PCHR Warns of Further Deterioration to Humanitarian Conditions in the Gaza Strip
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
PCHR calls upon the international community, particularly the High Contracting Parties to the Fourth Geneva Convention, United Nations agencies and all international humanitarian organizations, to immediately intervene and exert pressure on Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) to reopen border crossings of the Gaza Strip, whose closure has caused further deterioration to living conditions of approximately 1.5 million Palestinians, who have suffered from shortages in foods, medicines and other basic needs, including electricity and fuel supplies…

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Essential health facilities at the Al Shifa medical center stopped functioning
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Dr. Hussein Ashour, head of the Al Shifa medical center in Gaza, one of the biggest medical centers in the Gaza Strip, stated that main facilities at the center stopped functioning due to the lack of fundamental equipment and tools. Ashour added that the Oxygen Department, the Heart Unit, Physical Therapy Unit and the main laboratory completely stopped functioning as they lack fundamental equipment and tools. He also said that the main power generator also stopped functioning due to the ongoing siege and Israeli blockade as the generator needs fuel to run…

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United States President-elect: the latest African saint
Agustin Velloso
…Obama collected US$640 million dollars for his campaign. That money did not come from women and children affected by AIDS in Uganda, or the war mutilated of Angola, from impoverished farmers in Chad or Niger. Nor did it come from homeless people in New Orleans, or black people in US prisons, proportionately six times more numerous than white prisoners. That money came from Wall Street, from big banks and multinational companies like Goldman Sachs, J.P.Morgan Chase, Citigroup, IBM, Microsoft and Google. Exxon-Mobil is the oil company with most presence in Equatorial Guinea, one of the most powerful companies in the world. Its supportive relations with Teodoro Obiang perpetuate the people of Equatorial Guinea’s martyrdom. Other black people have already held positions of high authority in the US. Colin Powell of the Episcopalian-Anglican Church, once a Republican, now a Democrat, is someone forever loyal to the empire. Condoleezza Rice is a member of the Presbyterian Church. She defines herself as a “moderate Republican”. Obama does not renounce these predecessors, nor their works, nor their allure. He simply reformulates them. If one asks what makes them different to Bush, the answer seems to be very little at all, except their skin colour? On that basis, the only change one can expect is to see all these black United States saints placed up on the altars, ensuring that at least there are black saints up there to be revered, just like the white ones…

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Lost In The Land Of Make-Believe
Winter Patriot
The election of Barack Obama has seemed to many people like a magic trick — a wish come true, in some cases the wish of a lifetime. It’s a result that seems to confirm their belief that America is still capable of pulling a rabbit out of a hat. Many seem to think that Obama himself can pull a rabbit out of a hat — or multiple rabbits out of multiple hats — whenever he wants to. But there’s a nasty surprise in all the magic: Obama is the rabbit, and the trick is on us!…

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Disaster warning as Gaza still cut off
Omar Karmi
Israel rebuffed a plea by the UN to open crossings into Gaza for humanitarian supplies yesterday and continued barring international media from reaching the impoverished strip of land. Asked yesterday whether Israel intended to reopen crossings, Ehud Barak, the defence minister, told Israel Army Radio: “No. There needs to be calm in order for the crossings to be opened.” Ban Ki-moon, the UN secretary general, telephoned Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister on Tuesday, urging him to facilitate the movement of urgently needed humanitarian supplies into Gaza, where relief agencies have had to halt food distribution and the only power station is running out of fuel…

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Al Hindy: “Hamas will declare a new president after January 9"
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Senior Islamic Jihad leader, Mohammad Al Hindy stated in an interview with the Maan News Agency that the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, will most likely declare a new Palestinian president replacing Mahmoud Abbas after January 9 of 2009 which marks the end of Abbas’ term in office. Al Hindy added that Abbas will find a legal “exit from this dilemma” and will receive Arab, European, American and Israeli recognition. He also stated that Hamas will name the new president and the internal crisis will increase as the Palestinians will have two presidents, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. Al Hindi added that Israel plays an essential role in increasing the gap between Fateh and Hamas as it benefits from the ongoing rift and internal Palestinian divisions…

