Dr. Mahathir talk about Palestine

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In an exclusive interview with Press TV, ex Malaysian leader Mahathir Mohamad calls for an international criminal court to be set up to prosecute Israelis over war crimes in Gaza. He also blasted the US and the UK over their support for the Zionist state.

- Roshan Muhammed Salih reports from London.

Depleted Uranium

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During the first year of the US and British invasion of Iraq, both countries had repeatedly used bombs containing depleted uranium. According to Iraqi military experts, the US and Britain bombed the country with nearly 2,000 tons of depleted uranium bombs during the early years of the Iraq war.

Atomic radiation has increased the number of babies born with defects in the southern provinces of Iraq. Iraqi doctors say they have been struggling to cope with the rise in the number of cancer cases —especially in cities subjected to heavy U-S and British bombardment.

The high rate of birth defects and cancer cases will move in the coming years to the central and northern provinces of Iraq since the radiation may penetrate the soil and water by air.

Meantime, Norwegian medics told Press TV correspondent Akram al-Sattari that some of the victims who have been wounded since Israel began its attacks on the Gaza Strip on 27.December.2008,have traces of depleted uranium in their bodies.

The report comes after Israeli tanks and troops swept across the border into Gaza, opening a ground operation after eight days of intensive attacks by Israeli air and naval forces on the impoverished region.

Israel has been accused in the past of making use of uranium-depleted artillery and tank shells during the Second Lebanon War. PLO and Palestinian Authority leader Yasser Arafat accused Israel of doing the same following Israel's operations in Gaza in the course of the intifada.

Depleted uranium is enriched uranium waste and because of its density is used as radiation protection for medical and industrial equipment. The military uses it for shells and other munitions, increasing their penetration against armored targets.

Contact with uranium-depleted munitions or close proximity could expose people to radiation and contamination. The chemical and radiological risks of exposure to depleted uranium are similar to those of natural uranium and exposing people to uranium is hazardous.

Uganda's Silent War

- Winner of the 2008 Robert F Kennedy Journalism Award, this BIR report looks at the impact of International Criminal Court (ICC) arrest warrants on the civil war and peace process in Northern Uganda -

“The international community must not be numbed into keeping northern Uganda a ‘silent’ or ‘forgotten’ emergency, as it has been previously described,” said Deputy Executive Director Rima Salah’s visit to northern Uganda. “We can’t and must not lose sight of the simple fact that the toll being taken on children is this conflict’s most tragic and distressing impact.”

One of the ugliest aspects of the war in Uganda is the rebels’ practice of abducting children and forcing them to serve as soldiers or porters, or to become sex slaves for commanders. Since the conflict began, more than 20,000 children have been abducted.

The war has also forced about 1.7 million people to flee their homes on a long-term basis. At a camp built to house 26,000 displaced people, Ms. Salah observed the work of UNICEF and partner organizations in providing clean water and supporting education. A school has been built in the camp so that children can continue their education and preserve some sense of normalcy, despite the war and turmoil that surrounds them.

Conflict in the northern parts of the country continues to generate reports of abuses by both the rebel Lord's Resistance Army and the Ugandan army. A UN official blamed the LRA in February 2009 of "appalling brutality" in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

The number of internally displaced persons is estimated at 1.4 million. Torture continues to be a widespread practice amongst security organizations. Attacks on political freedom in the country, including the arrest and beating of opposition Members of Parliament, has led to international criticism, culminating in May 2005 in a decision by the British government to withhold part of its aid to the country. The arrest of the main opposition leader Kizza Besigye and the besiegement of the High Court during a hearing of Besigye's case by a heavily armed security forces (before the February 2006 elections) led to condemnation.

Recently, grassroots organizations have been attempting to raise awareness about the children who were kidnapped by the Lord's Resistance Army to work as soldiers or be used as wives. Thousands of children as young as eight were captured and forced to kill. The documentary film Invisible Children illustrates the terrible lives of the children, known as night commuters, who still to this day leave their villages and walk many miles each night to avoid abduction.

- Internally displaced persons (IDPs) are people forced to flee their homes but who, unlike refugees, remain within their country's borders. At the end of 2006 estimates of 24.5 million in some 52 countries. The region with the largest IDP population is Africa with some 11.8 million in 21 countries.

