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:: ONU - XX Assemblea Generale (1965):
La XX Assemblea Generale dell’ONU (1965) dichiara "la legittimità della lotta da parte dei popoli sotto oppressione coloniale, per esercitare il loro diritto all' autodeter-
minazione e all'indipendenza".
Inoltre, l'Assemblea invita "tutti gli Stati a fornire assistenza morale e materiale ai movimenti di liberazione nazionale nei territori coloniali".

:: ONU - Risoluzione 1514
"L'Assemblea Generale dichiara che: la soggezione dei popoli a dominio straniero, conquista e asservimento costituisce una negazione dei diritti umani fondamentali, è contraria alla Carta delle Nazioni Unite ed è un impedimento alla promozione della pace e della cooperazione mondiali.
Tutti i popoli hanno diritto all' autodeter-
minazione; in virtù di tale diritto essi devono liberamente determinare il loro status politico e liberamente perseguire il loro sviluppo economico, sociale e culturale".

:: Convenzione di Ginevra, Protocollo Addizionale I (1977):
La lotta armata può essere usata, come ultima risorsa, come mezzo per esercitare il diritto all' autodeter-
minazione.

:: Tribunale penale internazionale
In base allo Statuto del Tribunale penale internazionale, sono definiti “crimini di guerra”:
(1) attacchi lanciati intenzionalmente contro popolazione civili in quanto tali o contro civili che non prendano direttamente parte alle ostilità;
(4) attacchi lanciati intenzionalmente nella consapevolezza che gli stessi avranno come conseguenza la perdita di vite umane tra la popolazione civile, e lesioni a civili o danni a proprietà civili ovvero danni diffusi duraturi e gravi all’ambiente naturale che siano manifestamente eccessivi rispetto all’insieme dei concreti e diretti i vantaggi militari previsti.

:: Iraq anthem
(click to listen)






The Dangerous Illusion of an Alawite Regime
Elizabeth Shakman Hurd

June 15, 2013 - .... Assad’s is not an Alawite regime. It is an embattled and desperate dictatorship. The Syrian war is an existential battle between this dictatorship and a fractured yet determined opposition. It is not a war between the Alawites (and, more broadly, Shi'a Muslims) and their Sunni enemies. It is, rather, a war over who will govern Syria, how, and under whose auspices. Russian economic interests, Iranian foreign policy, Turkish security, Iraqi politics and a host of other factors are at play in the conflict. This cannot be reduced to religion. Powerful forces are arrayed against this reading of the conflict. Iran is deeply invested in the notion of an embattled Alawite regime battling a radicalized Sunni opposition because this legitimizes Iranian intervention on behalf of its ally, the Syrian regime, and allows Iran to secure its own interest in maintaining access to Hezbollah...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98457] [ 20-jun-2013 00:41 ECT ]

NSA Chief Lies to Congress
by Stephen Lendman

June 15, 2013 - General Keith Alexander is NSA director. He's US Cyber Command head. He's in charge of lawlessly spying. He directs illegal hacking. He does both globally. He's a serial lawbreaker. He violates fundamental constitutional law. He testified before Congress. More on that below. Edward Joseph Snowden revealed what vital to know. He exposed unconstitutional spying. He said more. He accused NSA of lawless hacking. He knows. He was there. He revealed what he saw firsthand...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98456] [ 20-jun-2013 00:23 ECT ]

UN: drones have caused “permanent fear” & affected wellbeing of children
Reprieve
15s-drone-460x250.jpg

June 15, 2013 - The UN Secretary General has described reports of child casualties caused by armed drones as "increasingly worrisome," and called on the states involved to conduct "transparent…and effective investigations."Ban Ki-moon’s latest report to the Security Council on children and armed conflict finds that the use of "armed and surveillance drones has resulted in permanent fear in some communities, affecting the psychosocial wellbeing of children." It also warns that the use of drones has affected access to education, stating that "in some situations, both boys and girls have ceased attending school owing to the fear of drone strikes."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98455] [ 19-jun-2013 23:19 ECT ]

‘Keeping the Population in a State of Constant Uncertainty’
By Tamar Fleishman

June 15, 2013 -"Ten minutes of standing in the line leading to the soldiers’ post and three more minutes of standing in the inspection zone, were enough to grasp how they implement the declared objective of 'keeping the population in a state of constant uncertainty’" — The words of a high ranking Israeli officer. People were taken inside the inspection zone in groups of three. Just before me in line was an elder man who placed the few metal objects he carried in his pockets on a plastic tray that was taken away by the conveyer belt inside the metal detector. He presented his ID and passage permit to the soldiers through the bullet proof window...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98454] [ 19-jun-2013 20:58 ECT ]

PA official: Settlers burn 300 olive trees near Nablus
Ma'an news

June 15, 2013 -- A group of settlers set fire to over 300 olive trees on Saturday in a Nablus village, a Palestinian Authority official said.Ghassan Daghlas, a PA official who monitors settlement activities, told Ma'an that settlers from the illegal outpost of Havat Gilad set fire to olive trees in the Nablus village of Imatin. The blaze destroyed over 300 trees and the settlers threw stones at Palestinian villagers who were attempting to put out the fire, Daghlas said...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98453] [ 19-jun-2013 20:46 ECT ]

Zahalka: “Government, Police, Responsible For Escalating Settler Violence”
Saed Bannoura
15christian_graves_defaced.jpg

June 15, 2013 - Arab Member of Israeli Knesset (MK) Jamal Zahalka of the National Democratic Assembly sent an urgent letter to Israel’s Minister of Internal Security, Yitzhak Aharonovich, demanding him to act on stopping the escalating "Price Tag" attacks carried out extremist Israeli youths.His latter came after a number of extremist settlers wrote racist graffiti on some graves at the Christian Greek Orthodox graveyard in Jaffa [on Wednesday at night].The settlers wrote "Price Tag", "Revenge", and drew the Star of David on a number of graves, wrote more racist graffiti on a wall of a building inhabited by the head of the Orthodox Society in Jaffa, and even wrote graffiti on the wall of the home Khaled Kaboub, an Arab District Court Judge in Tel Aviv...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98452] [ 19-jun-2013 20:40 ECT ]

Data Hungry: Surveillance Is Never Enough
Jason Ditz

June 15, 2013 - The NSA’s PRISM scheme is already surveilling the entire American public to an enormous level, culling massive amounts of data from the PRISM Nine companies that have been complicit in that policy.So it’s no surprise that the International Cyber Security Conference in Tel Aviv this week turned its focus on PRISM. Here’s the scary part: they don’t think it goes far enough.n
RSA’s chairman, ironically the head of a company that used to be about protecting data from prying eyes, argued for "full visibility into all data" as the only real path to cybersecurity...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98451] [ 19-jun-2013 20:14 ECT ]

Gaza under Siege
by Dylan Murphy

June 15, 2013 - In 2005 Israel withdrew its settlers from Gaza. Following this there were democratic elections which Hamas won. Since voting the "wrong way" the Palestinian people of Gaza have been subjected to a siege by Israel. The Palestinian people of Gaza are blockaded by land, sea and air by the Israeli Defence Force.The EU and America have failed to do anything to stop Israel’s war against the Palestinians of Gaza. Most notable were the massive military attacks of December-January 2008-9 which killed 1,500 Palestinians and the most recent attack of November 2012 which resulted in nearly 200 deaths.The International Red Cross and the United Nations have found the Israeli government’s siege of Gaza to be illegal under international law...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98450] [ 19-jun-2013 20:06 ECT ]

Israeli firm helps NSA spy on Americans and Mexicans
Jimmy Johnson

June 15, 2013 - Verint Systems has been contracted since 2006 for the mass interception of Mexican telecommunications, Wired magazine recently revealed, as part of US and Mexican interventions in the drug trade. Verint is the Israeli-American firm implicated in the National Security Agency’s mass wiretapping of US citizens beginning in 2001. In February 2013 Verint bought out its former parent company Comverse, a firm "directly influenced by [Unit] 8200 technology," becoming independent from Comverse. Unit 8200 is Israel’s version of the National Security Agency and is part of the intelligence apparatus that surveils Palestinian phone and Internet traffic. Retired Israeli general Hanan Gefen, Unit 8200’s former commander, told Wired that "Comverse’s main product, the Logger, is based on the Unit’s technology."..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98449] [ 19-jun-2013 20:04 ECT ]

Col. Asaad: Many of FSA Officers were marginalized by Military Council, including me
by Abudllah Raja
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June 15, 2013 -The founder of the Free Syrian Army expressed his fears through a message to Zaman Alwasl of deviation the Syria Revolution, stressing that the Assad regime can't be toppled as long as the military and political efforts are not at a high level of coordination and unity...Regarding the newest restructuring of the Free Syrian Army by Gen Idriss, the colonel said that this step came as result of declining FSA control. So, it was necessary to reinforce the Leadership by 11 Generals. ''I think it's time to unify the revolution military, not to be fragmented.'' Asaad added.Asaad criticized including civilians in the FSA Chiefs of Staff, saying it will be at the expense of military officers what couldn't serve the revolution and military action...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98448] [ 19-jun-2013 19:59 ECT ]

