Cuba sentences US citizen to 15 years
Press TV – March 13, 2011
The Cuban government has sentenced a US contractor to 15 years in prison for covertly distributing laptops and cellular phones on the island.
Washington swiftly decried the jailing of American Alan Gross as “another injustice” and called for his immediate release.
Cuba’s Popular Provincial Tribunal found Gross responsible for “acts against the independence or territorial integrity” of the country, according to a statement read on state-run television.
Gross, 61, was working under contract for the US State Department when he was arrested in late 2009 for distributing the electronic devices to members of Cuba’s small Jewish community.
“Today’s sentencing adds another injustice to Alan Gross’s ordeal,” said US National Security Council spokesman Tommy Vietor in Washington.
Cuba also said that during the trial, the defendant “acknowledged that he had been used and manipulated” by the US Agency for International Development, which financed Gross’s company.
Gross, who can appeal the sentence, was originally accused of targeting universities, religious centers and ethnic groups to create “underground communications networks designed to foment provocations against the revolution.”
His family was devastated, Gross’s attorney said.
“At this difficult time for Alan and his family, we again call on the Cuban government to release him immediately on humanitarian grounds,” said lawyer Peter Kahn.
Five West Bank Settlers stabbed to death
By Saed Bannoura – IMEMC News – March 12, 2011
Israeli sources reported that an unknown assailant, presumed to be Palestinian, attacked a family of Israeli settlers in their house in Itamar settlement late Friday night. Israeli authorities have called the murder of the family, which included a 3-year old and a baby, a terror attack.
The area around Itamar settlement in the northern West Bank, near the city of Nablus, has been the site of a number of recent attacks against Palestinians by Israeli settlers and soldiers in the last several weeks, including the beating, stoning and shooting of Palestinians with live ammunition by Israeli settlers.
Friday night’s attack was carried out by an unknown attacker who is presumed to be a Palestinian, and Israeli soldiers streamed into the settlement following the attack and set up a perimeter. The troops then invaded several nearby Palestinian villages and set up checkpoints along nearby Palestinian roads.
According to Israeli media reports, the victims were killed while sleeping in their beds, and include a mother, father, 11-year old, 3-year old and an infant. Another child, 12, reportedly managed to escape to a neighbor’s house to call for help.
The details of the attack are still unclear, and the assailant is still at large. Initial reports indicate that the killer was acting alone, with no connection to any Palestinian group.
If the attack was carried out by a Palestinian with a political motivation, this would mark the largest single attack on Israeli civilians in six years. Israeli forces have killed over 1200 Palestinian civilians in the last six years.
Settlers raid villages across West Bank
Ma’an – 12/03/2011
NABLUS — Villages across the West Bank have reported raids by settlers following the murder of five Israelis early Saturday morning in Itamar settlement.
A three-month old baby girl, two children aged three and 11, and their parents were all stabbed to death in a brutal attack which has been blamed on Palestinians.
As Israeli forces launched a manhunt across the northern West Bank, residents of several Palestinian villages said they were stormed by angry settlers.
In Burin, near Nablus, village council head Ali Eid said residents of the illegal Bracha settlement raided the village.
Settlers entered Maher Mahmoud Hassen’s home and tried to take his children, who managed to escape, Eid said.
Settlers also entered the homes of Najeh and Hatem Tawfiq E’mran, he added.
Residents of nearby Huwwara also said they were harassed by settlers, who tried to enter Palestinian homes in the eastern side of the town.
Town officials called on residents to gather in the area to protect the homes in a call over the loudspeakers of the local mosque.
Residents responded to the call, and settlers left the area.
Meanwhile in Hebron, settlers threw rocks at a Palestinian Authority civil defense vehicle, smashing the wind screen and injuring the driver, police said.
Ibrahim Abu Sabha sustained head injuries from the shattered glass as he drove between Yatta and Al-Musafer villages in the southern West Bank district.
