Slave trade heads to Israel
Mona Alami
Israel continues to be a favorite destination for the trafficking of women for the sex industry – also known as the white slave trade – and for a form of modern slavery where migrant laborers from developing countries are exploited. The US State Department placed Israel in Tier 2 position in its 2007 Trafficking in Persons report. Also, an Israeli court ruled against the country’s work visa policy which forces foreign workers into indentured labor with a single employer. “Israel was only upgraded to Tier 2 last year,” said Romm Lewkowicz, a spokesman from Israel’s Hotline for Migrant…

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Katrina Redux
Stephen Lendman
Renamed and back, but first a personal note. Post-Katrina, writing about “The New Orleans Aftermath and (its) Ugly Glimpse of the Future” turned this retiree into a writer and radio host. Now three years later, Gustav threatened and, on August 30, got New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin to hype the risk, scare the public, and order a dusk-to-dawn curfew and evacuation of the city’s 239,000 residents ahead of what he called “the mother of all storms.” Many hundreds of thousands more along the Gulf coast. “Nearly two million people from Texas to Alabama,” according to an August 31 New York Times report. Thankfully without cause as “the storm of the century” made landfall as a Category 2, weakened to a tropical depression on September 2, and Louisianans were spared the worst of their fears…

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U.S. Political Stage Setting: “The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy”
Liz Burbank, the burbank digest
Digest note: Below is a revealing analysis by Stratfor, leading imperialist analyst & intel. co., “a private CIA”, The Medvedev Doctrine and American Strategy. The old U.S. – S.U./Russia inter-imperialist rivalry for global supremacy is again center stage. Russia refused to bow to U.S military aggression and threats, instead used the U.S. Georgia proxy war to upset the U.S. strategic apple-cart for Russia’s own strategic interests. Speaking for and to imperialists, Stratfor reveals much that is not available via U.S. mainstream media “news” , but it probably won’t divulge much about U.S. moves to buy China, its other major capitalist rival, away from Russia, tactically at least, to wreck the counter-U.S. bloc-building that could sink Amerika’s ship…

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Lavrov: No secret arms deal with Iran
IranMania.com
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says his country is not engaged in any covert arms supplies to Iran or any other country, PressTV reported. As far as some covert supplies of Russian arms to Iran or to any other region are concerned, we do not indulge in this type of activity,? ITAR-TASS quoted the Russian top diplomat as saying on Tuesday. Russia’s arms export is transparent from the standpoint of international law and Russian legislations, he added. Lavrov pointed to certain violations committed by other countries, including countries that have supplied attack weapons to Georgia…

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Iraq said not to favor U.S. firms to develop oil fields
Azzaman
Iran is pressuring Iraqi authorities to exclude U.S. oil majors from contracts to develop the country’s massive oil fields, sources at the Oil Ministry said. The sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the authorities currently favor Chinese and Russian companies to those of the United States. Their remarks come following a contract the ministry signed last month with China’s state-owned oil firm CNPC… Analysts say it is difficult today for any major development, whether economic or political, to take place in Iraq without Iranian consent. Iran has emerged as the country’s top trading partner. Its firms are present in the Kurdish north and southern Iraq carrying out projects worth billions of dollars. Iranian goods are the most conspicuous merchandise in Iraqi shops. Iraq, though occupied and administered by America, has grown to be so pendent on Iran that some analysts see it as a satellite state of Tehran…

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Baath Party Statement
Let Georgia’s events be a start to muzzling the US!
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
…Our Party has waited to issue a statement concerning Georgia’s, believing that later developments shall uncover the formidable damage suffered by the US due to the invasion of Iraq, where it is getting trapped by the heroic Iraqi Resistance. Now after Georgia’s events, our Party ascertains that the US has lost its historic opportunity to establish a colonialist new global order, exploiting the collapse of the Soviet Union and China which avoids to confront the US. Consider! The US was not even capable from uttering strong declarations against Russia which wrecked the US’ plot against its interests through pushing the puppet Georgian regime to attack civilians in south Ossetia and let its hordes loose committing mass murders against its people and provoking Russia in an impertinent manner…

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IRAQ: Health Ministry confirms cholera cases
IRIN News
At least five cholera cases have been confirmed in Baghdad and the southern province of Maysan, due to soaring temperatures and rundown water plants, the Health Ministry said on 2 September. “Four cases have been confirmed in Baghdad and the fifth one has been confirmed in Maysan province. Of those, three are children younger than 10 years and the others are adults,” Ihssan Jaafar, general director of the Health Ministry’s general health directorate, told IRIN…

