Resistance’s Many Colors…
Layla Anwar
January 14, 2010 – Nothing irritates me more than those left wing jerks sitting behind their computers theorizing from the safety of their homes about who, what and how the Resistance should : be, plan, act… Who are you to start with ? You are a nobody with a theory, with a bible that you carry like some born again fundamentalist fanatic…

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Human rights research: 197 Palestinians martyred in Israeli prisons
Middle East Monitor
January 14, 2010 – New research claims that 197 Palestinians have died in Israeli prisons since the start of the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip in 1967. Human rights researcher Abdel Nasser Farwana claims that the figure includes women, children and the elderly. A former prisoner himself, Farwana said that his figures do not include those who died post-release due to the devastating effects of their detention. He numbers those cases in the “hundreds”…

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The Empire Discovers Yemen
by Philip Giraldi
January 14, 2010 – It was another one of those Orwellian moments that have occurred so frequently over the past eight years. On January 4th Secretary of State Hillary Clinton announced that “… we see global implications from the war in Yemen and the ongoing efforts by al-Qaeda in Yemen to use it as a base for terrorist attacks far beyond the region.” As in Orwell’s 1984, one almost expected Clinton to intone “We have always been at war with Yemen” during a two minutes of hate rally held on the White House lawn. The Clinton statement was widely reported in the media as a call to arms by the Obama Administration because Yemen has become a “global threat.” The White House’s identification of a new enemy was good news for those who had become concerned that the war on terror, now called overseas contingency operations, was not expanding quickly enough.

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Audio: Challenging Noam Chomsky’s opposition to boycotting Israel
Ali Abunimah & Jeff Blankfort
January 14, 2010 – Why does Noam Chomsky oppose boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel, and why does he think Palestinians should not talk about justice and redress for their ethnic cleansing from their homeland in 1948? Why does Chomsky dismiss any talk about the influence of the Israel lobby? On 13 January 2010, Ali Abunimah and Jeffrey Blankfort were invited to respond directly to an interview Chomsky gave earlier on these topics, on KPFA’s show Voices from the Middle East and North Africa hosted by Khalil Bendib. Chomsky was invited to take part in a direct debate but declined. Listen!…

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Jewish settlers burn Palestinian property, IOF damage land and detain citizens
Palestinian Information Center
January 14, 2010 – Jewish armed settlers wreaked havoc in the village of Ematin, Qalqilia district, in a pre dawn raid on Thursday that complemented their sabotage acts in the same village over the past two weeks. Eyewitnesses said that the settlers from a nearby settlement burnt four vehicles in the village while people were asleep before swiftly withdrawing. Villagers said that the vehicles were three cars and a tractor…

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AfPak war claimed over 12,500 lives in Pakistan during 2009
By James Cogan
January 14, 2010 – The Pak Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS) report published on January 10 makes clear that the carnage from the fighting between the Pakistani military and anti-government Islamist and tribal militants more than matches that taking place in neighbouring US-occupied Afghanistan. In 2009, the low-level civil war in Pakistan cost the lives of at least 12,632 people and wounded another 12,815, as compared to an estimated 6,500 deaths in Afghanistan…

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Gaza: Siege-Induced Poverty Drowns Wedding Dreams
Eva Barlett, In Gaza
January 14, 2010 – “If we had money we’d get married right away,” says Samir, 23. He has found his bride, but not the money to hold the wedding. The Israeli siege imposed shortly after Hamas’s election in early 2006 has ruled out marriage for many. Palestinians traditionally marry young, between 18 and 25, but more and more now pass their mid-twenties single. With unemployment levels above 45 percent, and the price of most goods doubled or more, living, and marrying, are becoming unaffordable. Worsening living conditions under the siege are changing relationship patterns. While salaried work has traditionally been the man’s role, many women have been adding to the family’s income – or have sometimes been the sole provider – by selling hand-stitched embroidery…

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Video: This is Zionism (1)
Reham Alhelsi

