Fruits from a Jungle…
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues
…End result is the Jungle. You actually have 20 million (or less) Iraqis trying to survive in a Jungle… What is the law of the Jungle ? ” La loi du plus fort” – the law of the strongest. When there is no State of Law, Might becomes the only “law”. This law of the jungle is best reflected in : 1) the status of women. I am not sure one can talk of status of women anymore…
There is no status of women in today’s Iraq. I repeat – there is no status of women in today’s Iraq. Unless you consider female refugees and widows to belong to a certain status. Iraqi women are now collectively viewed as a commodity. A COMMODITY. Because there are no longer laws to protect them as in the past – as in the past during the times of “dictatorship”. This lawlessness is most felt by the staggering increase and I mean in the thousands, of rape cases that go unreported…for obvious reasons [...] 2) Another aspect where this law of the jungle is seen operating is in the prisons. Thousands of men (and women) are arrested, detained, tortured, raped and some have been there for years with no trial. Several reports came out (finally) urging the puppet government to seriously look into the grotesque torture and rape that is taking place in Iraqi prisons…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55253
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New Film Chronicles Civilian Slaughter In Afghanistan
Rethink Afghanistan
…Director Robert Greenwald witnessed the latter during his recent trip to Afghanistan–the devastating consequences of U.S. airstrikes on thousands of innocent civilians. The footage you are about to see is poignant, heart-wrenching, and often a direct result of U.S. foreign policy…
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Israeli troops’ own Youtube clips show abuse of Palestinians
Ma’an News
Israeli Border Police troops have uploaded video clips of themselves humiliating Palestinians in the West Bank to YouTube over the past year, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported on Thursday. The newspaper revealed one clip uploaded to the video sharing website in which a Palestinian boy appears slapping himself, while an off-camera voice, ostensibly an Israeli policeman, orders him to say “I love you, Border Police,” and “I will f**k you, Palestine ,” in Arabic…
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CIA declassifies report on Israel’s nukes
The 1960 report defends Israel’s nuclear ambitions, offers guidance on handling today’s nuclear-hopefuls.
By Walter Pincus | Washington Post
“We do not believe that Israel will embark on the development of nuclear weapons with the aim of actually starting a nuclear war,” reads the declassified 48-year-old CIA Special National Intelligence Estimate. The estimate, publicly released June 5 by George Washington University’s National Security Archives, continues, “Possessi on of a nuclear weapon capability, or even the prospect of achieving it, would clearly give Israel a greater sense of security, self-confidence and assertiveness.”..
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Attack on Water Brings Sanitation Crisis
Eva Bartlett, In Gaza
‘Biddun mey, fish heyya’, they say in Arabic for a universal truth: ‘Without water, there is no life’. While diminishing water resources are a global concern, in Palestine the struggle for water is not against global warming or multinational corporations, but for access to water, and against contamination of what precious resources there are. Mohamed Ahmed, director of the Water Control Department in the Palestinian Water Authority (PWA), says “there continues to be a very rapid depletion and deterioration of ground water.” The main source of water is the coastal aquifer and ground water, which serves Gaza’s agriculture, commercial, industrial and public sectors, says Ahmed. But through the three weeks of Israeli attacks on Gaza last December and January, much of the water network infrastructure was destroyed or damaged, rendering already scarce water all the more scarce…
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Mr. Carter goes to Gaza
Marcy Newman, body on the line
There are a lot of people who are very pleased with jJimmy Carter’s trip to Gaza this week. Certainly, his trip to Gaza helped put Gaza back in the news, which is important. But Carter’s insistence that there should be a two-state solution with no right of return for Palestinian refugees makes me extremely frustrated and unwilling to get behind Carter’s political campaigning. He’s right on many issues, such as Hamas is a legitimate political party as well as resistanc e organization, which should be included in any discussion about the future of palestine. And he surprised me by meeting with Palestinian families in gaza who have relatives in zionist prisons (11,000+ Palestinian political prisoners compared to the 1 Zionist pow who gets far too much media attention). Still, his refusal to admit that apartheid exists in the entirety of Palestine and his refusal to promote the right of return and the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement shows that he is not altogether different from most American political leaders…
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ISRAEL: Still a destination for human trafficking
IRIN news
- The latest US State Department report on trafficked persons, released on 16 June, says Israel is still a destination for men and women trafficked for forced labour and sexual exploitation. Women from the former Soviet Union and China are still being trafficked across the border with Egypt into Israel for forced prostitution by organized criminal groups. According to local NGOs, such as Isha L’iash and Moked, each year several hundred women in Israel – many of t hem foreigners – are trafficked within the country for commercial sexual exploitation, according to the report…
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Jerusalem Post claims Hamas helping to crush the Iranian protestors
from Leeds to Palestine
…So according to the JPost, they want people to believe Hamas members travelled all the way to Tehran to participate in beating up Iranians whilst Gaza is under siege and Hamas is being persecuted in the West Bank? I know they want to emphasise the so-called ‘proxy’ nature of the relationship between Hamas and Iran, but come on….
