‘Worse than the adult prisons’
U.S.: Torture, murder at Iraqi juvenile prison
Matthew D. LaPlante, The Salt Lake Tribune
American investigators probing allegations of torture at an Iraqi-run juvenile prison in Baghdad found clear evidence earlier this year that Sunni children had been murdered by their Shiite captors, according to a lead officer on the investigative team… Simper described “a prison in the very worst sense . . . it was worse than the adult prisons.” “We found lots of evidence of torture, of physical and sexual abuse, just deplorable conditions,” he said. “The rats were the size of Chihuahuas and the juveniles were being housed 50 to a cell.” Simper said the boys being held in the prison were as young as 6 years old. The two boys who were killed were in their midteens, he said… Although officially a government facility, the Tobchi center was almost wholly run by members of the Mahdi Army, a militia under the command of influential Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, Simper said…

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For Your Eyes Only – Part I
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
Nothing beats living pictures, sight and sound…Nothing beats the Truth you are about to witness. Nothing beats your hideous, heinous, barbaric crimes…The Video Link below is a must see. It does not allow any embedding, so I am not able to post it here on this blog. But do click on IT HERE: www.youtube.com/watch?v=diNO0in4m_M
You will be taken to the other side of the world. To a world of monsters, monsters of your own doing. The Title ? Iraq Deformities / Fallujah- July 2008. Thanks to YOUR Weapons of Mass of Destruction. Yes, we found the weapons. They were and are still used by YOU in IRAQ…

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Don’t look, don’t find
As crisis after crisis engulfs Iraq, calls for a thorough examination of DU contamination and the huge rise in cancers and birth defects get lost in the din.
Doug Weir
…That sequence is clearly illustrated in the histopathological (tissue analysis) reports kept by Basra Teaching Hospital. They show a range of cancers increasing exponentially throughout the 1990s. Between 1990 and 1997 uterine cancers increased by 160 per cent, thyroid cancer by 143 per cent, breast cancer by 102 per cent and leukaemia by 82 per cent. Not only were the incidence rates increasing, but their age distribution was shifting downwards, from old to young. ‘The changes in the pattern of presentation, dissemination and age distribution that we are seeing are different to those within a normal population,’ says Dr Al-Ali. ‘We have also seen a rise in the presence of double and triple cancers in patients. We know many carcinogenic factors are available in our environment, but the rates increased only a few years after the 1991 war and now after the 2003 conflict we have started to have another alarming increase.’..

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Afghan survivors tell of wedding bombing
Alastair Leithead, BBC
The BBC’s Alastair Leithead is the first journalist to reach the scene of a US air raid which Afghan authorities say killed about 50 civilians in the east of the country on 6 July. He reports on what he found: On a hillside high in the mountains of eastern Afghanistan there are three charred clearings where the American bombs struck. Scattered around are chunks of twisted metal, blood stains and small fragments of sequinned and brightly decorated clothes – the material Afghan brides wear on their wedding day…

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The futility of holding elections under a foreign military occupation
By Khalid Amayreh in the West Bank
It is often said that a wise man can see more from the bottom of a well than a fool can from a mountain top. It is also said that a wise man learns from the mistakes of other people, an imbecile learns from his own mistakes, but a fool learns neither from the mistakes of others nor from his own mistakes. Unfortunately, these adages apply squarely and accurately to the American-backed Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah. Its foolishness just transcends reality as it keeps repeating the same stupid mistakes over and over again…

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Toddler dies in Gaza after Israel barred her transfer for treatment elsewhere
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
The Palestinian News Agency (WAFA) reported on Sunday that a 19-month toddler died at a local hospital in Gaza after the Israeli Authorities barred her family from transferring her to a hospital out of the Gaza Strip. The infant was identified as Hadeel Jawad Al Haddad, underwent an open-heart surgery in Gaza but needed further medical attention out of the Gaza Strip as the ongoing Israeli siege emptied Gaza hospitals from the basic equipment and medical supplies…

