Thousands of people across the country protested Friday against legislation cracking down on illegal immigrants, with demonstrators in Los Angeles, Phoenix and Atlanta staging school walkouts, marches and work stoppages.

The House of Representatives passed legislation in December that would make it a felony to be illegally in the United States, impose new penalties on employers who hire illegal immigrants and erect fences along one-third of the U.S.-Mexican border. The Senate is set to take up its own version of immigration reform on Monday.

The proposals have angered many immigrant rights groups which have promised to fight back.

The Los Angeles demonstration led to fights between black and Hispanic students at one high school, but the protests were largely peaceful, authorities said.

“It was horrible, horrible,” Mason said. “It’s ridiculous that a bunch of black students would jump on Latinos like that, knowing they’re trying to get their freedom.”

Chantal Mason, a sophomore at George Washington Preparatory High, said black students jumped Hispanic students as they left classes to protest the House bill that would make it a felony to be in the U.S. illegally.

Rep. Peter King of New York, one of the bill’s sponsors, told CBS News correspondent Sandra Hughes, “The issue of illegal immigration, is not just a social issue, not just an economic issue, it’s an issue of homeland security.”

In Phoenix, police said 10,000 demonstrators marched to the office of Republican Sen. Jon Kyl, co-sponsor of a bill that would give illegal immigrants up to five years to leave the country. The turnout clogged a major thoroughfare.

“They’re here for the American Dream,” said Malissa Greer, 29, who joined a crowd estimated by police to be at least 10,000 strong. “God created all of us. He’s not a God of the United States, he’s a God of the world.”
cbs2.com

The Racist War on Immigrants: Jim Crow Goes Fishing
Speaking in Cleveland, President Bush called on Congress to end “catch and release” practices on the border with Mexico. He wasn’t referring to recreational fishing enthusiasts who catch large mouth bass, snap a picture and then release them back into the water. He was talking about INS (now Homeland Security) agents who round up undocumented workers trying to cross the border, harass and threaten them, and then issue them summons to appear in American court. President Bush and Congress are preparing legislation that makes it clear that they have as much (or little) respect for immigrant workers as they have for freshwater fish.

In typical fashion, the House Republicans have passed bill HR 4437 (the Sensenbrenner bill) that only a Klansman could love. It makes simply being an undocumented worker in the United States a felony, and it makes it illegal for anyone (teachers, social workers, firefighters, anyone) to help that person in any way. HR 4437 dismantles forty years of civil rights legislation and officially reintroduces Jim Crow into American law.

Datelined Washington — an odd city in which to learn about Iraq, you might think — its opening paragraph reads: “Despite the recent arrest of one of his would-be suicide bombers in Jordan and some top aides in Iraq, insurgency mastermind Abu Musab Zarqawi has eluded capture, US authorities say, because his network has a much better intelligence-gathering operation than they do.”

Now quite apart from the fact that many Iraqis — along, I have to admit, with myself — have grave doubts about whether Zarqawi exists, and that al-Qaida’s Zarqawi, if he does exist, does not merit the title of “insurgency mastermind,” the words that caught my eye were “US authorities say.” And as I read through the report, I note how the Los Angeles Times sources this extraordinary tale. I thought US reporters no longer trusted the US administration, not after the mythical weapons of mass destruction and the equally mythical connections between Saddam and the international crimes against humanity of Sept. 11, 2001. Of course, I was wrong.

Here are the sources — on pages one and 10 for the yarn spun by reporters Josh Meyer and Mark Mazzetti: “US officials said,” “said one US Justice Department counter-terrorism official,” “Officials… said,” “those officials said,” “the officials confirmed,” “American officials complained,” “the US officials stressed,” “US authorities believe,” “said one senior US intelligence official,” “US officials said,” “Jordanian officials… said” — here, at least is some light relief — “several US officials said,” “the US officials said,” “American officials said,” “officials say,” “say US officials,” “US officials said,” “one US counter-terrorism official said.”

