URUK Net 13 March, 2010: Who’s stealing Afghan cultural treasures?
Afghan family killed as special forces defy night raid ban
Miles Amoore
March 13, 2010 – THE two helicopters swooped low over a cluster of mud homes, whirling in the cold night sky before landing in a wheat field on the edge of the small Afghan village. From his home nearby, 23-year-old Najibullah Omar strained his eyes in the darkness as he made out the faint shapes of armed men pouring from the helicopters’ bellies. A third helicopter circled menacingly in the moonless sky above the village of Karakhil in Wardak province, southwest of Kabul. Then a loud explosion shook the ground and a plume of smoke rose from his cousin Hamidullah’s house 20 yards away. Its guest room caught fire. Omar heard a burst of gunfire before all went quiet. His worst fears were confirmed the moment he walked through the compound gate at first light. The body of his cousin, a 32-year-old construction engineer who had taken a break from his job in a far-off province to visit his family, lay sprawled next to those of his wife and their seven-year-old son. Blood ran in dark pools on the mud floor of the terrace outside their door…
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AFRICOM’s First War: U.S. Directs Large-Scale Offensive In Somalia
Rick Rozoff
March 13, 2010 – Over 43 people have been killed in the Somali capital of Mogadishu in two days of fighting between Shabab (al-Shabaab) insurgent forces, who on March 10 advanced to within one mile of the nation’s presidential palace, and troops of the U.S.-backed Transitional Federal Government. The fighting has just begun. The last ambassador of the United States to Somalia (1994-1995), Daniel H. Simpson, penned a column for the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette on March 10 in which which he posed the question “why, apart from the only lightly documented charge of Islamic extremism among the Shabab, is the United States reengaging in Somalia at this time?”…
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Israel tortures Jerusalem minors
Pal Telegraph
March 13, 2010 – Jerusalem Center for Social and Economic Rights revealed Saturday that Israeli police tortured Jerusalemite children, who were arrested before by Israelis. The Center published two statements made by Loai Rujby, 14, and Mahmoud Dweik,12, both residents of Al-Yemen area of the Silwan neighborhood, who were arrested on January 10, 2010 and in November, last year. Both statements provide accounts of how Israeli soldiers tortured the two children. The center said that the children’s accounts were clear-cut evidence of the torture policy adopted by Israeli occupation against the Palestinian minors, which increased by recent arrest campaigns that target children and minors…
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Israel Police arrests children aged 12 to 15 in night raids in Silwan, East Jerusalem
B’Tselem
March 13, 2010 – In recent months there have been many cases in which minors aged 12-15 from Silwan, in East Jerusalem, were arrested in the middle of the night by police officers and Israel Security Agency agents accompanied by armed border policemen. The minors were taken out of their beds and brought to the police station in the Russian Compound, in West Jerusalem. Some of them were brought handcuffed, and none of the parents were allowed to accompany them. At the station, the minors were interrogated on suspicion of stone throwing. According to testimonies that some of them gave to B’Tselem, the interrogators beat and threatened them…
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What Torture Is and Why It’s Illegal and Not “Poor Judgment”
Andy Worthington
March 13, 2010 – It’s now over three weeks since veteran Justice Department (DOJ) lawyer David Margolis dashed the hopes of those seeking accountability for the Bush administration’s torturers, but this is a story of such profound importance that it must not be allowed to slip away. Margolis decided that an internal report into the conduct of John Yoo and Jay S. Bybee, who wrote the notorious memos in August 2002, which attempted to redefine torture so that it could be used by the CIA, was mistaken in concluding that both men were guilty of “professional misconduct,” and should be referred to their bar associations for disciplinary action. Instead, Margolis concluded, in a memo that shredded four years of investigative work by the Office of Professional Responsibility (OPR), the DOJ’s ethics watchdog, that Yoo and Bybee had merely exercised “poor judgment.”..
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Who’s stealing Afghan cultural treasures?
