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New York Times Director Probed for "Breach of Trust"
To the Sulzberger family that controls the New York Times he has been the ultimate Good German. High-flying Thomas Middelhof took New York by storm, buying Random House for Bertelsmann, invited onto the NYT board, a member of its compensation committee. Read Eamonn Fingleton’s exclusive on how Middelhof has crashed to earth and how the NYT has buried the story. Amid New York’s savage fiscal crisis, guess what? The city ponies up $50 million for a nice new park for rich people in Manhattan. Read Carl Ginsburg on the High Line. PLUS Elyssa Pachico on how rural revolution in Colombia has gone digital. PLUS co-editor Cockburn on how, in Obama Time, the Israel lobby is carrying all before it. What a surprise. Get your new edition today by subscribing online or calling 1-800-840-3683 Contributions to CounterPunch are tax-deductible. Click here to make a donation. If you find our site useful please: Subscribe Now! CounterPunch books and t-shirts make great presents.
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Today's Stories August 11, 2009 Ricardo Alarcón August 10, 2009 David Price Mike Whitney Alan Farago Conn Hallinan Russell Mokhiber Paul Krassner Sousan Hammad Jonathan Cook Ira Glunts George Wuerthner Website of the Day August 7 - 9, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Mike Whitney Elaine C. Hagopian Carl Ginsburg Miguel Tinker Salas Saul Landau John Ross Anthony DiMaggio Obama and the Israel Lobby: Origins of Power John Stanton Christopher Brauchli Legal Absurdities: Outing Three Strikes Wajahat Ali Ron Jacobs Franklin Lamb Bruce E. Levine Michael Winship David Macaray Stephen Fleischman Robert Bryce Robert Dodge, MD: Hiroshima and Nagasaki Remembered Mark Seth Lender David Yearsley Ben Sonnenberg Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend August 6, 2009 Ishmael Reed Paul Craig Roberts William Blum Assassinations and Coups: Keeping Track of the Empire's Crimes Michael Donnelly Jonathan Cook Dave Lindorff Ellen Brown Website of the Day August 5, 2009 Dedrick Muhammad / Norman Solomon William Blum Gareth Porter Mary Lynn Cramer Jim Goodman Nadia Hijab Gretchen Kroth Steve Macek / Sarah Lazare Website of the Day August 4, 2009 Mike Whitney Dave Lindorff Patrick Cockburn Jonathan Cook Jeff Sher Dean Baker Andy Worthington Uri Avnery Mark Weisbrot Alvaro Huerta Website of the Day
August 3, 2009 Pam Martens Anthony DiMaggio Udi Aloni Mike Roselle Dr. Susan Block Roy Bourgeois / Margaret Knapke Joe Bageant Dina Jadallah Dave Lindorff Martha Rosenberg Website of the Day July 31 - August 2, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Gabriel Kolko John Prados Joe Bageant Tim Wise Carl Ginsburg Michael Fox John Lindsay-Poland Michael Winship Rev. William Alberts Andy Worthington Steve Breyman Cyrus Bina Missy Beattie Ron Jacobs Willie L. Pelote, Sr. Lucia Alvarez Dave Lindorff Lawrence R. Velvel Omar Barghouti / James L. Secor Belén Fernández Jeffrey St. Clair David Yearsley Brian J. Foley Alan Cabal Kim Nicolini Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 30, 2009 Patrick Cockburn Gareth Porter Saul Landau Greg Grandin Diane Farsetta Stephen Soldz Alan Farago David Macaray Mike Howells / Christopher Brauchli Website of the Day July 29, 2009 Carl Ginsburg Clifton Ross Paul Craig Roberts Franklin C. Spinney James Bovard Lackawanna Six: Bogus Charges and Martial Law Anthony DiMaggio Bouthaina Shaaban Greg Moses Wajahat Ali Gary Leupp Ayesha Ijaz Khan Website of the Day July 28, 2009 Jean Bricmont Uri Avnery Dean Baker Heather Gray Jonathan Cook Winslow T. Wheeler Belén Fernández Carl Finamore Eli Jelly-Schapiro Harvey Wasserman Website of the Day July 27, 2009 Ishmael Reed Patrick Cockburn Roger Burbach Steve Breyman Ramzy Kysia Stephen Soldz Raymond J. Lawrence Greg Moses Binoy Kampmark Kim Ives Website of the Day July 24-26, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Clifton Ross Patrick Cockburn William Polk David Sterritt Ray McGovern David Lindorff Hannah Mermelstein Carl Ginsburg Helen Redmond John Ross Bill Simpich Mark Weisbrot Lee Sustar David Macaray Felipe Matsunaga Sara Mann Martha Rosenberg Missy Beattie David Ker Thomson Ron Jacobs Stephen Martin David Yearsley Gilad Atzmon Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 23, 2009 Jeffrey St. Clair Saul Landau / Jonathan Cook Nadia Hijab Dave Lindorff Laura Carlsen Steve Breyman Ellen Brown Norman Solomon Jorge Mariscal Website of the Day July 22, 2009 Bernard Chazelle Nikolas Kozloff Carl Ginsburg Clifton Ross Anthony DiMaggio Michael Donnelly Nadia Hijab Dedrick Muhammad Charles Thomson Alan Farago Website of the Day July 21, 2009 Sasan Fayazmanesh Uri Avnery Dean Baker Jonathan Cook Dave Lindorff Andy Worthington David Macaray Carl Finamore Harvey Wasserman Walter Brasch Website of the Day
