be just

   Obama's Orders Leave Framework of Torture, Indefinite Detention Intact    : Information Clearing House - ICH : "While the media is portraying these orders as a repudiation of the detention and interrogation policies of the Bush administration, they actually change little. They essentially represent a public relations effort to refurbish the image of the United States abroad after years of torture and extralegal detentions and shield high-ranking American officials from potential criminal prosecution. In cowardly fashion, Obama staged his signing of the orders in a manner aimed at placating the political right and defenders of Guantánamo and torture and underscoring his intention to continue the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” He was flanked by 16 retired generals and admirals who have pushed for the closure of the prison camp in Cuba on the grounds that it impedes the prosecution of the global “war” and reiterated in his own remarks his determination to continue the ...

 Embedded With Gaza Medics      : Information Clearing House - ICH

 Gaza: 'I watched an Israeli soldier shoot dead my two little girls'      : Information Clearing House - ICH : "A Palestinian father has claimed that he saw two of his young daughters shot dead and another critically injured by an Israeli soldier who emerged from a stationary tank and opened fire as the family obeyed an order from the Israeli forces to leave their home. Khaled Abed Rabbo said Amal, aged two and Suad, seven, were killed by fire from the soldier's semi-automatic rifle. His third daughter, Samer, four, has been evacuated to intensive care in a Belgian hospital after suffering critical spinal injuries which he said were inflicted in the attack early in Israel's ground offensive. Mr Abed Rabbo stood near the wreckage off his subsequently destroyed home on the eastern edge of the northern Gaza town of Jabalya yesterday and described how a tank had parked outside the building at 12.50pm on 7 January and ordered the family in Arabic through a megaphone to ...

Democracy Now! | Part II: Palestinian US College Grad Loses 2 Brothers in Israeli Shooting; Father Watched Son Bleed to Death After Israeli Troops Blocked Ambulances : "We return to the heart-wrenching tale of Amer Shurrab, who lost two of his brothers on the same day in an Israeli attack in Gaza. Amer is a Palestinian from Khan Yunis living in the United States. He recently graduated from Middlebury College. On Friday, his father and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle came under Israeli fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. Eighteen-year-old Ibrahim survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to reach them until twenty hours later."

At Least 67 Civilians Killed in Shelling of Sri Lanka’s “Safe Zone” | News From Antiwar.com : "The Sri Lankan military continues to press its advantage in the long-standing conflict against the separatist north, and while they seem to be gaining considerable momentum, an increasingly bloody military victory seems likely to complicate attempts to quiet the separatist sentiment. The latest complain today came from Sri Lankan health officials, who say that the military has been shelling a makeshift hospital inside a government-declared “safe zone” for civilians for the past three days, and has killed at least 67 civilians in the attacks."

US forces in Iraq kill three brothers in a house raid : "Baghdad - US forces killed on Thursday three brothers in a house raid in northern Iraq, police sources said. US forces stormed the house in the village of Youssifia, south of the northern city of Mosul, a police source told the Voices of Iraq news agency (VOI) without giving further details."

Al Jazeera English - Africa - DR Congo rebel Nkunda arrested The leader of a Tutsi rebel group based in the Democratic Republic of Congo has been arrested in neighbouring Rwanda, the command of a Rwandan-Congolese joint force says. Laurent Nkunda, who is head of the National Congress for the Defence of the People (CNDP), was captured after he tried to resist an operation by Congolese-Rwandan forces.