Video: Gazan child recounts horrors of Israeli war
AlJazeera.net
Aid agencies say the psychological effects of the Israeli offensive on Gaza have been heavy, particularly on children. The scale of destruction is immense and for the most part reconstruction is impossible. There are countless stories of suffering and despair. Al Jazeera’s Jonah Hull talks to one nine-year-old boy about his experiences and how he is dealing with them…

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Obama – Napoleon with a Weak Personality
By Luis Arce Borja, Translated By Holly Fernandez
This has served to renew the momentum of the current stylish policy to make capitalism and imperialism not an economic system (a brutal social policy), but rather an abstract political definition. A personality, or whatever other factor, can randomly transform capitalism and imperialism into a just, democratic, and humane system. Consequently, ridiculous speeches have emerged referring to the new American president as a “ray of hope for all humanity”, or to Barack Obama’s victory as a “hopeful song that another world is possible”. The proponents of these beliefs deny that the far-right criminal essence of the global imperial system directly causes hunger and misery for the majority of the global population. The idea that American imperialism, with Obama as its representative, can travel on a path of reforms that favor humanity is expressed by bourgeoisie intellectuals, by vulgar revisionists, by a range of public personalities, and various news media…

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US labor supports boycott of Israeli cargo
Labor for Palestine
We salute the South African Transport and Allied Workers Union (SATAWU) in Durban, and Western Australian dock worker members of the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA), for refusing to handle Israeli cargo. Theirs is a courageous response to Israel’s attack on Palestinians in Gaza that, since 27 December alone, have left some 1,400 dead and 5,000 wounded — nearly all of them civilians. This action is in the best tradition of dock workers in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused to handle shipping for apartheid South Africa; Oakland dock workers’ refusal to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and West Coast dock workers’ strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008)…

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Carleton U. Bans Israeli Apartheid Week Poster – Call to Action
Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW)
On February 8, Students Against Israeli Apartheid at Carleton University put up 100 posters for “Israeli Apartheid Week”, a series of lectures and public events that will occur on campuses in over 40 cities around the world. On February 9, these posters were taken down at the request of Carleton’s Equity Services, under the rationale that the posters “could be seen to incite others to infringe rights protected in the Ontario Human Rights code” and are “insensitive to the norms of civil discourse in a free and democratic society” The poster was created by noted cartoonist Carlos Latuff and depicts a situation – a child being killed by aerial bombardment that occurred over 430 times in Israel’s latest attack on Gaza according to United Nations reports…

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Iran Rapprochement Is Coming
Moon of Alabama
Rapprochement between the U.S. and Iran “will happen sooner rather than later” says Parviz. I agree. There are multiple signs that the powers that be will let it happen this year. The New York Times prints an op-ed urging for an immediate dialogue with the Ahmadinejad government. It also sent Roger Cohen, its columnist for foreign affairs, to Iran and in the last three weeks he has written seven columns on Iran, all of them with a very positive tone…

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Amnesty calls on US to suspend arms sales to Israel
Hellfire missiles and white phosphorus artillery shells among weapons used in ‘indiscriminate’ attacks on civilians, says human rights group
Rory McCarthy, The Guardian
Detailed evidence has emerged of Israel’s extensive use of US-made weaponry during its war in Gaza last month, including white phosphorus artillery shells, 500lb bombs and Hellfire missiles. In a report released today, Amnesty International listed the weapons used and called for an immediate arms embargo on Israel and all Palestinian armed groups. It called on the US president, Barack Obama, to suspend military aid to Israel. The human rights group said those arming both sides in the conflict “will have been well aware of a pattern of repeated misuse of weapons by both parties and must therefore take responsibility for the violations perpetrated”. The US has long been the largest arms supplier to Israel; under a 10-year agreement negotiated by the Bush administration the US will provide $30bn (£21bn) in military aid to Israel…

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Gaza children “afraid to return to school”
IRIN News
School-children in the Gaza Strip face psychological trauma and lack facilities after schools were badly damaged or destroyed during Israel’s three-week assault on the enclave that began in December. Primary and secondary schools in Gaza run by the government and the UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees (UNRWA) report a shortage of drinking water and textbooks for students, according to the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA). Restrictions on the amount and type of materials being allowed into Gaza by Israeli authorities are hindering the education system. Many parents and children say they were afraid to return to school after the war. The first attack hit Gaza on a morning while school was in session…

