Zionism is Terrorism

Star of David Tattoo on "Libyan" Rebel

2011-04-19T19:42:00.000-07:00

Video footage of a star of david tattoo on an injured Libyan rebel. Never believe Zionist Al-Jazeera again

Dictator of Qatar meeting with War Criminal Tzipi Livni while its aljazeera is inflaming the Arab streets

Qatar-Backed Al-Qaeda Hijack Gadhafi's Phone Network

Al-Jewzeera Propaganda Busted Again

The Qatari-Israeli-Saudi Alliance

Declare a Second Jewish State

2011-04-02T21:52:00.000-07:00

If Israel can suggest a man made PA island off the Gaza shores to bypass Hamas, why shouldn't this be considered as well?

In September the United Nations General Assembly will convene in New York. It is widely anticipated that the Palestinian Arab leadership will unilaterally push for the declaration of a State, seeking approval and diplomatic acceptance from among the gathered representatives.

It is unlikely that this initiative, that would essentially amount to an effort to seize control of the West Bank, will materialize. However if it did, it could cause a great deal of concern for Israel. Now consider for a moment what the implications would be if at the very same time, a movement to declare a second Jewish State in Judea and Samaria was gathering pace.

Sounds farfetched? Maybe, but the idea is not my own. Political activists in Israel and around the world have begun to debate the merits of this concept, and as interest grows, the embryo of a movement may begin to be taking shape. The residents of cities, villages, towns and outposts throughout Judea and Samaria have often borne the brunt of Arab aggression, and their future is constantly subject to political whims. Israeli civil law does not apply to residents of these areas and the ability for communities to defend themselves is restricted.

The recent brutal and barbaric Itamar slaughter underscored the kind of threats that these communities need to take into account. Following Prime Minister Netanyahu’s visit of consolation to the Fogel family, the following comments by their oldest daughter Tamar gives an indication of how isolated many Jewish West Bank residents feel. “The Prime Minister said, “They murder us and they try to…and we build. We build. We build. We…just continue on.” So I told him, “And then afterwards you expel people (from their homes).” She continued, “And during the expulsions, it’s not just expelling people from their homes; there is also a war between brothers going on.”

As communities feel more isolated, movements that call for Judean independence may begin to gather more steam. The argument, although not unflawed, is in many ways quite sound. First of all, as many Israel advocates are fond of mentioning, there are a number of Arab states and only one Jewish State. So why not establish a second?

According to most in the international community, Israeli control-and certainly inhabitance-of the West Bank, is illegal and Arabs refer to the land as ‘occupied’ territory. Even to those observers that defer minimally to the laws of impartiality, the area is referred to as ‘disputed.’ If Israel were to cede control of the areas to a new entity, governed by the local Jewish inhabitants who have an extensive historical connection to the land, what grounds for reckoning would be left? Israel would no longer be involved, as the dispute would now be between the West Bank Jews and the West Bank Arabs. After all, historically Jewish sovereignty was divided at times between the Kingdom of Israel and the Kingdom of Judah.

Of course, because of the strategic importance of the area militarily, economically, and agriculturally, Israel would need to maintain an extensive bilateral defense and trade pact with the new entity.

Besides the immediate effects on the ground, the benefits for Israel in the ongoing arena of world opinion could go even further. The precious underdog status that has so expertly been transferred from Israel to the Palestinian Arabs over the last number of years may be assigned to the Judeans as they struggle to build their newly independent Jewish State.

Faced with a new geopolitical reality, and understanding of Jewish fortitude and determination, the local Arab population, maintaining their refugee status, may have more of an incentive to seek resettlement elsewhere in the Arab world. They may finally even be assisted by the international community.

These committed pioneers have settled the Jewish homeland in its entirety and have shouldered the burden of peoplehood and the hardships of actualizing the dream of a Jewish return to Zion. They may yet open up a new frontier in the battle for the Jewish right to self-determination and it may go a long way in reframing the Israel-Arab conversation.

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/Articles/Article.aspx/10110

Mideast Revolutions and 9-11 intrigues crafted in Qatar

2011-03-28T09:08:00.000-07:00

By Kiyul Chung

Yoichi Shimatsu, Senior Advisor to the 4th Media, based in Hong Kong, covered the rise of Islamic militancy in North Africa in the 1990s for the Japan Times group.

In the 2005 political thriller "Syriana", starring George Clooney and Matt Damon, Qatar is at the heart of an international intrigue. The title was based on the concept of "Pax Syriana", a secret arrangement between two mutually hostile powers to divide a region into their respective spheres of dominance.

Washington think-tanks use this term to describe a reshaping of the Middle East to suit American interests, but in the knowledge that this goal is attainable only through covert cooperation with the enemy, namely the elite financial sponsors of Al Qaeda and the Islamic Brotherhood.

The thinly veiled fiction was based on the political reality of that thumb of desert that juts out of the Arabian Peninsula into the Gulf - the emirate of Qatar. Home of the state-owned Al Jazeera network, Qatar is on the surface the pro-Western host of the U.S. Central Command and an active supporter of "democratic revolutions" now sweeping the Mideast. It is also accused of being a state sponsor of terrorism.

Chemical weapons looted

It may puzzle and perhaps dismay young protesters in Benghazi, Cairo and Tunis that their democratic hopes are being manipulated by an ultra-conservative Arab elite, which has underhandedly backed a surge of militant Islamist radicals across North Africa. Credible U.S. intelligence reports have cited evidence pointing to the emirate's long-running support for the Muslim Brotherhood, Al Qaeda and jihadist fighters returning from Afghanistan

The links to Qatar uncovered by anti-terrorism investigators in the wake of 9-11 need to be reexamined now that the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG), an on-and-off affiliate of Al Qaeda, has seized armories across half of the North African country. Libya's well-stocked arsenals contain high-power explosives, rocket launchers and chemical weapons. LIFG is on the State Department's terrorist list.

Most worrying, according to a U.S. intelligence official cited by CNN, is the probable loss of chemical weapons. The Federation of American Scientists reports that, as of 2008, only 40 percent of Libya's mustard gas was destroyed in the second round of decommissioning. Chemical canisters along the Egyptian border were yet to be retrieved and are now presumably in the hands of armed militants.

After letting slip that the earliest Libyan protests were organize d by the LIFG, Al Jazeera quickly changed its line to present a heavily filtered account of "peaceful protests". To explain away the gunshot deaths of Libya soldiers during the uprising, the Qatar-based network presented a bizarre scenario of150 dead soldiers in Sirte having been executed by their officers for "refusing to fight". The mysterious officers then miraculously vacated their base disappearing into thin air while surrounded by angry protesters! Off the record, one American intelligence analyst called these media claims an "absurdity" and suggested instead the obvious:-that the soldiers were gunned down in an armed assault by war-hardened returnees from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Many Libyan Army units have "defected" to the opposition if for no other purpose than to try to recover the troves of weapons seized by the militants. Al Jazeera's role in erasing the fingerprints of the armed militants vindicates the earlier conclusion of Western anti-terrorism experts of Qatar's sponsorship of terrorism.

Payments for terror

According to a Congressional Research Service report of January 2008, "Some observers have raised questions about possible support for Al Qaeda by some Qatari citizens, including members of Qatar's large ruling family. According to the 9/11 Commission Report, Qatar's Interior Minister provided safe haven to 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed during the mid-1990s, and press reports indicate other terrorists may have received financial support or safe haven in Qatar after September 11, 2001."

The national security chief, Interior Minister Abdullah bin Khalid Al Thani, is further mentioned as paying for a 1995 trip by Khalid Shaikh Mohammed "to join the Bosnia jihad." The report recalls how after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, FBI officials "narrowly missed an opportunity to capture" the suspect in Qatar. "Former U.S. officials have since stated their belief that a high-ranking member of the Qatari government alerted him to the impending raid, allowing him to flee the country."

Qatar's spymaster also "welcomed dozens of so-called 'Afghan Arab' veterans of the anti-Soviet conflict in Afghanistan to Qatar in the early 1990s. These ties go back to the late 1980s, when "the United States and Qatar engaged in a prolonged diplomatic dispute regarding Qatar’s black-market procurement of U.S.-made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.The dispute froze planned economic and military cooperation, and Congress approved a ban on arms sales to Qatar until the months leading up to the 1991 Gulf War, when Qatar allowed coalition forces to operate from Qatari territory."

The hidden connections to the terrorist network broke out into public view when an Egyptian suicide bomber attacked a Doha movie theater in 2003. Foreign Minister, Hamad bin Jassim bin Jabr al-Thani, reacted in haste and anger calling it an "act of unpardonable treachery by Bin Laden." His slip of tongue led to the discovery that from the start of the first Gulf War Qatar had been paying millions of dollars to Al Qaeda as compensation for its hosting of the U.S. Central Command during the Iraq War. .Anti-terrorism experts allege that Doha upped its payments following the theater bombing.

More worrisome is the February 9, 2000 cable from the American Embassy in Doha, issuing a security alert on Qatari resident in the U.S. named Mohamed Ali Dahham Mansoori, who guided a three-man team that allegedly scouted the World Trade Center, the Statue of Liberty and the White House for the upcoming 9-11 attack. The three suspects traveled under aliases with Qatar passports. Their air tickets to Los Angeles and hotel rooms were paid for by a "convicted terrorist," according to the FBI asserted. The trio's role in 9-11 was subsequently tomb-stoned with all evidence suppressed, probably due to the warming US diplomatic relationship with Qatar's royal family.

Mirage or Reality?

Doha, a cluster of shiny towers and fountains in a peninsula that is otherwise barren,seems the unlikeliest spot for financial and institutional support for Islamist terrorists. In Qatar, however, mirages are real, and reality is a mirage. Hailed as a model of political reform by Western diplomats and think tanks like the Brookings Institution, which has a Doha center, Qatar's legal code is nonetheless firmly based on sharia law. Its education system , with links to dozens of American and British universities, is also the academic platform for the Egyptian cleric Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the intellectual champion of the Muslim Brotherhood and advocate of suicide bombings.

The emirate's insistence on preserving Gulf Arab traditions stands in contrast to Qatar's business-savvy role as the region's biggest supplier of natural gas. Per-capita GDP is estimated at about $90,000 a year; and average income around $65,000. Excluding small tax-haven countries, its population is the richest in the world. Qataris, then, are the Swiss of the Arab world, and their small nation, like Switzerland, is a haven for arms trafficking, illicit money transfers and other skullduggery.Even something as innocuous as TGI Fridays, a struggling fast-food chain in America, is in Doha an upscale retreat for off-duty Marine officers, petroleum engineers, international weapons dealers and their incognito clients from across the Mideast.

Despite the many connections with terrorism, Qatar got back into the good graces of the Obama administration with donations to the Clinton Foundation, including one of up to $5 million in 2008. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton reciprocated with a February 2010 visit to inaugurate the Carnegie Mellon University in Doha's Education City complex, which also houses Qaradawai's Islamist institute. In early January, just before the Tunis and Cairo protests, she took a longer sojourn for the Forum for the Future, co-hosted by the royal family.

The relations between Washington and Doha has been sold to the public as a partnership for democracy and human rights, but beneath the smiles and photo ops is the hard fact of a Syriana-type arrangement to carve up the "future Mideast" between the Anglo-American energy industry and an ultraconservative elite set on imposing sharia law. For this "enemy of my enemy" alliance, the common foes are the secular governments of Tunisia, Egypt, Libya and next Algeria.

Blowback in Libya

Covert cooperation between the West and sponsors of Islamic extremism is not new . In the 1950s, the CIA provided money and weapons to the Muslim Brotherhood for their battle against Egyptian independence leaderAbdul Gamal Nasser. US. intelligence operatives trained and armed mujahideen insurgents in the anti-Soviet Afghan war, including Osama bin Laden, then known by his cover name Tim Osman. According to former UK counterintelligence officer David Shayler, the British MI-6 hired Libyan militant Anas al-Liby, from the Al Qaeda-friendly Al-Muqtaliya group and later linked to the bombing of US embassies in East Africa, to assassinate Colonel Muammar Qadhafi in 1996.

The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, under the leadership of Abu al-Laith al-Libi, formally merged into Al Qaida in 2007. Two years later, Libi disowned armed violence and negotiated with Qadhafi for acceptance of LIFG as an above-ground political association. The sudden rejection of violence coincided with the Muslim Brotherhood's makeover as a democratic force and Qatar's advocacy of political reform across the Mideast. As a legal entity, it incited the first protests in Benghazi in mid-February. Within days of the uprising's start, however, the LIFG reverted to its old ways, brandishing automatic weapons. What it plans to do with chemical weapons and advanced explosives is anyone's guess, while one psychological point remains clear: The militants are eager to pay back Americans and Europeans for10 years of bombing, maiming and torture.

