Hamas:
“Abbas No Longer Authorized To Negotiate On Behalf Of the Palestinians”

By Saed Bannoura
“The Palestinian Authority in the West Bank is in coalition with the occupation”, Abu Zuhri said, “We call on our people to hold massive protests against those who sold out to the occupation” Continue

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Leaked Documents Reveal How
PA and Israel Planed to Kill Palestinian Fighter in Gaza.

By David Poort
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has shown operational willingness to co-operate with Israel to kill its own people, the Palestine Papers indicate. Continue

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A New Truth Dawns on the Arab World

By Robert Fisk

The Palestinian "Authority" - one has to put this word in quotation marks - was prepared, and is prepared to give up the "right of return" of perhaps seven million refugees to what is now Israel for a "state" that may be only 10 per cent (at most) of British mandate Palestine. Continue

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The Palestine Papers and the Dead-end of Nationalism

By Bill Van Auken
These documents provide a graphic account of the “peace process”—a two-decade-long fraud perpetrated by Washington upon not only the Palestinians, but the entire world. Continue

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Palestine Does Not Have to be a Lost Cause

By Alan Hart
The most sickening (I mean truly vomit inducing) thing about the Al Jazeera revelations, the so-called Palestine Papers, is not what they confirm about the quisling status of the impotent and corrupt Palestine Authority. Continue

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The View on the Ground of the Palestine Papers

"It's not breaking news that the PA heads are traitors"

By Laila El-Haddad

How Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank have responded to this week's revelations. Continue

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Excusing Torture at ‘Justice’

By Ray McGovern
Catholics are more likely than the general U.S. population to favor the use of torture against suspected terrorists. More than half the Catholics surveyed said that torture could be often or sometimes justified, while another 27 percent said the practice could rarely be justified. Only 20 percent said it could never be justified. Continue

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Onward Christian Soldiers ... To Hypocrisy

By William Rivers Pitt

make no mistake: this movement to turn the Armed Forces into a bastion of hard-core fundamentalist Christianity is as dangerous as any threat posed to the country by any outside force or enemy. Continue

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Davos: Where The (Big) Money Is

By Luisa Kroll
By Forbes’ count, 69 billionaires from 20 countries are expected to attend the annual World Economic Forum confab, which starts tomorrow in the Swiss Alps town of Davos. Continue

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NGOs in Haiti
"The Handmaidens of Imperial Domination"

By Mike Whitney
They are part and parcel of what Naomi Klein has called disaster capitalism. International NGOs are really businesses and big ones at that. There are about 50,000 international NGOs that compete for about $10 billion in funding from the International Financial Institutions, the imperial powers, and local governments. Continue

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Hogwash, Mr. President

By Robert Scheer

What is the state of the union? You certainly couldn't tell from that platitudinous hogwash that the president dished out Tuesday evening. Continue

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8 "insurgents" killed in northern Afghan province: Official: Security forces raided "Taliban hideout" in Takhar province, 245 km north of capital Kabul, killing eight "insurgents" on Wednesday, deputy to provincial police chief Abdul Salam said.

Number of US troops killed by roadside bombs in Afghanistan rose 60 percent last year: Roadside bombs killed 268 American troops in Afghanistan last year, a 60 percent increase over the year before, even as the Pentagon works to counter the Taliban's makeshift weapon of choice, according to figures obtained Wednesday from the Pentagon.

Police officer and retired colonel among three killed in Iraq: Three people were killed, including a police officer and a retired Iraqi Army colonel, on Wednesday in the restive northern Iraqi city of Mosul, security sources confirmed.

Israel asked Palestinian Authority to kill al-Aqsa commander: Leaked papers reveal close intelligence and security co-operation between two sides in Middle East conflict

MI6 offered to detain Hamas figures: The UK’s MI-6 intelligence service proposed detaining members of Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad, an extraordinary –and illegal – scheme in which the European Union would have paid for their detention.