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September 3, 2008: 15 Iraqis Killed, 28 Wounded
Margaret Griffis, Antiwar.com
At least 15 Iraqis were killed and another 28 were wounded in the latest violence. In one incident, the U.S military fired back on Iraqi security personnel who did not know they were allied forces. An unknown number of policemen were injured during an incident in Tikrit as well. No Coalition deaths were reported. Also, an ongoing dispute over control of security in Khanaqin was resolved peacefully…

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‘US troops are committing war crimes’
Afghan rights group accuses foreign troops of deliberately killing civilians
Parwiz Shamal
AN AFGHAN human rights organisation has accused the United States army of committing war crimes in Afghanistan. The Afghanistan Human Rights Organisation (AHRO) said on Tuesday that, according to their own investigations, civilians are killed in most operations conducted by US forces. AIHRC expressed strong concern about the death of innocent Afghans during military operations and urged those responsible for the killings to face trial. “According to our investigations, 98% of civilian casualties caused by the coalition forces in Afghanistan are intentional,” the head of the AHRO, Lal Gul, said…

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An Invasion of Pakistan
Moon of Alabama
For the first time (to my knowledge) U.S. troops made a significant ground attack on Pakistan territory. This will create a backlash either for the Pakistani government or for the occupation forces in Afghanistan: The governor of North West Frontier Province, the chief administrator for the tribal belt, said three coalition helicopter gunships and commandos carried out an “outrageous” attack on a village. “At least 20 innocent civilians of Pakistan including women and children were martyred,” Gov. Owais Ahmed Ghani said in a statement. …

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Karzai says Bush regrets civilian deaths in raid
Sanjeev Miglani, Reuters North American News Service
U.S. President George W. Bush called his Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai on Wednesday to express regret over civilian deaths in an air strike last month that has outraged Afghans, the government said… “The President of America has expressed his regret and sympathy for the occurrence of Shindand incident,” a statement from Karzai’s office, issued in the Dari language, said. “I am a partner in your loss and that of the Afghan people,” Bush was quoted as saying in a video conference with Karzai…

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Bishop Attallah Hanna: a Palestinian Christian Hero
Iqbal Tamimi, Palestine Think Tank
… That’s why I thought of introducing one of the Palestinian Christian heroes to people, just one of thousands of suffering Christians, my own compatriot brothers in Palestine, and I should mention that the majority of Christian Palestinians were forced out of Palestine exactly like Muslims. The majority immigrated to the USA and European countries, others ended up in Lebanon and other neighbouring countries like Jordan. My Christian hero is Bishop Attallah Hanna. You can even see that part of his name is Allah which means in Arabic and in Islamic terms God, his name is made of two syllables, Atta means Gift and Allah means God. Our extraordinary Palestinian bishop’s name means the Gift of God in Arabic…

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Both US vice-presidential candidates vow to back Israel
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News
Both Sarah Palin, the Republican candidate for US Vice-President, and Joe Biden, the Democratic candidate, have both met with pro-Israel groups in the US within days of their respective nominations, and have promised complete and unconditional support for the Jewish state. Their positions on the issue are in line with both major Presidential candidates, Barack Obama and John McCain, who both spoke earlier this summer at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) Conference to pledge support for Israel…

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Video: Shiite Death Squads
Disclose.tv
This video was released on the internet allegedly show a member of the Badr Brigade and the Shiite Death Squads in Iraq executing a man and three women who are of Sunni descent. This video is graphic and shows the actual execution of the 4 civilians. The Shiite Death Squads have been a force in Iraq in the sectarian violence. Many people criticize the new government in Iraq for allowing these death squads to roam throughout the cities. Many sources actually cite the new government as a base of support of the death squads, some even say that the death squads are part of the new administration in Iraq…

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How the Taliban gave a French lesson
Andrew McGregor, Asia Times
Conflicting accounts of a Taliban ambush of an elite French military unit in the Surubi district of Kabul province on August 18 have raised new concerns about the future of France’s politically unpopular deployment in Afghanistan. Ten soldiers were killed and 21 wounded in one of the largest Taliban operations since the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. The French troops were part of a fresh group of 700 soldiers committed by French President Nicolas Sarkozy to join over 2,000 French troops under International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) command. When the new French troops arrived they relieved two American battalions in the Kapisa region, a strategically important district near Kabul. A French officer described the French troops involved in the ambush as “experienced” and “combat-capable”. Nevertheless, the Taliban made a political statement by targeting the new additions to the French ISAF contingent. The proximity of a major Taliban operation to Kabul has alarmed many within the capital, who point out that previous attacks within Kabul’s security belt have heralded the eventual fall of the city to insurgent forces…

