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December 27, 2002 News http://www.aljazeerah.info |
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Human Price of the Israeli Occupation of Palestine Israeli daily aggression on the Palestinian people Mission and meaning of Al-Jazeerah
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BETHLEHEM, West Bank, 27 December 2002 — Israeli troops shot dead nine Palestinians in raids across the West Bank and swept back into Bethlehem to reimpose a curfew yesterday, ending a brief Christmas respite from occupation. Thirty Palestinians were injured and 20 arrested by the Israeli forces. The flurry of Israeli Army operations drew vows of revenge from Palestinian groups, aggravating hostilities which the United States wants kept in check to help it cultivate Arab support for possible war against Iraq. In Bethlehem, troops fired tear gas at Palestinians shopping near the town center, ordering them by loudspeakers to return home, and resumed patrols. “The curfew was put back in place a short time ago for operational needs,” an Israeli military source said. The army reoccupied Bethlehem a month ago after a Palestinian bomber from the town blew up a bus in nearby Jerusalem, killing 11 Israelis. Several army patrols rumbled over Bethlehem’s cobblestone streets yesterday. Soldiers arrested at least one man, identified as a Palestinian intelligence officer, and there were sporadic clashes with stone-throwers. Israeli military sources called the raids “counterterrorism operations”. “The escalation of violence by (Israeli Prime Minister Ariel) Sharon is aimed at creating a volatile atmosphere which he believes will serve him in his election campaign,” Palestinian Information Minister Yasser Abed Rabbo told Reuters. “Sharon is inviting retaliation because he wants ... to prevent any possibility of an agreement (between Palestinian factions) on a cease fire,” he said. Sharon’s government says any internal Palestinian truce discussions have not been serious. In the West Bank city of Ramallah, Israeli undercover troops riddled a car with gunfire, killing Bassem Al-Ashqar of the Hamas. An Israeli military source said troops had tried to detain two wanted men in a car but one of them opened fire. “The force returned fire and killed him,” the source said. The second fugitive was taken into custody, he added. Palestinian witnesses denied anyone had shot at Israeli soldiers in the incident. Witnesses said troops also shot dead a 19-year-old bystander and an army spokesman said another Palestinian was shot dead later in Ramallah while trying to escape arrest. Earlier yesterday, Israeli soldiers killed a senior Islamic Jihad member in a raid near the northern West Bank town of Jenin. The army said troops and armor surrounded a house in the village of Qabatiya and killed Hamza Abu Roub, 35, in a gunbattle in which four soldiers were wounded. “Our military wing and fighters will avenge this crime,” said Sheikh Abdallah Al-Shami of Islamic Jihad in Gaza. The army said troops killed two Palestinians in fighting in the center of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. In the West Bank city of Tulkarm, an Israeli undercover unit killed Jamal Nader Mohammad Yahya, a member of Palestinian President Yasser Arafat’s Fatah faction, in front of his house. Palestinian sources said he belonged to the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, an offshoot of Fatah, but was involved only in political activities. Israeli military sources said border police tried to arrest him and opened fire after he ignored warning shots. Later in the day, Palestinian witnesses said a 65-year-old man died in the village of Ramem near Tulkarm after Israeli troops fired concussion grenades near him during a raid. The army said there had been no firing of weapons in the area and that Palestinians told them the elderly man had died while being taken to hospital after hitting his head in an accident.
