Here’s all you’ll need-

  • Make sure it propels a narrative that broadly supports current combat and security operations.
  • Have a senior journalist who wets themselves at the sheer access they are being granted to report this scoop!
  • Make some simple comparisons to well known atrocities so even the imagination impaired can play along.
  • And as proof, quote these unimpeachable and authoritative sources of utmost veracity-

security and intelligence sources said

officials said

US military briefings

one US military official told me

Pakistani and US officials said yesterday

official, who spoke on condition of anonymity

American officials

British security and intelligence sources

US official

Rinse & Repeat

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No reports of serious injuries but one Israeli activist Yonatan Shapira, from Israel, (an ex-IDF pilot and now an activist for Combatants for Peace) was tasered, once in Ashdod port the foreign nationals and Israeli nationals were separated, foreign nationals were sent to Holon and have been denied access to legal representatives. The Israeli crew were allowed legal consultations and have now been released from prison although all their phones were confiscated but are expected home soon.

Update: Haaretz has testimony IDF used excessive force in naval raid

Meanwhile the UN Report of the international fact-finding mission to investigate violations of international law, including international humanitarian and human rights law, resulting from the Israeli attacks on the flotilla of ships carrying humanitarian assistance (A/HRC/15/21) can be further investigated by the International Criminal Court-

The International Criminal Court could examine Israel’s deadly storming of a Gaza-bound aid flotilla in May, a member of a UN Human Rights Council’s probe into the incident said Tuesday.

Desmond de Silva, a member of the inquiry, noted that the ship Mavi Marmara’s flagstate is the Comoros Islands, which are members of the court, “which gives the ICC jurisdiction because the (offensives) were committed on board the Mavi Marmara.”

It is no wonder the Israeli security forces made sure to seize all video and audio recordings, the manner of deaths in many cases (at least 6) suggest not a panicked group of commandos defending themselves but summary executions with extreme prejudice-

Deaths occurring on the Top Deck (roof)

Furkan Doğan, a nineteen-year old with dual Turkish and United States citizenship, was on the central area of the top deck filming with a small video camera when he was first hit with live fire. It appears that he was lying on the deck in a conscious, or semi-conscious, state for some time. It total Furkan received five bullet wounds, to the face, head, back thorax, left leg and foot. All of the entry wounds were on the back of his body, except for the face wound which entered to the right of his nose. According to forensic analysis, tattooing around the wound in his face indicates that the shot was delivered at point blank range. Furthermore, the trajectory of the wound, from bottom to top, together with a vital abrasion to the left shoulder that could be consistent with the bullet exit point, is compatible with the shot being received while he was lying on the ground on his back. The other wounds were not the result of firing in contact, near contact or close range, but it is not otherwise possible to determine the exact firing range. The wounds to the leg and foot were most likely received in a standing position.

İbrahim Bilgen, a 60 year old Turkish citizen, from Siirt in Turkey, was on the top deck and was one of the first passengers to be shot. He received a bullet wound to the chest, the trajectory of which was from above and not at close range. He had a further two bullet wounds to the right side of the back and right buttock, both back to front. These wounds would not have caused instant death, but he would have bled to death within a short time without medical attention. Forensic evidence shows that he was shot in the side of the head with a soft baton round at such close proximity and that an entire bean bag and its wadding penetrated the skull and lodged in the brain. He had a further bruise on the right flank consistent with another beanbag wound. The wounds are consistent with the deceased initially being shot from soldiers on board the helicopter above and receiving a further wound to the head while lying on the ground, already wounded.

Fahri Yaldiz, a 42 year old Turkish citizen from Adiyaman, received five bullet wounds, one to the chest, one to the left leg and three to the right leg. The chest wound was caused by a bullet that entered near the left nipple and hit the heart and lungs before exiting from the shoulder. This injury would have caused rapid death.

