Report: Israeli air-force attacked targets in South Sudan
Ma’an – 25/12/2011
TEL AVIV, Israel – Sudanese media sources have been reporting that Israel’s air-force launched attacks on vehicles in South Sudan last week, Israeli news site Ynet said Sunday.
Al-Intibaha reported last week that two vehicles were hit, killing four people. In a second alleged attack on Dec. 18, a car was bombed.
It is thought that the vehicles belonged to arms smugglers. The reports were not confirmed by Sudanese officials.
Japanese FM: Iranian oil imports must continue
Press TV – December 20, 2011
Japanese Foreign Minister Koichiro Gemba says his country will not stop importing oil from the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Gemba made the remarks on Monday during a visit to Washington after talks with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, noting that stopping crude imports from Iran could endanger the entire global economy.
“Specifically in relation to the (US) national defense authorization act, which targets the central bank of Iran, I conveyed my view that there is a danger of causing damage to the entire global economy if the imports of Iranian crude oil stop,” he said.
According to a report published in a Japanese newspaper on Sunday, Japan, which gets 10 percent of its oil imports from Iran, would be hardest hit in case sanctions were slapped against the Iranian oil industry over the Islamic Republic’s nuclear program.
Earlier in the last week, both houses of the US Congress passed a bill that included provisions that would impose sanctions on the foreign financial institutions that did business with the Central Bank of Iran.
The United States, Britain, and Canada imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran’s energy and financial sectors on November 21 in the wake of the latest report by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on the country’s nuclear activities.
The report accused Iran of seeking military objectives in its nuclear program.
Iran has dismissed the report as “unbalanced, unprofessional and prepared with political motivation and under political pressure by mostly the United States.”
The US, the Israeli regime, and some of their allies have repeatedly and rhetorically accused Tehran of pursuing military objectives in its nuclear program.
Iran argues that, as a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and a member of the IAEA, it has the right to develop and acquire nuclear technology for peaceful purposes.
The IAEA has conducted numerous inspections of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but has never reported any specific evidence indicating that Tehran’s civilian nuclear program has been diverted to nuclear weapons production.
Israel lobbying for Iran oil embargo
Press TV – December 19, 2011
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon
A senior Israeli official has called on the US to impose sanctions on Iran’s oil sector in a meeting with a number of American foreign and defense ministry officials.
Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon tried to persuade Americans to target Iran’s oil sector during a meeting with US Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Wendy Sherman, the Israeli news outlet Ynet reported on Monday.
Israel reportedly told the US that an oil ban on Iran would not drive up global price.
Tel Aviv says other oil manufacturers, including Saudi Arabia, should increase production in order to reduce global dependency on Iranian oil supply.
Sherman is scheduled to travel to Saudi Arabia and other Persian Gulf littoral states following the meeting to discuss the Israeli plan.
Israeli officials are also lobbying for the plan by talking to oil manufacturers.
This is while IHS Cambridge Energy Research Associate reported this month that the plans to enforce sanctions on Iran’s oil industry could drive up oil price and wreak havoc on the global market.
The report said Iran’s oil revenues will hit a record of more than 100 billion dollars this year, and the result of any possible sanction is a higher profit for Tehran, because it will sell the oil to someone else.
Last month, the US, and Britain imposed unilateral sanctions on Iran’s energy and financial sectors after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) claimed Iran’s nuclear program had a military aspect.
The US and its allies accuse Iran of pursuing a military nuclear program and have used this allegation as a pretext to convince the UN Security Council to impose four rounds of sanctions on the country.
Tehran has refuted Western allegations, saying that as a signatory to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), it has the right to acquire and develop atomic technology for peaceful purposes.
Obama assures Jewish Conference: US support for Israel is ‘unshakeable’
By Saed Bannoura | IMEMC News | December 17, 2011
In a speech given to the Conference of Reform Jews in the US on Friday, President Barack Obama assured the audience that his administration was doing more than any previous administration in US history to serve the cause of Israel, and that US support for the Jewish state is ‘unshakeable’.
President Obama made the speech in the global context of increased isolation of Israel due to its ongoing violations of the human rights of the Palestinian people, lack of compliance with its obligations as an Occupying Power under international law, and disregard for past signed agreements with the Palestinians which forbid the expansion of settlements in the West Bank and call for withdrawal of Israeli troops.
Just prior to giving the speech at the conference, President Obama met with Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak. The two did not discuss the recent upsurge in Israeli settler violence against Palestinians and against Christian and Muslim holy sites. According to a spokesperson for Obama, the two discussed ‘regional security’.
