Kristoffer Larsson

Swedish photojournalist Donald Boström has really infuriated the Israelis and its supporters. On August 17, Sweden’s most widely circulated newspaper, Aftonbladet, carried an article by Boström entitled “Our sons plundered for their organs.”1

The usual suspects immediately cried “anti-Semitism,” claiming that the old blood libel accusation has been brought to life again.2 The Israelis have even threatened to sue him. Such reactions were anticipated, however. Innumerable hate mails have found their way into Mr Boström’s inbox since the publication, including death threats. More surprising is that Sweden’s ambassador to Israel, Elisabet Borsiin Bonnier, issued a condemnation of the article. It was “as shocking and appalling to us Swedes as to Israelis,” the ambassador claimed in a press release that was later withdrawn, having attracted criticism from the Swedish foreign ministry as well as from the government.

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Tom Eley

Blackwater mercenaries in Iraq.

According to a recent report by the New York Times, the Obama administration has retained the services of the notorious Blackwater guards to carry out drone attacks in Afghanistan, denoting no substantive distinction from the Bush administration’s use of Blackwater - now operating under the banner of Xe Services LLC - to carry out ’targeted assassinations’ in Iraq. With the number of military contractors in Afghanistan far exceeding the U.S. soldiers on the ground [*], what has so far been revealed regarding Washington’s arrangements with Blackwater and its more than a dozen affiliate companies might be just the beginning. --In the wake of Thursday’s revelations that the Bush administration hired Blackwater USA to carry out assassinations of alleged Al Qaeda operatives, more information has come to light regarding the intimate and ongoing relationship between the shadowy paramilitary security contractor and the American state.

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By Ramzy Baroud

"His house was completely destroyed, as were two of his little girls."

Gaza’s troubles have somehow been relegated, if not completely dropped from the mainstream media’s radar, and subsequently the world’s conscience and consciousness. Weaning the public from the sadness there conveys the false impression that things are improving and that people are starting to move on and rebuild their lives.

But nothing could be further from the truth. Since the conclusion of Israel’s war last year, the Palestinian Ministry of Health declared that 344 Gaza patients have reportedly been added to the swelling number of casualties.

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Salim Nazzal

It is time for the international community to intervene and expresses its outrage and disgust at Israeli murder for the purpose of bodysnatching. Palestinians are extremely outraged by the news which many of them had heard of previously, but which has now been confirmed by a neutral Swedish paper about the Israeli policy of deliberately murdering Palestinians to steal their internal organs.

This was revealed only few weeks after the arrests in the United States of several prominent Jewish figures, including rabbis, who were caught dealing in the gruesome ‘business’ of buying human body parts from Israel and selling them in the USA.

The Palestinian Association in Sweden which represents more than 30,000 Swedish Palestinians has sent a letter to the Aftonbladet newspaper, expressing their appreciation of its brave reporters’ efforts in revealing yet another dark face of the Jewish fascist state.

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Chris Floyd

The American political world is shocked – shocked – to discover that the CIA has been torturing some of the victims seized, kidnapped, snatched and literally sold into captivity by America's Terror Warriors. (Other captives have been tortured by the military, by hired contractors, and by various other organs of the security apparat.) This despite the fact that these tortures – including the threat to kill a captive's children – have been known for years, reported in the mainstream media and in several books by well-regard writers with highly respectable publishing houses. (I've been writing about America's torture regimen, in print and on-line, since early 2002, drawing almost entirely on these widely available sources.) None of the material now being released is "news" in the sense that it is new; but as always, it's nice to have one more source of confirmation for these already multiply-confirmed high crimes.

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Allen L Roland

Single Pay became the Public Option and is now apparently dead and buried by Big Pharma and its Insurance Lobbyists ~ killed by Greed, Fear and Public Apathy. Obama has failed to effectively lead, has sold out his progressive base and has, in the process, set the stage for a one term Presidency:

The three stumbling blocks to all political reform Greed, Fear and Apathy, have finally seemingly buried the Public Option ( along with the progressive movement ) and the Insurance Industry is rejoicing ~ but it may be premature.

The death of Progressive lion Ted Kennedy just might rally the Democrats ( by renaming the Public Option The Kennedy Health Plan ) and some form of meaningful reform may yet be accomplished ~ but Greed, Fear and voter Apathy still remain formidable barriers.

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by Stephen Lendman

Given today's hysteria over a non-existent Swine Flu threat and possible mandating of experimental, untested, toxic, and likely bioengineered vaccines, it's appropriate to review early fears about their dangers - when evidence first surfaced and concerns were raised.

In 1920, Charles Michael Higgins' "Horrors of Vaccination Exposed and Illustrated: Petition to the President to Abolish Compulsory Vaccination in Army and Navy" (now available in a new 2008 edition) issued a "Public Challenge to Health Departments" in citing "Deaths from Vaccination Denied and Concealed - More Deaths from Vaccination than from Smallpox," then continued:

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By Gaither Stewart

After having had his say about Italy, Europe and war and peace, Rossellini
went to India to satisfy his inexhaustible curiosity. In his film, India, he no
longer dealt in the particular but strove toward a global vision.

(Rome) The story of Roberto Rossellini is a very Italian story, encompassing Italy in change from the Fascist period and, reaching beyond his lived life, until 2009. Though Europe is not Europe without Italy, Rossellini’s story, in the strictest sense, is a very Italian story; not an European story. For Italy, separated from the rest of Europe by the Alps, is, and perhaps always has been, something apart, still today considered by North Europeans an exotic place to escape to. As is popularly said, Italy is a wonderful place to visit but hell to live in. The story of Roberto Rossellini deals with that paradox. Read Roberto Rossellini and think Italy of the past 75 years.

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