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The political fight for Basra
Roads to Iraq
… As for the new fight on Basra, reported on Al-Hayat today that there are three agendas for Basra. I will count these three agendas and will add some “add-ons” to Al-Hayat report: 1- There are the so called “Support Councils”, started by Maliki with the help of his own tribe and criticized by other Shiites political blocs…2- Basra’s Regional Federation (contains one province – Basra). This scenario is suggested by MP Wa’il Abdul Latif, who is the brain behind Al-Fadhila Party (although Latif claims that he is an independent MP). 3- Al-Hakim’s never dying dream of the “Regional Federation of the South” (contains nine provinces)…

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Child hunger in US rose by 50 percent in 2007
Kate Randall
Some 691,000 children went hungry in America in 2007, a rise of 50 percent over the previous year, while one in eight Americans overall struggled to feed themselves. The figures are reported in a study on food security conducted annually by the US Department of Agriculture (USDA). Of the 36.2 million people who struggled with hunger during the year, almost a third of these adults and children faced a substantial disruption to their food supply, meaning they went hungry at some point. The number of these most hungry Americans has grown by more than 40 percent since 2000, rising to 11.9 million individuals in 2007…

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Taliban Regains Power, Influence in Afghanistan
Sets Up Courts, Local Governments in Southern Regions
YOCHI J. DREAZEN and SIOBHAN GORMAN
…Senior American military officials said the Taliban run roughly two dozen law courts in southern Afghanistan, one of the armed Islamist group’s main strongholds. Drawing on a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law, the courts work to resolve conflicts over property, grazing rights and inheritances, the officials said. The Taliban have also appointed unofficial governors and mayors to exercise day-to-day control over remote areas, amounting to a parallel government independent of Kabul, according to the U.S. officials… “In a very real sense, the Taliban has become engaged in competitive state-building with the Afghan government and NATO — though focusing more on security and justice than reconstruction,” said Rand Corp. expert Seth Jones in an email from Afghanistan…

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Palestinian Split Deepens
Analysis by Adam Morrow and Khaled Moussa al-Omrani
…Since Hamas seized control of Gaza from the PA in a pre-emptive coup last year – after winning elections in 2006 — the two factions have pursued bitter rivalry featuring intermittent fighting and mass arrests. Further complicating the situation, Israel and Egypt — with the blessings of the PA — have both sealed their borders with the Hamas-run Gaza Strip, effectively cutting the enclave off from the outside world and bringing it to the brink of humanitarian disaster. While Hamas, which won Palestinian legislative elections in 2006, follows a policy of resistance to the Israeli occupation, Fatah maintains a strategy of negotiation. Up until now, however, Abbas’s frequent ‘peace talks’ with his Israeli counterparts — mandated by last year’s Washington-sponsored Annapolis Summit — have failed to yield any gains whatsoever for the Palestinian side…

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Al Hindy: “Hamas will declare a new president after January 9"
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC
Senior Islamic Jihad leader, Mohammad Al Hindy stated in an interview with the Maan News Agency that the Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, will most likely declare a new Palestinian president replacing Mahmoud Abbas after January 9 of 2009 which marks the end of Abbas’ term in office. Al Hindy added that Abbas will find a legal “exit from this dilemma” and will receive Arab, European, American and Israeli recognition. He also stated that Hamas will name the new president and the internal crisis will increase as the Palestinians will have two presidents, one in Gaza and one in the West Bank. Al Hindi added that Israel plays an essential role in increasing the gap between Fateh and Hamas as it benefits from the ongoing rift and internal Palestinian divisions…

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Iraq Press Roundup
ALAA MAJEED (UPI Correspondent)
…Under the surface of the negotiations between Baghdad and Washington over the military arrangement rests a hidden agenda regarding the U.S. relationship with Iran as a focal point of security in the region. Despite the various historical disputes between the governments of Tehran and Washington, recent events hint at a degree of loyalty between the two…

