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Garowe Online - Home : "A leading Ethiopian opposition figure has been imprisoned, and faces life behind bars after a pardon she was granted last year was revoked. Opposition parties charge the arrest was politically-motivated. Ethiopian authorities said opposition Unity for Democracy and Justice party chief Birtukan Mideksa could spend the rest of her life in jail after refusing to acknowledge that she asked for the pardon that led to her freedom last year. She was among dozens of opposition leaders jailed in the violent aftermath of the Horn of Africa nation's 2005 elections and later convicted of treason. Birtukan, a charismatic young lawyer and former judge, was widely reported to have made comments during a recent European tour denying that she had asked to be pardoned. The reports are said to have infuriated senior government officials, who said those convicted in connection with the 2005 protests were freed only after signing a document admitting guilt and asking to be ...

Al Jazeera English - Europe - Ex-mayor killed in Caucasus attack : "A former mayor of the provincial capital of North Ossetia has been shot dead in his car by unidentified gunmen. Kazbek Pagiyev died of multiple gunshot wounds in Wednesday's attack in Vladikavkaz, the Russian interior ministry said. The assassination comes weeks after his successor in the post was also killed, police said. Pagiyev's driver died in the shooting. Pagiyev, who stood down as deputy prime minister in North Ossetia last week, had previously served as the mayor of Vladikavkaz. He was replaced by Vitaly Karayev, who was killed by an armed man last month. Provinces in Russia's north Caucasus have been troubled by unrest linked to fighters based in the neighbouring province of Chechnya, a police crackdown on clan rivalries and internal power struggles."

The Czech Republic, which takes over the European Union's presidency on January 1, defended Israel's strikes against Hamas on Tuesday. While the EU has called for a cease-fire to end the violence between Israel and Hamas that has killed almost 350 Palestinians since Saturday morning, Czech Foreign Minister Karel Schwarzenberg insisted Israel had the right to defend itself, according to the Reuters news agency. "Let us realize one thing: Hamas increased steeply the number of rockets fired at Israel since the cease-fire ended on December 19. That is not acceptable any more," Schwarzenberg told the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes in an interview. The country currently holding the EU presidency, France, has condemned Israel's strikes and the rocket attacks from Hamas terrorists and called for both sides to stop immediately.

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A second New York City man pleaded guilty Tuesday to providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization by broadcasting Hezbollah television channel Al Manar to U.S. customers, prosecutors said.Saleh Elahwal, who lives in New Jersey, admitted that between about September 2005 and August 2006 he provided satellite transmission services through Brooklyn-based HDTV Ltd to Al Manar, in exchange for thousands of dollars payment. His co-defendant Javed Iqbal, a Pakistani who moved to the United States more than 25 years ago, pleaded guilty to the same charge on Dec. 23.Hezbollah, an Iranian- and Syrian-backed Shi'ite Muslim group with a powerful guerrilla army, was designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization in 1997.The U.S. Treasury branded Al Manar a terrorist organization in March 2006, saying it supported Hezbollah's fund-raising and recruitment activities. Elahwal is due to be sentenced on Feb. 19 and Iqbal on March 24. B...

Previously scheduled to begin tomorrow, the closely watched trial of Iraqi journalist Muntadar al-Zeidi was postponed today according to a spokesman of the Iraqi court. The delay is pending an appellate court ruling on what charges Zeidi will face for throwing his shoes at President George W. Bush earlier this month. The government has sought to charge Zeidi with assaulting a foreign leader, but his legal team argues he should only face a charge of insulting a leader, insisting that “ the case is within context of an insult and not an intention to kill. ” If the charge is reduced, Zeidi could be released on bail. The act of defiance turned Zeidi into an international celebrity overnight , Iraqis took to the streets in the wake of the incident, calling for Zeidi’s release, and also lead to the resignation of Iraqi Parliament Speaker Mahmoud Mashhadani and indirectly the severing of Iraq’s largest Sunni political bloc .

The Afghan government announced today that it has arrested 48 members of the Afghan police force over suspicion of aiding the Taliban insurgency and that 12 others eluded capture and joined the Taliban. The announcement comes just a day after a Taliban statement saying about 35 other police had defected to their side.

Israel's Constant Crisis- by Justin Raimondo Because Israel is almost entirely dependent on international support – and especially American support – for its very survival, without U.S. public opinion behind it the Jewish state would soon wither on the vine. What this means, in practice, is that a constant stream of pro-Israel propaganda must be directed at the American people in order to justify the high levels of financial and military aid that keep Israel afloat. What's more, the Israelis must constantly generate the urgency and immediacy of the need to support their country. They have succeeded in doing this by projecting a sense of continuing crisis. The idea that Israel is in danger, that unless we ship billions more in taxpayer dollars the Israeli state will sink beneath the waves of an unrelenting Arab assault, is constantly being pushed – and we wonder why the "peace process" is perpetually stalled.

Nir Rosen: Gaza: Israel, Hamas and the logic of colonial power | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk : "I have spent most of the Bush administration's tenure reporting from Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon, Somalia and other conflicts. I have been published by most major publications. I have been interviewed by most major networks and I have even testified before the senate foreign relations committee. The Bush administration began its tenure with Palestinians being massacred and it ends with Israel committing one of its largest massacres yet in a 60-year history of occupying Palestinian land. Bush's final visit to the country he chose to occupy ended with an educated secular Shiite Iraqi throwing his shoes at him, expressing the feelings of the entire Arab world save its dictators who have imprudently attached themselves to a hated American regime."

YouTube - Nowhere to run for those trapped in Gaza - 30 Dec 08