Guardian UK:

“Shawahar Matin Siraj was sentenced to 30 years in prison in 2007 after he pleaded guilty to conspiring to plant bombs at a Manhattan subway station near the Republican National Convention in 2004. As is frequent in post-9/11 domestic counter-terrorism investigations, a new Human Rights Watch report documents, Siraj might never have gotten there but for the involvement of someone else: an older man at a mosque in Brooklyn's Bay Ridge neighborhood who posed as a nuclear engineer and cancer patient with a deep knowledge of Islam. …

The older man would later testify that he and Siraj developed a father-son relationship, perhaps since he said he had cancer and Siraj's father was disabled. Siraj, he judged, was ‘impressionable.’

When word of the Abu Ghraib torture scandal broke the next year, Siraj received a barrage of images from the older man of US forces abusing Muslims. Then his friend recommended inflammatory websites for Siraj to view. He intimated to Siraj that he lamented ‘dying without a purpose’ as Siraj became ‘inflamed by emotions.’ ”

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/21/shahawar-matin-siraj-impressionable-nypd-sting

—>It takes the Guardian in the UK to reveal how Siraj was set up by the FBI (which paid the informer $100,000 for influencing the young Muslim to become a terrorist). The NYT didn’t cover this new report by Human Rights Watch.

——— 

Middle East Monitor:

“Ashy grey faces - Oh NO! not one more load of tens of maimed and bleeding, we still have lakes of blood on the floor in the ER, piles of dripping, blood-soaked bandages to clear out - oh - the cleaners, everywhere, swiftly shoveling the blood and discarded tissues, hair, clothes,cannulas - the leftovers from death - all taken away...to be prepared again, to be repeated all over. More then 100 cases came to Shifa last 24 hrs. enough for a large well trained hospital with everything, but here - almost nothing: electricity, water, disposables, drugs, OR-tables, instruments, monitors - all rusted and as if taken from museums of yesterdays hospitals. But they do not complain, these heroes. They get on with it, like warriors, head on, enormous resolute.

And as I write these words to you, alone, on a bed, my tears flows, the warm but useless tears of pain and grief, of anger and fear. This is not happening!

An then, just now, the orchestra of the Israeli war-machine starts its gruesome symphony again, just now: salvos of artillery from the navy boats just down on the shores, the roaring F16, the sickening drones, and the cluttering Apaches. So much made and paid in and by US.

Mr. Obama - do you have a heart?”

https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/articles/middle-east/12920-letter-from-gaza-by-a-norwegian-doctor

—>These are the words of Dr. Mads Gilbert, Professor and Clinical Head

Clinic of Emergency Medicine, University Hospital of North Norway. He is volunteering as a surgeon in Gaza, but his voice will never be heard in the US mainstream media, obsessed as it is with presenting the Israeli narrative. 

———

Guardian UK:

“The Israeli military is using flechette shells, which spray out thousands of tiny and potentially lethal metal darts, in its military operation in Gaza.

Six flechette shells were fired towards the village of Khuzaa, east of Khan Younis, on 17 July, according to the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights. Nahla Khalil Najjar, 37, suffered injuries to her chest, it said. PCHR provided a picture of flechettes taken by a fieldworker last week. …

B'Tselem, an Israeli human rights organization, describes a flechette shell as ‘an anti-personnel weapon that is generally fired from a tank. The shell explodes in the air and releases thousands of metal darts 37.5mm in length, which disperse in a conical arch 300 metres long and about 90 metres wide.’ 

The munitions are not prohibited under international humanitarian law, but according to B'Tselem, ‘other rules of humanitarian law render their use in the Gaza Strip illegal. One of the most fundamental principles is the obligation to distinguish between those who are involved and those who are not involved in the fighting, and to avoid to the extent possible injury to those who are not involved. Deriving from this principle is the prohibition of the use of an imprecise weapon which is likely to result in civilian injuries.’ "

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/20/israel-using-flechette-shells-in-gaza

->The NYT did not print this story. Why remind its readers that Israel is using high tech weapons to slaughter civilians?  

Common Dreams:

“A class of insecticides linked to the decline of bees may be even more ecologically damaging than previously thought, possibly causing declines in birds as well. The new findings by researchers from the Netherlands was published Wednesday in the journal Nature. …

‘In ten years it's a 35% reduction in the local population, it's really huge,’ study co-author Hans de Kroon from Radboud University told BBC News. ‘It means the alarm bells are on straight away.’

The scientists suspect that the imidacloprid builds up and can persist for years in the soil, killing insects that the birds depend on for food, therefore leading to their decline.

‘Our results suggest that the impact of neonicotinoids on the natural environment is even more substantial than has recently been reported and is reminiscent of the effects of persistent insecticides in the past,’ the study reads.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/10-7

—>The NYT published an editorial warning this spring against the use of neonicotinoids in the environment, but has routinely omitted studies like these in its news reporting. Even its science section supports agribusiness interests by stating that “Honeybee collapse has been particularly vexing because there is no one cause, but rather a thousand little cuts.” 

