Here are some from 'Nord-Ost'.
Don't they just look so cute when they're dead?
Posted on 12/17/2006 4:03:30 PM PST by DAVEY CROCKETT
Eighth Egyptian dies of bird flu
Sun Dec 24, 2006 10:29am ET
CAIRO, Dec 24 (Reuter) - An Egyptian woman died of bird flu on Sunday, hours after tests confirmed she and two other members of her extended family had been suffering from the highly pathogenic virus, a World Health Organization official said.
WHO regional adviser for communicable diseases surveillance Hassan el-Bushra said the 30-year-old woman had been in hospital since December 17, but doctors had not immediately suspected bird flu as she denied having had contact with poultry.
The woman was part of an extended family of 33 living in a single house in a village near the town of Zifta in Gharbiya province, about 80 km (50 miles) north of Cairo, and was the third family member diagnosed with bird flu in 24 hours.
---snippet from---
http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-12-24T152902Z_01_L24192780_RTRUKOC_0_US-BIRDFLU-EGYPT-DEATH.xml&WTmodLoc=IntNewsHome_C2_worldNews-7
Indonesia floods kill at least 60 people
Indonesia: At least 60 people were killed on Sunday and 100,000 have fled their homes after flood waters submerged houses and roads in Indonesia’s eastern Aceh province, officials and media reports said.
Aceh government spokesman Nurdin Jos said the worst hit area was in Tamiyang district, eastern Aceh province. “Rescuers have evacuated 60 bodies from villages in Aceh Tamiyang district, while dozens others are still reported still missing,” he said.
Days of seasonal rain have lashed the country’s Sumatra island, leaving tens of thousands displaced and many trapped on the roofs of their homes.
Media reports said 114 people had been killed and quoted at least 100,000 who had fled their homes.
http://www.gulfnews.com/world/Indonesia/10091886.html
Police investigate child abuse in northern town
By Nigel Bunyon
Last Updated: 2:03am GMT 21/12/2006
A major investigation into the alleged sexual abuse of young white girls by predominantly Asian men has been launched by police and childcare agencies.
So far detectives in Oldham, Greater Manchester, have arrested 20 men, five of whom have been charged with offences that include abduction and rape. However, police expect other suspects to be held in the coming weeks.
Both Oldham Council and Greater Manchester Police have emphasised that they have discovered no evidence of an organised paedophile ring.
The phenomenon appears to be largely cultural, with mainly young Asian men allegedly preying on vulnerable girls they meet in and around the town centre.
Police suspect the victims – some of them as young as 12, the rest up to the age of 17 – are being groomed over a period of months and sometimes years.
In some cases the men allegedly give them such presents as mobile phones, money and clothes .
The girls often regard the men as their boyfriends. However, as the relationship develops some of the abusers allegedly coerce them into having sex .
Police sources say that although both the abusers and their victims come from a variety of ethnic groups, the phenomenon is founded within Oldham’s Pakistani community.
With Pakistani girls generally determined to remain virgins until they are married, young men in the community have tended to seek out white girls for sex.
"We often find that these men are smartly dressed and running around in expensive cars,” said a police source. “It tends to be a lot easier them to impress the girls they’re looking for than unemployed white lads with no money.”
Ruth Baldwin, director of the local council’s directorate for children, young people and families, refused to give details of the ethnic mix, claiming that to do so might prejudice future trials. But she insisted that both abusers and their victims were from a variety of backgrounds.
The common thread among the girls was that they had low self-esteem and felt in need of love and affection.
Some have been abused at a time they were in local authority care.
Mrs Baldwin said the abusers were in their twenties, thirties, forties and, in one case, “beyond”. Police insist that the majority are at the younger end of the spectrum.
The catalyst for the investigation was the claims by four girls earlier this year that they had been abused.
As many as 20 girls - some as young as 12 - are thought to have been abused by older men who buy them gifts and pose as their "boyfriends", before turning the relationship sexual.
More than 20 people have already been arrested, and five people have been charged with offences including abduction and rape.
