The Corner Report

By Marwan Bishara, Al Jazeera's Senior Political Analyst, in New York

I could only shake my head in bewilderment, as I listened to the interviews Rick Warren, a Baptist pastor, conducted with Barack Obama and John McCain, the US presidential candidates for the Democratic and Republican parties, respectively.

Most absurd during the two-hour special were the exchanges about "evil".

When asked how they would deal with evil if they were elected president - would they ignore it, negotiate with it, contain it, or defeat it - Obama said he would "confront it" while McCain said unflinchingly that he would "defeat it".

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Israel is mulling over a confrontation with a group of peace activists who are sailing towards the Gaza Strip to break a suffocating siege.

"The area to which you are planning to sail is the subject of an (Israeli Navy) advisory notice which warns all foreign vessels to remain clear of the designated maritime zone," the Israeli foreign ministry said in an open letter to the participants of the Free Gaza Movement's campaign.

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By Ramzy Baroud

Yet more haunting images of blindfolded, stripped down Palestinian men being contemptuously dragged by soldiers in uniform from one place to another. Yet more footage of bloodied men lying on hospital beds describing their ordeals to television reporters who have heard this story all too often. Yet more news of Palestinian infighting, tit-for-tat arrests, obscene language and embarrassing behaviour from those who have elected themselves -- or were elected -- to represent the Palestinian people.

Once again, the important story that ought to matter the most -- that of a continually imposing and violent Israeli occupation -- is lost in favour of Palestinian-infused distractions, deliberate or not.

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Just like the Billboard painting performed in Pakistan, there is another indigineous form of art performed in Pakistan and it is the Truck Painting. With its all colorful floral patterns, depiction of human heroes with creative aspect ratios, calligraphy of poetic verses and driver’s words of wisdom, this form of art is truly a part of Pakistani transport tradition.

This photo were taken by Abro as part of a book called Food Path-Cuisine Along The Grand Trunk Road From Kabul To Kolkata published by Roli Books India and Lustre Press
www.pakistaniat.com/2008/06/18/pakistans-indigenous-truck-art/

By TARIQ ALI

Pakistan’s military dictators never go quietly. Field-Marshal Ayub was removed by a three-month long popular insurrection in March 1969. General Yahya Khan destroyed Pakistan before he departed in 1972. General Zia-ul-Haq (the worst of the lot) was blown up in his military plane rtogether with the US Ambassador in 1988. And now General Musharraf is digging his heels. There is a temporary stalemate in Pakistan. The Army is in favour of him going quietly, but is against impeachment. Washington is prepared for him to go, but quietly. And last Friday the chief of Saudi intelligence agency, Prince Muqrin bin Abdul Aziz, had secretly arrived in Pakistan and held talks with coalition leaders and President Musharraf. He wants a ‘safe exit’ for the president. Sanctuaries in Manhattan, Texas and the Turkish island of Büyükada (Prinkipo) are being actively considered. The General would prefer a large estate in Pakistan, preferably near a golf course, but security considerations alone would make that infeasible.

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By Said Mahmood Mousavi

By Dedrick Muhammad and Farrah Hassen | August 18, 2008

Though the national sentiment favors wrapping up the Iraq War, there exists a small but powerful movement for starting a new military conflict with Iran. The bipartisan drumbeats for aggression reverberate throughout the corridors of Congress. House Resolution 362 and Senate Resolution 580, for example, call on the United States to prevent Iran from "acquiring a nuclear weapons capability through all appropriate economic, political, and diplomatic means."

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By Uri Avnery

One of the wisest pronouncements I have heard in my life was that of an Egyptian general, a few days after Anwar Sadat's historic visit to Jerusalem.

We were the first Israelis to come to Cairo, and one of the things we were very curious about was: how did you manage to surprise us at the beginning of the October 1973 war?

The general answered: "Instead of reading the intelligence reports, you should have read our poets."

I reflected on these words last Wednesday, at the funeral of Mahmoud Darwish.

