JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Israel said Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and their negotiating teams would meet on Tuesday to try to narrow differences over a U.S.-led conference on Palestinian statehood. Israeli and Palestinian negotiating teams will also hold their first formal meeting on Tuesday. Baker said the teams would work on a "joint statement to be presented at the conclusion of the upcoming international meeting."
Olmert is seeking a broad-brush joint statement for the conference, planned for mid-to-late November. Abbas wants an explicit "framework" agreement with a timeline for implementation.
"We have to go there with a clear and specific document, after which it could be possible to start detailed negotiations on what we call final status issues," Abbas said in Cairo on Sunday after meeting Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak. "I believe that going there with a general statement would not be beneficial," he said. It was unclear to what extent Olmert was prepared to meet Abbas's appeal to delve deeply into the "final status" issues key to the establishment of a Palestinian state -- borders, the future of Jerusalem and Palestinian refugees. Israel has said it plans to release 87 Palestinian prisoners on Monday as a goodwill gesture towards Abbas.
Egyptian Foreign Minister Ahmed Aboul Gheit said U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit the region in mid-October "for consultations with the Palestinian and Israeli parties, Egypt and maybe other Arab states to prepare for the conference," the official Middle East News Agency reported. Olmert and Abbas have been meeting regularly since June as part of a U.S.-led campaign to shore up the Fatah leader in the occupied West Bank and to isolate Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
By Adam Entous , additional reporting by Cairo bureau
Sunday, September 30, 2007
Bases used for training terrorists
The Qods Force has an extensive network that uses the facilities of Iranian embassies or cultural and economic missions or a number of religious institutions such as the Islamic Communications and Culture Organisation to recruit radical Islamists in Muslim countries or among the Muslims living in the West. After going through preliminary training and security checks in those countries, the recruits are then sent to Iran via third countries and end up in one of the Qods Force training camps”, the officer said
“Iraq followed by the Palestinian territories have become the focal point of the Qods Force’s activities. Many of the foreign recruits in these camps now come from these two areas, but others come from a wide range of countries, including the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, North Africa and south-east Asia”, he said. “In most camps, the Sunnis outnumber the Shiites”. “The scale and breadth of Qods Force operations in Iraq are far beyond what we did even during the war with Saddam”, the officer said, referring to the IRGC’s extensive activities in Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “Vast areas of Iraq are under the virtual control of the Qods Force through its Iraqi surrogates. It uses a vast array of charities, companies and other fronts to conduct its activities across Iraq”.
“We would send our officers into Iraq to operate for months under the cover of a construction company”, he said. “Kawthar Company operated in Najaf last year to carry out construction work in the area around Imam Ali Shrine, but it was in fact a front company for the Qods Force. Qods officers, disguised as company employees, established contacts with Iraqi operatives and organised underground cells in southern Iraq”. The officer said Qods Force officers also used the Iranian Red Crescent and the state-run television and radio corporation as fronts for their operations in Iraq. A special branch inside Iran’s Foreign Ministry is responsible for assisting the Qods Force in bringing in foreign recruits. The recruits first travel to third countries where they are given new passports by Iranian agents to facilitate their entry into Iran. Upon finishing their training course, the new agents leave Iran for third countries from where they use their genuine passports to return to their countries of origin or where missions are planned.
The list of the bases used for training terrorists identified for Iran Focus are as follows:
1) Imam Ali Training Garrison, Tajrish Square, Tehran,
2) Bahonar Garrison, Chalous Street, close to the dam of Karaj,
3) Qom’s Ali-Abad Garrison, Tehran-Qom highway,
4) Mostafa Khomeini Garrison, Eshrat-Abad district, Tehran,
5) Crate Camp Garrison, 40 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
6) Fateh Qani-Hosseini Garrison, between Tehran and Qom
7) Qayour Asli Garrison, 30 kilometres from Ahwaz-Khorramshahr highway,
8) Abouzar Garrison, Qaleh-Shahin district, Ahwaz, Khuzestan province
9) Hezbollah Garrison, Varamin, east of Tehran
10) Eezeh Training Garrison
11) Amir-ol-Momenin Garrison, Ban-Roushan, Ilam province
12) Kothar Training Garrison, Dezful Street, Shoushtar, Khuzestan province
13) Imam Sadeq Garrison, Qom
14) Lavizan Training Centre, north-east Tehran
15) Abyek Training Centre, west of Tehran
16) Dervish Training Centre,
18 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
17) Qazanchi Training Centre, Ravansar-Kermanshah-Kamyaran tri-junction,
18) Beit-ol-Moqaddas University, Qom
19) Navab Safavi School, Ahwaz
20) Nahavand Training Centre, 45 kilometres from Nahavand, western Iran
“Over the past four years, the rulers of Iran have undone the reforms that were emerging in the nation”.
“Iraq followed by the Palestinian territories have become the focal point of the Qods Force’s activities. Many of the foreign recruits in these camps now come from these two areas, but others come from a wide range of countries, including the Arab states of the Persian Gulf, North Africa and south-east Asia”, he said. “In most camps, the Sunnis outnumber the Shiites”. “The scale and breadth of Qods Force operations in Iraq are far beyond what we did even during the war with Saddam”, the officer said, referring to the IRGC’s extensive activities in Iraq during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s. “Vast areas of Iraq are under the virtual control of the Qods Force through its Iraqi surrogates. It uses a vast array of charities, companies and other fronts to conduct its activities across Iraq”.
“We would send our officers into Iraq to operate for months under the cover of a construction company”, he said. “Kawthar Company operated in Najaf last year to carry out construction work in the area around Imam Ali Shrine, but it was in fact a front company for the Qods Force. Qods officers, disguised as company employees, established contacts with Iraqi operatives and organised underground cells in southern Iraq”. The officer said Qods Force officers also used the Iranian Red Crescent and the state-run television and radio corporation as fronts for their operations in Iraq. A special branch inside Iran’s Foreign Ministry is responsible for assisting the Qods Force in bringing in foreign recruits. The recruits first travel to third countries where they are given new passports by Iranian agents to facilitate their entry into Iran. Upon finishing their training course, the new agents leave Iran for third countries from where they use their genuine passports to return to their countries of origin or where missions are planned.
The list of the bases used for training terrorists identified for Iran Focus are as follows:
1) Imam Ali Training Garrison, Tajrish Square, Tehran,
2) Bahonar Garrison, Chalous Street, close to the dam of Karaj,
3) Qom’s Ali-Abad Garrison, Tehran-Qom highway,
4) Mostafa Khomeini Garrison, Eshrat-Abad district, Tehran,
5) Crate Camp Garrison, 40 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
6) Fateh Qani-Hosseini Garrison, between Tehran and Qom
7) Qayour Asli Garrison, 30 kilometres from Ahwaz-Khorramshahr highway,
8) Abouzar Garrison, Qaleh-Shahin district, Ahwaz, Khuzestan province
9) Hezbollah Garrison, Varamin, east of Tehran
10) Eezeh Training Garrison
11) Amir-ol-Momenin Garrison, Ban-Roushan, Ilam province
12) Kothar Training Garrison, Dezful Street, Shoushtar, Khuzestan province
13) Imam Sadeq Garrison, Qom
14) Lavizan Training Centre, north-east Tehran
15) Abyek Training Centre, west of Tehran
16) Dervish Training Centre,
18 kilometres from the Ahwaz-Mahshar highway,
17) Qazanchi Training Centre, Ravansar-Kermanshah-Kamyaran tri-junction,
18) Beit-ol-Moqaddas University, Qom
19) Navab Safavi School, Ahwaz
20) Nahavand Training Centre, 45 kilometres from Nahavand, western Iran
“Over the past four years, the rulers of Iran have undone the reforms that were emerging in the nation”.
Hoshyar Zebari raised the issue of Iran's closure of five border crossing
UNITED NATIONS - Iraq's foreign minister says Iran is punishing the Kurdish region for something the Kurdish authorities were not responsible for — the arrest of an Iranian official by the U.S. military on Sept. 20.
Hoshyar Zebari said late Saturday that he raised the issue of Iran's closure of five border crossing points into the northern Kurdish region with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting. Zebari said he told Mottaki "this is not a wise move, this can only undermine the atmosphere of confidence, and you're punishing the whole region for an act that they were not responsible for." The U.S. military said the Iranian, Mahmudi Farhadi, was a member of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards alleged to smuggle weapons to Shiite extremists. The arrest has raised friction between U.S. and Iraqi authorities at a time when tempers were already running high over the killing Sept. 16 of 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly by security guards from Blackwater USA, which protects American diplomats in Iraq. Blackwater insists its guards acted legally and were returning fire from armed insurgents. Zebari said the Iraqi government has asked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for all the facts, and reiterated Iraqi calls for the U.S. to release the Iranian official. But Zebari said the Iranian remains in U.S. custody, and the border remains shut.
"I think that was a direct response to the detention of an Iranian official by the U.S. military in Sulaimaniyah, and this was a collective punishment for the region, for something that the Kurdish regional authorities were not responsible," Zebari said. "And I personally feel it's unfair and unjust, and it has affected the economic life of the region. Prices have gone up," he said. "The region is dependent in some way on fuel supplies from Iran, but the Iranians want to make a point here."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied in an Associated Press interview on Monday that Iran closed its border with Iraq over the arrest of the Iranian. "On an annual basis, millions of Iranians visit Iraq and Iraq's holy sites for pilgrimage purposes," he said. "Recently, as a result of some clashes and the explosion of some bombs, a number of Iranian civilian casualties arose. So the government has asked Iranian citizens to avoid traveling for pilgrimage purposes until security is restored. The commercial goods and freight transactions continue, and the travel across the border for those purposes continue," Ahmadinejad said.
By EDITH M. LEDERER, AP
Hoshyar Zebari said late Saturday that he raised the issue of Iran's closure of five border crossing points into the northern Kurdish region with Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly's ministerial meeting. Zebari said he told Mottaki "this is not a wise move, this can only undermine the atmosphere of confidence, and you're punishing the whole region for an act that they were not responsible for." The U.S. military said the Iranian, Mahmudi Farhadi, was a member of the Quds Force, a branch of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards alleged to smuggle weapons to Shiite extremists. The arrest has raised friction between U.S. and Iraqi authorities at a time when tempers were already running high over the killing Sept. 16 of 11 Iraqi civilians allegedly by security guards from Blackwater USA, which protects American diplomats in Iraq. Blackwater insists its guards acted legally and were returning fire from armed insurgents. Zebari said the Iraqi government has asked the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad for all the facts, and reiterated Iraqi calls for the U.S. to release the Iranian official. But Zebari said the Iranian remains in U.S. custody, and the border remains shut.
"I think that was a direct response to the detention of an Iranian official by the U.S. military in Sulaimaniyah, and this was a collective punishment for the region, for something that the Kurdish regional authorities were not responsible," Zebari said. "And I personally feel it's unfair and unjust, and it has affected the economic life of the region. Prices have gone up," he said. "The region is dependent in some way on fuel supplies from Iran, but the Iranians want to make a point here."
Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad denied in an Associated Press interview on Monday that Iran closed its border with Iraq over the arrest of the Iranian. "On an annual basis, millions of Iranians visit Iraq and Iraq's holy sites for pilgrimage purposes," he said. "Recently, as a result of some clashes and the explosion of some bombs, a number of Iranian civilian casualties arose. So the government has asked Iranian citizens to avoid traveling for pilgrimage purposes until security is restored. The commercial goods and freight transactions continue, and the travel across the border for those purposes continue," Ahmadinejad said.
By EDITH M. LEDERER, AP
Saturday, September 29, 2007
Moscow releases Wallenberg files.
09/28/2007, A Russian intelligence agency transfered secret files about Raoul Wallenberg to Russia's chief rabbi. The files, containing sensitive information about the life and death of the Swedish diplomat who saved thousands of Jews during the Holocaust, will be housed in Moscow's new Museum of Tolerance, scheduled to open in 2008. Secret files containing sensitive information about life and death of Raul Wallenberg were transferred from Federal Security Service's archives.
Wallenberg worked for the Swedish government in Hungary, and used his position to issue protective passes and establish safe houses for Jews fleeing the Nazis. He was arrested in Budapest in 1945 by Soviet secret service agents. According to the Soviet Union's official version, the Swede died of heart attack in July 1947 in his prison cell in Lubyanka Secret Service Headquarters. However, it is widely believed he was poisoned by his wardens after refusing to work as a Soviet agent. Moscow officially declined to disclose any documents related to Wallenberg's fate or even to recognize such files existed until September 1991, when a Soviet-Swedish joint investigative commission was founded.
Wallenberg worked for the Swedish government in Hungary, and used his position to issue protective passes and establish safe houses for Jews fleeing the Nazis. He was arrested in Budapest in 1945 by Soviet secret service agents. According to the Soviet Union's official version, the Swede died of heart attack in July 1947 in his prison cell in Lubyanka Secret Service Headquarters. However, it is widely believed he was poisoned by his wardens after refusing to work as a Soviet agent. Moscow officially declined to disclose any documents related to Wallenberg's fate or even to recognize such files existed until September 1991, when a Soviet-Swedish joint investigative commission was founded.
Friday, September 28, 2007
Thank you Mr President Mahmoud Abbas
UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - President Mahmoud Abbas said on Friday the Palestinian Authority was fully committed to a planned U.S.-hosted Middle East peace conference and he saw no obstacle to holding it.
U.S. officials have indicated the conference, for which no invitations have been issued so far, would group Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Arab states have yet to state categorically whether they would attend. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called on Israel this week to halt building of Jewish settlements and of a defensive barrier in the occupied West Bank to encourage Arabs to take part.
