May 2011

The IMF versus the Arab spring

by News Sources 05.26.2011

Austin Mackell writes: In the midst of the media storm surrounding IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn last week, my feelings were perfectly expressed in a tweet by Paul Kingsnorth: “Could someone please arrest the head of the IMF for screwing the poor for 60 years?” Without diminishing the seriousness of the sexual allegations against Strauss-Kahn, the [...]

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Ira Chernus: Ass-backwards in the Middle East

by TomDispatch 05.26.2011

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com It’s been like dueling banjos in Washington this week.  President Obama and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu each got to say the same thing at length and at least twice.  Last Thursday, the president gave his “Arab Spring” speech in which — after a reportedly “furious phone call” between Netanyahu [...]

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The arrest of Bosnian Serb general Ratko Mladic

by News Sources 05.26.2011

Robert Mackey reports: Mr. Mladic, who was arrested in Serbia on Thursday in connection with the massacre of about 8,000 men and boys at Srebrenica in the days after the enclave for Bosnian Muslims was overrun by his forces, clearly enjoyed being filmed. As the footage of him sauntering around Srebrenica after its capture — [...]

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Libyan gold rush followed end to sanctions

by News Sources 05.26.2011

The Washington Post reports: Some of the world’s most sophisticated banks and investment firms rushed to do business with Moammar Gaddafi’s government in Libya after the United States rescinded the country’s designation as a state sponsor of terrorism five years ago, according to an internal financial document obtained by The Washington Post. HSBC, Goldman Sachs [...]

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‘Wounded warriors’: sexual assault in the US military

by News Sources 05.25.2011

At Open Democracy, Jenny Morgan writes: First dinner of the Nobel Women’s Initiative conference on ending sexual violence in conflict, and I had the good fortune to sit in on a wide-ranging conversation that started when Anu Bhagwati, the former US Marine Corps company commander who runs a campaigning organisation called the Service Women’s Action [...]

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Egypt to open Rafah crossing permanently

by News Sources 05.25.2011

The Associated Press reports: Egypt’s decision Wednesday to end its blockade of Gaza by opening the only crossing to the Hamas-ruled Palestinian territory this weekend could ease the isolation of 1.4 million Palestinians there. It also puts the new Egyptian regime at odds with Israel, which insists on careful monitoring of people and goods entering [...]

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Senate Democrats expected to side with Republicans against Obama on Israel border issue

by News Sources 05.25.2011

The Hill reports: Senate Democrats are expected to support a resolution intended as a rebuff to President Obama’s call for basing Middle East peace talks on the 1967 Israeli-Palestinian borders. It would be a rare rebuke of the president by the upper chamber and a sign that Democrats are worried about the impact of last [...]

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Day after Netanyahu addresses Congress, his ministers inaugurate East Jerusalem settlement

by News Sources 05.25.2011

Haaretz reports: One day after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declared that Jerusalem will not be divided, the speaker of the Knesset and several other government ministers attended a dedication ceremony for the new Jewish settlement of Ma’aleh Zeitim, in East Jerusalem’s Ras al-Amud neighborhood. Knesset Speaker Reuven Rivlin, Jerusalem Mayor Nir Barakat, Education Minister Gideon [...]

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‘AIPAC activists beat me’

by Paul Woodward 05.25.2011

Only a few months after Rae Abileah was among a group of young Jewish activists who found themselves the target of Jewish mob violence, she was attacked again yesterday, this time while exercising her right to free speech inside the US Congress. Ynet reports: Rae Abileah, a woman of Israeli descent who interrupted Prime Minister [...]

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Feeling the ignorance at AIPAC 2011

by News Sources 05.25.2011

Max Blumenthal writes: On May 22, thousands of supporters of America’s most powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, the America-Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, converged on Washington for the group’s annual conference. For two days they watched Democratic and Republican congressional leaders pledge their undivided loyalty to the state of Israel, and by extension, to AIPAC’s [...]

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The greatest threat to the Jewish state

by Paul Woodward 05.25.2011

An external enemy is really the only thing that unites Israelis. For that reason, ultimately, nothing poses a greater existential threat to the Jewish state than peace. No wonder Israel’s leaders have such little interest in establishing permanent borders and good relations with their neighbors. By 2028 an estimated 25 percent of children under 14 [...]

