After South Africa police shot miners, miners charged with murder

The Los Angeles Times
August 30, 2012 |  6:04 pm

Two weeks after dozens of striking miners were shot dead by police in a bloody incident that shocked South Africans, state prosecutors have filed charges -- against fellow miners.

Authorities charged 270 miners with murder in the slayings of 34 colleagues under a controversial law often used under apartheid, South African media reported Thursday.

“It's the police who were shooting, but they were under attack by the protesters, who were armed, so today the 270 accused are charged with the murders” of those who were shot, National Prosecuting Authority spokesman Frank Lesenyego told the Associated Press.

The decision outraged many South Africans, who argued the law was being abused for political purposes. “Even if it was true that the miners provoked the police, this could never, ever, make them liable for the killing of their comrades,” University of Cape Town constitutional law expert Pierre de Vos wrote, calling the decision bizarre, shocking and shameful.

The charges lodged by prosecutors are so dubious that they are plainly political, he said. “They have acted with fear, favor and prejudice to advance some or another political agenda, further eroding the little trust South Africans might still have left in them,” De Vos concluded.

South African police have argued that they had no choice but to fire on the charging armed miners at the Lonmin platinum mine after lesser measures, such as tear gas and rubber bullets, failed to disperse them. The protesting miners had walked off the job to demand higher wages.
Julius Malema, the expelled president of the youth wing of the ruling African National Congress Party, told protesters outside a Pretoria court that the decision was “madness.”

"The policemen who killed those people are not in custody, not even one of them,” Malema was quoted by the South African Press Assn. as telling the infuriated crowd.

Under the “common purpose” doctrine, part of a “riotous assembly” act adopted in South Africa more than half a century ago, someone who incites or conspires with someone else to commit a crime is guilty of the same crime, as if they committed it themselves. The law was often used in the apartheid era to charge protest leaders for offenses carried out by protesters, De Vos wrote.

Is this for real? Didn't the fascist South Afrikaaner government get overthrown? Can't see any difference in this government policy that is downright unbelievable.

Iran's policies attacked by U.N. head, Egyptian leader

Thu Aug 30, 2012 7:23pm IST
By Marcus George and Yeganeh Torbati

DUBAI, Aug 30 (Reuters) - The U.N. chief and Egypt's president delivered stinging speeches at a summit of developing nations in Iran on Thursday, damaging the host country's quest for global prestige and support for its nuclear programme and its policy on Syria.

The Iranians had to listen while Ban Ki-moon denounced them for calling for Israel's destruction and denying the Holocaust.

Nor did Mohamed Mursi, the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the 1979 Islamic revolution, hold back as he urged Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) members to back Syrians trying to topple President Bashar al-Assad, Tehran's closest Arab ally.

The United States and Israel had frowned on the decisions by Ban and Mursi to attend the summit.

"I strongly reject threats by any member state to destroy another or outrageous attempts to deny historical facts such as the Holocaust," Ban said in his speech, without naming Iran.

"Claiming that Israel does not have the right to exist or describing it in racist terms is not only wrong but undermines the very principle we all have pledged to uphold," he said.

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has repeatedly denied the Holocaust and this month called Israel a "cancerous tumour".

Deputy Israeli Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon said Ban would have conveyed a stronger message by boycotting the NAM summit.

"His going there harmed the message and really sabotaged the efforts, which are so critical today, to stop the illegal Iranian nuclear activity," Ayalon told Israel Radio.

However, Meir Javedanfar, an Iranian-Israeli expert at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzliya, Israel, said Mursi and Ban deserved credit for their blunt remarks in Tehran.

"BULLYING MANNER"

"Mursi's statement on Syria will be viewed as a serious challenge against Iran's narrative on Syria," he said, adding that Israel should thank Ban for speaking out so clearly.

"In the history of the Islamic Republic, nobody has challenged the supreme leader's (Ayatollah Ali Khamenei's) position on Israel in front of him, and in such a manner. This is likely to have long-term reverberations and consequences inside Iran's halls of power."

In his speech, Khamenei criticised the U.N. Security Council as a tool used by the United States "to impose its bullying manner on the world".

"They (Americans) talk of human rights when what they mean is Western interests. They talk of democracy when what they have is military intervention in other countries," he declared.

Khamenei did not mention the conflict in Syria or Iran's staunch support for Assad, who is struggling to crush a 17-month uprising in which more than 18,000 people have been killed.

Mursi, a moderate Egyptian Islamist, said solidarity with the Syrian people "against an oppressive regime that has lost its legitimacy is an ethical duty" and a strategic necessity.

"We all have to announce our full solidarity with the struggle of those seeking freedom and justice in Syria, and translate this sympathy into a clear political vision that supports a peaceful transition to a democratic system of rule that reflects the demands of the Syrian people for freedom."

His words prompted Syrian delegates to leave the hall.

Syrian Foreign Minister Walid al-Moualem said the delegation withdrew "in rejection of the incitement in the speech to continue the shedding of Syrian blood", and returned after Mursi's address was over, Syrian state television reported.

Iran has portrayed its hosting of the high-profile summit as proof that Western efforts to isolate it and punish it economically for its disputed nuclear programme have failed.

NUCLEAR DISPUTE

"Our motto is nuclear energy for all and nuclear weapons for none," Khamenei told the conference, a day after Ban urged him to prove that Iran's nuclear work is peaceful.

His words will do little to allay Western suspicions that Iran is covertly seeking a nuclear weapons capability.

A report from the U.N. nuclear watchdog this week is likely to voice concern about the Parchin military complex southeast of Tehran, to which its inspectors have been denied access.

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) believes Iran has conducted nuclear-related explosives tests at Parchin. Western diplomats say satellite images suggest Iran has cleansed the site, which it says is a conventional military facility.

The IAEA's new quarterly report will say Iran has installed more than 300 new uranium enrichment centrifuges at its Fordow underground site since May, Vienna-based diplomats say.

Iran is using Fordow to enrich uranium to 20 percent fissile purity, taking it much nearer the 90 percent needed for bombs. Tehran says the material is for a medical research reactor.

"There is reason to be concerned by increased tempo of enrichment, the larger stockpile of enriched uranium and, most importantly, the additional centrifuges installed in the deeply-buried facility at Fordow," said Mark Fitzpatrick of the International Institute of Strategic Studies think-tank.

The NAM summit's final declaration on Friday is set to express deep concern about the violence in Syria and support for efforts by U.N.-Arab League envoy Lakhdar Brahimi to broker a resolution, a delegate at the meeting told Reuters.

Mursi's blunt remarks on Syria suggested there would be no early restoration of Egyptian-Iranian diplomatic ties, which broke down after the Iranian revolution over Egypt's support for the overthrown Shah and over its peace agreement with Israel.

Ahmadinejad held separate talks with Mursi in what Iran's Deputy Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian described as a "friendly atmosphere", Iranian state television reported.

Mursi left Iran after the 40-minute meeting, the highest-level contact between the two countries in more than 30 years.

Amir-Abdollahian said Iran and Egypt shared the same approach to a resolution of the Syria conflict, arguing that they both emphasised a peaceful solution, prevention of foreign interference, rejection of violence and support for dialogue.

"From the beginning, Iran has supported Mursi's plan," he said, referring to the Egyptian leader's proposal for a contact group on Syria comprising Egypt, Iran, Saudi Arabi and Turkey.

Shadi Hamid, of the Brookings Center in Doha, said Mursi, who has promised a "balanced" foreign policy, had signalled by going to Tehran that he would not be as closely aligned with the United States as his ousted predecessor Hosni Mubarak.

But his speech showed "he is not going to indulge the Iranians even when he sitting right next to them", Shadi said.

Is Israel a "cancerous tumour" in the Middle East as Iran leaders state or is Israel a legitimate state? If a vote were taken today to allow European Jewish immigrants to seize more than half of Palestine without a single Palestinian able to vote in the matter, what do you think would be the outcome considering the U.N.'s Charter is pledged to protect the right of self-determination by indigenous populations? Israel's installation was a Crime Against Humanity that has been going on for 64 years now with no end in sight. Just because it's is an ongoing crime doesn't mean it doesn't exist which is what Zionists in Israel and America want the world to believe and have so far managed to rewrite history in these Western nation's eyes. Still, it is a Crime Against Humanity to let a European seizure of Palestine happen. Look at what this act of Western imperialism has done for 64 years. Zionism is Jewish racism against Gentiles in action and this criminal activity is not only being supported by Western powers, America funds it. Egypt needs to wake up to the power of Israel and America to co-opt Arab Spring. And Ban Ki-moon should resign for his role as a front man for Western power plays in the U.N. Does this mean I support the Iranian regime's policies at home? No I do not. Iran too is no example of national righteousness. But I have to agree that if Israel wasn't in the Middle East I don't think Islamic nations would have moved to the right re human rights. Human rights suffer in any war situation and Israel has created a continuous war situation since it's installation through a corrupt U.N. process that never followed U.N. Charter mandate.