Abbas said after his speech he believed the conference could pave the way for a subsequent peace agreement. "I think that it could be reached, yes," he told Reuters, declining to say how soon. But, in his U.N. speech, Abbas followed a series of rhetorical questions on whether it was time to solve outstanding issues by asking: "I hope that I will not have to come back to this rostrum next year to ask these same questions." Abbas said any agreement reached would be put to a referendum "involving the entire Palestinian people." The upturn in Middle East peace prospects has followed the takeover of Gaza in June by the Hamas militant movement, which led Abbas to fire the Hamas-led Palestinian government, take control of the West Bank and pursue talks with Israel.
"I affirm to you that ... the voice of peace and faith continues to be stronger than any other voice in our country," Abbas told the General Assembly. "We need to move forward hand-in-hand on the shining path of peace. ... There is a historic horizon that is emerging. Let us remain united to make this a reality." Israel's seats in the General Assembly hall were empty on Friday, but Israeli officials said this was because of the Jewish Succoth holiday. Abbas later met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Earlier, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called the conference proposal a "positive step" but said it was important it be "a serious conference, with all core issues on the table and the atmosphere conducive to understanding, with a timeline." "We mean business. And we on the Arab side have shown ... that we are ready for peace with Israel. We are ready to turn the page," he told a news conference.
"Today there is not the slightest obstacle to promoting the holding of a peace meeting, which will take place shortly," Abbas said in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly, referring to U.S. plans to stage such a gathering in November. "We are very committed to the substance of that meeting, as proposed," Abbas said, according to a live U.N. interpretation of his remarks in Arabic. "We would hope all parties would sit down to negotiation." Despite a recital of Palestinian hardships similar to that in past speeches, the Palestinian leader struck a generally upbeat note, saying a "historic horizon" was approaching for the Middle East peace process.
U.S. officials have indicated the conference, for which no invitations have been issued so far, would group Israel, the Palestinian Authority, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Arab states have yet to state categorically whether they would attend. Saudi Arabian Foreign Minister Prince Saud al-Faisal called on Israel this week to halt building of Jewish settlements and of a defensive barrier in the occupied West Bank to encourage Arabs to take part.
Abbas said after his speech he believed the conference could pave the way for a subsequent peace agreement. "I think that it could be reached, yes," he told Reuters, declining to say how soon. But, in his U.N. speech, Abbas followed a series of rhetorical questions on whether it was time to solve outstanding issues by asking: "I hope that I will not have to come back to this rostrum next year to ask these same questions." Abbas said any agreement reached would be put to a referendum "involving the entire Palestinian people." The upturn in Middle East peace prospects has followed the takeover of Gaza in June by the Hamas militant movement, which led Abbas to fire the Hamas-led Palestinian government, take control of the West Bank and pursue talks with Israel.
"I affirm to you that ... the voice of peace and faith continues to be stronger than any other voice in our country," Abbas told the General Assembly. "We need to move forward hand-in-hand on the shining path of peace. ... There is a historic horizon that is emerging. Let us remain united to make this a reality." Israel's seats in the General Assembly hall were empty on Friday, but Israeli officials said this was because of the Jewish Succoth holiday. Abbas later met Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni. Earlier, Arab League Secretary-General Amr Moussa called the conference proposal a "positive step" but said it was important it be "a serious conference, with all core issues on the table and the atmosphere conducive to understanding, with a timeline." "We mean business. And we on the Arab side have shown ... that we are ready for peace with Israel. We are ready to turn the page," he told a news conference.
Thursday, September 27, 2007
The Myanmar junta intensified a two-day crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years
YANGON (Reuters) - Troops cleared protesters from the streets of central Yangon on Thursday, giving them 10 minutes to leave or be shot as the Myanmar junta intensified a two-day crackdown on the largest uprising in 20 years. At least nine people were killed, state television said, on a day when far fewer protesters took to the streets after soldiers raided monasteries in the middle of the night and rounded up hundreds of the monks who had been leading them. One of dead was a Japanese photographer, shot when soldiers cleared the area near Sule Pagoda -- a city-centre focus of the protests -- as loudspeakers blared out warnings, ominous reminders of the ruthless crushing of a 1988 uprising. About 200 soldiers marched towards the crowd and riot police clattered their rattan shields with wooden batons. "It's a terrifying noise," one witness said.
The army, which killed an estimated 3,000 people in 1988, moved in after 1,000 chanting protesters hurled stones and water bottles at troops, prompting a police charge in which shots were fired and the Japanese went down. Soldiers shot dead three more people in a subsequent protest outside the city's heart as crowds regrouped and taunted troops. Their bodies were tossed in a ditch as troops chased fleeing people, beating anybody they could catch, witnesses said. Another Buddhist monk -- adding to the five reported killed on Wednesday when security forces tried to disperse huge crowds protesting against 45 years of military rule -- was killed during the midnight raids on monasteries, witnesses said.
Monks were kicked and beaten as soldiers rounded them up and shoved them onto trucks. Some of the monasteries were emptied of all but the very old and sick, people living nearby said. The raids were likely to anger Myanmar's 56 million people, whose steadily declining living conditions took a turn for the worse last month when the junta imposed swinging fuel price rises, the spark for the initial, small protests. "Doors of the monasteries were broken, things were ransacked and taken away," a witness said. "It's like a living hell seeing the monasteries raided and the monks treated cruelly."After darkness fell and curfew hour loomed, sporadic bursts of automatic rifle fire echoed over the city of five million people.
Elsewhere in the former Burma, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said it had received reports of a big demonstration in the northwest coastal town of Sittwe, as well as incidents in Pakokku, Mandalay and Moulmein. Details were sketchy. It was unclear whether the protests in Yangon would regain momentum in the absence of the clergy, whose marches drew large numbers into what has become a head-on collision between the moral authority of the monks and the military machine. The junta, the latest incarnation of a series of military regimes, sent in the troops despite desperate international calls for restraint. It told diplomats summoned to its new jungle capital, Naypyidaw, "the government was committed to showing restraint in its response to the provocations," one of those present said. But international anger mounted sharply, despite the junta's long track record of ignoring the outside world. The generals have managed to live with tough sanctions from the United States and lesser ones from Europe for a decade. Even China, the closest the isolated junta has to a friend, said it was "extremely concerned about the situation in Myanmar." The Foreign Ministry urged all parties to "maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have arisen."
The White House demanded an end to the crackdown, and the European Union said it was looking urgently into reinforcing sanctions in response to the crackdown, which has already drawn more sanctions from the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it a "tragedy" and urged the generals to allow a U.N. envoy to visit and meet detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "The regime has reacted brutally to people who were simply protesting peacefully," Rice said during the U.N. General Assembly in New York. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would dispatch special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Southeast Asia in the hope the generals would let him in. U.N. sources said Gambari was heading to Singapore to try to get a visa. However, in a sign of rifts within the international community at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, China ruled out sanctions or an official condemnation of the use of force.
By Aung Hla Tun
The army, which killed an estimated 3,000 people in 1988, moved in after 1,000 chanting protesters hurled stones and water bottles at troops, prompting a police charge in which shots were fired and the Japanese went down. Soldiers shot dead three more people in a subsequent protest outside the city's heart as crowds regrouped and taunted troops. Their bodies were tossed in a ditch as troops chased fleeing people, beating anybody they could catch, witnesses said. Another Buddhist monk -- adding to the five reported killed on Wednesday when security forces tried to disperse huge crowds protesting against 45 years of military rule -- was killed during the midnight raids on monasteries, witnesses said.
Monks were kicked and beaten as soldiers rounded them up and shoved them onto trucks. Some of the monasteries were emptied of all but the very old and sick, people living nearby said. The raids were likely to anger Myanmar's 56 million people, whose steadily declining living conditions took a turn for the worse last month when the junta imposed swinging fuel price rises, the spark for the initial, small protests. "Doors of the monasteries were broken, things were ransacked and taken away," a witness said. "It's like a living hell seeing the monasteries raided and the monks treated cruelly."After darkness fell and curfew hour loomed, sporadic bursts of automatic rifle fire echoed over the city of five million people.
Elsewhere in the former Burma, the Hong Kong-based Asian Human Rights Commission said it had received reports of a big demonstration in the northwest coastal town of Sittwe, as well as incidents in Pakokku, Mandalay and Moulmein. Details were sketchy. It was unclear whether the protests in Yangon would regain momentum in the absence of the clergy, whose marches drew large numbers into what has become a head-on collision between the moral authority of the monks and the military machine. The junta, the latest incarnation of a series of military regimes, sent in the troops despite desperate international calls for restraint. It told diplomats summoned to its new jungle capital, Naypyidaw, "the government was committed to showing restraint in its response to the provocations," one of those present said. But international anger mounted sharply, despite the junta's long track record of ignoring the outside world. The generals have managed to live with tough sanctions from the United States and lesser ones from Europe for a decade. Even China, the closest the isolated junta has to a friend, said it was "extremely concerned about the situation in Myanmar." The Foreign Ministry urged all parties to "maintain restraint and appropriately handle the problems that have arisen."
The White House demanded an end to the crackdown, and the European Union said it was looking urgently into reinforcing sanctions in response to the crackdown, which has already drawn more sanctions from the United States. U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called it a "tragedy" and urged the generals to allow a U.N. envoy to visit and meet detained pro-democracy leader Aung San Suu Kyi. "The regime has reacted brutally to people who were simply protesting peacefully," Rice said during the U.N. General Assembly in New York. U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said he would dispatch special envoy Ibrahim Gambari to Southeast Asia in the hope the generals would let him in. U.N. sources said Gambari was heading to Singapore to try to get a visa. However, in a sign of rifts within the international community at an emergency U.N. Security Council meeting, China ruled out sanctions or an official condemnation of the use of force.
By Aung Hla Tun
"US-sponsored meeting was "an important opportunity for achieving tangible results"
Saudi Arabia's foreign minister described as "encouraging" his talks with US officials about a proposed Mideast peace meeting, but stressed that success will be determined by commitments to tackle key final status issues, not whether Arab countries agree to attend.
The Bush administration, trying to revive long-stalled talks between Israel and the Palestinians, has proposed a November meeting to bring the two sides to the table, joined by other key players. It is eager to secure the participation of regional powerhouses like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which has yet to sign a peace deal with the Jewish state. Arab nations, however, fear that without a commitment to discuss thorny topics such as the status of Jerusalem and right of return of Palestinians, the meeting will develop into a photo opportunity that could do more harm than good. The meeting's agenda has yet to be set.
"It is not Saudi Arabia that puts conditions, or Saudi Arabia that is going to negotiate," Saudi Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "Its presence there, or non-presence, is not the most significant issue." Al-Faisal avoided committing his country's participation, and made clear that he is voicing the Arab position. But the veteran diplomat also sounded a decidedly optimistic tone following a meeting with Bush administration officials. "We have been shown a canvas with some brushstrokes that has nice colors in them ... but we don't yet know if it is a portrait or a landscape that we are looking at," al-Faisal said in the round-table discussion held at a Manhattan hotel. Based on the discussions with US officials, "there is a sense there is something new happening and this is encouraging" if it turns out to be true, he said.
Al-Faisal said that discussions indicated that "the intent is to look at the final status issue - the important issues, and not the peripheral issues. This is encouraging. This is what we have always asked for." Al-Faisal's note of optimism was mirrored in the Middle East, where the leaders of Egypt and Jordan urged Palestinians to set aside their differences and work for peace, reiterating that the US-sponsored meeting was "an important opportunity for achieving tangible results," according to a statement released after the closed-door meeting in the Jordanian capital. But they also repeated calls for "adequate preparations" and said the summit must tackle the key final status issues. "We think there is hope that finally the right approach to peace is being undertaken," al-Faisal said. He reiterated that the onus also lies on the Israelis to show their commitment to a comprehensive settlement and that they are willing to take confidence-building measures such as freezing settlement building in Palestinian areas. "It will be curious for Palestinian President Abbas and the prime minister of Israel to be talking about peace and the return of Palestinian land while Israel continues to build more settlements," he said. "At least, a moratorium on the building of settlements will be a good signal to show serious intent."
Pressed about what it would take for the Saudis to attend, al-Faisal argued that it was the United States, not the kingdom, that carried sway with Israel, and described as "a little bit strange" the notion that Saudi participation would make Israel more willing to come. "We have the experience of Madrid," he said, referring to the landmark 1991 peace conference which Saudi Arabia attended as observers. "We attended every international meeting that came out of the Madrid process ... and did that bring peace?" "It changed nothing of the position of Israel whatsoever. On the contrary, it diverted from the important elements of peace, which is that Israel has to make peace" with the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria, not Saudi Arabia. While the US hopes that Saudi participation will put the kingdom on a path to recognizing Israel, al-Faisal said this possibility is already outlined in the Arab peace initiative, which offers peace in exchange for territory. "Recognition comes, but comes after peace, not before peace," al-Faisal said.
The Bush administration, trying to revive long-stalled talks between Israel and the Palestinians, has proposed a November meeting to bring the two sides to the table, joined by other key players. It is eager to secure the participation of regional powerhouses like Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which has yet to sign a peace deal with the Jewish state. Arab nations, however, fear that without a commitment to discuss thorny topics such as the status of Jerusalem and right of return of Palestinians, the meeting will develop into a photo opportunity that could do more harm than good. The meeting's agenda has yet to be set.
"It is not Saudi Arabia that puts conditions, or Saudi Arabia that is going to negotiate," Saudi Prince Saud al-Faisal told reporters Wednesday on the sidelines of the UN General Assembly. "Its presence there, or non-presence, is not the most significant issue." Al-Faisal avoided committing his country's participation, and made clear that he is voicing the Arab position. But the veteran diplomat also sounded a decidedly optimistic tone following a meeting with Bush administration officials. "We have been shown a canvas with some brushstrokes that has nice colors in them ... but we don't yet know if it is a portrait or a landscape that we are looking at," al-Faisal said in the round-table discussion held at a Manhattan hotel. Based on the discussions with US officials, "there is a sense there is something new happening and this is encouraging" if it turns out to be true, he said.
