IOF Troops Kill Fighter of Aqsa Brigades after Kidnapping Him, and a Civilian

27 February 2008

NABLUS, (PIC)-- The IOF troops killed on Wednesday morning a wounded fighter of the Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, the dissolved armed wing of Fatah, called Ibrahim Al-Misaimi, 25, in the Nablus city, northern West Bank after they kidnapped him and put him in jail.

Palestinian local sources reported that Misaimi was injured during an Israeli incursion in the Tal street west of Nablus, where the IOF troops also wounded two other citizens including his brother Wa'el.

Informed sources said that Ibrahim was killed in the Israeli jails, while his brother's wounds were described as critical, adding that the IOF troops kidnapped three other citizens and shot a construction worker in his stomach.

The PA unconstitutional government in the West Bank had announced the dissolution of all formations of AMB, where many of the Brigades' fighters surrendered their weapons and signed a pledge to renounce resistance against the Israeli occupation.

Palestinian eyewitnesses reported IOF troops boarding civilian cars infiltrated into the Tal street again and opened fire at three Palestinian citizens walking in the street and brutally dragged two of them on the ground as they were bleeding.

The invading IOF troops also stormed the house of Naseef family in Nablus and turned it into a military post and have been stationed in the house until the moment of preparing this report.

The IOF troops stormed and ransacked last night a number of houses in Jenin, its refugee camp and the Abu Da'eef town east of Jenin, where they kidnapped eight Palestinian citizens and took them to an unknown destination.

The IOF troops also kidnapped on the same day journalist Jihad Shehada, the director of the Bayan office for press and information in the north of the Salfit city, northern West Bank, after they forced him to get off from his car, and took him to an unknown destination blindfolded and in chains.

In a related context, the IOF troops resumed its new campaign which started on Tuesday against Palestinian charities in Al-Khalil city, southern West Bank, where they broke into and ransacked four charitable societies in the villages and towns near the city.

The IOF troops had announced the confiscation of the Islamic charitable society in Al-Khalil with all its branches and assets and also decided to confiscate the buildings, assets and buses of the Muslim youth association in the city.

In the Gaza Strip, Palestinian local sources reported that the IOF troops kidnapped at noon Wednesday four Palestinian citizens near the Yasser Arafat airport, east of the Rafah city in southern Gaza during infiltration into the area and took them into their military posts.

An Israeli air strike killed on Wednesday evening a Palestinian citizen called Manwr Abu Mendil and wounded a woman with her husband in an agricultural field in Jabaliya, southern Gaza Strip.

US Media Influence - Anti-Iran msg

Homer Simpson's brain scan

1 September 2007

We probe US administration's handling of media over Iran, Japan's press turning on their PM and Homer Simpson's brain.

The Listening Post, Richard Gizbert probes the US administration's handling of the media over Iran. We report on how Japan's press is turning on the Prime Minister after a crushing defeat in the Upper House elections. And in China, Homer Simpson's brain finds its way to the national health pages.

We start in the United States this week, watching Fox News' reportage on Iran. The US administration is using its powerful media allies to pave the way for war with Iran. Fox News and others have been pushing President George Bush's anti-Iran message. However, the US administration's agenda is not going unopposed. We spoke to small independent media outfits like Fox Attacks and Stop the War who believe the media is being manipulated and that we have been here before with Iraq.

Our other story is the souring of relations between Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and the country's press. After a crushing defeat in the Upper House elections, the liberal media demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation, while the traditionally supportive conservative newspapers were highly critical of his performance.

When Mr Abe came to power in 2006, he was hailed as the 'princling' and a worthy successor to former Prime Minister Junichiro Koizumi. Where Mr Koizumi was charismatic and flamboyant with a knack for speaking in television soundbites, Mr Abe was seen as stiff and sombre and even arrogant in his dealings with the media. His popularity at home was not helped by revelations in the press of a series of ministerial scandals. And abroad Mr Abe's remarks caused outrage in the media when he hinted that World War Two sex slaves had not been coerced by the military.

