On Tuesday, hundreds of students in eastern Afghanistan staged the first significant protest in response to the deaths of 16 civilians, shouting angry slogans against the U.S. and the American soldier suspected in the killings. (March 13 2012)
Afghanistan: Five Children Among 20 Killed In NATO Air Strikes
May 7, 2012
Children among 20 killed in ISAF air raids
By Zainullah and Abdul Latif Ayubion
LASHKARGAH/QALA-I-NAW: A mother and her five children were among 20 civilians killed in two separate airstrikes in the southern Helmand and northwestern Badghis provinces, officials said on Monday.
The first incident took place late on Friday when an International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) helicopter missed its target and dropped bombs on a house in the Fatih Mohammad Pech area of Sangin district in Helmand, the governor’s spokesman said.
Daud Ahmadi told Pajhwok Afghan News instead of striking a militant hideout, the foreign forces killed a mother, her three daughters and two sons. The governor’s office has dispatched a delegation to the area to investigate the incident.
Governor Gulab Mangal condemned the mistaken raid and asked NATO-led troops to immediately probe the killing, his spokesman added.
…
Separately, 14 civilians were killed and six others wounded in another airstrike by the international forces in Bala Murghab district of northwestern Badghis province.
The raid occurred on Sunday night in the Nawboor village, said acting provincial police chief Col. Ghulam Nabi. The incident was under investigation, he added.
Foreign soldiers, trying to capture Taliban commander Mullah Abdullah Soori, who sought refuge in the village, bombed the place and killed 14 civilians and injured seven others.
“The helicopters of foreign forces bombed two houses in the village,” a resident said on condition of anonymity. He had no details about casualties.
Karzai says Afghan civilian deaths could hinder U.S. pact: here.
US bombardments claimed the lives of dozens of Afghan civilians, including women and children, prompting a formal protest from Karzai that such actions would render the recent pact he signed with Obama “meaningless”: here.
Fracking drives pronghorn herds out of Wyoming habitat
18:35 04 May 2012 by Peter Aldhous
Meet the latest player in the fractious debate over “fracking” for natural gas: the pronghorn. Disturbance from drilling is causing the fleet-footed ungulates to vacate their prime wintering grounds in Wyoming.
In winter, pronghorn (Antilocapra americana) migrate from higher ground to the Upper Green River basin – which in recent years has experienced a boom in gas drilling.
To study the effects of this development, a team led by Jon Beckmann, of the Wildlife Conservation Society, based in Bozeman, Montana, put GPS collars on 125 female pronghorn and tracked their movement.
Between 2005 and 2009 the researchers documented a five-fold decline in the use of habitat patches predicted to be of the highest quality, as the animals avoided areas disturbed by drilling. “We are seeing the abandonment of crucial winter range,” says Beckmann.
Pronghorn populations haven’t yet begun to fall, but a parallel study of the area’s mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), a more sedentary species, doesn’t bode well: its numbers declined by 50 per cent over the same period.
By 2009 more than 3300 wells had been drilled in the Upper Green River basin, many of which are fracked, and thousands more are expected to follow. The researchers want the federal Bureau of Land Management, which must approve drilling operations, to minimise wildlife disturbance. That could be done by concentrating wells onto fewer drill pads, and using “directional drilling” techniques to extend the wells horizontally.
Silencing Communities: How the Fracking Industry Keeps Its Secrets. Mike Ludwig, Truthout: “The ‘Rogers’ family signed a surface-use agreement with a fracking company in 2009 to close their 300-acre dairy farm in rural Pennsylvania. That’s not the end of the Rogers’ story, but the public, including the Rogers’ own neighbors, may never learn what happened to the family and their land as drilling operations sprouted up in their area. The Rogers did not realize they had signed a nondisclosure agreement with the gas company making the entire deal invalid if members of the family discussed the terms of the agreement, water or land disturbances resulting from fracking and other information with anyone other than the gas company and other signatories”: here.
When Polluted Water Is Safe to Drink: Inside the Dimock Fracking Fight. Mike Ludwig, Truthout: “The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has spent the past four months testing water wells used by families in the rural community of Dimock, Pennsylvania, where residents and environmental activists have accused a gas drilling company of contaminating water supplies while drilling for natural gas in the area. The EPA found pollutants in Dimock well water … but the agency has consistently stated the contamination levels do not pose a health concern or require immediate action from regulators”: here.