Al-Faisal said that discussions indicated that "the intent is to look at the final status issue - the important issues, and not the peripheral issues. This is encouraging. This is what we have always asked for." Al-Faisal's note of optimism was mirrored in the Middle East, where the leaders of Egypt and Jordan urged Palestinians to set aside their differences and work for peace, reiterating that the US-sponsored meeting was "an important opportunity for achieving tangible results," according to a statement released after the closed-door meeting in the Jordanian capital. But they also repeated calls for "adequate preparations" and said the summit must tackle the key final status issues. "We think there is hope that finally the right approach to peace is being undertaken," al-Faisal said. He reiterated that the onus also lies on the Israelis to show their commitment to a comprehensive settlement and that they are willing to take confidence-building measures such as freezing settlement building in Palestinian areas. "It will be curious for Palestinian President Abbas and the prime minister of Israel to be talking about peace and the return of Palestinian land while Israel continues to build more settlements," he said. "At least, a moratorium on the building of settlements will be a good signal to show serious intent."
Pressed about what it would take for the Saudis to attend, al-Faisal argued that it was the United States, not the kingdom, that carried sway with Israel, and described as "a little bit strange" the notion that Saudi participation would make Israel more willing to come. "We have the experience of Madrid," he said, referring to the landmark 1991 peace conference which Saudi Arabia attended as observers. "We attended every international meeting that came out of the Madrid process ... and did that bring peace?" "It changed nothing of the position of Israel whatsoever. On the contrary, it diverted from the important elements of peace, which is that Israel has to make peace" with the Palestinians, Lebanon and Syria, not Saudi Arabia. While the US hopes that Saudi participation will put the kingdom on a path to recognizing Israel, al-Faisal said this possibility is already outlined in the Arab peace initiative, which offers peace in exchange for territory. "Recognition comes, but comes after peace, not before peace," al-Faisal said.
Well..Mr Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki
Prime Minister of Iraq Nouri al-Maliki addresses the 62nd session of the United Nations General Assembly at the United Nations Headquarters, Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007. AP Photo/Ed Betz
Nevertheless, al-Maliki championed the emergence of democratic institutions. He said the country has hundreds of political parties active within 20 political alliances, more than 6,000 civil organizations, hundreds of newspapers and magazines and 40 local and satellite TV stations. But terrorists are targeting this "new Iraq," he said. "Terrorism kills civilians, journalists, actors, thinkers and professionals. It attacks universities, marketplaces and libraries. It blows up mosques and churches and destroys the infrastructure of state institutions," al-Maliki said. His statements came as a wave of bombings and shootings swept Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 50 people and raising fears of a new al-Qaida offensive. Al-Maliki noted the responsibility of Iraq's neighbors in helping stop the violence, saying "the continued overflow of weapons, money, suicide bombers and the spreading of 'fatwas' inciting hatred and murder will only result in disastrous consequences."
In his speech, al-Maliki only briefly noted the proposed oil law, saying his government has completed work on it and was awaiting its approval by parliament. He also warned that Iraq's neighbors must stop the continued flow into his country of weapons, suicide bombers and funding for terrorism, saying there would be "disastrous consequences" for the region and the world if they failed. "National reconciliation is stronger than the weapons of terrorism," al-Maliki said. But he said healing is "not the responsibility of the government alone." "Today we feel optimistic that countries of the region realize the danger of the terrorist attacks against Iraq, that it is not in their interest for Iraq to be weak," he said. Al-Maliki praised what he said were many recent successes in Iraq. He cited the calming of regions like Anbar province in the west, a recent drop in sectarian killings and the return of thousands of displaced families to their homes. "Our armed forces have been adamant in establishing law and order, as well as instilling a sense of respect for the government in many provinces which have diverse religious, sectarian and ethnic affiliations," he said.
UN chief Ban Ki-moon and Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki shake hands in March 2007. Iraq and its neighbors are to huddle with major powers and donors at the United Nations to discuss ways to speed up efforts to put the war-ravaged country back on its feet despite poor security and continuing sectarian divisions. AFP/ BySabah Arar
Well...They could stop supporting weapons flow and suicide bombings!
UNITED NATIONS - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki told the U.N. General Assembly on Wednesday that terrorism is threatening to erase any gains made in reducing sectarian killings and establishing democratic principles in his country. Although al-Maliki claimed Anbar as a success, the calming of the province was a result of the efforts of a coalition of Sunni sheiks encouraged by U.S. military officers. Al-Maliki's Shiite government has been cool to the effort, paying it lip service while at the same time only slowly allocating funds for the area — under strong U.S. pressure. Sectarian killings are believed to have dropped — largely through a combination of stepped-up U.S. military activity and a decision by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr to freeze his Mahdi militia for six months. And while there has been some movement of displaced people back to their homes, as al-Maliki claimed, the International Organization of Migration says such moves are often only temporary to check on the status of property.
Nevertheless, al-Maliki championed the emergence of democratic institutions. He said the country has hundreds of political parties active within 20 political alliances, more than 6,000 civil organizations, hundreds of newspapers and magazines and 40 local and satellite TV stations. But terrorists are targeting this "new Iraq," he said. "Terrorism kills civilians, journalists, actors, thinkers and professionals. It attacks universities, marketplaces and libraries. It blows up mosques and churches and destroys the infrastructure of state institutions," al-Maliki said. His statements came as a wave of bombings and shootings swept Iraq on Wednesday, killing at least 50 people and raising fears of a new al-Qaida offensive. Al-Maliki noted the responsibility of Iraq's neighbors in helping stop the violence, saying "the continued overflow of weapons, money, suicide bombers and the spreading of 'fatwas' inciting hatred and murder will only result in disastrous consequences."
Washington has accused Iran of arming and aiding Shiite militias in Iraq that it says have killed hundreds of American troops with powerful bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs. The U.S. has also accused Iran of training fighters and sending them into Iraq to attack American and Iraqi troops. Iran disputes those allegations, saying it does not meddle inside Iraq. Al-Maliki has been facing mounting criticism, most notably from congressional Democrats, for his inability to take advantage of a reduction in Baghdad violence to pass crucial legislation designed to share power among Sunnis, Shiites and Kurds and help end the insurgency. President Bush pressed al-Maliki on Tuesday in New York to make progress in this area. A national oil law and other initiatives have stalled in the parliament amid factional bickering. "Some politicians may be trying to block the law to gain special advantage," Bush said. "And these parties have got to understand that it's in the interests of Iraq to get good law passed."
In his speech, al-Maliki only briefly noted the proposed oil law, saying his government has completed work on it and was awaiting its approval by parliament. He also warned that Iraq's neighbors must stop the continued flow into his country of weapons, suicide bombers and funding for terrorism, saying there would be "disastrous consequences" for the region and the world if they failed. "National reconciliation is stronger than the weapons of terrorism," al-Maliki said. But he said healing is "not the responsibility of the government alone." "Today we feel optimistic that countries of the region realize the danger of the terrorist attacks against Iraq, that it is not in their interest for Iraq to be weak," he said. Al-Maliki praised what he said were many recent successes in Iraq. He cited the calming of regions like Anbar province in the west, a recent drop in sectarian killings and the return of thousands of displaced families to their homes. "Our armed forces have been adamant in establishing law and order, as well as instilling a sense of respect for the government in many provinces which have diverse religious, sectarian and ethnic affiliations," he said.
By Justin Bergman
Get some troops and support to the Sunni tribal in Anbar now then! Because they are targeted in efforts to destabilize not just there but in whole Iraq! It´s obvious some people think they gets benefits of a destabilized and weak Iraq and like Iranian leaders that sits and triumph over some "victories" made in Iraq! While proxy groups like "Islamic state in a Islamic state" and Al-Sadr and his "resistance against the occupiers", that is put in system in both Lebanon and in Palestinians territories, serving Iranians to make them being able to acting like Satan´s soul pushers, claiming they have "won" something and get their psychopathic President and his adviser to triumphing over others death and suffering and to keep their sick propaganda machinery going to keep use people and destabilize in the whole region, just to be able to get own benefits of it!
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
Bomb attacks killed 57 people and wounded more than 120 across Iraq
The body of three-year-old Mahmoud Modher, who was found dead in al-Aswad village three days after he was kidnapped, is carried by his father from the morgue in Baqouba, some 60 kilometers (35 miles) northeast of Baghdad, Iraq, on Wednesday, Sept. 26, 2007.
BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomber struck a Sunni tribal leader's house near the Syrian border on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, including the sheik's son who worked for the government, in the latest attack by suspected Sunni extremists on provincial officials and tribal figures. Bombers also struck Iraqi civilians as a total of at least 29 people were killed or found dead, most in areas to the north and south of the capital.
BAGHDAD - A suicide truck bomber struck a Sunni tribal leader's house near the Syrian border on Wednesday, killing at least 10 people, including the sheik's son who worked for the government, in the latest attack by suspected Sunni extremists on provincial officials and tribal figures. Bombers also struck Iraqi civilians as a total of at least 29 people were killed or found dead, most in areas to the north and south of the capital.
Monday, September 24, 2007
Al-Maliki expressed optimism that he will get his Cabinet back up to strength
NEW YORK - Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki walked a fine line Sunday: confronting his American backers over what he sees as violations of Iraq's sovereignty while stressing that his relations are rock solid with the country on whose support he still relies.In a half-hour talk conducted in his Manhattan hotel suite, the 57-year-old politician from Iraq's Shiite heartland said it is unacceptable that U.S. security contractors would kill Iraqi civilians, a reference to a Sept. 16 shooting incident involving company Blackwater USA that left at least 11 Iraqis dead.
Al-Maliki also expressed optimism that he will get his Cabinet back up to strength after the walkout in early August by the mainly Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front. He has challenged those Sunni politicians to come back to his government, and said in the interview that if they continue to boycott, he may enlist other Sunnis in their place "We cannot remain with ministerial seats that are empty, and we are in need of the efforts of the ministries and the ministers to provide services to the Iraqis. We want to announce that 2008 is the year of services for the Iraqi people." He called on some Arab countries to give the Iraqi government more support and to stop interference in Iraq's internal affairs by closing their borders to the movement of arms or anti-government insurgents. "The issue of relations with Arab countries has gone through periods of uncertainty," he conceded. "But with the passage of time, the Iraqi government has proven that it is present, supported, strong and represents the will of the Iraqi people. "What we need from the other Arab countries is a lack of interference in our internal affairs."
- The U.S. military accused Iran on Sunday of smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. The new allegations came as Iraqi leaders condemned the latest U.S. detention of an Iranian in northern Iraq, saying the man was in their country on official business. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said U.S. troops were continuing to find Iranian-supplied weaponry including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that uses an infrared guidance system. Other advanced Iranian weaponry found in Iraq includes the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade, 240 mm rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, Fox said. A 240 mm rocket was fired this month at the main U.S. headquarters base in Iraq, killing one person and wounding 11. U.S. officials said the rocket was fired from a west Baghdad neighborhood controlled by Shiite militiamen. On Thursday, U.S. troops arrested an Iranian in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons into Iraq. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Farhadi was in charge of border transactions in western Iran and went to Iraq on an official invitation. He said Iran expects the Iraqi government to provide security for Iranian nationals there and warned the arrest could affect relations between the two neighbors as well.
Al-Maliki also expressed optimism that he will get his Cabinet back up to strength after the walkout in early August by the mainly Sunni Iraqi Accordance Front. He has challenged those Sunni politicians to come back to his government, and said in the interview that if they continue to boycott, he may enlist other Sunnis in their place "We cannot remain with ministerial seats that are empty, and we are in need of the efforts of the ministries and the ministers to provide services to the Iraqis. We want to announce that 2008 is the year of services for the Iraqi people." He called on some Arab countries to give the Iraqi government more support and to stop interference in Iraq's internal affairs by closing their borders to the movement of arms or anti-government insurgents. "The issue of relations with Arab countries has gone through periods of uncertainty," he conceded. "But with the passage of time, the Iraqi government has proven that it is present, supported, strong and represents the will of the Iraqi people. "What we need from the other Arab countries is a lack of interference in our internal affairs."
- The U.S. military accused Iran on Sunday of smuggling surface-to-air missiles and other advanced weapons into Iraq for use against American troops. The new allegations came as Iraqi leaders condemned the latest U.S. detention of an Iranian in northern Iraq, saying the man was in their country on official business. Military spokesman Rear Adm. Mark Fox said U.S. troops were continuing to find Iranian-supplied weaponry including the Misagh 1, a portable surface-to-air missile that uses an infrared guidance system. Other advanced Iranian weaponry found in Iraq includes the RPG-29 rocket-propelled grenade, 240 mm rockets and armor-piercing roadside bombs known as explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, Fox said. A 240 mm rocket was fired this month at the main U.S. headquarters base in Iraq, killing one person and wounding 11. U.S. officials said the rocket was fired from a west Baghdad neighborhood controlled by Shiite militiamen. On Thursday, U.S. troops arrested an Iranian in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. U.S. officials said he was a member of the elite Quds force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards that smuggles weapons into Iraq. Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammad Ali Hosseini said Farhadi was in charge of border transactions in western Iran and went to Iraq on an official invitation. He said Iran expects the Iraqi government to provide security for Iranian nationals there and warned the arrest could affect relations between the two neighbors as well.
Sunday, September 23, 2007
So...Syria...How do it looks?
