Monday, October 31, 2011

UNESCO vote breakdown. The "No" list of shame includes Germany, Canada, Australia, Holland and the mighty nation of Vanuatu

So the votes are in, and UNESCO has voted to accept Palestine as a full member. I have procured the full voting results, which to my knowledge, have not been made public yet. There were 14 “no” votes, 52 abstentions and 107 “yes” votes (there were also 20 21 Member States absent):

No: Australia, Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Palau, Panama, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Sweden, United States of America, Vanuatu.

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"Why do they hate us?"

US Cuts Off UNESCO Funding After Palestinian Vote
The United States says it is cutting off financial contributions to the United Nations cultural agency following its vote Monday to grant Palestinians full membership.

The State Department said Washington will not make a $60-million November payment to UNESCO because of a longstanding U.S. law that prohibits American support for any U.N.-affiliated body that accepts Palestinian membership.

Washington currently is UNESCO's biggest funding source, supplying 22 percent of the agency's budget.

Earlier Monday, the Paris-based UNESCO voted to approve the Palestinian membership bid by a vote of 107 to 14, with 52 abstentions.

France voted for the motion, along with almost all Arab, African, Latin American and Asian nations, including China and India. Israel, the United States, Canada and Germany voted against it. Japan and Britain abstained. A two-thirds vote was required by the U.N. Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization's 193 members.

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Sunday, October 30, 2011

Gideon Levi: Settlers succeeding in hostile takeover of Israel

Do you really want to live in a country where the heads of the settlement enterprise allocate its lands, plan its nature sites, rule on its laws and are increasingly controlling its lifestyles?
By Gideon Levy

Phase I was long since declared an unqualified success: The settlers gained control of the occupied territories, using their power and their construction projects to thwart any just arrangement. But anyone who thought they would settle for controlling the West Bank should take a look at Phase II of the plan, which is at its height and already a success story.

Now, after the hostile takeover of the West Bank, comes the takeover of the state. Now that their lust for land has been slightly slaked they have turned their attention to much broader areas than their own considerable domain. From now on, Yesha is truly here. From now on, it's not enough for them to head the local government councils in the territories - now they're aiming for seats of power within Israel, so that they can shape its image. After taking the West Bank region of Gush Etzion, now they want the Tel Aviv region of Gush Dan.

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Refusing to die in silence: Palestinians resist settler violence during the olive harvest

watchingsoldiers
Olive harvesters watch Israeli soldiers after being told to stop picking olives in Burin. (All Photos: International Solidarity Movement)

As this year’s olive harvest sends Palestinian families across all of historic Palestine out to their olive trees, a new nonviolent resistance group called Refusing to Die In Silence is patrolling the West Bank, protecting harvesters from increased settler violence.

Read more-Mondoweiss

Arab Spring activists win human rights award

Activists, including Tunisian fruit seller whose death sparked uprisings, awarded European parliament's Sakharov Prize.
Salem Bouazizi, left, said his deceased brother's prize would be dedicated to all Tunisian people

Five Arab Spring activists, among them a Tunisian fruit seller who set himself to fire sparking revolutions that toppled tyrants, have won Europe's prestigious Sakharov human rights prize.

Mohamed Bouazizi, the fruit vendor who died from his burns, won the prize along with Egyptian blogger Asmaa Mahfouz, former Libyan prisoner Ahmed al-Zubair Ahmed al-Sanusi and two Syrians - lawyer Razan Zeitouneh and cartoonist Ali Farzat.

They were recognised by the European parliament for struggling for change in their countries at a ceremony in Strasbourg, France, on Thursday.

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Zizek: Marriage between Capitalism and Democracy is over

Slavoj Zizek: 'Now the field is open'
The philosopher discusses the momentous changes taking place in the global financial and political system.

"I think today the world is asking for a real alternative. Would you like to live in a world where the only alternative is either anglo-saxon neoliberalism or Chinese-Singaporean capitalism with Asian values?

I claim if we do nothing we will gradually approach a kind of a new type of authoritarian society. Here I see the world historical importance of what is happening today in China. Until now there was one good argument for capitalism: sooner or later it brought a demand for democracy...

What I'm afraid of is with this capitalism with Asian values, we get a capitalism much more efficient and dynamic than our western capitalism. But I don't share the hope of my liberal friends - give them ten years, [and there will be] another Tiananmen Square demonstration - no, the marriage between capitalism and democracy is over."
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Occupy Europe: How a generation went from indifferent to indignant

The most significant current youth movement in Europe started with a tweet on Justin Bieber, the boyish Canadian crooner. On May 15, following a rally against education cuts at Madrid's main square, a cluster of 40 students stayed on, talking into the night. Spain, like Greece and Italy, faces huge public deficits. The government has been cutting outlays for basic services like schools, health care, and social welfare. While college attendance in Spain is a success story, youth unemployment has risen to a horrific 44 percent.
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Occupy London: The protesters seem more adult than politicians and plutocrats

With a few nylon tents and some amateurish banners, the Occupy movement has rattled the establishment
The mayor of London demands a law against it to stop tent villages "erupting like boils" across the capital. If you lived like Boris, you too might be a bit paranoid about boils. The prime minister interrupts a trip to Australia to announce that the government is poised to intervene. Meantime, the Church of England is split down the aisle about whether the Christian thing is to embrace the protesters encamped on the doorstep of its cathedral – after all, St Paul was a tent-maker and Christ had a robust approach to moneychangers – or to join forces with the mammonites who run the City of London and have the protest camp evicted. Much of the mainstream media side with the establishment by dismissing them as an incoherent and unrepresentative fringe. Well-paid television interviewers sneer that the protesters are spoilt brats while grand columnists scoff that they will achieve nothing.
Read more-The Guardian

Saudi Prince offers $900,000 to the person who captures an Israeli soldier

(Reuters) - A member of the Saudi royal family has pledged $900,000 to a bounty offered by a prominent cleric to any Palestinian who kidnaps an Israeli soldier, according to comments aired on a private TV station Saturday.

Prince Khaled bin Talal, a brother of Saudi billionnaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, told Daleel television over the phone that he decided to contribute to Awad al-Qarni's bounty after the Saudi cleric received death threats for offering $100,000 to capture an Israeli soldier.

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Saturday, October 29, 2011

Balfour Declaration unmasked: Israel Is Illegitimate

Israel Is Illegitimate

By Alan Hart

For readers who may not be intimately familiar with English terminology, an oxymoron is a figure of speech by which contradictory terms are combined to form an expressive phrase or epithet such as cruel kindness and falsely true. (It’s derived from the Greek word oxymoros meaning pointedly foolish).