I do truly treasure this story. It proves my point that the Los Angeles Times — along with the big east coast dailies — should all be called US OFFICIALS SAY. But it’s not just this fawning on political power that makes me despair.
agrnews.org

The regime of restriction on movement imposed by Israel on the Palestinians has crumbled the West Bank into dozens of closed or partially closed enclaves isolated from each other despite their geographical proximity. Permanent and mobile checkpoints, along with physical barriers of various kinds, fenced-off main roads, limitations on Palestinian traffic on east-west and north-south arteries, have cut off direct transportational links between areas of the West Bank.

Thus, a new geographic, social and economic reality has emerged in the West Bank.
haaretz.com

Water both a lifesaver and weapon in ME war
“Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, checkpoints, the confiscation of land, arrests, the demolition of homes and the wall: all this presents a major obstacle to development projects especially in the water sector,” he said.

The Palestinian Authority is having to buy water for its growing population, he said. But at the same time, Israel is pumping increasing amounts of water from the underground sources that supply the Palestinian towns of Jenin, Jericho and Qalqiya.

In the West Bank, 40 percent of the population has barely 40 liters (10.5 US gallons) of water per day each, said Kawash. In Gaza, much of the population survives on 80 litres a day.

US Media Bias: Covering Israel/Palestine
On July 18, 2005 14 year old Ragheb al-Masri sat in the back of a taxi with his parents at the Abo Holi checkpoint. An Israeli bullet penetrated his back and cracked open his chest. His mother screamed as his body lay lifeless. Have you heard his name? I wouldn’t expect that you have because CNN, The New York Times, and The Washington Post didn’t report the killing online. If they had quoted his parents, their readers would have been able to feel their tears and envision the heartbreak. Ultimately, no Israeli soldier was arrested or even reprimanded.

Every time a suicide bombing strikes Israel, mass coverage of the tragedy begins instantly. Whether landing on the front page of The New York Times or taking up the headline block on CNN.com, the pain Israeli people endure is shown endlessly. Israelis do suffer. Suicide bombings are horrific. Nevertheless, Palestinian pain occurs far more frequently, and yet often overlooked by the mainstream American media.

Since the uprising in September of 2000, more than 3800 Palestinians have been killed in the Occupied Territories as a result of the conflict. Most Americans are unaware of the toll because it is not properly reported. In 2004, If Americans Knew—an American organization that exposes and examines the facts of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict—reported that 808 Palestinian conflict deaths occurred while 107 Israelis conflict deaths occurred. The study, however, found that The New York Times covered Israeli deaths in the headline or the first paragraph in 159 articles—meaning in some cases they covered the same death numerous times. In contrast, The New York Times only covered about 40 percent of Palestinian deaths—334 of 808—in the headline or in the first paragraph of the articles. Nearly eight Palestinians died for every one Israeli. Disturbingly The New York Times is considered the quintessential “liberal” newspaper of the US.

“Military men are just dumb stupid animals to be used as pawns in foreign policy.” – Henry Kissinger, quoted in “Kiss the Boys Goodbye: How the United States Betrayed Its Own POW’s in Vietnam”

Vietnam was a chemical war for oil, permanently contaminating large regions and countries downriver with Agent Orange, and environmentally the most devastating war in world history. But since 1991, the U.S. has staged four nuclear wars using depleted uranium weaponry, which, like Agent Orange, meets the U.S. government definition of Weapons of Mass Destruction. Vast regions in the Middle East and Central Asia have been permanently contaminated with radiation.

And what about our soldiers? Terry Jemison of the Department of Veterans Affairs reported this week to the American Free Press that “Gulf-era veterans” now on medical disability since 1991 number 518,739, with only 7,035 reported wounded in Iraq in that same 14-year period.

This week the American Free Press dropped a “dirty bomb” on the Pentagon by reporting that eight out of 20 men who served in one unit in the 2003 U.S. military offensive in Iraq now have malignancies. That means that 40 percent of the soldiers in that unit have developed malignancies in just 16 months.