Tamarrod: Egyptians Organizing for June 30th
James Zogby

June 15, 2013 - June 30th marks Mohamed Morsi's first anniversary as President of Egypt. It is also the date set for nationwide demonstrations protesting Morsi's increasingly authoritarian leadership and the role his Muslim Brotherhood is playing in post-Tahrir Egypt.The organizing effort for June 30th is called "Tamarrod" (rebel). They have, at last report, collected over 15 million signatures on petitions endorsing their protest movement and are convening nationwide organizing meetings in preparation for the big day. Expectations are running high that Tamarrod may replicate the government-changing events of January/February 2011.It remains to be seen whether this movement succeeds or fizzles, but what its early successes reflect is the fact that the Morsi government is in deep trouble. A recently completed poll of 5,029 Egyptians adults, conducted by Zogby Research Services (ZRS) found that Morsi, his government, and party have, in fact, suffered a dramatic loss of support and legitimacy...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98447] [ 19-jun-2013 19:50 ECT ]

Democrats spearhead campaign against Snowden as evidence of illegal spying mounts
By Thomas Gaist

June 16, 2013 -The US government, abetted by the media, is intensifying its campaign against former intelligence employee Edward Snowden for leaking evidence of massive and illegal spying.The Obama administration is preparing to file criminal charges and is pushing for Snowden’s extradition from Hong Kong. Snowden has said that he fears for his safety and has fled his hotel for an undisclosed location.On Friday, US Attorney General Eric Holder vowed that the US government would punish those responsible for leaks relating to government surveillance programs, which he characterized as "extremely damaging." At a news conference in Dublin, he said he was "confident that the person who is responsible will be held accountable."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98446] [ 19-jun-2013 19:44 ECT ]

Reclaiming Palestinian collective memory of the Nakba
Ramona Wadi
20e_nakba6.gif

June 15, 2013 -The treachery and massacres committed by the Zionists against Palestinians in 1948 marked an enforced physical disappearance of indigenous Palestinians, strengthening the myth of the barren land and the fictitious patriotism allegedly enshrined in religious texts. Last month's discovery of the mass graves in Jaffa revisited the intentional exclusion of Palestinians from Israeli historical narrative, and the ramifications of creating space for a fortified collective memory which derives its legitimacy from oral testimony, historical archives, academic studies and physical spaces which have been obliterated, altered or obscured in Israel's implementation of the Plan Dalet...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98445] [ 19-jun-2013 19:41 ECT ]

Collusion Course: Machinations of the Double-Headed Beast
Chris Floyd

June 15, 2013 - Who would have thought that oil barons -- of all people! -- would be involved in dirty back-room dealings to gorge their gobs with even more swill from the trough? From the Guardian:The London offices of BP and Shell have been raided by European regulators investigating allegations they have "colluded" to rig oil prices for more than a decade. The European commission said its officers carried out "unannounced inspections" at several oil companies in London, the Netherlands and Norway to investigate claims they may have "colluded in reporting distorted prices to a price reporting agency [PRA] to manipulate the published prices for a number of oil and biofuel products" .. It warned: "Even small distortions of assessed prices may have a huge impact on the prices of crude oil, refined oil products and biofuels purchases and sales, potentially harming final consumers." Of course, these manipulations of "self-policing" mechanisms for setting prices are endemic across the economic heights commanded by our most illustrious financial and industrial elites, as Matt Taibbi noted last month...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98444] [ 19-jun-2013 19:38 ECT ]

Report: "Tel Aviv University Received Finances From Settler Group"
Saed Bannoura

June 15, 2013 - The Arabs48 News Website has reported that the Tel Aviv University is cooperating with right wing settler groups involved in excavations in Silwan Arab town, south of the Al-Aqsa Mosque, in occupied East Jerusalem.It said that the Elad settler group, involved is funding and financing settlement activities, is indirectly paying the salary of a Tel Aviv University researcher in charge of the excavations.Israeli daily, Haaretz, reported that the decision of the Archeology Center at the Tel Aviv University to initiate excavations in Silwan caused a stir due to allegations of cooperation with extremist right wing settler groups...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98443] [ 19-jun-2013 19:34 ECT ]

Israeli forces paralyze youth at Jalazoun refugee camp
Defence for Children International-Palestine Section

June 15, 2013 - —An Israeli soldier shot and seriously injured a young Palestinian boy in Jalazoun refugee camp near Ramallah late May as he attempted to retrieve his school bag. The victim, identified as Atta Muhammad Atta Sabah, 12, sustained a gunshot wound to the stomach and was reported to be in critical condition at Hadassah Ein Kerem hospital in Jerusalem, DCI-Palestine sources said. The bullet struck Atta in the stomach and exited through his back, severing his spinal cord and causing paralysis from the waist down. It also caused damage to his liver, lungs, pancreas and spleen...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98442] [ 19-jun-2013 19:32 ECT ]

Rally Against Relocation: Demonstrators in Beersheba protest the Prawer Plan
By Sam Gilbert
15db074112.jpg

June 15, 2013 - Thousands demonstrated in Beersheba this Thursday to protest the Prawer Plan and the continued demolitions and displacement of the Bedouins in the Negev. The government sponsored Prawer Plan, if fully implemented, would uproot some 40,000 Palestinian Arab Bedouins living in the 35 unrecognized villages in the area and "relocate" them to one of the seven government-planned townships. Palestinians with Israeli citizenship gathered in the center of Beersheba and marched to the government offices in the southern Israeli city. Protestors waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98441] [ 19-jun-2013 19:28 ECT ]

“Let the Bad Guys Kill Each Other”
Mostafa Zein

June 15, 2013 -Neoconservative theorist Daniel Pipes, the man behind the concept of "militant Islam", has advised the United States and the West not to allow one side to triumph over the other in the war taking place in Syria, so as to "let the forces of evil fight each other as long as possible". Pipes backs his argument with precedents from modern and contemporary history. In 1982, Iranian forces were able to achieve a significant advance over Iraqi forces, which prompted the United States to support Baghdad in order to alter the balance of power. Then when Iraq achieved some progress, Washington struck what became known as the "Irangate" deal, by which it supplied Tehran with weapons in order to preserve this balance...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98440] [ 19-jun-2013 19:22 ECT ]

Gaza: 7th Year of Unlawful Blockade (UN HRC SR Press Release)
Richard Falk

June 15, 2013 – The United Nations Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied by Israel since 1967, Richard Falk, called today on Israel to end its blockade over the Gaza Strip, six years after it was tightened following the Hamas takeover in June 2007. The human suffering of the land, sea and air blockade imposed on the 1.75 million Palestinians living in one of the most densely populated and impoverished areas of the world has been devastating. "Six years of Israel’s calculated strangulation of the Gaza Strip has stunted the economy and has kept most Gazans in a state of perpetual poverty and aid dependency," said the UN expert. ..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98439] [ 19-jun-2013 19:17 ECT ]

What the NSA Revelations Tell Us about America's Police State
By Tom Burghardt
15obama-nsa-yes-we-scan.jpg

June 15, 2013 - Ongoing revelations by The Guardian and The Washington Post of massive, illegal secret state surveillance of the American people along with advanced plans for waging offensive cyberwarfare on a global scale, including inside the US, underscores what Antifascist Calling has reported throughout the five years of our existence: that democracy and democratic institutions in the United States are dead letters.Last week, Guardian investigative journalist Glenn Greenwald revealed that NSA "is currently collecting the telephone records of millions of US customers of Verizon, one of America's largest telecoms providers, under a top secret court order issued in April."That order from the FISA court "requires Verizon on an 'ongoing, daily basis' to give the NSA information on all telephone calls in its systems, both within the US and between the US and other countries."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98438] [ 19-jun-2013 19:13 ECT ]

From Guantánamo, Shaker Aamer Speaks, As His Lawyers Urge Cameron to Ask Obama for His Return at the G8
Andy Worthington

June 15, 2013 - Despite being cleared for release under President Bush in 2007, and again under President Obama in January 2010, when a sober and responsible inter-agency task force of government officials and representatives of the intelligence agencies included him in its recommendations to release 156 of the 240 prisoners held at the time, he is still imprisoned, and still in solitary confinement, and is on a hunger strike, along with the majority of the 166 men still held. Even according to the US authorities, whose figures have failed to match those given by the prisoners themselves, 104 prisoners are taking part in the hunger strike, and 43 of those men are being force-fed. The prisoners state that the true total of those taking part in the hunger strike is around 130...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98437] [ 19-jun-2013 19:08 ECT ]

