What the TV doesn’t tell us about Haiti
by Claudio Testa
January 30, 2010 – The world’s TV is showing, as we might expect, a false picture of reality. In the case of Haiti, this is all the more outrageous given the circumstances. With barely disguised racism they paint the picture of a people who are suffering but “ignorant” and “barbarous”, incapable of “keeping order” by themselves after the earthquake, necessitating a renewed colonial occupation, with a fresh US invasion. Of course, no-one mentions the two-hundred-year sentence capitalism and imperialism imposed on the Haitian people for having carried out the only successful slaves’ social revolution in history. Still less do they tell us about recent events, like the significant workers’, students’ and peasants’ struggles against colonial occupation and Preval’s puppet government which developed in 2009…

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Zionist “ethnic cleansing” continues
By Mohammed Watad
January 30, 2010 – The drive to empty the state of Israel of its non-Jewish population began in the run-up to the declaration of independence in May 1948. The Palestinians call that “the Nakba”, the Catastrophe, and with good cause. Since 1948, the Israelis have demolished almost 22,000 homes belonging to Palestinians in cities across the state, namely Jaffa, Lod and Ramla. House demolitions in Jerusalem are part of this process. Ten thousand more have been sold to wealthy Jews and so, despite having a Palestinian population of around 75,000 in these three cities, cultural signs of the Arab presence are being eroded…

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10 Women, 15 Children, Wounded After Soldiers Fired Gas Bombs Into A Palestinian Home
Saed Bannoura
Saturday January 30, 2010 – Palestinian medical sources reported on Friday at night that 10 women and 15 children were hospitalized suffering severe effects of tear gas inhalation after Israeli soldiers fired gas bombs into the lower floor a house in Nabi Saleh village, near the central West Bank city of Ramallah. Local residents rushed to the house and managed to rescue the wounded women and children after pulling them through the windows of the gassed home…

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Report: “7300 Detainees, Including 33 Women And 300 Children, Still Imprisoned By Israel”
Saed Bannoura
January 30, 2010 – Former prisoner, Palestinian researcher and the head of the census department at the Palestinian Ministry of Detainees, Abdul-Nasser Farawna, stated in a comprehensive report that there are currently 7300 Palestinians imprisoned by Israel. In his report, Farawna states that there Israel is currently holding captive 33 women, nearly 300 children, 296 administrative detainees, 17 legislators and two former ministers in addition to dozens of political leaders. The report also states that nearly 5105 detainees (%70 of the total number of detainees), were sentenced by Israeli military courts, and that 800 detainees were sentenced to at least one life-term. 1893 detainees are still held awaiting trial, and six detainees are held under what Israel calls “illegitimate combatants”…

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CIA, military assassinating US citizens abroad
Brian Gallagher
January 30, 2010 – …Meanwhile, the US government is still equating the accusation of terrorism with being a terrorist and carrying out what are euphemistically called “extra-judicial killings” of the accused. In an interview with CNN, al-Awlaki’s father said: “I will do my best to convince my son to do this (surrender), to come back but they are not giving me time, they want to kill my son. How can the American government kill one of their own citizens? This is a legal issue that needs to be answered,” he said. How can a government kill one of its own citizens without any kind of judicial process whatsoever? As the Obama administration, like its predecessor, continues the worldwide assault on civil and human rights around the globe, there is little hope of discovering the truth behind that question. That’s what trials are for…

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Ahmadinejad a progressive? Ahamdi’s anti-imperialism is a myth and so are his leftist credentials
Network of Iranian Labor Unions (NILU)
January 30, 2010 – There is a fiction going about in some progressive circles around the world according to which Ahmadinejad is a great nationalist crusader, that he is a champion of the poor and that he is a man of the people. This is certainly shocking to the ears of most Iranians (including many Iranian workers) who consider their president to be a demagogue and a petty dictator. Let’s look at the facts in detail…

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Afghan resistance statement
Statement of the Leadership Council Regarding rumors of Meeting between UN Special Envoy and the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan
Saturday, January 30, 2010 – The Leadership Council of the Islamic Emirate, on the basis of its previous legitimate stance, refutes the rumors in some media reports, about negotiation between representatives of the Islamic Emirate and, UN Special Envoy, Kei Ide. The Leadership Council considers this mere futile and baseless rumors, being a machination against Jihad and Mujahideen who are waging Jihad against the invaders. The Leadership Council once again emphasizes continuation of Islamic Jihad against all invaders as a mean to frustrate these conspiracies…