Greater Manchester Police have described the abuse as a major problem but say they have no evidence that it is the work of an organised paedophile ring.
The abusers typically prey on girls they do not know, approaching them in public places. They offer gifts of mobile phones and electronic gadgets to gain their victims' trust, before plying them with drink and drugs.
It is alleged that the girls - a small number of whom are in local authority care - end up being physically harmed or forced into sex.
The joint inquiry is being carried out by police, Oldham council, Oldham Primary Care Trust and the charity Barnardos.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/20/uoldham120.xml
CHAVEZ GOES JIM JONES
When I went to Venezuela late last year, I came back with the impression that it was heading well into Jim Jones territory. There was too much cult of personality there, starting with the gigantic Hugo Chavez billboard that greets you from Caracas airport before you take the highway into the shantytowns, and within the city, all the ‘Chavez IS the people’ posters, with him looking soulful and thoughtful, if not nauseastingly adored by small children gathered around his side. This imagery went well beyond the political and deep into the cultural realm, and beyond even cultural, to the religious realm.
Well, it turns out this may be more than an impression. Hugo Chavez is proposing to name himself the archbishop of his new quasi-Christian evangelical nationalist cult, with all of his ministers named archbishops. It’s like Jim Jones - the leftwing San Francisco Democratic-party machine cultie leader who took his own brand of far leftism deep into Guyana and tried to set up a whole new society there, remaking mankind from mud in 1978, until he ordered them all to commit suicide. It happened right next door to Venezuela. Now, like Jones, Chavez wants to be everything, renouncing history and remaking mankind from scratch. The guy is a nut.
In one way, his move seems to echo the clerisy power the Church once held over all Latin American society, but I think it’s more than that - it’s an effort to remake society in his own image, for his own glorification and it’s so Jim Jones I can’t believe it.
Given what he is doing to Venezuela’s economy, Chavez’s third term won’t just be a passive administration, but now with his bishop thing, a la Jim Jones, have the full Flavr-Aid ending, too.
http://www.publiuspundit.com/index.php
Pincer movement
I've previously described the brewing regional conflict in Somalia as a race between war and peace, with the country's fate depending on whether a peacekeeping force and negotiating framework could be established before full-scale fighting began. It seems increasingly clear now that the four horsemen are outrunning the 15 Security Council members. Yesterday, the UNSC issued Resolution 1725, authorizing a regional peacekeeping force to deploy in southern Somalia with the limited mission of protecting the transitional government. This deployment exists mainly on paper, though, given that Uganda, which is the only country likely to provide troops, is still awaiting funds as well as authorization from the national parliament. The only clause of the resolution that is having immediate effect is the one that "partially lifted an arms embargo to allow the force to be equipped."
Although the embargo also existed mostly on paper, its partial withdrawal seems to be emboldening the combatants within Somalia, particularly the 6000 to 8000 regulars that a confidential UN report states are in the country. Within the past two days, Ethiopian forces have reportedly engaged in combat in two separate regions of Somalia, in a manner that indicates an organized pincer movement. The first front is opening around Bandiradley, a central town that is near the uncertain border between the Islamist-controlled territories and the autonomous state of Puntland. During the past couple of months, Puntland, the Islamic judiciary and the warlord Abdi Qeybdiid have clashed in this region, and Ethiopia, which is a close ally of the Puntland government, has responded by increasing its troop presence. Evidently that presence now includes artillery, because Islamist militias near Bandiradley have been shelled by Ethiopian forces twice within the past ten days:
Sheikh Abdullahi Ali Hashi, a spokesperson for the Council of Islamic Courts, said: "Ethiopian soldiers have massed around Bandiradley soon after the arms embargo had been lifted and started firing missiles toward our positions." Hashi said that the Ethiopian troops made the attack accompanied by militiamen loyal to warlord Abdi Hassan Awale, who was also known as Abdi Qeybdiid.