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Iraqi parliament’s debate on US pact disrupted
QASSIM ABDUL-ZAHRA
Lawmakers loyal to Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr on Wednesday disrupted a parliamentary debate ahead of a Nov. 24 vote on a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement that would keep American troops in Iraq for three more years. Speaker Mahmoud al-Mashhadani adjourned the session until Thursday after Sadrist lawmaker Ahmed al-Massoudi aggressively approached a lawmaker from the ruling coalition who was reading aloud the text of the agreement…

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US congresswomen ‘seek talks with Iran’
Press TV
United States congresswomen have reportedly put forward a request to hold a meeting with female members of Iran’s Majlis (parliament). “US congresswomen have requested a meeting with female members of Iran’s Majlis,” a member of the Parliament’s National Security Commission, Hossein Taqavi, told Fars News Agency on Wednesday. If held, this would be the first meeting between a group of Washington and Tehran officials on US-Iran relations after the two countries severed ties in 1979… Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has on many occasions expressed willingness to hold talks with US officials…

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Weekly Report: On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory No. 46/2008 (13 – 19 Nov. 2008)
PCHR – Palestinian Centre for Human Rights
Israeli violations of international law and humanitarian law escalated in the OPT during the reporting period (13 – 19 November 2008): Shooting: During the reporting period, IOF killed 4 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip and wounded 6 others, including a child, in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. In the Gaza Strip, on 16 November 2008, 4 members of the Palestinian resistance were killed when an IOF aircraft fired a missile at them in al-Shojaeya neighborhood in the east of Gaza City…

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November 19, 2008: 11 Iraqis Killed, 18 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 11 Iraqis were killed and another 18 were wounded in today’s attacks. Also, the Iraqi governent reported that they had discovered a mass grave three months ago near Najaf. The grave contained 150 bodies killed during the Saddam era. Meanwhile, debate in parliament over a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement turned hostile and was postponed until tomorrow. Elsewhere in Baghdad, U.S. and Turkish officials joined the Iraqis for talks on the situation with Kurdistan Workers Party rebels…

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Unofficial Translation of U.S.-Iraq Troop Agreement from the Arabic Text
McClatchy Newspapers
The United States of America and the Republic of Iraq – which will hereafter be referred to as the two parties – recognize the importance of strengthening their joint security and participating in global peace and stability, fighting terrorism in Iraq and cooperating in the fields of security and defense to deter aggression and threats directed towards the sovereignty and unity of Iraq and its constitutional, federal, democratic system. They hereby confirm that this cooperation is built upon the basis of mutual respect for each other’s full sovereignty and according to the objectives and principles of the UN mandate…

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Afghan resistance statement
Has Karzai the muscle to take up negotiation and the habit to tell the truth?
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Hamid Karzai, the figurehead of the Kabul Administration, said in a press conference the other day that if Mullah Omar stands for negotiation, I will guarantee his security and safety. Adding in the same tone, he said: “if the International Community opposes the process of dialogue, they have two options: either to leave the country or remove me from my job.” Ironically, on the one hand, he poses to be his own man and on the other hand, he believes the power of his firing lies in others’ hands…

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Health ministry: Dozens of patients may die in case of a power outage
Palestinian Information Center
The health ministry in the Gaza Strip warned that dozens of Palestinian patients might die within half an hour if there is any power outage in the units of intensive care, heart and preterm infants in Gaza hospitals. Dr. Hasan Khalaf, the assistant deputy minister of health, pointed out that the breakdown of the main electricity generator in the compound of Al-Shifa hospital has become a threat to the lives of patients there…

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Extrajudicial Assassinations As Official Israeli Policy
Stephen Lendman
Extra-judicial killings are indefensible, morally abhorrent, and illegal under international laws and norms. Article 23b of the 1907 Hague Regulations prohibits “assassination, proscription, or outlawry of an enemy, or putting a price upon an enemy’s head, as well as offering a reward for any enemy ‘dead or alive.’ “ Article 3 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) states that “Everyone has the right to life, liberty and security of person.” UDHR also recognizes the “inherent dignity (and the) equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family.”…