'NY Times' publishes defense of racial segregation in Israel
By Mairav Zonszein

June 15, 2013 - Imagine that Six Flags Great Adventure, a New Jersey adventure park, quietly instituted separate days for black and white schoolchildren. Exposed by the media, the management claimed they had acted in response to complaints from some white parents about the behavior of the black children, saying they behaved badly and cursed at the white children. Senior government ministers, including President Obama, said they were outraged and suggested the incident merited an official investigation. And then a white person wrote an op-ed defending the Six Flags management’s decision. In an article saturated with links and references to right-wing media outlets like Fox News, the Washington Free Beacon and the Drudge Report, the white author claimed that Six Flags’ policy was not racist. And the New York Times published the piece...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98436] [ 19-jun-2013 19:05 ECT ]

Syria News - June 14 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
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June 14 , 2013 - By the end of Friday, the coordination committees were able to document 58 martyrs, among them 5 children, 2 women, and 2 martyrs under torture: 24 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 13 in Aleppo; 7 in Raqqa; 5 in Homs; 3 in Daraa; 2 in Banyas; 1 in Hama; 1 in Idlib; and 1 in Quneitra. Moreover, the committees have documented 425 points of shelling in Syria: Air strikes by warplanes were recorded in 36 points, 4 surface-to-surface missiles have landed in Yelda, Damascus Suburbs, cluster bombs have shelled Saraqeb in Idlib, while rocket shelling was recorded in 142 points, artillery shelling in 138 points, and mortar shelling in 104 points across Syria...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98435] [ 19-jun-2013 18:54 ECT ]

Military Resistance 11F7 Eyes on
Thomas F Barton

June 14, 2013 -To hide his role in championing the use of Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act to collect of Americans' phone data and other "tangible things", one of the architects of that legislation, Wisconsin Congressman Jim Sensenbrenner, edited a quote in a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder Thursday to
suggest he never knew how the FBI and NSA were using the authority his legislation had granted: "Section 215 has been used to obtain driver's license records, hotel records, car rental records, apartment leasing records, credit card records, and the like." ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98434] [ 19-jun-2013 14:16 ECT ]

Teen novel depicts Israeli settlements as unnatural
Sarah Irving

June 14, 2013 - William Sutcliffe’s The Wall is a young adult novel that follows Joshua, who discovers a secret tunnel leading from his fictional Israeli settlement of Amarias to the adjacent Palestinian town, where he meets Leila. In a tautly-written, thoughtful book, Joshua encounters reality on the other side of "the wall" and discovers the damage which his own actions can inflict on others.The Wall joins Naomi Shihab Nye’s Habibi, Randa Abdel-Fattah’s Where the Streets had a Name and Elizabeth Laird’s A Little Piece of Ground on the list of young adult fiction tackling the subject of Palestine. The differences of authorship are interesting; Shihab Nye and Abdel-Fattah are women of Palestinian origin, and Laird worked in association with Palestinian writer Sonia Nimr, and they write about Palestinian protagonists...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98433] [ 19-jun-2013 14:11 ECT ]

Guantanamo Bay: A Medical Ethics–free Zone?
by George J. Annas, J.D., M.P.H., Sondra S. Crosby, M.D., and Leonard H. Glantz, J.D.
14m-guant-namo-bay-detainee-001.jpg

June 14, 2013 - American physicians have not widely criticized medical policies at the Guantanamo Bay detainment camp that violate medical ethics. We believe they should. Actions violating medical ethics, taken on behalf of the government, devalue medical ethics for all physicians. The ongoing hunger strike at Guantanamo by as many as 100 of the 166 remaining prisoners presents a stark challenge to the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) to resist the temptation to use military physicians to "break" the strike through force-feeding...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98432] [ 19-jun-2013 13:58 ECT ]

Challenging Unconstitutional Spying
by Stephen Lendman

June 14, 2013 - Edward Joseph Snowden revealed what's vital to know. He exposed unconstitutional spying. He did so courageously. The 1989 Whistleblower Protection Act protects federal employees who report misconduct. Federal agencies are prohibited from retaliating against those who do so. Don't expect rogue Obama officials to act responsibly.Whistleblowers may report law or regulatory violations, gross mismanagement, waste, fraud, abuse of authority, and/or acts endangering public health, welfare or safety. Unconstitutional spying violates core rule of law principles. Doing do gravely compromises public health, welfare and safety...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98431] [ 19-jun-2013 12:31 ECT ]

Richard Falk Will Not Be Another Richard Goldstone
By: Clovis Maksoud for Al-Monitor

June 14, 2013 - On Monday, June 10, professor Richard Falk, UN human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, accused Israel of imposing collective punishment on 1.75 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip in his report to the UN Human Rights Council. He also criticized UN Watch — a pro-Israel organ affiliated with the American Jewish Committee — for its numerous defamatory remarks against his character. He ultimately called on the UN to investigate the organization to determine whether it qualifies as an independent organization per the UN’s standards. In response to Falk’s report, the US ambassador to the UN Human Rights Council, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, described Falk as "unfit to serve in his role as a UN special rapporteur." According to Falk, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon "joined in the attacks."....

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98430] [ 19-jun-2013 12:22 ECT ]

Syria Protests June 14, 2013 : A Video Roundup
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  continua / continued avanti - next    [98429] [ 19-jun-2013 10:58 ECT ]

On Prism, partisanship and propaganda
Addressing many of the issues arising from last week's NSA stories

Glenn Greenwald

June 14, 2013 - ...How can anyone think that it's remotely healthy in a democracy to have the NSA building a massive spying apparatus about which even members of Congress, including Senators on the Homeland Security Committee, are totally ignorant and find "astounding" when they learn of them? How can anyone claim with a straight face that there is robust oversight when even members of the Senate Intelligence Committee are so constrained in their ability to act that they are reduced to issuing vague, impotent warnings to the public about what they call radical "secret law" enabling domestic spying that would "stun" Americans to learn about it, but are barred to disclose what it is they're so alarmed by? Put another way, how can anyone contest the value and justifiability of the stories that we were able to publish as a result of Edward Snowden's whistleblowing: stories that informed the American public - including even the US Congress - about these incredibly consequential programs? What kind of person would think that it would be preferable to remain in the dark - totally ignorant - about them?..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98428] [ 18-jun-2013 19:09 ECT ]

America's private prison system is a national disgrace
Jill Filipovic

JUne 14, 2013 - The privatization of traditional government functions – and big government payments to private contractors – isn't limited to international intelligence operations like the National Security Agency. It's happening with little oversight in dozens of areas once the province of government, from schools to airports to the military. The shifting of government responsibilities to private actors isn't without consequence, as privatization often comes with a lack of oversight and a series of abuses. One particularly stunning example is the American prison system, the realities of which should be a national disgrace...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98427] [ 18-jun-2013 18:09 ECT ]

Travel Restrictions Take Toll On Palestinian Relationships
14m-palestinian-elationships.jpg

June 14, 2013 - Seven years ago, Abu Sido, then 22, met the girl of his dreams online. While he lived in Gaza, his girlfriend was a Ramallah [West Bank] resident. He already knew that gaining access to the West Bank was hard, yet he didn't think it was impossible. "I thought it was a hardship like many others that relationships may face, but it was beyond my abilities to overcome it," Abu Sido explained, while lighting his cigarette. Abu Sido could see and talk to his girl during the six years they spent together, but only via Internet and telephone. He had tried all conventional and unusual ways to obtain an Israeli permit to the West Bank, but all his attempts were shattered on the rock of Israeli rejection...


  continua / continued avanti - next    [98426] [ 18-jun-2013 18:06 ECT ]

Spying, Control and Murder Under the Imperial Presidency
Surveillance and the Corporate State

by ROB URIE

June 14, 2013 -With all of the fear mongering the subject has received in recent decades, Americans have in fact had remarkably little to fear directly from 'terrorism.’ While actual attacks have been spectacular—they were designed to garner attention, they are both rare and far less dangerous than opportunistic politicians and the dim bureaucrats of the 'security’ state care to communicate. As comedian Stephen Colbert (correctly) pointed out, including the attacks of September 11, 2001 and more recently in Boston, more Americans have died from furniture falling on them than from terrorist attacks. Depending on which statistics you choose, 10X – 20X more Americans die every year from (preventable) medical errors than have died in the entirety of U.S. history from terrorist attacks. In practical terms, terrorism is among the least probable threats Americans face...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98425] [ 18-jun-2013 18:03 ECT ]

Snowden’s Gambit:
Expose NSA Domestic Spying Operation, Hold Global Spying Program in Reserve

by: Dave Lindorff

June 14, 2013 - It’s a pretty sad spectacle watching the US Congress toading up to the National Security Agency. With the exception of a few stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and to a lesser extent Ron Wyden (D-OR), most of the talk in the halls of Congress is about how to keep the army of Washington private contractors from accessing too many of the government’s secrets (which need to be protected by government employees!), and about whether to try NSA whistleblower Ed Snowden for treason. NSA Director James Clapper was able to lie bald-facedly to the Senate Intelligence Committee last week without even a reprimand, much less a contempt citation, claiming that the NSA does not spy on millions of Americans’ telecommunications...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98424] [ 18-jun-2013 17:55 ECT ]