Witnesses in Dagaari village, near Bandiradley, said that they saw hundreds of Ethiopian troops and tanks took up new positions near the town in co-ordination with militiamen from the northeastern semi autonomous region of Puntland and Qeybdiid's militia. They said that this new movement puts these forces and their rival Islamic courts' militias only two kilometres apart.
At the other end of the country, there are credible reports of direct combat between Islamist militias and Ethiopian troops near Dinsor in Bay province. Dinsor is located in south-central Somalia and is about 75 miles from the transitional government's capital of Baidoa. The judiciary has been tightening a ring around Baidoa for several months, and its forces reportedly moved into Dinsor about a week ago as part of the encirclement. This appears to have been the flashpoint; rather than retreating and repositioning as they have in the past, militias allied to the TFG attempted to retake the town, and they have been joined by Ethiopians in combat roles. If this report is borne out, it will be the first confirmed instance of Ethiopian regulars fighting against Islamist militiamen, and although sporadic clashes have probably happened before, the Ethiopian involvement this time is on a larger scale.
This could result in the two-pronged assault I anticipated some time ago, in which Ethiopia and its local allies will push south from Puntland at the same time as they try to break the encirclement of Baidoa. This may, in turn, spiral into a proxy war; the same UN report that estimated the Ethiopian troop presence at 6000 to 8000 noted ominously that up to 2000 Eritrean soldiers may be in the country fighting on the Islamist side. In addition to Ethiopia's jitters over the possibility that an Islamist state in Somalia might support domestic insurgencies, its fears of a second front against its long-time regional enemy now seem to be materializing.
And as if this isn't enough, the possibility of Somalia being torn apart in a regional proxy war has a truly ironic postscript. A report on the fighting in the Independent notes sardonically that "the Palestinians are next in line to take over as head of the Arab League - raising the bizarre prospect of the Somali peace talks (if they are ever restarted) moving from Khartoum to Gaza." Bizarre this may be, but not necessarily inappropriate. Given the number of contending factions in Somalia, the diversity of their interests, the unlikelihood that they can be persuaded to compromise and the number of foreign countries that want a hand in the outcome, Gaza might be the perfect place for them to negotiate.
Posted by jonathan at December 8, 2006 07:45 PM in Africa - Politics and Law | TrackBack
http://headheeb.blogmosis.com/archives/033239.html
Somali-Ethiopia conflict looms over Ethiopian blogosphere
Sub-Saharan Africa, Breaking News, Ethiopia, Somalia, Weblog, War & Conflict
War and rumours of war dominated the Ethiopian blogosphere this week as reports came in of bloody clashes between Ethiopian and Islamist troops in northern Somalia.
Accounts of the conflict from the mainstream media have so far been fragmentary and often contradictory.
GlobalVoices’ own Ethan Zuckerman summed up the confusion in a post on his blog …My Heart’s in Accra:
The situation in Somalia is, as it always is, extremely confusing. Headlines yesterday alternated between reports of fierce battles and reports that both sides were returning to the negotiating table.
Ethiopia’s government was today still insisting that their troops were not involved in the fighting – the official position is that they don’t even have any soldiers in Somalia. This approach was faithfully echoed in the country’s official state news outlets.
But the claims were contradicted by the BBC which yesterday claimed one of its correspondents had been stopped close to the besieged town of Baidoa by “a huge convoy of Ethiopian military armour”. Meanwhile, journalist Mike Pflanz gave glimpses of life in Somalia in his blog-style Diary from Somalia in the UK’s Daily Telegraph newspaper.
Ethiopia’s highly politicised bloggers got round all this editorial uncertainty by staying away from the hard facts. Instead they concentrated on pouring scorn on the Ethiopian government and what they saw as its misguided military strategies.
The whole world knows that it’s [Ethiopian Prime Minister Meles Zenawi’s] unprovoked military maneuver in and around Somalia that prompted the Jihadists to declare war on Ethiopia. Just like the French and the Brits opposed the war on Iraq, we Ethiopians should oppose the unprovoked war on a country that doesn’t even have a working government system,
wrote Ephrem Madebo of the blog Enset in Four big mouths, four big lies.
