah al-Din province,” the source told Aswat al-Iraq – Voices of Iraq – (VOI) on condition of anonymity. “The force killed a major of the former Iraqi army, after raiding his house,” he said…

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Assyrians are Under Kurdish Pressure
Y. POLOS, Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The Kurdish Administration in Northern Iraq has been applying plans aiming to obstruct the national rights of us Assyrians since 2003, having increased these policies in the recent period. Barzani and Talabani are using a part of their political influence that has increased in Iraq, Northern Iraq in particular, so as to intimidate our people. Barzani is trying to split our people as Assyrians, Chaldeans and Syriacs. Moreover, he is exploiting certain Assyrians to his own advantage by luring them to Kurdish political parties and declaring them as the representatives of all Assyrians. Sarkis Aghajan, Nimrod Youkhanna, George Mansour, Fawzi Hariri, Romeo Hakkari and Abd al-Afram Sawa are the prominent figures…

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Israel attempting to nix its responsibly for treating a child its army paralyzed in 2006
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Maria Aman, a 6 year old Palestinian child, paralyzed from neck down during an Israeli strike in Gaza in 2006, is now in a battle with the Israeli Authorities who are trying avoid proving her with rehabilitation and treatment in Israel by moving her to Abu Raya Rehabilitation Center in the West Bank city of Ramallah. The innocent, severely wounded child, does not know her condition is permanent. Her father cannot find th words to tell her that this is the her condition from now until the end of her life. Maria can only move around with a wheelchair which she controls by a joystick guided by her chin. Her doctors in Israel said that she will face life threatening conditions if she is moved to the Rehabilitation Center in Ramallah. Yet, the so-called Israeli Defense Ministry is working hard in order to remove the child from the Israeli hospital and transfer her to Ramallah. Maria was seriously wounded when the Israeli army fired a missile at a vehicle which carried a leader of the Islamic Jihad in Gaza… The father of the child said that Israel is trying to avoid setting a precedent which would encourage Palestinians seriously hurt by Israel to seek medical treatment in Israel…

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JERUSALEM RABBIS ENDORSE RACISM AS KOSHER
Desertpeace
In order for a restaurant or coffee shop to be certified as kosher in Israel, the owner has to pay a set monthly fee to the City’s Rabbinical Office. They then receive a certificate of kashrut that is prominently displayed. Along with the certificate, they also get the ’services’ of a person who pops in unannounced to make sure all is being done according to Jewish Law. Fine… no problem there…
BUT… when they start digging up archaic laws written by racist rabbis centuries ago problems might arise. Today it happened. The Jerusalem office in charge of Kashrut decided to enforce the following…

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Blaming the victim: Google vs. Viacom
Eli Stephens, Left I on the News
Google has been ordered to turn over its records on every video watched by every user to Viacom in a copyright infringement suit. Press reports, commentators, and Google itself all blame Viacom, or the judge, for this massive infringement of privacy. Huh? The massive infringement of privacy has been carried out by Google, which amasses this information (and, not to scare anyone, but for all we know, turns it directly over to the government, just like the telecoms did). If my blog “accidentally” disappears in the near future, don’t be surprised. ;-)

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Kurdish official doubts ‘legality’ of oil deals
Bassel al-Khateeb, Azzaman
The oil deals the Kurdish regional government and the central government in Baghdad are signing are illegal, according to a top Kurdish politician and legislator. Mahmoud Othman, the head of the powerful Kurdish bloc in Iraqi parliament, described the signing of these deals as “a premature and out-of-lace move” in the absence of a national law organizing the exploitation of the country’s oil riches…

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‘We have no alternative than peaceful protest’
Rory McCarthy, The Guardian,
Israeli troops have surrounded a Palestinian village in the occupied West Bank after several weeks of demonstrations against the latest stretch of the West Bank barrier. For at least the past two days the military has placed a cordon around the village of Nilin, imposing what it calls a “closure” and preventing people from entering or leaving…