In his speech to the conference audience of several thousand Reform Jews, Obama stated, “It’s hard to remember a time when the [U.S.] administration gave more support to the security of Israel. Don’t let anyone to tell you otherwise. It’s a fact.”
Some political pundits have claimed that President Obama, in this talk, has launched his campaign for the Jewish vote for his re-election in 2012. Jews make up around 2% of the US population.
In a debate last week, all of the Republican candidates for President reiterated their strong support for Israel and Israeli policies.
President Obama also said in his talk Friday, “We stand with Israel as a Jewish and democratic state. America’s commitment and my commitment to the security of Israel is unshakeable.”
He did not address the issue of a contradiction between a state defining itself as both a theocracy (Jewish state) and a democracy. He stated that peace between Israel and the Palestinians could not come from outside, but would have to be negotiated between the Israelis and the Palestinians themselves. But the US President made no mention of the US military and financial aid provided each year to Israel – an aid package larger than any other US aid package in the world, which Palestinian leaders say is a major hindrance to peace negotiations, as it shows extreme US favoritism toward one side in the conflict.
Dangerous lies: US Media Outlet Falsely Accuses Venezuela of Terrorist Plot
Correo del Orinoco International | December 16th 2011
This week Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez called on friends and allies to “be attentive” after mainstream media outlets in the United States released uncorroborated evidence accusing Venezuela, Cuba, and Iran of holding “secret meetings” in Mexico to plan terrorist attacks against “US interests”.
While President Chavez readily dismissed the “lies” produced by Spanish-language media corporation Univision, a documentary released by the company late last week is now being used by right-wing members of the US Congress to demand Venezuela be formally designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
UNIVISION: USING A LIE AS AN EXCUSE
Speaking to reporters on Monday, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez referred to Univision´s recently-released documentary “La Amenaza Iraní”, or “The Iranian Threat” in English, and explained that “television shows were broadcast on US networks claiming that Venezuela is scheming terrorist attacks with Iranian terrorists against the United States”.
“They are using a lie as an excuse to attack us”, Chavez affirmed, and “we must be attentive”.
Commenting on the timing of the documentary´s release, Chavez questioned Univision´s “assault” on Venezuela and Cuba, key members of the Bolivarian Alliance for the Peoples of Our America (ALBA), just days after Caracas successfully hosted the founding summit of the Community of Latin America and Caribbean States (Celac).
Univision´s “The Iranian Threat”, which cites uncorroborated evidence of “Iranian backed money-laundry and drug-trafficking cartels that are used to back Islamist networks and training camps in Venezuela and elsewhere”, also accuses acting Venezuelan Consul in Miami Livia Acosta Noguera of being “very receptive” to terrorist plots in 2006 when she was Cultural Affairs Officer at the Venezuelan Embassy in Mexico.
A follow-up article on Univision.com affirms that Noguera used her time in Mexico to “cultivate relations with Mexican leftist groups such as Partido de la Revolución Democrática (PRD) and ally to presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador”.
The news company added that the Venezuelan diplomat “was linked to activists and directors from the Cuban and Iranian embassies in Mexico and with a group of students and professors of the Universidad Autonoma de Mexico (UNAM) who worked in a supposed cyber attack towards the United States”.
According to Univision, Noguera “was very receptive” when Cuban diplomats, secret agents of the Islamic Republic of Iran, and undercover reporters in Mexico City talked of “cyber attacks” that would harm “US interests and undermine the US in Latin America”.
Such an attack, sponsored by Iran and facilitated by Venezuela and other non-US allies in the region, could prove “worse than September 11th (2001)”, affirmed Univision´s “The Iranian Threat”.
In comments to the press, US State Department Spokesman Mark Toner called the Univision documentary “very disturbing”, though he regretted the US Government has “no information to ascertain” the information in the report, “right now”.
UNIVISION: INFLUENCING US POLITICS
Univision, which sold for $ 13.7 billion back in 2007, now belongs, in part, to Israeli American media mogul Haim Saban. Currently Univision´s Chairman, Saban sparked controversy in 2007 after telling Israeli daily Haaretz, “When I see (Iranian President) Ahmadinejad, I see Hitler”.
In a May 2010 profile published in The New Yorker, writer Connie Bruck noted that Saban´s “greatest concern is to protect Israel by strengthening the United States-Israel relationship”.
According to Bruck, Saban´s self-defined “three ways to be influential in US politics” are “make donations to political parties, establish think tanks, and control media outlets”.
