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Israel launches second Syria airstrike in two days – reports

8 May

NEW ISRAELI F16I SUFRA FIGHTERS ARRIVE IN ISRAEL

Strong blasts hit the outskirts of Syria’s capital early on Sunday, with reports saying that they were results of Israeli airstrikes on a military research center. Other sources suggest Damascus Airport was hit.

Massive explosions have been heard near Mount Qasioun in Damascus. The area hosts the Jamraya military research center, which came under Israeli attack earlier in January and marked the first incursion by Israel into Syrian airspace in six years.

A senior US official confirmed to NBC News that Israeli Air Force bombed the military research center.

The overnight Israeli strike reportedly targeted Iranian-supplied missiles to Lebanese guerrilla group Hezbollah, a Western intelligence source told Reuters. “In last night’s attack, as in the previous one, what was attacked were stores of Fateh-110 missiles that were in transit from Iran to Hezbollah,” the source said.

There have also been reports that the airstrikes targeted the 104th and 105th brigades of the Syrian Republican Guards, a source told RT Arabic.

A senior Israeli official confirmed to AFP that the Israeli airstrike on Syria was carried out near Damascus Airport overnight, targeting Iranian missiles destined for Lebanon’s Shiite Hezbollah movement.

“The attack was very close to the airport, the target was Iranian missiles which were destined for Hezbollah,” he said.

Mount Qasioun and Damascus Airport are located in different parts of the city, so if both were targets of airstrikes, this would likely require a more complex coordinated attack.

There are reports of gunfire shots heard in outskirts of Damascus, apparently indicating that some rebel groups tried to seize the opportunity and went into offensive amid the commotion caused by the airstrikes. However, no major breakthroughs on their part were reported.

The rebel offensive however may give the Syrian government grounds to further accuse Israel of supporting the Syrian armed opposition by saying they had foreknowledge of the Israeli airstrikes and were prepared to move out.

Syria’s Ministry of Health did not confirm if there were any deaths or injuries.

RT has managed to speak to local journalist Abdallah Mawazini, for a report on the latest developments.

“When the explosion happened in Damascus, all the houses were shaken. There was dust everywhere. Right now we’re receiving more information about the attack, which targeted the Jamraya military research center,” he told RT. “Everyone woke up, most of the people ran downstairs – to make sure they are safe. Now we are getting more information. The sound of the explosion was heard everywhere in Damascus. People are scared.”

Rumors fly as official info remains scarce

While no official casualty number has been made public, rumors on Syrian social media say that at least 300 soldiers stationed at Mount Qasioun have been killed and hundreds of others injured, Mawazini said. Many Syrians are calling for retaliation as the possibility of a full-scale war with Israel is speculated upon.

During the attack, one Israeli jet was reportedly shot down by Syria’s Air Force, according to Hezbollah’s Manar TV channel, citing security sources in Damascus. Two Israeli pilots of the downed IDF jet have been taken to a military area in Damascus under Assad’s control, according to reports in Lebanese and Syrian media.

War spillover into region feared

There has been no immediate official comment from Israel. “We don’t respond to this kind of report,” an Israeli military spokeswoman told Reuters.

Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened the security cabinet on Thursday night to approve the airstrike, a source told Reuters.

Israeli military has called up several thousand reservists earlier this week for what it called a “surprise” military exercise on its border with Lebanon, AP reported.

Earlier this week, the IDF deployed two Iron Dome batteries near the cities of Haifa and Safed in northern Israel, amid tensions along the border in that area.

Video footage uploaded onto the Internet showed a massive ball of fire rising into the sky. RT could not immediately verify the authenticity of the videos.

“Until we get a clear picture of what exactly was targeted it’s difficult to speculate why the targeting took place. I’d say that the US gave Israel the green light for the previous attack in past months and reportedly gave them an OK to launch future strikes. So this probably isn’t something that happens on the spur of the moment,” news editor at antiwar.com Jason Ditz told RT.

“Of course, Syria is unlikely, being in the middle of a civil war, to launch much of retaliation against Israel directly, but at the same time this probably undermines some of the more Islamist factions in the Syrian rebels especially with reports that they are benefiting from these airstrikes,” he added.

In the meantime Netanyahu is leaving on Sunday afternoon for a five-day trip to China that will focus on economic ties and regional issues such as Iran, Syria and Egypt. His departure however was delayed by two hours to make room for a security cabinet meeting, according to Haaretz newspaper.

Airstrikes escalating

The Israeli Air Force conducted an airstrike on Syrian territory on Friday, reportedly targeting a shipment of advanced missiles. Unnamed US officials claimed that the missiles had been en-route from Iran to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

Among the varying descriptions of the actual rockets, Fateh 110s have come up, which are advanced enough to strike Tel Aviv from southern Lebanon and, therefore perceived as a threat by Israel.

On Saturday, before Sunday’s overnight strike, US President Barack Obama stated that Israel has the right to defend against the transfer of advanced weapons to Hezbollah.

“I’ll let the Israeli government confirm or deny whatever strikes that they’ve taken,” Obama said in an interview with the Spanish-language network Telemundo.

Israel’s Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon earlier told journalists that any alleged delivery of Syrian weapons to Hezbollah would be considered a “red line.” Ya’alon then said Israel would not permit “sophisticated weapons” to fall into the hands of “Hezbollah or other rogue elements.”