Is Syria going to attend at the peace conference and at the same time you harbor the exiled terrorist Khaled Meshaal that urging the Palestinians to go out and blow up themselves and carry out suicide attacks in Israel, in attempts to try to stop the conference? Is Syria going to participate in the conference in the very same hour there are firing rockets at Israel, because there sits a psychopath in Damascus saying so, to work against conferences and agreements? Is Syria going to attend at the conference at the same time the exiled sits in Damascus working against the conference and peace agreements, that is meant to result in cooperation between Syria and Israel for security and agreements about Golan. And a own independent state for the Palestinians and "end the occupation", with the pretext that they have right to work against agreements to "end the occupation"?
Don´t you have hospitals in Syria? I mean..some medications for such behavior? Or do Syria thinks it normal and perfectly okay?
Don´t you have hospitals in Syria? I mean..some medications for such behavior? Or do Syria thinks it normal and perfectly okay?
Saturday, September 22, 2007
Terror..
In Gaza, IDF forces attacked a cell responsible for firing mortar shells at Israel, including a round of five mortars that landed on the Israeli side of the Gaza security fence earlier Friday. Also Friday, a Kassam rocket hit the western Negev. Overnight Thursday, IDF forces arrested a man who security forces believed had masterminded a terror attack planned for Tel Aviv this weekend. The suspect, a senior commander of Hamas and the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC), was captured during an IDF operation in Nablus. Earlier on Thursday, IDF forces thwarted the suicide bombing by capturing members of the terrorist cell who were expected to carry out the attack. Israeli Police found an explosives belt in a southern Tel Aviv apartment building early Saturday and said they averted a Hamas suicide bombing on Yom Kippur. During the raid, troops arrested four suspects, including the man planning to carry out the attack and the head of the Hamas military wing in the camp, Nihad Shkirat, officials said.
Lebanon- On Thursday officially indicted 59 members of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group.The state-run National News Agency said the charges were made against 25 arrested Fatah al-Islam members and 34 comrades who remain at large. The charges were made by Attorney General Saeed Mirza. No date has been set for trial of the suspects accused of forming an armed gang with the aim of launching terrorist attacks against the society and the state. A small bomb exploded in the Bekaa Valley's ancient town of Baalbek early Friday, inflicting damage, but causing no casualties. The state-run National News Agency said the bomb went off at 3:20 a.m. in Baalbek's Shrawneh neighborhood near shops that sell vegetables. An assassinated anti-Syrian lawmaker was buried Friday, mourned as the latest Lebanese martyr by hundreds of marchers as the parliament prepared to meet next week to elect a new president. The funeral of Antoine Ghanem, who was killed by a bomb Wednesday, was the latest in what has become a depressing routine for Lebanon in the past two years: crowds marching behind a flag-draped casket, carrying the same banners and shouting the same angry words against the leadership in Damascus. The car bombing in Beirut's Christian neighborhood of Sin el-Fil also killed Ghanem's bodyguard and driver, and three passers-by, while 67 people were wounded. No one has claimed responsibility. Ghanem, 64, of the right-wing Phalange Party, is the eighth political personality to be killed in a wave of assassinations against anti-Syrian figures that began with the bombing death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. Sarah Abu Rjeily, 19, saying Hezbollah's alliance with Syria, which she claimed was behind the assassinations, made it difficult to reconcile. "Let's face it, all the martyrs have been Christians," she said. Legislator Walid Eido, slain in a June bombing, was the only Muslim among the anti-Syrian figures to be killed.
HARGEISA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian troops arrested six men believed to be members of al Qaeda during a cross-border operation in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, a senior Somaliland official said on Saturday.
Lebanon- On Thursday officially indicted 59 members of the Fatah al-Islam terrorist group.The state-run National News Agency said the charges were made against 25 arrested Fatah al-Islam members and 34 comrades who remain at large. The charges were made by Attorney General Saeed Mirza. No date has been set for trial of the suspects accused of forming an armed gang with the aim of launching terrorist attacks against the society and the state. A small bomb exploded in the Bekaa Valley's ancient town of Baalbek early Friday, inflicting damage, but causing no casualties. The state-run National News Agency said the bomb went off at 3:20 a.m. in Baalbek's Shrawneh neighborhood near shops that sell vegetables. An assassinated anti-Syrian lawmaker was buried Friday, mourned as the latest Lebanese martyr by hundreds of marchers as the parliament prepared to meet next week to elect a new president. The funeral of Antoine Ghanem, who was killed by a bomb Wednesday, was the latest in what has become a depressing routine for Lebanon in the past two years: crowds marching behind a flag-draped casket, carrying the same banners and shouting the same angry words against the leadership in Damascus. The car bombing in Beirut's Christian neighborhood of Sin el-Fil also killed Ghanem's bodyguard and driver, and three passers-by, while 67 people were wounded. No one has claimed responsibility. Ghanem, 64, of the right-wing Phalange Party, is the eighth political personality to be killed in a wave of assassinations against anti-Syrian figures that began with the bombing death of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri in February 2005. Sarah Abu Rjeily, 19, saying Hezbollah's alliance with Syria, which she claimed was behind the assassinations, made it difficult to reconcile. "Let's face it, all the martyrs have been Christians," she said. Legislator Walid Eido, slain in a June bombing, was the only Muslim among the anti-Syrian figures to be killed.
HARGEISA, Somalia (Reuters) - Ethiopian troops arrested six men believed to be members of al Qaeda during a cross-border operation in the breakaway republic of Somaliland, a senior Somaliland official said on Saturday.
Twenty-five people have been arrested in connection with the assassination of Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha
BAGHDAD - Twenty-five people have been arrested in connection with the assassination of the leader of the U.S.-backed revolt by Sunni Arab tribesmen in Anbar province against al-Qaida in Iraq, a police official said Friday. Those detained include the head of the security detail that was supposed to protect Sheik Abdul-Sattar Abu Risha, who was killed in a bombing Sept. 13, police Lt. Col. Jubeir Rashid said. Rashid said the security chief, Capt. Karim al-Barghothi, told police that al-Qaida in Iraq offered him $1.5 million but that he was arrested before he could collect the money. Two other bodyguards as well as some of Abu Risha's neighbors were also detained, Rashid said. Abu Risha, who organized 25 Sunni Arab clans into an alliance against al-Qaida, died along with two bodyguards and a driver when a bomb exploded near his walled compound just west of Ramadi, 70 miles west of Baghdad. Iraqi officials said the blast occurred in view of a guard shack and an Iraqi police checkpoint, raising suspicion that the killing was an inside job. The attack occurred 10 days after Abu Risha had met with President Bush in Anbar.
According to Rashid's account, al-Barghothi allowed a suicide car bomber into the compound minutes before Abu Risha was due to enter. The bomber pretended to be parking but detonated his explosives as the tribal leader's vehicle passed about 20 yards away, Rashid said. Another suspect confessed to filming the operation, he said. The details differed from earlier accounts that Abu Risha was struck by a roadside bomb just outside the compound. The suspects were arrested the day after the bombing, Rashid added. He also said Abu Risha had given al-Barghothi money and a house as a wedding gift just six months before the attack, which he said was in the works for a month. The U.S. military said this week that an al-Qaida-linked militant connected to his death and a plot to kill other tribal leaders had been arrested during a raid north of Baghdad. The militant was identified as Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli, an Iraqi also known as Abu Khamis.
The military did not immediately respond to comment about the latest arrests. Ttribesmen in Anbar province have vowed not to be deterred in fighting the terror movement. U.S. officials credit Abu Risha and allied sheiks with a dramatic improvement in security in such Anbar flashpoints as Fallujah and Ramadi after years of American failure to subdue the extremists. U.S. officials now talk of using the Anbar model to organize tribal fighters elsewhere in Iraq.
___
By KIM GAMEL Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.
According to Rashid's account, al-Barghothi allowed a suicide car bomber into the compound minutes before Abu Risha was due to enter. The bomber pretended to be parking but detonated his explosives as the tribal leader's vehicle passed about 20 yards away, Rashid said. Another suspect confessed to filming the operation, he said. The details differed from earlier accounts that Abu Risha was struck by a roadside bomb just outside the compound. The suspects were arrested the day after the bombing, Rashid added. He also said Abu Risha had given al-Barghothi money and a house as a wedding gift just six months before the attack, which he said was in the works for a month. The U.S. military said this week that an al-Qaida-linked militant connected to his death and a plot to kill other tribal leaders had been arrested during a raid north of Baghdad. The militant was identified as Fallah Khalifa Hiyas Fayyas al-Jumayli, an Iraqi also known as Abu Khamis.
The military did not immediately respond to comment about the latest arrests. Ttribesmen in Anbar province have vowed not to be deterred in fighting the terror movement. U.S. officials credit Abu Risha and allied sheiks with a dramatic improvement in security in such Anbar flashpoints as Fallujah and Ramadi after years of American failure to subdue the extremists. U.S. officials now talk of using the Anbar model to organize tribal fighters elsewhere in Iraq.
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By KIM GAMEL Saad Abdul-Kadir contributed to this report.
Afghan government and Taliban strike deal on health
LASHKAR GAH, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghan health officials said on Friday they had brokered a deal with Taliban leaders to allow the immunization of children in rebel-held areas in a rare sign of cooperation between the warring sides.
The deal was made as part of a program by UNICEF to vaccinate more than a million Afghan children against polio after a recent outbreak of the debilitating viral infection that has been eliminated from all but four countries in the world. The Taliban insurgency against the Afghan government and its mainly Western allies has hampered the construction of hospitals and clinics after 30 years of war and prevented health workers reaching many of the sick and injured. But even as fighting raged in the most violent southern province of Helmand, government health officials in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah decided to try to help children on both sides of the frontlines and extend their polio vaccination program to the rebel-held town of Musa Qala. "We approached elders and tribal leaders and went to Pakistan to get a religious ruling from a mullah, but still the Taliban refused to allow us to conduct immunizations," said Dr. Enayatullah, Helmand director of public health. Then they hit on the idea of contacting the only medical professional they knew on the Taliban side -- Mullah Ahmad who used to run a 400-bed emergency hospital under the Taliban. He then persuaded the Taliban governor of Musa Qala.
"Before we couldn't vaccinate because of just one or two people in charge," Dr. Enayatullah told a meeting with U.N. workers. "When they changed their minds, it all became possible."
Other health workers in Lashkar Gah also contacted the medical Mullah Ahmad to use his influence to overturn a threat by one Taliban commander to burn down a clinic in government-held territory because male doctors there had helped women give birth. Helmand, a long fertile river valley etching its way through parched barren desert, has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in Afghanistan since the Taliban rebounded from their 2001 defeat and resumed large-scale attacks two years ago.
The UNICEF vaccination program was aimed to coincide with United Nations peace day, but came as mainly British troops launched a major offensive between Musa Qala and Lashkar Gah. Musa Qala was the scene of intense fighting last year between British forces holed up in the town and besieging Taliban fighters until British troops pulled out in a deal under which tribal elders took control and agreed to keep the Taliban out. But in February the rebels moved in and have set up a shadow fiefdom with their own administrators, courts and officials. United Nations officials and international health workers hope the deal with the Taliban might be a first step to peace. "I hope these vaccination campaigns will continue to be used as a bridge towards peace," said Arshad Quddus, a medical officer with the World Health Organization.
By Jon Hemming
The deal was made as part of a program by UNICEF to vaccinate more than a million Afghan children against polio after a recent outbreak of the debilitating viral infection that has been eliminated from all but four countries in the world. The Taliban insurgency against the Afghan government and its mainly Western allies has hampered the construction of hospitals and clinics after 30 years of war and prevented health workers reaching many of the sick and injured. But even as fighting raged in the most violent southern province of Helmand, government health officials in the provincial capital Lashkar Gah decided to try to help children on both sides of the frontlines and extend their polio vaccination program to the rebel-held town of Musa Qala. "We approached elders and tribal leaders and went to Pakistan to get a religious ruling from a mullah, but still the Taliban refused to allow us to conduct immunizations," said Dr. Enayatullah, Helmand director of public health. Then they hit on the idea of contacting the only medical professional they knew on the Taliban side -- Mullah Ahmad who used to run a 400-bed emergency hospital under the Taliban. He then persuaded the Taliban governor of Musa Qala.
"Before we couldn't vaccinate because of just one or two people in charge," Dr. Enayatullah told a meeting with U.N. workers. "When they changed their minds, it all became possible."
Other health workers in Lashkar Gah also contacted the medical Mullah Ahmad to use his influence to overturn a threat by one Taliban commander to burn down a clinic in government-held territory because male doctors there had helped women give birth. Helmand, a long fertile river valley etching its way through parched barren desert, has been the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in Afghanistan since the Taliban rebounded from their 2001 defeat and resumed large-scale attacks two years ago.
The UNICEF vaccination program was aimed to coincide with United Nations peace day, but came as mainly British troops launched a major offensive between Musa Qala and Lashkar Gah. Musa Qala was the scene of intense fighting last year between British forces holed up in the town and besieging Taliban fighters until British troops pulled out in a deal under which tribal elders took control and agreed to keep the Taliban out. But in February the rebels moved in and have set up a shadow fiefdom with their own administrators, courts and officials. United Nations officials and international health workers hope the deal with the Taliban might be a first step to peace. "I hope these vaccination campaigns will continue to be used as a bridge towards peace," said Arshad Quddus, a medical officer with the World Health Organization.
By Jon Hemming
Iraq
(Reuters) - Iraq's Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki has agreed to look into political demands of the main Sunni Arab political bloc which pulled out of his Shi'ite-led government last month, his office said. Maliki held "positive" talks late on Thursday with members of the Sunni Accordance Front, led by Deputy Prime Minister Salam al-Zobaie, an official in Maliki's office said. "The prime minister ordered the formation of a committee to look into the demands of the Accordance Front regarding the government," the official said.
- Cholera was confirmed Friday in a baby in Basra, the farthest south the outbreak has been detected. Officials expressed concern over a shortage of chlorine needed to prevent the disease from spreading.
