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Hamas, militant group clash in Gaza Strip violence : "GAZA, July 27 (Reuters) - Hamas security forces clashed with gunmen from the Army of Islam, an al Qaeda-inspired group, in the Gaza Strip on Sunday, part of a security crackdown following a surge in internal violence. One Hamas commander was seriously wounded in the fighting, which started when the Hamas forces sought to arrest some Army of Islam gunmen, Hamas officials and local residents said. Two Army of Islam gunmen were arrested. Hamas, which seized control of the Gaza Strip a year ago, launched the crackdown over the weekend after a series of bombings, including one on Friday that killed five Hamas members and a girl. As part of the crackdown, Hamas has arrested more than 160 activists from Fatah, the secular faction of Western-backed Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas. (Reporting by Nidal al-Mughrabi, Writing by Adam Entous; Editing by Dominic Evans)"

The Military-Industrial Complex - by Chalmers Johnson and Tom Engelhardt : "Most Americans have a rough idea what the term 'military-industrial complex' means when they come across it in a newspaper or hear a politician mention it. President Dwight D. Eisenhower introduced the idea to the public in his farewell address of January 17, 1961. 'Our military organization today bears little relation to that known by any of my predecessors in peacetime,' he said, 'or indeed by the fighting men of World War II and Korea... We have been compelled to create a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions... We must not fail to comprehend its grave implications... We must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex.' Although Eisenhower's reference to the military-industrial complex is, by now, well-known, his warning against its 'unwarranted influence' has, I believe, largely be...

What's Driving the Jerusalem Attacks - by Uri Avnery The Jewish public is not interested in all this. They don't know - and don't want to know - what is going on in the Arab neighborhoods, some hundreds of meters from their homes. So they are surprised, surprised and shocked, by the ungratefulness of the Arab inhabitants. A young man from Sur Baher recently shot pupils of a religious seminary in West Jerusalem. A young man from Jabal Mukaber drove a bulldozer and ran over everything that crossed his path. This week, another youngster from Umm Touba repeated exactly the same act. All three of them were shot dead on the spot. The attackers were ordinary young men, not particularly religious. It seems than none of them was a member of any organization. Apparently, a young man just gets up one fine morning and decides that he has enough. He then carries out an attack all by himself, with any instrument at hand - a pistol bought with his own money, in the first instance, or a bu...

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Voices - Who Cares For This Boy? : "His hair has grown, his voice sounds a little deeper and his wounds appear to have healed somewhat. But what isn’t clear from the first ever Guantánamo interrogation video to be released for public consumption is that Omar Khadr is blind in one eye. The Bagram airbase lies some 30miles north of the Afghan capital, Kabul. Inside the airbase is a prison, a converted machine-factory built by the Soviets during their occupation of Afghanistan. Inscriptions in Russian are still visible on the walls and doors. During the day, this place is usually deathly quiet. But at night, the sounds of soldiers as they patrol, chains clinking along the concrete floor as prisoners are frog-marched to and from interrogation rooms and screams of interrogators and interrogated usually keep you awake. It is worse than Guantanamo. In this place I witnessed two separate killings by American soldiers - the subject of this year's Oscar-winning documentary, Taxi to the ...

Zhovkhar got refugee status in Finland - Kavkazcenter.com : "The well known Chechen folk music singing group Zhovkhar applied for refugee status in Finland last September. Recently, the Finnish Refugee Authorities granted all 17 members of the group permanent residence status. When the group decided to ask for asylum, the puppet authorities in Chechnya reacted very harshly. The minister of culture of the puppet regime called personally to several members of the group asking them to come back, and he told publicly that the group had been fooled to ask for asylum. The main reason for these actions was the plan to arrange an 'international' culture event in Dzhokhar (Grozny) with as much as 3.000 invited guests, and the Zhovkhar group was planned to have the main performance. Due to Zhovkhar turning aside, the whole event was cancelled. In Finland, almost all Chechen refugees are granted residence permit, getting also possibilities to the social and economical benefits. The...

The 25 Most Vicious Iraq War Profiteers | Business Pundit : "The Iraq war is many things to different people. It is called a strategic blunder and a monstrous injustice and sometimes even a patriotic mission, much to the chagrin of rational human beings. For many big companies, however, the war is something far different: a lucrative cash-cow. The years-long, ongoing military effort has resurrected fears of the so-called “military-industrial complex.” Media pundits are outraged at private companies scooping up huge, no-questions-asked contracts to manufacture weapons, rebuild infrastructure, or anything else the government deems necessary to win (or plant its flag in Iraq). No matter what your stance on the war, it pays to know where your tax dollars are being spent. Following is a detailed rundown of the 25 companies squeezing the most profit from this controversial conflict."