Obama has also said in the past that the crossing of a ‘red line’ would warrant further action from outside. This was in relation to the possibility that Assad forces may have used chemical weapons against Syrians – a claim that is still being investigated, with no evidence so far.

Nonetheless, US Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel announced on Thursday that the US may now consider arming the Syrian opposition – something the US has shied away from openly doing in the two years since the start of the Syrian uprising.

Asked directly if the administration was reconsidering its position on that option, Hagel said “yes”.“Arming the rebels — that’s an option,” he said. “We must continue to look at options.”

The conflict in Syria has entered its third year. According to UN estimates, at least 70,000 people have been killed since the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in March 2011.

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Michigan GOP Pass Bullying Bill Giving ‘License To Bully’

5 May

mattby DAVID BADASH

Michigan Senate Republicans have passed a bullying bill — not an anti-bullying bill — that actually gives license to bully. In an Orwellian twist, the bill, which passed 26-11, with zero Democratic votes, allows kids to be bullied by anyone: teachers, fellow students, school employees, volunteers and parents, if they can provide a so-called religious or moral reason for their actions, giving the phrase, “the devil made me do it” sufficient validity.

The bill itself amounts to a white collar hate crime against all victims of anti-gay bullying motivated suicide, as it’s named for a Michigan teen who died by suicide as a result of bullying. As one lawmaker, Michigan State Senator Gretchen Whitmer said in an impassioned speech (video below), “the saddest and sickest irony of this whole thing is that it’s called ‘Matt’s Safe School Law’. And after the way that you’ve gutted it, it wouldn’t have done a damn thing to save Matt!”

The bill is named for Matt Epling (photo.)

The Michigan Messenger reports:

In a floor speech Minority Leader in the Senate Gretchen Whitmer (D-East Lansing) slammed the Republicans over the amended language.

“Here today you claim to be protecting kids and you’re actually putting them in more danger,” Whitmer said. “But bullying is not OK. We should be protecting public policy that protects kids — all kids, from bullies — all bullies. But instead you have set us back further by creating a blueprint for bullying.”

“Shockingly, Senate Bill 137 will do more harm than good. Senate Republicans left our students behind in favor of partisan politics and passed a bill that actually allows more bullying. Students and parents expect lawmakers to lead the charge against bullying, but instead Republicans made ideology more important than school safety,” said Emily Dievendorf, policy director of Equality Michigan. “Research clearly shows that only states with enumerated bills see a reduction in bullying. We need a bill that mentions the most affected populations and requires statewide reporting of bullying and harassment. SB 137 simply does nothing to reduce bullying in our schools.”

“To the families of the ten reported suicides that were directly linked to bullying and the countless others that have gone unreported, this bill adds insult to injury,” said Senator Glenn Anderson (D-Westland). “I have been working for years to pass legislation to provide a safe school environment for all of our students. This bill goes in the exact opposite direction and in fact provides a license to bully.”

The legislation passed 26-11. It now moves to the Republican-controlled House.

“I am ashamed that this could be Michigan’s bill on anti-bullying, when in fact it is a ‘bullying is OK in MI’ law,” said Kevin Epling, an East Lansing parent whose son committed suicide as a result of bullying. His comment was posted on his Facebook page.

In an interview he had more to say.

“For years the line has been ‘no protected classes,’ and the first thing they throw in — very secretly — was a very protected class, and limited them from repercussions of their own actions. This line has no purpose within this piece of legislation except to incite ‘religious bigotry’ within our schools. Schools are trying to build more tolerant students and future leaders, not automatons blindly following misguided adult leaders who seek a return to a 1950′s America,” Epling said. “This will only cause unrest in schools and give schools one more thing to deal with rather than trying to solve a problem. Also it is not a very well thought out ploy, as in some areas of the state the tables might be turned on the ‘anointed ones’ they seek to keep from being punished. This is just very wrong and the way it was done was wrong as well. It was bullying at its best.”

The Detroit Free Press notes:

Kevin Epling, whose son Matt Epling killed himself in 2002 after being bullied, said that the added language will allow anyone to bully a student and cite their religious beliefs. He has worked with lawmakers for years to developed anti-bullying legislation.

“This is just unconscionable. This is government-sanctioned bigotry,” said Epling of East Lansing, who said he is “ashamed” that lawmakers added the language at the last minute.

The DFP also notes that the bill addresses cyber-bullying but only when school district owned devices are the tools of the bullying.

Editor’s note: An earlier version of this article stated that Matt Epling died as a result of anti-gay bullying. It is not known what the nature of the bullying was, nor is it known that Matt Epling was gay, nor was there any attempt to suggest he was. Anti-gay bullying can be focused on anyone, regardless of their orientation, but our apologies for not being more clear.

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Mountain Dew Pulls Terrible Racist Ad

3 May
Tyler, the Creator Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

Tyler, the Creator
Photo by Frazer Harrison/Getty Images

By 

Mountain Dew recently released three new ads featuring a crazed goat voiced by rapper Tyler, the Creator, who was also the mastermind behind the commercials. The goat is seen attacking a waitress after she gives him the soda, fleeing a cop after getting caught with a car trunk full of the soda, and then threatening that waitress from behind the window of a criminal lineup after his arrest. That final ad has now been pulled by the beverage company amidst howls that it is racist and misogynistic. And those howls were right. What happened?

