http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com :: Blog from Middle East :: E :: en-us 11-mar-2010 07:01 ECT 11-mar-2010 07:01 ECT http://rss.blogfrommiddleeast.com Weblog Editor 2.0 info@blogfrommiddleeast.com info@blogfrommiddleeast.com http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64051 March 10, 2010 - Special United Nations bomb disposal units today successfully destroyed two unexploded ordnance (UXO) containing white phosphorus in the Gaza Strip, the first of a series of planned activities to be conducted in the region over the coming months. The UXO are the remains of Operation Cast Lead, the three-week military operation started at the end of 2008 against Hamas by the Israeli Government. "I am proud of United Nations mine action efforts today," said Max Kerley, Director of the United Nations Mine Action Service (UNMAS). "Our specialist teams work tirelessly to remove unexploded ordnance and increase the safety of the people of Gaza," he added... 11-mar-2010 07:01 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64051 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64050 March 10, 2010 - GEORGE BUSH was denounced around the world for allowing his intelligence agencies to install wiretaps without warrants from the courts. But Barack Obama authorizes the killing of citizens without any semblance of due process, and there's scarcely a whimper of protest. Protesting against the wiretaps four years ago, Al Gore asked: Can it be true that any president really has such powers under our constitution? If the answer is yes, then under the theory by which these acts are committed, are there any acts that can on their face be prohibited? If the president has the inherent authority to eavesdrop on American citizens without a warrant, imprison American citizens on his own declaration, kidnap and torture, then what can't he do? We now have an answer: he can order executions without recourse to a court. Confirmation that Obama has arrogated the power of life and death over citizens to himself came in evidence to a congressional hearing from Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair earlier this month... 11-mar-2010 06:54 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64050 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64049 March 10, 2010 - Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that "Israel is not like other countries." Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the "Zionist" label on it. Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbors. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g., the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya's had the Mau Mau, etc.). But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm... 11-mar-2010 06:45 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64049 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64048 March 10, 2010 - Pakistani intelligence officials said Wednesday that at least twelve people have been killed in two suspected US drone attacks in the country's northwestern tribal region near the Afghan border. Pakistani officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the two drone strikes took place in Datta Khel area of North Waziristan. At least six people were killed in the first drone strike, which reportedly targeted a house and a truck carrying suspected militants. A short while later, another US drone attacked a crowd of villagers carrying out relief work, killing six more people... 11-mar-2010 06:37 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64048 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64047 March 11, 2010 - The message is all too clear and it has been that way for 20 years now...since 1990 until today... We have been treated not like slaves, but like subhuman specimens...for 20 fucking years. It don't matter the pictures, words, articles, data, facts...it don't matter...it never fucking mattered...Thousands of us have died...THOUSANDS reaching MILLIONS and it never mattered... Our children did not matter, our women did not matter, our elderly did not matter, our men did not matter... 11-mar-2010 06:19 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64047 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64046 March 10, 2010 - Adelaide is Australia's festival city. Its arts festival is currently in swing. Polite debate, aesthetics and high-octane wine are putting the world to rights. With one exception. Adelaide is where Rupert Murdoch began his empire. The voracious trail starts here. No statue stands; his is a spectral presence, controlling the only daily newspaper, even the printing presses. Across Australia, he owns almost 70 percent of the capital city press and the only national newspaper and Sky Television and much else. Welcome to the world's first murdochracy... 11-mar-2010 06:16 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64046 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64045 March 10, 2010 - Nearly half of Israel's high school students do not believe that Israeli-Arabs are entitled to the same rights as Jews in Israel, according to the results of a new survey released yesterday. The same poll revealed that more than half the students would deny Arabs the right to be elected to the Knesset. The survey, which was administered to teenagers at various Israeli high schools, also found that close to half of all respondents - 48 percent - said that they would refuse orders to evacuate outposts and settlements in the Palestinian territories... 