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April 13, 2008
OT 08-15
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This could be explosive, but I haven’t been able to find corroboration yet:
Chairman of Palestinian charity found murdered in Texas
Austin, 18 April – The corpse of well-known founder and chairman of the Palestinian Child Welfare Foundation, 55-year old Riadh al-Solh Hamad, was found floating in Ladybird Lake near Austin, in Texas. Riadh al-Solh Hamad was a teacher at a local high-school. Of Palestinian origin, he was born and raised in refugee camps of Libanon. After completing his university education in science in the USA, he dedicated his entire life and belongings to the Palestinian Child Welfare Foundation, which funds the rehabilitation and education of handicapped children in the Occupied Territories of Palestine.
Al-Solh Hamad’s corpse was found floating in the lake, completely wrapped up in duct tape, with his hands shackled. On 29th February Riadh al-Solh had been submitted to intensive interrogation by the FBI and other US security agents suspecting “terrorist” links of the Palestinian Child Welfare Foundation. Immediately after the detection of his corpse, security agents went to his family’s home and left it with some 40 boxes containing files, CDs and other documents related to the victim’s work.
(full report)
Posted by: Alamet | Apr 18 2008 22:28 utc | 101
#99
meanwhile, torrentspy says goodbye cause “The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile”
Goodbye Torrentspy, It was a wild ride
Posted by: rudolf | Apr 19 2008 2:30 utc | 102
Haaretz ticker line:
12:08 Hamas calls on Gazans to march to Erez crossing to break Israeli siege
This could get very bloody …
Our reign of terror, by the Israeli army
Did you hit them? “Sure, not just them. Anyone who came close … Particularly legs and arms. Some people also sustained abdominal hits … I think at some point they realised it was soldiers, but they were not sure. Because they could not believe soldiers would do this, you know.”
Or using a 10-year-old child to locate and punish a 15-year-old stone-thrower: “So we got hold of just some Palestinian kid nearby, we knew that he knew who it had been. Let’s say we beat him a little, to put it mildly, until he told us. You know, the way it goes when your mind’s already screwed up, and you have no more patience for Hebron and Arabs and Jews there.
“The kid was really scared, realising we were on to him. We had a commander with us who was a bit of a fanatic. We gave the boy over to this commander, and he really beat the shit out of him … He showed him all kinds of holes in the ground along the way, asking him: ‘Is it here you want to die? Or here?’ The kid goes, ‘No, no!’
“Anyway, the kid was stood up, and couldn’t stay standing on his own two feet. He was already crying … And the commander continues, ‘Don’t pretend’ and kicks him some more. And then [name withheld], who always had a hard time with such things, went in, caught the squad commander and said, ‘Don’t touch him any more, that’s it.’ The commander goes, ‘You’ve become a leftie, what?’ And he answers, ‘No, I just don’t want to see such things.’
“We were right next to this, but did nothing. We were indifferent, you know. OK. Only after the fact you start thinking. Not right away. We were doing such things every day … It had become a habit…
“And the parents saw it. The commander ordered [the mother], ‘Don’t get any closer.’ He cocked his weapon, already had a bullet inside. She was frightened. He put his weapon literally inside the kid’s mouth. ‘Anyone gets close, I kill him. Don’t bug me. I kill. I have no mercy.’ So the father … got hold of the mother and said, ‘Calm down, let them be, so they’ll leave him alone.'”
More here
Lots of great posts, b.
Big bombshell here? Sunday NYT front page:
11 pages plus audio, video, and document archive, which I can’t access when I click on it, of exposé from writer David Barstow.
Behind TV Analysts, Pentagon’s Hidden Hand
…
The effort, whichbegan with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration’s war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.
You’d think this story would dominate the news cycle from now till kingdom come. But it’s critical of news corps not checking war-profiteering ties to their “experts”, so probably not.
Posted by: Hamburger | Apr 20 2008 10:30 utc | 105