The Painted Frog of Palestine
By Jeremy Salt
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June 14, 2013 -The good news from Palestine is that the 'painted frog’ of the Huleh valley is not extinct after all. Recently it turned up again after not having been seen for the past half century. Behind the disappearance of the painted frog stands a much bigger story, the fate of the Huleh valley after the conquest of Palestine by the Zionists and behind that story is the reality behind one of the foundation myths of the Zionists, that of a barren, stagnant and empty land awaiting redemption in the hands of the Jewish people.In the 19th century the Huleh wetlands were one of Palestine’s prize natural assets. They were formed over millennia by three rivers flowing south into the Huleh valley from their headwaters in Syria, the Hasbani, the Banias and the Liddan...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98423] [ 18-jun-2013 17:52 ECT ]

Government Accountability Project Issues Statement on Edward Snowden & NSA Domestic Surveillance
By: Jesselyn Radack

June 14, 2013 -Recently, the American public learned that the National Security Agency (NSA) has conducted, and continues to conduct, wholesale surveillance of U.S. citizens through a secretive data-mining program. The program collects the phone records, email exchanges, and internet histories of tens of millions of Americans who would otherwise have no knowledge of the secret program were it not for the disclosures of recent whistleblowers. The latest of these whistleblowers to come forward is former Booz Allen Hamilton federal contractor employee, Edward Snowden.As the nation’s leading whistleblower protection and advocacy organization, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) would like to be clear about its position on each of the following points that relate to these significant revelation...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98422] [ 18-jun-2013 16:46 ECT ]

Unemployment Drives Graduates In Gaza to Drug Addiction
By: Rasha Abou Jalal

June 14, 2013 - Hassan recounts how he fell into the swamp of addiction to Tramadol, a habit-forming drug prohibited in the Gaza Strip. He ascribes it to the absence of job opportunities after he completed his university education nearly two years ago.The 24-year-old Hassan graduated from Al-Azhar University in Gaza with a major in business administration. Despite this, he has been forced to join the long lines of unemployed workers, who account for 45% of Gaza’s labor force. Matters worsened as his economic, social and psychological problems deepened to the point where he found that his life had become unbearable...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98421] [ 18-jun-2013 16:30 ECT ]

Israeli army detains a 10-year-old during the weekly demonstration in Kafr Qaddum
International Women’s Peace Service

June 14, 2013 - On Friday 14 June, the Israeli army arrested a 10-year-old child during the weekly protest in Kafr Qaddum. Israeli soldiers fired tear gas canisters and sound bombs at the villagers; many local residents suffered from tear gas inhalation.At approximately 12:00, when residents and international solidarity activists started gathering for the demonstration before the Friday prayers, nearly 30 foot soldiers stormed the village from the main road leading toward the illegal Israeli settlement Qedumim. As they entered the village, they fired tear gas canisters directly at the group before the demonstration even began. Local youth resisted the incursion, chasing the soldiers back from the bystanders toward a hill overlooking the village.Over the next two and a half hours, soldiers shot tear gas and threw sound bombs at demonstrators in the olive groves next to the main road of the village. At approximately 12:30, soldiers detained a 10-year-old boy. While in their custody, soldiers tied his hands, grabbed him by the neck, beat him and threatened to "drop [him] from this rock."..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98420] [ 18-jun-2013 16:27 ECT ]

Iraq: Protests, killings and rumors
The Common Ills
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June 14, 2013 - Friday in Iraq means protests. Has since December 21st. Above is the turnout in Baquba and the spokesperson for those with special needs states, "Disability will not keep us from rejecting injustice, tyranny and government repression." Iraqi Spring MC also notes that the people turned out in Baghdad and in Ramadi. National Iraq News Agency reports, "Thousands of citizens flocked since early hours of the day from from different parts and cities of Anbar Province to sit-ins of Falluja and Ramadi, to participate in Friday unified prayer." NINA also notes police were deployed and set up checkpoints in Falluja and Ramadi, imposing "tight security measures in the sit-ins squares." Iraqi Spring MC reports that Nouri's forces surrounded the platform at the Baquba sit-in in an attempt to frighten the protesters. NINA notes that in Samarra, Imam Diab Hamid called on the security forces to stop using security forces against the people and the Imam told the demonstrators that "several weeks ago you voted to replace UN representative in Iraq, Martin Kobler, and now the oppressor has been relieved of his post" (UN Secretary-General announced this week Kobler will be moving onto the Congo). The Imam congratulated the protesters on their peaceful accomplishments. In Diyala the call was to preserve the unity and security. In Balad Ruz, there was the call to continue the peaceful sit-ins...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98419] [ 18-jun-2013 16:24 ECT ]

Father: Israeli interrogator threatened son with rape
Ma'an news

June 14, 2013- An Israeli court on Thursday released a Palestinian teenager from Isawiya in East Jerusalem on bail.The father of 13-year-old Ismail Tawfiq Muheisin says he paid a bail of 1,000 shekels and signed a third-party bail of 5,000 shekels. The boy, added his father, is barred from approaching a hill near Hadassah Hospital, and he is not allowed to talk to his friends who were accused of arson for three months.Speaking to Ma’an, the father alleged that an Israeli interrogator threatened to "bring a Sudanese man to rape the boy" in order to force him to reveal information...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98418] [ 18-jun-2013 16:17 ECT ]

‘I was not a party to, and never will be, to the planting of trees on expropriated and stolen land’: Former South African Ambassador to Israel rejects JNF trees planted in his name
by Adam Horowitz

June 14, 2013 - Former South African Ambassador to Israel, Ismail Coovadia, has announced that he will be returning a certificate given to him informing him that 18 trees were planted in his honor by the Jewish National Fund (JNF). The trees were planted in the "Ambassadors Forest" at the completion of Coovadia's service in Israel last December. The "Ambassadors Forest" was inaugurated in December 2005 and sits on the demolished Bedouin village of al-Araqib....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98417] [ 18-jun-2013 16:09 ECT ]

Report from Yemen: ‘I thought the United States was all about democracy and the rule of law. Instead, what you’re teaching us is the law of the jungle.’
Pam Bailey

June 14, 2013 -Awda is 12 years old and has never seen her father. Her mother was pregnant in 2001 when her father, Abdulrahman Al Shubati, traveled to Pakistan to earn extra money as a teacher of the Qur’an. However, he suddenly disappeared without a trace and her mother gave birth alone. It wasn’t until a year later that mother and daughter learned what had happened to him: a caller from the Red Cross announced that Abdulrahman had been imprisoned in Guantanamo. In Arabic, the little girl’s name means "come back." Qaid’s cousin, Abdulhakim Ghalib Alhaq, was just 17 in 2001 when he left Yemen for Pakistan to study Islam. Two months later, he disappeared. When his family learned that the teenager was in Guantanamo, his parents’ health deteriorated...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98416] [ 18-jun-2013 16:02 ECT ]

Despite Arms Announcement, U.S. Syria Strategy Remains Unclear
By Jim Lobe

June 14, 2013 - Despite Thursday’s announcement that President Barack Obama has decided to provide direct military assistance to Syrian rebels, what precisely the administration has in mind remains unclear. Analysts here are also questioning whether the decision is part of a deliberate strategy – and, if so, what that strategy is – or whether it is instead another in a series of efforts to relieve growing pressure from its allies in Europe and the Gulf and hawks at home to take stronger military measures designed to shift the 27-month-old civil war decisively in favour of the opposition.
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98415] [ 18-jun-2013 15:55 ECT ]

Shaker Aamer: My fight for justice in Guantánamo
Shaker Aamer
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June 14, 2013 - Here I am in Guantánamo Bay. I was meant to be a Muslim extremist, one of the "worst of the worst", according to the former United States defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Indeed, because I am still here and 613 detainees have left, you might think that I am the worst of the worst of the worst – although perhaps the fact that I was cleared for release six years ago would give you pause for thought. As I sit alone in my cell, I learn about acts of terrorism that take place around the world. Because the censors here do not let us have the news any more as a punishment for being on hunger strike, I have only heard the bare bones of what happened in Woolwich but, even without knowing all the facts, it is easy for me to condemn it. Just yesterday I was talking to another detainee about the murder of Lee Rigby. Neither of us could understand how anyone could think such an act was consistent with Islam. I condemn it regardless of the men's motive..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98414] [ 18-jun-2013 15:51 ECT ]