In the ad, the waitress, covered in bandages and hobbling on crutches, is asked by the detective to identify her assailant from a lineup of several black “thugs” and the goat. “You shoulda gave me some mo’,” he sleazily whispers to her, supposedly in reference to the soda. “Keep yo’ mouth shut,” he continues as she screams, frightened. “I’mma get outta here and I’mma do you up.” Such misguided attempts to make fun out of violence against women really have no place in commercials, as should be entirely obvious. What’s more, the ad reinforces racist stereotypes about black male aggression. Tyler’s manager, in a statement defending the rapper’s intentions, refers to his client as someone who “grew up on Dave Chappelle.” So did I. But Chappelle used a half-hour show and occasional hour-long comedy specials to get his (insightful, sometimes controversial) points across. Not 60-second TV spots pushing soda.

If you’re familiar with Tyler, the Creator, the face and leader of the hip-hop collective Odd Future, you know that shock and offense are the tools of his trade. Known for his violent lyrics (“You’ll see the meaning of stalking/ when I pop out the dark to find you/ And that new dude that you’re seeing with an attitude/ Then proceed to fuck up your evening”), the rapper is committed to crossing boundaries of taste and decency. “I’m not homophobic,” he once said of his music, “I just think ‘faggot’ hits and hurts people.” The rapper confounds critics, who have debated whether he’s a smart, intuitive artist, or a vacuous provocateur. I tend to the latter opinion. We can debate that. It’s a good argument for critics to have. And Tyler the Creator can create the music and “art” he wants to create. We don’t have to like it.

But when a corporation like PepsiCo—whose ad-makers were surely aware of Tyler’s music beforehand—decide to exploit that button-pushing for their own money-making ends, they deserve to be called out for it. Tyler tweeted in March: “They let my stupid ideas come to life, thanks Dew!” And they are indeed pretty stupid ideas. Everything in the ad is left on the surface, unexamined. The frightened, beaten white woman. The goat, coded as black, due to the “gangsta” vernacular it employs.

Perhaps PepsiCo were as ignorant as the people behind Ashton Kutcher’s Popchips ad, in which, for reasons still unknown, the actor donned brownface and a strained Indian accent. Ignorance is the go-to excuse companies employ when called out for their foolishness. And maybe they assumed that because Tyler himself is black, the ad itself wouldn’t be deemed racially offensive. (If so, that was a terrible and wrongheaded assumption to make.) What seems more likely is that they knew what they were in for and wanted to spark some controversy—the better to sell their soda.

Perhaps PepsiCo accomplished that. The other two commercials that are meant to precede the pulled ad are still in rotation. And those stories put the final ad into better context—but they don’t redeem it. Hopefully, other companies will think twice before giving birth to any more of Tyler’s empty ideas.

Update, May 2, 2013: This post originally included video of the three ads for Mountain Dew by Tyler the Creator. PepsiCo has had them removed.

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Video: Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq With Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers

8 Apr

Video: Blackout TV: US media turn blind eye to Gitmo hunger strike

25 Mar

Obama makes fun of heckler asking “who killed Rachel Corrie?”

22 Mar

 by Linah Alsaafin

US President Barack Obama arrived in the West Bank city of Ramallah by helicopter yesterday and gave yet another insipid speech. The Palestinian Authority’s security forces, collaborating with US forces, designated a huge security perimeter with the PA compound — the Muqataa — in the middle. Some of the city’s busiest streets were closed off and inaccessible to those not living there. As helicopters filled the skies from the morning up until late afternoon, I was stuck at home working during the nine-hour lockdown, all too aware of the soldiers stationed on the rooftops around my building.

Protestors tried to march from Manara Square in the city center to the Muqataa yet again yesterday morning, but were stopped by hundreds of policemen and riot guards. The speech Obama gave at the compound was not littered with Arabic phrases (a speech he delivered the previous day was littered with Hebrew phrases) and gave the usual empty and irrational rhetoric of the US supporting an independent sovereign Palestinian state alongside a Jewish state that will only come into fruition through direct negotiations with Israel.

He also tried to play down the Jewish-only settlements by mentioning that the US does not consider them as “constructive” or “appropriate” for the advancement of peace, but refused to call for their dismantlement or use strong language to call out their illegal nature, which prompted Mahmoud Abbas to uncharacteristically interject and describe them as illegitimate and more than an obstacle to peace.

Obama’s next stop was at the Jerusalem International Convention Center, where he gave a long-winded sycophantic speech to more than a thousand Israeli students and academics from different universities. It was during this speech that Obama laid out his formula for peace: Palestinians, who have shown a willingness to renounce violence — as if violence is inherent to Arabs — should accept Israel, their colonizer and occupier, as a democratic and Jewish state. In return, Israel should halt its illegal settlement building.

Twenty-five-year-old Rabeea Eid, a student activist and member of the National Democratic Assembly, had heard and had enough. He stood up in the middle of Obama’s speech and called him out on three issues that summarized the flaccid nature and flagrant inefficacy of Obama’s visit to occupied Palestine.

“Did you really come here for peace or to give Israel more weapons to kill and destroy the Palestinian people? Did you happen to see the apartheid wall on your way here?”

Grovelling

What is the point of Obama’s visit? It is to bribe the PA to maintain its repression of Palestinian protests and “unrest” to uphold Israel’s security and to pressure it to re-enter bilateral negotiations with Israel without any pre-conditions?

The unnecessary bit is the Israeli side to the question. Obama wants to fall short from supplicating himself fully on the ground to an extremist government, in which the defense minister has likened Palestinians to cancer and the housing minister has pledged to construct more settlements and the minister of trade, industry and labor wants to annex more than half of the West Bank. US foreign policy has always favored and strongly supported the Israeli occupation and rewarded it with billions of dollars in military aid annually — that is nothing new. From 1949 until the present day, the US has given Israel more than $115 billion.