For my contribution to the De-legitimizing Israel series, I’m going to confine myself to one question and answer.

The question is: How can you de-legitimize something (in this case the Zionist state) when it is NOT legitimate?

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Remembering the massacre of civilians in Kafr Qasim, Palestine, 55 years ago

Fifty-five years ago, Israeli Zionist terrorists massacred 49 civilian Palestinians in cold blood in the small, impoverished village of Kafr Qasim, Palestine, adding to the deplorable list of massacres committed by Israel since 1948. The villagers were lined up and shot execution style. What was their "crime"? They unknowingly "violated" a curfew announced and imposed on them only thirty minutes earlier. Israel, the "only democracy in the Middle East."

"On the eve of the 1956 War, strict security measures were imposed on Arab villages near Israel's borders. At Kafr Qasim in Israel on the Jordanian frontier, the army decreed a curfew to come into effect almost immediately whilst most of the workmen of the village were still out in the fields and could not be informed. As they returned to Kafr Qasim in the early evening of October 29, 1956, forty-nine villagers were shot by Israeli soldiers. Eleven Israeli soldiers were subsequently brought to trial on charges of murder, three of whom were acquitted. The others received sentences ranging from seven to seventeen years, although by 1960 all had been released."

Friday, October 28, 2011

Gaddafi's driver on the endgame: 'He didn't seem to know what to do'

Huneish Nasr, who served Gaddafi for 30 years, tells how denial and confusion marked the final days of a crumbling regime
gaddafi-driver
Huneish Nasr, Muammar Gaddafi's former personal driver, said 'the boss' had always been good to him.

Huneish Nasr last saw the boss he served for 30 years standing in the ruins of Sirte looking confused as all hell broke loose around them.

"Everything was exploding," said Nasr, Muammar Gaddafi's personal driver, recalling the moments before the deposed dictator was caught last week. "The revolutionaries were coming for us. He wasn't scared, but he didn't seem to know what to do. It was the only time I ever saw him like that."

Read more-The Guardian

Gaddafi killer faces prosecution, says Libyan interim government

NTC backs down from insistence Gaddafi died in crossfire and pledges justice for anyone proven to have fired lethal shot
Gaddafi killer faces prosecution, says interim Libyan government
The killing of Gaddafi after his capture in Sirte, which was recorded on mobile phone cameras, has attracted international criticism.

Libya's interim government says it will prosecute anyone found responsible for the death of Muammar Gaddafi after his capture, in a retreat from its earlier insistence that the dictator had been killed by crossfire.

The change in position comes after a week of sustained criticism of the Libyan leader's captors, who used their camera phones to chronicle his death. The footage, including images of a wounded Gaddafi being sodomised with what looked like a bayonet, caused widespread revulsion outside the country.

Read more-The Guardian

Chinese Sympathize With Occupy Wall Street

Income inequality, a feeling of disenfranchisement, and a sense of injustice are fueling popular curiosity about the movement, in which a number of Chinese see parallels with their own complaints against their government
ma oct26 p.jpg
A man watches the skyline of Shanghai from the Shanghai Financial
Center building

Read more-The Atlantic



Thursday, October 27, 2011

Israel finds new "home" for Bedouins: a garbage dump

JERUSALEM (IPS) - As Israel moves ahead with a plan to forcibly displace tens of thousands of Palestinian Bedouins in the occupied West Bank, Mohammad al-Korshan and his family are facing the real prospect of not only losing their home, but their traditional way of life.

The Bedouins depend on animals. We can’t take care of them in the village or in the city. All the Bedouins work with animals. If we go to the city, they kill us. They kill the Bedouins. After a few more years, you won’t have Bedouins in the area,” said al-Korshan, who lives in a Bedouin encampment with more than ninety other families near the West Bank town Anata, northeast of Jerusalem.

We want to stay in our homes. If they damage our homes or our tents, we want to build again. We won’t move. Even if they want to kill us, we want to stay. We haven’t any place to go,” he said.

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BDS Victory: Alstom loses Saudi Haramain Railway contract worth $10B

Photo credit: Adri Nieuwhof

The BDS National Committee (BNC) has declared a long sought-after victory as Alstom lost the bid for the second phase of the Saudi Haramain Railway project, worth $10 billion US dollars, after pressure from the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, including effective campaigning from the newly launched KARAMA, a European campaign to Keep Alstom Rail And Metro Away.

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Wednesday, October 26, 2011

Israeli military covers up evidence showing Eilat attack was not carried out by Palestinians

Sabbah Report

After a shooting attack on an Israeli bus and truck two months ago which killed five civilians and three soldiers, Israeli military officials immediately claimed that a Palestinian resistance group was responsible. But an Israeli military investigation revealing that the attack was carried out by Egyptians, not Palestinians, has been 'embargoed' by the military.

Military spokesperson Avital Leibovitz

Military spokesperson Avital Leibovitz

Although the results of the investigation were quietly released by the military last month, they have published no details, and have refused reporters' requests for more information. An article verifying the results of the internal investigation showing no Palestinian involvement in the attack was published last week in the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahranoth, with information from a 'leaked' document showing the conclusion of the investigative team.
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Tuesday, October 25, 2011

The Angry Arab: The Arab counter-revolution funds An-Nahda

"“Everybody says that Ennahda is backed by money from the Arabian gulf,” said Ahmed Ibrahim, the founder of the liberal Democratic Modernist Pole coalition, calling the outsize influence of foreign money a threat to Tunisia’s “fragile democracy.”
Though Ennahda’s sources of financing have not been disclosed, its resources are evident. The first party to open offices in towns across the country, Ennahda soon blanketed Tunisia with fliers, T-shirts, signs and bumper stickers. Unlike other parties here, it operates out of a gleaming high-rise in downtown Tunis, gives away professionally published paperbacks in several languages to lay out its platform, distributes wireless headsets for simultaneous translation at its news conferences and hands out bottled water to the crowds at rallies.
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MI6 role in Libyan rebels' rendition 'helped to strengthen al-Qaida'

Secret documents reveal British intelligence concerns and raise damaging questions about UK's targeting of Gaddafi opponents
Abdel Hakim Belhaj
Britain already faces legal action over its involvement in the plot to seize Abdul Hakim Belhaj, who is now the military commander in Tripoli. Photograph: Francois Mori/AP

British intelligence believes the capture and rendition of two top Libyan rebel commanders, carried out with the involvement of MI6, strengthened al-Qaida and helped groups attacking British forces in Iraq, secret documents reveal.

The papers, discovered in the British ambassador's abandoned residence in Tripoli, raise new and damaging questions over Britain's role in the seizure and torture of key opponents of Muammar Gaddafi's regime.