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Russia says war on Iraq will
boost terrorism -
MOSCOW, 27 December 2002 — Russia warned yesterday that a war on Iraq
could distract the world’s attention away from the ongoing military
campaign in Afghanistan and boost international terrorism. “Switching the focus off Afghanistan and shifting it to Iraq may
augment the threat of international terrorism which is coming from Afghan
territories that are not under Kabul’s control,” Deputy Foreign
Minister Yury Fedotov told the Itar-Tass news agency. He reiterated Russia’s view that the international community
currently had no proof of a link between the Iraqi regime and
international terror organizations. “No one can provide the slightest evidence” that Iraq represented a
terrorist threat, Fedotov said. In Baghdad, an Iraqi official said yesterday that three Iraqi civilians
were killed and 16 wounded in an air raid by US and British warplanes on
southern Iraq. “Enemy warplanes bombed civilian installations in the provinces of
Basra and Zi-Qar, and three Iraqi civilians were killed and sixteen others
wounded in the attacks,” said a military spokesman. The spokesman said anti-aircraft defenses opened fire on the attackers
and that they fled back to their bases in Kuwait. Earlier, US Central
Command said US and British aircraft attacked an air military
communications facility in Iraq in retaliation for the downing of an US
spy plane earlier this week. Head of the Iraqi National Monitoring Directorate Gen. Hossam Mohammad
Amin said UN arms inspectors have found no proof to support US and British
allegations that Iraq is harboring weapons of mass destruction. Meanwhile, UN experts, pursuing the hunt for Iraq’s elusive weapons
arsenal, interviewed yesterday the head of Baghdad’s Technology
University. It was the second reported meeting with Iraqi scientists since
disarmament inspectors resumed their work here a month ago, but little
detail about the interviews has emerged. “The inspectors asked me
questions about the organization of our establishment, the names of
teachers and the work of the university,” Mazen Mohammad told the
satellite news channel Al-Jazeera. “They also asked questions about our relations with the various
universities and government bodies,” in Iraq. The interview began in his
offices about 9 a.m and lasted about 100 minutes. The inspectors had on Tuesday interviewed an Iraqi scientist privately
for the first time since they resumed work on Nov. 27. Sabah Abdel Nour, a professor at the technology university, had
previously been linked to Iraq’s nuclear program. In Britain, religious heads and leading opposition politicians
expressed fear yesterday about any US-led strikes against Iraq, in
messages aimed at Prime Minister Tony Blair. In a letter to the Times,
Charles Kennedy, leader of the opposition Liberal Democrats, wrote: “To
drift into a war without clear evidence of Iraq’s current involvement in
constructing and deploying weapons of mass destruction, or of its
deliberate non-compliance with the inspectors, would be to risk losing the
support of the international community.” Meanwhile, Syria, the only Arab member of the council, dismissed as
“ridiculous” and “unfounded” accusations by Israeli Prime Minister
Ariel Sharon that Iraq had transferred weapons of mass destruction to
Syrian soil. Baghdad has rejected the Israeli claim as absolute lies. Arab
League chief Amr Moussa also dismissed yesterday as “ridiculous”
Israeli claims that Syria was hiding Iraqi biological and chemical weapons
and accused the Jewish state of harboring weapons of mass destruction.
(Agencies)
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US abusing rights of terror
suspects -
WASHINGTON, 27 December 2002 — US interrogators in Afghanistan have
abused the rights of prisoners in the search for terrorists, skirting
close to torture, the Washington Post reported yesterday. “If you don’t violate someone’s human rights some of the time,
you probably aren’t doing your job,” said an official the Post
described as having overseen “the capture and transfer of accused
terrorists.” “I don’t think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on
this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the (Central
Intelligence Agency),” the man said. The US government will not release names or number of those captured in
Afghanistan as troops drove the Taleban from power after the Sept. 11,
2001, attacks. Some of those prisoners are housed in metal shipping containers
surrounded by barbed wire at Bagram air base in Afghanistan, where they
are deprived of sleep and light under “stress and duress” techniques
that sometimes spill over into the kinds of human rights abuses the US
accuses other countries of committing, the Post said after interviewing
espionage operatives. “There was a ‘before nine-11’ and there was an
‘after nine-11’,” said Cofer Black, who headed the CIA’s
counterterrorist center, when he told a Sept. 26 joint hearing of the
House and Senate intelligence committees: “After 9-11 the gloves come
off.” Prisoners are also routinely forced to stand, kneel or sit in
uncomfortable positions for hours at a time, the Post said. Those who do
not crack under such methods are often shipped off to tougher countries. “We don’t kick the (expletive) out of them. We send them to other
countries so they can kick the (expletive) out of them,” an official
told the Post under condition of anonymity. About 3,000 suspected Al-Qaeda
members and supporters have been captured by the US. More than 600 of
these are held at the US naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. A government
spokesman refused to comment on specific charges in the Post article. (AFP)
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Occupation army establishing special
'buffer zones' Jordan Times, 12/27/02
