PLO official says foiled bomber was not from Ain al-Hilweh
By Agence France Presse (AFP)
But Munir Maqdah, the Palestinian Liberation Organization security chief in Lebanon, told AFP he was carrying a forged Palestinian refugee identity card and that the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian refugees had no record of such a person.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/
arti...rticle_id=92700
Horse-drawn buggies give ‘ghost town’ a lift
it is part of a Palestinian drive to revive Hebron’s historic centre, where routine life and economic activity have been virtually halted by about 650 Jewish settlers – some of the West Bank’s most militant – and the Israeli soldiers who guard them.
-
No room for Israel in Egyptian hearts or maps
Maps sold in Cairo's main bookshops omit Israel, with the area comprising Israel and the occupied territories simply labeled "Palestine" in Arabic.
... Maps of the region sold in Egypt are often produced in other countries such as Syria or Lebanon. "No, there are no maps with the name Israel. We follow the rest of the Arab world in this, peace treaty or not," snapped Ibrahim Mahmud, who works in a bookshop in downtown Fagalla Street.
...The fact that maps in geography textbooks for 13-year-olds do not mention Israel is for him "Israel's fault because it refuses to fix the borders."
The ongoing struggle in Ni’lin
In the past weeks, the village of Ni’lin has been a site of active struggle against the latest Occupation land grab. Frequent protests and confrontations between villagers and Occupation soldiers have occurred on the site where bulldozers are razing land to build the latest segment of the Wall. This new section will isolate 2,500 dunums of agricultural land from Ni’lin.
The Palestinians of Ni’lin have been actively resisting this latest annexation scheme. The Popular Committee has mobilized both residents in neighbouring villages as well as international activists, organizing a number of actions against the ongoing construction of the Wall. Weekly Friday protests as well as other actions during the week have slowed construction and brought considerable attention to the local struggle. (...)
http://stopthewall.org/latestnew...news/
1666.shtml
Between oppression and empowerment
Defining the status of the Palestinian citizens of Israel has always been a puzzle for many scholars. One called the Palestinian citizens "semi-citizens" with accidental citizenship. Another distinguished between "liberal citizenship" granted to the Arabs and "republican citizenship" granted to the Jews. A third distinguished between "incidental citizenship" granted to the Arabs and "substantive citizenship" granted to the Jews. I have contributed to this discussion by claiming that the Palestinians are "citizens without citizenship." The "citizen without citizenship" is the citizen who is excluded from the political community, from the dominant public sphere and from the common public good. (...)
The Jewish state transforms the Arab citizens into citizens without citizenship: they are marginalized, their homeland is taken from them, their history is silenced and the public common good is achieved at their expense.
Leaving definitions aside, we witnessed three remarkable developments last year (...)
In addition, the Israeli security apparatus identified two political movements among the Arab minority as an immediate threat: the extra-parliamentary Islamic movement led by Raed Salah and the parliamentary nationalist movement led by Azmi Bishara. Consequently, both movements and leaders were persecuted; Salah was sentenced to a three-year jail term and Bishara finds himself these days in a forced exile and outside the Knesset.
more
Haaretz.com promotes website advocating genocide and terrorism
Haaretz.com, the website of the Israeli newspaper often cited as an example of Israel's liberal, critical media carries paid advertisements from a website openly advocating the total destruction of the Palestinian people, the murder of large numbers of Muslim civilians, the assassination of the family members of Arab rulers, and the use of chemical, biological and nuclear weapons against dozens of countries.
-
Yes, Bush longs for the "good ol' days" in Venezuela, the days of crushing poverty and a tiny minority of elites. Where children died of starvation is filthy hovels (if they even had this), the people were disease ridden without remedy, and people could barely write their name. While the elite lived like kings, dwelt in mansions, their children went to the finest schools, and doctors were available to them at their slightest whim (and so was the church) - while the oil flowed cheaply because so few were on the proverbial payroll!
This is what this filthy administration in Washington wishes to bring back - the death squads. Fields filled with pools of blood from individuals torn limb from limb, women unmercifully raped and executed - perhaps they will send Negreponte in? The destruction of all men of conscience and dreams of equality, till we hear the shout of "stop the repression(!!)," throughout the land, as the current pope blesses the countries once again turned regimes -
STOP THE REPRESSION!
"Samson Blinded, whose publishers keep their identities secret..."
_________________
Lucia, they may not know who the parties are but now we do, don't we? They changed the management and look what leaps to the front page, we need not look any further than who was appointed recently, and to the papers constituency.
Americans Favor President Meeting With U.S. Enemies
Large majorities of Democrats and independents, and even about half of Republicans, believe the president of the United States should meet with the leaders of countries that are considered enemies of the United States. Overall, 67% of Americans say this kind of diplomacy is a good idea.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/10761...US-
Enemies.aspx
China's Leadership Rates Better Than U.S.
A median of 36% of people around the world approve of China’s leadership versus a median of 32% of people who approve of United States’ leadership.
http://www.gallup.com/video/1066...er-Than-
US.aspx
That's an earlier poll but we can see where it's headed when it comes to "leadership".
