Link: http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=62683&s2=29

Health professionals have observed a raise of mutations at birth in Gaza, since the Israeli offensive last year. One of these, is a story of a child born at the Shifa Hospital in the Gaza Strip. The child was born with severe congenital malformations, such as his face, eyes, short stature, flattened nose, reddish-brownish skin discoloration, short limbs with feet and toes severely curled towards the inside in a similar shape to that in gorillas. The baby weighed 4 kilos, suggesting that he was in good health. His appearance showed otherwise. His parents left him at the hospital and refuse to go back and claim him as their own child.The baby, also nicknamed the gorilla baby, is still under the custody of the hospital until his parents return to claim him. The hospital has tried to convince the parents to come and take their child especially that he isn’t in a stable condition and has problems in breathing.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/sundance-reveals-dark-underside-political-financing-usa56549

Filmmaker Alex Gibney's new documentary, "Casino Jack and the United States of Money" - an expose of US campaign financing focused on Jack Abramoff premiering at the Sundance Festival this week - could hardly be better timed, so soon after the Supreme Court's "Citizens United" decision. At the Sundance Festival, American documentary filmmaker Alex Gibney recounts the descent into hell of the former lobbyist with links to the Republican Party, Jack Abramoff, offering an indictment of the corruption that infects political financing in the United States.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/doc/20100215/gopal

Then one day, long after the police and village elders had abandoned their search, a courier delivered a neat handwritten note on Red Cross stationery to the family. In it, Ismatullah informed them that he was in Bagram, an American prison more than 200 miles away. US forces had picked him up while he was on his way home from the bazaar, the terse letter stated, and he didn't know when he would be freed.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/stou-j28.shtml

Over many decades, the annual State of the Union Address, nominally the occasion for the president to give an accounting to the American people, has acquired an entirely ritualistic character. The joint session of Congress to which the speech is delivered is scripted in every detail. The event has long since become a calculated exercise in cynicism and deceit. President Barack Obama’s first State of the Union speech, delivered Wednesday night, was no different. The main aim of this address was to find a rhetorical bridge between the packaging of Obama as the candidate of “change” and “hope,” and the reality of his presidency, which has been unswervingly devoted to the defense of privilege.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/hait-j28.shtml

Troops under United Nations command have opened fire on crowds of hungry Haitians seeking food, an ominous sign of impending confrontation between the people of the earthquake-wracked country and the armed forces dispatched there under the auspices of the imperialist powers. On Monday, Uruguayan troops, part of the UN peacekeeping force deployed here since 2004, fired rubber bullets at people who crowded around food trucks, eventually pulling out and leaving sacks of rice to be fought over.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2010/jan2010/pers-j28.shtml

In a speech to the German parliament (Bundestag) on Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel (Christian Democratic Union, CDU) pledged to send additional German troops to back the US surge in Afghanistan ordered by President Barack Obama. The German foreign minister, Guido Westerwelle (Free Democratic Party, FDP), will announce Germany's new contribution to the US-NATO war to 60 foreign ministers assembled for the London Afghanistan Conference on Thursday.

Link: http://www.uruknet.info/index.php?p=m62682&hd=&size=1&l=e

U.S. soldiers shot and killed an Afghan cleric as he drove Thursday with his young son near an American base on the eastern edge of Kabul, underscoring the dangers facing civilians despite NATO efforts to minimize casualties. The shooting occurred as Mohammad Yunus, 36, approached a four-lane highway with one of his sons, according to police and witnesses. Yunus was struck by four bullets fired at his Toyota Corolla and died on the way to the Wazir Akbar Hospital, according to his son-in-law, Abdul Qadir. His son was not injured. Yunus left two wives and 10 children, Abdul-Qadir said.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/01/28

Continuing global economic growth "is not possible" if nations are to tackle climate change, a report by an environmental think-tank has warned. The findings in the report also suggested that there was no proven technological advance that would allow "business as usual" to continue. (photo credit: D Sharon Pruitt, via flickr user Pink Sherbet Photography)The New Economics Foundation (NEF) said "unprecedented and probably impossible" carbon reductions would be needed to hold temperature rises below 2C (3.6F). Scientists say exceeding this limit could lead to dangerous global warming. "We urgently need to change our economy to live within its environmental budget," said NEF's policy director.

