BY GILAD ATZMON

Earlier today in a conference in Jerusalem titled “Facing Tomorrow”, Israel's leading politicians shared their vision of Israel's future.

Following the recent agreement announced by the International Atomic Energy Agency’s chief, Mohammad ElBaradei regarding Iranian Uranium enrichment, Israeli Defence Minister Ehud Barak called on the international community “to give Iran a deadline for halting its nuclear program and impose additional sanctions against Tehran”. For some reason the Israelis are convinced that Nuclear energy is a ‘Jew only property’ The Jewish state insists on keeping its neighbours in a state of nuclear panic alert.

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eileen fleming

A freak cold front blew through Florida last Saturday night and the thermometer on my porch read 54 degrees, but what chilled me to the bone on Sunday morning was reading Nurit Peled Elhanan's report of the cold hearted Israeli High Court Justices when "members of the Combatants for Peace movement, women of Mahsom [Hebrew for checkpoint] Watch, members of the Forum of Bereaved Families for Peace attended a hearing [on October 14] at the High Court of Justice on the matter of the killing of ten-year-old Abir Aramin." [1]

On January 16, 2007, 10 year old Abir Aramin was walking home from school with her sister and two friends, but instead of having milk and cookies that afternoon; she was shot in the head with a rubber bullet by the Israeli Border Police and after three days on life support Abir's struggle ended- but not the struggle for justice her parents have been seeking ever since.

In 2007, I reported that Avichay Sharon, of Combatants for Peace stated, "Over the past 2 years, the Israeli Border Police and IDF forces have been creating provocations near the school district of Anata [which] has become a part of the daily routine for the children. Ever since construction started on the separation barrier surrounding Anata, the jeeps have been roaming the streets especially near the schools and shooting grenades and tear gas along with rubber bullets.

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Richard Backus

All recent financial 'bubbles' including the current one in real estate have had two (avoidable) causes. One was the result of tax policies instituted under President Reagan, the other was one of the unfortunate consequences of Globalization. The politics of greed, the basis of these actions, has place the entire middle- and working-classes at risk of becoming the 'second nation' warned of by John Edwards in his bid for the presidency. Both policies have lead to unchecked asset inflation worldwide. The ultimate consequence of this worldwide will be societies of rich and poor, with no middle class, similar to most poor countries today. The poor will be outbid in trying to obtain access to any of the activities or privileges currently enjoyed by our elites and a slowly-dwindling middle class. In trying to participate in any public event the average citizen will simply have not the funds.

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Iman Badawi

Rafah - Palestine Now - In the early hours of Wednesday October 14, the body of Yousef Hamdan Abu Zuhri, brother of a Hamas spokesman, Dr. Sami Abu Zuhri was handed over to the Palestinian side in Gaza. Yousef died in Burj al Arab prison in Alexandria, Egypt .

The pictures obtained by Palestine Now show signs of brutal and horrible torture all over his body.

According to Palestinian medical sources at Abu Yousef Al Najjar Hospital in Rafah, the body of martyr Abu Zuhri was handed over without Internal viscera and most of his tongue was amputated. These are some photos obtained by Palestine Now for the body of the martyr, the rest of the pictures were too horrific to be published. http://paltimes.net/arabic/news.php?news_id=101278

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By Khalid Amayreh

In its rabid efforts to whitewash the Goldstone report, Israel is likely to carry out another disingenuous probe into its genocidal onslaught against the Gaza Strip nearly ten months ago.

The report, compiled by South African judge Richard Goldstone, himself a Jew, accused Israel of committing war crimes and crimes against humanity, including the deliberate targeting of innocent civilians.

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Andrew Glikson

THE RISE OF ATMOSPHERIC CO2 ABOVE 350 PPM AT THE CURRENT RATE OF ABOUT 2 PPM/YEAR IS TRANSCENDING THE CONDITIONS THAT ALLOWED THE DEVELOPMENT OF HUMAN AGRICULTURE AND CIVILIZATION FROM ABOUT 8000 YEARS AGO.

Life on Earth depends on a delicate balance between the atmosphere, the oceans and the biosphere. The atmosphere acts like the “lungs” of the biosphere, while the ocean currents act as its “vein system”, modulating temperatures around the globe. Changes to the chemistry of the atmosphere, including greenhouse gases (CO2, methane, nitric oxides, ozone) and aerosols (mainly sulphur dioxide) through Earth’s history resulted in climate shifts between greenhouse states and glacial/interglacial states. Such changes were triggered by orbital shifts, solar cycles, volcanic events, asteroid impacts, release of methane from sediments and, on longer time scales, the distribution of oceans, continents and mountain ranges.

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by Stephen Lendman

Meeting with the Washington Post's editorial staff on January 16, President-elect Obama pledged to reform entitlements saying the process would begin straightaway by convening a "fiscal responsibility summit" before delivering his first budget to Congress.

"What we have done is kicked this can down the road. We are now at the end of the road and are not in a position to kick it any further," he said. "We have to signal seriousness in this by making sure some of the hard decisions are made under my watch, not someone else's."

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By Najwa sheikh Ahmed

In this article I am not writing about a personal experience as I did before, but merely putting myself in the shoes of a young mother diagnosed of breast cancer in Gaza. I am reading here a page in her diary –speaking to it- where she writes the following,

Dear Diary,

Please forgive me for being so hard on your lines; I am in hurry and don’t want to lose any of the ideas rushing into my mind, I wanted to write every thing and anything. I have been diagnosed of breast cancer, my whole world have changed since then, I have to admit that the fact of having this disease did not scared me at all, but what scared me most is being locked in Gaza, unable to have the suitable treatment, unfortunately to be diagnosed of such chronicle diseases in Gaza is a special thing, because you realize that you are in a position where rather time nor medical care are not optional. Since Gaza was siege life and death became key elements in the lives of its people.

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Franklin Lamb Qunaitra, Liberated Capital of the Syrian Golan Heights

Pressure increasing on Syria’s government to retake the Heights by force

Nationals from nearly one-third of the 192 member states of the United Nations met in Damascus last week to discuss the Return/Liberation of the Golan Heights. An estimated 5000 researchers, Lawyers, politicians, activists, victims of Israel’s 42 years of occupation, students and members of the public, attended the opening event in Qunaitra, the Golan capital city, which in a frenzy of frustration at being forced to return the city it had occupied since 1967 (Comment: think Gaza 2005), the Israeli ordered bulldozed, shelled, and booby trapped by its retreating forces as Qunaitra was surrendered to Syria.

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by Walter and Rosemary Brasch

One of the joys of Halloween is to dress in scary costumes and pretend to frighten others, who pretend to be frightened. But with less than two weeks until an evening of trick-or-treating, it's possible there won't be anything scarier than what's already happened in the country.

We are being told to fear the swine flu virus, and then learn that the vaccine, which was supposed to be available in mid-October, won't be ready for awhile.

It makes little difference anyhow, since about fifty million Americans don't have health insurance and couldn't afford the cost of vaccinations or treatment.

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