December 2010

Rap News: Wikileaks’ Cablegate — the truth is out there

by News Sources 12.24.2010

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The truth that the CIA is desperate to conceal

by Paul Woodward 12.24.2010

The New York Times reports: A seven-year effort by the Central Intelligence Agency to hide its relationship with a Swiss family who once acted as moles inside the world’s most successful atomic black market hit a turning point on Thursday when a Swiss magistrate recommended charging the men with trafficking in technology and information for [...]

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Bradley Manning speaks about the conditions of his detention

by News Sources 12.23.2010

David House is one of the few people allowed to visit Bradley Manning while he is detained in the Quantico brig. Manning is held in “maximum custody,” the military’s most severe detention policy. Manning is also confined under a longstanding Prevention of Injury (POI) order which limits his social contact, news consumption, ability to exercise, [...]

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The leaks that aren’t really leaks

by Paul Woodward 12.23.2010

Glenn Greenwald praises the New York Times for an article which “exposed” planning for an imminent expansion of Obama’s war in Pakistan: In my view, the NYT article represents exactly the kind of secret information journalists ought to be revealing; it’s a pure expression of why the First Amendment guarantees a free press. There are [...]

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The last bastion of colonialism in the free world

by News Sources 12.23.2010

Larry Derfner writes: This week, Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu declared: “We must expose the hypocrisy of human rights organizations that turn a blind eye to the most repressive regimes in the world, regimes that stone women and hang gays, and instead target the only liberal democracy in the Middle East.” He was reacting to the [...]

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In settlement expansion boom, 13,000 new homes approved

by News Sources 12.23.2010

The New York Times reports: In the three months since Israel ended its settlement construction freeze in the West Bank, causing the Palestinians to withdraw from peace talks, a settlement-building boom has begun, especially in more remote communities that are least likely to be part of Israel after any two-state peace deal. This means that [...]

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US silent on plight of Iraq’s Christians

by News Sources 12.23.2010

Reza Aslan writes: Iraq’s 2,000-year-old Christian community is on the brink of extinction, its members targeted by al Qaeda attacks and fleeing abroad. But Hillary Clinton, the one person who could force the Iraq government to act, is keeping her mouth shut. A full-scale genocide is under way in Iraq: a well-planned, well-financed, deliberate plot [...]

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The women accusing Julian Assange of sexual assault deserve to be taken seriously

by News Sources 12.23.2010

Amanda Marcotte writes: When Julian Assange, the editor of WikiLeaks, was targeted for arrest by Interpol in late November, the right-wing British tabloid the Daily Mail was first on the scene with a widely linked but error-ridden article about the charges. The Daily Mail characterized Sweden’s rape laws as those of a radical feminist dystopia, [...]

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Julian Assange interviewed by David Frost

by News Sources 12.23.2010

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Congress blocks closure of Guantanamo

by News Sources 12.22.2010

The New York Times reports: Congress voted Wednesday to impose strict new limits on transferring detainees out of the Guantánamo Bay prison, dealing a major blow to President Obama’s vows to shut down the center and give federal court trials to many of the prisoners. The Guantánamo provisions were contained in a major defense authorization [...]

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Time to be afraid of everyone and everything

by Paul Woodward 12.22.2010

The 1982 Chicago Tylenol murders resulted in seven deaths and spawned an industry: the production of tamper-resistant packaging. Four years earlier mercury-injected Jaffa oranges from Israel caused short-lived panic across Europe. But 32 years later tamper-resistant oranges have yet to make it to the produce shelves. The same populations that needed at all costs to [...]

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Will Obama’s war in Pakistan soon escalate to a ground war?

by News Sources 12.22.2010

The New York Times reports: Senior American military commanders in Afghanistan are pushing for an expanded campaign of Special Operations ground raids across the border into Pakistan’s tribal areas, a risky strategy reflecting the growing frustration with Pakistan’s efforts to root out militants there. The proposal, described by American officials in Washington and Afghanistan, would [...]

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The other side of the militarization of Iran’s regime

by News Sources 12.22.2010

Elliot Hen-Tov and Nathan Gonzalez write: This week, Iran implemented an overhaul of its national subsidy system, in effect cutting billions of dollars worth of subsidies for daily consumer use, especially fuel and electricity. Though cushioned by transfer payments to low-income households, it is akin to a major austerity move. While the economic impact is [...]

