Saturday, February 20, 2010

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How Israel's Lobby Challenges Rule of Law in America http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F185JEbDvjc&feature=player_embedded

PressTV broadcast a 25 minute interview with IRmep director Grant F. Smith about the Israel lobby's history of challenges to rule of law and governance in the United States.

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IDF Raids 5 Apartments in Nablus http://palsolidarity.org/2010/02/11443?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+palsolidarity+%28International+Solidarity+Movement%29

Last night at around 2.30am, the Israeli army illegally stormed into 5 apartments in the Ashref Building on Suki Street in Nablus. The city is located in “Area A”, which is under full Palestinian Authority control under the Oslo II Agreement, making this raid illegal under international law.

comment-also see...Weekly Report on Israeli Human Rights Violations in the Occupied Palestinian Territory  http://www.paltelegraph.com/palestine/gaza-strip/4222- weekly-report-on-israeli-human-rights-violations-in-the-occupied-palestinian-territory

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Chossudovsky: US will start WW3 by attacking Iran http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4p1kD8CZX8&feature=player_embedded

A UN nuclear watchdog report suggests Iran could be developing a nuclear bomb, apparently confirming long-held suspicions in the West. But Tehran denies the claims, again insisting that its atomic intentions are peaceful. Michel Chossudovsky, who's from an independent Canadian policy research group, believes that what Iran says hardly matters, because the U.S. is planning for war...

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VIDEO-U.S. Military in Colombia- drastic increase in militarization http://coto2.wordpress.com/2010/02/19/u-s-military-in-colombia-drastic-increase-in-militarization/

In the fall 2009, U.S. and Colombian officials signed an agreement granting the U.S. military access to seven Colombian bases for ten years. (Watch the 21min. video about the agreement)

SOA Watch is extremely concerned about the drastic increase of U.S. militarization in Latin America. The bases agreement operates from the same failed military mindset that has given rise to the School of the Americas (SOA/ WHINSEC). The purpose of the bases and the purpose of the SOA/ WHINSEC are the same: to ensure U.S. control over the region through military means.

comment-also see...PARAMILITARISM in COLOMBIA 1 URIBE AUC killers COLOMBIA http://www.jahu.net/videos/video/jAABv-PfTtk/

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The Boiling Frogs Presents Philip Weiss http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2010/02/19/podcast-show-24/

Phil Weiss provides us with his experience and analysis of the US media’s stand, and their one-sided coverage and one-sided censorship on issues and cases related to Israel and the Israel lobby. He discusses the parallels between the tactics used in Gaza by Israelis and those implemented during the holocaust. Mr. Weiss talks about the Jewish identity question around the Israel lobby, the Obama administration’s hypocritical stand on and lame no-response response to the Goldstone Report, the importance of Jewish money and the Israel lobby to Obama and the Democrats, the recent changing perception of Israel, and much more!

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Australian and other western countries back Uribe’s attack on international solidarity http://colombiasolidarity.net/2010/02/australian-and-other-western-countries-back-uribe’s-attack-on-international-solidarity/

Part of Uribe’s international campaign to criminalise solidarity, is a violent cultural campaign of deceit, led by the corporate media. Censorship and right-wing propaganda from the Colombian government is aired in main news outlets and targeting also new media such as the internet, You Tube and weblogs. The delegitimization and defamation campaign is also a major component of Uribe´s propaganda war, sometimes with judicial consequences.

Colombian intellectuals have been jailed. On August 2008, film-maker and human rights defender Liliany Obando  was detained, being the first victim of Uribe´s so-called “FARC-politica” in response to ongoing political scandals in Colombia linking Uribe with paramilitary death squads, drug trafficking, and other damning activities.Liliany is yet to be tried in court and she remains in a high security prison to date. On May 2009, Professor Miguel Ángel Beltrán was illegally extradited from México to Colombia, accused of being a “FARC-Intellectual” for his criticism of the Colombian government.

