by Stephen Lendman

On September 21, the UN Human Rights Council's independent fact finding Committee issued its report titled, "No Safe Place," assessing "investigat(ions) and report(s) on violations of human rights law and international humanitarian law during" Operation Cast Lead. Its members included:

-- Professor John Dugard, Chairman, former UN Special Human Rights Rapporteur for Occupied Palestine;

-- Norwegian Judge Finn Lynghjem;

-- Chilean attorney Gonzalo Boye;

-- Professor Corte-Real, a forensic body damage evaluator; and

-- solicitor Ms. Raelene Sharp.

On February 21, it held an initial meeting with the Arab League's Secretary-General in Cairo, then entered Gaza the next day through the Rafah crossing. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights organized its six day visit with a wide range of persons, including Cast Lead victims, witnesses, doctors, lawyers, journalists, business people, and members of NGOs, UN agencies and Hamas.

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Von Helman

Most people today are too young to really recall the 1979 American hostage situation in Iran but if they are they usually also can’t help remember how ineffective the Carter administration was in handling it. I personally remember the news reports of one specific rescue mission “Operation Eagle Claw” which went awry when a US military helicopter crashed into a refueling plane in the Middle East desert killing 8 service men.

I also remember Ronald Regan during the 1980 election campaign say that if elected, as president the first order of business was to bomb Iran if the hostages weren’t yet released. Regan said this while doing his best John Wayne impersonation, but the result of that raspy threat as history recorded was that all 52 hostages were released within hours of Ronald Regan taking office.

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Ellen Brown

While local banks are held in check by the new banking czars in Basel, Wall Street’s “shadow banking system” has hardly been curbed by regulators at all; and it is here that the 2008 credit crisis was actually precipitated. The banking system’s credit machine is systemically flawed and needs a radical overhaul.

On September 13, the Bank for International Settlements issued heightened capital requirements that will make lending even more difficult for local banks, which do most of the consumer and small business lending today. The new rules are ostensibly designed to prevent a repeat of the 2008 credit collapse, but they fail to address its real cause, which involves a “shadow” banking system that has largely escaped regulation.

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by Stephen Lendman

Two earlier articles addressed corporate friendly legislation masquerading as pro-consumer. In fact, they'll destroy safe food, empower agribusiness and drug giants, and harm small farmers and consumers. Access them through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2009/07/hr-2749-agribusiness-empowering-act.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/08/legislation-for-greater-agribusiness.html

This article is a brief follow-up on where things now stand, as the Senate tries to circumvent growing public opposition.

On July 29, 2009, the House passed HR 2749: Food Safety Enhancement Act of 2009 "To amend the (1938 as amended) Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to improve the safety of food in the global market, and for other purposes."

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by Gilad Atzmon

A meeting between Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad and Israeli deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon ended abruptly yesterday. The dispute followed the Israeli deputy foreign minister’s demand that the meeting’s summary should refer to the notion of ‘two states for two peoples,’ rather than just ‘two states.’

"I wanted that at the very least it will note two states for two peoples. I demanded to know what they meant. One Palestinian state and one bi-national state, or another Palestinian state?" the deputy minister told Ynet. "I made it clear that we were out of the picture if the summary didn’t say two states for two peoples."

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by Keith Johnson

So many warnings, so many solutions, and so many people who couldn’t care less.

LONG AGO: A man named Noah (the conspiracy theorist of his time) warns his people that a great flood is fast approaching. His preparations for the event are largely dismissed as crazy, and he is constantly the subject of ridicule and mockery. Even as the heavy rains turn torrential; the people continue to laugh, eat, drink and dance…right up until the water level rises high enough to sweep them all away.

1912: As the RMS Titanic takes on water; word spreads among the passengers that they must prepare to abandon ship. Many refuse to board lifeboats because they are convinced that the vessel cannot sink. Some stay in the lounges to socialize while others return to their cabins and fall fast asleep. The lifeboats aboard the Titanic have the capacity to accommodate 2/3 of the passengers, but many of them are sent away nearly empty because some people refuse to take the crisis seriously.

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by Stephen Lendman

On September 23 in federal court, US District Court Judge Richard Berman sentenced political prisoner Aafia Siddiqui to 86 years in prison. Outrage most accurately expresses this gross miscarriage of justice, compounding what she's already endured following her March 30, 2003 abduction, imprisonment, torture, prosecution, and conviction on bogus charges.

Earlier articles explained her case in detail, accessed through the following links:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2008/12/abduction-secret-detention-torture-and.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/02/aafia-siddiqui-victimized-by-american.html

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/03/aafia-siddiqui-victimized-by-american.html

In modern times, she's one of American depravity's most aggrieved victims, now given a virtual life sentence for a crime she didn't and couldn't have committed, explained in the above articles.

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Salim Nazzal

The American sponsored negotiations between Palestinians and Israelis has not so far generated any serious hope for Palestinians looking forward to ridding themselves of the last occupation in history. The reason for this pessimism is that Palestinians have lost hope after endless negotiations which began in Madrid 1990 and nothing of these negotiations indicated a happy ending of the Zionist occupation. Even while negotiations were going on Israel has continued its illegal settlement activities in which they steal more Palestinian land and Palestinian water sources. This policy is clearly aiming at the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from their homes.

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By Alan Hart

On marks out of ten for his speech to the UN on the subject of ending the conflict in and over Palestine that became Israel, I’d give President Obama minus five.

Earlier this month (on 4 September) I wrote a piece with the headline Obama has signalled his coming complete surrender to Zionism and its lobby. That surrender, it seems to me, is now effectively a fait accompli.

“After 60 years in the community of nations, Israel’s existence must not be a subject for debate,” Obama proclaimed. “It should be clear to all that efforts to chip away at Israel’s legitimacy will only be met by the unshakeable opposition of the United States.”

Leaving aside the matter of whether Zionism’s monster child is legitimate or not (I say it’s not), only a complete idiot would deny that Israel exists. The question is - WHICH Israel must not have its existence debated? Israel inside its borders as they were on the eve of the 1967 war or the greater Israel of today? That’s not a question Obama is prepared to ask let alone answer.

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Von Helman

The parchment paper with ink forming those ever important words which define citizens rights and freedoms that sits in the protected glass chamber in the Smithsonian Museum, and which was the cornerstone to the newly create USA government back in 1700s, is however today only a piece of worthless paper.

As harsh at the truth may sound before I am lynched as a treasonous traitor by patriots dressed up in period costumes carrying tea cups let me at least try to explain.

I look back at the native Indians who lived off the land and had their own communities and respected nature and the natural law of things. Did they have a constitution telling them they were free or that they had rights, no they instinctively knew their place in the world and respected it, as does any man who is truly free.

Back when the USA was formed that now famous group of wise old gray headed men wearing funny wigs wrote up the constitution as part of the founding cornerstones of the new American Government. What’s lost by most people today is that in reality the constitution wasn’t for the people but rather simply to remind the government of their limits and position among the people it governed and served.

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