Genetically modified food

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Genetically modified (GM) foods are foods produced from genetically modified organisms (GMO) that have had their DNA altered through genetic engineering. GM foods were first put on the market in the early 1990s.

The most common modified foods are derived from plants: soybean, corn, canola, and cotton seed oil. GM foods and crops commonly focus on human and environmental safety, labeling and consumer choice, intellectual property rights, ethics, food security, poverty reduction, and environmental conservation.

Alarming facts about genetically engineered foods(www.psrast.org):

- Animals have become seriously ill or died from Genetically Engineered (GE) foods. Over 50% of newborn rats died within 3 weeks from GE soya eaten by their mothers, twelve dairy cows died in Hesse, Germany after being fed Syngenta's Bt 176 GE maize and at least 1820 sheep in India were reported dead after grazing on post-harvest Bt cotton crops; the symptoms and post-mortem findings strongly suggest they died from severe toxicity.

- Hazardous genes from GE foods that human eat can become inserted into human own genes. Tissues including meat of chicken who had eaten only genetically engineered Bt corn were found to contain pieces of DNA from this food. The problem however is that every cell in plant GE foods contain genetically unstable DNA from the Cauliflower Mosaic Virus (CaMV) promoter. This DNA is suspected to be cancerogenic.

- An unexpected poison killed 37 persons eating a food supplement produced by GE bacteria and 1500 people were permanently disabled in the US in a disease called eosonophil myalgia syndrome (EMS).

- Top researchers confirm that genetic engineering is inherently unsafe and unpredictable. It may therefore generate unexpected harmful substances in GE food. The present procedure for assesing the safety of GE foods is not designed to detect unexpected substances.

- Numerous studies have demonstrated that GE causes "non-target effects" in addition to the specific "desired effect". These effects are little understood, completely unpredictable and may be hazardous to the individual and the environment. This underscores the fundamental unsafety of genetic engineering.

- Over twenty thousand farmers lost their farms and were thrown into poverty and unemployment when GE crops were introduced. Argentina has suffered an environmental crisis with 'superweeds' overrunning the countryside and farmers reporting health problems, experts warn. Since 1997, genetically-modified soya has been planted over almost half the country's arable land. Now farmers are having to use more and more herbicides to control the resistant weeds, damaging the soil's fertility for generations.

Land Mines in Cambodia

Cambodia is one of the most heavily mined areas in the world; some estimates run as high as ten million mines (in a country of 11.5 million people), though the Cambodian Mine Action Center (CMAC) estimates 4 to 6 million mines.

Cambodia is also littered with other kinds of unexploded ordinance (UXO), left over from half a million tons of bombs dropped on Cambodia by the United States in the late 60s and early 70s. The figures here are not known, though there is an estimated "dud" rate of 10 percent for UXO (Cambodia Daily website).

There are many different kinds of bombs and mines: US material from the "Vietnam" war era, and Chinese, Soviet and eastern block made materials left from the Khmer Rouge era in the 1970s and a decade of civil war that followed in the 1980s.

US Set To Invade Pakistan?

US set to invade Pakistan by Eric Margolis.

A vicious cycle is now at play. The US pays Pakistan’s armed forces to attack pro-Taliban tribesmen along the border, and aid the US war in Afghanistan. US and Pakistani warplanes bomb Pashtun villages in FATA. Furious Pashtuns retaliate by staging bombing attacks against government targets (aka "terrorism").

The government and US launch more attacks as Pakistanis demand their government stop killing its own people. Musharraf was detested as an American stooge. If Zardari continues Mush’s failed policies, he will also meet the same fate.

The US is about to kick yet another hornet’s nest by ground attacks on Pakistan. Unable to crush growing national resistance to the US-led occupation of Afghanistan and secure planned pipeline routes, the frustrated White House is launching a new conflict when it lacks the soldiers or money to subdue Afghanistan.

Spreading the Afghan War into Pakistan is perilous and foolhardy. It threatens to destabilize and tear apart fragile Pakistan, just as the US has dismembered Iraq. A fragmented Pakistan could tempt India to intervene. Both are nuclear armed.

Asif Zardari is sitting atop a ticking bomb. He needs some new thinking. So do his western patrons, who must urgently end the futile Afghan War before it blows apart Pakistan.