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Common Dreams:

“Speaking at a conference in San Diego last week for the world's largest trade organization of biotechnology firms, potential presidential candidate Hillary Clinton backed GMOs and Big Ag, further displaying her allegiance to the industry in the eyes of sustainable food and organic advocates.

While trumpeting her endorsement of GMO seeds when she served as Secretary of State, Clinton told the crowd that the term ‘genetically modified sounds Frankensteinish,’ and thus turns people off to GMOs. ‘Drought resistant sounds really like something you'd want,’ she said, encouraging the industry to improve their semantics. ‘There’s a big gap between the facts and what the perceptions are.’

Clinton's certainty concerning the safety of GMO foods stands in stark contrast to public opinion. A Consumer Reports poll in June found that 92 percent of Americans favor labeling the foods.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/03-4

—>Of course, distrust of GMO is not just a perception problem, but is backed by many scientific studies.The NY Times omitted this story about Hillary as the race for a Democratic presidential candidate begins to heat up. Our newspaper of record doesn’t care too much who wins, as long as they support the interests of big business over the American people.

———

Guardian UK:

“The United Nations's top human rights official has suggested that the United States should abandon its efforts to prosecute Edward Snowden, saying his revelations of massive state surveillance had been in the public interest.

The UN high commissioner for human rights, Navi Pillay, credited Snowden, a former US National Security Agency contractor, with starting a global debate that has led to calls for the curtailing of state powers to snoop on citizens online and store their data.

‘Those who disclose human rights violations should be protected: we need them,’ Pillay told a news conference. 

‘I see some of it here in the case of Snowden, because his revelations go to the core of what we are saying about the need for transparency, the need for consultation,’ she said. ‘We owe a great deal to him for revealing this kind of information.’ “

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/16/edward-snowden-should-not-face-trial-un-human-rights-commissioner-navi-pillay

->Interestingly, The NYT did not print this story. Why remind US citizens that the government is trying to hide the extent of its snooping on Americans?  

Common Dreams:

“Former employees of the Pennsylvania Department of Health were ordered by supervisors to ignore complaints about fracking-related health issues and follow a host of other rules to keep the dangers of drilling under wraps — even at the expense of people's health.

NPR State Impact spoke with two retirees from the department who said they were instructed never to return phone calls from residents with health problems stemming from natural gas development, like skin rashes, nausea, and nosebleeds. Employees were also given a laundry list of ‘buzzwords’ and phrases to refrain from using when talking with the public — particularly those that explicitly related to the issue, like ‘fracking,’ ‘gas,’ and ‘soil contamination.’

Other terms covered health and environmental issues, such as ‘hair falling out,’ ‘water contamination,’ and ‘cancer cluster.’ …

Marshall P. Deasy, a 20-year veteran of the department, said that drilling was the only issue he could remember being censored by supervisors.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/02-7

—>The NYT employs similar tactics to preserve the reputation of the fracking industry. It didn’t print this story.

——— 

NY Times:

—>If we had any doubts before about our newspaper of record’s stance on Palestine, the July 4  story on page 6 makes it clear. The pro-Israeli propaganda begins with two pictures above the article, one of masked Hamas fighters with guns, and the other an Israeli woman inspecting the "damage" from a rocket attack on her home. Thousands of homes destroyed by the Israeli military don't count. Israel having one of the world's most powerful militaries doesn't count either. It's just those horrible terrorists making life miserable for poor Israelis. 

And the article is just as bad. "We need to finish them off before they finish us off" is the prevailing sentiment. Amazing how we as a country allow our major newspaper to get away with what is close to advocating genocide. We should picket The NYT for stories like this. Our newspaper of record has blood on it's hands. Interesting enough, the article is not even included in their on-line publication!

———

Common Dreams:

“In a victory for environmental campaigners fighting to prevent the use of bee-killing pesticides, the agrochemical giant Syngenta on Friday withdrew an emergency application seeking permission to use such chemicals in the UK this planting season. …

As part of a coalition to uphold a ban on the European use of neonicotinoids, a class of chemicals used in pesticides shown to be extremely harmful to pollinating bees, both Friends of the Earth and Avaaz were among those  who reacted to Syngenta's decision with celebration. …

Though Europe has maintained its ban and campaigners continue to press for stronger protections for the world's most effective pollinating species, efforts in the U.S. to ban these pesticides and other toxins have continued to falter despite the growing threat.”

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2014/07/04-1

—>No word on this victory from The NYT. One of the reasons that efforts to ban these pesticides in the US is faltering is our corporate controlled media. The NYT never prints a bad article about the agrochemical giants.