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Chris Hedges speaking at Occupy Wall Street: Radical movements keep this country honest!


Last week, Chris Hedges came down to Occupy Wall Street in New York. Hedges gave this compelling talk on the history of radical movements and the power of the people to create change.

Saturday, October 22, 2011

Afghanistan to back Pakistan if wars with U.S.: Karzai

(Reuters) - Afghanistan would support Pakistan in case of military conflict between Pakistan and the United States, Afghan President Hamid Karzai said in an interview to a private Pakistani TV channel broadcast on Saturday.Link

Friday, October 21, 2011

Lia Tarachansky, journalist and former settler, exposing Israeli myths: Seven Deadly Myths



Seven Deadly Myths is a story of denial and awakening. Only three years after the holocaust the Jewish nation was born, but those who fought for it built a parallel reality in which they both physically and psychologically erased what was there before. This is their story and the story of the remnants that endured, refusing to be buried under the deadly myths of denial. http://www.sevendeadlymyths.net

Iraq rejects US request to maintain bases after troop withdrawal

The US suffered a major diplomatic and military rebuff on Friday when Iraq finally rejected its pleas to maintain bases in the country beyond this year.

Barack Obama announced at a White House press conference that all American troops will leave Iraq by the end of December, a decision forced by the final collapse of lengthy talks between the US and the Iraqi government on the issue.

The Iraqi decision is a boost to Iran, which has close ties with many members of the Iraqi government and which had been battling against the establishment of permanent American bases.

Obama attempted to make the most of it by presenting the withdrawal as the fulfilment of one of his election promises.

"Today I can report that, as promised, the rest of our troops in Iraq will come home by the end of the year. After nearly nine years, America's war in Iraq will be over," he told reporters.

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Pepe Escobar: NATO wanted Gaddafi dead all along


Gaddafi at one point was a hero to the Western world, but for the last year Gaddafi was looked at as a villain. There are many reports explaining the reasons why the change of heart from the Western powers. Pepe Escobar, correspondent for the Asia Times, helps us understand what happened and what lies ahead for Libya.

Science Insider magazine: Jerusalem's Museum of Tolerance Under Fire—For Intolerance

musuem.jpg

Artist's conception of the planned Museum of Tolerance, Jerusalem.

"In a 20 October letter, leading archaeologists speak out against plans to break ground on a museum that they say will disturb an ancient Muslim cemetery in the heart of Jerusalem.

With a dramatic modern design and a central location in the contested city, the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance is supposed to bring together people from a variety of viewpoints, religions, and ethnicities. But the project's Jerusalem site is on and adjacent to the ancient Muslim cemetery of Mamilla, located just to the west of the ancient city's walls. Mentioned in 11th century C.E. documents, the cemetery was the resting place for early Muslims as well as Christian crusaders, and was used as a burial ground until the mid-20th century."

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Israel brochure on British Airways breaches UK ad rules, promotes apartheid

On a recent flight on easyJet, my colleague David Cronin “almost vomited” when he came across a glossy feature in the in-flight magazine pinkwashing Tel Aviv as a “Liberal and hedonistic” gay-friendly destination.

Aboard a British Airways flight the other day I had a similar experience when I opened up the in-flight magazine High Life to discover a glossy multi-page insert from the Israeli Ministry of Tourism entitled “Israel, The Hidden Gems.”

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Thursday, October 20, 2011

Netanyahu and his endgame in Palestine

The entire Zionist colonial project would have been unfeasible without liberal U.S. funding.
Ramzi Baroud
"The newest Israeli violation of international law is part of a decided Israeli action to speed up its projection of the endgame in Palestine. Shortly before the public announcement concerning Givat HaMatos, Netanyahu announced, on Oct. 11, “the establishment of a new committee charged with finding ways to legalize settlement outposts built on private Palestinian land” (Al Jazeera, Oct. 13). This means that every act of theft and colonial vigilante that took place since 1967 by individual or groups of Jewish settlers might soon be recognized as legal ownership."
Read moreLink

Pro-Israel donors are at the heart of Defence Ministry scandal in Britain

Philip Weiss

I keep saying that the Israel lobby is a central factor in the making of our foreign policy, and some day journalists are going to have to cover the story-- and the Liam Fox scandal in Britain ups the ante.

Liam Fox was once a rising star in British politics. But the British defense secretary resigned a week back because of his close financial ties to a business lobbyist named Adam Werritty who came and went with Fox on foreign trips and at the ministry, as though he were a government official.

Read more- Mondoweiss

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Israel controls 85 percent of Palestinian water sources

Cairo, Oct 16 (Petra) -- Israel has controlled 85 percent of Palestinian water resources and underground water in the occupied West Bank is "extremely threatened by the water theft", according to a report by the Arab League Secretariat.
It called on the international community to shoulder its responsibility towards Israel's violations and enable the Palestinian people to have full access to the available water resources. According to Palestinian and international reports, Israel gets about 65 percent of its annual water consumption of 2,700 cubic meters from outside sources.

New York Times spins the prisoner exchange, Max Ajl

The opening gambit is that "the list revealed why the country has found the trade so wrenching: a majority of the inmates were convicted of manslaughter, attempted murder or intentionally causing death." They go on to list not just suicide attacks against Israeli civilians but attacks against Israeli soldiers. Ethan Bronner perhaps has not noticed that Israel is carrying out a belligerent occupation. Soldiers are lawful targets. Meanwhile, "Palestinians said" that "many were peaceful people who were convicted in Israeli military trials that involved secret evidence and standards of proof that would be unacceptable in many Western countries." Everyone says this except for Israel and the United States.

Noam Chomsky on Israel-Palestine Prisoner Exchange, U.S. Assassination Campaign in Yemen

Noam Chomsky, the world renewed linguist and political dissident, spoke Monday night at Barnard College in New York City about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, just hours before Israel and Hamas completed a historic prisoner exchange. “I think [Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit] should have been released a long time ago, but there’s something missing from this whole story. There are no pictures of Palestinian women, no discussion, in fact, in the story of, what about the Palestinian prisoners being released? Where do they come from?” Chomsky says. “There is a lot to say about that. For example, we do not know — at least I do not read it in The Times — whether the release includes the elected officials who were kidnapped and imprisoned by Israel in 2007 when the United States, the European Union, and Israel decided to dissolve the only freely elected legislature in the Arab world.”

