Received from the Iraq Freedom Congress: Lets Make Zaafaranyia a Safe and Peaceful Town For decades, people in the town of Saafaranyia, like all other Iraqi cities lived together in peace away from any kind of hatred and it was… Read moreIraq: civil resistance repudiates sectarian cleansing
Received from Houzan Mahmoud of the Worker-Communist Party of Iraq: Appeal to all human rights, labour and political organisations worldwide Support the protest movements of people in Kurdistan! Urgent action required to support thousands of people in Iraqi Kurdistan demanding… Read moreIraq: protests rock PUK zone
Iraq’s northern Kurdish autonomous zone, heretofore an island of relative stability, now also appears to be infected by the sectarian strife tearing apart the rest of the country. This attack took place in Basra, but the struggle for control of… Read moreIraq: PUK drawn into sectarian warfare
Another heroic blow by the Iraqi resistance… against Shi’ite pilgrims. From the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 11 (links and annotation added): NAJAF, Iraq — A suicide bomber struck Thursday at a checkpoint near a revered Shiite Muslim mosque here, killing… Read moreNajaf: Shrine of Ali once again target of sectarian warfare
For all of the endless talk about religion as a cause of war in the Middle East, it is rare that a media account mentions the actual resources that are being fought over. This welcome exception from the Los Angeles… Read moreIsraeli air-strikes on irrigation works; designs on Lebanese water seen
From The Forward, Aug. 11: JERUSALEM — Young Israeli activists are fighting back against Hezbollah — with a boycott on smoking hash. Hashish, or oil resin from marijuana plants, is one of the primary recreational drugs available in Israel. It’s… Read moreIsraeli stoners boycott Hezbollah hash
More insidious lies from the liberal media. We all know that global warming is just a myth. So what if people make money by stating this truth? Why does the liberal media hate capitalism?* From ABC News, July 27: Making… Read moreUtilities fund global warming skeptics
Talk about addictive behavior. 4,000 more US troops are sent into Baghdad, where they are mixing it up with Moktada al-Sadr’s militia in a small urban counter-insurgency operation. (LAT, Aug. 8) So 4,000 more troops can become so stressed out… Read more4,000 more US troops to Baghdad as atrocity trial commences
Another grisly paramilitary attack in the Colombian oil zone of Putumayo, in the Amazon basin along the Ecuadoran border. From the local Asociación Minga, Aug. 9 via the Colombian human rights network Red de Defensores (translation by WW4 REPORT): On… Read moreColombia: para terror in Putumayo
Trees, it seems, can be ideological. But the ideology, as Grace Slick once sang, “doesn’t mean shit to a tree.” Or, as Gertrude Stein might have had it, a tree is a tree is a tree. In other words, even… Read moreHezbollah rockets ravage forests of Galilee
The carnage in Lebanon has pushed Gaza from the headlines. But lest we forget… From Reuters, Aug. 8: Hospitals in the Gaza Strip have seen a significant increase in war casualties with severe injuries over the past month and are… Read moreGaza: hospitals overwhelmed
How perversely ironic. Last Wednesday, Aug. 2, was Tisha b’Av, the Jewish holiday commemorating the destruction of the Second Temple by the Romans in 70 CE, as well as several other calamities in Jewish history. Yet this year, Tisha b’Av… Read moreJerusalem: fear at the Temple Mount
