UN Security Council passes resolution on Gaza cease-fire

The UN Security Council on Thursday called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza that Arab nations hope will put an end to Israel’s 13-day offensive, but the United States abstained.

The resolution “stresses the urgency of and calls for an immediate, durable and fully respected ceasefire, leading to the full withdrawal of Israeli forces from Gaza.”

Israeli atrocities in Gaza: a political impasse and moral collapse

The premeditated slaughter yesterday of innocent men, women and children sheltering in the UN-run al-Fakhora school in Gaza is a war crime for which the Israeli government and military general staff are directly responsible. As atrocity piles on atrocity, it is clear that the Israeli military is using Hamas’s rocket attacks as the pretext for terrorising and subjugating the entire Palestinian population.

Beating the Drums of a Broader Middle East War – May 7, 2008

Israel, Syria, and Lebanon Prepare the “Home Fronts”

The Levant could be the starting point of a major international conflict with global ramifications and which could quickly spin out of control. Such a conflict could even involve the use of Israeli or American nuclear weapons against Iran and Syria. Syria has additionally declared that it is preparing for an inevitable war with Israel despite the fact that it believes that the chances of a war in 2008 are slim.

MSM: Bank of England cuts interest rates to lowest in more than 300 years

The bank rate has been reduced by 0.5 percentage points to 1.5pc after recent economic data suggested that the UK is in store for a deep recession this year as the house price slide, unemployment rises and spending slows.

‘Pro-Israel’ TV ads from group tied to Hagee, Abramoff

A graphic television advertisement pleading for aid to Israel, which has recently run duringCountdown with Keith Olbermann and other cable shows, is the product of a group with close ties to neoconservatives, the right-wing evangelical community and former associates of Jack Abramoff. 

MSM: 3,000 most wanted to fill jobs in the FBI

THESE might be harsh times in the jobs market, but it seems there is still plenty of work for people who can provide their own dark suits and sunglasses.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation, the United States’s famed law enforcement agency, is seeking to fill thousands of posts as it embarks on the biggest recruitment drive in its 101-year history.

MSM: Macy’s to close 11 stores, cuts forecast

CHICAGO (Reuters) – Macy’s Inc said on Thursday it will close 11 stores that are performing badly in the recession as it also cut its quarterly profit and sales forecasts due to steep markdowns during the holiday season.

MSM: Red Cross – Israel breaking int’l law, letting children starve in Gaza

The International Committee of the Red Cross on Thursday accused Israel of delaying ambulance access to the Gaza Strip and demanded it grant safe access for Palestinian Red Crescent ambulances to return to evacuate more wounded. 

Relief workers said they found four starving children sitting next to their dead mothers and other corpses in a house in a part of Gaza City bombed by Israeli forces, the Red Cross said on Thursday. 

MSM: Red Cross finds starving children with 12 corpses in Gaza ‘house of horrors’

The International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the Israeli military of “unacceptable” conduct and breaching international humanitarian law after discovering four emaciated children living next to the corpses of their mothers and other adults in bomb-shattered houses in Gaza City.

The ICRC said that it had spent four days seeking Israeli guarantees of safe passage so that it could gain access to the houses in the badly damaged Zaytun neighbourhood of the city. It was finally allowed to send in a rescue team and four Palestine Red Crescent Society ambulances yesterday afternoon and said today that what they found was shocking.

Video: This is Your Tax Dollars at Work! – Dennis Kucinich

January 07, 2009 C-SPAN

Martial Law, the Financial Bailout, and War

Paulson’s Financial Bailout

It is becoming clear that the bailout measures of late 2008 may have consequences at least as grave for an open society as the response to 9/11 in 2001. Many members of Congress felt coerced into voting against their inclinations, and the normal procedures for orderly consideration of a bill were dispensed with.

The excuse for bypassing normal legislative procedures was the existence of an emergency. But one of the most reprehensible features of the legislation, that it allowed Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson to permit bailed-out institutions to use public money for exorbitant salaries and bonuses, was inserted by Paulson after the immediate crisis had passed.

MSM: Pelicans fall out of sky from Mexico to Oregon

Pelicans suffering from a mysterious malady are crashing into cars and boats, wandering along roadways and turning up dead by the hundreds across the West Coast, from southern Oregon to Baja California, Mexico, bird-rescue workers say.

War and Natural Gas: The Israeli Invasion and Gaza’s Offshore Gas Fields

The military invasion of the Gaza Strip by Israeli Forces bears a direct relation to the control and ownership of strategic offshore gas reserves.

This is a war of conquest. Discovered in 2000, there are extensive gas reserves off the Gaza coastline.

British Gas (BG Group) and its partner, the Athens based Consolidated Contractors International Company (CCC) owned by Lebanon’s Sabbagh and Koury families, were granted oil and gas exploration rights in a 25 year agreement signed in November 1999 with the Palestinian Authority.