be just

Bernanke Delivers Blunt Warning on U.S. Debt : Information Clearing House - ICH : "February 25, 2010 'Washington Times' -- With uncharacteristic bluntness, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke warned Congress on Wednesday that the United States could soon face a debt crisis like the one in Greece, and declared that the central bank will not help legislators by printing money to pay for the ballooning federal debt. Recent events in Europe, where Greece and other nations with large, unsustainable deficits like the United States are having increasing trouble selling their debt to investors, show that the U.S. is vulnerable to a sudden reversal of fortunes that would force taxpayers to pay higher interest rates on the debt, Mr. Bernanke said. 'It's not something that is 10 years away. It affects the markets currently,' he told the House Financial Services Committee. 'It is possible that bond markets will become worried about the sustainability [of yearl...

Depressed Tony Blair told Gordon Brown he would quit after Iraq war | Politics | The Observer : "Tony Blair descended into such a deep depression after the Iraq war that he told Gordon Brown and John Prescott he would quit No 10 the following summer – only to renege on the pledge within months, a new book by the Observer's Andrew Rawnsley reveals. The former prime minister's physical and mental decline was so profound that he confided to friends that he 'spaced out' several times during Prime Minister's Questions and often woke up in the middle of the night with sweat trickling down the back of his neck."

Iran Captures a ‘Good’ Terrorist by Ray McGovern -- Antiwar.com : "The Iranian government is celebrating the capture of Abdolmalek Rigi, the leader of a violent group called Jundullah (Arabic for Soldiers of God), which Tehran says is a terrorist organization supported by the United States, Great Britain, and Israel. Jundullah is one of several groups that have been conducting bombings and other violent attacks against Iran’s Islamic regime with the aim of knocking it off balance."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Cleric urges Iraq poll neutrality : "Ali al-Sistani, Iraq's highest Shia religious authority, has called on his fellow clerics to stay neutral in next month's general election and refrain from backing candidates. In a message released by his office in Najaf on Saturday, al-Sistani said: 'I renew my appeal to people linked to the Marjaiya [the Shia spiritual authority] to maintain strict neutrality towards political parties."

House Abandons Privacy Protections, Approves Patriot Act -- News from Antiwar.com : "The House of Representatives narrowly averted allowing the US Patriot Act to expire, abandoning all the proposed privacy provisions to the bill and approving it exactly as worded by the Senate in a vote earlier this week. Parts of Patriot Act would have expired Sunday, but passed through the Senate without debate."

House Abandons Privacy Protections, Approves Patriot Act -- News from Antiwar.com : "The House of Representatives narrowly averted allowing the US Patriot Act to expire, abandoning all the proposed privacy provisions to the bill and approving it exactly as worded by the Senate in a vote earlier this week. Parts of Patriot Act would have expired Sunday, but passed through the Senate without debate."

EurasiaNet Eurasia Insight - Report: Azerbaijan Bans Koran, Islamic Symbols in Government Offices : "Following violent clashes between police and Islamic activists in Baku in mid-February, the government has ordered all state employees to remove Islamic symbols from their offices, a source in Azerbaijan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs tells EurasiaNet. Religious items such as the Koran and ayahs -- the 6,236 Koran verses regarded by Muslims as divine revelations -- increasingly have shared space in government offices with the Azerbaijani flag and portraits of President Ilham Aliyev and his father, the late president Heydar Aliyev. A source in the Ministry of Internal Affairs who did not want to be named stated that officials have been ordered to remove such religious items from government offices, explaining that 'Azerbaijan is a secular state and religion [ought to be kept] separate from the state.' The government has not yet commented officially on the issue."

US activist's family to sue Israel : "The family of US activist Rachel Corrie, run over by an Israeli bulldozer during a demonstration in Gaza in 2003, will sue the Jewish state over her death, their lawyer says. The 23-year-old killed at the height of the 2000 Palestinian intifada, or uprising, became an symbol of foreign support for the Palestinian cause and the subject of a 2005 play based on her emails and diary. 'The state should take responsibility for the death of Rachel Corrie. We believe her killing was done intentionally or at least out of negligence and wrongdoing,' Hussein Abu Hussein, the family's lawyer, told AFP on Wednesday."