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Nazis par excellence
Khalid Amayreh
Israeli propagandists routinely dismiss comparisons between Nazi Germany and Israel as “corrupt” and “far-fetched.” Some Zionists would even argue that only pathological anti-Semites would dare make such comparisons. However, in light of what Israel has been and is doing to the Palestinians, including the present ruthless blockade of the Gaza Strip, and the slow, agonizing death meted out to innocent Gazans, any honest person shouldn’t fail to observe the striking similarity between the Nazi mentality and the collective Israeli mindset…

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Lawmaker accuses Bush of secrecy over Iraq deal
Ross Colvin
The U.S. government is refusing to make public the security pact it has signed with Iraq, even though it has already been published in full in an Iraqi newspaper, a congressional hearing was told on Wednesday. Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice were holding a closed briefing for U.S. House of Representatives members on the pact signed on Monday that sets a 2011 deadline for U.S. troops to withdraw from Iraq…

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Noise But No Action From US Over Family’s Eviction
Who Will Stop the Settlers?
JONATHAN COOK
The middle-of-the-night eviction last week of an elderly Palestinian couple from their home in East Jerusalem to make way for Jewish settlers is a demonstration of Israeli intent towards a future peace deal with the Palestinians. Mohammed and Fawziya Khurd are now on the street, living in a tent, after Israeli police enforced a court order issued in July to expel them. The couple have been living in the same property in the Sheikh Jarrah neighbourhood since the mid-1950s, when East Jerusalem was under Jordanian control. The United Nations allotted them the land after they were expelled from their homes in territory that was seized by Israel during the 1948 war…

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US will withdraw troops if Iraq does not sign security deal
DPA
The US will withdraw its troops from Iraq if the security pact between the two governments is not signed, Iraqi media quoted a senior United States official as saying Wednesday. ‘The United States will withdraw its forces from Iraq and refuse to approve an extension of the UN Security Council mandate if the treaty is not signed,’ David Satterfield, senior advisor to the US secretary of state and the country’s Iraq coordinator, told the semi- official al-Sabah newspaper…

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Obama and Bush’s Torture Policy
Reza Fiyouzat, Revolutionary Flowerpot Society
For any who harbor illusions of substantial ‘change’ with an Obama presidency, the excerpts below from an article from the Baltimore Sun should be enough for a speedy disposal of any such expectations. The article highlights some of the president-elect’s transition team’s personnel for ‘intelligence transition process’. As you will read the resumes of key intelligence transition personnel, it should become clear that, even in an area as starkly over-the-top, in terms of the ‘image’ of the U.S., as the policy on torture, there shall be little if any noticeable change. I expect that any change will be one of tone alone, but substantively there will be a smooth continuation of the same old, same old…

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GAZA: On Top of Humanitarian Disaster, A News Blackout
Cherrie Heywood
Israel has imposed a virtual news blackout on the Gaza Strip. For the last ten days no foreign journalists have been able to enter the besieged territory to report on the escalating humanitarian crisis caused by Israel’s complete closure of Gaza’s borders for the last two weeks. Steve Gutkin, the AP bureau chief in Jerusalem and head of Israel’s Foreign Press Association, said that he personally “knows of no foreign journalist that has been allowed into Gaza in the last week.”…

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Many sections of Shifa hospital closed because of fuel depletion
Palestinian Information Center
Several wards and medical equipment in the compound of Shifa hospital, one of the biggest medical institutions in the Gaza Strip, have stopped operating as a result of power outages and the depletion of fuel. Dr. Hussein Ashour, the director of Al-Shifa hospital, told Tuesday Al-Quds satellite channel that the oxygen supply system which feeds the units of heart and internal diseases in the compound in addition to physiotherapy stopped working…

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Ramallah Palestinian Authority blocks website reporting on corruption
Report, The Electronic Intifada
The Palestinian Authority (PA) in Ramallah has blocked access to a popular news website because of the site’s reporting on widespread corruption among the entourage of PA President Mahmoud Abbas. For several days, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip have been unable to view the website Donia al-Watan as access has been blocked through the PA-controlled telecom company. Readers outside Palestine and a few inside the country using proxies are still able to access the site…