July 20, 2009 Pam Martens Nikolas Kozloff Paul Craig Roberts Deepak Tripathi Ira Glunts P. Sainath Binoy Kampmark Stephen Fleischman Norman Solomon Andy Worthington Ron Jacobs Website of the Day
July 17-19, 2009 Alexander Cockburn Nikolas Kozloff Joanne Mariner Joe Bageant Jonathan Cook Saul Landau John Ross Sue Sturgis Anita Sinha / Peter Morici Pervez Hoodbhoy Ramzy Baroud Greg Moses Kia Mistilis Missy Beattie David Ker Thomson James G. Abourezk Paul Richards Dave Lindorff Marc Levy Matt Siegfried Stephen Martin Ben Sonnenberg David Macaray Charles R. Larson David Yearsley Lorenzo Wolff Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend July 16, 2009 Paul Craig Roberts Afshin Rattansi Iranian Planes and the Hidden Toll of Economic Sanctions Gregory V. Button Evan Knappenberger Michelle Bollinger Russell Mokhiber Belén Fernández Alice Walker Nicholas Dearden Albert Osueke Website of the Day
Manuel Garcia, Jr. Vijay Prashad Dean Baker Ray McGovern Jonathan Cook David Rosen Eric Walberg Greg Moses Sousan Hammad Binoy Kampmark Tracy McLellan Website of the Day July 14, 2009 Eamonn McCann Joanne Mariner Franklin Spinney Steve Heilig Ali Abunimah Dave Lindorff Nikolas Kozloff Ellen Brown Alice Slater Ron Jacobs Joe Allen Website of the Day July 13, 2009 Uri Avnery Mike Whitney P. Sainath Gareth Porter Paul Moore Tim Wise Andy Worthington Former Insider Shatters Credibility of Military Commissions David Macaray Cal Winslow Niranjan Ramakrishnan Website of the Day July 10-12, 2009 Alexander Cockburn José Pertierra John Ross Conn Hallinan Nikolas Kozloff Clifton Ross / Carl Ginsburg Michael Neumann Gilad Atzmon Jeffrey St. Clair Ellen Hodgson Brown Jim Goodman Christopher Bickerton Wendell Potter Dave Lindorff David Ker Thomson Anthony DiMaggio Raymond Lawrence Walid El Houri Stephanie Westbrook Roger Gaess David Yearsley Kim Nicolini Poets' Basement Website of the Weekend
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August 11, 2009 The Bowels of KahrizakInside Iran's Most Infamous PrisonBy REZA YAVARI
Ido not know where to begin! Forgive me if the report I would like to give of the Iranian Guantanamo, the Kahrizak Camp, will have any grammatical and spelling errors, because I am in a hurry and must leave soon. It is currently 8 in the morning, 6th of Mordad (26th of July) as I write this. This morning, along a few others, I was able to escape certain death miraculously. I just arrived home from the hospital. I was arrested on 18th of Tir (9th July) . I am 21 years old. Even as I write this I am in disbelief about my release. In the Tir 18th protests my friend and I were beaten by plain clothed agents while we were on a motorcycle with my friend filming with his cell phone. A woman came to save us from the hands of these people but they even beat that poor person up as well. They threw us in a mini-bus filled with people hurt and beaten just like us. The mini-bus took us to a police station. We were beaten so much that we did not know where we were. They put us next to a wall and my friend and I were standing next to each other. Then a bulky plain clothed agent came and selected every second person and forced us into the mini-bus. I have not heard any news of my friend from that moment on. They took me along with tens of others to a camp at Kahrizak. There were at least 200 of us in the room they took us to. Everybody was injured. The sound of groaning from pain filled the room. I wondered to myself what they planned to do to us. Maybe tomorrow they would us to a court or prison, which would at least be much better than where we were right now. There was no place to sit. The doors and walls were covered with blood. I was thinking about my friend, because he was not the type to have any tolerance for such places. In the midst of this all those in the room began to weep and cry, and someone said that someone had just died. The voice was coming from the end of the room but we were all crammed up against one another and could not move. Plain clothed guards entered the room, shattered the light bulbs and began to beat everyone in complete darkness. They hit anyone they saw in front of them. We were