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The Bush Regime’s Imperial Affirmation: Endless War, Endless Conquest, Endless Repression
Tom Burghardt
… As investigative journalist Robert Dreyfuss has documented, Sixty years earlier, when the United States began its odyssey in the Middle East, there were other voices who wanted conservative Islam, and early fundamentalist groups associated with the nascent Islamic right, to do battle with the secular left, with Nasser, with Arab communists and socialists. Now, six decades later, the Bush administration is pursuing a strategy in the Middle East that seems calculated to boost the fortunes of the Islamic right. The United States is counting on Shiite fundamentalists in Iraq to save its failed policy in that country, and a major theoretician of that campaign explicitly calls for the United States to cast its lot in with the ayatollahs and the Muslim Brotherhood…

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Three Canadian soldiers killed in attack in southern Afghanistan
The Canadian Press.
Three Canadian soldiers were killed and five others wounded when they were attacked during a patrol in southern Afghanistan on Wednesday. Military officials said Cpl. Andrew Grenon, Cpl. Mike Seggie and Pte. Chad Horn were conducting a security patrol in the volatile Zhari district when the attack occurred. All three were infantrymen with 2nd Battalion, Princess Patricia’s Canadian Light Infantry based in Shilo, Man. The eight soldiers attacked were all evacuated by helicopter to Kandahar Airfield, the main coalition base. Three of them were confirmed dead on arrival. One remains in critical condition, another in serious condition, two in good condition and the last soldier was treated and returned to duty, officials said…

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US forces detain Reuters photographer in Iraq
AFP
Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi photographer working for Anglo-Canadian news group Reuters, has been arrested by American forces just south of Baghdad, the US military and the agency told AFP Wednesday. “He has been detained because he has been assessed to be a threat to the security of Iraq and coalition forces,” US army lieutenant Patrick Evans told AFP in an email. A statement issued by Reuters said: “Ibrahim Jassam, an Iraqi who has supplied photos and video to Reuters on a freelance basis for about two years, was detained in a raid on his home in Mahmudiya by US and Iraqi forces early on Tuesday morning.” Following Jassam’s arrest in Mahmudiyah, Reuters demanded he be released or charged…

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Israelis hinder academic pursuits
Osama Dawoud, Palestine Think Tank
Not many people in the Gaza Strip spend their time thinking about Utah’s Great Salt Lake. I have been dreaming of it for months. This year, I was awarded a Fulbright scholarship to the University of Utah to study in the department of civil and environmental engineering. Palestinians in Gaza suffer from critical water and environmental contamination problems. I planned to focus my Utah education on water resources and environmental engineering so that I could return home and help to alleviate these problems. But I will not be attending this fall. On the basis of secret evidence conveyed by the Israeli government, my American visa was canceled. I am a scientist dedicated to advancing the well-being of the Palestinian people. Yet despite playing by the educational rules and excelling in the academic arena, I am being hurt by an Israeli government that has bottled Palestinians up in Gaza rather than allowing them to pursue opportunities abroad. Hundreds of students in Gaza have been accepted to foreign universities but are nonetheless prevented from attending by Israel.

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A Ghouls Feast? (Updated)
Hussein Al-alak, the Iraq Solidarity Campaign
It is with interest that I noticed a recent advertisement for the upcoming event; “An Evening with George Galloway”, at the Orlandos Bar in Chorlton, Manchester and was interested to read that the tickets are costing people £35.00 each but was fascinated to find that the designation of the funds was absent from the publicity for the event.b In light of the fact that the event is going to centre quite heavily around the issue of Iraq, as stated on the Manchester Events Guide website , I am hoping that the management team of Orlandos Bar and Mr. Galloway himself, will only see fit that the money raised from the evening, should go to assist the people of Iraq, after all it could be argued that without their suffering the event would not be taking place… You can help raise money for the people of Iraq, by letting Orlando’s Bar know the truth of what is happening to the people of Iraq and by urging them to donate the proceeds from An Evening with George Galloway back to the Iraqi people…

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Palestinian leftist party offers plan to end internal divisions
Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News
As tensions remain high in Gaza between the two major Palestinian parties, Fateh and Hamas, the leftist Palestinian party, Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, offers to intervene and help resolve the conflict. The DFLP Secretary-General Nayif Hawatmah presented a proposal in a meeting with Egyptian Minister Omar Suleiman, who is currently responsible and engaged in talks with Palestinian factions to try resolve the internal crisis…

