Blackwater Fever: High Crimes and Hired Guns
Chris Floyd
January 8, 2010 – … In any case, almost every day, our highest officials knowingly and willingly give their approval to the destruction of innocent human lives. (And we won’t even get into their culpability for launching operations — or actively supporting operations — that ravage societies and foment even more violence in the resultant chaos and blowback, as in Somalia, Yemen, Colombia, Gaza, the Sunni-Shiite civil war in Iraq, etc., etc.) In the past decade alone, they have been responsible, by direct or collateral hand, for the murder of well over a million people around the world. By the end of this decade, if the present policies of “surge” and expansion continue, it is likely that the number of innocent people killed in the American “War on Terror” will be approaching — if not surpassing — the Holocaust. Blackwater is indeed an odious organization, filled with — and led by — unsavory characters. But these goons are pipsqueaks with popguns next to our lauded, godly good and great who send their bloated war machine around the earth, “in search of monsters to destroy.”..

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The airplane bomb plot: Obama continues the cover-up
By Patrick Martin
January 8, 2010 -The statement made by President Barack Obama Thursday about the Christmas Day attempted bombing of a Northwest Airlines flight over Detroit is a continuation of a government-wide cover-up, aided and abetted by the media, of the actions of US intelligence and security agencies in the period leading up to the failed terrorist attack. Obama repeated the meaningless phrase that has become the mantra of such cover-ups since the attacks of September 11, 2001—”failure to connect the dots”—and gave explicit assurances that no officer of any intelligence agency will suffer any consequences for what is arguably the greatest security failure since 9/11…

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Children’s deaths spark anti-US outrage in Afghanistan
Bill Van Auken
January 8, 2010 – More than 5,000 people demonstrated in the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad Thursday to protest the deaths of four children and wounding of scores of others in an explosion that ripped through a crowd in a nearby village the day before. The crowd blockaded the main highway to the Pakistan border for hours, shouting “Death to America” and burning US President Barack Obama in effigy…The New York Times quoted a 38-year-old Afghan, Naimtullah, who said he had witnessed the incident: “I saw them throwing chocolate to the students and then suddenly they threw a grenade, followed by shooting.”…

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The New Iraq : Endemic Sectarianism and Ethnic Partition.
Layla Anwar
January 8, 2010- …A series of dangerous developments are taking place in Iraq – not that it has ever stopped, but definitely reminiscent of the events that led up to the 2006 sectarian war, instigated and supported by the USA, Iran and Israel. Two days ago, a sweep of mass arrests of Sunnis took place in Baghdad, Tikrit and Mosul leading to an exodus of families to the Northern part of the country. This mass of arrests came over and above the daily explosions and killings targeting Sahwa members and Sunni officials in the Anbar province. Yesterday in the Shaab neighborhood of Baghdad, alone, 21 men were arrested by so called “anti-terrorist* squads, and it seems that 2 women were part of those reported as missing. Missing because NO ONE KNOWS WHAT HAPPENED TO THEM since their arrests. It seems also that those squads that looked like Shiite militias from the way they were dressed, broke doors and destroyed the inside of the homes where the arrests took place. THERE WERE NO CHARGES… In Baghdad, 14 MEMBERS of the NATIONAL ACCORDANCE FRONT are barred from joining the candidacy list in the so called up coming elections. The mostprominent member that has been barred is SALEH AL-MUTLAQ…

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Your Palestinian Gandhis Exist … in Graves and Prisons
Calling Bono
By ALISON WEIR
January 8, 2010 – Dear Bono, In your recent column in the New York Times, “Ten for the Next Ten,” you wrote: “I’ll place my hopes on the possibility — however remote at the moment — that…people in places filled with rage and despair, places like the Palestinian territories, will in the days ahead find among them their Gandhi, their King, their Aung San Suu Kyi.” Your hope has already been fulfilled in the Palestinian territories. Unfortunately, these Palestinian Gandhis and Kings are being killed and imprisoned. On the day that your op-ed appeared hoping for such leaders, three were languishing in Israeli prisons. No one knows how long they will be held, nor under what conditions; torture is common in Israeli prisons…

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Video – Poison bullets: Depleted Uranium factor covered-up?
RussiaToday
January 8, 2010 – Many American and British soldiers who have returned from Iraq are complaining about Depleted Uranium-related illnesses. They accuse both the Pentagon and the UK Ministry of Defense of covering up the problem. Poison Bullets follows doctors and experts as they voice their opposing views in the DU controversy and travels to the US, Great Britain, Jordan, Iraq and Spain, where we meet many of those who are victims of both DU-related diseases and the indifference of government officials…