RussiaToday
March 13, 2010 – Afghanistan’s unique location has made it home to the world’s most complex civilizations that left a rich cultural heritage. But the war-torn country has now fallen victim to looters, stealing the nation’s artifacts. Ever since Afghanistan was invaded by Alexander the Great, nearly 2,500 years ago, the country has seen one foreign army after another. In recent times – the British, the Soviets – and now the Americans … And whatever reasons they give – the impact of war continues to leave a cultural scar that runs deep through Afghan civilization…
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ISRAEL GOVT TO ENTER US HEALTHCARE PLAN
Irish4Palestine
March 13, 2010 – …If that’s not enough, now Israel wants to start entering into US healthcare. Pretty soon, your wee granny will be under the care of Israel: The CEO of the Hebrew Home at Riverdale, a prominent New York nursing home, visited Israel last month in hopes of including local companies in a business venture he thinks will ultimately benefit Israel’s public image. The Hebrew Home, which has been awarded special legislation by the state of New York to carry out a new cost-savings health-care project as part of the state’s Managed Long-Term Care, is hoping to make Israeli companies the focal point. Dan Reingold, CEO of the Hebrew Home, met with leading technology companies and government officials in an attempt to utilize Israeli innovations for the project, whose goal is to make use of a state grant of $3,600 per month per resident to provide for health-care needs…
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Saudis deny discussing pressure on China over Iran with US
AFP
March 13, 2010 — Saudi Arabia denied on Friday that its officials had discussed with US Defence Secretary Robert Gates putting pressure on China to back a new round of sanctions on Iran over its nuclear ambitions. An “official source” quoted by the official SPA news agency said reports that Riyadh said it was willing to use its influence to get Beijing to support UN sanctions aimed at convincing Iran to halt its atomic programme were false. “This issue is not true, it was not discussed during the visit of the secretary of defence who was in the kingdom recently,” the source was cited as saying…
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Palestinian Dispossession in East Jerusalem
by Stephen Lendman
March 13, 2010 – For Jews, Jerusalem is its historic capital. Muslims also claim it for the third holiest site in Islam, containing the 35 acre Noble Sanctuary (al-Haram al-Sharif), including the Al-Aqsa Mosque and Dome of the Rock. The 1947 UN Partition Plan designated Jerusalem an international city under a UN Trusteeship Council. After Israel’s 1947-48 War of Independence, it was divided between Israel and Jordan, and during Israel’s 1967 Six-Day War, East Jerusalem was captured and occupied, its current status today. In March 2009, a confidential EU report (now public) accused Israel of using settlement expansions, house demolitions, discriminatory housing policies, restrictive permits, closing Palestinian institutions, the West Bank Separation Wall, and various other ways to “actively pursu(e) the illegal annexation” of East Jerusalem and “increase Jewish presence” in the city…
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Clinton Family Pockets Haiti Assets in Telephone Company Privatization, Says Pumphrey
A Black Agenda Radio interview by Glen Ford
March 13, 2010 – Backed by the might of the United States military and their own official positions, the Clinton power couple plus brother-in-law have muscled themselves into the Haitian telephone monopoly. This cozy public-private partnership poses huge conflicts of interest, says Paul Pumphrey, of Brothers and Sisters International – and robs the Haitian people of hundreds of millions in revenues a year. But then, that’s what empires are for, isn’t it?…
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The Green Movement
by Mina Khanlarzadeh
March 13, 2010 – The Green Movement is at a juncture, at which, in order to expand deeper into different social layers, it had better incorporate different trade and class demands, in order to change/transfer the focus of the movement from personalities to socio-political and economic demands of different social layers and classes. For example, women have had an extremely active presence in the Green Movement, and it would be good to render this presence more goal-focused by infusing it not only with supra-class demands (such as the eradication of laws discriminatory to all women), but also with class interests. It would be beneficial for the students, journalists, teachers, the unemployed and the rest to raise their trade demands in the Green Movement’s discourse…
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U.S. report offers damning picture of human rights abuses in Afghanistan
Conditions are horrific, torture is common and police frequently rape female detainees, the U.S. State Department finds
Paul Koring
March 13, 2010 – Afghan prison conditions are horrific, torture is common and police frequently rape female detainees, the U.S. State Department finds in its annual survey of human rights…”Torture was commonplace among the majority of law enforcement institutions, especially the police,” the U.S. report found, citing the Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission, the group used by Ottawa to help monitor whether detainees transferred by Canadian troops are abused or tortured. Canadian diplomats compile a similar annual report on selected countries – including Afghanistan – but it isn’t made public. Government censors blacked out all references to torture, abuse and extrajudicial killings by Afghan police and prison guards in the last available report obtained under Access to Information…
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Haiti: Disaster Capitalism on Steroids
An interview with Robert Roth
Robert Roth
March 13, 2010 – “Two months after the devastating earthquake, the situation in Haiti is downright criminal,” says Robert Roth. According to the spokesperson of the activist network Haiti Action Committee, major western players such as the US are more interested in defending their own geopolitical interests in Haiti than truly helping the hardly hit Caribbean country…
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Jerusalem burns
Malika Malini.