Fracking Fatalities: Organized Labor Implores Federal Agencies to Stop the Killings. Mike Elk, In These Times: “According to one study by the CDC National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), workers in the oil and natural gas industries are seven times as likely to die on the job as workers in other industries. In a letter sent last week, the AFL-CIO, the United Steelworkers union and the United Mine Workers complain that the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) and the Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) are not doing enough to regulate the potential hazards that harm fracking workers”: here.
New Study: Fluids From Marcellus Shale Likely Seeping Into Pennsylvania Drinking Water. Abrahm Lustgarten, ProPublica: “New research has concluded that salty, mineral-rich fluids deep beneath Pennsylvania’s natural gas fields are likely seeping upward thousands of feet into drinking water supplies. Though the fluids were natural and not the byproduct of drilling or hydraulic fracturing, the finding further stokes the red-hot controversy over fracking in the Marcellus Shale, suggesting that drilling waste and chemicals could migrate in ways previously thought to be impossible”: here.
Minnesota Amish vs. Fracking. Steve Horn, DeSmogBlog: “The Winona, Minnesota area, it turns out, possesses a heavy concentration of Amish citizens. It is also now part of ‘Sand Land’ and the frac sand industry’s land grab. Does the industry’s ongoing land grab clash with the fundamental tenets of Winona’s Amish population? As it turns out, quite possibly…. Critics say the plan is an affront to the Amish way of life”: here.
Britain: Green campaigners slammed Environment Agency chairman Lord Smith on Tuesday for supporting fracking – a controversial method of extracting natural gas from shale rock: here.
Three leading environmental organisations are warning Government not to push ahead with UK shale gas extraction at the very least until the potential impacts are properly understood and provisions are put in place to protect the countryside and ensure that any development is in line with UK Climate Change Act commitments: here.
In the Nieuwkoop Lakes a second location of breeding spoonbills has been discovered. According to ranger Martijn van Schie, this is positive news. “It is not only safer for the population, now possibly more breeding pairs will come.”
Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) should immediately revoke a new law that bans insults against the people of Libya or its institutions, Human Rights Watch said today. The law also prohibits criticism of the country’s 2011 revolution and glorification of the deposed former leader Muammar Gaddafi.
The law violates Libya’s provisional constitutional covenant and international human rights law, both of which guarantee free speech, Human Rights Watch said.
“This legislation punishes Libyans for what they say, reminiscent of the dictatorship that was just overthrown,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East and North Africa director at Human Rights Watch. “It will restrict free speech, stifle dissent, and undermine the principles on which the Libyan revolution was based.”
Under Law 37, passed on May 2, 2012, spreading “false or vicious news” or “propaganda” that harms “military efforts to defend the country, terrorizes people, or weakens the morale of citizens” is a criminal offense, punishable with imprisonment for an unspecified amount of time. Included in “propaganda” is glorification of Gaddafi, his regime, and his sons. If the offensive statements damage the country, the law says, the offender can be sentenced to life in prison.
Anyone who does anything to “damage the February 17 Revolution” can be charged with a crime under the law and sent to prison. February 17 refers to the start of the popular uprising that overthrew Gaddafi in 2011.
Charges can also be brought against anyone who “insults Islam, or the prestige of the state or its institutions or judiciary, and every person who publicly insults the Libyan people, slogan or flag.”
The ban on damaging the February 17 Revolution is apparently based on article 195 of Libya’s current penal code, drafted and implemented under Gaddafi’s rule, which bans any “damage to the great al-Fateh Revolution or its leader.” The al-Fateh Revolution brought Gaddafi to power in 1969.
Under the previous government, criticizing Gaddafi or the al-Fateh Revolution was punishable by death. Individuals were regularly imprisoned for criticizing the government, some of them under article 195 of the Libyan penal code.
“It seems the NTC has done a ‘cut and paste’ job with the Gaddafi-era laws,” Whitson said.
A group of Libyan human rights lawyers told Human Rights Watch that they will challenge Law 37 before the country’s supreme court.
Libya’s constitutional covenant, passed on August 3, 2011, includes a chapter on human rights and freedoms. Article 14 ensures freedom of opinion and speech, as well as assembly.
Under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights (ICCPR) and the African Charter on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR), governments may only restrict the right to freedom of expression to protect public morals if the restriction conforms to strict tests of necessity and proportionality and is non-discriminatory, including on the grounds of religion or belief. The newly enacted law fails to meet that test, Human Rights Watch said. Libya is a party to both the ICCPR and the African Charter.
