Nablus executions: Shoot first, ask questions later
Bridget Chappell writing from Nablus, occupied West Bank
January 11, 2010 – The brutal killing of three Palestinian men by Israeli military forces in Nablus last week on 26 December 2009 sparked grief and outrage across Palestine and brought the northern West Bank city to a standstill as thousands mourned the lethal attack. However, their voices are drowned out yet again by a well-played hand of Israel’s propaganda machine and repeated by the mainstream media. On the eve of the one-year anniversary of Israel’s winter invasion of Gaza, a force of several hundred Israeli soldiers entered Nablus and invaded the homes of Ghassan Abu Sharkh, Raed Sarakji and Anan Subih where they were executed in cold blood in front of family members. A statement by the Israeli military alleged that an operation was carried out to arrest the men suspected of involvement in the killing of an Israeli settler, Meir Avshalom Hai, two days earlier..

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Israel’s countdown to another war on Gaza
Middle East Monitor
January 11, 2010 – As the Middle East Monitor (MEMO) highlights the human cost of Operation Cast Lead (War Diaries), Israel has during the last two weeks intensified its air strikes at civilian targets in the Gaza Strip, once again killing a number of Palestinians and causing extensive damage to properties. Media and military analysts in the region have discerned a clear pattern of activities that suggest the Occupying Power, Israel, is preparing the ground for another major onslaught into the Gaza Strip. As was the case in the previous attack one year ago, the Occupier is again interpreting regional or international silence as a ‘green light’ for its next operation…

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Blackwater wants $1 billion to train the new Afghan police force
by Jason Rosenbaum
January 11, 2010 – That’s right. $1 billion: Blackwater Worldwide’s legal woes haven’t dimmed the company’s prospects in Afghanistan, where it’s a contender to be a key part of President Barack Obama’s strategy for stabilizing the country. Now called Xe Services, the company is in the running for a Pentagon contract potentially worth $1 billion to train Afghanistan’s troubled national police force. Xe has been shifting to training, aviation and logistics work after its security guards were accused of killing unarmed Iraqi civilians more than two years ago…

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Iraq: Accountability And Justice Commission Attempts To Interfere In 2010 Elections
Musings On Iraq
Janaury 11, 2010 – On January 7, 2010 the Accountability and Justice Commission, which replaced the DeBaathification Commission, pronounced that it was banning 14 political lists and 400 candidates from the March 2010 elections. The reason given was that they were all connected to Baathists. The most prominent politician facing a ban was Saleh al-Mutlaq. He heads the National Dialogue Front, which joined with former Prime Minister Ilyad Allawi, and Vice President Tariq al-Hasemi in the new Iraqi National Movement List to run in 2010. Mutlaq participated in the 2005 elections and his party won 11 seats in parliament. He later went on to help draft the constitution that year as well. This decision could undermine Sunni participation in Iraqi politics, and is just the latest episode in the sordid history of the DeBaathification process…

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Israel considers giving legal status to two illegal West Bank outposts
By Chaim Levinson, Haaretz
January 11, 2010 – After four and a half years of government promises to destroy the two West Bank settlements of Hayovel and Harsha, the High Court of Justice said yesterday that it intends to examine conditions on the ground there, potentially paving the way for their formal recognition. The High Court of Justice’s deliberation over these settlements has become a symbol of other petitions to the court concerning illegal West Bank construction. The petition in question, filed by Peace Now in 2005, called on the government to enforce a demolition order for the nine homes that constitute Hayovel, which is actually an outpost of the settlement of Eli, and the seven homes in Harsha, east of the Talmonim bloc…

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Cancer Spreading In Iraq due to Depleted Uranium Weapons
The Daily Censored
January 11, 2010 – Cancer is spreading like wildfire in Iraq. Thousands of infants are being born with deformities. Doctors say they are struggling to cope with the rise of cancer and birth defects, especially in cities subjected to heavy American and British bombardment. Dr Ahmad Hardan, who served as a special scientific adviser to the World Health Organization, the United Nations and the Iraqi Ministry of Health, says that there is scientific evidence linking depleted uranium to cancer and birth defects…