The constant temptation in a partnership between enemies is betrayal. The White House had counted on the protests to nudge Saif al-Islam Gadhafi to replace his father in a relatively smooth transition to democracy. The Gadhafi clan, however, united against the threat of an Islamist resurgence. Washington also miscalculated the potential for Al Qaeda elements and Brotherhood acting independently of high-level deals made in Doha.

Possible outcomes - from the collapse of the Qadhafi regime to the partition of Libya - could easily prompt Al Qaeda allies and the militant arm of the Brotherhood to establish the Libyan-Egyptian border as the next global training center for jihadists, now that the Afghan-Pakistan tribal regions no longer provide a safe platform for jihad operations. Any US or NATO intervention will only lead to a third front in the endless war. The more easily grasped alternative to a Syriana duopoly is an even older political formula: The winner takes all.

On this 10th anniversary year of the 9-11 attacks, Washington is staggering under a huge "blowback" from an out-of-control North Africa, self-inflicted by its own greed for oil and uranium, fears of declining influence, deceitful ambition and misplaced trust.

The Prince of the Gutter

An international arrest warrant has been issued for disgraced "prince" Hamad bin Abdallah bin Thani al-THANI of Qatar.

This so-called "prince" was convicted in Prague, May 2005, for having sex with four Czech girls aged 14 and younger. He paid, of course.

In addition, THANI's case file concluded that he had been engaged in pimping and sexually abusing sixteen minors.

THANI the Paedophile was rightfully sentenced to prison. Only thirty months. He was lucky to have gotten off so easy.

Evil Qatar Corruption Al-Jazeera A and E Never mention: Qatar tops Middle East, North Africa in corruption rankings

History of the Blood Sucking Parasites for Dummies

2011-03-22T17:35:00.000-07:00

Do yourself a huge favor and watch this at least once

Dimitri Khalezov's Nuclear Demolition Videos Being Scrubbed Off Web!

2010-05-08T10:35:00.001-07:00

On March 15, 2010 Having watched all 26 videos by Dimitri Khalezov, I posted them here @ Facts Not Fairies. There was a total silence from the the '9/11 Truthers' on these most amazing videos - except for a few forums here and there. Youtube has since censored these videos and are being censored throughout the web. Dimitri Khalezov websites have also been taken down. Now is your chance to watch, download, upload these videos and spread the truth.

by Glenn Canady

Here's the deal. Somebody is busy trying to remove all videos about Dimitri Khalezov's nuclear demoltion theory out of existence on the Internet. At the end of this article I'm going to list all the pages that show this censorship. I feel that Dimitri's theory is the best one because it fits ALL the evidence. He also wrote a book on the entire thing which I want to read also. This type of scrubbing never happened with the Nano Thermite theory. I still believe nano thermite could have been used because something melted a lot of steel before the 150kT nuclear demolotion charges were blown in all 3 buildings. I will cover this first and then give you links where you can see all the videos being scrubbed off the web. Please post links to this article on your facebook walls so we can get people to be aware of Dimitri's excellent research on this.

Why I believe nuclear demolition fits all the evidence we know about.

They didn't call it "ground zero" for nothing! Before 911, ground zero only meant the area below or above a nuclear detonation, after 911, they changed some of the dictionaries to say it was also the place where terrorists attacked the trade centers. It's all mind control.

Dimitri Khalezov has been an expert in nuclear demolition for many years and has an incredible amount of proof that the buildings were taken down by underground micro nuclear demolition charges! I've posted some links to other material such as the melted cars that could have only been done by EMP type effects caused by a nuclear bomb since there was no jet fuel burning at ground level AND some of these cars were missing engine blocks! They were totally melted! How do you melt an engine block when no fire was burning at ground level - many of these cars were 7 blocks away! They were never explained in any way. Also it was never explained why Tritium levels were 55 times more than normal at ground zero. And of course we have ALL the strange cancers from first responders and many of them have died. They were forced to wear "air quality" badges which Dimitri says were really just radiation detectors in disguise so they could monitor everybody's exposure and pull people out of the hot zones for a while when their badges reported higher radiation. Easy to lie to everybody and tell them the badge is to monitor air quality. That is pure garbage if you think about it. There is not going to be that much difference in "air quality around such a relatively small area anyway.

Dimitri even said that in the 70's he was told that the Americans had authorized the twin towers to be taken down at the end of their lifetimes with small nuclear demolition charges! I did some research and it was true! It was determined that only a nuclear demolition charge could safely bring down both Towers and Building 7 because of their construction. Here's some good information on nuclear demolition

This web site hosts temporary download links to all 26 parts of a famous video interview that was removed from the YouTube and from all other video hostings

This web site hosts temporary download links to all 26 parts of a famous video interview that was removed from the YouTube and from all other video hostings.

Please, note that these links may not last long! The ‘Big Brother’ is extremely unhappy with this video. Hurry up to get these files before they are removed from the depositfiles.com!

Everyone is encouraged to promptly download these video files and to re-distribute them as freely as he wishes – eg. by re-uploading them to the Internet sharing services (such as rapidshare.com , depositfiles.com and similar) and giving downloading links to others, by creating torrent downloads, by giving actual physical files to his or her friends, by making DVDs, etc. No modifying original contents of the videos is allowed, though.

You are strongly discouraged from re-distributing the original download links that are shown below, because publishing them everywhere in the Internet would only lead to their quick demise. Try, instead, to download these videos and to re-upload them elsewhere and only then – distribute links to the secondary destinations.

It would be also advisable to re-name the files before hosting them elsewhere and not using any personal names in the file-names – you might name them simply as ‘part01’, ‘part02’, or something similar. It would greatly complicate the ‘Big Brother’s’ work to trace and remove these files quickly.

Any suggestions could be sent to this e-mail address: links[a]mail333.com (where [a] stands for ‘@’)

Here are the current download links. These are the latest improved versions of the files – in mp4 format. Each file is around ~33-36 Mb in size. MD5 checksums for each file are included. In addition, there are 2 archives with important reference files used in the video and pre-9/11 ‘ground zero’ definitions + a hash calculator for checksums verification. Each archive is less than 3 Mb. Hurry up to get them before they are removed again:

Part 01 - http://depositfiles.com/files/uqtqbko79 MD5: 7D8D655BC576CF24589E8B0A455C3B82

Part 02 - http://depositfiles.com/files/dxhx8mear MD5: ECAFFEF32DDE832BF94DD920AC94790B

Part 03 - http://depositfiles.com/files/mf5rtuemi MD5: FDA77172872F66E53C936F29170097EB

Part 04 - http://depositfiles.com/files/xbj4c4xyo MD5: 3F8F554FA16AA229FD3A01C4B570AE64

Part 05 - http://depositfiles.com/files/mwsbl3z6z MD5: EC3051E8ED5345252D5C821D1853EB74

Part 06 - http://depositfiles.com/files/iqcxropaf MD5: 7D66E109CAB6AD08EEA2D13BAA09A085

Part 07 - http://depositfiles.com/files/65eb8om20 MD5: 221A0DF03C52F4D21FCE3740910A2E72

Part 08 - http://depositfiles.com/files/u5kcigi3d MD5: 4ADB389E3987541D8A784B2527A8BA5A

Part 09 - http://depositfiles.com/files/i90ky4frl MD5: 6BCCA5B2D7F1D3114493E61BAD23CBD0

Part 10 - http://depositfiles.com/files/44kolyvtk MD5: 60FFF4D888DD3BEC54800785AE2B49B3

Part 11 - http://depositfiles.com/files/phexsxx52 MD5: CA0B03A4311ADA72F7139881CC0B36A6

Part 12 - http://depositfiles.com/files/357awfgun MD5: 46457BAE9F73209B0B06F79F0FB7BACA

Part 13 - http://depositfiles.com/files/ujmi7ygks MD5: D702A7F72689BA6ED0C5C697C33907CD

Part 14 - http://depositfiles.com/files/s40p9cy0y MD5: ADAF676D1EE7B5177501957D8164221E

Part 15 - http://depositfiles.com/files/mfcijxat9 MD5: 2B0A274A6FDDD738DD45B044FA67E5F7

Part 16 - http://depositfiles.com/files/qogm78u5c MD5: 4E1B91CE9764C61AF4A241D474138661

Part 17 - http://depositfiles.com/files/clnf1wjw6 MD5: 29553859CA45836F6666C6619D9F5750

Part 18 - http://depositfiles.com/files/jjfjrb39p MD5: E3FF4396FB7A2B5D5978879598A693BF

Part 19 - http://depositfiles.com/files/p0poejyra MD5: 9C18A13E41EA802EC1DF0D665E3221F1

Part 20 - http://depositfiles.com/files/ouvkdgv3d MD5: DCC616306EA7706E6011CA11484DCF8E

Part 21 - http://depositfiles.com/files/nt3hag9mu MD5: 510948407CE9D625E7ACE1BCE736707C

Part 22 - http://depositfiles.com/files/nb6vp4w8p MD5: E0B006444DB3EC1E1C3B3E4335F26FBC

Part 23 - http://depositfiles.com/files/9xi6yld5i MD5: 000C8A13687E811E0B54532DD7FA45C8

Part 24 - http://depositfiles.com/files/tbpsv7q08 MD5: EB25E6095AF3463CA2E7602CF6634ED0

Part 25 - http://depositfiles.com/files/c0p7qc5f0 MD5: 7ED6012E91C695E1A1A1B5FBE030EC20

Part 26 - http://depositfiles.com/files/nsh4ho2iw MD5: 2F5A4AE9C2AF62F9C04FFEB82672501E

Optional reference files used in the videos:

http://depositfiles.com/files/b4ccnxl52 MD5: CEAE2DB9BAA0DC84AE7ADB81C97D6DA8

Optional pre-9/11 dictionaries 'ground zero' definitions:

http://depositfiles.com/files/2ibgf3g5q MD5: B245514A10D3E8E9AF04C6321E9138C7

Hash-calculator (for MD5 checksums verification):

http://depositfiles.com/files/h8500n65e MD5: F9A4AAC0421D52D4C4E5F1C59C4362E0

Information on Nuclear Demolition plans for Trade Center buildings

Can you believe that? Here I find out that the original PLAN for the trade towers was to take them down by nuclear demolition charges and nobody in our government or press reported this! Of course they didn't want that information reported because people would start putting the pieces together. The Russians knew it because they were informed of it in the 70s. Dimitri even remembers everybody getting a good laugh at the crazy Americans plan to destroy a skyscraper with a nuclear demolition charge when he was a young man working in the field. Apparently the Sears tower in Chicago also will be taken down by a 150
Kt nuclear demolition charge at the end of its life also. If you ever see that one fall down by after a bombing or airplane and it comes down all nice and neat you can be sure that a demolition nuke brought that down too because the experts concluded that only a nuclear demolition charge could do it properly.

Information about Melted Cars many blocks away from Ground Zero
This was not caused by Jet Fuel! There was no jet fuel even on the ground. Some of these melted cars were 7 blocks away from the buildings! There was no fire anywhere near these vehicles and jet fuel can't melt engine blocks anyway! Only an EMP from a nuclear detonation or a energy weapon can do this. There is no other explanation of all the melted cars. But those cars weren't mentioned in the report either!

Video on Melted Cars

Video on Melted Cars

Here are links to Dimitri's Videos That have been scrubbed clean!

http://www.dailymotion.com/video/xctbja_911-wtc-nuclear-demolition-...

http://www.in.com/videos/watchvideo-911-wtc-nuclear-demolition-dimi...

http://videos.wittysparks.com/id/3977938398/

http://crazymotion.net/911-wtc-nuclear-demolition-dimitri-khalezov-...
(this one shows as there but doesn't work)

We have all the Dimitri Khalezov's videos posted on our site now. Please watch now while they are still up.

http://www.project.nsearch.com/forum/topics/the-twin-towers-and-bldg-7

Israeli officials: Obama to call world summit if Mideast peace talks fail

2010-04-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

U.S. President Barack Obama has told several European leaders that if Israeli-Palestinian talks remain stalemated into September or October, he will convene an international summit on achieving Mideast peace, senior Israeli officials told Haaretz on Thursday.

The officials said the conference would be run by the Quartet of Middle East peacemakers - the United States, European Union, United Nations and Russia - in a bid to forge a united global front for creating a Palestinian state. The summit, they said, would address such core issues as borders, security arrangements, Palestinian refugees and the status of Jerusalem.

Obama is determined to exert his influence to establish a Palestinian state, the officials said, and several European leaders have vowed that the EU would support any peace plan proposed by Washington. Therefore, though so-called proximity talks are set to start in the coming weeks, Obama is already readying for the possibility that the indirect Israeli-Palestinian talks might reach a dead end.

The U.S. proposal would likely be presented by the end of this year, the officials said.

On Saturday night, Arab League foreign ministers will convene to reiterate their support for Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas to begin the U.S.-mediated talks. The Arab bloc is expected to demand that the negotiations show progress within four months. September and October will thus be critical months in determining whether the talks have borne fruit.