Hamas: Israel pledged to lift Gaza blockade as part of Shalit swap deal

Mahmoud Zahar, member of Hamas' negotiating team in Shalit deal tells Haaretz Israel had agreed to lift blockade as part of deal in talks with a German mediator long ago.
Zahar, who will be one of the Hamas officials greeting the released prisoners on Tuesday, said there are several other issues the sides also agreed to as part of the deal. For one, families from Gaza will now be allowed to visit their relatives in Israeli prisons. Since Shalit's abduction, such family visits have been banned.

Additionally, in an attempt to increase pressure on Hamas to reach an agreement on freeing Shalit, Israel had stripped Palestinian prisoners of certain privileges and put many of their leaders into solitary confinement. These measures will now be reversed, Zahar said.

Finally, Israel agreed to ease the blockade on Gaza, Zahar said.

Israeli defense officials confirmed that the Shalit agreement marks a turning point in relations between Israel and Hamas. They said that various steps have already been taken to ease the blockade on Gaza in recent months, as part of the unofficial cease-fire between Hamas and Israel.
Read more

Palestinians celebrate homecoming of their prisoners

Celebrating the Prisoner Release
Celebrating the Prisoner Release
Tens of thousands of Palestinians in Gaza celebrated the homecoming today of their prisoners and demanded militants seize more Israeli soldiers for future exchanges.

Read more- The Independent

All Freed Detainees Are Now In Gaza And Ramallah( Except that some from Jerusalem aren't allowed back in)

Every Palestinian detainee released in the first phase of the prisoners-swap deal between Israel and the Hamas movement, except those sent to Egypt, are now safely in Gaza and Ramallah. This article includes the speeches of President Mahmoud Abbas in Ramallah, and Hamas leader, Hasan Yousef, standing next to him.

Social media making a difference: From a single hashtag, a protest circled the world

(Reuters) - It all started innocuously enough with a July 13 blog post urging people to #OccupyWallStreet, as though such a thing (Twitter hashtag and all) were possible.

It turns out, with enough momentum and a keen sense of how to use social media, it actually is.

The Occupy movement, decentralized and leaderless, has mobilized thousands of people around the world almost exclusively via the Internet. To a large degree through Twitter, and also with platforms like Facebook and Meetup, crowds have connected and gathered.

Read more

Church divests $3M from Bank of America


On Oct 12, 2011 PACT held a bank accountability press conference to announce mounting divestments and to call on CA Attorney General Kamala Harris to take strong action to hold banks accountable for their unethical and illegal practices that have caused and prolonged the economic crisis.
San Jose churches, organizations and residents are divesting millions of dollars from big banks due to their unethical policies and practices. Most Holy Trinity Catholic Church is moving all of its accounts out of Bank of America. The City of San Jose has moved money out of B of A following its social responsibility investment policy. PACT is divesting from Wells Fargo. Community members are moving their money to follow their values - closing their accounts with big, national banks that caused the economic crisis and have taken no responsibility or action to be part of the solution.

The US media reports: Gilad Shalit swapped for 1000 non-people

By now, Gilad Shalit is back in Israel, while around 1000 Palestinian prisoners will eventually be released from Israeli jails, then scattered to various locations from Jerusalem to Egypt to Syria, where many will live in permanent exile. While some Israelis doubt the wisdom of the prisoner swap, there can be little doubt that the state of Israel has scored a public relations victory in the United States. American coverage of the prisoner exchange has focused almost exclusively on Shalit, his family, and Jewish Israeli society's "bittersweet" reaction to the deal.

Read more

Monday, October 17, 2011

Anger at greed goes global: protests boil around 1,500 cities

The Occupy Wall Street protest against income disparity spread across Western Europe, Asia, the US and Canada today.

Rome's demonstration turned violent, contrasting with peaceful events elsewhere.

Protesters gather near St Paul's Cathedral in Londoin for Saturday's demonstration.

Protesters gather near St Paul's Cathedral in London for Saturday's demonstration.

As many as 500 marchers in Rome wielding clubs attacked police, two banks and a supermarket, Sky TG24 reported.

Authorities used tear gas and water cannon.

Patrick Cockburn: Iran had better watch its step now Obama's chasing votes

"The plot in which an Iranian-American from Corpus Christi, Texas, notorious locally for his Clouseau-like dimwittedness, tries to hire a Mexican gangster to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington at the behest of the Iranian authorities has been greeted with incredulous hilarity across much of the world."

Saudi Arabia and Iran: Beyond the Propaganda War, As'ad AbuKhalil

"There is no question that there is a regional cold war heating up in the Middle East pitting Saudi Arabia against Iran. But the confrontation is only regional as far as Iran is concerned. Saudi Arabia is acting on behalf of the US and Israel, and not on its own behalf. Iran occupied UAE islands and yet the latter is less aggressive in its regional posture than Saudi Arabia. It is not the first time that the House of Saud has imposed its hegemony on behalf of the American patron: that was the Saudi role during the Cold War although Nasser (until 1967) frustrated these efforts."

Hamas: We Will Release Shalit When The Ex-detainees Reach The West Bank And Egypt

The leading figure of Hamas, Dr. Mahmoud Al-Zahar, stated that the moment the ex-detainees enter the West Bank and the Egyptian territories, Hamas will immediately release Gilad Shalit, the Ma’an News agency reported

Hamas: Hezbollah taught us to deal with Israel (According to the far right Jerusalem Post that is!)

Hezbollah is credited with teaching Hamas how to secure release of prisoners; Hezbollah kidnapped 6 Israeli soldiers in past decade. Shortly after kidnapping Gilad Schalit in 2006, Hezbollah sent Hamas a report detailing how to successfully broker a prisoner swap deal with Israel, Hamas said on Saturday. Hamas' political bureau and negotiating team said they studied the report thoroughly, and credited it with helping them successfully secure the release of 1,027 prisoners from Israeli prisons in exchange for the captive soldier.

Israeli government blamed for surge in racist attacks

Death to Arabs” and “price tag” sprayed on Muslim and Christian graves in Jaffa.

“The problem here is the way the Israeli government is dealing with all the brutal acts of the settlers in the West Bank and now inside the Green Line [Israel as it is recognized internationally]. The Israeli government is doing nothing in order to stop these racist people, and this fact gives this bunch of racists a green light to do anything they want,” said Sami Abu Shehadeh, a Jaffa resident and member of the Tel Aviv-Jaffa municipal council.

Mohammad Bouazizi is the reason why Occupy Wall Street is happening

owstimesquare

Yesterday in Times Square (Photo: Twitter)
Via Mondoweiss
Protesters in Lisbon surround parliament
LISBON, Oct 15 (Reuters) - About 40,000 people marched in Portugal on Saturday as part of a global day of protest against the financial elite and hundreds broke through a police cordon around the parliament in Lisbon to occupy its broad marble staircase.