The level of groveling, the cringe-worthy speeches and recycled propaganda and lies of depicting Israel as a small pioneering country that started off with its back against the wall amid a sea of hostile enemies alternates between tedium and sarcastic amusement. Even David Ben Gurion recognized that Israel is a colonial enterprise, nothing more and nothing less. Is it necessary to out-Zionize even the most ardent Zionists just to reaffirm support for Israel?

Of course, Obama didn’t see the apartheid wall on his way from Ramallah to Jerusalem; he was too busy reveling in orgasmic pleasure at Israel’s innovative technology (with bases set up on occupied lands), its vibrant ancient history, and the mighty brave “Israeli Defense Forces” (who by the way arrested 30 schoolchildren on Wednesday in the old city of Hebron.) Eid continued:

“There are Palestinians sitting in this hall. This state should be for all of its citizens, not a Jewish state only.”

Ah, the conundrum of being Jewish and democratic. Twenty percent of Israel’s population, more than 1.5 million Palestinians, are citizens of Israel. Where exactly do they fit?  Surely not as third class citizens battling an institutionalized racist and discriminatory society on a daily basis, or the more than 60 laws issued by Israel since 1949 that discriminate against Palestinians in the education, public services, and civil rights sectors, to name a few. Eid also said:

“Who killed Rachel Corrie? Rachel Corrie was killed by your money and weapons!”

Not a word

Some could say this is the nub of the relationship between Israel and the US. Rachel Corrie, an American citizen, was killed ten years ago by a bulldozer as she tried to protect a Palestinian family’s home from being demolished in Rafah, Gaza. Nine years after her murder, an Israeli court ruled that she was to blame for her own death. The US administration didn’t say a word.

Does the US allow Israel to continue with its impunity and grave violations of human rights and give it unconditional support because three thousand years ago, Jews were exiled from the holy land? Or — as Obama correctly noted in his opening speech on Tuesday — because of the similarities between the US and Israel: both colonizing entities that committed (in Israel’s case, continues to commit) massacres and ethnic cleansing of the population indigenous to the land they settled on?

“I couldn’t stand listening to the speech any more,” Rabeea Eid, who writes for the Arabs48 website, said. “It was a very Zionist speech that made other speeches by Zionist figures pale in comparison.”

Rabeea was dragged out of the hall by security guards, who handed him over to the police. They handcuffed him, threatened him, and attempted to intimidate him. They told him he was under arrest. A Fox News journalist had followed the security guards outside and wanted to know what Rabeea had said to Obama. Soon afterwards, other journalists and reporters followed suit, asking him questions.

“Baffled”

“You can say that the media circus is what got me released,” Rabeea told The Electronic Intifada a few hours later. “I felt it was important to show Palestinian voices within the ’48 territories do not welcome Obama.

“[Obama’s visit] in its entirety clearly shows the bias the US has towards Israel. I obviously wasn’t expecting Obama to talk about the Palestinian citizens of Israel and the discrimination against them. Yet I’m baffled that even after his pro-Israel speeches, the Palestinian leadership continues to welcome him, thus supporting the US hegemony in the Middle East and its policies around the world.”

(Speaking of bafflement, Mahmoud Abbas presented Obama with a painting of Abraham Lincoln and Obama. Was it a cunning message that Obama wouldn’t be where he is today if Lincoln didn’t “free all the slaves” back then?)

In response to Rabeea’s interruption of his speech, Obama laughed and made fun of the situation, to raucous applause and standing ovations from the audience.

“No, no — this is part of the lively debate that we talked about,” he joked. “This is good. You know, I have to say we actually arranged for that, because it made me feel at home. I wouldn’t feel comfortable if I didn’t have at least one heckler.”

“A friend showed me a clip of what he said after I was taken outside,” Rabeea said. “It wasn’t very clear because the video was on a cell phone, but it tells you a lot about how Obama decided to make fun after I mentioned Rachel Corrie, the contradiction of being a Jewish and democratic state, and the weapons the US funds Israel with.”

For Rabeea, he considers the most crucial thing is for Obama’s visit not to go by without further “heckling.”

“The most important part is for this visit not to go on in a normal manner,” he said.

Protestors in Bethlehem already set fire to tires last night and burned the US flags hung at the entrance to town where Obama is expected to pass tomorrow.

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‘If you were a man, we’d kill you’: Captive journalist tells RT how she escaped Syrian rebels

17 Mar

anhar-kochneva

‘I couldn’t bear it any longer’, recalls Anhar Kochneva. The Ukrainian journalist who escaped Syrian rebels five months after she was kidnapped told RT about what she had to go through while in captivity and how she managed to run away.

Kochneva, a journalist and blogger who reported as a freelancer for Russian and Ukrainian news outlets, was captured at the beginning of October 2012 near the Syrian city of Homs.

The kidnappers – members of the Free Syrian Army – repeatedly threatened to kill her if the US $50 million ransom was not paid. The sum was later reduced to reportedly US$ 300,000. The rebels said they had planned to put Kochneva to death on December 16, but decided to “give her a second chance.”

Several world powers – including Russia, the US and France – as well as international human right organizations, urged the Syrian opposition to release the woman. 