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The family of prisoner Abu Ali Yatta [Ma'anImages]

BETHLEHEM - The Zionist government in Israel agreed Sunday to release 200 Palestinian prisoners in "goodwill gesture" to Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas, but it turns out that most of the prisoners slated for release later in August were already due to be freed by the end of 2009, data from the Israeli prison service show.

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Nato said the incident took place in the volatile province of Helmand [AFP]

Nato-led soldiers operating in southern Afghanistan "accidentally" have killed four civilians and wounded three others in a rocket attack intended for armed groups.

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Bethlehem – The United States is deploying a high-powered early-warning radar system in the Negev desert in Israel, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

An American military spokesperson was quoted as saying that the radar, known as –Band, will be linked into the American satellite-based missile alert system, and could be used to detect a long-speculated missile strike by Iran.

American military personnel will operate the system beginning in early 2009. It will be the first permanent US military deployment in Israel. American army personnel were temporarily stationed in Israel during the 1991 Gulf War with Iraq.

The American-Israeli agreement was reported in the periodical Defense News, and was confirmed by Haaretz.

The agreement had previously been discussed in meetings with Israeli Chief of Staff Gabi Ashkenazi and his American counterpart, Admiral Mike Mullen, and by the civilian defense leadership of the two countries.

The US currently has X-Band radar deployed in Japan, and has plans to station another system in the Czech Republic.

Bethlehem – Israel has submitted to the United States a document containing its proposal for security arrangements under a future agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA).

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Jackson Browne Browne is seeking more than $75,000 in damages

Singer Jackson Browne is suing US Republican presidential candidate John McCain for using one of his songs without permission.

Browne, 59, claims the use of hit song Running on Empty in an advert was an infringement of copyright and will lead people to conclude he endorses McCain.

The singer is seeking more than $75,000 (£40,000) in damages.

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By Paul Craig Roberts

The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.

As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.

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By Steve Niva

While overall levels of violence in Iraq have significantly dropped from their peak in 2006, every day seems to bring news of yet another ghastly suicide bombing, only now the bomber often comes in a black abaya, the full-length robe worn by many Iraqi women. For the one deadly number that has risen substantially since the U.S. military "surge" and widely touted adoption of a new "hearts and minds" counterinsurgency strategy in early 2007 has been the dramatic increase in suicide bombings carried out by Iraqi women.

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Gale Courey Toensing Indian Country -- A group of young men wearing red bandanas carried a blessing memorial blanket near the head of the traditional mourning walk at the memorial event for Golden Hill Paugussett Chief Big Eagle, who died Aug. 3 at the age of 92.

By Gale Courey Toensing / Indian Country Today

TRUMBULL, Conn. - More than 200 people attended a traditional mourning walk Aug. 7 for Chief Big Eagle, the hereditary chief of the Golden Hill Paugussett Tribe.

Big Eagle, known also as Aurelius Piper Sr., died Aug. 3 at one of the tribe's two reservations - the tiny one-quarter-acre reservation in Trumbull. He was 92.

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The US has trained and equipped Georgian military forces [EPA]

The US has had stern words for Russia over its military intervention in Georgia to back South Ossietian separatists, but many analysts say that the Bush administration must share the blame for the crisis.

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Lugo said the ceremony marked the end of
a "notoriously corrupt" Paraguay [EPA]

Fernando Lugo, a former bishop known for his work fighting for peasants' rights, has been sworn in as president of Paraguay, ending 60 years of rule by the nation's Colorado party.

Lugo, who takes over from Nicanor Duarte, the outgoing president, took the oath of office in a ceremony in the capital, Asuncion, on Friday.

The ceremony was attended by several Latin American leaders, including Hugo Chavez, the Venezuelan president, and Evo Morales, the Bolivian leader.

Lugo, who has pledged to clean up corruption and transform Paraguay's impoverished society, where almost half the of the six million population are below the poverty line, saying "it won't be easy, but it's not impossible".

