Millions of Iraqis at risk from contaminated water, says Red Cross
Country continues to face one of the world’s worst humanitarian disasters
Angela Balakrishnan, The Guardian UK
Improved security has failed to prevent Iraq becoming the scene of one of the world’s most critical humanitarian disasters with water supplies and sewage systems putting millions at risk of disease, the Red Cross said today. The statement from the International Committee of the Red Cross said the situation has not improved significantly since March this year when the organisation published its report, Iraq: No Let-up in The Humanitarian Crisis. The report found that the humanitarian situation in Iraq following the US invasion was the worst in the world. Today’s findings state that water supplies in the war-torn country have continued to deteriorate with even the most basic infrastructure not functioning…

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Bush Missing Iraq WMD has Been Found in Iraq and One Million U.S. Soldiers are its Victims
PR Web (press release),
Author Paul J. Landis has completed an enhanced web site and the new “Tribune Gazette” to support updates and an updated title to his book “A Real 9/11 Commission,” all of which provide dramatic evidence and information about the on-going tragic threat to over one million U.S. soldiers and innocent Iraqi civilians: the radioactive Weapon of Mass Destruction – Depleted Uranium (DU)… Also, Landis continues, the book, web site and “Tribune Gazette” develop a theme based upon the question: Is there a “New Iron Curtain Around the USA, A media Iron Curtain”. As evidence of this “New Iron Curtain”: How many Americans have been informed by our ‘mainstream’ media of 1) what is DU and what are the consequences of its use by the military, 2) informed about its use in Iraq and 3) informed that over one million U.S. soldiers and countless innocent Iraqi civilians, have been exposed to it and 4) one of the results of exposure to DU is the births of deformed babies, U.S. babies as well as Iraqi babies? …For the people of Iraq, living in areas of high DU concentrations, the effects are beyond tragic. Iraq babies are born so deformed that many are hardly recognizable as human babies…

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Kirkuk dispute threatens to plunge Iraq into Kurdish-Arab war
Iraq’s relative calm is threatened by a festering Kurdish-Arab conflict over the oil-rich city of Kirkuk and other disputed territories, that could explode into the worst sectarian war the country has suffered since the 2003 invasion, a new report says today. The report by the International Crisis Group (ICG) says the territorial dispute is blocking political progress in Iraq, contributing to the delay in passing a law on sharing oil revenue, and threatening to put off critical provincial elections…

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Chalabi’s Star Rises Again with Iranian Intrigues in Baghdad
Jeff Stein
Ahmed Chalabi, the erstwhile Iraqi exile who intrigued with Pentagon officials and the media to create a casus belli for toppling Saddam Hussein, is up to his old tricks. Chalabi’s star plunged when it turned out Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, as the steady stream of informants he served up to the U.S. media maintained… Chalabi faded from the international spotlight, but now he’s back in action big time, says Aram Roston, an NBC investigative reporter and author of “The Man Who Pushed America to War: The Extraordinary Life, Adventures, and Obsessions of Ahmad Chalabi.” Roston calls Chalabi a “key figure” in Iranian efforts to scuttle the status-of-forces agreement that is under fierce negotiation between Baghdad and Washington. “Chalabi is influential,” Roston said, not just because he’s “backed by Iran,” but also because top Iraqi Shia politicians “view him as someone who understands the Americans, that he has the wisdom to know what’s going on in their minds.”..

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Index on Economics and Peril in Afghanistan, October 2008 Timeline
Sarah Meyer, Index Research
Following Afghanistan Murder and Security catastrophes in September ‘08, we now have a global economic disaster. We also have forecasts of “doom” in Afghanistan. Global financial meltdown followed the Bush Bailout vote on 1 October 2008. The US financial collapse is related to the “industrial military complex”, and defense expenditures. Eight days after 7% Bush signed the Bailout, while global markets were collapsing, a headline announced: “Pentagon Wants $450 Billion Increase Over Next Five Years.” On / following 1 October ‘08, the US awarded, to date, AT LEAST $3.3 billion for military contracts for Afghanistan and Iraq. (see “contracts” below. * A proper assessment needs doing!) No, Mr. Bush and Co., for all your crocodile compassion, you failed to learn in Iraq, and now in Afghanistan, that human beings and community structure are more important than Propaganda, People- killing and Toys for the Boys…

