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May 21st, 2008
Syria-Israel peace deal 'requires shift in U.S. policy'
Israel says it is holding peace talks with Syria
In statements issued minutes apart, the two governments said they "have declared their intent to conduct these talks in good faith and with an open mind," with a goal of reaching "a comprehensive peace."
Both nations thanked Turkey for its help, and Turkey issued its own confirmation. Muslim Turkey has good ties with both Israel and Syria.
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| Palestinian boys stop to look at a street exhibit in Gaza City as part of an event marking the 60th anniversary of the Nakba, 16 May. (Wissam Nassar/MaanImages) |
I had always heard from my family that the reason my aunt, Mary Kawar, stayed in Acre in 1948 was because her youngest daughter, Amal, had contracted typhoid. However, 60 years later, I read a reference to a 1948 dispatch sent by the International Committee of the Red Cross from Palestine that described a sudden typhoid epidemic in Acre. It hinted at the likelihood that Jewish militias had poisoned the Acre water supply -- an early act of biological warfare in our region. It was then that I realized that my cousin's illness was not a singular event.
I grew up hearing about what my own family lost in Jaffa, the coastal city from which Jewish militias drove them in 1948. There were occasional references to Deir Yassin -- where more than 100 unarmed Palestinian villagers were massacred -- and the role it played in the psychological war against the Palestinians, who fled fearing for their lives.
But, after the Israeli occupation of the West Bank in 1967 I began to block out that earlier tragedy. My energy was consumed by activism against the Israeli settlement project in the West Bank, where I live. It was only after reading the newly published material by Israeli historians -- using the recently-opened Israeli archives -- that a new cycle of confrontation with Palestinian history began for me.
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Election results- Oregon: Ron Paul gets 2 delegates
81% of Clinton's supporters in Kentucky said that race was important
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The polls are closed in Kentucky and votes are being counted in Oregon, and it's clear that tonight we have reached a major milestone on this journey.
We have won an absolute majority of all the delegates chosen by the people in this Democratic primary process.
From the beginning, this journey wasn't about me or the other candidates. It was about a simple choice -- will we continue down the same road with the same leadership that has failed us for so long, or will we take a different path?
House passes $54B in tax breaks, energy incentives
U.S. stock futures can't hold rise as oil sprints past $130
Numbers Racket - Why the economy is worse than we know
Government's 'numbers racket' is about to blow up in our faces
Buffett, Soros Refute 'Credit Crunch Over' Mantra: Market Pays Heed
Platinum prices 'set to rise 50%'
U.K. Homebuilders to Cut Tens of Thousands of Jobs
Tice Proves Every Bear Has a 9.5% Return as He Invokes `D' Word (Depression)
Fed pause promises financial disaster
Food Crisis Rippling Out Like a “Tsunami”
Haiti on the 'Death Plan'
SPRINGDALE : Woman, 38, left in cell sees charges dropped
NORTHWEST ARKANSAS TIMES
Posted on Tuesday, May 20, 2008
A Springdale woman who spent four days without food or water in a secure holding cell at the Washington County Courthouse will not be prosecuted for the charges that landed her in court.
Adrianna Torres-Flores, 38, will not face prosecution for unauthorized copying or sale of recordings because prosecutors have verified her alibi, 4 th Judicial District deputy prosecutor Mark Booher said Monday.
Torres-Flores said that she agreed to watch a booth for someone else for about 20 minutes on Dec. 1 when police raided Pleasant Street Flea Market in Springdale, Booher said. Springdale police arrested five adults and four juveniles, and seized thousands of pirated compact discs and digital video discs.
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May 21, 2008
Pepe Escobar: Media's depiction of Iraqi troops "regaining" Sadr City as a turning point misses point
link
Police State 2.0 is Here: Are YOU One of the 8 Million Targeted for Roundup by US Government?
Big Brother Is Watching as He's Never Watched Before
Wake up ... or wear a leash forever!
