Day: February 22, 2009

Video: Israeli Military Shoot Gaza Farmer – 18th February 2009

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On Tuesday 27th January 2009, in Al Faraheen, Israeli forces shot at several farmers, killing 27 year old farm worker, Anwar al-Breem, Mohammed’s cousin.

On Wednesday, February 18,  Israeli forces shot a twenty year-old Palestinian farmer as he worked his land in the village of Al-Faraheen, east of Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip.

International Human Rights Activists were accompanying the group of farmers at the time as they worked approximately 500m from the Green Line.

Mohammad al-Breem, 20, was shot in the right leg as the farmers, together with the international Human Rights Activists, attempted to leave the area having worked on their land for 2 hours in full view of the Israeli forces situated along the Green Line.

As the farmers were loading up the parsley and spinach from the agricultural lands shots were fired from Israeli forces on the border. Mohammad was shot in the right leg and evacuated, while still under fire, to hospital.

International Human Rights Activists have repeatedly witnessed Palestinian farmers being shot at by Israeli forces as they attempt to work on agricultural land situated within 700m of the Green Line.


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Sign the Petition against new (UK) Home Office restrictions on non-EU artists and academics visiting the UK for talks, exhibitions, concerts or artists’ residencies

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At the Manifesto Club we strongly support the freedom of artists, musicians and academics to collaborate around the world without petty restrictions, unnecessary bureaucracy and cultural limits. 

That’s why today we are launching a new campaign and petition – against new (UK) Home Office restrictions on non-EU artists and academics visiting the UK for talks, exhibitions, concerts or artists’ residencies.

Visitors now have to submit to a series of arduous and expensive procedures to get their visa, and then more bureaucratic controls when they are in the UK. These restrictions, introduced last November, have already resulted in the cancellation of a number of high-profile events by visiting artists and performers.

See the campaign homepage to read more about this legislation, or to submit your own testimonies or statements of support.

Sign the petition here.

The campaign is coordinated by Manifesto Club member and arts advisor at Artsadmin, Manick Govinda – and has already won the support of individuals including the director of the National Portrait Gallery, Sandy Nairne, artist Antony Gormley, Nicholas Hytner of the Royal National Theatre and Jude Kelly, artistic director at the South Bank Centre.

The petition was launched yesterday as a Letter to the Editor in the (UK) Observer newspaper, and reported in this news report.

Black Sea: Pentagon's Gateway to Three Continents and the Middle East By Rick Rozoff

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22 February, 2009 – Global Research

Stop NATO

The Black Sea region connects Europe with Asia and the Eurasian land mass to the Middle East through Turkey on its southern rim, which borders Syria, Iraq and Iran.

The northern Balkans lie on its western shores and the Caucasus on its eastern end, the latter a land bridge to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia.

Ukraine, Russia and the strategic Sea of Azov are on its northern perimeter.

Given its central location, the Black Sea has been coveted for millennia by major powers: The Persian and Roman empires, Greeks and Hittites, Byzantines and Huns, Ottoman Turkey and Czarist Russia, even by Napoleon’s France and Hitler’s Germany in their wars to unite Europe to Asia and the Middle East.

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Iraqi Doctors in Hiding Treat as They Can By Dahr Jamail

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21 February, 2009 | Inter Press Service

BAGHDAD — Seventy percent of Iraq’s doctors are reported to have fled the war-torn country in the face of death threats and kidnappings. Those who remain live in fear, often in conditions close to house arrest.

“I was threatened I would be killed because I was working for the Iraqi government at the Medical City,” Dr. Thana Hekmaytar told IPS. Baghdad Medical City is the largest medical complex in the country.

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AS NEW SCAMMERS EMERGE, IS IT JAILOUT TIME YET? By Danny Schechter

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The Right Mobilizes Against The Stimulus While We Sign Petitions

Judging by my in-box, there seem to be no shortage of organizations and individuals obsessed with an image: Dick Cheney and George Bush in prison, and Karl Rove in the next cell. Never mind that Congress doesn’t have the guts or the President the gumption to go after those responsible for the gutting of the Constitution. Nevertheless, there are many campaigns and calls to hold the last Administration accountable for its crimes.

At the same time, as we watch an economy in free fall, there seems to a lot less agitation for a serious investigation of those responsible for this collapse. Evan as you overhear conversations in every bar and union hall that begins with “those bastards should be in jail,” few progressives are leading the charge to demand a Jail-Out alongside those stimulus bailouts. It’s as if economic crimes provoke a ho-hum reaction among activists.

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