In the central West Bank village of Beitillu, residents said settlers handed out leaflets threatening residents that their lives were at risk.
Settlers distributed the statement signed by “the Jews from the land of Israel” at the village entrance, locals said.
Israeli forces have detained dozens of Palestinians since the attack in Itamar settlement. Several military checkpoints have been reinstalled and flying checkpoints set up across Nablus. Locals said the army has declared the district a closed military zone.
Israel’s military had no immediate comment.
Tensions between Palestinians and settlers have escalated since the Israeli government removed structures at an illegal outpost west of Nablus on February 28.
Settlers responded to the demolition immediately, firebombing a home in Huwarra. Two children were taken to hospital suffering smoke inhalation.
Israeli soldiers fired live ammunition at Palestinians during clashes with settlers near Nablus on Monday, injuring 10 Palestinians, medics said. One settler was injured by a rock, a spokesman for settlers said.
Settlers also smashed shops and cars and cut down olive trees in Hebron.
On March 3, settlers organized a “day of rage” rallying in Israel and the West Bank and threatening further attacks against Palestinians.
Robert Gates in Bahrain for unannounced visit
Press TV – March 12, 2011
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has made an unannounced visit to Bahrain, ostensibly to encourage its leaders to embrace reform.
On Friday, Bahraini police fired tear gas at anti-government protesters after blocking them from marching toward the royal palace. About 150 people were injured in the incident.
Gates arrived in the Bahraini capital Manama on Friday evening after attending a NATO defense ministers meeting in Brussels on the ongoing crisis in Libya, AFP reported.
He is making the visit to discuss the latest regional developments, encourage the Bahraini rulers to embrace reform, and reassure the monarchy about the United States’ full support, Pentagon press secretary Geoff Morrell told reporters aboard the plane.
In his meetings with high-ranking Bahraini officials, the US defense secretary, who is the first member of President Barack Obama’s cabinet to travel to Bahrain since demonstrations began in the strategic Persian Gulf kingdom on February 14, will also discuss ways to defuse tension in the country.
The visit comes two weeks after the highest-ranking officer in the US military, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Admiral Mike Mullen, also stopped in Manama, which is home to the US Navy’s Fifth Fleet.
Earlier, Britain’s national security advisor and armed forces chief of staff arrived in Bahrain to discuss the latest developments in the country. Peter Ricketts and David Richards met with Bahraini Crown Prince Salman bin Hamad Al Khalifa.
The Manama demonstrations have set off alarm bells in neighboring Saudi Arabia. Riyadh launched a massive security operation on Friday to deter protesters from coming to the streets for a planned “Day of Rage” demonstration.
How Many Afghan Kids Need to Die to Make the News?
FAIR – 3/8/11
The number of Afghan boys gathering firewood killed by a March 1 U.S./NATO helicopter attack in Kunar Province: Nine.
The number of stories about the killing of the nine children on ABC, CBS or NBC morning or evening news shows (as of March 6): Two.
One was an 80-word report on NBC Nightly News (3/2/11), the other a brief ABC World News Sunday story (3/6/11) about Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s “harsh words for the U.S.” after the “mistaken killing of nine Afghan boys in an airstrike.”
On the PBS NewsHour? Two brief mentions (3/2/11, 3/7/11), both during the “other news of the day” segment.
On NPR? Nothing. On the”liberal” MSNBC? Zero. Fox News Channel? Zero.
CNN had several mentions of the killings. In one report (3/2/11), correspondent Michael Holmes remarked: “It does a lot of damage to the U.S. mission in Afghanistan. You don’t win hearts and minds that way.”
In the Washington Post (3/3/11), the children’s deaths were called “the latest irritant” in the relationship between U.S./NATO forces and the Afghan government. Civilian casualties are “a sore point,” and U.S. commander David Petraeus “has had to walk a fine line. Civilian casualties undermine NATO’s counterinsurgency mission here by angering Afghan civilians and bolstering the Taliban’s attempt to portray foreign troops as ruthless invaders.”