The American Heritage Dictionary defines Fascism as “a system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, stringent socioeconomic controls, suppression of the opposition through terror and censorship, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.”
According to National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directives NSPD 51 and HSPD 20, the president of the United States of America has already obtained dictatorial powers.
Most of the following articles and news stories are events that have transpired in the last two to three months of 2008. Much more has happened before this:
Stocks mixed after oil passes $130, inventories drop
An Expanding Military Budget Taxpayers Can’t Afford
from Truthdig:
Posted on May 20, 2008
By Robert Scheer
What’s it got to do with the price of gas? Would some reporter with access to the Republican presidential candidate please ask John McCain why he wants to continue President Bush’s Mideast policy when it has proved so ruinous for American taxpayers? Because McCain is determined to ignore our economic meltdown and shift the debate to foreign policy, shouldn’t he have to explain why an open-ended military presence in the Mideast will make us economically and militarily more secure when the opposite is clearly the case?
Let’s not waste too much time on the military side of the equation. The argument that troops on the ground have made us militarily more secure is absurd on its face. American resources and lives have been squandered in an inane effort that McCain aptly criticized before becoming a presidential candidate. As a Senate watchdog, he distinguished himself by sharply denouncing one defense contractor boondoggle after another in cases involving hundreds of billions for modern weapons that had nothing to do with fighting cave-based terrorists. But as a presidential candidate, McCain now unabashedly apologizes for every twist of the downwind spiral of the Bush administration foreign policy, from wasteful weapons to inhuman torture.
McCain’s strategy is clearly that of distracting attention from the calamitous economy by sounding the demagogue’s alarm about enemies at the gate. This week, McCain again blasted Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama on the grounds that he underestimated the threat from Iran while ignoring the vast increase in Iran’s power—an increase actually resulting from Bush eliminating Iran’s only effective enemy, Saddam Hussein. The other winners in this folly have been the oil kingdoms that Hussein periodically threatened, led by the Saudi royal family. Seizing upon the opportunity presented by the 9/11 attacks, Bush knocked off not the Saudis, who had produced Osama bin Laden and 15 of his hijacker minions, but rather the royal family’s sworn enemy in Iraq, who had absolutely nothing do with 9/11.
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The White House on Tuesday denied a published report in Israel that said President Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term in January. Bear in mind, when ideas like this are leaked—even when later denied—they become part of a psychological war game, perhaps to provoke the Iranians and get them to spend more on defense, or send a signal to hawks that this attack will happen—just not now.
***
When the White House issued its denial—not dissimilar to denials initially vis a vis Iraq, what did the Jerusalem Post do. Danny Postel tells us:
THEN THE STORY WAS DROPPED
Danny Postel writes:
There was an article on the Jerusalem Post website this morning titled “‘Bush intends to attack Iran before the end of his term’” which was widely circulated on various listservs; the White House issued a denial of the story — interestingly, the Jerusalem Post, rather than simply run a follow-up piece reporting the White House’s denial, or expanding the existing article, seems to have outright replaced the original piece with a new one: the link for the original piece (www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=121
RETIRED AIR FORCE COLONEL SAM GARDINER IS MONITORING THIS:
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Behind the scenes of Hezbollah’s latest victory
Hizbullah gets veto power in unity government
Major triumph for Lebanese opposition: All demands made by Nasrallah materialized in breakthrough agreement between feuding factions announced by Arab mediators after five days of talks in Qatar to end Lebanon's 18-month political crisis; Damascus welcomes deal
Roee Nahmias
Latest Update: 05.21.08, 11:11 / Israel News
Hizbullah strikes another achievement at the end of a particularly severe round of violence in Lebanon : Arab mediators have announced a breakthrough deal between feuding Lebanese factions struck after five days of talks in Qatar to end Lebanon's 18-month political crisis.