Blackwater has said its employees acted "lawfully and appropriately" in response to an armed attack against a U.S. State Department convoy. Several Iraqi witnesses and officials claim the security guards were the first to open fire. U.S. and Iraqi officials have formed a joint committee to probe the widely differing versions of Sunday's deadly shooting allegedly involving Blackwater security guards. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said a report found that the security guards opened fire first on Iraqis who were driving in their cars. The report, Khalaf said, recommended annulling a legal provision that gives immunity to foreign security companies operating in Iraq. It also recommended Blackwater pay compensations to the victims' families and that all foreign security companies be replaced by Iraqi security companies. According to Khalaf, a car bomb detonated around noon Sunday near al-Rahman mosque in Mansour, a mile north of Nisoor Square. "Minutes later, two mortar rounds landed nearby Nisoor Square and they (Blackwater) thought that they were under attack," Khalaf said. A U.S. official in Washington who is familiar with information collected by investigators said the accounts given by witnesses are widely different but most agree that Blackwater guards fired on a car that was acting suspiciously. The car then burst into flames and exploded, the official said, citing Iraqi witness accounts. Americans who were at the scene maintain they were taking fire before the car approached and fired back. Some insist the car exploded without being hit, the official said, declining to be identified before the investigation is final. President Bush has said he expects to discuss the shooting with al-Maliki during a meeting in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session. "Folks like Blackwater who provide security for the State Department are under rules of engagement," Bush said. "They have certain rules. And this commission will determine whether their violated those rules."
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested Thursday in northern Iraq, the U.S. military saidThe military said the suspect was a member of the Quds force — an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards — and was seized from a hotel in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. Two other Iranians were detained in the raid but later released, a Kurdish official said. The Iranian officer was allegedly involved in transporting roadside bombs, including armor-piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, into Iraq, according to a military statement. It said intelligence reports also indicated he was involved in the infiltration and training of foreign fighters in Iraq. At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said the arrest was consistent with U.S. policy and that the Iranian posed a serious threat. "It's a further reflection that they've not ceased those activities that we find troublesome," Whitman said.
Source: Reuters
- Cholera was confirmed Friday in a baby in Basra, the farthest south the outbreak has been detected. Officials expressed concern over a shortage of chlorine needed to prevent the disease from spreading.
Blackwater has said its employees acted "lawfully and appropriately" in response to an armed attack against a U.S. State Department convoy. Several Iraqi witnesses and officials claim the security guards were the first to open fire. U.S. and Iraqi officials have formed a joint committee to probe the widely differing versions of Sunday's deadly shooting allegedly involving Blackwater security guards. Interior Ministry spokesman Maj. Gen. Abdul-Karim Khalaf said a report found that the security guards opened fire first on Iraqis who were driving in their cars. The report, Khalaf said, recommended annulling a legal provision that gives immunity to foreign security companies operating in Iraq. It also recommended Blackwater pay compensations to the victims' families and that all foreign security companies be replaced by Iraqi security companies. According to Khalaf, a car bomb detonated around noon Sunday near al-Rahman mosque in Mansour, a mile north of Nisoor Square. "Minutes later, two mortar rounds landed nearby Nisoor Square and they (Blackwater) thought that they were under attack," Khalaf said. A U.S. official in Washington who is familiar with information collected by investigators said the accounts given by witnesses are widely different but most agree that Blackwater guards fired on a car that was acting suspiciously. The car then burst into flames and exploded, the official said, citing Iraqi witness accounts. Americans who were at the scene maintain they were taking fire before the car approached and fired back. Some insist the car exploded without being hit, the official said, declining to be identified before the investigation is final. President Bush has said he expects to discuss the shooting with al-Maliki during a meeting in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session. "Folks like Blackwater who provide security for the State Department are under rules of engagement," Bush said. "They have certain rules. And this commission will determine whether their violated those rules."
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq - An Iranian officer accused of smuggling powerful roadside bombs into Iraq was arrested Thursday in northern Iraq, the U.S. military saidThe military said the suspect was a member of the Quds force — an elite unit of Iran's Revolutionary Guards — and was seized from a hotel in the Kurdish city of Sulaimaniyah. Two other Iranians were detained in the raid but later released, a Kurdish official said. The Iranian officer was allegedly involved in transporting roadside bombs, including armor-piercing explosively formed penetrators, or EFPs, into Iraq, according to a military statement. It said intelligence reports also indicated he was involved in the infiltration and training of foreign fighters in Iraq. At the Pentagon, spokesman Bryan Whitman said the arrest was consistent with U.S. policy and that the Iranian posed a serious threat. "It's a further reflection that they've not ceased those activities that we find troublesome," Whitman said.
Source: Reuters
Friday, September 21, 2007
The two-month old dig on the Temple Mount is being carried out by Islamic officials with Israeli approval
A group of Israeli archeologists and public officials who petitioned the High Court of Justice against Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and the Antiquities Authority over ongoing Wakf infrastructure work on the Temple Mount were ordered out of the courtroom during a hearing Thursday, an archeologist said.
The members of the nonpartisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount had to leave the courtroom while the state-run archeological body presented "secret" evidence to the court. "It is more than clear that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instructed the Antiquities Authority to cooperate with the Wakf and conceal the damage to antiquities being done during the infrastructure work at the site," said Hebrew University archeologist and leading Temple Mount expert Dr. Eilat Mazar.
The two-month old dig on the Temple Mount is being carried out by Islamic officials with Israeli approval as part of infrastructure work to repair faulty electrical lines on the ancient compound. The independent Israeli archeologists say that the dig, which is being carried out with tractors and other heavy construction machinery, has created a 400-meter long and 1.5 meter deep trench, destroying several layers of ancient remains on the Temple Mount.
The members of the nonpartisan Committee Against the Destruction of Antiquities on the Temple Mount had to leave the courtroom while the state-run archeological body presented "secret" evidence to the court. "It is more than clear that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has instructed the Antiquities Authority to cooperate with the Wakf and conceal the damage to antiquities being done during the infrastructure work at the site," said Hebrew University archeologist and leading Temple Mount expert Dr. Eilat Mazar.
The two-month old dig on the Temple Mount is being carried out by Islamic officials with Israeli approval as part of infrastructure work to repair faulty electrical lines on the ancient compound. The independent Israeli archeologists say that the dig, which is being carried out with tractors and other heavy construction machinery, has created a 400-meter long and 1.5 meter deep trench, destroying several layers of ancient remains on the Temple Mount.
Continuous and direct dialogue between the two sides must be held
In discussing his talks with Abbas, Olmert said "we want to reach understandings that will lead at a later stage, assuming the conditions are ripe, toward an agreement. It is for this purpose that a continuous and direct dialogue between the two sides must be held." Finance Minister Roni Bar-On told Olmert that Kadima will back him but the party members will need to be party to what is going on from the onset "and we will demand that decisions are made with us all, and that the negotiations are conducted with patience, not in a rush."
For his part, Mofaz called on Olmert and asked for his commitment not to move in directions that were contrary to the party consensus, saying that those will require the approval of Kadima organs. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Kadima has a political platform, and that it should be adhered to.
Referring to the joint declaration with the Palestinians that the two sides have been working on, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said this week that "it must be sufficiently substantive. Barak proposed that the government hold exhaustive discussions on Israel's positions and assess the degree of flexibility expected on the part of the Palestinians during the negotiations for a declaration of principles that will be presented during the summit in Washington.
Rice said Olmert and Abbas had come a "very, very long way" since she hosted a meeting between them last February in Jerusalem and she was optimistic Palestinians and Israelis would agree to a joint document on the tough issues that divide them before the conference. "There is clearly a kind of focus and commitment on the part of both of the leaders as well as the people who are working most closely with them to try and get this document done," Rice told reporters before a refueling stop in Shannon. In remarks going to the heart of problems all Israeli leaders have faced in winning support for peace moves, Olmert told a noisy party conference: "I know the reigning opinion in some circles is that we need to wait ... that we mustn't rush or nurture an atmosphere that will lead to serious negotiations. "Those who think that always find excuses ... to avoid seizing opportunities and not look for real chances to break the ice between us and the Palestinians. I do not share this view."
On the eve of the Jewish state's most solemn public holiday Yom Kippur, Olmert noted the rifts in public opinion but vowed to stick to Kadima's electoral commitment to peace talks. "I don't aim to foster a split among us or in the Israeli public. I know the future of Judea and Samaria reaches deep into our soul and that differences among us can tear apart the most delicate and vital fabric of our life," he said. "But I pledge to do my utmost to expand the horizon of hope for a better life and a future of peace and security for the people of Israel." Olmert laid out a cautious program for further meetings to build support for the international conference.
Sources: Reuters and Haaretz
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh held meetings on Thursday with representatives of the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza and asked them to stop firing rockets and mortars at Israel. Kassam rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas sources, both groups expressed willingness to assent to Haniyeh's request, but wanted to wait to see how Israel would respond to a proposed cease-fire.
Well..In our opinion it should not only be "case fires"! It should be a totally stop on firing rockets on children, women and minors, to get women, children and minors released! And to get the door open to the internationally community! And a video tape! And some proof of life! The Palestinians expected a Palestinian state! Not to get isolated in Gaza! And cooperation with Fatah representatives in Gaza! And not try to run Gaza and the Palestinians as a totalitarian state! They have not been working hard to be oppressed by Hamas! Puckon!
For his part, Mofaz called on Olmert and asked for his commitment not to move in directions that were contrary to the party consensus, saying that those will require the approval of Kadima organs. Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said that Kadima has a political platform, and that it should be adhered to.
Referring to the joint declaration with the Palestinians that the two sides have been working on, Defense Minister Ehud Barak said this week that "it must be sufficiently substantive. Barak proposed that the government hold exhaustive discussions on Israel's positions and assess the degree of flexibility expected on the part of the Palestinians during the negotiations for a declaration of principles that will be presented during the summit in Washington.
Rice said Olmert and Abbas had come a "very, very long way" since she hosted a meeting between them last February in Jerusalem and she was optimistic Palestinians and Israelis would agree to a joint document on the tough issues that divide them before the conference. "There is clearly a kind of focus and commitment on the part of both of the leaders as well as the people who are working most closely with them to try and get this document done," Rice told reporters before a refueling stop in Shannon. In remarks going to the heart of problems all Israeli leaders have faced in winning support for peace moves, Olmert told a noisy party conference: "I know the reigning opinion in some circles is that we need to wait ... that we mustn't rush or nurture an atmosphere that will lead to serious negotiations. "Those who think that always find excuses ... to avoid seizing opportunities and not look for real chances to break the ice between us and the Palestinians. I do not share this view."
On the eve of the Jewish state's most solemn public holiday Yom Kippur, Olmert noted the rifts in public opinion but vowed to stick to Kadima's electoral commitment to peace talks. "I don't aim to foster a split among us or in the Israeli public. I know the future of Judea and Samaria reaches deep into our soul and that differences among us can tear apart the most delicate and vital fabric of our life," he said. "But I pledge to do my utmost to expand the horizon of hope for a better life and a future of peace and security for the people of Israel." Olmert laid out a cautious program for further meetings to build support for the international conference.
Sources: Reuters and Haaretz
Hamas Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh held meetings on Thursday with representatives of the Islamic Jihad and the Popular Resistance Committees in Gaza and asked them to stop firing rockets and mortars at Israel. Kassam rockets are launched from the Gaza Strip. According to Hamas sources, both groups expressed willingness to assent to Haniyeh's request, but wanted to wait to see how Israel would respond to a proposed cease-fire.
Well..In our opinion it should not only be "case fires"! It should be a totally stop on firing rockets on children, women and minors, to get women, children and minors released! And to get the door open to the internationally community! And a video tape! And some proof of life! The Palestinians expected a Palestinian state! Not to get isolated in Gaza! And cooperation with Fatah representatives in Gaza! And not try to run Gaza and the Palestinians as a totalitarian state! They have not been working hard to be oppressed by Hamas! Puckon!
Britain has amassed a stockpile of more than 100 metric tons of plutonium -- enough for 17,000 bombs
LONDON (Reuters) - Britain has amassed a stockpile of more than 100 metric tons of plutonium -- enough for 17,000 bombs of the size that flattened Japan's Nagasaki in 1945, a report from the country's top science institution said on Friday.
It´s not enough with having to be able to vanish the earth ones! You need to have so you can be able to do it 30 times!
Gousch!
It´s not enough with having to be able to vanish the earth ones! You need to have so you can be able to do it 30 times!
Gousch!
A happy day?
Israeli Druze Wa'd Monther (2nd L), 26, is embraced by a family member in her home in the northern Druze village of Ein Kiniya before her wedding September 19, 2007. Monther, from the Druze village of Ein Kiniya in the Golan Heights, passed through the Kuneitra crossing from Israel into Syria on Wednesday after parting from her family to wed her Syrian fiancee. The Golan Heights were captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.
Well..That´s what is suppose to be! This is scandalous! Stop destroying the waters and start cooperating! You destroying the waters and breaking up families! That´s against human rights laws! It´s against environment laws. You are criminals with your dam military junk, both Syria and Israel! You should be reported! Cooperate!
Thursday, September 20, 2007
Raids..Yes..It´s a state of war..Isn´t it?
NABLUS, West Bank - A fierce Israeli army raid in a crowded West Bank refugee camp confined thousands to their homes for a third straight day Thursday and residents said they were running out of food and water. In a separate Israeli raid Thursday on the Gaza Strip, four Palestinians were killed. Israeli media reported before sundown Thursday that soldiers captured a cell of four militants from Hamas and the Popular Front groups who were allegedly planning a suicide attack. That was the stated goal of the raid, signaling that it was close to conclusion.
