Month: July 2010

The man who wrote two of the memos authorizing techniques like waterboarding says the CIA not only used it excessively, but went even further to resort to “punching, kicking and dousings with cold water”: Ex-Justice Official Says Limits on Detainee Questionings May Have Been Exceeded (Washington Post) Can humor be a more effective tool than…

Among the unintended consequences of the U.S.-backed Ethiopian invasion of Somalia was the motivation of “a new generation of home-grown jihadists” inspired by a nationalistic desire to defend their ancestral homeland: From Minneapolis to Mogadishu (Al-Jazeera) Mayor Bloomberg says, “Government should never — never — be in the business of telling people how they should…

“Economists here say what is most needed now is not more goods coming in, as the easing of the blockade has permitted, but people and exports getting out”: Trapped by Gaza Blockade, Locked in Despair (New Y0rk Times) Among contradictory stories of kidnapping and defection, one thing is clear in the case of Iranian nuclear scientist Shahram Amiri: the…

France’s National Assembly moves to restrict Muslim women’s freedom in a misguided attempt to protect women’s rights; ban may be ruled unconstitutional by high court: French Parliament Approves Ban On Face Veils (Washington Post) Israeli NGO Ir Amim releases a study showing why Palestinians are being squeezed out of Jerusalem: 80% of the city is…

New video footage of the Israeli assault on the “Freedom Flotilla” calls into question Israel’s official statements on the incident and further demonstrates the need for an independent, unbiased investigation: New Cracks in Israel’s Flotilla Story (NPN) At 6-12 kilometers wide, the Gaza Strip is deprived of 30% of its arable land by an IDF-mandated buffer zone,…

The city council of the ethnically-diverse Teaneck, New Jersey “gets it right” with the selection of a Muslim as mayor and a Orthodox Jew as deputy mayor on a platform of slashed taxes and cut government spending: Brotherhood and Politics, Consorting! (New York Times) A Libyan charity sets off to deliver mostly Greek aid to…

Like “a cruel joke,” Israel’s attempt “to assuage the international community by ‘easing’ the siege … allows Israeli goods to be sold inside Gaza; while blockading goods made in Gaza. This is one more step in killing an economy”: How to Kill an Economy (Al-Jazeera) CNN, “which has employed a former AIPAC official, Wolf Blitzer, as…

“[The U.S.] believes in freedom. It sees itself as an opponent of colonialism. It is very, very difficult for the United States to understand that many people around the world now perceive it as an imperial, colonial power trying to occupy them”: Occupation – the Muslim Perspective (Washington Post) Seven British anti-war activists are acquitted…

While closing “proceedings on all the other incidents … mentioned in the Goldstone Report,” the IDF has filed manslaughter indictments against two soldiers for acts that “include manslaughter and disobeying a military directive”: IDF Prosecutor To Bring New Indictments Against Soldiers for Conduct in Gaza War (Haaretz) “If we infringe their freedom — we infringe…

“Elad Orian, an Israeli human rights activist, nodded toward the poultry barn and noted: ‘Those chickens get more electricity and water than all the Palestinians around here””: The Two Sides of a Barbed-Wire Fence (New York Times) Commercial flights between Turkey and Israel may be banned unless Israel agrees to just compensation for its attack…