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The Fantasy World of ZIONWOOD
Reham Alhelsi
January 14, 2010 – On 13.11.2009 the Israeli army killed one Palestinian and wounded at least another three near Gaza city, before kidnapping them. Throughout the day, various news agencies reported this news. As usual, some Israeli & Co agencies and newspapers reported this piece of news in their usual style: the death of a Palestinian “terrorist” who was among a group of “terrorists” attempting to plant an explosive. Some even went a bit further and added that it was a “Hamas terrorist”. This addition obviously intended to make the news more acceptable to western readers and to justify killing the so-called “terrorist” by the IOF…

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The Extrajudicial Execution of Mahmoud Salah
Reham Alhelsi
January 14, 2010 – On 08.03.2002, 23 year old Mahmoud Salah from Nablus was killed in cold-blood by the Israeli border police. According to several witnesses, Mahmoud was arrested at the Beit Hanina checkpoint, searched and handcuffed. The Israeli police took off Mahmoud’s clothes and 30 minutes after his arrest, and while under the control of the Israeli border police, Mahmoud was executed. A bomb-detecting robot was brought to deceive the world and claim Mahmoud was a suicide bomber…

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Pakistan: US drone missile strike kills 15
Pak Watan
January 14, 2010 – Missiles fired by US drone aircraft near South Waziristan on Thursday killed at least 15 people, a private TV channel reported. Thursday’s assault took place in Shaktoi village in South Waziristan, where Pakistan’s military are battling Taliban fighters. “It was a US drone strike which took place between 7.00 am (0200 GMT) and 8.00 am. At least 15 people, mostly militants, have been killed in the missile strike. The toll is likely to rise,” sources said…

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British government to release secret files that ‘prove MI5 colluded in torture of terror suspect’-
By Dan Newling
January 14, 2010 – The Government has been forced to release highly-sensitive intelligence files which are expected to prove that MI5 agents were involved in torture. Government lawyers have spent the past four months fighting a desperate legal battle to avoid disclosing the potentially deeply-shameful information.But today the Foreign Secretary David Miliband announced he had ‘a change of heart’ and will now make the information available…

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On the eighth anniversary of the kidnapping of Comrade Sa’adat, PFLP condemns PA security cooperation with occupier
PFLP – Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine
January 14, 2010 – The Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine denounced the Palestinian Authority and its security forces for the kidnapping of its General Secretary, Comrade Ahmad Sa’adat on January 15, 2002, on the eighth anniversary of that plot to arrest Comrade Sa’adat at the behest of the occupation. On January 13, 2010, the PFLP called upon all to learn from the lessons and experiences of relying on U.S. and Israeli promises and warned against tampering with the Palestinian home front with schemes of security cooperaiton that only serve the occupation and its goals of liquidating proven and reliable national leadership…

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ISRAELI CHARITIES ‘CASHING IN’ ON PALESTINIAN SUFFERING
Steve Amsel, Desertpeace
January 14, 2010 – …How could the zionists be so deceptive? Along with their beliefs that Palestinians are not human, do they also believe that they feel no pain or suffering? Do they see nothing morally wrong with using images of suffering Palestinian children to raise funds for ‘Jewish only’ charities?
I have no problem supporting charitable institutions, especially those that feed the hungry, but I would NEVER support one that would turn away a non Jew, especially one such as Meir Panim. Just another example of the inhumanity of zionism and those associated with it…

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Exporting Corruption: 3/4 of Afghan Corruption Cases Involve Westerners
Derrick Crowe
January 13, 2010 – The Afghanistan war is a breeding ground for corruption, and today McClatchy Newspapers reports that it’s not just the corrupt Afghan government that’s feeding at the trough. The Office of the Special Inspector General for Afghanistan Reconstruction (SIGAR) says about three-quarters of its active corruption investigations involved Westerners…

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Has Obama given tacit approval to Israel’s next Gaza massacre?
Yaniv Reich
January 13, 2010 – When Israel was destroying Gaza in December 2008, Obama was preparing to take office as president. Progressives around the world turned to him to use his surging diplomatic power to pressure Israel to end the massacre. He stayed silent, for days and weeks, the negative space created by his newfound lack of words filled with the explosions of Israeli bombs and the death cries of women and children…