‘Indignant’ protests to sweep across world
MADRID — “Indignant” activists, angered by a biting economic crisis they blame on politicians and bankers, vow to take to the streets worldwide on Saturday in a protest spanning 71 nations.

In this exclusive article for the US Campaign’s blog, Steering Committee member Peter Miller shares his thoughts on organizing to end military aid to Israel at Occupy Portland.

Occupy Times Square: Occupy Wall Street Protesters Swarm Midtown (PHOTOS)
NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Thousands of anti-Wall Street protesters rallied in New York's Times Square on Saturday, buoyed by a global day of demonstrations in support of their monthlong campaign against corporate greed.

NYPD arrests Occupy protesters, non-protester at Citibank branch
Video has surfaced of NYPD police arresting Occupy Wall Street protesters for allegedly removing their money out of a Citibank branch.

‘Occupy Wall Street’ protesters march on Chase Bank in NYC
Thousands of protesters marched in New York and Washington on Saturday as part of a global day of “outrage” against corporate greed that has seen rowdy demonstrations in dozens of countries.

Chicago protesters hold ‘die-in’ at Bank of America
Approximately 30 protesters affiliated with Stand Up Chicago staged a “die-in” at a Bank of America on Thursday before complying with police orders to leave.

A poll by Time released Thursday, which asked participants’ opinions on President Barack Obama’s job performance, the impact of the tea party and views of “Occupy Wall Street,” contains a startling revelation that the national press hasn’t quite pieced together yet: the “Occupy Wall Street” protesters have a higher approval rating than President Obama.

Sunday, October 16, 2011

Eliot Spitzer: Why Occupy Wall Street Has Already Won

OWS brought the issues of equity, fairness, justice, income distribution, and accountability for the economic cataclysm front and center.

Occupy Wall Street has already won, perhaps not the victory most of its participants want, but a momentous victory nonetheless. It has already altered our political debate, changed the agenda, shifted the discussion in newspapers, on cable TV, and even around the water cooler. And that is wonderful.

Suddenly, the issues of equity, fairness, justice, income distribution, and accountability for the economic cataclysm–issues all but ignored for a generation—are front and center. We have moved beyond the one-dimensional conversation about how much and where to cut the deficit. Questions more central to the social fabric of our nation have returned to the heart of the political debate. By forcing this new discussion, OWS has made most of the other participants in our politics—who either didn’t want to have this conversation or weren’t able to make it happen—look pretty small.

Read more

Every picture tells a story

A comment on ownership of Land in Palestine and why it's misunderstood

Comment posted on Mondoweiss in regards to land ownership in Palestine:

Phil...someday you must post an essay that EXPLAINS the LAND-OWNERSHIP system of Palestine before 1922 and maybe until 1947.

It’s explained, I believe, by a book by Raja Shehade. The point is that it is not the same as western, or British, or American real property law. Ownership is not limited to PERSONAL, STATE (or VILLAGE). There are also various types or grades of communal lands, for grazing for instance, used by all residents of a village and regarded as their land. there is also land owned by religious “trusts” (waqf land).

Israel pretends that land not PERSONALLY owned is STATE land and that they may usurp it at will. This is probably not true EVEN of actually state land, under international law, but it is especially galling where it conflates various types of non-STATE#, non-Personal ownerships with state-ownership.

A Palestinian mayor explains how Israeli army starves his village of water

Philip Weiss
Whenever I go to Palestine, I come away shocked at what Israel is doing there, without any American recognition.

I realize that I am almost as blind as all the other Americans-- because our media has done nothing to inform us about conditions. Our society has ignored these conditions by saying, Well it's a tough neighborhood, or, They're Arabs. Below is a video about the Arabs in that tough neighborhood. It is one of several videos I'll be posting in days to come.

Read more

Turkey will host all exiled Palestinian prisoners

BETHLEHEM (Ma‘an) 14 Oct -- Turkey will take in the 40 Palestinian prisoners set for exile abroad as part of an exchange deal between Hamas and Israel, Turkish media reported on Friday. Israel refused to deport the prisoners -- part of the first round of 450 set be released this week -- to Egypt, Lebanon or Syria, according to the report in Turkish daily Hurriyet.
Read more

Turks say can't sell Israeli carpets, cancel order

Turks say no to Israeli carpets LinkTurks say no to Israeli carpets
Turkish company cancels order worth NIS 100,000 from Carmel Carpets due to 'current situation'
A Turkish company has canceled an order of two containers of carpets from Israel's Carmel Carpets, saying it can't sell Israeli products at this time.
"We believe that in the current situation we won't be able to sell carpets made in Israel," Bytex CEO explained.
Read more

Saturday, October 15, 2011

"Let's get this started"

Remember on this day in 1953 the Qibya massacre



On this day, the 15th of October, 59 years ago, the massacre of "Qibya" led by Ariel Sharon, and the Israeli Occupation forces took place, killing 69 Palestinians, 2/3 being women and children. Forty-five houses, a school, and a mosque were destroyed in one night. This, of course, is just one of many massacres that have been perpetrated against the indigenous people of Palestine since 1948.

Friday, October 14, 2011

Scottish actress Tilda Swinton to appear in next month Vogue wearing a Palestine scarf

Vogue Nov 2011. The note emphasises that the clothes, 'throughout' are her own...
(Tilda" Swinton (born 5 November 1960) is a British actress known for both arthouse and mainstream films. She has appeared in a number of films including The Curious Case of Benjamin Button, Burn After Reading, and was nominated for a Golden Globe for her performance in The Deep End. She won the 2007 Academy Award for Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton.)

'There's a Huge Amount of Anger'

Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer let fly on Occupy Wall Street, why the GOP's cynical economic strategy is designed to make things worse, and whether China wants to ride to the rescue.

Foreign Policy

With protesters occupying Wall Street and European voters deciding on whether to support the failing peripheral states, Foreign Policy went back to its two favorite economic and political prognosticators -- Nouriel Roubini and Ian Bremmer -- for another spirited debate on what the coming months hold.

The news isn't good. "There's a huge amount of anger," says Roubini, better known as Dr. Doom for having predicted the 2007-2008 financial crisis. He sees another recession coming; the only question being "whether it's going to be a plain-vanilla recession or one as severe as the last."

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The War on Copts in Egypt: Its Origins

By As'ad AbuKhalil

There is a war on Copts in Egypt. It is unmistakable and state military and religious institutions are guilty in sponsoring and launching the war. It was no coincidence that the chief of Al-Azhar (a former puppet of Mubarak and his ruling party) was on an official visit to Saudi Arabia during the week of killing the Copts in the streets of Cairo.