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Three US soldiers killed in Iraq
BBC News
Three US soldiers and an interpreter have been killed in fighting in eastern Iraq, the US military says. It says the four were killed during combat operations in the volatile Diyala province, north of Baghdad, without giving any further details. The area remains volatile despite an overall drop in violence in Iraq…

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Obama expands US military intervention in Pakistan
Barry Grey
The Obama administration is significantly expanding the US military role in Pakistan beyond that pursued by the Bush administration, directly employing US military force against anti-government Pakistani guerrillas involved only marginally, if at all, in attacks on US forces in neighboring Afghanistan, according to a recent article in the New York Times…

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More prisons, more war crimes, more ethnic cleansing
Body on the Line
Ot is important to reflect on the meaning of the constant state of refugeedom that palestinians are subjected to because of zionist terrorism and their american, and often european and arab, allies. I think it is important because while we must still keep the focus on Gaza, so as not to let israeli terrorist war criminals off the hook, we must remember, always, the root of the problem: ethnic cleansing and expulsion and the right of return of those who were forcibly removed from their land…

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One month of the Obama administration
Patrick Martin
… The Obama administration constitutes an effort, on the part of key sections of the ruling class, shaken by the failures of the Bush administration and the financial debacle, to delude the American people with vague rhetoric while the most intense efforts are made to safeguard the position of the financial oligarchy, both at home and abroad. The Obama administration demonstrates the impossibility of effecting any significant change within the existing political institutions and the two-party system. These are wholly dominated by two forces: the military-intelligence apparatus and big financial interests…

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What “Nationalize the Banks” and the “Free Market” Really Mean in Today’s Looking-Glass World
The Language of Looting
MICHAEL HUDSON
How is it that Alan Greenspan, free-market lobbyist for Wall Street, recently announced that he favored nationalization of America’s banks – and indeed, mainly the biggest and most powerful? Has the old disciple of Ayn Rand gone Red in the night? Surely not. The answer is that the rhetoric of “free markets,” “nationalization” and even “socialism” (as in “socializing the losses”) has been turned into the language of deception to help the financial sector mobilize government power to support its own special privileges. Having undermined the economy at large, Wall Street’s public relations think tanks are now dismantling the language itself…

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Revealed: full horror of Gitmo inmate’s beatings
Mark Townsend, The Observer
Binyam Mohamed will return to Britain suffering from a huge range of injuries after being beaten by US guards right up to the point of his departure from Guantánamo Bay, according to the first detailed accounts of his treatment inside the camp. Mohamed will arrive back tomorrow in the UK, where he was a British resident between 1984 and 2002. During medical examinations last week, doctors discovered injuries and ailments resulting from apparently brutal treatment in detention. Mohamed was found to be suffering from bruising, organ damage, stomach complaints, malnutrition, sores to feet and hands, severe damage to ligaments as well as profound emotional and psychological problems which have been exacerbated by the refusal of Guantánamo’s guards to give him counselling…

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AFGHANISTAN: KARZAI ADMINISTRATION WINS ENDORSEMENT FROM IRAN
Eurasianet
Iran will support the Afghan government and boost mutual economic ties, Iranian First Vice President Parviz Davoudi said after meetings with President Hamid Karzai and First Vice President Ahmad Zia Massoud in Kabul. “The Islamic Republic of Iran will remain with the Afghan government and nation for good,” Davoudi said after meeting Karzai, the Iranian Fars news agency reported February 21…

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Iraq faces a new war as tensions rise in north
Patrick Cockburn
A new war is threatening Iraq just as the world believes the country is returning to peace. While violence is dropping in Baghdad and in the south of the country, Arabs and Kurds in the north are beginning to battle over territories in an arc of land stretching from Syria to Iranian border. A renewal of the historic conflict between Arabs and Kurds in Iraq, which raged through most of the second half of the 20th century, would seriously destabilise the country as it begins to recover from the US occupation and the Sunni-Shia civil war of 2005-07…