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U.S. trade with Iran increases tenfold under Bush administration
Bull semen, snowmobiles and weapons on surprising list of exports
CBC.ca
Iran may be part of the “axis of evil,” but it is good enough to be able to buy increasing amounts of American products — including bull semen, brassieres and possibly even weapons — despite U.S. sanctions that have been in place for decades. An analysis of seven years of U.S. trade statistics done by the Associated Press shows that exports from the United States to Iran grew more than tenfold during President George W. Bush’s years in office, even as he accused the Mideast country of having nuclear ambitions and helping terrorists. Cigarettes were Iran’s favorite U.S. import, the statistics said, with the Islamic republic’s smokers going through more than $169 million worth of popular U.S. brands since 2001. Other surprising shipments to Iran during the Bush administration have included fur coats, sculptures, perfume and musical instruments. Despite increasingly tough rhetoric toward Iran, and reports of U.S. or Israeli plans for a military strike, trade in a range of goods has survived on-again, off-again sanctions originally imposed nearly three decades ago…

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Iraq insists on U.S. withdrawal timetable: official
Ahmed Rasheed and Mohammed Abbas
Iraq will not accept any security agreement with the United States unless it includes dates for the withdrawal of foreign forces, the government’s national security adviser said on Tuesday. But the government’s spokesman said any timetable would depend on security conditions on the ground. The differing stances underscore the intense debate in Baghdad over a deal with Washington that will provide a legal basis for U.S. troops to operate when a U.N. mandate expires at the end of the year…

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July 8, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 4 Contractors, 36 Iraqis Killed; 28 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
One American servicemember was killed and five others were wounded in separate incidents around Baghdad. In northern Iraq, four Coalition contractors were also killed, but their nationalities are unknown at press time. At least 36 Iraqis were killed or found dead and 28 more were wounded in other attacks. Also, a UN representative reported that one-sixth of Iraq’s population has been displaced due to violence…

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Prohibited weapons crisis in Fallujah 2008
The effects of pollution on the public health in Fallujah
CCERF – Fallujah
… This report focuses on the effects caused by pollution on the health of Fallujah population two years after the use of forbidden weapons by the American troops in its major attacks on the city in 2004. Fallujah has a population of almost 650,000 inhabitants. After an American attacks at March – November 2004 in Fallujah and using prohibited weapons like Chemical weapons and Cluster mentions.. Three years after the devastating US assault, Fallujah city left without clean water, electricity and medicine…MPT report refer Starting in 2004 when the political situation and devastation of the health care infrastructure were at their worst, there were 251 reported cases of cancer. By 2006, when the numbers more accurately reflected the real situation, that figure had risen to 688. Already in 2007, 801 cancer cases have been reported. Those figures portray an incidence rate of 28.21 by 2006, even after screening out cases that came into the Najaf Hospital from outside the governate, a number which contrasts with the normal rate of 8-12 cases of cancer per 100,000 people… We found in one year like 2006 there are 5928 new illnesses cases that unknown before in Fallujah, more than 70% were of the cancers and abnormalities reported occurred in the 1 day – 12 years age range…

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Crimes of the Century: Occupation & Contaminating Iraq with Depleted Uranium
Dr. Souad N. Al-Azzawi – Associate Professor in Environmental Engineering, Iraq – Brussels Tribunal
After thirteen years of the devastation of an entire country through the implementation of the criminal economic sanctions that were imposed by the United States of America and the United Nations on Iraq, the US administration decided to invade Iraq. Gulf War I and the destruction of Iraq’s economy, education, health care system,and society through the continuous bombing and attacks of the illegal No Fly Zones, were all part of the plan to invade Iraq and take over one of the richest oil reserve countries in the Middle East region. Pirating Iraq’s wealth is an advanced step to control and manipulate global economy. New generations of conventional and banned weapons were used in the invasion of Iraq military operations from March 19th – April 9th of 2003…

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Iraqi torture victims slam UK ‘contempt’
Father of Baha Musa says MoD views lives as cheap, as he flies in for talks over his son’s death
Mark Townsend, The Observer
Iraqi civilians who were tortured by British soldiers say the government is treating them with ‘contempt’ ahead of a potential multi-million-pound payout for the abuse they suffered. The eight Iraqis arrived in London yesterday for this week’s long-awaited mediation into how much compensation the government is willing to pay to civilians who were tortured while held in British custody. The eight accused the Ministry of Defence last night of trying to block them from attending the high-profile meeting.The Iraqis will meet MoD lawyers on Wednesday inside the Treasury for negotiations presided over by the former Lord Chief Justice, Lord Woolf, to determine a settlement which will include compensation for the death of Baha Musa. The 26-year-old receptionist had suffered 93 identifiable injuries at the hands of British soldiers in Basra in September 2003. He had died after being subjected to 36 hours of beatings and abusive treatment, including being double-hooded with hessian sacks in stifling conditions…