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The Shadow War
Making Sense of the New CIA Battlefield in Afghanistan
By Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse
January 11, 2010 – …Think of it as a battlefield filled with muscled-up, militarized intelligence operatives, hired-gun contractors doing military duty, and privatized “native” guard forces. Add in robot assassins in the air 24/7 and kick-down-the-door-style night-time “intelligence” raids, “surges” you didn’t know were happening, strings of military bases you had no idea were out there, and secretive international collaborations you were unaware the U.S. was involved in. In Afghanistan, the American military is only part of the story. There’s also a polyglot “army” representing the U.S. that wears no uniforms and fights shape-shifting enemies to the death in a murderous war of multiple assassinations and civilian slaughter, all enveloped in a blanket of secrecy…

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Amnesty International: Iran’s ‘Mourning Mothers’ must be released
Amnesty International
January 11, 2010 – Amnesty International has urged the Iranian authorities to release a group of women who were beaten and arrested during a peaceful vigil in Tehran at the weekend. The 33 women, members of a group known as the ‘Mourning Mothers’, were seized during their weekly meeting in Laleh Park, Tehran on Saturday, according to media reports. Several of the women were beaten and 10 were taken to hospital. The ‘Mourning Mothers’ are women whose children have been killed, disappeared or detained in post-election violence in Iran since last June, and their supporters. All 33 women are now being held in Vozara Detention Centre, Tehran…

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Fighting in Afghanistan leaves 5 U.S. troops dead
By Laura King
January 11, 2010 — Three American troops were killed today in a clash with insurgents in southern Afghanistan, which is likely to be the scene of escalating battles in coming months. A fourth U.S. service member died today of wounds suffered in separate fighting in the east, near the border with Pakistan, military officials said. Also today, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force disclosed the death of another American service member in an attack a day earlier in the south. That followed the deaths on Saturday of a U.S. Marine and a British journalist in a roadside bomb explosion in restive Helmand province…

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PALESTINE ~~ALIENS IN OUR OWN LAND
Steve Amsel, Desertpeace
January 11, 2010 – WHY? For nearly 62 years the world has turned a blind eye to the existence of the Palestinian people. For nearly 62 years we have lived under the most brutal occupation of this and the last century. For nearly 62 years we have been treated both by the zionists and the world at large as aliens from a different planet. WHY? Are we not human? Do we not pain when our children are murdered right in front of our eyes? Just in the past year… a glimpse of some of our losses during the blitzkrieg on Gaza…

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One Year After Israeli Assault on Gaza, Survivors from Samouni Family Remember the Tragedy that Killed 29
Demiocarcy Now!
January 11, 2010 – One year after Israel’s assault on Gaza, we go back to a deadly attack that took place on one Gazan neighborhood. The Samouni family, who live in an agricultural area in the Zaytoun area of Gaza City, lost twenty-nine members of their family in the attack. Anjali Kamat and Jacquie Soohen visited the surviving members of the family in March…

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IOF holding wounded child in shackles
Palestinian Information Center
January 11, 2010 — The Israeli occupation forces (IOF) are holding a Palestinian child in hospital while both his feet and hands are shackled despite the seriousness of his condition, the Palestinian prisoner’s association in Al-Khalil reported on Sunday. It added in a statement that the IOF shot Majed Jaradat, 15, at close range wounding him in the abdomen, hands and feet then took him to Hadassah hospital in a serious condition. The statement said that Jaradat is held under strict security measures in hospital since his detention on 7/1/2010 and is deprived of family visits…

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Israel to build wall along Egyptian border
Ma’an News
January 11, 2010 – Israel approved on Sunday the construction of a barrier along its border with Egypt, Israeli media reported on Monday. “I took the decision to close Israel’s southern border to infiltrators and terrorists. This is a strategic decision to secure Israel’s Jewish and democratic character,” said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in a statement…

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British soldier killed in Afghanistan
Press Association
January 11, 2010 – A British bomb disposal expert died following an explosion in Afghanistan today, the Ministry of Defence said. The soldier, from 11 EOD Regiment, Royal Logistic Corps, was killed as a result of an explosion in the Musa Qala area in northern Helmand province this morning. His family has been told. His death takes the number of British service personnel who have died since the start of operations in Afghanistan in 2001 to 247…

