Paris court convicts Israeli doctor of slander
Ma’an – 30/04/2011
JERUSALEM — Knesset member Ahmad Tibi is calling on Israeli authorities to punish a doctor convicted of slandering the father of Mohammad Ad-Durra by a French court Friday.
In 2000, the television station France 2 reported that Israeli soldiers shot dead Mohammad Ad-Durra, 12, in Gaza City. The killing was filmed by French reporters and the channel broadcast footage of the incident, in which Ad-Durra’s father Jamal was also shot and injured as he tried to take cover with his son.
In an interview to a French Jewish publication in 2008, Israeli doctor Yehuda David claimed Jamal Ad-Durra’s injuries stemmed from a previous accident. He had operated on Ad-Durra in 1994.
Ad-Durra sued David and the publication for slander.
A Paris court on Friday convicted the doctor, a reporter and the editor of Jewish News Weekly, of defaming Jamal Ad-Durra. The three were fined 1,000 euros each and ordered to pay 5,000 euros in damages.
MK Ahmad Tibi urged the Israeli Medical Association and the Ministry of Health to prosecute the doctor, noting that misusing and distorting confidential medical files is a criminal offense.
David has previously claimed that the video footage of Mohammad’s killing was fabricated, and that the boy was killed by Palestinian fire.
In 2000, the Israeli army conducted an internal investigation and admitted responsibility for the killing but in 2007 the Israeli government officially denied involvement.
Japan Callously Puts Thousands of Kids in Harm’s Way
By ROBERT ALVAREZ | CounterPunch | April 30, 2011
May 5 is Children’s Day, a Japanese national holiday that celebrates the happiness of childhood. This year, it will fall under a dark, radioactive shadow.
Japanese children in the path of radioactive plumes from the crippled nuclear reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi power station are likely to suffer health problems that a recent government action will only exacerbate.
On April 19, the Japanese government sharply ramped up its radiation exposure limit to 2,000 millirem per year (20 mSv/y) for schools and playgrounds in Fukushima prefecture. Japanese children are now permitted to be exposed to an hourly dose rate 165 times above normal background radiation and 133 times more than levels the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency allows for the American public. Japanese school children will be allowed to be exposed to the same level recommended by the International Commission on Radiation Protection for nuclear workers. Unlike workers, however, children won’t have a choice as to whether they can be so exposed.
This decision callously puts thousands of children in harm’s way.
Experts consider children to be 10 to 20 times more vulnerable to contracting cancer from exposure to ionizing radiation than adults. This is because as they grow, their dividing cells are more easily damaged allowing cancer cells to form. Routine fetal X-rays have ceased worldwide for this reason. Cancer remains a leading cause of death by disease for children in the United States.
On April 12, the Japanese government announced that the nuclear crisis in Fukushima was as severe as the 1986 Chernobyl accident. Within weeks of the 9.0 earthquake and tsunami, the four ruined reactors at the Dai-Ichi power station released enormous quantities of radiation into the atmosphere.
According to the Daily Youmiri, Japan’s Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency (NISA) announced that between 10 and 17 million curies (270,000- 360,000 TBq) of radioactive materials were released to the atmosphere before early April, a great deal more than previous official estimates.
Even though atmospheric releases blew mostly out to sea and appear to have declined dramatically, NISA reports that Fukushima’s nuclear ruins are discharging about 4,200 curies of iodine-131 and cesium-137 per day into the air (154 TBq). This is nearly 320,000 times more than the radiation the now de-commissioned Connecticut Yankee nuclear power plant released over a year. NISA’s estimate is likely to be the low end, given the numerous sources of unmeasured and unfiltered leaks into the environment amidst the four wrecked reactors. On April 27, Bloomberg News reported that radiation readings at the Dai-Ichi nuclear power station have risen to the highest levels since the earthquake.
With a half-life of 8.5 days, iodine-131 is rapidly absorbed in dairy products and in the human thyroid, particularly those of children. Cesium-137 has a half-life of 30 years and gives off potentially dangerous external radiation. It concentrates in various foods and is absorbed throughout the human body. Unlike iodine-131, which decays to a level considered safe after about three months, cesium-137 can pose risks for several hundred years.
Measurements taken at 1,600 nursery schools, kindergartens, and middle school playgrounds in early April indicate that children are regularly getting high radiation doses. Radiation levels one meter above the ground indicate that children at hundreds of schools received exposures 43- 200 times above background. And this is outside of the “exclusionary zone” around the Dai-Ichi reactors, where locals have been evacuated. Japan’s Ministry of Education and Science has limited outdoor activities at 13 schools in the cities of Fukushima, Date, and Koriyama Cities.
Although the extent of long-term contamination is not yet fully known, disturbing evidence is emerging. Data collected 40 kilometers from the Fukushima’s nuclear accident show cumulative levels as high as 9.5 rems (95 mSv) nearly five times the international annual occupational dose. Soil beyond the 30-kilometer evacuation zone shows cesium-137 levels at 2,200 kBq per square meter 67 percent greater than that requiring evacuation near Chernobyl.
Three-fourths of the monitored schools in Fukushima had radioactivity levels so high that human entry shouldn’t be allowed, even though students began a new semester on April 5.
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Robert Alvarez, an Institute for Policy Studies senior scholar, served as senior policy adviser to the Energy Department’s secretary from 1993 to 1999. www.ips-dc.org
Russia aware of allies’ ground campaign plans in Libya – Lavrov

The government is handing out weapons to the people anticipating an invasion by NATO forces. Photo by Pan-African News Wire
RIA Novosti | April 30, 2011
Moscow is aware of the coalition’s plans about the ground military campaign in Libya, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Saturday.
“The information shows that both NATO and EU work on the similar plans. EU develops these plans to secure humanitarian convoys, though it is being stressed that it would take place after the UN gave the green light,” Lavrov said in an interview with Russian Center TV channel.
He said the possible ground military campaign should be sanctioned with the UN Security Council.
“If anybody wants to ask for this mandate [on carrying out ground campaign], welcome to the UN Security Council. We will discuss, try to understand what is planned, because the digressions from the mandate that we are watching now, are enough to learn lessons,” Lavrov said.
The UN Security Council adopted a resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya on March 17, paving the way for a military operation against Gaddafi which began two days later. The command of the operation was shifted from a U.S.-led international coalition to NATO in late March.
A total of 14 of the 28 NATO countries are taking part in the operation Unified Protector in Libya, which includes airstrikes, a no-fly zone and naval enforcement of an arms embargo.
Bahraini boy suffocated by tear gas
Press TV – April 30, 2011
A 6-year-old Bahraini boy has died after being exposed to tear gas fired by Saudi-backed Bahraini security forces in the east of the country.
The victim, named Mohammad Abdul-Hussain Farhan, lost his life on Saturday as a result of the police raid on Sitra, a Press TV correspondent reported.
Anti-government protesters have been holding peaceful demonstrations across Bahrain since mid-February, calling for an end to the Al Khalifa dynasty’s over-40-year rule.
On March 13, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates deployed police and military forces in the kingdom upon Manama’s request to quell the nationwide protests.
According to local sources, scores of protesters have been killed during the government-sanctioned clampdown with the foreign troops contributing to a rise in the violence.
The rallies continued on Saturday in several cities in defiance a martial law put in place by Manama last month.
The public repeated their demand for the ouster of King Hamad bin Isa Al Khalifa and condemned Riyadh’s involvement in suppression of the revolution.
Saudi and Bahrain troops have also destroyed dozens of mosques and religious sites.
The public, however, have asserted they would keep up the protests until the regime collapses.