AFGHANISTAN: Taliban Regime Pressed bin Laden on anti-U.S. Terror
By Gareth Porter*
February 11, 2010 – Evidence now available from various sources, including recently declassified U.S. State Department documents, shows that the Taliban regime led by Mullah Mohammad Omar imposed strict isolation on Osama bin Laden after 1998 to prevent him from carrying out any plots against the United States. The evidence contradicts the claims by top officials of the Barack Obama administration that Mullah Omar was complicit in Osama bin Laden’s involvement in the al Qaeda plot to carry out the terrorist attacks in the United States on Sep. 11, 2001. It also bolsters the credibility of Taliban statements in recent months asserting that it has no interest in al Qaeda’s global jihadist aims..

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Details of British Resident’s Brutal Torture by CIA Officers Released
Andy Worthington
February 11, 2010 – Three senior UK judges on Wednesday ordered the British government to publicly disclose previously highly classified information that reveals how Binyam Mohamed, a British resident, was brutally tortured by the CIA while in Pakistani custody in April and May 2002. In one short session, the Court of Appeal brought an end to a transatlantic game of cat and mouse that for the last year and a half has prevented two high court judges from making public a seven-paragraph summary of an intelligence briefing, supplied by US intelligence services to their British counterparts, which provided information about Mohamed’s treatment after his capture in Pakistan in April 2002…

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Canada’s Effort to Criminalize Criticism of Isreal
by Seriously Free Speech
February 11, 2010 – Israel’s siege of Gaza has made it a “closed zone” – no access, no exit, cut off from the world. By attempting to shut down criticism of Israel’s practices, Canadian supporters of the government of Israel are creating another “closed zone” in Canada – in which criticism, open debate, and freedom of expression will not be allowed. Who is doing this? Quietly, without authority from Parliament, an all-party group which calls itself the Canadian Parliamentary Coalition to Combat Antisemitism (CPCCA) has been formed to investigate antisemitism in Canada. Not antisemitism as it is traditionally understood: discrimination against or denial of the right of Jews to live as equal members of society. (Members of this Coalition are well aware that traditional antisemitism exists only among fringe groups in Canada.)…

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Obama’s Murder Inc.
by BAR editor and senior columnist Margaret Kimberley
February 11, 2010 – When the president can coldly order the extrajudicial killing of American citizens, the rule of law ceases to exist. Yet only Rep. Dennis Kucinich has categorically challenged President Obama’s claim to be legal judge, jury and executioner. “We have a ‘gangsta’ presidency and a Congress that isn’t any better.”…

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UK’s Jewish Chronicle editor says extra-judicial murder is kosher
By Salaheddin Ahmad
February 11, 2010 – In response to an email in which a reader of the Jewish Chronicle asked whether the newspaper considered “extra-judicial murder by Israel or any other state as acceptable in any way”, Mr Pollard simply replied “yes”. The Jewish Chronicle is currently spearheading a campaign by Israel’s stooges and agents of influence to change UK law so that suspected Israeli war criminals can travel to Britain without fear of prosecution under universal jurisdiction…

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A Tale of Two Regimes: Political Repression in Iran and Israel
Don Emmerich
February 11, 2010 – …Although these two regimes treat their dissidents similarly, the American media gives far more attention to the situation in Iran. As illustrated above, both the New York Times and Washington Post have recently reported on Israel’s repressive actions, but such stories have been extremely rare. Consequently, I doubt that more than one or two percent of Americans have any idea what’s happening in the West Bank. The Palestinian cause, of course, is no less just than the Iranian cause. Both groups share the goal of political self-determination, an ideal which ought to resonate with Americans. And make no mistake about it, according to international law [.pdf], the West Bank is occupied Palestinian territory. Which, among other things, means that Israel has no legal right to build its own roads, walls, or cities in this area, something it’s been doing for over forty years now. Also like the Iranians, the Palestinians mostly engage in non-violent protests. Israeli forces often try to break up these protests by firing “teargas, stun grenades, rubber-coated bullets and sometimes live ammunition at the crowd.” Sometimes protestors respond by throwing back stones. I can’t say I blame them…

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Documents on Binyan Mohammed Interrogation and Abuse Pose Problems for Both British and U.S.
The Seven Paragraphs on Torture
By STEPHEN SOLDZ
February 11, 2010 – …This new evidence on the torture of Binyan Mohamed adds to the considerable evidence that, as part of its torture program, the CIA also had a program to systematically study the effectiveness of torture techniques. Last summer, Physicians for Human Rights called for an independent investigation of this potential CIA research. The new evidence suggesting that Binyan Mohamed may have been an unwitting research subject only adds to the urgency of an investigation. In addition to the usual human rights advocates, all those who conduct research on people — psychologists, sociologists, anthropologists, and biomedical researchers among others — should join the call for an investigation. For torture effectiveness research violates all the principles that guide our work, that our efforts should improve human welfare rather than degrade and destroy. We cannot allow the possibility that our society will remain one where inhumane research can be conducted with total impunity…