Israeli troops backed by tanks and bulldozers launched the raid Tuesday and two Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in the first two days of fighting. The army said it was allowing food, medicine and ambulances into the camp. But with a tight curfew since Tuesday, some residents said they could not leave their homes to buy food. "There is no food in this house we are in," said Hussam Hamdan, 30. Lara Kanan, 23, said water was running out in some houses because rooftop water tanks had been hit by bullets.
The military said it had arrested 35 suspects during the raid, including three Hamas militants accused of plotting to carry out a suicide bombing. The operation was one of the most extensive in the area in recent months. Damage was widespread. Smoke wafted over the camp, some of it from tires set afire by Palestinians trying to impede the Israelis. In some cases, soldiers crashed through the walls of the flimsy concrete-block houses instead of confronting militants on the narrow streets, residents said. Troops fired rubber-coated bullets to disperse a protest by residents calling for an end to the raid, residents said. Two were wounded.
In the Gaza raid, Israeli troops moved into the central region of the coastal strip to confront squads of militants who fire rockets at Israel almost every day. During the raid, the army said aircraft attacked a vehicle carrying gunmen near its forces. Hamas said one of its fighters was killed. By Thursday afternoon, the operation was over and all forces had left Gaza, the army said. After the operation ended and troops moved out, Gaza medics said they found two more bodies, one a local Hamas leader and the other a bystander. A 17-year-old who died when he was hit by shrapnel and run over by an army bulldozer, Palestinian hospital officials said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Health Ministry in Gaza identified the youth as 17-year-old Mahmoud Kassassi. No militant groups claimed him as a member. The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports of the youth's death.
Israeli troops backed by tanks and bulldozers launched the raid Tuesday and two Palestinians and one Israeli soldier were killed in the first two days of fighting. The army said it was allowing food, medicine and ambulances into the camp. But with a tight curfew since Tuesday, some residents said they could not leave their homes to buy food. "There is no food in this house we are in," said Hussam Hamdan, 30. Lara Kanan, 23, said water was running out in some houses because rooftop water tanks had been hit by bullets.
The military said it had arrested 35 suspects during the raid, including three Hamas militants accused of plotting to carry out a suicide bombing. The operation was one of the most extensive in the area in recent months. Damage was widespread. Smoke wafted over the camp, some of it from tires set afire by Palestinians trying to impede the Israelis. In some cases, soldiers crashed through the walls of the flimsy concrete-block houses instead of confronting militants on the narrow streets, residents said. Troops fired rubber-coated bullets to disperse a protest by residents calling for an end to the raid, residents said. Two were wounded.
In the Gaza raid, Israeli troops moved into the central region of the coastal strip to confront squads of militants who fire rockets at Israel almost every day. During the raid, the army said aircraft attacked a vehicle carrying gunmen near its forces. Hamas said one of its fighters was killed. By Thursday afternoon, the operation was over and all forces had left Gaza, the army said. After the operation ended and troops moved out, Gaza medics said they found two more bodies, one a local Hamas leader and the other a bystander. A 17-year-old who died when he was hit by shrapnel and run over by an army bulldozer, Palestinian hospital officials said. Dr. Moaiya Hassanain of the Health Ministry in Gaza identified the youth as 17-year-old Mahmoud Kassassi. No militant groups claimed him as a member. The Israeli army said it was looking into the reports of the youth's death.
The World Health Organization confirmed on Thursday the first cholera case in Baghdad
BAGHDAD - The World Health Organization confirmed on Thursday the first cholera case in Baghdad since 2003, raising fears the disease is spreading from the north of the country where it has struck more than 1,000 people. The disease broke out in Iraq in mid-August, but had been confined to northern Iraq, affecting the provinces of Sulaimaniyah, Irbil and Tamim, which is home to the oil-rich city of Kirkuk. At least 10 people have died, according to WHO. Several suspected cholera cases also have been reported in Diyala province, north of Baghdad, but al-Gasseer said none had been confirmed. Cholera is endemic to Iraq, with about 30 cases registered each year. But the last time there was an epidemic in the country was in 1999 when 20 cases were discovered in one day, said Adel Muhsin, the Health Ministry's inspector-general.
Al-Gasseer said health authorities were concerned the disease could spread because of the movement of people within Iraq's borders. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been forced to flee their homes because of violence. "We need to look at safe water, safe import of food, hygiene, the network of water and the network of sewage disposal," al-Gasseer said in a telephone interview. The latest WHO report dated Sept. 14 reported a total of 24,532 cases of people with symptoms of cholera such as diarrhea and vomiting in the northern provinces. Out of those, laboratory tests have confirmed 1,055 cases of cholera. It said 10 people have died — nine in Sulaimaniyah and one in Tamim.
Al-Gasseer also said some 100,000 tons of chlorine were being held up at Iraq's border with Jordan, apparently because of fears the chemical could be used in explosives. She urged authorities to release it for use in decontaminating water supplies. Insurgents in the country staged several chlorine truck bombings this year, killing scores of Iraqis. Muhsin confirmed such concerns were holding up the border shipment but said he was told the problem was solved and that the chlorine would arrive soon. Chlorine will be added in higher doses to Baghdad's water supply as a precaution against cholera, Muhsin said. His teams recently tested drinking water across the capital and discovered chlorine levels on 20 locations were inadequate to prevent cholera. Also, several ice factories were closed in Iraq because of cholera concerns, he said.
The Health Ministry would continue checking drinking water in all Iraqi cities, Muhsin told The Associated Press, and teams would inspect ice factories and ice cream makers.
BAGHDAD - Lawyer Hassan Jabir was stuck in traffic when he heard Blackwater USA security contractors shout "Go, Go, Go." Moments later bullets pierced his back, he said Thursday from his hospital bed. Jabir was among about a dozen people wounded Sunday during the shooting in west Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. Iraqi police say at least 11 people were killed. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the shooting as a "crime" by Blackwater, a N.C.-based company that guards American diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq. "No one fired at them," Jabir said of the Blackwater guards. "No one attacked them but they randomly fired at people. So many people died in the street.""After 20 minutes, the Americans told us to turn back," he said. "They shouted 'Go' 'Go' 'Go.'... When we started turning back, the Americans began shooting heavily at us. The traffic policeman was the first person killed." The shooting set off a panic, Jabir said, with men, women and children diving from their vehicles, trying desperately to crawl to safety. U.S. officials have refused to discuss details of the shooting pending completion of the investigation. President Bush told reporters in Washington that he expects to discuss the incident with al-Maliki during a meeting in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session.
"Folks like Blackwater who provide security for the State Department are under rules of engagement," Bush said. "They have certain rules. And this commission will determine whether they violated those rules." According to the official in Washington, most of the Iraqi witnesses say Blackwater guards fired on a car which had acted suspiciously. The car then burst into flames and exploded, according to the Iraqi witnesses. American witnesses maintain they were taking fire before the car approached, and fired back. Some insist the car exploded without being hit, the official said. That version suggests it was a car bomb. Blackwater's operations have been suspended pending completion of a joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation. In the meantime, most U.S. diplomats and civilian officials are confined to the Green Zone or U.S. military bases unless they can travel by helicopter. A U.S. official in Washington who's familiar with information collected by investigators said the accounts given by witnesses are widely different. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not over.
Al-Gasseer said health authorities were concerned the disease could spread because of the movement of people within Iraq's borders. Hundreds of thousands of displaced people have been forced to flee their homes because of violence. "We need to look at safe water, safe import of food, hygiene, the network of water and the network of sewage disposal," al-Gasseer said in a telephone interview. The latest WHO report dated Sept. 14 reported a total of 24,532 cases of people with symptoms of cholera such as diarrhea and vomiting in the northern provinces. Out of those, laboratory tests have confirmed 1,055 cases of cholera. It said 10 people have died — nine in Sulaimaniyah and one in Tamim.
Al-Gasseer also said some 100,000 tons of chlorine were being held up at Iraq's border with Jordan, apparently because of fears the chemical could be used in explosives. She urged authorities to release it for use in decontaminating water supplies. Insurgents in the country staged several chlorine truck bombings this year, killing scores of Iraqis. Muhsin confirmed such concerns were holding up the border shipment but said he was told the problem was solved and that the chlorine would arrive soon. Chlorine will be added in higher doses to Baghdad's water supply as a precaution against cholera, Muhsin said. His teams recently tested drinking water across the capital and discovered chlorine levels on 20 locations were inadequate to prevent cholera. Also, several ice factories were closed in Iraq because of cholera concerns, he said.
The Health Ministry would continue checking drinking water in all Iraqi cities, Muhsin told The Associated Press, and teams would inspect ice factories and ice cream makers.
BAGHDAD - Lawyer Hassan Jabir was stuck in traffic when he heard Blackwater USA security contractors shout "Go, Go, Go." Moments later bullets pierced his back, he said Thursday from his hospital bed. Jabir was among about a dozen people wounded Sunday during the shooting in west Baghdad's Mansour neighborhood. Iraqi police say at least 11 people were killed. Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki described the shooting as a "crime" by Blackwater, a N.C.-based company that guards American diplomats and civilian officials in Iraq. "No one fired at them," Jabir said of the Blackwater guards. "No one attacked them but they randomly fired at people. So many people died in the street.""After 20 minutes, the Americans told us to turn back," he said. "They shouted 'Go' 'Go' 'Go.'... When we started turning back, the Americans began shooting heavily at us. The traffic policeman was the first person killed." The shooting set off a panic, Jabir said, with men, women and children diving from their vehicles, trying desperately to crawl to safety. U.S. officials have refused to discuss details of the shooting pending completion of the investigation. President Bush told reporters in Washington that he expects to discuss the incident with al-Maliki during a meeting in New York next week on the sidelines of the U.N. General Assembly session.
"Folks like Blackwater who provide security for the State Department are under rules of engagement," Bush said. "They have certain rules. And this commission will determine whether they violated those rules." According to the official in Washington, most of the Iraqi witnesses say Blackwater guards fired on a car which had acted suspiciously. The car then burst into flames and exploded, according to the Iraqi witnesses. American witnesses maintain they were taking fire before the car approached, and fired back. Some insist the car exploded without being hit, the official said. That version suggests it was a car bomb. Blackwater's operations have been suspended pending completion of a joint U.S.-Iraqi investigation. In the meantime, most U.S. diplomats and civilian officials are confined to the Green Zone or U.S. military bases unless they can travel by helicopter. A U.S. official in Washington who's familiar with information collected by investigators said the accounts given by witnesses are widely different. He spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is not over.
IAEA members should follow suit to seek universal compliance with the NPT and "avoid double standards" in the Middle East.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Islamic nations, targeting Israel's undeclared nuclear arsenal, pushed through a U.N. atomic watchdog resolution on Thursday urging all Middle East nations to renounce atomic weapons. The vote was 53-2 but with 47 abstentions by Western and developing states, highlighting reservations that the resolution politicized the International Atomic Energy Agency's work.
The decision was non-binding but symbolized international tensions over Israel's presumed nuclear might and shunning of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it frayed the traditional consensus culture of the Vienna-based IAEA. A similar measure calling on all Middle East nations to adopt IAEA safeguards on nuclear work passed overwhelmingly at last year's IAEA general assembly, with only Israel and top ally the United States opposed, as they were again on Thursday.
Egypt reintroduced the resolution this year seeking full consensus but attached two new clauses that prompted Israel to demand a vote and European, other Western and non-aligned developing nations to abstain. One clause urged all nations in the Middle East, pending creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) there, not to make or test nuclear arms or let them be deployed on their soil. The other urged big nuclear arms powers not to foil such a step. "The new language threatened to bring new political issues into the IAEA that would ultimately detract from the technical role the IAEA plays in safeguarding nuclear material," said a Western diplomat whose delegation abstained. Egyptian ambassador Ehab Fawzy said the U.N. General Assembly passed the same measure by consensus and IAEA members should follow suit to seek universal compliance with the NPT and "avoid double standards" in the Middle East.
Israel bemoaned the vote, saying that while a NWFZ was a commendable ideal, "we can have no illusions" as long as some Arab neighbors continued not to recognize the Jewish state, with Islamist Iran openly calling for its elimination. Without peaceful relations in the region, "any steps diminishing security margins should be mutual. You aim high but start modestly with confidence-building, inevitably a long and enduring process," said Israeli envoy Israel Michaeli. Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, though it has never confirmed or denied it.
Iran, under U.N. sanctions for refusing to halt a nuclear energy program seen as a possible covert bid for atom bombs, told the assembly that whoever opposed the resolution betrayed a "discriminatory" approach to Middle East security. Arab diplomats point to a chronic imbalance of power in the Middle East caused by Israeli might and say it breeds instability and spurs others to seek mass-destruction weaponry. European diplomats said their missions abstained because, while they backed universal IAEA non-proliferation controls in the Middle East, the amended resolution flouted the agency's non-political ethos and sought to corner one country. "The IAEA is not the place to solve complex Middle East political problems. This measure was not about finding rational solutions, or any consensus, but to score points and antagonize," said a senior European Union diplomat.
The issue was expected to split the assembly again on its last day on Friday when Arabs intended to revive a resolution declaring Israel a "threat" and demanding it use atomic energy only for peaceful ends and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. A year ago, Western nations sponsored a "no-action" ballot that prevented a vote on the "threat" resolution. The sole EU nation to vote for Thursday's resolution was staunchly anti-nuclear Ireland. China, India, Russia and Japan also voted yes, as did U.S. foes Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
By Mark Heinrich , Karin Strohecker
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070920/wl_nm/nuclear_iaea_israel_dc
The decision was non-binding but symbolized international tensions over Israel's presumed nuclear might and shunning of the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), and it frayed the traditional consensus culture of the Vienna-based IAEA. A similar measure calling on all Middle East nations to adopt IAEA safeguards on nuclear work passed overwhelmingly at last year's IAEA general assembly, with only Israel and top ally the United States opposed, as they were again on Thursday.