Apart from his role as Chairman of Univision, Saban is a major contributor to both ruling US parties (Democrats and Republicans) and is the financial support behind the Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee´s (AIPAC) Saban National Political Leadership Training Seminar, both of which stand firm with Isreal against Palestine and regional power Iran.
US CONGRESS BACKS ATTACK
Responding to claims in the Univision documentary, and based on other “unnamed sources”, members of the US Congress last week issued an open letter to US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton demanding Venezuela be formally designated a “State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
According to Republican Senator John Ensign (R-Nevada), “under President Chavez, the Venezuelan government has established a growing alliance with state sponsors of terrorism such as Iran and Cuba and provided support for terrorist organizations such as the FARC in Colombia”.
“Since 2007”, Ensign claims, “Venezuela has conducted weekly Tehran-Damascus-Caracas flights without proper controls and customs inspections”.
Republican Senator George LeMieux (R-Florida) shared Ensign´s concerns, telling Congress “folks get off the plane in Venezuela, and who knows where they go”.
LeMieux, who failed to cite the source of his claims, added, “Iran has now sent shock troops to Venezuela” and asked the Obama administration to pay more attention to “the gathering storm that is Venezuela”.
Venezuela does not run a weekly flight to Tehran from Caracas. The Venezuelan airline Conviasa, does have a weekly commercial flight from Caracas to Damascus, which is subject to all normal controls of any other commercial airline.
Pressuring Clinton, Ensign affirmed, “It’s no secret to the US people that Venezuela wishes harm to the United States. What is a secret is how many more ties to terrorist organizations and State Sponsors of Terrorism does Venezuela need to be declared a State Sponsor of Terrorism”.
Other senators signing the letter to Clinton include: Robert Bennett (R-UT), Scott Brown (R-MA), Sam Brownback (R-KS), Jim Bunning (R-KY), John Cornyn (R-TX), James Inhofe (R-OK), Jon Kyl (R-AZ), John McCain (R-AZ), James Risch (R-ID), and Roger Wicker (R-MS).
The Congress members presented no evidence other than rumors and uncorroborated reports to back their dangerous claims against Venezuela.
TRADING PARTNERS
If successful, ongoing attempts to demonize Venezuela could have negative effects on the economy since being designated a “State Sponsors of Terrorism” means increased restrictions on bi-lateral trade with the United States and a ban on receiving US economic assistance. Venezuela does not, however, receive any official economic assistance from the US government, although US agencies provide substantial funding to anti-Chavez groups working to oust the Venezuelan President.
Though the Bolivarian revolution has made significant progress towards political and economic independence, Venezuela´s economy is still largely dependent on the US as its major purchaser of oil and principal source of consumer goods. It is precisely because of its historical dependence on the US that the Venezuelan government has sought to diversify the country´s bi-lateral trade relations by partnering with, among many others, Iran.
One example of strengthening trade relations between Venezuela and Iran is found in the rural Venezuelan state of Cojedes, where some 2,000 low income families now live in the Ezequiel Zamora urban housing complex designed and built by Iranian construction firms.
After heavy rains displaced some 100,000 Venezuelan families in late 2010, Iran also committed to using its expertise in housing development to build 50,000 homes across Venezuela.
‘New Yorker’ editor tells American readers one thing– and Israeli readers something else
By Philip Weiss on December 15, 2011
In The New Yorker that came out Monday, David Remnick wrote that Newt Gingrich’s goal is the Jewish “vote.” He didn’t say it once, but four or five times (emphasis mine):
Late last week, as part of a Republican pander-fest for the Jewish vote… Newt Gingrich… called the Palestinians an “invented” people…
The Palestinian vote will not decide swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio, or, above all, Florida; a considerable shift in the Jewish vote could.
Gingrich and his fellow Republicans have sensed a potential softening in the Jewish vote. In 2008, only African-Americans were more solidly behind Barack Obama, who, according to exit polls, won seventy-eight per cent of the Jewish vote. But the Republicans are hoping to woo at least the more conservative sector of Jewish Americans—those who feel that Obama has been too hard on Benjamin Netanyahu.
Chemi Shalev of Haaretz, the leading Israeli newspaper, then interviewed Remnick about his story and ran an interview Tuesday. Here’s Shalev’s first question and the beginning of Remnick’s answer. Emphases mine.
Q. How do you view the extraordinary presence of Israel in the Republican race?
Remnick: Well, it’s not unprecedented. Israel even figures into things like New York mayoral races, as if the New York mayor had a foreign policy. So it’s not surprising that it would make an appearance to some degree or another, but you’re right, it’s a larger one this time around.
