December 2011

Syrian rebels take the fight to Bashar al-Assad’s heartland

by News Sources 12.22.2011

The Daily Telegraph reports: Military trucks stood parked at the end of the dark empty street. The electricity was cut, the phone signals out and apartment windows boarded up with whatever wood or metal people could find. It was to stop the bullets, activists explained. Shouting and chanting of “down down Bashar al Assad” could [...]

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Explosions rock Baghdad amid Iraqi political crisis

by News Sources 12.22.2011

The New York Times reports: A wave of coordinated explosions ripped across Baghdad early on Thursday, killing at least 63 people, wounding more than 180 and jolting a country already unsettled by a deepening political crisis and the absence of American troops. Using car bombs and improvised explosives, insurgents attacked markets, grocery stores, schools and [...]

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Rebecca Solnit: Occupy your heart

by TomDispatch 12.22.2011

The other evening, I took the subway to the very bottom of Broadway, reputedly the longest street in the world, for a rally of New York’s transit workers.  Their contract expires in mid-January and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority is reportedly calling on them for draconian givebacks the next time around.  It’s a tough moment for [...]

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Obama and the rule of law

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Jeff Connaughton writes: Long silent and now contradictory, President Obama needs to deliver a clarifying speech about our financial markets and the rule of law. Speaking in Kansas on December 6, he said, “Too often, we’ve seen Wall Street firms violating major anti-fraud laws because the penalties are too weak and there’s no price for [...]

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Hardline Zionist casino boss Sheldon Adelson: the deep pockets behind Newt Gingrich

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Think Progress reports: The funding behind Newt Gingrich’s American Solutions for Winning the Future, an independent political committee, offers an intriguing clue into the financial deep pockets backing Gingrich’s candidacy. This week, McClatchy revealed that American Solutions footed the $8 million bill for private jet charters while Gingrich weighed whether to enter the 2008 and [...]

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The undeniable Palestinian right to resist occupation

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Noam Sheizaf writes: Following the killing of Mustafa Tamimi in his village Nabi Saleh, Spokesperson for the IDF presented pictures of a slingshot Tamimi had on him when he was brought to the hospital. This was to be the indicting evidence that the protester was taking part in hostile action against the army – i.e. [...]

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The top 1 percent whining selfish bastards

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Bloomberg reports: Jamie Dimon, the highest-paid chief executive officer among the heads of the six biggest U.S. banks, turned a question at an investors’ conference in New York this month into an occasion to defend wealth. “Acting like everyone who’s been successful is bad and because you’re rich you’re bad, I don’t understand it,” the [...]

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Occupy Albany’s demand

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Statement: We have joined together to Occupy as an affirmation of the future of democracy where each person has an equal voice in shaping our common future. While we come from diverse backgrounds and worldviews, we stand united in the recognition that our current system of governance is failing us- the voice of the People [...]

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What can prevent state failure for Egypt?

by News Sources 12.21.2011

An editorial in Al-Masry Al-Youm says: Downtown Cairo is once again a battlefield, and this time, the military is not just a silent facilitator, but an active participant — beating, dragging, shooting, and assaulting civilians. The latest round of brutality has led us to not only question the military’s handling of the transition period, but [...]

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How Egypt’s prime minister tries to cover up state brutality

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Parallel Dimensions from arabist on Vimeo. Meanwhile, AFP reports: A US official voiced outrage Tuesday after an adviser to Egypt’s military said that some protesters facing down troops in Cairo should be “thrown into Hitler’s incinerators.” Retired general Abdelmoneim Kato’s “anti-Semitic comments are outrageous, offensive and clearly unacceptable,” Hannah Rosenthal, the US special envoy against [...]

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Arms suppliers urged to halt transfers to the Egyptian army

by News Sources 12.21.2011

Global arms suppliers must halt the transfer of small arms, ammunition and other repressive equipment to the Egyptian military and security forces, Amnesty International said today after the army again violently dispersed protests in Cairo. The organization condemned the excessive use of force against protesters and called for a cessation of all transfers of small [...]

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‘Massacre’ in Syrian opposition stronghold

by News Sources 12.21.2011

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Monika Bulaj: The hidden light of Afghanistan

by News Sources 12.21.2011

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Israel: Publishing in a country that has outlawed free speech

by News Sources 12.21.2011

In its relentless slide towards outright fascism, Israel has imposed an effective prohibition on political debate around the issue of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS). At +972, Dimi Reider describes the effect of the new law by answering the question, What is +972‘s stance on BDS? The simple answer is that we don’t have one. [...]

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Egyptian women march against military rule

by News Sources 12.20.2011

Sarah Carr reports: It was an image that shocked Egypt and within hours went viral: the woman in the exposed blue bra being beaten and kicked by a gang of soldiers during an attack on Tahrir Square protesters. In a press conference on Sunday, General Adel Emara, a member of the ruling Supreme Council of [...]

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The secret program empowering Obama to kill anyone, anywhere, without any explanation

by News Sources 12.20.2011

The Washington Post reports: Since September, at least 60 people have died in 14 reported CIA drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal regions. The Obama administration has named only one of the dead, hailing the elimination of Janbaz Zadran, a top official in the Haqqani insurgent network, as a counterterrorism victory. The identities of the rest [...]

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This bastardised libertarianism makes ‘freedom’ an instrument of oppression

by News Sources 12.20.2011

George Monbiot writes: Freedom: who could object? Yet this word is now used to justify a thousand forms of exploitation. Throughout the rightwing press and blogosphere, among thinktanks and governments, the word excuses every assault on the lives of the poor, every form of inequality and intrusion to which the 1% subject us. How did [...]

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Nick Turse: The life and death of American drones

by TomDispatch 12.20.2011

It’s 10 pm.  Do you know where your drone is? Oh, the confusion of it all!  The U.S. military now insists it was deeply befuddled when it claimed that a super-secret advanced RQ-170 Sentinel drone (aka “the beast of Kandahar“) which fell into Iranian hands on December 4th — evidently while surveying suspected nuclear sites [...]

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Mass march by Cairo women in protest over soldiers’ abuse

by News Sources 12.20.2011

The New York Times reports: Thousands of women massed in Tahrir Square here on Tuesday afternoon and marched to a journalists’ syndicate and back in a demonstration that grew by the minute into an extraordinary expression of anger at the treatment of women by the military police as they protested against continued military rule. Many [...]

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Time for U.S. policy shift on North Korea

by News Sources 12.20.2011

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Sunni leader in Iraq denies ordering assassinations

by News Sources 12.20.2011

The New York Times reports: The political crisis in Iraq deepened on Tuesday, as the Sunni vice president angrily rebutted charges that he had ordered his security guards to assassinate government officials, saying that Shiite-backed security forces had induced the guards into false confessions. In a nationally televised news conference, the vice president, Tariq al-Hashimi, [...]

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Israel debates muffling call to prayer

by News Sources 12.20.2011

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Fragile and unbalanced in 2012

by News Sources 12.20.2011

Nouriel Roubini writes: The outlook for the global economy in 2012 is clear, but it isn’t pretty: recession in Europe, anaemic growth at best in the United States, and a sharp slowdown in China and in most emerging-market economies. Asian economies are exposed to China. Latin America is exposed to lower commodity prices (as both [...]

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Obama administration considers censoring Twitter

by Paul Woodward 12.20.2011

How dangerous can 140 characters be? Apparently if those 140 characters are being fired onto the web through the Twitter account of al Shabib, Somalia’s militant jihadist movement, then the national security of the United States could be in jeopardy. The New York Times reports: American officials say they may have the legal authority to [...]

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