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Desperate Somalis Turn to Sex For Bread
IslamOnline.net & News Agencies
February 11, 2010 – Leaving behind her six children, Somali refugee Saada has fled her war-torn homeland to Yemen. Counting for months on UN handouts, she was forced to turn to sell her body to make a living and send money to her children back home. “My life is rubbish, but what can I do?” the women in her 30s told Reuters in the southern city of Aden. Saada fled to Yemen after she was divorced by her first husband and her second was badly wounded in fighting in Mogadishu. She says she turned to prostitution to send money to relatives at home who are looking after her children…

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Video: Goldstone Facts-The Real Story Behind Israel’s Invasion of Gaza
sanjeevsemail
February 11, 2010 – In this video, we distill out the findings of the Chapter 11(”Deliberate Attacks against the Civilian Population”) of the Goldstone Report to make it accessible to the lay public…

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FLASHBACK: Repression Allowed, Resistance Denied
Israel’s suppression of the popular movement against the Apartheid Annexation Wall
Addameer & Stop the Wall
February 11, 2010 – It has been five years since the International Court of Justice (ICJ) issued its advisory opinion on the Wall in the occupied Palestinian territory – where they held in a unanimous opinion that it was illegal and should be dismantled. No significant advance in the situation on the ground has been achieved, and the Wall construction continues relentlessly. Instead, since the Court started its hearings in February 2004, the Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have intensified repression of the affected villages struggling against the Wall, killing the first activists. The gaze of the international community must now turn not only to the illegality and injustice of the Wall, but also to the plight of those still attempting to resist its construction. In villages across the West Bank, local residents have formed committees and taken on a campaign of mass popular resistance to the Wall, engaging in weekly, and even daily, demonstrations. These communities have faced a staggering level of repression and violence from the Israeli authorities. It is the aim of this report to investigate that repression and to determine its true extent and nature.

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Is Abbas in a Corner?
By George S. Hishmeh
February 11, 2010 – Inch by inch, the Palestinian president has apparently once again succumbed to American pressure. He is about to allow his junior officials to start so-called “proximity talks” with their Israeli counterparts to pave the ground for the resumption of peace negotiations, which broke down after Israel’s invasion of Gaza in December 2008. On the other hand, Israel, which has stubbornly refused an earlier Israeli commitment to freeze all illegal settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian territories during peace talks, has meanwhile managed to escape scot free, thanks to its new protector, Barack Obama, who keeps “heap(ing) sticky-sweet praise on Israel.”..

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Shaker Aamer’s Wife Speaks: “Since he has been away there is no colour in life”
Andy Worthington
February 11, 2010 – In the Wandsworth Guardian, Paul Cahalan has regularly covered the story of local resident Shaker Aamer, the last British resident in Guantánamo. In December, he wrote a detailed article about Shaker’s court case, in which his lawyers were seeking access to evidence in the possession of the British government, regarding his torture in US custody in Afghanistan before his transfer to Guantánamo, and today he has undertaken an exclusive interview with Shaker’s wife Zin, who has rarely spoken to the press. The interview is available here, and I reproduce it below, because it provides a powerful insight into the suffering of the wives and children who have no idea when — if ever — their husbands and fathers will be released from the peculiarly aberrant regime of indefinite detention without charge or trial established by the Bush administration, and maintained, in all its key aspects, by President Obama…

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US dismisses Iran uranium claims
Aljazeera.net
February 11, 2010 – The United States has expressed scepticism over Iran’s claim that it has achieved higher levels of uranium enrichment. After Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, announced on Thursday that the country had produced its first batch of 20 per cent enriched uranium, Robert Gibbs, the White House press secretary, said the claim was based on poliltics, not physics. “Quite frankly, what Ahmadinejad says – he says many things and many of them turn out to be untrue,” Gibbs said. “We do not believe they have the capability to enrich to the degree to which they now say they are enriching.”…

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Iraq snapshot – February 11, 2010
The Common Ills
Thursday, February 11, 2010. Chaos and violence continue, the press thinks they’ve caugh Joe Biden in an embarrassing moment, the press ignores a public lie told by Robert Gibbs, the US military announces a death, Saleh al-Mutlaq is announced banned, and more…

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