Following outcry, auction for sacred South Dakota land canceled

Nearly 2,000 acres of sacred land in South Dakota will not be auctioned on Saturday as planned. The land is at the heart of the Lakota creation story and the tribes have been raising money to bid on the land.


Owners asked auction house to halt the sale; Sioux tribes raising money to buy the land

By KRISTI EATON
updated 8/23/2012 6:41:12 PM ET

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. — The planned auction of nearly 2,000 acres of land in South Dakota's picturesque Black Hills that is considered sacred by American Indian tribes has been canceled, though it wasn't immediately clear why.

Iowa-based Brock Auction Co. planned to auction five tracts of land owned by Leonard and Margaret Reynolds on Saturday. But a message on the auction house's website Thursday said it has been canceled at the land owners' direction. The auction house and Margaret Reynolds declined to comment.

Tribes of the Great Sioux Nation consider the site key to their creation story and are trying to purchase it because they fear new owners would develop the land, which they call Pe' Sla. The property, which spans about 1,942 acres of pristine prairie grass, is the only sacred site on private land currently outside Sioux control.

Sioux tribes race to raise money to buy ceremonial land

Rosebud Sioux Tribe spokesman Alfred Walking Bull said he didn't know the auction had been canceled when contacted Thursday. His tribe, whose reservation is among the closest to the land, had agreed to allocate $1.3 million toward trying purchasing the property, though tribal officials have said they feared the selling price could be between $6 million and $10 million.

Ruth Hopkins, who helps run a website where about 5,000 people have donated more than $250,000 to help the tribes purchase the land, said she didn't know why the auction was called off. U.S. Bureau of Indian Affairs spokeswoman Nedra Darling said she also was not aware the auction had been canceled and had no comment.

A United Nations fact finder had urged federal, state and local officials to consult with American Indians ahead of the auction.

Roughly 20 tribes make up the Great Sioux Nation, which was fragmented when American Indians were pushed to reservations. The tribes now span several states, including Montana, Wyoming, the Dakotas and Minnesota, and Canada.

The tribes believe the Sioux people were created from the Black Hills. According to part of their spiritual tradition, Pe' Sla is where the Morning Star fell to Earth, killing seven beings that killed seven women. The Morning Star placed the souls of the women into the night sky as "The Seven Sisters," also known as the Pleiades constellation.

Tribal members hold ceremonies and rituals on the land.

Last week when I read about the auction of that land I contacted Alfred Walking Buffalo and offered our Heartlands Project lottery system to the Lakotas as a way of raising money for that land and other sacred sites. Actually, I've offered the Heartlands Project to Ogalala, Crow Creek and Cheyenne River Sioux in the past couple of years since Bear River won't use it. I am kin now to Crow Creek Lakota through my son-in-law and my grandkids might actually be related to Alfred Walking Bull. Anyway, each one of these Lakota tribes has shown interest in the Heartlands Project but none have followed through so far which is somewhat dismaying. I will checking with the Lakota tribes again and see what's up with using our Heartlands Project.

Miners' attack on Yanomami Amazon tribe 'kills dozens'

 The Yanomami have previously complained of attacks by illegal miners

BBC News
29 August 2012 Last updated at 16:35 ET

An attack by gold miners on a group of Yanomami tribespeople in Venezuela has left up to 80 people dead, according to campaign groups.

The attack is reported to have taken place last month in the remote Irotatheri community, close to the border with Brazil.

The miners allegedly set fire to a communal house, with witnesses reporting finding burnt bodies.

The Yanomami have previously complained of miners encroaching on their lands.

Due to the community's remote location, it took those who discovered the bodies days to walk to the nearest settlement to report the incident, according to campaign group Survival International.

So far three survivors have been accounted for, according to Yanomami organisations.

A statement from a network of Yanomami groups called on Venezuelan authorities to investigate the incident and to co-operate with Brazil to "control and watch the movement" of miners in the area.

Yanomami activists say that the tribe has previously been targeted with threats and violence by illegal miners.

"All Amazonian governments must stop the rampant illegal mining, logging and settlement in indigenous territories," said Stephen Corry, director of Survival International.

In recent years the soaring price of gold on world markets has driven a surge in unlicensed gold-mining in many parts of the Amazon.

What's happening to the Yanomami tribespeople is what happened here in California where local tribes were massacred and driven off any gold producing areas. Civilization brings greedos to tribal peoples for whom money wealth is a rare interest. At all times and in every age civilization has produced greedy ambitious men seeking fortunes and they have little regard for anything in their way. When nations act this way, we call it "fascism" or in the most prominent region of Western greedo activity for other people's lands and resources in our modern world, we call it Zionism..

Archbishop Tutu refuses platform with Tony Blair over Iraq

Archbishop Tutu says morality and leadership are "indivisible".

 BBC News 28 August 2012 Last updated at 12:19 ET


Archbishop Desmond Tutu has pulled out of an event because he refuses to share a platform with Tony Blair.

The veteran peace campaigner said Mr Blair's support for the Iraq war was "morally indefensible" and it would be "inappropriate" for him to appear alongside him.

The pair were due to take part in a one-day leadership summit in Johannesburg, South Africa on Thursday.

Mr Blair's office said he was "sorry" the Archbishop had decided to pull out.

Dr Tutu, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984 in recognition of his campaign against apartheid, and Mr Blair were due to appear at the Discovery Invest Leadership Summit.

Other speakers include chess grandmaster and opposition Russian politician Garry Kasparov and former Tesco chief executive Sir Terry Leahy.
'Untenable'

In a statement, Dr Tutu's Office said: "Ultimately, the archbishop is of the view that Mr Blair's decision to support the United States' military invasion of Iraq, on the basis of unproven allegations of the existence in Iraq of weapons of mass destruction, was morally indefensible.

"The Discovery Invest Leadership Summit has leadership as its theme. Morality and leadership are indivisible.

"In this context, it would be inappropriate and untenable for the archbishop to share a platform with Mr Blair."

Tony Blair's office responded by saying he was sorry that Dr Tutu had pulled out, adding that the former prime minister and the former Archbishop of Cape Town "were never actually sharing a platform" together.

The statement continued: "As far as Iraq is concerned they have always disagreed about removing Saddam by force - such disagreement is part of a healthy democracy."

"As for the morality of that decision we have recently had both the memorial of the Halabja massacre where thousands of people were murdered in one day by Saddam's use of chemical weapons; and that of the Iran-Iraq war where casualties numbered up to a million including many killed by chemical weapons.

"So these decisions are never easy morally or politically."

Archbishop Tutu's withdrawal comes as the local Muslim party Al Jama-ah is reported to be planning a protest against Mr Blair's participation at the event because of his support for the Iraq war.

Kudos for Desmond for not being afraid to stand up publicly against men who do evil acts and commit crimes against humanity.

Yasser Arafat: France opens murder inquiry

Swiss scientists claim they found traces of polonium-210 on Mr Arafat's belongings

BBC News
 28 August 2012
Last updated at 18:52 ET


French prosecutors have opened a murder inquiry into the death of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in 2004.

His family launched a case last month over claims that he was poisoned with polonium-210, a radioactive element.

Swiss scientists hired by a documentary crew say they found traces of polonium on some of Arafat's belongings.

The medical records of Arafat, who died at a military hospital near Paris in 2004, said he had a stroke resulting from a blood disorder.

However, many Palestinians continue to believe that Israel poisoned him. Israel has denied any involvement.

Others allege that he had Aids.

'Significant' polonium traces

Arafat's family lodged papers with the French authorities asking for an investigation in July.

The channel commissioned Lausanne University's Institute of Radiation Physics to analyse Arafat's belongings.

Arafat's wife, Suha, supplied clothing for the examination.

The scientists told the channel that they had found "significant" traces of polonium-210 present in items including Arafat's trademark keffiyeh.
Twin inquiries

Following the documentary, Suha Arafat and daughter Zawra lodged a complaint with French judicial authorities.

Their lawyers have said they want a French investigation to work alongside international inquiries being conducted by the Lausanne scientists.

Last week, the Swiss institute said it had received permission from Suha Arafat and the Palestinian authorities to travel to Ramallah to analyse his remains for traces of polonium.