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Israeli jets attack targets across Gaza, killing 3
January 8, 2010 – Ma’an – Israeli warplanes carried out a series of raids on sites throughout the Gaza Strip late Thursday night, witnesses said and Israel’s military confirmed. Three citizens were killed and two others injured in the Israeli raids that targeted a tunnel near Rafah crossing south of Gaza. Medical sources in Abu Yousif An-Najjar hospital identified the dead as Barakat Abu Shalouf, Odai Abu Heesh, 15, and Naser Al-Mahmum, 22.,,

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‘Afghan Insurgency Can Sustain Itself Indefinitely’: Top U.S. Intel Officer
Noah Shachtman
January 8, 2010 – The Taliban not only has the “momentum” after the most successful year in its campaign against the United States and the Kabul government. “The Afghan insurgency can sustain itself indefinitely,” according to a briefing from Major General Michael Flynn, the top U.S. intelligence officer in the country. “The Taliban retains [the] required partnerships to sustain support, fuel legitimacy and bolster capacity.” And if that isn’t enough, Flynn also warns that “time is running out” for the American-lead International Security Assistance Force…

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Cast Lead Aggression 1st Anniversary, Day 13: Child Human Shields
Al Mezan Center for Human Rights
January 8, 2010 – On 8 January 2009, ‘Ala, 15, his brother, Ali, 16, and their cousin Hussein, 13, were released from the cold wet pit in the ground where they’d been detained by Israeli forces for two days and two nights, bound, blindfolded and semi-naked. These children had been used as human shields, a practice which constitutes a war crime and may amount to a crime against humanity. Upon their release, they were ordered to walk, under heavy fire, to Jabalia in the north of Gaza. ‘Ala and Ali’s older brother, Nafiz, 17, who had also been held in the hole, was transported to Israel and detained for eight more days. Al Mezan interviewed Hussein, ‘Ala and Ali (now 14, 16 and 17 respectively) a year after their ordeal…

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Video: US accused of plotting to occupy Yemen
Aljazeera.English
January 8, 2010 – The United States has classified Abdul Majeed Zandani, a prominent Yemeni religious leader, as a “specially designate global terrorist” for alleged ties to al-Qaeda. Others accuse Zandani of stoking anti-American feeling and inspiring a new generation of suicide bombers. But Zandani says the growing interest in activities in Yemen is part of a plot to occupy the country…

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Army Imprisons Soldier for Singing Against Stop-Loss Policy
Dahr Jamail
January 8, 2010 – Army Specialist and Iraq war veteran Marc Hall was incarcerated by the US Army on December 11, 2009, in Liberty County Jail, Georgia, for recording a song that expresses his anger over the Army’s stop-loss policy. Stop-loss is a policy that allows the Army to keep soldiers active beyond the end of their signed contracts. According to the Pentagon, more than 120,000 soldiers have been affected by stop-loss since 2001, and currently 13,000 soldiers are serving under stop-loss orders…

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All Gaza crossings closed
Ma’an News
January 8, 2010 – Despite being scheduled to open on Friday, Israeli crossings authorities announced the closure of all crossings into the Gaza Strip, Palestinian crossings authority official Raed Fattouh said. Kerem Shalom crossing was suddenly closed Thursday…

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Amnesty International: Israeli detention of Palestinian activists must end
Amnesty International
January 8, 2010 – The Israeli authorities must immediately release, or bring before a fair trial, three Palestinian human rights activists detained in Israel following their protests against the construction of the West Bank fence/wall, Amnesty International said on Friday. In a letter sent to Ehud Barak, Israeli Defence and Deputy Prime Minister on Thursday, Amnesty International expressed concern that Jamal Juma’, Abdallah Abu Rahma and Mohammed Othman were prisoners of conscience, held for legitimately voicing their opposition to the fence/wall. “These men have all been involved in campaigning against the building of this construction, much of it on the land of the occupied West Bank, and we fear that this is the real reason for their imprisonment,” said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International’s Middle East and North Africa Programme…