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Drones and Death: The Israeli Connection
Ed Kinane
January 30, 2010 – Drones are remote-controlled airborne robots. They come in all shapes and sizes. These unmanned high-tech weapons are remarkably versatile. From thousands of feet in the air some reportedly have heat-detecting and surveillance instrumentation that can distinguish between an automatic weapon that has been recently fired and one that hasn’t. Unlike the people of Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Palestine, most US Americans are oblivious to drones. But we’d better wake up. Drones are poised to become tools of domestic surveillance. The Houston police are now secretly experimenting with drones. Col. Kevin Bradley, local Hancock Airbase drone commander, looks forward to having drones used for domestic police work.1 ACLU please take note. …But the US isn’t alone in developing and deploying drone technology. I became aware of Israel’s use of drones during its December 2008/January 2009 invasion of Gaza. Israel deploys two types of hunter/killer: the “Hermes,” produced by Elbit Systems Ltd, and the “Heron,” produced by the government-owned Israeli Aerospace Industries. Recently – by Googling “Israeli drones” – I learned that Israel pioneered the drone and that Israel purveys that cutting edge weaponry throughout the world…

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“Together we can end this occupation”
Jody McIntyre writing from Beit Hanoun, occupied Gaza Strip
January 30, 2010 – The Israeli military recently dropped hundreds of leaflets warning Palestinian residents from the village of Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip not to travel within 300 meters of the border — the distance of Israel’s so-called “buffer zone.” In response, local activists marched to and nonviolently demonstrated inside the “buffer zone” against the illegal action. The Electronic Intifada contributor Jody McIntyre recently spoke with demonstration organizer Saber Zanin…

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Enough is Enough
Gilad Atzmon
January 30, 2010 – The UK Jewish Chronicle is apparently stupid enough to unveil the ferocity of Zionist lobbying within the British Government and its corridors of power. The Jewish weekly is happy to outline the relentless measures that are being taken by Jewish lobbyists in order to Zionise the British legal system and its value system. As one may assume the supporters of Israel in Britain are far from happy about Britain’s magistrates being able to implement ‘universal jurisdiction’ laws, laws that allow local magistrates to issue arrest warrants for high profile foreign visitors accused of war crimes…

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Israeli media: Mossad responsible for Al-Mabhouh assassination
Ma’an News
January 30, 2010 – A four-person squad composed of Israeli Shin Bet and Mossad operatives arrived in Dubai on European passports to assassinate Muhammad Al-Mabhouh, a liaison between Iran and Hamas, Israeli media confirmed on Saturday. According to the Israeli news-site Inyan Merkazi, the assassination squad interrogated Al-Mabhouh in his hotel room before killing him…

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US halts Haiti medical evacuations
Aljazeera.net
January 30, 2010 – The US has suspended evacuations of critically injured victims of the Haiti earthquake in a row over who will pay for their care, the military says. “Apparently, some states were unwilling to accept the entry of Haitian patients for follow-on critical care … without a destination to fly to, we can’t move anybody,” Captain Kevin Aandahl, a US transportation command spokesman, said. “We’ve temporarily suspended the flights, but that capability exists to resume,” Aandahl said…

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Americans arrested taking children out of Haiti
Reuters
January 30, 2010 – Haitian police have arrested 10 U.S. citizens caught trying to take 33 children out of the earthquake-stricken country in a suspected illicit adoption scheme, authorities said on Saturday. The five men and five women were in custody in the capital, Port-au-Prince after their arrests on Friday night. There are fears that traffickers could try to exploit the chaos and turmoil following Haiti’s January 12 earthquake quake to engage in illegal adoptions…

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Murder was the case…
Clayton Swisher
January 30, 2010 – Israeli Mossad is already a strong suspect in the recent killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in the United Arab Emirates. The charter member of the al-Qassam Brigades was electrocuted and strangled in his Dubai hotel room, and God knows what happened to him in between. Al-Mabhouh’s murder evokes a certain sense of deja vu. Anyone who has read the brilliant work “Kill Khalid: The Failed Mossad Assassination of Khalid Mishal and the Rise of Hamas” would know exactly what I’m talking about. It chronicles how a Mossad hit team posing as Canadian tourists set out on the streets of Amman, Jordan in 1997 to eliminate the Hamas political leader…