Congress to Investigate Safety of Natural Gas Drilling Practice Known as Hydraulic Fracturing : "The top Democrats on the House Committee on Energy and Commerce have asked eight oil-field companies to disclose the chemicals they’ve used and the wells they’ve drilled in over the past four years. Last week, Waxman also revealed two of the largest gas drilling companies have pumped hundreds of thousands of gallons of diesel-based fluids into the ground in violation of a voluntary agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency."

Haaretz exclusive: Hamas founder's son worked for Shin Bet for years - Haaretz - Israel News : "The son of a leading Hamas figure, who famously converted to Christianity, served for over a decade as the Shin Bet security service's most valuable source in the militant organization's leadership, Haaretz has learned. Mosab Hassan Yousef is the son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a Hamas founder and one of its leaders in the West Bank. The intelligence he supplied Israel led to the exposure of a number of terrorist cells, and to the prevention of dozens of suicide bombings and assassination attempts on Israeli figures. The exclusive story will appear in this Friday's Haaretz Magazine, and Yousef's memoir, 'Son of Hamas' (written with Ron Brackin) will be released next week in the United States. Yousef, 32, became a devout Christian 10 years ago and now lives in California after fleeing the West Bank in 2007 and going public with his conversion."

ReliefWeb » Document » Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 24 February 2010 : "Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory 24 February 2010"

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - More Dubai murder suspects named : "Investigators in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) say they have identified 15 more suspects in the assassination of a Hamas official at a Dubai luxury hotel last month. Wednesday's announcement by Dubai police brings the total number of people believed to be involved in the murder of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh to 26. The January 20 killing, allegedly carried out by people who got into UAE using fraudulent passports, has been blamed on the Israeli spy agency, Mossad, by the Dubai police chief. The latest list included for the first time three passports attributed to Australian citizens."

NATO Attacks Afghan Buses, Killing 27 Civilians -- News from Antiwar.com : "NATO warplanes launched an air strike against three minibuses traveling in the Uruzgan Province near Kandahar today, killing at least 27 civilians and wounding at least 12 others. The Afghan cabinet initially put the toll at 33, but revised it downward for some unknown reason."

Al Jazeera English - Africa - Al-Bashir to sign Darfur peace deal : "Omar al-Bashir, Sudan's president, has arrived in Qatar to conclude a peace agreement that could see an end to the war in Darfur. Al-Bashir is expected to formally sign the peace agreement between the Sudanese government and the Justice and Equality Movement (Jem), Darfur's largest opposition group, on Tuesday, in Doha, the Qatari capital."

Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Deadly blast hits Afghanistan : "Monday's suicide attack came just hours after it emerged that a Nato air raid had killed at least 33 civilians in Uruzgan province on Sunday. Nato on Sunday confirmed that it fired on a group of vehicles that it believed contained fighters, only to discover later that women and children were in the cars. Isaf, Nato's force in Afghanistan, did not provide a figure of how many died. The deaths in Uruzgan came on the heels of an emotional appeal by Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, for international troops to try harder to prevent civilian deaths. He told parliament on Saturday that although progress was being made in limiting civilian casualties, people were still dying. He held up a picture of an eight-year-old girl who lost 12 relatives in a Nato rocket attack during the second day of the assault on Marjah - Operation Moshtarak - which began on February 13. The latest deaths came as a joint Af...

Helping Haiti, for a Price -- In These Times : "Within hours of the earthquake that caused the deaths of an estimated 200,000 Haitians on January 12, U.S.-based private security firms sprang into action. On January 13, as stories of looting and lawlessness in Port-au-Prince began appearing in news reports, the private security industry member organization the International Peace Operations Association (IPOA) created a new page on its website listing companies “prepared to provide a wide variety of critical relief services to the earthquake’s victims.” Listed firms include Triple Canopy, which last year took over Blackwater Worldwide’s (now called XE) contract to protect U.S. diplomats in Iraq."

