Israel: Global NATO’s 29th Member
Rick Rozoff
January 17, 2010 – As the North Atlantic Treaty Organization is pressuring its 28 member states and dozens of partnership affiliates on five continents to contribute more troops for the war in Afghanistan, the Jerusalem Post reported on January 13 that “Israel is launching a diplomatic initiative in an effort to influence the outcome of NATO’s new Strategic Concept which is currently under review by a team of experts led by former United States Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.” NATO is crafting its updated Strategic Concept to replace that last formulated in 1999, the year of the military bloc’s expansion into Eastern Europe and its first full-fledged war, the 78-day bombing campaign against Yugoslavia…

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Iraq Political Fissures Widen as March Vote Nears
Dahr Jamail
January 17, 2010 – …In another move, in response to charges of sectarianism in banning political groups and individuals from the March 7 vote who have alleged ties to the banned Sunni party, the commission said it also intends to ban Shiite opposition parties that are affiliated with the Sunni parties that are accused of Baathist affiliations. It is important to note that Maliki was an Iraqi in exile in Tehran from 1982-1990, then remained in Syria before returning to Iraq after the US invasion of 2003. Maliki, who is also the secretary general of the Islamic Dawa Party, worked as a political officer for the Dawa while in Syria, developing close ties with Hezbollah and Iran. Maliki’s government has also been busy recently conducting mass arrests of hundreds of young men in predominantly Sunni areas of Iraq. While the vast majority of Iraqis are nonsectarian, the US-backed government in Baghdad continues to carry out acts that blatantly foment violent sectarianism…

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Palestinian human rights activists released refer detention’s conditions
Palestine Monitor
January 17, 2010 – “I was detained in a tiny, narrow guardhouse, sleeping on a mattress less than 15 cm thick. 24 hours a day a yellow light was on. It was impossible to fall asleep because every hour I was awakened by noises, someone knocking on the door or shouting through the small window of the cell. Insects were everywhere.” “The conditions in jail are terrible, I have talked with some other detainees who have been interrogated for 15, 16 hours with their legs and hands tied, or people who have prevented from sleeping for a period of 5-10 continuous days. When the guards move a prisoner from a place to another, he is blindfolded. I call on international media and organisations to pressurize and investigate what happens inside Israeli jails.”…

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Frustration mounts over Haiti aid
Aljazeera.net
January 17, 2010 – Tensions are rising on the streets of Haiti as the bulk of earthquake survivors continue to go without food, medicine or proper shelter…Some aid agencies have complained about a lack of co-ordination at the Port-au-Prince airport, where the US military has taken over operations. Medecins Sans Frontieres, or Doctors Without Borders, (MSF) said an aircraft carrying a mobile hospital was denied permission to land at the airport on Saturday and diverted to neighbouring Dominican Republic, where it would take a further 24 hours to deliver supplies by road…

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US Drone Strike on South Waziristan House Kills 20
Third Attack in Shaktoi in Less than a Week
Jason Ditz
January 17, 2010 – US drones fired several missiles at a house in the Shaktoi region, straddling North and South Waziristan, killing at least 20 people. 15 of them were labeled as suspected Taliban, with the others totally unknown. It is the third attack in the Shaktoi region in less than a week, with a Thursday attack in North Waziristan’s Pasalkot village killing 18 people. Officials say the Thursday strike was an assassination attempt against Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud…

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Surge in number of stray dogs on Baghdad streets
By Anwar Jumaa
January 17, 2010 – The number of stray dogs on Baghdad streets is increasing and it seems the authorities can do nothing about it. Stray dogs in Iraq have no owners. There are no animal care centers to pick them up. The surge in their numbers is a matter of concern for ordinary people as many of the hungry dogs have turned wild. Their attacks and bites can be deadly as most of them are reported to be stricken with diseases that can easily be contracted by humans.

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Mubarak’s Iron Wall
By Jeremy Salt
January 17, 2010 – Early in the 20th century the Zionist leader Vladimir Jabotinsky wrote of the ‘iron wall’ that would have to be built between the settlers and the indigenous people of Palestine, whom he knew would resist the attempt to take their land to the end. What he meant by an ‘iron wall’ was the force the Zionists would have to use to subdue the Palestinians if they were to take their land. He did not actually mean a wall according to the dictionary definition of such a structure but that is what has now been built across the West Bank to pen the Palestinians up like the wild animals the Israeli historian Benny Morris says they are. Indeed, the Palestinians have been ghettoised by a variety of walls and ‘fences’…

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Amnesty International: Gaza: Blockade ‘Suffocating’ daily life – new report
Amnesty International
January 17, 2010 – One year on from the end of Israel’s military offensive in Gaza Amnesty has called on Israel to lift its ‘suffocating’ blockade of Gaza, as the organisation released a new briefing on the plight of Palestinians living under the blockade. In Suffocating: The Gaza Strip under Israeli blockade, Amnesty says that Palestinians are finding it all but impossible to survive never mind rebuild after the devastation of Operation ‘Cast Lead’ (27 December 2008 -18 January 2009). The organisation is calling on the Israeli authorities to allow fuel, food, building materials and other essential goods into Gaza without restrictions, as well as exports to be allowed out of the territory. In December Amnesty and 15 humanitarian and human rights groups warned that the Israeli authorities had allowed just 41 truckloads of construction materials into Gaza since the end of the offensive. Before the blockade was imposed in 2007, an average of 7,400 truckloads entered Gaza every month. With over 3,500 houses totally destroyed and another 50,000 damaged during the military offensive, Gazans have been unable to rebuild since the conflict…

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