Link: http://www.truthout.org/obama%E2%80%99s-secret-prisons-night-raids-hidden-detention-centers-%E2%80%9Cblack-jail%E2%80%9D-and-dogs-war-afghanistan564

One quiet, wintry night last year in the eastern Afghan town of Khost, a young government employee named Ismatullah simply vanished. He had last been seen in the town's bazaar with a group of friends. Family members scoured Khost's dust-doused streets for days. Village elders contacted Taliban commanders in the area who were wont to kidnap government workers, but they had never heard of the young man. Even the governor got involved, ordering his police to round up nettlesome criminal gangs that sometimes preyed on young bazaar-goers for ransom.

Link: http://www.thenation.com/blogs/notion/522881/sotu_as_national_rorschach_test

A contemporary State of the Union address is less an assessment of our national circumstances than it is a collective Rorschach test: an inkblot given meaning by the viewer more than by the subject. The televised pageantry of applause and ovations has little to do with the President's articulation of a policy agenda and far more to do with how his partisan allies and opponents read the electoral viability of his phrases.

Link: http://dissidentvoice.org/2010/01/anti-israelism-why-zionism-doesn%e2%80%99t-and-can%e2%80%99t-get-it/

There is no doubt it. More and more people all over the world, and probably many of their governments behind closed doors, are beginning to see the Zionist state of Israel for what it really is – not only the obstacle to peace but a monster1 apparently beyond control; and they, more and more so-called ordinary folk everywhere, are beginning to turn against it.

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/jan/28/barack-obama-banks-markets-rise

I am not interested in punishing banks,' said president Obama. Barack Obama appeared to temper last week's hard line on banking reform. Global stock markets have pushed higher on widespread relief among investors that Barack Obama's banks clampdown may not be as stringent as they first feared, while the US central bank's cautious optimism also helped boost sentiment.

Link: http://www.thetruthseeker.co.uk/article.asp?ID=12060

Russia still considers Iran a valuable customer for its weapons, a top arms trade official said Thursday, issuing a reassuring message to Tehran despite recent indications of Moscow's support for tougher Western sanctions. The S-3oo would present formidable obstacle to any air strikes Anatoly Isaikin, the head of the state arms trader Rosoboronexport, said no international agreements bar Russia from selling weapons to Tehran.

Link: http://www.paltelegraph.com/opinions/views/3855-send-300-billion-to-detroit-not-to-israel

Was there any excuse for a bunch of armed European settlers to occupy Palestine? No. Was there any excuse for those armed gangs-now called the "Israel Defense Forces"- to ally themselves with the most racist regimes on Earth, including Apartheid South Africa? No.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=50135

After the wave of de-privatisation of water services facilities that started across the world two years ago, municipalities in Europe are now buying back the electricity utilities they sold to private investors in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In Germany, numerous city and regional governments have already ended the privatisation of the electricity facilities, or are in negotiations with the private owners.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/quigley01282010.html

Hundreds of thousands of people are living and sleeping on the ground in Port au Prince. Many have no homes, their homes destroyed by the earthquake. I am sleeping on the ground as well - surrounded by nurses, doctors and humanitarian workers who sleep on the ground every night. The buildings that are not on the ground have big cracks in them and fallen sections so no one should be sleeping inside.

Link: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19540

Howard Zinn, the Boston University historian and political activist who was an early opponent of US involvement in Vietnam and whose books, such as "A People’s History of the United States," inspired young and old to rethink the way textbooks present the American experience, died today in Santa Monica, Calif, where he was traveling. He was 87.

Link: http://www.aclu.org/lgbt-rights/president-obama-calls-repeal-dont-ask-dont-tell-policy

During his State of the Union address Wednesday night, President Obama said he would work with Congress and the military this year to repeal the discriminatory "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. The policy, passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton in 1993, states that openly lesbian and gay individuals pose "an unacceptable threat to the high standards of morale, good order and discipline, and unit cohesion that are the essence of military capability" and prevents gay and lesbian individuals from serving openly in the military.

Link: http://www.socialistproject.ca/bullet/300.php

Lawrence Cannon, Canada's foreign minister, is on his way to London for a major international conference on the future of Afghanistan, January 28. Hilary Clinton and other high level representatives from the NATO countries will be present, as will embattled Afghan President Hamid Karzai. One wonders if this major global media focus on Afghanistan was part of the Harper government’s calculation in proroguing Parliament. The torture and abuse of Afghan detainees is also an issue in several European countries, and so the less riled up the Canadian press corps is from any fresh revelations back home, the better.