Arafat led the Palestine Liberation Organisation for 35 years and became the first president of the Palestinian Authority in 1996.

He fell violently ill in October 2004 and died two weeks later, at the age of 75, in a French military hospital.

French doctors bound by privacy rules did not release information about Arafat's condition.

In 2005, the New York Times obtained a copy of Arafat's medical records, which it said showed he died of a massive haemorrhagic stroke that resulted from a bleeding disorder caused by an unknown infection.

Experts who reviewed the records told the paper that it was highly unlikely that he had died of Aids or had been poisoned.

Israel can count on the NY Times to help promote their spin on every murderous assassination venture Mossad/CIA operatives engage in to kill political opponents. There was no checking for radioactive material in the pass given the faulty autopsy report that allowed Israel to get away with still another blatant assassination of rivals.

Profile: Rachel Corrie

Corrie was photographed standing in front of a bulldozer the day before she died

An Israeli army investigation found Rachel Corrie's death was an accident

BBC News
28 August 2012

Last updated at 07:56 ET

Rachel Corrie, an American who was killed while trying to stop an Israeli army bulldozer demolish a Palestinian home in the Gaza Strip in 2003, was a committed peace activist.

She was a student at Evergreen State College in her local town of Olympia in Washington State, which is known for its liberal sensibilities.

The 23-year-old arranged peace events there before joining, through local group Olympians for Peace and Solidarity, a Palestinian-led organisation that uses non-violent means to challenge Israeli army tactics in the West Bank and Gaza.

Speaking after she died in hospital on 17 March 2003 - two years before Israeli troops and settlers left Gaza - her parents paid tribute to her concern for human rights and dignity, remembering how she was "dedicated to everybody".

"Rachel was filled with a love and sense of duty to our fellow man, wherever they lived, and she gave her life trying to protect those that could not protect themselves," her father Craig said.

Corrie's mother Cindy said her daughter had spent nights sleeping at wells to protect them from bulldozers.

"She lived with families whose houses were threatened with demolition and today as we understand it, she stood for three hours trying to protect a house."
'Pushed backwards'

Corrie had been with some eight other activists from the pro-Palestinian International Solidarity Movement (ISM) acting as human shields in an effort to stop the demolition in the Rafah refugee camp.

The Israeli authorities said at the time that demolitions were necessary because Palestinian gunmen used the structures as cover to shoot at their troops patrolling in the area, or to conceal arms-smuggling tunnels under the Gaza-Egypt border.

Human rights groups said the demolitions represented collective punishment.

Corrie - who was wearing an orange fluorescent jacket to alert the bulldozer drivers to her presence - had previously described the hazards of her work.

An email distributed by the ISM detailed a confrontation on 14 February between another bulldozer and her own group, which she refers to as the "internationals".

"The internationals stood in the path of the bulldozer and were physically pushed with the shovel backwards, taking shelter in a house," she wrote. "The bulldozer then proceeded on its course, demolishing one side of the house with the internationals inside."
'Not run over'

Witnesses said that on the day she died, Corrie had climbed on top of a pile of earth which lay in the path of a bulldozer.

"The bulldozer went towards her very slowly. She was fully in clear view, straight in front of them," fellow activist Tom Dale said.

"Unfortunately she couldn't keep her grip there and she started to slip down. You could see she was in serious trouble; there was panic in her face as she was turning around."

"All the activists there were screaming, running towards the bulldozer, trying to get them to stop. But they just kept on going," he added.

Richard Purssell, another activist, said: "The driver didn't slow down; he just ran over her. Then he reversed the bulldozer back over her again."

However, an internal investigation led by the Israeli military's chief of staff concluded within a month of Corrie's death that its forces were not to blame, that she had been hidden behind a mound of earth and the bulldozer driver had not seen her.

"Rachel Corrie was not run over by an engineering vehicle but rather was struck by a hard object, most probably a slab of concrete which was moved or slid down while the mound of earth which she was standing behind was moved," it said.

While the investigators expressed sorrow for any incident in which innocent people were harmed, they felt that the "illegal and irresponsible" actions of the ISM "contributed to the tragic and distressing results".
'Last resort'

Corrie's parents refused to accept the findings and maintained that the military's investigation had not been "thorough, credible and transparent", as then Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon had promised.

In March 2010, the family filed a civil suit in the Haifa district court against the Israeli government over the incident, accusing the military of either unlawfully or intentionally killing her or of gross negligence. The family described it as their "absolutely last resort".

Craig Corrie said he still believed his daughter had been seen by the driver of the bulldozer, and that the order to use bulldozers should never have been given while non-combatants were in the area.

But on 28 August, Judge Oded Gershon dismissed the civil lawsuit, ruling that Corrie's death was a "regrettable accident" that had been not caused by the negligence of the Israeli state or army.

He also found that there had been no fault in the internal Israeli military investigation, which cleared the driver of the bulldozer of any blame. The judge said the driver had not seen the American activist, who he said could have saved herself.

"She did not distance herself from the area, as any thinking person would have done," he added. "She consciously put herself in danger."

He ruled that there was no justification to demand the state pay any damages, but said the Corrie family would not have to pay costs.

Afterwards, Cindy Corrie said she was "deeply troubled" by the verdict and that the family intended to appeal to Israel's Supreme Court.

"I believe that this was a bad day not only for our family but a bad day for human rights, for humanity, for the rule of law and also for the country of Israel," she told a news conference.

"From the beginning it was clear to us that there was a process of investigation, operational investigations, military police investigations, and it was confirmed to us today that that extends through the court system in Israel - a well-heeled system to protect the Israeli military, the soldiers who conduct actions in that military, to provide them with impunity at the cost of all the civilians who are impacted by what they do."

Rachel Corrie: Victim of Israeli fascism. RIP.

Gaza 'will not be liveable by 2020' - UN report

Tunnels under the Egyptian border have been a lifeline for Gaza in recent years.
BBC News
 27 August 2012
Last updated at 16:43 ET

The Gaza Strip will not be "a liveable place" by 2020 unless action is taken to improve basic services in the territory, according to a UN report.

Basic infrastructure in water, health, education and sanitation "is struggling to keep pace with a growing population", according to the report.

It estimates Gaza's population will rise from 1.6m to 2.1m by 2020.

Israel tightened a blockade on Gaza after the Islamist movement Hamas came to power in the territory in 2007.

Israel says the blockade, which is policed with Egyptian co-operation and has never been fully lifted, is necessary to prevent weapons reaching Hamas.

The UN report estimates Gaza will need double the number of schools and 800 more hospital beds by 2020, and says the territory is already suffering from a housing shortage.

The report also says the coastal aquifer, the territory's only natural source of fresh water, may become unusable by 2016.

Disconnected territory

UN officials point to the difficulty of improving the situation given "the closure of the Gaza Strip, violent conflict, and the pressing need for Palestinian reconciliation".

"An urban area cannot survive without being connected," said Maxwell Gaylard, the UN's humanitarian chief in Gaza.

Gaza has no air or sea ports, and the economy is heavily dependent on outside funding and smuggling through tunnels under the Egyptian border.

Even though Gaza has experienced some economic growth in recent years, the report says it "does not seem to be sustainable" and finds that Gazans are worse off now than in the 1990s.

Unemployment was at 29% in 2011 and has risen since then, particularly affecting women and young people.

Traffic through the cross-border tunnels was hit in recent weeks by violence between Egyptian security forces and militants in Egypt's Sinai peninsula, which borders Israel and Gaza.

FIRSTPOST.

India PM to arrive in Iran tomorrow to attend NAM Summit

Tehran: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh would arrive here tomorrow on a four-day visit to attend the NAM Summit on Thursday, prior to which he will hold crucial bilateral talks with Iran’s top leadership, including supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, ignoring US reservations.

Singh will also be holding bilateral meetings with leaders from other countries, including Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari and Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on the sidelines of the 16th Summit of the 120-nation grouping.

Ahead of the meeting between India and Iran, New Delhi has made it very clear that discussion on peace and security will be of the paramount concern which will be raised with Tehran.

“Peace and security is, indeed, our primary concern given just how important the entire West Asia region, Gulf region, in particular, is for India’s security and for Indian economy, both in terms of oil imports and our exports. So, this is our own concern and we don’t have to take anybody else’s concern as priority,” Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai had said in New Delhi.

Singh’s bilateral meet with Khamenei and President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad assumes significance as it will take place at a time when the US is pushing India to reduce engagement with Iran and implement sanctions imposed by some countries over its controversial nuclear programme.

While the West has been trying to underplay Iran hosting the NAM Summit, Tehran sees the event as a major diplomatic achievement.

Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi in his opening remarks at the experts meeting of the Summit yesterday said the grouping should seriously deal with the unilateral economic sanctions imposed by certain countries against its members.

Iran has been slapped with a number of sanctions by the US and the other Western nations which accuse Iran of pursuing a clandestine nuclear weapons programme. However, Iran denies the charge and says its nuclear programme is for peaceful use.

The Prime Minister’s interactions with Iranian leadership assumes more importance since it was New Delhi that had sought a meeting with Khamenei.

Besides focusing on regional security situation, trade and economic cooperation are likely to be high on the agenda with special focus on oil imports.

Iran is one of the crucial suppliers for oil for energy-starved India. While India recognises only UN imposed sanctions, those levied by US and other countries have become a major stumbling block in making payments to Iran for oil imports.

Singh is also likely to hold meetings with Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, who would also be attending the Summit. He would be the first Egyptian leader to visit Iran since the 1979  revolution.

Another important attendee would be UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, who ignored US requests of giving the Summit a miss.

Controversial Iranian nuclear programme, Syria crisis and regional issues are likely to dominate the summit.

Israel arrests three settler boys suspected of attack on Palestinians

JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israeli police arrested three Jewish settler boys suspected of throwing a firebomb earlier this month at a Palestinian vehicle in the West Bank that injured six people, a spokesman said on Sunday.

The suspects, aged 12 to 13, from Bat Ayin, a settlement in the occupied West Bank, will appear in court later on Sunday to be remanded into custody, said police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld.
Four of the passengers wounded in the August 16 attack were members of the same family, two of them children.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu denounced the attack soon after it happened.
Palestinians and Israeli human rights groups say that settlers are rarely prosecuted in cases of violence against Palestinians in the West Bank.
(Reporting by Ari Rabinovitch; Editing by Louise Ireland)
Copyright © 2012 Reuters

At Summit Meeting, Iran Has a Message for the World

Three cars damaged in attacks on Iranian nuclear scientists outside the Tehran convention hall.

By THOMAS ERDBRINK
The New York Times
Published: August 26, 2012

TEHRAN — At the entrance to the convention hall where Iran is sponsoring an international summit meeting are the crumpled wreckage of three cars driven by Iranian nuclear scientists who have been killed or hurt in bomb attacks. Placards with the photos of the scientists and their children stand alongside.

 The message is clear. As Iran plays host to the biggest international conference the Islamic republic has organized in its 33-year history, it wants to tell its side of the long standoff with the Western powers, which are increasingly convinced that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

Tehran, which denies that it is after the bomb, believes the scientists were killed by Israeli agents, an assertion that Israel has not acknowledged but never fully disputed.

The meeting of the so-called Nonaligned Movement, a group formed during the cold war that considers itself independent of the major powers, has so far proven to be something of a public relations success for Iran.

Last week, the United Nations secretary general, Ban Ki-moon, decided to attend despite pressure from the United States and Israel. Egypt’s new president also said he would come to the conference, although his country has long been estranged from Iran, and India’s prime minister plans to bring a delegation of 250 people in an attempt to advocate for more trade with Tehran.

The announcements were seen as setbacks for efforts by the United States to isolate Iran and cripple it with sanctions.

“Two-thirds of the world’s nations are here in Tehran,” Mohammad Khazaee, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, told reporters on Sunday. “Clearly this conference will be effective for us.”

Iran’s foreign minister, Ali Akbar Salehi, opened the meeting’s early sessions on Sunday with a plea for the 120 countries in the movement to oppose the sanctions imposed on his country, and he asked them to stand against terrorism, saying Iran is the biggest victim of terrorist attacks in the world. An exhibition in the convention hall echoed his assertions, including pictures of victims of what Iran said were opposition bombings in the 1980s, soon after the Islamic Revolution, and of the downing of an Iranian passenger jet by a missile fired from a United States Navy ship in 1988, in what American officials say was an accident.

He also said the United States had “exploited” the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to further its “hegemonic goals.”

Given that history, Iran says it has decided not to take any chances and has launched a comprehensive security operation. More than 110,000 security forces are controlling the streets, the deputy national police commander, Ahmad Radan, told the Fars news agency over the weekend.

They are supported by 30 helicopters and nearly 3,000 patrol cars. There are roadblocks on all highways leading into Tehran, and at night there are checkpoints throughout the city.

“Despite the evil intentions of our enemies, our secret service has taken all necessary measures in order to hold the nonaligned meeting in an absolute secure environment,” Iran’s minister of intelligence, Heydar Moslehi, told state news agency IRNA.

But the tight security might have another goal: to ensure Iran’s narrative is not spoiled by its domestic political difficulties, three years after the country was convulsed by antigovernment protests that followed a disputed election and were quashed in a harsh crackdown.

Foreign-based opposition Web sites called for renewed rallies against the government during the summit meeting.

Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, is expected to address the conference this week. And in an effort to prove that its nuclear program is peaceful, Iran is offering special tours of some of its nuclear sites.

Like most countries given a chance at worldwide exposure — witness London’s Olympics — Iran is taking other steps to present its best face.

An army of gardeners and street cleaners have been sprucing up main thoroughfares. One billboard reads: “Nonaligned Movement represents the struggle against racism, colonialism, hegemony and foreign oppression.” Floating above the city’s main Haft-e Tir square was a balloon carrying a message: “Iran, a peaceful and kind nation.”

The government even took the unusual step of subsidizing trips out of town for Tehran residents, to clear the city’s always-congested roads. Despite the economic pain of recent sanctions, the government offered those with fuel-subsidy cards an extra 30 liters of gasoline at reduced rates so they could leave the city. Tehran’s 12 million residents will also enjoy a five-day official holiday starting Tuesday, when the leaders begin gathering.

State television has presented the meeting as a “turning point,” after which Iran’s importance will grow.

The vice president for international affairs, Ali Sa’idloo, told state television that “Zionist” media had been censoring news about the event because it was too positive.

Many Iranians said they were impressed with the fresh paint jobs on buildings. But in an indication of the country’s economic setbacks, some said they wished they had not been given five days off.

“I need money, so I need to work, but now we must stay home,” said Ali Kamali, a bookbinder.

For Iran’s most hard-line officials, such suggestions were unrealistic. They hailed the summit meeting as a sign that the end of Western dominance was near.

“Electing Iran as leader of the Nonaligned Movement shows that a global resistance against America and the Zionists has taken shape,” Mohammad Reza Naghdi, the commander of a paramilitary group, told the semiofficial Fars news agency. “America better give up, as this is yet another sign of its collapse.”

It is clear that the conference is helping Iran gets its message out.

On Sunday, some delegates were shown on state TV denouncing terrorism as they stood in front of the nuclear scientists’ mangled cars.

U.S. weapons profiteering by creating fear of Iran: U.S. Arms Sales Make Up Most of Global Market

By THOM SHANKER

The New York Times
Published: August 26, 2012

Arming the World
Last year, the United States surged far ahead of other countries as a weapons supplier, particularly to the developing world.

WASHINGTON — Weapons sales by the United States tripled in 2011 to a record high, driven by major arms sales to Persian Gulf allies concerned about Iran’s regional ambitions, according to a new study for Congress.

 Overseas weapons sales by the United States totaled $66.3 billion last year, or more than three-quarters of the global arms market, valued at $85.3 billion in 2011. Russia was a distant second, with $4.8 billion in deals.

The American weapons sales total was an “extraordinary increase” over the $21.4 billion in deals for 2010, the study found, and was the largest single-year sales total in the history of United States arms exports. The previous high was in fiscal year 2009, when American weapons sales overseas totaled nearly $31 billion.

A worldwide economic decline had suppressed arms sales over recent years. But increasing tensions with Iran drove a set of Persian Gulf nations — Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates and Oman — to purchase American weapons at record levels.

These Gulf states do not share a border with Iran, and their arms purchases focused on expensive warplanes and complex missile defense systems.

The report was prepared by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, a division of the Library of Congress. The annual study, written by Richard F. Grimmett and Paul K. Kerr and delivered to Congress on Friday, is considered the most detailed collection of unclassified arms sales data available to the public.

The agreements with Saudi Arabia included the purchase of 84 advanced F-15 fighters, a variety of ammunition, missiles and logistics support, and upgrades of 70 of the F-15 fighters in the current fleet.

Sales to Saudi Arabia last year also included dozens of Apache and Black Hawk helicopters, all contributing to a total Saudi weapons deal from the United States of $33.4 billion, according to the study.

The United Arab Emirates purchased a Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, an advanced antimissile shield that includes radars and is valued at $3.49 billion, as well as 16 Chinook helicopters for $939 million.