We spoke to some Japan's major newspapers to get the low down on the breakdown between press and Prime Minister.

In Newsbytes, we report on latest developments into the murder case of Russian journalist, Anna Politkovskaya. We introduce you to a new online tool that gives details of who is editing Wikipedia's pages. And in China, the national press agency use a picture of Homer Simpson's brain scan to illustrate a science article on multiple sclerosis!

Last but not least, our internet video of the week - President Bush's rendition of U2's anti-war anthem Sunday Bloody Sunday.

“Bush may not be the sharpest knife in the drawer but his quips sure make for a good video.” -speedracer77 (Sunday Bloody Sunday by Bush)

Part 1

Part 2

Reporter Arrested on Orders of Giuliani Press Secretary

Charged with Criminal Trespass Despite Protest of CNN Staff and Official Event Press Credentials at GOP Debate in New Hampshire

Aaron Dykes & Alex Jones / Jones Report June 5, 2007

Manchester, NH - Freelance reporter Matt Lepacek, reporting for Infowars.com, was arrested for asking a question to one of Giuliani's staff members in a press conference. The press secretary identified the New York based reporter as having previously asked Giuliani about his prior knowledge of WTC building collapses and ordered New Hampshire state police to arrest him.

Jason Bermas, reporting for Infowars and America: Freedom to Fascism, confirmed Lepacek had official CNN press credentials for the Republican debate. However, his camera was seized by staff members who shut off the camera, according to Luke Rudkowski, also a freelance Infowars reporter on the scene. He said police physically assaulted both reporters after Rudkowski objected that they were official members of the press and that nothing illegal had taken place. Police reportedly damaged the Infowars-owned camera in the process.

Reporters were questioning Giuliani staff members on a variety of issues, including his apparent ignorance of the 9/11 Commission Report, according to Bermas. The staff members accused the reporters of Ron Paul partisanship, which press denied. It was at this point that Lepacek, who was streaming a live report, asked a staff member about Giuliani's statement to Peter Jennings that he was told beforehand that the WTC buildings would collapse.

Giuliani's press secretary then called over New Hampshire state police, fingering Lepacek.

Though CNN staff members tried to persuade police not to arrest the accredited reporter-- in violation of the First Amendment, Lepacek was taken to jail. The police station told JonesReport.com that Lepacek is being charged with felony criminal trespass.

Lepacek did receive one phone call in jail which he used to contact reporter Luke Rudkowski. According to Rudkowski, Lepacek was scared because he had been told he may be transferred to a secret detention facility because state police were also considering charges of espionage against him-- due to a webcam Lepacek was using to broadcast live at the event. State police considered it to be a hidden camera, which led to discussion of "espionage."

Wearing a webcam at a press event is not an act of espionage. Alex Jones, who was watching the live feed, witnessed Lepacek announce that he was wearing a camera connected to a laptop that was transmitting the press conference live at approximately 9:20 EST. When Lepacek announced that he was broadcasting live, Giuliani staff members responded by getting upset at his questions and ordering his arrest.

Freedom to Fascism reporter Samuel Ettaro was also dragged out after asking a question on Giuliani's ties with Cintra and Macquerie, two foreign contractors involved with the contentious Trans-Texas Corridor under development in Texas.

The entire incident took place in a large press auditorium, apart from the debate stages where authorized media were able to question candidates and their handlers.

Since when do campaign operatives have the power to order state police to arrest someone on false charges or arbitrate who has the right to conduct journalism, a right guarded by the Constitution?

A warning to the press-- if candidates or police don't like your questions, you could be arrested for trespassing and even espionage in the new Orwellian America.

The state police in Goffstown, New Hampshire, where the arrest was made, confirmed that Lepacek is in custody on charges of criminal trespass. Police said information on who filed the trespass complaint was not yet available and would be filed in the police report.