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More candidates may be banned from Iraqi elections
By HANNAH ALLAM AND SAHAR ISSA
January 13, 2010 — Iraqi officials met late into the night Wednesday to determine how many candidates should be barred from running in the March elections after a panel determined that they had ties to Saddam Hussein’s former Baath Party. The decision last week by the Justice and Accountability Commission, which handles Iraq’s de-Baathification efforts, outraged Sunni Muslim voters and cast doubts on whether more than 400 contenders would be included in the parliamentary polls. Sunni politicians called the ban an effort to disenfranchise Iraq’s Sunni minority, and warned that sidelining Sunnis could lead to unrest and a return to support for insurgents in the absence of fair representation…

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Israel restricting Palestinian lawyers’ access to detainees
By Amira Hass
January 13, 2010 – Israel is prohibiting Palestinian lawyers and the relatives of Palestinian detainees from reaching a military tribunal via the Beitunia checkpoint west of Ramallah. The prohibition, which has been in effect for the past three days, means that Israeli police are requiring Palestinians to use the Qalandiyah crossing 20 kilometers away, where they must produce an entry permit to Israel – which can take weeks to obtain – if they want to enter an Israeli military tribunal that is on West Bank land. The court lies 300 meters south of the Beitunia roadblock, and was built on land that is part of Beitunia…

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Blackwater in Somalia?
Timothy BANCROFT-HINCHEY
January 13, 2010 – Reuters reports a spokesperson from the Islamist Al-Shabaab group in Somalia claiming that the US mercenary group Blackwater/Xe Services is in Somalia, is recruiting and is planning a series of spectacular terrorist attacks against civilians to discredit his movement in Mogadishu. The spokesperson is Sheikh Ali Mohammed Rage of the Al-Shabaab group (The Youth), an Islamist faction fighting government forces in southern and central Somalia. In an interview with Reuters, he claimed that mercenaries from Blackwater (now called Xe Services) have started planning bomb plots in Mogadishu to discredit Al-Shabaab…

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4 U.S. troops killed in Afghanistan
AP
January 13, 2010 — NATO has announced the deaths of two more U.S. service members in separate attacks in Afghanistan. That raises the total number killed on Wednesday to four. A statement says one American died in fighting in eastern Afghanistan while another died of wounds suffered in a roadside bombing in the south. NATO said earlier that a bomb killed two American troops died in a bomb blast but disclosed no other information…

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Human rights defenders Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma released
Press release, Addameer and Stop the Wall
January 14, 2010 – On 13 January 2010, Mohammad Othman and Jamal Juma, Palestinian human rights defenders active in the campaign against the annexation wall unlawfully constructed by Israel in occupied Palestinian territory, were finally released from Israeli detention. Addameer and Stop the Wall contend that both were arrested in an effort to curb the success of their peaceful activities in defense of Palestinian human rights. Addameer and Stop the Wall would like to express a heartfelt and sincere thank you to everyone who took action on behalf of Mohammad and Jamal. Since 1967, the Israeli military court system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories has operated with frightening impunity, rarely if ever, upholding fair trial standards…

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Help Haiti: The Unforgiven Country Cries Out
Chris Floyd
January 13, 2010 – The relentlessly maintained, deliberately inflicted political and economic ruin of Haiti has a direct bearing on the amount of death and devastation that the country is suffering today after the earthquake. It will also greatly cripple any recovery from this natural disaster. As detailed below, Washington’s rapacious economic policies have destroyed all attempts to build a sustainable economy in Haiti, driving people off the land and from small communities into packed, dangerous, unhealthy shantytowns, to try to eke out a meager existence in the sweatshops owned by Western elites and their local cronies. All attempts at changing a manifestly unjust society have been ruthlessly suppressed by the direct or collateral hand of Western elites. The result? Millions of people — weakened by hunger, deprivation, malnutrition, disease — living jammed together in precarious, substandard housing…