In contrast to the corporate media, Democracy Now! (3/3/11) talked about the attack as part of the larger story of civilian deaths in Afghanistan. “It was at least the third instance in two weeks in which the Afghan government accused NATO forces of killing large numbers of civilians in airstrikes,” host Juan Gonzalez noted in introducing a discussion. “An Afghan government panel is still investigating claims some 65 people, including 40 children, were killed in a U.S.-led attack last week.”
It is often said that Afghanistan is largely a forgotten war–a critique usually meant as a comment on the lack of attention paid to the hardships of U.S. military personnel. Far less consideration is granted to the Afghans who are suffering in far greater numbers.
Israel denies British volunteers entry to West Bank
Ma’an – March 5, 2011
NABLUS — Israeli authorities on Friday prevented a group of British volunteers from entering the West Bank, a peace group due to host the delegation said.
Israeli officers stopped a delegation of 12 Scottish Youth Initiative volunteers on the Jordanian border with the West Bank. The volunteers were interrogated for seven hours before Israeli officials denied them entry, the HAYAT Center for Civil Society Development said.
The group was due to participate in a one-week youth exchange program between the West Bank city of Nablus and its twin city Dundee.
The visit was organized by the Nablus-Dundee twinning association, which expressed its deep disappointment.
The HAYAT center, due to host the group, also condemned the Israeli decision.
The center said the young Brits were scheduled to visit local associations, the An-Najah University, Balata refugee camp and the municipality’s youth and sport department.
Various activities had been organized for the visitors, including tree-planting, football matches with the Balata camp team and volunteering in local schools, the center added.
Dutch company helping to build the wall seeks to evade responsibility
By David Cronin | Mondoweiss | March 5, 2011
On a recent visit to Ramallah, I heard a fascinating tale about two entrepreneurial brothers and how they are trying to evade prosecution for aiding Israeli apartheid.
Doron Livnat is the director of Riwal, a Dutch company that supplied cranes used in building the 650-kilometre wall that snakes through the West Bank. In October last year, Riwal’s headquarters in Dordrect, The Netherlands, were raided by the country’s national crime squad, investigating a complaint into the firm’s activities in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The probe has led to a hasty corporate makeover, with Riwal changing the name of its Israeli subsidiary to Rom. Rik Maaskant, a spokesman for Riwal, told me there is “no relationship whatsoever” between the two firms now. Yet there are several coincidences indicating that his assurance should be treated skeptically:
1. Under a 2003 international crimes law, any Dutch citizen can be prosecuted for violating human rights anywhere in the world. Doron Livnat has dual Dutch and Israeli nationality. Should we be surprised, then, that his brother Adi, who does not have Dutch citizenship, has been placed in charge of Rom?
2. Both firms continue to have an almost identical logo: it is oval-shaped with the name of the firm marked in yellow against a dark blue background. The only discernible difference between the logos of each firm is that the name Riwal is featured in one and Rom in the other.
3. Riwal has a reputation for being economical with the truth. It even supplied false information to a government minister in the past.
The involvement of Riwal in the wall’s construction first came to light in 2006 when a Dutch TV documentary was broadcast, showing that its cranes were being used in Hizma, a village on the wall’s route. After Bert Koenders, a member of parliament with the Dutch Labor party, protested at Riwal’s activities, the then foreign minister Ben Bot said he did not have “any indication” that the Dordrecht-based company was assisting the project. Bot stated that the cranes in question were owned by a firm called Lima. It soon transpired, however, that Bot had been misled by Riwal’s management. Although he described Lima as Israeli, it was in fact Dutch-owned and had been authorised to use the brand name Riwal.
By all accounts, Bot was furious at being deceived. Despite making his displeasure known in Dordrecht, Riwal cranes remained a visible fixture at various spots along the wall. In the summer of 2007, for example, Riwal-branded machinery was found next to the village of Al-Khader, near Bethlehem.