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News Flash: Obama hypnotizes Zinn
Mickey Z.
…Well, Howard Zinn has written such an article (”Obama’s Historic Victory,” Nov. 12, 2008) but is anyone calling him delusional and ridiculing him for even suggesting such insane expectations? The tens of thousands of readers who look to Zinn as a trusted voice of wisdom and reason are being dangerously misled by an article that omits the reality that every indication points to Barack Obama doing the exact opposite of what Zinn writes. Zinn knows as well as anyone that not an iota of evidence exists that Obama would do anything approaching what is described above. For a man of Zinn’s stature on the Left to even hint of such a possibility is a shockingly irresponsible act and one that only contributes to the misguided perception that Obama’s election is somehow a victory for the progressive Left…

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Methinks they do protest too much
William Bowles
– I’m coming across quite a few essays by lefties bemoaning the fact that Barack Obama has somehow ‘let us down’. For example there’s a piece by Dave Lindorff ‘Obama’s First Big Mistake on the Job – Rescuing Joe Lieberman’. Mistake? There is no mistake. The gist of the piece is about the “treacherous” Joe Lieberman, former Dem, who when he lost the race for nomination as Democratic Senator for Connecticut, turned around and joined the Republicans and got elected. Okay, the guy is as Lindorff says, “…a wretched example of a man without principle—a back-stabbing slimeball of a politician whose only allegi[a]nce, apparently, besides to himself, is to Israel”, something else I object to in Lindorff’s piece is his qualification of his reference to Lieberman’s Zionist ‘credentials’, “Now I don’t want anyone to think I’m some rabid anti-semite. My wife and kids are Jewish, we have good friends who are Israeli, and no, I don’t think the Jews run the media or the country. I do, however, think that Joe Lieberman thinks more about what, in his warped and shriveled worldview, is good for Israel, than about what is good for America.” Come on Dave, ‘some of my best friends are Jews’? There’s no need to apologize for attacking Zionism, you’ll be branded as an anti-semite no matter how much you protest that you ain’t. Get used to it…

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Fronting for Paramilitaries
Holder, Chaquita and Colombia
MARIO A. MURILLO
First the good news: We’re two months away from President George W. Bush’s last full day in the White House. The countdown for the end of the nightmare has begun in earnest. Now the bad news: As Barack Obama puts together his cabinet and eyes a slew of former Clinton officials for key staff positions, it is becoming ever more apparent that all those calls for change coming from progressive circles in the U.S. – and abroad – have fallen on deaf ears…

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‘US missiles’ hit Pakistani town
AlJazeera.net
At least five people have been killed in a suspected US missile attack in the North West Frontier province of Pakistan, near the Afghan border, security officials said. A senior security official told the AFP news agency on Wednesday that “the strike overnight destroyed the house of a tribesman Sakhi Mohammad in the Bannu district”…

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Hamas slams PA marketing of the “Arab initiative” minus “the right of return”
Palestinian Information Center
The Hamas Movement strongly denounced the PA in Ramallah for intending to publish advertisements in Hebrew language in Israeli newspapers in order to market the Arab peace initiative without mentioning the right of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes. In an exclusive statement to the PIC, Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum considered these advertisements a waiver of the Palestinian right of return and a reflection of the bankruptcy of the PA leadership which is trying to get anything through negotiations with the Israeli occupation in exchange for alleged peace…

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November 18, 2008: 23 Iraqis Killed, 35 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 23 Iraqis were killed and 35 more were wounded in the latest reports of violence. In political news, elections have been set for Jan. 31 in most of Iraq’s 18 provinces. The top Iraqi cleric gave tacit support to a U.S.-Iraqi security agreement now being debated in parliament. Meanwhile, Corruption watchdog group, Transparency International, has called Iraq the third most corrupt country in the world, and demonstrators are moving their vigil for an Iranian dissident group living in Iraq from New York to Washington…

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