As part of the deal, 11 of the 30 ministers in a national unity government in Beirut will be Hizbullah members, giving the Shiite organization the right to veto any decision. This was one of the main demands made by Hizbullah Secretary-General Hassan Nasrallah during the recent crisis.
Sixteen of Lebanon's current ministers will serve in the new government, and another three will serve on behalf of the president. Hizbullah agreed to compromise on its demand to establish an interim government and hold elections, and had refused at first to settle for only one-third of the government members.
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Israel, you even went so far as to machine gun survivors trying to escape in life boats. I know you machine gun Palestinian kids regularly, for the crime of throwing some rocks, but machine gunning wounded Americans, trying to escape a sinking ship?
What has our "bestest" and only "friend" in the ME done for the United States lately?
Good question.
Let's take a look at some of the "favors" bestowed by Israel upon the U.S. lately:
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by Fanny Carrier Wed May 21, 3:53 AM ET
A handful of US lawmakers gave only half an ear to the testimony on Tuesday of a former detainee at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba who spent nearly five years in prison before being released without charge.
Murat Kurnaz, a Turk who was born in Germany, was arrested during a trip to Pakistan in autumn 2001 and delivered to US authorities in exchange for a payment of 3,000 dollars.
Kurnaz spent several nightmarish weeks at the US base in Kandahar, Afghanistan before being transferred to the US "war on terror" camp at Guantanamo.
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IOF shell blows off the head of Palestinian boy, another child killed in WB |
| [ 20/05/2008 - 11:14 AM ] |
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GAZA, (PIC)-- An Israeli occupation forces' shelling of a group of citizens north of the Gaza Strip at an early hour on Tuesday blew off the head of a 13-year-old Palestinian boy. PIC reporter quoted medical sources as saying that the body of the child Majd Abu Okel was badly mutilated in the blast. The sources pointed out that a number of other wounded citizens were rushed to hospital. IOF troops at a late hour Monday fired and killed a 16-year-old Palestinian child at the Hawara roadblock south of Nablus city in the West Bank.  |
Five children and a young man injured in Israeli attacks in Gaza
Yesterday brought the news that Mark McKinnon--one of McCain's key campaign advisors--fulfilled his promise to step down rather than work against Barack Obama.
Mark McKinnon said last year that he would leave McCain’s campaign after the primary season if the Arizona senator were to run against Obama.
[snip]
In a 2007 interview with Cox News, McKinnon said he would vote for McCain, but "I just don't want to work against an Obama candidacy." He added that if Obama were to reach the White House, it "would send a great message to the country and the world."
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| [ 21/05/2008 - 09:15 AM ] |
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NAZARETH, (PIC)-- An Israeli military court sentenced three Israeli servicemen to ten days behind bars as a disciplinary measure for "killing" a Palestinian man in northern Ramallah during a picnic. |
NABLUS, West Bank: Israeli soldiers shot and killed a Palestinian teenager at a West Bank roadblock on Monday, and the military said he was carrying explosives.
The military said the Palestinian approached the Hawwara checkpoint outside the West Bank city of Nablus, and soldiers saw him fumbling with something that appeared to be a bomb. They ordered him to drop it, but he ignored their orders. Then they opened fire, critically wounding him. He died later in a hospital.
Later the military said he was carrying a suicide bomber's explosives belt and three pipe bombs.
A witness, taxi driver Mohammed Mustafa, told The Associated Press, "They asked him to lift up his shirt and raise his arms and then they shot him," he said.
Related
By Emad Hajjaj - Alquds Newspaper, London
Report: U.S. Soldiers Did 'Dirty Work' for Chinese Interrogators
Alleges Guantanamo Personnel Softened Up Detainees at Request of Chinese Intelligence
By JUSTIN ROOD
May 20, 2008—
U.S. military personnel at Guantanamo Bay allegedly softened up detainees at the request of Chinese intelligence officials who had come to the island facility to interrogate the men -- or they allowed the Chinese to dole out the treatment themselves, according to claims in a new government report.