The case against Riwal was brought by Al Haq, a Palestinian human rights group, which had gathered photographic evidence of how cranes and other equipment supplied by the company were used in the construction of the wall. According to Al Haq, the building of the wall may have involved the crimes of apartheid and persecution. Both offenses are covered by the Dutch international crimes act.
“The building of the wall potentially entails committing the crime of apartheid,” said Salma Karmy, a representative of Al Haq. “It results in the commission of inhuman acts in the context of a regime aimed at the domination of one racial group over another. We’re saying that the Dutch company Riwal was an accessory to this and other crimes. The crimes were primarily committed by the Israeli government but Riwal helped knowingly.”
It will be interesting to see how the case progresses, not least because there could be repercussions for the overall Dutch relationship with Israel. While the judicial system in the Netherlands is nominally impervious to political meddling, the relatively new Dutch government would doubtlessly prefer that the investigation is dropped. Uri Rosenthal, the foreign minister, is regarded by Israel as one of its most reliable supporters in Europe. At the beginning of March, he upbraided the United Nations Human Rights Council for approving too many resolutions critical of Israel.
Doron Livnat, meanwhile, is a prominent figure in two of the key groups belonging to the pro-Israel lobby in the Netherlands. He is a board member for the Centre for Information and Documentation on Israel (CIDI) and president of a team advising Collective Action Israel (known by its Dutch acronym CIA).
Based in The Hague, CIDI has consistently campaigned in favour of the apartheid wall, ignoring how it was declared illegal by the International Criminal Court in 2004. An article on the CIDI website claims that the wall has “saved countless lives from terrorist attacks”. Amsterdam-based CIA collects funds for the training of Israeli soldiers, particularly on the use of advanced technology. In February, it hosted a tour of the Netherlands for Tsahal, a band of musicians serving in the Israeli army.
Riwal, as it happens, enjoys name recognition well beyond the construction industry. Thanks to a sponsorship deal, its logo is emblazoned on jerseys worn by FC Dordrecht, a soccer team playing in the Dutch First Division. Time will tell if the Livnats’ support for Israeli apartheid proves to be an own-goal.
David Cronin’s book Europe’s Alliance With Israel: Aiding the Occupation is published by Pluto Press (www.plutobooks.com)
Israel Issues Eviction Orders to 600 Palestinian Bedouins in Jerusalem Area
By Sergio Yahni, Alternative Information Center (AIC) – February 28, 2011
Hathem Abdel Qader, responsible for Jerusalem in the Fatah movement, warned yesterday of an Israeli plan to deport some 600 Palestinian Bedouin residents of the Wadi Abu Hindi area, located between the settlements of Maale Adumim and Keder, south-east of Jerusalem.
Abdel Qader noted that the Israeli military issued evacuation orders to tens of Bedouin families in Wadi Abu Hindi. According to the orders, the families must leave the area by the end of March.
According to Yacoub Odeh, from the Land Research Centre, this is not the first time that this community receives evacuation orders.
Alqader contends that these orders supplement the eviction orders issued against the Palestinian Bedouin families who reside near the settlements of Adam and Maale Michmash. Odeh adds that at this moment there are eviction orders against some 1,000 Palestinian Bedouins in the area.
Abdel Qader assumes that Israel’s goal is to expand the settlements of Maale Adumim and Maale Michmash.
Attorney Shlomo Leker intends to submit a petition to the Israeli High Court to prevent eviction of these families.
The Bedouin Palestinian families in the Wadi Abu Hindi area are part of the wider Jahalin tribe, numbering some 2700 people living in 31 areas of the desert. The origin of the Jahalin tribe in the area of Tel Arad in the Naqab (Negev) desert, but Israel deported them in the early 1950s, so they moved to the Jerusalem area.
In the 1990s some 1,000 members of the Jahalin tribe were deported to the area of Jerusalem’s municipal garbage dump, in order to expand the settlement of Maale Adumim.
