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AlterNet: Can Oprah Help Get Obama into the White House? : "But the millions of dollars the event will raise for Mr. Obama is not the most interesting thing Ms. Winfrey has to offer his campaign. 'My money isn't going to make any difference,' Ms. Winfrey told Larry King in May. 'My value to him, my support of him is probably worth more than any check that I could write.' "

Asia Times Online :: Middle East News - US steps closer to war with Iran : "The Bush administration has leaped toward war with Iran by, in essence, declaring war with the main branch of Iran's military, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), which it plans to brand as a terrorist organization. A logical evolution of US President George W Bush's ill-defined, boundless 'war on terror', the White House's move is dangerous to the core, opening the way for open confrontation with Iran. This may begin in Iraq, where the IRGC is reportedly most active and, ironically, where the US and Iran have their largest common denominators. "

Voices - NEOCONSERVATISM – FASCIST ZIONISM We are about to start a conflict extending from Lebanon to Iran, to eliminate Israel's enemies. Don't we owe it to those who are about to die at our hands to learn whether Israel planned these wars for us? Is the government correct, that Iran is really fomenting these wars, or are they just being blamed for them, because of successful Israeli false flag operations, which were designed to pull the US into destroying all of Israel's threatening neighbors? If the answer is the latter, then how far did Israeli covert efforts go in to forcing us into solving their wars? Would that mean that the Israelis were the invisible element in the 9/11 demolition? Or could it be that there was a dedicated hardcore Zionist-American faction, which undertook the dirty treasonous act on Israel's behalf? Were the neocon plotters, specifically, the "Wolfowitz cabal," responsible for this "false flag" terror attack?

Al Jazeera English - News - Yazidis Fear Further Attacks : "Members of Iraq's ancient Yazidi sect are still reeling in the aftermath of last week's deadly truck bomb attacks near Mosul in northern Iraq, at least 400 people were killed. "

BBC NEWS | Africa | Ethiopia opposition members freed : "The Ethiopian authorities have pardoned at least 31 opposition members detained after post-election violence in 2005. "

Report: Bodies of 3 PFLP men killed in 1982 found in Lebanon - Haaretz - Israel News : "The Lebanese television station LBC reported Thursday that German troops in Lebanon have recently discovered the bodies of three Palestinian militants killed in 1982 during the Lebanon war. The militants, who belonged to the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command, were found in uniform. The PFLP-GC was founded by Ahmed Jibril, who has close ties with Syria. The organization was involved in the fighting during the Lebanon war, and even captured Israel Defense Forces soldiers, who were later exchanged for Palestinian prisoners in the Jibril deal. "

: "Eric Miller's career as an Army Ranger wasn't ended by a battlefield wound, but his DNA. Lurking in his genes was a mutation that made him vulnerable to uncontrolled tumor growth. After suffering back pain during a tour in Afghanistan, he underwent three surgeries to remove tumors from his brain and spine that left him with numbness throughout the left side of his body."

Gaza residents tell of demeaning questioning by Shin Bet - Haaretz - Israel News In the most recent Israel Defense Forces raids in the Gaza Strip, during which dozens of people were detained for interrogation by the Shin Bet, the security service adopted a procedure unknown in recent years: The detainees were forced to undress in the presence of another detainee and a soldier or a member of the Shin Bet and then be interrogated while wearing a disposable, blue paper overall. This emerged in cumulative testimony from the Strip. In the West Bank, apparently, the color of the overall is white. According to a clarification by Haaretz with the Palestinian Center for Human Rights, this procedure has been implemented in the last three months with detainees from Beit Lahia, the Al Fuhari neighborhood in Khan Yunis and twice with detainees from the agricultural town of Shuka east of Rafah, on June 9 and on August 3.

Shock toll of British injured in Afghan war | World | The Observer : "The human cost of the war in Afghanistan to British soldiers can be revealed today as figures show that almost half of frontline troops have required significant medical treatment during this summer's fighting. In a graphic illustration of the intensity of the conflict in Helmand province, more than 700 battlefield soldiers have needed treatment since April - nearly half of the 1,500 on the front line. The figures, obtained from senior military sources, have never been released by the government, which has faced criticism that it has covered up the true extent of injuries sustained during the conflict."

Gareth Porter: Cheney, Lieberman and Iran War Conspiracy - Politics on The Huffington Post : "I was never one of those who believed the Bush administration was getting ready to attack Iran in 2006 or early 2007. But it is now clear that at least Vice President Dick Cheney is conspiring to push through a specific plan for war with Iran. And Senator Joe Lieberman is an active part of that conspiracy. " We have known for a long time that Cheney wants a major air attack on Iranian nuclear sites and other military and economic targets. But an August 9 story published by McClatchy newspapers reveals that, instead of waiting for a decision to go ahead with such a strategic attack against Iran, Cheney now hopes to get Bush to approve an attack on camps in Iran where Iraqi Shiite militiamen have allegedly been trained in recent years.

Military commanders tell Brown to withdraw from Iraq without delay - Independent Online Edition > Middle East : "Senior military commanders have told the Government that Britain can achieve 'nothing more' in south-east Iraq, and that the 5,500 British troops still deployed there should move towards withdrawal without further delay. Last month Gordon Brown said after meeting George Bush at Camp David that the decision to hand over security in Basra province – the last of the four held by the British – 'will be made on the military advice of our commanders on the ground'. He added: 'Whatever happens, we will make a full statement to Parliament when it returns [in October].'"

Survivors of bombs left to die in rubble - Times Online : "A SENIOR official in the Iraqi region that suffered the country’s worst suicide attacks suggested this weekend that any remaining survivors trapped beneath rubble would be left to die. Colonel Najim Abdullah, the governor of Tal Afar, said there were insufficient resources to continue searching for people among the ruins of Qahtaniya and Adnaniya, two villages devastated by multiple truck bombings last Tuesday. Up to 200 people are still thought to be unaccounted for, taking the death toll past 500."

Between the Two Rivers, Lack of Water Kills - by Ali al-Fadhily : "'The two rivers are still there, great as they always were, and flowing all through the year,' chief engineer Ahmad Salman of the Baghdad Water Authority told IPS. 'Yet Iraqis are thirsty, and we are ashamed of being engineers in the service. We have simply failed to provide our people with half of the drinking water they need.'"

Al Jazeera English - News - Afghans Celebrate Independence Day

US Adviser: Britain Faces Ugly Pullout : "LONDON (AP) - An adviser to the U.S. military said that British troops face an 'ugly and embarrassing' withdrawal from southern Iraq in the coming months, a British newspaper reported. Stephen Biddle, a member of a group that advised U.S. Gen. David Petraeus in Iraq last year, told the Sunday Times that insurgents and militia groups were likely to target British soldiers with ambushes, roadside bombs and rocket-propelled grenades as they leave. 'It will be a hard withdrawal. They want the image of a British defeat,' Biddle told the paper. 'It will be ugly and embarrassing.'"

British forces useless in Basra, say officials - Telegraph : "When America's top commanders in Iraq held a conference with their British counterparts recently, Major General Jonathan Shaw - Britain's senior officer in Basra - was quick to share his views on how best to conduct counter-insurgency operations. For much of the last four years, the Americans in the room would have listened carefully, used to deferring to their British colleagues' long experience in Northern Ireland. This time, however, eyes that would once have been attentive simply rolled."

A U.S.-backed plan for Sunni neighborhood guards is tested - International Herald Tribune