Sadrists protest SOFA

Tens of thousands of Shiite protesters and supporters of Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr gathered in a “largely peaceful” demonstration in Baghdad to protest the upcoming Status of Forces Agreement vote between Iraq and the United States, McClatchy correspondent Adam Asher reported.

The agreement is expected to pass as there are enough votes in Parliament without the Sadrist bloc supporting it.

There is growing concern that al-Sadr might call off the cease-fire with the Iraqi government over the signing of the SOFA, which opponents see as legitimizing the occupation, Asher reported.

Bailout money helping banks merge

According to a report by the American News Project, $100 billion from the recent government bailout is going to the nation’s four major banks with no strings attached.

The $100 billion is more than the government spends every year on education, energy and the environment combined.

The money is not being used to help homeowners in trouble. Instead, the big banks are using the funds to acquire smaller banks, the congressional testimony revealed.

“What we have here is a situation where banks are hoarding the money” that they got from taxpayers in order to buy up other banks, said Congressman Dennis Kucinich at a House hearing.

The report showed how not only would larger banks take over smaller local banks with taxpayer money, they would do it for free because the Treasury Department unilaterally rewrote tax law so that any bank acquisitions would get large tax breaks.

For example, Wells Fargo bought out Wachovia for $15 billion, but will receive a $20 billion tax credit ­— a total profit of $5 billion for the bank acquisition.

Sherrod Brown, a Democratic senator on the banking committee, didn’t hear about the Treasury’s unilateral moves until he read it in the paper the next day.

“In a sense they’re making it up as they go along,” said Howard Gleckman, a senior research associate for the Urban Institute, of the Treasury Department.

U.N.: Gaza on brink of humanitarian disaster

Karen AbuZayd, the commissioner-general of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) said the situation in Gaza is the worst since the first Palestinian uprisings eight years ago, according to the Israeli daily Ha’aretz.

“It will be a catastrophe if this persists, a disaster,” said AbuZayd, who decried the chronic malnutrition and humanitarian disaster among Gaza’s 1.5 million Palestinians resulting from the Israeli blockade.

Israel has closed crossings into Gaza as well as restricted foreign journalists after Palestinian militants responded to a Nov. 4 Israeli army incursion with rocket attacks, Ha’aretz reported.

Navi Pillay, U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights, condemned the blockade as a “direct contravention of international human rights and humanitarian law.”

The comments prompted an angry response from Aharon Leshno-Yaar, Israel’s ambassador to the U.N., who insisted that the overall responsibility for the crisis in Gaza lies with Hamas and their actions, Ha’aretz reported.

Reach columnist Aditya Ganapathiraju at news@dailyuw.com.