Oman bought 18 F-16 fighters for $1.4 billion.

In keeping with recent trends, most of the weapons purchases, worth about $71.5 billion, were made by developing nations, with about $56.3 billion of that from the United States.

Other significant weapons deals by the United States last year included a $4.1 billion agreement with India for 10 C-17 transport planes and with Taiwan for Patriot antimissile batteries valued at $2 billion — an arms deal that outraged officials in Beijing.

To compare weapons sales over various years, the study used figures in 2011 dollars, with amounts for previous years adjusted for inflation to provide a consistent measurement.

A policy goal of the United States has been to work with Arab allies in the Persian Gulf to knit together a regional missile defense system to protect cities, oil refineries, pipelines and military bases from an Iranian attack.

The effort has included deploying radars to increase the range of early warning coverage across the Persian Gulf, as well as introducing command, control and communications systems that could exchange that information with new batteries of missile interceptors sold to the individual nations.

The missile shield in the Persian Gulf is being built on a country-by-country basis — with these costly arms sales negotiated bilaterally between the United States and individual nations.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange calls on Obama to end 'witch hunt'

Originally published: August 19, 2012 9:43 AM
Updated: August 19, 2012 2:53 PM
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange urged President Barack Obama to end a so-called "witch hunt" against his secret-spilling website, appearing in public Sunday for the first time since he took refuge two months ago inside Ecuador's Embassy in London to avoid extradition to Sweden on sex crimes allegations.

The 41-year-old Australian, who has fought for two years against efforts to send him to Sweden for questioning over alleged sexual misconduct against two women, addressed several hundred supporters and reporters as he spoke from the small balcony of Ecuador's mission, watched by dozens of British police.

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa on Thursday granted Assange asylum and he remains out of reach of British authorities while he is inside the country's embassy. Britain insists that if he steps outside, he will be detained and sent to Sweden, as by law it must meet the obligations of a European arrest warrant.

Praising Correa, Assange said "a courageous Latin American nation took a stand for justice," in offering him sanctuary, but did not refer to the Swedish allegations against him. Instead, he attempted to shift attention to what he claims are preparations in the U.S. to punish him for the publication by WikiLeaks of a trove of American diplomatic and military secrets — including 250,000 U.S. Embassy cables that highlight sometimes embarrassing backroom dealings.

Assange and his supporters claim the Swedish case is merely the opening gambit in a Washington-orchestrated plot to make him stand trial in the U.S. — something disputed by both Swedish authorities and the women involved.

"I ask President Obama to do the right thing. The United States must renounce its witch hunt against WikiLeaks," Assange said, speaking from a first-floor balcony decorated with an Ecuadorean flag, standing just yards (meters) away from British police officers.

"The United States must dissolve its FBI investigation. The United States must vow that it will not seek to prosecute our staff or our supporters," he said, wearing a formal blue shirt and red tie.

In purportedly targeting WikiLeaks, the U.S. risks "dragging us all into a dark, repressive world in which journalists live under fear of prosecution," Assange said.

The White House declined comment Sunday, but on Saturday it said Assange's fate is an issue for Sweden, Britain and Ecuador to resolve.

A Virginia grand jury is studying evidence that might link Assange to Pfc. Bradley Manning, the U.S. soldier who is awaiting trial on charges of aiding the enemy by passing the secret files to WikiLeaks. No action against Assange has yet been taken.

Assange also urged the U.S. to release Manning, but said: "If Bradley Manning really did as he is accused, he is a hero, an example to us all, and one of the world's foremost political prisoners."

The WikiLeaks founder give no indication of how he believes the stalemate over his future may be resolved, though he said he hoped to be "reunited soon" with his two children.

"I think these allegations are just a way of getting to him," said Laura Mattson, a 29-year-old supporter from London who joined a raucous crowd outside the embassy. "Is it about the charges or is it about silencing WikiLeaks?"

Assange claimed to have won support from a host of other Latin American, Central American and South American nations — including Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Argentina. However, Brazil and Colombia both insisted they haven't endorsed Ecuador's decision.

South America's foreign ministers were to meet in Guayaquil, Ecuador, on Sunday at the host nation's request to discuss the case. On Friday, foreign ministers of the Organization of American states are to convene in Washington to discuss the standoff.

Former Spanish Judge Baltasar Garzon, who is representing Assange, said Sunday that Ecuador could consider making an appeal to the International Court of Justice in the Hague to compel Britain to grant Assange safe passage out of the country.

Garzon, who won global fame for aggressively taking on international human rights cases, is appealing his conviction for overstepping his jurisdiction in a domestic corruption probe in Spain.

Tensions have risen between London and Quito over the case, after Britain appeared to suggest it could invoke a little-known law to strip Ecuador's Embassy of diplomatic privileges — meaning police would be free to move in and detain Assange.

Assange claimed Britain had only refrained from carrying out the threat because of a vigil by his supporters outside the embassy. Ecuador's mission is a small apartment inside a larger building which houses offices and Colombia's Embassy. British police form a thick line outside, and are on guard in the building's shared lobby and staircases.

"Inside this embassy in the dark, I could hear teams of police swarming up inside the building through its internal fire escape," Assange said. "If the U.K. did not throw away the Vienna Convention the other night, it is because the world was watching." Under the 1961 Vienna Convention on Consular Relations, diplomatic posts are treated as the territory of the foreign nation.

Britain's government declined to comment on Assange's statement, though diplomats have accused Ecuador of deliberately misinterpreting its attempts to explain its legal options.

The WikiLeaks founder attempted to draw parallels between himself and the Russian punk band Pussy Riot, three of whose members were convicted and jailed this week for a performance denouncing President Vladimir Putin in a Moscow cathedral.

"There is unity in the oppression. There must be absolute unity and determination in the response," Assange said.

He shot to international prominence in 2010 when his WikiLeaks website began publishing its huge trove of American secrets. As he toured the globe to highlight the disclosures, two women accused him of sex offenses during a trip to Sweden. Assange denies any wrongdoing and insists sex with the women was consensual.

Los Angeles city sued over marijuana shop ban

Advocates of marijuana for medical purposes now want to hold a referendum to overturn the ban

BBC News
17 August 2012
Last updated at 20:32 ET

A US medicinal marijuana trade group is suing the city of Los Angeles to try to stop it from enforcing a ban that would close hundreds of dispensaries.

The Patient Care Alliance Los Angeles (PCA-LA) says users are protected by California's 1996 legalisation of medicinal marijuana.

The LA city council last month passed a law to ban the dispensaries.

It said the use of the drug was spiralling out of control, leading to an increase in crime in the city.

"The city council's actions are not only reckless, heartless and pointless, they're just plain stupid," Marc O'Hara of PCA-LA was quoted as saying by the NBC News.

"The city knows that it will never be able to successfully defend this lawsuit," he added.

City politicians unanimously approved the ban on 24 July.

The vote followed complaints that young people had too easy access to the drug and were illegally using it for recreational purposes, in turn leading to an increase in crimes in areas where marijuana was for sale.

Earlier this week, the council sent out letters to locations where dispensaries were thought to be operating, stating that such businesses would become illegal on 6 September.

Meanwhile, advocates of marijuana for medical purposes have pledged to push for a referendum to try to overturn the ban.

Many dispensaries in Los Angeles have recently been gathering signatures in support of the ballot.

Ecuadorian president defends decision to offer Assange asylum

Ecuador's President Rafael Correa attends to a radio interview in Quito, capital of Ecuador, on Aug. 17, 2012. Ecuador's President defended, what he called the "sovereign" decision of his country to grant asylum to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. WikiLeaks founder seeks to find asylum to avoid being extradited to Sweden, where he is wanted for alleged sexual assault charges. Correa insisted that Assange deserves a due process, on the charges alleged against him. (Xinhua/Str)

QUITO, Aug. 17 (Xinhua) -- Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa on Friday defended his country's "sovereign" decision to grant Wikileaks founder Julian Assange political asylum.

"After almost two months of analyzing the legal process, the government decided to grant him asylum," Correa told a local television in his first public statement after the decision was made Thursday.

Correa said political asylum was given to the 41-year-old Australian, who has taken refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy in London since June 19 to avoid extradition to Sweden for allegations of rape and sexual assault, as Stockholm never guaranteed that Assange would not be handed over to a third country.

"Sweden never gave that guarantee, England never gave it," he said.

He added that Assange risked life in prison if extradited to the United States, which was preparing prosecution against Wikileaks' activities.

The move is "loyal to the country's tradition of protecting the people who seek shelter in its territory or in their embassies," Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Ricardo Patino said on Thursday.