It is clear from talking to multiple eyewitness, as well as the live webcam, that there could not have been a complainant who originated police action, because it happened spontaneously. The police need to be very careful about violating the Bill of Rights and falsely charging someone with a felony crime. This constitutes extreme official oppression and is a total violation of the reporter's civil rights. It would have been bad enough if the reporter would have just been thrown out, but to arrest him when he had a valid press pass and CNN protested his arrest is an outrage.

The arrest-- which clearly violated the First Amendment-- was recorded from two separate camera angles, including a live feed recorded remotely-- so the episode is on record in the event that police destroy or lose tapes seized from Lepacek in attempt to obfuscate the facts of the incident.

If you doubt that police would assault reporters, seize video equipment and act on political orders, then consider the experience Alex Jones had when Texas state troopers arrested him for asking George W. Bush a question during a press conference while he was governor. See video below.

Reporters Matt Lepacek and Luke Rudkowski, both members of WeAreChange.org , as well as freelance reporters for Infowars.com, have also been previously accused-- falsely-- of being terrorists with bombs and have undergone multiple episodes of harassment during peaceful demonstrations and attempts at exercising the right of free press .

Further Reading:

Abbas Allow's Execution Order on Journalist?

Unidentified gunmen lead failed assault on Palestinian writer and political analyst, Dr Shawar

3 August 2007

Qalqilia –

Ma'an – Unidentified gunmen opened fire on Friday morning at the home of writer and political analyst Dr. 'Isam Shawar. Although he was at home, he was not injured during the attack.

Shawar declared that "around 2:00am, shots were fired at my home. Some shots penetrated the house, causing no injuries."

According to the writer, the motives behind the attack could be his latest article, which bore the title: "We die at the checkpoints, and still contend stubbornly."

In the article, Shawar criticises the standpoint of the Palestinian representative to the United Nations and the Palestinian authorities towards the Qatari-Indonesian initiative which aims at lifting the siege imposed on the Gaza Strip, and to open the closed Rafah Crossing to ease the situation of Palestinians stranded on the Egyptian side of the border.

The Palestinian delegation was displeased with the proposal, at it was submitted to the United Nations without their knowledge or prior consent.

Should Journalists Be Politically Impartial?

24, February, 2007

Iman Kurdi, Arab News

Should a political journalist be like a psychoanalyst: Someone whose role is to guide, not impose, whose own views and emotions remain hidden behind a screen of impartiality and who infuriatingly always answers a question with a question? I can think of some journalists who fall into that category. If they write in the press, they produce pieces that are almost seamlessly put together, a sequence of facts and figures, quotes and citations, that let the subject do the talking. If they appear on television, they tend to be poker-faced or almost invisible, a head nodding along and a voice asking questions, seemingly neutral and unbiased. It can make fascinating viewing, particularly when they interview people with extreme views: Give them enough rope and they hang themselves.

But it often lacks spice. Not only can it end up being bland and uninteresting; it can also be misleading. The majority of politicians are players, they are the masters of propaganda to use an old-fashioned term. Give them airtime and they will spin a tantalizing web. We look to journalists to challenge what is being said. Of course this does not negate them from being independent and impartial, but it requires a hard skill: The ability to be combative yet neutral. Some do it better than others. In Europe, the British are rather good at producing journalists who can keep politicians on their toes, the French less so. French journalists are more polite, more compliant than their British counterparts: Politicians are treated as statesmen and given a certain degree of respect and deference. As for the Middle East, deference was the norm, until Al-Jazeerah came along.

Essentially, journalists are required to take part in a debate without taking sides. During election campaigns, journalists aim to be balanced, independent, neutral and impartial. But is that possible? Given that journalists are — on the whole — intelligent and informed, surely they have strong opinions, views that — presumably — they suppress in order to appear impartial. In other words, it is a lie. The journalist is not impartial; he or she only appears to be.