She escaped on Monday after spending more than 150 days in captivity, which damaged her health. The journalist walked for 15 kilometers in the mountainous area before she was lucky to meet people who helped her to get to the region controlled by the Syrian army.

Kochneva says it was only “thanks to God” that she is free again. In an interview with RT Arabic the journalist shared details of her escape.

RT: How did you manage to escape from captivity?  Who helped you do that?

Anhar Kochneva: No one, but Allah. Though, I know that many tried to help. The problem was that no one knew where I was – even the militants from the same group who were visiting that house did not know that I was kept there.

After I was kidnapped, my health seriously declined and there was a danger that I wouldn’t get cured and simply die. Or [the militants] would kill me, or the [Syrian] army would shoot me down accidentally when returning fire on the militants. It was really dangerous. I spent five months there.

RT: Could you tell in more detail about the escape? Was there security at the door?

AK: I only had to open the door and get outside. I started thinking about the best time to do that so that no one would see me because they could kill me. At night they would open fire every time they noticed any kind of movement and didn’t know what that was – a human or anything else. I had a million things to consider as it was a very dangerous action. If they had caught me, they would definitely beat me and toughen the conditions they kept me in. Angered, they could even kill me.

I opened the door which was locked from inside the house because the guards were there. I got to the street and went down the road. I kept walking and walking.

RT: So, the guards were sleeping at that time?

AK: Yes, yes. They were sleeping.

RT: They simply fell asleep and left the key in the door lock?

AK: Yes. They thought I wouldn’t do anything. Actually, there wasn’t even a key there – just a usual bolt.

So, they were sleeping and I walked out. I wanted to find someone on the road to tell them who I was and ask for help. Of course, there was a danger that they would give me away.

Thank God, I met people who helped me to get out of that district. I knew nothing about that area, I had no idea where were militants, where were [government troops], where were mines. I went across fields where mines could be.

RT: How were you captured? Did you recognize people who did that? How did they treat you all the time you were kept hostage?

AK: Sincerely, for first 50 days I had a very good opinion of them. And they didn’t think that I could go anywhere. For instance, a guy who kept watch over me used to support me most of the time. He would even give me his food and stay hungry himself.

But then they got tired of me staying there because they couldn’t leave and do something else. Sometimes they had to spend their own money on me as they were not given a budget to provide me with food, water or clothes. I was dressed in summer clothes, but when winter came I wanted warm clothes.

My presence there turned into burden for them and they felt angry with me, started abusing me, hitting without a reason and so on. They got harsher with me. They began to close the door. For instance, I needed to use the loo, but the door was closed and no one would open it for me. What did I have to do? I couldn’t bear that any longer.

To be honest, I know that they were saying “If you were a man, we would kill you.” And, naturally, they demanded a ransom for me. That’s why they treated me better than those who they simply wanted to slaughter.

Source

IDF teargas int’l journalists covering peaceful protest in West Bank, incl RT crew

7 Mar
Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt

Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt

Several international journalists, including an RT cameraman, have suffered from teargas as IDF have launched teargas bombs at the media crews outside Ofer Prison, West Bank. In recent weeks protests outside the facility have left scores of injured.

The RT crew, together with other international teams were documenting nonviolent protests near Ofer prison, which has been the site of numerous clashes with Israeli authorities in recent months, leading to hundreds of injuries. A recent Palestinian prisoner’s death has instigated an escalation in already-bitter relations.

On Thursday the activists had been peacefully demonstrating against the death of a young Palestinian man, who sustained injuries during clashes in the village of Abud, north of Jerusalem, and had unfurled banners and were waving flags.

“The rally was not numerous. No one [from the] activists was going to throw stones [at IDF soldiers] or initiate clashes,” RT’s correspondent Yafa Staiti said.

RT cameraman following the attack (Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt)

RT cameraman following the attack (Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt)

IDF forces asked both the journalists and protesters to retreat 60 meters, and as the journalists began to stand back, Israeli elements started to fire the teargas at both them and the protesters.

The RT crew says that after their withdrawal, the forces proceeded to fire teargas at the car carrying them off.

“There was no necessity to use teargas. As a result our cameraman and dozens of other people, among those there have been correspondents of Maan and Sky News, as well as others sitting in TV crews’ cars, suffered from suffocation after [a] teargas grenade exploded,” Staiti added.

Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt

Image from twitter.com @yafastaiti_rt

On Wednesday, 15 civilians were also wounded when police attempted crowd dispersal with rubber bullets. Local press also reported the use of teargas. Among those injured included the head of Palestinian Prisoners Society, Qaddura Fares.

RT’s correspondent said they suppose “A day of Palestinian rage” may take place Friday “as well as [a] mass march during [the] funeral of that young man after Friday’s prayer.”

“It can end, as it often happens, with clashes between demonstrators and IDF.”

Over 2,000 Palestinians are currently being detained in Israeli jails and several are on a long-term hunger strike and becoming increasingly weak.

Many Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails are in ‘administrative detention,’ which is a practice whereby a suspect can be held indefinitely without charge or the chance to face trial.

Source

“We Saw Your Boobs” celebrates rape on film

3 Mar

Seth MacFarlane during the Oscars on Sunday Feb. 24, 2013, in Los Angeles. (Credit: AP/Chris Pizzello)

Hey, Seth MacFarlane, did you know many of those “boob” scenes you sang about were depictions of sexual assault?

BY 

Seth MacFarlane has made millions off being an immature man-child. In fact, it was the success of his particular brand of gross-out offensive humor (served with a smile, of course) that got him the Oscar gig in the first place.