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Collateral Ceremonial Damage
Tom Engelhardt
…That makes four wedding parties blown away by U.S. air power in Iraq and Afghanistan since the end of 2001. And there was probably at least one more. Back in May 2002, it was claimed that U.S. helicopters wiped out a wedding party in the eastern Afghan province of Khost, killing 10 and wounding many more. An Agence France Presse report at the time concluded: “A wedding was in progress in the village when people fired into the air in traditional celebration and US helicopters flying over the area could have mistaken it for hostile fire. An aircraft later bombed the area for several hours.” On this event, however, the documentation is far poorer. All these “incidents” have some obvious features in common: the almost immediate claims by the U.S. military, for instance, that those who have been hit were adversaries, not wedding parties; the ultimate dismissal of the killings as the usual “collateral damage” in wartime; and, above all, the striking fact that, for none of these slaughters of celebrating locals, did the U.S. ever offer a genuine apology…

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The ex-Mehdi Army member
Roads to Iraq
It is Saturday night in Beirut, restaurants, entertainment places and beaches are totally full, a usual weekend in Lebanon. My Saturday night was a bit different from the traditional Lebanese weekend? A meeting with ex-member of Mehdi army, recently lives in Lebanon and this is what he told me: I was a driver, I get $500 each time I drive the 4?4 GMC given to me by the “Army” to “Udhaim” [near Kirkuk]. There in the small city I go to a small house in a very poor district, they give me a large suitcase full of American dollars to deliver it back to Sadr-City – Baghdad. I don’t know how much exactly in the bag because I never counted the money but from the size of the suitcase I can imagine that the total cash is something about 1 Million Dollar. I also get an open envelope, I looked inside the envelope few times and I saw a paper with a list of names of people I don’t know, but after few travels and looking at the names I once saw few names of people I know in my neighborhood. After few days, I realized that the list is a death-list, after the people I know are assassinated. I started to check the names in each travel but I never dared to warn anybody in the list…

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Thirst In The Palestinian Territories
Alice Gray, Lifesource.ps
The water crisis has started early this year in the Palestinian Territories. In scores of towns and villages throughout the West Bank and Gaza Strip, people listen eagerly for the gurgle of water in pipelines, and turn on their taps with trepidation, watching anxiously for the first drops to appear, waiting to see if they turn into a stream, or splutter and gurgle to nothing after a few seconds. Others watch and wait for the arrival of water tankers, transporting the life-giving liquid to them from distant sources across an obstacle course of road blocks, checkpoints and military closures put in place by the Israeli Authorities, an inherent feature of their ongoing military occupation and colonization of the Palestinian Territories…

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205 Gazans dead this year as direct result of Israeli seige
Ma’an news
According to a statement released on Sunday by the de facto government in Gaza’s ministry of health, 205 individuals have died as a direct result of the Israeli siege. The statistic, says the statement, includes 45 children and takes into account the number of people whose lives would not have been taken if the Israeli siege in Gaza were not in place. The siege, according to the statistic, is counted as the last year of tightened security, not the last three years of restricted access…

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American and British troops face a switch from Iraq to Afghanistan
Michael Evans, Defence Editor
Both the United States and Britain are hoping to reduce their military commitment in Iraq to focus on Afghanistan. The US is considering cutting American troop numbers to below 120,000, compared with 170,000 last year. Up to three combat brigades could be withdrawn in September. Britain is also looking to cut troop numbers by almost a half in Iraq, from 4,000 to about 2,500, although not until next year. This would give the Government the option of deploying more units to Helmand province, where the Taleban has intensified its operations, using suicide attacks, roadside bombs and mines…

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Nine US soldiers killed in Afghanistan as Taliban attacks base
Tom Coghlan, Kabul
Taliban insurgents killed nine US troops when they attempted to overrun an American base as bloody fighting broke out in several parts of Afghanistan today. Nato reported that the small American Combat Outpost in Dara-I-Pech district of Kunar Province, on the border with Nuristan Province in the east of the country, came under heavy fire at around 4.30am local time. Heavy fighting continued throughout the day with US forces calling in artillery, fast jets and Apache helicopters…

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Accept Iran as reality, Tehran mayor tells West
Alistair Lyon and Parisa Hafezi
Iran, at odds with the West over its nuclear work, could reach an accommodation with the United States if its critics accepted that the Islamic Republic is here to stay, according to Tehran’s ambitious mayor. For now, Mohammad-Baqer Qalibaf, who ran unsuccessfully for president in 2005, focuses his energy on alleviating the traffic congestion, air pollution and sewage problems of his sprawling city, home to 8 million by night, swelling to 11 million by day. But the 46-year-old former police chief is just as eager to talk of Iran’s nuclear program, its troubled relationship with the United States and its geopolitical role in the Middle East…