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The hounding of Barack Obama's Arab and Muslim American liaison is reminiscent of times that community thought it surpassed, writes James Zogby*

The 1980s were a difficult time for Arab Americans. Politicians returned our contributions, rejected our endorsements, and many effectively hung "No Arab Americans allowed" signs on their campaign doors. Back then, we wrote about this situation, calling it "the politics of exclusion".

We fought back. We organised, worked hard, and we emerged victorious -- or should I say somewhat victorious? Now I feel a bit tentative about our progress because of what happened to Mazen Asbahi, which set off alarm bells causing me to wonder whether or not "exclusion" might not once again be rearing its ugly head.

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Mourning crowds bid farewell to Darwish in Ramallah while others light candles in memory of the resistance poet

Sinan Antoon recalls the voice of a nation

Very few poets become the voice of their nation and even fewer succeed in transcending that to become much more. Mahmoud Darwish (1941-2008) was that rare bird who crossed many skies and horizons. His death last week, following complications from open-heart surgery in Houston, Texas, ended an epic life and interrupted a stunningly creative and prolific output, especially in his later years. It is difficult to underestimate Darwish's symbolic capital and his cultural and political significance. With his departure Palestine loses one of its most precious cultural icons, a poetic voice of universal echoes. The larger Arab world and its diaspora bid farewell to one of its best modern poets and the most popular and successful one in the last three decades. His poems were set to music, discussed in the Israeli Knesset, and his recitals could fill sport stadiums. Darwish's absence will further enhance his near-mythical status in the collective memory of Palestinians and Arabs.

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This week, Congress indulged in some populist Arab-bashing when it was revealed that high oil prices could earn the Iraq government a budget surplus of US$50 billion (Dh183.6bn) this year. How scandalous, declared US lawmakers, that American taxpayers should be subsidising Iraq's post-war reconstruction when the Iraqis are perfectly capable of financing it themselves.It's a fair point, on its own. But it overlooks the central role subsidies have played in the annals of Middle East occupation and empire. The Ottomans funded a complex web of subsidies for their clients in the Middle East, an arrangement that preserved economic and political stability for generations until the sultanate collapsed nearly a century ago. The Roman emperor Heraclius, bankrupt from war with Persia, withheld his annual payout to Christian tribal leaders in Syria, who responded by allying themselves with the Muslim armies in driving out the rum.

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New lobby rules mean more work for lawyers


By Jennifer Allen

Globe and Mail

Lawyers involved in lobbying are used to playing up their knowledge of who is influential, but now they also have to figure out who is a DPOH.

Perhaps the biggest change stemming from this summer's transition from the Lobbyists Registration Act to the much more far-reaching federal Lobbying Act is a new category of senior public officials called designated public office holders, or DPOHs.

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Israelis wave both Georgian and Israeli flags as they chant anti-Russian slogans during a demonstration outside the Russian embassy in Tel Aviv, 11 August. (Gali Tibbon/AFP/Getty Images)

Ali Abunimah
The Electronic Intifada

From the moment Georgia launched a surprise attack on the tiny breakaway region of South Ossetia last week, prompting a fierce Russian counterattack, Israel has been trying to distance itself from the conflict. This is understandable: with Georgian forces on the retreat, large numbers of civilians killed and injured, and Russia's fury unabated, Israel's deep involvement is severely embarrassing.

The collapse of the Georgian offensive represents not only a disaster for that country and its US-backed leaders, but another blow to the myth of Israel's military prestige and prowess. Worse, Israel fears that Russia could retaliate by stepping up its military assistance to Israel's adversaries including Iran.

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By Jeremy Jaquot

You didn't just think the Bush administration was going to leave quietly, did you? In a major scoop, the AP has uncovered the draft of a set of new regulations engineered by the Interior Department (and not subject to Congressional approval) that would allow federal agencies to decide for themselves whether infrastructure projects, like dams and highways, would harm endangered species. They would, in effect, greatly reduce the impact of the independent reviews government scientists have been carrying out over the last 35 years.