The UN General Assembly will reconvene in late September, and that month will also mark one year since Obama hosted a largely unproductive trilateral summit with Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In addition, September 26 marks the end of the 10-month period Israel allocated for a freeze on West Bank settlement construction, and Netanyahu will have to decide whether to allow such building to be resumed.

Israeli officials said they believe Obama could postpone the international summit, or the unveiling of his own peace plan, until after the midterm Congressional elections in November, in which his Democratic Party is widely expected to suffer heavy losses.

Meanwhile, Netanyahu has a full diplomatic schedule next week. On Monday, he will travel to Sharm al-Sheikh for talks with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak on restarting the peace process. Mubarak will likely ask Netanyahu to make goodwill gestures toward the Palestinians to demonstrate the seriousness of his intentions to advance negotiations.

U.S. special envoy George Mitchell will return to the region later in the week to meet with Netanyahu and Abbas for discussions that may serve as the first round of proximity talks.

In advance of these talks, Interior Minister Eli Yishai instructed the Jerusalem Planning and Building Committee to inform him of any plan to authorize construction that the U.S. administration might deem diplomatically sensitive.

Abbas, for his part, will visit China on Friday, and in advance of this visit, he told the state-run news agency Xinhua that the Obama administration had promised him it would work to prevent any provocative Israeli moves during the negotiations.

"We want our state to be declared under an international agreement," Abbas told the agency while visiting the Jordanian capital of Amman Thursday. "If this could not happen, the Arabs will go to the UN Security Council to get recognition of Palestinian statehood."

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1166413.html

Clinton: Syria's provocations may plunge Middle East into war
"Transferring weapons to these terrorists - especially longer-range missiles - would pose a serious threat to the security of Israel. It would have a profoundly destabilizing effect on the region.

Hamas minister unlikely to receive German visa

2010-04-29T23:36:00.000-07:00

BERLIN (JTA) -- A Hamas government minister from the Gaza Strip is unlikely to receive a visa to attend a conference in Germany.

Basem Naim, the minister of health for the Hamas-led administration, reportedly was invited to attend a conference in June sponsored by the Protestant Academy in Bad Boll, Germany.

But a German Foreign Ministry spokesman told JTA that the official "attitude towards Hamas is unchanged: The federal government demands that all actors in the Middle East refrain from violence and recognize Israel's right to exist and the results of the peace process so far. This also applies to Hamas and remains the basis of every decision regarding this organization."

The spokesman said he could not comment on individual cases.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union.

Joachim Beck, executive director of the academy, told the Stuttgarter Zeitung newspaper on Thursday that "there's a real campaign against us" for inviting Naim to their Mideast conference titled "Partners for Peace." Also reportedly invited are former Palestinian representative to Germany Abdallah Frangi, now head of the foreign ministry for the Fatah movement, and former Israel Knesset speaker Avraham Burg.

The academy reportedly has removed the logo of the Federal Agency for Civic Education from its invitation. The academy had hoped for financial support, but will not receive any from the federal government.

The head of the German-Israel Society, Johannes Gerster, reportedly wrote to the head of the Protestant council in Germany, Nikolaus Schneider, asking for a clear statement on the matter. Gerster said it was one thing to meet privately and speak with members of Hamas, as he himself has done, but it was another matter to invite a Hamas representative to a public forum.

"Obviously the organizers [of the conference] don't care that such actions actually encourage Hamas people, who are incapable of making compromises, to carry on their fight against Israel until the last Jew has left Palestine either dead or alive," Gerster said.

http://www.jta.org/news/article/2010/04/29/2394567/hamas-minister-unlikely-to-receive-german-visa

Protesters menace Israeli diplomat in Britain
“I don’t think they wanted to kill me, but I genuinely believed they wanted to physically hurt me," she said. "If I had not had the police and security team, I would have been beaten up.”

Lador-Fresher told the Jewish Chronicle that “No foreign diplomat should have to go through what I went through.”

U.K. police forced to smuggle Israeli diplomat out of lecture

Obama spreads the love, keeping Jewish leaders happy

Egyptian family uses notes to communicate for 11 years over bug fears

2010-03-26T19:10:00.000-07:00

Members of an Egyptian family have been using paper and pencils for communications for 11 years after the head of the family found a listening device in their apartment, local media reported on Monday.

The bug was apparently installed by Muhammad's first wife.

The man moved to a new apartment after that but the bugs moved with him and the family decided to use notes for communication when at home.

Muhammad's six-year-old daughter had to learn to write early.

After eleven years, they got sick and tired of writing letters to each other and turned for help to specialists only when Muhammad's ex-wife died.

The family was shocked when they learned that the bug was fake and never worked.

http://en.rian.ru/strange/20100322/158279071.html

Naval battle between UAE and Saudi Arabia raises fears for Gulf security

2010-03-26T13:32:00.000-07:00

A naval clash in the Gulf has reignited fears over the security of the world's most important shipping lanes and disputed oilfields.

The United Arab Emirates navy is thought to have opened fire on a small patrol vessel from Saudi Arabia after a dispute over water boundaries.

According to one report, two Saudi sailors were injured in the alleged bombardment.
The Saudi vessel was forced to surrender, and its sailors were delivered into custody in Abu Dhabi for several days, before being released and handed over to the Saudi embassy earlier this week.

The incident has shocked diplomats who hope the countries, both key American allies, will help implement the West's strategy to constrain Iran's nuclear and military ambitions.

The clash happened in disputed waters between the coasts of Saudi Arabia, Abu Dhabi and the peninsula on which the gas-rich state of Qatar sits.

The seabed is rich with oil deposits, while the Dolphin pipeline project to carry natural gas direct from Qatar to Abu Dhabi has provoked irritation in the Saudi authorities. Nevertheless, direct conflict between the two countries' armed forces is highly unusual. More

Increasing Poverty and Illiteracy in Egypt

2010-02-23T17:39:00.000-08:00

Egypt recorded a decline in per capita income and national wealth and an increasing trend in the indicators of poverty, illiteracy and child labor, according to a parliamentary report published here today. Investigations were conducted by a special committee created by the consultative members of the Shoura Council (legislature). The quality of public education also showed a worrisome decline.

At the root of President Hosni Mubarak’s speech and the committee mandate at the opening session of the People's Assembly, it was also noted that the population has been forced to make elevated payments for services, to which tariffs for electricity consumption were added.

The report found that the number of road and rail accidents shot up in recent months, despite government promises to modernize this sector of public transport.

It was pointed out that in 2008, there were 22,400 traffic accidents, while last year the figure was 19,200, which led to the loss of one billion and 800 million and two billion and 700 million dollars a year, plus $180 million in insurance payments.

The parliamentary body also called to modernize university education and primary education, and the separation of scientific research departments of the Ministry of Education for their independence, this sphere is to have its own budget.

According to parliamentary sources, a call was also made to implement the recommendations of Mubarak to reform the laws on health and social insurance as well as allowing the private sector to participate in projects of public infrastructure.

http://english.pravda.ru/society/stories/23-02-2010/112336-increasing_poverty_illiteracy_e-0

The "Light Unto the Nations" Keeping Gaza in Darkness

2010-02-22T18:51:00.000-08:00

Gaza survives on a minimal amount of electricity, leaving residents without power for the most part of the day. No television is one thing; no street lighting and hospital equipment is another.

The Israeli Air Force bombed Gaza's main power station in 2006, plunging the strip's 1.5 million residents into darkness. Although the station was repaired, the situation took a turn for the worse in November 2009, when the European Union suspended its monthly aid instalment of 13 million USD, which had paid for the carbon needed to fuel the station. Since then, it has been running at reduced capacity - 30 megawatts instead of 67 - and at only certain times of the day.
Contributors

“Hospitals aren’t able to provide a constant supply of electricity for all their machines”

Hussam El-Nounou runs an NGO in Gaza that deals with people suffering mental problems.

These constant and long power cuts have turned everything upside-down here. We barely get ten hours of electricity per day. To compensate, a lot of Gazans have bought small generators in order to be able to turn on their lights, televisions and computers. Anything that requires a lot of electricity however, like fridges, washing machines, boilers, and motors that pump water to higher floors in a building, are lost on us. We can't have a daily shower and don't get to wash our clothes very often.

The cuts also affect our social lives. Friends and relatives, tired of using the stairs when the lifts don't work, are less likely to visit if you live on the top floor. Old people rarely go out and are affected by loneliness. Children become annoyed because they can't watch their favourite TV programmes or play video games. The worst affected are pupils and students; during exam periods they become easily tired after straining their eyes from trying to revise in the dark evenings.

On top of that, the number of car accidents has shot up since the street lights don't work. Hospitals aren't able to provide a constant supply of electricity for all their equipment, putting many people's lives in danger."

http://observers.france24.com/en/content/20100219-gaza-living-dark-power-station-bombed-electricity-cuts

Obama's Wars

2010-02-21T00:57:00.000-08:00

Obama Wins Nobel War Prize

Warning: US Thugs using foul language

Iran showing fastest scientific growth of any country

2010-02-18T18:38:00.000-08:00

Saudis Fastest Chivas Regal Drinker

It might be the Chinese year of the tiger, but scientifically, 2010 is looking like Iran's year.

Scientific output has grown 11 times faster in Iran than the world average, faster than any other country. A survey of the number of scientific publications listed in the Web of Science database shows that growth in the Middle East – mostly in Turkey and Iran – is nearly four times faster than the world average.

Science-Metrix, a data-analysis company in Montreal, Canada, has published a detailed report (PDF) on "geopolitical shifts in knowledge creation" since 1980. "Asia is catching up even more rapidly than previously thought, Europe is holding its position more than most would expect, and the Middle East is a region to watch," says the report's author, Eric Archambault.

World scientific output grew steadily, from 450,000 papers a year in 1980 to 1,500,000 in 2009. Asia as a whole surpassed North America last year.

Archambaut notes that Iran's publications have emphasised inorganic and nuclear chemistry, nuclear and particle physics and nuclear engineering. Publications in nuclear engineering grew 250 times faster than the world average – although medical and agricultural research also increased.

Science-Metrix also predicts that this year, China will publish as many peer-reviewed papers in natural sciences and engineering as the US. If current trends continue, by 2015 China will match the US across all disciplines – although the US may publish more in the life and social sciences until 2030.

China's prominence in world science is known to have been growing, but Science-Metrix has discovered that its output of peer-reviewed papers has been growing more than five times faster than that of the US.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn18546-iran-showing-fastest-scientific-growth-of-any-country.html?DCMP=OTC-rss&nsref=online-news

'Saudi prince' quizzed over murder of strangled servant found in London hotel

2010-02-17T18:40:00.000-08:00

A man claiming to be a member of the Saudi royal family is being quizzed by police on suspicion of murder after one of his servants was found strangled at a top London hotel.

Officers were called to the five-star Landmark Hotel in Marylebone, Central London, after a 32-year-old Saudi Arabian man was found dead in a suite by a maid.

The victim, believed to be part of the royal's entourage, suffered severe head injuries in the attack.

Last night detectives were questioning a 33-year-old man who told them he was a prince of the Saudi royal family.

He was arrested several hours after the discovery of the body at an address in Westminster.

One insider said the man had been staying at the Landmark for the past month.

He is believed to have been in London as a tourist and flew around the world accompanied by his aide.

The suspect told police he was a cousin of King Abdullah.

Sources said that it appeared he was a middle-ranking member of the royal house of Saud.

The man is not covered by diplomatic immunity, police sources said, following his arrest on Monday evening.

Paramedics had earlier been called to a third-floor room of the hotel where they found the man dead.

A post mortem examination found the victim died as a result of 'manual compression of the neck' and that he also suffered head injuries.

Yard sources confirmed that the case is being treated as a murder inquiry. More

UK summons Israeli envoy

2010-02-17T18:13:00.001-08:00

For afternoon tea and.... congratulations

Diplomats meet Israel's ambassador Thursday to discuss fake British passports used by alleged killers of a Hamas chief amid speculation its Mossad spy agency was behind the murder in Dubai.

The Israeli envoy to London was summoned to the Foreign Office Wednesday , said a government spokesman, hours after Prime Minister Gordon Brown pledged a "full investigation" of the passports affair.

In another sign of growing diplomatic tensions over the murder, Ireland also voiced concern over the use of fake Irish passports.

Speculation about who was behind the killing of Mahmud al-Mabhuh last month has centred on Israel's Mossad intelligence services, which have used agents with fake foreign passports for such operations in the past.

UN: Egyptians sell organs to pay off debts

2010-02-15T19:39:00.000-08:00

The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs reported that hundreds and possibly thousands of poor Egyptians are selling their organs, mainly kidneys and liver, each year to pay off their debts and buy food, making Egypt the center for the illicit organ trade, confirming what was said by the World Health Organization (WHO) in this regard.