The reason is very simple: it is the hope of the Republican Party that the criticism of Obama regarding the Middle East and Netanyahu and everything related to it will somehow translate into a softening Jewish vote, that last time gave Obama 78%, second only to the African American community.
The Republicans won’t get a majority [of the Jewish votes] but they hope to get more votes in swing states like Pennsylvania, Ohio and especially Florida. And I think they are also hoping to see if they can get some money from the obvious corners in the Jewish community. It’s not a secret to them that in terms of campaign contributions, Jewish Americans give quite a lot of money.
Remnick has been a leading voice on the issue in the last year, but in his New Yorker piece he is obfuscating, and the reason is obvious; Remnick is concerned that talk about Jewish money will arouse anti-Semitism in the United States. NPR’s Robert Siegel did the same obfuscation last May. These men don’t trust their audience. I’m reminded of Tom Friedman’s interview with Ari Shavit in 2003, in which he said that the Iraq war was the war that a neoconservative “elite” wanted, something he wasn’t going to write in his column: “I could give you the names of 25 people (all of whom are at this moment within a five-block radius of this office) who, if you had exiled them to a desert island a year and a half ago, the Iraq war would not have happened.”
The question of why Republicans are pandering on Israel is not a trivial question, it’s an important one. A lot of us, including Remnick, went into this business because we thought the American people had a right to know.
Israel lobby cutout urges US to provide Syrians with ‘means of self-defense’
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 13, 2011
Jeffrey White, a defense fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, the think tank created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to “do AIPAC’s work but appear independent,” has yet another one of its modest proposals for Washington:
Because the FSA is an increasingly important player that will likely influence the outcome of events in Syria, the United States and its partners should make contact with its members and learn as much as possible about the group. Questions concerning its nature, its potential as an armed force, and the role of Islamists can be resolved through such contact as well as intelligence work. If the results are positive, then the FSA should be assisted wherever outside aid would be both possible and effective. Arms, advice, training, and money could be provided through clandestine channels, if nothing else. These modest steps could help provide the Syrian people with a means of self-defense, give the United States additional influence on the situation, and put further pressure on the regime and its forces, perhaps hastening the conflict’s end.
If Washington had any sense, or the independence to act on it, they’d tell WINEP to get their masters in Tel Aviv to “help” the Syrian people themselves if they are so concerned about their welfare.
UN Watch statement on Syrian human rights situation reveals pro-Israel motivation
By Maidhc Ó Cathail | The Passionate Attachment | December 6, 2011
In a December 2 letter to the United Nations Human Rights Council, UN Watch wrote that
the Security Council must end its shocking silence on Syria’s atrocities. It must take urgent action to protect the civilian population before thousands more are beaten, tortured and killed.
A few lines later, the NGO undermined its purported concern for Syrian civilians when it condemned the UN Human Rights Council for
its policy of supporting Syria’s cynical and transparent ploy each year to condemn Israel for alleged violations of human rights, which should not be repeated this March.
The letter did not mention, however, that UN Watch is affiliated with the American Jewish Committee, a key component of the Israel lobby.
In February, the pro-Israel NGO organised 70 non-governmental organisations to send letters to President Obama, E.U. High Representative Catherine Ashton, and U.N. Secretary-General Ban-ki Moon demanding international action against Libya invoking the “Responsibility to Protect” doctrine.
Clearly buoyed by that “humanitarian” success in North Africa, UN Watch is now determined to “protect” Israel’s nearer Arab neighbours.
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MMR (Measles, Mumps and Rubella) – Vaccine Risk Statement
MMR Vaccine (Measles, Mumps, and Rubella) Is It Safer Than Measles, Mumps and Rubella?
Physicians for Informed Consent | December 2024
… It has not been proven that the MMR vaccine is safer than measles, mumps, and rubella. The vaccine package insert raises questions about safety testing for cancer, genetic mutations, and impaired fertility. Although VAERS tracks some adverse events, it is too inaccurate to measure against the risk of measles, mumps, and rubella. Clinical trials do not have the ability to detect less common adverse reactions, and epidemiological studies are limited by the effects of chance and possible confounders. Safety studies of the MMR vaccine are particularly lacking in statistical power. A review of more than 60 MMR vaccine studies conducted for the Cochrane Library states, “The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate.”19 Because permanent sequelae (aftereffects) from measles, mumps, and rubella are so rare (especially in children with normal levels of vitamin A and infected after birth),6,15-17 the level of accuracy of the research studies available is insufficient to rule out the possibility that the MMR vaccine causes greater death or permanent disability than measles, mumps, and rubella. – Read full article
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