The United Nations Human Rights Committee, in its 2011 General Comment on the ICCPR’s article 19, held that the right to freedom of expression protects speech that might be deemed offensive or hurtful to followers of a particular religion, unless the speech in question amounts to “advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence.” It also said that “States Parties [to the ICCPR] should not prohibit criticism of institutions.” The Human Rights Committee is considered the authoritative interpreter of the ICCPR.
Human Rights Watch called on governments supporting Libya’s transition, as well as the UN mission in Libya, to condemn the newest law strongly, and other unlawful attempts to restrict free speech, expression, and assembly.
“This law is a slap in the face for all those who were imprisoned under Gaddafi’s laws criminalizing political speech, and who fought for a new Libya where human rights are respected,” Whitson said. “Libya’s new leaders should know that laws restricting what people can say can lead to a new tyranny.”
Libya: Detained Migrants Face Harsh Conditions, Legal Limbo: here.
Somali asylum-seekers who landed their boat on one of Malta’s most popular beaches at the weekend have told UNHCR that seven fellow passengers died during their week-long voyage from Libya: here.
Libya’s National Transitional Council (NTC) should immediately amend a new law that protects from prosecution people who committed crimes if their actions were aimed at “promoting or protecting the revolution” against Muammar Gaddafi, Human Rights Watch said today; here.
The most recent political developments in Libya strongly support the sense that the country is quickly moving from one autocracy to another one. The only question is whether it will be theocratic, regional-ethnic or some combination of the two: here.
Nato bombers killed at least 72 civilians in last year’s regime change operation in Libya, a human rights group said today: here.
The Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR) expresses worry for kidnapping 13 Egyptian fishermen in Libya. The detained people disappeared in April 2012: here.
Members of the United Nations Security Council should condemn attempts by the Libyan National Transitional Council (NTC) to prevent accountability for serious and ongoing crimes committed in Libya: here.
Cash-grabbing companies are queuing to squabble over rich pickings in Libya as the country tries to get back on its feet: here.
The Arab Spring sent scores of sick and injured Libyans, fleeing their war- torn country, straight to Jordan, where the influx of patients is putting a lot of pressure on Jordanian hospitals and disrupting the lives of Libyan and Jordanian patients alike: here.
North Africa: UNHCR Strives to Find Solutions for Refugees At Egypt-Libya Border: here.
Egypt: Tunisia Blogger Interrogated By Security: here.
These two exhibitions are curated from the archive of Albert Adams, who was born in South Africa in 1929 and died in 2007.
Adams‘s father was Hindu and his mother was designated by the state as “Cape coloured.” He lived with his mother, a domestic worker, after parental separation.
As a young black man, he was barred from art school and worked as a sign writer.
But he attended art classes and eventually was encouraged to look abroad for art training.
In 1953 he won a scholarship to the Slade School of Fine Art in London and never returned to his native land.
“I think the most difficult question to be answered by anyone is ‘Who am I?” he later said. “I have never regarded myself as an exile, although South African born and raised.
Adams went onto study with Oscar Kokoschka in Salzburg but his work was ultimately influenced by, among others, Goya, Picasso and Frances Bacon.
He worked at City University in London and his work was exhibited across the world, from Yugoslavia to Brazil.
A gifted expressionist painter and printmaker Adams never forgot his background, memorably demonstrated in the painting South Africa 1959 which became known as the “South African Guernica.”
In the collection The Burden Adams explores his own identity. There are pictures of him as a young man, as well as the artifacts such as African and Asian artworks that influenced his paintings and reflected his own Indian background.
Adams was a political artist and Incarceration documents his response to war, torture and human rights abuses. They range from Robben Island, where his family were imprisoned, to Abu Ghraib.
Adams donated over 150 of his paintings and prints to Salford University and these two shows are drawn from them. The exhibition will tour nationally next year and it’s highly recommended.
Incarceration runs at the Working Class Movement Library until June 29. Free. Opening times: (0161) 736-0161. The Burden runs at The Clifford Whitworth Library, University of Salford, until June 3. Opening times: (0161) 295-2444.
May 2012. The Bureau of Land Management (BLM), the U.S.D.A. Forest Service (FS), and American Bird Conservancy (ABC) have begun identifying and implementing solutions to solve a widespread and potentially enormous bird mortality threat that is associated with 3.4 million mining claims on public lands, mainly in the west of USA.
