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Israel in Canada: Promised lands
Eric Walberg
Protests and counter-protests at the Dead Sea Scrolls exhibition in Toronto;
a carob tree planted on the ruins of a Palestinian village in Canada Park;
Israeli Apartheid Week marked in universities across Canada. Enlarged
photos at: http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2009/968/_cu3.htm
On the occasion of filmmakers withdrawing last month from the Toronto Film Festival in protest of Israeli involvement in the event, a radical look at Israel's cultural and political connections in Canada
The Teflon cloak Israel has tried to wrap itself in since Operation Cast Lead, the invasion of Gaza in December 2008, looks as strong as ever in Canada. "Canada is so friendly that there was no need to convince or explain anything to anyone. We need allies like this in the international arena," gushed Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman in July. Toronto's new Israeli consul, Amir Gissin, recently announced his Toronto staff would be expanded, despite the fact that Canada already has more Israeli diplomatic staff per capita than any other country in the world, due to "the city's large Israeli population" and the fact that Toronto is "an arena for Israel from a PR, cultural and commercial point of view". He also said it "reflects the importance of the Toronto Jewish community" in supporting Israel. Indeed, there are an estimated 100,000 Israelis who prefer the joys of living in Canada to facing the violence-charged daily life of Israel, and many Canadian Jews who opt for instant citizenship in Israel. Toronto Jews have been generous in their support of Israel since its founding.
US Healthcare History: Our Very Own Killing Fields
by Donna Smith
Jenny Fritts was 24 years old. Jenny lived with her husband Sean for the past five years, and together they had a little girl named Kylee, 2. Jenny was seven-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child - a beautiful, baby girl.
Jenny is dead. Jenny's unborn baby is dead. They died because they were turned away for appropriate care at a for-profit hospital because they did not have health insurance. Sean rushed Jenny back to another hospital when her symptoms became even more severe, and he lied about having insurance to get her in the door. She was placed on a respirator in intensive care, but she didn't make it. She died. And so did her baby.
They become two more of the more than 45,000 Americans who die preventable deaths due to our broken healthcare system every year. Two more. Mother and child.
And the tragedy doesn't end there. Sean has been very depressed since he lost Jenny and their baby. The rest of his family and friends are worried about him. But he cannot get treatment either. He doesn't have insurance. Imagine how you might feel. Imagine.
Pakistani Bloggers on Waziristan Campaign
Security forces patrol streets in a vicinity of Waziristan,
Sat, Oct. 17, 2009. Pakistan Times
Pakistani Bloggers Oct 18, 2009
Two Conflicting Interpretations Of The Latest Wave
by Ahsan: There are, broadly speaking, two interpretations of the spike in violence in the last ten days. One is optimistic, and one is pessimistic. The optimistic version, predictably forwarded by the government, is that this is a last desperate stand from the Taliban and their allies, in advance of the Army assault in Waziristan. The logic is that this wav... Read more at Five Rupees »
Expensive Afghanistan: Million Dollar Soldiers and $400 for a Gallon of Gas
By Martha Rose Crow
Taxpayers Pour Money Into a Black Hole to Subsidize Oil & Dope Industries
Big U.S. politicians, including Nobel ‘Peace Prize' Laureate President Obama, want to escalate the unofficial war in Afghanistan by putting 40,000 or more boots on the ground. What they hide from the public is the cost: One million dollars per soldier per year!
“The cost of sending one U.S. soldier in Afghanistan for one year is $1 million versus an estimated $12,000 for an Afghani soldier, according to Steve Daggett, a specialist with the Congressional Research Service…The Obama administration is calculating $1 billion per 1,000 troops deployed to Afghanistan.” http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/63121-crs-calculates-cost-of-us-troop-presence-in-afghanistan
Responding to Stephen Colbert and Justice Scalia
eileen fleming
"Our tradition of separation of church and state too often separates church and state."-Stephen Colbert, Oct. 13, 2009
The other night on The Colbert Report, on a segment called "Symbol Minded"
View it here: http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/252639/october-13-2009/the-word---symbol-minded
Hardly any respite
Khaled Amayreh in occupied Jerusalem
Israeli paramilitary police stormed the Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary)
While some calm has returned to the compound of Al-Aqsa Mosque, the Muslim holy site is still under grave threat.
