Link: http://euobserver.com/9/32064

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has warned all Arab rulers that they risk Libya-type intervention if they cross a certain line of violence against their own people. But what about Israel's ongoing mass murder of the Palestinian people? The president told press at an EU summit in Brussels on Thursday (24 March) that UN Security Council resolution 1973 authorizing air strikes on Libya has created a legal and political precedent on the "responsibility to protect." Why isn't there also a 'responsibility to protect' Palestinians? Israel continues to violates more than sixty UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions while using banned weapons to murder thousands of Arab men, women, and children every year. Referring to deadly violence in Syria, he explained: "Every ruler should understand, and especially every Arab ruler should understand that the reaction of the international community and of Europe will from this moment on each time be the same: we will be on the side of peaceful protesters who must not be repressed with violence." But it's OK for Israeli Jews to shoot Palestinian protesters, women, and children?

Link: http://www.a-w-i-p.com/index.php/2011/03/25/an-empire-of-lies-the-cia-and-the-wester

Last week the Guardian, Britain’s main liberal newspaper, ran an exclusive report on the belated confessions of an Iraqi exile, Rafeed al-Janabi, codenamed “Curveball” by the CIA. Eight years ago, Janabi played a key behind-the-scenes role -- if an inadvertent one -- in making possible the US invasion of Iraq. His testimony bolstered claims by the Bush administration that Iraq’s president, Saddam Hussein, had developed an advanced programme producing weapons of mass destruction.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/chru-m25.shtml

The ongoing bombing of Libya by the US and its European allies has provoked increasingly strident criticisms from Russia and China. While pointing to the underlying American and European strategic interests involved, the objections are not driven by any genuine humanitarian concern or principled opposition to neo-colonial war. Rather Moscow and Beijing are concerned that Washington is once again using its military might to advance its strategic ambitions at their expense.

Link: http://wsws.org/articles/2011/mar2011/liby-m25.shtml

Air strikes by French, British and American warplanes continued to expand in Libya Thursday, but despite the massive firepower deployed by the imperialist powers against the forces loyal to Muammar Gaddafi, anti-Gaddafi rebels remained stalemated in the ground warfare. The air strikes were supplemented by more than a dozen cruise missiles, launched by US warships in the Mediterranean Sea, each of them delivering a warhead of as much as 2000 pounds.

Link: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article27759.htm

Two documents suggest northeast Libya, centre of rebellion, is an al-Qaeda hotspot. The war on Libya now being waged by the US, Britain and France must surely rank as one of the stupidest martial enterprises, smaller in scale to be sure, since Napoleon took it into his head to invade Russia in 1812.

Link: http://www.counterpunch.org/whitney03252011.html

The housing market is now in full retreat. This week, the Commerce Department reported that sales of new homes plunged nearly 17 percent in February to a 250,000 annual pace.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/africa/2011/03/2011324221036894697.html

Secretary-general says the military alliance's 28 countries have agreed to enforce no-fly zone "to protect civilians". NATO countries have agreed to enforce a no-fly zone in Libya "to protect civilians" against Muammar Gaddafi's forces, Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen told reporters. During a press conference in Brussels on Thursday, Rasmussen said the military alliance's mandate did not go beyond the no-fly zone, but that NATO could act in self-defense. The world will protect these so-called civilians-mercenaries armed with artillery and other advanced weapons, but does nothing to protect the Palestinian civilians from the murderer state of Israel. Israel violates more than sixty UN resolutions and the Geneva Conventions while using banned weapons to murder civilians by the thousands and the world is silent. Gaddafi tries to protect his country from a well planned attack involving forces from outside his country, and the world pounces on him. Twenty thousand children starve to death every day on this planet and the United Nations and America ignore it, so ignore America's fake selective morality which only sees social injustice in countries with oil. Libya is being attacked and looted just like Iraq. It's all about oil.

Link: http://www.democracynow.org/2011/3/25/100th_anniversary_of_the_triangle_shirtwaist

Today marks the centennial anniversary of the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory fire, the deadliest workplace accident in New York City’s history and a seminal moment for American labor. On March 25, 1911, 146 garment workers, mostly young immigrant women, died after a fire broke out at the factory. Many of them leaped to their deaths when they tried to escape and found the emergency exits locked. "I saw people throwing themselves from the window. As soon as we went down, we could not get out because the bodies were coming down" says the last survivor of the fire in a 1986 interview with Amy Goodman. Denied any collective bargaining rights, the Triangle workers were powerless to change the abysmal conditions in their factory: inadequate ventilation, lack of safety precautions and fire drills--and locked doors.

Link: http://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/putins-crusade-4318/

In the lead-up to the 2012 Russian presidential election, conflict has erupted within the Russian ruling tandem over Libya, but can it dent Putin’s seemingly unassailable position? A long-awaited event has at last come to pass on the Russian political scene. Putin and Medvedev have crossed swords, and it was over Muammar Gaddafi.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2011/03/25-3

Institute Calls for More Intensive Contingency Planning by Japanese Authorities; U.S. Should Move as Much Spent Fuel as Possible to Dry Storage to Reduce Most Severe Risks, Suspend Licensing and Relicensing During Review

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/view/2011/03/25-13

If the deficit hawks in Congress are serious about righting our economic ship and reducing deficits in the federal budget and many state capitols, it would we worth listening to the voices rising from the streets suggesting a very different solution than more cuts in safety net programs, education, pensions, and worker’s rights.

Link: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2011/03/25-0

"We are not in a position where we can be optimistic." The situation at Japan's crippled nuclear complex in Fukushima 240km north of Tokyo remains “grave and serious,” prime minister Naota Kan said today.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/insidestory/2011/03/2011325134310617768.html

How will Japan recover from the disaster? Will it be able to regain the world's confidence, and how long will it take? It's two weeks since the magnitude 9.0 earthquake and 10-metre tsunami struck the northeast coast of Japan. Hundreds of thousands of people are still homeless, more than half a million households do not have water, and workers are still battling to gain control of the Fukushima nuclear power plant. Fears of contaminated food are spreading overseas as officials report traces of radiation in milk products, seawater and 11 kinds of locally-grown vegetables.

Link: http://english.aljazeera.net/indepth/features/2011/03/2011325112137360914.html

Japan has been studying its seismic foe for years, but subsequent generations often forget the lessons of past quakes. RIKUZENTAKATA The town of 23,000 is accustomed to quakes and tsunamis, so when the twin natural disasters hit the community hugging Japan's jagged northeast coast, everyone knew what to do. "We know we have 30 minutes to move after an earthquake," said volunteer fireman Akio Kin, 51. "People who left immediately made it. And those who were late didn't." Indeed, not everyone made it - so mighty were the waves that eight of the 11 emergency evacuation points in the city were taken out by the tsunami.

Link: http://www.alternet.org/newsandviews/article/540426/ge%2C_world%27s_largest_corporation%2C_paid_zero_dollars_in_u.s._taxes_last_year/

How can that be, you ask? Actually, it's pretty simple. You know how we've been covering the efforts of U.S. Uncut, the growing campaign to stop corporate tax dodgers from exploiting overseas tax havens? Well here's an excellent example of why such efforts are desperately needed, from the front page of the New York Times: General Electric, the nation’s largest corporation, had a very good year in 2010.