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Israel and Hamas Consider Cease-Fire

Isabel Kershner
The New York Times
Sun, 10 Apr 2011 00:00 UTC
Image
© Bernat Armangue/Associated Press
“We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas deputy foreign minister, told Israel Radio Sunday.
Israel and Hamas signaled on Sunday that they were willing to restore calm after days of intense fighting, and while militants in Gaza fired about 10 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, most fell in open areas close to the border and Israel did not immediately respond.

That represented a sharp reduction in activity since Hamas fired an antitank missile at an Israeli school bus on Thursday, critically wounding a 16-year-old boy and setting off Israeli aerial, artillery and tank fire against targets in Gaza that killed 18 Palestinians, 10 of whom were militants and the rest civilians, according to officials in Gaza.

Hamas and other militant groups fired about 130 mortar shells and rockets, including several mid-range ones, at southern Israel over the previous three days.

Israel's defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Sunday that Israel had received several messages indicating that Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, was interested in a cease-fire.

"If they stop firing on our communities, we will stop firing," Mr. Barak told Israel Radio.

Hamas spokesmen offered similar messages. Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, told Israel Radio, "We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip, but also that the Israeli Army cease operations against our people."

Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman, said that Israel appeared to have accepted the idea of reducing hostilities. "The factions will be committed to the lull as long as Israel is," Mr. Bardaweel said.
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Dollar

About that mysterious $40 billion...

Tom Curry
MSNBC
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 10:39 UTC
From msnbc.com's Tom Curry: "We agreed it's 78... The number was 78.... There's no question about the number... the number is 78. It was agreed upon last night." So said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Friday afternoon at a press conference describing an agreement that he said he, President Obama, and House Speaker John Boehner had reached on Thursday night to cut spending for the remainder of this fiscal year.

Reid calls it a $78 billion cut.

But why do news stories use the figure $38 billion as the amount that the negotiators have agreed to cut?

The different numbers are simply the result of two different ways of measuring.
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War Whore

US Pentagon planning to nuke Libya, even as world is irradiated by Japanese fallout

Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
Thu, 07 Apr 2011 07:21 UTC
Image
Part I - America's Planned Nuclear Attack on Libya

March 30, 2011

Barely acknowledged by the Western media, a planned attack on Libya using nuclear weapons, had been contemplated by the Clinton Administration in 1996, at the height of the Monica Lewinsky scandal.

The Department of Defense had developed a new generation of bunker buster tactical nuclear weapons for use in the Middle East and Central Asia:
"Military officials and leaders of America's nuclear weapon laboratories [had] urged the US to develop a new generation of precision low-yield nuclear weapons... which could be used in conventional conflicts with third-world nations." (Federation of American Scientists, 2001, emphasis added)
The B61-11 earth-penetrating weapon with a nuclear warhead had not been tested. It was part of the B61 series, coupled with a so-called "low yield" nuclear warhead. According to US military sources: "If used in North Korea, the radioactive fallout [of the B61-11] could drift over nearby countries such as Japan." (B61-11 Earth-Penetrating Weapon, Globalsecurity.org).

The B61-11 earth-penetrating version of the B61 was configured initially to have a "low" 10 kiloton yield, 66.6 percent of a Hiroshima bomb, for post-Cold War battlefield operations in the Middle East and Central Asia.
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Bad Guys

Iran: Hegemons want Shia-Sunni war: Ahmadinejad


Tehran Times
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 00:00 UTC
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
© Islamic Republic News Agency
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad
President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has said the United States and its Western allies are seeking to provoke Iran-Arab conflict and Shia-Sunni war with the aim of saving the Zionist regime.

"The main goal of the leaders of the U.S. in Bahrain and Libya is saving the Zionist regime, even if thousands of people are killed," Ahmadinejad told a gathering of people in Kermanshah on Thursday.

"They are trying to incite Iran-Arab conflict and Shia-Sunni war in the region only to save the Zionist regime," he said.