So it came as little surprise, then, when base misogyny and racism dominated MacFarlane’s performance on Sunday. And while the musical opener “We Saw Your Boobs” has been called immature (true) and sexist (also true) — it wasn’t just a harmless roundup of spicy movie scenes. Four of the films MacFarlane crooned about featured nudity during or immediately following violent depictions of rape and sexual assault, stripped of their context and played for laughs. Scarlett Johansson found herself on the list because of a real-life violation: Her nude photos were stolen from her phone and leaked online.

Oh, your privacy was invaded and your breasts were splashed across the Internet against your will? That is hilarious!

So let’s talk about those “boob” scenes and see how “funny” they play in context.

“The Accused”

Strange that one of the earliest films to look at a pervasive culture of violence against women — from barroom rape to verbal harassment, victim blaming to police harassment — should be used by MacFarlane to get a snicker from the audience. The film is also loosely based on the real-life gang rape of Cheryl Araujo, who was brutally assaulted by four men in a Massachusetts bar while other patrons passively watched it happen. Apparently they didn’t think violence against women was that big of a deal, either.

It’s during flashbacks to this bar rape scene that we see Jodie Foster’s breasts — as they are ripped from inside her shirt and violently exposed to her assailants.

Here is what film critic Roger Ebert had to say about the film in his 1988 review:

“Verbal sexual harassment, whether crudely in a saloon back room or subtly in an everyday situation, is a form of violence — one that leaves no visible marks but can make its victims feel unable to move freely and casually in society. It is a form of imprisonment.”

Here is MacFarlane’s take in 2013: “We saw your boobs.”

“Boys Don’t Cry”

Yet another film based on a tragic true story that made its way into MacFarlane’s tune. This time, the target of the sexual assault was transman Brandon Teena, who was later fatally shot and stabbed by his assailants, Tom Nissen and John Lotter.

Do you know when we saw Hilary Swank’s “boobs” in “Boys Don’t Cry”? During a medical examination after Swank’s Teena had been brutally raped on the trunk of a car. It’s not sexy. A doctor examine’s Teena’s breasts — which are swollen and dark with bruising — while the character flinches in pain.

Swank’s portrayal of Teena brought the experiences — and the shocking violence committed against — transmen and women to mainstream audiences for the first time. But who cares about context? Certainly not MacFarlane, and certainly not his producers at the Oscars.

“Monster’s Ball”

Another critically acclaimed and deeply controversial film that audiences had a giggle at on Sunday. Halle Berry won an Oscar for her performance in “Monster’s Ball,” depicting a young black widow in a relationship with Billy Bob Thornton, an abusive, racist prison guard who also participated in the execution of her husband. The movie explores — uncomfortably and clumsily — race, poverty, codependence and human loneliness.

And yes, we also see Berry’s breasts in the film. Tim Wise of Racialicious wrote about the subtext of Berry and Thornton’s relationship — and their explicit sex scenes — back in 2010:

“Not only was it an aggressive scene in which the line between consent and resistance wasn’t clear at all, but it was, in the eyes of many people, a scene that triggered any number of real emotional memories of a whole history of white male aggression towards black women, and the sexualization of black women.”

“Monster”

“Monster” has long been a punch line for “getting ugly to win an Oscar” jokes, but MacFarlane broke with type to use the film — based on the true story of Aileen Wuornos, a former prostitute who was executed in Florida in 2002 for murdering six men — to talk about Charlize Theron’s breasts.

Other than a sex scene with Wuornos’s fictionalized partner (played by Christina Ricci), the only time we see Theron’s breasts is in a quick shot in the bathroom, following a brutal rape at the hands of a john, in which she examines her badly beaten body. The “boobs” that MacFarlane sang an ode to are made up to appear badly swollen and red from the multiple times she was kicked in the stomach by her abuser. The nudity isn’t there for cheap thrills, it’s a snapshot of a terribly beaten body that should evoke horror — not giggles — from the viewer.

Scarlett Johansson

Johansson isn’t even on MacFarlane’s list for a film she made. Instead, she made her way into the song because of a real-life invasion of privacy, where her nude photos were stolen from her phone and leaked to the Internet. That is an actual, not fictional violation, and MacFarlane played it for laughs.

In an interview with Vogue magazine, Johansson made clear that there was nothing funny about it:

“It was others. I don’t want to be a victim and say, ‘Oh, well’ and just hide my head in shame. Somebody stole something from me… It’s sick. I don’t want people like that to slide.”

It is sick, and people shouldn’t let it slide. Much less resurrect it two years later before an audience of millions.

It’s not humorless to call MacFarlane and his producers out for what was a crass celebration of violence against women — both real and fictitious. It’s low, it’s violent and there is nothing funny about it. Even coming from the creator of “Family Guy” and “Ted.”

Source

Video: Niger approves construction of US spy drone base

27 Feb

Police accused of humiliating transgender woman during Soho Arrest

26 Feb

PoliceBrutalityTrans

Police officers allegedly ripped a wig from a transgender woman’s head and emptied the contents of her handbag onto the street.

Video footage has emerged of officers holding down Jose Dos Santos, 49, as they arrested her on Soho’s Wardour Street for a public order offence.

Gay Star News spoke to two people who claim to have witnessed the incident.

They said: “The victim then had her wig ripped from her head, her handbag and purse literally emptied out on the road, so her personal belongings were damaged and scattered around her.

