There is still doubt in the minds of serious people about Israel’s attack on the Free Gaza flotilla and the events that lead to the death of 9 of the activists aboard. There can be little surprise of…
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Afghanistan – See You Again In 2014
Published: 28/07/2010
U.S. and Western troops will stay in Afghanistan until 2014 when Afghan forces will take full control over security in the country: this is the final decision of the international conference held in Kabul on Tuesday, July 20th.
The…
Toxic legacy of US assault on Fallujah ‘worse than Hiroshima’
Published: 28/07/2010Dramatic increases in infant mortality, cancer and leukaemia in the Iraqi city of Fallujah, which was bombarded by US Marines in 2004, exceed those reported by survivors of the atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945,…
Now Afghanistan too shows the limits of American power
Published: 28/07/2010The catastrophic illusions and acts of official betrayal at the heart of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq are being progressively exposed, one after another. In London, the former head of MI5 Eliza Manningham-Buller confirmed to the Iraq inquiry this…
President Obama: Why Are We in Afghanistan?
Published: 28/07/2010Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele recently said the unthinkable: Afghanistan is “a war of Obama’s choosing.” Steele’s remarks triggered a verbal slugfest between neocon proponents of endless war, such as William Kristol, and Iraq hawks turned Afghanistan doves, such…
How to fix Afghanistan
Published: 28/07/2010America’s war effort in Afghanistan remains adrift, a fact accentuated recently following the firing of General Stanley McCrystal.
Yet the problems that America faces are in many ways intrinsic to the nation it is trying to change, and part and…
Strategic Depth: a Pakistani or US doctrine?
Published: 28/07/2010Wow, what a week that was. US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton with a bag-full of demand-notes and directional charts, followed by an international Afghan Conference in Kabul where Russians, Chinese and Indians all but differed with the US strategy…
Israeli PM Netanyahu: I “stopped” Oslo peace process (video)
Published: 27/07/201027/07/2010 – In this video, leaked and aired on Channel 10 News in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seen speaking candidly back in 2001 at a constituent’s home about the Oslo Accords, the peace process, Bill Clinton, and the United States (IMEU) (English subtitles here )
Mullen: U.S.-Afghan Relationship Will Endure (video)
Published: 26/07/201026/07/2010 – In Afghanistan, Admiral Mike Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff says the U.S. is working with Afghanistan to provide a seamless transition when American forces leave the country (AP)
Iraq: a local dilemma or US design?
Published: 23/07/2010The former US ambassador to Iraq, Ryan Crocker, recently described the Iraqi elections and their aftermath as “high drama and low comedy”. It is the perfect description, yet he should have added that this was a natural outcome of the…
Tricky Bibi
Published: 22/07/2010This video should have been banned for broadcast to minors. This video should have been shown in every home in Israel, then sent to Washington and Ramallah. Banned for viewing by children so as not to corrupt them, and distributed…
Inside Story – Iraq’s political wrangling (video)
Published: 22/07/201022/07/2010 – Iyad Allawi, the former Iraqi prime minister whose Iraqiya coalition won 91 seats in the country’s March parliamentary election, has sought support to form a government from Moqtada al-Sadr, the Iranian-backed Iraqi Shia leader. What would it take for Allawi and al-Sadr to form a political alliance? And to what extent are outside forces hindering or aiding the process? (al-Jazeera English)
From The Gaza Siege To The West Bank’s “Economic Peace”
Published: 21/07/2010
While the Gaza siege is continuing almost unrelentingly (with the sole exception of the lifting of the ban on some foodstuffs) after the fleeting episode of the Freedom Flotilla, many have been speaking for months now of the “economic…
Why Israel keeps moving to the right
Published: 21/07/2010Israel has been sliding into ever greater isolation in the few last years and this process has accelerated since Binyamin Netanyahu came to power in 2009. The international community is put off by his tactics: whenever the question of Israel’s…
Gaza – How to kill an economy
Published: 21/07/2010First close down the borders and refuse to allow any exports out.
Then ban the importing of any raw material for factories and businesses.