11-mar-2010 04:56 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64045 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64044 March 10, 2010 - The National Security writer for the Associated Press saw through the propaganda, but she apparently decided to run with it anyway. "Defense Secretary Robert Gates, aiming to show progress in the expanded war against insurgents in south Afghanistan, took a brief, heavily guarded walk Tuesday down a rutted street in this scruffy market town where the Taliban lobbed mortars at U.S. forces only weeks ago," Anne Gearan reports for the AP....After thirteen paragraphs, Gearan finally observes, "Ironically, to demonstrate that the town is safe enough for Gates to visit, U.S. forces held at bay the very Afghan townspeople Marines fought to bring back." On Monday journalist and historian Gareth Porter wrote about how the media had fallen for the bait "to hype up Marja as the objective of 'Operation Moshtarak' by planting the false impression that it is a good-sized city."... 11-mar-2010 04:45 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64044 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64043 March 10, 2010 - Hamas MPs in Nablus on Wednesday appealed to human rights groups and official institutions to immediately intervene to save the life of Tarek Al-Asy, who is held in Israeli occupation authority (IOA) jails. Family of the prisoner said that Asy had contracted colon cancer a while ago and that his health condition was worsening. The lawmakers asked decision-makers and societies concerned with prisoners affairs to immediately act to demand his release and to extend appropriate treatment for him until he is actually released... 11-mar-2010 04:13 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64043 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64042 March 10, 2010 - An Israeli supermarket chain is using a spoof of surveillance footage showing the alleged assassins of a Hamas commander in a television advert. The advert's fake grainy surveillance footage shows actors wearing elaborate disguises. Dubai police released footage they said showed the assassins of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, some dressed for tennis, as they followed him through his hotel. Israeli's secret service is widely suspected of being behind the killing... 11-mar-2010 03:45 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64042 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64041 March 10, 2010 - The recent escalation of tensions in Jerusalem with clashes between Palestinian demonstrators and Israeli police in and around the Old City appear to signify the emergence of a disturbing new trend: the Hebronisation of Jerusalem. This presages not only the triumph of the radical settler groups in taking over culturally sensitive parts of the city, but also further violence and turmoil. More importantly it also interrupts the delicate moves towards the resumption of negotiations between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority/PLO. Why Hebronisation? Hebron, just south of Jerusalem and Bethlehem, is a city - despite pockets of wealth - characterised by poverty, lack of investment, increasing criminality, the breakdown of municipal services and the absence of any recognised national and local leadership. Since the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, Israeli settler groups in Hebron have acted with increasing impunity in a city with an overwhelming Palestinian majority... 11-mar-2010 03:01 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64041 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64039 March 10, 2010 - This is not a letter of resignation --not yet. Just a short note to self stating if any of the nationalists, seculars, form an alliance with the sectarian parties of INA -- I am going to stop blogging about Iraq. I may still may post an article or two, on social issues and the unending consequences of this cursed American Iranian occupation, on women, on thousands of refugees in a limbo, on rampant poverty, on disabled and maimed people from too much liberation, on birth defects due to DU since it's going to stay with us for centuries -- contaminating land and water, on Iraqi history and its beautiful destroyed archeology...but I will not invest myself no more... 11-mar-2010 02:53 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64039 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64038 March 10, 2010 - The European Parliament voted on Wednesday to monitor Israeli and Palestinian investigations into alleged war crimes in Gaza and to support the recommendations of a UN investigation into the matter. The motion passed 325 to 287 with 43 abstentions. According to the resolution, the parliament "urges both sides to conduct investigations within five months that meet international standards of independence, impartiality, transparency, promptness and effectiveness."... Significantly, the motion also endorsed the report of a UN fact-finding mission led by judge Richard Goldstone, which found evidence of war crimes in the aftermath of Israel's three-week attack on Gaza in 2008 and 2009... 11-mar-2010 02:48 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64038 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64037 March 10, 2010 - Addameer Prisoner Support and Human Rights Association marks International Women's Day 2010 by honoring, commemorating and saluting Palestinian women political prisoners and detainees in their steadfast resistance against Israeli colonial occupation and struggle towards securing the right of Palestinians to self-determination. An estimated 10,000 Palestinian women have been arrested and detained since 1967 under Israeli military orders, which govern nearly every aspect of life in the occupied Palestinian territory today, including more than 750 Palestinian women arrested by Israel between the years 2000-2009... 