Birds trapped by mining prospector claims
Small birds apparently see the opening of PVC pipes used to mark mining claims as a hollow suitable for roosting or nesting or possibly gathering to pool body heat during migration. The birds may enter the holes, only to become trapped because the walls are too smooth to allow them to grapple their way up the sides and the pipes are too narrow for the birds to extend their wings and fly out. Death from dehydration or starvation follows.
Kills 1 million plus birds every year
“This is a very significant bird mortality threat, likely accounting for a million or more bird deaths each year,” said Darin Schroeder, Vice President for Conservation Advocacy for ABC. “Many of the birds tragically found dead in these pipes are also experiencing declines in their populations. American Bird Conservancy believes the agencies must act quickly and require mining companies to replace their uncapped PVC pipe-markers with solid, high-visibility stakes when they seek claim re-registration in order to prevent further unnecessary bird deaths.”
While most birds recovered from markers are cavity nesters – the Ash-throated Flycatcher and the Mountain Bluebird are the most frequent victims, and others commonly trapped included woodpeckers, sparrows, shrikes, kestrels, and owls – there is strong evidence that indicates that a variety of other species will naturally rest in a group in a natural cavity during migration. The difference is that the insides of natural cavities have a rough surface, enabling the birds to climb out and continue their migration.
3.4 million mining claims. 12 – 20million pipes. How many birds ?
According to the BLM publication Public Land Statistics, in 2010 there were 3,388,400 mining claims on record on BLM-managed lands in 12 western states. Each claim has a minimum of four corner markers, though some sites also have boundaries staked with a dozen or more markers. It is not clear exactly how many of those markers are deadly bird traps, but there is little dispute that the percentage is high, meaning millions of birds are probably being killed.
1-2 birds per pipe average – 32 dead birds in 1 pipe!
Pipe pulling efforts in the Nevada Desert are showing an average of one bird death per pipe, with the highest fatality at a single pipe being 26 birds. Oregon, on the other hand, showed an average mortality of two birds per pipe with a high of 32 bird deaths in a single pipe.
“We take the incidence of unintended bird mortality from these pipes very seriously and we will work quickly with our Forest Service units and partners to prevent bird losses from pipes,” said Leslie Weldon, Deputy Chief, National Forest System.
Nevada has the most federal mining claims – over one million, followed by Utah, with 401,828, Wyoming (which includes minimal numbers from Nebraska) with 306,588, California, with 300,809, and Colorado with 278,326. These figures include mining claims administered by BLM on Forest Service lands.
A 1993 Nevada law prohibits installation of new uncapped or uncrimped pipes for marking the boundaries of mining claims in an effort to prevent injury to wildlife. However, about half of the protective caps that have been installed on markers since then have become displaced, thereby re-establishing the hazard from the pipes. Although a subsequent law ruled that stakes without caps or crimps would no longer be recognized as claim boundary markers, this did nothing to address the countless stakes that remain in place from old or abandoned claims that continue to kill birds.
They have installed Francois Hollande, the slightly fuzzy but well-intentioned Socialist Party candidate, in a massive rejection of the cuts and austerity programme championed by Sarkozy.
This rejection has the potential to destabilise the cosy and reactionary relationship between France and Germany and open some space for positive policies centred on growth rather than the grim cut, cut and cut again strategy that Mr Sarkozy espoused.
But almost as soon as the election result was announced, Germany’s Chancellor Angela Merkel was on the blower to Mr Hollande to invite him to talks in Berlin and it remains to be seen how far, in office, Mr Hollande will go to maintain the policies on which he stood.
Certainly, promises to raise taxes on big corporations and people earning more than a million euros a year, coupled with a boost to the minimum wage, hiring 60,000 more teachers and lowering the retirement age from 62 to 60 for some workers will fly in the face of every existing policy.
But Chancellor Merkel will undoubtedly exert some serious pressures on the new French president to modify his stance and his determination in the early days of his presidency will shape his whole term in office.
It is difficult to judge which way Mr Hollande will jump, since he has no great track record on which to base any judgement, but it is clear that he represents a widespread reaction against the European austerity plan and there will be big pressures from the French unions to keep him on track.
He has clearly indicated that he wants to renegotiate the deal between the 17 countries of the eurozone which includes strict limits on spending.
Chancellor Merkel has said bluntly that it will not be reviewed, so the stage is set for some friction in the chancelleries of Europe.