CAIRO: The United Nation’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said last Sunday that hundreds and possibly thousands of poor Egyptians are selling their organs, mainly kidneys and liver, each year to pay off their debts and buy food, making Egypt the center for the illicit organ trade, confirming what was said by the World Health Organization (WHO) in this regard.

The report highlighted by local newspapers, quoted experts as saying that the draft law for organ transplants is “controversial.” The law, which is expected to be passed by the Egyptian Parliament in the next few weeks will regulate the transplantation of organs in an effort to curb the illegal human organs trafficking.

The UN report questioned whether this law is only for the rich, referring to the “fears” and concerns by some human rights activists of the new law, saying that “it may open the door for human trafficking in Egypt” and “turn Egypt into a global market for organ trafficking.”

The report quoted Hafez Abou Saeda, the Secretary General of the Egyptian Organization for Human Rights (EOHR), as saying “this law is only beneficial to the rich people,” adding that “the government is shifting the poor into sources of human spare parts that could be provided for the rich in Egypt and beyond, turning it into a market enjoyed by a good stock of organs, through the provision of legal cover for the transplant.”

The report said there are no statistics on the sale of organs and transplants in Egypt because they “take place in secret,” pointing out that Abou Saeda indicates that hundreds of illegal organ transplant operations “are made each year,” which confirmed that hundreds of wealthy people, who receive the organs from donors, do not trust the skills of local doctors, accompanying their donors with them to China in order “to conduct operations there,” the report stated.

Abou Saeda added that the wealthy from Arab Gulf states also come to Egypt to buy Organs, adding that “such a law could be a great plague in a poor country like this.”

The report also pointed to the viewpoint adopted by the Regional Director of the WHO in the Middle East and North Africa, Hossein Jazayeri, who considered the ratification of the law a great step and “creates hope for thousands of patients who have been waiting a long time for an organ transplant operation in order to save their life.”

He also said it is an important step to face the trafficking of organs, which usually leads to surgeries that “take place in unsafe conditions [and] that could harm both the donor and the patient.”
BM

Hi Just 2 Links today

2010-02-13T19:13:00.000-08:00

1-Iran opens production lines for modern drones
Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi has inaugurated two production lines for the manufacture of advanced unmanned aircraft to improve its defense capabilities.

"The two drones, named Raad and Nazir, are capable of carrying out surveillance, detection and even assaults with high precision," Vahidi said on Monday.

2- Saudi call for boycott against ~~israel~~ men selling lingerie
"I am calling for salesmen to be replaced with saleswomen", Ms Asaad was quoted as saying by AFP news agency.

"I just hope that many respond and boycott," she said.

Bolivia creates space agency for satellite project

2010-02-11T12:33:00.000-08:00

While Saudi Arabia is spending its petrodollars on prostitutes, casinos and blue lable whisky... and while Egypt is sealing sea and land border with Gaza and terrorizing its own citizens, one of the poorest Latin American countriess...

Bolivia's government has approved the creation of a space agency to manage a communications-satellite project due to be completed by 2013, Public Works Minister Walter Delgadillo said Wednesday.

The agency was created via a decree signed Wednesday during President Evo Morales' weekly meeting with his Cabinet, Delgadillo said.

The Bolivian Space Agency will oversee implementation of the Tupac Katari satellite project, whose board of directors will be made up of representatives from six ministries, Delgadillo said.

The agency, which will initially operate out of La Paz, will promote technology transfer, human-resource development and the application of satellite-communication programs to education, defense, medicine and meteorology.

The new institution will have an initial budget of $1 million and be financed through government funding, donations and foreign loans.

Morales plans to travel to China in the second half of March to sign a contract to build the satellite, the government said, adding that the goal is for the object to be in orbit 36 months later.

Technical commissions from China and Bolivia met in January in La Paz and Santa Cruz to evaluate the Andean nation's telecommunications infrastructure and worked on the design of the satellite, named after the leader of an Indian rebellion against the Spanish colony in the 18th century who is admired by President Morales.

An Aymara who took office in January 2006, Morales is the first indigenous president of Indian-majority Bolivia. EFE ja/mc (c) 2010 EFE News Services (U.S.) Inc.

http://voip-phone-systems.tmcnet.com/news/2010/02/10/4616271.htm

Iran anniversary 'punch' will stun West

2010-02-08T14:30:00.000-08:00

While Saudi Arabia is spending its petrodollars on prostitutes, casinos and blue lable whisky... and while Egypt is sealing sea and land border with Gaza and terrorizing its own citizens,

Iran develops air defense system comparable to Russia's S-300

Iran has developed its own air defense system comparable to and even more sophisticated than the Russian S-300 system, the IRNA news agency said Monday, citing an Iranian military official.

Russia signed a contract with Iran on the supply of at least five S-300 air defense systems to Tehran in December 2005. However, there have been no official reports on the start of the contract's implementation.

"In the near future, a new domestically-made air defense system will be unveiled by the country's experts and scientists which is as powerful as the S-300 system, or even stronger," IRNA quoted Heshmatollah Kassiri.

He said the delay in the implementation of the S-300 delivery contract was unacceptable, and Iran would do everything possible to protect its "sensitive nuclear centers."

Iranian Ambassador to Russia Seyyed Mahmoud-Reza Sajjadi earlier said the S-300 contract had been stagnated by some technical issues.

However, many experts believe Moscow has refused so far to honor the S-300 contract due to pressure from Washington and Tel Aviv.

Both the United States and Israel have not ruled out military action if diplomacy fails to resolve the dispute over Iran's nuclear program and have expressed concern over S-300 deliveries, which would significantly strengthen Iran's air defenses.

Russian defense industry officials have repeatedly said that Russia is interested in fulfilling the contract, which is worth hundreds of millions of dollars, but the future of the contract would largely depend on the current situation in international affairs and the Kremlin's position.

The advanced version of the S-300 missile system, called S-300PMU1 (SA-20 Gargoyle), has a range of over 150 kilometers (over 100 miles) and can intercept ballistic missiles and aircraft at low and high altitudes, making the system an effective tool for warding off possible air strikes. RIA Novosti

Iran builds own aerial drones with strike capabilities

Iran started on Monday production of two domestically-developed unmanned aerial vehicles capable of delivering high-precision bombing strikes and performing reconnaissance missions, the Fars news agency said.

Iran unveiled the drones, dubbed Ra'd (Thunder) and Nazir (Harbinger), at a plant in the northern province of Mazandaran.

"We plan to manufacture UAVs...at this site" Fars quoted Hamed Saeedi, managing director of Farnas Aerospace Company in charge of the project, as saying.

He said both UAVs were short-range, low-altitude drones with reduced radar-detection signature.

According to analysts, Iran has recently made significant progress in developing various types of combat planes and succeeded in gaining the technical know-how for producing aircraft and drones with stealth capabilities.

Iran launched a domestic arms development program after a U.S. weapons embargo was imposed during its 1980-88 war with Iraq. Since 1992, the Islamic Republic has reportedly produced its own Saeqeh and Azarakhsh jet fighters, stealth-capable Ghadir submarine, missile boats, torpedoes, tanks and armored carrier vehicles.

Iran frequently holds military drills and shows off modern weaponry in an effort to demonstrate its readiness to thwart any attack on its territory. RIA Novosti

Iran successfully launches satellite

Iran said on Wednesday it had successfully launched a satellite carrying an "experimental capsule" as part of events to mark the anniversary of the 1979 Islamic Revolution.

State media said the domestically-built Kavoshgar-3 (Explorer-3) rocket was carrying a rat, a turtle and worms into space for research purposes. The rocket transfers telemetric data, live pictures and flight and environmental analysis data.

Kavoshgar 3 is an updated version of the previous models. Iran blasted Kavoshgar 1 into space in February 2008. Kavoshgar 2, carrying a space-lab and a restoration system, was launched in November 2008.

In other space-related events in Iran, national media showed President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad unveiling a new domestically-built satellite booster rocket, Simorgh, capable of carrying a 100-kg satellite up to 500 km above the planet.

The Islamic Republic also presented the domestically-produced Tolou, Mesbah-2 and Navid telecommunication satellites.

Western powers suspect Iran of using its space program to develop its missile capabilities. Iran has denied the charge.

Iran's first research satellite, Omid (Hope), designed for gathering information and testing equipment, was orbited last February and successfully completed its mission on April 25, 2009.

In 2005, Iran launched its first commercial satellite, Sina-1, into orbit from a Russian rocket.

Iran is expected to unveil five space projects during Feb 2-11 celebrations to mark the 31st anniversary of the Islamic Revolution. RIA Novosti

Israel and Zionist Media Threaten To Use Nuclear Weapons On Iran!

Joke of the day:
NATO calls on Taliban to surrender

Agility Attempts to Vault Fraud Charges

2010-02-08T13:00:00.000-08:00

Agility, a Kuwait-based multi-billion dollar logistics company spawned by the U.S. invasion of Iraq, is facing criminal charges for over-billing the U.S. taxpayer on more than $8.5 billion worth of food supply contracts in the Iraq war zone. If the lawsuit, scheduled for February 8, is successful, the company could owe the U.S. government as much as $1 billion.

Originally known as Public Warehousing Corporation (PWC), Agility boasts that it once supplied one million meals a day to U.S. soldiers and contractors in the Middle East. The company's Mercedes trucks hauled delicacies from ice cream to lobster tails to feed soldiers living on military bases scattered throughout Iraq. Today it has new contracts to provide food to the U.S. Agency for International Development in Djibouti in the Horn of Africa and – until about a month ago – was supposed to ramp up food delivery to the troops newly posted in southern Afghanistan.

In a lawsuit filed on November 18, 2005, Kamal Mustafa Al-Sultan accuses Agility of cheating him of a share of profits from the lucrative contract because he refused to go along with alleged corruption. A former business partner of PWC/Agility, Sultan is a cousin of the company founder and CEO, Tarek Abdul Aziz Sultan Al-Essa.

After conducting a grand jury investigation, the U.S. Department of Justice (DoJ) joined Kamal Sultan and filed criminal charges against PWC/Agility on November 9, 2009, immediately boosting the original lawsuit's chances of success.

"We will not tolerate fraudulent practices from those tasked with providing the highest quality support to the men and women who serve in our armed forces," said Tony West, assistant attorney general for the District Court for the Northern District of Georgia, in a press release. "As this case illustrates, the Department of Justice will investigate and pursue allegations of fraud against contractors and subcontractors, whether they are foreign or domestic." More

Dr. Norman Finkelstein at the University of Waterloo

2010-02-03T19:29:00.001-08:00

Clip is from American Radical: The Trials of Norman Finkelstein.

Saudis raid Yemen despite Houthi pledge for peace

2010-02-02T15:13:00.000-08:00

Saudi airstrikes continue to target northern Yemen despite Houthis pledging to meet the key condition of not attacking Saudi Arabia set by the Yemeni government.

Houthi fighters said Tuesday that Saudi warplanes had been bombarding the country's north, including the Al-Saqin district.

According to the fighters, Saudi forces poured rockets and artillery shells on border areas.

The fighters offered an initiative to end a nearly six-month conflict when they announced a "withdrawal from Saudi territory and ending the war," the office of leader Abdul Malik al-Houthi said in a statement.

He called on both Sana'a and Riyadh to end the conflict, which has so far claimed the lives of countless civilians and displaced thousands of others in the beleaguered northern villages.

Al-Houthi offered on Saturday to accept the government's five-point truce terms, if the government halts military attacks on the north.

However, the government rejected the offer, pointing to a sixth condition stipulating a Houthi pledge not to attack Saudi Arabia.

Despite the pledge to meet the sixth condition, Riyadh continues to attack Shia-populated areas in the Yemeni north. PressTV

Saudi Arabia's Military Involvement in the Yemen Conflict

2010-01-29T15:02:00.000-08:00

by Rannie Amiri

It has been nearly three months since the Saudi military directly inserted itself in the conflict between Zaidi rebels and the government of President Ali Abdullah Saleh in Yemen’s mountainous northwest governorate of Saada. After two of its border guards were killed last November by the rebels, known as Houthis (named after their erstwhile leader, Hussein Badr al-Din al-Houthi) and claims made that they had crossed into Saudi territory, a massive aerial assault was unleashed.

Using U.S. and Western-supplied weapons unavailable to Saleh’s government, the Saudi military employed Apache helicopters, F-15 and Tornado jets, infrared detection equipment, surveillance drones and quite possibly banned white phosphorus shells, to target Houthi positions in the rugged terrain of the border region and well into Yemen proper.

Despite their sophisticated weaponry, Saudi Arabia lost an unusually high number of soldiers; 133 at last count. Although an unknown number of Houthi fighters – and Yemeni civilians – were killed in the attacks, what is known is the great humanitarian toll the Saudi intervention exacted on the population. Already a cauldron of human suffering, malnutrition and overflowing camps for the internally displaced as a result of five years of war, the fresh offensive only added to the misery of Saada and the neighboring provinces.