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US Senator: Obama will block abuse photo release
afp.com
A key US Senator said Wednesday that the White House had assured him that photographs allegedly showing US troops abusing detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan will “not see the light of day.” Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said he was ending his opposition to voting on a war-funding bill after US President Barack Obama’s chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, promised the administration would block the pictures’ release…
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It’s Still Torture!: UN Issues Scathing Report on Israeli Interrogation Techniques
Crossing The Line: Life in Occupied Palestine
This week on Crossing The Line: The UN Committee Against Torture releases a scathing report on Israel’s continued use of torture on Palestinian prisoners we’ll speak to Louis Frankenthaler of The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel about the report and a follow-up report that PCATI issued…
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Iraqi Oil Minister accused of mother of all sell-outs
To public fury, the country is handing over control of its fields to foreign companies
Patrick Cockburn
Furious protests threaten to undermine the Iraqi government’s controversial plan to give international oil companies a stake in its giant oilfields in a desperate effort to raise declining oil production and revenues. In less than two weeks, on 29 and 30 June, the Iraqi Oil Minister, Hussain Shahristani, will award service contracts to the world’s largest oil companies to develop six of Iraq’s largest oil-producing fields over 20 to 25 years…
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One patient dies in Gaza razing death toll due to the siege to 344
Ghassan Bannoura – IMEMC News
A Palestinian man was reported dead on Wednesday after he was unable to leave the Gaza Strip for life saving medical care. Omer Attallah, 42, years old had kidney failure, medical sources reported. The Israeli military imposed a crippling siege on the Gaza Strip in June 2007, leaving the 1.5 million Palestinians living there without the needed basic supplies. Gaza hospitals arrived to a point where they can’t treat their patie nts…
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“The Responsible Left:” Funding Obama’s Expanding Wars $100 Billion a Vote
Jeremy Scahill
Over the past few days, we reported on how the White House and Democratic Congressional Leadership waged a dirty campaign to scare up votes to support another $106 billion in funds for their wars in Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. Now, several of the so-called anti-war Democrats who left their principles at the House coat check on their way in to vote Tuesday are trying to explain away their hypocritical votes. New York Democrat Anth ony Weiner, who voted against the war funding in May—when it didn’t matter—only to vote Tuesday with the pro-war Dems, sounded like an imbecile when he made this statement after the vote: “We are in the process of wrapping up the wars. The president needed our support.”…
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Jewish community in Iran condemns riots
YNet News
The Jewish community in Iran has denounced the riots that have taken place throughout the country in recent days. The community also expressed its “aversion to any sort of undignified behavior.” The announcement issued by community leaders went on to say that “given the supreme leader’s call for unity, the Jews of Iran emphasize the need to maintain the calm.”..
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US Drone Attack Kills 13 in South Waziristan
Secondary Strike Killed Most of the Victims
Jason Ditz
A US drone struck three vehicles in Pakistan’s South Waziristan Agency today, killing at least five people. It was unclear who was slain in the attack. It was the first US drone strike into Pakistan in nearly a month. Last month US officials announced a “limited” partnership with the Pakistani military on the drone attacks, which have earned public criticism from the Pakistani civilian government for stirring rese ntment in the tribal areas. Though the US later disputed the details of the program, it was reported to give Pakistani military officers significant control over which targets to attack…
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In Israel, Mossad head talks about Iran election
PressTV
Head of Mossad Meir Dagan says that a Mousavi win in Iran’s presidential election would have spelled bigger problems for Israel. Speaking to the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee of Knesset (Israeli parliament) on Tuesday, the chief of Israel’s national intelligence agency said, “The world and we already know [Iranian President Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad.”…The Zionist spy-master, meanwhile, predicted that the street protests in Iran over the disputed election result s would die out soon. “Election fraud in Iran is no different than what happens in liberal states during elections,” he told committee, Haaretz reported. “The struggle over the election results in Iran is internal and is unconnected to its strategic aspirations, including its nuclear program.”…
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U.S. seeks to interact with Iran regardless of its domestic situation
Tehran Times
A top American expert said the U.S. was after establishing links with Iran and it was only waiting for the time when the issues pertaining to Iran’s recent presidential polls were over. Senior expert with the U.S. Council of Foreign Relations Thomas Lippman told IRNA in an exclusive interview that though it was still too soon to answer the question on the future of U.S.-Iran relations after the re-election of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad t he fact still remained that the U.S. administration was after interacting with Iran and a peaceful status in ties between the two countries…
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INTERVIEW – Iraqi foreign minister says Ahmadinejad OK
Yoko Kubota, Reuters
Iraq’s foreign minister said on Thursday Baghdad did not have any difficulties in dealing with neighbouring Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and respected its one-time arch foe’s political system. Hoshiyar Zebari told Reuters that Iraq was concerned about instabilty in Iran after disputed presidential elections but added it was unlikely to see any fallout. “We as Iraqis respect the will of the Iranian people and we respect the political system , and we are not” in a position to pass judgment on their choices, Zebari said in an interview…
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REALITY CHECK….. BIBI’S TWO STATE ‘SOLUTION’: ONE FOR JEWS, ONE FOR JEWISH SETTLERS
Desertpeace
… But, back to the ‘reality check’….. nothing has changed as far as paving the way to the creation of a Palestinian State as long as the settlers get their way and as long as the likes of a Lieberman remains in the position he is in.
The reality is that there will not be a Palestinian State under Bibi’s leadership until all Palestinians become committed zionists. And that my friends, is not about to happen…
Read the full article / Leggi l’articolo completo: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=55255
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