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NATO airstrike kills 4 Afghan troops
By Laura King
January 30, 2010 – Western forces killed four Afghan troops Saturday in an airstrike, and military officials disclosed that an Afghan interpreter had shot dead two U.S. service members a day earlier, in a rare concentration of deaths at the hands of allies. Even more unusually, the lethal incidents occurred in the same district of Wardak province, west of the capital, Kabul, but officials said they did not appear to be related…

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Obama’s Outreach to Americans: Empty Rhetoric, Business As Usual
by Stephen Lendman
January 30, 2010 – …Obama’s rhetoric hides a failed agenda he’ll continue, serving capital and militarists, not people in dire need. He wants more business tax cuts and windfalls to stimulate growth and new jobs, repackaged Reaganomics that cost record numbers of job losses in the past two years, well over 500,000 in December alone based on the broader household survey. As a result: — real unemployment tops 20%; — 11 million full-time jobs were lost since late 2007; – over four and a half million jobs were lost since Obama took office; — a record 9.3 million Americans work part-time…

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Netanyahu: “We Will Never Evacuate Settlement Blocs”
Saed Bannoura
January 30, 2010 – Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, toured on Friday a number of settlements in the occupied West Bank, and reaffirmed the stance of his government regarding retaining West Bank settlements, especially the settlement blocs of Ariel, Gosh Etzion, and Maaleh Adumim. Netanyahu said that the Ariel settlement bloc is the “capital of the Nablus area”, in the northern part of the occupied West Bank. Israeli Yedioth Aharonoth reported on Friday evening that Netanyahu stated that Ariel “where our fathers and forefathers lived, will forever remain ours, and will remain an important part of the land of Israel”…

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Tony Blair, war criminal, testifies before inquiry
Chris Marsden
January 30, 2010 – Former Prime Minister Tony Blair’s testimony before the Chilcot inquiry into the 2003 Iraq war marks him down once more as a war criminal. His testimony made clear that he collaborated in preparing an illegal war of aggression, in line with the policy of pre-emptive war elaborated by the Bush administration in the United States. Time and again, he directly alluded to his belief that regime change was required in Iraq, even after it was apparent that Saddam Hussein possessed no weapons of mass destruction. His most emotive passage defending his decision to go to war was also the most damning legally…

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Military Resistance 8A19: “The Worst Experience” – 29 January 2010
Thomas F. Barton
It was meant to be a routine patrol. But when a group of 28 American paratroopers and Afghan soldiers found themselves pinned down by the Taliban it almost ended in a bloodbath. As many as 90 insurgents almost completely surrounded the platoon from the 82nd Airborne as they walked across open ground. With machine gun and sniper fire coming from almost all sides, the only place to hide was a ditch a foot deep. Enemy rounds ripped into piled mud sending dust into their eyes. The insurgents trained their fire on anything that came into view – kit, radios and helmets.

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Iraqi sheik threatens boycott over ballot purge
By LARA JAKES, The Associated Press
Saturday, January 30, 2010 — A prominent sheik and U.S. ally is weighing whether to urge fellow Sunnis to boycott upcoming elections in protest of the government’s ballot purge of hundreds of candidates suspected of links to Saddam Hussein’s regime…Iraq’s Shiite-led government has banned about 450 candidates with suspected links to Saddam’s now-outlawed Baath Party. At stake in the March election is 325 seats and control of Iraq’s parliament as the country prepares to stand alone when the U.S. military leaves at the end of 2011. Iraqi officials say many Shiites also are banned from the ballot, but Abu Risha claimed the vast majority are Sunni – reflecting fears that the blacklist is a government attempt to undercut Sunnis…

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Iran — Trade union activists face repression as regime imposes austerity
POORZAD Homayoun, BALDERSTON Bill
January 30, 2010 – …The Ahmadinejad government is trying to make it easier to fire workers. There have also been massive privatisations, including turning over many firms to the Revolutionary Guards and the armed forces. Again, this has intensified the pushing of more workers into temporary contracts… Some people in the US saw Ahmadinejad as a populist; but workers are not fooled; they know it is a police state, with a right-wing ideology. He has a base in small towns and rural areas amongst the poor. The regime gives handouts of money and coupons to such people before the elections. The recent protests are often portrayed as just a middle-class movement, but workers are in support of the Green Wave actions…

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