Terrorist attack in Beirut meant to sow discord in Lebanon: Iran
Mehr News Agency | October 20, 2012
TEHRAN – The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Ramin Mehmanparast condemned on Friday the recent terrorist bomb attack in Beirut, in which a number of civilians lost their lives and many others were injured.
Mehmanparast said that the attack was intended to sow discord among various Lebanese groups.
“This act has been done with the aim of creating rift among various factions in Lebanon,” he stated, adding, “And this act has been done by those elements who have never cared about the interests of the Lebanese people and government and do not think about anything other than their evil objectives.”
Mehmanparast called for an immediate identification and punishment of the perpetrators of the attack and sympathized with the bereaved families and the Lebanese nation and government.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman also called on all Lebanese groups and parties to prevent the realization of the enemies’ plots through demonstrating vigilance and unity.
He added that it is the Zionist regime, which is the “main enemy” of the people in Lebanon and other regional countries, that “undoubtedly” benefits from “insecurity and instability” in the region.
Zionist Jews biggest donors to presidential bids of Obama, Romney
Press TV – October 20, 2012
Zionist Jews are the biggest donors that finance the US presidential election campaign of both the Democratic President Barack Obama as well as his Republican challenger, Mitt Romney.
The leading declared financier of US election campaigns in 2012 is casino tycoon Sheldon Adelson, who has so far donated $34.2 million to Republican Political Action Committees that support Romney’s publicity bid to win enough votes to move to the White House, the Associated Press reported Friday.
A staunch supporter of Israel, says the report, “he also is a contributor to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which spent $920,000 since 2002 backing bills aimed at pressuring Iran and enhancing US security cooperation with Israel.”
In Israel, meanwhile, Adelson owns the widely circulated, pro-Benjamin Netanyahu free daily paper Israel Hayom.
Worth an estimated $25 billion, Adelson oversees the Las Vegas Sands Corp., which runs casino and resort interests in Las Vegas, Singapore, and Pennsylvania, and Sands China Ltd., a bunch of casinos operating in China’s Macau territory.
According to the report, the wealthy Jewish donors and others are financing this year’s US presidential election, on track to cost a whopping $2 billion, with funding of individual Democratic and Republican campaigns as well as independent, “super” political action committees working on the campaigns’ behalf.
In exchange for their financial support, these pro-Israeli donors can gain major influence, says the report. They are often invited to state dinners at the White House and other events with the US president.
These financiers may also be consulted on policy making, particularly if it impacts their financial interests. And the ranks of ambassadors, advisory panels, and other government jobs traditionally are filled with those who have made generous donations during the election campaign, the report adds.
The largest donor to Democratic Political Action Committees that support Obama’s reelection campaign is Hollywood film producer Jeffrey Katzenberg, who has so far given nearly $2.6 million for the cause.
Other major Jewish donors that support Democratic organizations and Obama’s reelection bid are: Irwin Jacobs, founder and ex-chairman of Qualcomm, contributing $2.122 million so far; Fred Eychaner, founder of newspaper publisher Newsweb Corp, contributing $2.07 million so far; Jon Stryker, a Michigan Philanthropist, contributing $2.07 so far; and Steve Mostyn, a Houston attorney, who has so far contributed just over $2 million.
Other big Jewish donors that gave huge sums of money to Republican organization and Mitt Romney’s election campaign are: Bob Perry, a Houston real estate tycoon who has so far given $17.3 million; Harold Simmons, owner of a Dallas-based Contran Corp. who has so far given $16.5 million; Robert Rowling, head of Dallas-based TRT Holdings who has so far donated $4.1 million, and Industrialist William Koch, so far donating $4 million.
Negev Bedouin protest demolition orders for ‘recognized’ village
Ma’an – 19/10/2012
TEL AVIV, Israel – Around 2,000 Bedouin citizens of Israel protested in the southern city of Beersheba on Thursday after their village received demolition orders from the authorities, Israeli press reported.
The Palestinian residents of Bir Hajaj chanted “Yes to recognition! No to destruction!” outside the court and government offices, Haaretz newspaper said.
A large Israeli police force escorted officials to the village last week to hand over demolition orders, sparking clashes that were dispersed with tear gas and shock grenades.
“We’re demonstrating because as a result of the demolitions, there are people in the town who have no roof over their heads,” Haaretz quoted Bir Hadaj resident Ayash Abu Assa saying.
“The police decided to attack us. They want to prove that they are in control and that there’s nothing we can do about it.”