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By Aluf Benn

Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has presented Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas with a detailed proposal for an agreement in principle on borders, refugees and security arrangements between Israel and a future Palestinian state.

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By Cenk Uygur

We have this weird notion in America now that if a politician is caught in an affair that his career is done. We seem to be saying that what he did in his private life effects his policies or how he governs. But we all know that isn't true. We know that because almost all of our great presidents, and great leaders throughout history, have had numerous affairs. Obviously it didn't hurt how they governed at all.

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Performed by Marcel Khalife

My Mother

I long for my mother's bread
My mother's coffee
Her touch
Childhood memories grow up in me
Day after day
I must be worth my life
At the hour of my death
Worth the tears of my mother.

And if I come back one day
Take me as a veil to your eyelashes
Cover my bones with the grass
Blessed by your footsteps
Bind us together
With a lock of your hair
With a thread that trails from the back of your dress
I might become immortal
Become a God
If I touch the depths of your heart.

If I come back
Use me as wood to feed your fire
As the clothesline on the roof of your house
Without your blessing
I am too weak to stand.

I am old
Give me back the star maps of childhood
So that I
Along with the swallows
Can chart the path
Back to your waiting nest.

The Galilee

By Mahmoud Darwish

I come from there and I have memories
Born as mortals are, I have a mother
And a house with many windows,
I have brothers, friends,
And a prison cell with a cold window.
Mine is the wave, snatched by sea-gulls,
I have my own view,
And an extra blade of grass.
Mine is the moon at the far edge of the words,
And the bounty of birds,
And the immortal olive tree.
I walked this land before the swords
Turned its living body into a laden table.

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By Mahmoud Darwish

1

So, we are who we are, as the Mississippi flows,
and what remains from yesterday is still ours--
but the color of the sky has changed,
the sea to the East has changed.
O white master, Lord of the horses,
what do you want from those making their way
to the night woods?
Our pastures are sacred, our spirits inspired,
the stars are luminous words where our fable
is legible from the beginning to end
if only you'll lift up your eyes:
born between water and fire,
reborn in clouds on an azure shore
after Judgement day...

Don't kill the grass any more,
it possess a soul in us that could
shelter the soul of the earth.

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Mahmoud Darwish's work has beeb translated into more than 20 languages.

Mahmoud Darwish, the renowned Palestinian poet, has died after open heart surgery at the Memorial Hermann medical centre in Texas.

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By Dan Levine

For one of the trippiest global-warming fallouts we could possibly conjure, we turn now to the good ol’ Ninth Circuit. Down in Northern Arizona, the owner of a ski mountain operating on federal land wants to start using artificial snow. This fake powder will be made with what judges alternatively call “recycled wastewater” or “treated sewage effluent” (translation: soaped-up poopy-water).

Problem is, the mountains in question happen to be sacred to quite a few Indian tribes. And they are none too pleased about having said poopy-water sprayed on a peak they regard as “an indivisible living entity…home to deities and other spirit beings.” They sued, and a circuit panel led by Judge William Fletcher took their side (.pdf) and put the kibosh on the fake (beige?) snow idea.

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By M. Shahid Alam

“Anti-Semitism has grown and continues to grow, and so do I.” -- Theodore Herzl [1]

As a self-defined movement for the national ‘liberation’ of European Jews, Zionism had an anomalous relationship with its perennial Other, the Gentile nations, from whom it wanted the Jews to secede and become a distinct nation under a Jewish state.

The Zionists did not define Europe’s Gentile nations as the adversary they would have to oppose, and against whom they would struggle, to secure the rights of Jews to emerge as a distinct nation.

On the contrary, the Zionists would harness the strength of their perennial Other – their adversary – to gain their nationalist objective. Unlike nationalists who secede from a state or empire by drawing new borders, the Zionists did not demand any European territory; they planned to establish their Jewish state outside the borders of Europe.

