Month: August 2010

Information Clearing House Newsletter 30 August, 2010: U.S. Government Prepares for 'Crisis'

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30 August, 2010 — Information Clearing House

Abbas is a Man in Exile, Even Among His Own
 By Omar Karmi
Mahmoud Abbas, the Palestinian president, faces a crisis of credibility among his own people as he heads into direct talks with Israel in Washington this week.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26270.htm

Hamas, the I.R.A. and Us
By ALI ABUNIMAH
The resumption of peace talks without any Israeli commitment to freeze settlements is another significant victory for the Israel lobby and the Israeli government. It allows Israel to pose as a willing peacemaker while carrying on with business as usual.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26269.htm

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VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 30 August, 2010: McCarthy in Israel

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30 August, 2010 — VTJP

News

International Middle East Media Center

East Jerusalem neighborhood attacked by Israeli soldiers; at least 4 detained
IMEMC – 31 Aug 2010 – Monday August 30, 2010 – 17:35, The Silwan neighborhood, which has been the site of an Israeli municipal plan to rid the neighborhood of its Palestinian residents, came under fire once again on Monday when Israeli forces invaded to abduct Palestinians that they claim took part in clashes with settlers last Thursday.

Israeli forces invade Rafah; clashes reported
IMEMC – 31 Aug 2010 – Monday August 30, 2010 – 17:09, Late Sunday night, Israeli tanks, bulldozers and armored vehicles invaded the southern Gaza Strip, east of Rafah, and began bulldozing land in the An-Nahda neighborhood.

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‘CANTOS’ based on Dante’s Inferno (Trailer)

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30 August, 2010

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Video.4340037

‘CANTOS’ based on Dante’s Inferno (Trailer), posted with vodpod

“CANTOS started out as a call to SE London filmmakers to collaborate on a project called ‘INFERNO’ initially to travel & later on be Vj’d by Scanner and musician Laurie Anderson, with a narration by Colin Redgrave. This is one of several that we made on no-budget using a P170 with brilliant lighting cameraman Miguel Amortegui along with executive producer Christy Symington, ARBS and producer/director Tontxi Vazquez. Much came about in only one room and a couple of exterior locations around Deptford,London; home to Christopher Marlowe, Pepy’s, Sir Walter Raleigh, and the original Cross Bones of St. Nicholas Church mixed with allegorical references to love, loss and chiaroscuro feelings of low light and Dante’s voyage with Virgil. This is one of the tomes that is less abstract than the others in this continuous work still in progress. It also inspired “Elysian Kaffe” a UK foreign language -London based feature script by Tontxi Vazquez currently in pre-production w/ Dop Miguel Amortegui attached. With overtones to Inception, Altered States, L’Innocente, Anti-Christ and the writings during the Inquisition.

All Rights Reserved to the Music & Recording Company”

More back-door privatization of the National Health Service proposed

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30 August, 2010 — williambowles.info

NHS Direct, perhaps the only effective addition to the Health Service the Labour government contributed, is to be axed under new proposals being put forward by the Tory/Lib-Dem government in spite of all the pre-election promises to ‘ring-fence’ the NHS.

NHS Direct saves the NHS £213 million a year by directing patients to the correct treatment, but now the service is to be ‘outsourced’ to private and non-nursing staff, allegedly to make the service more ‘accessible’ and ‘simpler to use’.

But if it ain’t broke, why fix it? In the grand tradition of what passes for British politics, once again the Tories pick up where Labour left off, who picked up where the Tories left off…and so it goes…

10,000 people have already signed a petition calling on the government to halt the privatization deal. Add your name at:

www.gopetition.com/petitions/save-nhs-direct.html

Apparently, Cameron promised a Commons debate on issues if he gets more than 100,000 signatures. We’ll see.

The unions involved are taking to the streets on 23 October.

See the full story in the Morning Star.

Media Complicity in Financial Crimes By Danny Schechter

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30 August, 2010 — News Dissector

Q: Why are media outlets doing such a bad job covering Wall Street?

A: Could it be, because they are owned by Wall Street?

When you connect the dots in your writing or look for deeper explanations behind the decisions of policymakers, market makers and media-makers, it’s easy to be dismissed as a conspiracy nut.

But forgive me for believing that those who serve interests have more clout than those that just speak out on issues. There are hidden relationships that sometimes predetermine what stories get media attention and which do not.

