Puppet Masters
An Egyptian billionaire financier who feared for his life after being accused of being a Mossad spy was found dead outside his Mayfair flat yesterday in suspicious circumstances.
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| ©Omar Rashidi/MaanImages/POOL/PPO |
| After deposing the Hamas government, Palestinian Authority Chairman Mahmoud Abas meets with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Sharm al-Sheikh, Egypt. King Abdullah of Jordan and Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak were also present at the meeting arranged to discuss Hamas' control of Gaza, 25 June 2007. |
The boycott by Israel and the international community of the Palestinian Authority finally blew up in their faces with Hamas' recent bloody takeover of Gaza. Or so argues Gideon Levy, one of the saner voices still to be found in Israel. "Starving, drying up and blocking aid do not sear the consciousness and do not weaken political movements. On the contrary ... Reality has refuted the chorus of experts and commentators who preached [on] behalf of the boycott policy. This daft notion that it is possible to topple an elected government by applying pressure on a helpless population suffered a complete failure."
But has Levy got it wrong? The faces of Israeli and American politicians, including Ehud Olmert and George W. Bush, appear soot-free. On the contrary. Over the past fortnight they have been looking and sounding even more smug than usual.
The Nigerian government took a seven billion dollar (5.2 billion euro) negligence suit against the world's biggest pharmaceutical company Pfizer to court Tuesday, as the US giant demanded the charges be dismissed.
Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger pushed for the 1974 Turkish invasion of Cyprus and allowed arms to be moved to Ankara for an attack on that island in reaction to a coup sponsored by the Greek junta, according to documents and intelligence officers with close knowledge of the event.
Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.
However, the National Security Archive had previously obtained four related documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them public Friday.
"In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid," Kissinger declares in one of those documents, a White House memorandum of a conversation from Feb. 20, 1975. On the surface, the comment seems innocuous, but the context as well as the time period suggests Kissinger had abetted illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey for its 1974 Cyprus invasion.
Nearly 700 pages of highly classified Central Intelligence Agency reports from the 1970's, known collectively as the "Family Jewels," are slated for public release today.
However, the National Security Archive had previously obtained four related documents through the Freedom of Information Act and made them public Friday.
"In all the world the things that hurt us the most are the CIA business and Turkey aid," Kissinger declares in one of those documents, a White House memorandum of a conversation from Feb. 20, 1975. On the surface, the comment seems innocuous, but the context as well as the time period suggests Kissinger had abetted illegal financial aid and arms support to Turkey for its 1974 Cyprus invasion.
Apart from a few members of the alternative press and the excellent Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (not indexed by Lexis), this commission might as well not have existed as far as most of the US media is concerned --and therefore, the American public.
Capitol Hill, October 2003. It is a historic occasion. An independent, blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded.
Capitol Hill, October 2003. It is a historic occasion. An independent, blue-ribbon commission is to release its findings from an investigation into an internationally significant 36-year-old attack on a US Navy ship that left more than 200 American sailors killed or wounded.
Palestinian MPs accused the mutiny trend's leader in Fatah faction MP Mohammad Dahlan of involvement in the assassination of the late PA chief Yasser Arafat, and in the shooting at the motorcade of PA premier Ismail Haneyya as well as the Egyptian security delegation in Gaza.
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| Norman Podhoretz |
Neoconservative icon Norman Podhoretz followed up his Commentary article titled "The case for bombing Iran" -- excerpts of which were re-published in The Wall St. Journal -- with an interview elaborating on why he "hopes and prays" that we bomb Iran and how he envisions the bombings.
What Norman Podhoretz is advocating -- blowing Iran into "smithereens" -- is criminal and morally twisted for reasons that should require no elaboration. But the far more significant fact is that such advocacy does not relegate him to the fringes. Quite the contrary, the movement of which he is an integral part, on whose behalf he speaks, is well within the political mainstream as depicted by our political press. And it is doubtful that there is anything he (and his comrades) could do or say which would change that.
The slave scandal that has rocked China during the past week would not have been exposed, and in all likelihood would have continued untroubled, were it not for journalist Fu Zhenzhong and the Henan TV station for which he works.
About 1000 children as young as seven - along with many adults, some of whom were mentally impaired - had been held captive for months and years to work as slaves making bricks for 16 hours a day at kilns in China's dirt-poor northern Shanxi and Henan provinces.
The police did nothing. The state-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions did nothing. The local Government did nothing.
About 1000 children as young as seven - along with many adults, some of whom were mentally impaired - had been held captive for months and years to work as slaves making bricks for 16 hours a day at kilns in China's dirt-poor northern Shanxi and Henan provinces.
The police did nothing. The state-controlled All China Federation of Trade Unions did nothing. The local Government did nothing.
"I read the news today oh boy." - The Beatles, A Day in the Life, 1967.
"The only enemy of Iraq is the occupation." - Muqtada al-Sadr, 2007.
Forty years ago down in sunny Monterey, California, an ultra-cool black cat from Seattle named James Marshall Hendrix set the world on fire. "Respect" by Aretha Franklin (written by Otis Redding) was the No 1 hit single in the US (to be replaced, a month later, by "Light My Fire" by The Doors). Hendrix and Otis in Monterey merged into the Summer of Love - the apotheosis of Make Love Not War, vinyl treasures and Indian mottoes dressed in caftans and granny dresses.
"The only enemy of Iraq is the occupation." - Muqtada al-Sadr, 2007.
Forty years ago down in sunny Monterey, California, an ultra-cool black cat from Seattle named James Marshall Hendrix set the world on fire. "Respect" by Aretha Franklin (written by Otis Redding) was the No 1 hit single in the US (to be replaced, a month later, by "Light My Fire" by The Doors). Hendrix and Otis in Monterey merged into the Summer of Love - the apotheosis of Make Love Not War, vinyl treasures and Indian mottoes dressed in caftans and granny dresses.
A previously unknown militant Islamic group claimed responsibility Monday for a weekend rocket attack on northern Israel.
The self-proclaimed ''Jihadi Badr Brigades - Lebanon branch,'' vowed in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut to continue attacks.
''We had promised our people jihad (holy war),'' the statement said. ''Here, we again strike the Zionists when a group from the Jihadi Badr Brigades struck the Zionists in the occupied Palestinian territory.''
At least two rockets fired from Lebanon landed Sunday in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, causing damage but no casualties. It was the first time rockets were fired from Lebanese territory at the Jewish state since last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
The self-proclaimed ''Jihadi Badr Brigades - Lebanon branch,'' vowed in a statement faxed to The Associated Press in Beirut to continue attacks.
''We had promised our people jihad (holy war),'' the statement said. ''Here, we again strike the Zionists when a group from the Jihadi Badr Brigades struck the Zionists in the occupied Palestinian territory.''
At least two rockets fired from Lebanon landed Sunday in the northern Israeli town of Kiryat Shemona, causing damage but no casualties. It was the first time rockets were fired from Lebanese territory at the Jewish state since last year's war between Israel and Hezbollah guerrillas in Lebanon.