Pinning the blame for 9/11
Special Report: A Phila. law firm wages an epic legal battle to win billions from Saudi Arabia.
Less than a mile from the mournful place in Lower Manhattan where the World Trade Center came crashing to the ground, in a hushed federal courthouse, a small band of Philadelphia lawyers is prying loose secrets of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
It is here that the Cozen O'Connor law firm has filed an 812-page lawsuit on behalf of U.S. and global insurance companies alleging that Saudi Arabia and Saudi-backed Islamist charities nurtured and financed al-Qaeda, the author of those deadly attacks.
Led by its flinty chairman and founder, Stephen Cozen, the firm has invested thousands of hours and millions of dollars to scour the world for witnesses, documents and other evidence in its attempt to hold the oil-rich desert kingdom liable for more than $5 billion in damages.
Among the companies represented in the lawsuit are Chubb, Ace, Allstate, One Beacon, and nearly three dozen other insurers.
"Our concern was whether there was a viable case to be made against the defendant," Cozen said, "and whether the defendant could pay."
Round 1 in this titanic legal battle went to the Saudis and their high-powered lawyers three years ago when a U.S. District Court judge removed the government and Saudi royals as defendants.
Defense lawyers have declined repeated requests for interviews, citing the pending litigation. But in court papers, they describe Cozen's allegations as "fabrications" and note that the 9/11 Commission found no evidence of official Saudi involvement. Moreover, they point out that Saudi Arabia itself has been an al-Qaeda target.
"The showing that the plaintiffs purport to make is complete and utter garbage," said Michael Kellogg, a top Washington appeals lawyer representing Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family, during an appeals argument in January. "It is a collection of newspaper articles, and reports and press releases that show at most the kingdom exercises some supervisory control over the charities."
But Cozen argued that the kingdom and its officials should be restored as defendants. A fiercely competitive lawyer who built a tiny practice into one of the world's leading law firms for insurers, Cozen, 67, contended that the defendants "knew and intended to support al-Qaeda through these charities."
With a ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit imminent, Cozen and his partners have unearthed facts and made connections missed not only by the 9/11 Commission but also by Congress in its investigations.
At the heart of the suit, the biggest and most complex legal action ever undertaken by the law firm, are warnings from U.S. and European officials that the charities were serving as terror fronts.
Among the suit's key assertions:
Senior Saudi officials and members of the royal family or their representatives served as executives or board members of the suspect charities when they were financing al-Qaeda operations. Overall, the Saudi government substantially controlled and financed the charities, the lawsuit alleges.
The charities laundered millions of dollars, some from the Saudi government, into al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups and provided weapons, false travel and employment documents, and safe houses.
Regional offices of the charities employed, in senior positions, al-Qaeda operatives who helped coordinate support for terror cells.
Although the lawsuit argues that the Saudi government "intended" the 9/11 attacks to happen, the public record supporting that allegation is thin, and lawyers suing the kingdom have yet to generate direct evidence that any senior Saudi official conspired with al-Qaeda to attack the United States.
Instead, the lawsuit compiles hundreds of incremental disclosures from U.S government and other sources and weaves them together to form one basic assertion: Al-Qaeda's development from ragtag regional terrorists into a global threat was fueled by Saudi money, some of it from the government.
And the charities, the lawsuit contends, were the money's conduit.
With the help of charities affiliated with the Saudi government, the lawsuit contends, al-Qaeda spread to the vicious 1990s Balkans war, which pitted indigenous Muslims, their al-Qaeda allies, and other mujaheddin against Serbs and Croats.
Oh, and one other thing - perhaps we will hear the juntas cry "terrorism and al-Qaeda has invaded" as they kill innocent people try to reestablish the repression in Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia and beyond.
(...)
"Clearly, the central moving figures in the 9/11 scandal were Saudi, and clearly that wasn't a coincidence," he said. "The fact that there is a particularly militant and extremely conservative form of Islam that is, in effect, the state religion of Saudi Arabia - well, there has always been tension between the United States and Saudi Arabia over that.
"Do we pull punches with the Saudis on the charities and other matters because they can help us counterbalance Iran, they can help us bring the Palestinians and the Israelis to the table, they can serve as a forward staging area for our military in the Middle East?" Gorton asked. "I don't think there is any question but that is the case."
David E. Long, former deputy director of the State Department's Office on Counterterrorism, who is fluent in Arabic and travels regularly to the Mideast, said he believed it was unreasonable of Americans to expect that before 9/11 the Saudis would have cracked down on terrorism financiers.
They didn't have the forensic skills or financial monitoring tools, said Long, a former lecturer on the Middle East at the University of Pennsylvania. Moreover, until then it was unthinkable to many Saudis that charitable organizations might promote violent international jihad.
One of the central principles of Islam, he said, is Zakat, the giving of alms to the poor, and once the money went out the door, Saudi donors assumed it would be used for charitable purposes.
"Traditionally, there was little or no oversight throughout the economy, trust was highly personalized, and caveat emptor was the order of the day," Long said. "It is . . . my view that there is no basis for the claim that the Saudi government wittingly supports or has continued to turn a blind eye on foundations supporting terrorist operations."
