On 27 December, 2008, Israel launched a wide-scale military offensive against the population and infrastructure of the Gaza Strip. Operation 'Cast Lead' lasted 23 days and was the biggest Israeli military offensive in the Gaza Strip in nearly 42 years of occupation. 1,414 Palestinians were killed, including 313 children.1 The evidence obtained by PCHR strongly indicates that the overwhelming majority of these victims were civilians.

Here, a man called Glenn Beck is 10 seconds into his daily talkshow, and already he's reached a rolling boil. "What are the mainstream media missing?" he wonders, bounding onstage like the Duracell Bunny. "I mean, besides EVERYTHING? You are not going to BELIEVE some of the crap that's going on in the world today!"

The theft of public money by Members of Parliament, including government ministers, has given Britons a rare glimpse inside the tent of power and privilege. It is rare because not one political reporter or commentator, those who fill tombstones of column inches and dominate broadcast journalism, revealed a shred of this scandal. It was left to a public relations man to sell the "leak." Why?

French President Nicolas Sarkozy opened his nation's first military base in the Gulf Tuesday, boosting the naval presence along strategic oil routes and in pirate-infested waters off the Somali coast.

The new naval base outside the United Arab Emirates' capital, Abu Dhabi, is France's first major foreign military installation since the 1960s and its first outside Africa. It is expected help safeguard vital Persian Gulf shipping lanes. It also puts France in position to play a higher profile role in calming the growing tensions between Iran and Gulf Arab states.

from Crikey .....

By 2010, ASIO will have doubled in size

Canberra correspondent Bernard Keane writes:

It's been a fairly tame Estimates hearings so far. Only those with patience and a remarkable capacity to stay alert for hours on end will have gained anything. And I'm talking about all the participants, from senators to bureaucrats to journalists.

from Crikey .....

Israel's "useful idiots" in the Australian media

Greg Barns writes:

Back in the days when the hammer and sickle flew proudly, the Soviet Union would spend big dollars on paying for journalists, academics and diplomats to see for themselves the "workers' paradise". It was part of a long term and relentless strategy by the Communists to win the propaganda war against the West.

"One of the great attractions to patriotism, it fulfils our worst wishes. In the person of a nation we are able, vicariously, to bully and cheat while feeling we're profoundly virtuous." Aldous Huxley

Iraq ............... 1,300,000

Afghanistan ....       35,000

Pakistan .........        5,500    

Vietnam ......... 

Guatemala .....

Chile .....

Honduras .....

Philippines ....

The hypocrisy of our politicians is simply breathtaking ....

Between 1945 & 1992, the US conducted more than 1,000 nuclear tests & mounted two nuclear attacks on the defenceless civilian populations of Hiroshima & Nagasaki.

from Crikey .....

AFR defends the indefensible on bank fees

Adam Schwab writes:

Australia's leading banking journalist, the Financial Review's Andrew Cornell, undertook a valiant, albeit flawed defence of banking exception fees yesterday.

The Obama administration is pressing the Israeli government to halt the expansion of Jewish settlements in Palestinian areas, U.S. and Israeli officials said, seeking a visible symbol of progress on peace that might inspire Arab states to consider normalizing relations with Jerusalem.

The administration's effort is being accompanied by greater willingness by U.S. lawmakers to complain publicly about settlements, but it has been complicated by an unwritten agreement on the issue between Israel and the United States reached during the Bush administration.

Millions worldwide rejoiced in January when Obama entered the White House & said torture would cease.

During Barack Obama's inauguration speech, it was striking to hear him declare that "we are a nation of Christians and Muslims" - indicating that both have the right to live and practice their religions in America, free from discrimination.

Gollob points to a machine that easily fits in a bag the size of a woman's purse. It's a universal translator. It is being tested in Iraq by DARPA - the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - the legendary research and development works in Arlington where Gollob is a contractor.

The machine interprets the spoken word. You talk in English. It repeats whatever you said in spoken Iraqi Arabic. It then awaits a spoken response from the Iraqi, and talks back to you in English.

Anthony Steen said public "jealousy" was fuelling the furore and claimed that taxpayers have no right to see the details of individual MPs' claims.

Mr Steen made his comments in a BBC interview shortly after announcing that he would be standing down at the next election. His decision came after it emerged that he claimed £87,729 over four years to maintain his Devon country house. The payments included money to inspect some of the 500 trees surrounding the property and to guard his shrubs from rabbits.

President Obama today signed into law a bill that prevents credit card companies from raising interest rates arbitrarily and limits the fees they can charge, meeting his own deadline of enacting the bill before Memorial Day.

"Just as we demand credit card users act responsibly, we demand that credit card companies act responsibly too," he said before signing the Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act.