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Afghan resistance statement
Bagram’s Prison’s Handover to Kabul Administration will Help Old Crimes Continue Under a New Name
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
January 13, 2010 – American rulers have announced that they would hand over the charge of the Bargram notorious jail to the puppet Kabul Administration by the end of the current Gregorian year. They have also said that they would give training to the Afghan interrogators and officers. However, the American rulers did not unveil tens of secret prisons in all part of the country, which are now operational. These prisons are christened as Terrorism Prisons and American PRT (Provincial Reconstruction Team) special cells where more than 15,000 Afghans have been chafing under squalid and miserable conditions. The Americans should morally have closed the Bagram Prison because it is a place where a prisoner has neither access to legal independent advocates, nor he is allowed to meet his relatives. This is a flagrant violation of human rights and the Geneva conventions, being committed in the prison…

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Israeli Prohibitions Against Free Expression and “Enemy Alien” Contacts
Stephen Lendman
January 13, 2010 – Adalah is the legal center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel advocating on their behalf in a nation affording rights only to Jews. In September 2009, its report titled “Prohibited Protest” exposed how Israel’s law enforcement authorities restricted free expression protests against Operation Cast Lead. It shows how police, the State Prosecutor’s Office, General Security Services (GSS or Shabak), the courts, and even academic institutions used or supported arrests and imprisonments to stop Israeli Arabs and supportive Jews from protesting against the war. Researchers collected data from the police spokesman, political and social activist testimonies, Adalah legal complaints during and after the war, an analysis of court decisions on detainee arrests, and general information reported by the media and various other Israeli human rights organizations…

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Detention of young Palestinian children up 40%
Defence for Children International
January 13, 2010 – According to the latest figures compiled by DCI-Palestine from sources including the Israeli Prison Service (IPS) and temporary Israeli army detention facilities, the number of Palestinian children detained in Israeli prisons and detention centres inside Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory at the end of December 2009, was 305… DCI-Palestine remains concerned by the high number of young children between the ages of 12 and 15 being detained. At the end of December 2009, 42 children in this age category were being held in Israeli detention facilities, compared with 30 children in December 2008. This represents an increase of 40%…

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A second Gaza war around the corner?
Hasan Abu Nimah
January 13, 2010 – Israel is once again complaining that its “security” is being threatened by new eruptions of violence along the border with Gaza. About two dozen Qassam rockets were fired at Israel from Gaza in recent days. Although they fell in (and may have been deliberately targeted at) open areas, causing no damage or injuries, Israel took revenge with destructive air raids that did cause damage and killed several people, including a 15-year-old boy. Before asking who should stop first, one should recall who started the latest ugly round of violence…

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Truth Will Prevail
by Gilad Atzmon
January 13, 2010 – The Israeli government doesn’t think twice before it orders a genocidal attack against civilians. Israeli military leaders do not think twice before they drop bombs on one of the most densely populated places on the planet. They also do not hesitate whether to use artillery shells against a UN refugee shelter. The Israeli people do not think twice before they approve en masse their army’s inhuman tactics. But for some bizarre reason, the Israelis are devastated to find out that the rest of humanity is coming to terms with their true nature. Once again it is a Turkish TV drama that exposes the Israelis for what they are…

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US Drone Fired Missile Into a ‘Crowd of Suspects,’ Killing 13 Afghans
Three Others Killed in Smaller Drone Strike
Jason Ditz
January 13, 2010 – As the fighting in Afghanistan’s Helmand Province continues to pick up, US forces have killed 16 people described as “suspected militants” in a pair of drone strikes on opposite sides of the province. The larger of the attacks came in the town of Now Zad, once described as a “ghost town” by NATO and declared “liberated” in a December invasion. The US Predator Drone fired a Hellfire missile into what officials are describing as a “crowd of suspects” killing 13 and wounding three…