Discrediting Falk to bolster a dependent impunity
Ramona Wadi

June 14, 2013 -Richard Falk has long been deemed controversial in circles conforming to imperialist policies. Vilified for contradicting mainstream propaganda emanating from organisations allegedly concerned with human rights, Falk's latest report about the Palestinian territories has ignited a call for his resignation, this time from the US. Calling the report provocative and offensive, the US representative to the UN Human Rights Council, Eileen Chamberlain Donahoe, echoes a previous report by the council campaigning for Falk's resignation. The report is ostensibly "guided" by the human rights charters and declarations which the organisation is so fond of quoting, albeit within strict, selective criteria...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98413] [ 18-jun-2013 15:47 ECT ]

There are no short cuts to freedom, justice and dignity
Dr Daud Abdullah

June 14, 2013- Palestine was shaken by a number of diplomatic tremors this week. The aftershocks were felt as far away as Washington, forcing US Secretary of State John Kerry to postpone his next visit to the region indefinitely. The epicentre was the public declaration by Israel's deputy defence minister, Danny Danon, that his government is "staunchly opposed to a two-state solution and would block the creation of a Palestinian state if such a proposal ever came to a vote." In the real world, this remark would be enough to put an immediate end to the fraudulent peace process and its "two-state solution", which Danon concedes is an illusion...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98412] [ 18-jun-2013 15:45 ECT ]

Investigate Booz Allen Hamilton, not Edward Snowden
Pratap Chatterjee
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June 14, 2013 - Military contractor Booz Allen Hamilton of McLean, Virginia, has shot into the news recently over two of its former employees: Edward Snowden, the whistleblower who has just revealed the extent of US global spying on electronic data of ordinary citizens around the world, and James Clapper, US director of national intelligence. Clapper has come out vocally to condemn Snowden as a traitor to the public interest and the country, yet a review of Booz Allen's own history suggests that the government should be investigating his former employer, rather than the whistleblower...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98411] [ 18-jun-2013 15:40 ECT ]

Germany restores security cooperation with Assad regime
Middle East Monitor

June 14, 2013 -Diplomatic sources have revealed that the head of Germany's BND intelligence agency went to Damascus last month for an unscheduled visit during which he met with Syrian officials led by Major General Ali Mamlouk, the head of Syrian military intelligence. Gerhard Schindler made the trip to Damascus just days after Israel's bombing raid on the Syrian capital on May 5 accompanied by the Director of the German intelligence unit dedicated to fighting "international terrorism". The security chief was passed information about the jihadist organisations which are fighting against the Assad regime in Syria. This information was obtained by Syrian intelligence after the capture of a number of jihadist leaders...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98410] [ 18-jun-2013 15:31 ECT ]

The Deeper Meaning of Mass Spying in America
by James Petras

June 14 , 2013 -The exposure of the Obama regime’s use of the National Security Agency to secretly spy on the communications of hundreds of millions of US and overseas citizens has provoked world-wide denunciations. In the United States, despite widespread mass media coverage and the opposition of civil liberties organizations, there has not been any mass protest. Congressional leaders from both the Republican and Democratic Parties, as well as top judges, approved of the unprecedented domestic spy program.. Even worse, when the pervasive spy operations were revealed, top Senate and Congressional leaders repeated their endorsement of each and every intrusion into all electronic and written communication involving American citizens. President Obama and his Attorney General Holder openly and forcefully defended the NSA’s the universal spy operations....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98409] [ 18-jun-2013 15:22 ECT ]

Syria News - June 13 , 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
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June 13 , 2013 - By the end of Thursday, the coordination committees were able to document 91 martyrs, among them 8 women, 5 children and 4 martyrs under torture: 23 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 17 in Aleppo; 15 in Homs; 8 in Idlib; 7 in Deir Ezzor; 4 in Daraa; and 4 in Hama. Moreover, the coordination committees have documented 428 points of shelling: Air strikes by warplanes were recorded in 31 points, explosive barrels were recorded in 4 points in the perimeter of Menegh Military Airport and Raqqa, surface-to-surface missiles have targeted the perimeter of Menegh Military Airport, cluster bombs have shelled Palmyra in Homs, while artillery shelling was recorded in 137 points, rocket shelling in 131 points, and mortar shelling was recorded in 123 points across Syria...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98408] [ 18-jun-2013 14:57 ECT ]

Silvio Berlusconi 'asked Italy's secret service to bump off Muammar Gaddafi'
Michael Day

June 13, 2013 -Silvio Berlusconi asked Italy’s secret services to bump off Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi, so the then premier could end his increasingly embarrassing ties with the Libyan dictator, it was claimed today.Mr Berlusconi’s unusual request to Italy's then spy chief Gianni De Gennaro, came in 2011, shortly after the start of the Nato-backed Libyan rebellion that saw Gaddafi ousted and eventually killed by one of his own countrymen.Today’s claims come in the left-wing Italian daily, Il Fatto Quotidiano, which quotes unnamed but "well placed" diplomatic sources in its front-page story...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98407] [ 18-jun-2013 14:52 ECT ]

Settlers from Bracha attack and harass farmer on his land
International Solidarity Movement

June 13, 2013 - On Friday 7th June five settlers from the illegal settlement of Bracha attacked a farmer on his land, using sling shots to throw stones at him near Huwwara checkpoint. The same settlers continued to harass the farmer in the following days as he tried to graze his sheep and gather his crops, unprotected by the Israeli authorities. Salah Sukamel Deweket rents 70 dunums of land between his home in Al Rujeib and the occupation forces’ checkpoint at Huwwara. The land is mainly used to plant crops for his sheep to graze upon...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98406] [ 18-jun-2013 12:55 ECT ]

Building America’s secret surveillance state
By James Bamford
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June 13, 2013 -"God we trust," goes an old National Security Agency joke. "All others we monitor. Given the revelations last week about the NSA’s domestic spying activities, the saying seems more prophecy than humor. First, the Guardian reported details on a domestic telephone dragnet in which Verizon was forced to give the NSA details about all domestic, and even local, telephone calls. Then the Guardian and the Washington Post revealed another massive NSA surveillance program, called Prism, that required the country’s major Internet companies to secretly pass along data including email, photos, videos, chat services, file transfers, stored data, log-ins and video conferencing...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98405] [ 18-jun-2013 12:07 ECT ]

Palestinians Tormented At Rafah Crossing
By: Mohammed Suliman

June 13, 2013 - For Palestinians living inside the Gaza Strip, getting past the Rafah border crossing is almost an unattainable goal. I have experienced the humiliating conditions at the Rafah crossing several times recently. My most recent journey through the Rafah crossing both ways further instilled in me the belief that the Gaza Strip is no ordinary place, regardless of how stable and quiet the surface appears to external observers. On my way out of the Gaza Strip, I was turned back twice on May 17 and 18 as Egyptian police sealed off the crossing in reaction to the abduction of seven Egyptian security personnel...


  continua / continued avanti - next    [98404] [ 18-jun-2013 02:14 ECT ]

Bibi Refuses to Sign Two-State Communique with Polish Leaders
Richard Silverstein

JUne 13, 2013 -It’s been a lousy week for the two-state solution. First, tourism minister, Uzi Landau, sniggered at the two-state solution and said the very idea was ridiculous and would never happen under this government. Then, a few days later, Danny Danon, the deputy defense minister and a far more senior official, said virtually the same thing. At that point, Bibi put a lid on his ministers and told them to shut up. The ultra-nationalist MKs are launching a pro-settler causus in the Knesset. Bibi refused to allow any minister to attend for fear of what they might say to further embarrass him.But today, Haaretz brings news that Bibi shot himself in the foot on his current visit to Poland...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98403] [ 18-jun-2013 01:45 ECT ]

Epidemic of Birth Defects and Cancer in Iraq: America's Toxic Legacy
by Stephen Lendman
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June 13, 2013- America's Gulf War, intermittent bombings in the 1990s, the 2003 war, and aftermath left a toxic legacy. Children born with two heads reflect it. Some had only one eye. Missing sockets look like the inside of an oyster. They're milky and shapeless. Some children had tails like a skinned lamb. One or more had a monkey's face. Girls had their legs grown together. They were half fish, half human. Miscarriages are frequent. Hundreds of newborns have cleft pallets, elongated heads, overgrown or short limbs, and other malformed body parts. Some are too gruesome to view....
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98402] [ 18-jun-2013 01:35 ECT ]

Ready for more interventions in Africa? Obama is
Peter Dörrie

June 13, 2013- While most of the coverage of the recent reshuffle of President Barack Obama’s foreign policy team has been focused on how it will (or won’t) change his administration’s approach to Syria, the continent most affected by it could turn out to be Africa. President Obama designated U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice as his new national security advisor — a post with influence on foreign policy potentially on par with the secretary of state — and nominated Samantha Power, a former journalist and longtime member of his administration, as Rice’s successor at the United Nations...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98401] [ 18-jun-2013 01:10 ECT ]

Clarity from Edward Snowden and Murky Response from Progressive Leaders in Congress
by Norman Solomon