beaten for a good half an hour. A few went into coma and may have even died from the intensity of the beatings. They then shone flash lights in our faces and said “if you let out any sound we will stick these batons….” Sadegh, who seemed to be of higher rank took the dead body and laid it against the wall, shone a flashlight in his face and said, “We have warrant to kill you all. So you better wish for some luck and not end up like this mother….dead.” “…Don’t let out the slightest sound. If you stay alive until morning you stay alive…” He then continued, “you are all muharebe [combatants], do you know what a muharebe is.” He grabbed someone from the front who seemed to be a 16-17 year old boy by the neck and said, “tell them what Muharebe means!” the boy said he did not know. The man then responded “the hell you don’t!” and began to beat him ruthlessly while saying “ tell them, tell them!” He beat him to the point that the boy was unconscious. He continued to say Muharebe means Satan, means wrong doer. He beat the boy so hard that some begin to voice their anger, but were also beaten ruthlessly. In that room of ours at least four people were killed before morning. Sadegh said in a loud voice, “there is no such thing as a toilet and tooth brush here, you do your business right here, are we clear?” There was not a single uninjured person among us, they all either had blood clotted on their faces or their eyes had been bruised like mine. And many others had broken arms and legs. It was completely dark. Our eyes would become extremely irritated from the light every time they opened the door. The next days we spent terrible conditions. We could not tell night from day, and in order to prevent us from starving to death they threw us a sack filled with leftovers every day which we ate eagerly. In this sack there was some left-over bread, greens, and rice and was spread among us by an individual named Dr. Zare, who said he was a doctor and responsible for distributing food. For several days I could only hear the his voice of him and of numerous other prisoners and I could recognize them from their voices until one day Sadegh came and brought some light bulbs. After several days we were allowed to go in the outside area of the camp. Oh what sense of freedom we found this to be. The blue sky and the sun light were refreshing for us. (In addition I should mention that the reason they brought us out was for us to clean out our filth and feces.) I apologize for writing in such manner, but in a few more days when others are freed, especially those from the Kahrizak camp, will be able to provide you with better details, which I am certain has Guantanamo and Abu Gharib beat in certain respects these past few days. Anyway according to a few of Sadegh’s thugs we were some of the first people to be thrown out of the camp due to it being over crowded. And they threatened us that they will kill us if we speak a word about what happened there. It was around midnight last night when I immediately contacted my family with somebody’s cell phone and had them pick me up. Freedom tastes sweet. But keep in mind that there are thousands of people going through under the worst conditions at Kahrizak camp. In addition I have memorized and will say the names of those who lost their lives just in our camp while I was there. If these animals had taken these people to the hospital they might have stayed alive today. Hassan Shamloo (student), Reza Fatahi (student) Milad with unknown last name, the 17-year old who was kicked and punched by Sadegh on the first night and went into a coma, and was taken away. Our doctor prisoner said he bled from his ear and mouth and had died. Morteza, Salahshoor, Morad, Aghassi, Mohsen, Entezami. In addition I also have the names of several of those arrested in our camp which I will also list in the coming days. Dear god please free us from the evil of these people. I cannot believe where I was 24 hours ago. Dear god, save all Iranians and freedom seekers as quick as possible. Also with the changes that have occurred in Kahrizak camp, the detention center that our corrupt leader is supposed to shut down is probably Kahrizak, because a lot of people were killed in it. Reza Yavari (my alias) Mordad 6th 1:10am. With the hope of freedom for those imprisoned in Kahrizak.
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Now Available from CounterPunch Books! Yellowstone Drift: Spell Albuquerque: Waiting for
Lightning
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