How about a militant leader interfering in the internal affairs of a neighboring country (that has finally, according to international reports, ‘admittedly’ experienced a level of stability and security under the [Union of Islamic Courts] unprecedented for over a decade) to appease Western powers that seem “less than pleased’ over recent reports of internal human rights abuses?
wrote Mengedegna in his post on The Other Side.
Don’t eat my Buchela! took a bitterly ironic tone in her post By God, Let the Games Begin!:
According to rumors from Ethiopia, the war with Somalia has “sort of” started. Soldiers are also being sent up north to the border with Eritrea. This is good, good news for all of us for many, many reasons including the five below:
1. I am a mom now. Yaaaaaay for all those mothers whose sons are going to surely die. And die they will in thousands. There will be sooo many new heroes! Such a lucky nation Ethiopia is, blessed with so many chances to make new heroes.
2. The little bit of “economic growth” Ethiopia seems to have accidentally achieved will now be stripped bare. We have to spend millions to get Ethiopian mothers’ sons ammunition to create heroes for Somali mothers. They are going to be so happy happy! …
Zenobia of Ewenet Means Truth in Ethiopia warned against making simplistic analyses of the conflict in The Minefield of Somali Clan Politics:
It is very easy to view the unfolding events in Somalia as one between the Eritrean supported “Islamists” of the Union Islamic Courts versus the Ethiopian supported “secularists” of the Transitional National Government of Somalia.
This article in Somaliland Times from the point of view of a Somalilander Ahmed Ali Ibrahim clarifies what the conflict in Somalia really is about -a battle between various embittered clan factions for supremacy and power.
Miles away from the fighting, Alex Russell of Addis Calling talked about how the new conflict was affecting ethnic Somalis living in Ethiopia’s capital Addis Ababa. in Addis Ababa Somalis Lay Low he wrote:
Last Friday a police officer came to our house. He was conducting a last minute census of the neighborhood, an area filled with Somali families who escaped pre-Islamic Court Mogadishu and are waiting to get their refugee visas to Western countries. Most have been here for years and want nothing else than to get as far away from Somalia (and Ethiopia) as possible. “I’ll be in Norway in a month,” one young man hopefully told me. The owner of the Somali café fifty meters up the road just let it be known he’ll be in the US in a month (after eight years here). If true, hello Khat withdrawal.
But these Somalis were the hustle and bustle of my dusty street, but since the Police officer came through they’ve retreated behind their gates. At night I keep on listening out for some sort of round-up, not really sure what I’m listening for. The fear, captured by the silence in the streets and the sudden lack of Somalis in the satellite-TV cafes, is palpable.
http://www.globalvoicesonline.org/2006/12/23/somali-ethiopia-conflict-looms-over-ethiopian-blogosphere/
December 24, 2006 Anti-Terrorism News
(UK) Channel tunnel is terror target - Channel tunnel targeted by
Islamic terrorists according to French and American intel
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1978642,00.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,238559,00.html
Indonesian police guarding churches - amid warnings by Western nations
that Islamic militants may be plotting Christmas bombings
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061224/ap_on_re_as/indonesia_christmas_security_1
(Iraq) Suicide bomber kills 7 police in Iraq
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061224/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_061224112049
(Iraq Christians) 'Leave, crusaders, or have your heads cut off'
(Iraq) No news on 13 missing from Iraqi Red Crescent kidnapping
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061224/wl_mideast_afp/iraqunrestkidnap_061224103030
Iraq arrests police who "murdered 14 Pakistanis"
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/focusoniraq/2006/December/focusoniraq_December124.xml§ion=focusoniraq
Iraqi insurgent snipers gaining skill - Insurgent gunmen have honed
skills and acquired better equipment
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061223/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_skilled_snipers_1
(India) Four militants killed in Indian Kashmir
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061224/wl_sthasia_afp/indiaunrestkashmir_061224104357