June 13, 2013- House Speaker John Boehner calls Edward Snowden a "traitor." The chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, Dianne Feinstein, labels his brave whistleblowing "an act of treason." What about the leadership of the Congressional Progressive Caucus? As the largest caucus of Democrats on Capitol Hill, the Progressive Caucus could supply a principled counterweight to the bombast coming from the likes of Boehner and Feinstein. But for that to happen, leaders of the 75-member caucus would need to set a good example by putting up a real fight...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98400] [ 18-jun-2013 00:30 ECT ]

US drone injured Sharif's policy of talks with Taliban
Syed Fazl-e-Haider

June 13, 2013 - The first US drone strike in Pakistan after the recent elections did more than just kill Waliur Rehman, the second top man of the Pakistani Taliban. The automated execution also sabotaged the latest version of a peace process between the militants and the Pakistani government. After the killing of its key commander in the May 29 explosion, Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) withdrew its pending offer of peace talks with the government. The outlawed TTP said that it was holding Pakistan's government and military establishment responsible for the attack, and vowed to avenge Rehman's death...


  continua / continued avanti - next    [98399] [ 18-jun-2013 00:26 ECT ]

Obama administration officials, guilty of perjury, defend spy program
By Thomas Gaist

June 13, 2013 -The Obama administration has responded to the revelations of massive and unconstitutional spying operations, exposed in leaks by former intelligence employee Edward Snowden, with a campaign of lies, threats and intimidation.Among other crimes, the leaks have provided clear evidence of perjury on the part of administration officials, a criminal offense. Asked at a Senate hearing in March, "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?" Director of National Intelligence James Clapper responded with the statement: "No, sir." He said that any information collected on Americans was not done "wittingly."..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98398] [ 18-jun-2013 00:24 ECT ]

Palestinian activist Abir Kopty: Oslo should go, the peace process serves Israeli interests
by Alex Kane
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June 13, 2013 - Abir Kopty’s month started out with a police interrogation. The 37-year-old Palestinian activist and blogger born in Nazareth was summoned by the Israeli police June 2 and went in for questioning in Northern Israel the next day. The reason? Kopty wrote a blog post last year inveighing against a plan to recruit Palestinian Christians into the Israeli military. Kopty (a contributor to Mondoweiss) said the Israeli police told her she was violating a law against incitement to violence and terrorism, and that they asked for a DNA sample. She refused...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98397] [ 18-jun-2013 00:17 ECT ]

Six Afghan Police Killed in Apparent Insider Attack
Jason Ditz

June 13, 2013 - Six Afghan policemen were killed overnight at a checkpoint in the Helmand Province, apparently the latest victims of an ever-growing number of insider attacks in the country. The belief right now is that they were killed by the other two police who were at the checkpoint, and who promptly disappeared after the shootings with all of the weapons and vehicles at the checkpoint.Afghan officials conceded that was only the working assumption, and that they couldn’t rule out at this point that some other attacks hit the checkpoint and took the other two captive, though growing numbers of "defectors" killing other police and heading over to the Taliban side, sometimes more than once, suggests this is the more likely explanation...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98396] [ 18-jun-2013 00:14 ECT ]

Acceptable Use Policy Which Bradley Manning Didn’t Sign Used By Prosecutors Against Him
By: Kevin Gosztola

June 13, 2013 - During trial proceedings for Pfc. Bradley Manning on Wednesday, his defense objected to the use of a sample Acceptable Use Policy (AUP) he had not signed, which the prosecution wanted to use to elicit testimony on whether Manning exceeded his authorized access on his government computer. It was one of the more contentious moments of the trial so far. At one point, defense attorney David Coombs was standing to the side of the lectern in the courtroom while two military prosecutors, Cpt. Hunter Whyte and Maj. Ashden Fein, stood behind the lectern trying to make their case to the judge about the legitimacy of this sample AUP...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98395] [ 17-jun-2013 23:32 ECT ]

Palestinian Female Prisoners Suffer Abuse in Israeli Jails
By: Linah Alsaafin for Al-Monitor Palestine Pulse
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In October 2009, Sumoud Karajeh stabbed an Israeli soldier at Qalandiya checkpoint, the main military barrier that separates the West Bank from Jerusalem and the 1948 Palestinian territories. Karajeh was arrested on the spot and, after a lengthy interrogation, was sentenced to 20 years in prison for attempting to kill a soldier.Now 25, Karajeh lives with her family in the village of Saffa, near Ramallah, one of the more than 1,000 prisoners released in exchange for one Israeli soldier in the October 2011 prisoner swap between Hamas and Israel. Yet the memories of the difficult two years she spent in an Israeli prison will forever be seared in her mind...



  continua / continued avanti - next    [98394] [ 17-jun-2013 23:24 ECT ]

Pre-Oslo prisoners still obstacle to Palestinian-Israeli talks
by Daoud Kuttab

June 13, 2013 - Amona Abed Rabo remembers the TV interview with Israeli President Shimon Peres quite well. Demonstrating with a photo of her son Issa Abed Rabo when US President Barack Obama visited Bethlehem, she repeated every question and answer of a TV interview with President Peres. She slows down and raises her voice when she gets to the section of the interview in which the architect of the Oslo Accords confirms his commitment to the release of Palestinians imprisoned before the Oslo Accords. Some 107 Palestinian prisoners (some accounts say 103) arrested before September 1993 are still held in Israeli jails. The prisoners, who belong to the PLO’s Fatah movement, feel betrayed by Israel and their own leaders...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98393] [ 17-jun-2013 23:14 ECT ]

The most humane little checkpoint
by Amira Hass

June 13, 2013 -"The crossing was terrific today," one of the Palestinian laborers at the Tarqumiya checkpoint told Tzion, the Defense Ministry employee who manages the crossing.So too did the other workers at the crossing seem pleasantly surprised by the speed at which they made their way through the maze of metal cages and turnstiles at 5:30 on Sunday.Were the searches really smoother than in previous weeks? Were workers really winding their way through the maze of bars more quickly? Tzion and the Defense Ministry would have you believe the change was only in the Palestinians’ imagination − the crossing is always smooth and fast, they maintain...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98392] [ 17-jun-2013 23:07 ECT ]

Weekly Report On Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (05 - 12 June 2013)
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
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June 13, 2013 - Summary: Israeli violations of international law and international humanitarian law in the oPt continued during the reporting period 05 – 12 June 2013. Shooting: During the reporting period, Israeli forces wounded 7 Palestinian civilians, including a child. 6 civilians were wounded in the West Bank while the 7th was wounded in the Gaza Strip. 5 of these civilians were wounded during an Israeli incursion in al-Far'ah refugee camp, south of Tubas. In the West Bank, Israeli forces continued the systematic use of excessive force against peaceful protests organised by Palestinian, Israeli and international activists against the construction of the annexation wall and settlement activities in the West Bank. As a result, Amr Hesham Bernat (25) was wounded during a peaceful protest in Bil'in village, west of Ramallah, on 07 June 2013. Moreover, dozens suffered tear gas inhalation and others sustained bruises...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98391] [ 17-jun-2013 22:44 ECT ]

Dannon: “The Palestinian Future is In Jordan”
IMEMC

June 13, 2013 - Israeli TV, Channel 1, aired an interview with Israeli deputy Defense Minister, Member of Knesset (MK) Danny Danon, who said that there will never be a Palestinian State, and that the Palestinians are "settlers", should be part of Jordan.During the interview, Danon said that "the Public should not be misled", as Israel would never allow the establishment of a Palestinian state, whether the United States sends envoys or not, whether it presents initiatives or not. When asked if Israel would "annex" the West Bank, Dannon said that Israel will not do so, but will continue its settlements activities "on vacant lands in the West Bank", and will act onto turning the Palestinian areas into "settlements"..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98390] [ 17-jun-2013 22:38 ECT ]

Pentagon: Manning’s Leak of Iraq Massacre Video ‘Helped Enemy’
Jason Ditz

June 12, 2013 - As the trial of Pfc. Bradley Manning continued today, the Pentagon brought attention to one of the first leaks released, the video of a July 2007 massacre of Iraqi civilians, including the killing of two Reuters employees. The video was first released to the public in April of 2010, and showed soldiers watching a group of civilians walking down the street, spied a Reuters cameraman’s camera, declaring it a "rocket launcher" and attacking. They then attacked a van that tried to rescue the wounded, killing several others and wounding two children...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98389] [ 17-jun-2013 22:33 ECT ]

Guantánamo Stories: 19 of the 43 Men Being Force-Fed in the Prison-Wide Hunger Strike
Andy Worthington
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June 13, 2013 - As the prison-wide hunger strike at Guantánamo reaches its 128th day, we are still awaiting action from President Obama, who promised three weeks ago to resume the release of cleared prisoners (who make up 86 out of the remaining 166 prisoners), and to appoint new envoys in the State Department and the Pentagon to deal with the resettlement of prisoners. In the meantime, conditions in Guantánamo are harsher than they have been at any time since President Obama took office, nearly four and a half years ago. Two months ago, the authorities staged a violent dawn raid on Camp 6, where the majority of the prisoners are held, and where they had been allowed to spend much of their time communally, and locked everyone up in solitary confinement...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98388] [ 17-jun-2013 22:30 ECT ]