The U.S. government on Friday refused to recognize the diplomatic asylum that Ecuador granted to Assange as the Organization of American States (OAS) is considering convening a meeting on the issue.

"The United States is not a party to the 1954 OAS Convention on Diplomatic Asylum and does not recognize the concept of diplomatic asylum as a matter of international law," said State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland in a statement.

According to the OAS website, the organization is considering convening a foreign ministerial meeting on Aug. 23 in Washington on the issue which has triggered a diplomatic row between Quito and London.

Washington has been furious about Assange's WikiLeaks which in the 2010 disclosed tens of thousands of U.S. war documents related to Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the diplomatic cables.

Poland begins uncovering story of secret US detention center

An official probe has begun into how much the Polish government knew about a covert US detention center outside Warsaw where the CIA may have tortured members of Al Qaeda.

By Roy Gutman, McClatchy Newspapers / August 14, 2012

Stare Kiejkuty, Poland

On an idyllic lake surrounded by woods and a double row of mesh-and-razor-wire fences about 100 miles north of Warsaw, there stands a secluded villa that the CIA once used to interrogate – and allegedly torture – top Al Qaeda suspects.

On the grounds of the Polish intelligence-training academy and nicknamed “Markus Wolf” for the former East German spy chief, it’s the focal point for a top-secret probe that Polish prosecutors have launched into how their government tolerated rampant violations of international and Polish law.

If former officials are brought to trial, or if the stacks of classified files in the prosecutors’ offices are made public, the result will be revelations about an American anti-terrorism operation whose details US officials are fighting to keep secret.

Already the prosecutor has charged Zbigniew Siemiatkowski, Poland’s former interior minister and intelligence chief, with unlawful detention and corporal punishment for allowing the CIA to operate at Stare Kiejkuty from December 2002 to September 2003.

And the prosecutor’s office has given victim status in the case to two men the US is holding indefinitely at Guantanamo: Abd al Rahim al Nashiri, a Saudi charged with masterminding the bombing of the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000, and Abu Zubaydah, whom the Bush administration once described as the third-ranking leader of Al Qaeda but who may have been only a safe house minder. Nashiri faces a possible death sentence; Abu Zubaydah, who’s been held for 10 years, hasn’t been charged.

Their status as victims comes from claims that they were kidnapped by US authorities, brought to Poland illegally, tortured, then spirited from Poland to other detention centers without the legally required extradition proceedings.

The villa cannot be seen from the main road or spotted on Google Earth maps. At the request of Polish authorities, its location has been blurred, the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

That’s what some parts of the Polish government would like to have happen to everything that took place here.

State prosecutors, on the other hand, seem motivated to bring the case to court. The Polish investigation is now in its fifth year, has twice been reassigned to new prosecutors and will run at least until mid-February, it was announced last week. It is, to date, the only criminal prosecution in the world related to the CIA’s so-called “black sites.” The Obama administration has declined to investigate what happened at any of the sites, which included facilities in Thailand, Romania, and Lithuania.

The prosecution is slow-going, but serious, according to Mikolaj Pietrzak, the Polish legal counsel for Guantanamo detainee Nashiri. The two prosecutors, Katarzyna Plonczyk and Janusz Sliwa, specialize in organized crime and counter-terrorism and are “very capable, very competent,” said Mr. Pietrzak, who’s a former senior staffer of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights. His costs are borne by the Open Society Institute Justice Initiative, a US foundation.

“The prosecutor is working very robustly. It is a very broad and thorough investigation – which doesn’t mean it’s effective,” he said in an interview in Warsaw. “Everything… could have been done much, much quicker.”

The prosecution has interviewed 62 witnesses and compiled 20 volumes of material, the Helsinki Foundation said.

Pietrzak has yet to see all the documents that have been collected in Nashiri’s case. He’s been allowed to see unclassified files in Krakow, but he’s had only fleeting access to the classified documents – under a previous prosecutor. But what he’s seen convinces him that his client was terribly mistreated in the villa.

“My analysis of those papers has removed any shred of doubt as to the accuracy of statements made in our application” for victim status, he said.

Some of what took place here is already known. According to declassified US documents, Nashiri was threatened with a mock execution by power drill and handgun early in his seven-month stay at Stare Kiejkuty. Abu Zubaydah was waterboarded and subjected to other so-called “enhanced interrogation techniques.”

Other prisoners were very likely held here and treated in a way that Polish law prohibits.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the accused architect of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, was waterboarded 183 times in March 2003, declassified Bush-era documents have revealed. That treatment came at a time he was probably in Poland, said Irmina Pacho, of the Helsinki Foundation’s “strategic litigation” program. But Mohammed is representing himself at Guantanamo, so there’s no way lawyers can plead for him here.

It’s difficult to gauge the likelihood that all facts will be made public. The Polish political elite is clearly ambivalent about prosecuting former officials, and the US government has stonewalled all known requests for assistance, Polish lawyers say. At Guantanamo, the US government has insisted that information about Nashiri’s treatment be kept secret. His Pentagon defense attorneys and a group of American news organizations are challenging the idea that Nashiri’s treatment must be considered “classified” and kept secret. The military commission judge will consider the issue at Guantanamo next week during hearings in the 9/11 case.

Poland’s president, Bronislaw Komorowski, called in May 2011 for a “thorough investigation” rather than excuses about “loyalty to an ally.” But four months later he refused to release his predecessor, Aleksander Kwasniewski, from his pledge to secrecy on state security matters when the prosecutor wanted to question him.

Kwasniewski, who in 2008 denied that there was ever a secret CIA prison in Poland, opposes the prosecution. In an interview with McClatchy, he said that if anyone were to be prosecuted, it should be Americans, not Poles.

“Calling to account someone in Poland” for cooperating with the U.S. is “inappropriate ,” he said.

Leszek Miller, the left-of-center prime minister at the time the CIA center was operating, has refused to comment on the secret prison. But Donald Tusk, the right-of-center current prime minister, talks tough.

"This is not the 19th century, and this is not some Bantu-stan,” he said in late March, after Siemiatkowski was indicted. “This case has to be resolved. Let there be no doubt about that either in Poland or on the other side of the ocean.”

For Tusk, the moment of truth is nigh. Last month, the European Court of Human Rights ordered Poland to explain by Sept. 5 why Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah have been given victim status and to provide the court with all agreements that pertain to the setting up of what the court called “a secret CIA prison” on Polish territory.

Still, there’s much that’s unknown about what happened in the Markus Wolf villa: the role of outside contractors in the prison’s day-to-day operations, the discussions between intelligence agencies that led to the establishment of the prison and what the Poles received in return, if anything, for allowing the black site to operate.

Evidence emerges in bits and pieces, in newspaper reports, in cryptic utterances from the state prosecutor and in the revelations of Jozef Pinior, a member of the Polish Senate and the European Parliament, who’s the one senior politician who’s consistently championed the case. In June, he said he’d seen an order to build an iron cage and deliver it to the villa.

His newest anecdote about the CIA prison centered on a note he’d seen from Polish intelligence officials to CIA personnel at the intelligence compound. It urged them not to throw any more kielbasa or Polish sausage in the trash, lest people think that Muslims are being held at the Stare Kiejkuty villa. “It is a clear message for people in the village that people are being held there.”

Journalist Adam Krzykowski, who in 2009 discovered many of the flight records and a computer hard disk that had eluded previous investigators, estimates that six to eight suspects, at most 11, were detained at Stare Kiejkuty. Altogether, there were seven special CIA flights to Szymany, an airport about 15 miles away, according to the flight records Krzykowski turned up, with the first arriving from Bangkok on Dec. 5, 2002, with seven passengers, and the last one out in September 2003 with five passengers.

Ironically, it was an official visit to Poland by President George W. Bush in June 2003 that led to the closing of the villa. Bush’s thanks for Poland’s cooperation in the war on terrorism were “so profuse” that the Polish president, Kwasniewski, realized “something was not right,” Gazeta Wyborcza reported in June 2011. He ordered an investigation, and on learning that the CIA was flying suspects into Poland for interrogation, ordered the interrogation center closed.

Where the prosecution goes from here isn’t clear. Pietrzak, Nashiri’s Polish attorney, thinks the Tusk government wants to string out the process. “If they charge someone there will be an eruption,” he said.

But others think that however long it takes, the Polish investigation won’t go away.

“For better or worse, there have been too many leaks about what is going on inside that prosecution,” said Crofton Black, a senior investigator at the British prisoner advocacy group Reprieve. “Even if it weren’t very difficult to walk away at this stage, so many documents have been sent to or seen by the prosecutor, so much is in the public domain. The cat’s out of the bag now.”