Since these soldiers were exposed to vaccines and depleted uranium (DU) only, this is strong evidence for researchers and scientists working on this issue, that DU is the definitive cause of Gulf War Syndrome. Vaccines are not known to cause cancer. One of the first published researchers on Gulf War Syndrome, who also served in 1991 in Iraq, Dr. Andras Korényi-Both, is in agreement with Barbara Goodno from the Department of Defense’s Deployment Health Support Directorate, that in this war soldiers were not exposed to chemicals, pesticides, bioagents or other suspect causes this time to confuse the issue.

This powerful new evidence is blowing holes in the cover-up perpetrated by the Pentagon and three presidential administrations ever since DU was first used in 1991 in the Persian Gulf War. Fourteen years after the introduction of DU on the battlefield in 1991, the long-term effects have revealed that DU is a death sentence and very nasty stuff.

Scientists studying the biological effects of uranium in the 1960s reported that it targets the DNA. Marion Fulk, a nuclear physical chemist retired from the Livermore Nuclear Weapons Lab and formerly involved with the Manhattan Project, interprets the new and rapid malignancies in soldiers from the 2003 war as “spectacular … and a matter of concern.”

This evidence shows that of the three effects which DU has on biological systems – radiation, chemical and particulate – the particulate effect from nano-size particles is the most dominant one immediately after exposure and targets the Master Code in the DNA. This is bad news, but it explains why DU causes a myriad of diseases which are difficult to define.

In simple words, DU “trashes the body.” When asked if the main purpose for using it was for destroying things and killing people, Fulk was more specific: “I would say that it is the perfect weapon for killing lots of people.”
sfbayview.com

…The US strategy in Iraq has been to destroy its Arab- Muslim identity and partition it into a minimum of three weak and conflicting protectorates, along sectarian lines, in order to ensure American political, economic and military domination. The invasion of Iraq was and remains an illegal war, a crime of aggression. Iraq and Iraqis are protected by international law — by the founding Charter of the United Nations as well as the Geneva Conventions and the Hague IV Convention. By recognising UN Security Council Resolution 1533, in which the US is described as an occupying power, the US bound itself to inalienable obligations, stated under international humanitarian law. These treaties stipulate that an occupying power cannot change the social, economic or political make-up of the occupied country and cannot link this country to any agreements or treaties that exceed the occupation. This includes the constitution, elections and all contracts that have been created.

…The present uprising of Iraqis is not merely a part of the wider struggle against savage globalisation and “free” capital; it is its forefront battle. It is because the Iraqis refuse to surrender their sovereignty to multinational corporations that Iraq is being destroyed so blatantly. We should all be humbled by the loses this people has been prepared to endure for our sake and demand the complete, unconditional and immediate withdrawal of occupation forces from Iraqi soil, along with the cancellation of any law, treaty, agreement or contract passed under occupation and the fair payment of reparations and compensations for the human and material loses the Iraqis have suffered.

The US plan has already failed — politically, morally, economically and even militarily. There are two types of strategy in warfare: either you have the ability to destroy your enemy or you have to destroy his will to fight. The US has failed in the first attempt, and can only completely eradicate the Iraqi population to succeed in the second. The Iraqi people’s right to resist is the basis of, and is protected by, the Charter of the United Nations. This people’s struggle will be our future pride if it is not already. Supporting the Iraqis in their legitimate and heroic fight does not mean supporting the return of any previous order. Iraqis have proven their determination in defining their fate and future. They have taken it into their hands and will not and cannot accept any kind of future tyranny.

The Iraqi youth will refuse any occupation, foreign interference, one party state, despotism, or authoritarian rule. It holds the heritage, technical skills and modernism to defend the separation of religion and state, equality between men and women and sovereignty over Iraq’s natural resources. This youth will not accept selling short the rights of the country and nation. While humanity has neared the edge of moral suicide, the success of their struggle is our salvation. My heart is Iraqi.
ahram.org.eg

The battle between Sunni and Shia Muslims for control of Baghdad has already started, say Iraqi political leaders who predict fierce street fighting will break out as each community takes over districts in which it is strongest.

“The fighting will only stop when a new balance of power has emerged,” Fuad Hussein, the chief of staff of Massoud Barzani, the Kurdish leader, said. “Sunni and Shia will each take control of their own area.” He said sectarian cleansing had already begun.