10-mar-2010 17:36 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64037 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64036 March 10, 2010 - We've now been at war with, or in, Iraq for almost 20 years, and intermittently at war in Afghanistan for 30 years. Think of it as nearly half a century of experience, all bad. And what is it that Washington seems to have concluded? In Afghanistan, where one disaster after another has occurred, that we Americans can finally do more of the same, somewhat differently calibrated, and so much better. In Iraq, where we had, it seemed, decided that enough was enough and we should simply depart, the calls from a familiar crew for us to stay are growing louder by the week. The Iraqis, so the argument goes, need us... 10-mar-2010 17:19 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64036 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64035 March 10, 2010 - The stated goal of the US-led war in Afghanistan, according to the Obama administration, is to defeat the Taliban and establish a stable democratic government over the entire country. Critical to that goal is establishing a professional Afghan Army and police force that is not corrupt and that has the respect of the Afghan people. But reports out of Canada suggest that, far from creating such a military and police force, the so-called International Security and Assistance Force (ISAF) is turning a blind eye to the thuggish criminality of those organizations, both to avoid growing opposition in ISAF member countries and to avoid offending those organizations in Afghanistan. The issue in question is routine rape of children by Afghan soldiers and police operating on Canadian-run bases in the Kandahar region... 10-mar-2010 17:04 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64035 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64034 March 10, 2010 - Joe Biden, the US vice president, has said that Israel's decision to expand settlement activity in occupied East Jerusalem "undermines" the trust needed for peace talks. The news that Israel planned to build 1,600 new housing units came the same day Biden was in Israel to emphasise the US president's committment to Israel's security in the face of a possible Iranian nuclear threat.... 10-mar-2010 16:43 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64034 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64033 March 10, 2010 - People are hitting the streets in the U.S. in masses. Every day, we see violent demonstrations. We have seen fights and even guns brandished by some of the protestors. Speakers at "town hall" meetings have been shouted down to the point that the meeting must cease. The subject of these raucous events is the proposed overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system by Barack Obama. Let's be clear about one thing. Obama's plan is merely window-dressing for business as usual. The supporters of this scheme maintain the U.S. will finally have a national health service. This is only lip-service to the administration. On the other hand, the opponents are using outright lies to denigrate the planned changes. They accuse the Obama administration of bringing socialism to the U.S., despite Obama's unashamed affinity to capitalism.. 10-mar-2010 16:19 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64033 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64032 March 10, 2010 - With his decision to boost defense spending, President Obama is continuing the process of re-inflating the Pentagon that began in late 1998 - fully three years before the 9/11 attacks on America. The FY 2011 budget marks a milestone, however: The inflation-adjusted rise in spending since 1998 will probably exceed 100 percent in real terms by the end of the fiscal year. Taking the new budget into account, the Defense Department has been granted about $7.2 trillion since 1998, when the post-Cold War decline in defense spending ended. The rise in spending since 1998 is unprecedented over a 48-year period... 10-mar-2010 15:56 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64032 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64031 March 10, 2010 - Seven years after Rachel Corrie, a US peace activist, was killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza, her family was to put the Israeli government in the dock today. A judge in the northern Israeli city of Haifa was due to be presented with evidence that 23-year-old Corrie was killed unlawfully as she stood in the path of the bulldozer, trying to prevent it from demolishing Palestinian homes in Rafah... 10-mar-2010 14:49 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64031 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64030 March 10, 2010 - The family of a US student activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza has launched a case against the Israeli government. Rachel Corrie, whose family is seeking $324,000 in damages from the defence ministry, was one of several foreign activists killed in confrontations with Israel in occupied territory in the past decade. She was nonviolently protesting against Palestinian home demolitions when the army bulldozer crushed her to death... 10-mar-2010 14:17 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64030 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64029 March 10, 2010 - The family of a US student activist killed by an Israeli army bulldozer in Gaza has launched a case against the Israeli government. Rachel Corrie, whose family is seeking $324,000 in damages from the defence ministry, was one of several foreign activists killed in confrontations with Israel in occupied territory in the past decade. She was nonviolently protesting against Palestinian home demolitions when the army bulldozer crushed her to death... 