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Three alleged Iranian bomb-makers arrested after bungling the plot

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Malaysia arrested on Wednesday (Feb. 15) an alleged member of an Iranian bomb-making gang who plotted to assassinate Israeli diplomats, one day after he fled Bangkok where their house exploded and another Iranian had destroyed his own legs in a bungled blast while battling police.

Thailand meanwhile searched on Wednesday (Feb. 15) for a woman identified as an Iranian named Rohani Leila, 32.

She allegedly had rented the now-damaged house where the four suspects stayed, a few blocks from Iran's government-run Cultural Center in an upscale neighborhood where many Thai Muslims live.

The man arrested in Malaysia's capital, Kuala Lumpur, allegedly used an Iranian passport, number M20305701, which identified him as Masoud Sedaghatzadeh.

Mr. Sedaghatzadeh was born in Tehran on February 12, 1981, and the son of Abbas Sedaghatzadeh, according to a published scan of the document. (http://www.nationmultimedia.com/national/Third-Iranian-suspect-arrested-...)

My life as a post 9/11 Iraqi immigrant

Many of my friends began to hate me, the faces of people who looked at me differently at airports and other public places, even my co-workers; making derogatory comments. I apologized to many people over the years, even people that I didn't know. All I wanted to do was to tell the World that I am not a "terrorist."

My family and I fled Iraq with no choice. Saddam Hussein personally organized a team of men in a plot to bury my family alive. The reason for killing my family was vague, it was only understood that my father worked as an informant for the CIA to oust Saddam Hussein.

Whitney Houston

Alleged Iranian bomb-maker blows off his own leg

BANGKOK, Thailand -- Israel and the U.S. issued emergency warnings after a suspected Iranian bomb-maker blundered by exploding his rented safe-house and challenging police in Bangkok's streets, resulting in injuries to four civilians and accidentally blowing one of his own legs off.

Three explosions erupted in Bangkok in the afternoon on Valentine's Day, one month after Thailand arrested a Lebanese-Swedish man for allegedly stockpiling chemicals in a warehouse on the outskirts of Bangkok to create explosives.

Security forces were investigating if the two alleged bomb-making incidents were related.

"The attempted terrorist attack in Bangkok proves once again that Iran and its proxies continue to perpetrate terror," Israeli Defense Minster Ehud Barak said on Tuesday (February 14), hours after Thai police seized the bloodied bomber amid shrapnel and debris on a busy sidewalk while pedestrians gawked in horror.

Mr. Barak, who visited Bangkok on Sunday, made the comments in nearby Singapore.

Food Sovereignty Activist Calls for Alliances between Progressives and ' Radicals '

During his stay in Columbus, Eric Holt-Gimenez said the alliances are needed to counter economic ‘neo-liberalism,’ which he said is a key cause of the problems faced by societies around the world, including but not limited to food crises. “By ‘radical’, I mean getting to the root of our problems, not breaking windows,” said Gimenez who heads Food First, an organization which, according to its website, aims to “eliminate the injustices which cause hunger.”

Introducing reforms such as the New Deal requires massive public support, said Gimenez.

“Roosevelt didn’t do it just because he had a good idea. It was because it looked like his government was going to fall because of all the social protest.”

Gimenez, who edited the new book, Food Movements Unite! Strategies to Transform Our Food Systems, said activists built social justice movements in the 1930s thru alliances between progressives and radicals, not between progressives and reformists. He said the latter only strengthens the status quo.

“To change the system, you got to have a counter movement coming from the outside which forces the reforms.”

A One Percenter Puts Over $200 Million into the Peace Movement

I'll tell you who did this below. First read part of his rather unusual letter:

"I have transferred to you as trustees $231 million in bonds, the revenue of which is to be administered by you to hasten the abolition of international war, the foulest blot upon our civilization. Although we no longer eat our fellow men nor torture prisoners, nor sack cities killing their inhabitants, we still kill each other in war like barbarians. Only wild beasts are excusable for doing that in this, the Twenty First Century of the Christian era, for the crime of war is inherent, since it decides not in favor of the right, but always of the strong. The nation is criminal which refuses arbitration and drives its adversary to a tribunal which knows nothing of righteous judgment. . . .

"I hope the trustees will begin by pressing forward upon this line, testing it thoroughly and doubting not.

Ohio Students Form Student Association, Call on Others to Organize

“Education either functions as an instrument which is used to facilitate integration of the younger generation into the logic of the present system and bring about conformity or it becomes the practice of freedom, the means by which men and women deal critically and creatively with reality and discover how to participate in the transformation of their world.” - Paulo Freire
The Fate of the University
Higher education is changing. University administrations are budget cutting, privatizing, power consolidating, and tuition hiking. In Ohio, we’re facing the prospect of charterization of our public colleges through the enterprise university plan, and a larger trend of corporatization of our public educational institutions.

Do We Approve of Murder Based on Political Party? Pollsters Don't Want You to Know

A poll published on Wednesday at the Washington Post finds that a majority of even "liberal Democrats" approves of Obama killing US citizens. Of course, this would almost certainly be different if Obama were a Republican.

What if an organization with money but no partisanship (are there some?) were to commission a poll from a pollster willing to face a firestorm of attacks from the political parties (are there any such pollsters?), a poll that would ask people all their demographic info, including politics and party identification if any, and ask some of them:
  • If President Obama had to kill a US citizen to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
  • If President Obama had to imprison a US citizen with no trial to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
  • If President Obama had to launch a war without congressional authorization in order to protect the nation, based purely on the word of the President, would you approve?
  • If President Obama determined it to be necessary to deploy a nuclear bomb and did so, would you approve?

Trader Joe’s and The Coalition of Immokalee Workers Sign Fair Food Agreement

Monrovia, CA/Immokalee, FL -- Trader Joe’s and the Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) announced today that they have signed an agreement that formalizes the ways in which Trader Joe’s will work with the CIW and Florida tomato growers to support the CIW’s Fair Food Program.

The Fair Food Program is a groundbreaking approach to social responsibility in the US produce industry that combines the Fair Food Code of Conduct – a set of labor standards developed in a unique collaboration among farmworkers, tomato growers, and the food industry leaders who purchase Florida tomatoes – with a small price premium to help improve harvesters’ wages. The goal of the Fair Food Program is to promote the development of a sustainable Florida tomato industry that advances both the human rights of farmworkers and the long-term interests of Florida tomato growers.

Ron Paul, "Progressive" for who?

Ron Paul, especially in comparison to his fellow Republicans, does seem a very likeable fellow. His position on ending our nation’s wars and interventions is on target, I believe. However, seeing some otherwise positive, well meaning folks becoming so infatuated with Mr. Paul that they call him “progressive” is ridiculous. For me, it’s brought to mind an old proverb I’d heard about ‘Freedom.’ “Freedom,” the saying goes, “means different things to different folks. Freedom for the fox means freedom to eat the hen, but freedom for the hen means freedom from the fox!”

We really do need to look a bit closer at just whose liberty & freedom it is that Mr. Paul is most interested in protecting. In this time of increased rights for corporations and fetuses, and decreased ones for regular working folks, ’freedom’ no longer has a neutral meaning. Ron Paul has been damned good, but the ‘freedom’ he’s been good at fighting for isn’t ours!

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