Death in the Samouni compound
By Amira Hass
September 24, 2009 – The Samouni family of Gaza has, to its great misfortune, become one of the best-known families in the world, one that is identified more than any other with the January 2009 onslaught on Gaza. Twenty-nine members of the family were killed on January 4 and 5, the first two days of the ground assault. Two of them, about which this reporter wrote two weeks ago – Atiyeh and his 4-year-old son Ahmed – were killed in their home; 21 were killed in a single building at the same time, and another six were killed separately, in different circumstances…

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PFLP: Obama’s statements and actions serve only U.S/Israeli interests
Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine -PFLP
September 24, 2009 – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine said, in response to U.S. President Barack Obama’s statements at the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, that the U.S. position serves only U.S/Israeli interests and the ongoing strategic alliance between the major imperialist power and its Zionist colonial project partner. By demanding that Palestinians engage in futile negotiations with the occupation state while the fascist Netanyahu regime continues its settlement project without even a freeze, the PFLP said on September 24, 2009, Obama’s position reveals the U.S. support for Netanyahu’s position and his extremism, racism and colonization, as it serves U.S./Israeli strategic interests, as the U.S. and Israel prepare for joint military exercises meant to intimidate the people of the region, raise tensions and instability and demonstrate strategic/military superiority of the occupation state…

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Uncertainty and injustice for minority refugees from Iraq – new report
Minority Rights Group International
September 24, 2009 – Refugees from Iraq’s minorities face insecurity and risk losing their religious and cultural identity as they try to seek refuge in neighbouring countries and Western Europe, a report by Minority Rights Group International says. In a landmark new report on the situation of Iraqi uprooted minorities, MRG says that many of the people who flee Iraq undertake very dangerous journeys to get to Europe often only to be met with restrictive asylum policies, discrimination and in some cases forcible return. A disproportionate number of those fleeing Iraq – somewhere between 15-64 per cent, depending on the country of refuge – are minorities, including Christians, Circassians, Sabian Mandaeans, Shabaks, Turkmen and Yazidis…

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Insider Opinion : Mousavi has embraced Rafsanjani’s viewpoint
MikVerbrugge
September 24, 2009 – Mousavi says it would have been easy for him to remain silent for another 20 years but he saw potentially dangerous undercurrents and that’s why he ran. He didn’t want anti-regime elements to abuse dismay & anger of the people, and organize them in an underground attempt to topple SL [Supreme Leader]. (moving closer to SLs position that foreign-motivated small groups abused Green movement.) He says he is absolutely convinced that there was vast & organized rigging of the elections (but he doesn’t say he won anymore). He reconfirms his allegiance to regime (as in SL) but warns of dangerous actions by the Government. He adopted Rafsanjani’s recent talking points, essentially saying “I’m one of you, let me lead an IRI [Islamic Republic of Iran]Loyal (SL Loyal) Opposition.”…

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Testimony: Israeli soldiers brutally beat Muhammad Id’is near a-Tuwani Village and Shani Checkpoint, Sept. 2009
Muhammad Id’is – B’Tselem
September 24, 2009 – … We decided to say morning prayers at the Tuwani Mosque, and I parked the car next to the mosque. Following prayers, I went back to the car and got in. Two of the laborers also got in and the other three were on their way to the car. Suddenly, an army Hammer jeep pulled up. It came from the bypass road and entered the village. Four soldiers got out, one of them an officer. The officer appeared very agitated. He came over to my car, opened my door and forcibly pulled me out by the neck. I fell to the ground. He grabbed my right arm, stepped on my neck and cuffed my hands behind my back. At first, he didn’t speak to me. He asked another soldier to pick me up. The officer told me to give him my identity card. I told him it was in my pocket. He took it out and kept it. The soldier grabbed my arms from behind with force. He put his knee against my back. The officer said to me: “I killed four Gazans and you’ll be the fifth”…