Racist graffiti found in Christian cemetery in Jaffa
Middle East Monitor

June 13, 2013 -Unknown vandals have desecrated the Orthodox Christian Cemetery in the occupied city of Jaffa. Several broken tombstones and others covered in racist graffiti were discovered on Thursday morning. The words "Price Tag" and "revenge" were in evidence. "Price Tag" was also sprayed on the door of the home belonging to Tel Aviv District Judge Khalid Kaboub and several other houses and cars in Al-Jabaliyya district. The Israeli police force says that it has launched an investigation but no one has been arrested as yet...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98387] [ 17-jun-2013 22:23 ECT ]

In Search of Real Liberty
The NSA and the Infrastructure of the Surveillance State

by ERIC DRAITSER

June 13, 2013 - It has long been known that cyberspace is one of the main battlegrounds in the 21st century. However, last week’s shocking revelations about the NSA’s surveillance and data-gathering activities illustrate the extent to which US intelligence seeks "full-spectrum dominance" in cyberspace. Although there have been myriad articles in recent days about the various aspects of the NSA surveillance story, none seem to focus on the fact that US intelligence effectively has access to all data transmitted, not just that on Verizon or Google servers. Essentially, the intelligence community – a convenient euphemism for that complex that includes private contractors and government agencies – acts much like a filter, sifting and straining all information through its various systems. However, it is important to realize that the system that the government has established is an all-encompassing one, including access to data in company servers in addition to access to the cable and fiber-optic infrastructure that actually transmits the data...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98386] [ 17-jun-2013 22:20 ECT ]

Syria News - June 12 2013 (Warning: Graphic Videos)
Local Coordination Committees of Syria + Videos
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June 12, 2013 - By the end of Wednesday, the coordination committees were able to document 70 martyrs, among them 2 women, 2 children and a martyr under torture: 20 martyrs were reported in Damascus and its suburbs; 14 in Aleppo; 12 in Homs; 8 in Daraa; 6 in Hama; 4 in Idlib; 4 in Deir Ezzor; 1 in Quneitra; and 1 in Raqqa.
Moreover, the coordination committees have documented 440 points of shelling: Air strikes by warplanes were recorded in 45 points, explosive barrels were recorded in 5 points Naemieh in Hama, Raqqa, Tal Refaat, and the perimeter of Menegh Military Airport, also thermobaric bombs have shelled Qaboun in Damascus, while artillery shelling was recorded in 142 points, rocket shelling in 128 points, and mortar shelling in 119 points across Syria...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98385] [ 17-jun-2013 22:02 ECT ]

Approximately 1,350 Palestinian refugees killed in Syria
Middle East Monitor

June 12, 2013 -About 1,354 Palestinians, including 1,201 men and 153 women, have been killed by the Syrian regime since the outbreak of the Syrian revolution, Action Group for Palestinians in Syria said on Wednesday.The last two fatalities, according to the statement distributed to mass media, are Alaa Abul-Leel and Hanan Mahmoud, who were killed by an attack on al-Husseiniyyah Camp on Tuesday. The statement said the Syrian regime's army targeted the areas around the al-Majd Bakery, Shehadeh Hussein School and Abdul-Ra'ouf Pharmacy in al-Husseiniyyah Camp with numerous rockets that caused a large number of injuries...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98383] [ 17-jun-2013 14:16 ECT ]

Police State America in Good Hands with James Comey
by Stephen Lendman

June 12, 2013 - He's Obama's FBI director choice. He'll replace current rogue head Robert Mueller. In September, he'll step down. He's run the agency since September 4, 2001. He succeeded acting head Thomas Pickering. He assumed office days before 9/11. Appointing him perhaps related to what followed. War on terrorism was declared. So was authorization for war on humanity. Nonbelligerent Afghanistan was attacked...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98382] [ 17-jun-2013 14:09 ECT ]

France, Saudi Arabia Increase Syria Coordination Post-Qusair
By: Mohammad Ballout Translated from As-Safir (Lebanon).
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June 12, 2013 - The battle for Aleppo, for which the Syrian army is preparing, has become a joint French-Saudi concern. Another concern that French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius shared yesterday [June 11] with Saudi intelligence chief Bandar bin Sultan and Foreign Minister Saud al-Faisal was how to avoid turning the upcoming Geneva conference into a defeat of the Syrian opposition. That concern is reasonable in light of the current balance of power following the military victory by the Syrian army and Hezbollah in Qusair...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98381] [ 17-jun-2013 14:05 ECT ]

Lying Under Oath: Obama Defends Spy Chief Clapper
Jason Ditz

June 12, 2013 - Since the truth about America’s everyday surveillance of individual citizens came to light, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper has come under particular scrutiny for overt lies made under oath to the US Senate. The White House is said to be comfortable with them. Clapper was defiant on Sunday news shows when asked about that particular federal offense, saying he felt the question he was asked was "unfair" and that he gave the "least untruthful" lie he could think of in response...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98380] [ 17-jun-2013 13:59 ECT ]

Protesters Worldwide Rally to Support Whistleblower Edward Snowden
Allison Kilkenny

June 12, 2013 - ...Obsession over Snowden’s personal life highlights a major flaw of the establishment media: the tendency to fixate on minute details while completely missing the big picture, namely the US government’s vast spying program.While the media speculates about Snowden’s motives and allegiances and salary and pontificates about his dancer girlfriend and if she’s feeling lonely, Snowden’s supporters seem to grasp that this story is about something bigger."Anyone who uses the internet and expects some privacy should be concerned about what was said in [Snowden’s] interview, so I imagine we will get a good turnout," said Grundy...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98384] [ 17-jun-2013 14:16 ECT ]

Boycott leaders say Israel peace talks ‘useless’
AFP
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June 12, 2013 - Leaders of a growing Palestinian movement to boycott Israel oppose any peace talks, even if they include a long-demanded freeze of Jewish colonies on Palestinian land."We have no faith in the so-called negotiations," said Omar Barghouti, head of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which lobbies worldwide for the economic, cultural and academic boycott of Israel. Speaking to AFP on the sidelines of the fourth annual BDS conference at Bethlehem University at the weekend, Barghouti said the talks were "absolutely useless, just another smokescreen to allow Israel to continue its colonisation - its building of settlements [colonies]"...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98378] [ 17-jun-2013 13:30 ECT ]

Israel has More Poverty than Any Developed Country
The Real News

June 12, 2013 - The image which the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs promotes of Israel is an image of a prosperous economy, a powerhouse of innovation. As part of the efforts to present Israel as a success story, Israel applied for membership in the OECD, the Organization for Economic Development and Cooperation, and received it.The organization publishes statistics about the member states and promotes certain kinds of reforms, usually associated with neoliberal values. OECD statistics have undermined the goal of Israel's reason to join the OECD. These statistics show that Israel suffers from extreme level of inequality, its education system is among the worst in the OECD, and its poverty is the highest compared to all OECD countries...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98377] [ 17-jun-2013 13:02 ECT ]

Thomas Friedman, Eminent Pre-Fascist Pundit of the United States
By: Kevin Gosztola

June 12, 2013 - "Imagine how many real restrictions to our beautiful open society we would tolerate if there were another attack on the scale of 9/11. Pardon me if I blow that whistle," New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman writes in a column reacting to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden’s disclosures on secret surveillance programs to The Guardian and The Washington Post. He shares, "I don’t believe that Edward Snowden, the leaker of all this secret material, is some heroic whistleblower. No, I believe Snowden is someone who needed a whistleblower. He needed someone to challenge him with the argument that we don’t live in a world any longer where our government can protect its citizens from real, not imagined, threats without using big data — where we still have an edge — under constant judicial review. It’s not ideal. But if one more 9/11-scale attack gets through, the cost to civil liberties will be so much greater."...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98376] [ 17-jun-2013 05:17 ECT ]

Forgotten in Iraq: More than four months on hunger strike
Arnaud Mafille
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June 12, 2013 - The story of Shawki Omar Ahmad, detained without charge and tortured at the hands of American forces for seven years, is a symbol of Iraq’s judicial system in the wake of the US invasion and occupation. The Swiss human rights group Al Karama has now sent a second urgent appeal to the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, Juan Mendez, on Ahmad’s case. His wife demonstrates every week outside the US embassy in London in attempt to draw attention to her husband’s fate. Now that the US has withdrawn from Iraq and handed over to the Iraqi government all those detained without charge for up to eight years by the US, even the horror of Abu Ghraib is more or less forgotten.In December 2011, the US transferred the last of the prisoners to the Iraqi government - 16 000 men and women who had been detained without charge or trial and denied the right to challenge their US custody. They were to be either charged within the domestic Iraqi system of justice or released. In August 2012, the Iraqi government showed the character of its justice system. It announced, after the fact, the mass execution of 21 unnamed terrorist suspects in a single day, including three women...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98375] [ 17-jun-2013 05:12 ECT ]