- TEL AVIV (AP) — The Israeli occupation army has begun establishing wide “buffer zones” around Jewish settlements in the West Bank to keep out Palestinians, a senior Israeli official said on Thursday. The fencing-in of such no-go zones, some several hundred metres wide, angered Palestinians who want to establish their state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip. Raanan Gissin, an aide to Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, said the army decided to establish the zones because Palestinian freedom fighters have repeatedly in the past 27 months of the uprising against occupation attacked settlements established on confiscated Palestinian lands. The zones will have beefed up patrols and special observation towers, Gissin said, but refused to detail what other special measures will be taken. “It's part of the overall measures the IDF (Israeli Defence Forces) is taking to protect settlers,” Gissin said. “It's just to ensure that you have a forward defence deployment so you don't engage the terrorists inside the compound or inside the village, you try to intercept them outside the fence.” According to the Haaretz newspaper, special rules of engagement will apply in these “buffer zones” and occupation soldiers will be allowed to immediately fire on anyone trying to penetrate the area. In theory, soldiers have to fire in the air before shooting directly at a “suspect.” Palestinian Cabinet Minister Saeb Erekat said the “buffer zones” were a further attempt by Sharon to kill a US-backed “road map” to peace that outlines a vision for a Palestinian state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip by 2005. “It is their way of expanding settlements and creating facts on the ground to undermine President (George W.) Bush's vision of a Palestinian state by 2005. Sharon wants to make sure by 2005 that it will be impossible to create a Palestinian state because of the settlements,” Erekat said. More than 400,000 Israelis live in more than 400 Jewish settlements scattered across the West Bank and Gaza.
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Iraq stockpiles food for war By Nadim Ladki -
BAGHDAD — Iraq has increased food rations to let citizens stock up for a possible war with the United States, its trade minister said on Thursday. The minister, Mohammed Mehdi Saleh, told Reuters supplies distributed so far should ensure everyone had a stockpile to last three months. "And we are going to increase the quantity in the coming months so that everybody is secured in this regard," he said. UN arms inspectors, on a mission that may prove crucial in deciding whether a war takes place, checked at least three sites for signs of weapons of mass destruction and questioned scientists at Baghdad's Technological University. The inspectors, whose next report to the UN Security Council is due on Jan. 9, have not taken a break for a Christmas season marked by appeals for peace from Christian religious leaders. The pressure for rapid and aggressive inspections has come from the United States, which has threatened to go to war if Iraq cannot prove it has scrapped all its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programmes, as required by UN resolutions. Their final report is due by Jan. 27. With Iraq continuing to insist it no longer has the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction, speculation is growing that the report could be the trigger for war. Assault in February? Israel's military intelligence chief, Major General Aharon Ze'evi-Farkash, told parliamentarians in Jerusalem this week that any US attack on Iraq was likely to be in early February. Relief agencies already fear a humanitarian crisis in a country damaged by over a decade of UN economic sanctions. Saleh told Reuters Iraq had earlier this year begun giving each family double rations of basic foodstuffs — including wheat, rice, cooking oil and milk powder — every other month. He also issued a warning to the United States: "We have taken measures to defend our country, our land and it (war) will not be a picnic....They will face hardship, difficulties and big losses if any aggression takes place and they will not achieve any objective from the war." George Robertson, secretary-general of the trans-Atlantic NATO alliance, said he expected it to support any US-led campaign against Iraq, with or without United Nations approval. "(NATO) is very, very supportive of the United Nations process and if that breaks down, then clearly there is a moral obligation by NATO to give whatever support is required," he told BBC Radio. So far Britain is the only NATO member to express readiness to join a US-led war in Iraq, although it has said it would prefer to have it endorsed by the UN Security Council. Pope John Paul, spiritual leader of a billion Roman Catholics, appealed to the world in his Christmas Day message from the Vatican to avert conflict in Iraq. He said people were called on in the Middle East to "extinguish the ominous smouldering of a conflict which, with the joint efforts of all, can be avoided". No break for Christmas The UN inspectors, who resumed their work in Iraq last month after a tough UN resolution pushed through by the United States, have had no time for seasonal reflection or celebration. On Christmas Day they visited seven suspect sites, and on Thursday Iraqi officials said they had questioned department heads and the dean of Baghdad's Technological University. With their mission in its fifth week, the inspectors have now completed more than 170 missions, visiting many sites more than once, but have not reported any suspicious findings. Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said this week Israel believed Syria was hiding Iraqi chemical and biological weapons. On Thursday, Arab League head Amr Musa dismissed the allegation as ridiculous. "Before we talk about any other country, Israel should be inspected," he told reporters in Cairo. "The whole region needs inspections, and primarily Israel, which has weapons of mass destruction," -- a reference to the 300 nuclear warheads that Israel is widely believed to have. The US military said American and British warplanes had attacked Iraqi military command and control facilities after Iraqi aircraft violated the "no-fly" zone over southern Iraq. The United States and Britain have been enforcing such zones over northern and southern Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War to protect Kurds in the north and Shi'ite Muslims in the south from the Iraqi military. Iraq does not recognise the zones. Attacks have increased in recent weeks as the United States boosts its military presence in case of war.