Egypt reintroduced the resolution this year seeking full consensus but attached two new clauses that prompted Israel to demand a vote and European, other Western and non-aligned developing nations to abstain. One clause urged all nations in the Middle East, pending creation of a nuclear weapons-free zone (NWFZ) there, not to make or test nuclear arms or let them be deployed on their soil. The other urged big nuclear arms powers not to foil such a step. "The new language threatened to bring new political issues into the IAEA that would ultimately detract from the technical role the IAEA plays in safeguarding nuclear material," said a Western diplomat whose delegation abstained. Egyptian ambassador Ehab Fawzy said the U.N. General Assembly passed the same measure by consensus and IAEA members should follow suit to seek universal compliance with the NPT and "avoid double standards" in the Middle East.
Israel bemoaned the vote, saying that while a NWFZ was a commendable ideal, "we can have no illusions" as long as some Arab neighbors continued not to recognize the Jewish state, with Islamist Iran openly calling for its elimination. Without peaceful relations in the region, "any steps diminishing security margins should be mutual. You aim high but start modestly with confidence-building, inevitably a long and enduring process," said Israeli envoy Israel Michaeli. Israel is widely assumed to have the Middle East's only nuclear arsenal, though it has never confirmed or denied it.
Iran, under U.N. sanctions for refusing to halt a nuclear energy program seen as a possible covert bid for atom bombs, told the assembly that whoever opposed the resolution betrayed a "discriminatory" approach to Middle East security. Arab diplomats point to a chronic imbalance of power in the Middle East caused by Israeli might and say it breeds instability and spurs others to seek mass-destruction weaponry. European diplomats said their missions abstained because, while they backed universal IAEA non-proliferation controls in the Middle East, the amended resolution flouted the agency's non-political ethos and sought to corner one country. "The IAEA is not the place to solve complex Middle East political problems. This measure was not about finding rational solutions, or any consensus, but to score points and antagonize," said a senior European Union diplomat.
The issue was expected to split the assembly again on its last day on Friday when Arabs intended to revive a resolution declaring Israel a "threat" and demanding it use atomic energy only for peaceful ends and join the Non-Proliferation Treaty. A year ago, Western nations sponsored a "no-action" ballot that prevented a vote on the "threat" resolution. The sole EU nation to vote for Thursday's resolution was staunchly anti-nuclear Ireland. China, India, Russia and Japan also voted yes, as did U.S. foes Iran, Venezuela and Cuba.
By Mark Heinrich , Karin Strohecker
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070920/wl_nm/nuclear_iaea_israel_dc
This is bullshit!
KHARTOUM (Reuters) - Al Qaeda urged Sudanese Muslims on Thursday to fight African Union.
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to wage a holy war against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a new recording released Thursday, saying his military's siege of a militant mosque stronghold makes him an infidel.
CAIRO, Egypt - Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden called on Pakistanis to wage a holy war against President Gen. Pervez Musharraf in a new recording released Thursday, saying his military's siege of a militant mosque stronghold makes him an infidel.
We believe you.... Getting lost..
Russia has acknowledged that its aircraft violated Finnish airspace last week, but said that it was unintentional, Finland's Foreign Ministry said Thursday. A Russian military transporter plane flew about 4.5 kilometers into Finnish airspace along the southern coast for three minutes on Sept. 14, prompting Finland to demand an explanation from Moscow. "According to Russia's investigation, the violation of airspace was not intentional; it was caused by inadequate exchange of information between the flight crew and ground stations," the ministry said. "Russia regretted the incident and proposed that specialist discussions be held so that corresponding situations could be avoided in future."
Wednesday, September 19, 2007
Stop using American security firm Blackwater
BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki suggested on Wednesday the U.S. embassy stop using American security firm Blackwater after a deadly shooting and said he would not allow Iraqis to be killed in "cold blood."
Israel declares Gaza 'enemy entity'
Israel did not set a date for a cutback on services, meant to force Palestinian militants in Gaza to halt rocket fire on southern Israel. Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's office said Israel did not intend to create a humanitarian crisis. We will not abandon the innocent Palestinians in Gaza, and indeed will make every effort to deal with their humanitarian needs."Olmert, meanwhile, is scheduled to convene the security cabinet on Wednesday to discuss the situation in Gaza. The security cabinet is scheduled to hear recommendations from a committee set up two weeks ago to look into the legal and diplomatic ramifications of cutting off utilities to Gaza in the wake of unrelenting Kassam rocket attacks.Ramon raised the idea earlier this month after a Kassam struck the courtyard of a daycare center in Sderot. Olmert, according to sources in his office, remains opposed to the idea, on the grounds that it would not stop the attacks.The government decided to declare the Gaza Strip an enemy entity on Wednesday, choosing to adopt a plan presented by Defense Minister Ehud Barak during the security cabinet meeting in which it was recommended that electricity be cut off the region's 1.4 million Palestinian residents.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the plan, calling it "an oppressive decision."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking at a joint news conference, said Israel was not obliged to deliver anything to Gaza beyond humanitarian aid. Legal experts have reviewed the planned sanctions to make sure they conform with international law, she added. "When it comes to the humanitarian needs, we have our own responsibilities," Livni said. "All the needs which are more than humanitarian needs will not be supplied by Israel to Gaza Strip."
A Hamas official said the group's exiled leaders in Damascus would meet with their Islamic Jihad counterparts to discuss the possibility of halting the rocket fire. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for most rocket attacks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a date for the meeting had not been set.
Following the decision, a UN official called the move problematic, telling Army Radio that since Gaza was still under Israeli occupation and Israel controlled all crossings in and out of the area, collective punishment of all Gaza residents would constitute a violation of international law.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said his group would "confront the new aggression and escalation with all possible means." Hamas spokesperson on Wednesday called the security cabinet's decision to declare the Gaza Strip an enemy entity a comprehensive declaration of war, for which Israel would bear the consequences. The spokesman said Hamas would work to get international backing to prevent Israel from cutting off Gaza's water, electricity and fuel supply - a step it would now be able to take if it so chose and following legal examination.
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas condemned the plan, calling it "an oppressive decision."
Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, speaking at a joint news conference, said Israel was not obliged to deliver anything to Gaza beyond humanitarian aid. Legal experts have reviewed the planned sanctions to make sure they conform with international law, she added. "When it comes to the humanitarian needs, we have our own responsibilities," Livni said. "All the needs which are more than humanitarian needs will not be supplied by Israel to Gaza Strip."
A Hamas official said the group's exiled leaders in Damascus would meet with their Islamic Jihad counterparts to discuss the possibility of halting the rocket fire. Islamic Jihad has claimed responsibility for most rocket attacks. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because a date for the meeting had not been set.
Following the decision, a UN official called the move problematic, telling Army Radio that since Gaza was still under Israeli occupation and Israel controlled all crossings in and out of the area, collective punishment of all Gaza residents would constitute a violation of international law.
Sami Abu Zuhri, a Hamas spokesman, said his group would "confront the new aggression and escalation with all possible means." Hamas spokesperson on Wednesday called the security cabinet's decision to declare the Gaza Strip an enemy entity a comprehensive declaration of war, for which Israel would bear the consequences. The spokesman said Hamas would work to get international backing to prevent Israel from cutting off Gaza's water, electricity and fuel supply - a step it would now be able to take if it so chose and following legal examination.
A bomb rocked a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and six other people
BEIRUT, Lebanon - A bomb rocked a Christian suburb east of the Lebanese capital Wednesday, killing an anti-Syrian lawmaker and six other people, security officials said. Antoine Ghanem is the eighth prominent anti-Syrian figure assassinated since 2005. Ghanem, 64, a member of the right-wing Christian Phalange Party, was targeted by the bomb, said the officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media. The Voice of Lebanon radio station, which is owned by the Phalange party, confirmed Ghanem's death. The identities of the others killed were not immediately known. The attack came six days before parliament was scheduled to meet to elect a new president in a vote expected to be deeply divisive. Three of the slain lawmakers have been from the U.S.-backed majority coalition, reducing its margin in parliament. A local television station, LBC, said 20 people were wounded in the blast in the Sin el-Fil district. Video showed severe damage in nearby buildings and several cars on fire. The explosion sent a cloud of gray smoke over the area, and blood covered parts of the street. The assassinations of anti-Syrian figures began with former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, who was killed in a massive car bombing in February 2005. Syria's opponents in Lebanon have accused Damascus of being behind the killings, a claim Syria denies. His death sparked massive protests that helped bring an end to Syria's nearly 30-year domination of Lebanon. Damascus was forced to withdraw its troops from Lebanon in 2005, and a government led by anti-Syrian politicians was elected. Since then, the government of U.S.-backed Prime Minister Fuad Saniora has been locked in a power struggle with the opposition, led by Syria's ally Hezbollah. Government supporters have accused Syria of seeking to end Saniora's slim majority in parliament by killing off lawmakers in his coalition. After the assassination of Parliament member Walid Eido in June, many majority legislators spent the summer abroad for security reasons. Others who stayed took extra precautions.
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press
By ZEINA KARAM, Associated Press
"Nobody wants to have a meeting where people simply come and sit and talk and talk and talk"
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said a US-sponsored Mideast peace conference this fall will confront "critical issues" in the six-decade conflict between Israel and the Palestinians.
"Nobody wants to have a meeting where people simply come and sit and talk and talk and talk," Rice said Wednesday en route to a quick visit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. "We want to advance the cause of peace". Rice waved off questions about the conference agenda and attendance list, saying she will have more to say soon.
"Nobody wants to have a meeting where people simply come and sit and talk and talk and talk," Rice said Wednesday en route to a quick visit with Israeli and Palestinian leaders. "We want to advance the cause of peace". Rice waved off questions about the conference agenda and attendance list, saying she will have more to say soon.
Dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.
Proof of cooperation between Iran and Syria in the development and proliferation of weapons of mass destruction was brought to light Monday in a report that dozens of Iranian engineers and 15 Syrian officers were killed in a July 23 accident in Syria.
According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas and VX gas. The factory was created specifically for the purposes of altering ballistic missiles to carry chemical payloads, the magazine report claimed.
Reports of the accident were circulated at the time, however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection. According to Global Security.org, Syria is not a signatory of either the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), - an international agreement banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons, or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Syria began developing chemical weapons in 1973, just before the Yom Kippur War. Global Security.org cites the country as having one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Middle East.
According to the report, cited by Channel 10, the joint Syrian-Iranian team was attempting to mount a chemical warhead on a scud missile when the explosion occurred, spreading lethal chemical agents, including sarin nerve gas and VX gas. The factory was created specifically for the purposes of altering ballistic missiles to carry chemical payloads, the magazine report claimed.
Reports of the accident were circulated at the time, however, no details were released by the Syrian government, and there were no hints of an Iranian connection. According to Global Security.org, Syria is not a signatory of either the Chemical Weapons Convention (CWC), - an international agreement banning the production, stockpiling or use of chemical weapons, or the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). Syria began developing chemical weapons in 1973, just before the Yom Kippur War. Global Security.org cites the country as having one of the most advanced chemical weapons programs in the Middle East.
Tuesday, September 18, 2007
Two civilians were killed and six others injured when a roadside bomb went off
Tahseen Ali, 27, is treated for his wounds after the bombing of a minibus in Baghdad, Iraq, on Tuesday, Sept. 18, 2007. Two civilians were killed and six others injured when a roadside bomb went off around 9:30 a.m. (05:30 GMT) next to a mini bus traveling through Baghdad's eastern neighborhood of Baladiyat, the police officer added.
Ghana...
As it is, many have lost everything to the floods. Farmer Majid Issaka from the Builsa district, one of the worst affected, saw his farm on the edge of a river disappear beneath the floodwaters. "I came and saw the crops were destroyed," he said. He and others feared disease fomented by the floods would cause many more victims from cholera and malaria. "The mosquitoes are coming and many people have been falling sick," he said.
George Isaac Amoo, national coordinator of Ghana's National Disaster Management Organisation, said that, while floodwaters were receding in most places, there was a serious threat of food shortages unless more rapid relief arrived for the victims. The rains and floods inflicted extensive damage on a northern region that was traditionally Ghana's major food basket, growing rice, maize, millet and sorghum. "This flood is unprecedented; thousands of acres of farmland have been destroyed, including livestock," Amoo said "Barns and silos ... stored food ... Infrastructure like bridges and roads have all been destroyed," he added. Ghana's government was distributing food rations and United Nations experts were up in the north assessing emergency needs. Cocoa, Ghana's main export, is not grown in the flood-hit north, but heavier than normal rain has produced black pod, a fungal infection, in some major producing areas.
George Isaac Amoo, national coordinator of Ghana's National Disaster Management Organisation, said that, while floodwaters were receding in most places, there was a serious threat of food shortages unless more rapid relief arrived for the victims. The rains and floods inflicted extensive damage on a northern region that was traditionally Ghana's major food basket, growing rice, maize, millet and sorghum. "This flood is unprecedented; thousands of acres of farmland have been destroyed, including livestock," Amoo said "Barns and silos ... stored food ... Infrastructure like bridges and roads have all been destroyed," he added. Ghana's government was distributing food rations and United Nations experts were up in the north assessing emergency needs. Cocoa, Ghana's main export, is not grown in the flood-hit north, but heavier than normal rain has produced black pod, a fungal infection, in some major producing areas.
Meteorite or test firing?
LIMA (Reuters) - Dozens of people living in a Peruvian town near Lake Titicaca reported vomiting and headaches after they went to look at a crater apparently left by a meteorite that crashed down over the weekend, health officials said on Tuesday. After hearing a loud noise, people went to see what had happened and found a crater 65 feet wide and 22 feet deep on an uninhabited plateau near Carancas in the Puno region. Experts from Peru's Geophysical Institute are on their way to the area 800 miles south of Lima to verify whether it was a meteorite.
