What is the American Plan for Iraq?
Layla Anwar
January 24, 2010 – …The first thing to do is to break that image, that myth, that most people hold in their heads, namely that the American neocons policy towards Iraq as embodied by Bush and Co is strategically different from the so-called Democrats as embodied by Obama and that consequently the aims are different. This is a MYTH. A political myth grown out of some false loyalty to a belief that the Democrats are fundamentally different from the Republicans in American politics. So in this hopefully short post because I will try to keep it short as I maintain and argue that the American strategy/policy towards Iraq has remain unchanged, and contrary to naive popular belief, it is unfolding along a clear concise continuum, i.e continuity in plan…

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When Words are Imprisoned, Thoughts Silenced and Flags Shot Down, Resistance and Solidarity Flourish
Reham Alhelsi
January 24, 2010 – …What the Zionist entity fears and sees as a growing threat to its existence is the continuation of the struggle and activism in occupied Palestine, the growing support for Palestine and the Palestinian Cause in the world and the strengthened unity and solidarity amongst Muslim, Christian and Jewish indigenous Palestinians in occupied Palestine and elsewhere. Despite decades of oppression and occupation, despite the on-going ethnic cleansing of Palestine, despite all the massacres, the land theft, the colonization, the imprisonments and the deportations, and despite all the war crimes committed by Israel against the Palestinians, the Zionist entity failed in its goal to eliminate the Palestinian national identity and the Palestinian aspirations and hunger for freedom and self-determination. Despite the bans and the threats, we read, wrote and sang of Palestine, we raised the Palestinian flag high and we celebrated being Palestinians in all of occupied Palestine, yesterday, today and will continue to celebrate Palestine every single day. And because the Zionist entity tried in vain to prevent us from writing, reading, singing, expressing and celebrating our national and cultural identity, it is essential that we boycott this entity in every form possible, particularly in this regard to boycott its academic and cultural institutions and its academic and cultural activities and festivals. It is our duty and our ! responsi bility to culturally and academically boycott the Zionist entity until total Liberation…

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IRAQ: Sectarian tension ahead of polls threatens “humanitarian crisis” – analysts
IRIN News
January 24, 2010 – A government move to exclude a number of prominent Sunni candidates from national parliamentary elections on 7 March could re-ignite sectarian violence and create a new humanitarian crisis in the war-torn country, according to some analysts. “Iraq is on the verge of another humanitarian crisis if the current political situation continues to worsen between the political parties or between Sunnis and Shia over participation in the coming elections,” Mohammed Abdul-Aziz Jassim, a political sciences lecturer at the University of Anbar, told IRIN…

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Israel ‘to keep’ parts of West Bank
Aljazeera.net
January 24, 2010 – Israel’s prime minister has reaffirmed his country’s commitment to retaining parts of the occupied West Bank, undermining US efforts to restart talks aimed at eventually establishing a Palestinian state. During a tree planting ceremony in a West Bank settlement, Binyamin Netanyahu said that parts of the territory would be kept by Israel under any final peace agreement reached with the Palestinians…

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Details of Iraq whistleblower’s alleged suicide to be sealed 70 years
By Stephen C. Webster
January 24, 2010 – By 2080, anyone with a direct interest in learning how Dr. David Kelly died, will themselves be dead. That’s how an Oxford coroner reacted to a recent ruling ordering the details of the former United Nations weapons inspector’s death locked away for 70 years, according to a Mail Online report. Kelly’s story, however, was gravely important in 2003, just before he was found dead in the woods behind his home in Oxfordshire, U.K. As the BBC revealed in the wake of his passing, he had been the key source behind a story claiming intelligence on Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction was “sexed up.”…

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The environmental impact of Israeli military activities in the occupied Palestinian territory (Full Text)
Z. Brophy and J.Isaac, Applied Research Institute – Jerusalem (ARIJ)
January 24, 2010 – An often?overlooked factor in the field of sustainable development and resource management is the impact of the military on the environment and unfortunately this is no exception in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt). Whilst there have been many studies and reports on the economic, social and political repercussions of the continued Israeli occupation, there has been scant attention paid to the detrimental effects on the environment from Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) activities and the military infrastructure which supports them. This is in no small part because of the lack of information provided by the Israeli authorities and the high level of secrecy surrounding the IOF. For example, whilst conducting research for this paper it was not possible to view any images of the military bases in the oPt post 2004 because all sources have been doctored to erase any evidence of their presence. Nonetheless, this report will strive to provide a historical background and legal framework to the IOF presence in the oPt and assess some of the consequent environmental implications…