(India) Pakistani Terrorist Arrested, Hideout Busted in Kashmir
http://www.india-defence.com/reports/2762
(Afghanistan) Five insurgents killed in NATO-led raid in Afghanistan
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061224/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunrestnato_061224085045
(Afghanistan) US says key Taliban leader killed but militants disagree
(updated) - Dispute over whether Mullah Akhtar Mohammad Osmani killed -
see photo - Taliban leader "killed" after RAF tracks phone
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20061224/wl_asia_afp/afghanistanunresttaliban_061224021123
http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/ap/20061223/capt.kab10812231246.afghanistan_taliban_leader__kab108.jpg?x=278&y=345&sig=0vkzUin0UZz4AoL8tsqtfA--
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-2517947,00.html
Iran to install 3,000 centrifuges from today after sanctions
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2006/December/middleeast_December405.xml§ion=middleeast
Iran refuses to cease uranium enrichment - after U.N. Security Council
imposed sanctions designed to stop Iran's nuclear program
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/iran_nuclear
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6205295.stm
Iran's spies
http://www.iranfocus.com/modules/news/article.php?storyid=9623
(Pakistan) Peshawar: Call for "jihad" against NGOs - fatwa issued for
Jihad against NGOs including the UN and human rights organisations
http://www.dawn.com/2006/12/23/local44.htm
NYT woman scribe beaten up in Quetta for reporting Taliban incursions
and Anti-Taliban legislator escapes attempt on life
http://www.dailyindia.com/show/96230.php/NYT-woman-scribe-beaten-up-in-Quetta-for-reporting-Taliban-incursions
http://www.bruneitimes.com.bn/details.php?shape_ID=14802
Al-Qaida leaders, associates sought - Top operatives, bin Laden
advisors sought by U.S., others
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4686491/
Egyptians arrest Muslim Brotherhood publisher
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1164881964531&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull
(Thailand) Small bomb blasts store in southern Thailand, no injuries
http://english.people.com.cn/200612/24/eng20061224_335331.html
(Russia) Beslan school siege was originally planned as suicide attack
http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?aid=343666&sid=WOR
(Spain) Uncovered weapons cache linked to Spanish terrorists
http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/breaking-news/world/europe/article2100120.ece
(Somalia) Ethiopian Jets Bomb Muslim Terrorists in Somalia
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news.php3?id=118007
(Sudan) Seven killed as Darfur rebels, government clash
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061224/wl_nm/sudan_darfur_dc_2
(Nigeria) Car bomb explodes in Nigeria
http://www.news24.com/News24/Africa/News/0,,2-11-1447_2048415,00.html
U.S. policy in the Horn of Africa may aid al-Qaida, experts warn
http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/16301743.htm
UAE gives $30m aid to Palestinians - due to Western boycott of terror
group Hamas
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20972175-1702,00.html
US Govt and American Muslims Engage to Define Islamophobia
http://www.arabnews.com/services/print/print.asp?artid=90290&d=22&m=12&y=2006&hl=US%20Govt%20and%20American%20Muslims%20Engage%20to%20Define%20Islamophobia
Al Qaeda Sends a Message to Democrats
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/al_qaeda_sends_.html
The sun is shining, but only about 40 degrees, froze again last night.
I like your card.
Merry Christmas to you.
Be happy.
I'd say he is a Western Civilization hating muslim writer.<<<
I thought so, he sure does hate.
Sounds like the ones on the John Rothman program last night, you can listen to it today at kgo.com, I missed the first hour, but the rest is good.
He was only attempting to explain to the left and San Francisco muslim callers, that President Bush, did not make the UN sanction, that the other countries had signed it.
We sure have a lot of muslims living/calling the talk shows, from America and spouting their hate of America.
The left are too dumb to understand the truth, even when given to them, in detail.......John was only telling them the truth about the situation.
Thanks for the Israel links.
It appears that things will heat up there shortly.
I think the sanction was for 60 days and that fits with what I had read, offered as folks opinions, "spring " and war.