Ahmadinejad also warned about the hegemonistic powers' plot aimed at settling the Palestine issue in favor of the Zionists.

Ahmadinejad again said the West is trying to break up Jordan in order to establish the Palestinian state.

"Because the defeated Zionist regime does not accept to retreat from the occupied territories and the Palestinians need territory to establish their government, hegemons plan to separate some parts of Jordan and give them to Palestinians so that they can establish their own government there," he said.
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Vader

Ivory Coast: UN air strikes show political psychopaths' appetite for fresh blood

Jon Swaine
The Telegraph, UK
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 16:02 UTC
Image
© REUTERS
UN air strikes are seen behind a tree in Abidjan.
The UN air strikes in Ivory Coast suggest Libya was no fluke: the West's appetite for military action has recovered robustly from the diplomatic trauma of the Iraq war.

After a brief honeymoon following the successful mission to protect Kosovo in 1999, it seemed the Blairite era of "liberal interventionism" had been buried along with tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians.

The chaos after the steamrollering of the UN Security Council by Tony Blair and George W. Bush in 2002-03 seemed likely to usher in a new period of isolationism.

Barack Obama swept to power in 2008 on a wave of anti-war sentiment, while David Cameron entered Downing Street last year insisting that the West "can't drop democracy from 40,000ft".

Yet the past three weeks have found the council - this time with a less noisy Anglo-American wing - willing to pass stunningly powerful resolutions allowing missile strikes against murderous leaders.

Comment: It's rather simple really: psychopaths rule our world.
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MIB

British MI5 behind murder of Irish political activist


Irish Times
Thu, 31 Mar 2011 15:02 UTC
Image
© PA Wire
Kieran Doherty, who was murdered by British intelligence agents in Co. Derry last year.
The family of a Real IRA member murdered in Northern Ireland has called on police to investigate an alleged secret service link.

That is despite the British government's security adviser deciding MI5 had no connection to the Derry death of Kieran Doherty (31). No inappropriate or improper action took place, Lord Carlile added.

Mr Doherty's body was discovered on the outskirts of the city close to the Border in February 2010. He had been shot dead. The Real IRA said he had been killed because of links to the drugs trade.

Mr Doherty's uncle Vincent Coyle said: "There is a case now for the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to carry out an investigation into this."

He added: "The security services seem to be left doing their own thing. The old Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch took huge pay offs on the Monday and were back as MI5 officers on the Tuesday."

Lord Carlile spent four months investigating the family's claims MI5 were involved in the killing and met relatives. He sent a letter to SDLP Foyle MP Mark Durkan.
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Bomb

Catholic policeman murdered in bomb blast in Northern Ireland


The Belfast Telegraph
Sat, 02 Apr 2011 14:55 UTC
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A young police officer has been killed by a booby-trap car bomb in Northern Ireland.

The device exploded under the vehicle outside his home in Highfield Close, off the Gortin Road in Omagh, Co Tyrone, just before 4pm today.

It is understood the 25-year-old was a new recruit to the Police Service of Northern Ireland and was a Catholic.

Shadow Northern Ireland secretary Shaun Woodward said: "This evil and cowardly attack will sicken everyone across Northern Ireland.
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Bomb

Northern Ireland bomb attempt 'threatened mass murder'


The Guardian
Sat, 09 Apr 2011 14:44 UTC
Image
© Peter Morrison/AP
A forensics team examines the scene where significant arms were found in Coalisland, east Tyrone, during the investigation into the murder of Ronan Kerr.
Police say bomb found in van on main Belfast to Dublin road could have resulted in huge devastation and loss of life

Dissident republicans who prepared a 500lb (227kg) van bomb risked causing an Omagh-style massacre, politicians in Northern Ireland have said.

Detectives believe the bomb, found at an underpass near the border on the main Belfast to Dublin road, may have been destined for a town centre attack.