Translated by the Alternative Information Center (AIC)
Another Palestinian Child Run Over in Hebron
By Alessandra Bajec – IMEMC & Agencies – March 01, 2011
An Israeli settler hit a Palestinian boy with his car in Hebron, on Monday evening, Ma’an News Agency reported.
Residents of the Old City of Hebron witnessed having seen a settler injuring a child with his car and driving away from the street outside the Ibrahimi Mosque, in the Israeli controlled area of the city.
The boy was taken to the al-Mizan Hospital to receive treatment. Medics said the youth sustained moderate wounds.
Officials with Israel’s settlement police force were not available to comment on the incident.
Earlier on Sunday, a Palestinian girl, named Amani al-Mutawer, was also wounded after being knocked down by an Israeli settler driving near the Beit Ainoun bypass road, north of Hebron.
There have been similar incidents concerning dozens of Palestinians injured while the alleged settlers remain at large; and most of them are never arrested.
Attacks on unions barking up the wrong money tree
By Michael Winship | Intrepid Report | February 28, 2011
“More cheese, less sleaze!”
That was the funniest group chant at Tuesday’s rally of several hundred union and other progressive activists outside the Manhattan headquarters of Fox News.
Several “cheeseheads” were in attendance, their noggins topped by the now familiar wedge-shaped, orange hatwear made popular by Green Bay Packer fans. On Tuesday, they were out in the twilight chill expressing their opposition not to lactose intolerance but Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s intolerance of organized labor. (Unadorned by cheddar, I briefly spoke at the gathering as president of an AFL-CIO affiliated union, the Writers Guild of America, East.)
Governor Walker continues his obdurate opposition to the state’s public employee unions’ right to collective bargaining, despite a willingness on their part to concede pension and health givebacks he claims would help close Wisconsin’s alleged deficit. Meanwhile, there has been a decided increase on the sleaze end of the cheese vs. sleaze quotient, as evidenced in part by the prank phone call to the governor in which an online newspaper editor impersonating right wing billionaire David Koch elicited from Walker a proposed scheme to lure back, then double cross Democratic state senators who have prevented a quorum by retreating to Illinois. Further, when asked about planting troublemakers amongst the protesters, Walker told the trickster that he and his team had “thought about that” but decided not to. Apparently, all the really good disrupters are tied up in the Middle East.
But of course, this isn’t really about saving taxpayers’ money but consolidating political power. Walker and such leading lights of the GOP leadership as Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey and Ohio Governor John Kasich, among others, have decided that public employee unions make great punching bags, effective scapegoats for an outraged electorate and a satisfactory diversion from the real culprits of this grim, economic melodrama—the Simon Legrees of banking and finance who got us into this meltdown mess in the first place.
As Josh Dorner reported on the progressive ThinkProgress website last week, “Instead of making the tough choices necessary to help their states weather the current crisis with some semblance of the social safety net and basic government services intact, Republican governors are instead using it as an opportunity to advance several longtime GOP projects: union busting, draconian cuts to social programs, and massive corporate tax breaks. These misplaced priorities mean that the poor and middle class will shoulder the burden of fiscal austerity, even as the rich and corporations are asked to contribute even less.”
Dorner cites examples: in Arizona, Republican Governor Jan Brewer proposes kicking some 280,000 off the state Medicaid rolls but two weeks ago signed into law $538 million in corporate tax cuts. Florida Governor Rick Scott’s new budget calls for billions of dollars in cuts to essential programs and services to pay for corporate and property tax cuts of at least $4 billion. Rick Snyder, newly elected governor of Michigan, has asked for $180 million in concessions from public employees and more than a billion to be taken from schools, universities, local governments and others, most of which could be avoided if he wasn’t so deeply dedicated to giving business $1.8 billion in tax breaks.
