Month: August 2009

Gilad Atzmon – Organ Donation and Theft in Contemporary Jewish Folklore

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30 August, 2009 — Palestine Think Tank

larry-david.jpgDonation According to Larry David

In his highly acclaimed TV satire ‘Curb Your Enthusiasm’, LA screen writer and comedian Larry David engages courageously with subjects to do with American Jewish identity. In his fifth season (2005) David tackles the subject of organ donation [1]. Performing an American eccentric and egotistical Jew David is confronted with a serious dilemma. His best friend Richard Lewis (another Jewish comedian) happens to suffer an acute kidney failure. His survival is dependent on an urgent kidney donation and as one may expect Larry David is the perfect donor. David, who comes across as the ultimate selfish persona in American popular culture is obviously reluctant to donate his Kidney. He procrastinates, finds excuses and plays games. He even tries to make friends with a wealthy Orthodox Jew who is in a position to ‘sort things out’ as far as kidneys are concerned. He does it all just to avoid donating his own kidney to his best and closest friend.

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Obama Administration Seeks “Emergency Control” of the Internet By Tom Burghardt

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29 August, 2009 — Anti-fascist calling

You have to hand it to congressional Democrats. Mendacious grifters whose national security agenda is virtually indistinguishable from Bushist Republicans, when it comes to rearranging proverbial deck chairs on the Titanic, the party of “change” is second to none in the “all terrorism all the time” department.

While promising to restore the “rule of law,” “protect civil liberties” while “keeping America safe,” in practice, congressional Democrats like well-coiffed Republican clones across the aisle, are crafting legislation that would do Dick Cheney proud!

As the Cybersecurity Act of 2009 (S.773) wends its way through Congress, civil liberties’ advocates are decrying provisions that would hand the President unlimited power to disconnect private-sector computers from the internet.

CNET reported August 28, that the latest iteration of the bill “would allow the president to ‘declare a cybersecurity emergency’ relating to ‘non-governmental’ computer networks and do what’s necessary to respond to the threat.”

Drafted by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) and Olympia Snowe (R-ME), “best friends forever” of the National Security Agency (NSA) and the telecommunications industry, they were key enablers of Bush-era warrantless wiretapping and privacy-killing data mining programs that continue apace under Obama.

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AFRICOM: Western Self-Serving Interests or African Security? By Paul I. Adujie

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22 August, 2009 — Global Research – New Liberian

China is as well a major financier of America’s public debt, in the trillions. Sino-phobia in Western countries can also be blamed for America’s sudden desire to establish military presence in Africa.

In my view, therefore, America’s Africa Command, in conceptual terms and actual implementation, is not intended to serve Africa’s best interests. It is just happens that Africa has grown in geopolitical and geo-economic importance to America and her allies. Africa has been there all along.

There were, for instance, reports of how the American military, acting supposedly in partnership or cooperation with the Nigerian military, literally took over Nigerian Defense Headquarters. I know for a fact that the US military would not brook such behaviors by foreign military personnel at the Pentagon, the US Department of Defense or military complex.

It is probably important to mention that the United States already operates at least three other commands, namely, the European Command (EUCOM), Central Command, (CENTCOM) and Pacific Command (PACOM), therefore, Africa Command or (AFRICOM) will be the fourth leg of US military global
spread.

America’s Africa Command is instead seen as machinery for Western governments to pursue their vaunted economic, political and hegemonic hemispheric influence at the expense of Africans as well as a backdoor through which Westerners can outmaneuver rivals such as China and perhaps Russia in addition.

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AFRICOM: The Pentagon's First Direct Military Intervention In Africa By Rick Rozoff

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25 August, 2009 — Global Research – Stop NATO


africa-map.jpgThe 2009 World Population Data Sheet published by the Washington, DC-based Population Reference Bureau states that the population of the African continent has surpassed one billion. Africans now account for over a seventh of the human race.

Africa’s 53 nations are 28% of the 192 countries in the world.

The size and location of the continent along with its human and natural resources – oil, natural gas, gold, diamonds, uranium, cobalt, chromium, platinum, timber, cotton, food products – make it an increasingly important part of a world that is daily becoming more integrated and interdependent.