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Kurds seen behind attacks on Christians
Basil Adas
Kurdish involvement is suspected in the recent wave of violence against Christians in Mosul, Gulf News has learnt. “Investigations have been completed and proved the involvement of Kurdish militias in the displacement and killing of Christians,” Prime Minister Nouri Al Maliki reportedly said during a discussion with Iraqi lawmakers, according to Osama Al Nojaifi, a deputy in the Iraqi parliament. Al Nojaifi said Al Maliki had ordered Kurdish units in the Iraqi army out of Mosul but was reluctant to officially announce details of the investigations for fear they would destabilise his government…

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Iraqi Government Continues Its Crackdown On Diyala Sons Of Iraq
Musings On Iraq
On October 21, Iraqi soldiers raided the house of Mullah Shihab al-Safe, the leader of a Sons of Iraq (SOI) unit in Buhrez, south of Diyala’s provincial capital Baquba. Al-Safe wasn’t home at the time, but his brother and father were. They were arrested, but eventually released. An Interior Ministry spokesman said the raid was conducted because there were charges of terrorism and murder against the SOI head. Al-Safe told Reuters that Iraqi forces also went to the house of the Diyala provincial spokesman for the SOI. He was arrested, and according to al-Safe, beaten as well. As reported earlier, Baghdad has been going after the SOI in Diyala since at least May 2008…

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Let us speculate
William Bowles, I’n’I
There’s an awful lot of speculation going on right now, from both the left and right about where the latest crisis of capital is headed, chief amongst them is the notion that this signals the end of the US Empire, that the so-called uni-polar world is over, that a new multi-polar world, headed by China, Russia, India and Brazil is emerging. The theory is based upon the fact that the US is no longer the world’s numero uno economic power and it’s true that even an overwhelming military force is dependent on the economics that fuels it. But how true is this idea and even if it is true, over what timescale are we talking about here?…

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Iran leader signals not time for thaw in U.S. ties
Reuters
Iran’s supreme leader said on Wednesday Iranian hatred of the United States ran deep, remarks analysts said signaled an end to any debate about closer links between them days before the U.S. presidential election. Discussion about relations has been encouraged by Washington saying it is considering opening a diplomatic outpost in Tehran. In Iran, officials have been facing frequent questions about whether they would let Washington establish an interest section and whether a request by an Iranian-American non-government organization to open in Iran would be approved. “This dispute (with America) is beyond differences of opinion on a few political issues,” Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in all matters of state, was quoted by state TV as saying. “He said the Iranian nation’s hate for America was deep”…

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Oct. 29th in history: Massacres in Palestine
Haitham Sabbah, Palestine Think Tank
Today in history is another black day in the Palestinian history. 1. On October 29, 1948, when Israeli brigades captured the village of Safsaf. The known details of the massacre come to us via several contemporary second-hand Zionist reports and via Arab oral history. Yosef Nachmani, a senior officer in the Haganah (and later the director of the Jewish National Fund in Eastern Galilee), recorded in his diary what he was told by Immanuel Friedman, a representative of the Minority Affairs ministry: In Safsaf, after … the inhabitants had raised a white flag, the [soldiers] collected and separated the men and women, tied the hands of fifty-sixty fellahin [peasants] and shot and killed them and buried them in a pit. Also, they raped several women… (quoted in Zertal, 2005, p. 171; see also Morris, 2005, p. 500)…

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SAME SHIT DIFFERENT CENTURIES (Part Two)
Malcom Lagauche
A Native American author, William Apes, of the Pequot tribe wrote Eulogy on King Philip and delivered the speech in Boston in 1836 to a group of descendants of the original Pilgrims of 1620. It was about racism, deceit, slaughter and imperialism. King Philip was the Anglicized name of the Wampanoag chief, Metacomet. One may think that Eulogy on King Philip is merely an historical account of the white man’s imperialism, but it is far more. Apes’ address in Boston was delivered in 1836 and he told of events that occurred from 1620 to 1676. But, his words are uncannily precise in describing the world today. One can change the dates and places and see an accurate view of today’s imperialistic aspirations of the U.S. This is the second of five parts of “Eulogy on King Philip. In my opinion, no finer piece has been written by anyone in describing the horrors of the imperialistic actions of a government. His words were uttered almost two centuries ago, yet they are precise today…

