This footage shows how the police and army shoots people with real bullets in Alhawijah city. this is how USA democracy works in IRAQ. god bless iraqi people.
اطلاق النار الكثيف على الثوار والمتظاهرين في الحويجة واستشهاد الشهيد فلاح حبيب.
هذه هي ديمقارطية الامريكان والمالكي

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/russia/8345994/Moscows-purchase-of-French-warships-causes-panic-from-Washington-to-Tokyo.html

As Russia pushes ahead with its biggest rearmament programme since the fall of the Soviet Union, its decision to buy two amphibious Mistral-class assault ships from France is causing alarm from Washington to Tokyo. Moscow's purchase of French warships causes panic from Washington to Tokyo. The £856 million pound two ship deal will allow Russia to later build a further two such vessels at its own shipyards, giving it four hi-tech assault ships in total. The vessels can carry up to 16 helicopters, four landing craft, 13 battle tanks, around another 100 vehicles and a 450-strong force. The ships are also equipped with their own on-board hospitals.

Link: http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54629

In a distinct echo of the tactics they pursued to encourage U.S. intervention in the Balkans and Iraq, a familiar clutch of neo-conservatives appealed Friday for the United States and NATO to "immediately" prepare military action to help bring down the regime of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi and end the violence that is believed to have killed well over a thousand people in the past week.

Link: http://www.indypendent.org/2011/02/25/crushing-workers-in-wisconsin-has-national-effects/

So that’s what they mean by from welfare to work. First you go force the poorest Americans into the workforce, then you go after their bargaining power. Wisconsin has long been the eye of this storm. “We have an environment in Wisconsin in which any poor family can climb out of the despair of poverty and pursue the American dream.”

Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/feb/25/pakistan-arrests-security-contractor-cia

ISI tells American agency to unmask all its covert operatives after arrest of Aaron DeHaven in Peshawar, over visa expiry. Pakistani authorities have arrested a US government security contractor amid a worsening spy agency row between the countries, with Pakistani intelligence calling on the Americans to "come clean" about its network of covert operatives in the country.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/opinion-libya-and-imperialism-4298/

Of all the struggles going on in North Africa and the Middle East right now, the most difficult to unravel is the one in Libya. What is the character of the opposition to the Gadhafi regime, which reportedly now controls the eastern city of Benghazi? Libya FlagIs it just coincidence that the rebellion started in Benghazi, which is north of Libya’s richest oil fields as well as close to most of its oil and gas pipelines, refineries and its LNG port? Is there a plan to partition the country?

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/2/25/thousands_feared_dead_in_gaddafis_crackdown

The United Nations is warning thousands of people may have been killed in Colonel Muammar Gaddafi’s assault on the growing popular uprising across Libya. The United Nations is also warning Libya’s food supply network is on the brink of collapse. Deadly clashes are ongoing as anti-government forces close in on the capital city of Tripoli. We get a report from Democracy Now!’s Anjali Kamat in Libya.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn02252011.html

From Washington DC we hear brave talk about Uncle Sam leading the charge for democracy across the Arab world, and thus restoring himself to high esteem in Arab eyes as something other than the sponsor of tyranny and torture by neoliberalism, the electrode and the waterboard.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/economy/150046/8_authoritarian_tactics_right-wingers_have_used_to_sabotage_the_wisconsin_uprising/

How Gov. Walker, Republican lawmakers, Tea Party groups, Fox News and conservative pundits have gone after Wisconsin's public workers and their supporters. When conservatives seized townhall meetings, yelled racial insults at black lawmakers and threatened politicians who voted for health care, the right-wing celebrated their corporate-backed efforts as a populist uprising. And when teachers, police officers, firefighters and students took to Wisconsin's capitol in peaceful protest, the right-wing crusaders against government overreach have embraced creepy authoritarian tactics to shut down the demonstrations.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/economy/150045/don%27t_sit_on_the_sidelines_--_this_saturday%2C_be_part_of_the_uprising_sweeping_the_country_from_wisconsin_to_your_home_town_/

A huge coalition of progressive groups have organized rallies across the country to stand up against harsh budget cuts and tax cheats, and protect the middle class.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/bankster-economist-heralds-third-world-hellholes/

The banksters are making it known. You’re going to be a pauper. The mega-bank Citigroup has trotted out its prime economist to send the message. “China should overtake the US to become the largest economy in the world by 2020, then be overtaken by India by 2050,” said Willem Buiter, chief economist. He also sat on the Bank of England’s Monetary Policy Committee.

Link: http://www.infowars.com/neocon-analysts-push-for-invasion-of-libya/

CNN reports the Pentagon and NATO are ready to send troops into Libya under the cover of humanitarian assistance. CNN underscores the situation by stating that reports say Gaddafi will fight to the end and will seek martyrdom.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/02/2011225165641323716.html

Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, has appeared in Tripoli's Green Square, to address a crowd of his supporters in the capital. "We can defeat any aggression if necessary and arm the people," Gaddafi said, in footage that was aired on Libyan state television on Friday. "I am in the middle of the people.. we will fight … we will defeat them if they want … we will defeat any foreign aggression.

Link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/25/AR2011022505562.html

Obama has signed a three-month extension of key surveillance provisions of the Patriot Act. The law extends two areas of the 2001 act. One provision allows law enforcement officials to set roving wiretaps to monitor multiple communication devices. The other allows them to ask a special court for access to business and library records that could be relevant to a terrorist threat.