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Statewatch News Online, 30 August 2010 (15/10): Statewatch Special: DRAFT EU-US AGREEMENT ON THE EXCHANGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION

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30 August, 2010

Home page: www.statewatch.org/
 Statewatch European Documentation Centre (SEMDOC): www.statewatch.org/semdoc/
Sitemap: www.statewatch.org/sitemap.htm

1.   Statewatch Special: DRAFT EU-US AGREEMENT ON THE EXCHANGE OF PERSONAL INFORMATION
2.   EU: Statewatch Briefing: ID Cards in the EU: Current state of play
3.   G8 SUMMIT: Muskoka, Canada, 26 June 2010: G-8 Leaders Statement on Countering Terrorism
4.   EU: FRANCE-ROMA POLICY
5.   UK: More than 200 public sector staff caught snooping on citizen records
6.   EU: Council: Report to COSI: The Joint Report Internal Security in the EU
7.   UK: Factsheet and FAQ on Expulsion of homeless EEA Nationals
8.   EU-USA: Agreement on Mutual Legal Assistance comes into force
9.   EU: Article 29 Working Party on data protection: Opinion on RFID Applications
10. Countering Terror or Counter-Productive? Comparing Irish and British Muslim Experiences
11. EU: SCHENGEN EVALUATION
12. UK: Understanding surveillance statistics by Tony Bunyan
13. EU: Council of the European Union: FRONTEX POWERS: Update
14. UK-IOM: Home Office funding of International Organisation for Migration (IOM)

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Information Clearing House 29 August, 2010: Weekend Update – America's Corruption Racket in Central Asia

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29 August, 2010 — Information Clearing House

America’s Corruption Racket in Central Asia
 By Scott Horton
This is the third time this summer that the United States has been slammed with credible charges of corrupting foreign governments in Central Asia.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26266.htm

Afghanistan
PowerPoints ‘R’ Us
By Lawrence Sellin, Ph.D., is a colonel in the U.S. Army Reserve
I have been assigned as a staff officer to a headquarters in Afghanistan for about two months. During that time, I have not done anything productive. Fortunately little of substance is really done here, but that is a task we do well.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26263.htm

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VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 29 August, 2010: Rabbi Yusef Wishes Death To The Palestinians

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29 August, 2010 — VTJP

News

International Middle East Media Center

Israeli universities condemn ‘witch hunt’ by right-wing groups
IMEMC – 29 Aug 2010 – Sunday August 29, 2010 – 16:09, In a joint statement released by Israel’s largest and most prominent universities, the academic leadership challenged a foreign-funded campaign to undermine academic freedom in the name of Zionism, led by radical Israeli rightists and Christian fundamentalists.

Two Palestinian workers wounded by Israeli gunfire in Gaza
IMEMC – 29 Aug 2010 – Sunday August 29, 2010 – 14:15, According to local sources, a group of men who were gathering rubble to make cement in northern Gaza on Saturday were fired upon by Israeli forces at the Gaza-Israel border, injuring two.

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Doug Henwood: Austerity in the face of weakness Pt.3 – Wages and the Crisis

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28 August, 2010 — The Real News Network

Henwood: Aside from a period of four or five years in the late 1990s, real wages have been either flat or down for most of the last 3, 3.5 decades. That’s not good

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Video.4326056

WAGES AND THE CRISIS, posted with vodpod

Bio
Doug Henwood is the founder and editor of the Left Business Review; a contributing editor to the U.S. weekly The Nation; and author of several books, including Wall Street and After the New Economy.

Transcript

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Bernanke’s “Nuclear Option”: “Monetary Shock and Awe”: The Fed Prepared to Launch Most Radical Intervention in History By Mike Whitney

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28 August, 2010 — Global Research

The equities markets are in disarray while the bond markets continue to surge. The avalanche of bad news has started to take its toll on investor sentiment. Barry Ritholtz’s “The Big Picture” reports that the bears have taken the high-ground and bullishness has dropped to its lowest level since March ‘09 when the market did a quick about-face and began a year-long rally. Could it happen again? No one knows, but the mood has definitely darkened along with the data. There’s no talk of green shoots any more, and even the deficit hawks have gone into hibernation. It feels like the calm before the storm, which is why all eyes were on Jackson Hole this morning where Fed chairman Ben Bernanke delivered his verdict on the state of the economy on Friday.

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Israelis Risk Jail to Smuggle Palestinians – 600 sign up for campaign of disobedience By Jonathan Cook

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24 August, 2010 — Global Research – The National

Nearly 600 Israelis have signed up for a campaign of civil disobedience, vowing to risk jail to smuggle Palestinian women and children into Israel for a brief taste of life outside the occupied West Bank.

The Israelis say they have been inspired by the example of Ilana Hammerman, a writer who is threatened with prosecution after publishing an article in which she admitted breaking the law to bring three Palestinian teenagers into Israel for a day out.

Ms Hammerman said she wanted to give the young women, who had never left the West Bank, “some fun” and a chance to see the Mediterranean for the first time.

