Assad meets top U.N. official on Iraqi refugees
DAMASCUS — Syrian President Bashar al-Assad met U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres this week to discuss the plight of Iraqi refugees in Syria, official news agency SANA reported. They discussed "cooperation between the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees and Syria with regard to improving the conditions (of refugees)...Bahrain-based bank to build Libyan Energy City
TRIPOLI — Bahrain-based Islamic bank Gulf Finance House (GFH) has won a contract to build a multi-billion dollar city in Libya offering support services for oil firms, the state news agency JANA said on Monday. The 3.8 billion dollar Energy City will feature residential and business facilities over 1,300 acres in the Sabratha district,...Hamas renews call for ceasefire with Israel
JERUSALEM — A Hamas official this week renewed calls for a ceasefire amid mounting Israeli demands for a broad military offensive in the Gaza Strip. Writing in the Israeli daily Haaretz, Ahmed Yussef, a Hamas foreign policy advisor, called for a long-term ceasefire between Palestinian militants and Israeli forces. Sderot solidarity...For the world, Gaza is reality TV
GAZA CITY (IPS) — "We are being starved, killed, tortured, and besieged — and all this while the world just watches," says Abu Wael at the funeral of the latest group of Gazans killed by Israeli forces. The death toll is mounting, even if much of the media is taking little note of killings on the Gaza side. Palestinian woman waits...A ‘grand bargain’ for U.S. and Iran?
There are welcome signs of a coming thaw in America's hostile and ice-bound relations with Iran — if not in the remaining months of George W. Bush's presidency, then under his successor. For the first time in many years, such a possibility is being actively debated and envisaged by American policy-makers and influential think-tanks. An...Will Netanyahu surge oust Olmert?
OAKLAND, Ca (IPS) — One day after the Jan. 30 release of the Winograd Commission report, which in part detailed some of the failures of the Israeli government and the military during the Second Lebanon War in 2006, former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on Prime Minister Ehud Olmert to resign. "The committee concluded...
Mughnieh murder could trigger retaliation
February 16th, 20080 'This is something that Hizbullah cannot let pass' Beirut — A shadowy senior Hizbullah commander, thought to have masterminded spectacular terrorist attacks in the 1980s, was killed Tuesday in a Damascus car bombing that will almost certainly trigger a retaliation from the militant Shi'a group. Hizbullah top military leader Imad...U.S.-backed groups challenge government
BAQUBA (IPS) — U.S. backed Sunni militants have challenged the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in Baghdad, and demanded political power after two women were killed by government forces. Tensions rose earlier this month when men dressed in Iraqi security personnel uniforms kidnapped two women. Their naked bodies were found later. After the...Lebanon cleric advises ‘modern Shi’a’
BEIRUT — The ayatollah has a simple piece of advice for any Muslim woman being abused by her husband: Hit him back. "A woman can respond to physical violence inflicted on her by a man with counter- violence as a self-defense measure," Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon's senior-most Shi'i cleric, wrote in a fatwa late...Cairo welcomes Iranian overtures
CAIRO (IPS) — In recent months, Washington has tried hard to convince Arab leaders of the threat to the Middle East posed by Iranian regional ambitions. Nevertheless, several recent visits to Egypt by top-level Iranian officials suggest that Cairo, despite U.S. objections, may be close to restoring diplomatic ties — severed for almost 30...Nasrallah: We’re ready to fight
As Hizbullah mourns official, March 14 bloc observes anniversary of Hariri murderBEIRUT — In a speech to supporters mourning the death of a senior commander, the secretary-general of Hizbullah has said that his movement is ready for open warfare with Israel, accusing Israel of killing Imad Moghniyeh in a car bomb blast in the Syrian...The tragic future of Iraq
Any analysis of the current state of the ongoing U.S. occupation of Iraq that relied solely on the U.S. government, the major candidates for president or the major media outlets in the United States for information would be hard pressed to find any bad news. In a State of the Union address which had everything except a "Mission...Dimona signals Palestinian defiance
Moral judgments notwithstanding, the suicide bombing in Dimona on Monday is another chink in the siege imposed on all Palestinians in the Occupied Territories and it represents a continuity of the Palestinian rebellion that breached the wall between Gaza and Egypt last week. The fact that two fighters succeeded in reaching Dimona in...Hordes of street kids no longer ignored
Cairo — Kareem and Mustapha were little more than toddlers when their parents sent them onto Cairo's streets to sell mints and tissues. They had begun on the path trod by Cairo's growing thousands of street kids — sleeping on streets, joining gangs for protection, underfed and covered with the filth of a city packed with 18 million...Lebanon: The show must go on
BEIRUT (IPS) — A bomb tears through the bustling Chevrolet area on the outskirts of Beirut. Bad news travels fast: Captain Wissam Eid from the Internal Security Forces has been killed in the blast. This is a typical day for Lebanese citizens. The year 2007 has already been grim for most Lebanese businesses. Crisis after crisis has......