In further allegations they added: “ Police officers mocked her for her dress and having feminine items in her handbag shouting at her: ‘You’re not normal. We’ll let you get you up in a few minutes but you need to act like a normal human being.’”

Speaking to The Independent, the Metropolitan Police said a complaint had been received and that the incident was being investigated by the Directorate of Professional Standards, the body that looks into the conduct of officers when allegations are made against them.

Dos Santos was charged under Section 5 of the Public Order Act and appeared by virtual link in Westminster Magistrates Court yesterday where she was bailed until May.

According to those present, officers arrested the woman after she vomited outside the Le Pain Quotidien restaurant shortly after 3pm.

A crowd gathered and people filmed the incident on their shot video of the arrest on their phones.

A video uploaded to YouTube shows Dos Santos being held on the floor.

A police officer is heard to say: “If you keep putting your legs up I’m going to keep standing on them. Just relax”.

Source

CIA Admits Full Monitoring of Facebook and Other Social Networks

10 Feb

700_20f7cd86b97176bbb1dd58792ac4adb3February 8, 2013 – Most people use social media like Facebook and Twitter to share photos of friends and family, chat with friends and strangers about random and amusing diversions, or follow their favorite websites, bands and television shows.

But what does the US military use those same networks for? Well, we can’t tell you: That’s “classified,” a CENTCOM spokesman recently informed Raw Story.

One use that’s confirmed, however, is the manipulation of social media through the use of fake online “personas” managed by the military. Recently the US Air Force had solicited private sector vendors for something called “persona management software.” Such a technology would allow single individuals to command virtual armies of fake, digital “people” across numerous social media portals.

These “personas” were to have detailed, fictionalized backgrounds, to make them believable to outside observers, and a sophisticated identity protection service was to back them up, preventing suspicious readers from uncovering the real person behind the account. They even worked out ways to game geolocating services, so these “personas” could be virtually inserted anywhere in the world, providing ostensibly live commentary on real events, even while the operator was not really present.

When Raw Story first reported on the contract for this software, it was unclear what the Air Force wanted with it or even if it had been acquired. The potential for misuse, however, was abundantly clear.

A fake virtual army of people could be used to help create the impression of consensus opinion in online comment threads, or manipulate social media to the point where valuable stories are suppressed.

Ultimately, this can have the effect of causing a net change to the public’s opinions and understanding of key world events.

Wired.com published an article how US spies are making investments in the Company In-Q-Tel in order to monitor your blogs and read your tweets.

In-Q-Tel, the investment arm of the CIA and the wider intelligence community, is putting cash into Visible Technologies, a software firm that specializes in monitoring social media. It’s part of a larger movement within the spy services to get better at using “open source intelligence” – information that’s publicly available, but often hidden in the flood of TV shows, newspaper articles, blog posts, online videos and radio reports generated every day.

Visible crawls over half a million web 2.0 sites a day, scraping more than a million posts and conversations taking place on blogs, online forums, Flickr, YouTube, Twitter and Amazon. (It doesn’t touch closed social networks, like Facebook, at the moment.) Customers get customized, real-time feeds of what’s being said on these sites, based on a series of keywords.

“That’s kind of the basic step – get in and monitor,” says company senior vice president Blake Cahill.

Then Visible “scores” each post, labeling it as positive or negative, mixed or neutral. It examines how influential a conversation or an author is. (“Trying to determine who really matters,” as Cahill puts it.) Finally, Visible gives users a chance to tag posts, forward them to colleagues and allow them to response through a web interface.

In-Q-Tel says it wants Visible to keep track of foreign social media, and give spooks “early-warning detection on how issues are playing internationally,” spokesperson Donald Tighe tells Danger Room.

Of course, such a tool can also be pointed inward, at domestic bloggers or tweeters. Visible already keeps tabs on web 2.0 sites for Dell, AT&T and Verizon. For Microsoft, the company is monitoring the buzz on its Windows 7 rollout. For Spam-maker Hormel, Visible is tracking animal-right activists’ online campaigns against the company.

“Anything that is out in the open is fair game for collection,” says Steven Aftergood, who tracks intelligence issues at the Federation of American Scientists. But “even if information is openly gathered by intelligence agencies it would still be problematic if it were used for unauthorized domestic investigations or operations. Intelligence agencies or employees might be tempted to use the tools at their disposal to compile information on political figures, critics, journalists or others, and to exploit such information for political advantage. That is not permissible even if all of the information in question is technically ‘open source.’”

Visible chief executive officer Dan Vetras says the CIA is now an “end customer,” thanks to the In-Q-Tel investment. And more government clients are now on the horizon. “We just got awarded another one in the last few days,” Vetras adds.

Tighe disputes this – sort of. “This contract, this deal, this investment has nothing to do with any agency of government and this company,” he says. But Tighe quickly notes that In-Q-Tel does have “an interested end customer” in the intelligence community for Visibile. And if all goes well, the company’s software will be used in pilot programs at that agency. “In pilots, we use real data. And during the adoption phase, we use it real missions.”

Neither party would disclose the size of In-Q-Tel’s investment in Visible, a 90-person company with expected revenues of about $20 million in 2010. But a source familiar with the deal says the In-Q-Tel cash will be used to boost Visible’s foreign languages capabilities, which already include Arabic, French, Spanish and nine other languages.