Since the conflict began in 2004, aid agencies place the number of displaced Yemenis at 200,000. The Saudi government’s policy of forcibly returning those fleeing the conflict back into the war zone – a morally reprehensible practice not to mention a violation of international law – was widely condemned.

This week, the Houthis announced a unilateral ceasefire and declared their intention to voluntarily withdraw from any Saudi territory occupied. The current Houthi leader, Abdul Malek al-Houthi, stated, “If the Saudi regime maintains its aggression after this initiative, it would be showing that its intention is not to defend its territory, but to invade our borders.”

Yet, just after of the Houthi proposal was made, the Saudi government claimed it was they who had driven the rebels out of the border region.

“They did not withdraw. They were forced out,” asserted Deputy Defense Minister Prince Khaled bin Sultan.

In order for Saudi Arabia to accept the Houthi ceasefire, Sultan said the rebels must create a 10 km buffer zone between them and the border, agree to let Yemen’s military to take up positions along it, and return six captured Saudi soldiers.

Regardless of whether any tenable agreement is actually reached, it must be asked: what was accomplished by Saudi Arabia’s attack on Yemen?

Militarily, nothing.

The more salient question is: what was the real message behind Saudi Arabia’s (fruitless) intervention?

Although it was purportedly to defend the “territorial integrity” of the Kingdom, even supporters of the Royal Family concede it was more to stem perceived encroaching Iranian influence at its doorstep. Yet that too is a spurious argument.

To date, there has been no convincing evidence of any significant material support provided to the Houthi rebels by the Iranian government. Claims of such have been found to be no more credible than those issued by Yemen’s government that Abdul Malek al-Houthi had been killed in the fighting (he appeared on video a few days later appearing quite healthy).

To understand the real motive behind the bombardment, one only needs to return to the primary demand of the Houthi rebels: an end to the ever-increasing socioeconomic marginalization and religious discrimination of the Zaidi community in Yemen.

This war was not just to aid the fledging Saleh regime in combating an enemy far less threatening to its existence than al-Qaeda, but to send a clear message to Saudi Arabia’s own citizens who suffer the same systemic and institutionalized discrimination as do the Zaidis. Namely, Shia Muslims, Ismaili Muslims, Sufi Muslims and any who dare challenge the authority of the House of al-Saud or the doctrines of the officially-sanctioned Wahabi school of thought.

Saudi Arabia’s own oil-rich Eastern Province has seen tensions with Saudi Shia Muslims escalate in recent months as the Wahabi religious establishment clamps down ever more harshly on the practice of their religion and liberties as citizens of the state.

The senseless war in Saada waged by the Saudi government was thus meant to send an unmistakable warning to any in the Kingdom who might espouse similar beliefs or demands as the Houthis: do so at your own peril.

One wonders, though, whether those on the Saudi side who advocated or supported such reckless interventionism were aware of this equally important admonition: military force never succeeds in quieting the quest of people striving to achieve their basic rights, freedoms, and dignity.

Rannie Amiri is an independent Middle East commentator. He may be reached at: rbamiri@yahoo.com. http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=17277

Syria's Jewish Mufti: Islam commands us to protect Judaism

2010-01-28T22:27:00.001-08:00

Let us protect Jews and Judaism and STFU about the Golan Heights... Wait... Might as well give the whole F*** Syria to our Khazar cousins... that way Syria saves itself a humiliating defeat and the Zionists can have their Eretz Crap. The time to Overthrow that Ass(hole)ad is now. Assad's just tall that's all, the unholy product of a marriage between a Sephardim Jew and Giraffe!

Syria's foremost shitter

Syria's foremost Muslim leader declared on Tuesday that Islam commands its followers to protect Judaism, according to Army Radio.

"If the Prophet Mohammed had asked me to deem Christians or Jews heretics, I would have deemed Mohammed himself a heretic," Sheikh Ahmed Hassoun, the Mufti of Syria, was quoted as telling a delegation of American academics visiting Damascus.

Hassoun, the leader of Syria's majority Sunni Muslim community, also told the delegates that Islam was a religion of peace, adding: "If Mohammed had commanded us to kill people, I would have told him he was not a prophet."

Religious wars were the result of politics infiltrating systems of faith, he said, asking:

"Was Moses of Middle Eastern or European descent? Was Jesus a Protestant or a Catholic? Was Mohammed Shi'ite or Sunni?"

According to the Mufti, the conflict between Israel and its Arabs neighbors has nothing to do with an Islamic war against Judaism.

"Before you got American citizenship, and I got Syrian citizenship, we were all brothers under the dome of God," he said.

Jews had once lived in Syria peacefully and with fair treatment, he added, explaining that his own grandfather had a Jewish partner.

"Jews lived in Syria for years and they still have a role in Syrian society," he said

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1143660.html

Kadhafi Jewish?

2010-01-28T07:18:00.000-08:00

Jew or not this piece of trash should go! It would be nice of him if he can take with him the rest Zionist Arab (mis)Leaders

Iran praises Mauritania for cutting ties with Israel

2010-01-25T19:39:00.000-08:00

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has praised the Mauritanian government for breaking diplomatic ties with Israel.

During a meeting with Mauritanian President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz in Tehran on Monday, Ahmadinejad called the move a valuable step which "should set an example for the rest of the Islamic countries."

Mauritania cut its ties with Israel during the December 2008-January 2009 Gaza war, during which over 1400 Palestinians, mostly civilians, were killed.

The Iranian president also called Israel the "root of all the corruption in the region."

Mauritania's president is currently visiting Tehran with a high-ranking delegation.

Tehran began expanding relations with Nouakchott after the African nation severed its ties with Israel.

In 2009, Iran completed the construction of an ophthalmology center in the Mauritanian capital left unfinished by Israel.

During their meeting, the two presidents discussed bilateral ties as well as regional and international developments. More

Al-Ahram: Mossad chief is 'Israel's superman'

2010-01-23T13:53:00.000-08:00

... and his Egyptian counterpart is a piece of SHIT!

The Egyptian newspaper Al-Ahram claimed on Saturday that the head of Israel's Mossad, Meir Dagan, is "Israel's superman" for successfully thwarting the Iranian nuclear program.

The article in Al-Ahram, written by the paper's analyst for Palestinian affairs Ashraf Abu al-Haul, claimed that Dagan is the "brains" behind last week's assassination of an Iranian nuclear scientist.

"Surely the Iranians know who stands behind the assassination of the Iranian nuclear scientist Massoud Ali Mohammadi in Tehran last Tuesday. Any Iranian official understands that the magic word is 'Dagan'," the article read.

Abu al-Haul claims that "without Dagan, the Iranian nuclear program would have been complete years ago. Nevertheless, the director of the Israeli Mossad, whose name is mostly unknown, works away from the limelight and the eyes of the media."

According to al-Haul, in the past seven years Dagan was able to successfully hinder the Iranian nuclear program. "Whoever follows Israeli domestic politics understands that the head of the Mossad, who was appointed to his post in September 2002, was able to accomplish feats no man can describe. From the Iranian issue and limiting the military force of the Syrian army to facing Hezbollah, Hamas, and the Islamic Jihad," the article read.

Al-Haul also writes in the article that Netanyahu explained his decision to extend Dagan's term with the claim that Israel was facing serious threats that required the Mossad head to continue in his post, without appointing a successor.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1142960.html

Saudi Terror attacks

2010-01-21T12:47:00.000-08:00

Saudi fighter jets have launched another round of aerial bombardment of Houthi positions in northern Yemen along the border with the oil-rich kingdom.

According to a statement released by the Houthi fighters on Thursday, Saudi forces carried out 25 aerial attacks on the northern regions of Jebel Razih, Jebel Dhar Hamar, Khamis al-Mihwar, Saqin, Jebel al-Madood, al-Malaheet, as well as the rugged villages in close proximity to the border regions of the oil-rich kingdom.

Several homes were reportedly torn down while more than a dozen people lost their lives in the strikes.

The statement added that Saudi forces also fired some 750 rockets against the beleaguered areas of Jebel al-Madood, Qafarah, Shada, Qamamat, al-Safih as well as al-Jabiri -- some 966 kilometers from the Saudi capital, Riyadh.

The conflict in northern Yemen began in 2004 between Sana'a and Houthi fighters. The conflict intensified in August 2009 when the Yemeni army launched Operation Scorched Earth in an attempt to crush the fighters in the northern province of Sa'ada.

The Houthis accuse the Yemeni government of violation of their civil rights, and political, economic and religious marginalization, on top of a large-scale corruption.

Saudi forces began fighting with Yemeni Shia resistance fighters, known as the Houthis, and bombing their positions on November 4 after accusing the fighters of killing Saudi border guards.

Houthi fighters say that Saudi forces strike Yemeni villages and indiscriminately target civilians. According to the fighters, Saudis use toxic materials, including white phosphorus bombs, indiscriminately in northern Yemen.

The US military has also been involved in bombing Yemen's northern regions of Amran, Hajjah and Sa'ada, according to the Houthi fighters.

The UN High Commissioner for Refugees estimates that since 2004, up to 175,000 people have been forced to leave their homes in Sa'ada where they have take refuge at overcrowded camps set up by the United Nations. PressTV

Saudi Arabia shifts 12 female inmates after prison riot

2010-01-21T12:45:00.000-08:00

Twelve prisoners involved in the riot at a women's correctional facility in the holy city of Mecca have been transferred to other parts of Saudi Arabia as authorities have launched a probe into the incident.

The Directorate of Social Affairs in Mecca transferred the 12 female inmates to detention centers in Tabuk and Qaisumah, Jeddah as well as Ta'if. Scores of the women's families, however, have not been informed about the transfer, the Saudi Gazette reported on Thursday.

On Friday night, a prison riot broke out at Mecca's female penal institution after a large group of detainees clashed with the facility workers protesting against a humiliating refusal by social authorities to dismiss the prison director and several other employees. Four inmates and several members of the staff were injured in the unrest.

The female detainees accused the penitentiary director of beating them on their hands with wooden rulers. The women claimed that the female director met with them on January 4 and threatened them with punishment and beatings if they refused to obey her orders.

The inmates charged that they were often violently frisked after family visits. They were also not allowed to speak to any official that occasionally visited to inspect the conditions at the correctional facility.

Meanwhile, the Undersecretary of Saudi Ministry of Social Affairs Abdullah al-Yousef has pledged to take action against any person who has violated the rights of the prisoners.

“We should let the authorities have an opportunity to investigate, without any sensationalism,” he said.

Al-Yousef said that an investigation committee has been set up and given five days to complete its probe and issue a report, but more time may be required.

He asserted that a correctional facility should have “privacy and security requirements,” noting that “a correction home is not an administrative office.” PressTV

Drunken Saudi diplomat caught in Uzbekistan

2010-01-19T09:34:00.000-08:00

A visiting Saudi diplomat's drunken misconduct in Uzbekistan feeds the speculation that Saudi officials switch religious allegiance as they travel abroad.

The official, named Aala Nazi Saad, was sighted for instances of disturbing of public peace, abuse and damage to private property on the Christmas Eve, Uzbek radio, Central Asia reported.

Saad was reportedly thrown out of a local nightclub where he had drunken enough to lose control and display immorality.

He then crashed his car into a parked vehicle, fought with its owner and hurled abuses at him before fleeing the scene.

The radio station voiced its concern and surprise that such officials are 'Muslims' within their own borders but forsake their religion as soon as they leave their homelands.

Wahhabism, an extremely intolerant interpretation of Islam, is the official religion in Saudi Arabia.

Wahabbists are notorious for imposing severe strictures on females and using political influence to oppress the Kingdom's Shia minority. The Saudi Wahhabists, also known as Salafis, have been further blamed for fueling and funding terrorism against Shia Muslims as well as others across the world. PresssTV

Israel’s Cabinet convenes in... Berlin!

2010-01-18T17:10:00.000-08:00

Israel’s Cabinet met for the first time in Germany as the two countries held a joint Cabinet meeting in Berlin.

Monday’s meeting was the second time the two Cabinets have convened together under a program initiated by German Chancellor Angela Merkel in March 2008, when the governments met together in Jerusalem.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu arrived Monday in Berlin with seven ministers for meetings with Merkel and members of her Cabinet, where the threat of a nuclear Iran was expected to be high on the agenda, according to the German Press Agency. Other issues set to be discussed include economic, political and security ties between Israel and Germany, as well as the Middle East peace process.

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak reportedly was prepared to ask Merkel to approve and subsidize with the United States the sale of another diesel submarine to Israel, the sixth Dolphin class German submarine to be purchased by Israel, according to Reuters.

Discussions also are planned this week between German Foreign Minister Guido Westerwelle and his Israeli counterpart, Avigdor Lieberman.

