August 2011

Syrians must contemplate foreign help – if not the West’s

by News Sources 08.31.2011

“Abdur Rahman al Shami” writes: On 22 August an interview with Bashar Al-Assad was aired on Syrian TV. He assumed the people were following his every word. But they were not in the least concerned with his interview; instead, many stayed up the whole night watching the battle to liberate Tripoli. It had huge symbolism, [...]

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Is BDS campaign working?

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Ynet reports: Many Israeli agricultural products have been recently targeted by the Israel boycott campaign: tomatoes, peppers, citrus fruit, carrots, melons, strawberries and celery. But the flowers have been the primary obsession of the divestment movement, which wants to strangle the Israeli economy. Agrexco, Israel’s leading flower exporter, has recently declared bankruptcy, partially due to [...]

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Israel’s social protest leaders mull pulling up stakes after ‘march of million’ rally

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Haaretz reports: Social protest leaders are starting to discuss what to do about the tent camps scattered around the country once the summer’s demonstrations come to a head with the “march of the million” scheduled for Saturday night. They are considering a call to dismantle the tent cities after the march, which will include a [...]

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Evidence that former Bush official David Welch and US Rep. Dennis Kucinich tried to help Gaddafi retain power — updated

by News Sources 08.31.2011

(Update below) Jamal Elshayyal visited Libya’s intelligence headquarters in Tripoli, much of which were destroyed in NATO airstrikes. I managed to smuggle away some documents, among them some that indicate the Gaddafi regime, despite its constant anti-American rhetoric – maintained direct communications with influential figures in the US. I found what appeared to be the [...]

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On Israel, the New York Times is perniciously one-sided

by News Sources 08.31.2011

At Adbusters, Matthew A. Taylor writes: Although the spin is hard to detect for the average reader, New York Times reportage of Middle East affairs is perniciously biased. In their seminal book, Israel-Palestine on Record: How the New York Times Misreports Conflict in the Middle East, Princeton professor Richard Falk and media critic Howard Friel [...]

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What does Gaddafi’s fall mean for Africa?

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Mahmood Mamdani writes: “Kampala ‘mute’ as Gaddafi falls,” is how the opposition paper summed up the mood of this capital the morning after. Whether they mourn or celebrate, an unmistakable sense of trauma marks the African response to the fall of Gaddafi. Both in the longevity of his rule and in his style of governance, [...]

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Algeria’s regime: out on a limb that looks set to fall

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Brian Whitaker writes: With three out of five countries now under new management along the north African coast, the spotlight is turning towards the remaining two: Algeria and Morocco. In Morocco, where a new constitution was approved in July, the king’s promises of reform may succeed in staving off a mass revolt – at least [...]

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Libya’s rebels achieved what many thought would be impossible

by News Sources 08.31.2011

George Joffe writes: Given Libya’s dramatic lack of political and administrative experience (the legacy of the baleful perfection of the Jamahiriyah, which punished dissent with death or imprisonment), and the parallel lack of civil society (eliminated over the years for identical reasons), it is almost impossible for Libya to ignore the accumulated experience of the [...]

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‘Libyans don’t like people with dark skin, but some are innocent’

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Patrick Cockburn reports: Yassin Bahr, a tall thin Senegalese in torn blue jeans, volubly denies that he was ever a mercenary or fought for Muammar Gaddafi. Speaking in quick nervous sentences, Mr Bahr tries to convince a suspicious local militia leader in charge of the police station in the Faraj district of Tripoli, that he [...]

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Military council fails to defuse mounting tales of torture in Egypt

by News Sources 08.31.2011

Ahram Online reports: Soldiers arrive one mid-afternoon to break off a peaceful gathering in Tahrir Square. Days later, several young people recount scary ordeals and horror stories they claim they endured. Amr, for example, a young Egyptian man who works in the TV and Radio Corporation, entered the Metro Station in Tahrir Square to take [...]

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Pro-Assad militia threatens to go on strike

by News Sources 08.30.2011

Asharq Al-Awsat reports: The state of unity exhibited by the Syrian regime since the outbreak of protests more than 5 months may have finally come to an end. Over this period of time, the al-Assad regime has relied on Syrian military forces and the pro-regime “Shabiha” militia to suppress the protests taking place across the [...]