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Palestinians worry about protection in case
of new Gulf War Jordan Times, 12/27/02
- BODROS, West Bank (AFP) — During the 1991 Gulf War Israel provided Palestinians in the West Bank village of Bodros, a few kilometres east of Tel Aviv, with gas masks to protect against an Iraqi biological weapon attack. But this time around, with the West Bank reoccupied almost entirely by Israeli troops, the Jewish state has not yet taken measures to protect the Palestinian civilian population. “We are not included in any preparations against an attack,” said village resident Ahmed Abdul Karim. In 1991 “Israel provided gas masks to all people aged over 16” in the village, which counts 1,400 residents, added Karim. Masks were also provided to residents of neighbouring towns near the green line or border marking off Israel from the West Bank. Residents have been informed by the media of Israel's moves to provide its own citizens with gas masks. Recently, Israel has stepped up preparations for a possible Iraqi strike similar to the Scud missile attacks of the 1991 US-led Gulf War which killed two people and injured hundreds of others. Palestinian Labour Minister Ghassan Khatib told AFP the reoccupation of self-rule areas since mid-June prevents the Palestinian National Authority from taking measures to protect its population, adding however that Palestinians consider Israel a bigger threat than Iraq. “We believe that the main danger comes from Israel, which we believe, will take advantage of a war to threaten us,” Khatib said. “The (Palestinian) Authority has contacted international parties to ask for protection (against Israel), in particular for the presence of an international force in the territories,” he added. Palestinian officials fear that in the case of a US-led strike against Iraq, Israel will move to reoccupy what is left of the West Bank and completely cut off Palestinian towns from each other. Lawyer Nasser Al Rayes, a human rights activist, said it was Israel's responsibility as “an occupying power” to protect Palestinians from a possible Iraqi chemical or biological weapons attack. “In line with the Geneva Conventions, which Israel has ratified, it is necessary to protect the Palestinian civil population under occupation,” he said. During the 1991 Gulf War, Palestinians largely supported Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, who took up their cause and threatened to destroy Israel before his forces were driven out of Kuwait by a US-led coalition. Israel said Thursday it would distribute 60,000 gas masks to Palestinians living in all “C” areas, which fall under Israeli security and administrative control according to the 1993 Oslo peace accords. “These masks will be taken from army stocks and distributed to Palestinians living in sector C of the West Bank and Gaza territories,” said Colonel Eitan Ben Shemesh, a senior official at Home Front Command. The masks, however, will only be distributed if a state of emergency is declared in Israel. However, Israel has not commented on whether it would distribute gas masks to all other areas in the West Bank and Gaza Strip that fall under Palestinian administrative control.