Many Iraqi leaders now believe that civil war is inevitable but it will be confined, at least at first, to the capital and surrounding provinces where the population is mixed. “The real battle will be the battle for Baghdad where the Shia have increasing control,” said one senior official who did not want his name published. “The army will disintegrate in the first moments of the war because the soldiers are loyal to the Shia, Sunni or Kurdish communities and not to the government.” He expected the Americans to stay largely on the sidelines.
independent.co.uk

More than 3,000 families fled due to sectarian conflict, government says.
BAGHDAD, 21 March (IRIN) – The Iraqi Ministry of Immigration and Displacement said on Tuesday that 3,705 families had been displaced in the country, as a result of the ongoing sectarian violence.

It erupted following the 22 February bombing of a Shi’ite shrine, Al-Askariya, in Samarra, some 120 km north of Baghdad.

The attack on the Al-Askariya shrine spawned days of reprisal attacks between the country’s two major Muslim sects, the Shi’ites and the Sunnis. At least 400 people were killed and dozens of mosques were damaged and destroyed, according to figures released last week by the Interior Ministry.

Sattar Nawroz, the spokesman for the Ministry of Immigration and Displacement, said that most of the displaced families went to the southern city of Najaf.

About 1,000 families had descended there from Baghdad’s restive western neighbourhoods, and from the northern oil-rich city of Kirkuk as well as from Diyala, north-east of Baghdad.

The second largest number of the displaced families, 615, Nawroz added, have fled to the centre of Baghdad, from the capital’s western and northern suburbs.

Aid agencies unable to enter Samarra
BAGHDAD, 22 March (IRIN) – Aid agencies say thay have been prevented from entering the city of Samarra, in central Iraq, where a major US and Iraqi military operation is underway.

“Our convoys sent on Sunday and Monday have been prevented from entering the city by US troops and our information from inside is that families are without food, power and potable water, particularly because they cannot leave their homes,” noted Abdel Hameed, a spokesperson for the Iraqi Red Crescent Society (IRCS).
This, they say, has left hundreds of families without medical assistance and food supplies.

“Innocent people and especially children are suffering from a lack of supplies in and on the outskirts of Samarra,” said Muhammad al-Daraji, Director of the Monitoring Net of Human Rights in Iraq (MHRI).

“US and Iraqi military groups have prevented the entrance of local NGOs as well as the media to show the reality of human rights violation inside it,” he added.

Pentagon plans for an Iraqi civil war
WASHINGTON – Pentagon and military officials say Iraq’s not fighting a civil war yet, but warn that Iraqi security forces and the government could still collapse, dragging the country into one. So the U.S. military is drafting a series of contingency plans to deal with that very ominous possibility.

Military officials tell NBC News the first objective, however, is to head off a civil war. The U.S. military hopes to keep Iraqi security forces from taking sides in the sectarian violence by pressuring the Iraqi government to crack down on any rogue elements within the police or military.

The second option: U.S. forces could again be sent into combat against sectarian militias, which military officials say would require an increase in the number of American soldiers and Marines in Iraq.

Expanding bases put focus on U.S. in Iraq
BALAD AIR BASE, Iraq – The concrete goes on forever, vanishing into the noonday glare, 2 million cubic feet of it, a mile-long slab that’s now the home of up to 120 U.S. helicopters, a “heli-park” as good as any back in the States. At another giant base, al-Asad in Iraq’s western desert, the 17,000 troops and workers come and go in a kind of bustling American town, with a Burger King, Pizza Hut and a car dealership, stop signs, traffic regulations and young bikers clogging the roads.

At a third hub down south, Tallil, they’re planning a new mess hall, one that will seat 6,000 hungry airmen and soldiers for chow.

Are the Americans here to stay? Air Force mechanic Josh Remy is sure of it as he looks around Balad.

“I think we’ll be here forever,” the 19-year-old airman from Wilkes-Barre, Pa., told a visitor to his base.

Iraq on its own to rebuild, U.S. says
BAGHDAD, Iraq — The head of the U.S.-led program to rebuild Iraq said Thursday that the Iraqi government can no longer count on U.S. funds and must rely on its own revenues and other foreign aid, particularly from Persian Gulf nations.