Writing in the February 23 Boston Globe, Mark Erlich, executive secretary-treasurer of the New England Regional Council of Carpenters asks, “While there are legitimate and critical public policy issues about education reform, spiraling health costs, and pension liabilities at a time of state and municipal budget deficits, why is the fault laid at the feet of teachers, police, and firefighters? Today’s pension obligations are the product of massive investment losses, not excessively generous public pensions that, in fact, average about $19,000 a year. For that matter, a 2010 Economic Policy Institute study showed that, controlled for educational achievement, public sector workers actually earn less than their private sector counterparts.”
So instead of screaming about the advances public employee and other unions have made to preserve health care, job security and economic justice, angry voters should be asking what or who have been keeping them from obtaining the same. Nor does Wall Street’s pillaging of private 401(k) retirement plans justify tit-for-tat, eye-for-an-eye acts of covetous revenge against union pensions. As Erlich writes, “A generation ago, non-union workers often welcomed news of improved wages and benefits for unionized employees, recognizing that a rising tide lifts all boats. But . . . at a time of sacrifice and insecurity, many would prefer to sink their neighbor’s slightly bigger boat while wistfully hoping for a glance at a yacht in a gated marina.”
The American middle class largely exists because of unions; it would be a tragedy of Greek proportions if, in frustration, resentment and fear, members of that class were to turn on labor and bring about their mutual destruction. Conservative Republican governors and their associates are barking up the wrong money tree. Don’t reward corporate greed and malfeasance with yet more tax breaks and a blind eye to windfall bonuses. And don’t punish unions for whatever success they’ve had protecting members and holding on to an ever-dwindling power base of American workers. That’s just plain cheesy and sleazy.
~
Michael Winship is the former senior writer of Bill Moyers Journal on PBS and current president of the Writers Guild of America, East.
Press TV Analysis – The US Unrest
PressTVGlobalNews | February 28, 2011
It is almost two weeks that tens of thousands of Americans have taken to the streets to protest for what they call the protests to save the American dream.
In this edition of News Analysis, the recent US unrest is discussed.
Part 1
Part 2
Part 3
IAEA reaffirms peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear program
Press TV – February 26, 2011
The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) has once again confirmed the peaceful nature of Iran’s nuclear energy program.
In an IAEA report issued on Friday, the agency reaffirmed that Iran’s nuclear program has never been diverted to nuclear weapons production, the Press TV correspondent in Vienna reported.
But the report still says Tehran must halt its uranium enrichment activities, as demanded by four United Nations Security Council resolutions.
Iran’s ambassador to the IAEA, Ali Asghar Soltanieh, stated that the demand is politically motivated, saying, “When all nuclear activities are accounted for and there is no diversion to military purposes… then what is the justification for referring to an old obsolete request of suspension.”
The report also claimed that Iran has not been abiding by some of its obligations, an allegation Iran strongly rejects.
Soltanieh told Press TV that all nuclear activities in Iran are under the full-scope safeguards of the IAEA and that Tehran has been cooperating with the agency far beyond its legal obligations.
“The report is on the implementation of safeguards in Iran and therefore those parts referring to other things, like the Security Council or the Additional Protocol, are beyond the mandate of such a report,” the Iranian envoy said.
The report also maintains that Iran’s nuclear facilities have not been affected by the Stuxnet computer virus since the country’s production of low-enriched uranium is higher than it was last fall.
In July 2010, media reports claimed that Stuxnet had targeted industrial computers around the globe, with Iran being the main target of the attack. They said the Bushehr nuclear power plant was at the center of the cyber attack.
The document, prepared by IAEA Director General Yukiya Amano, is a prelude to the upcoming IAEA Board of Governors meeting, which opens on March 7.
On June 9, 2010, the UN ratified a US-engineered resolution imposing new sanctions on Iran over the allegations that Tehran is concealing a clandestine nuclear weapons program.
Tehran has vehemently rejected the allegations of diversion, saying it needs nuclear energy to meet its growing domestic demand for electricity and to provide fuel for the Tehran research reactor, which produces medical isotopes for cancer treatment.
Iran is a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and thus has the right to enrich uranium to produce fuel.