Important lawsuit alleging discrimination against Muslim Americans moves forward
Charlotte Silver

June 12, 2013 - In a Michigan District Court on 11 June, Federal Judge Avern Cohn gave the green light to a lawsuit filed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) against the US Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and the FBI for the agencies’ repeated singling-out and interrogation of Muslim travelers. Lawyers for the defense had attempted to have the suit thrown out. The case is a significant accomplishment for advocates of civil liberties who have long decried the dissolution of the rights of Muslim Americans...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98374] [ 17-jun-2013 04:58 ECT ]

BBC questioned over why it pulled documentary on Jerusalem
Amena Saleem

June 12, 2013- The BBC is coming under increasing pressure from British Members of Parliament (MPs) and leading pro-Palestinian organizations over recent decisions that throw its impartiality in reporting on the Israeli occupation into serious doubt.During a meeting in Parliament in April, MPs put Tony Hall, the BBC’s director-general, and Chris Patten, its chairman, on the spot about appointments of pro-Israel advocates to top jobs within the organization. John Whittingdale, a member of the ruling Conservative Party, expressed his concerns about the appointment of James Purnell to the post of BBC director of strategy and digital. While a Labour Party minister, Purnell served for two years as chairman of the hugely influential Westminster lobby group, Labour Friends of Israel...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98373] [ 17-jun-2013 04:49 ECT ]

Amid Syrian crisis, Iraqi refugees in Jordan forgotten
IRIN News
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June 12, 2013 - Up to 10 years after fleeing violence in their country, many Iraqi refugees living in Jordan are poor, failing to integrate, and unable to return home or get resettled in a third country.Their condition - already worsening due to funding cuts in recent years - is now being overshadowed by the Syrian refugee crisis, leaving them increasingly vulnerable, even as more Iraqi refugees flee to Jordan every month. The 2011 withdrawal of US troops from Iraq was seen by many as the end of a violent decade in Iraq following the 2003 US-led invasion and subsequent sectarian violence which drove as many as 3.8 million Iraqis from their homes...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98372] [ 17-jun-2013 04:45 ECT ]

Under Threat…Israeli Officer Forces Palestinian to Drink Alcohol
Palestine News Network

June 12, 2013 -On Tuesday 11th June, an Israeli intelligence officer forced a Palestinian from Beit Ummar village, north of Hebron, to drink a bottle of alcohol under threat of gun.The 24-year-old Mohammed Khalil Abu Dayyeh from Beit Ummar village was stopped in his way home by Israeli soldiers stationed at a military watch tower at the entrance of the village, and was asked about Palestinians who participate in Beit Ummar confrontations. When Abu Dayyeh refused to answer the soldiers' questions, they called an intelligence officer who continued to ask him questions and when Abu Dayyeh insisted on not answering, the officer held him under gun threat and forced him to drink a bottle of alcohol, which is forbidden in Islam, causing him to faint for an hour...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98371] [ 17-jun-2013 04:21 ECT ]

Palestinian Child Beaten in Custody, Admitted to Hospital
WAFA

June 12,2103 – A 12-year-old child from Aida refugee camp in Bethlehem the Israeli army had arrested on Monday was admitted to Hadassah hospital in Israel after he was beaten by the soldiers, the Prisoner Club said Tuesday.It said one of its lawyers visited Husam Khalifa at his hospital bed who told him that he was beaten before being taken to hospital.Khalifa’s family went to Ofer military court near Ramallah on Monday to attend his court hearing, as they were told, but when they got there they were told he was taken to hospital..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98370] [ 17-jun-2013 04:15 ECT ]

Guantánamo doctors must refuse to force-feed hunger strikers – physicians
Paul Harris
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June 12, 2013 - A group of senior American doctors has called on military physicians at Guantánamo Bay to refuse to work in a mass force-feeding programme that is being used to keep hunger-striking detainees alive. Writing in the prestigious and influential New England Journal of Medicine, the three doctors called Guantánamo "a medical ethics free zone" and said that medical staff had a moral duty to allow the prisoners to go on hunger strike without coercing them into treatment. They also called on doctors to refuse to take part in force-feeding...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98369] [ 17-jun-2013 04:03 ECT ]

WATCH: Former female Israeli soldiers break their silence
By Mairav Zonszein

June 12, 2013 - On May 10th, Breaking the Silence – an organization of veteran IDF soldiers who collect testimonies from soldiers about their past service in the occupied Palestinian territories – released a series of new video testimonies by former female soldiers who testify on camera to the harsh reality of the occupation they participated in and witnessed. This campaign is of special significance to me because it gives voice to the women who comprise Israel’s army and its mechanism for continued occupation and oppression, happening within a society (local and global) in which, as women, they already exist in a gender power dynamic of systematic discrimination and violence...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98368] [ 17-jun-2013 00:51 ECT ]

Note under a rock: “We’re stealing your land”
International Solidarity Movement

June 12, 2013 - It was only days after it had been placed that a farmer accidentally found a piece of paper that stated he was no longer the owner of his own land. The undated paper, in Hebrew and Arabic, had been hidden under a rock in the farmer’s fields in the village of Bruqin, occupied Palestine. It said that the farmer’s land was being taken for the expansion of the nearby illegal Israeli settler colony of Bruchin [also spelled as Brukhin]. This farmer was not the only one to be informed about a crime in such a way. More land owners, including the village’s mayor, received the same notifications...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98367] [ 16-jun-2013 22:14 ECT ]

The Imperialist and Racist Origins of the Guantánamo Penal Colony
By Adam Hudson
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June 12, 2013 - The year is 1898. The Civil War ended 33 years prior. Slavery had been abolished for over three decades, yet, blacks remained subjugated through other forms of racist oppression, particularly Jim Crow racial segregationist laws in the South. Before its death, slavery already laid the foundation for American capitalism. The United States expanded westward and finally reached the Pacific Ocean. It brought states like California into its fold and killed large swaths of Native Americans in the process. As a young empire, the United States was looking for opportunities to expand its global reach and control vital markets and resources. The Spanish-American War of 1898 brought such an opportunity, which is where the story of Guantánamo Bay prison begins. ...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98366] [ 16-jun-2013 21:58 ECT ]

U.S. gov’t sides with ‘UN Watch’ and lobby and against Richard Falk
by Philip Weiss

June 12, 2013 -Poor Samantha Power. The post of UN ambassador will be a glittering decoration on her resume, but the amount of her working hours she spends cosseting the Israel lobby is about to soar, with the result that she will sacrifice even more of her reputation as a defender of human rights by helping to cover up Israeli atrocities. Consider the latest furor involving Richard Falk, the UN's special rapporteur on human rights in the Palestinian territories. Last week Falk issued his annual report to the UN Human Rights Council on Palestinian conditions and dismissed American calls for negotiations, saying that "landswaps" are a fraud, and the playing field is tilted against Palestinians' basic rights...
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98365] [ 16-jun-2013 21:49 ECT ]

Fed Up with All the Bullshit
Arthur Silber

June 12, 2013 - In the final section of the preceding post (the section subtitled "The Filtering of the NSA/Surveillance Stories"), I discussed the manner in which the journalists to whom Edward Snowden provided documents chose to continue to conceal much of the information he had given them. I emphasized that the explanations provided to the general public are notably threadbare, and filled with familiar, vacuous phrases. One of the links I included itself links to another article. It is worth noting the fuller version of some comments from Glenn Greenwald in the BuzzFeed piece: "We’re not engaged in a mindless, indiscriminate document dump, and our source didn’t want us to be," said Glenn Greenwald, the Guardian writer, in an email to BuzzFeed Saturday. "We’re engaged in the standard journalistic assessment of whether the public value to publication outweighs any harms."...My earlier post discussed only a few of the many problems with these formulations, including: Who makes up "the public," and what specifically are the factors involved in determining what is in "the public interest"? ..
  continua / continued avanti - next    [98364] [ 16-jun-2013 21:42 ECT ]

“Whatever you take from the sea, the sea takes back from you
The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR)
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June 12, 2013 - Majed Fadel Hassan Baker (53) is a fisherman from the Gaza Strip. Having been a fisherman since the age of 10, he has borne witness to the sharp decline of the fishing industry in the Gaza Strip in recent years. Majed’s weathered skin shows evidence of a life outdoors. Life as a fisherman in the Gaza Strip is one of the most dangerous seafaring jobs in the world. This is not due to adverse weather conditions, or because their catch resides at unreachable depths. The greatest danger for fishermen in Gaza is posed by Israeli gunboats...

  continua / continued avanti - next    [98363] [ 16-jun-2013 21:39 ECT ]

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