Also Monday, about 100 pro-Palestinian protesters held an anti-Israel demonstration outside the German Chancellery organized in part by International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

http://www.jewishjournal.com/israel/article/israels_cabinet_convenes_in_berlin_20100118/

How can I say it?

Israel remains “immune” to war crimes tribunal

2009-12-29T10:21:00.000-08:00

A year after Israel's devastating operation in Gaza, Palestinians are mourning its victims. The war claimed the lives of 1,400 Palestinians, according to human rights groups on both sides, and 13 Israelis.

Hamas supporters took to the streets of Gaza to mark the anniversary of the war that lasted three weeks from the end of December 2008 to January 2009.

Even now, the war and its aftermath remain largely overlooked by the international community. Some say it is because there are double standards when it comes to accusing countries of war crimes.

Nearly twelve months after “Operation Cast Lead” in Gaza, accusations of war crimes still hang over the Israeli army. This is of no surprise, according to Israeli lawyer Yoram Sheftel. He defended John Demjanjuk, who stood trial in Israel for war crimes against Jews. In one of the country’s most important cases, Sheftel convinced the judges that Demjanjuk was not the Nazi camp guard responsible for killing nearly 30,000 Jews in World War Two.

Sheftel is a controversial figure in Israel, but no one disputes he knows his law. He is convinced Israel will not have to answer charges of war crimes in front of the international courts for what it did in Gaza.

“I dislike the idea that only nations like Serbia and Rwanda will be brought to The Hague. There is a lot of hatred against Serbia, which in a sense they earned quite rightfully. But they are a very weak nation politically, whoever commits such or similar acts belonging to strong nations will never be brought to any justice,” Sheftel says.

It is a view echoed in Serbia where for many years Ljiljana Smajlovic edited the country’s leading daily newspaper, Politika. She says it is nothing more than politics – powerful nations get away with murder whereas weaker ones are held to ransom.

“The countries that co-operate with international tribunals, I’m afraid, are countries that have to do so. If they don’t do that they will not be able to integrate into the wider communities that they belong to. Countries like Israel, who cannot be blackmailed, that have US support, they have no reason to co-operate, because there’s not enough enticement for them, they cannot be touched,” believes Ljiljana Smajlovic.

After the former Yugoslavia disintegrated into war in the 1990s, Belgrade needed funds from Brussels to help recover. In addition to the millions of dollars it received, it is now hoping the European Union will give it 300 million more to help cope with the global economic crisis.

But it comes at a price. Serb lawyer Goran Petronijevic believes that price is his client Radovan Karadzic. The latter is standing trial in the Netherlands for war crimes he allegedly committed during the Bosnian war. Petronijevic says Belgrade handed him over to get closer to Europe.

“International criminal courts have to exist but The Hague tribunal is unfair. It doesn’t judge everyone who appears in front of it equally. As far as Israel goes, it is connected with America and Serbia is not. America has had a monopoly over this area for years – if they say you’re guilty, then you are, regardless of whether it’s true or not,” the lawyer said.

But pressure is mounting against Israel after the United Nations published the Goldstone Report. It says both sides, including the Israeli army, committed war crimes in Gaza.

Over the years there have been calls for Israeli army officers to stand trial. In 2001, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon was accused by victims of the Palestinian massacres in Lebanon of committing war crimes.

And four years later, Major General Doron Almog was tipped off not to leave his plane when it landed in England as an arrest warrant had been issued against him on suspicion of war crimes his forces committed in Gaza in early 2000.

So far no Israeli has ever stood trial – and whether one ever will depends as much on American support and world opinion as it does on whether or not the crimes actually took place.

“New Strategy” in the 'War on Terror '

2009-10-05T16:47:00.001-07:00

Lebanese man says deported by UAE for refusing to spy on Hezbollah

2009-10-01T12:41:00.000-07:00

A Lebanese businessman alleged Thursday that he and several hundred compatriots were expelled from the United Arab Emirates because they refused to spy on the Shiite militant group Hezbollah and other fellow citizens.

Hassan Alayan said more than 300 Lebanese - mostly Shiites - have been forced to leave the Emirates over the past three months. He said most of those deported said UAE authorities asked them to inform on fellow Lebanese Shiites living in the country and on Iranian-backed Hezbollah.

Authorities told the Lebanese they were being deported for security reasons, but they believe their refusal to spy was the real reason, Alayan told a news conference in Beirut. The Emirates refused to comment on the allegations, and Lebanese officials said they were contacting authorities there over the matter.

One of those deported, Zuhair Hamdan, said his residency permit was rejected after he refused to give authorities information about fellow Lebanese or possible Hezbollah sleeper cells in the UAE. More

Settlers chop down Nablus olive grove on eve of harvest

2009-09-29T14:13:00.000-07:00

Dozens of chainsaw-wielding Israeli settlers cut down more than 150 olive trees in to the northern West Bank village of Burin, south of Nablus on Monday.

The assault came a few days before Palestinian farmers throughout the country begin harvesting their olives.

According to Ghassan Daghlas, the Palestinian official in charge of monitoring settlement activity in the northern West Bank, dozens of Israelis from the settlement Yitzhar raided fields in the area of Khallat Siwar between the villages of Huwwara and Burin and cut down more than 150 olive trees using chainsaws. More

Zionist Psychologists to "Rescue" Women in the Nation of Gays

2009-09-26T17:44:00.000-07:00

Youth counselors and psychologists are going after young Jewish women who are dating Arab men to "rescue" them.

A local authority in Israel has announced that it is establishing a special team of youth counselors and psychologists whose job it will be to identify young Jewish women who are dating Arab men and "rescue" them.

The move by the municipality of Petah Tikva, a city close to Tel Aviv, is the latest in a series of separate -- and little discussed -- initiatives from official bodies, rabbis, private organisations and groups of Israeli residents to try to prevent interracial dating and marriage.

In a related development, the Israeli media reported this month that residents of Pisgat Zeev, a large Jewish settlement in the midst of Palestinian neighbourhoods in East Jerusalem, had formed a vigilante-style patrol to stop Arab men from mixing with local Jewish girls.

Hostility to intimate relationships developing across Israel's ethnic divide is shared by many Israeli Jews, who regard such behaviour as a threat to the state's Jewishness. One of the few polls on the subject, in 2007, found that more than half of Israeli Jews believed intermarriage should be equated with "national treason."

Since the state's founding in 1948, analysts have noted, a series of legal and administrative measures have been taken by Israel to limit the possibilities of close links developing between Jewish and Arab citizens, the latter comprising a fifth of the population.

Largely segregated communities and separate education systems mean that there are few opportunities for young Arabs and Jews to get to know each other. Even in the handful of "mixed cities", Arab residents are usually confined to separate neighborhoods.

In addition, civil marriage is banned in Israel, meaning that in the small number of cases where Jews and Arabs want to wed, they can do so only by leaving the country for a ceremony abroad. The marriage is recognized on the couple's return.

Yuval Yonay, a sociologist at Haifa University, said the number of interracial marriages was "too small to be studied." "Separation between Jews and Arabs is so ingrained in Israeli society, it is surprising that anyone manages to escape these central controls." More

Israel a Nation of Gays:

Queer in the Land of Sodom

Can gay porn save Israel's image?

Gay Murders Shock Nation ...

One Year After Her Family Died In U.S. Airstrike, Seven-Year-Old Afghan Girl Lives In Constant Fear

2009-09-26T17:40:00.000-07:00

On the night of August 22, 2008, Zahra's father, mother, sister and two brothers were killed by American bombs. This is her life now.

Seven-year-old Zahra looks like a typical Afghan girl in her traditional long dress and scarf, her short black hair peeking out from her head covering. She sticks close to home, seldom venturing far from her house. But it is not tradition that keeps her home but fear.

On the night of August 22 2008, all of Zahra's immediate family was killed by American bombs. In pursuit of Taliban commander Mullah Siddiq, United States Special Forces and the Afghan army launched an airstrike on the village of Azizabad in Shindand district of Herat. An investigation by the United Nations said that 90 people, 60 children and 30 adults, died.

The American military initially denied that any civilians were harmed in the attack. Only after prolonged pressure, in October of last year, did they acknowledge that the strike killed 33 civilians.

Zahra's father, mother, sister and two brothers died that night. She is the only survivor, together with her grandmother, Maryam, known in the village as Pori. One year later the two traumatized females, one seven years old the other 75, are still living in Azizabad, in a small, dirty, three-room house donated to them by a kind-hearted neighbor.

The house the pair inhabit has no doors and no windows. Inside it is dark and dusty - the floor is carpeted with old sacks. It looks more like a dirty storeroom than a place where people live. There are some teacups, two buckets full of water, three small pots and three threadbare blankets. Every day Zahra cleans and arranges the few items they possess.

The rest of the time she sits alone, staring into the void. More

Israel offered 'secret deal' on settlements

2009-09-22T14:07:00.000-07:00

Citing Israeli officials, the Washington Times reported Tuesday that Tel Aviv has agreed to a partial freeze of settlement construction for six to nine months but still wants to build more than 2,500 new housing units.

In exchange, certain Arab and North African states have privately assured US special Mideast envoy George Mitchell that they would grant over-flight rights to Israeli airliners, open interest sections in Israel, and end a travel ban on Israelis, the report quoted a US official as saying.

Currently Israeli airliners flying to destinations in the Far East must make a wide detour to avoid flying over countries such as Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon and Afghanistan.

Saudi Arabia, however, has refused to grant these assurances, insisting a peace agreement must first be signed.

The report comes just ahead of a tripartite meeting between US President Barack Obama, acting Palestinian Authority chief Mahmoud Abbas and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on the sidelines of the United Nations General Assembly in New York.

On Monday, Netanyahu's media adviser, Nir Hefetz, told Israeli radio that the premier would not support a settlement freeze, because he considers the settlements to be a "Zionist enterprise."

Based on the report, Netanyahu considers moving forward with 2,500 to 3,000 housing units already approved. He is also seeking to exempt East Jerusalem from the freeze.

Why I Threw The Shoe

2009-09-19T20:50:00.000-07:00

I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents

As he flung the shoes, Mr Zaidi shouted: "This is a goodbye kiss from the Iraqi people, dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq."

I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.

Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.

We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.

Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents. Read more.

UN calls for probe into Yemen's raid on civilians

2009-09-18T18:33:00.000-07:00

United Nations' top human rights official has called for an investigation into a deadly attack on a refugee camp that left over 80 civilians killed in northern Yemen.

Neocon Ali Saleh

In a statement released on Friday, Navi Pillay the UN's High Commissioner for Human Rights, warned the Yemeni government to avoid a repeat of the incident, underlining its obligation to protect civilians, Reuters reported.

"It was the second deadly air strike resulting in civilian deaths in the space of three days," she said.

"The government should launch a full-fledged investigation into what went wrong and take immediate measures to try to ensure we do not see a further avoidable tragedy of this nature," Pillay added.

In an effort to crush Zaidi Shia fighters, led by Abdul-Malek al-Houthi, the Yemeni government has launched a fierce operation on the northern Saada province from August 11. More

Air raid kills 80 Yemeni civilians

Today's Iraq: The Police State That America Built

2009-09-15T18:14:00.001-07:00

The Economist -- the veritable Bible of the Anglo-American Establishment -- paints a grim portrait of the Iraqi regime installed at the point of American guns: a sinkhole of torture, execution, increasing repression and brazen power-grabs.

The Shia-led government has overseen a ballooning of the country’s security apparatus. Human-rights violations are becoming more common. In private many Iraqis, especially educated ones, are asking if their country may go back to being a police state. More

How Israel’s Nuclear Arsenal endangers Us All

2009-09-14T21:30:00.000-07:00

On September 24th, U.S. President Barack Obama will preside over a U.N. Security Council session on nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament. In March 2010, Moscow will host a Global Nuclear Summit that the U.S. has agreed to attend.

The next six months could prove hopeful or harmful—depending on the impact on Israel’s nuclear arsenal. With U.S. backing, Tel Aviv has thus far avoided compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty—joining North Korea, India and Pakistan.

President John F. Kennedy tried to stop Israel from starting a nuclear arms race in the Middle East. In a June 1963 letter to Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion, he insisted on proof “beyond a reasonable doubt” that Israel was not developing nuclear weapons at its Dimona reactor facility. Though his letter was cabled to the U.S. embassy, Ben-Gurion resigned (citing undisclosed personal reasons) before the message could be physically delivered.

With Israel’s nuclear ambitions under attack by its key ally, that strategically well-timed resignation duped an inexperienced young president and denied him a diplomatic victory that might well have precluded the wars now being waged in the Middle East. More

Iraq's spat with Syria backfiring on PM

2009-09-14T10:19:00.000-07:00

Iraq’s prime minister is feeling a backlash over a bitter fight he picked with Syria, which he accuses of harboring Saddam Hussein loyalists suspected in deadly bombings in Baghdad. Critics say he wants to divert attention from his own government’s security failures. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, a Shiite, is trying to shore up his position ahead of January parliamentary elections after the increase in violence in recent months deeply hurt his security credentials and after the Shiite coalition that once backed him split. More

Saudi Arabia arrested thousands without trial

2009-09-12T21:24:00.000-07:00

Saudi Arabia has detained thousands of people as part of its anti-terrorism drive without charging them and sometimes even ignoring court rulings ordering their release, Human Rights Watch said on Monday.