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Ahmadinejad claims met coalition commanders in Iraq: reports
AFP
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said he met two military commanders from US-led forces on his trip to Iraq in March and that they even took souvenir pictures to commemorate the encounter. His claims were published on Saturday in reformist newspapers and the conservative Jomhouri Eslami, which said the comments came in a speech he made over a month ago that was first broadcast by state television late on Wednesday… “When I was in Iraq… I was told that one of the occupying commanders wanted to see me,” Ahamdinejad was quoted as telling commanders from the Iranian volunteer militia the Basij. “Apparently, he was due to leave on vacation but he had delayed his vacation to see me and I agreed. “When he saw me, he told me that he was proud of me and said ‘you are in our hearts’. Then he asked me to take a souvenir picture with me. And he and his deputy did just that.”..

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The Mosul Cover-Up.
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
… My relative K. has just returned from Mosul. I will not give you details on him, I am adamant about protecting his anonymity. I can tell you though that K. was the most apolitical person you can meet. K. by virtue of his profession, witnessed many cases of torture victims, he said what he saw in Mosul was nothing compared to what he had seen in the past. In other words for the dumb reader, let me be more explicit – Iraqis are being tortured in Mosul simply because they happen to be Sunnis and Arabs…

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Nouri al-Maliki ready to oust US from Iraq green zone
Marie Colvin
The green zone of Baghdad, a highly fortified slice of American suburbia on the banks of the Tigris river, may soon be handed over to Iraqi control if the increasingly assertive government of Nouri al-Maliki, the prime minister, gets its way. A senior Iraqi government official said this weekend the enclave should revert to Iraqi control by the end of the year. “We think that by the end of 2008 all the zones in Baghdad should be integrated into the city,” said Ali Dabbagh, the government’s spokesman…

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Between Fighting and Flirting
Walid Choucair, DAR AL-HAYAT
William Burns, the US Under Secretary for political Affairs, said before yesterday that his country is not against Iran’s ability to play a significant regional role, in accordance with its legal interests and capabilities, if the country cooperates with the international community, and not without it.” These words summarize the background of the existing negotiations, which are nowadays underway, via several channels, between Washington and Tehran… The statements by Burns and the US defense secretary, William Gates, that Iran and the US were not close to a military confrontation, followed important statements last week by a number of Iranian officials, who relied in turn on calm, moderate and diplomatic rhetoric… In fact, what Burns called a regional role for Iran, which he has no problem with enshrining, lies in the Gulf, which is centered on Iraq before anywhere else. Iran was able to play its role in reaching an agreement between the US administration and the Iraqi authorities over the presence of US forces in Iraq…

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Israeli High Court: Nu’man villagers reside illegally in ancestral homes
Window Into Palestine
The Israeli High Court decided on Wednesday that the “facts on the ground” in Nu’man village, between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, are “non-negotiable.” The practical reality of the “facts on the ground,” is that the 220 inhabitants of Nu’man have become illegal residents in their homes, and must apply to the Israeli Ministry of Interior to legitimize their presence. As it stands, residents can be arrested for “illegal residency” at any moment…

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US, Iraq still aiming for troop deal this year: officials
Michael Mathes, AFP
The United States and Iraq remain committed to striking a deal on the status of US troops in Iraq before the end of the presidency of George W. Bush, officials from both countries said Sunday. Iraq’s national security advisor Muwaffaq al-Rubaie said the two sides were still seeking a pact by July 31 as Baghdad and Washington publicly had hoped, rejecting a Sunday report that the governments abandoned efforts to set a status-of-forces agreement into place before Bush left office on January 20…

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Second part of “The Case of those who would Boycott Gilad Atzmon” by Roy Ratcliffe
Mary Rizzo, Palestine Think Tank
The second part of an analysis of the motivations behind the internet campaign to keep the views of Gilad Atzmon out of the “Palestinian Solidarity Campaign”. Written by an objective observer, active in human rights campaigning for the past 50 years, we offer the second part of the analysis for better understanding of the reasons that drive self-styled “Anti-Zionist Jews” to seek to dictate who and what should be part of the discourse…

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