Force the commercial class to rely on expensive underground smuggling tunnels to procure what the community…
West Bank poverty ‘worse than Gaza’
Published: 21/07/2010Children living in the poorest parts of the West Bank face significantly worse conditions than their counterparts in Gaza, a study conducted by an international youth charity has found.
The report by Save the Children UK, due to be released…
Debunk of comparison between Israel, apartheid South Africa
Published: 21/07/2010Over 200 concerned Israelis, many of them of South African origin, attended a panel on “Combating Israel’s Delegitimization: Debunking the Apartheid Myth,” held Sunday evening at the Menachem Begin Heritage Center in Jerusalem.
The event was organized by two South…
The Netanyahu-Fayyad “economic peace” one year on
Published: 21/07/2010Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was elected on a platform of “economic peace” with Palestinians in the West Bank. He contended that developing the Palestinian economy, by providing Palestinians with jobs and a better living stands, would render the “problems”…
An Attack on Iran: Back on the Table
Published: 18/07/2010In late 2006, George W. Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and asked if military action against Iran’s nuclear program was feasible. The unanimous answer was no. Air strikes could take out some of Iran’s…
Has Syria changed for the better? (video)
Published: 17/07/201017/07/2010 – It has been 10 years since Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s president, assumed leadership following his father’s death. He came into power promising many changes of freedom and growth to a country that was largely ruled with an iron fist. Has he delivered on his promises of change? (al-Jazeera English)
Ayatollah Fadlallah And The Misunderstandings Between Islam And The West
Published: 15/07/2010
On June 4th, Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah died in Beirut at the age 75. Lebanon’s supreme Shiite authority, his spiritual influence spanned well beyond the borders of Lebanon and Shiism. He was a guide for millions of Muslims…
The GCC stocks the larder against future food crisis
Published: 14/07/2010Until recently, most international media have deemed the financial crisis as the main plague currently affecting the states of the Gulf Co-operation Council – Bahrain, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and the UAE – as well as the rest of the…
Fadlallah – His door was always open
Published: 14/07/2010The passing of Sayyed Mohammad Hussein Fadlallah is, naturally, an occasion to remember the person, and one can easily recall how his humble home in Beirut’s southern suburbs was more of a forum than a simple address.
It hosted innumerable…
Fadlallah’s Inspiring Life
Published: 14/07/2010BEIRUT — Grand Ayatollah Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah, Lebanon’s most influential Shiite Muslim leader who died in Beirut a few days ago, was a marja or a source of emulation for other Shiites, during his lifetime — just about the highest…
Lebanese cleric passes into lore
Published: 14/07/2010“Throughout my life, I have always supported the human being in his humanism and I have supported the oppressed. I think it is the person’s right to live his freedom and it is her and his right to face the…
Ayatollah Fadlallah tributes divide opinion
Published: 14/07/2010A Shia cleric dies in Lebanon and a CNN journalist gets fired for her tweet praising him while a British ambassador is made to apologise for eulogising him on her blog.
It could be yet another story about the pitfalls…
Washington’s state of denial claims yet more casualties
Published: 14/07/2010You’d be surprised how much can be revealed in a 140-character “tweet” on the Twitter social network. Octavia Nasr, a 20-year veteran editor at CNN, has managed through one such mini-message to demonstrate the extent to which the Middle East…
Ayatollah Fadlallah Speaks Against Terrorism (video)
Published: 13/07/201013/07/2010 – In a recent documentary, Grand Ayatollah Muhammad Hussein Fadlallah, spoke against killing innocent people and terrorism
Gaza farmers risk being shot (video)
Published: 12/07/201012/07/2010 – As a Libyan backed aid ship sails for the Gaza Strip, another group of international activists has been defying the blockade, but this time on the land. Foreigners acting as human shields have been helping farmers in Gaza harvest their crops. About 30 per cent of Gaza’s arable land is on the border with Israel and the area has been declared a buffer zone by the Israeli army. Palestinian farmers risk being shot with live fire for working their fields (al-Jazeera English)
UNIFIL needs a charm offensive
Published: 08/07/2010Since the end of the July-August war of 2006, south Lebanon has not been the same. That is not because the war obliterated vast swaths of villages and residential communities, but because the presence of international forces has contributed greatly…
The Crisis In Obama’s Strategy In Afghanistan
Published: 07/07/2010
Almost two weeks after Gen. Stanley McChrystal’s resignation due to his offensive statements against the U.S. Administration published in the press, it is now clear that it was just a symptom of a much deeper crisis that is being…
U.S. indirectly paying Afghan warlords as part of security contract
Published: 07/07/2010The U.S. military is funding a massive protection racket in Afghanistan, indirectly paying tens of millions of dollars to warlords, corrupt public officials and the Taliban to ensure safe passage of its supply convoys throughout the country, according to congressional…
The US in Afghanistan – Rifts or policy drift?