Carol Rosenberg of The Miami Herald and McClatchy special correspondent Barbara Dziedzic contributed to this report.

Justice, Zionist style: Israeli ex-soldier cleared of Gaza manslaughter charge

BBC News
13 August 2012 Last updated at 08:37 ET

                          Many Palestinian civilians were caught up in the fighting in the Gaza Strip

Israeli prosecutors have dropped a manslaughter charge against a former soldier in connection with the deaths of a Palestinian woman and her daughter during the offensive on Gaza in 2009.

But the sergeant was jailed for 45 days after being convicted of unlawful use of a firearm in a separate incident as part of a plea deal, his lawyer said.

He was the only soldier to be charged with manslaughter after the offensive.

The women were reportedly shot as they fled their home carrying a white flag.

Operation Cast Lead was launched in response to repeated rocket attacks on Israeli territory. Some 1,400 Palestinians were killed during the three-week conflict, including hundreds of civilians, as well as 13 Israelis.
'White flags'

In July 2010, Sergeant "S", a sniper in the Israeli army's Givati Brigade, was charged with the manslaughter of Rayah Abu Hajaj, 64, and her 37-year-old daughter, Majda.

According to the Israeli human rights group B'Tselem, the women were shot dead as they tried to escape fighting in the Juhar al-Dik district of Gaza City on 4 January 2009.

They had been among a group of about 30 people, some holding white flags, who had walked out of a house after being informed that Israeli soldiers had ordered them to walk towards the city centre, witnesses said.

When they saw Israeli tanks about 150m (500ft) away, the two men at the front of the group reportedly waved their flags, and the children in the group sat on the ground. Then suddenly, and without warning, shots were fired at the group, killing Majda Abu Hajaj and her mother, the witnesses alleged.

The sergeant was accused of opening fire without having received orders to do so from an officer who had been by his side at the time.

But on Sunday, the Israeli military announced that an investigation had found problems with the evidence which meant prosecutors believed it would not be possible to prove the sergeant had fired the fatal shots.

Prosecutors said the women's bodies had not been presented for examination, and that many Israeli soldiers had been shooting in the area at the time. There were also discrepancies between the accounts of Israeli soldiers and those of the Palestinian witnesses, they added.

Instead, the sergeant agreed to a plea bargain that saw him convicted of the illegal use of firearms relating to the killing on 5 January 2009 of an unidentified individual - not Rayah or Majda Abu Hajaj - and sentenced to 45 days in prison, his lawyer Oded Saburai told reporters.

B'Tselem said that if prosecutors accepted the claim that there was no connection between the shooting the sergeant had admitted to and the killing of the two women, it meant that the investigation into the latter incident had not been completed. It urged prosecutors to solve the case and hold accountable those responsible.

Two women shot to death by IDF and this is what Israelis call "justice". IDF need to be hauled before the World Court and tried as war criminals but of course they won't because Israel has protected status as the U.S. fascist problem child that never gets spanked for bad behavior and so grows up without moral responsibility to become the adult criminal, this one armed to the teeth with WMDs,  hidden nukes no one is allowed to monitor unlike what is being asked of Iran, the prime military rival of Israel in the Middle East. Not wanting to waste precious Jewish lives, Israel wants so badly for Goyim Americans and U.N. soldiers to die for Israel's "security" like they did in Iraq. One of these days, maybe Americans will wake up but the Zionist control of America's media as well as professional politicians is vast, thanks to Evangelical Christian blind support of Israel no matter what they do to break Christian ethics--it's just Palestinians after all, terrorists against God's People, therefore, disposable quantities, not real people with human rights. History will look back on our times and will wonder at how the West was so bamboozled by one relatively small religious minority group they allowed to seize control of all the major financials institutions the West relies on to function.

Activists: Israeli forces enter Egypt for migrants

By MARK LAVIE, Associated Press – 15 minutes ago 

 

CAIRO (AP) — Israel has been sending soldiers into Egypt's Sinai desert to stop African migrants before they reach the border, handing them over to Egyptian forces, human rights groups charged in a report released Friday.

The groups called on Israel to stop the practice.

Israel has also increasingly concerned over the numbers of African migrants sneaking across the porous border. Most come from Sudan, South Sudan and Eritrea. About 60,000 migrants are already in Israel, and some Israelis have expressed concern that the influx could harm the Jewish character of their state.
A senior Egyptian military official in Sinai denied that any Israeli soldiers entered Egypt to chase migrants. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the press.
The Israeli military spokesman's office said it would not confirm or deny the specific report, as is military policy. But it added, "In line with protocol Israeli military activity is within Israel."

It said Israeli forces are working "to prevent the infiltration of both hostile terror elements as well as criminal smuggling." It said Israeli soldiers have stopped groups several times and held them "until the arrival of Egyptian forces that took the infiltrators," but did not comment on where this took place.
The groups said the Israeli military censor banned Israel-based journalists from writing about the report.
The use of Israeli soldiers just inside Egyptian territory, with apparent Egyptian consent, would be a startling move, given widespread anti-Israeli sentiment among Egyptians and the strong sensitivities over Sinai, which Israel captured in the 1967 war and returned after the 1979 peace deal between the two countries. Cooperation with Israel is a touchy subject in Egypt, which has had cool relations with Israel since the peace treaty was signed.

The report came as tension rose over the security situation in the lawless desert, where Islamic militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers, stole armored vehicles and drove into Israel, apparently to carry out a further attack until they were struck by Israeli forces. Egypt has deployed additional troops in the peninsula near the borders with Israel and Gaza in an operation to stamp out militant groups.
The report, released Friday by Amnesty International and several Israeli groups, including Hotline for Migrant Workers and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, said that Israeli soldiers have entered several hundred meters (yards) into Egyptian territory to catch migrants and hand them over to Egyptian police.
The report cited an Israeli soldier and several migrants whose relatives were seized by Israeli soldiers inside Egyptian territory.

In an affidavit included in the report, the Israeli reserve soldier says his unit was posted in June several hundred meters (yards) inside Egypt to stop African migrants. The soldier describes three incidents in which his unit dealt with African migrants on the Egyptian side. On two occasions Israeli soldiers marched the groups several kilometers (miles) along the border on the Egyptian side and handed them over to Egyptian police.

In the other, he writes that soldiers guarded a group of about 40 migrants, including women and a baby, for two days before the migrants "dispersed," and most of them crossed into Israel.
The soldier's name is blacked out. A Tel Aviv attorney countersigned the statement.
The report also cites migrants who succeeded in making it to Israel but say their relatives were in groups that were intercepted and handed over by force to Egyptian authorities.

The three rights group called on Israel to stop the practice, saying it was aimed at preventing migrants from entering Israel, where the government would then have to consider their claims of asylum. The groups said repatriating asylum seekers who might be in danger in their home countries is a violation of international law.
"Israel is responsible for the action or omissions of its soldiers, whether they are located in Israeli or Egyptian territory," the report said. It added that they fear that "victims of physical and sexual abuse by traffickers in the Sinai desert may be among those returned."

Israel believes that most of the migrants are seeking work, not asylum.

Israel has begun deporting migrants from South Sudan, giving financial incentives to those who agree to leave voluntarily. South Sudan, which gained independence a year ago, has friendly relations with Israel.
The rights groups' report coincides with a sharp drop in the number of migrants crossing the border. In July, Israel said 248 migrants entered, less than half the average. The report quotes Egyptian newspapers saying that 514 migrants were caught in July, several hundred more than usual.

Copyright © 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Israel losing international support, says British ambassador

Israeli border police at the Kalandia checkpoint between Ramallah and Jerusalem. The British ambassador says Isreal is losing international support, and is being perceived as Goliath, and Palestine as David. Photograph: Oliver Weiken/EPA

Matthew Gould says Jewish state losing mainstream political support over lack of peace progress and West Bank expansion

Harriet Sherwood in Jerusalem
Guardian.co.uk, Friday 3 August 2012 07.51 EDT   

The British ambassador to Israel has said international support for the Jewish state among those in the political mainstream is eroding, driven by settlement expansion in the West Bank and continued restrictions on Gaza.

There is "growing concern" in the UK over lack of progress towards peace with the Palestinians, and Israel was now being seen as Goliath against the Palestinians as David, said Matthew Gould, in reference to the biblical story.

In an unusually forthright interview for Israel's Channel 10 news, Gould said he detected a shift among the middle ground of British members of parliament towards a more critical view of Israel.

