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Source: AlJazeera.net

Life for Palestinians in Gaza has deteriorated to unprecedented levels, agency says.

Conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza have deteriorated to unprecedented levels, according to a report by the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA).

Aid granted to Gaza has failed to stop more than half of the population in the territory from sliding below the poverty line, UNRWA said on Thursday.

“The number of households in Gaza below the consumption poverty line [has] continued to grow, reaching 51.8 per cent in 2007 despite significant amounts of emergency and humanitarian assistance,” the report said.

But the agency said that conditions have improved in the occupied West Bank, where the poverty level in 2007 dropped by nearly five per cent from the previous year, to 19.1 per cent.

Unemployment concerns

The lifting of an international embargo on the Palestinian Authority (PA) in the West Bank was likely to have been the catalyst towards an improvement in conditions there, UNRWA said.

But although Israel pulled out of Gaza in 2005, it has maintained an economic and security blockade on the territory.

Israel says the restrictions are an attempt to restrict Hamas, which has control of Gaza, but human-rights groups say the blockade amounts to the collective punishment of Palestinian civilians.

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Tags: · Gaza, Israel, starvation
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Announcing Helen Jefferson Lenskyj’s new book Olympic Industry Resistance: Challenging Olympic Power and Propaganda (SUNY Press, June 2008)

Olympic Industry Resistance provides a critical update of Olympic issues in the post-bribery and post-September 11 era, as well as documenting the work of Olympic watchdog groups. It presents a detailed examination of the Olympic aftermath in Barcelona, Atlanta, and Sydney, and provides analyses of Olympic impacts and community resistance in Salt Lake City, Athens, Vancouver, and London, as well as in the unsuccessful bid cities of New York and Toronto. Helen Lenskyj also tackles two new issues – Olympic education and athlete/role model rhetoric –in order to understand how children are indoctrinated to think uncritically about sport and the Olympics.

For ordering information, click HERE.

Tags: · Helen Jefferson Lenskyj, Olympics
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HUMAN RIGHTS COMMISSIONS — WHY THE DOUBLE STANDARD?
by Dr. Mohamed Elmasry, June 25, 2008

Media attacks against Human Rights Commissions in this country have continued non-stop since the Canadian Islamic Congress’s case against Maclean’s magazine was made public earlier this year.

But where were all those defenders of free speech in 1998, when a representative of the Canadian Jewish community filed a complaint with the BC Human Rights Commission against North Shore News columnist Doug Collins?

The Commission ordered Collins to pay $2000 in damages to the complainant for “injury to his dignity, feelings and self-respect.” The Commission also ordered the North Shore News to cease publishing statements that expose Jews “to hatred and contempt.”

A lawyer with the Canadian Jewish Congress was quoted by the Jewish Independent on December 21, 2001 as saying the decision reflects Canadian legal precedents which recognize that certain types of speech are not legally permissible, especially if they are seen to cause public harm.

[Read more →]

Tags: · Canadian Human Rights Commission, Islamophobia, Macleans
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Border Song. Sir Elton doesn’t write ‘em like this anymore. He doesn’t sing ‘em quite like this anymore either. I had forgotten how gospel-and-blues influenced his vocals were back then.

I used to listen to my cousin Kathy’s records before I was old enough to have my own. I was about 9. She was 15, I think. I listened to them on her portable record player that looked something like THIS, quite retro even for that period (early 1970s). Cat Stevens, Simon & Garfunkel, Elton John, Sonny & Cher. That was my cousin’s music…but it had an influence on me.

When I started buying my own LPs I picked up Elton John’s Captain Fantastic. I spent many a carefree summer’s day sitting in the cool of my parent’s basement listening to music and staring at the cover art of that 1975 Elton John album.

I’ve lost touch with Kathy. Last I heard she had married and was living in San Francisco. Maybe she’ll stumble on this blog post some day. Thanks for letting me listen to your records, Kathy.

Tags: · 1970s, Border Song, Elton John, Kathy Lunan
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(Source: Associated Press)

“Swindlers who act like kings
And brokers who break everything.”

(lyric from the song The Scarlet Tide written by Elvis Costello and T-Bone Burnett)

Tags: · Bush, G-8, Harper, swindlers
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