I saw the heading for that in my email, a minute ago, there is also still cases breaking out in Indonesia, one a week or so.
Floods in Indonesia, earthquakes in Calif. are picking up, 3 or 4 in the last week, in the 4 range.
I do think God is getting fed up with all the world's nonsense.
Thanks for the link.
on the subject of rape, I have long thought that there was something wrong about the rapes in America, something like 63% are said to be done by Mexican men.
At last I was able to talk to someone, by phone, my sister, who does not really see all the angles that I seem to find, and I talked about them.
We were raised in Mexican communities and have lived and worked around them all our lives.
Until the last couple years, or even less, it was rare to hear of a Mexican man raping a child or young woman, sure it happened, but not so that most of them were by Mexicans.
I suspect that when they arrest these so - called "Mexicans", they have a jihadi, who came across the border, passing as a Mexican, with fake ID.
I do not think that I could tell them apart, and those that get into Mexico with the Venezuela visa, have been taught to speak Mexican, before they get to Mexico, according to reports.
I simply do not buy what the paper says and suspect that if I was an illegal jihadi, I would use my Mexico papers, so I would be sent back to Mexico, shorter trip, than Pakistan or Iran.
My 2 cents on rape.
In one way, his move seems to echo the clerisy power the Church once held over all Latin American society, but I think it’s more than that - it’s an effort to remake society in his own image, for his own glorification and it’s so Jim Jones I can’t believe it. <<<
It fits, with what we know, also his 'giving' poor Americans heating oil.
And how he will help Cuba, when castro dies.
Did you hear on the news that a doctor had flown in to treat Castro and is bringing equipment that is not available in Cuba?
I forgot the docs country, one of the European ones, as I recall.
From the photos, the sharpshooters at Beslan got off the best shots.
Abbas and Olmert - What meeting?
12/24/2006
The long awaited meeting of Israel Prime Minister Olmert and Palestinian Prime Minister Abbas took place on Saturday evening, December 23, with hardly any fanfare, and with hardly any results either. It should have been a "great event," but if you blinked, you may have missed it.
The most interesting aspect of this meeting was the lack of publicity. The lack of results was predictable, and I predicted regarding such meetings in the past. The relative lack of publicity and fanfare was a bit strange. It is not that they didn't go out of their way to publicize it. Rather, the Palestinians, at least, went out of their way to depublicize it.
Just prior to the meeting, Saeeb Erekat was quoted in an official Palestinian news source as saying:
" It is untrue and baseless about the date of meeting Saturday or Monday as
no agreement yet on the exact date, " Erekat told Al Ayam local newspaper.
Only a few hours later, Erekat was happily announcing the results of the meeting.
It is not surprising that the meeting didn't accomplish much, because Abbas has nothing to offer the Israeli government, and the Israeli government is too weak to give Abbas very much without getting anything in return. Such concessions, which might be intended to strengthen Abbas's hand against the Hamas, would be attacked as "defeatism" by the opposition Likud. The meeting did not live up even to the limited expectations of a prisoner exchange. Israel is considering releasing $100 million in frozen tax funds to Abbas, Olmert promised to remove some checkpoints and to allow more trucks into Gaza. Israel may let the PLO's Badr brigade and some other forces enter Gaza to restore order.
From Ha'aretz we learn that:
Olmert also warned Abbas that given the continued Qassam rocket fire from Gaza despite a cease-fire in the area, it will be difficult for Israel to maintain its policy of restraint. Responding to a request by the Palestinian delegation to extend the cease-fire to the West Bank, Olmert said the Palestinians must first demonstrate an ability to uphold the truce in Gaza.
Concessions would be good for Mr. Abbas and bad for the rival Hamas. Therefore, Mr. Olmert has essentially laid out a plan of action for the Hamas, telling them what they must do to prevent Israeli concessions. Of course, Olmert really didn't have much choice. Likewise, the prisoner exchange that the Palestinians wanted could not go ahead because the Palestinians will not release Israeli hostage Gilad Shalit first. Mr. Abbas didn't have any choice about that either, because forces loyal to the Hamas hold Gilad Shalit.