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Jordanian tribe to name all new-born males after Saddam
By Habib Toumi
January 10, 2010 – As a town in Jordan has shelved a plan to name a street after Iraqi former leader Saddam Hussain in the wake of the political and diplomatic furore it sparked in Jordan, Kuwait and Iraq, a Jordanian tribe has decided to name all the males born this year as Saddam and all its daughters “Raghad”, “Hala” or “Rana” after Saddam’s daughters. Jordan’s Prime Minister Sameer Al Rifae said his government would not accept the decision taken by the municipal council of Al Mazar, a small town 250 kilometres south of Amman, the capital. “Prime Minister Al Rifae stressed that the idea of naming the street after Saddam would not be recognised by the Jordanian Hashemite Kingdom,” Kuwait’s Ambassador to Jordan Faisal Al Humoud Al Sabah was quoted as saying by Kuwait News Agency (KUNA)…

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Gaza: a child dies because of the siege and a man reported dead at a tunnel site
Ghassan Bannoura
January 11, 2010 – A Palestinian child was reported dead on Monday after he was unable to leave the Gaza Strip for the medical care he urgently needed. Three year old Mayisarah Mussa had a hart condition, but doctors were unable to treat him in the Gaza Strip due to the ongoing siege. Doctors said that he needed an operation to save his life but the Israeli military did not give his family the necessary permission required for any resident of the Gaza Strip to travel…

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On Eighth Anniversary, Guantánamo Allows Little Hope
Andy Worthington
January 11, 2010 – One year ago, as George W. Bush prepared to leave office, there were high hopes that Barack Obama would move swiftly to undo his ruinous legacy of torture, “extraordinary rendition” and indefinite detention without charge or trial […] As Obama’s principled stand eroded, he also dismayed lawyers, progressives and human rights activists by reintroducing the Military Commissions and stating that, according to legislation passed by Congress in the wake of the 9/11 attacks (the Authorization for Use of Military Force), he was entitled to hold dozens of other men indefinitely, without charge or trial…

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Move to block major Sunni-based party contesting Iraq election
By James Cogan
January 11, 2010 – Iraq’s Justice and Accountability Board, formerly known as the National De-Baathification Committee, recommended last Thursday that 14 parties which derive the bulk of their support from the minority Sunni population be barred from contesting the March 7 national election. The basis for the proposed ban is that they have promoted the ideology of Saddam Hussein’s Ba’ath Party. The recommendation must be ratified by the Electoral Commission and upheld in the Supreme Court before coming into effect. If the ban goes ahead, it has the potential to ignite civil warfare and renewed, large-scale resistance to the ongoing US military presence. The largest party under threat is the National Dialogue Front (NDF) led by secular nationalist politician Saleh al-Mutlaq. The NDF won 11 seats in the December 2005 parliamentary election… Under Hussein’s regime, Mutlaq presided over a multi-million dollar agriculture business. He was not, however, an official member of the ruling party. The attempt to ban his NDF on the basis that it is “Baathist” is a transparent attempt to protect the interests of Shiite and Kurdish parties that were installed by the US and dominate the current parliament and the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki…

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Alastair Campbell had Iraq dossier changed to fit US claims
Chris Ames and Richard Norton-Taylor
January 10, 2010 – Fresh evidence has emerged that Tony Blair’s discredited Iraqi arms dossier was “sexed up” on the instructions of Alastair Campbell, his communications chief, to fit with claims from the US administration that were known to be false. The pre-invasion dossier’s worst-case estimate of how long it would take Iraq to acquire a nuclear weapon was shortened in response to a George Bush speech…

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Israeli media defending the murder of children because of “rockets”
Rys2sense
January 11, 2010 – Years 1948-2010 Total number of People killed in Israel by Rockets …15. Five were soldiers and two were Palestinian. More people die from suicide…

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An article that MRZine refused to publish
Here is Turkey, and Israel!
by Bar? YILDIRIM
January 10, 2010 -…For, as the NYT states, Turkey and Israel “are pragmatic, strategic allies, and cooperation between their militaries goes back decades.” This also points to the “external” aspect of said hypocrisy. But one does not need the testimony of NYT; the PM himself, in the meeting of his party, said: “Maybe there is no other country in Middle East, Balkans and Europe, with which Israel is so concordant and shares so many benefits” as it is and does with Turkey. Thus on one hand Israel planes kill children in Gaza, and PM Erdo?an flares against the massacre, on the other hand Turkey buys some of those planes from Israel…

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