Would it not be more honest to wear your views? I ask the question in the context of the current French election campaign. Last week Alain Duhamel, a leading French political commentator, was suspended from the television station France 2 and from the radio station RTL because it was revealed that he supported Francois Bayrou, one of the presidential candidates. The manner and context of this revelation is noteworthy. Duhamel made the comment off the record last November, unaware that he was being recorded. He said that he supported Francois Bayrou’s stand on Europe and would likely vote for him. In other words, he spoke not in the context of presidential elections, but of European elections. More than three months later, the footage was put on the Internet and Duhamel was swiftly taken off the air. Just as two newsreaders, Marie Drucker and Beatrice Schoenberg, have been put on a leave of absence for the duration of the election campaign because their partners happen to be politicians. The assumption is that they are no longer impartial and consequently unfit to do their job.

I find the idea that any journalist is personally impartial absurd. I also find it somewhat ridiculous to believe that the public is blissfully unaware of a journalist’s place on the political spectrum. The more influential the journalist — and in France TV anchors are stars in their own right — the more will be known about the company they keep and the views they hold. But even without the gossip columns, just which paper a journalist writes for is often enough to label someone as to the left or to the right.

I also find it hypocritical to penalize individual journalists for appearing impartial when whole news networks are far from independent. In Britain, the outcome of the next general elections will be largely influenced by the views of one man: Rupert Murdoch. Should Murdoch choose to switch his support back to the Conservatives, his newspapers and TV stations will be anything but impartial. In Italy, Silvio Berlusconi would not have attained political power had he not had his media empire at his beck and call. France may be lucky enough not to have a Rupert Murdoch or a Silvio Berlusconi dominating its media output but that does not make French media independent of political influence. For one thing the links between major media players and certain politicians are well known.

If anything part of the reason Alain Duhamel’s support for Francois Bayrou caused such a stir is that he is not supporting a candidate from the left or from the right but the so-called third man. Had he said he would vote for Nicholas Sarkozy (indeed Alain Duhamel was thought by some to be a Sarkoziste) chances are he would still be on air — at least this is Francois Bayrou’s contention. Media coverage of Bayrou’s campaign has been a contentious issue. A key component of his campaign has been a fight for the attention of the media. In fact he has regularly accused the media of setting up the election as a duel between Nicholas Sarkozy and Segolene Royal, a duel that Sarkozy is expected to win according to the pollsters. Bayrou is positioning himself firmly in the center, though his political background is closer to the center-right. He is campaigning for a unity government and a move away from the bipolarization of politics. If Sarkozy should find himself in a run-off with Bayrou, the polls suggest Sarkozy would lose. For this to happen, Bayrou needs to come second in the first round of voting. The more the media portrays him as a viable contender the better his chances of making it to the second round.

What all this points to is the level of distrust that exists regarding the media. This is by no means a French phenomenon but a global one. This is largely due to media ownership rather than journalism per se. It is not impartiality that is the issue but independence. The general public increasingly distrusts the media because it believes that the agenda is set by the usual suspects of politics and big business. Newspapers and television stations are seeing some of their influence eroded as readers and viewers turn to sources they feel they can trust more than the mainstream media, sources like blogs and other Internet-based media. One of the aspects I find most interesting about this is that people are turning toward information sources that are partisan. What they trust is a commentator who is open about his or her allegiance, you could call it media transparency, something akin to politicians declaring their financial interests. Broadcasting regulators enforce strict rules to ensure that political parties are given due weight and that the playing field remains fair. Journalists have a duty to present a fair and balanced account of a political campaign. Being married to a politician or making voting intentions known does not disqualify a journalist from doing his job anymore than being a citizen who votes in a general election does. If anything, the more open journalists are about their political connections, the more likely they are to be trusted by the public. It is not a journalist who should be impartial but their reporting.