Lurking in the background of course, was the call of PM Abbas for new elections for the Palestinian Legislative Council issued last week. Actually, Abbas didn't exactly call for elections. Rather, he threatened to dissolve the government and call for elections if the Hamas did not agree to a unity government. Abbas has been making such threats periodically for many months. It is getting increasingly difficult to take his deadlines seriously. However, this meeting may have been an indication that there was more to last week's call for elections than the previous calls. Or not.
Meanwhile, there have been some strange doings in the inscrutable and mysterious West, as well as the Middle East. A report in the Forward newspaper claims that the US State Department is considering declaring a Palestinian state with provisional borders in 2007. If there is any truth to it, this is the latest, and perhaps the ultimate, manifestation of the US mania for imposing "democracy" on the people of the Middle East, regardless of whether they want it or not. It is not clear how the US can declare a Palestinian state if the Palestinians don't want one. This program is also opposed to that of PM Abbas who rejected the similar-sounding, but very dissimilar plan of the Hamas for a state with temporary borders. Said Abbas
: "we are against a state with temporary borders.... [W]e are in favor of starting a comprehensive dialogue on the final status issues with the Israelis reaching a final and comprehensive peace agreement."
. Of course, the "temporary borders" contemplated by the Hamas are the 1949 armistice borders, and the permanent borders are nothing at all, which is quite different from the plan the US State Department may have had in mind. Abbas, curiously enough, "forgot" that he had called for new elections, and instead called for a resumption of unity government talks:
Regarding the national dialogue, President Abbas said that he is ready to start a scheduled dialogue to resume the past talks in accordance with what have been agreed upon, which is the formation of a national unity government that would end the current crisis.
Ami Isseroff
Original text copyright by the author and MidEastWeb for Coexistence, RA. Posted at MidEastWeb Middle East Web Log at http://www.mideastweb.org/log/archives/00000545.htm where your intelligent and constructive comments are welcome. Distributed by MEW Newslist. Subscribe by e-mail to mew-subscribe@yahoogroups.com. Please forward by email with this notice and link to and cite this article. Other uses by permission.
(Iraq Christians) 'Leave, crusaders, or have your heads cut off'
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2006/12/24/wchrist24.xml
[worth reading]
Canadian woman missing after recovering two daughters in Lebanon in child-custody case
http://www.iht. com/articles/ ap/2006/12/ 24/america/ NA_GEN_Canada_ Lebanon_Abductio n.php
Advocate: Canadian woman missing after recovering two daughters in
Lebanon in child-custody case
CALGARY , Alberta : A Canadian woman and her father are missing in Lebanon
after snatching back the two daughters she said her husband kidnapped, a
Canadian missing children's advocate said.
In a child disappearance case spanning three continents and six months,
Melissa Hawach and her father, Jim Engdahl, have not been heard from
since Dec. 21, when she grabbed her daughters, Hannah, 5 and Cedar, 3,
from a hotel near Beirut .
Her estranged husband, Joseph Hawach, had spirited them from Australia
to Lebanon --- from where his families originally hails --- without her
permission, said Rhonda Morgan, executive director of the Missing
Children Society of Canada.
Hawach, had secured her approval to take the children to visit his
family in Australia in July and was to return the girls to Melissa
Hawach, who has custody, in August. While she had been in regular phone
contact for some weeks until near the end of the vacation, her husband
stopped answering her calls. She called her in-laws and was told by them
that he had left the country and would not be returning with the girls,
Morgan told The Associated Press.
"That started a huge search. At first we didn't know where they were.
Then there were rumors that Joe and the girls and his mother had gone to
Lebanon at the height of the Lebanon-Israeli war in the summer," Morgan
told the AP on Saturday. "We couldn't confirm that, but eventually there
was an address location confirmed for Joe and the girls just north of
Beirut ."
