CNN reports: “An Israeli patrol boat struck a boat carrying medical volunteers and supplies to Gaza early Tuesday as it attempted to intercept the vessel in the Mediterranean Sea, witnesses and Israeli officials said. “CNN correspondent Karl Penhaul was aboard the 60-foot, Gibraltar-registered pleasure boat Dignity when the contact occurred. When the boat later docked…

Oxfam International has released a list of partner organizations and allies in the occupied Gaza Strip who can be media contacts for journalists. EWA JASIEWICZ LUBNA MASARWA RAMZI KYSIA GRETA BERLIN Jasiewicz, Masarwa, Kysia and Berlin work with the Free Gaza Movement, which is sending a ship, the Dignity, from Cyprus today to Gaza. The…

Reuters reports: “Israeli warplanes and combat helicopters pounded the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip on Saturday, killing at least 155 people in the bloodiest day for Palestinians in more than 20 years of conflict.” AFP reports: “Christmas lights will be shut off around Bethlehem, including those on the city’s giant Christmas tree, to protest Israel’s deadly attacks…

ROBERT PARRY Parry, editor of ConsortiumNews.com, a reader-supported investigative webpage, has written a number of pieces about accountability for White House officials. He wrote: “During George W. Bush’s presidency alone, language has been routinely twisted to justify everything from aggressive war to torture. Those two international crimes were turned into ‘preventive war’ and ‘alternative interrogation…

AP reports “Carol Browner … will lead a White House council on energy and climate. Browner, the longest-serving EPA administrator in history, headed the agency during the Clinton administration’s two terms.” Time magazine, in its section of “Quotes About Browner,” features this: “She wasn’t at all sympathetic to complaints about civil rights abuses. We were…

Reuters reports: “UN human rights chief Navi Pillay accused Israel on Tuesday of ‘unprecedented and deeply regrettable’ treatment of a U.N. investigator it deported after barring him from crossing Israel to get to Palestinian areas. Richard Falk, UN special rapporteur on human rights in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip, was stopped at Ben…

President-elect Obama is nominating Chicago public school CEO Arne Duncan to be secretary of education and Tom Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, to be secretary of agriculture. KEVIN KUMASHIRO Chair of the department of educational policy studies at the University of Illinois-Chicago, Kumashiro said today: “Under Duncan’s leadership, public education in Chicago is being…

Today, the electors of the Electoral College meet to vote for the next president. MAYME HUBERT Hubert is an elector currently in Sacramento, and will be engaged in voting from 12:45-3:15 PT. She said today: “I’m honored to have been chosen by Rep. Lynn Woolsey, but I’d rather we voted for a president by popular…

AP is reporting: “On a whirlwind trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the wars that define his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference in Iraq. ‘This is your farewell…

AP reports: “Defense Secretary Robert Gates says the Pentagon is moving to get three of the four combat brigades requested by commanders into Afghanistan by next summer. … “The Pentagon chief spoke with reporters traveling with him to Kandahar, Afghanistan, where he was to meet with military leaders Thursday.” STEPHEN KINZER Available for a limited…