TEL AVIV (AP) — Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said peace is closer than many believe, as he kicked off his party's reelection campaign under the twin clouds of corruption charges and persistent Israeli-Palestinian fighting. In his speech at the Likud Party rally on Wednesday, Sharon said he is prepared for "real and painful concessions" in exchange for "true peace" in the coming year. "It is closer than it appears, and I believe that. I will not allow this opportunity to slip through our fingers," he said. Party faithful waved signs, shouted slogans and set off fireworks at the convention centre in occupied Jerusalem, marking the start of the Likud campaign for Jan. 28 general elections. But the centre was not filled, indicating that even loyalists are troubled by the latest developments within the party. The chauffeur of Naomi Blumenthal, a longtime Likud legislator and currently a deputy minister, was arrested Wednesday. Police suspect he was involved in a scam in which candidates held a party at a Tel Aviv hotel to indirectly pay off activists to guarantee their support in the party's primary. Two other Likud members have been detained, and Israeli media reported that police also plan to question Blumenthal. Election polls show that the scandal has cut into the Likud lead, but Sharon's party is still far enough ahead to make him the clear front-runner for prime minister. The latest poll, published in the Haaretz newspaper Thursday, indicated that Likud is holding steady with 35 parliament seats, after dropping from an estimated 41 when the scandal first made headlines earlier this month. The Labour Party would win 22 seats in the 120-member parliament, down from 26 today. The poll has an error margin of 4.3 percentage points. Sharon pledged to work for peace with the Palestinians in the framework of a "national unity" government he would set up with archrival Labour, while rejecting Labour's peace proposals as "surrender to terrorism." Labour Party leaders say they would join a unity government only on the basis of their platform. In his speech, Sharon ignored the corruption charges. He also repeated his pledge to reappoint Shaul Mofaz as defence minister after the election. The chairman of the election commission ruled Wednesday that Mofaz, an ex-chief of staff of the Israeli military, had not been out of uniform long enough to run for parliament, according to the law. Israeli cabinet ministers do not have to be members of parliament. Outlining his plans for peace with the Palestinians, which he said followed the vision of US President George W. Bush, Sharon did not mention a Palestinian state. In interviews, Sharon has said he would accept a disarmed Palestinian state under strict conditions, a stand his Likud Party has repudiated. The Bush plan, adopted by the European Union, Russia and the United Nations, calls for creation of a provisional Palestinian state as early as next year. Sharon claimed that some Palestinian leaders have told him that they want an end to anti-Israeli attacks and a new regime that would make democratic reforms. He did not name them, but declared, "We have no more confidence in the current Palestinian leadership," referring to President Yasser Arafat, charging that he is a leader of "terrorism." Palestinians say Israel's continuing occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip and Sharon's ever-escalating military measures are responsible for the violence. Sharon expressed pride in Israeli restrictions that have decimated the Palestinian economy and led to widespread poverty. "The heads of Palestinian terror are under siege, a physical siege in which they are isolated and cut off, an economic siege in which we prevent them from using aid resources to finance additional terrorism against us, a political siege in which they have become political lepers," he said. Sharon's main opponent, Amram Mitzna of Labour, has proposed an unconditional pullout from the Gaza Strip and one year of negotiations with the Palestinians over the West Bank. If the negotiations are unsuccessful, he would draw Israel's border unilaterally and remove Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side. Sharon charged that such proposals would bring more violence, not less. "A unilateral withdrawal would broadcast a message of weakness that would bring all our enemies to our doorstep, that would show them that the time has come to deliver the final blow to the Jewish state," he said.
OCCUPIED JERUSALEM — Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, who has refused to recognise the Holy Land's top Greek Orthodox clergyman, appears to have suddenly changed his mind — the latest wrinkle in a controversy involving property, religion and politics. Sharon urgently summoned five ministers earlier this week, according to Thursday's edition of Maariv newspaper, to press them to support Greek Patriarch Eireneos I. Citing sources in Sharon's hardline Likud Party, the newspaper said the church — which owns valuable land in occupied Jerusalem, including the property on which the Israeli parliament sits — made promises to unnamed Likud operatives in exchange for government confirmation. Eireneos is anxious for Israeli recognition and promised businessmen who wield influence in the ruling Likud that he would enter into unspecified land transactions with them, the report said. Raanan Gissin, a Sharon spokesman, declined to discuss the matter, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on any pending cabinet decision on the patriarch's status. The Likud Party has been on the defensive since last month, when allegations surfaced of rampant vote-buying and bribery during the party's internal election in December. The scandal has caused the Likud to slide in the polls ahead of the Jan. 28 parliamentary ballot. Maariv also published what it said were excerpts of a letter from Eireneos to Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat that included “anti-Semitic” references, but the church denounced the letter as a fake. “Why now, did this letter come up right now, when it was known that the government of Israel is about to recognise the patriarch?” asked the Rev. Ikonomos Gabriel Nadaf, a church spokesman, at a press conference. “Different elements are using any means to prevent Israel's recognition of the elected Patriarch Eireneos.” Nadaf said other fake letters falsely suggested Eireneos had offered land in exchange for government confirmation and that the Israeli police were investigating. “All these letters are completely false,” Nadaf said. Despite pressure from the Greek government and elsewhere, the Sharon government has steadfastly refused to recognise Eireneos I, saying he is too close to the Palestinian National Authority. Eireneos has been quoted as saying that he intends to repossess as much of the church's vast land holdings in Israel as possible and that he supports the Palestinian people and their cause. Eireneos I was elected to replace Patriarch Diodoros I after his death in December 2000. Under a law dating back to Byzantine Emperor Justinian, who ruled in the 6th century, the government in the holy land has the right to approve or disqualify candidates for the office of patriarch. The Greek Orthodox Church is one of the largest Christian denominations in the holy land, with about 100,000 faithful.
