Breaking the Silence

On 13 May, 2009, in Current events, by joe

Ban Ki-moon’s Moral Failure

By Hasan Abu Nimah

This is but one of the many sad stories of how the UN top leadership has betrayed and failed its mission. The UN does not exist only to protect its personnel and installations. The UN flag alone ought to provide that kind of real protection — immunity which no state dares to violate without fear of the consequences.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22559.htm

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Rudman: Deus ex Machina on Torture

By Ray McGovern

The announcement in mid-March that CIA Director Leon Panetta had picked former Sen. Warren Rudman to act as CIA “liaison” with the Senate Intelligence Committee during its “review” of interrogation and detention practices has drawn virtually no criticism from the Fawning Corporate Media (FCM). Yet, it is a dead give-away as to how congressional leaders plan to go through the motions for a year or so, and then let everyone off the hook.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22562.htm

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Stanford Antiwar Alums Call for War Crimes Investigation of Condoleezza Rice

By Marjorie Cohn

During the Vietnam War, Stanford students succeeded in banning secret military research from campus. Last weekend, 150 activist alumni and present Stanford students targeted Condoleezza Rice for authorizing torture and misleading Americans into the illegal Iraq War.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22564.htm

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Israel rejects nuclear pact call:

The region’s only reported atomic power refuses to sign non-proliferation treaty.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/05/2009569555452336.html

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Loss of nuclear monoply – an Israeli nightmare: .

The U.S. has been protecting Israel for years, creating a diplomatic umbrella and pushing away any attempt, in any international debate, to discuss the nuclear weapons the entire world believes Israel possesses.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083541.html

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Iran wants US to break ties with Israel:

After an unexpected call by the US on Israel to join the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Iran emphasizes the need for taking practical steps.
http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=93809&sectionid=351020101

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UN watchdog finds traces of enriched uranium in Egypt:

A second senior diplomat who also demanded anonymity said the particles were at or near weapons grade level, or in the stage that could be used for atomic arms.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083538.html

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UN blames Israel for Gaza attacks:

A United Nations inquiry into the war in Gaza has found that Israel was to blame for at least seven direct attacks on UN operations – including schools and medical centres.
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2009/05/200955143232389149.html

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Breaking The Silence

Video By Award winning journalist John Pilger

A hard hitting special report into the “war on terror” Click to view
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article12555.htm

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Israel fired missile that killed 30-40 people in a Gaza school :

‘The board found that the undisputed cause of the injuries and the deaths to persons in the immediate vicinity of the school was the firing of 122 mm mortar rounds by the IDF, which landed in the area outside the school and at the compound of a family home nearby,’ the report said.
http://snipurl.com/hi03k

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Ban Backs Down:

UN rejects Gaza probe under Israeli pressure:

Ban, who appointed the four-person inquiry board in February, rejected the reports’ recommendations for further investigations into whether Israel had breached international law, including its use of deadly white phosphorus bombs, and said he would only seek compensation for the more than $11 million of damage to U.N. property.
http://www.alarabiya.net/articles/2009/05/06/72150.html

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The Racist Lieberman in Europe:

When Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said that Israel was a racist state, addressing the United Nations in Geneva, a commotion resulted and all of the Western diplomats exited the conference hall. Today, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who rejects the right of Israeli Arabs to Israeli citizenship, is visiting European states and being greeted warmly. We should understand the benefit of his visit.
http://snipurl.com/hi061

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Tortured To Death?
US Interrogators Have Killed Dozens

By John Byrne

United States interrogators killed nearly four dozen detainees during or after their interrogations, according a report published by a human rights researcher based on a Human Rights First report and followup investigations.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22566.htm

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Taking a Page From the Bush Playbook

By Elliot Cohen

The Obama administration is now considering reinstating the Military Commissions Act after a four-month suspension, in contradiction to the president’s promise to end military tribunals for detainees and to close down Gitmo.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22567.htm

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CIA Says Pelosi Was Briefed on Use of ‘Enhanced Interrogations’ Torture

By Paul Kane

Intelligence officials released documents this evening saying that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was briefed in September 2002 about the use of harsh interrogation tactics against al-Qaeda prisoners, seemingly contradicting her repeated statements over the past 18 months that she was never told that these techniques were actually being used.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22570.htm

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Holder Says He Approved Clinton-era Renditions

By Stephen C. Webster

Under fire from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee Thursday, Attorney General Eric Holder revealed that he had approved of rendition – essentially, “legalized” kidnapping – apparently more than once during his tenure as President Bill Clinton’s deputy attorney general.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22569.htm

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In Case You Missed It
Torture Was Taught By CIA

By Gary Cohn, Ginger Thompson, and mark Matthews

Declassified manual details the methods used in Honduras; Agency denials refuted.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22573.htm

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Pentagon’s Black Budget Grows to More Than $50 Billion

By Noah Shachtman

It makes the Pentagon’s secret operations, including the intelligence budgets nested inside, “roughly equal in magnitude to the entire defense budgets of the UK, France or Japan,” Sweetman adds. All in all, about seven and a half percent of the Defense Department’s total spending is now classified.
http://informationclearinghouse.info/article22571.htm

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‘Taliban in control of 90% of Swat’:

The Taliban are in control of “90 percent” of the Swat valley, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muslim Khan told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Blaming the breakdown of the Swat peace deal on the Pakistani military
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=200957\story_7-5-2009_pg1_8

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Manufacturing Consent For Attack On Iran: Report:

Foreign intelligence analysts contradict US on Iran bomb progress: -

Congressional investigators say some foreign intelligence analysts believe U.S. intelligence is underestimating Iran’s progress toward designing a nuclear warhead before Tehran halted its program in 2003.
http://www.startribune.com/politics/44494272.html

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Israel has not given up on its plans to bomb Iran:

The Obama administration may think bombing Iran’s nuclear installations is a bad idea, but that does not seem to have made much impact on Israel’s thinking, if recent comments by Israeli President Shimon Peres are to be believed.
http://snipurl.com/hn19a

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Russia Opposes Iran Sanctions:

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Thursday that his country opposes tougher sanctions on Iran.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/164797

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IDF kills Palestinian near Hebron :

Israel Defense Forces soldiers killed a Palestinian man last night near the Tomb of the Patriarchs in the West Bank city of Hebron. Earlier yesterday the Israel Air Force bombed three tunnels used for smuggling along the Gaza-Egypt border, injuring four people.
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1083679.html

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Gaza patients “forced” to help security services in exchange for Israeli medical treatment:

A report issued this week by Physicians for Human Rights-Israel indicates that the Shin Bet security services conduct a policy of forcing patients to provide information as a condition of being allowed to leave the Gaza Strip for medical care.
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/short/338/may08_1/b1879?rss=1

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‘Dear Mr. Lieberman, in General, You Are not Welcome Here’:

Throughout his political career, Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman has rattled sabers in the Middle East. On Thursday, Germany’s foreign minister is meeting with the ultranationalist. Here’s the dressing down Frank-Walter Steinmeier should give him when the press isn’t listening.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,623361,00.html

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US renews sanctions against Syria:

The Obama administration has renewed its sanctions against Syria for another year, citing a continuing “national emergency” facing the US from Syria’s support for terrorist organisations and weapons trade.
http://snipurl.com/hn1df

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Breaking The Silence

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