Joshua Brollier writes on the latest shooting of a Palestinian farmer, Mohammed Qdeih, by the IDF. Joshua also documents the story of ninety five years old Ahmed Hassan Jabbar Qdeih. Ahmed tells how Zionist militias terrorized his farm in 1948. Ahmed was detained, along with his family, and taken to their house where they were forced to watch as his father was murdered in front on them. The militias destroyed their home, bombed the well and set ablaze 60 dunams of land. Additionally, they stole 60 sheep and two cows to take with them. Full text at link.

Yesterday in al-Faraheen, Gaza , Israeli Occupation Forces shot and wounded an unarmed 22 year oldfarmer, Mohammed Qdeih, from behind. Mohamed and nine others went out to their fields in the early afternoon, walking approximately 250 meters from the Israeli border. Within minutes, two heavily armed Israeli military jeeps rushed to the security fence. They issued a warning for the farmers and residents to leave the area and shortly thereafter the Palestinians, intimidated by the heavy military presence, began to head back tothe village of Abasan . The soldiers were not satisfied and opened fire, piercing Mohamed's right arm from the backside. Israeli forces continued to shoot rounds of live ammunition while Mohamed and the others frantically evacuated and waited for an ambulance. Another young Palestinian, 19, was shot yesterday near the border in Jabaliya. ... read full story / add a comment

In this week's issue:

SWP CONFERENCE: CRAZY CONTORTIONS OF SWP CENTRAL COMMITTEE
Following criticisms of the SWP’s culture and practice in the first two Internal Bulletins, the leadership has mobilised to rubbish opponents.
Peter Manson reports

ISRAEL-GAZA: WHY DID ISRAEL DO IT?
The success or failure of the onslaught on Gaza can only be judged against the operation’s aims, writes Israeli socialist Moshé Machover. This is an edited version of a talk given to the December 8 CPGB aggregate

The latest edition of the Weekly Worker is now available online at: www.cpgb.org.uk/home/weekly-worker/942 ... read full story / add a comment

Sanctions kill, Sanctions are the the waging of War by other means. There are real life victims: All of the surgeries for thousands of haemophilic patients have been cancelled because a shortage of coagulant drugs. A 15-year-old child died at the end of October due to the absence of coagulant medication. Full text at link.

No one amongst the leaders or the grassroots of Iran’s legitimate domestic opposition has called for sanctions on Iran. In fact, they have warned that sanctions and war will be the biggest blow to the civil society and democratic aspirations in Iran.

These sanctions, which went into effect at the end of July 2012, target, amongst other things, Iran’s banking and export of oil. Export of oil comprises 80 percent of Iran’s foreign revenue which finances infrastructural work, social and welfare services, hospitals, schools, universities, state employees' salaries and pensions. The value of Iranian currency has declined by 80 percent in the past year. The prices of imported machinery, medicine, and many types of foodstuff have risen beyond the reach of ordinary people. Many factories and businesses have folded, and unemployment is mounting. ... read full story / add a comment

I really am shocked at this, not because they are harassing him, not because they want to imprison him. I'm shocked because Barrett Brown is facing decades in prison for copying a hyper-link. “Link Barrett accused of sharing was also posted on Cryptome + several blogs. Will these websites be indicted for ‘transferring link’ too?” UK journalist Ryan Gallagher asked on Twitter over the weekend Full text at link.

A federal grand jury has indicted Barrett Brown, an activist from Texas with links to the Anonymous hacktivist movement, on a dozen federal charges for sharing a hyperlink inside of an Internet chat room.

Brown, 31, had been in federal custody for nearly three months awaiting trial for unrelated crimes when the US District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Dallas Division, unsealed a new grand jury indictment against him on Friday, December 6 [pdf].

Brown was arrested in September and charged with making online threats against a federal officer after posting a series of YouTube videos and tweets sharply criticizing an FBI agent. Now he has been charged with 12 unrelated counts stemming from his alleged involvement in the high-profile hack of Strategic Forecasting, or Stratfor, late last year. ... read full story / add a comment

Once again showing their contempt for human rights the US Military have illegally detained hundreds of Afghan juveniles. Most of these were snatched from their homes. Full text at link.

The US military said it has captured more than 200 Afghan juveniles, whose average age is 16, and held them prisoner for about one year without charging them for any crimes. A report to the UN Committee on the Rights of the Child said that more than 200 detainees under the age of 18 were held at a military prison at the Detention Facility in Parwan for being characterized as “enemy combatants”.

The teens had not been charged with any crimes, but were each held for an average of one year for the sole purpose of preventing “a combatant from returning to the battlefield”, the report said. Since they were not charged for any crimes, the detainees were not provided any legal assistance and could only defend themselves at open hearings. ... read full story / add a comment

Yesterday an image that is purportedly British street artist Banksy’s Christmas card this year started making the rounds on Twitter.
... read full story / add a comment

US conducts a nuclear test on Dec 6th while continuing to demonise Iran and impose ever more crippling sanctions on the Iranian state which mainly just harm civilians, on account of it's non existent nuclear weapons program. This despite Iran's full compliance with the terms of the NPT, unlike the US itself or it's dog wagging tail in the middle east, Israel. This brings blatant US hypocrisy regarding Iran to a new level. ... read full story / add a comment

Issue 50 of Red Banner is available now from bookshops and the address above, priced €2 / £1.50 ... read full story / add a comment

The dark forces of Islamist reaction have been unleashed in Egypt. Looks like an Islamic State means one man, one vote - one time. Full text at link.

