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‘Kuwait gives more land to US military’

Press TV – January 29, 2012

Kuwait has reportedly provided the US Army with 10 hectares of its Failaka Island to be used for US military bases.

According to Kuwaiti media, the United States has stationed about 15,000 new troops in its military bases in Kuwait. The troops have been relocated to Kuwait from Iraq.

The United States has also installed radar and missile systems in the Kuwaiti seaport region of Shuaiba, the report said.

The report comes despite Kuwait’s denial in November 2011 that the country would host more US troops.

The US currently has several military bases on an area of about 40 percent of Kuwait’s land. Kuwaiti residents are not allowed to pass without a permit through these areas.

January 29, 2012 Posted by | Aletho News | , | 2 Comments

UK Muslim pilot dismissed over religion

Press TV – January 29, 2012

A British Muslim pilot who was dismissed from his position in 2010 has complained to an employment tribunal, saying he was axed because of his religion.

The Metropolitan police officers arrested the Muslim pilot, who was not named by the British press, in 2007 over the allegations of being linked with terror suspects.

Following the arrest, the airline employer, which was not named by the British press either, suspended the Heathrow-based pilot over the allegations that he would be a threat to national security.

The allegations were made based on the British police’s claim that the two suspected extremists could have links with the Muslim pilot and he could be part of an alleged terror plot.

One of the suspects was the pilot’s landlord and the other was someone with whom the Muslim pilot’s brother conducted business transactions.

The pilot was dismissed in 2010 over the accusations that he could “cause considerable harm” to the “national security.”

During the hearing at the employment tribunal in Havant, Hampshire, the pilot said that if he had been a non-Muslim, he would have received a different treatment.

Moreover, the tribunal was told that the case was “unique and unprecedented” and never before had a pilot been axed over accusations of having links with terror suspects.

A union official who represented the pilot during the airline’s inquiry said the airline employer had no substantial evidence to prove any links between the pilot and the suspects.

Moreover, the official revealed that the airline had explicitly stated that the pilot’s religion and race were the main reasons for accusing him of plotting to hijack a plane and sabotage it.

“The airline’s line of questioning came across to us as, ‘You’re a Muslim man with a Pakistani-sounding name. You must therefore believe in all this stuff or at least be familiar with it,’” said the official.

January 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Islamophobia | 1 Comment

Detention of Palestinian political prisoners

By Shazia Arshad | Middle East Monitor | 29 January 2012

As candidates prepared for elections to the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC) in 2006, the Israeli authorities began a campaign of detention and imprisonment to thwart the growing move towards democracy in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli authorities began to arrest members of Hamas: 450 were detained in 2005 to prevent their participation in the election the following year; many were held in administrative detention, without trial or charge. Despite this the elections took place and a number of the candidates in prison were elected to the PLC.

The 2006 Palestinian elections were overseen by international observers, who declared them to be free and fair (more open, it has been said, than the 2004 re-election of George W Bush). Hamas ended up as the democratically-elected Palestinian government. A number of PLC members under the Change and Reform List (including Hamas members and supporters) were also chosen by the electorate and became the target of the Israeli authorities’ constant campaign of arrest and detention.

There are, at the moment, 27 PLC members and 2 Ministers being detained by the Israeli authorities.

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January 29, 2012 Posted by | Civil Liberties, Full Spectrum Dominance, Subjugation - Torture, Timeless or most popular | , , | Leave a comment

A call from Palestinians in Palestine to join the Global March to Jerusalem

29 January 2012 | Global March to Jerusalem

Join us as we intensify our struggle against forced exile and the system of Israeli apartheid on Land Day 2012. We Palestinians have been ethnically cleansed and uprooted from our lands starting in the 1948 Nakba (Catastrophe) which resulted in the creation of the millions of refugees who are now living in the Diaspora. Nineteen years later, in 1967, Israel illegally annexed East-Jerusalem and the West Bank in a move which marked the Naksa (Setback), and subjected the remaining Palestinians to a brutal military occupation.

We are now in 2012, and we are still living in exile or under the Israeli apartheid regime, the illegal construction of colonial settlements is confiscating the remaining parts of Palestine, the Separation Wall divides and separates villages and towns, and Palestinians in Jerusalem are threatened with being driven out of their homes and lands for the mere purpose of the Judaization of this sacred city.

But we will not leave. We will stand and be firm. We will not permit thousands of years of our attachment to our land and our Holy City to be broken. We therefore invite and call upon all persons of courage and good will around the world to stand up and walk, with your fellow human beings, regardless of religion, of political affiliation – to stand up as responsible human beings and walk peacefully towards Jerusalem on the 30th of March, 2012.

We therefore ask all our brothers and sisters throughout the world to join Palestinians on Land Day, 30 March, 2011, in challenging the barriers, borders and procedures that separate Palestinians from Jerusalem and from their homes and lands in all of historic Palestine.

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January 29, 2012 Posted by | Ethnic Cleansing, Racism, Zionism, Solidarity and Activism | , | Leave a comment

Russia Slams Halt of Arab Observer Mission in Syria

Al-Manar | January 29, 2012

Russia condemned on Sunday the suspension of Arab monitoring mission in Syria, saying it was surprised by the decision taken by the Arab League.

The condemnation was announced by the Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov who said: “We would like to know why they are treating such a useful instrument in this way”.

“We are surprised that after a decision was taken on prolonging the observers’ mission for another month, some countries, particularly Persian Gulf countries, recalled their observers from the mission”, Lavrov said on a visit to Brunei.

“I would support an increased number of observers”, Lavrov was quoted by the Russian ITAR-TASS news agency.

Lavrov said that he did not back those Western countries that said the mission was pointless and that it was impossible to hold dialogue with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

“I think these are very irresponsible statements because trying to sabotage a chance to calm the situation is absolutely unforgivable,” Lavrov said, cited by the Interfax news agency.

The Arab League Secretary General Nabil al-Arabi announced on Saturday the halt of Syria observers’ mission because of escalating violence in the country.

Russian has repeatedly said it would oppose any UN Security Council resolution against Syria, stressing that such resolution would surpass the “red lines” it has drawn.

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January 29, 2012 Posted by | Mainstream Media, Warmongering | , , , | Leave a comment