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Olmert's resignation might bring satisfaction to some, but the man waiting in the wings is truly alarming, writes Saleh Al-Naami

CHAOS REIGNS SUPREME: Top to bottom, Palestinians blindfolded and handcuffed are guarded by an Israeli soldier at the Nahal Oz base between Israel and the Strip; the Shijaiyeha neighbourhood of Gaza City witnessed days of high alert after clashes between Hamas security forces and the pro-Fatah Helis clan; a press conference by Palestinian members of Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, under a portrait of late Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat in the West Bank city of Hebron

By Saleh Al-Naami

Despite his many engagements and perpetual busyness, the head of Israel's right-wing opposition, Binyamin Netanyahu, insists on taking Russian language lessons. He does so as one way of securing an overwhelming victory in any early elections that may take place.

Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has announced his intention to resign following preparatory elections in September to choose his successor as head of the Kadima Party. Olmert was forced into this decision after corruption cases against him came to light, and this has whetted Netanyahu's thirst for power. He knows that learning Russian would allow him to directly address the public of new Russian immigrants who, although they form approximately 20 per cent of Israel's population, are generally not proficient in Hebrew.

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Al-Jazeera apologizes to Israel for "unethical" coverage of Qun

BETHLEHEM - Al Jazeera TV issued an apology to Israel on Thursday for their coverage of the events marking the release of Lebanese prisoner Samir Quntar.

Israeli authorities had earlier threatened to boycott Al-Jazeera if they did not apologize. Israel said that the Al-Jazeera coverage of the warm Lebanese reception of Quntar hurt the feelings of Israelis, since he was charged with the deaths of four Israelis including two young children.

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New theories about what's wiping out huge populations of the tiny winged mammal point to pesticides and climate change.

By Kirsten Weir

As dusk settles over the forest, the mosquitoes start swarming in force. Scott Darling, a biologist with the Vermont Fish and Wildlife Department, unfurls a net across a wide path. Not five minutes later, the first bat of the night lands in the net with a sudden thwoomp. The tiny winged creature bares its pointy teeth and begins to chirp, the angry staccato squeaks ringing out like Morse code.

Darling uses the dull point of a pencil to gently pry the net away from the entangled bat. Later, he will examine the bat for signs of disease, weigh it (7 grams, slightly more than a pair of pennies), tag it and set it free. Then he'll discard his latex gloves, slather hand sanitizer on his skin and disinfect his equipment, even dousing the pencil he used to free the bat from the net. This last bit -- the latex gloves, the disinfectant -- is still a new practice, a cautionary protocol courtesy of white-nose syndrome (WNS), a mysterious new illness causing bats in the Northeast to waste away as they hibernate.

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Officials cite 'new information' in case which drew Rice's intervention
Palestinian Fulbright scholars Zuhair Abu Shaban, 24, second from right, Osama Daoud, 25, second from left, and Fida Abed 23, left, wait to cross the Erez Border crossing between Israel and Gaza Strip in order to meet U.S. consular officials on July 10. The trio have now had their American entry visas revoked.

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip - Three Palestinian Fulbright scholars have had their American entry visas revoked after "new information" was received about them, a U.S. diplomat said on Tuesday.

Visas for the trio, along with a fourth Palestinian student from Gaza who had hoped to come to the U.S. under a different program, were approved after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice intervened in June after Israel refused to let them leave Gaza for interviews.

"There were four Palestinians who were issued visas about whom we then received additional information," State Department spokesman Gonzalo Gallegos said. "We decided that we needed to take a closer and harder look at them in light of the additional information we received."

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By JEFF HALPER

In another few days, I will sail on one of the Free Gaza movement boats from Cyprus to Gaza. The mission is to break the Israeli siege, an absolutely illegal siege which has plunged a million and a half Palestinians into wretched conditions: imprisoned in their own homes, exposed to extreme military violence, deprived of the basic necessities of life, stripped of their most fundamental human rights and dignity.