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WikiLeaks reveals Bangladeshi ‘death squad’ trained by UK government

by News Sources 12.22.2010

The Guardian reports: The British government has been training a Bangladeshi paramilitary force condemned by human rights organisations as a “government death squad”, leaked US embassy cables have revealed. Members of the Rapid Action Battalion (RAB), which has been held responsible for hundreds of extra-judicial killings in recent years and is said to routinely use [...]

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WikiLeaks: US ambassador planned “retaliation” against France over ban on Monsanto corn

by News Sources 12.22.2010

Truth Out reports: The former United States ambassador to France suggested “moving to retaliation” against France and the European Union (EU) in late 2007 to fight a French ban on Monsanto’s genetically modified (GM) corn and changes in European policy toward biotech crops, according to a cable released by WikiLeaks on Sunday. Former Ambassador Craig [...]

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Rebecca Solnit: a shadow government of kindness

by TomDispatch 12.22.2010

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com I have a friend who sends a note every year in December, pleading with me to pen one upbeat, hopeful piece before the next year rolls around.  Mind you, I consider myself an upbeat guy in a downbeat world and, for me, when it comes to pure upbeatness, you couldn’t [...]

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CIA launches a WTF task force to assess impact of U.S. cables’ exposure by WikiLeaks

by News Sources 12.22.2010

The Washington Post reports: The CIA has launched a task force to assess the impact of the exposure of thousands of U.S. diplomatic cables and military files by WikiLeaks. Officially, the panel is called the WikiLeaks Task Force. But at CIA headquarters, it’s mainly known by its all-too-apt acronym: W.T.F. The irreverence is perhaps understandable [...]

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What if the Palestinians turn to the U.N.?

by News Sources 12.21.2010

Tony Karon writes: Israel is worried, according to press reports in the country, that the United States will not “rush to veto” a planned U.N. Security Council resolution condemning ongoing Israeli settlement construction. The resolution is being drafted by Arab countries exasperated by the failure of the U.S. to pressure the Israelis to halt construction [...]

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FBI delivers subpoenas to four more anti-war, solidarity activists as U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald expands witch hunt

by News Sources 12.21.2010

A press release from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression says: The FBI came unannounced to knock on doors at two apartments in Chicago this morning. FBI agent Robert Parker, under orders from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald’s office, delivered a subpoena to Maureen Murphy. Murphy, like several other individuals served subpoenas, is an organizer with [...]

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Cables reveal Israel welcomed Hamas takeover of Gaza

by Paul Woodward 12.21.2010

If mainstream media reports and government statements could be relied upon, the Bush administration and the Israeli governments led by Ariel Sharon and then Ehud Olmert were perpetually of one mind — Washington simply mirrored Jerusalem. But newly-released cables indicate that when it came to views about Hamas’ control of Gaza, there was in 2007 [...]

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The American Surveillance State

by News Sources 12.21.2010

Glenn Greenwald writes: One of the hallmarks of an authoritarian government is its fixation on hiding everything it does behind a wall of secrecy while simultaneously monitoring, invading and collecting files on everything its citizenry does. Based on the Francis Bacon aphorism that “knowledge is power,” this is the extreme imbalance that renders the ruling [...]

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Israel takes urgent action to counter Palestine’s rising diplomatic status

by News Sources 12.21.2010

Haaretz reports: After reports reached Jerusalem that the Palestinian Authority is trying to persuade about a dozen European Union member states to upgrade the PA’s diplomatic status, the Foreign Ministry on Monday ordered every Israeli envoy abroad to begin “urgent” diplomatic activity. The aim is to thwart Palestinian efforts at drafting a United Nations resolution [...]

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Outsourced war in Afghanistan wins only a thin slice of America’s attention

by News Sources 12.21.2010

The New York Times reports: The grueling war [in Afghanistan], where a day rarely goes by without an allied casualty, is like a faint heartbeat, accounting for just 4 percent of the nation’s news coverage in major outlets through early December, according to a study by the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an arm of [...]

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Pentagon health plan won’t cover brain-damage therapy for troops

by News Sources 12.20.2010

T. Christian Miller at ProPublica and Daniel Zwerdling at NPR report: During the past few decades, scientists have become increasingly persuaded that people who suffer brain injuries benefit from what is called cognitive rehabilitation therapy — a lengthy, painstaking process in which patients relearn basic life tasks such as counting, cooking or remembering directions to [...]

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