According to the pathology report, Ali Heyder Bengi, a 38 year old Turkish citizen from Diyarbakir, received six bullet wounds (one in the chest, one in the abdomen, one in the right arm, one in the right thigh and two in the left hand). One bullet lodged in the chest area. None of the wounds would have been instantly fatal, but damage to the liver caused bleeding which would have been fatal if not stemmed. There are several witness accounts which suggest that Israeli soldiers shot the deceased in the back and chest at close range while he was lying on the deck as a consequence of initial bullet wounds.

Deaths occurring on the Bridge Deck, portside

Cevdet Kiliçlar, a 38 year old Turkish citizen from Istanbul, was on the Mavi Marmara, in his capacity as a photographer employed by IHH. At the moment he was shot he was standing on the bridge deck on the port side of the ship near to the door leading to the main stairwell and was attempting to photograph Israeli soldiers on the top deck. According to the pathology reports, he received a single bullet to his forehead between the eyes. The bullet followed a horizontal trajectory which crossed the middle of the brain from front to back. He would have died instantly.

41 year old Cengiz Akyüz from Hatay and 46 year old Cengiz Songür from Izmir, both Turkish citizens, were injured on the bridge deck in close succession by live fire from above. They had been sheltering and were shot as they attempted to move inside the door leading to the stairwell. Cengiz Akyüz received a shot to the head and it is probable that he died instantly. The pathology report shows four wounds: to the neck, face, chest and thigh. Cengiz Songür received a single bullet to the upper central thorax below the neck, shot from a high angle, which lodged in the right thoracic cavity injuring the heart and aorta. Unsuccessful efforts were made by doctors inside the ship to resuscitate him through heart massage.

Çetin Topçuoğlu, a 54 year old Turkish citizen from Adana had been involved in helping to bring injured passengers inside the ship to be treated. He was also shot close to the door on the bridge deck. He did not die instantly and his wife, who was also on board the ship, was with him when he died. He was shot by three bullets. One bullet entered from the top the soft tissues of the right side of the back of the head, exited from the neck and then re-entered into the thorax. Another bullet entered the left buttock and lodged in the right pelvis. The third entered the right groin and exited from the lower back. There are indications that the victim may have been in a crouching or bending position when this wound was sustained.

Deaths and seriously wounded occurring in unknown locations

The location and circumstances of the shooting and death of Necdet Yildirim, a 31 year old Turkish citizen from Istanbul, remain unclear. He was shot twice in the thorax, once from the front and once from the back. The trajectory of both bullets was from top to bottom. He also received bruises consistent with plastic bullet impact

Wounding of Uğur Suleyman Söylemez (in a coma)
The serious nature of wounds to Uğur Suleyman Söylemez, a 46 year old Turkish citizen from Ankara, which include at least one bullet wound to the head, have left the victim in a coma in an Ankara hospital. He remains in a critical condition with a serious head injury. (ht2 MondoWeiss
)

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So our treatment of torture survivors for the few who manage to challenge it in court is shown to be a further abuse and the govt. pays damages. I expect this is because they have calculated it is cheaper to abuse everyone and pay the few that manage to get into court than actually treat people well on first principle. Not just in financial terms, they play to the tabloid provocations of xenophobia, the end result is simply- a person escaping torturer, when they get to the UK, they face another brutal regime intent on abusing them. Now just remind me exactly what the fuck I am meant to be patriotic for? Oh right, to make me feel that this kind of abuse is unimportant and we are naturally better then others so this either should be ignored or applauded. (also see Earwicga)

Millions of pounds in compensation is being paid to migrants who have been traumatised after being locked up in detention centres across the UK, the Guardian has learned.

Government figures show £12m in “special payments” – including compensation – for 2009/10 and a further £3m the year before.

The Home Office said it did not record the proportion of special payments made in compensation, but officials accepted that the figure over the past three years ran to millions of pounds.

Lawyers who are acting for detainees said there was an “epidemic of mistreatment” in the asylum system.

