Sunday, Jan 11th
Last update07:54:46 AM GMT
Tel Aviv has reintroduced the idea of attacking Iran in the wake of a deadly military offensive in Gaza, which claimed over 1300 lives.
Israel claims that the speedy rate at which Iran is conducting its nuclear program and the comments made by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad about Israel's final fate indicate that Tehran poses a threat to Israel.
The BBC was in crisis last night as politicians including government ministers, religious leaders and senior members of its own staff condemned the decision not to broadcast a charity appeal to help the stricken people of Gaza rebuild their homes.
The Archbishop of York, John Sentamu, has accused the broadcaster of "taking sides". He said yesterday: "This is not a row about impartiality but rather about humanity.
Surveying the wreckage of a neighbor's bungalow hit by a Palestinian rocket, retired Israeli official Avner Cohen traces the missile's trajectory back to an "enormous, stupid mistake" made 30 years ago.
"Hamas, to my great regret, is Israel's creation," says Mr. Cohen, a Tunisian-born Jew who worked in Gaza for more than two decades. Responsible for religious affairs in the region until 1994, Mr. Cohen watched the Islamist movement take shape, muscle aside secular Palestinian rivals and then morph into what is today Hamas, a militant group that is sworn to Israel's destruction.
It was July 12, 2007, and since then California has been living on borrowed money.
As in $21.5 billion worth of borrowed money, according to state Controller John Chiang: $16.5 billion borrowed from some of the state's 1,000-plus special funds, plus $5 billion in "revenue anticipation notes," which are basically money borrowed from private investors.
But, Chiang, whose office writes the state's checks, says California is about out of stopgap tricks to pay its bills and keep all its programs running.
Israel's prime minister says his country will grant legal protection to soldiers who fought in the three-week war in the Gaza Strip, against possible allegations of war crimes.
Mr. Ehud Olmert said Sunday he had appointed Israel's justice minister, Daniel Friedman, to chair a committee to offer a coordinated defense against what he called "self-righteous people" who might want to sue Israeli soldiers.
TVNL Comment: Why are innocent victims of the IDF 'self righteous,' while Israelis killed in retaliation are 'martyrs?' Just asking...
Lawmakers, troubled by the prospect of taxpayer-subsidized influence-peddling, are threatening to crack down. Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, a Maine Republican, are pushing legislation that would explicitly bar companies from using bailout funds for lobbying or campaign contributions.
Although hard to enforce, the measure puts banks on notice that aggressive lobbying could set off a Congressional backlash.
TVNL Comment: Lawmakers are "threatening" to crack down? How about actually cracking down? What they hell do we have lawmakers for? Big talk from the criminals who are responsible for this mess!
The Pentagon has developed a comprehensive strategy for taking over the internet and controlling the free flow of information. The plan appears in a recently declassified document, “The Information Operations Roadmap”, which was provided under the FOIA (Freedom of Information Act) and revealed in an article by the BBC.
The Pentagon sees the internet in terms of a military adversary that poses a vital threat to its stated mission of global domination. This explains the confrontational language in the document which speaks of “fighting the net”; implying that the internet is the equivalent of “an enemy weapons system."
The Defense Dept. places a high-value on controlling information. The new program illustrates their determination to establish the parameters of free speech.
As President Barack Obama declared with a fanfare his intention to close the controversial Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention camp last week, he made no mention of another growing US-run prison - with more than twice as many inmates and an even murkier legal status.On January 21, the United States deposited its instruments of ratification for Protocols III, IV, and V of the Convention on Conventional Weapons (“CCW”) and for an amendment to that Convention. Protocol III covers incendiary weapons, Protocol IV covers blinding laser weapons, and Protocol V deals with explosive remnants of war. The Amendment expands the scope of the Convention to non-international armed conflicts.
The United States took a leading role in negotiating these protocols and the amendment, has long complied with the norms contained in them, and is pleased to become a party to each of them. This action reaffirms our commitment to the development and implementation of international humanitarian law.
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