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Crucifying Iraq
Hussein Anwar, The Mesopotamian
January 24, 2010 – … Let me get this straight…SUPPOSEDLY…The Ba’ath Party is no longer wanted in Iraq by the Iraqi people because it committed crimes against humanity. If this party is not wanted by the Iraqi people…why do the kids in the Green Zone fear Ba’ath participation in the elections? Why did they suddenly go nuts…go mad, arresting people here and there, excluding 500 participants, and any suspects to be Ba’athist and/or friends of the Ba’ath? Why do you fear this participation? If you guys did a better job than the Ba’athists then you must take it for granted the Iraqi people wont vote for the Ba’ath Party or friends of the Ba’ath including Alawi, Mutlag…etc supposedly that also you guys run the elections, forge it the way you guys want. (BTW…Alawi and Mutlag are the cleanest of the worse among these puppets, there is a house dog and a street dog, they are both dirty but the house dog is just a little bit cleaner than the street one. Don’t get me wrong…I am not saying that they are so patriotic, loyal to Iraq and want what is best for Iraq, they all came at the back of the American Tanks.)…

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NEW FILM: Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo
Andy Worthington
January 24, 2010 – “Outside the Law: Stories from Guantánamo” is a new documentary film, directed by Polly Nash and Andy Worthington, telling the story of Guantánamo (and including sections on extraordinary rendition and secret prisons) with a particular focus on how the Bush administration turned its back on domestic and international laws, how prisoners were rounded up in Afghanistan and Pakistan without adequate screening (and often for bounty payments), and why some of these men may have been in Afghanistan or Pakistan for reasons unconnected with militancy or terrorism (as missionaries or humanitarian aid workers, for example)…

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HRW: Iran Crackdown On Protests A ‘Human Rights Disaster’
Reuters
January 24, 2010 – Iran’s crackdown on opposition protests following June’s disputed presidential election was a “human rights disaster,” U.S.-based Human Rights Watch said. The rights group also said in a report that Iran has staged hundreds of show trials of detained opposition protesters…The Human Rights Watch report said the post-election crackdown had turned into “a human rights disaster.” “The Iranian judiciary’s show trials of hundreds of demonstrators and dissidents ranks among the most absurd displays of prosecutorial abuse I have witnessed in recent memory,” HRW’s Middle East Director Joe Stork said at a news conference in Dubai to announce its annual report. The Human Rights Watch report said many of the detainees had been coerced to confess to vaguely-worded crimes during the trials. Researcher Faraq Sanei said Human Rights Watch had documented 26 such cases of torture or coerced confessions…

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Baghdad crackdown corks drinkers’ spirits
By Liz Sly
January 24, 2010 – It started in the Green Zone, with Iraqi soldiers ordering restaurants to stop serving alcohol and confiscating bottles from politicians at checkpoints.Then, mysterious signs began appearing across the rest of Baghdad declaring alcohol sinful and warning of damnation for those who drink. Finally, the crackdown came. Phalanxes of soldiers and police officers descended on the nightclubs, cabarets and bars that had proliferated across the capital in the last two years and symbolized for many a return to normality…

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Haiti earthquake – starving survivors reduced to eating grass
By Nick Allen in Leogane
January 24, 2010 – Nearly two weeks after the devastation was unleashed, she has received no aid, her home is an open patch of grass under a tree, and her only food the leaves that fall from branches overhead. “We have nothing so we pick up the leaves, boil them in water from the river and eat them,” she says. “No-one has come to help us and we cannot live like this. It is not possible to live on leaves.”…

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‘150,000 dead’ in Haiti’s capital
Aljazeera.net
January 24, 2010 – More than 150,000 people have been confirmed dead in the Port-au-Prince area alone following Haiti’s devastating earthquake, the country’s communications minister has said. Marie-Laurence Jocelyn Lassegue said on Sunday that many thousands more people could be dead in the rest of the country, while the bodies of others have been burned by relatives or remain trapped under collapsed buildings…

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Sheikh Jarrah: Settlers throw urin bottles, activists arrested
International Solidarity Movement
January 24, 2010 – Thursday, January 22nd, settlers occupying the Gawi and Al-Kurd family’s homes were reported to be harassing and attempting to provoke the evicted Palestinians and solidarity activists to a violent response. Other settlers stood by with film equipment, ready to record any response to their provocation. The evening’s heckling resulted in the arrest of Marwan Abu al Saber. Al Saber was released later that night. Settler harassment of neighborhood residents continued and during the night four chairs were stolen by settlers from the Al-Kurd tent…

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UK soldier killed in southern Afghanistan explosion
BBC News
January 24, 2010 – A British soldier has died following an explosion in southern Afghanistan, the Ministry of Defence has said. The soldier, from 3rd Battalion The Rifles, was killed while on foot patrol south of Sangin district centre, in Helmand province, on Sunday morning. His death brings the number of UK service personnel killed in Afghanistan since 2001 to 251…