Published: 07/07/2010The storm in Washington over General Stanley McChrystal’s egregious conduct culminated in his swift dismissal and replacement. But the reverberations from this expose of the Obama administration’s dysfunctional national security team will haunt its Afghan mission for months to come.…
How lessons in the dark arts of special ops led McChrystal to the edge
Published: 07/07/2010They called it the “Death Star” because according to one source who worked inside it, “you could just reach out with a finger and eliminate” somebody. On the walls were banks of television screens, known by the special forces boys…
Israel has eyes on Lebanon’s resources
Published: 06/07/2010Newswire services have revealed that Lebanese President Michel Sulaiman has raised the super-sensitive offshore oil issue in the Eastern Mediterranean with his Syrian counterpart, President Bashar Al Assad. Sulaiman was quoted commenting: “There is an oil wealth in the sea…
FREEDOM FLOTILLA
Published: 06/07/2010There is still doubt in the minds of serious people about Israel’s attack on the Free Gaza flotilla and the events that lead to the death of 9 of the activists aboard. There can be little surprise of…
A Rentier Coup in a Rentier State
Published: 03/07/2010The quickly declining health of Ras Al Khaimah’s ruler is precipitating a round of intrigue and succession stories in the northernmost Emirate of the UAE. Sheikh Saqr Al Qasimi, 92, one of the longest ruling leaders in the world having…
Jordan’s New Electoral Law Disappoints Reformers
Published: 02/07/2010After months of civil society advocacy, King Abdullah recently promulgated a new electoral law in preparation for fall elections to replace the parliament dissolved in November 2009. To the dismay of local reformers, the revised law maintains the controversial one-man…
The two faces of Lebanon
Published: 01/07/2010Thousands of Lebanese and Palestinian activists are marching in Beirut today in support of social and economic rights for the more than 400,000 Palestinians living in the country’s 12 refugee camps.
A debate in the Lebanese parliament over granting civil…
The Arab-Israeli Conflict And The Shattered Mediterranean Dream
Published: 01/07/2010
On July 13, 2008, in front of 43 heads of state and government, French President Nicolas Sarkozy launched the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) at a grand ceremony to stress the importance of the goal reached and the impact…
Riz Khan – Egypt’s Gaza crisis (video)
Published: 30/06/201030/06/2010 – Has Gaza’s humanitarian disaster become a political crisis for Egypt? A look at Egypt’s policies towards Gaza and whether or not its traditional leadership role is being eclipsed as a result (al-Jazeera English)
EU’s Union for the Mediterranean drifts into irrelevance
Published: 30/06/2010Two weeks ago European leaders decided to postpone an upcoming summit of something called the Union for the Mediterranean. It is safe to say that very few people in the Mediterranean noticed or cared.
The story of the UfM is…
Failed Summits -The Union for the Mediterranean at a standstill
Published: 30/06/2010After being in place for two years the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM) has not achieved any policy outcome and still lacks a visible rapprochement between the two shores. This is even more frustrating when considering that the Spanish EU…
Egypt in awkward position on Gaza following Israeli attack on aid flotilla
Published: 30/06/2010GAZA CITY — With pressure building on Israel to lift its blockade of the Gaza Strip, Egypt finds itself in the uncomfortable position of continuing to help enforce the siege while watching Turkey outflank the region’s traditional Sunni Arab heavyweights…
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