Visible has been trying for nearly a year to break into the government field. In late 2008, the company teamed up with the Washington, DC, consulting firm Concepts & Strategies, which has handled media monitoring and translation services for U.S. Strategic Command and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others. On its website, Concepts & Strategies is recruiting “social media engagement specialists” with Defense Department experience and a high proficiency in Arabic, Farsi, French, Urdu or Russian. The company is also looking for an “information system security engineer” who already has a “Top Secret SCI [Sensitive Compartmentalized Information] with NSA Full Scope Polygraph” security clearance.

The intelligence community has been interested in social media for years. In-Q-Tel has sunk money into companies like Attensity, which recently announced its own web 2.0-monitoring service. The agencies have their own, password-protected blogs and wikis – even a MySpace for spooks. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence maintains an Open Source Center, which combs publicly available information, including web 2.0 sites. Doug Naquin, the Center’s Director, told an audience of intelligence professionals in October 2007 that “we’re looking now at YouTube, which carries some unique and honest-to-goodness intelligence…. We have groups looking at what they call ‘citizens media’: people taking pictures with their cell phones and posting them on the internet. Then there’s social media, phenomena like MySpace and blogs.”

But, “the CIA specifically needs the help of innovative tech firms to keep up with the pace of innovation in social media. Experienced IC [intelligence community] analysts may not be the best at detecting the incessant shift in popularity of social-networking sites. They need help in following young international internet user-herds as they move their allegiance from one site to another,” Lewis Shepherd, the former senior technology officer at the Defense Intelligence Agency, says in an e-mail. “Facebook says that more than 70 percent of its users are outside the U.S., in more than 180 countries. There are more than 200 non-U.S., non-English-language microblogging Twitter-clone sites today. If the intelligence community ignored that tsunami of real-time information, we’d call them incompetent.”

Source

Native American Shuts Down Anti-Illegal Immigrant Protest: ‘Y’all Are All Illegal!’

7 Feb

native-americanBy 

At a Tucson, Ariz., anti-illegal immigrant rally, a group of self-righteous protesters were literally put on mute after a Native American decided to drop some knowledge on who the real “illegals” are.

Pushing a toddler in a stroller, a rightfully irritated self-identified Native American began yelling at the group, saying:

“Y’all f*cking illegal. You’re all illegal. You’re all illegal!

“We didn’t invite none of you here!

“We’re the only native Americans here.

“That’s right. We’re the only native Americans here. Y’all are all illegal. We didn’t invite none of you! We didn’t invite none of you here. Get on, get on, get on with your bogus arguments.”

Visibly shaken, an unfortunate protestor quickly found himself in the cross hairs of the unexpected lesson when the Native American turned his attention toward his diminutive flag and now-increasingly inappropriate sign:

“We should have put that sign up when you son of the b*tches came!”

“That [the flag] represents blood, that represents blood spilled by Native Americans protecting this land from the invaders. Yeah, that’s right, you don’t want to hear the G*d damn truth! Get on, b*tch! All the Native Americans you killed, you plant your houses here. That’s the truth.”

Source

Homeless Man Choked to Death by Store Manager for Stealing Toothpaste

18 Jan

cvs-store

CVS – the once thought of drug and convenience store will now be known as the store that defends its manager’s rights to kill shoplifters…even those that are caught taking a single tube of toothpaste. Death for toothpaste. Would anyone ever exchange $5.00 toothpaste tube for their life?

This incident occurred in Chicago back in 2010.  A homeless man, Anthony Kyser was choked to death after a pharmacy manager chased him out of a CVS store for stealing toothpaste….and today, the chilling video of the incident has surfaced.

The grainy surveillance video from the alley near the Little Village CVS was obtained from a source by DNAinfo.com Chicago. The video shows Kyser being surrounded by the CVS manager and several other people who were helping the manager hit, kick, and pile on top of the already subdued man.

Charges were never brought up against Pedro as the police originally stated, “The video was reviewed by detectives as part of their investigation at the time,” Chicago Police Department spokeswoman Lt. Maureen Biggane said. “It was determined that criminal charges were not warranted.”

Hmmm… a man steals a tube of toothpaste, he’s killed, and that doesn’t warrant further investigation or charges?

Anthony Kyser was a 35-year old homeless man who had a family, and that family is seeking some justice. Anthony’s mother, Ann Marie Kyser, filed a lawsuit claiming the store manager committed battery and that CVS is liable. That case is still pending in Cook County Circuit Court, with an outcome not likely to make anyone happy.

Jack Kennedy, an attorney with Cochran, Cherry, Givens, Smith & Montgomery, the law firm representing Kyser’s mother said:

I think it’s appalling that CVS maintains that an employee can choke someone to death if they steal from a CVS store.

A CVS spokesman would only tell DNAinfo.com that the company does not comment on pending litigation.

However,through his attorney, Villanova acknowledges he “held onto Anthony Kyser on the ground while defending himself after being struck,” according to court records. The video shows no strike to Pedro.

In court filings, Villanova acknowledges his “arm came into contact with decedent Anthony Kyser’s throat” and he heard Kyser say “I can’t breathe.”

Soon after Kyser’s death, an outraged U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, a Chicago Democrat, sent a letter to Cook County State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez demanding action for the “brutality visited upon a homeless man.”

Rush now says his “calls for justice” were not heeded. Now, after being shown the video by DNAinfo.com, he said he hopes its release will reopen the investigation.

Source

Video: Saudi-Backed Terrorists in Syria Declare War on NATO-Backed Terrorists in Syria

17 Jan
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