29 people were killed and 220 were injured in a bomb attack in the centre of Omagh in August 1998.

While it is believed the presence of a police checkpoint forced the latest bombers to abandon the vehicle, hundreds of motorists drove past the device unaware of the danger after traffic cones and warning signs had been removed, and even driven over, by others on the road.

The blue Ford transit van, stolen in Maynooth outside Dublin in January and carrying false Donegal registration plates, was found near Newry and contained a wheelie bin packed with 500lbs of homemade explosives.

Comment: The question to ask is qui bono?

British intelligence is notorious for creating terror scares, real and imaginary, in Ireland:

Patsies Framed For Omagh Bombing Appeal, Evidence Suggests British Intelligence False Flag Operation

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Nuke

Perception Management: How 'acceptable levels' of radiation are adjusted to make us think everything is A-OK

Anna Pogonowska
Sott.net
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 04:36 UTC
Image
© Sott.net
I've been amazed by the actions of official agencies to the unfolding radiation crisis at Fukushima. Watching the news reports from official channels in the aftermath of the disaster, I started asking myself several questions: Why has there been such a poor reaction from the World Health Organization? Why is the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) playing down the radiation threat? Why are some news pundits around the world actually trying to claim that radiation is 'not that bad' for human health? So I made an effort to answer these questions for myself. What I discovered was that there is no point in relying on data and reports provided by the various institutional exponents of nuclear energy "safety" and here's why:

The main goal for the IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) is to propagate atomic energy. This is stated clearly in paragraph 2 of the IAEA statute:
"The Agency shall seek to accelerate and enlarge the contribution of atomic energy to peace, health and prosperity throughout the world."
Moreover, many UN agencies are subordinate to the IAEA. This particularly applies to the World Health Organization (WHO). On the strength of an agreement signed on 28 May 1959 (WHA 12-40), the IAEA can veto any research carried by WHO which would be in opposition to implementation of paragraph 2 of the IAEA statute. One statement in this agreement reads:
"It is recognized by the World Health Organization that the International Atomic Energy Agency has the primary responsibility for encouraging, assisting and coordinating research on, and development and practical application of, atomic energy for peaceful uses throughout the world without prejudice to the right of the World Health Organization to concern itself with promoting, developing, assisting, and coordinating international health work, including research, in all its aspects."
So it's easy to assess the relative value of reports about the effects of nuclear disasters published by the pro-nuclear institutions, including the famous 2005 report on Chernobyl (a favorite reference for pro-atomic lobbyists). In short, in the interest of "encouraging, assisting and coordinating research on, and development and practical application of, atomic energy" such reports are very probably biased and tend to downplay the extent of the radiation danger to people.
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Bad Guys

Yemen resolution unlikely as president dismisses Gulf plan to end rule

Tom Finn
The Guardian
Fri, 08 Apr 2011 03:56 UTC
Ali Abdullah Saleh accuses Gulf states who have been meeting to discuss his fate of trying to mastermind 'coup'
Yemeni anti-government protester
© AFP/Getty Images
A Yemeni anti-government protester takes part in a demonstration in the commercial capital Taiz.
Hopes for a peaceful resolution to political turmoil were fading on Friday as President Ali Abdullah Saleh backed away from a plan being drawn up by Gulf states to broker an end to his 33-year rule.

Speaking at a rally of his supporters, Saleh lashed out at the Gulf states who have been meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, to discuss his fate. He accused them of trying to mastermind a "coup" against his country's democracy and of "blatant interference in Yemeni affairs".

Violent demonstrations continued, with three protesters killed in the city of Taiz, the commercial capital. Protesters carrying the bodies of five people killed earlier in the week to a graveyard came under fire from soldiers from the Republican Guard, an elite force headed by the president's son.

Plain-clothed men were seen crouching on nearby rooftops firing rifles and lobbing tear-gas canisters down on the protesters.
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