March 13, 2010 – Once again, Muslim worshipers aged over 50 were not permitted to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem. Palestinian men were obliged to pray on stairs in the large square located in front the Damascus gate, the main access to the Muslim quarter. The whole area was severely restricted to Palestinians. Following the imposition of these restrictions, enforced by Israeli authorities, clashes and confrontations were reported between Israeli border police and Palestinians near the entrance of the Mosque…
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House arrest term extended for 15-year-old Jerusalemite
Ma’an News
March 13, 2010 – An Israeli court extended the house arrest of a 15-year-old boy to April, during a hearing that sought to overturn the ruling for the boy, confined to his home since October 2009, court documents showed. Abdul Rahman Isaac Muhammad Hassan Az-Zaghal, lived in the Old City of Jerusalem until a court ordered him out of the area and confined him to his brother’s home in Tel Aviv, then allowed him to return home and attend school, still under general arrest…
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Explosions across Afghanistan’s Kandahar; 35 dead
Aljazeera.English
March 13, 2010 – At least 35 people have been killed after a series of explosions rocked the centre of the southern Afghan city of Kandahar, an interior ministry spokesman has said. Saturday’s attacks also left 45 people, including policemen and civilians, injured. Al Jazeera’s Hoda Abdel-Hamid, reporting from Kabul, the Afghan capital, said: “We spoke to the spokesman of the governor to the city of Kandahar [and] it appears to be a co-ordinated attack…
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Settlers Torch Olive Orchard In Hebron
Saed Bannoura
March 13, 2010 – A group of fundamentalist Jewish settlers burnt on Thursday at night an olive orchard in Safa village, north west of Hebron, in the southern part of the West Bank. Dozens of settlers torched the grove while the Israeli army did not attempt to intervene or stop them. The residents called the local civil defense and firefighters but the army prevented them from reaching the grove…
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Umm Al-Kheir, Where Freedom Stands For Demolition
Palestine Monitor
March 13, 2010 – Umm al-Kheir means ‘Mother of Freedom’ in Arabic. But the eighty residents of this little Bedouin community in the South Hebron Hills aren’t free at all. With the settlers of Carmel as their neighbours, these shepherds have to deal with harassment, warrants of demolition, bulldozers and even gunshots. Written and photographed by FLV…
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Gaza…1000 Days Under Siege
By Shaimaa Mustafa
March 13, 2010 – Pitifully looking at her baby child, Om Yamen is recalling the past 1,000 days of her life under a crippling Israeli siege. “Life has been a living hell,” she told IslamOnline.net on Tuesday, March 9, in a broken voice. “We can’t stand this anymore. The siege has exhausted us and broken our backs.” The 1.6 million Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, a costal enclave, are marking 1,000 days since Israel slapped a crippling siege on their territory. “Each night seemed like a thousand days,” said the tears-eyed Palestinian …
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Jerusalem burns
Malika Malini.
March 13, 2010 – Once again, Muslim worshipers aged over 50 were not permitted to enter the Al-Aqsa Mosque in the old city of Jerusalem. Palestinian men were obliged to pray on stairs in the large square located in front the Damascus gate, the main access to the Muslim quarter. The whole area was severely restricted to Palestinians. Following the imposition of these restrictions, enforced by Israeli authorities, clashes and confrontations were reported between Israeli border police and Palestinians near the entrance of the Mosque…
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A Tribute to Sarah Meyer, human rights activist
Andy Worthington
March 13, 2010 – “Autumn Leaves,” a photo by Sarah Meyer of her garden. She wrote on November 1, 2009, “Huge winds and storms. The autumnal leaves on my lawn remind me of the autumn of my life.”I have just been informed that Sarah Meyer, a wonderfully supportive friend in the struggle for a better world, recently died of cancer…I had been particularly drawn to Sarah’s work because she covered Afghanistan in extraordinary detail, compiling and commenting on a wide range of reports, but she also covered other aspects of the “War on Terror” — and the crimes of the West that preceded it…
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