"Israelis might wake up in 10 years' time and find out that the level of understanding in the international community has suddenly changed, and that patience for continuing the status quo has reduced," he said.

"Support for Israel is starting to erode and that's not about these people on the fringe who are shouting loudly and calling for boycotts and all the rest of it. The interesting category are those members of parliament in the middle, and in that group I see a shift."

But, he added, Britain was "by no means unique" in its growing concern about the lack of progress towards peace. "Anyone who cares about Israel's standing in the world should be concerned about the erosion of popular support."

The shift was a result of Israeli government policies, Gould said, suggesting that it could not be countered or obscured by hasbara. The Hebrew word for explanation refers to efforts by the Israeli government and its supporters to promote a pro-Israel agenda and challenge what it sees as negative media coverage.

"The centre ground, the majority, the British public may not be expert, but they are not stupid and they see a stream of announcements about new building in settlements, they read stories about what's going on in the West Bank, they read about restrictions in Gaza. The substance of what's going wrong is really what's driving this," Gould said.

He added: "Israel is now seen as the Goliath and it's the Palestinians who are seen as the David." In the biblical story of David and Goliath, the young future king of Israel defeats the mighty Philistine warrior armed only with a sling and stones.

Yigal Palmor, spokesman for the Israeli foreign ministry, said: "The feelings of friendship among Israelis towards the British and Britain in general are as strong as they have always been. It makes us sad to hear the ambassador talking about a growing asymmetry. But diplomats don't just make comments, they convey messages. We have taken good note."

Dermot Kehoe, the chief executive of Bicom, an organisation that promotes Israel in the UK, said: "The Britain/Israel relationship has never been stronger in terms of trade, technology and security cooperation. Our polling shows the relationship is not eroding.

"The ambassador is right to highlight the importance of the peace process to the British public. However, Israel is not Goliath. It is a small country surrounded by threats from Iran to Hezbollah to Hamas. The Palestinians also share responsibilities to return to the negotiating table in the search for a lasting peace."

An Israeli official dismissed the David and Goliath allusion, saying it "does not describe anything near reality. It's a dishonest attempt to take a biblical myth and turn it upside down to make Israel look bad in Jewish terminology." In the past 30 years, he added, there had been other attempts, particularly by the Palestinians, "to dispossess Jews of our history".

The British embassy in Tel Aviv declined to comment on the interview.

At 40, Gould is the first Jewish person to serve as British ambassador to Israel. He said in an interview to mark his arrival in Israel in 2010 that being Jewish gave him "a visceral understanding of why Israel is so fixated on its own security and why security and peace mean so much to Israel and why it's a country which feels so keenly that it lives on the knife edge". He previously held posts in Tehran, Washington and Downing Street.

A second high-profile British diplomat last month said that the prospects for peace between Israel and the Palestinians were diminishing. In an article for Prospect, Tom Phillips, who was Gould's predecessor as ambassador to Israel, said both sides and the international community were responsible for "the chances of a solution to the long-running conflict [growing] bleaker".

Phillips, who recently retired after a stint as ambassador to Saudi Arabia, wrote: "This is the most complex conflict I know. And it may already be too late to achieve a two-state solution, even if that would have been the right solution, and the only possible solution."

Israel Bars Foreign Envoys From West Bank Meeting

New York Times

By JODI RUDOREN
Published: August 5, 2012

JERUSALEM — Israel on Sunday barred the delegations of five countries from attending a diplomatic conference in Ramallah, in the West Bank, upending plans by the Palestinian president to announce his intention to renew the Palestinians’ bid this September for enhanced status in the United Nations.

 A senior Israeli official said the delegations — from Algeria, Bangladesh, Cuba, Indonesia and Malaysia — were denied permission to use Israeli border crossings because their governments do not recognize the state of Israel. Palestinian officials said the delegations had planned to enter on a helicopter from Jordan, and called the decision “childish,” “crude,” “irresponsible” and “blackmail,” saying it symbolized the larger problem with Israel’s occupation of the West Bank territories it seized in 1967.

“Israel is really trying to not just lay a physical siege but also a political siege,” said Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the executive committee of the Palestine Liberation Organization. “We need to be able to move, to breathe, to act as a member of the community of nations. We cannot constantly be under the boot.”

 The 5 countries were among 12 so-called nonaligned nations sending delegations to Ramallah for an emergency conference on the Palestinian issue. The other seven — Colombia, Egypt, India, Senegal, South Africa, Zambia and Zimbabwe — declined to attend without their comrades. The 12 were expected to approve a “Ramallah Declaration,” which condemns Jewish settlement in the West Bank and supports the Palestinians’ bid to upgrade their status at the United Nations.

The 12 countries are among more than 100 that are not aligned with a particular power bloc. The meeting would have been the first of its kind in the West Bank since the establishment of the Palestinian Authority.

Riad al-Malki, the Palestinian foreign minister, said Saturday that President Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority would use his Sept. 27 speech at the United Nations to make his case for observer-state status, but would not ask the General Assembly to vote on the matter until late November. Last year, the United States vowed to veto Mr. Abbas’s statehood bid in the United Nations Security Council, and it has pressured Palestinian officials not to force the issue again before the American presidential election.

Unlike the Security Council, where the issue died in a deadlocked committee vote last year, the General Assembly is virtually guaranteed to support the Palestinians’ request, with perhaps 130 of its 193 members voting in favor of it. Observer-state status, akin to the Vatican’s status, is less than what the Palestinians requested from the Security Council, but would allow them access to institutions like the International Criminal Court, where they could, for example, pursue legal cases against Israeli settlers and officials for actions in the West Bank.

A senior Palestinian official, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the internal deliberations, said that the timing of the request would not be decided until after a Sept. 5 meeting of Arab nations, but that one leading possibility was to ask for a vote on Nov. 29, the 65th anniversary of the United Nations vote to partition the territory of Palestine into Jewish and Arab states. “Many diplomats have said it would be very difficult for their country on the 29th of November not to vote in favor,” the official said.

Khalil Shikaki, a Ramallah pollster and political analyst, said that public support among Palestinians for a United Nations bid had dropped to 73 percent in June from 83 percent last September, but that it still significantly outweighed enthusiasm for other options, like a unilateral declaration of statehood; nonviolent or violent resistance; and a dissolution of the Palestinian Authority.

“He is doing it because he is running out of other options,” Mr. Shikaki said of Mr. Abbas. “It will certainly give him greater legitimacy at home.”

The timing “gives him a little bit of bargaining power,” he added. After the November election, the American president will have “greater flexibility” to “begin a dialogue with Abbas, and Abbas can say, ‘O.K., I’m willing to postpone the vote if you give me a better option.’ ”

But Israel and the United States have both denounced the Palestinians’ decision to choose a United Nations path, saying that only direct negotiations can resolve the long-running conflict. An internal Palestinian document about the United Nations bid outlines a host of possible negative responses, including a freeze of United States aid to the Palestinian Authority and closing the P.L.O.’s diplomatic mission in Washington.

Israel, the document says, might seize Palestinian taxes it collects; further restrict the movements of Palestinians; suspend building permits in the parts of the West Bank under Israeli control; and take steps toward a unilateral withdrawal, essentially pre-defining the borders of a future Palestinian state.

The senior Israeli official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to do otherwise, said Israel saw the renewed United Nations action as a particular slap after several recent gestures, including the release of Palestinian bodies buried in Israel; the signing of a tax agreement with the Palestinian Authority; the advance of aid to ensure salaries were paid before Ramadan; and an agreement to develop a gas field off the Gaza shore.

“All this shows how much can be gained through dialogue, through discussion, through engagement,” he said. Returning to the United Nations is “the opposition of engagement, that’s going unilaterally,” he added. “I don’t see what good can come from this.”

The cancellation of the Ramallah conference came as an Israeli airstrike killed a Palestinian militant and seriously wounded another in the southern Gaza Strip town of Rafah.

The strike on a motorcycle, which came after two months of relative calm, killed Eid Oukal, 22, and wounded Ahmed Sai’d Isma’i, members of the Popular Resistance Committees, a militant group loyal to the Hamas movement, which governs Gaza, and also said to have ties to a separate group, the Tawhid and Jihad organization.

A statement by the Israeli Defense Force said that Mr. Isma’i was “among those responsible” for killing an Israeli construction worker along the Egypt border in June, and that both men were planning a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians on the border.

Late Sunday, two rockets fired from Gaza exploded in southern Israel, according to Agence France-Presse, but a military spokesman said they caused no casualties or damage.

Khaled Abu Aker contributed reporting from Ramallah, West Bank, and Fares Akram from Gaza City.