“The Iraqi government needs to build up its capability to do its own capital budget investment,” Daniel Speckhard, director of the U.S. Iraq Reconstruction Management Office, said.

The burden of paying for reconstruction poses an extraordinary challenge for a country that needs tens of billions of dollars for repairing its infrastructure at the same time it’s struggling to pay its bills.

Iraq’s deputy finance minister, Kamal Field al-Basri, said it was “reasonable” for the United States to sharply cut back its reconstruction efforts after spending about $21 billion.

“We should be very much dependent on ourselves,” al-Basri said.

…The murderous work of Dr Louay is symbolic of the ferocity of the struggle for the oil province of Kirkuk. The dispute over its fate is the most important reason why the political parties in Baghdad have failed to create a new government three months after the election on 15 December. The Kurds, expelled from Kirkuk and replaced with Arab settlers by Saddam Hussein, captured the city on 10 April 2003. They have no intention of giving it up. “We will never leave Kirkuk,” said Rizgar Ali Hamajan, the former Kurdish peshmerga (soldier) who heads the provincial He recalls that when he was 18 months old, his parents fled with him from his village north of Kirkuk moments before the Iraqi army destroyed it.

But Ibrahim al-Jaafari, the Prime Minister, has frustrated Kurdish demands, enshrined in the new constitution, for Kurds to be allowed to return to Kirkuk and Arabs settlers to be removed to their original homes. The Kurds expect a referendum in Kirkuk that would lead to the province joining the highly autonomous Kurdish region ruled by the Kurdistan regional government in northern Iraq.

For the 1.9 million Kurds, Turkomens and Arabs of Kirkuk province, oil has brought few benefits. They live on top of at least 10 billion barrels of oil which was first exploited in 1927. Despite that, people wanting to buy petrol in Kirkuk wait all day in queues of battered vehicles. “It is the most devastated city in all Iraq,” said Mohammed Othman, deputy head of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan, the most powerful Kurdish party in Kirkuk.
counterpunch.org

…Two Iraqi documents from March 2003 — on the eve of the U.S.-led invasion — and addressed to the secretary of Saddam Hussein, describe details of a U.S. plan for war. According to the documents, the plan was disclosed to the Iraqis by the Russian ambassador.
abcnews.go.com

IN ONE of the most blunt assessments of post-Taliban life in Afghanistan, a high-ranking United Nations representative has warned refugees not to return home because security is so dire.

The comments came as the fugitive Taliban leader, Mullah Mohammed Omar, vowed to launch a ferocious offensive against US-led forces.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that 4.4 million refugees have returned since the Taliban were toppled in 2001. The flood of refugees created a crisis that ate up funds originally reserved for relief and reconstruction in a country still dominated by warlords, their militias and the opium trade.

Massive unemployment and widespread unrest, especially in the tribal areas of the country’s south and east, have generated long queues of visa-hungry Afghans outside the Iranian and Pakistani embassies.
smh.com.au

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – The U.N. Security Council ran into new obstacles on Tuesday in trying to issue a statement on reining in Iran’s nuclear ambitions after Russia insisted on deleting key parts of the text.

A closed-door meeting among all 15 council members scheduled for Tuesday was delayed until later in the week while diplomats talk in small groups, U.S. Ambassador John Bolton said. Members last week thought a deal was close.

“The impact on the negotiations which we are trying to do here was not as positive as we would have wished,” British Ambassador Emyr Jones Parry said. “That is the basic problem.”

Council members have mulled a reaction to Iran’s nuclear program, which the West believes is a cover for bomb making, since receiving a dossier from the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna on March 8.

Russia, supported by China, has been wary of action by the Security Council, which can impose sanctions, fearing threats might escalate and prompt Iran to cut all contact with the IAEA, the U.N. nuclear watchdog. On the statement, Russia wants about half the text deleted, China said.

A statement requires agreement from all 15 Security Council members while a resolution needs nine votes in favor and no veto from any of the permanent members — the United States, Britain, France, Russia and China.
news.yahoo.com