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Oil price drop undermines stability of Iranian regime
James Cogan, WSWS
With the price of oil plummeting on world markets, the Iranian government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is confronting a financial crisis that will inevitably bring it into sharp conflict with substantial sections of the population. The collapse in oil prices from a high of $US147 a barrel in July to less than $65 in trading mid-week is blowing a massive hole in the state budget, 50 percent of which is derived from oil revenues. Oil prices have continued to fall despite an agreement on October 24 by the Organisation of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to slash production by 1.5 million barrels…

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The Elections and the Responsibility of the Intellectual to Speak Truth to Power
Twelve Reasons to Reject Obama and Support Nader/McKinney
James Petras
The presidential elections in the US, once again, provide an acid test of the integrity and consequential conduct of US intellectuals. If it is the duty and responsibility of the public intellectual to speak truth to power, the recent statements of most of our well-known and prestigious public pundits have failed miserably. Instead of highlighting, exposing and denouncing the reactionary foreign and domestic policies of Democratic Party candidate Senator Barack Obama, they have chosen to support him, ‘critically, offering as excuses that even ‘limited differences’ can result in positive outcomes,and that ‘Obama is the lesser evil’ and ‘creates an opportunity for a possibility of change.’…

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Witnesses Say Georgia Targeted Civilians in August War
Jason Ditz, Antiwar.com
Ever since the Georgian shelling of Tskhinvali sparked its brief August war with Russia, both sides have claimed loudly and consistently that the other has committed war crimes. This has included over 3,000 complaints filed with the European Court of Human Rights regarding action in South Ossetia. The complaints have largely been shrugged off by the international community as politically motivated however. Now the BBC has completed what it says is the “first unrestricted visit to South Ossetia by a foreign news organization since the conflict,” and has gathered considerable evidence of Georgian war crimes during the fighting…

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Targeting Dissent – The San Francisco Eight
Stephen Lendman
Throughout much of American history, dissent was never tolerated if thought to threaten entrenched interests. Especially in times of war, economic crisis, or social stress. During the great Red Scare from 1917 – 1920. Under the 1917 Espionage Act that barred mailing materials advocating insurrectionist or forcible resistance, and the 1918 Sedition Act that banned criticism of the government and ongoing war effort. Later targeting those on the left by the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), the Smith Act, and during the age of Joe McCarthy. Post-9/11, anti-war activists, Latino immigrants, and Muslim Americans viciously targeted. The San Francisco Eight as well.

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Western Jenin farmers lose access to olive harvest
Ali Samoudi, PNN
The Israeli authorities have prevented hundreds of western Jenin residents from harvesting their olives. “The effect on the economy is devastating,” warned Chairman of Aaneen Village, Rabah Yassin Wednesday. “Villages to the west of Jenin are suffering as the occupying forces continue to deny more than 300 farmers permits to access their lands located behind the Apartheid Wall,” continued Yassin. “They are using the pretext of security measures to stop the olive harvest.”…

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October 29, 2008: 1 US Soldier, 20 Iraqis Killed; 73 Iraqis Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 20 Iraqis were killed and another 73 were wounded in the latest round of violence. A number of small incidents occurred in Mosul, while two larger attacks occurred in Diyala province. A U.S. soldier died from non-combat related injuries in Mosul. Also, U.S, forces handed over security of Wassit province to Iraq. This is the 13th province to fall under Iraqi control. Details from a set of amendments the Iraqis want added to a proposed U.S.-Iraq security deal were released to the public. Among the issues stalling acceptance are Iraq sovereignty and U.S. soldier immunity. Following a controversial raid on Syrian territory on Sunday, the Iraqis want assurances that the country will not be used as a launching point for operations on their neighbors…

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