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Restricted Space for Refugees- HRW (Amman) – Jordanian reform initiatives in 2014 failed to end long-term abuses, and authorities continued to detain and prosecute peaceful critics, Human Rights Watch said today in its World Report 2015. A three-year deadline for lawmakers to bring domestic legislation into compliance with basic freedoms guaranteed by Jordan’s 2011 constitution passed in October 2014 without …

By Gerald Caplan- Rabble.ca Good for the Harper government for facilitating the secret talks between a pig-headed Washington and Cuba’s geriatric “communist” dictatorship. Despite the widespread demoralization within the Department of Foreign Affairs, its officials, backed by the Prime Minister and Foreign Minister John Baird, demonstrated to the world exactly what kind of role Canada is capable of playing on …

By Richard Silverstein – Tikun Olam Galey Tzahal (Army Radio) reported today that Israel welcomed with open arms two Ukrainian oligarchs wanted by Interpol for serious crimes.  The suspects, Yuri Borisov and Eduard Stavitsky, are suspected of embezzlement and money-laundering in Ukraine.  They flew into Ben Gurion airport and received Israeli entry visas.  Borisov’s visa was approved for the purposes of medical treatment, …

By Jonathan Cook  I watched American Sniper the other night and it really is the most puerile propaganda imaginable. It is not even as though it is simply unfair to the “enemy” – that is, mostly ordinary Iraqis, who are shown to be ruthless and heartless killers filled with irrational hatred for the American soldiers sent to liberate them from …

By Arjan El Fassed– The Electronic Intifada On Wednesday July 22 1987 at five in the afternoon, Palestinian cartoonist Naji Al-Ali parked his car in southwest London, and walked a few meters towards the offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas where he worked. He was shot in the head by a gunman, dressed in a denim jacket, who walked calmly …

By Jonathan Cook Yesterday I had an idea for a short story to explain the unrelenting insanity of the occupation for ordinary Palestinians. Tell me what you think. In my story, there is a Palestinian family, let’s call them the Jaabaris, and they live next to a Jewish settlement, let’s call it Kiryat Arba, close to Hebron deep in the Israeli-occupied …

By Ramzy Baroud Francois Hollande is not a popular president. No matter how hard the ‘socialist’ leader tries to impress, there never seems to be a no solid constituency that backs him. He attempted to mask his initial lack of experience in foreign affairs with a war in Mali, after his country enthusiastically took on Libya. While he succeeded at …

Israel’s claims of an imminent threat of Hizballah attack are not credible. More likely it wants to subdue the Lebanese militia so that it has a free hand to manipulate the Syrian battlefield to its advantage Al-Araby – 22 January 2015 By Jonathan Cook Israel has good reason to fear that the Lebanese militia Hizballah and Iran’s Revolutionary Guard will seek dramatic revenge for the killing of …

By Carol Memmott – The Washington Post The author Ausma Zehanat Khan Inspector Esa Khattak , a Canadian Muslim, is kneeling on a prayer rug woven by his Pakistani ancestors when his phone rings. He takes the call, finishes his prayers and sets off to investigate the suspicious death of a man who may be a fugitive war criminal. “The …

Source – ARAMCO WORLD In recent years, street art has grown from an edgy, often illegal practice associated with urban decay to something almost fashionable associated with civic vitality. One of the people responsible for this change is Mehdi Ben Cheikh, a French-Tunisian who in 2004 founded Galerie Itinerrance in Paris, which is dedicated to showing street art. His goal …