10-mar-2010 14:17 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64029 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64028 March 9, 2010 - A public inquiry opened in London yesterday into claims that up to 20 Iraqis were unlawfully killed and others tortured by British troops after a firefight in 2004. The inquiry, chaired by a retired High Court judge, got under way less than 24 hours after the armed forces minister, Bill Rammell, announced a wide-ranging investigation into all allegations of abuse by UK forces after the 2003 invasion.... Lawyers for about 60 Iraqis claiming maltreatment by UK forces yesterday expressed their dissatisfaction at the investigation announced by Mr Rammell, as it will be conducted by Ministry of Defence personnel, rather than under the auspices of an independent, public inquiry... 10-mar-2010 09:21 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64028 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64027 March 9, 2010 - Many women at the Jean-Marie Vincent site for displaced people (IDPs) in Haiti's capital Port-au-Prince wash themselves inside their makeshift tents because the only alternative is to do so out in the open. Given the overcrowding and meagre security, this exposes them to the risk of attack or rape. Going to the site's latrines is also risky, especially at night, for there is no lighting and some toilets are isolated. "We have not yet reached a standard of organization that respects women's rights," Smith Maxime' of the UN Population Fund (UNFPA) in Haiti told IRIN... 10-mar-2010 09:09 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64027 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64026 March 9, 2010 - Trying to make a living as a farmer in Gaza these days is taking a toll on the family ties so integral to the Palestinian culture. Traditionally, occupations are passed from father to son for generations, and their tie to the land is particularly strong. Before Israel imposed a suffocating blockade on the 14-kilometer-long Gaza Strip in 2007 (as punishment for electing Hamas as its governing party), farmers could make a good living growing carnations and strawberries for export and vegetables for the local market. But now, sons are watching their fathers struggle just to make ends meet, and are either forced to get second jobs or are looking for different futures for themselves and their families - at the same time that their fathers need them on the farm more than ever, because they can no longer afford to hire additional help... 10-mar-2010 08:58 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64026 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64025 March 9, 2010 - Reports in the Israeli media claim that the Israeli security forces have threatened to increase their incursions into the West Bank unless the Palestinian Authority (PA) suppresses popular protests against settlements and Judaisation policies. According to the head of Shin Bet (Israel's internal security service chief), Yuval Diskin, he has conveyed several messages to the PA Prime Minister, Ismail Fayad and other senior officials... 10-mar-2010 08:33 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64025 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64024 March 9, 2010 - Israeli troops notified on Tuesday the villagers of Beit liqya, central West Bank, the army intentions to take over part of their land to build the wall. Beit liqya, a small Palestinian village located near Ramallah city, will lose up to 2.5 Acers of land, according to the military order. The army says the lands will be used to reroute the wall section built near the village. The lands slated for takeover are privately owned by local farmers and it's is considered to be their only sources of income... 10-mar-2010 08:26 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64024 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64023 March 9, 2010 - As expected, the investigation into a Hamas leader's assassination in Dubai now involves U.S.-based credit card companies. One of those companies is Payoneer, a firm on Park Avenue which has a research and development center in Tel Aviv. The AP reports that it called Payoneer's Tel Aviv office and "got a recording listing extensions, but when these were pressed, there was only dead air."... 10-mar-2010 07:41 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64023 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64022 March 9, 2010 - Experiencing the Lenten season in Palestine is unique. It carries with it incredible feelings of closeness and concreteness as one visits sites such as the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in the Old City of Jerusalem-the site where Christians believe Jesus Christ was crucified, buried and resurrected. Yet, those feelings of closeness are easily swallowed up by a sense of separation and forsakenness as one considers the current situation. In the recently released "Kairos Document," Palestinian Christians take this situation as their starting point in challenging theological interpretations of those "who use the Bible to threaten our existence as Christian and Muslim Palestinians," trying to "attach a biblical and theological legitimacy to the infringement of our rights." ... 10-mar-2010 07:34 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64022 http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64021 March 9, 2010 - A group of Israeli settlers destroy a spring by the village of Qarawat Bani Hassan in the Salfit district of the occupied West Bank. Palestinian villagers were forced to watch helplessly as settlers poured sand and cement into the spring, guarded by five armed members of the Israeli military... 10-mar-2010 07:22 ECT http://www.blogfrommiddleeast.com?new=64021