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HOUSMANS RADICAL BOOKS, LONDON EVENTS NEWSLETTER SEPTEMBER 2009

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CONTENTS:

NEWS

1. Housmans online bookshop launched! Over 500,000 titles available…

2. Housmans Peace Diary 2010: Special pre-publication offer

EVENTS

3. Last Hours present:
Spoonboy, Kelly Kemp and PJ & Gaby
 Friday 4th September – 7pm till 10pm

4. Greenpeace and Climate Camp present:
‘No New Coal – Stopping Kingsnorth’
 Wednesday 9th September – 7pm till 8.30pm

5. Zed Books present:
‘Lugo: The Priest of Paraguay’ with Hugh O’Shaughnessy
 Saturday 12th September – 5pm till 6.30pm

6. ‘Dark Light’ with Pat Arrowsmith
 Wednesday 16th September – 7pm till 8.30pm

7. No Sweat present: ‘Made in LA’
 Saturday 19th September – 5pm till 7pm

8. ‘Solsbury Hill: Chronicle of a Road Protest’ with Adrian Arbib
 Wednesday 23rd September – 7pm till 9pm

9. Skookum Boom present: Leon Walker, Viclambrusco, Captain Of The Rant + more
 Saturday 26th September – 6pm till 9pm

10. Forthcoming Events

BOOK RECOMMENDATION

11. ‘Human Smoke: The Beginnings of World War II, the End of Civilization’
 by Nicholson Baker

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THE ITALIAN CINEMA AND THE LEFT: On Rediscovering Roberto Rossellini-Filmmaker By Gaither Stewart

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rossellini.jpg(Rome) The story of Roberto Rossellini is a very Italian story, encompassing Italy in change from the Fascist period and, reaching beyond his lived life, until 2009. Though Europe is not Europe without Italy, Rossellini’s story, in the strictest sense, is a very Italian story; not an European story. For Italy, separated from the rest of Europe by the Alps, is, and perhaps always has been, something apart, still today considered by North Europeans an exotic place to escape to. As is popularly said, Italy is a wonderful place to visit but hell to live in. The story of Roberto Rossellini deals with that paradox. Read Roberto Rossellini and think Italy of the past 75 years.

The Italian film director, Roberto Rossellini (1906-1977), known as 95% neo-realist, was highly successful in his film career. Yet—and here are two pieces of information that might be news for cinema buffs—after growing up in a bourgeois family near pre-Dolce Vita Via Veneto in Rome and then tinkering in insignificant cinema during the Fascist era, he later became a maker of Italy’s cinema of the Left. Late in his life, Rossellini then had a vision, a vision light years distant from European filmmaking: in the 1970s, far ahead of his time, he became enamoured of the East and dreamed of a rejoining of the Occident and Islam.

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Book Reviews: Immigration Past, Immigration Present: Confronting the Internal “Other” in Europe By Brian McCook

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27 August, 2009 — MRZine – Monthly Review

Oliver Grant.  Migration and Inequality in Germany.  Oxford: Clarendon Press, 2005.  416 pp.  $190.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-19-927656-1.

Leo Lucassen.  The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and New Migrants in Western Europe since 1850.  Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2005.  296 pp.  $25.00 (paper), ISBN 978-0-252-07294-9.

Elia Morandi.  Italiener in Hamburg: Migration, Arbeit und Alltagsleben vom Kaiserreich bis zur Gegenwart.  Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang, 2004.  398 pp. EUR 54.00 (paper), ISBN 978-3-631-52205-9.

Peter J. van Krieken.  The Consolidated Asylum and Migration Acquis: The EU Directives in an Expanded Europe.  Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004.  350 pp.  $75.00 (paper), ISBN 978-90-6704-180-5.

Immigration is now generally acknowledged as a fact of life across the democratic political spectrum within Europe, and a vast array of policies and programs have been adopted over the past decade to integrate “newcomers” into the mainstream.  Nevertheless, immigration remains a highly contentious issue within the public consciousness, especially when stirred by a populist press, and a collective reticence to acknowledge the historical nature of migration both to and within Europe persists.  In Germany, sentiment that the country is “not a land of immigration” remains strong, while in Britain current debates over “Britishness” bizarrely neglect the multiculturalism implied in the term.  Meanwhile, the recent opening of a Museum of Immigration and the election of Nicolas Sarkozy in France have not necessarily dulled the collective amnesia of many to France’s long, if troubled, history as a destination for immigrants from across Europe, Africa, Asia, and beyond.  Fortunately, over the past thirty years the field of European migration studies has grown dramatically, with scholars making significant inroads into examining both historical and contemporary issues of immigration.1 The works under review are welcome additions to this ongoing effort to engage with and relate the history of immigration to a wider audience.