Buried in a Department of Justice report released Tuesday are new allegations about a 2002 arrangement between the United States and China, which allowed Chinese intelligence to visit Guantanamo and interrogate Chinese Uighurs held there.
According to the report by Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine, an FBI agent reported a detainee belonging to China's ethnic Uighur minority and a Uighur translator told him Uighur detainees were kept awake for long periods, deprived of food and forced to endure cold for hours on end, just prior to questioning by Chinese interrogators.
David Edwards and Muriel Kane
Published: Tuesday May 20, 2008
When host Whoopi Goldberg raised the issue of George W. Bush's comparing anyone who wants to talk to Iran or Syria with the appeasers of Nazi Germany on Monday's edition of ABC's The View, the panel erupted into furious debate.
Conservative Elizabeth Hasselbeck repeatedly attempted to question whether Bush's remarks were really aimed at Barack Obama. She insisted, "It's not always about him," and suggested Obama is being defensive because he knows his support for talks with Iran is a weak spot.
"I think the president was very clear in what he meant," Goldberg replied tartly.
"The Bush administration is out there talking to North Korea, talking to Syria," noted liberal Joy Behar. "Isn't that what diplomacy is about? This guy doesn't know the difference between the word 'diplomacy' and 'appeasement.' He's just stupid."
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Soldiers abuse a Palestinian youth for three hours
The Israeli army kidnaps eight Palestinian children from Jerusalem
Five Palestinian children were kidnapped by the Israeli army from the several Palestinian areas in Jerusalem city on Monday midday, Palestinian sources reported.
file - 2008
Among those kidnapped were Rami Barakat, 10 years old, and amjad Al Taweel, 15 years old.
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The newest attack strategy against those who question 9/11 is to say that we are creationists. If you regularly read social networking sites, newsgroups, or bulletin boards, you will see this slur being used regularly.
Is it true?
Well, initially, everyone who believes in creationism started with a religious belief, and then tried to make arguments which fit that belief.
On the other hand, every single person I know who questions 9/11 initially believed the government's version of events.* However, once we looked at the evidence of what happened - the documentary, audiovisual, physical, chemical, and historical record - we began to realize that the government's story has more holes than swiss cheese.
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by David Gutierrez
(NaturalNews) The use of depleted uranium (DU) munitions by the U.S. military may lead to a death toll far higher than that from the nuclear bombs dropped at the end of World War II.
DU is a waste product of uranium enrichment, containing approximately one-third the radioactive isotopes of naturally occurring uranium. Because of its high density, it is used in armor- or tank-piercing ammunition. It has been fired by the U.S. and British militaries in the two Iraq wars and in Afghanistan, as well as by NATO forces in Kosovo and the Israeli military in Lebanon and Palestine.
Inhaled or ingested DU particles are highly toxic, and DU has been classified as an illegal weapon of mass destruction by the United Nations.
The United Kingdom Atomic Energy Authority has estimated that 50 tons of DU dust from the first Gulf War could lead to 500,000 cancer deaths by the year 2000. To date, a total of 2,000 tons have been generated in the Middle East.
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81% of Clinton's supporters in Kentucky said that race was important
Election results- Oregon: Ron Paul gets 2 delegates
Obama: "We have won an absolute majority of all the delegates chosen by the people'
[ Editorial Note: Now we have the important part of the transcript. ]
This is one of those historic TV moments that people will be talking about for a long time. And let me tell you, I lost it as it was happening. Twitter or not, I was agog at the sight of David Gergen calling out Hillary and Bill Clinton on their racist strategy.
He even went as far as saying that there is a sense the culture is legitimizing the racist language and creating justifications that is allowing Clinton to base her electoral value on the racial composition of those of her voters who wouldnt not vote for Obama.