New York-based HRW is the second international rights body to criticise the U.S. ally and the world’s biggest oil exporter for violating human rights on security grounds. Amnesty International issued a similar report in July.

In a report, HRW said the General Directorate for Investigations, the domestic intelligence agency, was holding an unknown number of people in its prisons, among them foreigners, and dissidents demanding democratic reforms.

HRW estimated that more than 9,000 had been held since al Qaeda launched a campaign in 2003, of whom probably between 2,000 and 4,000 were still detained, said Christoph Wilcke, the author of the report.

Few were ever charged or had access to lawyers, even if Saudi laws limit detention without trial to six months, with the intelligence agency ignoring court rulings ordering a release in some cases, HRW said, citing families of detainees or activists.

“Saudi Arabia’s response to terrorism for years has been to lock up thousands of suspects and throw away the key,” the organisation said, listing several cases of people held under what it said were questionable circumstances.

A spokesman for the interior ministry declined to comment, saying the government had to study the report first. The ministry has not commented on the Amnesty report.

Saudi Arabia’s much praised rehabilitation program for terror suspects is under fire from the US-based Human Rights Watch because its participants are detained for lengthy periods without charges.

The program a key part of Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism campaign relies on preventive efforts to teach detained men that terrorism is un-Islamic. But since most of the detainees haven’t been convicted of any crime, it violates international law, the group argues in a report released Monday.

“Except as part of a sentence imposed after conviction for a crime, international human rights law does not permit the detention of persons to undergo a reeducation program,” the report says. Such programs “cannot be forced upon persons whose guilt has not been established.”

Rehab program praised by US

The program has drawn praise from US and Saudi officials who argue that conventional policing alone is insufficient to control Islamist militants.

While the program “may deserve credit for its intentions, innovations, and apparently low rate of acts of violence pursued by those released,” Human Rights Watch says, those extolling it overlook that its enrollees “were not convicted criminals but rather men held in long-term detention without charge.”

The report also says that the convictions of 330 Al Qaeda terror suspects announced by Saudi Arabia in July were “flawed” because the trials were held in secret. It criticizes the Saudi Interior Ministry for detaining thousands of suspects for years without charges, and in some cases, refusing to comply with court orders to release prisoners.

Gen. Mansour Turki, spokesman for the Interior Ministry, said in an e-mail that he was unable to comment on the report until he had discussed it with ministry officials. An e-mail seeking comment to the Ministry of Justice spokesman went unanswered.

Indefinite detention is ‘wrong’

Saudi human rights activist Mohammad Al Qahtani praised the report because “it documented the process of arresting people in indefinite detention.” He disagreed with the protestation of a Saudi official quoted in the report, who said that public trials for terrorism suspects are unsuited to Saudi Arabia’s tribal society.

“This is very wrong,” said Mr. Qahtani. “A modern society should apply the law. This is an excuse to get away with illegal things. It doesn’t make sense to hold secret tribunals.”

The program has not been without its problems. In January of this year, Saudi Arabia disclosed that 11 graduates of the program, some of whom had previously been detained at the US prison camp in Guantánamo, Cuba, have been re-arrested for joining militant groups. Still, US Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair described the program in glowing terms in a memo to the Senate Intelligence Committee earlier this year, calling it “the most comprehensive of its kind [designed] to address the religious, psychological, and socio-economic issues that contribute to radicalization.”

The Human Rights Watch report follows a July 21 study by Amnesty International that alleged Saudi Arabia’s counterterrorism campaign led to increased human rights violations.

One response to 2003 attacks

Saudi Arabia was rocked by a wave of violence from Al Qaeda extremists in 2003 and 2004 that left 74 security personnel and 90 civilians dead, according to Prince Nayef bin Abdul Aziz, Saudi interior minister. Another 1,096 persons were injured.

The government responded with mass arrests. An unknown but large number of the 9,000 civilians detained since 2003 are still held, though Saudi law stipulates that six months is the longest a person can be jailed without charges. Some detainees are held even after the rehabilitation program or Saudi courts recommend their release.

The rehabilitation program began in 2004. Using psychological and religious counseling, it aims to convince prisoners to abandon what Saudi officials call the “deviant” or “misguided” beliefs that led them into extremist groups.

Saudi officials have said the program is voluntary but also acknowledge that completing it is a condition, though not a guarantee, for a prisoner’s release.

Half-way house added

In 2007, a second component to the program was added with a half-way house to ease prisoners back into society. Of the 270 detainees who went through this part of the program, 117 were former inmates at the US-run Guantánamo Bay detention camp.

The latest Human Rights Watch report also criticizes the lack of information about the trials of 330 terror suspects. “The absence of public observers at these trials cast significant doubt on their fairness, underlined by indications that defendants do not have legal assistance and adequate time and facilities to prepare a defense,” the report says.

The Christian Science Monitor

Palestinian Holocaust Online

2009-09-12T19:58:00.000-07:00

"We will carry out a greater holocaust against the Palestinians," Matan Vilnai, Deputy israeli Defense Minister

The Palestinian Holocaust Memorial Museum (PHMM) will feature the photos, names and stories of Palestinian children killed by Israeli forces in the context of a new Holocaust. PHMM will highlight the elements of the new Holocaust; the locations, weapons and impacts. Testimonies of the survivors will also be published.. More

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U.K. troubled by increasingly violent anti-Islam protests

2009-09-12T19:08:00.001-07:00

Violent clashes between anti-Islam demonstrators and Muslim counter-protesters in English cities are worrying the government, with one British minister comparing the disturbances to 1930s-era fascist incitement.

The violence that has hit Luton, Birmingham and London in the last few months has involved a loose collection of far-right groups, such as the previously unknown English Defense League, on one side and anti-fascist organizations and Muslim youth on the other.

In an interview published Saturday, Communities Minister John Denham accused the anti-Islam protesters of deliberately stirring up trouble. More

Calls for Frog-Eater to Resign

2009-09-10T17:51:00.000-07:00

The French Interior Monster (He is the godfather of one of Hungarian Jewish peddlar Nicolas Sarkozy's sons.) faced calls for his resignation last night after he was caught on camera making apparently racist remarks directed at Arabs.

As outrage greeted the video clip on the internet Brice Hortefeux claimed that critics had misinterpreted his quip: “When there’s one that’s all right. It’s when there a lot of them that there are problems.”

He insisted that he had not been talking about Arabs, as many had assumed, but about Auvergnats — people from the Auvergne region of central France.

His defence however failed to calm a storm which was threatening to inflict political damage on President Sarkozy, his mentor and friend who had pledged to heal racial divisions in France. “The question is not whether he should resign or not, but what he is still doing in the government,” Benoit Hamon, a spokesman for the opposition Socialist Party, said.

Ta Gueule, Brice Hortefeux!! MàJ

Creeping anti-Islam fascism target Danish mosque

2009-09-10T15:53:00.000-07:00

Danish far-right launches anti-mosque campaign amid fears of rise in Nazi-style xenophobia.

Observers say the campaign is reminiscent of the Nazi-era propaganda against Europe's Jewish population.

Full page advertisements published in several daily papers claimed that part of the funds for the new mosque would come from Iran, while a second mosque planned for the capital would be financed by Saudi Arabia.

But no calls to prayer will blare from the towers in order not to disturb the surrounding working-class neighbourhood.

Denmark has had a tense relationship with the Muslim world since a Danish newspaper published in 2005 offensive cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed, sparking anger and protests in several Muslim nations.

Danish cartoons and Bordellos

Iraqi shoe thrower offered cars, homes and a wife

2009-09-09T15:25:00.000-07:00

Muntazer al-Zaidi, the Iraqi journalist who famously threw his shoes at George W Bush in a fit of rage, has been inundated with offers of cars, wives and money in the run up to his release from prison.

His message to Mr Bush: "This is your farewell kiss, you dog. This is for the widows and orphans of Iraq" is still celebrated by the Iraqi people.

Now, in preparation for his release, the offers are rolling in, the Guardian reports.

A new four-bedroom home has been built by his former boss. A new car – and the promise of many more – also awaits. Pledges of harems, money and healthcare are pouring in to his employers, the al-Baghdadia television channel.

"One Iraqi who lived in Morocco called to offer to send his daughter to be Muntazer's wife," said editor Abdul Hamid al-Saij.

"Another called from Saudi offering $10m for his shoes, and another called from Morocco offering a gold-saddled horse. After the event, we had callers from Palestine and many women asking to marry him, but we didn't take their names. Many of their reactions were emotional. We will see what happens when he is freed."

From his prison cell, Zaidi has a sense of the gathering fuss, but not the full extent of the benefactors and patrons preparing for his release. More

israel killed John Kennedy

2009-09-08T18:52:00.000-07:00

"Israel need not apologize for the assassination or destruction of those who seek to destroy it. The first order of business for any country is the protection of its people."
--Washington Jewish Week, October 9, 1997


Palestine will not be free until the USA is liberated from Zionist occupation.

"The assassination of John F Kennedy may have been an Israeli plot to stop the Kennedy brothers from forcing the American Zionist Council to register as a foreign agent. In the Zionists own words at the time " it would destroy the Zionist movement."

France plotted to save allies in Saddam Hussein's regime

2009-09-07T17:17:00.001-07:00

Paris considered protecting two of Saddam Hussein's top aides just three months before the allied invasion of Iraq, according to the notes of a retired French spymaster.

Just as President Jacques Chirac was vehemently arguing against invading Iraq in late 2002, General Philippe Rondot wrote that he had been given the green light to "recover" top officials including Tariq Aziz, Saddam's foreign minister.

Previously unseen extracts of Gen Rondot's private diaries were reprinted in the newspaper Libération.

In a passage dated Dec 3, 2002, the general refers to an "agreement in principle to 'recover' if necessary Mr Aziz and Al-Rafai" – said to be a senior Ba'ath Party politician.

The two men were believed to have been considered useful to the French while Gen Rondot knew Aziz well. The two governments also had a history of shared business interests.

Three weeks later Gen Rondot met Mr Chirac's chief of staff and wrote: "Iraq situation report: exfiltration of personalities: ex Tareq [sic] Aziz, sources, engineers. My trip to the zone, mid-January."

Then on Jan 2, 2003, he met the then French foreign minister Dominique de Villepin, famed for his fierce opposition to the imminent US-led invasion at the United Nations Security Council.

After the meeting, he noted: "Informed of my projects on S. Hussein." More

Zionist Puppet Maliki Escalates Tension with Syria

2009-09-07T11:46:00.000-07:00

Iraq has begun stationing thousands of extra police on the border with Syria, saying they will prevent foreign fighters from entering the country to carry out attacks.

Nouri al-Maliki, the Iraqi prime minister, has accused Syria of providing a haven for fighters and tensions between the two neighbours have risen in recent weeks.

Major-General Tariq Yusuf, the police chief of western Iraq's Anbar province which borders Syria, said on Friday: "These are the emergency forces for the borders ... to fill in the gaps."

He said al-Maliki had ordered the deployment personally. More

Carter, Religious Jews Fast With Gaza

2009-09-06T15:22:00.000-07:00

Former US President Jimmy Carter and his wife fasted in solidarity with the people of the Gaza Strip who are living under siege.

About going without for day Carter laughed it off and said, “I didn’t miss the food at all, but I missed water.”

He said, “I spent all day thinking of the people of Gaza and the harsh conditions of life imposed on them by the embargo." The former US President said that he prayed for the Palestinians of Gaza while fasting for the first time in his more than 80 years of life.

Jimmy Carter said that he had received a call from Khahamat religious Jews in the United States who told him that they had already begun fasting once a week in solidarity with Gaza and its people, and asked him to join them, but he and his wife decided that they would do so alone and already had started to do so.

Carter's speech came during iftar, the evening meal, held at the Grand Park Hotel in Ramallah. It included members of the Elders, a group of world leaders founded by Nelson Mandela, and a number of Palestinian intellectuals, businessmen and representatives of civil society institutions. More

NATO Burns Afghan Civilians to Death

2009-09-04T23:28:00.000-07:00

At least 90 Afghans, including children, were burnt to death Friday, September 4, in a NATO airstrike on two hijacked fuel tankers in northern Afghanistan.

"My brother was burnt when the aircraft bombed the fuel tankers,” weeping villager Ghulam Yahya told Reuters.

“I don't know whether he is dead or alive."

NATO planes bombed two fuel tankers hijacked by Taliban in the northern Kunduz province, igniting a fireball that killed about 90 people.