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Video Free Gaza – WE MADE IT TO GAZA

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27 August 27, 2009

We will return. We will come back. We will never forget. A year ago, 23rd August 2008, 44 of us saw the coastline of Gaza in the distance, after 30 hours of traveling across the Mediterranean Sea….We will return. We will come back. We will never forget. We were jubilant. We had made it to Gaza. We had actually made it to Gaza. We had really, really made it to Gaza.

We had MADE IT TO GAZA.

Thank you to all of you who made this possible, who worked on the land crew, who sent out the information to your lists, who covered the story while we were in Gaza.

44 of us made it to Gaza last year, but we were supported by HUNDREDS OF YOU. A special thanks to Ramattan News Agency and AKI Nation for footage upon arrival of our two boats: the Liberty and the Free GazaImages: Mohammed Omer and Sameh A. Habeeb

Soundtrack : Articoolaction


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Global Poverty and The Economic Crisis – Selected Articles 22-27 August, 2009

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27 August, 2009 — Global Research

Award Winning Movie: “SUPERPOWER”:
 Interview with Filmmaker on RBN this Thursday!
– by Barbara-Anne Steegmuller – 2009-09-08

America’s “War on Terrorism”
 Book by Michel Chossudovsky
– 2009-09-07

Selected Articles

Financial Parasites Have Killed the American Economy
 A Review of Economist Michael Hudson
– by Washington’s Blog – 2009-08-27

Europe’s Space Program: Will Vega Ever Take Off?
– by Maxim Rubakin – 2009-08-27

Living In A Culture of Delusion, Denial and Ignorance
– by Danny Schechter – 2009-08-27

Artificial Life will be created ‘Within Months’: Genome Experts claim Vital Breakthrough
– 2009-08-27

A Stock Market Rally Engineered by our Government
 Stay as far away from it as possible
– by Bob Chapman – 2009-08-27

The Rising Tide of Unemployment in America
 How Bad Will It Get, And What Can We Do?
– by Washington’s Blog – 2009-08-26

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CIA Involvement: Police chief: Lockerbie evidence was faked

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28 August, 2009 — Global Research – (First published in the The Scotsman – 28 August, 2006)

CIA planted tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people

This report was published by the Scotsman exactly three years ago. ‘the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.’

A former Scottish police chief has given lawyers a signed statement claiming that key evidence in the Lockerbie bombing trial was fabricated.

The retired officer – of assistant chief constable rank or higher – has testified that the CIA planted the tiny fragment of circuit board crucial in convicting a Libyan for the 1989 mass murder of 270 people.

The police chief, whose identity has not yet been revealed, gave the statement to lawyers representing Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, currently serving a life sentence in Greenock Prison.

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The H1N1 Swine Flu Pandemic: Manipulating the Data to Justify a Worldwide Public Health Emergency By Michel Chossudovsky

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“Over the course of the next few months, with the assistance of our partners in the private and public sector and at every level of government, we will move aggressively to prepare the nation for the possibility of a more severe outbreak of the H1N1 virus. We will do all we can to plan for different scenarios. We ask the American people to become actively engaged with their own preparation and prevention. It’s a responsibility we all share.” (US Government advisory, flu.gov: Vaccines, Vaccine Allocation and Vaccine Research )

spanish-flu.jpg

A Worldwide public health emergency is unfolding on an unprecedented scale. 4.9 billion doses of H1N1 swine flu vaccine are envisaged by the World Health Organization (WHO).

A report by President Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology  “considers the H1N1 pandemic ‘a serious health threat; to the U.S. — not as serious as the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic but worse than the swine flu outbreak of 1976.”:

“It’s not that the new H1N1 pandemic strain is more deadly than previous flu threats, but that it is likely to infect more people than usual because so few people have immunity” (Get swine flu vaccine ready: U.S. advisers)

Responding to the guidelines set by the WHO, preparations for the inoculation of millions of people are ongoing, in the Americas, the European Union, in South East Asia and around the World. Priority has been given to health workers, pregnant women and children. In some countries, the H1N1 vaccination will be compulsory.

In the US, the state governments are responsible for these preparations, in coordination with federal agencies. In the State of Massachusetts, legislation has been introduced which envisages hefty fines and prison sentences for those who refuse to be vaccinated. (See VIDEO; Compulsory Vaccination in America?)