The siege violates the most fundamental principle of international law: the inadmissibility of harming civilian populations. Our voyage also exposes Israel’s attempt to absolve itself of responsibility for what is happening in Gaza. Israel’s claim that there is no Occupation, or that the Occupation ended with “disengagement,” is patently false. Occupation is defined in international law as having effective control over a territory. If Israel intercepts our boats, it is clear that it is the Occupying Power exercising effective control over Gaza. Nor has the siege anything to do with “security.” Like other elements of the Occupation in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, where Israel has also besieged cities, towns, villages and whole regions, the siege on Gaza is fundamentally political. It is intended to isolate the democratically-elected government of Palestine and break its power to resist Israeli attempts to impose an apartheid regime over the entire country.

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By URI AVNERY

Ehud Olmert's resignation speech reached us on our way back from a demonstration.

We were protesting the death of Ahmad Moussa, aged 10, who was murdered during a demonstration against the Separation Fence at Na'ilin village - the fence that robs the village of most of its land in order to give it to the nearby settlement. A soldier aimed and shot the child with live ammunition at close range.

The protesters stood under the windows of the Minister of Defense's apartment in the luxurious Akirov Towers in Tel-Aviv and shouted: "Ehud Barak, Minister of Defense / How many children have you murdered so far?"

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By Thomas Frank

Washington is the city where the scandals happen. Every American knows this, but we also believe, if only vaguely, that the really monumental scandals are a thing of the past, that the golden age of misgovernment-for-profit ended with the cavalry charge and the robber barons, at about the same time presidents stopped wearing beards.

I moved to Washington in 2003, just in time for the comeback, for the hundred-year flood. At first it was only a trickle in the basement, a little stream released accidentally by the president's friends at Enron. Before long, though, the levees were failing all over town, and the city was inundated with a muddy torrent of graft.

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By Thomas Frank

Washington is the city where the scandals happen. Every American knows this, but we also believe, if only vaguely, that the really monumental scandals are a thing of the past, that the golden age of misgovernment-for-profit ended with the cavalry charge and the robber barons, at about the same time presidents stopped wearing beards.

I moved to Washington in 2003, just in time for the comeback, for the hundred-year flood. At first it was only a trickle in the basement, a little stream released accidentally by the president's friends at Enron. Before long, though, the levees were failing all over town, and the city was inundated with a muddy torrent of graft.

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Palestinians comfort relatives as they lie in hospital in Beit Lahia

By DIAA HADID

JERUSALEM _ Gaza resident Bassam Waheidi is slowly going blind, but he won't pay what he says is the price of regaining his sight — spying for Israel in exchange for medical treatment.

Waheidi is one of 32 Palestinian patients who claims Israel's Shin Bet intelligence agency tried to bully them into giving information about militants, according to the Israel branch of Physicians for Human Rights. The group documented the Palestinians' claims in an 80-page report released Monday.

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By Maher Osseiran

Why is the Supreme Court's decision to uphold habeas corpus rights for the Guantanamo detainees so scary that Senator Lindsey Graham, with the support of McCain, will "explore the possibility, if necessary, of a constitutional amendment to blunt the effect of this decision"?

What is so fundamentally wrong with the Supreme Court's decision, whose members are conservative or Bush appointees, to warrant amending our constitution? Have Senators Graham and McCain lost their minds?

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The Nation

By Mohammed Omer

I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza. I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City. I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve them because of Israel's embargo. I have been recognized for my reporting, even in the United States and United Kingdom, where I have won two international awards. I have also been beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers.

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The Nation

By Mohammed Omer

I am a Palestinian journalist from Gaza. At the age of 17, I armed myself with a camera and a pen, committed to report accurately on events in Gaza. I have filed reports as Israeli fighter jets bombed Gaza City. I have interviewed mothers as they watched their children die in hospitals unequipped to serve them because of Israel's embargo. I have been recognized for my reporting, even in the United States and United Kingdom, where I have won two international awards. I have also been beaten and tortured by Israeli soldiers.

=> Read more!