Harriet Wistrich, of Birnberg Peirce, said there was a “systemic failure” to protect torture victims who came to the UK seeking refuge. “It is nothing short of scandalous that we are causing serious harm by detaining people, sometimes for long periods of time, who have done nothing other than seek a place of sanctuary from the horrors they have escaped from, in the mistaken belief that Britain is a just and tolerant society.”

In one case this summer a Ugandan who had been tortured was awarded £110,000 after the court ruled he had been unlawfully detained in the UK for 10 months. The man, known just as Francis to protect his family in Uganda, fled to the UK in 2006. He said he had been beaten with sticks, burnt and hung upside down after being imprisoned in Uganda. He said he was also raped several times by guards.

“They did it many, many, times and when they were torturing me it felt like they wanted to kill me,” he said. “The guards also set fire to a plastic jerrycan and let the burning plastic drip on to my head and shoulders. It is always with me, something that I always think about that I was tortured by rape … it is something that I really can’t stop thinking about.”

On arrival in the UK, Francis said, his medical report was lost by officials and then he was refused access to a doctor. “My experience of detention [in the UK] was terrible. The officials were rude and it felt as though they had been trained to refuse all asylum seekers. I told them again and again that I had been tortured, that I have given a report showing evidence of my wounds and answered all their questions but they did not seem interested. I thought this was a country that would protect me and would respect human rights and human dignity, but I have seen something different.”

Wistrich, who was Francis’s lawyer, said his treatment in the UK had exacerbated the post-traumatic stress he suffered after his torture in Uganda. “If Francis’s case was the exception that proved the rule this would be bad enough but, unfortunately, I have seen many similar cases and from my anecdotal experience there is clearly a systemic failure to safeguard against the unlawful detention of torture victims.”

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jewishboattogaza.org A boat carrying aid for Gaza’s population and organized by Jewish groups worldwide has set sail from Cyprus today at 13:32 local time

The boat, Irene, is sailing under a British flag and is carrying ten passengers and crew, including Jews from the US, the UK, Germany and Israel as well as an Israeli journalist.

The boat’s cargo includes symbolic aid in the form of children’s toys and musical instruments, textbooks, fishing nets for Gaza’s fishing communities and prosthetic limbs for orthopaedic medical care in Gaza’s hospitals.

The receiving organization in Gaza is The Palestinian International Campaign to end the siege on Gaza, directed by  Dr. Eyad Sarraj and Amjad Shawa, Director of PNGO

The boat will attempt to reach the coast of Gaza and unload its aid cargo in a nonviolent, symbolic act of solidarity and protest – and call for the siege to be lifted to enable free passage of goods and people to and from the Gaza Strip.

The boat will fly multicolored peace flags carrying the names of dozens of Jews who have expressed their support for this action, as a symbol of the widespread support for the boat by Jews worldwide.

Speaking from London, a member of the organizing group, Richard Kuper of Jews for Justice for Palestinians, said today that the Jewish Boat to Gaza is a symbolic act of protest against the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and the siege of Gaza, and a message of solidarity to Palestinians and Israelis who seek peace and justice.

‘Israeli government policies are not supported by all Jews,’ said Kuper. ‘We call on all governments and people around the world to speak and act against the occupation and the siege.’

Regarding the threat of interception by the Israeli navy, Kuper said ‘This is a nonviolent action. We aim to reach Gaza, but our activists will not engage in any physical confrontation and will therefore not present the Israelis with any reason or excuse to use physical force or assault them.’

Passenger Reuven Moskovitz, 82, said that his life’s mission has been to turn foes into friends. “We are two peoples, but we have one future”, he said.

The Jerusalem Post reports the Milibands mother Marion Kozak supports the voyage via Jews for Justice for Palestinians who organised the boat.



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Also the great New Order cover here.

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A new not-for-profit lending scheme is being unveiled aimed at giving manageable loans to financially excluded people. A pilot scheme has been set up in the West Midlands called My Home Finance, in the hope of diverting people away from borrowing from loan sharks.