The US military is slated to assume an active role in the public health emergency

Schools and colleges across North America are preparing for mass vaccinations. (See CDC H1N1 Flu | Resources for Schools, Childcare Providers, and Colleges)

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Video: Palestinian Mothers interview with Swedish Journalist Donald Bostrom about threats on his life, and ethics of journalism and democracy – Palestinian Mothers

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26 August, 2009

This video interview, in two parts, made by Morris Herman for the Palestinian Mothers Network (also viewable on http://www.palestinianmothers.com/video/2-palestinian-mothers and You Tube) asks the Swedish journalist about the article that currently is in the news, reporting on the claims made to the journalist from Palestinians about the belated return of their sons, maimed, killed and their organs exploited by the IDF, and the subsequent strange burial procedures these men had to undergo. The second video talks more about the Israeli position to Sweden and death threats made to the journalist.

Videos produced by Iqbal Tamimi and Morris Herman of Palestinian Mothers Network.

Threats on his life is taken seriously. Donald Bostrom Swedish Journalist on Israeli organ harvesting talks to Morris Herman from Palestinian Mothers Network about threats on his life.

Part Two

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Palestinian Mothers interview of the Swedish Journalist Donald Bostrom about the Israeli organ harvesting, threats on his life, and ethics of journalism and democracy

First section : Donald Bostrom Swedish Journalist on Israeli organ harvesting talks to Morris Herman from Palestinian Mothers Network.

Part One

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“WHERE IS THE JUSTICE?” ASKS FBI CHIEF AS DEBATE OVER RELEASE OF LIBYAN “TERRORIST HEIGHTENS.” THERE IS MORE TO THE STORY By Danny Schechter

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“Where, I ask, is the justice?”

That is always a good question, but the way it was posed by Robert S. Mueller 3rd, the Director of the FBI, an agency of a Department of “Justice” strains credulity.

Before I get into discussing the responses to his letter to Scottish authorities, a letter that the Herald in Glasgow found “savage,” may I remind us all that his polemical questions criticizing Scotland’s compassionate release of convicted Lockerbie airplane bomber and former Libyan intelligence agent, Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, was coming from, shall we say, a tainted source?

Mr. Mueller had worked on the case in the early 90’s and so seems to have had a personal and emotional stake in it, perhaps a desire for vindication. The press in Britain believes that his angry denunciation of Scottish judge Kenny MacAskill could not have been sent without authorization from the White House.

President Barack Obama said Friday that al Megrahi’s warm reception was “highly objectionable.” British Foreign Secretary David Miliband called it “deeply upsetting.” Notice, they don’t seem to be commenting on the ex-spy’s release as much as the public response to it, by the rarely diplomatic Colonel Quadaffi who was playing to public opinion in Tripoli, as he readies that country for the 40th anniversary of the coup that put him in power.

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South African Cops Attack Unarmed Soldiers Protesting Low Wages

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26 August, 2009

“Many Have Threatened To Return With Their Own Rifles To Retaliate”

“Footage From A Local Television Station Shows Police Firing Into The Crowd”

“The Demonstrators Responded By Hurling Firebombs At Police Vehicles”

sa-soldiers.jpg

The Associated Press, The Citizen, DPA, Primedia Broadcasting & Al Jazeera

A virtual war broke out in the in the streets of Pretoria, the capital, yesterday with AWOL soldiers storming the Union Building government premises.

There was now the potential that military bases were unprotected and that there was a lack of troops to support police if necessary.
Dozens of police and military vehicles set on fire or were damaged.

Demonstrating soldiers are furious police opened fire on them with stun grenades and rubber bullets.

Many have threatened to return with their own rifles to retaliate.

About 2 000 soldiers have been protesting over wage packages.

The South African National Defence Union [the soldiers’ union] was demanding a 30 per cent increase in pay and better working conditions. The union is not officially recognised by the government.

The trouble began when soldiers demanded to get inside the Union Buildings’ south lawn.

There was a stand-off with military police and the SA Police Services, with soldiers threatening to retaliate if the police shot at them.

Soldiers then found one of the gates to the buildings unmanned and ran inside. While they were sitting on the lawn, police started shooting at them with rubber bullets, resulting in a stampede.

In addition to injuries caused by rubber bullets, some soldiers broke their hands and feet when they jumped over the fence.

Police fired rubber bullets and tear gas.