Afghan officials say that most of those killed in the attack were Taliban militants.

"A small number of the casualties are local civilians, including a few children who had come to take free fuel," Mahbubullah Sayedi, a spokesman for the Kunduz provincial government, told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

The Afghan spokesman, however, declined to give any further details.

Wounded people with extensive burns crowded a hospital in Kunduz, the capital of the province.

"It is very hard to collect dead bodies or remains from the blast because the fuel they were collecting was highly flammable," said Mohammad Humayun Khamosh, a doctor at the Kunduz hospital.

An AFP reporter said around eight were in terrible condition -- the skin burnt black and peeling off to expose raw red muscle.

Others were so badly wounded, they were incapable of crying, with their incinerated clothes stuck to their flesh.

Hell

Azizullah recounted the moment when the situation turned into hell-like after the NATO bombing.

"People went to get fuel. The Taliban were distributing free fuel,” said Azizullah, from Yaqubi village.

“At this time they were bombed. Eighteen people were killed from our village," added the 45-year-old at the funeral of the victims of the bombing.

Mohammad Daud, 32, was among those rushing to one of the trucks to take free fuel.

"There were 10 to 15 Taliban on top of the tanker. This was when they were bombed. Everyone around the fuel tanker died," he told AFP in hospital.

"Nobody was in one piece. Hands, legs and body parts were scattered everywhere.

“Those who were away from the fuel tanker were badly burnt," he said.

Afghan civilian deaths by NATO airstrikes are hugely sensitive and a major source of tension with the government of West-backed President Hamid Karzai.

Friday’s deadly bombing came four days after the US and NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal's, submitted a review into the nearly eight-year war, calling for a revised strategy to defeat the Taliban and reverse the country's "serious" situation.

McChrystal's predecessor, General David McKiernan, was removed after less than a year on the job after deeply controversial airstrikes that killed dozens of civilians in western Afghanistan.

Google launches Palestine-specific web domain

2009-09-04T04:49:00.000-07:00

Google unveiled its newest URL on Thursday, www.google.ps, a specific domain for residents of the occupied Palestinian territories, with the exception of East Jerusalem.

"The new domain will give Arabic-speaking users in the Palestinian Territories, who use Palestinian ISPs, access to Google in Arabic and eventually, access to more locally relevant content," the company said on its Arabia blog.

Aside from East Jerusalem, which falls under de facto Israeli authority, Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have generally relied on www.google.jo, Jordan's domain, and Egypt's www.google.com.eg, respectively.

"Arabic-speaking users in the Palestinian Territories have had to visit foreign domains in order to search in Arabic," the company added, noting that the new URL would be designed for Palestine-specific search results.

UN on Israel's Gaza blockade: A 'protracted denial of human dignity'

2009-09-03T16:35:00.000-07:00

A top United Nations (UN) official urged Israel to ease its two-year-old blockade of the Gaza Strip on Thursday to allow materials to repair dilapidated water and sanitation systems.

To drive his point home, the UN Humanitarian Coordinator for the occupied Palestinian territory Maxwell Gaylard led his enterouge to the edge of a massive reservoir in Beit Lahiya, north of Gaza City.

“The deterioration and breakdown of water and sanitation facilities in Gaza is compounding an already severe and protracted denial of human dignity in the Gaza Strip,” said Gaylard in a statement sent to reporters.

“At the heart of this crisis is a steep decline in standards of living for the people of Gaza, characterized by erosion of livelihoods, destruction and degradation of basic infrastructure, and a marked downturn in the delivery and quality of vital services in health, water and sanitation,” the UN official said.

The destruction wrought by Israel’s three-week offensive against Gaza last winter exacerbated an already critical situation, leaving some services and facilities on the brink of collapse. More

Egypt After 30 Years of “Peace”: A Country Destroyed

2009-09-02T16:36:00.000-07:00

“What the regime calls the ‘Camp David Accords’ is nothing but a ridiculous play and a crime by all means, especially because it lacks balance and lays many impositions on Egypt,” says Member of the MB Executive Bureau and Chief of the Political Department Dr. Mohamed Morsy.

“After 30 years, the just and comprehensive peace called for by the Camp David agreement have not yet been realized as witnessed by the people of the region especially after the last Israeli assault on Gaza as well as those on the West Bank, the Abrahamic Sanctuary, Qana, Sabra, and Shatila. Moreover, the articles of the agreement concerning Palestinians’ right of return and right to determine their own destiny have not been enforced. Instead, all we have been hearing from the Israeli entity were the “three no’s”: “No to the right of return,” “No to Jerusalem as the capital of the Palestinian state,” and “No to withdrawal to 1967 borders,” Morsy added.

“There can be no peace with Israelis, no matter what, because they have no respect for any agreement. In fact, they are proficient at breaching agreements, instigating wars, and stirring turmoil in any country they are in as they were the ones who triggered World War II in which 50 million people were killed,” Morsy added.

Haneyya: We will never recognize Israel

2009-09-02T16:33:00.000-07:00

GAZA, -- Palestinian premier Ismail Haneyya has said that his government would never recognize Israel or give up the Palestinian right to Jerusalem.

Haneyya, speaking during an Iftar (breaking the fast) banquet organized by Hamas east of Gaza city on Monday night, hailed the Palestinian resistance and the martyrs who sacrificed their blood for the cause of their religion and country.

He hailed the resistance fighters who are stationed east of Gaza city, explaining that they are the first to confront the Israeli occupation forces at any incursion. Palestine Infos

Haneyya: We will not beg anyone to stand beside us

Russia Jewish programs to be expanded

2009-09-02T15:58:00.000-07:00

The Jewish Agency for Israel (JAFI) and the Genesis Philanthropy Group have reached a general agreement on widening the scope of mutual cooperation in the field of Jewish education and strengthening Jewish identity of Russian-speaking Jews on the territory of the Russian Federation and other FSU countries.

The cooperation in question includes support of Jewish schools, summer camps, and other projects.

GPG is headed by Russian Jewish billionaire Michael Fridman, chief of Alpha Bank, one of Russia's largest banks.

Within the framework of the agreement, GPG will invest up to $6 million into its joint programs with the Jewish Agency over the next three to four years. GPG will also help the Jewish Agency evaluate the efficiency and effectiveness of the projects operated by the agency on the territory of the former Soviet Union.

Jewish Agency Chairman Natan Sharansky, on his first visit to Russian in that capacity, said of the agreement: "Over the last years the Jewish Agency has been active in working on the return of hundreds of thousands of Jews to their historical roots and the strengthening of Jewish identity. It worked together with the government of Israel, and, in recent years, with the active participation of the IFCJ [International Fellowship of Christians and Jews], USA.

"I welcome the fact that today the representatives of Russia's Jewish community are more and more involved in building Jewish institutions in Russia and are doing their utmost to strengthen the Jewish identity of Russian-speaking Jews around the world."

Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post that he hoped Fridman's example would spur other Russian Jewish donors to invest in sustainable programs for their communities. Sharansky told The Jerusalem Post that he hoped Fridman's example would spur other Russian Jewish donors to invest in sustainable programs for their communities. The Jerusalem Post

US Iraq Casualties Rise to 73,436

2009-09-02T15:25:00.000-07:00

US military occupation forces in Iraq under Commander-in-Chief Obama suffered 18 combat casualties between August 18 and Sept 1st, 2009 as the official total since the 2003 invasion soared to at least 73,436. The total includes 34,952 and dead and wounded from what the Pentagon classifies as "hostile" causes and more than 38,484 (as of July 4, 2009) dead and medically evacuated from "non-hostile" causes.*

The actual total is over 100,000 because the Pentagon chooses not to count as "Iraq casualties" the more than 30,000 veterans whose injuries-mainly brain trauma from explosions - were diagnosed only after they had left Iraq.** In addition, IC names eight service members who died of wounds after they left Iraq and are not counted by the Pentagon.***

US media divert attention from the actual cost in American life and limb by occasionally reporting only the total killed (4,340) as of Sept. 1, 2009 but rarely mentioning the 31,483 wounded in combat. To further minimize public perception of the cost, they cover for the Pentagon by ignoring the 37,613 (as of July 4, 2009))*** military victims of accidents and illness serious enough to require medical air evacuation, although the 4,335 reported deaths include 871 (up one) who died from those same causes, including at least 18 from faulty electrical work by KBR and 177 suicides through 2008. ****

Key:

* The number of wounded is updated weekly by the Pentagon.

** New York Times, Jan 26, 2009

*** ICasualties

**** the number of "non combat" injured is reported irregularly by the Pentagon.

**** NYTimes, Jan 30, 2009

Compiled by Michael Munk www.MichaelMunk.com

Not one penny has reached Gaza

2009-09-01T16:01:00.000-07:00

It has been six months since the international community pledged nearly US$5 billion (Dh18bn) in aid to the Palestinian people, chiefly for the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip after Israel’s devastating offensive there this year.

None of this aid has reached Gaza and no reconstruction has started.

Although Israel is slowly easing its restrictions on the flow of basic humanitarian goods to Gaza, including food and medicine, construction materials remain prohibited from entering, institutions and homes still lie in rubble, and critically needed projects to repair and upgrade Gaza’s power plant and tottering sewage network lie dormant.

The situation is frustrating to development agencies and experts. Two weeks ago, the UN was forced to issue another emergency appeal for funds for Gazans. The UN’s Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which provides aid and education to Palestinian refugees, decried the condition of Gaza’s refugees as “shameful”. Numbering one million, refugees make up about 70 per cent of the total population in Gaza; and UNRWA asked for $181 million to help it through the rest of the year in a special Ramadan appeal. More

Libya celebrates 40 years of Gaddafi Dictatorship

2009-09-01T13:50:00.000-07:00

Libyans are set to begin six-days of celebrations marking 40 years since Muammar Gaddafi, the Libyan leader, came to power in a bloodless coup.

Organisers expect hundreds of thousands of people will attend a three-hour showcase event in Tripoli on Tuesday night that they said will rival an Olympic opening ceremony.

Organisers say the celebrations are designed to let the world know that what had before been a pariah-state for the West is once again open for business.

"Libya is opening up to the world - that is the basic message," said Philippe Skaff, who heads the team co-ordinating the centrepiece celebration event.

"This is the first time they actually received thousands of foreigners with open arms. They are granting visas for this like they've never done before," he said.

The celebrations will include military bands, 400 dancers depicting scenes from Libya's history, aerobatic aeroplanes and fireworks displays. More

Egyptian guards kill African at border with Israel

2009-09-01T02:19:00.000-07:00

Egyptian border guards have fatally shot an African man and wounded a woman trying to cross the border with Israel.

The two were with 13 other African migrants trying to get to Israel from south of the town of Rafah on Tuesday.

Egyptian security and hospital officials say the dead man, an Ethiopian, and the Eritrean woman, ignored warning shots. They say the other migrants gave themselves up and were detained.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Hundreds of Africans seeking asylum and jobs try to reach Israel every year, often with the help of Bedouin traffickers. Egypt has killed dozens of migrants at the border, drawing criticism from rights groups. More

Expulsion of Palestinians from UAE draws criticism

2009-09-01T01:22:00.000-07:00

The Palestinians residing in the United Arab Emirates have expressed their criticism at a government decision to expel thousands of them under the pretext of security concerns.

Palestinian refugees, in a letter addressed to the ruling al-Nahyan family, drew attention to their plight caused by the Israeli occupation and called upon high-profile Emirati authorities to reverse the decision.

The letter went on to highlight that the expulsion of the Palestinians who have been in the UAE for over two decades would undoubtedly exert undue strain on them as well as their families.

It also lambasted the UAE government's persecution of the Palestinians who have been ordered to leave the Middle East country, rapping officials over the degrading treatment that the Palestinians receive at the Persian Gulf state's Interior Ministry.

This is while the Palestinians in question have had no criminal record and no history of violence.

Almost 350 Palestinian teachers have faced the axe this year as part of an Education Ministry decision to replace them with Emirati nationals.

The UAE nationals would replace the Palestinian teachers in Arabic, English and mathematics. PressTV

Palestinians accuse Israel of organ theft

2009-09-01T00:21:00.000-07:00

A diplomatic row between Sweden and Israel has emerged after a leading Swedish tabloid printed an article suggesting Israeli soldiers stole body parts from Palestinians after killing them.

Al Jazeera's Sherine Tadros visited a family at the centre of the organ trafficking controversy.

Jalal Ghanem says his brother Bilal was airlifted by an army helicopter to a hospital in Israel after being shot in a Palestinian village.

When his dead body was returned for burial, an autopsy had been carried out without the family's permission, and the family suspects his organs had been taken.

Palestinians such as late President Yasser Arafat have previously accused Israel of organ harvesting, but no conclusive proof has been provided.

Israel has called the article "blood libel" and urged the Swedish government to condemn it.