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Posts Tagged ‘Israel’

Authorities gun down protesters in Syria and Yemen

April 18, 2011 Comments off

http://www.dw-world

Thousands of mourners at a funeral in SyriaThousands of Syrians called for the ouster of President Assad, while Yemenis demanded their leader step down. In both countries, protesters were shot by security forces.

Thousands of Syrian mourners chanted slogans calling for the overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad at the funeral of a soldier killed during a recent clash between demonstrators and government troops.

Eyewitnesses and activists said at least two people were shot dead during an anti-government protest in central Syria. The actions could not be independently confirmed, but witnesses said gunmen wearing black clothes opened fire on hundreds of people gathered in the town of Talbiseh, north of Read more…

Categories: Protests, Syria, Yemen Tags: , , , , ,

Saudi US Rift widening

April 13, 2011 1 comment

goldandsilverlinings
Back when Egypt was falling apart, not that it still isn’t, the Saudi king was very upset with the US for allowing his good friend Hosni Mubarak to fall. Rumor has it that the King almost or in fact did suffer a heart attack after talking to Obama about the way things were going in the Egypt.

The Saudi’s are now raising concerns that the Bushehr reactor is another Fukushima waiting to happen. The US is turning a blind eye to Saudi Arabia’s concerns, granted the Saudi’s are likely taking advantage of Fukushima to draw attention to their objective of halting Bushehr coming online. Israel has also been very quiet on Bushekr Read more…

Categories: Saudi Arabia, United States Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Israel and Hamas Consider Cease-Fire

April 11, 2011 Comments off

nytimes

 

JERUSALEM — Israel and Hamas signaled on Sunday that they were willing to restore calm after days of intense fighting, and while militants in Gaza fired about 10 rockets and mortar shells into southern Israel, most fell in open areas close to the border and Israel did not immediately respond.

“We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip,” Ghazi Hamad, the Hamas deputy foreign minister, told Israel Radio Sunday.

That represented a sharp reduction in activity since Hamas fired an antitank missile at an Israeli school bus on Thursday, critically wounding a 16-year-old boy and setting off Israeli aerial, artillery and tank fire against targets in Gaza that killed 18 Palestinians, 10 of whom were militants and the rest civilians, according to officials in Gaza.

Hamas and other militant groups fired about 130 mortar shells and rockets, including several mid-range ones, at southern Israel over the previous three days.

Israel’s defense minister, Ehud Barak, said Sunday that Israel had received several messages indicating that Hamas, the militant Islamic group that controls Gaza, was interested in a cease-fire.

“If they stop firing on our communities, we will stop firing,” Mr. Barak told Israel Radio.

Hamas spokesmen offered similar messages. Ghazi Hamad, the deputy foreign minister of the Hamas government in Gaza, told Israel Radio, “We are interested in calm in the Gaza Strip, but also that the Israeli Army cease operations against our people.”

Salah al-Bardaweel, a Hamas spokesman, said that Israel appeared to have accepted the idea of reducing hostilities. “The factions will be committed to Read more…

Categories: Hamas, Israel Tags: , ,

Sudan Accuses Israel Of Attack; Khartoum ‘Reserves The Right To React’

April 6, 2011 Comments off

huffingtonpost

Israel Sudan Attack

KHARTOUM (Reuters) – Sudan’s Foreign Minister Ali Karti on Wednesday accused Israel of carrying out an attack on Tuesday near Port Sudan that killed two people and said Khartoum reserved the right to react to the aggression.

“This is absolutely an Israeli attack,” he told reporters.

He said Israel undertook the attack in order scupper Sudan’s chances of being removed from a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism.

One of the two people killed in the strike was a Sudanese citizen who had no ties to Islamists or the government, he said.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman Yigal Palmor declined to comment on the accusation.

Sudanese officials have offered different versions on how the strike was carried out. Police say a missile struck the car near the port city, but a state government official blamed a bombing by a foreign aircraft that flew in from the Red Sea.

Sudanese officials in 2009 said unknown aircraft had killed scores in a strike on a convoy of suspected arms smugglers on a remote road in the east, which some reports said may have been carried out by Israel to stop weapons bound for Gaza.

Sudan is on a U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism, but Washington this year initiated the process to remove it from that list after a peaceful January referendum in which the country’s south voted to secede.

Categories: Israel, Sudan Tags: , , , , ,

Leading Israelis push for two-state solution with new peace initiative

April 6, 2011 Comments off

guardian

Gaza funeral

A father weeps at the funeral of his 21-year-old son, killed on Tuesday by Israeli fire in northern Gaza. Photograph: Mohammed Abed/AFP/Getty Images

A group of prominent Israelis, including heads of the army and security services, hope to revive the peace initiative by announcing details of possible treaties with the Palestinians, Syria and Lebanon.

The Israeli Peace Initiative, a two-page document, states that Israel will withdraw from the land it occupied in 1967 in both the West Bank and the Golan Heights, and pay compensation to refugees. The document has been given to Binyamin Netanyahu, the prime minister, who has said he will read it with interest.

