By Uri Blau, Haaretz, 18 June 2009

Border Policemen have filmed themselves abusing and humiliating Palestinians in videos they have posted on YouTube over the past year.

In one clip uploaded to the video sharing website an Arab youth is shown in arid terrain, slapping himself, while a voice is heard instructing him to say “I love you, Border Police,” and “I will f**k you, Palestine,” in Arabic. The victim is forced to respond to everything he is ordered to do, to the raucous laughter of the cameraman and his friends, all Border Policemen.

In another video, a Palestinian is seen sitting inside a vehicle reciting the words “One Hummus and one ful [cooked broad beans], I love you Border Police” (which rhymes in Hebrew), while applause and shouting is heard in the background.

[Read the report | hat tip]

Wednesday, June 17, 2009 17:30

In response to our recent post, which traced the bulk of the #IranElection twitter spam back to an article in JPost rather than “Iranian Students”,  the Jerusalem newspaper has removed the evidence by altering their June 14th article (luckily, we kept the screenshot).  JPost has also written a response to our allegations.

We argued that the onslaught of #IranElection tweets may not have been the work of “Iranian students” as claimed but rather a group of people promoting the political interests of the right-wing of Israeli politics with the aim of magnifying the social unrest which followed the Iranian election.

[Read more]

Tue Jun 16, 2009 3:26pm EDT
By Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it had contacted the social networking service Twitter to urge it to delay a planned upgrade that would have cut daytime service to Iranians who are disputing their election.

Twitter agreed and rescheduled an interruption of service that reportedly would have lasted one hour. Strange, that despite Iran’s alleged blocking of Twitter it’s still going strong. Who is doing the messaging then? The U.S. government, by this very public intervention, has messaged it supports the violent overthrow of the Iranian government. Apparently, when Barack Obama evoked the U.S. overthrow of Mossadegh in his Cairo speech he wasn’t acknowledging a wrong, he was bragging of past accomplishments in anticipation of the “spontaneous” revolution to come.

WEB OF CORRUPTION ENTANGLES PRI GOVERNOR, PRESIDENT’S WIFE
By John Ross

MEXICO CITY (June 18th) – Words are powerless to describe the unspeakable horror that engulfed the working class “Y” colony in the northern Mexican desert city of Hermosillo June 5th when a grubby industrial warehouse that had been rented out as a day care center burst into flames trapping over 100 toddlers inside.

With the emergency exits blocked, no fire extinguishers on the premises, and defective smoke and fire alarms, neighbors frantically fought to rescue their children. One brave young man repeatedly slammed his pick-up into the front wall to open an escape hatch – he was later cited for inflicting property damage. 57 youngsters were carried out of the ABC Day Care Center alive. 41 were not, most of them burned beyond recognition in their cribs and cots. 26 of the children rescued remain hospitalized in grave condition – five more have since died. In one heartbreaking incident, a surviving child’s face was so badly disfigured that her parents did not recognize her and she was given to another family whose own child had burned up in the conflagration.

Preliminary investigation into the tragedy point to gross negligence by the authorities, the collusion of federal and Sonora state government officials, and influence trafficking on the part of the three listed owners, one of whom is a cousin of Margarita Zavala, the wife of Mexican president Felipe Calderon.

[Read the report]

By Flynt Leverett and Hillary Mann Leverett
15 June 2009

In the wake of Friday’s election, some “Iran experts” — perhaps feeling burned by their misreading of contemporary political dynamics in the Islamic Republic — argue that we are witnessing a “conservative coup d’état,” aimed at a complete takeover of the Iranian state.

But one could more plausibly suggest that if a “coup” is being attempted, it has been mounted by the losers in Friday’s election. It was Mousavi, after all, who declared victory on Friday even before Iran’s polls closed. And three days before the election, Mousavi supporter Rafsanjani published a letter criticizing the leader’s failure to rein in Ahmadinejad’s resort to “such ugly and sin-infected phenomena as insults, lies and false allegations.” Many Iranians took this letter as an indication that the Mousavi camp was concerned their candidate had fallen behind in the campaign’s closing days.

[Read the article]

Related:
Iran Writes: Mousavi: The Triumph of Ordinariness (17 May 2009)

Worse than friendly endorsements are those statements which his supporters express here and there to make up for lack of any outstanding feature in Mousavi’s record, like, “He is the only one who can save the country,” without thinking why the country should be in such a condition that only Mousavi can save it. Or when they emphasis on his war time management record, without thinking that somewhere people can find out that his record was not so brilliant.

In the absence of any meaningful way to answer hundreds of questions raised by citizens about his candidacy, Mousavi’s supporters tend to silence the public and invite them to “be quiet and just vote, we will settle it after the election,” or even appeal to intimidation when they consider a question as being “unappreciative” or “ruining the candidates.” They suffice it to emphasis his only alleged asset, his management skills.

Unfortunately, what is not achieved so far is the enthusiasm and excitement expected in presidential elections.

[Read the article]