Equally in Greece, we are set for interesting times. As the French were rejecting the reactionary Sarkozy, so the Greek voters were performing a similar surgery on the undemocratic regime of Prime Minister Lucas Papademos – an unelected banker imposed by the terms of IMF and EU aid deals.
The nightmare coalition that he heads of the so-called Socialist Pasok party and the right-wing New Democracy outfit has been caned heavily in the polls.
The betrayal of working people by Pasok, which was instrumental in the sell-out to the IMF has been appropriately rewarded at the polls with a drop in support to 13.2 per cent, down from 43.9 per cent in the last elections, while their right-wing New Democracy allies, although topping the polls, dropped in support to 18.9 per cent, down from 33.5 per cent in 2009.
In fact, if it was not for a peculiarity of the Greek electoral system, which awards an extra 50 seats to the party that tops the polls, pro-austerity parties would have little hope of forming a stable and credible government.
The anti-austerity parties, the ultra-left Syriza grouping and the KKE Communist Party, took between them over 25 per cent of the votes.
There is enough in these figures to encourage all those working in the trade unions and the left in Europe to redouble their efforts to ditch the puppet governments of the speculators and the banks.
Hundreds of thousands were on the streets of Paris on the night of Sunday 6th May to celebrate the fall of the monster, and they had every reason to be happy about Sarkozy’s defeat. Champion of tax cuts for the rich and public service cuts for the rest of us, his election campaign moved further right every day in the desperate hope of attracting the votes which went to the fascists in the first round. On the first of May he bussed in supporters from all over France to be filmed in front of the Eiffel tower while he demanded of trade unions “Put down your red flag, and serve France instead”: here.
A Question of Timing: What America Can Learn From the Revolt in Europe. Robert Reich, Robert Reich’s Blog: “Who’s an economy for? Voters in France and Greece have made it clear it’s not for the bond traders. Referring to his own electoral woes, Prime Minister David Cameron wrote Monday in an article in the conservative Daily Telegraph: ‘When people think about the economy they don’t see it through the dry numbers of the deficit figures, trade balances or inflation forecasts – but instead the things that make the difference between a life that’s worth living and a daily grind that drags them down'”: here.
In early January, two Cornell undergraduates, Andy Johnson and Hope Batcheller, visited Chile to help with some shorebird research and to gather audio and video for our Macaulay Library. One of the places they visited was the Yeso Valley, where they checked in with a research project on an unusual and declining shorebird. Here’s Andy to tell you more …
On a late January evening, the sun drew its last sharp rays across the peaks encircling the Yeso Valley, and Andean Condors made their day’s last rounds. At over 8,000 feet of elevation, our alpine campsite was nestled among snow-covered peaks, some of which reached another 8,000 feet higher still.
We were just a few hours’ drive east of Chile’s smoggy capital, Santiago. But it felt a world away, because we were here to seek the company of one of the world’s most enigmatic shorebirds, the Diademed Sandpiper-Plover (Phegornis mitchelli). A small bird of muted brown and red, with a finely barred breast and bright-yellow legs, the sandpiper-plover is named for a striking white ring that adorns its dark head.
In the few days I watched them, they were often in loose pairs, probing montane streambeds and bogs with their peculiar long bills, and they frequently paused atop a cushion plant or rock, suddenly dipping their bodies forward every few seconds in a motion opposite that of a typical plover. These singular birds held a charisma that truly set them apart, in part born of their precarious existence.
The Diademed Sandpiper-Plover is considered near-threatened due to its small and declining global population and restricted range: a few high-elevation sites of peat bog and alluvium in the Andes. Our lack of knowledge about the basic ecology of this species greatly compounds its vulnerability, and that’s what brought Jim Johnson, an Alaskan shorebird expert, and Andrea Contreras, a Chilean graduate student, to the Yeso Valley. I tagged along as part of an undergraduate expedition from the Cornell Lab of Ornithology to collect high-definition video and audio.
The study had begun only a year earlier, in January 2011, when the austral summer spares the Yeso Valley from constant snow and wind. Johnson and Contreras wanted to learn what makes for good sandpiper-plover habitat. The birds live exclusively in high-elevation bogs among cushion plants and shallow streambeds, but they’re true connoisseurs, shunning many bogs that a human observer would deem suitable. It was surprising then, to find the birds nesting on dry, grassy mounds, dozens of meters from running water, as well as on small, stony islands in the midst of rushing streams.