: Information Clearing House - ICH I saw it written once that the definition of insanity is repeating the same process over and over and expecting the outcome to suddenly be different. I am finally ready to stop this insanity. Well, Mr. Big Brother IRS man, let's try something different; take my pound of flesh and sleep well. The communist creed: From each according to his ability, to each according to his need. The capitalist creed: From each according to his gullibility, to each according to his greed. Joe Stack (1956-2010) 02/18/2010

Britain's Explanation is Riddled with Inconsistencies. It's Time to Come Clean : Information Clearing House - ICH : "Intelligence agencies – who in the view of this correspondent are often very unintelligent – have long used false passports. Oliver North and Robert McFarlane travelled to Iran to seek the release of US hostages in Lebanon on passports that were previously stolen from the Irish embassy in Athens. But the Emirates' new information may make some European governments draw in their breath – and they had better have good replies to the questions. Intelligence services – Arab, Israeli, European or American – often adopt an arrogant attitude towards those from whom they wish to hide. How could the Arabs pick up on a Mossad killing, if that is what it was? Well, we shall see. Collusion is a word the Arabs understand. It speaks of the 1956 Suez War, when Britain and France cooperated with Israel to invade Egypt. Both London and Paris denied the plot. They wer...

US compensates Afghans for death, damage from war - World - TheState.com : "The death of a child or adult is worth $1,500-$2,500, loss of limb and other injuries $600-$1,500, a damaged or destroyed vehicle $500-$2,500, and damage to a farmer's fields $50-$250."

US compensates Afghans for death, damage from war - World - TheState.com : "BADULA QULP, Afghanistan -- The fallout of war has a price in southern Afghanistan. U.S. Army units fighting the Taliban in Helmand province have a compensation system for any death, injury or damage to crops and buildings caused by American forces to Afghan civilians and their property. The suffering of a population caught between combatants during the Afghan war is a politically sensitive issue, and NATO troops have sought to make amends for deadly airstrikes and other instances in which civilians were killed."

Official Web Site of GINBOT 7 : "Contrary to the long held claim of the Woyane propagandists, this careful study reveals that the top military brass of the Ethiopian state, although not directly proportional, was much more broadly representative of the country’s ethnic configuration than is commonly claimed. When seen along with our earlier study of the top military brass of the Woyane regime, both the Derg and the imperial periods showed a much more representative picture of the country’s ethnic mixture in the military leadership. As can be seen, persons of various ethnic groups successfully made it to the highest positions such as Chief of Staff and Commanders of Armies (Serawit/Hayiel), Command (Eze), Core (Kore), and Division (Kifle Tore). With one notable exception, we took officers over and above the Major General level for this study because of the significant actual power they hold in the military rank at their time of service. There was a very close correlation between mi...

Officials Concede Taliban ‘Far From Defeated’ in Marjah -- News from Antiwar.com : "But while officials from the White House on down insist the offensive is “going well,” and the forces on the ground say that all of their primary targets have been seized, it seems premature to declare victory. “Every market in mined, every shop is mined,” Major General Nick Carter noted, and as snipers and rocket teams continue to emerge to launch attacks, officials emphasize that the town’s Taliban are “far from defeated.”"

Dubai Police Aim for Arrest of Mossad Chief -- News from Antiwar.com : "Interpol has issued “red wanted notices” against 11 of the alleged assassins in the January Dubai killing of Hamas commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh. The 11 are identified through photos from a security camera, but so far they have no names, except the aliases used on their stolen passport data."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Interpol alert over Dubai suspects : "Interpol, the international police agency, has placed 11 members of an alleged hit squad suspected of assassinating Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas commander, at a luxury Dubai hotel last month, on its most-wanted list. Interpol issued the red notices, its highest-level alert, on Thursday on the request of Dubai authorities. Interpol said it had reason to believe the suspects had stolen the identities of real people, using them as aliases to commit the murder. Interpol's 'red notices' are not international arrest warrants but are put out after national authorities issue a warrant to help with finding suspects so they can be arrested or extradited."