Lebanon edges closer to civil war
February 7th, 20080 BEIRUT — There will be blood. That was the message this week in the neglected southern suburbs of Beirut. At least eight persons were killed and more than twenty injured when shots were fired at crowds of demonstrators protesting the power outages that have been plaguing their areas. Details of the incident that took place near the Mar...George Habash leaves legacy of resistance, violence
George Habash, known with affection as al-Hakim, the doctor, came to the end of his life without reaching his dream of Palestinian liberation. He was born in Lyd, Palestine in 1925 and saw al-Nakba first-hand as volunteer medical staff, then as a displaced Palestinian. After dedicating his life to the Palestinian cause, he was......
Fallout from the Gaza earthquake
The mass break-out of some 700,000 Palestinians from Israel's open-air prison at Gaza has profoundly changed the political landscape of the Middle East. In magnitude, it can be compared to the impact on Europe of the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nothing will be the same again. There can be no return to the past. All the main actors in the...People’s power in Gaza: They simply did it
In a radio interview prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, David Barsamian asked Noam Chomsky what ordinary Americans could do to stop the war. Chomsky answered, "In some parts of the world people never ask, 'what can we do?’ They simply do it." For someone who was born and raised in a refugee camp in Gaza, Chomsky's seemingly oblique...Creating a great Arab city
Dubai can serve as a model for growth elsewhere DUBAI — I always find it exhilarating to visit Dubai, one of the most dynamic and visually spectacular examples of rapid urban growth in the world. Especially coming from Beirut, where I live, the contrasts are sharp and immediately felt: security vs. chronic political...
The breaking of the Rafah wall
February 5th, 20080 It looked like the fall of the Berlin wall. And not only did it look like it. For a moment, the Rafah crossing was the Brandenburg Gate. It is impossible not to feel exhilaration when masses of oppressed and hungry people break down the wall that is shutting them in, their eyes radiant, embracing everybody they meet — to feel so even......
Iraq: Police and army getting sidelined
BAQUBA (IPS) — New military operations in Diyala province north of Baghdad have exacerbated a growing conflict between U.S.-backed Sunni fighters on the one hand and Iraqi army and police forces on the other. The U.S. military commenced a large military operation Jan. 8 in the volatile Diyala province. Seven U.S. battalions led an...
Breaking the siege
January 28th, 20080 Hundreds of thousands cross downed Gaza wallArab street erupts in protests supporting Palestinians Thousands of Palestinians continued to cross into Egypt for a second day on Thursday to buy much needed supplies. Egyptian officials have warned that the border with the Gaza Strip, breached by Palestinian fighters seeking to end an......
The struggle for Lebanon
Syria has vital security issues with regard to Lebanon, and sees its lesser neighbor as an essential \geo-politicalpartner. And Syria's security necessities could help stabilize Lebanon's political crisis, if the Arab World -- particularly Saudi Arabia — can come to terms with Damascus. It does not look as if the long-running Lebanese...Study: Truth first casualty of Iraq war
U.S. President George W. Bush and his top officials ran roughshod over the truth in the run-up to the Iraq war, lying a total of 935 times, a study released this week found. Bush and his then-secretary of state Colin Powell made the most false statements as they sought to drum up support for the March 2003 invasion to topple Saddam......