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“Inside the Revolution”
Richard Seymour
September 24, 2009 – …The issue, then, is does Venezuela stand on the precipice of lasting socialist transformation? Does it defy what might be seen as the linear, stageist conceptions of social change that have dominated some quarters on the left for a century? The main editorial voice of the documentary appears to be Michael Lebowitz, author of Build It Now, and a critical supporter of Chavez. He has long maintained that Chavez’s reforms, such as the breaking up of the latifundia, the creation of communal councils and particularly the institutions of co-management in which workers are represented at the managerial level of firms, place Venezuela in a transitional state. It is not socialism, he acknowledges, but it is potentially a pathway to socialism. As it is, the argument is underdeveloped in the documentary because of the constraints of time and narration, but it does leave you with a clear sense of the unfinished character of the Venezuelan experiment, the left-right divisions within the PSUV, the arguments over how to relate to the legacy of Stalinism and the dangers of confusing socialism with statism, the persistence of corruption and conservatism within the Bolivarian state, the existence of a rump within Chavez’s government who continue to obstruct real change, and so on…

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Pentagon Taking Over U.S. Foreign Policy
Sherwood Ross
September 24, 2009 – The Pentagon has virtually replaced the State Department in making U.S. foreign policy, The Nation magazine charges. “Quietly, gradually—and inevitably, given the weight of its colossal budget and imperial writ—the Pentagon has all but eclipsed the State Department at the center of US foreign policy-making,” reporter Stephen Glain writes in the Sept. 28 issue. In addition to new weapons and war fighters, the Pentagon’s budget “now underwrites a cluster of special funds from which it can train and equip foreign armies—often in the service of repressive regimes—as well as engage in aid development projects in pursuit of its own tactical ends.”..

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US drone attack kills 10 in Pakistan: officials
By Hasbanullah Khan (AFP)
September 24, 2009 — A US drone attack on Thursday killed 10 militants from a network fighting Western troops in Afghanistan at their compound in Pakistan’s tribal belt, officials said. The strike from a suspected US spy plane was the fourth this month in North Waziristan, where militants linked to Taliban and Al-Qaeda who are fighting against 100,000 US and NATO troops in Afghanistan are said to be hiding. “Ten dead bodies were recovered from the debris of the house and two militants were wounded in the attack,” a Pakistani security official told AFP on condition of anonymity because they were not authorised to speak publicly…

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Khalid Amayreh Interview: “the mental landscape of every Palestinian man, woman and child is overwhelmed with the Israeli nightmare”
Mary Rizzo, Palestine Think Tank
September 24, 2009 – Those who seek information about Palestine often tend to be attracted to particular writers and journalists for the special insights and gifts that seem to be uniquely their own. “The Middle East Crisis” is an issue having a profound, complex and multi-faceted dimension of interpretation, that for however long there has been a crisis (and worse), and despite the great abundance of written material available, more than we can ever realistically confront, the reader is driven to seek the voices that can analyse any aspect of the situation clearly. There really are far fewer with this talent than one would expect. The characteristic of this type of writer is that there is a distinctive voice or style, and more than that, there is a strong sense that the coherent and authentic ethics of this person are part of the message. It is not just reporting facts and intelligent analysis, but creating within us a consciousness of the moral situation that underlies the events. Khalid Amayreh is one such “source…

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Israel planning a new settlement in East Jerusalem
Saed Bannoura
September 24, 2009 – The Israeli Human Rights Group, Ir Amin, reported Thursday that plans for the construction of a new settlement, called Maale David, in Ras Amud, were submitted to the Planning Department at the Jerusalem Municipality for approval. Ras Amud is a Palestinian neighborhood that borders Mound Olives cemetery. The new settlement would be built in the location of a police station that was moved to as part of E-1 settlement project in East Jerusalem, which mainly aims at linking Maale Adumim settlement with East Jerusalem by annexing Palestinian lands in East Jerusalem.

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