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The failure of the Internet: Why efficiency promotes poverty unless ordinary people can own and sell information

by News Sources 08.30.2011

“What you have now is a system in which the Internet user becomes the product that is being sold to others, and what the product is, is the ability to be manipulated.” Jaron Lanier Share

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White House guidelines on 9/11 messaging — don’t mention Baghdad

by Paul Woodward 08.30.2011

The New York Times in its Izvestia-like role as mouthpiece for the White House, shares some of the guidelines that have been sent to government officials with directions on how they should talk about 9/11, as its tenth anniversary approaches. Goodness knows what any of them might say if they were not provided with clear [...]

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New Palestinian strategy document will make it difficult for U.S. to oppose UN vote

by News Sources 08.30.2011

Akiva Eldar writes: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is probably aware that when it comes to a media event, like a speech at the UN General Assembly, President Shimon Peres doesn’t have to be asked twice to sacrifice himself for the nation. Someone who has been watching the honorable president for decades once told me that [...]

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IDF training Israeli settlers ahead of ‘mass disorder’ expected in September

by News Sources 08.30.2011

Haaretz reports: The IDF has conducted detailed work to determine a “red line” for each settlement in the West Bank, which will determine when soldiers will be ordered to shoot at the feet of Palestinian protesters if the line is crossed. It is also planning to provide settlers with tear gas and stun grenades as [...]

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Counter-terrorism Inc. — How the US government funds America’s booming security industry

by News Sources 08.30.2011

The Los Angeles Times reports: On the edge of the Nebraska sand hills is Lake McConaughy, a 22-mile-long reservoir that in summer becomes a magnet for Winnebagos, fishermen and kite sailors. But officials here in Keith County, population 8,370, imagined this scene: an Al Qaeda sleeper cell hitching explosives onto a ski boat and plowing [...]

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Syrian protesters ‘killed’ after Eid prayers

by News Sources 08.30.2011

Al Jazeera reports: Syrian security forces have shot dead at least seven protesters on the first day of the Muslim Eid al-Fitr holiday, activists say. Protests erupted in many towns and cities on Tuesday morning, after Muslims performed morning prayers marking the end of Ramadan. The Local Co-ordination Committees (LCC) activist network said six of [...]

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‘Defections’ in Syrian army reported

by News Sources 08.29.2011

Reuters reports: An armored Syrian force surrounded a town near the city of Homs Monday and fired heavy machineguns after the defection of tens of soldiers in the area, activists and residents said. One woman, 45 year-old Amal Qoraman, was killed and five other people were injured, they said, adding that tens of people were [...]

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Misrata rebels defy Libya’s new regime

by News Sources 08.29.2011

The Guardian reports: The first cracks in Libya’s rebel coalition have opened, with protests erupting in Misrata against the reported decision of the National Transitional Council (NTC) to appoint a former Gaddafi henchman as security boss of Tripoli. Media reports said the NTC prime minister, Mahmoud Jibril, is poised to appoint Albarrani Shkal, a former [...]

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Libya: Evidence suggests Khamis Brigade killed 45 detainees

by News Sources 08.29.2011

Members of the Khamis Brigade, a powerful Gaddafi military force run by Muammar Gaddafi’s son Khamis, appear to have summarily executed detainees in a warehouse near Tripoli on August 23, 2011, Human Rights Watch said today. Within three days the same warehouse was set on fire but the cause is unknown, Human Rights Watch said. [...]

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Gaddafi wanted to be Libya’s only hero

by News Sources 08.29.2011

Luke Harding visits Tripoli’s museum, now guarded by two friendly rebels, Naiem and Islam. Naiem told me how he and other locals liberated the museum on Sunday 21 August – the day the rebels surged into western Tripoli, and a popular insurrection erupted inside it. The Gaddafi soldiers were armed; the locals had no weapons [...]

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US-Taliban talks were making headway

by News Sources 08.29.2011

The Associated Press reports: Direct U.S. talks with the Taliban had evolved to a substantive negotiation before Afghan officials, nervous that the secret and independent talks would undercut President Hamid Karzai, scuttled them, Afghan and U.S. officials told The Associated Press. Featured prominently in the talks was the whereabouts and eventual release of U.S. Army [...]

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The myth of terrorism

by Paul Woodward 08.29.2011

The power of language cannot be overstated. Nowhere is this more evident than in the power embedded in the word terrorism — a word which has governed political thought for much of the last decade. Political acts of violence are older than humanity. Among chimpanzees, for instance, the contest for social power can sometimes be [...]

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How the NYPD, with the CIA’s help, became one of the country’s most aggressive domestic intelligence agencies

by News Sources 08.29.2011

Mark LeVine writes: Only two weeks before the 10th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Associated Press has broken a story that reminds us of just how much America has changed during the last decade, and how the government – and as important, some of the country’s most powerful corporations – routinely intrude [...]

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