Bir Hajaj is among the Bedouin communities that have been formally “recognized” by the Israeli government.
Israel classifies approximately 40 villages in the Negev as unrecognized, arguing that the 53,000 Palestinian Bedouins living there cannot prove land ownership. The Bedouin communities say the land is their ancestral home.
“Despite (Bir Hajaj) being a recognized village, none of the residents have received permits to build new houses,” the director of the Adalah Legal Center for Minority Rights, Thabet Abu Rass, told Haaretz.
“While the media is busy with the (Israeli) elections, the state has opened a war of destruction against the Bedouin villages.”
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- A new Nakba looms as Israel plans ethnic cleansing of Palestinian village in the Negev (alethonews.wordpress.com)
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Russia slams US for secret prisons on foreign lands
Press TV – October 20, 2012
Russia has launched a broadside on the United States for running secret jails in a variety of countries across the globe.
In a document revealed by RIA Novosti on Friday, the Russian Foreign Ministry noted that the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) is running prisons in Poland, Iraq, Afghanistan, Morocco, Thailand, Lithuania and Romania.
The report, which the ministry has submitted to the lower house of Russian State Duma for deliberations, denounced the US for its dismal human rights record, citing molestation of children, invasion of privacy, brutality of police and restrictions on the freedom of expression.
The report noted that “hundreds of thousands of children” are maltreated in the US every year, leading to 1,600 deaths in 2010 alone.
“About one police officer in 100 has been involved in criminal abuses, including sexual harassment, indecent behavior or rape,” it said.
“The US remains the country with the largest prison population in the world – 2.2 million,” the report underlined.
The Russian report also heaped scorn on a US legislation authorizing “special services” to keep tabs on all private electronic messages without any judicial order. “Between 2004 and 2007 the number of electronic messages monitored by US special services rose by 3,000 percent.”
Former US president George Bush, together with a number of other high-ranking US officials, approved the establishment of secret prisons in foreign lands, as early as 2002, by its key spy agency in efforts to carry out harsh interrogation techniques, such as waterboarding, to extract information from what they introduced as ‘terror suspects’.
The establishment of such interrogation facilities in foreign, allied nations by the US administration was to avert accountability in the American legal system, since torture is specifically banned by the US Constitution.
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Police, protesters clash over a land law in Panama, one killed
Press TV – October 20, 2012
At least one person has been killed and many others injured as Panama’s riot police clash with demonstrators protesting against the government’s decision to privatize state-owned lands.
On Friday, protesters blocked the main road in the port city of Colon and set tires ablaze where police used tear gas and fired shots to disperse the crowd.
According to reports, a 9-year-old boy was killed and several people including local residents and police cops were also wounded during the protest.
“We do not want the land to be sold because these are assets that belong to Colon,” said the head of the Colonense Broad Movement, Felipe Cabezas during the rally.
“Why sell if the country is not going through economic problems?” he added.
The new legislation which was approved by the National Assembly will allow private entities to buy lands in Panama’s duty-free zone.
Demonstrators say the law will destroy the local economy and transfer profits to large corporations.
Reports say that more than 2,000 companies operate in Colon free trade zone.
Panama is the main passageway connecting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and one of the largest free trade ports in the world.
Easily Abused, Domestic Drones Raise Enormous Privacy Concerns
By Linda Lye, ACLU of Northern California | October 19, 2012
Shortly before next week’s one-year anniversary of the Oakland Police Department’s brutal crackdown on Occupy Oakland, Alameda County Sheriff Greg Ahern announced that he was seeking funds to purchase a drone to engage in unspecified unmanned aerial surveillance. One of the many unfortunate lessons of OPD’s Occupy crackdown is that when law enforcement has powerful and dangerous tools in its arsenal, it will use them. Drones raise enormous privacy concerns and can easily be abused. Before any drone acquisition proceeds, we need to ask a threshold question – are drones really necessary in our community? – and have a transparent and democratic process for debating that question. In addition, if the decision is made to acquire a drone, do we have rigid safeguards and accountability mechanisms in place, so that law enforcement does not use drones to engage in warrantless mass surveillance? The ACLU of Northern California has sent the Sheriff a Public Records Act request, demanding answers to these crucial questions.
Drones should never be used for indiscriminate mass surveillance, and police should never use them unless there are legitimate grounds to believe they will collect evidence related to a specific instance of criminal wrongdoing or in emergencies.