The official statement about the visit by Al-Azhar chief and his meeting with Wahhabi clerics of the House of Saud was blatantly sectarian and spoke about protecting Sunnis, as if the majority of the world’s Muslims are under attack in the region from Muslim sects and non-Muslims. The meeting in Saudi Arabia is an example of the fanatical religious movement that leads and sponsors the industries of religious and sectarian hate in the region. But it is not only the Egyptian government which squarely bears the responsibility for the savage attacks on Copts on the streets, and for sponsoring the blatant sectarian agitation that filled Egyptian state airwaves.
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Wednesday, October 12, 2011

The Real Story of How Israel Was Created

Alison Weir

To better understand the Palestinian bid for membership in the United Nations, it is important to understand the original 1947 U.N. action on Israel-Palestine.

The common representation of Israel’s birth is that the U.N. created Israel, that the world was in favor of this move, and that the U.S. governmental establishment supported it. All these assumptions are demonstrably incorrect.

In reality, while the U.N. General Assembly recommended the creation of a Jewish state in part of Palestine, that recommendation was non-binding and never implemented by the Security Council.

Second, the General Assembly passed that recommendation only after Israel proponents threatened and bribed numerous countries in order to gain a required two-thirds of votes.

Third, the U.S. administration supported the recommendation out of domestic electoral considerations and took this position over the strenuous objections of the State Department, the CIA, and the Pentagon.

The passage of the General Assembly recommendation sparked increased violence in the region. Over the following months the armed wing of the pro-Israel movement, which had long been preparing for war, perpetrated a series of massacres and expulsions throughout Palestine, implementing a plan to clear the way for a majority-Jewish state.

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Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Mosque demolished a third time! (Oh, that's not nice. Not consistent with "Israeli values"!!)

Ready to demolish a Palestinian home, Israeli soldiers and bulldozers
surround Samir Muhammad Hasan Younis' house in the West Bank village
of Azzun Atma near Qalqilia, January 11, 2011.(MaanImages/Khaleel Reash)
TUBAS (Ma’an) -- Israeli forces on Tuesday demolished a mosque in the village of Khirbet Yarza in the northern West Bank, a local official said.

Head of Al-Malha village council Aref Daraghma told Ma’an that Israeli bulldozers and civil administration officials demolished the mosque, which is less than 60 square meters.

This is the third time in seven months that the mosque has been demolished, Daraghma said.

In addition to the mosque, several Bedouin structures were demolished on the pretext that they were built without permits, he added.
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Slavoj Žižek speaks at Occupy Wall Street: Transcript

"Remember. The problem is not corruption or greed. The problem is the system. It forces you to be corrupt. Beware not only of the enemies, but also of false friends who are already working to dilute this process. In the same way you get coffee without caffeine, beer without alcohol, ice cream without fat, they will try to make this into a harmless, moral protest. A decaffienated process. But the reason we are here is that we have had enough of a world where, to recycle Coke cans, to give a couple of dollars for charity, or to buy a Starbucks cappuccino where 1% goes to third world starving children is enough to make us feel good. After outsourcing work and torture, after marriage agencies are now outsourcing our love life, we can see that for a long time, we allow our political engagement also to be outsourced. We want it back."
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Occupy Wall Street news

Occupy Portland Is Born with Ten Thousand Strong

On October 6th, in Portland, Oregon, ten thousand people assembled at noon at Waterfront Park on a workday in anticipation of the non-permitted march, which would make a pit stop before ending at its official, secret "Occupation" spot.
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Occupy Wall Street: We Danced Waiting for the Police Who Never Came

Last night, our permit officially ran out in Freedom Plaza. Early in the evening the police reminded us our permit ended at 10PM and they ‘had to do their job.’ We held an emergency meeting of many of the organizers and decided to stay. We took it to the General Assembly (see 1:49:22 of video) which agreed. We were in solidarity – Freedom Park was paid for by our tax dollars; the Constitution says “Congress shall make no law abridging” our right to freedom of speech and right to assemble to redress grievances against the government. We had grievances, so we were staying.
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Why the Occupied Wall Street Movement Scares the Democratic Party

We are witnessing the birth of a social movement that has the potential to win economic justice. Having only recently exploded onto the scene, there are many directions this movement may take. The only certainty is that, since the conditions that fueled it are not going away any time soon, it is, at the very least, a harbinger of larger struggles to come.
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Israel plans expulsion of some 60,000 Bedouin Palestinians











Ben White-Electronic Intifada
In the de facto one state that exists between the Mediterranean Sea and Jordan River, Israeli authorities are currently planning mass expulsions of around 60,000 Palestinians, specifically in order to free up more territory for Jewish settlement.
Read moreLink

Friday, October 7, 2011

Current occupy site in the US

Source-Daily Kos

Al Arqeeb Bedouin Village Demolished For the 30th Time

Dozens of Israeli policemen and members of the so-called “Israel Land Authority” demolished and removed all tents and structures in Al Araqeeb village in the Negev., the thirtieth such attack against the village.

Al Araqeeb Village - Arabs48
Al Araqeeb Village - Arabs48

Residents of all Arab villages in the area declared a strike and massive demonstration on Thursday morning at 11 at a protest tent set up to counter an Israeli plan to expropriate nearly 860.000 dunums (212510.6 acres) of Arab lands and displace nearly 30000 Arabs living in the “unreacognized” villages in the Negev.

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Negev Arab towns go on strike over plans to confiscate their land

If Israel's parliament approves the proposal, 30,000 Bedouins could be removed from their homes in Negev within 60 days
Bedouins protest in Israel's southern region Negev
Bedouins living in Israel's southern Negev region protest against government plans to confiscate their land.

Six Arab-Israeli towns in Israel's southern Negev region have ground to a halt in protest at government plans to confiscate swathes of land from the Bedouin community. If the proposal passes through the Knesset, Israel's parliament, unopposed, 30,000 people could be forced from their homes within 60 days.

Schools, shops and municipal offices across the region closed for the day allowing more than 8,000 people to stage a demonstration in Beersheba rejecting the plan – the largest civil protest in the city's history.

Arab-Israeli MP Jamal Zahalka said they were united against the proposal.

"We want to send a very clear message to the Israeli government – we are saying no. This demonstration proves that Israel's plans will be thwarted. Nobody here today will co-operate with them."

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Nobel Peace Prize Awarded to Three Activist Women

Left, Leymah Gbowee in September; center: Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, the Liberian president, in June; right: Tawakul Karman in Sana, Yemen, on Wednesday.