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B’Tselem: If Israel has nothing to hide, let us into Gaza
Ma’an news
Israel is preventing independent human rights monitors from entering Gaza, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem said Sunday. “Israel continues to obstruct independent investigations into allegations of laws of war violations by the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and Hamas military forces in Gaza,” the groups said in a joint statement to Ma’an. After submitting applications for permission to enter via the Erez crossing in January 2009, the groups faced continued delays from the military unit reviewing the applications. In February, the army told Human Rights Watch that it had rejected its application. The Israeli military denied B’Tselem’s first request to enter Gaza and has failed to respond to a second…

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Cairo dialogue on thin ice as row erupts over Fatah delegate
Ma’an news
After a positive atmosphere of optimism prevailed between Palestinian rivals of Fatah and Hamas in advance of talks in Cairo, Hamas responded sharply to a televised interview on Palestine TV with Fatah leader Samir Mashharawi. Hamas considers Mashharawi one of its opponents in Gaza. Responding to Hamas reservations about his role in the Fatah delegation to Cairo talks, Samir Mashharawi said on Sunday that he is prepared to withdraw from the delegation if his membership impedes dialogue. But he said that “Hamas or others don’t have the right to intervene in the formation of Fatah’s delegation.”…

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Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Economic Crisis
Stephen Lendman
…Today’s crisis should bury the myth about “free-market” fundamentalism as the best of all possible worlds. History proves otherwise by clearly showing that it fails the many to advantage the few because it’s arranged that way: — nearly everywhere earlier and now. In 19th century America: — through indigenous slaughter, slavery, financial panics, child labor, sexism, racism, and worker exploitation; In 20th century America: — much the same in most respects; — the 1930s depression; — repeated recessions, inflation, deflation, instability, unemployment, under-employment, and the erosion of job security, high wages, good benefits, and reliable pensions; — wealth and want extremes; — a plutocracy masquerading as democracy; according to Gore Vidal, most people never question “the inequality of a system (under which they) drudge along, pay heavy taxes (and) get nothing (back) in return;” — government of, by, and for the privileged; — elections reduced to theater in a de facto one-party state; — a corporate state placing profits over people; — essential needs left unmet; and — imperialism, militarism, foreign wars, homeland repression, government and business corruption, a broken media, a prison-industrial gulag, wage slavery, social decay, growing poverty, inequality, injustice, and racism under a system where the business of America is business; where never have so many lost out to the few; where capital is empowered to get more of it; where it’s sucked from the p! ublic to the privileged; and where government is indifferent to human needs, rights and civil liberties. Enough is enough. Bury the monster, its crimes, its inhumanity…

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Cancer patient dies bringing number of Gaza siege victims to 287
Palestinian Information Center
A Palestinian cancer patient died on Sunday in Gaza after efforts to secure his treatment abroad failed, the PA health ministry in Gaza announced. It said that 31-year-old Shadi Hillis had all necessary papers that facilitated his travel abroad but due to the siege he died in Gaza where there is no advanced treatment for cancer patients. The ministry noted in a statement that the number of victims of the siege thus rose to 287 with 12 of them dying in February so far, warning that the number could increase any time due to the presence of tens of patients in intensive care units waiting for opening of crossings especially the Rafah border terminal with Egypt to enable them travel for treatment abroad…

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US, Iraqi forces launch “anti-al-Qaida” offensive
SAMEER N. YACOUB, AP
U.S. and Iraqi forces have begun a new military offensive in northern Iraq aimed at rooting out al-Qaida and other Sunni insurgents, American and Iraqi officials said Sunday. The offensive — dubbed Operation New Hope — has netted 84 suspects in the provincial capital of Mosul and surrounding towns, said Iraqi Brig. Gen. Saeed Ahmed al-Jubouri. Most of the arrests occurred in Tal Abta, about 50 miles (80 kilometers) west of Mosul…

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Shoes thrown at Israeli military spokesperson in Amsterdam
Ma’an news
Four shoes were thrown at an Israeli army spokesperson on Sunday night in Amsterdam, according to a Dutch news agency. Three members of the country’s International Socialists (IS) threw four shoes at Israeli army spokesperson Ron Edelheit, who was speaking at the city’s Apollo Hotel on Sunday. About 50 protestors demonstrated against the event outside the hotel, the IS announced. The shoe-throwers, students from Groningen and Leiden, have been arrested, according to the Nieuws Uit Amsterdam news agency…

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