"We've examined about 100 people who got near to the meteorite crater who have vomiting and headaches because of gasses coming out of there," Jorge Lopez, health director in Puno, told Reuters. "People are scared," he said. Lopez said people went to the site after hearing a crash that they thought might be an airplane. "We ourselves went near the crater and now we've got irritated throats and itching noses," Lopez said. The site is near the border with Bolivia and experts from San Andres university in La Paz said initial analyses of sand samples from the crater showed that it could be a meteorite, according to newspaper reports. Luisa Macedo, a geologist with the Mining Geology and Metallurgy Institute in Lima, told Reuters the reaction between the elements in a meteorite and the Earth's surface can generate gases that then dissipate. Meteorites fell in 2002 and 2004 in the Andean area of Arequipa in southern Peru, Hernando Tavera, head of the Peruvian Geophysical Institute, told Reuters.
By Teresa Cespedes Additional reporting by Carlos Alberto Quiroga in La Paz
"We've examined about 100 people who got near to the meteorite crater who have vomiting and headaches because of gasses coming out of there," Jorge Lopez, health director in Puno, told Reuters. "People are scared," he said. Lopez said people went to the site after hearing a crash that they thought might be an airplane. "We ourselves went near the crater and now we've got irritated throats and itching noses," Lopez said. The site is near the border with Bolivia and experts from San Andres university in La Paz said initial analyses of sand samples from the crater showed that it could be a meteorite, according to newspaper reports. Luisa Macedo, a geologist with the Mining Geology and Metallurgy Institute in Lima, told Reuters the reaction between the elements in a meteorite and the Earth's surface can generate gases that then dissipate. Meteorites fell in 2002 and 2004 in the Andean area of Arequipa in southern Peru, Hernando Tavera, head of the Peruvian Geophysical Institute, told Reuters.
By Teresa Cespedes Additional reporting by Carlos Alberto Quiroga in La Paz
A bomb exploded under an oil pipeline causing huge quantities of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River
BAGHDAD - A bomb exploded under an oil pipeline near the northern city of Beiji on Tuesday, causing huge quantities of crude oil to spill into the Tigris River, a police official said. The U.S. military blamed al-Qaida insurgents.
"This act of terrorism is barbaric and demented. This demonstrates al-Qaida does not care about the Iraqi people or the environment," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly told The Associated Press. Donnelly said workers from Iraq's Northern Oil Company were trying to prevent the spill from endangering the river, crops and livestock dependent on river water. Later the in the day, the spill reached the central city of Tikrit, more than 60 miles to the south, residents and local officials said. Water stations closed in both cities, Tikrit and Beiji. It was not clear if irrigation officials would allow the spill to reach Baghdad or would block it at Samarra dam, which diverts water into Tharthar lake north of the Iraqi capital. Insurgents have been attacking the oil industry for years to try deprive the government of money needed for the country's reconstruction.
"This act of terrorism is barbaric and demented. This demonstrates al-Qaida does not care about the Iraqi people or the environment," U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Michael Donnelly told The Associated Press. Donnelly said workers from Iraq's Northern Oil Company were trying to prevent the spill from endangering the river, crops and livestock dependent on river water. Later the in the day, the spill reached the central city of Tikrit, more than 60 miles to the south, residents and local officials said. Water stations closed in both cities, Tikrit and Beiji. It was not clear if irrigation officials would allow the spill to reach Baghdad or would block it at Samarra dam, which diverts water into Tharthar lake north of the Iraqi capital. Insurgents have been attacking the oil industry for years to try deprive the government of money needed for the country's reconstruction.
We said: Clean up the coasts in Africa!
It´s a major work to be done there with taking care of all the junk and decontamination ..It´s not other countries private junk yards! There are waters there that are very important!
Waters and air don´t stand still! It circulates all around this planet!
Don´t for one moment think that your junk and polluted waters don´t will affect you! Africa is not your private junk yard!
Waters and air don´t stand still! It circulates all around this planet!
Don´t for one moment think that your junk and polluted waters don´t will affect you! Africa is not your private junk yard!
Where did we hear that before..
"Conspiracy fabricated by those who oppose the North's improving ties with Washington."
It was the same with "some circles that opposes Iran´s relation with Turkey", with weapon transportation's on Turkeys border from Iran to Syria. It´s exactly the same excuses and statements used by Hamas as a defend for their own criminal actions!
It was the same with "some circles that opposes Iran´s relation with Turkey", with weapon transportation's on Turkeys border from Iran to Syria. It´s exactly the same excuses and statements used by Hamas as a defend for their own criminal actions!
So...Iran has banned Google now..
As one Gaza citizen wrote:
Help US!!!!!!!!!!!State: Gaza StripSomeone please help us Hamas is turning Gaza into Hell they have so many strict rules Gaza is becoming like the Islamic Republic of IranWe want Fatah and Abu mazen back im sorry im hungry. i want peace and food some one please help the people of Gaza.
3,000-year-old site buried underneath a 7th century Philistine rural village from the Second Iron Age
A building from the Late Bronze Age apparently constructed for Egyptian authorities before the Israelite settlement in the Land of Israel has been uncovered in an excavation on the edge of the Negev desert near the Gaza Strip, Ben-Gurion University announced Monday.
The month-long summer dig on the eastern section of the Besor Stream, about 12 kilometers east of Gaza, revealed the 3,000-year-old site buried underneath a 7th century Philistine rural village from the Second Iron Age, said Ben-Gurion University archeologist Dr. Gunnar Lehmann. The Israeli and German archeologists working on the dig had known of the existence of the Philistine village at the site due to earlier surface exploration in the area, but were stunned to find the much earlier structure which lay underneath it, he said. About 10-15 such buildings are known to exist off the Egyptian border, but most have been found in an urban context. "We did not expect to find an administrative building in such a rural site," Lehmann said.
The site has features of Egyptian architecture, as well as Egyptian pottery and amulets.
Archeologists are not sure why this site was built there, but assume it was some type of rural estate. Among the signs of the Philistine village which existed at the site include a taboon for pita bread, the remains of a wine press installation and storage jars for agriculture.
Source jerusalem Post
The month-long summer dig on the eastern section of the Besor Stream, about 12 kilometers east of Gaza, revealed the 3,000-year-old site buried underneath a 7th century Philistine rural village from the Second Iron Age, said Ben-Gurion University archeologist Dr. Gunnar Lehmann. The Israeli and German archeologists working on the dig had known of the existence of the Philistine village at the site due to earlier surface exploration in the area, but were stunned to find the much earlier structure which lay underneath it, he said. About 10-15 such buildings are known to exist off the Egyptian border, but most have been found in an urban context. "We did not expect to find an administrative building in such a rural site," Lehmann said.
The site has features of Egyptian architecture, as well as Egyptian pottery and amulets.
Archeologists are not sure why this site was built there, but assume it was some type of rural estate. Among the signs of the Philistine village which existed at the site include a taboon for pita bread, the remains of a wine press installation and storage jars for agriculture.
Source jerusalem Post
We said: Let them work!
65 illegal workers were arrested by special police forces on Monday, Police reported. The illegal workers were all West Bank residents. Criminal records were opened against three Israeli citizens for employing the workers and for supplying them with illegal residency inside Israel.
Let those work that already have work! You should be able to manage that when security conditions is better! Make them legal workers! It´s in both the Israelis and in the Palestinians interests! It´s far better to work than to just hanging around doing nothing or getting into destructive activities!
Let those work that already have work! You should be able to manage that when security conditions is better! Make them legal workers! It´s in both the Israelis and in the Palestinians interests! It´s far better to work than to just hanging around doing nothing or getting into destructive activities!
Give them trees and solar cell energy!
NAIROBI (Reuters) - Fears mounted on Monday that downpours which have killed dozens in Africa, uprooted hundreds of thousands and devastated crops could continue past the end of the rainy season and hit areas that have so far escaped floods.
We are calling on the international community to come to their rescue before it is too late," said Musa Ecweru, minister for disaster preparedness in Uganda, where 300,000 people have already been affected and at least nine killed.
Africa need trees and solar cell energy. Give them solar cell energy to cook on! There is no more collecting wood! There is technology with solar cell energy that are excellent for cooking. In fact..Much better to preserve vitamins and minerals than in other ways! Yes..Give them solar cell energy! And clean up the coasts from all junk that comes from other countries and places!
http://www.irn.org/
http://www.irn.org/programs/bujagali/index.php?id=070426wbignores.html
We are calling on the international community to come to their rescue before it is too late," said Musa Ecweru, minister for disaster preparedness in Uganda, where 300,000 people have already been affected and at least nine killed.
Africa need trees and solar cell energy. Give them solar cell energy to cook on! There is no more collecting wood! There is technology with solar cell energy that are excellent for cooking. In fact..Much better to preserve vitamins and minerals than in other ways! Yes..Give them solar cell energy! And clean up the coasts from all junk that comes from other countries and places!
http://www.irn.org/
http://www.irn.org/programs/bujagali/index.php?id=070426wbignores.html
Ehud Olmert said Israel was prepared for peace negotiations with Syria
JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said Israel was prepared for peace negotiations with Syria under the right conditions but refused to answer questions Monday about a widely reported Israeli air attack in northern Syria. "I have a lot of respect for the Syrian leader and for Syrian policy. They have internal problems, but we have no reason to rule out dialogue with Syria," Olmert was quoted as saying by the Haaretz daily. Olmert has made the same offer of peace talks many times in the past, but this was the first time he has mentioned Syria since the reported airstrike. In 2000, Israel-Syria talks neared agreement but broke down over final border and peace arrangements. "As I've said in the past, we want to make peace with everyone," Olmert said in the Monday meeting, according to the paper. "If the conditions ripen, we are ready to make peace with Syria, with no preconditions and no ultimatums."
Monday, September 17, 2007
President Lech Kaczynski visited the Russian forest where thousands of Polish officers were executed in 1940.
KATYN, Russia (Reuters) - President Lech Kaczynski signaled on Monday he wanted a fresh start in Poland's strained relations with Moscow when he visited the Russian forest where thousands of Polish officers were executed in 1940.
Kaczynski, dressed in black, laid a wreath at the site of the World War Two massacre in Katyn, western Russia, and said Poland and Russia should not dwell on past grievances. "We have a democratic Poland and we have a new Russia -- there is no more Soviet Union, no more communist totalitarianism," said Kaczynski. The massacres at Katyn and two other sites, in which 15,000 Polish officers were shot and thrown into pits, are regarded by most Poles as symbols of the repression their country suffered during decades of Soviet control.
Since Kaczynski came to power two years ago, Warsaw has blocked European Union partnership talks with Russia over a trade dispute, accused Moscow of using energy as a political weapon and angered the Kremlin by offering to host elements of a U.S. missile defense shield that Russia opposes. On his first visit to Russia, Kaczynski said the Katyn executions were "an act of genocide" but he absolved modern-day Russia of any residual responsibility. "Today we must commemorate them (the victims), we must remember them -- and we shall remember them. Historical memory is extremely important, both of good and of evil. But this does not mean that we intend only to live this memory," he said.
"Of those who committed crimes at Katyn, hardly any are still alive. Those who govern Russia and Poland today were, as far as they were alive then, very young children and do not bear any responsibility for events that took place there. "We have thus to live in the future ... and to the past we must look calmly, with balance, but also with regard for the truth." The Polish president said Warsaw wanted good relations with all its neighbors.
Kaczynski, dressed in black, laid a wreath at the site of the World War Two massacre in Katyn, western Russia, and said Poland and Russia should not dwell on past grievances. "We have a democratic Poland and we have a new Russia -- there is no more Soviet Union, no more communist totalitarianism," said Kaczynski. The massacres at Katyn and two other sites, in which 15,000 Polish officers were shot and thrown into pits, are regarded by most Poles as symbols of the repression their country suffered during decades of Soviet control.
Since Kaczynski came to power two years ago, Warsaw has blocked European Union partnership talks with Russia over a trade dispute, accused Moscow of using energy as a political weapon and angered the Kremlin by offering to host elements of a U.S. missile defense shield that Russia opposes. On his first visit to Russia, Kaczynski said the Katyn executions were "an act of genocide" but he absolved modern-day Russia of any residual responsibility. "Today we must commemorate them (the victims), we must remember them -- and we shall remember them. Historical memory is extremely important, both of good and of evil. But this does not mean that we intend only to live this memory," he said.
"Of those who committed crimes at Katyn, hardly any are still alive. Those who govern Russia and Poland today were, as far as they were alive then, very young children and do not bear any responsibility for events that took place there. "We have thus to live in the future ... and to the past we must look calmly, with balance, but also with regard for the truth." The Polish president said Warsaw wanted good relations with all its neighbors.
Now..
Get representatives from the Israeli and the Palestinian communities from Hebron and gather them in meetings! There is water discussions there. Plant olive trees there! And there are olive trees that needs to be planted every here and there and in the North of the Gaza strip! Before there is more mud catastrophes! And Palestinians that already have work that needs to get working permissions! And make some framework or whatever you like to call it that can be discussed and approved in the cabinet! And get the political process going in Jerusalem! There is no wall going to be drawn right through Jerusalem!
And cooperate to save and preserve the Temple Mount/The Noble Sanctuary! it´s a ancient site! it´s one of earths most important cultural heritage site. Both for Israelis and Palestinians and to people all over the world! It´s protected under international laws! Or suppose to be! It´s criminal do destroy anything there! There is no ones but authorized archaeologists that is going to do anything there!
Etc...Etc..
And cooperate to save and preserve the Temple Mount/The Noble Sanctuary! it´s a ancient site! it´s one of earths most important cultural heritage site. Both for Israelis and Palestinians and to people all over the world! It´s protected under international laws! Or suppose to be! It´s criminal do destroy anything there! There is no ones but authorized archaeologists that is going to do anything there!
Etc...Etc..
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