One of the reasons cited by Sheriff Ahern in support of drones is that they are much cheaper than other forms of aerial surveillance; by his account, a helicopter costs $3 million to purchase and a drone less than 1/30 of that. But the relative inexpensiveness of electronic surveillance is also precisely why strong safeguards need to be in place. When the police have to mount elaborate and costly foot and squad patrols to follow a suspect 24/7, the expenditure of resources serves as a deterrent to abuse; it forces the police to limit their surveillance to instances when it is actually necessary. Drones permit the police to surveil people at all hours of the day and, apparently, at 1/30 the cost of other forms of aerial surveillance. The natural deterrent to abuse goes away, and invites abuse. This makes strong safeguards absolutely essential.
Before Sheriff Ahern proceeds with the drone acquisition, the community deserves answers to the questions we raised in our Public Records Act request: Why are drones necessary? How much will they cost? And what safeguards will be in place to prevent abuse?
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Police protection or citizen censorship? Spain to ban photos and videos of cops
RT | October 19, 2012
Spain’s government is drafting a law that bans the photographing and filming of members of the police. The Interior Ministry assures they are not cracking down on freedom of expression, but protecting the lives of law enforcement officers.
The draft legislation follows waves of protests throughout the country against uncompromising austerity cuts to public healthcare and education.
The new Citizen Safety Law will prohibit “the capture, reproduction and editing of images, sounds or information of members of the security or armed forces in the line of duty,” said the director general of the police, Ignacio Cosido. He added that this new bill seeks to “find a balance between the protection of citizens’ rights and those of security forces.”
The dissemination of images and videos over social networks like Facebook will also be punishable under the legislation.
Despite the fact that the new law will cover all images that could pose a risk to the physical safety of officers or impede them from executing their duty, the Interior Ministry maintains it will not encroach on freedom of expression.
“We are trying to avoid images of police being uploaded onto social networks with threats to them and their families,” underlined Cosido.
Violation of freedom of expression?
Spain’s United Police Syndicate said it considers the implementation of the new legislation “very complicated” because it does not establish any guidelines over what kinds of images violate the rights of a police officer. The syndicate warned that the ministry will run into “legal problems” if it does not specify the ins and outs of the law.
However, the director of the police argued that the measures were necessary given the “elevated levels of violence against officers” in the economic downturn that is “undermining the basis of a democratic society.”
The anti-austerity protests that have swept Spain over the past year have been punctuated by reports and footage of police brutality. The footage showed that large numbers of Spanish officers did not wear their identification badges during the protests, although the law requires it.
Spain’s beleaguered economy is in danger of following in the footsteps of Greece.
The government has made sweeping cuts to the public sector, provoking the ire of a Spanish public already disillusioned at rising unemployment that tops 50 per cent among adolescents.
The Spanish government has not yet called on the European Central bank for a bailout, but rising economic woes and an unchecked public deficit may force it to do so in the near future.
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U.S. State Dept. admits passport form was illegal, but still wants it approved
The new U.S. passport application forms are back, worse than ever.
Papers, Please! – September 24th, 2012
Ignoring massive public opposition, and despite having recently admitted that it is already using the “proposed” forms illegally without approval, the State Department is trying again to get approval for a pair of impossible-to-complete new passport application forms that would, in effect, allow the State Department to deny you a passport simply by choosing to send you either or both of the new “long forms”.
Early last year, the State Department proposed a new “Biographical Questionnaire” for passport applicants, which would have required anyone selected to receive the new long-form DS-5513 to answer bizarre and intrusive personal trivia questions about everything from whether you were circumcised (and if so, with what accompanying religious rituals) to the dates of all of your mother’s pre- and post-natal medical appointments, your parents’ addresses one year before you were born, every address at which you have ever resided, and your lifetime employment history including the names and phone numbers of each of your supervisors at every job you have ever held.
Most people would be unable to complete the proposed new form no matter how much time and money they invested in research. Requiring someone to complete Form DS-5513 would amount to de facto denial of their application for a passport — which, as we told the State Department, appeared to be the point of the form.
The State Department’s notice of the proposal in the Federal Register didn’t include the form itself. After we published the proposed Form DS-5513, the story went viral and more than 3,000 public comments objecting to the proposal were filed with the State Department in the final 24 hours of the comment period.
After that fiasco, the State Department went dark for several months, and claimed that they would “revise” the form. But they didn’t give up, and apparently they didn’t listen to (or didn’t care) what they had been told by members of the public in our comments.