LONDON — The Nobel Peace Prize for 2011 was awarded on Friday to three campaigning women from Africa and the Arab world in acknowledgment of their nonviolent role in promoting peace, democracy and gender equality. The winners were Liberian President Ellen Johnson Sirleaf — Africa’s first elected female president — her compatriot, peace activist Leymah Gbowee and Tawakul Karman of Yemen, a pro-democracy campaigner.
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Yemeni "Joan of Arc". Tawakkul Karman, shares Nobel Peace Prize Win


Watch her here in action..

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

From the horse's mouth





Nobel-winning economist supports ‘Occupy Wall Street’

joestiglitz-screen


Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz showed up at “Occupy Wall Street” this week to show his support for the protest and clearly outline what he sees as the worst crimes of the American financial sector.

In a brief speech amplified by an “echo chamber” of protesters (who shouted Stiglitz’s own words as a group because they’re banned from using megaphones), the Colombia University professor said that Wall Street had become wealthy by “socializing losses and privatizing gain,” calling it a scheme that’s “not capitalism.”

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Islamic Artisans Constructed Exotic Nonrepeating Pattern 500 Years Before Mathematicians

As early as the 15th century, elaborate symmetrical tile work on medieval Islamic buildings contained patterns straight out of modern math
Scientific American

tile work ELABORATE SYMMETRICAL tile work on medieval Islamic buildings, such as this 15th-century Turkish mosque, seem to have been constructed from sets of decorated tiles.

Medieval Islamic artisans seem to have developed a procedure for creating jigsawlike mosaics that ultimately led them to an exotic pattern that mathematicians would discover nearly half a millennium later. Researchers report that 15th-century buildings in Iran feature tiles arranged in a so-called quasicrystal, which is symmetric but does not repeat itself regularly.

"Here is evidence it [the pattern] was being used, if not understood, 500 years ahead of when we had any idea what was going on with [it] in the West," says physics graduate student Peter J. Lu of Harvard University. Lu began poring over photos from Iran, Iraq, Turkey and Afghanistan after seeing hints of the pattern while traveling in Uzbekistan. The Islamic artisans seem to have spun a wide variety of symmetric traceries from a set of five shapes, according to a report Lu co-authored, published online February 22 in Science.

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Settlers' sexually abuse activist. Their wives applaud

Anatot Pogrom Victims Suffered Sexual Abuse

anatot pogrom victim

Image from settlers publication, 'The True Right' with caption: 'Nazileftist smashed with blows.'

If all I did in this post was tell you about the suffering of Israeli peace activists who were beaten and brutalized at a pogrom at Anatot a few days ago, I would be telling you little that was newsworthy or that you didn’t know already. I’ve already reported here that senior Israeli police officers not only stood by and did nothing while bones were broken and one settler attempted to knife a protester, but that the police actually directly beat up the activists who’d come to support a Palestinian farmer whose land had been stolen by the settlement.

No, all this would be old news. But what Idan Landau has done is to focus very specifically on the level of sexual violence meted out to the female protesters by the settlers. But not just by the male settlers, by the female settlers specifically. I’ve read about the violence of which settlers are capable for years. That’s nothing new. But what Idan has collected in his blog post is new. Here is my translation (pardon the strong language which is in the original Hebrew) along with links to the original Hebrew eyewitness sources. Israeli journalist Haggai Matar quotes this victim:

“Outside [the vehicle], settlers are banging on the windows making a sign with their fingers drawn across their throats to show that they would slash my throat. They shriek: ‘Bring her outside [the vehicle]. We’ll deal with her. Give her what she has coming to her, the whore!’”

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Why the UN must abolish the 'Quartet' that Tony Blair uses for personal profit.

Tony Blair has been accused of using his position in the Quartet to further his personal business interests [GALLO/GETTY]

It was formed to assist in Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, in reality, envoy Tony Blair uses it for personal profit.
Quartet envoy Tony Blair has been the target of stinging criticism of late from officials close to Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas. There have even been murmurs that Abbas' officials may formally request Blair's removal.

While Blair's Quartet role, which he took up the day he left office as UK prime minister in 2007, has undoubtedly been harmful to the Palestinian people and to any semblance of international law, it would not be enough to call for Blair to go.

It is the Quartet itself - an ad hoc committee of US, EU and Russian officials, and the UN Secretary General, that monopolises the so-called "peace process" - that has destroyed what little credibility the United Nations has left on the question of Palestine.
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Bloggers say Arab Spring has gone global

Prominent Arab bloggers, who meet in Tunis, say their methods are being picked up by activists in the West.
Some of the participants pose for a photo during the opening of the third Arab Bloggers Conference in Tunis [EPA]

TUNIS, Tunisia – New forms of activism that have evolved in the Arab world in 2011 are being picked up by activists in the West, speakers at the Third Arab Bloggers' Meeting have affirmed.

The meeting is the first since the uprisings began, and brings some of the most prominent bloggers in the region together for a three-day gathering.


UK has 'worst quality of life in Europe'

Survey of 10 developed European countries puts UK at bottom of the pile due to high costs of living, while France takes top spot
People with umbrellas walk through rain in London.
The UK has the second lowest hours of sunshine a year of the countries included in the uSwitch quality of life index.

The UK has been named the worst place to live in Europe for quality of life, behind countries with damaged economies such as Ireland and Italy, according to the latest uSwitch quality of life index.

The UK emerged as having the second lowest hours of sunshine a year, the fourth highest retirement age, and the third lowest spend on health as a percentage of GDP.

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Nasser’s Anniversary: Toward a Reassessment, As'ad AbuKhalil

Jamal Abdel Nasser by steffanileman
As'ad Abu Khalil
This year’s anniversary of Nasser’s death passed with more notice in the Egyptian press and culture than years past. Even the military ruler, Field Marshal Tantawi, paid tribute to Nasser and spoke about his achievements. Nasser has been a reference point in the Egyptian uprising: not so much in terms of revival of Arab nationalism, because Egyptian nationalist fervor is quite strong, but in terms of the elevation of his stature after decades of vicious propaganda campaigns by the Sadat-Mubarak regime against Nasser and his family. The memoirs of Nasser’s wife, Tahiya, were published only months prior to the eruption of the Egyptian uprising. It is arguable that the life of the Nasser couple, as revealed in her memoirs, was one of many sparks that triggered the Egyptian uprising. The modesty and frugality of the Nasser’s household was a great contrast with the imperial lifestyle of emperors Sadat and Mubarak.
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The Palestine conference in Tehran: discourse that does not get reported in Zionist media

