Allen L Roland

The wholesale blatant slaughter of innocent civilians, under the guise of war, is the death of humanitarian law. It is still happening in Iraq and it recently happened during Israel's 22 day assault on Gaza from December 2008 through January 2009 ~ which left 1400 Palestinians dead ~ many of them children:

In the First World War 5 per cent of those killed were civilians, in the Second World War 48 per cent, while in a Third World War 90-95 per cent would be civilians. We are already seeing those percentages reached in America's illegal war and occupation of Iraq, where over a million Iraqis have been killed and displaced, and also in Israel's recent illegal assault of Gaza where over 1400 Palestinian civilians have been slaughtered.

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The Media Line

Arch-terrorist Osama Bin Laden "may have been killed", since there is little information to suggest he is alive, Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said on Monday.

Neither Pakistani nor American intelligence experts have detected traces of Bin Laden since the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera aired an audio recording of his voice in March, Zardari said, and even that recording has not been confirmed as Bin Laden’s voice.

Zardari said his advisers believed there was substance to the rumors of his death, but he could not confirm this.

There have been several reports over the last few years suggesting Bin Laden, 52, could be dead, and others regarding his ailing health.

None of the reports have been substantiated.

It is believed the terror chief is hiding in the mountainous region that straddles the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

U.S. State Department Spokesman Robert Wood said the U.S. had "no information" as to whether Bin Laden was dead or alive. “We will continue to hunt Osama Bin Laden until we can capture him or bring justice to him,” Wood said.

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Michael Collins

We're just about there, the magic 60 figure in the United States Senate. It's being called a filibuster proof majority for the Democratic Party. All we need is a belated recognition of the United States Constitution and the rules of the Senate in the form of an official Senator Al Franken (D-MN) and we're ready to rock.

Here's what we can expect:

Surely habeas corpus will be restored in an unashamed expression of support for that centuries old protection of civil liberties.

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Stephen Lendman

Self-promotion? Fair enough, but for a good purpose - to introduce more people to what the GRNH provides:

-- real democracy advocacy live, on-air, daily;

-- an antidote to government and corporate propaganda;

-- a force against war, injustice and inhumanity;

-- championing universal freedom;

-- a voice for social justice, human rights, and beneficial change - of, for, and by the people;

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San Francisco Chronicle

[This article originally appeared in The San Francisco Chronicle, January 10, 1977.]

With at least the tacit backing of U.S. Central Intelligence Agency officials, operatives linked to anti-Castro terrorists introduced African swine fever virus into Cuba in 1971. Six weeks later an outbreak of the disease forced the slaughter of 500,000 pigs to prevent a nationwide animal epidemic.

A U.S. intelligence source told Newsday last week he was given the virus in a sealed, unmarked container at a U.S. Army base and CIA training ground in the Panama Canal Zone, with instructions to turn it over to the anti-Castro group.

The 1971 outbreak, the first and only time the disease has hit the Western Hemisphere, was labeled the "most alarming event" of 1971 by the United Nations Food and Agricultural Organization. African swine fever is a highly contagious and usually lethal viral disease that infects only pigs and, unlike swine flu, cannot be transmitted to humans. All production of pork, a Cuban staple, halted, apparently for several months.

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Najwa Sheikh Ahmed

Sometimes I wonder from the children’s capacity to say the truth without any retouches, so easily, so spontaneously. Their simple words can be wiser than the words of an adult, without any need to think, revise, their words struck you strongly, until you realize that these children are speaking and thinking not like normal children, but more like a sole that is tormented, reshaped with the experiences, horrors, and life they lived.

I was backing some biscuits for my children yesterday, as they were going to a trip supervised by their school, they were very happy, and excited from the idea of going to this trip, though it was postponed many times. However, the idea of joining their class mates and spending a day outside the school, without having any homework, sounded worthwhile in this hot weather.

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Stephen Lendman

It continues to use civilian men, women and children as human shields.

The Al Mezan Center for Human Rights is a Gaza-based Palestinian NGO mandated "to promote, protect and prevent violations of human rights in general, and economic, social and cultural rights in particular, to provide effective aid to those victims of such violations, and to enhance the quality of life of the community in (Gaza's) marginalized sectors."

It monitors and documents violations, provides legal aid and advocacy, and helps Gazans on "fundamental issues such as basic human rights, democracy, and international humanitarian" matters. It also produces reports and publications on its work.

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Mary Shaw

I am writing this on April 26, 2009, the 23rd anniversary of the tragic and deadly explosion at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant in Ukraine. The Chernobyl disaster is widely considered to be the biggest technological and industrial disaster the world has ever known.

And I am remembering the 1979 meltdown at the nuclear plant on Three Mile Island, about 100 miles from where I currently sit.

Today, about a block from my home, I can look to the west and see the cooling towers of the Limerick nuclear power plant sending a steady flow of steam into the sky.

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chycho

So, we are able to go to the horn of Africa, bring back 16-year old children and put them on trial as adults for piracy, but we succumb to the demands of the Wall Street pirates within our midst?

"Sure, the pirates are like a small-time, entrepreneurial version of the big-time crooks on Wall Street. The financiers and investment bankers hijack the economy for their own quick profit, and then when they're caught, they hold the economy's future hostage while they demand humongous amounts of money. The only differences are that the Somalis may actually need the money, and they pulled guns while the bankers didn't even have to."

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Gaither Stewart

In Rome, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi who long ago decided
that Parliament is unnecessary continues his trip toward Fascism.

(Rome-Paris) Four parties and movements of the quarrelsome and divided Italian Left have allied for the European parliamentary elections next June. That is good news. Communist Refoundation, Party of Italian Communists, Socialism 2000, and United Consumers have agreed to unify their meagre forces in order to surpass the 4% electoral barrier so that Communists, with their red flag with the hammer and sickle emblem, can again sit in the Assembly of the European Union.

For many years now such unity on the Italian Left has been painfully absent, its former voters, bewildered and confused, wandering from center-left to right, in an electoral diaspora. Running separately in national elections in 2006, the two parties using the name Communist garnered a total of 10% of the vote. In comparison to today’s numbers those were the good old days. For during the breakdown of Left unity, proletarians in the Rome periphery even voted for the neo-fascist National Alliance and workers in north Italy cast their votes for the rightwing Northern League. Communists now hope to win back their traditional Left vote that once—though today almost a political relic—counted one-third of the nation’s electorate.

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