The State Department is now seeking approval for a (slightly) revised Form DS-5513 as well as a new Form DS-5520, also for passport applicants, containing many of the same questions.
The State Department no longer wants you to tell the passport examiner about the circumstances of your circumcision, but does still want to know the dates and locations of all of your mother’s pre- and post-natal medical appointments, how long she was hospitalized for your birth, and a complete list of everyone who was in the room when you were born. The revised forms no longer ask for all the addresses at which you have lived, but only for those addresses you are least likely to know: all the places you lived from birth until age 18.
And so on, as you can see for yourself on the proposed Form DS-5513 and Form DS-5520.
Related articles
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Policing Dissent
ACLUMASS1 | October 18, 2012
See also:
When Boston Police spy on free speech, democracy suffers
… We now have proof of what peace groups and activists have long suspected: Boston Police officers have worked within the local fusion spying center, the Boston Regional Intelligence Center (BRIC), to monitor the lawful political activity of local peace groups and track their movements and beliefs. This information has been retained in searchable electronic “intelligence” reports bearing labels such as “Groups – Civil Disturbance,” “Groups–Extremists,” “HomeSec-Domestic” under the heading “Criminal Act.” …
Israel Lobby Threatens Church Groups With Congressional Investigation Over Call for Restricting U.S. Military Aid
By Richard Silverstein | Tikun Olam | October 18, 2012
A coalition of U.S. church groups recently made public a letter which called upon the U.S. government to condition future military aid to Israel on its fulfillment of obligations under U.S. law. The statement was intended to express criticism of Israel’s use of U.S. weapons like cluster bombs in violation of our law and noted that U.S. military assistance provided Israel a buffer against undertaking any actions to advance a just and lasting peace. For example, its settlement policy, refusal to return to 1967 borders, and refusal to share Jerusalem, all directly contradict international law and stated U.S. policy.
Though these church groups have been critical of Israeli policy in the past, threatening to lobby for withholding military aid would really cut the Israel lobby to the quick, as it’s a position held by a number of anti-Zionist groups that are much farther to the left. The fact that mainline Christian denominations, who generally support liberal Zionist positions, would be moving in a more critical direction has to be deeply concerning to the lobby.
Though they refuse to consider or acknowledge it, such a development indicates a growing alienation of American churches from Israel and the draconian positions advanced by its government. The churches are willing to lose their interfaith dialogue with the Jewish community over such an issue, which indicates how seriously they take their opposition to the Netanyahu regime.
First to lash out in anger was (typically) Abe Foxman followed by one of Israel’s leading hasbara outfits, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. It appears to be taking the lead in “handling” the BDS efforts of a number of the Christian denominations. As such, it’s a key player in Israel’s campaign against so-called “delegitimization.” Those guys at JCPA play hardball. Not content merely to criticize the churches, they lashed out at the “anti-Judaism” elements within their ranks. They used terms like “vicious anti-Zionism,” “relentless attacks on the Jewish state,” and “delegitimizers of Israel” to up the ante and level of vitriol. They also threatened to call out the Congressional dogs through mounting investigations of the groups themselves:
“JCPA is considering as a response asking Congress to investigate delegitimizers of Israel and to issue a resolution against their efforts.”
I’m not sure what this is supposed to gain the lobby. Do they think that parishioners will be mortified to find their particular denomination is called out by name in a Congressional resolution? Should these groups then call on their particular Congressional allies to respond tit for tat?
Related articles
- Churches In U.S. Call On Government To Review Aid To Israel (alethonews.wordpress.com)
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The Ways of the Jewish Slave Traders
NOI RESEARCH GROUP • UNZ REVIEW • JULY 8, 2024
“As Mr. Yakub continued to preach for converts, he told his people that he would make the others work for them. (This promise came to pass.) Naturally, there are always some people around who would like to have others do their work. Those are the ones who fell for Mr. Yakub’s teaching, 100 per cent.” — The Most Honorable Elijah Muhammad, chapter 55 of Message to the Blackman in America titled “The Making of Devil”
“Three blessings a Jewish man is obligated to pray daily: ‘(Blessed art Thou,) Who did not make me a gentile; Who did not make me a woman; and Who did not make me a slave.’” — Babylonian Talmud, Menahot 43b–44a
The story of the Jewish American experience that most Jews want to believe, and want the world to believe, is one of almost endless historical victimhood. They insist that they fled anti-Semitic oppression in Europe, landing safely on Ellis Island long after the Civil War’s end in 1865, and certainly some did. … continue
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