Beltrán was jailed with no trial and has now been reported as disappeared. These cases add to the over 7,500 political prisoners languishing in Colombian prisons.This Uribe campaign, carried out on a global scale, is unprecedented for the current “post-military junta period” in Latin America as it resembles ‘Operation Condor’ throughout the 1970s and 1980s which involved the clandestine work of US sponsored state-terror carried out by military and secret services of several Southern Cone regimes.

 

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AUDIO-Honduras: authorized projects threaten wetlands and communities http://www.radiomundoreal.fm/Helpless-Wetlands

The activist also said that when grassroots organizations and communities are asked to participate it is only to “comply with some requirements” and that several permits have been granted without the approval of them.“We come from a coup d´etat, the new authorities took office on January 25th and on January 26th the permits were authorized. This is a true record.”The role of wetlands in terms of climate change and preventing natural disasters is known internationally. However, more and more projects are promoted and authorized by countries aiming to receive investments.

Varela stated that the commitments taken by industrialized countries are useless if they do not include transnational corporations.On behalf of the Red Manglar International, Jorge Varela denounced the agreements signed in a meeting in Paris, in which the World Wildlife Fund and other organizations participated. These agreements certify the industry of shrimp.

“If it is true that these organizations are committed to the environment, they should help us ban the industry of shrimp, because otherwise we will end up without wetlands, which will increase hunger and poverty. In my opinion, they have taken the side of the corporations to obtain some profit”, Varela said. Meanwhile, the Committee has serious obstacles, not only because of the lack of resources, but also for the repression, which grew during the dictatorship that ousted Jose Manuel Zelaya and continues with Porfirio Lobo.

comment-How The Green Fascist Movement Was Created http://american_almanac.tripod.com/green.htm

The 1001 CluB(WWF)- Bankers, Intelligence Agents, and Raw Materials http://www.bibliotecapleyades.net/sociopolitica/sociopol_1001club01.htm

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Five Years After Colombian Massacre, Justice Is Still Elusive http://www.alternet.org/world/145722/five_years_after_colombian_massacre%2C_justice_is_still_elusive?page=1

The 2005 massacre case is emblematic not just as an example of the brutality suffered by civilians at the hands of the Colombian military and paramilitaries, but also of the Colombian state's efforts to maintain impunity in such cases. While the Peace Community always insisted that the army and paramilitaries committed the crime, the Colombian government tried to place blame squarely on the victimized community itself.Shortly after the massacre, Colombian President Álvaro Uribe publicly accused the community of guerrilla collaboration, backing up army officials who claimed the FARC had committed the massacre to punish the community for collaboration gone awry.

It has since been proved that army officials paid false witnesses to testify that the FARC committed the massacre.Of course, military operations don’t take place without an order from ranking officers. On February 4, the first day of the most recent hearing in the case, Captain Gordillo confirmed the participation of General Mario Montoya in the planning of the operation and in ordering non-military guides. At the time, General Montoya commanded the army’s 7th Division, of which the 17th Brigade is a part.

General Montoya was later promoted to commander of the Armed Forces, and it was largely under his watch that the army committed what has become known as "false positives," in which members of the Colombian army kidnapped and killed young men from poor neighborhoods and then dressed them up as guerrillas killed in combat in order to earn rewards like days off. Since this so-called “false positives” scandal broke in late 2008, the Prosecutor General’s office has opened nearly 1,500 investigations into such crimes. In the wake of the scandal General Montoya resigned, but was later appointed ambassador to the Dominican Republic.

comment-also see...Under Uribe, The Dark Side of Colombia http://nylatinojournal.com/home/eagles_in_fall,_lions_in_spring/analysis/under_uribe,_the_dark_side_of_colombia.html

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Urgent Action: BP Oil Workers Action in Casanare Colombia - Police Repression URGENT ACTION: POLICE ATTACK WORKERS IN CASANARE http://www.colombiasolidarity.org.uk/content/view/486/

The department of Casanare is one of the most prosperous oil producing regions in Colombia. For more than 20 years multinational corporation BP has been exploiting this natural resource. As is common in our country, the presence of extractive projects is accompanied by state depredations and a strong paramilitary presence. During all of this time the workers and farmers of the region have had to bear all manner of assaults and human rights violations. Paramilitary groups imposed labour conditions in the corporations, those who resisted were assassinated, as occurred to several campesino and community leaders in the department.