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Gaddafi — our best enemy

by News Sources 05.25.2011

A documentary on the West’s conflicted relationship with Muammar Gaddafi by Antoine Vitkine. The complete film appears at the bottom of this post, but depending on the speed of your internet connection, it may be easier to watch in segments. Share

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The fight for Libya

by News Sources 05.25.2011

The New York Times reports: In the heaviest attack yet on the capital since the start of the two-month-old NATO bombing campaign, alliance aircraft struck at least 15 targets in central Tripoli early Tuesday, with most of the airstrikes concentrated on an area around Col. Muammar el-Qaddafi’s command compound. The strikes, within a 30-minute period [...]

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Mubarak to face trial for killing of protesters

by News Sources 05.25.2011

The New York Times reports: Former President Hosni Mubarak will be put on trial for conspiring to kill unarmed protesters, Egypt’s top prosecutor announced Tuesday, yielding to public demands for accountability and setting an example that could rattle autocrats around the region. The charge could incur the death penalty. Mr. Mubarak was also accused of [...]

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Europe’s Obamaphilia says more about its own weakness than the US president

by News Sources 05.25.2011

Gary Younge writes: In his book Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama described himself as a Rorschach test – the famous psychological experiment where people are shown a series of ink blots and asked to identify what they see in them. There is no right answer. But each response in its own way, is thought to [...]

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Saudi women are being driven to rebellion

by News Sources 05.25.2011

Nesrine Malik writes: While all eyes are on Libya, Syria and Yemen, a different kind of rebellion is taking place in Saudi Arabia. A group of Saudi women have set up Women2Drive, a right-to-drive campaign, with a launch date of 17 June. Last week one of its members, Manal al-Sharif, took to the streets and [...]

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Netanyahu’s Congress

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Josh Ruebner writes: Gliding down the aisle of the House of Representatives like a popular president about to deliver the State of the Union address, escorted by a phalanx of dozens of ebullient Members of Congress, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu entered a joint meeting of Congress today to a round of hearty handshakes and [...]

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The Zionist US Congress

by News Sources 05.24.2011

(H/t Glenn Greenwald) If anyone was in any doubt that Capitol Hill is Israeli occupied territory, the adulation Benjamin Netanyahu received from Republicans and Democrats in Congress today makes it obvious where the loyalties of most of our so-called representatives lie. “In Judea and Samaria [the West Bank], the Jewish people are not foreign occupiers,” [...]

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Exposing Netanyahu

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Paul Pillar writes: Probably the most significant take-away from the past few days of U.S.-Israeli dialog is to shed light on the true intentions of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu regarding peace with the Palestinians. Although Netanyahu finally allowed the phrase “Palestinian state” to pass his lips for the first time almost two years ago, [...]

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Welcome Hamas’s conciliation with Fatah

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Musa Abumarzuq, deputy head of Hamas’s political bureau in Damascus, writes: The birth of the Cairo reconciliation agreement between Fatah and Hamas was slow and painful. But Palestinians welcomed its arrival. The tragic division which occurred in our national movement constituted a chapter we hope will never happen again. It never occurred to us that [...]

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US Congress controlled by AIPAC

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Press TV reports: A pro Israeli advocate knocked a camera out of the hands of Alison Weir, President of the Council for the National Interest Foundation. The group just finished their press conference on what they call unjustifiable US Aid to Israel. The two sides met when the Press Club scheduled a pro Israeli news [...]

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Dilip Hiro: Pakistan’s other partner

by TomDispatch 05.24.2011

Reprinted with permission of TomDispatch.com In the wake of the killing of Osama bin Laden, outrage against Pakistan has become commonplace in Washington, as exasperation grows, pressure builds, and the threats multiply.  Members of Congress from both parties have urged major cuts in the third largest U.S. aid program, which has gone mainly to the [...]

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NATO concern over Pakistan nuclear arsenal

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Al Jazeera reports: The head of NATO has admitted that the security of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons is a matter of concern, the day after the worst assault on a Pakistani military base in two years. Anders Fogh Rasmussen was speaking in Afghanistan on Tuesday, where he met Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, to discuss the [...]

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David Headley, witness in terror trial, ties Pakistani spy agency to militant group

by News Sources 05.24.2011

Sebastian Rotella reports: A confessed Pakistani American terrorist took the stand in a Chicago courtroom Monday and described a close alliance between Pakistan’s intelligence service and the Lashkar-i-Taiba terrorist group, alleging that Pakistani officers recruited him and played a central role in planning the 2008 Mumbai attacks. David Coleman Headley’s long-awaited testimony at the start [...]

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