So there’s more at play in this system than the plant communities and geology that meet the eye. What is causing this species’ decline, and why are they absent from other habitats that seem suitable? Andrea, Jim, and their crew are here to gradually chip away at this enigma.
This video by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology in the USA says about itself:
The Yellow-billed Loon is the largest and most spectacular of the world’s five loon species. It breeds around the globe in arctic and sub-arctic tundra lakes and is the northern counterpart to the Common Loon.
Watch this rare video shot by The Lab’s Gerrit Vyn of a mated pair calling and foraging just after arriving on the partially frozen breeding grounds in Chukotka, Russia.
New Scientific Report Documents the Impacts of Mercury Pollution on Adirondack [Common] Loons: here.
Netanyahu predicted to call early Israeli election
7 May 2012
Prime Minister Benyamin Netanyahu is expected to announce a snap election for September. Elections are not due till October 2013, but his political manoeuvre has been forced on him by a government wracked by divisions and corruption scandals.
There is no indication that such an election, where Netanyahu’s Likud party is expected to be the majority party with 30 of the 120 Knesset seats, will lead to a change in course. Both the major opposition parties, Kadima and Labour, have said they are willing to join a future Netanyahu-led coalition.
The purpose of such an election is to provide a more manageable coalition, while at the same time giving undeserved political credibility to a predetermined policy of militarism and attacks on the social position of working people and their families.
Iran is a significant source of dispute within the ruling elite. There are major splits between the government and the defence-intelligence establishment about the Netanyahu government’s claims that Tehran is building nuclear weapons and its constant threats to carry out pre-emptive air strikes. Iran for its part has vowed to respond to any such attacks. This has led to unprecedented and very public opposition from senior current and former military and intelligence officials.
Last Friday, Yuval Diskin, the former head of Shin Bet, Israel’s internal security agency, warned against an attack on Iran, saying that it was likely to hasten rather than stop Tehran’s building of a nuclear bomb. He attacked Netanyahu and Defence Minister Ehud Barak, saying that they were “messianic” politicians who could not be trusted, especially on Iran. The two men were “not the people I would like to be holding the steering wheel” during a crisis, Diskin said.
Earlier, Lieutenant General Benny Glantz, Israel’s current chief of staff, in an interview with Ha’aretz, insisted that diplomacy and negotiations with Iran were bearing fruit, and that its nuclear capabilities were not as imminent as Netanyahu had made out. He agreed with US intelligence assessments that Tehran had not yet decided whether or not to build a nuclear bomb, and he did not think it would do so, as Iran’s leadership was “very rational”.
Glantz was echoing the words of Meir Dagan, the former head of Mossad, Israel’s external intelligence service, who last year described the Iranian government as a “very rational one”. He had called an Israeli attack on Iran the “stupidest idea” he had ever heard. In an interview with CBS last month, he said that a war with Iran would have a devastating impact on Israel because it would “ignite, at least from my point of view, a regional war.”
Tamir Pardo, Mossad’s current head, holds similar views. Last December, he told a forum of Israeli diplomats that he did not believe there was an “existential threat” to Israel.
Concerns are also being raised by Ehud Olmert, who headed a Kadima-led coalition, as well as by the newly elected Kadima leader Shaul Mofaz and Israel’s president, Shimon Peres.
These statements give the lie to the repeated claims that Iran is developing nuclear weapons, the ostensible reason for Israel and the US war-mongering against Tehran.
They will also strengthen popular opposition to war within Israel. According to a recent poll by the Israeli Democracy Institute and Tel Aviv University, 63 percent of Israelis oppose a pre-emptive strike on Iran’s nuclear power facilities, while an earlier poll by the University of Maryland put the figure higher.
As well as divisions within the ruling elite and broad popular opposition to the government’s threats against Iran, Netanyahu’s right-wing coalition is riven with dissent over domestic policies affecting their own social constituencies.
After securing unity cabinet with Kadima, Netanyahu is now king of Israeli politics
Amir Oren says that Mofaz-Netanyahu cabinet may pave the way for an Israeli strike on Iran: here. See also here.
Berlin: Israelis and Iranians protest danger of war in the Middle East: here.
Coalition deal’s bright side: Days numbered for rotten government: here.
The first rifts in Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s new coalition emerged today — just days after he brought the main opposition party into his government: here.
Fire bombs are thrown at migrant workers in Tel Aviv: here.
Dear Kitty. Some blog 