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Arab news highlights
Jordan Times, 12/27/02
- Abu Dhabi to deport two Libyans after `joke' bomb threat ABU DHABI (AFP) — Two Libyans who threatened to blow up a Royal Jordanian aircraft carrying 173 passengers as a "joke" are to be deported and all charges dropped, a foreign ministry official said on Thursday. "It has been decided to set free and deport the two Libyans because no charges can be brought against them," said Undersecretary Saif Said. The decision was announced after Said met Libyan Ambassador Abdul Hamid Fathi Farhat in the United Arab Emirates capital Abu Dhabi, the official WAM news agency reported. The two men were not named, nor was the date of their deportation revealed. Police said the incident began as a joke. In the heat of a dispute over in-flight food on Sunday, one of the two Libyans told a steward: "If I had a bomb I would blow up the plane so all of us die," according to a police statement. As a result Jordanian security men aboard flight RJ602 from Amman to Dubai, via Abu Dhabi, arrested the man. A second Libyan then protested and he too was arrested. After an emergency landing at Abu Dhabi International Airport, the aircraft was searched but no bomb was found. Schoolgirl, pedestrian die after man hijacks school bus in Yemen SANAA (AFP) — A mentally unstable man hijacked a school bus in the Yemeni town of Ebb on Thursday and lit out on a wild drive that left a schoolgirl and a pedestrian dead, and six more girls hurt, police said. At a moment when the driver had got off the loaded bus, the unidentified 24-year-old man leapt aboard and drove off. "Panicked, a 14-year-old schoolgirl tried to escape by jumping off the bus, and was seriously injured," said a police official, speaking on condition of anonymity. The girl later died in hospital. The man continued on, killing a pedestrian, before the bus was brought to a stop when it slammed into a car. Six other schoolgirls on the bus were also hurt in the accident and were also hospitalised, the official said. The man was arrested. Ebb is located 190 kilometres south of Sanaa. Arab League calls on Iraq to make progress on Kuwaiti missing issue CAIRO (AFP) — The Arab League called on Iraq Thursday to "make a serious move" to determine the fate of Kuwaitis missing since the 1991 Gulf War at a meeting scheduled for next month. Arab League Assistant Secretary General Ahmed Ben Helli told reporters he conveyed this request to the Iraqi delegate at the Cairo-based pan-Arab organisation. "The Arab League is looking forward to a serious move from Iraq to make progress in the Kuwaiti prisoners and missing persons file," he said. Kuwait welcomed Wednesday Iraq's decision to take part, for the first time in four years, in a meeting on the missing persons to be held on Jan. 8 in the offices of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in Amman. Since a four-day US and British bombing campaign in December 1998 Iraq has boycotted meetings of the so-called tripartite committee which included Kuwait, itself and the ICRC. The Gulf War allied coalition countries — Saudi Arabia, Britain, France and the United States — are also on the committee. Top Saudi singers to boycott festival in Qatar — report RIYADH (AFP) — Top Saudi singers have decided to boycott the third Doha music festival concert in Qatar next month in a new sign of strained ties between the two Gulf Arab states, a newspaper reported Thursday. Al Riyadh daily said Saudi pop singers Abdulmajeed Abdullah, Rabeh Sager, Rashed Al Majed, Mohammad Abdo and Khaled Abdulrahman, whose names where listed as participants, have given different reasons for not going. Most of them said they were not attending because of "private reasons," Al Riyadh said. Relations between Saudi Arabia and neighbour Qatar, both members of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), have been strained recently over the Doha-based Al Jazeera satellite channel's airing a programme last June deemed offensive to the founder of Saudi Arabia, King Abdul Aziz. Riyadh downgraded its representation at the GCC summit in Doha last week, sending Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al Faisal in place of Crown Prince Abdullah Ben Abdul Aziz, the kingdom's de facto ruler. Reports said that Saudi Arabia has demanded a formal apology from Qatar over the programme, but Foreign Minister Hamad Ben Jassem Al Thani denied on Sunday that such a request was received. Prince Saud told reporters on Tuesday that Qatar knows what it ought to do to repair bilateral ties. Philippines expects war in Iraq, readies for mass evacuations MANILA (AFP) — The Philippines