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Patience?
By Hatim Khatib
January 13, 2010 – … Gazans, a year ago, were drowned by a radiance of a different kind, an infernal radiance of unbridled, indiscriminate, racist, for-profit lethality which specializes in death and annihilation, one that forces other kinds of huddles: huddles of families bracing to die, not to chant or converse and then go home to dinners and comforts; of crazed stares, of soured breaths and torn hearts; of fathers who wish they had died a million years before, or never been born, rather than sit before their children and know there was nothing in the world they could do for them, not utter an empty word or even make a fake promise. How does it feel for a Gazan father to squat in a corner of a cold, dark room, look at his young daughter and see a face filled at once with horror and with desperation to save, if only for a moment, her father’s manhood?…

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JUST HOW LOW CAN ZIONISTS GO?
SNIPPITS and SNAPPITS
January 13, 2010 – On-line image in the background is from Israel’s Haaretz website, screen captured by yours truly. The photo of the little girl in the small ad above “Special offers” is actually a little Palestinian girl photographed in Gaza on January 4, 2009. Look at this! Some slick Jew “charity” ad to feed “desperate hungry Israeli children” is shown here using the image of a little Palestinian girl, crying over the death of someone in her family by the Israeli bombing of Gaza last year…

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Israel’s New Rocket Defence System
The Screw Turns Tighter Still on Gaza
by Jonathan Cook
January 13, 2010 – Israel unveiled “Iron Dome” last week, a missile-defence system that is designed to strike a knock-out blow against short-range rockets of the variety fired into Israel by Hamas and Hizbullah. In the short term, Iron Dome is supposed to herald the demise of the rocket threat to Israeli communities near Gaza four years after Hamas won the Palestinian elections. The period in-between has been marked by a series of inconclusive moves by both sides: Israel’s crippling siege of Gaza has yet to break the will of Gazans; negotiations for the release of Gilad Shalit, an Israeli soldier captured by Hamas more than three years ago, have gone nowhere; reconciliation talks between rival Palestinian factions Hamas and Fatah have borne no fruit; and even the savage offensive against Gaza last year, Operation Cast Lead, achieved little in strategic gains for Israel…

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Child’s death brings the number of the siege’s martyrs to 368
Middle East Monitor
January 13, 2010 – The number of Palestinians whose deaths are attributable directly to the siege of the Palestinian territory comes to 368. One of the most damning statistics of the Israeli-led siege on Gaza was added-to on Monday when a three year-old boy, who was not allowed to travel abroad for treatment, died. Mayssara Hussam Ibrahim Musa suffered from congenital heart problems and his death brings to 368 the number of Palestinians whose deaths are attributable directly to the siege of the Palestinian territory. Gaza’s Health Ministry said in a statement that the child “has joined the list of martyrs of the siege”. He was scheduled to travel for treatment abroad, but the closure of the crossings prevented him from doing so…

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New IOA scheme to confiscate 70% of Wadi Hilwa in OJ
Palestinian Information Center
January 13, 2010 — The Israeli occupation authority (IOA) controlled municipality of occupied Jerusalem has endorsed a new scheme that would confiscate 70% of Wadi Hilwa valley in the holy city. The Wadi Hilwa information center said in a study published on Wednesday that the total area of the Wadi is 548.5 dunums out of which 18.7% are residential neighborhoods while the remaining 70% are now targeted by the municipality to construct parking lots, passageways and open land areas…

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Israeli troops seal off Nablus area, erect flying checkpoints
Ma’an News
January 13, 2010 – Israeli troops closed all military checkpoints in and out of Nablus Wednesday evening and erected barriers on several roads leading out of the city, witnesses said. The closure affected civilians as well as Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances, sources said. Security officials noted Israeli “red alerts” in the area but declined to elaborate…

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British government promises Israel it will end war crimes arrest warrants
By Paul Mitchell
January 13, 2010 – The British government is attempting to curb arrest warrants for war crimes. It is seeking to curtail the petitioning of courts to issue “universal jurisdiction” arrest warrants for suspected war crimes committed anywhere in the world. New legislation effectively giving the attorney general—the UK’s highest law official—the power to veto particular arrest warrants, such as those against foreign politicians, now seems likely…