David Frum would like you to cease and desist with your criticisms of Israel - John Knefel - Making a Mockery - True/Slant : "For reasons that remain unclear to me, some people think David Frum is somebody whose opinion should be respected. His editorial mad-libs from today, implicitly titled Anti-Semites Everywhere! serves as a helpful primer on how to stifle dissent by accusing one’s detractors of bigotry. Let’s see how he does it! It’s beneficial to begin with Frum’s conclusion — not the vagaries he puts forward as an “argument.” Here are his final two paragraphs in full: It’s possible to hate Israel without hating Jews. It’s even possible to hate Jews without hating Israel, as is said of a famously nasty British media personality: “He managed the impressive feat of being intensely anti-Semitic without becoming even slightly pro-Arab.” But these interesting theoretical potentialities exist mainly on the blackboard. In real life, it becomes very difficult to separate h...

NATO Changes Story: House Full of Afghan Civilians Deliberately Hit -- News from Antiwar.com : "Usually when militaries change their official story about killing civilians it is designed to explain away innocent deaths as an accident. Today, however, NATO took the exact opposite approach with Sunday’s Marjah killings, revising their story to insist the killings were not an equipment error, but were part of a deliberate US targeting of a house full of civilians."

The Seminal » UN Refuses to Participate in “Militarization of Humanitarian Aid” in Marjeh Reconstruction : "The New York Times just reported that the UN will not participate in the reconstruction of Marjeh because of what it sees as the 'militarization of humanitarian aid' that is a central feature of General Stanley McChrystal’s 'government in a box' plan for the area: Senior United Nations officials in Afghanistan on Wednesday criticized NATO forces for what one referred to as “the militarization of humanitarian aid,” and said United Nations agencies would not participate in the military’s reconstruction strategy in Marja as part of its current offensive there. “We are not part of that process, we do not want to be part of it,” said Robert Watkins, the deputy special representative of the secretary general, at a news conference attended by other officials to announce the United Nations’ Humanitarian Action Plan for 2010. “We will not be part of that militar...

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israeli settlements still expanding : "News Middle East Israeli settlements still expanding Israel is continuing to build illegal settlements on Palestinian land, despite a 10-month suspension of new construction announced by the government. Peace Now, an Israeli non-governmental organisation, says work is taking place at more than 30 settlements in the occupied West Bank. Nour Odeh reports from Beit Sahour."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - Israeli FM vague over Dubai murder : "Israel's foreign minister has said there is 'no reason' to believe that his country's spy agency was behind the killing of a senior Hamas figure in the United Arab Emirates, but did not explicitly deny involvement. Hamas has blamed Israel for the murder in a Dubai hotel room last month and the emirate's police force has refused to rule out the possibility that the 11 suspects wanted by investigators were working for Mossad. Avigdor Lieberman, the Israeli foreign minister, told Army Radio on Wednesday: 'There is no reason to think that it was the Israeli Mossad, and not some other intelligence service or country up to some mischief. However, he also said that Israel has a 'policy of ambiguity' on intelligence matters. Dubai police have said that at least seven of the 11 members of the gang suspected of carrying out the killing of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh share names with foreign-born ...