Link: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_food_and_farm_biotech_crops%3B_ylt%3DAuw7.ss0G2pPlFhVSYDQnSus0NUE%3B_ylu%3DX3oDMTQyNGw0MDBtBGFzc2V0A2FwLzIwMTEwMjI1L3VzX2Zvb2RfYW5kX2Zhcm1fYmlvdGVjaF9jcm9wcwRjY29kZQNtb3N0cG9wdWxhcgRjcG9zAzkEcG9zAzYEcHQDaG9tZV9jb2tlBHNlYwN5bl

You may not want to eat genetically engineered foods. Chances are, you are eating them anyway. Genetically modified plants grown from seeds engineered in labs now provide much of the food we eat. Most corn, soybean and cotton crops grown in the United States have been genetically modified to resist pesticides or insects, and corn and soy are common food ingredients

Link: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/barackobama/8348470/Barack-Obama-administration-faces-embarrassment-over-furtive-meetings-with-lobbyists.html

Barack Obama's administration is facing allegations that key officials have been furtively meeting with lobbyists, once derided by the President as Washington "influence peddlers." As part of his commitment to bring change to Washington, Mr Obama began made logs of visitors to the West Wing public, so anyone could keep track of who was being granted an audience with his aides and when. But administration officials have evaded public scrutiny by meeting lobbyists away from the White House, where no record will be kept of their meetings – and the President's pledge to keep them out of the White House will not be undermined.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/news/150047/rupert_murdoch_and_david_koch_collude_against_wisconsin_workers/

While Fox News feeds its rabble the anti-union line, Murdoch's Wall Street Journal columnists front for Koch's Americans for Prosperity and coddle elite investors. In the week-long battle taking place in Wisconsin over Gov. Scott Walker's attempt to strip state workers of their collective bargaining rights, you'd expect Fox News to be doing what it's done: misreporting the story, mistakenly characterizing a poll supporting public workers to mean its opposite, featuring Glenn Beck painting the protests of union workers as something cooked up by Stalinists.

Link: http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/money_co/2011/02/monsanto-gm-sugar-beets-court-ruling-usda-.html

The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals has reversed a lower court’s ruling to destroy the young plants currently being grown to produce genetically modified sugar beet seeds with Monsanto’s Roundup Ready genes.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/business/2011/02/20112257256795964.html

Boeing, the American aerospace firm, has won a $30bn contract for 179 new US air force mid-air refueling aircraft, beating out Airbus's parent company, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS) company. The US defence department announced on Thursday that the company was the "clear winner" in the fiercely contested competition to replace 50-year-old Boeing-manufactured KC-135 Stratotankers.

• The United States spends more than the next 45 highest spending countries in the world combined.
• The United States accounts for 48 percent of the world's total military spending.
• The United States spends on its military 5.8 times more than China, 10.2 times more than Russia, and 98.6 times more than Iran.
• The United States and its strongest allies (the NATO countries, Japan, South Korea and Australia) spend $1.1 trillion on their militaries combined, representing 72 percent of the world's total.

Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2011/02/201122543530131224.html

Anger over shattered economy expected to trigger a backlash against ruling Fianna Fail party at the ballot box. Europe's debt crisis is set to claim its first political victim in an Irish election dominated by the trauma of economic collapse and the painful path back to financial stability. Ireland's 3.1 million voters began voting early on Friday, with every poll pointing to a new government led by Fine Gael, until now the perennial runner-up in Irish elections.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2011/02/2011225102748578436.html

Opposing political camps rally in Yemeni cities while protesters vent anger after prayers in Egypt, Jordan and Iraq. Protesters in Yemen have been calling for an end to Ali Abdullah Saleh's 32-year rule. Tens of thousands of people have gathered in a main square in the Yemeni capital for prayers that are expected to be followed by mass protests to press demands for Ali Abdullah Saleh, the country's longtime president, to step down. Yemeni authorities stepped up security in Sanaa on Friday in anticipation of rival rallies between government supporters and opponents, which the interior ministry said could be exploited by "terrorist elements".

Link: http://www.greanvillepost.com/2011/02/25/payback-the-price-of-colonialism/

Of all the uprisings in the Maghreb, the case of Libya is perhaps the most opaque. Is the country a locus of true spontaneous insurrection or simply the target of an opportunistic maneuver by the West? Does colonialism pay off for anyone? In the long run, definitely not. There is always a payback. The events today in the North Africa reflect this story. The situation today is the living and the dying proof of the payback. An atrocious, insufferable payback. The English in Egypt, the French in Algeria, the Italians in Libya. But especially the occupied Arab peoples of Egypt, Algeria and Libya, have all paid and continue to pay the price of colonialism.

Link: http://www.redress.cc/americas/cking20110225

Christopher King considers the cases of two men the USA wants to extradite, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and CIA spy “Raymond A. David”, on remand in Pakistan for murder. He argues that the murky case of “Davis” underlines the need for whistleblowers like Assange.

Link: http://www.veteranstoday.com/2011/02/25/gordon-duff-raymond-davis-can-imran-khan-save-americas-relationship-with-paksitan/

The standoff between the United States and Pakistan over the arrest of contractor Raymond Davis is not going to be solved unless both nations take a step into that “no man’s land” of trust and honesty. There is no question about diplomatic status, this was a clumsy mistake made by State Department officials in Washington who had little or no understanding of the legal and political issues at stake. Recent admissions that Davis is “CIA” mean nothing. Nobody knows what “CIA” means anymore, not since the wave of privatization that has spread to many of America’s critical security functions.