Erekat: "I can't stand Hamas": The Palestine Papers reveal that Fatah was obsessed with maintaining political supremacy over Hamas. Documents obtained by Al Jazeera also show the extent to which the Palestinian Authority cracked down on Hamas institutions to weaken the group and strengthen its own relationship with Israel.
Erekat says: Leaks threaten my life: In an interview with the BBC, Mr Erekat admitted that some of the material was true. He had initially dismissed it as a "pack of lies".
Need a laugh? US calls Israeli probe of flotilla raid ‘impartial': The United States has described as “credible and impartial and transparent” an Israeli inquiry that cleared the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and government of any wrongdoing in a deadly raid on a Gaza-bound international flotilla.
Phoney Tony: Tony Blair criticised for 'Israeli bias': Leaked papers show Palestinians feel quartet envoy is paternalistic and that the Israelis don't take him too seriously
International gains for Palestinian sovereignty; Zionists aghast: The Irish ambassador to Israel, Breifne O’Reilly, was summoned to the foreign ministry in Jerusalem Jan. 25 to be dressed down by Israeli officials over Dublin's move to upgrade the status of the Palestinian delegation to Ireland to a mission.
Fact or fiction? Mubarak’s Wife and Son Flee to London amid Protests: The wife of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak and their son Gamal, considered the successor to his father as president, have fled to London with 97 suitcases after unprecedented massive protests in Egypt, an Arab website reported.
860 Arrested as Egyptian police crack down on new protests: Egyptian anti-government activists clashed with police for a second day Wednesday in defiance of an official ban on any protests. Beefed up police forces on the streets quickly moved in and used tear gas and beatings to disperse any demonstrations.
Top US senator mum on Mubarak support: "All I could say this morning is that Egypt has been an extremely important ally of ours since Anwar Sadat, and we're all watching these developments in Cairo very carefully," said Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Dutch police stop Egyptian man burning himself: Police said the 52-year-old was carrying a banner, had soaked himself in flammable liquid and was trying to spark a lighter when they blinded him with pepper spray and wrestled him to the ground.
Tunisia: Arrest warrant issued for ex-president Ben Ali: Lazhar Karoui Chebbi said the interim government had asked Interpol to detain Mr Ben Ali, who fled to Saudi Arabia on 14 January amid mass street protests.
WikiLeaks Cables Help Uncover What Made Tunisians Revolt: A set of 10 diplomatic cables released by whistleblower website WikiLeaks offers some insight into the recent upheaval in Tunisia and starts to answer the question of why so many Tunisians took to the streets to topple their leader.
Visa-ordered inquiry finds no proof WikiLeaks breaking law: A firm asked by Visa to investigate WikiLeaks' finances has found no proof the group's fundraising arm is breaking the law. - But Visa Europe Ltd. said Wednesday it would continue blocking donations to the secret-spilling site until it completes its own investigation.
Bangladesh 'death squad' trained by UK police resumes extrajudicial killing: A Bangladeshi paramilitary unit that receives training from British police has resumed killing people in so-called "crossfire" incidents that human rights groups say are extrajudicial killings.
Bush White House Broke Elections Law, Report Says: The Bush White House, particularly before the 2006 midterm elections, routinely violated a federal law that prohibits use of federal tax dollars to pay for political activities by creating a “political boiler room” that coordinated Republican campaign activities nationwide, a report issued Monday by an independent federal agency concludes.
Marines to train in mock city as big as San Diego: A 1,560-building mock city that's roughly the size of San Diego has risen in the Southern California desert.
Rand Paul unveils $500B in cuts: Republican freshman Sen. Rand Paul introduced legislation Tuesday that seeks to cut $500 billion from government spending in one year alone, wiping out three cabinet departments and the entire foreign aid budget while sparing neither the Pentagon nor 2011 war-related funding for overseas military operations.
E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out of Billions: Lawsuit alleges the bank took extreme measures to defraud investors, and now JPMorgan may be on the hook
Bank Failures Rise to 7 in 2011: Last Friday, U.S. regulators shuttered four more banks in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Colorado, pushing up the failed U.S. banks figure to 7 so far in 2011. These were preceded by 157 bank failures in 2010, 140 in 2009 and 25 in 2008.
US house prices 'hitting new lows': Some of the other worst-hit cities include Detroit (down 48% since its peak) and Miami (down 49%)