The authors of the document, which will be launched at a press conference in Tel Aviv on Wednesday, say that it is partly inspired by the revolutions that have taken place in the Middle East. It presents an opportunity for Israelis to participate in the “winds of change” blowing through the Middle East, they say.

“We looked around at what was happening in neighbouring countries and we said to ourselves, ‘It is about time that the Israeli public Read more…

Categories: Israel, Palestine Tags: , , , , , , ,

Is this the first ever portrait of Jesus? The incredible story of 70 ancient books hidden in a cave for nearly 2,000 years

April 5, 2011 Comments off

dailymail

The image is eerily familiar: a bearded young man with flowing curly hair. After lying for nearly 2,000 years hidden in a cave in the Holy Land, the fine detail is difficult to determine. But in a certain light it is not difficult to interpret the marks around the figure’s brow as a crown of thorns.

The extraordinary picture of one of the recently discovered hoard of up to 70 lead codices – booklets – found in a cave in the hills overlooking the Sea of Galilee is one reason Bible historians are clamouring to get their hands on the ancient artefacts.

If genuine, this could be the first-ever portrait of Jesus Christ, possibly even created in the lifetime of those who knew him.

Discovery: The impression on this booklet cover shows what could be the earliest image of Christ
Discovery: The impression on this booklet cover shows what could be the earliest image of Christ Read more…
Categories: Jesus Tags: , , , , , , , , ,

Israel passes a law facilitating citizenship cancellation for “terrorists”

April 4, 2011 1 comment

ahram.org

Liberman

Israel has passed a law facilitating the process of cancelling citizenship, in a move condemned as a threat to the Arab minority in Israel. This amendment is the so-called “Law of Nationality”, the latest move in a list of recent parliamentary procedures that have been denounced by civil rights advocates as non-democratic, but which Israeli jurists believe are necessary to defend the “Jewish state.”

This law allows judges to take Israeli nationality from any person who is convicted of spying, or who commits acts of violence for national motivations.

The official explanatory note said that the law aims to “expand the possibility of deprivation of nationality and the authorization of the court which condemned any person convicted for committing crimes of terrorism or to strip him of citizenship.”

Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman described this step as a victory, saying he had made a pledge to voters to suppress “any citizen who is biased to the enemy.”

The Civil Rights Association criticized the law, saying that it “sends degrading and discriminatory massage to Israeli Arabs, that citizenship is not automatic.”

Categories: Israel Tags: , , , , ,

Israel to deploy ‘Iron Dome’ anti-rocket system

March 26, 2011 Comments off

telegraph

Israel will deploy its Iron Dome multi-million-pound missile defence system in southern Israel for the first time next week in the wake of rocket attacks from Gaza, officials said on Friday.  

A rocket fired by the ‘Iron Dome’ system during a test fire in southern Israel Photo: AP
7:12PM GMT 25 Mar 2011

“I authorised the army to deploy in the next few days the first battery of “Iron Dome” for an operational trial,” Defence Minister Ehud Barak said as he toured the tense Gaza Strip border.

The order comes after a spate of rocket fire by Gaza militants in recent days, some of them striking deep into Israel.

The deployment of the Iron Dome interceptor, designed to combat short-range rocket threats from the Gaza Strip and Lebanon, has been delayed until now with officials saying operating crews needed more training and suggestions the system was prohibitively expensive.

The system, developed by Israel’s Rafael Advanced Defence Systems with the help of Read more…

Categories: Israel, Technology Tags: , , , , ,

Superbug spreading to Southern California hospitals

March 25, 2011 Comments off

latimes.com

2010 map of Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae in the U.S.

A dangerous drug-resistant bacteria has spread to patients in Southern California, according to a study by Los Angeles County public health officials.

More than 350 cases of the Carbapenem-Resistant Klebsiella pneumoniae, or CRKP, have been reported at healthcare facilities in Los Angeles County, mostly among elderly patients at skilled-nursing and long-term care facilities, according to a study by Dr. Dawn Terashita, an epidemiologist with the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health.

It was not clear from the study how many of the infections proved fatal, but other studies in the U.S. and Israel have shown that about 40% of patients with the infection die. Tereshita was Read more…

Categories: California, disease and pestilence, United States Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Russia to spend $700 bln on new weapons

March 19, 2011 Comments off

(AP)

MOSCOW (AP) — President Dmitry Medvedev said Friday that Russia will spend the equivalent of $700 billion by 2020 to modernize the military’s aging arsenals, but sternly warned arms industries against jacking up prices.

Medvedev said the new plan should re-equip the armed forces, which have mostly relied on Soviet-built weapons, but some analysts say that the ambitious program that envisages procurement of 600 new warplanes, 100 ships and 1,000 helicopters is unfeasible because of a steady decline of the nation’s once-proud arms industry.

Medvedev, speaking at a meeting with the top military brass, harshly criticized domestic arms makers for failing to meet Russia’s weapons orders last year and said that the culprits will be punished.

Medvedev didn’t give details, but deputy prime minister Sergei Ivanov said Read more…

Categories: military, Russia Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,