An American activist who participated in a Palestinian solidarity demonstration is in serious condition Saturday after an Israeli soldier shot him in the face with a high-velocity tear gas canister. He underwent surgery early Saturday.
Even as the rescue operation commenced, more tear gas rained down on the demonstrators as soldiers allegedly delayed ambulance access.
Tristan Anderson, 38, of Oakland, Calif., was wounded Friday in the West Bank village of Naalin, during a protest against Israels separation barrier, reported the Associated Press. In the past year, four Palestinians have been killed and scores injured by Israeli troops putting down weekly stone-throwing protests against the barrier, which cuts off Naalin from 300 acres of olive groves.
VIDEO: Israeli soldier shot American activist in face with tear gas can
Press Freedom Index 2008
Only peace protects freedoms in post-9/11 world.
“The post-9/11 world is now clearly drawn,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Destabilised and on the defensive, the leading democracies are gradually eroding the space for freedoms. The economically most powerful dictatorships arrogantly proclaim their authoritarianism, exploiting the international community’s divisions and the ravages of the wars carried out in the name of the fight against terrorism. Religious and political taboos are taking greater hold by the year in countries that used to be advancing down the road of freedom.”
Luke Rudkowski arrested for “impersonating the press” and “trespassing” for trying to ask a question.
WeAreChange founder and activist Luke Rudowski was arrested at the Hilton Hotel on Manhattan today for attempting to question New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg about his refusal to pay for the health care of 9/11 first responders. Rudowski had Infowars press credentials and a video camera when he was singled out by Bloomberg’s security in the lobby of the hotel located at West 53rd Street and Avenue of the Americas (Sixth Avenue).
Rudowski was apparently singled out and forcibly detained at the hotel and subsequently handed over to the New York Police, who arrested him on a charge of trespassing. Rudowski was also charged with impersonating a member of the press.
Infowars is a bona fide press organization.
AIPAC espionage case becomes US trouble
The Justice Department is feeling the heat as it continues the prosecution of former AIPAC staffers Steve Rosen and Keith Weissman.
The two officials from the American-Israeli Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) were in 2005 indicted for passing along secret US documents to Israel in violation of the 1917 Espionage Act.
The American Jewish Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, two top Jewish lobby groups in the US, are demanding the Justice Department reconsider its case against Rosen and Weissman.
Detainee's Harsh Treatment Foiled No Plots
In the end, though, not a single significant plot was foiled as a result of Abu Zubaida's tortured confessions, according to former senior government officials who closely followed the interrogations. Nearly all of the leads attained through the harsh measures quickly evaporated.
TVNL Comment: When will Bush and Cheney and their entire gang of war criminals face justice? Just asking.
Bush Torture Lawyers Targeted in Criminal Probe
One of America’s NATO allies—which supported the Bush Administration’s war on terror by committing its troops to the struggle–has now opened formal criminal inquiries looking into the Bush team’s legacy of torture. The action parallels a criminal probe into allegations of torture involving the American CIA that was opened this week in the United Kingdom.
Spain’s national newspapers, El País and Público reported that the Spanish national security court has opened a criminal probe focusing on Bush Administration lawyers who pioneered the descent into torture at the prison in Guantánamo.
Earth fever takes hold across globe
EARTH HOUR is about to sweep around the world in what the United Nations is calling "the largest demonstration of public concern about climate change ever attempted".
The event, which started in Sydney two years ago, will see well over 3000 cities and towns in more than 90 countries switch off their lights for an hour this year. Hundreds of millions of people are expected to take part.
From the international dateline, Earth Hour starts in New Zealand's Chatham Islands this afternoon and will conclude in Honolulu tomorrow night (Sydney time).
In the US, the Empire State Building will dim its lights, along with Sears Tower in Chicago, San Francisco's Golden Gate Bridge and the lights of the casino strip in Las Vegas. In Canada, lights at Niagara Falls and Toronto's CN Tower will be turned off.
TVNL Comment: Have you heard about this in the American media? We did not.
Filmmaker Calls 911 Attacks "a Hoax"
On Sept. 11 2001, filmmaker Paul Cross was doing post-production work in Washington DC when he heard about the "terrorist" attack. He visited the crash-site just five hours after impact and could plainly see the official story was a lie.
"There was no passenger jet wreckage; the lawn wasn't scorched; lamp posts, fences and construction materials in the path of the jet were untouched." Cross told me. "If this was a hoax, then the attack on the World Trade Centre was also a hoax."
Cross, 45, characterizes his pre-9-11 self as a "flag- waving patriot" who "voted Republican all my life."
Israel admits killing 189 children in Gaza campaign
The survey was disclosed as Benjamin Netanyahu, the incoming prime minister, presented himself as a peacemaker and assured Palestinians that his government would be their "partner".
Even as Mr Netanyahu was addressing the conference, however, Israel's Army Radio reported that he had agreed to build more homes inside Jewish settlements on the West Bank inside an area known as E-1, a few miles east of Jerusalem. Construction in this vital region could sever the West Bank in two, making the creation of a viable Palestinian state even more difficult.
The radio station said this was part of a secret agreement with Avigdor Lieberman, the leader of the nationalist Yisrael Beitenu party, who is likely to be foreign minister in the new coalition.
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