A policeman and several soldiers were injured.

A police vehicle was set alight and a number of other cars were also damaged in violence during the daylong protest.

Defense Minister Lindiwe Sisulu condemned the violence and said the soldiers’ action was a “threat to national security.”

Police tried to disperse over 1,000 soldiers who had converged on the lawns of the Union Buildings, the seat of government, even after a court denied them permission to hold their march.

Footage from a local television station shows police firing into the crowd, forcing the protesters against a fence.

Many protesters retreated back over the fence, and police continued firing across a busy thoroughfare near many embassies and hotels.

The demonstrators responded by hurling firebombs at police vehicles.

The protest ended at about 4 p.m. (1400 GMT) when police warned that more force would be used, the South African Press Association reported.

Sisulu told reporters in Cape Town that she had instructed the head of the defense force to immediately suspend protesters.

Two soldiers had been arrested and handed over to the military police, she said.

The striking soldiers announced they would hold further protests.

Video: Honduran resistance goes it alone

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60 days of anti-coup protests show persistence in civil disobedience and little faith in int’l community

As protests against the coup government in Honduras enter their 60th day, the international community has largely turned their attention away from the streets of Tegucigalpa. This lack of awareness, combined with heightened state repression, has done little to deter the ongoing disobedience campaign inside Honduras. Al Giordano reports from rural Honduras on the determination of the resistance movement to achieve their goals, with or without help from abroad. Giordano also points out that, contrary to popular belief outside of Honduras, the end goal of the resistance is not the return to power of President Zelaya, but rather the transformation of the country through a constitutional referendum.

Bio
Al Giordano is an investigative journalist based in Chiapas, Mexico. He is originally from the Bronx, New York. Since 2000 he has been the publisher of Narco News, which reports mainly on the US War on Drugs effects on the people of Mexico and Central America. He is also the founder of the School for Authentic Journalism and writes a blog called The Field which focuses on US politics.

Joe Bageant: Obama’s Fight for Reform

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26 August, 2009 — Joe Bageant

Lay off the footwork and throw a punch!

Almost a year after the Great Giddy Swarming of the Obamians last November, some of the revelers are waking up with one booger of a hangover. And they are asking themselves, ‘What were we thinking when we had that tenth drink of Democratic Party Kool-Aid?’ It was a clear cut case of seduction and date rape. The spike in the drink was, of course, hope. Poor pathetic American liberals. Forever doomed to be naive freshmen at the senior beer bash.

We try to take comfort in that we won’t have to listen to or look at John McCain or Sarah Palin for four years, except in the American Legion Magazine and in Palin’s case, as a centerfold in the next issue of Middle Aged Skin. OK, we really are grateful. But could the pathetic McCain-Palin clown act possibly have created much more havoc than what we are seeing?

Case in point: I got up this morning to the headline: ‘Social Security Checks to Shrink.’ Surely this makes a slew of Generation Xers cackle with glee. But some of us are trying to stay drunk on that check until our date with a heart attack or one of those death panels the Republicans are yammering about. Since January I’ve been telling my wife we could expect Social Security to start shrinking. Ever the concerned citizen, she replies ‘Can’t you find another jag to get on? Eight months for god sake!’

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The Responsibility to Protect, the International Criminal Court, and Foreign Policy in Focus: Subverting the UN Charter in the Name of Human Rights By Edward S. Herman & David Peterson

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24 August, 2009 — MRZine – Monthly Review

It was just a matter of time before members of the collapsing left enlisted in the imperial attack on the most fundamental principles of the UN Charter, and added their voices to the growing chorus of support for Western power-projection under the Responsibility to Protect doctrine (R2P) and the International Criminal Court (ICC).  But this has now been done in Foreign Policy in Focus by John Feffer, Ian Williams, and David Greenberg.1 That such a rightward turn could find a home at the Institute for Policy Studies, whose biweekly bulletins still arrive under the heading “Unconventional Wisdom,” and which connects the “research and action of more than 600 scholars, advocates, and activists seeking to make the United States a more responsible global partner,” we find deeply troubling.