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Checkpoint: A Video Documentary By Yoav Shamir

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28 August, 2010 — TheNMCdotcom

An ambulance is stopped, and the sick people inside brought out to explain their ailments. A mother is separated from her very young children. Young Palestinians laugh and throw snowballs at Israeli soldiers, who jovially respond in kind. One Israeli soldier harasses a pretty Palestinian girl. Another refers to the Arabs as “animals,” and suggests the documentary crew is making a film for the Discovery Channel. Palestinians wait in the pouring rain while an Israeli soldier eats his lunch.

Another young soldier gets into a prolonged argument with a Palestinian man because he’d told the man an hour earlier that he would be able to cross back over the checkpoint to return home, and now a curfew is in effect. After his superior reluctantly lets the man through, the embarrassed soldier turns to the filmmaker and pleads, “Try to make me look good…not like the bad guy.” Language barriers constantly interfere with the soldiers’ ability to do their jobs. “It’s not my decision,” is a constant refrain as they turn people away. Israeli filmmaker Yoav Shamir once served his army reserve duty as a checkpoint guard, which was what inspired him to make this documentary, Checkpoint. For 80 minutes, Shamir simply shows us videotape of what happens at the various checkpoints that the Israeli government operates, which are in place to regulate the travel of Palestinians, purportedly in an effort to combat terrorism.

The documentary uses no narration, and the soldiers and Palestinians at the checkpoints are never identified. The subtitles simply tell the audience where the checkpoint being videotaped is located.

View the videos: Continue reading →

NO2ID Supporters’ Newsletter No. 156 – 26th August 2010: Party Games

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26 August, 2010 — NO2ID

+ PARTY GAMES +

As we move into party conference season, it is time for NO2ID to see who in politics has really grasped our message – and to look forward. Have the Coalition’s fine words about rolling back the database state been fulfilled as action? Will the new Labour leader move the party from its authoritarian stance against personal privacy?

Though ContactPoint has now been switched off and the data is being securely deleted, ID cards are not yet dead. There are some encouraging signs – for example, the government has just announced it is scrapping the database being developed by the Department of Work and Pensions (DWP) and the Identity and Passport Service (IPS) that was originally intended to be the ‘biographical’ component of the National Identity Register. But the Bill to abolish the ID scheme has not yet passed, despite the Coalition’s undertaking to get rid of ID cards in its first 100 days.

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Information Clearing House Newsletter 27 August, 2010 Weekend Edition: Psywar: The Real Battlefield is the Mind

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27 August, 2010 — Information Clearing House

The Soul of the ‘Land of the Pure’
 By Robert Grenier
Only the flint-hearted could be left unmoved by this. The heart aches for Pakistan.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26256.htm

Hawks Box in Obama on Afghan Occupation
By Ray McGovern
The Obama administration’s reluctance to discipline senior generals for comments bordering on insubordination seems to have encouraged the generals to believe they can speak their mind with impunity about President Obama’s management of the Afghan conflict.
www.informationclearinghouse.info/article26253.htm

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VTJP Palestine/Israel Newslinks 27 August, 2010: ‘Israel ready to destroy Lebanese Army in four hours’

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27 August, 2010 — VTJP

News

International Middle East Media Center

Red Crescent Members Arrested at Weekly Protest, Ni’lin
IMEMC – 27 Aug 2010 – Friday August 27, 2010 – 13:40, Israeli writer and film maker Joseph Dana has reported, via his twitter account, that the Israeli military has conducted a number of arrests in Ni’lin, near Ramallah, including the five member team from the Red Crescent.

Ma’an News

Jerusalem settlers assault 9 year old, parents say
8/27/2010 – JERUSALEM (Ma’an) — A nine-year-old boy said he was beaten by Israelis affiliated with the Atarot Kohanim settler group in Jerusalem’s Old City on Wednesday evening. Anas Sa’ad Ash-Shaloudi said he was on his way to his uncle’s house for the fast-breaking iftar meal at sunset, and was….

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GazaFriends] In celebration…and anticipation

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28 August, 2010 — Gaza Friends

When we wrote the text for Happy Birthday, Free Gaza, our wonderful video producer, Paola, asked if she could design a video tribute to Free Gaza. It is here.

Many of you have also sent birthday wishes to us as we get ready to sail again in the fall. To all of you… thank you. None of this could have been done without the support from around the world. Below are just some of the birthday wishes.

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Doug Henwood: Austerity in the face of weakness Pt.2

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27 August, 2010 — The Real News Network

The Limits of Stimulus

http://widgets.vodpod.com/w/video_embed/Video.4319079

THE LIMITS OF STIMULUS, posted with vodpod

Part One

Bio
Doug Henwood is the founder and editor of the Left Business Review; a contributing editor to the U.S. weekly The Nation; and author of several books, including Wall Street and After the New Economy.

Transcript

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