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Iraq emerging as key route in global drugs trade
AFP
War-torn Iraq is emerging as a key conduit in the global drugs trade as criminal gangs exploit its porous border with Iran to channel their illicit goods to the Middle East, Africa and Europe. The Iraqi authorities say that since the 2003 US-led invasion the trade in illegal opiates, cannabis and synthetic pharmaceuticals has risen steadily … At Baghdad’s Ibn al-Rushed hospital, Dr. Bassem Dawood said the use of illegal drugs had spiked in the Iraqi capital and much of it was opiate-related, although hard facts and figures were still unavailable. The International Narcotics Control Board echoed Dawood in its report. “Though official data are lacking, it appears that drug abuse in Iraq has increased dramatically” …

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Na’lin under curfew for fourth day
Palestinian Information Center
The Israeli occupation forces on Monday renewed the curfew imposed on Na’lin village, west of Ramallah city, for the fourth consecutive day, Palestinian sources said. Ayman Nafe, mayor of the village, said that the IOF troops have been imposing a strict curfew on the town and blocking traffic in and out of it. He said that the soldiers provocatively patrol the streets as their jeeps destroy whatever infrastructure is in their way. Villagers are deprived of marketing or even taking their patients to clinics, he elaborated…

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Award-Winning Palestinian Journalist Mohammed Omer Details Abuse by Israeli Security Officials
Democracy Now!
We go to Gaza to speak with award-winning Palestinian journalist Mohammed Omer. The twenty-four-year-old journalist and photographer from Gaza was physically and psychologically abused by Israeli security officials late last month. Omer, who is a correspondent for the Inter Press Service, was on his way back home after receiving the prestigious Martha Gellhorn Prize for Journalism in London…

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APR- New Bloody Crimes of the Occupation Forces
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
…The American occupation forces executed Khalaf Fathe Dekhel a former Iraqi army officer (colonel) on Saturday late evening in the left coast of Shirqatt / Mosul. Eyewitnesses reported that these odious forces did an airdrop on the victim’s home and executed him in front of his wife and children. On the other hand, eyewitnesses confirmed that the American occupation forces committed another brutal crime last week when they executed two young men Othman Abdul Wahid Al-Kadiri, the son of her uncle Harith Zuhair in al-Adel / west Baghdad where those force raided the house. Then they –as usually- started to destroy furniture, beat the family members (women and children), after that they blindfolded the two victims and fired on them in front of their family and arrested the rest of the men in the home taking them to an unknown destination…

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Military Review: “Partnering with the Iraqi media”
Marc Lynch
The current issue of Military Review contains a quite fascinating article written by Lt Col Frank DeCarvalho, Major Spring Kivett, and Captain Matthew Lindsey entitled “Reaching Out: Partnering with Iraq Media.” The article enthusiastically details the efforts of Task Force Marne to use Iraqi media as a more credible source for pro-coalition stories. An Iraqi face on the coalition’s stories, they argue, offers a more effective way of influencing Iraqi attitudes than traditional PSYOP techniques: “using native news reporters will increase chances of acceptance by the Iraqi population by relaying credible stories of progress that can resonate favorably through communities.” …

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Official PA paper: Israel poisoning prisoners
Roee Nahmias, YNetnews
… In a series of reports published in the ‘al-Hayat al-Jadida’ newspaper Israel is accused of poisoning Palestinian prisoners in its custody and conducting “medical experiments’ on them. In a special report issued on Monday by ‘Palestinian Media Watch,’ an Israeli institute that monitors Palestinian news outlets, excerpts from recent articles published in the paper – which is under the authority of PA President Mahmoud Abbas – which allege the prisoners are being poisoned. “The occupation forces continue to conduct medical experiments on Palestinian and Arab prisoners in their facilities, this goes against all international treaties and conventions. And this is not limited merely to a policy of medical neglect, but violations that include using prisoners as trial subjects for medication,” the paper wrote three days ago…

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Barhoum: Israeli closure of charities “humanitarian massacre”
Palestinian Information Center
Hamas Movement on Monday described as a “humanitarian massacre” the Israeli occupation authority’s forced closure of a number of charities in Nablus in the West Bank. Fawzi Barhoum a Hamas spokesman in Gaza, said that the “ferocious” campaign against those charities is meant to subdue the Palestinian people into acquiescing to Zio-American dictates. He told Al-Bayan press center that the “racist and terrorist campaigns falls in line with a systematic plan to liquidate the Palestine cause”…

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