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Five US soldiers killed in Afghan unrest
AFP
January 24, 2010 — Five US soldiers have been killed in bombings over the past 24 hours in Afghanistan, NATO’s international Security Assistance Force (ISAF) said Sunday. Two of the troopers were killed in a home-made bomb explosion in the country’s south, where the insurgency is most intense, the force said in a statement. “Two ISAF service members from the United States were killed today in an IED strike in southern Afghanistan,” ISAF said, referring to the improvised explosive devices, or roadside bombs, which have been the scourge of foreign troops fighting the Taliban. The force announced a third IED death in the south shortly after, taking to five the number of American soldiers killed in Afghanistan in past 24 hours…

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“Thieves Go Home – Sheikh Jarakh is Palestine!”
Gush Shalom
January 24, 2010 – Every one of those who came took into account that he could be arrested and held in detention for at least a day. The more experienced brought with them a toothbrush. Still, at the appointed time, 3 p.m., hundreds were already waiting (a most unusual thing in Israel.) This was the largest demonstration yet in Sheikh Jarakh, were for some time now a demo is taking place every Friday, much like the demos in Bil’in, Nilin and other places. The Friday before, the police had brutally squashed the protest and arrested 11 demonstrators, among them the director of the Association for Human Rights…

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Netanyahu reaffirms Israel claim to parts of West Bank
By Jeffrey Heller, Reuters
January 24, 2010 – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu pledged on Sunday that Israel would keep parts of the West Bank forever, planting trees in a settlement bloc to reaffirm a land claim long rooted in Israeli government policy. “Our message is clear: We are planting here, we will stay here, we will build here, this place will be an inseparable part of the State of Israel for eternity,” Netanyahu said in the Gush Etzion enclave. Speaking after meeting U.S. President Barack Obama’s Middle East envoy in Jerusalem, Netanyahu vowed Israel would also keep its two biggest West Bank settlements, Maale Adumim and Ariel…

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Iraq: Joint Iraqi-Peshmerga-U.S. Patrols Begin In Disputed Territories
Musings On Iraq
January 24, 2010 – On January 13, 2010 checkpoints manned by the Iraqi army, Kurdish peshmerga, and U.S. soldiers were set up in Diyala. Similar checkpoints will be created in Ninewa and Tamim later in the month. They are being created in what the U.S. calls the Combined Security Area where Iraqi and peshmerga forces meet, but do not cooperate…In August 2009 commander of U.S. forces in Iraq General Ray Odierno proposed joint patrols in disputed territories. Shortly after Odierno proposed his plan, Arabs and Turkmen began voicing their opposition… Today, Arabs and Turkmen are just as opposed. A Turkmen member of the Tamim provincial council, members of the Arab Group in that province, as well as the al-Hadbaa List in Ninewa all said they were still against the joint patrols in January 2010. Their negative opinion is based upon two issues. First, they want the Iraqi army and police to secure their provinces rather than a mix of U.S., Iraqi, and peshmerga forces. Second, they believe that joint patrols will give legitimacy to the peshmerga being in disputed areas, which many Arabs and Turkmen of the region see as being illegal and a step towards annexation into Kurdistan…

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Gaza to be in deep darkness in hours!!
Pal Telegraph
January 24, 2010 – The electricity company in the Gaza Strip has warned on Saturday evening from a severe crisis in providing the Strip with electricity as if the stoppage of providing it with the needed fuel continued it will not be able to run on Sunday morning. Jamal Al-Dardasawi, the director of public relations in the company, said: “The power station since Saturday afternoon has been producing 30 MW instead of 65 MW because of lack of fuel needed to run it.”…

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Campaign against siege warns of serious repercussions for power failure
Palestinian Information Center
January 24, 2010 – The Palestinian-international campaign to lift the siege on Gaza Strip has warned of the serious repercussions of the long periods of power cuts in many Strip areas as a result of the lack of enough fuel to operate the sole electricity generation station. The campaign in a statement on Sunday said that the station was generating less than half its potential of power because of the shortage of fuel…

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Israeli border police severely beat Palestinian workers, says family
Ma’an News
January 24, 2010 – Israeli Border Police detained and beat 10 Palestinian workers at dawn on Sunday at the Al-Za’iem crossing into occupied East Jerusalem, for seeking work without the appropriate permits, relatives told Ma’an. The workers, from the Al-Khadr village south of Bethlehem, were stopped at the crossing and, relatives say, were severely beaten with sticks and riffles…

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