Eileen Fleming

In a 18 June 2010 report Amnesty International accused the Israeli authorities of subjecting jailed nuclear whistleblower Mordechai Vanunu to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment by holding him in solitary confinement. The 56-year-old, who spent 18 years in prison for revealing details of the country's nuclear arsenal to a UK newspaper in 1986, was sent back to jail for three months on 23 May on charges of contact with a foreign national, and almost immediately placed in solitary confinement.

Amnesty International has called for his immediate and unconditional release.

"Mordechai Vanunu should not be in prison at all, let alone be held in solitary confinement in a unit intended for violent criminals," said Malcolm Smart, Director of Amnesty International's Middle East Programme.

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Stuart Littlewood

“We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation” – The Jerusalem Declaration

Not all Jews are Zionists. Many reject the Zionist project and fight against it.

So why on earth would a non-Jew wish to be one? Indeed, how could a genuine Christian seriously consider becoming a Zionist? It has puzzled me for a long time. The two ideas are incompatible, are they not?

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by Stephen Lendman

In July 2008, the Southern California ACLU released a "Report on Mental Health Issues at Los Angeles County" Jail by Dr. Terry Kupers, a practicing psychiatrist, an expert on long-term isolated prison confinement and correctional mental health issues. He's also written numerous articles on these topics, and been an expert witness on the mental health crisis behind bars, what he wrote about in his book "Prison Madness."

In May, he toured the LA County Jail system where most inmates aren't convicted and are awaiting trial - Men's Central Jail (MCJ), Twin Towers 1 & 2 (TT 1 & 2), and the Inmate Reception Center (IRC). He interviewed 18 prisoners in private, confidential settings; others in more casual, cell-front ones; and discussed issues with mental health and custody staff.

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by Len Hart, The Existentialist Cowboy

‘Police States’ are what they do! One of the things police states do is deny citizens a voice even as they seek to control information themselves. Lately and not surprisingly, police seek to suppress video tapes of police officers in the act of abusing people, beating them up, depriving victims of Miranda and other rights. There are efforts to make illegal the use of video cameras to expose police brutality and mis-conduct. How convenient!

I am of the opinion that police --presumably 'public servants' as we have been taught --ought to be video-taped, documented in any and every way possible. There is simply no reasonable compromise on this point. Either we are a free people or we are not! You are either for a free state or you are for a dictatorship that the right wing, the GOP in particular, is intent upon imposing upon us. It really matters little who occupies the White House; the U.S. government is owned!

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By Khalid Amayreh in occupied Palestine

Zionist supremacists from Tel Aviv to Los Angeles are ganging up on two elderly targets these days. The first is the 84-year-old Fidel Castro, a man who apparently made up his mind about Zionism more than six decades ago. And the second is 89-year-old veteran American journalist Helen Thomas.

Castro’s crime was a few passing remarks he uttered recently, saying that the Swastika has become Israel’s real flag.

“It would seem that the Fuehrer’s (Nazi leader Adolf Hitler’s) Swastika is today Israel’s banner.” The ex-Cuban leader added that “the hatred felt by the state of Israel against the Palestinians is such that they wouldn’t hesitate to send the one and a half million men, women and children of that country to the crematoria where millions of Jews of all ages were exterminated by the Nazis.”

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Ellen Brown

Last week, England’s new government said it would abandon the previous government’s stimulus program and introduce the austerity measures required to pay down its estimated $1 trillion in debts. That means cutting public spending, laying off workers, reducing consumption, and increasing unemployment and bankruptcies. It also means shrinking the money supply, since virtually all “money” today originates as loans or debt. Reducing the outstanding debt will reduce the amount of money available to pay workers and buy goods, precipitating depression and further economic pain.

The financial sector has sometimes been accused of shrinking the money supply intentionally, in order to increase the demand for its own products. Bankers are in the debt business, and if governments are allowed to create enough money to keep themselves and their constituents out of debt, lenders will be out of business. The central banks charged with maintaining the banking business therefore insist on a “stable currency” at all costs, even if it means slashing services, laying off workers, and soaring debt and interest burdens. For the financial business to continue to boom, governments must not be allowed to create money themselves, either by printing it outright or by borrowing it into existence from their own government-owned banks.

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by Stephen Lendman

On June 17, Haaretz writer Barak Ravid and Reuters headlined, "Israel to ease Gaza land blockade," saying:

"Israel's security cabinet voted Thursday to ease its land blockade of the Gaza Strip, following its deadly raid on a humanitarian aid flotilla bound for the (mischaracterized) Hamas-ruled territory," in fact, its legitimate government.

An official statement said:

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By Debbie Menon

No, dialogue is NOT a solution! It is merely another, quite common, much overused, abused, and never quite successful method of attempting, or pretending to attempt, to find or describe a solution; and it is usually compromised by bad faith on the part of one, two or all parties. Furthermore, it takes the bad faith of but one participant to thoroughly compromise it, and turn it into a strategic tool for forestalling the search for a solution, perpetuating the status quo, or worse.

History has demonstrated this.

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Mary Shaw

Unfortunately, slavery is not a thing of the past. Human beings are still being bought and sold for sex and labor. Only these days it's called human trafficking.

Fortunately, the Obama administration is aware of the problem and appears to be making a solid effort to address it.

To that end, on June 14, the U.S. State Department issued its 10th annual Trafficking in Persons (TIP) Report. The report reflects the findings of the Department's work over the past year with embassies, analysts, NGOs, and activists in the field.

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by Phil Rockstroh

Although my mother fled Nazi Germany, as a child, on a Kindertransport, with a few family valuables sown into her clothing, and I was brought up on the myths and hagiography of the Zionist state, I, over time, came to recognize the folly of the whole colonialist enterprise — the folly of ethnic exclusion and expulsion, the inherent tragedy of nationalism based on the delusion of religious birthright. With much sorrow, I came to the sad realization that the dream of the State of Israel was based on European chauvinism and exceptionalism. This reckoning has been a difficult one for me to bear -- the hardest awakening of my adult life.

My father was born on a Reservation in the American mid-west. His people, like the Palestinians, resisted invaders of European ancestry and were crushed. At present, both peoples remain exiled and caged in their native land.

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