In the face of this we ask: 1. That the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe insists that the oil companies in Casanare - BP, OCENSA and SAR ENERGY S.A., - respect the employment rights of the workers, that they work in dignified conditions.  2. That the Colombian government of Álvaro Uribe provides the necessary guarantees for the free exercise of the rights to trade union association and social protest. 

3. That the Attorney General (Fiscalía General de la Nación) and the competent state authorities investigate the links between paramilitarism and oil exploitation in Casanare. Evidential proofs of the violations of human rights were presented to the Peoples Permanent Tribunal, but no state investigation is known.  4. We appeal to national and international unions, and to organizations defending human rights, to reject these aggressions and to be vigilant with this process of social resistance.  

comment-also see... BP's dangerous bedfellows http://www.uow.edu.au/~sharonb/bp.html

 Moreover, Richard Howitt, a British member of the European parliament, obtained internal Colombian government documents that stated BP had given the Colombian military photographs, videos and other information about peasant protesters concerned about environmental damage. The information had allegedly led to intimidation, beatings, disappearances and deaths. [24] A former DSC adviser also told World in Action "about a controversial proposal by DSC to set up a spy network in Casanare to target anti-BP protesters." [25]

Colombia: No Reduction in Assassinations and Death Threats http://upsidedownworld.org/main/content/view/1339/68/

Blood on Britain’s hands http://www.redpepper.org.uk/Blood-on-Britain-s-hands?var_recherche=unionist

Colombia: Two More Trade Unionists Assassinated http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/WO0806/S00589.htm

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U.S. Sponsors Palestinian Division http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qkYXRXPOjuo&feature=channel

Palestinian security forces have been trained and funded by the United States to crush opposition and consolidate the Fatah partys grip on power in the West Bank.

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Unionist Murdered In Honduras http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JMVuio_-sY

In These Times reports that in the Honduran capital, labor union leader and nurse Vanessa Yamileth Zepeda, was killed in the beginning of February. Zepeda was a leader of Workers Union for the Honduran Social Security Institute. The administration of the newly inaugurated President Porfirio "Pepe" Lobo has called Zepedas murder and other recent attacks common crime. But the Honduran resistance movement mobilized since the June 2009 coup against then-president Manuel Zelaya see it as a clear message.

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Israel ballet interrupted in Burlington, Vt. - No tutu is big enough to cover Israel's War Crimes http://www.youtube.com/?v=KxZbr1gOEj8

On Friday, February 19, 2010, American and Israeli human rights activists interrupted a performance by the Israel Ballet at the Flynn Theater in Burlington, Vermont, unfurling banners which read "Sponsored by Apartheid Israel" and "No tutu is big enough to cover War Crimes".

The Israel Ballet is currently touring the U.S. as part of an official state campaign, dubbed "Brand Israel" to use the Arts to revive its sagging image abroad in the wake of unanimous condemnation from the major human rights organizations and, most recently, the U.N. "Goldstone Report".

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Cheney pushed for military conflict with Russia in 2008 http://rawstory.com/2010/02/book-cheney-pushed-war-russia/

A new book suggests Vice President Dick Cheney pushed for the US to engage militarily with Russia when Russia invaded the US-allied Georgian republic in 2008.Ronald Asmus' A Little War that Shook the World, published last month, says that in August 2008, as the South Ossetia War between Russia and Georgia was raging, the White House looked at the possibility of taking military action to prevent Georgian forces from being routed by Russian troops.

"The sheer scale of the Russian attack did lead several senior White House staffers to push for at least some consideration of limited military options to stem the Russian advance," Asmus wrote. "The menu of options under discussion foresaw the possibility of bombardment and sealing of the Roki Tunnel as well as other surgical strikes to reduce Russian military pressure on the Georgian government."Asmus paints a scenario in which Cheney appears to be the most vocal proponent of the idea of engaging in the South Ossetia conflict, even as other members of the administration, including the national security adviser and the president, resisted the idea.

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