However, the interest being charged is higher than the maximum by law that credit unions can charge. It will charge 29.9% APR in the pilot scheme, rising to 49.9% APR in April.

Credit unions, set up to encourage people on low incomes to save, are allowed to charge no more than 26.8% APR – the annual percentage rate – with many credit unions only charging 12.7% APR. My Home Finance has been set up by the National Housing Federation (NHF), with 10 branches opening as part of the pilot project.

London Interbank Offered Rate, (3 month sterling LIBOR interest rate is the interest rate at which a panel of selected banks borrow funds in British pound sterling (GBP) from one another with a maturity of three months) First 3 month LIBOR rate of the month (Sept): 0.72609% (when they aren’t lying about it to scam more before the ‘crisis’).

So once more, rate (at which people so poor and desperate they are preyed upon by criminal gangs known as loan sharks) offered by this new scheme: 29.9% rising to 49.9% after pilot ends.

Rate at which banks lend each other money 0.72609%.

50% as opposed to less than 1%. Not only do we get told to eat cake, it is cake that costs 50 times as much. You see we have made progress… And if you want to talk about rates reflect relative risk, I refer you back to the previously mentioned ‘crisis’, m’kay?

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Israel’s military broke international laws during its raid on a Gaza-bound aid flotilla, a UN Human Rights Council investigation says.

The three-member panel said Israeli commandoes’ response to the flotilla was “disproportionate” and “betrayed an unacceptable level of brutality”.

In a 56-page report, the UN panel said: “There is clear evidence to support prosecutions of the following crimes within the terms of article 147 of the Fourth Geneva Convention: wilful killing; torture or inhuman treatment; wilfully causing great suffering or serious injury to body or health”.

The Convention is an international treaty governing the protection of civilians in times of war.

The UN investigators also said the Israeli blockade of the Palestinian territory was “unlawful” because of a humanitarian crisis there.

The Human Rights Council’s report was compiled by former U.N. war crimes prosecutor Desmond de Silva, Trinidadian judge Karl T. Hudson-Phillips and Malaysian women’s rights advocate Mary Shanthi Dairiam. It is scheduled to be debated in the council on Monday.

Torn between a Yay for the UN and Well D’uh. This leaves Israel nowhere but further Neocon anti-UN rhetoric as it edges ever closer into an extremist corner.

Update: Whoa that was quick, a hasbara comment already attacking the commission, looks like the GIYUS crew have been put on alert to attack on all fronts. Get a clue chumps, this is not a dodgy report from rights abusing secret Arab allies (which is an attack tinged with racism) and such manufactured comments are not going to get published. To sort the hasbara bots from the actual commenters unless I know you as a commenter you will be required to submit, name, email and a website you have some role in, into the comment form to even stand a chance of being published. However if you front up with ludicrous racist zionist tropes you are too witless to realise are racist I may publish you just for the purposes of ridiculing you publicly and exposing the utter poverty of your arguments.

PS. It also occurs where does this leave Jane Corbin & Panorama, they did an effective propaganda job to assuage outrage at the IDF’s murders, now with this report it makes the Beeb’s flagship doco look even more like an apologia for murderous piracy and the siege on Gaza. They tried it on, in a vacuum of recorded information they used seized material given out to them selectively by the Israeli military and called it a documentary as they were given exclusive permission to hang out with IDF commandos as they trained for further interventions, it was a very basic in/em-bed scam to soften journalistic attitudes to their side. That Corbin and Panorama allowed themselves to be seduced is for them to ponder though given Mark Thompson’s demonstrated bias against Palestinians maybe they were just doing the career enhancing follow the leader’s opinions dance. But now with a proper investigation suddenly the authority as a source is demoted and the bias more glaring then ever, Panorama’s partial monopoly over the narrative is over and in the process its journalistic standards in tatters- Oops, and we would of gotten away with it if it weren’t for you pesky… erm… UN war crimes investigators.

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