Date: 21 / 05 / 2008 Time: 14:28 | |
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| [Ma'anImages] |
Hawatma told journalists on Monday in Amman that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said that Israeli Foreign Minister, Tzipi Livni and a number of Israeli officers presented the details of an "unfair" map of the Palestinian State to-be to Ahmad Qurei' former Palestinian Prime Minister and head pf the Palestinian negotiating team.
Hawatma met with Abbas on Sunday in Amman and asked Abbas to walk out of the peace process as a protest against the changing of the bases of the negotiations.
According to the maps presented by Israeli officials to the Palestinian delegation, Israel intends to deduct 1,844 square kilometres of the West Bank. East Jerusalem comprises 1.5% of the confiscated areas.
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By Michael Jansen | |||
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“It is an act of the worst kind of buffoonery. Schwarzman is horrid.”
This statement was made to me by a member of New York’s Protestant establishment in reference to the renaming of the New York Public Library on 5th Avenue at 42nd Street after Stephen A. Schwarzman, C.E.O. of The Blackstone Group, a private equity company. In March news broke that Mr. Schwarzman had agreed to lead the library’s current fundraising campaign by pledging a $100 million gift—the largest the institution has ever received. In recognition, the library announced, his name would be would be carved onto the exterior of the lion-guarded building.
Within senior Wasp circles, Schwarzman and the distinction he has received for his gift have set off a great deal of concealed outrage. Perhaps the best way I can describe it is to say that when I sat and talked with several Wasps about the diminishing influence of their clan, they often waited until the interview was winding down and I had folded up my notebook, and then they jumped back into conversation about Schwarzman and the library.
JIMMY CARTER
ATLANTA: The world is witnessing a terrible human rights crime in Gaza, where a million and a half human beings are being imprisoned with almost no access to the outside world by sea, air or land. An entire population is being brutally punished.
This gross mistreatment of the Palestinians in Gaza was escalated dramatically by Israel, with United States backing, after political candidates representing Hamas won a majority of seats in the Palestinian Authority parliament in 2006. The election was unanimously judged to be honest and fair by all international observers.
Israel and the US refused to accept the right of Palestinians to form a unity government with Hamas and Fatah and now, after internal strife, Hamas alone controls Gaza. Forty-one of the 43 victorious Hamas candidates who lived in the West Bank are now imprisoned by Israel, plus an additional 10 who assumed positions in the short-lived coalition cabinet.
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It was the maximum sentence the boy band mogul could receive for allegedly swindling some $300 million from investors and banks since the early 1980s.
He pleaded guilty in March to two counts of conspiracy and single counts of money laundering and presenting a false claim in bankruptcy court.
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Teuku Taufiqulhadi, Jakarta
The writer is the deputy secretary general of the United Development Party (PPP).
I read an article by Richard Holbrooke, a very impressive U.S. diplomat, published Dec. 5. Holbrooke intended to show that the United States was the first country to recognize the new born state of Israel.
While this article was very interesting, it is not relevant to Indonesian readers. The point is; why the U.S. have shown such a strong commitment to defending Israel.
Last week, Israel celebrated the 60th anniversary of its declaration of independence in the presence of foreign heads of state and other dignitaries. Today, on May 15, the Palestinians commiserate Nakba -- the day they were driven from their homeland by Jewish paramilitary settlers who established the state of Israel.
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Wake up ... or wear a leash forever!
Quote of the Day:
"When I was young American politics were fairly straightforward: conservatives let you keep all your money in return for telling you how to live your life, while liberals let you live as you pleased in return for all your money. Now the only difference is whether they want your money or your life first."
-- D.A. Ridgely
Subject: Urgent action needed on warrantless spying bills
The deadline is two days from now, Thursday, May 22, 2008. If, by that date, we can prevent Congress from giving the President expanded powers to spy on American citizens, then we're likely to have won a long lasting victory.
But if we fail, the damage to the Bill of Rights may also be long lasting. And there's a new danger afoot . . .
In February the Senate passed a bill that . . .
* Gave the President warrantless spying powers
* Gave the telecom companies immunity for their past illegal spying