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It’s a long march to freedom
A Palestine Think Tank Editorial
January 8, 2010 – … If one does not have a strategy, a goal that they are aware of the variables and players, things start to get complicated. We did ask ourselves a few questions: why the shift, so suddenly and the protagonists are Internationals, as if it was not necessary in the past to protest against the actions of any country that had penned in or in any way constricted or obstructed Palestinian rights. Why was it that the enemy, the MAJOR enemy, was shifted to Egypt and only NOW and not all during the siege? How did Israel get let off the hook in less than one day, and WHAT a day!? What is up with that, we asked one another. No one was even talking about US complicity, it seemed as if the whole problem was Egypt, and the whole solution was Egypt. And worse, that the only thing to be liberated was Gaza, and not all of Palestine. What a nightmare for a Palestinian, some of us thought, to have their struggle be co-opted into some other agenda…

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‘US missiles kill four’ in Pakistan
UKPA
January 8, 2010 – Suspected US missiles have killed four people in north-western Pakistan near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said. The strike was the sixth attack in eight days, an unusually intense bombardment…

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Iranian opposition leader Mehdi Karroubi survives car shooting
AP
January 8, 2010 – Pro-government demonstrators opened fire on the car of an Iranian opposition leader, shattering its windows, his website reported today. Sahamnews said the shooting happened yesterday as former presidential candidate Mehdi Karroubi was leaving a building in Qazvin, 90 miles west of Tehran. The report added that some 500 people had been demonstrating outside the building, where he had been staying since the day before…

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Israeli Soldiers Attack and Injure Palestinian Shepherds; Arrest Musab Raba’i
Christian Peacemaker Teams
January 8, 2010- On the morning of Thursday 7 January, 2010, Israeli soldiers attacked and injured Palestinian shepherds from the Musa Raba’i family, as they grazed their sheep in Humra valley, near the village of At-Tuwani in the South Hebron Hills. The soldiers also attacked the internationals accompanying the shepherds and broke a video camera. Before leaving the area the soldiers arrested one of the shepherds, Musab Musa Raba’i…

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Barak eases freeze, okays 100 more units
Ma’an News
January 8, 2010 – Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak gave settlement leaders the power to issue building permits, further relaxing an already loose and unenforced moratorium applying to some construction in West Bank settlements. Israel’s daily newspaper Haaretz reported Friday that Barak issued a “revised” version of the settlement freeze that “dictates that the planning powers be returned to local authorities.”…

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Ownership and lease of 50 years for foreign investors in Iraq
Elaph, Translated by IRAQdirectory.com
January 8, 2010 – Investment law Granted amendment in Iraq and has ratified by Iraqi presidency today. Foreign and domestic investors have the right to own land and property and to rent for 50 years, and formation of local bodies to invest in the regions and governorates…The law requires the Iraqi or foreign investor , construction of housing units during the period specified in the agreement, sale or lease to the citizens in accordance with the instructions issued for this purpose. For the Iraqi or foreign investor to act in other parts of the housing project throughout the period of leave under the terms of the agreement with him. He pointed out that they have the right to lease land and property from the State, private and mixed sectors for the purpose of the establishment of investment projects by for no more than the duration of the leave, which does not exceed a duration of fifty years subject to renewal, taking into account the nature of the project and the economic feasibility of it…

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Settlers desecrate olive groves in Burin
International Solidarity Movement (ISM)
January 8, 2010 – 20 olive trees belonging to the Sufan family of Burin village were destroyed by settlers this morning. Burin, located in the northern West Bank, comes under frequent attack from the settlements of Yitzhar and Bracha enveloping the village. Under the cover of dark, settlers entered the olive groves of the Sufan family home at around 3am and began chopping the trees. The attack is the third of its kind in the last two months, with the family losing 96 trees in November. The family’s home sits on the southern tip of the village towards the hill ascending to Yitzhar settlement, and bears the brunt of their violent neighbours’ attacks. It is the third attack of its kind in the last two months alone, with the family losing 96 of their olive trees in November directly after the harvest…

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Galloway exits Gaza, deported from Egypt
Ma’an News
January 8, 2010 – Leader of the Viva Palestinan convoy and British MP George Galloway was deported from Egyptian soil moments after he set foot on it, crossing the border at Rafah from Gaza, organizers of the convoy said. A statement from the group said Galloway and a colleague “were forcibly pushed into a van, refused exit and told that they were leaving the country,” as they entered Egypt. Egyptian security sources confirmed the decision to deport Galloway, saying officials had decided to bar the British MP from entering Egypt in the future and added the country would “also put all the convoy members on the black list after they leave.”..

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