believes that a US-led attack on Iraq is inevitable and has activated plans to assist and possibly relocate over a million Filipino workers in the region who might be affected by the conflict, officials said on Thursday. "The momentum of war preparation is in full swing. This momentum can't be stopped unless a miracle intervenes," Foreign Secretary Blas Ople said. In expectation that hostilities might break out by late-January, the government of President Gloria Arroyo will be dispatching a special Middle East Preparedness Team led by former military chief Roy Cimatu to oversee any evacuation or relocation of Filipinos from affected areas, Ople said. Some 300 million pesos ($5.5 million) has been set aside for possible evacuation and relocation of Filipinos, he said, adding that the United Nations and the International Organisation for Migration had promised to help as well. In the past, government officials said they will fly out Filipinos who feel directly threatened by the violence and will use buses to transport others from regions which may be affected by a possible outbreak of war. Assistance will also be extended to Filipinos who wish to remain in threatened areas, officials have said. The preparedness team to be dispatched to the Middle East includes military experts on biological and chemical arms, Cimatu remarked. Cimatu said he would also meet with the ambassadors of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates to inform them of the contingency plans for Filipinos in their territories and ask for their help. About 1.2 million Filipinos are believed to be working in the Middle East, most of them in the Gulf states. Lawmaker resigns for lack of support over nepotism charges KUWAIT CITY (AP) — A member of Kuwait's parliament has resigned for lack of support from colleagues over his questioning of a cabinet minister on allegations of nepotism. In a letter to the parliament's speaker, Hussein Al Gallaf said it was "a scandal" that so few fellow lawmakers supported him earlier this month when he questioned the minister of social affairs and labour about his appointments. Al Gallaf said he was resigning because he did not want to take part in "cheating the people" whose interests he had vowed to protect, according to a copy of the letter published in the newspaper Al Watan on Thursday. Gallaf, an Islamist, could not be reached for comment Thursday. It was not clear if the 50-seat assembly would accept his resignation. It is expected that lawmakers will try to persuade him to change his mind. If Al Gallaf insists on resigning, his decision will stand. Gallaf questioned the minister, Talal Al Ayyar, on Dec. 16, accusing him of appointing relatives, friends and supporters to government positions. The minister defended himself. In the debate, some legislators said it was expected that a minister would appoint his own people to civil service posts and that members of parliament ask cabinet members to find jobs for their voters. Other lawmakers said nepotism was corruption and it should be opposed, starting with Al Ayyar. However, the legislators of Al Gallaf's view could not muster enough support to force a vote of no-confidence. Official rejects Sharon claim on Iraqi scientists in Libya TRIPOLI (AFP) — Libya on Wednesday rejected claims by Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon that Iraqi experts are working in its nuclear industry, the official Jana news agency reported. "We reject the lies that he is in the habit of putting forth," it quoted Hassuna Al Shawesh, an under secretary of the foreign ministry, as saying. "Today it's clear to the entire world that the goal of this terrorist (Sharon) when he spreads such lies is to hide Israel's enormous nuclear capability," he said. Shawesh stressed that Libya, unlike the Jewish state, is a signatory of the international nuclear non-proliferation treaty. Israel has never acknowledged its nuclear programme although experts estimate it has around 150 nuclear warheads. Sharon on Tuesday said he had information that Iraq had passed non-conventional weapons to Syria and that Iraqi scientists were working with Libya's nuclear industry. Syria has rejected the charge as groundless. Egyptian jailed for life for murder sparked by row over dog QENA, Egypt (AFP) — A man threatened to kill his dog when he was sentenced Thursday in southern Egypt to 25 years in prison with hard labour for murdering a neighbour in a row over the animal, court sources said. The court in the town of Qena convicted Mahdi Farag Gibril, 44, for stabbing to death Abdul Karim Mahmoud in a dispute that erupted when Mahmoud's young son attacked Gibril's dog, the sources said. It