An uneasy calm is descending over East Jerusalem after thousands of Israeli troops lifted a tight siege lasting two weeks on Al-Aqsa Mosque compound, one of Islam's holiest sanctuaries.
The site witnessed violent disturbances two weeks ago when Israeli paramilitary police stormed the Haram Al-Sharif (Noble Sanctuary) in an effort to arrest Palestinians who had repulsed an attempt by a group of Jewish fanatics who were trying to arrogate "prayer rights" at the Islamic shrine.
Israel rejects UN council backing for Gaza war crimes report
Rory McCarthy
UN human rights council passes resolution endorsing Goldstone report, which accused Israel and Hamas of war crimes.
Israel has angrily rejected what it called a "one-sided" resolution by the UN human rights council today that backed a highly critical report on the Gaza war and opened the way to possible international war crimes investigations.
The council voted to endorse the report by a South African judge, Richard Goldstone, which accused both Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes and possible crimes against humanity during the three-week war in Gaza in January. Goldstone, whose work was hailed by leading international human rights groups, found there may be individual criminal responsibility over the killing of civilians.
Imperial Globalization and Social Movements in Latin America
James Petras and Henry Veltmeyer
Introduction
The unimpeded growth of Euro-American capitalism following the collapse of Soviet and European communism, the conversion of China and Indochina to state capitalism, and the rise of US backed, free market military dictatorships in Latin America give new impetus to Western empire building, labeled “globalization”.
The process of globalization was the result of ‘external’ and ‘internal’ conditions and class coalitions embedded in the social structure of both the imperial and ‘recipient’ or targeted countries. The expansion of capital was neither a linear process or continual expansion (accumulation) nor of sustained collaboration by the targeted countries. Crises in the imperial centers and regime transformations in collaborator regimes affected the flow of capital, trade, rules and regulations.
Venezuela is no tyranny
Francisco Dominguez
Honduras
Dictatorship has returned to Latin America in Honduras, not in the genuine, if imperfect, democracy of Venezuela
As Latin Americans witness the return of dictatorship – with Honduras suffering political executions, widespread repression and condemnation from human rights organisations about curtailing of press freedoms – it seems a strange time for the media to repeat opposition allegations that Venezuela is becoming a tyranny.
Venezuela is far from the "dictatorship which has a facade of democracy" described by General Raúl Baduel, who has been accused of corruption. What kind of tyranny oversees a 70% increase of participation in presidential elections, as Chávez has, or the government holding 13 free and fair elections in 10 years?
Funding Sweatshops Globally
by Stephen Lendman
In July 2008, SweatFree Communities (SFC) released a report titled, "Subsidizing Sweatshops: How Our Tax Dollars Fund the Race to the Bottom, and What Cities and States Can Do" in which it studied 12 factories in nine countries that produce employee uniforms for nine major companies.
Widespread human and labor rights violations were revealed, including child labor; illegal below-poverty wages; few or no benefits; forced or unpaid overtime; hazardous working conditions; verbal, physical, and sexual abuses; forced pregnancy testing to be hired and while employed; excessive long working hours causing physical ailments, stress, and harm; denial of free expression, association, and collective bargaining rights; and elaborate schemes to commit fraud and deceive corporate auditors.
In April 2009, Subsidizing Sweatshops II followed to provide more evidence of a global problem. It tracked developments in four factories from the first report and four new ones in five countries on three continents producing uniforms for nine major firms in China, Honduras, the Dominican Republic, Mexico, and America.
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