Chapter I of the UN Charter states: “To maintain international peace and security,” all member states shall respect the “principle of the sovereign equality” of their fellow members, “settle their international disputes by peaceful means,” and “refrain in their international relations from the threat or use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state.”2 These principles rest on the fact that at the end of World War II, in 1945, it was understood that the greatest threat to world order was posed, not by events occurring inside single countries, whether caused by natural or human agency, and no matter how catastrophic the loss of life, but by aggressive, cross-border wars waged by states — “not only an international crime,” in the Nuremberg Judgment‘s famous phrase, rendered 15 months after the UN’s founding conference in San Francisco, but the “supreme international crimediffering only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the accumulated evil of the whole.”3 Article 2(7) therefore wisely removes the temptation to intervene, with its unlimited potential for abuse by the greater powers, from even the United Nations itself: “Nothing contained in the present Charter shall authorize the United Nations to intervene in matters which are essentially within the domestic jurisdiction of any state.”  It is not by fetishizing “national sovereignty” over human rights (though this canard has spread like a weed the past 20 years4), but by raising a barrier to aggression and its threat to human rights that the Charter organizes its world order.  When purported “revolutions” in the advancement of human rights and international justice are purchased at the price of overturning this order, we ought to regard them with the utmost skepticism.  Particularly when the cases in hand reveal no real difference from the past.

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Pentagon Plans For Global Military Supremacy: U.S., NATO Could Deploy Mobile Missiles Launchers To Europe By Rick Rozoff

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22 August, 2009 — Global Research – Stop NATO

From August 17-20 the annual U.S. Space and Missile Defense Conference was conducted in Huntsville, Alabama, which hosts the headquarters of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA).

Among the over 2,000 participants were the Missile Defense Agency’s new director, Army Lt. Gen. Patrick O’Reilly, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Marine Gen. James Cartwright, commander of the Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command Army Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell and NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) Administrator Charles Bolden Jr.

There were also 230 exhibitors present, among them the nation’s major arms manufacturers with an emphasis on those weapons companies specializing in global missile shield and space war projects. The presence of the head of NASA indicated that the distinction between the military and civilian uses of space is rapidly disappearing. As the Bloomberg news agency reported on the second day of this year, “President-elect Barack Obama will probably tear down long-standing barriers between the U.S.’s civilian and military space programs to speed up a mission to the moon amid the prospect of a new space race with China” and “Obama’s transition team is considering a collaboration between the Defense Department and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration….” [1] The recently appointed NASA chief, Bolden, is a retired Marine Corps general.

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Video: Israelis restrict Palestinians’ water supply

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After World Bank issues report, commissioned by the Palestinian Authority on the condition of water accessibility in the West Bank, Israel claims the reports authors are biased. To understand the conditions on the ground, how they’ve been addressed, and whether the so-called peace process succeeded in addressing them, The Real News speaks to LifeSource Project, a non-profit organization focusing solely on the issue of water. Susan Koppelman and Taysir Arabasi tell The Real News’ Lia Tarachansky the Mountain Aquifer, the biggest supply of fresh underground water is pumped by Israel even though it lies almost entirely in the West Bank. They also speak about restrictions on Palestinians to dig water wells, and their dependence on the Israeli national water corporation, Mekorot.

Showdown with Russia and China: U.S. Advances First Strike Global Missile Shield System By Rick Rozoff

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19 August, 2009 — Global Research – Stop NATO

On August 13th the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency (MDA) and Chicago-based Boeing International announced a test of their joint Airborne Laser (ABL) missile defense system, which “successfully tracked and hit the mark earlier this month during its first in-flight test against an instrumented target missile.” [1]

Employing a modified Boeing 747-400F prototype airplane, on August 10 the Missile Defense Agency had the adapted commercial airliner use infrared sensors against a missile launched from San Nicolas Island, California and “found, tracked, engaged and simulated an intercept with a missile seconds after liftoff. It was the first time the Agency used an ‘instrumented’ missile to confirm the laser works as expected. Next up this fall will be the first live attempt to bring down a ballistic missile….” [2]

A newspaper from Alabama, the state where the MDA headquarters is based, mentioned that “The news came today [August 13], just a few days before the 12th annual Space and Missile Defense Conference opens next week in Huntsville.” [3]

The Wall Street Journal waxed enthusiastic about the advanced missile interceptor test, stating that “Along with space-based weapons, the Airborne Laser is the next defense frontier. The modified Boeing 747 is supposed to send an intense beam of light over hundreds of miles to destroy missiles in the ‘boost phase,’ before they can release decoys and at a point in their trajectory when they would fall back down on enemy territory….The laser complements the sea- and ground-based missile defenses that keep proving themselves in tests.

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