handed him a life sentence — which is 25 years in jail in Egypt — with hard labour. "I killed my neighbour because of my dog. And I will kill my dog because he put me in prison," Gibril was quoted as screaming in court, around 75 kilometres north of the temple and tourist city of Luxor. Lebanese cleric: US bases in Gulf are occupation BEIRUT (R) — Lebanon's top Shiite Muslim religious authority said on Thursday US military bases in the Gulf amounted to a new form of occupation and accused Washington of wanting to control the world. "We warn the people of the region that the American military bases represent a real threat to their future and to future generations because its real goal is to control the Gulf, its treasures and wealth after controlling Afghanistan," said Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah in his weekly seminar. "The expected attack on Iraq will not be the ultimate end in this... American project to seize control of the world politically and economically." Washington has thousands of troops on several bases in the Gulf including Kuwait and the tiny Gulf state of Qatar. Fadlallah was spiritual mentor to Shiite Hizbollah resistance fighters in Lebanon's 1975-90 civil war, when Washington believes they carried out truck bombings against its embassy and marine barracks. Calling the US bases a "new form of occupation" he said the United States was intentionally stirring up trouble in the region and sought to impose its will on the Middle East.
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More bodies
removed from debris after Interfax. Friday, Dec. 27, 2002, 8:16 PM Moscow Time -
MOSCOW. Dec 27 (Interfax) -
As of 7:00 p.m. Moscow time, about 70 people were reported injured in the
attack on the Chechen government headquarters in Grozny. Akhmed
Gayerkhanov, Chechnya's first deputy emergency situations minister, told
the NTV television station that "four survivors have been rescued,
while bodies continue to be removed." Most recent figures: 46 killed, 76 injured.
46 killed as Chechen govt HQ
bombed SLEPTSOVSK, Russia, 28 December 2002 — A pair of suspected Chechen
militants yesterday blew up the pro-Russian government headquarters in
Grozny in a bold daytime assault that killed 46 people and wounded more than
100. The attack, which makes a mockery of the Kremlin’s claims that peace is
being established in the war-torn republic, was the worst blow to Russian
forces inside Chechnya since Chechen fighters shot down a military
helicopter at a base near Grozny in August, killing 120 people. Russian television showed scenes of bloodied and panic-stricken people
staggering from the recently-rebuilt four-story administration building in
central Grozny, shortly after two powerful blasts reduced it to smoldering
ruins. “This was a terrorist act of major scale,” Vladimir Kravchenko,
Chechnya’s civilian prosecutor, said. “There is a huge number of
victims.” Witnesses said two vehicles, a large truck and a minivan, broke through
three security cordons during afternoon lunch break and detonated their
bombs almost simultaneously at different points outside the structure.
Russian security officials said the blast equalled at least one ton of TNT. As many as 250 people may have been around the building at the time,
including Chechen and Russian government workers, visitors, and military
forces manning the heavily-guarded perimeter. A senior Russian Emergency Ministry official said only five people had
been recovered alive from the wreck as night fell on the war-ravaged city. He added that doctors — already under severe strain, operating on a
shoe-string budget and lacking basic medicine and equipment — were tending
to the wounded by candlelight because the affected area of Grozny had no
electricity. “They are performing surgery with the help of light from candles,”
said Deputy Emergencies Minister Gennady Korotkin, adding that over 100
people had suffered injuries in the blasts. The republic’s Kremlin-appointed interim leader, Akhmad Kadyrov,
returned urgently to Grozny from Moscow, where he was holding consultations
with Russian leaders on Chechnya’s purported “peace process”. Kadyrov, who is the Kremlin’s candidate for planned Chechen
presidential elections next year, was quick to blame Chechen President Aslan
Maskhadov for the blast. But Russian security officials said Chechen warlord
Shamil Basayev, who has broken with Maskhadov, is more likely to be behind
the act. A Chechen Internet site, Kavkaz Center, said an unnamed Chechen
field commander had called to claim responsibility for the attack “by
Chechen martyrs.” (The Independent)
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