American Arrogance Overseas Should End by Ivan Eland -- Antiwar.com : "The current U.S. foreign policy of militarized social work – initiated by William McKinley during the Spanish-American War, perfected by Woodrow Wilson in Latin American in the years prior to World War I, and perpetuated by Harry Truman and his successors after World War II – is actually rooted in the missionary tradition of converting heathen peoples to Christianity. Eventually, such missionaries began to request military protection. Ultimately, the U.S. government took over from the missionaries and substituted instituting democracy overseas for religious conversion. Unfortunately, the arrogance and military aspects of the policy didn’t change. Now the U.S. government routinely violates the laws of other states to conduct renditions of suspected terrorists (for example, in Italy), to nation-build at gunpoint (for example, in Somalia and Bosnia), and to attack (for example, drone attacks into Pakistan) or inva...

Somalia: How Colonial Powers drove a Country into Chaos : "Somalia had every reason to succeed: an advantageous geographical situation, oil, ores and only one religion and one language for the whole territory; a rare phenomenon in Africa. Somalia could have been a great power in the region. But the reality is completely different: famine, wars, lootings, piracy, bomb attacks. How did this country sink? Why has there been no Somali government for approximately twenty years? Which scandals stand behind those pirates who hijack our ships? In this new chapter of our series “Understanding the Muslim World”, Mohamed Hassan explains for us why and how imperialist forces have applied in Somalia a chaos theory."

Binyam Mohamed Torture Evidence Must be Revealed, Judges Rule : Information Clearing House - ICH : "February 10, 2010 'The Guardian' -- Three of Britain's most senior judges have ordered the government to reveal evidence of MI5 complicity in the torture of British resident Binyam Mohamed – unanimously dismissing objections by David Miliband, the foreign secretary. In a ruling that will cause deep anxiety among the security and intelligence agencies, they rejected Miliband's claims, backed by the US government, that disclosure of a seven-paragraph summary of classified CIA information showing what British agents knew of Mohamed's torture would threaten intelligence sharing between London and Washington, and therefore endanger Britain's national security."

FBI Wants To Follow You Around The Internet - The Consumerist : "FBI chief Robert Mueller wants ISPs to track everything their customers do on the Internet, and keep those records for two years. The government plan would give the FBI access to 'origin and destination information' for all users. Hey, at least they're not doing it in secret and lying about it. The FBI says it's not interested in actual content; they just want to know who you are, where you've been and what you did while you were there. Oh, goody."

Conservative Muslim village raided by Bosnian cops | Antiwar Newswire : "A remote Bosnian village that is home to highly conservative Wahhabi Muslims was raided Tuesday by hundreds of police who said they were searching for an unspecified security threat."

Israeli Defence Minister warns of apartheid state without peace (Roundup) - Monsters and Critics : "Tel Aviv - Israel risks becoming an 'apartheid' state if it does not guarantee voting rights to its Arab citizens and achieve peace with its neighbours, warned Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak Tuesday night. Speaking at a strategy session, Barak said that Israel needs to work as a democracy if it moves to establish peace with all its neighbours. Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad joined Barak in calling for a continuation of the peace process. 'This region has suffered for far to long,' he said. The Palestinians urgently need a new 'political horizion.'"

Al Jazeera English - Europe - France denies citizenship over veil : "The French government is refusing to grant citizenship to a foreign man who forces his wife to wear the full Islamic veil, amid a fierce debate in the country about national identity. Francois Fillon, the French prime minister, said on Wednesday he would sign a decree barring the man from receiving French nationality, adding that he 'has no place in our country'. The decision comes just days after a parliamentary panel called for a law to ban the wearing of full Islamic veils in public institutions such as schools, hospitals and transport."

Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Blast hits Pakistan school opening : "A roadside bomb has killed at least eight people, including three US military personnel and four school girls, near a girls' school in northwest Pakistan. Local police said that Wednesday's blast was caused by an improvised explosive device. The US embassy in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, said the Americans were in the area to attend the opening ceremony of the girls' school when the bomb exploded."

ISS - Radioactive racism at Tennessee nuclear waste processing company : "A radioactive waste processing company in Memphis, Tenn. recently agreed to pay $650,000 to settle a race discrimination lawsuit charging it with exposing African-American workers to higher radiation levels than white workers."

Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Americans allege Pakistan torture : "Five American Muslims detained in Pakistan since December on suspicion of 'terrorist' activity are now claiming that they have been tortured by the US FBI and Pakistani police."

US Test Fails to Stop Fake Iranian Missile Strike -- News from Antiwar.com : "The United States launched a ballistic missile at its West Coast yesterday, part of a simulated attack by the Iranian military on California. The test of missile defense against the attack failed."

Al Jazeera English - CENTRAL/S. ASIA - Deaths in Karachi ethnic violence : "At least 26 people have been killed in Karachi, Pakistan’s largest city, after four days of ethnic killings, police officials say. The officials said that nine people from the total death toll were killed on Monday in the city's Orangi western neighbourhood, which has a majority ethnic Pashtun community. The clashes appeared to be between activists from rival political parties, which traditionally gather support from different ethnic groups."

Al Jazeera English - Americas - Rendition victim moves to sue US : "A Canadian man who was deported by US officials to Syria, where he was imprisoned and allegedly tortured, has appealed a court ruling preventing him from suing the US. Maher Arar filed a lawsuit before the US supreme court on Monday, appealing a lower court ruling that rejected his case because it involved national security information."

Al Jazeera English - Americas - US group 'wrong' to take Haiti kids : "Haiti's prime minister has said it is clear to him that a US church group which tried to take a busload of undocumented Haitian children out of the country knew 'what they were doing was wrong'. 'It is clear now that they were trying to cross the border without papers. It is clear now that some of the children have live parents,' Max Bellerive said on Monday."

Al Jazeera English - Middle East - 'Nine to die' over Iran protests : "Iran will 'soon execute' another nine people arrested over anti-government protests last year, a senior judiciary official has been quoted as saying. The nine are among 11 protesters sentenced to death for 'waging war against God' and seeking to topple the government. 'Nine others will be hanged soon. The nine and the two who were hanged on Thursday were surely arrested in the recent riots and had links to anti-revolutionary groups,' the semi-official Fars news agency quoted Ebrahim Raisi as saying on Tuesday."

Al Jazeera English - Europe - UK cabinet 'misled' over Iraq war : "A former UK minister has told a public inquiry into the war in Iraq that the British cabinet was 'misled' over the legality of the invasion in 2003. Clare Short, who is an outspoken critic of the war, on Tuesday said Peter Goldsmith, the attorney general at the time, did not tell the cabinet of his doubts about whether it would be against international law to invade Iraq."

US drones killed 123 civilians, three al-Qaeda men in January : "LAHORE: Afghanistan-based US predators carried out a record number of 12 deadly missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan in January 2010, of which 10 went wrong and failed to hit their targets, killing 123 innocent Pakistanis. The remaining two successful drone strikes killed three al-Qaeda leaders, wanted by the Americans. The rapid increase in the US drone attacks in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan can be gauged from the fact that only two such strikes were carried out in January 2009, which killed 36 people. The highest number of drone attacks carried out in a single month in 2009 was six, which were conducted in December last year. But the dawn of the New Year has already seen a dozen such attacks. The unprecedented rise in the predator strikes with the beginning of the year 2010 is being attributed to December 30, 2009 suicide bombing in the Khost area of Afghanistan bordering North Wazir...

Al Jazeera English - Focus - 'Race still an issue in Cuba' : "Esteban Morales: Despite the radical nature of the process that got underway in 1959, the country's social policies failed to take skin colour into account. In terms of social policy, after the triumph of the revolution, all poor people were treated equally, without differentiating between whites and blacks. But this was something that needed to be done, because the colour of one's skin in Cuba is a significant variable in social differences. White people came to Cuba by their own free will, as colonisers, with goals that they very often achieved. Black people were brought here by force and turned into slaves. These are very different starting points that cannot be forgotten or ignored, and that continue to have an impact today. Despite the fact that everyone's living standards improved and black Cubans achieved a more favourable position over the last half century, the profound differences did not d...