Muslim Brotherhood (MB) forces supporting Egypt’s Islamist President Mohamed Mursi are carrying out a bloody crackdown in Cairo. Amid intensifying mass protests in the past two weeks against Mursi, the Islamists are mobilizing their forces to try to crush strikes and protests.

In scenes recalling the “Battle of the Camels”—when then-President Hosni Mubarak’s thugs attacked protesting workers and youth on Tahrir Square in the initial days of the Egyptian Revolution last year—MB cadres together with forces of the Salafist Call and al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya assaulted a sit-in of several hundred peaceful protesters in front of the presidential palace in Heliopolis in Cairo. ... read full story / add a comment

Torab Saleth reviews: Ervand Abrahamian, 'The coup: 1953, the CIA and the roots of modern US-Iranian relations', New Press, 2013, pp304, £16.84. Instead of physically opposing the Coup the Tudeh were out distributing leaflets and getting people to sign petitions. Remind you of anyone? Full text at link.

With the continuing efforts made by the self-proclaimed global imperial power, the USA, to achieve ‘regime change’ in Iran, it is timely that a book about the 1953 coup - in which the US, with the help of the British government, carried out exactly such regime change - has been published. The coup was aimed against Mohammad Mosaddegh’s National Front1 government, which had nationalised the British-controlled Iranian oil industries.

If Los Angeles-based Iranian TV stations or Facebook campaigns have given the imperialists a false impression that a nation is waiting to be liberated by the US and its allies, this book should remind them why there is in fact still a deep and widespread hostility in Iran towards the USA and Britain: precisely because of this event. ... read full story / add a comment

Tony Greenstein writes on the latest extension of Zionist colonies on the West Bank. Full text at link.

It is widely accepted, not least amongst Israeli public opinion, that Operation Pillar of Defence - the murderous attack on Gaza, which indiscriminately killed all in its path - achieved nothing, other than emphasising Israel’s growing impotence in the region. ...

On November 22 the ceasefire came into effect, and a week later, on November 29, the United Nations general assembly voted to accord Palestine ‘non-member observer status’. Within hours Netanyahu had promised to build an extra 3,000 houses in the West Bank and East Jerusalem and put into effect the ‘E1 plan’ that envisages the expansion of the settlement Ma’ale Adumim, to the east of Jerusalem

... read full story / add a comment

How women are treated in Iraqi prisons. Full text at link.

When women in Iraq are arrested, they routinely go through three gruesome phases, starting with humiliation, followed by torture, and often ending with rape. I have received disturbing information from two different, well informed sources: one from qualified social workers in Al-Kadimiyah Women Prison, the other from three national guards officers who worked in the prison. ... read full story / add a comment

Once again the Imperialists are using chemical weapons as a pretext to plan an attack on Syria. Patriot missiles are being moved to Turkeys border with Syria and these weapons require US personnel. Full text at link.

The Obama administration and the corporate media have cited unspecified “intelligence” about the movement of chemical weapons to issue new threats of direct intervention in Syria, where Washington and its allies have been backing so-called “rebels” in a bid to topple the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton both made public statements Monday alleging a danger of Syria using chemical weapons and threatening US retaliation. ... read full story / add a comment

A loyalist mob which had gathered outside Belfast City Hall this evening
erupted into violence following a vote to limit the days on which the
British Union Jack flag flies above the building. ... read full story / add a comment

The AP was caught with their pants down publishing a dubious graph and hyping up the "Iranian nuclear threat" lie again. "AP helped perpetrate a dangerous hoax, and owes an explanation and accounting for what took place, including identifying the "officials from a country critical of Iran's atomic program" who made false claims about what this is." ... read full story / add a comment

The targeting of tunnels by Israeli airstrikes has restricted the flow of food and fuel into Gaza. ( http://www.unrwa.org/etemplate.php?id=1507)

Few shops remain open and the UN has warned of an impending water crisis. There are reports of bombing campaigns purposely targeting irrigation wells. The Ministry of Health in Gaza is out of 40 per cent of essential medicines and running low on basics like bandages and syringes. (http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/ove....html)

... read full story / add a comment

The ECB is currently building a luxury tower for itself in Frankfurt with an eye watering price tag of 1 billion. Meanwhile they continue to force austerity on the rest of us. ... read full story / add a comment

More info:
http://www.afri.ie/news-and-events/international-peace-...isia/

Organised by the International Peace Bureau and hosted by Afri - Action from Ireland.

President Higgins was the first recipient of the Sean MacBride International Peace Prize.
................................................................................................................................................................

... read full story / add a comment

Issue 11 of the Socialist Fight is out now in pdf and paper form. This is a publication is produced by the SF Editorial Board

Contents are:
Page 2: Editorial: TU leaders must fight for needs budgets!
Page 4: 200,000 March against Austerity in London, By Graham Durham.
Page 5: The Third Grand Old Duke of York Demo: TU leaders must fight for needs budgets!, GRL flyer for TUC demo.
Page 6: The Counihan Campaign and the Housing Crisis By Gerry Downing.

Continued in main article. ... read full story / add a comment

WIN is a group of socialists from different traditions. We are trying to draw lessons from the past. In particular why have the left failed to put down deep roots in the working class movement as capitalism has spiraled deeper and deeper into crisis. ... read full story / add a comment