Cozen's case is built on thousands of Treasury Department and law enforcement findings, declassified diplomatic cables, and military and intelligence reports.
The story that emerges details a saga linking the charities to money-laundering, police raids, and terrorist attacks. It spans the globe, from New York and Philadelphia to the Balkans, the Mideast and beyond. It begins in Saudi Arabia.
http://www.philly.com/philly/hp/
...for_terror.html
Steven Rix | 06.02.08 - 10:27 pm |
China is headed to their own problems. Polution, corruption, planning their society on practices other countries are trying to change.
On the news yesterday, there's a guy in Bellevue who started a business buying used SUVs and Pick-up. Biggest markets? Russia and China.
David | 06.02.08 - 10:39 pm | China is a huge country and it's very diversified. If you go to Beijing or Shangai, then yeah it's polluated as hell over there; in fact there is a river (the Huang He) that goes to Beijing, and people developed cancers because the chemical companies threw everything inside the river. So they decided to dig in to bring a new river that would cross Tibet all the way to the capital-city, hoping that it won't get polluated as bad.
If you go South to China, South West exactly, it's still a very wild area, with the himalayas whose monsoon feeds almost 2 billion people on the planet. The North West is maybe the taughest area, but the most wildly one, with its dunes of sand, and people have been able to bring water by digging inside the dunes, so you can find actually vegetation and people living inside these vast areas of desert.
While the North is more developed with some parts in the South, the basic majority of China is still underdeveloped. People keep riding bike, or they ride their horses (like the mongols or the mandchurians), or they travel with their dromedaries. In some regions, you even find people plowing with their wateroxes, and they've been doing it for the last 1400 years.
IMO these are the wildest parts of China that makes its beauty, and their culture too; you really feel like you are in another world.
v 10:09 p.m., they aren't necessarily averse to bringing the death squads through "middle america" either, I fear. If there is an invasion of Iran and people get off their ass and into the street en masse, not sure if our waning liberty won't be put completely out.
I'm not anti-Chinese Steven, But they're over a billion people. I've worked with Chinese here, and with people in China.
I just think they could look at our mistakes with regard to their infrastructure. The Han Chinese are largely in control, they have their own societal problems.
A downturn in the U.S. economy will probably impact the Chinese economy.
David | 06.02.08 - 11:21 pm |
Yes both economies are intertwened, and that is definitively a problem. I hope that if ever oilprices go up, it will make it harder on them to export their products, so that we can start creating jobs inside the US labor force. I'm looking inside my apartment, and most of my crap at 90% comes from China :S
That's what I'm saying Steven.
To clarify, centralization may in the future not make as much sense as localized, decentralization.
Change will probably be rough, but it is inevitable.
the entire film here in eleven portions.
re:
v | Homepage | 06.02.08 - 10:09 pm
-
"v 10:09 p.m., they aren't necessarily averse to bringing the death squads through "middle america" either, I fear. If there is an invasion of Iran and people get off their ass and into the street en masse, not sure if our waning liberty won't be put completely out.
buh | 06.02.08 - 11:15 pm |"
_____________________________
Well buh, they can try once the people rise up, it won't be pretty. Especially seeing them swinging from makeshift side arms from the East wing on the 6 o'clock news.
French-Swiss director pulls out of Israeli film festival
2 days ago
JERUSALEM (AFP) — Celebrated French-Swiss moviemaker Jean-Luc Godard has dropped out of an annual student film festival in Tel Aviv, an event official said on Saturday.
The cult film director had been due to arrive on Sunday but said he would not be attending for "reasons beyond his control," Morane Tal said.
"We are very disappointed because he seems to have succumbed to pressure from pro-Palestinian groups who launched a campaign for people to boycott Israel," she added, without elaborating."
Alive and well! Can't really be said of the Yves Sint Laurent though! Oh well!
.
the Yves Sint Laurent
---------------
!!??
Easy there!..
Yves Saint Laurent!
Voila!
And from the New York Times:
"Godard Cancels Visit to Film Festival in Israel
Compiled by FELICIA R. LEE
Published: June 3, 2008
The French filmmaker Jean-Luc Godard has dropped plans to attend a film festival in Tel Aviv after a Palestinian group urged him to boycott Israel, Reuters reported. Mr. Godard, one of the founders of the French New Wave of the 1960s, canceled the trip to the Tel Aviv International Student Film Festival, citing “circumstances beyond his control,” festival organizers said Monday. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel urged Mr. Godard in an open letter last week to “take a courageous stand and cancel your trip to Israel.” The letter asked: “Did you ever go to an Afrikaner film festival in apartheid South Africa? Why Israel, then?” Reuters said a source in Mr. Godard’s office declined to comment but said he had canceled his visit for political reasons. Festival organizers said they were disappointed but respected Mr. Godard’s decision. Pro-Palestinian groups frequently call on prominent cultural and academic figures to boycott Israel because of its occupation of the West Bank and its blockade of the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip.
.
Commenting by HaloScan