Australian court records show that during a Nov. 29 preliminary hearing
in a legal action Melissa Hawach filed against her husband's family in
New South Wales state Supreme Court, Joseph Hawach's brother, father and
uncle told the court that the children had been taken to Lebanon .
"He's expressed an intention to stay," court records quoted Hawach's
brother, Pierre Hawach as saying while recalling a phone conversation he
had with his brother. "He said, 'I'm not coming back'."
Hawach's family in Australia could not be reached Sunday for comment.
Melissa Hawach had retained lawyers in Lebanon , Canada and Australia ,
and had been told that similar cases in the country had favored the
wronged spouse, despite the fact that Lebanon was not a party to an
international treaty on the return of abducted children. However, she
later learned that the process could drag on for as long as two years in
Lebanese court, said Morgan.
"Melissa didn't go over there with the intention of the re-abduction of
the kids. She went over there to go through the courts," said Morgan.
"She did everything in her power to do the right thing and was basically
left with no other alternative. "
With the hope of speeding along the process, Melissa Hawach, who had
traveled to Australia twice since the girls disappeared, left for
Lebanon in the middle of December and checked into the same hotel.
She spent several days watching the girls from a distance as they played
with other children in the compound and, upon learning that the
surveillance team she hired was returning home for the Christmas
holiday, decided "she couldn't leave without the girls," Morgan said,
adding that Melissa Hawach decided she would approach the girls and, if
they wanted to come with her, would take them to the Canadian embassy in
Lebanon .
"She went to the hotel and, when the girls came down, she called out to
them and they apparently ran to her," said Morgan, citing testimony from
unidentified witnesses at the hotel. She then took them away in a
waiting vehicle, said Morgan.
They have not been heard from since, and it was not immediately clear
whether they had been in contact with the embassy in Lebanon .
Catherine Gagnaire, a spokeswoman for Canada 's Foreign Affairs
Department in Ottawa , said they were waiting for hear from consular
officials in Lebanon before commenting.
The two men aiding her were arrested at Beirut International Airport on
Wednesday, the Calgary Herald reported, describing the men --- an
Australian and a New Zealander --- as former soldiers.
Independent confirmation was not immediately possible in Lebanon .
Australia 's Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade said that a
38-year-old man was detained in Beirut on Dec. 21 and is being provided
with consular assistance.
Italian who met Russian spy arrested
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20972415-1702,00.html
Italian who met Russian spy arrested
From correspondents in Naples
December 25, 2006
MARIO Scaramella, the Italian contact of the dead former Russian spy
Alexander Litvinenko, was arrested on Sunday in connection with an
investigation into arms trafficking, a judicial source said.
The source said Scaramella was arrested at Naples airport as he
arrived on a flight from London, where he was hospitalised this month
for treatment for suspected radiation poisoning.
He was one of the last people to have met with Litvinenko, who died
last month of radiation poisoning.
Scaramella, an Italian KGB expert who was a consultant to an
parliamentary commission that investigated spying in Europe during the
Cold War, was arrested in connection with an investigation into arms
trafficking and violating state secrets.
Italian media said he would be transferred to a Rome jail.
Scaramella met Litvinenko at a London sushi bar on November 1, the day
the former Russian spy fell ill.
Both Russian and British authorities have started murder
investigations into Litvinenko's death from poisoning by a lethal dose
of polonium 210.
The attention surrounding Scaramella has thrown the spotlight onto
Italian judicial investigations that involve him, including one into
arms trafficking.
In a telephone interview with Reuters earlier this month, Scaramella
said: "I need to come back to Italy as soon as I can and to clarify
with authorities," he said.
Litvinenko, in a statement released after his death on Nov. 23,
accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of masterminding his
poisoning.
The Kremlin has denied involvement in the case, which has sparked
conspiracy theories, revived memories of Cold War spying and strained
relations between Russia and Britain.
Marina Litvinenko, in media interviews, said her husband had made
enemies by speaking out about corruption in the FSB, the KGB's
successor. She said Russian authorities might have killed him.
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