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Sabri warns of Israeli plan to deprive Palestinians of living in J’lem
Palestinian Information Center
January 13, 2010 — Sheikh Ekrema Sabri, the head of the higher Islamic authority and the preacher of the Aqsa Mosque, warned that Israel plans to deprive more than 125, 000 Palestinian citizens from the right to live in the occupied city of Jerusalem. In a press release, Sheikh Sabri explained that the Israeli occupation authority (IOA) embarked during the last years on carrying out several measures to isolate and encircle Jerusalem…

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Obama wants record $708 billion for wars next year
ANNE GEARAN and ANNE FLAHERTY,
January 13, 2010 – President Barack Obama will ask Congress for an additional $33 billion to fight unpopular wars in Afghanistan and Iraq on top of a record $708 billion for the Defense Department next year, The Associated Press has learned — a request that could be an especially hard sell to some of the administration’s Democratic allies. The extra $33 billion in 2010 would mostly go toward the expansion of the war in Afghanistan. Obama ordered an extra 30,000 troops for that war as part of an overhaul of the war strategy late last year…

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Israel Detains Ma’an’s Chief English Editor
Ma’an News Agency
January 13, 2010 – Ma’an News Agency, the largest independent news network in the Palestinian territories, is deeply concerned that its chief English editor, Jared Malsin, an American citizen, was detained upon arrival at Israel’s Ben Gurion International Airport near Tel Aviv on the afternoon of Tuesday, 12 January 2009. He is slated for deportation to Prague at 6:05 am on Thursday, 14 January 2010…

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Video: Riz Khan – GAZAS OPEN WOUNDS
Aljazeera.net
January 12, 2010 – A year has gone by since Israel launched a crushing military offensive against the 1.5 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip. For 22 days in December 2008 and January 2009, Israel bombed the territory from the air, land and sea, killing 1,400 Palestinians. Thirteen Israelis were killed during the war. Israeli officials gave many reasons for the war, including a stop to the Palestinian missile attacks launched from Gaza, ending the illicit tunnel trade between Egypt and the Palestinians, and even, at one point, ending Hamas’ control of Gaza.

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IOF troops bulldoze land in Gaza, detain Jerusalemites for planting olives
Palestinian Information Center
January 12, 2010 – Israeli occupation forces (IOF) advanced east of Shujaia suburb in Gaza city afternoon Tuesday and bulldozed Palestinian plantations, local sources said. They told the PIC reporter that the IOF troops escorted three military bulldozers, noting that the IOF soldiers fired three projectiles at cultivated lands east of Shujaia inflicting material damage. Meanwhile, IOF soldiers detained three Jerusalemite farmers on Tuesday to the northwest of occupied Jerusalem while planting olive trees in their lands..

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Video: Ignoring Sudan?
Aljazeera.net
January 12, 2010 – Is Sudan looking at another explosion of violence five years after an agreement was signed to end Africa’s longest running civil war? The Comprehensive Peace Agreement between President Omar al-Bashir’s National Congress Party and the Sudan People’s Liberation Movement ended a 22-year conflict. The 2005 Accord provides for Sudan’s first national elections in 24 years to be held in April. It also has provisions for a referendum in the mostly Christian southern region early next year on whether it will break away from the Muslim-led Khartoum government and become fully independent. But a report by international aid groups say that deal is now on the brink of collapse because of violence between ethnic groups and tribes in the south. Around 2,500 people were killed and 350,000 fled their homes – a human toll greater than in Darfur in the country’s west…

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Jamal Juma’ Has Been Released
Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign
January 13, 2010 – Jamal Juma’, the coordinator of the Stop the Wall Campaign has been released yesterday evening after a month long detention in Israeli jails. He had been called for interrogation and then arrested on December 16. Yesterday, the military court decided for Jamal’s release. Like for the other Palestinian human rights defenders in Israeli jails, there was never a case in the courtroom. Not a single charge has been put forth. The reason for his arrest was purely political—an attempt to crush Stop the Wall and the popular committees against the Wall. Therefore, the reasons for his release are also outside the courtroom: The impressive support of international civil society has moved governments and used the media to an extent that made his imprisonment too uncomfortable…

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