angryarab
It is amazing how much Zionists control the media coverage (and congressional deliberations and decisions) in the US. How many of you, for example, were aware that the Supreme Guide in Iran spoke against the slogan of "throwing the Jews into the sea" and explicitly said that it was not "their intentions". In fact, comrade Ibrahim Amin in Al-Akhbar wrote that this ostensible goal was never a stated goal for any serious resistance group in the region and yet Zionist hoodlums made it out to be a cherished goals for Arabs when no Arab was found to have made it (I only found one sentence uttered by the founder of the Muslim Brothers, Hasan Al-Banna in 1948 in Al-Musawwar--research the archives here). Of course, the Israeli military (air force to be exact) gave a military communique-order in 1967 in which it explicitly and categorically called for pushing the Arabs into the desert (you may find it in Michael Oren's Six Days of War--again, search the archives here). It was mentioned in passing and the impulses of ethnic cleansing of Zionists never get attention in Western media. In other words, if Khamenei said: we don't want to throw Jews into the sea, it is not news. But if some unknown unidentified Muslims in a village in some faraway land said it would be front page story in the New York Times. Now, of course, the conference in Tehran is empty and has no agenda except the delivery of long boring speeches. But my favorite part of the entire conference was the presence of Ahmad Chalabi there.

Masters of deceit: Israel Builds Settlements and Wants Talks

JERUSALEM — Days after his halfhearted conciliatory U.N. appearance, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had already approved the construction of 1,100 flats in occupied East Jerusalem. Yet on Sunday, he threw his support behind the new Mideast Quartet’s peace plan with the Palestinians.

Kuwait demands Israeli crimes against Palestinians be put before ICC

UNITED NATIONS, Oct 4 (KUNA) -- Addressing a UN gathering on international terrorism, the State of Kuwait demanded the Israeli crimes against the Palestinians be put before the International Criminal Court (ICC) and to hold perpetrators of violations of Human Rights and International Law accountable for their actions.

Obama Turns to Biden to Reassure Jewish Voters, and Get Them to Contribute, Too

In his 1,000-word letter to the editor, Mr. Blinken went into a full exposition of all the ways in which Mr. Obama has been helpful to Israel, highlighted by an unparalleled $3 billion in military assistance, including an additional $205 million to build the Iron Dome rocket defense system for communities on Israel’s border with Gaza. He also emphasized the United States’ effort to block a declaration of statehood at the United Nations by the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, and intervening to protect the Israeli ambassador when a violent mob stormed the embassy in Cairo. At his Boca Raton meeting with the rabbis — at the home of a former Democratic congressman, Ron Klein — Mr. Biden went through the same list, adding some flourishes of his own.

Abbas Makes Continuous Efforts to Gain Ninth Vote

RAMALLAH, October 4, 2011 (WAFA) – Minister of Foreign Affairs Riyad al-Malki said the Palestinian Authority is making continuous efforts to gain the ninth vote in the United Nations Security Council. He told Voice of Palestine that he will be visiting Serbia and Bosnia-Herzegovina to guarantee their votes in favor of the Palestinian application to the Security Council. He said all Palestinian and Islamic diplomatic means will be used to in order to support the Palestinian bid, as it is the only Palestinian option. Al-Malki explained that these means include Arab and Islamic investments in Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Russian and Serbian influence to support the bid.

Swedes call for academic boycott of Israel

More than 200 students, professors and lecturers across Sweden have signed on to a growing academic boycott call demanding that Swedish universities not participate in any academic cooperation with Israeli educational institutions. They also called on the Swedish government to “act [towards] the cessation of the [European Union’s] research support to Israel.”
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UN statistics show that Israel's occupation is more aggressive

New statistics from the United Nations demonstrate that Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip is becoming more aggressive and dangerous for Palestinian civilians. A report from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the occupied territories (UNOCHA) has revealed an increase in Israel's demolitions of Palestinian houses and other buildings in 2011. The number of Palestinians injured by Israeli forces this year has more than doubled compared with last year. The UNOCHA report said that the Israeli Occupation Authorities demolished 409 Palestinian structures in 2011 compared with 290 over the same period in 2010. Just over 800 Palestinians have been injured to-date in 2011; the figure for January to September 2010 was 374.

Al-Ahram: Egypt to draft new Israel gas deal

File picture shows an attack in July on a pipeline delivering gas from Egypt
to Israel at el-Arish in the north of the Sinai peninsula.
CAIRO (Reuters) -- Egypt will soon finish drafting a new contract for gas exports to its neighbor Israel that includes a big increase in prices, a newspaper cited the petroleum minister as saying on Tuesday.

Gas supplies to Israel have been disrupted by a series of attacks on the pipeline in the Sinai border region by assailants believed to oppose the sale of gas to Israel.
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Can't be always bad news, I guess. A Nazi settler dies..

Hanan Porat, a former Israeli parliamentarian who was a driving force behind the Jewish settlement movement in the West Bank, died of cancer Tuesday, his family said. He was 67.
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It's now customary: Settlers run over two Palestinian sisters

Two women from the northern West Bank were injured on Tuesday morning in a hit-and-run incident involving an Israeli settler car, medics said.
The women were hit as they crossed the main road of Huwwara village, south Nablus. Ahlam Bilal Hamad, 19, and her sister Saja, 18, suffered mild injuries in the incident.
A settler driving a Subaru pickup truck fled the scene, Palestinian medical sources said.
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Nobody Can Predict The Moment Of Revolution ( Occupy Wall Street )


Video shot during the 5th and 6th day of the occupation.
This idea to occupy the financial district in New York City was inspired by recent uprisings in Spain, Greece, Egypt, and Tunisia
which most of us were following online.
Despite of the corporate media's effort to silence the protests, and Yahoo's attempt to to censor it in e-mail communication,
the occupation is growing in numbers and spreading to other cities in the US and abroad.

Occupy Wall Street rediscovers the radical imagination

The young people protesting in Wall Street and beyond reject this vain economic order. They have come to reclaim the future
Occupy Wall Street Anti-Bank Protest
People protest during the 'Occupy Wall Street' rally in New York, 17 September.

Why are people occupying Wall Street? Why has the occupation – despite the latest police crackdown – sent out sparks across America, within days, inspiring hundreds of people to send pizzas, money, equipment and, now, to start their own movements called OccupyChicago, OccupyFlorida, in OccupyDenver or OccupyLA?

There are obvious reasons. We are watching the beginnings of the defiant self-assertion of a new generation of Americans, a generation who are looking forward to finishing their education with no jobs, no future, but still saddled with enormous and unforgivable debt. Most, I found, were of working-class or otherwise modest backgrounds, kids who did exactly what they were told they should: studied, got into college, and are now not just being punished for it, but humiliated – faced with a life of being treated as deadbeats, moral reprobates.

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