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‘Palin told AIPAC she wants stronger Israel ties’
Haaretz Service and Reuters
U.S. Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin told the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC on Tuesday that she would “work to expand and deepen the strategic partnership between U.S. and Israel,” the group’s spokesman told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday. According to the Wall Street Journal, Palin spent Tuesday in her hotel suite with campaign aides working on her speech at the Republican Convention scheduled for Wednesday. Sources familiar with her schedule said that she also had a private session with Jewish Senator Joe Lieberman…

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Officials: 6 Iraqis killed in friendly fire shootout between US and Iraqi forces
ANNA JOHNSON, AP News
A friendly fire shootout early Wednesday between Iraqi security forces and American soldiers killed six Iraqis north of Baghdad, police and security officials said. Iraqi forces at a checkpoint started shooting at approaching American military boats on the Tigris River in Tarmiyah, 30 miles north of Baghdad, the Iraqi officials said. They didn’t realize the boats, which had their lights turned off, were American, they said…

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Dr. Al-Arian Released on Bail!
After 5 Grueling Years, a Moment of Repose
Free Sami Al-Arian!
After five-and-a-half years of harsh and gratutious detention, former Florida professor and civil rights activist Dr. Sami Al-Arian was released on bond, reuniting with his family for the first time since his ordeal began in 2003. Earlier today (Tuesday), the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) filed an order for the release of Dr. Al-Arian from their custody. Judge Brinkema originally granted Dr. Al-Arian bail on July 10 and reaffirmed that decision last month, but the ICE continued to detain him until today on the pretext that they were completing deportation procedures…

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US commandos kill 20 in Pakistan: official
DPA
US commandos killed at least 20 people including women and children in a cross-border raid Wednesday in Pakistan’s tribal region, a high-ranking government official said. ‘Innocent citizens of Pakistan including women and children were martyred,’ Owais Ahmed Ghani, the governor of the North-Western Frontier Province, said in a statement. ‘This is a direct assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan and the people of Pakistan expect that the armed forces would rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply to all such attacks,’ he said…

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U.S. frees 11,000 Iraqi detainees in 2008
Azzaman
U.S. occupation troops have set 11,000 Iraqi detainees free this year but at least 20,000 more remain in their jails, Iraqi parliament’s human rights committee said. Shadha Abbosi, a committee’s member, urged U.S. forces and the Iraqi government to release all Iraqi detainees in their prisons who are estimated at about 100,000. Detainees held by both the Iraqi government and U.S. troops are rarely tried. They are held on suspicion for unspecified periods of time in conditions the committee has described as “horrific.”…

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LIKE PALESTINIANS, HUMAN RIGHTS WORKERS DENIED EXIT THROUGH EREZ CHECKPOINT TO ISRAEL AND THROUGH RAFAH CROSSING TO EGYPT
FreeGaza.org
Four foreign nationals from the UK, USA, Ireland and Australia, who helped peacefully challenge the siege of Gaza by traveling through international waters with the Free Gaza Movement, have so far been refused exit to Israel via Erez Crossing, or to Egypt via Rafah Crossing. For over two years Israel has severely restricted access to Gaza, blocking aid shipments and trade. As a consequence, Gaza’s economy has collapsed, forcing most industries to close and dramatically increasing malnutrition rates among children. Eighty percent of families in Gaza are now completely dependent on United Nations food aid…

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Israel and Egypt do not allow Blair’s sister-in-law out of Gaza by land
Rami Almeghari – IMEMC
Israel and Egypt continue to deny entry to some Free Gaza Movement members into Israel en route to their destinations abroad, after having spent several days in Gaza. Laurn Booth, who is the sister-in-law to British envoy for the Middle East Quartet Committee, Tony Blair, along with two other activists, have until now been denied access to leave Gaza. They have been denied both through the Rafah crossing terminal controlled by Egypt in southern Gaza and the northern Gaza Strip checkpoint in Eritz controlled by Israel…

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IOF troops kidnapped 70 Palestinians from Nablus in August
Palestinian Information Center
The Israeli occupation forces kidnapped 70 Palestinians from Nablus city during the past month of August, Tadamun institute for human rights said on Wednesday. It noted that among the abductees was municipal council member Majda Fidda, who was kidnapped from her home after IOF troops ransacked it in a violent search operation. Tadamun condemned the escalating IOF arrest campaign in lines of Nablus inhabitants, and urged the international community and human rights organizations to assume their responsibilities in this regard…

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